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working on my list. hope you like hatsune miku.
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Dec 13, 2021 02:14
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| # ¿ May 10, 2024 06:25 |
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 10: Tales of Arise "You guys are really bad at helping." After 2015's disastrous Tales of Zestiria, the decades old Tales franchise was left completely rudderless. Zestiria sold well, but reviewed modestly at best, and was extremely divisive among the hardcore fanbase, while also being way overbudget. With the departure of several of the franchise's longtime shepherds, it fell on an inexperienced team to attempt to turn the series around. They made Tales of Berseria which was good but sold much worse, and thus didn't. Instead, the Tales team was shuffled around yet again, with the addition of many longtime Bandai Namco employees, including a large chunk of the God Eater development team. With a much larger budget and a much longer timeframe, they were on a mission to prevent the franchise from being three strikes and you're out. In terms of saving the series? Arise absolutely did. It sold amazingly well, reviewed great, and is pretty well-liked. Well... mostly? As a game, Arise is a mixed bag. It has a pretty breakneck opening, a kind of slow middle, and a completely baffling third act. I honestly like the third act and where it goes, but there's almost zero hints it's going to go in that direction, and it doesn't have enough time to flesh out the bonkers ideas it's going for. And gameplay-wise, Arise marries a very fun and fluid combat system with terrible enemy and boss design, featuring bosses who are almost impossible to flinch and have way too much HP and are capable of one or two shotting your characters even on normal. And the characters are... fiiiine? The party struggles to establish a strong group dynamic, typically one of the trademarks of the series. There's funny individual scenes, but they rarely coalesce into a strong sense of camaraderie. And it must be said that the game's insistence on making sure every party member has a heterosexual romantic pairing is kind of weird for a series that traditionally leans on gay subtext pretty strongly. And in at least two cases, outright text - shoutouts to my boy Wingul. It feels a bit like they wrung out some of the series' personality in an attempt to make the franchise more appealing. However, as a base to build on top of, I think Arise works very well. The combat, as mentioned, *is* fluid and fun to control, and presentation-wise it's excellent. Sakuraba's OST even has a pulse for the first time in fifteen years - it doesn't reach the highs of Abyss or the goofy energy of Eternia, but it's a solid JRPG soundtrack. I left Arise feeling cautiously optimistic on the direction of the series, and that means it did its job. And as a game on its own merits, I think it's pretty good, too. Definitely flawed, but there's a lot to like.  9: Blazblue Central Fiction "Ghosts? Ahh!" Blazblue's plot is competely incomprehensible, but I love the characters way too much. It recently got a rollback patch on steam, so this entry is channeling the spirit of teenage me, who wrote blazblue fanfics, wished Makoto Nanaya was my girlfriend, and thought thin RED line was the greatest song ever written. And to be fair, thin red line is pretty banging. It's a very fun fighting game, too.  8: Utawarerumono: Mask of Truth "Courage is a heart that conquers its fears. It is not one that denies fear." Utawarerumono was a 2001 PC Strategy RPG. It, inexplicably, received a pair of sequels nearly 15 years after the fact. Mask of Truth is the second of these sequels, and pays off a ton of stuff both from the first sequel, Mask of Deception, and the original 2001 game. It's a love letter to people who have been waiting fifteen years for any kind of followup, and also a very fun fantasy epic with a great cast of characters. It's got issues, for starters it knows about a third as much about historical politics as it thinks it does, and it tends to dump three big twists on you in a row when one would do, but it's a fun story. It deals a lot with identity - the masks we wear to convince ourselves we're stronger, to look better to other people, and the overwhelming joy of being with people who you can truly be yourself around. The strategy RPG is also kind of fun.  7: Super Robot Wars 30 "He gets the love of his life and a house. I get two old guys and I'm still homeless." Super Robot Wars 30 is not my favorite Super Robot Wars game, but it's a Super Robot Wars game you can buy on Steam without any loving around, in English. It's existence is a small miracle, and despite the flaws of its main gimmick, being able to do missions in mostly any order, it's easy to tell how much love and care went into it. And it has Gridman.  6: Great Ace Attorney Chronicles "As a lawyer, I have the perfect poker face. You'll never be able to tell what I'm thinking." Great Ace Attorney is, in my opinion, the best Ace Attorney game since Ace Attorney 3. Solid mysteries, fun spins on the court gameplay, an incredible localization, likable cast, and an interesting exploration of racism in the time period it's set in. Ryunosuke isn't gonna turn society around or even really change anyone's minds, beyond a few people he's very close to. It's just a difficulty he deals with, same as anything else. Considering it's a Japanese game with a clear love of classic British mysteries, it's hard not to read it as the developers themselves engaging with their own mixed feelings on the stuff they love. Really funny animations, too.  5: Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker "People just want to do right by themselves and do right by others." i predict this game will get 50 other nominations so ill save my breath and say FF14 is very good and this game has some issues but is a very good conclusion.  