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[jackleveledup]

Game of the Year 2016: My Top Three

It's been a long road for Game of the Year and 2016 in general, but we finally made it to the top three! In case you missed it, there were a ton of other games I loved this year that I wrote about in a post I called "Very Good Games".

And one last thing before we close this out: thanks for reading!

#3. Hyper Light Drifter

This year, no single moment compared to the rush I got from my first chain-dash in Hyper Light Drifter. There's a primal satisfaction to the accelerating timing it demands, as each flash of pink and teal raises the pressure of the impending button press. Eventually I learned that it's not that good in combat and it's only one of many means of survival, yet it was at that precise moment that the game won me over.

I say this without exaggeration: Hyper Light Drifter is a visual masterpiece. Fans and Kickstarter backers have been drooling over screens for years now, and the reality seems to have even exceeded expectations. Environments overflow with lightly muted colors and all kinds of mystery, like enormous Evangelion-inspired beasts, esoteric symbols, and ruins of a civilization long since past. Animation is beautifully handled frame-by-frame, highlighting the tension in each action and closing off with a shimmer of vibrant neon.

It's not an easy game by any means, but success becomes its own reward. Every battle is a fury of bullets and blades with far more dead bodies than dead air. I found myself often getting lost in the chaos, only realizing a room was clear when my darting eyes couldn't find anything new to shoot at. What's unusual, though, is that I didn't find the boss fights to deliver the same sense of exhilaration as the average encounter along the way, but as a capstone to a difficult journey, they work well enough. Maybe I should just be grateful I was never tempted to chuck a controller.

Hyper Light Drifter is enthralling, both in its hectic gameplay and its unwordly atmosphere. I know without a doubt that I'll be back for another shot at deciphering what the hell happened to this world.

#2. Kirby: Planet Robobot

If you've ever daydreamed about what you'd do with your own giant super robot, Kirby: Planet Robobot is a game you need to play. I mean this in the best way possible: it seems like the game was designed by a 6 year old with complete creative authority.

"Give it a giant drill! No, saw blades! Give it flamethrowers! Make it transform into a car! AND a jet!"

Yep, those are all things you can do, and it owns!

The heart of Kirby games has always lied in their diverse power-ups: fire, ice, spark, hammer, bomb, and dozens of others. This time, the sizable set of abilities is doubled by applying not just to Kirby, but his huge, face-shaped armor suit. If Kirby gets a sword, his mech gets two massive beam-sabers. If Kirby gets a jetpack, his mech transforms into a jet! Discovering all of the ways these forms could be used was a joy that lasted me the entire length of the game.

With so many power-ups there's a staggering number of game mechanics at play, which HAL Laboratories take full advantage of in the level design. Whether its a puzzle requiring a certain power-up, a rare boss or ability, or simple visual flair, each stage has some kind of "gimmick" to separate it from the last. Ideas reappear only seldomly, and not without being somehow altered and built upon. Sometimes the game even pretends to be something else entirely, like the shmup style stages that utilize the "Jet" version of the robot armor, or the auto-scrolling stages in the "Wheel" armor. All of this leads to a collection of stages that feel memorable and worth revisiting.

Between its game design and its vast possibility-space, Planet Robobot executes on its concept almost as perfectly as I can imagine. I know Kirby isn't the top Nintendo franchise for most people, but given the run the series is having right now, I'm starting to seriously question how long my little pink creampuff will go underappreciated!

#1. VA-11 HALL-A

VA-11 HALL-A is a visual novel that sounds extremely good in theory - just read its tagline: "cyberpunk bartender action." You play as Jill, who works at a bar called Valhalla in a futuristic city of perpetual darkness, poor people, robots, androids, and most of all, strife. It operates pretty differently as a video game, though. It's often assumed that gameplay exists for the sole purpose of fun, but even for a visual novel, VA-11 HALL-A's simple mechanics took me more than a few drinks to warm up to. Kinda' like in real life, the process of mixing "Brandtinis" and "Bleeding Janes" isn't especially exciting after the first few times, and almost everyone visiting the bar seems to have way more going on in life than you. I just wasn't seeing how it came together. It took some time and careful thought, but by the end of the game it had shaped into something incredible.

It's all thanks to the bar's atmosphere that I stuck around at all, and man, did they nail it. First and foremost, this soundtrack is phenomenal. What woud otherwise be your average cyberpunk setting becomes a wondrous dystopia thanks to Garoad's deft, moody composition. Its implementation is sharp, too. Instead of having music set to match each scene, you're handed complete control over the playlist while on duty. There's a palpable realism to incidentally having serious talks over loud, upbeat music, or joking during an ominous buildup. It helps to give Jill some believable agency as a bartender, too. You can always decide what drink to serve, how strong to mix it, or what music you want to play, but not who comes in that night or what to talk about. Details matter, and the developers at Sukeban Games were paying careful attention.

While Jill herself doesn't seem to bring much nuance to the story (...at first), the rest of the cast handily pick up the slack. The pixel-based character portraits are surprisingly expressive and go a long way in realizing the game's zany, reference-loaded dialog. Dorothy is a definitive fan favorite - she's an android that was specifically engineered to have weaker emotional responses to things that humans often find traumatizing. This trait colors every one of her conversations with typical humans, especially once you figure out that she's a sex-worker. Her career is almost completely inconsequential to her and she LOVES to tease people about it, so the scenes that ensue whenever she meets someone new at Valhalla are pretty entertaining, to say the least. In general, though, Sukeban Games have a firm grasp on how to both play into tropes and subvert them, which allows them to hit their punchlines without compromising any drama during more serious scenes.

My favorite part about VA-11 HALL-A is how much of the narrative the player is trusted to piece together. For a visual novel there's suprisingly little exposition - almost none, actually! It's basically all conversations, and not even ones explicitly about current events. Your only glimpse at what's happening outside of the bar is limited to what you happen to hear, what you choose to read in the news or on shitty forums, and most importantly, what connections you can draw between them. It's amusing to talk to some of the bar's customers, for sure, but your impression might completely change when you realize what they're up to before they stop in or finish their last drink.

The way in which VA-11 HALL-A dismantled my first impression continues to impress me. As the credits rolled it made perfect sense that the bartender would feel less interesting than the guests she serviced. Maybe it shouldn't feel "fun" to Jill when she mixes a drink for a grumpy customer. Maybe it makes sense that a struggling bartender wouldn't have the clearest picture of the "what's" and "why's" of her city's politics. None of that is crucial to finding happiness anyway. VA-11 HALL-A highlighted aspects of life that I don't usually give a second thought to, in a way that feels uncommonly literary for a video game. It's probably not going to be a game for everyone, but to those that seek it out, the narrative at work is nothing short of intoxicating.

[jackleveledup]

Game of the Year 2016: The Very Good Games

Don't call it a top ten! Well...you can think of this as basically the bottom part of my top ten, except without the numbers, the ordering, or the hard limit on how many games I can talk about. I guess I don't care much about the difference between what's #6 and what's #7. I do care about ranking the very best, though, so if you are into lists my top three is coming soon!

