Elfboy's 2010 Game Retrospectives

[Dark Holy Elf]

3. Saga Frontier (PlayStation, Squaresoft, 1998)

I'll be perfectly honest here: if I was trying to be even a shred more objective with these rankings, there's no way in hell that Saga Frontier is a better game than Devil May Cry or God Hand. Go back and read the flaws listed for them; rest assured Saga Frontier has more. I think even the game's most devoted fans would admit this. For me, this trio of games are all solidly 8/10, and I gave the nod to Saga Frontier for just how much it consumed my life for the month and a half where I played all seven quests, plumbed its mechanics, and built its convoluted stat topic. Also my natural bias to RPGs is certainly at work here, and Saga Frontier is easily the best one I played this year.

Saga Frontier succeeds so strikingly because, perhaps, it's so willing to be innovative, to be a collection of good ideas. Even its stories, which are often glaringly incomplete, depart far from RPG norms and are better for it. From Asellus' tale of a woman turned into a monstrosity and who has the choice of becoming their queen or escaping to a simple life, to the highly antisocial Blue's quest to become a powerful magician (complete with neat plot twist), to T260G's story of a robot who is... distinctly acts like a robot and not some human-like android, there's lots of highly original stuff here, something I often feel is sadly lacking in RPG stories. This makes the actual incomplete writing a lot more forgivable. Yes, it's a shame many of these ideas didn't get the greater screentime they deserve, but on the other hand, it's unlikely you'll find light plot volume to be something I complain about in an RPG.

Gameplaywise, again, the game isn't one that's afraid to take risks. One of the game's biggest successes is hving four different races who manage to play -very- differently both in how they're used in-battle and in terms of how the grow between battles. It's a much larger variety than you'll find in most RPGs and it allows you to compose parties with extremely different feels, something very useful for replaying the game. The most common race, humans, even has very different fighting styles based on how you build them; swords, guns, fists, magic, and any combination of them can lead to characters who play quite differently, although this is more of a usual RPG variation. All in all the character-building system is great fun despite being a bit random (and it's not as random as it looks due to an immensely convoluted yet ultimately normalising system of stat growth and ability learning).

As for the individual battles? While they mostly come down to rocket tag (unfortunately), they're still demanding because they can destroy you if you're not careful, almost regardless of your point in the game (maybe not so much for the first couple battle ranks, i.e. first 32 battles or so, which is good for giving the game a decent challenge curve). It's usually in your hands in terms of taking them seriously, and even if you do get haxed, it's not immensely frustrating like in some games because you can (and should) quicksave anywhere. Bosses are, due to the game's immensely non-linear system, mostly a matter of taking them on when you feel able, which is fun enough in its own right, although there are a few neat fights in there, particularly on Asellus' quest as well as many of the final bosses.

The game is very non-linear, which I'm not always a big fan of, but in the relatively plot-light, customisation-heavy experience that is Saga Frontier, it works quite well. In general it's a game that just gives you a huge amount of choice in terms of how to play it, with the core gameplay being so enjoyable (as well as scaling very well with your level) that the game will remain fun almost no matter what approach you take. The game has to walk a pretty thin line here; if they'd botched the balance of random encounters this non-linearity could have ruined the game. But luckilly they did not.

Obviously the game definitely has some weaknesses. Its stories are blatantly incomplete (Emelia's quest is the most glaring example with its nonsensical final confrontation, but not the only one), and the polish is lacking, with the game doing little to tell you several important things about its gameplay. Dungeons can be difficult to navigate with the visuals often being little help, and it's easy to get lost and not understand what to do to advance the story in a given quest. The game occasionally pulls total bullshit moves on you (Lute's final dungeon is the most obvious example, and a certain PC leaving you for Riki's final boss fight also deserves mention). You pretty much need a guide to enjoy the game, or to be patient with exploration and learning some of the game's dick moves. There's also a sea of glitches, although very few actually damage the game experience, at least. All in all, it's a game that basically needed a few more months of editting, and it's a miracle that the incomplete product we did get was as much fun as it was.

