Lurker > transience

30.



Just a lovely 2d action game. Like the original Bleed, Bleed 2 has some of the best minute to minute action around, with absolutely zero fluff. There's maybe 27 bosses in 70 minutes here and each one is good. Bleed 2 adds a parry that feels so essential and good that it renders the previous game obsolete.

Bleed 2 is also fun to play co-op and there are multiple characters to play with that all feel unique. It's not a game you can really play endlessly, but it is one that I go back every once in a while and enjoy every time.

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xyzzy

31.



This is basically the only Mario game I care about at this point, basically because it plays like something unique. Odyssey is such a creative game. It's got really great wide open environments and it's so colorful and dynamic. They're a joy to just explore, and the game gives you so many ways to do so with the different captures. Wandering around the sand kingdom as a bullet bill, or around the cap kingdom as a frog, or whatever is super enjoyable. The platforming stuff is fun but honestly, it's just wandering around and seeing what you find that gets me.

And then there's the moons. Moons are just seeping out of every crevice in this game. You can walk into a kingdom and just happen upon like 30 moons. You don't need to look hard to seek them out. That feeling of discovery is amazing and it's so easy to get lost meaning to do one thing but ending up doing five others before getting back to your main objective. This game is just so cool. You'll notice I don't talk at all about the bosses or the progression, and that's because they're really secondary to just wandering and finding cool stuff everywhere. You don't even need to do most of it if you find enough moons, and believe me, you won't struggle to find enough moons if you try.

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xyzzy

32.



Just an absolute classic. SF5 is okay but SF4 is awesome and still fun as heck to play today. I'm not any good it anymore -- not that I ever was -- but just trying to pull off some of the higher level stuff is super duper satisfying.

Of course, I don't have the time or interest to devote to playing a game like this competitively, so a lot of my feelings on this are more theoretical. I'd love to spend a day just trying to FADC into ultra but that's not realistically going to happen, and I don't find playing randos online fun in pretty much any game. So, while I super duper love this game, I'm probably not going to be finding myself in too many situations to actually play it.

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xyzzy

last one for tonight

33.



A lot of people first got into this game when the PSP remake came out in 2011, but I've been a huge fan of this game since the 90s. (it's one of only 12 games to make every one of my lists going back to 2003.) FFT's predecessor has a more dynamic story and is probably grittier as well. The things that Tactics Ogre's cast does is awful and you're stuck picking between bad situations and miserable schemers. Some people don't like that because you're not some idealistic rebel fighting against the empire like Ramza, but I think it's very cool.

Tactics Ogre's got some weird stuff in the gameplay department, especially the remake, that stops it from being as good as FFT, but on the right day I'll prefer it just because of the way it tells its story.

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xyzzy

34.



FF10 does one of the best jobs I've ever seen of establishing a setting. The world of Spira is really well realized thanks to all of its norms and traditions. There's an entire culture that's well defined here, different from modern day but not so different that it feels distant and foreign. It feels like I can relate to its people. For example, I know that Wakka is totally an antivaxxer idiot.

I think it's so fascinating that FF10 can pull this off while its level design is literally just a straight arrow from one side of the world to the other. You have no agency in this game but the game pulls the wool over your eyes with all of the set dressing that it lays down. There's other stuff here, like the strong battle system, the leveling system that's been copied to death for the last 20 years, and the dialogue which, while somewhat iconic, leaves a whole lot to be desired. But when I think back on this game, the strongest feeling I have is the sense of place - the Calm and the Sending and the Maesters and Al Bhed and you name it.

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xyzzy

35.



Hey, not an RPG! Don't get used to it. Banished is just a lovely little village builder where you focus on the micro over the macro. Your village will never get above 1,000 people, and each person is individually named, age over time, and eventually die. The goal of this game is to survive the winter, which means storing enough food and having enough warmth. Sometimes it's a really bad winter and you need to be able to deal with that.

Most games of Banished end with your people getting wiped out, and in that sense it's more of a survival game than a city builder. I get really attached to my village and it crushes me when they die due to my own overexpansion or greediness. That challenge and balance is what makes me really love this game.

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xyzzy

yeah the fantasian dioramas are nuts

https://twitter.com/auuo/status/1378731532773257221

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xyzzy

36.



