The end of the year is here and it is time to reflect on my experiences over the last year. So I am starting with my Top 10 games of 2015. Of course, the list is going to be mostly Nintendo games because those are the systems I primarily play and because they make the best games. So let’s get on with it.

10: Boxboy – This simple but delightful little platformer from HAL was easily one of the best games on the 3DS this year.  It took a very simple concept, a box that can make other boxes, and crafted some excellent puzzles and challenges out of it.  It is all too brief, though.  It matches that simple gameplay with similar graphics, being mostly black and white and mostly just boxes.  The game uses that simplicity to its advantage, clearly indicating just what is possible and what is important.  It is all around just an excellent game.

9: Legend of Zelda Triforce Heroes – This game is everything that the 4 Swords games, delightful even if limited, wanted to be.  It features three Links instead of four, but otherwise is exactly what you want a multiplayer Zelda to be like.  The getting power-ups from different costumes, and making those costumes an integral part of the game was a brilliant move.  This is not the sequel to A Link Between Worlds that most people wanted, but it is a perfectly fun game in its own right.

8: Affordable Space Adventures – This one slipped by a lot of people’s radars, which is unfortunate.  It makes some of the best use of the WiiU tablet controller for the system yet and is a damn fun game regardless.  In Affordable Space Adventures, the player goes on a voyage courtesy of a fly-by-night space exploration company.  After the inevitable crash landing, up to three players must work together to pilot their tiny space craft to safety.  It is just an awesome experience.  The biggest part of the game is knowing how the various systems of the craft interact with the surroundings, like the noise the motor makes or the electrical systems making it detectable by some obstacles.

7: Steamworld Heist – A late entrant on the list, but I think this one will have staying power.  SteamWorld Dig was a delightful little metroidvania, but Heist keeps the same robotic aesthetic but changes genre to turn based strategy, playing something like Worms.  The game features a lot of options for tackling maps and looks and sounds great.  Really, the game just oozes charm.  The fact that is features hats just so they can be shot off is wonderful. 

6: Splatoon – I really wish my time with this game hadn’t been derailed by losing my save data.  This is a charming and fresh take on the multi-player shooter that has been a well-deserved hit for Nintendo.  It is mostly here for the multiplayer, which I really enjoyed for the month I stuck with it, but the single player was also a lot of fun.  For a company that has an undeserved reputation among the uniformed for trotting out the same games over and over, Nintendo has a knack to taking genre’s other pioneer and giving them accessible spins.  Games like Pikmin.  Splatoon is simply aesthetically and mechanically a joy to play.

5: Yoshi’s Woolly World – This is Nintendo going back to their old faithful genre.  No one does hopping and bobbing like Nintendo.  This game also takes Kirby Epic Yarn’s arts and crafts aesthetic and takes it even further.  On graphics alone this game may be worth putting on this list.  Luckily, the game itself is great to.  I have not been a huge fan of any of Yoshi’s previous starring roles, but this one just feels good. It hits that sweet spot of being easy to beat each level, but hard to get all the secrets.  It makes you want to get the secrets, but you are never trapped by anything other than your desire to not leave anything behind.  This is just an excellent take on a reliable formula.

4: Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate – It is just like Monster Hunter 3, only bigger and better.  I spent more than 100 hours on this in just a few months, but then kind of got distracted.  Still, it is a ton of fun.  There is just so much to do in one of these games that no sane player will ever see everything. This time I got right to the end of the high rank stuff, not quite to G rank, before wandering off.  I have every intention of coming back to it, but who knows if I’ll ever make the time.  MH4U is such an assured, steady game that it is hard not to admire.

3: Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain – Wildly ambitious and somewhat flawed, The Phantom Pain is an amazing experience.  The sheer breadth of things it allows the player to do is astounding.  This is the game glimpsed occasionally through MGS4’s narrative pretensions.  After a highly scripted opening, it drops the player in Afghanistan and just leaves you alone.  There is near complete freedom in how missions are tackled.  Each of the game’s 40 or so missions are a significant chunk of the size of MGS1.  The game never seems to run out of new things to do.  The only flaw is that it seems like large portions of the story are just missing, as though the game was shoved out not quite finished, with just enough context to tell its tale.  Still, it is an unforgettable experience.

