conchobhar
What's Shenmue?
I'm going with R-Type Final 2. In honesty, I played so few new releases this year that it practically wins by default, but I think it'd still be a strong contender for me even if I had played more games. As someone who likes shmups but has never really 'gotten into' the genre due to the very shallow learning curve, I found Final 2 to be exceptionally newbie-friendly. Both in the more 'traditional' ways of multiple difficulty levels and unlocking new, powerful ships, but in other ways: being able to unlock ships at all gives a sense of purpose to those failed runs, and the existence of score attack mode makes it easy to jump in and practice stages without having to muddle through the rest of them first. It kept me motivated, not just to play the game but properly learn it; just a few days ago I managed a 1CC/no-miss run on Normal, and damn did that feel good. I'm certain to keep poking away at this game into 2022, seeing if I can complete runs on higher difficulties and just how much of the R Museum I can unlock.
When it comes to older games that I played for the first time, that's a no-brainer: Space Channel 5. Its finale is among the most satisfying I've ever experienced in a video game. "Mexican Flyer" will be in my head forever.
When it comes to older games that I played for the first time, that's a no-brainer: Space Channel 5. Its finale is among the most satisfying I've ever experienced in a video game. "Mexican Flyer" will be in my head forever.
