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10 Games That Are TRULY Miracles | gameranx | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: 10 Games That Are TRULY Miracles
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(logo chimes)
- [Falcon] Let's be honest,
the gaming industry is currently held together
with duct tape, band-aids, and crunch.
For every massive hit,
there's a dozen games that launched broken,
boring, or chockfull of fricking monetization that ruins it.
While there have been a lot of great games this year,
if you think of the sheer number
of not great games this year, it feels like every good one
is like Moses parting the Red Sea, freaking miracles.
Hi folks, it's Falcon and today on Gameranx,
10 recent games that are truly miracles.
Starting off with number 10,
it's "Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown."
First off, a new "Prince of Persia" game in 2024?
Somehow it happened.
But what's even more shocking
is that it's actually really good, like really good.
Ubisoft's reputation was in the gutter
before the "Lost Crown" release,
so there was a lot of pessimism around it.
Even at the pre-release stuff they were showing
looked pretty solid,
but the final product ended up being way more than that.
It's an excellent metroidvania
that updated and expanded on the series
in some new and exciting ways.
It's also a game that bridges
the "Sands of Time" series in the original games
with a focus on platforming and navigating traps
that gives it a unique feel,
especially when compared to a lot of other games
of this type.
(techno music)
Back in 2024,
it seemed like Ubisoft just didn't have it in them anymore
to put out games like this,
but thanks to the dedicated folks at Ubisoft Montpellier,
I don't know how to say that name or place,
I know I am saying it wrong.
I'm not French. Sorry to the French.
But anyway, the folks at Ubisoft montipython
were able to make it happen, despite the publisher's focus
on massive AAA open world games.
Despite everything, sometimes Ubisoft developers
were able to sneak out something
that breaks their usual mold
like the "Mario + Rabbids" games
or the recent-ish "Rayman" games.
The "Lost Crown" is another one.
It's an unusual thing
that you just don't expect to see from this company.
It's got the polish of a big development studio,
but the presentation of an indie,
it's the sort of thing I wish we'd see a lot more
from these big companies.
Of course the game didn't end up selling very well.
So there's an argument that they have a reason
for not bothering with stuff like this anymore,
but here's the thing, Ubisoft did not market this game.
In this case, I think,
it's probably a self-fulfilling prophecy if you say,
this game's not gonna sell, so we're not gonna push it,
then it's not gonna sell because we live in a world
where you have to create demand for something
and they just didn't bother.
So, we're never gonna get to the "Lost Crown" two,
which sucks,
but at least we got this one game
that manages to exceed almost all expectations.
(energetic music)
And hey, did you know that any expectations
you have about how many people see this and subscribe,
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It's actually surprisingly few.
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Let's get back to it.
And number nine, it's "Lies of P,"
"Bloodborne," but Pinocchio,
oh boy, could that have easily been
extremely embarrassing and lame
or maybe unintentionally horrifying,
like the many, many live action adaptions of the story,
but against all odds, it's is it's really good.
Of course, it's derivative,
but it's really polished and well made.
So who gives a shit?
The actual innovations that brings to the formula
do enough to make the game stand out
in an already crowded soulslike genre.
Being able to combine weapons parts
is a simple but really satisfying thing
that lets you make some counterintuitive
but really fun weapons.
(sword swishing)
It is a little bit "Sekiro" and a little bit "Bloodborne,"
but the combination works
'cause the game is really well paced.
It's got a smooth difficulty curve
that normally these games lack
like to the point where it's an expectation of the genre.
In general, the game's more forgiving than you'd usually see
with a soulslike.
It actually gives you enough upgrade materials
to level up more than one weapon, for example,
lets you respec and build pretty easily.
It even has as of 2025 built in difficulty settings,
a souls game that lets you adjust the challenge level?
Has the world gone mad?
No. 'Cause most of them still don't do it.
So all of us try hards out there can rest easy.
What actually makes the game great is simple.
It feels really good to play.
The pairing, which you'll be doing a lot of,
feels good to do.
