Lurker > transience

60.



I have an announcement to make: after god knows how many hours and however many thousands of holes, I've finally broken free from Desert Golfing. This was my go-to mobile game for something like 6 years whenever I had a few spare minutes and wanted to idle. The persistence of the game (almost) never ending and the simplicity of just poking at a few holes here and there was pure joy for my dumb brain who didn't want to really do anything.

Two reasons for this. One was that a sequel came out last year, Golf on Mars, which iterated on the formula ever so slightly, changing the physics and making the world a little more persistent (meaning you could scroll the screen and not have to start over at the beginning of the hole). Golf on Mars was fine, but lacked some indescribable quality that Desert Golfing had. The other reason is I found new mobile games to poke at over time, which I'll go more into later in the list. I'm pretty happy that I finally broke this addiction because man, no one needs to spend hundreds of hours hitting a ball on a 2d plane endlessly!


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xyzzy

in general, I think I'd only recommend GAA if people have already played through all the mainline games. it's still totally likable, but you could be playing those instead.

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xyzzy

it's much better! it helps that you have the backing of familiar characters.

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xyzzy

61.



The second Edgeworth game does a fantastic job of telling a cohesive story across all of its cases. It's probably better at that than any other Ace Attorney game. Minor characters from earlier cases become major players later on. Culprits that have been caught end up coming back into the fold as the overarching narrative wraps around them. The end scene in this game features something like 17 of the game's characters in one room trying to figure out what the hell is going on, set up by a mastermind.

The Edgeworth games have never felt as important or magnanimous as the mainline Ace Attorney games due to lacking a proper trial system. Still, their focus on navigation and actual exploration lets them weave a scenario that rolls things out at their pace instead of waiting for the trial to drop the bombs. The first game did a pretty poor job of this but AAI2 nails it.

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xyzzy

62.



It took me a long time, but I came to terms with what Metroid Fusion is when I stopped thinking of it as a proper Metroid game. This game dumps a lot of Metroid traditions, the most obvious of which is the excessive narration. Super Metroid gives you an intro and leaves you alone while Fusion unlocks doors at a computer's whim and overexplains what's going on in the world behind those locked doors. It's jarring, and that's to say nothing of the removal of core Metroid abilities like the bomb jump or the single wall jump.

Metroid Fusion is more of a cinematic metroidvania that does a great job of setting a tone. It could have leaned into a lot more - this game could have been a lot scarier than what they settled on. There are sections where the SA-X gets the jump on you and it's legitimately terrifying because you're helpless. The newest Metroid makes you feel the Dread when the EMMI is chasing you, but it's contained to specific areas and the penalty for dying is minimal. It's got nothing on the SA-X.

Metroid Fusion definitely suffers from its linearity, but as a tone-setting horror game, it's pretty good. It could have been better if they played up that angle more, but it's still pretty fun to rip through.

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xyzzy

63.



It's a different kind of Mega Man! Okay, not really. Like 90% of this game is still classic Mega Man. Capcom knows that Mega Man fans have a very specific expectation of what a Mega Man game is: 8 bosses, rush coil/jet, energy tanks, 3 lives, all the stuff that's been there for 30 years. But MM11 starts to change things on the edges to smooth out the experience a little. Difficulty levels, weapon selecting, a dedicated slide button and the new double gear system.

The double gear system is the biggest change, with the ability to power up weapons or slow down time. It's a good system that any proper Mega Man fan goes out of its way to avoid because who ever needed such tweaks in Mega Man? But if you embrace it, it's a really cool system that adds a lot. This game has a pretty good set of weapons and it's fun to power them up and crush a boss. I do wish they'd go another step further and remove the idea of lives from Mega Man, but maybe they save that step for Mega Man 12, assuming it ever comes.


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xyzzy

most of them, if not all, are probably right!

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xyzzy

64.



The OG. I love the original's open structure, where you just kinda go anywhere and do things in any order, something they went really far away from until, I guess Breath of the Wild. Secrets are tucked into every corner and bush, which probably seems archaic to anyone born after 1985 but you guys didn't grow up on Nintendo Power like I did. Zelda 1's map is inscribed into my DNA at this point.

Because of its open ended nature, this game works great with various rom hacks, especially randomizers. There's a lot of ways to milk entertainment out of this game and I'm here for most of them.

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xyzzy

you can speed up the game speed but it still takes like 5 seconds to get into them for some reason. also the speed up options, at least the ones built in, are either normal speed or like 5x speed, nothing inbetween.

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xyzzy

65.



