1. The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (Wii)
I have already elaborated on why I adored Skyward Sword
here (and I’ve also elaborated on why I liked the soundtrack
here), but to summarize, my time with The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword was 55+ hours’ worth of joy, laughter, sadness and awe. The watercolour artstyle is beautiful, and it brings Skyloft and Hyrule to life, while looking like a moving painting. It also finally felt like what a Wii game was supposed to feel like, with 1:1 control, minigames designed adequately for the motion control, items that took full advantage of the Wiimote (the Beetle being the best example of this), and finally sword-slashes making it feel like you were finally in control of Link’s sword (full disclosure: I played the entire game with my left hand and never had problems).
Adult Link finally looks convincingly emotive, an excellent complement to Child Toon Link of The Wind Waker. Link is angry, happy, disgusted, and even sad in this game and it's very convincing (it's also enhanced by a brilliant orchestral score). The dungeon design and architecture are also marvelous, with Dungeon 4’s ideas being my all-around favourite next to the aesthetics and ideas of Dungeons 3 and 5. There are some things that I didn’t really like in SS, but the good definitely outweighed the stuff I had nitpicky issues about.
Yes, the game is flawed, but I don’t really care. I enjoyed myself a lot and it's definitely one of my favourite Zelda games next to Majora’s Mask. It’s a beautiful way to commemorate the 25th Anniversary of the series with musical, artistic and character nods to previous games here and there.
2. Rayman Origins (PS3/X360/Wii)
To be honest, the reason why I was looking into this game was for its background art and not much else. I imported it from the States for the Amazon artbook bonus, and I certainly wasn’t disappointed on that front. But then came the game itself—it was far better than I had expected. The presentation is top-notch, with the background art seamlessly transitioning into different environments (seen in the third world), and the soundtrack having some dynamism as you go from room to room in each level (the soundtrack is very excellent, by the way, well-composed and very melodic). But the gameplay truly surprised me! I did not expect for the physics to be so fluid. Momentum is built properly, timing is important, jumps work well, and the controls were great. The level design works so well with the backgrounds, the platforming, timing, music and just overall being entertaining and a joy to run through repeatedly to pick up more lums or chase a damn treasure chest.
I adored this game very much. One of the best platformers of the year.
3. Sonic Generations (PS3/X360/PC)
It had to show up on this list somewhere. To be honest, this was originally going to be lower on my list until I had gone through and played through all my GOTY candidates last week. The worst part of it was that I couldn’t stop playing it, despite having the platinum for it. While I don’t like Generations as much as I did Colours since it was lacking in terms of narrative progression, pacing, and cohesion, the gameplay certainly improved—drifting was actually implemented well, and Generations features some of the best Modern Sonic levels I’ve seen in years in Rooftop Run, Sky Sanctuary, Speed Highway and Crisis City. The Classic Sonic levels, while the physics aren’t up to par yet (spindash too overpowered), were extremely well-designed and very fun to go through again and again (particularly Rooftop Run, Crisis City, Speed Highway, and Seaside Hill). There are tons of nods to previous games, and the fanservice is plentiful. The friends don’t have much of an importance except to be saved or to be part of the extra missions that the game uses to extend the replayability of the game.
The aesthetics are absolutely stunning, even moreso on the PC version, and the music is astoundingly beautiful with great arrangements of previous themes or remixes of vocal themes. What the Sonic Sound Team did to create an absolute juggernaut of the album that respects music from Sonic games of the past is brilliant and fan service at its best.
Sonic fans should feel encouraged to pick this up. It’s a very well-written and extremely detailed love letter to both the series and the fans who support it.
4. The Legend of Heroes VI: Trails in the Sky (PSP)
I’ve been waiting for this game for
years, and it certainly did not disappoint. It reminded me a lot of the older RPGs that emphasized the “going on an adventure” angle rather than characterization and cool CG. The narrative is built up really well, and the narrative shifts very well from a quest for adventure to a mysterious conspiracy. Despite being part of a trilogy, it delivers very well as a standalone game. Joshua is probably one of my favourite characters in games ever.
I can’t really complement the jazz and big band-infused soundtrack just because I’ve listened to SC’s and Zero’s soundtracks right after, which happened to be better all-around, but it works for the game in general.
Combat didn’t seem to be emphasized as much as the story did, but it works very well too—a turn-based system, implementing a grid/range-based mechanic (much like other LoH games). There is also a bonus system which cycles through per character turn, granting bonuses to both enemies and playable characters like healing, attack boost, more crystals upon defeat, etc. Orbment customization was pretty fun to tinker with as well, playing with the characters’ strengths and weaknesses to make them more efficient and useful in battle. The guild stuff reminded me a lot of Arc the Lad and it made me nostalgia a bit.
