@spacetrucking: ThewholeUndertalesoundtrackisoutstanding. It's rare when that happens: when it isn't just one or two standout tracks which appears to be the case with Crypt of the NecroDancer. The original Xenoblade Chronicles was the same way - somehow managing to maintain a consistent high level of quality for all 90+ tracks - which is why I'm still doing my musical homework for XCX and a few others before I draw any conclusions.
I am slightly concerned that for their "Best Music" award GB will have once again voted for the game with the best track, which may well be CotND's Disco Descent, and not the best overall soundtrack. They always tend to get fixated on one particularly great piece of VGM in particular - the Pacman DX menu music or the singular track of Luftrausers, for example. I guess as long as they don't tear into David Wise again this year, I'll be fine with whatever they go with.
I think Undertale's a lock for me this year, but thanks for giving me a little more to chew on. I'm also planning to check out XCX's soundtrack at some point: if it's anywhere near as good as Xenoblade Chronicles's, it might give Undertale a run for its money and then some.
I'm trying to separate "loop" and "routine" in my head, as it pertains to doing shit in a video game. Routine would be something like Animal Crossing or Theatrhythm: Curtain Call, where I would check in every day to grab fossils or see what songs were tagged as score-boosted Daily Specials. Cycles would be more like the constant loop of loot/open-world RPGs, going back to town to sell vendor trash or drop off valuables at the ol' homestead before heading back through the Town Portal once again.
I'd have to say that some great "cycle"-based gameplay would be that found in Dark Cloud 2 and Persona 4, which are two of my favorite games for that very reason. Both are heavily invested in their dungeon-crawling, which might well be considered the "core" gameplay of the two of them, but they'll also offer you a lot of opportunities to take it easy outside of the randomized-floor-by-randomized-floor grind should it ever threaten to overwhelm you. With Dark Cloud 2, it was working on your little Georama towns with whatever new resources you found and maybe fishing or playing golf for a while, whereas in Persona 4 (and 3) it was all about hanging out with the social links and enjoying the game's low-key "slice of life" moments between all the high-tension, end-of-the-world main story events.
The cycle in this case would be doing some dungeon-crawling for useful materials and cash, leaving the dungeon for a while to pursue what else the game has to offer with the resources you'd gathered, and then heading back in again once it was time to continue the plot. Works surprisingly well, and is a far more satisfying break than just five minutes running around a hub area selling crap and acquiring new fetch quests.
@arbitrarywater: It's hard to articulate how well a game like TheBUTT handles its puzzle difficulty A) because it would involve describing the puzzles and denying others the pleasure of solving them, and B) because the length of time it takes anyone to solve a puzzle is an inherently subjective quantity. All I can say is that there's a minimal amount of moon logic behind solutions, characters usually don't pick up anything unless they need them (but they'll remain "examine" hotspots in the meantime, as a hint) and you get plenty of clues if you pay attention to what the characters say when you examine hotspots and talk to NPCs - though it's worth noting that some dialogue options are "one and done". I don't think I ever got stuck not knowing what to do next for more than thirty minutes, and I'm an idiot.
@slag: TheBUTT makes ten, so I do at least have a top ten of sorts. That list could use some pruning as it stands right now, and I have a few more 2015 releases left to check out. They're all fairly small Steam Indie games too - or at least I believe they are. The only one that won't be a short playthrough is the very last one: Fallout 4. (If I start that now, there won't be room for anything else before Dec 20th...)
@loktarogar: Maybe I'll save 5 for my retirement then. At the pace I've been beating these games, not to mention the speed that Sega's releasing them, it'll probably line up fairly well.
I wonder how future generations will treat games like Enslaved and Remember Me. I think both stand out as anomalies with distinctive settings and features but a few too many troublesome issues to be venerated as true classics. They might be considered cult games except I'm not even sure what registers as "cult" for this medium (beyond something like Deadly Premonition) because it's so weird about depreciation through technical and technological obsolescence that makes older games harder to approach for new audiences. I suppose the recent wave of successful Indie retro throwbacks brings that notion into dispute though, as it can't just be nostalgic adults buying those things.
I also don't think people sleep on historically important games so much these days, because we're all a lot more informed - or at least there's more opportunities to be informed if people, especially would-be designers, seek that information out. Like our and other game wikis, or resources like HardcoreGaming101, Game Developer Research Institute, The Cutting Room Floor or TVTropes, or game history video series like Jeremy Parish's Game Boy World, Player One Podcast's Generation-16 or Dr. Sparkle's Chrontendo/Chronturbo. On a recent blog I discussed the heavy Live a Live influences on Undertale amidst the more obvious cases like EarthBound and Final Fantasy, and then before I could pat myself on the back for the obscure reference I realized that there's probably a whole bunch of Undertale fansites/wikias out there that analyzes in minute detail everything about Live a Live and its importance to Undertale. Probably also for even more esoteric Famicom RPGs I've never even heard of that Toby Fox may have played to death and was no doubt influenced by. It just takes a handful of obsessive nuts with a wiki database and a whole lot of obscure gaming knowledge to disseminate to keep people in the know and these games out of obscurity.
As long as the carts (or ROMs) survive, nothing will be forgotten. Though maybe that just comes from having added far too many pointless shogi/mahjong/pachinko games to the wiki.
(Since I'm already dangerously close enough to the city limits of Plugsville USA, I will say that I've been maintaining a blog series here on GB that looks at forgotten mechanics that I wish were more widespread. I think I got @thatpinguino into the idea of writing something similar too.)
(Also: I love the idea of this feature and its audience participation element, Austin. Keep 'em coming.)
I think one of the first things I'd ever do if I was set up for creating videos is a full LP of Illusion of Gaia. I have so much fondness for Quintet and their weird ideas.
Let's try to keep the conversation in these comments focused on the SXSW event and this unfortunate situation, rather than get too sidetracked about GG and its past offenses. Likewise, if you have zero interest in the topic, please just walk away instead of trying to deflect or derail the conversation.
Thanks, duders. I know this means a lot to a lot of you, and feel free to get in touch with us or Rorie if you have any concerns about mods or users on this site.
Kudos on beating the game! Now that you have a lot of Eyes on You with this series, it's time to start Lightning Returns or Final Fantasy X-2 without the context of their antecedents. The apoplectic confusion is what makes these blogs great.
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