THE FANCIES 2021
Nerium Dec 31, 2021. 6 minute read
The Fancies 2021: The Fanbyte Mod Squad’s Game of the Year Lists
The Fanbyte community moderators decided to share some of their favorite games (and their favorite stories about them) from the year! Take a look below for their choices. Plants vs Zombies (2009) Taylor: Yeah, you’re reading that right. The one from 2009. This year I got an Xbox Series…
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Taylor Hicklen Dec 31, 2021. 4 minute read
The Fancies 2021: Fanbyte Community Picks
Community Picks include any game that prominent members of our community enjoyed this year, regardless of release date, genre, or format! (They’re really good, too. Last year’s list introduced me to some of my new favorites.) These goofballs genuinely made my year. Thanks to everyone who read, watched, kicked my ass…
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Nerium Dec 30, 2021. 9 minute read
The Fancies 2021: Steven Strom’s Game of the Year List
Another year, another landslide of problems to try and escape in the world of video games. I won’t go too deep on just how hard 2021 has been. I edited most of our end-of-year pieces by my coworkers. They already did a much better job of encompassing the struggles we…
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Fūnk-é Joseph Dec 30, 2021. 17 minute read
The Fancies 2021: Fūnk-é’s Games of the Year 2021
Sweet! We made it to the end. I’m glad we got through this. The year 2021 started off rough for me. My cat Joemama, one of my best friends in the world, passed away suddenly in January. I’ve dealt with death before, but only as a child, tangentially saying goodbye…
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Colette Arrand Dec 29, 2021. 8 minute read
The Fancies 2021: Colette Arrand’s Top Wrestling Games
Unless we’re looking at AEW Casino and AEW Elite GM as full-fledged wrestling games, 2021’s default wrestling game of the year was Retrosoft Studio’s RetroMania Wrestling, a classic arcade game evoking the beloved WWF WrestleFest coin-0p that I did not play on account of its roster not appealing to me beyond the Road Warriors…
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John Warren Dec 29, 2021. 8 minute read
The Fancies 2021: John Warren’s Top 10 Games of the Year
In a year I promised myself I’d play more Final Fantasy XIV to prepare for Endwalker, I ended up playing everything besides the best MMO on the market today. It’s not that XIV isn’t great, nor that I don’t want to see it to its magnificent conclusion. It’s more that…
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Nicholas Grayson Dec 28, 2021. 9 minute read
The Fancies 2021: Niki’s Normal and Regular Game of the Year List
I spent my last night as a 25-year-old weeping on the floor. The floor is an underrated place to cry, imo. You can just kind of writhe there and not hit anything. The rug that I wept on used to sit under my coffee table and couch in LA. It…
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Dillon Skiffington Dec 28, 2021. 9 minute read
The Fancies 2021: Dillon Skiffington Breaks the Rules Again
I’m going to go ahead and rip the Band-Aid off right now — my game of the year lists are always a bit strange. As a guide writer, I get far too into a couple of games per year (many of which never end) and spend five to ten hours…
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Michael Higham Dec 27, 2021. 12 minute read
The Fancies 2021: Michael Higham’s 10 Favorite Games That Aren’t FFXIV Endwalker
Trust me, there are other games I play besides Final Fantasy XIV. Still, I’m predictable as hell, but I know what I like. Life isn’t all catgirls and bunny boys, crystals and aether, or calamity and Primals — though many of my favorite games share similar themes. I think for…
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Elise Favis Dec 25, 2021. 6 minute read
The Fancies 2021: Elise’s Top Games of the Year
This is going to sound corny, but this past year has been a huge lesson in happiness and balance for me. I changed jobs, moved across the country, and started anew in more ways than one. Part of that transition has been interacting with games differently than before, allowing myself…
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Danielle Riendeau Dec 24, 2021. 8 minute read
The Fancies 2021: Danielle’s Top Games of 2021
Content warning for a mention of a COVID 19-related death in this article. I’ve been writing about video games professionally since 2006. I’ve done it full-time since early 2013, when I joined the staff at Polygon, and I think this is the first time since then I haven’t had a…
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lb hunktears Dec 24, 2021. 7 minute read
The Fancies 2021: LB Hunktears’ Games of the Year
Game of the Year, Period, 2021: Wildermyth The reason Wildermyth is my game of the year is pretty simple: it does nothing I don’t like. It’s beautifully balanced. Tonally, it’s the perfect fantasy adventure game — the stakes feel high, but not stressfully so. Sad things happen, and they feel…
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Collin MacGregor Dec 23, 2021. 6 minute read
The Fancies 2021: The Best & Worst Anime I Watched While Writing Guides
When it comes to guides writing, I often spend a lot of time listening to podcasts or watching television shows on my second monitor. When you’re on your third playthrough of Resident Evil: Village hunting for collectibles, it’s easy to get bored. I quickly learned that having additional entertainment can…
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Natalie Flores Dec 23, 2021. 8 minute read
The Fancies 2021: Natalie Flores’ Game of the Year List
2021 has often been pretty terrible, but at least it’s been a fantastic year for video games. I genuinely mean that. Video games are in some way tied to every source of happiness I’ve had throughout the last 12 months. That they’ve had such a spectacular year, offering plenty of…
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