I was very strapped for cash in 2015 with almost no spending money to use on video games or buying new hardware, I still don't own any of the new consoles. So this year I made a serious effect to finish some of the bigger titles in my backlog and only got around to playing a few games that were released in 2015. Originally I thought I was missing out on a lot of great games, and I'm sure I was, but having a whole year where I mostly skipped out on new releases to play my older titles was sort of relaxing. I felt like I was enjoying my games at my own pace instead of keeping up with release schedules and always trying to play the next new thing.

So without further ado, here are some of my favorite games I played this year:

Oreshika: Tainted Bloodlines

Oreshika was actually a game I was super hyped about for a long time and was one of the titles I used to justify buying a PlayStation Vita. The game is about a samurai clan whose members were cursed by an evil sorcerer to live for only two years. For the sake of revenge, the clan teams up with the gods to produce offspring that can continue the fight against the sorcerer as the older members die off. The premise is very original and the gameplay is just as original, despite deceptively looking like a standard dungeon crawler, combining elements from raising sims, RPGs and time management games. Oreshika is all about effectively using what little time your clan members have left and spending every day taking another small step towards your goal. While I had some problems with the game being repetitive at times it was still a very fulfilling experience and I even got kind of emotional when I looked at my clan's long family tree after finally removing the curse.

Corpse Party 2: Dead Patient

I really liked the original Corpse Party, I even wrote about it forever ago on GiantBomb, but that game came out over 4 years ago and I hadn't touched it since its initial release in 2011. So when I played Corpse Party 2 this year, thanks to an unfinished fan patch, I was reminded of all the stuff I loved about Corpse Party, not the gore, or scares, or girls peeing themselves (god why is that a thing in this series) but the feeling of having no idea what will happen next. The mystery of what crazy thing is behind the next corner and what fate awaits each of the characters was one of the most compelling aspects of the first Corpse Party. Dead Patient got closer to recapturing that feeling than any of spin-offs ever did since nothing was reused from the previous titles. Corpse Party 2 is an unfinished game so the story could all go south when the other chapters are released, and it very well might after seeing what happened in Blood Drive, but I really enjoyed feeling that sense of the unknown again.

Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls

When I played the first Danganropa back in 2013 I wasn't that impressed by it. I had just finished Virtue's Last Reward, seen Battle Royal for the first time, and Hunger Games was the new hottest at the time so Danganropa just felt like another story about kids killing each other while trapped somewhere. However, Ropa stuck with me and I fell in love with the series after playing the sequel, which made me hungry to learn more about its crazy world. Another Episode finally made the environment outside the school the main backdrop to the story while also shacking up the formula by the changing the gameplay and exploring some really dark themes. Danganronpa Another Episode may not have had a mind breaking plot twist or as many memorable characters as the previous games but it shows that the series is flexible and is still able to surprise me with its insanity.

The Devil Survivor Series

I've purchased every version of both Devil Survivor games as they were released but it wasn't until 2015 that I finally played through each title on the 3DS. Both games are great strategy RPGs but I think Record Breaker is my personal favorite. Everything in the second game just felt like a huge improvement over the original and I liked the game's cast of characters a lot more, the great voice cast and the Fate System helped a lot with that. However the first Devil Survivor had a much more oppressive atmosphere and made me feel like I was struggling to survive every day the characters spent in Tokyo. Record Breaker definitely lost that by having the characters be a part of a powerful organization instead of just being some dumb kids in the middle of a disaster. So in some ways both games complement each other and I'm happy I played them both instead of just finishing one or the other.

Shantae and the Pirate's Curse

The Shantae series has been hyped to hell and back for as long as I've been looking up games on the internet. I always wanted to play them ever since I was in High School but the Gameboy cartridge was super rare and I never owned a DSi so the series seemed like a wondrous fruit that grew on a branch just out of my reach. When I did finally play these titles years later I thought they were just okay, both games have nice presentations but I always thought they were lacking in many areas. Pirate's Curse is the first Shantae game that I really felt lived up to the series' potential and all the hype from fans. All the characters have much more personality, the controls are incredibly tight and Shantae's new abilities are fun to use. The world is easy to navigate and full of verity while the presentation continues to be just as beautiful as the previous titles. The story is even interesting to follow and kept me curious the whole way through. Pirate's Curse was the game that finally made me a fan of Shantae and I am very excited to see what Wayforward does next in Half-Genie Hero.

Xenoblade Chronicles

Whenever I would enter a new area in Xenoblade the giant environment would, of course, impress me but when the title of the area appeared on screen it would put the place into a powerful context. I was standing on the thumb of one of the giant creatures all life on the planet lived on. Any game can impress with a pretty background but the fact that this huge vista before me was just the thumb of something much, much, much larger really gave me a clear idea of just how huge the world was. So many JRPGs get lost whenever they attempt to have a scale this big but Xenoblade always felt anchored because of how well it interweaves its world with its gameplay, even if it did get a little lost near the end. The game is a finely crafted experience and I really appreciated everything it did.

Another Code: R – A Journey into Lost Memories

Another Code R is just so freakin chill. A lot of my favorite adventure games have zany characters or are big stories with large stakes but Another Code R is refreshingly low key and down to earth. Not to say that Another Code R doesn't have any drama, or even a little sci-fi, but everything happens at a leisurely pace and focuses on small discoveries instead earth shattering revelations. The game is nowhere near perfect but everything just clicked with me on a personal level, from the presentation, to the characters, and even down to the sound effects used for the menus. I just had a great time playing Another Code R and I wish that Cing was still around so I could see Ashley's adventures continue.

The Last Story

When I first heard about the Last Story I excepted it to be a big sprawling adventure similar to Final Fantasy or even Hironobu Sakaguchi's previous console titles, Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey. But what I found was a much smaller tale about the story of a closely knit group of mercenaries and their dream to become knights on Lazulis island. The game eventually becomes about the end of the world and the like but it is never presented outside the perspective of Zael and how these circumstances effect him, his friends, and the residents of Lazulis. Last Story takes place almost entirely on the island town and it becomes almost a character in itself as you see the town, and the people within it, change over the course of Zael's adventure. The game feels very personal and I grew attached to the cast and the island of Lazulis. When The Last Story ended I felt like I was saying good bye to a friend, which is something that only a handful of games have ever managed to make me feel.

And that's my list. If you want to read my thoughts on every game I completed in 2015 go check out my list where I wrote a few sentences about each title as I finished them throughout the year. And if you're curious about what I'll play in 2016, I've already started a similar list for this year that you can follow. Also, this has nothing to do with games, but if you are curious about what were my favorite animes I watched last year then you can also read a list about that over at Anime Planet.

Thanks for reading.