Sakura Wars 5 was great. I mean, it's a pseudo-dating sim SRPG, that's pretty damn unique. It was almost 100% about the story, but that's all I really expected anyway. Any game with characters that unique and amusing is a worthwhile playthrough. Even then, the battles were fun enough on their own. At least we finally got one of these games out here? Screw NISA for changing names and typos, though. Also: Peppermint.
I have mixed feelings about FFXIII, though. I thought the story was pretty good, although it had a few too many random throwaway characters and characters who were just never developed. On the other hand, the main cast was actually pretty interesting and kept me entertained.
Really, the big issue is that the game is just ridiculously linear, to the point where it felt like they were trying to take the exploration aspect out of RPGs. Almost all the dungeons were just tunnels with the occasional "turn left for treasure and a dead end, turn right to continue on" thrown in. About 90% of the locations in the game were areas you'd never be able to revisit again, and even the big "okay here's an area for you to explore and do sidequest in, now!" location felt like a little playpen to placate the people who'd complain about not having one.
So yeah, that really hurts the game in the long run. It's not so bad when you're actually playing through it the first time, since you mostly just want to see more of the story anyway, but looking back it really made the game much less memorable.
Oh, but the battle system is awesome and I liked the music a lot. Still, exploration and freedom is a huge part of why I like RPGs, and FFXIII just streamlined those things out in order to make the story more accessible, I thought.
Ys Seven, yes! I'd include Ys: The Oath in Felghana along with it too, since they both came out this year and were indeed worthy of mention. Ys Seven is interesting since you have a little party and can control people besides Adol (not that anyone really wants to, right?) and it's got more modern graphics and other things added in. Felghana is a remake of III which is the "bizarro" Ys game, made to be more of a typical entry in the series. But they tried really, REALLY hard to make it good, and it shows. Both games are worth playing in their own ways.
Although you're the one actually playing Atelier Rorona, and we technically haven't beaten it yet, it's definitely worth mentioning, too. It's like Annie but with a bit more interesting battle and exploration system. I also like the characters and art style of the game a lot. The fonts are ridiculously small even on an HDTV, but sadly it's not the only game out there like this. (see: SO4)
Etrian Odyssey III was something I was going to mention too. Maybe it's because neither of us played the first two, but it does feel like a breath of fresh air when it comes to Wizardry-like dungeon crawlers. Really, being able to make a party full of cute characters and sending them into dungeons to compulsively map every square inch is way more fun than you'd think. Also: this game is Patty-compatible.
One game I totally forgot about (I think I must've not been thinking about Wii games at all) is Super Mario Galaxy 2, because it managed to be more fun than the original somehow, even though I thought it would just be more of the same. Adding in Yoshi and Mario's disembodied head as the spaceship pretty much sealed the deal.
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Sakura Wars 5 was great. I mean, it's a pseudo-dating sim SRPG, that's pretty damn unique. It was almost 100% about the story, but that's all I really expected anyway. Any game with characters that unique and amusing is a worthwhile playthrough. Even then, the battles were fun enough on their own. At least we finally got one of these games out here? Screw NISA for changing names and typos, though. Also: Peppermint.
I have mixed feelings about FFXIII, though. I thought the story was pretty good, although it had a few too many random throwaway characters and characters who were just never developed. On the other hand, the main cast was actually pretty interesting and kept me entertained.
Really, the big issue is that the game is just ridiculously linear, to the point where it felt like they were trying to take the exploration aspect out of RPGs. Almost all the dungeons were just tunnels with the occasional "turn left for treasure and a dead end, turn right to continue on" thrown in. About 90% of the locations in the game were areas you'd never be able to revisit again, and even the big "okay here's an area for you to explore and do sidequest in, now!" location felt like a little playpen to placate the people who'd complain about not having one.
So yeah, that really hurts the game in the long run. It's not so bad when you're actually playing through it the first time, since you mostly just want to see more of the story anyway, but looking back it really made the game much less memorable.
Oh, but the battle system is awesome and I liked the music a lot. Still, exploration and freedom is a huge part of why I like RPGs, and FFXIII just streamlined those things out in order to make the story more accessible, I thought.
Ys Seven, yes! I'd include Ys: The Oath in Felghana along with it too, since they both came out this year and were indeed worthy of mention. Ys Seven is interesting since you have a little party and can control people besides Adol (not that anyone really wants to, right?) and it's got more modern graphics and other things added in. Felghana is a remake of III which is the "bizarro" Ys game, made to be more of a typical entry in the series. But they tried really, REALLY hard to make it good, and it shows. Both games are worth playing in their own ways.
Although you're the one actually playing Atelier Rorona, and we technically haven't beaten it yet, it's definitely worth mentioning, too. It's like Annie but with a bit more interesting battle and exploration system. I also like the characters and art style of the game a lot. The fonts are ridiculously small even on an HDTV, but sadly it's not the only game out there like this. (see: SO4)
Etrian Odyssey III was something I was going to mention too. Maybe it's because neither of us played the first two, but it does feel like a breath of fresh air when it comes to Wizardry-like dungeon crawlers. Really, being able to make a party full of cute characters and sending them into dungeons to compulsively map every square inch is way more fun than you'd think. Also: this game is Patty-compatible.
One game I totally forgot about (I think I must've not been thinking about Wii games at all) is Super Mario Galaxy 2, because it managed to be more fun than the original somehow, even though I thought it would just be more of the same. Adding in Yoshi and Mario's disembodied head as the spaceship pretty much sealed the deal.