Lurker > transience

I have one level left on ultimate and I just have no idea how to do it. I haven't gone back to it in months but I just couldn't manage it. this was E-20 or whatever so I never got to the X levels if those exist. I need to go back.

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xyzzy

Snecko Eye is the best relic in the game. One thing you have to learn in STS is how important card draw is. You basically have two resources, energy and card draw. Beginning players understand the importance of energy easily but card draw isn't as obvious. Snecko gives you two extra cards every turn which lets you get through your deck quickly and play the best stuff.

Snecko's best on Defect, I think, just because some of his power cards are crazy and you can get them into play quickly. They're also usually pretty expensive. Cards like Sunder are a lot of fun with Snecko too. Defect also doesn't have a lot of card draw in general. On the flipside, I don't really like Snecko on Watcher because 0 cost cards like Just Lucky/Flurry of Blows/Weave become more or less useless, and also because Watcher in general just needs to play very exactly. If you draw a 3 cost Empty Fist and you're in Wrath, it's going to be a problem.

Snecko's best if you boss relic swap at the beginning because you can build your deck that way. If you get Snecko after the act 1 boss and have been picking up things like Anger or Deadly Poison, it's not going to go great. If you can build with cards like Dual Wield (an AWESOME card with Snecko) or other high cost cards then everything is super easy.

So is Snecko good? It depends on the situation, but it's almost always better than not having Snecko. I can talk about it more specifically if you have more questions about it.

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xyzzy

Runic Pyramid is so situational. It's really good with certain decks! If you can get your strikes and defends out, or have a way to remove cards via exhaust/discard/whatever, then it works really well.

Runic Pyramid's biggest strength is that you can control when you shuffle your deck or delay playing cards until you're ready. Take Watcher, for example - you can hold onto your Flurry of Blows or Weave until you shuffle your deck, and then it's there for all the hits you could want. The same is true for Aggregate or All for One on Defect. Silent can finally play grand finale with some level of reliability too. Ironclad can get a lot out of armements+ with Runic Pyramid too.

The other cool thing about Runic Pyramid is being able to decide when you play things. Holding onto Limit Break until you've played Spot Weakness or Inflame is super helpful. (It also helps for when you draw Spot Weakness turn 1 vs. a boss that's not attacking you.) Silent can hold onto Blade Dance until after you've played accuracy, Defect can get Core Surge before Biased Cognition, Watcher can hold Talk to the Hand until you get rid of the artifact charges, etc etc.

But you've gotta have the right deck. If you've got, say, Bludgeon, then your deck is going to get really clogged. It's also important to be able to deal with bad cards. Nothing is worse than runic pyramid vs. the slavers where you end up with 10 wounds in your hand. Battle Hymn is probably not the right card either because you'll end up with 6 Smites and no room for any other cards.

I find Runic Pyramid best if you already have 4 energy, or if you're living on 0 cost cards like Claw or Anger. Even that can screw you over. I think it's a really strong relic in the right situation, but can be the absolute worst thing in the wrong one.

Speaking of bad situations: don't take Runic Pyramid with Dead Branch, and definitely don't do it with Snecko Eye. What a disaster.

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xyzzy

2.



Celeste just has such good mechanics. They're not involved or complicated, but man, they feel so good. Just executing basic movement feels better in Celeste than basically any other video game. It's just a jump and a dash! There's a little more than that, especially with chapter 9, but it's not layering on anything crazy. Each level has its own stage mechanics and pretty much all of them feel great.

But it's chapter 9 that really sells me. This game pushes me to my absolute limits with some of the stuff they ask you to do. I don't mind spending 10 minutes on a single room because the movement feels so good and I love pulling off really hard stuff. Celeste's level design is amazing. I meant to spend just a few minutes with it over the last couple of days to see how I felt about it and I ended up playing through the whole game + most of chapter 9. Damn, Celeste is good. The music is good! The story is good! Everything here is just really great.

