Board 8 > transience's top 100 games -- please insert disc 2.

(+) Yeah! (+)

transience posted...

nothing wrong with a list of 50 games then!

edit: although, I get the feeling that yours might be 6 FF games, 6 PW games and 4 Mario games.

I mean, it would be fun to talk about some of the games in the 51-100 range since I typically don't talk about them in detail very often!

And I haven't made any sort of list in a while anyway, so I'm overdue!

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This topic was a fascinating read but I don't think I could ever come up with a definitive listing like this, even if it was cut down to like, 25. I know my top 3 of all time for sure, but beyond that I feel like I can only do broad "best in class" statements like "best character action," "best precision platformer," "best third person shooter," "best traditional JRPG" and stuff like that.

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you know I'm good for this.

heroicmario 3/12/2018 7:41:56 PM

1 | Super Mario World (SNES)
2 | Super Mario 64 (N64)
3 | Dragon Quest V (DS)
4 | The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (SNES)
5 | EarthBound (SNES)
6 | Mega Man 2 (NES)
7 | Chrono Trigger (SNES)
8 | Super Metroid (SNES)
9 | Donkey Kong Country (SNES)
10 | Attack of the Friday Monsters: A Tokyo Tale! (3DS)

11 | Super Mario Odyssey (Switch)
12 | Dragon Quest VII (3DS)
13 | Pokemon Red / Blue (GB)
14 | The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (GC)
15 | Xenoblade Chronicles (Wii)
16 | Super Street Fighter II (SNES)
17 | Final Fantasy VI (SNES)
18 | Super Mario Kart (SNES)
19 | Puyo Puyo Tetris (Switch)
20 | Phoenix Wright (DS)

21 | Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES)
22 | Okami (PS2)
23 | Metroid Prime (GC)
24 | Ori and the Blind Forest (XONE)
25 | Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze (Wii U)
26 | The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Switch)
27 | Super Mario RPG (SNES)
28 | Luigis Mansion (GC)
29 | Punch-Out!! (NES)
30 | ICO (PS2)

31 | Yoshis Island (SNES)
32 | Super Mario Bros. (NES)
33 | Civilization V (PC)
34 | Secret of Mana (SNES)
35 | Dragon Quest (NES)
36 | Final Fantasy IV (DS)
37 | Castlevania III (NES)
38 | Shinobi III (GEN)
39 | Metal Gear Solid (PS1)
40 | Harvest Moon (SNES)

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Yes!! This is what I needed. Good stuff.

Ha, I remember the HM lists that included 10,000 word essays on why Cloud is the best character in all of fiction. And now FFVII ain't even ranked.

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I remember doing like 5 post writeups on friggin' Ryu from Street Fighter.

Those were the days.

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yeah you guys were pathetic, and I say that as a guy who has 17 years of top games lists in spreadsheet format

for fun:

Heroic Mario | Posted 10/4/2006 10:21:26 PM | message detail | #058

1.) The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
2.) Metal Gear Solid
3.) Final Fantasy X
4.) The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
5.) Shadow of the Colossus
6.) Metroid Zero Mission
7.) Final Fantasy VII
8.) Super Mario Bros. 3
9.) Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
10.) Skies of Arcadia Legends
11.) The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
12.) Super Mario World
13.) Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
14.) The Legend of Zelda
15.) Tales of Symphonia
16.) Kingdom Hearts II
17.) Metroid Prime 2: Echoes
18.) Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty
19.) Chrono Trigger
20.) Super Mario 64

21.) Devil May Cry 3: Dantes Awakening
22.) Metroid Prime
23.) God of War
24.) Final Fantasy VIII
25.) Zelda II: Adventure of Link
26.) Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow
27.) Star Fox 64
28.) Mega Man X
29.) Yoshis Island
30.) Mega Man 2
31.) The Legend of Zelda: Majoras Mask
32.) Final Fantasy VI
33.) F-Zero
34.) Resident Evil 4
35.) The Legend of Zelda: Links Awakening
36.) Super Mario RPG
37.) Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddys Kong Quest
38.) Mega Man 3
39.) Mike Tysons Punch-Out!!
40.) Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
41.) Mega Man X4
42.) Donkey Kong Country
43.) The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures
44.) Pikmin
45.) Sonic Adventure 2 Battle
46.) Mega Man X2
47.) Super Smash Bros. Melee
48.) Tecmo Super Bowl
49.) Fire Emblem 7
50.) F-Zero X

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Man, I miss the days of HM arguing that Wander was a top tier video game character!

