Board 8 > The Board 8 Discord Sports Chat Ranks Their Top 100 Respective VIDEO Games pt. 2

(+) Yeah! (+)

Diddy Kong Racing still sucks a lots

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#29 - Mario Tennis (GBC, 2001)


MSG how could you? You have the other GBC game higher than golf too?! Yeah, its still better. Just gonna kinda piggyback off my N64 write-up, but Mario Tennis is by far its best at its simplest. And the handheld version played just as good as its console counterpart.

The big step-up here is that you have a very similar RPG story mode as the GBC Mario Golf. The main difference here is that you have to climb the ranks in just the Academy, as opposed to participating in tournaments on different courses. Once you get to the #1 ranking in the school, then you have to battle a varsity team member to get a spot on the traveling team. Once you do that, theres one final tournament where each of the 4 nearby schools (Academy, Union, Empire, and Factory) sends its 4 top competitors to compete in a best-of-the-best tournament. Once the game gets here, there are actually a few plot twists for both singles and doubles play, which is legitimately shocking, given this was the first Mario Tennis portable game.

Afterward, surprise surprise, you gotta go face Mario, but seriously, I really think the high point of any Mario sports game ever has gotta be that big area-spanning tournament. I have to imagine it was a step out of Nintendo and Camelots comfort zone, and Im glad they took it. It was a ton of fun.

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Super Duper Honorable Mention - SNATCHER (PSX, my GotY for 1996)

Oh boy, time to invalidate the entire series, because I just made my list contain 100 games! I cant believe I fucking forgot to include this game. I mean, I guess I can, considering Ive never actually played it myself, but even just watching it has left a very lasting impression on me. Maybe even more so than any of Kojimas other works. Had I remembered to include this game initially, I would have placed it here at my real #29.


SNATCHER is more or less a traditional adventure game, originally created for the PC-8801 and MSX2 in Japan way back in 1988, and never made it to the States until 8 years later, but it still really feels like a game made in the late 80s. Youre stuck in a first-person perspective and have fairly limited options for interacting with the environment. There are only a few options the game gives you, depending on the situation youre in. The game does its best to poke fun at itself for this, though. At one point, during a particularly harrowing scene where you are truly desperate, none of the 4 options the game gives you will work. Upon trying all of these, a 5th option Pray to God will appear. If you try that, there is a quick scene, at the end of which, your sidekick will exclaim Look, a new command has appeared in your menu!


Occasionally, you will come across an enemy, and the game will go into a shooting stance, where you have 9 squares that cover the entirety of the screen, and you will have to shoot something in one of them, QTE-style. Other times, it will go full shooting gallery and multiple enemies will swarm your screen and you have to shoot all of them as quickly as you can before they deplete your health bar.


Both of these segments are augmented by a tremendous soundtrack. Several tracks have stood out to me over the years as true classics. I dont think a game has ever made me feel as on edge as SNATCHER does quite so regularly, and its because of its plethora of tense music to go along with it. Whether youre investigating a potential SNATCHERs home, or investigating your partners abandoned home for clues, you never truly feel safe. That any minute, theres gonna be a bloody robot that bursts through the window to get you. Still, though, playing the game itself isnt the reason youd play the game. Its because of its amazing story.

SNATCHER tells the tale of Gillian Seed, an amnesiac living in the cyberpunk future 50 years after a biological weapon is released into the atmosphere, killing 50% of the human race. He decides to become a JUNKER, one who hunts body-snatching robots that have been infiltrating humanity in a secret plot to take over the world. He travels from location to location, gathering clues, talking to witnesses, and blasting enemies in an attempt to unearth SNATCHERs before they can take hold of important roles in society. Over the course of the game, deciding who he can and cant trust is crucial to not just his survival, but the dwindling human races.


The overall idea is a gryffin-like mix of Blade Runner, Body Snatchers, and typical Kojima fare. At one point, you discover a weeks-old body and have to figure out who it is, so you can deduce who has been snatched. Your little robot friend (who is named Metal Gear btw), then goes through 50 different processes, explaining in minute detail each one, to utilize the skeletons cranial features to piece together what age, race, and other features might be, to output a rough sketch of what the face might look like. If youve played any of the actual Metal Gear games, you know how bad Kojima loves to show off his science boner, and its in full display here.


But you dont read my write-ups to get juicy details about Kojimas weiner, you come to read why a game is good and should be played. I can sum that up quite aptly. Its because SNATCHERs story is just that good. I dont want to get too into detail, because its legitimately one of my favorite stories of any medium. As soon as you think you know where the games plot is headed, Kojima swiftly yanks you aside and screams GUESS AGAIN BITCH! It is legitimately an insanely wild ride from beginning to end.

Slowbeef did a fantastic LP of the game years and years ago, and its held up super well over time. Go check it out here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkDfOiLbHa0&list=PL-DNICST8ZbwUgG_Pmdqs2TANCcKo6G8-

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#36 - Yakuza Kiwami 2 (PS4, 2018)

This is still my only Yakuza platinum after all I've done in this series, and for good reason - the streamlining of the completion list and actually making it feel less like a list of annoyance and more of fun things to do, like playing mahjong for five hours to clear that portion of it (hey, it's a good game). The game has one of the best stories in the series that I've played, and Kaoru Sayama is one of the better written female characters in the series, and she really shines here in her only major appearance. The game having no transitions between shops, minigame areas, and most buildings is a huge plus over how 0 and the first Kiwami were. Majima's story line also provides some closure to one of the dangling story threads from his plot in 0, and is a great addition to the overall story. While the combat takes a step back from the previous games by removing may of Kiryu's fighting styles, it trades off with implementing many of each style's moves into one large list as well as making weapons obscenely powerful, which is why the unlimited durability lightsaber became my weapon of choice for some of the more harder challenges as well as Legend Mode. Overall, it's one of the best Yakuza games. It's not the highest Yakuza game on the list, though.

#35 - Steins;Gate 0 (Vita, 2016)

The zero in the title makes this sound like a prequel, but it really isn't. Due to all the time travel stuff going on in the Steins;Gate storyline this game is both an interquel and a sequel to the original game. The basic plot is that Rintaro Okabe, due to events that happen near the end of the original Steins;Gate, has gone back to college and attends a presentation on the Amadeus system that allows people to create AI avatars out of their own memories and have it think independently - one based on a character Okabe knows very well. Like the original, various choices have the game shift between worldlines depending on what happens in the story. It's hard to explain without going too much into spoilers, but the overall product is a definite great story for the Science Adventure series... and yet, it's the lowest rank SciAdv game on the list. More on that when we get to the others!

#34 - Animal Crossing (GameCube, 2002)

I don't know if anyone frequents some of the game boards, but a large amount of my early time on GameFAQs, and what led me to posting on the boards in the first place, was the Animal Crossing Trading board, where I spent tons of my time giving out items to others. I had only expected to trade fruits with each other at the start. This is the first game I bought myself for the GameCube and as such with many games back then I did not have many other games to play so I played this for more than any other GameCube game. I think given how long I played this and how much I did in this one it has actually turned me off from playing other Animal Crossing games since as I have done so much in this one. New Leaf was the only one that actually kept me playing for a long amount of time and is on this list, but the play time between the two isn't even close.

Also, who can talk about Animal Crossing and not mention the NES games in it! Before Nintendo realized they could make money on people's love for older games, plenty of them are included in this game able to be played whenever. I had pretty much all of them lined up in the basement of my house ready to play them whenever I wanted. Now I can do that on the Switch too, but it was very cool back then to have them all there.

#33 - Fate/grand order (Mobile, 2017)



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#33 Hotline Miami (Microsoft Windows, 2012)

This feels like a game made just for me. The pulsing electronic soundtrack, 80s motif, intense action, and surreal ultraviolence all come together for an end-product that delights my senses. The fast-paced absurd difficulty is a wonderful combo that, much like Super Meat Boy, compel me to keep trying despite dozens of failures.



You play each level with the goal to eliminate every enemy, but how exactly you do that is left for you to figure out. Everyone, including the player character, is basically dead in one hit, which means you need to outsmart your numerous enemies just as much as you need to out-twitch them. Like other all-time great games, the difficulty ramps up just enough to keep you trying on each level. And it's very much the player who levels-up throughout this one; going back to the first few levels after beating the game feels a lot like "God Mode."

You can take your time and size everything up, but once you get good enough it's possible to speed through every level like a deadly demon, effortlessly taking out every enemy as they come. And it's not really memorizationthe AI usually acts slightly different every try so you constantly have to be thinking as you go. Hotline Miami is incredibly violent, even in its blurry pixel guise, so I really would not recommend it to the squeamish.

Going back to the other elements of the game, it's got an amazing soundtrack that is best blared loudly, and it's coupled with a bright and wild aesthetic that evokes the neon best of the 1980s. The story is trippy and probably a little deeper than you might think at first, and is surprisingly lengthy for an indie game like this. There are secret collectables throughout the game that unlock the true ending, but that actually was one of the least good parts of this game, so it's a good thing that's optional.

I played through on PC when it was new and again on PS4 for free. I still play a few levels from time to time and Hotline Miami is one of those games that I can just pick up for 5, 10, 15 minutes and enjoy whenever I feel like it or want to blow off some steam.