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xyzzy

I hear some of you are also addicted to the Spire. I love talking about this game and play it way too much, so post anything about it and I'll ramble.

• Cards
• Relics
• Monsters
• Elites
• Bosses

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xyzzy

oh good, other people have my sickness. I'll cut the discussion off here and make a topic in a little bit. (those who slay the spire speak a different language)

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xyzzy

really? STS doesn't stress me out at all. it's actually my comfort food game. when I'm struggling, I can just lose myself in it. I don't even pay a lot of attention when I'm playing unless I get on one of those runs. sometimes, like today, I get a "oh come ON" moment but I get over them pretty quickly.

edit: I don't like Ironclad actually! I love Silent, Defect is right behind. Watcher is the best in the game by a good amount but I try not to play her because she can be really broken, even on A20 (which is all I play).

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xyzzy

it's so good

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xyzzy

I actually haven't played Monster Train. I've been yelled at for a year to give it a shot, and I totally should, but it's not on mobile and that's the only way I want to play these games.

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xyzzy

that's respectable. the heart is rough, even on lower ascensions!

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xyzzy

3.



This game. This game has just consumed my soul.

It's the mobile version. I managed to break away from Desert Golfing only because I play this damn thing endlessly. My STS save on mobile has.. 824 hours on it. It came out like a year and a half ago. It's bad. I have a problem. That doesn't even count the time that I've spent on Switch or PC. I'm probably closer to 1000 hours, and it's not slowing down. Just a few minutes ago, I had a tragic death on the final boss that should not have happened. I had it won and got suuuper unlucky. Oh well.

I could talk about this game for literally weeks. I could probably write 300-500 words on every single card, relic and event in this game. (Sounds kinda fun, actually. I would do it but nobody else is as sick as me when it comes to this game.) I have strong opinions on what cards synergize with what. I spend so much time just thinking about this game.

In general, Slay the Spire is just an amazingly balanced game. It's a deckbuilder but it feels more like I'm doing RPG combat thanks to the progression of the game. Each card is thought out well and the game's balance, especially across the four playable characters, is really remarkable. There's so many interesting ways that cards can go together, and just as many ways that they don't. Building a deck is super interesting because you end up doing vastly different stuff every time. I could write full posts about many of my runs, and I apparently have done thousands.

This game is so good. I can't wait to see what these guys do next.

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xyzzy

4.



I'm a simple man. I like basic things in my games. I like watching numbers go up. I like run buttons that let me go fast. Above anything else, I like to jump. Give me any random game and I'm going to jump everywhere I go. It doesn't matter if it's a platformer or not, that's just what I do. I especially like a good wall jump. One of my main draws in Metroid is being able to scale a single wall. It was a huge deal to me that they removed it from Fusion and Dread.

n++ has a lovely little walljump. In fact, it may as well be the main feature of the game. This game has such a nuance to its feel and its movement, and especially to its jumping. It's this heavy, floating jump that has such gradual momentum. It is absolutely perfect.

n++ is about making a really careful jump, with no margin for error. It also walks this tight line of feeling like it's procedurally generated because there are thousands of levels to play. But, instead of just being randomly generated, every level is authored. That's the benefit of having such lo-fi visual design: you can make these levels fairly quickly. Quick design doesn't mean they're lazy though. Every level has a specific theme and challenge and most of them are fun to play. If you don't like one, you can move on to another set of levels. There's so much content here that it's hard to believe you can finish it. (You can, but it'll take you hundreds of hours.) I am always going back to this game, and it has this strange property where I can not play it for months and pick up the movement perfectly within about 90 seconds. That's not true with pretty much any other action game, but n++ just comes so incredibly naturally.

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xyzzy

5.



