I didn't mean to take another month between posts, but as I alluded to in January I'm having life issues that has made regularly posting difficult and I'll make a post about it eventually, probably after my very short anime of 2024 post. The only reason these 2024 wrap-ups even exist is because I worked on them throughout last year so I did not have to spend much time writing or editing them to post now.
That said, on to what I'd written prior to all my issues:
Having not completed a single RPG in the past two years, it felt like 2024 was the year to remedy that.
I usually designate these great games as my Top 3 picks each year by marking them with an asterisk (*) and these are the 12 games I liked the most out of the ones I finished in 2024, in the order I played them. If the game is available on multiple platforms, the one I played on is listed first. Usually I try to complete at least one game a month, but because of said issues I fell short this year.
Undernauts: Labyrinth of Yomi (Switch, PS4, XB1, Windows)
I was pleasantly surprised by how much I got into Undernauts with its alt-1970s Japan setting and truly inspired character designs. It's a first person dungeon crawler, but with modern day quality of life auto-mapping and easier than average difficulty for a game of its type. The story is more nuanced than you'd expect for the genre and made me want to get to the bottom of what really happened. The only thing I'd fault it for is that the post-credits scene makes it clear the story isn't over, and the only way to see the story through in its entirety is to complete the punishing post-game.
Unpacking (Switch, PS4, PS5, XB1, Windows, iOS, Android)
Unpacking was a media darling when it first came out. The premise is simple. You unpack the belongings of an unseen girl/young woman as she moves from place to place over the course of her life. From what she carries with her, how she chooses to augment her belongings, and where you are allowed to place things, you learn a surprisingly large amount of what kind of person she is and what has happened in her life. I thought it was an interesting concept, but was less enamored by the actual gameplay.
Process of Elimination (Switch, PS4) *
If you need to fill the Danganronpa (or Ace Attorney) shaped hole in your gaming needs, Process of Elimination is likely to do the job. It doesn't feel as polished as the more established names, but if you want to be trapped in a murder mystery with a bunch of colorful characters who gradually get picked off one by one, it's a solid pick. Evidence collection deviates from the point and click methods of its predecessors, going for an isometric map over which you can direct a team of detectives. It's nice to see a fresh take, but the implementation feels a little clunky. I really liked that the deduction portion of the game involves putting all clues together in context, and rarely involves waving around contradicting evidence, so I really felt smart when solving a murder. Would buy a sequel in a heartbeat.
Collar x Malice Unlimited (Switch)
The fandisc to Collar x Malice. I was going to play this back when it first released, but that ended up happening shortly before I had surgery for my first cancer, and it fell off my radar. By the time I remembered I still had it in my closet a lot had changed in the otome gaming landscape so it kept getting deprioritized in favor of non-sequels. That said, it's a little hit or miss for me. The characters I liked least had the best After Stories and the ones I looked forward to the most had the weakest. The extras were just okay and the Adonis route less exciting than expected.
The Centennial Case : A Shijima Story (Switch, PS5, PS4, Windows, iOS, Android) *
Mystery novelist Haruka is asked by a friend if she would look into a hundred year mystery involving his family and a skeleton they found buried behind their cherry tree. Has a very different feel from most games being primarily told through live action segments and the player being asked to assemble hypotheses from clues obtained during those scenes rather than being in direct control over an investigation. I found the story extremely gripping even if the actual game mechanics were a bit clunky. Having the same group of actors play different roles in different time periods was a nice touch, and also made it easier to keep characters straight since there wasn't a constant parade of new faces.
Emio - The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club (Switch)
Third entry in the Famicom Detective Club series. It manages to modernize the gameplay from the NES remakes, keeping the unusual dialogue system for pulling out clues, while getting rid of the less sensical logic jumps occasionally experienced in the older games. The investigation part of the game is deep and a constant source of tension, but the story wraps up in a mediocre fashion that is both unsatisfying and a post-credits info dump.
Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth (Switch, PS4, XB1, Windows, DS) *
I played the remaster as part of the Ace Attorney Investigations Collection, having played the original on DS when it came out years ago. It's still a fun ride as tightly laced straight man Miles Edgeworth as he investigates crimes filled with a cast of wacky characters with a stubborn sense of logic. I don't think he needed to be saddled with a teenage sidekick, as Kay didn't feel as natural a partner as Maya did for Phoenix in the original three Ace Attorney games, but I suppose the design team felt a need to parallel the earlier games.