4: Soul Nomad & The World Eaters "Someday, we'll be forgiven, and we can be born once again." Next year will be Soul Nomad's fifteenth anniversary. This is its lifetime achievement award, for being Soul Nomad & The World Eaters. I play it once a year and every time I come across some line I didn't remember that makes me laugh, or some janky squad build that is surprisingly effective. It's presentation is incredibly barebones and the Evil Route feels like it was slapped together in a weekend without telling anyone, but the evil route comes to an amazing conclusion and the game as a whole is unique, engaging fantasy adventure with a fairly unique cast of characters, anchored by a protagonist (Gig, not Revya) that is simultaneously cruel, petty, malicious, and very, very human. It's a funny game that manages to touch on very heavy themes without undermining or making light of them, and it knows how to let the characters have a moment to shine without trying to wink at the audience that it isn't taking this THAT seriously. Sadly, NIS would promptly lose all ability to write video games, thus leading us to our current state of affairs.  3: Blue Reflection Second Light "I don't want that past anymore - until the day I rot away, I'm going to keep walking." The original Blue Reflection was a fairly bad game. Not terrible, but janky, listless, and filled with mildly weird asides that weren't exactly fanservice but still felt like they put the writers' niche fetishes before fleshing out the characters. I liked some of the tone, but it was a mediocre work all together. Despite selling fairly poorly, it inexplicably got a spinoff anime and pseudo-sequel this year. The anime was very good. Second Light is also, very good. Cheetah already covered a lot of what I wanted to say, so instead I'll simply add that this deeply, deeply feels like a game the developers wanted to make. Almost a dream game. The game is positively flooded with tiny little moments and asides, little jokes and character beats, that make it clear the developers loved this cast, this game, and were pleased to be making it. Nothing about it feels cynical - it's a story about young women leaning on each other written by people who hoped those characters find resolution as much as the characters themselves do. It's got a ton of little issues, like a slightly janky camera, equally janky stealth sections, and bizarre newgame+ features like locking the last two seconds of the ending and the hard mode behind it, but it's a very, very good game.   2: Project Sekai Colorful Stage Featuring Hatsune Miku "Boys and girls, face forwards! Find hope even in the blazing heat!" Project Sekai is, in fact, a gacha rhythm game with three separate battle passes whose premise is that teenagers are magically transported to a realm where Hatsune Miku exists to just kinda vibe with her, and it's hilarious because Hatsune Miku is also a fictional personification of music software in their universe, so it's literally like if you said you had depression and then Hatsune Miku showed up. It's also incredibly well written, does a lot to smooth out the design flaws of other similar mobile rhythm games, a loving celebration of the Vocaloid culture that was huge in the late 2000s/early 2010s, and has amazing music and art. The highlight of all of this is one of the character groups, Nightcord - while all the groups are pretty well-written and likable, Nightcord is just a tour de force of how to handle depression and even suicidal imagery in an otherwise pretty lighthearted game. They're a group of musicians, amateur singers, and one artist who meet online and don't know each other in real life, and their whole arc is just the exploration of how they're all extremely sad and lonely and individuals. It's a very nuanced exploration of those kinds of emotions and 'bonding with other weirdos online.' They don't really offer each other platitudes, and when they do it often goes poorly. When one of the characters uses the 'magical empty void' element to just literally vanish from real life and exist in said empty void forever, one of the other characters advises against going after her, pointing out that she's hardly the only person in the world with problems, and that they don't know her well enough to offer anything but empty truisms. And when she's coerced into going after her anyway, they actually do offer empty truisms, and the situation's turned on the other characters by pointing out they all want to disappear too. You can read this as a metaphor for suicide or becoming terminally online, and either way, the story does a great job exploring that, yeah, they all kind of do want to disappear. Kanade wants to touch other people with her music and help them out of their funks, but she feels like that's a ridiculous proposition when she's not even over her own depression. Ena is an artist, but a fairly mediocre one who reacts sharply to criticism - she puffs up her own ego by posting selfies online and searching her own name on twitter, but her selfie account gets more attention than her art account, so she gets even more depressed. Mafuyu, the girl who ran away, has a mother who puts a ton of pressure on her to be perfect and hardworking, to the point she doesn't even know what her personality is like when she's on her own. And then there's Mizuki, who's a legitimately well-done exploration of gender identity. Mizuki is DMAB, we see them in a male uniform in flashbacks, but they prefer to wear feminine clothing. They were bullied for this, naturally, so they skip school a bunch and mostly go to night classes. The trick with Mizuki is, rather than being another put upon trans character, they're just... y'know, Mizuki. They don't really know what their gender identity is to begin with - there's later events where characters prod at them for a clear answer and they actually get legitimately mad, and characters backing off on that and just letting them be themself is seen as a good thing. Mizuki's mature and