First of all, I am sorry that I haven’t updated Never Unplaying during the last few months. I’ve been half dead with school and a hectic holiday (and post holiday) season. However, I must continue and I will with the Game of the Year of 2009.
Like every year, I spend a lot of time on what I’ve played throughout the 365 days and declare what I believe deserve the award. 2009 was a tough year because even though a game will have the award, I didn’t have an awe inspiring experience this year. Yes Uncharted 2 was action packed. Yes Scribblenauts was very inventive with a chock full of content. Yes New Super Mario Bros. Wii was nice and traditional. Call me greedy, but there wasn’t much that hooked me.
One of the biggest issues this year were games that didn’t get it all right. Before I start praising, I’d like to focus on a few games I liked this year but contained one too many issues for me to love them.
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers
This was my most anticipated game for some time. Crystal Bearers was one of the first Wii games ever announced - four or so years in the making. A single player Final Fantasy experience with a cocky main character and built for the Nintendo audience. So why was this ten hours long and has the most broken final boss out there?
Halo 3: ODST
Halo 3: ODST is not a bad game whatsoever. I love the campaign and Halo needed a sweet co-op mode ala Gears of War's Horde Mode, which Firefight fit the bill nicely. On top of that, they added all the Halo 3 multiplayer content, DLC maps and all. I’m impressed with the overall package and while it is still a ton of fun, Bungie’s commitment to totally ignore the game post-launch is unforgivable. No Firefight additions such as new maps and enemies (Elites added for fun?) make this sweet package a little sour.
The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks
Even though Nintendo has a tendency to make innovative hardware, they tend to keep their big games pretty traditional. Zelda: Twilight Princess: Same as Ocarina of Time. Super Mario Galaxy: Same as Mario 64 control-wise. New Mario Bros. Wii/DS: Same as the old Mario Bros. Why then, does Nintendo have to totally mess around with the Nintendo DS Zeldas, like Spirit Tracks? If it was controlled normally with some neat little touch moments, fine, but the touch-exclusive controls can get really frustrating. I’ve never died in a Zelda game as much as this one and it was all control related deaths. The concept of a train is cool and blowing the whistle nonstop was fun, but it’s too much sometimes and it’s a sad replacement to a real Hyrule Field. Makes you wonder why Nintendo doesn’t leave it to Capcom for handheld Zeldas again since they have had a beautiful track record on them with the Oracles and Minish Cap.
Now it’s all award time with the Games of the Year, starting with the runner up:
Batman: Arkham Asylum
You know I almost didn’t play this game. I thought it was one of those “only good if you’re a fan” type of game, and I haven’t been in the Batman loop since my mini fandom of Adam West when I was very young. In the end however, Arkham is really a fantastic experience. The presentation is second to none paired with some awesome (and fan familiar) voice acting with some with mind blowing visuals, cutscenes, and animation thrown in for fun. Mix that with a Metroid Prime-style exploration and gadget based gameplay, we get the best licensed game since Goldeneye. The game does have a few flaws with a few dud boss fights and very simple fighting mechanic, but those issues are so few and far between hardly becomes a deal breaker.
And now....
Game of the Year - Rune Factory Frontier
Yeah, surprising as it is, there was not a game that I put so much time into this year as Rune Factory Frontier, and I’m still not even close of finishing it. There are just so much to you can do in this game because it stays constantly busy with multitasking projects, so it not hard to blow over a hundred hours into it. That’s why whenever you see Nintendo’s report of the Wii’s top ten games with the most gameplay hours, you see Rune Factory still on it. Rune Factory is the best role playing game on the Wii hands down and it is the recommendation for any fan of the genre.
A New Town
Rune Factory Frontier is the sequel of Rune Factory: A Fantasy Harvest Moon on the Nintendo DS. The main character Raguna (which you can rename if you want) is searching for one of the main characters from the first game, a girl named Mist. You end up finding her in the small town of Trampoli, and with an abandoned house and field, you start off a new life without thinking of the old one from the first game thanks to that wonderful Japanese cliché of amnesia, a cliché that should die in a fire miserably.
Trampoli has a nice little cast of characters when you move in, but this cast expands with new residents, including more characters from the first Rune Factory. Thirteen characters of Trampoli’s populace are young girls and those little ladies in town can potentially want your heart. Whether it’s that thickheaded sweetheart Mist, the perky bathhouse owner Melody, the big-boned Eunice (who you can have lose weight with the right encouragement), or the mysterious Iris who lives on the floating Whale Island above town, each girl has her own likes and dislikes and it’s up to you to uncover them and exploit them to make the girls warm and fuzzy inside. Eventually, you can woo her to the point when you can propose to her, marry her and have a kid. None of this is quick however and if you mess up, it can take another in-game month in order for you to get another chance.