The gameplay certainly doesn’t really shine and isn’t the biggest part of Trails in the Sky, but the narrative, overarching canon and the quests truly make this game shine brightly. Looking forward to playing SC... somehow.
5. Xenoblade (Wii) [IMPORT - from Canada]
I wasn’t too interested in this one until duckroll made the thread for the games that had the top RPGs in Japan based on mk2 scores a while back. The background art drew me to it, and it’s even better to see it in person on the TV. The battle system is fast, positioning seems like it’s more intuitive than it was in FFXII, all characters are fun to use as main party leaders since they all brought something to the table, and the field/dungeon design brings a lot of explorable places and variety along with them. Weather effects are great, being able to move time forward or backward in order to get quests done or just enjoy the atmosphere is great, quick travel is convenient,
save anywhere, tons of optional quests, skill trees, gem crafting being really useful, and the character relationship mechanism is really nice. The plot is quite interesting, it’s well-written and the endgame is fantastic. It thankfully lacks the melodrama that I disliked greatly in Takahashi’s other games with the same prefix, and the game works
so much better for it.
I will warn people waiting for this game in the US to not get overhyped for it. The game has its share of problems and it is by no means perfect. AI characters aren’t as efficient as I’d like them to be (like they would be in a Tales game, for example), auto-attacking while in battle prevents you from not triggering enemy counters, limited inventory is crap, the game is in desperate need for a bestiary, and some quests are insufferable because you have to grind for drops. But overall, it’s a great game, and any fan of RPGs should give a shot. It’s a damn huge game, and I’m quite sure that audiences will get their fill when they go through Xenoblade for the first time.
6. Radiant Historia (DS)
Radiant Historia is a great game, a wonderful homage to RPGs of old like Genso Suikoden (narrative), Chrono Trigger (character synergy and time travel), and FFVI (art direction) (and thus, in a way, refreshing). Narrative gets a little iffy towards the end, but that's to be expected in JRPGs, I think. Stocke is a great protagonist, and didn't do anything that made me roll my eyes or sigh in frustration, something that feels like a rarity in recent JRPGs. He didn't necessarily "develop", but instead more of his multifaceted personality was revealed to the player as a way of showing "development". It was nice.
Radiant Historia's refreshing nature, however, truly comes from the battle system. It's sheer proof that a game does not need elaborate smoke and mirrors, or "complicated-looking" level up systems. It relies on simplicity with a minor tweak. The battle system is a great take on turn-based combat. It never gets boring. Enemies can be pushed and pulled in different directions on a 3x3 grid. Enemy positioning is rather important: if they are in the front row, they will do more damage to your party. If they are in the back, they'll do less damage. What is the best way to maximize your results in battle is to bunch up the enemies on one area of the grid and combo them with your characters. Enemy and ally turn order is shown on the top screen, and you have the ability to swap turns with either foe or friend to maximize the effects of your combo. In a way, synergy is something that players should bear in mind to combo a set of enemies into submission efficiently and quickly.
If you meet a bad end (even the
sidequests have bad ends), it's not the end for you. You just have to go back and make the "right" decision. The true ending is achieved by doing 10 particular sidequests. The best part of this game is that nothing is missable. You can still venture back and forth in time to see what you've missed or what you've yet to accomplish in both past and present.
When I first heard of Radiant Historia, I figured it'd be like Chrono Trigger through-and-through. While this is true to an extent, I found myself looking for other games I loved dearly in past console generations. I found Final Fantasy VI (steampunk), Final Fantasy Tactics (politics), Suikoden (war, friendship and rebellion) and Tactics Ogre (rebellion) in this. I appreciated what it had to offer, and it certainly deserves a place in any JRPG player's library.
7. Tales of Xillia / テイルズオブエクシリア (PS3) [IMPORT - I'm from Canada]
Tales of Xillia is the latest game in the Tales series, and is pretty much the game that celebrated the series’ 15th anniversary. Unlike Zelda and Sonic, which relied on past games to help celebrate their series’ anniversaries, Xillia does its own thing (but this is also partially because every other Tales game has nods to previous games in the series, whether it’d be via the battle system, attacks, cameo battles, etc.).
Tales of Xillia utilizes the DR-LMBS (Dual Raid-Linear Motion Battle System), and includes TP and AC in order for characters to carry out attacks. While I’ve expressed that TP is limiting in the past (and it still is), the Link Artes and Overlimit for Link Chains work very well. What’s problematic is the lack of flexibility introduced by TP and the lack of Link Artes for other partnerships other than Jude/Milla’s kind of prohibits the system from reaching its full potential. Regardless, DR-LMBS is very fun to play around with and it ends battle quite quickly on harder modes. I encourage players to play on harder modes to get full satisfaction out of the battle system. It isn’t as good as Graces’ by a long shot, but it’s good enough.
