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

(+) Yeah! (+)

#76 - Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars (SNES, 1996)

One of the best of the various Mario RPGs, this one by Square is one of the first RPGs I played, with me playing on ZSNES since I never owned the original console. I must have beaten the game three or four times during that span. I have tried replaying it since with the Wii's VC but the beginning is extremely slow and I'm not sure how I ever managed to get through that part. I could never figure out how to win at the Yoshi races. Geno (and Mallow too, I guess) is a boring character and doesn't really need to be in Smash. Speaking of Smash,

#75 - Super Smash Bros. Melee (GC, 2001)

I never did own a N64 so Melee was the first Super Smash Bros. game I owned, and what a game it was. I normally dislike most fighting games, but Smash is the one series I can still enjoy due to its party style. Back in Melee I mostly played Falco, Kirby, and Ness (I've used Ness in every Smash game). Cleared all 51 events, beat classic/adventure/all-star with all characters, etc. I did never get all the trophies in this one, I felt some requirements were either too hard or too tedious, not sure which at the time. This was always one of the games my friends and I would play at each other's houses throughout middle and high school.

#74 - Professor Layton and the Unwound Future (DS, 2010)

The best game in the Layton series, Unwound Future takes Layton and Luke to London in the future, accompanied by Luke's future self. As with every Layton plot, nothing is as it seems to be here. This game delves a lot into Layton's past which was missing from the other two games preceding this one, and still delivers a great amount of good puzzles throughout the adventure. It's unfortunate that the prequel trilogy never really hits the same impact that this game does.

#73 - Pokemon Diamond/Pearl/Platinum (DS, 2007)

The 4th generation Pokemon games, along with HG/SS which I already ranked. The big thing about this generation was the physical/special split for moves which allowed for several Pokemon to be a lot more useful - like a water Pokemon having a high attack stat. I mostly played Pearl and Platinum, and this generation is somewhat special for me as it's the first generation where I actually did catch them all with all 493 Pokemon in the dex. Team Galactic's theme is also the best evil team music in any Pokemon game.

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#81. Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest (SNES, 1995)
Not Diddy Kong's Quest, of course. On the surface, I was annoyed by this game since I liked DK more than Diddy (I generally never like the "second fiddle" characters as much), but playing it its definitely just a much better version of the first game. Better music, more memorable environments/levels, more secrets and alt exits and coins and stuff to find, more animal friends (and way more interesting ones), plus the addition of Dixie's hover pigtail spin adds a strong layer of exploration,always a welcome addition to platformers.

All the beehive and ice cave stuff stands out in my mind a lot for level design as it compares to the first game. And find, the brambles. The key selling point to me is the ways in which it uses all the animals to get through the levels. The spider and rattlesnake are great additions, and they use all the prior ones from DKC1 in fun ways too. Not too much else to say about this game besides stuff I covered in DKC1, it's pretty much a superior game in almost every way over it.



Next up: Sorry can't come up with a good clue for this game so I'll just say its a Tactical RPG

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#77 Dead by Daylight (Playstation 4, 2017)

This one was a little hard to get my thoughts straight about. Dead By Daylight is an amazing concept with huge flaws, and sometimes I feel like the flaws are just too big for the game. Other times, I just don't care because the game is so damn fun.



It's a competitive multiplayer horror game that pits one player against four: a serial killer trying to sacrifice four survivors to a supernatural entity before they can escape a killing ground. The survivors are forced to work together to repair generators that power the exit gates while hiding from, distracting, or running away from the killer. The killer uses unique powers to track down and cut up the survivors with a melee weapon. Each of the over 20 different killers has different abilities that cause them to play differently, some drastically so. Both sides also select from a wide range of perks and consumable items to assist them. The maps are procedurally generated from a wide range of templates, so no two matches are ever really the same.

I'm not really a horror fan, but the large cast of characters pulls from licensed properties like Halloween, Stranger Things, Saw, Silent Hill, and others, which is neat for those who are fans. There are also a bunch of unlicensed characters based on various tropes (e.g. wraith, oni, mad doctor, clown, wimp, track star, gambler, etc.). While each killer is unique, the survivors all play basically the same, although the perks they start with are different.



Matches can be very tense. If the survivors take too long to repair the generators, the killer will have time to kill enough of them that escape becomes impossible. If the killer takes too long to find and kill the survivors, they will be able to escape. The killer cannot just kill the other players immediately; instead, survivors have to be hit until they collapse, and then placed on a sacrificial hook for two minutes. During this time, they can be rescued and continue playing.

There is a lot more to it, but that's the basic flow of the game. Having a successful game as a killer feels very empowering, as do the moments when you manage to outsmart the killer while playing the other side. And that probably sums up why I like Dead by Daylight so much; success in the game more often comes down more to mindgames and strategy than mechanical skill. At my age, it's difficult to be competitive in most games that rely too much on the latter.



