2014 In Games

[BB]

Originally Posted by phil_

The Zelda Oracle games are pretty neat. I prefer Seasons, but that's almost certainly because Seasons was my game and Ages was my brothers. I've only played Ages once as the second part of my first Seasons run-through, but I've played Seasons more times than I can remember. I feel like you get to see more of the world in Seasons, with the eponymous seasonal gimmick as well as the underground Subrosia. Ages' place and place-again-but-the-past feels... lesser. Again, it's probably all in my head, you're going to have fun.

I intend to play both- I looked around online which to play first and it seemed roughly 60-40 in favour of Ages so I went with it. Apparently Ages is a lot more puzzle-heavy, and it certainly feels like it, at least using Link's Awakening as a yardstick.

I have half a mind to play the Love Live game. How hard does it pump you for money, and do I need a G+ account or to make some other account to play?

It depends a lot- you get enough "live points" and they regenerate fast enough that you can play casually and never run out (the currency you buy with $$$ is love gems which instantly refill your Live Points if you really want to play more, but they seem to throw a lot of love gems at you all the time). Love gems are also used to scout new members though and if there's a specific girl you want, you'd probably need to open your wallet since it's entirely random what you get. For reference, I've played six weeks and haven't spent a penny yet.

You only need access to your android or iOS storefront to download it, and the game asks you to register an account within it which is just a case of choosing a username and a starting girl.

[phil_]

Originally Posted by Babybahamut

Apparently Ages is a lot more puzzle-heavy,

This is the impression that we got playing through both back in the day, that Ages was about solving puzzles and Seasons was about fighting monsters.

Originally Posted by Babybahamut

Love gems are also used to scout new members though and if there's a specific girl you want, you'd probably need to open your wallet since it's entirely random what you get. For reference, I've played six weeks and haven't spent a penny yet.

You only need access to your android or iOS storefront to download it, and the game asks you to register an account within it which is just a case of choosing a username and a starting girl.

As I haven't watched the show and thus don't have any attachment to any particular character, that sounds fine. I'll probably give it a whirl tomorrow.

[Solid Snake]

I'll just review games that were actually released in 2014, because if I tried to review every game I played in 2014, it'd be an atrociously long list. Even by Snake-Wall standards.

Bravely Default: It looks gorgeous, plays well but no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't get into it. I've been on record as the type of gamer who cares disproportionately about story and characters over gameplay, and these characters and the plot didn't hook me. It reminds me eerily of how I felt about Final Fantasy VI -- everything's mechanically sound, it's clear to me why other gamers love it, it's clear it objectively deserves praise, but it just subjectively falls flat for poor, jaded, cynical Solid Snake, for some bullshit arbitrary reason which explains why I'd be terrible as a games critic.

Danganronpa Trigger Happy Havoc: Absolutely phenomenal. It's basically a more mature, more complex Phoenix Wright-style courtroom drama except teenagers are murdering each other and you can't trust anyone. A few of the characters are one-dimensional and one important plot twist in particular is poorly handled, but the writing is snappy and it kind of deliciously straddles the line of perverseness without becoming too tasteless; there's a bit of voyeurism and a bit too much sanctification in each execution but it's just lighthearted enough that you're willing to forgive its deviance. It's like that class clown in high school who's so great at comedy and so innately likable as a person that s/he can make jokes about the worst possible subjects and s/he still somehow 'gets away with it.' That's what playing Danganronpa feels like.

Lightning Returns: The FFXIII series in general is the polar opposite of Final Fantasy VI or Bravely Default for Snake personally; it's the series that every gamer despises that Snake plays and is like, "These games are hated? I mean it's not perfect but there's a lot of awesome ideas buried in here." That was only kind of true for the first game in the series, which was the weakest of the lot, but FFXIII-2 was a genuine masterpiece and one of the best games of 2012 and dammit, I'm sticking to my guns on that one. (Seriously, just listen to Noel's Theme, it's one the best orchestral pieces in gaming. And Noel is an underrated gem of a character.) Lightning Returns doesn't quite reach FFXIII-2's brilliance, in large part because Lightning just isn't allowed to show the same emotional range as Serah or Noel and she's forced to carry the show on her own, and the Pokemon-style Monster raising in FFXIII-2 is gone and there's nothing weighty to replace it with, but I was surprisingly touched by the resolution of most of the character arcs and there's just something surprisingly compelling about Lightning Return's unique portrayal of a surprisingly lively dying world.

