Something went wrong. Try again later

Superkenon

This user has not updated recently.

1730 1141 38 15
Forum Posts Wiki Points Following Followers

Games of the Year - Sensational 2014 Edition!

2015 arrives in style, and with it -- this list! It's time to take a look back at what 2014 gave me, and what I then went on to arbitrarily think about said offerings!

Like always there's a handful of things I didn't have time for, but you know what? I'm pretty darn happy with what ended up on my plate. I think 2014 was a better year than a lot of folks're giving it credit for. It's practically bursting with cool things! Like I just said, I didn't even have time for it all! That's a lot of games! It's all cool! Another sentence with an exclamation mark at the end!

Alright here we go: (!)

List items

  • I love the Persona series, and I love Etrian Odyssey series. Turns out, I love them blended together. And it's legitmately a blend -- not simply one game skinned to be like the other. It plays like Etrian Odyssey, and then it plays like Persona, and it's kind crazy how it can be both at once without compromising either style. Instead, their styles are propping each other up. For instance, Persona's weakness has always been in its dungeoning, whereas that's precisely Etrian Odyssey's strength. Etrian Odyssey, for all its great mechanics, never had an elemental system to write home about, whereas that's Persona's bread and butter. Their styles layer on top of each other like they were always meant to fit that way.

    But the success of the merger aside, this is one slick and polished package. The interface is friendly at every step -- not to mention oozing with that flowery Persona goodness. The characters and enemies, despite being on a handheld, are animated with more care and finesse than the series has ever known. The musical themes are a wonderful tribute to the stylings of Persona 3 and 4.

    I feel myself starting to gush. That's why this is #1, I guess. I can't get enough of the combat systems, I can't wait to explore deeper into every floor of every dungeon, and even those damn sidequests are chock-full of enough silly interactions between the Persona characters that I want to do every single one of them. And goddammit that music's good.

    Game of the year, yo.

  • Speaking of Persona...

    Very almost my top pick of the year. In fact it was enjoying the #1 slot in my mind for most of this process. I mean, objectively, there's no question Persona Q is the better, well-built, more inventive game. But the fun I've had with Persona 4 Arena Ultimax (aka P4RENA2 to cool people) is without parallel. Kind of unfair, in a way, since anything you're playing regularly with a good friend is going to automatically be ultra-favored in your head. But fun's fun. It may be an iteration, but it's the among the most fun I've had all year.

    It's a great iteration anyway. I'm super impressed with like, every character. Even ones I just can't quite wrap my mind around, like Ken or Junpei, are still easy to appreciate for their unique styles. I've personally taken to Sho and Yukari the most, which is a lmaybe ittle weird since they're like complete opposites in every way. Sho's no-nonsense no-persona style is really fun to use, and his dedicated dodge button mixes things up in an interesting way. Yukari is just a damn monster who can do whatever she wants wherever she wants. I'm also pretty interested in Rise's moveset, though I'm far from effective with it. The DLC triad of Adachi, Marie, and Margaret are also joys to behold, and I can't wait to play more. That kinda sums my ever-present feelings on the game, actually: I can't wait to play more. I'm always itchin' for a fight!

    Story's pretty weak though. Ah well.

    This is one I'm going to be coming back to again and again. And again.

  • What a year for games about dudes punchin' other dudes. Nintendo delivers up another scoop of Exactly-What-I-Want, and I can't be more satisfied.

    This is blasphemy to a certain kind of person, but this entry blows Brawl out of the water, and even makes short work of Melee. They got that "feel" down just right, armed the game with the best slew of stages the series has seen, and then filled it full of the best crop of newcomers yet. I'm going to be busy for a long time digging into the new characters. Kinda like P4RENA2, there's no bad apple in the bunch. It's just all good. Little Mac? Rad. Villager? Rad. Megaman? Rad. Pac Man? Rad. Wii Fit Trainer? Rad. Mii Fighters? Rad. Robin? Rad. Greninja? Rad. Bowser Jr.? Rad. Duck Hunt Dog? Rad. Shuuuuuulk? Rad. Palutena. Fucking rad. The only one I'm slightly lukewarm on is Rosalina, but I've spent the least amount of time figuring her out. You know what though? She seems rad.

    I really appreciate that they stepped up the amount of modes with co-op too, as it's already lead to hours and hours spent tackling things alongside my younger sibling. The 8-player Smash, while decidedly useful for playing with up to 8 players, is also an exceedingly nice addition just for the option of being able to set up custom challenges against more CPU's than was previously possible. Smash is a game about options, so everything they add just exponentially builds onto the pile of things you can do.

