Board 8 > transience's top 60 games - 2018 edition

(+) Yeah! (+)

someday I'll play that
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transience posted...

Its penultimate case is the biggest, twistiest and wildest case in series history.

I assume you're not actually talking about 6-4 here? Penultimate means second-last.
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6-6 is the last case of the game technically
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although 6-4 does have one of the greatest twists in AA history

THE MURDER WEAPON WAS UDON DOUGH
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most fiction, I take the ones that reach the highest highs over the smoothest game

Agreed. I really need to get back to Ace Attorney.
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LeonhartFour posted...

yeah but SH2 at least has interesting characters that aren't Yuri and Simon

Alice is great!

I prefer SH1>SH2, it just had an atmosphere about it that 2 couldn't reach. 2 felt a lot more like a typical JRPG even if it was a weird one.
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oh right 6-6 it's weird thinking of that as the last case
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Oh looks like I was way of with Shadow Hearts 2. Need to play that game some day.
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Eh, Alice is fine. I can't say she's super interesting, but she's definitely the third best character in SH1.
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I really like how Alice starts off as the typical damsel-in-distress type and grows more significant as the game goes on. By the second half of the game she's getting into solo fights and saving Yuri more than he's saved her.
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I think I like Alice more than any of the new SH2 characters!
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transcience posted...

Theo and I play hyper fighting every once in a while on fightcade and let me tell you, that game is pretty broken

most people in person have no interest in being unfair but Theo has no such qualms and has been that way for as long as I've known him

it's sorta good though because the matches are competitive and fun

we should play that on fightcade some time!
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it desyncs after 4 or 5 matches for me. I'm happy to wait until May.

now, if you're interested in Lethal League, you're on!
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36.



I don't usually throw together a game list in a day or two. I totally could, but I usually spend a few weeks playing/watching my favourites so I have a recent view into my feelings on them. Sometimes things fluctuate in a major way.

I threw on my favourite roguelike -- honestly, the only one I've been able to stick with at all -- last week in an effort to see if it still resonated. I ended up sinking like 20 hours in 3 days and pretty much had to force myself to stop so I could do other things. TOME is addicting. It's a roguelike-ass roguelike but it plays more like a Diablo or Torchlight game. There's loot everywhere and it's all about character builds. There are so many ways to spec out a character. Every weapon has 5-12 of a trillion different strengths/abilities/perks/stat ups/etc. Unlike most deep as hell roguelikes, it has a simple and accessible GUI. There's just so much game here. Each class is incredibly deep and extremely varied. It's insane. Steam says I have 49 hours and I have 28 achievements.. out of 1,638. I haven't even unlocked half of the classes. I haven't come close to beating it.

I can't stress how addicting this game is. If I get stuck on a desert island, I'd ask for three games. This is one of them.
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35.



Bleed was the one true gem that I found on the Xbox Live Indie Games store, back when that was a real thing. This game has since gained a lot of popularity because of its amazing controls and precision. There's kind of nothing like it - a Contra style game with twin stick controls, a triple jump and a slowdown mechanic. It's hard as hell and feels so good as you weave between obstacles and bullets.

This game is maybe an hour long but there are 20ish bosses and the difficulty can really stop you in your tracks. It's that push to get better and survive longer that keeps you exploring the mechanics and getting the most out of it. The normal difficulty is hard and the very hard difficulty requires some damn execution. This game feels so good to just fly around and dodge items. The good boss design is almost secondary.
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Woo Bleed

I feel like it would be hard to go back to 1 after playing 2. The parry mechanic adds so much.
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Even though I think TOME is probably better-designed, I still find myself pulled toward Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup instead most of the time
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34.



Mega Man 9 is an amazing piece of game design. Every weapon is legit. Some moreso than others, of course, but there's not a wasted item in this game. The addition of a speed run mode is a brilliant idea here because MM9 has so many tools to get to places faster and better than ever before.

