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Bless your soul Rarity I was looking forward to this I'll need to collect my thoughts and post a proper list soon but atm it's looking like I may have some repeats thanks to some of them actually getting official releases in the west this year. And also the fact that I genuinely have been playing them a lot since last year and haven't really stopped. ...Like Ring Fit.
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Dec 16, 2021 21:47
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Oh also, I would definitely just combine all MMO expacs as just the one game, or at least for FF14, specifically because it would be weird to split any votes for FF14. It's all single continuous story and experience, unlike other MMOs' expansions, and the main campaign requires players to go through all of them in sequence. In my opinion any time FF14 shows up multiple times in a list, just the best rank should just be counted as one vote. E: Fill disclosure, I'm suggesting this because I've been drumming up support for FF14. Runa fucked around with this message at 23:30 on Dec 16, 2021 |
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Dec 16, 2021 23:26
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This does make assembling my list easier since that's two places accounted for.
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Dec 17, 2021 00:04
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I'm glad to see more people put Strive on their lists tbh It can be daunting getting into fighting games. Hell, I'm not actually "into" fighting games either but Strive is incredibly fun for my casual scrub rear end.
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Dec 17, 2021 10:13
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Turns out I want to rep too many games to afford to toss a joke vote for two different ff14 expacs so the system works
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Dec 18, 2021 01:12
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Rarity posted:To use a hypothetical example, imagine if there were votes for both WoW Shadowlands and WoW Burning Crusade Classic, they're the same game but two completely different experiences It's less this and more like, hmm Taking One Piece and splitting each arc up into its own series? It's not a perfect analogy but it's closer to the truth than not. Someone picking up Endwalker today is is going to be experiencing fundamentally the same game starting from ARR, continuing on to Heavensward, Stormblood, Shadowbringers, and finally Endwalker. It's one single experience to the point where people describe the entire package as one 300+ hour JRPG. (You can even see examples of this in past goty threads.) Which is extremely daunting when phrased this way but also entirely accurate. Basing expectations on how WoW does things has caused some misunderstandings in the past but they're following completely different design philosophies, including wrt expacs. E: Much as how it think it would be hilarious and a little absurd for FF14 to show up multiple times in a single ranking, and as much as it's a moot point considering that most FF14 voters are making sure to just vote Endwalker to represent the whole game, I just felt I ought to explain my reasoning. Runa fucked around with this message at 20:03 on Dec 18, 2021 |
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Dec 18, 2021 20:01
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Hell yeah Disco Elysium!! Ahem, cheetah7071 posted:I mentioned this a few pages back, but I think that argument only works for new players. For established players, they feel far more like sequels than a single continuous experience Fair, but there's just so many new players that I expect that people experiencing FF14's Hydaelyn-Zodiark Saga as a single contiguous experience will be the norm rather than the exception. And the feeling that the expac was a sequel rather than a continuation was strongest moving from ARR to Heavensward. There weren't the same expectations of strong narrative and progression continuity because there weren't other expac releases to compare it to. The transition from HW to Stormblood was smoother and since then the in-game presentation from expac to expac has felt less "please look forward to the sequel" it's "please look forward to the next season, where we will pick things up immediately from this point in the story following a brief hiatus."
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Dec 18, 2021 20:30
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It hasn't been the most exciting year for games but these are very good lists all
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Dec 18, 2021 23:26
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I'm very seriously considering putting Humankind on my list so I will merely chalk this up to a difference in subjective experience.
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Dec 18, 2021 23:31
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BeanpolePeckerwood posted:some pretty prominent lists missing from this thread atm I need to find some decorations for my list this is very important
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Dec 24, 2021 08:12
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Goodness gracious
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Dec 25, 2021 06:55
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I was convinced to buy Forgotten City thanks to this thread (I don't do a lot of console gaming and don't really check the threads it must've been talked about before) and I realized why I'd heard about Gnosia but never played it, it's got a steam page but the PC port hasn't been released yet. These look entirely up my alley and I'm a little embarrassed my PC gaming comfort zone meant I hadn't come across them sooner.
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Dec 26, 2021 01:25
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Hell yeah, veeg
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Dec 27, 2021 02:30
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Harrow posted:
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Dec 30, 2021 02:48
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Oh god I realize now that I have so much to say about FF14 that the full version might not be really appropriate for a goty ranking thread
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Dec 30, 2021 12:46
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Rarity posted:Say it all I double dog dare you !!!
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Dec 30, 2021 13:24
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Everything in Power Wash Simulator is so dirty. Like, seriously, wtfZomborgon posted:1. Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker 
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Dec 31, 2021 01:28
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I'm sorry Khanstant your post is simply too strong
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Dec 31, 2021 07:01
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HMs: Loop Hero, Fuga: Melodies of Steel, Total War Three Kingdoms, Dead By Daylight, Dungeon Encounters, Undernauts: Labyrinth of Yomi, Katamari Damacy: REROLL Stuff I probably should get around to playing: Lost Judgment, Gnosia, Forgotten City (Welp.) Guess which games got put on this list because they made me think things, and those thoughts caused me to write words about them. Here's a hint: It's all of them. Apologies in advance for the lack of brevity. This will require multiple posts. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________  10 - Humankind The balance? Wack. The multiplayer functionality? Wack. The buggy Dia De Los Muertos event? Wack. Fun, but still wack. I still put in 130+ hours into this game and don't regret it. This game's entire design is centered around its core gimmick, each time you progress to a new Era (by meeting certain progression criteria across various categories like Technology, Growth, Expansion, Construction, and so forth), you get to pick a new Culture for your civilization. This is Humankind's strength and greatest weakness, as each Culture adds to your constant stacking passive buffs. Each Culture unlocks powerful new Districts and units you can construct, the former of which stick around and let you reap their benefits for the rest of the game, so you snowball out of control much more quickly than in Civilization. This situation was even worse before the Khmer culture was nerfed, their industry and food production were absurd, and easily synergized with later Science culture bonuses (since as a Scientific Culture type you could activate a mode that converted a city's entire surplus production, of all types, into Science). The balance was, indeed, wack. And so when playing single-player it's very easy to get into a rut and just focus on particular culture-stacking builds to easily win. Especially since the default AIs were hardly a challenge on release, except perhaps Gilgamesh, who was only interesting because he's the only genuine bastard of the bunch. This would be alleviated by patches buffing the AI, and you could download AI profiles designed by other players, but that didn't change how most people tend to just beeline to