If you missed Morrowind, one of the observations you make when starting The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is the sheer number of discreet objects in the world. Every shelf is loaded with books and every table set with candles, plates and goblets, each of which can be picked up or taken. It occurs to you to proceed in the normal role-playing game way, gathering everything you can get your hands on, but it quickly becomes apparent that, much like the real world, most items are a burden to carry and basically worthless– certainly not worth the trouble of stealing them and reselling them later. So you spend most of the rest of the game not paying attention to these things, treating them as the background art they seem to be. It is probably only incidental that they can be moved and dropped like other, more important objects.

In the early days of personal computer multimedia (when it was black and white, and before the Internet stole its momentum) there were very few well-trodden paths. Much time and effort was spent simply trying to determine by trial and error what would and wouldn’t work, technically, artistically, and financially. But while the era produced its share of instantly obsolete reference guides, profit-minded shovelware, and other experiments of ambiguous worth, some classics were also born– many of them now sadly forgotten. One of these was If Monks Had Macs, a collection of HyperCard stacks originally released as shareware in 1988, and which grew over time; its most recent incarnation was described by MacWeek magazine as “a 24-piece collection of essays, electronic books, games and music linked together with the very personal touch of author Brian Thomas.”

Final Fantasy Tactics didn’t create a new style of play that had never been seen before or push the limits of the original PlayStation hardware. Its story, complex but traditional, contented itself to convey an unspecific and not very uplifting pessimism about human nature and the harshness of the world. It originally came out in 1997, the same year that Final Fantasy VII, that intractable juggernaut of sales and mindshare, was unleashed upon the gaming masses. VII set the tone for most of the Final Fantasies to come after it: big and theatrical, a parade of set pieces and operatic extravagance. Tactics, on the other hand, was restrained— almost dignified— in the way it carried itself. It had some drama, but unlike VII, its primary purpose was not to be drama. Final Fantasy Tactics was, in story and gameplay both, about fighting.

Most of the aesthetic attention paid to Okami centered on its beautiful, brush-painting inspired visual motif, but I hope we don’t overlook its music. The score is actually what made the game really stand out for the ages in my mind: at once sweepingly grand and surprisingly intimate, blending the traditional and contemporary, it draws upon a tremendous range of sources and associations over the course of the player’s journey.

Much credit does not usually go to translators and localizers in the game industry, but I feel they are sometimes deserving of special praise, especially those who can not only convey the meaning of the original but also its essence and sometimes its greatness. Final Fantasy XII is a demonstration of Square’s localization prowess and continues a tradition of great translations. The voice actors well-cast and directed, and the words themselves are crafted at a level above that of the average game. But for how well the main story is brought into English, something else steals the show– the encyclopedic Bestiary.