In my mind, Persona 4 occupies this middle ground between 3 and 5. Not just because of release order, but in terms of the overall approach to how the game is structured. Persona 3 really leans into the gameplay side of the equation with some quick dialogue, and Persona 5 rambles on endlessly. Persona 4 is just... good? It's a nice middle ground. It feels like the proper blueprint of what a Persona game should aim to be going forward.

This game is just overall good. It has likable characters, though it still drones on way more than I'd like. The story is good, the gameplay is good. Nothing is ever particularly amazing in this game, but it's such a cohesive and solid package. Sometimes there isn't anything more to say than "yeah, that game is good."

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xyzzy

66.



This is another top RPG of mine that hasn't aged particularly well. A lot of people give FF7 grief for being hilariously outdated, and rightly so, but FF9 isn't much better. The easiest thing to point to is the load times, and sure, those are bad - but I find the overall battle speed and pacing of the game to be the bigger culprit. It just doesn't move at the pace that it feels like it should.

But FF9 is great! I love the cast and, more importantly, the world that it creates. It feels lived in. This game features great boss encounters and climactic scenes. It's interesting in how the pacing can fall down inbetween those scenes, but when it's time to crescendo, FF9 does it as well as anyone. I think FF9's class system creates true separation between characters which is very welcomed after FF5-8 strives to make every character more or less the same. Only Vivi can cast Blizzard and Zidane's the only one that can steal. I like that in my classic JRPGs. FF9 is a throwback to the heavily influential FF4 in so many ways, and as someone who grew up adoring those early FF games, it's very appreciated.

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xyzzy

67.



This is a tricky one for me! This game has my name all over it. I love tight and tough 2d action games. I love run based roguelites. I love spinning the wheel of random upgrades and seeing what might happen. The gameplay here is really strong and each weapon brings a completely different playstyle -- almost like there are six different playable characters. I don't know about "balance" between weapons, but each weapon is unique and you can make every one of them work really well. This game is kind of amazing.

But.. I also don't like the progression of the game? Like, everything involving conversations with the various gods is a negative for me. I don't like any of the parts between runs. It feels like a checklist and I skip half of the dialogue out of apathy. The progression within runs is weird too -- you can more or less go with the same upgrades every time if you want. I ended up beating the game 7 or 8 times in a row by just going for the same build and demolishing Hades with it. That's more on me and my lack of variety than anything, but the idea of a roguelite is to force you into whatever the game throws at you and to have different experiences each time. I felt like the design betrayed that.

But that gameplay, man. That feeling when you're surrounded by monsters in act 3 and need to kill the skeleton dudes before they respawn. Trying to deal with the act 3 boss who is a pretty famous brick wall. The number of risk-reward decisions you have to make throughout a run is impressive. This game is really good, just a little rough around the edges.

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xyzzy

yeah, that was exactly my thoughts too. I figured the game would fade away now that we had metroidvanias crawling out of every corner.

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xyzzy

68.



Shadow Complex has no right to be anywhere near this list. It's one of the ugliest games ever made, a tribute to the greys and browns of the early HD era. But man, this game is just fun to play. It nails the progression of a good metroidvania and feels great when you're running from room to room at top speed. Aiming with the right stick and going for headshots was a new twist to these kinds of games and added a layer of combat depth. There's a lot wrong with this game but I love metroidvanias and this is a fun one.


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xyzzy

okay, that's another tier down. I feel like the next bunch of games is a big jump up. we'll kick those off tomorrow.

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

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xyzzy

69.



Super Hexagon is the purest video game there is. You last maybe two minutes max, and that's if you're really good, and every second feels like 10 as you try to survive. This game is all about overstimulation as you spin in circles while the backgrounds assault your eyes. It's you vs. the game in its most natural form. If this was in an arcade, it would eat up quarters like crazy.

I love Super Hexagon. I take it for a spin all the time, but never for more than 5-6 minutes because that's about all the human body can handle.

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xyzzy

70.



I've been championing this little gem for almost a decade now. Bleed is a lovely run-n-gun whose main draw is that it controls like a twin stick shooter. I love twin stick shooters and mixing it up with a 2d action game is completely my jam.

Bleed 1 is maybe 75 minutes long and has something like 20 bosses, all of them pretty hard on any mode above easy. You get in, you die a lot and you have a ton of fun. This game is awesome. The only issue with it is that it's completely outclassed by its sequel, which we'll talk about another time.

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xyzzy

yuck. azuarc -> My Settings -> Links and Media in Messages if you want to change it

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xyzzy

71.