I said at the beginning though that the game is flawed, and that is why you're seeing this now and not in my top 25. It's obviously difficult to balance asymmetrical games, but even considering this, the developers of Dead by Daylight seem to get things wrong so often. What balance the game has is based around the idea that the four survivors cannot communicate with each other, but the game does allows friends to team up, which can give a huge competitive advantage. And even though they have been balancing the game for years, there are still so many completely useless perks and items, while there are some rare items that are so game-breaking that you want to dodge matches where they show up. And probably the worst of all is that the strongest and most effective tactics in the game are also the least fun to play against, so it's basically down to an "honor system" for players to avoid using them because for whatever reason the developers will not do anything about it.



As you can see, the game is kind of a mess. I take breaks for weeks at a time, but keep finding myself coming back to it again. So I guess that I enjoy it a lot.


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#69 - Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 (GCN, 2002)


Tony Hawks Pro Skater established itself as basically an arcade game. You had 2 minutes to try and complete a number of objectives the game throws at you. If you have trouble doing one of them, youd have to start over from the beginning of the level and try again.

THPS4 bucks this trend by making even bigger sprawling levels and even more objectives that you can complete at your own leisure. This kinda ruins the whole arcade-y feel of the game, but on the other hand, it leads to a much more focused experience. For example, it allows for more ridiculous scenarios that they can change up the level for, that you wouldnt be able to get from a single level state that you only have 2 minutes to explore. It also allows for a much higher difficulty spike. There is one mission where you have to grind this super long cable for a solid 30 seconds around the perimeter of the entire level. Its a final test for how well you can hold a grind, and it would be absolutely impossible in the old format, because you could only have a maximum of 2 shots at it per run, because its so out of the way.

Also, some of the fun in earlier titles was trying to multitask and see how many objectives you could clear in a single 2 minute run. You dont have to worry about that here. While THPS3s highest score you ever had to get on a level was 500,000, THPS4 makes you get 1,500,000 in a single run. In fact, one of the objectives on not even the final level is to pull off a single combo that nets you 500,000 points. Since the game knows you arent multitasking for stuff anymore, it just asks so much more of you at once. It helps that you now have flatland tricks to accomplish these goals now, which are both fun, and extremely useful in finishing off absurdly long combos.

I have done a replay of all the Gamecube Tony Hawk games this past year. I was able to 100% Tony Hawk 3 in a matter of two days, probably about 12 hours. Tony Hawk 4 took me a few weeks; I would guess over around 40 hours. And it was a very fun 40 hours. After 4, they tried to focus more on the story in Tony Hawk's Underground, putting you in control of an up-and-coming hotshot skater with a less-than-supporting rival. And THUG2 went full-on Jackass mode, focusing more on doing weird shit with Bam Margera and his dysfunctional family. Neither THUG game stayed true to that arcade feeling of the first four games, and after that, the series truly fell off a cliff and never really recovered. Though the 1+2 Remake may instill a bit of hope? Who knows.

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#73. Under Night In-Birth Exe: Late (PS3, 2015)



Hell if I will ever know what this title means. There are also two upgraded versions of this game, Under Night In-Birth Exe: Late [st] and Under Night In-Birth Exe: Late [cl-r]. You know, instead of adding Super Turbo or Ultimate to the title like other fighting games do.

Like the naming scheme, this game is just kind of over-the-top about things. Characters in this game are very anime-styled, but very unique and in a fairly wide variety. Each has dozens of colors to customize (which all have weird names, like Siberian Iris, Summer Vacation, Scream Hades, and Depression Mind). Many characters hold weapons, the weapons or the characters themselves can be huge, and the attacks even bigger. Weapons and projectiles and punches can cover half the screen. On the surface, it looks like big buttons and big combos: the game, but there is actually a very interesting system to work with.

At the bottom center of the screen is a meter called GRD (everyone just pronounces it as grid). It can fill on the left or right, each side corresponding to the player on that side. Everytime you do something positive in battle, such as getting a hit, shielding a hit, walking forward, dashing forward, and throwing all fill the meter in your favor. You can lose the meter by backing away, getting hit, trying a throw but failing, etc. Every 17 seconds, whoever has the advantage of the GRD meter gets some temporary bonuses. Attacks do more damage, certain special moves gain properties, you gain access to a combo extender skill, etc. It forces players not to just go crazy pushing buttons or to hide away to the corners, but to try and attack smartly. It adds a little bit of a mindgame to more common aspects of the game. If you have a GRD lead 15 seconds in, is your opponent going to dash in or try to attack? Do you try and block it out or proactively counter? Or maybe the opponent is conceding the GRD loss, and you stupidly do a proactive attack towards nothing, so they are already at an advantage of the next GRD cycle.

I haven't been quite as involved with the UNIEL games as I have some other fighting games, but I've played enough to earn a couple bucks at some local events. When I got together with friends weekly in pre-quarantine days, this was often in the rotation of games. Even when you're not into the deep mechanics of this, it's a lot of fun to just hit buttons, because there are just a lot of big wild attacks.



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Arti posted...

