Lurker > WiggumFan267

#28. Sonic CD (Sega CD, 1993)
Did you catch I had a Sega CD game on my list when I posted my distro way back when? Also, about time I have a Sonic game on my list, right? I wonder if this is the only one Ill have, hmm? Its funny, I had a list of my favorite Sonic games in order for a long time, but I feel like that has gone out the window with this list, as have all of my prior lists really, Ive made (like my fav games of the decade, etc). No consistency, man.

Sonic CD. I originally played on PC actually, one of my favorites as a kid. I remember the insanely long loading times, but more specifically, when that animated intro first played, and Sonic Boom, one of the best Sonic tracks of all time if not THE best, started playing-BOOM, man. The Sonic SatAM cartoon was big at the time and that really well animated intro with that incredible music -it was all a perfect storm of awesome. Ill also take this moment to talk about the music, and how the US version is the superior music (though maybe nostalgia bias?) and I love that each stage has 3 or 4 different versions of the stages song for the Past, Present, Future, and Good Future versions.

Oh yeah! This is a Sonic game about TIME TRAVEL! The gimmick here is you can activate a Past or Future signpost by running past it- then if you maintain a high speed for about 7 seconds, you warp to the Past or Future -after a little cutscene where Sonic blast offs against a green starfield- and reappear on the spot. This changes the level layout and opens up new areas, changes the enemy types and behaviors, and you see that levels design in either the Past or Future! Since a big part of Sonic games have always been to me, all about the replay value in running alternate routes- high, medium, low usually- here, you have those options across 3 different time lines, so you can always find new paths to take! Naturally, the speed is important too, since you need to build up speed after hitting signposts- and sometimes it is easy and given to you, like a left and right bumper right next to each other but sometimes you need to do some reactive platforming, or go around holding your signpost storage until you find a good spot for it. Generally, I remember always wanting to be in the Past, because in the Present or Future you would come across these busted machines in each level- if you visited that site in the Past, you would encounter a floating and active electric hamburger! Destroying it will kill all robots in all timelines of the act, and give you a Good Future at the end of the level. Get a good future in Acts 1 and 2 to play the Boss Act 3 in a Good Future which is just a pallet swap with different music, but that was a neat reward I thought. If you get all Good Futures you get the good ending! I also want to note that while none of the bosses are particularly inspired, they feature a really goddamn creepy Robotnik laugh against really creepy boss music. Which gets even creepier if you get a game over.



Or, you can get all the Chaos E- TIME STONES! The special stages in this game are really fascinating. The special stages in Sonic Mania are based on these. You run around in a 3D Perspective, camera behind Sonic, and try to destroy all the UFOs in a level, avoiding bumpers, water hazards that reduce time, pitfalls, and trying to not freakout against a trippy-ass sky. These looked amazing at the time. Getting all these also results in the good ending, but you might not get to see the Good Futures.



Anyway, I love the level design in this game, if you love branching paths, this has an incredible amount, though the rewards may not be as good as other Sonic games. I have a love-hate relationship with Wacky Workbench, a level with a floor that bounces you all over the place. The feeling of speed is very good in this game. If you really care about being able to maintain a constant good speed in Sonic games, I think youll like this one more. For me, Sonic games have never been just about going as fast as you can, but this has more of that than others. It added the awesome peel out, basically a spindash that you do with Up+A, instead of down, and sonic will do a Figure-8 feet dash -its faster than the spindash but doesnt kill enemies. Its rad.

So besides Sonic Boom, the other really radical thing about this game is the Stardust Speedway level, the penultimate level. I love the US Present music in this stage, and the design looks like a massive trombone explosion in space (in the Present), and it culminates in a race to the death against Metal Sonic (his first appearance) while Robotnik chases you both down with a death laser. Whoever crosses the finish line first, closes down the door on the other, leaving them standing there helplessly until Robotnik death lasers them. So cool man. A fantastic underlooked Sonic game.





Next Up: This isn't a game, it's a goddamn book! What do you have to do, READ to beat the levels?


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~Wigs~ 3-Time Consecutive Fantasy B8 Baseball Champion
2015 NATIONAL LEAGUE CHAMPION NEW YORK METS

#29. Crypt of the Necrodancer (PC, 2015)
The king of rhythm roguelike dungeon crawlers, Crypt of the Necrodancer blends said previous 3 things into a fantastic experience. You play as Cadence, one of endless musical puns, delving deeper and deeper into a dungeon, cursed to move to the beat of the music. Basically, you move around the grid-like dungeon floors, killing enemies, picking up gold, opening chests, digging walls, going to shops, finding items/bombs/weapons/shovels/etc to help you- all your typical dungeon crawler stuff- to the beat. Each enemy also will move to the beat, and has their own unique attack and move pattern. For example skeletons always pause one beat and then move towards you on the next, red bats move around randomly every beat, armored knights dash into you after you clink off them leaving them vulnerable, etc. An enemy moving onto your space is considered an attack). You do have the option of not moving and missing a beat- which is not the worst thing in the world and often is a viable strategy to let an enemy move closer to you. Of course, missing a beat can mess with your rhythm and give enemies free moves which can hit if youre not careful. As you kill more enemies without missing a beat, your coin multiplier goes up and killed enemies drop more coins for use in the games shops (the Shopkeeper, Freddie Merchantry, is the star of the show with his incredible singing). Each level has a miniboss, kill it, and get to the next floor! Or take a shortcut but then you need to fight the miniboss in a tiny room before proceeding!

This games difficulty curve is incredibly hard at first. You will find it so difficult to be coordinated- trying to walk to the games great music, learning enemy patterns and how to effectively deal with them, how to escape tight situations, what the best items to prioritize are, and putting it all together -it can be overwhelming. But as you play over and over, since its so quick and easy to restart, youll slowly master enemies, then minibosses, and the bosses. Did I mention how everything is a music pun? The bosses really shine here too. I also love the DLC adding a new 5th floor with electrified floors (to your advantage) and the new boss Fortissimole, a rapping mole of course.

Anyway, this game is very addicting, tense as the pumping music is great for adrenaline, and satisfying to do well. Layer that on top of tons of different characters with different gimmicks, on top of the fact you can experiment with different weapons each time you play and you have excellent replay value. I love trying to figure out what the best strategy is with the pressure of a real-time beat breathing down your neck. It can get really chaotic if you don't deal with enemies swiftly and pretty sweaty, especially before you really get used to it, and even then once you get deep into a run, youll really feel it. Definitely one of the most innovative and challenging-but-fun-to-master games Ive ever played, and I love it. If you love rhythm games at all, you should definitely check it out.



Also check out the Zelda spinoff too, Cadence of Hyrule (Im impressed an indie game got a literal Zelda tie in) which is less a Necrodancer game with a Zelda skin and more a Zelda game with a Necrodancer skin.

Next up: A game featuring time travel, electric hamburgers, and a robotic alter-ego.

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~Wigs~ 3-Time Consecutive Fantasy B8 Baseball Champion
2015 NATIONAL LEAGUE CHAMPION NEW YORK METS

I hear it and think it sounds closer if you use the dkc intro and compare it to the mario 64 intro

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~Wigs~ 3-Time Consecutive Fantasy B8 Baseball Champion
2015 NATIONAL LEAGUE CHAMPION NEW YORK METS

#30. Mega Man X (SNES, 1993)
Oh boy, its a Mega Man!
Its everything you could want in an improved Mega Man game. Better action, more mobility, like wall climbing and the special upgrades, the fact each level is now a fully fleshed out real level,instead of a series of single-screen obstacle courses, a game actually built around these differences, and better music to top it off. You have the charge shot and dash(/slide) too, but now the game feels ready to actually make these differences meaningful, where they always felt a bit more thrown-in in the later Mega Man NES games. Its got all the other stuff that makes Mega Man great, the 8 different levels that you can do in any order, but has a good recommended order with boss weaknesses. The weapons feel useful. All the bonus parts you get add a lot of depth to the game, like charging up your maverick weapons so they do something else. The Hadoken is in the game! Its got the great intro stage. The individual stages all feel unique and memorable. The robot masters are well-designed and fun to fight. The game is a really solid difficulty level. Finding the hidden areas with the special weapons is fun. Being able to go in any order gives it some good replay value. The fact stages can completely change in design/style based on the order you do them in. You already know all about this game, you dont need me to tell you why its great. Its one of the most well-designed platformers there is. Thats all I got!



Next up: An indie game that inspired a Nintendo-branded spinoff.

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~Wigs~ 3-Time Consecutive Fantasy B8 Baseball Champion
2015 NATIONAL LEAGUE CHAMPION NEW YORK METS

#31. 3D Dot Game Heroes (PS3, 2010)
What an absolute treat this game was. I always found the original Legend of Zelda to be too chaotic as far as knowing what the hell to do or where the hell to go. That being, the first time I ever tried that game was on the Gamecube Zelda collectors edition disc that I think came free with Nintendo Power? I guess people back in the day either had more patience to figure out what to do, where to drop the bombs with no visual clue, or what the stuff even did. That or they used well, Nintendo Power. But I wasnt about to go step by step with a walkthrough. But I still loved the idea of that game, as I do with all Zelda games.

3D Dot Game Heroes gives you all the feel of that original Zelda, but its the form of that game I actually wanted to play. Maybe that should be Link to the Past as the one thats closer comparison, but it at least makes me think of OG Zelda more and I think thats all in the art style and finding caves with people who will tell you random probably helpful stuff. The game looks FANTASTIC. Everything is made of pixels, and by that, I mean little Lego-like blocks that physics around as you attack and destroy enemies or objects. The game feel here is absolutely top notch. It has all the standard weapons and such youd want out of your standard Zelda game, but this time, the sword special full healthpower is having a really big-ass sword. If you have ever played the Flash game (RIP) Ginormo Sword, the sword mechanics are similar to that. You can buy one of several base swords with different shapes, and you can pay to grow the swords length or width. Only at full health, your sword will keep these properties, and by the end of the game you can have a big-ass sword that takes up the whole screen. I love that stuff.

One thing that stands out in this game too is in trying to 100% it, you need to collect all enemies in the Bestiary. The way you capture an enemy in the Bestiary is you have to literally beat the enemy WITH the physical Bestiary, a book-like weapon. Including the bosses! And its not a particularly strong weapon, so you really have to use a lot of cunning in staying alive, and getting in closer to the boss than you may be comfortable with. I enjoyed the game enough to also get the trophy for Spelunker mode, which is one-hit KO mode. That was a fun experience. Theres also a great number of quests and mini-games.

But again, the main thing here for me is it has all the great design of Link to the Past, in an original LOZ
style game feel, and looks absolutely phenomenal with its 3d-boxy-pixel graphics. Its been a long time since I played this game so I do not recall many of the game specifics, but I remember loving every second of it and it truly being the classic-style Zelda game I had been waiting for. I wish to play it again sometime soon in a remaster!! Oh! And theres character customization if youre into that so you can play as Mega Man or Cloud or whatever strikes your fancy if you can design it. Also also, I thought it was really neat this game was made by FROM, creators of Dark Souls/Bloodborne!



