Board 8 > The Board 8 Discord Sports Chat Rank Their Top 100 Respective Video Games part 3

(+) Yeah! (+)

#23. Guilty Gear Xrd (PS3, 2014)



When I was in college, I would get together with that group of DDR friends to play other games sometimes. One of the more common choices was games in the Guilty Gear series. At the time, I was awful at fighting games, and lost way more than I won. It didn't matter though, because Guilty Gear was so stylish, so wildly fast, and it was just so fun to do things and see things, I had fun regardless.

Years later, when I got really into the fighting game scene, Guilty Gear was something I hadn't touched in a long time. But then Xrd came out, looking as stylish as ever, and I wanted to get back to this series. It was still a 2D fighter, but it was a 3D game with some very slick cell shading and playing on a 2D plane. Like, you'll never know it's a 3D game until there's something with a camera rotation, like a super move or a round finish.

Guilty Gear has a lot of characters that fight with a unique weapon or have some kind of unique gimmick. There's a lot of variation in the cast. I ended up deciding to use Faust, the doctor who fights with a gigantic scalpel and throws out random items. He creates chaos all over the screen for both players. It's great for someone like me who doesn't memorize elaborate or complicated setups, but instead tries to just out-react and out-space, and hopefully remain calmer in wild situations. There are others who are fun to use though, even the characters I barely know are fun to just do things with. Finding fun characters to connect with is definitely a big part of making fighting games fun.

I wasn't actually good at Xrd for a couple years (and I'd still argue that maybe I'm not good, but I am at least competent). There are a lot of systems at play, both on offense and defense. I'm still learning things about this game because of how deep it is, but also, it's okay if you never truly know it all, because there's so much. You can spend 50% of meter to cancel a move on hit or block to extend a combo or make it safe. You can spend 25% of the meter to cancel a move that doesn't hit (or cancel absolutely nothing) to cause a very brief pause & allow you to escape bad situations. There are bursts as a one-time get out of jail free card, blitzes to deflect moves, counter-blitzes to blitz back someone who blitzed you, dead angle to get out of blocking. Combos will do more damage on someone who's been blocking a lot but less on someone with low health. There are also different weights and gravities to consider during combos too.

When I was getting together with friends for games weekly in 2018 and 2019, Guilty Gear Xrd was the most common game we broke out. It was common to have games that just turned into everyone laughing too, the way this game is set up just leads to some silly things.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppvMgvC5ZzA&t=250s

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Sorry, I think some of my writeups have to get less at this point (at least relative to how high I have the game) or Im never gonna get these done. Normally I might have more to say about these games but long writeups are starting to de-motivate me SORRY

#21. Super Mario Odyssey (Switch, 2017)
This is my favorite Mario game. Ive always preferred the mission style Mario as opposed to the straight level progression style ones (though obviously, as evidenced by list, I still enjoy both kinds). This felt like Mario 64 all over again, but perfected. Theres a lot LOT LOT more little small missions to do for moons (this games collectathon item), for quick rewards mixed in with the longer more Mario 64 main-like missions (including bosses), and I really appreciate that gameplay style- the combination of being able to do quick reward style for doing something small or longer more elaborate ones at will leaves for a great open world feel,and a lot of freedom to just do what you want. In Mario games past, doing the kind of things that would get you a Moon in this game might get you an extra life or power up in another, and I like this reward style more.

The levels are nice and diverse, and range from small to big (never huge), but there still remains an immense amount to do in all of them, and yet it feels like just the right amount. The levels never really get tired except maybe near the VERRRRY end where youre trying to get every last Moon (the hidden picture ones where you get some sort of clue to a Moon in a different level based on its color I especially like). Even then, tryingto get every single Moon was tons of fun, and I think pretty much the peak of this style of game. Of course, the finale in Metro Kingdom where Mayor Pauline (love that) has you go through a 2.5D-ized Donkey Kong style course while singing you a lounge tune based loosely off the original DK theme while celebratory fireworks go off is surprisingly emotional and feels great. That plus the appearance of Peachs Castle at the end as its own full standalone level is extremely well done and nostalgic as hell, and the fact I have it only ranked 4th below should speak volumes. Those Koopawalking Circles can fuck off though.

