To think that ten years have already come and gone. As we head into the 2020’s we must take the time to reflect and plan from where we were in 2010 to where we are now to where we want to be in the future. But that’s a bit too overwhelming and philosophical for this guy so let’s instead talk about the best video games of the decade. Now this is all my list covering games that I’ve personally played that were released in the United States that year so if you don’t see your game of that year on here leave a comment and let me know how much of a non gamer I am. Also there won’t be any compilations or collections on this list so no Mega Man X Legacy Collection, Bioshock collection or anything like that.
Nor will I put any game on here just for the critical acclaim that they’ve received or what everybody else thinks should be on the list for that year or anything like that. If you want that go to IGN where they’ve most likely put Ocarina of Time 3DS on their list because it’s expected and everyone is a Emperor Damned Sheep. No my choices are ones that I either really do love or have a personal attachment to me as a gamer and as a person. Though to give you all hopefully some idea of what kind of gamer I am here’s the list of the runners up for their respective years.
2010 God of War 3/ Bioshock 2
2011 infamous 2
2013 Project X Zone/Bioshock Infinite/ SMT4
2014 Persona Q Shadow of the Labyrinth/Ni No Kuni
2016 SMT 4 apocalypse
2017 Persona 5/ Pokémon Sun
2018 Fist of the North Star Lost Paradise/ Bendy and the Ink Machine (PS4)/ Ni No Kuni 2/ Mega Man 11
2019 Luigi’s Mansion 3
Now that you have a taste here’s what I consider to be the best games of the decade in the year of their release.
Starting off with 2010 I’m going with the release of my very first non Persona SMT game Shin Megami Tensai Strange Journey. With Persona 4 I discovered my favorite franchise and fittingly enough Strange Journey was my first step into the wider SMT catalogue. The best way to describe the transition from the two was like one minute you were watching Diamond is Unbreakable and the next; a remake of Saving Private Ryan written by Alan Moore. Strange Journey introduced me to the negotiation system, a more serious story, even harder bosses, but slamming difficulty and the moral choices between Law, Neutral and Chaos that the wider SMT games are known for. Now I know that this game got remade in 2018 and while I do love it to pieces and consider it essential for your 3DS collection the original is more personal to me and while I will definitely recommend the 3DS version the original game is what I will remember 2010 for, when I took a chance, chose my unit and ventured forth into a strange and dangerous land and will carry those experiences with me forever.
2011 however will be much shorter since honesty I would rather keep any positive comments toward Konami at a bare minimum considering how they are the pinnacle of the Japanese Hell Company and thus earns my unyielding hatred. Downpour contributing to that as well when Konami tried to release this game, Book of Lost Memories and the horrendous Silent Hill HD collection during the aptly named month of Madness. The last hurrah of the Silent Hill franchise; Downpour was the spiritual follow up to Silent Hill 2 that Homecoming tried and failed so hard to be. Though it did have its flaws with the Otherworld segments being reduced to running away from a red vortex for a few minutes to the breakable weapons the spirit of what Silent Hill should be still shined through without having to lean on nostalgia. Plus it was one of the few games that acknowledges that Silent Hill 4 existed so there’s that. So; short and sweet, this game is underrated and #FucKonami.
Now I did say that compilations are off the list but that doesn’t mean that remakes of the same game with new original content were excluded. So that means that I can put Persona 4 Golden as my pick of 2012 no problem. Oh the poor PS Vita, a lovely little handheld that Sony sadly neglected. Before the Switch came around this was as close as we could get to having full console quality video games on the go, with the enhanced rerelease of Persona 4 being the pinnacle of that notion. With this game I will forever refer to the PS Vita as the Persona 4 Golden machine.
Aside from that Persona 4 Gold is basically Persona 4 only portable with new content, simple as that. And if you have a problem with that (other than "please port it to a system that more than a few people own so everyone can enjoy it aside from watch let’s plays") let me know. Not much else to say but it’s Jojo’s BizzaRPG 4 on the go, what’s not to love?
