[Feature] Nintendo Everything’s 2013 Game of the Year Picks

#3 – Fire Emblem: Awakening

Just as Fire Emblem: Awakening borrows iconic characters from throughout the series’ history, the game blends together some of the best ideas from other Fire Emblem entries along with a fresh visual style and new gameplay features like dual attacks. Fire Emblem: Awakening is not without its flaws; I thought that the “pair up” system was a bit broken and the actual enemy encounters lacked the variety of previous Fire Emblem games. But then I wasn’t really playing Awakening for the deep strategy gameplay so much as the massive list of character conversations. Every soldier in Chrom’s army has a distinct (some would say exaggerated) personality, and they come across perfectly thanks to a brilliant localization by 8-4. The fact the game has such a memorable cast of characters makes the series’ traditional permadeath mode even more heartbreaking and forced me to come up with several strategies to prevent any character from dying.

The characterization was so great that I almost didn’t mind that the overarching story was essentially absurd fanfiction, complete with my own self-insert character who is a powerful time-traveling wizard and everyone falls in love with. Fire Emblem: Awakening poses the question of ‘how much anime is too much anime’, the answer to which is ‘who cares, I’m marrying Miriel.’ I’m sure the fact that even character progression is determined by luck turns a lot of people off the series, but this element of chance combined with the branching classes, different relationships and the wonders of eugenics means that everyone’s experience with Fire Emblem: Awakening will be completely different. That’s really cool!

#2 – Etrian Odyssey IV: Legends of the Titan

Fire Emblem might have been a fine RPG, what it lacked was a sense of discovery; the satisfaction that comes with mapping out every inch of your surroundings and exploring massive dungeons for hidden treasures. Thankfully, that’s exactly where Etrian Odyssey IV: Legend of the Titans excels. Discarding any attempt at typical melodramatic JRPG storytelling, Etrian Odyssey IV: Attack on Titan places its focus primarily on exploration and providing a number of challenging but ultimately rewarding battles. Unlike in earlier entries, difficulty isn’t synonymous with tedium. Etrian Odyssey IV: Remember the Titans still punishes careless errors and poor strategies (less so with the new casual mode), but players are given a diverse range of character classes to suit different situations and grinding is rarely mandatory.

Dividing areas up into smaller, more varied dungeons means that there’s more time spent exploring and less time backtracking. Though the series’ leap into 3D is not nearly as impressive as my #1 pick, Etrian Odyssey has always been about creating atmosphere through tense encounters and Yuzo Koshiro’s excellent score, a tradition which Etrian Odyssey IV: Titanfall continues to uphold. It may be too old-fashioned for some, but RPGs don’t come much more engrossing than this.

#1 – Pokemon X/Y

Unless of course, they have Pokemon in the title. No other game from this year captivated me for nearly as long as Game Freak’s new monster-battling, egg-hatching, women’s-clothing-shopping RPG. Pokemon X/Y are more than just entertainment or worse, a timesink, they’re a shared experience that I enjoyed playing alongside friends and strangers from all around the world. The inclusion of the Player Search System and the countless battle requests, random trades and small gifts that came with it turned another trek through a familiar narrative and relatively easy battles into a truly charming and unforgettable journey. It’s the small things that really made Pokemon X/Y shine – from the crazy PR videos to the new “Pokemon-amie” mode. Of course, it helps that the series has such surprisingly deep RPG mechanics and a now much more approachable metagame that takes full advantage of them.

I thought that Pokemon X/Y captured series creator Satoshi Tajiri’s vision more than any other entry in the series; it fully engrossed me in a child-like, optimistic vision of the world, let me explore and interact with other players and made lots and lots of money. Overall it was the best RPG in a year where we saw that genre proliferate on Nintendo’s handheld console. And I didn’t even get around to playing through Shin Megami Tensei IV or Bravely Default!