Board 8 > The Board 8 Discord #sports Chat Ranks Their Top 100 Respective Games

(+) Yeah! (+)

#100 SimTown (PC, 1995)
<img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/58/SimTown_Coverart.jpg">

This was one of my first big simulation games that I was really able to wrap my head around. It was, in execution, sort of the precursor to The Sims. The focus was a lot smaller than SimCity and was more focused on just building a nice and interesting town than on having to manage anything. Gave you the ability to customize who all lived in your town and then you'd move in little individual businesses for them to work at. The buildings were all pretty whimsical too such as a police station that was a giant pair of handcuffs. I loved this game as a boy, but there's not a ton there.

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#98. Outland (Xbox 360, 2011)

Outland took the color-swapping mechanic from Ikaruga, one that had not been explored as much as it probably should have, and decided to see how that would work in an action platformer game. The end result was pretty darn good. Outland throws a whole lot of blue and red elements at you in a whole lot of patterns and manners, but with a very consistent and well made learning curve from the start of the game until the end. It also mixes in some straightforward areas of challenge with some non-linear design to allow exploration and secrets.



Outland also features co-op play, something that not enough games seem to have. I've played through this with a couple B8ers (transience and KCF) and had a lot of fun both times. It works well as a solo game or with others.

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#99 Phantasy Star III
<img src="https://segaretro.org/images/f/fe/PhantasyStarIII_title.png">

This game is incredibly flawed but the basic conceit of this game and its major plot twist have stuck with me all this time. You start off playing as typical medieval setting guy Rhys and have to save your wife from the evil Orakians and there all these little hints that things are weird - all the underground areas are suspiciously high tech and you team up with a pair of androids which certainly aren't a fixture of fantasy settings. And then Rhys sort of...finishes his work and has to choose - does he still want to marry his fiancee after all he learns about her or does he go with his childhood friend?

And then the story plays out some more in the next generation and then a third. And the game just didn't have the ability to spell out what it was doing super clearly but the whole conceit here and the scale were so unique that I have spent much of my gaming career chasing the ghost of this sort of story but done well and nothing quite manages to do it for me.

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Outland is sort of a metroidvania, isn't it? It's been a while since I played it.

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The main path is linear, but it is more like a Metroidvania when it comes to gathering its collectibles
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Bartzyx posted...

Outland is sort of a metroidvania, isn't it? It's been a while since I played it.

It kind of is. There are separate levels, but within each, there is a non-linear path through areas as you gain abilities and open paths, and hidden collectables and power ups that can be found along the way.

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#98 North and South (NES, 1990)
<img src="https://www.covercentury.com/covers/nes/n/nes_northandsouth.jpg">

The greatest thing about the NES era was that genre was not nearly as well-defined as it is now. This is a game that was equal parts conquest map game and platformer. Throw in the legendary train levels from this game and it was an incredible experience every single time.


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Played Outland a bit with I wanna say.... Wigs? I did not like it.

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#97 Duke Nukem II (MS-DOS, 1993)

Most people know Duke Nukem as the vulgar, wise-cracking egomaniac from Duke Nukem 3D, but before that, he was just a tough-guy who jumped around in 2D platformers while shooting things. Duke Nukem II is a simple and violent action platformer with an incredible soundtrack that shamelessly rips off 80s metal songs. That was enough for young Bartz to think that this game was the absolute shit. While jumping and climbing around the environment, Duke collects guns and power-ups that help him to kill aliens. The 32 stages were very colorful and each one had a unique theme and palette, which was a pretty cool thing at the time.



That being said, it was subject to many limitations that other PC games had at the time, meaning the scrolling was choppy, the sprites were overly large on the screen, and Duke of course suffered from console envy. I think technically it's not as a good a game as the first Duke Nukem was, but the improved style and atmosphere go a long way for me.

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This will putme up to 9 HMs, I think I will stophere, But I might throw some more in later if I feel strongly about something I didn't mention yet

Honorable Mention: We <3 Katamari (PS2, 2005)
I don't have a Katamari game in my top 100 but I would be remiss to not mention one of them. With its charming, quirky humor, and your mid 00s meme potential, I think these games were more at the forefront of my mind at the time (I can't help but think of the Mega64 skit). A very satisfying and stress-reducing game to just roll shit up, set to a wonderfull eclectic soundtrack and just the right amount of weirdness. I find myself somehow surprised and not surprised that these games caught the traction they did in North America. I went with the 2nd installment because this is the one I remember spending the most time with, and being the most excited for on the coattails of the first.