Titanfall 2

The existence of Titanfall 2 is miraculous: it's the smoothest first-person movement of all time alongside a painstaking single player campaign. The combination of flavors that fill its gameplay is like peanut butter and chocolate: you alternate from frantic sprinting, wallrunning, and double-jumping, into a massive robot with hefty movement, powerful weaponry, and cooldown-based decision making. It's designed throughout for tiny moments of bliss: flinging yourself from building to building, launching hundreds of rockets from your Titan, narrow escapes, and outplaying your enemies through planning and execution.

After my massive falling out with Halo, I didn't think I'd ever feel the same about a competitive FPS, but holy god was I ever wrong. I've already hit the level cap twice and have zero intention of slowing down. There's been talk that it's been underperforming in sales, which is tragic, because from where I'm sitting this is one of the best first person shooters ever.

Pokemon Sun / Moon

As a lifelong Pokemon fan, I think it's fair for me to say that it's been a long time since Pokemon has been this good. While it has its issues (hello reinforcements, hello new Pokemon being rare), the things that I loved about Sun and Moon are far more prevalent. The Alolan Pokemon designs are universally great, the characters are surprisingly well-expressed, and exploring Alola felt like a true escape from the tension and hatred rearing its head this year.

My favorite thing about Sun and Moon, though, is easily the villains. There's Gladion, the coolest rival in the whole series. There's Team Skull, the most hilarious villains to show up in a game since Mystical Ninja: Starring Goemon. And then there's [pretend that a spoilery name is written here], the craziest anime-nonsense supervillain of 2016.

If you've been sleeping on Pokemon for a while, make this your road back in.

Mystic Messenger

Mystic Messenger is an otome dating sim that invades your life. From a mechanical perspective, there's not much going on - you sit in chat rooms, make dialog choices, and respond to text messages from a group of young, stylish anime guys (and one girl!). The twist to all of this is so obvious that it makes you wonder why it hasn't been attempted in the genre before: everything happens in real time. Certain characters are more active late at night, others early in the morning, and if you want to win them over, you'll have to find a way to make real-world time for them.

Getting fake texts from fake game characters honestly felt like magic. Mystic Messenger perfectly captures the sense of pleasant surprise I feel when I get text messages from real people. For a few weeks, it was almost like I had a brand new group of friends to hang out with online all day. It's especially exciting to see this kind of innovation come from a mobile game, too. Mystic Messenger is a non-conventional game made for an atypical video game audience, and developer Cheritz killed it.

Oxenfree

I'm kind of a sucker for supernatural thrillers, so Oxenfree had me hooked early on with its intriguing setting, soft visuals, and believable vocal performances. What ended up standing out to me, though, wasn't even the plot, it was just the game's many ordinary conversations. It's an adventure game about five teenagers going camping, so there's a good amount of chatter between characters of varying levels of friendship. You participate in conversations by making dialog choices, but Oxenfree differentiates itself by emphasizing when you push a button. Your character immediately starts talking after you make a choice, even if that forces you to cut someone else off. Sometimes when the pressure's on, you might not be able to decide what to say in the appropriate time, and other characters will react to your silence. Along with some exceptional writing, this highly flexible system props up each character and makes them feel authentic.

At around 5 or 6 hours it's not an especially long game, but it held my attention strongly enough that I nearly finished it in in a single night. Given how many games I tend to juggle, that has to count for something!

Salt & Sanctuary

Is it possible to screw up a combination of Dark Souls and Castlevania? I'm sure with time someone will find a way to prove me wrong, but with Salt & Sanctuary as my only evidence, it seems like the perfect recipe. I played the entire game alongside my brother, and I couldn't recommend the experience more to co-op players. Between platforming puzzles, vast 2D exploration, and Souls-style bosses, there's a wholesome variety to all of the game's challenges. And unlike the Souls series, I feel that S&S is short enough and provides enough build diversity that it's both practical and rewarding to play through more than once.

World of Final Fantasy

If I had an award for "Best Localization," World of Final Fantasy would take it hand over fist. This game's writing is so well-done, its voice acting so well-delivered, that it managed to make me laugh out loud with the words "what the honk."

WoFF is an addictive, briskly paced RPG with more than just nods to classic Final Fantasy, but some strong characters of its own, too. Main leads Lann & Reynn are legitimately funny together - I don't make a habit of expecting much from Tetsuya Nomura Teenagers™, but their chemistry turns a solid monster collecting RPG into a great game all its own.

Doom

I didn't think I would be convinced to play an extremely violent, gorey game about demon massacre (I'm kinda' squeamish, to be honest), but Doom was just that good. It's been pretty much a decade since an FPS has been anything other than a gun-toting romp through set pieces, and while Doom is certainly romp-worthy, its gameplay is a different type of beast. The intentional balance of low HP and high movement speed forces you out from behind cover and into the fray. This "never stop moving, never stop shooting" ethos works incredibly well with the game's vast arsenal and numerous weapon mods. Doom takes all the right lessons from both classic shooters and modern shooters alike and turns them into a path forward for an often stagnant genre.

Ratchet & Clank

There's something pure in R&C that felt so noticeably absent from the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Games were so overwhelmingly serious back then! Even games like Portal that focused on comedy had to work so hard in a narrative sense to make those ends meet. Ratchet, though, just is what it is. You run and you jump across platforms, and you feel satisfied. You shoot the guys, you club a box with your wrench, and an explosion of gears and screws pour out. That's all there is to it, and that's all I really needed.

If the Xbox 360 and PS3 era proved games could accomplish more than just fun, then Ratchet and Clank is a game that proves that plain and simple fun is a goal still worth pursuing.

[jackleveledup]

Game of the Year 2016: Best Character(s)

For every unique character in the Pokemon series, there's an ostensibly rabid fandom worshipping them in some corner of the internet. That's old news. Often the designs alone are worthy of respect, but between Gary, Wally, and N, there's some precedent for incredible expression, too. This year, I can guarantee you that Pokemon has crashed DeviantArt at least once. The bases are so loaded that I had to break the rules of my own category to do the game justice.

Gladion

The EDGY (but, uh, still really cool tbh) Gladion appears at first to be a callback to the rival from Gold and Silver. He's a detestable jerk; the kind of guy that tracks you down just to spit in your face. He's a member of Team Skull, of course -- they're the bad guys, right? But as your adventure progresses, both you and the glorified mall goth realize that Team Skull isn't accomplishing anything. It's declared that they have literally no aspirations, and while that's hilarious to the player, Gladion actually has a stake in their actions. Exactly as expected of this black-hoodied dirtbag, he gets pissed.

The extent to which Gladion plays up his archetype is a big part of what ends up making him so likable. He's capital-A Angsty for the first half of the game, but he has surprisingly believable reasons to be frustrated. After the game wraps up, you won't find many reasons to doubt his behavior - to the contrary, it even echoes the main theme of the story. Pokemon's kinda' gone soft with rival characters for the past decade, but this time I'm pretty sure I've found a new favorite.

Lillie

It sucks, but there's not a lot I can say about Lillie while keeping this spoiler-free. I'm sure that if you've finished the game, you're already aware of the exact moment Lillie won me over. In general, though, I think Sun and Moon do an incredible job of finding small ways to demonstrate love between trainers and their Pokemon, and no character makes this more clear than Lillie. She makes some tough decisions for someone so young, and honestly, I was caught off guard by the way she established her place in the story. For the first time ever in 20 years with this series, I'm hoping for a direct sequel just to find out what she does next.