well-adjusted, actually outgoing socially and doing alright in school besides how much they skip, but they wish they could just live their life without having to fall into anyone else's preconceived notions. They dislike false sympathy or pretending at understanding as much as they dislike people just finding them strange. There's an early event where a character mentions Waiting for Godot around them and talks about how it doesn't have any real conclusion, it's just kind of aimless musing, and Mizuki is all 'yeah, I really like that.' It's a legitimately cool take on a character with gender identity issues, even if there's a tiny bit of weirdness in the margins. Mizuki'd be a cool, dynamic character even without the gender stuff, and the gender angle of their character isn't really labelled clearly for easy consumption, it's something they're figuring out too. It's treated the same as Mafuyu's identity issues. It's not only cool on its own, it fits a lot of the aesthetics of Vocaloid stuff - lord knows there were and still are plenty of Vocaloid songs about working out depression, gender identity, sexuality, etc. Mizuki not really knowing isn't treated as a crisis to solve, it's just something Mizuki's working at - the struggle is them finding a place they can be comfortable admitting they don't know. And the solution the game presents as correct is them just getting some space to figure it out as they go. Like I said, the other groups are good too, in the way you'd expect a story about friends making music together with Hatsune Miku to be good, but I was really, really impressed by Nightcord's stuff, Mizuki especially. The group starts to grow and trust each other more when they push past the urge to offer easy answers and just admit that all they can really do is lean on each other, talk to each other, and hope the work they're putting out helps other people, even a little. Plus, they have this line, so truly Sekai gets being online and having Gender in 2021.  And also there's another group named VIVID BAD SQUAD who want to host a concert called RAD WEEKEND 2 so really it has it all. And hey, a bunch of random guys who made popular vocaloid songs a decade ago are getting paychecks.   1: Blaze Union "For what I've lost, this is all I've gained. The uncertainty of the future, and a single grain of hope." im going to keep doing this bit until Blaze Union gets on the actual list. you cant stop me. i challenge any of you to try. Yggdra Union was a GBA strategy RPG by Sting, noted developers of Baroque, Baroque (Wii), Baroque (PS2), Baroque (Switch), Baroque Typing, and also Riviera: The Promised Land. It had a unique if slightly janky card based system and a fairly good plot, starting out as a seemingly bog-standard 'princess deposed from her kingdom by the evil empire, take back her country!' story before delving into the antagonists, their motivations, and the lengths Yggdra would go to restore her country, no matter the cost. It was later ported to the PSP, and then received a prequel, delving even deeper into those antagonists. Featuring three routes (only one of which is canon, natch), Blaze Union is a story of cycles of abuse, unjust power structures, anger, loss, and frustration. Gulcasa, our protagonist, gets murked in Yggdra Union, his entire grand campaign accomplishing the sum total of overthrowing the guys he doesn't like for about three months. This isn't a spoiler, it's something the game toys with and outright points out several times, with a wink and a nudge at the audience. Gulcasa isn't quite aware of it, but he knows what lies on the path he's walking. Even Yggdra's story in Yggdra Union doesn't end on much of a hopeful note, only the promise of more wars to come. Yggdra isn't a bad person, but she's single-minded and prefers incredibly direct solutions, with little room for nuance. With her at the wheel, she's going to build a new golden age, with the bodies of anyone who disagrees with how she gets there as the foundation. And all Gulcasa gets for his efforts is trauma, loss, and a historical footnote about his failed occupation. This is the space the game exists in, the inevitable end result. And it's not a tragedy. It loves these characters way too much for that. It's a story about their momentary bonds, the ways they rely on each other, and the question of if it's all worth it if it made them and others happy in the now, if feeling like you're fighting for something is worth as much as the ultimate result. Will the next generation be free from the cycles of war and abuse? Will the one after that? Who knows, but people will keep being people, and that means you'll always have someone to turn to. Despite the space it exists in, it's a bizarrely, almost morbidly hopeful game. The artist has also seemingly never seen a child before in their entire life.  And Eater is, uh, not, a nuanced exploration of gender identity issues, even if I still really like them. Endorph fucked around with this message at 10:00 on Dec 13, 2021 |
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Dec 13, 2021 09:49
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Feels Villeneuve posted:those games were kind of passion projects for CyberConnect2 who usually makes licensed anime games, they sold incredibly badly which is why they are worth $9001 resale these days
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Dec 15, 2021 18:44
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Sir Dingleby Dapper posted:The fact that an expansion to an MMO is gonna win 1st place should say a lot about how mediocre this year has been for new games. and also play blue reflection 2
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Dec 19, 2021 02:40
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Lid posted:It's like 2020 was the pandemic year, the worst year ever, but there was pent up art to be made in it. 2021 was "society has fallen and we have nothing ready to release as we struggle to get back to work".
