My wish? They announce they're expanding performance into 6 categories (Actor and Actress in a Sole/Primary Playable Character Role, Actor and Actress in a Secondary Playable Character Role and Actor and Actress in an NPC Role). Predictions if they switch to that framework? Actor in a Sole/Primary Playable Character Role: 1. Kaiji Tang as Ichiban Kasuga, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth (Lock) 2. Cody Christian as Cloud Strife, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth (Lock) 3. Aleks Le as Makoto Yuki, Pharos, Ryuji Mochizuki and Nyx Avatar, Persona 3 Reload (Probable) 4. Yong Yea as Kazuma Kiryu, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth (Probable) 5. Caleb Yen as Will, Metaphor: ReFantazio (Serious Alts: Luke Roberts as James Sunderland, Silent Hill 2 and Kylen Deporter as Alain, Unicorn Overlord) Actress in a Sole/Primary Playable Character Role: 1. Melina Jeurgens as Senua, Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2 2. Dawn M. Bennett as Aigis, Persona 3 Reload 3. Ashly Burch as Aloy, Lego Horizon Adventures 4. Hannah Telle as Max Caulfield, Life Is Strange: Double Exposure 5. Tara Strong as Juliet Starling, Lollipop Chainsaw: RePOP Actor in a Secondary Playable Character Role: 1. Matthew Yang King as Eric Tomizawa, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth 2. Greg Chun as Yu Nanba, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth 3. Andrew Morgado as Koichi Adachi, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth 4. Robbie Daymond as Tianyou Zhao, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth 5. Keong Sim as Joongi Han, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth (Serious Alts: Alejandro Saab as Akihiko Sanada, Persona 3 Reload, Tyler Hoechlin as Sephiroth, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Phillipe Spall as Heismay Noctule, Metaphor: ReFantazio, Zeno Robinson as Junpei Iori, Persona 3 Reload, Max Mittelman as Red XIII/Nanaki, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth) Actress in a Secondary Playable Character Role: 1. Elizabeth Maxwell as Saeko Mukoda, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth 2. Suzie Yeung as Chitose Fujinomiya, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth 3. Fiona Rene as Seonhee, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth 4. Allegra Clark as Mitsuru Kirijo, Persona 3 Reload 5. Kristin Atheron as Eiselin Burchelli Mejial Hulkenberg, Metaphor: ReFantazio (Serious Alts: Lizzie Freeman and Justine Lee as Metis and Ken Amada, Persona 3 Reload) Actor in an NPC Role: 1. Dave B. Mitchell as Dyne, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth 2. Daniel Dae Kim as Mastaka Ebina, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth 3. Jake Green as Shuji Ikutski, Persona 3 Reload 4. Greg Chun as More, Metaphor: ReFantazio 5. Chris Hackney as Jin Shirato, Persona 3 Reload (Serious Alts: Matt Berry as Herbert, Thank Goodness You're Here, Joseph Tweedale as Louis, Metaphor: ReFantazio) Actress in an NPC Role: 1. Alejandra Reynoso as Gallica, Metaphor: ReFantazio 2. Piper Reese as Elena, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth 3. Patti Yasutake as Akane Kishida, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth 4. Tara Platt as Elizabeth, Persona 3 Reload 5. Merit Leighton as Chidori Yoshino, Persona 3 Reload (Serious Alts: No one.)
Oh and heres my prediction for audio, surprised you guys didn't cover this. Audio Design: 1. Hellblade 2. Astrobot 3. Warhammer 4. Black ops 5. Helldivers 2 Usually this gets alot of nominations from action games. But i think this is the only award given to Hellblade, people still really enjoyed the audio design here. A sleeper pick could be Astrobot as i do think that has some fantastic audio design in it simular to Hi Fi rush. Heres some predictions for the winners of the other awards: Community: BG3 Ongoing: Fortnite Mobile: ZZZ VR: Batman Arkham Shadows Family: Astrobot Sim/Strategy: Ara History Untold or Frostpunk 2 Debut Indie: Animal Well or Balatro Fighting: Tekken 8 Players Voice: Wukong Impact: Life is Strange Double Exposure
My Current Predictions: Astro Bot (My Favorite to win) Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth (Probably will win) Metaphor: ReFantazio (Strong 93% on metacritic) Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom (Nintendo almost always has a horse in the race) Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth (Strong 89% on metacritic and was nominated for most anticipated game last year) Dragon Age: The Veilguard (If it ends up being great I could see if being nominated as a comeback narrative for BioWare. On top of Dragon Age Inquisition winning GOTY back in 2014 could be enough to push it into the final six.
I’m seeing a 3 way battle between Rebirth, Metaphor and Astrobot. I think the two rpgs might have an advantage as connecting with characters and story could be more powerful than a really well made fun platformer. Journalists are writers and I think there will always be a leaning to games with strong stories/writing over fun gameplay.
