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TopicSaveEstelle & LeonhartFour in New Houses: Final Fantasy Music Edition [SELF]
Arti
03/15/21 2:48:01 PM
#474
obviously you should play more Cold Steel IV and get the platinum

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azuarc may not know the strength of songs in VGMC, but he conquered the guru in Game of the Decade 2! Congrats!
TopicThe Great 2021 Video Game Challenge
Arti
03/01/21 12:03:38 AM
#133
30. Beat a game with a female lead

Kandagawa Jet Girls

6/50

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azuarc may not know the strength of songs in VGMC, but he conquered the guru in Game of the Decade 2! Congrats!
TopicPost Each Time You Beat a Game: 2021 Edition
Arti
03/01/21 12:02:00 AM
#141
Kandagawa Jet Girls (PS4)

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/79323234

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azuarc may not know the strength of songs in VGMC, but he conquered the guru in Game of the Decade 2! Congrats!
TopicThe Board 8 Discord Sports Chat Rank Their Top 100 Respective Video Games part 3
Arti
02/28/21 4:54:15 PM
#234
#11 - Tales of Vesperia (Xbox 360, 2008)

Back on the GameCube I played through my first Tales game, Symphonia, and found it to be a very good game at the time I played it. And while the translation for GBA Phantasia was somewhat questionable, I still enjoyed the gameplay of that one as well.

Fast forward to 2008. The PS3 had barely any games to speak of at the time, and the 360 was collecting a good amount of jRPGs at the time that I was somewhat interested in, including this one. (This one would be the only 360 exclusive jRPG that I would actually play on the 360, though.) I got a 360 for Christmas at some point and this was the game I played the most on it, and is still the Tales game I think is the best.

Vesperia's main character is Yuri Lowell and he is one of the best jRPG protagonists around (and the Tales character polls show that Japan agrees, as they had to take him out just to give other characters a chance), as he's very different from the usual Tales protagonists who do nothing besides talk about friendship for 80 hours or so. Yuri is a true chaotic good protagonist and has mostly unique or altered artes, while his friend Flynn has most of the basic ones such as Demon Fang and Sword Rain - and he acts like you would expect a Tales main character to be. Following Yuri throughout the game is a much better Tales experience overall, and though the party isn't really the kind of friendship you would expect in a jRPG, they play off of each other very well. This is also one of the first Tales game to have voice acting in the skits as well as the cutscenes, which adds to the game a lot as well.

The game's story does kind of drag on a bit - I think it would have been much better overall to have it end at the end of part 2 rather than adding a whole new chapter to the game - especially since practically the whole map had already been explored by that time. The gameplay is not as good as some of the Tales games I've played since Vesperia, as I've noted in my writeups for both Graces f and Xillia, but it's still solid enough to hold up today, unlike Symphonia which I really can't go back to after playing some of the later titles.

I haven't played the remastered version that came out more recently, and I feel without Troy Baker voicing Yuri the whole way through and adding Patty to the party will just ruin my enjoyment of how great I felt this game was overall. I will eventually, though finding time to fit another 100 hour RPG is definitely more difficult these days than back when I was in college instead. Still, my memories of playing this through my first year of college definitely place this game all the way up at #11.

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azuarc may not know the strength of songs in VGMC, but he conquered the guru in Game of the Decade 2! Congrats!
TopicThe Board 8 Discord Sports Chat Rank Their Top 100 Respective Video Games part 3
Arti
02/25/21 8:43:48 PM
#220
#12 - Muv-Luv Alternative (Vita, 2017)

Muv-Luv Alternative is a tricky game to both rank and talk about in a list like this, since it's the third (technically, second) game in a series where the other games are required to understand basically anything in it, as Muv-Luv Alternative starts off right where the previous visual novel ends. Those other games happen to be a terrible school life visual novel and an average futuristic mecha one, so they aren't anywhere close to being ranked anywhere near a top 100 list like this one. Makes it pretty hard to recommend when you have to slog through 25 hours of reading before getting to the actual good part.

But when you do, it easily is one of the more exciting visual novels on this list, and really hits its high points in both episode 7 and the final episode for very different reasons. I can't say anything more because anything I say about this game is a spoiler, but this game deserves one of the very few 10/10s I've given out on vndb.org, and I don't regret doing so at all.

The other two games that also got 10/10s on vndb.org will get better write-ups, at least!

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azuarc may not know the strength of songs in VGMC, but he conquered the guru in Game of the Decade 2! Congrats!
TopicThe Board 8 Discord Sports Chat Rank Their Top 100 Respective Video Games part 3
Arti
02/23/21 5:48:47 PM
#208
I have so many games that are like that

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azuarc may not know the strength of songs in VGMC, but he conquered the guru in Game of the Decade 2! Congrats!
TopicThe Board 8 Discord Sports Chat Rank Their Top 100 Respective Video Games part 3
Arti
02/22/21 6:35:59 PM
#199
#13 - Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor (DS, 2009)

Back in 2009 I had not yet come to Board 8 nor did I have any non-Nintendo systems at the time so my knowledge of the Shin Megami Tensei series at the time was a flat nothing. I saw this game being written up in Nintendo Power for a bit and thought that I should definitely pick this game up. This started a chain reaction in where I would pick up every Shin Megami Tensei game since then and beat only like half of them, but this one I did everything in the game I could. Twice.

Devil Survivor, unlike the main series, is a strategy RPG. However, like most games in the series, it is set in modern-day Tokyo where an outbreak of demons happen. The protagonist sees a number by everyone which is their "death clock" showing how many days a person has to live, though the number can change based on various events. During the game you can talk to various other people within the lockdown zone where the demons are, and at the end you're forced to make an alignment choice to basically depend on what endings you can get, determined by who you visited during the previous days and who is still alive at that time. One person's route is always available, but it's very easy to set the game up to have all six options ready to be chosen, and I've done it many times when playing this and its 3DS remake to completion.

And yes, when I said I did complete both games, it means I beat the bonus boss in both the DS and 3DS versions as well, and knowing Atlus it was definitely one of the hardest challenges I've done in a video game. The 3DS version is still my most played game in the Activity Log on that system with over 125 hours and will probably never be surpassed. I never did get very far into Devil Survivor 2, which is kind of weird as I liked this one so much, but it never seemed to click with me the way this game did. Maybe because it was released on the DS after the 3DS remake of this game came out? In Japan that was reversed so it wasn't an issue there. Regardless of what the reason was for that, the first Devil Survivor is one of the best strategy RPGs available for both the DS and 3DS, and well worth your time.

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azuarc may not know the strength of songs in VGMC, but he conquered the guru in Game of the Decade 2! Congrats!
TopicThe Board 8 Discord Sports Chat Rank Their Top 100 Respective Video Games part 3
Arti
02/21/21 7:34:14 PM
#194
how dare you not fall in love with father kevin

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azuarc may not know the strength of songs in VGMC, but he conquered the guru in Game of the Decade 2! Congrats!
TopicThe Board 8 Discord Sports Chat Rank Their Top 100 Respective Video Games part 3
Arti
02/20/21 6:48:46 PM
#188
#14 - SSX 3 (GameCube, 2003)

While SSX (2012) was a great snowboarding game, the game's peak was definitely in the game with 3 peaks, SSX 3. So many hours through it and I never did actually complete it! However, I got almost all of the medals (including some platinum ones) definitely played it more than any other game in the series, more than Tricky or SSX 2012.