2: Super Mario Maker – Almost less of a game than a toolset, Super Mario Maker is also a complete delight.  Because it is a toolset, a surprisingly deep one if far from comprehensive.  It has allowed prospective game designers the keys to the kingdom to make their own Mario levels.  And really, playing other people’s levels is as fun as making your own.  My levels are pedestrian affairs, usually with a focus on precise platforming over waves and waves of enemies, but some people have managed some truly great and inventive stuff.  It can be annoying to wade through some cruft, but this game is a gift that keeps on giving.

1: Xenoblade Chronicles X – I liked but didn’t love Xenoblade Chronicles.  It was impressive and ambitious, but ultimately too long.  I ended up never finishing it and enjoyed The Last Story significantly more.  XCX, while playing in large part like its predecessor, has utter captivated me.  Never before has a game given me a world I more wanted to explore or given me the freedom to do so at my own pace.  The world of this game is huge and beautiful and is pretty much completely open to the player right from the start.  From the great green plains of Primordia to the broken volcano fortresses of Cauldros, this game never lacks for things to see.  The plot and story is never more than serviceable and the battle system can be needlessly obtuse, but just running out to see what you can find is a thrill that no other game can match.

It wasn’t really a banner month for playing games.  I just didn’t have a lot that felt worth playing.  Triforce Heroes was great, and I’ll likely get back to it for some more online play, and Legend of Heroes Trails in the Sky is some good comfort food gaming, but otherwise I spent my time doing other things.  

Beaten

Legend of Zelda Triforce Heroes – wrote about it here

Yakuza 4 – The Yakuza series is unlike anything else around.  It manages to feel current and more like something from the PS2 generation, in a good way.  It is some combination of a GTA style game with the sensibilities of something like River City Ransom.  I unabashedly love this series, to the point where I am unable to write coherently about it.  Yakuza 4 is narratively a departure for the series, being the first game that is not about Kazuma Kiryu, at least primarily.  It is more like four small Yakuza, each with a different protagonist, jammed together.  It makes the game seem both really long and too short.  Each individual segment is a little too short, but combined it makes a more than lengthy adventure.  While none of the new protagonists are Kiryu cool, but each of them has their strengths.  I can’t wait until Yakuza 5 later this year, hopefully.

Ongoing

Pokemon Alpha Sapphire – I finally overcame losing a ton of progress in this game, only to again lose a ton of progress.  How my niece hit the cartridge in the 3DS with a nerf dart while I was playing it and managed to eject it from my system I’ll never know.  While in many ways this version of Pokemon is obviously the best, especially in the way of little conveniences that make playing easier, it is still my least favorite to actually play.  The pacing of this adventure is laborious and unintuitive.  I went several hours without so much as sniffing a gym, only to fight two back to back.  I am also not a fan of the roster of pokemans available in the main game.  I just can’t seem to build a team that I like.  That last problem is all on me, though.  

Legend of Heroes Trails in the Sky – This is jrpg comfort food.  It seems to be deliberately hitting notes much like games from the 16-bit days or the entire output of GameArts.  It never really elevates above the style of games it is imitating, but it is a pretty fun facsimile.  It does have a problem with being overly talky, but that doesn’t really get in the way.  I hope to have it finished and have a full post up before too long.

Conception 2 – I don’t like this game.  That is the nice way of putting things.  I have a long post that goes into more detail about how I find it creepy and gross, but I’m not sure if I’ll post it.  Just to be clear, though, this game is creepy and gross and simply not very good.

Smash Bros 4 – With my brother’s in town for Thanksgiving, we played a few hours of this.  It was the first chance I had to really play with some of the new characters.  Lucas, Ryu and Roy are a lot of fun, as is this game in general.  Every time I play this I say to myself that  I need to play this more, only I never end up doing so unless I have my brother’s around to play with.  I really stick to it this time.  Or maybe I’ll just play Xenoblade X.

