It's a thread! (Games discussion, etc.)

[JG]

Mario Maker: Only made the demo level so far.  I've been playing other peoples levels and the 10 Mario Challenge of Nintendo-made idea-inspiring levels.  I was going to start the second level designer last time I played (Sunday) and thats when battery on controller started to go out.

Dragon Age: Still going, just slowed down alot.  Only been weekends the last few.  I'm nearly done with it though (practically all collections and quests completed.)  I suspect there's only two story chapters left: one to kill the bad guy's dragon (which works like a horcrux), and then one to kill the bad guy himself.  I really do want to finish it this weekend if I can becuase I'll be out of town next weekend and then TriForce Heroes drops the following Friday.

[Moge]

Haven't seen you play the Wii U much this year, JGOO. Plan on picking up Xenoblade X?

So do you like the new Halo? Heard a lot of fans were disappointed by the Call of Dutification of the latest entry.

[JG]

Haven't seen you play the Wii U much this year, JGOO. Plan on picking up Xenoblade X?

So do you like the new Halo? Heard a lot of fans were disappointed by the Call of Dutification of the latest entry.

Well, there hasn't been much worth playing on Wii U, or any other system for that matter.  2015 has been a terrible year for video games in my opinion.  Yes, Xenoblade X is a launch day pickup.

Halo 5 is doing all the bad things we didn't like from Halo 1-4. Disjointed storytelling where its hard to know whats going on, too much detail provided during intense fighting scenes so you miss important facts, too much reliance on using the search radar instead of natural search, too many holes in the ground causing instant death, and flipping back and forth between Locke and Master Chief's teams (with Locke having about 3/4 of the game, instead of the near 50-50 split we saw in Halo 2)  I dont mind the team aspect as much, since you can still play it solo and your teammates end up taking the focus from things like Hunters, allowing you to get a shot into their back.  In the earlier games, they did the same thing but with more easily killed unarmored UNSC marines.  Hopefully I can finish off the story mode over the holiday weekend.

Don't think Halo 5 is going to be anywhere near the top of my 2015 list though.  Which is a disaster for MS becuase the competition has been so bad this year and MS has been banking on a successful Halo 5 to keep the Xbox One from being a failed system.  It has too few other exclusives to go head to head with the more powerful PS4 hardware.

[Moge]

Not sure how you can miss out on what's quite possibly the best game on Wii U this year: Splatoon.

It takes advantage of all of the Wii U's strengths in a non-gimmicky way. You profess a love for shooters and hardware innovation so the game should be a no-brainer (even if the game is multi focused the single-player component is still worthwhile).

It's amazing how far the Halo series has fallen. The reportedly so-so sales of the latest entry reflect the discontent with the fanbase. I don't even think the Bungie today can make a proper Halo after reading Destiny's tumultuous development online (with a lot of Bungie vets bailing out).

Was on the fence with getting Xeno X but i decided i'm gonna go pick it up.

[JG]

Not sure how you can miss out on what's quite possibly the best game on Wii U this year: Splatoon.

It is on its way thanks to Black Friday price!

It's amazing how far the Halo series has fallen. The reportedly so-so sales of the latest entry reflect the discontent with the fanbase. I don't even think the Bungie today can make a proper Halo after reading Destiny's tumultuous development online (with a lot of Bungie vets bailing out).

Halo 4 was great, so it proved Microsoft Studios/343 Industries could pull it off.  The problem is that its coming onto market a year later than originally expected, and when things get delayed people expect more of them.  Also, games that launch in November typically have poorer initial sales as they compete with Black Friday deals.  Game companies always try to outthink the room and assume "but everyone will want our game!" and then people don't buy it becuase they could get two or three different games for the same amount of money.

So now that I've finished it, it seems like the firefights are fewer in number overall and farther between than they were in Halo 4. Alot of long running between firefight zones. Campaign is sufficiently long at about 8 hours recorded time (maybe 9-10 with deaths included), tells a good story, but the last fight is rather weak: there's no new boss to fight at the end, just three of a boss enemy you've fought already, both individually and in a pair. Overall the story follows the Final Fantasy VII "Chase down Sephitroth" theme, which is a terrible gimmic: I expect more than just continuously following someone else until you finally catch up to them at the end. Character development of the seven new spartans is rather weak: most are single-aspect characters. The background music doesn't seem as dramatic as earlier entries.  I like the larger firefight zones, but vehicles show up less often. Weapons are almost entirely restricted to Covenant and Forerunner tech (hardly any UNSC weapon pods or dead marines; you might start a stage with a UNSC weapon but usually no way to get more ammo for it; some UNSC weapons like the SMG and Answer only showed up once for me.)

