Runners Up
13) Far Cry 4
12) Wolfenstein: The New Order
11) Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze
AND if there we were games instead of DLC: TLOU: Left Behind and Burial at Sea Part 2
10) Persona 4 Arena Ultimax
It took what made Persona 4 Arena a great game and build on it by adding in more characters, modes, and a new story to boot. This led it to even being better game than the original while still having the Persona charm that makes series enjoyable.
9) The Wolf among Us
It is exactly what you would want from Telltale’s take on Fables, making for one of the best Noir games I’ve played. Creating tone needed and visual style you would want. It had engaging story and characters to make for very enjoyable game. It was also stronger game than the walking was.
8) Child of Light
Fairy tales and rhymes are not something you often see done in video games. So it was pleasant surprise that Child of Light did that exactly, it build a fairytale that was touching tale getting to heart of why I like them to begin with. The addition of having game rhyme while not everyone's cup of tea it helped create a world that felt like experience I have not had in game before which I simply loved. Child of Light also did JPRG better than most JRPG have by getting rid of fat of the genre.
7) Mario Kart 8
Like the another Nintendo series that will soon be on this list, it is best game in both of their series. Featuring clever additions to traditional Mario Kart formula and feeling most fluid and balanced than any other in the series. The DLC has brought in great tracks from other great Nintendo series to make people to continue to play this game.
6) Super Smash Bros Wii U
What’s there more to be said that has not already been said about Smash 4. Ton of modes available to play, huge cast characters, great multiplayer, fighting gameplay and having eight player smash was nice touch. It simply the best smash yet.
5) Valiant Hearts: The Great War
World War 1 is not a topic that is presented in video games, and if it is it usually not represent it well enough. While Valiant Hearts is not perfect representation of World War 1 because it features elements that feel goofy and out of place but majority of the time it captures emotion of World War 1 in easy to understand way and haunting way. It acts as great educational tool to get people interested in the history of it that is not common to many people. The presentation of the game takes Ubi art engine and uses in creative way. Valiant Hearts is great first step for mainstream approach of teaching history in engaging way in video games while using great puzzle game.
4) Shovel Knight
Is the perfect love letter to 8-bit games and would have been one of the best NES games ever made. It takes what made those games great and created its own unique take and incorporating modern gaming elements. It also plays the way you remember NES games playing and not how they actually play. It also created great world and characters that make it a very charming game.
3)Stein’s Gate
(This game will join #2 on my list on Vita next year). Stein’s Gate takes one of my favourite tropes if you can call it that which is time looping. What I love about time looping is the idea of redoing an aspect recently in your life that you were unhappy with and getting chance to redo it. The outcome is something worse than you imagine, whatever you do to fix what you have done you just make it worse. You go down the rabbit hole of just wanting get things back to normal or the character going through this grows as person. Stein Gate touches on this and more to make it more of most engaging visual novels available in North America and one that equals the level of quality to other great time looping stories like groundhog day, the girl who leapt though time and edge of tomorrow.
2) Dangaronpa 1+2
While these are different games, it is hard to separate them. Dangaronpa 2 while being the better game in the series needs Dangaronpa 1 for the full effect. What I feel Dangaronpa does great is taking premise that seems familiar about kids having to kill other kids and it looks at approach of why someone would do this and outcome of doing this. How it would affect someone involved and how emotional draining that is could be. While these are serious elements it still is willing to have fun and lets you meet a great cast of characters to care about. (Problem with D1 is MC is a tad to cliche and boring like Sora and Yu where MC in D2 has more to relate to by having emotional and tragic aspects to be a more engaging character)
Transistor Why Transistor was my favourite game to come out this year over others is for many reasons. Transistor had very unique storytelling method where the world it created and characters were as developed as you wanted them to be. It gave you a chance to ignore background and supporting story points or uncover them. It is one best worlds to be created in a game of this genre because from it has atmosphere and vision games lack. The music adds to atmosphere and features one of best soundtrack in game this year. Transistor felt like fresh, unique and developed game in a year where these type of games were missing.