Now 2013 was a great year for the 3DS with Project X Zone introducing me to new franchises I was only casually aware of to SMT4 my first proper mainline SMT game. But for me I have to give that spot to the game that got me back to a childhood classic, Pokémon X. I skipped generations 4 and 5 simply because I was kind of bored with Pokémon by that point so seeing as I had a new 3DS and needed games for my library I figured what the heck and now I was literally back in the game. Just seeing all of the Pokémon in 3D on a proper portable console invoked the expected reaction.
Not much else to say except it was the game I needed at the right time, sometimes you can come home again. Except for now when Nintendo, game deal or whoever decided to do what they did with Pokémon Home, absolutely unforgivable!
2014 however was a rough year for me personally. This was the year that I finished my one year game design course at the New York Film academy and started to get into the real world. I didn’t have a job for months so until that came around I had quite a bit of time on my hands. And after the emotional roller coaster I needed a pick me up and Studio Ghibli and Level 5 gave me that with Ni No Kuni, Wrath of the White Witch. It’s a cliche to say that certain video games are like playing an interactive movie, but it’s true Ni No Kuni gives you the chance to play an actual Studio Ghibli movie with all the tropes, proper hand drawn art style and the whimsy, wonder and magic that comes with it.
Now as much as I love this game I do have some problems with it. Actually completing the game is an absolute nightmare with getting all the Familiars, creating all the items from the Genie, fighting the super boss and completing the Solosseum was just too much for me to bear back then. Speaking of the Familiars I was not a big fan of that, you’re supposed to be a newly minted Wizard with your new companions yet you have little monsters to do all the work for you, sounds pretty weak to me. Completion problems aside this game and Studio Ghibli remind us that sometimes it’s always darkest before dawn, even if Miyazaki himself can be a grumpy asshole.
Now as much as I love this game I do have some problems with it. Actually completing the game is an absolute nightmare with getting all the Familiars, creating all the items from the Genie, fighting the super boss and completing the Solosseum was just too much for me to bear back then. Speaking of the Familiars I was not a big fan of that, you’re supposed to be a newly minted Wizard with your new companions yet you have little monsters to do all the work for you, sounds pretty weak to me. Completion problems aside this game and Studio Ghibli remind us that sometimes it’s always darkest before dawn, even if Miyazaki himself can be a grumpy asshole.
2015 was one of the tougher years to pick out though that was mostly due to the lack of games that I was interested in. But there was one game that I was waiting for, the conclusion to the Arkham trilogy; Batman Arkham Knight. While I did have a fun time getting to be the Goddamn Batman one last time before my opinion of Warner Bros withered and died like the Joker. That was mostly due to me playing the PS4 version while PC users were treated to a buggy, broken disaster. Also if you knew anything about Batman history you knew who the Arkham Knight was as soon as you heard him talk.
Now funny enough apparently the Arkham Knight caught on with someone at DC since there’s an actual Arkham Knight in the comics now. Now before you say anything, no the Arkham Knight in the comics is not Jason Todd. Back on track Arkham Knight wasn’t the only problem since Scarecrow was a boring, droning putz who took himself way too seriously. But thankfully we had the surprise inclusion of the Joker with Mark Hamill’s second to last performance as the clown prince of crime before the bellyflop that was The Killing Joke. As the conclusion to the trilogy that helped repair the reputation of Superhero games it was satisfactory but Warner Bros and WB have burned too many bridges with me to give their games another chance, and that's truly a shame.
Speaking of licenses in 2016 we got the brilliant return of Ratchet and Clank on the PS4. Now while I never saw the movie that the game was apparently tied into (and from what I heard that was for the best) this reboot got most of what made Ratchet and Clank work right gameplay wise. The game had the proper mix of platforming, gunplay, puzzle solving and a good bit of humor in the writing. I would complain about how Ratchet and Clanks early dynamic was off from how it was originally but since this was being told from Captain Quarks perspective (aka the most unreliable of narrators) I can let it slide since he most likely didn’t pay attention to those parts. Though that does bring up a bit of a problem with that excuse; namely.