There's no story in SSX 3; you have three peaks that unlock as you continue through the game, and your job is to do as much as you can on each one to keep going through the game. Honestly though, it doesn't need one. The game has different stages for races and tricks (except for the backcountry levels at the top of each peak, which are used for both). Trick events are further split up into Big Air events, which consist of a number of large jumps, Super Pipe events, which consists of a half-pipe on which multiple tricks can be performed, and Slopestyle, which is basically the same as the previous game's courses. There's also freeride options when not doing events, and these lead to various other challenges that can be found on the course, and there are snowflakes scattered all over the mountain that give an amount of money when discovered; some are hidden extremely well and may take multiple attempts to get to. Also, since the three peaks are all connected from top to bottom, it's possible to snowboard all the way from the peak of the 3rd mountain to the bottom of the 1st mountain with no loading times - just one straight ride all the way. The developers liked this game more than the rest when they made SSX 2012 as they lifted one of the backcountry tracks in it and snuck it into that game as a bonus (and it somehow works).

The soundtrack and DJ Atomika did a great job here, and it's this game that I took most of the tracks from and added them to my custom playlist like I said on my write-up for SSX 2012. It just works extremely well.

I know I said this in my other write-up for this series, but doing both of these really makes me want a new SSX since we haven't had one since the PS3/360 days. Though given it's a EA series I'm not holding my breath for one anytime soon. Maybe I should just play some more of these games while I wait a bit more.

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azuarc may not know the strength of songs in VGMC, but he conquered the guru in Game of the Decade 2! Congrats!
TopicHaste2 ranks the VGMC retirees - Finale!
Arti
02/20/21 12:34:45 PM
#163
At the very least, it isn't first

but Neotokyo's entire soundtrack is terrible

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azuarc may not know the strength of songs in VGMC, but he conquered the guru in Game of the Decade 2! Congrats!
TopicThe Board 8 Discord Sports Chat Rank Their Top 100 Respective Video Games part 3
Arti
02/19/21 8:23:43 PM
#181
#15 - Radiant Historia (DS, 2011)

Radiant Historia is the best turn-based jRPG released on a Nintendo handheld in North America. Remember that statement for later. In typical Atlus fashion the game came out for the DS only a month before the 3DS was set to release, and was largely ignored at the time but received a 3DS remake later on (which I have not played).

Radiant Historia's main character is Stocke, and he's no jRPG teenager on a quest to save the world here; this guy's a military man who isn't an idiot and will typically make better strategies in the game, making good use of the White Chronicle, a device that can change the events of time. Stocke goes down two paths in the game, both of which he uses his unique abilities and events in the other timeline to continue each one separately. It works relatively well even with the disjointed timeline being as it is.

One of the main highlights of Radiant Historia is the battle system, where each party is on a 3x3 grid. Several actions attack certain areas of the grid, other actions may set a trap on a certain square, and some may knock opponents around the grid. Using these abilities to move enemies around and chaining your attacks together is the key to dealing massive damage to enemy opponents. Several bosses, however, take up the whole grid and make this battle system somewhat useless in the end, which is kind of a silly way to make the game harder.

I've always been a big fan of the soundtrack (but I know board 8 isn't, as VGMC has told me this for years). I've put down a few tracks to listen to, if you want!

Soundtrack Links:
Blue Radiance
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6Bn4ekQnfw
The Edge of Green
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byKBS63FAPY
The Red Locus (my personal favorite)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=998oVF2XbAQ
Shadows Dance in the Darkness
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkPEOJwr1KU
-HISTORIA-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bLb5HF1oKI

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azuarc may not know the strength of songs in VGMC, but he conquered the guru in Game of the Decade 2! Congrats!
TopicHaste2 ranks the VGMC retirees - Finale!
Arti
02/18/21 10:38:51 PM
#154
Invitation Flower ~ Autumn is a great Ayesha track that never plays in full during the entirety of the game

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azuarc may not know the strength of songs in VGMC, but he conquered the guru in Game of the Decade 2! Congrats!
TopicThe Board 8 Discord Sports Chat Rank Their Top 100 Respective Video Games part 3
Arti
02/17/21 1:14:21 AM
#164
#16 - Guild Wars (PC, 2005)

While everyone was playing World of Warcraft and getting hooked onto that for years, my MMO (sort of?) of choice was actually Guild Wars. With over 3,000 hours in this game, it is easily my most played game of all time. The Hall of Monuments website is still up so you can see just how much I actually did in this game:

https://hom.guildwars2.com/us/#page=main&details=siBCA8%2F%2F%2F%2FDDu1vhqonEAAmEgVHAAAAAdQsQQAAAAAA

I bought all the games for the original, starting with Factions (which is easiest to power straight to the max level at 20) and ending with Eye of the North. It's mostly all I played during my first two years of college (didn't really bring my consoles to my dorm there, so it was really just my PC) and probably why I did so poorly in class those two years! I have many fond memories of playing this game, and also ran a mafia game based on it for the first mafia game I ever hosted. It's still archived on this site even!

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/575926-mafia/63028668

I did buy Guild Wars 2 on release, and played it for a while, but it definitely wasn't anything like I wanted it to be. In the end I quit that game pretty quickly and even played more of Guild Wars 1 before eventually leaving it for good. No real reason to go back even if the game is still receiving updates fifteen years later, as I've pretty much done all I wanted to do in it.

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azuarc may not know the strength of songs in VGMC, but he conquered the guru in Game of the Decade 2! Congrats!
TopicThe Board 8 Discord Sports Chat Rank Their Top 100 Respective Video Games part 3
Arti
02/14/21 8:02:35 PM
#136
#18 - Fate/stay night (PC, 2004 (JP))

It's spring.

I credit Type-Moon and the Something Awful forums for getting me into traditional visual novels with Tsukihime, but Fate/stay night is really the visual novel that sold me on the genre in the first place. Fate/stay night depicts a battle of mages known as the Holy Grail war, where a group of seven mages each summon a Servant from various legends or historical records to fight for the Holy Grail, a device that lets them have any wish they desire. The game follows Shirou Emiya, who accidentally summons a servant and gets wrapped up in this war. There are three routes that must be done in order to see the entire story of the game; Fate, Unlimited Blade Works, and Heaven's Feel.

The first route, Fate, is pretty basic and is mainly there to setup the characters and the setting. It has the worst versions of most of the game's characters and cuts the screentime of others to keep it balanced, which turns out to be very boring. The real meat of the story is in the other two routes, which showcase the best fights, characters, and even bad endings in the game.

As the line above states, this game has never received an official English release, despite the many spinoffs and mobile game being released over here. Maybe we'll finally get one in a remade version once the Tsukihime remake comes out now that that one has a release date.

Soundtrack link
Emiya
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjEmF0P14eU

#17 - Yakuza 0 (PS4, 2017)

I'll let you in on a little something. The yakuza game, it's not like boxing. The man who gets beat down isn't the loser. The guy who can't tough it out to the end, he's the one who loses.

