Elfboy's 2011 Game Retrospectives

[Grefter]

Game has a patch that enables hardmode, only available online.

Sounds like most patches ever made.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Yeah, I'm actually more inclined to view the availability of the DLC hard mode as a good thing. Most games don't have a hard mode, period (or they screw something up about it). While I'd rather it have been included in the game, free DLC is pretty clearly the next best thing, and you're probably right about why it was that way - the devs responding to a criticism about the game.


10. Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow (GameBoy Advance, Konami, 2003)

So I played this game a few months ago and now I find that I don't remember that much about it.

This isn't the first time this has happened for me; in fact, it's an annoying phenomenon for me and games I don't consider RPGs (this isn't a stealth attempt to start an "is Castlevania an RPG" debate, I promise). In particular it has happened before, with Symphony of the Night, the game I am most inclined to compare this one to.

Much like Symphony, it's a sidescroller with a heavy emphasis on exploring a huge castle and picking up lots of new weapons and abilities. You wouldn't play this game for the raw action, platforming, and battles; there's certainly plenty better to be found in the genre. However, there's a huge variety that your PC can do, which is fun. In Aria, this variety manifests mainly in the various monsters you can absorb, giving you a host of action abilities and passives which are pretty fun to play around with and figure out what works for you. The weapon variety is less impressive, but I do appreciate that the weapons vary in quite a few ways, apart from just damage: swing rate and range are also significant factors. Usually the weapon to go with at any given time is obvious, but sometimes a few niche options are good enough to be worthy of attention, such as the fast, infinite-range, but very weak pistol.

While the action aspects of the game aren't precisely the envies of the genre, as mentioned, they are at least respectable, and in particular they mark the game's largest improvement over Symphony and are why, for a couple months at least, I declared this my favourite game of the series. One of my major gripes with Alucard's adventures on the PSX is the game feels almost brain-dead easy; Aria manages to be a sight more challenging, with bosses who increasingly try to challenge you in the second half. It makes the act of playing through the game much more rewarding, I find.

In other regards, the game acquits itself respectably. While music is a bit of a sour spot (not bad, just underwhelming), the game manages to improve on the polish (particularly in the organisation of the menu) of Symphony, and is generally pleasant enough to look at. On the writing front, amazingly, the game manages to actually accomplish something, with the main twist surrounding the main character Soma being actually pretty cool, even if I knew about it in advance.

While it's a solid game, it still left me expecting more from this series. The biggest thing is what I've already alluded to; while the game's action was an improvement, and respectable, it still wasn't good enough to really net this game a high score in my books. Most of the bosses from the first half of the game are extremely forgettable, and the game has a ridiculously large hitstun time whenever Soma takes damage, which is just inexcusable. The way the game gives you almost all your special abilities by random drops seems a bit questionable, although I don't feel it ultimately hurts the game too much.

It's a respectable game, certainly. The flaws are relatively few. But the peaks of the Aria of Sorrow experience aren't exactly staggeringly high either, which holds it back. Of course, I may just be being unfairly hard on the game, because, two months later, I would end up playing another Castlevania game which, I felt, surpassed this one in every way... but that's a story for later, isn't it?

The good: A solid Metroidvania experience which improves on the formula
The bad: Gameplay design that still needs work
The ugly: All women are useless. It's the law.

[Dark Holy Elf]

9. Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii, Nintendo, 2010)

It would be a much better game if it made been made before the first Super Mario Galaxy.

I'm generally not one to turn backwards and talk about how earlier games do things better, because, I believe, as a general rule, that isn't true. Logically speaking, sequels, which have the benefit of addressing the flaws of their predecessors (not to mention the benefit of game design techniques just generally improving over the years), should outdo their predecessors. Yet Super Mario Galaxy 2 most decidedly does not, and I don't say this out of some sort of nostalgia for the first game, which a game I like a lot, but hardly at the level of the all-time favourites I really gush over.

Is Galaxy 2 still a good game? Absolutely. After all, almost everything the first game does right, it does right too! The game features level design as solid as any I've seen in a 3D platformer, using the game's trademark of variable-direction gravity to accomplish all sorts of fun little design quirks, and piling on lots of level-specific powerups to keep things fresh and interesting. In fact, the powerups are a particular highlight of the game, since there's a bunch which are all new and quite clever. The absolute best is Cloud Mario, which allows Mario to make up to three platforms before getting the power refreshed. I could play a whole game based around an expansion of this idea, it's great.

The game also does a pretty perfect job of challenge, outside one glaring exception which I'll touch on later. The game is pretty obviously aimed at people who have already played the first, and in this regard, Galaxy 2 embraces that fact and uses it to its advantage. Very few levels are total pushovers; most are satisfying to beat. A few optional stages which are intended to be very hard manage to be just that, and everything else is enough to keep you on your toes. Bosses are generally a bit tougher too.

Also the game has giant enemy hippos made out of lava. Yes, this is awesome enough to deserve its own paragraph.

