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New Game Releases: 2019 Buyer’s Guide – Part 2

Andy Tuttle

With 2019 coming to a close, and Christmas just around the corner, most game companies have taken the next few weeks off.

“OH MY GOD?! IT’S ALMOST CHRISTMAS!!!! What do I do? My kid/wife/husband/dog wanted some game about…I don’t know, samurai, or ninjas, or dinosaurs, or maybe something that had all three. Do those exist? If they don’t exist what can I get?? HELP ME!”

Okay, okay, stop fretting, I got you covered. I will be giving you a buyer’s guide for each month, with my top picks in BOLD. What were the best games to come out; which ones sucked, and which ones flew under the radar and deserve your attention? Since this guide tends to be on the long side, and in the interest of keeping your attention, I will be splitting this into two parts, January to June and July to December. Get your pencils ready folks, the games are coming and you better take notes.

July:

It had been twelve years since a proper Fire Emblem game was released for a non-handheld Nintendo console (Radiant Dawn for the Wii), so when Three Houses was announced for the Switch there was much rejoicing. Upon release, players were greeted by a mostly familiar game in that it was a turn based RTS game set on a grid in a high fantasy universe full of magic and swordplay. What they didn’t expect, however, was a Persona-esque relationship simulator to go along with the standard battles. This new feature was the cause of a bit of controversy as players were divided over what it actually brought to the game. Some players were happy to explore the school/monastery and speak to every character, learning their backstories and ambitions, while others (including myself) found it tedious and unnecessary. Despite this bump in the road, the game is still an absolute blast to play and scratches that itch that always comes when you start to feel the need to play a FE game again.

July continued an already slow Spring/Summer, however we did get some pretty big titles including a brand new entry in the Wolfenstine franchise with Youngblood where you play the game as the twin daughters of series protagonist B.J. Blaskowicz, Jessie and Zofia. They give off a very Venture Bros./Hardy Boys vibe as they relish in absolute glee while gunning down Nazi scum. Played either alone or with one other person, you make your way through a still Nazi controlled Europe on a quest to find the girls’ father. If extreme violence isn’t your thing then you can pick up the Square Enix title Dragon Quest Builders 2 which is basically Minecraft with Dragon Quest assets. The game is pretty fun, but not really groundbreaking or anything, very casual. On the indie side we had Night Call, a bit of a throwback to the old point and lick PC adventure games in which you control a cab driver who is on the trail of a serial killer, there is a very dark and moody atmosphere to this thriller that should please fans of film noir. Finally we have what might be the best expansion of the year, Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers. After a very rocky start in 2010, Director/Producer Naoki Yoshida was able to take what many saw as the worst Final Fantasy game ever made and turn it into one of the best MMORPGs ever. When A Realm Reborn was launched in 2013 the public and critical consensus was clear, this game was fantastic. Over the next few years the game would get two expansions, Heavensward and Stormblood, both of which had good points and bad points, however with Shadowbringers the overwhelming consensus was that this expansion was the best they had ever done. With a heartfelt and focused story, players find themselves summoned to a world enveloped by eternal daylight. In true Final Fantasy fashion, there is a strong element that religion is the culprit behind this turn of events, which unscrupulous villains use to manipulate and subjugate the people. While in previous games you had been referred to as The Warrior of Light, since your goal is to return the nighttime sky to the world, in Shadowbringers you are referred to as The Warrior of Darkness (cheeky). Through epic battles with angelic beasts and imposing Primals who fancy themselves gods, you (spoiler) eventually return the night sky to the people and beast tribes of Norvrandt. Since this is an MMO the story doesn’t end with the expansion, as players are treated to regular updates to the main story, as well as the inclusion of new dungeons, new raids, and new Primal fights, meaning that the best of Shadowbringers is still to come.