Metroid, baby. Zero Mission has Super Metroid's general design but with a better control scheme. It's one of the smoothest controlling games around and it's so easy to pick up and play anytime. It's easy enough to control that even a scrub like me can grab world records. The game isn't challenging, but there are a couple of boss fights or the stealth sequence that can get you if you're not ready. But overall, this isn't Metroid Dread, and that's okay.

There's a boatload of ways to play this game thanks to the alternate pathing that the game offers. The items in this game are essentially optional and you don't have to be a Metroid savant to go without screw attack or long beam. I've been riding this game hard for about 15 years now and it's still a fun little romp.

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xyzzy

I like Metroid Prime. I think it's super atmospheric and wish I could play it well. I got to like the Phazon Suit and that was as much as I could stomach.

I also really like Mirror's Edge, and did finish that. it's been in some past lists. but you better believe I played it on easy and beat it without ever using a gun.

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xyzzy

hard mode isn't even any harder! I was telling HM the other day, I don't think I died the last 2-3 hours on hard mode even though I got butchered on normal.

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xyzzy

6.



I *love* the design of Super Metroid's world. Every room is super distinct and each area feels like it has a theme. I can talk about specific rooms here for days. The design of the world is slightly dickish in a way that I appreciate - sometimes you just fall down a pit and have to wall jump out of it, and that's kinda cool. The boss fights are really amazing, especially Ridley, maybe the most memorable boss fight on the SNES. This game has all kinds of weird crap in it, from all the hidden secret abilities to being able to kill Draygon with the grapple beam. This game can really delight you and it's so damn memorable.

The controls don't match it though. If you play enough Super Metroid, it becomes second nature and won't be a problem. But you really need to learn these things as opposed to something like AM2R that comes super naturally. This game has a run button which makes you contort your hands when trying to traverse it quickly. Space jump is one of the more confusing mechanics around, where sometimes you just stop being able to jump for reasons unknown. Who the hell knows how diagonal shinesparking works, and it sucks your energy which sucks. I'm sure there are hacks to navigate all of this and I should probably look into them because it's the only blemish on a near perfect game.

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xyzzy

I played more Tetris Plus than I want to admit

and more Tetrinet, and more Tetris DS, and more Bastard Tetris, and more Tengen Tetris, and The Next Tetris, and so on

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xyzzy

7.



You could choose just about any version of Tetris here, but I only play two versions these days: NES Tetris, because I want to pretend that I can do half of the stuff the classic Tetris lunatics can do, and Tetris 99. I freaking love Tetris 99. It's the only online multiplayer game that I play. Every time a new themed cup is announced, I'm right there unlocking it. I don't play often enough to win these days, but I'm pretty routinely in the top 10.

I don't have anything profound to say about Tetris. It's just the perfect video game.

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xyzzy

I wouldn't even play Ori without a controller. a lot of people play that way but I don't like mouse+kb with literally anything.

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xyzzy

8.



What a triumph. Official Metroid comes back after 20 years, from a developer who made the *heavily* flawed Samus Returns -- seriously, talk about not understanding what Metroid is about -- and just knocks it out of the park. The movement, combat and bosses are a clear step up from every other Metroid game. If you were just listing out features and comparing them, Dread would eat every other Metroid for lunch.

There's more to it than that, of course. But it's the way this game succeeds that impresses me so much. Metroid Dread had every opportunity to walk within the lines of a hallowed franchise, but decides not only to step out of them, but also to just use your expectations openly against you. A lot of my first playthrough was unlearning what Metroid is supposed to be. A big part of that is the combat, where you add in a lot of modern action game features like melee counters and 360 degree aiming. This game is tight, it hits fast and it hits hard. It doesn't care that you die.

I think the biggest surprise for me, upon spending more and more time with Dread, is that it's actually not hard once you learn it. I died an uncountable number of times as I adjusted to the game, especially against the game's boss encounters. But once you know what they do, they're absolutely toothless. It's an empowering feeling to take a game that ripped you apart to toying with the bosses the way Samus does in her cutscenes. This game has a really great sense of progression, and you really need to be stronger because everything hits so hard. But once you know what's coming and where it's coming from, it's really not a problem.

