Links to my
2011 and
2010 GOTYs for your reference.
1.
Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown; PS3 Sega
A game that I toyed with in the arcades is now my main obsession. "Probably the deepest fighter out there" is what the game media will tell you, but why is that a good thing? What makes this game different? The simplest answer is that VF lets you
flow. Because it has a ton of moves, every character has a full toolset they can use to get around the attacks of any other opponent, and you need to use these on-the-fly. VF requires more decisions per second than any other fighter out there. It's intense. Really you haven't played VF until you've mastered the full move-set of your character because every move is there for a reason, and you'll need them all to stay on top.
This VF, perhaps above all others, is also about aggressive offense. Your main objective is to continuously attack. Within that you'll need to make some strategic blocks and throw counters, but with the amount of firepower that any one character can throw at you, a smart offense essentially becomes your best and only defense. In Final Showdown, you can move how you want. You can construct an entire style with your character, think up crazy tricks and totally overwhelm the opponent.
I play in JP, so the competition is incredibly strong. I'll usually spend a full Saturday playing the game and maybe two weekday nights a week, and I'm still stuck at Hunter rank (basically the base rank), with occasional rises to Raider. I watch VF tourney streams at least twice a month. Players are so good here it's unbelievable. In general you'll hear a lot about Daigo Umehara, the Street Fighter franchise etc. but there's a good reason that Fuudo won SSFIV at Evo in 2011. With VF you get tuned to a much higher level than SF. You're constantly thinking, moving, defending and attacking. That ability carries over to other games.
Final Showdown does have its share of problems. If you're a beginner like I was, ultra-harsh wall combos and small arenas will help you hate the game pretty quick. However every character has ways to get out of bad situations, and they can all use wall combos, or small arenas to their advantage. The variable in the equation is only you. Sega took care of all the constants.
Play it, hate it, and learn to love it.
2.
Halo 4; Xbox360 343 Studios
Oh man, wading into the Halo 4 threads and seeing all the bitching everywhere I just can't understand it. A gorgeous campaign with huge fields, drop-in co-op, addictive multiplayer and an engaging story. People this is an amazing game. The graphics and artistic direction are top notch, and the gameplay is tight and fun.
Just like I did two years ago with Halo: Reach, I had three friends doing online co-op with me as I pigged out on pizza and coke. We had some issues with save points where our progress wasn't saved but it didn't even matter because we were having so much fun. The Halo co-op experience alone almost guarantees it a place in my top 10 every year there's a release.
Even though I have not had enough time to spend on it yet, I found the multiplayer to be extremely engrossing. The addition of mechs adds to the already solid vehicle play, and the huge maps give you a lot of freedom in terms of how to attack the enemy.
I will be playing this one into 2013.
3.
Onitore; 3DS Nintendo
Onitore is one of those rare brain training games that really does what it advertises: its fully-stocked library of mini-games increase your ability to concentrate, remember things, calculate numbers, recognize abstract shapes and more. Every time you log in this friendly "oni" (who is also a Japanese brain science professor) welcomes you back and opens a few more mini-games. After each game he evaluates your progress, being blunt if you weren't concentrating and praising you if you were. Onitore really gets you hooked, and that's a good thing because it helps you think. The game is also enhanced by the Streetpass features which pit your training accomplishments against those of passersbys.
Every time you turn it on there's potential to improve your brainpower, and something new opening up. Onitore actually helps out
your life, so I've given it a very high rank this year.
4.
Dodonpachi Maximum; iOS CAVE
Dodonpachi Maximum is the answer to the obnoxious canard that hardcore shooters can only be played on $2000 arcade cabinets or import consoles. Whereas all of CAVE's previous iOS games were ports in one or another, Dodonpachi Maximum is an original game created by the Akai Katana team. Since it's native to the smartphone/tablet environment, all of its controls are built towards that. It controls like a dream and the "laser bomb" mechanic is brilliant and direct: collect enough stars from enemies you have destroyed and your hyper meter will rise. When it's full, touch anywhere on-screen with two fingers to destroy everything in sight.
You can tell this one had special care with the twin Easy/Normal campaigns, the simple but beautiful anime-ted endings, and the precision balancing that can let almost anyone (with enough practice) beat every level except 5-E, where the true last boss awaits. For that you'll need quite a bit of practice.
The fact that a brilliant game like this went nearly unnoticed this year is a real shame.
5.
Crashmo; 3DS Intelligent Systems
Totally addicting 3DS puzzler. I had never played Pushmo so I didn't know what to expect but I soon found myself deeply engaged in its 100 charming stages, and became somewhat obsessed for about a month. I also got stuck on one puzzle mid-way through and spent 2 weeks stumped and experimenting. I was truly lost, but I was determined not to look for the answer anywhere. It took three weeks or so for me to break down and read a hint for it. Kind of disappointing that I couldn't solve it on my own, but that's credits to the Crashmo designers for creating mind-melting shit.
