Board 8 > Leonhart Ranks 100 Games with Writeups!

(+) Yeah! (+)

AxemRedRanger posted...

so is Aladdin at #109 the SNES game or the Genesis game?

Eh, I've played both, but it's been so long since I've played the Genesis version that I don't really remember the differences, so you can consider it the SNES one although I was kind of blending them together myself.

RPGlord95 posted...

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ps4/246602-streets-of-rage-4

This doesn't really help me! This is the same amount of bare bones info I already knew!

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#87. Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uH2dM_LLKJg

Forgive the low-quality video, but I loved those Ratchet & Clank commercials back in the day. Those things were so good. Anyway, the first Ratchet & Clank was a pretty good game, but there was certainly room for improvement. One of the things Ive appreciated with Insomniac with this series is that theyve always found ways to add new elements to each game. Going Commando introduced weapon upgrades, which gave you more variety and diversity. They also improved the health system from the first game. While it was way too easy to die and difficult to upgrade your health in the original, Going Commando revamped it to allow your health to increase naturally as you progressed in the game and essentially leveled up. It also scaled enemy damage so that random bad guys dont hit quite as hard. They also made it easier to rotate between weapons, as well as making more of them viable so youre not just using the same one or two weapons. My personal favorites were the Bouncer, the Tesla Claw, and the Lava Gun, but theyre all pretty fun. They also had more playable Clank segments, which was nice.

Going Commando also built upon the clever writing from the first game. The humor in Ratchet & Clank is great, as they present completely absurd concepts and information in a straightforward manner as if theyre totally normal. They also made Ratchet a lot more likable. He spent a good deal of the first game treating Clank like crap, but now theyre legit good friends and have good chemistry together. Theres also a dude here named Abercrombie Fizzwidget (seriously) who predates Redd White in speaking with great pomposity and ridiculosity! Although they did introduce a female Lombax (Ratchets species) in this game and never speak of her again, when the Future games deal with him being the last of his species. Come on, Angela deserves better than that!

Anyway, Going Commando was an improvement over the original in almost every way. The new worlds were well designed and had some good challenges in them. There was a good balance between combat and platforming. As the foremost Ratchet & Clank fan on Board 8, I will conclude by saying as Ive often said in my years here: Play Ratchet & Clank.

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i'm here btw, just haven't had a lot of time to respond + haven't had much to say!

i think i got stuck trying to figure out what to do in KH or whatever wayyyyy back when, early in the game. and then never went any further. wish i had.

zombies ate my neighbors was fun the 1-2 times my friend brought it over.
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Look Leon, I can give you bare bones info or wild speculation.


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fair enough

quick what comes out first: Streets of Rage 4 or Metroid Prime 4?

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Going Commando what a subtitle

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Ratchet & Clank enjoys employing innuendo in their game titles

in fact Going Commando and Up Your Arsenal were not allowed to be used as their titles in the UK, and so they were simply Ratchet & Clank 2 and 3, respectively

the greatest shame is that A Crack in Time was originally supposed to be Clock Blockers but that was considered to be a little TOO overt

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#86. Sonic Colors


I had both a SNES and a Genesis as a kid, so I grew up as a huge fan of Sonic the Hedgehog (spoilers: this list will reflect that). I loved the Genesis games (Well, most of them. Sonic Spinball and 3D Blast are whatever), but I skipped out on both the Saturn and the Dreamcast, so I missed out on the transition to 3-D until Nintendo and Sega became buddies and ported the Sonic Adventure games over to GameCube. I felt bad missing out on two generations of Sonic games, but not getting those two consoles turned out to be the right decision (Seriously, remember when Should I get a Playstation or a Saturn? was a legit debate?) To be fair, from what I heard and read in GamePro (my magazine of choice growing up), Sega generally had the superior version when the two shared a game, whether it was Saturn or Dreamcast, but it just wasnt meant to be for whatever the reason.

Anyway, Sonic Adventure is generally considered to be the start of whats known as the Sonic Cycle. If you arent familiar with this term, it basically goes like this:

Initial reveal of the game focuses on Sonic and looks pretty good --> As more info comes out and more new friends and/or new gimmicks are revealed, the fanbase starts getting skeptical --> The game comes out and is panned critically and viewed as a disappointment by the franchise --> Repeat

Now dont get me wrong. Some of those games arent bad, per se. Both Sonic Adventure games are decent, but they just dont reach the bar set by the Genesis games. On the other hand, some of them do deserve their reputations, like Sonic 2006 or Shadow the Hedgehog. As such, the fanbase was tormented for the better part of 15 years, hoping that the next game would finally break the cycle and restore the franchise to its former glory.

