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AggroCraig

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Best of 2015

2015 turned out to be a pretty great year for games, which has allowed me to make a top 10 list that I'm happy with, but also leave behind a giant shame pile of games that I feel I gave short shrift this year. As usual, those will at least get some degree of mention up here, so: HONORABLE MENTIONS! Tales from the Borderlands, Steamworld Heist, Tales of Zestiria, Yoshi's Wooly World, Cibele, Emily is Away, Her Story, Duck Game, Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, Jackbox Party Pack 2, Mortal Kombat X. I'm sure there's more, but remembering is hard.

List items

  • Ori and the Blind Forest is a game which, upon announcement, I was excited for on aesthetics alone. The first trailer showed me a world awash in color that felt like it came from somewhere along the Miyazaki timeline. At the time, it looked like another in a long line of indie platformers, but by the time it released, it turned out to be one of a pair of heavy-hitting indie Metroidvania games this year.

    I'll admit to being a total sucker for the genre, so I was predisposed to being a fan, but the way that I was bowled over by Ori was something that I wasn't entirely expecting. This game starts with a pretty strong emotional gut punch that got me on the hook, and the platforming got difficult quickly, which was totally out of left field for me. In my experience, games in this genre have been about the exploration, with platforming and action taking a backseat. However, even though Ori has the most beautiful world that I've seen in a Metroidvania game to date, it's not just a pretty tour to go on. The platforming in Ori gets downright intense, almost reaching Super Meat Boy levels of precision jumping in the later sequences. I can see how the difficulty could turn some people off, but it just pulled me in more. Making it through the game's many "chase sequences" felt exhilarating every time, and completing the game felt like an accomplishment.

    To me, Ori and the Blind Forest is the total package. It's an audio-visual powerhouse. It delivers story moments both emotional and intense, in a minimalist fashion that doesn't need to rely on extensive exposition. Its world is full of secrets to find and upgrades that meaningfully help you traverse, and the platforming gameplay is tightly designed and put on display in memorable sequences throughout the game. As the dust has settled on an awesome year for games, Ori stands as my favorite.

  • I never really connected with any of the original Tomb Raider series, but the 2013 reboot worked for me as a mix of Uncharted's action and climbing around on stuff with a bit more open exploration. That game had its fair share of rough edges, but there was a solid enough base there that I was ready for Crystal Dynamics to take another crack at it. Thankfully, Rise of the Tomb Raider smooths over just about all of the problems that I had with the previous game and dials up the strengths to a higher level to make it one of my favorite games I've played this year.

    While the story is pretty straightforward, it makes Lara feel more central to what's going on rather than just getting caught up in someone else's business, which leads to some intense character moments that I appreciated. Lara's relationships with several of the people involved had me more invested than I was in TR2013, and I found the villain here better realized than in the previous game. The world is varied and interesting to explore, and the challenge tombs were fun to solve with useful gameplay rewards for completing them. The Metroid-style hiding in plain sight of secret areas that can only be opened when you return with an item found later works well, keeping me going back to explore older areas instead of just pushing forward through the story.

    The basic action feels great, with some Last of Us-style crafting of healing and attack items on the fly to change up tactics based on what bottles and stuff are lying around. Using smoke bombs and shrapnel grenades made combat feel more dynamic than the standard cover-based shooting, proving a nice addition to the otherwise straightforward arsenal. Throw in some outstanding set pieces to break up the regular action and you've got an exciting experience from start to finish.

    This new series of Tomb Raider games very clearly borrowed heavily from the Uncharted playbook in its design, but with this installment, I feel like Uncharted has some catching up to do.

  • Talk about a surprise, huh? Much like most other people, Undertale came out of nowhere for me. The buzz started building right away when it released, and I took a look into it, only to bounce off of the first hour or so without getting grabbed. However, as the fervor built to higher and higher levels, I managed to resist rolling my eyes at what admittedly became a very annoying fandom and dive back into the game. Boy, I'm glad that I did.

    Undertale is a difficult game to define. It's tempting to call it a love letter to classic RPGs, but some of its best moments come when it is subverting the tropes and traditions that have built the genre over the years. It's an RPG that gives the player combat options other than fighting. You ca talk to the monsters, flirt with them, get into flexing contests with them, clean bullshit off of their antlers, the list goes on. It's not the first RPG that has let players talk to enemies, that's been a staple in series like Shin Megami Tensei forever. No game has approached that concept quite like Undertale, however. It's at this point in this little description that I've decided that I don't want to spoil things for people who haven't played the game, but rest assured that the places this game goes with this concept are unprecedented and a large part of why I love it so much.

