So what was your GOTY in 2015?

[PreZZ]

I have bought and/or played most of the big hits of 2015, fallout4, star wars, batman, halo5, etc. and i did enjoy them for a couple of hours, but none of these games really felt like goty material. Then Xenoblade X came out! Oh man is this game awesome, this game world has got me in like nothing else since gta3 came out. There is such a massive game world to explore, and even if wii u is underpowered compared to other consoles, its just the prettiest game world I have ever seen, the game world is like nothing else and it feels like landscape porn!! It does have a lot of flaws, like bad camera in fights, some very annoying music tracks, bad voice acting etc. The way I see it it feels like a saturday morning cartoon plot, an old TMNT show story wise and im fine with that, dont expect something too serious, the gameplay is awesome, its overwhelming at first but once you start to understand the complex menus, options, and different gameplay modes its fantastic. My GOTY: Xenoblade Chronicles X!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvpNXhzscjQ just look at this trailer!

[kupomogli]

^Off topic. Never played XCX but I did play Xenoblade Chronicles for around 15 hours and didn't like it. The flaws that it had in the game that I didn't enjoy were the same ones that were listed in many Metacritic reviews of Xenoblade Chronicles X. It sort of makes me think that these people who stated they liked the original but didn't enjoy the sequel, didn't really like the original as much as they made it out to be, just the fact that it was one of the only RPGs on the system and that their opinions were skewed. The originality was no longer their with Xenoblade Chronicles X along with worse story and music, so those flaws the game had in the original didn't get overlooked this time around. This is only my opinion, and not bashing you on yours, but what many Nintendo fanboys(the die hard scum who will only purchase Nintendo consoles and would blow Miyamoto if they had the chance) touted as the greatest RPG of all time which again is more than likely due to the price they paid and the fact it was one of the few RPGs on the system, is a pretty mediocre RPG to me because of so many issues.

I gave it a chance, 15 hours worth of chances, but didn't like it. I know that there are people who will defend comments like this by "oh you didn't finish it, it's an 80 hour game, it's got much more depth after such and such time," and it's honestly complete bs. There are very few games, even RPGs, that actually have the amount of depth to become far better than the initial few hours. Playing around 5-10 hours in just about any game you could make an accurate judgment. There are exceptions though. SMT4's gameplay is the same, but after 10 hours its progression completely changes(something I won't ruin because seeing it gives you the sort of rush that Dragon Warrior 3 gives you the first time you drop down to where prisoners are thrown.) Dragon Warrior 7 allows you to class change 20 hours in which even then isn't such a huge change, but it does change from a fixed more linear character system to something more open which does give you more diversity and makes it a bit more enjoyable than it already has been. Even PC style games that give you more customization still have the same base functions in gameplay and it won't make such a huge difference late game in comparison to early game. So anyways, went on a long rant, but that's my view. It's best if people who play games as a source of income do actually finish the games before reviewing them, because it's more about making money and sometimes less about the interest in the game, so them just playing a little bit and slapping together a review so they can get behind isn't something that I can get behind. However if you've spent your money on a game, you'll have a reason to want to actually enjoy the game, and playing 10 hours of the game and giving an opinion, even a review about it, is fine with me.

-----

So anyways. I haven't played much this year, and although I've played a couple of others, these are the only ones I'd say have GotY potential. Bloodborne(multiple completions,) Metal Gear Solid 5(40 hours with 100% completion in side ops up to the area I'm at, got burnt out on the game,) Divinity Original Sin(2014 PC/2015 consoles, only played 20 hours, haven't completed.) Splatoon is one people will state is GotY potential, but after putting a lot of time into that and enjoying it a lot at first, it has way too many problems holding it back from even being a great game much less GotY. I haven't played The Witcher 3, Mad Max, and Just Cause 3 which really are the only ones which have any competition in GotY from viewing them imo. Fallout 4? Bethesda's open world games have a lot of content but are usually good at most, never great, and Fallout 3 I didn't like at all.

From the ones I've played and what I've played of them, I'd say Bloodborne over the others. However I can't make an actual decision before I've played the other games I think are potential contenders.