That said, at the end of the day the game was just such great fun to get into, dig under the hood of, and play repeatedly to experience the multitude of different PCs, races, and fighting styles, and to try things in a different order. The game takes its free form, great variety, and seven storylines, and turns it into one of the most replayable and all-around freshest PRGs I've ever seen.

The good: Great character-building and variety; originality; fun battle system; replayability
The bad: About as polished as an attic; confusing at points and incomplete
The ugly: The game's damage formulas are truly hideous (if strangely fascinating!)

[Luther Lansfeld]

Yaaaaay!!

[Dark Holy Elf]

Well, so much for writing one of these a day. Almost done, though, so it doesn't matter much! I've just been... leaving all of you in suspense for what the last two games are! Yes, that must be it!


2. Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth (Nintendo DS, Capcom, 2010)

And now for something completely different. It's been a year littered with platformers, action games, and RPGs for me; Edgeworth is the only game on this list that doesn't fall into one of those broad categories.

I'm pretty sure most everyone is aware of the Ace Attorney games, the series of cases featuring wacky murder trials. It's a series that I quite like, certainly, but also one I felt was going a bit stale with the more recent entries. Trials and Tribulations already showed a distinct lack of innovation on the series' core ideas, but still maintained the high quality of writing; in Apollo Justice, even the writing had begun to slip, in my estimate. So I was starting to wonder about the future of the series when I picked up Edgeworth and woowwww okay every concern I had was addressed with this one.

As much as I've liked the games in Capcom's adventure series, the gameplay has left much to be desired. A particular weakness is the wandering, point-and-click, "present the right item to the right person to proceed" gameplay that characterises the non-court sessions. The structure of the games has always been such that the more interesting logic puzzles only take place in court, and the way the world is set up, these court sections have to come in chunks. In Edgeworth, the more investigative nature of the game allows the writers to mix up the types of puzzles, which include both court-like gameplay in Edgeworth's battles of wits with various opponents, and other logic and investigative puzzles which, while still the less fun part of the gameplay, are nevertheless an improvement over that of the previous games. But even if they weren't improved pacing would make up for this.

Storyline-wise, the game is also a big success. After four games playing as defense attorneys, playing as a prosecutor in the investigative phase of his job represents a big change, and allows some rather different styles of cases to be written, something the series sorely needed. The game also opts to go for a series of closely-related cases storywise, taking place over a few days and with everything tying back into one main story arc. The third and fourth games in the series had taken steps towards this (although the fourth bungled it with its poor resolution, but that's a separate rant) but Edgeworth's overall story feels the most cohesive in the series, which has its advantages: for instance, it allows the game to build to an extremely satisfying showdown with the game's overarching main villain unlike any other in the series. Edgeworth himself is also a wonderful character to play as, his biting internal monologue making for plenty of hilarity, and you have to both admire his genius and laugh at how the writers make him the butt of jokes -anyway-.

Aesthetics are yet another step up! Edgeworth is the only game in the series which I think has outright good music worth listening to outside the game. The core composition has never been bad, but the instruments and sound quality of the previous four games did a lot to be desired (though, with three of them being GBA ports, this makes sense). Visuals also just plain look improved; they redid all the sprites and most of them look much better, with perhaps the exception of Gumshoe.

But overall, though, the game just returns and continues to do everything the series does best. Writing which actually feels like it can be praised without adding "for a video game"? Check. Brilliant, devilish humour? Check. Murder mystery plots which are fun to unravel? Check. The game sports improvements over its predecessors, and the best part is: it doesn't really even need them. The series, when it doesn't misfire, is just so good at doing what it does. Its failings are pretty much entirely not even its fault, but the failings of a genre for which "gameplay" can scarcely be called that.