Upcoming

Xenoblade Chronicles X – While everyone gushes about that Fallout game that you couldn’t pay me to care about, I am going to go nuts over what is essentially its Japanese equivalent.  Just proof of the hypocrisy at work anytime I go off about how much I don’t like Bethesda games.

Rune Factory 4 – I bought this from the eshop during the Black Friday sale.  I have enjoyed pretty much all the time I have put into the previous entries in this series, but I still tend to lose interest before I get too far.  Or my disc gets damaged and I can’t continue, like with the Wii game.  Hopefully I play this for more than a few hours before it gets stuck permanently in my to get back to pile.

Steamworld Heist – This has been among my most anticipated titles all year.  December 10 is hardly the Fall release I was promised, but nothing is going to stop me from snatching this up right away.

Nintendo was forced to delay Zelda for WiiU until next year or maybe to the NX if you believe rumors based on the fact that Zelda WiiU and NX are both probably coming out next year, but they did manage to publish an entry in the Legend of Zelda series this year in Triforce Heroes. It is not what a lot of people wanted and certainly does not have as wide of appeal as its predecessor on 3DS, but it is still an excellent entry in an oft overlooked sub-brand of Zelda, the multiplayer ones.

In this game, the player controls a hero who happens to look like Link and is teamed with two other heroes that look like Link to try to save the fashion obsessed Kingdom of Hytopia and its Princess Styla. The players try to break a curse on the Princess by venturing out into the drablands and trying to find the witch who cursed her. Hytopia’s obsession with fashion comes in with the games different costumes for Link. Each on provides him with a bonus. Some make certain weapons, like the bow or bombs, stronger. Others change the amount of hearts to rupees that enemies drop or the number of hearts that Link has. While speeding through the 35 or so stages of the game isn’t difficult, beating all of the challenges and getting the drops needed to acquire all of the different costumes will take considerable time.

This is a style that Nintendo has tried before, back in the ill-fated days of connectivity with the Four Swords games. The first of which was a delightful mode for the GBA version of A Link to the Past and the second was a substantial and enjoyable experiment for the GameCube. They both shared the same problem, though, that it was nearly impossible to find people to play with. On the GBA you had to have 4 people with GBAs and a link cable and on the GameCube you needed those same GBA and 4 link cables. Playing it is a great experience; actually getting set up to play was a nightmare and is all but impossible today. Triforce Heroes largely fixes those problems by allowing for online multiplayer. Of course, there have been widespread complaints about connection problems, but I didn’t really experience any such problems. Playing online was a largely painless experience

Most of my time with this game so far has been spent playing it single player. It is not the ideal way to play the game, but it is still an enjoyable experience. The other two Links become doppels, dummies that just stay where you leave them. At times this is a particularly clunky solution, such as when you need to cover ground that has already been cleared. While the totem ability, where one Link lifts and carries another, lessens this problem some, being able to just call the other Links to the player would be a plus. For the most part, having the others become deadweight when not in use works really well with how the challenges are set up. Most of the challenges involve doing things in order or by color of Link, and putting the Links where you want them and switching when needed works. The few times where precise timing is needed the single player becomes tough, but none of the levels are impossible or even all that difficult by yourself.

Still, the heart of the game is the multiplayer and that part shines. At least is does if you get marginally competent companions. The ideal way to play, as it has ever been in any multiplayer game, is with some friends in the same room, with easy communication and camaraderie. The lack of voice chat can occasionally hamper communication, but not having to hear the inane or offensive babble of your unknown internet companions is still a net plus.

Triforce Heroes isn’t really the Zelda game that most people wanted, but it is one that will be remembered fondly in years to come. It is not likely to be anyone’s favorite Zelda game, but it is different enough from the norm that I suspect it will have dedicated fans.