#75 - Super Smash Bros. Melee (GC, 2001)

I never did own a N64 so Melee was the first Super Smash Bros. game I owned, and what a game it was. I normally dislike most fighting games, but Smash is the one series I can still enjoy due to its party style. Back in Melee I mostly played Falco, Kirby, and Ness (I've used Ness in every Smash game). Cleared all 51 events, beat classic/adventure/all-star with all characters, etc. I did never get all the trophies in this one, I felt some requirements were either too hard or too tedious, not sure which at the time. This was always one of the games my friends and I would play at each other's houses throughout middle and high school.

I want to say I got all the trophies in this game but I honestly cannot remember.


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#68 - Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride (DS, 2009)


With Dragon Quest VIII in my fairly recent memory, I was pleased to hear that one of the other best games in the series was getting a remake for the DS and coming stateside. I didnt know if it could live up to my expectations, but I was still super excited to give it a shot.

The game begins with you as a little boy, and you watch him grow up and overcome some true hardships. The passage of time over the course of the game allows for some really neat plot devices. The same many small subplots are relayed back-to-back as you continue to try to accomplish one overarching goal template exists, but the real draw to the story is definitely the main characters story and the choices he makes, and its a beautiful tale that teaches many valuable life lessons.

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I don't believe I got all the trophies in melee, I think I was 5 or so away

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I was missing two and one was tied to having a save of some game. Pikmin maybe?

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Bartzyx posted...

No I cannot believe that anybody else actually played this game.

Word.

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DQV is one of those games that i tried to play several times but just could not get into no matter how hard i tried. It's just not for me.
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#67 - Hot Shots Golf: Out of Bounds (PS3, 2007)


Hot Shots Golf is the best golf series on the market, and always has been. I never got around to looking into it until Hot Shots Golf 3, but ever since then, they have always been my go-to golf games. Hot Shots Golf: Out of Bounds was the first (and only, somehow) foray into the PS3 era, and it was glorious. It introduced the Advanced Shot, which deviates from the 3-press bar system that the game was built on, and adds a new, welcome feel to the game.

The main draw for me was the online portion, though. For the first time, they had fleshed out lobbies and online tournaments that I would play daily for a good many months of my life. There was also a fansite for the game, where diehard fans ran their own inclusive tournaments and kept high scores. I took part in a few seasons of the big tournaments, and got 3rd in the world one year! This is probably the game I am objectively the best at out of any video game on earth. I love my golf games, and this is easily one of my favorites.

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#76 SkyRoads (MS-DOS, 1993)

This is a really simple game. Pilot a vehicle along a Road in the Sky while jumping over or otherwise avoiding obstacles. SkyRoads could be frustrating until you figure out the right speed and rhythm for each level, then became really satisfying. There are a few dozen courses to figure out while chilling out to the FM synth soundtrack.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOcHlthSLp0

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#59. Pokemon SoulSilver (DS, 2009)

The last Pokemon game I completed the Pokedex in. I played the hell out of this when it came out. Used the pedometer all the way through its stages just to get a Krabby which was in like... the second last area? I really started falling out of love with Pokemon after this one. Conquest was good, Black/White were also good, but I didn't like XY, SunMoon or SwordShield. There is a ton of content in this version of Pokemon. It is probably the best version of the games, but not my highest ranked.



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#75 Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception (Playstation 3, 2011)

I really love the Uncharted series, every single game I have played of it. But Uncharted 3 is the only one I have played in the series that I do not really want to play again. Not to say that it isn't good; it's an outstanding game both for its time and also now. But I would rather play any of the other games again than this one.



Although the overall story is strong, there are large stretches of the game that kind of just spin its wheels(I'm looking at you, ship graveyard). And while Whiskey Nick thinks the "hallucination water" is fine, I thought that was actually really dumb and in general not fun, with a very unrewarding climax to the game.

I do have to give it credit where it's due, though. The Chateau is a highlight and so is the stowaway sequence. Learning more about Nate's past and his relationship with Elena was also satisfying, even if in Uncharted 4 they decide to go straight back to those wells.



The multiplayer was also great and enjoyed long-lasting support from the developers, with plenty of content updates. It was not quite as much to my liking as Uncharted 2's more classic-style multiplayer, but that's probably just me getting old.

So the whole package was a bit of a step down after what came before, but maybe my expectations for this game were just too high. It may seem weird to dunk so much on a game that I have as one of my top 75, but Uncharted 3's flaws are really what separate it from the other games in the series. Rest assured, I will talk more about why I love these games later on.

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#66 - WarioWare: Twisted! (GBA, 2004)


I love WarioWare. All of its games are very good (though I never played Gold). If this list covered my top 150, I would probably have included 4 games in the series. But this is a top 100 and Twisted! is definitely my favorite. Most of the other games had an obvious new gimmick to take advantage of. Microgames started the series, Touched had a touchscreen to work with, and Smooth Moves had a motion controller. Twisted was just like. what if we put a gyro sensor in a game and built around that?

And the games were pretty much all great. Twisted had the best Mona, Dr. Crygor, Orbulon, and most importantly, 9-Volt games in the series. It has a minigame where you sink a putt in NES Open Tournament Golf, so its the best by default. Its also where the song Mona Pizza came from, which is great stuff on its own.