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40. Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader (Gamecube, 2001)

I dunno if this is a Hot Take or not, but Rogue Leader is the best Star Wars game by a country mile. It puts you in the cockpit for the greatest missions of the original trilogy, both those seen and not seen during the films. It handles superbly, regardless of which of the many ships you choose - and most ships in the universe are available for most missions. Unlike its predecessor, though, it also puts you in the seat of the Empire for some missions. At the time, it was a game that looked and sounded so much better than its peers and its predecessor that it was absolutely breathtaking at the time. It is the closest any Star Wars game comes to making you feel like you are playing a Star Wars film. The only demerit (fixed by its successor the good but not great Rogue Squadron 3) is its lack of multiplayer, but honestly, it was so engrossing - and there were plenty of other good multiplayer games in the Gamecube launch window - that you never noticed.

39. Total Annihilation (PC, 1997)

Total Annihilation is, I think, the most dystopic RTS game. The landscapes are often - but not always - desolate and sparse, and your resource gathering is often reclaiming discarded hunks of metal and such. But mostly, I think, it's that there's not a single human or even sentient creature involved. The entire cast of units and characters - in so much as there are characters - is robotic. That doesn't detract from the experience, it just creates a much darker feel than most RTS games have, which is saying something.

This game, as Bartz alluded to earlier, proved to be somewhat influential and transitory in the RTS landscape. Hero units were by and large not a thing yet. Naval units were still prominent features in strategy games. Solar energy was a blossoming technology in the real world, featured in-game as a futurist take on limitless energy. From a gameplay perspective, it's a two faction situation, with 2-3 styles of unit, depending on whether or not there's water present for the naval units, and it's incredibly well balanced. The missions are satisfying and plentiful, and the multiplayer was pretty good for the late 90s on DSL or whatever. But more than anything, it's the game that got me hooked on strategy games, which have been a continued delight, whether turn-based or real-time, ever since.

38. Dave Mirra's Freestyle BMX 2 (Gamecube, 2001)

This might surprise people to learn, but of all the EXTREME SPORTS games, this might actually be the best. THPS games played as a sort of cartoonish/heightened/surreal version of skateboarding, and they are all great. But Dave Mirra's Freestyle BMX 2 is a little less heightened, a little more true to the sport, and largely better for it. The game features enormous, well-designed levels, a roster of the greatest riders of the time, plus a kid who won a contest, an Amish child who rode a wooden bike, and the Slim Jim guy. It controlled spectacularly, which is no small feat given that bikes are a lot harder to program for and animate than skateboards. And it had a dope soundtrack, featuring Gang Starr, Rage Against the Machine, A Tribe Called Quest, and Black Sabbath.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GybhmEvcFX8&list=PLj4BYrSiv2LOuFTNGZuWV_OyGKWBmOywk

As a kid who grew up pulling dangerous tricks without a helmet in ramshackle environments on a shitty Huffy, this game meant the world to me as a teenager. It's a shame Acclaim basically fell apart shortly after releasing it. There's never been a good BMX game since.

37. Phantasy Star Online: Episodes I & II / Blue Burst (DC/Gamecube/PC, 2001-2005)

Phantasy Star Online is probably the game I have put the most hours into in my life. It started with one circle of friends, on the Dreamcast. It shifted to a second group of friends (and sometimes my brother) on GameCube, when Episode I & II were released. It jumped to Board 8 for Blue Burst. I have played this game from the beginning with so many people and I have enjoyed it with all of them. I don't regret a single minute of it, not even with those who aren't a part of my life any more.

I don't have much else to say about it that you don't already know, except for this: it remains one of my absolute favorite video game soundtracks of all time. It's so lush and beautiful and every song matches its setting to a T. Listen to it below.

https://youtu.be/8AXsWrgPRZ0?t=6072

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#36. Bloodborne (2015, PS4)
Bloodborne was my intro game to the Soulsborne franchise, and man was I not having a good time with this game at first. Some of it was the difficulty for sure, but I think it was also not really getting the hang of the combat, probably not being aggressive enough, and just not having the feel in general for these kinds of games. I remember complaining about it a bunch in the chat and giving up for the time being. I revisited it some amount of time later, willing to give another shot, and this time it took, and in a big way. This game made me really love these games, even if I dont quite like the Dark Souls games as much as this one.

Ive been through a bit on why I like these games, but I think once you get used to them, theyre the right level of challenge. Usually you dont have to trek too far to get back to the spot where you died. You feel yourself getting better and learning new enemy patterns as you go, and just generally playing smarter. The combat feels great and taking down tough enemy and bosses, also great.
What makes Bloodborne a step up for me are a few things. I love the setting and area design a lot more than the Souls games. The gothic style of the environment is fantastic. Despite the areas all being generally the same, they still manage to feel quite different. The enemies and bosses are way higher on the cool and creepy and eerie scale than Dark Souls big-ass knights or occasional fire demon or big fat club man and his dragoon buddy. Not to say there arent cool bosses in Dark Souls, cuz there definitely are! In both games, walking around a new area is scary because you dont know whats going to come out after you- but in Bloodborne you can probably feel confident its going to be some goddamn nightmare. It will made me say WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT out loud quite often! And that one moment when - lets say that moment when you get unexpectedly teleported (except you dont) - is legitimately terrifying. Not in a jumpscare way cuz I dont like that stuff. But in a HOLY FUCK WHAT way. Rom is also a great fight, probably the most memorable.

Further, thecombat style works better here imo than Dark Souls. Dark Souls has a lot of guarding and playing it safe to wait for an enemy opening. Maybe get a few pokes in and back off, especially if you get hit. Bloodborne has the system where if you are hit, you have a few seconds to regain some of that health you lost back, by attacking back quickly, and that system really speeds up the combat and makes it a lot more dynamic and exciting. The magic looks great. I havent actually used it on my character, but it looks fucking cool lol. Maybe some day. I am aware the balance isnt as good in this game as far as the things that are good or bad to use, as opposed to Dark Souls where pretty much anything can be good.

The chalice dungeons also made for some fun post-game combat, if not a little long and drawn out- but I really enjoyed co-oping some of them with MSG! Theres a bunch of unique bosses just in there, so those were enjoyable too. But in general, this game is the more fun, more aggressive, and more Lovecraftian version of Dark Souls, and thats why its my favorite of its kind.



Next Up: This game features a hippo eating a drug cartel leader. Probably.

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33. Harvest Moon: Back to Nature (PS1, 1999)

Harvest Moon is such a tricky series to explain. Historically, it's all over the place - it was very unusual when it first landed stateside in the mid-90's, got the market overflown with a glut of games after its popularity boomed in the 2000s, and then retreated to near-nonexistence once Natsume killed it off/it got replaced by Story of Seasons and Stardew Valley. What made the best versions so compelling was their fusion of different game genres: the economic engine-building and optimization of a simulation game, combined with the personality and wit of a dating sim, mixed with the quaint pastoral charm and "live your best life" ethos of Animal Crossing. I didn't discover the series before Harvest Moon 64, but Back to Nature was "the best Harvest Moon", according to my PlayStation-owning friend (I only had a 64). Turns out, he was right (for my money, at least) and once I did end up getting a PS1 a year down the road I immediately picked up a copy of this classic. And, to be fair, for the developers it seems to be the case as well, as it's been remade in two separate instances, for GBA in the mid-aughts and recently under the Story of Seasons moniker for Switch.
Why is BTN the best? For one thing, it simply has much more content than its N64 counterpart (with which it shares most of the character sprites). You can do daily digging trips into the mine; there are a ton of more crops to get; the animal husbandry is more involved; the cookbook can actually create real recipes; the farm upgrades are way more substantial; and probably quite a few other things I've since forgotten. The townspeople have more significant daily schedules - they'll actually move out and about in the town in different hours, instead of just teleporting from one place to another. And I think they get the most out of the characters as well; they're a little more fleshed out here than in 64.
Ultimately, though, the core gameplay loop is just a dang good time. Days go pretty quick and you can easily get lost for a few hours just knocking out a ton of farming tasks and maximizing your profits. There's a ton of hidden secrets, some of which you might discover just by playing around, many which I only learned by looking up detailed guides on GameFAQs. And I think for all the charm of an Animal Crossing and the depth of a sim game, it's the personality of this game, and the fusion of both of those aspects, that wins me over the most. Harvest Moon: Back to Nature tells the story of your character over the course of its game, and how you ultimately ended up being successful and winning the choice spouse of your dreams (or not). It's got a narrative bent to it that is both heartfelt and satisfying. I ended up docking this one down a few spots because it has just been so long since I've gotten this game out, but I still do love the hell out of it. Maybe one day I'll get around to giving Stardew Valley a shot...

32. Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour (GameCube, 2003)

As alluded to in my writeup for Everybody's Golf, there was one golf game ahead of it on the list. Here it is! Toadstool Tour might not be a particularly unusual choice for best golf or even sports game, especially from a Nintendo fan, but I still have to say how surprised I was by the extent to which I enjoyed it.
In 2011, I picked up this (and Kirby Air Ride) from an old-used-games store when I was looking for some affordable GameCube games, and I ended up playing it for, like, three months straight. I grinded through the single-player mode, unlocking all the courses, completing the Par-3 course challenge, doing all the ring shots (after looking up a few of the hardest ones), and getting the Star-power for every character. I busted out multiplayer with friends. Sometimes I just dipped into the game to do a quick tournament with a character I didn't use because plowing through a course in 20-30 minutes was such a blast.
While I can understand the golf purists preferring some of the "missing" characters and features from N64's Mario Golf, the speed and smoothness of play in Toadstool Tour, combined with the active options for ball spin, make this one just feel like such a step up in terms of play quality. And the courses are especially memorable - the first couple are fairly straightforward but you can throw down some ridiculously low numbers once you get the hang of 'em. The second pair feature particularly treacherous sand bunkers and water hazards. And the last two are themed around Peach's and Bowser's castles, respectively. They're filled with novel gimmicks, like pipes, Thwomps, and Boos, but in a way that doesn't seem exceptionally unfair - they're just different types of hazards you have to navigate in this universe, and I think that works pretty well.
There's some other fun/annoying stuff in the package (the multiplayer has a feature where you can obnoxiously "taunt" the player currently on-turn, throwing giant text boxes all over the screen before they start their shot) but it's really all about the gameplay here. I'm hoping if they bring a new Mario Golf to Switch they can capture this energy (and not end up spinning into more Mario-themed gimmick moves like Tennis Aces did), but regardless, this game will always stand as a testament to video game golf greatness.


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#35. Hitman 2 (2018, PS4)
This game includes Hitman 1, since I got the Hitman 1 legacy pack with it, but it all runs on the Hitman 2 engine, so its pretty much just Hitman 2 (but with the Hitman 1 levels in it also).

I never played a Hitman game until this year. Seeing Sphynx run it at Extra Life a couple years ago though really let me see for the first time just how cool this game is, and how creative it can let you be; trying to kill your assassination targets in a myriad of creative ways. Sure you can just creep up on em and silence pistol them in the head. But whats that when you can feed a dude to a hippo, set up someone to take someone elses place on a model runway and drop the stage lights on them, disguise yourself as a pit member for an auto race and sabotage your targets wheels, disguise yourself as a mascot whos in trouble with the mob, shit man I could keep going forever here.



The locales in this game are stunning and huge and beautiful and have so much to explore. Which lends itself to killing your desired target pretty much however you want. The basic ways being shooting, poisoning, throwing something sharp at their head, pushing them off from a large height, drowning them in the toilet, or garroting them. Of course, you can take out (with or without killing, as you desire) other guys along the way to get them out of the way, or get their outfit to guise yourself. In general the less people you kill and the less you are spotted the better your score (which matters for unlocking new stuff to start the level with, or new areas to start each level in on replay for example). People may get suspicious if whoever you are guised as goes into an area theyre not supposed to, or if someone recognizes you arent who you are (like a chef might recognize his co-chef for example and see something is up if youre dressed as him). The game has an absolutely fantastic sense of humor and somehow has a story that is super serious while simultaneously the gameplay pulls no punches in not taking itself seriously whatsoever- its so bombastic pretty much everything will make you laugh. It's so goofy for a game about assassination.



The gameplay just feels great too. Taking someone out (again, a ton of ways to do it, but tired and true, sneak up behind em when no one is looking and dump their body in a dumpster) never gets old. My favorite thing to do on a new level is just explore every inch, and take everything in and maybe take them out a standard way, or follow the story guides which will mission progress you on the story ways in which to take out your targets, before getting into the specific challenges where some of the ways really get fun-especially when you get some of the characters to meet each other. I especially enjoyed becoming a barber and giving like 15 different people a nice shave before my target came in for a shave and well



Also, the Escalation Contracts that anyone can make are a fantastic idea where anyone can custom create their own mission on any level, like kill these 5 random people on a level-the first one has to be while disguised as a waiter with a screwdriver. The second has to be disguised as a pilot dropping a chandelier. Etc. Those are super fun to mess around with too.

The World Is Your Weapon.



Whittleton Creek > Miami > Isle of Sgail > Santa Fortuna > Bangkok > Sapienza > Mumbai > Hokkaido > Paris > Marrakesh > Hawke's Bay > Colorado

Next Up: A series where the main character finally shows some character growth in this final (mainline) installment.

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#59 Pikmin 2 (Gamecube, 2004)


Pikmin is my #3 Nintendo series, but unfortunately, this is the lone rep on my Top 100 due to the stiff competition.

I immediately fell in love with Pikmin when I first played it in 2002. With strong exploration and puzzle elements supplementing its RTS core, it along with fantastic, natural environments checked off so many boxes for me. I actually failed to be it my first time playing it thanks to the time limit trying to figure things out, but I wasn't too upset. The second was a major improvement over the first.

Now while I wasn't too upset about there being a time limit in the first game, I would choose no time limit over having one every time. I like taking things at my own pace, so Pikmin 2 was more up my alley. It's a bit of a double-edge sword at times, but the inclusion of the caves/underground areas were a fantastic addition. That's arguably where the game had the best puzzles and were the most creative. They did sometimes go on for too long, you had limited places to leave if you needed/wanted to, and you had to start over from the beginning if you left. The two new Pikmin types, White and Purple, were also neat, but as far as I can recall, you could only increase their numbers in caves.

The new multiplayer battles were sneakily pretty damn great. It felt like a true RTS game with the win conditions and wide variety of maps. None of my friends were really interested in them, but I got them to play it at least few times at least.

Every game in the series is great (yes Hey! Pikmin is in my Top 10 3DS games), but 2 I feel stands out the most for how much is expanded the formula it set forth while giving me full control to explore on my own terms (unless I am mistaken, 3 also had a time limit as its sustence resource was finite).

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#38. We Love Katamari (PS2, 2005)



I'm just writing the word Love instead of the heart symbol throughout this because even explaining this is faster than finding the symbol.

Katamari Damacy was a unique experience that I luckily got to play pretty soon after its release. When We Love Katamari came out, looking bigger and better than the first, I knew I had to have it and play it. Except, I didn't own the game. My girlfriend at the time got it. We played on her copy of the game a whole bunch. I went through the whole game and put a lot of time into it. Eventually we broke up, so at some point, I had to find a used copy for myself. And I started over, went through the whole game, and then collected every item (even those darn flowers). I very rarely put that much effort into doing 100% of a game, especially something I've fully beaten before. It's kind of a big deal that I put that much work into We Heart Katamari.

It helped that this game truly did improve upon the original. There were more weird characters and weird stories and weird interludes, more eccentric songs, and more things to roll up. There were new types of levels, so you could try for speed or size or accuracy or finding specific items. And everything that worked in the first game? They just left it how it worked. It's amazing they just got the Katamari formula completely right on the second game.

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#58 Paper Mario (N64, 2000)


The Mario universe is such a fantastic creation that it easily translates to just about any genre. Some series (Mario Party) do a better job than others (Mario Tennis) at rendering the lore and charm from the flagship series to other areas. I bring this up because while I think Super Mario RPG was a solid game, it was lacking in elements that I cherised about games in the franchise. I know Squaresoft developed the game, so I chalked it up to being the result of an outside developer. Years later, Paper Mario came along from Intelligent Systems, which I want to say was always an internal Nintendo studio, that utilized several of the combat features from SMRPG. Now this is how you do a Mario RPG!

Everything seems on-brand to a Mario game. From the world, the story, characters big and small, it was steady being whimsical and vivacious. There was never a dull moment, never a dip in quality. It started off strong and never deviated from that position.

One of my favorite lines in a video game was the one shown above uttered by a minor character called Gourmet Guy. At one point during the chapter interludes, you have to bake him a cake. It is easy to mess up as it has some timed portions. If you do mess up, you hear him scream at you, "Where did you learn to cook, truck driving school?" 10-year-old me thought it was hilarious, and so does 30-year-old me. It has become an inside joke between my sister and I where we will say, "Where did you learn to ___, truck driving school!?" I promise you, it's funny.

Mario spawned two separate RPG series (Paper Mario and Mario & Luigi), and while I would consider all of them to be good games, the first Paper Mario is still the best to me due to it nailing the look and feel of a Mario-themed RPG and its consistency of excellence.

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#57 Oregon Trail II (PC, 1995)


I actually never played the original Oregon Trail until the past decade. Whenever people would talk about it Oregon Trail, I assumed they meant this version. In another admission, I didn't own this game until high school. My entire history with the game prior to that was actually playing it on the school's computer. We would all compete to be the first one to reach the destination, and there were many obstacles outside of the game.

Back then, our classrooms had 2-4 computers, and its primary use was to do actual schoolwork. If you did receive permission to use it for games (I honestly can't recall what other games they had installed beside Oregon Trail II), it wouldn't be for too long. There was also an issue of save files. For starters, they would only save on the computer it was on, so if your only option was to play it on a computer that your file wasn't on, you'd had to make a new one and start over. It wasn't uncommon for kids to have files on every computer. I'd like to think that I was excluded from this group, but maybe we all sucked at naming files because we always had to load up a file and see the names of characters in our party to see if they were ours. I'm sure there were multiple cases of kids playing on the files of other kids by accident, causing further issues.

When it came to playing the game though, most of the kids just spent a lot of time doing their part of destroying every ecosystem by hunting every thing that moved. I had my eye on the prize though. I sparingly hunted and focused on making the most efficient use of my time. Many kids, including myself, died at some point, forcing us to resort to another save on another computer or restarting completely. This was during the 4th grade, which was half a decade after the game came out (not that it matters, and I already said that I was born in the 90s), and that was a different school year for me because one day of the week, I actually went to another school as part of a program, so my opportunities to play were limited compared to everyone else in my class.

