Lurker > MrSmartGuy

Oh. I have just been made aware that the creator of that tracker I just linked did a run at GDQ hotfix, if you wanna see what a Blitz seed looks like.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2196442143?t=37h38m06s

64. Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow Version
63. Dark Souls
62. Hot Shots Golf Fore!
61. Mario Kart 8
60. Return of the Obra Dinn
59. Mario Golf (N64)
58. Dark Souls III
57. Advance Wars: Dual Strike
56. Last Window: Secret of Cape West
55. Borderlands 2
54. Batman: Arkham Asylum
53. Pokemon Black/White Version
52. Fire Emblem
51. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
50. Ace Attorney Investigations 2: Prosecutor's Path
49. Shadow of the Colossus
48. Snowboard Kids 2
47. Rock Band 2
46. Mario Golf (GBC)
45. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2
44. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3
43. Mario Tennis (N64)
42. Skate 3
41. Diddy Kong Racing
40. Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising
39. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Spirit of Justice
38. Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal
37. Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception
36. Mario Tennis (GBC)
35. SNATCHER
34. SOCOM II: U.S. Navy SEALs
33. Pokemon Puzzle League
32. Horizon: Zero Dawn
31. Elite Beat Agents

#30 - Paper Mario

I need to take a quick aside to talk about this one moving so far up 24 years after I first played the game. In 2022, the board 8 archipelago topics got me into the world of randomizers. I'd never tried one, so I started with Slay the Spire and Rogue Legacy, two games I was fairly familiar with, but in retrospect, were two really bad randomized games to try.

It wasn't the most fun experience, but I was very intrigued by the concept, so I wanted to try adding more games to my repertoire. I was told Link to the Past was one of the most quintessential games to get into, so I tried a run of that on my own, despite never having beaten base LttP before in my life. I had seen videos of YouTubers who had done it rando before, so I had a bit of an idea of what it was like. What ended up happening, however, is that I basically lost an entire month of my life to a hyperfixation of just running LttP over and over again, and getting more and more acquainted with it, while trying new and different settings.

After what had to be at least 20 runs, the novelty of it finally began to wear off, but there were still dozens of other games in the archipelago supported games list that a new door had opened for me. I tried out Minecraft, Ocarina of Time, Muse Dash, Super Mario 64, Undertale, Sonic Adventure 2, Pokemon Red, Blue, and Emerald. Then they added new settings for Mario 64 that took away all your special moves and forced you to find those among the randomized things as well, which made that game randomized 100x more fun. They just added Hat in Time and Mario & Luigi, which both seem super neat, but are games I haven't given a shot yet. And there are countless others that are currently being worked on that I have to look forward to being added to the list.

One of those games is Paper Mario for N64. Now there was a game that seemed interesting to randomize to me, because that's a game I am acutely aware of just about everything to do with it. I learned that there was a dedicated server for it and a website where you can generate any kind of game you could possibly think of. So I decided to give it a shot. What I didn't realize is that this would begin a brand new hyperfixation that LttP could only hope to be.

Every game feels totally different. The partner you get at the start can be completely random, and it changes the outlook of every game. You can set badges to have random BP requirements, so you have to be flexible in your gameplan every run. Maybe you start with Bow as your partner, and you have to go to Shy Guy Toy Box as your first dungeon. Maybe you can't find your initial jump for a while, but you have Parakarry, so you have to use him to get to higher platforms instead, and use Kooper to bonk your head on the blocks in the overworld to get the items from them.

Maybe all your badges end up costing 5 BP or more and you never find Parakarry, so you can never deliver letters, and all the letters end up being the upgrades for your partners, so they all can't do much damage, so you're stuck using Mega Smash as your main source of damge, the only move that doesn't take up your entire BP to equip, which is overkill for a long time because you have the Ultra Hammer within an hour of starting, and the enemies don't even have higher than 5 HP yet, all because Koopa Koot was holding Parakarry hostage behind the check for finding his Package, which is something you can only get after completing 6 of the 7 dungeons in the game.

Wanna take a guess on how my last run went? :P

Anyway, Paper Mario is now my favorite randomized game of all-time, and that's an extremely high bar to clear. I can't recommend it enough. If you're familiar with the game, give it a shot:
https://pm64randomizer.com/

You'll also want some kind of tracker; here's the one I use:
https://pmr-tracker.phantom-games.com/legacy/

You can just plug in the number of the seed you generate to load those particular settings, and you'll be perfectly good to go. It'll tell you what's available to grab at all times.

85. Mass Effect 3
86. Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King
85. NES Open Tournament Golf
84. Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor 2
83. Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate
82. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
81. Mario Party 2
80. The Lost Mind of Dr. Brain
79. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies
78. Saints Row: The Third
77. SSX3
76. Doki Doki Literature Club
75. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4
74. Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride
73. Hot Shots Golf: Out of Bounds
72. WarioWare: Twisted!
71. TimeSplitters 2
70. Hotel Dusk: Room 215
69. Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story
68. Chrono Trigger
67. the jackbox PARTY PACKs
66. Tetris Effect

#65 - Helldivers 2 (PC, 2024)

It's been a very long time since a shooter of any kind has grabbed my attention quite like Helldivers 2 immediately did. It helps that it's strictly co-op, I suppose, given that I just don't enjoy competitive games at all anymore. But Helldivers 2 does so much right, and for a discount, too! Base price is $40, and I guess I understand, given that there's not a story or all that much progression or variety, but what is there is an exceptionally finely tuned experience.