Progression and pace are king in Suikoden. I love the building of my castle, and the game moves so damn quickly. This game feels like a full RPG but lasts maybe 15 hours because each area is just a few screens and there aren't any long cutscenes to speak of. The characters are fine, nothing special, but there's so damn many of them that the game becomes about trying to fill out your space and overcome the empire rather than the individual personalities of each guy.

When this game gets its hooks into you, it's hard to stop. I played this a month or so ago and basically neglected everything else I was doing until I saw credits. Great game.

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xyzzy

37.

The classic. No RPG is more classic than FF4, even FF1, because of just how much it defined. By that same token, you can also say that this game is boring - because it's doing the things every other RPG has been doing for 30 years now. I've always had a super fond spot for it though as I grew up playing this game. The plot is kinda dumb because people are blowing themselves up left and right - choosing your party members wasn't quite a thing yet - but it makes for climactic scenes and strong boss fights. FF4's plot goes places quickly, with strong pacing, and the end of the game is good because of the tough battles and bosses. Still love this game 30 years later.

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xyzzy

38.



I still love this game. It plays better than SH2 because it's not voiced. The music still kills it and the tone that the game sets still works. I'd stop short of calling it a horror RPG, but it definitely has some creepy elements that work super well.

The combat of this game doesn't hold up at all - it's just the most basic fight and heal stuff around. But that's okay, because the monster designs are crazy and you can blast through them pretty quickly, especially once you get to the second half of the game. I still really enjoy this one.

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xyzzy

ah, the 3DS version is a lot easier to deal with overall. that fight is hard for sure, but it's only hard in comparison to the rest of the game. if you get to level 30 and get multiheal it's not even a thing.

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xyzzy

how far did you get in 8?

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xyzzy

yeah, the beginning isn't super strong. it isn't until just a little after that where it gets really good, maybe one or two more arcs.

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xyzzy

39.



I'm honestly not sure what to say about this game besides 'it's real good'. It's Dragon Quest in HD, which is a big deal after so long. The crafting system is addictive and the game has some really strong scenes, scenes that go beyond what you would usually see in a DQ game. One scene in particular is crazy, and anyone who has played this knows what I mean. (It's nothing compared to the legendary Dragon Quest: Your Story, though.)

This is essentially 3 games in one if you include the postgame, which I think you have to. It's interesting how things cycle. It's clearly done to cut down on the number of assets needed, something a whole lot of recent JRPGs do now. But even with that, this game is just a huge triumph, just that it exists.

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xyzzy

I don't know about 'favorite', but the one I struggled against the most was probably beating Ozma in FF9 with a solo Zidane. that took a huge number of attempts to figure out the mechanics of how it was going to work. I also enjoyed soloing Nemesis in FF10 with just Tidus. I am sure there are other challenges that I enjoyed a good bit.. but when it comes to stupid RPG challenges, those are the ones. if we go outside of RPG challenges, probably my Zero Mission stuff was my favorite, or maybe the c-sides in Celeste.

my stupidest challenge was probably Super Metroid without energy tanks, which took me forever because of the Ridley fight. it's stupid because you can't actually beat the game because the final boss forces you to lose 3 energy tanks. I used to think this was hugely impressive until I started watching what the speed run maniacs can do. I'm pretty sure that I still have that save despite having beaten super metroid maybe 30 times since doing that, because I was just so proud of it.

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xyzzy

I bet it finds its way around eventually

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xyzzy

40.



THE KING RETURNS. Hironobu Sakaguchi can make a mean RPG when he wants to. This game got neglected because of its platform (Apple Arcade) but man, it is straight up a classic Final Fantasy game! It feels like it was transported straight out of 1999. We've got prerendered backgrounds and a really interesting turn based combat system here. I got super duper into everything this game has to offer: the characters, the visuals, the story and especially the turn based JRPG gameplay.

This game was split into two parts: it was inspired heavily by the Gooch replaying FF6, so take from that what you will. The second half is very quest based and hard as hell. Even big fans of Fantasian like Heroic Mario got crushed by its difficulty in the second half and couldn't hang. But for weirdo JRPG combat fans like me who like to impose dumb challenges upon myself like a four job fiesta or beating old every FF game solo, this is right up my alley. Hopefully they add an easy mode at some point though because goddamn is the second half brutal.