One day late in the school year though, everything aligned, and I couldn't believe it when I reached the final destination (I knew you could choose multiple destinations, but I think we call chose Oregon City thinking that made the most sense). By all accounts, I should not have been the first one to finish the game, but I was the king of the classroom for that moment, and I will always have a soft spot for this game.

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What a regrettable addition to the top five.

#1 Jackbox Party Pack: 580 (+4)
#2 Super Smash Bros. Melee: 566 (-1)
#3 Final Fantasy IV: 466 (-1)
#4 Final Fantasy VI: 462 (-1)
#5 Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception: 456 (+47)
#5 Diddy Kong Racing: 456 (+16)
#7 Mario Tennis: 441 (-3)
#7 Super Smash Bros. Ultimate: 441 (+28)
#9 Super Mario Odyssey: 419 (NEW)
#10 Yoshi's Island: 409 (NEW)
#11 Borderlands 2: 399 (NEW)
#12 Mega Man 3: 398 (-6)
#13 Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Spirit of Justice: 393 (+40)
#14 Pokemon RBY: 392 (+33)
#14 Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow: 392 (-8)
#14 Final Fantasy Tactics: 392 (NEW)
#17 The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: 390 (NEW)
#18 The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker: 379 (NEW)
#19 Mario Kart 8: 366 (-11)
#19 Rock Band 2: 366 (-11)
#21 The Walking Dead: Season 1: 364 (-11)
#22 The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past: 355 (-11)
#22 Final Fantasy XIII: 355 (-11)
#24 Tecmo Super Bowl: 347 (-11)
#25 Bioshock: 345 (NEW)
#26 Snowboard Kids 2: 343 (-12)
#27 Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2: 341 (-12)
#28 Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors: 322 (-12)
#29 Hotline Miami: 318 (NEW)
#30 Pokemon BW: 314 (-13)
#31 Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising: 313 (-13)
#32 Super Mario Galaxy: 304 (NEW)
#33 Elite Beat Agents: 296 (-14)
#34 Pokemon DPP: 292 (NEW)
#35 Super Mario Galaxy 2: 285 (-15)
#36 Mega Man X: 282 (-15)
#37 Mario Golf (N64): 281 (NEW)
#38 Batman: Arkham Asylum: 280 (-15)
#39 Chrono Trigger: 277 (-15)
#40 Picross 3D: Round 2: 276 (-15)
#41 Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour: 269 (NEW)
#42 The World Ends With You: 267 (-16)
#42 Uncharted 4: A Thief's End: 267 (-16)
#44 Everybody's Golf: 266 (-16)
#45 Cannon Fodder: 264 (NEW)
#45 Total Annihilation: 264 (NEW)
#47 Paper Mario: 262 (NEW)
#48 The Witness: 256 (-19)
#49 Super Mario Bros.: 254 (-19)
#50 Kirby's Pinball Land: 251 (-19)
#51 Secret of Evermore: 250 (-19)
#52 Mega Man 2: 249 (NEW)
#53 Donkey Kong (1994): 248 (-20)
#54 Final Fantasy VII: 247 (-20)
#54 Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth: 247 (NEW)
#56 Mario Party 2: 246 (-21)
#57 Xenoblade Chronicles: 244 (-20)
#57 Mario Tennis (GBC): 244 (NEW)
#59 Mario Kart 64: 242 (-21)
#59 Metroid Fusion: 242 (-20)
#59 Kirby Air Ride: 242 (-22)
#62 Castlevania: Symphony of the Night: 239 (-21)
#63 Borderlands: 237 (-21)
#64 Super Mario 64: 233 (-21)
#65 Tetris Effect: 232 (-21)

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31. Pokmon Trading Card Game (GBC, 2000)

When I initially cobbled together the picks for this list, I just picked out 110-ish games and started trimming the list and ended up just squeezing this one in the top 100. At that point, I was just sort of working my way from the bottom and picking games out that I liked the least of everything left, adding in some gimmicks along the way. This one kept surviving the cut, and after a discussion in the discord about this game's killer soundtrack (seriously, the card battle themes are so damn good) it kind of flooded back a whole bunch of feelings of how much I loved this game. So, here we are, it somehow dug its way up to my 31st favorite game of all time.
Pokmon TCG follows along with the mainline games' narrative, only with a Mad Libs-like replacement of some of the nouns in its story: You want to be the best [card duelist] of all time, so you challenge the 8 [club leaders] to earn their [medals] in order to face off against the four [grand masters] and beat your snotty blue-colored rival. It's obviously super-familiar territory, but I would say the game doesn't demand anything more than a flimsy structure to justify its core game loop of collecting and battling with cards. And there's a pretty solid variety included - 226 plus two near-impossible-to-get promos, encompassing all 151 Pokmon from the time. The difficulty is not particularly hard, but there's something satisfying about building a championship-level deck and absolutely abusing the NPCs for their neverending supply of booster packs. The implementation of the card game is really good as well - most of the information you need is in front of you on the main screen, and having played a heck of a lot, I've gotten pretty good at quickly using the game's shortcut commands to access whatever information I need from the there. As mentioned earlier, the music is great - and it's important, because you're going to hear it a lot. If it weren't exceptional, it would definitely grate quickly, but given that it still holds up for me despite the number of hours I've put into this, you know it's good. I'd say at the very least this battle theme (especially the absolutely bonkers breakdown at 1:43) holds up with the best of any of the main series Pokmon games: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCOKTfkXykE&t=9s

What, there's a "Pokmon Card GB...2"??? Surprise!!
31 (redux). Pokmon Card GB2 [JP] (GBC, 2001)

Baked into my love of TCG for Game Boy, it's the Japanese-only sequel, simply Titled "Pokmon Card GB2". It's an almost-100% strictly superior sequel to the original game - there's nearly double the cards, bringing in the Team Rocket set, the Japanese "vending machine" sheet cards, and a bunch of new promos. There's a second world map, in addition to bringing over the one from Card GB1, that more than doubles the game size. There are collectible coins you can swap between (instead of just using the default Pikachu). There's a full Game Corner-style area with a bunch of unique challenges. It makes the most of being fully-GBC exclusive and adds more color to the card art. In the wake of Pokmon Crystal, you can choose between a boy or girl character. The 2nd island has a bunch of challengers who add special rules or deck construction requirements to their match. (This one's both good and bad sometimes.) When you beat the game, there's an extra set of challenge decks (pictured above) based on the major archetypes from actual competitive play. (And they're actually kinda difficult!)
If you've ever enjoyed the original even a little bit, you owe it to yourself to give the sequel a go; it's so much better than it has any right to be, and it's a shame it never made it stateside. I assume the proximity of its launch to the GBA, along with having only a couple Johto Pokmon cards (despite being after Gold/Silver's release), doomed it from ever getting localized. But boy, is it worth it. One of the most underrated Pokmon spinoffs, too - I always see heaps of love for the decidedly mediocre Misery Dungeon games and the charming but miniscule Snap, but this one stands up with the absolute best.

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This is still one of the most hype openings to a theme I've ever heard.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlhyUGOx_oE

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#25. Disgaea D2: A Brighter Darkness (PS3, 2013)

Take the glory of the original Disgaea cast, put the new Disgaea mechanics with them and add in a new story. Perfection. While the series has some excellent characters, nothing compares to the glory of Laharl, Etna and Flonne. This game is the usual absurd silliness. The gameplay is very smooth. This sequel is a must play for anyone that loved the original. Flonne really shines in this game.



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35.) Pokemon X (3DS, 2013)


So to be clear, Pokemon X is in some respects not very fun to play as an adult. After the somewhat mature narrative present in Black and Black2, this was a clear return to appealing to children. But there was some really really good stuff here. The hop to 3D models was handled seamlessly - responsible for elevating some pokemon that I never really appreciated when they were 2D models (looking at you Vaporeon and Torkoal). It also really opened up the game for easier EV training (with the horde mechanic and super training), easier breeding (with a nice big long egg hatching road next to the daycare), and in general a very well run online system with the VGC rules for that era. I got completely addicted to doubles in this game. And I really enjoyed how impactful and fun the mega-evolutions were, bringing new life to pokemon who had never been relevant before like Kangaskhan who is one of my BOYS. Or GIRLZ I guess.

Also huge was the introduction of the Fairy type which was a sea change in the game's strategy. Above all this was the game that I got competitive during so I have positive feelings toward it that don't extend to Sword or Sun.

Anyway hall of fame team for this game was:
Greninja
Talonflame
Slurpuff
Cradilly
Wormadam (Junk)
Durant


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34.) Mother 3 (GBA, 2006)



This was one of my most anticipated games ever. As a major fan of Earthbound - I am here on this website by way of a rally thread on starmen.net way back in the day for Ness. Earthbound is a game that meant a lot to me and was formative for me and there was always the rumor that Mother would one day get a sequel but...well the years passed and there was no news. The reveal that it existed was a huge rush! But it was Japan only. Naturally.

I remember watching the ticker for the translation tick down at an excruciating pace. I pre-ordered Starmen.net's guide they made. And the game fucking lived up. It was sort of the inverse of Earthbound - focused on one location and showcasing change over time to that locale. It also borrowed the Dragon Quest IV style character showcase chapters for each of the characters.

