(s) Archive
2021-02-11
Winner: Hades The best new intellectual property of 2020 is, ironically, steeped in one of the oldest collections of folklore to survive antiquity. Hades‘ charming characters, tightly designed action, and faithful—even gleeful—interpretation of Greek myth captivated existing lovers of roguelikes and even made some roguelike-disdainers into new fans (including yours truly). The residents of the… Read More »
Winner: Final Fantasy VII Remake It’s the game that has redefined the remake. Not content to merely remaster and upscale the existing content, Nomura, Hamaguchi, and Toriyama decided to strip it apart and reconsider what Final Fantasy VII as a whole could mean. While some of their choices have been polarizing to players, I’ve fully… Read More »
Winner: Tifa Lockhart (Final Fantasy VII Remake) Tifa was already an iconic character for her martial arts prowess and motherly, caring nature, but Final Fantasy VII Remake has allowed her to flourish. While caring and friendly, she’s also insecure, and this is where her iteration in Remake stands out. Even when she’s unsure about hurting… Read More »
Winner: Sephiroth (Final Fantasy VII Remake) Whatever you choose to call him, Sephiroth has been a landmark villain in gaming history. One-Winged Angel, the look, and the pure cruelty toward Cloud make him easy to hate in the most affectionate way possible. Well, if you can see past his murderous tendencies. Anyway, what makes him… Read More »
Winner: Ichiban Kasuga (Yakuza: Like a Dragon) Ichiban Kasuga, the hero of Yakuza: Like a Dragon, isn’t Kazuma Kiryu, the hero of Yakuzas 1 through 6 (and 0). He isn’t a paragon of virtue among gangsters, a stoic samaritan who resolves the Tojo Clan’s crises reluctantly, or a legendary Dragon of Dojima whose sterling reputation… Read More »
Winner: Final Fantasy VII Remake It almost feels like cheating, adapting a small sliver of Final Fantasy VII‘s classic story, entrenched in our hearts for 23 years. But for FFVII:R, the writers avoided simply cloning the original tale, offering a nuanced adaptation that took our heroes in new directions while keeping in the same spirit.… Read More »
Winner: Final Fantasy VII Remake Many remakes have crumbled under the pressure to get the sound right, but Remake set a new bar. With an entirely new cast of voices, from Britt Baron’s Tifa, Briana White’s Aerith, to the members of Avalanche (voiced for the first time), they have breathed new life into established characters.… Read More »
Winner: Final Fantasy VII Remake There’s this moment in FFVIIR where you board an elevator and slowly descend. As that elevator lurches down, you have nothing to stare at but your own party, and it’s just lovely. The wispy particles around Cloud’s hair. The subtle warping of the metal on Tifa’s gauntlets. The woven fibers… Read More »
Winner: Final Fantasy VII Remake When crafting the gameplay of Final Fantasy VII Remake, Square Enix knew that mainstream audiences generally prefer action-oriented combat in modern RPGs, but older fans of Final Fantasy VII would be hesitant to accept something so wildly different to the 1997 combat they loved. The solution? Action combat with full… Read More »
Winner: Super Smash Bros. Ultimate: Sephiroth & Byleth RPG fans have been spoiled for representation in Super Smash Bros Ultimate. This year, we got two RPG powerhouses: Byleth from the Switch hit Fire Emblem: Three Houses and Sephiroth from the all-time classic Final Fantasy VII. While fans might have balked at yet more sword-wielding RPG… Read More »
2021-02-10
We’re a bit into February, and RPGFan hasn’t posted Games of the Year yet? Wow, it’s almost like we completely changed every underpinning that the site ran on for over 20 years in 2020. Wild. Jokes aside, it’s finally time to celebrate the gaming goodness that an otherwise [choose your adjective] year brought us. As… Read More »
Top 5 RPGs/Visual Novels: 1. Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age – Definitive Edition DQXI is an excellent title for those looking for a classic, traditional JRPG fix. The gameplay is polished to a fine sheen, the graphics are stunning, and the story manages to have great moments aplenty that pull on… Read More »
As strange as it may sound, I felt I was effectively coping with the many challenges 2020 threw my way on a day-to-day basis. However, upon any degree of reflection during rare quiet moments, I often realized the cumulative personal toll I was paying. Throughout it all, I had to continue working, which was a… Read More »
Best RPG of 2020: Final Fantasy VII Remake It feels like we’ve been talking about an FFVII remake since 2000. Decades later, and one of Square Enix’s finest games in recent memory falls into our laps: a wild, wholly rambunctious romp through the best cyberpunk city of 2020, Midgar. Every inch of the game drips… Read More »
Not Just An RPG, An RPG With A Giant Robot Award! If you skipped out on 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim this year, you missed out on one of the best games of the year. Fantastic music, great characters, and amazing storytelling come together to create a masterful game. The super fun combat brings everything together… Read More »
Best Discovery: Necrobarista Having stepped into an editing position amongst my duties as Video Manager here, I’ve been privileged to play or see many otherwise unfamiliar titles. When Zach reviewed Necrobarista, I wasn’t sure what to expect from my playthrough for capture, but I in turn was captured by the game’s charm, genuineness, and aesthetic.… Read More »
I’m a sucker for ambition. Show me one game that reaches for the stars, stumbling every step of the way, and one that knows what it is and executes it to perfection? I’ll pick the former every day of the week. This year, however, in a rare convergence, my top three games and my three… Read More »
Best RPG: Yakuza: Like a Dragon In November, the Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio team gave 2020 a shot of pure joy in the form of Yakuza: Like a Dragon. A reinvention of the beloved RPG brawler, LAD trades real-time fisticuffs for full-blown turn-based RPG combat while keeping everything else that Yakuza fans love. Leaving behind… Read More »
2020 has been a precarious year. Through all of the trials and tribulations, the one thing I found comfort in this year was playing RPGs. In that regard, 2020 was great! I present to you a list of my favorite games I played throughout this year: 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim Never in my whole life… Read More »
2020 has been an…interesting year, at least in terms of gaming. I certainly never expected that I’d ever be able to play or want to play some of the games on this list. But 2020 has been a year for defying expectations, usually for worse but just occasionally for better. With my GOTY picks, I’d… Read More »
Remake of the Year: Final Fantasy VII Remake I move at mach-speed-molasses when I play games, so I’ve only actually played two RPGs that came out this year: Final Fantasy VII Remake and Trials of Mana. The fun part is they’re both remakes, so let’s pit ’em against each other! These games are largely differentiated… Read More »
2020 was a disastrous year in many respects, but at least we got some great new video games and ample government-mandated time and opportunity to play them. I ended up knocking out several 2020 releases, at least enough for a ranked top 5. (You probably see where this is going.) Retro Encounter of the Year… Read More »
Retro Encounter Game of the Year: Mother 3 Mother 3 blew me away. After multiple failed attempts to play it, I’m beyond happy our Retro Encounter episodes finally encouraged me to get around to it. Mother 3 is a stone-cold masterpiece and surpasses EarthBound in almost every way. I could go on and on about… Read More »
3) Mythic Ocean Mythic Ocean is a visual novel with a 3D open-world feel, a go-with-the-flow vibe, and some pretty funky characters. Its imaginative setting is an odd “limbo” where the world just ended and it’s now time to figure out how to make a new one. Mythic Ocean is a very interesting game whose… Read More »
Best PS2-era RPG of the Year and Also 2011: Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition I really like Dragon Quest VIII. I like Dragon Quest VIII so much, it became my golden standard for JRPGs and nurtured my obsession with PS2-era JRPGs. Their overarching scope, the broad variety of game mechanics, and the hardcore biblical scale of… Read More »