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xyzzy

oh, and if you thought the whole list has been rpg zone: hahaha

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xyzzy

okay, a warning: we're about to get into the rpg zone of this list. it's just how it worked out this year. we'll get out of it... eventually.

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xyzzy

41.



Inside is this terrifying silent movie about a boy running from... something..? The framing of every shot in this game feels like a master class in design. On its face it's a fairly simple puzzle platformer, but everything here is gross and terrifying and brutal. You get suffocated and drowned and burned and eaten and electrocuted and you name it. You're this (seemingly) helpless kid just trying to escape.

And then you go inside, and, oh my god.

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xyzzy

yeah that seems fair

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xyzzy

42.



This charming little deckbuilder has a lot of really neat ideas. Each class plays really differently and there are all kinds of neat little challenges and rules to mix it up even more, not to mention mod support that lets people build tons of new cards and unique modes. I check in on Dicey Dungeons every few months and there's always something new going on with it, like a recent holiday challenge mode that turned the game into a puzzle game where you have to kill the enemy in one hit or else it healed back to full HP and you had to try again. Stuff like that is cool and gives this game life.

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xyzzy

43.



I've tried and tried and I will just never be good at this game. I have a mental block for learning how to avoid some of the patterns in the later game. I would need someone to break it down second by second, almost like if I was trying to learn how to play a really hard song on the piano or something. I don't have that kind of dedication to this game - I kind of float in and out of it every few months, die a lot, love every second of what I play and then ghost it for another year.

Ikaruga's intensity and patterns are in a class of its own. I'm sure other shmups are harder or more flashy or whatever, but there's just something about the light/dark mechanic that hooks me instantly. I want to be good at this, but maybe not enough to actually put in the reps.


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xyzzy

44.



This little narrative adventure game ate me up in 2015. It has a ton of intrigue that led to a lot of theorycrafting about what was actually happening, and that meta-game made it feel like more than just a quick episodic adventure. Life is Strange offers this awful-yet-nostalgic view of what high school was like, and despite it seeming miserable for everyone involved, that strange pull grounded it in a place that made it feel familiar and charming.

I'm not sure why, but I never played any of the Life is Strange sequels. I even bought one like 3 years ago and just never bothered. Sometimes I'm just good with a singular experience?

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xyzzy

45.



This game has a really good story that builds and builds as the scope gets bigger. It's impressive that they can do that with like a dozen characters in an ensemble cast, and without really having much in terms of villains. There's Kefka and that's kind of it, and you don't even really see him for most of the game. Most of the struggle is just faceless against an Empire.

The gameplay lets it down a bit, and nothing is more obvious than when the world of ruin begins and the story stops pulling you along. FF6 is kind of boring once everyone learns the same spells and the uniqueness of each guy fades away, along with the story stopping from pushing you forward. It pulls it from a top game to merely a really good JRPG. I actually played a mod recently that rebalanced a lot of the combat and that helped make it a lot more fun. Of course, that also added Leo as a playable character and that was kinda silly!

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xyzzy

46.



A nifty little ninja gaiden-like with a lot of neat movement tech. The Messenger plays like a metroidvania despite its level-based, linear structure - until later when the game opens up and actually does turn into a more traditional 'vania. This game's difficulty pushes you to master its movement abilities, and pulling off long strings to clear a challenging room feels real good.

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xyzzy

case 2 is memorable just because of the defendant and circumstances, and how it foreshadows the coming events of the game. it's not a great case though.

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xyzzy

case 2 is fairly memorable, and case 4 is memorable just because why am I doing any of this

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xyzzy

47.



Phoenix had pretty much run the gamut of random prosecutors and situations in his home location, so they throw him in to a new place/legal system with great results. The odds stacked against you system of Khurain ups the stakes and makes for a much more interesting setting than, well, whatever AA5 was. AA5 is a lot more nondescript.

But maybe the biggest twist in series history is that this game is secretly not about Phoenix. It's about Apollo Justice, his backstory and his ability to go beyond his master's shadow. After AA4 and AA5, it's beyond appreciated, and the final case has an end-of-trilogy feel that's matched only by AA3's final monster case. This game certainly isn't flawless -- what's up case 4 -- but I prefer a game that hits the highest highs than one that's merely good at everything, and AA6 certainly does that.

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xyzzy

48.