That empowering feeling is what really sticks with me when I think back on Dread. This game is an adrenaline trip, and never is it more obvious than that ending. Holy cow. Dread does a great job of one-upping games that came before it. It doesn't displace them, but it does envision a new Metroid where your combat skills are put to the test. Usually I would dislike this approach because Metroid isn't really about combat, but it's just done so well that I can't do anything but give it a nod. A new developer gave me, a crazy Metroid fan, a game that I didn't know I would ever want. That's wild.

I do have one complaint though. I really don't like how much of this game is steeped in locking you into areas. It feels decidedly un-Metroid to have so many one-way paths. It's smart game design, unless you're making a Metroid. There are ways around it, so many sequence breaks everywhere, but I don't like the idea of being boxed in. Other Metroid games have played with this but none as overtly as Dread. That's kind of a bummer.

But still, what a triumph.


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xyzzy

9.



This game is amazing. It takes everything great about the first Ori and just improves across the board. The combat is much improved, the new abilities are great, and man, the music. The music in Ori 2 is on another level, and I appreciate it even more in a post-Dread world.

(Tangent: Will of the Wisps vs. Metroid Dread is a fascinating comparison and I had to play them back to back in order to compare them properly. At a distance, they seem really similar -- Ori is obviously inspired by Metroid -- but are actually really different. Ori focuses on being peaceful with absolutely gorgeous music, and Dread focuses on tension with cinematic music. Ori has melee combat while Dread is ranged. Ori focuses on movement abilities almost exclusively while Dread give you a more balanced bag of tools. The list goes on.)

The first half of Will of the Wisps is maybe the most charming game in existence. It's a joy to just move and exist in that world. The lighting and the art are incredible and it makes the forest kinda come alive. The second half of the game is a bit more game-y, and it isn't quite as good - you start getting sidequests and need to restore a village and can plant seeds and go on fetch quests. You open up your map and there's icons everywhere. It feels slightly bloated like a modern action game might feel, instead of being singularly focused on being a metroidvania. It's still great and it plays amazingly! But, if you removed that stuff and just focused on the atmosphere and platforming, it would probably be a better game. Because of that, it's not quite as good as Dread.

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xyzzy

10.



It's certainly not perfect, but Xenosaga 3 hits some really high marks in its narrative storytelling. This game is ripe with absolute nonsense terminology but it helps to set a tone to the world that few games can pull off. Sometimes I hate games that do this but give me all the Y Data and U-DO and Omega Res Novae that you can find. I don't have any clue what's happening in half the story but that's okay. The tone and atmosphere is all I need.

I also like the simple but effective battle system. It's fun to take out enemies with final strikes and to level up each character's skill trees. Boss fights are fun for the first time here, and they're certainly not too difficult. This game goes out of its way to be as Xenogears-y as possible and that kind of thing will always work on me.

So yeah, you can mock this game quite a bit and I even join in for a lot of that. But there's still that long stretch at the end of disc 1 where the atmosphere is pitch perfect and it's as good as these sci-fi JRPGs get.

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xyzzy

11.



AA3 (well, and AA2) hits the writing sweet spot. The 3DS games are way too wordy while AA1 is really rote and simple, but AA3 is just right.

After 2 games of build up, the Fey storyline comes to a head in AA3 and pays off in a pretty major way. There are three cases here that are tied together by a single threadline thanks to a really strong villain. It isn't as integrated across cases as some later games are but other games don't have the writing strength that AA3 does. Cases 4 and 5 tie together to make for a monster finale that's satisfying enough to wish that it closed out the series. It's good that a great series continued, but I doubt the series ever reaches these highs again or has the opportunity to close on such a strong note.


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xyzzy

12.