[Tanooki]

Hate to say it but I don't think there really was one worthy of such a title as game of the year. Usually there's something so cut and dry that stands out on enough media sites and specifically among players it's obvious. I have nothing, I can not honestly answer your question as nothing at all has wow'd me into playing a game for an kind of extended period especially to completion in 2015. Sure I've had enjoyable stuff, but stupidly enough it's usually stuff that was a port or a remaster like FF10 and GOW3 on PS4. I've had fun at points with stuff like the Wolfenstein sequel and Godzilla too, but after a couple of weeks I forgot about them motivation wise. The 3DS hasn't been any better of a ride nor has the PC. I've snapped up some decent games on the things (both) this year, at least new ones on 3DS, mostly GOG buy on PC. Perhaps when I can get to playing Shovel Knight I got a couple days ago on 3DS maybe that'll be it? I don't know.

I did end up with Xenoblade on 3DS, and I never had it on Wii so I don't have the desperation faux orgy tinglies over it many do. Kupo slammed it right on the nose though, but I was capable of tolerating 30 hours of it and got as far as where you're (forget name) where you can teleport between island clusters and the hub town is this huge place with an order that runs it the girl in your party in white/light blue is part of and should lead in time I think. The game play just has a lot of flaws that tends to stop me from caring as does the fact the game is so bloody huge it gets boring and I get spaced out on it because it's illogically dragged out big time, even worse with the optional crap fetch quest requests from villagers in each zone. The combat while turn based is so well masked from that fact it almost feels like a near mindless button masher you just click the icon on what you want to do or hopefully your partners will do. He's right on with the lie that, oh you quit too early, it gets better as you go along. Sorry but no, it doesn't. The gameplay remains flat, and the story if it doesn't move you to put up with the agonizing slow crawl the game moves won't help salvage that either. I honestly even when I was well more into RPGs can't think of nearly one damn game that's interesting enough to put up with for more than 30-40 hours as it just drags and gets old with dragged out garbage and way too much griding for xp and cash. The game is average, perhaps a little over average at absolute best as I can think of far worse, but I can think of a lot better too going back from around 1990 forward.

[PreZZ]

Story doesnt really matter, just like in phantasy star online, its just exploring this crazy weird alien world that is so much fun, I really like how they paced everything to keep the game fresh. The map is huge, no loading except cut scenes and fast travel and they load fast I really like that. BTW I hate Nintendo for all the stupid stuff they do, im not a fanboy FYI. The only thing that was in the original XBC is the battle system and menus (quests), its really different and I never finished XBC just played it 15 hours like you, I highly suggest you keep an open mind about it. The game is not linear like the original XBC, and about 30 hours in you get your own mech to explore places where you couldnt go before, and later you get a full flying mech and can go anywhere, the game does hit the same spot as metroidvania games for me. The game is far from perfect it does have a lot of flaws like pop in, bad music etc but overall its still an amazing game, im 75 hours in the past 2 weeks and still enjoy it a lot, cant remember a single game i put this much time in the past decade

[Tanooki]

Well maybe it's better, but I don't have a WiiU anymore (not for like 2 years now.) I'd probably check it out since even PS4 is fairly dry currently for my needs, but I've thought about re-investing on the cheap and sadly the stuff I had before I'd like to own again and a few of them costs more in decent shape used as much as they were new a year or two ago which is awful so that sucked the interest right out of me unfortunately.

I mentioned Shovel Knight in the last post on 3DS. I've been playing it since, it's actually pretty well done and I'm liking it. I'm not sure how tricky it will end up being, but I've dropped that black knight and the king knight so far along with a wandering(smb3 like) enemy too. I've died a couple times due to stupid stuff, so I have no idea if it'll ramp up and be infuriating eventually but it's good now. I bought up the food bonuses max in town one and 1 item boost so far, no chalices yet, and I bought the 2 relics and a hidden 3rd fire wand in that king stage so I think I'm doing alright, oh and got like 8 bard sheets so far.

[celerystalker]

I gave it a chance, 15 hours worth of chances, but didn't like it. I know that there are people who will defend comments like this by "oh you didn't finish it, it's an 80 hour game, it's got much more depth after such and such time," and it's honestly complete bs.

I agree with this sentiment. I haven't played this particular game, but the player should never have to sit throughhours of boredom on the chance a game might become enjoyable. It's a subjective, person by person thing, but you don't owe it to anyone to keep playing a boring game.

If Shovel Knight counts since it got its physical release, it's probably the one. It's that or Downtown Nekketsu Koushinkyouku Soreyuke Daiundoukai All Star Battle for PS3. Love both of those, and I see both getting continued play over the years.

