Games in 2019:
13. Final Fantasy XV* (2016) My initial kneejerk on FF15 was to be skeptical of it, as the game rang every single conceivable warning bell on my radar that I can think of. But my curiosity got the best of me, and I decided to try it out anyway.
I’m not certain WHY. The game reminds me of Xenoblade in the sense that it is for people who love OPEN WORLDS! and EXPLORATION! and I don’t really care about those things. The game’s writing, which to be fair I only played about three hours of it, was pretty… weird? I think the game needed to do a better job of exploring the setting and WHY I cared about these characters before hitting us with the death of the main character’s father. The game seems to be devoted to being a chill roadtrip with vapid conversation between hot men, and I found the character work to be generally abysmal. I feel like these are the kind of characters who someone might say is cool or chill or a ‘bro’ but I saw nothing approaching interesting from any of them, particularly the three friends. The main thing I remember about the friends is there is a scene with Gladiolus where he pushes the car and it’s like one giant moving ass-shot of him. I had to look up his name to not embarrass myself in this post though. I think Lunafreya had some potential in her radio appearance, but that’s mostly it. I couldn’t endure the boring combat to wait for more boring plot, so I let it go and moved on. Thanks Nahyuta for teaching me this valuable lesson.
2/10.
12. Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War (1996)For the first game on this list that I played to completion I have FE4. FE4 is an interesting game; it has a lot of mechanics that have been played around with by various entries in the series in various ways such as personal and class skills, Canto, as well as a large, sprawling story. The biggest thing to note about it is that its maps are really, really long compared to more modern entries in the series; there are only 12 maps, but most of them are equivalent in length to 2-3 maps in another Fire Emblem. The other thing is that they are often winding and they require you to retread through old locations, so you spend many of your turns just moving up and down the enormous battlefields, which to be quite frank is rather boring.
The character balance is wack. The characters with Pursuit, the doubling skill, are generally better than those without, and cavalry and flyers are extremely good as well. The one exception to these rules is Lewyn with Forseti, who is stupid and overpowered.
Gameplaywise, the game is pretty mediocre, but not terrible? It kept me entertained enough, especially once I accepted that it was okay to not do a map in one sitting! It has problems with ninja reinforcements, much like every game in the series does. My favorite is the 11 threat range mage boss with Pursuit who ninja’s you on a map where you are trying to get houses. That was hilarious and awful. It has some good bosses, especially late. I really enjoyed the conflict with Ishtar in the last map, even though it terrified me. I love the bosses that just come at you instead of sitting around waiting to die. I definitely feel like the second half of the game has better fights overall than the first.
The game is split into two halves. The first half you play as Sigurd. The first half is definitely the more interesting plotwise, for all that in classic Kaga fashion it barely remembers women exist except as their role as the ball (hi Deidre). But there is some glimmers of interesting writing there, and the end of Gen 1 plot twist must have been quite jarring for people who didn’t know about it. First, the main character’s best friend and sister are slaughtered on-screen by wyverns with Horseslayers, and then the main character is lured in a trap and killed. The end of Gen 1 is very very dark and leaves you feeling sad and defeated. I think it’s actually a good piece of writing, and Arvis is set up as this early grey villain in the series…
As mentioned above, Gen 2 has the better gameplay of the two gens, but its plot is very paint-by-numbers and uber-generic, unlike Gen 1. I actually barely remember anything about the plot at all other than the army of bishies and Arvis being a grey character who needed more screentime.
Do I like this game? Not particularly. Do I regret playing it? Absolutely not! It scratched an interest that I had for a long time, and it’s not so bad.
Am I itching for a replay? Hell no.
4.5/10
11. 20XX* (2017)Two uncompleted games in one year? That’s pretty unusual for me, but it’s for a bit of a different reason than FF15. 20XX is a roguelike Megaman with pre-generated levels and bosses which you can fight in a variety of orders in the game, and their difficulty changes based on which order you fight them in. There are eight stages, like Megaman, but at the end of each stage you get a randomly generated choice between three of the remaining stages. Much like Megaman, once the eight stages are complete, there is a final stage (or stages?) to do.
