Season: A Letter to the Future, Stray Gods: A Roleplaying Musical, and Cassette Beasts are three games I haven't seen on any publication GOTY lists at all -- and I've read so many! I didn't get to finish the Cassette Beasts (a clever evolution on the Pokemon formula with an unnerving overarching story), but I do have to unpolished GOTY write-ups for the first two, so I thought I might as well share:
SEASON: A LETTER TO THE FUTURE (Steam, PS4/5.)
Most games are doing well if they had one extremely memorable interactive moment. Season: A Letter to the Future has three: the game's beginning and end, and a sequence with a certain field. It's fitting to have such memorable moments in a game that explores memory in depth: delving into the past, the present, and what will be left for the future. Season is a wistful, tender, and bittersweet experience, with striking and stylized art direction. The more you engage with the Season, the more you'll get back, with intricate and compelling worldbuilding uncovered via exploration. Estelle is an archeologist and archivist all in one, working to uncover the truth of what happened in her time period before the 'season' ends. The pay-off is excellent. In a microcosm, she can help to make an individual person's life better, but on a grander scale she can only observe and record. She is both powerful and powerless.
So much of Season is fittingly fleeting: the game has dialogue options and choices that help to shape Estelle, but you can only ever pick one, leaving me to mourn on the conversations I'd missed, that precious information forever lost. One of the game's primary mechanics is filling out Estelle's journal, one that the player knows will last long after she is gone. Outside of certain pages requiring specific pictures and items to unlock plot information, the player is given a lot of freedom in how they would like to fill out the pages on each topic: Estelle's written observations and sketches, sounds she's recorded, miscellaneous items that Estelle has picked up, or photographs the player can take. There was a continual poignancy to filling out the journal. The deliberation of the photographs that I chose, and the others I discarded. The fragments of knowledge that I thought were the most valuable in capturing that particular topic and moment. The continual weight of what I chose to keep and carry into the future, and second guessing if that was the right choice.
Season is an incredible game I could never replay from the beginning, because every element of what went into Estelle's journey was so purposeful and personal. I created those memories alongside Estelle, a mix of both mine and hers. I may revisit Estelle's journal from time to time, however, and reflect on the powerful journey that was.
Bonus:
- The only misstep on an otherwise excellent experience was that Season introduced a new surreal world building element in the last five minutes of the game, creating a distraction from otherwise extremely impactful moment. The intention was great, but the execution frustrating.
- Season: A Letter to the Future would be the perfect Game Pass game, because if you're engaged and affected by the interactive prologue of the game, you'll love the rest. If it does nothing, then Season probably isn't the game for you.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERJgyk5My5o
STRAY GODS: A ROLEPLAYING MUSICAL (Steam, PS4/5, XSS/X, Switch.)
Out of all the games I've played this year, Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical feels one of the most ambitious, yet frustratingly underrated. Maybe that is because musicals aren't to everyone's taste? It's a shame, though, because Stray Gods does so much right. It's a concise, compelling mystery with impactful roleplaying choices. The characters are memorable, supported by a backdrop of fantastic worldbuilding, all brought to life with vibrant art direction and a ground breaking interactive soundtrack. A newly appointed muse, Grace, has seven days to unravel the mystery of her predecessor's murder before she is the one executed for the crime, with her unique powers a clever catalyst for the game's interactive musical moments. David Gaider, setting creator and former lead writer for Dragon Age, shows yet again his expertise for unforgettable characters and dense worldbuilding, with Stray Gods exploring the Greek gods in a modern-day setting. There's a story there much larger than Grace's immediate dilemma, one that spans centuries.
Grace herself is an endearing protagonist, with Grace's journey giving Laura Bailey an opportunity to show that her immense talent extends beyond acting to singing as well, with Bailey effortlessly switching through a variety of musical genres. Bailey is supported by an equally impressive cast, who shine alongside her. And what is a muse without a song to sing? It boggles the mind the amount permutations musical director Austin Wintory and the team put into every interactive song, and many feel like the equivalent of musical boss fights, with all the spectacle and ingenuity to accompany them. For a scale perspective, in an attempt to capture the breadth of the tonal soundtrack possibilities, Wintory has released four albums. Throughout the game, Stray Gods always prioritizes story decisions over its music without preciousness, which is an admirable sacrifice. There is one song in particular that was understated in my playthrough due to the choice I had made, and it was due to that choice that I missed one of the best musical moments in the game.
It's because of this that there is an immense reliability to Stray Gods, with so many conversations, song permutations, and entirely unique songs available depending on the player's decisions. For all of this, it's hard to manage a game of Stray Gods' remarkable ambition without some stumbles on the way. The game delves into some weighty subject matter, but these moments don't always have enough time to breathe when they need to resolved in a song, eg. Aphrodite's subplot. Some romances work well, whilst others would have been better suited to a longer game. The player also has to pick a trait for Grace early on that gives unique dialogue and song options, but it felt jarring at the time as I didn't know who Grace was as a character yet. All of these issues pale, though, in comparison to what a groundbreaking game Stray Gods is, and how well it achieves all it set out to do. Bravo, Summerfall Studios.
Bonus:
You know it's a David Gaider game when you're staring at the ceiling deliberating at length if you've chosen the wrong choice at a pivotal story moment.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7u6dnpEIvk
doops. said:
This became one of my all-time favourites. Cannot recommend it highly enough:
View: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1249040/American_Arcadia/
I keep hoping I'll magically have enough time to check this out! Yahtzee spoke positively about it via Fully Ramblomatic and the Windbreaker podcast, the ending in particular. It sounds really interesting.
Uzzy said:
The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood. Probably my Game of the Year tbh, at least in terms of full new game releases.
View: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1340480/The_Cosmic_Wheel_Sisterhood/Somehow this is also a Soulslike, in that the challenge is not to cry and you're taking on Malenia, Blade of Miquella. And she has never known defeat.
It's more than that though, not just some Uzzycore suffering simulator (though oh god the suffering is sublime). It's a visual novel esque deck building game that deals with some hefty topics with care and delicacy. You play as Fortuna, a tarot reading witch sentenced to exile for a thousand years for predicting the demise of her coven, who after two hundred years of loneliness summons up an ancient banned Behemoth known as Abramar. Together you forge a new pact and create a new set of cards, which you can create and design yourself using a fairly neat editor, and start telling fortunes. Early on in the game you get the right to receive visitors, and those from your coven start flying in to ask for advice, which you can give to the best of your abilities, interpreting the cards you draw and drawing magical power from it.
It's very well written, which each fellow witch you meet each having their own distinct design, personality, music and feelings, and those weighty issues like terminal illness, revenge, gender dysphoria and sisterhood all dealt with tenderly. One thing that elevates it above other recent feminist works is how you can shape Fortuna's personality, her isolation can have left her vengeful and filled with self-loathing, or contemplative and empathetic. While the sisterhood does come together at the end, it's not all sunshine along the way. There's twists along the way, with the nature of Fortuna's power and place in the coven coming up for intense debate, and the latter half of the game focuses more on that with the whole helping people through card readings side of the game fading into the back. And while the latter half is in no way bad (it's actually rather great), I sure would have enjoyed more time spent just advising other witches.
Still, overall this is a heartbreakingly beautiful look at sisterhood and what that means, and I loved it entirely. And it has great advice.
Another game I keep hoping I'll magically fit in. Fantastic write up.