Honorable Mention: Gunstar Heroes (Genesis, 1993)
I only played this game for the first time in one of the PS3 collections of Genesis games, but I'm counting it as Genesis because I remember reading about it and seeing pictures of it in Sega Visions magazine and it really catching my interest as a game I wanted to play, but it just never happened. I think of it as Sega's answer to Contra (a game I haven't even really played that extensively) but seems it really delivers well in that regard. The different weapons and co-op are fun, it controls well, and just feels like one of those definitive non-Sonic Genesis games.

Honorable Mention: Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies (3DS, 2013)
Obviously, this isn't going to be the only time I mention this series through my list, but I did want to give this game a shoutout among its better peers. Everything that should make an AA game good is still here, much like it is in the others. The overall story isn't quite as good, and, like Apollo Justice: AA, it doesn't do a great job of having its supposed main character really own the story. But everything is still here that should be here, and the only bad thing I have to say about is its not as good as the other ones in the series. If you only played the OG trilogy and were soured by AJ:AA so haven't got around to this one yet, you should reconsider!
I do actually like Athena a fair bit, her part of the story is still pretty good. Blackquill is okay, he's threatening enough as a prosecutor, his story could be a bit stronger.

The best part though, is the DLC case in this game is absolutely top shelf, very likely top 5, easily the best case that's not connected to a main plot, and has some fantastic twists and plot points.

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Outland is a game I did not enjoy as much as I'd expect to. I like others of its genre a good bit more. Some games similar I considered close to HM, but didn't quite make the cut were Hue and the two Guacamelee games. Specifically thinking of that "colored platform switching" mechanic that is pretty core to all the games.

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#98 - Diablo II (PC, 2000)

Diablo II is one of the many PC games I sunk hundreds of hours into before I even got my first non-handheld console. I still remember the many Baal runs to level up my character and crafting items with the Horadric Cube. Didn't really do much in Hardcore though, I was never really any good at keeping my character alive. I feel like if I went back to it even today I might get hooked again so I've pretty much decided not to go back to it at any time. It really is one of the best Blizzard games to date.

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About to get going on my 100

here's a preview of the system breakdown. fractions indicate that a game was played a significant amount on multiple systems

Arcade - 7
GB/C - 3
GBA - 2
Gamecube 19.333
DC - 0.333
DS - 4.5
Mobile - 1
NES - 1
N64 - 18
PC - 16.8333
Playstation - 1
PS2 - 3
SNES - 6
Switch - 4.5
Wii - 3.5
Wii U - 1.5
Xbox 360 - 7.5

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#94 - Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors (DS, 2009)

999 is great, but it's in a weird place in the Zero Escape series. It holds up the best as a standalone game, but I actually think it gets dragged down a bit by its sequels. Not to say it's my favorite ZE game (spoilers: it isn't), but something about the direction the series went soured me on the 999 story. If the plot didn't end up revolving around trying to save the world, and ended with the original nonary game, I feel like it would have more of an impact. Because of this, it settles around my mid-90s.

#93 - Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door (Gamecube, 2004)

TTYD used to be my favorite Paper Mario game. It's still my favorite battle system in a Paper Mario game, but boy are there some truly disastrous chapter design decisions going on here that really got exposed to me when I replayed it a few years ago. Chapter 1's mostly fine, except it's basically a re-skin of PM's chapter 1, but hey, that's fine. Chapter 2 is where things start to de-rail and never really recover. The only way to navigate the tree is to memorize the layout of each floor, because they all look exactly the same. Chapter 3's ideas are absolutely phenomenal, but we really could've done with about 1/2 of the battles it actually had.

Then we hit Chapter 4, which is completely inexcusable. It has the biggest wtf moment in the entire series, but other than that, the chapter consists of running back and forth along the same fucking path FIVE TIMES. WHY. Chapter 5 gets back on track, and is probably the best overall chapter in the game. It's unique and has a great dungeon. Awesome, time to end the game on a high not- never mind, Chapter 6 sucks and the dungeon is awful. And then Chapter 7 completely ruins most of the good will I had for the game.

