List of 10 Games from 2016 Fang Played in 2016 organized from least favorite to favorite

I only played and finished like, 10 games from 2016 (fuck 2016), so this was a low effort post, here we go.

Minor spoilers, maybe.

#10. Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight

Momodora IV is a nice side scrolling action exploration game with a flavor of those Castlevania and Souls games people like. Bought it on a whim after hearing good things about it. I tried the first two games in the series and watched a playthrough of the third, and compared to those, this game feels pretty darn good.

• Good art style that sits firmly on the edge of 16-bit anime. This is one of those games that don't mix pixel sizes and that already makes it better than a lot of other faux-retro games. 
• Controls well. Animation locked combat and general movement makes the game feel weighty and satisfying while still being a very good platformer. 
• Small issues such as weird enemy hitboxes/attacks, super fragile player health, and instant death spikes makes the game feel too old school for my tastes, but that's alright. 
• The bosses were simple, not all of them outstanding, but the good ones were pretty neat. 
• The story isn't really there at all, scattershot through dialogue bits and item lore in what feels like an intentional nod to the Souls series, but without a core theme to hold everything together in a framework. Story was never really an important part of the game experience in any of the games, but it would've made this game better for me.
• Short 5-hour game. I could've went for a good 3-5 hours more at least.
• Cats are cute.

#9. Oxenfree

Oxenfree is a real time narrative adventure (?) game I bought after the dumb 2016 Game Awards. Antinomy said this was the shitty 999 of video games so it deserves to be number 9 on this list.

• Dialogue flow is incredible. The most natural feeling branching conversation system I've experienced in a recent video game. More games need to take note of it.
• Characters are well written. I don't think any of them will stick with me at all, though.
• The walking is kinda slow, which is good for dialogue bits, but kinda dull during all other quiet sections. 
• Story has an intriguing setting with a few neat ideas.
• ...Unfortunately, I didn't really understand the cool aspect of one of those ideas until watching a video explaining the game's twists. 
• Also, every other good idea this game had that I liked was executed better in either a Zero Escape / Infinity series game or Life is Strange.
• Personally I feel like the story confuses more than answers. I don't feel like there are any clear eureka moments that really wrapped up the story neatly.
• The ending/NG+ beats feel pretty predictable considering its premise. Payoff undermined by a weird bit at the end that gets no explanation.
• I can't remember where the fuck this game mentions Calvin at all before that one scene.

#8. Pony Island

Pony Island has some neat ideas that gave more of a shock to me than Oxenfree, so it's higher I guess.

• This game really should've advertised itself without presenting its main twist as the selling point.
• The games makes some low hanging gamer references that I personally just kinda sigh at. Of course there's a Missingno joke. Of course there's an "I am error" joke. We get it. Haha. Timely.
• The hidden truth backstory is weird. It isn't used at all in the main story and is such a leap from logical connection from the main content of the game that it feels like the kind of dumb shit that Game Theory (eughhh) would come up with. Feels more like shock value than anything else.
• The sidescrolling stuff isn't all that special.
• I think in general I'm just kinda tired of Christian mythos being the basis of most games about demonic stuff and feel like it's a cheap way to make things spooky. Also Lucifer wasn't all that scary and came across as comically incompetent, kinda at odds at the intended aesthetic.
• HOWEVER, Pony Island does pull some great meta tricks up its sleeve in the last third of the game that genuinely surprised me. I want to say that the last third should have been the whole game, but it was more effective as a one off thing. 
• In general, that last fourth and the interface related sections were the best parts about the game. I had more anxiety with the desktop sections than the base game, for whatever reason, which really felt like the intended experience? 
• Also the puzzle sections were pretty satisfying to complete even though I mentioned I wasn't big on puzzles. 
• I describe this game as "much better Omikron", which is unfortunate but also pretty funny.

#7. Zero Time Dilemma

Zero Time Dilemma deserved to be higher on the list but boy it needed more time in the oven with a different recipe.