The enemy designs are excellent all around,
the environmental design is good,
the presentation is clean and solid across the board.
It's just a really well made game all around.
It has the polish of a game made by old pros, but it's not,
they were primarily a mobile game developer before.
So the fact they were able to go from that to this
is actually really impressive.
We even managed to pull off the from trick of releasing DLC
for the game that's better than the base game
with fun new weapons, more varied environmental design,
and the best bosses in the game so far.
Make no mistake though, the name "Lies of P" is ridiculous
and I do not understand exactly why that's the name of it.
I mean, yes, it's literally what Pinocchio is about,
he lies.
And his name starts with P,
but I can think of like a number of better names
and you gotta admit
that some of this stuff is still pretty goofy
despite how serious it's tried to be,
but it just doesn't hurt the game at all.
If anything, it gives it some personality.
So it's appreciated, believe it or not.
(explosion booming)
And number eight is "Sonic X Shadow Generations."
When Sega announced they were remaking "Sonic Generations,"
a game that didn't really need much updating
even though it's somehow already 10 years old.
There was a collective kind of groan
from the "Sonic" franchise.
When they revealed they were going to do the Nintendo route
and add a new side game starring Shadow,
there was some excitement
and a whole lot of dismissive confusion.
Does anyone remember that got awful
"Shadow the Hedgehog" game? "Sonic the Hedgehog" 06?
I mean, yeah, the 'Sonic 3" movie had Shadow
and it was really fun.
But the general presence of Shadow
outside "Sonic Adventure 2" often is a cause for concern.
So when this thing came out and somewhat,
how ended up being the best Sonic team made game in years,
it was pretty surprising, I don't wanna oversell it
'cause it's just a small add-on attached
to an otherwise pretty bare bones remaster.
But the Shadow part of "Sonic X Shadow Generations"
is very much worth,
it's probably the best boost formula game ever made,
which is maybe damning it with faint praise,
but it's legit a great game.
(upbeat music)
(Shadow grunting)
The new shadow powers are a lot of fun,
the level design is better.
They hit the right balance between speed and control.
It's something the team struggled with for many years
and somehow with this version, they fricking nailed it.
For once, instead of trying to completely reinvent the wheel
and start from scratch, they built off of a game,
in this case, "Sonic Generations"
and were able to improve on it.
Please, Sonic Team, just do this.
Like take the the the "Shadow Generations" model
and refine it for the next Sonic game.
Like seriously, you guys have cracked boost gameplay.
I talked about this back when "Sonic Forces,"
which is a universally reviled game came out.
I said like there's aspects of it
that showed they've figured out how to do the boost stuff.
This is the evidence that that panned out, that's true.
I would like them to follow this model.
Just give us a bunch more awesome levels.
And alternatively, you can also make "Frontiers" too,
that's bigger and better
because "Frontiers" is a fricking monster as well.
Like you have two tracks to take.
In fact, just do both of them, do both things.
You wanna print money?
You want people to love you for making great Sonic games?
That's the paths. Plural.
(upbeat music)
And number seven is "Black Myth: Wukong."
I remember reading some of the leaks about this game
before releasing.
I mean a lot of the time your old pal Falcon
has predictions that outpace other folks.
I was right about the Switch being a massive hit,
and I was right about it when people were saying
it sucked ass.
That's probably my claim to fame as far as that goes.
But with "Black Myth: Wukong," I'm not gonna lie to you,
I didn't believe it.
All the signs pointed to "Wukong"
being a game that would disappoint.
It was a long gestating game made by a team
that had never made a game of this scale before.
There were a lot of little controversies and rumors
swirling around the development
and for a while it seemed like it might be vaporware.
Then weeks out from release,
people started saying this thing was gonna have
more than a hundred bosses, which sounds absurd,
like something a kid would say about an imaginary game.
All these weird gimmicks
like the extending pole and riding a cloud,
it would never work in a quasi-soulslike, right?
The final product would be a mess, right?