One half farming
You Still Farm…
The farming hasn’t changed much from the Harvest Moons, but balancing what to do with your limited energy is crucial for having a successful farm in addition to exploring in dungeons. This energy, called Rune Points (RP), are spent every time you use a tool or weapon, and once it’s depleted, further use of those items will drain health until you pass out. A defeat will send you to the nurse’s office with a cold, ½ your daily RP and half your day wasted, so think wisely before pushing your character to the edge. This is one of the more frustrating elements because it doesn’t take much to deplete RP so you’re stuck retreating the dungeon or interrupting your farming for the day. Players who hate slow beginnings will have their patience tested, but will be rewarded when you’re stronger and able to do much more in a single day.
One half dungeon crawler
…But With a Twist
The role playing fantasy portion is what separates Rune Factory from the farming-exclusive Harvest Moons. The RPG portion is mainly a dungeon crawler, a simple action element that revolves fighting in a simple dungeon with a boss on the bottom floor. On its own, it is no innovative RPG, but knowing you can only go so far before you need to rest in bed to restore RP makes these simple dungeons time consuming. In addition to tending the farm and getting a life, beating all the dungeons can take about a year, which is four month-long seasons. Like in real life, days tend to come and go, but the year seems to take a long time and once you realize how many hours you invested, you feel rewarded with a powerful character, a potential wife and a happy town.
What’s a farm without livestock, but Rune Factory isn’t just chickens and sheep. Everything is given a fantastical makeover with funky looking cows, unicorn ing horses that jingle when you ride them and little two-legged sheep. They are actually not only the livestock; they are the monsters you fight in the dungeons. To get these critters in your barn, you do not attack them, but instead pet them enough before they kill you. Captured livestock can either harvestable qualities such as a Wooly’s wool and Buffamoo’s milk, or you can use them for chores like cleaning the field, watering crops and harvesting. Sadly, only one monster can do each different chore, but with some feeding and petting, they will try harder and will perform a better job for you while you save needless energy from doing the chores.
The Ultimate Chore
Rune Factory’s farming element also contains a fantasy element. Throughout Trampoli are little floating sprites called Runeys. Runeys are useful for things like unlocking treasure-filled doors and changing weather or fish production, but they also hold the potential of your crops. These little guys can spell doom or bloom because if they die out, your farm can take forever to raise simple crops. On the other hand, if you take the time (like you had a lot of it anyway), you can balance the number of Runeys and have them flourish so that your crops will sprout in very little time. This is the easily the worst part of the game because while it has an incredible benefit if you do it, Runeys continuously eat each other which skews the balance of the Runeys each day. This takes a lot of care to maintain and forgetting this chore will have you spending weeks only focusing on rebalancing them again.
Looking as Good as it Plays
Rune Factory’s production values were given some care by their developers. The game look great with detailed characters and a glorious looking town that sports a completely new look each season. However, it doesn’t hide its bland looking dungeons without any imagination to it whatsoever. The same can be said with its audio with voice acting that really deepens the character’s likeliness and music that may be good on the ears but delivers nothing memorable. Luckily, the town’s theme song changes with each season, so when you think the spring theme is starting to get stale, summer arrives with a fresh new sound.
If you have played any previous Harvest Moons, Rune Factory will feel very familiar in your hands. Like most long lasting Wii games, the motion control is very subtle, so subtle that it can be shut off. It’s not recommended to keep the motion controls on since it doesn’t perform anything that the big old A button cannot do. The game also supports the Classic Controller method, but since the Wii Remote and Nunchuk method doesn’t do much in motion, the difference is primarily user preference.
And one half girls. It's a three half kind of game
In Conclusion to An Endless Game
Rune Factory is all about performing multiple tasks all at the same time and watching the satisfying benefits bloom. Aside for the Runey breeding, all these tasks are rewarding while maintaining enjoyment. It may feel time consuming, but its investment only drives you further to complete a certain task such as beating a dungeon or getting that girl’s heart. With Frontier, I believe making a Wii version was what this series needed. Simulation games such as Harvest Moon, the Sims and Animal Crossing are addicting and are a great change of pace from the shooting, strong language and blood that usually tops the sales charts today. The trick to Rune Factory is that it is a change in pace from that change in pace. It was great to play when nothing else was worthy of coming out and that’s why it is my Game of the Year of 2009.
Honorable Mentions of 2009. These games are 2009’s other great recommendations (By release):
Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection (360/PS3)
Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon (DS)
Halo Wars (360)
Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars (DS)
Pokemon Platinum (DS)
Marvel Vs Capcom 2 (PSN/XBLA)
Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box (DS)
Metroid Prime Trilogy (Wii)
Katamari Forever (PS3)
Muramasa: The Demon Blade (Wii)
Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story (DS)
Scribblenauts (DS)
Dead Space Extraction (Wii)
Magnacarta 2 (360)
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (PS3)
Borderlands (360/PS3/PC)
Dragon Age: Origins (PC/360/PS3)
New Super Mario Bros Wii (Wii)
Left 4 Dead 2 (360/PC)
