ArbitraryWater's Best Games of 2016 that didn't come out in 2016

Oh hey, guess it’s this time of year again, huh? Hope you all had a good Christmas, or whatever alternative floats your boat. I have to admit, 2016 was actually a pretty alright year for me personally even if, in a broader context, it was kind of a horrific trainwreck that I don’t think we have seen the end of. It also was a good year for Video Games! But WHOOOOOO CARES about this year’s bounteous crop of quality interactive entertainment when we can talk about old shit some more! We’re all about that, right?

So… here’s the thing about that. Much like last year, I haven’t played as many old games as I used to. Hell, if you compare my list of games I played “a significant amount of” this year versus last year, I’ve played fewer games in general. Blame it on me deciding to take school a little more seriously, me focusing a little more on individual titles rather than my usual scattershot approach, or because I’ve already played most of the damn CRPGs that came out in the late 90s and early 2000s (see my backlog for details), but this list is gonna be a top 5, just like last year. You can expect my top 10 list of 2016 games to be out sometime this or next week, basically whenever I finish Tyranny and figure out where I want to slot it. In any case, from 5 and going to the top, my list consists of:

5. Kingdom Hearts

When it comes to things that are Final Fantasy or Square-Enix related, I think I might be dangerously close to being a mustache-twirling hipster bragging to you about how much deeper and cooler Final Fantasy V is because Job System, and your nightmare journeys through Final Fantasy VII-IX kind of emphasize how little I want to deal with the oft-revered PS1 era of that franchise. And then there’s Kingdom Hearts, which I played for the first time this year and enjoyed quite a bit. For both genuine and ironic reasons.

Let me be clear: The first KH game is, mechanically, a pretty straightforward action-RPG with mashy combat, stiff controls, and an abominable camera that was bad in 2002 and is unforgivable 14 years later in the HD update. I played the game on the highest difficulty, (“Proud”) which forced me to engage with some of its systems a little more and play the game more intelligently, but the demo I just played of Nier Automata it is not.

I think as the series has become something of an unfair punchline for everything wrong with the last decade of Square (and mainstream JRPGs in general) we’ve all started to gloss over the part where Kingdom Hearts is batshit insane. As someone who still has an affinity for Disney and even Final Fantasy, watching Tetsuya Nomura’s officially-sanctioned fan-fiction play out, with most of the original Disney voice actors reprising their roles and a lot of big-names filling out the Square side of the cast, is a deliriously fun experience. Did you know that Billy Zane is the voice of Ansem, the entirely disposable villain who is only revealed in the last act in true JRPG fashion and has like 10 lines? (well, he’s Terra-Xehanort’s heartless or whatever, but we don’t need to get into that) What? Why? BECAUSE THE MOUSE LORD DEMANDED IT. Obviously, it wouldn’t have worked for me if I didn’t have some level of affinity for Disney (especially the stuff that made up my childhood, unsurprisingly) or Square, but the entire thing is weirdly sincere and plays itself 100% straight in a way that really appeals to my broken, empty heart. I also like Simple and Clean too, if we’re going to go there.

While Kingdom Hearts 2 is a much better playing game and represents the series’ departure from being a pure crossover fan-fic into its own insane, retcon-fueled, zipper-filled acid trip of a saga, it’s disqualified from this list because I totally played it around the time it came out on a friend’s PS2 over the course of a few months. Did I remember anything about it? Turns out the answer to that is NOPE I DID NOT. But I did get as far as the Tron level before DOOM came out and stole my attention, and I’ll probably get around to finishing that when I have some free time. Gotta get caught up for KH3. You just wait.

4. Undertale.

Original Blog Here. Also for #3.

I have an immediate suspicion and aversion to any game that comes out of nowhere and gets people to talk in hyperbolic “changed my life” or “moves the medium forward” sort of ways. When the Gone Homes or the Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons of the world pop up I am inclined to shrug my shoulders and go back to playing whatever inscrutable tactical RPG or mechanically demanding action title I’m probably dealing with. It’s probably unfair, and definitely has to do with the way I’m wired and connect with video games, but I’m not the most touchy-feely person, at least when it comes to the media I consume.

Undertale, GameFAQs users’ 2015 Greatest Game of All Time, did not change my life, nor am I convinced it moves the medium forward (to whatever "forward" actually is.) However, I’m still an advocate for clever writing and good storytelling in any form, and in that sense Undertale succeeded for me. It’s charming and genuine without being cloying or twee, probably because it’s also willing to get weird as shit and act as a pretty funny parody/deconstruction of old JRPGs and games in general. I only played the game once and got the True Pacifist ending, but it’s the stuff I watched from the Genocide playthrough that cemented it in my memory as “a clever thing.” Still, once you get past dating the skeleton man, telling the fish lady that anime is real, and saving the world with the power of being nice the hard and fast truth of the game is that I didn’t like the parts where I actually had to play it. I’m not a bullet hell kinda guy. At least the music is great!

