Board 8 > transience's top 100 games -- 2020 edition.

(+) Yeah! (+)

6-5 is truly phenomenal, but I didn't like any of the other cases, 6-3 included. Which hurts, considering how long the cases are. For mainline games, I'd only rank it above 4.

iiicon posted...

it'd probably be dead because the economics of those two games are complete opposites. capcom needs those couple million people up front paying $60 to justify making a game, not the tens (or hundreds) of thousands maybe paying $10 for a character every couple months

maybe the economics of fighting games changes in the future because so much of how companies release games now has changed, and i could see riot's fighting game doing something interesting there, but there's no way a conservative company like capcom would make the leap

Doesn't Dead or Alive kinda fit into this category nowadays?
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From what I understand, Street Fighter V was very financially successful in the long run. I think the 'fighting games as a service' model is here to stay...they'll just make the launch better next time.

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AxemRedRanger posted...

you made one in early 2018.

you gave me money for Persona 5 for predicting it better than anyone else so I remember! (also, thanks.)

Well, that was one where people nominated games for me to rank! Not quite the same as a pure ranking of my top 100!

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sf5 was a huge decline from sf4, particularly at launch. the long tail sales for it have been pretty good, but even those are down significantly from 4.

like it definitely made money but not as much as it should and it kind of poisoned the waters for a lot of people. capcom really need to bring their a game for 6.

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I'm such a longtime fan of the series that I'll give SF6 a shot as long as it doesn't look like more of the same.

Also, I love SoJ, but it really does put all of its eggs in two baskets. If you judge a game by its peaks, it's definitely a top tier game in the series, but man, it's definitely flawed.

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40.


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

2015
Lots of platforms

This game has an incredible sense of place, especially for an indie kid like me. It transports me back to my adolescence with a nostalgia that I shouldnt have for a time and place Ive never been. Its the way the game lets you meander on a moment that just fits so well with the themes of the game. Sometimes you just want to sit for a minute and let the indie folk music wash over you.

The characters of LIS are fine, but its the setting and sense of mystery that elevated this game. Life is Strange focused on the mystery of Maxs powers and the ripple effects that they caused, and those powers led to a lot of theorycrafting that worked great thanks to the games episodic release. It felt like a weekly TV show and made the game feel like more than it was. Obviously none of that matters now that its been out for years, but that really enhanced my feelings on this game, even now.

There are a few moments that really hit like a truck, especially in the later episodes. This game is nothing if not wistful, and those moments work super well on me.

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I was a latecomer to LiS. Last year? Maybe 2017? idk, but the whole thing had been out for a bit. I wonder how much I missed out on not being there for the episodic waits/discussions. OTOH, I think the waiting would annoy me so maybe it was better this way.

Definitely a fun experience, Max was a good protagonist IMO.

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LIS's cast is probably ultimately the reason that I liked the game but couldn't love it. Kate is the only character I have any lasting affection for.

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great cast. pretty awful and reckless depictions of suicide and people with disabilities. episode 4 sucked big time. climax works thematically no matter which route you take, which is impressive

lis1 is a rollercoaster

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iiicon posted...

sf5 was a huge decline from sf4, particularly at launch. the long tail sales for it have been pretty good, but even those are down significantly from 4.

like it definitely made money but not as much as it should and it kind of poisoned the waters for a lot of people. capcom really need to bring their a game for 6.

SF5's sales for the base game were lower than 4 but SF5 also has a ton of microtransactions and season passes, and that adds up quite a bit. I wouldn't be surprised at all if it was overall a more profitable game.

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KamikazePotato posted...

SF5's sales for the base game were lower than 4 but SF5 also has a ton of microtransactions and season passes, and that adds up quite a bit. I wouldn't be surprised at all if it was overall a more profitable game.

I mean, SF4 had a ton of costumes too, and its equivalent to a season pass - a new version, at a higher price point than character passes - all sold between 1-2M copies. if you strip away the pretense, the models aren't all that different between the two, it's just that SF4 was way more successful and had a way more active user base.

SF4 sold 9M copies across all versions. SF5 only hit 3M this year (and is close to 4M now after a pretty good year and aggressive sales from Capcom). the gap between the two is just too big

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transience posted...

well, I played all of 'em this year so it's just how much I like each at this point in time. I try not to make it too complicated. I do think replayability is a big factor since what's the point of thinking highly of a game if it's not fun to pick up and play again? I don't worry about objective quality that much.