It would be the best Mega Man game by a good bit if there wasn't so much instant death around every corner, especially in the Wily levels. You're rarely dying due to running out of life here - you're more likely falling into a spike or being pushed into a pit. It's punishing and it's something you can definitely overcome - but it's hard to just return to Mega Man 9 and have a leisurely stroll through it. You have to put in some reps and gain some muscle memory back in order to get good again. It's worth it because the level design is so good, but sometimes you just want to relax. I guess there's Mega Man 2 for that.
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33.



Geometry Wars is just a bunch of shapes flying around but damn if it doesn't have some style. The screen ripples and the music pulses as dozens of triangles and squares come flying at you from every corner. Geometry Wars 2 bumps up the variety by giving you six different modes to play with - a high score mode, a mode where you don't shoot as thousands of enemies swarm at you, a mode where waves of ships come at you so fast that you'll be lucky to survive 30 seconds and a properly designed 20 stage gauntlet. It also has great leaderboard design, something that doesn't play today because this game never left the Xbox 360 but was great back in 2009.

Geometry Wars 1 is the game that defined what Xbox Live Arcade is and GW2 is the game that perfected that formula. Every twin stick game owes something to GW.
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One of my friends in AP Comp Sci made fucking Geometry Wars 3 using Java, somehow. If it had music and a menu screen you'd honestly have believed it was the actual product.
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32.



EO4 is a cut above the other games in the series. Instead of one big dungeon, you get a balloon that lets you travel a world map to different locations. It feels nice to hit up different locations, some of them optional dungeons, and inject some variety.

EO4 features some great gameplay balance - not just the different classes (which are great) but also a really smooth difficulty curve. Even the postgame content felt approachable and these games are notorious for being brutal there. It's the most accessible one of these and the most enjoyable to play.
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31.



Portrait is easily my favourite Castlevania game. I like open maps but the sprawling nature of the Castlevania maps make it kinda hard to know where to go. You end up exploring aimlessly. Portrait divides the map into individual levels that are more or less linear while still being interesting to explore. The multiple characters gimmick is fun to play with and the combo attacks make bosses a lot of fun. I love the DSvanias but Dawn has all the stupid boss sealing that only grows in stupidity as we get further and further away from the novelty of a touchscreen and while Ecclesia nailed the combat, its level design was lacking.

The back half of Portrait is about as good as any one of these metroidvania games get. I love some of the movement abilities that you get and the levels are a whole lot of fun to go through. The final boss of this game is great and the Richter mode that it offers gives it amazing replay value. Portrait is damn good.
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I really liked Portait's gameplay but it totally lacks the atmosphere of the rest of the series. Was fun to play but didn't stick with me afterwards.
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I like Dawn (it just missed the top 60) but I don't think it has much more atmosphere than Portrait, if any. the only game I think that fits is SOTN.
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well, I'm halfway done. not bad for two days!
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JOHNATHAN!

(caps)
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transience posted...

There's really only 2 cases out of 6 that are great here - but those two are really fantastic.

What's the other one you consider great? 6-3?
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hard to imagine what other one it would be
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it sure ain't 6-4 or 6-6
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Tag
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30.



I almost consider the original Tactics Ogre: LUCT and the PSP remake as different games. I grew up adoring the SNES/PS1 version, basically a stripped down FFT with a really wild and interesting branching story. I played a ton of it and it might be my preferred version. The PSP version has absolutely amazing presentation thanks to top-notch localization, but also kinda ruins the gameplay with some of the ability systems.

Still, both versions are incredibly fun to just play. I can lose hours and hours grinding up characters or trying to dive deep into some of the endgame and postgame content. The PSP version is something like 500 hours of content if you want to see it all thanks to some of its systems and the need for rare drops. The SNES/PS1 version is really challenging thanks to permadeath. I find myself coming back to this game all the time because it's really easy to pick up and play and it can become an addiction very quickly.
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I have my eyes set on the Ogre series as of late. The consensus awhile back led me to believe that the PSP version was slightly superior though...
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you and the world should definitely go with the PSP version. I'm a weirdo.
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29.



