So uh, I know this is VERY late, but I made a list of games that were MY favorite games of the year way back in March, but never got around to finishing it. Yeah... better late than never.
So without further ado, here's my list of my TOP TEN of 2015!
#10
Crypt is a tough game. Let nobody tell you any different. After putting around 15 hours into it over many sessions, I finally made it to the fourth block, but many, many lives were lost along the way. What I didn't expect about Necrodancer was that it challenged me, made me learn its mechanics, made me learn the moves of every enemy within its labyrinths. I didn't expect this from a game that I initially thought was just an attempt to fuse music and RPG mechanics together. Only through determination and feeling the rhythm of the beat can one progress through the Necromancer's halls.
#9
Duck Game is LEGIT. You're a duck who shoots other ducks. There's a quack button. AND a button that lets you alter the pitch of said quack button. I REST MY CASE.
#8
Let my just say that for those unfamiliar with the Danganronpa series, you should really fix that, unless you have some unchecked hatred for anime or stories in games. The Danganronpa games are insane, wacky, bizarre, willing to push every boundary, and utterly despairing in a way unlike any other game I've ever played. I definitely recommend checking them out.
On the other hand, Ultra Despair Girls, a spinoff game of the main series, twists the typical Danganronpa format from a Visual Novel to a third-person shooter. Crazy, right? Boy, you don't even know the half of it... I mean, it'd be impossible to describe all the crazy things this game does in this little blurb, so I'll just say this: the story doesn't rest a beat and delivers the same type of narrative experience as the main series.
#7
I'll always have a soft spot for 3D Platformers. Games like Mario 64, Banjo-Kazooie, and Ape Escape were what I grew up on. But, despite owning my own pair of nostalgia tinted glasses for the genre, Grow Home doesn't require the aforementioned nostalgia. It succeeds through its design choice (like how much momentum the robot has) and the sheer spectacle of growing this enormous plant into the heavens. I just remember the moment, hours in, when I looked down upon the plant I had grown, seeing how far I had gone and what I had accomplished. It felt pretty damn cool
#6
Rocket League is about rocket powered battle cars playing soccer! And while that might sound not really all that special, the way it looks, is presented, and is controlled are pretty special. Polish including: a scoreboard that keeps track of your stats like a real sport, the replay after a goal, the satisfying feeling of getting a goal or block, the incredible depth in controlling one's rocket cars, the techniques needed to play well at the game, and... you get the point.
GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL!!
#5
Final Fantasy XIV surprised me. Going into it, I thought it was fairly typical and not really worthy of my time. I even made a character with a joke name because I thought I wouldn't make it past level 10. How little did I know! At its core FFXIV is a theme park MMO, but it was actually a pretty effective one. I wanted to play the classic jobs: like Dragoon, Paladin, Black Mage. I wanted to fight a variety of enemies from the FF Universe. I wanted to do a bunch of goofy fun shit with my friends. What I didn't expect was a decent story (that actually felt like a story) and a well built world, a nice little bonus that managed to seal the deal for me.
In Heavensward, that decent story, evolved into something I found really interesting. I mean, it's not some sort of blow away spectacle, but especially for an MMO, it's actually really good. The characters were cool, the setting was interesting, and the plot moved away from the trite battle between "darkness and light" that plagued the vanilla story, focusing instead on the plight of a single nation caught in a thousand year war with dragons. While the gameplay doesn't really evolve in the expansion, I still enjoyed my experience with the game's mechanics carried over from the vanilla content.
#4
Huh...? Metal Gear?
I like the Metal Gear Solid series. I like the way, despite the serious nature of the plot, it can also poke fun at itself, and if one looks hard enough, they can find plenty of gags and silly scenes. Yeah, the controls can be little clunky and ridiculous (how am I supposed to figure out all these CQC moves on my own?!), but they were endearing because their plots involved more than just a series of objectives that "soldier A" had to accomplish with a bunch of nonsense military jargon thrown in for good measure.