It's lucky the battle system is so good and that the Pit of 100 Trials was such a cool idea, because otherwise the last third of the game would be entirely irredeemable.

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there is a lot of PAINFUL and genuinely inexcusable backtracking in ttyd, but it's such an extraordinarily fun game to play through that you can forgive its shortcomings.

that doesn't stop them from being totally valid in an argument for why it's the inferior game to the original, though!

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100. Battle of Polytopia (Android, 2016)

I haven't kept full tabs on everyone else's system breakdowns, so I don't know if any other mobile games will be making an appearance, but I felt that I couldn't in good conscience make this list without including the game that has gotten me through so many dull classes, dead shifts, and waiting rooms over the past few years.

The Battle of Polytopia is a deceptively deep 4X turn-based strategy game where you control a tribe - each with a preordained specialty - and attempt to take over villages and cities, be they neutral or opponent controlled. You know the formula. Start at your small home, expand outward and upward, trying to maximize your research and army to control as much land and score as many points as you can. Polytopia does this beautifully and simply in a way that works remarkably well on your phone or tablet. It's free to play, and you can drop a few bucks for additional tribes, which is honestly (usually) worth it if you are the type who gets easily sucked in by 4X style games, especially if you end up playing with friends, which you can do both in person in a pass-the-device mode, or online.

099. Jet Force Gemini (Nintendo 64, 1999)

This game might have been higher if it had come to me a little earlier in life. I had wanted it when I was young, but we didn't have much money growing up and in the time it took 11- and 12-year old me to scrounge up the money for a new game, JFG (and the N64, for that matter) pretty much disappeared from store shelves. It wasn't until 2006, when I found it on a table at a flea market, that I finally got myself a copy. By then, of course, it was hard to judge fairly, because in the intervening 7 years, the entire gaming landscape had changed.

But this game, a third-person shooter/action adventure hybrid that draws its influences as much from sci-fi films as it does from any particular video game, and developed by the same group at RARE that put together Blast Corps, still excited me, even then. Its controls are not intuitive, but the gameplay is fun and relatively deep. Juno, Vela, and Lupus each present unique ways to tackle puzzles and combat, and the nonlinear design of the levels felt fresh and new in 2006, so I can imagine that it must have felt even more so in 1999. It's also one of the most visually appealing games of its generation, and it remains one of the best sounding games I can think of, from its grand score to its expertly crafted sound effects. It's really a marvel.

098. Mount Your Friends 3D (PC, 2018)

This game has brought a strange collection of B8ers to riotous laughter many a time. The idea is simple: imagine QWOP if QWOP was about flinging yourself up a tower of hypermuscular Sandbag-lookalikes before the clock runs out, all with real dong physics.

The game is perhaps best summed up by one quote:

"Do you remember me slowly lifting my dick into the goat's face?" - Digi

097. Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 (Arcade, 1995)

I know a lot of people love the more recent, full-gore MKs, but my heart is always with the first three or four. Of the first three, I think MK2 is largely the most popular, but for my literal money, I always enjoyed playing Ultimate MK3 at my local arcade, and later, at my favorite laser tag place (which recently closed permanently, RIP Laser Quest). Gimme all the classic characters, a few new faces, and let me bloody everything to a pulp. That's what Mortal Kombat is about, and to my mind, UMK3 is the purest distillation of that.

096. Final Fantasy IV (SNES, 1991)

I am not the world's biggest fan of traditional JRPGs. I think people mostly know that about me. But for whatever reason, I always found Final Fantasy IV both charming and engaging in a way that I rarely did with other games of its ilk. The cast of characters is pretty strong for a 2D FF with no cutscenes or voice acting, and I think it has one of the stronger initial hooks of a Final Fantasy - the Red Wing attack on Mysidia and Cecil's subsequent moral questioning and exile have a way of drawing you in.

Is it the best Final Fantasy? Maybe. Is it my favorite? Yes. Does that make me weird? Almost certainly, at least compared to the rest of Board 8.

