Tomorrow is the last day of 2015, so it’s time to end the voting for handheld game of the year. This year I made three categories, for the 3DS, for the Vita and one for mobile games. A bit ambitious perhaps, and it didn’t attract as many voters as last year, but those who voted were pretty passionate about it!
3DS game of 2015: 31 votes were given for the handheld system that has the most fans. 23% of people voted for Yo-Kai Watch, which is a good result with the game not even being released in Europe yet. Monster Hunter 4 was second place, with one vote coming in for Monster Hunter X which isn’t even released in the West. In third place there were a lot of games, Zelda Tri Force Heroes and Majora’s Mask, Xenoblade Chronicles 3D, Lord of Magna and Stella Glow. My own choice came down to either Yo-Kai Watch or Story of Seasons, and I decided to go for Story of Seasons. Maybe it was because I’d already played the Japanese Yo-Kai Watch the year before, but Story of Seasons was a much bigger addiction for me.
PS Vita game of 2015: 18 people voted for the Vita game of the year. Although Sony doesn’t give the system much love, the fans are pretty fierce about their love of the handheld. As they should, as it’s an awesome powerful machine! The game in first place was the Otome novel Code: Realize~Guardians of Rebirth, Atelier Ayesha Plus: Alcehmist of Dusk was second and in third place we saw Steins Gate, Persona 4 Dancing all night and Danganronpa Another Episode. For me personally it was a choice between Code: Realize, which was my biggest surprise this year. But in the end I chose the gameplay of Atelier Ayesha!
Mobile game of 2015: Not an easy task, it seems, to pick a mobile game of the year. Only a few people reacted to this poll, which could mean that my readers aren’t really into mobile games. It could also mean that mobile gaming doesn’t stir the kind of passion that console or other handheld gaming does. I did include them purposefully into these polls, as I think that there are good games available on iOS and Android. You might feel that playing a game on a phone is too finicky, or that playing on a tablet is too clunky. But I think that with Nintendo moving onto the mobile market next year, we will see a change in perspective.
Only six votes came in, and half of them for Paradise Bay, Kings answer to HayDay. Other votes were cast for Fallout Shelter and Sorcery3! One was put on Neko Atsume: a game that is so unbelievable cute, but as released in 2014. So although it’s not much of a poll, I guess Paradise Bay has to win.
So now for the Best Handheld Game of 2015, which I can only choose based on my own personal preference and the games I chose in each category.
For me Atelier Ayesha Plus is the best Handheld Game of 2015!
As an Atelier fan I am pleased with the result. i look forward to trying the titles mentioned in the 3DS section once they come to Europe.
It will surely be another good year of 3DS gaming!
Since you enjoyed Atelier Ayesha so much, can I ask you something? Does this game lag too much? Enough to hamper your enjoyment of it? I’m planning on buying the game anyways once it’s on sale (since I want to own all Vita Atelier games), but I’ve heard some comments on youtube saying the game lags too much, one even calling its framerate “demonic”. However, people also say the same thing about the Warriors series on the Vita, but I’ve enjoyed Warriors Orochi 3 with no problems, so I don’t know who to trust. Some people seem obsessed getting the highest framerate even if the game only rarely lags or plays fine at a lower one. So what is you opinion on that when it comes to this game?
I’m right there with you in wanting to own all Atelier games. I know have Rorona, Ayesha and Totori and Mereru downloaded, but still untouched.
As for the lagging: the only thing that’s a bit annoying is the long load times when a cutscene is coming up. When moving from one screen to the next, I always know when there’s a cutscene next, because it takes slightly longer then normal loading times. But I have hardly had broken up images while playing the game. When Ayesha runs across the screen, it’s fluid enough. When you can buy the game reduced, I’d say go for it.
I’ll do a review shortly, and I can tell you I like it even more then Rorona. And that was a wonderful experience already!
Glad to know that the terrible comments were mostly good old internet exaggerations. Longer load times before a cutscene is fairly normal and unobtrusive. I’ll go back to patiently waiting for the game to go on sale. I already have Rorona, Totori and Meruru on the vita, plus their ps3 versions and the original Rorona, but only beat the original Rorona once and half of Totori before my first PS3 went out. But they’re on my backlog for this year, so I’ll enjoy Rorona after I finish Moco Moco Friends.
I eagerly await your review then, along with the release of Escha and Logy plus. Still deciding if I should get that one on its first month of release to get the extra DLC costumes or not.
I think I’ll wait to get Escha too, I have such a huge backlog! Waiting for Atelier games to go on sale seems to work fairly well!