Yeah those 3 are 100% locks imo. You’re not wrong about story being favored over gameplay in a lot of cases. I think of Plague Tale Req being nominated in 2022… one of my favorite stories in gaming history, but not the strongest from a gameplay standpoint
I really hope Metaphor sweeps. I also agree that Gallica should get nominated for best performance (or Louis, cause man what an incredible performance for an incredible villain!)
No Astro Bot or Neva for best art direction? Both of those games are undeniably gorgeous and I don’t think either of them will miss that category. Tbh, I think you guys are vastly underestimating Astro Bot as a whole. Ps: DLC’s aren’t eligible for big categories so I would take Erdtree out of the predictions.
Phantom Liberty was nominated last year for best narrative, I wish they weren’t eligible www.cdprojekt.com/en/media/news/cyberpunk-2077-crowned-at-the-game-awards-2023/
My GoTY predictions are: Astro Bot, FF7 Rebirth, Metaphor, Silent Hill 2, Helldivers 2, and Black Myth Wukong. I personally feel like these are the games that created the biggest splash this year and the only one I could see possibly making the list in place of one of these is Dragon Age. Who knows though, I could be way off lol
Your list is mostly spot on, but i dont think Helldivers is going to make it. It had its fair share of bad PR due to its server mismanagement and issues with Sony. Also its multiplayer only and those games basically never make it into the goty category unless its a universally acclaimed game like Overwatch back in 2016 or its genre defining like PUBG back in 2019 (no idea how that made it in..)
@@pandagrog8957 Yeah that’s a good point. It stands a good chance of not making the cut. If it is in fact gone, then my next guess would be Dragon Age.
I could see it. I think Rebirth, Metaphor, and Astro are locks. I could see the other 3 going a number of different ways. Which is actually much more exciting to me
@@poett8875 dragged down by several "60" reviews whose main complaints are "no women characters" - ScreenRant and "an insulting pig character" - EuroGamer. One should really look into the individual reviews and who wrote them.
If Black Myth: Wukong is not nominated people are going to lose it. I’d be surprised if it doesn’t get a nod. Balatro is a good pick because it’s always a good look to put an indie on GOTY nomination. I think the weakest links are definitely erdree for being DLC. And Tekken 8 because fighting games never get much love in GOTY nominations. Just like racing and multiplayer only titles. Infinite wealth is another JRPG in a year with FF7 and Metaphor. Silent Hill 2 and helldivers 2 deserve a shout too. It’s tough because all the ones discussed deserve a spot. My predictions 1. FF7 Rebirth 2. Metaphor 3. Astrobot 4. Balatro 5. Black Myth Wukong 6. Dragon age 4
I could see that 6 for sure. I feel like Astro, FF7, & Metaphor are locks. The other 3 I’m really unsure on. I wish I played Wukong, so that I could speak on it a bit more… but the second best selling game of the year should hold some weight
@@UnnecessaryRambling I 100% agree with you on the top 3. I haven’t played Wukong either. It’s the vibes I’m picking up. Definitely a cult following. Especially with all the momentum it’s getting from streamers.
I was waiting to do my list after Dragon Age, cause the reception to that game will basically lock the nominations in. But yall are doing it now so i guess il throw my hat into the ring lol. GOTY: 1. FF7 Rebirth 2. Astrobot 3. Metaphor 4. Wukong 5. Dragon Age 6. Infinite Wealth For the win, Its a toss up between Astro Meta and FF7 so those are all locks for getting nominations. IW, DA and Wukong are not locked. Wukong very successful and i think most voters will vote for it in the last two slots it also gets into pretty much every single category it can get into. Tekken 8 has no chance weird pick from loon there. Balatro is definitely winning Indie so out of all of the indies it has the biggest chance to enter into the nominations. If Erdtree is allowed then it definitely gets into the nominations, but like i said before, it wont win. Slient hill 2, Persona 3 Reloaded, Balatro, could make it in on a lucky day. Game Direction: 1. FF7 Rebirth 2. Astrobot 3. Metaphor 4. Dragon Age 5. Erdtree Still dont understand this category but i assume it goes to whatever game wins GOTY. Narrative: 1. FF7 Rebirth 2. Metaphor 3. Slient Hill 4. Dragon Age 5. Persona 3 Reload Yakuza wont get a nomination its to weird and unserious for voters sadly. P3 and Slient hill have a lot of love narrative wise. But overall its a duel between Metaphor and FF7 Art Direction: 1. Astrobot 2. Metaphor 3. Wukong 4. FF7 5. Hellblade I think it goes to Astrobot in a close race against Metaphor and Wukong. Wukong has some very amazing anime/animation cutscenes that are legit mindblowing seriously if you dont think your going to play it, just look up some of these scenes. Music: 1. FF7 2. Wukong 3. Metaphor 4. Astro 5. Persona 3 Reloaded This category is so fucking stacked everyone of these deserves the win. But its super close that its hard to predict the winner. Wukong has some fantastic music videos that make up everyone's favorite parts of the game, Astro's music really stands out