Cultural Impact: I think we all recognize that The Witcher 3 and Rocket League (in that order) were the biggest games of 2015. The Witcher 3 won the most Game of the Year awards and sold the most compies. Rocket League won GOTY here on VGC contemporaneously and was the year's second-biggest seller. Both interesting games in their own obviously very different ways. I think that, after Skyrim, The Witcher 3 might be the title people most often think of when they hear the term "Western RPG" today. (Or even just "RPG" period.)
Favorite Games: Interestingly enough, my own favorites of 2015 have a thing or two in common with those I just mentioned: one is an RPG and the other is sort of its own original genre.
I may very well be alone in this preference, but Crypt of the NecroDancer was and is my favorite 2015 game and also favorite rhythm game ever and also also my favorite roguelike ever, and furthermore my 10th favorite video game of all time. For those who don't know, it's a rhythm-based roguelike (or dungeon-crawler, as a lot of those were more often called back then) where you dance-fight your way through a series of monster-filled underground zones to either the game's original electronic dance music (which is rock solid!) or, if you're feeling creative, any tune you want from any mp3 you own (though picking something with a good beat is strongly recommended. May I especially recommend throwing in a few jams from Hotline Miami, omg?! 
). RPG elements like buying and equipping items and such are streamlined in a way that avoids menu navigation to make that game play concept practical, yet dance battles by definition retain a turn-based flare that requires pattern memorization, strategy, and accurate timing without disrupting the flow of things by cutting to a separate battle scene. It's an absolutely brilliant concept that sells itself. Personally, I like to use a dance pad. It's just more atmospheric that way. The music makes me want to dance! 
Crypt of the NecroDancer for me is a transporting game that seizes all my focus when I'm stressed and redirects it to this other world whose aesthetics I think I'm in love with. When I use a dance pad, it lets me physically get rid of my anxieties by exhausting them from my body while, at the same time, absorbing all my focus (because you definitely have to pay constant attention to play well) so that I can't dwell on worries or pain in the process. It's just very good for me. That's all. There's no deep-going narrative or meaning to it. It's sorta my principal pure escape game. Yerp, I need those too.
The runner-up choice here for me is my favorite RPG of all time, Undertale. Made by one guy for a launch price of $8. I actually learned about this game on a PBS program the following January wherein its very original battle system was brought up and had to play it after hearing about that. So glad I did! Unfortunately, Undertale is one of those games I really can't discuss my feelings about much without spoiling things heavily, so I'm gonna have to go for the spoiler tag for this commentary. Sorry!
Undertale is an unsubtle, and laugh-out-loud hilariously and endlessly charming, meta-commentary on both the way RPGs are made and on what developer Toby Fox seems to see as the pointlessness of completionism and of living in a nostalgic place rather than visiting. At its greatest depth, it deals with the topic of gaming addiction, which is, as I mentioned back in the 1993 thread, something I've dealt with before.
The faith I grew up being taught has this concept called original sin that contends people are born malign and have to be divinely redeemed. In reality, even the youngest infants can feel the joy and pain of others and experience those feelings along with them. How that develops and finds expression in real-world practice and whether they lose that foundational sense of connection to others hinges on environmental factors like how they are raised, the examples set before them, how they are treated by others. In other words, the rule is that people are born good-natured and become corrupted, not the other way around. Undertale seems to recognize this. The game correctly assumed that I would successfully complete a pacifist run before attempting a genocide run. I could tell by the way Flowey and others spoke to me in the latter. They communicate in a way that presumes a lot of knowledge you'd have only accrued by sparing everyone and there are lots of remarks on how you're just doing this because you're bored. It's the truth. The game deliberately makes killing all the monsters feel completely heart-breaking and getting to know about their lives and personalities exponentially more rewarding. My first genocide run tore my heart out. I fucking hated it! But hey, it was an option, right? Thus, no matter how depraved it may feel or how much it may hurt or how empty and soulless an experience it was, it had to be done. Right? The game is not complete otherwise, is it? If you choose a certain option at the end thereof, you can never go back from it. Even if you complete another pacifist run successfully, the consequences of having done a genocide run before remain intact forever. Indeed, much of the game's meta-commentary comes from the oft-shocking and disorienting fact that it records everything you do, including resetting back to a previous save point to undo your actions, so that everything you do has consequences. Everything. It's in that sense that Undertale is perhaps the most life-like RPG ever made. You are not above consequences in this game, ever.
What Toby Fox seems to be trying to communicate here, to me, is that games like this shouldn't necessarily make violence compulsory so often; that doing so is so much lazier and less fulfilling than giving all the characters in your game distinct and memorable personalities instead. And it indulges the player of a certain age, like me, who gets wistful for a certain time in gaming history, certain types of aesthetics from a different time, with many of those aesthetics while encouraging us to learn something from that media rather than just live in those worlds. There are better things to do with one's life than killing video game monsters endlessly. The pacifist run is where this game's true magic is. The polar opposite is just there to let you know when it's time to stop playing games, which is when you feel your soul depleting. It's good advice.
I have to add that Undyne and Alphys are among the cutest lesbian couples I've met in a game before and I much appreciated them being there. 
In terms of other characters I might mention, Toriel was like...my mom, lol. Definitely over-protective, but she meant well. Plus she gave me pie, so instant respect. When Asgore reveals the nature of their relationship...oh my god, I cried so much! Then there's a certain skeleton of very high standards who must be at least passingly honored with a reference. I love Undertale's monsters! 
I have four definite top favorites from this year, in fact, which are...
1. Crypt of the NecroDancer
2. Undertale
3. Ori and the Blind Forest
4. Her Story
But there were also many more that I enjoyed. The others just belong to a different tier is all. What else to mention that people haven't already? Rise of the Tomb Raider is my favorite Tomb Raider game. Deep? No. "A real Tomb Raider game?" Also no. A lot of fun though? I think yes. I happen to like Lara's role in this particular adventure really more than in any other game in the franchise. Like Mad Max: Fury Road, it's transparently straightforward, shallow girl power dumb fun, which is to say it is this franchise at its best. That is the essential thing it's meant to be, its sweet spot, and I'm part of the natural market for it. I've found this franchise's attempts to rise above that level more pretentious than not and, on the other end of the spectrum, its past recourse to fetishization...you know, obviously meant more for someone else to enjoy, not so much me. And Splatoon is one of the best reasons to own a Wii U. It was the reason I finally got one after seeing the announcement trailer from E3 2014. Shooting games getting the goofy Nintendo treatment is a premise that simply oozes charm. Splatoon is I think my fave of the modern Nintendo franchises. Also Pillars of Eternity, Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, Fran Bow, obviously the aforementioned Rocket League...well I'm just mentioning those so they're not forgotten. I haven't played Bloodborne, I'm afraid.
Last edited by Jaicee - on 27 February 2024