Next up: This game is not actually misnumbered.


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~Wigs~ 3-Time Consecutive Fantasy B8 Baseball Champion
2015 NATIONAL LEAGUE CHAMPION NEW YORK METS

Football goat, probably
Sports goat no way. Can't be the greatest when you don't have to play half of the game vs sports where athletes do play on both sides of the ball. No football goat will surpass a basketball or baseball goat, who excel at both offense and defense

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~Wigs~ 3-Time Consecutive Fantasy B8 Baseball Champion
2015 NATIONAL LEAGUE CHAMPION NEW YORK METS

#32. Guitar Hero 2 (2006, PS2)
The year is 2005. Im a freshman in college. After a couple months of making similarly-minded friends who also like video games because were all nerds, this new rhythm game comes out with a plastic guitar peripheral where you can play classic and more-current rock songs with a 5-button fret system, to the beat of strumming. It was fun, people liked it. Friends would come to hang out at my room and wed play a whole bunch. Its a little hard to say what was missing though. It was fun for sure, but it felt like it needed more. A little more style, a little more action, maybe some more songs or a better track list.

Enter the following year, and enter Guitar Hero 2, where Im now in a larger dorm (one with an actual common room), and a sequel comes out. And it was all those things I said. More style. More and better songs. The addition of Hop-Ons and Pull-Offs were CRUCIAL, and its impact long-lasting on this genre. And the difficulty felt perfect (I basically was able to start on hard and graduate to expert in short time). And being able to just set this up in the common area and friends and wanderers alike could just come by and play; it was a smash hit. I without a doubt played this game more than any others during college well maybe at least that year, and actually made some friends just through this.

The style was better. I felt in general like the presentation was better, the character rockers given to you to play as felt like they had more personality. The loading screens were funny. Clive Winston is the best.

The action was better. I already mentioned the HOPOs, but they really made the game feel like it worked. I also realized I thought GH1 was very slow. You could turn on light speed mode or whatever it was called then, and that separated out the notes enough to make them more readable as far as what notes to hit when. It blended in nicely with the difficulty curve.

The playlist was better. Almost all of the songs were covers done by Red Octane, but you could barely tell. I think some were done to make them even better for a guitar-based game also. Theres very few misses as far as the song selection. To this day, Guitar Hero 2 remains unrivaled on its in-box song selection. From Motley Crue to The Police to Kansas to Foo Fighters to Black Sabbath to the Rolling Stones to GNR to Primus to Heart to the Allman Bros to Rush to Skynyrd. And they were legitimately fun to play with great charts. Or so I recall. Maybe if I went back to this game now, I wouldnt think so but I certainly loved it at the time.

And then you even have the bonus songs, so thanks for introducing me to Freezepop. FTK is a fun song also. And they even had some extra fun stuff between the bonus and regular stuff, like a song from Deathklok, that damn Buckethead song, Misirlou, Spinal Tap, and uh am I forgetting anything? Oh yeah.



Most fun songs to play/Best songs (because how much you like the song affects how fun it is to some degree):
YYZ > Jessica > Sweet Child O Mine > Beast and the Harlot > Carry On Wayward Son > Hangar 18 > Crazy On You > Get Ready 2 Rokk > John The Fisherman > Freebird

(Freebird is too long or would be higher, but the way its like WAIT ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO PLAY FREEBIRD is hilarious)

Bad songs in no order: Tattooed Love Boys, Cherry Pie, Girlfriend, Stop, Carry Me Home

What the fuck????: Psychobilly Freakout, Institutionalized

So anyway yeah, this is here for its fantastic timing in being THE college game, for a while anyway, right in my dorms common room, improvements over the first game, and fantastic song list.

Next Up: A pixelated dungeon crawler with lots of items featuring a guy with a sword whose sword gets special powers at full health.

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~Wigs~ 3-Time Consecutive Fantasy B8 Baseball Champion
2015 NATIONAL LEAGUE CHAMPION NEW YORK METS

final results

39 - Flubbin: Beliveau, Tank, James, Ginkgo - (Beliveau- 4 TD, Tank- FG, 2 TD)
24 - Zazi: Paulie, Comet, Milky Way, Lionel- (Milky Way- TD, Giveaway, Paulie- Takeaway, 3 TD)
13 - Ermine: Muffin, Spaulding, Tina, Pacific - (Muffin- Takeaway, 2 TD)
7 - Bane: Yogi, Patrick, Fletcher, Bluey - (Fletcher- Takeaway, TD)
6 - Han: Todd Furley, Hashbrown, Eclipse, Hope - (Hashbrown- TD)
6 - Wigs: Foxy Cleopatra, Dwight, Gizmo, Nutty Coconut - (Dwight - TD)
6 - Genny: Hank, Fozzie, Mary Anne, Ray- (Fozzie- Flag, Feature, Mary Anne- TD)
5 - Nick: Chunky Monkey, Bananaberry, Xena, Sonic - (Chunky Monkey- Flag, Sonic- TD)
4 - Cokes: Jett, Coltrane, Athena, Rumor - (Jett- Feature, FG)
2 - SpikeD: Tucker, Gus, Bingo, Hanson - (Bingo- Flag, FG)
Koala: Moo, George Kibble/Oliver, Lee, Cosmo
0 - Shaduln: Aaron Pawdgers, Stitch, Tony, Archer - (Archer- Flag, Stitch- Feature)
-1 - Karo: Lucy, Erica, Pippa, Apollo - (Lucy- Flag)
-1 - Emerald: Argos, Michael, Duke, Ariel - (Ariel- Flag)
-1 - Lolo: Glimmer, Aubrey, Theodore, Chip - (Theodore- Giveaway)
-1 - Bryans7: Jay, Peaches, Sasha, Marigold - (Jay- Flag)

Other Pups:
12 - Marshall - Giveaway, Feature, Double TD

Underdog- Erica beats Jett and Gus
MVP- Marshall beats Beliveau and Paulie (robbed!!!!!)

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~Wigs~ 3-Time Consecutive Fantasy B8 Baseball Champion
2015 NATIONAL LEAGUE CHAMPION NEW YORK METS

#33 Chrono Cross (PS1, 1999)
Im not gonna lie. The music is largely why this is here. The music in this game enthralled me as a kid and to this day, this is easily a game soundtrack I will put on where and listen start to end while Im working or something. The violin is incredible, and I really adore that bit of scratchy quality the music has like you can hear the occasional squeaking of the bow on the violin and it adds this very raw effect to many of the songs. The intro of this game is absolutely stunning too, extremely impressive for its time, and still looks great!

Ok, now into the game. I played this game before Chrono Trigger. So, I really had no idea what the hell was going on near the end of this game, and to be honest I still kind of dont because I dont really try to follow this games story too much, but it sure as hell at least feels emotional. Its really been a really long time since I played this so I cant remember that too much. What else does stick out as memorable are the battle system and the characters. I Know a lot of people dont like the oversaturation of characters, but to me, I liked that you could experience a lot of these nice little stories each character has, and then just use the ones you like most in your main party. Theres a lot of characters that had cool designs. And hell, one of my first main things I did here at GameFAQs was run several iterations of Save My Chrono Cross character!

The battle system, is the big appeal to me. You can equip spells of different elements on different levels of your magic bracket which I call it that because it looks like a March Madness quadrant. Spells have a certain base level to them that if equipped at a lower or higher level they will increase in power and effectiveness. In order to use these spells, you have to build up to that level with physical attacks- you can do Level 1, 2, or 3 attacks- each of which has a tradeoff in power for accuracy and stamina (3 attacks hit the hardest, have lower accuracy and deplete more Stamina aka # of attacks you can use per turn). As you hit more per turn, the %s all go up. And as you hit with more of these numbers, you can use higher level magic on that turn. All in all it makes for an interesting balance of physical and magic attacks, with strategy in what to use when. Each character has 2 unique attacks also, plus a 3rtd ultimate you can unlock by progressing through each characters story. There is also a magic Field universal to each battle, which changes as any character uses magic. If its ever a solid color, that color is beefed up and you can do some additional specials. Its a great system.



But like I said man, I just fucking love this music. Impossible for me to rank them but heres a few I enjoy a lot

Scars of Time, Dreams of the Shore Bordering Another World, Magical Dreamers, Life: A Distant Promise, Termina Another World, Voyage Home World I could go on.

Next up: A game with Strong Bad in it.

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~Wigs~ 3-Time Consecutive Fantasy B8 Baseball Champion
2015 NATIONAL LEAGUE CHAMPION NEW YORK METS

just moving my last 2 writeups to here

Some UC4 through the entire review, Id skip it if you intend to play the game.

#34. Uncharted 4: A Thiefs End (PS4, 2016)
After 3 games of the same basic idea of a plot, Drake wants treasure, then wants to stop evil badperson from exploiting said treasure for evil. Finally we get a story that explores a (somewhat) more real side of things. While its still ludicrous treasure at the end of the day, for one, theres no ridiculous mythical powers at bay (though they tease it a bit), andwhile I dont need that one way or the other, I appreciate the more mature approach the story has gradually taken over the games, from full on phantom ancient powers in 1 and 2, to just a hallucination of such in 3, to nothing whatsoever in 4. That it was nice to see they can tell a story without relying on that. The real enemy was the greed of the pirates who had this treasure. Drakes progression here is that after having given up the life, he gets drawn back in to save his brother (well-told in the past cutscenes with them as kidsthis game has a lot more slow/story points which is a little meh-paced, but they are still enjoyable), because hes finally learned the personal risks that come with it and like killing a million people but they dont touch on this one. It winds up being kind of frustrating that Drake keeps all this a secret from Elena, you think hed know this shit by now, but at least we can see he regrets this, learns, grows over the story. Its not especially deep but its certainly deeper than weve ever seen Drake, knowing that from the opening of the game, how he tries to balance missing that stuff with trying to be settled. I liked that segment, finding old relics from past games as he reminisces and Crash Bandicoot! But come on man, Elena supported you just tell her youre gonna go offto save your brother younever told her or us about. Sam essentially taking the place of Drake in the boisterous, treasure-before-all guy works as Drakes adventures are largely tied to his desires and his faked story that he needs the treasure for his life. Sam is not really a great character though.

