How did my top picks at the beginning of this year ultimately turn out?
Hope all of you had a great Christmas weekend! So we’ve made it once again to the end of another year, and cmfl3x and I decided to recap our 5 most anticipated titles for 2010 since we’re getting ready to share our top 2011 titles for 2011. Hit the jump to see the games I was most looking forward to in 2010 at the beginning of this year and my thoughts how they eventually ended up.
The entire Final Fantasy XIII game sometimes felt like one long battle screen.
Final Fantasy XIII
I hate to say it, but Final Fantasy XIII was the biggest disappointment of the year for me. Sure there were plenty of mediocre games released this year, but the thing about Final Fantasy was that I expected it to be good. Conversely, I didn’t have high expectations for games like Crackdown 2 and Lost Planet 2 – sequels to titles that I didn’t think were so hot in the first place. But Final Fantasy XIII? I have literally grown up with this series, starting with the original game on the NES all the way until now. Before this year, I would have considered Final Fantasy XIII to be a lock for one of the top games of the year, but how could a Japanese RPG company as large as Square Enix mess up on all of the aspects that make Japanese RPG games so enjoyable? Freedom to roam and do sidequests? Not until after you beat it. Ability to customize your party? Maybe 20-30 hours in after you get past the first half of the game that was the tutorial. A captivating story with interesting characters? I guess that ship has set sail on the Final Fantasy franchise since Final Fantasy X. So what’s left for this game? A 50-hour linear hallway in which you spend most of your time in combat. I’m surprised that the Japanese 360 version just released has an “easy mode”. I thought the entire game was already “easy mode”! Square Enix has to do something with its Final Fantasy franchise – the combination of both Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy XIV both turning out mediocre can’t be a good sign for the series.
Resonance of Fate may be the J-RPG of the year, but was overshadowed by Final Fantasy XIII.
Resonance of Fate
Whose idea at Sega was it to release Resonance of Fate, a Japanese RPG, one week directly behind Final Fantasy XIII, the biggest Japanese RPG of the year? Fire that guy. I never got a chance to play Resonance of Fate for that very reason – I was too “burnt out” on J-RPGs on the console after the dozens of hours I sunk into Final Fantasy XIII, but I will go back for this one. After all, it’s still sitting in shrinkwrap on my shelf still and what I am probably considering this year’s best J-RPG game. Why did I anticipate this game so much? 3 factors: a Japanese RPG (you can tell, I’m a fan right?) developed by tri-Ace (the studio behind such J-RPGs as Star Ocean and Infinite Undiscovery – a J-RPG I actually enjoyed a lot), set in the future revolving around guns. The last J-RPG game I played that made use of guns in the present/future was Parasite Eve. So, it is a winning combination all around for fans of the genre like myself. Unfortunately, with its length, it’s sitting at the very end of my backlog queue as I try to clear through shorter games for the moment.
Starcraft II’s campaign was also highly entertaining and innovative.
Starcraft II
If you’ve been following our 2010 awards/holiday guide, you probably saw how many awards Starcraft II won at Leveling Down (including our 2010 Game of the Year), so it wasn’t too difficult a call to make on this one. The game turned out as fantastic as we’ve come to expect for a game from Blizzard, and this was the only game that both cmfl3x and I listed in our respective 2010 “most anticipated” lists. Neither of us were let down, and have probably each put in over a couple hundred hours since the game has launched this past summer. I find myself having very left to say about the game due to the amount of gushing I did in our awards already!
There is still hope for Elemental – I’ll probably check it out in 2011 when it’s stable and good.
Elemental: War of Magic
Sadly, like Final Fantasy XIII, I was let down by Elemental: War of Magic. After how much time I enjoyed playing Stardock’s Galactic Civilizations II, I thought it was an easy lock for Stardock to bring their 4X strategy gameplay to the fantasy world of Elemental. It sounded so good: a strategy game with RPG elements, questing, treasures, diplomacy, and warfare – this was going to be the game to take over my life when it released and I was ready! Sadly, it was a bust. The game turned out to be very buggy, the gameplay a mess, features missing, etc. My primary suspicion is that the developers decided to try to push the game out the door as soon as they could so they wouldn’t have to release it after Civilization V – its main competitor. Well, unfortunately, the game got destroyed by reviews and word of mouth, and Stardock is now trying to regenerate good will letting everyone know that they are going back to the drawing board and fixing all sorts of gameplay issues – such as actually including a tutorial. Considering how polished Galactic Civilizations II ended up, I have hope that Elemental will eventually also become good. But for now, I guess I’ll just play Civilization V.
