The Delfies – Delfeir vs. the Backlog

The Delfies 2021: Some Other Games I Liked This Year

You might actually find a western triple A game in here… but that’s unlikely.

If you haven’t read my Delfies 2021 Top 10 yet, you can find that here.

I found myself in the interesting place of having too many games and struggling to cut them down to a top 10 this year. At the same time, it felt like nothing in my top 10 could really compete with the top four or so from 2020, so it was harder still to make the selection. I’m ultimately satisfied with the placement of where everything ended up, but there were more games that I feel I could shine a light on. Some of them are the more mainstream triple A games that I enjoyed but ultimately washed over; some are indie games that were really charming in their own right but just couldn’t quite make the mark.

But hey, I’ve got a platform and time, so it’s only right that I spare some words for those as well.

With that sentiment in mind, I ended up ballooning this list even further. Many of these didn’t make the top 10 candidate list, and a few I’ve yet to finish at all (or they themselves are in early access, thus proving ineligible for now). Some I’ll get to in full later on, with any luck. This is more of a quantity over quality lightning round, but I’ll try to give them all a fair shake, and none of these are in any particular order.

Before we proceed, there’s a few games I also want to mention that interest me, but I’ve yet to actually start playing them properly or else they’d likely be here too. Those are: Everhood, Tales of Arise, Death’s Door, Psychonauts 2, FIST: Forged in Shadow Touch, The Forgotten City and Outer Wilds’s DLC Echoes of the Eye. I just haven’t had the chance to tackle them for more than an hour if at all yet, but they’re all in my immediate future. So now let’s cover the ones I actually did get to.

The Delfies 2017 Abridged

It’s about the time of the year when one would start considering contenders for their game of the year selections. Many strong titles have released already, there’s a few right around the corner, and the big release season is about to kick off and continue pretty much until the end of November. A good chunk of the games that might be considered are already out and being thoroughly digested already.

…And then there’s me, still not writing up his picks for 2017. Go figure.

I said a couple of months back that I was going to do an abridged version of the remaining Delfies, and I genuinely did attempt to do so. Only issue is that, in true Delf fashion, it took me no time at all to continue rambling until the abridged versions… weren’t so abridged. When there was always something more to say, I wanted to make sure I was saying as much of it as possible, and as I got closer to #1 it only got more unwieldy.

Now, it’s August. I should have had this up in January. At this point, it’s nothing but a mental thorn in my side that’s serving as a writing block that keeps me from wanting to put to paper any other topics on video games and utilising this blog as intended. I’m going to fix that here and now, and get the Delfies out of the way so it no longer weighs me down.

So: a single paragraph! That’s what each of the remaining seven games is getting, no more and no less. You know where to find me if you want to hear more in-depth thoughts on each of the games, and no doubt I’ll have plenty to say about them in future discussions. For now though… let’s just get this over with at long last, shall we?

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The Delfies 2017 #9

Assuming you don’t count any Switch titles as exclusively handheld games — and the jury is still out on that one — then this is the sole appearance of a game on a handheld console this year. Given that the 3DS has mostly been supplanted by the Nintendo Switch and the PS Vita continues to barely exist outside of Japan, this might be the last hurrah for solid handheld exclusives for the rest of the console generation.

That said, it feels fitting to me that perhaps the final game on the 3DS to get this distinction is also a glorious return to form for a long absent series, as well as a solid reimagining of a classic game.

Delfies 2017 #9: Metroid: Samus Returns

Genre: 2D Action/Adventure/Platformer

Played on: 3DS (Exclusive)

It’s been a while, Samus. Good to see you again; I know many missed your games, and I’m definitely among them.

2016 was the 30th anniversary of the original Metroid, but it barely received even the slightest acknowledgement from Nintendo during this time. It had been six years since the last Metroid game, unless you count Federation Force (which nobody does), and it had been even longer than that since the last good Metroid game. For a long time, the fanbase of Metroid was distraught and felt that perhaps there’d not be a return of the armour clad bounty hunter heroine’s adventures.

Instead, it took the extremely well made fan game of Project AM2R (Another Metroid 2 Remake) to acknowledge the prestigious date of the anniversary. Boasting immense attention to detail and quality pushing it well beyond what fan games had ever seen before, Project AM2R was an instant success and massively adored by players. It was sad, then, that Nintendo culled the project barely a week after its release, ordering its total closure.

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The Delfies 2017 #10

The first entry on this list is somewhat special, as it immediately stretches the criteria I set up for determining my favourite games of the year. That said, had I not done so, you’d be reading either a Top 9 or instead reading about another game that I finished but didn’t consider worthy of this list. Given what I feel about that game compared to this one, that’d just be unfair, so this title gets the sole exception.

The Delfies 2017 #10: Prey

Delfies Prey header

Genre: FPS/RPG
Played on: PC, also available on PS4, XB1

(Note: For future entries, I’m planning to include a launch trailer here. In Prey’s case… the launch trailer just does a disservice to the game as a whole, quite frankly, so it’s omitted.)

It wouldn’t be accurate to say that Prey 2017 completely flew under the radar, but it did seem to get less attention than it otherwise should have. Perhaps that’s because people still long for the now canceled Prey 2 cyberpunk alien bounty hunter action shown only in glorious trailers. Maybe it was following right on the heels of a string of hotly anticipated games from February to April. Whatever the reason, people are missing out.

Prey is probably the closest an action game has gotten to evoking the sense of tension and unease that made System Shock 2 one of the most memorable games in history. Most other titles that accomplish this are usually firmly in the horror genre, and they usually do so by taking away any sense of empowerment a player might have against the creeping terrors; it’s hard to maintain that same sense of fear and tension when the game puts a shotgun in your hands.

Now some might quickly interrupt me here and say that Resident Evil 7 managed to accomplish this in the same year as Prey, and you’d be correct. But I would say that Resident Evil was firmly a horror game, pitting you against tough situations that you had limited resources to overcome. Prey? Prey doesn’t limit you nearly as much.

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The Delfies 2017: Introduction and Quick Links

Welcome to the Delfies Awards of 2017!

Starting with the number 10 position and counting down one per day, I shall be going over what I considered my favourite games of 2017. This post shall be kept at the top of the blog for the duration and will be updated with each new entry for quick links. Be sure to check them out!

#10: View
#9: View
#8: View
#7: ASAP
#6: ASAP

(All dates will usually be met around 11pm AEST, if not as soon as I can readily have them available)

While each post will be fairly detailed about what the games are and why I like them so much, I also want to go over my criteria for what qualifies for selection. There’s also a pretty big disclaimer in there that I shall direct you to if, for any reason, you want to protest my choices or believe something should be higher, lower, or absent. That said, I still welcome all discussions on the matter so feel free to message me and we can chat about it. More after the cut!

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