2015 has been a rather weak year for my tastes. Not helped by the fact that what I'd imagined would be my top three this year just did not launch yet. No XCOM 2, no No Man's Sky, no Fire Emblem Fates. Not even Star Fox Zero, and that game doesn't even look that hot, yet it would still be an easy top-5 among this year's competition. So, here's McNum's list of games he played this year while waiting for the games that didn't actually release, but should have.
1. Super Mario Maker ; Nintendo gave us the keys to Mario and said "Good luck!"
Super Mario Maker is not a new idea, Little Big Planet did the 2D level editor thing first, and several third party 2D Mario hacking tools exist. And yet Nintendo made one of the most user-friendly level editors I have seen. Making a level is easy, just draw on the GamePad, and drag things from your palette into the level as you fill it with blocks, Koopas, coins and several other classic Mario objects and enemies. The game started with some notable omissions, but Nintendo has added some, like checkpoints, through updates. Here's hoping for a slopes update later.
Now, while making a level is easy, making a GOOD level... is not. I think I've done okay, but if there's one thing Super Mario Maker shows off more than anything, it's just how fiendishly difficult it is to even approach Nintendo quality levels. Far too often you run into levels that are just awful, unfair, or downright broken, and doing the 100 Mario Challenge where you get 100 lives to beat 16 user-made levels can be incredibly frustrating. Mario levels are hard to make. Even one block can dramatically change the flow of the level, and using coins to lead the player is an artform. And yet, I've also seen levels that shine brighter than most Nintendo levels. Clever tricks, awesome re-appropriation of blocks to create new environments, challenging and fair levels, or silly gimmicks like auto-playing music levels or a level that requires you to kill several Yoshis to proceed. It is amazing to see what some people can do with this thing.
That is why Super Mario Maker is my Game of the Year. Those shining examples of player creativity combined with a well crafted editor makes this the ultimate 2D Mario game for me. And if it isn't for you, then you can make it so. I know I did.
2. Splatoon ; Squid? Kid? I'm the Inkling with a gun!
A fashion themed squad-based online shooter where you're a humanoid transforming squid-kid battling it out with supersoakers full of ink. By Nintendo. An online shooter for people like me, who don't like online shooters. This is a weird game, really, but thanks to the usual spot-on controls that Nintendo do so well, motion based or otherwise, and a surprisingly solid online experience, this game just comes together really well. Like if Nintendo did Team Fortress 2, but with squids and ink. The gear is all fashionable fresh clothes, and there is a good variety of abilities and designs for every Inkling to find something that matches their playstyle.
The music deserves its own paragraph, as it is, to borrow the word from the game, quite fresh. "Music like what the Inklings would listen to" is a phenomenal idea, and it lends itself quite well with its garbled squid-pop to make the game come together as a whole. And the entire game is hosted by the two song idols Callie and Marie. And yes, this game has a LOT of sealife puns.
Stay fresh!
3. Just Cause 3 ; Wings of Revolution
Just Cause 3 is a game about flying around with a wingsuit and blowing things up. If that's what you want in a game, then this game delivers exactly that.
You play as Rico Rodriguez, Dictator Removal Specialist, and have to liberate the Mediterranean island nation of Medici from the evil dictator General Di Ravello. You do so by blowing it up. You liberate towns by ejecting the Di Ravello Militia (and yes, it's abbreviated DRM in-game), and military facilities by blowing up everything important, helpfully marked with red paint. Liberate all settlements in a province, and the province is free. Liberate all provinces in a region and the region is free. Liberate all regions and Medici is free. You traverse the open world on land, in the sea and in the air, with the new feature in the game being the faceplantingly fun wingsuit. Learning how to master that makes the game a much smoother experience. Which is good, because some vehicles handle well, and some... don't. Some motorcycles are notoriously hard to drive, but helicopters, on the other hand, are great. Scattered around the world are various collectibles, and should you bring a car to a garage, you can "Rebel Drop" it in at any time. The downside of the game is that all upgrades are locked away behind challenges, which get really repetitive, not to mention the issue of a strict time limit on races with randomized traffic.
Overall the game is pretty fun, and the explosions are pretty. Just... be warned that the console version have some issues that the PC version does not.
4. Mushihimesama ; The Bug Princess comes to Steam, hope you like bullets!
Bugs and bullets. Lots of bugs and bullets. Mushihimesama is a classic Cave Bullet Hell shoot 'em Up, finally released on PC. You play as Reco, riding her trusty golden bug, and you must fight five stages worth of bullet spewing insects and gigantic bosses. I kind of feel like I'm not entirely qualified to tell if this is a good Bullet Hell shooter, since I still haven't gotten further than its new player friendly Novice mode, but I had fun with it. Novice is a nice pace, but just know that the game has many, much harder, difficulties and modes of play available.
It's worth noting that the 1.5 version of Mushihimesama is available as an add on, which is apparently a big deal since that particular version is super-rare in the arcades, but rather cheap on Steam.
