Ah, the bias in this poll. Of course GBAtemp will primarily vote either Pokemon or new Zelda.
For Pokemon, nobody seems to actually care how much changes from game to game, or how good the changes actually are. Having played through Y, it was really okay. It catered a lot to my nostalgia through using plenty of Gen I stuff, but there was too much. It feels like, at this point, there are too many Pokemon to create a balance of types, as well as good and bad Pokemon from various generations. The map was pretty meh as well. It was really cool for the first few towns, but once the novelty wore off, I realized I was still on a linear path playing the same story for the umpteenth time. In the end, X and Y are a step in a good direction, but there's still a lot of polish needed before they release their second round of games on the 3DS in a few years, as they inevitably will. Votes for this just come from blind loyalty, and likely reasoning such as half the people only owning a 3DS to play Pokemon to begin with.
For LoZ, it's really nothing special, at all. Once again, it's a feast on nostalgia by appealing to an older style in an older world. In terms of game play or difficulty, it doesn't really do anything new. With the direction Zelda has gone, the games practically need the large, 3D worlds anymore to be truly grabbing. If I want a Zelda game in the older style, I'll play some of the genuinely great Zelda games from the past. I would have much rather seen an MM remake. Regardless, I don't feel this game is worth $40, much less GotY. I imagine most of the votes come from the fact that it's the most recent gaming experience on the 3DS for many forum goers, and they're still blinded by the recent enjoyment of that to actually put into perspective older titles. Realistically, I feel a good GotY voting system would include from November of the previous year through October of the current year, in order to make sure decisions are based more on the collective memory of the experiences and not the most exciting game you had played recently (which would also exclude Bravely Default, also falling into this trap currently for Europeans and Australians). I think that's the statistics in me speaking though, identifying all of the bias contained within this type of polling, as well as this specific poll.
For some of the others:
AC: NL was definitely okay. For Animal Crossing, it was enjoyable, and easily the most improved in a really good way since the original Gamecube release (mind you, I didn't play the Wii game). The portability combined with the many features, old, new, and improved, makes for a really good experience. The problem remains though that, for someone like me, the set progression of day to day play is still hard to keep myself going with, and playing with the date kills the experience too. It's a good game, and I can see why somebody would like it. It's a game I probably shouldn't have jumped on buying so quickly though.
Phoenix Wright: I don't have to play this to know that it's pretty much a Phoenix Wright game (oh selective spending is a cruel mistress). These games are great fun, but they all suffer from the fact that they're only really good for their genre. In the long run, they lack replayability (you've already solved all of the mysteries), and they won't appeal all of the time like a good action game might (for example). You have to be in the mood for storytelling, and even though I love Phoenix Wright games, there are definitely times when I'm just not in the mood to play a game that's telling the story as priorities one, two, three, and four. The restrictive nature of the genre, at least in my mind, doesn't really make it GotY material.
MH3U: Eh. It's Monster Hunter. It's a grind fest. You either love it or you get bored of it ridiculously easily. I fall into the latter and ended up selling the game, making back about 75% of what I spent on it. It just isn't a kind of game that absolutely anybody could find themselves enjoying, especially considering the fact that this isn't really a new game in terms of story or content.
The rest of the games, except for one, I haven't played, but I know are unlikely candidates for GotY. Mario & Luigi is probably the only game that could sway my opinion, but having not played it yet, I can't say. Thus, I give the vote to Fire Emblem: Awakening.
FE: A got me into a type of game play I never liked before. Ever. FFT: A2 was the last game that almost got me into grid based combat, and that was years ago. The story is solid, there's lots of strategy, options to increase or decrease difficulty depending on your skill and desire for challenge, and plenty of DLC, none of which is too expensive, especially if you buy it piecemeal. It's the first 3DS game to implement DLC well that I've seen, marking it as a pretty good show for what other games could actually do in terms of post-development content on the 3DS. Going back to the game play style, the options to keep it moving quickly, as well as the strategy involved, makes for a fun experience. Keeping perma-death on helps to keep you caring about every teammate, as the loss of one could mean the loss of other characters later on. At the same time, there's accessibility granted by giving the ability to have a no perma-death difficulty, as well as the ability to grind for levels, both firsts in the series that I'm aware of. I will admit, base difficulty isn't too difficult. Each mission does require a retry or two, generally, while a map is figured out, but that's mostly my inexperience with the battle system speaking. For a skilled player though, there is a pretty crushing difficulty that will test your patience and skills. I forget how you unlock it though. In the end, I consider it to be the best on the 3DS from this year. It outshines every other release in every way, and the only way you couldn't understand that is if you haven't played it.