Ace Attorney Investigations 2 : Prosecutor's Gambit (Switch, PS4, XB1, Windows)
After many years this is finally available in English in the first time! Though I think the overall throughline of the story could have been smoother and Kay felt more stapled on than the first game, it was still a very good run with a lot of returning cameos (some of them very deep cuts!) without feeling like it was wallowing too heavily in fan service. I was particularly happy with what they did with an "annoying" character to both give him his comeuppance and then turn him around into being someone we could be sympathetic towards.
9 R.I.P. (Switch)
Misa Issihiki is spirited away as part of a supernatural plan to help her deal with her inability to stand up to her mother regarding her plans for college. Romance involving ghosts and yokai, so there's nearly always an element of separation involved in the endings, but some of them wrap up satisfactorily for all involved.
Digimon Survive (Switch, PS4, XB1, Windows)
Strategy/visual novel hybrid that leans heavily into nostalgia. Unlike most Digimon games it takes inspiration from the anime and features a number of human characters with partner digimon rather than a single human player character who raises and collects hundreds of them. Though collecting can still be done, this is a much more narratively focused game with an emphasis on human and digimon partners. There is also a fairly strong plot emphasis on the "survive" in the title, though I feel like it hits harder in the early game than the late.
even if Tempest: Dawning Connections (Switch)
The fan disk to even if Tempest. To be honest, the fandisk was a mixed bag for me, and since it's tonally different from the original game, being more focused on romantic relationships than the drama of trying to survive, it doesn't feel as exciting as the first game. To be fair, most routes employ a non-romantic plotline to try and retain some of the tension and drama, but they don't always work the best. My favorite routes were Zenn's and the non-romantic The Fellowship due to the additional worldbuilding.
Showing posts with label digimon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label digimon. Show all posts
Monday, February 17, 2025
Monday, February 12, 2018
RPG Talk: Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth
In which I talk (write) about RPGs from a storytelling perspective...
Platform: PS Vita (though it's also on PS4)
Release: 2016
I'd never played any of the Digimon RPGs before, because I'd come into the franchise through the anime rather than the Tamagotchi-like virtual pets and the first RPG I tried out made it clear that most of the gameplay was built around raising and collecting rather than having a plot.
But what sparked my interest in the franchise was the bond between human and Digimon partners and not the collecting, which has never been a feature of any of the anime series.
The anime had a strong Dragonriders of Pern feel to it, but for children, in how the partner bonds work. Partner Digimon are intelligent, capable of speech, and potentially powerful, but also childlike and unfailingly loyal to their humans. Your Digimon will always be your best friend, even if you're too caught up in yourself to realize it.
Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth nicely straddles the line between getting the feel of the anime while also allowing for collecting, and though Digimon is primarily thought of as a children's property, Cyber Sleuth is clearly meant as a nostalgia vehicle for older fans who are now adults. It has all the rookie and champion forms of the partner Digimon from the first three anime series and most of the other notables as well. It's possible to collect tons of Digimon, but the player isn't required to do so. A solid team of six to nine Digimon with a mix of types should be enough for the main playthrough (not necessarily optional bosses).
Unfortunately your Digimon won't talk to you in your party (the ones you leave at the farm like texting you though!), but aside from that, it feels like this could be the story of a new anime series.
You can choose your protagonist's gender, and by default they are named Takumi Aiba if male and Ami Aiba if female, though they can be renamed. Both of them sport goggles (because a Digimon lead protagonist has got to have goggles!) and are supposed to be in high school, not that we ever see them or any of their friends going to class. The player also gets to choose a Digimon from a set of three to start with. I chose Terriermon, who debuted in the Digimon Tamers anime.
For the rest of this post I'll refer to the protagonist as Ami, because I played through as female, and there are some things worth commenting on specifically because of the female playthrough.
The game takes place in a near future Tokyo where a virtual reality form of connectivity is popular in all walks of life. EDEN is probably closest to Slack and Discord in that people hang out in this virtual reality for both social and work-related reasons, but when people are logged in, their mind is 100% there and their bodies are left hooked up at home, work, etc.
While going to a shady part of EDEN where all the hackers are supposed to hang out, Ami and her friends Arata and Nokia are attacked by a mysterious entity called an Eater, and though Arata and Nokia escape, Ami seems to be caught just as she logs out. Rather than appearing safely at home, she's spat out in the middle of the city half-digitized and in a panic. In short order she's rescued and recruited to work for a private investigator, Kyoko, setting up the rest of the game.
Now a half-digital, half-physical being, Ami can go back in forth between any digital connection and the real world. Unlike her friends who have to log in, she can jump into a hospital's computer network from one terminal and hop out through another. If you ever wanted a slice of Tron as a mainstay in your JRPG, this is the place to look! Along with the mysterious Eater, other entities called Digimon have appeared in EDEN and hackers have taken to using them as tools, thinking that they are simply rogue programs.