The main gameplay mechanic of throwing your cap on stuff to control things was a great idea as well, and lets face it, controller a T-Rex with a Mario stache is a hard peak to come down from.

I also did the thing like MSG did on my 2nd playthrough, and used the Odyssey with as few Moons as possible, so at the very end of the game, I could deposit them all at once in one giant long upload only to watch the balloon go FOOOMF. So satisfying. Heres that:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqzTO7F1Jmo

Anyway, this game is delightful and joyful in every way. The mechanic is fun, getting around feels fantastic (like using the flying dudes in the biggest levels), and the collectathon style where you can get a Moon for doing anything big or small, makes finding hidden stuff feel especially rewarding, when its the MAIN gameplay objective. The last ending objectives of Dark and Darker side are great too!



Metro > Bowser > Moon > Mushroom > Dark/Darker Side > Luncheon > Wooded > Sand > Snow > Seaside > Lake > Lost > Cascade > Ruined > Cap > Cloud

Next up: This game has time puzzles that are as surprisingly as fun as Braid's, even if not as complex.

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FUCK YOU WIGS

c

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Pokalicious posted...

FUCK YOU WIGS

c

I already ranked Smash Ultimate!

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#43 Super Mario Bros. (SNES, 1993)


There really isn't much to say about this masterpiece since nearly all of us have played it and know why it is timeless. What gets to me is not only are the jumping physics fantastic but just how superior they were to other games at the time and for many years after. I can understand why rivals with their own games or companies that tried to imitate SMB failed to live up to standards set by the technical achievements with this game, but I am baffled that Nintendo, with many of their games containing platforming elements, never came particularly close to matching what would become their flagship series. I am also curious about the development process and the overlap of projects at the time because how can they come out with a game like this but months earlier come out with a game with such awkward jumping and movement like Ice Climbers?

I am singling out the SNES version from Super Mario All-Stars because it is the version that I first played (it was the first game I played on the SNES as one of the two games I received with my SNES I mentioned with the Plok writeup) and also because it might still get my vote as the best video game remake ever. They somehow made the platforming even better, and the graphics and backdrops are absolutely gorgeous. Without Super Mario All-Stars, there's a great chance that Super Mario never becomes my favorite video game series.

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#20. Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack In Time (PS3, 2009)
Its been a hot minute since I played this game so unfortunately Im not gonna be able to get into a lot of the specifics. But what I do remember is it was by far the most engaging, interesting, and funny story of the whole series, and it was enjoyable, for a series which really is not known for it. But it has copious amounts of Captain Qwark and Dr. Nefarious & Lawrence, the best characters in the series. The story revolves, as many touch on but not so much as this game, Ratchets family and specifically his father, with also a focus on Clanks origins. Without going too much into detail, its the best story with the highest stakes.

All the Ratchet & Clank games play pretty similar and its a gameplay style I absolutely love between its platforming, creative and fun to use weapons, arena segments, etc. What sticks out a lot in this one besides the aforementioned story are the Clank segments, which largely revolve around time control. These were very creative and fun, involving creating Clank clones to go ahead and do parts of the puzzle, like stand on a button or weigh down a see-saw while your real Clank (orthe other clones) do things affected by the clones you make. Theyre surprisingly deep and some can be pretty tricky. The final boss sequence is a cool twist and a good and intense fight as well.

Other than that its a Ratchet & Clank game where you know what youre getting, and its exactly what I want! Some of my favorite weapons from this game include the Sonic Eruptor (basically a destructive belching frog mating call), Spiral of Death (Boomerang buzzblades!), the Chimpomatic (turn your enemies into chimps or robot chimps, complete with cymbal and fez!), the Rift Inducer (open up black holes where Fred the Tentacle Monster can pull your foes in), this game's version of the RYNO which plays the 1812 overture as you fire it, and feels incredible to just blast everything, and of course, the master of destruction, Mr. Zurkon.



