2014 is going to be a banner year for video games in my
mind. 2013 had more than a few games that I really enjoyed—Pokémon X&Y, Rune Factory
4, Tales of Xillia, Kingdom Hearts 1.5 Remix, Path of Exile, The Wolf Among Us, Final
Fantasy XIV, StarCraft II: Heart of
the Swarm, and Civilization V: A
Brave New World—it didn’t actually feel like a very busy year for gaming.
But 2014 promises to be spectacular.
As far as current gaming goes, I certainly plan of getting
Siege of Orgrimmar 10N down with my raids before the expansion drops in World of Warcraft, and I’ve started
getting back into Final Fantasy XIV
for a bit, so we’ll see how long that lasts. It is a lot of fun, though. I also
want to add The Legend of Zelda: A Link
Between Worlds to the list, because I hear it is marvelous. And can’t
forget more episodes of The Wolf Among Us.
At some point I apparently also need to play The Last of Us.
So how about new games?
Bravely Default: Where
the Fairy Flies – February 7th
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| Image from RPGamer.com. Bravely Default is the JRPG we deserve! |
A game by Square Enix for the 3DS, this is the more
traditional JRPG the masses have been clamoring for. A Job System, 4 Heroes of
Light (but not named for that), Crystals, and Turn-Based Combat. All the
trappings of the traditional, wrapped up in a more modern game. The story is
apparently somewhat straight-forward, but the characters are delightful and the
game itself is quite accessible for a JRPG. RPGamer.com has a review up (http://rpgamer.com/games/other/3ds/bdff/reviews/bdffstrev1.html)
for it, and they gave it a 4.0/5 (and they’re pretty stingy on their reviews).
Lightning Returns:
Final Fantasy XIII – February 11th
Unlike most of the Internet, I rather enjoyed Final Fantasy XIII. A lot of folks
denigrated it for being a totally linear romp with a convoluted story, but I
didn’t find it difficult to follow, and I’ll take a well-executed linear game
over a poorly-executed open world, myself. Final
Fantasy XIII-2 was interesting, and the battle system had evolved a bit,
but it was still enjoyable (though I honestly didn’t care for the story in
XIII-2).
Lightning Returns: Final
Fantasy XIII brings back the title character, Lightning (Oops, spoilers!). The
world is going to end in 13 days and only Lightning can save the people of the
dying world—note that she isn’t saving the world, twist!
This time the combat system seems to be a mesh of the
frantic, action-oriented Final Fantasy
XIII and the costume system of Final
Fantasy X-2. It looks gorgeous, and the world is relatively open in this
case, but you’re limiting factor is time. Some parts of the day certain areas
or quests will be unavailable, and events may occur only at a specific time and
place. As well, you have complete control over Lightning. She can run, climb,
jump, and so on through environments. No longer are we limited to being stuck
because there’s a log in the way.
Tales of Symphonia
Chronicles – February 25th
 |
| Image from RPGamer.com. Combat in Tales of Symphonia. |
I love the Tales series. Unabashed fanboy, I readily admit.
The combination of fantastic characterization, decent stories, and intense
real-time combat systems really does it for me. Tales of Symphonia, in my mind, was the pinnacle of the series for
all of those points (until Tales of the
Abyss, anyhow). Originally for the Gamecube, the Chronicles version is the
PS2 port rereleased on the PS3 with upgraded textures. If you played the
Gamecube version of the game, this one has a few extra attacks, titles, events,
better AI, and harder bosses.
If you’re new to the Tales series, I highly recommend Tales of Symphonia. I also highly recommend you skip the sequel
(also packaged), Tales of Symphonia: Dawn
of the New World, which was an incredibly mediocre game.
Final Fantasy X|X-2 HD
Remaster – March 18th
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| Image from RPGamer.com. Now we can see Lulu's crazy belt dress in HD! |
Another rerelease of a previously released pair of games
with updated textures, Final Fantasy X is definitely an excellent turn-based
JRPG. It brought innovations like the Sphere Grid for levelling, and took
head-on the concepts of religion, death, and self-sacrifice. X was an excellent
addition to the Final Fantasy series, and another game I highly recommend to
folks interested in JRPGs. Bonus, this is the International version of the
game, release in English for the first time, so it comes with a bunch of extras
the original game didn’t, like different Sphere Grids for each character.
Final Fantasy X-2 was a divisive game. While the story was
so-so, the combat system was excellent.