because of the upbeat nature of the game, P3 Reloaded has one of the best soundtracks of all time that alot of voters will be nostalgic for, Metaphor has some very memorable battle music that is very unique ( i seriously cannot get the opera rapping battle music out of my head). FF7 is just slightly over the others here due to it winning over some of the best soundtracks of all time in 2020. Performance: (i honestly dont know feels like nothing really popped out this year to me) 1. Hellblade 2. Dragon Age Companion 3. Dragon Age companion 4. FF7 Character 5 FF7 Character No idea if they would ever nominate anyone whos not english speaking. But Kiryu or Ichban deserves it and Metaphor/P3R being two languages also really screws over the nominations in who to pick :(. Indie: 1 Balatro 2. Animal Well 3. Plucky 4. Neva 5. 1000X Resist Palword cant be nominated since its Early Access same for Hades 2. Balatro wins this. Action: 1. Helldivers 2. WarhammerSM 3. Stellar Blade 4. Black Ops 5. Dragon Age Action Adventure 1. Wukong 2. Erdtree 3. FF7 Rebirth 4. Infinite Wealth 5. Metaphor RPG 1. Metaphor 2. FF7 3. Infinite Wealth 4. Erdtree 5. Dragon Age Honestly all of these categories are super different in their meaning to everyone so its really hard to predict it every year. Action should go to Helldivers or Warhammer, RPG should be locked for Metaphor, ActionAdventure should be Erdtree or Wukong. Anticipated: 1. GTA 6 2. Doom 3. Death Stranding 2 3. Monster Hunter 4 Ghosts of Yotei 5. I think GTA 6 has a hard category! Adaptation: 1. Fallout 2. Arcane S2 3. Tomb Raider 4. Yakuza 5. Knuckles So it seems like Yakuza is a stinker so that wont win. Its basically between Fallout and Arcane. Arcane won already so it has that as a negative and positive but it also comes out during november right before people vote, so people are going to have it fresh in their minds. Im still going Fallout cause people generally like Fallout over League in the general gaming community.
Love it dude!! Appreciate you jotting your full list out. One I forgot about for best performance was the lady who played Indika, in Indika lol. I know it’s a much smaller game, but easily one of my favorite performances of the year. I’m kinda with you on best game direction as well, I’ve never understood how they analyze that… because to me, as great as Rebirth is, I don’t feel like it’s really doing anything super unique from a game direction standpoint. Or I guess I should say, I don’t think it’s doing anything super unique from a game direction standpoint, that wasn’t already there with Part 1. I’d love to see more indies in this category, because I feel like they’re inherently more impacted by a directors vision, as the teams are small enough to allow for that… I feel like GOTY is a real toss up this year, which makes it much more fun imo. We’ll be doing our final predictions once everything is officially nominated. So you don’t have to lock in those winners just yet haha
@@UnnecessaryRambling Agree with you on the direction its just a award for Kojima i guess lol. Having a tossup is going to be real fun especially because the last two years were pretty obvious with BG3 and Elden Ring.
GOTY - Wukong (The 100-scoring aspects knock it out of the park) Game Direction - Rebirth (just much more mature than Wukong in terms of game design execution) Narrative - Wukong (deep theme, takes risks to innovate storytelling techniques by using multiple fine art forms) Art Direction - Wukong (multiple art forms, distinct from all previously seen western/japanese art designs) Score and Music - Rebirth (no one beats Square Enix in scoring, but if there's separate category for songs, I'd give it to Wukong) Audio Design - Wukong (the sonic cues are just clearer than Rebirth, better if you have surround sound setup, even better with Dolby Atmos) Performance - Aerith (I was mesmerized by this character for 3 months) I was persoanlly torn for GOTY between Rebirth and Wukong, but I think this is the best result for both my beloved games. If Rebirth wins GOTY, there is a massively decreased chance for FF7R3 to win GOTY, and I would love to see FF7R series to win GOTY at its peak, like how Return of the King swept that year's Oscars. We already know FF7R3 will be better than Rebirth, but by how much? Will it be enough to win GOTY again? We know Tears of the Kingdom didnt, and Ragnarok didnt (more mature than 2018 albeit underwhelming ending). This is merely my hope, as in reality I know Wukong will probably get only 1-2 nominations and Player's Voice Award at best. Thanks to shallow 50/60-ish review hit pieces smearing "no female character" "insulting pig man", even player community are citing the low 81 Metacritic score as if these reviews are source of truth. This is us playing right into their journalism game - by lowering review scores despite player popularity, with enough time the broader player community will peacefully accept without an uproar that Wukong wins nothing. