Hello and welcome to the 1st Annual Mage Academy Awards!
Sincerest credit goes to the Purple Prose Mage (aka Alex Sigsworth) for proposing the idea for these awards. It’s been so much fun, I look forward to hosting this every year! Not only does this event help TWRM commemorate reaching our 500th post but it also helps us celebrate the video games which made 2017 exceptional.
Here’s how this event is going to work. Unlike reader’s choice awards, these are writer’s choice awards where the nominees were selected and voted on by our team of excellent mages and our awesome patrons, the Warriors of Light. I invite you to check out the nominees in the twenty-nine categories below. We will announce the winners in a special post soon!
2017 was a solid year for gaming. Rife with controversies and nontroversies, yes, but the games themselves were rich and varied with strong showings from the big names and newcomers, AAA’s and indies and everything in between, and some really great exclusives. These awards are just one small way in which we can show our appreciation for all the great games that developers and publishers offered this year.
Do let us know what your choices are for these nominees in the comments, and enjoy!
I had that same thought, too! Nintendo has had a strong year and I know how my own personal list of nominees and victors would’ve played out, so I’m pleased to put together a list with a group of people submitting nominees. As for how it ultimately turned out anyway lol well….
Stormblood: Been playing FF14 now for 5 years and Stormblood was a really good expansion. The storyline was pretty gripping. Zenos is a punk, not on par with Kefka, but they tried. You still love to hate him. Battle mechanics vs. typical trash is common MMO stuff but the mechanics in boss battles is out of this world! I mean, you play through after watching a video or something and you come away thinking “How did someone figure that out?”. Great musical score and incredible armor/weapons design.
Cuphead: Okay, I don’t buy a lot of games at full price, not even when they are 20$. I also don’t look forward to a lot of games that don’t have Final Fantasy in the title, but I knew I wanted Cuphead day 1, and I made sure I got it. It has been a riot to play with my son and I cannot remember the last time a game has been so challenging yet so simple. The art is beautiful, the score is fantastic, controls tight and the whole story is delightful and an instant throwback to when I was younger. Hats off to the developers!
Now, I did play FF15 and I thought it was a phenomenal game in a number of ways and I may revisit it with another review now that I have gotten so much time into it (though I stopped playing because I don’t like fighting for the PS4). I thought Noct was a good character and one most men could identify with, since most of us go through that period of time where our dads are idiots (to us, at least) and we are saddled with responsibility we don’t really want to take, but eventually we have to grow up. The rest of the party was extremely well done all the way around from design to execution, with each member having such a unique and enjoyable personality. Sure gameplay was simplified overall, but I attribute it to FF115 essentially being the modern day Mystic Quest, with about 10 million coats of polish on it.
Beyond that I don’t think I have played any of the other games, but I see a few on the list that caught my eye in the past couple of days, before this article even. I will need to check them out.
Stormblood I wish I played but there’s a lot of bad blood between me and online games hahaha! Not this particular game’s fault and it looks like something I’d enjoy. Maybe someday.
FFXV, my thoughts are thoroughly documented on it and I really didn’t like a lot of that game, so not only am I not surprised it wasn’t nominated a lot on this list the mages put together but I haven’t seen it pop up too much in other games awards out there. I just thought the story and characters were really thin and the open world gameplay structure was too tedious. I still played it for over 100 hours but I do like the comparison to Mystic Quest. I actually haven’t thought of that before but yes, a Final Fantasy like XV where you can just hold down circle to survive nearly the entire game is the Mystic Quest of our times.
And thirdly, Cuphead. I have never wanted to play a Microsoft exclusive so badly. I love ragtime music, for instance, and early 1900’s animation fascinates me. I felt like this game was made for me… on the wrong platform. 😀
I meant to write an article on the FF15/MQ comparison, but essentially that what I got out of it after a few dozen hours of gameplay. Its a tech demo for the modern ages wrapped in an FF game. Its mean to be easy (easier) to get people hooked on future FF games and for that I think it works pretty well. Obviously they are going to be using the Luminous engine for some time, as it seems they are using it for the FF7 re-imagining (don’t call it a remake!). It seems like an extremely powerful engine and I have no doubt that with a few tweaks to add different gameplay elements it will carry SE far in terms of graphical output.
I feel you. I think that I would’ve enjoyed FFXV more had I played it with that mindset, or if it wasn’t a Final Fantasy game. The engine itself is fine and I’m glad to hear that. I think that’s the impressive aspect of the game.
Nice! Yeah I’d really love to play that game but monthly fees and online gameplay structure keep it at bay for me. I burned myself out on some of those things. Still.. whenever I see some awesome cameo in it…
First things first: please start calling these The Magy’s as soon as possible!
I’ve actually played very few of these, but it’s nice to see Sonic Mania and Nier Automata on there so much. I’d include Ruiner in the soundtrack category as it’s an absolutely perfect fit that demands earphones.
I was surprised at the lack of Injustice 2 in the fighting category. I felt it was a pretty good package in spite of the loot box nonsense.