And then it came out,
and by God, there really are 107 bosses.
The madman actually did it.
They created the most absurdly,
I mean, on paper, bloated action game of all time.
I call it a work of hubris,
but it's clear that these nuts
just wanted to make the biggest and best game
they possibly could.
If anything, they went a little overboard with the bosses.
There are points
where this thing practically feels like a boss rush.
It's just one after another.
(dramatic music)
But crucially, "Black Myth" is a lot more than that.
It doesn't fall apart at the end
or get slap dash in the closing hours,
like, I mean, let's be serious, much shorter games do.
It's a remarkably complete game with just as much stuff
between all the fights and it feels like a full adventure.
It's a game that wasn't possible to predict
how it would turn out.
So the safe assumption would be
that it was gonna disappoint.
So the real miracle is that man, it didn't.
It exceeded expectations.
(dramatic music)
And number six is "Nine Sols."
This thing was going a hell of a swing
from Red Candle games.
Going from making psychological horror games
with very little gameplay to this,
it's a complete 180 in priority
is that few game studios have ever actually accomplished.
But these guys made it look pretty easy.
"Nine Sols" is one of the most confident action games
I've ever seen.
Its inspirations are obvious with the parry-based combat
and the distinct "Hollow Knight" silhouette
of the main character.
But its story in the Tao Punk style made it unique.
And also the difficulty, the difficulty stands out.
This game tests you.
If you want to get anywhere,
you need nerves of steel and lightning fast reflexes
or more realistically,
a whole lot of patience and willingness to keep trying
because you will die repeatedly.
It starts off hard and only gets much tougher as it goes.
(energetic music)
Ending with one of the most brutally
difficult final bosses of all time.
It's not an easy game, but it is so much fun to play.
It's wild how this team was able to pull off something
that feels so perfect on their first try in the genre.
Like it's a real statement of intent
that shows what Red Candle is capable of.
The presentation is just excellent all around,
even the story is well done.
It's violent and goes to some pretty dark places
despite the cute character designs, but it really works.
It's just the right mix of endearing and depressing.
It's one of those indie games
that swings way above its punching weight
from the presentation to the design.
And it's also one of the rare games
where the Metacritic score is way higher
than the critic score,
which I think says something
about how much people love and respect
what the team did here.
(swords clashing)
And number five is "Clair Obscur: Expedition 33"
created by a few former Ubisoft devs
who wanted to focus on a passion project.
Sandfall Interactive was formed in 2019.
Their inspiration was nothing less
than the "Final Fantasy" series
as well as "Persona" among other things.
These are all big budget games
that aren't easily replicated,
especially by Western developers.
Like there's been a lot of attempts by larger studios
to emulate the appeal of a JRPG, and most have failed.
Interestingly enough, the "Final Fantasy" games
that influenced the team the most
weren't the NES or the SNES era games,
but later, like "Final Fantasy X" stuff
with the cutting edge production values for its time.
Trying to do a modern day version of that
was never gonna be easy.
But against all odds, Clair Obscur pulled it off.
I think people who were really clued in on the game
knew it was gonna be something special.
Like I distinctly remember
reading some random Reddit comment calling their shot
saying the French had made 2025's game of the year,
and it came out, and yeah,
it's easily one of the best games of the year.
And this has been a stacked year for games.
So that's saying something.
One thing "Clair Obscur" remember
is that many games that try to be epic,
forget it moves fast.
(character grunts)
Like those old JRPGs were pretty fast,
story segments were short even when they started with FMVs.
In fact, FMVs made it necessary
for story segments to be short
'cause they took up a ton of space.
Battles sometimes could last for only a few seconds.
They were constantly introducing new locations
and pressing the plot.
There wasn't a whole lot of wasted time.
And that's one of the reasons "Clair Obscur" is so great.
It's fast, it's well paced, it keeps the adventure moving,
which encourages you to keep playing.
Make no mistake, it is 100% a JRPG too,
it's got an overworld,
it's got party members with their own unique abilities,
turn based battles.