Ultimately, its what you expect of a middle part in a trilogy: bridging the gap between first and third parts, and turning upside-down what we thought we learned from the first chapter. The major plot twist in this one is quite good but its revealed before the end, instead of at the end when it would have mind-blowing impact.

[Moge]

If you had to choose one then which would be your favorite in the Halo series? I'm going to go with the original. Best weapon balance and best multi maps.

Any gaming regrets for the year? Games you know you should of played but couldn't find the time. Few of mine: Mario 3D World, Undertale, Trails in the Sky. Picked up Mario 3D World last week, but it isn't likely i'll put any serious amount of time into it with Xeno X around the corner.

[JG]

Halo 3.

My problem with original is that in the later stages the Elites have a stronger shield than Chief. If you don't have grenade or a better weapon than he does, it has a good chance of defeating you if you have to bum rush him or you're caught without cover.  In later games they fixed this (although in Reach their shields are still weaker but recharge to full faster than your own.)  Hunters are also a problem in original Halo: invulnerable from the front, but later games do allow some damage from front (10% effectiveness better than zero)


The biggest regret under my control is buying the PS4 bundle early November.  I paid $350 plus tax for PS4+Destiny. The PS4 was $300 practically everywhere Black Friday week, and Destiny was $40 several places. I only finally hooked it up Tuesday.  It's only $10 or so difference so I'm not that upset.  More betrayed than anything that the Best Buy special event sale wasn't as good as the real Black Friday sale.

The biggest grief is that 2015 was a desert of gaming this year. After 3DS's Majora's Mask and Xenoblade in February/March, I didn't buy another new (launched within week of purchase) game for myself until Mario Maker in late August. I did buy some older titles like Sunset Overdrive in there, but disappointed by it; and a friend loaned me Dragon Age Inquisition, which was surprisingly good, if buggy.  Overall there was very little to play this year until the last two months of the year when everything hits me at once (Halo 5, Nathan Drake collection, Dragon Quest Heroes, Splatoon, Xenoblade X, Star Fox Zero)

My biggest complaint is Nintendo passing Zelda to next year. I'm less upset about this now than everything else has come to the rescue here at the end of the year, but had Zelda arrived in, say, June 2015, it would have saved the year.  Second biggest is how pitifully slow PlayStation Store is and Sony's complete ignorance of the real-world.  What the hell was Sony thinking making Nathan Drake collection a 46GB download instead of providing a physical disc in the box? Even at my lightning internet speed that would take many, many hours, and its only crawling along at about 12 megabytes per minute. Most people can't do that speed, and while I can, I should actually be doing a lot better (50-80MB.)  It's been going for 36 hours and only at 64% as of this post.  If days elapse between opening the box and being able to use your company's product, you've failed.

[Moge]

Played a couple hours of Xeno X and now i'm shipping out my copy to a eBay buyer. Guess i'm a wee bit RPG fatigue after finishing Earthbound the day before. Doesn't help the story doesn't even have the same hook on me as the first Xenoblade. I'll probably pick it up again in the future once it hits the bargain bin or it gets a substantial price reduction.

Put a few hours into Mario 3D World. It's flipping fantastic! Everything in the game feels very polished. From the UI to the ultra clean graphics and solid framerate. It's exactly how i imagined Galaxy would be on the Wii U.

[JG]

Played a couple hours of Xeno X and now i'm shipping out my copy to a eBay buyer. Guess i'm a wee bit RPG fatigue after finishing Earthbound the day before. Doesn't help the story doesn't even have the same hook on me as the first Xenoblade. I'll probably pick it up again in the future once it hits the bargain bin or it gets a substantial price reduction.

Yikes. I haven't been able to start it yet. I was out of town over the weekend and the last few days (I became an uncle on Sunday!)

Put a few hours into Mario 3D World. It's flipping fantastic! Everything in the game feels very polished. From the UI to the ultra clean graphics and solid framerate. It's exactly how i imagined Galaxy would be on the Wii U.