Shadow Hearts 2 was one of my very favourite games from the 2000s, a top 10 list staple for years. Of all the RPGs from that PS1-PS2 era, SH2 might have aged the absolute worst. The voicework is extremely awkward and doesn't even match up with the on-screen text. The comedy was novel back in 2004 but just lands poorly now. Some of the dungeon design is really baffling.

But I still kinda really love this game! It's got a ton of heart and a really good story once you put your party together and it stops openly laughing at itself. The main character is extremely strong, so strong that he overshadows the rest of the cast. It has one of the best RPG endings ever. Everything here is good. It just.. doesn't play well in 2021, which is too bad.

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xyzzy

Arkanoid is great. it's better than Arkanoid though (though I do love getting the laser and blowing up a board)

https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/12005105/holedown_animated_02.gif

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xyzzy

72.



I've been playing brick breaking games for something like 35 years. I love them! And my favourite one is this dumb little phone game. Holedown is this dopamine burst where you shoot all of your balls at a single spot and abrupt chaos break out on the board as things just go everywhere. It's endlessly fun and it has a really addictive progression system where you unlock more balls and harder levels. Once you finish the progression, there's an endless mode that I still break out every couple of weeks when I'm bored and need to kill some time.

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xyzzy

well I can put names if people want. I like just seeing the art, personally. I think it makes an impact, but if a bunch of people turn off data (they're just pictures..?) then I'll be glad to list the names too.

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xyzzy

you have to do that? I just see all of the images at once. if I was using imgur or something like that then only the first picture on a page seems to load, but if you embed them natively you can see them all at once. or at least that's how it works for me.

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xyzzy

73.



DQ3 is the defining game in the DQ series -- the FF4 of Dragon Quest, so to speak. Pretty much everything modern originates here -- expanded spell books, classes, weapons, tropes, etc. It feels "classic", and not in that DQ1 way where "classic" just means "old". I like old, but I can acknowledge that the first game isn't a spring chicken in its design. 3 is the first game that feels somewhat modern. I mean, by DQ standards anyway. Even the most recent game is lacking in modern game design, but that's a good thing.

I love this game's expansive world. It's big but not so big that it's unmanageable. This game goes lots of interesting places and the ending resonates super strong with fans of the original. Sometimes simple is good, and that's what this game nails.

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xyzzy

74.



Punch-Out is perhaps the original puzzle game that's disguised as an action game. On the surface this seems like a sports game, but it's really just an elaborate combat puzzle where you have to learn what the opponent does and counter it. When I was a kid, I just smashed buttons and flailed at my opponents and got utterly demolished. These days, I can walk through this game with relative ease.

Once you get to know this game, it's not especially exciting - but it is fun to try to maximize your skills and demolish these guys. A lot of people hold Tyson up as a trophy that only the greatest gamers in the world can take down, but he's really not that tough. Everything in this game is timing, and once you have it, it never leaves you.

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xyzzy

I think the next one just picks up where it left off and continues to add more and more stuff. they play it up that way but they're always just going to iterate, because it's so damn popular.

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xyzzy

75.



I haven't spent much time playing Smash Ultimate over the past couple of years, but it doesn't feel like it because Smash is just omnipresent. My Smash intake is more about just watching the celebration than actually partaking in it. As I've said before, it's that museum quality, that absolute dedication to authenticity, that endears me to this franchise.

I like playing it too, and if I was of an age where my friends came over to play video games, I would probably adore this game. (My youngest would love it if I took him on, but kicking his ass or letting him win wouldn't be much fun for one of us.) But for where I am in life now, I just like to watch the videos showing off the new moves and seeing how it adapts all of the new characters and stages to the world of Smash. They're always pitch perfect and smart in their implementations of new guys. I don't need to actually play Smash Ultimate to endlessly appreciate the craft that's put in.


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xyzzy

76.



I love the Etrian Odyssey games. They're ultimately about the satisfaction you get from progression and exploration. There's no purer RPG than Etrian Odyssey.

When you start out, every step is dangerous. Every enemy is unknown and your surroundings are vast. As you slowly push through the dungeon, through extremely careful prodding of the environments and the dangerous enemies in each area, you gain this knowledge of what's safe, what the optimal path is and what to avoid. Your characters slowly get new abilities and the drops in the dungeon let you make better weapons. Soon, you manage to map out part of a floor, find a shortcut, and eventually get to the stairs to reveal a new floor. The darkness of exploration has given way to the light, and the moment you descend, you're consumed by that darkness again, poking carefully to see if you can make the next step without dying.

