A very consistent set of games in 2012 for overall quality for me, even if the reason it came out such was wildly different. I played a whole ton of 8/10 games by my own personal scale, but finished fairly few games flawed enough to qualify for worse than an 8/10. (In my 2011 recap, which I never posted because Captain K jumped the gun and started the topic way too early in December, I have 4 9/10 games, all better than the low 9 here, two 5s, two 4s, and a mighty 3... I'll post that later, perhaps.)
Also, as per usual, this was a season of portable gaming with some Steam on the side. 5.5 PSP-on-Vita-via-PSN games, 1 DS game, 3 PC games, 1.5 PS3 games, and 1.5 Wii games.
Notable unfinished games
Final Fantasy 13-2, The Last Story, & Growlanser: The Wayfarer of Time. All are currently cruising for a 7/10 - FF13-2, I don't like how they changed the battle system (leader death != game over aside) and the game isn't quite as compelling as FF13; "fugitives on the run" makes me want to see what happens next more than "timeline bullshit problems, let's, uh, hurry up and solve them?" Serah is decent at least even if Noel is lame. The Last Story, well, that score can change a lot based on how the Story which is last turns out. Gameplay is clunky and awkward but still enjoyable so far. Growlanser WOT is a potentially 9/10 game with both a solid overall plot & battle system that loses massive points for pathetic otaku pandering like whoa. Bayonetta is literally aiming higher in the "games to be embarrassed to play" category.
In dramatic reverse order:
Decent but flawed
Ys I & II Chronicles
Boring combat, bad dungeon design, level is the god stat, plot that focuses in on the latest "get this magical item which will allow you to proceed" and ignores things like character development for either heroes or villain, add in a dash of old-school trolling in scenario design & hidden items... yet, all-in-all, I liked Ys I & II and would recommend it (as a 6/10, granted). Why? Well, the music is awesome. The plot, while BAD, is something to bounce off of, more so than average Zelda-esque minimalist plots. Some of the boss fights are interesting, like the Ys I final. It's reasonably short and doesn't outstay its welcome. Did I mention the music was great? And finally, the games just have charm. Hard to express but despite all the terrible, outdated ideas, the game clearly got some love, and it shines through. I'm willing to overlook some flaws for that.
Good
Catherine
Played on Easy because Undo! Undo! Undo! is so sanity-preserving. I usually preferred the game when it was heavier on time pressure than on perfect block manipulation / puzzling. Anyway... I'm glad that Japan was willing to make a game about late-twentysomethings in awkward relationships, even if it ended up melodramatic as all hell (as might be expected). Actual sinister plot reveal was pretty hilarious, I'll grant.
Puzzle Agent 2
A very high 7. Don't care about the puzzles, but actual plot resolution! Minnesota accents! Short & sweet! Docked half a point for blatantly rushing the ending, again, but at least the mysteries of Scoggings are mostly cleared up. Sort of.
Great
Tactics Ogre: Let us Cling Together PSP
Biggest upgrade ever, since TO PSX is so god-awful. Anyway, I love strat-RPGs on a map, and the larger party sizes of TOLUCTPSP help it stand out from the crowd. Some interesting twists too - I liked how "deaths" were handled, different schools of magic was a neat idea, game shows damage projections against anything, take-backs, etc. And of course for every neat idea there was a flawed idea - item crafting, skill progression, new classes starting at level 1, level being so godlike due to subtractive defense, some of the whole class-progresses-as-a-whole balance issues, hiding so many classes in the late game after it's inconvenient to experiment... but whatever. The plot has its low points (Catiua!) and its weird parts (the suicidal Galgastani commander who betrays his own troops and gets them killed so as not to sully his own honor as a traitor or something), but it's very ambitious and I love the script, so I'll focus on the positive here.
Ranks below the next games because despite having 3 pathways, I really don't feel a compelling need to replay the game, since adjusting the difficulty I'd face is so awkward with the whole classes-level-together thing.
Ys Origin
Hey it's more Ys. Great music. Idiotic plot... but at least the two mains in Hugo & Yunica are decently written as they ram into the stupidity that surrounds them. More importantly the gameplay is great, if you're willing to compenstate for the usual flaw that the bosses are balanced so much harder than the randoms such that the randoms are basically irrelevant and harmless if it's reasonably possible to take the boss on. (And the whole Ys level = god stat thing.) Ranks slightly below Oath because A) the art is worse in Origin, and B) Adol's swordplay feels more relevant there. Maybe Toal will be better on this, but Hugo is more about positioning + pew pew (Which is fine), while Yunica's specials kind of overwhelm any trickiness you can do with her axe in general.
Deus Ex: Human Revolution
More Deus Ex, updated for modern sensibilities. I'll take it! Villainy could have been better - needed a screen-stealer like Bob Page - but it's Deus Ex gameplay with the ability to skip it and do constant takedowns from hiding if you want. I'm one of the people who *liked* the boss fights, too. Plot basically worked for me as well.