So where does the game screw up, then? Simply put, it feels more like an expansion pack than a new game. New powerups (which are level-specific) aside, Mario controls identically to the previous game, with no new abilities. The levels are new, but most of the core design conceits which define levels (such as the gravity physics and prankster comets) are not. There's no new character to control (oh, how I wish the Mario series didn't resist this so!). And that's just not good enough for a sequel, to me. I can't think of a single Metroid or Castelvania that was this much like a previous game in the series, and even the most derivative of Mega Mans (a series rightly criticised for repetition at points) offers eight new weapons which significantly influence the way the controlled characters plays, first stage aside. Sorry, Nintendo, you just can't do this.

Otherwise, I can't shake the feeling that this game received just a bit less love than the first. Maybe it's that Rosalina and her charming little backstory are replaced by a forgettable purple blob. Maybe it's that the last stage is just another stage, instead of the unforgettable experience I praise the original's final level as being. Maybe it's just that Bowser is a laughable joke of a boss (and not the good type of joke like in the RPGs!), especially the final form, which placed one minor yet memorable damper on all the other good things I had to say about the game's design. All minor complaints, but they add up.

It's still a good game. It's still a game I enjoyed playing; there's a reason I got 120 stars. It is, without question, my second favourite 3D platformer (treating Devil May Cry and similar games as a separate genre for this). The game's a solid experience, and in a world where I hadn't played its predecessor, I could see myself raising it to something like #5 for this year. Yet this is, simply, not what a sequel should be. It feels weird to accuse Nintendo of all companies that they need to dare to dream a bit more, but so it goes.

The good: Solidly designed platformer with some fun new powerups, challenge balance
The bad: Wait, didn't I play a slightly better version of the same game three years ago?
The ugly: Is it even possible to take damage against final Bowser? In three fights I never saw it...

[Grefter]

Nintendo making a terribly safe sequel in a long running series 3 years after the last entry in said series.

I am shocked for words.  Shocked again.  Electric is their pimp slap.  They have liquified my will.

[Cmdr_King]

In fairness, on average Mario has mixed things up quite a bit all things considered.  An expansion pack sequel like this would be the... second in the series really?

[Grefter]

Second after Lost Levels?  I dunno, I honestly don't consider Sunshine some game changing step away from Mario 64.  To be frank I don't consider Galaxy such a game changer over it either although it is pretty fucking awesome at what it does.

[Dark Holy Elf]

I think Mario 64 is unimpressive; I think Galaxy is great. Suffice to say it's a bit more than an expansion pack. Otherwise, I haven't played Sunshine and think SMB2j sucks. So, I guess I don't think Mario does well with highly similar sequels (as I mentioned, even most other repetitive series tend to offer a few more things to shake up between titles than two highly similar Mario games).

[Meeplelard]

Mario as a series has been good at keeping things fresh, generally speaking.  Ignoring SMB2 since that was originally a different game with a mario paint job shoved on it (which ended up being better than the original SMB2, go figure...)

SMB3 added in a ton of new conventions.  Slew of whole new power ups, world map, inventory, etc.  Its like the original game on major doses of crack.

SMW took a more horizontal approach.  Removed a lot of what SMB3 had (though retained some), instead adding in new factors like Spin Jump, Yoshi, multiple means to finish a level, etc.  This is ignoring the obvious "Its 16 bit therefor prettier!" thing (and SMB3 got a 16 bit version eventually anyway.)  Oh, SMW also is the first Mario game with a save system, so that's kind of significant.

Yoshi's Island was...like a completely different game.  Still a platformer, still had "Jump on enemies and they die", but everything else seemed new.  It was just really well done game designed around "You are Yoshi" and expanded from there.

Mario 64, for better or worse, is the first 3D game and a completely different game in the transition than its predecessors.  Don't have to go into details, and you can argue this isn't a good chance, I'm looking at it from a "It changed things up a lot!"

That's about the extent of my knowledge for games in the series.  I can't really comment on new ones, though I know NSMBWii added in the whole 4 player simultaneous Co-op of Massive Politics factor, which if nothing else, adds a large amount of hilarious Friendship Breaking Fun the series didn't have before, so I'm guessing other entries in the series followed suit.


So yeah, Mario in general has been good at keeping things fresh, so saying "Nintendo making a sequel that's just like its predecessor? SHOCK!" may be true for a number of franchises they have *eyes Zelda*, Mario is one of the ones they've actually managed to avoid doing that with for the most part.

[Grefter]

It may do it badly, but it does do them given time in the main series is all I am saying.  Like even going off into the spin offs.  The Kart series hasn't changed fundamentals in like ever (64 had some strange maps?).  It adds new features at a slow iterative pace though.

Paper Mario even does it.  PM2 is great, we generally are quite positive about it right?  2 only really adds standard RPG things to it.  It just does it well.