This month is pretty void of anything terrible or under the radar, but I still have some suggestions. If you’re trying to decide what to get for someone and you choice is between Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 and anything else, pick the anything else. MUA3 isn’t really a bad game, at least not on the surface, as there is some fun to be found in its hack and slash premise. Where it loses me, however, is in the total grind fest nature of the game. Taking cues from mobile games, MUA3 tasks you with searching far and wide for crystals that you can use to make your characters stronger and knick knacks that allow you to level them up faster. This means that you are generally stuck playing whatever four characters they introduce each stage, and once you stop playing with someone it is hard to go back and use them again since they might 10-15 levels lower than what the next stage requires. Around 8 or so hours into the game I realized I was just not strong enough to continue without going through and grinding the side dungeons and challenges that were available and i gave up on the title. However, while I just decried a console game with mobile tendencies, my pick for hidden gem is the mobile title Dr. Mario World. While this game isn’t going to win any awards for originality, there is just enough dumb fun here to be had that you’ll find your self going for just one more level before you turn in for the night. Not quite as predatory as other mobile games (although the temptation is still there), Dr. Mario World will help you pass the time while you sit in the waiting room at your dentist’s office.

 

August:

Control is a masterpiece. You might see people throw that term around in the same way that they throw “genius” around, but it is true this time. What makes Control this year’s best game, and one of the greatest of all time, is a combination of tight controls, white knuckle action, stellar writing, and phenomenal performances. Taking inspiration from a variety of sources, including Half-Life, The X-Files, Twin Peaks, and the crowd sourced internet collective known as the SCP Foundation, Control has you taking on the role of a young woman named Jesse Faden as she searches for her brother in The Old House. Based on the AT&T building in New York City, The Old House is home to the Federal Bureau of Control who are tasked with studying Altered World Events and Objects of Power, cataloging them, experimenting with/on them, and ultimately keeping them out of the public knowledge. As children, Jesse and her brother Dylan come across an Object of Power, causing one of the biggest Altered World Events the FBC had ever seen. In the aftermath, Dylan was taken by the group and held in The Old House. As she got older, Jesse would work her way up the ranks of the FBC and eventually become director in an effort to find and free her brother. Things don’t quite according to plan, however, and soon The Old House is taken over by a strange entity called The Hiss that infects humans and puts them under their control. Jesse moves through the building with the guidance of another strange entity, named Polaris, that pushes her closer to Dylan and leads her to the Astral Plane in which she is granted a suite of telekinetic powers. While the game can tend to lean towards the difficult side, the rewards for making it through are some of the best writing I’ve ever seen in a video game, from the various letters, files, and journals scattered around The Old House, as well as a slew of high quality short films presented by the character Dr. Darling, which acts as much of the game’s exposition. These films are so well made that I often found myself putting the controller down and just watching them as episodes of a television series. I’m so happy that I picked up Control this year as I can’t think of another game in 2019 that left such a profound impact on me, one that I’ll always hold in my memories as some of the best moments I’ve ever had playing a video game.

August was a fairly stacked month with several, I guess you could call, mid-tier games spread across all platforms. There was the re-release of the From Software “classic” Metal Wolf Chaos XD, a mech combat title that was originally released in Japan for the Xbox in which you play as the President of the United States, taking on terrorists in a giant robot. The mech-inspired chaos continued with Astral Chain, the latest game from famed developers Platinum Games. This Switch exclusive has you taking on the role of a young police officer who joins a special task force that uses creatures from the Astral Plane as surrogates in battle. Another famous developer, Double Fine, released a small title called Rad in which you play a character who is continually being mutated by radiation in a 1980’s inspired apocalyptic wasteland. Continuing the scary/horror vibe comes two titles to put you in the pre-Halloween mood, Blair Witch and The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan. Set two years after the events of the film, Blair Witch has you taking on the role of a former police officer tasked with finding a missing boy in the Black Hills forest. As in the film, things soon start to take a turn towards the supernatural and you must do all you can to survive. While not quite loved by critics, the game is still supposed to be fairly scary and might be worth checking out for a low price. Man of Medan, the first in the Dark Pictures Anthology, was greeted with just slightly better reviews than Blair Witch, praised for its branching narrative and unrelenting horror. Made by the same team that created Until Dawn, the game follows a similar structure in which you take on the roles of various characters caught up in a horrifying, supernatural situation. One by one, the choices you make determine the fate of each character, and subsequent play through’s unlock new clues and pieces of the story. It’s a great treat for horror fans, but can get repetitive.

