RPGWatch - Game of the Year 2020

2020 wasn't a good year for me either but I rarely play more than 1-3 RPGs a year

Game of the Year Picks
None. I only played Troubleshooter: Abandoned Children for like 4.5 hours before dropping it.

2021 is looking a lot better for me

Most Promising for 2021
1. Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous - having played alpha for 178 hours, I can say this is shaping up to be even better than Kingmaker in almost every aspect and a contender for my top 3 GOAT
2. Black Geyser: Couriers of Darkness - while I'm still skeptical on how this will turn out, this definitely ticks all the boxes I want (party based, isometric, RTwP combat etc)
3. Solasta: Crown of the Magister - disappointed with the game's limited offering (e.g. limited classes etc) but I'm still a sucker for D&D party based cRPGs.

Game of the year picks for me:

1. Trails of Cold Steel three
2. Persona four
3. Einlanzer

This past year I spent far too much time playing Everquest 2 and Pantheon, this year I suspect I'll be quitting Everquest 2 again, likely for the last time.

Since I mostly play indie or survival, there wasn't really a game I enjoyed on the 2020 list. The girl who acts like a dog and kills robots was the closest thing to a crpg that I actually played.

Crpgs I played the most in 2020:

Fallout 4
Legendary Journeys
Gedonia

The two indie games were quite good. Fallout 4 is always fun to play for a few hundred hours.

Most Anticipated for 2021:

• Solasta
  [*]Baldur's Gate III
  [*]ELEX 2

But wait, there is more (in no order of preference):

• Alaloth
• Gamedec
• Urban Strife
• Gothic Remake
• Colony Ship
• Encased
• Dark Envoy
• Realms Beyond: Ashes of the Fallen
• System Shock (Remake)

Oh boy, what a promising year!! If at least half of this list gets to be released…

Elex 2 is easily #1 for my most antipated.

After that, it's probably a toss-up between BG III and System Shock. Solasta also ranks pretty high for me.

Horizon Forbidden West would be right up there with Elex 2 if it was being released for PC. I haven't decided if I'm going to get it for PS5 or wait for the PC version which probably won't come until 2022 at the earliest.

Baldur's Gate 3 Early Access should have been on the GotY list

2020
Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls
At the start of the year I really got into this one. The Wizardry formula is a solid one. I actually went on to play Elminage Gothic afterwards which was even better but not a 2020 game.

Hades
Nice and polished action roguelite that manages to have cool characters and keep things fresh by introducing new gameplay mechanics. Took me 22 tries to beat the final boss.

Mortal Shell
Surprisingly decent singleplayer "souls-like" game where you find dead bodies to possess instead of weapons. Good gameplay, challenge, graphics and performance.

2021
Elden Ring
The next From Software game.

Knights of the Chalice II
Oldschool tactical D&D dungeon crawler with awesome character creation and challenging encounters. Needs a lot of polish so I wouldn't rush in, just yet.

Nioh 2
Well, this ones coming out in a couple of weeks so it's foremost on my mind. Sure, BG3, Solasta, Pathfinder. I hear you. Plenty of good games to look forward to in 2021.

Game of the year 2020 pick
Cyberpunk 2077. I am in a love-hate relationship with this game.And nothing else from 2020 stands out.

Most anticipated 2021
Baldurs gate 3

Game of the Year Awards 2020

1st: Hades (I know there are many Hades haters here, bear with me ), they have delivered a good-quality game with a consistent and original theme as usual, great music and nice narrative. And I like what they did with Greek mythology Even if I'm not much into action RPG and rogue-like anymore, it's very well executed. They accompanied the fans between Early Access and release with a good schedule, good clarity, and more than delivered.

Which is more than I can say for others. Anyway, strange year, 2nd and 3rd are not that relevant to me (I voted AC and Cyberpunk, more by default than anything else, I'd have voted Cyberpunk higher but they don't really deserve it IMO - not for 2020).

GOTY 2020 Most anticipated

1st: Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, it's promising to be great from what I saw
2nd: Baldur's Gate 3, a few uncomfortable choices, but it will surely be great quality content
3rd: Solasta: Crown of the Magister, as a 1st indie game, they do a lot of things right, and it's very fun to play

I would probably have hesitated if Weird West had been in the list. I did hesitate with Encased too. It's a very promising year

on paper lots of goodies for 2021 but i suspect many will go into 2022

Most excited for:
1. Elex2
2. PathfinderKingmaker2
3. BG3

Best:
1. CP2077
2. Yakuza 7
3. Troubleshooter

I have played many of nominated games, not all though. Some deserve recommendation but we can't vote on more than 3 (examples: ToCS3, HZD).
And some IMO did not deserve nomination (examples: GI is popular but shills for lootboxes, ACVikings is disappointing).

