Board 8 > Arti's Top 10 Games of 2017 (and other lists)

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PumpkinCoach
02/21/18 12:53:40 PM
#45:


I went back for Bea's route on my second playthrough recently. I quite liked the slow pace the first time through, but couldn't help but wish for a run button or fast travel the second time.
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Arti
02/22/18 9:13:53 PM
#46:


5. Yakuza Kiwami
Sega
PlayStation 4
Released August 29, 2017


Yakuza was always a series I wanted to try out at some point, but I never really had the chance with the massive backlog I have. Fast forward to now and I saw the remake of the first game for half the cost of a regular game, and I snatched that up. During November I wanted to try to play some of the 2017 games I hadn't gotten to yet, and this was on the list of five. Of those, this is the only one that made this list.

You play as Kazuma Kiryu, a yakuza about to become a patriarch of his own yakuza family. In the first chapter, his friend Nishiki murders a patriarch of the yakuza family Kiryu and Nishiki are part of. Kiryu takes the blame for the murder and is sent to jail for ten years. When he gets out, ten billion yen is now missing from the clan. His friend Nishima is now a patriarch and is the one who exposed the amount in the first place. Masaru Sera, the chairman, ends up murdered after the missing yen is exposed. And to top everything off, the childhood friend that Nishiki and Kiryu saved suffered memory loss and disappeared suddenly from the hospital she was in.

Basically, the plot follows the original game (obviously) with new scenes for Nishiki's ascent through the ranks of the Yakuza and descent into madness, as well as Majima's obsession with fighting the Kiryu of old. It's really interesting most of the time and I enjoyed my play through the game. The four different combat styles also made it so it didn't get too boring overall, but the Dragon style trumps everything once TIGER DROP is unlocked.

If you've played any Yakuza game you'll know what a crazy list it has for completists and Kiwami does not disappoint in that area. There's a total of 78 substories in the game (I'm at 68/78 as of this) to complete and a completion list full of tasks to do, like beating enemies with a certain fighting style or winning 20,000 chips in poker. I'm currently at 58.33% but I do feel like aiming for the full 100%. It's nice to see a comprehensive list of all you've done in the game.

One thing about this game is I just can't put it down once I've started it up. I've already played more in the postgame clearing substories and completion list tasks than the time I spent playing through the main story, and that's just a sign that the game itself is great. Many people seem to suggest playing through Yakuza 0 before this as a starting point, but I was not confused on anything in Kiwami so it's a fine starting point for the series overall as well. I will probably start 0 when this is done (and while waiting for Kiwami 2). I have 4 and 5 through PS+ so I have a lot more Yakuza ahead of me still!
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ninkendo
02/22/18 10:11:14 PM
#47:


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Arti
02/23/18 3:49:22 PM
#48:


ninkendo posted...
Good job ojii-san


damn it haruka I can't beat this guy in billiards
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Arti
02/25/18 11:03:06 AM
#49:


just a bump, I'll get back to this tonight
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Arti
02/26/18 1:32:25 AM
#50:


4. Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA Future Tone
Sega / Crypton Future Media
PlayStation 4
Released January 10, 2017


I am kind of cheating with this since I did import the Japanese version in 2016. However, since I had bought the English version in January of last year, I decided to not rank it on the 2016 list and instead wait and put it on this list instead.

Future Tone is the newest Project DIVA game to be released on consoles, and it's a port of the arcade version that has almost all the songs from the previous games up to f 2nd, plus many songs that have not been in any of the console releases. This comes out to 224 songs in the full game, plus another 14 added as DLC (only two songs from the arcade game are missing, one due to licensing and the other because Sega lost contact with the creator). The gameplay is similar to the other Project DIVA games that have been released, pressing the buttons as they match symbols on the screen. Unlike the other games, there are no mandatory hold notes; rather, the game makes all holding notes optional, but needed to score high on the song and get a high % clear. Instead of star notes like in the other games, Future Tone uses other notes that make you flick the control sticks, sometimes both at the same time. This only applies to some songs, though, and it's indicated on the ones that do.

With 238 total songs, there's going to be a large amount of songs that you like and dislike, and there's a favorites option to make a list of all the songs you enjoy playing. My favorite list is up around 50 songs, so there's a great deal of tracks here that I can enjoy playing. Also, all modules are fully customizable, and this applies to vocaloids that don't even sing in certain songs, so you can change all six of the vocaloids in Decorator unlike in f 2nd where only Miku could be changed. I mostly just keep everything to the recommended module because it feels right to me. There's also some extra modes added - a survival mode, where the game plays five preset songs in a row where the goal is to clear them all with one health bar, and a new difficulty mode for some songs called Extra Extreme. I have not cleared any of the songs in that difficulty yet, but the survival courses are pretty challenging - I've only done the first successfully so far.

