Reflecting on 2014

I wrote another list of resolutions on FB like I do every year to remind myself what I'm doing and what I want to do.  Here are this year's resolutions for 2015:
1) Take better care of myself.  I’ve been neglecting my health in 2014 like I did in 2012.
2) Start knocking down my projects list.  Mostly Music and Game Projects.
3) Get through more, buy less.  I want to get through the Persona and Disgaea series this year.
And to quote what I wrote on FB:

"This might seem like an odd list of resolutions to make, but I believe it will better myself in the life I want to live and how I want to spend that time throughout 2015.  I didn’t list “finding a job” this year because I realize that it’s not my intention of just landing a job, but finding what I excel at and actually doing it right now.  I had the mindset of “this is what I’ve done; please hire me” instead of “this is what I AM doing and what I COULD be doing for you if I was hired.”  I’m sick of waiting to be able to do what I want to do, so I’m going to go ahead and do them."

A few days before New Years, I received an e-mail that said "Congratulations, Camera Obscura has been Greenlit!"  I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw it.  We submitted the game to Steam Greenlight back in January 2013 and I had lost all hope for the game every being greenlit by 2014.  Whether this will actually be my big break is irrelevant.  I need to work on follow up projects so that if Camera Obscura does find appropriate exposure and recognition in the industry, I can show that I've been staying active.

"Ultima Exodus: Heroes of Yore" project was definitely the highlight of my work last year.  I feel as if I still didn't do enough last year, though.  This project took up approximately 3-4 months, so I still had plenty of time to do more.  Instead, I felt burnt out and did regular mixes since I haven't touched my turn-table in a while.  So I want to use what I learned last year and multiply the amount of work by many fold.  I also liked the Deadly Premonition arrangement and Super Smash Bros. Remix I worked on.  Producing 24 audio tracks for the year isn't too bad, but I feel like I can do more.

Now for the fun stuff.  I want to reflect back on the games released in 2014.

Top 10 Games I played through 2014:
10) Arcana Heart 3: Love MAX!!!!! (Playstation Vita)
Honestly, I was really upset with my purchase of this game.  I already bought the original on PS3 digitally because it didn't have a physical copy.  But with the game entirely updated with balance changes, an extra story mode, and the fact that it will be a physical copy this time around, I decided to support the game and buy the Playstation Vita version for $40.  A week after I bought it, a new version of the game with a brand new character was announced.  Two more weeks after that, it dropped down to $25 for a sale.  As I played the game, I found out that about 5 of the characters' story mode freezes the game after you beat the last boss and it DOESN'T save the progress.  Despite all this misfortune surrounding this game, I still managed to have a lot of fun playing it.  I spent at least 15-20 hours on the game.  I really liked it when I played it on PS3, but I never really got to sit down and play through all the character stories.  It made it so much easier to do on PS Vita since I was able to play when I needed a break or just wanted to play one round since the PS Vita can be put on sleep mode for a long duration.  I also missed out on a lot of fighting games this year (A LOT) so this game might not have been on the list if I had played BlazBlue CP, Guilty Gear Xrd, or Persona 4 Arena Ultimax.  The game did leave quite an impression on me with its art, music, gameplay, voice acting and dialogue.  One of the character stories had a scene I found very memorable where Weiss asks Heart Aino for advice:

[Weiss]
Let me see...With no relation to either age or personality...a person who has been with you for as long as you can remember...from the absolute beginning...

Someone who has been there through good and bad...through success and failure. You can share everything and understand each other. What should one call such a relationship...?

Comrades, friends, best friends, lovers, spouses...They all seem to be slightly...different...in connotation. So my question is how can I express this relationship...?

[Heart]
Oh, that's easy enough to answer!
We call that "family"!