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Oh man, all these posts are taking me back. I wish I could lay eyes on that Cloud nonsense. I should have edited that into a FF wiki page. Who would challenge me and take it down?

I don't have that, but I do have the opposite!

Heroic Mario | Posted 8/17/2006 11:14:08 PM | message detail | #069
Idiotic nonsense. You're just trying to sugar-coat your inability to comprehend grander games like SotC with this contrived fanfiction! Super Mario Bros. is a representative of an ancient time, wherein games were nothing more than a child's plaything.

Hah!

It is clear to me that you are a simpleton who clearly does not appreciate grand art like Super Mario Bros.! The sophisticated design of the levels; the poetry spoken by the Mushroom Retainer at the end of every world; the flaming intensity between Mario and Bowser as they fight over a bridge of hellfire -- one desperating fighting for his life to prevent the Golden Key of Doom from being pulled; the other sweating under the intense heat to rescue his beloved girlfriend.

YOU KNOW NOT THE POWER AND COMPLEXITY OF MARIO!

You must have accidentally sniffed up the wrong armpit when you were crawling up one of those burly monsters! The foggy and open-ended world full of nothingness must have made you high! Shadow of the Colossus is a a monumental piece of trash, sir! You whippersnappers are all about treasuring these newly created games like they're good! I'll have you know that nothing that didn't come from the graceful hand of Nintendo is trash! Sony? More like the devil!

Come into the light, HM. It might be more comfortable in the cave of simple lies, but in the end you'll be better for it.

I have seen the light -- that glorious, glorious light -- and the person in that light was a plumber eating more spaghetti than any human being should dare see!

You -- philistine -- have yet to see this light. Don't worry, though, one day you'll recognize Super Mario Bros. as the most complex piece of work in the history of the world!!

Fear those colored overalls and large nose.

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I havent invested as much time into any game as I have [Twilight Princess]. Shigeru Miyamoto

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Metroid Prime 2 was a bold choice, 2006 me.

Celeste's pretty good, but I'm definitely not THAT hot on it. Would probably rank it as the... fourth best 2D platformer still, just because there aren't a ton I love, oddly enough? SMW > Meat Boy DKC trilogy > Celeste or something. SMB1's the only other one I can think of that I'm particularly into, oddly enough, if you don't count Metroidvanias as platformers anyway.

You ever play Dead Cells? It feels pretty great to play, IMO.
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You must have accidentally sniffed up the wrong armpit when you were crawling up one of those burly monsters!

I just lost my vision for a second.

The Spelunky sacrifice/favor with Kali system is way less complicated than how much blood a body has. Each type of enemy/ally you can sacrifice is worth a specific number of points of favor, but are worth only half that amount if they are dead. Once you have eight points you get a gift, and at sixteen points you get the kapala (health restoration item). Damsels are worth eight, so you only need two of them sacrificed alive to get that item. Surprising you've only just learned about that one!

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I played a few Dead Cells runs in early access and never went back. I want to go back someday but it wasn't really my kind of game. I don't really want a combat focused procedural metroidvania.

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WazzupGenius00 posted...

The Spelunky sacrifice/favor with Kali system is way less complicated than how much blood a body has. Each type of enemy/ally you can sacrifice is worth a specific number of points of favor, but are worth only half that amount if they are dead. Once you have eight points you get a gift, and at sixteen points you get the kapala (health restoration item). Damsels are worth eight, so you only need two of them sacrificed alive to get that item. Surprising you've only just learned about that one!