It's intentionally old school,
but introduces some innovative new mechanics.
The big one is including a parry,
which in 2025 could be considered cliche,
but the way they implement it
in a turn based battle system here, it's just perfect.
Parrys are hard to pull off,
but really powerful when you do.
The active elements of the combat keep things engaging
without being too much of a slug.
It's a balancing act that the game manages to pull off.
Same goes for the story,
really dramatic, but also elements of humanity,
even humor to keep it from being nonstop misery.
The Frenchness of the whole thing
gives it a nice unique character too.
The soundtrack just an all timer.
It's one of those lightning in a bottle games
that we've praised probably too much, but it deserves it.
It's a hell of an accomplishment.
(upbeat music)
And number four is "Alan Wake."
It's gonna be tough to not talk about this
for like 15 minutes on its own.
Remedy's been around for a long time.
They've been making great games
for years and years and years.
"Control" was their breakout success,
at least their recent one because before that,
the first "Alan Wake" was a big hit,
"Max Payne" was a big hit.
They have hits and they get big.
The fact that they're capable of making a good game
that resonates with people, it's not really the miracle.
What is, is just how fricking weird "Alan Wake 2" is.
It's Remedy unleashed doing whatever the hell they want
for an audience of one.
Like it's audacious
that they were able to make such a big budget game
with such a singular vision
that is so intentionally off-putting.
(eerie music)
- [Alan] The mask was the key.
(eerie music)
- [Falcon] Usually there's someone around to say no
or to tone something down,
but the problem is that guy is the guy who makes the games.
He's in them.
I don't know, unless this game was
somehow even more baffling
and somebody did say tone it down, I don't know.
It's a video game equivalent
of "Twin Peaks" return,
a project that deliberately tests its audience
and subverts the expectations
in sometimes really frustrating ways.
I mean, there's no other way to describe the entire film
that is in this game.
Or basically Alan Wakes entire gameplay segment.
So the many bits
that don't seem to have to do with anything.
Remember the sheriff shows up at the start
and then disappears
and appears randomly in the dark place for some reason
and it never gets resolved
or seems to have anything to do with the events of the game,
that's one bizarre loose end they throw at you.
And there's a lot more.
And knowing Remedy, yes, they will deal with it somewhere.
Might be in "Control 2" might be in "Alan Wake 3,"
might be in 10 years, might be in 20, who freaking knows.
But the game is really solid.
It's Remedy we're talking about here.
These guys have a certain baseline of quality
that is expected.
"Control" is a game that's weird,
but is able to ground all the craziness
with relatable characters.
I mean "Alan Wake 2," you spend half the game
completely unmoored from reality.
It is as art house as AAA game can get.
And the fact
that they were able to make something that works
is a minor miracle.
I mean, I think a lot of what really helped that along
was leaning into survival, horror,
like inventory management type stuff.
Because you end up having to think about practicality
when there's a bunch of just insane shit
happening around you.
And I think that's a large part of why it works.
But, I mean, I'm not gonna explain it fully.
It's an amazing, amazing game, a once in a generation game.
I cannot wait for "Control 2"
because these games all share a universe,
that's where a lot of this stuff is gonna go.
"Control 2" is the next Remedy game.
Like Remedy is a connected universe
and their games progress a story
that's happening everywhere.
(eerie music)
- [Alan] I sat in the writer's room and wrote a story,
"Initiation."
To project myself through the dark place,
to look for a way out.
The story had brought me here, brought me nowhere.
Looped me back.
I was writing the story,
and in the story I now stepped into the writer's room.
But there was no one here writing it.
(eerie music)
- [Falcon] And number three is "Metroid Dread."
By 2021, it seemed like the "Metroid" franchise
was pretty much done.
There was the remake of "Metroid 2" but that was it.
"Metroid Prime 4" seemed like it was never happening.
So, I mean it was honestly crazy
to think a game called "Dread,"
which got a mention in "Metroid Prime 3" back in 2007
was ever gonna actually happen.