Acerola (and everyone else, I guess)

While the spirit of this category is about strong characters in a narrative sense, it feels unfair to brush past character design in a game like this. With literal dozens of gym leaders, you would think by now Game Freak would be finding more excuses to repeat them. Somehow, the new trial captains are among the most expressive and memorable characters the series has ever had. There must be something about the Hawaiian inspired-aesthetic that Ken Sugimori's team was able to dig into, because this cast feels remarkably polished.

It's hard to decide whether I was more impressed by the character art as a whole or by the story of Gladion & Lillie, but one thing is certain: 2016 was an excellent year for Pokemon.

[jackleveledup]

Game of the Year 2016: Biggest Disappointment

Picking a “Biggest Disappointment” is always the easiest part of this whole thing to write. Yet every year it sucks to do, and 2016 has made this dubious honor especially difficult to figure out. There were Kickstarters that completely failed to deliver, seemingly surefire hits that careened off course, and misguided games that appeared to be struggling from early on. There are a lot of “obvious” picks from this year, but at the same time, I can’t in good faith pick a disappointment that never looked that great to me to begin with. It eventually comes down to looking at the gulf between what is and what almost was. So I guess it’s time to be honest with myself and acknowledge that my biggest disappointment of 2016 was, sadly, Zero Time Dilemma.

Zero Escape is a trilogy that built itself on Kotaro Uchikoshi’s incredible skill in two areas: spinning a connected web of disparate story events, and then dropping in one giant plot twist that flips it on its head. I just said “plot twist,” but to be honest It feels inadequate to call an Uchikoshi twist anything other than a mindfuck. We’re talking twists that people like M. Night Shyamalan wouldn’t even dream of. Until recently, I thought Uchikoshi could write literally anything and make it enthralling.

Tragically, Zero Time Dilemma’s fundamental twist barrels through “mind-blowing,” past “ludicrous,” and doesn’t stop until its planted in infuriating nonsense. So here’s a big spoiler warning - in order to talk about why I’m disappointed, I have to talk about ZTD’s biggest secret. I don’t want to completely rob any newcomers of this game’s value, so I won’t be talking about any other specific story events, and there’s at least one very good and important twist that I won’t get into. Either way - I’m about to go in deep, so proceed at your own risk.

Real quick, here’s the game’s conceit: nine people are locked into a “killing game” by “Zero,” a masked individual. When one of these nine dies, a password is released, and using six passwords will momentarily open the exit of the facility. Story events explain the reasoning behind the weirdness of this situation, as well as some mysteries left behind by the previous two games, 999 and Virtue’s Last Reward. The conclusion ultimately reveals the identity of Zero.

Because Zero depends on the results of the game (why bother otherwise?), it’s to their benefit to participate so they can guide the game to its desired outcome. Progression of the game requires murder, after all, and it’s not exactly reasonable to assume nine strangers will spontaneously start killing each other. Having Zero act as a mole is one obvious way of getting things started. It’s heavily implied that Zero is one of the nine, and some of the game’s characters are clearly aware of this line of thinking. The backbone of this story, the game’s central plot twist, ends up being that Zero is not one of the nine…but he’s still a direct actor in the game.

In a late game cutscene, it’s revealed that there was actually a tenth character trapped in the facility with everyone else. He’s an old dude that sits in a wheelchair out of camera for the entire game. You never heard him participate in conversations because he was pretending to be blind, deaf, and mute. He was pretending to be blind, deaf, and mute. HE WAS PRETENDING TO BE BLIND, DEAF, AND MUTE.

“Well wouldn’t someone have said something to him at least once? Wouldn’t he have still been able to find ways to help…?”

You would think so, right? But no, no interaction or attempt at communication is ever shown. Period.

“Okay, that sounds like a kinda’ forced twist, but whatever. So why’d he end up going through with that?”

He literally tells you “my motives are complex.” More than once. Now, I’m being facetious here, but when an important character is repeatedly declaring character traits aloud, that’s a pretty clear indicator that more work needs to be done. It’s certainly unprecedented for Zero Escape, which historically has broken characters out of tropes in surprising ways.

It’s not just this one twist that made Zero Time Dilemma disappointing to me. The puzzles were weaker than in its predecessors, as they almost all came down to entering a password based on a cipher hidden in the room. The bizarre nonlinear structure was taken to an extreme that crippled tension and pacing. Witnessing an entire story through scattered glimpses at events makes it hard to truly connect to any character. It doesn’t help that most of the new characters were shallow and predictable, with conspicuous motives that robbed them of any sense of realism.

Maybe Zero Time Dilemma’s flaws are due to the circumstances of its development. Zero Escape never took off domestically in Japan, which made it hard to justify the creation of a third game in the series. And when it did finally happen, its clear that resources were constrained. It didn’t seem to take very long at all to develop, and its not as visually polished as the previous two (despite having an entirely new art style). If this is the case, the real disappointment, the secret Uchikoshi twist in all of this, is that Zero Time Dilemma wasn’t given the time and care that its legacy deserves.

Life is simply unfair, don’t you think?

[jackleveledup]

Game of the Year 2016: Biggest Surprise

The history of Digimon seemingly lies forever in the shadow of Pokemon. Despite each season's cast of relatable characters and startling emotional depth, it's always been seen in the west as second banana to Pikachu's scene. It doesn't help that Digimon hasn't had the best track record with its games. Still, a respectable number of people gave the underdog series a chance and became lifelong fans as a result. I'm one of them!

Once it was announced that Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth would be launching in America, I immediately knew I'd be buying the game, no matter how poorly it reviewed. My nostalgia had been primed by Digimon Tri (a continuation in the story of Digimon's original cast), and I would've been satisfied with any excuse to indulge in my passion for Terriermon and Gabumon. It turned out that my biggest surprise of 2016 is the fact that I liked a freakin' Digimon RPG more than some of the biggest names on the platform. Even up against titans like Final Fantasy and Tales, Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth felt to me like one of the best RPGs on the PS4 so far.

Naturally, it plays a bit like Pokemon, in that it's a monster collecting game, except it completely nails party-building in a way that makes Pokemon seem embarassingly rigid. You're probably familiar with the cycle: find Pokemon, catch Pokemon, evolve Pokemon. Cyber Sleuth has that same loop, but every Digimon has a branching evolution tree that they are free to traverse at any time -- not only forwards, but backwards. Early forms of Digimon level up significantly faster than later forms, too, which blasts the doors open to experimentation. Don't like the way your high leveled 'mon looks? That's cool - you can just switch to a different evolution, even if it means stepping back down the ladder a few times. If that doesn't work, starting fresh with a new monster is a low investment when they level so quickly. You'll probably never need to grind, but you might catch yourself wanting to just to get to that next evolution.

Despite Cyber Sleuth's origins as a PlayStation Vita game, Digimon look incredible on the PS4. Designs from numerous seasons of the anime are perfectly translated into 3D models, and each have their own unique attack and victory animations that bring them to life. Fans of futuristic anime aesthetics will find a lot to like in the game's environments, too. The visual style in the digital world can get a little samey at times, but it all feels like a giant homage to series like .hack, Mega Man Battle Network, and the works of Mamoru Hosoda. It's vibrant, colorful, and fantastic with the ever so faint edge of instability.

