5 Great Games from 2011 You (Probably) Haven’t Played

It happens every year. Beyond Good and Evil. Rez. Psychonauts. Tomba. Suikoden II. Ico. Great games get overshadowed by games with more hype or bigger advertising budgets, and years later gamers mourn their lack of success (or sequels) and end up paying out the ass on eBay for a copy of most of these games.

[potedude]

The article is correct, I haven't played any of those.

But some do look good. Child of Eden looks sweet as does Shadows of the Damned.

Of course it all comes down to a question of time...

[SuperNerd]

Same here . Hell I havent even heard of some of these games.

[LoaMcLoa]

I've played Shadows of the Damned, Child of Eden and Binding of Isaac :) Shadows of the Damned is one of my favorite games of the year!

[Venoxn4g]

mine too! Shadows of the damned FTW! everyone has to try it, who loves shooting and interesting story and demons :)

[Stealth2k]

I would argue theres better jrpgs on consoles than wrpgs. Because the wrpgs that are on the consoles. Play better on the PC. Maybe the console versions inferior.

Great console rpgs that came out this year.

Ninokuni, tales of X, disgaea 4, xenoblade, and on the western front you have skyrim. Thats it. dragon age 2 bombed, risen 2 bombed. And thats basically beem all she wrote

[m-s-8-2]

Risen 2 hasnt even come out yet.

[humbleopinion]

Tales of Xillia didn't come out in the west and doesn't even have any western reviews. Same goes for Ni no kuni (unless you're talking about the DS version which already came out in 2010).
So you're left with Xenoblade (which is a Wii exclusive) and disgaea 4 (which is a PS3 exclusive). You need to have two specific consoles to play these two games. Oh, and you also have White Knight Chronicles II on the PS3 - which is a proper contender for the term "bombed". You also have the awesome Demon Souls but it's not a proper JRPG, and actually feels more like a western Action RPG.

On the western front on the other hand You have Skyrim which is easily GOTY, You have Dragon Age 2 which only "bombed" compared to DAO but is still leaps and bounds above Disgaea, you have the ports of Torchlight on the Xbox and Mass Effect on the PS3, you have Dungeon Siege III and Two Worlds 2 (ok, these two actually did bomb) and for the XBLA you also have Bastion. And that's without including hybrid games like Deus Ex.

Bottom line? I think WRPG games fare better on the consoles this year.

[VampiricDragon]

1) Whether a game came out in the US is beyond irrelevant. There were still alot of reviews for it.

Demon souls is a proper jrpg. Learn what it means.

dragon age 2 bombed compared to everything.

http://www.gamerankings.com...

disgaea 82.76

http://www.gamerankings.com...
Draogn age 2 77.07%

Dungeon siege 2 also bombed

http://www.gamerankings.com...

71 percent

Bation is an xbla game. Doesnt count, because if it does then I can put up every psp game on psn.

So yeah bottom line.

Your dellusional. No offense.

hmmm whats better?

Console jrpgs had the far more impressive year. And when you include handhelds it makes wrpgs look like they are failing

[humbleopinion]

@VampiricDragon
I just love it how people use partial information to support their biased opinion...

Why oh why did you compare the Dragon Age 2 Xbox 360 version with the disgaea PS3 version which had far less reviews? At least compare apples to apples...
http://www.gamerankings.com...
Not to mention that on Metacritic DA scores 82 VS Disgaea 81:
http://www.metacritic.com/g...
http://www.metacritic.com/g...
So based on this 1 hugh point difference, do you now agree that disgaea "bombed compared to everything"?!
Is anyone actually fanboyish enough to make such claims even based on a 5 points difference? It's plain easy to see that with such a small difference in average some sites scored one game higher and some scored the other. Who's being delusional here?

Also, I don't care if Bastion is an XBLA game or not - Fact is it's available for console and better than most of the stuff out there. You can also list every psp game on psn - assuming that it did come out in 2011 and is even worth mentioning. Bastion was just one example however because the game is so exceptional and wise widely praised. There are lots more.

Demon souls is not a JRPG, It's an action RPG. It has nothing to do with the tropes of the JRPG genre. I think you have to learn the terms yourself, because without even understanding the basics there's no point for you to burge in.
It actually makes more sense to count Deus Ex as a Western RPG then it does to count Demon Souls as a JRPG, so even if you do misguidedly count it, you can add another games to the Western list as well.

So all in all: nope. No matter if you played on the PS3 or the X360 or both - Western RPGs trumped JRPGs this year, and Skyrim by itself pretty much trumped all. I wasn't talking about handhelds of course, just like I wasn't talking about PC games - we're talking home consoles here.
The only poor saps for which JRPGs fared better this year are the people who only own a Wii. But that's simply because this system is pretty much abandoned this year (there were like what? 5 proper games for it in the whole of 2011?) and WRPG were never even developed for it in the first place.

[Hicken]

Your opinion is anything BUT humble, but that's neither here nor there.

As Dragon states, whether the game is available for you to play is irrelevant. This goes for both console exclusivity AND regional release.

Screw Metacritic. I'm done using it as a grade. Here's the truth about the games mentioned:

Ni no Kuni has released to rave reviews. So has Tales. And Xenoblade. Disgaea 4 continues that series' quality strategy-based gameplay. WKCII is as enjoyable as the first, which garnered a pretty tight niche-fanbase; that means it kinda doesn't qualify as having "bombed." There's also been Ar Tonelico III (also known as Qoga, and even more niche than WKCII) did well enough. And don't forget about Atelier Totori.

On the Western front, the frontrunner is Skyrim. DA2 didn't quite bomb, but it WAS a letdown. Same with the Dungeon Siege and Two Worlds sequels. Mass Effect 2 did well, and is likely third in line, behind Dark Souls (not Demon's Souls). I admit I know nothing about Torchlight, so I can't comment on it, but it's ironic that you objected to Disgaea and Xenoblade while you yourself promote Torchlight. Deus Ex can be counted, and is a great title, but what other hybrids would you cite?

As for Bastion, let's be real: if you're going to add that, then you do, indeed, have to include the plethora of PSP games available to play through PSN. And entirely too many of them are, at the least, good, if not great. If you want to say that Bastion is a game superior to any one of them, then their numbers can surpass Bstion's quality.

WRPGs did worse than JRPGs, and had fewer games released, on consoles. The standouts are as mentioned above. And, honestly, Skyrim seems to be rated a little too highly, given that there are real and truly gamebreaking flaws within it.

[Pikajew]

I want to play Shadow of the Damned and I played Binding of Isaac

[Venoxn4g]

so buy it! it's cheap now..

[Pikajew]

I dont have s PS3 of Xbox. All I have is a gaming PC and a Wii.

[Venoxn4g]

one day, one day, you'll play it :) consoles are getting cheaper and cheaper.. try Child of eden someday too..

[L6RD7BLU3]

"Shadows of the Damned" lol I have this game but, I havent got around to popping it in yet.