And the narrative while a bit simple...was fucking great. Lucas and Claus and their interplay, the return of Porky. The big BIG style shounen style anime plot that fucking delivered. The enemies were as delightfully bizarre as they were in the first game too. Just a masterpiece of a game.


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33.) Link's Awakening DX (GBC, 1998)


The most delightfully odd of the Zelda games, Link's Awakening is the one and only game on the series I truly enjoy. I enjoy the melding of the mario elements in with the rest of the package - the chain chomp and some of the underground levels being torn like directly out of super mario bros 1 is just so delightfully kitsch and I love it.

The story is less epic and more charming, which is always where Zelda excels. Sorry, I don't care about epic zelda at all.

Anyway, the dungeon design, while simple, has some real problem solving required and the boss fights are memorable fun.

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32.) Persona 3 FES (PS2, 2007)

My introduction into the world of Persona, which is perhaps why it sticks out so much more in my mind that 4 or 5, it still sticks with me. I think partially because the social links are all so varied and interesting. And less oriented towards waifu shit. I enjoy FES because it completes the story and fleshes out certain things that weren't there originally.

The tone is moody as fuck and the cast is a level of moody that matches it. Everyone's got their trauma on display and dealing with the inevitable difficult tasks they face as best they can. The themes of depression and trauma and suicide are well-realized and accented by the seeming hopelessness of Tartarus.


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31.) Kirby's Adventure (NES, 1993)


I love Kirby. Sure the series is a little...stagnant. But the basics of the greatness of Kirby begin right here. I love everything about this game. I love the level design, I love the minigames, I love the opening of the presentation. The little opening that shows you how to draw Kirby has always tickled me.

Its one of the first games I ever played by myself and I did so like a maniac, with the controller upside down and using the at the time revolutionary ability to pause the game.


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30.) Harvest Moon 64 (N64, 2000)


To me this is the pinnacle of the series - the definitive version of the platonic ideal for the series. I mean sure, I enjoy other games in the series and in the Story of Seasons Franchise. Hell I enjoy one game more. But this is where I learned it all.

This roster of character, the cows and chickens, the endpoint where you get to evaluate how nice the life you have built is. The mechanics built into the festivals its all just perfect.

Anne>Karen>Potpurri>Ellie>Maria

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#28 - Pokemon Puzzle League (N64, 2000)


This isnt so much a testament to PPL in particular being a crazy good game on its own. This is more a blanket statement on the Tetris Attack/Puzzle League formula, and PPL was the game that introduced it to me.

Puzzle League is the perfect puzzle game. Absolutely perfect. Its simple to learn, but very difficult to master; there are a lot of intricacies to learn if you truly want to become an expert. But you dont really have to if you dont want to. Managing to pull off a 15-chain is actually probably detrimental to your chances of winning against another skilled player, because it might make your stack too low to be able to clear your garbage that is about to rain down on you, and it sets up your opponent for his own massive chain, because they have the entire time the one garbage block is clearing to make their next move.

. BUT FUCK THAT! IF I EVER GET THE CHANCE TO MAKE A 15-CHAIN IM MAKING A GOD DAMN 15 CHAIN BECAUSE IT FEELS AWESOME. If you are playing a Puzzle League game and youre not just trying to create the biggest fucking garbage block the world has ever seen, you are playing it wrong.

Not even an exaggeration, I think I have played a form of Puzzle League at least 33 out of the 36 days of 2021 so far. Ever since they released Panel de Pon on the SNES library of the Switch Online service, its been the perfect game to bust out when I need to pass the time for 10-15 minutes. Ive got a bunch clips Ive saved on my Switch as sort of a highlight reel: of me beating the second-to-final boss on Hard in 14 seconds, of an 11-chain right off the beginning into a 24-second win, of a 10-chain immediately followed up by an 8-chain in the same 30-second clip, and of a 12-chain into a 26-second win. Are these very impressive? Maybe, but it feels so fucking good to do it that I dont care.

All this said, Pokemon Puzzle League in particular did do a lot of things right. It was the last game to have a vs CPU mode where you could see your opponents board (how is this possible). It made weird midi covers of the weird 1999 Pokemon CD as its soundtrack, which was honestly pretty dope. It had absolutely brutal difficulty settings. It had the most modes of any Puzzle League game. It introduced 3D mode, and it should seriously be a crime that this mode hasnt ever seen the light of day ever since, because it was awesome. It had some crazy slowdown, but you dont think a 2020s version of Puzzle League couldnt handle a bunch of flashing blocks?!

So yeah, while it was my first Puzzle League game, and introduced me to the concept in the first place, looking back, I do still believe it was far and away the best iteration of the game to boot.

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MrSmartGuy posted...

It made weird midi covers of the weird 1999 Pokemon CD as its soundtrack, which was honestly pretty dope.

Absolutely. I remember the midi version of Catch Me If You Can/Misty's theme being particularly good.

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Brock's theme was my favorite growing up, and it turned out to be Viridian City, my favorite song of the bunch, too. I actually didn't even know about the Pokemon CD's existence until like 4 years ago and now I have a few of the songs on my main Spotify playlist, just from Pokemon Puzzle League nostalgia.

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Team Rocket's Rocking

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MrSmartGuy posted...

Brock's theme was my favorite growing up, and it turned out to be Viridian City, my favorite song of the bunch, too. I actually didn't even know about the Pokemon CD's existence until like 4 years ago and now I have a few of the songs on my main Spotify playlist, just from Pokemon Puzzle League nostalgia.

Oooh yeah, Viridian City was my other favorite one (and definitely the best of the actual songs)! I couldn't remember whose theme it was though

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#37. Chrono Trigger (SNES, 1995)



Chrono Trigger is going to be on a lot of lists, we all know there's a lot of reasons for this being a good game. I want to highlight one aspect of the game though, something that I don't think gets pointed out as often? Or at least from what I see.

Chrono Trigger has incredible pacing. You start off in a fun area with fun events, just long enough to learn controls and meet a couple characters, and then off you go to the main part of the story. Each new area you go to is quick enough to get in, get a feel for it, hear the cool music, fight some battles, a little talk, and youre moving on to the next place or event. The game shifts between time periods and slides characters in and out enough that nothing has a chance to get stale. Even the time periods that may be a little long at one time leave enough threads unresolved that you know there's more to come back and do. On top of the characters and music and gameplay and story being solid, Square nailed the intangible feel of the game as well.

The DS remake adds some bonus content, and it's immediately clear what was tacked on. It's like driving a truck straight into a wall, and progress there takes so much more work and time and seems less fun. I'm not holding any of that against Chrono Trigger, of course, because none of it was in the original game. It's just that the extra content helped make clear exactly how well-planned the events in Chrono Trigger were.

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#32 Metroid Fusion (Game Boy Advance, 2002)

There were eight long years between Super Metroid and its follow-up, Metroid Fusion. For those of us who loved Super Metroid and wanted another game just like it, well, we would have to wait a little longer. But Metroid Fusion, although a very different kind of game, is still spectacular in its own way.



The deserted space station is a pretty big change of setting from the hostile alien planets of earlier games, which is appropriate because it helps establish that this a new kind of Metroid game. Almost completely linear in layout, Fusion eschews the traditional maze-like and interconnected caverns for a set of distinct sectors and navigation rooms where a bossy computer constantly tells Samus where to go and what to do. These navigation rooms give opportunities for the game to tell a story about Samus and her past. It's a trade-off from the freedom that Metroid games are used to giving, but Fusion makes the most of it by delivering a rather compelling experience with a couple entertaining and surprising twists.

The main antagonist of Metroid Fusion is a parasite, SA-X, which infected Samus and basically stole all her power, replicating itself as a terrifying copy of her and stalking her throughout the game. Every interaction with SA-X is remarkably tense and the horror is palpable. These encounters alone are some of my favorite video game moments of all time. Samus, like in all her games, starts off very weak, and the power of SA-X is enough to end your session instantly if you aren't careful.

Of course, this is a Metroid game, so there are a ton of powerups to collect, both mandatory and optional. And despite the linear format, there is still some sense of exploration, especially in those moments when you, for one reason or another, end up making your way off the map to some of the more remote areas of the station. Metroid Fusion opens up a little more near the end, and the finale of the game is probably the strongest that I have played in the series. All in all, it's an incredibly good game that brings a lot of new things to the series while also preserving some of its best elements. For me, it's one of those rare games that I can play through again and again without tiring of it, which is really saying something.

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#32 - Love Live! School idol festival (Mobile, 2014)

I can't believe that I had been playing this mobile game for six years, it certainly does not feel that long. This franchise has been the biggest addition to my music library in recent years, especially with the addition of the Nijigasaki school and their mostly different composers and lyricists to provide a more varied slate of songs, unlike the other two schools who have the same lyricist for every song and only a handful of composers. It's a pretty simple rhythm game with three attributes for songs, and I had many full UR teams from playing for as long as I did. I enjoyed most of the events that aren't just climbing the ladder, and in recent years all events have been adding more story events, which is a nice addition as the main story has been concluded for years now.

I've quit this game as the new game, Love Live! School Idol Festival All-Stars is much better in all aspects, and would probably have landed on my list in the top 15 had I ranked it here, but it's not on the list. I have enjoyed building my skill in this game, and while I couldn't complete all the experts and master songs with FCs, I definitely did a great % of them finished. Nico is best girl.

