[Question] The Gamingforce Game of the Year 2015: Too many massive RPGs - voting edition

What, you were expecting this thread a few days earlier? Well someone might have gotten a little caught up in Xenoblade Chronicles X and forgotten when he usually posts this, but no judging OK.

Anyhoo, it is once again time for the Gamingforce Game of the Year to make its return! Another year's worth of gaming hopefuls have come and gone, all vying for your attention and, more importantly, your votes. This thread, the arena of combat and popular choice in which they will do battle to become our Gamingforce Game of the Year 2015. That is if you can find 10 minutes away from any of the thousand massive RPGs that seemed to come out this year.

So yes, the year that is 2015 is done and 2016 is now upon us, another year full of hope, promise and more games to pile onto the backlog. For those brave souls who return to GFF to vote I salute you, now is the time to look back at the year that was and all the games we played. As ever the question we ask and look to answer is: what does Gamingforce consider the best of gaming experiences of 2015? No gimmicks again this year, as ever I'd simply ask for you to take part and encourage others to do so.

As with the previous years' voting here's how this is going to work: each person has 100 points to vote for games released in 2015 (doesn't matter where, but games have to have been commercially released in 2015) and you can allocate them to as many games as you like as long as it totals 100 in the end. The only rule is that you can't award any single game more than 40 points. So you could vote two 40s and a 20, or a 40 and six 10s, or any other combination of points as long as it adds up to 100.

To vote all you have to do is post a reply with your top games of 2015, how many points you're giving each, and a brief explanation of why you feel the game deserves your points.

Example:

GAME A - 40 points
Man I loved game A because...

GAME B - 20 points
I ended up playing so much of game B that...

GAME C - 15 points
Game C gets some points because...

GAME D - 15 points
I couldn't decide between this and C, so gave both points, but D rocks because...

GAME E - 5 points
Good, but not necessarily great, but I figure E deserves some points because...

GAME F - 5 points
Like E, F gets a few points because...

--------

Voting will close on Saturday 23rd January at 18:00 GMT (that's Englandland time), at which point I'll add all the points together and work out GFF's top 20 games of 2015, posting the results in a new thread for discussion/people to complain about. I'm allowing a little extra time again this year so you've got a chance to go try and squeeze in any contenders you wanted to try before voting.

So, go on, get voting.

Oh, and get other people to come vote too.

Disclaimer/Rules:
1. If you allocate any game more than 40 points your vote won't be counted.
2. If your points allocation totals more than 100 points your vote won't be counted (totals less than 100 are fine).
3. Votes for games not released in 2015 will be ignored.
4. Only official commercial releases in 2015 count.
4a. No 'Early Access', 'Alpha', 'Beta' or other pre-release titles will be counted.
5. No negative points. I'll point and laugh and then ignore your vote.
6. Whole integers only. Fractions and decimal places will also lead me to ignore your vote.
7. Any other such idiocy will also probably lead your vote not being counted.

And as ever, I take no responsibility for Skills fucking with stuff, which if you ignore these points he almost certainly will do somehow.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Arkham Knight - 100.



Undertale -- 100

....FINE. You are REALLY not going to like what happens next...

Undertale - 40. Most emotionally captivating and replayable game of the year, most memorable music by far, plus easily the largest fanbase producing fanwank daily.
Axiom Verge - 20. Amazing metroid clone I can't stop playing, and it trips the hell out later on. Many creepy dreams from this one.
Broforce - 10. GO GO GO! NOOOOOO! :CRYING EAGLE:
Bloodborne - 10. This kicked my ass but I kept coming back. The graphics are goddam amazing and I liked the setting a lot more than Dark Souls 2, and the controls are just right; even if I keep fumbling, it's all my fault.
Transistor - 10. Amazing action-RPG, epic combos, amazing follow-up to Bastion, almost everything I want in a smart hack-n-slash.
Life Is Strange - 5. I'm a diehard fan of Toki wo karkeru shojo/The girl who leapt through time, of course I'm going to love this, even if it's darker and moodier.
I Am Bread - 5. Die trying to replicate the trailer as many times as you can bear to! But it's a great party game, keep passing the controls and take a shot every fail, cheer every win.

I had to cut out quite a few I first played this year, once I verified that they were older than I thought. Barely started Witcher 3, so I can't say yet, though I'm groaning more than enjoying so far.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Mine is stereotypical Skills crap, as per normal.

Interestingly enough, all my stuff this year is all heavily flawed in some capacity. Nothing Mario Kart like where you literally have to stretch and contort to find any significant issues.

Monster Hunter 4 - 30 points.

360 hours in, still not done all content. Still punching dinosaurs in the grundle with CHz. Has problems with guild quests and some UI stuff but the core of this game is too fantastic. Fuck it. Need MHX like a cocaine fix or something.

Rocket League - 20 points.

Love how well this did, even if it created a poisonous eSports community. Its sublime, the skill ceiling is somewhere in the stratosphere and Mo0 got to say "1v1 me bro" in a non-ironic context. Awww yiss.

Transformers: Devastation - 20 points.

Not lying, there is more to this game's combat than Revengeance. There is a combo and cancelling system here that is sublime, deep, and extremely rewarding. You can't miss it. The UI and item management problems aside, the only real issue with the thing is the scoring is too abusable. The rest is pure gravy and the combat has to be seen to be believed. Fuck you for not buying it. The sales figures were atrocious.

Xenoblade Chronicles X - 20 points.

GET SAWALTY ABOUT IT. Amazing music in a game with more content than it has any right to have. I can see why some people might not like the structure or the narrative, but they are wrong. It's fine. We can still be friends with them if we like. There is actually a lot to discuss here about how the narrative and the game structure work together to create this interesting world where a simple scifi trope turns out to be compelling and believable, but it's spoiler filled so I can't. Not here at least.

Undertale - 10 points.

I am not on the same level of love with this as everyone else seems to be, but the ending to this has a lot of interesting meta elements to it that raise this game beyond the Earthbound comparisons (which are all BS anyway outside of the superficial) it seems to be getting. The game has a lot to say about the medium in which it exists and what playing games is actually about. Which is why it edges out a lot of other things. Brilliant analysis of what it means to make a narrative decision. Music rules too. One of the more interesting games to actually talk about outside of pure mechanical discussions.

Notable runners up include Yoshi's Woolly World , which rules but was edged out by Undertale ever so slightly.


This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Xenoblade Chronicles X - 40 points


Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate - 40 points

Chroma Squad - 20 points


A boatload of honorable mentions may be added later.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Metal Gear V: Phantom Pain - 40 points. I spent SO much sniping in this game, and what I love about this game so much is that it offered so much open world shenanigans, I nearly called it my GTA for sniping. This would be the game I plan on going for 100% too and wouldn't mind. What I do mind however is Kaz's complaints about every fucking extraction I do.

Fallout 4 - 30 points. Bethesda caters to what I like playing. Lots of sniping, sneaking, and etc. What I don't like about it is that the perks do take a while to get. And you don't have targeting (like metal gear) until you have it modded on a gun. It put a damper on things when I cannot hear enemies from where they're coming from.

Dying Light - 30 points. Sleeper hit for both of us. We pretty much did everything in this game and I loved it for what it was. Its like Dead Island but with parkour mechanics.