But that's the kind of weirdness I bring to this endeavor.

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#92 - Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time (PS3, 2009)

See my PS4 game write-up, except this one's story is a bit more engaging and has better Clank segments.

And the name should've been Clock Blocked. Stupid ESRB regulations....

#91 - Beat Saber (PC, 2018)

Back in May of last year, I got it into my head that I needed a VR headset. I bought a VIVE, took it home, and it didn't work. I sent it back for a replacement, only for it to not work, either. Turned out my gaming laptop had a faulty, nigh-irreplaceable HDMI port, so I went and bought me a new desktop computer to go along with it. $1300 later, I can't really say it was all that worth it (at least yet), but one game in particular did stand out.

Beat Saber is fuckin' awesome, and the online community has made thousands upon thousands of levels and songs to play through. Most of them are serious, some are 18 seconds long and have 500 blocks to hit, but most of them are super fun to play through. It also doubles as a nice workout. Really works your forearms, glutes, and quads.

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I played Beat Saber once. It was pretty fun, but the imprecise nature of VR controls makes me think I would not want to get super into the game. Timing and angle and position is too much, just give me timing and a button. Then again, getting good enough to do the more wild charts would be very rewarding.

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Surprise Honorable Mention - Star Fox 64 (N64, 1997)

Just dawned on me I snubbed a game that will be very high on my list, and I was looking at this one sitting at #87, wondering to myself if I made a mistake putting this so high anyway, so fuck it, it's out and the other game is in.

It is haha do a barrel roll funny game

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#96 Heavy Rain (Playstation 4, 2016)



"Jay-son!" "JASON!" "Shaaaaaaaauuuun!" If you played Heavy Rain, then protagonist Ethan's repetitive cries of anguish while searching for his sons are familiar (and hopefully dear) to you. This is the textbook Quantic Dream game: plotholes galore, silly quicktime events, inappropriate accents, and nonsensical dialogue. For me, all these things really just add to the sort of "B-movie" charm.

Heavy Rain is more or less an adventure game in which you play as multiple characters who are involved in the case of a serial killer whose M.O. is abducting and drowning young boys. There are plenty of action sequences but most are controlled through simple quick-time events. As the story progresses in an increasingly ridiculous and dramatic fashion, there are points where characters might die if you fail enough button prompts, which affects what scenes you experience later on. The better you play, the more characters are alive to participate in the climax, and the happier the ending is. Unless you don't want these people to have a happy ending, then by all means kill them off!

I did not play this game until a couple years ago, so I know I am late to the party. But I don't know if any game since has really done what Heavy Rain did, for better or worse. It's a unique experience that I really enjoyed because of what it is.

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#95 - Metal Gear Solid 4 - (PS3, 2008)

The gameplay is garbage. The story makes no sense. I hated 90% of this game. But holy god the ending was magical. The last 4 hours of this game was absolutely perfect. Even mash X 40000 times in a hallway. The final battle between Snake and Ocelot is so damn powerful. When they stim each other to continue the fight right as the music hits its peak. That fight is a top 5 moment in gaming for me and I am not even a big MGS guy. Basically, the game sucks but is entirely worth it just for the ending. Game made me cry. Also,





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#94 - Metal Gear Solid 2 (PS2, 2001)

Hey remember buying Zone of the Enders to play the demo of this? I didn't like Metal Gear Solid 1, but for some reason I bought into the hype of 2. This is the only game in the series with good gameplay. The story still makes no sense, but the gameplay is actually fun. I played that tanker demo I have no idea how many times. Then of course the game came out and turns out you play as Raiden. WHAT A TWIST. You spend part of this game totally nude.



2 > 4 > 1 > 3, never played 5

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When I see you say that MGS2, a game I found so unplayable, to have the best gameplay in the series, it just reinforces that MGS is not for me.

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Here, have a two part update to my list!

#97. Out of the Park Baseball 21 (PC, 2020)

A game from this yea.... er, last year! This is the first version of OOTP I purchased, so even though the series has been around a while, I'm not really sure what sets this version apart from previous versions. I do know that OOTP 21 released in March of 2020, right at a time when sports had pretty much stopped existing in the world. Baseball season had been right around the corner, and then it vanished. What a perfect time for a sports simulator to fill the void!

