RPGCast - Special: "Game of the Year 2010"

[sabin1001]

RPGCast - Special s05: "Game of the Year 2010"

This special episode of the RPGCast gathers together the people who played all the games this year to answer the question, "What was best?" You'll also get to hear why Michael loves Sega so much.

You can find the links to all our stories on delicious: http://delicious.com/rpgamer/s05

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RPGCast Awards


The Backtrack award - The best RPG from before 2010 you finally got around to playing for the first time
Adriaan - Tales of Eternia
Macstorm - Dragon Warrior 1
Rosestorm - The Last Remnant
SeventhCircle - The Witcher

Best/Worst Use of Budget
Nominees
Rosestorm - Best - Mass Effect 2/Worst - Final Fantasy XIV
SeventhCircle - Best - Atelier Rorona
Macstorm - Best - Breath of Death VII/Worst - Arc Rise Fantasia
Adriaan - Best - Ys Seven/Worst - Fallout: New Vegas

Winners
Best - Nier
Worst - Final Fantasy XIV

Best Portable RPG
Nominees
Golden Sun: Dark Dawn
Ys Seven
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 Portable

Winner
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 Portable, Honorable Mention to Ys Seven for being more fun, even though we don't know how that works.

Guilty pleasure - RPG you like despite its (perceived) faults
Nominees
Adriaan - Arc Rise Fantasia
Macstorm - Alpha Protocol (he says it has like no faults though)
Rosestorm - Divinity 2: Ego Draconis
SeventhCircle - Nier

Winner
It's Nier, Dammit

Missed Out Award - The RPG you most wanted to play but didn't
Nominees
Adriaan - Monster Hunter Tri
Macstorm - Z.H.P.: Unlosing Ranger Vs. Darkdeath Evilman
Rosestorm - Fable 3
SeventhCircle - Dragon Quest IX
Sabin1001 - Dragon Age Origins - Awakening

Best Console Exclusive RPG
Final Fantasy XIII
Atelier Rorona
Nier

Winner
Nier

Moment You Were Relieved No One Else Was in the Room to See
Nominees
Adriaan - Nothing
Macstorm - Any scene from Nier that had Kaine
Rosestorm - Mass Effect 2 Sex Scenes
SeventhCircle - Mass Effect 2 Sex with Tali

Winner
Mass Effect 2 Sex Scenes

Best Downloadable
Breath of Death VII: The Beginning
DeathSpank
Infinity Blade

Winner
DeathSpank

Moment that Almost Made You Want to Quit Gaming - What moment in an RPG almost made you want to quit gaming
Nominees
Adriaan - The gaming media panning three of his favorite games of the year
Macstorm - Valkyria Chronicles 2 (Avan's voice acting, Cut and paste sequel nature, EVERYTHING)
Rosestorm - Square Enix turning Front Mission into a 3rd person shooter
SeventhCircle - Moments in the last third of Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey (had to draw a map for a game with a map in it)

Winner
The Gaming Media that's not us

Biggest Bonehead Move - What was the dumbest thing this year either in an RPG or from the industry or press
Nominees
Adriaan - Marvelous Interactive siding with Ignition over XSEED (Muramasa and Arc Rise)
Macstorm - Anything Sega did
Rosestorm - Bethesda letting Obsidian make Fallout: New Vegas
SeventhCircle - Fallout: New Vegas's QA

Winner
Fallout: New Vegas's QA

The "Everyone Else is Wrong" award - the RPG that you can't believe people like or dislike (also Most Reviewed Game in hopes you'd believe us and buy it)
Nominees
Adriaan - Nier (he like it)
Macstorm - Golden Sun (he didn't like it)
Rosestorm - Nier (he liked it)
SeventhCircle - Hexyz Force (didn't like it)

Winner
Nier (people should like this game)

Most Disappointing Game
Nominees
Adriaan - Fallout: New Vegas
Macstorm - White Knight Chronicles
Rosestorm - Fallout: New Vegas
SeventhCircle - Hexyz Force

Winner
Fallout: New Vegas (because picking Final Fantasy XIV would be too easy)

Best Overall RPG (will populate after we pick other winners)
Nominees
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 Portable
Nier
Mass Effect 2

Winner
Mass Effect 2 (Michael wishes you to know he picked Nier)

Prediction: RPG of 2011 - What game do you think will be the best in 2011
Nominees
Adriaan - Dragon Age II
Macstorm - Dungeon Siege III
Rosestorm - The Witcher 2
SeventhCircle - Mass Effect 3
Sabin1001 - The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Prediction: Most Over Hyped of 2011 - What do you think won't live up the expectations in 2011
Nominees
Adriaan - Diablo III
Macstorm - The 3DS
Rosestorm - The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
SeventhCircle - The 3rd Birthday
Sabin1001 - Star Wars: The Old Republic

[Wheels]

Resonance of Fate was actually delayed and came out the week after Final Fantasy XIII

[Shaymin]

And to add to Sega's year of fail, Infinite Space not only came out in March, but two days after Pokemon Heart Gold/Soul Silver. Oops.