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74. Bust-A-Move (Arcade, 1994)

As someone who has never been particularly skilled or interested in fighting games, I find it interesting that competitive puzzle games, of all things, are what really seems to get my competitive juices flowing the most of any H2H gaming experience. Some people like stacking Tetris blocks forever, but I personally always end up falling for the puzzle games with a really juicy competitive back-and-forth. I even got into Puyo Puyo (or Kirby's Avalanche to be specfic) for a bit with a couple friends who were also learning the game and getting better against each other, despite not being super fond of that game in general.
Anyway, Bust-A-Move (or Puzzle Bobble in some versions) is a really cool puzzle game that involves lining up chains of same-colored bubbles to clear them off your screen (and potentially create garbage for your opponent). I've mostly played it on various Neo-Geo multiple-game arcade cabinets that definitely had some version of Metal Slug on them. It's a really fun twist to involve shot-selection and shot-making with the usual puzzle game franticness. That little extra bit of manual dexterity required makes it stand out, and also makes for hilarious moments when you inevitably blow a very important shot. I've got a couple more pure puzzle games ahead on this road, and this game is pretty much the posterchild for why those games are where they are.

73. Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin (DS, 2006)

By this point, we kind of knew what we were getting from the Castlevania series under IGA, both in terms of games of great quality but a lot of similar ideas. Portrait of Ruin is not particularly adventurous in any regard, in terms of story (basically some minor Belmont-adjacent characters) or gameplay (if you played Dawn or Aria of Sorrow, you know what kind of beats the game is going to hit). The two-character system is...fine, though not used in a ton of interesting ways, but gives you more character options to use and customize.
On the other hand, the minor adjustments are generally very good; the smaller areas within paintings help the game breath beyond just a huge castle, and give the game some new kinds of settings and enemy types. There's tons of extra content - an optional heavy-difficulty labyrinth, multiple alternate playable modes with max-level settings, and lots of secret areas/items/quests/other goodies.
It's tough to say what makes this one great other than iterating well on a tried-and-true formula and shifting gears just enough to separate itself, but I always have a good time replaying through this one; when I booted it up a year and a half ago I had like five or six separate completed save files already. Sometimes you just want a solid Metroidvania, and you could always do much much worse than Portrait of Ruin.

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I somehow never played PoR! One of these days I'll get around to it and have a good time.

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80. Perfect Dark (N64, 2000)

Perfect Dark is the spiritual successor to Goldeneye, and it is an improvement in almost every technical aspect. It's a more visually impressive game, the level and mission designs are better, the plot is better, the multiplayer is deeper. It's probably the most impressive RARE game on the N64. Maybe the most impressive RARE game ever, relative to each game's ceiling at the time of its release.

It's just... not as fun. I don't know why. Maybe it's because it was so late in the N64's life cycle. Maybe it's that our N64 controllers were wobbly by 2000. I don't know. It just never had that spark that Goldeneye had. It was missing something, and I'll probably never know what it was.

79. Mario Kart 64 (N64, 1996)


A thing no one will tell you: Mario Kart 64 might have the worst selection of courses in the Mario Kart series. You've got Toad's Turnpike, Wario Stadium, and Royal Raceway. The rest kiiiiinda suck. But Mario Kart 64 is the game that truly launched Mario Kart into the stratosphere, because it was the first to allow for four players. Everything else is almost secondary. You can still play MK64 to this day and enjoy it. Grab some beers and do the only fun and socially acceptable form of drunk driving.

78. Meteos (DS, 2005)


When you combine the producer of Rez and Space Channel 5 and the game design of one Masahiro Sakurai, this is what you get: A brilliantly crafted one-off puzzler for DS where you match 3 or more tiles to shoot them off into space, toward your opponent's planet. Every block above the match gets lifted on the match's rockets, but the more blocks above the match, the heavier they are, and the harder they are to get off the screen. But you can make more matches to continue to propel them skyward, or, if you're lucky, use a power-up to give them a boost. Fill your opponents' screens before they fill yours to win is generally the goal. The clever conceit is that each planet in the game has different frequencies of blocks and different gravities, so you have to adapt your strategies accordingly. It's a wonderful game, and I have no idea why they never made another one.

77. Thomas Was Alone (PC, 2012)


This beautifully executed platformer-puzzler is short but wondrous. You play as Thomas, an AI who's come to something approaching life, and later, his compatriots, each of whom have different shapes, personalities, and skills, as you progress through the game, attempting to escape the mainframe into which they were all 'born.' I don't want to say much more than that, because the experience is the best part, but it's a really elegant, simple game that deserves everyone's time.

76. The Legend of Zelda (NES, 1986)
There's nothing I can possibly say about the original Legend of Zelda that others won't say better. It is a game without which this very board may not exist, at least not in the way we came to know it. While not my favorite entry, it's the beginning of the series that features heavily in my list and in my life; everyone on Discord is intimately familiar, but the rest of you might not be - my dog, age 2, is named Zelda.



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I enjoyed Thomas Was Alone so much that I played through it on two platforms. Really neat game, although all I could think of during the narration was Shaun from Assassin's Creed (same actor).