the meta builds if given half the chance. If you wanted to spice things up, you had to do it yourself. Or you could be encouraged to do so by stuff like the recent Dia De Los Muertos event, which had specific challenges you could do in order to get cosmetic prizes, including a new preset avatar to select. This was actually a lot of fun and required that people change up their playstyles a bit. The only problem was that progress for these challenges were tracked by Amplitude Studios Games2Gether social hub. Their internet connectivity was always buggy in the best of times, so it came as no surprise to find that every other day my challenge progress would reset or change to a wildly different state, and that everybody else who tried to engage with the event suffered similar problems. In the end, the devs threw their hands up in the air and decided to give every participant the cosmetic rewards regardless of their challenge progress. If this sounds like I'm complaining a lot, it's because I am. But these are not the complaints of someone who dislikes the game! Far from it. I wound up falling pretty hard for Humankind, warts and all, and only wish that it was better. That choosing Cultures was more impactful for your unit selection besides unlocking a single signature unit for a single era tier. That the Contemporary Era cultures gave your leader clothes that actually reflected the society and style of the culture you're adopting, like those of previous Eras. That the music was more evocative. That there was a way to enable semi-randomization of your selection of available Cultures per Era, like some kind of Draft Mode, to force you out of your rut and vary up your playstyle. Amplitude's other 4X games, the Endless franchise, are known for their wildly asymmetrical factions and it would have done them well to bring a little more of that creative energy here. Granted, it would've been a lot of work, but they're the ones who chose this game's core design gimmick. I just think it could've been explored more deeply. As it stands, this game's good enough that I'm willing to rank it in my top 10, but it's not a great game. If I'd put more time into other games, including some of my Honorable Mentions, it's entirely possible this could've fallen off of my list. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________  9 - Ring Fit Adventure (Any single Ring quote I could put here would sound weird out of context. And a lot of them in context, too.) The first of the returning games on my list, I felt it was time I gave a more detailed accounting of my feelings on it compared to my more truncated opinion in the GOTY 2020 thread. If there was a single game that could be said to have become a genuine part of my life, and I wasn't allowed to pick the game I chose as my number 1, it would have to be this one. When my friends saw my tentative Top Ten list, they couldn't help but notice this entry and confirm that, yes, in fact I do Ring Fit a lot. If I'm honest, it's basically the thing I use the Switch for. The game itself is fairly simple, being a very lightweight RPG combat system tied to pilates ring exercises and a series of minigames. In a few ways, the Adventure Mode's systems might tempt players to alter their exercise for in-game numbers instead of letting you choose exercises more appropriate for muscles and body parts you might instead want to work on, physically. But if you resist that urge, and engage with the game in the spirit of self-improvement, then it becomes a fun way to provide immediate feedback on your selected exercises, something a normal exercise routine generally lacks. The story's a light romp filled with an amusing cast of characters that doesn't take itself too seriously. What it does do, however, is fill you with encouragement and provide a positive environment. The only negativity comes from the antagonist, Dragaux, and helping him overcome his own toxicity is the thrust of the overarching story in the New Game campaign. Unlike previous Nintendo exercise games, you're not even passive-aggressively shamed. If you're not doing an exercise correctly, Ring will just encourage you to adjust yourself in a very, "it's okay, you can do it" tone. Compare this to Wii Fit, which would take a more scolding tone, however mild. It's a very pleasant experience.  And the music is also better than it has any right to be for a fitness gimmick game. Each track is one of those multi-layered affairs with elements fading in and out based on in-game context and activity. Meaning a youtube OST track won't quite capture the full experience, but it's close. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qU6fRj1IDZ4 _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________  8 - Deathloop Life’s full of maybes, Julianna. That’s what makes it life. This game disappointed a lot of people, and in the end I have to agree with their complaints. But! I still have to admit I found it charming and fun for the bulk of my time with it. Its main weakness is the fact that, at the end of the day, there is just a single critical path to actually beat the game. And the ending, to be fair, is rather weak. Compared to other games in the Immersive Sim genre, Deathloop is lighter on content and potential for mischief, and its central story, while filled with its own twists and turns, actively chooses not to live up to its own potential. Instead, it's content to concern itself with its own mysteries and characters, and you are given the opportunity to dig deeper if you so choose. But there are few mechanical rewards for doing so and what rewards exist are disappointing, thus the player is disincentivized from it. Which is a shame, because I found myself more interested in and invested in Deathloop's little world full of petty tyrants and doomed hedonists than the sweeping portentous plotlines of its not entirely spiritual predecessor, Dishonored. The strength of Deathloop's story is in the little stories you can uncover, the humanity of people trapped in a potentially centuries long time loop without ever realizing it, and all the ugliness that entails.  The two main characters, Colt and Julianna, have phenomenal chemistry with some of the most fun, casually antagonistic banter I've had the pleasure of experiencing in a videogame. As they are the only people capable of retaining any memories of the time loop that the player is aware of at the start, they're the only characters that get to really feel like people. And that's intentional. Everyone else is trapped, and while they're obviously NPCs in a videogame, their predicament draws attention to this fact in a way that highlights the tragedy of their existences. And both invading, and being invaded by, friends lets you turn a stage into a veritable playground of stealth super-powered nonsense. Invasions involving randos are less fun, however, and unfortunately it does seem like multiplayer was intended to be the long-tail driver for this game's success. In spite of its weaknesses, I think it's still worth playing and digging into. And I still think about it sometimes. Also, by combining the Aether and Shift slabs, you can kind of be a ninja. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________  7 - Atelier Ryza: Ever Darkness & the Secret Hideout  One nice thing about hanging around various threads in Games is that you might come across recommendations for a game you wouldn't normally give a shot, and sometimes it turns out you really enjoy that game. Thanks to the RPG Thread, I decided to try an Atelier game, of which there are apparently quite a few. So I picked one. What a chill experience it was. I'm told some older games in the franchise have a time management element. I'm glad this doesn't, I just wanted to grab materials and beat up monsters at my own pace. And then apparently spend multiple in-game days making bombs, weapons, and armor? I'm not sure how much time passes during crafting sessions, I never really bothered breaking it down. Why would I? I was too busy crafting. That's how you get everything you need, you craft them using the alchemy system. Or you progress the story a bit to unlock new recipes, then you craft them. Apparently different Atelier games even have different alchemy systems? This one I got the hang of pretty quickly. The story is cute, in a very earnest, youngsters-on-an-adventure kind of way. Ryza and her friends live in a village on a secluded island, cut off from the rest of the country by what's honestly a suspiciously large and dangerous swathe of mainland dominated by the ruins of a lost civilization. A civilization of which the villagers are implied to be the last surviving descendants by their geographic position, their reliance on that civilization's ancient infrastructure, their lack of an immigrant historical narrative, and the considerable number of local taboos and traditions surrounding the ruins. The area's dangerous enough that villagers only rarely step foot on it, thanks to those taboos, and contact with the outside world is done either via sea routes, well-defended caravans, or through sufficiently powerful adventurers who can take care of themselves well enough not to need either. It's a very small, idyllic town with a whole wide world out in the distance, one filled with mystery, adventure, and new potential friends. The plot doesn't concern itself with threats on a