I told you it's awesome. It combines just about all of the best elements from every previous Mario main series game.



In other misadventures in videogaming, my PS4+Destiny bundle I paid $349.99 plus tax for at Best Buy on Nov 7 became the Deal of the Day on Dec 6 for only $299.99.  Called customer support to price match but they said I couldn't do anything without the receipt (even though its in their purchase system.)  Being out of town I had no access to my receipt so only recourse was to order another bundle and then take it (less than an hour after it arrived) to the Best Buy store with my first bundle's original receipt as a return.  So ultimately Best Buy footed the bill to ship me a new set and then handle the return process as well.  Makes you wonder why brick-and-mortor stores struggle to compete. So much cheaper had they just handled it over the phone Sunday.  In any case I got my $50+ back and only had to put my credit card in the hole for $300-something bucks for a few days.

[Moge]

I hardly read any books or watch movies, which is why story and character depth are essential to my enjoyment out of RPGs. Xeno X is fairly bog standard as far as plots written for Japanese games go.

I'm really interested in picking up a PS4 just to play Until Dawn after hearing so much clamor about it. During that period when i couldn't muster interest to play videogames back in 2005, narrative driven games like Snatcher and Clock Tower picked me right back up.

[JG]

It's that time again.  Yep, my top 10 played games of the year list for 2015.  As always, the game only needs to be played for the first time this year, not required to have been released this year.


10. The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes (2015), C-
A nice entry to the Zelda series, introducing a new game mechanic, but hardly one that will be remembered in the annals of great Zelda games. Some of the challenges are too difficult even for experienced gamers, and the level of coordination needed for internet play practically makes it impossible unless you're sitting next to them. A must for Zelda fans, but not so much for everyone else.


9. Halo 5: Guardians (2015), C-
A year overdue and much anticipated, but only a so-so entry in the series. It's tough for middle games of a trilogy to pull off success and this one trips over the same hurdles, trying to expand on the previous's story without giving away too much of the next. The lack of a free add-on campaign as they did in Halo 4 hurts in comparison, but there's one core reason why this game isn't ranked higher: Too much Locke, not enough Master Chief. Don't put your hero in a secondary role again, 343.


8. Rare Replay (2015), C
The best mid-cost entry of the year, chock full of alot of Rare's best. I like the rewind feature, allowing unbeatable games like Battletoads to be marginally passable, but frown upon the lack of any graphical enhancements.


7. Splatoon (2015), B-
2015's top shooter, which is a disaster to Halo. Easy to play, simplifying FPS staples like running and reloading without over-complicating things with extra features like crouching. Undeniably cute and a decent (so far) single-player campaign. (And yes, Moge was right it's the best game on Wii U this year, but very likely only because of the delay of Zelda.)


6. Dragon Quest Heroes (2015), B-
I was stoked for this given the excellence of Koei Tecmo/Omega Team's runaway Game of the Year (according to yours truly) for 2014, Hyrule Warriors. Sadly it looks like SquareEnix has had too much influence, and tried to turn a musou into an RPG with too much reliance on grinding for experience and monster collecting. While the characters look much better than their Wii U counterparts thanks to the PS4's increased graphics, the gameplay is ruined by stages that are much too short and much smaller groups of enemies. It reflects poorly on the PS4 that the Wii U musou routinely throws 200+ enemies at you at once, with multiple objectives to complete simultaneously, and the PS4 can't seem to top 100 baddies and very simple, single goal objectives. The comparatively weak AI doesn't help. But kudos to SquareSoft for giving Koei Tecmo creative license to improve some of the character's outfits, as Nintendo allowed with theirs. Jessica's dress in particular is much improved and better reflects her upper-class backstory.


5. The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask 3D (2015), B+
Another practically perfect port of a N64 classic, with minor tweaks here and there to improve the story and gameplay. It certainly plays much better than I recall of the original, though I'm not sure it was necessary to rework some of the boss’s tactics. Still, this game belongs in the "great" category, while the ones above merely fall into the "good" bucket.