As for the game, its more fleshed out gameplay wise. The stealth actually works well for once as theres a dedicated system to it now as opposed to just eh maybe you can sneak up on someone. Its not perfect, but its finally at least a polished something. Its fun and works well and you canreally make greater use of stealth than in the past games. The set pieces on the whole arent as fantastical as the other 3 games, but it really hits high notes in scenery and graphics, and still has a bunch of great segments. The truck chase sequence that begins with the drive down through the town on the hill in the ATV and finishes up with being dragged along by a rope in a high-speed chase is the best action segment of the game. The views from the top of towers you get to are the best in the series. The open area in the ATV is pretty neat and different for Uncharted, and served as the basis for Lost Legacy, which was a fun game. The island area with the boat is somewhat open too, and makes for good optional exploration for more story and treasures. The auction house is a fun area too for story/environment.

The final fight, I guess the best in a series not known for its final bosses is good,but mostly because it just looks so good. Being on the burning pirate ship, surrounded by gold, and a simple sword fight with a crazed man with nothing to lose works great thematically. The fight itself is pretty annoying on tougher difficulties. But its very well-presented.

In all, this game has the best all-around story of the 4, if not the most action-oriented, has the best combat, and hey its about the graphics too and this game just looks and sounds great. The ending is very satisfying and is a great conclusion to the series. Now bring me the Sully and Sam side game

Oh also the multiplayer is really fucking good but we know this already and I may have to say more about it later



Next Up: The best overall soundtrack on my list.

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~Wigs~ 3-Time Consecutive Fantasy B8 Baseball Champion
2015 NATIONAL LEAGUE CHAMPION NEW YORK METS

HMs:
Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies
Bugsnax
Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine
Gunstar Heroes
Kirby 64
Mario Tennis
Untitled Goose Game
Warioware: Touched
We <3 Katamari

100. The Stanley Parable
99. Death Stranding
98. Kirby's Block Ball
97. Where in Time Is Carmen Sandiego?
96. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
95. Borderlands 2
94. Twisted Metal 2
93. Cuphead
92. Ratchet & Clank (PS4)
91. Mega Man 2
90. Ghosts 'n Goblins
89. Super Mario Maker 2
88. Final Fantasy VII
87. Donkey Kong Country
86. Mega Man 9
85. Pokemon Puzzle League
84. Marvel's Spider-Man
83. Adventures of Lolo
82. Braid
81. Donkey Kong Country 2
80. Into the Breach
79. Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception
78. Elite Beat Agents
77. Shovel Knight
76. Back to the Future (Telltale)
75. Mega Man 5
74. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
73. Mario Kart 64
72. Zombies Ate My Neighbors
71. Professor Layton and the Unwound Future
70. Metal Gear Solid 2
69. Skies of Arcadia Legends
68. Super Mario 64
67. Super Mario Land 3: Wario Land
66. Hexcells
65. Mega Man 3
64. Heroes of Might and Magic III
63. Mario Party 2
62. Punch-Out!! (Wii)
61. Dark Souls: Remastered
60. Out of the Park Baseball 17
59. Papers, Please
58. Final Fantasy VII Remake
57. Slay the Spire
56. Mario Kart 8
55. Wario Land 3
54. Portal
53. Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
52. Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin
51. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night
50. The Simpsons: Hit & Run
49. Picross 3D: Round 2
48. Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes
47. Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
46. Apex Legends
45. Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow
44. The Witness
43. Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow
42. Pokemon Gold/Silver
41. Ace Attorney: Spirit of Justice
40. Jackbox Party Packs
39. Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
38. Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker
37. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
36. Bloodborne
35. Hitman 2
34. Uncharted 4: A Thief's End
33. Chrono Cross


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~Wigs~ 3-Time Consecutive Fantasy B8 Baseball Champion
2015 NATIONAL LEAGUE CHAMPION NEW YORK METS

33. Chrono Cross
34. Uncharted 4: A Thief's End
35. Hitman 2
36. Bloodborne
37. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
38. Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker
39. Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
40. Jackbox Party Packs
41. Ace Attorney: Spirit of Justice
42. Pokemon Gold/Silver
43. Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow
44. The Witness
45. Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow
46. Apex Legends
47. Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
48. Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes
49. Picross 3D: Round 2
50. The Simpsons: Hit & Run
51. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night
52. Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin
53. Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
54. Portal
55. Wario Land 3
56. Mario Kart 8
57. Slay the Spire
58. Final Fantasy VII Remake
59. Papers, Please
60. Out of the Park Baseball 17
61. Dark Souls: Remastered
62. Punch-Out!! (Wii)
63. Mario Party 2
64. Heroes of Might and Magic III
65. Mega Man 3
66. Hexcells
67. Super Mario Land 3: Wario Land
68. Super Mario 64
69. Skies of Arcadia Legends
70. Metal Gear Solid 2
71. Professor Layton and the Unwound Future
72. Zombies Ate My Neighbors
73. Mario Kart 64
74. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
75. Mega Man 5
76. Back to the Future (Telltale)
77. Shovel Knight
78. Elite Beat Agents
79. Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception
80. Into the Breach
81. Donkey Kong Country 2
82. Braid
83. Adventures of Lolo
84. Marvel's Spider-Man
85. Pokemon Puzzle League
86. Mega Man 9
87. Donkey Kong Country
88. Final Fantasy VII
89. Super Mario Maker 2
90. Ghosts 'n Goblins
91. Mega Man 2
92. Ratchet & Clank (PS4)
93. Cuphead
94. Twisted Metal 2
95. Borderlands 2
96. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
97. Where in Time Is Carmen Sandiego?
98. Kirby's Block Ball
99. Death Stranding
100. The Stanley Parable
HMs:
Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies
Bugsnax
Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine
Gunstar Heroes
Kirby 64
Mario Tennis
Untitled Goose Game
Warioware: Touched
We <3 Katamari


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~Wigs~ 3-Time Consecutive Fantasy B8 Baseball Champion
2015 NATIONAL LEAGUE CHAMPION NEW YORK METS

#33 Chrono Cross (PS1, 1999)
Im not gonna lie. The music is largely why this is here. The music in this game enthralled me as a kid and to this day, this is easily a game soundtrack I will put on where and listen start to end while Im working or something. The violin is incredible, and I really adore that bit of scratchy quality the music has like you can hear the occasional squeaking of the bow on the violin and it adds this very raw effect to many of the songs. The intro of this game is absolutely stunning too, extremely impressive for its time, and still looks great!

Ok, now into the game. I played this game before Chrono Trigger. So, I really had no idea what the hell was going on near the end of this game, and to be honest I still kind of dont because I dont really try to follow this games story too much, but it sure as hell at least feels emotional. Its really been a really long time since I played this so I cant remember that too much. What else does stick out as memorable are the battle system and the characters. I Know a lot of people dont like the oversaturation of characters, but to me, I liked that you could experience a lot of these nice little stories each character has, and then just use the ones you like most in your main party. Theres a lot of characters that had cool designs. And hell, one of my first main things I did here at GameFAQs was run several iterations of Save My Chrono Cross character!

The battle system, is the big appeal to me. You can equip spells of different elements on different levels of your magic bracket which I call it that because it looks like a March Madness quadrant. Spells have a certain base level to them that if equipped at a lower or higher level they will increase in power and effectiveness. In order to use these spells, you have to build up to that level with physical attacks- you can do Level 1, 2, or 3 attacks- each of which has a tradeoff in power for accuracy and stamina (3 attacks hit the hardest, have lower accuracy and deplete more Stamina aka # of attacks you can use per turn). As you hit more per turn, the %s all go up. And as you hit with more of these numbers, you can use higher level magic on that turn. All in all it makes for an interesting balance of physical and magic attacks, with strategy in what to use when. Each character has 2 unique attacks also, plus a 3rtd ultimate you can unlock by progressing through each characters story. There is also a magic Field universal to each battle, which changes as any character uses magic. If its ever a solid color, that color is beefed up and you can do some additional specials. Its a great system.



But like I said man, I just fucking love this music. Impossible for me to rank them but heres a few I enjoy a lot

Scars of Time, Dreams of the Shore Bordering Another World, Magical Dreamers, Life: A Distant Promise, Termina Another World, Voyage Home World I could go on.

Next up: A game with Strong Bad in it.

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~Wigs~ 3-Time Consecutive Fantasy B8 Baseball Champion
2015 NATIONAL LEAGUE CHAMPION NEW YORK METS

Some UC4 through the entire review, Id skip it if you intend to play the game.

#34. Uncharted 4: A Thiefs End (PS4, 2016)
After 3 games of the same basic idea of a plot, Drake wants treasure, then wants to stop evil badperson from exploiting said treasure for evil. Finally we get a story that explores a (somewhat) more real side of things. While its still ludicrous treasure at the end of the day, for one, theres no ridiculous mythical powers at bay (though they tease it a bit), andwhile I dont need that one way or the other, I appreciate the more mature approach the story has gradually taken over the games, from full on phantom ancient powers in 1 and 2, to just a hallucination of such in 3, to nothing whatsoever in 4. That it was nice to see they can tell a story without relying on that. The real enemy was the greed of the pirates who had this treasure. Drakes progression here is that after having given up the life, he gets drawn back in to save his brother (well-told in the past cutscenes with them as kidsthis game has a lot more slow/story points which is a little meh-paced, but they are still enjoyable), because hes finally learned the personal risks that come with it and like killing a million people but they dont touch on this one. It winds up being kind of frustrating that Drake keeps all this a secret from Elena, you think hed know this shit by now, but at least we can see he regrets this, learns, grows over the story. Its not especially deep but its certainly deeper than weve ever seen Drake, knowing that from the opening of the game, how he tries to balance missing that stuff with trying to be settled. I liked that segment, finding old relics from past games as he reminisces and Crash Bandicoot! But come on man, Elena supported you just tell her youre gonna go offto save your brother younever told her or us about. Sam essentially taking the place of Drake in the boisterous, treasure-before-all guy works as Drakes adventures are largely tied to his desires and his faked story that he needs the treasure for his life. Sam is not really a great character though.

As for the game, its more fleshed out gameplay wise. The stealth actually works well for once as theres a dedicated system to it now as opposed to just eh maybe you can sneak up on someone. Its not perfect, but its finally at least a polished something. Its fun and works well and you canreally make greater use of stealth than in the past games. The set pieces on the whole arent as fantastical as the other 3 games, but it really hits high notes in scenery and graphics, and still has a bunch of great segments. The truck chase sequence that begins with the drive down through the town on the hill in the ATV and finishes up with being dragged along by a rope in a high-speed chase is the best action segment of the game. The views from the top of towers you get to are the best in the series. The open area in the ATV is pretty neat and different for Uncharted, and served as the basis for Lost Legacy, which was a fun game. The island area with the boat is somewhat open too, and makes for good optional exploration for more story and treasures. The auction house is a fun area too for story/environment.

The final fight, I guess the best in a series not known for its final bosses is good,but mostly because it just looks so good. Being on the burning pirate ship, surrounded by gold, and a simple sword fight with a crazed man with nothing to lose works great thematically. The fight itself is pretty annoying on tougher difficulties. But its very well-presented.

