Topic: What games will make your "Year In Review: Most Played" 2021 List?

[Stratos]

So I've got to thinking about the Nintendo Year In Review. Thinking it would be fun to make gaming predictions for our play habits in the new year. What will everyone's most played games be? To account for the theoretical game releases I would say lets increase it from top 5 to top 10 or even just your top-whatever list since it's kind of a guess what will even release this year between Nintendo's typical secretiveness and slower development times and the new normalcy of pandemic-related elays.

With a child on the way later this year, turn based games are sure to dominate the list since I'll more easily be able to pick-up and drop as needed for caretaking.

I'll list mine off in no particular order:

1: Fire Emblem 3 Houses - Partway through a Golden Deer playthough. I've done a Black Eagles playthrough already and plan to attempt at least three more runs for the other two options as well as a replay of Black Eagles WITH the added DLC since I missed that when I did it the first time. Hope to at least finish Golden Deer and one more route on the game this year.

2: Monster Hunter Rise - Because that will probably be one of the few real time online multiplayer games I attempt to play this year.

3: Breath of the Wild 1 & 2 - I still need to complete #1 in anticipation of #2 so I'll include both on the list.

4: Picross S 1-4 - Puzzle games like this will surely be at the forefront as a good calming game between bigger matters going on, and Picross S1 was already a

5: Pikmin 3 - got this for Christmas and my wife and I are working through the co-op together and she's really invested in it, so this may be one of the only games we get around to playing together

6: Civilization 6 - I played this a fair deal when it released, and I've been holding out for the DLC to drop in price to pick it up and return to the game as a whole.

7: Metroid Prime Trilogy - Believe this will release this year once they have a better idea when Prime 4 will be coming as a way to garner excitement.

8: Something in the racing genre - I imagine (hope) Nintendo releases another racing game like Diddy Kong Racing or F-Zero so I'll be looking out for that.

9: Animal Crossing will probably be a contender as my entire direct family and some extended members are playing it a lot, but I've already experienced the burnout so not confident on its ability to stay in the top rankings for me.

10: A Pokemon Game - Pokemon is turn-based soa plus for me. We are either getting a remake of the Gen 4 titles or Let's Go Maril/Mareep/Togepi so those could be prime contenders, but I've also held off on getting Sword/Shield and would bite on that if I could nab the game and its DLC for a good price (<$40 would do it for me).

11: Something Mario - I doubt Mario 3D World will be the only Mario title this year but if it is then I'll probably return to 3D All-Stars to finish Sunshine and play Galaxy

12: Something Zelda - it is Zelda's 35th Anniversary and I expect some treatment akin to the Mario 35 celebration. So I'll surely play something out of that, and if not then will probably pick up Age of Calamity if the price is right or play the original Hyrule Warriors in it's place.

13: Skyrim and/or Witcher 3 - Skyrim is another easy to pickup-and-play game for me and I've got a lot to do in that game still, or I may finally boot up my Witcher game that I got and play that instead.


I'll cut it off there, but curious what others see as their "big time" games for the year.

[Order.RSS]

Whoops, kinda missed this thread and it looks like others did too.
Wish I was as good at planning for the future to decide on stuff like this lol.

Animal Crossing, Hades and Picross were my most played ones by a country mile last year, but otherwise I tend to play shorter games. Out of those three, I'm only really planning to continue with Hades, but may check in on Animal Crossing if it continues getting updates (at least one is planned). Don't anticipate either of those dominating my year again though.

RPGs: I tend to play 1-2 RPGs a year, so maybe EarthBound or Xenoblade finally makes the cut? (Although I've been saying that for years lol.)
Probably won't be Monster Hunter, since I'm just not drawn to that franchise at all. The new one looks impressive though, so maybe I should give the demo a fair shake. Disco Elysium is another RPG slated for this year, hopefully that gets a good port. Wildcard option this year would be Shin Megami Tensei 3 or 5; my only exposure to that series is tangentially through Tokyo Mirage Sessions. Heard they're very difficult though, which is a tad off-putting.