Well, Sonic Colors came and did just that (sort of; there have certainly been bad Sonic games since then, like Sonic Boom, which produced an outstanding cartoon show, so it balances out). Sega repeatedly assured the fanbase that Sonic was the only playable character this time, and even though they were introducing a new gameplay gimmick in the Wisp powers, they actually looked cool (and indeed they turned out to be cool). They set the game in an amusement park, which always works for a platformer because you can justify having a wide variety of level themes.

Sonic Colors also brought back something a lot of the fanbase had been clamoring for: Multiple routes through stages. Then they added a collectible (the Red Star Rings) to further encourage exploration. I thought that was a smart move because it hearkened back to Donkey Kong Country 2s Hero Coins (the best collectible in any game ever, in my opinion). Theres no reward for collecting them other than just the satisfaction of exploring well enough to find them. The collectible is its own reward, and the game doesnt overload you with a ton of stuff like Rare platformers tend to do. Anyway, I wish theyd port this to a modern console so I could play it again. It didnt even use motion controls, so thats not an issue!

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Good write up of Colors, never did I think we would share an opinion on a game so closely

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I haven't played any Sonic since SA2 and I feel like I should probably change that but the damage that questionable era circa 2006 has done some real psychological damage. >_>

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xp1337 posted...

I haven't played any Sonic since SA2 and I feel like I should probably change that but the damage that questionable era circa 2006 has done some real psychological damage. >_>

Understandable! The damage Sega did is difficult to overcome for some people, but I assure you that Colors, Generations, and Mania are all well worth playing!

Maybe Lost World, too, but I haven't tried that one yet. It doesn't seem to be as well regarded as those three though.

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I'll try to get one more in tonight.

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LeonhartFour posted...

the greatest shame is that A Crack in Time was originally supposed to be Clock Blockers but that was considered to be a little TOO overt

this is spectacular
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Along those same lines Into the Nexus was originally supposed to be Into the Nether Regions

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#85. Portal 2


I remember receiving the original Portal as a gift from a Board 8er (although I dont recall which one), and I enjoyed my time with it in terms of gameplay. It was a short game, but the puzzles combined with the cleverly designed portal gun made for a good time. Now the part Ive always found to be overrated with the first game is the humor. I didnt find GlaDOS that funny, and it only became more annoying when I saw memes about cake and the Weighted Companion Cube everywhere.

In my opinion, they improved on that in a major way with Portal 2, primarily with Cave Johnson (who is masterfully voiced by J.K. Simmons). Wheatley was really good, too, and even GlaDOS managed to get in on the fun this time! I know its difficult to still make the portal gun feel novel in a sequel, but theres so much you can do with that thing. The potential seems endless, and theres something satisfying about figuring out a crazy solution to a puzzle in this game. While Id say the puzzles in the original were more clever since you had to do everything with just the portal gun, Portal 2 upped the game by making puzzles crazier with the introduction of the various gels. I think thats epitomized by the end of the game and the solution to beating the final boss. It was really cool when it clicked in my mind what to do and then it actually worked!

Sadly, it doesnt look like well be getting any more Portal games for the foreseeable future because I think theres still room to do more with this series. People used to make fun of Capcoms inability to count to 3, but Valve has taken it to a whole different level! Maybe I should try to replay the games sometime. Its been long enough that the puzzles would probably feel fresh and I wouldnt remember the solution to most of them!

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Wait Cave Johnson is J.K. Simmons? That's amazing, I never knew that.

The voice acting performances in Portal 2 are stellar. There's only three major characters but they're all show-stealers.

Paratroopa1 posted...

Wait Cave Johnson is J.K. Simmons? That's amazing, I never knew that.

I had to double check because you made me second guess myself just now, but yes, he is!

But yeah, Portal 2's voice work is so good, especially for such a minimal cast.

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Tag

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I can recommend Half-Life 2 to you but I'm not sure if you'd be all that interested in it.

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People should play Sonic Generations and Mania 100%.

While Sonic is often trash, those two are gems

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Sonic is often excellent and those are two prime examples.

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The best puzzle in Portal 2 easily has to be the co-op one where you both have to jump through your portals at the same time and collide into each other midair to land on a platform.

That shit had me and my friend stuck for such a long time and it's so cool to see a game come up with crazy puzzles like that.