Personally I still can value games based on how they affected me at the time or how much the memory of playing it means to me, even if I don't necessarily want to play it now. But it definitely is hard to weigh that against something that's fun now.

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Kaxon posted...

Personally I still can value games based on how they affected me at the time or how much the memory of playing it means to me, even if I don't necessarily want to play it now.

Same. Great way of putting it. That's exactly why I don't think FFVII and OoT and the like will ever be replaced for people in our generation.

I think this is going to become all the more common as millennials start losing more and more free time to real life.

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I think that's true too - but that kinda rolls into how much I want to play it. I'm always chasing reliving that memory.

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I usually don't struggle with replaying my favorites. It's been extremely rare that I've played a game that I grew up loving and then just couldn't bear replaying it.

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the only ones I struggle with are the Telltale style of adventure games because the choice of those games feels so permanent. I don't really want to overwrite my memories by making a different choice.

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maybe one of these days I'll try to play Walking Dead again

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it might be too morose for your tastes. one thing I've learned about you over the years is that you need a hero to latch onto.

edit: oh, and life is strange is in that style too, in case that wasn't clear. (I know you didn't love it)

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39.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nMIPHuI8J4

2013
PC

My most played game on Steam is this graphical capital-r Roguelike. Its the one roguelike Ive been able to grasp and it gets its hooks in me real deep.

Its a traditional roguelike but plays more like a super deep version of Diablo or Torchlight. Its a game whose core loop is diving down a dungeon, finding loot with tons of effects, evaluating them carefully and trying my hardest not to die. Not that different to a standard dungeon crawler, but its like randomizing a full game as opposed to just a dungeon. There are eight trillion ways for things to go in TOME. Because of that, once I start a run, I cannot stop playing until it ends. I get so addicted to these kinds of games that it can feel a little unhealthy as I have to see how it ends.

I also really like how friendly this game is to new players. A lot of roguelikes punch you in the face for not knowing the intricacies of the game/genre but Majeyal lets you take it however you want it, giving you extra lives or even turning off permadeath if youre so inclined. (I dont do this, but I like that its not strict about it.)

This game isnt Dwarf Fortress levels of complicated but its certainly not Final Fantasy either. This is a game with different stats for defense and attack and about a hundred different types of ailments. You can look at an item description for 2 minutes trying to understand all the features of it. You have to be on top of things or you will die real quick, and the possibility of having your whole game reset actually adds to the thrill. (You can turn that off if youre not a fan, but I like it.)

I have 53/1746 achievements unlocked after 123 hours of gameplay. I could go deep on this game for a full year and not play anything else, and still only learn half of what I would need to know to truly thrive in this deep game.

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transience posted...

it might be too morose for your tastes. one thing I've learned about you over the years is that you need a hero to latch onto.

edit: oh, and life is strange is in that style too, in case that wasn't clear. (I know you didn't love it)

Yeah, I definitely need someone to root for. They don't necessarily have to be a paragon, but they at least have to be likable and give me a reason to want them to succeed. Max was fine enough in Life is Strange, but she wasn't anything special in my eyes.

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Nelson_Mandela posted...

Same. Great way of putting it. That's exactly why I don't think FFVII and OoT and the like will ever be replaced for people in our generation.

I think this is going to become all the more common as millennials start losing more and more free time to real life.

Yeah I played OoT after MM (and I think not until the Master Quest rerelease) and always had it around the middle of my Zelda rankings. Wouldnt be surprised if it was a lot higher if my parents had relented and let me get a console a few years earlier.

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Spirit of Justice took me 3 years to complete.

It just didn't grab me.

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transience posted...

39.

Wow.

Wowowow.

I've been teetering on buying this one for years, and I think you just sold me.
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38.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vC5YzZ394bg

2013
3DS

When it comes to Etrian Odyssey, 4s a clear tier above the rest for me. The games main gimmick is that you can explore a proper overworld in a balloon. Exploring the overworld is a fun diversion as you explore your way to new areas. You find so many different themed dungeons along the way. Instead of the standard EO formula of breaking a big dungeon into themed blocks, 4 mixes it up and lets you play a lot of simpler dungeons. There are bigger main dungeons too for when you want to get back on the main quest and dungeon crawl the classic way.

But none of this works without the characters. Not their personalities, of course. The character builds in EO4 are crazy fun and the different classes synergize together so well. My playthrough had a Dancer, Landschneckt and Runemaster that could chain upwards of 20 attacks per turn with how their abilities matched up. There are other builds with the other classes that can also exploit the games mechanics and let you mess enemies up.