While April’s CCG Super Dragon Ball Heroes might have been a nice diversion on the Switch, the second CCG of the year, based on the Yu-Gi-Oh franchise, is a bit of a dud. While the game does seem to faithfully recreate the physical card game, the action is too slow, the game is too repetitive, and the grinding is persistent. Take all that and throw it into a very low-budget presentation and you have a real snooze-fest on your hands. I would just stay away from this one unless you are a hardcore Yu-Gi-Oh fan. From a real-life card game to a real-life board game, Pandemic is a wonderful title that I strongly recommend everyone check out. If you are unfamiliar with the board game it is based on, in Pandemic players work together as a group to cure and eradicate four diseases that are plaguing the world. With multiple characters to choose from, each with their own unique special abilities, and a randomized deck, no two games are ever the same. While the game can tend to have one player kind of calling all the shots, it takes actual cooperation and good communication to get through a game of Pandemic.

 

September:

Comedy in video games is kind of like comedy in music, many try it, most fail at it, and only the truly special know how to strike that right tone between humor and making sure the product is good. Untitled Goose Game, the second game from Australian developer House House, began life as a small demo that eventually blossomed into one of the best games of 2019. It’s a pretty well known fact that geese are assholes, don’t believe me? Go walk up to a goose one day and let me know how that goes for you. With one of the most basic premises of the year, you take on the role of the titular goose and must solve a series of small tasks and puzzles in a variety of areas that range from a large garden to an outdoor pub. As you terrorize this small village, you eventually need to pull off one last big mission that is a culmination of all the various tricks you learn throughout the course of the game, culminating in one of the best endings I’ve ever encountered in a video game. I was so enthralled by this game that I finished it in one sitting, taking roughly four hours to complete. However, while there is an overall goal to the game, the real fun is in messing around with all of the townsfolk, exploring the nooks and crannies of the village, and finding all the different items and interacting with them. If you’re looking for a non-violent game for a child or a casual gaming friend then I would highly recommend Untitled Goose Game, and it surely deserves a place on the list of best games of 2019.

The Fall onslaught was in full effect for September, continuing from August’s large slate of titles. This month saw the release of yet another highly anticipated sequel in Borderlands 3. Despite some controversial statements made by Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford and a decision to go exclusive on the Epic Games Store for PC, the game was a big success and sold five million copies in five days, making it the fastest selling game in game in 2K’s history. This is a title I skipped in 2019, but with the game coming to Steam very soon I may finally give it a shot with my buddies. Microsoft released one of its rare console exclusives with Gears 5, the latest entry in the long running franchise. Featuring a new female protagonist who has a unique connection to series antagonists the Locust, I heard some really good things about this game. Nintendo had two exclusive titles as well, with Daemon X Machina, carrying the mech based game train from August, and of course they released the highly anticipated remake of the GameBoy classic Link’s Awakening, which seemed to retain (to my chagrin) the feeling and tone of the original game. If I’m being honest, I really hate this game, like, A LOT, but I also know that I’m an outlier here and many people consider this to be one of the best games of the year. If you like Zelda games then sure, you will probably like this title, but just be warned that this game is at its heart a handheld title. I do not recommend playing this sitting on the couch, but instead take it on the bus or the train and play it in 20-30 minute intervals. For you anime fans out there, Bandai Namco released Code Vein, an action RPG cut from the same cloth as Dark Souls, but with a art style closer to God Eater. I didn’t hear a lot about this game after it came out and it kind of got lost in the shuffle among the other big releases, but I think it’d be worth your time to check out. As if the large amount of big titles wasn’t enough we also got the release of Apple Arcade, a subscription service similar to the Xbox Game Pass, where you are able to download an unlimited number of games for a low monthly price. The service initially launched with close to 100 games, including some exclusives like the Capcom produced Shinseki: Into The Depths and LEGO Brawler, that turned our iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV devices into full fledged gaming consoles. Titles continue to release on the platform, however nothing has really been as high profile as their initial offerings, so it’s hard to tell what the future of the service will be.

