Board 8 > The Board 8 Discord Sports Chat Ranks Their Top 100 Respective VIDEO Games pt. 2

(+) Yeah! (+)

A recap of my list so far

51. Donkey Kong 94
52. NBA Jam
53. Super Monkey Ball 2
54. Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty
55. Mario Tennis
56. The Stanley Parable
57. Super Mario World
58. The Walking Dead: Season 1
59. Fallout: New Vegas
60. Mario Kart Double Dash!
61. NBA Street Vol. 2
62. Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow
63. WarioWare: Smooth Moves!
64. Pikmin
65. Audiosurf
66. Claw
67. Advance Wars: Days of Ruin
68. Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising
69. Wario Land 4
70. Donkey Kong 64
71. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4
72. Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards
73. Trauma Center: Under the Knife / Second Opinion
74. Sonic Adventure 2: Battle
75. Portal
76. The Legend of Zelda
77. Thomas Was Alone
78. Meteos
79. Mario Kart 64
80. Perfect Dark
81. Mario Party 2
82. Guitar Hero II
83. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
84. Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes
85. StarCraft II
86. Civilization IV
87. Blast Corps
88. Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
89. Raiden II
90. Super Mario 3D World
91. Snowboard Kids 2
92. Simpsons Arcade
93. Castle Crashers
94. Top Skater
95. Rock Band Blitz
96. Final Fantasy IV
97. Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3
98. Mount Your Friends 3D
99. Jet Force Gemini
100. Battle of Polytopia

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See I was just letting Cokes and Bartz catch up, yeah that's it.

50.) Virtue's Last Rewards (Vita, 2012)


So VLR is definitely a product of its time but it was the much-hyped sequel to one of the beloved point and click puzzle/adventure games and to me I think it surpassed it in much the same loop. The mystery was just the right level of japanese fuckery without dipping into full on Kingdom Hearts territory (which sadly ends up being the case for the final game of the series).

I enjoyed the puzzles and the building up of the world. The ending has nothing on 999 but it still ruled.

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#33. Super Smash Bros. Melee (GCN, 2001)

Formerly a top 10 game and top 20 game for me, this has fallen over time mostly due to new entries in the series coming out. Melee and 64 both still have value as they offer unique Smash experiences, while games like Brawl and U are pointless to ever revisit now that Ultimate is out. Anyway all that to say, Ultimate is still coming on my top 100, but the rest didn't make it because while I think they are top 100 games, they seemed redundant due to Ultimate and I didn't wanna waste spaces on Brawl/U/3DS. Melee is a game I played nearly daily for years. Right up until Brawl came out, Melee was part of the regular rotation. It crossed numerous friend groups. With the rise of moronic crap like no items and Fox only, I had to adapt how I play the game. I am traditionally a guy that loves the items in the game. They are how I learned to play and what I am best at. Playing against 3 Fox's all the time got really old as my normal main of Kirby. Enter Samus, I became a notorious Fox counter in my friend groups with my Samus game. The only trophy I didn't get in this was the have a Pikmin save one.

This game is still insanely crisp and manages to remain relevant even 20 years later.



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49.) Live a Live (SNES, 1994)


Live a Live is one of the best little SNES gems that has gone consistently underrated. It is essentially the Seven Soldiers of Victory in JRPG form. And since basically none of you are comic geeks I guess I need to explain more.
You are playing out a story and encounter the same basic forces of evil. Each character has a nickname like The Strongest for a wrestler (taking on a guy who just straight up is Hulk Hogan at one point). Each is also in a different time period. We have both a prehistoric cave man and a self-aware robot.

This all comes to a head in the secret 7th chapter in the medieval one where the hero learns of the existence of the others and summons them to help him defeat the Demon King. Each segment is very gimmicky and different and it's just a unique game.


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48.) Ar Tonelico II : Melody of Metafalica (PS2, 2009)


I really enjoyed this series but this game was probably the peak for me. The highlight of these games was both the battle system which, similar to Thousand Arms had a character in the combat and one in support. I think it's pretty damn good.

But the story involves you delving into the psyche and trauma of the girls who have magic songs that do...stuff in story. Don't worry too much about it. The big thing is that these end up being some of the best character studies that I have seen in JRPGs.


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47.) Civilization 2 (PC, 1996)


This is still my favorite of the Civilization games and the main reason why is what I posted. These pre-taped advisors where they change their outfits based on what stage your civilization is at - but the other reason why is that its a game that just flew by. None of those long drawn out waits between turns things just happened very quickly. It also showed us the good side of the genre with city planning and army planning.


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50. Need for Speed: Underground (Gamecube, 2003)

The very best Need for Speed games all have an element of danger to them. Not just in the aforementioned speed, but in the illegality of the racing itself, or the risk of totaling or otherwise losing your ride. Need For Speed Underground (and it's slicker, but somewhat less engaging sequel) achieve that not by featuring the police, as so many other NFS games have done, but by steeping itself in the tuner / illegal street racing culture that was chic in the early 2000s, thanks in part to movies like The Fast and The Furious and Tokyo Drift.

At the time it was one of the most thematically cohesive and immersive racing games around, and I think that largely holds true. It's still, to this date, the best reviewed NFS game when you add up the reviews for each platform, and for good reason. It controls beautifully, whether its in the drift races, which are as challenging as they are exhilarating, or the fast-twitch action of the drag races, where you must drive a manual and hit your upshifts perfectly to stand a shot. Throw in the almost limitless customization options and the deep roster of import cars, and you've got not only a great racing game, but one of the underrated gems of the 2000s.

49. Goldeneye (N64, 1997)

If you read my Perfect Dark writeup, you likely intuited that this was coming at some point. Looking back on it now, it's amazing that we all loved this game and played it so extensively. The levels were iconic, yes, but the textures and character designs were hideous. We just didn't know any better in '97. This game was the multiplayer king in my friend group up until Smash took the crown and never looked back. It was just the right game at the right time, and it provided hours of fun and ridiculous arguments over what settings to use and whether or not it was fair to play as Oddjob (it was, imo). This is a moment in time we can't get back, but what a moment it was.

48. Ken Griffey Jr's Slugfest (N64, 1999)

Despite being a huge baseball fan for most of my life, I've never been a huge fan of baseball video games. But Slugfest came along at the right time, and featured my favorite non-Red Sox player ever as its star, and I absolutely loved this game. I got so good at it so quickly that in season mode, I was breaking the game by the All-Star Break. Turns out the game only allotted enough code for you to have 255 RBI in a season with a single player, so when you got to 256 it would reset that byte and start the count at 0. I had to keep notepads with my stats for most of my players once I realized this. Slugfest also had perhaps the first truly satisfying Home Run Derby mode. Given that this game came out in the spring of '99, leading into the iconic '99 All Star weekend at Fenway - for my money still the best All-Star Game / HR Derby combo to date, even putting my personal bias about the Sox and Fenway aside - and amid the "chicks dig the longball" phase, having a game that made an effort on the Derby mode was a big deal. By the time the Gamecube/PS2/Xbox gen came around, I was largely disinterested in sports games that played it straight, but I kept playing Slugfest for years beyond its supposed expiration date.

