We can’t close the book on 2019 without wrapping things up with our annual award ceremony here at Twinfinite. We’re taking a look at the best action-adventure game of 2019, honoring the titles that have shone brightest and crowning one the year’s best.
Voted on by our editors, the following games stand tall as exemplary titles that both entertained us and/or pushed the genre forward in meaningful ways.
Best Action-Adventure Games 2019
Honorable Mention: Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
Features Editor Greysun Morales: FromSoftware’s new IP, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, sort of steered away from the RPG components that people were familiar with in Dark Souls and went towards the more fast-paced action route that made players focus more on parrying than anything else.
Exploring the gorgeous setting of Feudal Japan and encountering strange and powerful creatures and other humans really made it feel like a wondrous fantasy world that was full of unexpected surprises and the combat truly sticks in your mind even after months of playing it.
There was no better feeling than hitting that button and successfully parrying against a deadly sword attack from an enemy and then proceed to perform a Mikiri Counter to deal damage.
With each swing of the blade and each swift movement, fighting any enemy was more than just hacking and slashing away –you really have to think about what your next move is while also carefully anticipating the next move from your opponent.
Sekiro is a game all about precision and balance and stamina and just being aware of your surroundings. Everything it tries to do is executed quite effortlessly and it may seem like a simple ninja action game from the outside, but once you jump in, you will soon start to realize that it’s much more than that. Sekiro’s slick combat is the definition of satisfying and the challenge that it presents to players is delightfully balanced.
Best Action-Adventure Games 2019
Honorable Mention: Devil May Cry 5
Senior Editor Hayes Madsen: Devil May Cry helped invent the character action genre, and it’s long been known or ridiculously stylish action. Devil May Cry V ups that style to the umpteenth degree, with a game that just oozes slick style out of every pore.
Taking place after the events of DMC 2, DMC 5 has you controlling three different characters; series poster boy Dante, Nero from the previous game, and a newcomer named V.Each of these characters has an entirely unique playstyle, but they each have intense fast-paced action.
Nero focuses on aerial attacks and stringing combos together, V uses demon familiars to assault enemies, and Dante has a wide variety of weapons to batter enemies with.DMC 5 is built on the same engine Capcom used for Resident Evil 2, and despite being utterly gorgeous, the game manages to run at a crips frame rate without even a hitch.
Fantastic boss battles, kickin’ music, and varied enemy design are just a few of the reasons Devil May Cry 5 is one of the greatest action games ever made.
Best Action-Adventure Games 2019
Second Runner Up: Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order
Senior Editor Hayes Madsen: It’s been years since we’ve had a true single-player Star Wars game, and boy does Jedi Fallen Order do its best to make up for that. Taking inspiration from a wide array of other games, like Dark Souls and Metroid, Jedi Fallen Order lets you explore planets new and old in the Star Wars universe.
Exploration is a surprisingly huge part of the game, and the various Force abilities you unlock let you return to previous planets to find new secrets and stories. On the action side of things, Lightsaber combat is the bread-and-butter of Jedi Fallen Order, and it’s oh so good.
The game takes cues from Dark Souls and Sekiro with a methodical combat system based around timing and parrying. There are a wealth of basic enemies, but the combat really shines in boss battles, which truly feel like epic Lightsaber duels. Bosses can be brutal and unpredictable, and there’s a rhythm to each one as you go back and forth trading blows with them.
While combat and exploration are great, Jedi Fallen Order also delivers a memorable Star Wars story about a Padawan rebuilding their connection to the Force.
Fallen Order may not do anything entirely original, but it does everything well. It’s an amalgamation of ideas and mechanics that makes for one of the best Star Wars games ever.
Best Action-Adventure Games 2019
First Runner-Up: Death Stranding
Senior Editor Alex Gibson: Video gaming’s AAA scene is rarely one that puts a premium on innovation. Sequels are typically the order of the day, and when we do get a new IP it tends to be a hodge-podge of popular mechanics, familiar story beats, and proven genre tropes. For the most, it’s all very ordinary and conservative.
Enter Hideo Kojima, whose mind had been bursting at the seams with all manner of bizarre story ideas and gameplay mechanics for a new video game IP while shackled at Konami working on his beloved but long in the tooth brainchild: the Metal Gear Solid series.
Rid of Konami and ready to make a grand statement with his own studio backed by Sony, Kojima finally unleashed his creative powers on that new IP he’d always wanted to make.
The result? Death Stranding, a game about reconnecting a post-apocalyptic America by making thousands of deliveries of metal, ceramics, PS One consoles, and pizza, all with a ghost-detecting baby strapped to your chest.
Certainly not your average action-adventure game, then. In fact, there’s nothing at all like Death Stranding that’s ever been made and likely will ever be made again.
For those who found the tedium of its fetch quest gameplay loop, often maddening balance mechanics and the almost obnoxious number of cutscenes, that may come as a relief. But for the players that cherished the uniqueness of the Death Stranding’s extraordinary story and unusual setting, the sense of wonder its journey across America invokes, and the bizarre but engaging encounters with the supernatural BT enemies, it’s both a memorable and truly special gameplay experience to be celebrated.
Clearly, we here at Twinfinite lean toward the latter. Rock on, Kojima.
Best Action-Adventure Games 2019
Winner: Resident Evil 2 Remake
Senior Editor Alex Gibson: Capcom’s resurgence in recent years is typified by a willingness to listen to its community and deliver on expectations, and 2019’s Resident Evil 2 Remake is perhaps the ultimate example of this new philosophy bearing fruit.
Resident Evil 2 Remake is exactly the built-from-ground-up reimagination of the original game that fans were asking for, and it’s one of the few remakes that I think most would agree actually surpasses the original.
Superb graphics and excellent overall technical performance is married to a new over-the-shoulder camera perspective inspired by the more action-oriented recent Resident Evil games.
But in making the transition to this more contemporary set up, Capcom still managed to capture the survival horror essence so beloved of the original games.
Resident Evil 2 is still an exploration heavy experience that puts a stronger focus on puzzle-solving, resource management, and story over pure action. But when things do heat up, the combat and traversal feel so much more engaging thanks to its revamped shooting mechanics and controls.
It’s not just a case of modernizing the blueprint, either, because there’s all-new gameplay content and slightly a revised story composition that not only offers a point of difference for veterans players but actually improves the overall game, too.
It’s fair to say that Resident Evil 2 Remake totally blew us away, and despite having launched almost a year ago now, it’s an experience that left such an impression that it comfortably wins our best action-adventure game of 2019. We can’t wait to see where Capcom takes its planned series of remakes next.
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