GotY:

None
None
None

Looking forward to:

1. Knights of the Chalice 2
2. Solasta
3. BG3

Voted for Yakuza, HZD and Hades but my real list is as follows

Persona 5 Royal
Nioh 2
Ghost of Tsushima

Most anticipated: Elden Ring, Pathfinder

Some years I'll vote for a game that I plan to play but haven't purchased yet, to vote in advance. As such, one of my little pleasures every voting time on here is to check-out gameplay videos on Youtube for all the games I've never heard of or am unsure of the content, to see if something is at least deserving of my vote.

This year I couldn't even find anything that fulfilled this criteria, although all the games looked to have merit, if you're into that kind of thing and etc.

It seems some niches were very well catered to this year, even if they weren't mine:

Souls-like: Godfall, Hellpoint, Mortal Shell (3)

Diablo-like: Hades, Wolcen Lords of Mayhem (2)

JRPG: Banner of the Maid, Genshin Impact, Langrisser l & ll, Tears of Avia, Trials of Mana, Troubleshooter Abandoned Children, Wizardry Labyrinth of Lost Souls, Yakuza Like a Dragon, Legend of Heroes Trials of Cold Steel lll (9)

Tactics: Empire of Sin, Fort Triumph, Gears Tactics, Iron Danger, The Dark Crystal Age of Resistance Tactics, The Dungeon of Naheulbeuk, Wasteland 3, X-Com Chimera Squad (8)

Action RPG Science Fiction: Conglomerate 451, Starpoint Gemini 3, Cyberpunk2077 (3)

Action RPG medieval: Assassin's Creed Valhalla (1)

Darkest Dungeon-like: Iratus Lord of the Dead (1)

Retro style: Horizon's Gate, Pop-Up Dungeon (2)

But, as you can see, very little that really comes especially close to what someone might term "a normal and traditional RPG", which is fine. All the ones that are in that kind-of bracket have lots of asterixis next to them at the very least.

So a year for the niches for sure.

lackblogger said:

Tactics: Empire of Sin, Fort Triumph, Gears Tactics, Iron Danger, The Dark Crystal Age of Resistance Tactics, The Dungeon of Naheulbeuk, Wasteland 3, X-Com Chimera Squad (8)

(...)

But, as you can see, very little that really comes especially close to what someone might term "a normal and traditional RPG", which is fine. All the ones that are in that kind-of bracket have lots of asterixis next to them at the very least.

So a year for the niches for sure.

Click to expand...

I think it's a bit unfair to categorize Wasteland 3 as a "Tactic RPG". Imo, it's way more a full-fledged rpg than this imply. Dialogs, non combat skils and exploration occupy a large place and there are actually quite a lot of fights you can avoid with the right skills.

I did not vote for a game of the year, because I did not play any of the games that came out in 2020. Mainly because I had enough older games to play and because I didn't manage to get hold of a new graphics card (at a reasonable price), so I could play Cyberpunk 2077 and AC: Valhalla. But I did vote for BG3, Vampire Bloodlines 2 and Elex 2 as the games I look forward to.

vanedor said:

I think it's a bit unfair to categorize Wasteland 3 as a "Tactic RPG". Imo, it's way more a full-fledged rpg than this imply. Dialogs, non combat skils and exploration occupy a large place and there are actually quite a lot of fights you can avoid with the right skills.

Click to expand...

Oh for sure. All of the games have various amounts of RPG, some way more so than others. W3 will likely be winning this year because of the reasons you state.

Redglyph said:

Game of the Year Awards 2020

1st: Hades (I know there are many Hades haters here, bear with me ), they have delivered a good-quality game with a consistent and original theme as usual, great music and nice narrative. And I like what they did with Greek mythology Even if I'm not much into action RPG and rogue-like anymore, it's very well executed. They accompanied the fans between Early Access and release with a good schedule, good clarity, and more than delivered.

Which is more than I can say for others. Anyway, strange year, 2nd and 3rd are not that relevant to me (I voted AC and Cyberpunk, more by default than anything else, I'd have voted Cyberpunk higher but they don't really deserve it IMO - not for 2020).

Click to expand...

My top 3 was exactly the same, in that same order.

Sir James: Wizardry, Labyrinth of Lost Souls finished fourth for me, it's a fine game and one I'll be replaying in the future, for sure. Einlanzer just barely eeked it out of contention, but there is no shame in that!

@Carnifex; I love Einlanzer, but it was released 2017 not 2020.