You know the rules by now:
- One category will be voted on per day, unless things get hectic by the end.
- You can vote in each category once. Please try not to cheat.
- If there's a tie, we hold a tiebreaker the next day.
- If nobody votes on a category, the award goes to Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location.
- We're still taking nominations for Best Boss, Best Shooter, and Game Of The Year.


And now, the first award of the show: same as last year, it's the
Best Character of 2016
For that special someone who stole hearts, minds, and the show.

Rashid - Street Fighter V

Rashid doesn't care what people think. He's fighting strangers on the street for fun and scanning power levels to fill his connection. Plus he's got a pretty bangin' theme song.

Huey - Paper Mario: Color Splash

The shining white knight of Prism Island, who risked his paint trying to save them all. The only sane one here. Trapped in a mediocre game.

Heaven Ascension DIO - Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Eyes of Heaven

Part 3 was stupidly overrated compared to 4 or 7, but that didn't stop people from loving Dio so much that the new Jojo game gave him a new form, as that kid on the playground who makes up excuses for why your laser blasts don't work on him.

Junkrat - Overwatch

For the people who feel the need to live vicariously through a flame-tipped pyromaniac pirate, because they're too s*** to hijack a truck and blow up a scrapyard themselves.

Xanadu - King of Fighters XIV

I had no idea who this person was until I looked up a reference picture for this post, and already I can see why he was nominated. I don't disagree.

The Voice - Furi

The greatest cyberpunk furry to ever use a samurai to break out of furry prison. He's genuinely an interesting character once you listen to his story, and you will, because Furi loves to make you walk straight lines doing nothing but listen.

Durke - Phoenix Wright: Spirit of Justice

I can't really say much about this guy, because I haven't played the new game, but he looks pretty cool and I bet he was involved in some great court cases. That said, the first words in his wiki entry are "Durke Sahdmahdi was", so I've probably already spoiled too much.

Circus Baby - Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location

That's right, I went and nominated a fnaf character. She's got a fleshed out personality and backstory, a real first for the series, so fight me.

Q - Zero Time Dilemma

I don't know a damn thing about this kid, I just thought it was dumb that nobody from the new Zero Escape was nominated.


Place your vote here.

Q? Huh?

Team Rashid

over heaven dio never happened

Rashid all the way, sorry Huey.

WILDCARD VOTE

IT'S YA BOY

NEW VOTE HERE

The winner of best character is Guzma, with a whopping two points. Do you guys just never vote on anything if it doesn't include Undertale?
To test that theory, we move on to our next category: the Best Souls-Like of 2016
With Dark Souls 3 confirmed as the definitive ending to the Souls series, perhaps soon we'll see a decline of the clones that come out of Steam Greenlight every month. But which was the biggest bang for this genre to go out with?

Dark Souls 3

The OG, the granddaddy of the genre. The game that combined 7 years of tinkering into a final cohesive experience.

Salt and Sanctuary

From the developers of Xbox darlings The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile and Charlie Murder, a brutal gritty metroidvania that condenses the Dark Souls experience into a side-scrolling living nightmare.

Necropolis

A lighthearted comedic take on the genre, meshing the slow and strategic combat with roguelike level generation, to ensure no two delves or deaths will be alike.

Hyper Light Drifter

A Kickstarter darling years in the making, and possibly the most colorful game in this vote. No words are used to flesh out this story's world, only dazzling pixel art setpieces and grueling deadly combat. And some thoroughly worthless praise for Feminist Frequency, for some unholy reason.

Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight

The dark upgrade to the popular Momodora series, and the first to adopt the paced combat and item mechanics of the Souls franchise to create a short, but beautiful and powerful experience.

Cast your votes here.

I didn't expect anyone but Dark Souls 3 to get votes, but kudos to Salt and Sanctuary for getting a vote. Sometimes even an underdog can come in second.

Next up on the award train, it's everyone's favorite meaningless term, the Best Roguelike of 2016

Necropolis

Combining the two flavors of the month, the roguelike and the soulslike, to create an unholy combination of Baskin-Robbins peppermint chocolate and pumpkin pie.

