It’s almost the new year! And to celebrate I’m gonna list my top 10 games of 2017. This year has been absolutely fantastic for gaming as we saw some of the best new titles in years. And so without further ado let’s get to the list!

10. Snipperclips

The first game that really caught my attention for the Switch was not Zelda, not Mario but Snipperclips. Everything from the very concept of it to the adorable art style had me interested and as reviews came in I wanted to play it with my friends more and more. Eventually when I did get a Switch and got this game I called up my friend and I think we played it for like 5 hours straight. This game is just way too much fun and I think everyone who owns a Switch needs to have this game,

9. Stardew Valley

Now I know that this game has been out for like over a year or something but I’m mainly talking about the Switch version here since I know for a fact that if I played this game on literally any other console I would probably drop it after a couple hours. But since it’s on like the best handheld out there I have about 40 something hours in and apparently I’ve been playing the game wrong for these 40 hours. Apparently your supposed to do other things besides farm. Like, interact with other characters and stuff. Weird.

8. Doki Doki Literature Club

So this game came to me out of no where. I just saw a bunch of really vague memes online one day and just decided to play it before it could get spoiled for me and holy shit this game is great. I really don’t want to spoil anything further so if you haven’t already or if you live under a rock go play Doki Doki Literature Club. It’s free on Steam and only takes about 4 hours of your time.

7. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

There’s not much to say about BOTW that hasn’t already been said. It’s just a really really good game with some minor but still kind of annoying flaws. It really went above my expectations since I was just expecting another generic open world that has a lot of “stuff” to do. But instead I got a really dense interesting world where I could stay in the same area for about 40 minutes and still find something new. The way you can interact with your environment and the level of creativity it allows pretty much makes this game my favorite open world game ever.

6. Resident Evil 7

Resident Evil 7 has got to be one of the biggest surprises this year. I mean, a good Resi game? In 2017? Crazy. Not only did it go back to it’s series roots and have some fun and satisfying combat it had an interesting and different-ish story that really took me for a loop. I also ended up playing this game more times than I had expected since I just couldn’t get enough of it. A Resi for new fans and old I reckon.

5. Cuphead

After what seemed like literally a millions a years Cuphead finally came out this year and I gotta say it went above and beyond my expectations. Everything from the music, the bosses, the animation and the mechanics are polished to a mirror sheen. I’ve gone through Cuphead over 10 times already because of how fun it is. I even tried to speed-run it eventually, which is easier said than done. I’ve waited way too long for this game that when the release date was announced I couldn’t be bothered to be excited but then when I had the controller in my hands that was something completely different. I’m also extremely glad that Cuphead has become a huge success and I can’t wait to see what Studio MDHR does next.

4. Persona 5

Now we’re getting into the real meat and potatoes of it all. So even though this game came nowhere near Persona 4 for me when it comes to overall enjoyment I still gotta say I had a swell ass time. The awesome music and visuals kept me interested all throughout as well as the combat and persona collecting aspect. I’m not much of a fan of the social stuff in this game as I was P4 but hey that’s just me. Nothing else to say here. It’s good. It’s anime. Tae is best waifu. Fuck Joe and Futaba <3

3. Tekken 7

Boy I cannot tell you how happy I am to have Tekken back. I fell off the series for a while since Tekken 6 and 7 was just the right amount of goodness to get back and actually get into the game competitively. It may not be the best Tekken for casuals since it has like no story and content equivalent to half a hot dog but the game shines with it’s pick up and play nature and it’s sheer depth for experienced players. Out of all the games I played this year I think I sunk the most time into Tekken 7.

2. NieR: Automata

Hoo boy this game sure did take me for a ride. I kinda knew what I was getting into since Yoko Taro memes are practically unavoidable at this point and man was I not disappointing. Everything from the combat, characters, story and design of the game just made me so happy. It’s not ground breaking when it comes to gameplay but serves it’s purpose so gosh darn well that I can’t even be mad at it. And let’s not forget about that absolutely godly music that I still listen to on repeat every day. I pray that no one gets spoiled for this game ever since it does a certain thing that no other game can replicate or at least have the same emotional impact. Check this game out. It’s crazy. There’s anime girl butt.

1. Yakuza 0

Man I really couldn’t decide between this or NieR as my favorite game this year because both are just so damn good. So I decided to list it by how many times the games made me have chills and tears in my eyes because that’s the thing these games do best. As NieR was just a couple huge loads of emotion Yakuza had me screaming at the screen every other minute. The gameplay is tight, the music is tight and you can clearly see that an absurd amount of love got put into this ever-evolving series of games. The story is generic and dumb but it’s the characters that really sell it. 11/10 you can get a chicken and name him Nugget.