Board 8 > Leonhart Ranks 100 Games with Writeups: The Top 40!

(+) Yeah! (+)

That you haven't played, no doubt

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MGS is still worth playing, the boss fights are so good in that game.

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I really love MGS1 from a pure gameplay perspective. MGS2 onward more or less perfected third person into first person stealth, allowing for a ton of creativity and ways to mess with the 3D space, but MGS1 had this rigidity to it that made it feel more special. It felt like a very logical progression from the classic top-down Metal Gear games, all hallways, very rectangular and linear, guards' paths really easy to visualize. You could mess with those with sound, and then that'd essentially free up that vertical or horizontal row to mess around with. Gives it a kind of arcadey feel that I think is to its absolute strength on replay; the infinite ammo and stealth camo rewards are definitely strongest in MGS1 to blaze through the game.

The Tanker was a lot like that too, on reflection. Wish Big Shell could've kept up more than "well I hope you like the Strut F Warehouse"!

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MGS1 secretly has the best gameplay in the entire series. Wasn't this changed in Twin Snakes?

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Nelson_Mandela posted...

MGS1 secretly has the best gameplay in the entire series. Wasn't this changed in Twin Snakes?

Yeah, they basically threw in all the MGS2 gameplay additions, which makes the game a lot easier in that setting.

They also did a couple things to limit the amount of backtracking you have to do for a couple of items, which was nice.

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Let's see...I've got 11 days to do 16 games. That's doable. I'd like to finish by the end of this week if I can.

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Give MGS a shout out for its atmosphere. How so much can be done with muddy greys, muddy whites, dirty blocks, and a fixed camera angle, I don't know. Guess the pensive OST helps.

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Kotetsu534 posted...

Give MGS a shout out for its atmosphere. How so much can be done with muddy greys, muddy whites, dirty blocks, and a fixed camera angle, I don't know. Guess the pensive OST helps.

A fixed camera angle?!

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It's been a while, but in my head 80% of the game is looking down at Snake from circa 60 degrees (okay, there's FPV, but since you can't move in it I rarely used it other than crawlspaces). There's the odd claustrophobic camera in certain areas (e.g. the underground base, the forklift in the docks) I guess... maybe more variety than I thought.

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Sorry, that was meant to be a SECURITY CAMERA?! joke

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#16. Kingdom Hearts II


Kingdom Hearts II is my favorite style over substance game ever, and I dont mean that as an insult! I know there are people who prefer the original Kingdom Hearts because it had a more intricate and challenging battle system, but I say give me Sora slicing skyscrapers in half! I know things like Reaction Commands are technically lazy as heck, but I honestly dont care when they look as good as they do here! Give me all the fancy forms that let me effortlessly wreck all the enemies on the screen in short order. More than that, Kingdom Hearts II just made its epic battles feel appropriately epic (as an aside, its the only KH game that actually made me care about beating one of the optional bosses! It took me a long time, but I did manage to beat Sephiroth). Part of it is giving you a huge ensemble villain cast and making them feel sufficiently powerful so they feel satisfying to beat (and you get even more Organization XIII in the Final Mix version, to boot!). Im someone who cares a ton about presentation, and this game excels in that department.

Kingdom Hearts II honestly hooked me from the beginning with the Roxas section. I know people complain about how slow it is and how they just want to get to the main story with Sora, but they successfully made me care more about Roxas in a handful of hours than they did with anyone else in the series. Youve got this guy who seems a lot like Sora, except hes actually got a personality! KH2 made me feel for Roxas and his tragic story, even with corny lines like, Looks like my summer vacationis over. Then when he busted out the dual wielding keyblades for the first time, that was cooler than anything Sora had ever done!

