GOTG’s East Coast Correspondent, Matt Giguere returns for our 5th annual Game of the Year show. We take a look back at the year in handheld gaming (specifically, how the Switch has really affected what counts as a handheld game in 2018) then run down our personal top 10 lists for the year.
2018 could’ve been a bummer of a year. The game I was most excited about – Fire Emblem: Three Houses – got pushed to 2019. We were getting a new Pokemon game…but it was based on a mobile game and was fundamentally changing the formula I loved. And outside of Smash Bros., there was little left I was anticipating.
And yet, 2018 turned out to be a fantastic year in handheld gaming. I got a turn-based strategy game that’s up there with any Fire Emblem game I’ve ever played. That Pokemon game ended up being pretty great! And there were a bevy of unexpected indies that kept me entertained all year long. Here are my top 10 handheld games from 2018 (as well as a few honorable mentions).
Honorable Mentions: Mark of the Ninja Remastered, Gris, Kingdom Rush Vengeance, Donut County, West of Loathing
10. Minit (Switch, PS4, Xbox One, PC)
I like to take my time in games – fully exploring worlds, talking to NPCs, reading item descriptions. In that sense, Minit, a top-down Zelda-style game that only allows you to play in one-minute sessions should be my nightmare. But it’s not. In fact, I really liked it. Minit’s limitations freed me from my thinking and made me engage with the game on its level. In a world dominated by GPS and a games’ landscape dominated by easily accessible maps, there’s something refreshingly challenging having to commit the area to memory and make plans on not only what to do next, but how to make it there in time.
