(s) Archive
2023-01-10
Winner: Chained Echoes I don’t think anyone expected Chained Echoes to be such a hit so quickly, even with the positive buzz before its release. After watching my partner play it for five minutes, though, I knew its status as an immediate hit was completely earned. I just had to play it. Like many retro-inspired… Read More »
Winner: LIVE A LIVE It takes a lot to take a nearly 30-year-old game and make it feel fresh, but LIVE A LIVE pulls it off. Maybe it’s the foundational game that feels unique even in 2022. Maybe it’s the visuals that have been upgraded in gorgeous HD-2D fashion. Maybe it’s a killer arranged soundtrack… Read More »
Winner: Harvestella During a time of many farming sim games, Harvestella is a sleeper hit. The game combines the typical farming sim formula of growing crops and raising livestock with an epic action RPG experience you would expect from Square Enix. As per RPG tradition, your silent protagonist begins as an amnesiac. Your farm, which… Read More »
Winner: Octopath Traveler: Champions of the Continent Fans of the original Octopath Traveler may be champing at the bit in anticipation for its sequel, Octopath Traveler II, but Square Enix’s mobile title Octopath Traveler: Champions of the Continent is a very worthy entry in the series to bridge the gap. Retaining all of the series’… Read More »
Winner: Chained Echoes Year after year, we fantasize about finding an RPG that scratches that nostalgia itch — a new game with a retro look and feel that takes us back to those halcyon days of the SNES and PS1, before AAA games became the be-all, end-all, and microtransactions were commonplace. Well, 2022 is the… Read More »
Winner: Triangle Strategy Combining the best elements of Tactics Ogre, Final Fantasy Tactics, and Fire Emblem, Triangle Strategy takes the crown for RPGFan’s best strategy RPG of the year! It’s clear that Team Asano has deep knowledge of the genre, resulting in some of the most exhilarating turn-based battles I’ve experienced in quite some time.… Read More »
Winner: AI: The Somnium Files – nirvanA Initiative The sequel to Kotaro Uchikoshi’s 2019 murder mystery, AI: The Somnium Files, is still full of murder and mystery, but this time presented in twos. Two protagonists investigating, two time periods connecting the two parts of the story, and a serial killer with a grisly MO of… Read More »
Winner: Elden Ring Elden Ring may be FromSoftware‘s newest IP, but it’s a spiritual successor to the Dark Souls series in all but name. Rather than resting on the Souls series’ many laurels, however, FromSoftware have expanded pretty much everything the games have to offer. The combat of Elden Ring may be deceptively simple at… Read More »
Winner: Xenoblade Chronicles 3 Few original games this year harkened back to the grand scale of old-school JRPGs more than Xenoblade Chronicles 3. Sprawling open world? Check. Glorious twelve-hour soundtrack with contributions from Yasunori Mitsuda, ACE, and more? Check. Epic story that boils down to a titanic clash between good and evil? Slight oversimplification for… Read More »
Winner: Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak is, quite possibly, the ultimate DLC. It adds new locales, new monsters, new mechanics, new weapons, new armor, and, best of all: new difficulty. It also offers a whole new story, great new characters, and a dizzying array of new features for every type of hunter… Read More »
Winner: Xenoblade Chronicles 3 With each entry, the Xenoblade Chronicles series has been expanding upon its core battle system. The first game started with a system akin to an MMORPG with auto attacks and cooldowns for special moves. Xenoblade Chronicles X increased the scale with giant robots (please bring back the playable giant robots, Monolith… Read More »
Winner: Xenoblade Chronicles 3 Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is a game nearly twenty-five years in the making. Within it are bits and pieces of every single Xeno property that Tetsuya Takahashi has ever worked on, and they all shine through ever so brightly. It takes the best elements of Xenogears, Xenosaga, and Xenoblade and blends them… Read More »
Winner: Koraidon and Miraidon (Pokémon Scarlet & Violet) How do you get around a massive region filled with seemingly insurmountable mountains and vast rivers? With a little help from your treasured friends, of course. Instead of delegating the box art legendary Pokémon to post-Gym-seven trophies, Pokémon Scarlet‘s Koraidon and Pokémon Violet‘s Miraidon are supportive companions… Read More »
Winner: Eunie (Xenoblade Chronicles 3) “Hear that, Noah? Lanz wants something a bit meatier.” It would be easy to boil Eunie down to her attitude, her ridiculous British-isms, or even her amusing one-liners. In fact, Takahashi and the rest of Monolith Soft could have left her at that, and I bet she’d still get some… Read More »
Winner: Xenoblade Chronicles 3 Oi! Just wot is up with these sparkin’ accents? You mean to tell me they managed to blend a variety of world dialects, like Welsh, London, Australian, and even American, put in some fun language of their own, and it all coheres into something wholly its own thing? Yes, yes they… Read More »
Winner: Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker Was there any doubt? We joked about calling this an annual Final Fantasy XIV award. But jokes aside, there’s a reason so many of us (and 20+ million more) are in love with the game: it’s the real deal. Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker is unique in that its main story… Read More »
Welcome to RPGFan’s Games of the Year 2022! I think we can all agree that this year was a mostly a move in the right direction, and luckily, the games followed! This is also one of the most top-heavy years in memory, and our picks might reflect that as well, but there were a ton… Read More »
Winner: N (Xenoblade Chronicles 3) In a game where many of the villains fall a little flat, N is a revelation. If Noah is who we aspire to be, N is who we’re afraid we’ll become. After everything he’s experienced, would we do anything differently? Would we make the right choice, or would we hold… Read More »
Winner: Xenoblade Chronicles 3 The Nintendo Switch is well over five years old at this point, so it’s not too surprising that some games have to make notable concessions to run on the platform. Simpler geometry, reduced resolutions, shorter draw distances, and even lower framerate targets are just a few of the sacrifices made for… Read More »
Winner: Noah (Xenoblade Chronicles 3) The Xeno series has given us many fascinating and excellent protagonists, but I think Noah is the best one yet. Where others have personal drives that are understandable and relatable, Noah really is us. Or at least who we want to be. He sees the world the way we want… Read More »
Winner: Xenoblade Chronicles 3 Xenoblade Chronicles 3‘s story is easily one of its greatest strengths. Despite the game crossing the hundred hour mark, the story remains incredibly well-paced, focused, and, most important of all, intriguing. With all its wild twists and turns, the main story keeps players on the edge of their seats while the… Read More »
2022-12-28
Peter Triezenberg Xenosaga Episode I is not a good video game. I feel like I need to get that out of the way: it’s slow, clunky, and needlessly obtuse, with a cumbersome battle system that wears out its welcome even before you realize that there’s only one battle theme for 99% of the experience. And… Read More »
2022-12-21
Mention Final Fantasy VIII and everyone’s first thought is Squall and Rinoa’s relationship. Their bond is the central focus of the game, but Squall is not the only one Rinoa develops a surprisingly deep and complex relationship with. Rinoa’s interactions with Zell are more than meets the eye, leading several online communities to theorize that… Read More »
2022-12-14
You like classics? We have the best classics here. Additionally, we have some fun romhacks, and some games that want to look and feel like the some of the other classics on this list. Path of the Midnight Sun Platforms: Microsoft Windows, macOS, Consoles Later Originally a popular romhack of Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones,… Read More »
Here we have games we’ve been anticipating for years, games in some of our favorite series, and arguably the most anticipated game of the year…period. Granblue Fantasy: Relink Platforms: Microsoft Windows, Sony PlayStation 4, Sony PlayStation 5 It’s almost tradition at this point to have Granblue Fantasy: Relink on this list. Since its announcement in… Read More »