Honorable Mention: Witcher 3 - I've not played this game enough but I like what I've seen and its stunning.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Philia

Dying Light - 30 points. Sleeper hit for both of us. We pretty much did everything in this game and I loved it for what it was. Its like Dead Island but with parkour mechanics.

There's one I really wish I owned. The first time I was surrounded and accidentally leapt off a zombie's head/shoulders, it was a revelation of how wide-open and fun gameplay could be. Unfortunately, it's also the first game where I've encountered serious clipping bugs in years.

How ya doing, buddy?

Honorable Mention - Mortal Kombat X

While not as good as it's predecessor (not as much nostalgia going for it, which is what probably helped 9), it's still a pretty solid game. The crypt though is freakin scary and you have to go through it if you want to unlock some stuff.

Glad to see this series is still going strong after the debacle of Armageddon and vs. DC Universe.




Dragon Ball Xenoverse - 5

Create your own character in the Dragon Ball Universe and fight alongside Goku and friends as you play through the Dragon Ball Z timeline to save history as some evil time travellers are trying to screw everything up.

Good looking game, fun at times, but GRINDING IS A PAIN. This also has online, but I never really tried it.




Super Mario Maker - 10

Create your own Mario levels or play someone else's. Neat idea and very fun. You can play a variety of different ones ranging from the styles of Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World, and New Super Mario Bros. U.

The problem is it's greatest strength is also it's greatest flaw: there appears to be an oversaturation of levels available to play. Even if you try to filter it to only 5 star levels you'll be lucky to find a level that isn't a do nothing musical or an impossible level.

Still though, for the 30th anniversary of Mario this is a real treat.




Batman Arkham Knight - 10

Despite the problems it has had on the PC release, this was a great game to close the Arkham series. All of the gameplay from the previous Arkham games is present, including the flawless combat from City and the crime scene re-creation from Arkham Origins. You also have the Batmobile too, which helps you get around Gotham quickly most of the time. Unfortunately it's used WAY too much in this game (I'd say about 40% of the time).

You get to see the return of several characters from the Batman universe, but also some new ones. There's one which just...really creeps me the **** out.




Splatoon - 15

I've barely played the single player in this game. Most of my gameplay has come from the fun multiplayer. While this is probably considered a third-person shooter, the goal here isn't to kill the other team (although it helps). The goal is to cover as much of the map with your team's ink color as opposed to the other team's (marking your territory I guess).

My favorite part though is the Splatfest. It's kind of like Nintendo took the Everybody Votes Channel concept from the Wii and turned it into a 24 hour civil war in Splatoon. You cast your votes by not only choosing a side, but also how often the side wins a battle against the other side.

The usual bright and sunny atmosphere in the lobby is changed into a night star filled party with fireworks, lots of drawings from the players, and the Squid Sisters dancing and singing to a really catchy tune.




Huniepop - 30

I feel no shame in playing this. As of this post it is currently my 7th most played game on Steam logging in at 62 hours. This puzzle/dating-sim is very addictive. Your job is to find and date every girl in town to the point where they want to have sex with you.

Yes, you heard me. You get to have sexy times in this game. How well you do on your dates depends on a puzzle game. You just move a piece as horizontally or vertically from it's spot in order to match 3 or more of the same piece. There's some strategy involved too as the pieces resemble a trait that a girl may either favors most or least.

You'll also ask them questions and get to know them a little better. Sometimes they'll quiz you back to make sure you were paying attention. Every time you complete a date, they'll send you a text on your phone of a picture of them. Each picture you receive might get a little more, shall we say, revealing.

Oh and it gets a little better. Even though it's pretty revealing enough on Steam, there's actually an uncensored patch you can apply to make things a little more messy.

I love the music in this game as well and listen to it at work at least once or twice a week. It's very calming.

So yeah, a total package that was originally my first pick for Game of the Year.




Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain - 30

A HIDEO KOJIMA GAME.

#FUCKONAMI

I could leave it at that and it'd be enough, but there's more. I have 113 hours logged for this game on Steam making it my 3rd most played game behind Counter-Strike: Source and Team Fortress 2.

Metal Gear Solid 5 is a bit of a departure compared to the predecessors you may have played. For one, no more life bar or rations. Your life now depends on how many hits you've taken, which can vary depending on if it's a bullet, an explosion, or just getting hit by a vehicle. The screen will turn more of a red depending on how close you are to death. If you find some cover and rest, the screen will slowly turn back to normal.

The game is more open world than ever, you're no longer infiltrating just one large base but rather several outposts in the area which may include just a tower and a camp or an entire village. Rarely will you infiltrate an area that's more like a fortress.

Since this game takes place in 1984, you can gather several casette tapes to music that played around that time such as Europe's Final Countdown and A-Ha's Take On Me. These can be listened to while you're traversing from outpost to outpost.

For the most part it still plays like Metal Gear and the story is no different. Kojima really did a nice job in tying everything up in the MGS Saga, while making sure to f*** with your head with the biggest mindf*** in Metal Gear history.

There was one boss fight where I was in freakin fear and spent a good 45 minutes trying to beat these guys...and I still failed. The last time I had that long of an endurance fight was Psycho Mantis back on MGS1 where I didn't know the memory card trick.

Not game related, but you may be wondering about the hashtag. This was Kojima's last game with Konami before they released him and the way they've treated him in this departure...this may as well be the last Metal Gear game.

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by koifox

There's one I really wish I owned. The first time I was surrounded and accidentally leapt off a zombie's head/shoulders, it was a revelation of how wide-open and fun gameplay could be. Unfortunately, it's also the first game where I've encountered serious clipping bugs in years.

Ah. Sorry to hear that. We've played it on PS4 and it was just fine.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

40 points - Transformers: Devastation

Everyone should buy this game because it's great. Anyone who ever watched the original Transformers cartoons or read the Marvel comics or isn't a gigantic pussy owes it to themselves to buy this right now.

The combat in this game is so flowing and instinctual, even when you're adding more advanced combos to your repetoire, you're never fighting the controls. Add in the way it looks and sounds just like the cartoon and you've got an awesome game.

The inventory management is slightly painful and constantly repeating the same loot-getting tasks in the story mode gets dull if you overdo it but really you should just be beating the challenges.

Just buy it already.

40 points - Sid Meier's Starships

It's a tactical space combat game with a bit of resource management. It's a pretty simple premise that seems pretty straightforward until you hit the higher difficulties when the resource management side of things is way more important. If you want to get a Sid Meier fix without embarking on a 40 hour game of Civilization then play Starships as you can get through a game in a few hours.

20 points - Final Fantasy X Remastered

I wasn't a huge fan of FFX when it first came out but replaying it on PS4, I'm enjoying it a lot more this time, even to the extent of getting stuck into the endless grind in the endgame to get everyone's stats hilariously boosted, although if I can't beat the fucking chocobo game it'll all be in vain. The remixed music is nice too.

[i]The other ganes I've played a lot of are early-release so not eligible but both Beseige and Flying Tigers Shadow over China are great.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

YEEHAW TOBY KEITH LET'S GET THIS MOTHERFUCKER STARTED.



Right off the hop, I have a clear number 1 this year that blew all the others out of the water for me.

Ladies and gentleman, I give you



40 points. All Day. Erry day. 40 points for Ori and the Blind Forest. COUNT THOSE POINTS YOU LIMEY BASTARD.