Take everything said about EO5 and apply it to EO4, but with more interesting classes and a better world map progression. EO4 gives you an airship and an overworld to explore before you go into dungeons, and that split is pretty cool. All of the cool dungeon stuff still applies here, though it's missing a lot of the QOL stuff that later EO games offered (mostly just speed of battles/movement). Still, this game feels like it's clearly the best one to just play, and I love some of the synergies between the characters in this one the most.

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xyzzy

49.



The origin story. It's kind of shocking to go back to AA1 because it feels so basic in comparison to the more recent games. I think the newer games tend to be way overwritten, but AA1 barely even tries to flesh out its story for the first 3ish cases. It feels like a different structure with 3 day trials and such brevity.

Still, this game gets bonus points for being where it started. Phoenix's character development is almost entirely in this first game. He probably gets more in AA1 than in AA2-6 combined. The relationship with Edgeworth and Maya gets ironed out here too. So, while I don't think AA1 is the best AA game on a technical details level, it's way up there just because of the story that it gets to tell.

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xyzzy

I haven't played AV2 yet. AV1 was a disappointment for me but it was alright. I don't know Ender Lilies

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xyzzy

I don't even know what 'sports discord' is! I mean I assume it's a clique of dudes in the board 8 discord but beyond that

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xyzzy

I always hear good things, but I backed it on Switch and it was a technical mess when I played it. it also just didn't feel good as a result. I should go back, but like, there have been so many other metroidvanias to play lately

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xyzzy

I didn't like Bloodstained at all, the little that I played of it

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xyzzy

50.



The best Castlevania game! I really like Portrait of Ruin because it straddles the line between metroidvania and classic Castlevania. Those games are usually differentiated by whip (classic) vs. sword (metroidvania) and Jonathan can equip both. In Portrait, you wander a main castle and find various portraits and go into these neat little themed levels that are a little more linear. Not completely linear or anything, but it's pretty clear that you need to get to the end. It's not a maze.

Portrait also has some nifty movement options thanks to having two characters. There's some cool movement tech that works well for speed runs, and unlike most of these games it's not too hard to pull it off. Portrait is just good, man. The last couple of hours of the game is super enjoyable because you have lots of movement options and attacks. Bosses are really fun to tangle with and the last boss is oh so good. Great game.

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xyzzy

51.



They put out a remake of this game a few months ago and oh my god I kinda hate remakes. Actraiser is a game of a specific time period and you can't recreate that.

Actraiser is a game of two genres mashed together: combat and simulation. Neither section on their own is especially interesting, but put them together and it has this really neat back and forth. The progression is what makes this game feel at all cohesive - it's just really cool to develop a land and then rid that land of evil. It also has a killer Yuzo Koshiro soundtrack. This game was essentially a SNES launch game, the definitive mode 7 game, and those aspects really cemented it as a next gen title at the time. I still think this game is charming as hell to play today. Maybe a little simple for 2021, but super charming.

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xyzzy

which beatemups?

yeah, once the big reveal happens I feel like the game gets a little juvenile in its storytelling. lots of big sword action and screaming.

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xyzzy

52.



I've fallen off of Xenoblade a bit. Open ended exploration of huge open spaces just doesn't do it for me as much anymore, probably since it's become more and more the norm in the 10 years since its release. Games like Breath of the Wild offer what Xenoblade does with way more interactivity and a much larger space. I can also blame Xenoblade 2 a bit which really soured me on anything Xenoblade. That game is no good.

But this game is good! The interactions between your characters are charming, especially early on when the group is small and intimate. This game is framed by the struggle for survival against the mechon, and the occasional conflicts really drive home the difference in power levels. As the game progresses, you slowly gain the upper hand as you unlock more Monado powers. The back third of this game isn't as good as what comes before because that conflict starts to feel unbalanced. All the while, you're exploring new spaces and learning new story revelations and it's real good. The music is pretty strong and the story is pretty good. It's real easy to like this game a lot.

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xyzzy

53.



Roguelikes -- real roguelikes -- are crazy. I'm fairly convinced that you can only play one of these games with any kind of competence. There's just too much to know. I've played this game for over 100 hours, mostly play just a single class out of fear of having to start over in learning, and have 3% of the achievements. You know, because there's 1782. I gave it a run last month and it's even significantly different from the last time I played it because these games are essentially live games. It came out 9 years ago.