The biggest difference is that you have to start over from the beginning if you die. To be fair, it is harder to die in 20XX than it is in Megaman; falling off a cliff only takes off 1 health instead of killing you outright. There are two different tracks of progress; permanent powerups and temporary powerups that last until you die on a run. As you progress, you collect currency to make your character more permanently powerful with various upgrades such as health and different guns. So your character becomes better over time.
But… I found that doing the same style pre-generated stages over and over every time you die was very repetitive and not very enjoyable for me. I found playing the game ultimately a bit of a chore as I closed in on trying to finish it, so I drew a line and decided to stop. I probably put about 15 hours in total.
5/10
10. I am Setsuna (2016)I am Setsuna is a mix between Chrono Trigger and FFX, which is a recipe for general goodness, you’d think?
The game is sadly just a bit underwhelming on most fronts. Its writing is acceptable and sometimes has some interesting things to say, but it holds most of its plot points until way way too far into the game, especially all of the stuff Aeterna reveals during the final dungeon. Part of narrative is building up to plot points using foreshadowing, and I feel like the game did a poor job with that. I think Setsuna is a fine character, but she definitely falls short of exceptional, and I realized how much of FFX’s impact as a story relies on Tidus being part of and engaged in the plot, unlike the silent main in this game. All of the other characters are some shade of “generic RPG PCs”, and its NPC cast, to be honest, I’ve already forgotten them!
The gameplay is like Chrono Trigger but worse in a few ways. It doesn’t show you the range of your abilities, leaving you to guess what’s going on, and its systems for building characters are tedious and needlessly complex. I also feel like the random encounter design is quite a lot worse than CT.
It’s fine. Nothing to write home about, but not too bad.
6/10.
9. Devil May Cry 4 (2008)Okay, so I played Bayonetta 2 at the beginning of the year and decided I would give Devil May Cry another shot after deciding to quit DMC3 a couple years back. So after like two years of the XBOX 360 being unused, it was finally pulled out again and sent on a new adventure!
Devil May Cry 4 is an interesting game. it chose to go with a bit of a different style as well as a new main character, Nero. While Nero looks a lot like Dante, their personalities are quite different, mostly to Nero’s detriment. The story of DMC4 is a bit more serious than 1/3, and to be honest, I’m not sure that was a direction that the series really needed to take, and Kyrie’s designated role as The Ball makes me have great disdain for the game. There is a lot of manly posturing but that’s not too new for this series / genre. Dante, in his appearances, is great as ever, and has gotten even hotter over time, aging like a fine wine.
The gameplay’s definitely more fun than 3; I like the bosses and the randoms both more than that game. I really liked the Nero fight against Credo in particular. The game isn’t exceptional at anything, though, and playing as a broody teen doesn’t really spark joy in me. Maybe I’ll try out 5 at some point and see if it can recreate what I liked about 1 (with, ideally, a better camera).
6/10.
8. Shantae: Half Genie Hero (2016)I was a reasonably big fan of the third game in the Shantae series, The Pirate’s Curse, and so I decided to pick up the fourth game. Unlike 3, which tells a more linear story, Half Genie Hero goes for more of a serial ‘story of the day’ style, which I feel is largely a less good storytelling style for the game. Gameplaywise, I think that the items in Pirate’s Curse are a bit more interesting than the transformations in Half Genie Hero, and as a result the platforming feels more complete and more fun. With that being said, this game is still pretty good, although not as good as 3. Although it does look way better!
6.5/10.
7. Rayman Legends (2013)The wildness of Rayman returns, and this time we have even more stages and other crazy challenges! The big twist on this game relative to Origins is the Murphy stages, where you have to move around Murphy and open doors so Rayman doesn’t die. Do I think this adds much to the game? Not really. But the stages are very enjoyable still, and the game is at a manageable but difficult level, challenge-wise. Do I think the game is about the same as Origins, rating wise? Absolutely. If you like Rayman, you’ll like it. If you don’t like Rayman, it wouldn’t change your mind.