I always went for the +1 HP for damsels! I'd sacrifice things here and there but never enough to get a ton of favor. I didn't totally understand what it did and my focus was always 100% on survival.

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Jay Solano posted...

Time to strike then!

LOL, I love board 8.

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Anyway, Xenogears is cool. All time great soundtrack, which means a lot to me. The initial button combo battle system is one of the all time great battle systems in any RPG. It's so smooth and fun and cool looking and most importantly fast paced without being action game-y. I definitely wish they'd had 6 more months (or a year) more dev time, but the thing I'd have them work on is making the gear combat as fast an interesting as the regular combat. Only after that if there's still time I'd have them flesh out the stuff that should have been there instead of The Chair.

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Excellent list! Thanks for sharing!

Lots of neat indie titles I wanna check out now. Never heard of VVVVVV.
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Good list! Whoa, Celeste that high? I liked that game but not as much as everyone else, I think. I also didn't find the story that powerful and feel like I was sold a bill of goods the game couldn't deliver on in that department. It does tie the game's story thematically with the gameplay super well though, which I always appreciate. And the soundtrack is top tier.

Also thought I remembered you being one of those weirdo Zero Mission over Super folks. so I'm glad you sorted out that mess! (Wasn't Zero Mission your #1 once or am I making things up?) But yeah, Zero clearly wins in movement/fluidity and Super wins in atmosphere. Both are important, but I'll take the latter any day.

Wish I had played more of your top 10 but alas. I must be the only Board 8er left from 2006ish who never played a Phoenix Wright game! I'll get around to the trilogy on Switch, I promise.


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wait

heroic mario, have you been posting recently or do you just have transience-list foresight abilities

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StartTheMachine posted...

Wish I had played more of your top 10 but alas. I must be the only Board 8er left from 2006ish who never played a Phoenix Wright game! I'll get around to the trilogy on Switch, I promise.

Apparently Seph hasn't either!

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You know, I need to dig up the top 25 games list I did back in... uh, 2014(?) and see what needs updating from there. There's so many games now that I'm not even sure where to place them now though. Like, how do I compare Windjammers to La-Mulana 2 to Everybody's Golf?

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I was idly putting together a list of 100 games and came to the conclusion that there's too many games I'd want to fit on there

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that sounds like you!

I could take a list to 200 pretty easily (I've done it before) but I'd start including games that I only like in passing and not ones I think about on the regular. I don't love everything like you seem to

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I could probably end up running a list of games I love out to like 300-400 before starting to stretch myself thin on stuff I'm actively enthusiastic about, even if I parse/consolidate games that are roughly the same thing

about 10-15 games for every year of my life doesn't seem too excessive. A lot of it though is that I love short games and have a tendency to avoid gigantic timesinks nowadays

I have about 10 games a year for 30+ years too. but, if I'm being honest, as time passes and I haven't played a game in 10 years, those feelings become more and more distant.

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I think my total number of games played is probably in the 400-500 range, and that's including games I rented for a weekend when I was 5.

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i might have beaten ten games this decade! that probably merits a topic to count down right?? probably fewer than ten made this decade though.
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Nelson_Mandela posted...

Good #1

Do you also enjoy the other PSX audio-visual masterpiece with an overly ambitious story known as Chrono Cross??

The real #1

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#1 soundtrack, sure.

I would have liked CC more if it wasn't connected to CT at all. As a stand alone game it was fine, but the way it tied in to CT made it worse.

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Connections to CT don't seem like a very important metric to judge the game by imo.

I did play it without knowing a Chrono Trigger ever existed, which was probably for the best.

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I played CC before CT, so the story didn't bother me. The gameplay isn't great, but CC does deserve credit for being ahead of the curve on a fast forward function.

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I have a hard time even linking the two, honestly. they feel related like gears and saga are.