More than anything else, it seems clear that the developers at Media.Vision love Digimon from the bottom of their hearts. Nearly every aspect of Cyber Sleuth's gameplay exists to help you put together a team that you really care about. And while it takes a while for the story to ramp up, there are eventually some surprises and powerful emotional payoffs (give it some time! trust me!). It's not what I would've expected to be the standout RPG on the PS4, but it's a rare treat for an RPG to get as many things right as Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth does.

[jackleveledup]

Jack’s Guide to Starting FFXV

Step 0: Watch Kingsglaive, or read a summary

Seriously. The promotional movie contains major plot events that happen alongside the game, so if you don’t watch the movie, you’re going to miss out. The game will attempt to show and discuss these events, but they do a pretty terrible job of contextualizing it. If you skipped Kingsglaive, these scenes are going to be both confusing and really awkward. You have until the end of Chapter 1!

Step 1: Learn how to sprint.

Until you get a chocobo, running is the only way to get around quickly off-road. There is a way to get around faster, but it’s pretty obscure, for whatever reason. Turn on the Stamina gauge in the settings to get an idea of how long Noctis is actually able to sprint. If you let go of the sprint button right before the meter empties, Noctis will dash forward and the meter will instantly refill.

Step 2: Get a Chocobo

It may be tempting to dig into the open world quests right away, but you’ll probably have more fun if you at least get a chocobo first. The rewards for early-game quests are largely insignificant anyway. You can unlock a chocobo in Chapter 3, and once you’re there it’ll be pretty obvious how to do so.

Step 3: Do whatever you want.

Once you have a chocobo, you should be able to get around the open world very quickly. You can use your the Regalia to cross large distances, chocobos for shorter distances, and once you finish an objective, you can use the map menu to fast travel back to either your car or the last place you rested. If you plan a trip out, you can abuse this system to instantly travel back and forth across the giant map without wasting a dime.

FAQs

What should I spend my skill points on?

The talent tree in FFXV is surprisingly open, and for the most part, you’ll be fine spending your AP on whatever sounds best. There are only a few things I’d recommend prioritizing:

Ignis’ Regroup Technique: Ignis doesn’t start the game with anything to spend your tech gauge on, so unlocking a Tech for him makes good sense. Regroup, though, seems like one of the best in the game. It’s a little costly at two bars to use, but it instantly heals your entire party and yanks them out of danger. You’ll be invulnerable during the animation, too, which makes it an incredible, instant-use panic button.

The Teamwork Tree: There are a lot of min-maxy skills in the Ascension system that will pay off in the long term, but anything in the Teamwork tree will make an immediate, visible difference in combat. These skills have no associated cost and will automatically be activated by your team. Gladio’s Deathblow, for example, deals a huge chunk of damage almost every time an enemy gets low on HP. You don’t need to get all of them right away, but the sooner you get the cheaper skills in this tree, the better.

AP Generating Skills: Spending points in order to earn more points is always a good investment, and the travel skills in particular will more than pay off over the course of the game. If there’s any specific activity you find yourself sinking time into (like fishing, I guess, if you’re crazy), definitely spend a few points on the corresponding skill in this tree.

How do I get money?

Since monsters don’t drop money and quests generally reward experience, you’ll have to sell items to be able to afford new weapons and meals at restaurants. Many of the items you pick up in the open world exist only to be sold, so double check the item descriptions to find out what you can trade in.

Is magic good?

Yeah! Don’t be afraid to use it, because you’ll probably end up going past another magic node before you can get rid of an element anyway. Most camps have one node for each element. I’d also recommend keeping a stock of Potions specifically for magic, because just one Potion can grant three Healcast-versions of any spell. Healcast is useful, especially early on, because it can cancel out any damage you’ll do blowing yourself up.

Where do I find more classic soundtracks?

Almost every town that offers quests has an album for sale in the shop. They don’t cost very much, so if you’re a completionist or a fan of the classic soundtracks, check every tab of the shops when you pull over.

[jackleveledup]

Wasn't It Supposed to Be "The Last of Us"?

Sony brought out a number of game announcements for PSX 2016, but ostensibly the biggest and baddest of them all closed out the show: The Last of Us Part II. The excitement rang out just seconds after the trailer started, as a stop sign bearing the familiar logo of the “Fireflies” militia came into view. Clearly a lot of fans are ready to see how things have worked out for Ellie and Joel since 2013, but you won’t find me among those celebrating. To me, the reveal of The Last of Us Part II is emblematic of AAA gaming’s tendency to cannibalize stories.

Here’s a quick spoiler warning - I’m about to allude to the events and tone of the ending in The Last of Us. I’d recommend backing out if you’re still planning on working through it.

Regardless of how the sequel turns out, the mere existence of a “Part II” corrupts the original. Some called the ending of The Last of Us “ambiguous,” but I always found it so much more compelling as a declaration that Very Bad Things were about to happen. The specific consequences of Joel’s final decision weren’t so important as the declaration that Joel and Ellie now walk a path without redemption. It was the exact opposite of what you’d expect from an ending, especially in such a mainstream, mass-audience video game. The audience was left to only imagine what might happen next, something I thought was far more terrifying than anything in the game. Now that Part II has been announced, that all changes. What at the time was a fiendish, selfish and naive act of desperation has instead become only a cliffhanger. I don’t want Joel to get a chance to redeem himself (he doesn’t deserve one!) and I don’t need to see him screw it up worse. The conclusion I imagined will soon be erased and superseded in the opening moments of the game, maybe even in the marketing. I’d be surprised if whatever new context they establish was more interesting than the mystery of what can be imagined.

The Last of Us being the success that it was, it’s not like I didn’t expect them to make a franchise out of it. It’s just that by focusing on pre-existing characters, TLOU Part II mangles another of the original’s strengths. We spent an entire game discovering who Joel and Ellie were, to what extent we could trust them, and how they would interact with “outsiders.” So what’s left for a sequel? Do Joel and Ellie honestly still have important secrets we don’t know of? There are only so many routes you can go with a zombie apocalypse story, after all. I was hoping that when some sort of “The Last of Us 2” inevitably showed up, we’d have a brand new cast of characters to follow, full of new opportunities for relationships and betrayals. It would be the perfect continuation of all the surprise that the original game had to offer! Even if Joel and Ellie weren’t the main characters, it would’ve been exciting to try and imagine how they connect to the new cast. There are so many other, more interesting ways that the series could have continued.

The Last Of Us came at a time when all we expected out of Naughty Dog was another Uncharted, and instead they stood confidently with something totally new. That’s why it pains me to watch today’s trailer, imagining what types of projects were canned in lieu of Part II. If there’s anyone that can shoehorn a solution into this mess, it’s them, but it doesn’t really matter. In my eyes, that story has ended.

[jackleveledup]

Jack Reviews Trails of Cold Steel

It seems like the RPG community has been split in two when it comes to Trails of Cold Steel: those that are telling everyone else they need to play it, and those that haven’t finished it yet. Not to spoil the review or anything, but I’m not satisfied with the current state of discourse around this game. Critically, Cold Steel is much harder to think about than its discussions let on.

At the game’s outset, the dust is beginning to settle after a complete industrial revolution. The gap between the common man and the noble blood is dissipating, and a number of noble families aren’t content with their fading status. Conflicts exist both between and within individual families, and over the course of the game, you’ll become familiar with an enormous cast of political forces. Normally stories about politics only appeal to a certain kind of person (which I really don’t think I am), but I was shocked by how well it managed to hold my attention.