Zelda speaks for itself.  Note that it is also Miyamotos other brainchild, so this isn't like it is out of synch with his normal process!

Metroid may shift things up a fair bit, but last I looked they were three games into their FPS series that they put out one every few years with small tweaks.  They have those throwbacks on the portable systems as well (Metroid Zero?).

I am not saying that Nintendo make fucking terrible games.  All I am saying is that, yes they do indeed make small progressive changes that are usually for the better.  Never be stunned when the occasional one pops up that is not such a mover and shaker.

Also yes.  If you pick games that are 10 years apart they seem to have a lot of advancement where they have a game or two's worth of ideas thrown in.

Just don't mix up their normal methodology not working at times to mean that it means there was something ground breakingly different in their approach.  You can very obviously tell when it was different and that is when you got a total game changer like OoT, Mario 64 or SMW.

[Dark Holy Elf]

8. Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective (Nintendo DS, Capcom, 2011)

Much like in 2010, last year I played only one game that wasn't some shade of RPG, platformer, or action game. Last year it was an Ace Attorney game, and this year, it's Ghost Trick.

Fittingly, Ghost Trick is a spiritual (haha) successor to the Ace Attorney series, and it shows. It's a text adventure game about solving a mystery, filled with irreverent characters, zany humour, and a healthy dose of the supernatural. And just like the adventures of the spiky-haired objection-spouting attorney, I found a lot to enjoy about this game.

Writing-wise, there's little this game could have done better once it gets rolling. After finishing the game I declared that the game had a better-written mystery and serious plotline than anything Ace Attorney had managed, and I stand by that. There's some really excellent stuff in here. It's difficult to talk about without spoilers but anyone who has read a good mystery should know roughly what I am referring to here: the way the game goes in unexpected directions, the way it foreshadows and makes good on foreshadowing wonderfully, and the way it keeps you hooked, in a state of being unable to put down the game because you have -have- to know what happens next. Ghost Trick does this better than any game I can ever played, the one that comes closest to mimicking that "page-turner" effect that certain books have.

Not content to just be some sort of visual novel, Ghost Trick does a lot of little things well that help it tell its story. Its soundtrack, while not something I have ever found myself tempted to listen to regularly outside the game, certainly succeeds very well at setting the mood, and its animations lend a lot of personality to its cast of characters, none moreso than Inspector Cabanela and his ridiculous body movements.

It tells unquestionably the best story of any game I have played in the past year, so why isn't it higher? Well, simply, I expect more out of a game than story: I expect gameplay. And that is one area where Ghost Trick is woefully unable to deliver. The logical comparison is Ace Attorney, but make no mistake, it does a much poorer job of gameplay than Phoenix Wright. Where its predecessor's gameplay was tied directly to the act of unraveling the game's mysteries (i.e. the reason you're playing the game), Ghost Trick's gameplay is tied to a series of highly arbitrary puzzles where you have to figure out the often nonsensical physics of a scene and make things behave in the way the game designers want you to make them behave. The puzzles are not satisfying to solve, and only the fact that there is a relatively small number of possibilities to explore keeps them under control and from interfering with the game too much.

The game also makes some missteps on its writing. It's a little slow to get started, wasting a fair bit of time with some humour which is a little shaky, particularly surrounding two prison guards who aren't nearly as funny as the game seems to think they are. And when the main character has to save the same distressed damsel from her fourth and most ludicrous death yet (all in the first third of the game!), I will admit I had to stifle a groan. It ends up being five.

It's a shame that the writers of Ghost Trick couldn't have come up with some more satisfying gameplay for their game, because aside from that it's a game I have a lot of respect for: it spins a brilliant mystery, and despite my misgivings, I would love to play more games like that.

The good: A brilliant, cohesive, well-written, and well-presented mystery story.
The bad: Weak gameplay which connects poorly with the story to boot
The ugly: The proud tradition of Capcom adventure game physics

[Dark Holy Elf]

7. Cthulhu Saves the World (PC, Zeboyd, 2010/2011)

Fun fact: the last time I completed a new computer game was in... 1999, I think. I'm not even sure Cthulhu Saves the World even counts as one, as far as breaking the shutout goes.

Regardless of what you class this game as, it's a good one. Generally speaking, I'm not too hard to please with RPGs that make gameplay their focus, and that's something Cthulhu unquestionably does. First and foremost, it makes a host of good gameplay decisions, so even while it looks like a game from two decades ago, it plays like anything but. The turn-based battle system that originated in Dragon Quest is polished up by reducing randomness, particularly in determining turn order (but also, notably, in damage). It has several modern and much-appreciated conventions such as healing after battle (no more wasting time going to the menu) and everyone getting equal exp. It has multiple difficulty modes, and I was able to find one (Hard) that had almost the perfect challenge balance I look for in games, so that I constantly felt like the decisions I was making mattered. You can save anywhere, which is great because the early parts of the game do throw the occasional bullshit random encounter at you.