47. Bastion (PC, 2011)

Given how much I immediately enjoyed Bastion, which I played working overnights at the psych ward, my first job out of undergrad, it's a little amazing to me that I didn't return to any Supergiant offerings until diving into Hades about a month ago. Bastion is a masterful presentation - the visuals, the music, the gameplay all perfectly complement one another. The score is among the best in recent gaming history. Caeldonia, The Calamity, The Kid, and The Narrator are four distinct hooks that catch you almost immediately and keep you engaged as you unravel the mysteries and undo the damage. If you haven't played it by now, what are you waiting for?

46. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (SNES, 1991)

I've never owned Link to the Past. I've never emulated Link to the Past.

But I loved Link to the Past.

I went to the Boys and Girls Club after school and during the summers when I was young, because my parents needed to work long, often overlapping hours to give us any sort of financial security. The Club had a rickety old SNES with some games, like Zombies Ate My Neighbors and Super Mario World and Link to the Past and some other stuff. It was an SNES that had seen some shit. It was such a fragile situation that if the cartridge was bumped even slightly while the game was playing, the save file that was playing would be erased. I have no idea to this day why or how this was possible, but as you might imagine, among adolescents, there were many bumpings of the cart - some accidental, some "accidental" - while my friends and I used the three save files to try to see who could beat the game first. It was this challenge that brought me to GameFAQs, as we all agreed - printing out a map of Hyrule would not only be cool, but useful.

Ultimately, I was the first to navigate both Hyrule and the Dark World to finish the game first. I won by maybe a day or two, mitigating the risk of lost saves by playing in small bursts at times when the more sociopathic kids were playing dodgeball or whatever. It was a truly unique spring and summer that we raced to complete LttP, and one of my fondest memories.

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46.) Secret of Evermore (SNES, 1995)


Another great SNES JRPG on the docket - this one not even technically Japanese. I have always been a huge fan of this game. It provided solid ARPG action mixed with some good Secret of Mana style action all wrapped in Back to the Future style comedy super science feel.

It's fucking great and deserves more recognition so here it is.

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45.) Dragon Warrior III (GBC, 2001)


I really love the old style NES/GBC style JRPGs that are just simple challenge-based games built around JRPG mechanics and around you building your party out of different mechanical parts. Dragon Warrior III does this the best and throws you a little bone by opening with this personality quiz which sets up your stat growths and sets you in a direction for your game.

The enemies are always whimsical and DWIII is legitimately pretty challenging if you don't grind that much for most of the game - most especially the damn pyramid - if you know you know.

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I also played that game on GBC but I barely barely remember anything about it except the personality quiz and fighting slimes.

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#43 Wing Commander: Privateer (MS-DOS, 1993)

Privateer felt like a game that came out far before its time, but Origin Systems was constantly pushing the creative limits of space sims in the early 90s. It took the satisfying space combat of the first two Wing Commander games and expanded the scope to include an open world that felt limitless at first blush.



The game follows a mercenary who does odd jobs in his crappy ship in the frontiers of space. You can play through the main story, take on side missions, be a merchant or pirate, just kind of explore the galaxy, or do any combination of those activities. Any way you choose to make money, you can put it to use upgrading your ship, or buying another one altogether. Eventually you can put together a powerful ship that does whatever you want it to do.

This game is kind of the ultimate inspiration of what Chris Roberts is (was?) trying to do with Star Citizen. And as evidenced by the incredible number of backers, I think it's a concept that resonates with a lot of people. There's just something so cool about exploring space. Star Citizen is not really what I want in a game anymore; at least, I don't want to play Privateer online with people. But I could go for a well-made game that plays a lot like the old space simulators of the 90s. Those all have a pretty special place in my heart.

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#56 - Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors (DS, 2010)

999 is the first game in the Zero Escape trilogy, and it definitely starts off with a compelling story of nine people trapped in a submarine looking for a door with a 9. The puzzles are all well done, though you have to solve many of them multiple times to get all the endings. I, of course, went right for the true ending with absolutely no guidance and was predictably locked off because I hadn't gotten another ending. The way the story and the very last puzzle interact with the DS's two screens is something extremely special, and it's why I haven't played any of the newer ports as this functionality is lost, despite additions like the flowchart and voice acting.

#55 - Z.H.P. Unlosing Ranger vs. Darkdeath Evilman (PSP, 2010)

What do you get when you mix a superhero show with a roguelike and NIS Disgaea humor, you get a dungeon crawler similar to this one! A lot of the NIS comedy is similar to CAPTAIN GORDON, DEFENDER OF EARTH from Disgaea which works extremely well here with the main character training to beat Darkdeath Evilman. Like any reoguelike, you go through randomly-generated dungeons starting at level 1 - this game allows you to power up your character's base stats after every successful run. You get to fight Darkdeath Evilman at the end of each chapter, and the game's depiction of it starts with a simple turn based battle like Dragon Quest and eventually gets more modernized the farther you get into the game. Also added in this game are dungeons based off of worlds from Dengeki Bunko manga titles, each with their own gimmicks to wrestle with. These award costumes based on the characters from the manga that the dungeon is based after.

#54 - Until Dawn (PS4, 2015)

It's rare when you get an adventure game that claims all choices matter and that all your choices actually do matter in the end, and that's what Until Dawn actually does. It places a lot of its choices on the butterfly effect, where your decisions can lead to unintended consequences in future chapters, even death to any of the eight main characters. My first run I only had four characters survive the initial run, and then I actually looked up what happened and what I eventually did wrong. The only annoying part are the stand still QTE prompts that I somewhat cheesed by pushing my controller against the ground. I could never pass any of them the way they actually wanted me to do so.

#53 - Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn (Wii, 2007)

The best Fire Emblem game, but also the one no one played because no one can find a copy of it. It follows three different teams - Micaiah's group of the Dawn Brigade in Daein, Elincia's Royal Knights in Crimea, and the Greil Mercenaries from the previous game. As it's a sequel to Path of Radiance and many characters in there were promoted already, this game allows for a third tier of classes over the original promotions, allowing for even higher stats on the characters. The bonus EXP system from Path of Radiance was reworked so that it always gave stat ups if it was possible to do so. The map design is one of the best of the series, and very few of them were reused from Path of Radiance.

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EXXXXTREEEEEME BLOCK (even more cont.)