4. Dragon Age: Inquisition (2014), B+
An excellent, wide-ranging adventure, allowing a lot of customization and different story paths. However, undone by a main campaign story that derails too much into sidequests for too much of the game, then limps to the end when you've no more sidequests to solve. For a game that prided itself on "perfection" and "game of the year" accolades, I found it rather disturbing to encounter so many gravity and orientation bugs, and a still-unfixed major bug that prevents advancement of a particular story arc. That said, it was still much better than expected and Dragon Age 4 will be on my wishlist for the future.


3. King's Quest, Chapter 1: A Knight to Remember (2015), A-
Ah, the good old days. A perfect blend of 90s point and click problem solving and more modern gaming trends. Great for all ages, excellent cel-shading of the characters, well designed with multiple methods for completing most tasks, hilariously written, and exceptional voice acting by Christopher Lloyd and Wallace Shawn. I'm definitely buying the season pass to play the other four chapters, once I've gotten though some of my other ongoing games. I highly recommend downloading the first chapter for free to PS4 if you have PlayStation Plus (unsure why it’s not free for Xbox One.) Its has two drawbacks though. First, its built on the Unreal engine, which limits it to PC, Xbox, and Playstation, when its ideally suited for tablets. Second, the first chapter is quite short, at under 5 hours for first playthrough, and perhaps 2-3 for subsequent playthroughs.


2. Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride [3DS] (2009), A-
The only old game of the bunch, and one I'd been wanting to play for years as everyone says it’s the best in the series. I'm not certain it is, but it’s definitely in the company of IV and VIII, which I've long considered the two best. Required reading for Dragon Quest fans. (And who isn't?)


1. Xenoblade Chronicles 3D (2015), A
A port as game of the year? So long as you don't mess with success, why not? Xenoblade Chronicles 3D is a near perfect copy of the original, which is exceptionally impressive given the vast computing power differences between the Wii and 3DS. To carry over the graphics nearly flawlessly and retain every quest, every feature, and every voice track is a damned impressive technological feat and undeniably the most flashy tech achievement of the year (far more than Microsoft's so-called elite controller.)  It does require the "New" 3DS version to pull it off but it gives serious consideration to the possibility of other Wii ports. (Super Mario Galaxy for 3DS would threaten to destroy the space time continuum.) Plus it’s a fantastic game, even if it’s still ridiculously loot-heavy. The only flaw is, despite the name, a lack of 3D effects (perhaps a little too faithful of a port.)



Those that didn't make the cut:

Sunset Overdrive (2014), D
Sliding on rails and shooting things got old after about half an hour. Based too much on a gimmick I'd already experienced.  Sonic the Hedgehog did rail sliding already; blindfold yourself in the gaming section of a store and randomly pick a game and it probably involves shooting. Combining the two didn't make it better.

Super Mario Maker (2015), D
Sadly it just takes too long to build anything fun. It's better to play other people's stages, but they're typically so short (under 15 seconds) and so often based on the timing of a single jump or bounce that the game aged very fast. Mario Team would have been better served actually producing a new Mario game.

Xenoblade Chronicles X (2015), D
Very slow to develop and quite confusing at first. Some of the explanations for how to battle effectively are simply incorrect or badly misrepresented. Original Xenoblade Chronicles gets you excited within 30 minutes. X is still stumbling out of the gate five hours in (but slowly improving.) Slow loading times hurt. A real disappointment so far compared to the brilliance of the first Xenoblade.



Unplayed:
Destiny: The Taken King
Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster
Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection


Most Looking forward to in 2016:
Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam (January for North America, already released elsewhere)
Star Fox Zero (March)
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD (March)
The Legend of Zelda for Wii U (unannounced, assumed 3Q or 4Q)
Dragon Quest XI (unannounced, assumed 4Q)



And now, something new for this year's list:

The feature in gaming I saw in 2015 that I wish everyone else would copy. Make it Happen!
PlayStation Store's acceptance of PayPal as a form of payment. I'm much more likely to use my excess PayPal credit on a low-cost (sub-$10) purchased game than foot the bill out of my credit card, or worse, go buy redemption cards with funny codes to redeem for cash-equivalent points. This goes double for Microsoft, who's going in the wrong direction by introducing a requirement of credit card registration to download free Games with Gold.