In all, this game has the best all-around story of the 4, if not the most action-oriented, has the best combat, and hey its about the graphics too and this game just looks and sounds great. The ending is very satisfying and is a great conclusion to the series. Now bring me the Sully and Sam side game

Oh also the multiplayer is really fucking good but we know this already and I may have to say more about it later



Next Up: The best overall soundtrack on my list.

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~Wigs~ 3-Time Consecutive Fantasy B8 Baseball Champion
2015 NATIONAL LEAGUE CHAMPION NEW YORK METS

poor anthony young, never got enough credit

hell yeah stormbird


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~Wigs~ 3-Time Consecutive Fantasy B8 Baseball Champion
2015 NATIONAL LEAGUE CHAMPION NEW YORK METS

oregon trail 2 a true classico

Pokemon TCG jammin soundtrack and imakuni

pokemon puzzle league work harder ya butt pasta finale kid


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~Wigs~ 3-Time Consecutive Fantasy B8 Baseball Champion
2015 NATIONAL LEAGUE CHAMPION NEW YORK METS

#35. Hitman 2 (2018, PS4)
This game includes Hitman 1, since I got the Hitman 1 legacy pack with it, but it all runs on the Hitman 2 engine, so its pretty much just Hitman 2 (but with the Hitman 1 levels in it also).

I never played a Hitman game until this year. Seeing Sphynx run it at Extra Life a couple years ago though really let me see for the first time just how cool this game is, and how creative it can let you be; trying to kill your assassination targets in a myriad of creative ways. Sure you can just creep up on em and silence pistol them in the head. But whats that when you can feed a dude to a hippo, set up someone to take someone elses place on a model runway and drop the stage lights on them, disguise yourself as a pit member for an auto race and sabotage your targets wheels, disguise yourself as a mascot whos in trouble with the mob, shit man I could keep going forever here.



The locales in this game are stunning and huge and beautiful and have so much to explore. Which lends itself to killing your desired target pretty much however you want. The basic ways being shooting, poisoning, throwing something sharp at their head, pushing them off from a large height, drowning them in the toilet, or garroting them. Of course, you can take out (with or without killing, as you desire) other guys along the way to get them out of the way, or get their outfit to guise yourself. In general the less people you kill and the less you are spotted the better your score (which matters for unlocking new stuff to start the level with, or new areas to start each level in on replay for example). People may get suspicious if whoever you are guised as goes into an area theyre not supposed to, or if someone recognizes you arent who you are (like a chef might recognize his co-chef for example and see something is up if youre dressed as him). The game has an absolutely fantastic sense of humor and somehow has a story that is super serious while simultaneously the gameplay pulls no punches in not taking itself seriously whatsoever- its so bombastic pretty much everything will make you laugh. It's so goofy for a game about assassination.



The gameplay just feels great too. Taking someone out (again, a ton of ways to do it, but tired and true, sneak up behind em when no one is looking and dump their body in a dumpster) never gets old. My favorite thing to do on a new level is just explore every inch, and take everything in and maybe take them out a standard way, or follow the story guides which will mission progress you on the story ways in which to take out your targets, before getting into the specific challenges where some of the ways really get fun-especially when you get some of the characters to meet each other. I especially enjoyed becoming a barber and giving like 15 different people a nice shave before my target came in for a shave and well



Also, the Escalation Contracts that anyone can make are a fantastic idea where anyone can custom create their own mission on any level, like kill these 5 random people on a level-the first one has to be while disguised as a waiter with a screwdriver. The second has to be disguised as a pilot dropping a chandelier. Etc. Those are super fun to mess around with too.

The World Is Your Weapon.



Whittleton Creek > Miami > Isle of Sgail > Santa Fortuna > Bangkok > Sapienza > Mumbai > Hokkaido > Paris > Marrakesh > Hawke's Bay > Colorado

Next Up: A series where the main character finally shows some character growth in this final (mainline) installment.

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~Wigs~ 3-Time Consecutive Fantasy B8 Baseball Champion
2015 NATIONAL LEAGUE CHAMPION NEW YORK METS

#36. Bloodborne (2015, PS4)
Bloodborne was my intro game to the Soulsborne franchise, and man was I not having a good time with this game at first. Some of it was the difficulty for sure, but I think it was also not really getting the hang of the combat, probably not being aggressive enough, and just not having the feel in general for these kinds of games. I remember complaining about it a bunch in the chat and giving up for the time being. I revisited it some amount of time later, willing to give another shot, and this time it took, and in a big way. This game made me really love these games, even if I dont quite like the Dark Souls games as much as this one.

Ive been through a bit on why I like these games, but I think once you get used to them, theyre the right level of challenge. Usually you dont have to trek too far to get back to the spot where you died. You feel yourself getting better and learning new enemy patterns as you go, and just generally playing smarter. The combat feels great and taking down tough enemy and bosses, also great.
What makes Bloodborne a step up for me are a few things. I love the setting and area design a lot more than the Souls games. The gothic style of the environment is fantastic. Despite the areas all being generally the same, they still manage to feel quite different. The enemies and bosses are way higher on the cool and creepy and eerie scale than Dark Souls big-ass knights or occasional fire demon or big fat club man and his dragoon buddy. Not to say there arent cool bosses in Dark Souls, cuz there definitely are! In both games, walking around a new area is scary because you dont know whats going to come out after you- but in Bloodborne you can probably feel confident its going to be some goddamn nightmare. It will made me say WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT out loud quite often! And that one moment when - lets say that moment when you get unexpectedly teleported (except you dont) - is legitimately terrifying. Not in a jumpscare way cuz I dont like that stuff. But in a HOLY FUCK WHAT way. Rom is also a great fight, probably the most memorable.

Further, thecombat style works better here imo than Dark Souls. Dark Souls has a lot of guarding and playing it safe to wait for an enemy opening. Maybe get a few pokes in and back off, especially if you get hit. Bloodborne has the system where if you are hit, you have a few seconds to regain some of that health you lost back, by attacking back quickly, and that system really speeds up the combat and makes it a lot more dynamic and exciting. The magic looks great. I havent actually used it on my character, but it looks fucking cool lol. Maybe some day. I am aware the balance isnt as good in this game as far as the things that are good or bad to use, as opposed to Dark Souls where pretty much anything can be good.

The chalice dungeons also made for some fun post-game combat, if not a little long and drawn out- but I really enjoyed co-oping some of them with MSG! Theres a bunch of unique bosses just in there, so those were enjoyable too. But in general, this game is the more fun, more aggressive, and more Lovecraftian version of Dark Souls, and thats why its my favorite of its kind.



Next Up: This game features a hippo eating a drug cartel leader. Probably.

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~Wigs~ 3-Time Consecutive Fantasy B8 Baseball Champion
2015 NATIONAL LEAGUE CHAMPION NEW YORK METS

#37. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (Switch, 2018)
Not really sure what I can say about Smash at this point! I think as the years had gone on I got more and more tired of it, though this one certainly rejuvenated me on it, so its on the list! The online is finally at a point where it MOSTLY works well, though the latency is still a major issue, Nintendo gonna Nintendo.

Putting pretty much everything from every game feels like Smashs natural conclusion, and its a good send off if it is, with the occasional DLC splattered in but Im sure theyll try to release a new one anyway in some amount of years.

Still, its a great sign that so many characters are fun to play as. Even the ones that arent are still fun to play. We can say yeah we dont like playing as Ryu or whatever, but its still fun! Its just clearly less fun than a lot of the other incredibly fun characters.

The game is so timeless, the concept has barely changed since 2001, just tweaks to the mechanics, adding more stages, characters, itemsmaybe give em some super moves. And yet it still remains fun to play after all this time. Its pretty much the ultimate party game, the ultimate game to play with friends I dont touch the competitive scene but I guess its there if you want it and has so much customization with music, or the Miis you want to make, or Amiibos, or item frequency, or whatever all of that. Good. By the way, I personally am a low or off item fan, if you werent already aware, because I think its more fun to explore each characters unique move set and using those is fun. Once you add in items, it makes all characters on more similar ground, since all characters have access to these items. But hey, to each their own!

This games single player mode was eh at best. Its neat to see their interpretation of how to represent historic video game characters using only Smash characters, colors, items, and rules, and they do a really good job with it. But ultimately it comes down to a massive ton of single player battles. Nothing wrong with Classic mode! Adventure Mode in Melee was great, and Subspace had fun cutscenes, and even the 3DS one had its fun platformer thing. Wii U and Ultimate here have been a dropoff in that regard.



Anyway. Its smash. Its great! Ok!

Next up: Overheard from me in this game more than any other game "WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT????"

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~Wigs~ 3-Time Consecutive Fantasy B8 Baseball Champion
2015 NATIONAL LEAGUE CHAMPION NEW YORK METS

#39. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (N64, 1998)
#38. The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (Gamecube, 2002)
Firstly, I decided to move some games around so that hint I gave before is no longer viable oops!

Anyway, these are both games that having played neither game recently, I feel like I cant get into the specifcs too much. I know some of you can talk about the dungeons and such from these games in much detail. I cant do that at this point. But what I can tell you is how much I remember enjoying both of these games. Be it galloping around Hyrule Field on Epona or sailing around Lake Hylia in your friendly boat. That is what I think of the most when I think of these games and how much fun it was to just explore and find whatever secrets you may come across.

Ocarina has some great and memorable boss fights like Twinrova and Phantom Ganon. The setting of Hyrule Castle is unforgettable. The puzzles in the dungeons. How frustrating the Water Temple was but in a good way. I know some people tire of the Zelda formula, but to me, its always worked great. And OoT is no exception. Hyrule Field's music is also timeless.

Wind Waker winds up pretty similar for me, but I rank it a spot higher here for just being a more polished and unique/quirky game. The visuals are absolutely outstanding, be it in 2002, or be it in the Wii U HD Remaster. The music is the best in the series, especially the sailing music. From what I remember of the dungeon design, I liked it, especially the Forsaken Fortress and using the Deku Leaf in general. I always found sailing to be enjoyable (although I did not beat the game until the Wii U version, so maybe thats why)

I find it hard to get into the specifics of why I like Zelda games though. I just do, man! And the ones I like more, like these 2, I like because it's fun to move around and attack, have memorable moments or fights, have interesting items or ideas to explore, and have enjoyable modes of transportation, probably assisted by great music!



Next up: The most recent game in its series. My favorite character is different in each game (no, not Final Fantasy).

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~Wigs~ 3-Time Consecutive Fantasy B8 Baseball Champion
2015 NATIONAL LEAGUE CHAMPION NEW YORK METS

#40. The Jackbox Party Packs (Various, Various) (fine PC, 2014)
Heres 7 really 8 games in one since Drawful 2 counts. Really like what, 40-something games?

