[Let’s Talk] Your 2019 Game of the Year

With just a few days remaining in 2019, now’s a good time for reflection. It’s been a banner year for Nintendo and Switch as a whole. 2019 started off a bit slow, but the second half came on strong – especially for big first-party releases. This year we saw the likes of Super Mario Maker 2, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3, Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Astral Chain, Zelda: Link’s Awakening, Luigi’s Mansion 3, and Pokemon Sword/Shield. Other top titles helped fill out the schedule, including New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe, Yoshi’s Crafted World, Daemon X Machina, and Dragon Quest XI S – and that’s without really delving into indie titles and third-party support.

Given everything we’ve seen this year, what are your thoughts about Switch in 2019? What’s your personal Game of the Year? Let us know in the comments below.

Highlights from last week’s topic: Bravely Default II reactions

Mark

The teaser was the sort of thing I would expect if it was early in development – environments, backgrounds, art, studios, and a nondescript 360 degree around the characters – so I’m a bit surprised that they’re promising 2020.

That said… this is everything that I was secretly hoping for the Bravely series, the Final Fantasy series, especially knowing they got back Revo to do the music as well as the Octopath team to do the visuals.

Bravely is a beautiful series; the art and music tell a story all on it’s own and it’s bar none one of the games I would point to if someone asked me, “are games art?” The battle system is one of the few turn-based that I enjoy and think is both difficult and engaging.

I mentioned Final Fantasy because it IS Final Fantasy, at least in all reasonable respects, before the mass popularity of FFVII got its mitts in the series and changed it forever. FFIX was both a love letter and a farewell to the old style, and it wasn’t until Bravely came along and rebooted the whole thing that I had hope that there was a future for that sort of game.

The name had confused me at first; it doesn’t anymore. Now, it gives me hope. By titling this “Bravely Default II,” it seems to me that Square Enix is acknowledging that this isn’t just a single game, or a game/sequel/threequel. Bravely II, set in a different world and telling a different story, means that they can continue to tell similar tales – like Bravely III, Bravely IV, and on. It means that there may be a future for this, in this form, just as there is for Final Fantasy, just as there is for Dragon Quest – and just as there wasn’t for Chrono, or Xeno, or Mana.

And maybe my hope is unreasonable, and they drop this as easily as they dropped Parasite Eve. Could be. But altogether, it seems like Square Enix has been really struggling to find SOME game to be reasonably mid-budget in a world of ever-escalating production costs, and fit a 2D/2.5D aesthetic, and the immense success of Octopath makes me hopeful that this isn’t just a silly pipe dream.

Either way- I’m immensely overjoyed that Bravely Default is coming back, and this is now my #1 most anticipated title, until we hear something else about Zelda or The Red Lantern.

hexer_class

My thoughts are YES, YES, YESSSS
I’ll take this over the smash reveal thousand times.
All I want is new characters, music and story with the same gameplay of the previous entries, and it seems that’s exactly what we’re getting. I could very hardly be happier.

chancetime

Very happy, finished and liked both previous games (although Bravely Second had some problems). Especially happy to hear that the OST is like the first game and done by Revo.