2015 Games Review

2015 Games Review

2 Star Games

Persona 4 Arena. Despite having interesting cutscenes, the bit of story I did see is essentially retelling Persona 4. And I could not get into the battles at all.

 

Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes. Very much lost interest in the Metal Gear Solid series with

this short, uninteresting prequel.

 

Transistor. Annoying battles, annoying narrator, confusing story.

 

Project Cars. Too difficult to get into unless you have a keen interest in the cars themselves.

 

3 Star Games

Pokémon Rumble Blast. Enjoyable enough progress but every level is exactly the same.

 

Cubemen 2. Most of the action is too slow and too small on the screen.

 

Hazumi. Fun alleyway style game but progress is severely hampered by the fact almost every level need three star completion

 

Goat Simulator. Very funny, very silly, very limited game.

 

Mario Party 10. Car mechanic continues to mean the mini games are less important to the overall experience.

4 Star Games

Persona Q. Brilliant story mixing the characters of Person 3 and Persona 4. Solving the mazes is fun but a bit of fatigue sets in towards the end

 

Uncharted Golden Abyss. Just as good as any of the main series games but a little bit too short

 

Final Fantasy Type 0. What starts as an amazing story soon gets bogged down in complicated, confusing mythology plot. Gameplay is pretty fun and the music is great.

 

Watchdogs. Very fun GTA style game, hacking stuff like traffic lights and bridges is very

enjoyable. Unfortunately, my game was plagued with bugs and I was unable to progress.

 

Skylanders Swap Force. The swap mechanic isn't as interesting as promised and the levels are too long and tedious as a result. Skylanders is still good fun though.

 

Fantasy Life. Amazing game, almost a cartoon version of Skyrim. so much stuff to do. My only complaint is the constant repetition of some tasks gave me RSI

 

5 Star Games

Mario and Luigi: Paper Jam. Good crossover of the two Mario RPG series.

 

Steamworld Dig. Dig into the earth, collect resources and sell them, upgrade your machine and repeat until you get to the bottom. Very enjoyable.

 

Super Motherload. Dig into Mars, collect resources and sell them, upgrade your machine and repeat until you get to the bottom. Very enjoyable

 

Hatoful Boyfriend. Romance simulation where you must choose which bird in your college you will fall in love with. Amazing.

 

Long Live The Queen. Guide the Princess Elodie at most likely getting killed horribly while also taking riding lessons

 

Final Fantasy Theathrhythm Curtain Call. One of the very few rhythm action games I am

good at. I even bought DLC

 

Super Smash Bros 3DS

 

Super Smash Bros Wii U. The Wii U version is slightly better with more modes but

both games are amazing fun with a huge roster of characters.

 

Lego Batman 3. Really more of a Lego DC game but Lego games are always very entertaining

 

Lego Marvel Super Heroes. Lego games are always very entertaining.

 

LittleBigPlanet 3. Adding new characters makes for even more creative and entertaining levels. They just don't get enough time to play as each of them though. And the level creation is very tough to get into this time.

 

Captain Toad Treasure Tracker. Very enjoyable Mario lite game starring a jumpless Captain

Toad

 

Oddworld: New and Tasty. A excellent remake of Abes Odyssee

 

Ori and the Blind Forest. A beautiful looking metroidvania game

 

Max And The Curse of Brotherhood. An average platformer made interesting with the crayon

drawing mechanic, even if there was some lost potential with it too.

 

The Legend of Zelda Majoras Mask 3DS. The best Zelda game on a portable system

 

Boxboy. A simple, clever, minimal puzzle platformer

 

Infamous Second Son. Another GTA style game, this time with superpowers. Great fun and no bugs this time.

 

Rare Replay. Amazing compilation of Rare games, over 10,000 Gamerscore, allowed me to play Perfect Dark Zero and replay Viva Pinata and Blast Corps.

 

Q.U.B.E. A first person puzzle game with a bit in common in Portal but uses the comparison to its advantage.

 

Skylanders Trap Team 3DS. See below

 

Puzzles and Dragons Z Super Mario Bros Edition

 

Top 10 Games of 2015

Skylanders Trap Team. Trap Team is a major improvement over Swap Force, shorter, more balanced levels. The characters have much better designs. Two new elements, Light and Dark are introduced. The trap mechanic is fun and a bit different. The enemies run from very cool to boring. Story is same old run of the mill and the story characters are as annoying as always. The game also comes with the usual Arena mode and this time, a difficult but fair tower defence mode. The 3DS game is also a scaled down version of a Skylanders game instead of being a standard platformer.

 

Splatoon. I had very little interest in Splatoon before it was released. I also had very little interest in multiplayer shooter games. Playing the Splatoon demo changed my mind. It was just such fun. Simple and focusing on territory capture instead of enemies. The single player mode was also good fun if short. However the time I spent with the game was limited as my slow internet connection caused too much lag.

 

Affordable Space Adventure

Using a budget travel agency, you travel to a distant planet and with your Small Craft set out on a three day exploration holiday. However there is an accident and instead of exploring you must survive on a hostile planet with a barely functioning ship. Most of your shop functions are controls via touchscreen buttons on the Gamepad making it similar to a Star Trek shuttle. The game is a great variation on survival horror with a great ending.

 

Bravely Default: Flying Fairy

I never intended to play Bravely Default. It was just meant to be a filler game before Christmas last year. But I got into it big time and once Christmas was over I went back to it and played it for many hours afterwards. It is really like the classic old school RPG's but modernised just enough to remove a lot of the frustration. The story is at first quite traditional but later gets nicely complicated. The characters are a big over the top (Unacceptable!) but overall are brilliant. A minor drawback is the second half of the game gets repetitive. But this is also the game that hides the stories big twist in the title of the game itself!

 

Tropico 5. Tropico 5 is boring to look at. Half the time I even have a book with me as so much of the game is waiting for building to complete. But it is so addictive. The way each new building subtly effects the entire island ecosystem. Each level has set objectives which often tell a funny story, usually based on pop culture references. I felt the main game was a bit short but was very happy to also get the DLC which added a lot more to the game.

 

Roundabout. Roundabout has slightly unusual gameplay, You control a limousine that rotates instead of driving, you pick up passengers and deliver them to their destination. If that was all there was to the game it would be a fun if unremarkable game. What makes Roundabout amazing is the story and cutscenes. The story is told through live action cutscenes filmed intentionally badly. Action scenes are taken from 70's B movies The main character, Georgio Manos is entirely mute and expresses herself solely and expertly through facial expression. It's one of the funniest games I've played in a long time.

 

Batman Arkham Knight. Batman Arkham series games are always amazing. This one adds the Batmobile which also means a bigger city to explore. And new and different puzzles and places to explore. The best bit of Arkham Knight is how it tells its story...

 

Dragon Age Inquisition. Dragon Age Inquisition is huge. It took me several days to explore The Hinterlands, the first major area in the game. The scale of the game is also epic. You play the leader of the Inquisition, the leader of a massive army charged with closing a Rift in the sky. There are over a dozen major party characters to interact with and romance and many other minor characters all gathered around your base. Fantastic story and brilliant RPG.

 

Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc

 

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Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair. In both of these games you play as a student selected to attend Hopes Peak Academy. Except something goes wrong and you end up locked in the school with other students. Orders are being given out by Monokuma, a cute looking teddy bear. Who is also a homicidal maniac? The only way to "graduate" from the school is to murder another student. And then get away with the murder in a trial by the other students. From the very beginning the story of the game grabbed me. The horror of the situation and the tension throughout is incredible. And the tragedy as you get to know the characters only for them to die is awful. Both these games easily deserve my Game of the Year