Out of the Park Baseball is all about numbers, much like real baseball is. You can set up your team, maybe have a little control here and there, and then let the game simulate the rest. And then it gives you stats, so you can tinker a little more. Or, you can just let everything simulate, and just look at all the stats and numbers. OOTP prides itself on being fairly accurate in its simulation too, so it's like watching real baseball seasons unfold. Or looking back at historical seasons and having the numbers look like real historical seasons. It's numbers for days, all the numbers you could want.

I don't know if this game would've made my top 100 in previous years, or how many years I'll still think as highly of this game, because there's definitely a lot I still don't understand in the baseball management world. Roster limits and arbitration and whatnot forced me to stop and look up baseball rules a little too often. But for the sports-starved world of 2020? This was a fantastic game to play.



#96. The Binding of Isaac (PC, 2011)

The Binding of Isaac is a great game to just boot up every now and then and make an attempt at a run. Sometimes the randomizer is nice, sometimes it's not.

I feel like it came on the early side of the rogue-like/randomizer boom (but I could be wrong), using some familiar Legend of Zelda elements to make it easy to get into. The massive number of items makes it so something different can always happen on a run. Of course, a major downside coming with the power ups is that the game doesn't label what any of them do, so I have to open two browser tabs each time I play. The items and cards are fun to experiment with when they're unknowns, but I never remember what any of them do (especially the cards that I've seen 100 times each) and don't want to test out items each time.



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#93. Portal 2 (PS3, 2011)

I have Cave Johnson hanging in my living room.



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Really loving this topic and write-ups!

Also loved the TTYD write-up because a lot of those negatives were so huge for me I rarely understood why so many people loved it as much as they did.

But then again, I ignore most of the flaws in Super Paper Mario because the 100 level dungeon and collecting cards is love.

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Thanks! It's hard to tell sometimes when anyone is reading.

#95 The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (SNES, 1992)

As I said before, I somehow missed this game on the SNES, and didn't come back to it until I started emulating SNES games in the late 90s. I had already played and beat Ocarina, and at that point "Zelda" as a concept in my mind was ingrained as that experience; it was hard to imagine it working in less than three dimensions. But I decided to give a 2D Zelda a try, and that was a good idea!

Everything about this game works well. The world is smartly designed, the items are fun and mostly all have important/interesting uses, and you access the second world just when you think "oh this game isn't that big" which was a neat moment for me.

Afterward, I tried out the NES Zeldas which honestly did not do much for me. I never played the NES when it was relevant, and by the time I went back and tried all the classic games for it, I just did not have the necessary patience to enjoy most of them.

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100. WarioWare: Smooth Moves (Wii, 2007)

Smooth Moves is an excellent marriage of game series and console - the WarioWare series has always lent itself to gimmicks and quirks, and here's the quirkiest, most gimmicky console of all! WWSM also features perhaps the silliest example of the series' offbeat humor, introducing each new method of holding the Wiimote (er, the "Form Baton") through a brief, zen-like soliloquy describing the control scheme with a colorful one-liner. Because of this, I have a pretty distinct memory of my first playthrough, which happened with a small group of friends taking turns playing the different characters' story missions. The game's multiplayer content is solid as well, but inexplicably locked behind the entire single-player story. Smooth Moves maybe doesn't have quite as much depth or content as its predecessors, but it's so memorable and one of a handful of games to really squeeze a lot of fun and different ideas from the Wii's motion controls. And hey, I'm just an absolute sucker for this series as a whole.

99. Unreal Tournament (PC, 1999)

In my mind, this is the quintessential arcade-style FPS. Loaded with maps and tons of customizable features (both developer- and user-created), UT was one of the big standouts at the start of an era overrun with a deluge of multiplayer FPS titles. Since I have never been much of a PC gamer, most of my experience came playing my brother's copy, and only occasionally online. (Hey, it was the early 2000s...)
FPS games aren't my thing, but the fast pace of this one just works. I find that getting frustrated over significant differences in skill lessens a lot when you can just jump back into the action right away. There's a reason UT was immediately successful and is considered a classic, and I had too many good times with this not to fit it onto my list.