9) Hyperdimension Neptunia: Producing Perfection (Playstation Vita)

I honestly shocked I played this as much as I did, which amounted to about 23 hours.  I was interested at first because I thought it was a music rhythm game.  It is not a music rhythm game.  It's a mix between a visual novel and a management simulation.  You train one of the four main characters of the series to become idols in order to fight back the growing popularity of idols as they're taking away the faith and powers of the goddesses of the world.  Then you have them perform on stage.  Honestly, the performing parts are extremely boring after a while as all you do is constantly move the camera around and uses stage effects when the crowd is cheering.  The most interesting parts of the game are the dialogues and the choices you make.  The game is filled with humor and personality.  It gave a more intimate look at each individual character from the series and I really liked that.  I could've played a lot more, but it felt like an Easter egg hunt for dialogues I haven't seen yet and the performance parts got really boring.  I enjoyed the game, but to an extent.

8) Ragnarok Odyssey ACE (Playstation Vita)
This was my first PSV game and I actually didn't really like the game at first.  I was actually expecting an open-world experience since it had the name "Ragnarok" and is tied to the Ragnarok Online universe.  Instead, it was a Monster Hunter clone like many other PSP and PS Vita games.  But it turned out to be really fun.  The different builds you can make are interesting, boss battles are challenging, and co-op mode is a lot of fun.  As much as I enjoyed it, I did feel that it was a tad bit grindy when it came to upgrading and the game would get so hard that it required a lot of grinding in order to progress.  I've only finished the main story and still have extra content I could play, but I had put it on hold to move onto other games.

7) Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls (PC)
This expansion gave me what I actually wanted in Diablo 3: an end game that randomly generated levels to run through and fight a boss at the end.  I do wish that there were more bosses for it, but maybe they can upgrade it later.  The new class, modes, and changes to the game revitalized the entire experience and I had a lot of fun playing Diablo 3 once again.  I always have the itch to play some more, but it's so hard when I'm trying to finish up other games.

6) Abyss Odyssey (PC)
I've been craving for a Metroid-vania game for a while and had bought a lot the past 2 years.  None really satisfied me, and Abyss Odyssey didn't exactly fulfill it either; however, the game turned out to be a lot more enjoyable than I could ever imagine.  It mixes Metroid-vania like exploration in randomly generated levels with Super Smash Bros.-like combat.  Almost every enemy you encounter in the game can be captured and used as a character, including the last boss.  The main problems with the game is online multiplayer is iffy with really bad connections and tons of glitches that happen when playing online and the fact that there isn't any real closure to the game as it keep updating with new material little by little with few variances.  I eventually started to run out of things to do in the game, but I'd probably still play it once in a while just because of how much fun it is.  It was one of the few games I pre-order in 2014 which included the amazing soundtrack for the game.

5) Killer is Dead - Nightmare Edition (PC)
I'm really glad I was able to get the game and find the time to play through it, because I had a lot of fun with it.  I've played a lot of hack-n-slashes and one of the hardest things to achieve in creating a good one is making the experience satisfying as Hack-n-slashes tend to feel repetitive when it doesn't feel rewarding.  Killer is Dead gets it right with fluid combat, decent pacing, challenging gameplay, and one heck of a presentation.  Things get weird in the game, but in a good sort of way.  The game is imaginative and thought provoking and I enjoyed it a lot.  I plan on playing through it again on a harder difficulty as soon as I find the time.

4) Azure Striker Gunvolt (Nintendo 3DS)
Besides Metroid-vania games, I've been craving 2D Action-Platformers and none seem to satisfy me.  But this game did.  Azure Striker Gunvolt was developed by the studio that worked on the Mega Man Zero series and so I had to check it out.  The game is significantly easier, yet it was challenging in its own way.  The pacing is extremely fast and definitely designed for those who enjoy speed-running.  The graphics are flashy and dynamic.  The music is not bad, especially the ones with vocals.  The game just felt so fun.  The only complaint I really have is how sad I felt at the end.  It's a rather sad story.