Portal 2
The first third of Portal 2 is fantastic, 9/10 territory. Falls off a tad in the middle, though, and the twist in your helper for the last third was a bit awkward. Oh well. Fun puzzling at least, and some reasonably awesome lines as expected.
Ys: The Oath in Felghana PSP
Yet more Ys. See Ys Origin, except plot & gameplay are slightly better, albeit replays don't get to change up to a new character like Origin. 2 and a half playthroughs of each game shows they did something right - it's not quite portable Devil May Cry, but close enough, good fun. Insert obligatory music hype as well.
Ys 7
Secret of Mana+. Works for me. The gameplay is actually worse than Origin & Oath IMHO - items are too easy a safety valve for the bosses (although it does make long boss fights more sane), and while the special move selection is cool, ultimately winning fights comes down to spamming the dodge button a lot. That said, I will give it an ever-so-mild overall edge on Oath because the plot doesn't fail as usual, but is actually sort of decent. Uber-generic in parts, yes (take a pilgrimage to THREE SHRINES, then complete FIVE DRAGON TRIALS, then COOK SEVEN EGGS etc.), but the game is so very close to an actually decent Ys villain. The endgame does its best to undermine the potential villains by suddenly deciding everyone is awesome despite all the muder & such, but oh well, there's clearly something to work with here.
Last Window: The Secret of Cape West
If Oath is all gameplay no plot, Last Window is the reverse, since the gameplay is practically nonexistent. Plot takes its freaking time to get into gear with Kyle Hyde, apartment busybody for the first half of the game, but when it eventually does, it's solid. As in Hotel Dusk, your reward at the end of the game is the truth and nothing more... but it's enough.
Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn
It's a Fire Emblem game, I like the gameplay, and now I'm not limited to 1 forge per mission. Cool, we're already 8/10. RD certainly could have been a 9/10 game... it's got an epic plot, which I like. Big, sweeping, touches both the lowliest and highest born of Tellius... but dang if it doesn't derail in Chapter 3. My dislike of the general idea of Chapter 3 is strong enough to counteract my general liking of Chapter 1 & Chapter 2. And Chapter 4... okay, there are some really cool ideas here, and I certainly was not expecting the goddess of chaos & destruction to be on OUR side. Lehran's plot is also reasonably neat. But Chapter 4 also includes some of the stupidest plot twists (Micaiah's lineage, Ike understanding that Mr. Black Knight is a noble dude after all because murdering a single father out of some petty anime PROVE MYSELF THE BEST rivalry actually makes perfect sense) once again undercutting itself some. I personally would have liked it more had the plot not decided Yune was just really misunderstood or something too, and given her some entirely merited scariness. And lastly, have more darn 1-star flavor conversations! It's a good thing FE9 exists, because otherwise the number of lines some characters get borders on Shadow Dragon levels, which is not a good place to be. Bah. If I cared more about replays I suppose RD might have made 9/10 anyway since it's good for that, but there's a big difference between a 6-hour replay of Oath in Felghana and a 60 hour replay of Radiant Dawn.
Diablo 3
I thought I was Diablo-d out. I was wrong; Diablo 3 is different enough from D2 that it was worth hiking through Inferno, and I'm sure I'll eventually do more off-class playthroughs as well. The gameplay is smooth and better than "stand still while drinking health potions and clicking the left mouse button;" I got to feel like a badass Vaulting out of the way as a Demon Hunter before dropping some Caltrops and unloading arrowy death into monsters. The skillset switching means you can play around with different builds and abilities. The multiplayer integration is second-to-none - it's amazingly easy to walk into a friend's game or see who's on.
Oh yeah, I guess there's DIABLO PLOT too. Well. The animation is great, and there are some decent twists, but overall, yeah, DIABLO PLOT. But when the game is fun to play, who cares?
Excellent
The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky
Trails plays to my biases. It's an RPG with a setting that feels like an actual entity, and furthermore an actual entity at peacetime, that nevertheless never gets boring and yet never feels like it's breaking the supposed calm of "yup, everyday normal stuff here, the drastic emergencies are along the lines of arson rather than world-deverouing snake." Well, in the first 3/4 of the game at least. There's a metric ton of script in conversations that constantly update to feed your OCD if you want, but it's eminently skippable along with the more fetch-questy side missions if bored, so perfect. The battle system is mostly straight RPG with some minor positioning to care about, but it's fun, there's customization, you can steal bonus rounds with a special meter, etc. It's also nice to have an FFX-esque constantly updating initative track. The characters, while anime tropetastic as all hell at times, are charming and distinctive and humanized. The plot is a decent excuse to watch characters meet & grow & laugh & fight, and it has its own interesting bits, but this is most definitely a game that is carried by its localization & writing, which are just damn good.
Really, my only complaints are that the game is a tad on the easy side (the option to choose Hard mode before a complete runtrhough would have been nice...) and that this is very much an incomplete story on its own - if Trails Second Chapter turns out to be really stupid in its plot (if it ever gets to North America!) then that can retroactively push Trails First Chapter down some. This is a borderline 8-9/10, but I'll be generous for now.