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Unfortunately, I never did the co-op but I always heard it was really good.

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Sonic Mania finally proved to me that I just don't like Sonic all that much. Despite seeing it as objectively good I couldn't really get into it.
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#84. Street Fighter III: Third Strike


Oh hey, speaking of Capcoms reluctance to count to 3, that all started with Street Fighter II and its many permutations, followed by going from that to Alpha (Zero in Japan). You even had spinoffs like Street Fighter EX and a crossover in X-Men vs. Street Fighter. Eventually, Capcom did make Street Fighter III. For a long time, the only access I had to the game was the original version in the arcades because all three versions were Dreamcast exclusives for a long time. Ive still never played Double Impact (although I do have the 30th anniversary collection, so it might be time to finally play it!).

Now Capcom has learned to count all the way up to 5, but it doesnt know how to count in order! I find Street Fighter lore kind of fascinating (most fighting games have really interesting lore if youre willing to deep dive on it), so if youre not sure how the timeline goes, its 1 --> 0 --> 2 --> 4 --> 5 --> 3. It leaves me wondering if theyll actually move beyond 3 in terms of chronology with Street Fighter 6 since SFV built up to the introduction of Gill, SFIIIs big boss. The reason why Capcom has been reluctant to do that is because it would presumably mean saying goodbye to a lot of the iconic SFII characters, as SFIII (appropriated subtitled The New Generation) ditched all of them except for Ryu and Ken originally, eventually adding in Chun-Li and Akuma by the end. SFIII was originally not going to have any returning characters, but Capcom thought thered be too much resistance to that, so they threw in the original Street Fighters.

Anyway, Ive spent too much time just talking about the backstory to Street Fighter III without actually talking about the game itself. Like I said, I love the series lore! Third Strike is generally regarded to be the best version of the game, and its a lot of fun. The sprites look fantastic, and the animations are so fluid. Street Fighter III introduced the concept of parrying, where you could completely nullify all damage, as well as be able to retaliate more quickly, if you hit forward at the precise moment of your opponents attack. It was addicting working on the timing. You could also choose your Super Art, and they would all have different properties for how they charged, which was kinda neat.

Ken and Chun-Li are probably my favorite characters to play as in the game. Theyre so quick, and they have so many different things they can do with their kicks. As far as new characters are concerned, my favorites are probably Urien and Ibuki. The only ones I didnt really care for were Necro and Makoto. Theyre both just too slow for me. Finally, let me say a quick word about what a crappy mechanic it is for Gill to have a full resurrection Super Art. I hate that this is a thing, although over time, I learned how to bait him into using his other Super Art first so he doesnt have the full bar available to revive.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzS96auqau0

Always a classic.
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I almost posted that, but it's probably the most famous thing associated with Street Fighter III, so most B8ers have probably seen it at least once!

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I really hope that SF6 takes place after 3, but I think it would be stupid if the roster doesnt include M Bison, Zangief, Dhalsim, Cammy or Guile/Charlie Nash.

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Zylothewolf posted...

I really hope that SF6 takes place after 3, but I think it would be stupid if the roster doesnt include M Bison, Zangief, Dhalsim, Cammy or Guile/Charlie Nash.

Eh, I'm sure they can include some of them, but the series does need to move beyond SF2 for good one of these days!

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Leonhart4 posted...

Eh, I'm sure they can include some of them, but the series does need to move beyond SF2 for good one of these days!

Noooo this is fighting games we are talking about. There are people out there who have been playing as the same character for over 25 years.

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And that includes me! I'm a huge Ryu fan. Eventually the show must go on.

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3S is the only SF game i really played, and not much at that. preferred SNK style. i liked the art though!
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Fatal Fury is the only SNK series I've played much of, and only the SNES games at that. Well, I played the arcade version of the original where you could do a co-op mode, and we'd still get rocked by Raiden!

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Good write ups for Tales of the Abyss and Kingdom Hearts.

I also liked using Colossus and Nightcrawler in X-Men.

I liked using Marge in The Simpsons. She was the Donatello of that game. Did you know there was a Commodore 64 /DOS ports for The Simpsons Arcade Game? Kinda neat.

It's too bad The Simpsons and X-Men were taken off the digital market due to licensing. I'm glad I still have them installed on my PS3.

Yeah, Simpsons games on home consoles were all over the place. Bart's Nightmare is actually a little underrated! Some of the themed levels aren't too bad. The Temple of Maggie levels were definitely the worst.

