While the clock to New Year's ticks down, we continue our GOTY voting! For this issue, we're going to be voting on the best fan-made games and romhack creations this year! Your nominations have been tallied, and the best choices have been included in the poll. Certain projects such as CTGP-7, Shin Megami Tensei if..., and MaternalBound are older projects that existed prior to this year, but they have all received major updates in 2018, which allows them to be included in this list. New contenders such as Fallout: New California or Pokemon: Crystal Clear debuted in 2018, and are obviously available to vote for as well. Happy voting!

GOTY 2018 PlayStation: God of War (Runner up: Red Dead Redemption 2)
GOTY 2018 Nintendo: Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (Runner up: Octopath Traveler)

Fallout: New California

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Starting work in 2011, and finishing in 2018, Fallout: New California is a modpack for Fallout: New Vegas that tells a brand new story, with new characters and locations to explore, taking place a few decades before New Vegas does. Over 100 fans banded together to offer help with coding, voice acting, and scripting for the game's 30 hour campaign, which takes heavy inspiration from the more classic styled Fallout games.

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Pokemon: XG

What if you loved Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness, but you just wanted...more? Well, that's what Starsmmd and his team have done. They've taken Pokemon XD, and added Gen VII mechanics, a phys/spec split, and more overall Pokemon to catch within the world of Orre. The romhack is fully playable from start to finish, though further changes appear to be in the pipeline for the future.

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Sonic 3 A.I.R

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Fangames do what SEGA-don't. Since we still lack a Taxman port of Sonic 3, a group of modders have come together to re-create the game on PC, rebuilding the entire game from the ground up to be 100% faithful and accurate to the original while modernizing it. Six zones are currently playable, as of the latest build.

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MaternalBound

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If Nintendo's localization for Earthbound doesn't feel as close to the original Mother 2 script as you'd want it to, fear not, as MaternalBound exists. This romhack of Earthbound takes the best of both games and merges that into an uncensored version of the game that's as accurate as you could hope for.

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Ni no Kuni DS Fan Translation

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While the PlayStation 3 version of Ni no Kuni made it westward, the Nintendo DS version did not. Luckily, after four years of hard work, Ni no Kuni: The Jet-Black Mage has been entirely translated into English, with its accompanying guidebook, which holds 372 pages worth of important data for the game.

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Pokemon: Crystal Clear

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Pokemon hacks have just about seen it all; catch 'em all patches, graphical changes, engine modernizations. But Crystal Clear intends to become the end-all-be-all Pokemon Crystal Romhack. You can start in either Palette Town or New Bark but from there, you can go anywhere you want. The game will scale its levels to how many Gym badges you have, meaning you could walk from Pewter City all the way to Blackthorn, if you so wished. As of the latest version, Pokemon can follow you on your 8-bit adventure, just as they did in HGSS.

Shin Megami Tensei if... Fan Translation

While the Shin Megami Tensei series and its spinoffs have become popular to millions of fans and earned critical acclaim in the west, things weren’t always this way. This fact was especially true in 1994, when Shin Megami Tensei if... released in Japan for the Super Famicom. For over a decade, the game was only fully playable in its original Japanese language, at least, until translation team Aeon Genesis—led by Gideon Zhi—decided to tackle the project of fan translating the entire game. Starting all the way back in 2002, Gideon released an alpha patch for SMT if, and now, 16 years later, he and his team have released the completed version 1.0 patch

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Super Mario 64: Last Impact

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Kaze Emanuar is known for multiple romhacks and edits to Super Mario 64, creating wild and interesting different things within the decades old game. One of his latest efforts is Super Mario 64: Last Impact, a romhack that adds 130 new stars to collect, brand new bosses and worlds, and even some new powerups. The latest update made this year, v1.2 meticulously fixes bugs, tweaks gameplay, and more, making for the ultimate Mario 64 romhack.

CTGP-7

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Even though Mario Kart 8 Deluxe has been gracing our Nintendo Switch systems, there's still a huge reason to go back to your 3DS for some Mario Kart action, and that reason is CTGP-7. Custom Track Grand Prix 7 is a mod for Mario Kart 7, which adds new karts, new characters, new music, and even new custom race tracks. Peach Beach isn't in Mario Kart 8, but it sure is in this great fan remix.

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Mega Man Maker

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Made with enough care and boasting enough detail to be official, this unofficial fangame lets you create your own classic Mega Man levels, and even share them with other players. Much like with Super Mario Maker, Mega Man Maker is a (literal) game changer

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Whew! And that's all of our nominations! Let's hope the romhacking/fan modding scene has another equally great year in 2019!

 

[Joom]

Went with Ni no Kuni. That's some major dedication from a translation team.