James Lucas is an Executive Editor from Newcastle, England. They have written for sites like IGN, NME, GaymingMag, and VG247, with a special focus on FPS games, Soulslikes, and survival horror.
Gaming doesn’t really have its own Die Hard, that one game set during the holiday season that’s kind of festive, but not really, sparking a whole debate around what counts as a Christmas game. In fairness, there are very few strictly Christmas games anyway (Miles Morales being the best among them), but it’s hard to imagine Nadji Jeter channeling his inner Macaulay Culkin in an impassioned speech about how ‘Dead Rising 4’ doesn’t count.
However, I think Final Fantasy fans might have a decent contender with Tactics Advance, which opens in a snowy little courtyard complete with a snowman, as kids gather round for a snowball fight. It doesn’t get much more Christmas-y than that. But even the whimsical adventure they’re soon thrust into feels like something ripped right out of a festive film.
My Favourite Part Is Where John McClane Joins Your Party
“What with the Winter theme complete with a snowball fight in the beginning, the kids getting transported to a fantasy world and the moral of the story about accepting the real world and its imperfections, it feels like one of those Christmas cartoon specials I’d watch as a kid,” argued u/grapejuicecheese. “I’d like to call it the Final Fantasy Holiday special.”
The only notch in the game’s belt is that it quickly drops the Christmas theme, and it was released on Valentine’s Day, but that makes it the perfect Die Hard candidate, because guess what? Die Hard was released in February, too!
At least, in the UK.
Anecdotally, plenty of commenters chimed in to say that they got Tactics Advance at Christmas, searing it into their memories as a holiday game, which only makes me want to pick it up for the first time this year all the more. Gameboy copies aren’t even all that expensive.
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Alternatively, if I can throw in my two cents, the best Christmas game that fits the Die Hard criteria of being debatable enough that I’d argue with a friend over it has to be Arkham Origins.
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