The game does have the odd weakness here and there; it relies a bit too much on returning characters for its non-villain cast (which in turn makes villains easier to spot), and the third case is a bit of a mess with a plot which is difficult to swallow. I also don't think any one case completely blew me away in originality, with most of the plotlines being simply restructured and better-written versions of previous ideas than anything truly new. This might prevent it from being my favourite game in the series, although it at worst puts up a very good fight. This also prevents it from being my favourite game of the past year. What this does not do is prevent it from being an amazing game I would highly recommend.

The good: Writing; characters; plot; humour; clear improvements to an already effective formula
The bad: One shaky case plot-wise; gameplay still isn't a reason to play game
The ugly: The silliness of everyone refusing to say Phoenix's name. Zuh?

[metroid composite]

Oh hey, game I've played and liked.  Should have been able to guess that, in retrospect.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Hey, you've played and liked NSMBW too! And... I forget if you've played SMW2, and if you have, what you think about it.

The rest is pretty much "well Elfboy and mc don't play games in the same genres any more" more or less~

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

I didn't know you ever had~

[Dark Holy Elf]

1. Metroid Fusion (GameBoy Advance, Nintendo, 2002)

It's kinda funny. I consider myself a pretty big fan of the Metroid series, but until this year there was only one game I considered to be a truly great game. Indeed, after the awesomeness of Super Metroid, I sought out other games in the series to play. I wasn't terribly impressed with the original or what little I played of its GameBoy sequel, and Prime sounded like a different game entirely. Fusion sounded good, and indeed I played and enjoyed its first hour... but before I could borrow the game, the friend who owned it (mc) moved away and I forgot about it. I then later played Zero Mission, which I found enjoyable but unexceptional. All this fed into the belief that maybe the series would only ever have one outstanding game for me.

I don't know what inspired me to think differently. Maybe it was Fusion sitting in my Backloggery, with the note I made to myself of "seemed good, I should play more...". Maybe it was my picking up a couple Castlevania games in mid-2009, reminding me of my love of Metroid. But regardless, one mc visit I decided to ask her to lend me the game. (I'd later discover that Ciato owned a copy anyway. Whoops!) I picked it up, started playing it. Around halfway through, the old GBA battery gave out and my save file was lost, but I was really enjoying the game at this point, and I started it again, completing it this time. Then I played it again, trying to get a better time. And again, trying to get 100%. And again, trying to beat it with the minimum items possible. And again, and again, and again.

What makes this game so good? It's kinda hard to explain if you aren't the type to dig Metroidvania-style games to begin with. Essentially, the game has just enough exploration for it to be a noticeable part of the game, but not completely dominant to the exclusion of the more action-oriented parts (I'd argue Zelda and its many clones fall into the trap of becoming the latter). Metroid Fusion in particular definitely prefers its action to its exploration, but what exploration is there is still good stuff. It can be pretty fun to explore the various platforming environments looking for both a route to your destination, and powerups on the side. The game's platforming layout is quite well-designed, with all sorts of ways to test the various tricks you get in finding your way from one place to another. This isn't particularly new to the series or even the sub-genre, although Fusion does deserve particular note for just how well it defends a few of its trickier-to-nab powerups. Getting these is purely a point of pride (100% is overkill for what is needed to beat the game) but the game makes you use the various "shinespark" platforming tricks to their maximum potential in order to pull off some of these item acquisitions. A nice nod to completionists, at least, even if I don't normally care about such things.

Still, while what exploration there is is good, that's not really where Fusion decided to pour its focus. Super Metroid had some pretty good action, but it didn't fully emphasise it. Partly the game was a bit too easy on pure action concerns, with enemies doing very little damage to Samus' monstrous durability. Fusion certainly changes that, with enemies hitting far harder than before. It's no longer possible to just run through stages largely heedless of the damage you take; this now gets you killed. On the other side of things, though, enemies very consistently drop a modest amount of health when killed; get through without taking too much damage and you'll never get screwed out of a little healing to keep you going in a long gauntlet. It's a game that is very fair but punishes you for laziness; it strikes a fine balance. The controls fit the game perfectly; Samus controls wonderfully, and the jump to the GBA actually made the controls BETTER, with running made automatic and switching to missiles and back made easier than ever.