Cold Steel’s greatest strength is its deft handling of cause and effect relationships. If I tried to explain or diagram the political climate at large, it would probably seem like a tangled mess. Instead, the game makes major conflicts relatable at a small scale first, by demonstrating them in the struggles of its characters. Once a conflict is established it is further expanded upon in the region or caste those characters come from. That much is smooth and well done, but it becomes impressive when key players start behaving in ways you don’t expect them to. You’re experiencing this story from the perspective of a student, after all, and the writers make great use of the information you have as well as the information that you don’t. When the twists come - and boy, do they come - it’s staggering to watch. Each shift of allegiance spins off its own chain reaction of side effects and implications.

Despite everything good I have to say about the story, I have a hard time openly recommending ToCS the same way I would games like Persona 3, or Final Fantasy 6. The Trails audience is small but fiendishly loyal, and I feel that the game’s limited cultural relevance can cause some to overlook its flaws in the hopes of bringing others onboard. I don’t see this game as the must-play RPG it’s often made out to be, simply because it takes such dedicated effort to work through.

I spent 73 hours in my completionist-style run of the game, and I found it to be a fluffy 73 hours. It does exceed the trudging reputation of its franchise: unlike Trails in the Sky, Cold Steel contains a number of plot-critical events…but they’re spread evenly between hours of repetitive and basic sidequests. This is a story about politics and the conflicting interests of the people, sure, but also, you’re a teenager at a military academy with classwork to do. The first and third chapters are slow, particularly the latter, and these sections land around what I consider to be critical time ranges for RPGs: the first few hours, and the ~20 hour mark. It requires special effort and dedication in order to get to the meat of this game, and anyone approaching it without that frame of mind is going to either get distracted by other games or get frustrated before seeing the end.

Structurally, ToCS is very similar to Persona 3 and 4, but unlike those games, it doesn’t always have rock solid dialogue and acting to hold your attention. In some ways, the main cast is too big for its own good. A number of people in the main party are given scarcely any development at all. Gaius, for example, I mentally referred to as “that guy that can’t stop talking about the fricking wind.” I expect Gaius and other characters will be expanded on in the future, but I often felt the writers were wasting oxygen on them that could have been given to the characters that accomplished something.

Regardless of all the fluff, Cold Steel nails it when it counts. Members of your party initially seem somewhat tropey, but are shown to be highly reasonable and relatable. The plot is nothing if not delicate with its characters. While it only focuses on a few members of your party, it at least does a great job of demonstrating why they are the way they are and why they’re going to be important in events to come.

The main character, Rean Schwarzer, is a safe but solid hero, brought to life by some incredible performance from Sean Chiplock. Lines that should’ve made me groan moved me. I’m anxious to see how his career grows from here, because Rean had one of the best performances of 2015, and is a big part of what makes me excited about the sequel.

My biggest issue with Trails in the Sky (a game I thoroughly did not like) was that the story was such a slog that it bogged down the gameplay with endless fetch quests. It would be dishonest to say that problem is solved in Cold Steel but it’s easily more fun to play. The battle system has been refined dramatically since Sky, with turn-based encounters that are quick, fluid, and surprisingly challenging.

The pacing of battles is controlled largely by your “CP,” a resource bar that operates similar to “Rage” mechanics in many other games. You gain CP by attacking and by being attacked, and CP can be spent on powerful abilities that are unique to each character. The CP system exists alongside a traditional MP bar for casting spells, which makes CP a powerful tool that doesn’t compromise your ability to operate without it. However, spells take a number of turns in order to activate and can be canceled, so they need to be used carefully. CP abilities, on the other hand, are not only more powerful, but some can be used to “cut in line” in the turn-order.

Your decisions in battle are put under pressure by a mechanic that grants special bonuses on specific turns. For example, you might see a bonus that restores 50% HP to the unit that acts on an upcoming turn. This would be disastrous if given to a powerful enemy, so your gameplan switches from healing, dealing damage and building up CP to finding a way to “steal” that turn to receive the bonus yourself. It adds a sense of tension that RPGs often lack. You can’t afford to get too comfortable, especially in the back half of the game.

What’s unfortunate about reviewing ToCS is that I don’t really get to talk about the coolest part. There’s a late-game revelation that shakes both the story and the gameplay dramatically. It’s almost guaranteed that the sequel will have significantly more varied gameplay, less repetitive questing, and little in the way of meaningless busywork for random NPCs. So if the main reason to play this game is simply to get to the sequel, that makes it a difficult 70 hour journey to recommend. I wouldn’t fault anyone for choosing to spend their time doing other things, especially given the quantity of games releasing these days.

Trails of Cold Steel is a leap forward from the sluggish pacing of Trails in the Sky. There’s a big pot of gold at the end of this rainbow, but you’re not going to get there without a downpour of classwork and pointless fetch quests. A subset of patient RPG fans are bound to go nuts over it - I just wish it tried harder to get you to its best moments.

3.5 / 5

[jackleveledup]

Game of the Year 2015 - My Top 3

#3 - Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

I don’t know how else to say it: The Phantom Pain is one of the most finely-crafted games ever made. The baseline of quality is astonishing in even the finest details, like the way the camera pans or the ways the wind shifts with each of the game’s weather effects. In a digital industry rife with pre-fabricated pieces and dynamically generated content, MGSV feels strangely hand-made.

Open world games will never be the same to me, not after messing with MGSV’s sandbox. Your objectives are deviously simple: “rescue a hostage,” or “blow up the tanks,” but the obstacles and twists thrown in along the way will make each player’s story both memorable and unique. This is as much a result of the resources provided to players as it is of carefully obscured details. The tools are easy to understand and easy to use - throw something near a guard to make a noise and draw their attention, place C4 and detonate it at your command, shoot a rocket to make things go boom instantly, etc. What’s impressive, though, is the extent to which their effects can be combined, and how Kojima Productions force you to improvise as the tension builds to its peak. Maybe your rescue mission takes you into an enormous, heavily guarded enemy compound. That’s hard enough. So you’ll pack your camo gear, a silenced tranquilizer pistol, and maybe some smoke grenades if things get ugly. And just when you start sneaking away with your hostage friend, the giant, 100-foot tall nuclear-armed robot shows up. It’s not all scripted events, though, because MGSV lends itself so well to planning things out, and chances are things will rarely go how you expect. The process of learning to handle each of the many “...oh shit” moments makes MGSV simply unforgettable.

Ambition, however, doesn’t come without cost. The concluding chapter of the game is such a mess that for a minute, I wondered if I could even put it on the Game of the Year list at all. There are some infuriating, mandatory missions that seem to throw out much of the game’s experimentation-driven style, and their impact on the story is wounded because of it. More than that, it kinda’ doesn’t even end! There are major story threads left hanging, and (dancing around spoilers here) I think the exclusion of David Hayter was a massive missed opportunity. It appears that in some ways Chapter 2 became collateral damage of the Kojima-Konami feud, but in another way, maybe that adds to its intrigue. The chronicle of the game and its fallout has become as much of a story as what is told within the game. I’m hopeful that time will heal some of the bitterness I have in that regard, and that one day I’ll be able to more clearly see the end of The Phantom Pain for what it is.