Kingdom Hearts II is just full of really cool moments. My personal favorite is the Heartless invasion of Hollow Bastion at around the halfway point of the game. It was so awesome getting to fight alongside all the Final Fantasy characters, and then you have one of my favorite boss fights in the game, partly because the atmosphere is off the charts and partly because its the first time we get to hear The Thirteenth Dilemma, which is an amazing battle theme. The entire final world is full of great moments and boss fights. While some of Kingdom Hearts IIs worlds could be hit or miss, it definitely had some gems in there. Timeless River was such a cool concept, and I really enjoyed Beasts Castle, Port Royal, and Space Paranoids, too. I know they largely streamlined the experience compared to the first game, but they absolutely made the most of what they gave us.

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LeonhartFour posted...

Kingdom Hearts II is my favorite style over substance game ever

I despise the game, as pretty much everyone knows, but I respect this.

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KH2 Final Mix is just so great. Some of the Data fights are just incredibly fun to learn and as much as I dislike the three hour hell Lingering Will put me through it was a "fair" fight so I couldn't get too mad.

roxas the best. And Final Form is such a rush to play as. TWTNW has incredible design as well.

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I literally could not get an hour into KH1 because the story was so nonsensical, and apparently it's even more obtuse in KHII. I guess the series just isn't for me :(

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You just have to embrace the nonsense, man.

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kh1's gameplay was weirdly dull for me. i got a few hours into it.

mgs1's grit does make it feel unique compared to its successors
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Kingdom Hearts is one of those battle systems that opens up the deeper into the game you go, like most action RPGs. I think KH2's is way more fun though. You certainly can't accuse it of being dull...!

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More tonight.

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#15. Mario Kart 64


If Im ranking total playtime Ive spent on a game, Id wager Mario Kart 64 ranks near the top. This game was a mainstay of gaming sessions with my friends for years. We would do races on all 16 tracks, and then we would battle on all 4 battle arenas. More than likely, wed just keep battling on and on beyond that because all the courses were a lot of fun in their own ways. I preferred the Double Deck stage just because you could create utter chaos on the bottom level with shells. Then it was always fun to race around as the Bob-omb if you lost all your balloons first and try to blow up the person who killed you. I always picked Bowser for battle mode if I could because it was advantageous to have the heavy characters since you could also spin out the lighter characters if you collided with them at high speed, which also caused them to lose a balloon for some reason!

As for the racetracks, I love Mario Kart 64s selection. I know people complain about them being too long (especially Rainbow Road), but thats actually what I kinda like about them! I think I enjoy nearly every course to some extent. Probably my least favorite one is Moo Moo Farm because of the friggin Monty Moles, and its the shortest track in the game, fittingly enough! I loved any track where there was a potential obstacle where you could sabotage your opponents, and the best one was easily Wario Stadium. It was the greatest troll job to save a lightning bolt and hit one of your friends with it right before the big jump at the end of the lap. I would never use this trick when playing with friends, but I also enjoyed exploiting the fact that you can literally jump over the wall to the left at the very beginning of the lap if you time it right. Anyway, some of my other favorites are Bowsers Castle, Royal Raceway, Kalamari Desert, and, of course, Toads Turnpike on Mirror Mode, which was an absolute nightmare in the best way because youre suddenly driving into oncoming traffic instead of with it, which made it a lot tougher than you might expect! If you got clipped by a car, you could find yourself getting slammed by two or three more in a row before you recovered. But the weird thing is that nobody ever got mad when bad stuff happened to them playing Mario Kart 64, which is probably why we always loved to play it. Wed always laugh it off and just move on to the next race.

I feel like Mario Kart 64 was also the last time that items werent completely broken. This is the game that introduced the blue shell, but it wasnt the overpowered item it eventually became. It was extremely rare to actually get it. You pretty much had to be dead last to have any chance at all of getting it, and it wasnt any more detrimental to first place to get hit by it than it would to get hit by any other shell. I loved slowing down if I was in first place and knew the blue shell was coming and letting someone else get blasted by it. Mario Kart also introduced the fake item box and triple shells, which were awesome. Triple red shells was always my favorite item, along with the lightning bolt. If we were playing just with each other and I got triple red shells, Id hit the person in front of me, and then Id come to a complete stop, wait for them to recover, blast them with the second shell, and repeat for the third shell. Admittedly, a bit of a jerk move on my part, and it makes me glad my friends were chill about it every time we played! I just have so many good memories of Mario Kart 64 that I cant imagine another Mario Kart ever coming along and dethroning it.