Haha I let out a chuckle at “The Magy’s”! This is such a fun idea. There are a lot of titles here I actually haven’t played as well, since these were all voted on by the mage committee. I think that allowed us a much wider net rather than if I’d put this all together myself.
Injustice 2! So that is surprising nobody nominated it. I haven’t played it myself but I imagine someone has in our ranks.
Oooh intrigued!!! Onwards!!!!
Sadly I own a number of the worse game nominations.
As do I. Two of them in particular are my definite worst of 2017. What would be your own personal pick for worst game of the year?
My first thought was, “How many times are Zelda and Mario NOT going to win??”, so it was nice to see a wider range than what I was expecting.
I had that same thought, too! Nintendo has had a strong year and I know how my own personal list of nominees and victors would’ve played out, so I’m pleased to put together a list with a group of people submitting nominees. As for how it ultimately turned out anyway lol well….
I can comment on two of these games specifically.
Stormblood: Been playing FF14 now for 5 years and Stormblood was a really good expansion. The storyline was pretty gripping. Zenos is a punk, not on par with Kefka, but they tried. You still love to hate him. Battle mechanics vs. typical trash is common MMO stuff but the mechanics in boss battles is out of this world! I mean, you play through after watching a video or something and you come away thinking “How did someone figure that out?”. Great musical score and incredible armor/weapons design.
Cuphead: Okay, I don’t buy a lot of games at full price, not even when they are 20$. I also don’t look forward to a lot of games that don’t have Final Fantasy in the title, but I knew I wanted Cuphead day 1, and I made sure I got it. It has been a riot to play with my son and I cannot remember the last time a game has been so challenging yet so simple. The art is beautiful, the score is fantastic, controls tight and the whole story is delightful and an instant throwback to when I was younger. Hats off to the developers!
Now, I did play FF15 and I thought it was a phenomenal game in a number of ways and I may revisit it with another review now that I have gotten so much time into it (though I stopped playing because I don’t like fighting for the PS4). I thought Noct was a good character and one most men could identify with, since most of us go through that period of time where our dads are idiots (to us, at least) and we are saddled with responsibility we don’t really want to take, but eventually we have to grow up. The rest of the party was extremely well done all the way around from design to execution, with each member having such a unique and enjoyable personality. Sure gameplay was simplified overall, but I attribute it to FF115 essentially being the modern day Mystic Quest, with about 10 million coats of polish on it.
Beyond that I don’t think I have played any of the other games, but I see a few on the list that caught my eye in the past couple of days, before this article even. I will need to check them out.
Stormblood I wish I played but there’s a lot of bad blood between me and online games hahaha! Not this particular game’s fault and it looks like something I’d enjoy. Maybe someday.
FFXV, my thoughts are thoroughly documented on it and I really didn’t like a lot of that game, so not only am I not surprised it wasn’t nominated a lot on this list the mages put together but I haven’t seen it pop up too much in other games awards out there. I just thought the story and characters were really thin and the open world gameplay structure was too tedious. I still played it for over 100 hours but I do like the comparison to Mystic Quest. I actually haven’t thought of that before but yes, a Final Fantasy like XV where you can just hold down circle to survive nearly the entire game is the Mystic Quest of our times.
And thirdly, Cuphead. I have never wanted to play a Microsoft exclusive so badly. I love ragtime music, for instance, and early 1900’s animation fascinates me. I felt like this game was made for me… on the wrong platform. 😀
I meant to write an article on the FF15/MQ comparison, but essentially that what I got out of it after a few dozen hours of gameplay. Its a tech demo for the modern ages wrapped in an FF game. Its mean to be easy (easier) to get people hooked on future FF games and for that I think it works pretty well. Obviously they are going to be using the Luminous engine for some time, as it seems they are using it for the FF7 re-imagining (don’t call it a remake!). It seems like an extremely powerful engine and I have no doubt that with a few tweaks to add different gameplay elements it will carry SE far in terms of graphical output.
I feel you. I think that I would’ve enjoyed FFXV more had I played it with that mindset, or if it wasn’t a Final Fantasy game. The engine itself is fine and I’m glad to hear that. I think that’s the impressive aspect of the game.
Ooooh I’m surprised and delighted to see Stormblood in here because that’s honestly the first thing that came to my mind for story and villain 🙂
Nice! Yeah I’d really love to play that game but monthly fees and online gameplay structure keep it at bay for me. I burned myself out on some of those things. Still.. whenever I see some awesome cameo in it…
First things first: please start calling these The Magy’s as soon as possible!
I’ve actually played very few of these, but it’s nice to see Sonic Mania and Nier Automata on there so much. I’d include Ruiner in the soundtrack category as it’s an absolutely perfect fit that demands earphones.
I was surprised at the lack of Injustice 2 in the fighting category. I felt it was a pretty good package in spite of the loot box nonsense.
Haha I let out a chuckle at “The Magy’s”! This is such a fun idea. There are a lot of titles here I actually haven’t played as well, since these were all voted on by the mage committee. I think that allowed us a much wider net rather than if I’d put this all together myself.
Injustice 2! So that is surprising nobody nominated it. I haven’t played it myself but I imagine someone has in our ranks.