It would be wrong to not mention the music for Mushihimesama as it deserves its own paragraph. Catchy, tense, and even subdued at times, the game knows exactly what music to play while you're dodging bullets for your life. And since the game comes with the original, arrange, and 1.5 music (if you get the 1.5 DLC), there's a lot of catchy tunes to shoot bugs by.
5. Dragon Ball XenoVerse ; Shameless selfinsert Dragon Ball fanfiction: The Game! And that's totally okay.
A generically evil bad guy is threatening time itself, and Trunks gathers the Dragon Balls to wish for a warrior powerful enough to aid him. Which is you. Because Goku was apparently busy dying his hair blue or something. Create your character, be he or she human, saiyan, namekian, majin, or a member of the frieza-clan, and save time itself from a generic doomsday villain!
The fighting is decent. Moves are easy to do, combos don't rely on frame-perfect timing, and building up an infinite combo is somewhat easy. And then the opponent vanishes and appears behind you or explodes you away, thanks to the defensive options the game offers. The ranged game is a bit more limited. There are big ki attacks and you either block them or dodge. Or counter if you have that skill. The major downside to the game is how everything outside the story mode is random. Do you get a skill? Random. Does the special event in a sidequest trigger? Random. Do you find a Dragon Ball? Random. You can end in situations where you have a random roll to decide if you get a random roll. That's a little TOO much random for me. Still, the core game is fun, even if the loot drops are awful.
6. Pac-Man 256 ; Wakka-wakka-wakka... LASER! Wakka-wakka-wakPNGIM00QOHJN11GFLPF
An endless Pac-Man runner seems like such an obvious idea in hindsight, because it works really well. You take your standard Pac-Man gameplay, and then canonoze the classic level 256 glitch where half the maze becomes gibberish as a wall of death that chases you, add some upgradable powerups for flavor and you have a simple, yet entertaining F2P game. There's not much else to it, it's, well... exactly what you'd expect from a F2P endless Pac-Man runner.
Although, I don't think I've seen a game based on a fatal error in a previous game in its own series before, so that's kind of neat.
7. Cities: Skylines ; It's like SimCity, but done right.
It's a well made, agent based, transportation focused, city building simulator. And boy does it simulate. People, vehicles, electricity, water, crime, and just about anything you could think of should be simulated, well, is. The standout examples would be water simulation, where you have to consider currents (place your waste disposal downstream from your water pumps) and can actually drain lakes with the water pumps, or turn a valley into a disgusting lake of sewage, and of course the traffic simulation. This is the Cities in Motion team. They do transport very well, even if the way to make it all run smoothly is a bit complicated. But I imagine real life road design isn't easy either.
I am not a fan of the tutorial, though. It explains way too much, way too fast, without giving the player a chance to try out the mechanics it attempts to teach, but at the same time it locks out several useful tools until the city has reached certain milestones. The new player experience is not very optimal.
But as a point of wonderful snark, expanding your city's land to nine times the size of what you begin with unlocks the achievement "SIMulated City". Ouch.
8. The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask 3D ; Now with the ability to save the game! And in 3D!
I was never a big fan of Majora's Mask. The time limit, despite being generous, always bugged me, especially since the only way to hard save was to reset time and undo everything you did up until that point. Majora's Mask 3D has save points that save both your location and time of day. Very convenient and it alleviates so much frustration. Otherwise, well, it's Majora's Mask. The odd-ball sidestory Zelda that's quite unique, despite sharing a lot with Ocarina of Time. The world is a depressing land, but through its ample amount of sidequests, you get to know the inhabitants of the land, and save it bit by bit until Termina becomes a land worth saving from its terrible fate. You don't save the world from lunar annihilation. You save the world... and then you go stop the moon. And that is kind of unique.
9. Freedom Planet ; Not the Hedgehog we deserve, but the dragon (and cat, and bunny) that we need right now.
Now for the Wii U! It's a fairly good "Sonic the Hedgehog, but with an attack button and fighting game moves" platformer. It controls very nicely, and the characters are all pretty cute. The levels are big and expansive, and the boss battles are excellent. The game can be really difficult, though, and some bosses will wreck you. Also, the voice acting is... yeah, let's not talk about that too much. Still, a solid game that's fun to play. And in the end that's what matters.
10. HuniePop ; A match 3 dating sim puzzle game. Really.
It's a silly game, in case you didn't notice from the mismatched genres, and yes, it panders heavily with fanservice, as such anime dating sims do. Nothing really special about that, except that the match 3 game is actually pretty good. Yes, really. Kind of like Candy Crush, in that you can match symbols from across the field, and then you have different resources, a score multiplier, and single-use powerups. In short, this game works way better than it has any right to. It is extremely lewd, though.
And that's about all I played that's worth mentioning. If you aren't a fan of realistic open world games, or quirky indie RPGs, this has been such a disappointing year. I doubt PAC-MAN 256, Freedom Planet, or especially HuniePop would even have been considered for a list like this had anything big that I wanted to play actually released apart from what Nintendo was doing.
Bring on 2016 already! February alone almost looks stronger than all of 2015 for me.