    The visuals are relatively plain, a throwback to the games I grew up with, but the soundtrack deserves mention as some of the most outstanding chiptune-style music I've heard in years. It's an extensive soundtrack that's used very well in the game, and most of my favorite moments in the game are inextricable from the music that was playing at the time.

    While the game does start relatively weakly, everything improves as the game goes on. The puzzles start off pretty uninspired, but they get cleverer and cleverer as you go. Thankfully, the part of the gameplay that I found compelling throughout was the combat, with an arcade-shooter-style dodging mechanic that made each different enemy encounter feel fresh and kept me from falling into a pattern.

    The writing and characterization is the real star here, with a motley crew of major characters who are all well-defined and multi-dimensional, and the story that ties them all together made me connect with each one in turn. It's also a game that got genuine laughs out of me, which is still rare enough to be worthy of praise.

    I can't say much more without going into spoilery specifics, but feel free to hit me up if you want to talk about moments, I'd be happy to.

  • The other half of the strong duo of Metroidvania games that hit in the first half of 2015, Axiom Verge very clearly starts with more than a few lessons from classic Metroid games in its design and construction. However, as Jeff put it in his review, "the ways that Axiom Verge resembles Metroid help set up and drive home the ways that Axiom Verge is most definitely not Metroid." I can't sum it up any better tha that.

    It's a game that starts off with obstacles that feel right out of a Metroid game, then provides ways to get past those obstacles which feel like analogues of old Metroid items. However, after it lulls the player into a false sense of security about the way this whole thing is going to work, it loads up curveball after curveball and starts to blaze its own trail.

    The game's signature, to me, lies in its glitching effects, with the player gaining the ability to glitch out the world in multiple ways to find secrets and also progress through the game. This takes multiple forms, both an in-game beam item that scrambles the environment, and a menu-based password system that makes it feel a bit like you're hacking the world using information that you find in notes and logs while exploring.

    The story isn't the game's biggest strength, but it was enough to propel me along and definitely isn't the same old Metroid fare that you're used to. The environment and creature designs feel like what we would see in an alternate universe where every developer has just been making and remaking Super Metroid with new technology since 1994. They're almost Arc System Works-level in their sprite detail, and I found some of the larger bosses downright jaw-dropping. The music is moody and eerie in a great sci-fi way, and it matches the tone of the rest of the game perfectly.

    Also, there's a sweet grappling hook. More games should have those.

  • Nuclear Throne has been around and about for a while now, but it saw its official release this year, so I'm comfortable listing it here. What's more, it released on PS4 and Vita this year, which is where I've put in about 90% of my play time. If I were to give out an award for my "Spelunky of the Year," I'd sadly have to give Downwell a well-meaning pat on the back and instead hand the trophy to Nuclear Throne.

    As a rogue-like-like(-like?), Nuclear Throne centers around having that one elusive good run. There are seven worlds in the game, with 1-3 levels apiece, and sometimes bosses to fight. No checkpoints will help you here, and a death will be met with the simple phrase "You did not reach the Nuclear Throne." Well, you know what? With some practice and continued effort, I did reach that throne. Not only that, I beat the game in the two different ways that one can and unlocked all of the characters. The first time I beat the extra final boss and looped the game was one of the most triumphant feelings of my gaming year, and it still feels great every time I make it to that loop.

    Games in this genre live or die by how well they lend themselves to the feeling of "just one more run." Nuclear Throne nails it with style, giving the player access to a wide variety of increasingly-ridiculous guns and ever more difficult enemies to blow up with that awesome arsenal. There are plenty of secret levels to discover, often hiding unlockable characters within them. Speaking of which, the cast of characters is just as varied as the range of weaponry, with each playable weirdo having unique stats and abilities that make them each feel different to play. Getting a bit tired of one character? Just switch to another and keep things fresh. Or maybe just try a different upgrade path as you level up, as the mutations noticeably affect the gameplay in a way that feels legitimately meaningful. There's always something available that will make the next run feel different than the last.

    To be honest, Nuclear Throne would probably be my game of the year if it weren't for the huge list of technical problems that have plagued my experience with it. The game crashes pretty routinely, including every single time that I die in the last world, and there are unlockable skins, upgrades, and starting weapons that I've earned but can't actually use because managing those things doesn't seem to work. Perhaps most damning is the lack of cross-save on the two Playstation platforms, leading to me having separate progress on my PS4 and my Vita. Though, I guess it's a testament to the game that I unlocked all of the characters on both versions.

    If this game gets some updates to fix up those issues that I've had with it, it'll be up there with Spelunky on the list of games that I can play and replay forever. I really hope it happens.