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Longer reviews - I only dedicatedly played Rebirth and Wukong, but have insights to several other popular games. Rebirth: I love everything about FF7R, its world, characters, gameplay, story and music. It carried on with the innovative combat from Remake. Minigames are great if one can quench the thirst for platinum, and simply enjoy them for the sake of storytelling. Many will say remakes should not be nominated, but the likes of FF7R, the only category they are arguably not qualified for is Narrative. Everything else says it's a new game in its own right. Wukong: GOTY. If Rebirth is evenly 90-95 across all aspects, Wukong is unevenly 85-100 across all aspects. It is a perfect blending between Sony Hollywood style and FromSoftware Souls style, in both gameplay(85-90) and storytelling(90-95). On top of that ARPG formula, they infused in the essences which make it distinct from any other games in the market - namely Chinese music(85), songs(95), art design(95), and innovative short animations(100). There is no better media that one can delve into Chinese mythology in one whole package. The studio transcends making just a game by integrating even more art forms - last game that succeeded this was GoW 2018 by perfecting cinematics. The moral of the story(100) is as deep as the novel it is based on. For the first time, I see potential of videos game to be highly regarded up there with other fine art forms. AstroBot: I'm Sony fanboy but didn't buy. I dont think this game can give me new experiences as I played the Dualsense demo game and Nintendo games. The Sony characters fan services wont justify the $60 but short experience. I'd appreciate it more if Sony does their due delegence to promote Dualsense features so more 3rd party games adopt them. I'd also appreciate if Sony unlocks Dualsense native Win11 support. Erdtree: I'm Souls fanboy but didn't play. I dont thinks this game can give me new experiences as I had 250 hours in Elden Ring. I bought the DLC but simply find it hard to shake hands with Miquella until a later day when we havent seen for a while another Miyazaki Souls game. Also the game notoriously had balancing issue with enemies too strong. Above all, a non-innovative DLC of a past GOTY game should not be nominated at all. A DLC should be nominated only when it completely transforms a previously mediocre game. I'm not talking about "qualified" but "nominated" - difference being rule-based and committee-based. Metaphor: I played demo but still cant relate to Atlus games. Turn based combat is too slow for real time action gamers. I read the story and find it lacking depth and chunibyo at best. Music-wise, no one beats Square Enix. I heard from P5 fans Metaphor is worse in map design. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- More about this gen of gaming and awards. It's a great shame PS5 is past its prime time. This is evident in that PS5 cant do graphics justice for my two biggest games this year. Rebirth on PS5 with 60fps mode is blurry af, like 720p. If you are waiting for Wukong disc, despite them claiming it to be the whole package, I suggest lowering your expectations. From streams, Wukong looked better than Rebirth in terms of resolution, but it has its own latency issue. I played on PC so I dont know how bad it is and if they fixed it, or the eventual fix can make it into the disc. When Rebirth was out, I was quite disappointed in Square Enix, assuming they did a poor optimization. But with Wukong reviewed poorly on PS5, I think it is either PS5 is just too lame for 3rd party to optimize or Sony did a bad job in supporting them - even for exclusive titles like Rebirth and platform-promoted titles like Wukong. TGA does not give technical awards but I'm not sure if these have impact on giving awards. This brings to the other topic of D.I.C.E Awards. I actually pay more attention to D.I.C.E since it is academy awards - like that Academy Awards. It has a longer and continuous history. It also awards technical achievements. Horizon and Insomniac titles that never get love from TGA get a lot more from D.I.C.E. Spiderman 2 was so riduculed last year for not winning anything in TGA, but it got more than BG3 in D.I.C.E. It is also more sensical to trust D.I.C.E committee - people who creators games - than to trust TGA committee - people who are media between creators and players. Only two types of awards are reliable - one made up of purely developers, one made up of purely players. Media should do just the job of being a media, and having them on Metacritic is enough. It is redundant to have an award to parrot what they already said throughout the year. If any participation of journalists is needed during the award season, it should be for developers and players to give game awards, meanwhile judge if the reviewers were doing a good job.
To be honest, I am not super impressed with the slate of AAA major releases this year. Even for Metaphor I do not like turn based games or the art style. Just not my thing I like the indies much better! Animal Well, Another Crabs Treasure, Dungeons of Hinterberg, Neva, and Balatro are among my favorite games this year.
metaphor sweeping the awards
I think it will be nominated for almost everything
My wish? They announce they're expanding performance into 6 categories (Actor and Actress in a Sole/Primary Playable Character Role, Actor and Actress in a Secondary Playable Character Role and Actor and Actress in an NPC Role).
Predictions if they switch to that framework?