There's a reason we had both Kazuma Kiryu and Goro Majima in a character contest and why Yakuza 0 made the game of the decade contest after the series was almost dead in the water after Yakuza 4's release, and it's mainly because of how well this game did - and it's extremely well deserved. Yakuza 0 is a prequel to the entire series, showcasing the past of both Kiryu and Majima seven years before the beginning of Yakuza 1. Yakuza 0's plot revolves around the Empty Lot, a small piece of land where the Millennium Tower would be built years later, which has an unknown owner and has the Dojima family and the Omi Alliance trying to be the first to find who owns the land and acquire it for themselves.

The fighting portion of the game is easily at its best in Yakuza 0, with each main character having three styles to swap between and learn different techniques from. They also learn their unique fourth style throughout the game. The boss fights are all very good and challenging, which is a far cry from some fights in the two Kiwamis and especially from Yakuza 3.

No Yakuza review is ever complete without mentioning the mini-games, and this game is absolutely flooded with content there, with a whole additional storyline in each of the two main mini-games (Real Estate Royale for Kiryu, and Cabaret Club Czar for Majima). It's easily the highest amount of mini-games I've seen in any Yakuza title I've played (though 5 might have more? I'm not up to that point yet.) The game also has 100 substories, 60 for Kiryu and 40 for Majima, further increasing the amount of content the game has. There's easily 100 hours of game here if you're going for the platinum, and while I still don't have it, I've done a great deal of what's in here already!

Soundtrack links
Pledge of Demon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApreCAQiZ4w
Two Dragons
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExPW6UVkvkE
Friday Night
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IernJ-2gZ_U

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azuarc may not know the strength of songs in VGMC, but he conquered the guru in Game of the Decade 2! Congrats!
TopicI rank 164 non-VGM songs [ranking]
Arti
02/14/21 3:10:05 PM
#6
tag

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azuarc may not know the strength of songs in VGMC, but he conquered the guru in Game of the Decade 2! Congrats!
TopicHow is AI: The Somnium Files?
Arti
02/14/21 1:55:47 AM
#11
#27 on my top 100 in the current topic

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azuarc may not know the strength of songs in VGMC, but he conquered the guru in Game of the Decade 2! Congrats!
TopicHaste2 ranks the VGMC retirees - Finale!
Arti
02/13/21 3:29:14 PM
#126
It's very few times that I agree with both Leon and Mac on something, but yeah. My ranking of the retirees there is very close to that entire list inverted.

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azuarc may not know the strength of songs in VGMC, but he conquered the guru in Game of the Decade 2! Congrats!
TopicYour First Thought 198: "Playing card suit."
Arti
02/13/21 12:26:00 PM
#29
hearts

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azuarc may not know the strength of songs in VGMC, but he conquered the guru in Game of the Decade 2! Congrats!
TopicHaste2 ranks the VGMC retirees - Finale!
Arti
02/13/21 9:39:48 AM
#119
th3l3fty posted...
finally the worst retiree shows up

The Moon was already eliminated at 28th!

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azuarc may not know the strength of songs in VGMC, but he conquered the guru in Game of the Decade 2! Congrats!
TopicThe Board 8 Discord Sports Chat Rank Their Top 100 Respective Video Games part 3
Arti
02/12/21 9:47:07 PM
#109
#20 - Ever17 -the out of infinity- (PC, 2005)

Ever17 is a very odd title - it was released before visual novels had even made a presence in North America (and the ones that did back then were mostly just porn games). However, Ever17 is easily one of the best of its genre and still stands up well fifteen years after its initial release. This game is still the best game by director Takumi Nakazawa (who directed Root Double back at #44) and writer Kotaro Uchikoshi, who I've already raved about many times throughout my list.

The game begins when a major accident happens at the underwater theme park LeMU, trapping a number of people inside. Due to the floods happening in certain areas of the park, they cannot contact the surface or escape, and the park is set to explode after a week due to the high water pressure. There are two protagonists to follow; Takeshi Kuranari and another boy known only as "The Kid" who has amnesia. Different routes are available depending on the character chosen, and all of the previous routes need to be completed to proceed onto the final one. The final route in this game is absolutely one of the most engaging visual novel routes I've ever played through (in more ways than one) and contains plot twist after plot twist all the way through and actually wraps up the story very well in the end. If you've played the Zero Escape series, you can see that Uchikoshi took a few twists from here and brought them in to that series as well.

There are only two flaws with this game, and they are the only reason it isn't as high as the other visual novels on my list. The first is the absolute garbage localization job, like the screenshot below:


There's frequent translation errors all over the script, and apparently the Kid was called the Youth early in the localization, but they changed it up and someone had the brilliant idea to do a find / replace with every instance. So "You there" became "Kidere" and caused all sorts of script errors. The other I mentioned back in #44's writeup but the pacing for this game is absolutely terrible, which seems to be a trademark of Nakazawa's work, unfortunately. While the final route is mindblowing, getting there is the difficult part and I dropped the game entirely at one point because of how bad some of the routes are (especially one of them, and if you've played it you know which one). There's a fan translation patch that fixes the errors to the script at least, and it's probably the best way to play this game now. Despite the issues it's still my 5th favorite visual novel of all time, and it definitely deserves every bit of that praise.

Soundtrack link:
Karma
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bygc1i5ayno

#19 - Valkyria Chronicles (PS3, 2008)

Back when I bought a PS3, trophies were already in full swing, but I had heard many good things about Valkyria Chronicles, especially after it won its round one match in the Game of the Decade contest over Disgaea. You'll be seeing Disgaea on this list later on, so it beating a game I already really liked gave me a reason to check it out, though I didn't have a PS3 at the time. Naturally when I did get a PS3, I remembered to purchase this game along with Atelier Rorona as well.

Valkyria Chronicles is a strategy RPG where you control a number of foot soldiers and a tank through various different battlefields. It's a slight mix between a turn-based and real-time strategy game, as soldiers on the opposite side can shoot enemies that come close (which applies to both your troops and enemy troops) while these same soldiers will pause when you go into a firing stance. It's a very unconventional way of fighting, but works well and becomes a very challenging game as a result. The game take place in the small nation of Gallia, a neutral area in between the Atlantic Federation and the Imperial Alliance. Due to tGallia's high amount of ore resources in its borders, the Imperial Alliance decides to invade and claim the ore for itself to aid in its war versus the Atlantic Federation. Your characters are all part of the Gallian militia trying to repel the invasion.

The characters are broken up into five different kinds of units: scouts, who excel at moving long distances; shocktroopers, who carry machine guns that are devastating to other infantry; lancers, who use special anti-tank weapons to destroy any armored foes; engineers, who can disarm enemy traps, refill ammo, and build up sandbag walls; and snipers, who can pick off enemy infantry from long distances. You also have multiple tanks at your disposal for other uses. In this game the scouts tend to be overpowered, as the ranking system depends on you clearing the mission as fast as possible, and stacking defensive orders on a scout and running them to an enemy base usually is the best solution to that. Regardless of this, the ever-changing battlefields and challenging missions were always a treat to find out how to approach the next mission coming up. With no trophies there was also no pressure in rushing to get a platinum trophy either. The game unfolds with a bit of fantasy by the end of it, but the story is solid despite the fact that there's an actual war going on and people are obviously dying throughout the nation, though this is glossed over mostly with the characters being followed.