WCW/NWO Revenge was a HUGE improvement over WCW/NWO World Tour. World Tour was good but Revenge was made even better. It has a kick ass intro and the wrestlers themselves were more detailed, right down to the movement of most of the signature moves! One new addition I didn't like on some of the wrestlers is some of them had these weird combo attacks you can do out of a strong grapple with Any/No Direction with the B button. They would go into a combo which can easily be blocked but it was all whatever! The AKI Engine was so good. Some of the best wrestling controls ever.

Jak II was ok except for the checkpoint system was awful. I remember that one mission with the sewer and it was bad if you died there cause it was pretty much back to the beginning.

I don't remember too much from Ratchet & Clank Going Commando but I enjoyed all the same. The PS2 trilogy for R&C were all solid.

Spot on with Streets of Rage 2. Dreamer is probably my absolute fave track in the game among the many great tracks that game has.
Don't sleep on Max! His mobility can easily be solved with his slide attack (forward, forward, B) and he has the most damaging move in the game if you can pull it off: the atomic drop (get behind an enemy, jump and press B)

You know what they say.
Third Strike is what counts!

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GOGZero posted...

I remember that one mission with the sewer and it was bad if you died there cause it was pretty much back to the beginning.

Oh man, I remember that one, too, now that you mention it. Jak II had some rough missions that were made rougher because of how the checkpoints worked.

also it was an honor to get bodied by your Alex in Third Strike Online several years ago

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pretty boy

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LeonhartFour posted...

Oh man, I remember that one, too, now that you mention it. Jak II had some rough missions that were made rougher because of how the checkpoints worked.

also it was an honor to get bodied by your Alex in Third Strike Online several years ago

Good times!

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I think I beat you one time!

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You did!

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#83. Persona 5


If I had to sum up Persona 5 in one word, itd be stylish. Literally almost everything about this game looks and feels good. Only Persona 5 can make the post-battle wrap-up look cool. Speaking of battles, fighting is so much fun and the presentation is top notch, especially if you hit an all-out attack finisher right as the music peaks with THEYLL NEVER SEE IT COMIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN! The Phantom Thieves Personas all look cool, although the biggest shame is the fact that Makotos Persona evolution is an enormous downgrade over the original. Regardless, its hard to go back to prior entries in the series after how polished Persona 5. The battle system is an improvement in almost every way, and you actually kind of look forward to the dungeons now, when you generally kinda dreaded them in Persona 3 and 4. Theyre so well designed, and its fun trying to navigate your way through them.

Persona 5s story hooks you from the onset, as you start en media res, and youre eager to work your way back to that moment to figure out how it all went down. The game also throws a pretty big swerve at you by making you think you know what the big twist is, and then hitting you with something completely different. Also, the whole concept of the Phantom Thieves is really cool, and you always look forward to the next mission to figure out what their Palace and their Shadow will end up looking like. They start off really strong with the very first Palace. I think Persona 3 and 4 both start off kinda slow, but 5 doesnt waste any time diving straight into the action.

Speaking of action, theres a plethora of things to do in Persona 5. In a sense, theres almost too much to do. There are so many places to visit, so many activities to partake in, and so many Confidants to level up. Persona 5 is many things, but boring isnt one of them. That doesnt mean it doesnt have its share of flaws. While the concept of the Phantom Thieves and their designs are fantastic, Im not as sold on this playable cast as I was for Persona 3 and 4. They just dont have the same chemistry those two casts did. I also think the story drops the ball a bit toward the end, and it doesnt end on the same satisfying note as the other two. Oh, and this goes without saying, but I was sick and tired of Mementos by the end of the game. Granted, those arent game breaking flaws and its still a well-made game overall. Im just hoping whatever else they do with the Persona 5 crew before they decide to make 6 fleshes them out and improves upon them a bit.

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Never had much interest in fighting games aside from Smash Bros, though I did play some Soulcalibur and Tekken at others' homes back in the day.

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Smash Bros. isn't a fighting game

even Sakurai said so...!

