2016 Game Reflection

I played fewer new games this year than I have in quite some time, owing to my ramped up school schedule and, to be honest, a lack of titles I was interested in this year. A lot of the "big games" this year were FPS titles and other genres I don't care much about. With that said, I had some good times. Currently, I am playing Final Fantasy XII (third attempt, enjoying it this time) and Bravely Second (okay so far), but I am not far enough along in them to say much. I'll reflect on them at the end of 2017, hopefully!

These are the games I played in 2016, ranked in order from the one I liked least to most.

13. I Am Setsuna
I don't think this is a bad game by any means, and if it had been released ten years ago I might have loved it. Sadly, I have played so many similar RPGs now that none of the good qualities of the game stood out for me. Instead, the things I noticed most were negatives. Anyone who has played Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy X, and various other Square titles will immediately recognize the tropes this game is constantly referencing. (and trying to paint deadly serious) The game almost has no identity of its own. That alone would not have ruined the game for me, but the slow pace combined with a soundtrack entirely composed of soft piano music and a blinding white color palette made I am Setsuna very soporific for me. I think in the final session I played, I was literally starting to fall asleep before deciding to call it quits for good. I'll give this title props for trying to expand on the combo system in CT a little, but the inclusion of many questionable elements common in more recent RPGs dragged things down. Monster loot, cooking, etc. It all felt tacked on and insignificant.

One of the things I loved about Chrono Trigger is how quickly and stylishly it plays and presents itself; one could argue the game was too simplistic, but this simplicity made the experience engaging. In comparison, Setsuna tries to be bleak and moody and misses the appeal of the game it is trying so hard to resemble. In fact, after I dropped this game I actually played through Chrono Trigger again to see if I was just dead wrong. After all this time and so many replays, I was still so engaged I finished CT, including all its sidequests, in 2 days. I feel like modern imitation-classic RPGs want to have their cake and eat it too: they try to appeal to our nostalgia for a simpler time, but also want to seem deep and edgy like modern indie games. It's actually a mistake I made in designing my last game (Motrya). There's a tough balance here that is hard to hit.

At any rate, I'm rambling. The short version is some people might dig this game, but I was bored.

12. The Witcher

This was my third attempt to play this game. The previous two times, I was held back by hardware issues. Despite being an older game at this point, The Witcher requires a relatively expensive graphics card and processor to run. Anyway, once I finally did get this game working, I found it wasn't worth the trouble for me. While I respect a lot of what this game is doing, in particular trying to make a believable fantasy setting, I don't find it enjoyable to play at all. The quests are typical things you see in western RPGs and the combat is essentially just... clicking the mouse rhythmically. I'm not sure how else to describe it. It's hilarious to me how WRPG purists say turn-based combat is so bad when these modern action RPGs are more dull than Seiken Densetsu and Tales of Phantasia were 20 years ago. There are a lot of extra systems you have to keep track of like Potion making, sorting your inventory, and whatnot. It's all needlessly complicated and I lost interest fast.

Putting gameplay aside, I can't say the story is anything I was interested in either. I was not enamored with Geralt as a character, though I guess he is fine. Some of the NPCs seemed interesting, but I didn't play far enough to find out more about them, if they re-emerged at all. There is also a lot of gratuitous sexual innuendo and vulgarity in this game that made me cringe at several points, not just because it was gross, but because it felt so hamfistedly inserted to try and appeal to people who think swear words are funny. (I'm not a Game of Thrones fan either, for the record...) On that note, if you like Game of Thrones, you might like this game.

Overall, The Witcher seems like a fairly typical western RPG. It's rare they hold my attention, owing in part to the fact that I didn't grow up playing them.


11. Pokemon GO
I hope placing this above the last two games didn't trigger anyone... In all fairness, I think Pokemon GO is the worst game on this list, but the truth is it held my interest longer.

This game's concept is dynamite. You go out in the world, you catch Pokemon, you meet people who also like Pokemon, you even get some exercise doing it. Well, the concept was about the extent of its appeal. After a few weeks, it became clear to me this game was just a repetitive grind designed to entice you into buying virtual backpacks. Several mechanics were also poorly thought out; in particular, evolution requiring repeated captures of the same monsters. Another problem I had was that Gym battles are nearly impossible to play unless you are one of the few people in an area with the time/accessibility to get high level monsters.

Additionally, it's just way too hard to find Pokemon in some regions. I live in Columbia, SC, which is not a huge city, but one of decent size. Even though there are plenty of population centers here, the variety of Pokemon around was very slim, and I even found Pokestops to be rarer than I would have liked.