For Pokemon, nobody seems to actually care how much changes from game to game, or how good the changes actually are. Having played through Y, it was really okay. It catered a lot to my nostalgia through using plenty of Gen I stuff, but there was too much. It feels like, at this point, there are too many Pokemon to create a balance of types, as well as good and bad Pokemon from various generations. The map was pretty meh as well. It was really cool for the first few towns, but once the novelty wore off, I realized I was still on a linear path playing the same story for the umpteenth time. In the end, X and Y are a step in a good direction, but there's still a lot of polish needed before they release their second round of games on the 3DS in a few years, as they inevitably will. Votes for this just come from blind loyalty, and likely reasoning such as half the people only owning a 3DS to play Pokemon to begin with.
For LoZ, it's really nothing special, at all. Once again, it's a feast on nostalgia by appealing to an older style in an older world. In terms of game play or difficulty, it doesn't really do anything new. With the direction Zelda has gone, the games practically need the large, 3D worlds anymore to be truly grabbing. If I want a Zelda game in the older style, I'll play some of the genuinely great Zelda games from the past. I would have much rather seen an MM remake. Regardless, I don't feel this game is worth $40, much less GotY. I imagine most of the votes come from the fact that it's the most recent gaming experience on the 3DS for many forum goers, and they're still blinded by the recent enjoyment of that to actually put into perspective older titles. Realistically, I feel a good GotY voting system would include from November of the previous year through October of the current year, in order to make sure decisions are based more on the collective memory of the experiences and not the most exciting game you had played recently (which would also exclude Bravely Default, also falling into this trap currently for Europeans and Australians). I think that's the statistics in me speaking though, identifying all of the bias contained within this type of polling, as well as this specific poll.
For some of the others:
AC: NL was definitely okay. For Animal Crossing, it was enjoyable, and easily the most improved in a really good way since the original Gamecube release (mind you, I didn't play the Wii game). The portability combined with the many features, old, new, and improved, makes for a really good experience. The problem remains though that, for someone like me, the set progression of day to day play is still hard to keep myself going with, and playing with the date kills the experience too. It's a good game, and I can see why somebody would like it. It's a game I probably shouldn't have jumped on buying so quickly though.
Phoenix Wright: I don't have to play this to know that it's pretty much a Phoenix Wright game (oh selective spending is a cruel mistress). These games are great fun, but they all suffer from the fact that they're only really good for their genre. In the long run, they lack replayability (you've already solved all of the mysteries), and they won't appeal all of the time like a good action game might (for example). You have to be in the mood for storytelling, and even though I love Phoenix Wright games, there are definitely times when I'm just not in the mood to play a game that's telling the story as priorities one, two, three, and four. The restrictive nature of the genre, at least in my mind, doesn't really make it GotY material.
MH3U: Eh. It's Monster Hunter. It's a grind fest. You either love it or you get bored of it ridiculously easily. I fall into the latter and ended up selling the game, making back about 75% of what I spent on it. It just isn't a kind of game that absolutely anybody could find themselves enjoying, especially considering the fact that this isn't really a new game in terms of story or content.
The rest of the games, except for one, I haven't played, but I know are unlikely candidates for GotY. Mario & Luigi is probably the only game that could sway my opinion, but having not played it yet, I can't say. Thus, I give the vote to Fire Emblem: Awakening.
FE: A got me into a type of game play I never liked before. Ever. FFT: A2 was the last game that almost got me into grid based combat, and that was years ago. The story is solid, there's lots of strategy, options to increase or decrease difficulty depending on your skill and desire for challenge, and plenty of DLC, none of which is too expensive, especially if you buy it piecemeal. It's the first 3DS game to implement DLC well that I've seen, marking it as a pretty good show for what other games could actually do in terms of post-development content on the 3DS. Going back to the game play style, the options to keep it moving quickly, as well as the strategy involved, makes for a fun experience. Keeping perma-death on helps to keep you caring about every teammate, as the loss of one could mean the loss of other characters later on. At the same time, there's accessibility granted by giving the ability to have a no perma-death difficulty, as well as the ability to grind for levels, both firsts in the series that I'm aware of. I will admit, base difficulty isn't too difficult. Each mission does require a retry or two, generally, while a map is figured out, but that's mostly my inexperience with the battle system speaking. For a skilled player though, there is a pretty crushing difficulty that will test your patience and skills. I forget how you unlock it though. In the end, I consider it to be the best on the 3DS from this year. It outshines every other release in every way, and the only way you couldn't understand that is if you haven't played it.