[The 1 2 P]

There were a lot of big game releases this year and a lot of big exclusives too. I played Star Wars: Battlefront but wouldn't recommend that for GOTY status. It still needs work. Also currently playing through Call Of Duty: Black Ops III. The Black Ops sub-series is always good and I could see that as a contender. I would also throw out honorable mentions to Rare Replay and Gears Of War: Ultimate Edition. Rare Replay was the best value for money released this entire year and Gears still holds up. But those are both re-releases so I doubt they would count.

For me there were three definite candidates for GOTY. The second runner up would be Rise Of Tomb Raider. I didn't think I'd like it but I got hooked on the exploration parts. I haven't beat the whole game yet(and really should play through the the previous version first) but Crystal Dynamics have found their groove again. But as much as I liked that game two other games shined even brighter and those were Halo 5 and Batman: Arkham Knight. I put a lot of time into Arkham Knight after I got it in a craigs list deal with the season pass a month after it came out. I played the first two games in the series(haven't touched Origins yet) so I knew I'd like it, I just didn't know how much I'd like it. As for Halo, 343 continued to improve upon their Halo iterations. I still wish the controls were fully customizable and they need to send the ground pound to the same watery grave that armor lock now resides in. But the story and campaign were on point, the controls were solid once you get use to the new moves and the multiplayer gives you infinite replayability.

I actually played Arkham Knight more than I've played Halo 5, at least to this point. It was a great conclusion to Rocksteady's Arkham trilogy and I need to go back and play the new DLC episodes. Like I said, Arkham Knight was a close second but Halo 5 was the best this year had to offer.

[kupomogli]

im not a fanboy FYI.

I actually don't think you are. I was just generalizing what would be the case for the die hard Nintendo fans that put Nintendo releases on an incredibly high pedestal and ignore their faults. Don't get me wrong though. I dislike those people and Nintendo as a company, but I'll fully admit that their recent Super Mario 3D Land and while I haven't played it, World(assumingly as I've heard it was better than Land,) are the best 3D platformers ever created. The company still releases other good games, but literally everything that they release except for the shovelware trash these die hard fans shout to the ends of the earth that the games are all 10/10.

My comment wasn't meant to be offensive towards your GotY, just another new heavily overrated Nintendo franchise, based on my play time with the first one, I just felt I had to give my opinion of what I thought of it.

Here's what I didn't like about the game. First off, just like Tanooki stated, once you use your skills, the game is on auto battle, taking each turn by itself. There's an ever so slightly amount of depth to combat, but all boils down to using your skills a certain way, mainly for allies to take advantage of with their skills in a combo, and then back to auto battle to wait for the skills to cool down. The openness of one of the larger areas I got to was just a whole bunch of nothing. Waterfalls, hills, etc, but again, it was a huge bunch of nothing with the rare mining point at the far end, junk scattered across the ground, and it was full of enemies.

I'm big on balance of games, and the games balance is pretty awful. At the very beginning here's an example. Oh look, this enemy is level six, I'm only one level less. Wtf is this bullsh*t, I didn't even get a fifth of his health down. Purchased pretty much the only weapons and armor I could after getting past that area. Literally one level higher with a tier of weapons above what I had, went back and fought the same enemy and destroyed him. When a set of weapons and armor only a tier above what you initially had changes the tide of battle that much, it just proves how much the game is based on the power of your equipment and maybe your level, and far less about your skill as a player. There are several different difficulties of enemies in every single area, and since there's no color modifier or anything to tell whether you stand a challenge against them or not, you're left to just go fight them and win or get completely decimated.

But oh, I died..... and I'm 10 seconds away from where I died with all my money and experience. Again, as I stated above, I'm big on the balance of games and the game clearly had such sh*t balance that to fix that the developer gave the player no penalty whatsoever. The developers should be able to balance their games worth a damn so the game isn't cheap or has difficulty so easy that you can be brain dead and still run through the game. This game happens fail worse than many others by having both cheap difficulty as well as brain dead difficulty. It's like they found the perfect way to turn me off from the game by not hitting one extreme or the other, but hitting both extremes at the same time. Way to go!

Still off topic.