EO4 isnt as hard as other games in the series so you arent struggling to advance quite as hard, but thats a good thing because the games open design encourages you to explore. Youre constantly making progress in EO4 when compared to other EO games. This is the only EO game that I went all in on and did even the postgame material. Id play this game right now if I had a working 3DS. It sucks that this series is likely over because we no longer have dual screen platforms to sell them on.


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imkindafunny posted...

Wow.

Wowowow.

I've been teetering on buying this one for years, and I think you just sold me.

give it a shot! there's a few of us around these parts who have Maj'eyal and I think we all like it a bunch. I think there's a free version too if you don't buy it on Steam.

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Apparently Unpopular opinion here:

I think SF5 is more fun than 4. The launch wasn't that good but I like the way it plays as a whole more.

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Catching up on some stuff here.

I remember Brothers being good, but I apparently forgot quite a bit about the game, including the specifics of why it hit so hard and I enjoyed it at the time. Maybe I should replay it some day.

SF4 would slot into my top ten, as you can probably imagine. I was on the same level as you with all that early hype/interaction/etc. Then the game really became special for me as it gave me an outlet to be competitive with games in my "I'm too old and not staying in shape for DDR" post-rhythm game competitive years.

I really enjoy SFV too, but not quite as much as 4. V was great at first, because it changed some mechanics to match my style of play, but then things became kind of stale and the attitudes of everyone else made it hard to keep playing. Recent changes have all made the game more fun again, but it hasn't yet worked its way back up to how I felt about 4 for that several year time period.

At the Michigan Masters tournament earlier this year, there was a SF4 setup in the 24 hour gaming room. I jumped on after the SFV tournament was done, and played some games against some old 4 rivals, and it was just... such a wave of wonderful feelings. The magic never left SF4.

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yeah, I trust your feeling on the SF scene much more than mine since you're so much deeper into it. to be honest, even if 4 was still going, my life situation suggests that I would have naturally walked away from competitive online games anyway because I'm not going to play them enough to stay at any kind of level. I'm impressed that you've managed to stay plugged in with your girl! I guess it's easier to have 1 than 2, but still.

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37.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2AdLWsRuHg

2019
PC (Switch and Mobile in 2020)

Dicey Dungeons is just so cozy. Everything is aggressively friendly and the game is super inviting. This is a game you can pick up and play anytime and it has the flattest learning curve ever. That doesnt mean there isnt any depth though. Its just immediately apparent how to do everything and doesnt take indepth knowledge of the mechanics in order to pull off some cool stuff.

DD has hundreds of unique cards that all have really interesting mechanics. Some require even dice, some split one large dice into two smaller ones, some require two dice and have multipliers attached to the cards. Theres so many options. Slay the Spire relies on random drops while DD uses the dice themselves as the random factor. The dice rolls end up working out like an RPG attack would and rarely are the reason that you might lose a fight. This isnt randomness screwing you over, it's your decisions and your knowledge of how everything works in concert with each other.

Each class is surprisingly unique with completely different mechanics and limit breaks. On top of that, the different challenge modes really offer a lot: its surprising just how many different kinds of runs you can have in a game that are just dice and cards. DD doesnt go out of its way to have a bonkers postgame like Slay the Spire, but it does beat it out when it comes to gameplay variety.

DD also has great mod support and can make the game feel endlessly fresh if youre willing to dig in. Ill be playing this one on and off for years.

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Also has a banging soundtrack by Chipzel!

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Dicey Dungeons! Thats a game I so want to be on Switch. It seems like the perfect game to play in bed.

I think it'll be better on mobile than Switch

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36.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8dGyXzqtCo

2018
Switch, PC, PS4

This game just flows. All told, The Messengers gameplay is pretty straightforward 2d action stuff, swinging a sword, throwing a dart and dodging a lot of enemy attacks. But in motion, it becomes a lot more.

The Messengers big mechanic, the Cloudstep, gives you an additional jump when you hit an enemy or a candle. The result is you just effortlessly flying through the level without touching the ground. Its so much fun. This games movement is super tight and the level design encourages you to get really good at it. Theres a flow to Messenger that really elevates it over its base mechanics taken separately, and like most games that I adore, the game has a high enough difficulty to force you to get good at that stuff. That challenge level makes it feel really good.

The game also completely changes on you at least twice as you move from 8 bit to 16 bit and, later, from a level based sidescroller to a true metroidvania. That stuff is awesome, but really, the games flow and level design soar regardless of the genre changes.

Oh, and the musics pretty great, too, especially with two different versions of each track, an 8 bit and 16 bit version.