I tried playing Valkyria Chronicles 4 on the PS4 years later but I haven't managed to make much of a dent into it, so it's possible that this is simply another series where only the first one I played will be the one I enjoy. However, it's on many more systems than just the PS3 now and is a must-play if you like strategy games at all. Definitely pick it up if you can.

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azuarc may not know the strength of songs in VGMC, but he conquered the guru in Game of the Decade 2! Congrats!
TopicThe Board 8 Discord Sports Chat Rank Their Top 100 Respective Video Games part 3
Arti
02/10/21 9:51:13 PM
#65
#22 - Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward (3DS, 2012 and Vita, 2012)

Yes, I played both versions of this visual novel - I played it on the 3DS originally and when it came out on PS+ for the Vita I played it there too. The Vita version is objectively the better version due to the upgraded graphics, music, and no save data loss bug, but the 3DS version is still great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFJ1r6_4mW4

Given this is another one of Uchikoshi's best visual novels (though not the best one on this list!) I really enjoyed my time with this game, and feel it's the best of the Zero Escape trilogy easily. The flowchart in this one makes it very easy to swap paths and change certain decisions easily. Somehow it all manages to come together in the end and make sense when all the plot twists are revealed. Of course, the true conclusion isn't in this game as this is the 2nd game in the trilogy, but the characters and plot are top-notch and it's not to be missed if you played 999 to the end.

Also, there are puzzles. Not any particularly challenging ones, but it's a nice break from the many plot twists the game gets into, especially in the final act!

Phi > Luna > K > Sigma > Dio > Tenmyouji > Quark > Clover > Alice

#21 - Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 (PS2, 2006; version played - PSP, 2009)

If you can't tell by the above console listing, I never played the original or FES version of Persona 3 - only the portable version on the PSP. So a lot of the complaints that people had with Persona 3 are just no longer present here; many of the terrible social links are removed and replaced with better characters (except for one). You can also control your party members so there's no problem there either - no Mitsuru spamming Marin Karin all the time. In the end, I really like the story of Persona 3 and its darker atmosphere with the Dark Hour more than the murder mystery of Persona 4, and I find a lot of the party members in 3, especially the initial ones are better than 4's characters (though the trio of first-years in 4 are some of the best characters in the series, obviously). The female protagonist also unlocks social links with all of the male party members, which expands on their background and fleshes them out more - and yes, this includes Shinjiro as well. It's something a lot of them actually needed and I'm not sure why they didn't have them in the first place.

The portable version also uses a visual novel-like point and click to move around areas, which is a huge time saver and I like it more than having to run around everywhere. It's also no surprise that Tartarus is basically what I look for in a dungeon - a ton of randomly generated floors with mini-bosses all over the place as you head up. Persona 4 also does the random dungeons but there are much less mini-bosses heading through each of them, and the game seems much easier as a result. One thing that really annoyed me though was when Yukari getting charmed in the final boss battle and casting Diarahan on the final boss at 25% health left, but I still managed to win that one.

Anyway if you do play Persona 3, the portable version is definitely the way to go. It also has the male route if you really want to play it, or if you just want to here BABY BABY BABY BABY BABY BABY at the beginning of every battle!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aR803M2W7RY

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azuarc may not know the strength of songs in VGMC, but he conquered the guru in Game of the Decade 2! Congrats!
TopicBest Game of 2020 Championship! **FF7 Remake vs Hades**
Arti
02/10/21 9:21:27 PM
#32
Final Fantasy VII Remake

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azuarc may not know the strength of songs in VGMC, but he conquered the guru in Game of the Decade 2! Congrats!
TopicBest Game of 2020 Final Four **Animal Crossing New Horizons vs Hades**
Arti
02/09/21 10:09:17 PM
#26
Animal Crossing: New Horizons

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azuarc may not know the strength of songs in VGMC, but he conquered the guru in Game of the Decade 2! Congrats!
TopicThe Board 8 Discord Sports Chat Rank Their Top 100 Respective Video Games part 3
Arti
02/09/21 8:20:29 PM
#53
#25 - SSX (PS3, 2012)

Not the same game that Nick ranked, this is the reboot on the PS3! This game still is present in my backloggery banner and is still my rarest platinum on PSN to date (and it is a challenging one, despite that its numbers are slightly boosted because of PS+). The game features a number of areas from around the world as places to snowboard down the slopes. For this game though, these areas are not created from scratch - the developers used actual satellite data to build the peaks, allowing them to get accurate places to go through such as Mount Everest and some areas in Antarctica, for instance. Like all SSX games there's race and trick challenges on basically every peak, but now there's also survival tracks where you use tools such as body armor and wingsuits to keep yourself from wiping out. The story pits team SSX made up of a number of previous SSX characters and some new ones up against Griff SImmons (from SSX 3) to see who can conquer the world's nine deadly descents first.

SSX has always been my favorite sports series and this one certainly did not disappoint. My only complaint would be the soundtrack which isn't as good as previous games in the series, but you can use a custom playlist like I did, so it's mainly a non-issue. Pretty annoyed we haven't gotten any new games in the series yet, but who really knows where they can go from here?

#24 - Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Spirit of Justice (3DS, 2016)

This game has been appearing a lot on people's lists so far, and with good reason! It's one of the best games in the series. Despite Phoenix's name being in the title and his eventual reuniting with Maya, this game is more about Apollo than any of the other lawyers, and it finally brings him to the spotlight where his own game didn't even do that for him. 6-5 really brings him to the forefront of this. The Divination Seances are a nice new addition to the evidence presented in a trial and give a new challenge for people familiar with the rest of the series. The one flaw this game has is the prosecutor - most Ace Attorney games have a very good prosecutor that the characters have to face and Nahyuta is just not the man for the job here.

I can't talk about this game and also not mention the fucking name puns, my god. (Case 1 spoilers) Pees'lubn Andistan'dhin is the funniest one the localizers have made in the entire series. The whole game is filled with these and it's a great ride. However, it is not the best Ace Attorney game to date; that award goes to

#23 - Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Trials and Tribulations (DS, 2007)

It could be the recent replay I did making this the choice over Spirit of Justice being the best Ace Attorney game, but who knows! Just like Spirit of Justice, Trials and Tribulations also concludes a trilogy - this one being the trilogy of Phoenix Wright himself, bringing a number of fan favorite characters back together and tying it together with previous games in the series, especially case 2-2. Godot is one of the best prosecutors in the series, and I even used his avatar as my PSN avatar for a while - he has a good presence in the courtroom, the best music theme in the series (yes, better than the Steel Samurai), and has a great character arc throughout the game.

The cases are all well designed, and none of the cases here are a weak point at all, when many of the other games have at least one or two cases that just aren't the same quality as the rest of the game. I think that's the main reason I have this as my favorite; while 3-1 and 3-4 are short they fit well with 3-5 as a final case, plus 3-2 and 3-3 are strong cases that stand on their own and help develop Godot as a character just as well as the other cases do.