The cast is great too, with Alvin, Jude and Leia being my favourites to play around with. Unfortunately, the areas aren’t as great as Graces’ were (which followed the same “lack of world map” structure, and sometimes they’re kind of boring). Many parts of the narrative, town design, and character interaction make up for the between town parts. The music is also fantastic as well, with Milla’s battle themes, Jude's final two battle themes, the school outfit DLC battle theme, and the final battle theme standing out the most.
I played it for over 100 hours, so it must have done something right. It was very fun to play through, especially Jude’s portion of the game.
8. Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together (PSP)
I’m a huge fan of Matsuno's games, so when Tactics Ogre was being released on the PSP, I was ecstatic to learn about all of the changes that were introduced to the game. The narrative is excellent, the music is as good as before if not better, and the game is
long. It has a non-linear branching plotline, which is very refreshing, Lawful/Neutral/Chaos alignments are expanded and assist with the storytelling very well, “The World” system is really great to see what would happen if you chose differently (much like RH’s system). The choices presented to the player revolve around war crimes and politics, which were very interesting to me as a player as a struggled with some of them in terms of morality and loyalty. The storytelling made this game, and I enjoyed it very much. The inclusion of Chariot is also awesome since it let you rewind the battle a little to rectify some mistakes.
What a fantastic game, and what a ride. Very well-written, and very fun to play during breaks and in bursts.
9. Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective (DS)
What a fantastic start to the year. I had finished 999 prior to 2010 ending, so starting 2011 with Ghost Trick was nice in terms of consistency. The games are quite different, yes, but the storytelling—outside of the ending—was great. The characters were very well-written, especially Missile (best dog in a game ever) and Cabanela (best animations ever). The game’s attention to detail for the animations, the background art and the character art is just amazing. The Panic Dance and anything involving Cabanela is just awesome to watch in action because they’re so fluid and well-animated. Even watching people eat chicken is really nice to watch since the animation flows so well. The music is also composed nicely and the instrument samples chosen make them easy to listen to, and communicates exactly what the game wants the music to communicate. The puzzles are also fun to solve. I’d personally love a sequel in the universe, or at least another game that involves the artstyle and animation like this.
10. El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron (PS3/X360)
As much as I’ve
complemented this game based on its art direction and wonderful musical score, the platforming is what drags it down here. The best part of El Shaddai was seeing what the game was going to throw at you next in terms of the art, the area, or even the mechanics of the area. People who may not like constant background switching or gameplay switching may not be into that, but I definitely loved it. The character designs aren’t bad, but Lucifel’s stands above the rest just because he calls God with a cellphone and uses a fancy umbrella. On the same note, both the JP and EN voice acting are nicely done.
The combat is a lot like Rock-Paper-Scissors, where certain weapons beat other weapons, or some bosses change which weapons they’re weak against. The weapons also modify your platforming abilities (one would allow Enoch to dash, one would weigh him down, etc), and they also vary in terms of strength. In order to obtain G-rankings for each stage, one must analyze which weapons would be most useful for certain enemies and combo away while guarding, guard-breaking and stealing weapons.
El Shaddai is one of those games that I'd treat like Nier (which I also loved): it's a great game and tries a few interesting things as soon as you get to newer areas. But like Nier, I would not recommend it to just everyone. People looking for a heavy skill-based hack and slash that require pushing a ton of buttons aren't really going to find what they're looking for here, imo. But people looking for a sensory experience will definitely find something in here. I liked it very much despite a few of its shortcomings.
Honourable Mentions
x: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D (3DS); While Ocarina of Time isn’t my favourite Zelda title, Grezzo did a fantastic job at cleaning this game up and making it look exceptionally polished. The gameplay even improved a little with being able to equip four weapons at once and using the bottom screen to switch on the fly. While I didn’t have a lot of issues with the Water Temple, adding some camera pans in that dungeon to show players where to go, or making a Time block more obvious to the player made for a newcomer-friendly experience. Master Quest and Boss Rush are also welcome additions to a game that players have treaded so many times in search of additional challenge.
