User:Mirai Moon/CS/n In 2015, I started this tradition of mine with a half-assed "Top 10 Favourite Games of 2015" blog, where I randomly chose ten of the games I played (and watched LP's of) and came up with reasons as to why I liked them - little thought actually went into how they were placed aside from "hey I liked this" (and, even then, that list would look a hell of a lot different if I redid it now). Last year, I actually put a lot of work into my 2016 Game of the Year list, way more than I ever thought I would, and I actually had a lot of fun with it so I decided I may as well do it again this year.
This is Jake's Top 5 Video Games of 2017!
Let's see what 2017 had in store for us, yeah? Nintendo's brand-new system, the Switch, was finally released, and alongside it one of the highest reviewed games ever - The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Alongside Zelda, we also got the long-awaited Persona 5, a new (somewhat good) Resident Evil, a new 3D Mario title, a localization of Danganronpa V3, Sony's newest IP in Horizon Zero Dawn, a new Mass Effect game, indie darling Yooka-Laylee, Nintendo's newest IP in ARMS and Snipperclips, the revival of the Crash Bandicoot series, and a whole lot more! 2016 had nothing on this year, imo. Did I play all of these? No, of course not. I've only played a small fraction of the games released this year, but I'm glad I played them all.
The only games that are exempt from being placed on this list are ports (unless I never played the original game).
Please keep in mind that this is all based on my personal opinion, and only for games that I have personally played. I will also try to keep these as spoiler-free as possible!
#10[]
Miitopia
Developers: Nintendo EPD
Platforms: Nintendo 3DS
Released: July 28
Miitopia is... well, if I had to be honest, I'm not entirely sure what it is. Miitopia is a turn-based role-playing game that can be seen as a sort of spin-off of the Tomodachi Life series. As one would expect from its name, the game is centred around Nintendo's Mii characters, with only the game's enemies being creatures other than Miis.
Miitopia tells the story of, particularly, one Mii who journeys through the many lands of Miitopia in order to defeat The Dark Lord, who has been stealing the faces of the land's inhabitants and placing them on dangerous monsters of his ("Lord" implies that they're male, but as the player can choose which Mii portrays them, The Dark Lord can be female too) own design. Along the way, the player's Mii will be assisted by an apparent-god-like being known as the Guardian Spirit, who gifts the Mii the ability to use Jobs, and seems to be able to warp reality in order to send them party members.
Much like Tomodachi Life, the player doesn't actually have a lot to do during gameplay. The maximum amount of party members that can be in the party is four, but the player can only control the actions of the main Mii (but even then, they can set the battles to play out automatically). When resting in an inn, the player can also gift their party money in order to buy gifts or new equipment.
It is a very charming game, and one I definitely did not expect to like. I was honestly not a fan of Tomodachi Life, but I feel like the added RPG aspects make Miitopia feel more like a game than just watching Miis live their lives. Miitopia keeps many of the best parts of the Tomodachi series - outlandish scenarios, a quirky sense of humour, and the weird relationships that form between Miis - but improves upon them tenfold. Miitopia is in no way perfect, and could definitely use a number of additions. I would really like Nintendo to revisit the idea and try and make it into an actually somewhat-serious (but still ridiculous) RPG title for the Switch. The game has potential, but for what it is, I still really enjoyed it.
#9[]
Doki Doki Literature Club!
Developers: Team Salvato
Platforms: PC
Released: September 22
Doki Doki Literature Club! is.... certainly an interesting game. Doki Doki Literature Club! is a very short visual novel that sees the player character (who can be named) joining their school's Literature Club at the insistence of their childhood friend, Sayori. The titular Literature Club is made up of four girls and the protagonist: Monika (the club's president who was in the protagonist's class a previous year), Sayori (the club's vice president), Natsuki (a pink-haired girl who loves manga and is an excellent chef), and Yuri (the quiet and reserved girl who loves more intricate works of fiction).
As a visual novel, the game has very little actual "gameplay"; the player's sole actions are the choices they make throughout the game. At the end of each school day the protagonist has to write a poem for the club, and the player has to choose from a variety of different keywords to do so. These keywords will impress one of the girls in the club, and the protagonist's relationship with a girl grows as they write a poem that they would like.