Like every Metal Gear Solid before it, The Phantom Pain is a landmark in video games history. The freedom the game’s tools provide is nothing short of incredible, and their countless unique interactions create one of the most wild toyboxes a game has ever had. Someday soon I’ll feel the urge to go back and I’ll do something stupid I’ve never done before, like throw a mountain of smoke grenades into a jeep and drive it into the sunset. 

#2 - Splatoon

What would it take to create a new franchise as strong as Mario, Zelda, or Metroid? That’s not a question with a simple answer, and it’s something more than a few game developers have struggled with for decades. Despite all odds Nintendo seem to have struck gold yet again with Splatoon, the freshest shooter we’ve seen in a decade.

Nintendo flipped the genre as we know it by focusing on territory instead of kills, and it’s surprising just how much depth this one decision creates. Score is not calculated by kills or even territory control over time - instead, it’s a measure of who has painted more of the map in their color at the very end of the 3 minute match. You could focus on “splatting” enemies to stop them from painting your own ground, or spend the entire game following players, painting over areas after they finish. Shooters were once known as some of the most impenetrable games to beginners, but Splatoon creates utility for players of all skill levels, since even a rookie can shoot paint on an unclaimed area. This could be done by setting mines, hiding, or even just quietly claiming the lesser-contested portions of the map. The variety in each of the many “guns” have a large effect on how you play, too. While much of the industry is attempting to create esports-ready titles, Nintendo quietly accomplishes the esports ideals on its own: it’s dead simple to pick up and extremely difficult to master. That doesn’t mean I’d ever dream of playing Splatoon competitively, but it’s a hell of a lot of fun whether you’ve been playing for 10 minutes or 10 months.

Honestly, Splatoon shines in just about every aspect. There’s a pervasive sense of style that feels super modern, and you can see it clearly from the fashion to the color palette. The music, on the other hand, is more than modern, it’s incredible and unworldly. These touches go miles in fleshing out the game’s world into something tangible. Most importantly, Nintendo has continued to build on Splatoon for months with free maps, weapons, game modes, features, and events. It seems impossible for a game to excel in as many areas as Splatoon does. To me, excellence seems almost par for the course with Nintendo, but even still - Splatoon is among their best and I’m always ready to play more of it.

My 2015 Game of the Year: Undertale

It’s...difficult to explain Undertale’s effect on me, even more so to do that without spoiling what makes it so special. So let’s start with how I felt:  I sobbed when I finished Undertale. I cried harder than just about any game I’ve ever played, and I reflected on it for weeks after. It’s been months and I still feel its absence in everything else I’ve been playing. It’s a game that became so real to me that I’m not sure how objectively I can even see it anymore.

Part of what made Undertale so powerful to me is that it seemed to know me almost better than I do. It becomes apparent over the course of the game that Toby Fox (the game’s creator) has the empathy of a thousand, because he seems to perfectly predict your mentality at every turn. There are undertones of darkness mixed into a cute and innocent facade, and as soon as you start getting a little freaked out, you’ll get slapped out of it with a joke. This sense of whiplash in many ways defines the game, but it’s incredible how little knowing that matters. I was caught off guard time and time again, to the point where it was hard to know what to feel or what’s the “right” solution. I had to put real thought into my actions simply because it wasn’t clear who I could even trust. I’ve never been an enthusiast of games with “moral choices”, and Undertale isn’t necessarily one of those either, but it’s important that it messes with you so much because your actions carry significant consequences. Even in the tiniest of details, it’s shocking how many of your “choices” characters will notice and call you out on. Undertale is not a game that is content with being played - it plays you right back.

The story, characters, and humor would be enough on their own to land Undertale on my Game of the Year list, but the combat design is absolutely brilliant. No exaggeration: these are some of the most memorable boss fights I have ever had the joy of playing. Entirely new mechanics based on each character are introduced, refined, and fully explored within a single encounter. Important characters won’t hesitate to straight up break the rules of the game for their own fight! It’s mind blowing. I can vividly remember more than a few scenes where I just gasped at the screen, stunned at how the game had turned itself on its head.  The music accompanying each boss is perfectly designed, matching the flow of the fight and building on the emotions at play. The amount of detail given to each character extends to minor enemies too, because all monsters have their own unique attacks, jokes, and hidden interactions. 

Ultimately, I think how much Undertale means to you is dependent on how much you’re able to connect with the characters. An unfortunate side effect of the game’s success is that it heaps vast expectation onto a game that, honestly, doesn’t seem designed to impress. It’s immensely smart and thoughtfully created, but it’s not any sort of immaculate production from beginning to end, like Bloodborne, Splatoon, or many of the other games that came out in 2015. If it was meant to be the pretentious industry-disruptor some project it to be, I don’t think it would work as well as it does. It’s a modest vessel built in service of a handful of characters that Toby Fox deeply cares about, and he wants you to care about them too.

Undertale was emotionally powerful to me at a level that very few games have ever reached. I would be thrilled to go on about its happiest, saddest, funniest, and scariest moments, but more than that, I want everyone that’s interested to be able to go in blind and be as genuinely surprised by it as I was. I wish I could forget everything I knew about it so I could discover it again and again. 

[jackleveledup]

Game of the Year 2015: Honorable Mentions

I’ll talk about the very best games of 2015 soon with my Top 3 of 2015, so what follows here is not exactly a conventional “top ten” list. Instead, Honorable Mentions is a place where I can recognize as many or as few games as I feel deserve special attention (but just missed the cut for Game of the Year). Fortunately for this year, that was...a lot! 

Bloodborne

There’s a deadly allure to Bloodborne unlike anything I’ve played before. Every single second you’re dared to take just one step further into the horrors of Yharnam, one more swing of the axe before backing down for an instant of caution. This tension climbs to its peak in nearly every battle and morphs button presses into a cautious but calculated dance. Any enemy can end you should your judgment lapse, but the more you hesitate, the more likely you are to mess up or get caught off guard. Each movement, offensive or defensive, comes with consequences that will be taken advantage of when used poorly. You’re left with only your weapon and your finely honed instincts to come out on top.

Some semblance of mastery is not just useful, it’s necessary. There’s one boss very early on that demands a level of understanding you may not have gathered from the weaker enemies prior. But for every challenge the game throws at you, it builds an even larger payoff when finally overcome. I missed out on each of the Souls games before Bloodborne, so to many I’m sure this sensation isn’t new, but I’m in love with From Software’s confidence in their players. Guided tutorials are commonplace now, and they have their purpose, but it’s a sign of brilliant game design when you’re trusted enough to figure so much out for yourself. 

If you don’t fall prey to it first, you’ll learn to crave the danger. The story is minimal, cryptic even, but it harmonizes so well with the mood of the game. There’s a strange parallel at play as your initial distress evolves into curiosity, with bosses spaced out carefully to match your character’s ascent. It’s a little unfortunate that the plot leans so heavily on prior knowledge of H.P. Lovecraft, because the things that make the story so interesting will otherwise come off as total nonsense. Regardless, even if you miss out on why the story works, the mystery is more than intriguing enough to pull you through from boss to boss.

Bloodborne deserves to be played to experience its masterful sense of progression and combat design . The bar has been set for PS4 exclusives, and it’s pretty damn high.