Racing/sports/fighting: One of these can go in the constant rotation bucket. I doubt King of Fighters 15 will be on Switch unfortunately, but maybe MLB The Show will? Also open to suggestions for a good anti-gravity racer, is FAST RMX still the top choice on the eShop in that regard? A new F-Zero, or just a re-release of GX would make my year.

If Breath of the Wild 2 already launches this year I'm dropping everything for that game, although I'm skeptical about it making 2021. It's got near-impossible shoes to fill though, so need to keep my expectations in check.

Last one: if Arika manage to squeeze out another multiplayer thing (Dr. Mario?) I'll definitely try it. Played a lot of Tetris 99, and very little Mario Bros. 35. Don't know how feasible their current annual schedule is though, there were 18 months between those two, which would make June 2022 their next date. But who knows!

With a child on the way later this year, turn based games are sure to dominate the list since I'll more easily be able to pick-up and drop as needed for caretaking.

Exciting! Hope everything goes well!

[M.K.Ultra]

Backlog
I try to get to each system at one point or another so here are the top priorities for each:

• Axiom Verge - We just covered this on the best of the Wii U eShop postings and it is burning a hole in my bookshelf. I have to finish my replay of 3D World and a few others but I am determined to complete this one in 2021.
• Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom - My Switch backlog is ashamedly large but this what I am most excited to get to. It will actually be my first Monster Boy game
• Ghost Giant - This PSVR title looks really cool and should not take long to complete
• Banjo-Kazooie - I have played a number of titles on Rare Replay but have not yet crossed this rubicon. What is worse, I have never played it as I skipped the N64 generation altogether!
• Mario & Luigi - Partners in Time - I hope to do a little more traveling this year so that means more time with the 3DS. This will be my first M&L game as well. I have heard these are quite long but as long as I can finish FE Fates soon, I should be able to complete this as well.
• Rhythm Heaven Fever - This is the next game to play on Wii and it was the talk of the town on RFN's game of the decade episode. I am really looking forward to it.
• Half-Life 2 - I picked up the Orange Box to play Portal and have not touched the other titles. I want to get to Alyx eventually so I figured I would start with what I already have. I hope it's okay to skip the first one as I don't know how I would even play it.

Replays
I also like to replay games or go back and 100% them. Here are a few planned for 2021

• Alien Isolation I talked about revisiting this during Shocktober last year so hopefully that happends this year. I will either go for a platinum trophy or complete the DLC
• Mega Man Luigi Dude's list of games from last year made me realize I need more Mega Man in my life. I want to play one title each month and finally get to the Z-collection.
• A Link to the Past I have yet to replay this recently so it is long overdue
• Shantae: Half-Genie Hero I have only scratched the surface on the alternate modes in this one so at least one playthrough this year would be nice.
• Death Stranding My partner and I fell for Death Stranding hard. We put 100+ hours in and are only at 80%. After seeing the credits roll we decided to give it a break but I think we will go back and platinum it during the summer. That will probably be another 100 hours!

New Games
When I filled out the hype meter survey I realized I did not have a whole lot on the horizon for new titles this year, but here are the few I know of.

• Balan Wonderland This did not make NWR list but it was at the top of mine. I really hope the Switch version runs well
• No More Heroes 3 I am all caught up on the series after playing one game the past three years. Come on Suda, don't make me buy Lollipop Chainsaw just to get my fix.

[broodwars]

I imagine it will just be Deadly Premonition 2; Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury; and something like an Ori & the Will o' the Wisp (just waiting for a better price drop on that than we've been seeing so far), unless Nintendo somehow releases something like a Metroid Prime 4 this year. As with every other year of the Switch's existence, I expect I'll use it for a couple of notable games and little else.

I do need to get around to playing more than a few hours to Xenoblade 2, though, and to finish the Epilogue of Xenoblade DE.