For shiggles, my own picks where I can put them (keeping in mind I didn't get access to an HD system until literally New Year's Eve):
Backtrack Award: The World Ends With You
Portable RPG: Dragon Quest IX (40+ hours, and I'm going back thanks to scoring some L90 maps at the Gamestop tag parties)
Guilty Pleasure: Sands of Destruction
Missed Out Award: Persona 3 Portable
Everyone is Wrong Award: Pokemon Heart Gold/Soul Silver (Platinum is the superior Pokemon game, full stop).
Most Disappointing Game: Pokemon Heart Gold/Soul Silver (I was hoping they'd remake it into a game that's balanced the whole way, didn't happen).
RPG of 2011: Pokemon Black/White

Cases where I agreed:
Bonehead Move Of The Year: I'm with Macstorm, Sega's staggering incompetence knows no bounds.
Overhyped Game Of The Year: Like Roy, Skyrim. Then again, my expectations are that this will brick your system on initial boot, new engine or no.

[Ocelot]

You know, Shaymin, you just reminded me that I forgot to vote for Pokemon HG/SS for anything in our GOTY awards, despite enjoying it and playing it for many hours. I guess it just doesn't fit too well in any of our categories.

[caddyalan]

I can't think of witty comments for all the awards right now. But if you asked me what moments I was glad that no one else was in the room... then I'd definitely say several scenes featuring the character Rikaritta (aka Rosita) in Sakura Wars SLML. The scenes in her house in chapter three - and her optional Christmas scenes - made me say "wow, I can't believe that happened in a Teen rated game!" Rika is a hilarious character with great range in combat, but I'm amazed that some of the subtext about her character made it into the English version.

[Berserk_Alucard]

Really good podcast guys, some of it was hilarious. The talk of the alien sex scenes in Mass Effect 2 comes to mind as having made me laugh way too loud at 2AM =p

Some of the topics you made and my picks:

The Backtrack award - Final Fantasy IX (I played a lot of old games that were awesome this year, this one hit a sweet spot for me =p) Other than that; FFVI, Kingdom Hearts 2, Castlevania: SotN, Valkyria Chronicles

Best Portable RPG - Ys Seven (out of the ones I played. Other than that, there was Kingdom Hearts: BBS)

Missed Out Award - Z.H.P.: Unlosing Ranger Vs. Darkdeath Evilman (I agree with Macstorm, this one just really intrigues me. It'll most likely be one of my next purchases)

Moment You Were Relieved No One Else Was in the Room to See - Mass Effect 2 Sex Scenes

Best Downloadable - Infinity Blade ~ I haven't played many this year.

Biggest Bonehead Move - Sega (whoever is in charge over there, man...I worry for the company)

The "Everyone Else is Wrong" award - Final Fantasy XIII (It is definitely not the direction I want SE to take FF...)

Most Disappointing Game - Final Fantasy XIII (yeah, I don't really like it. I actually nearly platinum'd it, so I gave it a chance...don't know why..)

Best Overall RPG - Demon's Souls (we got it over in PAL regions this year)

Prediction: RPG of 2011 - Dragon Age II

[MasterChief]

CORRECTIONS!

Ys Seven has full 3D graphics and voice acting.

Nathan Fillion isn't the guy who's in everything. That would be Nolan North.

[Severin Mira]

Wouldn't blame all of SEGA for boneheadedness as they did publish a lot of RPGs I loved last year. The entire marketing/PR department however? Yeahhh...

[Drav]

Shouldn't this be called "Game of the Year 2010"?

It was neat though. Listened to all seventeen hours of it.

[MasterChief]

Wouldn't blame all of SEGA for boneheadedness as they did publish a lot of RPGs I loved last year. The entire marketing/PR department however? Yeahhh...

They have a marketing/PR department?

[Paws]

One that is clearly overpaid.

[Strawberry Eggs]

Nicely done, everyone! It makes me oddly happy that Arc Rise Fantasia got mentioned more than a few times here, even though they weren't for the best categories (biggest guilty pleasure, worst use of budget, etc.).

[Severin Mira]

They have a marketing/PR department?

Well they've got people who say stuff on twitter. And, er...

[CipherinthesnoW]

Skyrim is the featured game for February's Game Informer, and I gotta say it does look amazing.. I wanna see it in motion though. It made me chuckle after listening to Glenn's prediction.

Great show guys, I enjoyed listening to it and thinking back to all those great games, and remembering I've got to finish some of the ones mentioned, ahem, Nier, and P3P.

[sabin1001]

Shouldn't this be called "Game of the Year 2010"?

It was neat though. Listened to all seventeen hours of it.

....oops....fixing!

[Retrovertigo]

I may have missed it - but Costume Quest wasn't mentioned when it came to downloadable games?

[SiliconNooB]

Best downloadable: Ash.

[7thCircle]

I may have missed it - but Costume Quest wasn't mentioned when it came to downloadable games?

It don't think it was -- both Adriaan and Mac have played it, so I guess they were more impressed by the games they did mention. I haven't played it, but my impression from staff discussions on the game was that Costume Quest was cute and fun, but everyone had some other downloadable title they enjoyed more this year. Of the 5 people on this podcast, only 2 played many downloadable RPGs this year, so we rushed through it more than other topics. We also spent more time on categories that won't be covered in the Game of the Year feature we're working on. Best Downloadable RPG is a new award in that feature this year.

[Ocelot]

Costume Quest may show up in a category or two of our GOTY feature, though. I voted for it, anyway!

[GrayWolf323]

Costume Quest may show up in a category or two of our GOTY feature, though. I voted for it, anyway!

looking forward to that feature