    Rad.

  • I'm a man who loves me some old games. But a thing I like more? The sensibilities of an old game synthesized with the modern lessons we've learned since then. It's probably been said enough, but Shovel Knight is the best of the old and the new. Whilst looking and behaving almost completely like the old.

    ie, the best.

    There's nothing more important in a platformer than its controls, and they got those down nice and tight. This game's fun to interact with at every level, from jumping over holes to shoveling a bad guy right in his ever-deserving helmet. The stages are built with a great balance of fun/difficulty. It's not a game I'd call punishing, but it ain't easy either. "Just right" is where I'd peg it. Yeah, that's right. It's Baby Bear's video game. Papa Bear's busy playing F-Zero GX's story mode or some shit, Mama Bear's taking a brisk stroll through Kirby's Epic Yarn, and Baby Bear's over here enjoying Shovel Knight because Shovel Knight is a balanced goddamn meal kept at a reasonable temperature because it's not for crazy people.

    What the hell kind of tangent was that. Anyway, yeah, Shovel Knight's a treasure. Play it if you like good things.

    Also, here's yet another game where I'm gonna say "fuck yeah" to the music at, because hoooly moley did they do a classy job with the soundtrack. It's full of catchy tunes not unlike what you'd hear in the 8-bit era, but they also do a lot of neat things with recurring themes and riffs. It's also totally badass.

    Thanks, Yacht Club! Consider me on board for whatever the hell you're doing next.

  • If you were to travel back in time and tell me that I was going to put Hyrule Warriors on my top ten list, I probably wouldn't believe you. If you told me I'd be struggling with where to place it in the TOP FOUR, I'd laugh you right the hell down the road. But here we are.

    This game isn't oozing a particular craftmanship, or even quite replicating that Nintendo charm I love so much, but darn it, this game is fun all the same. I suppose it's apt to look at it in much the same way as your typical arcade game: a simple, shallow premise with a limited gameplay loop. But because that gameplay loop appeals to you, you'll keep on playing it because you want to get a higher and higher score, even if you are just largely repeating your steps.

    I didn't really get hooked until I started on its Adventure Mode, where I got into collecting items and unlocking rewards. It hit on a type of progression I like, I guess, and I find myself wanting to keep going back to clear another space on that silly grid any time I have 15 minutes or so to knock one out.

    Make no mistake though, the Zelda glaze has a lot to do with why I like this game. It's full of so many dumb/great references to moments in the frachise, and provides the fan-service of letting me, for the first time ever, play as all these characters I've come to love over my years of Zeldaery. It's missing Nintendo's heart, but that doesn't stop me from smiling.

    ...

    And just between you and me, I bought DLC for this game.

  • I love me some Tales. Apparently I love me some Xillia too. Two.

    Didn't have a lot of high hopes for this one, since the last Tales sequel (Symphonia's Dawn of the something something whatever) was pretty dang weak, and all indications showed this to be of much the same breed. But it broke through its cursed DNA, and I ended up liking it quite a bit. Maybe I like it too much even, for a game that was built with roughly 80% recycled parts from its predecessor. Least it's green?

    What Xillia 2 does well is expand on the world the first game built up, giving you a good epilogue to the events of the first game, and providing places like Elympios some much-needed development that it missed out on the first time around. More importantly, the characters are well-represented and -- for the most part -- made even more likable than before. I'd now safely put Xillia's cast as one of the best in Tales, if not THE best. So it's great that they're given good continuations/conclusions to their individual arcs.

    All this stuff happens alongside a largely self-contained story starring all-new characters, which is itself also very enjoyable, even if I had some qualms with the new main character, Ludger, being the most ill-conceived silent protagonist ever. He'd actually probably be really awesome if they were willing to give him lines, because his story is the part I like, but... whew. Well, I won't get into this.

    Xillia 2 gave me another good JRPG story to chew into, and another excuse to play a crapload of Tales. Even if it was mostly Xillia 1 again. I ain't complainin'.

  • Luftrausers, man. Man. Luftrausers. I have a passion for arcade-style games, but even still, they usually don't grab me like Luftrausers did. I just kept loading this up whenever I had a moment.