Next Up: A game with a naughty-ish subtitle.

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#19. Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando (PS2, 2003)
Look Im just gonna wind up saying a lot of the same stuff here. But this was my introduction to the series. I got into this series from seeing it on Xplay way back in the day and I just thought it looked like an awesome, fun game, with cool wacky weapons and solid platforming and yada yada yada. I got the game. I loved it. I loved the series. The humor runs kind of goofy sometimes, but in that good way where you cant not enjoy it- it works well. Qwark is here again too, probably at his best since hes the main villain for the last time, even if he doesnt reveal himself a bit into the game. The plot is pretty memorable here, revolving first around chasing down THE THIEF, who is this female lombax named Angela who never shows up again but hey at least shes relevant here. Then progressing to fighting the Thugs 4 Less bandits who are fun, and eventually Qwark and his top-secret project the Protopet, basically a feral Kuribo ripoff. The fight against it at the end is particularly memorable since its this cute little fuzzball with teeth the whole game and eventually becomes a monster. The fleshing out of each level having multiple paths for multiple objectives also was well-implemented here. Im sure it was in the first game too but more on that

The gameplay is a tight, effective, and satisfying experience, as always, and truly controls great. I suppose now is the time to mention how much I hate the first Ratchet & Clank game because the controls are just mind numbingly terrible and make no sense. You can run and shoot but you cant really aim because the auto lock on aim is janky as hell and doesnt really work, if you want to really hit something you have to stop moving, go into first person mode, aim and shoot, while meanwhile a million things are shooting at you from a distance and a bunch of tiny guys are biting your toes all the while you can only take 4-6 hits near the start of the game. Plus, if you try to move and shoot at the same time, youre always shooting in the direction youre moving, because theres no strafe button. Its a truly miserable experience and I am so glad I didnt play that game first or else I never wouldve played this series ever again (HI @Whiskey_Nick ). The second game fixed this very simply by making the lock-on auto aim shooting actually work properly and THEY ACTUALLY ADDED A STRAFE!!! Like being able to shoot straight forward while moving left, right, or back, CAN YOU IMAGINE????

I love the arena in this game, love the varied and colorful environments, running around and using all your weapons equally so you can upgrade them all lets you really experience all the games weapons (even if the only upgrade once or twice)-all great. Running around this games open world areas, collecting all the crystals is a grind, but in a good way. I liked trying to go around to find all the giant sandworms. Ditto for the icefield iceworms. The racing segments are solid also. But ultimately, this game is about how great the CONTROL actually feels, especially over the first. So maybe a couple of the other R&C games are better, but this one is still awesome, and is here for not just that but also being the one that got me into the series, and playing it later on the PS3, it still held up damn well.

Weapons I love in this game: the RYNO II (one of the most fun versions because of its silly over-weaponized looking design, even if it doesnt play 1812), the Bouncer(which shoots an exploding spike ball that explodes into more smaller spike balls), the Sheepinator (turn your enemies into Sheep exploding sheep when upgraded), the Zodiac (basically a weapon that instantly eradicates most weak enemies on screen and does good damage to tougher enemies), and my favorite, the Plasma Coil (shoots an electric orb that as it makes contact with enemies, arc-lightnings/chain reactions itself into even more enemies).



Next up: It doesn't matter how strong or how used to the level you get, sooner or later, you're gonna get one-hit KO'd by some (hilarious?) bullshit. You'll scream in frustration, then fire it up and try again.

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#42 Linelight (PS4, 2017)


Unlike most of my efforts at endorsing and influencing people to get a certain game, I've actually had some success with Linelight, though I think foolmo backing me up played a large role. Linelight comes in as my fifth favorite puzzle game, but from pure puzzle design and mechanics, it might be the most impeccably-made puzzle game that I have played.

