Top Ten Games of 2015

The year has once again come to an end, which means I need to tell you what my top ten games of the year were. As always I will start at ten and work my way down to one. This year was savage, because there were a ton of great games that came out. I had a super hard time deciding what to put on my list and where to put it.

Keep in mind that these are my personal opinions.

10. Disgaea 5

I love the Disgaea series for its weird characters and insane grinding. However, Disgaea 5 just didn't do it for me like I thought it would. I still had a ton of fun, but the story dragged on for so long that I had lost interest by the time I got to the post game. The overall story was bland and predictable, but the characters held it up.

I may return to it again soon for some more leveling goodness.




9. Yakuza 5

After playing Yakuza 3 I fell in love with the franchise. The combat is a modern take on old school beat em' ups, and feels silky smooth. It's a ton of fun to run around Japan and beat the living hell out
of any thug that tries to take you on. The story in this one was hit or miss for me. Some parts were amazing, while other parts felt like needless filler. The good parts of the story definitely outweighed the bad though. The ending alone was worth playing through the entire game.



8. Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate

Monster Hunter isn't the most accessible game, but 4 brings it much closer to where it should be. The fact that the game teaches you the basics now is a huge improvement. On top of that there are now more weapons and monster variations than ever before. Being able to jump and mount monsters also adds a whole new layer to an already mechanic heavy game. It's a dense franchise, but it rewards those who are willing to put in the time and learn.




7. Shovel Knight

Recently many games have been trying to capitalize on nostalgia by having a "retro" feel. Shovel Knight is one of the few games in this vein that feels genuine. It captures the retro feel while still managing to feel and play like a modern video game. It's challenging, but not so challenging that I felt like I needed to snap my controller in half!






6. Inazuma Eleven GO Chrono Stones

Anime soccer is my jam. I stream Chrono Stone every Wednesday and I still enjoy it. It's the Inazuma Eleven I love but with a lot more characters, moves, and general content. The story was insane in the best possible way, and some cool new characters were introduced. It doesn't do much to change the formula, but it adds enough content to justify its existence.




5. Splatoon

I love when Nintendo is willing to take risks. Somehow Splatoon manages to make me have fun in an online multiplayer focused game. Shooting and swimming around in ink is just plain fun. It helps that you don't have to chase down and shoot your opponents too. Even someone like me can aim at the floor and cover it with ink to contribute to the team. On top of the gameplay Splatoon is oozing with style. The clothing and music are incredible.




4. Rock Band 4

Rock Band 4 didn't really change much from its predecessor. In fact, it actually lost a lot of popular features. This is understandable considering that Harmonix doesn't have a major publisher behind them anymore. The fact that they were able to re-license almost all of the previous DLC for the franchise is bananas.

The reason this is on my list is because I have fun when I play Rock Band. I get together with my friends every Friday and rock out.



3. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

The Phantom Pain isn't much of a Metal Gear Solid game. Sure you play as Big Boss, but the insane story feel and long cinematics are all but gone. In their place is a game that plays very well. In a shocking turn of events the Phantom Pain plays like a modern video game and allows for a lot of possibilities. Anything you can think of trying you'll probably be able to do.

There is so much attention to detail in this game it's shocking. It's not hard to see why the game cost Konami so much money. They didn't think it was worth it, but I certainly did. Somehow Kojima was able to take the craziness missing from the story and implant it into the gameplay. This is a perfect way to end an amazing franchise!


2. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

The world that CD Projekt Red manages to create in the Witcher 3 is vibrant and well realized. I've been getting sick of open world games for years now, but somehow the Witcher managed to make me forget all about that. It helps that when you come across a quest it matters. Even if you don't get a good reward the story itself is generally worth the trouble. That might be my favorite part of the game. There are things and people in every part of the world. It doesn't feel like the desolate wasteland that most open world games have become. Very few things you find will be happy though, because the world of the Witcher is beyond grim.

Combat is challenging when playing on the higher difficulties. You can't just go in and swing your sword around like a fool. You need to prepare potions and douse your sword in oils in order to take down monsters. Everything meshes together to make a cohesive package.


1. Undertale

When I finished Undertale I didn't know what to think. It took me a couple of days to realize that I loved almost everything about the game. Never before have I become so attached to characters in a
video game in such a short time. Undertale can be 100% completed in around six hours. Somehow that is enough time to feel like you're friends with fictional characters, There was a moment in Undertale that made me tear up, and there were multiple moments where I laughed out loud. It's rare for a video game to make me feel such real emotions and that's why Undertale is so special to me.

The game does a great job at subverting what you know about the RPG genre. Sure you can go berserk on an enemy and kill it, but you could also talk to it until it doesn't want to fight anymore. You don't have to kill anything and that's cool!

Above all else though, I will remember Undertale and that's the highest praise I can possibly give a game.

Game Time - October 2015

As I mentioned in the last edition of Game Time, my two most anticipated games of 2015 came out in October. That's right, Rock Band 4 and Disgaea 5 hit me on the same day! To no one's surprise those were really the only two games I played last month, and while I "beat" them I'm still playing the crap out of both of them. 

