Warrior’s Video Games of 2020 & Game of the Year

11 January 2021

The HUGE game this year was Animal Crossing: New Horizons on the Nintendo Switch. It came at the right time of the year when the COVID-19 lockdowns started and it built upon everything that already made Animal Crossing great on other systems. The big change for the Switch was that you started on an island, not in a town, and gradually built your island over the months to the point it could resemble a small town, or remain more like an island. I’ve kept mine quite natural with not too many paths and every islander in their own little space. The main feature of my island would be the massive dinosaur park full of dinosaur skeletons. My Dream Address is DA-0708-1495-9878 if anyone wants to visit.

Lenna on Kuurmaa island in Animal Crossing: New Horizons from the first day in her tent, to the first day in her house, through winter and then Halloween.

Following from the 3DS, my character is female and named Lenna, while the island is named Kuurmaa. In New Leaf, I named the town Tallinn. So Lenna Kuurmaa, an Estonian singer, and Estonia have been fully entrenched in my Animal Crossing games. All my original animal friends remain with only a few ever asking to leave (mostly Robin and Skye). That’s one distinction from New Leaf on the 3DS where they would leave if you stopped playing the game for long enough.

Except for Hippeux the hippo (he’s a bit boring), I don’t want any to leave anyway. They are all good. Hippeux has yet to ask and I’m not one to put in a complaint against him either. I’ll wait a bit longer for him to ask before prodding him as I’ll be miffed if Victoria the horse came to camp and I didn’t have spare plot for her. Eight animal friends is the limit on an island. My day-one originals are Mac the dog and Diva the frog. Mac’s house is next to mine and I expanded my Japanese Zen Fence to include his house. My other islanders are Apple the hamster (who regards me as a bestie or BFF), Skye the wolf, Chadder the mouse, Robin the bird, Rooney the kangaroo and Ozzie the koala.

Lenna’s first friends Diva and Mac, Lenna’s birthday with Mac, Diva and Apple, and New Year’s Eve 2020

Elsewhere on the Switch, it’s been a year of Tetris 99, World of Tanks Blitz and Doom. In fact, it has been a Doom frenzy with purchases of Doom 2 and Doom 64. Yes, the classic old Dooms! I never liked them at the time so they’ve been a bit of a revelation after buying them on sale. Doom and Doom 2 were $2.27 at 70% off, while I got Doom 64 at half price for not much more. They’re all in 16:9 widescreen format too.

For a free game, World of Tanks Blitz is brilliant. While the game pushes you to buy stronger tanks, it’s not required as you’re always matched to similar level of tanks. Progression to higher tanks is quite swift through the normal free dose of XP and gold by completing daily missions. I’ve mostly stuck with British tanks, with the little Matilda heavy tank my favourite. A bit of speed, good armour and a fast reload. It’s only tier 4 (out of 10) too. I have managed to acquire beefier tanks on the same tree including the Churchill (tier 5), Churchill 2 (6) and Black Prince (7). They’re all heavy tanks. I’ve even acquired the Comet medium tank and Challenger tank destroyer at tier 7. I find with the higher tier tanks I’m often out-gunned, not just by other powerful tanks (particularly some crazy premium tanks), also by better players. That’s the key: the best players typically are using the better tanks so sticking to the middle tiers is actually the best way to play the game. The tier 3 Crusader IV would be my second favourite and one of my most used tanks.

Switch Activity – All Time

Tetris 99 – 195 hours or more
Animal Crossing: New Horizons – 145
World of Tanks Blitz – 130
Super Mario Bros 35 – 40
Doom – 25
Super Nintendo Online – 20
Super Mario 3D All Stars – 5
Hotshot Racing – 5
Doom 2 – 5
Doom 64 – 5

It’s worthwhile mentioning Super Mario Bros 35. While initial plays seemed a bit sterile and random, once you get into it, the battle royale of Super Mario Bros levels actually works. There’s still some luck to winning. While I’ve won about 15 times, they have ranged from 5 minutes of minimal fuss to 12 minutes of a really hard battles and defeating heaps of enemies. Occasionally I’ve gone 12 minutes without even reaching top 5. Tetris 99 is more straight forward, albeit the more you win, the more you get targeted. I’ve won about 15 games there too, which is interesting considering that involves 195 hours of play compared to just 40 on SMB35 for about the same amount of wins. I regard myself as a far superior Tetris player than a SMB one.