You are a line of white light that follows a faded path of light while solving puzzles using simplistic mechanics like permanent button presses and avoiding dangerous, moving lines of light. Each puzzle encompasses one screen and leads directly to the next puzzle on another screen (though there are a few optional puzzles on hidden paths). The mechanics might be simple, but they are numerous and seemingly exhaust all possible combinations of the types, which is quite the accomplishment on its own. The learning curve of this game is one of the best that I've seen in a game. They gradually introduce new mechanics and expand on them and, as mentioned previously, combine them with others so seemlessly that you are mentally prepared for everything the game throws at you.

The core of the game is excellent, but what makes this one of the more memorable video game experiences that I have had is how they made this ethereal experience. There's no plot or anything, but it the audio-visual presentation made me feel like I was on an important journey. The space setting with all the hues of blue, red, and green, the use of sporadically-placed stars, the effortlessly-looping, calming soundtrack, the animation of puzzles forming as you progress, and the touches at the end of each world/constellation to let you know that you are at its end are just something else.

I can't really do this game much justice in writing, but I'm also trying to hold back (though still hyping it up quite a bit) because this is a game that you should go in blind like I did. I really emplore anyone who enjoys puzzle games or at least can appreciate one to try it out.

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#22. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (PS1, 1997)



Symphony of the Night was the first non-Metroid game of this style I played, back when we probably just referred to them as Metroid-style. I was already a fan of Metroid, and I was already a fan of Castlevania, or at least the classic style. One of the more appealing things about Castlevania back then was the style. The gothic architecture that was even present in the old games, the nods to monster movies, and just the level of detail typically being far above most other games. SOTN took all that and kicked it into high gear, blowing away any game I had played at the time in terms of visual details and variety in scenery and spritework.

It obviously worked out, moving Castlevania to the Metroid-style, because now it's Metroidvania-style. I prefer this to the other Metroidvania Castlevanias, though. I've played through this one probably more than all the others combined, so there's a lot of familiarity and nostalgia. The castle is packed full of discovery too. Drops and random drops and breakable walls and a ton of secret rooms. It just feels like every place has something to do, even if so many rooms aren't important, and so many pickups are already useless by the time you get them.

Movement also feels great in SOTN. The backdash is stupidly amazing. It's also stupid to turn backwards and mash triangle to get places quick, but it just feels so so good. I pretty much never walk in this game. It's all backdashing and jumping like a madman. Then you can double jump and stomp on enemy heads. Then there's the transformations to zoom about in. Good movement can make even bad level design seem fun (see: some parts on this game's back half).

The music is of course super memorable. It was one of the more amazing things I had ever heard at the time, and it's still great today. I also put this game in my CD player a lot to get that bonus music track on it. It was a very cool remix of Dracula's Castle. Also, it's funny to think that Tak Fujii, who is mostly known now for the infamous 2010 Konami E3 conference & presenting Ninety-Nine Nights 2, is also a musician who played guitar on this game's soundtrack. That's right, the killer guitar solo in The Tragic Prince (Clock Tower)? It was that guy who played it. Extreeeme.

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#16 - Guild Wars (PC, 2005)

While everyone was playing World of Warcraft and getting hooked onto that for years, my MMO (sort of?) of choice was actually Guild Wars. With over 3,000 hours in this game, it is easily my most played game of all time. The Hall of Monuments website is still up so you can see just how much I actually did in this game:

https://hom.guildwars2.com/us/#page=main&details=siBCA8%2F%2F%2F%2FDDu1vhqonEAAmEgVHAAAAAdQsQQAAAAAA

I bought all the games for the original, starting with Factions (which is easiest to power straight to the max level at 20) and ending with Eye of the North. It's mostly all I played during my first two years of college (didn't really bring my consoles to my dorm there, so it was really just my PC) and probably why I did so poorly in class those two years! I have many fond memories of playing this game, and also ran a mafia game based on it for the first mafia game I ever hosted. It's still archived on this site even!