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#92. SSX (PS2, 2000)

Not the best game in the series, but the one I spent the most time with and had the most fun with. This game put stuff like 1080 to shame when it came out. The gameplay was so smooth and responsive with easy controls. None of the overly complex button inputs that plagued other snowboard games.

SSX > Tricky > SSX 2012 > SSX3 > On Tour



Mac > Jurgen > JP > Kaori > Zoe > Elise > Moby > Hiro

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97) Scooby Doo Mystery (Genesis, 1994)

One of my first true point and click adventure games that I was able to get into it actually holds up pretty well!
You solve two short mysteries - one at a circus and the other at a haunted hotel. It has all the signature charm and wit that you expect from Scooby Doo and it actually is based around solving a pair of mysteries which is cool.

It's a little short - and also don't play the SNES version. They tacked on an unneeded platforming element that just adds tedium .

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96) Mechwarrior: Living Legend (Arcade/PC, 2014)

This is on some level a mod for Crysis but the modders took the time to completely overhaul the system and add new assets to represent the Mechs. I was able to play this several years in a row at Origins and it fucking rocks. The control system they have rigged up puts you into a mechwarriors pod complete with footpedals, steering, a shift stick - and entire workable cockpit.

I only got to experience this game in team deathmatch mode but would love to try the campaign some day too.

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95.) Bang Dream: Girls Band Party

Like Cokes, I cannot deny the level of hold and hours of entertainment this genre has had on me over the years. I greatly prefer bandori to Love Live because the song styles are more varied, they have more covers and the actual interface is, I think better.

What can I say I love rhythm games and jpop/rock

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#97 - Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies (3DS, 2013)

The first of the 3DS Ace Attorney titles, Dual Destinies brings back Phoenix Wright after sidelining him in Apollo Justice, and actually develops both attorneys as well as new character Athena Cykes in various new cases. While the final case is very good, it doesn't quite reach the high points as the original trilogy's final cases. Fortunately, the excellent DLC case does exactly that, being one of the best cases in the entire series (and is best played in between cases 2 and 3 due to a certain character appearance). Without the DLC case this would easily be well off my list; it's that good of a case.

#96 - Cosmic Star Heroine (Vita, 2017)

A short turn-based RPG from Zeboyd Games that saw releases on many consoles, including the Vita a year after its initial release. The game has a short story mode that clocks in at about ten hours long, but there's numerous sidequests for the various characters and references to Zeboyd's other games they've created to continue their interesting battle system. I enjoyed the game enough that after getting the platinum in the Vita version, a year later I did the exact same thing in the PS4 version as well! It's Zeboyd Games' best title and a definite hidden gem to play around with.

#95 - Fate/extella Link (PS4, 2019)

After the release of the first Fate/extella game I wasn't exactly thrilled with the prospect of playing another one but I bought it anyway due to my liking of the Fate series in general. This game though exceeded any expectations I had by completely revamping a lot of the annoyances that plagued the first game and making it actually fun to slash through hordes of enemies like any good musou. Even doing the whole campaign again on very hard difficulty was fun by using Iskandar to just completely destroy everything in his range. Surprisingly enough, it's a musou not made by Omega Force but definitely is just as fun as any of their titles.

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I strongly considered Cosmic Star Heroine for my list! The battle system was a very strong point in that game. I had lots of fun trying different character combinations.

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Bartzyx posted...

Thanks! It's hard to tell sometimes when anyone is reading.

I am definitely following and reading all entries!

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Yeah I haven't had anything specific to comment on but I'm also reading everything and enjoying the topic so far!

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#91. Golden Sun/The Lost Age (GBA, 2001, 2003)

My first double entry on my list. Rather than waste two slots on games that are basically the same, I grouped some games together. These are two games that have tumbled mightily over the years. They were 48th on my 2014 list. I have fond memories of them, but the more I think about them as time passes the less I think I would like them now. Also Dark Dawn sucked an immense amount of ass. The puzzles and music were stellar and the graphics were top notch back in the day. The Djinn is a cool system. The cast though.... I can't remember anything about them.