Now let me tell you of a game that is actually very similar, but actually does combat right, got hated on by journalists so everyone just automatically assumed it sucked. White Knight Chronicles is actually very similar to Xenoblade Chronicles in exploring and initiating combat, but where the similarities end, is how combat actually progresses. You mentioned Phantasy Star Online, and as someone who likes playing as Force over the others on PSO, I'd like to liken the games combat to being similar to playing as a Force in Phantasy Star Online, but turn based, and all classes have this similarity. Playing as a Force on PSO, Boomas were weak against Foie, Goboomas were weak Zonde, and Gigoboomas were weak against Barta. On White Knight Chronicles, each enemy had weaknesses on what type of magic or attack hurt them. In WKC2, enemies like the wolf were weak against slashing attack, giant bees were weak against piercing attacks, and scorpions were weak against blunt attacks. Most weapons had atleast the weakest no MP slash, piercing, and blunt attack skills, so throughout the game you would usually try using the attack that was most effect. Magic spells you obviously wanted to use the element that their element was weak against, and playing a magic user felt a lot like playing a force, especially when you had single shot magic of various levels as well as area spells that you'd have to see whether it was more of a benefit or depending on enemies on screen. Weapons had some skills that were a combination of an elemental and a type of an attack, skills that buffed the character or characters, debuffed the enemy, long range MP attacks(since you still had to be next to enemies to attack them with everything else,) area attacks, drain magic, taunt enemies, etc. The game was so much more enjoyable and to me, it felt just like playing Phantasy Star Online. Even though I never got into the online as much as a lot of people did, I did play online a bit for awhile on WKC2 and just a far more enjoyable game. WKC and WKC2 were MMO lite just like PSO, and just like PSO they were far more enjoyable than any MMO I've ever played. Sadly, if you live in the US, you got fu**ed by Sony and D3. Sony shut down the servers to the first game and D3 closed the servers of WKC2 on the same day, an obviously sneaky move so all the blame would be directed towards Sony even though the servers for WKC2 were D3 servers since they published it in the west.

I was actually hoping that Level 5's unannounced game was going to be a spiritual successor to WKC, but instead we got Ni No Kuni 2, the game that sold well and was overrated for no other reason than the fact that Studio Ghibli character designs and art style was used in the design of the game. Biggest disappointment of the year was the lack of one announcement and the announcement of another.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5336be34Jl4

Off topic rant over.

[Nebagram]

Such a tough choice. I honestly thought Fallout 4 was going to walk it but it didn't grip me in nearly the same way as oblivion, Skyrim or Fallout 3. I mean, yes, it's good, even great... But not on the same level as the other three. I've heard amazing things about Undertale (and not just from that effing GameFAQs poll) but have yet to play it, Arkham Knight impressed, so did MGS5, Battlefront and Witcher 3 but not nearly enough for me to declare them game of the year. If we take GotY to mean 'the best game released in this calendar year' and we take 'release' to mean 'the full game coming out', then... My game of the year, based purely on the level of enjoyment I've got out of the game... Is Kerbal Space Program. Even though I suck at it and it has a learning curve that makes El Capitan look like a speed bump, I've never not enjoyed playing a single second of it.

[Gamevet]

I really haven't played a lot of games released this year. I've played a lot of older (and 2014) titles including Fallout 3 GOTY (PC), Batman Arkham Asylum (PS3), The Last of Us remastered (PS4), Pinball Arcade (PS4), Far Cry 4 (PC), Grand Theft Auto V (PS4), Brutal Legend (PS3), Wolfenstein A New Order (PC), Grand Theft Auto IV (PC), Titan Fall (PC) and Alien Isolation (PC). The rest of the older games date way back.

The titles released this year include Star Wars: Battlefront (PC), The Witcher 3 (PC) and Fallout 4 (PS4).

The Wither 3: I really wanted to like this title. I give a huge thumbs up to CD Projekt Red for making this game DRM free. The graphics are outstanding and the game is a nice showcase for the power of PC hardware. But, the story really didn't grab me, I felt that I was often struggling to keep resources in hand, and the quests were rather ho-hum. I guess I've just never been a fan of this series.

Star Wars: Battlefront: I really liked the original Star Wars: Battlefront games on the Xbox. The multiplayer maps were interesting, and I played those games a lot. I can't say that I feel the same about this game. The graphics are really nice, there's a nice variety of multi-player maps to play, but I just don't feel all that compelled to keep playing the game. Maybe I'm just sort of burned out with online multi-player games.