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Dec 21, 2021 18:00
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Harrow posted:I stopped paying attention to New World eventually but I'm sure someone could write a pretty great post detailing all of the pretty remarkable ways that game collapsed. For example, sometimes servers would just jump forward in time by 40 days, meaning that players would suddenly be 40 days behind on their in-game property taxes (yeah, there's property tax if you owe a house) and lose their house, and also there was no way to roll back so you just had to live with it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3ZMly9YAPA this is a pretty good video that just covers every single minor issue in order with fairly succint explanations. it is 40 minutes long but thats mostly because so much stupid poo poo has happened in its lifespan.
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Dec 31, 2021 02:00
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my personal favorite is crafted gear scales down to whatever your highest level gear youve equpped is, meaning you cannot progress at all via buying or making gear and thus it is entirely pointless to even exist
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Dec 31, 2021 02:01
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that is also a very reductive description of ff14 dungeons but i also dont know why every thread where someone mentions theyre kinda interested in ff14 but dont really wanna play an mmo turns into a bunch of people giving conflicting and often reductive explanations of why they should play it despite not wanting to. i love ff14 but this behavior is mildly cultish. chill out.
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Dec 31, 2021 02:40
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quote:
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Dec 31, 2021 11:10
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a character from blue reflection 1 is in blue reflection 2 (and a couple others make cameos) but you can mostly describe them as 'were characters in a previous jrpg' and everything about their characters makes sense. the core cast are all original to br2, the br1 character is just supporting. same with the couple of characters from the anime, they're supporting characters narratively and you can understand their deal by just 'were characters in a previous magical girl anime.' anything relevant to their characters is given a quick explanation, and you don't really need to know the specific details.
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Jan 1, 2022 21:09
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Jay Rust posted:Post your favourite 2021 game music! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Czx7l9J6oUY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OI4gLy7SlI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQ2LfW-DWDc
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Jan 1, 2022 21:17
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you all better have read my post about blaze union. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iT2KXrVBwRQ
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Jan 4, 2022 11:38
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Rarity posted:I heard the countdown will have Relax or DIE doing a tribute performance of the classic FFX2 song 1000 Words https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6lKDTOr0mE
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Jan 7, 2022 23:17
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i dont know why ff14 makes so many weirdos so mad
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Jan 8, 2022 12:51
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arr isnt great yea
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Jan 8, 2022 13:39
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its easy to ignore the mmo aspects if you just want to focus on the plot but anyone who says it isnt literally an mmo is being a bit of a dink, yes
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Jan 8, 2022 13:50
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my opinion is that mmo combat isnt that good but its way better than the combat system of basically every other ff game.
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Jan 8, 2022 14:15
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i should have put miku higher.
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Jan 8, 2022 16:21
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im glad blue reflection 2 got so high. i am mad i couldnt get miku onto the list.
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Jan 9, 2022 16:31
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i told elephant parade to post just to list it so it could get on the list and he didnt even make it number one so i choose to blame him.
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Jan 9, 2022 16:48
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i realize stux is doing a bit and does not mean it in this way but it is hard for me not to feel slightly uncomfortable with the bit due to how much i mentally associate the harry potter franchise with intense and violent transphobia. however i agree even as a huge fan of ff14 that some people are weirdly pushy about it. farewell.
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Jan 9, 2022 22:32
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TGLT posted:hol up guys lemme post a picture of my new library, it's got all the books https://www.amazon.com/Final-Fantasy-Online-Reborn-Unofficial/dp/1984092774 only 800 dollars
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Jan 9, 2022 22:41
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CharlieFoxtrot posted:Do you want to dominate the game and your opponents? What You'll Discover Inside: - How to Download & Install the Game. - Professional Tips and Strategies. - Cheats and Hacks.
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Jan 9, 2022 22:43
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| # ¿ May 10, 2024 06:25 |
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feel like if you have the third one you dont need the second one
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Jan 9, 2022 22:43
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