#36 - Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 (GCN, 2001)


Lets rewind to Christmas Day, 2001. I was super excited to get my new shiny Nintendo console. I wasnt sure what games I would get with it. I knew I was super passionate in wanting Smash Bros, but I didnt know how many others I would get. Would I get Wave Race? Luigis Mansion? Super Monkey Ball? Well, given my #39, it shouldnt be a big surprise what lone other game I ended up getting: Tony Hawks Pro Skater 3. I sat there looking at it and SSBM, trying to decide which one I was more excited to play first.

I eventually settled on THPS3, deciding it would be a quicker play. What I thought would be an appetizer before getting to the main course ended up literally taking over my entire Christmas day. Its the second-to-last time Ive ever gone on a 14+ hour binge on a single video game, and that other game will be making an appearance later.

Tony Hawk 3 is the absolute pinnacle of the series. The gameplay is perfectly refined with the addition of the revert; most further additions to your skaters repertoire after this just bloated everything imo. You could now easily combo an entire level, and vert-skating was back on par with street-skating. This was the last game with the 2-minute timer, keeping the very arcade-y feel of the first two games. The levels are the best theyve ever been. I mean, none of them are School 1, but no level is School 1. But overall its the best slate of any game. Canada, Airport, Los Angeles, Tokyo, and Cruise Ship are all top-tier THPS stages.

Honestly, I ended up with THPS2 over 3 for most of the time when deciding my rankings, but once I started writing these up, I realized that the stage list for 3 is just so much better than 2s, and I remembered my 14 hour Christmas gaming marathon, which ultimately gave it the edge in the end.

And thus concludes.

EXXXXTREEEEEME BLOCK

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and now for the Extreme Block

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrIiLvg58SY

thus concludes the Extreme Block

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#32. Super Mario 3D Land (3DS, 2011)

I might be the only person who loves this game of the people ranking here. I was always a 2D Mario > 3D Mario guy generally. So when this came out and played like Mario 3 but in 3D, I was in love immediately. This is one of the few games I actually played with 3D effects on. Those giant spikes man. Come right on me. The entire feel of this game reminded me of my childhood. That is a powerful feeling. Vibrant and magical. I don't know what else to say, it feels like a 2D Mario but it is 3D. The final boss is one of the best Mario stages ever.



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#70 WarioWare Touched! (DS, 2004)


I ranked my Top 10 favorite Nintendo series awhile back, and WarioWare checked in at #2, so a game from there was bound to show up sooner or later.

WarioWare gets so much more mileage out if its micro-game formular than it has any right to be. They ask to complete a simple task in a matter of seconds, and then you move on to the next one until you reach a longer and more complex boss(?) micro-game. Maybe if not for the out-there style and weird sense of humor, I would not have been as into the series, but every WarioWare game is addicting.

Touched lands on this list because it succeeded in being built around the DS's touch screen, dual screen, and microphone capabilities. This was the first game that I went out and bought after getting a DS for my birthday freshman year of high school, and I played this a ton during lunch and parts of classes. I have distinct memories of times when we had substitute teachers in my history class. I was dumb and had a hard time figuring out the best way to play the mic games, and I found out that making a turkey call worked for all of the mic games. My classmates did not mind and I hope knew what I was up to, but after a while, the substitute teacher had enough and yelled, "Who is making those turkey noises!"

I feel like if I got into the series for this first time now, I would like it even more as I do not play video games for more than an hour or two at a time, and these games are some of the best to play in short spurts.

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#69 Monster Rancher Battle Card GB (Game Boy, 1999)


I clumsily worded the previous Monster Rancher game because my top-ranked from the franchise is actually a spin-off. Now I actually owned some of the Monster Rancher TCG, but packs were hard to find in stores, and none of my friends were into Monster Rancher anything, so I had to rely on the video game versions of them.

Anyway, MRBCGB is a procedurally-generated dungeon-crawler that uses the TCG to battle the enemies you come across. Every battle is a 3 on 3 fight, and you can have a maximum of 50 cards in your deck. There are around 10 different monsters you can choose from, and they each have their own set of attack, defense, and effect cards, and there are also general cards of those types that aren't affiliated with any monster. The object of each encounter is to knock out off three of your opponent's monsters or to be the last one with cards left in their deck. There are a few more wrinkles than that, but it's easy to pick up for a nine-year-old.

The game doesn't really have a story or any overarching point to it (though you do unlock more cards and dungeons each time you complete one), so the deck-building and battling are in essence the entire game. Perhaps that might a little barebones for some, but I pretty much exhausted all possible monster combinations and deck variations. I didn't need anything more than what it offered. I greatly enjoyed the second one, and it did offer more monsters, a visual leap from GB to PS1, and a point to battling, but I don't know, I think that I liked the dungeon crawling aspect more than I would have thought.

As an adult, I've had difficulty getting into many of the deck-building video games. Maybe they are just more complicated than what I'm looking for (not to mention the RNG element tends to be a lot more pronounced), but I know that I can always go back to the Monster Rancher ones.

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#68 Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 (Xbox 360, 2008)


I had actually never played a Rainbow Six game prior to Vegas 2, not even the first Vegas. I greatly enjoyed other games in the Tom Clancy line like the Ghost Recons (the first with its expansions just missed out on the Top 100) and Splinter Cells, but my favorite is Vegas 2.

I can't speak to its single player or online, but goddamn is this one of my favorite co-op experiences that I've had. It has a lot in common with your typical FPS game, which I love but realize I am in the vast minority there, but there is an emphasis on outsmarting and outflanking your enemies before you set foot in the room, and they often gave you a variety of ways of approaching each impending firefight. Sometimes that means rappelling through windows, but more often than not, it is breach and clear. These are mostly optional, but who the hell would turn down a chance to using a snake cam, setting a door for a lethal explosion, or rig it to use a flashbang or smoke grenade and just lay waste to everyone? My best friend and I took every opportunity to breach and clear that we saw. It never stops feeling amazing. In co-op you also had two AI team members, and there were quite a few options in terms of orders you can give them. They never felt useless and were an actual asset to our cause.

Outside of the campaign, they had this awesome mode called Terrorist Hunt where you play without AI companions and are tasked with defeating a set amount of enemies lurking around within a small space. There are very few video game experiences that were as nerve-wracking and heart-pumping as playing this mode on realistic difficulty. It was probably super cheap, I don't know, I just knew that in order to succeed, our teammwork had to be impeccable, and we had to quickly analyze the map and adapt to any sitauation. There were well over a hundred failures, but we eventually got through them all. There are few moments in my gaming life that I have been more proud of than when I went through all the Terrorist Hunts on realistic solo.