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I'm already sitting here thinking "Did I underrate Thomas Was Alone and Meteos"

But what's done is done

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No and Maybe

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those are the kinds of quick, decisive answers i look for

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#58. Super Mario Galaxy 1 & 2 (Wii, 2007, 2010)

Yes another two for the price of one entry on my list. I cannot separate these two. They are basically the same game, and that game is a god damn masterpiece. When I replayed 64, Sunshine and Galaxy this year on 3D All Stars, my word is this game so much damn better than the other two. This game just feels good to play, made excellent use of the Wiimote + Nunchuk, excellent in that it felt good to use, it wasn't all that creative. These games are still gorgeous too. Fantastic music, worlds, power ups, and fat lumas.



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75. Portal (PC, 2007)

I mean, not putting it in here somewhere would be an act of malfeasance.

74. Sonic Adventure 2: Battle (Gamecube, 2002)

Sonic Adventure 2: Battle didn't fix everything that was wrong with Sonic Adventure or Sonic Adventure 2, but it did improve upon those games significantly. I don't really have a lot to say about SA2:B, other than it is probably the Sonic game I've put the most time into, and that is why it's here. I never owned a Sega console, so I missed out on a lot of those until way later, and never developed a particular fondness for them. But SA2:B was fun, varied in its gameplay, and charming. And the music, of course, remains its lasting legacy.

73. Trauma Center: Under the Knife / Second Opinion (DS/Wii, 2005/2006)

A game so nice, they made it twice. Under the Knife was a sort of unexpected hit for the DS in 2005. The gist of it is that it's equal parts visual novel and WarioWare-esque surgical simulation. The game's story is told through static animation scenes a la every visual novel ever, and the gameplay is you, as surgeon Derek Stiles, using your stylus, switching between tools and performing various surgical maneuvers to beat the clock. The faster and more accurate you go, the better your score. It's extraordinarily nerve-wracking and extraordinarily satisfying.

Second Opinion is essentially the same game, but overhauled for the Wii launch. It's graphically more engaging, and the Wiimote controls offer a different take on the surgeries that is still as rewarding as it is tense. I sort of fell off the series after these two, but I know subsequent games are just as beloved in some corners as these two.

72. Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards (N64, 2000)


Kirby 64, maybe the last great game of the N64's lifespan, proved that Kirby, like Mario and Zelda before it, could make the leap from 2D to 3D with ease and with creativity. Like those two series, Kirby's ability to reinvent himself (and for the series to reinvent itself) while remaining familiar has been crucial to his long-term appeal, while other series' inability to do that has left them by the wayside. This might be the bleakest entry in the Kirby series, which has historically melded vibrant and charming visuals with dark, weird undertones, and this game came out just as I was hitting an age where I could really appreciate that contrast. It's not a particularly difficult game, but it is one of the most memorable and appealing.

71. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 (PS2, 2002)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHw18akJtgs&list=PLgZLkKtuVCo2dLyKyto47aEz3WSwKEHGC&index=2
THPS4 is, as has been mentioned, the most expansive, bizarre and at times surreal of the original Tony Hawk games. The shift from the timed career mode to the untimed open world concept shifted the game from an arcade-esque style to a more platformer-esque one, and the series was all the more interesting and exciting (and at times frustrating) for it.

But what truly makes this the best Tony Hawk game is that its soundtrack absolutely (skates and) destroys the rest of the series. NWA, Aesop Rock, De La Soul, Gang Starr, Public Enemy, Eyedea & Abilities, RUN DMC, AC/DC, The Distillers, Iron Maiden, Agent Orange, Flogging Molly, Goldfinger, The Cult. It's jam after jam after jam. The whole package still holds up.

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Dishonorable Mention #1, aka 5th worst game all time - Final Fantasy XIV (PC, 2010)

No, not A Realm Reborn which looks like an absolute delight but I have no time to dive into an MMO. So I had played FFXI for 7 years when this came out and as one might expect I was very hyped for a new FF MMO. My friends and I got into the Alpha and Beta testing to help shape a game with our years of experience in XI. The Alpha was a putrid mess, and we sent so much feedback. None of it was taken. We played the Beta and again flooded Square with ideas and feedback about how awful this game was. It was not heard. The game came out, we all had the like super deluxe version that comes with a notebook and birth certificate for the game and so on.... the game was a pile of shit. Nothing the players had suggested was listened to. It was worse than FFXI in every conceivable way. We all went back to FFXI. XIV died later and had to be completely remade. The new game I never played. I was basically done with MMOs due to having a kid, work etc. Had XIV been what it is now, at launch I assume I would have gotten hooked and still be playing it now. FFXIV sucking at launch saved me from MMOs forever. Breaking that addiction was insanely hard. MMOs draw you in and completely consume your life. So... actually thanks FFXIV?



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#65 - TimeSplitters 2 (GCN, my GotY for 2002)


I really didnt enjoy first-person shooters until the addition of a second joystick. Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, Turok, Doom, Quake, nothing ever clicked with me until the Gamecube, and Timesplitters 2 was an amazing start to the genre. It never took itself too seriously, and the game was much better for it. I generally prefer arcade shooters over serious, realistic ones, and Timesplitters 2 definitely fell in the former category. My friends and I would spend hours a day doing deathmatches. Monkey is banned. Way too hard to hit.