Ami learns that her real body is lying unconscious in a hospital, thought to be a victim of EDEN Syndrome, which periodically affects people who have logged into EDEN. Its cause is initially unknown, but eventually she learns that those who suffer from it had been devoured by Eaters while logged in. Worse, Kamishiro Enterprises, which runs EDEN, seems to be aware of the issue, but is experimenting with EDEN nonetheless.
Like the anime series, things escalate as the digital and real worlds cross over and the Eaters aren't on anybody's side. Ami's friends have their own hidden histories as well as Ami herself, which she has forgotten.
The storytelling feels very much like an anime in that as new information unfolds, new questions arise. It does take a little while to get going, with a lot of time spent doing odd jobs for Kyoko, but thankfully most chapters are short. Even once danger becomes apparent, there are plenty of breather moments where Ami can, and sometimes must, do tangential tasks to continue the main story. Usually what appears tangential is not so much later on, but it really feels odd taking side jobs while rampaging Digimon are on the loose.
The result makes it feel more like an anime series though, the kind that goes 30-40+ episodes and has time for levity and side stories without hurting the main plot.
Though the game allows the player to pick a gender, it does have a few points where it feels like the female protagonist was written in at a later date as an afterthought. There's one point where the player is hired by a male classmate to help him figure out what kind of gift to get a girl he likes. Kyoko tells Ami that she's not like other girls so maybe she should go ask some of her friends what this girl might like. Aside from this comment being presumptuous, it feels like it was done mostly to force Ami to go through the quest in the exact same way as the player would if they were playing Takumi.
There's also a request later where the player needs to hunt down the origin of these incredibly lifelike female dolls. The guy selling them gives what is likely the same line of dialogue to Ami as he would to Takumi, noting how the protagonist has an eye for girls. While I'm fine with Ami being lesbian or bisexual, it's not hinted anywhere that she is prior to this point, so it feels like lazy writing, with the designers assuming that the player is playing as Takumi.
However, there are some incredibly cool parts of playing Cyber Sleuth as Ami. Ami and Arata get to be opposite gender best buds without any romance getting in the way, which results in a friendship that we rarely, if ever, see in a JRPG. Arata never sputters or says anything about Ami being a girl and his trust in her is tremendous.
Aside from that, the rest of the human cast has a female bias, leading to scenes like a trio of girls going on a rescue mission for another girl. It's shocking in a way, seeing critical story moments play out without a single dude on screen. Without a male protagonist, it happens more often than you'd think, especially in the later half of the game.
The character designs were clearly done with attention to the male gaze, so there's a lot of cheesecake to wade through (with the worst offender being Rina Shinomiya with her peek-a-boo jacket), but the female cast contains a large variety of personalities and none of them, not even the initially passive-looking Yuuko, is a shrinking violet who needs to be protected.
Nokia is particular behaves more like a protagonist in a shonen series than even the player character. She's headstrong, willing to charge into dangerous situations because it's the right thing to do, and while she might not be the sharpest tool in the shed, she never gives up. Nokia is the one partnered with Agumon and Gabumon, who are the main Digimon of the very first Digimon Adventure anime. Personality-wise she's very much a hot-blooded shonen protagonist, but she's a girl, and that's cool.
Arata, by contrast, is a more measured personality. Along with Nokia, he's one of Ami's closest net friends, and he's usually played as a cool hacker sort of guy. He's the one with the computer knowledge, the badass Virus-type Digimon, and the guy most likely to help everyone out of a pinch. But despite his prowess, he's hilariously geeky in other ways, with one side quest that is all about helping him through a scavenger hunt fast enough that he can win a rare comic book.
This is also makes it harder when Arata goes rogue later in the game. Since we know he's not a one-dimensional power-hungry guy, we want to keep trusting him even when he's discovered a way to absorb the Eaters into his own body. Once everyone's past is uncovered too, we realize what a burden he's carrying as the one who made the decision to abandon their childhood friend so everyone else in their group would survive.
It turns out that eight years ago Ami, Arata, Nokia, Yuuko, and her brother Yuugo, were part of the EDEN beta test and something went horribly wrong and all five of them ended up crossing over into the digital world.
An Eater followed them there, beginning the corruption of the digital world as well as devouring Yuugo, who sacrificed himself so the others could escape. Arata was the one who prevented the others from going back to save Yuugo, realizing that they didn't have a chance against the Eater.