There's not much introduction to be done here, so without any further dawdling we're going to get right into it. It's game time!

Rock Band 4

There was a time around 2008 when video games centered around the playing of plastic instruments were very popular. The craze started with the original Guitar Hero, and Peaked around the time Rock Band 2 came out. Rock band was, and is a lot of fun to play in a large group. If you have all the equipment you can have a guitarist, bassist, drummer, and singer. Most songs only take a few minutes to complete, so it's super easy to switch people out as needed. I personally remember having like twenty people over to my house on a weekend I came home from college, and it was a complete blast. Much to my dismay that was around the time Rock Band 2 released, and that was when the plastic instrument fueled games started to burn out. Their decline was completely understandable, because there were over six guitar hero games, and at least 5 Rock Band Games. What made it even more upsetting was that Guitar Hero stopped focusing on guitar and started encroaching on Rock Band by adding drums and vocals in order to properly compete. The sheer amount of games being released at an insane clip caused the genre to collapse in on itself.

This is why Rock Band 4 has me so excited, because the plastic instrument genre can return once again. It's crazy, because Guitar Hero is also making a comeback, but they have returned to their guitar only focus, which means that it's not "directly" competing with what Rock Band has to offer. I feel weird saying that, because I really only play guitar in Rock Band, but that's fine. The reason I am so down with Rock Band 4 is because I can use all the DLC I bought when the series was at its peak, and I didn't have to buy new instruments either!

Man, there are no exciting Rock Band 4 pictures huh?

I've seen a lot of people complain that Rock Band 4 is a bare bones product, which it is. However, when you consider what the game is accomplishing behind the scenes I feel like the fact that it exists at all is a miracle. For the previous entries in the franchise Harmonix teamed up with EA and WB in order to get their games out. Now Harmonix is more or less a fully independent studio, and they did not get a major publisher for Rock Band 4. They instead partnered with Madcatz who is a hardware manufacturer to get the game out to the masses. This is extra cool, because Madcatz produced brand new higher quality instruments for the game. Even though I didn't need to I purchased a new guitar, and it's amazing. The strum bar is much sturdier than the previous ones, and it makes playing a lot more comfortable.

Now, this is where Rock Band 4 gets crazy. Not everyone is aware, but licensing music is a nightmare. Obviously Harmonix had to go out and license new music to put in Rock Band 4. What's insane is that they also went back and re-licensed almost every single DLC track from the previous entries. Over time they put out over 1,800 songs, and only a handful are not available for purchase anymore. So this means that since I bought some songs on PS3, that I was able to download those songs on the PS4 for no additional cost! It doesn't stop there though. It hasn't happened yet, but all the previous disc based games excluding Beatles Rock Band will be exportable to Rock Band 4 as well. The catch with those is that you had to have exported them into Rock Band 3 previously. In the case of Rock Band 3 you will have to have played it on your account so that they can verify your purchase of the game when the export becomes available. This only works going from Xbox 360 to Xbox One, and PS3 to PS4, which makes sense. Wait though, it gets even better! If you still have your old instruments lying around you can plug them into a PS4 and have them go right off the bat. The Xbox One makes it a little more complex, because you need to buy an adapter, but at least you can still get everything to work.

Rock Band 4 still looks like Rock Band!

Seriously, Harmonix went above and beyond in bringing Rock Band and all of its content to the current generation of consoles. The main game doesn't have much in the way of features right now, but it will gain more over time. See, Harmonix is going to use the game as a platform, which will have free updates over the course of the games life. All it really has right now is a career mode, super limited character creator, and quick-play. It's basically a vehicle to play your old content on the current generation of consoles, and it works very well for that. On top of all of this they have spun up the old DLC machine, and are releasing three new songs every week.

So far I've had a ton of fun playing songs every Friday with my friends. I'm not the best player, but I just enjoy playing the game. I'm not upset about the missing features that many others seem to be upset about, because they'll probably make it into the game eventually. There is a huge update patch already planned to come out in early December. Harmonix did a lot of work to get everything to work on the current generation of consoles and I seriously respect it.

Disgaea 5

Disgaea is a crazy franchise. It takes the regular strategy RPG genre and makes it infinitely more complex by throwing as many systems as it can on top of it. They all end up working together in the end, which makes this one of my favorite franchises of all time. I picked up Disgaea 2 on a whim in high school and ended up playing it and trying to figure out what the hell was going on for weeks. I stayed up like 18 hours a day at a friends house as we played through it and dabbled in the madness. What's cool about Disgaea is that it gets better with each iteration. I'm not talking about the story, but the gameplay. In each successive game the mechanics are explained better, and streamlined to make everything less frustrating.

None of this means anything if you've never played a game in the franchise, or you haven't watched it before, so let me explain a little bit. Strategy RPGs generally have you send around ten characters into battle. You then move them one-by-one on a grid. If they move up to an enemy they can attack, or use a skill. Disgaea plays like that as well, but it takes the level cap and cranks it up to 9,999. You can then start your character over by reincarnating them, and bringing them to 9,999 again at which point they will have higher stats. You can do that until the character is technically 186,000. This isn't exactly how it works in Disgaea 5, but it was like that in the previous games. As if getting to 186,000 wasn't crazy enough you can also go inside of your weapons and fight monsters in order to make them stronger. Everything can level up, and eventually you can do it ridiculously fast, which feels amazing! Disgaea is all about leveling and doing insane damage with overblown stats.

