Yoko Taro announced his top ten list for the previous year.

Taro, who caught attention with the Drakengard series’ direction (of which NieR is a spinoff franchise), told Giantbomb what his top ten favorite games are from 2017.

The 10th place is INSIDE‘s, even though he didn’t play this game due to not having time for it – he just trusts Playdead after their previous game, LIMBO. The 9th position went to Undertale, which got localized to Japanese last year (when it got the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita ports). Quoting him: „I think that it is a masterpiece studded with complex sarcasm and love. I was greatly surprised that Undertale had a similar gimmick in its staff credits to the one in NieR: Automata that I created. I wondered if people would think that “NieR copied Undertale” but since NieR is a game that I made by taking from many other games, I don’t care.”

The 8th place was claimed by Gravity Rush 2. Aside from often drinking with Keiichiro Toyama, its director (Taro did write that, without a joke!), „Japan concluded to create games that exist between AAA titles and indie games. Gravity Rush is a unique title where its core idea, game balance, and the world it creates are all much different from others.” The 7th place belongs to the PlayStation Vita version of Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony – he thinks Kazutaka Kodaka’s text adventure game deserves attention. DoDonpachi Resurrection’s PC port (launched in 2016) is 6th. CAVE’s game is, simply put, a vertical bullet hell shooter. „What could the Japanese vertical shooter industry have done to stay alive?”

The next three positions are claimed by Housemarque’s PlayStation 4 titles (Alienation: 5., Nex Machina: Death Machine 4., Matterfall: 3.) – Taro thinks he cannot fall in love with a new genre simply because of his age (he is 47 years old). He’s also disappointed that Housemarque has left arcade games behind (we wrote about it in detail).

Second place went to Horizon: Zero Dawn – originally, he was afraid that Guerrilla’s game’s release date was close to his, but he added that its machines and robots are „constructed with a delicate physique and detail that Japanese players might like.” He wouldn’t be surprised if there were an animated series. The top spot went to the mobile game Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp. You can read about his thoughts in detail on Twitter.

Yoko Taro makes stylish games, and NieR: Automata was easily a great game. We hope that he can make a new one, maybe with PlatinumGames once again! Also, where The’s Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild?!

Source: Giantbomb