x: Super Mario 3D Land (3DS) ; I really like the aesthetic and throwbacks to Super Mario Bros 3. Powerup-wise, it’s really nice to see old friends from back in the day. 3D-wise, wow, the 3D works so well in this game. I’m thoroughly impressed. However, I’m not really liking how sluggish Mario moves in this game. It’s rather odd. Presentation works well to keep my mind off of it, though; it’s a very pretty game. I’m sorely disappointed that the worlds weren’t themed at all as well. I have noticed that unfortunately in comparison to NSMBWii, 3D Land doesn’t carry similar difficulty. Much of the difficulty in later levels seems to be based on item management (ex: keeping a Tanooki Leaf in stock). It’s very laid-back, and the ease of the journey is quite fitting for on-the-go play. The special worlds made me feel a lot better about the game. Why it’s down here in the honourable mentions? Aside from the issues I’ve encountered, I was just wowed by other platformers a little more this year. It certainly is a must-buy, though, for any Mario fan or platformer fan in general.
x: Trinity: Souls of Zill O’ll (PS3) ; I think this game will get overlooked by a lot of people just because it isn’t really a high-profile RPG. But I was pleasantly surprised by how big the game was (so many quests, arena fights, etc), and how much depth there was to the combat concerning elemental strikes and skills (despite the rest of the combat essentially being like Musou). It’s nice to pick up and complete quests or participate in arena battles every now and then if you’re just looking for something to do. The music is also very fitting and well-composed.
x: Corpse Party (PSP); I wasn’t really expecting binaural audio, or the Japanese voice track for that matter, so I became really frightened when I played it, and the fantastic music made things creepier. The localization was well-done and the narrative was also well-written. The chase portions of the game are really stressful, and you know that there’s a major penalty if you get caught. Each chapter of the game has several different endings depending on what you do or things you don't do. The game is quite satisfying and I recommend it.
x: Hard Corps: Uprising (PS3/360) ; Air dashing in Contra is probably one of the most fun gameplay mechanics ever. It’s so colourful, over-the-top, has high replay value, high difficulty, and Rising mode was pretty awesome to go through.
x: Yakuza 4 (PS3) ; While Yakuza 3 had better bosses, Yakuza 4 had better character progression and more variety, imo. It’s probably my favourite in the series next to Yakuza 2. A few of the side stories were really touching. Also I think I liked Saejima and Tanimura’s playstyles the most. All four characters in the game were just a delight, and the game was ultimately a huge timesink.
x: Pushmo (3DS) ; I was thumbing through the Pushmo OT and decided to finally dip into this game, and I don’t really regret it. It’s colourful, charming and very fun to play around with on-the-go. It’s one of the better puzzle games of the year, because it’s pretty laid-back, and they’re genuinely fun brainteasers when you find the right puzzle. Creating puzzles is really fun too.
x: Kirby’s Return to Dreamland (Wii) ; I actually loved Kirby’s Epic Yarn, but this is probably the Kirby that fans have been waiting for. I ended picking this up at the last minute as I didn’t see much media for it, but I’m very glad I did. The new powerups are fun to play around with (Water is amazing and it’s a cute little hat), and the level designs, both aesthetically and functionally (World 5, black and white worlds), work very well to enhance the powerups, co-op play and just make the game all-around enjoyable.
x: Kirby Mass Attack (DS) ; Got this game for Christmas. This was quite a surprise. Much like Kirby Canvas Curse, it takes full advantage of the DS’s capabilities. It’s incredibly charming in terms of art direction and music. It doesn’t act like the traditional Kirby game, but somehow it feels like one. It’s quite lengthy (it took me more than 10 hours to finish, how about that for a Kirby game? :O), the controls are amazing (perfect blend of Kirby and Pikmin), and it has some difficulty at last if you’re going for collecting everything. Doing no damage runs and collecting stuff per level adds even more fun to this platformer. Also, the extra content like the Kirby shmup is welcome.
x: Fate/Extra (PSP) ; While the battle system is essentially rock-paper-scissors with a little thing to mess you up, the gameplay isn’t so bad. It could be better and more engaging for the player, however. What truly makes up for it is the game’s fantastic presentation (the environments are very nice to look at and the inclusion of the Japanese voicework was a great idea), the interesting introduction of the game, the music, and how the narrative unfolds (the localization was great).
x: Mighty Switch Force (3DS) ; The soundtrack is utterly amazing, and it feels so Megaman-esque (despite lacking the difficulty) in terms of the art direction. Puzzles are great, but it’s very unfortunate that it’s so short!
x: Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 2 (DS) ; Overall, I like it a ton better than Joker 1, and I like going through little areas if I have time prior to class or during class break. The game moves much faster (monsters level up faster, monsters are obtained faster), and you can save anywhere (great for portable play). The weather system also makes the world feel more alive (better than running the same maps over and over like in Joker 1). Giant monsters are pretty awesome, but they take up 3 slots on your team and are generally left there to take all the damage.
(Marriage & 1 year old mean less gaming for me :/)