Bosses are where the game really shows off that it can hang with the best of them as far as action-oriented platformers go. Especially later in the game, Samus sports great mobility, and having interesting boss fights that take advantage of this fact is something the series has had to grapple with. It succeeded well in Super Metroid with Ridley; in Fusion, the crowning success is Nightmare, a four-stage monstrosity which tests almost every attribute of Samus at that point in the game and even messes with the game's physics at one point. There's quite a few other terrific boss fights to be encountered in the game, and while Core-X fights may get a bit repetitive, this in no way eclipses the rest of the boss design, which is typically fantastic, and in the second half of the game, even reasonably challenging if you're not a hardcore explorer.

The game doesn't go too plot-heavy, of course, but what it does really nail is its atmosphere. The game weaves a story of just enough suspense/horror to keep the player's attention, without really dominating. The highlight of this, certainly, is the fact that a colony of parastic organisms armed with every weapon Samus has from the end of Super is wandering the ship, and a confrontation with it means certain doom. At several points in the game this monster must be avoided, or even snuck past, and these experiences never fail to make the player nervous (oh, the sound of those footsteps...) to outright frightened as Samus runs and dodges its attacks for her dear life. Otherwise, the game cultivates its mood quite well, with the mindless parasitic organisms feeling like a far more deadly antagonistic force than any space pirate or silverhaired swordsman ever was. Metroid has always tried to imitate the Alien series of movies (if the name Ridley didn't make it obvious), and Fusion represents the closest it has come to replicating that suspenseful tone.

Replay value? Oh yes, the game's got that. Despite the fact that the game does have (short) unskippable cutscenes which might otherwise discourage replays a bit (certainly one of the game's biggest flaws, but they get in the way less than, say, Final Fantasy Tactics' similar scenes, and those never stopped me from chain-replaying the game), it's a very easy game to pick up and just play again. With more items to find, and vasty different combinations of items to beat the game with (from 1% to 100%), and the fact that its action is just so plain fun, there's a lot to like here, and the game is short enough once you know what you're doing to make this quite easy. It also just flows well, despite those short cutscenes you're almost always doing some sort of interesting action or other. My personal delight came from beating the game with the minimum items possible (a deliberately set challenge by the design team) and by trying to beat it as quickly as possible, because controlling Samus at the high speeds she reaches, making full use of her various platforming (shinespark) tricks, and rolling from one fun boss fight to another, is just a terrific experience, and there was something just extra satisfying about getting that game clock the game publicises so boldly as you beat the game to under an hour.

Metroid Fusion is such a complete game that I'm left wondering if it isn't just plain the best game of its sub-genre ever. I never thought it would approach Super Metroid, itself one of my favourite games of all time, but objectively I have to conclude it has. It undeniably is a better action experience and cultivates a better mood. So where, if anywhere, does it fall short?

Is it the fact that the game more or less forces you to get all of its main upgrades, leading to a largely ultimately fixed route through the game each time? It feels like the game was able to design superior small-scale exploration due to knowing exactly what you had, but at the cost to the larger. How big a deal is this? A good question. For what the Metroidvania genre seeks to offer, a sense of exploration, arguably this cheapens the whole experience. Ultimately it only bothers me a little, but I do understand why it bothers some people a lot. A glance at sites like Metacritic and GameFAQs paints Fusion as the second most popular 2D Metroid, but I've certainly met a few who think it's consierably lower. Different strokes for different folks, naturally; for me, all this flaw can do is make me wonder if it's #1 or not.

