eShopperReviews 2020 Game Awards Day 5: Highest Honors

We’re finally down to it. What follows is the best of the best, the absolute cream of the crop of what 2020 had to offer.

Game of the Year: Bronze Award (Third place)

Pikmin 3 Deluxe – I wavered back and forth over whether to give this award to a game that first came out seven years ago, but when I thought back over the best new videogame experiences I had on the Nintendo Switch in 2020, warm thoughts of this game’s new campaign co-op mode kept coming up for me. Putting aside the fact that this game will be completely new to those who never got a Wii U, the ability to share this lovely experience with a friend takes this game to a whole new level, and makes it not only a huge improvement over an already-fantastic game, but one of the best games on the Nintendo Switch overall.

Game of the Year: Silver Award (Second place)

Hades – I have not previously been the biggest fan of developer Supergiant’s games. I thought Bastion was overrated, I liked Transistor a lot but it didn’t truly grab me, and I didn’t care for Pyre at all. So imagine my surprise when Hades absolutely blew me away with its excellent combat, its superb writing and voice acting, and brilliant reimagining of the relationship between Roguelike gameplay mechanics and story, transforming death from a frustrating element of the genre into a joyous part of the experience. If you enjoy games with great action, this is the one game in 2020 you absolutely needed to add to your Nintendo Switch library.

Game of the Year: Runners-Up

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity – Not only does this game improve on the already excellent combat and co-op play of the first Hyrule Warriors game, but it also expands on the story of the excellent Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild in some clever and engaging ways, all while working that game’s mechanics and presentation into the Hyrule Warriors formula. This game was a delightful and unexpected surprise in 2020.

A Short Hike – While the game is, as the title says, quite short… it is nevertheless an absolutely lovely experience well worth playing, with a beautiful soundtrack, a delightfully positive tone, and fun platforming mechanics that make it a joy during its short-lived play time.

Among Us – No, the Nintendo Switch version doesn’t have voice chat (just like the other versions), and no, the Nintendo Switch version isn’t free (with ads) like the mobile version. It’s a measly five bucks for a fantastic port of one of the year’s greatest online multiplayer experiences that I still argue has improved controls that make it play better than the other versions. Yes, you really do need to get a separate Discord server and a group of friends together to play it at its best… but again, this is true of every version of the g-… you know what? Why am I being defensive about this? This is, in my opinion, the best version of one of the best games of 2020. It absolutely deserves to be mentioned among the best Nintendo Switch games of the year, and if you have a problem with me saying that, you’re totally sus.

Journey to the Savage Planet – I am honestly shocked that more people aren’t talking about this fantastic game. Taking much of the structure from the Metroid Prime games and adding a wealth of color and humor, this game became one of my early contenders for Game of the Year at a time no one seemed to even notice it was out. This is a truly phenomenal experience and while its graphics struggle slightly with the Nintendo Switch hardware, it’s still a wonderful game well worth playing on the Switch.

Ori and the Will of the Wisps – The Nintendo Switch version of the second Ori game isn’t the definitive version of the game like the first game was on Switch, but it’s no less of technical marvel, porting the absolutely gorgeous Xbox One game to Switch later in the same year with only a slight downgrade in graphics. However, putting aside the game’s gorgeous visuals and music, this is still an outstanding Metroidvania that, while not quite as delightful as the first game, is nevertheless one of the best games to grace the genre on the Nintendo Switch.

Game of the Year

Animal Crossing: New Horizons – I think most people can agree that 2020 was an all-around terrible year, not just in the videogame industry, but in general. So it was some incredible luck that Animal Crossing came out at the ideal time to be the perfect balm to help people get through the difficult and depressing times we’ve been facing. Animal Crossing’s warm, welcoming, low-pressure style of play made for a spot of sunshine in an otherwise dour year, and it was helped by the fact that this entry in the series brought a whole host of improvements that helped the series finally realize its potential as a way to enable gamers to truly make their little village their own, giving us incredible freedom at a time many of us were trapped within our own homes.

It’s not a perfect game, of course – the multiplayer gameplay leaves a lot to be desired, and players looking to play the game on multiple Nintendo Switch systems or save the game on the cloud were undoubtedly frustrated by Nintendo’s backwards approach to these features. But these are small complaints about a game that was such a force for positivity in bad times that it became a cultural phenomenon celebrated around the world. Full disclosure – I have not touched my copy of Animal Crossing: New Horizons in months. I have no doubt that my town is now covered in weeds and my villagers are sure to be vexed by my disappearance. But for a long while there, I was playing this game every single day for hours at a time, and absolutely loving it. If there’s any game that truly represents the best of what gaming had to offer on the Nintendo Switch in 2020, this is it. As such, it was my clear choice for the winner of eShopperReviews’ 2020 Game of the Year award.

Additional Commentary – Day 5

There was no question in my head which game I would award first and second place to. Yes, I know, they’re both obvious choices, but they’re obvious choices because they both live up to the hype. These days, if I’m going to be playing one of these games, I’m more likely to go for Hades, but that’s largely because Animal Crossing has served its purpose for me – there’s a reason it was my most-played game of 2020.

Third place was a bit of a toss-up between Pikmin 3, Hyrule Warriors, A Short Hike, and Journey to the Savage Planet. Other games that were on my short list but didn’t make it to the runners-up category included Wunderling, Horace, One Finger Death Punch 2, Coffee Talk, and What the Golf.

So… yeah, that’s it for 2020. And… wow, that was a surprising amount of work. Welp, time to bring on 2021!

That’s all for the 2020 eShopperReviews 2020 Game Awards! If you missed the other awards this week, be sure to check back at the Awards’ Start Page to see the other awards that have been handed out!

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