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Nelson_Mandela posted...

I literally could not get an hour into KH1 because the story was so nonsensical, and apparently it's even more obtuse in KHII. I guess the series just isn't for me :(

What if I told you that KH1 is the least obtuse in the series?

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In Wario Stadium you can also jump back over the wall to end up just before the goal line making it a very short course.
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Team Rocket Elite posted...

In Wario Stadium you can also jump back over the wall to end up just before the goal line making it a very short course.

Kid me was very happy when I managed to pull that off.

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Team Rocket Elite posted...

In Wario Stadium you can also jump back over the wall to end up just before the goal line making it a very short course.

Right, I meant to say you could jump over and back there.

There was also a shortcut on Rainbow Road that I've only managed to successfully pull off a handful of times.

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#14. Skies of Arcadia Legends


For some people, exploration is one of the most important criteria in an RPG. I am normally not one of them, but Skies of Arcadia Legends is the exception. Even with the high encounter rate (although the game provides a way for you to mostly avoid world map encounters later in the game), exploring its world is such a joy. Part of it is because you are quite literally exploring the world, going to lands as yet unknown and discovering lost treasures and landmarks from history and legend. Theres just something cool about the guy you control going down in history as the greatest explorer ever. It was addicting upgrading Vyses title throughout the game, starting with Vyse the Unimpressive to Vyse the Legend. I loved finding every single Discovery because I also enjoyed the little bits of lore they added to Arcadias amazing world. Its also really satisfying gradually upgrading your ship and being able to break through into areas you couldnt get to before.

Skies of Arcadias plot and cast dont really do anything new or groundbreaking. The gist of the story is that you have to collect a bunch of crystals related to the six moons of Arcadia (each one representing a particular element) in order to save the world from destruction at the hands of the evil Valuan Empire and the giant monsters known as Gigas. Vyse is your typical nothing is impossible protagonist with endless optimism. Aika is the childhood friend with boundless energy. Fina is the epitome of the mysterious waif. Gilder is the womanizing pirate. Enrique is the crown prince of the evil empire who can no longer tolerate its misdeeds. The one character who actually has some surprising depth to him is Drachma, who appears at first glance to just be a ripoff of Captain Ahab from Moby Dick, but the part of the game where he tells Vyse his backstory is probably the most poignant moment in the game. But even though the cast was a fairly stereotypical JRPG cast, Skies of Arcadia managed to be a breath of fresh air from the old days during an era where it felt like every other JRPG was trying to copy Final Fantasy VIIs dark and gritty atmosphere. The Valuan Armada also turned out to be an excellent ensemble villain cast (a recurring theme in this part of the list, it seems!), and they provide a bunch of fun boss fights. While Ramirez is the best character of the bunch, Ive honestly always had a soft spot for De Loco because his insane obsession with destroying Vyse made it so satisfying to take him down.

While Skies of Arcadias regular battle system is fairly straightforward turn-based RPG fare, I do love the flashiness of the S-Moves because the presentation is phenomenal, and it makes them feel appropriately special. Its also one of the few parts of the game that has voice acting, and some of those little voice clips are so memorable for me. Where there is light, there is darkness. KneelKneel before me! BeholdPirates Wrath! But I think the real draw in terms of gameplay is the ship battle system. I honestly dont know if I enjoyed it more being the plucky underdog Little Jack taking down opponents that were much stronger or being the overpowered Delphinus wrecking everything with Moonstone Cannon, but its a lot of fun either way! Also, Skies of Arcadia has some rocking battle themes that enhance the atmosphere of its fights.

