Holiday General (2015 Endgame)

Such a busy year, which seems to have have led to a pretty slow and sleepy Club1kjho.

Anyways, as of today I am finished with the school semester as far as actual schoolwork goes. Meanwhile, the tracking on my Special Edition Xenoblade Chronicles X says it is due for delivery later today, so in theory I can kick back and enjoy the rest of this month catching up on old games and tearing into XCX.

If anyone else is still checking up on Club1kjho, rise from your grave or something and feel free to kick some life back into this place with me.

Anybody have some top 5 or top 10 games lists. Heh, if we can get some people together, maybe I'll even see if we can come up with some legit GOTY discussion.

Now that I'm free from school, I'll probably hit up some other threads here soon enough.

I myself am only mostly dead. I don't think I'll be all that helpful with a GOTY thing, seeing as I honestly haven't played all that many games in the past year, and most of those were games that were released years ago.

That goes for myself as well, though it's nice seeing you two again. Good to know that not everyone spontaneously combusted. Probably....

Rangeth and Ragnia! Great to hear from you.

Lol, Rangeth, I also haven't played many current releases this year except for 3DS and Vita games. I've been ultra-slack on my console gaming and I still haven't bought a PS4. I spent the first half of this year pretty much just sinking time into MH4U and catching up on previous years' must-plays, and then I burned most of my summer on SMT DeSu2 RB. Then once I got Splatoon, that's when I really started getting into this year's new releases one after another...but I could probably whip up a top 5 if not top 10, or at least put together some solid recommendations. Heh, if nothing else, I'll try to actually put together a list of anticipated games for 2016.

Well, if not specific games, since the gaming general thread has yet to see much renewed activity- does anyone have any particular news highlights or upcoming releases to note? Obviously Ragnia has picked up MHX. Meanwhile, I think my favorite piece of recent gaming news is the announcement that Psycho-Pass: Mandatory Happiness is no longer exclusive to X1, and is going to be released for PS4 and Vita next year. Also heard that they are aiming for a localized release too. Hi-Rez also finally revived Tribes: Ascend, but I still haven't gotten around to checking out the overhauled version, mainly because Xenoblade Chronicles X has just been so wicked.

Speaking of Xenoblade Chronicles X, I know that not everyone from old Club1kjho has completely disappeared thanks to their online activities on the Wii U. Lol, I've seen the avatars of Valin, Everly, Tangerine, Shank, Raven, and some others in-game, and last night I even saw Lost on my friends list, finally playing XCX. So maybe some more people will throw a post out here...or maybe they'll be drowning in XCX.

Indeed, XCX is so great that I have not participated in the current Splatfest yet. I say "yet," because I'll probably sign into Splatoon today long enough to check the shops and play a few rounds and maybe keep going as long as the win rate and matchmaking aren't too bad. However, yesterday I tried playing Splatoon for about an hour to get ready for Splatfest, and the whole time I just had this nagging impression that I was wasting time I could be spending on XCX. It's not that Splatoon isn't fun anymore, but the little flaws add up, and with the constant disconnects, match wait times, and awful matchups that kept on occurring yesterday, it just wasn't worth the time while I had something better to play on the Wii U.

So yeah, Xenoblade Chronicles X is where it's at, for the most part. Let us know how you enjoy MHX though Ragnia.

I haven't played much as of yet, but my break started today so I'll be sure to let you guys know about any juicy tidbits of information as I come across them ^^

I think Splatoon and MH4U are pretty much the only new game I've played this year that I can really remember. XD

I was going to Grab Xenoblade Chronicles X the day it came out, but despite signs and ads, none of the stores in my area seemed to have gotten any copies, due to absolutely no shelf space set aside for it. I haven't had the chance to look for it since, but I plan on grabbing it at the soonest opportunity.

Lol Rangeth, idunno whether that's awesome or unfortunate. Splatoon ate up a lot of my summer, but I still managed to get in a few other titles. Heh, I kinda feel weird about the fact that DeSu2 RB was probably one of the best games I played all year, but they added so much to it and it's such a great game all around that I think it deserves a spot in my personal top 10 of the year.

Also, speaking of ~old~ games that warrant high regard even as re-releases/ports this year, Steins;Gate on the Vita was incredible. Truly a magnificent VN, and I am so glad I put off watching the anime all these years to play the game first. I also watched the anime and it was great, but the proper VN blows it out of the water.

On a sidenote, as far as top-shelf games go, I actually got Persona 4 Golden out of storage finally and replayed it to get those last few trophies I needed for the platinum just in time for P4:DAN. P4DAN was pretty great in its own right, but the DLC quantity and pricing are getting out of hand, and I hope this trend doesn't carry over to Persona$500.

In more recent news, I spent a huge chunk of this autumn playing a lot more Legend of Legacy than I thought I would. Such a great game in so many ways, although I can see it as being a really divisive, love-or-hate title. Looking at the big picture, I'd probably give Legend of Legacy my personal ~most underrated game of the year~ type mention. Then again, for the record, I did get around to playing Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth 2, 3, and Hyperdevotion Noire: Goddess Black Heart this year to (platinum) completion. Awesome games as far as I'm concerned. I wouldn't necessarily insist that they're top 10 material, but I think that any critic who gives them less than a 7/10 is occupying tryhard territory, and less than 6/10 is just straight up petty and uncritical hate.

On the subject of awful games, I think my biggest disappointment of 2015 probably goes to the Wii U version of Rodea: The Sky Soldier. That game turned out to be the epitome of squandered potential on the Wii U. The controls are awful, and the game makes no use of the Wii U's unique features whatsoever. Meanwhile, the screen filters and graphics are so messed up that the game looks supremely better on the gamepad than my TV. Plus, the general progression and overall experience are just so underwhelming and all-too-frequently frustrating that I just can't justify playing it at all while I have something better/fresher to play on my Wii U. Also, lol, after piloting Skells in XCX, going back to Rodea is going to be even harder.

Long story short on that, the only reason I'm even playing the Wii U version of Rodea at this stage is so that I can get it out of the way and fully appreciate the Wii version that was included with my preorder/first-print run of the game. While the Wii U version is a shoddy and borderline unplayable mess, I've heard great things about the Wii version and the wiimote controls for it. At least the characters and scenario are alright so far.

And last but not least, since it seems almost obligatory to have a ~best game nobody played~ style entry, I guess I'll highlight Lost Dimension for that category. Lost Dimension was a brilliant game with a few quirks that were almost guaranteed to turn off the average player, and releasing on the Vita and PS3 probably didn't help its sales much either. However, I had a lot of fun with it and I was able to get past the minor issues other people were griping about, especially since some of the negative criticism was just more of the increasingly popular vapid tryhard variety.