3. The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask 3D

I already wrote most of what I had to say in the blog linked above, but Majora’s Mask’s strengths ultimately come down to it being actively weird, experimental, and downright moody, involving Link running around and solving people’s problems before the moon falls and kills everyone. The Legend of Zelda game part, with its 4 okay dungeons and barely-existent item progression, almost feels like it was included out of obligation, and can be held in stark contrast to something like the dungeon-centric Link Between Worlds or (if you want to be less flattering) Twilight Princess. I’m still not convinced the N64 original with its lack of hard saves, less-helpful bomber’s notebook, and inability to progress time in set intervals deserves my praise as much as the 3DS remake with its quality of life improvements. You people who claim this is the best Zelda are still crazy, but maybe not as crazy as I used to think.

2. Divinity Original Sin Enhanced Edition

I finally finished Divinity Original Sin. It only took me two years, a lost save, a special edition, and a broken computer to finally get there! I’ve already sung this game’s praises enough, between its involved tactical combat, systems-level interaction nonsense, colorful presentation, and jaunty soundtrack, though now I can speak to the game as a whole. Well, at least the Enhanced Edition, which made a bunch of incremental to significant mechanical balance changes, added a handful of new skills, added full voice acting, and touched up the script with special attention given to the conclusion. The story and writing, which oscillate between “charmingly goofy,” “trying too hard to be charmingly goofy,” and “generic fantasy sludge” aren’t exactly its high watermarks, though the addition of full, decidedly cornball voice acting helped move it a little closer towards the “charming” end of the scale for me, especially when the NPC party members were concerned. Unfortunately, like most massive RPGs, it overstayed its welcome a little bit too long in the third act, which coincided with the game’s power curve tipping in my favor towards bulldozing for the last 5-10 hours.

1. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Original Blog here.

It might surprise you, but The Witcher 3 is a fantastic game that deserves most of the praise hurled its way, from the quantity of quality RPG writing to the cast of characters and clear delineation between worthwhile and grindy side-content. The DLCs are arguably better than the main game, with Hearts of Stone being the tight 10-hour package and Blood and Wine being the 30-40 hour refined take on the main game’s open world. Given the amount of accolades this game has already received, I don’t feel the need to get super in-detail, but it was definitely worth my time to pick up this year.

Some other mentions: I replayed a few games this year.

It turns out I still really like the original Baldur’s Gate, even when someone pulls a Star Wars Special Edition on it and shoves in the NPC equivalents of a bad CG Jabba the Hutt getting his tail stepped on into the mix. While my quest to play through Beamdog’s bizarre and kinda insane midquel expansion/reunion special and then through the “enhanced edition” of BG 2 didn’t quite happen, I have a morbid need to see that stuff for myself that demands I get around to it in the near-future.

I figured it had been a few years, so I also played Ocarina of Time again. In the process, I realized that game is hardwired into my brain in a way that makes it really hard for me to make any sort of serious qualitative judgement on it. While I’m still pretty sure it’s one of the greatest games of all time, I feel less like I rediscovered that game on 3DS and more that I’m read a script that I already wrote the last few times I replayed it. The Water Temple sure is terrible, but how terrible is it in the grand pantheon of Zelda dungeons? I can’t tell, and I think if I do replay OOT again, it’s going to be with the Master Quest dungeons so it will actually be fresh. I wonder if I’d feel something similar if I seriously sat down for a full Might and Magic VII replay, given the number of times I’ve played through that game as well.

I also played through Resident Evil 5 with my brother-in-law via split-screen co-op. That game is still good, but perhaps less amazing than I remember it being. It takes a lot of its cues from RE4 and then doesn’t do them quite as well, shoves in co-op, a little Black Hawk Down, and some questionable end-game sequences where they give the enemies guns in a game not designed around those mechanics. It also has something kinda resembling a story, that you’ll mostly remember for D.C. Douglas having far too much fun with his performance as Albert Wesker and that part where Chris punches a boulder. Still, I imagine the New Game + stuff is as good as it used to be, and that The Mercenaries is still fun. While the game’s pacing is relentless in a way that removes tension and slow moments, it also respects the players’ time and the demands of cooperative play, which is more than I can say when we moved on to Leon chapter 1 in Resident Evil 6. I… haven’t been able to convince my brother-in-law to play any more with me, weirdly enough.

And that’s it for old games. Expect recent games soon! I didn't like Rogue One very much. Just thought I'd throw that in there.