Much like 2020, 2021 wasn’t a great time for games for the majority of the year. Due to the worldwide pandemic mutating like a Ninja Turtle into a much stronger and more violent strain, many developers were still working out of their homes, where oversight by project leads is near impossible, thus we had a lot of games that could have been released during this year delayed into 2022.
However, the final quarter of 2021 had a lot of releases come all of a sudden, leading to a lot of this list coming together at the last minute. Right up to the beginning of December, we still had some top games coming out that would make me delay and remake this list before adding it into publication.
On a personal note, it was hard for me to do anything gaming-wise this year due to when games started to come out, I was working, or was unemployed with no spare money for games and having to really cheery pick what I could play at the time. The same thing went with movies, most of the year the cinemas were closed, and once they reopened most of the major blockbusters were either out of time for cinemas, or delayed till months after their US release, leaving me relying on streaming services for my movie fix. This also went with games, so thank the gaming gods for Xbox Game Pass.
Let’s hope that 2022 starts living up to what a real gaming release schedule is meant to be.
But before that, let’s look back at 2021 and take a look at my personal Top 5 for 2021. If you want to see a Top 10 for the whole The Outerhaven crew, you can see that list here.
Game: New Pokemon Snap
Released: April 30, 2021
Review Score: 4.5 out of 5 Stars
To be honest, there weren’t too many times this year that I took my Nintendo Switch from its charging cradle and actually played games on it. To be honest, I was thinking about trading it in since I don’t really use it much and would rather have the credit on hand to buy other games rather than the console sitting around gathering dust. But if I left the Switch to gather dust, then I would have missed out on the return of one of the best Pokemon spin-off games of all time.
New Pokemon Snap brings the Snap formula back to modern generations of players without actually changing anything. The core gameplay is still there and actually takes advantage of the Switch as a camera (in handheld mode) in order to bring the Snap experience to life. New Pokemon Snap was such an impressive game that I was happy to learn and then play the extra stages Nintendo added, for free, for players later in the year.
Game: Alex Kidd in Miracle World DX
Released: June 22, 2021
Review Score: 4.5 out of 5 Stars
I wouldn’t be me without going into some retro gaming. A lot of my 2020 and 2021 has been taken up with the pursuit of reclaiming much of my gaming past, with the adventure of finding a SEGA Master System II being something that will continue into 2023. But luckily, I was able to relive a good moment from my gaming past with Alex Kidd in Miracle World DX, an upgraded port of the original game. This brought me back to my early gaming memories of playing this game in my grandparents’ kitchen anytime they would babysit me, a happy memory that I’ll love forever.
Getting back into Alex Kidd in Miracle World DX at the midpoint of this year showed that sometimes you don’t need to go to great lengths to remaster or remake every single game. Alex Kidd in Miracle World DX took the base game and just updated the graphics and add some cutscenes. To be honest, this was all that was needed for this type of game. I look forward to seeing more from this developer and maybe some other Alex Kidd remasters.
Game: Far Cry VR
Released: June 1, 2021
Review Score: 4.5 out of 5 Stars
Far Cry VR is a basic story based around the excellent Far Cry 3, it’s the experience that earns this game the number three spot in my list.
While the Far Cry series is a great series of first-person games, there is something about VR that really brings you into the game a lot more than anything a console or a PC could provide. Having yourself as the controller, holding an imitation gun that works really well, and nothing else distracting you from the experience makes you actually feel like you’re in the game. As someone who suffers from vertigo easily, I was very proud of myself when I leaned over the edge of things, walking over thin wooden boards, and looking down while riding in a badly put-together carriage while going down a cliff. It was moments like that which put Far Cry VR as my personal favorite experience when it comes to the Far Cry series in general.
If you have access to a Zero Latency VR center, go there ASAP and book yourself in for a solid 30 minutes of amazing Far Cry action.
Game: Resident Evil Village
Released: May 1, 2021
Review Score: 4 out of 5 Stars
If there is one thing I have said time and time again as a reviewer here at The Outerhaven, it’s that when I go out of my way to express extreme negative views on something that is coming out, I will always try to be the one who follows it up with a fair and balanced review in the end. To say that I was negative about Resident Evil Village was an understatement. As someone who reviewed Resident Evil VII: Biohazard to the tune of hundreds of people calling me out as a “non Resident Evil fan” due to the fact that I called the game a “great horror experience, but not worthy of the Resident Evil title”, I was very upset about everything I had heard about Resident Evil Village, from the leaks about the game to the official trailer at E3, to every single update we got along the way to release is an understatement.
However, when it came around to doing the review, I was actually very favorable in my opinions on the game, calling it a well suited Resident Evil game in the Ethan Winters story and something that made me like one of the worst Resident Evil games ever made: Resident Evil 4. So in the terms of being wrong, I was happy to eat some humble pie and give the game a chance, and actually, replay it multiple times throughout 2021.
Game: Final Fantasy XIV Online – Final Fantasy XIV Online: Endwalker
Released: August 27, 2013 (Final Fantasy XIV Online)/ November 23, 2021 (Final Fantasy XIV Online: Endwalker)
Review Score: 4 out of 5 Stars (Final Fantasy XIV Online: A Realm Reborn)
When it came to time-sinks in 2021, nothing had me sitting in front of the PC more than Final Fantasy XIV Online.
After exiting World of Warcraft 3 months into the Shadowlands expansion, and being the final Outerhaven staff member to do so, I was contacted by PR contacts working on behalf of Square-Enix asking if I would want to give Final Fantasy XIV a try, giving me everything from Stormblood through the newest expansion, Endwalker, (Final Fantasy XIV Online has a free trial that allows you to play all of A Realm Reborn, and the first expansion called Heavensword, for free) in order to get me to try the game and hopefully get far enough into it to do an Endwalker review when it launched (Which I failed due to personal issues).
What I discovered was a brand new awakening with playing an MMORPG game with a community that is actually non-toxic and very helpful and friendly. While I did do a lot of leveling and story content solo, it wasn’t long before I found a home with Taro’s Shrimps, a Free Company (aka Guild) led by Twitch Streamer Lily275, where I run dungeons, trials, raids, etc with not only Lily herself, but a lot of great people in the guild. Everyone in Final Fantasy XIV Online is so helpful that it is a real shock to the system after years of abuse from World of Warcraft and the community there.
A mixture of a great game that is easy to learn, but hard to master, giving a level of challenge that grows with you, and a community that from the general populous to people you make friends within the Free Company of your choosing, Final Fantasy XIV Online is a game I will recommend at any time to anyone who will listen. Give it a go, you get up to level 60 and a HUGE amount of gameplay for free to suck you into the world, leaving you wanting to play rather than having a second job like World of Warcraft did.