Why? Why is this game so good? It is the best indie title I've played all year, it is the best metroidvania I've played all year, it is the best platformer I've played all year.

Everything it does, it not only does well, it excels at.

The music is wonderful, the story is brilliant, and my god, the visuals. IT IS SO PRETTY. AND THE SKY FULL OF STARS. SHOULD HAVE SENT A POET.



The game is just obscenely elegant in how it handles itself. For me, it struck a lot of the same notes as Transistor, with my constant surprise at just how artfully it made its choices. Wonderful, wonderful experience.






Well then, I guess I'd better round out some of these choices, so HERE WE GO.



Love? Love is for the living, Sal. I'm only after her for one reason - she's my ticket out of here.

I feel like this should really start with: "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine." Because the noir thread is so very heavy in this game.

Oh right. TEN POINTS TO GRIFFYND- I mean Grim Fandango: Remastered, Mr Conductor.

That out of the way. When you played this, back in the day, and it was exquisite? It's still exquisite. People have said it really shows how the pacing and the puzzles haven't aged well, but I think it's like a glorious museum piece that has been restored. Phenomenal amount of fun to be had here, still.

is it Kentucky Route 0? No. It isn't. But I haven't run across many things that are. Pick it up. Enjoy it. You have to work pretty goddamn hard not to enjoy this one.





Which brings us to number three on our list.



TEN POINTS, MUSIC MAN. TEN POINTS TO SHADOWRUN HONG KONG.

"But Deni, this is just new assets bolted on to a 2 year old concept with a revamped story and some nice music and some decent atmosphere."

YUP. Which is why it only gets ten. Because they could push themselves a wee bit on the Engine. But the music is phenomenal, the story is brilliant, and unlike a Sprout movie review, when I use those words they actually mean something.

The story feels greasy at times, absolutely laden with betrayal and isolation and... it's just handled really well. If you don't like the other games, you won't like this, but if you did, you'll adore it. Simple.






And finally we come to the end of things. But WHAT an ending.



40. goddamn. points.

Why? Why does it get 40? There's a -lot- of reasons.

Let me explain.

No. Is too much.

Let me sum up.



BUY THIS GAME. 40 POINTS.




Okay, so that's our hundred. So let's get the post script out of the way now.

All these are tainted by the fact a game I would give 40 points to, Undertale, hasn't been finished yet. I promised to stream it for GFChat when I have time, and I hold to that. But everything I've seen of people playing it clicks with me. So that's a thing.

Also, here's our honourable mentions list: Her Story, Axiom Verge, Titan Souls, Broforce, SOMA, Invisible Inc. Selfie: Sisters of the Amniotic Lens, Sunset, The Beginner's Guide, The Witcher 3, Pillars of Eternity, The Talos Principle, Shin Megami Tensei Super Long title survivor of demons and darkness and gothy shit 2: record breaker: the reckoning: Gaiden, Grandia II Anniversary, Divinity EE, Yoshi's Wooly World.

Games that if they are on your list I assume your brain doesn't function properly: Life is Strange. The single most over-hyped bunch of nonsense I've ever played. Like someone wrapped all the tropes indie kids love around absolutely nothing and it just crumbles in your hands when you try and touch it.

This game is Zooey Deschanel. It's not fucking quirky. It is just wearing glasses and playing a ukulele while praying to all the gods you don't notice how vapid it is.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Undertale - 40 points



Really successfully deconstructs the elements that make an RPG and turn it into something memorable, original, and thought-provoking. The pay off at the end of the game is incredibly worthwhile. Great music, varied game play, quirky characters. It is also an RPG-shmup hybrid which is just strange to say out loud but it makes sense once you play it.

Super Mario Maker - 40 points



Make levels. Play your friend's levels. Leave Abby and Mark comments on the difficulty of their levels. Also Nintendo has been doing a great job supporting the game with their updates. Pretty much a dream come true for anyone who played Mario growing up. I used to draw level designs on graph paper.

Huniepop - 10 points



The only match 3 game I've ever played. Good music, good game play. Thanks to this game, I have been grabbing more visual novels from Steam as well.

Neko Atsume - 10 points



A cat raising sim for Android and iPhone. It's like having a tamagotchi with none of the responsibility. It's technically a 2014 release but got it's English language update October 2015. Seriously, try it out.

--
2015 Games I bought I didn't play because I suck: Her Story, The Talos Principle, Fermi's Path, Game of Thrones, Grim Fandango Remastered

Games from 2015 I'd like to play in 2016: Xenoblade Chronicles X, Fallout 4, The Witcher 3, Beyond Eyes, Homesick, Oddworld: New and Tasty, Contradiction, Ori and the Blind Forest, Axion Verge, Broforce, MGS5: The Phantom Pain, Life is Strange

Games I beat in 2015: Terraria, Metal Gear Rising, Tomb Raider (2013), Child of Light, South Park Stick of Truth, The Walking Dead Season 2, Mercenary Kings, I am Alive, Valiant Hearts, Guacamelee, Sonic Generations, Ys I, Super Time Force Ultra, The Legend of Korra, Among the Sleep, Contrast, Bayonetta, Bayonetta 2

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Fallout 4: 30 points. I didn't play much of Fallout 3 but what I do remember is the game being a bit more difficult at the start. Since Skyrim came out and Bethesda integrated the scaled difficulty into both Skyrim and FO4 it was a little easier to get into the game. So I played along for a while but started losing interest when the weight limit made it difficult to make improvements to my weapons and armor, and then

Spoiler:

once I got to the Institute and heard my son was running the ASPH (Android Society for the Prevention of Humans) I said fuck it and annihilated the whole Institute...and then the whole Brotherhood for being a bunch of smarmy dicks.

Unfortunately I only made a quicksave prior to that and the save got deleted so I couldn't go back and redo it. So now I'm starting over but this time I'm playing with all the perks on (and leveled up to 270 or whatever it is to do that) and an absurdly high weight limit so I'm a little freer to explore and see what the whole world has to offer. (Most people seem to like a more challenging game, but I like a more liberating game.)

I guess that's my problem with these open-world games: yeah, I get that they want you to work up to being this powerful character who slowly explores the world and (your)self and your abilities, but, at least in FO4, you're kinda stuck having to follow a storyline in order to get the most out of it and I don't necessarily want to do that.

Back to the factions. I'm glad to see I'm not alone in thinking the four factions are each disappointing in some way. It's part of the reason I'm starting over and avoiding their questlines. I can see the merits of all of them but their negatives (Minutemen: boring; Brotherhood: dicks; Railroad: lifeless; Institute: dishonest elitists, like those never existed anywhere) make me not want to back any of them. But then I realized that there's no logic to wiping them out if I want to get longevity out of a playthrough so I had to start over.

Other random thoughts: I do enjoy the gunplay, stealth, and economy of the game. I still haven't fully determined whether salvaging stuff for crafting or selling stuff for caps is wiser. I think fast traveling also ruined the game for me a bit, so I'm trying not to. Dog is the best companion.

I forgot all about Rocket League. What a blast of a game. I'm a fan of soccer games and arcade-y driving games and Rocket League merged them both together quite well. 30 points.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

I've been playing way more board games than video games this year, and there are fewer standouts this year than in previous years.