Hotshot Racing is a really fun mix of Virtua Racing, Ridge Racer and exaggerated Mario Kart AI. The recently released free Big Boss Bundle adds a welcome addition of 4 new and technical tracks to the 16 fairly derivative tracks already in the game. Super Mario 3D All Stars is an excellent package of 3 great games. While it’s disappointing Super Mario 64 wasn’t updated to 16:9 widescreen format and the camera controls tweaked, everything else sparkles. I never owned a Wii so Super Mario Galaxy is the game I’ve played most, and it’s seriously warped!

Nintendo 3DS

The 3DS is still not dead! While the Nintendo Switch dominates my gaming time, I’m still playing a few games on the 3DS, and there’s still so many brilliant games left on it, some of which I’m still to complete. I hang my head in shame that Metroid: Samus Returns is one of them. I’m still playing Pokemon Shuffle after almost 5 years, Animal Crossing: New Leaf, and finally bought New Super Mario Bros 2 after it was discounted to 50% off. It’s one of the few games in ages that I’ve bought, played, and finished within a short period of time. Perhaps there’s still one secret world to find, otherwise that’s it. It’s a great game with really well designed levels. It’s probably my favourite 2D Mario game released during the modern 3D era. Super Mario World on the Super Nintendo is still the best.

Pokemon Shuffle is being played across two systems. I’m currently trying to S-rank all the Ultra stages, and I’m up to 630 of 700 stages on both systems. Last year I was at 350 on my primary system so I’m clearly about to reach the end. It’s a free game that’s mostly enjoyed via a short daily check-in to get the free daily coins and other stuff. While you can buy jewels, which convert to coins, I don’t. The game in its current state (meaning no more updates) is quite rewarding with coins and power-ups compared to its first couple of years. Every 15 days it gives you a jewel, which I use to play the once-weekly Meowth special stage 3 extra times and have occasionally racked up 10,000 coins in one go. Usually it’s around 5000, or 20,000 for the 3 tries.

When New Horizons wasn’t stealing so much of my time on the Switch, it was New Leaf on the 3DS. There was a heavy phase of playing it early in the year to get a feel of Animal Crossing before New Horizons was released, before trickling back to it towards the end. I still have a bit to go with that in terms of expanding my house. Sadly, Victoria the horse, one of my favourite residents, recently left, after I didn’t check in frequently enough. I was occasionally mailing her stuff and made a point to always talk to her. It just wasn’t enough. The one I don’t want to lose is Apollo the eagle, who’s been a resident since day 1. That was in January 2019 when I first started the game.

3DS Activity – 2020

Pokemon Shuffle – 129:53 hours (plus 138:55 on the old 3DS)
New Super Mario Bros 2 – 24:39 hours
Animal Crossing: New Leaf – 24:12

3DS Activity – All Time

Pokemon Shuffle – 1311:23 hours (plus 996:56 on the old 3DS)
Mii Plaza – 217:37
Animal Crossing: New Leaf – 217:27
Mario Kart 7 – 181:53
Star Fox 64 3D – 57:44
Super Smash Bros – 29:15
New Super Mario Bros 2 – 24:39 (new entry)
Double Dragon NES – 18:45
Mario Tennis Open – 18:25
Metroid: Samus Returns – 14:37
Pilotwings Resort – 13:34

For the second year running, I’ve recorded no steps on the 3DS. Very few people carry it around these days for hits (to play Mii Plaza games), with the last record being 118,962 steps in 2019 when I went to Japan after losing my mother. Total steps are 2,808,629 since Dec 2011.

PlayStation 5 vs Xbox Series X

Not interested at either at this stage, and typically I wait a couple of years for a “slim” version of a new PlayStation model anyway. I certainly won’t be buying the current monstrosity. As for Xbox, I’ve never owned one. That might change this cycle due to Game Pass. Again, I’ll wait a year or two for the library to build and preferably for a slimmer model to arrive.

Game of the Year

Animal Crossing: New Horizons!

It’s not just a game, it’s a cultural phenomenon.

Warrior’s Video Games of 2019 & Game of the Year

Previous Games of the Year

2019 Horizon Chase Turbo (Switch)
2018 Super Smash Bros Ultimate (Switch)
2017 Metroid: Samus Returns (3DS)
2016 Yoshi’s New Island (3DS)
2015 Pokemon Shuffle (3DS)
2014 Super Smash Bros (3DS)
2013 Fire Emblem Awakening (3DS)