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#67 Shining Force (PC, 1992)


If not for Shining Force, I probably would have never been a B8er. I have no idea how I exactly got to the board in the summer of '06, but the first topic I saw was made by Princess Anri, and then I saw Zyolthewolf in that topic. I don't know what the topic was about, but I began talking about Shining Force, and that started a conversation between the three of us. They were the reason why I kept coming around and the first friends that I made here. Now it is almost 15 years later. Wow.

I never owned a Genesis, or any Sega system, but I did own a compliation CD in the 90s that included several Sega games, including this. This was my first strategy RPG, and quite frankly, it's still my favorite despite its shortcomings. I had played various RTS and TBS games before this, but I ultimately felt always in control in those games, and it felt, refreshing I guess to constantly find myself in situations where I felt like I was outnumbered and outmatched. It forced me to be more thoughtful in my party construction and formulate how I am going to break up the party, where I will send them with all the branching paths, and what is the plan if things go south. I don't know if that was the intention of the developers since it does have a very forgiving system of retaining all of your experience progress if you lose a battle, and you can revive anyone you lost, but I took all this seriously, and that made it all the more engaging for me.

Despite its large cast of characters, I have always been fond of their ability to make each unit feel unique, which is quite the accomplishment when you have like half a dozen centaur units. Of course, that may have been the cost of an early 90s game having fixed level up stat increases that clearly makes some characters objectively better late in the game.

I don't think that I ended up beating this game until I was in middle or high school. We went through multiple computers in a five or so year span, and I didn't really know anything about backing up saves then. Looking at a guide, there's apparently 30 battles in the game, and I am pretty sure that I once made it to the 28th battle in one of those files. Yet, I never felt angry or gutted that I had to start over. I was more than happy to start back from the beginning.

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#31. Final Fantasy 6 (SNES, 1994)

I first played this as part of FF Anthology. I think some of the impressiveness of the game is lost on my because I had already played stuff like Chrono Trigger and Mario RPG, so this didn't seem that huge. With hindsight now, FF6 is insanely bold in the stuff it tried. The game is massive and gorgeous. The music features some of the all time best FF songs like Terra's theme, Decisive Battle and of course the opera scene. The large cast does lead to a lot of whatever characters, but it was neat of them to not just say here are your 4 guys you can use and the rest die or leave and never come back.

Edgar > Strago > Setzer > Terra > Sabin > Celes > Mog > Locke > Shadow > Cyan > Gogo > Relm > Umaro > Gau



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Will we ever catch up to Nick?

Bartzyx posted...

#49 Batman: Arkham Asylum (Playstation 3, 2009)

I think that so far this is the first time that two of us have ranked the same game in the same spot. So high five, MSG!

So I was wrong when I said this. Turns out Eddv and I both ranked DKC2 at #83 and I failed to notice.

#1 Super Smash Bros. Melee: 566 (+3)
#2 Final Fantasy VI: 462 (+18)
#3 Mario Kart 8: 366 (-2)
#3 Rock Band 2: 366 (-2)
#5 The Walking Dead: Season 1: 364 (-2)
#6 Tecmo Super Bowl: 347 (-1)
#7 Snowboard Kids 2: 343 (New)
#8 Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2: 341 (New)
#9 Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors: 322 (+24)
#10 Mega Man X: 282 (-4)
#11 Batman: Arkham Asylum: 280 (-4)
#12 Chrono Trigger: 277 (-4)
#13 The World Ends With You: 267 (-4)
#13 Uncharted 4: A Thief's End: 267 (New)
#15 Final Fantasy IV: 266 (-5)
#15 Everybody's Golf: 266 (New)
#17 Secret of Evermore: 250 (New)
#18 Donkey Kong (1994): 248 (New)
#19 Final Fantasy VII: 247 (-8)
#20 Mario Party 2: 246 (-8)
#20 Super Smash Bros. Ultimate: 246 (-8)
#22 Mario Kart 64: 242 (-8)
#22 Kirby Air Ride: 242 (-8)
#22 Metroid Fusion: 242 (-8)
#25 Mega Man 3: 238 (-8)
#26 Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow: 236 (-8)
#27 Mario Tennis: 235 (New)
#28 Super Mario 64: 233 (-10)
#29 Tetris Effect: 232 (-9)
#30 Professor Layton and the Unwound Future: 230 (-8)
#31 God of War II: 229 (New)
#32 Pokemon RBY: 227 (-9)
#33 Jackbox Party Pack: 225 (-9)
#34 Cosmic Star Heroine: 224 (-9)
#34 Fall Guys: 224 (-9)
#34 Super Mario 3D Land: 224 (New)
#37 Shadow of the Colossus: 221 (-10)
#38 Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception: 219 (-10)
#39 Mario Kart: Double Dash: 215 (-10)
#40 Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes: 211 (New)
#41 Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin: 209 (-11)
#41 Pikmin: 209 (-11)
#43 Dark Souls: 208 (-11)
#43 RollerCoaster Tycoon: 208 (New)
#45 The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past: 207 (New)
#46 Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest: 206 (-13)
#46 Uncharted 2: Among Thieves: 206 (-13)
#48 Advance Wars: Dual Strike: 205 (-12)
#48 The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: 205 (New)
#50 Super Mario Galaxy: 204 (-13)
#51 Yoshi's Island: 203 (-13)
#52 Portal: 200 (-13)
#53 Horizon Zero Dawn: 200 (-13)
#54 Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3: 200 (New)
#55 Resident Evil 4: 197 (-14)

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#42 Metroid: Zero Mission (Game Boy Advance, 2004)

It's about time I guess that a Metroid game showed up here. I really love 2D Metroid games. Even the original NES game, as incredibly flawed as it was, still managed to pull me in. This GBA remake manages to turn that rough first game into a polished gem.



Calling Zero Mission a remake is probably a little bit of a stretch. It has much more in common with Super Metroid than Metroid, except that it is a retelling of the story of Metroid. But I think that speaks more to how the gameplay had advanced by Super Metroid's time than anything else. Why go back?

The game plays a lot like Metroid Fusion, adapting the controls to the GBA's limited buttons fairly well. The bonus sequence at the end I could give or take, although it was certainly an interesting and complete surprise for me. Before then I was perplexed by all the places that I could not get to before the "final" boss and thought I had to be missing something. Ah! Then it all made sense!

Even if I really had a reverence Metroid, I would still be very glad this game exists. It's a cool take on the game and feels like a love letter, even though it was not afraid to drastically expand on the scope. I think that more NES remakes in this vein should exist.

