It seems like there's no shortage of great games right now. Here's a few of my favorites. Like bsstephan, I will shamelessly include 2014 games in my 2015 list because I'm just that far behind. Some 2014 releases that I've only just gotten to recently have excited me enough to write about them.
I've never been much of a rhythm game junkie. I'm all about the Personas, however - and with a collector's edition including a funky Vita pouch, golden Teddie keychain, and Vita cover, how can you resist?
The gameplay is what one might expect from the genre, so I have little to comment about regarding that. The story mode was a nice addition to the already-endearing Persona 4 franchise, and I never really have a problem going through another adventure with those characters.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the soundtrack is amazing. I mean, this is what we're here for, right? Shoji Meguro has quickly risen to a spot among my favorite composers, and the soundtrack has dominated my playlist while driving to work for a very long time.
This was my first foray into Guilty Gear and I am quite impressed. I've seen a bit of the older games, and I'm pleased at the way they've captured the look and feel of previous entries while updating the graphics to a pseudo-3D style. It looks amazing.
I, like many others, was a bit disappointed by the absence of many of the old fan-favorites (although I've never played the games, I am familiar with some of the characters). But with Revelator on the horizon, I see this entry as the beginning of a re-awakening of the franchise.
I wanted a dungeon crawler, and this scratched me right where I itch. Etrian Odyssey is a great franchise; Persona is a great franchise; this takes absolutely the best of both and merges them into a delightful experience. It's certainly tame by dungeon crawler - even Etrian Odyssey - standards. It's perhaps even too easy if you really know what you're doing in the Velvet room. I'm having so much fun fusing personas and trying them out in the various dungeons, though, that it just doesn't matter.
I love One Piece. I have never really found a One Piece game that captured my excitement as much as the series. This game, though. This game is madness. It's ludicrous. But it's Musou, so of course it is. And this entry doesn't add anything new to the formula.
What makes this game absolutely fantastic is the details. The developers of this game know One Piece. They know that because Garp grabbed Luffy by the collar to punch him, only to have both of them immediately fall asleep, that we the fans want Garp to have an attack where he does exactly that thing. They know that if I play Kizaru, I want his taunt to be ignoring the madness around him and calmly uttering a prolonged "Mooooshiii mooooshii?" into his Den Den Mushi. They get it, and that's why this game is so much fun.
I'm pushing it with this one - a 2012 release, updated in 2014 for Vita, and finally making it's way to me in 2015. But such is the state of my game backlog.
It's really hard to describe anything Danganronpa. I don't mean because it's a landmine of spoilers - I just mean it's really hard to describe Danganronpa. I think this franchise is really what made me go "Okay I get it" at visual novel games. Granted, this is slightly more than a visual novel. The exploration and puzzling, linear though they may be, really draw you in as you can't help but want to press on to find out more. The characters make you feel cheerful, uncomfortable, and suspicious at the same time; and by the time you're nearly done with it, you realize you're more invested with these characters than those found in many other games.
I've been waiting for this for 17 years. It's hard to think of characters that I've grown more fond of that Jim Raynor, Zeratul, and Artanis. I'm very satisfied with the way they've brought the plot started so long ago to a close. To me, Starcraft II began with that little hidden mission in Brood War, where a mysterious entity called Duran set up what would become an enduring mystery. And to see that mystery finally answered is really cool to me.
Continuing my trend of including 2014 games, I simply must mention this gem. This game is the reason I bought a PS4. After playing for only a few minutes on a friend's console, I knew it was console-buying-worthy. The combat is just fun. It's fun watching the bizarre orc captains hunt you down and pick a fight. It's fun riding beasts into battle and trampling enemies. It's really fun being in the center of an army of orcs and mowing them down one by one with brutal KOs.