Actor in a Sole/Primary Playable Character Role:
1. Kaiji Tang as Ichiban Kasuga, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth (Lock)
2. Cody Christian as Cloud Strife, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth (Lock)
3. Aleks Le as Makoto Yuki, Pharos, Ryuji Mochizuki and Nyx Avatar, Persona 3 Reload (Probable)
4. Yong Yea as Kazuma Kiryu, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth (Probable)
5. Caleb Yen as Will, Metaphor: ReFantazio
(Serious Alts: Luke Roberts as James Sunderland, Silent Hill 2 and Kylen Deporter as Alain, Unicorn Overlord)
Actress in a Sole/Primary Playable Character Role:
1. Melina Jeurgens as Senua, Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2
2. Dawn M. Bennett as Aigis, Persona 3 Reload
3. Ashly Burch as Aloy, Lego Horizon Adventures
4. Hannah Telle as Max Caulfield, Life Is Strange: Double Exposure
5. Tara Strong as Juliet Starling, Lollipop Chainsaw: RePOP
Actor in a Secondary Playable Character Role:
1. Matthew Yang King as Eric Tomizawa, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth
2. Greg Chun as Yu Nanba, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth
3. Andrew Morgado as Koichi Adachi, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth
4. Robbie Daymond as Tianyou Zhao, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth
5. Keong Sim as Joongi Han, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth
(Serious Alts: Alejandro Saab as Akihiko Sanada, Persona 3 Reload, Tyler Hoechlin as Sephiroth, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Phillipe Spall as Heismay Noctule, Metaphor: ReFantazio, Zeno Robinson as Junpei Iori, Persona 3 Reload, Max Mittelman as Red XIII/Nanaki, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth)
Actress in a Secondary Playable Character Role:
1. Elizabeth Maxwell as Saeko Mukoda, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth
2. Suzie Yeung as Chitose Fujinomiya, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth
3. Fiona Rene as Seonhee, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth
4. Allegra Clark as Mitsuru Kirijo, Persona 3 Reload
5. Kristin Atheron as Eiselin Burchelli Mejial Hulkenberg, Metaphor: ReFantazio
(Serious Alts: Lizzie Freeman and Justine Lee as Metis and Ken Amada, Persona 3 Reload)
Actor in an NPC Role:
1. Dave B. Mitchell as Dyne, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
2. Daniel Dae Kim as Mastaka Ebina, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth
3. Jake Green as Shuji Ikutski, Persona 3 Reload
4. Greg Chun as More, Metaphor: ReFantazio
5. Chris Hackney as Jin Shirato, Persona 3 Reload
(Serious Alts: Matt Berry as Herbert, Thank Goodness You're Here, Joseph Tweedale as Louis, Metaphor: ReFantazio)
Actress in an NPC Role:
1. Alejandra Reynoso as Gallica, Metaphor: ReFantazio
2. Piper Reese as Elena, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
3. Patti Yasutake as Akane Kishida, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth
4. Tara Platt as Elizabeth, Persona 3 Reload
5. Merit Leighton as Chidori Yoshino, Persona 3 Reload
(Serious Alts: No one.)
Oh and heres my prediction for audio, surprised you guys didn't cover this.
Audio Design: 1. Hellblade 2. Astrobot 3. Warhammer 4. Black ops 5. Helldivers 2
Usually this gets alot of nominations from action games. But i think this is the only award given to Hellblade, people still really enjoyed the audio design here. A sleeper pick could be Astrobot as i do think that has some fantastic audio design in it simular to Hi Fi rush.
Heres some predictions for the winners of the other awards:
Community: BG3
Ongoing: Fortnite
Mobile: ZZZ
VR: Batman Arkham Shadows
Family: Astrobot
Sim/Strategy: Ara History Untold or Frostpunk 2
Debut Indie: Animal Well or Balatro
Fighting: Tekken 8
Players Voice: Wukong
Impact: Life is Strange Double Exposure
We should’ve threw audio design in there forsure. Great picks, could see Silent Hill 2 getting a nod there as well.
The voice actress for Maxine is Hannah Telle in Lis: Double Exposure.
My dumb ass lol. My bad, I hadn’t played the game when I made this list
For adaptation, seeing as FNAF didn't release in time to be nominated last year, I'm assuming they're going to this time around.
My Current Predictions:
Astro Bot (My Favorite to win)
Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth (Probably will win)
Metaphor: ReFantazio (Strong 93% on metacritic)
Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom (Nintendo almost always has a horse in the race)
Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth (Strong 89% on metacritic and was nominated for most anticipated game last year)
Dragon Age: The Veilguard (If it ends up being great I could see if being nominated as a comeback narrative for BioWare. On top of Dragon Age Inquisition winning GOTY back in 2014 could be enough to push it into the final six.
It’d be crazy for BioWare to comeback and win GOTY 10 years later… I’m so hopeful that game will be good lol. Solid picks tho homie!
I’m seeing a 3 way battle between Rebirth, Metaphor and Astrobot.
I think the two rpgs might have an advantage as connecting with characters and story could be more powerful than a really well made fun platformer.
Journalists are writers and I think there will always be a leaning to games with strong stories/writing over fun gameplay.
Yeah those 3 are 100% locks imo. You’re not wrong about story being favored over gameplay in a lot of cases. I think of Plague Tale Req being nominated in 2022… one of my favorite stories in gaming history, but not the strongest from a gameplay standpoint
I really hope Metaphor sweeps. I also agree that Gallica should get nominated for best performance (or Louis, cause man what an incredible performance for an incredible villain!)