What's different about Metal Gear Solid V? Uhh... it turns out, this MGS is sorta that standard military game that I mocked. I mean, there are still silly stuff here and there, but it's mostly removed to tell the continued story of how Big Boss went baaaaad. There's tons of military-political speech. "The PF went AWOL and joined the opposing faction who extracted a surplus of expendables and imprisoned the leader of a rights movement, but now has a deterrent against their base camp. Oscar mike." Blah blah blah. Objective objective objective. It's not super great, but there are some great story beats once in a while.
The real showstopper is the gameplay. I don't think I've played a better stealth game. Tight gunplay, quality shooting you'd expect from a AAA FPS, combined with fair stealth mechanics that allow for A LOT of creativity and options. I mean, this isn't new for the Metal Gear Solid series, but take the MGS structure of well designed stealth levels and place them an open world. Common sense should say they wouldn't mix, but man, I can't say enough about how well it DOES work.
Thanks for that, Boss.
#3
Let's just cut to the chase, JRPGs (and by extension RPGs) are my favorite genre of games. I love them, have loved them since I was a kid. Actually... let me clarify, I love GOOD JRPGS. I have no misguided love for bad ones, and let me tell you, there are a ton of bad and mediocre ones.
Where does Trails fit in? Well, Trails in the Sky is like the hidden gem you missed years ago, just out of sight, a JRPG from another older era, yet can still stands up brilliantly to the test of time. Allow me to elaborate. Originally, Trails in the Sky: First Chapter was released in Japan in 2004, but didn't come overseas until 2011. Second Chapter came out in 2006 in Japan, but didn't make it here till 2015. Despite being a decade old, the Trails in the Sky series features a good story with a cast of well written characters placed in a well developed and believable world. Being able to fully immerse oneself into a world, its characters, conflicts, and living through the adventures of the protagonist who explores it all is my favorite aspect of any RPG, and Trails pulls it off very well.
The two gripes with this game (and that extends to the whole series) is that first, Second Chapter repeats a lot of the content from First Chapter. Like it was a little frustrating that there wasn't a ton of new lands for me to explore. The story and scenarios are different, but some of the places you go to were already explored in the previous game. Second, there's a whole lot of build up before much happens in the grand plot, which isn't a problem for me so much besides when it's really dragging.
Despite that, Trails in the Sky SC (and FC) are great RPGs that I'm glad I got to play.
#2
Super Mario Maker is a fantastic game. Yes, I said "game". Deal with it. I don't know how many hours my brother and I lost creating levels with the game's fun, intuitive level creator, and playing the countless number of user-created levels. It's really been a blast. Those original 2D Mario games are such paragons of game design that you can mold them in any shape and form, and they'll still hold up. Heck, I've seen brand new ideas, ways to combine the various pieces to form entirely spins on the Mario level formula. It's like every time I start playing levels online, I'll discover a new ingenious design that I'll want to go put in my levels later.
Super Mario Maker is just great. I got no other words for it. Even while writing this, I have the itch to go play some levels right now.
#1
Howdy!
Remember when I said I loved RPGs? How they were my favorite genre in games?
WELL, YOU SHOULD HAVE SEEN THIS COMING.
Undertale is amazing. From its endearing cast of characters, to the witty writing, the fun gameplay, awesome soundtrack, the playing with RPG tropes, the fascinating player agency, and the list goes on and on and on.
I could go on about how special the game is like many others have, but I'll just share something from my own point of view.
It's strange to say, but I've played Undertale a long time ago. Years ago when I would go onto RPG MAKER sites and download, play, and make all the RPGs random people over the world made. It's hard to describe, but bits and pieces of Undertale can be found in some of those amateur RPGs. They played with RPG and JRPG tropes, a few had witty writing and great characters, fewer still had wild stories you would never see any JRPG. Those elements were there. Did any of them ever come in such a complete and fantastic package as Undertale did? Not even close, but what I believe is that Undertale is the realization and the evolution of that amateur scenes, of those amateur games. ... And maybe I'm not too off the mark there, being that in an interview, the creator mentioned dabbling in that same amateur RPG scene.
Anyway, Undertale is freaking good. What a game.
