Top 5: Anticipated Games of 2015

5. Persona 5

During the Playstation-era, my favorite games were JRPGs. The Vita’s Persona 4 Golden faithfully recreated everything I loved about the genre. I am now a Persona fan boy. To be honest, this was my first and only time playing any entry in the Megami Tensei series. I recognize, like Final Fantasy, that each story contains a unique cast of characters, conflict and setting. Here’s hoping that the next entry continues the greatness from the last instead of pulling a FFVIII.

I look forward to traditional RPG turnbased combat, unique story paths, robust character customization and a story focused primarily on a close circle of friends.

4. The Order: 1886

Sony owns more first party studios than anyone, but what have they done since the PS4 launched? Infamous: Second Son was awesome but everyone else remained radio silent. The Order promises to create some noise with a steam-punk alternative London where players research the supernatural. Combat from the different trailers looks to vary players approach as some supernatural foes will be easy to dispatch and others require a tactical approach. I trust that the delay was the necessary time to polish this entry into a worthy new intellectual property.

I hope this entry is a responsive cover based shooter with an impressive arsenal, memorable characters and gorgeous graphics that avoids character clichés or being weighed down by its own lore.

3. Batman: Arkham Knight

Sigh…this entry made the 2014 Most Anticipated Games list… and despite a disingenuous release date I’m still looking forward to the conclusion of the Rocksteady Batman Trilogy; which is kind of a jerk maneuver for WB to just ignore Batman: Arkham Origins (even if it was the weakest entry). The Arkham series proved that superhero games could be more than their license with a challenging combat system, stealth puzzle environments and upgradable equipment. Gamers didn’t control Batman. Gamers were Batman. Kevin Conroy, the one true voice of Batman, reprises his career defining role, and that’s a win for everyone.

I want this game to build upon the Arkham universe without retreading the same villains we already defeated. I need the Batmobile to be an optional gadget instead of a new gameplay gimmick.

2. Mighty No. 9

Keiji Inafune created Mega Man. Capcom let Inafune go. Capcom stopped creating Mega Man games. Inafune decided to host a Kickstarter campaign to fund a sidescrolling 2D-sprite game about a blue robot that defeats eight other robots, acquire their powers and stop a master manipulator. How any of this is legal is beyond me, but I’m glad it exists. Mighty No. 9 is the spiritual successor to Mega Man that fans demanded for years. It isn’t a carbon copy and looks to improve upon traversal and the tools available to dispatch foes. Mega Man is about survival, Might No. 9 looks to contain a speed-run, score based system behind the scenes.

To consider this game a success it needs to be as good or better than Mega Man 3…or 2. For it to be fun it must capture the spirit of its side scrolling predecessors: easy to learn, hard to master.

1. Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End

The first Naughty Dog product I played was Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy. Each game (outside of Jak X: Combat Racing) was better than the last. That’s improvement over seven releases. The Last of Us is my favorite game of all time. Despite the behind the scenes drama I trust this team implacability (though I am slightly doubtful they’ll hit a holiday 2015 released). The Uncharted series is a hallmark of graphical fidelity, pushing the system to the limits upon release. Each entry tweaks the combat system, storytelling mechanics and creates new locals for the treasure hunters to explore. Never resting on its (many, many) laurels the Uncharted development team always strive to be the best and manage to prove why they are.

It would be ideal if Uncharted’s story focuses on characters and not the mysticism of the universe. I hope that the story continues form UC3 and doesn’t reset the status quo of the cast. If the gameplay is as responsive and enjoyable as previous entries with responsive AI (as reported) this could be the new favorite game.

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