Monster Hunter 4 - 30 points

This made the transition from console to handheld surprisingly well, especially with the addition of the second stick on the NDS. Countless evenings spent hunting with friends, and I did way more single player than on MH3. The post game giant monsters didn't hold as much interest for me, but I'm looking forward to the next installment.

Xenoblade Chronicles X - 30 points

Once you get past the slow burn opening, this is just as good as its predecessor. There's so much exploring to do, and with a less structured story, more freedom to explore the vast world at your own pace. Wandering around trying to figure out how to scale a mountain to plant a probe at the top is way more fun than it sounds.

Fallout 4 - 20 points

Had this not come out at the same time as Xenoblade, it probably would have gotten higher marks from me. Fallout 3 remains one of my all time favorite open world games, and so far I'm getting the same enjoyment out of Fallout 4. I'm not that crazy about the "build your own settlements" aspect, but since that can largely be ignored, I'm having a good time discovering the wonders of post-apocalyptic Boston.

Transformers: Devastation - 5 points

I haven't played enough of this to give it a higher score, but it nails the old school 80's G1 Transformers very well. You can't beat body-slamming robots by turning into a car mid-fight.

Rocket League - 5 points

Mo0 has played way more of this than me, but this was a pleasant surprise. Who would have expected a free-on-PSN game about soccer playing cars to be so good?

Yoshi's Wooly World - 5 points

I'm a sucker for the art style, and the amiibo interaction to unlock new color schemes is neat. It's a solid and beautiful platformer with all the charm of the Yoshi's Island series with no crying baby Mario.

Super Mario Maker - 5 points

Everyone was into this one for a month or so, then interest fizzled. Designing levels on my own has never been my cup of tea, but I appreciate the effort Nintendo has put into this one.

How ya doing, buddy?

Yoshi's Wooly World - 30 Points - Yeah, Yoshis own. This is pretty much the Yoshi game that fans of the character and series deserve, instead of the awful, awful DS games we had been getting. The Co-Op is addicting (and hectic in a hilariously trollish way) and the Amiibo outfits are all nothing short of spectacular. Well done all around.

Undertale - 30 Points - It's kind of hard to say anything about Undertale given how ridiculously large the hype machine around it has become, so I'll just note that I've played through it more than 5 times now. You can NEVER stop discovering all the extra little touches and dialogue that Toby put in the game, it's incredible. Also spider waifus.

Splatoon - 30 Points - While I didn't get to play this with the GFF crew as much as I would have liked to, the goons over at SA were kind enough to squad up and get a Discord running once the huge team update hit, and I never looked back. Countless nights of staying up waayyy too late playing ranked are all I need to justify how much I love this game.

HuniePop - 10 Points - I want it to make it on the list for shits and giggles, I'm not even gonna lie. (It's a solid puzzle game though)

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Undertale - 40 points

I didn't jump on this bandwagon immediately. In fact, it was quite some time before Q forced it on me, but I am glad it happened. This game is adorable with a lot of curve balls and twists, along with a lot of replay value. I've been talking it up perhaps a bit too much at work and hoping my co-workers will get into it.



Super Mario Maker - 30 points

I haven't had much time to play it personally, maybe a couple times here and there. What really shines for me on this game is watching OTHERS play this game. For some reason just watching people do some of the craziest shit is really fun, especially with a group of friends (like at meet for the Nintendo Championship).



There Came An Echo - 20 points

This was a kickstarter I backed awhile back. I am not sure if anyone else from GFF did or not. I liked the idea/concept of doing voice controls only for the entire game. While there were some bugs and glitches, it worked out well. It took some bit to get used to, and I still haven't beaten the game yet, but I plan to revisit this again at some point.



Rock Band 4 - 10 points

I am a sucker for Harmonix and their games. When they announced RB4 would be happening, I was estatic, though that meant I had to get an Xbox One (which I did). Much as to be expected, this is a rehash of the old rock band games at current with some added new features. I enjoy the "Play a Show" mode which makes things a bit more fluid for picking tracks.

THere are still some bugs they're working through, and they're still getting older tracks imported, but I am hopeful it'll only get better from here.

Most amazing jew boots

Undertale (PC) - 20 points
I haven't completed it yet but what I have played I have enjoyed thoroughly. Fun art style. Fun characters. A new and intriguing battle system for an RPG in how you defend and interact with enemies. And oh my god that soundtrack! I'd probably give it 40 points if I had finished it but what I have played it definitely deserves 20 points.




Super Mario Maker (Wii U) - 20 points
This is a game I haven't even started on my own Wii U because sadly I haven't turned on my Wii U since meet. It's been a very busy time for me. However, I got the chance to play and build levels with my buddy over the holidays and it is a blast! We spent hours going through levels finding new ways to up the ante. The game does have an itch it does not scratch at all though and as a result we played through Super Mario Bros. 2 (USA) together. I do hope they keep adding more to the game. Sure, it is damn amazing for what it is but there is a ton of content from the Mario franchise that could make it better. And hey even if they don't add everything I'd like it is super duper fun and I look forward to finally getting a chance to play all the horrifying levels you crazies have come up with. =)




Nintendo Badge Arcade (3DS) - 20 points
20 points for the 20 coins I deal out far more often then I'd care to list. I'm standing at well over a thousand badges now and it's not stopping. I've gotten a bit pickier thankfully but this is a horrible terrible no good awful game that allows me to collect a ton of shit to decorate my 3DS and is a pretty damn great crane game simulator. You don't have to be a moron like me. If you aren't a completionist you can still gather a lot of badges using the practice crane and from Free Plays that the sinister arcade bunny gives out every now and then (usually after advertising a Nintendo game or some trivia about new badges in stock). If you have an addictive personality like me and need a tight leash on your wallet then steer clear of this game. Otherwise it's just a nice way to spend a few minutes playing crane games. Also it has Nikki badges!




Box Boy! (3DS) - 20 points
Just a really clever puzzle platformer from HAL Laboratory. You play as Qbby the titular box boy of the game and summon boxes to collect crowns (which disappear if you use too many boxes) and reach your goal. It just has really good mechanics and manages to keep things refreshing and add new things for every set of levels you try. I'm really looking forward to its sequel.




Huniepop (PC) - 20 points
I must have gifted this to at least five people. Fucking up people's game recommendations with weeaboo game suggestions and hearing them whine about it later is worth the 20 points alone. So yeah, how about the game? Well it's basically a dating sim with horrible dialog crossed with Bejeweled. Talk to girls and get them to like you enough to date and then Bejewel their pants off. Collect 'em all! Go nuts!


Honorable Mentions




Fairune (3DS)
This is a very easy-going old school-styled RPG where all you do is walk into enemies in order to defeat them. It's simple in its cleverness. If you're the same level then you'll defeat the enemy, lose a little health, and gain some experience. If you're under-level then you'll lose some health and get a little kick back. If you're over-level then you'll instantly kill the enemy but gain no experience. Solve simple puzzles with items and interacting with the world in a very Zelda-esque way. The game only takes about 2 to 3 hours on first play through with some simple incentives to replay the game with the knowledge you've accrued. It's not very expensive so if you've got some Nintendo eShop cash you'd like to get rid of it's definitely something to consider. I'd have put it on my list but alas it was released on December 18, 2014 so it does not qualify. However, it does have a sequel in development so perhaps it will make the list next year once its released.