Most of yall know the deal here. If not, theyre a collection of games you can play using your phone as a controller, to input some sort of thing to the main screen where everyone can see it. So this might include drawing a prompt where everyone has to guess what it is, filling in the blank on a believe it or not style fact and try to make everyone pick your lie, or making a good joke given a prompt and hope people vote for yours. Theres other trivia, deduction, drawing, word games, etc that are all incredibly fun and usually can be played over and over again due to their short length. You can also stream it to Twitch, Zoom, Discord so its been fantastic in quarantine, but still great in real life too. What makes these games great is you yourself are supplying all the information, whether the goal is being funny, crafty, or correct. The games have fantastic game, graphic, and sound design for the most part, where each game is its own unique experience. We play somewhat often on Discord, so come join us as we voice chat and play these games together for several hours!

The games are based off of the OG game You Dont Know Jack, which you may remember as a nifty little set of trivia games, but the progress they have made sense has been outstanding.

That being said my top 5 are mostly the classic Jackbox games except Blather Round:
Fibbage/Enough About You > Drawful > YDKJ > Blather Round > Quiplash

Also top tier:
Patently Stupid > Push The Button > Trivia Murder Party > Tee KO > Joke Boat



Next up: This game calls my favorite character from it a "precious session commodity" in his bio.

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~Wigs~ 3-Time Consecutive Fantasy B8 Baseball Champion
2015 NATIONAL LEAGUE CHAMPION NEW YORK METS

TheKnightOfNee posted...

I think I was the one weird kid that tried to level all my Pokemon evenly, instead of just over-leveling my starter. It actually got out of control that every Pokemon I had caught was on the same level. When my team of 6 all gained a level, I'd go to the PC and swap them out for 6 new Pokemon, fight against wild Pokemon until they went up a level, then I'd swap in 6 more, etc. Around the time I got to Snorlax, I realized this was kind of silly and excessive, and just cut it down to a team of 6 (which I still leveled evenly through the whole game).

I actually did a mini version of this I think in X/Y since it got so damn easy by then... I had 12pokemon I tried to keep even. No ExpAll on obviously. Even then, way too easy.

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~Wigs~ 3-Time Consecutive Fantasy B8 Baseball Champion
2015 NATIONAL LEAGUE CHAMPION NEW YORK METS

#41. Ace Attorney: Spirit of Justice (3DS, 2016)
Ok so this game is actually kind of hard for me to talk about it because I only played it once, and Im actually working on replaying the Apollo Justice series now, but just sort on a brief level, this game finally delivered what I wanted out of the Apollo Justice series. It finally gives him ample time to shine as his own character, after being sort of shanghaid by Phoenix in the first game and sharing much of the spotlight with Athena in Dual Destinies, while Spirit of Justice isnt ENTIRELY to himself and Phoenix and Athena still have their portions Apollos story is the brunt, and they do a great job with it. Theres still I think some loose ends hanging over from AA4 that never get fully resolved, though they do play around with some possibilities and make you think about some of those connections, but the games story is still fantastic. The new characters are interesting (as are the familiar) and the case mechanics are fun and the name puns are out of this world and come back to me in like a month after I finish playing through this series and I might have more to say about it- I am going mostly from memory here, the memory of a murder.

But the point is I remember really enjoying this game, it had some good unexpected stuff, and some emotional moments, and was an all-around great Ace Attorney game.



Next up: Technically speaking, I'm cheating the most in listing this game than any other game on my list

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~Wigs~ 3-Time Consecutive Fantasy B8 Baseball Champion
2015 NATIONAL LEAGUE CHAMPION NEW YORK METS

#43. Pokemon Red/Blue (Game Boy, 1998)
#42. Pokemon Gold/Silver (Game Boy Color, 1999)
I remember hearing of this game for the first time as a friend told me about it at lunch time in grade school. I wasnt super wild about it but I remember thinking it sounded neat enough that I wanted to try. Then for whatever reason, I remember the day I was going to get it, I was talking with a different friend after soccer practice and he got me really amped for it. So my mom took me to the store to get it. And the rest is history!

The game is programmatically a mess, but that hardly matters. It spurred on my initial love of RPGs, collecting things, and activated the completionist in me. Customizing your team exactly how you like i-. Wait no. What am I saying? I just used only my goddamn Charizard and got it as high level as possible and barely used a single other Pokemon, except when I needed to like early on for Brock (shoutout to actually reading the instruction manual telling me to catch another Pokemon to deal with him and Misty) and HMs and such. I find it pretty amusing that the best way to speedrun the game (glitchlessly) is the same strategy I bet most of use employed as kids. Of course, I did all the usual kid stuff. Trying to find Pikablu or Mew behind the truck, actually doing the Missingno trick, etc.

Anyway, Kanto is great. Laid out well and the progression is good. Back then, fighting tons of random battles and trainers never really got old and I tried to fight every person I could. Elite 4 was filled with so much hype, as well as them really making you hate your rival so beating his face in felt great (though, I struggled and it took me a while! I think I eventually leveled up someone else but not really sure). The first generation of Pokemon is classic too obviously.

And then you have the 2nd generation, which I loved more than the first. Its probably my overall favorite for Pokemon design. I thought the Day/Night and day of the week mechanics were nifty, if not annoying, the rival was way more intense, the innovation of Hold items was fun, and honestly the game was beautiful for the time. Plus what a surprise it was when you got to go back to Kanto a 2nd time, that blew my mind. Even if it was super watered down, it was still great. And of course, finding Red at the end to battle. What a great cap to these 2 games.

I dont have Yellow specifically mentioned here because I thought it wasnt quite as good, I didnt really care for the Tamagotchi style mechanics with Pikachu, though I did appreciate the fact they tried to stick more faithfully to the show, with the character designs and especially with Team Rocket, so consider Pokemon Yellow close enough to being here but just slightly not as good enough for me to include it. I never played Crystal.





One story I like telling about my first time playing Pokemon Red was, I finally got to my grandmother's house where I was that day for some reason. I planned to pick Bulbasaur after reading the instruction guide, and the second I clicked on his ball and he made his growl I heard a ssssssssssssPOP! A battery exploded in the back of my brick game boy. And I had the clear one so you could clearly see the battery fluid all inside the back. I got some new batteries but I was afraid that me picking Bulbasaur somehow did something to my game, so I did not pick him again and instead went for Charmander.

Next up: A game on this page (use 50 per page, nubs)

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~Wigs~ 3-Time Consecutive Fantasy B8 Baseball Champion
2015 NATIONAL LEAGUE CHAMPION NEW YORK METS

#44. The Witness (PS4, 2016)
I honestly thought I would have this game higher, I still might on a different day but I think my list starts really kicking it in gear around here. I came in with a LOT I wanted to say about this game, but the more I realize, the less I say about it the better, because experiencing what this game has to offer on your own is a huge part of the intrigue and fun. So I mostly want to talk about the feel. I will say on a base level, it is a very simplistic puzzle game at its core. You walk around an island and solve grid puzzles. That is, the general gameplay is you have to move a white dot through a cross-array from point A to point B in the right way. The important part here is there is no direction at all. You are left to figure out everything for yourself. The game teaches you how to play by its own rules incredibly well, better than any game Ive ever played. For each puzzle segment, it will start you off simply, leaving you to figure out why that puzzle solution worked, probably through trial and error, and as you do more puzzles of that type, youll figure out how to do them properly just around the time they step up in difficulty.

Every discovery you make on your own feels fantastic. Because YOU did it, all by yourself. And the reward is generally you get to do more puzzles! Some of the especially difficult and more intricate puzzles are sort of located off on their own and have no reward at all, other than the satisfaction that you did it. It doesnt sound like this kind of thing appeals, but it really does, with how the game is laid out. The island itself has some other secrets to figure out besides the puzzles it supplies you with, but I dont want to go into too much detail there. Again, its best experienced on your own. The puzzle designs in this game are all intricate and very creative and I found myself really enjoying the process of solving them. If you get stuck, its easy to just walk around to a different section of the island, and try some other puzzles and come back later with a fresh mind or different perspective. Some sections felt more physically demanding than Id expect too. I really did start seeing that little white dot at the start of puzzles everywhere and I think you might too.

Thats all I really feel comfortable saying about it without giving anything away, even in spoiler text. At points it does feel a little pretentious, but the area you can explore after you beat the game was a very fun and very challenging puzzle sequence. I cannot recommend this game enough if you even slightly like puzzles or the rewards of self-satisfaction of figuring stuff out.



Next up: A game with a stalled-out truck.

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~Wigs~ 3-Time Consecutive Fantasy B8 Baseball Champion
2015 NATIONAL LEAGUE CHAMPION NEW YORK METS

#45. Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow (DS, 2005)
For whatever reason, this is one of the games I moved the most around my list when deciding where I wanted to rank it. I originally had it much higher, but I brought it down a bit at the end of the day, so I think on a different day I definitely could have this much higher. Anyway, Ive basically talked about this game like 5 times by now for all the Castlevania games like this that I love. The exploration, the revisiting old areas with new powers and stronger stuff to tear through enemies, collecting and finding all the souls that run your special attacks, the different types of weapons befitting your playstyle (and the fact you can switch between two loadouts on the fly was a fantastic mechanic that Im glad persisted throughout this series), and fun boss battles. Why do I have this one the highest? Im not really sure! I remember liking it the most, maybe because I played it first. Somas storyline I think is the most dramatic from what I recall. I think the castle design is a bit better here than the rest (though I do appreciate Portrait of Ruins appreciation to go into other areas, like swamps, forests, deserts). The enemies are nice and varied and fun to fight as well. I do think the seal drawing is a bit annoying, its not a game breaker or anything but I definitely have been in a few cases where I beat a boss only to not really beat it cuz I fucked up the seal. I also think for whatever reason, that boss fight against the big fire demon guy really stands out in my head. This is my favorite in the DS Castlevania series, and my favorite Castlevania game of this style period, and my favorite Castlevania game period.



Next up: This game altered how I perceived objects for months after I played it.

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~Wigs~ 3-Time Consecutive Fantasy B8 Baseball Champion
2015 NATIONAL LEAGUE CHAMPION NEW YORK METS

#46. Apex Legends (PS4, 2019)
Never did I think I would have a FPS battle royale game as one of my favorites, but almost 2 years later here we are. A game I play at least a few nights a week mostly with Icon, Shine, TLO, Arti, and some others sometimes. Usually I don't really like this genre, yet wit this one, I'm not quite sure what it is. The legends all are unique with different powers and personalities is probably the main draw of it, and it has a very innovative pinging system for pinging stuff for your teammates. I don't feel like I'm that good at this game, but I have my moments. The characters have varying interactions with each other while you're playing which is a nice touch. Or really just anything they might say during a match in general highlights their personalities so you get a bit of a unique experience that way. There's 3 different maps now, the lore is not bad. They release new characters pretty often. And I enjoy playing with friendos!