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999 ranked at #9 so far? Perfect, leave it there

The past couple days were both exhausting for me and I fell asleep way too early. Ill get back on the writeup train tonight and try to catch up with Nick

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#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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Until I was writing my write-ups, I had LttP at 47 too, but I realized I had to swap it with Bastion

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#44. Mega Man 3 (NES, 1990)



Mega Man 3 is a great Mega Man game and does so many things well. But because so many Mega Man games are so good, it almost feels easier to pick at the small issues with Mega Man 3 to explain what makes it different from the others? The pause menu is really weird and I don't like how they made it. Top Spin is a very funky weapon that could've been more easy to use. The end of Snake Man's level can get some weird clipping issues through the cloud platforms. Why is the Wily fortress map heckin' dumb? There is a lot of slowdown in the game, like a lot, from too many things being on screen. The Doc Robot fights, while a fun idea, mostly are not good because they take enemies from one game but fit them into another game's sprites/mechanics/movement, and they just don't work out quite right.

But Mega Man 3 also does a lot of great stuff! Throw a red dot in A6 and you're set on E-tanks! The Doc Robot stages are great, I really like the idea of having a harder version of a familiar area. The ? tanks are a neat idea that turned into Eddie in later games. Most of the stages have awesome music, the Wily stage themes having this dark tone to them that fit the mood perfectly. Shadow Blade is a fun weapon, a slightly less broken version of Metal Blade. There are cool new giant enemies, like the big snake heads and giant met. Rush is here! Rush is awesome. Proto Man is here!! Proto Man is awesome! It's hard to stress just how cool Proto Man was to Mega Man fans back in the day. Holy cow, this guy. Proto Man. I have a stuffed Proto Man and Rush that live on the back of my couch. My daughter loves them even though she doesn't really know what they are yet.

This Mega Man 3 entry also is kind of a stand-in for the Mega Man games that didn't make it on my list. There's a few that aren't quite as high as this, but I didn't want my list to be a total overflow of these games, so I cut it off at a point. So to recap, Mega Man 3, very great game, some minor quirks or annoyances that keep it from being the top Mega Man game, but not enough to make me really dislike it in any way.

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#52 - Tales of Graces f (PS3, 2012)

Otherwise known as one of the games I bought my PS3 for, considering I bought the system a few weeks after this game's localization was announced. What I got was an absolutely amazing battle system, probably the best from any Tales game up to its release. With this, just playing the game and battling to raise the Eleth mixer and farm titles was actually a blast, and I spent over 150 hours with this game. The bad part is the entire plot (which moves at a snail pace and is laughable pretty much 75% of the time) and the main characters, as Asbel is the dumbest JRPG protagonist ever created, and Cheria is boring and only is there to serve as a love interest for him. Every other character is very good, especially in skit conversations and the final post-game chapter. It doesn't matter though, the game is ranked this high because of how much fun I had just fighting through regular battles and boss battles. People say Berseria is good in that regard but I haven't gotten that far yet.

#51 - Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door (GameCube, 2004)

I went from Super Mario RPG to this game because I never owned a N64 originally, and when I actually did play the original Paper Mario I found it to be much less enjoyable than this one. Some of my favorite parts of this game is the entirety of Chapters 3, 5, and 6, as well as the 100-floor bonus dungeon at the end. The story and humor is on point throughout the entire game as well. It's also the source of one of my favorite high quality rips from SiIvaGunner:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VzadkLSbyQ

I do feel like playing it again, but I really don't want to go through the absolute mess that Chapter 2 is. It's too bad the series ended here.

#50 - Picross 3D: Round 2 (3DS, 2016)

hi wigs

Given how many Picross games I've bought from Jupiter on the 3DS and Lightwood Games on the Vita, a Picross game was bound to make the list, and this one is the best. It basically has Picross puzzles in 3D, and uses two colors to make the puzzles a bit different (to be honest, it makes it a bit easier than normal). The amount of content for this simple title is well over 350 puzzles (and more if you have certain amiibos), I was surprised when I 'beat' the game and was rewarded with a huge amount of newer puzzles to try out. I originally rated this as my game of the year in 2016, and it definitely deserved that title (though I would place a few games over it now).

#49 - Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA F 2nd (Vita, 2014)

The Miku game we got that was more for overseas fans, like myself, as it had a very large track list - but many of the songs are from previous Project Diva titles (including every DLC song). Since those titles were never released overseas, it was a nice addition to the series to get the songs we never had a chance to play. This game also brought in English subtitles, which was great to not having to look online to find out what the songs were actually about. Roshin Yukai is probably my favorite Vocaloid song featured in any of the Miku games, it was my PSN avatar for a few years as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45UP6kQZK28

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#41 Super Meat Boy (Microsoft Windows, 2010)

I must be clear, this specifically is a ranking of Super Meat Boy with the original Danny B soundtrack. Later releases without his music can kindly fuck off.



If that seems strong, well, you have to understand that Super Meat Boy, while a tremendous game to play, also has an A+ soundtrack that pushes everything to a whole other level. The combination of the exciting gameplay and energetic music is so completely enjoyable, that it is very very tough to find a platformer that I like more.

Super Meat Boy is incredibly challenging, but the game is built to be tried over and over. You can restart a level instantly by hitting a button, and deaths take a fraction of a second to process. There is not punishment at all for failing other than starting the level over, which is fine because most levels can be finished in a matter of seconds. In fact, the nice little "squish" when Meat Boy dies can sometimes be entertaining by itself. The challenge is increased by every level having a "dark world" version that is much tougher, along with the secondary goal of beating the target time.

The other bit of forgiveness is that you are not forced to do the dark world or time targets to progress through the game, and you also can skip a few levels in each world. Honestly, if someone doesn't like to run into a wall over and over, the game is still really doable. But like some masochist I did do everything including the super hard Cotton Alley stuff so I could get the true ending and all the characters and so on.

For all I've said is good about this game, I do have to say one big problem with this game, and that is The Kid's warp zone. Fuck those levels so much. But I really love the rest of it. Superb game!

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Oh, I forgot to mention yesterday, that starting with Snowboard Kids 2, the rest of my list are games that I consider a perfect 10/10. Everything below that would round down to a 9.

#35 - Mario Tennis (N64, my GotY for 2000)


What do you mean the golf guy has the other N64 Mario sports game higher than golf? This is blasphemy!

Nah, Mario Tennis is just the better game. Its just more fun. I honestly couldnt tell you how many times I went through the Star Cup as a kid. It was easily in the hundreds. I wouldnt doubt it if you told me the number broke four digits. And I would watch the credits every single time. I dont even remember if you could skip it, but I never did because I loved the fact that it personalized each tournaments credit sequence with an exhibition match between your character and whoever you faced in the final. Also, the credits music brings back some truly cherished memories. It made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

The game didnt have a great amount of depth to it, but I didnt need depth in my game back in 2000. The tennis formula was just more fun without all the rigmarole that came with the future titles. I didnt need power-ups and defensive abilities. Every point in every game in every match would become a battle of attrition: who would fuck up first? Whose reaction time would falter by the fraction of a second needed to turn the tides in the other guys favor? Every point was tense as hell, and when you start to get that edge and the star begins to appear on your side of the court: not many video games in the world can make you feel more empowered than that.