Absolutely. So many great performances in that game, could see it going to like 3 or 4 different characters
Louis is a great pick. If anyone deserves a nom for this game its him!
No Astro Bot or Neva for best art direction? Both of those games are undeniably gorgeous and I don’t think either of them will miss that category. Tbh, I think you guys are vastly underestimating Astro Bot as a whole.
Ps: DLC’s aren’t eligible for big categories so I would take Erdtree out of the predictions.
Phantom Liberty was nominated last year for best narrative, I wish they weren’t eligible www.cdprojekt.com/en/media/news/cyberpunk-2077-crowned-at-the-game-awards-2023/
My GoTY predictions are: Astro Bot, FF7 Rebirth, Metaphor, Silent Hill 2, Helldivers 2, and Black Myth Wukong.
I personally feel like these are the games that created the biggest splash this year and the only one I could see possibly making the list in place of one of these is Dragon Age. Who knows though, I could be way off lol
Your list is mostly spot on, but i dont think Helldivers is going to make it. It had its fair share of bad PR due to its server mismanagement and issues with Sony. Also its multiplayer only and those games basically never make it into the goty category unless its a universally acclaimed game like Overwatch back in 2016 or its genre defining like PUBG back in 2019 (no idea how that made it in..)
@@pandagrog8957 Yeah that’s a good point. It stands a good chance of not making the cut. If it is in fact gone, then my next guess would be Dragon Age.
I could see it. I think Rebirth, Metaphor, and Astro are locks. I could see the other 3 going a number of different ways. Which is actually much more exciting to me
I think Wukong is going to be the game that gets nominated for best game direction but not GOTY. Its metacritic score is too low.
@@poett8875 dragged down by several "60" reviews whose main complaints are "no women characters" - ScreenRant and "an insulting pig character" - EuroGamer. One should really look into the individual reviews and who wrote them.
If Black Myth: Wukong is not nominated people are going to lose it. I’d be surprised if it doesn’t get a nod. Balatro is a good pick because it’s always a good look to put an indie on GOTY nomination. I think the weakest links are definitely erdree for being DLC. And Tekken 8 because fighting games never get much love in GOTY nominations. Just like racing and multiplayer only titles. Infinite wealth is another JRPG in a year with FF7 and Metaphor. Silent Hill 2 and helldivers 2 deserve a shout too. It’s tough because all the ones discussed deserve a spot. My predictions
1. FF7 Rebirth
2. Metaphor
3. Astrobot
4. Balatro
5. Black Myth Wukong
6. Dragon age 4
I could see that 6 for sure. I feel like Astro, FF7, & Metaphor are locks. The other 3 I’m really unsure on. I wish I played Wukong, so that I could speak on it a bit more… but the second best selling game of the year should hold some weight
@@UnnecessaryRambling I 100% agree with you on the top 3. I haven’t played Wukong either. It’s the vibes I’m picking up. Definitely a cult following. Especially with all the momentum it’s getting from streamers.
I was waiting to do my list after Dragon Age, cause the reception to that game will basically lock the nominations in. But yall are doing it now so i guess il throw my hat into the ring lol.
GOTY: 1. FF7 Rebirth 2. Astrobot 3. Metaphor 4. Wukong 5. Dragon Age 6. Infinite Wealth
For the win, Its a toss up between Astro Meta and FF7 so those are all locks for getting nominations. IW, DA and Wukong are not locked. Wukong very successful and i think most voters will vote for it in the last two slots it also gets into pretty much every single category it can get into. Tekken 8 has no chance weird pick from loon there. Balatro is definitely winning Indie so out of all of the indies it has the biggest chance to enter into the nominations. If Erdtree is allowed then it definitely gets into the nominations, but like i said before, it wont win. Slient hill 2, Persona 3 Reloaded, Balatro, could make it in on a lucky day.
Game Direction: 1. FF7 Rebirth 2. Astrobot 3. Metaphor 4. Dragon Age 5. Erdtree
Still dont understand this category but i assume it goes to whatever game wins GOTY.
Narrative: 1. FF7 Rebirth 2. Metaphor 3. Slient Hill 4. Dragon Age 5. Persona 3 Reload
Yakuza wont get a nomination its to weird and unserious for voters sadly. P3 and Slient hill have a lot of love narrative wise. But overall its a duel between Metaphor and FF7
Art Direction: 1. Astrobot 2. Metaphor 3. Wukong 4. FF7 5. Hellblade
I think it goes to Astrobot in a close race against Metaphor and Wukong. Wukong has some very amazing anime/animation cutscenes that are legit mindblowing seriously if you dont think your going to play it, just look up some of these scenes.
