In a year that created no shortage of hardship for everyone, there have thankfully been numerous excellent releases to keep gamers occupied. Persona 5 Royal, Hades, Ori and the Will of the Wisps, and Crusader Kings III are just a handful of games that released in 2020 with an enviable 90+ Metascore.
A 90+ score on Metacritic is becoming one of modern gaming’s crowning achievements, and as is the case every year, there are numerous games that have narrowly missed out on the elusive mark. With all the excellent releases this year, there will be a few developers who will justifiably feel hard done by not receiving Metacritic’s ‘Must Play’ label.
10 DOOM Eternal
The latest entry in one of the gaming industry’s most influential series, DOOM Eternal didn’t try to pander to modern gaming fans and instead stuck to the over-the-top action that the series is known for.
DOOM Eternal, along with DOOM (2016), proved that the genre undoubtedly has a place in modern gaming, and id Software was unlucky not to receive a 90+ score for their game, just falling short with 88.
9 Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition
Remasters and remakes are continuously becoming more important in the gaming industry, and deserve to be recognized alongside new releases on Metacritic and at end of year award shows.
Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition is an expanded remaster of 2010’s Nintendo Wii game Xenoblade Chronicles. The Wii game received a Metascore of 92 at the time of release, and Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition deserved the same score if not higher. Improvements on the original game include the visuals, the interface, and added epilogue scenario. The game was painfully close to not featuring on this list, scoring 89.
8 Dreams
Like Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition, Dreams fell short by the narrowest of margins, scoring 89.
The game creation system offered an incredible amount of resources for players to flex their creative muscles and make artistic designs, individual levels, or even entire games. Dreams has a whopping 57 reviews on Metacritic with scores of 90 or above, but it still wasn’t enough to push the game over the line thanks to a few lackluster scores like US Gamer’s 3.5/5, which is equivalent to 70 on Metacritic.
7 Final Fantasy VII Remake
The remake of the classic 1997 PS1 game released in mid-April after a lengthy development cycle. The game was worth the wait, as it did everything that a successful remake should. It re-imagined the original with stunning visuals and expanded on the source material while staying completely faithful.
Final Fantasy VII received a 92 score in 1997, but the PS4 remake could only muster an 87.
6 Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time
After 22 long years, Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped finally received a direct sequel. Numerous Bandicoot games have released in that time, but aside from the cult classic Crash Twinsanity, they’ve failed to impress. Toys for Bob eliminated the underwhelming games from the latest entries cannon and took the series back to its roots.
The game scored 85 on Metacritic, with criticisms being directed towards the repetitive post-game content, along with the triple spin mechanic that, for many people, took the enjoyment out of the relic challenges. Although post-game content is key to the Crash series, the game still deserved to hit the 90 mark for its excellent main-game which proved that the corridor platforming formula Naughty Dog created still has a place in modern gaming.
5 Pikmin 3 Deluxe
Pikmin 3 originally released in 2013 on the Wii U, earning a score of 87. The Nintendo Switch deluxe edition that released this year expanded upon the original in many ways, likely causing Nintendo to feel hard done by with the game’s 85.
Pikmin 3 Deluxe added co-op, the Piklopedia, new difficulty modes, and all of the Wii U expansion packs, offering a fantastic packet that was overlooked by many reviewers.
4 Super Mega Baseball 3
Super Mega Baseball 3‘s cartoony character models may make it seem like an NBA Jam style spin-off of the MLB The Show series. However, Metal Head Software’s game doesn’t have the powerups and special moves that one might expect and instead keeps the focus of its gameplay on realism but with more simplistic controls than its MLB counterpart.
The unlicensed sports game fell narrowly short of the 90 mark, with its highest score being 87 on the Nintendo Switch.
3 Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales
Spider-Man: Miles Morales was one of the PS5’s key launch titles, and consequently had a large weight of expectations on its shoulders. Sony officials would have been anxiously waiting for the review scores to release, and presumably would have been very content with the game’s 85 Metascore.
Some may have been disappointed though, feeling that the game was short-changed. This viewpoint is understandable, as the PS5 would do well to have many better action-adventure games than Miles Morales.
2 A Short Hike
Adamgryu’s indie adventure game A Short Hike originally released on PC and Mac in 2019, before coming to the Nintendo Switch this year receiving a Metascore of 88.
Any disappointment that designer Adam Robinson-Yu had about his game falling short of the 90 mark was likely subsided by the game’s Seumas McNall Grand Prize and Audience Award at the 2020 Independent Games Festival Awards.
1 Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2
Considering that Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 is a remaster of two games, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2, which received 92 and 98 respectively, Vicarious Visions may be kicking themselves to have only received an 89.
The game fully deserved to reach the heights of at least the original Tony Hawk game’s 92 though, as Vicarious Visions created a fantastic reimagining of the first two games and fixed many of their pre-existing issues.
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