Beaten

Yoshi Woolly World – wrote about it here

Ace Attorney Justice for All – wrote about it here

Monument Valley – I got this to try out my new Kindle Fire (the big 10′ one).  It is amazing.  It is a simple, but beautiful, puzzle game that is more or less about exploring and manipulating an MC Escher painting.  You must move the protagonist through areas where changing the point of view changes the landscape.  It is not especially complicated, but it does have some pretty good mind benders.  The story is sparse and evocative.  The whole game is just short and sweet and pretty much perfect.  I just got started on the expansion, Forgotten Shores, and so far it seems even better.  If you have a device capable, play this game.  It is so great.

Ongoing

Yakuza 4 – This game is like 4 or five small Yakuza games shoved together, changing protagonists each time.  In October I cleared Taiga’s section of the game, the second part of the game.  I didn’t like it as much as the previous section.  It started with a pretty great jailbreak sequence, but then it’s got a stupid hard boss battle and doesn’t actually give the player much of a chance to explore the city.  It is still a Yakuza game and still mostly fun, but it is just the least fun parts of a Yakuza game.

Mega Man Legends – This is one of the best games for the PS1.  It coming to PSN is cause for some celebration.  I didn’t play a lot of it, only the first three or four hours, but it was enough to reinforce how good of a game it is.  It is like a playable Miyazaki movie.  I’m not sure I have the time to beat it again right now, but the fact that I can fire it up any time I want is great.  I hope the sequel hits eventually as well.

Super Mario Maker – I haven’t made quite as many levels in this that I wanted to, but I am still enjoying my time tinkering with it.  This is pretty much a perfect toolset for making fun levels.  The sheer number of different things that players have done with it can attest to that.  I have a feeling this game will be in my ongoing section for some time going forward.

Pokémon Alpha Sapphire – I really want to have this game beaten by the end of the year, but I keep setting it aside for other games.  I have never really warmed to this generation of Pokémon games.  These remakes are in many ways the best games the series has ever produced, but I am still not finding a lot of enjoyment in it.  Hopefully I find a team that I like and turn that corner pretty soon.

Legend of Legacy – I’m not sure how ongoing my play of this game is. I bought it since I had a lot of fun with the demo, but I didn’t make it more than a few hours into the full game.  It is just too obtuse and old fashioned.  I think I’ll put this aside until some people play it and I can look at a guide and get a better idea of how things work, because the game is not going to explain how anything works.

The Legend of Zelda: Triforce Heroes – The reviews have not been kind to this game and they have been directly counter to my experience.  I haven’t even gotten the chance to try out the multiplayer yet.  So yes, that could still be a dud if I can’t get a good connection, but the single player, at least through the first 4 areas, is actually a lot of fun. There are times when managing all three characters can get tedious, but for the most part it is some focused Zelda fun. This isn’t quite a “real” Zelda game, but it is still a lot of fun so far.

Upcoming

Trails in the Sky – A lot of people I know are really excited about the second chapter of this game hitting the PSP (!) and Vita at the end of October.  The interest was enough for me to pick up the first game from Amazon.  I hope to get started on it sooner rather than later.

Yoshi’s Woolly World is a decided triumph of aesthetics over innovation.  That sounds like a negative, but I don’t really mean it that way.  Woolly World doesn’t really do anything new; it is essentially the same as Yoshi’s New Island which was essentially the same as Yoshi’s Island.  Even its look is not wholly original; it is the same as Kirby’s Epic Yarn for the Wii, which was also developed by GoodFeel.  While the gameplay doesn’t push any boundaries or even attempt to do so, the yarn aesthetic goes far beyond what was done in Epic Yarn.

The biggest and most effective change from previous Yoshi games to this one is that it ditches baby Mario.  That is no great loss, baby Mario was terrible.  With him on Yoshi’s back, the game stops gets significantly less frustrating.  Now a hit is just a hit, not an excuse for to hear the only noise more terrible than Yoshi’s own cry.  Other than that change, Yoshi’s Woolly World sticks pretty close to what Yoshi’s Island did.

Woolly World’s brilliance is how it reinterprets every element of the game to fit into its yarn aesthetic.  Yoshi and most of the enemies are made out of yarn. Instead of eating enemies and turning them into eggs, they become balls of yarn.  That yarn can then be used to fill in platforms and hidden pipes.   The Koopa Troopa’s shells are made of buttons.   How effective the game is in making each of its enemies fit into the game’s look is astounding.

