RPGFan Member's Game of the Year - 2013 Edition!

[Lard]

Just RPGFan's GOTY list.

SMT IV? Two Zelda games? An MMO?

Man, I don't know who voted for these but SMT IV was the biggest disappointment of the year, Zelda is *not* an RPG and an MMO.....well....I guess you could argue it's an RPG, but it's just running around and grinding online.

With picks like these it seems like the JRPG really is dying.

Edit - I at least agree with the reader's choice. Ni No Kuni was my GOTY. It hit every button I was hoping for.

For handheld RPG, Soul Hackers, although I'm playing EOIV now and it's really grabbing me (though I suppose it's a bit late to vote on it :P )

Disappointment of the year - SMT IV. The visuals were atrocious, the fusion system became needlessly complicated and the overworld map was a clusterfuck. This is the only SMT game I couldn't be bothered to finish to completion even once.

Non 2013 GOTY - Mass Effect (series): I sat down and played all three games back to back on PS3. I know a lot of people think ME3 is a terrible game, but I think ME2 is the worst of the three games. It's basically just a gaiden and doesn't really serve any real purpose than setting up the events of ME3. ME3's ending deserves criticism, but it wasn't the disaster people made it out to be.

System of the year - Tough call between PS3 and 3DS, as I try and divide my time equally between them right now. I think this will be the year of the 3DS though.

[Kevadu]

Dragon's Crown should have won all the awards.  Yes, even graphic adventure and strategy RPG.

[GrimReality]

Yeah, I wasn't too thrilled about an MMO winning game of the year. Perhaps I'm "old-fashioned" but I still think they belong in their own category, and that's it. Yes, I know it's stupid.
Am I right in remembering you guys doing a separate awards thing for music last year? Because I felt there was a sad lack of music awards. The best sound award was it. And that went to an MMO. I want to know what regular/ indie games have the best music, voices, overall sound, etc.
I haven't played 99.9% of the games that won awards so I can't really comment on that. I'm sure FFIV is great for what it is. It just seems like you guys went a little too gaga over it. Maybe someday I'll understand.

[PrismFlux]

I probably should have voted more than I did this year. I also kind of agree that MMOs should be confined to their own section of any awards setup--this is a good topic of discussion for future features which I'll definitely bring up if someone else doesn't beat me to it.

I also would have liked to see more "RPG RPGs" on the list but there wasn't a whole lot of strong candidates in that field last year, amongst other considerations.

[Hathen]

I really like XIV as well but I'm also shocked an MMO managed to snatch GOTY from you guys. I would've expected SMT4, Ni no Kuni, Bravely Default or even Etrian odyssey 4 or Pokemon XY before ARR took the spot.

[PrismFlux]

I liked FFXIV but I just don't really see what the others do about it. I voted for Ni No Kuni, and that's also why I called it an RPG for the ages.

[Annubis]

I also would have liked to see more "RPG RPGs" on the list but there wasn't a whole lot of strong candidates in that field last year, amongst other considerations.

RPGs are on the decline while RPG elements are getting more popular.

[Klutz64]

I'm with Prism. I don't really care that an MMO got called Game of the Year, but I fully believe that FFXIV doesn't really deserve the title. I think how much it has improved over it's first iteration has clouded people's perception on the actual quality of the game (which is good but not great). However, I can't agree on Ni No Kuni being game of the year either, because I found the overall structure of the game to be infuriating.

[Starmongoose]

I never voted this year, so I don't really have a right to say anything about the list. Overall I agree with it, sure I don't like MMO's but I do know that a lot of our staff do play ARR together, and that they have a lot of fun doing it. So if that is was a majority of the RPGfan staff found the most fun thing to play this year, I don't disagree at all.

[Hathen]

I pretty much share Klutz's feelings on it. ARR is a good game and a huge improvement to XIV in many ways, but it also has a lot of flaws even when just compared to other MMOs. Still, lolvideogame opinions, the only important thing is that the majority of the staff feel its the most fun they've had with a game all year.

Me personally, I would've chosen Bravely Default; it's not some great epic like some people want RPGs to be but it has basically everything I love about old school JRPGs. Of course, I'm not certain it even qualified due to the release date, so i might've chosen EO4 instead, for similar reasons.

[Andrew]

Me personally, I would've chosen Bravely Default; it's not some great epic like some people want RPGs to be but it has basically everything I love about old school JRPGs. Of course, I'm not certain it even qualified due to the release date, so i might've chosen EO4 instead, for similar reasons.

I suspect Bravely Default will take many awards in 2014. It wasn't eligible for our GOTY 2013, since it wasn't released in NA.

[Tooker]

Am I right in remembering you guys doing a separate awards thing for music last year? Because I felt there was a sad lack of music awards. The best sound award was it.

I believe we're still planning on doing some kind of music of the year awards.  Some real life stuff got in the way of those who would have gotten it posted.  But as you noticed, we were a little earlier than normal with the goty awards, so I wouldn't rule it out.

[Holykael1]

Im disappointed neither Ys nor Soul Sacrifice made the cut(I dont think Zelda qualifies as an Action RPG but that's just me). Soul Sacrifice had a very impressive story... I hadnt been moved by a game that much since I played Virtue's Last Reward. If you get past the learning curve, Soul Sacrifice is an amazing rewarding game with a fantastic dark heart wrenching plot.
Honestly I would say it's better than Bioshock Infinite storywise.

[Aeolus]

I still can't believe that Awakening lost Readers' GotY runnerup by a single vote.

Anyways, it seems like Path of Exile was the sweeper of the year when not against FFXIV.

Also, props to Neal for remembering that Tokitowa existed and sucked.

Here's to Bravely Default sweeping 2014's GotY (unless something like SMTXFE or Persona 5 or that other Persona game (not that one, nor that one either, I mean the other other one; you know the one) comes in to snatch it).

[Lard]

Me personally, I would've chosen Bravely Default; it's not some great epic like some people want RPGs to be but it has basically everything I love about old school JRPGs. Of course, I'm not certain it even qualified due to the release date, so i might've chosen EO4 instead, for similar reasons.

I guess BD could have counted but I doubt enough people imported to have played it for this year's list. The way you described BD is the way I felt about Ni No Kuni, so I'll be interested to see the reaction to it.

I'm also fairly surprised Ys didn't get mentioned. I guess no one owns a Vita?