Today is Christmas Eve…what does that remind you of? Well, obviously, you’re thinking about what kind of presents you will be giving and getting, but I’m more focused on Nintendo. Why? Well, it’s the end of the year, which means it’s time for MonsterVine’s Game of the Year Awards. I’ve been given the task of compiling my personal list of what I think were the best Nintendo titles in 2008. It wasn’t easy. 2008 wasn’t exactly Nintendo’s year. This year, many gamers questioned if Nintendo is losing it’s audience and ignoring the hardcore gamer, due to the lack of big name titles and not to mention the events of this year’s E3, where the biggest thing Nintendo had to show was Wii Music. Well, regardless, good games did come out this year and here is my personal list of the five games I found to be the best. If you don’t agree with me, that’s fine, like I said this is my list. However, if you find that your taste is similar to mine, don’t hesitate to buy these titles – they are worth it. One last thing, all the release dates are for North America, so don’t be surprised if you remember different release dates. Hell, don’t even care about the order, even I had a hard time deciding which game would be at which place, if it was another day, I might have made the order completely different. So just accept these as my Top 5 favorite Nintendo games of 2008.
#5: Final Fantasy IV | DS | July 21, 2008
Final Fantasy IV was a classic on the SNES. It had everything an RPG fan could’ve wanted: an immersive world, an interesting story, good characters, fun battle system. Years later it was ported to the Playstation, and later to the Game Boy Advance. The GBA version was an improved version, with features that made the game more user-friendly. However, it was only in 2008 that Final Fantasy IV reached it’s highest quality. Following the 3D remake of Final Fantasy III, Square decided it was time to remake the classic Final Fantasy IV on the DS, in complete 3D glory. The result was magnificent, the graphics were good with outstanding CG cutscenes, the voice acting was top notch and everything that we loved in Final Fantasy IV remained the way it was. The DS remake turned out as good as we had hoped, with only one thing that bugged me: the rewritten script was done similarly to Final Fantasy XII’s, making it a bit more archaic. Sure it fitted the game due to the medieval world, but it was still a fantasy world, it would’ve worked just as well with a modern script, like the GBA version. Well, even with the redone script – which only bothered me in the entire gaming community – the DS remake was outstanding, earning it the fifth place on my list. Why is it only #5? Because I didn’t feel like giving a simple remake a higher place. Next!
#4: Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia | DS | October 21, 2008
Castlevania is a truly classic series, dating back to the NES. Since then, Castlevania had many sequels released, most of which were quite good. Order of Ecclesia is no different, it is in my opinion just as good, if not better than the previous Castlevania games released on the DS. Order of Ecclesia has everything a side-scrolling platformer needs, including large areas to explore and a good number of enemies to defeat. Order of Ecclesia introduces the new glyph system and abandons the whip and the holy relics, trademarks of Castlevania. It is good however, the glyph system works very well, although sometimes the game can be very difficult because of this new system. When it comes to graphics, controls and sound, Order of Ecclesia does everything the way you’d expect from a Castlevania game. It’s dark, it’s gothic, it’s fun, it’s challenging, it’s easy to control…the list goes on and on. Overall Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia deserves the #4 spot on my list.
#3: Super Smash Brothers Brawl | Wii | March 09, 2008
Ah…Super Smash Brothers Brawl. Nintendo’s biggest fighting game, where they pit Nintendo characters against each other. A fun game, not for everyone though. The game is fast paced, it has a good character roster and it is also colorful. It’s typically Nintendo, different from other fighting games. It was also the first in the series to introduce outsider characters: Solid Snake and Sonic the Hedgehog. Gamers minds instantly absorbed the idea of kicking Mario’s ass with Sonic, or fighting Pikachu with Solid Snake. It was a very fun game, with the biggest flaw probably being that Sonic and Snake weren’t selectable from the start, despite being a major part of the hype. The game improved upon it’s single player and the multiplayer was as good as ever. In short, Brawl was everything you’d expect it to be, earning it the third place on my list. Diehard Nintendo fans are probably asking “Why not higher?”, well…I just didn’t like it that much. It was fun in multiplayer, but it wasn’t all that great when playing alone, plus I think that if you don’t like Nintendo or it’s characters, then there’s really no real reason for you to pick this game up, since Brawl’s biggest appeal is the idea of pitting characters of different Nintendo games against each other.
#2: The World Ends With You | DS | April 21, 2008
The runner-up this year is The World Ends With You, Square’s JRPG. Square, working together with Jupiter once again delivered a title worth talking about. The graphics were top notch, with the trademark art style of Tetsuya Nomura, who also designed characters for Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy. But what made this game really great? The interesting premise, first off. Neku Sakuraba dies and arrives in a sort of parallel dimension of Tokyo’s Shibuya district, where he must play a game. A game to determine his fate, if he completes the missions he’s given, he can return to life, however this is not guaranteed. What is guaranteed? If he fails a mission, he will be erased from existence. Not a very good deal, huh? The World Ends With you also sports some innovation fitting the DS and actually made good use of the stylus and the touchscreen. This game had everything a Square RPG needs, only it felt new and fresh. Shibuya was actually similar to the Shibuya in real life, due to the developers wanting a game based around a real location, something you wouldn’t expect from a handheld title. Everything was in place, from the story through the combat system to the music, and thus The World Ends With You earned the second spot on my list. There was only one game that I liked more and that was…
#1: No More Heroes | Wii | January 22, 2008
Yes, No More Heroes. A crazed surreal world, where Travis Touchdown embarks on his quest to become the best assassin in the USA, using his beam katana to slaughter enemies who get in his way. Set in an free roaming world like Grand Theft Auto, although somewhat limited is still fun to roam around. The art style instantly reminded me of Killer7 and grabbed my attention. The story as weird as it sounds at first is actually fun to sit through. The controls? The developers efforts didn’t go to waste, the Wiimote and Nunchuk actually work well and the fighting system is both easy to use and really fun, as it should be considering how much fighting there is in the game. Yes, the game could get a bit repetitive, but it was so fun and compelling that I could easily look past that. The game was very graphic, and sadly the PAL version got censored, which took away from the game. It was still fun, it doesn’t ruin the game or anything, but I still cannot understand what’s the point of having 18+ ratings if the game gets censored anyway to fit the 16+ rating. So in the end, No More Heroes was not flawless, but it was just so compelling and fun for some reason that I easily give it the #1 spot. I didn’t know what to expect when I bought the game, despite hearing about it a lot, but it was one of the most unique and fun experienced I had with a game in the past few years. It’s worth buying, even more so because you’ll probably never play anything quite like it…or at least until the sequel comes out.
And that is it for my Nintendo list. I hope you liked it, and since it’s the 24th, I wish you readers a Merry Christmas and happy gaming! See you next time!
Gyuri