It could just be me having played the game dozens of times, but Mega Man 2 isn't that hard. That's a good thing! It's a leisurely stroll as compared to other Mega Man games that like to punch you in the nose with nasty tricks. MM2 has its tricks - Quick Man is the most obvious example, with Heat Man's platforms not far behind - but it also just lets you cruise through it with tools like Flash Man's weapon or item 2.

It helps that the NES's best soundtrack this side of Crystalis is present here, as is the metal blade. Mega Man 2 has a joy to it that the others don't. I bet Gamepro gave it a 5.0 for fun factor complete with that ridiculous face (https://i.warosu.org/data/vr/img/0037/24/1483862525756.png).
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I miss GamePro so much
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I'm starting to get that itch for an 8-bit Mega Man series playthrough again. It used to be an annual thing for me, but now it's more like every 2 years.
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transience posted...

you and the world should definitely go with the PSP version. I'm a weirdo.

Would you recommend starting with The March of the Black Queen?
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Nelson_Mandela posted...

The March of the Black Queen

Good song
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EndOfDiscOne posted...

I'm starting to get that itch for an 8-bit Mega Man series playthrough again. It used to be an annual thing for me, but now it's more like every 2 years.

good time to do it with MM11 coming.

Nelson_Mandela posted...

transience posted...

you and the world should definitely go with the PSP version. I'm a weirdo.

Would you recommend starting with The March of the Black Queen?

I haven't played it, but I really only recommend LUCT. some people will get behind Ogre Battle 64 but not me. LUCT is the game to play if you liked FFT and are looking for more of it.
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28.



The original Ace Attorney feels almost simple today. It's a point in its favor - later games feature impossible murders and insane circumstances, and while AA1 isn't exactly run of the mill stuff, it doesn't get needlessly complex. There's also bonus points for being the origin story of the characters most central to the series. The twists feel a little more earnest. It's blazing a new trail instead of building upon the past.

AA1 isn't as intricate or cohesive as later games - but that's alright. I love these characters and these stories.
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Yesss that's why AA1 is the best.

But damn 3 is so good though
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27.



The RPG with the smoothest curve. Chrono Trigger is the easiest answer to 'what's the best RPG?' because at no point is it ever bad and it's filled with so much sugar. You can point to some pretty big lulls for RPGs above and below this but the worst CT gets is.. 2300 AD? Maybe after you get captured on the Dalton ship? It's just so easy to love this game. It's a joy to replay. It's aged better than any other RPG. You can heave superlatives at the game for days.

Like I said earlier, I prefer my games to aim for the sky and CT never really tries to do that. It's more good than great. Actually, it is great - there are some legit great parts. But it never quite reaches the pinnacle that you'd like to think of when you think 'best RPG'.
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I agree with everything you said about CT. It's why I wouldn't put it in my top tier of games, but probably the next tier or two below.
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26.



Outland bites Ikaruga's main mechanic and adapts it to a maze-y action platformer (I hesitate to call it a metroidvania without any real progression or optional areas). It works so damn well! Moving through the bullet patterns is really fun and rewarding. The game is challenging enough to be satisfying when you get through a section, but not so tough that it gets discouraging. The boss fights are really well done. The ethereal tone of the game fits well with the visuals. Man, Outland is good.
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I'm digging the embedded picture reveals
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I'm calling it a night early tonight. I'll probably get back to it early tomorrow.

we're at the top 25 so feel free to predict it if you want!
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Predix: a bunch of indie games, a bunch of NES games, street fighter 4
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TheRock1525 posted...

JOHNATHAN!

(caps)

CHARLOTTE!

hi, tag, transience top games lists are my jam

wish I could see the images. is that some kinda gamefaqs option
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Applekidrose posted...

TheRock1525 posted...

JOHNATHAN!

(caps)

CHARLOTTE!

hi, tag, transience top games lists are my jam

wish I could see the images. is that some kinda gamefaqs option

My settings --> Links and Media in Messages

Select the embedded links option
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I see there are some copycats!
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