3 games that completely surprised me in 2021
MyMMO demon Cortyn introduces you to 3 games that you may have overlooked in 2021 – and that are significantly better than originally thought.
The MMORPG year 2021 was supposed to be pretty good – but it wasn’t. This has led many players to just put their feelers out to other games. Due to the constant content poverty in World of Warcraft, I also had a lot of time to devote myself to games that I would otherwise have had no time for.
To my great joy, all of these games were really lucky. I have fond memories of three games in particular. I can only recommend it to anyone who has a little time between the years and is looking for a little good entertainment through and through. Not all of these three games are for every type of player – but they all offer a unique experience.
Tales of Arise – A terrific cliché JRPG
JRPGs were the genre that really sparked my love for gaming. I still remember that back then, on his birthday, I convinced a friend to buy Final Fantasy IX with his money – which we then gambled through together over the course of a week. Since then there has been a lot of ups and downs in the genre and apart from a few highlights, the joy could not rekindle as much.
Fortunately, Tales of Arise is such a highlight.
At the beginning, Tales of Arise takes pretty much every hackneyed JRPG cliché with it. Of course the hero suffers from amnesia and of course the protagonist is quite hot, aloof and only warms up very slowly in the course of the story. The young girl naturally has devastating magical powers and everything seems to be divided into “good” and “bad” at first glance.
As a JRPG, Tales of Arise also uses a lot of anime clichés. You have to like the exaggerated drama, as well as the sometimes sprawling cutscenes with lots of dialogue. But after about 10 hours that changes. The story becomes more complex, the motivations of the characters are slowly revealed and whoever was a stupid, self-loving enemy at the beginning suddenly becomes understandable.
In addition, there is an action-packed combat system with adjustable levels of difficulty, ranging from “The game is playing for me, lol” to “I have to enter every tactical command manually, otherwise we’re all dead”.
If you are into something like that, Tales of Arise is a story with lots of exciting twists and turns, in which in the end there is not as much black and white as you might have thought at the beginning. Enemies and heroes are understandable and convincing – a rarity, especially among villains in recent years.
Tales of Arise is perfect for simply relaxing again in a fantasy world in which you want to spend many dozen of hours, only to be rewarded with the next cut scene and a little more story detail.
Tales of Arise does not reinvent the JRPG wheel, but it does exactly what a JRPG has to offer to be remembered and to leave the satisfying feeling of “that was a nice gaming experience” after playing.
Back 4 Blood – The best shooter on sale
Yes, Back 4 Blood is one of those games that divides the community. Either you hate it because it’s not exactly like Left 4 Dead and has a very high level of difficulty.
Or you love it because it is perfect fun for a group of friends of 4, which always brings new challenges and still feels fresh even after the 10th run.
Back 4 Blood is a cooperative zombie shooter. Instead of just reaching for your guns and slicing your way through the hordes of zombies and special zombies, it takes a little more tactics and planning.
The game has a “deck system” in which all players can create different decks of cards. But these are basically just perks that you draw one after the other in the course of the games.
With these perks you can customize your character quite a lot. For example, you can focus on machine guns and shoot several zombies at once with an extremely short reload time. Or you focus on sniper rifles and cause blatant damage to weak points, but move more slowly. Or you can reliably cut away all normal zombies in close combat while your team takes care of the special zombies.
Once immersed in it, the deck system offers almost innumerable possibilities and always something new that can be tried out.
But apart from that, the replay value is high. Because the “AI Director” also has different cards. These are negative effects that come into play in every game. Sometimes the zombies are faster, sometimes a map is in deep darkness and sometimes there are additional bosses or a timer that announces the approach of particularly strong zombies.
The combination of these effects ensures that my group is still hungry for the game even after 150 hours and plays the campaign over and over again.
However, be warned here: Back 4 Blood is something for groups. If you go out alone or want to rely on the help of Randoms, you will not have any fun with this game and should rather avoid it.
Back 4 Blood promises “new game mode” – will it be versus co-op?
Succubus – a cruel work of art
I had to think a little about whether to really add this game to the list because it’s so “different” from any other game I’ve played. But that’s actually enough reason to at least mention the game.
In Succubus you play the eponymous demon in hell who is on vengeance and works his way through the hordes of the underworld in an endless excess of blood and sex.
Succubus earned its “FSK 18” rating after just a few seconds. Complete nakedness of the demonic and human bodies, lots of splatter action in the fights and a cruelty in the representation that is second to none.
However: Succubus is not an “AAA title” and you can see that in the game in many places. The combat system in particular is a bit cumbersome and doesn’t always feel fluid. However, that doesn’t change the fact that Succubus is a thoroughly rounded gaming experience that simply tests new limits – for better or for worse.
Succubus gave me some of the most shocking and memorable moments that even made me pause the game in horror. What exactly this is all about, I explained in more detail in the more detailed introduction to the game by Succubus.
Succubus is not necessarily to be understood as a great game in which you can lose yourself for days; it is played through after a few hours. However, Succubus shows how gloomy a game can deviate from the usual clichés if, as a developer, you simply do not submit to any moral shackles.
Succubus is more reminiscent of a work of art that raises questions about moral concerns and tears them down again in the same breath. How much cruelty can you actually show? How bad would hell be if it weren’t so romantically transfigured?
It’s a unique experience and is suitable for anyone with a strong stomach – or with somewhat twisted preferences.
Do you also have games that completely surprised and excited you in 2021? Unexpected highlights that were much better than you originally thought? Please tell me about it – I’m curious.
Reference-mein-mmo.de