2015: GOTY, Runner Up, Biggest Let Down, and Most Anticipated 2016 Game

Yep, it's that time again. Another year has gone by and now we look at the year in review.

What is your GOTY for 2015, Runner Up for 2015, Biggest Disappointment for 2015, and your Most Anticipated Game for 2016?

Overall, MUUUUUCH better than the shitshow that was 2014. There was actually more than one or two good games that came out this year for one. The library could've been a little better though and one of my biggest complaints was, again, everything getting delayed into the next year.  There are still many games I still have to play, so my choices will be very limited unfortunately due to financial issues I ran into this year.

But hey, it seems that we are getting an even better year than 2015 looked to be to start this year next year. Next year looks like a gaming buffet with a whole bunch of much anticipated titles coming out next year (unless they all get delayed for the third time). But the best part of this year was all of the crazy announcements. I mean, holy shit, look at all of these!

- The Last Guardian re-introduced
- Final Fantasy VII Remake announced
- Shenmue III announced
- robot dinosaurs are still cool as shit, Horizon Zero Dawn announced
- Pacini + Inafune, ReCore announced
- Rare shifting away from Kinect, Sea of Thieves announced
- Star Fox Zero announced
- Mafia III announced
- Dragon Quest XI announced and it looks DOPE
- Gravity Rush Remastered announced
- Gravity Rush 2 announced
- Nier Automata announced
- Rocket League
- Psychonauts 2 announced
- Yakuza 0 getting localized
- Ace Combat 7 announced
- Ni No Kuni II announced
- Xbox One backwards compatibility
- PS2 emulation for PS4
- Ryu in Smash
- Cloud in Smash
- Bayonetta in Smash
- new IP from the new KojiPro announced!
- System Shock Remake announced
- System Shock 3 announced
- Resident Evil 2 Remake announced
- the Banjo game we've been waiting for, Yooka-Laylee announced
- the Castlevania game we've been waiting for, Bloodstained announced
- Onimusha, Ninja Gaiden, and Souls turns out to be a tantalizing combination, Ni-Oh re-introduced
- ToeJam & Earl sequel announced
- Rock Band is back and it's backwards compatible with those plastic accessories and songs we already spent a small fortune on.
- New real installment in the RollerCoaster Tycoon franchise was announced this year.
- River City Ransom SP, a remake and revival of the original is announced for the 3DS for release in Japan on April 28th, 2016.
- And just announced today, Final Fantasy IX gets an enhanced port for PC and smartphones.

This year has been nicknamed the "Year of Dreams" and I think that is an appropriate title. Not all of these will apply to me, but wow, what a shitload of great announcements! The future is looking brighter than it has been for awhile.

Anyways, enough fapping, let's get to the actual meat of the topic: Our picks!



My Game of the Year for 2015: Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
Fuck the haters, this game was fantastic! Sure, the story wasn't fantastic, but there hasn't been a fantastic story since MGS3, so that should have been expected. Even then, I thought the story was surprisingly decent, not great, but just ok this time around. It was a much needed step up from MGS4 and PW's storylines, which sucked complete ass. Come to think about it, I think some people just wanted more fan fiction wank like MGS4 and didn't get that in a story that takes place in the middle of the whole series. Anyways, the best part about this game was its gameplay. The gameplay was motherfucking fantastic! It was so fluid and good that it kept me occupied for around 76+ hours. One of my favorite things was how they implemented the open world and actually built it around the mission designs. I haven't seen gameplay this addicting and fun in a long time. Now with that being said, it did have its flaws (bosses were generally pretty terrible, motherbase was a void space, etc.) and those kept it from being the best MGS game ever made. However, it was a fantastic last entry by Kojima before he left that shithole company he worked with.

Oh, and this is a review of the game before Konami started fucking around with it, like adding in-game taxes on players for not going online at all during a session. More on this cancer later.


My Runner-up for 2015: Xenoblade Chronicles X
I'm glad Tetsuya Takahashi is finally getting the recognition that he deserves now. This is just another great game by him and his own team at Monolith Soft.

The gameplay is so rich and deep and I am still lost by what you are generally supposed to do with each system it introduces. But its an incredibly fun game and it's been awhile for JRPGS to be this good. I am also amazed by it's incredible open world and at how vast and mysterious this brand new alien world and I totally feel that I am exploring this world with my characters. I'm still not done with this game, but this is easily the runner-up of this year for me. I figured that both Metal Gear and Xenoblade would be my top two coming into this year and they both did not disappoint at all.