• The Decision Game in general just sounds really cool to say. TIME TO DECIDE
• Game has very strong moments and is at its best around the 3rd 4th mark of the story. Even though the previous games in the series already set up what to expect from this game, Zero Time Dilemma didn't fail to introduce some clever story beats and twists that I either didn't see coming or thought was really cool. 
• The 2nd D-team ending is probably my favorite of non-"true" endings in the Zero Escape series
• The game's true ending has fantastic moments, minus the big revealing twist. 
• The biggest twist in the game was kinda shocking, but it became a big indicator of the weird quality of the writing; either character interactions felt lacking in development, uncanny, or just.... inconsistent. It's really hard for me to swallow that the cast didn't catch onto the big twist AT ALL until the end. It soured on me really fast in hindsight. 
• The cinematic presentation kinda hampered the really dense text required to present a story with the magnitude of concepts and character interactions Zero Escape is known for. It adapted the writing style incredibly well, but it's definitely less substantial than the previous games in text size. 
• Not exactly the prettiest adventure game out there, with some stilted animations that take you out of it sometimes. 
• Carlos, Q and Diana are national treasures. I want them to find happiness and world peace.
• The ending credits music is insanely good.
• I don't have a strong opinion about the puzzles since I appreciated the dialogue in all of the series' puzzle sequences than the actual puzzles.
• Despite its faults, I realized that the story really lingered on me after the ending. That's never an easy thing to accomplish.
• Not enough Phi.
• Not enough cat Sigma.

#6. Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth

I never really got into Digimon in its prime. I think I played one of the DS games and one for the PS2 way back when (I played as a Guilemon in that one, I think), and that's it. This game is probably better than those ones.

• The meat of Digimon's gameplay of raising digital pets is a VERY satisfying gameplay loop. Grinding is strangely enjoyable because of the almost constant rate of leveling in this game. The digivolving system makes the best of the Pokemon aesthetic with the hard calculated party management and min-maxing of SMT. It is EXTREMELY satisfying making your ABI 100 Lilithmon with Acceleration Boost. Power tripping is what sells this game on the list.
• Cyber Sleuth has non-existent dungeon design. Why does Kowloon have elevators that go up 10 feet high. They do nothing but waste time. 
• Easy random encounters / tough as nails bosses in normal mode. Busted as fuck hard mode. 
• Yasuda character designs. Yasuda makes me feel dead inside every time a good game has him as the artist. 
• The story ain't terribly amazing but it was servicable for me. Fun times. It's an anime/JRPG plot with a few minor twists and turns, which is enough for me. 
• ROYAL KNIGHTS BATTLE THEME IS INGRAINED IN MY HEAD
• Graphics are really good. Runs a shitton better than Pokemon Sun and Moon.
• A lot better than expected and is better than most Pokemon games. Gameplay in particular is a lot deeper in how far it goes.

#5. Pokemon (Sun and) Moon

If these games let you go to a non-shitty Kalos region in the postgame these would be better than Heartgold and Soulsilver. This game does everything good to some extent. It's not a game that pushes any boundaries like the others but it made me happy personally, so it deserves a good position on the list.

• Surprisingly challenging at some parts. Never as hard as the older games but the enemy AI had switch tech going on and actually did a good number on my team.
• The Pokemon aesthetics have never been better. Atmosphere is really fun and refreshing in comparison to the increasing edginess of the main plots in other recent games.
• Game Freak finally embracing 3D world design really helps in making the game world feel less monotonous than previous games.
• The music is fantastic. I think it might be my overall favorite soundtrack from this list and from the Pokemon series as a whole. Pokemon games usually have the one or two stand out track that really takes the cake for me, but this game has so many good songs that I love.
• New Pokemon designs range from ehh to great. I wish they were easier to find and catch.
• Alolan forms are a small gimmick that got more advertisement than it deserved.
• Game Freak in general halfway just doesn't flesh out things well even when retaining features from past games. Why are Mega Evolutions in this game, why aren't there more, WHY ARE THERE LESS OF THEM
• I WANT MY RUNNING SHOES TOGGLE BACK GAME FREAK
• If you're tired of Pokemon gameplay it's literally the same here, the only difference is the gym leader battles are changed from strong trainer challenges to minor crowd control challenges.
• Kommo-o deserved prime time in an earlier game cuz it dies in one hit from Fairies. 
• This ended up higher than Digimon because I had a bigger smile ratio in my 20 hours playing this than the 80 hours playing Cyber Sleuth.
• I forgot to mention this game runs at fucking shit though and game freak needs whoever programmed the FOX Engine to optimize the next game christ

#4. Overwatch

I don't usually play FPSs.