Speaking of difficulty, it's pretty much the only thing that I find annoying; basically, in Future Tone, each difficulty is comparable to another game's higher difficulty. So a song in F that's on Hard difficulty is comparable to a song in Future Tone that's Normal difficulty. The game even throws out removing buttons at lower difficulties - while not all songs do it, there are Easy songs that use all four buttons while in the other games they only use the circle button. There's good and bad things about the difficulty - it's a greater challenge and feels better when you complete it, but on the other hand some songs have become really difficult, especially on Hard and above. Still, I've managed a few Extreme clears in this game (mostly on easier songs like Sakura Rain and Yellow, but still) and it's been quite the challenge to get songs up to that point.

Regardless, I've had a lot of fun with Future Tone, and even though I have all the trophies from it I still pick it up and play occasionally, which is a rarity among most games that I tend to play. It's definitely one of the best rhythm games I've ever played (I think Theatrhythm Curtain Call is still better, though), and a must have for anyone who enjoys rhythm games.
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Johnbobb
02/26/18 11:08:03 AM
#51:


PumpkinCoach posted...
I went back for Bea's route on my second playthrough recently. I quite liked the slow pace the first time through, but couldn't help but wish for a run button or fast travel the second time.

Yeah I agree with this.

If it's going to encourage multiple playthroughs like it does, it should've let you pick up the pace on the parts you've already seen

still a great game though
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Arti
02/26/18 10:06:37 PM
#52:


3. Super Mario Odyssey
Nintendo
Nintendo Switch
Released October 27, 2017


When I started Super Mario Odyssey, despite all the positive praise I was still skeptical that it would be better than my favorite Mario game, which is Super Mario Galaxy. I believe it exceeded that bar by a good amount.

The basic Mario story is the same as always - Bowser has kidnapped Peach and Mario has to save her. He is accompanied by Cappy, a cap which can take control of various enemies and other objects in the Mario universe. In this game, Mario gathers Power Moons to power a ship called the Odyssey that travels to different kingdoms. I gathered more Power Moons by just beating the game than I've gathered stars/shines/whatever in any single Mario game, which speaks to how plentiful they are. While I do enjoy the idea of having a Moon in practically any place possible, I find it difficult to enjoy collecting some of them that are just made to be easy. When we're getting to Moon on top of some Scrap it feels like they might have just added too many in such a small area.

A lot of the moons add some interesting gameplay to the collection. There's plenty of moons that require traversing in the 2D mode from the original Super Mario Bros., sometimes even with 3D dangers in play. There's plenty of musical note collections, some which require moving back and forth with the above example. Many of the Moons use the unique powers that each enemy has to unlock various Moons in each level. One of the fun things for those that played Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker is finding Captain Toad in all sorts of strange places throughout the kingdoms. I still can't find out how to get to him in a few kingdoms, but I'm definitely going to try for all of those.

Though I do like the design of most of the kingdoms, the true highlight for me was the Metro Kingdom, or New Donk City. (It's totally not because I've been in New York City both Saturday and today). It's a blast just walking around and finding hidden Moons, especially up in the skyscrapers. Jump Up, Super Star is also a great video game track and one that I occasionally listen to outside of the game as well.

The only excuse for not playing Super Mario Odyssey by now is not owning a Nintendo Switch, but even if you don't have one, Super Mario Odyssey is definitely worth the console purchase and is the best game I've played on the system (though I haven't played many games on the system yet, but I'm not sure any of the other games will top it, either.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhciLj5VzOk

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ninkendo
02/27/18 1:39:34 AM
#53:


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Arti
02/28/18 12:54:21 AM
#54:


2. NieR: Automata
PlatinumGames / Square Enix
PlayStation 4, PC
Released March 7, 2017


In 2016, I was going for my 50th platinum and made a vote on this board, even though my attempt at 40 failed (and 60 would fail later on). It ended up being NieR, which I played all the way to the platinum and enjoyed very much, calling it one of the best games of the generation even despite the subpar gameplay. Obviously, I found out not long after that a sequel was coming out the next year and I immediately was excited to play through that as well. NieR: Automata shares many of the elements from the original NieR, but with PlatinumGames developing the game there's a bigger focus on the combat portion which is much more refined than the original game.

There's no way to explain the story or the characters too much without delving into spoilers for either game, and both games are necessary for the full experience. Instead, I'll just leave some soundtrack links instead. The music is still one of the highlights of the series, and works even better in context as it does standalone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRg_6Oy435A


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKOM3lNFajE


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQT_LwV2qwM


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Egn_VNVKzI4


Maybe if I keep believing my dreams will come to life
Come to life...