I did actually like these drawings.

You don't really see how crazy the franchise can get until the story is over, which in my opinion has been the worst part of Disgaea 5 so far. I streamed most of my playthrough of the game, which is now archived on YouTube. Near the end I started to get very impatient, because the story went on way too long for its own good. Most of the time the story doesn't bother me, but in 5 the overall plot is super generic. The only thing saving it is the characters interacting with one another, but sometimes even that is super awful.

The main character is Killia, who is a cool looking demon who likes to eat a lot. In the first scene of the game he saves princess Seraphina, and she "makes" him help her take down the evil Void Dark. Void Dark has been taking over netherworlds and generally being evil, and on top of that Seraphina's dad is trying to make her marry him. Obviously she doesn't want to do that, and for reasons not initially apparent Killia wants to take him down too. Through a series of events they meet more characters who are going against Void Dark and form a rebel army to take him down. It sounds alright, but the plot is the one of the most generic revenge plots I've ever seen. It doesn't help that the game is at least twice as long as all the other games were. Like I said previously the characters are cool, but even they wear thin. By the end of the game they had repeated the same lines and reasoning for so many hours that I just didn't care at all anymore. Every time anything would happen I would call it beforehand on stream, because all of the conflict in the story and between characters was so predictable. Like, if Killia hadn't been funny and cool then I might have stopped playing the story all together. If the characters had been allowed to interact without the stupid revenge plot getting in the way all the time it might have been an enjoyable story.

I thought this so many times during the story!

My favorite part of Disgaea games is when the story is over. That's when you unlock all the cool extra characters, and challenge stages. You don't really get to level like a crazy person until you get the proper maps to do it on. I am now in the process of going insane and leveling my characters to the best of my ability. There's always a point when you beat the game where you're too strong to level on the stages you have, but too weak to beat the enemies that let you level up super quickly. I'm stuck in the middle ground, but am on the cusp of breaking through.

If you want to see what Disgaea 5 is all about then head over to my YouTube Channel, and keep an eye on my Twitch account. All my streams are archived, and I've been recording videos of myself playing through the games many pieces of DLC. Even if you don't have any interest in playing, I recommend you check out what the game is all about anyways. It has a lot of interesting concepts that you don't see very often in  strategy RPGs.

Just When You Thought It Was Over

Even though my two most anticipated games of the year have come and gone, November is going to have some crazy stuff! For starters Yo-Kai Watch! the Japanese sensation is finally coming out in English on the 6th. Then, just four days later Fallout 4 is coming out. I feel weird about Fallout, because I'm not excited for it. I would like to be, but I feel like my mind can't comprehend that it's actually coming out so soon after its announcement. 

Then, as if Fallout wasn't going to be huge enough, Battlefront comes out the following week! How the hell am I going to play Fallout 4 and play multiplayer with my friends in Battlefront!? I want to cry, because my time management skills recently haven't been the best. That's not something to talk about here though.

Trust me, I'll find a way to play everything and then write about it next month. See you on the other side.

Memorable Melodies: Lord Laharl's Hymn from Disgaea

Original

8-bit remix

Song: Lord Laharl's Hymn

Game: Disgaea (All of them)

Composer: Tenpei Sato

Last week I did not get a chance to write Memorable Melodies, because it was the first day I got to play Disgaea 5: Alliance of Vengeance. I have been a proponent of Disgaea ever since I accidentally picked yp Disgaea 2 in the mid 2,000's. I was at Gamestop, and had enough money to buy a game. Disgaea 2 caught my eye, so I got it. Initially I thought it was just a weird strategy game, but a few chapters in I realized it was insane. I found myself in a swamp. All my units were leveled into their mid-teens, and there is Etna a few hundred levels higher than them. I thought this was something that was impossible to beat, but little did I realize that you can grind to level 9,999 multiple times! Stats get crazy in games, but now in Disgaea 5 stats can go up to 40 million, literally.

I have a weird thing for grinding in RPGs and seeing my characters get stronger. Disgaea cranks that feeling all the way up and makes me super happy. 

The type of game it is isn't the only reason I like it though. All of the Disgaea games have a heartfelt story that is often goofy, but very self aware. All of those things sound counter-intuitive, but somehow they mesh together very well. The main character of the original Disgaea, Laharl, is the epitome of what Disgaea is. He's selfish, lazy, and egotistical, but deep down he has a great love for his comrades. He makes appearances in every other Disgaea game in one form or another, and I couldn't be happier about that. He wants to be the center of attention, so he travels around telling everyone he is the main character, even when he isn't.

I love Laharl, and by association that means I also love Lord Laharl's Hymn. It's in every Disgaea game, and you hear it a whole lot. I have played each of these games for over 100 hours, so the song is ingrained in my mind. A lot of video game songs put a smile on my face when I hear them, and this is definitely one of them!

Note: Laharl is the kid pictured in the top video who has blue hair, and a cape.