#31 - Advance Wars: Dual Strike (DS, 2005)

Advance Wars is the better Intelligent Systems series and it always has been. Dual Strike, the first Advance Wars game on the DS, is definitely one of my favorites, beating out Days of Ruin (I'm not a big fan of the reboot) and the original game (which is even more unbalanced than this game). Dual Strike has many different modes in it, with a very lengthy and challenging campaign (especially in Hard Campaign), the most War Room maps in the franchise, and a number of other things like survival matches and a weird shmup-like mini-game. I managed to get 262/300 medals in the end, and I enjoyed every minute of it.

Now I said that Advance Wars 1 was broken (especially with how Max and Grit are), but this game rivals it in how broken it can get, like with crazy combos like Eagle/Sami which can capture HQs and end the match even with the infantry or mech being nowhere close. However, due to how broken this game can get, it's not as good as

#30 - Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising (GBA, 2003)

which is the best Advance Wars game in the series. The characters are all well balanced in this one with their CO Powers (though sometimes some characters can get a bit ridiculous), the campaign is just as challenging and changes up a lot of maps to make them more difficult in the hard campaign. This is the only Advance Wars game where I actually completed the Campaign, Hard Campaign, and War Room to finish everything available. I remember not only writing down all of my records on every map in the game, but also making some elaborate custom maps that I enjoyed trying to play through at times.

I also created some War Room records topic on the game board for this one, and it's one of my most successful topic series on the boards. It's where I first met Paratroopa1 well before I came to Board 8.

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30. The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker (GameCube, 2003)

I absolutely love to travel. Under normal circumstances, I'll take a decent-sized trip out to somewhere else in the world (okay, usually within the United States) at least five times in a year. I don't like to be confined to the same place too much; it stresses me out. (Thanks, covid.) Anyway, despite obviously wanting to do something wherever I'm going to, I have some of the best times on these trips just being in-between. I like having to exist not at a destination but just going, just being somewhere that isn't filled with requirements and restrictions and whatever. Sometimes I'm with friends having absurd conversations, sometimes I'm jamming to music, sometimes I'm just enjoying the scenery on whatever Ohioan road I've ended up on, but it's a feeling I can't quite capture in any way other than through this, and I dearly miss it right now.
Aaanyway, video games??? Right, there was a point to this. This feeling is Wind Waker in a nutshell - a game where a main complaint is all the time spent sailing, kind of doing absolutely nothing? I think it's the best part of the game. Sure, there's a lot to go over about the core gameplay stuff, so let's tackle that before sailing back to my main thesis here. Wind Waker has really good combat - its simple parrying mechanics make for solid maneuvers, and its dynamic enemies make rooms filled with lots of varied foes (and there are quite a few of these) a lot more interesting and enjoyable than, say, Ocarina of Time. The story is super charming and memorable; it undoubtedly follows along the same structural path as Link to the Past and Ocarina, but does so with its own unique and lovely characters and storylines, and culminates with one of the most satisfying endings in the series. The dungeons and bosses are one of the weaker parts here, though there are still some memorable bits - Dragon Roost Cavern is a "first dungeon", and the Forsaken Fortress is really neat in both of its iterations as both a stealth-focused challenge and later a more traditional Zelda dungeon. And the game's graphical style still holds up brilliantly almost 20 years later, pioneering cel-shaded visual styles for years to come.
But none of those things are why I put this game into my top 30. It's about the game's sense of exploration and wonder, and travel. It understands that a game experience can be more than just advancing to the next screen full of enemies; simply getting to the next unknown destination and waiting to see what it's going to have (regardless of how novel or thrilling said place actually is) will be a joy in and of itself. And it's baked in so well structurally into the game; mechanically, sailing feels pretty fluid (Changing the wind can be a little tedious playing the GameCube SD version, but even then you get a little novel control with tacking against the wind.) and there are lots of incentives to explore the ocean and just see what kinds of treasures or items you'll uncover. The triumphant main sailing theme is a brilliant piece, almost necessary to embolden your journey and give it a certain weight. When you're going to be sailing around a lot, you need its music to be impeccable. And thematically, Zelda games always bring about a sense of epic adventure, and the vastness of the game's scope is amplified by the nature of Link's small-village island life in the intro. I can't think of any Zelda game (Hey, I haven't played Breath of the Wild, so hold the counter-arguments there) or even any other video game that uses its central travel mechanic and gameworld in tandem to give a sense of scope as significant as Wind Waker pulled off for its adventure, and I just love that part to bits. Regardless of any of the (valid) complaints about WW's tedious triforce hunt, mediocre dungeons, or repetitive format, it's always going to have a place in my faves for that alone.

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oregon trail 2 a true classico

Pokemon TCG jammin soundtrack and imakuni

pokemon puzzle league work harder ya butt pasta finale kid


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#24. Pokemon RBY (Blue) (Game Boy, 1998)

There was this kid at school who was somehow way ahead of the trend on Pokemon. He had the game and was saying how amazing it was. No one really paid attention. For some reason he let me borrow it and said it was fine to delete his save for a weekend. That little piece of crap started a nearly 20 year curse on me that I wouldn't escape until fairly recently, though I still purchased Sword so maybe I am not out... actually I just pre-ordered Snap.... OH GOD! Anyway that weekend I chose Charmander and got 4 or 5 gyms in. I was hooked, begged my parents to buy me the game and got Pokemon Blue, picked Squirtle and the rest is history. This game has a ton of issues. I would even say its honestly not very good in many regards, but the charm and excellent designs of many Gen 1 Pokemon just suck you in. The catch em all thing is brilliant. I did complete my PokeDex in this eventually. I also ended up with Red and Yellow too, the only generation I had all versions.

My first team who are all still absolute faves of mine was:

Blastoise (Squirtle is my all time fave)
Kingler
Omastar
Raichu
Machamp
Articuno



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#23. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (Switch, 2017)

Mario Kart 8 is a masterpiece and Deluxe just improves on that. You could place either here. Easily the best game in the series, but not my favorite. It controls so smoothly, the stages are varied and there are lots of them. And while others ignore that Mario Kart Wii had a fully functional online that worked great, this game really did perfect that, allowing for more friends to be grouped etc. This is also yet another case of I am elite at the game until I play with B8. In MKWii I was a 9999 rating guy that was always 1 or 2 with my friend. In 8 same, I am always winning when I play random players, but then I get into a group with B8 and Ermine and Grand Kirby dunk on my soul so hard I am relegated to the misery of finding joy in finishing 3rd or 4th with Icon or MSG or Wigs or SHINE. And on the odd occasion you do beat Ermine... be ready for it.



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29.) Valkyria Chronicles (PS3, 2008)


Can love bloom on the battlefield? Is the question Sega asks in this game. The answer? Yes it can, but only if your girlfriend has superpowers.

This game details a fictional war that takes place in not Europe, and the war in question is definitely not WW1. Where it diverges from actual history is that Not-Belgium is where our heroes are from and it ends up spelling disaster for the evil not-Germans.

See as it turns out our Belgian Boyz have a tank. A special tank. And they're not racist against not-Jews (well except for that one girl but we set her straight). As you go along you add more units each of which have a pretty funny over the top personality attribute. My personal favorite is a guy with anxiety who uses one of the big bazooka lances with this hellacious pun "Get ready for a breakdown" delivered as a half-threat, half-information about his mental state. The gameplay is a mix of tactics and action shooting that I really enjoyed.

The visual style is also a major point in its favor, mixing your typical anime trapping with the style of an old photo album, as the conceit of the game is that its being told by a journalist who is looking back on the war in the form of a book, which totally makes sense. This game is charming and fun but two factors hold it back. The first - the game prioritizes speed of completion as the only metric of success. The second - Scouts are so god damn fast that if played properly you really only want to use scouts, thus sidestepping a lot of the game's tactical build.

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28.) Broken Sword (PSX, 1996)


I initially stumbled on this game by renting it at a hollywood video, expecting that with a title like "Broken Sword" I was in for some sort of action game or maybe an RPG. I miss those days where I would literally go play a title based on nothing at all besides the name and the picture of a sword on the cover.

Anyway, instead of all that, Broken Sword is a point and click adventure game, which was an incredible surprise for me, because I had never played one on console before. You play an american in paris, named George, who is incidentally present at a cafe that gets blown up. Rather than count his blessings and go home, George takes it upon himself to solve the mystery of what happened there. He ends up hooking up with a French Journalist Nicolet and together the two of them unwind the mystery, which ends up having much more to it than meets the eye and somehow ends up involving the treasures of the Knights Templar from the medieval ages.

The puzzles are challenging, the sense of humor tickles me and the bad voice acting remains charming to me.

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27.) Threads of Fate (PSX, 1999)


Threads of Fate was an early adopter of the Japanese Trends of doing multiple paths through a game that sharply diverge. But where they went seriously right was that the game itself is very short - like 15-20 hours on each side. So you get to see everything and then you get to do it again with the other character.

Also helping matter is that the two main characters, Rue the shapeshifter and Mint the Magician play nothing alike. Rue can shift forms to get different special powers that help him over come obstacles, while Mint has magic. The gameplay is an action RPG with some platforming elements and the plot has a point that they unveil and roll out and then finish without overstaying their welcome.