But even past a bunch of good design decisions, it has its own, legitimately good, ideas. Skillsets grow at a decent clip, with a fair amount of input from the player in terms of what is learned, and make for interesting decisions both in party choice and in battle. The battle system revolves to a significant degree around turning enemies insane, which has the double-edged sword of significantly lowering their durability, but also raises their damage. But probably the game's most unique decision (shared with its predecessor which I haven't played) is that enemies get stronger every turn the battle goes by, which lends battles a certain intensity... even if you can manage enemies now, you won't if you can't find a way to kill them. I was worried this would make battles too much like rocket tag, but they really struck a decent balance with it so that defensive strategies (including the Defend command itself) still have uses. It's a game where you can tell a lot of love went into the battle design, which is extremely impressive considering how many people worked on the game.

The game's writing starts off on a promising note, with the best interactions coming from the narrator and the fourth-wall breaking Cthulhu. The game's situation is absurd and is played quite well, with plenty of RPG parody elements thrown in for good measure. Most unfortunately, though, it does not keep this up. Around midgame it feels like the writing ran out of ideas, and instead of being a parody it morphs into a largely bland experience which falls more intro the traps of pointless quests and bland NPC interaction than a parody of it. It's a shame, although it never takes up enough time to be remotely offensive at least.

On other fronts, the game fares less well, which is to be expected with its tiny budget. The music is nice enough for what it is, but certainly isn't winning any awards. The art direct isn't anything to write home about, though I do like how it is presented in Phantasy Star 4-style cutscenes (a game Cthulhu takes after surprisingly strongly). The game has a cumbersome interface for equipment and shops, and a few of the other menus. World maps that aren't graphically impressive have no reason to exist in modern RPGs, and dungeon design can be annoyingly maze-like at points. In general, these are areas where the game feels more like the age it first appears, rather than the age it actually is.

Still, it's a hard game to complain about; it's all but free, it's made by three people, and in general I'm overjoyed to see people outside Japan making games in my favourite genre. It's really far too tall an order to expect an indie game to beat out the bigger-budget efforts that make up my favourites; considering its situation, Cthulhu does (almost!) as good a job as it possibly could. There are games with better gameplay, but it's still very solid, and its other flaws don't keep you from enjoying it.

The good: Some great gameplay decisions, finely-crafted and fun gameplay design
The bad: Writing disintegrates after a promising start, some interface woes
The ugly: Cthulhu is an oddly unimpressive PC considering he's freaking Cthulhu

[Monkeyfinger]

The skill leveling system in Cthulhu pissed me off. There's all this stuff with future upgrades to the skills you pick that you don't see till the upgrades are offered, as well as the fact that you don't know if the skill you're being offered will be later rendered obsolete by something better. So it's one of those "player choice driven growth systems" that's all a bunch of bullshit guesswork.

I like a lot of the other aspects of the game that you described, but that kind of leveling system is a big black mark for me. You know how I feel about DDS, FF12, etc... cthulhu isn't as bad as those games but I can't honestly call it better than "mediocre"

[SnowFire]

I'd hold that more against the game if an even slightly suboptimally built character would throw your progress against a wall and force you to grind.  Even if you make the most conflicting decisions possible (say, emphasizing Hit Up+ abilities for your normal physical but favoring magic in stat ups), it's not like your characters will actually suck, and you can at least make up for it with picking the 'right' abilities for the last few levels.  Now, this kind of screw-up is more punishing on Insane...  but you shouldn't play through the game the first time on Insane, so you probably know the characters by then better, so whatever.  (I'm 7/8 of the way through Cthulhu's Angels and apparently skipped Molly's best damage ability in the stat topic since I assumed she was more a mage at first, and it's hardly the end of the world - she just spams ITD Silver Bullet rather than Lunge or whatever for physical damage.)

[Dark Holy Elf]

Monkey: Hmm, I can see that, although for the most part I felt the decisions were meant to be made for short-term reasons anyway (very few skills are useful for more than 5 hours after you get them), so I wasn't too worried about things like obsolescence. I do agree with you that it's even better if we know the whole system in advance or otherwise have it placed in a manual, but so considering how many games are notably worse about this (i.e. telling you nothing about what the new skills you are learning will do beyond such informative labels as "fire attack"), I find it weird that Cthulhu would attract your ire.

[Fenrir]

You might not know this, but the choice you make at one point affect the choices you'll have later, so there's a good chance you won't get the best skill you want if you don't faq beforehand.
And you can't just get every skill later by getting, say, more skill points, to make up for not making the right choice. You're screwed permanently. So it's a lot worse than every other game about this and I don't know why MF complains less about it.

(That said I don't care that much since it doesn't change a lot in practice. Only annoying in theory)

[Excal]

From the sounds of it, this emphasizes favouring short term decisions over long term considerations. ie. Don't worry about endgame, worry about right now.  It's certainly showing in how conversation as to how good/bad this system is seems to align with short/long term priorities.