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/575926-mafia/63028668

I did buy Guild Wars 2 on release, and played it for a while, but it definitely wasn't anything like I wanted it to be. In the end I quit that game pretty quickly and even played more of Guild Wars 1 before eventually leaving it for good. No real reason to go back even if the game is still receiving updates fifteen years later, as I've pretty much done all I wanted to do in it.

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80% of the way through! Come on, KCF!

#1 Super Mario Odyssey: 1582 (+8)
#2 Mario Kart 8: 913 (+8)
#3 Pokemon RBY: 903 (-2)
#4 Super Smash Bros. Melee: 863 (-2)
#5 Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas: 845 (+16)
#6 Super Mario 3D World: 839 (+26)
#7 The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker: 834 (-4)
#8 Super Smash Bros. Ultimate: 811 (+30)
#9 Chrono Trigger: 769 (-5)
#10 Kirby Super Star Ultra: 724 (-5)
#11 Final Fantasy VI: 713 (-5)
#12 Virtue's Last Reward: 698 (-5)
#13 Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Spirit of Justice: 674 (-5)
#14 Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Trials and Tribulations: 649 (+62)
#15 Rock Band 2: 647 (+34)
#16 Borderlands 2: 643 (-5)
#17 Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3: 594 (-5)
#18 Jackbox Party Pack: 580 (-5)
#19 Elite Beat Agents: 577 (-5)
#20 Bioshock: 575 (-5)
#21 Valkyria Chronicles: 567 (+88)
#22 Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising: 550 (-6)
#23 Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: 547 (-6)
#24 Chrono Cross: 541 (-6)
#25 Dance Dance Revolution: 540 (+52)
#26 Castlevania: Symphony of the Night: 536 (+89)
#27 Mario Party 2: 527 (-8)
#28 Mega Man X: 519 (-8)
#29 Uncharted 2: Among Thieves: 503 (+121)
#30 Earthbound: 497 (+198)
#31 Uncharted 4: A Thief's End: 479 (-9)
#31 Banjo-Kazooie: 479 (-9)
#33 Final Fantasy IV: 466 (-9)
#33 Metroid Fusion: 466 (-9)
#35 Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door: 462 (-9)
#36 Horizon Zero Dawn: 458 (-9)
#37 Super Monkey Ball 2: 457 (-9)
#38 Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception: 456 (-9)
#38 Diddy Kong Racing: 456 (-9)
#40 The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening: 455 (-9)
#41 Super Mario World: 444 (-8)
#42 Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest: 443 (-7)
#42 Pokemon GSC: 443 (-9)
#44 Final Fantasy VII Remake: 442 (-8)
#45 Mario Tennis: 441 (-8)
#46 Advance Wars: Dual Strike: 435 (-7)
#46 Castlevania III: 435 (+274)
#48 The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild: 431 (-8)
#49 Atelier Totori: The Adventurer of Arland: 426 (+271)
#50 Super Mario Bros.: 419 (+46)
#51 Yoshi's Island: 409 (-10)
#52 Fallout 3: 408 (-10)
#53 Final Fantasy X: 406 (-10)
#54 Mario Golf (N64): 403 (-10)
#55 Mega Man 3: 398 (-10)
#56 Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow: 392 (-10)
#56 Final Fantasy Tactics: 392 (-10)
#58 The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: 390 (-10)
#59 Dissidia: Final Fantasy: 380 (NEW)
#60 Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time: 372 (+427)
#61 Super Mario Kart: 370 (NEW)
#62 Pikmin 2: 366 (-12)
#63 Super Mario 64: 365 (-12)
#64 The Walking Dead: Season 1: 364 (-12)
#65 Guitar Hero II: 363 (-12)
#66 Super Mario Bros. 3: 360 (NEW)
#67 The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past: 355 (-13)
#67 Final Fantasy XIII: 355 (-13)
#69 Final Fantasy IX: 350 (-13)
#69 Guild Wars: 350 (NEW)
#71 Tecmo Super Bowl: 347 (-14)
#72 Snowboard Kids 2: 343 (-14)
#73 Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2: 341 (-14)
#73 Shadowrun: 341 (NEW)
#73 Yakuza 0: 341 (NEW)
#76 WarioWare Gold: 340 (-16)
#77 Fate/stay night: 332 (NEW)
#77 Inazuma Eleven: 332 (NEW)
#79 Portal 2: 330 (+413)
#80 REmake: 329 (+375)

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You guys are insane.

