Opinion Fest 2008: Most Innovative

Though many reviewers demand the next great thing out of everything they play (hey, I’m sure it’s a tough job to play video games all day), reinventing the wheel is not always the best way to go about game design. Sometimes tried and true methods with a new coat of paint are all a game needs to sell itself (see Fallout 3). The games that win the Most Innovative Award, however, are games that do dare to be different; to rise to the challenge of pushing the genre in new directions.

These games may not be the most popular, but they have done a lot for the RPG genre in 2008.

3rd: AWAY: Shuffle Dungeon – Mistwalker, Artoon, Majesco – Nintendo DS

Though maybe not as robust as some other RPGs this year, Mistwalker and Artoon’s AWAY forces you to look at the dungeons you explore in a different light. “If I step over there, then I have to make sure I grab that before the shuffle…” is not an uncommon thought. Mixing basic top-down action-role-playing with the thought required of a puzzler, AWAY is a refreshingly new approach to a classic formula, even if it borders on “smash your DS with a hammer” frustrating.

2nd: The Last Remnant – Square Enix – Xbox 360

Some of you may remember that one of my fist reactions to The Last Remnant’s gameplay was “…wtf did I just watch?” And its true. Just watching someone play the game will do little besides raise an eyebrow. Playing the game, however, becomes very intuitive very quickly, and within an hour or so, you’ll wonder what you were confused about at all.

Combining strategy and turn-based fights into a single, massive entity, The Last Remnant was one of the first games that actually made me feel like I was commanding an army, and several times I actually found myself yelling at the soldiers on my TV screen. “Dodge that! What’s wrong with you?!”

1st: Infinite Undiscovery – tri-Ace, Square Enix – Xbox 360

Infinite Undiscovery, despite its shortcomings, propels the Japanese take on action-RPGs ahead by light years. From the battle system that can have up to 18 of your allies slugging it out at once, to environmental hazards like rockslides and wind storms, Undiscovery delivers some of the most chaotic and intense battles ever seen in an RPG to date (even on easy mode!). But that’s just where the game starts. Throw in emotional connections and changing personalities that affect your party’s skills, and an interesting Connect Action system that affects which characters you want on your party, and you have a game with some really forward thinking going on. Oh, did I also mention you can control catapults? Because you can.

Love it or hate it, Infinite Undiscovery rethinks the traditional JRPG formula on nearly every side, and is more deserving than any title of the most innovative RPG of 2008.