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#66 Plok (SNES, 1993)


Plok is a very special game to me. My uncle gave my sister and I a SNES, and two games that will appear later, before I started kindergarten. I went to Blockbuster soon after where my sister and I were to each pick out a game to rent. The one I chose was Plok, and I loved it so much that I got my parents to buy me it after I had to return the rental copy.

Plok isn't without its flaws as it had some cheap difficulty with lack of some features and design miscues. It's quite the creative platformer that has the core combat and puzzles revolve around Plok's ability to detatch his limbs, but also adds a ton of power-ups and vehicles while also putting you in the shoes of multiple protagonists in different eras. Nobody can argue that Software Creations, mostly known for licensed games, didn't go for it in one of their rare original works (though it was based on a unreleased game by the lead designers).

Being a kid, the sights and sounds were also huge draws to me. With its sharp colors and weird imagery, it looks like you are interacting with someone's bizarre dream world, and I loved listening to its music. You have no idea how ecstatic I was when I came to B8 more than a decade later and found other people who loved the music, and I was introduced to other Tim Follin works as a result.

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#65 Monument Valley (Android, 2014)


This is not the first nor last atmosphere-rich puzzle game on my list. When I got my first tablet, I immediately went out and got this game. This game is just mezmerizing. The crisp colors, the twisted architecture, the quiet sounds, the fast and smooth animation, it all just congeals into something that demands my full attention at all times. I did however purposely limited myself to only playing a few levels at a time as I wanted to savor this experience for a long time.

I didn't even mention the puzzles yet. Similar to The Gardens Between, the controls and puzzle mechanics are simple and virtually the same from start to finish. They typically just involve you operating a wheel/lever, move platforms or have Ida, the protagonist, touch buttons and go through doorways. The puzzles aren't taxing but feel rewarding to complete.

I bought the second game and love it as well, but was always going to be an uphill battle for it to suprass my first experience with Monument Valley.

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42. Landstalker: The Treasures of King Nole (Genesis, 1993)

Following in the footsteps of Zelda and Okami, here's yet another open-world story-driven adventure game where the protagonist has a tiny fairylike companion. Landstalker is clearly meant to at least look like The Legend of Zelda, with its blond-haired, green-clad elfish hero in a medieval fantasy kingdom. Fortunately, though, Landstalker does a lot to distinguish itself: there's much more in terms of towns, dialogue, and plot progression than in the 2D Zeldas. The game's isometric fixed camera lends itself to a lot of visually-confounding platforming challenges. And the story is generally charming if not particularly original - treasure hunter Nigel is looking for the titular treasure of King Nole, and adventures and hijinks ensue.
There are a lot of wonderfully standout bits; the labyrinthine Greenmaze is light on enemies and spikes, but designed to abuse the pitfalls of the game's isometric camera to hide the next pathway in plain sight. The Crypt is a series of brain teaser-style puzzles requiring you to solve riddles outside each of its jail cell rooms, and reminds me of Paper Mario 2's near-endgame sequence in the Palace of Shadows, dialed up to 11. And the game's dungeons are memorable, difficult, and unforgiving - falling from a tricky platforming section can send you back to several rooms prior and having to redo their tough platforming again.
Ultimately, it's not so much any one thing that makes it stand out as particularly exceptional - the sum of the whole package is greater than the parts. Despite being the 16-bit console our family owned, I've never particularly warmed to the Genesis; there were just a lot of games that didn't suit my style. But Landstalker always stood out as something a cut above (most of) the rest: full of the best ideas from other AAA titles of its era, but still absolutely its own thing.

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#64 The Darkness (Xbox 360. 2007)
#63 The Darkness II (Xbox 360, 2012)



Functionally similar but radically different in major ways thanks to each being developed by separate studios, the FPSes based on a comic of the same name were wild rides.

From 2007-2013, Starbreeze Studios had one of the more impressive compact portfolios (The Darkness, Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena + Butcher Bay remake, Syndicate, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons), and that run of hits began with the first Darkness game. You play as Jackie Estacado, who to his surprise has the power of a demon called Darkness awaken in him on his 21st birthday. Oh, and you were adopted into a mafia family, so the setup is quite strange and neat.

The Darkness powers are varied and cool. You can summon little gremlin creatures called Darklings that do your bidding. As both of the pictures show, you can also give yourself creepy-looking Demon Arms to attack enemies. You can also manually control a slitering arm-thing that can attack enemies in stealth from all over the place. You can also summon a black hole to engulf everything just because. This is in addition to Jackie wielding a wide variety of guns.

The game plays out like a reverse horror game with its dark, gritty tone and no holding back with the carnage and gore. You can be one sick son of a bitch by multilating your enemies and eating their hearts (the Darkness, not Jackie). There is a healthy dose of puzzles that utilize all of your Darkness powers, and you do have weaknesses that prevent you from being a god, like light sources that render you unable to use your Darkness abilities.

While the first game was meant to emulate a more authentic look, The Darkness II, developed by Digital Extremes. uses a cel-shaded art style that better suits the game with its comic book origin, more over-the-top gameplay, and the various environments. This, along with other things, made the game ditch the feel of a reverse horror game, but I clearly don't feel like that was to its detriment.

The Darkness powers in II are virtually the same from the first one with a more stylish flair, but they did add a few more. The game has more environmental objects you can interact with and subsequently an emphasis on using them to your advantage in combat. Unlike the first game, I often found myself impaling those who wished me harm left and and right with pipes, wood splinters, and whatever I found lying around.

One could combine them into a single entry given how similar I feel about them overall, but they are vastly different experiences even with their core similarities. I think that I prefer the faster-paced and more chaotic II, but the first one is definitely the more unique experience. Either way, they are games that everybody should experience as long as you can stomach ripping people apart and eating hearts.

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I kind of thought you'd have Plok higher, KCF!

I was definitely one of those Tim Follin fans and only knew Plok for the music. Partly because you seemed to enjoy it, I bought a copy of Plok at one point. It's a pretty fun game. Tough at times, but got through it with some work.

