VideoGamer: "Lands a little short of brilliance."
Gamemoir's Ana likes to de-stress with LUFTRAUSERS because it makes her feel clever.
Smaller games deserve your attention just as much as the big hitters do.
Hohokum appears to be (for me) the only glaring omission. Saying that, 101. A wonderful Wii U title which - while flawed - did a hell of lot more right and wrong. Ironic that the self-proclaimed 'hardcore' ask for Nintendo to release new IP's, then when they do, yes, you guessed it, they continue to be the same old chav fodder.
I dont have a Wii U so have I couldnt include Wonderful 101, plus that was released in 2013 (at least in the US). I played Hohokum but I didnt have enough drive to finish it, and therefore left it off the list. But hey if you liked this list, please continue to follow us at Gamemoir.com.
2014 wasn't Vita's greatest year with the slowdown of Triple-A releases and the lack of units sold. It did provide with a set of great games though! That's what Night Tripper's will cover today when we look at the best of the best for Vita in 2014. Once again if you have any suggestions or comments leave them below and I'll surely take a look! Thank you everyone and have a wonderful day! :)
DanganRonpa and Freedom Wars are already modern classics. Nice list ;)
Looking forward to play Persona 4: Dancing All Night on the Vita this year.
Thank you very much! I totally agree! Persona 4: Golden is my absolute favorite game on vita but I don't know how to feel about Persona 4: Dance All Night, I guess I was really hoping for a vita centric Persona game or a port of Persona 5 to Vita whenever it comes out. I have yet to play Persona Q Shadow of the Labyrinth on the 3DS so I'll get to that when I have the chance! Thanks again for your comment and have a nice day! :)
I also need to play Persona Q and I still haven`t bought Persona 4 Arena Ultimax. Hopefully P5 will also be released this year. 2015 is shaping up to an excellent gaming year, have a nice day too ;))
Replies(1)This is a terrible list. I agree with Final Fantasy X, Minecraft, and Child of Light. The rest are good games, but are rather average and nothing spectacular. Borderlands 2 and some of the other HD collections were the only real highlights for Vita for 2014. I hope 2015 is better than 2014. When one struggles to find top 10 for the year, that is not a good sign.
It's true that 2014 wasn't Vita's finest year, but, these were the games I had the most fun with on Vita this year. I love Borderlands on console, however, the vita version was very un-optimized. The game was buggy and the frame-rate was sub 30 nearly the entire way through. While far more ambitious than most of these titles, I don't believe a broken game should make it into the top 10 list. There weren't a lot of stand out titles for Vita, but quite a few indie gems like Rogue Legacy. Games like Velocity 2X and Danganropa are definitely worth a play-through if you are a Vita owner. I hope 2015 is better as well! Have a nice day sir :)!
You have good comments on Borderlands 2, but they only prove my point that we (Vita owners) have to struggle to find a top 10 list for 2014. That is not good. I have owned many handhelds, and Vita by far is my favorite. We need more games in 2015, ones of a higher quality caliber.
I've been playing the hell out of Borderlands 2 on Vita and actually prefer it over the PS3 version. And it's less buggy too. Have you actually played it or are you basing it off reviews from critics who played it before the patch?
Vita had a great 2014, but I don't agree with this list. The Ratchet and Clank Collection was my favorite game in 2014 on any console (and I have them all). It was a blast to replay Up Your Arsenal, my all time favorite game. After Ratchet I would have to go with Borderlands 2 and the Sly Cooper Collection. Amazing that none of those 3 games made this top ten list. Velocity 2X was also good.
Tales of Hearts R should be on the list, it is a fantastic Vita title for 2014.
"The controls are responsive, but the ship behaviour makes for a loose, wild game with little of the precision typical of arcade shooters."
I'd argue it allows for much more precision, due to it having multiple fair and well-programmed variables as opposed to a scrolling or flat top-down shooter. Gravity affects everything in that game, and melee is a valid option. It throws you off-kilter. It's wild, but getting a hold of that wild-ness is where the precision starts.
"All too unpredictably the skies fall silent, making combo maintenance inconsistent, introducing a shade too much luck for serious score chasing."
Luck isn't really what's going on in Luftrausers. The combination of enemies is procedurally-generated based on how you're doing, what you've killed. If the skies don't have much for enemies, you'd better believe you have to down a boat or an Ace pretty quickly to keep that combo going. It's another more difficult (and almost frustrating, I'll give you that!) way to keep you on your toes and use the whole screen. It also goes into what you select for your parts on a run.
Now, it doesn't make that stuff clear. I get that, and I wish somewhere they had those mechanics documented in some squirreled-away corner in-game, but that also would compromise the very out-of-the-way UI.