As someone who generally does not like stories centred heavily around romance, it really surprised me how much I came to like Doki Doki Literature Club!. What makes the game so interesting to me is how the game acknowledges and both embraces and tries to distance itself from generic anime archetypes. The character designs, and each character's initial introduction, both cause the player to expect one thing from the character - expect them to fulfill a certain role - that is flipped on its head through both the growth of the characters and the general writing of the game.
The game is very short, and it doesn't take long to complete the main story at all. While it's highly likely people have been spoiled about some of the game's scenarios, I highly recommend giving the game a shot anyway. It is a free download on Steam, so there's nothing to really lose even if you don't like it.
Also the music in the game is really catchy. Annoying, sure, but still catchy.
#8[]
Super Mario Odyssey
Developers: Nintendo EPD
Platforms: Nintendo Switch
Released: October 27
Super Mario Odyssey is one of the best-reviewed games of 2017, but it's honestly a game I'm very conflicted about. On one hand, its movement and platforming is the best in the series, and I love moving about the varied areas; honestly, that's really the only reason this game is on this list at all. Everything else about the game is very divisive for me. For the most part, Super Mario Odyssey is a good game. I can understand the praise this game has been given... but at the same time, I don't understand all of this game's praises.
Super Mario Odyssey follows the traditional Mario formula: Bowser has kidnapped Peach and Mario must go and save her. This time, Mario is joined by Cappy - a hat-shaped ghost who has the ability to take over enemies. While an interesting idea in theory, in practice this makes it so the game... lacks a lot of challenge. In games like Super Mario 64 and Sunshine, the enemies served as obstacles that often needed to be taken out or navigated around in order to get to the Star or Shine Sprite; in Odyssey, many of the enemies feel like tools to be used to explore the worlds, and those that can not be captured feel less like obstacles and more like a way to pad out worlds. While some of the Capturable enemies are fun to use - I particularly liked rushing around as a Gushen - they still don't really provide challenge to levels.
It is, by no means a bad game, but as a game I was really excited for and from a series I love, I couldn't help but be disappointed at how much I didn't enjoy a lot of it. They couldn't really commit to trying to be fresh - for 99% of the game you're outside of the Mushroom Kingdom, in new worlds which are all, to an extent, unique - or retreading familiar ground - every costume is a reference, and they're not afraid of reusing the classic plot points - so a lot of the decisions made confuse me to some extent. I'm all for a "fresh" Super Mario game ala Breath of the Wild, but in a game that goes out of its way to make as many references as possible, it's not hard to feel like a lot of opportunities to make the many worlds interesting in different ways were left out.
#7[]
Ever Oasis
Developers: Grezzo
Platforms: Nintendo 3DS
Released: June 23
It's sad, but everyone seemed to forget about Ever Oasis even before it launched. Grezzo is a company not really known for many games - they were the ones who remade The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask for the 3DS, as well as a couple of other fairly-niche titles (such as the Japan-exclusive Line Attack Heroes, The Legend of Legacy, The Alliance Alive, and... Streetpass Garden) - so it's never really been a big company for people to focus on. I get that, but with Nintendo backing them for their next venture, you'd think Ever Oasis would get at least a little bit of recognition.
Ever Oasis primarily focuses on Tethu/Tethi/whatever you want to name them, and the water spirit Esna, as they attempt to combat the Chaos enveloping the desert around them by creating an Oasis for those who have lost shelter, much like Tethu/Tethi has. Tethu/Tethi is a silent protagonist, but they can, to an extent, be customized in appearance. Esna is also a character who plays a major role in the game, but since she needs water to live, she can only survive in a small area outside of Tethu/Tethi's house, and is as such is kind of forgettable at times. That's not to say I don't like Esna; I find her, and many of the characters in this game, extremely cute and charming.
