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Top Eleven Non-AAA Games of 2015
10 years ago
General
So, with the year winding up, I figure I'll list some of the better games I've played over the year here. Yes I know Fallout 4 and Starcraft 2: Legacy of the Void are due out in just over a week, but as the title says, this isn't about the big boys. Some game companies that are lesser known in the states, like Atlus, will get a mention, but that's different. This is my own attempt to give a helping hand and a leg up to some more obscure titles that you might not otherwise try... with the exception of one that's been all over Furaffinity lately, but we'll get to that when we get to that.
11. Chroma Squad http://store.steampowered.com/app/251130/
Here's one for everybody who grew up on those old cheesy sentai shows like Power Rangers. Chroma Squad lets you take control of a studio making a sentai show and plays out like a classic strategy RPG akin to Final Fantasy Tactics or Disgaea. An excellent game with some good humor, a lot of old sentai in-jokes, and the ability to fully customize your team's name, catchphrases, which color the rangers are, and more. Lots of fun and a good all around title.
10. Etrian Odyssey 2: Untold. The Fafnir Knight https://www.nintendo.com/games/deta.....F54u7tZ9OWkKmU
Yeah yeah, Atlus. I'm a fanboy, what can I say? The Fafnir Knight is their next addition to the remakes of the excellent Etrian Odyssey games for the original DS, complete with the same 'do classic and make your own team, or do story and use our team' thing they did with The Millenium Girl. They also added a neat little cooking minigame where you gather ingredients from the labrynth and bring them back to town to make dishes and such. A solid JRPG all around.
9. Citizens of Earth http://store.steampowered.com/app/258910/
It was intended to be the spiritual successor to the Mother trilogy and... well... it wasn't. Not even close... but it's not bad! Its worth mentioning because it's got some decent humor, some cute artwork and colorful characters, and gods bless it the game tries. Its not perfect, but its worth playing if you have the spare cash just because it's a neat little title with some neat little things.
8. Steven Universe: Attack the Light https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/att.....941380906?mt=8
So, over the summer a friend of mine got me into a new cartoon series called Steven Universe. For those of you who haven't watched it yet... go ahead, I'll wait. You can find a few websites like https://www.kisscartoon.me that have the show on it for free. For those of you who have, OHMYGOD GARNET IS SO AWESOME AND I LOVE AMEYTHIST AND PEARL IS SO SALTY BUT I FEEL SO MUCH SYMPATHY FOR HER UNREQUITED LOVE IS A BITCH AND THEN PERIDOT TURNED OUT TO BE ALL TINY AND AAAAAA so yeah its a pretty neat show. The game is almost stupidly easy, but its more one you get because its a neat little side story to the show rather than it's own game. It plays a lot like Paper Mario so if you like those games you'll probably enjoy this.
7. Shadowrun: Hong Kong http://store.steampowered.com/app/346940/
For those of you unfamiliar with the series, whether its the Shadowrun games as a whole or just Harebrained Scheme's CRPG series, the Shadowrun games are set about fifty years in the future in a world where magic came back to earth. Sorcery and science work alongside each other and humanity shares the world with elves, orcs, dwarves, trolls, and a whole bunch of other strange beings. Shadowrun Hong Kong is the third in the series and improves a LOT on the old gameplay. The combat system got an overhaul, there's some really neat characters you can get on your crew, and (speaking as a lifelong decker), going into the Matrix has become AWESOME. A must have for anyone who wants a good classic RPG with an unsual setting.
6. Pillars of Eternity http://store.steampowered.com/app/291650/
And for those of you who DO want a traditional setting in an old style RPG, here ya go! Pillars of Eternity was one I stumbled across after hearing Angry Joe gushing about it and holy hell this one grabbed me tight and didn't let go. I still have yet to do the expansion stuff despite having bought it (no idea why I'm dragging my heels to be honest) but the main story and the game itself are amazingly good, especially since they patched in party AI in the update for The White March DLC. Go with your own custom hero and a party of story-provided characters, or make your own party of customized ones based on your friends, either way this game is a ton of fun!
5. UnEpic http://store.steampowered.com/app/233980/
Yeah, this is a bit of an older entry, but I had fun with it. A neat little MetroidVania game about a guy who's playing D&D with his buddies and winds up trapped in a castle and possessed by a shadowy monster. He has to fight his way through the castle and escape back to earth, assuming he can. Along the way there's a ton of great humor, especially if you're a huge geek like myself. Hack and slash your way through hordes of monsters, learn how to use magic, and enjoy the banter between your character and his smoke-like sidekick Zera.