The memories of the surviving four were erased so they could grow up to lead normal lives, though over the course of Cyber Sleuth they get those back, and the reason Arata is going crazy is he is trying to get enough power to protect everyone now that the Royal Knights of the digital world are trying to eliminate the human one in retaliation for having introduced the Eaters.
After punching some sense into Arata, and either defeating or convincing individual Royal Knights to stand down, the reunited team head for the digital world to destroy the Mother Eater, the central nervous system of the Eater hive mind, and rescue Yuugo, who has been trapped inside the entire time. (Notice our three girls and one boy rescue team!)
It's a pretty good show with a lot of self-sacrifice and the power of friendship, with Ami even risking her life to try saving a human villain who merges with the Mother Eater to become the last boss.
After the digital world is freed, the main system begins a reboot to restore the world to its earlier, healthier state, even though it means that there is a good chance that all the Digimon will forget their adventures with their human companions since they'll be rebooted as well. The ending is rather bittersweet as the humans are sent back through the portal to the human world and all the Digimon that had emerged in the human world are similarly flying back to where they belong. Many familiar faces say farewell as the two worlds expect to be cut off once more. It's very reminiscent of the Digimon Tamers anime and is a similar kick in the feels.
Also, all the stress of Ami's digital jumping have been taking its toll on her half-digital body's stability, so she actually does not complete the journey back, but shatters and her friends later gather at the hospital to see her physical body hasn't woken up.
They also discover that the real world has been rewritten in the wake of the closure between the real and digital worlds, so they've effectively returned to a different timeline, where things that had happened in the world they remember are no longer true. Someone who was previously a villain (due to being possessed by a Digimon) is now a good person and other people who they had known, no longer exist.
Of course, all that would be a downer, so after the credits roll, there's a sappy sequence that I admit I was a bit teary-eyed over. Ami wakes in a limbo to be greeted by Alphamon, the Digimon that had disguised itself as the human Kyoko. Alphamon tried finding all the pieces to Ami to reassemble her, but couldn't do it by itself, but it had help, and then the camera pans to show all the Digimon in the player's party from the final battle, which quite likely includes the most beloved of the player's collection (mine sure did).
It was a pitch perfect ending, having the player's own Digimon finish the reassembly of their character, and Ami eventually wakes up in the real world, where she finally meets the real Kyoko, who had been in a coma as an EDEN Syndrome victim herself the entire time Alphamon had been masquerading as her. The final scene is Kyoko offering Ami a job, and so it looks like they'll be working together again, or for the first time, depending on how one looks at it.
Cyber Sleuth isn't the highest class story out there, but it does what it need to very well for the fanbase it's designed for.
Platform: PS Vita (though it's also on PS4)
Release: 2016
I'd never played any of the Digimon RPGs before, because I'd come into the franchise through the anime rather than the Tamagotchi-like virtual pets and the first RPG I tried out made it clear that most of the gameplay was built around raising and collecting rather than having a plot.
The anime had a strong Dragonriders of Pern feel to it, but for children, in how the partner bonds work. Partner Digimon are intelligent, capable of speech, and potentially powerful, but also childlike and unfailingly loyal to their humans. Your Digimon will always be your best friend, even if you're too caught up in yourself to realize it.
Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth nicely straddles the line between getting the feel of the anime while also allowing for collecting, and though Digimon is primarily thought of as a children's property, Cyber Sleuth is clearly meant as a nostalgia vehicle for older fans who are now adults. It has all the rookie and champion forms of the partner Digimon from the first three anime series and most of the other notables as well. It's possible to collect tons of Digimon, but the player isn't required to do so. A solid team of six to nine Digimon with a mix of types should be enough for the main playthrough (not necessarily optional bosses).
Unfortunately your Digimon won't talk to you in your party (the ones you leave at the farm like texting you though!), but aside from that, it feels like this could be the story of a new anime series.
You can choose your protagonist's gender, and by default they are named Takumi Aiba if male and Ami Aiba if female, though they can be renamed. Both of them sport goggles (because a Digimon lead protagonist has got to have goggles!) and are supposed to be in high school, not that we ever see them or any of their friends going to class. The player also gets to choose a Digimon from a set of three to start with. I chose Terriermon, who debuted in the Digimon Tamers anime.
For the rest of this post I'll refer to the protagonist as Ami, because I played through as female, and there are some things worth commenting on specifically because of the female playthrough.
The game takes place in a near future Tokyo where a virtual reality form of connectivity is popular in all walks of life. EDEN is probably closest to Slack and Discord in that people hang out in this virtual reality for both social and work-related reasons, but when people are logged in, their mind is 100% there and their bodies are left hooked up at home, work, etc.