I didn’t know it was possible for a modern shooter to score so low. Congrats, Medal of Honor!
Medal of Honor
Before Call of Duty 4 hit the world, Infinity Ward claimed that they wanted to give Halo multiplayer a run for its money. That sounded like a very lofty ambition at the time, but Call of Duty 4 did eventually prove itself to be a ridiculously competitive game with Halo 3, knocking it off the top spot many a time among Xbox 360 gamers’ most played game each week. So without knowing much of what was going to be released this year, I went with Medal of Honor, as EA had decided that they wanted to try to beat Call of Duty. Hey, if Call of Duty can beat Halo, I am open-minded about the idea of another franchise being able to beat Call of Duty. Unfortunately, Medal of Honor not only failed to beat Call of Duty, but it probably sent the franchise back to the grave. I’ll probably end up checking it out once I can get it for cheap just for my own curiosity.
Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker really felt like the next game in the stellar franchise.
2010 Surprises & Favorites
Three of the five games I was most looking forward to this year ended up as busts. Talk about bad picks. Who would have thought with the pedigree of studios behind the classic Final Fantasy games, Galactic Civilizations II, and the Battlefield franchises could put out games that ended up under-delivering? Well, fortunately, there were some bright, unexpected titles I got to play that I loved more than I would have ever thought. The biggest surprise for me was Mass Effect 2. After not really loving the first one, I didn’t expect the second one to be a game I would care much for but it was a total pleasant surprise. I also picked up a PSP for the first time just to play Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker – and it was totally worth it. If I were to set the record again for my favorite titles of 2010 (in no particular order), they’d be:
Bayonetta
Mass Effect 2
Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty
Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker
Hopefully my anticipated titles for 2011 fare a bit better!
I have to say that I agree with you about Final Fantasy XIII. I did not expect it to be as great as my favorites, but you sum up the game well. The only thing you left out was that the story was a let down too. I did like the character models though. Lightning and Sazh were pretty cool.
haha everything was a let down! but ya I wholeheartedly agree about the lack of a good storyline in final fantasy xiii. i also agree that Lightning and Sazh were great characters – and I even liked Snow to a degree. I just wish there was something more epic that they took part in.
Final Fantasy X did a great job – interesting characters (I loved Wakka and Lulu) and a storyline huge in scope. I do hope we see something like that again for the series.
I was also really looking forward to Elemental, but I didn’t pick it up due to bad reviews. Do you think there’s enough promise to it to be worth looking into once they iron out some of the problems?
If you’re looking for something to fill the void left by Elemental, I can’t recommend Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic highly enough. It’s a little dated now, but it’s an amazing game – turn based strategy, rpg elements, heroes, quests, magic, a ton of different races and units, and good community map support. Great game, one of my favorites all time. They put it on Steam recently for $10 too.
yes, I believe that Elemental will be worth looking into if we continue to give it more time to evolve. There have been major updates released that seem to have really changed the gameplay for the better, but it’s still not quite there yet. There is definite promise as we can see how good of a game Galactic Civilizations II turned out.
Thanks for the recommendation on Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic. I just went to check it out on Steam, but sadly, it’s not taking part in the holiday sale. Hopefully one day the entire trilogy goes on sale for cheap, as I’ve just added it to my Wishlist based on your suggestion!
Good to hear about Elemental. I really like Stardock and GC2, and I think it’s really a shame Elemental didn’t come out very well from the start.
If you’re going to pick up the Age of Wonders Trilogy, I should warn you that Age of Wonders 2 and Shadow Magic are very similar games. Same engine, a lot of the same factions and spells. Shadow Magic is better balanced, adds more factions and a better campaign, and adds a new dimension to the map with the Shadow Plane. I remember enjoying the AoW2 campaign, but beyond that, everything that AoW2 does, Shadow Magic does better.
Also, Shadow Magic is currently on sale for $5.99 at gog.com (http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/age_of_wonders_shadow_magic), and the trilogy is on sale for $11.99 at impulse (http://www.impulsedriven.com/aowmusic).