Don't know you can rank 100 games so well with such great writeups

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#21 Fantasy General (MS-DOS, 1996)

Strategic Simulations was well-known in the mid-nineties for its strategy wargame series, starting with WW2-set Panzer General. Fantasy General is very much the same sort of game, but set in a high-fantasy world.



The game is a series of battles that are played on a hex-based map with Fog of War. You control a general commanding an army split into squads and heroes. The individual battles are turn-based and task you to eliminate all enemies or capture an objective. The overall campaign takes place over several continents and you can use your spoils to recruit new units and upgrade your technology. Depending on the character you choose to play, your army might consist of humans, beasts, magical entities, or machines, or some combination of these. The different generals also have their own abilities that can be used during battle, such as casting offensive spells or a one-time global heal.

Over the course of the campaign, units will gain experience and become more powerful, and I tend to get very attached to my team. This makes it tough when they inevitably die, but I try to be fair and not restart battles too much except for outright disasters. It is a game that can be abused pretty easily through save scumming, but if you choose to play hardcore, it can be very challenging and eventually unwinnable. At different points you have the chance to recruit powerful yet relatively fragile heroes who, like all your other units, are gone forever if they die.

This is yet another classic PC game that recently got renewed attention and a very late sequel, but I haven't had the time to look into it. I heard at the very least it is a serviceable tribute to the original. Based on my love for Fantasy General, I know I'll look into the next game someday.

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19. Super Mario 64 (N64, 1996)

This might be a stretch, but I think Mario 64 might be the most influential platformer ever made. Obviously, its real competition here is the original Super Mario Bros., a game so ahead of its time it basically revived the home video game industry all by itself and set the template for countless games for the next decade. But I can't put into words how crazy it was that Mario 64 was the first true 3D game ever put out for a Nintendo console - if you traveled in time from the early 90s, post-Mario 3 and World, you'd have expected the series to have evolved into 3D Land/World-style games, and not the open-ended collectathon it actually ended up being. But that design single-handedly set in stone the formula (much like original SMB did) for platformers for the next decade - and I'd say its structure and philosophy still have effects to the ethos of platforming games, Mario or not, to this day.
It's almost impossible to talk about just about any game from the early 3D era without asking that most notorious question: "Does it still hold up?" I think Mario 64 has a very complicated answer there, and I fully admit that as someone who played the snot out of this game back in the late-90s/early-00s, I'm gonna have a biased response, but I'm still gonna defend its honor and say, "Yes, absolutely, it does." Graphically it avoids the mistake of so many of those early 3D games - washed-out colors and muddied textures I love to colloquially name "texture hell" - by keeping things simple. As a result, yeah, it's a little ugly by modern standards, but you can (with a few exceptions) see where boundaries are and what you can stand on. The controls are not without their complaints: the camera absolutely sucks and gets in the way in some key moments, and Mario's little animation when trying to turn around does its best to constantly get in the way of precision movement. But so many of the moves introduced here set the standard for 3D Mario; the triple jump, the sideways flip, the long jump, the backflip: all of these became staples of pretty much every subsequent Mario game. It's easy to look at something like Mario Odyssey and be critical of all the ways 64 is limited, but 64 set the standard for most of those moves to begin with. And within its own confines, 64 still feels very good. You can make complex maneuvers, there's a lot of options in mobility, and mastery of the controls allows for the player to demonstrate and leverage their own skill fairly.
For a lot of the Mario series, the movement is the star of the show, and it certainly is a huge part of the game's success here. But its levels are almost as important, and I think they still hold up exceptionally. Within these worlds, Mario 64 is just brimming with oodles of charm and creativity. Most of the game's 15 main levels are large, thematically distinct, full of secrets to explore, and allow you to face challenges in whatever order you encounter them. The stars themselves are a mixed bag of excitement, but really bring out the possibility that the next main collectible could be just around the corner. And even some of the more benign challenges, like luring out a scary eel or riding a loch ness monster-type creature, are wonderfully memorable. 64's main collectibles - each stage's 8 red coins and 100 coin star, aren't too brutal either. (Despite sort of creating the "collectathon" standard Rare's platformers would get notoriety for, 64 itself really isn't that bad with demanding you scour every corner for hidden items.) After a handful of levels, the red coin challenges themselves get more unique with their structure. And there's still a lot of great little details about navigating the first Mario 3D world even now - the slide levels are delightful, scaling tall mountains still feels great, and the little touches in areas like Big Boo's Haunt are as charming as ever. Even small touches, like the game's title screen and Peach's castle, bring a playfulness and personality outside of the game's main levels.
Ultimately, 64 is a game I still adore coming back to (once again, there's some bias here); despite the disappointments and complaints of 3D All-Stars, I was more than happy to have a slightly-upgraded copy to play portably on my Switch at any time. Whether 70 or 120-star, backwards long jumps or no, 64 just feels wonderful to drop back into and re-experience - it's that same magic that all my favorite Mario games bring, the value of just plowing through great levels with outstanding replayability because they just feel so good to move around in. And despite my reservations, I'm still dumping this one in the Top 20. Maybe it's because of its importance, maybe I just can't get over how much I loved it 20+ years ago, but I'll always hold SM64 in the highest regard.
Top 5 Levels: Wet-Dry World - Cool, Cool Mountain - Hazy Maze Cave - Whomp's Fortress - Tick Tock Clock