Lifeline > Bloodhound > Loba > Wattson > Pathfinder > Caustic > Octane > Revenant > Wraith > Mirage > Gibraltar > Horizon > Crypto > Bangalore > Rampart

Next up: A DS game whose name is befitting of the system its on.

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~Wigs~ 3-Time Consecutive Fantasy B8 Baseball Champion
2015 NATIONAL LEAGUE CHAMPION NEW YORK METS

In it to win it

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~Wigs~ 3-Time Consecutive Fantasy B8 Baseball Champion
2015 NATIONAL LEAGUE CHAMPION NEW YORK METS

#47. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (SNES, 1992)
Sorry, this writeup is going to be short and I lost everything because GameFAQs decided to fucking eat my writeup for no reason when the page refreshed itself.

Anyway I really don't have much to say about this game. Most of you are going to have it on your list and havent talked about it yet, or already have. It's great and we know why it's great. Exploring, dungeons, swinging your sword is great, the subweapons are fun. The dark/light world transition is good too, though it always bothered me you could warp in wherever you want but not warp out. Would've liked to unlock an ability somewhere in the game to go both directions at any point.

The bosses are great and dungeons are great, though I think the graphic design of the dungeons could be a bit better. Sure, they're different colors and have some differences visually and mechanically, but if you asked me to describe how 2 dungeons differ offhand I'm not sure I could do a great job, but that also might be because it's been a while since I've played and could be true for other Zelda games!

Anyway, great game. Look forward to the rest of your writeups on this. This game winds up one of my favs to watch at GDQ, and with randomizer runs too!

Also, I always thought the perspective in the dungeons was kind of funky. Often times, I would see the bottom floor perceived as the top floor if you allow your eyes to optical illusion it the right way.



Next up: I think I've logged more hours into this game than any game on my list.

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~Wigs~ 3-Time Consecutive Fantasy B8 Baseball Champion
2015 NATIONAL LEAGUE CHAMPION NEW YORK METS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9v-33jcEDk4

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~Wigs~ 3-Time Consecutive Fantasy B8 Baseball Champion
2015 NATIONAL LEAGUE CHAMPION NEW YORK METS

#48. Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes (Gamecube, 2004)
I first played this game on the PS1, and got it used. Of course, I got about a third into the game and was told to contact Meryl, whose codec appeared "on the back of the CD case". And so began my hours long search for some CD item in game hoping that it would give me the number I needed to call. I couldn't find it, and I had no instruction manual or anything to refer to, as my game came in a plain white sleeve. Perhaps blame the store for selling a copy of Metal Gear Solid without the case. I couldn't progress and gave up. Didn't even think to check the internet, or whatever existed of it at the time.

Flash forward some years later. Twin Snakes comes out, and at some point, after hearing so much rave about this series, I want to try again. So I buy a copy of Twin Snakes, thinking well, maybe I'll just figure it out this time. I got it used. It came in a gamecube case, but it was a plain case. Someone had printed out plain black Times New Roman size 48 text and put it in the case, and that's all it was. Again, I got stuck in the same spot. (in both cases, after taking like an hour to get through that first room of course... a Metal Gear Solid rite of passage). This time I looked up what to do when I got stuck and found sure enough, I was literally supposed to look on the back of the
"CD Case" I didn't have. I suppose I could've guessed at each number also!

Anyway, I really enjoy stealth gameplay, and this is one of the kings. The story is well done and is just a little bit off the rails but still within the realm of being coherent before Kojima went completely insane, while still having so many of his nice touches. A favorite of course is the Psycho Mantis fight and switching the controller ports and the memory card reading scene, which is something younger me still found awesome. I think the game works better in its Twin Snakes form than the original too (which I did eventually play as intended as well).The characters are well-rounded and memorable. The plot does get a little stock footagey and drawn out, as is MGS, but I think its still a well told game with a lot of heart.



Next up: A very popular Nintendo game with a play on words in the title

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~Wigs~ 3-Time Consecutive Fantasy B8 Baseball Champion
2015 NATIONAL LEAGUE CHAMPION NEW YORK METS

#49. Picross 3D: Round 2 (3DS, 2016)
I love Picross and this would not be a good Wigs list without a Picross game around here. But what's important in a good Picross game? The trickiest thing is control and they're all bad on mobile, and even Switch makes that tricky. Truly, we shine here with a stylus and shoulder buttons, so the DS or 3DS reigns supreme. And then we add a good twist. Put the puzzle in 3D. So we have 3D Picross on the DS. Adding the extra dimension adds an extra layer of... dimension. I wish there were more harder puzzles, and it takes a while to build up to the more interesting ones, but it's still fun. It also has the circle and square variants, where you have the # of squares in that row broken up by 2s or 3s or more.

And then we add one more layer with 3D Picross Round 2. Firstly, it's on the 3DS not the DS so we're already a step ahead there. We add a second color, working with orange and blue, which isn't that uncommon a thing to more advanced Picross games, but still well-appreciated here. Anyway, everything just feels great here. The way you pop the pieces and how it feels when you do. The puzzles themselves are more interesting and complicated than in the first one. Plus there is a bit of flavor as the actual puzzles will just give you a nice little blurb about the thing you made that sound like Jon Bois tweets so that's always good for a laugh.

Anyway, I just really love Picross and I'd be remiss to not have one on here, and this is clearly the best one imo for its extra depth, good control scheme, perfect console for it, and little bit of humor, so here it is. Shoutout to Pokemon Picross though for being a free game where you never have to pay a dime, you just do a limited number of pokemon related puzzles each day. Solid.



Next up: A game that the first time I played it, I gave up on trying to advance because I owned it used.

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~Wigs~ 3-Time Consecutive Fantasy B8 Baseball Champion
2015 NATIONAL LEAGUE CHAMPION NEW YORK METS

#50. The Simpsons: Hit & Run (Gamecube, 2003)
Video games were inordinately unkind to The Simpsons over the years. Sure, you had the Arcade game, but even that at its core was a mediocre quarter-eating beat em up that only had value BECAUSE it was a Simpsons game, AND it wasn't completely horrible. Except it never had a console port until the more modern console generations. Yeah, bit of a hot take on that game, sorry. Also some of it runs pretty ugly- the main characters look good, but there's a ton of not-simpsons related stuff and it looks out of place- thinking about "Moe's bar" 1000 feet underground for example. The bosses include a wrestler? a Krusty hot air balloon? 2 gangsters? A bear? okay??

And then came The Simpsons: Road Rage. A decent Crazy Taxi clone, for as good a game as Crazy Taxi can be. It did not look very good, but it had enough characters and quotes to be okay. The lines wound up getting repeated a lot though, and all the Simpsons-related content felt very thrown in as if they were just references and nothing more. Here's... Chief Wiggum, saying some recycled line from the show as he picks up... Comic Book Guy, who wants to be driven to...Patty and Selma's apartment. Great. There were some specific interactions but not many. Mostly with Homer.

Simpsons Hit & Run really hit (pun) it out of the park though. This time, in GTA guise, with an actual story (not the greatest story, but it's enough for a video game plot-something something mind control soda) but the characters, the dialogue, the locations, and the missions are all now finally thoughtfully laid out and actually pay respect to the show. There's some legitimately funny stuff you would watch and laugh at as if it were a prime-era Simpsons episode. The neighborhood layout feels right too, and more guessed at in Road Rage.

The game is divided into a couple parts, where each time you're playing a different character, in a different part of town, as the story naturally lends itself to lead you to playing as the different characters. There's some references to well known Simpsons content, but the game stands largely on its own legs which works great. The gameplay is solid too. It's GTA, you know what you're getting. Mission-based driving gameplay. Drive through the items Homer stole from Flanders and return them to him. Stop at the Kwik-E-Mart. Take out Mr. Burns' surveillence bees. Drag race with Snake, while keeping your infamy meter low enough so Wiggum doesn't bust you. It's fun, controls well, and obviously is well-voiced. The platforming sections run a bit wonky- generally any time you need to get out of your car it plays a little slow, though that's how you get most of the collectibles, and it's still decently fun. There's a lot of different costumes and vehicles - that's where a lot of the straight references come into play and those are fine because they have nothing to do with the plot really.

I also enjoy the Ralph Wiggum run minigame races. The kid knows how to countdown a race. Those are probably the most frustrating parts of the game though gameplay-wise, oh well.

All things said. Finally a Simpsons game that feels like what one should've been. It all works and if you love the Simpsons, it's a must-play. Not really required though if you're not!



Hint: A 3DS game that is only probably on Arti's list besides mine.

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~Wigs~ 3-Time Consecutive Fantasy B8 Baseball Champion
2015 NATIONAL LEAGUE CHAMPION NEW YORK METS

SHINE CAT o ya

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~Wigs~ 3-Time Consecutive Fantasy B8 Baseball Champion
2015 NATIONAL LEAGUE CHAMPION NEW YORK METS

#51. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night (PS4, 2019)
A game that to me, is Symphony of the Night but I think just feels better. As I mentioned in that review I love the style and gameplay of that game but it always just felt a bit slow to me and that feels more addressed here. I think it's not much faster, but just the right amount. That is "offset" (in a good way) by the game being notably longer and deeper, which I will appreciate in these kind of games to a certain extent. This game to me was a lot of the good parts of your GBA/DS Castlevanias combined with SotN- it has a nice deep level of customization around the souls and weapons, freeform enough in pathing, and it's fun to fill out the bestiary, craft items, and do the villager missions (KILL THOSE MURDERERS DEAD!!!).
The game looks stunning, I love its art style. I was afraid from the way it was animated it would play kind of sluggishly but it never feels that way. There's some neat enemies too like the cat heads and the rockers.
The plot makes it feel just like you're playing a castlevania game and there's a lot of references and continuation to the Curse of the Moon side-series, which I'll mention here too is another great set of games not in my top 100, but as this game invokes SOTN, those games invoke Castlevania 3. So that's worth playing too.

Some great voice acting here also with David Hayter and Robbie Belgrade

Anyway yeah. This was the update to SOTN I had long been waiting for, and I would say it surpassed it!



Next up: A GTA clone that should come as no shock that I love it.

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~Wigs~ 3-Time Consecutive Fantasy B8 Baseball Champion
2015 NATIONAL LEAGUE CHAMPION NEW YORK METS

I will just say I really like the portrait worlds as an extension of the castle though, and that you can keep going back to them. The way that's all laid out is well-designed!


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~Wigs~ 3-Time Consecutive Fantasy B8 Baseball Champion
2015 NATIONAL LEAGUE CHAMPION NEW YORK METS

#52. Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin (DS, 2006)
JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE! JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE! JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE! JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE! JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE! JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE! JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE! JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE! JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE! JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE! JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE! JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE! JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE! JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE! JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE! JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE! JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE! JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE! JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE! JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE! JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE! JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE! JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE! JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE! JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE! JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE! JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE! JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE! JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE! JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE! JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE! JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE!