With close to 100 games releasing for Apple Arcade it was bound to have some stinkers, and for my money the worst game (I played) on the system was the Square Enix title Various Daylife. Despite being made by the same teams that worked on Bravely Default and Octopath Traveler, this game is nearly joyless, with very little redeeming qualities. It is a boring slog that you will quickly put down out of frustration in not just how it plays, but in the presentation as well, with some of the smallest fonts I’ve ever seen in a video game. Big thumbs down on this title. However, if you are looking for a FANTASTIC Apple Arcade game (as well as on PC, PS4, and Switch) look no further than Sayonara Wild Hearts. While there was almost no joy to be found in Various Daylife, Sayonara Wild Hearts is bursting with it at the seams. Set in a fantasy world of color and sound, a young woman races and battles her way through a series of failed relationships, with all the ups and downs they bring. Featuring game play similar to titles like Bit.Trip Runner and Rez, you will spend much of this fighting through emotions that range from intense happiness to crippling heartache. The game also features a killer soundtrack by composer Daniel Olsén that you’ll find yourself humming along to in your head weeks after you’ve played the game. I highly recommend this game to everyone, it’s an absolute treat.

 

October:

Obsidian Entertainment have always been know for their groundbreaking RPGs, from the Interplay classics like Planescape: Torment and Icewind Dale, to their standout hits Fallout: New Vegas and Pillars of Eternity. With The Outer Worlds, the team at Obsidian were able to dive back into the first person RPG arena and give us the best science-fiction title of the year. With a colorful cast of characters, played by some truly talented voice actors, you start to find yourself really getting pulled into their backstories which make doing side missions feel less like a chore than they usually would. The Outer Worlds is a fantastic throwback to the previous generation of Western RPGs and was a welcome presence on my Xbox One this year.

Nintendo continued to put out quality exclusives this month with the release of the (possible?) Wii Fit successor Ring Fit Adventure and Chrissy Teigen’s favorite game Luigi’s Mansion 3. While the initial trailer for Ring Fit Adventure featured the Adam and Eve creatures created by Dr. Manhattan, scaring many children and adults into a fetal position, the game turned out to be quite fun and a serious workout, making this the perfect gift to tell your significant other that they cold stand to lose a few pounds. Luigi’s Mansion 3 finds the series making its return to home consoles after part 2’s 3DS release, prompting many to ask “wait, there was a part 2?“. While the game starts off fairly easy, the difficulty soon ramps up with many of the bosses requiring Herculean feats of finer dexterity and patience. The game can eventually start to feel like it is wasting your time, but with a very satisfying ending you don’t really feel cheated, high marks from me. If you’re a normie gamer then you’re probably excited about the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare which is a remake of the 2007 game Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. This was also a huge month for indies with four big games; Afterparty from the creators of Oxenfree is a story driven adventure game about dying, Neo Cab is a story driven, futuristic cyber punk noir game about being an Uber/Lyft driver, Trine 4 is a continuation of the long running platforming series where you solve puzzles by switching freely between three different characters, and the biggest indie of the month is the award winning Disco Elysium, an isometric RPG that is also set an a futuristic cyber punk setting where you are solving mysteries and doing work for a multitude of wacky characters.

Over the last few years, probably since the release of Destiny, the idea of “games as a service” has permeated throughout the games industry, and one company that seems to have employed this tactic the hardest is Ubisoft. With almost every game they’ve released in the last 2 or 3 years employing some kind of “always online” functionality, it was only a matter of time before the games would suffer and the crowds would stay away. After releasing The Division 2 in March it seems fans were not ready for another game so quickly, and neither does it seem Ubisoft was when Ghost Recon: Breakpoint came out in October. Anecdotal tales of a game that felt unfinished and predatory would pop up in gaming forums, giving the whole game an odious reputation. Ubisoft even admitted that the game underperformed due to what they said was an outright rejection by the player base of the changes the implemented. Ubisoft says they are committed to “getting it right” or whatever, but this all has the trappings of several other high profile “always online” games that were horrible at launch and were then vowed to be made better, but for every Destiny and Final Fantasy XIV, you get Fallout 76 and Anthem. Does Breakpoint have a chance at redemption? Sure, why not, even The Division was fairly reviled when it came out, but that got better; still, don’t hold your breath. Oftentimes the future is bright and we can celebrate the changes that come with it, but sometimes that leads to pure garbage like Ghost Recon: Breakpoint, which invariably leads us to search out the past for solace. That’s where Indivisible comes in. In this 2d action RPG, modeled after the classic JRPG Valkyrie Profile, you take on the role of Ajna, a young girl who witnesses an attack on her village and the murder of her father. Vowing revenge against the evil tyrant responsible, Anja sets out on a quest to stop him, but along the way she discovers that she has an incredible power to hold people in a void constructed by her mind. Most people are okay with it as they share a common goal, but there is still some fun to be had watching the reactions of each character as they get sucked into the void. Combat is fluid and fun, however it can get a bit daunting as you juggle four characters at once while trying to memorize their abilities. With beautiful hand drawn graphics from Skullgirls artist Mariel Cartwirght, this game is not just a pleasure to play, but a pleasure to look at as well.