While going to a shady part of EDEN where all the hackers are supposed to hang out, Ami and her friends Arata and Nokia are attacked by a mysterious entity called an Eater, and though Arata and Nokia escape, Ami seems to be caught just as she logs out. Rather than appearing safely at home, she's spat out in the middle of the city half-digitized and in a panic. In short order she's rescued and recruited to work for a private investigator, Kyoko, setting up the rest of the game.
Now a half-digital, half-physical being, Ami can go back in forth between any digital connection and the real world. Unlike her friends who have to log in, she can jump into a hospital's computer network from one terminal and hop out through another. If you ever wanted a slice of Tron as a mainstay in your JRPG, this is the place to look! Along with the mysterious Eater, other entities called Digimon have appeared in EDEN and hackers have taken to using them as tools, thinking that they are simply rogue programs.
Ami learns that her real body is lying unconscious in a hospital, thought to be a victim of EDEN Syndrome, which periodically affects people who have logged into EDEN. Its cause is initially unknown, but eventually she learns that those who suffer from it had been devoured by Eaters while logged in. Worse, Kamishiro Enterprises, which runs EDEN, seems to be aware of the issue, but is experimenting with EDEN nonetheless.
The storytelling feels very much like an anime in that as new information unfolds, new questions arise. It does take a little while to get going, with a lot of time spent doing odd jobs for Kyoko, but thankfully most chapters are short. Even once danger becomes apparent, there are plenty of breather moments where Ami can, and sometimes must, do tangential tasks to continue the main story. Usually what appears tangential is not so much later on, but it really feels odd taking side jobs while rampaging Digimon are on the loose.
The result makes it feel more like an anime series though, the kind that goes 30-40+ episodes and has time for levity and side stories without hurting the main plot.
Though the game allows the player to pick a gender, it does have a few points where it feels like the female protagonist was written in at a later date as an afterthought. There's one point where the player is hired by a male classmate to help him figure out what kind of gift to get a girl he likes. Kyoko tells Ami that she's not like other girls so maybe she should go ask some of her friends what this girl might like. Aside from this comment being presumptuous, it feels like it was done mostly to force Ami to go through the quest in the exact same way as the player would if they were playing Takumi.
There's also a request later where the player needs to hunt down the origin of these incredibly lifelike female dolls. The guy selling them gives what is likely the same line of dialogue to Ami as he would to Takumi, noting how the protagonist has an eye for girls. While I'm fine with Ami being lesbian or bisexual, it's not hinted anywhere that she is prior to this point, so it feels like lazy writing, with the designers assuming that the player is playing as Takumi.
Aside from that, the rest of the human cast has a female bias, leading to scenes like a trio of girls going on a rescue mission for another girl. It's shocking in a way, seeing critical story moments play out without a single dude on screen. Without a male protagonist, it happens more often than you'd think, especially in the later half of the game.
The character designs were clearly done with attention to the male gaze, so there's a lot of cheesecake to wade through (with the worst offender being Rina Shinomiya with her peek-a-boo jacket), but the female cast contains a large variety of personalities and none of them, not even the initially passive-looking Yuuko, is a shrinking violet who needs to be protected.
Arata, by contrast, is a more measured personality. Along with Nokia, he's one of Ami's closest net friends, and he's usually played as a cool hacker sort of guy. He's the one with the computer knowledge, the badass Virus-type Digimon, and the guy most likely to help everyone out of a pinch. But despite his prowess, he's hilariously geeky in other ways, with one side quest that is all about helping him through a scavenger hunt fast enough that he can win a rare comic book.
This is also makes it harder when Arata goes rogue later in the game. Since we know he's not a one-dimensional power-hungry guy, we want to keep trusting him even when he's discovered a way to absorb the Eaters into his own body. Once everyone's past is uncovered too, we realize what a burden he's carrying as the one who made the decision to abandon their childhood friend so everyone else in their group would survive.
An Eater followed them there, beginning the corruption of the digital world as well as devouring Yuugo, who sacrificed himself so the others could escape. Arata was the one who prevented the others from going back to save Yuugo, realizing that they didn't have a chance against the Eater.
The memories of the surviving four were erased so they could grow up to lead normal lives, though over the course of Cyber Sleuth they get those back, and the reason Arata is going crazy is he is trying to get enough power to protect everyone now that the Royal Knights of the digital world are trying to eliminate the human one in retaliation for having introduced the Eaters.
It's a pretty good show with a lot of self-sacrifice and the power of friendship, with Ami even risking her life to try saving a human villain who merges with the Mother Eater to become the last boss.