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azuarc may not know the strength of songs in VGMC, but he conquered the guru in Game of the Decade 2! Congrats!
TopicYour First Thought 197: "Handheld."
Arti
02/09/21 10:57:45 AM
#21
Vita

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azuarc may not know the strength of songs in VGMC, but he conquered the guru in Game of the Decade 2! Congrats!
TopicBest Game of 2020 Final Four **FF7 Remake vs Ori and the Will of the Wisps**
Arti
02/09/21 12:25:43 AM
#35
Final Fantasy VII Remake

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azuarc may not know the strength of songs in VGMC, but he conquered the guru in Game of the Decade 2! Congrats!
TopicThe Board 8 Discord Sports Chat Rank Their Top 100 Respective Video Games part 3
Arti
02/08/21 8:13:57 PM
#33
#28 - Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair (Vita, 2014)

Been 72 titles since I ranked Danganronpa 1 at #100. This game pretty much takes the original game and improves every aspect of it, from the investigation, the trials, the characters, and the overall story. The game is great to play all the way through, and even though I had already the answers to the first three cases from orenronen's LP topic in the Something Awful forums I breezed through those to get to the latter half of the cases, which are some of the best in the series. 2-5 is probably the best case in the series period, the whole set-up and conclusion is great. The ending in 2-6 is merely ok, and I wasn't too impressed with it overall especially given the past cases being too good.

There's a lot of dumb stuff embedded in the platinum trophy though, but I won't hold that against how excellent this game is.

Cases: 2-5 > 2-4 > 2-2 > 2-6 > 2-3 > 2-1

#27 - AI: The Somnium Files (PS4, 2019)

A-set, you bet!

The most recent game on the list, as I excluded all 2020 games from this. AI's true strength lies in its story and characters and not really much in its trial and error puzzle gameplay, but even that has its moments with all the funny dialogue you can get with Aiba doing stupid stuff in Somniums. For once in a Kotaro Uchikoshi title I didn't go straight for the true route and hit a lock in the flowchart again preventing me from going forward (though I did hit a lock somewhere else), which was great for a first run through.

I'd link the Invincible Rainbow Arrow dance but it's full of spoilers and this game is best left unspoiled with all the plot twists fitting a script by Kotaro Uchikoshi. If you've liked any of his other games, this is definitely a game you shouldn't miss.

#26 - Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony (Vita, 2017)

Three puzzle visual novels in a row? Sure, why not. V3 is the first Danganronpa visual novel I got to play completely unspoiled and I think that's a big factor on how it managed to be ahead of the other games in the series. This game is very divisive in the fanbase mainly because of how the game ends - I think the ending works fine, though I'm not sure where they can go from here if they continue the series.

This game though has a lot of extra content after beating the game, culminating into a board-game dungeon crawler hybrid where you level up characters from all games in the series using a board game, then have them fight through a 100-floor dungeon crawler. Like many dungeon crawler games I really enjoyed this extra bit, despite how repetitive the board game got.

Cases: 3-4 > 3-1 > 3-6 > 3-5 > 3-2 > 3-3

Not much in these three writeups as they are all visual novels that are best left unspoiled to be enjoyed to the fullest. Maybe next batch!

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azuarc may not know the strength of songs in VGMC, but he conquered the guru in Game of the Decade 2! Congrats!
TopicThe Board 8 Discord Sports Chat Rank Their Top 100 Respective Video Games part 3
Arti
02/07/21 10:57:09 PM
#21
#29 - The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky SC (PSP, 2015)

The first game in The Trails in the Sky sub-series was very good, but it ended in a cliffhanger and XSEED at the time was not interested in continuing it since the first game did not meet their sales expectations for the amount of work they put in. So I was left at that cliffhanger for a good four years, until the next game was finally released after the PC ports did much better than expected. It was definitely worth the wait.

SC starts off a few minutes right at the ending of the first game, so there's not much I can say here without going into spoiler territory. Estelle notes that she needs to get stronger after what has just happened, so she heads off to train and comes back to Liberl later on. Like most of the Trails games the first game builds the world and then the second game expands on it and explores the world much more. It's a fantastic game and definitely worth the time and effore. Just remember that



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azuarc may not know the strength of songs in VGMC, but he conquered the guru in Game of the Decade 2! Congrats!
TopicBest Game of 2020 Elite Eight **Hades vs Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2**
Arti
02/07/21 10:21:31 PM
#18
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2

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azuarc may not know the strength of songs in VGMC, but he conquered the guru in Game of the Decade 2! Congrats!
TopicPost here and I, MMX, will rank you. (including short summary and analysis!)
Arti
02/07/21 4:53:40 PM
#16
nice

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azuarc may not know the strength of songs in VGMC, but he conquered the guru in Game of the Decade 2! Congrats!
TopicThe Board 8 Discord Sports Chat Rank Their Top 100 Respective Video Games part 3
Arti
02/06/21 7:29:39 PM
#9
Recap list

100 Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc (Vita)
99 Style Savvy: Trendsetters (3DS)
98 Diablo II (PC)
97 Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies (3DS)
96 Cosmic Star Heroine (Vita)
95 Fate/Extella Link (PS4)
94 Animal Crossing: New Leaf (3DS)
93 South Park: The Stick of Truth (PS3)
92 Letter Quest: Grimm's Journey (PC)
91 Dynasty Warriors 8 (PS3)
90 Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective (DS)
89 Hatsune Miku: Project Mirai DX (3DS)
88 The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (GC)
87 Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney (3DS)
86 Pokemon Heart Gold / Soul Silver (DS)
85 Taiko no Tatsujin: V Version (Vita)
84 Atelier Meruru: The Apprentice of Arland (PS3)
83 The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky FC (PSP)
82 Kirby Super Star (SNES/DS)
81 Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (DS)
80 The World Ends With You (DS)
79 Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth - Hacker's Memory (Vita)
78 The Walking Dead Season 1 (Vita)
77 Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale (PC)
76 Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars (SNES)
75 Super Smash Bros. Melee (GC)
74 Professor Layton and the Unwound Future (DS)
73 Pokemon Diamond / Pearl / Platinum (DS)
72 The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel (Vita)
71 Super Mario Odyssey (Switch)
70 DJMAX Respect (PS4)
69 Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 (PC/GBA)
68 Chrono Trigger (SNES)
67 Tales of Xillia (PS3)
66 Final Fantasy VII (PS1)
65 Super Mario Galaxy (Wii)
64 EarthBound (SNES)
63 Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (Switch)
62 Final Fantasy VI (SNES)
61 Atelier Totori: The Adventurer of Arland (PS3)
60 Fire Emblem Awakening (3DS)
59 Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA F (PS3)
58 Lost Dimension (Vita)
57 Yakuza Kiwami (PS4)
56 Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors (DS)
55 Z.H.P. Unlosing Ranger vs. Darkdeath Evilman (PSP)
54 Until Dawn (PS4)
53 Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn (Wii)
52 Tales of Graces f (PS3)
51 Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door (GC)
50 Picross 3D: Round 2 (3DS)
49 Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA F 2nd (Vita)
48 Elite Beat Agents (DS)
47 Pocket Card Jockey (3DS)
46 Ys: Memories of Celceta (Vita)
45 Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA Future Tone (PS4)
44 Root Double -Before Crime * After Days- Xtend Edition (Vita)
43 Atelier Ayesha: The Alchemist of Dusk (PS3)
42 Pokemon Black / White (DS)
41 Pokemon Black 2 / White 2 (DS)
40 Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals (SNES)
39 Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth (Vita)
38 Atelier Escha & Logy: Alchemists of the Dusk Sky (PS3)
37 Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age (PS4)
36 Yakuza Kiwami 2 (PS4)
35 Steins;Gate 0 (Vita)
34 Animal Crossing (GC)
33 Fate grand/order (Android)
32 Love Live! School idol festival (Android)
31 Advance Wars: Dual Strike (DS)
30 Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising (GBA)