Toukiden: I just got Freedom Wars and I'll be interested to compare and contrast the two once I've invested time into the latter, but Toukiden is a competent Monster Hunter clone that does a lot of gameplay-related things well for a portable game where you collect materials and kill demons. Still, the story is so bland and so utterly, incomprehensibly forgettable that I can't even remember what the hell it was about. I just wish a game in this style actually invested an iota of thought into plot and characterization.

Final Fantasy X Remastered: It's a competent HD upscale of one of the better Final Fantasies, but it's just not quite as magical the second time around. It didn't quite retain the same replay value that, say, FFVII had when I was younger. Whether it's a result of a half-assed translation or whether even the original Japanese script was this bad, the dialogue is just atrocious to listen to at times. The heart's in the right place, but you still can't help but cringe. It's like having your high school crush finally reciprocate your affections, only s/he does so ten years after you've gotten over him/her and the heartfelt confession is so cheesy you can barely take it seriously. You know you really like this person and you know it's a dream come true, but dammit, the delivery wasn't what you imagined it'd be and the same person you adored in high school is now a decade older and hasn't done much with their lives since.

...But Auron is still such a lovable badass you're going to gleefully make out with it anyway.

Child of Light: I need to actually play this game I purchased sometime or Speroni's going to kill me.

Drakengard 3: It's not quite NieR, but given that NieR's basically going to retire as my undisputed Champion for the PS3 Generation of gaming, nothing could match it. Drakengard 3's introductory sequence is quite possibly my favorite intro of the year and, from there, it's a zany, sex-positive romp with all the twists and turns you'd expect. I haven't beaten Drak 3 in all its iterative forms yet so I can't really make any definitive claims but it doesn't seem so far to match NieR's emotional intensity -- I mean, this isn't a father fighting for his gravely ill daughter, and Zero's cussin'-everythin' hostility is sometimes just so over the top that you can't manage to take her as seriously as you take NieR's genuine and heartfelt raw determination (seriously, can every male hero in future RPGs be written like that guy?)

The gameplay is generic and the graphics are, well, somewhere between PS2 and PS3-era in quality (I played a sequence in NieR and a sequence in Drak 3 back-to-back for comparison's sake a few months back and I quipped to myself that I'd have guessed NieR was the newer title) but there's a lot to love about Drak 3 if you can get over its flaws and shortcomings, which is the kind of flavorless sentiment that rings true about everyone and everything. But Drakengard 3's respective successes and failures are just so unique compared to everything else in the industry that it's worth checking out, if only to admire the game's uncompromising vision of a strong female heroine who loves to have sex but always feels in full control of her sex life and who doesn't feel subjected to male gaze...the rarity of an empowered sexually active woman who won't take anyone's shit and who often acts independently of the wishes of the gamer 'controlling' her on the battlefield is a great sight to behold.

Transistor: I can't say I was as fond as this title as, well, the collective masses of Gamerdom, but its soundtrack, damn, what an incredible soundtrack. Just don't spoil the plot of this one for me as I haven't beaten it yet, it's that game I constantly intend to play right after I finish the game I'm currently playing, but I keep buying new games and poor Transistor is perpetually delayed.

Tropico 5: It's SimCity with a whimsical sense of humor, but once you've developed one island into a bustling tropical metropolis, there really isn't much incentive to go back and replay it. I really wish I hadn't paid full price on it, but if you want to distract yourself for a dozen hours or so with some mindless fun, definitely consider it when it's inevitably on sale for pennies on the dollar during the next Steam sale. Just be forewarned that is ridiculously easy, preparing a dish of Velveeta macaroni and cheese will demand more forethought.

Divinity Original Sin: I will never understand how this beat out the likes of Shadow of Mordor or Inquisition to be GameSpot's game of the year, unless GameSpot was just attempting to be contrarian for the sake of being contrarian, but even then, there's so many other, better games from 2014 to rebel against conformity with. I spent half the damn time skipping endless words of dialogue that just bored the crap out of me. I know I care more about plot and story than most gamers do, but I feel like when you're writing an RPG, that ought to be a prime consideration, but everything in this world is so lifeless and flat, and the game just seems to parody RPG tropes for the mere sake of doing so, without any consideration of context or any desire to evoke genuine laughter. It's like watching a really terrible stand-up comedian, only the comedian suddenly appears to begin his/her routine in the middle of an epic fantasy movie, and you're like, "What the fuck is Adam Sandler doing here, ranting and raving about the trials of modern-day life in New York City when I just want to rescue some peasants, master some magic and slay some fucking goblins?"

