Feature: Reader's Choice Game Of The Year 2018 Results

Smash is no surprise lol

Forgotten Anne not appearing in the Art category surprised me — I loved the art style of that game so much.

Smash was my GOTY, but on a good year from Nintendo I doubt it would have been. Nowhere near BOTW’s quality

Wow. Looks like Smash is almost everyone's favorite! Doesn't really surprise me.

Still a tad dissapointed that WarioWare didn’t beat Luigi’s Mansion in both the staff and reader votes, but otherwise the results seem about right.

If the Switch in 2017 was all about tentpole titles, 2018 was about guide ropes making sure it didn’t fall down. Hopefully 2019 will be a full on canvas cover sort of year.

It’s too in tents....

Bouncey Bob should be number 1.
It’s a pile of crap, after all.

Nothing really catches my eye from this list, I wasn’t able to vote due to not being any standout games (this is for me personally, not as a whole - I appreciate Smash has a massive following by the looks of it). I only got my switch feb this year and honestly am still really enjoying some of the earlier releases like Splatoon 2, XEnoblade, Zelda and Doom.

Predictable but all worthy winners. It's largely what I voted for, and where I didn't my choice appeared in the Runner ups (bar Forgotton Anne for best Artstyle)

Glad that Octopath won the art style category. The graphics are stunning.

@MrGawain I’m in the same camp you are. 2018 is almost past tents and I knew, as NintendoLife canvassed their readers and published the results of the pole, that the circus was only at intermission. I’m happy the long pitch of Smash Bros. is finally over and that Nintendo have seen a dramatic sales spike. All those pitched tents over preview footage were getting annoying.

Worthy winners all. I have Hollow Knight as my GotY, both for eShop and overall, but I can’t begrudge any of the actual winners. Glad Octopath won something, at least.

Smash overrated though. And it's one of the latest games so it's still very fresh in peoples mind. I would've liked a list of begin of half year of 2018 and last half year 2018 list. Then it would be better IMO

This was generally how I voted, with the exception of WarioWare: Gold as my 3DS game of the year. Happy for Smash and Celeste!

@DockEllisD On the other hand, that's a great objective value. I mean, just the time to download the game alone likely provided more time/$ spent than 99% of the games available

No love for monster hunter

Pleased hollow knight didn’t win eshop game cos I thought it was meh. Haven’t tried Celeste yet but only heard good things

Almost wish Celeste had won GotY. Each new entry of Smash is a day-one purchase for me, and one of the main reasons I try to stay current with Nintendo's consoles. But Celeste was such a thoroughly fun, bright, inventive, beautiful, original, and memorable experience that's it's probably THE standout of 2018 for me.

Eh smash Brothers. I know it sold well but how many will still be playing in 6 months time, I bet less than 1/4.

I also wonder how many people own the games they actually voted for or if they just voted for what they thought should win that catrgory... that would be interesting to know.

Octopath Traveler is like a breath of fresh air. Great game. Owning Smash for the Wii U I was hesitant to buy it on the Switch. Glad I got it though! Night and day from the Wii U version!

@bolt05 I think you're probably wrong. Smash is one of those games were you continue playing frequently for a long time as you can't finish it, unlike, say botw, which people stop playing once they complete it and only go back every once and a while

Well, Smash is about all Nintendo released this year, so it pretty much had to win.

You people gotta play Wandersong. That game was sooooo overlooked!

Disappointed that Torna got no love

You people sleep on Dragon Ball FighterZ' art style. While Octopath was a top pick for me, DBFZ not being a runner up is criminal

Not much surprise from me. There were no non-port new games aside from Smash that really wowed me on Switch this year

The trouble with all GOTY lists is people have short memories and end up voting for whatever big release came out in November/December.

Nice to see so many folks have enjoyed Smash enough to get those percentages.

Some of the downplays are funny, too.
“Smash is overrated”
“No other games came out”
“People have short memories”
I mean, maybe a lot of folks just have really enjoyed Smash more than they’ve enjoyed other games this year. It’s not an end sum thing

@Incarta I disagree. On the Nintendo side of things, BotW ran away with the awards last year, and the similarly early release this year on PS4, God of War, did the same.

Smash is Nintendo's one unambiguously excellent and exciting release this year, so it's no surprise it received the lion's share of the votes.

The self-entitlement of some people is amazing. Smash is a beast of a game, wether you like it or not. There's no need to come up with explanations as to why it won. In fact, Nintendo knew the juggernaut it had in it's hand and that's why it launched when and how it did.

It is an amazing achievement of a game. I am enjoying it like crazy. And it doesn't take away from the quality of any other release this year. Instead of complaining, just play what you love and support it. Maybe one day your choice will be on the top of the polls, maybe it won't, it doesn't matter.