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LeonhartFour posted...

especially if you hit an all-out attack finisher right as the music peaks with THEYLL NEVER SEE IT COMIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN!

this is always amazing whenever it happens

LeonhartFour posted...

although the biggest shame is the fact that Makotos Persona evolution is an enormous downgrade over the original

this is the truest thing in this post

Persona 5 the weakest of the 3/4/5 trio. hot take: persona been trending in the wrong direction the last decade

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#82. Shadow of the Colossus


I was honestly a little surprised to see this game made the list! Dont get me wrong. I do really like it. I guess I just didnt realize how much I liked it, especially over some of the games it finished ahead of! Maybe I shouldnt be as surprised by its contest success since it seems that everyone (except Ulti) likes the game better than they think! I also chose one of the MGS3/SotC match pictures for this writeup because thats one of my favorite match pics ever!

Anyway, Shadow of the Colossus is one of those games thats difficult to describe because it honestly doesnt sound like a winning idea on paper. I dont subscribe to the idea of video games being art, but its honestly one of those games you have to experience for yourself to understand what the hype is about. The basic premise is that youre a dude named Wander (Wanda in Japanese; in fact, the game is called Wanda and the Colossus in Japan, so that was a good name change on both fronts!) whose girlfriend is in a coma under the influence of some curse, so he makes the journey to a forbidden land in an attempt to save her. Theres very little dialogue. I think Dormin (the disembodied power that tells Wander where to go next) is the only character who speaks. His goal is to defeat all 16 colossi, and thats literally all there is to it. There are no sidequests, no random enemies, no NPCs to encounter, nothing. Its just Wander, his horse Agro, a big open world, and 16 colossi. Youre given a special sword that can help you locate (and subsequently defeat) each colossus, and you have to defeat them in order. Youre not allowed to sequence break.

And its somehow a lot of fun! Shadow of the Colossus is basically David vs. Goliath 16 times. The game really makes you feel the scale of every fight, and so it feels like a monumental accomplishment when you manage to defeat them because they dont make Wander some superhuman dude. Hes pretty average! Each boss is unique, and its fun figuring out the strategy for how to defeat them (most of the time anyway; that turtle colossus can go rot). My favorites were the two flying ones and the two smallest ones. Both types offered really fun challenges. Trying to figure out how to actually get on top of the flying ones, and trying to turn the aggressiveness of the smaller ones against them (since most colossi dont actively try to attack you or if they do, they're very slow, but these do and they're quick) was very cool. This writeup is making me want to get the PS4 version so I can experience it all over again!

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The flying Colossi in the desert was my favorite, IIRC. The atmosphere on the final one is also A+. I hated the little colossi though.

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I was going to say that might rank as my favorite game in Leon's Top 100, but we still have Chrono Trigger to go right? Also FFVII if we include games I never finished.

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#81. Professor Layton and the Unwound Future


As I write this, Ive just recently finished playing Professor Layton and the Last Specter. I didnt get into the series until after I played the Professor Layton/Ace Attorney crossover. Overall, I think that Curious Village, Diabolical Box, Last Specter, and Layton/Ace Attorney are all pretty decent, but Unwound Future stands tall above them. What did this game do to excel beyond what the rest of the series has done? First of all, Im always a sucker for any plot that involves time travel because theres so much you can do with it (Case in point: This is the first of three consecutive games on this list that involve time travel in some way, and its all in different ways! A quick estimate indicates that there are around a dozen games on this list that involve time travel, in fact!). I thought the mystery behind Unwound Future was definitely the best and most intricate in the series. Now the solution to the overarching mystery in Layton games tends to be on the ridiculous side, but this game threw a really surprising twist in at the end that I didnt expect at all, and it was a rather poignant moment, too.

Along those lines, I like Unwound Future because we get to see a side to Layton that we dont really see in the other games. Most of the time, he is the quintessential gentleman. Hes unflappable, always in control, and always one step ahead of the player (and the villain, too). Hes almost a little too perfect at times. Unwound Future lets you see a more human side to Layton, whether its flashbacks to his younger days or his reaction to the final twist of the game. This game made him a much more likable character overall.

The core gameplay is still the same as all the other games. You just roam from area to area solving puzzles in order to advance the story. If youre asking me to point to a standout puzzle from Unwound Future, I couldnt do that! But solving puzzles is pretty fun, although geometry puzzles only serve to remind me that I hated it in school and its my least favorite math subject! Anyway, if youve played other Layton games and arent sure if you should try another one, Id wholly recommend Unwound Future to you. Its certainly worth a try! And yes, that fan art does accurately depict an event that occurs in the game!

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmd58nFB6OI

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That fan art combined with his sword duel in the 2nd game is the backbone of Laytons Smash moveset that dozens of us want to happen

Dozens!

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I'd be cool with a Layton Assist Trophy that uses the coin shooter!

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