Man, 2002 had a lot of really big releases that I played and didn't like. My only other games on the list were SA2:B and THPS4. Well, Vice City, MGS2, Metroid Fusion, and Mario Sunshine were good to me, but just not quite good enough for my list.

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I somehow never played TimeSplitters 2

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#72. VA-11 Hall-A (Vita, 2017)



I played this on the Vita, so this is my one Vita game in the rankings! (Some other games on here are on the Vita too, but I played them through other platforms)

On the surface, this is a story of Jill, a bartender who is working to serve drinks and make ends meet in a cyberpunk world, and the variety of quirky characters that come through. And while her story is interesting on its own, the real substance in the game is the variety of side characters. The dialogue is well written as they all discuss their lives, feelings, and takes on events. As you talk more with each person, you begin to piece together information. You start to realize you're hearing relationships and interactions these customers have had with each other, contrasting opinions on world news, and different experiences in specific events. The characters, while interesting enough individually, are all in the same city and have interweaving lives with each other or the events around them. Even though it's all experienced second-hand, it paints a very interesting world.

Also, the music and the jukebox are cool.

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#71. 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors (DS, 2010)



After playing the initial Phoenix Wright trilogy, I felt that visual novel games mixed with some level of puzzle solving was a cool thing that I wanted more of. 999 came along, and offered the puzzles in the form of room escapes, which was just starting to hit as a real life trend, and it seemed like a great idea.

So while the room escape puzzles were fun and different enough to keep things interesting, I did not expect the story to be as much as it was. The tension and danger of 9 people being trapped and fearing for their lives seems stronger than you would expect, even as you just read most of it. The rooms have you pairing up in different groups so you get to learn all about the characters along the way (or do you?!) Whew boy, there are some twists to that story. A handful of different endings makes sure things slowly get revealed to you in pieces, but just enough so that 999 can still slap you in the face with the big reveals, and a very clever final puzzle.

I've played the sequel, Virtue's Last Reward, and while I enjoyed that game, it wasn't quite as good as 999. Some of that game's puzzles were not quite as strong in that, and the appearance of VLR wasn't the nice 2D drawings, but more drab looking 3D. Still had a strong story and characters (though a lot more convoluted feeling at times).

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#64 - Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story (DS, 2009)

I CHANGED MY MIND AND WENT WITH THE VORE ANYWAY MWAHAHAHAHA

*ahem*

Just before the series was irreversibly ruined forever, Nintendo put out one final worthwhile Mario & Luigi game. They followed up the hit GBA game Superstar Saga with a DS game that just kinda expanded on the idea and brought nothing new to the table. Theres nothing blasphemous about it; I still love Partners in Time. Its just the bastard child of the original M&L trilogy. AlphaDream needed to come up with something a little different for its next installment, and they came up with what I consider the best idea theyve ever had.

They gave Bowser a starring role in an official Nintendo game. That alone doesnt make a good game, but luckily they supplemented his role with his own fun fighting scheme and some AMAZING dialogue. No other Mario game has made me laugh as much as BIS has. And honestly, thats the main selling point of this game for me. I was more than just thoroughly entertained the entire game through, and thats all I can ask for in a game.

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Another game that I want to get around to someday. I guess there was a fourth game that was bad or something? I don't even remember it.

I really liked the first two games.
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#80. Into The Breach (2018, PC)
A Tactical RPG appears! This game very much scratched the ol' Fire Emblem bug I had been craving when it came out, because the new Fire Emblem games are not quite my speed, but I'm pretty sure the core gameplay still is. Into The Breach is basically condensed and semi-procedurally generated Fire Emblem with customizable mechs. You pick your team, which has their own base stuff they start with, and go into maps where you have to stop the enemy monsters from attacking the cities, power plants, trains, and your own mechs themselves.There's 4 islands with several missions each, where you stop these monsters. The cities and buildings have an overall life meter that once that's depleted, you lose. Like Fire emblem, you lose a mech, you lose the pilot associated with it (I think you keep the mech and you can slot another pilot into it, but they may not be as leveled or have the ability you want). There's a ton of customization around the pilots, the mech's abilities and stats (you put points into what you want basically), and a shop where you can buy more stuff or points (you get the "currency" by achieving specific goals on each mission, like protecting a specific building or killing a certain enemy). Each run does not last that long too so you can play a little more aggressively which is neat. If you complete 4 areas on 4 islands, including the boss on each, you win! Generally you don't have to beat all the baddies, you just need to survive 5 or so turns. There'sother neat tactics you can take too like standing on spots where the enemies will spawn, so they don't (but you take some damage), or pushing enemies into water so they circuit out, or knocking them out of the path of attacking a building and into the path of attacking another enemy (you are told the order in which they will attack, so that is quite relevant)!

Anyway this is just a neat spin on Fire Emblem with a lot of different strategy, customization, a bevy of troops to start with and an all-around addicting game! No story here, but that's ok, it's a bit too short per run to have one. This is another game I bet I could have higher on a good day.
Oh, and from the makers of FTL, a game not on my Top 100, but still a quality game.