The feature I saw in gaming in 2015 that I want stopped right now. Kill It! Kill it with Fire!
Nintendo (and then Microsoft's) discontinuation of including manuals with games. Oh, you're still going to supply me a health and safety pamphlet, but not a manual to introduce me to the game, provide a cheat sheet of controls (would have been helpful for XCX), or give me a few pieces of concept or character art? Boo. There's a certain level of expectation when buying a physical game, and I don't like that some companies aren't living up to it in order to save a few pennies per sale.  Really, a $40 or $60 game and you're not going to fork over a dime's worth of paper, ink, and (optionally) staples?  Boo, I say again. Boo!

[Moge]

Top 10? Thought it was yearly top 5 (scrolled back to last year's to check). Well whatever. Here's my awesome list:

10. Gauntlet: Slayer Edition
9. D4

8. Luigi's Mansion
7. Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light

6. MGSV: The Phantom Pain
5. Trails in the Sky

4. Mario 3D World
Hands down the most gorgeous Wii U game. Got a chance to play this game with friends briefly over the holidays, and boy is the multi wonderful. What's also great is that i don't have to stick to playing Mario ad nauseum.

3. Dark Half
Very refreshing to play a JRPG from the side of both hero and villain. Quite frankly playing as the villain was a lot more fun (gameplay and storywise).

2. OutRun
Captures everything i love about the 80s and 90s with very solid racing. Blue skies ahoy!

1. Splatoon
Nintendo finally did it; they made a shooter to call their own, and boy is it absolutely delightful. Game was so addictive i even bought my first amiibo (well, amiibos).



Honorable Mentions:
Bomberman 93
El Viento
Mighty Switch Force 2
Kid Dracula

Biggest Disappointment:
Xenoblade Chronicles X -- very disappointing story. i expect a lot more from a Takahashi directed RPG!

Wanted to Play:
The Witcher 3
Dark Souls

Most Anticipated 2016:
Nintendo NX

[JG]

Things you don't see in gaming any more: three and half hour marathon between last chance to save, march through the very long final dungeon, defeat the final bosses, ending, and credits roll before the game-completion save.  Holy cow.  Planned to get through Mt Zugzwang in Dragon Quest V before the Super Bowl started and first quarter was nearly over by the time I closed the 3DS.

Also: Mario amiibos and Super Mario 3D World, apparently. At Best Buy yesterday to get a new amiibo (as it takes two compatible characters to unlock certain cards in Paper Jam, and my Link isn't compatible with it.)  None of the SIX variations of Mario were present so settled on Luigi as he ought to have just as wide of compatibility as his bro.  A dad and his eight or nine year old son there at same time to upgrade their Wii to Wii U; kid wanted Super Mario Maker and I had to talk them down from the ledge as its too much for that age. Would have recommended SM3DW if it was there - they went with Lego Marvel Avengers instead. (Wii U came with Mario Kart 8.)

And in case you didn't know, you can now pre-order Twilight Princess HD with the Wolf Link and Midna amiibo. Sweet.

[Moge]

Things you don't see in gaming any more: three and half hour marathon between last chance to save, march through the very long final dungeon, defeat the final bosses, ending, and credits roll before the game-completion save.  Holy cow.  Planned to get through Mt Zugzwang in Dragon Quest V before the Super Bowl started and first quarter was nearly over by the time I closed the 3DS.

Also: Mario amiibos and Super Mario 3D World, apparently. At Best Buy yesterday to get a new amiibo (as it takes two compatible characters to unlock certain cards in Paper Jam, and my Link isn't compatible with it.)  None of the SIX variations of Mario were present so settled on Luigi as he ought to have just as wide of compatibility as his bro.  A dad and his eight or nine year old son there at same time to upgrade their Wii to Wii U; kid wanted Super Mario Maker and I had to talk them down from the ledge as its too much for that age. Would have recommended SM3DW if it was there - they went with Lego Marvel Avengers instead. (Wii U came with Mario Kart 8.)

And in case you didn't know, you can now pre-order Twilight Princess HD with the Wolf Link and Midna amiibo. Sweet.

I hear DQ5 is the best in the series and is probably the closest to a Final Fantasy. Really want to play that at some point. Can't decide between the PS2 game with fan translation or the DS release.

I'm quite perplexed as to why you would talk down a parent and a kid from getting Mario Maker considering the most popular game in that age group is Minecraft. It's not like they have to build levels to have fun in that game.

Speaking of Minecraft, what's your interest level in Dragon Quest Builders?