It is not just the enemies, though.  The whole world is made of yarn.  Clouds are cotton balls.  Other objects are made of wooden spools and towels.  It makes for a world that appears completely thought out and crafted.  The game is just a joy to look at.  Whether or not the WiiU is underpowered, Yoshi’s Woolly World is one of the best looking games of the year.

While the most striking part of the game may be the graphics, it plays good as well.  It has a nice smooth difficulty curve, starting out fairly easy and working its way up to maddeningly difficult.  All the stages have a handful of hidden items to find that gives the games several levels of challenge without having express difficulty level.  Getting through each stage is rarely all that difficult.  What makes it hard, and satisfying, is trying to find the five hidden flowers and yarn spools hidden in each level, let alone the twenty hidden stamps.  Some of the game’s tricks for hiding things are not particularly enjoyable, but the game is mostly a joy.

Nintendo pumps out these nearly great platformers as a matter of form.  Yoshi’s Woolly World isn’t great.  It’s not Super Mario 3D World or Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze.  It is more on the level of New Super Mario Bros.  This is a game made by people with a strong understanding of how this genre works.  It isn’t pushing the genre forward; it is content to merely be an outstanding example of this kind of game.  In a very slow fall, that is all it needs to be.

I don’t think I gave Ace Attorney Justice for All a fair shake the first time I played it. I fired it up immediately after completing the first game, so coming down from the high of that experience I played through this one and found it to be just more of the same. Which it is, but with a little time between games it drags a little less. Also, spacing out the games helped me focus on the narrative that of this game. I have always felt that they got the subtitles mixed for the second and third games. Justice for All felt more like the triumphant finale than the middle chapter, where Trials and Tribulations seemed perfect. However, after replaying JfA, I have realized that they got it right.

There are plenty of problems with Justice for All. It returns the most annoying witness from the first game, Oldbag, and somehow makes her even more annoying. To top that, they also came up with a new witness that is even more annoying in Moe the clown. The second case, while actually very good, does hew a little too close to the first game’s second case, with both of them featuring Maya as the defendant. Other than that, some sections seem too drawn out and some of the leaps in logic are a little obtuse and harshly penalized.  

Still, there is a strong central story that shines through. JfA features a pair of prominent newcomers, Maya’s niece Pearl and new prosecutor Franziska von Karma. Pearl is a nice piece of comic relief and is mostly there to give Phoenix someone to play off of when Maya is indisposed. Franziska takes Edgeworth’s place and the player isn’t quite sure is she is more in Edgeworth’s mold or her father’s. Still, she provides a great adversary for Phoenix for fight against.  

Despite being absent for most of the game, Edgeworth looms large in this game. His fate is central to the game. After he was defeated by, and then defended by, Phoenix in the first game Edgeworth disappeared. While he left a note claiming to be dead, he actually went on a journey of discovery. Both Phoenix and Franziska are upset, he at Edgeworth and her at Wright. His return at a pivotal moment really pushes the last case over the top.

The early cases, mostly ignoring the tutorial-esque first case, set up some conflicted murderers and rather unsympathetic victims. The real victim of Case 2, Reunion and Turnabout, is Maya. She is not just framed for a murder; she is framed for a murder by her very own aunt. The game goes out of its way to make the murder victim as unlikable as possible. The interminable Turnabout Big Top, is one never-ending tragedy. The murder that makes up the case is the one intentional act in a sequence that ruins the lives of most of the circus performers.  

The whole time Phoenix is backed by his rock solid belief that his clients are innocent. He knows there is no way that Maya killed anybody, even though it seems almost impossible that anyone else could have committed the crime. He also has the same belief in the slightly less trustworthy Max in the next case, who also proves to be innocent. The last case, Farewell My Turnabout, Phoenix takes the case because Maya has been kidnapped by one Shelly de Killer. De Killer says that the client is innocent, but he is still blackmailing Wright to get that verdict.  