Next up: This will probably give it away for a lot of you but I don't care, grenade motherfucking dodgeball

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Paper Jam honestly isn't that bad, but it did troll everyone by having this as the battle music for the first hour of the game, and then never to be heard again, and that alone is unforgiveable.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DIQeREx59k

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WTF Wigs, the only thing Fire Emblem and Into the Breach have in common is that it's turn-based on a grid. Pretty much every single other aspect of both games are completely different.

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KingButz posted...

Another game that I want to get around to someday. I guess there was a fourth game that was bad or something? I don't even remember it.

I really liked the first two games.

There were five. Dream Team and Paper Jam came after.
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Into the Breach looks like a game I would really enjoy. That's in my "eventually I will get to this" category of games.

Another game mentioned earlier, Meteos, is also in that category. I kind of wish it would be revived in some form so it would be simpler to snag a copy now!

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#70. Spelunky 2 (PS4, 2020)



This writeup could just as easily go for the first Spelunky game. I've played both games a bunch, and there's so much similar stuff. I wasn't sure how to separate them, but because I've only played the sequel since it released, it's probably better to go with that one.

Spelunky is all about a procedurally generated series of cave/ruins/jungle/etc levels to explore with your whip, bombs, and ropes, while collecting treasures. The gameplay is simple but solid. The limited resources, coupled with the unknown element of the random caves, forces you to take a lot of risks and weigh simple decisions. Juggling resources on the fly, coupled with traps, a time limit, and a fair amount of enemies wandering around can make things tough. It balances the level of difficulty so well between fair and unfair.

There are a lot of different areas to explore, hidden paths, hidden items, and it's all very cool. I appreciate the depth to which exploration is encouraged. I do have a bit of an issue with the secret best ending needing an obtuse set of items/decisions to be made, something I can't believe people ever stumbled upon without a guide. It's just a little too much. But then I looked it up and still try for it. Oh, and the daily challenges are a fun feature. It's always nice to have a good run and get on the leaderboard.

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MrSmartGuy posted...

WTF Wigs, the only thing Fire Emblem and Into the Breach have in common is that it's turn-based on a grid. Pretty much every single other aspect of both games are completely different.

It's maybe not as same as I made it out but I think the similarities still go a little bit deeper than just that but fair enough, not right of me to call it Fire Emblem with mechs.

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71.) Mega Man Maverick Hunter X (2006, Vita)



I was never a big fan of Mega Man X - I never had an SNES and was really more of a fan of classic mega man. But I am a big fan of the clever way in which Maverick Hunter X set things up. The stages are interconnected - you shut down Storm Eagles giant fans and suddenly Spark Mandrill's stage has all these changes.

I also really like the way that Vile mode and Zero mode make subtle changes to things. It also handled pretty well. All in all I was looking forward to the other 5 remakes but poor sales gonna be poor.

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Whoa, eddv coming in with the unexpected Mega Man choice. I was expecting a handful of Mega Man games to pop up on lists, but not this one.

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70.) Bloodstained Curse of the Moon 2 (Switch, 2020)


I am a big fan of the old style castlevania and unlike metroidvanias its sort of a dead genre. So when bloodstained started coming out with these Castlevania III ripoffs I was all in. They got this perfect. Each character handles ever so slightly differently.

Here each character has unique powers and powerups and the two player mode is surprisingly fun couch co-op.


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#79. Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception (PS3, 2011)
Hi bartz

This clearly isn't going to be the last time I talk about this series so I'll keep it more brief here and a lot of what I think also echoes his feelings, but this game isn't quite as good or memorable as some of its other entries, and comparing to them it doesn't do as well, but that's not quite fair because it's still a great game with its own standout moments and sections, in a series where moments and setpieces and grandeur and cinematography reigns supreme. I think why I like this less might just be it's placement in the series, where it had started to feel a bit worn out with similar story arcs 3 times over, but hey, everything you love here that I loved in the other games,namely the good stuff I said, is still here. Climbing around on crazy or ancient shit is always fun, maybe uninteresting, but made up for by the fantastic visuals and presentation. Uncharted is a summer movie flick in game form and the formula worked for most of the games in the series. The gun combat is solid too. Nolan North is his usual self. Cutter is good? The British lady villain is good. The suit dude is whatever. The plot is the weakest of the 4 main games, but I do think the slow decline in supernatural is cool to see viewing the series from a distance

Anyway, SET PIECES! The stowaway plane sequence is fantastic, so is the caravan chase, and especially the sinking ship, as it tosses about and gravity plays a fun part.

And yeah, the multiplayer here. I think it did overcomplicate 2 a bit, but all the additions were fun and felt pretty good once you learned them all. 3 also really fleshed out the modes and co-op a lot from 2, and that was a ton of fun to go through. And The Labs in 3's multiplayer was the highlight, they really got to experiment with some neat modes and ideas. Notably, GRENADE DODGEBALL (oh shit!)




Next up (77, since I did 78): Another retro-inspired game, implemented quite well.