Though I've never played it, I've heard that Ever Oasis can be heavily compared to Fantasy Life. The game features two major sections of gameplay: the town building part that has the player helping those in their Oasis open up shops and keeping them stocked, and the exploration part that has the player team up with other NPCs to traverse dungeons. The town building parts are very reminiscent of Animal Crossing, both in tone and feel, but have been reworked to fit into the RPG style of game, and Grezzo did an exceptional job mixing these two ideas together.
I have yet to finish the game (for a number of reasons including: I don't usually play my 3DS for long periods of time at home, other games came out, blah blah), but it may be the first 3DS game since the system released that I have enjoyed this much. It's, in my opinion, one of the system's best games, and I highly recommend it.
#6[]
Warriors All-Stars
Developers: Omega Force
Platforms: PlayStation 4, PC
Released: August 29
In a way, what Super Smash Bros. is to Nintendo, Warriors All-Stars could be to Koei Tecmo. As is somewhat obvious from the game's title, Warriors All-Stars is a spin-off of the Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors series that Koei is most-well known for. The game is a hack-and-slash title, where the player has to combat large forces and complete objectives to move the game along.
Much like Warriors Orochi 3 did before it, Warriors All-Stars brings together a number of different characters from Koei Tecmo properties and puts them into the Warriors gameplay. Characters from the Dynasty and Samurai Warriors, Dead or Alive, Toukiden, Atelier, Haruka, Ninja Gaiden, Deception, and Nights of Azure series, to name a few, are summoned by the inhabitants (anthropomorphic fox-like creatures that are referred to as "humans", for some reason) of a realm in order to assist in reviving the spring that brings life to the land. There are four major original characters (three of whom you can play as) around which the plot primarily revolves: Shiki - the son of the now-deceased king, Tamaki - the daughter of the former king, and the heir to the throne, and Setsuna - Shiki and Setsuna's cousin, as well as Tamaki and Shiki's mother Sayo. Shiki, Setsuna, and Tamaki all fight each other in order to claim the throne they all believe is rightfully their's.
The gameplay of Warriors All-Stars can most effectively be described as a derivative of the style used for Hyrule Warriors and Fire Emblem Warriors: the main objective is to capture keeps by clearing them out and defeating the boss that shows up afterwards. Warriors All-Stars adds upon the base gameplay of those games by adding different types of keeps - such as those that will periodically attack nearby enemy keeps, spawn healing items, give great monetary rewards to the player if they have it captured when the battle is finished, etc. - as well as allowing the player to take a team of five characters into battle together. Unlike what one would suspect, the player is unable to switch between these five characters; instead, the four "backup" members of the team can be summoned to perform assist abilities, be they attacks or healing/stat-based, with a cooldown timer.
While the main plot of Warriors All-Stars is fairly predictable, I am a sucker for stories where people who shouldn't be able to interact do. As a fan of Samurai Warriors and Dynasty Warriors, I got a fair bit out of the different interactions between the characters from those series and others, and came to become interested in characters I may have never even heard about before - like Sophie and Plachta from Atelier, William from Nioh, Rio Rollins-Tachibana, and, perhaps my favourite character in the game, Nobunyaga Oda from Samurai Cats. The game's got something like 15 endings based on the different missions completed and the faction followed, so there's quite a lot to replay even after the "true" ending has been found.
If you like Warriors games or want to give one a shot, I'd highly suggest Warriors All-Stars. One may be a little upset that everyone (except William) speaks Japanese only, but I've always thought that, in Warriors games, being able to understand every piece of dialogue via audio can be a little much. If it really bugs you, you could always play as William.
#5[]
Persona 5
Developers: Atlus
Platforms: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3
Released: April 4
Persona 5 is the sixth main instalment of the Persona subseries of the Shin Megami Tensei series, and probably my favourite instalment yet. The game focuses on a group of teenagers who form a group called The Phantom Thieves and use their newly-acquired Personas to "steal the hearts" of corrupt individuals in an attempt to reform society. Much like Persona 3 and Persona 4 before it, Persona 5 separates the game into social life and dungeon crawling segments; while the social life segments may seem boring, I found them even far more interesting than a lot of the main story of Persona 4.