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azuarc may not know the strength of songs in VGMC, but he conquered the guru in Game of the Decade 2! Congrats!
TopicThe Board 8 Discord Sports Chat Ranks Their Top 100 Respective VIDEO Games pt. 2
Arti
02/06/21 9:44:33 AM
#443
Broken Sword was not a series I expected on anyone's list

I played the newest one and thought it was decent, but not a game that I would really say is one of the best

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azuarc may not know the strength of songs in VGMC, but he conquered the guru in Game of the Decade 2! Congrats!
TopicThe Board 8 Discord Sports Chat Ranks Their Top 100 Respective VIDEO Games pt. 2
Arti
02/06/21 12:28:40 AM
#434
#32 - Love Live! School idol festival (Mobile, 2014)

I can't believe that I had been playing this mobile game for six years, it certainly does not feel that long. This franchise has been the biggest addition to my music library in recent years, especially with the addition of the Nijigasaki school and their mostly different composers and lyricists to provide a more varied slate of songs, unlike the other two schools who have the same lyricist for every song and only a handful of composers. It's a pretty simple rhythm game with three attributes for songs, and I had many full UR teams from playing for as long as I did. I enjoyed most of the events that aren't just climbing the ladder, and in recent years all events have been adding more story events, which is a nice addition as the main story has been concluded for years now.

I've quit this game as the new game, Love Live! School Idol Festival All-Stars is much better in all aspects, and would probably have landed on my list in the top 15 had I ranked it here, but it's not on the list. I have enjoyed building my skill in this game, and while I couldn't complete all the experts and master songs with FCs, I definitely did a great % of them finished. Nico is best girl.

#31 - Advance Wars: Dual Strike (DS, 2005)

Advance Wars is the better Intelligent Systems series and it always has been. Dual Strike, the first Advance Wars game on the DS, is definitely one of my favorites, beating out Days of Ruin (I'm not a big fan of the reboot) and the original game (which is even more unbalanced than this game). Dual Strike has many different modes in it, with a very lengthy and challenging campaign (especially in Hard Campaign), the most War Room maps in the franchise, and a number of other things like survival matches and a weird shmup-like mini-game. I managed to get 262/300 medals in the end, and I enjoyed every minute of it.

Now I said that Advance Wars 1 was broken (especially with how Max and Grit are), but this game rivals it in how broken it can get, like with crazy combos like Eagle/Sami which can capture HQs and end the match even with the infantry or mech being nowhere close. However, due to how broken this game can get, it's not as good as

#30 - Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising (GBA, 2003)

which is the best Advance Wars game in the series. The characters are all well balanced in this one with their CO Powers (though sometimes some characters can get a bit ridiculous), the campaign is just as challenging and changes up a lot of maps to make them more difficult in the hard campaign. This is the only Advance Wars game where I actually completed the Campaign, Hard Campaign, and War Room to finish everything available. I remember not only writing down all of my records on every map in the game, but also making some elaborate custom maps that I enjoyed trying to play through at times.

I also created some War Room records topic on the game board for this one, and it's one of my most successful topic series on the boards. It's where I first met Paratroopa1 well before I came to Board 8.

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azuarc may not know the strength of songs in VGMC, but he conquered the guru in Game of the Decade 2! Congrats!
TopicIs anyone else playing through Atelier Ryza 2?
Arti
02/05/21 11:28:23 AM
#9
If I ever get through Firis maybe I'll start the Ryza games someday

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azuarc may not know the strength of songs in VGMC, but he conquered the guru in Game of the Decade 2! Congrats!
TopicThe Board 8 Discord Sports Chat Ranks Their Top 100 Respective VIDEO Games pt. 2
Arti
02/04/21 7:13:03 PM
#406
#36 - Yakuza Kiwami 2 (PS4, 2018)

This is still my only Yakuza platinum after all I've done in this series, and for good reason - the streamlining of the completion list and actually making it feel less like a list of annoyance and more of fun things to do, like playing mahjong for five hours to clear that portion of it (hey, it's a good game). The game has one of the best stories in the series that I've played, and Kaoru Sayama is one of the better written female characters in the series, and she really shines here in her only major appearance. The game having no transitions between shops, minigame areas, and most buildings is a huge plus over how 0 and the first Kiwami were. Majima's story line also provides some closure to one of the dangling story threads from his plot in 0, and is a great addition to the overall story. While the combat takes a step back from the previous games by removing may of Kiryu's fighting styles, it trades off with implementing many of each style's moves into one large list as well as making weapons obscenely powerful, which is why the unlimited durability lightsaber became my weapon of choice for some of the more harder challenges as well as Legend Mode. Overall, it's one of the best Yakuza games. It's not the highest Yakuza game on the list, though.

#35 - Steins;Gate 0 (Vita, 2016)

The zero in the title makes this sound like a prequel, but it really isn't. Due to all the time travel stuff going on in the Steins;Gate storyline this game is both an interquel and a sequel to the original game. The basic plot is that Rintaro Okabe, due to events that happen near the end of the original Steins;Gate, has gone back to college and attends a presentation on the Amadeus system that allows people to create AI avatars out of their own memories and have it think independently - one based on a character Okabe knows very well. Like the original, various choices have the game shift between worldlines depending on what happens in the story. It's hard to explain without going too much into spoilers, but the overall product is a definite great story for the Science Adventure series... and yet, it's the lowest rank SciAdv game on the list. More on that when we get to the others!

#34 - Animal Crossing (GameCube, 2002)

I don't know if anyone frequents some of the game boards, but a large amount of my early time on GameFAQs, and what led me to posting on the boards in the first place, was the Animal Crossing Trading board, where I spent tons of my time giving out items to others. I had only expected to trade fruits with each other at the start. This is the first game I bought myself for the GameCube and as such with many games back then I did not have many other games to play so I played this for more than any other GameCube game. I think given how long I played this and how much I did in this one it has actually turned me off from playing other Animal Crossing games since as I have done so much in this one. New Leaf was the only one that actually kept me playing for a long amount of time and is on this list, but the play time between the two isn't even close.

Also, who can talk about Animal Crossing and not mention the NES games in it! Before Nintendo realized they could make money on people's love for older games, plenty of them are included in this game able to be played whenever. I had pretty much all of them lined up in the basement of my house ready to play them whenever I wanted. Now I can do that on the Switch too, but it was very cool back then to have them all there.

