During 2014, my game collection saw its smallest growth in 17 years, but I ended up spending more in total than I had in the last 4 years. How was this possible?
That’s the answer: I went into 2014 without a Vita (PSV), and will leave the year with a Vita and 20 games for it. This isn’t to say I adore the system (it has many flaws…), but it does have many of the sorts of games I like to play and since I believe the system is dead, I rushed to buy them all this year before they became difficult to find.
In total I bought 46 games in 2014 and spend a total of $1613.90. That’s an average cost of $35, which is a big increase over previous years. This is because I bought zero iOS games this year, and instead concentrated on 3DS and PSV software.
Here’s the charts:
That’s the breakdown of units sold per system, with the Vita at 20 and the DS at 1. Despite being owned for longer than the Vita, at only 5 games purchased the Wii U isn’t seeing much use…
That’s the dollars spend breakdown, and you can see the Vita ate the lion’s share of my spending. The tiny sliver for the DS is because the only game I bought cost $5 🙂
As for the games themselves, and my playing habits, looking back on 2014 I would have to say it was a mixed bag. The entire first half of the year (and into summer) was a bit of a drought, with me not playing much at all. In particularly I barely ever turned on the consoles (PS3 and Wii U) during those days.
But then something clicked after my summer vacations and I found myself become re-interested in gaming as the year moved into the fall. In particularly I very much enjoyed some Vita games like Toukiden and Demon Gaze and by mid fall the 3DS had me entirely under it’s spell with two masterpieces (see below).
BeforeI get to my favourites, two games deserve a special mention…
The first is Super Smash Bros for 3DS. This year Nintendo released Smash Bros on both 3DS and Wii U. I purchased the 3DS version, and will eventually get the Wii U version as well. The 3DS version however was, in my opinion, a bit of a square peg in a round hole. While Nintendo did an admirable job of stuffing a massive amount of content in, the game suffered from poor controls and a design not ideal for such a small screen and I put it aside quickly, with the intent of saving myself for the Wii U version.
The other game is Puzzle & Dragons, last year’s game of the year winner. Yes I’m still playing it (>580 days played now), yes I’m still loving it and yes I still think you should play it too. But I won’t include it in favourite lists this year since it disqualifies having won last year!
So my favourite games of 2014, in reverse order:
3) Hyrule Warriors (Wii U)
This one came out of nowhere! Koei stuffed Zelda into the Dynasty Warriors engine and produced a game almost better than both! If you like hack-and-slash games then this one is for you, and the astonishing amount of content could take hundreds upon hundreds of hours to beat. Bravo Nintendo!
2) Theatrhythym Final Fantasy: Curtain Call (3DS)
Curtain Call took everything that was good about the first game, multiplied by ten, and produced maybe the best sequel ever. I played this like a demon, leveling every character to maximum (sometimes more), SSS ranking every song and collecting all the cards. This is a music game ever that can stand along side Ouenden, and took over my life for a month or so earlier this year. While I was playing this I would have said it was a no-brainer for game of the year, but then something else came out…
1) Fantasy Life (3DS)
Level 5 have created an action RPG with near perfect controls, beautiful graphics, and vast amounts of stuff to see and do. In addition to the usual systems (fighting monsters, casting spells, talking to NPCs etc) the game includes twelve classes (from Paladin to Cook) and you can go fishing, brew potions, make (hundreds and hundreds) of items, armor and weapons and recruit followers. It starts off easy and a little confined, but after a dozen or so hours of play you realize how mind-bogglingly big it is and how much time you’d need to max everything. Which I did. Including all the expansion ($9 on the 3DS store) content! All told I played for about 150 hours before putting it aside, but I suspect one day I’ll return just to finish off the (very difficult!) ‘Master Quests’. This isn’t just the best game I played this year – this is one of the best games I have ever played. Highly recommended.
As I always do I’ll end with a question: how was your year in games? What were your favourites in 2014?