Skies of Arcadia Legends was an enhanced port for the GameCube that added Bounty fights from a Wanted List, which were often harder than most of the boss battles in the main game, as well as the Piastol sidequest, which is a recurring series of battles that gradually get more and more difficult that also provides a lot of backstory for Vyse, Aika, Fina, Galcian, and especially Ramirez. This is the definitive version of the gameat least until Sega finally gets their act together and makes an HD version, followed by a sequel!

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Drachma really is a fantastic character. Even as much as I enjoyed SoA Legends, there are very few specific things I remember about it. But his story is definitely one of them.

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An HD remake of SoA is at the top of things I want the most. It does so many things well that modern-day RPGs haven't been able to replicate.

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Loved the Mario Kart 64 writeup. You hit all the highlights. I fondly remember playing with my dad and sister on Friday nights. Its probably the racing game Ive played the most.

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#13. Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time


Fun Fact: Insomniac originally wanted the subtitle of this game to be Clock Blockers, but the ESRB decided that wasnt a good idea for a T-rated game, which is unfortunate because its a really clever innuendo! Anyway, I mentioned many games ago that Im a sucker for time travel plots, and I believe this is the highest ranked game on the list that features (actual) time travel as the prominent aspect of the story! Ive talked about my love for Ratchet & Clank many times over the years, but this is where the series peaked. For whatever the reason, the series just hasnt had the same consistent level of quality since (although the PS4 remake of the original Ratchet & Clank that they also made into a major motion picture release for some reason was quite good). Perhaps the most immediate thing that hits you when you look at this game is how beautiful it is graphically. I've seen many people compare it to a Pixar movie. It just looks that good, and each world is vibrant and colorful. You can take time on every world just panning the camera around and marveling at how cool it looks.

Regardless, A Crack in Time is a fantastic game because the gameplay is as sharp as ever, and you have some of the best weapons the series has ever concocted, with my personal favorite being Mr. Zurkon, little weaponized droids you can throw out that literally trash talk enemies as they kill them, while referring to themselves in the third person! Like previous games, you could level up your weapons up to Level 5 in an initial playthrough and up to Level 10 on a second run. You could also add custom mods to a few select weapons, which would really enhance the damage they could do. However, the highlights of A Crack in Time for me are the Clank sections, which are really fun puzzles. You have to navigate a series of platforms using your Chronoscepter, which can be used to affect the flow of time (obviously), and you can also create recordings of yourself performing certain actions. For instance, if you needed to hit a switch to lower a platform, but the platform only lowered while you were standing on it, you would create a recording of Clank running to the platform and standing on it, but you also had to make the recording last long enough to lower it enough for you to get onto it before it raised back up. You can look at the picture I posted for an idea of what I mean. The puzzles were extremely clever and got more elaborate as the game went on, and I kinda pride myself on the fact that I solved them all without ever seeking help on a solution!

Perhaps the real surprise of A Crack in Time is how good the story was. The PS2 trilogy never attempted to tell a serious story. It always kept things light and fun, and the plot was secondary to the comedy. The PS3 games explored the story of what happened to the rest of Ratchets race, the Lombaxes (conveniently forgetting about Angela from Going Commando!), as well as providing some more info about Clanks background and origins. There was a moment toward the end that really surprised me with how touching it was because I didnt think the series could have that sort of effect on me! However, the real highlight of A Crack in Times story is the return of Dr. Nefarious, who might legitimately have one of the most original villain motivations Ive ever seen! Youll just have to play it for yourself to find out what it is (or look it up on YouTube, I guess), but I was honestly impressed! Hes also as hammy and over the top as ever. Theres one line of his from this game in particular that Ill find myself quoting in appropriate situations (and there are many of them, because the quote is, Why must you be so utterly incompetent?! Its the delivery that makes it so good and so fun to actually quote aloud!). I wish Insomniac would re-release the series on Playstation 4 so people could re-experience it or experience it for the first time, but regardless, Ill end this writeup the only way it can end: Play Ratchet & Clank.