Oh and then...my jaw dropped when I beat the game and found out there were 40 more optional ultra-hard puzzles waiting. Add to that the puzzle creation mechanic, experimental 3D block puzzles included as a bonus etc. and this is the best deal on the e-shop IMO.
6.
Bravely Default; 3DS Square-Enix
I'm only about 10 hours into this but I am loving Bravely Default so far. It's got to be the first JRPG in years that doesn't talk your ear off, and it has a funny, lovable story. The basic mechanics are roughly similar to FF5, but the addition of the "brave" feature, which lets you "stack" multiple turns into one, is a smart adaptation of the genre to a mobile format. It lets you make decisions up front and watch the results play out. Yet it also has strategic elements to it that justify its inclusion on the gameplay side as well.
Bravely Default is also very well balanced. In new areas you will briefly feel under-powered, but that changes quickly as you level up. You will need to think for boss battles, holding down the A button does not get you through. That's a good thing, there were too many pushover games on the 3DS this year.
7.
Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition 2012; Xbox360 Capcom
Arcade Edition 2012 smoothed over the balance issues of the original release (where Yun and Yang were ridiculously over-powered), and gave us one of the best-balanced fighters probably since Alpha 2. Most characters can compete. While some are as powerful as always, like Fei-long, I have seen people use other characters like Oni and Evil Ryu to deadly effect. Anybody can be a killer, and that's why the game is fun to play and tournaments are fun to watch.
Here's to Capcom for taking a step back to fix what should have always been a great game, and giving us a tournament standard that could last at least another two years.
8.
Hatsune Miku: Project Diva f; PS Vita Sega
Not typically my type of game, I borrowed this and cleared it. Had a great time with it. All the tracks are really catchy, and the game just shines on the Vita. Popping graphics, beautiful illustrations, mountains of stuff to unlock (songs, costumes, accessories, room items etc etc), and challenging difficulty gives you a lot to chew on. Miku miku ni shite agerareta (I was Miku'ed brah). Once PS02 comes to the Vita next year I will be picking this up again as it was nearly a system seller for me.
9.
EX Troopers; 3DS Capcom
EX Troopers is a solid 3DS action game with popping anime visuals and smart design. The gameplay is frantic, high-paced and reminds one of Vanquish. Since it's aimed at a younger crowd, and since it's on the 3DS which doesn't have a second analogue stick by default, the action gameplay is necessarily simple, however it was still engaging up until the end. I had a lot of fun with it. Ultra-hard missions are of course included and probably require multiplayer sessions to get through.
The game also has a ton of post-game content, including new character-related missions and timed DLC missions (releasing every week).
10.
Phantasy Star Online 2; Sega
I do not play MMORPGs at all, but this game's release coincided with me getting a new PC and I had a lot of fun with it for about two months. Hack and slash action and a vibrant online community. There's also a lot of new areas, missions, abilities, and other expansions constantly being developed for the game.
Will probably be getting back into this when the Vita version comes out.
Honorable mentions:
*Dodonpachi Saidaioujou; Arcade CAVE
It bums me out that I can't put this on my top 10. Because it's a return to form by CAVE in every way. Harsh, futuristic shooter mayhem. Dodge or die. Those are the principles that it's built on, and the whole game is balanced extremely well. You can trigger your hyper to crank out damage on enemies, but the more you do the more your "rank" increases, making the game gets harder to survive. All the bosses are challenging and fun, and it is rued by the shooter community as CAVE's hardest shooter in years.
There's only one problem with the game: a scoring glitch that allows the very best players to get scores maybe 50 times higher than other players. Since this was a PCB release, it was not patched. Had it been on NESSiCA, it probably would have been, but as a result we got stuck with a game that should've been a classic but isn't.
Really though most of my gaming efforts this year were put towards achieving my
Type A score for Dodonpachi Resurrection, a game released in 2008. DDPR is one of my favorite games of all time and I'm sure I'll wind up playing it more in 2013.
People are saying 2012 was a bad year for gaming, maybe so. Overall it was definitely a bad year for shooters. CAVE had a very low output this year compared to 2009-2011. Grev released 2 games, both of which were unfortunately flawed (Under Defeat HD's broken achievements, broken 360 scoreboard and Kokuga's absence of gameplay). Both Gingaforce and Dodonpachi Saidaiojou 360 wound up getting pushed into 2013, and Crimzon Clover failed to show up in the arcades. A rather obscure highlight for me was Grev's Senko no Ronde novel (documented here
http://neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=38421255&postcount=175), which had previously been serialized in Arcadia.
So for 2012 shooter releases, I enjoyed a smartphone game and a novel more than the actual games released. Thankfully we still have all the genius games put out in 2008-2011 to tide us over, but let's hope next year is better.
and the fetch quests seem to stand out *a lot* more in the now four-times recycled Kamurocho.