Next up: Another Castlevania game, just kidding its totally not a Castlevania game.

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~Wigs~ 3-Time Consecutive Fantasy B8 Baseball Champion
2015 NATIONAL LEAGUE CHAMPION NEW YORK METS

#53. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Wii U, 2017)
I think I've been a bit inconsistent with this game as far as ranking it against the other Zeldas. I remember my very initial reaction was thinking it was a good game, but maybe not "quite for me". Reflecting back on that I have no idea why I thought that. I am definitely more of a fan of a traditional style of Zelda, but I think once in a while it's good to try something a little different, as long as you're gonna do it well and it makes sense. And it absolutely does and did.

Firstly, I like the concept of do pretty much whatever you want whenever you want, as it specifically applies to a Zelda game since it's pretty opposite of what you're used to. You CAN play it more traditionally and visit your 4 "dungeons" in whatever order. But its up to you and the stuff you collect from around the world to dictate what you're able to do as far as the "dungeons" or the shrines. There's a ton to do, and it's one of those things where its more about the feeling of accomplishment in solving a puzzle, than the reward. And since finding those shrines and solving them generally feels good, (when they don't get repetitive), that keeps it fun. The shrines are sort of a more macro version of Mario Odyssey in finding and accessing them, but perhaps more micro in actually doing them, if that makes any sense. I guess the Koroks are more like the Odyssey Moons, but with less guidance on how to get them. So I wasn't really enjoying those as much as the temples. I love the giant Korok though (and the fact that Koroks have by now become a Zelda universe staple).

Getting around is fun, you can do it your style (or, if you've seen a speedrun, you know the drill), though I still find running/stamina systems to be a little detrimental to gameplay and that's still a point I don't really like here. Weapon breaking didn't quite bother me as much, but I had to fight the urge to not use stronger weapons because I might need to save them. I did ok with that. Still, the universe is vast, and its good to see Gorons, Gerudos, Ritos, and Zoras in this environment. The story framing of the warriors is fun and well done too. I do sort of wish there was a bit more music, though I get why they did what they did.

Anyway, I want to revisit this game at some point and try to find all the shrines and do all the secrets. I'm sure there's a ton I have missed, but in general, I liked its narrative, getting around, the open-world tone shift being a good fit, while still keeping a lot of the big Zelda style gameplay hits. Climbing those towers had nice payoffs too! Oh and also Zelda voice acting!!! And the game is beautiful. Coolest part of the game was definitely finding the Master Sword.



Next up: This game does not actually feature a character from Rugrats and their coworker, sadly.


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~Wigs~ 3-Time Consecutive Fantasy B8 Baseball Champion
2015 NATIONAL LEAGUE CHAMPION NEW YORK METS

#54. Portal (PC, 2007)
The game that launched a million memes. I knew even back then that that was annoying (especially because I was definitely familiar with that before I even had knowledge of the game), but of course I eventually played it and discovered one of the most elegant, yet snarky and funny games I've ever played. The puzzles in this game are fantastic and cleverly designed and felt really damn innovative for 2007. Especially when you consider just how much influence this game has now on puzzle games and its use of teleportation obviously, and also its physics. You also have the incredible origins of how it was just a Valve test playground or whatever for Half-Life 2, so it's pretty incredible that it became such a smash hit.

Going chamber to chamber as GLaDOS lobs insults at you, and feeling nice and satisfied as you solve the puzzles is its own great experience. The whole Companion Cube thing (which I feel like didn't really take off as its own Meme until a bit after the cake) was marvelous story-telling, legitimately making you feel sad for a cube with a heart on it by having it be the focal point of that puzzle section, using it for each segment there, until of course, it meets its ultimate demise. You monster.

And then you have the final section, where you break out of bounds after GLaDOS attempts to murder you, go through all the background of the facility, really feeling like you aren't where you should be, and finally have your climatic final fight vs GLaDOS, who is excellently voice-acted, by the way.

Game still holds up, and is the perfect length for what it is. Also wanted to say I remember playing the Flash version of it and that's what really drove me to play the real game.



Hint: This game supplied some fresh air to its series.

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~Wigs~ 3-Time Consecutive Fantasy B8 Baseball Champion
2015 NATIONAL LEAGUE CHAMPION NEW YORK METS

#55. Wario Land 3 (2000, Game Boy Color)
I had Wario Land 1/Mario Land 3 earlier on my list, and Cokes had Wario Land 4 on his, both great games (with WL4 in particular being a fun, quirky game), but Wario Land 3 to me is the cream of the crop for Wario platformers, or even Wario games. Also sorry if you don't consider Wario "part of a massive IP" that was probably my bad since I guess it's tough to say he's in the Mario IP anymore. And the Wario IP is hardly massi-WAIT WARIO IS FAT NEVERMIND, IT WORKS AFTER ALL HA HA HA

Anyway, Wario Land 3 was probably an unexpected style of game given the previous 2 were platformers featuring more in the line of optional endings/paths, and secret treasures resulting in better endings. And yet here we have an honest to god Metroidvania. Although it is a level map, as you go through the first few levels, you'll notice there's lots of areas you can't get to. High platforms, strange unbreakable blocks, passages blocked by minigame doors, and other strange areas you can't get by. So, each level has 4 colored keys and 4 corresponding chests. So you have to explore the level for the key, and then find the correct chest. Through the progression of the game, each chest has an item that directly helps you or does something somewhere in the game.

For example, you might get a gear that activates a moving platform in a prior level, that allows you to reach that level's key or chest (maybe you could only get one of the two before), or maybe it upgrades Wario's down butt slam thing so it can break blocks now which allows you access to that level's Mini Golf game, which then opens the way to the chest. Or maybe it spawns jellyfish in the level that sting Wario so he can float upwards to access different parts of the level, etc (all those Wario style transforming enemies you know from WL2 and WL4 are here as well like Zombie Wario or Flat Wario). And of course, the powers you unlock are all permanent, like the aformentioned butt stomp, swim ability, ability to pick up and throw enemies, etc. So when you get a new ability or unlock you can revisit the past levels to get past those areas.

So yeah, its a Metroidvania, lol. If you ever get stuck on where to go theres a big ol Face monster who helps you out spoilers he's the final boss oh shit and all things said, it's just a great game that allows for exploration, treasure finding and the thrill of revisiting old levels to open new areas and handle those same levels in different ways now that you have a new set of powers or differences in the level itself to deal with.

And I absolutely adore the golf mini-game too in this game. Occasionally one hole is required in a few levels to open a door, but it also has a huge self-standing game mode which is a fun play.



The item in this picture here is a wizard that builds part of a missing climbable fence for you in another level

Next up: I'm glad I played this game, being a somewhat early pioneer of out of control memes not withstanding.

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~Wigs~ 3-Time Consecutive Fantasy B8 Baseball Champion
2015 NATIONAL LEAGUE CHAMPION NEW YORK METS

#54. Portal (PC, 2007)
The game that launched a million memes. I knew even back then that that was annoying (especially because I was definitely familiar with that before I even had knowledge of the game), but of course I eventually played it and discovered one of the most elegant, yet snarky and funny games I've ever played. The puzzles in this game are fantastic and cleverly designed and felt really damn innovative for 2007. Especially when you consider just how much influence this game has now on puzzle games and its use of teleportation obviously, and also its physics. You also have the incredible origins of how it was just a Valve test playground or whatever for Half-Life 2, so it's pretty incredible that it became such a smash hit.

Going chamber to chamber as GLaDOS lobs insults at you, and feeling nice and satisfied as you solve the puzzles is its own great experience. The whole Companion Cube thing (which I feel like didn't really take off as its own Meme until a bit after the cake) was marvelous story-telling, legitimately making you feel sad for a cube with a heart on it by having it be the focal point of that puzzle section, using it for each segment there, until of course, it meets its ultimate demise. You monster.

And then you have the final section, where you break out of bounds after GLaDOS attempts to murder you, go through all the background of the facility, really feeling like you aren't where you should be, and finally have your climatic final fight vs GLaDOS, who is excellently voice-acted, by the way.

Game still holds up, and is the perfect length for what it is. Also wanted to say I remember playing the Flash version of it and that's what really drove me to play the real game.



i'll do my next up hint in a bit, going to do some list re-shuffling first


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~Wigs~ 3-Time Consecutive Fantasy B8 Baseball Champion
2015 NATIONAL LEAGUE CHAMPION NEW YORK METS

#55. Wario Land 3 (2000, Game Boy Color)
I had Wario Land 1/Mario Land 3 earlier on my list, and Cokes had Wario Land 4 on his, both great games (with WL4 in particular being a fun, quirky game), but Wario Land 3 to me is the cream of the crop for Wario platformers, or even Wario games. Also sorry if you don't consider Wario "part of a massive IP" that was probably my bad since I guess it's tough to say he's in the Mario IP anymore. And the Wario IP is hardly massi-WAIT WARIO IS FAT NEVERMIND, IT WORKS AFTER ALL HA HA HA

Anyway, Wario Land 3 was probably an unexpected style of game given the previous 2 were platformers featuring more in the line of optional endings/paths, and secret treasures resulting in better endings. And yet here we have an honest to god Metroidvania. Although it is a level map, as you go through the first few levels, you'll notice there's lots of areas you can't get to. High platforms, strange unbreakable blocks, passages blocked by minigame doors, and other strange areas you can't get by. So, each level has 4 colored keys and 4 corresponding chests. So you have to explore the level for the key, and then find the correct chest. Through the progression of the game, each chest has an item that directly helps you or does something somewhere in the game.

For example, you might get a gear that activates a moving platform in a prior level, that allows you to reach that level's key or chest (maybe you could only get one of the two before), or maybe it upgrades Wario's down butt slam thing so it can break blocks now which allows you access to that level's Mini Golf game, which then opens the way to the chest. Or maybe it spawns jellyfish in the level that sting Wario so he can float upwards to access different parts of the level, etc (all those Wario style transforming enemies you know from WL2 and WL4 are here as well like Zombie Wario or Flat Wario). And of course, the powers you unlock are all permanent, like the aformentioned butt stomp, swim ability, ability to pick up and throw enemies, etc. So when you get a new ability or unlock you can revisit the past levels to get past those areas.

So yeah, its a Metroidvania, lol. If you ever get stuck on where to go theres a big ol Face monster who helps you out spoilers he's the final boss oh shit and all things said, it's just a great game that allows for exploration, treasure finding and the thrill of revisiting old levels to open new areas and handle those same levels in different ways now that you have a new set of powers or differences in the level itself to deal with.

And I absolutely adore the golf mini-game too in this game. Occasionally one hole is required in a few levels to open a door, but it also has a huge self-standing game mode which is a fun play.


The item in this picture here is a wizard that builds part of a missing climbable fence for you in another level

Next up: I'm glad I played this game, being the granddaddy of out of control memes not withstanding.