@bolt05 Care to name a game where more than 1/4 of buyers are still playing it 6 months later?

@Al_Godoy that like one of the best comments I’ve ever read, especially the last couple lines 😉. Just truth.

So predictable. So Switch had like 3-4 really good games for 2018 (if you take out Diablo port)

Art direction should have been GRIS. There's no game that looks better this year. And my favorite for 2018 Nintendo wise has got to be Paladins. Great game, awesome for multiplayer and it's fun solo. There's no game I spent more time with in 2018. I put 300 hours into it.

I feel like the method of getting the readers opinions was not good this year. Having to fill in the games ourselves instead of picking from a list meant that only if you could think of a game was it going to get recognized. I rather like the list option because then we can easily compare games that we might have forgotten about. Overall it just feels like some games like smash were represented multiple times and that could have been because that was one of the prominent games in their mind while other games may have slipped the minds of some and therefore not even were considered.

@gcunit World of Warcraft, Fortnite, Zelda BoTW, Coven of Dusk, not to mention all of the final fantasy games that are still being played decades later.

I dont think that Smash has any serious longevity outside of tournament play and ultra fans of the franshise. I think it's quick and dirty fun that just wont last and yes i'm dirty that it made game of the year for what it is.

That's my opinion, which is the point of this comments section.

So many great indie games this year to choose from, with time and ehart and soul poured into them and a bloomin smash game gets no. 1... pretty sad.

Having said that, it will only be Nintendo news websites where this happens. So whatever im ok with it. In the rest of the gaming nation other games will win overall goty.

@Kainbrightside I think the main Pokemon will be a system seller. I'm unsure this one had the same effect, even though it posted some decent sales numbers. Especially in Japan, where it recieved lower sales than you'd expect for a mainline Pokemon game, not even considering the fact it's the first one on a home console.

Granted, Nintendo kind of hamstringed it by releasing Smash so close to it. But a lot of the core Pokemon group had lukewarm feelings towards it.

@RetroLifer Early FF with a modern twist!

Am I the only one that had NBA Playgrounds 2 for best Multiplayer game?

I was going to make a snarky comment about the readers clearly not playing Monster Boy, but then some jerk named Self-Reflection pointed out that I have never played a Smash Brothers game. :0

Who are these people who voted for Super Mario Party as GOTY?

a SMIDGE disappointed Team Cherry didn’t get developer of the year given how much free DLC they dropped of such exceptional quality, as well as very steady communication with the player base. but can’t really be too surprised at these results.

2019 is gonna be so much fun. Yoshi, Untitled Goose Game, Mario DX, Animal Crossing, Smash DLC. It's gonna be gud.

I’m not a big fan of either Pokémon nor SSB. Octopath was good but it didn’t live up to its potential. Overall from Nintendo published point of view, this year has been disappointing.

I love Mario but not a fan of Smash or Pokemon.

@Incarta It's better than the December releases getting completely ignored on some of these lists. Besides, in this particular case, "SSB Ultimate" fully deserves all the awards it gets and more, recent memories or not.

@bolt05 Is that why I can easily still get a match easily on Smash Wii U’s online? And I need a source that over 2.5 million people every day play FF7 other than you like FF.

No love for Sushi Striker? It was better than the 3DS port of Luigi's Mansion. When playing Lugi's Mansion on the 3DS, I just had the urge to play the GameCube version (and they didn't include the PAL Hidden Mansion, lazy bums...).

Don't get me wrong, Smash Bros. Ultimate is amazing, but I feel there are other games that truly shine.

Wish there were some more categories to spread the love and accolades - it's not like Switch doesn't have superlarive titles in every genre.

Into The Breach, Dead Cells, Warframe, Torna: The Golden Country, and Dragon Ball FighterZ all deserve some recognition.

Also, I think The Messenger, Octopath Traveler, and Celeste deserve a shot of Soundtrack of the Year, and a there should be a Sound Design category for Hollow Knight to run away with. These are achievements on par with any art style or technical wizardry IMO.

@Faucet
I felt exactly the same about both Octopath & Smash Was so not certain about Smash after previous versions, but really pleasantly surprised by especially World of Light & single-player content overall. I've "finished" it but still keep coming back to complete the challenges.

The readers version looks better to me.

Sad that there is no Monster Boy.

Conglaturations! And a belated happy new year to everyone!

It was obvious that Smash would win. It was Nintendo's big 2018 title, and probably the only title that everyone played. Thanks to all the downloads the field is extremely fragmented. I for example played and loved Hollow knight and voted for it. Best e-shop game for me, and I also placed it above smash in the overall best Switch game category. Celeste however, I haven't played it yet (waiting for a huge discount).