Plot wise this was a remake of the first game only with Dr Nefarious added in as the evil scientist working for Chairman Drek. Sure, while we didn’t re-explore every planet from the first game it did expand on some of the smaller details on the planets that we do revisit. From what I can gather the movie seems to have the same problem that the Warcraft movie suffered from, namely being too faithful to the source material that it forgets to create a story that it appeals to others outside of the established fan base. But again that’s just what I’ve heard, I could be wrong. Regardless of the movies failings the game itself is a good introduction point to the new fans while being a great trip down memory lane for the old fans. It definitely makes a better showcase for the PS4 than Knack that’s for certain.
Now before I made my pick for 2017 I initially thought that it would be Persona 5, since it was one of my most anticipated games this generation. But when I finally played the Switch rerelease last year and knowing the development history; I have to name Cuphead as my favorite game of 2017, at least retroactively. Now since Cuphead DLC was included in Smash Bros one can assume most people know about Cuphead through research and pop culture osmosis; bit you know what they say about assuming so here’s the rundown. Cuphead is a hard as nails 2d side scrolling boss rush game in the same vein as Alien Solder on the SNES. It was made by two brothers who remortgaged their houses to keep the project alive and to capture the feel of the Fleischer cartoon style they did the animation for every character by hand!
Let me repeat, they put their livelihoods on the line to get their uncompromised game out into the world. Now add on the fact that Cuphead was so critically and commercially received that the game now stands among the ranks of Shovel Knight and FNAF as one of the icons of the indie game market and that would have been enough but for it to be just so damn fun and challenging with era appropriate music, creative and challenging bosses and all for at 20 bucks sets it leaps and bounds over any other game in 2017. If you haven’t played Cuphead you need to rectify that ASAP!
Now 2018 had the exact opposite problem of 2015 for me to pick the best game since there was so many candidates I could have picked if my runners up for that year were any indication. But my ultimate pick for 2018 was the PS4 Spider-Man. Just like the Arkham games you truly got to be Spider-Man, but unlike the overexposed, multimillionaire Goddamn Batman who constantly drones on about how he touched his dead mother's breast, Spider-Man’s entire premise is being relatable to the observer. Though that’s what my draw to this game is since, honestly I can’t stand 616 Peter Parker. Mostly attributed to One More Day Into The Spider-verse also showed how 616 Peter’s life is a complete and utter train wreck not helped by the writers constantly trying to put him into the “escapist fantasy” box and other people who have the name of Spider-Man just carry it better than him, like Gwen Stacy, Miguel O’Hara, Dr Octopus and yes even Miles Morales are all just better than main universe Peter.
But in this game we have a similar Peter Parker but thankfully not an exact copy. He has a better relationship with the NYPD, Mary Jane knows his secret identity but their relationship is on the rocks and spoilers; this Peter Parker takes the “great responsibility” part seriously when he didn’t waste the antidote to the Devils Breath on Aunt May before it could be mass produced. That moment is what cinched it for me, because I knew that main Peter Parker would be that big of a selfish, shortsighted idiot to put Aunt May over everyone in New York if the whole deal with Mephisto was enough of an indication. Spider aside the gameplay here is some of the best I’ve come across in a long time. Sure the combat system may take a few notes from the Arkham games such as the spider sense but unlike the detective vision it’s not game breaking nor does the combat system guarantee a block by pressing a button; it still relies on your skills as a player.
Also yes, THE WEB-SWINGING IS THE G.O.A.T! Just the feeling of swinging around New York climbing to the top of Avengers Tower and free falling into the concrete jungle down below and swinging around like an urban Tarzan was just downright magical. But then again these are the guys behind Ratchet and Clank and they know how to make a fun and entertaining game through and through. If you haven’t played this gem, rectify that immediately!