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Arti
02/28/18 11:43:40 PM
#55:


1. Persona 5
Atlus
PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3
Released April 4, 2017


It's interesting that I post this as I start my second play through of Persona 5 to get the platinum trophy. Spending a little less than eighty hours playing this game in 2017 was nothing short of amazing, and it is my game of the year for 2017.

Persona 5 stars a high school student that is framed for assault after saving a woman late at night. As a result, he is put on probation and sent to live with Sojiro Sakura in Tokyo and attend Shujin Academy for the school year. Along with other students he meets,he forms the Phantom Thieves and is tasked with entering the Metaverse and stealing treasures from people's Palaces to reform them in today's society.

As with the more recent Persona games, Persona 5 has a number of social links called Confidants to pursue. Unlike Persona 3 or Persona 4, I found that all the social links in Persona 5 were written extremely well, some definitely in contention for the best links in the series, especially Sojiro's and Yoshida's, among others. Only one confidant can be somewhat annoying at times, but they are important in the story as well. There's plenty of activities to take part in during free time as well, such as fishing, hitting in the batting cages, and video games within the video game. Still somewhat annoyed at how hard the fighting game input was, but a lot of the activities are fun to partake in a few times.

The dungeon crawling in Persona 5 is highlighted by the Palaces as opposed to the random dungeons in 3 and 4. Each Palace has its own distinct layout that does not change. Despite some questionable placement of safe rooms in some palaces and the last palace's gimmick, most of the palaces are fun to explore and surprise the many Shadows within each. Instead of confronting the boss at the end of a Palace run, instead once a route is secured to the treasure in each Palace, a calling card is sent to the person in the real world and the boss is fought during the next day, allowing for more tools to be created and to be healed up for the fight. Some bosses are definitely challenging enough to make this necessary and it's a welcome difference that makes sense within the story.

The battle system also gets some new advancements despite retaining the same gameplay as previous games, some coming from the main Shin Megami Tensei games. Negotiation can be initiated when all the enemies are knocked down, allowing for new Personas to be obtained easily. The party members also carry guns and the protagonist can utilize different skills with the guns after advancing in one confidant. Also, party members can perform a Baton Pass after knocking down an enemy, giving another party member another turn and boosting their stats by a small amount. While the four elemental spells return from Persona 4, two come back from earlier games in the series to make six different elements (one for each party member, not including the protagonist). It makes for a little more strategy involved than the previous games when dealing with the Shadows.

This writeup wouldn't be complete without talking about the amazing music this game has to offer (and I've highlighted a few tracks below). The normal battle theme never gets old, even in the second play through that I'm currently going through. It's nice to see some of these tracks come on the CD that was included in the collector's edition.

I'm eagerly awaiting going through the game again right now, finishing up the Confidant stories I didn't manage to complete, and defeating the bonus boss for the platinum trophy. You should too, if you haven't already. It's definitely one of the best games released in 2017, and my Game of the Year.

OST links:
Last Surprise
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFVj0Z6ahcI

Rivers in the Desert
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaIo82uT0qs

Life Will Change
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk2eUGISZpk

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Arti
02/28/18 11:46:26 PM
#56:


Thanks for reading the list, if you've gotten this far! Here's a recap of the full list:

10. What Remains of Edith Finch
9. Puyo Puyo Tetris
8. Doki Doki Literature Club
7. Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony
6. Night in the Woods
5. Yakuza Kiwami
4. Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA Future Tone
3. Super Mario Odyssey
2. NieR: Automata
1. Persona 5

See you next February for 2018's list!
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ninkendo
02/28/18 11:55:59 PM
#57:


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xp1337
02/28/18 11:58:07 PM
#58:


Only played 3 of those 10. =(

Would have gone: Nier Automata > Persona 5 > Danganronpa V3. Automata would probably be #2 or 3 for me for the year. P5 and DRV3 near 8-10.
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profDEADPOOL
03/01/18 12:00:10 AM
#59:


Arti posted...
God Wars: Future Past
This relatively unknown title is a strategy RPG taking place in feudal Japan. However, the game almost completely borrows its level up system from Final Fantasy Tactics, having job points and an advanced job tree for getting to the powerful jobs (the main character even has Throw Stone and a self-heal in his beginning skills). The only thing different is that you can't recruit your own characters, but you get up to four pretty quickly and one is a fucking bear. That alone is a great reason to play this. Also, each character can equip three jobs at once - one is locked towards each character's special class, but the other two are freely customizable. It's nice to be able to level two up at once.

Okay I need this
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Arti
03/01/18 10:15:43 PM
#60:


ninkendo posted...
w0w #1 a game you didn't even platinum yet


don't worry I'll have it done by the end of the month
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