That core loop is great, and EO5 adds a lot of quality of life improvements that make the act of just exploring the dungeon feel better. EO5 is a no gimmicks, you vs. the dungeon and nothing else approach so if you don't enjoy the grind, it's not going to offer you anything back in return. But if you do, this game is great.

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xyzzy

77.



Katamari is great and the second game is the best Katamari. WLK is the sweet spot between when Katamari figured out good controls and before it just got played out by too many iterations of the same thing. I bought Katamari Reroll a couple of years ago and boy, let me tell you, that first game was not smooth. It had the best music by far but it didn't play right. WLK did it right, and it's the version I would go back to if I felt the itch to play a Katamari game.

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xyzzy

78.



A lovely little.. well, it's part golf game, and I guess part RPG? It doesn't sound interesting, and honestly it isn't, but it's got that twee vibe to it that people usually invoke with heartfelt RPGs. Whatever "it" is, Golf Story has it. It's so easy to like this game. It feels good to just walk around hitting golf balls and completing random quests for people by hitting a guy with a ball from 100 yards away. And then there's the golf itself, and if you know anything about me, you know that I like me some abstract, goofy, nonsensical video game golf.

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xyzzy

79.



FF7 is like a famous movie where every scene is memorable and iconic. Every line, every animation just stands out as being genre defining. I don't love every piece of this game, especially the materia leveling and battle systems, but it's got a good story, good characters and great tone-setting music.

A quick side note: I was always super excited to see FF7 Remake come to fruition, and I think they did a great job remaking this world in such exacting detail. And yet.. I don't have any desire to see a part 2 just because that kind of action game just isn't my jam. FF7R feels like a big budget third person shooter that's adapted for a 1997 RPG and while that's kinda cool in theory, the glacial pace and battle systems just aren't that interesting to me. I'm also just not sure what the heck happened towards the end of that game and I've sorta blocked it out of my memory. OG FF7 is all I need, warts and all.

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xyzzy

okay, that's the end of a tier of games -- our second one, technically. we level up a little bit with the next batch of 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

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xyzzy

80.



I've loved the monsters of this series since I was real young, and so this series is my Pokemon. The act of raising a DQ monster from slime to endgame boss is a great source of addiction and time loss in my life. DWM2 has a ton of classic monsters and introduces randomized magic keys for near-endless grinding possibilities.

I played through the 3DS remake a few weeks ago and... it's okay, but not the same. I'll always prefer the old monsters games and their mechanics. If I liked Pokemon, I'd be team RBY for life.

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xyzzy

81.



I suck at FPS games for numerous reasons so I don't come to them for tight gameplay. I prefer a wild story and oh man does the recent Wolfenstein series deliver. Wolfenstein 2 starts with BJ in a wheelchair after the events of the last game, with a max of 50 health, rolling up and down the stairs while messing up scores of Nazis. The game just continues to escalate from there. Some of the scenes in this game are just unbelievable. I don't even want to go into detail because it's worth seeing it play out.

I play these games on easy. It actually works out great because I love blowing up hundreds of Nazis without a ton of resistance and letting the scenario play out. It actually plays on about my skill level because these games aren't so easy and I suck. This game is stupid fun and I wish they'd make another honest effort at a big game instead of what they've been pumping out the last couple of years.

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xyzzy

AA7 is more about seeing out the events at the end of AA6 than wanting to control Phoenix again. there's just so much investment there

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xyzzy

yeah, one day maybe I'll give it (God of War 2018) a look. it seems like it's good and it's certainly got the critical acclaim behind it. all I hear in my head when I think about it is BOY and ehhhhh.

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xyzzy

82.



The first game in this collection is kind of miserable. I'd rank it as the worst AA game, below AA4, for being exceptionally slow and, honestly, boring.

GAA2 fixes most of that. It's almost like GAA1 is a tutorial game to set you up for the real game. There's still a lot of nonsense here -- they continue to use a jury system that doesn't work and it's overwritten in the way that most modern AA games are nowadays. Herlock Sholmes is still a pretty big negative in my book. But case 2 is really clever and I love case 3. I think it's the best case in the game and can hang with some of the best from the mainline AA games. Case 4/5 is also good but I don't really like the twist they took with your main rival and the case is a little too convoluted for my tastes. It's still good, just not as good as case 3.

Overall, this game makes me really want an Ace Attorney 7. Playing as Ryunosuke is fun but I need the real thing. Hopefully someday it comes into being.

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xyzzy

I think it would be better with an expanded tileset. again, the limitations of the NES

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xyzzy

83.



