If you have not already listened to the podcast of this category, this is the final results, so this will spoil the course of the discussion on that podcast! Be warned!
The last few years, most of the nominees I personally add to our Best Surprise list come in the form of “wow, I was really sure you’d screw this up.” The unique delight of an obvious failure that, in fact, isn’t a failure at all, is hard to beat. To that end, Best Surprise can feel a bit… unkind, at times? It feels like saying “you pulled this off somehow, but it was clearly a stupid thing to try.” That’s not what we’re trying to say (usually). Communicating is hard, and sometimes in the windup to a release, you give people the wrong impression. It doesn’t make it lucky or miraculous that you made a good thing. A good game or good anime may have some luck involved in the process, but it’s not gambling. If it’s good, it’s because you worked hard and did smart things.
Best Surprise is often about a failure to convey why what you’ve made is good to others. In that sense, what we want to celebrate is this: we didn’t give you enough credit, so please take a bow.
The Winner
Scott Pilgrim Takes Off
If I had put a spoiler warning up above, it would have given away that Scott Pilgrim Takes Off made the top of the list- you’d have seen that in the preview on the front page. But right now I am telling you there will be spoilers for Scott Pilgrim Takes Off.
Okay? Okay.
The trouble of course is that you have the one person on staff who hasn’t seen the show yet doing the write-up. My experience of Scott Pilgrim has been the live-action movie, which I strongly disliked, and excerpts from the comic posted on Twitter, which granted seemed funny but not enough to convince me I wouldn’t dislike it too. The fact that it was getting a new anime in 2023 earned a “huh” from me, but no interest in watching it.
That it’s very good is a big surprise to me, but even folks who expected it to be (like Jen and Kyrie) were very surprised at the bait-and-switch it pulled. Fronting as a remake only to pull a hard left and offer a different story, with new takes on the characters and relationships informed by years of distance, is exactly what I want from a remake. The original exists- do your own thing! Stand out! And perhaps, Take Off.
ok yeah that didn’t really work, but whatever
The Runners-Up
Lies of P
Chasing Bloodborne is a mistake, generally speaking. First of all, Bloodborne fans are very particular, even moreso than your average From Soft fan. Second, unlike Dark Souls its style is so specific that it’s hard to evoke without practically mimicking it. And third, Bloodborne isn’t even a good game. So that makes it tricky.
Alright, alright, stop booing already. I know it’s an unpopular opinion. And it isn’t super relevant either, because whether or not you like the cosmic horror werewolf soulslike, Lies of P is excellent. At first, nearly every From Soft imitator was a mess. From obvious disasters like Inferno Climber to ambitious but messy Lords of the Fallen (2014, god damn you for just naming the new game this again), it’s a difficult formula to replicate. But not impossible. Games like Nioh and Remnant figured out effective angles. Those angles mostly involved finding ways to stand APART from what they were imitating.
Lies of P has its own identity, be sure of that. But it’s not trying to duck comparisons to Bloodborne- it embraces them. And all the corny shit you heard pre-release? Grimdark Pinocchio? “All Puppets Are Bastards?” This garbage? It works. Well not the APAB, that one was kind of a bad call, but you feel me. Its absurd theming is actually good. Hell if that ain’t a surprise. Damn good game.
Oshi no Ko
You gotta admit the pitch is creepy. Listen, you simply do. A doctor who is a huge fan of an idol singer, who he has as a patient. He is there to help her deliver twins. He gets murdered. He reincarnates as one of the twins. He is the baby of a lady he’s obsessed with. Like. No!!! Don’t do this!!! This is very gross!!!
It’s also very unnecessary, because almost none of that is relevant to what makes Oshi no Ko a strong story. It’s a weird hook to get people’s attention for a story about dealing with the loss of someone you really admire- do you try follow in their footsteps, or do you try to get vengeance for the person who caused it? I… know that’s not particularly relatable, as most of us don’t have a lot of vengeance to get. But the tensions and drama of the show don’t require that reincarnation weirdness at all.
To the best of my memory, there are two shows that we’ve said “no we will not cover that on Oops” specifically. One is Sword Art Online- I have been a hard no on that one. The other is Oshi no Ko, which Jen heard the premise and nope’d out of the room. Turns out it’s one of the best anime of the year.
We hope you’ve enjoyed the start of Week 1 of the Gimmick Awards- the Community Effort award on Friday was more of a Week 0. Come back on Wednesday for our only downer award- Worst Trend. Hope to see you then!
Our art is a commission from @inkopolis on Twitter. 2023 version coming soon!