4. Legend of Grimrock 2 http://store.steampowered.com/app/251730/
I borrowed this one from a Steam friend after I beat Pillars of Eternity and was hungry for more... and I was not left disappointed. A first-person explorative RPG where you take command of a party of four to explore the mysterious Island of Nyx. Its all done in first person so it really feels like you're exploring the island up close... but I feel the need to warn you. If you're not careful this game will CRUSH YOU FLAT. The puzzles can be extremely difficult and some of the monsters are downright unfair. If you don't have an alchemist with you then healing potions will be at a premium since you'll have to save every herb you come across, and good gear is extremely hard to find early on... and there are few 'shit your pants' moments equal to finding a Mimic disguised as an innocent treasure chest in first person. A hell of a ride from start to finish, with some AMAZING custom campaigns available via the Steam Workshop! Total must have!
3. Killer is Dead http://store.steampowered.com/app/261110/
Okay, gonna break my 'no Triple-A' rule here as this game is made by Deep Silver (Dead Island, Saints Row), but this is just one of those extremely surreal titles that only comes along once in a blue moon and makes me ask this question aloud every few minutes:
"What the hell is going on in Suda-51's head?!"
That man's brain must be a gateway to Wonderland or something, because he is fifteen shades of insane if his games are any indication. You play as Mondo Zappa, an assassin from the moon with a cybernetic arm who kills people with a katana and various weapons built into said cybernetic arm. It sounds like something a thirteen year old would come up with, as do the (and I'm serious) 'Gigilo missions' where you basically seduce (if it counts as seduction) women into giving you weapon upgrades that mostly involve staring at their tits at every opportunity. Worth getting just for the WTF factor.
2. Evoland 2: A Slight Case of Spacetime Continuum Disorder http://store.steampowered.com/app/359310/
I already liked the original Evoland's take on the evolution of RPGs from tiny little black and white pixel games to the modern fully polygonal games of today, but this one does it for as many different genres of gaming as it can find. A few examples off the top of my head include:
- A Bullet Hell Shooter segment where you fly your little airbike to a boss fight.
- A boss fight that plays out like a game of Street Fighter, complete with the boss using Akuma's signature finishing move.
- Fighting your way across a pirate village in a way that can only be described as 'Dubloon Dragon'.
- A tournament in a viking village that's basically Puzzle Quest.
- Leading an army across a demon kingdom akin to Fire Emblem.
- A boss fight that is (no shit) Guitar Hero.
- Exploring an abandoned lab in a way that's more or less Chrono Trigger, complete with a purple haired girl with glasses.
... and more. You also travel through time, and each time period has entirely different graphics! The distant past is akin to an old SNES game, the present would be right at home on the GBA, and the future is fully 3D with smooth textures like a PS3 game. Worth playing just to experience all the different things they squeezed into it!
And lastly, the big one, the one that left a huge impact on me this year... the one that... well... honestly I haven't cried this hard finishing a game in years.
... Lunes is gonna hate me for this...
1. Undertale http://store.steampowered.com/app/391540/
If you get one indie game this year, this is the one to get. This game will fuck with your mind, make you cry, make you feel, make you laugh, and make you want more. Despite it's retro pixel graphics it has some of the best art and some of the best animation I've seen in a game all year. Despite the old style retro music I went out of my way to get the Soundtrack off Steam (and am listening to 'Hopes and Dreams' from it right now).
At first glance Undertale seems a pretty standard JRPG. You're a young boy who fell down a pit into the land of monsters and almost dies, only to be rescued by a rather motherly woman called Toriel... but here's the twist. While you can get in random battles, you never have to kill ANYTHING in the game! Every fight you get into can be talked out of, in one way or another. In one you help a monster get things off it's antlers, in another you out-flex a monster until it flexes so hard it flies away. The boss characters can all be befriended if you don't kill them and will help you out in the game.
On the other hand, you CAN kill them. You can kill the hell out of them and find yourself playing a VERY different game! There's three paths through the game. The 'Neutral' path, the 'Genocide' path, and the 'True Pacifist' path. As their names suggest, the Genocide path involves killing every monster you meet, while the True Pacifist path involves killing none of them.
I did the True Pacifist one (can't let Goatmom down!) but I did look up what happens in the Genocide path and... yeah... not doing that one. ._.
Here's the real twist though. Lets say you screw up and accidentally kill someone you don't want to (its easier than it sounds), then reload your save file and try to do it right.
