My Most Anticipated Games of 2013 - 2012's Leftovers

There were quite a number of games that were set to be released in 2012, but didn't quite make it. On another site, I had created a similar list to this at the beginning of 2012 and I also wrote up a small follow up post recently about the titles that slipped into 2013. Given that these are some of the game I've been looking forward to for a good long time and I didn't put the in my 2013 list, I felt the need to write about them here as well.

Think of this list as the "Top 6 Games That Didn't Come Out in 2012"

List items

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  1. BioShock Infinite

  I’m actually starting to get worried about this one. It seems like of all the games coming out in 2013, Bioshock Infinite is the one with the weight of the world on its shoulders. With all this pressure and heightened expectations, not to mention with the constant changes we’ve seen during its development, this game could be a spectacular failure, much like I feared about Mass Effect 3 last year. We shall see on this one, but I am quite excited nonetheless.

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  2. Dragon's Crown

  Dragon’s Crown is in that weird place of development hell where we know things have kinda maybe gone completely wrong, but no details are given. Doubly so, considering this is a Japanese company. All I really know is that the game was cancelled… kinda, Atlus is now publishing it now, and then that’s about it. Hopefully it will come out. We get far too few quality beat-em-ups nowadays.

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  3. Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney

  Yo, who the hell knows with this game. This match made in heaven seems as rad as we all wanted it to be, if impressions from Japan can be trusted. Yeah, people say it’s too long, basically the length of one entry from each respective series duct taped together, but I am a-okay with a long ass puzzling-courtroom-visual-novel-adventure experience. But we haven’t heard a peep about this game coming out in North America, despite the popularity of both series. Prospects on this one coming out here are still fairly high, but Capcom have done stupider things in the past. Perhaps they’re holding this one back for the pre-Ace Attorney 5 hype while still dodging the Professor Layton release schedule?

  Who knows?

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  4. Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon

  Played this at PAX. Wasn’t especially too impressed by it, but then again it was just more Luigi’s Mansion with a hand holding tutorial. Minus that second part, that’s exactly what I signed up for. Nothing more, nothing less.

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  5. Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance

  Another game I got to experience in the noisy halls of PAX. Revengeance seems to be delivering on that Platinum action I craved, but it’s not exactly as smooth as I want it. It controls a little clunky, the pace of the action sequences is a little bit bumpy with some forced time slowing mechanics, and there was a bit too many MGS elements forced into the game, such as ill-conceived stealth sections and the terrible gun gameplay the series is known for. Overall, I felt positive about my experience. I mean, everything else about the game was fine, but nothing really blew me away either. Hopefully the imperfections won’t hold this back from being a great, yet flawed, title.

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  6. The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky SC

  Me hoping for this game in 2012 was more of a desperate plea than an actual prediction. The first in the trilogy was one of the best games of 2011 and I just cannot wait to continue the series, but there are some huge localization hurdles in the way. The biggest, and most obvious, is that the PSP is dead, which means the entire localization process pretty much has to begin again on one of three other platforms: Smartphones, PS3, or PC.

  Since the PS3 will die before the massive undertaking of translating both Second Chaper and Final Chapter would be completed (leaving us back here where we started) and a game this size available exclusively for smartphones is ludicrous, I expect that Trails will be following Ys to Steam eventually. That is, if XSEED or Falcom are even still interested in bringing this series over to North America.