Music: 1. FF7 2. Wukong 3. Metaphor 4. Astro 5. Persona 3 Reloaded
This category is so fucking stacked everyone of these deserves the win. But its super close that its hard to predict the winner. Wukong has some fantastic music videos that make up everyone's favorite parts of the game, Astro's music really stands out because of the upbeat nature of the game, P3 Reloaded has one of the best soundtracks of all time that alot of voters will be nostalgic for, Metaphor has some very memorable battle music that is very unique ( i seriously cannot get the opera rapping battle music out of my head). FF7 is just slightly over the others here due to it winning over some of the best soundtracks of all time in 2020.
Performance: (i honestly dont know feels like nothing really popped out this year to me) 1. Hellblade 2. Dragon Age Companion 3. Dragon Age companion 4. FF7 Character 5 FF7 Character
No idea if they would ever nominate anyone whos not english speaking. But Kiryu or Ichban deserves it and Metaphor/P3R being two languages also really screws over the nominations in who to pick :(.
Indie: 1 Balatro 2. Animal Well 3. Plucky 4. Neva 5. 1000X Resist
Palword cant be nominated since its Early Access same for Hades 2. Balatro wins this.
Action: 1. Helldivers 2. WarhammerSM 3. Stellar Blade 4. Black Ops 5. Dragon Age
Action Adventure 1. Wukong 2. Erdtree 3. FF7 Rebirth 4. Infinite Wealth 5. Metaphor
RPG 1. Metaphor 2. FF7 3. Infinite Wealth 4. Erdtree 5. Dragon Age
Honestly all of these categories are super different in their meaning to everyone so its really hard to predict it every year. Action should go to Helldivers or Warhammer, RPG should be locked for Metaphor, ActionAdventure should be Erdtree or Wukong.
Anticipated: 1. GTA 6 2. Doom 3. Death Stranding 2 3. Monster Hunter 4 Ghosts of Yotei 5.
I think GTA 6 has a hard category!
Adaptation: 1. Fallout 2. Arcane S2 3. Tomb Raider 4. Yakuza 5. Knuckles
So it seems like Yakuza is a stinker so that wont win. Its basically between Fallout and Arcane. Arcane won already so it has that as a negative and positive but it also comes out during november right before people vote, so people are going to have it fresh in their minds. Im still going Fallout cause people generally like Fallout over League in the general gaming community.
Love it dude!! Appreciate you jotting your full list out. One I forgot about for best performance was the lady who played Indika, in Indika lol. I know it’s a much smaller game, but easily one of my favorite performances of the year. I’m kinda with you on best game direction as well, I’ve never understood how they analyze that… because to me, as great as Rebirth is, I don’t feel like it’s really doing anything super unique from a game direction standpoint. Or I guess I should say, I don’t think it’s doing anything super unique from a game direction standpoint, that wasn’t already there with Part 1. I’d love to see more indies in this category, because I feel like they’re inherently more impacted by a directors vision, as the teams are small enough to allow for that… I feel like GOTY is a real toss up this year, which makes it much more fun imo. We’ll be doing our final predictions once everything is officially nominated. So you don’t have to lock in those winners just yet haha
@@UnnecessaryRambling Agree with you on the direction its just a award for Kojima i guess lol. Having a tossup is going to be real fun especially because the last two years were pretty obvious with BG3 and Elden Ring.
No Neva for Art Direction or Music?
@@poett8875 indie games very rarely get nominated for tech/art awards at the Game Awards. Which i very much disagree with.
@@pandagrog8957Gris was nominated for best art direction in 2019 and Neva reviewed even better than it did. I highly doubt Neva will get snubbed.
GOTY - Wukong (The 100-scoring aspects knock it out of the park)
Game Direction - Rebirth (just much more mature than Wukong in terms of game design execution)
Narrative - Wukong (deep theme, takes risks to innovate storytelling techniques by using multiple fine art forms)
Art Direction - Wukong (multiple art forms, distinct from all previously seen western/japanese art designs)
Score and Music - Rebirth (no one beats Square Enix in scoring, but if there's separate category for songs, I'd give it to Wukong)
Audio Design - Wukong (the sonic cues are just clearer than Rebirth, better if you have surround sound setup, even better with Dolby Atmos)
Performance - Aerith (I was mesmerized by this character for 3 months)
I was persoanlly torn for GOTY between Rebirth and Wukong, but I think this is the best result for both my beloved games. If Rebirth wins GOTY, there is a massively decreased chance for FF7R3 to win GOTY, and I would love to see FF7R series to win GOTY at its peak, like how Return of the King swept that year's Oscars. We already know FF7R3 will be better than Rebirth, but by how much? Will it be enough to win GOTY again? We know Tears of the Kingdom didnt, and Ragnarok didnt (more mature than 2018 albeit underwhelming ending).
