New consoles arrive every four to seven years. If you compare a console's games to its last, you will see a spectrum of innovations. Rendering techniques become more efficient and realistic; designers find new ways to explore interaction and storytelling; game developers push the state of the art forward a little at a time. We at Sonic Bloom would like to take a moment to reflect on the outgoing 8th generation to highlight the games we think most exemplified important changes to the medium.
It is worth noting that, while we develop tools for games, we are not actively reviewing and playing games as much as we used to (or would like to!). Further, it is important to mention that we find story-driven narratives more engaging than straight arcade madness and you’ll see this reflected in our picks. In this article, you’ll hear from Sonic Bloom's Co-founders, Justin and Eric, and see their respective takes on the games that we think defined the generation.
“Come here boy!”
God of War
Justin’s take
God of War elevated games on a few levels, not just in taking a cornerstone franchise and uprooting its core to make something bigger than the entries before it, but by taking a long look at what it needed to become in order to mature with its audience. While Kratos is as moody as ever, the game designers reflected hard on the series' 80s-style gratuitous violence and asked "is this necessary to define the "God of War" series?" Spoilers: It doesn’t. You get a touching story about parenthood and what it means to be defined by your upraising. Both its characters and the series grow as it needed to; in ways unexpected and exciting.
Eric’s take
This was a seriously pleasant surprise. My expectations sitting down to God of War were anchored by tens of hours playing multiple similar games across multiple console generations. While I had heard this game would be more story-focused, my fear was that the gameplay experience of what made a "God of War" game a "God of War" game, would suffer. Are we going to get a game with a mediocre story and mediocre gameplay? While I found the stories from the previous games compelling, they were not what you would call nuanced. Would the focus on the story take away from the gameplay? The answer turned out to be "not even a little". Kratos' new weapon was amazing and felt fresh; the locations in the game drew me in (both in terms of visual fidelity and the story they reinforced), and the story itself was so deep and expertly told that I was hooked from start to finish. This game was masterfully created and set a high-water mark for adventure games.
“Sometimes you just need to let loose and dance! Ya know?”
P.T.: Silent Hill Playable Teaser
Justin’s take
P.T. was supposed to be a teaser for a Kojima-developed-reboot of the Silent Hill series. I still consider Silent Hill 2 to be one of the best games of all time because of how it used game mechanics and the environment to tell a story like no other medium. P.T. somehow captures all of what made Silent Hill 2 great and packaged it into a free demo. What is insane is just how complete and brilliantly designed the whole thing is. It has a stupid amount of depth baked into a simple game loop. There are tons of hidden oddities and unspoken mechanics to discover that submerge you into this Mobius strip of horror. It perfectly displays Kojima’s brilliance at its best: when it’s constrained. It takes the type of risks you typically see in indie games but pushes it to the next level with the budget and creativity of a Kojima production. It is a masterpiece in its own right.
Fingers crossed for the much-rumored Silent Hill game coming from Sony.
“Everything the light touches is our kingdom.”
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Eric’s take
I would argue that this title is more evolutionary in the context of the broader games industry, as large open-world games have been successfully done in the past. For Nintendo, however, Breath of the Wild is an evolutionary title. Nintendo took a "risk" with this game insofar as they broke from a tried-and-true formula for perhaps their greatest IP. Fortunately for us players, they nailed it. That the game allows you to traverse anything and everything you see in the world is an amazing accomplishment. That it manages to do so while providing a crisp set of mechanics and in a way that never feels "cheap" or unfair is stunning. While the main story is entertaining, it is both exceedingly easy and exceedingly rewarding to wander off in any given direction and find something new and fascinating. Nintendo brought its polish and focus on gameplay to open-world games with Breath of the Wild and we're all the better for it.
“It’s close to midnight and something evil’s lurkin’ in the dark. Under moonlight you see a sight that almost stops your heart.”
Inside
Justin’s take
Playdead continues to hone its twisted, unspoken storytelling in Inside. It’s a sort of macabre introspection on games, and the bizarre punishment we happily subject our avatars to. At first, it enthralls you in tension-ratcheting scenarios; each one more strange than the next. But the lack of, well, any narrative, dialog, or explanation leads you to start asking deeper questions. At first “what is going on?” and “WTF is that?” to “why am I doing this?” and “what is this telling me?” The designers never straight up answer the question, but the sort of somber and contemplative back half of the game starts to fill in the holes. It’s a masterwork of non-verbal, thematic storytelling.
“His name is Junior. The dog’s name was Indy.”
Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End
Justin’s take
When I completed Uncharted 3, I was reasonably certain the franchise was going stale. There are only so many high flying adventures you can experience before you feel like you’ve done it all before. I was not excited for Uncharted 4 because I really didn’t know how Naughty Dog could improve on what they’ve already done. I get the feeling that the folks at Naughty Dog felt the same. Instead of creating more far-flung stories that would send you globe-trotting, they went inward. Uncharted 4 isn’t about Drake’s latest adventure to find some ancient magic relic; it’s about the relationships with Sully, Elaina, Drake's estranged brother, and the strain put on relationships when your hobbies become obsessions. Uncharted 4 brought fully realized relationships to the table and tugged at them in ways you’ve never felt before in a game. When Drake’s actions ultimately damage his friends, you feel it. You feel ashamed, and, frankly, it’s refreshing to feel that much attachment to a character.
Eric’s take
You would think that after three previous games, the Uncharted series would start to feel a bit stale with its fourth. This wasn't the case at all. The fresh locales (both with young and current Drake) were extremely enticing. Naughty Dog's subtle level designs had me constantly itching to know what was beyond the next corner. New characters who pulled the hero in difficult directions, in completely relatable ways, drove a reinvestment in the characters to heights that were unexpected but much appreciated. To top it all off, the game took full advantage of the new hardware to realize new exotic locales that felt like a vacation. The sense of discovery runs deep in this game. Naughty Dog pulled off something that Lucas Film couldn't - a fourth adventure story that manages to surpass its prior installments.
Join us for part 2 where we reveal our remaining picks that we think defined this generation. I’m sure you can guess what a few of them are, but a couple might surprise you.