3) Final Fantasy XIII: Lightning Returns (Playstation 3)
Okay Square-Enix, you win.  2014 was quite a tiring year as I got through Final Fantasy XIII, Final Fantasy XIII-2, and Lightning Returns back-to-back (essentially).  But it felt so worth it when I got to the end.  I thought the first game had okay gameplay with a not-bad story, although it was poorly presented to the player.  The 2nd game had an incredibly interesting story, but the same (if not worse) gameplay as the first one as it required a significant amount of grinding to be in the best shape your party could possibly be.  And the 3rd and last one, Lightning Returns, had the best overall gameplay with its unique combat system, but lacked a strong story of its own.  The game was a lot of fun up until I was only left with the "board" quests which mostly consists of farming, gathering, and other menial tasks.  It's an interesting adventure with Lightning trying to save the world, one person at a time; however, it doesn't have a strong overall story of its own.  What it did do was give closure to the entire series and I really liked it.  I liked it so much that I thought about the entire XIII series very differently.  Lightning Returns left a really good impression despite all the boring traversing and menial quests I had to get through.

2) Senran Kagura Shinovi Versus (Playstation Vita)

I already knew before I started playing the game that this was going to be 2nd on my top 10 games list this year judging from how much I enjoyed playing Senran Kagura Burst.  I honestly didn't think they would bring "Senran Kagura Shinovi Versus" over to North America, but it seems like all the games (other than the mobile game) will be brought over of which I couldn't be more happy to hear.  The game is no longer a side-scroll view beat-em-up, but a 3D-Action Brawler (making it even more similar to Dynasty Warriors).  A lot of changes have been made to the mechanics and characters for a much more varied and challenging experience.  One of my complaints on Burst was that it was either too easy or too hard based on damage.  But that has changed in this iteration as the AI is much smarter and a lot tougher to read and counter.  I was a bit skeptical on the inclusion of 10 new characters as I was afraid that it would stretch the attention of each individual character, and it did.  I feel like a lot of the characters could've had a lot more development and be presented better.  Despite that, the flow of the story and gameplay is much smoother and evenly paced compared to Burst as fans complained the reading parts (story) were too long in Burst.  I enjoyed the game immensely and manged to accumulate 53 hours of gameplay before I decided to move on to other games.  I am very excited for Senran Kagura 2 Deep Crimson and Senran Kagura Estival Versus.

1) Super Smash Bros. 3DS/Wii U
I'm not surprised that this became my #1 game of the year.  I was a little worried about the 3DS version as I didn't think the device could handle such a resource intensive game.  I was worried about poor online connection, uncomfortable controls, graphic slow-down and frame skips.  The game does have some of these problems, but they're usually not that bad.  If anything, Super Smash Bros. 3DS went far beyond my expectations and delivered an incredibly entertaining experience for both casual and competitive players.  There's the regular Smash mode, classic mode, All-stars mode, Smash-Run, Stadium mode, challenges to fulfill, trophy collecting, custom character creation, and online play has both casual play and competitive play.  With that, I've only finished Classic mode and Smash Run mode with every character and have been playing online with friends which racks up my gameplay time to 135 hours.  I still have All-Stars mode and Stadium to get through.  Aside from the amount of things you can do, the game itself feels really good.  All the attacks have this element that makes it so satisfying when you land them.  I wouldn't be surprised if we all were still playing this game 5 years later considering how Melee is still being played now after an entire decade.


Honorable Mentions of 2014:
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare (PC)
I couldn't keep away from CoD this time as it introduces jet-packs which adds a lot of vertical movement to the strategy.  Single-player was buggy with too many "walk with me, talk with me" scenes and a predictable story, but it was fun.  Multiplayer is a blast and can get really tough with all the new mechanics.

Titanfall (PC)
I was saddened with the fact that it doesn't have a single-player campaign, but I had fun with the few hours that I've played on it.  I honestly have more fun jumping around than actually shooting.  I hope more First-Person Shooters are this fluid in movement in the future.