The basic mechanic of the game, throwing Pokeballs, is dirt simple but engaging. I think Niantic had something amazing here, but they will never capitalize and make something great like they could have. Overall, I was just as happy to quit playing this game as I was to play it for the first couple of weeks.

10. The Wolf Among Us
This will probably be the last TellTale game I play unless they venture into an IP I care a lot about. I bought this thinking it was actually an original TellTale IP, then found out while playing it was based on a graphic novel series called Fables. I wasn't really motivated to check it out afterward, but if you like messed-up, gritty fairy tales it's worth a shot. Gameplay-wise, it's like The Walking Dead, but with even fewer puzzles and more QTEs in their place. Your choices matter even less than in previous titles, too. I feel like Telltale is gradually devolving into a company that makes mediocre animated films instead of games.

Bigby (the Big Bad Wolf) is your typical gruff anti-heroish cop investigating murders in sleazy parts of the city. He's surrounded by the archetypal characters you see in fiction parodying crime drama. Deadbeats, prostitutes, that one female detective with a heart of gold... name it and it's in this story. Take away the fact they are from various fables, and there are literally no interesting characters in the game. I was disappointed that the game did not delve much into the fantasy world the characters were from, actually.

There's not much to see here. It's an entertaining enough cop drama if you can play the game for cheap, but I wouldn't go out of your way for it. Maybe if you're a fan of the source material.

9. Plants vs. Zombies Heroes

This is a Hearthstone clone. That's honestly all I have to say about it because there isn't anything else to say. It's pretty fun, but I felt empty inside because there were so many random factors at play. Well, okay, I'll say that you can get quite a lot of play time out of this game for free, so that's something, but why this is a standard we should be hoping for in gaming is beyond me.

Here's my recommendation: instead of bothering, play Dominion online instead. Or any number of other engaging tabletop games.

8. Mother
It always ashamed me that I had not finished the original Mother, being a big fan of Mother 2 and 3. I had attempted to finish the game several times, but was put off by its slow battles and directionless map design. This time, I played with maps of the areas open and just tried to be patient and it all worked out.

With that said, I still think Mother is not a good game. It has some elements I liked, but the complete package is frustrating and overly slow-paced. As far as I know, Mother was one of the first RPGs to have a hub world (Magicant) and I liked that in this game. It was also conceptually interesting; Ninten enters a dream world somebody created that helps him get around the physical world. Not much was done with this, but it is a Famicom game so I can look the other way a little. There are a lot of moments in the game that are meant to be funny story beats like the ones in future Mother games, but are too brief to hit the mark, again owing to the antiquity of the hardware and gaming as a medium. Mother feels like a demo for Mother 2 as a result; tons of its music and designs are recycled in the sequel.

I have often heard hip Mother fans say this one has the "best story," but I have to respectfully disagree. The story in this game is very bare-bones and does not have much to do with its main characters. We get small portraits of Giygas and some of Ninten's ancestors, but it's all presented in little chunks that are easily forgotten over the long stretches of exploration in between events, and all it actually amounts to is "a woman took an alien in one time and that was a mistake." If you're looking for the wit and B-movie sensibility of Mother 2, you won't find it here.

Regardless, the game has its strong points. It is remarkably bug free, a rarity in Famicom RPGs. Status magic is actually very effective, and there are truly challenging areas in the game that had me liberally using the run and defend commands. If the game had a better built-in map, I would even venture to say exploring the vast overworld might be pretty fun. Also, the soundtrack is really nice, though the CD version is of much better quality.

The game is worth checking out if you already liked Mother 2 and 3, but I hesitate to believe people who say they liked this one more than those. It is a mediocre RPG of its era, not even close to as playable as Dragon Quest III or Final Fantasy III.


7. Salt and Sanctuary
A decent Souls-inspired platformer. Salt and Sanctuary has many of the good aspects of the Souls franchise, most notably its twisty, interconnected map design. It also borrows a similar leveling system, the bloodstain concept, and a general philosophy toward weapon movesets. While it borrows a lot of things, I never felt the game was as successful as From Software's games. It feels very much like an indie platformer, and some techniques (such as rolling) simply don't work as well in 2D as they did in Souls.

The game has an odd difficulty level. Most of the time it's quite easy, but there are three or four areas that are excruciating to get through, especially the ones that require precision platforming. Boss combat has the same feeling; I only struggled with a few bosses, but the tough ones are very tough, one in particular feeling downright unfair.

Aesthetically, the game is very drab and gray. This works in its favor sometimes, but clashes poorly with the 2000s flash-animation looking sprites. Lighting was a major issue for me in a few areas, and while the developers might have intended it to make traversal more challenging, I merely found it annoying in the super-dark areas.