After the digital world is freed, the main system begins a reboot to restore the world to its earlier, healthier state, even though it means that there is a good chance that all the Digimon will forget their adventures with their human companions since they'll be rebooted as well. The ending is rather bittersweet as the humans are sent back through the portal to the human world and all the Digimon that had emerged in the human world are similarly flying back to where they belong. Many familiar faces say farewell as the two worlds expect to be cut off once more. It's very reminiscent of the Digimon Tamers anime and is a similar kick in the feels.
Also, all the stress of Ami's digital jumping have been taking its toll on her half-digital body's stability, so she actually does not complete the journey back, but shatters and her friends later gather at the hospital to see her physical body hasn't woken up.
They also discover that the real world has been rewritten in the wake of the closure between the real and digital worlds, so they've effectively returned to a different timeline, where things that had happened in the world they remember are no longer true. Someone who was previously a villain (due to being possessed by a Digimon) is now a good person and other people who they had known, no longer exist.
Of course, all that would be a downer, so after the credits roll, there's a sappy sequence that I admit I was a bit teary-eyed over. Ami wakes in a limbo to be greeted by Alphamon, the Digimon that had disguised itself as the human Kyoko. Alphamon tried finding all the pieces to Ami to reassemble her, but couldn't do it by itself, but it had help, and then the camera pans to show all the Digimon in the player's party from the final battle, which quite likely includes the most beloved of the player's collection (mine sure did).
Cyber Sleuth isn't the highest class story out there, but it does what it need to very well for the fanbase it's designed for.
Monday, January 15, 2018
My Favorite Games of 2017
My gaming backlog is something impressive, as I typically buy a few more than I can play in any given year, and then those extras build up. The result is that I rarely play any game in its year of release unless it's a part of a favorite series, and even then, depending on how busy I am, a much anticipated game might get postponed.
But I'm not adverse to playing older games. As long as the gameplay is still there I generally don't care. Maybe that's the same for you?
These are the nine games I liked enough to finish for the first time in 2017, in the order I finished them. (I think there could have been more, but I blame Persona 5 for being so long.) As I did with my book roundup, the three games I tagged with an asterisk (*) were my favorites of the year and definitely worth playing.
Psycho-Pass: Mandatory Happiness * (PS Vita and Steam)
Fans of the anime series will get the most out of this dystopian cyberpunk visual novel. The player takes the role of one of two investigators tracking down a criminal that cannot be brought to justice in the way the system is intended to work. There are multiple endings based on the choices made, and a walkthrough will probably be needed to see them all. It's easily the best spin-off of the original (and better than the sequel anime) because it manages to be its own thing while playing within the rules of the first series, and it's good. It's not for series newcomers though. Even with a glossary it tends to assume players know the basics.
Attack on Titan (PS4, XB1, and Steam)
Having come out between the first and second season of the anime, it does a good job of extrapolating the story into three playable chapters; the battle for Trost, the Survey Corps expedition prior to being recalled, and the Female Titan arc. There is also an unlockable fourth chapter that vaguely covers the first half of season 2, but with minimal spoilers and a unique ending, so deaths and major plot revelations are withheld. The game does a remarkably good job of conveying the feel of using maneuvering gear and slaying titans is incredibly satisfying. One of the best media-based games I've ever played and even klutzes like me can beat it on Easy. The developers loved the property and it shows.
The Sims 2: Ultimate Collection (PC)
I'd forgotten that I downloaded this a while ago as part of a promotion on Origin. It's every expansion of the Sims 2 plus the base game, and despite the years since its original release, it's still really good and runs just fine even on a new computer with Windows 10. I'd played the base game years ago and this was a welcome trip down memory lane with some new content that I'd never played before (new jobs, university, vacations, oh my!). As always, the fun part for me is making a bunch of Sims based on characters I know (my characters, other people's characters) and seeing how they interact in the sandbox. One of the most hilarious things was Attack on Titan's Erwin Smith deciding that his life's dream was to become a World Class Ballet Dancer.
80 Days (Steam, iOS, and Android)
This came to me through a friend's recommendation. It's not something anyone's likely to play for hours on end, but as an afternoon time-waster it's pleasant enough. You play as Passepartout, the valet to Phineas Fogg from the Jules Verne novel Around the World in Eighty Days. As such you are constantly put upon to care for your master as all sorts of shenanigans occur on your trip around the globe. The player gets to pick the route, and there are some randomized events, so there is some replay value, but I found that two was enough to figure out how to succeed in less than 80 days. I ended up playing a third time though just because I wanted to check out how the same-sex romance was written versus the straight one. It's a fun, casual friendly game, but not something most players are likely to spend more than 4-5 hours on.