[JG]

I hear DQ5 is the best in the series and is probably the closest to a Final Fantasy. Really want to play that at some point. Can't decide between the PS2 game with fan translation or the DS release.

It's my understanding that the 3DS had better graphics than the PS2 version, which more of less ported the SNES graphics.
3DS version also implements the Dragon Quest series version 2 naming scheme, which for Dragon Quest V is chess-themed (Mt Zugzwang instead of Mt Evil, Bishop Ladja, Rook, Knight, etc.), plus you get the option of Debora as a bride.
Of course, you can now get it for Android with the latest (version 3) naming scheme. I'm not sure what it changes other than Saber renamed to Purrcy.

I'm not sure its any more Final Fantasy like than others in the series though.  DQ IV Chapters of the Chosen seems like the most FF like to me (it even has an airship, a clear FF staple)

Having now completed DQV, I'd rank it behind 4 and 8 overall.  It has a very rich story for a DQ game, but some of the features are a little off.  Too gimmicky/experimental than the no-nonsense DQ4.  The whole monster collecting thing in particular really disrupts the natural balance.  They did the monster collecting thing much better in DQ8, where they could only be used in the monster arena.  Another major fault is that one character (Tuppence) is essentially worthless by the time he can be recruited, because you have monsters (or other humans) that are simply better. (This same fault robs Gogo of much usefulness in FF6, but at least you can teach him magic and make him somewhat useful, whereas Tuppence is dead weight.)  I give kudos to the ability to talk to team members and have them comment on your current situation or the conversation you just had with an NPC though.  Hundreds if not thousands of these party comments exist.  Potentially the most text-rich game I've ever played.

I'm quite perplexed as to why you would talk down a parent and a kid from getting Mario Maker considering the most popular game in that age group is Minecraft. It's not like they have to build levels to have fun in that game.

I'm not sure that translates as well.  Minecraft is easy to create levels (from what I've seen).  Mario Maker is a beast - quite technical.  I daresay that Mario Maker is more aligned to SimCity lovers than normal Mario fans.

I didn't have much fun playing most other peoples levels.  They were either gimmicky (exact timing of a number of jumps in a row) and/or ridiculously difficult. Hurt that over 90% of the ones posted had average clear times under 15 seconds.

Overall, I don't recommend Mario Maker.  Plenty of better games.  I was more bothered that SM3DW wasn't there (and still wasn't when I was there again Thursday to renew my Gamers Club which I'd gotten an email about on Tuesday and decided to take advantage of the $20 off Xbox Live subscription with renewal as a better deal is unlikely to show in next 30 days.)  Except for new releases, my local Best Buy sucks for variety.

Speaking of Minecraft, what's your interest level in Dragon Quest Builders?

First I'm hearing of it.  Appears to be too much like Minecraft from quick image search.  Definitely seems to be in the Monsters camp of more childish DQ games than the one the main series and Heroes resides. (I.e., probably no mention of puff-puff)

[Moge]

What's it like revisiting Twilight Princess after all these years? Where do you place it in the hierarchy of Zelda greatness?

Did you ever finish the first Bravely Default?

[JG]

Twilight Princess's story is quite good (arguably the best), but although its gameplay isn't bad, it just simply wasn't as good as its predecessor Wind Waker, so I've never ranked it as high.  I really liked little Toon Link's moves like jumping over Darknut's head to knock his helmet off or undo his armor from behind in Wind Waker.  Toon Link in Wind Waker is just a bad ass swordsman - like Yoda fighting Palpatine in Revenge of the Sith.  Those sweet moves were missing from Twilight Princess so it seemed duller or something.  Wolf Link is ok for the scent search parts but being a much weaker fighter you end up using normal Link most of the time anyway.  Plus Twilight Princess had a Wii port but didn't leverage the Wii Remote as a sword like I hoped they would, and eventually did for Skyward Sword.  Original Twilight Princess was also undone by the difficulty in changing your item set and back and forth between human and wolf - the HD remake fixes a lot of this with the game pad though.  So while Twilight Princess tells a great story, it just simply isn't as fun to play, and that's the most important feature to me.

