PixlBit

What were our favorites in each genre in 2012?

Xenoblade Chronicles - Winner

As I was putting my thoughts together to write this piece, I noticed a consistent theme throughout 2012, at least as far as my experience went: Surprise, but for all the surprises I had this year, nothing topped Xenoblade Chronicles.

I suppose I should have been ready for it, the internet was ablaze with videos, commentary, and reviews all stating this was a great game, but I had plenty of great games waiting patiently in my backlog. So while I dutifully pre-ordered a copy of the game and anticipated its arrival, in the back of my mind I half expected it to share a similar fate. As it turns out, I ended up playing Xenoblade Chronicles quite a lot, and I'm sure I would have even if I wasn't tasked with writing its review.

Getting bored in the middle of a JRPG is a frequent problem for me. Of all the games in that genre I've played, at least half are sitting on my shelf unfinished. It's gotten so that I expect to lose interest part way through the title, either due to poor pacing, mechanical boredom, or lack of interesting plot devices. I'm happy to say that Xenoblade suffers from almost none of these.

It's no small feet keeping a game as long as Xenoblade interesting, and I'm hoping other designers noticed the clever decisions that the developers of Xenoblade made to keep the player's momentum. Things like not requiring them to run back and forth to the same town a million times to manage quests, enemies that exhibit new tactics force you to keep modifying your strategy, and clever writing that can, in fact, make a typical “save the world” story interesting to players that have already been there and done that a thousand times before.

Was Xenoblade the rekindling of the JRPG that Final Fantasy VII was for the Playstation? Not exactly. The game did have its blemishes, but none of them subtract from the fact that this is an RPG that should be played by any Wii owner with even the slightest interest in the genre. If you missed out on this game, go get it now. You won't be disappointed.

Write-up by Angelo Grant

Mass Effect 3 - Runner Up

Yeah, yeah, you didn’t like the ending, right? Putting that aside, Mass Effect 3 is still a great game, and a few of us here at PixlBit think it was one of the best games of the year. What may be the most surprising thing for you as our readers is its runner up placing on our RPG of the year section.

While the first Mass Effect was a more traditional BioWare RPG with all those behind the scenes dice rolls and stats, Mass Effect 2 was almost entirely a shooter with a couple of skill trees. Mass Effect 3 did a great job of striking balance between those first two games. It retains that solid third person shooting, but adds more in the way of options for players to spec out their party members. Yeah, the equipment aspect of the game still leaves something to be desired, but the addition of weapon weight adds some strategy to how you choose to load out your guys. Do you want to bring a single gun and have your powers recharge in a flash, or do you bring an armory with you and have an excruciating wait as your powers cool down? The choice is yours, and that’s something that was missing from the second game.

Of course, the real star of Mass Effect 3 is the story and investment in Commander Shepard and his crew. PlayStation 3 owners may have initially missed out on the first chapter of the trilogy and Wii U owners have to play catch up, but for those players that experienced the entire saga Mass Effect 3 becomes a deeply personal story. Sure, a lot of the side quests and interludes are convenient fan service to give players closure on everything, but it works, and it works well. Perhaps the ending isn’t what you wanted, but Mass Effect 3 is a game about moments, and those special moments with your most cherished crew members and friends make this game one to be remembered.

Write-up by Julian Titus