This list keeps growing, but this year might actually be the last time I put one of these together. While I enjoy doing it, I'm starting to think I'd rather focus more on taking my time with games and really digging into the ones I enjoy, rather than getting through as many as possible to have fodder for an end-of-year list that 15-20 people will maybe read. (That said, I've done this list mainly for my own edification, so I guess I'm trying to shift my priorities a bit.) Plus I'd really like to replay several classic favorites in the coming year, and they'd be disqualified from this list anyway. Combine that with other upcoming Life Responsibilities (getting married, finishing my doctorate, etc.) and I'm not sure if I want to be that focused on such a task in 2016. You never know, though. So anyway, let's get going with what may be my swan song.
11. Valiant Hears: The Great War
I finished this game on January 1, 2015, so it technically counts and the feelings it left me with earned it a spot on this list so many months later. The Great War tells the interconnecting story of several people living through the Western Front of World War I - such as a German and French soldier, an American fighting for the French, and a Belgian nurse - through comic-book style story sequences and puzzle/light action gameplay. It's a unique setting for a video game, and tells an engaging story that is meaningful without being too preachy or melodramatic. It's chock full of factoids that a history buff like me can appreciate and the puzzle solving was challenging without ever being too frustrating (thanks to a helpful hint system). The final scene is a real gut-punch, but it's preceded by the final gameplay challenge of saving someone's life, a nice change from most kill-everything video games and a hopeful message to send from the dreariness of the War to End All Wars.
10. Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker
I admit it, I'm a sucker for Toad. My favorite character in Super Mario Bros. 2, my go-to Kart racer from the beginning, and to date the only amiibo figure I own. So when it was announced Toad would get his own game as a sort-of spinoff from the great Super Mario 3D World, my ears perked up. I wouldn't say it's quite worth the full $40 price, but get it on sale and savor it a few levels at a time - as I did - and it's really enjoyable. You guide the brave Captain through several dozen bite-sized levels in search of gems and stars, and rotating the levels to find hidden passages and goodies is a key mechanic. Toad can't jump, as his pack is oh so heavy, but he's got a few abilities from Nintendo days of yore to help him out, such as Mario's Donkey Kong hammer and chucking turnips a la SMB2. It's gorgeous and sounds great, running with the 3D World engine, and is generous with the cuteness. Not terribly difficult, but for me puzzling my way through a few picturesque levels was a perfect nightcap, much more relaxing than certain other Nintendo games on this list.
9. Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner 1 and 2
Now you start to see how I got to 13 games. I can barely let a year go by without an entry from Atlus' esoteric but long-lasting RPG series. In the Devil Summoner games you take on the role of Raidou, a somewhat otherworldly protector of 1920s-era Japan who does double duty as a police detective. Unlike most other SMT games, Raidou fights real-time battles with gun and sword, but also engages in the standard series practice of recruiting friendly demons to aid him. The non-standard setting and battle system, as well as a memorable cast of characters and great localization help Devil Summoner live up to SMT's usual high standards. The two games are pretty similar, though the sequel changes things up just enough to keep things interesting. In the end I decided both deserved a spot on the list.
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It's 2015 and Nintendo finally fulfilled the wish many Mario fanboys have had for decades - they made a game that lets us craft our own Mario levels and subject others to their horrors. The options available to armchair designers - different game templates, level settings, and dozens of objects and enemies to place, the rather loose ruleset (surprising for Nintendo), and the easy-to-use interface enable a level of creativity that is both accessible and astonishing. I've enjoyed designing my own levels and then being completely awed by the ingenuity of others to come up with creative uses of elements I never would've dreamed of. Many of the levels are simply too hard without being inspired (you made a level with 200 enemies falling on me, great) and the real gems can be hard to find, but these issues appear to be getting better as Nintendo shows an impressive amount of post-launch free support (adding checkpoints was a godsend) and it's pretty cool to think a near-infinite amount of Mario levels will be available to play for years to come. And, of course, I couldn't fail to mention that I successfully employed Mario Maker to ask my now-finance a very important question.
7. Final Fantasy 13
Lo, how the mighty have fallen. At one point it would be hard to imagine a full-numbered non-MMO entry in my once-favorite franchise sitting this low on this list. But times have changed, perhaps most evident in how long it took me to get around to playing this game that came out in 2010 (back in the day I bought a PlayStation just to play FF7 when it came out). FF13 has problems for sure, mainly the straight-line path through the game (to be fair, FF10 wasn't much better in that regard) and the excessively long tutorials, but despite these issues I did end up enjoying it quite a bit. I came to accept it for what it was, an amusement park ride of an RPG that took me on a very flashy journey. I enjoyed learning the ins and out of its rapid-paced, constantly class-shifting battle system, that made for some truly exciting and tense battles and a few really cheap deaths. Although the story wasn't the greatest by far of the series, it and the gameplay kept me engaged enough to see it through to the end and look forward to eventually playing its sequels.