Like all Persona games, Persona 5 is primarily a dungeon crawling game where the player uses a "Persona" - essentially a creature born from one's heart - in order to fight "Shadows" - the demons that lurk in whatever alternate dimension they may find themselves in; Persona 3 had Tartarus and the Dark Hour, Persona 4 had the Midnight Channel, and Persona 5 has Mementos and the Palaces therein. The player character - "Joker", who can be named by the player and officially known as Ren Amamiya via the anime adaption - has the ability to summon multiple Personas, whereas all of his friends and fellow Phantom Thieves only have the ability to use one. You get a sweet-looking dude named Arsene at the beginning... who kind of sucks. But can be fused in the Velvet Room in order to create new, far better (and often weirder-looking) Personas.
Every aspect of Persona 5 oozes with personality, from the menus, Palaces, characters, UI, music. Everything has a bright, upbeat, and jazzy feel to it, even though the game is essentially a flashback told by Joker as he is interrogated by public prosecutor Sae Niijima. This game plays with some very interesting themes, characters, and ideas, most of which are done extremely well.
I really want to go through and talk more about this game, but I don't want to spoil anything and almost everything I have to say could be connected to spoilers.
Also Ryuji Sakamoto is the best Persona character yet. If you say otherwise, you're objectively wrong.
#4[]
Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle
Developers: Ubisoft Milan, Ubisoft Paris
Platforms: Nintendo Switch
Released: August 29
Much like everyone else in the world, when the details leaked that Nintendo and Ubisoft were teaming up to release a crossover between the Raving Rabbids and Super Mario series, I was... skeptical, and I definitely had incredibly low hopes for the game. When Ubisoft released the first trailer at E3 showing it to be a tactical RPG, I was even more skeptical..... Then I gave it a shot anyways. Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle is a game that, by all means, should not have worked. A game where Mario and the Rabbids team up to fight Bowser Jr. and other Rabbids using actual (albeit cartoony) weapons? That idea is, in theory, insane. It's bonkers. But it works; it works extremely well.
The game's story isn't the traditional "Bowser has captured Peach and you need to save her!" one that you'd expect from the Mario series; instead, it's more akin to the crazy plots that the Rabbids games usually follow. Some teenage girl genius invents a gadget that is capable of fusing two things together - the SupaMerge. After the Rabbids manage to teleport their way into her house via their time-travelling washing machine, they steal the SupaMerge and open a portal to the Mushroom Kingdom, dragging the girl's robotic partner Beep-0 with them. The main quest sees Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Yoshi team up with Rabbids dressed like them in order to recover the SupaMerge (which has been fused with a Rabbid nicknamed Spawny), which has come into the possession of Bowser Jr., who wishes to impress the vacationing Bowser by causing mayhem in his absence.
I have never been a big fan of Bowser Jr. - I've always dislike his character ever since Super Mario Sunshine - but Mario + Rabbids did an excellent job at making me actually like the guy for once. The writing is silly, it doesn't take itself all that seriously at times, and, as Beep-0 seems to have originated from our world (i.e. a world where the Mario universe is fictional), he makes a number of jokes that prod at the fourth wall.
It's no secret that I dislike the Fire Emblem series, and I think Intelligent Systems would be quite intelligent to take some cues from Mario + Rabbids. The bouncy movement system makes the game far more interesting than a lot of other tactical RPGs, and the enemies' different attributes and movement patterns bring more variety than that series. I never once found the game boring; challenging yes, but not boring. There was at no point where I reached a battle and wasn't excited to take it on.
#3[]
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Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony
Developers: Spike Chunsoft
Platforms: PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, PC
Released: September 26
Danganronpa is a series that I highly adore. That's not a secret to anybody. And while the Danganronpa fandom has some highly contrasting ideas about Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony, I personally loved it... even if I had figured out each killer before the trial began (and the mastermind before the game even came out). I really enjoyed playing through the game, which may not be so clear if you follow me on Twitter.
