The 4th end of the year list. The first two can be found here and here.
If you'd like to see my favorite games of 2015 then you should look at this list! If you'd maybe like to see a list of my favorite games of 2015 that actually came out in 2015 then look no further and instead look at this list!
This list is only for games that came out first in 2014 that I played in 2015. Not much more to it than that, I hope you enjoy reading it!
ROM was an eye-opening experience for me. Some of the themes the game addresses affected me in a way that I didn't imagine they possibly could. I'd rather not talk about them for various reasons but I'll treasure the time I spent with this game very dearly for many years to come. Turing is the best!
The Talos Principle is a smart game. It's intelligently written, has a thought-provoking story about the nature of man and I think the puzzles are pretty well designed. That's the long and short of it. I think this game's pretty cool!
Lisa was my game of the year last year but I probably played more of it this year. I'll probably be the first to tell you how cool I think this game is but I didn't put it on this list without good reason. The Joyful is a piece of DLC that came out in 2015 that puts an end to the arc of the story told in the main game. It's pretty much a smaller, concentrated dose of the things I loved about the game when I first played it. I've written about this game so much on this very website that it feels like I'm in an echo chamber whenever I say how much I like this game but that's the truth and I'm sticking to it.
Freedom Planet tries so hard to be a game that was on a SEGA console. I have absolutely no nostalgia for that era of games but I do have an odd fascination with it. Freedom Planet does too and it's very apparent in it's look and feel. It also does it's own thing all while evoking other titles of the era. It's nice! I like it!
I played way too much Borderlands 2 and walked out of it a little cold and a bit down on it. The Pre-Sequel feels like it takes quite a few nice half-steps in the right direction for the Borderlands series and the universe built around it. It's also very, very Australian.
There are very few games that are as delightfully bizarre as D4 and the games that are seem to only pop up once every few years. The episodic nature of this game has me hoping that there'll be more. But if there never is another set of episodes where I can "look for D", at least there is enough concentrated weirdness in the two that exist to sate me for a while
When society collapses and humanity is separated into two groups; those who prefer Bastion and those who prefer Transistor, I'll align myself with the latter. The looks and soundtrack cater more to my personal tastes and I found the highly customizable combat to be pretty engaging.
I feel like a lot of people slept on 1,001 Spikes which is a shame! I realize it's a game not suited to everyone's tastes (it's a tough platformer) but it is still a very good game of that type with some really rad music.
Shovel Knight is cool! That's all I'm gonna say about it.
Kromaia is a game where you fly a spaceship really fast in semi-open levels and fight huge bosses. It's got a nice look, sense of speed and a grappling hook! Unfortunately, you have to play the same four levels four times each to finish the game.