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98. Pikmin 2 (GameCube, 2004)

Probably the hardest and most complex game in Nintendo's weird and delightful RTS/gardening simulator-mashup series. Each of the three main games has its own series of strengths and weaknesses - Pikmin 2 is the least urgent due to having no time limit of days, and the storyline is collecting trinkets like batteries and shoe polish to pay off your company's debt. New mechanics are a bit hit-or-miss as well; the new Pikmin types are wildly imbalanced (Purple are great! White are not!) and switching captains is not nearly as fleshed out or useful as in Pikmin 3.
Still, when the game is on-point, it's outstanding. The game's dungeons are diverse and challenging - and provide a mechanic unique to Pikmin 2 alone. And some of the bosses are terrifying and unforgettable - the steamrolling Waterwraith and the disgusting Empress Bulblax are right among the best in the series.
I guess it's my own lack of recency and experience in playing this one that (spoilers) puts it bottom among the trilogy for me. And hey, there's a GDQ run in like 3 hours if anyone's interested in revisiting it!

97. Crypt of the Necrodancer (PC, 2015)

Man, where the hell do I put this game? A rhythm-based roguelike that was so successful it attracted Nintendo's attention and got them to license Zelda onto it. And as a rhythm game veteran, this should be a home run for me, right? Well, uh, not quite. First things first, I am absolutely awful at this game. I've managed to get through (most) of the main levels, but I generally run into problems by being obsessively on-beat to the point of getting myself caught in bad situations far too often and not being willing to break combo to get out. And hey, the game's so easy to restart that dying over and over isn't too brutal. But there's a limit to my...interest in just losing a whole bunch, and occasionally getting through? There are undoubtedly skill levels that change the experience drastically, and I'm not sure if I'm ever compelled (or good enough) to reach that, just to make the game as enjoyable as I want it to be.
But...it's such a cool concept, with a really charming artstyle, and great music, that I still wanted to give it a spot here on the list. And there's always the potential that some time I pick this up again it all clicks and it rises like 50 spots.

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#95. Kirby's Dream Land 3 (SNES, 1997)

For a long time, Kirby's Dream Land 2 on the Game Boy was the only Kirby game I owned. It wasn't a wildly challenging game, but had a lot more exploring fun worlds with Kirby friends and collecting cool powers. I had borrowed or rented other Kirby games and enjoyed them, but Dream Land 2 always was what felt most familiar to me as Kirby. Then I played Kirby's Dream Land 3, and it was that stuff, but just more of it all.

Kirby's Dream Land 3 follows the lead that Yoshi's Island set a couple years prior and brings a unique graphic style to the SNES, looking like the whole game was hand sketched. This whole game oozes charm. With Kirby and his friends having a good time and a presentation like this, it's easy to have a pleasant experience playing the game.




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Golden Sun was one of my top snubs, for exactly the same reason. It was the highlight of the summer I bought it, but it has really not aged well.

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I'm trying to think if I ever owned a Kirby game... I don't think so.
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#90 - Pocket Card Jockey (3DS, 2016)

You would never expect a combination of horse-racing and solitaire to ever gel into any kind of coherent package, but Game Freak really pulled off a miracle with this one. You play as a hilariously cynical, but outwardly nice person, but a total shit jockey during his first race. At the very start, he is unable to get his horse to move, gets bucked off, and is then trampled by all the other horses and killed. Yes, that is correct and its the first scene you witness when starting the game. However, an angel addicted to place betting decides to come down from heaven and give you a second chance at your dream, and life, by giving you super-solitaire powers that let you control your horse through the heart of the cards. This game will never let you down with the quality of its writing, and pretty much every dialogue your character has with anyone will give you at least a slight chuckle.

During the races themselves, you will play a certain number of games of solitaire, depending on how long the race is. The better you do, the happier your horse gets and the more energy they will have for the final stretch. You can either use this energy to move your horse during the race to accrue even more energy in their Comfort Zone, or store it for the finale. After you finish the required number of games of solitaire, the game will tally the energy youve collected and determine how much Enthusiasm your horse will have. For the first time, you will actually get full control over your horse and try to push him to the finish line as fast as you can.