Heart&Slash

Randomization and permadeath tied into a DMC-esque hack and slash, with dozens of weapons and equipment all with different abilities to save a colorful voxel-pop world.

Enter the Gungeon

A fantastical world built around the glory of firearms, meshing the frameworks of Nuclear Throne and Binding of Isaac into a definitive gameplay experience.

Captain Forever Remix

A spacefaring adventure like no other, tasking you with crafting your own spaceship with spare parts and traveling the galaxy for scraps and revenge.

The Flame in the Flood

A heartfelt survival odyssey set in a post-flooded Americana, fording the endless river and gathering supplies where possible on a hunt for civilization.

Death Road to Canada

The most comedic take on both zombies and the Oregon Trail, with hectic action as you struggle to collect supplies and friends on the long and grueling trip to Canada.

Darkest Dungeon

The darkest game of the lot, pitting you and your hired adventurers against primordial evil and ancient madness in a battle from which there can be no winner.

Place your vote here.

Two votes.
Only two votes in total, for the entire category, both for Death Road to Canada. I don't think you guys really have your hearts in this project.
Next up, we have the Best Metroidvania of 2016. Tomorrow will be the best shooter, so if anyone has any nominations for that category, hurry up and let me know already. You've had weeks to do this.

Ghost 1.0

The closest thing to a real Metroid game this year, a free-aiming run and gun about exploring a spaceship to expose company secrets.

Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight

Rdein's pixel art marvel reappears, ready to challenge the evil queen and the field of metroidvanias.

Pharaoh Rebirth

A Japanese labor of love, with an Egyptian flair that has you exploring ancient tombs and comedic characters in a hard-as-nails adventure.

Rabi-Ribi

The free exploration and character progression system, combined with bullet hell combat and cute anime girls. Japan always delivers.

Salt and Sanctuary

Not content with getting silver in the Souls category, SaS is back to prove it's the master in the field of metroidvania.

Song of the Deep

The only game here made by a AAA company, tasking players with exploring the seas in a submarine to solve physics-based puzzles in a search for a girl's father.

Owlboy

Famously nine years in the making, a pixel art masterpiece with a free flight mechanic and a strong focus on friendship that ties together story and gameplay.

Shantae: Half-Genie Hero

The successfully kickstarted sequel to the niche Shantae series, sending her off on her first HD adventure to save not just her hometown, but all of geniedom from the forces of darkness.

Cast your votes here.

You're correct but a big part of this is because nobody knows anything about these games

I haven't played a single game in the last three posts, and I'm only even interested in two of them

So, I definitely missed yesterday. Lots of crazy stuff happening. For those wondering, Owlboy won by a significant margin.

So, to make up for lost time, we'll hold two contests in one day: Best Shooter of 2016, and Best Soundtrack of 2016
Best Shooter
Overwatch


DOOM


Titanfall 2


Battlefield 1


SUPERHOT



Best Soundtrack
Kirby: Planet Robobot


Death Road to Canada


Street Fighter V


Owlboy


Furi


DOOM


Vote for best shooter here.
Vote for best soundtrack here.

man this was a hard choice between Kirby and Death Road for me.

Overwatch is loads of fun but I didn't play many shooter this year

The votes are in: the top rated shooter is Overwatch, while the top rated soundtrack goes to Planet Robobot. Now we can move on to what's really important: the Most Disappointing Game of 2016.

Mighty No. 9
The mediocre Mega Man fangame three years in the making, haunted by the shadow of an entirely corrupt PR manager and a head of development who wanted a franchise more than an actual game.

No Man's Sky
A tragic reminder that unlimited randomly generated content means nothing if you don't provide things to actually do in it.

Street Fighter V
Announced as a back-to-basics fighter with no unnecessary DLC, then released as a half-finished mess with no story mode, terrible netplay, and unnecessary DLC.

Battleborn
Even if it didn't release in direct competition with Overwatch, that wouldn't have saved this sub-par first-person MOBA clone with all the trappings of a bland Gearbox title.

Star Fox Zero
What could have been a successful return to form for the Star Fox franchise, brought low by a thoroughly incompetent forced motion control gimmick.

Cast your vote here.