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Never really understood the adoration for Mario 64. It's a fine game. Maybe if I had played it contemporaneous to its release I'd care about it more.

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#20 Uncharted 4: A Thief's End (Playstation 4, 2016)

So, in the spirit of full disclosure, I initially had this game ranked much higher. And I still have it ranked highly. But the more that I think about it, the more I wonder how much I really liked Uncharted 4.



It's a really good game, but to me, it has been the least-memorable game in the series. Maybe it's because I played it right after replaying the other three games and I was tired, or maybe the way that I enjoy games has just changed since I first played Uncharted. But I thought it took a long time and although it had a lot of neat moments, I wasn't amazed by any of the set-piece moments or spectacles that the Uncharted series is known for.

I am still a little puzzled at how they approached the story, which largely feels like a retread of the previous game. Once again going back to Drake's childhood, and once again putting his relationship with Elena in question. Yes, the dressing around these themes has changed, but it still feels "been there, done that" in a disappointing way. To its credit though, it does wrap everything up very neatly and comes to a satisfying conclusion in the end.



I will posit that Uncharted 4 plays better than any game in the series before it. The levels are well-designed and have an open feel to them that allows for more strategy in how you approach the combat situations. The vehicle sequences feel good and are fun to control, and the amount of freedom is a nice change. Like, it all technically sounds great. But I also hardly remember any of it. Really weird.

I do remember the multiplayer very clearly though, and this is the best Uncharted multiplayer they have done yet. Although I still am a huge fan of the more "old-school" style that Uncharted 2 embraced, I had a really good time with Uncharted 4 multiplayer with friends who played it. It had enough new pieces to entertain and excite me for dozens of hours.

I know this reads like I am going very hard on it, and I am, but that's just because it is the fourth game in the series. It's not really a spoiler for me to say that there will be another Uncharted game coming up on my list, and it's because of my reverence of and love for that other game that I am a bit more critical of this one. I wish Uncharted 4 had been good enough to become my favorite game in the series, but it fails to clear that bar. Still, it's a very good game and worth playing as part of one of my favorite series of all time.