Fast-paced costume-swapping, changing your classes on the fly to deal with
whatever situation might come up, I never got bored of FFX-2’s combat system. I
can tell when a game is engaging when I actively seek out battles because I
just want to fight more things. FFX-2 did just that for me.
I’m getting this for the PS3, but the Vita is also an option
for the gamer on the go.
Diablo III: Reaper of
Souls – March 25th
 |
| Image from Blizzard.com. The Crusader, in action. |
Blizzard’s expansion for Diablo
III, it will bring about a marked change in the game itself: new loot
system, new methods of character advancement, no more Auction Houses, more
bosses to kill, new classes. While I did like DIII when it was released (I
finished the game on normal), I didn’t find it quite had the replayability Diablo II had. I’m hoping these fixes to
the game’s core will give it that oomph. At the very least, the AH, while an
interesting experiment, most definitely killed my enjoyment of the game, so I’ll
be interested in starting from scratch with a character and seeing where it
takes me. One that is untainted by the AH.
Fantasia: Music
Evolved - ??? 2014
Music and Rhythm games are my jam. From Dance Dance
Revolution to Rock Band to Dance Central, music games are one of my favourite genres,
and Harmonix is king. So when I found out they were doing a music game to
Disney’s Fantasia? Heck yeah, please! And it’ll use Kinect. Now, I hear folks
groaning, but if you’ve played the Dance Central series, you know that Harmonix
is one of the only developers to really have a handle on what the Kinect can
really do. Dance Central was an amazing piece of software, and a complete
blast, so I’m actually willing to pick up this game sight-unseen based on the
company’s previous reputation.
But Fantasia: Music Evolved is more than just a rhythm game.
It’s like a music creation game. You’re still performing actions to the game,
but you can adjust instruments along the way, change how the song sounds, make
your own drum solos, and so on. It’s very much just play, with music.
Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5
Remix - ??? 2014
Kingdom Hearts is another stand-by series for me. I love the
combat, and I rather enjoy seeing Disney characters in different worlds and the
soundtracks that go with them. Part nostalgia, part ARPG. This rerelease of games
sees the “Final Mix” versions of Kingdom Hearts II and Kingdom Hearts Birth by
Sleep in high definition on the PS3, which originally came out for the PS2 and
the PSP, respectively.
Kingdom Hearts was a fun game, but the original suffered
flaws with the camera system and control system that were honestly pretty hard
to get by (and going back to them on the 1.5 Remix was painful), Kingdom Hearts
II fixed all of that and layered a deep combat system on top. The story wasn’t
too shabby either. Birth by Sleep’s story and characters were much better done,
and the combat system was a little simpler, but still just as fun.
The series as a whole has an incredibly convoluted story,
but I don’t really find it that hard to follow myself. But frankly, you don’t
need to actually follow the meta-story across the series to enjoy each
individual game. Still, super excited for this one.
Tales of Xillia 2 -
??? 2014
The original Tales of Xillia followed in the footsteps of a
long line of Tales games with more great characters, and a really good story
this time around, along with a compelling evolution on the Tales combat system.
The end of the first game leaves us with a world in flux, where great changes
are occurring, and the second game takes place one year later in the aftermath
of that great event. Where Final Fantasy seeks to reinvent itself entirely
every game, the Tales series is a bit like JRPG comfort food. Baby steps,
rather than giant leaps, but at the same time they’re always high quality
releases that are pretty entertaining, so this one for me is an automatic must
get.
Hearthstone - ???
2014
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| Image from Blizzard.com. Shaman vs. Paladin, the story of Vanilla WoW. |
Surprisingly, I’m not actually that excited for Hearthstone
on the PC. On the iPad, however, I am ecstatic. A game played in 10 – 15 minute
increments seems perfect for my bus rides, so if I can play it over my cell
connection on my tablet, that will be perfect, whereas when I’m actually at my
computer at home, I usually want to play something a bit meatier, like WoW
itself. Still, the game is fun and has an active metagame. Time will tell if
Blizzard can continue to evolve the game past release to really give it legs.
World of Warcraft:
Warlords of Draenor - ??? 2014
 |
| Orcs, Orcs, Orcs, Orcs, Ooh a Draenei! |
For me, duh. Garrisons, and more raids to complete next
expansion. I’m guessing/hoping it’ll get released by early summer of 2014, but
we shall see.
And that's it for games that are announced as far as I'm aware. And it also doesn't really include all the cool indie stuff that is coming up, nor does it really include much for the latter half of the year. We'll have to wait and see what kind of juicy games will happen then. Perhaps PAX East will reveal some of those secrets. Until then, I know my plate will be really full!
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