Pokemon Picross (3DS)
I don't really care that much about the mainline Pokemon games. However, I have a soft spot for the anime, monster designs, and general lore that I'm aware of. The franchise also has a fair share of really interesting spin-offs that I've almost sprung at a few times. Well Nintendo finally started releasing free-to-play Pokemon games and I decided to check one of them out. So yeah, if you like Picross and you enjoy Pokemon then you've got your standard picross game combined with Pokemon special moves to help you reveal things. The gotcha is that you use gems to unlock new stages. Eventually you do run out of gems and have to either wait for more free gems the next day or pay for more gems to get instant gratification. Thankfully I've heard that after you spend thirty dollars on gems the game says that's enough and gives you unlimited gems. I only wish they had applied this sort of thinking to Nintendo Badge Arcade. Anyway, it's a good game and you should give it a shot.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Super Mario Maker- 40 points. It's a versatile game that, while I haven't sunk a lot of hours into, has been really fun to just casually pick up and start playing. It's a wonderful party game, too; There's nothing quite like passing the controller around on a frustrating level and getting everybody in the room mad. Definitely worth the money spent on it.

Splatoon-35 points. This was a game that surprised me in its entertainment value, since I don't care for shooters much. My total hours sunk into this game (between long periods of unemployment) is somewhere around... Oh... 200 hours? And this past year has been chock full of all sorts of updates, so the game has remained fresh and fun to play after a few months since its release. Admittedly, the game does have this delicate balance between being really fun to play, and also super fucking frustrating. It's definitely brought out some old, nasty controller-banging habits at times. Guess it wouldn't be a Nintendo game if it didn't.

Undertale-25 points. I'm probably one of the few people who can't really gush about this game, but it was entertaining enough. Toby Fox put a lot of love into this creation and his love for other games that inspired it shines through. It's very cute. The music for it is totally fucking awesome though. That gets its own rating of 100/10.

I was poor and didn't play many current/new games last year so that's all I got for nominations.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

[23:03:03] <Q-chan> boo hasn't voted I think?
[23:03:17] <Boo-kun> when if the votes due
[23:03:18] <OmagnusPrime> Boo, get on it
[23:03:34] <OmagnusPrime> they're due this Saturday
[23:03:40] <OmagnusPrime> 6pm GMT
[23:03:49] <Boo-kun> k, I'll whip something up
[23:03:57] <OmagnusPrime> good good
[23:04:10] <Boo-kun> W3 40 points, Ori 35 points, Undertale 25 points, done
[23:04:35] <OmagnusPrime> post it then
[23:04:38] <OmagnusPrime> silly
[23:04:41] <OmagnusPrime> saying it here is no good

How ya doing, buddy?

I barely played any 2015 releases so this list is very lacking and I'm not super happy with it, but from what I did play:

Undertale - 30 points

This game has really stuck with me in a weird way, similar to I think how Earthbound is for a lot of people. I rarely think about most games after I've beaten them really, but this one still is on my mind off and on even months after beating it. Determination something something

Dying Light - 25 points

This game finally largely fulfilled the promise of the original Dead Island in being a fun first-person zombie killing game, removing most of the jank and problems that game had. Still some rough edges and frustrations, but overall had way more fun with this game than I would have thought.

Fallout 4 - 20 points

Despite being arguably a step back from even Fallout 3 I still had a fairly good time with this. I definitely don't think they can get away without having major changes for Fallout 5, and I doubt I'll come back to the DLC for this one even, but it was still fun to lose myself in this game's world for a while and OCD explore everything. Easy to see why a lot of folks are pretty disappointed in it though, and while this is the definition of a 3/5 game for me I played so few other 2015 releases this year that it hangs on higher than it probably should be on my list.

Bloodborne - 15 points

They nailed it with a more aggressively-focused Souls game, along with taking it back to a more connected world (as opposed to Dark Souls 2). Looks and plays great with a great artstyle, only doesn't place higher for me due to lacking a bit in terms of gear variety and content; sadly did not get to the DLC yet so this is based completely off the vanilla release.

Xenoblade Chronicles X - 10 points

This is still a work in-progress for me; I'm about 50 hours in so I do like the game and feel good enough about it to put it on this list, but it's not fully grabbing me either. I love the world and overall setup/premise, but virtually none of the characters are likable at all to me (oh my god Lin shut the fuck up about Tatsu being dinner) and so far I've spent most of my time messing around in the world which is great, but also feels sort of aimless.


Notable 2015 release omissions that I have not played that probably would have made this list:

Witcher 3
Metal Gear Solid V
Splatoon
Mario Maker
Transformers: Devastation
Rocket League
Ori and the Blind Forest
HuniePop

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

SOMA - 10 points
[Best Horror Game] [Most First Person] [Best Setting] [Best Underwater Setting] [Most Water] [Best Audio Tapes] [Best Scifi] [The "God Damnit" Award for Bleakest Ending]

I generally don't like horror games. Or rather, I like the concept of them, but I don't like playing them. SOMA walked a fine line between stressful something horrible chasing you oh god have to get away, and super atmospheric, super bleak, super fascinating scifi narrative jesus I have to know what happens next. It looks superb, the setting is awesome, and the scifi, moral, ethical and philosophical concepts it throws at you turned out to be genuinely engaging. Great stuff.

8/10

YouTube Video

Technobabylon - 10 points
[Adventure Game of the Year] [The Ben Chandler Award for 2D Adventure Game Sprite Excellence] [Most "Man was this second ending more satisfying than the first one I got" Award]

A really, really cool cyberpunk(ish) point & click adventure with amazing spriting from the always excellent Ben Chandler, with some great music, atmosphere and engaging narrative to boot. Delightful stuff, and I really enjoyed the multiple solutions to puzzles and endings. Here's hoping they make a sequel. Somehow.

8/10

YouTube Video

Tales from the Borderlands - 10 points
[Best Use of Borderlands] [Best Opening Credits] [Best Choices] [Best QTE] [Most Button Prompts] [Best Sasha] [Strongest "Man I hope they make a sequel" Feeling Around the Ending] [Best Humour] [Best Chase Sequence] [Best Episodic Game] [The Best Patrick Warburton Award]

This was a year of delightful surprises. I enjoyed The Walking Dead Season 1 a lot, but I felt like Telltale can't keep pulling the same trick over and over. Turns out they totally can, you just need some good writers and talent. Easily their best work yet, TftB says "so hey, why not use this template to do something funny instead" and the end result is marvelous. Genuinely funny, inventive, surprising, engaging, with a cast of terrific characters, setpieces and great banter. Superb music selection too, the opening credits for each episode were some of my favourite things in videogames in 2015. Episode 4 also contains an amazing extended fingergun shootout, with Troy Baker doing his best Patrick Warburton impression, so that's a plus.

9/10

YouTube Video

Undertale - 30 points
[Biggest Surprise] [Best Undyne] [Best Toriel] [Best Ending] [Date of the Year] [Best Spider Discounts] [Best Music] [Best Humour] [Best Enemy Design] [Most Mercy] [Largest Chain Reaction of "I will gift this to someone" Incidents] [Best Skeleton] [Best Wrong Number Song]

Everyone's already gushed a ton about this and I feel like it totally deserves it. Sure, the fandom around it is pretty obnoxious at this point, but that has nothing to do with the game itself. Every fandom is pretty obnoxious, really. I was super sceptical of the game till I actually played it, and it is disarmingly charming. Completely amazing soundtrack, well written, genuinely engaging, laugh out loud funny, touching and delightful in multiple ways.

