My personal game of the year by a long shot was quite a surprise: **[Rune Factory 4](http://therunefactory.wikia.com/wiki/Rune_Factory_4)**. Mostly it was a surprise because I never expected to like it that much and didn't think that it would suck as much of my time up as it did.
Basically Rune Factory is a mashup between Harvest Moon and RPG, but much more focused on quick and smooth gameplay. Especially in 4 they really nailed the speed and fluency of the mechanics, which gets rid of most of the tedium of games like Harvest Moon for me, as I can get the farming done rather quickly and then get on to do whatever else I had planned for a particular day. As the game is also rather varied in what you can do it hardly ever feels like you have to grind for anything in particular or perform repetitive tasks. Getting the necessary resources and advancing your skills happens pretty much naturally if you keep on progressing the story. The game is also extremely detailed and has nice and funny dialogue for the majority of the characters. Rune Factory 4's world itself is enormous for a game like this, especially in comparison to its predecessor.
The only things I can bemoan are that the post-game story is ridiculously hard –even on low difficulty setting–, and getting the recipes for crafting is a bit too annoying for my tastes. Luckily the latter can be remedied by looking them up on the wiki.