Persona 5 * (PS4 and PS3)
Persona 5 was my most anticipated game of the year. I've bought all the Persona games since the first installment (I'm old school) and placed my pre-order for the deluxe edition with all the trimmings. I was not disappointed as it continues the contemporary fantasy setting with a fresh layer of panache as the protagonists are now all phantom thieves. I've never seen heists integrated so well in a video game before, let alone an RPG, and the Persona-specific game systems involving the social aspects of getting through a year of high school are as good as ever. While I'm not sure if it will hold up against Persona 3 and 4 once I have more time and distance from it, at least at the moment it was one of the best games I played this year. If there's a fault I'd give it though, it's that it's extremely long, probably too long, even allowing for the fact the game has an in-game summary so you can catch up if you've been away for a while.
Collar x Malice (PS Vita)
Collar x Malice was my second most anticipated game of the year. It was giving me Zero Escape vibes (though sadly not the Zero Escape puzzles) with a female protagonist. Though this is technically an otome, it's not all fluff. Officer Ichika Hoshino spends as much time chasing a group of vigilante terrorists as she does potentially romancing various officers and ex-cops who are on the same case. It didn't reach the height that Code:Realize did for me, but the storytelling is more even between routes. Yanagi is route locked behind everyone else unfortunately, since his is the "real" route, which I wish Otomate would stop doing.
Plants vs Zombies: Game of the Year Edition (PC)
This came to me via one of the periodic freebies on Origin. I'd never played the original past the demo, but this landed in my lap at a time when I really wanted a puzzle game and it scratched the right itch. Being a puzzle game featuring cartoon zombies it's aged pretty well, though I was surprised when it forced my monitor down to a lower resolution. I didn't think it was that old. It's not too difficult by puzzle game standards and the game makes a point to introduce a new complication every few levels to keep things fresh. I think I only lost once, and that's because I was careless rather than being overwhelmed. I don't think I would have bought this normally though.
Dungeon Fighter Online * (PC)
This is a quirky online RPG that is like Diablo had a lovechild with your favorite side scrolling beat-'em-up game. It's 2D like Final Fight or Dungeons & Dragons: Shadow over Mystara, but it's an RPG designed for small parties or solo players. You can perform attacks fighting game style, but there are also equipment drops, skill trees, dungeons, pets, guilds, etc. It's free to play, and amazingly, you can get through the entire leveling experience without spending a cent, and more importantly, without seeing microtransaction ads thrown at you every other screen. The Korean to English translation is a bit janky in places, but if you like retro games, and have a fondness for old school JRPG music, this an excellent bet.
Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth
I actually started this last year, but got derailed about a third of the way through due to This War of Mine. This is probably the closest thing to having a playable Digimon anime series. The player-named protagonist has an online encounter with a mysterious entity that leaves her (or him, I played as a girl) in a weird half-digital body while her real one is comatose. As a result she can jump in and out of the computer networks Tron-style. The story moves at a relaxed pace sometimes, but really captures the feel of the anime. Together with her human friends and their combined Digimon companions they try to solve the mystery behind the origin of the Eaters, why people are being found comatose from EDEN syndrome, and what the corporation Kamishiro Enterprises has to do with all of this.
But I'm not adverse to playing older games. As long as the gameplay is still there I generally don't care. Maybe that's the same for you?
These are the nine games I liked enough to finish for the first time in 2017, in the order I finished them. (I think there could have been more, but I blame Persona 5 for being so long.) As I did with my book roundup, the three games I tagged with an asterisk (*) were my favorites of the year and definitely worth playing.
Psycho-Pass: Mandatory Happiness * (PS Vita and Steam)
Fans of the anime series will get the most out of this dystopian cyberpunk visual novel. The player takes the role of one of two investigators tracking down a criminal that cannot be brought to justice in the way the system is intended to work. There are multiple endings based on the choices made, and a walkthrough will probably be needed to see them all. It's easily the best spin-off of the original (and better than the sequel anime) because it manages to be its own thing while playing within the rules of the first series, and it's good. It's not for series newcomers though. Even with a glossary it tends to assume players know the basics.
Attack on Titan (PS4, XB1, and Steam)
Having come out between the first and second season of the anime, it does a good job of extrapolating the story into three playable chapters; the battle for Trost, the Survey Corps expedition prior to being recalled, and the Female Titan arc. There is also an unlockable fourth chapter that vaguely covers the first half of season 2, but with minimal spoilers and a unique ending, so deaths and major plot revelations are withheld. The game does a remarkably good job of conveying the feel of using maneuvering gear and slaying titans is incredibly satisfying. One of the best media-based games I've ever played and even klutzes like me can beat it on Easy. The developers loved the property and it shows.