9/10

YouTube Video

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - 40 points
[Game of the Year] [Best RPG] [Most Graphics] [Best Geralt] [Most Open World] [Best Horse] [Best Ciri] [Best Triss] [Best Godling] [Best Music] [Most Swords] [Best Leshen] [Best minigame that's really just a game of its own and now there's a browser version of it because who doesn't want to play more fucking Gwent no one that's who I should be playing Gwent right now]

I'm 108 hours in and I've still not finished it. What I have experienced so far however has been astonishing. It's an open world game that does things right. It's not a sandbox game, you can't just dick around and be an asshole to everyone for no reason, and that might disappoint some. But as an open world RPG, as a Witcher game, as a conclusion to an excellent series of games, it's peerless. It's massive in scope and scale, it's stunning to look at, it's incredibly well crafted. Every little side quest and activity you can do has a beginning, an arc, and a conclusion, often taking you in surprising directions, places and situations, constantly delighting and presenting you with experiences and journeys and characters and narratives that feel meaningful and completely relevant. It will probably be daunting and even exhausting to some, but take the time to live in this world. It's incredible, and without question the best game of the year.

9/10

YouTube Video

YouTube Video

A list of really enjoyable titles that deserve to be played but just didn't get points




Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker
[Cutest Game] [Best Running Animation]

8/10




Life is Strange
[Best Use of Ashley Burch] [Best Music] [Best Brooke] [Best Second Work from a French Developer]

8/10




Yoshi's Woolly World
[Best Platformer] [Best Yoshi] [Most Yarn]

7/10




Splatoon
[Best Shooter] [Best Paint Physics] [Best Toasty Cat] [Most Fresh] [Best Music] [Best Squid Sisters] [Best Boss Fight]

9/10




Bloodborne
[Best Architecture] [Best Doll] [Most Blood] [Biggest Borne] [Most Kos] [Most Furious Boss Battles] [Best Cosmic Horror Tweest] [Most NOPE] [Best Papa Petrol] [Best Daddy Dieseldosh]

8/10




Super Mario Maker
[Best Editor] [Most Spikes] [Most Hocus Pocus]

8/10

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

So once again I've taken my sweet time, taking the opportunity to try and play a few more of 2015's highlights before settling on my picks. But here finally are my points for this year's GFF GotY thread. The quotes are highlights from my full write up, which can be found here: linky link



Transformers: Devastation - 5 points
Platinum Games continue an absolute winning streak as far as I'm concerned.

If anything about this game appeals do yourself a favour and just go buy and play it now. Do it. Oh and stick around for the end credits music when you beat the game.


Splatoon - 5 points
Who would have thought it'd take Nintendo and the Wii U to deliver one of the most refreshing and fun shooter games for years? Splatoon is just a pure joy.

If it wasn't for the next game on this list it'd be hands down the best game released on the Wii U this year.


Xenoblade Chronicles X - 15 points
Given how much I loved Xenoblade Chronicles the idea of a spiritual successor was already going to appeal, but throw in transforming mechs and you've absolutely got my attention.

After Monolith Soft achieved absolute wonders with what they did with Xenoblade Chronicles on the Wii I was excited to see what they could do with more grunt, and they did not disappoint. Mira is an absolutely wonderous place to explore. The game is full of stunning vistas and on more than a few occasions I found myself stopping to just look around. And all against a fantastic soundtrack. I didn't think they could match the quality of the predecessor's soundtrack, but I was wrong.

What a game.


Bloodborne - 15 points
Bloodborne instantly just looked appealing to me, particularly something about the art style. Having played it, I now get the appeal and Dark Souls 3 is suddenly on my radar, because oh boy what a game. I loved this experience.

Whilst you get Blood Echoes and can use those to level up, the real meaningful progression is in your experience, your understanding and ability to deal with what's in front (or behind) you. A fascinating game that respects your intelligence and ability as a player? Loved it.


Rocket League - 20 points
What to say about Rocket League? This game has been a source of incredible highs, and incredible frustrations. I don't know how they got this is as good as it is, but I applaud the laser focus on simplicity in delivering this 'football with cars' game (which as a fairly common descriptor for Rocket League seriously unsells this game as an experience). Looking at the predecessor game you can see how they could easily have overstuffed this with nonsense, but they pitched it at exactly the right place and boy did they deliver.


The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - 40 points
This game, oh man this game. The Witcher 3 is an incredible game that I've not been able to stop thinking about.

The level of detail in this world, from visuals to sound to how much character is infused into even the most mundane looking quest. This is an RPG in which I wanted to pick up any and every job because you never knew where they'd lead. And even in the simplest of cases there's usually an interesting character to interact with, or some curious little story to what's going on. Never did anything feel as simple or boring as "Go kill/collect X number of Y, just because".

For me there was no choice, as soon as I started thinking about my top 10 of 2015 The Witcher 3 was always number 1. Stunning game.

I was speaking idiomatically.

40 points - Rocket League

I'd give Rocket League all 100 points if I were allowed. In recent years, there's been a lot of whining about how gaming is dead, nobody knows how to make a good game anymore, monetization is evil, and so on and so forth.

Rocket League is the Ideal Video Game. Priced reasonably for the amount of content provided, a DLC and post-release support apparatus that are obviously feeding into each other and not being greedy about it, and a robust and responsive relationship with the community.

But none of that matters, because Rocket League is FUN. Rocket League is tuned to perfection, with a skill ceiling high enough to immediately and naturally foster high-level eSports play, but an ease of understanding and playability factor that enables less hardcore people to easily pick up and enjoy it. It also makes for a wonderful "shooting the shit with buds" game.

Rocket League does everything a game should do. It made me feel really good to read that the game has made upwards of 50 million dollars for Psyonix. Rocket League should be held up as the gold standard for how it is, in fact, possible to make a quality video game in this day and age.

Undertale - 40 points

Undertale was a wonderful experience from start to finish. I don't generally get sucked into a game with quite the level of fervor that Undertale caused, but holy crap did I binge this and then drive chat (especially Skills) BATSHIT by not stopping talking about it.

It deserves it, too. While it's a bit shaggy around the edges in spots (some segments are bit long or unnecessary, and I can see the art style not being for everyone), even those shaggy spots feel like they're... if not entirely deliberate, at least it was considered to be an acceptable fault. Everything in Undertale is thought through, and was made with great care, and it shines from beginning to end.

The fact that it lands the emotional beats it does is also extremely satisfying. What starts as a seemingly goofy lark eventually turns into a very moving story of friendship, loss, and the beauty of life. I'm not ashamed to admit I cried like a goddamn baby at the "true ending".

Which, as an aside, is another thing I actually liked; there was technically one more ending to this game I didn't get. I started along the path to do it, and quickly realized that I didn't want to. Without getting into details for those who haven't played it, it would have involved doing things that, after playing through the game already, felt *wrong*. The fact that I felt that strongly about fictional characters to stop where I was actually took me by surprise, but made me feel that much more firm in my decision to just leave the game where it was. Maybe it's just me looking for things where they aren't there, but I can't help but feel like that was part of the point; you don't *have* to see everything. It's allowed for the experience to end when you want it to.