That was years after that game was indefinitely delayed
or dead or whatever.
"Dread" was originally going to be a follow-up to "Fusion"
on the Game Boy fans.
But for whatever reason, that never happened.
It was never officially canceled though.
So certain diehards continue to hold out hope
against all reason.
A candle in the storm
hoping the ship will safely come to port,
which it eventually did
when "Metroid Dread" finally came out in 2021,
which is really, really good too.
Like it's incredible that it came out,
but it's even more remarkable is just how excellent it is.
It was developed by MercurySteam who made "Samus Returns"
which was all right, it's a good remake,
but not mind blowing.
"Dread" in contrast is just a massive step up.
It's a better game in just about every way
besides the somewhat divisive EMMI robot segments.
But, I like them, whatever.
(dramatic music)
It is a fantastic game though,
that regardless of if you liked those segments,
is a fantastic game.
And it found critical and commercial success.
The "Metroid" series had been gone for so long
and it finally was back.
For fans, the game is nothing short of a miracle.
The developers really stepped up in a way
nobody could have anticipated.
And while it probably doesn't still live up
to multiple decades of hype surrounding the name "Dread,"
I don't care.
It came out so much better
than anybody could have guessed it would.
(dramatic music)
And number two is "Signalis."
This is an interesting one
'cause when it originally came out,
the critical response was a bit lukewarm.
Over the years though opinions have, of course, shifted
and a lot of people see it as a modern horror masterpiece.
Some of that may come down
to the way that the game's been modified and updated
since the initial launch, but I think there's more to it.
In almost every way,
"Signalis" is a intentional, throwback, horror experience.
It's got fixed camera angles.
A protagonist with optional tank controls,
an extremely limited inventory,
and a focus on exploration of puzzles over combat.
There's enemies, but you're mostly avoiding them
rather than fighting them as your resources are thin
and the monsters just keep coming back.
(eerie music)
(gunshot cracks)
Basically, it's an old school survival horror game,
but with the addition
of a sharp anime art style and bizarre plot that,
I mean, it's some unholy combination
of "Ghost in the Shell" and "Silent Hill."
It's if sci-fi psychological horror
brought in some of that "Resident Evil" goofiness.
What's miraculous is just,
I mean, not that it was made at all,
but that it managed to catch on or remain noteworthy.
A lot of flash in the pan indie games
get a lot of buzz in a week and then everyone moves on.
"Signalis" remains in the conversation.
Its legend continues to grow even to this day.
And I think a lot of that
comes down to the games unique style and presentation.
It's also just a really good example of the genre.
"Signalis" really captures
what made those fifth generation horror games so great.
But it adds a bit of modern edge to keep things fresh.
(character murmuring)
And finally at number one, it's "Chained Echoes."
Look at the top rated games in 2022
and you see massive games like "Elden Ring,"
and "God of War Ragnarok," "Horizon Forbidden West,"
games made by some of the biggest studios in the industry.
And then there's this one you might not have heard of
sitting there among them, a little indie RPG
developed by one guy called "Chained Echoes,"
primarily by one guy anyway.
Tons of these little fan RPGs come out on Steam
on an almost daily basis,
and most of them go completely unnoticed.
Even a lot of the more ambitious ones don't really hold up.
I mean, to be fair, we're talking about games
mostly made by amateurs
trying to aid their favorite games from their youth.
Expectations from these games are not all that high.
"Chained Echoes," at first glance
looks like one of those completely forgettable
RPG bigger games, but it's much more than that.
There's a reason why this is somehow at the top rated
shortlisted 2022.
It's shockingly good, it's fully featured.
It has some impressively detailed pixel art,
like it's a full scale SNES/early PS1 style
role-playing game.
It's mostly inspired by stuff like "Xenogears"
and "Suikoden 2."
If you know anything about those games,
you know, they were dreaming big with "Chained Echoes"
and they managed to pull it off.
(triumphant music)
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