Now to wrap this up we have the one game that several of us were waiting 13 years for, 2019 finally gave us Kingdom Hearts 3. Now did this game have some problems when it came out regarding the difficulty, yes. Did the story wrap up the Xehanort saga while still having Tetsuya Nomura’s less beloved little writing quirks such as sequel baiting, leaving some parts of the story unexplained or not explained well enough that a whole new set of DLC was released to retcon those parts, yes. Did this game still capture that feeling of childhood wonder, excitement and hopefulness even if you’re not a major fan of most of the Disney worlds, yes. Did this game draw out the ire of some of the worst parts of the gaming community for various reasons, sadly yes.
But no matter what anyone says about this game at least Square recognized the criticism and actually did something about it with the free Critical Mode update and the (sadly overpriced in my humble opinion) Re:Mind DLC. Whereas most other companies would have just left it and forget it to drive their reputations into the ground “cough Gearbox” “cough Bethesda” “cough Warner Brothers.” Now as a game KH3 is still a fun old time, though in my experience Proud mode was a bit too easy and Critical Mode took this game from zero to Cuphead in just a few Megabytes which was fine with me and at least you can unlock the Oblivion Keyblade by finishing Critical so there’s that. Now while KH2 is my overall favorite game in the series KH3 as of the Re:Mind DLC is a very close second. So that wraps up my list of the favorite games of the decade per year.
From the end of the PS3, the failure of the Wii U, the end of Steam Greenlight to the rise of the loot box and its subsequent need for regulation to the mistake that was the Stadia and the constant disaster of Fallout 76. From the birth of both the PS4 and, honestly the best console so far the Switch; video games have had a rather interesting and turbulent ten years. Now speaking of Decade; since we’re in the Reiwa era now I have to give my thoughts on the last of the Hesei era of Kamen Rider. If this list didn’t kill me than the next one will, oh well I beat Cuphead, The Valkyrie Queen on Give me a Challenge and Yozora on Critical within the span of three months. Bring it on!
From the end of the PS3, the failure of the Wii U, the end of Steam Greenlight to the rise of the loot box and its subsequent need for regulation to the mistake that was the Stadia and the constant disaster of Fallout 76. From the birth of both the PS4 and, honestly the best console so far the Switch; video games have had a rather interesting and turbulent ten years. Now speaking of Decade; since we’re in the Reiwa era now I have to give my thoughts on the last of the Hesei era of Kamen Rider. If this list didn’t kill me than the next one will, oh well I beat Cuphead, The Valkyrie Queen on Give me a Challenge and Yozora on Critical within the span of three months. Bring it on!
Shin Megami Tensei Strange Journey is owned by Atlus, Sega and Lancarse.
Silent Hill Downpour is owned by Vatra games and Konami Computer Entertainment
Persona 4 Golden is owned by Atlus and Sega.
Rick and Morty is owned by Justin Rolland, Dan Harmon, Justin Roiland's Solo Vanity Card Productions, Harmonious Claptrap, Starburns Industries, and Williams Street
Pokémon is owned by Nintendo, Game Freak, Ken Sugumori and Statoshi Tajiri.
Ratatouille is owned by Walt Disney Pictures, Pixar Animation Studios and Brad Bird.
Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch is owned by Level-5 Games, Studio Ghibli and Namco Bandai.
Batman Arkham Knight is owned by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, Rocksteady Studios and DC Comics
Ratchet and Clank is owned by Insomniac Games and Sony Computer Entertainment.
Dragon Ball, Dragonball Z, Dragonball GT and Dragonball Super is owned by Funnimation, Toei animation, Fuji TV and Akira Toriyama.
Dragon ball Z Abridged is owned by Team Four Star.
Cuphead is owned by Studio MDHR and Chad and Jared Moldenhauer.
Kingdom Hearts is owned by Square Enix, Disney Interactive Studios, Tetsuya Nomura, and Shinji Hashimoto.