I've played this game to death over the last 5ish years. FF5 is so good because of how well different classes mix and match. Job systems in general are awesome but it's better in this game than others because of how many enemies and bosses are vulnerable to each class's weird stuff. Most classes in this game are totally viable and almost every one has some kind of situational strength that makes them really valuable. There isn't one class that's just always the best at everything, or even a single combination. (Summoner is close, but there's a lot that Summoner isn't good at, too.)

The only downside is that I've squeezed so much life out of this game that there's not a lot left for it to give. My four job fiesta count is somewhere around 40 now. I think this game probably goes the way of the original Final Fantasy for me, a game that used to live in my top 5 for many years but fell out just because every permutation had been exhausted. I'm getting close to that with FF5 now. I'm actually playing it now with the new pixel remaster, yet again, because that's just what I do.

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xyzzy

okay, I didn't get to the top 10 but that's okay because the top 12 are basically my top tier.

100. portal
99. uniracers
98. dragon warrior
97. world of goo
96. spelunky 2
95. binding of isaac
94. mega man 3
93. ace attorney 5
92. p1 select
91. castlevania: dawn of sorrow
90. half-minute hero 2
89. dragon quest builders 2
88. zelda: link to the past
87. monument valley
86. papers, please
85. zelda: majora's mask
84. god of war 2
83. crystalis
82. great ace attorney 2
81. wolfenstein 2: the new colossus
80. dragon warrior monsters 2
79. final fantasy 7
78. golf story
77. we love katamari
76. etrian odyssey 5
75. super smash bros ultimate
74. mike tyson's punch out!!
73. dragon quest 3
72. holedown
71. shadow hearts 2
70. bleed
69. super hexagon
68. shadow complex
67. hades
66. final fantasy 9
65. persona 4 golden
64. zelda 1
63. mega man 11
62. metroid fusion
61. ace attorney investigations 2
60. desert golfing
59. crypt of the necrodancer
58. street fighter 2
57. brothers: a tale of two sons
56. persona 5
55. geometry wars 2
54. castle crashers
53. tales of maj'eyal
52. xenoblade
51. actraiser
50. castlevania: portrait of ruin
49. ace attorney
48. etrian odyssey 4
47. ace attorney 6
46. the messenger
45. final fantasy 6
44. life is strange
43. ikaruga
42. dicey dungeons
41. inside
40. fantasian
39. dragon quest 11
38. shadow hearts
37. final fantasy 4
36. suikoden
35. banished
34. final fantasy 10
33. tactics ogre: let us cling together
32. street fighter 4
31. super mario odyssey
30. bleed 2
29. outland
28. chrono trigger
27. final fantasy
26. persona 3 portable
25. the walking dead
24. dragon quest 8
23. vvvvvv
22. mega man 2
21. ori and the blind forest
20. final fantasy tactics
19. mega man 9
18. dragon warrior monsters
17. f-zero gx
16. spelunky
15. cave story
14. zelda: breath of the wild
13. am2r

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xyzzy

13.



The only thing keeping AM2R from the top tier Metroids is its linearity, a holdover from its Metroid 2 roots. Metroid 2 was designed for the game boy and all its limitations, so they limit the scope by having you descend further and further into SR388. You clear sections of the map that function like wide open levels before moving on to the next. It works fine, but it isn't the backtracking metroidvania that you might expect.

Other than that, AM2R is kind of incredible. Its control scheme is something of a middle ground between Zero Mission and Dread, with dedicated a morph ball button along with ZM-like controls. AM2R has some sections that are at least up there with any Metroid ever made. The second half of this game in particular is extremely strong and the game is surprisingly replayable despite the linearity. There really isn't a whole lot that separates AM2R from the Super Metroids of the world and it's an amazing accomplishment for essentially one guy.

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xyzzy

I don't mind it breaking, but why even deal with it if I have things that have no limit? I basically just use the master sword only and then go wander while it recharges.

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xyzzy

14.