More games should have something to say the way Undertale did. The fact that it did so with a wonderful sense of humor and style is a bonus.

10 points - Monster Hunter 4

MonHun suffers a bit from my very strong feelings about the above two games, but I really did enjoy this game a lot. 4 showed that Capcom does occasionally have a grasp of how to make a game that easily-distracted people like me can play without boggling at spreadsheets. Its deliberate, fussy-but-not-too-fussy gameplay, combined with a... not completely awful... lobby system, kept me playing with bros on the Intertron far longer than any multiplayer-focused game has in recent memory. That alone earns it some points.

Lego Dimensions - 5 points

Lego Dimensions is a super fun game. It combines a frankly asontishing amount of pop culture franchises in a way that doesn't feel *too* forced, while managing to take the time to really get what makes each franchise tick. The range of broad strokes to really specific in-joke references is really impressive, and shows how much care went into making it. The puzzle design is also much more fun, even if it's still not exactly difficult. It is a game for kids after all.

Splatoon - 5 points

Nintendo needs all the encouragement it can get to make more games like this. As a company, it's been pretty clearly in the middle of an identity crisis for a while now. Splatoon, with its very fun, very accessible gameplay, and most importantly, NEW styling, shows that Nintendo can in fact make a new thing that doesn't completely suck out loud. It provides hope that the NX will make up for the Wii U's missteps, and that's good enough for me.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Ok, here we go.

Xenoblade Chronicles X - 30 points

Man, this game. Huge seamless world full of people and life and mysteries. I haven't made it to the end of the game yet, too busy driving my mech around forever and picking up all the little blue shinies like a true Curator. Character customization in terms of mixing and matching abilities and weapons from various classes is great fun. Music is great, the whole thing just feels like it was made with so much love and care.


Undertale - 20 points

A beautiful little story, made wonderful by its cast of characters. Game gets pretty meta, can't say much more without spoiling things. Unique combat, spectacular music, and an all-around wonderful experience.


Splatoon - 20 points

Who would have ever thought i'd get really into an online shooter? One of those things where Nintendo just kept looking at a thing and asking what could make it more Funtm. Thoroughly enjoyed this game, really do need to get back to it one of these days. Also need to set up GFF Splatoon day. Maybe where MK8 used to go? Stay fresh!


Rocket League - 15 points

Car soccer! Jumps! Boosts! Flying! Incredibly tight controls and a simple concept made well leads to a game that random people can just have fun with, while leaving space for other people to get really good at. Nothing more entertaining/painful than handing your non-game-playing family the controllers and watching them struggle to get the ball going the right way.


Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate - 15 points

This was the first Monster Hunter game i've found myself actually getting into, thanks to it's easy and effective online play, as well as the number of GFFers who were always willing to play. Still behind in the single player, but overall this game was a lot of fun to play with other people. Some great quality of life additions from MH3U made it that much more approachable.



So, with all of the points handed out, some Honorable Mentions / Things I Wanted To Talk About:


Game from 2015 that i finally got around to playing - Spec Ops: The Line

Played through the whole game in one sitting when i had a day off. Dang. By the end i really didn't want to be playing anymore, but i powered through. Made me feel uneasy, but that was kind of the idea. Quite the experience.


Game that i wanted to like, but... - Witcher 3

I kind of got a vibe that i could really like this game early on, but i felt a little bit like i was feeling my way around in the dark and not being taught everything i needed to know. Eventually worked out how to make grenades (and subsequently worked out how renewable things worked sort of), but there was still a lot of wondering. Last straw was when i bowed to a dude and he was like "i thought you bowed to no man" and i just went 'well how was i supposed to know that' and gave up because i felt like i wasn't welcome.


Game that is pure distilled happiness - Yoshi's Wooly World

Just like Kirby's Epic Yarn before it, something about this game gets under your skin and brings the warm fuzzy feelings into the cold, dark recesses of one's heart. Happy music, happy yoshis, and everything's just so freakin' soft and squishy. Makes me want to crawl into the screen, curl up, and take a cozy nap.


Game that devoured far more of my time than i expected - Pokemon Picross

A $40 game with a free demo, i've gone through almost everything this game has to offer. Way too easy to just sit down and chill with a few puzzles for a break at work or just before bed. The 80x80 mural puzzles (solved in 10x10 chunks) were especially cool. Also lots of using pokemon to cheat at puzzles, because even just having those 5 random squares solved for you at the start can make a huge difference. Or, you know, a cross pattern of well over 100 squares. Whatever.


Game that i played with high-schoolers - NHL 16

Hadn't bought one of these games since picking up '08 used, so figured it was about time. Thoroughly enjoying the single player Be a Pro thing on my own. Being a goalie is hard.


SPACE COWBOYS - Rebel Galaxy

Played it for an entire day before it got buried by Undertale. Super chill space boat game with lasers and broadsides and shields and perfectly cheesy country rock. Just hits all the right buttons.


Series I returned to after a long hiatus - Assassin's Creed: Syndicate

I've only played about 4 hours of this so far, but conisdering my last time playing any AC game was a good 3 years ago or so, it's been wonderful to go back to that world of "wheeeee!" jumping off buildings and "excuse me sir" oops-you're-dead-now-sorry-'bout-that. A lot of reviewers' complaints about the game being the same as all the others don't matter as much when you're not obliged to play the new one every single year. Evie and Jacob are fun characters who get to banter a lot, which is also lots of fun.


Game that i'm still playing because of course - Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward

Heavensward expansion content is great, the music continues to be spectacular, and the world feels like a lively place. Helps that i've managed to coerce a bunch of friends into starting the game, which is pretty exciting. One heck of a lot prettier than WoW.



And that's my list! Had a good year for video games, all things considered. My enthusiasm for the coming year has been dampened slightly by the fact that Oculus is pretty much officially out of my price range at like $1000CAD, but hopefully there will be good news in that regard yet.

Most amazing jew boots

Oh wow, it's time for GOTY voting already? Someone really should have let people know about this thread.

Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate - 30 Points

Ridiculous amount of fun multiplayer. Jumping and mounting enemies were excellent new features that added a lot to fights. Underwater combat may be missing, but nobody cares.

Xenoblade Chronicles X - 30 Points

Aside from a few weird design choices Xenoblade is every bit as amazing as I'd hoped. I don't even have the transforming robot yet and it's at the top of my list for the year.

Brandish: The Dark Revenant - 15 Points

That's right, a PSP game is #3 on my list for the year 2015. Brandish is essentially a roguelike from Falcom with no randomness and the enemies move independently. It's a remake of an old game that apparently suffered from being in first person when it really shouldn't have been. I also seem to be the only person who bought it despite gushing about it to a bunch of you, but you're all horrible garbage people who don't like good things.

Axiom Verge - 10 Points

This was about as close to Metroid as you can get without Nintendo getting angry and forcing you to watch cutscenes from Other M as penance. It has some really clever bits to figure out, and I enjoyed the originality of some of the gear/movement methods. I was hooked pretty hard and flew through this in about a week.

