This isn’t a definitive list and I’ve made so many draft lists and deleted them that I can’t really settle on anything. I just wanted to get a list in to support this thread. I’ll probably look at it two seconds later and say “nah, that’s not right”, but I feel like this list shouldn’t be tiered anyway.
I did say a month ago that “I didn’t play a lot of games this generation”. Well, that’s true and false. During the generation, I barely played games from that generation at all and just stuck to PC/Arcades and bigger console RPG releases for the most part. Also I had a Wonderswan, and a GBA I barely touched outside of like… Densetsu no Stafi, Genso Suikoden Card Stories, Tales of the World: Some Name We Came Up With While High, etc. Yeah, I dunno. I didn’t really get around to a lot of the games listed until much later. The fact of the matter is that I’ve played way too many frickin’ games and choosing stuff between
seven different platforms that I have experience with is super-hard.
There were a few things I had discovered this generation:
- I had started to like shooters far less when I played more 3-D ones. I can do shmups, I can do run and guns… but I can’t do first-person shooters (get too nauseous—though I will persevere through some), and third-person shooters are a hard sell lately.
- I can no longer play games in the first-person if they are in 3D due to nausea and I don’t feel like popping a Gravol every time I play one!
- RPGs changed a lot. They’re more varied and I think we got to see further steps into genre bleeding (though not as big a leap into genre bleeding as the PS360 gen). However, since I’ve played a lot of this gen’s RPGs after the fact, it’s difficult to say how I felt about it during the gen itself.
So… just don’t look at this as a tiered-list. And I tried to go for genre-variation/trying not to keep to one single platform. I’m pretty sure I’ll look back on this a year from now and tell myself that this list is kinda garbage or “too safe” (heck, even right now I’m saying that it’s too safe). PS: sorry that it's so short, but I just haven't had the time to do anything in-depth lately.
Oh, yeah: Previous lists for reference:
GotY 2011
GotY 2012
GotY 2013 post 1 /
GotY post 2
GotY 2008 (2012 edition)
Also I post 4 posts' worth of words in the Soundtrack of the Year threads. They're pretty cool.
2011 Soundtrack of the Year:
1,
2
2012 Soundtrack of the Year:
1,
2,
LTTP Post
2013 Soundtrack of the Year:
1,
2,
3,
4
2014 Soundtrack of the Year:
1 /
2 /
3 /
4
1. Mother 3 (GBA)
There are many, many things I love about Mother 3. I loved it so much that I ended up getting that fangamer guide after I finished the game to see what I had missed and learned that I did everything in a completely different sequence than what the guide has suggested.
I enjoyed the minor changes to the battle system whereby it became more rhythm-based and more involved. The enemy designs were pretty interesting, and no more than 3 enemies fit the screen (and if there’re more, they’ll just come filing in). The spritework is very detailed and colourful and the psychedelic backgrounds return.
The narrative is the game’s brightest spot: it begins with something so heartfelt that it brings the player to tears, and ends with something that is just heartfelt. I guess the reason why I like Mother 3 far more than Mother 2 is because it plays with your emotions so much, and because it carries a lot of themes like the issues with capitalism, individualism, accepting/ostracizing others, and the concept of death/the importance of life and explores them in detail without being completely overt about it. Mother 3 values player exploration so much that you can go back to the village every chapter and find that the NPCs have something new to say every time, and you can revisit previous locations to find something new (ex: the Osohe Castle boss). It’s one of the very few RPGs that leaves me wondering about the narrative since I’m more mechanically-oriented.
While Mother 3 doesn’t necessarily have much depth in terms of how it plays, what makes it is its narrative and general pacing. It doesn’t overstay its welcome, and it deals with many themes that can touch anyone who plays it.
2. Shin Megami Tensei 3 (PS2)
SMT3 is an excellent game and you will get your money’s worth. The dungeon design is really good; while looking very much like labyrinths, they are fairly linear in design. And even then, after the first few dungeons are done, a few interesting gimmicks are added for good measure (and I’ve stated before somewhere on this board that I am a genuine fan of gimmick-oriented dungeon design). While it’s the dungeon design that looks back on the old, it feels fairly refreshing in the face of some RPGs on the PS2. It’s like cutting into a layered cake with a bunch of different ingredients; at first it seems incredibly basic, but as you explore more and get through even more of the game, the player genuinely feels like there’s more content than meets the eye).
SMT3 is appreciated simply because it presents the player with a narrative and choices subtly and introduces some philosophical concepts without making the game feel like it drags under their weight or the player feel like these concepts are applied incorrectly. Demon recruitment serves to add to the player’s repertoire of philosophical references and religion while implementing fusion mechanics with some sort of depth and experimentation. SMT3 manages to be one of the best RPGs on the PS2, if not the best altogether for its cohesive cel-shaded art design, dungeon mechanics, environments, battle system implementation and customization, and character design. Thematically, it’s one of the better interpretations of philosophical and ethical discussion of the era.
3. Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn (PC)
As I have previously mentioned in past Essential RPG threads, this is probably my favourite BioWare game, or at least one of the last of their games that I liked. I think at the time I’d played it, it felt like it was peerless, and it was super-long so I didn’t play many games at the same time. It recreated the feeling of playing a decent DnD game. All of the classes, races, and items are presented to every player very well and doesn’t lay tons of DnD-like rules very thick. The best thing about BG2, as I had rediscovered last summer, was that it is pretty stats-heavy! But even then, it isn’t very confusing, and even people who aren’t super-into ADnD can easily get into it without feeling deterred. Compared to BG1, it’s not click here and click there. You need to think of what spells are good for mage battles, think of how to react properly to certain situations, and think of how you can get it done faster. At the time, no other game had applied ADnD rulesets as well as BG2, and even to today, it’s still wonderful to go back and re-explore it and experience BG2’s world, its myriad of sidequests, and its interesting narrative.
4. Silent Hill 2 (PS2)
I don’t know what I can say about this game that hasn’t already been said. I was late to the party with this game, and didn’t play it until maybe 2007 or 2008. Silent Hill 2 blends good sound design with storytelling in an interesting way for the survival horror genre. Honestly, thinking about it, it doesn’t break any sort of moulds in the survival horror genre, but I think the most compelling detail is its narrative. The game exposes players to uncovering many characters’ inner secrets, even the main characters’. No one is explicitly good, and at the same time, no one is explicitly terrible. It’s an exploration of many characters’ psyches, and the most compelling one is the main character’s, particularly when revelations about his character occur. And I suppose, its storytelling and how relatable some characters can be, is clever and striking enough to make any survival horror fan enthralled. It isn’t the external boogeyman that’s out to get you; the biggest obstacle can sometimes be you. (And I guess it helps that the combat is better than the original game’s.)
5. Final Fantasy X-2 International + Last Mission (PS2)
Final Fantasy X-2 is one of my favourite Final Fantasy games, hands-down. I’m just gonna jack this post I made a long time ago because I don’t think I can reword it better:
“Final Fantasy X-2 took Final Fantasy V's implementation of the job system and modified it to something even more special. While I liked FFV's job system very much, I absolutely loved ATB Kai and the evolutions FFX-2 made to it via the Dressphere system. The on-the-fly job switching system allowed for so much flexibility and different combinations/permutations (if you required it) of jobs between characters and across the party to modify the party dynamic and synergy... and you could add those job spheres to a garment grid sometimes separated by stat enhancers that took effect if you passed through them in order to switch jobs on the fly. Sure, you can play with three dark knights, but where's the fun in that? Making things too easy isn’t fun, and you aren’t taking advantage of the diversity of jobs you have to handle. People who say it’s merely a “dress up” game really needs to take a long, hard look at it—it’s basically Final Fantasy V with an all-female cast. Each dressphere is a job and each job gives a different appearance to each character, like how all the jobs in FF5 gave a new appearance to a character, just in sprite form. We got an interesting set of jobs in Gun Mage, Gunner, Songstress, Festival-Goer, Psychic, Lady Luck, etc. So basically, instead of just 3 people in battle, you’re getting up to 17 or so jobs with each character, resulting in 680 possible combinations without repetition, 969 combinations with repetition, 4913 permutations with repetition, and 4080 permutations with repetition. I really liked tinkering with this system and seeing what I got out of it. Beat Trema without the Cat Nip tactic by using jobs that aren't ideal for the situation was fun.
“Even under the bubblegum pop of the narrative, there's an underlying plot of different factions trying to take control over Spira for ideological reasons. Many of the NPCs explain how they feel about the political spectrum and can openly criticize certain aspects of the former political regime when the NPC talk in FFX was incredibly bound to the Yevon religion. It’s genuinely nice to see the change, and to see some familiar NPCs grow up a little.
“Just… I love Final Fantasy X-2. I’ll defend it to the end. It’s a very fun game, and it’s a Final Fantasy, much like Final Fantasy V, that I’ll eagerly return to again and again."
6. Metal Slug 3 (Arcade)
Remember when SNK went bankrupt? This was the game they released before they went broke. And it just so happens to be one of the best games in the series next to Metal Slug X. The sprite art is decent fantabulous~ ~breathtaking~ (thx, randomkid :V), and there are more weapons to choose from without throwing the balancing off. It’s also one of the few games where I don’t necessarily mind vehicular portions as much since they’re implemented fairly well and they mostly show up in areas with more enemies than normal. The branching path system in 3 makes things even more interesting since each path has a different length, different weapons, different difficulty, etc. It’s one of the more flexible run and gun games out there, and it’s filled with content to the brim so that it doesn’t get that old.
