9. Detective Pikachu (3DS, 2016)
So as an adventure/puzzle game Detective Pikachu is certainly weaker than the ones I usually play, Ace Attorney. And there isn’t half the focus on character as that series to boot, even if Emilia is very yes. But honestly, I think this was pitched as a way to sort of bring the Pokedex to life, and honestly that’s kinda fun as an experiment and it does that well. Having the solution to the mysteries being those oddball facts about the Pokémon coming into play is very cool, and for the relative shortness of the game, that’s plenty to carry it. Nothing spectacular, not a game I’d recommend, but certainly something I don’t regret playing. 6/10
8. Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright (3DS, 2015)
So spoilers there’s an FE game that came out this year higher on the list, and between that and Sacred Stones I debated whether or not to even talk about Birthright as separate from its alternate path, Conquest. But y’know what, Nintendo sold them as two games and honestly, they *feel* like two games in a way no other Fire Emblem does.
Honestly the shared traits between them, in particular adding attributes to different tiers of weapons to make them all “useful” throughout the game to counterbalance the elimination of weapon durability, made Birthright the more fun to play despite the more basic map design. But the larger difference is that Conquest makes so many narrative contortions to justify sticking with the ‘Dark’ path that it starts to feel insulting as a player, while Birthright is just bland, average Fire Emblem.
It turns out I like bland, average Fire Emblem decently. 7/10? Sounds right.
7. I Am Setsuna (Switch, 2016)
It’s hard to add many thoughts on I Am Setsuna even with hindsight. There’s nothing especially wrong with it except that it invites comparisons I can’t live up to: the plot draws heavily from Final Fantasy X, forgetting that FFX works due to spending so much time invested in Tidus as a character that the realization of what Yuna’s doing motivates him as well as the player to avert it, while drawing so many mechanical elements from Chrono Trigger loses a lot of luster without the vibrant environments and careful character balance the Best SNES Game had. It’s nice to see such games exist, and you can do a lot worse as a way to JRPG up a weekend, but very little recommends it over other games in its niche. 7/10
6. Atelier Lulua (Switch, 2019)
Gust keeps making these faster than I can play them. I don’t really need one per year, yet they do not relent. This is mostly a problem because the strength of Atelier is rarely in any individual game (sure, Rorona is bad and Totori gets a lot of subtle things right that elevate it), because most Atelier games deliver a similar vibe and gameplay loop and it’s a wonderful way to rewire your brain for a couple weeks. Having skipped something like 5 games between Ayesha and Lulua, there’s some new mechanics that streamline a lot of things, which is nice, but otherwise this… sure is some more Atelier. It’s gotten more willing to have some silliness, partly because it’s a followup to the Gust Trilogy as much as anything I imagine, but shonen armwrestling battles aside this is definitely still Atelier. Exploring a friendly world with deadly creatures staring adorable girls in adorable outfits learning about life and how to solve ground level, relatable problems is still present and dominates the majority of play time. Lulua’s unique twists are in a way an in-universe way to be more player friendly more than anything, but really the appeal is seeing what happened in the land of Arland several years on and it’s nice. This game is nice. 7/10
5. Pokemon Let’s Go Eevee (Switch, 2018)
So a good 15 years after the remakes of Red and Blue, we have the remakes of Yellow! This is simultaneously a very complete remake but also a shockingly conservative one. There’s not really any added content at the end, the original Pokédex is left unaltered aside from the available Alolan forms, and even a great deal of the dialog are unaltered. The main changes aside from a completely baffling Twilight Zone “you’re doing Red and Blue’s journey exactly but also Red and Blue are experienced Pokémon trainers that exist here” are in presentation and catch mechanics. I play some Pokemon Go and don’t mind that at all, although it’s a lateral change to me I think. The changes in presentation are surprisingly effective at points, I like having dramatic weight to utterly crushing Jessie and James.