My Biggest Let Down of 2015 (due to the rules of the topic): Fallout: Shelter
Not my real one, but due to the nature of the topic, I will just choose the only other game that I played this year and that was Fallout: Shelter. Obviously not as good as the other games listed and it was just meant to be a simple phone game, but its still a pretty fun game to play once in awhile. This is probably the best phone game I have ever played tbh lol. Not a bad game by any means, but it was the worst of the three games I played this year.


My Biggest Let Down of 2015 (what I really feel): Konami
Should I even need to explain this? I think we all know what a shit tier company these fuckers are. I am just still amazed at how they were able to out shit what EA has done for nearly two decades in a matter of 10 months. This is easily the worst video game company out there and I don't ever wish for anyone to lose their jobs in this shitty economy, but I fucking hope this company crashes and burns, all of the slaves who still work for these assholes go to better companies like Nintendo, Kojima Productions, Sony, etc. and the big cats who started this shit lose their jobs and never be in a position to lead anyone ever again. They represented what was wrong with this industry for the past ten years and I honestly lost all hope for this industry after hearing the news that Kojima was leaving due to this bullshit (but thankfully got won back after E3's crazy ass announcements this year). Now with the industry having a better future (hopefully), these fuckers got left behind lol. Good, fuck them!


My Most Anticipated Games for 2016: Dragon Quest XI, The Legend of Zelda Wii U, The Walking Dead: Michonne, Enter the Gungeon, and No Man's Sky
I remember saying that it's possible for a lot of these games to be delayed last year, and sure as shit they were and two of my most anticipated for 2015 are now for 2016.   

There are PLENTY of games than I listed here that I am looking forward to, but these are easily my top 5 that I can't wait to play as the next year comes in. If mostly everything comes out and turns out right, next year is looking to be a legendary one (and 2017 is looking to be a great one so far with FFVIIR, Shenmue III, Bloodstained, etc. all coming out as well including something that will eventually get delayed this next year).

Indeed this year has been much much better than 2014 (in which my most fav games were all remasters:P)
Plenty of unexpected announcements to begin with : FFVII remake ! RE2 remake ! Shenmue 3 ! New Toejam & Earl ! Awesome guests in Super Smash Bros ! And let's not forget the localization of recent Yakuza games !

And so many awesome games released this year too !
And 2016 might get even better with the potential announcement of new games for the 20th anniversary of Resident Evil, the 25th anniversary of Sonic and probably a new Soul Calibur that got teased these last months too !!

Anyway, let's get on with my pics :

Game of the Year 2015 : Resident Evil Revelations 2

I'm a crazy RE fan so that shouldn't come as a surprise but holy shit did Capcom do much better than expected with RE : Revelations 2 !
RE:Revelations 2 is basically the proof that you don't need AAA budget to make awesome games, even in the RE series.
It's set in a gloomy island that sets itself apart from the one in Code Veronica with a lot of great stages design ideas and a very tense atmosphere, not to mention some of the best ennemies design we've had in a while (Glasp and Revenant coming to mind)
Also, it marks the great return of Claire Redfield and Barry Burton (!!) as well as the first appearance of his daughter Moira who was mentionned in the very first Resident Evil and is one of the most fleshed out characters we've had in the RE series lately. Great character designs (without the anime stuff we've had in the first Revelations game) helps a lot too !
And the gameplay combines the best of  RE : Revelations and RE6 !

The episodic format, which came as a surprise to everyone, was actually handled pretty good and perhaps even better than Telltales, the story was thrilling enough and you only had one week to wait between every episode, which makes the experience way less frustrating. And as if it wasn't enough, if you decided to get every episode as they came out instead of waiting for the full package product, you had hidden items and modes to do in the Campaign mode as well as a complete bonus mode with Raid mode which features even more stages to do, even more weapons to get, even more characters to play !
Only downside I have with the game was the replacement of Alyson Court, Claire Redfield's voice actress from RE2 (1998) to RE: Operation Raccoon City (2011). The newest actress did a decent job but I'm still dumbfounded why they replace Alyson who is beloved by the RE fans and still enthusiastic to work for the series!

All in all, this game's price was from 25€/$ to 40$/€ when it got released, it got cheaper now and the first episode is free to play, and for such a small price, you easily have 10 hours of gameplay in the Campaign mode, which easily goes up to 50 – 150 hours of gameplay if you spend more time on the additional modes and the Raid mode.

I applaud Capcom which took the feedbacks very seriously as this game could tell !