The Sims 2: Ultimate Collection (PC)
I'd forgotten that I downloaded this a while ago as part of a promotion on Origin. It's every expansion of the Sims 2 plus the base game, and despite the years since its original release, it's still really good and runs just fine even on a new computer with Windows 10. I'd played the base game years ago and this was a welcome trip down memory lane with some new content that I'd never played before (new jobs, university, vacations, oh my!). As always, the fun part for me is making a bunch of Sims based on characters I know (my characters, other people's characters) and seeing how they interact in the sandbox. One of the most hilarious things was Attack on Titan's Erwin Smith deciding that his life's dream was to become a World Class Ballet Dancer.
80 Days (Steam, iOS, and Android)
This came to me through a friend's recommendation. It's not something anyone's likely to play for hours on end, but as an afternoon time-waster it's pleasant enough. You play as Passepartout, the valet to Phineas Fogg from the Jules Verne novel Around the World in Eighty Days. As such you are constantly put upon to care for your master as all sorts of shenanigans occur on your trip around the globe. The player gets to pick the route, and there are some randomized events, so there is some replay value, but I found that two was enough to figure out how to succeed in less than 80 days. I ended up playing a third time though just because I wanted to check out how the same-sex romance was written versus the straight one. It's a fun, casual friendly game, but not something most players are likely to spend more than 4-5 hours on.
Persona 5 * (PS4 and PS3)
Persona 5 was my most anticipated game of the year. I've bought all the Persona games since the first installment (I'm old school) and placed my pre-order for the deluxe edition with all the trimmings. I was not disappointed as it continues the contemporary fantasy setting with a fresh layer of panache as the protagonists are now all phantom thieves. I've never seen heists integrated so well in a video game before, let alone an RPG, and the Persona-specific game systems involving the social aspects of getting through a year of high school are as good as ever. While I'm not sure if it will hold up against Persona 3 and 4 once I have more time and distance from it, at least at the moment it was one of the best games I played this year. If there's a fault I'd give it though, it's that it's extremely long, probably too long, even allowing for the fact the game has an in-game summary so you can catch up if you've been away for a while.
Collar x Malice (PS Vita)
Collar x Malice was my second most anticipated game of the year. It was giving me Zero Escape vibes (though sadly not the Zero Escape puzzles) with a female protagonist. Though this is technically an otome, it's not all fluff. Officer Ichika Hoshino spends as much time chasing a group of vigilante terrorists as she does potentially romancing various officers and ex-cops who are on the same case. It didn't reach the height that Code:Realize did for me, but the storytelling is more even between routes. Yanagi is route locked behind everyone else unfortunately, since his is the "real" route, which I wish Otomate would stop doing.
Plants vs Zombies: Game of the Year Edition (PC)
This came to me via one of the periodic freebies on Origin. I'd never played the original past the demo, but this landed in my lap at a time when I really wanted a puzzle game and it scratched the right itch. Being a puzzle game featuring cartoon zombies it's aged pretty well, though I was surprised when it forced my monitor down to a lower resolution. I didn't think it was that old. It's not too difficult by puzzle game standards and the game makes a point to introduce a new complication every few levels to keep things fresh. I think I only lost once, and that's because I was careless rather than being overwhelmed. I don't think I would have bought this normally though.
Dungeon Fighter Online * (PC)
This is a quirky online RPG that is like Diablo had a lovechild with your favorite side scrolling beat-'em-up game. It's 2D like Final Fight or Dungeons & Dragons: Shadow over Mystara, but it's an RPG designed for small parties or solo players. You can perform attacks fighting game style, but there are also equipment drops, skill trees, dungeons, pets, guilds, etc. It's free to play, and amazingly, you can get through the entire leveling experience without spending a cent, and more importantly, without seeing microtransaction ads thrown at you every other screen. The Korean to English translation is a bit janky in places, but if you like retro games, and have a fondness for old school JRPG music, this an excellent bet.
Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth
I actually started this last year, but got derailed about a third of the way through due to This War of Mine. This is probably the closest thing to having a playable Digimon anime series. The player-named protagonist has an online encounter with a mysterious entity that leaves her (or him, I played as a girl) in a weird half-digital body while her real one is comatose. As a result she can jump in and out of the computer networks Tron-style. The story moves at a relaxed pace sometimes, but really captures the feel of the anime. Together with her human friends and their combined Digimon companions they try to solve the mystery behind the origin of the Eaters, why people are being found comatose from EDEN syndrome, and what the corporation Kamishiro Enterprises has to do with all of this.
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