The Danganronpa series is a series of murder mystery visual novel puzzle games that can be compared to Ace Attorney. While Ace Attorney is often stoic with playfulness thrown in to give investigating dead bodies and finding the murder culprit less of a negative vibe, Danganronpa actually strives to do the opposite by making it playful at a glance but giving off a darker, more serious tone. Each main Danganronpa game is split up into a social phase ("Daily Life") - where the player can explore their setting, use Monocoins to purchase gifts, give said gifts to other students to learn more about them via Free Time Events, and hunt down the Hidden Monokumas carefully placed around Jabberwock Academy and the Ultimate Academy, - an investigation phase ("Deadly Life") - where the player has to find clues relating to a murder, often by examining rooms or speaking to others, - and the Class Trial - where the player must use what they learned from investigating in order to find the culprit of the case (by playing minigames).
While previous Danganronpa titles focused on the theme of hope clashing against despair, Danganronpa V3 - while it does keep this theme to an extent - instead primarily focuses on the idea of truth vs. lies. The main characters of the game are Kaede Akamatsu, the Ultimate Pianist, and Shuichi Saihara, the Ultimate Detective; they team up in a manner similar to Hajime and Chiaki in Danganronpa 2. This theme is so much less annoying than "hope vs. despair" got as the series progressed - and this is partly done by the excellent writing and interactions between Kokichi Oma and the rest of the cast.
Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair, Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak Academy, and, to an extent, Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls all focused heavily on the prestigious high school that is Hope's Peak Academy, Danganronpa V3 is instead set inside the Ultimate Academy for Gifted Juveniles, surrounded by a large cage and solid uneven wall. The characters introduced in Danganronpa V3 are, barring two, all exceptionally written in my opinion. While I don't feel like the game has the same impact as the first two games (which may in part be due to me figuring out all of the murderers before each trial), the theme of truth vs. lies was done in a way I had never expected, and the Ultimate Academy became a setting I far preferred to Hope's Peak or Jabberwock fairly quickly.
While it is far from perfect (it is honestly my least favourite Danganronpa game), I still feel like its, as the developers call it, "psycho-cool" atmosphere give off a vibe that no other game (that I know of) has been able to come close to. It will forever hold a special place in my heart, even among the other Danganronpa games.
P.S. A guy I follow on Twitter did an excellent spoiler-free video about why you should play Danganronpa V3, and I highly recommend it.... though the post-game bonus content does touch a little on the previous two games, so I'd recommend checking them (and Ultra Despair Girls... and Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak Academy anime) out too.
#2[]
Chaos;Child
Developers: 5pb.
Platforms: PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita
Released: October 17
Steins;Gate is a great game. Everyone on the internet loves it. It got a weird midquel that was also a prequel and also kind of a sequel in Steins;Gate 0. What a lot of people don't realize is that Steins;Gate is the second instalment in the larger Science Adventure (or Science Visual Novel? There's a bit of confusion around it right now) series created by Nitroplus and 5pb.. Before Steins;Gate, way back in 2008, there was Chaos;Head (which was never officially translated and so we only have the anime adaption which is kind of garbage), and Chaos;Child is the sequel to that.
Chaos;Child takes place six years after the large earthquake - the Third Melt - that occurred during Chaos;Head. Unlike Steins;Gate 0, which followed the main cast of Steins;Gate, Chaos;Child does not feature any Chaos;Head characters... directly. The main protagonist is Takuru Miyashiro, a member of Hekiho Academy's Newspaper Club who lost his parents in the earthquake that shook Shibuya. Other prominent characters are: Nono Kurusu - Miyashiro's adoptive "older sister" and the student council president, Hana Kazuki - a silent girl with a deep obsession with the online MMO ESO2, Hinae Arimura - a mysterious character who Miyashiro meets under extreme circumstances, Mio Kunosato - a scientist who is implied in-game to have been a classmate of Steins;Gate's Kurisu Makise, Uki Yamazoe - a young girl surrounded in mystery and related to the creepy hospital, and Seriko Onoe - Miyashiro's childhood friend and sidekick. These characters all have a role to play in the mysteries surrounding The Return of the New Generation Madness - a string of strange murders that occur on the same days as the equally-as strange New Generation Madness (NewGen) killings from six years earlier.