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26.) Thimbleweed Park (Switch, 2018)


A throwback of a LucasArts style point and click adventure in a throwback of a time period. The aesthetic of the game is very much 80s superscience, in which super scientific vacuum tubes can do basically anything. You are initially in the game trying to solve a simple murder, but it soon becomes clear that the murder itself is a red herring to a much deeper and more sinister mystery.

The game walks a fine line between self-parody and self-aware comedy the entire time but everything in the game just has such character. Different characters react to the setting in different ways and there's just such a charm to the whole thing that leaves you wanting to discover more. I think the end stretch is sort of controversial, but for what its worth I loved the plot twist.

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Broken Sword was not a series I expected on anyone's list

I played the newest one and thought it was decent, but not a game that I would really say is one of the best

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I too bought a Broken Sword game just because it had Sword in the title and it sounded cool, and didn't get what I expected at all. The one I got was Shadow of the Templars for GBA.

I legitimately don't remember a single thing about it. I think I only played it for a day and then got stuck somewhere and gave up.

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#22. Ken Griffey Jr presents Major League Baseball (SNES, 1994)

The greatest sports game ever made. I would first like to acknowledge how good the Game Boy port of this is, and that it has actual players. Both games feature real stats. As well I need to mention Ken Griffey Slugfest for N64 and Game Boy Color, both of which would also be on my list if I had decided to include 4 Ken Griffey games. Really all 4 are excellent and I cannot recommend them enough. Stay away from Winning Run though. This game is very cartoony, and based on the 1993 season so the Blue Jays are stacked. Each team has fake names in place of the real ones due to licensing issues they didn't resolve til the game boy version and beyond. They are based on famous actors, or musicians or teams from other sports. You of course can also edit the names to match the actual players. Hello Joe Carter. Some examples:

The New York Mets are based on punk rock pioneers from New York City including Johnny Thunders filling in for first baseman Eddie Murray, Joey Ramone standing in for second baseman Jeff Kent, Tom Verlaine for outfielder Bobby Bonilla, and Jerry Nolan for pitcher Anthony Young.

The Kansas City Royals are based on U.S. presidentsD. Ike, whose real-life counterpart is DH Hall of Famer George Brett, L. Johnson stands in for infielder Rico Rossy, The pitching staff includes Bill Clinton standing in for Kevin Appier, George H. W. Bush standing in for David Cone, and Ronald Reagan standing in for Hiplito Pichardo.

The Pittsburgh Pirates are named after characters from the soap opera Coronation Street; such example E. Bishop who fills in for pitcher Steve Cooke, K. Barlow is infielder Tom Foley and P. Pearce is outfielder Lonnie Smith.

The Boston Red Sox contain members from the show Cheers. Cliff Claven stands in for Scott Bankhead, Norm Peterson standing in for pitcher Greg Harris, and Sam Malone standing in for closer Jeff Russell are all present. Also included are Boston landmarks B. Common standing in for Luis Rivera, M. Harvard filling in for catcher Tony Pea and figures from early American history J. Adams who fills in for outfielder Billy Hatcher, J. Hancock stands in for Rob Deer, A. Hamilton for infielder Scott Fletcher & S. Heat stands in for flamethrower Roger Clemens.

You also get silly headlines in the boxscore after the game which is presented as a newspaper. Stuff like "Rockies sign fan after catching foul ball"

Gameplay is very basic and that adds to the fun, you can exploit the CPU very badly.



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29. Super Mario Odyssey (Switch, 2017)

A few times on this list, I've commented that the mainline Mario platformers are one of my favorite video game series of all time. Well, it's time for that comment to come good: Odyssey is my fifth-place Mario platformer, meaning I've somehow managed to cram five of these suckers into the top 30. Not bad, Nintendo. Mario Odyssey is the grand return to the open-exploration style of 3D Mario adventure pioneered by 64 and Sunshine, and it's done in grand style. Instead of using a hub world to travel to various areas and selecting story missions, though, you're just sent along a linear progression of open-ended worlds, with some amount of main-story goals, but with a whole host of objectives and challenges to find and tackle at your leisure. This game's mcguffin of choice is "Power Moons" (in lieu of Power Stars or Shine Sprites), and provided you've collected the requisite amount in one kingdom, you can progress to the next one in line. There are a couple of branching paths and a couple kingdoms where you must complete the primary story objective, but outside of that you can basically do just about anything.
Of course, what's a Mario game without great movement? I don't think it's controversial to say the control in Odyssey is the best ever in a Mario game. Mario's companion, Cappy, can be thrown in the air to be bounced off of, allowing for tricky maneuvers, satisfying double-jumps, and on-the-fly aerial repositioning. In addition, the game's core mechanic lets you take control of various enemies, from Goombas to Cheep Cheeps to those goofy Coin bag guys from SM64. Some definitely work better than others, but the best and most inventive ones stand out as exceptional new ways of control within an already stellar-feeling game.
And I'd be remiss to forget about the game's incredible musical set-pieces, which are both uncharted territory for Mario yet feel absolutely at home in his universe. The game's de-facto theme song, Jump Up, Super Star!, plays alongside a simple platforming challenge of climbing red girders and dodging barrels themed around the original Donkey Kong, in the finale of what I'd say is the game's centerpiece kingdom, New Donk City (a.k.a. Metro Kingdom). It's beautiful, it's surprising, and it's mirrored by a similar vocal-themed portion at the game's ending.
So why am "only" placing this at 29, as the fifth-highest Mario, with all this quality and praise? I think some of the game's biggest strengths end up being its biggest weaknesses. The game is packed with Power Moons - there are 880 available to be collected if you want to "100%" the game, but only 124 are needed to complete the main story, and just 500 to unlock the final challenge level. Because of this, there's a lot of very "fillery" challenges, and almost an obligation by the game to complete a checklist for each area of the challenges that are required - each kingdom has to have two Koopa race moons, a purchasable shop moon, a hint art moon, etc. It makes the whole experience, after the first playthrough, feel a lot less memorable and more homogenous. The sheer density of its challenges sprinkled across the kingdoms makes each one feel a little less noteworthy and impactful. Look, it's undoubtedly a minor complaint - I've put over 100 hours into the game; I've collected all 880 moons multiple times and beaten it with just 124 multiple times. I've learned speed tricks and watched far too many hours of speedruns. But the four Marios I have ahead of this on my list all just have more memorable and standout level designs. The challenges they create feel more fully baked because the levels are structured around them, not just as a hub for however many things they could find room to fit. And for me, that's what I found I ended up preferring. And hey, despite this, I still ended up giving this game 29th, which is saying a lot!
Top 5 Kingdoms: Metro - Sand - Lost - Lake - Bowser's
Top 5 Captures: Pokio - Uproot - Cheep Cheep - Tropical Wiggler - Meat
Worst 1 Capture: Yoshi (boooo...)

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MrSmartGuy posted...

I too bought a Broken Sword game just because it had Sword in the title and it sounded cool, and didn't get what I expected at all. The one I got was Shadow of the Templars for GBA.

I legitimately don't remember a single thing about it. I think I only played it for a day and then got stuck somewhere and gave up.

from what I remember, the gba version does have a pretty nasty glitch where if you do things in the wrong order you can't progress the story and have to start over. (which is what happened to me)

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#27 - Horizon: Zero Dawn (PS4, 2017)


2016 was not a strong year for video games for me. There were a few games that I was ridiculously hyped for that just kinda met expectations and that was it. I was secretly hoping that at least one of Spirit of Justice, Dark Souls III, and Persona 5 would really blow me away, but they didnt. SoJ came the closest, but one of its three full-length cases wasnt great, and the two shorter cases were not good. And that was good enough to win my GotY by quite a bit. It was the only game that year that barely squeaks out a 10/10 from me, and it was basically just because it was a great Ace Attorney game. I was beginning to think that maybe video games were beginning to lose their luster.

Cue 2017. Gonna be upfront right now; see up at the top that this didnt get my GotY? Yeah, it doesnt even make my top 3. 2017 is probably my second-favorite year for video games of all-time to 2004, which uh, spoilers, has a very similar situation going on with my list. And 2017 came at just the right time to save my love for gaming.

That is in no small part due to Horizon: Zero Dawn. It came out of nowhere, too. The three other 2017 games to come up were all part of established franchises that demanded my attention, but Horizon stormed onto the scene with an incredible original title.

The game takes place in a time where humankind is at a very primitive stage of development. Yet somehow, there are giant technological creatures that roam the land and terrorize them constantly. You play as Aloy, a little outcast girl who gets fed up with being treated unfairly just because she was abandoned by whoever her mother was (who nobody seems to know). She takes matters into her own hands and decides to take on a physically challenging coming-of-age ritual for all teenagers, run by the nearby village, called the Proving.

Afterwards, a massive series of events leads to Aloy and the player both discovering what the big mechanical animals are, where she came from, and what the exact circumstances behind the entire world are. Its seriously one of the most gripping stories ever told by a video game. Aloy and her surrounding cast are great, the plot moves at a pretty brisk clip, and it eventually comes to a very satisfying conclusion.