Phantom Breaker: Battlegrounds (Playstation Vita)
A tiny little beat-em-up I bought because I thought it looked cute and mildly entertaining.  I've known about the Fighting game for a while now but I've never played it because it's Xbox 360 exclusive.  This little Beat-em-up spinoff has chibi versions of the characters with some simple combat mechanics.  It looks a lot like Scott Pilgrim vs. The World the Videogame, but I think I might like it more than that game.

1001 Spikes (PC)
While this game is infuriatingly difficult and one of the levels took me 3 hours to complete, I enjoyed it a whole lot.  It gets the retro aesthetics right (where many go wrong, especially with the music) and its difficulty is justified and fair.

Magicite (PC)
Magicite is 2014's Risk of Rain.  It was a lot of fun playing this with friends, although we've had a lot of connection issues and lag problems while playing online.  We actually stopped playing because of how poor online play can get.

Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA F 2nd (Playstation 3)
More Miku, more music, more mechanics!  I haven't gotten to play much yet, but I like what I've seen so far.

Astebreed (PC)
I couldn't believe how exciting this game was.  I was tensed up the whole playthrough.  It's a shoot-em-up with dynamically changing perspectives with a lot of emphasis on action.  The game is short, and so I played a 2nd time on a harder difficulty and still really liked it the 2nd time around despite struggling with the extra challenge.

Vanguard Princess (PC)
I've already been playing the Japanese version before this released, but it was very cheap when it launched and translated in English, so I decided to support the game and localization team.  It's a fun and straight-forward 2D Fighter that I can pick up and play.

Ikaruga (PC)
I'm just glad they brought it to PC.  I finally got to play it, and it kicked my butt.  Thankfully there's free play mode so I can continue as many times as I want.

Strider (PC)
Fast-paced and stylish, Strider was a pretty fun game to play through.

Destiny (Playstation 3)
I know Destiny was a big deal in 2014, but I honestly didn't think the whole package was that great.  I played the main story with a friend and thought it was incredibly slow, forgettable, and uninteresting experience.  Even at the very end of the game, we both didn't know what the story was about.  I did try out the Strike missions (end game) and yeah it was a much more interesting experience which is probably what everyone is playing the game for: Endgame.  I only rented the game, but I might get it if it ever releases on PC, is on sale, and I can find at least 1 other friend to play with me.

Freedom Wars (Playstation Vita)
I feel like I should mention this game since I've had a lot of fun playing it.  The problem is that I'm only on Chapter 3 out of 8 which means I'm not even half way through the game yet.  It's another Monster Hunter clone, which got me worried.  But it's been very unique so far.  The atmosphere has a strong sense of immersion as to what kind of world this game takes place in, the combat is very challenging right from the start, using the thorn to hook shot and swing around everywhere is really cool, and the music can get pretty intense.  The beginning of the game is extremely slow, though.  So it does take 3-5 hours before you get into the fun stuff.


Games I got but didn't get through yet:
Castlevania Lords of Shadow 2
Freedom Wars
Dark Souls 2
Fantasy Life
Shovel Knight
Mercenary Kings
Half-Minute Hero: The Second Coming
Conception 2: Children of the Seven Stars
Agarest: Generations of War Zero
Child of Light
Bound by Flame
Drakengard 3
Mugen Souls Z
Transistor
Xblaze Code: Embryo
The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky
Akiba's Trip: Undead & Undressed
Sword Art Online: Hallow Fragment
Super Time Force Ultra
Theatrhythm Final Fantasy: Curtain Call
Gauntlet
Persona 4 Arena Ultimax
Valkyria Chronicles