 

November:

Hey, remember when Amy Henning’s Star Wars project 1313 fell apart because gamers don’t play rich, single player story driven games anymore? Apparently EA doesn’t either, because they released a rich, single player story driven Star Wars game in November. Star Wars Jedil: Fallen Order is a welcome return to the franchise for fans of games that don’t require you to be constantly connected to the internet. With two successful, yet controversial, video games released by EA (Star Wars Battlefront 1 & 2), it was starting to look like we wouldn’t get a chance to really sink our teeth into a single player narrative, but then…hope. Out of nowhere during a E3 2018 press conference, it was revealed that EA and Respawn Entertainment were teaming up to release the first major single player Star Wars game since, let me check…Kinect Star Wars, does that count? Nah, I’ll go with 2010’s The Force Unleashed II. That’s ten years, folks; ten! To say that Star Wars fans were thirsty for a new single player experience is understating it, we were skeleton in the desert, bone dry thirsty. Thankfully the team at Respawn were able to create a worthwhile experience by mostly just taking pieces of other successful games and cobbling them together. A pinch of Dark Souls, a dash of Uncharted, a sprinkle of God of War and voila, you have Jedi: Fallen Order. If this makes it sound like I’m putting the game down, I’m not; it is a fantastic experience with really fine characters and a story that stands up with the films. If last year’s Spider-Man was the ultimate wall crawler simulator, the Jedi: Fallen Order is the best we’ve ever had to being a Jedi Knight simulator. The lightsaber combat, while not as fine tuned as Sekiro’s sword play, is still incredibly satisfying to pull off causing me to, on more than one occasion, to yell out in delight. While the game has some issues with bugs and glitches, and the graphics can become a muddy mess on base model PS4’s and Xbox’s, they don’t take away from the core fun of the game. Show EA that single player games are worth making again and pick up a copy of Jedi: Fallen Order.

November was a pretty tough month for the financially/time challenged as three of the biggest games of the year all released within the same two week span. Competing directly with Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order was Nintendo’s latest entry (and like, 20th exclusive) Pokemon Sword & Shield. The second Pokemon game for the Switch, and the first true sequel since the 3DS, players were tasked with once again traveling the countryside, catching and training Pokemon in a bid to be the greatest in the region. There was some controversy around the game’s release, as players discovered a few month before launch that not every single Pokemon would be available in the games, meaning that some of the creatures players had been raising and training for years wouldn’t make the jump to the Switch. Longtime fans felt slightly betrayed and vowed to boycott the game, but it didn’t matter, Pokemon Sword & Shield were huge blockbusters and went on to become one of the best selling games of not just 2019, but also one of the best selling Switch games of all time, currently sitting at number 8 with 6 million units sold. The other big game of November was the highly anticipated Death Stranding, Hideo Kojima’s once elusive, very secretive, new project. Initially I was fully prepared to have this be my favorite game of the year, but lackluster gameplay and frustrating controls have relegated it to “just okay” territory for me. There’s a poignant, if convoluted, story in there, so if you have the patience I do recommend checking the game out, just know that it’s going to be a frustrating slog along the way. Speaking of highly anticipated, remember when Shenmue III came out? I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t, because the marketing for this game was virtually non-existent. After a shocking reveal at E3 in 2015, the game jsut sort of fizzled out on the hype scale. My own personal interest in the game is so low that I have a key for it that I got for Kickstarting the game and I haven’t even redeemed it yet, so it goes I suppose. Oh man, we had ANOTHER Switch exclusive in November as well, Mario & Sonic at the Tokyo Olympics, a game that’s about six months too early, but whatever; also we got a new entry in the Need For Speed franchise, Heat, which just looks like a Fast & The Furious movie. It might be fun.

