Best of 2015
Updated over the year.
List items
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Even knowing the elevator pitch going in - 6 hour bullet hell quirky indie RPG - Undertale has a way of disarming expectations and slowly getting under your skin. It's a comforting and at times unsettling experience, logging player behavior silently and incorporating it into the storytelling. There's jokes, vignettes and funny bits along the way, with a pleasantly dry but bittersweet JRPG inner voice setting the overall tone. Even the most cartoonish characters carry relatable human motivations and the surprisingly fun combat system really shines during the creative and challenging boss encounters. Before long, climactic stuff happens and an ending plays out, with the promise of more to uncover if you're determined enough.
I devoured Undertale in two playthroughs over the course of a weekend and haven't gone back since because the game convinced me not to. Months later it still holds a prominent spot in my head, particularly the sprawling, cohesively excellent soundtrack. Eventually I looked up the scenes I'd missed out on, I'm not that strong, plus seeing it all provides context to fully appreciate how Toby Fox went about critiquing the desire to see it all. As a singular work it's incredibly impressive, the way the game has caught on is endearing (if a little cloying), but on its own merits Undertale was both the surprise and highlight of a strong year for me and a game well positioned to stand the test of time.
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Arguably the definitive Fantasy Open World Role Playing Video Game, delivering in depth and breadth of content over multiple continents and dozens of hours. An epic tale of Geralt solving quests and quarrels large and small, coming to terms with the women in his life and playing a lot of Gwent. Richly beautiful environments sway with life, beards grow in real time. Also worth mentioning CD Projekt's industry leading post game support, with frequent updates based on player feedback and free DLC.
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Evolves and refines the signature elements of the Souls series into something even more manic and potent. There's a rogues gallery of beasts and villains to cleave through and interconnected, beautiful nightmare environments to explore, but the changes to the combat gives the game its identity by promoting a faster, looser and more aggressive playstyle. The guttural rewards of progression in the face of adversity is fully intact, and the worldbuilding and lore is up there with Miyazaki's best.
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Stealth action masterpiece. Clockwork systems of minutiae and stupidity influences decision making on the fly and adds new wrinkles to each encounter. The feedback loop between fultoning recruits, researching upgrades and gaining new abilities is satisfying and useful, and everything from scouting to sneaking to shooting feels finely tuned. There's enough Metal Gear flavor to make The Phantom Pain audacious and weird in a number of ways but the focus is squarely on player freedom over filmmaking, which suits the game just fine. Still plenty of opportunities for Kojima to subvert expectations with gleeful disregard for good taste, structural convention and fan appeasement.
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Stylish 2D arcade skateboarding returns and improves upon its predecessor in nearly every way. There's a learning curve to the timing and execution involved but once the handling clicks it's easy to zone out while executing combos that last the length of a course. Different modes and objectives gives the game legs and the excellent soundtrack works in tandem with the clean, bright menus to bring a sleepy west coast glow to the overall package.
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Compelling detective Sci-Fi in classic point and click fashion. Mindjacking, virtual wetware interfacing and the pros/cons of developing centralized, organic AI.
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FMV police procedural mystery that dolls out snippets of interviews from different points in a timeline by way of keyword search. Breaking out a notebook is recommended. Effective and understated storytelling that lends itself to discussion and debate, even after all the pieces are laid out. Viva Seifert's natural and nuanced performance is a highlight.
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Emotionally engaging time rewinding teen drama about Max, featuring a memorable cast of small town characters . Keeps the lens focused on Max's desires, interactions with the world and relationships, even as the ramifications of her abilities begin to unravel.
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Uncover the secrets and stories of the unforgiving Unterzee, navigating through strange waters with strange companions towards even stranger locations. Atmospheric, tense and mysterious, it's a slow burn that sinks its teeth in with punchy, dreamlike writing and a wide array of dialogue checks, currencies and systems to process. If lunching with the three sisters of Hunter's Keep in order to gain the attention of the zee gods or smuggling red honey from the Isle of Cats back home to Fallen London sounds like a good way to make a living, Sunless Sea is a trip worth taking.
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Deceptively simple, skillful shooter where satisfying player feedback and tight control is paramount. Great for pick up and play sessions that inevitably run much longer than originally intended.
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2D action exploration you know and love with backtracking, upgrades, giant bosses, a grid map to navigate and subterranean alien pixel art that glitches real good. There's enough of a twist to the expected traversal and arsenal boosts that the game forges its own identity, and the drive to locate every secret only grows the more you uncover and unlock.
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Novel, fast paced color wars with instinctual team strategy. A smart take on competitive multiplayer that's only gotten better and more robust over time.
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Campy, spooky David Cage horror with teens and butterfly effects and Peter Stormare.
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Rebuilding civilization and the new home of humanity one sidequest at a time, with coworker affinity and gossip webs and flying robot suits. An abundance of systems and visible information overwhelms early on but pays off as there's always something to work towards while uncovering the huge, alien frontier and ecosystem. Scratches both the MMO and JRPG itch, sucking away hours as the numbers flying out of each unsuspecting space creature steadily increases.
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In 2015 I made Super Mario levels and put them on the internet.
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Fallout 4 is a lot like other Fallouts I've been to, but over time that became less a liability and more a fond reminder that Fallout can be pretty damn great.
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Isometric CRPG throwback with modern sensibilities.
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Elegant city planner and traffic tinkerer.
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Beautiful, bite-sized action puzzles.
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Esports.
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