I haven't played the game, so I'm curious. Is it possible this was a conscious decision, or simply how things landed thanks to the other design decisions.

[Shale]

Yeah, from the sounds of it that charge is more fairly leveled against Breath of Death VII, where a few characters learn skills within a few levels of joining that are their bread and butter all game. But there the upgrades rarely change anything fundamental about the skill in a way that makes you reconsider taking one over the other, so it works out fine.

[Fenrir]

Well, you need to remember that this affects not only skills but stats.

You could somehow think Sharpe would make a good mage and give him more magic than strength. This would go nowhere, his magic sucks. He could maybe still have access to good physical skills lategame, but he would still have sub optimal stats.
I didn't try by myself to make Umi a good physical attacker out of fear something like that might happen!

I feel choices are less relevent in the long term in other games, because every battle later gives 100 times more SP/exp/money/whatever now.

[Dark Holy Elf]

It felt like you could get something out of mage Sharpe if you wanted, actually. His magic stat is pretty low so buffing it often would actually help out those wind spells a fair bit, and they do get reasonable upgrades. Just, you're probably better off emphasising what he's already good at. My general feeling is there weren't any really rude surprises in the builds but I could be wrong. Certainly there was nothing that bugged me, maybe I was somewhat lucky with decisions though!

6. Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together (PlayStation Portable, Square Enix, 2011)

As a big fan of Final Fantasy Tactics, its predecessor is a game I had heard about for many years... usually with a disclaimer of "but it's much less polished, don't bother" attached. Still, it was a game I was always kinda interested in, and when it got an updated remake with actual polish, I was certainly interested... with good cause, as it turned out.

Where to start? Well, let's talk about that "actual polish". The game has one of the best interfaces I've seen for a strategy RPG, adding many things that its successor failed to. Making the turn gauge constantly visible is nice (though is of course something we've been seeing since Final Fantasy X), as is allowing the player to take back movements after investigating attack possibilities. But even bigger than these is something which, to my knowledge, is pretty much new to this game: the way it handles damage projections. No longer do you need to be in range to see them: choose attack, hover the cursor over anyone you want, and you'll see both how much damage you do and how much they do back on counters, even if you're not yet in range to make this attack. This is a wonderful feature and generally streamlines gathering information for your plan of attack, and I never even knew it was missing until this game showed me it. Great stuff.

Of course, this wouldn't matter if the game weren't fun to play with some good battles. Fortunately, it delivers on this. Battles are great fun, with plenty of unique enemy designs to overcome and some rather well-thought out maps. Battles are suitably challenging generally, with certain plot-important boss fights being among the hardest in the game and especially satisfying to beat. it handles death, revival, and permadeath are about the best I've seen, combining FFT's "death counter" with a CTB penalty for dying so that it avoids overpowered revival chains, and a "three strikes and you're out" system with permadeath which makes it less frustrating than in some games. This last bit becomes particularly necessary when you reach maps in which you can be instantly killed by being pushed off cliffs (those sound unpleasant in the original!).

The game's class system works both for and against it; I'll touch on the latter half of that statement later. While the class system doesn't offer the customisation of an FFT or Wild Arms XF, the classes nevertheless manage to play very different roles and are fun to toy around with, even if archers are almost certainly overpowered. Warriors, mages, clerics, knights, berserkers, ninjas and more... plenty of classes found uses, and most were very distinct from each other, which was nice.

The game has nice aesthetics, as well. I am quite fond of the artstyle of the game; it is rather like FFT's, only better-defined and the characters actually have noses. The game's sprites are pulled straight from the original SNES game and don't feel out of place one bit in a modern game, which speaks to their own quality. And the music is pretty great to listen to, with many tracks beautifully backing up the feel of the epic battles the game is going for. This is one game where an orchestral update to the soundtrack was completely approriate and works to the game's benefit.

It's a great update, but of course, it's not perfect. Its chief flaw is one that almost everyone who has played it is aware of, and it is a rather crippling weakness: a huge oversight in the class system. All classes start at level 1, and level is absolutely huge in this game as it governs not only stats, but legal equipment. This means that as you get new classes throughout the game, they are steadilly less useful, because they are increasingly underlevelled. It's an awful balance decision and means that you end up using the same classes all game, which really ruins some of the fun of the system. While I praised the options those classes offered, it would really have been nice to force the player to make decisions as new ones showed up. Additionally, there isn't too much you can carry over from class to class, so compared to FFT or XF there just isn't the same customisation possible, and it feels a bit limiting.

Additionally, the game's mechanics feel a bit intentionally confusing at points, something I don't approve of in a strategy RPG. There are aspects of the gameplay that I suspect are glitched (certain buffs and skills) but it's hard to tell! Whether they do work (and just suck) or they don't, it doesn't do the game any favours.

