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Most surprisingly good games of 2016

There were many pleasant surprises, but I guess I'll go with Stardew Valley. I was expecting a nice little distraction that paid homage to Harvest Moon. Instead for $15 I got a very deep game with great gameplay, heart and charm, that lasted me around 60 hours. And I still intend on returning for the 1.1 patch and building up river farm.
 
For me, it's probably Alienation.

For £15.99 I was expecting a tight but straightforward twin-stick with particles out the wazoo - which I got. What I wasn't expecting was a mini Destiny complete with procedurally generated loot caves, strikes, raids, NG modes, weekly heroics, PVE and a hugely addictive power-chase.

On top of that it manages to be one of the most satisfying and well-balanced twin sticks I've ever played.

I notched up sixty hours just on a single character class and I've still got to get the Platinum.
 
Titanfall 2, after the Beta feedback I was never going to buy it.
Well here I am... third in posts on the wall of shame of the OT

Everyone saying Let it Die: How do you get into this game? I tried it, but it's weird :D
 
Definetly Hitman, but also Inside for me. I didn't like Limbo at all, I think the pacing and story were very poor and the die & retry thing was annoying.

But god damn how Inside solved all of this with brilliant story telling (is there any other game with such a deep story without any dialogue ?), almost perfect rythm, very good puzzles and very stressful scenes. What a game.
 
Watch_Dogs 2
Titanfall 2

Good games.
Didn't expect anything from a Titanfall 2 campaign. It was great.
Didn't think Watch_Dogs 2 would be so different and so much better than the first.

But a good yeah for gaming in general. I played some great games. And i still need to play some games mentioned in this very thread. Hitman, Doom (already bought), etc.
I also keep reading good impressions of the CoD sp campaign.
 
See a lot of Let it Die in here, as an avid souls fan I can't wrap my head around it. It feels too janky to me.

Anyway, after my initial dislike of the Beta, Titanfall 2 really surprised me. It is wonderful!
 
FURI.

A great little game that was launched for free on PS+. I booted it up on a whim when it came out and loved it.
 
Doom is the obvious choice here but even though I haven't played it yet, I'm gonna say Hitman. The episodic release sounded like a deathknell for the series after the dumpster fire that was Absolution, but lo and behold, based on the reception it was actually a brilliant move for not only the series playability, but also as income for Square.
 
Let It Die was supposed to be throw away Suda garbage. What we got was a crazy arpg that has a ton of charm and is super addicting.
 
It's not that it's surprisingly good, SSM rarely release stuff that isn't. But Bound is really underrated as a platformer.

Especially when you're going for the Platinum, the controls and level design work together so well.
 
I'm gonna say Recore. The game is bad from a technical standpoint and the endgame is kinda frustrating, but the gameplay and everything in between was really fun imo. The dungeons, traversing the world combat etc were all great. It's just the package was rushed
 
Final Fantasy XV - After that Platinum demo I didn't expect it to turn out good.

Call of Duty Infinite Warfare - One of the best FPS campaigns I've ever played.

Forza Horizon 3 - After the second game I didn't expect too much but instead Playground Games produced one of the best racers ever made.
 
Seriously? Let It Die? I thought it was terrible. The combat felt worse than The Witcher 3's, with similar problems.

For me it was FURI. Came out of nowhere and was awesome.
 
Ratchet and Clank was surprisingly fantastic.
I'm a big fan of the series, but since CiT released in 2009 all that's been released were mediocre spin offs, and a short, ultimately pointless yet better than it had any right to be 4th game to the PS3 trilogy.
 
DOOM

I was very, very underwhelmed by that first gameplay showcase but then they turned things around and ended up making one of my favorite FPS campaigns ever.

Been hearing a lot of good things about Titanfall 2's campaign so I plan to check that out in the future.
 
ESO (Elder Scrolls Online) although tehcnially its not a 2016 game. But the gold edition is, which is when I got it >_>
 
Zero Time Dilemma.

It had the hard task of ending a story with a huge scope after the much beloved 999 and VLR, and we were all worried the game wouldn't succeed but it turned out great.
 
Stardew Valley, I know GAF loved it, but I thought that just might have been one of those times a sub-community bubbled to the top. On a whim I picked it up during the Autumn Sale and I haven't stopped playing since.

Runners up: Hitman (it's a Hitman game again) and Battlefield 1 (I was soured a bit by Battlefront).
 
Enter The Gungeon for me. I never had an interest in bullet hell games but ETG was the perfect storm of addicting gameplay and tons of loot/guns. I'm not even very good at it but I still had a blast whenever I played it.
 
Paragon on PS4.

Sony (and to an extent Epic Games) completely ballsed up the reveal.

Then for the game to be the best moba I have ever played and also the best looking it's my game of the year 2016.
 
Rive was probably the biggest surprise for me.

I mean, it did look like a lot of fun from the trailers but it easily surpassed my expectations with 12 missions full of non stop action, challenging but do-able difficulty, great sound effects and a superb soundtrack. After finishing my first playthrough, i immediately went back and played it a second time.
 
For me it would be Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE and Dragon Quest Builders.

TMS ended up being fun as heck for me. I also loved how vibrant the settings were, and how they changed as the story progressed.

Dragon Quest Builders was a huge surprise for me. I tried the demo just for the heck of it and got hooked. I ended up buying a PS4 copy, importing the Vita physical copy, and buying it digitally for the Vita.
 
If we're talking personal surprises aka 'games I knew about beforehand that I was confident weren't going to be good but were actually great':

Titanfall 2
Let It Die
DOOM
Watch Dogs 2
The Witness
Superhot. SUPER. HOT. SUPER. HOT. SUPER. HOT. SUPER. HOT
 
I was happily surprised at how good Gravity Rush Remastered was on PS4.

Oh, and Ratchet & Clank. Another happy surprise.
 
FFXV. My expectations were low after XIII, and I thought it might be just alright. What I got was a game where I want to do every quest and take my time with it because it's so fun.

I just heard Let It Die drawing comparisons to No More Heroes. I'm sold.
 
Masquerada: songs and shadows was definitely the surprise of the year for me. I had no expectations apart from kinda liking the kickstarter demo and its easily on of the most enjoyable isometric rpg's i have played. fantastic soundtrack great world building and nice art (loved the setting).

Tyranny is shaping to be better than i though too but i haven't finished that yet.
 
DOOM takes the cake, wasn't expecting much besides gory kill galore. I mean, that's what it was at its core, but it also had a lot more too it.
 
jonjonaug said:
Paper Mario Color Splash: A genuinely good game with great writing and level design. The combat isn't great, but at the very least it's improved over Sticker Star and you spend a lot less time in combat then you do just running around plus it's pretty easy to avoid a lot of the encounters in the game to begin with.

Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse: I was apprehensive about the story becoming even more "anime" after the original SMT IV, but for the most part the characters are handled acceptably. The gameplay systems were all greatly improved over the original SMT IV to the point where it's some of the best design that Atlus has ever put out. I was expecting this to be a pretty good but not great game like SMT IV was, instead I ended up playing an amazing hardcore JRPG.
Click to expand...

At some point in the next year I need to finish IV and pick up Apocalypse. I liked my time with the game but felt like it was asking a little bit too much of me for some reason in terms of "what do I need to do next?"
 
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