And when a self-confessed big Metroid fan is faced with the tough decision of whether a game he played this year might just have a shot at dethroning one of his all-time favourite games for the right to be called the best Metroid game, you know nothing else he played this year has a chance. So I can say confidently: Metroid Fusion is the best game I played in 2010, and if you haven't played it yet and this genre holds any interest to you, you should. It rules.

The good: Outstanding small-scale exploration and action; great boss fights; great controls; highly replayable; an effectively-set mood
The bad: Weaker large-scale exploration than its predecessor; unskippable plot; music has little value outside the game
The ugly: My track record against spider bosses this year... screw YOU, Phantom and Yakuza

[Dark Holy Elf]

Annd that wraps it up the retrospectives themselves. They were pretty fun to write; I enjoy looking back at these things and figuring out what I like and don't like about 'em (if my regular rants in WGAYP don't make this clear). Did you folks enjoy reading them, or was this mostly for my own benefit? Should I bother doing this next year?

[Grefter]

It sucked horribly, you should keep writing these things until I tell you taht you are good enough to stop.

[metroid composite]

Hey, you've played and liked NSMBW too! And... I forget if you've played SMW2, and if you have, what you think about it.

The rest is pretty much "well Elfboy and mc don't play games in the same genres any more" more or less~

Oh, mostly it's just always fun to guess the top of a list.  When there were two left, I was thinking "I have no idea what the top two are". Turns out I've played both of them, and knew you had played them this year, so I really should have figured it out via process of elimination.  (Basically, that post was me kicking myself for "oh, duh, why didn't I guess that?")

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

It sucked horribly, you should keep writing these things until I tell you taht you are good enough to stop.

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES endless writing exceed

[Meeplelard]

Interesting reads, though I generally didn't read games I didn't play, which was a minority on this list, but so it goes.

[Luther Lansfeld]

Do it again!!!

[metroid composite]

On Fusion, a lot of the stuff you point out in it's favour is also in MZM, like special endings for low percentages, and shinespark puzzles.  (More refined in MZM if anything).  Even some stuff Fusion does well in this regard could be done a bit better (like...it bugs me that the 0% run is made impossible purely because you're forced to roll through an item at one point).

Not that there's anything wrong with liking fusion more than MZM.  Best bosses/enemies in the series; just...IIRC you've only played MZM once.  Might be worth giving it a second playthrough (among other things, it has a hard mode).

Also, for the record: holy crap you're good at Fusion.  Sub 1 hour puts you not far from the speed run record.

[Dark Holy Elf]

It sucked horribly, you should keep writing these things until I tell you taht you are good enough to stop.

I'm not sure I like the direction our relationship has taken a turn for.

EDIT: Meeple, for what it's worth, I'm not sure there's another person in the DL who has played more games on the list than you have! Although yeah, you're missing #1-2. (Fix that.)

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

It sucked horribly, you should keep writing these things until I tell you taht you are good enough to stop.

I'm not sure I like the direction our relationship has taken a turn for.

Don't worry, we can form an ex-wife club.

[Meeplelard]

EDIT: Meeple, for what it's worth, I'm not sure there's another person in the DL who has played more games on the list than you have! Although yeah, you're missing #1-2. (Fix that.)

I'm working on #2, at least!

[Captain K.]

Hmm, I'll have to check out Fusion at some point.  Think it's the only Metroid I haven't played/watched my kid play.

Make sure you try out Metroid Prime at some point.  It really is quite good.  Ignore the sequels though.

[metroid composite]

I actually have two copies of Prime (a greatest hits version, which turns off some sequence breaks and glitches, so I got a non greatest hits version later).  So yeah, you can have one if you like.

Prime has a few moments of "wow, they actually translated this from 2D to 3D." also a few moments of "wow, neato graphics."  On the minus side, it also has a few moments of "so...this is basically a 3D Zelda", and a few moments of "so...this section is trying to be a first person shooter, and doing it badly."