One of the NES's true gems. Crystalis was ahead of its time and compares favorably to pretty much anything else out at the time, whether you want to compare it to top-down action games like The Legend of Zelda or to turn based RPGs. This game is really ahead of its time and kinda suffers for it as a result. Crystalis could have benefited from a four button controller, more memory for its large world or a halfway decent translation. Despite that, its mechanics are unique and still resonate today, though there are a few things that feel like holdovers of an archaic era. I love this game's simplicity and charm.

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xyzzy

84.



I don't have much to say here. God of War is fun and the second one really amps up everything. This game climaxes in a really great way and I still find it fun to play today.

I also never felt the need to move on after this game. I remember playing the demo for God of War 3 and thinking it was just... too much for me, too much gore and trying to be shocking for shocking's sake. I also never bothered to play the 2018 game because I'm just kind of over the series and don't want any more. But yet, I can go back to this game and still love it 15 years later. Who knows!

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xyzzy

the second one takes out all of the non-rpg stuff and expands on it. it's better, but it's also way longer than it should be (something like 20 hours?)

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xyzzy

heroicmario posted...

Lists!

the prodigal son has returned, once again, for the biennial tradition

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xyzzy

85.



I've never been a big fan of traditional Zelda. Ocarina is fine, I guess, but it's not an especially interesting time. Majora, though, has the omnipresent clock that ticks down on you and the imagery is kind of a nightmare. Watching the town move like clockwork is pretty interesting as you rewind over and over again. I don't love the gameplay because it still is rooted in that traditional 3d Zelda formula and this game is more or less an Ocarina rom hack -- but the mechanics of how everything works around that is really cool to watch play out, time and time again.


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xyzzy

86.



This is a fascinating game. Everything works together to create an incredibly stressful experience. If you don't get through enough people, your family dies. The game layers on additional forms that you need to search through and the clock is forever ticking while you try to find discrepancies. The soviet era backdrop is bleak as hell and the music sets the tone. Occasionally you let through a terrorist that blows up the station and you have to shut down early, which hurts your pocketbook and maybe your kid will die.

All of the layers work together so well, and if you want to go against the grain, there are lots of moral decisions to make that go down all kinds of different story paths. None of them are especially good, but they're all interesting. Do you let the wife in without the proper paperwork after you admitted her husband? Do you work with the illuminati-adjacent group that bribes you, or turn them in? What about the person who tells you about the rapist who has their papers in order? I personally can't be bothered to walk through every path because this game is stressful enough that I don't want to suffer over and over, but every once in a while I'll throw this on and get screwed over by the brutal environment that this game lives within.

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xyzzy

87.



This game is just lovely. There are puzzles, yeah, but they're not especially complicated since there's only so many possibilities of what you can do. It's just nice to walk through this space and watch the clockwork tick as you pull a lever or flip a perspective. Monument Valley is kind of the perfect mobile game and it fits the touch screen so well. Put this on a PC and it probably doesn't stand out, but on a small screen where you can lay in bed and take in the art? So good.

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xyzzy

thank you for your permission

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xyzzy

88.



This game is good! That's honestly all I have to say about it. I don't find it especially exciting to play and don't get the joy that others do when they explore the map (it's a good map!). The dungeons are OK. I won't throw any shade at LTTP because it's so extremely solid but it's not a game that I'm ever dying to play. That said, it's one of the most playable games ever made and I find myself picking it up on a random virtual console service all the time just because it's there and it's good. I'm not sure that a more competent game has ever been made.

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xyzzy

yeah but did you get it with nintendo power it's a true classic

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xyzzy

89.



The Builders games are way better than you would expect, especially the second one. On their face they seem like Minecraft games with Dragon Quest tropes built in for fanservice but it actually feels the other way around. Builders is more of an action RPG with clear objectives than any kind of free-wandering build what you want game. Sure, you can go off and do that on your own if you want, but the actual quest and plotline is the goal here and it feels decidedly DQ. It's pretty cool.

One bummer here is that the superior Builders 2 is based on the story of DQ2 which is a bottom tier DQ. Hopefully they make a Builders 3 that's based on DQ3 because that game is rad.

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xyzzy

90.



Half Minute Hero presents itself as a micro-RPG where you have to save the world in 30 seconds, and it is absolutely that, but it feels more like an action puzzle game where you're taking in information about the world you're trying to save and then acting on it quickly. I love that loop of trying to figure out what the heck to do and then executing on it perfectly within the time limit. The game throws all kinds of mechanics and characters at you in rapid succession. It's a nice change of pace from the slow-paced, methodical JRPGs that are usually made. Also, the soundtrack here is nuts.

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xyzzy