    Its controls are deceptively intuitive, and more importantly, really fun. Sometimes I just said 'eh' to trying to shoot anyone, and entertained myself by just... flying. Weaving in and around all the enemy planes, skimming the water, cutting my boost and performing a hard reverse the other way... it all just feels good. This could be a 'fly your ship around this open air for 6 hours' simulator and I would be happy with it. But it turns out it's a game where you shoot guys too. And what a game it is. I can't get enough of it. Goddammit I have to go play it right now.

    Controls aside, the real meat of this game is in its customization. Every part substantially effects how you play the game, and there's easily over 100 different combinations of crap you can slap together (all of which with clever or hilarious pre-determined names). There's a few favorites I've found, but the game rewards you for continuing to try out different parts, as each one is tied to the in-game achievement/reward system, with their own sets of challenges respectively.

    And I can't say enough for its soundtrack. It's this nasty kind of faux-8-bit gritty techno mixed with the sounds of a glorious war march, which in itself is strong, but has the extra hook of there being multiple layers and pieces to the soundtrack that come into play based on every individual ship part you can customize your ship with. It's probably my favorite kind of musical gimmick for a video game to pull, and this game does it well.

    This is art, man. You had me at 'press up to raus'.

  • Nintendo's killing it this year. They made the best iteration of the Smash Bros. series, but not before making the best iteration the Mario Kart series has seen. They're me feel really good about owning a Wii U.

    But yeah, this game's got the best selection of courses found under one roof. Every Mario Kart has one or two courses that I want to go "please anything but that one" at, but this go-around has me pleased to take any of them. 2014, the year of no bad apples? It doesn't hurt that this game's absolutely gorgeous -- dat colorful, vibrant Nintendo style at its finest. There's interesting visuals in every track, enough that I've even had to stop racing and just look around to take in some of the sights. The gravity-defying F(aux)-Zero hover karts open the doors for them to do some really creative stuff with the scenery -- probably one of my favorites being a course that has you swimming both up and down a pair of waterfalls, only from your perspective you don't realize they were anything but rapid rivers until you catch sight of the falls from a vantage point further down the track. It's neat, I say!!

    They've got some incredible and bafflingly-reasonably priced DLC with this game too. Like $12 and you get 50% more tracks? This game already wasn't a slouch in content, so that's substantial.

    Those babies are awful though. Get 'em outta here!!

  • Bravely Default is an oustanding gem that I can't praise enough for the mechanics of its battle system, an absolute joy to engage with. It wraps its gameplay in a gorgeous world backed up by one the greatest soundtracks in recent memory. It tells a charming little Final Fantasy-derivative tale that I enjoyed for what it was, and even appreciated the wacky twist they threw in.

    So, why is this game #9 and not higher? I guess it frustrated me a little at a certain point. Namely, that darn twist. I actually liked it, and thought it was pretty clever, but the way its execution effected the GAME was disappointing. Sidestepping the nature of it, I'll just say it results in a complete rehash of things you had done up until that point. And then you do them again. And again. It really does a number on the momentum of the game, where before I was excited to see what was around every corner, my anticipation dwindeled severely, because there was nothing to anticipate anymore. Just, 'here's 20 extra hours of stuff you've seen already.' Woof. I'll admit that I may have exasperated this problem myself by having the difficulty cranked way up.

    But it's not like those extra hours were un-fun, because the game's still fun to play just by virtue of its amazing mechanics alone. Honestly, I probably wouldn't have become frustrated if I didn't have an ever-rising mountain of other games fighting for my attention all the while. At the end of the day Bravely Default is still one of my top 10 games, because damn does it do a lot of things right, even if it makes one annoying misstep towards the end. There's no denying how much fun I had with it.

  • Perhaps the most solid iteration this series has ever seen, or hell, maybe even the genre for that matter (aside from the likes of Smash Bros). Where it's par for the course for a fighter version to add a few new characters and call it a day, Phantasma adds a significant HANDFUL of new dudes, and then strips out all other existing assets in the game and replaces them with an army of new or heavily-revised trappings. Not to mention a friggin' long-ass story mode that, again, moves the story along further than anything in the series to date. This package is substantial.

    The only reason it's low on my list is because I'm just not terribly into BlazBlue beyond its convoluted-as-fuck time travel story. I have fun playing it, but I can't get into the action the same way as I can in, say... Persona 4 Arena.

  • HONORABLE MENTION.

    In all honesty this would be in my top 10 somewhere, except I didn't really get into it until the year rolled over, so... whatever. Let's just say this could easily be #5 or higher if I had gotten to it quicker. Sorry, Pokems!

    Pokemon's still great, as it turns out.
Load Comments