Benny

18. Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age

 

 

It’s been a funny old story with Square and their rereleases and remasters, and the the godawful phone ports of older Final Fantasy titles certainly did not inspire confidence. Happily though, enough care has been taken with Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age and it holds up surprisingly well today. I never finished it back in the day, but was always a huge fan of its programmable battle system, and it deserves to find a wider audience if just because it was a bit of a departure from many of the familiar elements of the Final Fantasy series. It ranked 60th on the Rllmuk top 100 games list, so it’s not surprising to see the remaster have so many fans this year. Here’s what I said in my original review:

 

“I never actually completed this, which is criminal, as a little research shows I was more than half way through the game. RPGs require a lot of staying power, what with most breaching the 30 hour mark, but if you have limited time I cannot recommend this iteration of the Final Fantasy series enough.

Eschewing the random battles typical of every other entry in the series up to this point, and even subsequent releases, Final Fantasy XII feels like an RPG that has been refined into something rather different. The battle system is a thing of beautiful and elegant design. The level of customisation options, and very novel simple programming system you can set for each character that allows the amount of battle interactivity and choices to be fully customised, makes the game feel more in common with complex strategy RPGs than the typical Final Fantasy fare. The influences in the game from Vagrant Story are very apparent in both this level of complexity and even the inspired art design.

If you are not normally a Final Fantasy fan but have any interest in RPGs in general, this should be one of your first ports of call, as it is a rare prize: a franchise title (of one of the most long running no less!) that dares to try to do things differently.”

19. Gran Turismo Sport

 

 

I have a confession to make: I have never liked the Gran Turismo series. I could just never get on with the realistic handling and punishing gameplay (as it seemed to me at the time). Not having a particularly big interest in cars, despite the sheer number that were unlockable I couldn’t really see what all the fuss having so many in a game was about. Having seen the structure of GT Sport, with its licenses and the way the content is drip fed I can’t say it is a game that will finally get me into the series. However, for many of you it was one of your games of the year:

 

englishbob: “The kick up the arse it needed (less grinding) but a long way to go, but will get better in the next 18 months”

 

f2097: “It is really hard just picking five games this year. After reading previews about this being online only, light on content, no campaign etc.. There was no way I was going near this. Then the demo came out. The magic at the heart of the series is still there. I bought the game, loved it and like FFXV and Driveclub all the missing things have started to appear in the game. I can't go back to GT6 anymore it looks and plays rough compared to this.”

 

Sun Tze: “The online really works well, the rating system is a welcome addition and the cars and tracks look glorious. Still not my favourite racing game but what it does it does really well. Menu music and livery editor are excellent. Support so far is good and can't wait to see what tracks/vehicles are added over this year. ”

 

Qazimod: “GT Sport has problems. The focus of the start of the campaign feels like a bunch of licence tests, which were some of the most tedious parts of any Gran Turismo game for me, and when you finally get into the meat of the main game, you find that you’re either on a credits grind for new cars, a dice roll for loot box content with each daily workout, or an online massacre against people who are much better than you. Okay, maybe that last one is just me. Despite all of this, I still find myself coming back to GT Sport over and over again. The daily workouts may sometimes have bad rewards, but they’re over in a flash and incentivise continued play. The cars can get pricey, but there are loads of opportunities to earn credits. Above all of this, the cars just feel satisfying to drive. I’m not a big sim racer fanatic so I don’t have a lot of things to compare it to, but each car has a nice sense of weight and momentum, and you have to fight to get the most speed from each corner without pushing your luck too far and ending up in a barrier. Even against the AI, you can bump up the difficulty and expect an engaging test of your ability to tame the car and the track. In the end, it is just Gran Turismo again, but anyone who’s a fan of the series will accept that and enjoy the racing experience and the thrill of chasing more credits in order to get hold of a new shiny toy which can be thrown around the various tracks.”

20. SteamWorld Dig 2

 

 

Like with the Rllmuk top 100 games list, I have unfortunately not had time to play every game on this list, despite my best efforts, but this is a game series which I’d never even heard of until this sequel came out on the Switch late in 2017, where it then of course catapulted to the top 20 because everything is instantly a classic when it’s on the Switch. It has the indie game hat trick list for success:

• Whimsical art style
• Whimsical music
• Whimsical initial release on a Nintendo platform

 

I am of course doing it a disservice though, it stands on its own two feet precisely by being an excellent game that has delighted many, and its placement at number 20 is testament to that. I’ll leave you with HarMGM’s comments:

 

“Easily the best indie game I’ve played on the Switch and one of the best games on the system full stop. Takes everything that made the first one great and adds actual good level design rather then the procedural stuff from the first one. The story also has quite some swerves that manage to surprise in a game with this friendly an appearance. Everything I expected it to be and then went the extra mile to deliver so, so much more.”

All of your votes have now been tallied, and this has been hands down one of the greatest years for video games since 1998. Or was it 2001. Actually it might have been 2010… Anyway, what is definitely true is that in the last few years the breadth and variety of games available has been truly exceptional, and despite living in a “games as service” era where many publishers are relying on loot box revenue as their business model, there are just so many great games available that it’s possible to still make an informed choice to avoid it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The big success this year has of course been the Nintendo Switch, with many people returning to the Nintendo fold after the less than successful Wii U saw many a fan pass over it despite the great collection of games. Now with added portability, but in a robust and convenient package, we can finally play all those games re-released again for a mere £50 each. A small price to pay to hide and play Mario Kart on the bog, instead of with your friends and family.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In other news, whilst everyone else was busy mortgaging their houses to buy more Switch games, a few power hungry gamers also sold their car as well, to invest in the XboneX, Microsoft’s answer to the ongoing problem of still being able to see pixels if you insist on playing games with your nose pressed against the screen for that added immersion. More graphically capable than anything ever released on the earth, and that’s the truth, because someone who has one told me. Several times.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That does leave the humble PS4 and its bigger brother however, who’s expanding library of excellent exclusives has been steadily catching out the unawares, bolstered by a slew of titles for the PSVR platform because it’s probably going to become really popular any day now. Once you’ve spent an afternoon getting it set up and calibrated, those 5 minutes you are in VR before chundering all over your friend’s sofa which is now your home will be the best you’ve ever spent.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh what’s that? Some good games came out on the PC this year? Sorry I thought PCs were what people used to use for Word processing and stuff before they invented Macbooks. Steam? Oh hundreds of cheap and increasingly brilliant and complex games sounds interesting, how much does a PC for gaming cost nowadays? Uhuh……………... Fuck off.

 

NEXT UPDATE: the top 20 begins.*

 

*final list note: for the top games of 2017 I was originally going to do a top 10, but due to the sheer number of great games 20 seems like the better number to count down from this year, and that means any game that scored at least 10 points in the poll. Don’t worry if some of your favourites don’t make it into the top 20, I will also be honouring other runners up after the main list and other category awards, as there were so many great games in there. I’m just doing them after the main event to preserve some mystery...

 

Quick Links:

 

1. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
2. Super Mario Odyssey
3. Horizon: Zero Dawn
4. Yakuza 0
5. Splatoon 2
6. Prey
7. Persona 5
8. Nier Automata
9. Divinity: Original Sin 2
10. Nex Machina
11. What Remains of Edith Finch
12. Resident Evil VII
13. Mario Kart 8: Deluxe
14. Assassin’s Creed: Origins
15. Sonic Mania
16. Arms
17. Player Unknown's Battlegrounds
18. Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age
19. Gran Turismo Sport
20. SteamWorld Dig 2

 

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