THE GAME WILL KNOW! It really likes to screw with your head that way.
But yeah, I admit with zero shame that I cried at the ending. This game really gets to you. If there's just one indie game that you buy all year, make it Undertale. Its an experience like no other.
11. Chroma Squad http://store.steampowered.com/app/251130/
Here's one for everybody who grew up on those old cheesy sentai shows like Power Rangers. Chroma Squad lets you take control of a studio making a sentai show and plays out like a classic strategy RPG akin to Final Fantasy Tactics or Disgaea. An excellent game with some good humor, a lot of old sentai in-jokes, and the ability to fully customize your team's name, catchphrases, which color the rangers are, and more. Lots of fun and a good all around title.
10. Etrian Odyssey 2: Untold. The Fafnir Knight https://www.nintendo.com/games/deta.....F54u7tZ9OWkKmU
Yeah yeah, Atlus. I'm a fanboy, what can I say? The Fafnir Knight is their next addition to the remakes of the excellent Etrian Odyssey games for the original DS, complete with the same 'do classic and make your own team, or do story and use our team' thing they did with The Millenium Girl. They also added a neat little cooking minigame where you gather ingredients from the labrynth and bring them back to town to make dishes and such. A solid JRPG all around.
9. Citizens of Earth http://store.steampowered.com/app/258910/
It was intended to be the spiritual successor to the Mother trilogy and... well... it wasn't. Not even close... but it's not bad! Its worth mentioning because it's got some decent humor, some cute artwork and colorful characters, and gods bless it the game tries. Its not perfect, but its worth playing if you have the spare cash just because it's a neat little title with some neat little things.
8. Steven Universe: Attack the Light https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/att.....941380906?mt=8
So, over the summer a friend of mine got me into a new cartoon series called Steven Universe. For those of you who haven't watched it yet... go ahead, I'll wait. You can find a few websites like https://www.kisscartoon.me that have the show on it for free. For those of you who have, OHMYGOD GARNET IS SO AWESOME AND I LOVE AMEYTHIST AND PEARL IS SO SALTY BUT I FEEL SO MUCH SYMPATHY FOR HER UNREQUITED LOVE IS A BITCH AND THEN PERIDOT TURNED OUT TO BE ALL TINY AND AAAAAA so yeah its a pretty neat show. The game is almost stupidly easy, but its more one you get because its a neat little side story to the show rather than it's own game. It plays a lot like Paper Mario so if you like those games you'll probably enjoy this.
7. Shadowrun: Hong Kong http://store.steampowered.com/app/346940/
For those of you unfamiliar with the series, whether its the Shadowrun games as a whole or just Harebrained Scheme's CRPG series, the Shadowrun games are set about fifty years in the future in a world where magic came back to earth. Sorcery and science work alongside each other and humanity shares the world with elves, orcs, dwarves, trolls, and a whole bunch of other strange beings. Shadowrun Hong Kong is the third in the series and improves a LOT on the old gameplay. The combat system got an overhaul, there's some really neat characters you can get on your crew, and (speaking as a lifelong decker), going into the Matrix has become AWESOME. A must have for anyone who wants a good classic RPG with an unsual setting.
6. Pillars of Eternity http://store.steampowered.com/app/291650/
And for those of you who DO want a traditional setting in an old style RPG, here ya go! Pillars of Eternity was one I stumbled across after hearing Angry Joe gushing about it and holy hell this one grabbed me tight and didn't let go. I still have yet to do the expansion stuff despite having bought it (no idea why I'm dragging my heels to be honest) but the main story and the game itself are amazingly good, especially since they patched in party AI in the update for The White March DLC. Go with your own custom hero and a party of story-provided characters, or make your own party of customized ones based on your friends, either way this game is a ton of fun!
5. UnEpic http://store.steampowered.com/app/233980/
Yeah, this is a bit of an older entry, but I had fun with it. A neat little MetroidVania game about a guy who's playing D&D with his buddies and winds up trapped in a castle and possessed by a shadowy monster. He has to fight his way through the castle and escape back to earth, assuming he can. Along the way there's a ton of great humor, especially if you're a huge geek like myself. Hack and slash your way through hordes of monsters, learn how to use magic, and enjoy the banter between your character and his smoke-like sidekick Zera.