I just really like wandering up the side of a mountain. I spend so much time just dicking around in Breath of the Wild, randomly trying to get to a high point so I can fly across the map. There's a million things to do in this game but my favourite thing to do is nothing. I like collecting Korok seeds as much as anything else in this game.

Traditional Zelda isn't my thing - the dungeons are the worst thing about this game. I found a tutorial showing me how to "z-target" enemies like 30 hours in -- yeah, I wander up mountains rather than follow the roads -- and outside of that have never bothered to target an enemy. I'm a sicko who likes to destroy enemy bases by throwing bombs at the enemies for like 20 minutes straight. Why do they do like 4 damage to the enemies but 6 hearts to me?! Even my wife, who doesn't play too many video games, is like 'why are you doing this, you moron?' My answer: because it's fun to watch them go flying and torture them, and because I don't care at all for the combat or destroying weapons. I don't mind the combat, but why waste resources? (I'm that guy who beats every Final Fantasy with 27 elixirs in hand.)

I think the laissez faire structure is the main reason I really adore this game. I can just kinda poke at the corners of the world and have fun climbing towers and flying off of them. I'm excited about the sequel, but I think I'm more apprehensive than anything just because there's probably going to be some mechanical improvement at the expense of looping in more traditional dungeons and other things that really don't appeal to me all that much. I just want to get lost.


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xyzzy

15.



This game kinda jams. The music is really good! (is it underrated? not sure, but it doesn't get talked about a ton) The game is at a perfect difficulty, where you really hate getting hit but it's not too hard to avoid if you're aware of your surroundings. Some of the later bosses are rough, but overall it's totally doable.

But it's the basic movement, jumping and combat systems that lifts this game up. This isn't a metroidvania but it presents itself like one, and finding all kinds of secrets in the levels adds an element that your standard Mega Man-like wouldn't have. Speaking of secrets, this game has just a boatload, a lot of them esoteric and completely incidental that can alter what ending you get. It is legitimately hard to get the true ending in this game! You have to make certain jumps, you don't want to trade your bad weapon, you can't miss a trigger point in a boss fight, etc. It's crazy. But even though I hate it, deep down I think I might like it. It gives the game personality and charm, something this game oozes.

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xyzzy

16.



90% of my runs seem to go like this: some random offscreen enemy walks in front of an arrow trap which sends him flying into a bomb box which explodes and sends the enemy's carcass flying at the shopkeeper who then shoots me dead with a shotgun. That number isn't actually 90% but it feels like it sometimes.

That's just part of what happens in Spelunky: each level isn't especially big, just a large-ish room split into 16 sub-rooms. You finish each level in a couple of minutes and there are 16 levels total (usually). But the world has such interactivity and those interactions are fascinating to discover. You can't fall onto spikes without dying but you can walk across them without getting hurt. The ghost will kill you instantly if you stick around a level for two and a half minutes, but any rubies left on the board will turn into diamonds. There are hidden levels and endings with extremely obscure and specific dependencies for even entering. All of that stuff contributes to making Spelunky more than just a maze - even the exits are riddles unto themselves. Oh, and it's a blast to play, too, so long as you can manage the frustration of dying a lot to everything in every crevice of the game.


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xyzzy

17.



God, what a beautiful and perfect god damn game this is. The sense of speed is perfectly aligned with the control you have over the vehicles. The skill ceiling is super high, way above where I ever am, and trying to reach for perfection is pretty thrilling. F-Zero GX is basically untouchable in the futuristic racing space and this game is basically in the running for the greatest game ever made.

The only reason it isn't higher is that there's only so much you can do with a single player racing game. It's kinda like Ikaruga in that there's about an hour of pure racing content, and while that hour is perfect, after a while there just isn't much more to do besides trying to be even more perfect.


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xyzzy

18.