#33 - Fate/grand order (Mobile, 2017)



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azuarc may not know the strength of songs in VGMC, but he conquered the guru in Game of the Decade 2! Congrats!
TopicBest Game of 2020 Elite Eight **FF7 Remake vs Paper Mario: Origami King**
Arti
02/04/21 5:21:05 PM
#9
Final Fantasy VII Remake (PlayStation 4)

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azuarc may not know the strength of songs in VGMC, but he conquered the guru in Game of the Decade 2! Congrats!
TopicNFUN Ranks 1000 VGM: 300 VGM Edition
Arti
02/04/21 4:09:21 PM
#30
oh

well there goes my last nomination, I enjoyed giving you a huge amount of random stuff that you mostly hated

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azuarc may not know the strength of songs in VGMC, but he conquered the guru in Game of the Decade 2! Congrats!
TopicIt's been a few years. Is Fire Emblem Fates worth it?
Arti
02/04/21 9:23:57 AM
#32
UshiromiyaEva posted...
People are definitely too hard on these. They are mediocre Fire Emblem games, sure, but that still means they are better than most games. What's their competition on the 3DS for a tactics RPG outside the franchise? Fucking Project Steam?

Both SMT Devil Survivor games are easily better than Fates.

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azuarc may not know the strength of songs in VGMC, but he conquered the guru in Game of the Decade 2! Congrats!
TopicYour First Thought 196: "Trading card game."
Arti
02/03/21 9:01:43 PM
#49
Yu-Gi-Oh

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azuarc may not know the strength of songs in VGMC, but he conquered the guru in Game of the Decade 2! Congrats!
TopicBest Game of 2020 OVERTIME MATCH **Tony Hawk 1+2 vs Fall Guys**
Arti
02/03/21 6:14:20 PM
#18
Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout

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azuarc may not know the strength of songs in VGMC, but he conquered the guru in Game of the Decade 2! Congrats!
TopicThe Board 8 Discord Sports Chat Ranks Their Top 100 Respective VIDEO Games pt. 2
Arti
02/02/21 8:56:41 PM
#379
#40 - Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals (SNES, 1996)

Lufia II remains my favorite actual SNES game, which has never been topped (there's a SNES game up higher, but I played it based on another system). It's one of the few JRPGs that really implement puzzle solving into its dungeon exploration, and also has enemies that are visible and can be avoided with careful planning. The part about it being a prequel to the first Lufia kind of hurts its plot a bit; how it ends is already known, and the game is more about the journey that the characters take throughout the world. Of course we wouldn't get Dekar, the best character in the game, otherwise.

But enough about the actual game because who cares about that, the real reason this is so high is the ANCIENT CAVE. A 100-floor randomized dungeon tacked on in the middle of the adventure with some of the best loot in the entire game, and a whole sidequest revolving around it. While only blue weapons can be brought in and out and you start at level 1 every time you enter, it was a very big deal when I was a kid. I never did manage to finish it, though I spent many hours delving into that dungeon countless times. It's probably why I buy so many dungeon crawlers these days - but it all started with this game decades ago!

#39 - Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth (Vita, 2016)

I was unemployed for the entirety of 2016, so I tended to stay with a few games longer than I might have done so normally. Cyber Sleuth was one of those games, and I enjoyed every minute of it. Sure, the translation is somewhat garbage, and could be a lot better. The game does require a good deal of grinding, especially if you want the platinum. But I had the time to do everything in it at the time. Nick and MSG have showcased some of its more ridiculous lines, so I won't get into that. Just note that the game's quests can range from the ridiculousness of those screenshots to some extremely dark themes that I was clearly not expecting from a game such as this one. One of my favorite moments though was going online to do so of the online trophies, and one of the number 1 guys from Japan was intentionally tanking matches with 3 baby digimon to give people wins towards their online trophy. I had no idea why he was doing this, but it was a big help since I got matched with him quite a few times. Thanks, whoever you were!

#38 - Atelier Escha & Logy: Alchemists of the Dusk Sky (PS3, 2014)

This is the highest Atelier game on my list, and with good reason. Like i said in the Ayesha writeup that the next game would upgrade the alchemy and battle systems a good amount, this one really expands them to what I believe is the most fun of both systems in the series. It's really the alchemy system that I've enjoyed the most and was also extremely fun to break the game open with some of the most powerful attack items and equipment you can think of. Want to craft an item that's able to do a million damage? Sure, you can do that. No other Atelier is really capable of pushing the numbers as high as Escha & Logy can, not even its sequel!

Escha & Logy also was the first Atelier to explore the dual protagonist system. Escha is a typical Atelier lead and is boring as a result. Logy is the exact opposite of an Atelier lead; first off, he's a guy, and second of all, he actually has more than half of a brain and uses it often, which is a refreshing change of pace in the series. I get Atelier likes their ditzy female leads but the Dusk series needed someone like Logy lead a game due to how serious the plot is its trilogy.

#37 - Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age (PS4, 2018)

Dragon Quest XI is best left unspoiled. Coming in expecting a typical Dragon Quest game and you would probably be completely surprised, as it definitely starts out as one and stays that way for a while. However, it's a Dragon Quest game that doesn't require grinding - as EXP is pretty well distributed and you can craft any equipment upgrades that are needed. Being able to respec your skill list as much as needed allows you to use whatever loadout you are more comfortable with (I personally made my Luminary dual-wield for added damage). The trophy list had some of the most difficult challenges in the game added to it, including beating the bonus dungeon a good number of times, and clearing a number of pre-set battles within a turn limit with a limited party loadout.

Also I can't just rank Dragon Quest XI without mentioning THE GREAT SYLVANDO, the best party member in the game, and probably one of the best in the entire series. I even used him in battle most of the time!

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azuarc may not know the strength of songs in VGMC, but he conquered the guru in Game of the Decade 2! Congrats!
TopicApex Legends - Season 8 trailer
Arti
02/02/21 7:14:48 PM
#13
my PS4 also didn't update in rest mode, so I started the download a few minutes ago

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azuarc may not know the strength of songs in VGMC, but he conquered the guru in Game of the Decade 2! Congrats!
TopicBest Game of 2020 R3 Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2 vs Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout
Arti
02/02/21 4:35:19 PM
#3
Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout

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azuarc may not know the strength of songs in VGMC, but he conquered the guru in Game of the Decade 2! Congrats!
TopicBest Game of 2020 Round 3 **Hades vs Yakuza: Like a Dragon**
Arti
02/02/21 4:07:53 PM
#39
Yakuza: Like a Dragon

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azuarc may not know the strength of songs in VGMC, but he conquered the guru in Game of the Decade 2! Congrats!
TopicApex Legends - Season 8 trailer
Arti
02/02/21 1:47:07 PM
#9
KCF0107 posted...
Olympus > King's Canyon > World's Edge

that's quite the hot take

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azuarc may not know the strength of songs in VGMC, but he conquered the guru in Game of the Decade 2! Congrats!
TopicMy PS4 Extended Hard Drive just decided to stop working
Arti
02/02/21 1:41:58 PM
#9
Save data is never kept on an external for the PS4, it always is kept on the system itself. So at very least those should all be fine