Box Boy

As I’ve grown older, I’ve started to figure out that many of my absolute favorite games are those with massive expansions of dead-simple mechanics. Super Monkey Ball, Super Mario 64, any Zelda, you get the idea. I don’t know if I would call Box Boy a “massive expansion,” but it’s definitely thorough, and its mechanic is awesome. Your little Box Boy can push a number of identically-sized blocks out of his body. At first your instinct will be to toss blocks around and build paths to jump on, but you can also keep them attached to your body to modify its shape, kind of like Tetris blocks. There are plenty of twists on the concept as the stages progress, rapidly enhancing and testing your understanding.  Here and there I’d catch myself staring blankly at a stage in thought, but no solution felt impossibly out of reach. You’ll feel smart for figuring things out, and fans of puzzle games know there’s no greater sign of quality than that.

Dragon Quest Heroes: The World Tree’s Woe and the Blight Below

If you needed any more proof that 2015 was insane, it’s right here: a breath of fresh air for the beat-em-up genre? DQ Heroes takes vague inspiration from strategy and tower-defense games by letting you place monsters around the map to do your bidding. It's a dead-simple concept that can be applied in a lot of cool ways, like precise micro-management of control points, or just calling in an entire goon squad against a tough monster. This is still a beat-em-up, though, so none of that gets in the way of flying solo and cleaving your own path through the monstrous horde. It looks incredible, too - this is far and away the best 3D interpretation of Akira Toriyama’s artwork we’ve ever seen. Keep in mind I’m saying that as someone who’s seen the two new DBZ movies, Battle of the Gods and Resurrection F. It’s not even close.

It may be a spinoff of both Dragon Quest and Dynasty Warriors, but it shines as one of the more unique games from both series. 

Ori and the Blind Forest

Ori is that rare kind of game that simply shimmers with polish. Most 2D games don’t see the same level of production as games from more "modern” genres, yet Ori goes above and beyond as one of the most beautiful games of 2015. From the painted backgrounds to the cutscenes, music, and dungeons, there’s an awe-inspiring, cohesive, and unforgettable sense of style. Enjoy the scenery at your own risk, though, because completing the game is no walk in the park. Ori’s quick and precise handling gives way for some devious challenges, particularly in the escape sequences that cap off each dungeon. I wasn’t quite on board with all of the design choices (like locking players out of areas after completion), but Ori's stunning attention to detail and inventive mechanics make it the best game on the Xbox One so far.

Rocket League

It would probably be weird to call a car-based soccer game “elegant,” but the way Rocket League handles is honestly a work of art. This game took summer by storm with its sheer simplicity and kept me around with its ludicrous skill ceiling. Whether you’re an expert or a total beginner, it’s a joy to zoom around the soccer arena attempting to crash into anything at all. With any luck you’ll hit the ball, but even when you miss it’s still pretty fun.

Psyonix also deserve recognition for their approach to post-launch support, offering meaningful paid additions to the game without disrupting the flow for the audience at large. That’s to say nothing of the free maps, features, and customization options that have kept the game fresh for months. 

In a different year, Rocket League would have easily secured a place on my top 3, so I think it’s a real testament to 2015 as a whole that I’m forced to recognize it here instead.

Yokai Watch

Level-5′s reputation for character design is practically legendary at this point, and Yokai Watch is no exception - but don’t make the mistake of judging it at face value. What begins as a lighthearted and simple little RPG builds on itself steadily in a way that has kept me glued to my 3DS since Christmas. I thought it was just going to be a cute ghost-themed Pokemon clone, but I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Yokai Watch hooks you by finding ways to keep you busy, whether you’re bouncing from mini-game to mini-game in combat or chasing down a ghost you bumped into in town. Each area of your stomping grounds is full of little secrets, like hidden alleys, shortcuts, and supernatural hijinx. What I love most, though, is that yokai are everywhere. Your next friendly fighter might be in the trash can next to you, in the alley behind the shop, or possessing your parents back home. It tackles the spirit of adventure with whimsy, and never pushes you to work any harder than you decide is necessary. It’s trendy for games to try and be compulsive as all get-out, so it’s super refreshing to play something that hooks you with options and enjoyable distractions rather than randomized loot and progression.

[jackleveledup]

Game of the Year 2015: Best Character

So here I am writing about Undertale, a game best experienced without expectations or pre-conceived notions. There is a mountain of praise for it, so at this point that might not even be news to you. However, I would argue that reading anything at all will spoil some aspects of the game, so please tread carefully.

For a game as charming as Undertale, it feels a little wrong to single out just one character as the best. Everyone has seen pictures of Papyrus and fan art of everyone else, but even the game’s “trash mobs” are full of lovable quirks and intricacies. Each boss has their own clever mechanics and music, reflecting and foreshadowing their struggles. But of all the strange monsters you’ll find, Sans rises above and beyond as one of the most interesting game characters in a long time.

Sans is actually your first exposure to the monster world, at least after Toriel’s failed attempts to shelter you. He appears to be goofy and lazy, and perhaps he is, but your strange first encounter with him is no accident. See, Sans seems to know a lot about the monster world. He seems to know a lot about you and your intentions as well. Eventually, you’ll find that Sans will judge you for choices you’ve made before you even realize you made them. From the very beginning, it’s going to go one of two ways: he’s going to be either your best bud or your greatest enemy. We’ve all played games or watched shows that had a “rival” character, but Sans is a real twist on that trope.

I’m not kidding about spoilers, by the way. We’re about to go off the deep end.

Anyone who has completed the game will have figured out that Sans has the ability to time travel. The mystery of why he has this ability has been the source of much speculation, but the origins are less interesting to me than how he chooses to use it. Sans acts like he doesn’t take things too seriously, but it’s just that time travelling has given him little reason to care about individual outcomes. In spite of his carefree attitude he still waited outside the ruins, ready to kill Frisk after mere seconds if need be. So why doesn’t he get his hands dirty with anything at all until the very end?

Sans proves himself to be both an optimist and an idealist. Even after demonstrating you’re a threat in “genocide” playthroughs, he’ll choose to let you live time and time again. He promised Toriel to protect any human that enters the monster world, but you would think if Toriel died all bets would be off. I think Sans holds out on you because of his belief that you’ll make the right choice in the end. Because you’re his friend, he gives you a second chance - no, an eternity of second chances. 

That’s all second-hand knowledge, though. I didn’t have the heart to kill a single character. The surgical way Undertale breaks the fourth wall went miles in connecting me to each of its characters. I refuse to play the “genocide” route specifically because I feel so attached to Sans, Toriel, and everyone else. The things I like most about Sans are a lot more simple than all the time travel stuff. He’s that guy that takes you out to eat at Grillby’s to have real talk and give life advice. He’ll throw out lame jokes with reckless abandon because he’s more concerned with everyone’s happiness than his own dignity. He knows the best parts of life are the little moments where friends are just happy together. He believed in me time and time again when others just saw me as an opportunity to finally escape the monster world. If being friends with Sans means giving up some of the best boss fights and best music in the game, then that’s just a trade I’m going to have to make.

Honorable Mention: Taken as a whole, Tales of Zestiria’s main cast is lovable and shockingly real. I loved every excuse the story gave me to watch this group of friends develop and interact with each other. The slight variance and tonal shifts in how each character treats every other reveals a vast depth at their core.

