A conversation with Jordan Minor, author of Video Game of the Year (part two)

Video Game of the Year: A Year-By-Year Guide to the Best, Boldest, and Most Bizarre Games from Every Year Since 1977 is available now, and I spoke with the author about how it came to be.

Debating the quality of video games is a treasured pastime. Comparing them against each other, deciphering which was more important, which was more fun to play — we’re all guilty of enjoying this. So I of course was drawn to a book written by game critic Jordan Minor, released in 2023, titled Video Game of the Year: A Year-By-Year Guide to the Best, Boldest, and Most Bizarre Games from Every Year Since 1977, as that’s quite the gauntlet being thrown down right there in the title.

Below you’ll find the second part of a conversation with Minor, focusing on how the book was conceived, its featured games selected, and more. You can find part one here — this second, concluding portion picks up mid-conversation.

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Marc Normandin: I brought up Sekiro again earlier in the first part of our conversation for a reason, and that’s because I wanted to highlight that this book wasn’t designed to say, “hey, isn’t this game great? Wasn’t the past great?” In the Fortnite chapter, you discuss that game and its relationship with race, which, as you bring up, is a complicated one for a number of reasons. The Grand Theft Auto: Vice City essay discusses how sometimes, the storytelling of these games doesn’t mesh with the chaotic, violent gameplay. And for Sekiro, there’s an entire section dedicated to distaste for this particular style of game, as well as discussion of difficulty, and the kind of people who would unironically say “git gud” or claim the only real way to experience a game is through its most difficult version. 

Difficulty discourse is a live wire, but I appreciate the way you brought it up here. I’m someone who thoroughly enjoys FromSoftware’s outings, who had no trouble rolling my eyes at David Jaffe publicly criticizing Metroid Dread’s difficulty as poor design, who believes something like Battle Garegga and its ambition is a gift we should cherish. However, I’m also someone who believes that difficulty sliders and God Modes or “I just want to experience the story” options and everything like that which allows more people to experience a game, to make a game more approachable, is perfectly fine, too. I do think there are cases where it can remove some of what drives the narrative of a game, where the challenge and world itself are thoroughly intertwined, but even that’s not a “problem,” really (and absolutely shouldn’t be for the people who don’t want to use them). Nothing says you can’t play a second time once you’re more comfortable and more familiar with it all, anyway.

So, this is something of a two-part question. Were the Souls games of the world and those inspired by them to add more of a relaxed and casual setting — and that’s meant non-derogatorily — would that help better draw you into the worlds they created, and maybe lead to follow-up playthroughs on what die-hards would deem to be the “true” difficulty for these titles? And what do you see as the optimal approachability balance to aim for here in general, where maybe every game just can’t be for everyone or tailored to everyone, but there should at least be some effort where possible?

Jordan Minor: That last line you said is basically how I would put it, but yeah I think this is a super tough thing to untangle and have a consistent answer for. You’re not just talking about ability but also personal taste. And even just tiny tweaks to different variables can make a huge difference when it comes to if a player is able to get into one game versus another. Not to mention disability assists, which are related but not quite the same thing. 

Even just looking at my own likes and dislikes it’s all over the map. I don’t like any of the Souls games, including Elden Ring which I did play for about 20 hours because aspects of it did appeal to me. That one especially might’ve worked for me if the fighting wasn’t so tedious because there’s more to do beyond that. I love Breath of the Wild which has a bunch of Souls inspiration for sure. I hated Monster Hunter up until Monster Hunter Rise which was my favorite game of that year. Respawn’s Jedi games actually do what you’re talking about, have Souls-esque melee combat with a difficulty slider, but even when it’s easy I still find that combat pretty obnoxious to play. But I also love basically everything else in those games. And I also love stuff like Cuphead, Hotline Miami, and of course Super Meat Boy which is in the book, probably because their difficulty is very clearly communicated and less of a drain on my patience.

In general I very much support strong authorial intent in art. I feel pretty passionately about creators doing what they want to do. If they want to force players into a certain playstyle then more power to them, and just accept the critique that not everyone will be onboard. There can even be something almost admirable about being willing to intentionally alienate audiences, to not dilute yourself. But I do think it’s for the best when creators embrace that gaming can provide all these different options, that it’s cool and good for players to “break” the game. Maybe it’s because I have to play so many different games at any given moment that I can’t dedicate the time to master them all, but I just find difficulty overrated. I definitely empathize more with people who want more options versus people who are offended that those options exist.

MN: I’m also very much on Team Authorial Intent, but yeah, I’m not getting upset that there might be a “story” focused mode in an otherwise difficult game, or that Armored Core VI or whatever gets a patch that makes a skill check boss a little easier now that FromSoftware got a bunch of play data to account for, either. 