wide, world-spanning scale, and is perfectly content to be the story of a village and their lost history, and the band of plucky teens who uncover it. Small town rivalries and dramas unfold, tensions emerge between the people who want the village to reach out and build connections with the outside world and those who don't. Alchemy, the core system behind the game and the professional field that Ryza aspires towards, provides a flashpoint for these tensions and concerns. Many of which are well-founded, given their people's history and the truths the kids uncover. But it's also a wonderful, magical thing that brings a spark of inspiration to the heroine's life and gives her the means to help the people of the village, too. It's nice! And the music is very pleasant. The title theme pretty much gets the tone of the whole game right in a nutshell. It starts off very jaunty and eager and a little goofy, like kids taking their first steps on an adventure on a lark, but it grows into something more grand, sweeping, and moving. The first Atelier Ryza game is a warm and light-hearted, and just a little bittersweet, coming of age story about a girl who collects recipes for bombs and saves her hometown by blowing up monsters. I ought to try the second game, too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XY8GCsgXaso _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________  6 - Guilty Gear Strive Totsugeki! (Was nerfed, thank goodness) A game where you can play not one, but two members of the US President's security detail, but for some reason you can't actually play as the President himself. I do not know how to play Guilty Gear. I don't really know much about Guilty Gear at all aside from seeing a few memes. But Strive looked cool and was apparently designed to be easier to get into so I gave it a shot. I had quite a lot of fun just playing casually, including with friends, and I even thought the weird lobby system was okay after a while. Never really got deep into it, as fighting games are functionally a sport unto themselves, but just loading it up and getting tossed around in tussles is always fun. Hot drat does this game have style. The art is incredible. The controls are silky smooth. The netcode is rollback, and I've come to understand this is a good thing and a Big loving Deal for fighting games. The music is full of bangers, including a lot of unconventional tracks that really showcase Daisuke Ishiwatari's range as a composer and musician. He's also the lead artist, lead writer, director, and creator of Guilty Gear. But god drat is he a composer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-h-h7hoQxg These are all top-notch, but I can't really say very much about the game beyond that due to being unequipped to do so. So, what is it about Guilty Gear Strive that gave me pause for thought? What about this game drove me to share my thoughts with people online? Simple. The Story Mode. It's a 4-and-a-half hour long CG anime movie that throws you into the deep end of GG lore and wraps up a wild and utterly bizarre storyline spanning over two decades. It's flashy, bewildering, and clearly counting on familiarity with the lore, and at least familiarity with the previous game, not to be completely lost. Now recall that Strive is designed to be the most newbie-friendly installment in the series, a fresh starting point for a much larger audience than the series had managed to garner up to this point in time. How the heck do you reconcile that with this? Well first you have to admit that you don't, not really. But then you try anyway. So to do that, you boil things down to digestible stakes. The plot might be some bullshit about the G3 Summit and the President of the United States, and basically the Wizard Joker helping I-No and turning her from an incomplete deity into, uh, I guess a giant woman who is also the sky? But really, it's Sol's story, and that's the one thing that makes the whole show work somehow. Not entirely, but enough. It's also an incredibly buckwild Hollywood popcorn action flick, for some reason. Hell, it's even a specific one. It's Olympus Has Fallen Starring Sol Badguy, but one that has the audacity to take that premise and go even further beyond, right up into the stratosphere. Why does this movie exist? Why is it as fun as it is? Did anyone even try to stop Daisuke from making this movie? Why does President Vernon have a cyborg arm powered by magical nuke batteries? Why isn't President Vernon a DLC character?  However, you can be a ninja. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9MrABvmjhk _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________  5 - Nioh 2 ...Hiddy! Do you know what this means?! I should mention I'm quite bad at Souls games. I also have to confess I don't really enjoy them, they are very well-made games that, for some reason or another, are just not my cup of tea. I was put off by Bloodborne because it struck me as still being more Souls than not. Sekiro, that I liked because it was laser-focused at what it was trying to do and there were frames of reference I could draw upon that reminded me of games I knew I did like, such as Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance and the Tenchu series. That, and you got to be a ninja. No surprise that I decided to give Nioh 2 a shot, then. And goodness gracious, what a game it is. I'm better at it than I am at Souls or Sekiro, despite it being a much bigger and more technically-dense game. And when I say bigger I do mean that. While there's discrete levels instead of a single detailed locale with intertwined zones, each main campaign level is very long, and there's dozens of side-missions remixing those levels besides. And there's a dozen different weapons to learn with distinct fighting styles. Like Monster Hunter, choosing a weapon feels almost like choosing a character in a fighting game. Though in this, you can switch between two different weapons on the fly. And each weapon has three different stances each with their own movesets, which you can customize. And you're encouraged to swap between weapons and stances on the fly, and do so with the correct rhythm, in order to maximize the benefits of the timing-based stamina (Ki) regain system. There's just so much if you want to engage with it. Or you could tough it out and make do with Odachi High Stance overheads like a GS user, that's entirely valid too. Also you can unleash three rotund housecats to beat a grown-rear end samurai demon man to death while you watch, but that's less of a build and more of a means of showing disrespect to a boss. I deeply admire Sekiro. It's my favorite game I'm terrible at, though I'm less terrible at it now than I was when I started. It's a lean, tightly-tuned, precision work of art. It's a 3-star Michelin fine dining of gaming experiences. Sekiro is a masterpiece. I have so much fun playing Nioh 2. It's big, it's messy, it's earnest and excited to let you take a bunch of yokai and samurai toys and mash them together and make big ki explosions and also regular explosions, if you are a ninja. It's dark and moody but also loud and goofy. Playing with friends, again, feels less like Souls and more like MonHun, with much the same energy as playing multiplayer in that series. It's Sunday Dinner at Grandma's and everyone's invited. Nioh 2 is a big, beautiful soul food extravaganza.  And when I say it's goofy, it's in relative terms. On the face of it this is a fairly dark and sombre rags to riches to rubble story with a bit of a quirky historical fantasy core conceit. In the first Nioh you play as a fictionalized, and Irishified, version of a real historical figure, William Adams, one of the few foreigners to be granted the rank of samurai. In Nioh 2, you create your own hero, "Hide," a silent protagonist who manages to have twice the charm and character as ol' William. Both games involve Forrest Gumping your way through the Late Sengoku Era but I feel the story works more effectively in Nioh 2. (I suspect making Nioh 1 about a Westerner was a calculated move to increase its global appeal. Nioh 2 however decides to just get weird with letting you make a self-insert in a key point in Japan's history and lets you run loose from there, which in my opinion plays more to the setting's strength.) I'm going to spoil some early and mid-game plot points that really sell the idea of why I think the story of Nioh 2 is as fun as it is. Hide, you see, is actually the bastard daughter or son (your choice) of the daimyo of Mino, Saito Dosan, the result of an affair between him and a mysterious yokai woman. Those of you who might know who that is will realize that this means the player character is the half-sibling of Lady Noh, the wife of Oda Nobunaga. Thus, you play as Oda Nobunaga's brother- or sister-in-law and, by twist of fate, are recruited to become one of his retainers along with your partner in crime, a merchant and salvager named Tokichiro. After years of brave and loyal service, the two of you are given a noble name and title by Lord Nobunaga. The same name and title, actually. Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the man who would later become the successor to Nobunaga and the second of Japan's three Great Unifiers. While Oda Nobunaga is often depicted as a "demon lord" in popular media, including other Koei-Tecmo works, by all accounts he was no more or less ruthless than any other autonomous warlord of the time. In fact, most historians agree he was more open-minded, tolerant, and forward-thinking than his peers. Nobunaga disregarded the constraints and prejudices of the society in which he was raised to the best of his ability, and saw potential in people who other lords disregarded. He elevated commoners to the ranks of the samurai and even did the same for foreigners, including a brave soul who, in the most grievous of injustices, was owned by another human being for no reason beyond the misfortune of being born black. From what we know of Nobunaga's character, the very thought of slavery must have deeply offended him on not just a moral, but also utilitarian, level. Nioh 1 and 2 do a very good job portraying Oda Nobunaga, fully aware of his reputation as a fearsome tyrant while also tempering it with knowledge of his personal history that contradicts the popular depiction. Both in life and death, Nobunaga is treated with care, humanized by a fictional story that is otherwise mostly concerned with the question of "what if magic and monsters were real in Sengoku-era Japan?" In contrast, Toyotomi Hideyoshi is a monster. This is a matter of historical fact. He was a tyrant who, having been raised to the nobility from common stock, enacted laws that ensured that no other commoner could rise up the ranks and threaten his position. He ordered the massacres of Christian missionaries and his own extended family, all for being potential future threats to his power and influence. He invaded Korea twice and attempted to exterminate their entire culture and history, just to make them a more convenient-to-use stepping stone in his long-term goal of invading China. A goal which, one might note, he failed at, miserably. And his catastrophic military adventurism all but ruined and bankrupted his clan, setting the stage for the rise of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the man who would eventually succeed in unifying the country. In Nioh 2, that controversial figure is split into two people. You play as the half of that team that could be described as a literal, physical monster, at least by mortal reckoning. A half-yokai warrior who transforms into demon form to gain an advantage in battle, an anomaly feared and resented by some others in Nobunaga's camp for unnatural powers. But you are, ever, a loyal and good person, whose forthright earnestness earns Nobunaga's respect. (As much as your player character has a character at all, being silent.) Tokichiro, on the other hand, is born human. He's crafty, clever, and almost monkey-like in his antics. But as he achieves power and fulfills his ambitions, he slowly becomes the moral monster we know to be the man who bears the name Hideyoshi. While depicting his crimes against Korea would obviously be a tough prospect for Koei-Tecmo, considering the ever-present diplomatic tensions between Japan and Korea to this day, the Nioh games depict his growing corruption and cruelty in other ways as his increasingly tyrannical personality drives a wedge between the two of you. Nioh 2 is the tale of the rise and ruin of Toyotomi Hideyoshi and, despite being told in a somewhat slapdash manner across multiple acts, it kinda works! Well. It does suffer from assuming you know who everyone is and why they matter, but that's the price of playing up the historical fantasy fiction angle. As a game it's just a rip-roaring good time and you genuinely don't need to give a drat about all the stuff I just talked about to enjoy it. As a story, though, it's clearly for the kind of person who wants to nerd out about Warring States era Japan through their bespoke historical fiction self-insert avatar. And you can be a ninja. And also Yoshi-P. At the same time.  (Yes, the Director of FFXIV, Naoki Yoshida, is one of the character presets in Nioh 2. No, I don't remember why he was put in.) _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________  4 - We Love Katamari My, Earth certainly is full of Things. There is a reason Katamari Damacy: REROLL is in my Honorable Mentions for this year. That's because playing it filled me with a great and terrible nostalgia for its sequel, We Love Katamari. Due to a lack of a rerelease, I did have to go off the beaten track for this one. Arguably the best game in the franchise, taking what was good with the first game and iterating on it with quiet confidence, providing more rolling-up action with the understanding that you're probably going to keep playing and replaying these levels for the fun of it. In the first game you could unlock the ability to play Endless Mode, kind of a sandbox with no pressure where you could just roll around, picking up everything in a stage, until there was nowhere else to go. In this game, instead, you're given speedrunning incentives to keep playing stages repeatedly and get better and faster at your runs, because that's what people were already doing with the first game, so why not tie some flavor and character interactions to it? And they made a wider variety of stages with different objectives, with the full confidence that the base idea of the game worked, so they could instead push the design further in interesting directions. The story of the game is, amusingly enough, the story of the game's development. Katamari Damacy was, by every measure, a surprise hit. Extremely so, especially to Bandai Namco, who had no idea that a weird little quirky puzzle game would make so much of a splash. Not just in Japan, but abroad as well. It was so popular that they had to make a sequel. The fans demanded it and they already had the assets. So the creator and lead designer, Keita Takahashi, was given the task of making Katamari Damacy again, only moreso. Thus every single level in the game is a request by a fan. And you're tasked with fulfilling their requests the only way you know how: by rolling everything you come across up into a ball and turning that ball into a celestial object. You know, katamari things.  This was also the last Katamari game that Keita Takahashi was involved in, as he moved on after this. Unsurprisingly, due to being so cheap to make and because of the popularity of their best two entries, the franchise continued on without him. All while slowly declining in quality and that playful, creative spark. He still makes games these days though by all accounts they're more like very chill toys you can mess around with if you feel like it. Not unlike the original Katamari Damacy, come to think of it. And, thus, Katamari Damacy: REROLL. Which is just the original game, but sharper, neater, and importantly for me, available on Steam. But really, what I would love most is an updated re-release of We Love Katamari. Also you get to roll up a ninja. The game claims he is a burglar. He is a ninja. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________  3 - The Great Ace Attorney Herlock Sholmes is proud to present… his “Logic and Reasoning Spectacular!” (Sholmes, let's go over that again…) The second returning game, this one from my GOTY 2019 list. So what changed here? Well, in 2021 it was actually officially released in English! With no help from the Doyle estate, that's for sure. As the most prominent example of the whodunit genre in gaming, the Ace Attorney series owes more to the Sherlock Holmes stories than most. So, it stands to reason that Capcom would want to pay homage to the grandfather of the genre. But, as it turns out, paying quite as direct an homage as they did would make releasing this game in the US a bit riskier than Capcom would like. Bit of a history lesson here. Back in the early 1900's, French author Maurice LeBlanc, gaining fame for his short stories and novels centered around his most popular character Arsene Lupin, gentleman-cambrioleur, decided to write a few short stories setting his character, Lupin, off against the most famous detective in literature, Sherlock Holmes. As this was a clear case of copyright infringement his British counterpart, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, put forth rather reasonable legal objections, all told. In response, Maurice LeBlanc complied with Doyle's demands in a manner he deemed most appropriate. By which I mean he moved a single letter in Sherlock's name. And changed Watson's name to Wilson, too, just to be safe. A century later, in homage to LeBlanc's infamous act of copyright mischief, Capcom would do the same in order to sidestep trouble with the infamously litigious Doyle estate. Which is just as well, as fan translation projects might bring a bump of attention to a game but that kind of momentum doesn't last forever. Capcom could've waited a couple years for the entirety of the Holmes canon to enter into the public domain in the US, sure, but this was faster and honestly pretty funny. Back when the only way for English-only audiences to experience the first game was through the fan translation patch, and only the first game, responses were mixed. In the years between its release and the first fan translation, GAA had earned a bit of that mystique that comes with a Japanese game that was never released abroad. So when it came out and people could try it out for themselves, it was impossible for the first game alone to live up to its reputation. "Pretty good, but overrated," was a common assessment. The music was incredible, the