4. Legend of Grimrock 2 http://store.steampowered.com/app/251730/
I borrowed this one from a Steam friend after I beat Pillars of Eternity and was hungry for more... and I was not left disappointed. A first-person explorative RPG where you take command of a party of four to explore the mysterious Island of Nyx. Its all done in first person so it really feels like you're exploring the island up close... but I feel the need to warn you. If you're not careful this game will CRUSH YOU FLAT. The puzzles can be extremely difficult and some of the monsters are downright unfair. If you don't have an alchemist with you then healing potions will be at a premium since you'll have to save every herb you come across, and good gear is extremely hard to find early on... and there are few 'shit your pants' moments equal to finding a Mimic disguised as an innocent treasure chest in first person. A hell of a ride from start to finish, with some AMAZING custom campaigns available via the Steam Workshop! Total must have!
3. Killer is Dead http://store.steampowered.com/app/261110/
Okay, gonna break my 'no Triple-A' rule here as this game is made by Deep Silver (Dead Island, Saints Row), but this is just one of those extremely surreal titles that only comes along once in a blue moon and makes me ask this question aloud every few minutes:
"What the hell is going on in Suda-51's head?!"
That man's brain must be a gateway to Wonderland or something, because he is fifteen shades of insane if his games are any indication. You play as Mondo Zappa, an assassin from the moon with a cybernetic arm who kills people with a katana and various weapons built into said cybernetic arm. It sounds like something a thirteen year old would come up with, as do the (and I'm serious) 'Gigilo missions' where you basically seduce (if it counts as seduction) women into giving you weapon upgrades that mostly involve staring at their tits at every opportunity. Worth getting just for the WTF factor.
2. Evoland 2: A Slight Case of Spacetime Continuum Disorder http://store.steampowered.com/app/359310/
I already liked the original Evoland's take on the evolution of RPGs from tiny little black and white pixel games to the modern fully polygonal games of today, but this one does it for as many different genres of gaming as it can find. A few examples off the top of my head include:
- A Bullet Hell Shooter segment where you fly your little airbike to a boss fight.
- A boss fight that plays out like a game of Street Fighter, complete with the boss using Akuma's signature finishing move.
- Fighting your way across a pirate village in a way that can only be described as 'Dubloon Dragon'.
- A tournament in a viking village that's basically Puzzle Quest.
- Leading an army across a demon kingdom akin to Fire Emblem.
- A boss fight that is (no shit) Guitar Hero.
- Exploring an abandoned lab in a way that's more or less Chrono Trigger, complete with a purple haired girl with glasses.
... and more. You also travel through time, and each time period has entirely different graphics! The distant past is akin to an old SNES game, the present would be right at home on the GBA, and the future is fully 3D with smooth textures like a PS3 game. Worth playing just to experience all the different things they squeezed into it!
And lastly, the big one, the one that left a huge impact on me this year... the one that... well... honestly I haven't cried this hard finishing a game in years.
... Lunes is gonna hate me for this...
1. Undertale http://store.steampowered.com/app/391540/
If you get one indie game this year, this is the one to get. This game will fuck with your mind, make you cry, make you feel, make you laugh, and make you want more. Despite it's retro pixel graphics it has some of the best art and some of the best animation I've seen in a game all year. Despite the old style retro music I went out of my way to get the Soundtrack off Steam (and am listening to 'Hopes and Dreams' from it right now).
At first glance Undertale seems a pretty standard JRPG. You're a young boy who fell down a pit into the land of monsters and almost dies, only to be rescued by a rather motherly woman called Toriel... but here's the twist. While you can get in random battles, you never have to kill ANYTHING in the game! Every fight you get into can be talked out of, in one way or another. In one you help a monster get things off it's antlers, in another you out-flex a monster until it flexes so hard it flies away. The boss characters can all be befriended if you don't kill them and will help you out in the game.
On the other hand, you CAN kill them. You can kill the hell out of them and find yourself playing a VERY different game! There's three paths through the game. The 'Neutral' path, the 'Genocide' path, and the 'True Pacifist' path. As their names suggest, the Genocide path involves killing every monster you meet, while the True Pacifist path involves killing none of them.
I did the True Pacifist one (can't let Goatmom down!) but I did look up what happens in the Genocide path and... yeah... not doing that one. ._.
Here's the real twist though. Lets say you screw up and accidentally kill someone you don't want to (its easier than it sounds), then reload your save file and try to do it right.
THE GAME WILL KNOW! It really likes to screw with your head that way.
But yeah, I admit with zero shame that I cried at the ending. This game really gets to you. If there's just one indie game that you buy all year, make it Undertale. Its an experience like no other.