There's probably more I could say about this game, but my overall feeling is "not as good as a Souls game, but pretty good considering the price." I played through the game once and enjoyed most of my time, but probably won't revisit it.

6. Final Fantasy XV
FFXV starts out brilliantly. After a brief introduction telling us our hero is going on a journey to wed his beloved and the clear implication that all is not right with his father's kingdom, the car immediately breaks down, the heroes push it up a hill, "Stand By Me" plays in the background and we pan up to the Final Fantasy logo. I got chills watching this scene and thought maybe this title could successfully move Final Fantasy in a direction I didn't hate. I spent the first 40 hours of the game on the first 3 chapters, driving around the overworld, fishing, scrapbooking, fighting monsters for quests, and training my chocobos. I was having a good time in spite of a few hangups (the load times, ugh) and sure that people complaining about the story online were missing the point.

The problem with this game is that it is two games. The camping and driving simulator in which Noctis bonds with his bros before heading off to get hitched is fun and engaging. Unfortunately, once the plot actually starts moving, everything that made the game fun is stripped away. At this point, FFXV actually becomes the dreaded hallway simulator everyone said FFXIII was. To illustrate, there are two chapters in the second half of the game that end with you being dropped in a train map and told to walk around until the chapter ends. The only way you can go back to the game that was actually fun is to use a convoluted time travel feature. This was so obviously rushed into the game at the last minute I don't even know what to say.

Let me be clear, and there are SPOILERS at this point. I don't have anything against characters being hurt and damaged, or significant changes to the world happening in order for the plot to have high stakes. However, FFXV does this way too quickly. Luna dies, the original purpose for being on the adventure at all is gone before we even got to know her. After this point, the game is just on rails and has so similarity to the game you might have enjoyed before this. Ignis being blinded is much more effective because at this point you (at least I was) are attached to him and hate to see him damaged. But FFXV didn't bother to set up a story in which we would care about the other characters affected by its events. It also becomes abundantly clear that huge sections of the game are missing and characters' storylines were abandoned in development.

FFXV makes clear references to FFVI and wants to be like it. Because it does this, I think it's fair to compare the two of them. When Kefka destroys the world in VI and we're left the pick up the pieces, it's actually an effective shift in the dynamic of the story. We know the villain well at this point (whereas Ardyn is a mystery from beginning to end), we have grown attached to the heroes, and the game invites us to explore and recuperate before taking on Kefka. FFXV does a time skip after Ardyn wrecks things, but it denies you the moments to even gather the characters you cared about. It would have been so easy too! Why not have Gladiolus lose faith and need to be pulled out of a slump by Noctis? Why not have Prompto think Noctis abandoned him and join the Magitek soldiers, then have Noctis face him and convince him he still cares? (which would have been set up perfectly by the revelation in Chapter 13) Why not have Ignis get lost in a cave or something and need you to help him? I came up with this stuff in about 2 minutes. In the actual game, you just ride a trailer to a truck stop and all three of your buddies are hanging out there twiddling their thumbs.

The sad thing is I can go on. There is so much wrong with this game's script and pacing that it would be an endless well of criticism. Other people have already done this, and frankly I don't want to because it makes me sad knowing how great this game should have been.

Gameplay is a mixed bag, but I can't say I hated it. The battle system in FFXV is also broken, though it fares better than the story. Essentially, as long as you are carrying Potions and Phoenix Downs, you can't really die in this game. You can also just have Noctis hold Square and dodge everything while your teammates slowly kill everything. Very few encounters offer a real challenge, and the ones that do (Couerls) feel cheap and obnoxious.

The game shines most in its exploration, whether it's driving around the world map or walking around dungeons. Unfortunately, not many of the dungeons are required to finish the game, so I didn't even see all of them. (I was not motivated to go back and complete the game after finishing the story) Little things like how happy cooking makes Ignis and looking at photos from your journey along the way are great, and I wish the developers had made these parts of the game the focus in the second half.

I don't know how this game could have been fixed. Maybe it needed more development time. Maybe it never had a chance. It isn't the worst game ever, and I did enjoy that first 40 hours a lot, so I give it a hesitant pass. Still, I can only dream of how awesome this game might have been if the developers understood what a solid concept they had.