There are two games on my mind that were released in 2023 that feel like they fit the approachable difficulty measurements we’re discussing, and in different ways. Schildmaid MX is a horizontal shoot ‘em up in the R-Type vein, that effectively forces you to play the (layered, strategic) game in the most forgiving way possible your first time through. As you earn achievements for reaching various gameplay milestones, you also earn points to unlock the tougher versions of the game, which do things like remove checkpoints, the ability to continue at all, and eventually extra lives themselves, before throwing in the most screen-full-of-enemies level design imaginable in the “EX” versions of those modes. It’s a great way to ease people in who maybe like shoot ‘em ups but aren’t very experienced with them, or have been intimidated by them in the past, and leaves plenty of challenging modes for people who have been at these things for decades and want these games to hurt, too. 

The other is Pizza Tower, which is very much in the Wario Land 4 style. Instead of different modes to ease players in, the levels are the same each time, but they can be completed and you can progress without even playing huge chunks of the game. Whether you just don’t want to experience them, or they’re more work than you’re willing to put in: this means, say, finding all the hidden secret challenge rooms, or opening the locked doors you need to find the key or keyholder for, or collecting each of the treasures and all imprisoned pizza toppings, plus a second lap of a stage as you’re about to finish it, which will give you another shot at rounding out the level’s collectibles and increasing your score, but will also force you to complete the tense and fast-paced “escape” portion of the stage again as well. You could do all of that, and extend both the challenge and the length of time you spend with Pizza Tower, or you could just… not. And play through what you need to in order to make it through the tower, and then you’re done. And you’re not punished for that, so long as you find the minimum amount you need to open up the boss fights. It’s an excellent blend of approachability and challenge, that lets you jump from one to the other from moment to moment depending on how you feel at any point, without having to enter a menu.

Is there anything you’ve played of late, or even just historically, that achieves the kind of balance we’re discussing? That you see as a goal other developers should be striving for in their own work?

JM: Those are two really cool examples I wish I had played but have not (I’ve heard of Pizza Tower at least). I think it’s awesome when developers find smart and creative ways to bake the modular difficulty into the design. Kid Icarus: Uprising and Hades have their whole risk/reward gambling systems where higher difficulty gives greater rewards. Resident Evil 4 doesn’t even tell you when it starts reducing enemy numbers if you get attacked too much. It helps you protect your ego, keeps you focused on the satisfaction of winning rather than the frustration of failure. Compare that to games that mock players by calling it “baby mode” or whatever. 

But I also don’t think devs should feel like they need to do all that work to make the difficulty options worthwhile. I also appreciate just having a very straightforward menu where I can toggle settings on and off and specifically know what effect it’ll have. They can recommend an “intended” experience, but again letting players break the game I think is really underrated these days when it comes to methods for player empowerment. Think about all these retro compilations that give players infinite quarters and frame by frame save states, so you can just appreciate the games separate from arcade economic realities or tech limits. Just let me do whatever I want, ha. 

MN: Yes! (To both your overall point and praise for Kid Icarus: Uprising, which rules for the reason you mention, among others.) Sometimes I want to challenge myself with a perfect play against the worldwide online leaderboards in some STG from 1994, or work to one-credit clear something I’ve mastered, and sometimes I don’t want any of that, and would like to rewind with the press of a button or load a save state, or slide a difficulty slider, or let a game temporarily drop the difficulty because I’d rather that than grind some more XP for one boss encounter in an RPG. Those conveniences should exist all over unless you’ve got a real great reason for them not to.

You close out Video Game of the Year with a note that the future of the industry is uncertain, its new games always alluring, but its past is rich, too, and should be appreciated and explored. I’ve got two questions to ask with this in mind. One, did going back through 45 years of video game industry history help you come up with any thoughts on what might be next for it, or what it might take to create another dividing line in gaming history, a la the jump from arcades to living rooms, 2D to 3D, pre-online to online? And two, is there a franchise from the past that you haven’t played much of or at all that you personally would love to explore? 

JM: I’m answering these in reverse. When I got my Xbox Series S (and it became clear I wasn’t going back to the office for a while) I spent a lot of time diving into Halo: The Master Chief Collection and Hitman 3 with all the Hitman 1 and 2 missions as well. It was super entertaining, as well as informative, to just fully immerse myself in these gigantic series and experience years’ worth of awesome material back to back to back. Similarly, I’m a big fan of binge watching acclaimed TV shows after they’ve already wrapped up. I prefer to dive into an old franchise as  almost a huge curated museum piece. Sony’s first-party games are probably my biggest blind spots, so I would love to play a nice Team Ico collection.

Something that really struck me while writing the book was how these gigantic leaps forward really started to slow down as we got closer to the present. Games that in my mind are still “modern” are like 20 years old at this point. I don’t think that’s a failure, though, I think it means games are just more established. If anything, the idea that games have to keep getting bigger and bigger is fueling the unsustainability that is, in my opinion, the biggest threat to the medium. So a good upcoming dividing line might actually be when we decide that it’s okay to stay the size we’re at, to explore ways of making new innovative games that aren’t fully dependent on more powerful technology. That philosophy doesn’t just have to be for indies. I’m saying I want shorter games with worse graphics made by people paid more to work less. 