All of the Science Adventure games are set in the same universe, and while they may not all be connected directly, allusions are made between them. While you may be able to gain a little extra if you have knowledge of the extended universe (multiple mentions of Gunvarrel, for instance), the game holds strong as a compelling murder mystery title. The game references the original NewGen killings from Chaos;Head and the recurring phrase of "その目だれの目?" / "Sono me, dare no me?" / "Whose eyes are Gods eyes?" returns a couple times, which may cause some minor bits of confusion to some, even if the game goes out of its way to try and make it so those with no prior knowledge of the series can still enjoy it.
Chaos;Child kept me compelled throughout all of my playthroughs. There are a multitude of endings - most of which are "bad" endings, with only specific "good" endings being registered on the Endings screen - that can be unlocked after the first playthrough, in which you have to experience all of the good and the bad... The "bad" being the cruel events that take place in the game. And the many spelling mistakes (most of which are just that the localizers forgot to put spaces in-between certain words).
If I'm being completely honest, it was not an easy decision to put this at 2 on the list. I had considered putting it at number 1 multiple times, and, honestly, I hold both on about the exact same level.
P.S. The same guy who did the video about Danganronpa V3 I linked earlier also did one for Chaos;Child. So check that out too.
P.P.S. The anime adaption is apparently garbage, so if you want to have the full experience please please please play the game before watching it.
#1[]
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Developers: Nintendo EPD
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, Wii U
Released: March 3
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is a very special game to me. As the first game released for the Nintendo Switch, Breath of the Wild cemented the new console as a powerful one, a console not to be ignored like the Wii U was. The game follows the classic Zelda formula of "Link has been chosen to fight Ganon... so do it." but returns to the open world gameplay style last seen in the original The Legend of Zelda.
The story of Breath of the Wild can be broken up into three parts: the "modern" era (when the game actually takes place), the "First Attack" (10,000 years prior to the game's events), and the Great Calamity (100 years prior to the game's events). The game's plot is essentially optional - the player can neglect the "main" quest and simply go to attack and defeat Ganon, or they could take their time and find all of the memories and conquer the four Divine Beasts in order to learn the full story of what happened 100 years ago to cause Hyrule to be destroyed and left in a ruined state. This freedom is a theme consistent throughout the entire game - I never found an invisible wall in all my hours of play, all I've found are places you can get to, and places that you simply just can't reach.
While Super Mario Odyssey couldn't commit to either being "new" or "old", Breath of the Wild manages to mesh the original ideas of the original The Legend of Zelda for NES with brand new gameplay mechanics and ideas. The most notable "new" addition is the abundance of science fiction technology that clashes with the fantasy setting previous games have upheld, yet the way it is integrated into the broken world of Hyrule feels natural and its almost-magical capabilities seem a perfect fit into the established "rules" of the universe, despite the game's insistence of trying to break those rules to an extent.
As I played through the game initially, there were times were I forgot it was a video game. It felt like an experience, something I was controlling but also acting in, instead of just another game that I played. You get between five and eight Runes (depending on DLC and what you would count as a separate "Rune") that you can use to explore Hyrule; each have established rules related to their use, but they essentially give you free reign on how to use them within these limitations. On social media I saw a lot of people freaking out that you can use the Cryosis Rune (the ability to create spires of ice in water) to cross muddy lakes that you would otherwise sink in, and I saw others (including myself) who thought that to be a natural idea.
It's an amazing game where no two save files could be remotely similar unless you actively tried to make them as such. While I think Breath of the Wild is a near-perfect game, barring the few "traditional" dungeons (which are mostly of lackluster design, imho, though they do have awesome components of them that could have been fleshed out more) and lack of enemy variation (there are only a handful of different enemy types that come in different varieties and strength levels), I've had a hard time deciding on whether it or Twilight Princess is my favourite in the series; nevertheless, Breath of the Wild holds itself on a pedestal as my favourite game of 2017 and one of my absolute favourite games of all time.
One of the few other things I was disappointed about was the lack of amiibo support. Sure you can use the Zelda series to get special crates and, in some cases, armour, but with them adding a set of clothing based off Rex from Xenoblade Chronicles 2, it's a little disappointing you can't use, for instance, a Samus amiibo to unlock her Power Suit for Link to battle Guardians in.