Games I missed out on entirely (But hope to play one day):
Dragon Age: Inquisition
Assassin's Creed Unity
Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes
Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor
Watch Dogs
Far Cry 4
Wolfenstein: The New Order
Tales from the Borderlands
The Evil Within
Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel
Infamous Second Son
Bayonetta 2
Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare
Guilty Gear Xrd
Assassin's Creed Rogue
The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth
Thief
BlazBlue Chrono Phantasma
Demon Gaze
JoJo's Bizarred Adventure: All Star Battle
Tales of Hearts R
Kirby: Triple Deluxe
Battle Princess of Arcadias
Ultra Street Fighter 4
Tales of Xillia 2
Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth 1
Infamous: First Light
Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
Dead Rising 3 Apocalypse Edition
Fairy Fencer F
D4
Ar Nosurge: Ode to an Unborn Star
Hyrule Warriors
Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth
Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions
Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5 Remix
Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris


That's it for Videogames.  For animé, I just want to mention them briefly.  Rather than ones that released specifically in 2014, I'm just talking about ones I've watched in that year since I don't watch that much.

BlazBlue: Alter Memory - It was dumb, fight scenes were rare and weren't very dynamic, but the music was good.
Chuunibyou demo koi ga Shitai! - It was cute, funny, but it also made me tear up.
Carnival Phantasm - I liked it.  It was fun, humorous, and a good contrast from the 2 main series.
Hyperdimension Neptunia - For a videogame adpatation, I thought it was pretty good.  Cute, funny, and canon to the game, I thought it was a fun watch.
Gochuumon wa Usagi desu ka? (Is the order a Rabbit?) - I absolutely loved this show!  It was so cute and made me feel all warm and happy as I laughed through the series.  I really hope there's a 2nd season for this show.
Joshiraku - I thought it was okay.  I honestly started watching it because I saw the credits theme.  The jokes were often kind of lame, but I laughed whenever there was slapstick involved.
Kiniro Mosaic - I started watching this because of the "Desu desu desu" video I saw on youtube.  It's cute, but the pacing of the show was kind of slow.  I didn't like it nearly as much as "Is the Order a Rabbit?"
Kill la Kill - This was absolutely incredible!  It started off being over-the-top comedy action, but then it led to a cohesive and intriguing story.  It was funny, exciting, and even dramatic at times.  The voice acting, character development, music, animation style, etc. all felt so high in quality.  This show made me cry.
Log Horizon - It was slow, but interesting.  Supposedly, the whole first season was a setup for things to come.  I haven't watched the 2nd season yet.
Love Live - I might feel a bit iffy about the game, but the animé for Love Live was definitely worth watching.  It was light-hearted and really made you want to cheer the characters on as they confront their own struggles and find that they were able to do so together and became good friends.  This show also made me cry.
Sword Art Online - I liked this show, but it was also pretty heavy.  It was quite depressing at some parts and discusses the idea of life in how we interpret and deal with it.  This show got me emotional quite a few times in the first season.  2nd season was sort of a joke and I was told not to watch it.  I still did just so I know what happens.  I even ended up buying the Sword Art Online game for PS Vita near the end of the year when it went on sale.  I haven't played it yet.
Nichijou - This show was great!  It's practically all humor.  I was watching a lot of the clips from youtube and I was watching so many one day that I decided that I might as well just watch the show.  It's definitely one of those shows I couldn't mind watching over and over again.
No Game No Life - This was a very smart show.  That's one way to put it.  The writing for the story, the dialogue, the was a situation builds up are all so smart because I never know what's going to happen next.  There are so many writers that try to not be cliché but end up writing something incomprehensible or groan worthy because of it.  But No Game No Life kept things interesting throughout the show by keeping you wondering "what's going to happen next?" and then it does something you couldn't have expect.  The music was also outstanding and really made the show stand out alongside with its odd theme of brightly, purple/pink hued graphics.  This show also had the best depiction of a game of chess I have ever seen in any media.  I enjoyed this show a lot and hope that it gets a 2nd season.


That's it for now.  Can't wait to see what's in store in 2015.