  • Ever since the period of personal discovery circa 2013 when I went from regarding Dark Souls as a bunch of clunky bullshit to considering it one of the best video games ever made, I've been converted into a fan of the Souls series. While I haven't gone back and played Demon's Souls yet (I know,) I've kept up with its successors as they've been released. While I wasn't as much of a fan of Dark Souls 2 as the original, Bloodborne approaches the Souls formula in a different way that got me invested like DS1 did. The big armor and shields that protected me through my Dark Souls days were gone, and it was time to learn how to parry things. The kid gloves were off.

    Luckily, the frustration of learning to play by Bloodborne's rules eventually gave way to the kind of joy in victory that's almost unique to this series. There are plenty of hard games out there, but few games are total motherfuckers quite like Souls games, and Bloodborne is no different. It feels like the game is actively trying to fuck with you, which makes each individual win, whether it's finding a new lantern to checkpoint at or beating a hard boss, feel significant. If there's anything I'd knock Bloodborne for, it's that it felt a bit easier than its predecessors, and one or two too many bosses were one-try wonders that I could just roll around and cut to death without much thought.

    While I understand the criticism that the aesthetic of Bloodborne is one-note, I found the atmosphere to be a perfect fit for the "night of monster hunting" environment that the game takes place in. It's a smoky, eerie Victorian world where a bunch of folks in top hats with torches and pitchforks are chasing me around, only to meet the business end of my flintlock and axe. Speaking of which, the trick weapons in the game are perhaps its greatest strength in my eyes. Transforming weapons between different modes to fit the situation at hand was a great tactical tool to have, and the animations of the character switching weapon forms were cool as hell.

    The game's story is as confusing and obtuse as any other Souls story, but even before the Internet explained it to me, I appreciated the game's blend of gothic horror and bizarre cosmic horror as it progressed, and the finale it built to was great. Though, I liked the penultimate fight significantly more than the last one.

    Though I'm very excited for Dark Souls 3, I hope this isn't the last we see of the concepts and universe that Bloodborne offered.

  • If you read my list last year, you should be aware that I've become a pretty rabid Danganronpa fan over the last couple of years. I played the two main games in the series last year, and jumped right into this side-story game as soon as I could when it released this September. It was a bit of a surprise when this was announced as a third-person shooter in the Danganronpa universe, because Japan isn't exactly known as a hotbed of shooter development, but Vanquish and Binary Domain worked, right? Unfortunately, the shooting isn't nearly as strong as either of those games, but it's functional and holds the game together.

    As per usual with the Danganronpa series, the greatest strengths of Despair Girls lie in the presentation and the storytelling. Though it isn't a main series Danganronpa title, the flagrant nonsense that permeates the other games is present here. The game takes place in a city taken over by murderous children, and the environment design takes as much advantage of that concept as possible. When I first walked into an area that looked like a town drawn by a kindergartner, I knew that I was in for something special. The series' trademark music is back in full effect as well, with the same kind of discordant hyperkinetic weirdness that I've been loving for years present throughout the game.

    Of course, while I've always dug the aesthetic, the true masterwork of Danganronpa lies in the storytelling, and Ultra Despair Girls is a standalone side story that takes place between the first and second games, tying them together and giving more context to the situation that has befallen the world in the game's universe. In addition to filling in some of the cracks between the other games and giving more depth to the overall universe, the game's own story is one of the most intense and uncomfortable series of moments in any game I've played in years. The fact that the villains are a bunch of children might make one think that there might be a softer touch in play, but that couldn't be farther from the truth. I don't want to spoil anything, but the themes that the game plays with are downright ghastly at times. The new characters range from pretty good to amazing, and one of my favorite characters from the original game, Toko Fukawa, makes a triumphant return in a much more central role than she previously had. The game makes meaningful references to characters from the original and does plenty of heartstring-tugging for people that love that first game. It definitely got to me on that front.

    It's not the best-playing game on this list by a longshot, probably quite the opposite. Despite that, however, Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls is probably my favorite story I experienced in games this year, and it's still hanging around in my head even months later. The Vita might be basically a dead system at this point, but a Playstation TV is pretty cheap these days. Get one and play the Danganronpa games. They're worth it.

  • Another major surprise this year, Until Dawn is a combination of different things that I'm pretty indifferent about: horror stories and David Cage games. It's basically the odd cousin of Heavy Rain that's watched too many shlocky horror flicks in its life, but somehow that combination worked for me in a way that I couldn't have anticipated. I'll admit that I spent a lot of my time with this game watching someone else play it, as a part of Heather's let's play video series, but I got enough play time in with it to know what I need to know.