November also saw the release of a brand new platform with Google Stadia, and if you care about game preservation, DRM abuse, and your data caps, stay away from this thing. Touted as the next big thing in game, Stadia has an intriguing proposition; buy as many digital games as you want and never have to store them. Never install another game again, never wait for a patch or an update, just buy the game and then instantly start playing it. Not only can you instantly play it, but you can stream it at the highest quality possible, 4K HDR at 60 frames per second, no matter how powerful your machine is, that’s impressive! Well, no, not really. The games stream okay, not too much lag, not really, but occasionally you might get some stutter here and there. The games do instantly load once you purchase it, so that is really nice, but that beautiful 4K resolution you were promised, that was a big ol’ lie, well, sort of. Google doesn’t say that lied, no, no, they said that it is up to the individual publishers to provide 4K versions of the game to Google that they will then pass on to you. Stadia OFFERS 4K resolution, but they have no control over what the studios send them, it’s not their fault. Well I say fuck you, take your Stadia and get lost. Once again I need to go back to the past to combat the future with this month’s hidden gem being the finally released Romancing SaGa 3. Originally released in Japan for the SNES in 1995, the game was brought West in November for multiple platforms, including the oft overlooked PlayStation Vita. Known for it’s unique party system, the game is typical of most JRPGs of the era making it a nice throwback for fans of that era of games.

 

December:

Not only have the game companies taken a break in December, but I pretty much have as well. This means, dear reader, that I don’t have much to say about the games from this month. However, based on critical consensus, and previous pedigree, I can easily say that Shovel Knight: King of Cards is the best choice for December. Taking everything they’ve learned in making the previous three Shovel Knight games, Yacht Club Games has put out their biggest and best title in the series. King of Cards also signals the end of the initial Shovel Knight series, as the creators have said that the next outing will see Shovel Knight and his frenemies graduate to 16-bit. It’s a fitting send off to not just the Shovel Knight Treasure Trove, but also the year and the decade.

This December is a bit lighter than last year, which saw the release of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Persona 3, 4 & 5 dancing games, as well as a new Earth Defense Force game. Instead we got Farming Simulator 2020!!!! Giant robot fans got a new Mechwarrior game when part 5 released exclusively through the Epic Games Store, and even though I said King of Cards was the last Shovel Knight game, we actually got one more called Showdown, a co-op/competition game where you and your friends fight with or against each other to collect gems in a game that seems to mix Smash Bros., Mario Party, and Shovel Knight into one big mess of fun. The other big release of the month is the conclusion to DONTNOD’s Life is Strange 2, a game that started in 2018 and wrapped up just over a year later in December, 2019. The Diaz brothers have gone through a lot, and in this very “of the moment” story, you can expect to shed more than a few tears.

With the slate of games in December being so light I don’t really have much you should avoid. There’s no catastrophe like last year’s PlayStation Classic, I guess if you had to skip something then maybe Mechwarriror 5 just because it on the Epic Games Store, but my honest opinion is that you can play it all this month. One game that you should probably not sleep on is Wattam, the new game from Katamari Damacy creator Keita Takahashi. In a game that I can really only describe as Death Stranding on acid, you are tasked with reconnecting the people of a small village, having them join hands and spread joy. Based on the trailer there is a ton of wacky stuff going on here, including getting matching objects to interact with each other, such as having a nose smell flowers, and having a toilet flush a bunch of poop. It’s odd, it’s wacky, and it’s probably a lot of fun.

That does it for the 2019 Buyer’s Guide, I hope you were able to find a few titles worth picking up. 2019 might not have been the strongest year in gaming, but as always there were more than enough stellar titles and moments that made the hobby worthwhile. Take care folks, and I’ll see you here on Xmas Eve to discuss some video game history.

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