For me, Skyward Sword > Ocarina of Time > Link to the Past > Wind Waker > Hyrule Warriors > Minish Cap > Twilight Princess > Link Between Worlds > Legend of Zelda > Majora's Mask > Spirit Tracks > Oracle of Seasons > Oracle of Ages > Phantom Hourglass > Link's Awakening > TriForce Heroes > Link's Adventure > Four Swords Adventures

Some of these are interchangeable with the one before or after it, so if I were asked again in a month I might end up ranking them somewhat differently (example, Minish Cap/Twilight Princess is a bit of a push for me and could easily swap orders)

I don't think this order is far from most people's opinions. I think Skyward Sword is darn near perfect while most people think OoT is the tops.  Maybe if OoT shipped with its Master Quest it might have stayed on top for me, but alas, when completed there is basically no more challenge while Skyward Sword gets the nod for its Hero Mode.  Plus OoT is really rather short - I've run it end-to-end in a single day once, something you can't do for most of these.  The unusual one might be Minish Cap - I really liked it.  I think it gets a low rating from most people because it might be the least played, but I found it highly enjoyable being essentially Ant-Man Link and wearing a talking hat.  Since its been so long I might need to dig it up and play it again to see if it deserves remaining near the top.


As mentioned, some of the problems with control have been fixed in Twilight Princess HD.  It certainly looks a lot better.  Original was GameCube era graphics, even for the Wii version, so you couldn't see detail intended.  For example, I always thought the girl monkey was wearing a pink hat - turns out its actually a rose.  Characters and enemies are much more detailed, and the environments are more colorful.  There's still some hard angles that I wish were smoothed out or altered to be more realistic though - particularly with some of the environments like Kakariko Gorge.  The details of Midna and Agitha have been updated to reflect some of their Hyrule Warriors features, such as the intricate designs on Midna's Fused Shadow helm and butterfly designs along the hem of Agitha's dress. I'm not sure if Ganondorf or Epona have been updated or not.  Link hasn't (i.e., no scarf)



No I didn't finish Bravely Default.  But I never put the case away into the closet - it's still sitting on my coffee table waiting to be completed whenever I get around to having no other games on my "would rather play" list.  But now that a direct sequel is coming I really want to finish it off.  If it had a different universe I wouldn't feel as compelled, but its got some of the same characters, 3 years after the events of the first game so I guess I should see how it pans out before starting the second.

[Moge]

You getting Star Fox?

I'm not 100% sure how to rank my fave Zeldas since i haven't played some of them in over a decade, but i'll just go ahead anyway

Ocarina > Adventure of Link > Link to the Past > Twilight Princess > BS Zelda > Wind Waker > Link's Awakening > Skyward Sword > Majora's Mask > Minish Cap > Zeruda 1 > Link's Crossbow Training

[JG]

You getting Star Fox?

Of course, but even though Nintendo has been adamant its not a remake or relaunch of the series, everything I see of it says it is.

I can deal with that when its stuff like Zelda or Mario, because those games always were or have grown over time into the 50+ hour experience with the capability of side quests.  If Star Fox Zero turns out to be a souped up StarFox/StarFox64 running at 10-15 hours and is basically a non-stop linear shootout from launch to Andross then I'll be disappointed.  Because it can't effectively do item finding quests and its side story capability is very limited (apart from a Star Wolf encounter), it's going to needs a TON of stages to be a winner in my book. I'm afraid it'll be in the usual 10-12 stage size with each taking 10 minutes or so to clear.  I.e., if you beat it once you can beat it again from end to end in under 2 hours.

So I don't have particularly high hopes for it.  Having to add a second game (Star Fox Guard) to the retail package late in the process worries me that the real game just isn't good enough or long enough to stand on its own.



Adventure of Link fan, huh?  I thought it was a fine game back in the day but it hasn't held up as well over the years as the others.  I really liked how they used the town names in Adventure of Link as the sage names in Ocarina of Time though - when I first played OoT I thought that was such a cool nod to the earlier game.

[Moge]

Don't get your hopes up. According to GiantBomb, SFZ follows the traditional SF formula of stage-by-stage play, and it's 60

I really love the combat in AoL. There's an intensity to it that no future Zelda title has been able to reproduce. Unfortunately the game is highly imbalanced, but hey, there was a fan balance patch (http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/1084/) released for it this year, so it's possible to have fun with it if you ever want to go back.

Did you ever finish Xenoblade Chronicles X?