[jackleveledup]

Game of the Year 2015: Biggest Disappointment

After 2014, Halo 5 became something of a star I wished upon. Who knows why...it's not like I was taken with the beta, or the performance of the Master Chief Collection, or its attempts at fixing bugs (still wildly broken, by the way). I was crushed when it was announced that 5 would not support splitscreen multiplayer. What’s even the point of a Halo game if you can't play it on the couch with friends? I never got why I was supposed to care about "the new hero" Jameson Locke, or why I should believe Master Chief had "gone rogue." The writing was on the wall, but it was all too easy to shake off that feeling. From 2009 to 2014, I was playing Halo 3, 4, or Reach almost every day. I was that guy, and Halo was my game. 

The fanboy prevailed, at least until Halo 5 came out. I’ve spent a fair amount of time with it by now, most of that trying to convince myself I enjoy it. I guess it’s been hard to accept that Halo might have finally left me in the dust. A few days pass and again I’ll decide to give it “one more chance,” but each time I walk away more frustrated than the last. I remember telling my girlfriend more than once that I wanted to “just sell my Xbox,” as if that would do any good.

Mechanically, Halo 5 feels alien. Aiming is goosey and uneven between axes. Some amount of practice and adjustment may fix that, I guess, but 60 hours wasn’t enough for me. Regardless, the real issue is 5's rampant speed. Universal access to sprint and increased base movement speed mean each weapon needs more killing power to prevent wild goose chases. It's practically an arms race.

Frag grenades go off like nuclear bombs. Automatic weapons can do headshot damage and hit from a mile away. Battle rifle damage is processed exactly when the trigger pulls rather than when the bullet hits, so you can get killed even after rocket boosting behind cover. The motion sensor's puny range makes it near worthless. Mindless sprinting around the map lets you One Punch Man the poor fools still looking for a reading on their motion sensors. I could nitpick for hours, but each issue is emblematic of the mobility changes’ sweeping impact. When it doesn’t have Halo’s signature skirmish pacing, it almost feels wrong to call it Halo at all.

The few non-competitive aspects of the game are equally flawed. The campaign is a mess, a mishmash of unexplained events stuffed in front of a climax and an abrupt credits sequence. The characterization of Locke in-game is painfully shallow. He’s got a blue visor, though, that’s one thing going for him. Warzone, the touted new gamemode, is a giant money pit designed to sell you back the fun parts of Halo piece by piece as single-use items in randomized card packs.

343 Industries have demonstrated that they are not content with simply following in Bungie's footsteps. While many have said that 5 makes Halo finally feel like a modern shooter, to me, that's exactly the problem. I can't in good faith call it progress when 343i's merging into the same traffic jam every other shooter's sitting in. I’ve been a Halo diehard for years, but I just don’t think I can say that anymore. My faith has been rattled, and it feels awful.

[jackleveledup]

Game of the Year 2015: Biggest Surprise

Dragonball Xenoverse is a game centered on one idea: you put yourself in Dragonball Z. You can already imagine what it’s like: you fight with your favorite characters, obliterate your enemies with glowing beams, and help out your boy Goku against the bad dudes. What surprised me is not that a game like this exists - honestly, it’s part of the surprise that it didn’t already. What surprised me is just how well it delivers on its promise.

The biggest trick Xenoverse has is the way it places your own custom character into the story. You’re effectively a soldier of the gods, assigned to help Trunks correct a mysterious enemy’s meddling with the world’s history. You’ll revisit key battles of Dragonball Z with slight twists and set them right one by one. It’s effective in a lot of ways: for players, it allows them to relive the series in a way that feels fresh. For the creators, they can play it safe with story and characters they know fans will be into. And for your character, it makes them feel like they really are a part of the Dragonball universe. By the end of the game you’ll feel like a legitimate ally of Goku, and that’s all done organically through the gameplay.

The light RPG mechanics go a long way in making the experience feel like your own. You’ll start with simple choices: do you want to focus on hand-to-hand abilities, or long range ki blasts? From there you’ll level up, invest stat points to fine tune your character, and mentor under series favorites to learn their signature abilities. There’s a huge variety of options available, but level progression and a limited number of skill slots force you to be consistent in your direction. There are some risks with this design decision, but ultimately it added a level of depth to my Namekian, Beans (it’s DBZ, so you’re morally obligated to pick a food-related name), that more flexible RPGs couldn’t offer. Beans has a bunch of cool moves, sure, but he also has weaknesses that I had to figure out how to deal with. These sacrifices make Beans believable, unlike your typical self-insertion-fantasy god character.

Xenoverse has its own issues as a game, so it doesn’t quite make it into my Best of 2015 list. To the DBZ fan though, it’s a must-have. It was my dream as a kid to shoot a kamehameha out of my own hands, and this game vicariously satisfied that urge to an extent that I couldn’t possibly have imagined.

[jackleveledup]

[jackleveledup]

Is it wrong to be excited about Red Ash?

Red Ash just might be the most awkward Kickstarter campaign the gaming industry has ever seen. If nothing else, it’s the most awkward campaign that hit any notable level of awareness. Its failures were numerous, embarassing and well-documented, yet somehow the game managed to secure funding from a mysterious new publisher out of China. I guess I’m not comfortable enough now to decide if the ends justified the means, but I’m ready to move past what Red Ash means grandiosely for the industry and start thinking about Red Ash the game…and I’m actually pretty excited.

Red Ash is in a unique position as a second chance at a game that didn’t work, or perhaps rather a game that would’ve worked magnitudes better had it arrived a few years later. Red Ash’s precursor, Megaman Legends, is actually one of the earliest examples of a console third person shooter. In addition to moving and aiming in three dimensions (nearly 20 years ago, mind you), it featured open-ended world design and customizable weapon upgrades. The tragedy, however, is that the game released on hardware that wasn’t ready for it. The N64 and PS One era of games is notorious for dismal camera controls, and Legends depended on such awkward handling. Revisiting the game is a labor of love in the most passionate sense, requiring ceaseless dedication to a control scheme barely playable to anyone that’s played a 3D game in the last decade. Mega Man Legends needed two analog sticks to truly shine, but it never had the chance.

The core of Mega Man Legends, and thus Red Ash, lies in the youthful and adventurous spirit of its world, character design, and writing. Surely there is a void left in the wake of Gears of War, Uncharted, Mass Effect, Saints Row, and so on, for a game that handles similarly but is playable by anyone that isn’t into dudes with well-kept facial hair lodging bullets into glaring mugs? Beyond just atmosphere, Japanese game developers tend to focus on the experimentation and progression of game mechanics far more than the western developers who have dominated the third person shooter scene thus far. It’s not hard to imagine Red Ash containing weapons with dramatically different playstyles (pardon my enthusiasm while I remember THE DRILL ARM), and massive boss encounters that put your skills to the test. At least for me, a few good boss battles could go a long way in revitalizing what has otherwise become a stagnant genre.

In spite of Comcept’s stumbling kick-off, some sort of angel investor has miraculously absolved them of their failures. Others wouldn’t be wrong to hold their grudges, but I see Red Ash as the second chance that Keiji Inafune has fought for all along. His dedication has finally been rewarded, and you know what? There’s never been a better time for an open world shooter from Japan. So if you’re going to promise us the moon, Infaune-san, then we better get going. There’s someone waiting for us!

[jackleveledup]

[jackleveledup]

hooray for more gifs :3