7.5/10
6. Into the Breach (2018)Well, in the eleventh hour of the year I decided to pick up a Laggy game. Which means “it probably has no plot and may have good gameplay so that’s cool”. I like it. It’s not omg mindblowing, but it is a solid, enjoyable gameplay experience that is up my alley, being a SRPG. It’s simply but compelling. The enemies attack and you have to react to their actions by interfering with them. You can use different sets of characters and play around with combinations of different units. I really like the ones that can reposition enemies in general. I really like the team with the Laser Mech (Zenith Guard) and have been reasonably satisfied with the Steel Judoka so far. I think my favorite pilot abilities so far are the “resist webbing/smoke” one and the move after attacking one.
7.5/10
5. Bayonetta 2 (2014)I was a pretty big fan of Bayonetta 1 when I played it a few years ago, so I decided to finally try out its sequel. The first thing that struck me is that Bayonetta DEFINITELY glows up in this version; nice hair, nice makeup, great glasses, nice outfit, and I think the blue theme fits Bayo better than the red from the previous game. The game is still tactless and half-assed plotwise, but I feel like the game’s writing is big overall weaker. Loki and the villain don’t have as much pizzazz as Luca or evil pope daddy, and Luca doesn’t play as big of a role in this game. Jeanne was also a better rival in 1 than masked man was in 2, I thought. Gameplaywise, I initially played on Third Climax, but I had a lot of difficulty with the first couple of maps, so I turned the difficulty down. I don’t feel like the iconic enemies are -as- iconic as the enemies from Bayonetta 1; Glory and Grace are the most memorable enemies in this game too, which is a little disappointing. Overall I think I like 1 better even though this game oozes more style, but it was still a good time.
7.5/10
4. Megaman 11 (2018)Megaman 11 was my first game of the year, and for about half of the year, it was my highest. Which is funny because it’s a pretty decent game, but I would definitely call it short of exceptional. Unlike MM9 and MM10, MM11 introduces its own feel to the series. It embraces a 2D graphic style backgrounds with 3D characters, rather than the old NES style, looking more like a modern platformer than the old school style. It has sliding and charging again too!
It introduces a new mechanic, called the Double Gear, that adds new ripples to the gameplay system. The Power Gear gives you an amped up version of the regular powers from the Megaman games, whereas the Speed Gear allows Megaman to slow down time. Speed Gear is very very overpowered and, while the game isn’t trivial, it makes a lot of the game less challenging. It is a cool mechanic, though, but a little TOO good once you figure out how to make it work. I played the game once using the powerups and then replayed it only using the buster; even with buster only, Speed Gear is so silly.
The weapons are pretty useful without being overpowered and the bosses are creative and fun. OH, AND IT HAS WILY AND LIGHT BACKSTORY!! DRAMA!!!
Also, EXPLOSION. IS. ART! The game has generally enjoyable voice acting, especially if you embrace the camp of robot masters ala MM8, but that line is the one that sticks with me the most from the game. Don’t worry, kids, this isn’t the last time we will praise Chris Hackney’s work in this post.
The game doesn’t really break any new ground, but it is a solid entry into a solid series. I probably place it somewhere in the middle of my Megaman ratings.
8/10.
3. Fell Seal: Arbiter’s Mark (2018)Fell Seal is a game that had a hefty claim thrust upon it, at least for me: a game modelled after FFT?? Well, this ain’t my first rodeo, so I had tempered expectations. I’ve played FFTA and Disgaea, both hyped as THE SUCCESSOR TO FFT, and neither of them really deliver on that front. (And of course Hoshi, which I thankfully never had the displeasure of experiencing.) Fell Seal is a Kickstarter game, although I didn’t personally support it. I just bought it on the Switch.