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#69. The Legend of Zelda (NES, 1987)



The Zelda series built so much off of the core mechanics from this game, adding and tweaking and improving things, but also changing a lot of what makes a game Zelda. But really, just being down to the basics of exploring and collecting and discovering and adventuring is all this game needs to be good. It's a simple game, but there's a lot to it. This overworld still might be the most fun to wander around in (although, I haven't played Breath of the Wild yet).

The randomizers for this game have helped my enjoyment of it, even though they're not technically this game. I haven't actually played them much, but I've watched quite a few races. I think LoZ randomizer races come out to just the right time length, not too long or short of a game. It's also helped me better understand the mechanics at play in LoZ, and it's all very interesting stuff.

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69.) Thousand Arms (PSX, 1999)



So before Ar Tonelico and the like there was this weird ass game. Its a combination Dating Sim/JRPG with the cheesy 90s style anime tropes on full display in a way that honestly is sort of refreshing. You play as a spirit blacksmith who can use your spirit to imbue your weapons with certain spells and powers.

And how do you acquire these powers? By going on Dates with babes of course! After you go on the date, you harness the intimacy you felt with that woman to literally increase the power of your blade. There is of course a main girl, who is very jealous of all the babes you have to date to be a better blacksmith, but that's the cost of art baby.

The dates are goofy and not always super logical and that's really half the fun. The battle system is pretty interesting too. Rather than your typical RPG where you have a part of three who are all acting - you have a party of three where one person is doing all the fighting for each side, with the other two are providing support and you can shift who is in the lead in each game.

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#63 - Chrono Trigger (SNES, my GotY for 1995)


I would hesitate to call this game revolutionary, but it was still very innovative in multiple areas. The battle system is awesome. The time travel mechanics are really fun. Reducing the plot to a story about saving the world from an alien parasite would be doing a disservice to the incredible moments throughout the game. The characters are well-written (though Frogs dialogue is hard to read) and have great designs.

Ayla > Magus > Crono > Robo > Frog > Marle > Lucca btw

Anyway, its simply an RPG where literally everything is done really well. I just never played this back in the day. I didnt play this until it got ported to the DS, and I have to say, it still holds up today. One of the objectively best games Ive ever played. I just dont have the crazy nostalgia for it that others have. Like Nick. I think Ive heard he kinda likes this game.

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Wow spoilers

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72. Crystalis (NES, 1990)

I think most folks of my age grew up falling in love with either the Legend of Zelda or Final Fantasy. Me? I had Crystalis, one of the first games that successfully combined open world exploration, a boatload of items and abilities, and an RPG-style leveling-up system and storyline. Crystalis has a similar kind of cadence to Final Fantasy IV, where story moments happen suddenly and dramatically. The whole set of psychic powers always seemed super rad to me as a kid, I still can't think of many games where Telekinesis is something learn. And as someone who has never loved RPGs particularly, having no turn-based battles was a plus. And hey, there's that absolute banger of an overworld theme, too. Somehow despite not being a fighting game fan I still managed to place two SNK games within three spots of this list; what an achievement!

71. StepMania (PC, 2001)

Honestly debated for quite a while whether this was enough of a "game" for the list, but as you can see, here it is. StepMania is a freeware PC Dance Dance Revolution simulator, and because it's so good, it is basically the only one you have heard about or ever will hear about. Since its release, it's been all over the place - the popular fan-game In The Groove uses StepMania as its engine, and was over arcades in the US in the mid/late-2000s. In addition, there's an absurd amount of original user-created content by this point, ranging all over the place in difficulty, length, and gimmickry.
StepMania was the stepping stone to get me from DDR to more complex hand-based rhythm games. I've never gotten bonkers good at it - I always preferred optimizing my timing to playing super dense or difficult charts - but I'm still "pretty alright". As stated earlier, the vast network of content means you can find something that will play to your interests, as long as the central conceit of a 4-button rhythm game is compelling enough.
I'm gonna spoil my own list here - DDR itself is on the list too, and there's a lot of stuff I'm kind of omitting here to save for that writeup. But StepMania itself has been a unique experience of enjoyment, and one that has largely stuck with me over the course of 20 years, and really deserved both recognition and a place in the Top 100.

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Crystalis overworld, great FFR chart

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#74 Total Annihilation (Microsoft Windows, 1997)

Wow, it only took a quarter of the way through the list to get to my first real-time strategy game! But I am sure a lot of you who have played Total Annihilation are wondering what other titles in the genre I will rank higher. For a lot of people, this is the epitome of the classic RTS. It has a sprawling tech tree, a wide variety of units, and a couple of challenging and lengthy campaigns.



I don't think the game stands out that much today, but at the time it took everything that people liked about the genre and turned it up to 11, which was really appealing. The resource management was more than one-dimensional unlike Command and Conquer, but still simple enough to manage easily. The Commander was a great take on the hero unit concept which eventually was popularized by Warcraft. The soundtrack was suitably epic and all the units made satisfying mechanical noises.

I still go back and play some campaign missions from time to time. I didn't play this one online much, but the single player experience I had with Total Annihilation was immensely entertaining.


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