Tales of Xillia 2: I think the easiest summation of my Xillia 2 experience is to note that, upon getting the premature so-called "Bad Ending" for this title, I was so profoundly moved that I refuse to actually achieve the "Normal" and "True" Endings.

...You might think that's a compliment, but it really isn't. The reason why it isn't is because this story's plot shits all over the lovable characters from the original Xillia. It's actually kind of a brilliant storytelling device, but just one that I feel is utterly inappropriate for the Tales series: The characters you love from the first game return but circumstances have changed to such an extent that they're doing all kinds of sketchy and immoral things, deceiving new characters who bring a new perspective to people you once cared for and loved. It's like learning your best friend's been living a secret life all along as a dastardly serial killer, and you have to deal with the ensuing trauma of killing said best friend in order to save countless innocents and restore your lost dignity as a decent person. And in many other series, this twist would work phenomenally, but the Tales series is always so light-hearted in tone and lackadaisical that there's just this profound, ugly disconnect between the jovial banter among the characters and what the characters are actually doing. And as you're playing it all you can't help but think to yourself that it'd be much better executed under any other developer who makes RPGs, but the Tales crew is the last possible team you'd want handling this, as they're painting a smiley face over genocide and asking you not squint really hard and see the massacres taking place behind the harmless conversations about everyone's favorite colors. (The disconnect is particularly bizarre when one of the characters bending over backwards to understand the justification for executing countless numbers of innocent people is an adorable young girl, barely entering puberty.)

...It is, however, a painstaking recreation of the horrific experience of owing an excessive amount of debt. Which, despite the absurd realism of said premise, is actually one of the few things Xillia 2 executes exceedingly well. A Debt Simulator! Just what I always wanted to play!!!

The Walking Dead Season Two: Season Two never quite matches Season One's zenith of cathartic storytelling achievement. But that's pretty much to be expected; after the unexpected soaring success of the original, any sequel was bound to be less shocking and less moving. We've devoured the best Telltale had to offer this universe already, and now we're just eating leftovers. What was more surprising to me personally is how -- despite this being a sequel to Season One, and therefore the type of game you'd expect to tout mechanical if not narrative improvements -- Season Two feels like a regression in all facets. Until the very end of Episode Five, the choices are less meaningful and have less an impact on the overarching story than they did previously. The gameplay sequences where you're mashing buttons feel even more bland. There's no innovation here, no new gameplay sequence to open up new possibilities or to challenge players. The ethical dilemmas you're confronted with are less grey in hue, though that does improve in later episodes.

What Season Two does have going for it is Clementine, whose maturation into a more capable and independent person is one of the few things Telltale really handles right. And [SPOILER], who is awesome. And [OTHER SPOILER], who isn't quite as deftly handled as [SPOILER], but whose inclusion in the narrative does finally provide for intriguing interpersonal tension in later episodes that the first few episodes sorely lacked.

Professor Layton VS Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: I'm not sure if I would have believed you if you told me a year ago that I'd prefer this game over Dual Destinies, but this game is better than Dual Destinies in nearly every imaginable respect. Better music, a more intriguing central mystery, better twists in turns in a strange but compelling narrative that gripped me from the moment it started. (And the mechanic in trials of dealing with multiple witnesses at once on the stand is absolutely something the mainline Ace Attorney series needs to borrow into its future titles.) It's hard for me to gush too much Layton VS Wright because it was quickly displaced in my mind by Danganronpa 2, and it's hard for just about any visual novel to compare well to any iteration in the Danganronpa series. But Layton VS Wright finished with a beautiful, meticulously concocted final act that just resonated with the contours of my soul like really phenomenal poetry does. All the puzzle pieces fit perfectly into place, the conclusion made me shed tears, and for a brief moment in time, all was right in the universe.