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~Wigs~ 3-Time Consecutive Fantasy B8 Baseball Champion
2015 NATIONAL LEAGUE CHAMPION NEW YORK METS

in

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~Wigs~ 3-Time Consecutive Fantasy B8 Baseball Champion
2015 NATIONAL LEAGUE CHAMPION NEW YORK METS

WiggumFan267 posted...

Next Up: This game is the only Metroidvania (sorry if you don't like that term) in its massive IP.

I should note some people might take issue with me considering the "series" this game is in with a certain larger IP vs if it has its own separate IP or not.

On second thought maybe forget I said the word massive here.

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~Wigs~ 3-Time Consecutive Fantasy B8 Baseball Champion
2015 NATIONAL LEAGUE CHAMPION NEW YORK METS

#56. Mario Kart 8 (Wii U, 2014)
This is everything I could want in a Mario Kart game. I think this is finally the one where the control feels basically perfect - which came to me out of controlling the bikes over the karts. I guess that was really the big difference maker. Not that the other ones controlled badly, but I just think this one feels great.

The main game is fine, typical Mario Kart stuff, but the main draw though is finally, a console Mario Kart with really solid online multiplayer. Nintendo is still mired in their Friend Code bullshit, so that will always dampen it a bit, but its not really a big detriement here, its realtively easy to get into a game with friends and just play. And that's really all you can ask for. The courses are solid, there's a good variety old and new (Mount Wario is my favorite Mario Kart course of all time). And that's all I can really say about it. It's exactly what you want out of Online Mario Kart on a console and nothing more. Of course, I have the regular version on Wii U, not the Switch deluxe version so that makes things trickier now. But oh well. Multiplayer that works, fun courses, and a great-looking game.



Next Up: This game is the only Metroidvania (sorry if you don't like that term) in its massive IP.


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~Wigs~ 3-Time Consecutive Fantasy B8 Baseball Champion
2015 NATIONAL LEAGUE CHAMPION NEW YORK METS

#57. Slay the Spire (PS4/PC, 2017)
I only started playing this game this year, and I knew all along I would really like it and I was exactly right. Because I really enjoy these kind of deck building board games. Dominion, Ascension, Marvel Deck Building what have you. Plus, I have always been into MtG, so this was definitely right up my alley.

And this is pretty similar to all of those. You pick a class, which starts with their own relic (maybe heals between fights, maybe draws extra cards at the start, one has a different orb mechanic where you can sort of store low-power spells which activate every turn, etc). Starting from a basic deck, of attack and defense cards, with a couple others, you set out to fight in turn-based card combat, strategizing how to win while minimzing damage taken. As you win, you get gold, items, cards to add to your deck or possibly more relics if you fight a mini-boss. Then you pick which way to go on the battle map to pick the path to continue down which can include fights, random events, mini-bosses, treasure chests, or shops. The shops are especially nice because to me, a main key is removing the bad/basic cards from your deck, to make it as efficient as possible. All of it plays a role in the deck construction and as you progress through the run, it will become more clear based on the cards available to add to your deck the strategy you should be going for/what cards work best with what you're trying to do. Each class has a different set of cards available to it, and each has enough different strategies to not get tired, at least not yet!

You progress through 3 levels. each ending with a boss. You beat all 3, you win! Once you win with each character, you can play through again trying to collect 3 specific gems and play the final final boss (I haven't beat it yet, but hope to soon!). You can also add modifiers to make the run harder, which adds some nice twists also.

This is just another great strategy game which fits yet another mold of all these sit down and thinky games on my list, and this is one of my favorites. Huge recommend if you are into deck building or MtG/Pokemon style card games at all.



Next up: A non-Zelda game where you can play as Link.

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~Wigs~ 3-Time Consecutive Fantasy B8 Baseball Champion
2015 NATIONAL LEAGUE CHAMPION NEW YORK METS

#58. Final Fantasy VII Remake (PS4, 2020)
As I mentioned in my FF7 review, I played this before FF7, so I really had no idea what to expect because I really did not know a single thing about FF7 except that one thing.

I also had largely fallen out of caring about traditional jRPGs (which again should speak a lot about how I even had FF7 on my list considering I played it first this year, which largely came about by caring about the story after playing this).

Without giving away too much of the differences in this game between it and the original, it is mostly the same for the course of the game, with a couple extra huh thats weird things thrown in there, and a lot about the ending, since it's Midgar only. Knowing now what happens in FF7, with FF7 Remake as the background, I have to say it's pretty interesting what they did with the story and I'm pretty excited for the next one. I was also inspired enough to watch Advent Children and look into Crisis Core's story since it seems we're gonna be doing the KH Nomura thing here.

The characters are all extremely likeable and well-portrayed. I know people had expectations of these characters voiced and in 3D (Advent Children aside I guess) and how they'd play out in this kind of scenario and loved it, and I didn't even have that and I thought they were all great. The battle system was very fun too, mixing in solid action RPG combat with the best parts of a jRPG (the strategy of what special move or magic to use when you can slow time with your ATB), plus being able to equip your character the way you want, with the materia as the abilties. It's all a very well done battle system that's fun to fight. It takes an extra level of dimensionality and fun when you play on expert, everything is notably harder, and you can no longer use items. That was a very fun experience, if not frustrating in some parts. The Hell House was probably the hardest fight on expert, which I might add was hilarious how they converted some random spawns from FF7 into boss battles... I guess they were short on content but that's okay.

The main complaint is that this game is very padded out, and a lot of sections do drag a lot, since they made Midgar into a 50 hour game, but it does a good job with story and characterization in those areas, so it's not so bad.

I like Yuffie a lot, so hoping for good things for her in Remake 2!



Next up: A dungeon crawler, but not in the traditional sense.

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~Wigs~ 3-Time Consecutive Fantasy B8 Baseball Champion
2015 NATIONAL LEAGUE CHAMPION NEW YORK METS

#59. Papers, Please (PC, 2013)
Even more in the mold of sit down and thinky kind of games, as apparently this is a commonly recurring thing on my lists. Papers, Please is a game where you play as a border patrol agent for a fictional country going through some political strife. Your only job is to check everyone's passport, and reject those who do not fit the criteria laid out. It's a shitty job and your boss is tough on you and your family is struggling and it's a little real, but it somehow manages to squeeze all this in over a very basic 3 screen game where the only gameplay is checking passports. Sometimes people will bribe you to let you in with their bad passports, or you might choose to side with the odd cult that seems to be at hand with wanting some power of their own, oryou might just need to help out someone who is really in need. The decisions of your moral choices ultimately affect how much you make and are able to support your family, since you are penalized for repeated allowing in of people who shouldn't, but opens up different story progressions... so it basically comes down to a moral choice where you are dealing with the outfall of your choices.

The way it integrates the story is pretty neat, and thats a big part of why I like it, but really, I just think the gameplay is actually REALLY compelling. I was more interested in just being right about who to let in or not, a bit more than the moral choices. Or in the case of the cult, solving their puzzles as they can get a bit complex along the way (it can be as simple as making sure to let in a person with a specific name, or using a decoding device for further instruction on what to do). The rules for allowing people in or not though eventually start building up more and more and more, and by the end there are so many different documents that are needed, and different types of documents depending on various things like where the person is from or why they're emmigrating, and expiration dates to check, interrogating them if there's an error and allowing for corrections, scanning them for anyweapons, making sure their fakey sounding city matches up with their fakey sounding country using your encyclopedia, that their birthday is right, that their documents don't have a forged seal,there's just so much to remember but you have all the documents and info you need in front of you as you click and drag everything around your workplace. The game eventually escalates with its plot also in what other tasks befall you over the course of the game that I won't give away if you haven't played. There are also some recurring characters you meet with along the way who have their own plotlines that eventually get resolved, and the way that is worked into the gameplay is well done too.

But yeah, the thrill of trying to balance 50 rule sets at once and moving all these documents around you screen and just verifying everything for accuracy just somehow has this incredible thrilling appeal to it (the fact it's all under a time limit is crucial), and giving the passport that final stamp of Accept or Reject feels really good, especially when you can point out an error and give it back to the person like hey this passport is shit! there's just something about it.

So when I say this game is boring, it's about doing one of the most boring jobs you could imagine. Made as exciting as possible. I think this is another game I could definitely have higher on my list, as I write about it!



Next up: This is the only game that appears twice on my list...in a manner of speaking.


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~Wigs~ 3-Time Consecutive Fantasy B8 Baseball Champion
2015 NATIONAL LEAGUE CHAMPION NEW YORK METS

#60. Out of the Park Baseball 17 (PC, 2016)
Hey I'm glad I'm not the only one with this game on their list!
What we have here is a straight up baseball sim with an absolute monster boatload of options where you can pretty much do anything you want. Sim a bunch a seasons without the DH in either league, have full GM control of some strange minor league, go pull up a bunch of old teams, whatever!

While I've dabbled in bits of that, the thing I really got into was the Manager mode. Just game by game, letting ME make the in game calls, the lineups, the rotation... Occasionally I would take over GM a bit just to make sure I had people in the majors who I did or didn't want, or undoing some trades I wasn't happy that simulation Sandy made. But after my heart was broken by the Mets losing in 2015, but being super hyped for what the future held, and it all falling apart mostly because of an insane amount injuries, resulting in a wild card game loss, I wanted to see what could've been. I just like having that micro level of control (see my writeup for Heroes of Might and Magic III... I love this level of micromanagement). There's just so many stat sheets and charts and numbers and menus and things to analyze, its goddamn heaven for me.

So I forged ahead with the season, planning to reload if I ever experienced any major injury, but that actually somehow didn't happen. My 2016 Mets wound up winning 116 games. I wound up sweeping the NLDS against the Dodgers and then... I lost the NLCS to the Cubs. Heartbreak. I made a save file before that series too, so I always wanted to go back and try again, but it would feel too cheap. I have the backup save file for a rainy day though... still, even if they had some bad luck in their sim playoff run, it makes me feel...probably not happy, that knowing that that Mets team had a very real chance to be an incredibly dominant team, and it just got undone. And I won't blame anyone but you know exactly who I blame, I'm not gonna say that word

Anyway, it still felt incredible to run a powerhouse team through like that and I can only hope it happens for real, or I get to actually experience the real version of this joy with a World Series... dare to dream.

Here's Noah Syndergaard hitting a home run in the NLDS



Next up: A really boring game?

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~Wigs~ 3-Time Consecutive Fantasy B8 Baseball Champion
2015 NATIONAL LEAGUE CHAMPION NEW YORK METS

tell me when botw2 or mp4 are 2021 games and i'll include them

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~Wigs~ 3-Time Consecutive Fantasy B8 Baseball Champion
2015 NATIONAL LEAGUE CHAMPION NEW YORK METS