characters charming and lively, and the cases for the most part fun, twisty, and well-made. So what did the first Great Ace Attorney game lack? Catharsis. As an obvious first half of a two-party story, the first GAA game is incomplete not just in terms of a broader plot left unfinished, it's incomplete in tone as well. While you solve cases and find the real culprits, in the first game there's always something that robs your victories of their cathartic power. Either the culprit manages to weasel out of punishment, the culprit isn't the real villain, or there are tragic circumstances that render the culprit pitiable rather than fully, easily contemptible. Even the plot itself, incomplete as it is, defies any expectation for emotional satisfaction. Taken alone, it somehow feels a little hollow. Unfulfilling, even. The effect must be intentional and the complicated feelings it inspires are themselves worth considering. But it's clearly only half of the Ace Attorney experience. (I can't even imagine what it was like after the original release for the Japanese audience!) The second game takes everything the first game establishes and builds upon it, bringing much needed resolution both plotwise and emotionally. It's most obvious in the second game's tutorial case, which while being a lot of fun in its own right (and cleverly avoids having to give the protagonist, Ryunosuke, the tutorial as he should clearly know how to do his job by this point), also resolves a dangling plot point from the first game. It is however a bit long and, frankly, so are many of the cases, but that's not a severe flaw. And even the second game's special prosecutor directly follows up on a strangely hanging thread from the first. But released together, they can be judged as a complete package. And the Great Ace Attorney Chronicles are some of the best adventure games I've ever had the pleasure of playing.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvBXIk0smBA To be honest, there's only one adventure game I would rank higher. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________  2 - 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim You overestimate your Hemborger, my friend. My third returning game, and a masterpiece overlooked by the broader gaming audience at large. Despite the fact that I beat it last year, I still think about its structure, its characters, how cleverly it misdirects and reveals information. A lot, actually. I even occasionally spin up my PS4 and just play a few of the post-game tactical battles, just because I can. https://i.imgur.com/s00He0l.mp4 I went into more rambling detail last year, so I'm willing to settle for a more reasonable overview on what I feel 13 Sentinels does right.  It sets out with the incredibly ambitious goal of telling a coherent and interconnected story from the perspective of thirteen characters. And it for the most part succeeds. A lot of games that let you choose from a large number of multiple protagonists with their own stories do so by collecting their stories in an anthology format, rather than trying to weave a single broader narrative from their disparate pieces. This is true of Octopath Traveler, SaGa Frontier 1, and for the majority of Live A Live. In 13 Sentinels, though, there is a single timeline of events that occur in the game and each character's story takes place across various points in that timeline. Some are, by design, more independent and self-contained. But even these stories spill over into the others, sometimes in subtle ways, sometimes by providing important context to another character's story. Some stories take place across a wider span of that timeline, and the perceptive player can use those to piece together a bigger picture of events on the ground. Because of how the game is structured, different players will develop different theories about what's really going on based on what order they play each route. And it works. It's an intricate story that deliberately invokes cliche and archetype in order to turn the player's expectations on their head, but rarely for the sake of simply playing with the player. Instead of shocks and twists for the sake of it, every single reveal, every single added detail builds on the themes of the story as it pertains to that character's own, personal development. Themes of identity, determinism, and memory, all are explored in detail. Even characters who don't appear to have as much depth as the others are still juxtaposed against their predecessors and counterparts, clearly embodying those themes in straightforward fashion. After all, if multiple versions of a person exist, physically, mentally, and even digitally, are they not all equally valid existences, regardless of how identical they are? Are they not their own people? Well of course they are, and 13 Sentinels will illustrate this assertion from multiple angles. More than just a great adventure game, or even a great videogame, 13 Sentinels is great science fiction. It presents a mystery and uses the unfolding of that mystery to speculate, and posit, and explore. It's terrifying and overwhelming in its cosmic scope. It's rousing and touching in its humanity. It's a masterpiece that came out of the blue, drawing from their wealth of experience in creating beautiful and beloved, if niche, games (most noticeably, Odin Sphere and Grim Grimoire) to craft something spectacular. While not without flaws, it's still brilliant and breathtaking and there's nothing else quite like it. Apparently next year there'll be a Switch port of this game. Curiously, it's scheduled to come out in the West two days before a domestic release in Japan. And it looks like every character is getting some unique weapons and gear pieces for their mechs, too. So I guess I'll be double-dipping. Triple if they ever actually make a PC port. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oq9utTsAMg Runa fucked around with this message at 14:32 on Dec 31, 2021 |
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 1 - FFXIV Endwalker Walking alone unto journey's end, the burden weighing heavy.  While technically a new release, this selection represents my feeling on the entire game as a whole. Before 2019, my relationship with FFXIV was decidedly more mixed. I played this game because my friends did, even though I didn't really stick around much between major expansion releases. I had limited experience with other MMOs. Their stories were perfunctory at best and while I understood this to be standard for the genre, they still left me with not much to emotionally latch onto. Oftentimes you were just another random adventurer (or setting-appropriate analog thereof) and if grander designs were in motion you only played a bit part. While a number of older-school MMO players preferred things this way, to feel as though a wider world were going on around them while they were merely a part of that world, this narrative approach left me cold. In Final Fantasy 14, however, I was presented with the opportunity to take up the role of the Warrior of Light (or WoL for short), a recurring title with no small amount of symbolic cachet within the Final Fantasy franchise as a whole. And I wouldn’t have taken this shot had Naoki Yoshida (Yoshi-P) not somehow pulled off a miracle and salvaged one of the most notorious failures in gaming history. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________  A Realm Reborn, while an impressive technical feat on the development side, was merely "good for an MMO" rather than genuinely good. The story was less personal, more generic. For the most part fine, if standard fantasy fare, though not without its problems. If the ARR story had a theme it wasn't one that was distinct enough to note. There were genuinely interesting moments, sure. Almost all of them surrounding the early game's major threats, magically summoned deiform constructs called Primals. The most urgent threat facing the realm, a single Primal is capable of corrupting the minds, and eventually bodies, of any souls unfortunate enough to draw near in a process called tempering. Right from the start the WoL is introduced as one of the chosen champions of the goddess Hydaelyn. And you are charged with protecting the world from an unnamed threat. They are eventually named soon enough, though. And they are the Ascians, devotees to the sundered god Zodiark, split into fourteen pieces by Hydaelyn's power. They seek to bring forth Calamities in order to reawaken their god and to bring forth what they maintain to be the true world. This is all established as far back as ARR, though what these motivations actually mean, and the mechanics of what they're actually doing, aren't made clear until much, much, much later. You can be forgiven for assuming it's all a bunch of cryptic folderol. I certainly did at the time. However, chosen by a goddess or not, every hero has to start somewhere. They first make their name as one of those adventurers with an uncommon, but not unheard of, resistance to a Primal's corruptive influence. This is understood to be part of Hydaelyn's blessing though why her chosen have this resistance is left a mystery. Shortly thereafter they are recruited by a fellowship of scholars and adventurers dedicated to defending Eorzea from the Primal threat, the Scions of the Seventh Dawn. Or Scions for short. They quickly find distinction among even this group by defeating many of these threats, most notably an invasion force sent by the mighty Garlean Empire, thereby becoming Eorzea's preeminent godslayer by the end of ARR's main storyline. But yes, dramatic fights aside, significant portions of the ARR story, before the patch content, were simply, well boring. Not just a matter of having lower stakes with less personal investment in events, chunks of the story were deliberately and blatantly put in to waste time. Unfortunately, those chunks of story also provide just enough worldbuilding and context that they couldn't simply be removed. And the main antagonists lurking in the background, the Ascians, were utterly uncharismatic. Cryptic black-robed masked men and women, they were like Kingdom Hearts rejects who were ashamed to show their faces. There were hints of personality and charm in the story, if you cared to look, but it was the ARR patch content (patches 2.1-2.55) that took the pieces provided by the base game and started to build towards something special. Something that set its sight on loftier goals. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________  The first expansion, Heavensward, was the release that first earned FFXIV its acclaim not just for the circumstances of its revival but on its own merit as a game and story. On the broad scale HW's plot centers around a thousand-year war between the alpine country of Ishgard and the dragons of Nidhogg's Horde. Though the story itself was concerned with how prejudice, societal injustice, and vengeance feed into each other and perpetuate a vicious cycle. Well-trod territory, to be sure. But it's told effectively through not just the main storyline but the sidequests as well, including a number of class-specific questlines. As the WoL discovers the facts behind the events which predicated this war and the truths underpinning the whole of Ishgardian society, they are aided by companions and confidants with differing backgrounds and beliefs whose character development forms the story's emotional core. The story of Ishgard matters because the people of Ishgard matter and the characters put a human face to their tragedies and triumphs. When the WoL and their allies work to challenge the social injustices in Ishgard, to strive to build a better future for a people once bereft, when you actually change the status quo for the better, in an MMO no less, you feel it. And near the end, something happened. Through most of the game up to that point, whenever the player is given the opportunity to make a dialogue choice for the WoL, the choices given are usually blandly inoffensive. Generic "you're a hero" fare. In the wake of a tragic event in late Heavensward, the player is given another opportunity to respond in dialogue. And one of the options was noticeable in that it was surprisingly intense. Not particularly notable in a vacuum, but taken in the context of prior opportunities for characterization, it stands out. From that point on, the WoL slowly but surely, over the course of many years of expansions, grows to become not just a blank slate avatar but a character in their own right. A character who, while mostly unspoken, begins to develop an implicit personality through their expressions and the tone of their dialogue choices. And whose personal story develops through the various class quests they can pursue, as told most powerfully through the Dark Knight questline. The Scions, too, start to develop into a role beyond simply being colleagues, advisors, and questgivers. Their designs become more distinctive and they're given more characterization. They don't go so far as to steal your spotlight but as characters they become more comfortable fitting into the role of your direct supporting cast. After the villain of Heavensward is defeated, as he lays dying on the floor, he looks up in horror at the Warrior of Light and asks, "Who are you? What are you?!" Normally, when a villain says this it is a purely empowering moment for the hero as the villain cannot fathom how the hero can accomplish the things they've done. But something about the presentation of this scene, how ominous the Warrior of Light looks, and how genuinely terrified the villain was, sat uneasily with the players. These were words that would linger for years, inspiring speculation as to what he actually meant. What did he see, as the light faded from his eyes? A question worth asking. The story of Heavensward affected so many players that, for a large part of the playerbase, Ishgard felt like home. Which makes the fact that nobody can buy a house there pretty funny, to be honest. Next year that will change with one of Endwalker's patches. Until then, there's always the Firmament. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________  Stormblood, the second expansion, is interesting. In terms of gameplay it was clearly superior to both the base game and the prior expansion. Here, the devs really started to get a feel for how they wanted the game to play and both of the later expansions iterate on the design principles that StB established. To this day, I genuinely feel that Stormblood's Alliance Raid series is some of the best 24-player content I've played. Unfortunately it's paired with some of the worst story a raid questline has ever offered. Storywise, reception was more mixed than Heavensward. In terms of pacing, it's gutted by having two distinct major story arcs with their own tones and climaxes, one interrupting the other and playing out in full before returning to the first. In terms of core characters, the writers try to do something similar to HW's companion characters though they're limited by the fact that these characters don't have the same tension in their dynamic and thus room for interpersonal growth. Frankly, the two primary companions who follow you throughout StB are fundamentally very similar characters--brave, outgoing fighters who wear their hearts on their sleeves. While they have their charming moments there's just less character work being done when they're on screen. The main antagonist, Zenos, was as divisive as the story itself. He starts off aloof and uninterested, and thus uninteresting, before the WoL's ability to stand up to him in a fight inspires the most excitement he's had in his entire life. Shallow but straightforward, he had both fans and detractors. Thematically, Stormblood was more grounded than Heavensward but no less ambitious. A tale of revolution and the effects of colonialism on occupied peoples, Stormblood was stark, nuanced, and dreadfully realistic. The story shows what happens to people raised in a society that teaches them their race, and the cultures of their parents and grandparents, are inferior to those of their abusers. How monsters are made by internalized hatred and a desperate desire to earn a better place for themselves and their families. But, well. You can't go through four entire zone arcs hammering the same relentless message of how hopeless things are without the player starting to get emotionally exhausted. One zone, the Azim Steppe, became my favorite of the expansion by virtue of being a palate cleanser from the heavy tone and subject matter of preceding zones. It's an introduction to a Mongolia-inspired culture that treats its source inspiration with genuine affection, with a story filled with larger-than-life characters and refreshingly enthusiastic competition. In other fantasy works the Mongols are usually the primary inspiration for a faceless marauding horde, if not outright monsters entirely. Here, the Xaela of the Azim Steppe are treated as people with a charming culture and longstanding martial traditions that would probably be some cause for concern if the result weren't so drat fun. In terms of story momentum, the Azim Steppe is also the point where Stormblood's theme of revolution begins to look like it's finally within reach. It's where things start to feel like they're turning around. Also the scenery and music are pleasant, too.  But as Stormblood wrapped up, and a final confrontation with the Garlean Empire seemed imminent, the story took a surprising turn. After cooling on StB, I was unsure of what to make of this new direction, to be honest. Going into Shadowbringers, my expectations were low. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________  And when I played it, I fell in love with this game for the first time. The music was incredible, the world vibrant and haunting, the characters endearing, and the story a triumph. It's very difficult to talk about Shadowbringers without spoiling things. Even the premise itself is a surprise. With an unexpectedly fresh setting and a hard reset on the narrative momentum, Shadowbringers has to work hard to make the player care. And in its first zone arcs it spares no effort to establish the stakes. The player bears witness to the injustice, tragedy, and suffering plaguing their dying and broken land. And it gives you the opportunity to do something about it. The results are dramatic, breathtaking, and extremely effective at making you feel like a hero. The trajectory of the first arc establishes the basic structure for what follows, both in each individual zone arc as well as the expansion at large. Though it must be noted the first two thirds of Shadowbringers are very deliberately paced. While other expansions focused on pushing forward with constant forward momentum, each zone arc in Shadowbringers is treated as its own story with its own distinct take on the expac's themes and tone, and structurally there was a clear intermission between each arc. Some players disliked that, and felt that the story only really kicks into gear in the final act. I understand those criticisms, but I cannot agree with them. I came to become deeply familiar with the lands and their people and only cared more and more strongly about them as time went on. And every return to the Crystarium--the WoL's home for the duration of the expac--gave me valuable time to decompress and process the emotional rollercoasters the story insisted on putting me through. And most importantly, gave characters the opportunity to be people. The Scions receive a good deal of character development here, just in time for the player to finally be able to bring them into dungeons as actual party members. After years of being a more distant supporting cast, in Shadowbringers they together with the WoL feel like a cohesive team. Which is good, because the bonds between these characters, including the WoL, are what gives the story of Shadowbringers its strength. Thematically, it's about love and sacrifice. From individual zone arcs to the motivations of both your allies and your antagonists, every major plot throughline illustrates and reinforces these themes. Shadowbringers does not ask how much would you be willing to sacrifice for those you love. The answer to that question is treated almost as a given as heroic characters are constantly shown to be willing to sacrifice themselves while villainous characters are all too ready to force others to make those sacrifices for them. Instead, Shadowbringers presents you with the costs of these sacrifices both of the self and others. It asks of the selfish to consider the lives of those they mean to sacrifice to be of equal worth to those loved ones they've lost. It asks of the selfless to value their own lives as much as those loved ones they hope to save. And it asks the Warrior of Light to carry a special burden. To truly become the protagonist of the story. Even as the plot grows in scope to the scale of worldwide threats, even as the curtains are pulled back and the man behind the man is revealed, Shadowbringers focuses first and foremost on characters. As the scope increases the context becomes more intimate, more emotional. For the Warrior of Light, Shadowbringers is their darkest hour and most personal triumph. It's a brave decision for an MMO narrative to take the player avatar, especially one that began as an entity with as little narrative presence as possible, and build them into a character in their own right. By giving that avatar a range of personality that exists within the narrative, however limited, that avatar becomes constrained by new limits that would otherwise not be present. This sacrifices the freedom of imagination and pure player-driven roleplaying in order to allow this avatar to exist as a character in a written narrative. And we are richer for it, because this allows the Warrior of Light to become a character for the player to grow invested in. This approach has not gone without some pushback. More than a few times you may find people posting online about how the WoL's personality, personal attachments, and even priorities, do not match how they imagine their self-insert character to be. This is a fascinating problem to have. Contrast this with SWTOR which wrote its player avatars to be characters from the start. And voiced, too. Though that approach also has its limits, especially when it effectively meant they had to write eight different main storylines in parallel. But a story with a villain is only as good as that villain and FFXIV had for years been saddled with carrying the burden of being driven by the actions of the then-maligned, once-forgettable Ascians. Shadowbringers, in focusing on characters first and foremost, did the same with these black-robed blackguards and humanized them. They became tragic, even sympathetic. And it was thanks in no small part due to the lead writer, Natsuko Ishikawa, giving us the greatest and most compelling villain in the entire history of Final Fantasy, Emet-Selch.  (I will note here that Ishikawa also wrote the Dark Knight questline, the Crystal Tower quests, and the Far East half of Stormblood. She'd cut her teeth telling emotionally charged stories with charismatic and compelling characters, including the WoL themselves. In retrospect, had I learned who she was and that she had been selected to be Shadowbringers' main writer ahead of time, perhaps my expectations would not have been so low.) Among the greatest of the Ascians, Emet-Selch is a sneering, tired, depressed old rear end in a top hat who had been working in the background of the story under other aliases, one of which was actually known to the player before this point. Here in Shadowbringers he steps out into the spotlight and he milks it for all its worth. This slouchy, greasy rat man inveigles his way into the story in charmingly catty fashion and steals every scene he's in. And most refreshingly, and surprisingly, he's upfront and honest. Disarmingly so. Worryingly so. He's incredibly frank about what he and the Ascians are doing and he's even willing to entertain the idea of trying to recruit the WoL and the Scions to do it, though the likelihood of them agreeing is infinitesimally faint. More so than any other Ascian, he takes a genuine interest in the Warrior of Light. It's clear he sees something in them that the other Ascians didn't and that makes his involvement in these events deeply personal to him. (While I will not go into detail or explain more than the broad strokes, just talking about the thematics of the final confrontation at the end of 5.0 veers close enough to actual spoilers that I felt it was appropriate to provide spoiler tags as a courtesy. Whether or not you choose to read this following passage, be reassured that you have my thanks for reading this far regardless of your choice.)  Emet-Selch is the one who draws back the curtains and finally explains, in full, who the Ascians are and what it is they are actually fighting for. They were victims and now perpetrators of an incredibly profound tragedy on a grand scale. And when presented with what the Ascians, what Emet-Selch, had lost, and the burdens they carried, I felt that loss keenly. I was heartbroken, not just to be presented with this tragic tale, but to finally understand what Zodiark fought for and what it truly meant when Hydaelyn sundered him. But allowing Emet to succeed in his goals was unacceptable, however much I understood why he fought. A victory for the Ascians would mean the end of everything, everyone, the Warrior of Light held dear. The Warrior of Light had to keep fighting. I had to keep fighting. And when it looked like Emet was about to win, and all hope was lost, we got a little push. A gentle shove in the right direction to turn the tables and take one final stand. We could prove to him, here and now, that the Warrior of Light was not just some broken shattered thing. That they could challenge Emet-Selch not just as a trumped up mortal pawn but as a peer and fellow champion. As someone who he could respect, however much he denied it. Someone whose existence, and by proxy the lives of those they fought for, was of equal value to his and those he had lost. The finale of 5.0 was the first time I'd actually cheered and shouted at the climax of a story. It's deeply rousing, spectacular, and heartfelt. Every little bit of presentation lands perfectly and by the end it was the most satisfying conclusion to a Final Fantasy I had ever played. The follow-up story, from the Eden raid questline to the MSQ patch quests from 5.1 to 5.3, had a lot of expectations to live up to. But they met them with great aplomb. The 5.3 trial is still an utter delight to play and the patch as a whole was a fantastic send-off to an amazing story. A heartwarming coda that brought me to tears multiple times. And the Eden raids left things on a highly optimistic note, even showing the opportunity of redemption for an Ascian, and helping them find a place in this world, with people who love and care for them. A deeply satisfying conclusion in its own right, Shadowbringers still laid down the foundations for what was to come. It paved the way for us to walk to the End. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________  This is the hardest part to talk about because everything is a spoiler. The devs made sure to meet the expectations players had, both in terms of quality as well as content, and then continued far past those limits. Even the narrative structure of the expansion pack is a spoiler, A Realm Reborn, and even 1.0, had a particular theme song. Composed by Nobuo Uematsu, whose legacy Masayoshi Soken carries forth to this day, its lyrics ask a question common to the human experience. Why do we continue to live, and why must we fight on, if to live is to know suffering? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39j5v8jlndM This song not only sets the stage for A Realm Reborn, but it also encapsulates the story of FFXIV as a whole, as it stands. It is the theme of the saga of Hydaelyn and Zodiark, of which Endwalker is the final episode. Both Endwalker and this song pose the same questions on a philosophical level, and, indeed, provide their Answers. Going into the final expansion, the Warrior of Light knows who they are. The player knows. The only thing to do is to go forth and make things right. Right? Well. Endwalker has the unenviable position of being the sequel to a wildly, fervently beloved chapter in a long-running series. Everyone going in had their doubts, especially about the villains that dominated much of the promotional material. Emet-Selch is an extremely tough act to follow and, even in the best of times, Endwalker's villain hadn't really wowed the audience. But it works! Powerfully so. As a conclusion to the FFXIV story it succeeds and leaves room for new stories to be told. It's satisfying, and moving, and brings a strong sense of closure and resolution. Thematically, well, EW opens with its themes right when you load up the game. The instant you hit the title screen you're presented with a voice softly singing, "Tales of loss, and fire, and faith." The opening zone acts spur you on to adventure, a relatively breezy aperitif for the largest expansion pack by sheer volume of content. While mysteries emerge, and dramatic reveals are made, Endwalker begins with an air of excitement. We're about to reach the end, it seems to say, we're going to cancel the apocalypse! But make no mistake, Endwalker is not afraid to lay on the heaviest of drama and most painful of tragedies. Because the core theme, spoken right from the start, is the question of suffering. We're made to bear witness to countless tragedies, many preventable, if not for all too-realistic human flaws and prejudices, but many that are not. Tragedies that people are forced to endure regardless of anyone's best efforts because this mortal world is not a kind and perfect place. When the tragedies compound on each other it's all the heroes can do to take what small victories they can, to save those who are willing to listen and to place their trust in them. Nowhere is this most clear than in Garlemald. Before Shadowbringers, and before Stormblood, players would often discuss what would the story look like should the war finally move away from defending Eorzea and its allies and towards the Garlean Imperial homeland. People were genuinely worried about what things would look like should Eorzea become the conqueror and Garlemald the conquered. No surprise, then, that this was an ever-present worry among Garlemald's citizenry, too. The entire Garlemald zone arc is a study in the effects of war, not just occupation, and generations of propaganda on an otherwise innocent population. Instead of an army of conquest, Eorzea and its allies send its best on a mission of mercy. They make an honest show of good faith to save the civilians of an embattled country faced with the prelude to the apocalypse. One that nearly backfires in spite of their best efforts, as the world is never quite so simple. Pride and patriotism nearly doom a dying people. But the heroes never stop trying. The world is a place of suffering, but they believe they can build a better one and will not give up on it. It's a powerful story arc, with a resolution that brings a lot of closure to the story of the Garlean Empire. It could've been a rather fitting ending in its own right if not for the fact that the story was still in its first act. Like in Shadowbringers, the writers have learned their lessons from Stormblood. Rather than compounding tragedy after tragedy, Endwalker gives the player time to digest the story they've experienced, to recover from any hits they might've taken. And, importantly, to remind them of the beauty and wonder of the world, and what it is they're fighting for. Heavy story arcs are given time to wind up and land harder while lighter story arcs give time to provide important information and context. And this also allows the characters time to breathe as well and, once more, be people. To be fair, it is not subtle in expressing its themes. Large portions are clearly informed by Buddhist philosophy, which should come as no surprise considering that the story is greatly concerned with suffering and what best to do about it. Faith is a major part, not just in terms of religion and spirituality, but faith in people. One of the most compelling, and controversial, character arcs in the story is predicated on one particular character’s faith. Not just in mankind as a whole, but in one brave hero with whom they could entrust a light into the future. Endwalker goes big, and I mean really big. Cosmic, even, though always grounded in an emotional context the reader can still connect to. It’s endearingly self-indulgent, relentlessly powerful, and a musical delight. Its story and characters inspire fierce discussion, philosophical and otherwise. It swings for the fences and knocks the ball out of the park. It’s easily my second favorite Final Fantasy. After Shadowbringers. 
Runa fucked around with this message at 11:00 on Jan 1, 2022 |
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Dec 31, 2021 14:07
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Also, you can be a Ninja, I guess.  Runa’s Summary List, for Rarity’s Sake: 10- Humankind 9- Ring Fit Adventure 8- Deathloop 7- Atelier Ryza 1 6- Guilty Gear Strive 5- Nioh 2 4- We Love Katamari 3- Great Ace Attorney 2- 13 Sentinels 1- FFXIV Endwalker
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Dec 31, 2021 14:07
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Oh poo poo Rarity posted while I was assembling my stuff
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Dec 31, 2021 14:10
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It was actually really fun to write about the games I liked and I got kind of carried away with it. But! I'm going to put Okami HD, SMTV, Neo TWEWY, and Metroid Dread on my should-probably-try list.
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Dec 31, 2021 23:09
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Stux posted:the only reason i dont nhave more 2021 releases is bcos i had too many 2020 releases to play and now i have a ton of 2021 games to start 2022 with A pretty common situation by the looks of things
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Jan 1, 2022 02:31
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ParliamentOfDogs posted:1. Final Fantasy 14: Endwalker 
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Jan 1, 2022 03:18
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Alxprit posted:Shoutout to the person that included Webbed. I haven't gotten to it yet but as the resident Bug-Obsessed Gamer it's definitely on my shortlist for next summer of indie streams.   this explains so much
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Jan 1, 2022 05:31
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The final half hour...
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Jan 1, 2022 08:28
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Jan 1, 2022 09:00
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Stux posted:
These tracks slap
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Jan 2, 2022 01:28
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I have zero faith in SE atm and am just hoping they don't screw up 14 down the line
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Jan 2, 2022 23:09
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Classic orange
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Jan 3, 2022 02:06
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Regy Rusty posted:Give me a PS5 and ill play it
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Jan 8, 2022 23:09
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I'm glad I made it in time for the countdoooooown
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Jan 8, 2022 23:10
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Regy Rusty posted:Give me a PS5 and ill play it
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Jan 8, 2022 23:15
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gently caress, looped
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Jan 8, 2022 23:15
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Throwing dolphins was genuinely overpowered for like a month or so it was wild
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Jan 8, 2022 23:16
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Jay Rust posted:#11 is a shameful position, rip It's number 1 but twice
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Jan 8, 2022 23:20
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I'd also like an Endwalker probe, but with this picture of the marketing WoL on the moon as the reason: (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jan 9, 2022 03:27
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I'm not going to refute Stux's assertions because there's nothing wrong with voter outreach and Shadowbringers and Endwalker both own
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Jan 9, 2022 20:31
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| # ¿ May 11, 2024 18:55 |
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I'm glad more people gave YLAD a shot and only regret that I didn't finish my 2020 list earlier in the month.
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Jan 9, 2022 22:13
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