CCs fast forward sucks because its so good but you can only use it on replays when the difficulty is trivial.

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transcience posted...

I have a hard time even linking the two, honestly. they feel related like gears and saga are.

CCs fast forward sucks because its so good but you can only use it on replays when the difficulty is trivial.

Yeah, it's not ideal, but I appreciate that it exists and I'm stunned it took so long for other JRPGs to catch on!

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transcience posted...

I have a hard time even linking the two, honestly. they feel related like gears and saga are.

CCs fast forward sucks because its so good but you can only use it on replays when the difficulty is trivial.

All the PC Trails games have it now! It's great. The PS4 ones have it too.

Do other RPGs have a fast forward? I can't think of any off the top of my head.
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The PS4 ports of FF games have it (and other bonuses like instant Limit Breaks), too.

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Bravely Default has it (and I assume Second?)

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I'll never play Xenogears at this point, but that game was a huge deal once upon a time and I ought to watch a stream of it sometime to better see what others witnessed.

Nice topic! What gaming trends are you looking forward to seeing the '20s explore?

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HaRRicH posted...

I'll never play Xenogears at this point, but that game was a huge deal once upon a time and I ought to watch a stream of it sometime to better see what others witnessed.

Play it

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Xenogears is still worth playing for the first time.

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I would contribute to an HRRH Xenogears patreon. lets do this.

gaming trends Im not even sure what these are or what I would want from them, just keep making great games

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great list - always a good read.

you got me into n++ and it's so damn good. still haven't jumped into all the new levels they added, but getting the platinum was one of my favorite gaming achievements.

nice to see ff5 still in the top 10 too.

and yeah, NeoExdeath with one Berserker was with a lot of emulators running on max speed, relying on a thornlet glitch that gave you extra magic power, and resetting the RNG on each new restart. it would have taken years without brute-forcing it.

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hey old friend. I was hoping someone would comment on n++! figures it would be you since youre the only other true believer. hope things are going well with you.

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I sort of wonder if FF5 has any known methods of RNG abuse that would just let you pick the winning run from the start if you needed to do that again. I wouldn't know where to begin on learning about the state of FF5 RNG abuse, though.
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transcience posted...

hey old friend. I was hoping someone would comment on n++! figures it would be you since youre the only other true believer. hope things are going well with you.

thanks, same to you!

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I have begun organizing my list

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Okay, found my old list on my old laptop. Apparently, it was a top 30 games that I did. I'm not sure I could stretch it out to top 100 now, but I could definitely get it up to 50.

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LordoftheMorons posted...

What is your favorite Dragon Quest monster

I know I'm late, but this is an interesting question that's never really going to be discussed anywhere else, so I felt like saying my piece:

The Hacksaurus is probably my overall favorite, in no small part because of Lizzie. It's also simply an awesome design IMO, and it (along with its palette swaps) is typically among the few monsters that can use powerful human skills.

I also want to echo the shoutout to the Hat Hamwitch and its palette swaps. The layered puns comprising their names are already impressive. What makes me appreciate them most though, is that the sham variants are Beast-family monsters that can't cast spells, while the Hat Hamwitch itself is a Material-family monster (because the magical hat is the emphasis) that can cast spells.

There's so much I could rave about regarding Dragon Quest XI (and the series in general, while we're at it), and the Hat Hamwitches exemplify many of its strong suits. As big a Dragon Quest fan as I am, though, I've missed out on playing several of the main series games - most shamefully VIII.

Anyways, it's been great fun following this list, between the pace, your write-ups, and all the discussion surrounding them, so thank you tran.

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MetalmindStats posted...

I also want to echo the shoutout to the Hat Hamwitch and its palette swaps. The layered puns comprising their names are already impressive. What makes me appreciate them most though, is that the sham variants are Beast-family monsters that can't cast spells, while the Hat Hamwitch itself is a Material-family monster (because the magical hat is the emphasis) that can cast spells.

That's really cool; hadn't noticed that!

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