The game's story is a bit of a mixed bag, which isn't too surprising considering its age. There's some great political stuff in there, and navigating just who is and isn't on your side (as well as who is and isn't a good person... and the two questions are distinctly not the same!) in the first half of the game is a lot of fun. Unfortunately there's a shortage of truly compelling characters (like FFT if FFT lacked Delita), and the plot devolves into a complete mess once the aforementioned questions are answer, becoming first a boring war story and finally a completely nonsensical adventure to stop some dudes from summoning a demon for a reason that isn't ever given that I saw.

Still, the complaints aren't the type that hold a game back significantly. The story flaws are entirely forgivable (it's not even like it's a bad story game!) when you have that gameplay, and the good gameplay means I can look past one or two bad decisions. It's a shame that the flaws of the class system keep the game from being truly amazing, but it's still a game that I feel they did a wonderful job updating, to become, along with XF, the second worthy FFT successor on the PSP.

The good: Great gameplay backed up by some good design decisions, good challenge level, aesthetics
The bad: Some bad decisions with the class system, plot goes downhill
The ugly: Step 1: Betray superiors. Step 2: Sacrifice life to summon demon. Step 3: Step 4: Profit!

[Luther Lansfeld]

I think the class system is also fundamentally weak. Many of the later classes (the later mage classes in particular) just feel kind of pointless. I actually did do a lot of levelling in this game to catch people up and aside from Ninja for generics they don't feel worth it. Where I think the game suffers is in its special classes, which you basically will never use most of due to them being harshly underlevelled.

About the final stuff: It's a bad sign when I FORGOT that there was a final dungeon when I played the remake. Except for my first playthrough of the original, I always just did up to Heim and then quit.

Glad you liked it.

[Dark Holy Elf]

I'm slacking on these this year for some reason, dunno why. I'll try to finish them by the end of the month at least.

5. Bayonetta (Xbox 360, Sega/PlatinumGames, 2010)

And so we reach the climax of this year's list, the game you've all been begging on your knees to hear about, the game that... I'll just stop. It's Bayonetta; you can't talk about the game without going there, because the game certainly will at every opportunity it can get.

Fortunately there's much more to talk about with this game. For instance, the fact that its gameplay is pretty rockin'. The game is strongly in the tradition of Devil May Cry and God Hand, and succeeds very well at emulating their general good design while also providing its own spin on things. Bayonetta controls very well, and the array of enemies the game throws against her are a joy to overcome, with most being very distinct and memorable, requiring you learn how to fight them individually. Bosses are a more epic fare than genre norms, which has its ups and downs, but at the very worst they are memorable fights and at best they are oustanding tests of the player's skill. And Bayonetta's distinguishing ability, Witch Time, adds a lot of fun to the game, rewarding you for skillfully dodging by giving you an opening to attack. It's used brilliantly in-game, not only due to some enemies being designed such that the opening you get is incredibly valuable (as they are constantly on the attack otherwise), but due to the fact that there are rare occasions where some enemies are immune to the effect, and that really makes those fights nasty affairs.

The game nails its grand strokes well, but also does a bunch of smaller things I appreciate. Perhaps the best is its loading screen... while it'd be better still if the game didn't have one, of course, the game uses its loading screen to give you chance to practice, even showing which buttons link up into attacks and which don't. It really helps by making a normally otherwise unenjoyable part of games enjoyable! Another nice touch is that the game lets you demo new abilities (complete with a tutorial) before buying them.

Ultimately, though, probably the most memorable thing about the game, for better or worse, is its sense of style. The game is unafraid to offend, and certain to be remembered. Sometimes the style works very well. The design of the angelic enemies, and the way each new one is introduced, is something I found appealing. The game's humour, particularly its shameless referencing of past games the creators of the game have been involved in and the lovably inept rascal Luka, generally works. And sometimes it's just completely over the top in a way you have to applaud. DID MY HAIR JUST TURN INTO A GIANT DEMON AND EAT A BOSS? Yes, yes it did. I won't even go into how the game tops itself in the endgame; it's crazy.

Of course, the double-edged sword of this is mainly found in the way the game dials its fanservice level to the max, too. This is especially the case for me and my own biases: heck, I threw a comment about sexism in for relatively plain case like Aria of Sorrow, so you can probably imagine my reaction to the hyper-sexualised Bayonetta, whose every animation appears planned to pander to male gaze and whose ultimate attacks involve her removing all her clothes. Yeah. It's certainly not something I'm going to applaud, although marvelously it does end up less offensive than it easily could have been, for two reasons. One, the game is so ridiculously over the top in every other way that the fanservice just feels like part of a ridicuous package instead of existing for its own sake, at least somewhat. Two, the game avoids what to me are some of the most insidious examples of video game sexism: Bayonetta is very strong and independent, certainly not defined by men, and when she does eventually need saving by a badass supporting character, said character is also a woman. So there's that.