Its a very weird game, but super addictive. And Game Freak has really pulled out all the stops with this game with the music. ITS OUTRAGEOUS! LISTEN TO THIS FUCKING SONG.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQtzIAmlkj0

This is not in fact the final boss theme of a JRPG. It is race music for a horse solitaire game. WHAT. I love this game entirely too much. I still go back to do a few races every now and then, but Im not addicted to it like I once was. Like, super unhealthily addicted.

No one should play any game that much. But I did with this game! Its a game you should try out if you have a 3DS! Just dont try it that much.

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#94 Shadow of the Colossus (Playstation 2, 2005)

I know this game is divisive. It's deeply flawed. But I still love it. The desolate world that the Colossi inhabit was so much fun to explore that first time, and each one was a unique puzzle, almost all of which can be solved very intuitively (fuck you Pelagia!). The minimal story is also touching and I felt so sad for Wander, the player character.



Unfortunately, the controls in the game are often aggravating and some of the coolest moments in the Colossus fights are ruined by the inconsistency of Wander's abilities. This deficiency is magnified in the PS3 remaster for techincal reasons, and it makes the game even more frustrating when it happens. But the high points of this game are so high that I cannot hold these flaws against it.

I want to get around to the PS4 remake someday. I played the game twice, about 6 years apart, so maybe after another 6 years I will be ready. I think that's coming up soon.

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#94. RollerCoaster Tycoon (PC, 1999)

This game seemed like the coolest thing when it was new. I was trying to travel to Cedar Point every year around this time, through my high school days. Roller coasters were just so cool, and the ability to make and watch them in a game was mindblowing. Except... I sucked at it. All my coasters made people vomit uncontrollably, or they crashed, or they just weren't fun. And then I'd have wasted all my money making a 200 foot tall coaster that was only useful as a very large paperweight. But I still had a blast playing the game.



Then a few years later, I dug the game back out and gave it another shot. I focused more on the sim aspects, and trying to make coasters how the game wanted them. Then once I got the hang of things, I could be more creative. It was still a pretty fun game to go back to, and I was able to see all of what it had to offer. Also, it's always fun to make stupid names for rides.

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Eddv posted...

95.) Bang Dream: Girls Band Party

Like Cokes, I cannot deny the level of hold and hours of entertainment this genre has had on me over the years. I greatly prefer bandori to Love Live because the song styles are more varied, they have more covers and the actual interface is, I think better.

What can I say I love rhythm games and jpop/rock

This is a phone game btw, 2018

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94.) You Don't Know Jack (PC, 1995)
Long before Jackbox, there was my favorite series of funny trivia PC games. Thanks to Jackbox I feel as though I don't need to delve too deep into why these trivia games ruled and what they have going for them. But the "inside" jokes, the rapid fire trivia games all of it was awesome and I owned and played most of the series, which the first is just serving as the totem for the entire run of games here.

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okay, one more for tonight

#93. Shadows of the Damned (Xbox 360, 2011)

Shadows of the Damned is a Suda51 game with lots of weird stuff, but it's kind of interesting in that the final product is heavily altered from Suda's original vision. From what I understand, it was supposed to be even more strange and had some really interesting ideas. Despite the final product being kind of watered down to appear more western audiences with guns and whatnot, the experience was still very unusual and lots of fun.



The ways in which this game leaned so heavily into the style, whether through excessive innuendos or the oddball over-the-top action, it's totally corny and eye-rolling. But the eyes roll so hard that it loops back around to being hilarious, and the game runs so hard with this in a very self-aware way. There's a lot of action that's solid and gets the job done, but the real thrills are just seeing what wild events are up next.

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94.) General Chaos (Genesis, 1993)

This was one of the first great console games that straddled the line between Arcade gameplay with console sensibilities and for me and my brothers it was awesome. One of the very first games with meaningful four player gameplay. The game was a blend of action and real time strategy with goofy commandoes doing ridiculous things.

You could pick a squad of 5 OR a squad of 2 commandoes. The difference being that the commandoes were easier to control. Me and my brothers played this countless hours and it remains an all time favorite.

l

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Nee has the best list so far imo

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Whiskey_Nick posted...

#91. Golden Sun/The Lost Age (GBA, 2001, 2003)

The cast though.... I can't remember anything about them.

That's about all you can remember about the cast as none of them have any personality whatsoever

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