I just love this game. I've played it so much that I can probably recall all the important breeding combinations from memory, even though it's completely useless information to retain. DWM2 has more monsters and depth but in this case more isn't always better. DWM1 keeps it simple with randomized dungeons and a small but effective hub world. It has all the classic monsters and abilities that you'd want, and nothing beyond that. Some of the later games add more stuff but it doesn't really improve the total package.

This is the game that I play when I want to watch RPG numbers get bigger. I love the slow drive from starting with weaklings and turning them into gods. It never gets old.


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xyzzy

19.



I've long felt that 9 was the best game in the classic Mega Man series on a technical level. Each level, weapon and boss are really well designed. The only downside to the game is that a couple of the jumps in the Wily stages are brutal. You almost have to train your muscle memory to pull them off correctly, and for casuals like me who play it and then come back 1-2 years later, it's basically starting over.

I still think they're kinda brutal, but man, I think the game is good enough to just barely put it over 2 as my favorite in the series. Jewel Satellite is a lot of fun for just rocking through stages, Trident is good for blasting through guys, Needle has its uses, Concrete is a great weapon for crushing minibosses as well as a way to get around levels quickly -- everything in this game just feels super good.

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xyzzy

I started a Monk SCC and got to chapter 3, but then I learned all my abilities and again got bored.

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xyzzy

I usually don't use the unique characters because it's hard to ever get away from holy sword or whatever their special skills are.

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xyzzy

20.



I love building up guys in FFT. FFT's class balance isn't perfect or anything, but a lot of different classes are viable and it's fun to mix and match skills across classes. There are only a small few classes to neglect, and even those can be just fine if you really want to use them. Sure, you can crack this game like an egg if you really want, but I've actually never really used calculators due to the fact that I can one-shot enemies with just about anything once I get to the endgame.

The only hangup I have with this game is that, at least for me, my builds largely are complete by the time I finish chapter 3, and so I tend to just get bored and stop playing before the end. I'm here for that customization, and when it fades away I just can't be bothered to see it through. The story is good, don't get me wrong, but it's better when we have a bunch of political players and they're almost all wiped out by the time you get to chapter 4.

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xyzzy

gonna try to get to the top 10 today!

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xyzzy

21.



This is a great, great game. It also has some wonky parts, like having to manually set save points or the lack of direct combat. I didn't really think they were a problem, but then Ori 2 came out and proved that yeah, you can make this great game better. Now, going back to this game feels a little awkward.

But it's still really awesome. Ori is easily on Metroid's level in terms of movement-based metroidvanias. At first it's fairly basic, but halfway through and you barely even touch the ground as you're bashing off of enemies and living on the walls. The music is great and the level design forces you to be excellent, which feels really great because this game is just a dream to play.

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xyzzy

22.



I love that this game is... kinda easy, honestly. I mean, it's not Mario or anything. You've gotta be good at the game and know the boss weaknesses, of course. (though you can also just go for a buster run without any real threat.)

Other MM games will shut you down somewhere, a boss or a Wily stage or something, but MM2 you can kinda coast. It makes MM2 something you can play casually, instead of something where you have to get used to getting screwed over by pixel perfect jumps or what have you.

MM2 has some objective flaws for sure, bad hitboxes or that awful wily 1 boss that you have to be kinda perfect on. But other than that, this game is just a joy.

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xyzzy

23.



Just, one of the most playable games ever made. I put this game on all the time and rip through it in an hour or so, sometimes less. You can kinda scale the difficulty to how you want based on if you want to do things the hard way or what. (doing things the hard way isn't even that bad after 10 years of poking at it on and off.)

There's been a lot of work going into this game lately - mostly since the game went open source and people have been contributing to improving the core game. There are new level packs and all sorts of silly stuff. I just stick with the core game - because the core game is really good.

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xyzzy

24.



I really like that DQ8 goes with essentially 4 characters the entire game. The remakes added more, and you've usually got the King and Medea with you, but overall the entire game has a main cast and there's no fluff.