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#30. Borderlands (PS3, 2009)

I don't like shooters really. So when this came out and my roommate would not shut up about it I was skeptical. For whatever reason I went against my usual rule of ignoring other people and picking games myself so I don't get burned. I am glad I got this. What a fun adventure, that at the time was hilariously unique and now has been copied constantly and all but ruined even by its own series. I only got to play this with people when it came out on PS4. Originally I played the game and the entire DLC solo. I was still lurking on B8 at the time so online gaming was not my jam yet. No randoms ever. EVER. The shooting feels good and responsive and while the guns aren't as unique as the game would like you to think, there are a ton of them so you can play a variety of ways. One thing this game did really well initially before patches and re-releases, was the sense that legendary items were actually special. I only found 2 I think. Maybe 3. Put that up against Borderlands 3 where I don't even understand why they have rarities on weapons. Enemies will drop 5 legendaries at a time and you will have an inventory overflowing with them in no time. I guess my point is, BL3 kinda sucked. It was fine to play with MSG, Wigs and Icon, but if not for them I would have quit ages ago.



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#40 Super Mario Bros. (SNES, 1993)

Hey look it's the game that inspired every other 2D platformer you have seen or will see on my list! I chose the SNES version of the NES Mario games because I actually never really played the NES versions, and I became used to the All-Stars games on SNES.



Super Mario Bros. is the most simple game in the series, but still delivers a great level of challenge. It's the simplicity that makes it a game I can always come back to and enjoy no matter how long its been since I played last. I guess it's like learning to ride a bike, as they say. The difficulty ramps up very slowly throughout the game and the designers did a wonderful job of never piling on too mucheach sequential level feels like you should be able to beat it.

The warp pipes were a really smart way to make up for the lack of saves in the game (something that doesn't apply to the SNES version, for better or worse). There is always a relatively quick way to get back to where you left off. But I really like to just play through the game from start to finish. It just feels good to me.

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#48 - Elite Beat Agents (DS, 2006)

YOU BET, KID

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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#29. Xenoblade Chronicles (Wii, 2010)

I am typically not a fan of this style of combat, and I will say its honestly the worst part of Xenoblade, but there is so much wonder around it you forget the combat kinda sucks. The world is gigantic and beautiful. The music makes me feel the way 90s jRPG music made me feel. The characters are endearing while also being insanely cheesy. ITS REYN TIME! The entire start of the game it feels like the world is so alive and big, and then you get to Gaur Plains and realize this game is 100x bigger. I love just wandering around finding blue dots and seeing where I can explore. I'm really feeling it. The other games in the series didn't hit me the same. X and 2 were both whatever.



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#43. Mega Man X4 (PS1, 1997)



When I first owned an N64, one of my early disappointments was that there were no Mega Man games on the system. He moved to the Playstation. When I finally got a PS1, I got Mega Man Legends, which I obviously enjoyed, but it wasn't the Mega Man style I was familiar with. I really craved a new Mega Man experience, and had to pick between Mega Man 8 and Mega Man X4. I ended up going with X4, and I think I made the right move.

One of the big appeals here is that you can play as either Zero or X. They each get their own unique sets of moves from bosses, some differences in boss battles and play differently enough that it's like having two different games. I feel like this plays a bit faster than the SNES games. Each stage is broken into two parts, which is a bit weird. In some cases, they use it to try multiple ideas and styles in a single stage. Other times, they have kind of an easier first leg, and a harder second leg. Both work out well. Cyber Peacock's stage is really fun, as it ranks your speed and you can get some neat rewards for playing better.

Zero and X also have very different storylines that play out involving unique characters to each. Double's kind of a goof on X's storyline, but Iris is a neat character to have in the game. And there are cool cutscenes! Man, these were so good back in the day. I don't care how corny Zero's line was, it was fun to see. And the voice acting is nowhere near as bad as Mega Man 8, I would later learn.



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#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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#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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#39 Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (Playstation, 1997)

So you've made it this far... Another game in a row that proved to be a huge inspiration for many games on my list. Symphony of the Night is only half of the "Metroidvania" word, but it really was the game that brought that concept along from its infancy and inspired so many others in the genre to pay Tribute?!? It's a very rough game around the edges, but that's just a testament to how strong the idea is.



If you need me to explain what SotN is, you're probably a monster and don't belong in this world! It's got a nice combination of fun platforming and 90s jank. The menus are difficult and most things in the game aren't explained at all. Random drops can be completely overpowered or worthless. Growing up playing games where this all was the norm, these things really call out to me. If I had seen this game when it was new I surely would have said, "I'm interested in this."

The inverted castle was a great idea and a surprise, but lacked a lot in execution. Moving around in the upside-down rooms is often annoying and awkward, and since you've basically been everywhere before, the sense of discovery is lost. Perhaps the same could be said of all religions. Later games in the series did this a lot better.



But that's only one small knock against an incredible game! I know it's not for everyone but I can't recommend it enough to anyone who enjoys this kind of game. It will steal your soul and make you its slave.

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Dishonorable Mention 3 (AKA the 3rd worst game of all time: Final Fantasy XII (PS2, 2006)

This was one of the first games I was hyped for in my FFXI days and was gonna pull me and my Linkshell friends away from the game for a week or two to play the new awesome FF game. Boy were we wrong. Within a day or two everyone was back on and taking a dump on this garbage. It plays like FFXI but offline, why would anyone want that!? The cast is easily the worst in FF history. I wonder if Zodiac Age fixed some of the problems, but the game is so bad I don't even know that it is worth it. As you can tell by now, games not living up to my hype is a huge part of being worst games ever.



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#34 - Diddy Kong Racing (N64, my GotY for 1997)


First off, fuck all yall. This is legitimately my favorite kart racer ever made. Was it the best? Nah, I honestly think Mario Kart 8 might have that title locked down forever. Id love to be proven wrong!

I will clarify, though. Diddy Kong Racing isnt this high up because its a bastion of multiplayer greatness. I actually dont think Ive ever done races with other actual people, just the battle modes, which were.... OK. No, this game lives and dies by its single-player campaign. And its so fucking good. I dunno if they got lazy during development, or just didnt feel like programming a better AI or what, but instead of having harder races, they just had you collect 8 coins all over a course while still winning the second time through. I gotta commend their spirit, cuz that is 100% the kind of shit I would try to pull if I was a game developer. And it works so well. Trying to manage going fast while still going out of the general path of the course to grab collectibles works really well.

Your prize for doing all this? Racing some big ol scary bosses around their home turf. Theres a big triceratops, a walrus, an octopus, and a dragon. Not the most creative bosses, but they typically like to cheat in various ways, some that come back to haunt you years later. I will never forget Bubblers fucking laugh as he spits bubbles all over the course. AhaHAA! *shudders*

And the courses are some truly great stuff. You have to race on the moon, through a space base, through a space colony, and on an alien planet with UFOs shooting at you. And thats only the last set of courses in the game. This one has you board a pirate ship, turn, and maneuver quickly through its lower levels, before hopping out a port on the other side.