The concept is that basically you're a Starship Trooper, tasked with liberating foreign planets from their robot- or bug-infested rulers in the name of democracy. Its satire is laid fully barren (as much as certain brainwashed morons on social media would beg to differ) and the voice actors do a great job of presenting the feel of FIGHTING IN THE NAME OF JUSTICE. The lone cutscene is just phenomenal, and even the tutorial got a few hearty belly laughs out of me.

Once you complete that, you go out and use your 40 possible primary weapons, 10 possible secondary weapons, 15 possible heavy weapons, and 30 support strategems (numbers approximated), to go out and spread democracy through the galaxy. A key element to all this is that none of these options are safe for your squadmates, with hilarious consequences. If you die, that's OK! They'll just send out a new recruit to replace you!

Playing this game with Cokes, Nick, Wigs, ICON, and the rest of sports chat has been an absolute blast, and I've saved no fewer than 20 clips over the course of my time playing. I feel pretty confident that I've got this in the right spot here, because the new game hyper-fixation is just now finally starting to wear off for me. That said, they're still adding more and more to the game, so who knows? Maybe it'll make a comeback....

I wanna hop in on this, too. I've taken a lot of time to really go over my list to see if it's truly in the right order. My list has been ever-changing over the past few years, with some additions I've made since this list was finished.

I'm going to post my new rankings until I get to a game that wasn't there before, and give it a little write-up to keep the topic fresh.

Here's the new bottom of my list, topped off with the first new game.

100. FTL: Faster Than Light
99. Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors (lol perfect placement)
98. Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door
97. Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time
96. Beat Saber
95. Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga
94. WWE Smackdown vs Raw 2006
93. Persona 5
92. HITMAN
91. Pocket Card Jockey
90. The World Ends With You
89. Professor Layton and the Unwound Future
88. Pokemon Stadium 2
87. Trauma Team

#86 - Genshin Impact (PC, 2020)

Breath of the Wild is a really fun game! I had it at #21 on my list (it's not there anymore, but we'll get to that)! An anime version with lots of colorful characters and an actual story probably wouldn't be too bad!

And it's not! I enjoyed it immensely. HoYo marketing is something else. Some of the most fun I had was watching the character trailers they'd put out. They're soooo good. The beginning of the game captured that exact same wonder I had for BotW, running around and trying to find hidden treasure chests and complete puzzles for prizes. Monstadt and Liyue were so much fun to explore.

However, I've since ditched it. While the story began to get more involved, the newer areas added depth, and had little way for you to manage it. You almost have to look up a guide to figure out where to go and how to do anything, and that loses all the appeal it used to have. It also has no auto-battle, so it began to feel like a chore hopping on every day just to get the materials I wanted and log back off. It ran its course and ate up a good 2 years of my life, and that's worth a low-ish spot on my revised list.

If I bump it instead, maybe it'll happen!

and dump

Elden Ring would be my #6 now.
Great Ace Attorney Chronicles like 19th-ish.
Genshin Impact in the 40's or so.
Curse of the Golden Idol would probably sneak into the 90's.

I'd also move some games quite a bit, in retrospect. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate should probably be like 7th. Maybe just switch places with Persona 4 Golden. Played the remaster of Shadow of the Colossus and it probably deserves to get bumped up about 10 spots. SSX3 shouldn't be on the list, Tricky should take that spot instead.

And Outer Wilds is my new #1. The DLC on its own would probably make my top 20, so together as a single experience, that is definitely enough to bump the game up to the top spot.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/9/0/9/AANxMBAAEDf9.png

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/3/3/6/AANxMBAAECoI.png

My list so far:
HM. Hades

That doesn't change for me, though I'd assume it would for Nick. Maybe Wigs?

I just found her gimmick super exhausting. Every time she started cracking up and making that lip-squeezing face, I was just like "yeah I know, I get it, please stop." But it never helped. She just kept doing it, like, a hundred times in a single case.

That said, now that you're done, congrats on powering through the worst AA game! AJ gets a bad rap, but at least it's memorable and has decent characters even though almost none of them are defendants.

After the Shih-na->Yew transformation into the standoff with Badd period of like 10 minutes, what's the second-most standout moment in the game? I really can't come up with a good one. Edgeworth diving out of the way of a gunshot? Kay blowing her nose in his cravat? Lang revealing that his accusation of Franny was a ruse?

I legitimately think it's when LeBlanc falls over the railing of the storage room in slow-motion. At least, it probably is for me....

Our rankings are almost completely backwards.
3 > 1 > 2 > 5 > 4

4 is one of my least favorite cases in the entire series, propped up by the absolute worst AA character ever (Calisto Yew). Meanwhile, I have a soft spot for Lauren Pops and Jacques Portsman. Two of the most underrated characters in the franchise.

They're really taking their time, eyeing each other up, JR.