Of the upcoming (non-indie) retail level games, still to be released, that I'll be getting this year:
1. Fantasy Life
2. Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright
3. Super Smash Bros. 4
4. Harvest Moon 3
5. Theaterhythm: Curtain Call
6. Hyrule Warriors
7. Civilization: Beyond Earth
8. Persona Q
9. Beyonetta 1 & 2 collection
10. Maybe Pokemon - depends.
Fantasy Life is my most anticipated simply because it's a combination of all three games I played longer than 100 hours (barring replays) - Dragon Quest 9, Rune Factory, and Animal Crossing. The game was developed by Level 5 - and it is like an action RPG spiritual successor to Dragon Quest 9. As a result, it is a game that has similar very extensive co-op play modes - and there is a character collection mode of sorts with Streetpass. Like Dragon Quest, there are a bunch of classes to switch between and develop, but only 4 of the 12 are combat centric.
Due to the co-op play and extensive amount of content, DQ9 ended up lasting me about 300 hours, far far longer than any other game I have ever played without replays - I am fairly sure my combined replays of games like Xenogears, Earthbound FF6, FF8, Chrono Triggers probably exceed the 300 hour mark, Xenogears is about 50-70 hours and I have played it 5-6 times over the past 16 years.
The Rune Factory elements are the large number of things to do on the side that progress the character and side stories, relationships and such. Animal Crossing elements are apparent in the behaviour of certain elements, such as trees and that you can shake to get down fruit and other hidden items - Link to the Past did something similar too.
In other words, Fantasy Life is my most anticipated game of the past few years.
Harvest Moon 3D deserves a bit of explanation due to the frequent releases the past few years. While this is the third Harvest Moon game being released on the 3DS in the main franchise - this one is unique - actually the first two are very unique from each other as well. This Harvest Moon is heavily Minecraft inspired. It is a lot more open than past Harvest Moon games - the last main series game allowed town customization, but this one really takes it to a new level.
Pokemon is a maybe. My problem with getting a new game is that it seems that the sequels do not change up much from the previous game, but rather just add, update, and expand features. Usually the franchises I like which have similar themes - Mario, Zelda, Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest - change things up significantly in their framework an such - Pokemon is more of an incremental update to the last game, kind of like an EA, Activision, or Take 2 game. So the last two games I couldn't get into like the first one (Black & White), and I doubt I'll get into this one. Although this is definitely going to be a big release that many people will be interested in.
Theatrythm 2 - While I just complained about incremental upgrades, this one is different, and it is because I am a huge fan of the gameplay in the first game, and I wanted more content to play and master. This game features way more
Characters than the last one, and includes spinoff games, like FFT. From FF7 and 8 alone - Squall, Seifer, Rinoa, Laguna, Cloud, Barrett, Tifa, Aeris, and Sephiroth. In addition, the number of music tracks from FF games has expanded to 221 confirmed songs (up from 70). 12 songs from FF8 alone! The first game was a lot of fun, so I am really looking forward to this one too.
I think everything else on my list is fairly self-explanatory. Bayonetta 2 may need a bit of explanation, it was expanded to become Bayonetta 2 + a remaster of Bayonetta 1.
Last edited by Julius Seeker on Mon Aug 18, 2014 7:28 am, edited 1 time in total.
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