MN: When figuring out what I’d cover in this space, I had to decide what actually was “retro,” or what would at least not get me sideways looks if I wrote it up. I ended up settling on games needing to be at least 10 years old for me to cover them, and even for that I have all kinds of internal caveats. A few years after making that boundary, one decade ago now means the dawn of the Playstation 4 era, so… I need a new delineation. 

Anyway, I played the Not Retro Xbox 360 and Wii and PS3 in college, and now I’m a couple years from 40 with two kids who are in school. It all kind of bleeds together since the HD era began. There have been leaps, yes, games that couldn’t be made with previous technology, but nothing like the previous jumps we mentioned in terms of the obviousness of the difference. “Spider-Man 2 has instantaneous fast travel!” isn’t going to blow minds like “we added an entirely new dimension for you to travel in.” So I’m with you. I think a lot about the kinds of games that release at the end of a platform’s lifecycle, games that seem like it’s impossible they could even exist on those systems given what we think we know about their capabilities, and it makes me wish we’d stick with them all a little longer to find out what they have left to give instead of just rushing forward to the next big expensive idea. 

We talked about rankings earlier on in this conversation, so I have to thematically put you on the spot here: what are your top five favorite games from the year you were born? No need to consider historical importance, just your personal favs. In the interest of fairness, I (1986) will go first: 

Fantasy Zone
OutRun
Metroid
Salamander
Dragon Quest

JM: I’m going to write these as if they were VGOTY chapters. My five favorite 1991 games…

Super Mario World: The Mario Apex of the Year
Street Fighter II: The Vanilla Version of the Year
The Simpsons Arcade: The Inexplicable Adaptation of the Year
Sid Meier’s Civilization: The Cultural Victory of the Year
ToeJam & Earl: The Funk Masters of the Year

MN: Ooh, nice touch there, that’s how you get to be the interviewee with a book to promote. And now I’ll keep that promotional vibe going: Video Game of the Year is all about the games that shaped the industry and its history, so, let's wrap up with the games that did this for you personally. What are the most Jordan Minor titles in your own history with video games — The Jordan Minor Influencers of the Year, maybe? — and how did each of those games shape you into the critic and gamer you are today?

JM: So first I need to shout out Donkey Kong Country, StarCraft, and Super Smash Bros. Those will always be my personal favorite games based on the sheer amount of time I spent playing them as a kid, with the nice bonus that they all still totally hold up today. I love games overall because I love those games specifically, and the fact they cover a nice spread of genres (platformer, strategy, fighting) I think opened my eyes to how an amazing game could come in any form.

Image credit: IMDb

Next are No More Heroes and Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. Those came out in the era when I was starting to get serious about Video Game Writing and they’re my go to earliest examples of how fun and mind blowing it can be to analyze a game even after you’ve played it. The Metal Gear games have a lot of this too, but reading criticism about No More Heroes is when I learned to appreciate how a game can be metatextual, how it can be a game about games. Meanwhile, the way Shattered Memories aligns its mechanics and narrative, how it disempowers and disorients the player, helped me appreciate video game artistry in a way beyond being “fun.” Both of those also made me learn to love and follow specific creators, Suda51 and Sam Barlow, respectively.

I’ll also always love DJ Hero as the most underappreciated plastic instrument game with the best soundtrack. No grand thesis here, that game just rules. 

MN: I am always happy to discover that someone is very into No More Heroes. Bless Suda for being Suda, his being that way helped shape quite a bit of my way of thinking about games, as well. And No More Heroes is a great companion for Shattered Memories, because as you said, there’s more going on there than just “fun,” but thinking about the why of the structure of things, the choices made, and how they relate to your usual expectations and the way these genres are typically handled? That’s a different kind of fun, albeit maybe not quite the back-of-the-box kind.

I was a little bit of a DJ Hero skeptic when I first gave it a shot, but it’s no joke. I had so much fun mastering that game, and I didn’t expect to at all. Haven’t touched it since or attempted to go back to it, but I think fondly on what it did differently at a time when plastic instrument games were kind of just rehashing and tweaking until there was nothing left to squeeze out of the player base. 

Alright, last thing: is there anything we haven’t discussed about Video Game of the Year that you think readers should know? Some last bit of motivation to push them over the edge to clicking purchase? Christmas is coming and all, let’s sell some books for Jordan Minor. 

JM: I’m immensely proud of the book, I think it’s the best thing I’ve ever written. I have plenty more book ideas (my second video game book is already in the works) but if this was my final statement on the medium I would feel satisfied. And thanks to all the other wonderful, talented folks who graciously contributed art, words, and editing advice to the finished product, I truly believe this is the best book for anyone even remotely interested in video games, expert or newcomer. Plus, our dog is in it, so you need to buy it for her alone.

You can find Video Game of the Year for sale at bookstores and online retailers such as Bookshop.org. Jordan Minor is the Senior Apps and Games Analyst at PCMag, and you can follow him on Twitter and Bluesky.

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