The game is advertised as having a ‘mature’ story, which is true, if by mature you mean mostly dull with predictable, paint-by-numbers plot progression. The characters are older than your average RPG leads; I think the main character is in her 30s, as is her brother. The characters are all generically likeable and noble without rocking the boat much if at all. There’s the gruff but kind female lead, the rogueish male lead, the sweet and naive girl (who to be fair ends up with a class called Demon Knight, which uses her life force to kill enemies), to the amoral necromancer, and there’s a few other characters who are fine and well but nothing too special. There is a bit of a political plot but none of it is very engaging because none of the characters that you follow or care about have anything to do with it aside from being told what to do sometimes by political players. I don’t think that the people who made this game were much for writing stories and probably didn’t care that much about the plot beyond just moving from place to place, and it shows.
The gameplay is where the game really shines and where it bears its real strengths. It has the job class system like FFT where you need prereqs to unlock different jobs and sometimes combinations of jobs and it has the little rotating circle with the jobs. It also has the one secondary skillset slot as well as the three skill slots, although they are a bit more flexible. There’s a reaction slot and then two other slots. The game gives everyone the same Job Points regardless if they participate in a battle, and they give people who did not participate a small amount of spillover job experience as well. It means that you can reasonably build a lot of characters. The game also has this Injury system that keeps the characters out for a battle when they die in battle, which encourages you to have a rotating group of people. You can turn it off, and to be honest, I probably will turn it off in the future. Speaking of which, the game allows you to customize your experience a great deal, which is one of the really nice things about the game. It makes the game quite replayable.
The biggest departure from FFT is the MP system, which is a bit more like Tactics Ogre. Each of your characters regenerate 10 MP per turn, and often skills cost from 8-24 MP, so you can never run out of MP, but MP is always a consistent issue for most of the non-pure physical characters, and even many of the physical classes have some nice techs. Because of this system, a lot of the classes with high MP drain really want to dedicate their skill slots to MP regeneration. It puts a limit on the overpoweredness of some of the mage classes relative to the physical jobs, because without the massive limitation on MP, some of the lategame magic jobs would be very powerful.
I find the graphical style a bit dull and western, and the characters are a bit drab and unexciting, even if you can customize them. It’s obviously a budget game, so i’m not necessarily going to blame them for this, but it is what it is, as they say. The music is also in that category.
Overall? It’s in a long line of great gameplay games with a package that is overall underwhelming otherwise. Compared to Rabbids, I found the map design a bit worse and the game has a few too few breaks between the constant battles, so I will give it a slightly lower score than Rabbids.
8.5/10.
2. Nier: Automata (2017)The first word that comes to mind when I think of Nier:A is “creative”. This is the first Yoko Taro game that I’ve ever played, and man is it a good one. The gameplay is a bit of a modified version of the Bayonetta style gameplay, which is a great start. Due to the more open-world nature of Nier:A and the unpredictability of abilities and levels, I don’t feel like this game is as good as some of the traditional action games at pure gameplay. I found the mechanics themselves to be quite fun, but the challenge is very spiky and often in an awkward place of being too hard without items and too easy with items. I ended up just embracing the full auto-item and regen life after holding out on items for a while.
Where the game really shines is its character work and setting building. I don’t want to go into too much detail, but you play as androids exploring a desolate world, and over time, you discover the secrets of the world, as well as the secrets of your own characters. There are many plot twists, some of them better than others. I think the game’s first 2/3s writing-wise are just brilliant and well-done, and I really fell in love with the relationship between 2B, 9S, and the world that they lived in.
The last third is sadly a little less good and a little less interesting, mostly sabotaged by plot decisions from earlier in the story. I’m not saying that it’s bad, per se, but I felt like the game really had something good going early and ultimately a lot of that good stuff doesn’t really matter. Which Yoko Taro might say is the point, but I don’t think I am nihilistic enough to desire it regardless.
The music is really great. I am not one of the world’s biggest game music fans, but I think the soundtrack of this game is not only exceptional in its own right, but it is exceptional within the context of the game. Rarely did I feel like a track was mismatched with the place in which it played. Some of my favorites included: Birth of a Wish, Bipolar Nightmare, Pascal, Peaceful Sleep.
Do I think the game is perfect? No, but it is truly worth experiencing.
9/10.