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mario kart 64 was the only one i really got into, first because it was the only one my friends and i spent time on, but also because DD and betond introduces so many stages/customizability/visual noise that i didn't have the patience to understand everything/use each character/master each stage/explore each car option. i loved that 64 only had 4 cups and 8 characters; that was perfectly enough to me.

future SSB games after melee honestly started to give me this too
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tag

SeabassDebeste posted...

mario kart 64 was the only one i really got into, first because it was the only one my friends and i spent time on, but also because DD and betond introduces so many stages/customizability/visual noise that i didn't have the patience to understand everything/use each character/master each stage/explore each car option. i loved that 64 only had 4 cups and 8 characters; that was perfectly enough to me.

future SSB games after melee honestly started to give me this too

also, ?

Yeah, I get that, too, especially when you got beyond Double Dash and you had to choose individual bodies, wheels, and even a friggin' parasol. That's a bit much for me.

And thanks!

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There doesn't seem to be much point in playing MK64 today if you never played it before. Technically I have, but only occasionally at friends' houses in the early '00s.

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LinkMarioSamus posted...

There doesn't seem to be much point in playing MK64 today if you never played it before.

other than the fact that it's a great game

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Fact indeed.

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I don't want to hear it from someone who thinks "It's a good game" isn't a good enough reason to play a game.

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How necessary is playing Tools of Destruction before playing Crack In Time? I've always been interested because I am a simple man who sees Nefarious and buys Nefarious, but ToD never really grabbed me in the way that the PS2 games did (probably just the start-of-generation jankery I recall it having).

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Kamekguy posted...

How necessary is playing Tools of Destruction before playing Crack In Time? I've always been interested because I am a simple man who sees Nefarious and buys Nefarious, but ToD never really grabbed me in the way that the PS2 games did (probably just the start-of-generation jankery I recall it having).

Well, the stories are connected, so you at least need to know what happens in ToD first. If you don't want to play it, I guess you could read a plot synopsis. I do agree ToD is weaker than GC, UYA, and CiT, but it also felt really short, too, so I don't know that it would be too much trouble to just beat it.

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#12. Persona 4 Golden


Oh hey, its that game that might win Division 4! What a weird contest this is going to be. Anyway, I didnt get into Persona until a few years after 4 came out because, despite the hype it received from the board, I honestly could not figure out what type of game it was. With all the waifu wars, I thought it might have been a dating sim, which I wasnt particularly keen on, and I didnt want to become that person who argues about waifus on a message board. Now, thanks to Persona and Mass Effect, I have become the thing I swore I would never be! Regardless, I eventually gave Persona 3 a try and liked it enough to play Persona 4, which I loved. It was good enough that I eventually bit on a Black Friday Vita deal so I could play the Golden version (which I dont regret, by the way! The Vita is a really cool portable system), which I loved even more. If I was ranking the original Persona 4, it probably wouldve been a top 50 game, but Golden made it a borderline top 10 game. Im actually in the middle of a replay in an attempt to finally get the last trophy I need for the Platinum (the one for reading all the books)!

One of the reasons Persona 4 is my favorite game in the series because its basically a mystery/dating sim game masquerading as a JRPG. I love mystery novels and trying to figure out who the killer was kept me pushing forward to the end. Some people say that they figured out the killer right away, but despite liking mysteries, Im pretty bad at solving them ahead of time, partly because I dont actively try since I enjoy the shock value of the reveal when I didnt see it coming. With Persona 4, I didnt figure it out until the game literally made me choose and I realized it couldnt have been anyone else. I also love the theme of the game being about truth and what youre willing to do to find it. I think it implements the theme into the framework of the game better than anything Ive seen elsewhere because Persona 4 gives you multiple opportunities to accept the seemingly obvious solution or take the easy way out. Ive heard multiple stories of people thinking they had beaten the game and had no clue there was a true ending.