Oh, and by the way, this game is an absolute blast to play. Aloy has several equally-useful tools at her disposal to help her dispatch with the technological menaces that dot the landscape. They also are fairly customizable to help fit your playstyle. Youve got bows, youve got explosives, youve got wire traps, youve got a hacking staff that can turn enemies against each other, youve got an airblaster that helps rip parts off, youve got net traps that pin the animals to the ground. You can destroy mounts for guns off of enemies and then run over and pick them up and use them on other enemies. They are all both super fun and legitimately really helpful.

You typically want to use several of them at a time, and the quicker you learn when to switch weapons to fit the situation, the more youll grow as a player. Its the main game I would point to when I think of impressive game difficulty design. Yes, your weapons get bigger numbers and youre technically getting more powerful as the game goes on, but I would actually argue that the players technical abilities getting better over time actually plays a bigger factor in how well you perform in the game. Wiping out a group of enemies never fails to feel amazing in this game. Check out the fun time I had when taking out a big herd of bull enemies one time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zXIXcE0MtQ

Also, Wigs said I am contractually obligated to include this video in my write-up, so here you go.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsUoVgnEexo

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#36. Street Fighter 3: Third Strike (Arcade, 1999)

It's another Street Fighter game! Unlike other ones on my list, this isn't every variation of Street Fighter 3. It's just Third Strike (which was the third version of it, after New Generation and Second Impact) because I never played the other two versions. Street Fighter 3 originally had a bunch of new characters, and some fans of Street Fighter 2, like me, were all who are these new folks and kind of stayed away. By the time the Third Strike update came, more returning characters were added along with more new characters. The unknowns were a little less unknown by now, and because I was in arcades a lot to play DDR, I also started playing Third Strike when I wanted to rest my legs.

Third Strike probably has the most defined style of any Street Fighter game. The high quality 2D sprites, the backgrounds, the music, the deep announcer voice. It all leans into a more modern style with, I think, a lot of hip hop inspirations. At the time, it sure felt like a cool game, but the aesthetics have all turned out to be pretty timeless, and still cool today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9pePpxU58M

Street Fighter 3 had a few new mechanics to make it interesting. The parry is the big game changer. Instead of blocking by holding back or down-back, you can also hit forward (for high hitting attacks) or down (for low hitting attacks) as an attack makes contact with you. If you time it right, the attacker very briefly pauses, and you can put out an attack as a counter. You can really call out someone for being predictable in their actions with this, and it works as an exciting comeback mechanic (see Evo Moment 37 below, aka the famous Daigo Parry video). Even at a lower level of play, just parrying a fireball can make you feel like a million bucks, as it has this satisfying sound effect to it. Another big Street Fighter 3 change was to give characters a choice of 3 different supers. Some are a big attack, some can be comboed into, some boost your abilities, some hit opponents out of the air, etc. This allowed people to play characters in their own unique style. One super might let you be more defensive, another to rushdown more, and the third let you score a big hit as a counter. Instead of, say, fighting a bunch of Ryu players over and over that all do the same stuff, you may have all the fights play out entirely different.

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

About ten years ago, Street Fighter 3: Third Strike Online Edition was released. It followed Street Fighter 4's massive popularity and added online play to Third Strike, really boosting the amount of people who played it. I jumped back on the train at this point too. I wasn't good at it at all, but I had been getting better at Street Fighter 4, so I started to see some improvement on Third Strike too. B8er IglooBob (who I don't think has been around for a few years?) got really into Third Strike too, so I would play online against him a decent amount. He was playing a lot more than I was, so my slow improvement was outpaced by his, but I still had fun pushing buttons against him. IglooBob is actually one of the top players in the US now, like he's expected to place in the top 8 of tournaments, and he's traveled to Japan for big tournaments too.

At some point, I started entering Third Strike tournaments at fighting game events, since I sometimes play it and I was already there for something else. I am proud that I've never gone 0-2, and always at least advanced somewhere in the bracket, so those Third Strike Online Edition training days actually did pay off. I also won a tourney once (at an anime con so uh the bracket wasn't that tough, but there were some other legit people there).

There's a group of guys in Michigan I've gotten to know who are all about older fighting games, with Third Strike at the top of the list for them. One of them owns an arcade cabinet and they all get together all the time. It's fun to play against them at events and tournaments to see how well I can hold up before getting destroyed. They're nice people too, helped me learn more about Third Strike and really make for fun experiences no matter how good or bad I do. In a big online tournament a week ago, one of those guys made it into the top 8 bracket, but eventually lost against IglooBob. I wonder if they've ever crossed paths before.

The one real flaw with this game is that some very cool characters are just not that great, not with any of their three supers, and it feels like a big struggle. It would be cool to play as Alex or Q, but I would just have a bad time more often. And a big apology to anyone who thinks Twelve is cool. His best super has him change into a clone of his opponent. When your strongest move is to be a different character, you know there's some big problems.



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#31 Bioshock (Playstation 3, 2007)

Bioshock is one of the most iconic games of its generation. And I feel like for a couple years, it's all anyone could talk about. Deservedly so, because it was such a special game that had a tremendous influence and impact for years. The notable things about Bioshock: The style and setting of Rapture, the now infamous plot twist, and the open-ended combat situations. A lot of this stuff was very cool when it was new, but it's not new anymore. But it's still all cool.



Rapture was a great idea. The steampunk world at the bottom of the ocean feels like an alien planet sometimes, yet familiar with its art deco aesthetic. Rapture feels like a real city that you only get the smallest glimpses of, even when the course of the game takes you to all kinds of different neighborhoods. And Bioshock also does a great job of making you feel like you are actually there. I really love the little touches with the plasmid intros, the vending machines, and all the other aspects of the sound design.

The audio logs, which are very much of the time the game was made, do a great job at filling in the story of the world and characters that you will never meet come alive and make you care a little about what they had to deal with. Andrew Ryan and Frank Fontaine are both memorable characters that successfully make you hate them. And the plot twist caught me by surprise and did not feel cheap or undeserved. Bioshock also incorporates elements of survival horror that can really make you jump if you aren't prepared.



The game still plays well, at least when I went through it again a couple years ago. They definitely fixed a lot of the shortcomings in the other games, but guns and plasmids are mostly still fun to use and not too difficult to integrate together. The Big Daddy fights feel tough enough that you always have to mentally prepare, and its nice that you can pretty much take them on whenever you are ready. Gives you a chance to collect enough ammo and strategically place yourself before angering the beast. It would have been nice though if the choice of what to do with the Little Sisters was a little more conflicting. Doing the right thing should have involved a bit more of a sacrifice.

What Bioshock really did better than the other games in the series was to impress me with the world and the story and make it all feel so fresh and new. You only really get to go to Rapture for the first time once, and that first experience for me was one of the top stand-out moments in video games.

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My list so far, as we are headed to a new topic soon

HM1Vectorman
HM2 Crash Commando
HM3 Dungeons and Dragons: Shadows over Mystara
HM4 WWF Smackdown Just Bring It
HM5 Fat Princess
HM6 Simpsons Arcade
HM7 Gauntlet Legends
HM8 Mario Party
HM9 Octopath Traveler
HM10 Radiant Historia
HM11 Castle Crashers
100 Riviera: The Promised Land
99 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time
98 Metroid Fusion
97 I Am Setsuna
96 DBZ: Kakarot
95 Metal Gear Solid 4
94 Metal Gear Solid 2
93 Portal 2
92 SSX
91 Golden Sun
90 God of War (2018)
89 Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth
88 Sonic the Hedgehog 2
87 Sonic Generations
86 Mega Man 9
85 Super Monkey Ball 2
84 Tomb Raider (2013)
83 Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception
82 The Last of Us
81 Guitar Hero/RB Series
80 NFL Blitz
79 Super Mario World
78 Tales of Symphonia
77 Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga
76 Super Blood Hockey
75 Darksiders
74 Mario Kart Wii
73 Punch-Out!!
72 Perfect Dark
71 Yoshi's Island
70 Dark Cloud
69 Kirby Canvas Curse
68 Jackbox Party Packs
67 World of Final Fantasy
66 Fall Guys
65 Tales from the Borderlands
64 The Walking Dead Season 1
63 Theatrhythm Final Fantasy: Curtain Call
62 Ogre Battle 64
61 NHL '94
60 Grandia 2
59 Pokemon HG/SS
58 Super Mario Galaxy/2
57 WWF: No Mercy
56 The Legend of Zelda II: Link's Adventure
55 Kingdom Hearts
54 Kingdom Hearts 2
53 Blitz the League 2
52 Dynasty Warriors 7
51 Tetris Effect
50 Disgaea 4
49 Final Fantasy 4
48 Mega Man 3
47 Final Fantasy X
46 NHL 07
45 Grandia
44 Mega Man X
43 Disgaea 5
42 Cosmic Star Heroine
41 Final Fantasy 13-2
40 Final Fantasy 13
39 Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker
38 Tecmo Super Bowl
37 Kirby Air Ride
36 Horizon Zero Dawn
35 Uncharted 2
34 Uncharted 4
33 Super Smash Bros Melee
32 Super Mario 3D Land
31 Final Fantasy 6
30 Borderlands
29 Xenoblade
28 Kirby's Pinball Land
27 Final Fantasy Tactics
26 Super Mario Odyssey
25 Disgaea D2
24 Pokemon RBY (Blue)
23 Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
22 Ken Griffey Jr presents MLB

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poor anthony young, never got enough credit

hell yeah stormbird


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