Let's Discuss this Year's "Game of the Year" Nominations | Slightly Something Else



This week on Slightly Something Else, Yahtzee and Marty discuss The Game Awards ‘Game of the Year’ nominations.

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27 thoughts on “Let's Discuss this Year's "Game of the Year" Nominations | Slightly Something Else”

  1. Yasunori Mitsuda is a great composer going all the way back to Crono Trigger. I greatly preferred Xenoblade 2's soundtrack to X3's, but "The Weight of Life", "You Will Know Our Names", and all the variations of the offseer music in X3 were really good.

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  2. Love you guys! Your personality’s clash so perfectly and you bring much joy to my life. It’s hard to get my video game discussion fix when many of my friends no longer are as die hard as me. I’m consistently impressed by Marty’s ability to bring an encyclopedia of games from sheer recollection

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  3. I've beem trying to get my hands on a physical switch copy of triangle strategy for a while. Loved the first one and this one looks like it's the same but better.

    Also, why on earth would somebody want to release a game on rememberance day? Do they want practically nobody buying it day 1?

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  4. GOW:R shouldn’t count it the awards is going to be announced in December. Either wait until 2023 or have a much stricter cut off.

    I implore Yahtzee to sink some more time into ER. Remember the wall you had in DS, if you haven’t beaten Rennala the game hasn’t really opened up. Get to Morgott that’s about the middle of the game.

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  5. Sooooo, Fighting games… First of all they are ‘Versus only’ games, mostly 2D but occasionally 3D, but always starting with one player on the left and an opposing player on the right. And although a lot of games from the genre are themed around Martial Arts, it’s not really a ‘bare-fists’ conversation as there are hundreds of unique projectiles such as energy/ki blasts and various weapons (swords, guns, bombs) used by characters in Fighting games.

    For further clarification, Fighting games are competitive 2 player games (this can be vs another person or CPU) where both players are expected to use strategy and skilful execution to defeat their opponent.

    Oh, and as much as I enjoyed Sifu, it definitely doesn’t qualify as a Fighting game (not that The Game Awards give a hoot, I’m surprised they even bother including it as a category). Apologies if this comes off as condescending in writing as I think it does btw – just your average Fighting game enthusiast here!

    If anyone’s interested in finding out more about Fighting games here are some sub-genres and notable games that help to understand the broader concept:

    Footsies (Street Fighter, Tekken) – very neutral and mind-game based, opponents will try to bait and punish each others mistakes, usually fishing for high damage combos.

    Tag fighters (Marvel vs Capcom, Dragon Ball FighterZ). – where there are multiple characters on each opponent’s team that can be used to assist or swap place with the currently active character. Tag fighters are usually very fast paced with a lot of noise on screen and prioritise impossibly long high-execution combos.

    Anime fighters (Guilty Gear, Blazblue) – Fighting games designed with similar aesthetics and themes to Japanese anime, this is usually confined to 2D Street Fighter copies with really over the top moves and character animations, as well as a greater emphasis on aerial movement and long combos.

    There also many 3D anime-themed fighting games but these are mostly referred to as ‘Arena fighters’ (Jump Force, Kill la Kill IF).

    Platform fighters (Super Smash Bros, MultiVersus) – Same concept as the others but with multiple levels to move around the stage and instead of depleting the opponent’s health bar the objective is knock them out of the arena

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  6. I'm torn on ER for narrative. I guess it depends on whether you consider that category an award for "story" or "storytelling."

    I'm more on the side that reliance on item descriptions fails the "Show, don't tell," rule, and that the lore, while fascinating in itself, fails to create emotional investment for that reason. Even the game's subreddit mostly agreed that a major character death in the game falls flat because they're underwritten.

    The sidequests that employ more traditional storytelling with actual dialogue and plot twists are very good, but I just don't see what is immersive about stopping the game to read notes. The story and the gameplay feel like totally separate experiences, one that is absorbed in-game, and the other on Youtube.

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  7. Sifu is a fighting game. Brawlers are just a sub-category of the fighting genre. A fighting game does NOT have to be multiplayer.

    In the same way shooters can be third person and first person, fighting games can be fighters (1v1, Street Fighter), brawlers (1vN, Sifu), and melee (NvN, Smash). Ultimately, their primary interaction and mechanics are built around fighting opponents with similar movesets to what you can use, usually with a mix of melee combat, blocking, parrying, and combos.

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