Fallout 4 - 10 Points

Fallout probably would've gotten more points if I'd put more time into it. I love everything about what I've played so far, and the townbuilding mechanic somehow makes it even more addictive than Fallout 3 was. Maybe one day I'll stop visiting every underground bunker I come across and actually go to Diamond City.

Super Mario Maker - 5 Points

It should've come with all the tools already available, but otherwise a really fun game. I'm proud of all the stages that I made (even if rail platforms unintentionally made Air Man's stage much harder than I meant it to be), and I had fun playing friends' levels too. Except for Qwarky's levels. Qwarky's levels can burn in Hell.


Honorable Mentions

- Yoshi's Woolly World - So adorable.
- Rocket League - Car soccer is best soccer.
- You Must Build A Boat - One of my favorite iOS games that I still play now and then.
- Boxboy! - Too easy and short to give points, but a great little time killer.
- Splatoon - I don't even know why I stopped playing this. I need to squid more.
- Dragon Quest Heroes - Only just started, but I love its changes to the usual Warriors formula.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

20 Points - 3D After Burner II
The only objectively flawless game of 2015. It's a portable, arcade-perfect port of After Burner, which is already enough to achieve the title of Game of the Year in any year, but then they also added Climax Mode to the original game. GET IN THE COCKPIT


25 Points - Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate
My first Monster Hunter game and a thoroughly frustrating experience. I don't know what I would've done if I didn't have Skills answering my hundreds of questions as I started out, because the in-game documentation, manual, and tools are woefully inadequate. I'm still learning details that it might have been nice to know 300 hours ago, like how your attack animation is slightly slower when you hit an enemy's weak point. There are so many barriers to understanding what you're doing and what's going on, some clearly vestigial and others just baffling, that I found myself not having a great time when I was doing anything besides chopping a dinosaur's face off with an axe the size of a car.

Oh yeah, and I've played this game for more than 300 hours because you can chop a dinosaur's face off with an axe the size of a car. Figuring out the movement and attack capabilities of your weapon, figuring out the patterns of a monster, and putting them together into a dance of pain and suffering is so good, and so polished, and so satisfying. If fun were mathematically quantifiable, I guarantee I would have had more of it by volume in MH4U than in any other game I played from 2015.


25 Points - Xenoblade Chronicles X
One of my favorite things about the original Xenoblade Chronicles was the setting. The backstory of the game is a pretty run-of-the-mill creation myth: two gods fought to a standstill, and the world as we know it grew from their bodies. That myth, though, is literally true. You follow the titans' anatomies as you climb up one and then the other, and each body is clearly visible from the other as they remain locked in combat. It's wild and memorable.

Xenoblade Chronicles X's setting is much more mundane: it's just a world, the planet Mira.

Except, it's a world of unparalleled scale and true geography.

A world that, despite all its convenient paths and tree branches and outcroppings you can use to climb things, still truly does not care that you exist.

A world of people and non-people, where a hundred stories are chaotically woven into the frayed fabric of a desperate, yet optimistic, city.

Mira is just a world: the biggest, most actualized world there's ever been in a video game.


30 Points - Undertale
For three months I've had ten thousand words about this game swirling in my head, never coalescing into anything other than an incoherent sludge. So what I'm going to try to do here is extract the most well-formed lumps, stack them on top of each other, and pretend they form a complete series of thoughts.

Undertale is far from a perfect game. The pacing and writing are uneven; my favorite example of the latter is New Home, which combines some of the most stunning environmental storytelling I've ever seen in a game with the bluntest exposition dump in the game. The puzzles largely end up being uninteresting time wasters. The messaging about choices and consequences is a bit inconsistent with how the game encourages, discourages, and even directly hints you to make certain choices. And even though Undertale makes jolly fun of JRPGs throughout, there's still enough of one at its core to be tedious, depending on your tolerance for that kind of thing.

But the fiction, when it's on point, is outstanding; besides New Home's Spoiler: beautifully spare depiction of a broken marriage, I really enjoyed how Waterfall's atmosphere and dialogue come together as the game's main exploration of loneliness and isolation. The prose, at its peak, also excels; the density of the line "despite everything, it's still you" continues to stagger me. And in its deconstruction of JRPGs, it manages to be one of the best games I've ever played about what it means to be a player of a game.

None of that is why Undertale has stuck with me the way it has. Parts of it, sure, but not the whole experience.

Undertale, at once both naively and maturely, expresses the idea that love and peace are always a solution. Always, always always always always always.

Naively, because you Spoiler: hug the evil out of an omnipotent god-monster. It's not exactly a nuanced or pragmatic take.

And yet, maturely, because it is nuanced and pragmatic in a different way. Because there isn't a hug button whereby everyone's problems go away.

You need to be observant and empathetic. To listen, to believe, to care. To console, to compliment, to cheer.

You can't talk your way out of every situation. You need to be the better person. To turn the other cheek and to forgive, even to those who have done you great harm. You need to be selfless.

The feelings of other people are ultimately their own, and no matter how much you may want to, you can't control or change them. All you can do is speak with your actions: help them if they need it, be there if they want you to, don't be there if they don't. It's not always fair, but feelings aren't an argument that can be won or lost.

This core of Undertale isn't a simplistic statement to be excellent to each other; it's a treatise on communication and relationships, almost unprecedented in the medium. In the journey you take, the friendships you make and the ones you find in others, and the people you help, it's the most unflaggingly optimistic game of the year.

Undertale is my favorite game of 2015.


=Oh God There's More=

Code Name: S.T.E.A.M.: It's a quality X-COM by Intelligent Systems where steampunk Abraham Lincoln and fictional American characters fight aliens, with a soundtrack by the Advance Wars guy. Why didn't any of you buy this game? If you have a 3DS, buy this game right now.

FAST Racing NEO: VROOM VROOM. Shin'en is awesome. The FAST series is awesome. Do you like going fast? Well then, I have a video game entertainment product you just might be interested in.

Gravity Ghost: A game where you joyfully fly around in graceful arcs and hug zombie space animals. The physics in this game can get a little finicky in a bad way, but the level design is decent enough to minimize that most of the time. There's a surprisingly good metaphor at the core of this game that sneaks up on you before you realize it's happening.

Pillars of Eternity: It's the HD Baldur's Gate everyone wanted. I liked how there are two party members whose character quests are entirely "talk to them hundreds of times and read thirty thousand words" and they ended up being the two characters written by Chris Avellone.

Shovel Knight: Plague of Shadows: Plague Knight's movement tech is really, really awesome. It's kind of cool that the levels are mostly still balanced for Shovel Knight's movement abilities, so you can blast around them in unusual ways and feel like you're breaking the game, but that's probably the biggest flaw too; the difficulty and level flow are really bumpy. I'd love to see a full pack of original levels designed specifically for Plague Knight.

Splatoon: I am garbage at every single shooter that has ever existed, but thankfully this has objectives besides kill everyone so I'm only a useless lump like 95% of the time instead of 100%. Possibly my favorite soundtrack of 2015, but I don't really have a strong preference this year.

Didn't Play : Axiom Verge, Kirby and the Rainbow Curse, Super Mario Maker, Yoshi's Woolly World
Couldn't Play : Ori and the Blind Forest, Rocket League, Transformers: Devastation
Best Game of 2014 I Played in 2015: Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze

Jam it back in, in the dark.