Another one of the big appeals of Persona 4 are the S. Links, which I felt like were a big improvement over Persona 3s. I think one of the reasons I enjoy the S. Links is because I like the feeling of knowing Ive made a difference in someones life (which is part of the reason I do what I do in real life, too!), and the game makes you work at getting to know the character so you can know the right choices to make to help them out. My personal favorite S. Links in Persona 4 are Yukiko, Rise, Kanji, Marie, Hisano, Naoki (which is a slow burn, but the payoff is worth it), and both of the Dojimas. I also think Yu Narukami is my favorite Persona protagonist because hes simply a nice guy (and hes hilarious in the anime, but nevertheless!) and it makes it believable that hed go out of his way to help people. Golden added a couple new S. Links, both of which were really interesting in their own ways and actually opened up new paths in the game.

In terms of gameplay, Persona 4 Golden made a lot of quality of life improvements to reduce some of the tedium, especially early on when the game is a bit slow. The biggest thing is that it gives you the ability to choose what skills you want to pass on when you fuse new Personas, which reduces a ton of frustration since it takes out the randomness. It also gives the other party members new skills they can learn over the course of the game, which is a nice option to have. Golden also added a ton of new content in terms of cutscenes, new locations you can travel to, new hobbies you can spend time on, a new dungeon, and it adds another month onto the calendar. Perhaps the biggest addition was the Valentines Day scene, which is designed to punish people who romance all the girls instead of being loyal to a single waifu (Yukiko all the way). I romanced all the girls the first time through (followed by friend zoning everyone but Yukiko the second time) just so I could see all the permutations of dialogue, and its such a gut punch if you care about these characters at all. Ive rarely had a game made me feel ashamed of my actions (as Kojima claimed we would do in MGSV with Quiet!) like Persona 4 Golden did, but it was awesome that they did it.

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Oh right, and speaking of improvements Golden made

Time to Make History >> Reach Out to the Truth

Shadow World > Pursuing My True Self

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Leonhart4 posted...

Sorry, that was meant to be a SECURITY CAMERA?! joke

Oh damn, I failed.

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LeonhartFour posted...

I have become the thing I swore I would never be!

if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you

Leonhart4 posted...

Time to Make History >> Reach Out to the Truth

truth

Leonhart4 posted...

Shadow World > Pursuing My True Self

should have stopped while you were ahead.

P4G is great and I love all the little improvements and additions it made to the original.

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The attention to detail is what I love most about Persona 4: little effects like the "out of tune TV blur" around the edge of the screen when inside the TV, the beautiful menu animations, the sound of the rain, changing/cutting off the background music when Nanako is absent from home. A condensed setting can be boring, but it can also allow for real creativity. Also has one of the rare scripts where the characters talk almost directly about the theme of the story and it sounds natural. And some of the skits had me howling with laughter (especially the "drunk on the atmopshere" evening).

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xp1337 posted...

if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you

You begin to suspect that your bowl is a portal to the waifu dimension


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Happy birthday @Leonhart4 !!!!

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Thanks, man!

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oh wow I was asking in the last topic about any info about Streets of Rage 4, and they released some gameplay footage a few days ago!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViTRVOKQ-zM

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LinkMarioSamus posted...

There doesn't seem to be much point in playing MK64 today if you never played it before.

Yeah no, Mario Kart 64 is still the most simple and pure fun you can get from the series overall. Mario Kart 8 might technically be the best Mario Kart, but there's a reason 64 is still the fan favorite.

Also, happy birthday, Leon!

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Fair enough, I mostly just don't follow Mario Kart anymore.

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MetalmindStats posted...

Also, happy birthday, Leon!

Thanks!

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Post for new page.

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