This is merely my hope, as in reality I know Wukong will probably get only 1-2 nominations and Player's Voice Award at best. Thanks to shallow 50/60-ish review hit pieces smearing "no female character" "insulting pig man", even player community are citing the low 81 Metacritic score as if these reviews are source of truth. This is us playing right into their journalism game - by lowering review scores despite player popularity, with enough time the broader player community will peacefully accept without an uproar that Wukong wins nothing.
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Longer reviews - I only dedicatedly played Rebirth and Wukong, but have insights to several other popular games.
Rebirth: I love everything about FF7R, its world, characters, gameplay, story and music. It carried on with the innovative combat from Remake. Minigames are great if one can quench the thirst for platinum, and simply enjoy them for the sake of storytelling. Many will say remakes should not be nominated, but the likes of FF7R, the only category they are arguably not qualified for is Narrative. Everything else says it's a new game in its own right.
Wukong: GOTY. If Rebirth is evenly 90-95 across all aspects, Wukong is unevenly 85-100 across all aspects. It is a perfect blending between Sony Hollywood style and FromSoftware Souls style, in both gameplay(85-90) and storytelling(90-95). On top of that ARPG formula, they infused in the essences which make it distinct from any other games in the market - namely Chinese music(85), songs(95), art design(95), and innovative short animations(100). There is no better media that one can delve into Chinese mythology in one whole package. The studio transcends making just a game by integrating even more art forms - last game that succeeded this was GoW 2018 by perfecting cinematics. The moral of the story(100) is as deep as the novel it is based on. For the first time, I see potential of videos game to be highly regarded up there with other fine art forms.
AstroBot: I'm Sony fanboy but didn't buy. I dont think this game can give me new experiences as I played the Dualsense demo game and Nintendo games. The Sony characters fan services wont justify the $60 but short experience. I'd appreciate it more if Sony does their due delegence to promote Dualsense features so more 3rd party games adopt them. I'd also appreciate if Sony unlocks Dualsense native Win11 support.
Erdtree: I'm Souls fanboy but didn't play. I dont thinks this game can give me new experiences as I had 250 hours in Elden Ring. I bought the DLC but simply find it hard to shake hands with Miquella until a later day when we havent seen for a while another Miyazaki Souls game. Also the game notoriously had balancing issue with enemies too strong. Above all, a non-innovative DLC of a past GOTY game should not be nominated at all. A DLC should be nominated only when it completely transforms a previously mediocre game. I'm not talking about "qualified" but "nominated" - difference being rule-based and committee-based.
Metaphor: I played demo but still cant relate to Atlus games. Turn based combat is too slow for real time action gamers. I read the story and find it lacking depth and chunibyo at best. Music-wise, no one beats Square Enix. I heard from P5 fans Metaphor is worse in map design.
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More about this gen of gaming and awards.
It's a great shame PS5 is past its prime time. This is evident in that PS5 cant do graphics justice for my two biggest games this year. Rebirth on PS5 with 60fps mode is blurry af, like 720p. If you are waiting for Wukong disc, despite them claiming it to be the whole package, I suggest lowering your expectations. From streams, Wukong looked better than Rebirth in terms of resolution, but it has its own latency issue. I played on PC so I dont know how bad it is and if they fixed it, or the eventual fix can make it into the disc. When Rebirth was out, I was quite disappointed in Square Enix, assuming they did a poor optimization. But with Wukong reviewed poorly on PS5, I think it is either PS5 is just too lame for 3rd party to optimize or Sony did a bad job in supporting them - even for exclusive titles like Rebirth and platform-promoted titles like Wukong. TGA does not give technical awards but I'm not sure if these have impact on giving awards.
This brings to the other topic of D.I.C.E Awards. I actually pay more attention to D.I.C.E since it is academy awards - like that Academy Awards. It has a longer and continuous history. It also awards technical achievements. Horizon and Insomniac titles that never get love from TGA get a lot more from D.I.C.E. Spiderman 2 was so riduculed last year for not winning anything in TGA, but it got more than BG3 in D.I.C.E. It is also more sensical to trust D.I.C.E committee - people who creators games - than to trust TGA committee - people who are media between creators and players. Only two types of awards are reliable - one made up of purely developers, one made up of purely players. Media should do just the job of being a media, and having them on Metacritic is enough. It is redundant to have an award to parrot what they already said throughout the year. If any participation of journalists is needed during the award season, it should be for developers and players to give game awards, meanwhile judge if the reviewers were doing a good job.
I love metaphor. But I want rebirth to win
It’s a toss up, wouldn’t be shocked at all if Rebirth won it tho.
@@UnnecessaryRambling recency bias is powerful
@@alex1212456not all the time. It Takes Two and Elden Ring both released at the beginning of their respective years and still won.
To be honest, I am not super impressed with the slate of AAA major releases this year. Even for Metaphor I do not like turn based games or the art style. Just not my thing
I like the indies much better! Animal Well, Another Crabs Treasure, Dungeons of Hinterberg, Neva, and Balatro are among my favorite games this year.
Nothing wrong with that at all. It’s been an incredible year for indies .