7. Ikaruga (DC)
Treasure’s Ikaruga is another one of those games that make you feel fulfilled when you’ve finally mastered something, and it’s a better game than Radiant Silvergun. I guess I’m picking this shmup out of everything else because it ended up standing out beyond everything else because of its colour palette, it actually has a backstory (even beyond this, I could have picked Espgaluda II, but that’s neither here nor there), and its polarity mechanic. The polarity mechanic set it apart from everything else (where you can shoot white/blue energy or red/black energy, and you have to choose the right polarity at the right time). The thing about Ikaruga is that it takes time to figure things out and get really good at it. It’s a lesson in learning and studying and mastering a game’s concept and learning how to execute it properly.
8. Ninja Gaiden: Black (Xbox)
Picking between DMC3:SE and NGB was a struggle. I decided to go with NGB over DMC3 just because I had more PS2 games on the list and I think both games are equally good (hence why I think they’re two of the three big pillars in character action games). This game is a crazy test of patience, but when you get through a lot of it and learning the ins-and-outs of the combat, it feels incredibly fantastic. Ninja Gaiden had set a new standard for action games in general because of its length, its combat, its speed, and how much the player can do (especially in Black). The game doesn’t overstay its welcome, and the difficulty pacing is pretty fair. Ryu being incredibly acrobatic and agile feels great, and the difficult doesn’t necessarily feel that unfair. This is a game that rewards your skill, combat analysis and combat timing. Ninja Gaiden Black channeling the spirit of its predecessors truly makes it one of the best callbacks to older games providing a fun challenge while still introducing certain aspects and setting a bar on its own.
9. Capcom vs SNK 2: Mark of the Millennium 2001 (ARC)
This is a far, far better game than its predecessor. While it isn’t the best-looking fighting game of its era, being more dynamic and the character roster (which feels a little more balanced than MvC2 where non-top-tier characters can still pull off some spectacular stuff). It blends in a nice mechanic from King of Fighters where some characters are better gaining meters, while others should just use it. The six grooves are pretty interesting in that they determine how the character gains meter, their style, etc. It simply gives the tools to the player and it’s up to the player to figure it out themselves. This means that depending on the player, you can see some neat high-level play from a lot of people since playstyles are so different and if you practice enough, you get to see a ton of mid-tier characters get an advantage. While it has stuff like the roll cancel glitch and some could argue that higher-tier characters like Sagat are still prone to win (and people are people and will still pick high-tier characters no matter what), it’s undeniable that CvS2 is a fairly solid fighter.
10. Cave Story/Doukutsu Monogatari (PC)
Free stuff is something that’s music to every teenager’s ears. Okay, free stuff is music to anyone’s ears. Cave Story was something you could get for free in 2004 or so, and it’s by one dude! One dude doing all the level design, the music, the sprites, everything in five years! It’s a genuine product of love for games or even just sending a message to other people as to what you like about games or expressing something through the video game medium. In that time, I felt as though Cave Story was refreshing for the era. In a sea of freeware that isn’t necessarily good, it’s very nice to find something so centred on previous eras, and be good. It controls incredibly well, and is simple enough to be easy to pick up and play. The game is generally about exploration, getting weapons, upgrading your weapons, and trying to avoid getting hit by enemies (since you lose upgrade points too).
I enjoy that the story is being told fairly subtly, and the game itself is mostly mechanically-driven. It’s not the type of game that you play only once (especially since there are multiple endings). But it is very nice to see how much dedication that Pixel had to this project so much so that it’s arguably one of the best and most genuine indie games of its time period.
For AniHawk to tabulate:
1. Mother 3 (GBA)
2. Shin Megami Tensei 3 (PS2)
3. Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn (PC)
4. Silent Hill 2 (PS2)
5. Final Fantasy X-2 International + Last Mission (PS2)
6. Metal Slug 3 (Arcade)
7. Ikaruga (DC)
8. Ninja Gaiden: Black (Xbox)
9. Capcom vs SNK 2: Mark of the Millennium 2001 (Arc)
10. Cave Story (PC)
Honourable Mentions (sorry that there are so many):
x. Diablo II (PC)
x. Phantasy Star Online (DC)
x. Divine Divinity (PC)
x. Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door (GCN)
x. Blue Wing Blitz (WSC)
x. Final Fantasy XII: International Zodiac Job System (PS2)
x. Gitaroo Man (PS2)
x. Oriental Blue (GBA)
x. Ninja Five-O (GBA)
x. Skies of Arcadia (DC)
x. Shadow Hearts 2: Director’s Cut (PS2)
x. The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (PC)
x. Icewind Dale (PC)
x. Mega Man Zero 3 (GBA)
x. The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap (GBA)
x. Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter (PS2)
x. Tales of Destiny R: Director’s Cut (PS2)
x. Genso Suikoden V (PS2)
x. Devil May Cry 3: Dante’s Awakening SE (PS2)
x. Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria (PS2)
x. Resident Evil 4 (PS2)
x. Crazy Taxi (ARC)
x. Metal Wolf Chaos (yeah, really. It makes me laugh)
x. Garou: Mark of the Wolves (DC)