Okay that’s wrong, the actual biggest change is that the unevolving Pikachu and its Eevee counterpart are now actual viable endgame Pokémon with tons of special moves and quirks. These things are ridiculous and the game clearly does not care about gameplay balance, and honestly that mindset is kinda part of the appeal such as the game has one. It’s an utter steamroll through the original Kanto journey, and while if I’m totally honest FRLG are better games, I do like me a good steamroll. 7/10.
4. Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse (3DS, 2015)
This game is largely enjoyable and has some solid boss design and while a one of the lategame stages is Mega Man-tier rude which is very odd for a Metroidvania title, it’s very satisfying without ever completely disappearing down the “revisit E V E R Y A R E A” hole. But it’s real strength is sheer vibe; Shantae as a series is unabashedly horny on main without crossing the line into weird grossness like some games that dwell on that can (the collective works of Compile Heart or the Ar tonelico series for example). And I think this is because most of the main cast are not-so-secretly into one another, creating the impression this is just half a dozen disaster lesbians trying to figure out how to just tell one of their four love interests they’re into them.
I have at least one more Shantae game on the shelf, and while I’m pretty sure Pirate’s Curse is almost universally considered the best one, I really should try to get to them. 8/10.
3. Octopath Traveler (Switch, 2018)
Socialism Primer 2018 is also a pretty good jRPG! Honestly the only reason I didn’t knock it out in two months in 2018 is because I was in the midst of two other games and had assumed prior to release this was built along the lines of a SaGa game, with short individual paths for each character. That’s… not *exactly* untrue, because the game’s chapters are structurally very much in that vein, but the only PCs are the 8 travelers themselves so it’s all one big game that you could nominally elect to skip most of the content in and still get to the end credits. But this thing sports a simplified but still delightful cross-classing system (hah, cross classing in the socialism game) and your absurd endgame prestige classes will simply only be challenged by the actual final boss, an appropriately Godlike evil corpse pile.
But yeah Octopath Traveler has some odd self-inflicted writing flaws but on the whole they do a credible job of turning most of them into strengths, aside from the part where the game has very limited interaction between the characters because the writers didn’t want to make tons of content assuming who you had or hadn’t recruited in each chapter. The themes of each character’s chapters all have a similar trajectory without really repeating the same aspect of those themes as the other travelers, arriving at a similar conclusion for completely different reasons. It blends the strengths of both community and individualism very well, and it’s striking how seamless it feels. 9/10
2. Fire Emblem: Three Houses (Switch, 2019)
Three Houses is the mighty Voltron of everything good about Fire Emblem. Its cast has a level of personality and thought that finally surpasses that of Awakening. The core conflict and sense that they get how each side of a war can be motivated by not just self-interest but by the ideologies and cultural legacies of the countries involved is finally back after being absent since Radiant Dawn. Map design in the main chapters is a bit one-note at times, but paralogues return and spice things up nicely. Moving away from the level caps and fixed experience tiers of earlier games was dabbled with in the previous game, since it was a direct remake of The Weird One, but is done away with entirely here and probably for the best since it opens up the class system to be much more varied and relevant beyond simple army composition. It can trend a bit grindy to unlock things, but mostly you can roll with what you’re handed and make it work. How you play apparently varies wildly based on difficulty, at as basic a level as what classes and aspects of the system are most useful, which is a good sign in general even if I don’t care to step it up. Honestly most of the things wrong with the game are less flaws and more things that could have been even better, like greater changes between the routes or some slight extensions to the back half of the game. It’s a good place to be really. 9/10
1. Kingdom Hearts III (PS4, 2019)
This is the best Kingdom Hearts game. It has the quintessential Kingdom Hearts-ness I want from my Kingdom Hearts, wherein the world seems to be falling apart but the little pockets you find as you go through life help you put it back together. This is probably the best the Worlds in a Kingdom Hearts game have informed the themes of the original plot, even while also being the biggest harsh divide between the tone and plots of the worlds and that plot. While the gameplay is in no way technical, there’s so many different ways to play and all of them are more or less viable, which is something not especially present in the rest of the series.
Once the plot decides to show up… well. The phrase is tearbending. And that’s enough, I think. 10/10
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