The game isn't flawless on other fronts, either all, good though it is. While I could mention the cluttered and crowded menus, they ultimately don't detract from the game too much. What does is a couple gimmick stages. Bayonetta is quick to switch to other genres briefly to keep things mixed up, much like some games have mini-games. While some of the shorter experiments in this regard work well as a little spice and change of pace, the two that dominate entire stages are pretty bad failures. Neither the racing game nor the rail shooter stage are impressive examples of their genre, and the latter in particular is quite disastrous, with such regrettable design decisions of having the screen spin in a disorienting fashion whenever you dodge an attack (and you want to do this often), and having disturbingly few checkpoints, forcing the player to redo large amounts of the boring stage, which is not at <i>all</i> the reason he or she is playing the game, should he or she die.

On the note of checkpoints, hilariously I think the game often errs and occasionally has too many. Checkpoints in the middle of boss battles, in particular, I feel are questionable. There's really only one egregious example, however, of a boss fight feeling ruined by it, and since you can't take advantage of this if you care about score, it's ultimately a very minor complaint.

Bayonetta's a great action game which makes one or two annoying mistakes and has a sense of style which... I can't come away in total praise for, but it is memorable. Definitely not a game I'm soon to forget, and I game I know I will always like a lot, but can never love.

The good: Great action gameplay, good polish, over-the-top style often works
The bad: The sexism present in said style, those damn genre stages
The ugly: The main villain, dialing the creepy up to eleven

[Grefter]

I am still at a loss on exactly how I feel about the pole dancing in the closing credits.  Bayonetta in general was a strange experience.

[Dark Holy Elf]

4. Radiant Historia (Nintendo DS, Atlus, 2011)

In an age where the RPG fandom has become fragmented, clamouring for vastly different things (cohesive story vs. roleplay, exploration vs. tight gameplay), it's become quite rare for any game in the genre to achieve near-universal praise. Radiant Historia manages it, so it's worth close examination to figure out why.

Let's start with the gameplay. Radiant Historia comes up with a relatively simple idea - place the enemies on a 3x3 grid, allow the player to push them around, and make enemies pushed into the same square vulnerable to simultaneous attack - and runs with it very well. Both the player skillsets and individual battle designs are very clearly developed with these mechanics in mind, and the result is battles that are both a lot of fun and which have a distinct feel from almost any other game. Other games have made enemy (and PC) position important, but few have made manipulating it so key.

Visually, Radiant Historia's sprites and artwork have a bit of a dated feel, but nevertheless are things I found appealing. However, they're not the highlight of the game aesthetically: that would be its wonderful soundtrack. Yoko Shimomura, one of my favourites since Legend of Mana,  delivers a soundtrack in which almost every track is not only well-written in a vacuum, but also perfectly evokes the right emotions for its use in-game. The only real knock on the soundtrack is its brevity, so some tracks do eventually get repetitive, but when the quality is this good, that's an easily forgivable flaw.

The writing's quality is more mixed, but still something that does the game favours, unlike a number of games with this level of gameplay. It gets off to a quick start, introducing speical agent Stocke's position within the operations of his country, a fate of the world which he has to try to avert, and the game's pervasive and trademark time travel in rapid succession. From there on, it continues to spin an effective yarn involving a good mix of politics and fantasy. Stocke himself is a fun main, kind but heavilly introverted, and a few of the villains and supporting characters are quite memorable as well. As is often the case, it can be difficult to get into without spoilers, but I will mention that I thought the different leaderships of the two major warring countries made for some pretty nifty figures, particularly Alistel.

Unfortunately most of the other PCs are regrettably dull, with only one or two others having much worth at all. It's, unfortunately, not a game which bothers to develop its PC cast much, which is far from the end of the world but a bit unusual in a game that otherwise has clearly decided writing is worth paying attention to. The plot also tends to trip over itself a few points with the time travel (which isn't exactly surprising given the past track record of time travel plots). It gets difficult to remember what has happened on each timeline, and this is made even worse by the way that changing events in one timeline may cause an equivalent event in the other... sometimes!

On gameplay the most annoying misstep is probably the decision to so greatly limit party choice. Since Radiant Historia is a game where PC skillset is fixed by level and sidequests, and equipment isn't terribly exciting, party choice represents the main facet of customisation. Unfortunately, of the seven PCs, two have harshly limited availability, and furthermore, Stocke is always forced. And with only the main party getting full experience, there's a case against experimenting with the little customisation you're allowed on this front. This feels a bit limiting, and certainly diminishes the game's replay value, sadly.

Still, few of these complaints are that ultimately damning, and the game does so much well. In every important front the game manages to turn in at least a respectable effort. As such, it's pretty easy to see why it's a game most anyone who likes the genre will find something to play it for. Unfortunately, it also doesn't blow me away in any one area, or give me reason to think this will still be a memorable game for me a decade from now. This doesn't prevent it from being a very good game, and the second best game I played from my favourite genre this year.