This is when we see the meaning of the subtitle. After Von Karma is non-fatally shot, Edgeworth returns to take over as prosecutor. As the trial progresses, a shady deal that Von Karma had struck comes to light, a deal designed to ensure a guilty verdict whether or not the defendant was guilty. So far the game has consistently shown the lengths that prosecutors will go to get a guilty verdict and Phoenix has been the righteous bringer of justice. Now, Phoenix is tempted to foist the conviction off on someone else, who is also likely innocent, just to get a not guilty verdict. Is he any better than the people he faces?  

That is the question the finale is dealing with: is Phoenix really after justice for all or just a not guilty verdict. While it has to work hard to engineer the situation, it turns out really well. Ace Attorney: Justice for All is the least essential feeling game of the original trilogy, but it is still well written and a ton of fun.

I played more games than I expected in September. I played a lot of two games in particular, Metal Gear Solid V and Super Mario Maker. Both of those games are going to be frontrunners for game of the year, especially with heavy hitters like Zelda and Persona 5 missing the year.

Beaten

Etrian Odyssey Untold 2 – see here

Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney – see here

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain –

 review coming soon.  Thoroughly excellent, though.  

Ongoing

Super Mario Maker ―

Maybe the best idea for a game ever, and it completely lives up to its promise.  I’ve put up a couple of levels so far and played through dozens. It is hard to make levels as good as real Mario ones, but that doesn’t mean you can’t put out something that it at least interesting.  I really love this game.  It might be my game of the year.  I’ve hear people say that this is the game that shows the need for the tablet controller, though we’ve already had like five of those, and it really does.  I can’t imagine doing this with just a controller.  I don’t know that I need another game after this one.  I could spend hours and hours with this.

LBX ― I was sold this one several friends gushing about its outlandish story.  That is true, it starts with secret agencies that build children’s toys to maybe take over the world and escalates to attempted child murder, by gun toting robot toy no less, within the first half hour.  It is delightfully insane. Also, customizing your little murderbot is a ton of fun.  Unfortunately, the fighting is incredibly clunky.  It is hard to get around.  I want to like this game so much, but it is just not very much fun to actually play.

Elliot Quest ― This was my go to lunch hour game, but then Super Mario Maker happened.  I’ll finish it sooner or later. Like a lot of the games it is styled after, it actually gets easier the further you go, since your character’s abilities increase.

Shovel Knight Plague of Shadows ― Another victim of Super Mario Maker. Yacht Club Game’s completely ridiculous free DLC is basically a whole new game considering how differently Plague Knight plays than Shovel Knight.  I haven’t yet mastered how he moves, so the mode has been kind of frustrating for me.  It isn’t as fluid or intuitive as Shovel Knight himself. Still, the amount of work that went into this is impressive.

Ace Attorney Justice for All ―

I’ve only cleared the first case, but my thoughts are the same as they were for this game’s predecessor.  This is just a great series, with awesome characters and stories.

Upcoming

Yoshi’s Woolly World ― I am a little conflicted on this.  On the one hand, Yoshi games are probably my least favorite flavor of Mario, even including the RPGs and the sports games.  On the the other hand, I really like Kirby’s Epic Yarn and this game looks even better.  I’ll likely end up with this, but I don’t know how much attention I’ll spare for it.

Legend of Legacy ― Another game I am on the fence about.  It looks amazing and I loved the demo, but this SaGa like leveling system has never worked in any game, ever.  I doubt this one will be different.  Still, it looks interesting enough to give it a shot.

Zelda Triforce Heroes ― I am all about this one, though.  Assuming it does release at the end of the month. I love Zelda and I really enjoyed the brief chances I got to play 4 Swords with more than one person.  This should be right up my alley.

Yakuza 4 ―

After a few times stopping and starting trying to play this, and with the release of Yakuza 5 imminent, I am finally committing to truly sitting down and playing this game. This should probably actually be up in ongoing since I started just before the end of the month, but this is going to be my October game.

Mega Man Legends ― This hit PSN at the end of September and it is one of the best PS1 games.  I really want to take the time to play through it, though I don’t know if I’ll get to it.  Still, if you haven’t played it you absolutely should.