5. Ace Attorney Phoenix Wright: Spirit of Justice
It's another Ace Attorney game, and I'd rank it somewhere in the middle of the pack. Some great cases with Apollo here, but Athena gets the short end of the stick (and gets treated like she's never run a case during her one trial). I think these games are starting to get a little stale for me, but even so I felt like this was a worthy addition to the series. The new divination seance segments are an interesting method of looking at a case, but I hope they don't return. I feel these games are more fun when they have only sparing use of their mystic elements in trials. The new side characters are mostly lame and forgettable. But getting back to Apollo, I felt this was the first title in which we really learned what makes him tick as a lawyer. I was satisfied with his character arc here, as well as his sendoff. I suppose they could bring him back in spin-offs, but I doubt the fans are clamoring for it.

I would only recommend this game to folks who have played the other games, but I doubt anyone would jump in on this one anyway.

4. Super Mario Maker
In this game, you make Mario stages and then play bad stages people posted online. It's a hoot. Do I need to say more about this? I will give Nintendo major credit for making essentially the product I wanted here. Awesome game to share with a friend or SO who likes being creative so you can play their stages.

3. Zero Escape: Zero Time Dilemma
So I think it's almost impossible to review this game without spoiling things, and frankly the only people who should bother with this game are people who played the first two. I would assume if you were going to check it out, you already have and I don't need to convince anyone. I'll be brief then. I think this is the worst of the Zero Escape games, but even with that said it's a worthy entry to the series. The same stuff you liked about the previous games is in this one, and it deepens the lore a bit. I was not a big fan of the plot twists near the end and despised one of the characters with a passion, but it's small potatoes. The game kept me hooked just like the previous ones. Solid VA, hilarious overuse of dutch angles, weird puzzles.


2. Dark Souls 3
The (supposedly) final Souls game is, to everyone's surprise, a great game. it's also the fifth game and starting to get tired, so I do hope this is truly the end. This game has fantastic map design, maybe the best combat mechanics in the series, and it looks/sounds great. It's packed to the brim with references to all four of the past games, and honestly, this made me smile. Several of the bosses were very challenging to me, but the game was nowhere near as hard as Bloodborne on the whole. I look forward to playing it more in the future.

On the negative side, apart from the superlatives I mentioned, everything else is "mediocre" compared to Demon's Souls/Dark Souls/Bloodborne. I did enjoy the game a lot more than Dark Souls 2, though. This is the only Souls game I only played twice the year it was released, and while I was busy in 2016, I have to think Souls burnout is the culprit.

Not much to say here other than "if you liked Dark Souls, you'll probably like this game too." It's awesome!

1. Another Metroid 2 Remake: Return of Samus
AM2R is my choice for the best game of 2016. I get extra cool points since it's illegal now. Politics aside, I think AM2R's quality is nothing short of incredible. The Metroid series has been screwed by its owners right and left for practically a decade now, and I love that a dedicated fan took the initiative and made a fantastic game that truly captures the feeling of Metroid that people loved. This project is a true labor of love; no money was made for all I understand--all that got exchanged here is a great game.

The original Metroid II was always an underrated title. It had an unsettling, cold atmosphere that was only possible to capture (probably partially by accident) at the time on its system (the original Game Boy). It wasn't a brilliantly designed game, but contributed to the series both mechanically and aesthetically, and these contributions played a large part in the creation of Super Metroid, still remembered by many (myself included) as one of the greatest Super Famicom games. AM2R is an adaptation that makes liberal changes to the original, adding in techniques seen in all of the games that proceeded Metroid II as well as some original ones. While it doesn't have quite the same feeling, the graphics are nonetheless spooky and effectively depict the environment of SR388 on a modern PC.

One of the things I always loved about the Metroid series is the creators' dedication to physics. So many platformers feel terrible to me compared to Metroid, and I was skeptical than an indie developer would be able to match the controls I expected. Color me surprised that AM2R might just have the best movement and control in any Metroid game, official or not. Samus controls quickly and smoothly, and even has a shortcut button for morphing now, which was something I never knew I wanted. The game has plenty of hidden sequence breaking tricks to facilitate speed runs, some of them quite cleverly designed. While not all of the combat in the game is perfect, the enemies presented here do provide a significant challenge even for a Metroid veteran. Fans of the original will not just get a 1:1 remake--there are lots of new areas and bosses to discover here, and lore-wise they fit nicely into the series we already know.

I understand why Nintendo had to shut this game down, but I am very happy it was able to spread onto the internet before that happened. The odds that Nintendo will ever release another 2D Metroid game are looking slimmer by the year, and with the failure of Federation Force and Other M one can't blame them. However, AM2R perfectly demonstrates how the Metroid fanbase is still out there and still cares deeply about this series. If you are a Metroid fan and have given this game a blind eye, I urge you to sail the dark corners of the internet and give it a try for yourself.