• Characters are good, fun and great. The unique mechanics each one offers adds the kind of minor complexity that I enjoy in a game.
• Gameplay is pretty solid. Everything feels right and is just polished.
• Fantastic game with friends.
• I will never buy a fucking lootbox with my own money, I paid fucking 60 bucks for this game before it went on sale the week afterwards and I also have to pay for PSN like the fucki ng scrublord that I am like fuck you blizzard you're not getting more money for your SHITTY DROPRATE LOOTBOXES HOLY SHIT GIVE ME THAT SKIN NOT A VOICE LINE AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
• Yeah this game is good. I feel good playing it, that's all that matters.

#3. Furi

If these were the Game Awards this would have won Fang's Surprise Pick of 2016. This game came out of nowhere and turned out to be on my Top 3 list despite a bunch of other games being more important to me, because for a free PS+ game I had a total blast.

• Combat is simple but great. There's a unique structure to its boss fights that just works really well. Lots of satisfying moments to be had in gameplay. Cool and challenging.
• Character and visual design is solid and striking. Very clear art direction to be had.
• What little story is presented is good. It goes places. 
• Could have used more polish? For instance, NieR manages to communicate bullets a lot better than this game sometimes.
• This was a great game, but I feel like I'm going to forget about this game (I nearly forgot to include this on the list at all).
• Every boss after the halfway point felt like they were going to be the final boss to me.

#2. Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse

SHIN MEGS

• Less bad SMTIV gameplay. SMTIV was already great.
• Kinda anime story which has great moments but is also disappointing sometimes.
• If you follow my shitty twitter and blog you probably already know this game so yeah let's not go into the details.
• DOPE FINAL BOSS
• DOPE DLC
• look man this game is good okay
• im tired
• dagda!!

#1. Dark Souls III

I think this game will end up a lot lower on the lists of people that I know. I also think this game gets a lot more praise than criticism that it deserves. That being said, if I had to pick out a game when someone says "2016", it's this shitty excellent game.

• More and more is Dark Souls 1 looking like an absolute accident that From Software hit the kind of world level design porn that people love. This game has barely any semblance of deviation from the path.
• The actual path is well crafted and designed, at least.
• The real problem is that it's a fantastic polishing of the concepts introduced in Dark Souls 2, not Dark Souls 1, and the latter is what I find more enjoyable.
• Very few ideas not used from previous games.
• The combat is still as great as ever. Bloodborne made this game feel a bit better to play than the previous games.
• The best bosses in the series.
• The most challenging game in the series after Bloodborne, which I attribute to the fantastic bosses.
• Multiplayer isn't shit like Bloodborne.
• I played 200+ hours of this game and enjoyed nearly all of them. It's not the best game by far on this list as a whole, but since the gameplay is what I primarily look for in the series, I enjoyed this game the most out of all the games in this list, mild disappointments aside. Thinking about the game from a designer perspective shows that it's really flawed, but buying that game new during college and just popping it in all afternoon was insanely worthwhile.
• [Nastiest Julien Voice Ever]: Weapon Arts? More like Weapon Farts haha amirite guys

Honorable Mention: Final Fantasy XV

I haven't played enough of this game to form a good opinion but I'm hoping it's good

nnoodle boiz
flavortown experience

it's better honorable mention material than Hyper Light Drifter

FFXV and HLD both feel a little off but HLD is the actual action game here so its doing something wrong

Games I played in 2016 that weren't from 2016 that deserved a spot on the list

• Life is Strange (Somewhere higher than Pony Island)
• Remember11 (THIS WOULD HAVE BEEN #1 EASILY)

#0. NieR: Automata Demo

No fuck you this demo was amazing I can't wait for an actual perfect Yoko Taro game I don't care about all these other games