And to me, its just more fun to play than other kart racers of its time. It never felt like a slog, like Mario Kart might at times. There was always a better line to take, or an item balloon to pop, or a coin to veer off the road for. Maybe the items in the game werent the most useful kart racing items, but thats less noticeable when not playing with other people, so I dont really care.

It also marks the debut of both Banjo and Conker, who.. kiiiiinda had runs of their own as main characters! And thats pretty cool! It also has a fuckin' outstanding soundtrack, some of my favorites being Jungle Falls, Star City, Crescent Island, Greenwood Village, and of course, the title theme. Definitely my favorite David Wise handiwork, and that's a pretty tall bar.

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41. The Jackbox Party Pack [series] (Multiplatform, 2014-present)

Here it is! The obligatory Jackbox game inclusion in the Board 8 topic. It's tough to say exactly where Jackbox should be among my favorite games; it's really got more in common with party board games than just about any video game. Thus, I've decided to give it the coveted X1 award and throw it at 41, figuring it's close enough to a good representation of how I feel about it. Anyway, here's three reasons why Jackbox is the best "party" video game ever made, by a landslide:
1: Jackbox has variety!
At the time of this list, there are roughly 30 unique Jackbox mini-games across the seven Party Pack games. The games can emphasize skills such as drawing, creative writing, trivia, and perception, among others. Obviously owning all seven games is not exactly cheap, but even within one single Pack you'll get a pretty solid spectrum of choices. As someone who also loves games with either a huge amount of inherent variety or a lot of options to play differently each time, Jackbox fits in the mold of my favorites as well. It's a Kirby Super Star-like Swiss-army knife of a game; malleable to be exactly what both you want and the situation demands.
2: Jackbox is good!
The fact that Jackbox (or at least some amount of its games) has gone over well with just about everyone I've ever played it with is a testament to its quality. Perhaps even more noteworthy is how it holds up relatively to the number of games that have come out since trying to copy its formula. Those games suck. I'm not sure if anyone else had the experience of playing "That's You!" on PlayStation, but it's long-winded, overwrought, and never nearly as clever as even a mediocre Jackbox game. I also think despite being an "adult" game Jackbox is very good at not falling into the Cards Against Humanity (and its numerous godawful copies) trap where the joke is just the offensive crap written on the card. Jackbox is rarely explicitly offensive, at worst setting you up to say something naughty, but you're usually able to play it as straight as you want. And you're almost always filling in the blanks here - the humor actually comes from stuff you make or say, individually or collaboratively. Not surprisingly this makes for a better game experience than something like Cards does after you've seen a racist joke card two or three times.
3: Jackbox is social!
Jackbox has been the foundation of a huge chunk of my social experiences, in some capacity, since its release. Whether it's as a simple "ice-breaker"-type option in a group of relative strangers, or a chance to goof around with my closest friend, Jackbox works to perfection. I've played it with Board 8ers! I've played it with my tightest friend group! I've played it with my family! Heck, I've played it with my friend's families! Each time I've come away with some moment of everyone laughing at something ridiculous, and with some silly inside joke that caught on from the session. I've probably rambled a little too much about the pandemic in parts of this list, but this has also been a game that's given me some social space and connection during the past miserable year. Turns out, a game you can easily join into over your phone/computer during a Zoom chat is a pretty great and accessible option when nobody can go out and actually see each other. And especially when it comes to non-gaming friends, it's something they're actually into that can bring us together right now. I think it's always tough to rank multiplayer gaming alongside single-player experiences; they're just radically different things for different situations that encompass a different part of my personal life. But undoubtedly Jackbox is at least top-tier in that capacity - I have no doubt I'll be playing these games as a part of my life for as long as they keep making them.

Top 5 Jackbox Games: Drawful - Fibbage - Push the Button - Blather 'Round - Quiplash

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You used the same DKR screenshot as me. What are the odds?

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probably equal to the odds of it being the first gameplay screenshot when you google search "diddy kong racing"

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#42. Street Fighter 2 (Arcade, 1991)

We're just gonna run through a list of stuff here since it's pretty well known what this is. This is also going to cover the Super/Turbo/etc variants of the game.



The very first video game magazine I owned had a picture of Ryu on the cover. I thought the game was so cool from the start.

The 7-11 near my house had a Street Fighter 2 cabinet. Those things were everywhere in the early '90s. It was nuts.

When Mortal Kombat came out, a lot of my friends started playing that more. I didn't like having a block button. I felt Street Fighter 2 was still more fun to play. I also felt at a fairly young age that Mortal Kombat was using all the violence to make up for not being as good a fighter, even though I didn't actually know what made a good fighter then? (I think I was pretty right with this assumption)

When Super Street Fighter came out, I thought T Hawk and Dee Jay were the coolest Street Fighter characters. I still do.

Hi-Score Girl really used Street Fighter 2 well in its story, but also to showcase the game and how it is played in technically correct ways. It was very interesting to see the game in such detail in a show.

Street Fighter 2 is great as a quick game these days because rounds move so fast. Combos are short or not there, so you really just need to land a few hits and the round's over. Characters are so different, they didn't all have their full variety of moves here to zone, anti-air, cover ground, reversal, etc, so matchups are all so different.

I was once told that I am the best Dee Jay in Michigan. At an anime con/fighting game tourney, they had a Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo cabinet, so a friend and I were playing on it for fun, and I happened to be using Dee Jay. Some guy came up and was like, Can I fight the winner of this match? which happened to be me. He sits down and is like, It's so good to see someone else who uses Dee Jay. I use him too! Wait a second, you're using my color! That's the color I always use! (note: I have no idea which color I was on, and I still don't to this day). So this guy challenged me to a match over the right to use this specific color of Dee Jay. And I beat him. Then he hit me with the one more match. And I beat him again. And then more one mores, and I think I beat him about 10 times in a row, stopping only when someone else called next to fight the winner. He stood up, promised me he would never use that color again, and told the next person in line to watch out, because I was the best Dee Jay in the state of Michigan.

I've never actually entered a tournament for Street Fighter 2 despite how much I've played it, but I have entered ones for 3, 4, and 5. Maybe one day I'll also give this a shot competitively.

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Diddy Kong Racing still sucks

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#38 Jazz Jackrabbit (MS-DOS, 1994)

What if Sonic had a gun? That's the basic idea behind Jazz Jackrabbit. He runs fast and shoots things instead of jumping on them.



Cliif Belszinski did not well hide the fact that Sonic inspired his game. You shoot signs that look like the screens that Sonic jumps on, there are 3D bonus levels that are suspiciously like the ones from Sonic, and so on. The enemies are turtles though, which is more of a Mario thing I guess.

It's a light and enjoyable game that you don't think about too hard, and looked fantastic for PC games of its time. I didn't have a Genesis growing up and none of my friends did either, so I enjoyed playing Jazz Jackrabbit instead.

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