Fallout 4: I really loved playing Fallout 3 on the Xbox 360. I loved playing the game so much, that I later bought the GOTY edition of the game for the PC. I also really liked playing New Vegas on the 360. I think this game is much better than New Vegas, and I also thought that New Vegas was a somewhat better experience than Fallout 3, until I played the GOTY edition of that game. I think this game encompasses a lot of what I liked about those previous games, while offering some new things to do along the way. I think that it compares very well with the original Fallout 3 release, but I'd be lying if I'd said that it compares to the GOTY edition. Still, considering that this is just the beginning of the experience of Fallout 4, I can only imagine that an eventual GOTY edition will have a whole lot more to offer. I've put well over 80 hours into the game so far, and I still find myself wanting to play it more. It's, hands down, my GOTY for 2015.

[Tron 2.0]

These.
MGSV
Bloodborne
Freedom Planet (Wii-U)

Since xenoblade cx came out so late and i'm still playing it so i can't think of it as a goty.Still when it comes to modern gaming i don't buy every release for that year.Also i didn't consider batman arkham as goty since i was disappointed by the story,how it's dlc was handle either.

[Tanooki]

It's unfair but considering when the games came out they all basically nailed GOTY in most media outlets but how about the PS4 Uncharted Nathan Drake Collection. They're not new, but not exactly old either with the strong improvements to in particular #1 and #3s camera/aim problems.

[kupomogli]

It's unfair but considering when the games came out they all basically nailed GOTY in most media outlets but how about the PS4 Uncharted Nathan Drake Collection. They're not new, but not exactly old either with the strong improvements to in particular #1 and #3s camera/aim problems.

It also comes with the Uncharted 4 beta, which makes me question whether we can consider a beta for GotY?

Sony should rename the Uncharted 4 2016 release Uncharted 4 Game of the Year edition. "Awesome multiplayer. 10/10 - some random guy on the internet."

[Tanooki]

That gives a laugh, between the fact that could be right, and how sad that could be perceived as well. There really was nothing earth shattering this year other than the yearly shovelware regurgitation I don't think deserved such an award since they lack usually much creativity, at least with the FPS and sports junk.

[The 1 2 P]

I'm sure next year there will be a GOTY edition of both Halo 5 and Batman: Arkham Knight, especially if Microsoft hasn't established a platinum hits line up yet.

[Tanooki]

Finally got to fire up that Uncharted collection and did game one for stunningly 4 hours (I don't do that anymore.) I got Elena back and have dropped that jeep off that ledge into the sunken city and saved it there. They really did improve that one quite a bit, smooth like Uncharted 2, and the visual bump I hoped for owning FFX-x2 and GOW3 Remaster. So far my game of the year, and I was joking about that earlier. If it's not then Shovel Knight would be it in physical form.

[PizzaKat]

I didn't play enough games to warrant a decision but Fallout 4 was damn boring. I put in quite a bit of hours in it but its just the same stuff over and over. I sold it on Ebay to at least recoup some of the money I spent. I was going to get the Witcher 3 on boxing day because it was 29.99 but what I read was that it was a similar kind of style like Fallout. So I didn't bother. I'm just staying away from these kind of games from now on. My friend said that Arkham Knight was a disappointment.

[Tanooki]

I had that similar experience years ago, many years ago. That's why I rarely if ever bother with the games anymore in that style. The few times I've tried, other than Uncharted which gets handled a bit differently (and better for the most part) they've been annoying as hell, broken camera/control issues, wonky ai, or other dumb junk like the original assassin's creed. I just keep away and it's the best way to save money and not get disappointed if enough times it just sucked not to even bother anymore since there's so much more offerings out there in other styles it's not like you're at a loss.

[PreZZ]

Wow I thought I was the only one that didnt enjoy fallout 4. Well its not bad, played maybe 15 hours, but it felt like the exact same game as fallout 3, with a worse story and gimmicky build a city that i didnt like or bother at all, I just stopped playing and never got back in it, same with Halo 5. As for Shovel Knight, its an outstanding game, one I enjoyed the most this year (I finished it, getting 100% achievements/trophies is crazy!!) but technically it came out in 2014...

[Nesmaster]

Easily The Witcher 3. Loved my time with Fallout 4, but their ancient engine is showing its cracks. Looking forward to the second DLC for TW3.