LogFAQs > #876410874

Instead, 2005 is a time of great transition. A lot of new stuff hit this year. Shadow of the Colossus came out in 2005. SOTC was like God of War but with way more art and grace. Both games had huge scale but God of War was pure button mashy action while Shadow was an art house game with a huge budget. The game was a technical mess but it offered something beautiful and decidedly next-gen. It's still held up today as a master class in game design, mostly for the way it makes the player feel without ever saying a single word. SOTC felt both big budget and 'indie' at the same time and players loved it for that.

Guitar Hero hit in 2005 and with it the wave of plastic instruments and a five year boom of rhythm games. I don't feel like Guitar Hero really took off until 2006. It wasn't a fad yet. Games were still a little bit too niche. Katamari 2 came out and everyone agreed that it was better than the first in every way but music. This was the highlight of the series for sure - it felt bigger and more interesting, controlled better and let you roll up the King. I loved the hell out of We Love Katamari. The series would never have another notable entry.

The Final Fantasy 12 demo was packaged with Dragon Quest VIII and that was an eye-opener. Dragon Quest actually moved into the third dimension and it was amazing. The world was huge. The graphics were beautiful. The monster designs were the best yet in a series that has been praised for its monster designs for 20 years. Dragon Quest felt like a massive step forward in the JRPG world. We were getting used to the linear FFX model being the way forward - FFX, FFX-2, Xenosaga, Shadow Hearts - and then DQ8 just drops this gigantic world and tells you go wander. DQ8 is a fantastic game, just as good today as it was in 2005. It's been 12 years and we still haven't had a game as big or as beautiful as DQ8 since (DQX notwithstanding). Hopefully DQ11 gets out here in 2017 because it's just been too damn long.

But the big movement in 2005 was on DS. It started with Kirby. Kirby Canvas Curse showed many Nintendo fans what you could do with a touch screen interface. It was kind of the proof of concept for the system that didn't exist at launch.

From there, developers went in three directions. There were traditional games like Mario Kart DS and Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow that validated that you could have real-ass video games on a dual screen device. Mario Kart DS was a step up from the garbage Super Circuit and Dawn of Sorrow showed how goddamn valuable a second screen could be with the map and menu laid out conveniently on the bottom screen. It also had really gimmicky touch screen features but we like to ignore those in favor of the good stuff. Dawn of Sorrow was REALLY good.

Another direction was more narrative focused games. The highlight here was Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. It started out quiet because no one knew what the hell this was. If anyone was talking about it in late 2005, it was through the use of objection memes and silly catchphrases. By the end of the year, Phoenix Wright was THE "you HAVE to play this game" of the year and just blew the hell up, especially here. A lot of similarly focused games would come out on its heels - the Hotel Dusks and 999s of the world. Phoenix Wright was the progenitor though. It wasn't new - this game is 2001 in Japan - but it felt super fresh to English speaking audiences.
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