The good: Solid core gameplay, Stocke, much of the writing
The bad: Much of the supporting PC cast, limited customisation in gameplay
The ugly: Being able to predict the entirety of both Gafka and his entire race within moments of meeting him

[Dark Holy Elf]

3. Mario Kart 7 (Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo, 2011)

If I had done these writeups back in 1993, not only would Super Mario Kart have been #1, but it would have been the subject of more gushing than Niagara Falls. For nearly a decade I considered it my unquestioned favourite game of all time, and even today it remains a contender. I'm never certain if the game's special place in my esteem makes me more predisposed to like its sequels or be harsh to them, but they certainly have been games I've sought out... at least the ones on the console. The plainly-titled Mario Kart 7 is the first I've extensively played on a portable, and it's a good one... one of the few on this list I really feel I need to reach to list flaws for.

The game's immediate predecessor, Mario Kart Wii, was a game I perceived as a slide in quality for the series on a few fronts, so the first expectation I had for MK7 was that it correct this slide. By and large, it did so. The game was sped up again, the player no longer loses a large amount of momentum from relatively small bumps, and (possibly due to the reduction of racers from 12 to 8) one is no longer pelted so relentlessly by unavoidable lightning bolts,  blue shells, and POW blocks (the last being gone from the game entirely). While the leader-killing blue shell unfortunately remains, two design decisions make it somewhat less egregious: it hits other racers en route to first place (making it more useful for the racer who actually gets it, especially if she takes the effort to aim), and first place can actually dodge it with a well-timed mushroom. This in turn creates an interesting dilemma for the leader: to carry a mushroom to defend against blue shells, or other items to defend against the more common but less dangerous red?

On track design, which was Wii's greatest strength, MK7 is a slight step down, but still good. Many of the new tracks serve to highlight two new mechanics the game has: driving underwater and gliding through the air. While they're mostly merely new, temporary physics sets, the gliding mechanic does provide a way past item defences, via firing shells from above. Even aside from these new racing environments, though, the new tracks are solid. Three maps consist only of one giant course rather than a set of laps, which gives them a more epic feel (predictably, they count Rainbow Road among their number). My personal favourite, however, is Neo Bowser City, which combines a good piece of music with a challenging, technical track demanding extensive use of power slides. The game also includes, as is becoming a welcome series tradition, sixteen retro tracks from past games, updated to make use of the modern mechanics.

The game has a few other new mechanics worth noting. Two are, in fact, old mechanics from previous Mario Kart games: the hop button, and coins found on the racetrack which slightly increase speed. Both serve to add some much-appreciated spice to the gameplay. A third new feature is a detailed radar which shows both the surrounding track and any threatening objects. While its existence has downsides (it further devalues the blinding blooper against human players, and neutralises the skill of tracking red shells by sound), on the whole having additional information available to the player works to the game's benefit, making it less and less a game of chance.

On aesthetics, there's a few things of note. The music is solid if unexceptional fare, channeling Mario Kart: Double Dash! as its primary influence (to my approval, of course). The aforementoined Neo Bowser City provides my favourite piece, a futuristic and barely sinister version of the game's lively main theme, perfect for the dark, urban setting it is used for. The graphics, meanwhile, are largely similar to those of the game's predecessor, outside of one big difference: they're 3D! While the 3D has downsides (it blurs if viewed at an angle, e.g. by a spectator, or if the player isn't quite still, e.g. on a bus), it can at worst be turned off, and at best lends the graphics a new level of realism, or at least as much realism as the highly cartoonish Mario allows.

The game's shortcomings, sadly, are awfully familiar charges against the series. It still insists on maintaining a bit more luck at the expense of skill than is optimum for a multiplayer game, with blue shells and dragged items continuing to overstay their welcomes. And while the new mechanics are nice, they don't change the fact that we've now gone nearly a decade since the last game-defining change, Double Dash's two racers per kart and the resulting effect on item management. Yes, a little conservatism from Nintendo's most successful franchise outside Mario and Pokemon is hardly surprising, and yes this game took steps in the right direction, but it's still something that weighs on me about the game and the series.

Also worth noting is that the game does contain a terrible glitch, which pretty much ruins one of its otherwise great tracks, at least for competitive play. It's possible, at one point, for the player to make an unintuitive 180 degree turn into a lake and be droped by Lakitu, inexplicably, about a third of the whole race ahead. It's not the end of the world but it feels pretty horribly unpolished, like something that decent playtesting should turn up.

Still, the complaints feel ultimately minor. They hold the game back from greatness, but they certainly don't hold the game back from being solid, and a worthy entrant to the franchise. The game even got me to try out some anonymous online play, and given my general apathy for such an activity, that's a pretty notable accomplishment.

The good: An all-around improvement to the Mario Kart formula in a lot of small ways, the new 3D
The bad: Some annoying traditions remain, the Maka Wuhu glitch
The ugly: They cut Dry Bowser and BABY DAISY from the roster ;_;

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

The ugly: They cut Dry Bowser and BABY DAISY from the roster ;_;

BLASPHEMY I BLAME CIATO FOR THIS