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another tier down.

100. hacknet
99. braid
98. batman: arkham asylum
97. super meat boy
96. portal
95. world of goo
94. hollow knight
93. super mario world
92. mega man maker
91. ace attorney 2
90. zelda: majora's mask
89. xenoblade chronicles x

88. monument valley
87. dragon warrior
86. mega man 3
85. castlevania: dawn of sorrow
84. nier: automata
83. we love katamari
82. zelda: link to the past
81. lethal league
80. half-minute hero 2
79. mike tyson's punch out!!
78. god of war 2
77. wolfenstein 2: the new colossus
76. super smash bros ultimate

75. binding of isaac
74. final fantasy 7
73. super hexagon
72. crystalis
71. suikoden
70. ace attorney 5
69. etrian odyssey 5
68. dragon warrior monsters 2
67. crypt of the necrodancer
66. dragon quest 3
65. final fantasy 4
64. actraiser
63. shadow hearts 2

62. persona 4 golden
61. metroid fusion
60. mega man 11
59. castle crashers
58. ace attorney investigations 2
57. street fighter 2
56. shadow complex
55. persona 5
54. zelda 1
53. holedown

52. final fantasy 9
51. final fantasy 6
50. castlevania: portrait of ruin
49. final fantasy 10
48. bleed
47. brothers: a tale of two sons
46. geometry wars 2
45. inside

44. slay the spire
43. super mario odyssey
42. street fighter 4
41. ace attorney 6
40. life is strange
39. tales of maj'eyal
38. etrian odyssey 4
37. dicey dungeons
36. the messenger

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you should give me indie game recommendations from your list when you get finished

I think you know my tastes fairly well to know which would be up my alley or not

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I guess you can tell that the classics are mostly out of the way and its time for the indie games to shine!

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well there are a few classics I can predict are still ahead but I haven't played a ton of indie games

I've played a few on your list but I haven't really been "blown away" by any of them yet

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yeah, I wouldnt expect you to love them based on what I know about your tastes. I might need a refresher on what you like besides old final fantasy games to make a good recommendation because there are only a couple jrpgs this decade that really stand out. in other words, build that list!

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I would definitely recommend Shovel Knight (especially now that it's done).

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yeah I guess I should get to work...!

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I don't always know what to do with your opinions (Braid/Meat Boy/SMW in the 90s and SM64 turned you off the Nintendo 64?!)...but I always enjoy your opinions.

Maximum taggage.

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actually Mario 64 might be one of those games I didn't love as much replaying it later in life than I did when it first came out

still a good game though!

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huh. the messenger. didn't expect that

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oh right I remember I made a Google Doc listing every game I can ever remember playing

now I just need to add all the games I've played since I originally made the list

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LeonhartFour posted...

oh right I remember I made a Google Doc listing every game I can ever remember playing

now I just need to add all the games I've played since I originally made the list

oh god, I've done this, but I forgot to update the list in three years too

man, i really want to get into slay the spire but i'm hesitant because it's a rabbit hole i'm not sure i'm willing to go hundreds of hours into right now lol

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Naye745 posted...

man, i really want to get into slay the spire but i'm hesitant because it's a rabbit hole i'm not sure i'm willing to go hundreds of hours into right now lol

Well, you can get enjoyment out of playing it for like 5 hours too, unless you just mean you won't have the willpower to not play it for 500

Haven't played Odyssey, but the mechanics of 64 are still top notch to me.

I think the game isn't that well designed around it though.

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Fun list to read so far

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35.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zf_Q0lIcJK4

2005
DS

AA1 is a simple game compared to where the series would end up going, but man, you cant mess with the origin story. Phoenix Wrights development is largely isolated to this game: theres some in AA2s final case, but other than that, hes more or less the same guy just trying to figure out what the f is going on. Miles Edgeworth gets the same treatment as he goes from phenom to good guy to defendant all within one game. All the important stuff happens here.

Each case, even the mediocre ones, have weight to them because its all part of the core series. Later games have filler cases that dont really impact the broader narrative, but not AA1. The only exception is the bonus case, 1-5, and that case has the length and complexity of other games finales. This game is lucky enough to basically have two endings, and while 1-5 has some issues (that goddamn vase augh), its still 100% worth playing.

I cant talk about Ace Attorney without mentioning case 4 which honestly makes the whole series. That case has so many good moments but the way it concludes instantly cements the game as having one of the most memorable stories around. They probably dont make a sequel if the first games final case didnt feel so damn brilliant.

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