DQ8 is the first DQ to come into proper 3d and it looks and sounds great. It has a really strong villain, at least for the first half of the game, and the world is super well realized. There are a few scenes in this game that really knocked me over back in 2005. The 3DS enhanced port eliminates random encounters, speeds up battles and has a bunch of other QOL improvements that are very much needed for this game to still feel modern. DQ11 largely does what 8 did but in HD and with additional modern improvements, but it's not quite as good with its storytelling and scenario setting as 8.

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xyzzy

25.



This game has undoubtedly the most dreary and crushing narrative of any game I've played. There's probably some lower budget, bite sized game that can beat it, but as far as notable releases, it's this. The story of Lee and Clementine is really something and it only hits harder as I get older.

It's a really hard game to rank because it is undoubtedly the game of 2012 -- and nine years later, I still can't imagine ever playing it again. Its narrative is so crushing and the choices I made are just canon. I can't overwrite those memories or that experience. So, on the right day, this could be in my top 10, and on other days it's barely a game. It's tricky. It's one of the ten strongest emotional experiences I've had, for sure. I can remember exactly where I was and what time it was when I played the final episode.

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xyzzy

yeah, for sure. there's definitely a month or so in there where it doesn't really feel great. the rest, though, is pretty good.

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xyzzy

26.



Persona 3 is much more my jam than 4 or 5, and presumably every other Persona in the future. Its structure just fits me better: there's a plot but it doesn't drone on like later games do. P3 is still a long game but it justifies its length with letting me do my social links and with the dungeon crawling than jibber jabber.

The tone of Persona 3 is also something I really love. The end of the game especially is just dark and dreary and fantastic. Persona 5 wins the music category but P3 holds its own with songs that really fit that world.

P3 is pretty outdated by Persona standards, even FES, but P3P nails it in terms of feeling just modern enough. There are certainly some more friendly changes in later games but P3P is enough for me. It takes some shortcuts to match the portable system, like movement via a cursor instead of direct character movement, but I'm fine with that. There's even a female mc route that's slightly modified and is appreciated.

But it's that tone that really sells me above everything else. I love this game. I could play P5 Royal or whatever but I'd rather just play P3P again.

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xyzzy

oh don't get me wrong - it gets going quickly, but it doesn't peak until later, and its peak is extended (like 6 hours straight)

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xyzzy

it's not too bad. technically the lowest it's ever been though!

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xyzzy

27.



I'll still be playing this game in 2050. The original, mostly, because that's what I grew up with. But I also played the pixel remaster recently, and while that game feels like a perversion of the spirit of the game that I grew up with, it's still fun to walk through that world with those six classes.

I won't try to argue that a newcomer should play this archaic game, but man do I love it.

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xyzzy

28.



It takes a little bit for this game to get moving, but once you get into the heart of the plot with Magus, the Masamune/Dreamstone and, eventually, Zeal -- it's just among the best ever. Everything about this game feels simple and straightforward, but not to the point of it being boring. It's just accessible and likable, and it's got a whole lot of charm thanks to its great look and soundtrack too.

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xyzzy

yeah, metroidvania means something specific to me as a big fan of the genre and a connected world isn't enough. you have to have some degree of autonomy over the world and what you do. no one is going back into old worlds other than to find those little bonus trinkets.

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xyzzy

29.



This Ikaruga-inspired platformer is just a fun play. There's bullet patterns everywhere and you have to switch colors to absorb them. The patterns feel tough but there's always a pretty reasonable way through them. It makes you feel like you're solving challenging puzzles but not dying endlessly to them. It's nice.

This game feels like a metroidvania but it's really just extra gold and life that are just slightly off the beaten path. It's appreciated, though, and makes everything feel like an interconnected world. Lots of good stuff here, and it's too bad it never got followed up on. The developer's doing pretty okay for themselves so I don't think they'll be revisiting this anytime in the future.

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xyzzy