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azuarc may not know the strength of songs in VGMC, but he conquered the guru in Game of the Decade 2! Congrats!
TopicAtelier Mysterious Trilogy Deluxe Pack coming to Switch, PS4, and Steam on 4/22
Arti
02/02/21 10:31:00 AM
#4
If they dub L&S this time around I might be interested but otherwise I have a physical copy of all three

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azuarc may not know the strength of songs in VGMC, but he conquered the guru in Game of the Decade 2! Congrats!
TopicThe Board 8 Discord Sports Chat Ranks Their Top 100 Respective VIDEO Games pt. 2
Arti
02/01/21 7:48:00 PM
#359
#44 - Root Double -Before Crime * After Days- Xtend Edition (Vita, 2018)

Root Double follows a group of nine characters trapped in a nuclear facility with the radiation slowly seeping through the facility, and they have to hold out until help from outside arrives. Or at least, that's what it looks like from the beginning. The story really gets good when the plot finally unfolds, but it really takes a while to get there - and the B route could be shortened considerably with no real downside, as it's the worst part of the game and almost made me drop the game completely. Unlike other visual novels, the game has an unique way of making choices, via the Senses Sympathy System, which basically allows you to adjust the main character's impressions with the other characters. These cannot be adjusted at any time, but only at several predetermined points in the story. These have various outcomes and lead to completely different dialogue and scenes depending on the sense level - or can lead you right into a bad ending. Adjusting these also can lead to different endings on the route your character is on - I got the Route A Normal Ending the first time playing blind and had to make different choices to get the Good Ending later on to continue. I do feel that this might be higher because the final route and epilogue is one of the best I've seen in any game, but it suffers due to a mediocre required middle path. And this is not the only game that does this on my list. More on that when we get to the other game this same director worked on.

#43 - Atelier Ayesha: The Alchemist of Dusk (PS3, 2013)

The first game in the Atelier Dusk trilogy, which is the best trilogy in the Atelier series. This is the first Atelier game after Gust being acquired by Tecmo Koei, and it showed that they really tried to make this better than the other games. This game has the best soundtrack of the entire seventh generation of video gaming, and I completely mean this. Just take a listen to some of these.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVcc16o0SaY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPuaHfnZ9D0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gthwkFJXVk

This is also the first game which uses the basic gameplay loop in the original games but also brings together an actual plot that spans throughout the trilogy, and actually makes the game more compelling as a result. Keithgriff is also one of the best characters in the entire series, and he really shines here in his first appearance. His ending is actually the canon one, even, which leads into what happens in the rest of the trilogy. The only complaint I have is the alchemy and battle systems are very simple and don't really evolve much throughout the game. That will change in the next game, though!

Also, the newer versions of the game have a Hard Mode added. I decided to unlock every ending possible in Hard Mode just because I could. It was a great challenge overall!

#42 and #41 - Pokemon Black/White (DS, 2011) and Pokemon Black/White 2 (DS, 2012)

These are lumped together because I feel the two games are very similar. I think B2/W2 are better, but it's only slightly ahead. Both games here are part of the fifth generation of Pokemon, and this is where the series hit its peak in quality and has been falling down a hill ever since. It's also the first time I only decided to play one game in the series - mainly because everyone around me was also playing this game while I was in college. (I played White, by the way.) The game had an actual plot added on (which no other game in the series really matched up to) and the new Pokemon are some of my favorites in the entire series, with standouts like Darmanitan, Chandelure, and Vanillish being some of the best. Black2/White 2 had me buy both games again, but with an added twist - I picked up Black 2 a day early at another one of the NYC events at Nintendo World, and played through the entire game. I then transferred over the Challenge Mode key to White 2, and played through the game again! It's a shame we've never really had much of a challenge since that in any Pokemon game, and it was stuck behind a key that requires one to beat the game first. I did eventually buy X and Moon and beat those, but neither was as good as these. I did eventually buy Omega Ruby and Ultra Sun but never even got past much in either, and did finally drop the entire series without buying Sword or Shield. It is quite the shame, but the games were the best back at this point and Game Freak is content with half-assing every entry from now on. Probably won't buy much from this series besides spinoffs, like the new Pokemon Snap looks good!

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azuarc may not know the strength of songs in VGMC, but he conquered the guru in Game of the Decade 2! Congrats!
TopicGames involving cards that are also good, quick go.
Arti
01/31/21 3:01:58 PM
#22
someone did say pokemon tcg though

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azuarc may not know the strength of songs in VGMC, but he conquered the guru in Game of the Decade 2! Congrats!
TopicThe Board 8 Discord Sports Chat Ranks Their Top 100 Respective VIDEO Games pt. 2
Arti
01/31/21 2:50:38 PM
#339
#48 - Elite Beat Agents (DS, 2006)

YOU BET, KID

You're the Inspiration > YOU BET, KID > Jumpin' Jack Flash > September > ABC > the rest

#47 - Pocket Card Jockey (3DS, 2016)

MSG pretty much summed up the story in his writeup of this game, so I won't repeat that here. Pocket Card Jockey, despite being a simple solitaire game at its core, is one of my top 10 played game on my 3DS and I've easily sunk over fifty hours into this game. My reasoning for putting it this high is that the gameplay loop appeals to me more than most games, and I really have a huge love for solitaire games - I have Faerie Solitaire at 100% on Steam (and that takes a lot of praying to the RNG) as well as Pirate and Knight Solitaire at 100% on PSN. None of those other games, though, have the solitaire being the main gameplay to help your hero win horse races in the most ridiculous way possible. Game Freak should definitely make more games like this instead of fucking up Pokemon titles since they keep doing the latter of these two options and it's maddening how much potential is being wasted.

#46 - Ys: Memories of Celceta (Vita, 2013)

Memories of Celceta is definitely the most fun I've ever had with a Ys game. That certainly isn't because I've only beaten the first two games and played a bit of Oath, Origin, Seven, and Lacrimosa of DANA. Nope. In all seriousness, the game's battle system and exploration was a big factor in making me like this game more than any other Ys title so far. I didn't really enjoy playing as either Ozma or Duren that much, but I enjoyed my time with all the others (especially Karna and Calalica) as the platinum requires around five hours played with all characters. Like all Ys games though, it has an amazing soundtrack, like the song below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4cC7CyaIm4

With IX: Monstrum Nox coming out this week I really need to catch up on this series. I have them all on the Vita, it's just a matter of playing them all!

#45 - Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA Future Tone (PS4, 2017)

This is the last Miku game on the list, and also the best one as it pretty much combines all the previous games in the series into one package. It even has the newer songs that made their video game debut in the Switch game that came out last year via a DLC pack. Just like Project DIVA F, this game also happens to be on my completed trophy list three times:



I even continue to play it even after I got the 100% in the game, showing that it's a great rhythm game and I don't need additional trophies to keep making progress in it. I can't really say the same about the other Miku games and that's one of the main reasons this ranks higher than the others.

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azuarc may not know the strength of songs in VGMC, but he conquered the guru in Game of the Decade 2! Congrats!
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