1. Fire Emblem: Three Houses (2019)How do I feel about Three Houses?
So Three Houses is the newest game in the series; the first non-remake Fire Emblem since Fates in 2014. Fates is quite a polarizing game in the series, with some people who really love it and some people who really don’t. I am in the former camp. But what if the lesson that someone took from Fates was “wow, all of these morally grey characters are the most popular, so let’s just make most of the game full of morally grey characters?”
Three Houses follows three lords: Edelgard, Dimitri, and Claude, and depending on which route you took, you go through the game with a different lens. There are four total routes: Azure Moon, Verdant Wind, Silver Snow, and Crimson Flower, with Edelgard’s splitting in half about halfway in.
Three of the routes (AM, VW, SS) all follow roughly similar trajectories, with variations on the same story beats happening in each, largely due to the different cast of characters that you follow. Crimson Flower is a unique route and does it own thing and has its own completely different story beats. They each have their own themes as well: AM is about recovering from trauma, loss, and emotional turmoil, VW is about open borders and freedom from xenophobia, and CF is about freedom from organized religion and oppression (and generally deciding your own fate). Don’t ask me what Silver Snow is about because your guess is as good as mine.
Each lord, to a large extent, drives their own route, giving each route a unique feel. All three lords are, in their own way, morally grey and all three made me a little uncomfortable as I played their routes. Gone are the days of Marth, who is unambiguously the nice protagonist, but nor are any of the three mains a power trip on evil ala Demon Path Revya. Edelgard (CF) is determined to change the world that she sees as unfixable and corrupt, and is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve that goal, regardless of the costs. Dimitri (AM) suffers from severe mental illness and has strong feelings, both of love and of hate, and goes through all of the ups and downs associated with that. Claude (VW) is noble but hyper-manipulative. All three have shades of characters that we’ve seen before (although not always as protagonists…), but all three have their own spin on things. Silver Snow doesn’t follow any of the lords but instead follows the silent main in a vaguely nonsensical journey in a route which is about nothing.
The game wears its politics on its sleeve in a way that most games don’t. It asks you moral questions and refuses to answer them for you. As a result, you see a large variety of feelings on a few of the major players, particularly Edelgard and Rhea, who is another one of those morally grey characters I talked about above. I think people get a bit more factional than I would personally like about the game, but the characters certainly generate discussion.
The three lords are all driving forces in the game, but there are also a stack of interesting secondary characters, whose stories and how they relate to the world are told through their supports, often exploring the meaning of privilege, loyalty, faith/religion, and varying shades of insecurity and mental illness. Along with Edelgard and Dimitri, who both have excellent supports on average, I really like Hubert, Ferdinand, Dorothea, Felix, Sylvain, and Mercedes for characters who, to varying degrees, explore the setting and culture of their countries through their supports. To be honest, I think that this is where the game really stands out above the rest from a writing perspective, because you get so much more insight into how the characters tick, and not just the important ones, and exploration of those secondary characters allows you to understand the setting. And if you want a little bit more light-hearted supports, Claude and Hilda have some of my favorites on that front, along with Bernadetta, who some people like me find hilarious and other people find makes light of her anxiety, so I guess it’s a bit of a taste thing. Lysithea also gives me a good laugh because she’s such a raging bitch who stomps on people’s faces, and Caspar can be pretty amusing if you just want pure silliness. I guess I will mention that you can support as many characters as you want, which means that you can grab as many as you can, unlike the old games.
Also, I think the game is very well voice acted, but in particular, Chris Hackney puts in excellent work as Dimitri, and Allegra Clark is brilliant and credible as Dorothea. But most of the voice acting is pretty winning, particularly for the most important characters.
As Elfboy said, probably the biggest flaw of the game writing-wise is the stupid death cult. Good thing they are basically irrelevant on half of the routes!
Gameplay? It’s Fire Emblem .You know what you’re getting. If you like FE gameplay, you’ll like it. It’s a bit more old-school than Fates/Awakening, harkening back to the older style removing the Pair Up system and the Dual Attacks. I think the early part of the game is a bit weak gameplaywise, especially coming off of Conquest which pretty much is on its game all of the time, but after the timeskip, the maps generally get more interesting and complex.
10/10.