TOME is a pretty soft roguelike, one with actual graphics, modes that disable permadeath and have some unlockables, like additional races and classes. But it's still a monster to try to untangle, even playing just a single class. There's just so much here that it's dizzying. I'm probably terrible at this game, and I've never actually beaten it, though I've gotten incredibly close. This game is great but it ultimately comes down to how much time I want to invest in it, and I'd need to sink months in to really get good at this. I'm not that monogamous with my games but I do like this thing.

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xyzzy

okay, that's another tier down. the next one is mostly classic games.

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

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xyzzy

I don't mess around! (these take like 3 minutes each)

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xyzzy

54.



Speaking of 2000s games! I actually still play this game a lot, with my youngest. To my knowledge, there still hasn't been a beat-em-up that has surpassed Castle Crashers in terms of accessibility and replayability. They just don't make too many games like this anymore, and the ones they do, like SOR4 or whatever, just don't do it for me. Absolutely anybody can play this game and it's still fun.

The gameplay is fairly straightforward but the light RPG mechanics work super well and let you run different builds which gives it some interesting twists. There's only so many ways to spec your guy so it can get a little stale, but pretty much any co-op multiplayer game is more fun with friends (or in my case, family), so it's a good time even when the game gets a little old. Plus, if I put it down and come back several months or a year later, it feels fresh again. One day I'll find a game to replace this game, but not yet.


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xyzzy

55.



Nothing says "2000s" like Geometry Wars. The original Geometry Wars on XBLA defined the early downloadable experience and the sequel improved on it in some pretty major ways. There are six radically different modes here for a twin stick shooter fan and each one is a lot of fun. I love gunning for high scores in this game, and the old high score integration with friends was great. (Not that anyone actually plays this game anymore, but hey.)

Geometry Wars 2 is like the only game that never made it off of XBLA, which is a real bummer. Most everything else found its way to PC or Switch or whatever but this one is still exclusive to that old console. I guess it probably got pulled forward to more modern Xbox platforms actually with backwards compatibility. I still need to get one of those.

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xyzzy

yeah, I've heard others praise it too. I just don't think it's very interesting, like at all.

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xyzzy

nah. one time through a 100 hour game is enough for me

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xyzzy

56.



So, Beneath the Mask. Has there ever been a better RPG song? That thing sets a goddamn mood, and defines pretty much the entirety of Persona 5. Take away Beneath the Mask and this game drops a few spots at least. I might even rank it below 4!

Persona 5's music and style is just outstanding. It carries the game for sure. On the other hand, I think this game is really poorly paced, with random conversations amongst your team going on for long stretches, sometimes hours longer than it needs to. But it has great gameplay, really cool social link/gameplay interactions, and a strong climax. It's too bad that the final act of this game lets it down!

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xyzzy

57.



A lovely little action puzzle game where you control two characters with two analog sticks. Brothers is fairly simple with its puzzles, kind of like a Monument Valley, which is good because the struggle comes from trying to control both guys simultaneously. It's not easy to split your brain into two to do this, especially when your guys are going in different directions! It's intentionally obtuse, and for good reason.

Without going into details, the end of this game merges story and gameplay in such a profound way. It creates a truly great video game moment. This game manages to be highly emotional despite not speaking a word of English, and that moment is suuuuuper memorable. The rest of the game is pretty fun too, but that moment is why this game rates so highly.

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xyzzy

58.



An absolute classic, and one of the top contenders for games I've clocked the most hours on all time. This game was just about all I did throughout my adolescence unless a new Final Fantasy came out. I spent so many hours and dollars playing this in the arcade, and then even more time on the SNES version. Even today, I can still throw this on and have a great time. I will be throwing out quarter circles until my hands no longer work.

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xyzzy

59.



The music in this game! It's so good. It fits absolutely perfectly with the thumping of the gameplay. Enemies aren't even really after you, at least most of them. They're just kinda enjoying the music, going about their pattern, all that.

Necrodancer is all about pattern recognition and being able to think within the beat. I'm.. pretty bad at this game. I've never beaten it, though I've been to the last act. But it's so good. It's so, so good. They made a Zelda themed Necrodancer, and don't get me wrong, Zelda music is good. But it's not Necrodancer music, which is some of the greatest in-game music of all time.

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xyzzy