...On the more cynical side of the coin, though, the puzzles were egregiously easy and Layton's story arc wasn't nearly as interesting as Wright's, because the trials were much better than the puzzles. And given that Level 5 apparently was responsible for this, I'm shocked to say this, but I really feel like Phoenix and Maya as characters were handled better throughout the story compared with Layton and Luke. I mean, you'd expect it to be the opposite way around, so go figure.

Danganronpa 2 Goodbye Despair: It's hard to compare and contrast the two Danganronpas as each game excels, but in remarkably different ways. The original Danganronpa has a tighter overarching story to tie everything together, but Danganronpa 2's individual cases were more interesting. Danganronpa 2 has better characters overall, but the best characters in the original game survive longer, whereas the best characters in Danganronpa 2's cast tend to be forcibly expelled from the narrative. There are major social justice-related issues in the original Danganronpa that are handled slightly better in the sequel, but only slightly. Danganronpa 2's trials were much more difficult, with many more unexpected twists, but many of the sequel's minigames were also much more tedious. The main characters in both titles are very different individuals with very different worldviews, but they both have unique strengths and weaknesses as amateur sleuths that make them equally endearing. At any rate, I highly recommend them both. Together, they tell a delightfully macabre story that somehow manages to simultaneously be philosophically deep and pulp-fiction shallow (shallow in the good sense, though, like the ludicrously earnest Spanish soap opera you simply can't stop watching.)

And, Gundham Tanaka: Best character or BEST character?!?

Shadow of Mordor: So, really, who would have guessed that the best Assassin's Creed game to come out this year wasn't going to be an Assassin's Creed game at all, or even be made by Ubisoft? What's strange to reflect upon when considering Shadow of Mordor is how the Middle-earth setting is arguably the weak link of the game; Monolith really doesn't have much nuance to add to the story of Sauron's ascent to power, Talion isn't an exciting or an engaging protagonist, and Gollum's presence is treated as an afterthought. The Nemesis system, and the intertwined complexity of the sociopolitical lives of Orcs, is the sole component that elevates Mordor to the stratosphere. Without it, this game wastes away into the oblivion of mediocrity. With it, it's a genuine contender for Game of the Year.

...So basically, let's all pretend to be surprised when every new release in 2016 touts its own version of the Nemesis system. It's inevitable, but it's a positive force for the industry, because the introduction of a robustly developing narrative that the player fashions independently of linear storytelling restraints is exactly what videogames need.

Persona 4 Arena Ultimax: What's fascinating about the unexpected explosion of the Persona 4 series into all these spinoffs is how each new edition seems hellbent on gradually destroying the integrity of the original narrative. Persona 4 was a phenomenal game, but the Animation was incredibly problematic in simplifying its once nuanced portrayal of LGBT characters like Kanji and Naoto -- and, even more importantly, other characters' responses to the existence of said minorities in their world. Golden took all of the Animation's major issues and highlighted them; nearly every objectionable piece of content in the Animation was in some sense furthered in Golden's new and exclusive content. It's as if Atlus' feedback to the Animation was that everything terrible was actually phenomenal, and the world needed more of it.

I guess the best thing that could be said about Ultimax is that it's actually the first apparent reversal of this trend (I've also heard decent things about Persona Q, but I haven't gotten far enough in it to include it in this list.) Ultimax still has sketchy moments, but there are less damning individual moments of sleaziness or bigotry than in Arena or Golden, which is...good? I guess? Once something's stained though, it's hard to pretend any subsequent iteration can be cleansed. But the most damning criticism of Ultimax is that it's simply Arena DLC that's priced as a new full release. There's nothing here that demands even a $30 price tag, let alone a $60 one.

Dragon Age Inquisition: What else can I say? It's almost certainly my GOTY, and I'd say it's a delightful return to form for Bioware, except I was the one and only asshole on this planet who really loved Dragon Age 2, so I can't honestly say that because this series has always been on an upward trajectory after the fairly mediocre Origins. (Yes, my Dragon Age opinions are controversial.) One or two minor missteps aside, this experience reminded me of how first playing Skyrim on my brand new PC felt way back in...2011? (Was it seriously that long ago?) Just be sure to upgrade your PC graphics card for this, and don't try playing it on PS3 or X360...it's still a fine game on last-gen, but it's so much better soaring with the eagles in Ultra-land, where it belongs.


...There are probably at least a few other games released in 2014 that I've purchased and played but missed, but damn, I'm tired. I have to end this while I can still pretend any one of you might read it.