6. Super Mario Galaxy 1 and 2
There, now we're at 13. More games that I got around to rather late, but the amount of Mario I played this year kinda makes up for it. The Galaxy games take the open-level expansiveness of Mario 64 and begin to scale it back a bit, with gradually more guided objectives and courses. Creative use of gravity and running around spherical plantetoids make for some truly inventive level design, and you never know just what the masters of Mario are going to throw at you next. Bright, colorful, and fun...until it gets frustrating. Certain Wii motion controls in some stages in particular could drive me bonkers. Galaxy 2 appeared to improve on the first in almost every way - even more straightforward levels, easier to navigate overworld, Yoshi - to the point where I considered featuring it solo on this list. However, then it got absurdly difficult, and I stopped having fun with it before I was able to finish it (as I did with Galaxy 1). Therefore it's another double feature. They earn a spot this high for their constantly inventive level design, but I do believe I'm ready to take a break from Mario platforming for a while.
5. Pillars of Eternity
PoE was billed as a spiritual successor to the Baldur's Gate series, the second of which converted me to a PC RPG player and I still regard as having some of the most interesting and well-written character interactions of any video game ever. For the most part, Pillars lives up to the hype, featuring a brand-new world with dozens of interesting environments to explore, interesting characters with pages upon pages of well-written and often-voiced dialogue, and a super complex ruleset to dig your teeth into. At times the battle system got too complicated and chaotic for my tastes (realizing I preferred the turn-based structure of last year's Wasteland 2), and I resorted to the exact same "pick them off one-by-one" tactics I used in BG. Load times could also be surprisingly frequent and long (just like BG), especially when traveling among the various sectors of the city of Defiance Bay. Still, the urges to continue the story, chat with my party members, find some epic loot, and see what was lurking around the next corner of a dungeon got their hooks in me to see it through to the end.
4. The Wolf Among Us
Telltale Games has emerged as the most prolific creator of adventure games today, and while not all of their games, or the licenses they're based on, have appealed to me, the gritty "fantasy noir" setting of the Fables universe of graphic novels seemed a perfect fit. You take on the role of Bigby, the humanized version of the Big Bad Wolf, who is charged with being sheriff over a community of fairy tale characters who have settled in real-world Manhattan to eek out a living. Playing the law gives you plenty of opportunity to interact with colorful (and often PG-13 or R-rated) reimaginings of timeless characters, featuring Telltale's staple dialogue trees as you strive to unravel the mysteries behind a series of grisly murders. The actual gameplay and puzzle-solving is very light, but it doesn't detract from exploring the world and absorbing all of the story bits buried in this engaging tale. My fiancé also devoured this one quickly, and as she's nowhere near as big of a gamer as me, that speaks to the game's appeal across broad audiences.
3. The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds
I have struggled to like every 3D Zelda game. To me none of them came close to the perfected gameplay of the SNES classic Link to the Past. When a remake/reimagining/sequel/whatever of LttP was released, I couldn't wait to revisit my most beloved version of Hyrule. Link Between Worlds doesn't disappoint, providing both a nostalgic hug and lots of new gameplay elements to mix things up. Chief among these is the ability to rent and eventually buy any items you need from the beginning, rather than obtaining them one at a time via dungeons, which greatly opens up the path you can take through the game. Link's new ability to phase into walls provides for plenty of interesting puzzles and makes the revamped dungeons from Link to the Past feel completely original. It also controls great and sounds amazing. My only complaint is that it left me wanting more, but given that I have struggled multiple times to even complete more than two dungeons in Twilight Princess, that's not a bad problem to have.
My award for Most Memorable Game Music of the Year goes to this arrangement of the Dark World/Lorule theme, my favorite Zelda song of all time:
2. Shadowrun: Dragonfall
I played this game's predecessor, Shadowrun Returns, in 2014, and felt that it was a great proof of concept but not quite ready for the Top 10. Dragonfall improves on it in every way. It's a mission-based PC RPG set in the cyperpunk-meets-fantasy world of Shadowrun. It's got dark, grim settings a la Blade Runner, very well-written text (and lots of it), atmospheric music, a variety of character classes and abilities to choose from, and tense tactical combat in the X-COM/Wasteland style. That it takes place in Berlin and features the occasional dose of German was just the icing on the cake for me. Pillars of Eternity was great, but the unique setting and more enjoyable combat propelled Dragonfall to near the top. I couldn't stop playing it, and look forward to more games in this series.
I. Etrian Odyssey IV
I played a good chunk of the original EO, but missed out on the series until diving back in with the fourth iteration. This one seems to have perfected the series' mix of old-school dungeon crawling (featuring the ever-so-addictive practice of drawing your own maps on the 3DS' touch screen) and tense, challenging turn-based battles. The story is forgettable, but the gameplay is king. Tons of exploration and interesting locations, tough but winnable fights, ten character classes with interesting abilities that go far beyond the fighter'/mage/'rogue standards, and a nice, soothing presentation that belies the depth and challenge waiting underneath. I couldn't get enough of it, and gladly sunk 60 hours into completing it, which is easily my most notable gaming achievement of the year and makes Etrian Odyssey IV my favorite game of 2015.
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