    The setup is about as cliche as it gets: a group of teens, a year after the tragic disappearances (and likely deaths) of their two friends, go back to the house where it all happened for some debauchery and sexy funtimes. Of course, there's a killer after them and everything starts going wrong pretty much immediately. Again, I won't go into specifics, but it meanders down a checklist of horror tropes to show the player moment after moment that left me thinking "hey, I think I've seen this movie before." Even though so much time is spent paying tribute to teen horror history, my favorite parts of the game are those where it plays around with those traditions a bit. Much like Undertale and Axiom Verge, Until Dawn subverts expectations in meaningful ways, making up what is probably my favorite trend of the year.

    Because the majority of the game's appeal depends on the cast of characters, it's a relief that the group of teens that are sharing this murder house are very well-realized. The performance capture that went into their animations is impressive, and the actors that are portraying the characters are represented with minimal uncanny valley effect. Each player is going to have their own favorite characters and performances, but I feel the need to give particular attention to Rami Malek's portrayal of Josh, which I found to be outstanding.

    The gameplay is pretty strictly the Heavy Rain formula, with third-person environment exploration broken up by quick-time events for action sequences and dialogue choices for conversation scenes. The story changes meaningfully based on decisions the player makes, and I was impressed by the amount of variance that was possible. For what it's worth: when I played, everyone lived. Sweet. Extra credit for quick-time events that felt intense and exciting, which aren't easy to make.

    Until Dawn was a game that had me conflicted before it released. The trailers looked neat, but horror has never been my thing in any medium, and I've always found horror games particularly shitty. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it, and I'd love to see Supermassive Games tackle another genre. With the skills they've shown here, I think they could handle a wide range of genres beyond horror.

  • Super Mario Maker feels like it's been a long time coming. Super Mario Bros has been in the collective consciousness for decades, and I'm sure I'm far from the only one who dreamed up my own levels as a kid. Now that Super Mario Maker exists, not only do people have an outlet to make their concepts for Mario levels real, the tools they can use are intuitive and fun to create with. The development of user-generated content tools that are enjoyable as an activity rather than just a means to an end is a victory in itself. For years, games that rely on users making stuff for everyone else to play have rapidly become environments where 1% of the people are making content worth seeing and the rest of the players are just waiting for it to exist. With Super Mario Maker, I've seen awesome levels from a wide variety of people, and the flow doesn't seem to be slowing.

    If the game were just a set of creation tools, it would be laudable enough. However, it's also a decently-slick set of tools that let you check out other people's levels, either through code entry or random chance. I understand the criticism that the in-game level searching needs to be better, and it does, but I was personally able to come across plenty of interesting levels through Twitter and general Internet awareness, which then let me follow their creators and keep seeing what they were up to.

    Beyond that, Nintendo themselves are getting involved in the creation fun, with event courses tied to significant new releases that I've found fun to play.

    In general, Super Mario Maker stands as another entry in a long line of evidence supporting that one old truth about video games: when Nintendo is at their best, they can execute like no other.

  • Unfortunately, this year felt a bit disappointing for the 3DS by and large, with many of the major releases on the platform being whiffs. Sure, there were some quality games like Yo-kai Watch and Puzzle and Dragons, but I had high hopes for games like Code Name: STEAM, Zelda Tri Force Heroes, and Animal Crossing Happy Home Designer that the games didn't quite live up to. Perhaps because of this, there was an opening in my 3DS life for some downloadable games, and that's where BOXBOY! comes in.

    I've always been a fan of puzzle platformers, as it's a genre where a game with a strong core mechanic that is used cleverly can stand on its own for a few hours, which is how long the games tend to be. It's a formula that's been used plenty of times over the years, but it works. BOXBOY! is my favorite recent example, and it's little surprise that it comes from HAL Labs, one of Nintendo's strong development teams.

    Essentially, you play an adorable little square with eyes and legs who needs to collect a bunch of crowns and get to a door to, um, help his girlfriend or something? Whatever. You're a square, and you can make other squares to place as platforms and stairs to help you traverse the game's many stages. That's the basic premise, but BOXBOY! builds on that idea steadily as the levels progress, adding layers of mechanical complexity at a smart rate, giving you just enough time to become comfortable with a new puzzle element before throwing another one into the mix.

    The black and white visuals are simple, but the main character is shockingly expressive for a square with legs. Seriously, just watch his idle animation. It's adorable. If you have a 3DS and an interest in clever puzzles, you really should check this game out. It's pretty cheap, it doesn't take up much space on your system, and there are way more levels in it than the price tag might lead you to believe. Also, as I'm writing this, a sequel just came out in Japan, and I can't wait for it to make its way here.
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