Runner up : Life is Strange
I originally wanted to put Mortal Kombat X but I had to give credit to Life is Strange, a game that is in the vein of the Telltales games.
After Remember Me, the french studio Dontnod gave a try to the episodic format with a story that at first appeared to be a very cliche teen series but actually ended up being a deeper and darker story that I expected, with characters that I actually grew up to the very same way as in the Telltales Walking Dead games, and test you many times in situations that cover a lot of shameful real life facts that our society has become used to (school bullies, social media bullies, suicides, the competition between students when approaching the carreer evolution...) and in which you have to take responsability for, despite the time backtracking power you have.
Honestly, I felt the choices had much more impact than in the Telltales Walking Dead series.

I've seen plenty of people shitting on this game only for the fact that its graphics are not what you'd expect in 2015. Well fuck you haters, the graphic style actually contributes a lot to the game's atmosphere and you really need to play the game to find out.
Did I also said that I found out about awesome pop bands thanks to its marvelous soundtrack ? (Especially Breton!)

LIS was easily the biggest surprise of the year to me and I really want to express my appreciation towards Square Enix which were the only ones who accepted to fund the project without asking to change characters or the story as the Dontnod as the studio wanted them to be.
I was really disappointed it didn't explode like the first Walking Dead game did in the 2012 video games awards but it earned at least some awards, especially voice acting awards with the voice actress Ashely Burch who also worked on Mortal Kombat X as Cassie Cage !

Honorable mentions :
Mortal Kombat X, Monster Hunter Ultimate 4, Zelda : Majora Mask 3DS

Biggest let down of the year : Not a game but Konami.
I won't repeat what Saven said above but I have to say this is, in itself, a very amazing feat to be able to go downhill faster and in a shorter span of time than EA, Sega and Square did before and get a ton of warranted backlash !
Not letting Kojima gets his deserved awards in that 2015 video game awards was also one of the biggest dickmoves ever !
And I still can't believe we'll never see that amazing Silent Hills game coming to life !
Screw you Konami ! We won't need you anymore !

My Most Anticipated Games for 2016:
So let's see, we have Resident Evil 0 HD Remaster, Final Fantasy Explorers, Project X Zone 2, the obvious Mortal Kombat X Komplete edition that is going to happen, the new South Park game, Ace Attorney 6, Street Fighter V, the new Toejam & Earl game, potentially Final Fantasy XV because it looks dope and any news regarding FFVII Remake, RE2 Remake, Shenmue III as well as what the 20th anniversary of Resident Evil and the 25th anniversary of Sonic will offer.
2016 is expected to be an amazing year !

Okay, here's mine:

GOTY 2015: Yakuza 5.

Yeah, I know it's an old game but finally this year we're able to play it and understand it (I have the original Japanese version, I couldn't dare to open it until I played it in English, so yeah, it's one of those rare collection items I keep). From what I see, and I can perceive, it IS the Japanese San Andreas! BTU, RPG and graphic novel in one with tons of mini-games and fun... game's great and I'm glad SEGA finally did something good for once!

Runner ups: MKX, MGSV, Fallout 4.

Disappointments 2015: Konami

The once cool company that brought games like Castlevania, Vendetta, DDR, Silent Hill, Sunset Riders and other awesomesauce has become the meanest bunch of retarded assholes in the industry. Jesus Christ, even companies that were going downhill like Capcom or SEGA got their act together and started to improve, Konami just didn't and kept bullying fans and devs alike... I mean, who the fuck dares to bully one of the biggest geniuses of gaming nowadays like Hideo Kojima? Destroyed IP's like Silent Hills, basically throwing away a super ambitious project with the Mexican Guillermo del Toro and Norman Reedus? What kind of fucking lame-ass retarded company would permit that!?

Runner up: Tekken 7. 


Special Award "Balls of Steel 2015": Hideo Kojima

I'm very glad he stood up by himself and finally stopped the bullying from Konami and decided to make Kojima Productions independent. Now, I truly hope his mastermind can come up with gorgeous games without the red tape from the suits and bring the most fantastic games we could ever dream of to put to shame old IP's like MGS.

The 2016 hype:

After many years of skepticism, I've finally being hyped by few new games coming up:

• King of Fighters XIV. I know graphics so far are being shit, but SNK-P's new attitude to bring back a proper fighting game is putting my hopes in the final release.
  
• Yakuza 0. Thank you, SEGA. At least you did something good for once in bringing the Yakuza series again to international markets.
  
• Shenmue III. Again, another wise move from SEGA, the people wants it, the people financed it, now release it!
  
• Street Fighter V. SFIV bored me so much... seems SFV is shaping up well so far. Let's see how's the final product.
  
• Mafia III. I'm yet to play well the original 2, but the few things I played and watched made me feel like an exquisite crime freeroam option besides GTA. So... wanna see how good this game can be.