With the birth of my first child in June, grad school ramping up to its finale, and teaching a course, I got far fewer games finished this year than I normally would have played, but I still played some good ones and am looking forward to things I missed at some point in the future (particularly Nier: Automata). Currently, I'm playing through Dragon Quest Monsters, which is fun but antiquated.
Shoutouts to Dragon Quest VII and VIII, which took up a lot of my game time in 2016 and 2017, but were not strictly-speaking new games to me. I preferred the original DQVII and liked the 3DS port of VIII more than the original. Both are amazing games worth playing for anyone.
8. Night in the Woods
This game seems to have touched a lot of people, but I felt very indifferent after finishing it. It's nihilistic at its core, which is cool I guess, but I felt the game was attempting to build to some point and never got there. The final act of the story was also rushed and felt out of place. Visual design was nice, but I just wasn't feeling it. Wins the award for least likeable main character of any game I played this year!
7. The Walking Dead: A New Frontier
I was in no hurry to play this, and to be honest, I never actually did. I just watched a streamer's run. Playing games is hard with a baby around, okay? Anyway, I think this was actually an improvement over the second Walking Dead game; it didn't rely much on the past games for investment in characters and had a more interesting take on the settlement scenario. Still, I never got attached to the characters like I did in season 1. I think S1 was lightning in a bottle. There was a lot of blatant deus ex machina going on this time around, particularly near the end, when a character named Jesus literally shows up at the last minute and saves everyone. I guffawed.
6. Environmental Station Alpha
A pretty nice Metroid clone; good atmosphere and some interesting level design. I didn't care for the bosses and felt like the controls took a bit too much getting used to, but I can't say the game faltered all that much either in execution. It was fun, but I didn't leave it wowed or anything. Recommended if you need more Metroid clones in your life.
5. Bravely Second: End Layer
If I was scoring this entirely on creativity, I'd rank it more highly. I thought it was really cool that the developers came up with so many interesting new classes in what is essentially a tried and true JRPG. Unfortunately, the game itself doesn't feel balanced for all the different stuff it gives you, so I didn't feel challenged or invested like I did in the original Bravely Default. The script is hot garbage and it has one of the worst original soundtracks I've heard in an RPG. Everything else is pretty good. Despite bad writing, I liked the characters, particularly the two new main ones. It has all the bells and whistles that made BD's gameplay feel tight. It's a fun sequel, but nothing really special. Hopefully they get a solid team for the third game.
4. Final Fantasy XII (IZJS edition)
After all these years, I finally beat FFXII! Now I've finished all the mainline Final Fantasy games and can properly complain about this one. The thing is, I'm too tired to do that, and part of the reason is that this game was just so exasperating to play. It never ends, the combat ceases being interesting halfway through, and the plot just never picks up or gets exciting. The best parts of the game were the world design touches, which were admittedly well-handled, though it's a shame the first third of the game is spent in deserts without much variation. That was half the reason I got bored the first three times I tried to play through this. I'd say overall it's better than the first two Final Fantasy games, but that's about it. I'll tie it with FFXV as third-worst.
My opinion is that this game is virtually unplayable without the features added in IZJS (or The Zodiac Age). It's an insanely slow game, so having a built-in fast forward button was a godsend. Long load times, lots of waiting for the ATB/charge times to fill up so the AI can attack for you, and a walking speed that is just glacial all add up. I'd say roughly 30 of the hours I spent (out of 60 or so) were probably waiting for things to happen during combat, and I seriously doubt I'm exaggerating. I am not sure how so many people find this fun and think it's the best Final Fantasy game. I don't care if it makes me a dodo; I prefer the simpler combat in the earlier games and even the horribly broken battles of FFXV to this.
On a positive note, again IZJS related, the class system makes the game a lot more fun. For one, it offers a built-in challenge variant for people who want that. For another, it helps people who get overwhelmed with gigantic skill trees make decisions on how to build their characters. The game is strictly better for new players with this stuff. Too bad you'll still spend hours waiting on Cure spells to charge up no matter how you play!
3. Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle
Somehow, the only new tabletop game I played all year. It's fun, but feels a little scripted. It's a cooperative deckbuilder, sort of like Ascension (better than Ascension) but nowhere near as good as Dominion. The cooperative elements are lacking a bit, as there's no real reason to have hidden information or try and finagle a strategy among players. You could just as easily play the game solitaire as all four heroes and have a good time, i think.
I've seen criticisms of the theme, but I felt like it was very strong myself. The mechanics fit well with Harry Potter, and aside from impossible canon scenarios, you do kind of feel like you're fighting the Death Eaters. It was cool that the four playable characters develop their own skillsets over seven years. I also greatly enjoyed the Dice elements that get added starting in Year 4. A nice mixture of randomness with strategic decision making.
Overall, the game is very light, but it is actually quite challenging to win in the later years. I think it suits its audience well. Most are probably not hardcore gamers, but even they should be able to walk into victory with good enough draws. Cool game to play with other HP fans.
2. Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 5
Just to be brief, P5 is P4 but mostly better in every way. (Aside from the core cast, which I felt was stronger in P4) Atlus truly did go out of their way to make the Persona experience as fine-tuned as possible. I'm not sure they can really improve on their formula anymore, and I hope they do something different if they continue with this series. While I loved this game, it honestly doesn't stand out much since it's just so similar to the previous game. 100% worth playing for any RPG fan ever, but nothing bold or innovative to see here.
1. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Man, Nintendo did it. They got me to fully enjoy an open world game. This game sucked me in and didn't let me go for God knows how many hours. Sure, it's heavily flawed. Sure, it's a major departure for Zelda (not actually a bad thing). Sure, I'll probably never play it again since I found everything in it. None of that takes away from the sheer experience this game offers; with the sparse amount of risks Nintendo has taken with their core franchises recently, I'm shocked this got greenlit and produced. I don't even understand how a game makes holding up to climb mountains over and over such a fulfilling thing. Even the combat, while not great, is a major step up for the series. There are countless things I could praise about this, but I'd be here all day and I have to wake up in a few hours probably. All I can really say is that you should play this game and it will be totally worth it! Videos don't do it justice. Writing about it doesn't either. BOTW is a potential game-changer for the medium; I guess time will tell how that goes.