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#12. Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars (SNES, 1996)

The first RPG I ever played and finished. It has strangely grown on me even more over the years. It was far lower last time I did a top 100, but after revisiting it, I truly love this game. Everything about it just hits. It was the birth of how excellent Bowser is in the RPG games. Mario proving to people that he is Mario by jumping. The combat is engaging and rewarding. The story is a lot of fun and littered with colorful characters. The OST is full of great and very catchy tunes. I love almost every area of this game.

The Forkies are enraptured.

The Forkies have come TO THEIR SENSES!!!!

Man what a great enemy.

One thing I never did get about this game. The insane amounts of love for Geno. Like he isn't bad or anything, be he also basically barely exists. Why do people think he is so awesome?

Anyway I adore this game. Talking about it makes me want to go play it again.

Bowser > Mario > Peach > Mallow > Geno

Mario RPG > SuperStar Saga > Bowser's Inside Story > Paper Mario > Super Paper Mario > Partners in Time > Dream Team > Paper Jam > Sticker Star

TTYD is he original game on my backlog. After 18 years I can't even bring myself to end that streak. Didn't play Color Splash or Origami King, nor do I want to.



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24. Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island (SNES, 1995)

Super Mario World 2 stands at a unique point in the Mario landscape. It is both the last traditional 2D Mario game and the first proper Yoshi game. In TV parlance, you'd call it a "backdoor pilot", like the episode of All in the Family called "The Jeffersons Move On Up". It ended up being the perfect game at the perfect time in the perfect circumstance.

It enabled Mario to take off into 3D and do fantastical things, but it also turned Yoshi into a bona fide star, in large part because Yoshi's Island is damn close to perfect. It's got some of the most vivid and cleverly designed levels in the Mario series, which made you consider the enemies, the environment, the collectibles, and your eggs as you worked your way through. Its art direction is absolutely splendid, unmatched by any games of the period and matched by very few since. The Koji Kondo score is probably his best non-Zelda work. Getting hit and losing Baby Mario created real tension, real stakes, that a traditional health system or Mario power-up system couldn't. And it controls so much more sharply and fluidly than any Mario before it (and many since, if we're being honest).

Add all that together, and it's clear to me that Yoshi's Island is, simply put, the best 2D platformer yet.

23. Roller Coaster Tycoon (PC, 1999)

From early in life, even before RCT came along, I wanted to design rollercoasters when I grew up. I'd gone to Busch Gardens in Tampa with family in '95 or so and just been awed by Kumba, which soared upside-down over us as we walked through the park. I was too small to ride it, but something about seeing my dad and grandfather careening by as I looked up at them filled me with wonder, and it stuck. I ultimately didn't pursue it as a career, for a wide variety of reasons, but the magic of a good coaster is still something I seek out when I'm able. And over those many intervening years, I've spent hours and hours playing around in the RCT series. The first two games are undeniably the only ones worth playing, and I could easily have grouped them together here, but the first one has more charm - and fewer licensed parks, which is actually a benefit - and is the one I still periodically return to, either to try my hand at building some new idea, or to torture park guests. The expansion packs are both excellent, too.

22. Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem (Gamecube, 2002)

Trying to explain why Eternal Darkness is an absolute masterpiece without giving up any spoilers or ruining the experience is a challenging task.

Created as the first M-rated game published by Nintendo, Eternal Darkness is the absolute peak of the psychological horror subgenre of games. It features a branched/nonlinear story told across many protagonists over many centuries and settings, heavily influenced by Lovecraft, Hitchcock, Lynch and Poe. As the chapters unravel, you get nearer and nearer to madness, and if you're not careful, you lose you can lose your mind entirely.

I don't want to say more than that, because the experience of the game is so engrossing and unique that it would be a disservice to anyone who hasn't played it - if not the game itself - for me to try to do it justice. It is impeccable, it is magnificent, it is ambitious, and it is batshit crazy.

There have been rumblings that it might get a remake or a port - lead protagonist Alex Rovias is in Smash as a spirit, and Nintendo filed for a trademark on the title last year - but I'm not holding my breath.

Find a way to play this game. You will absolutely not regret it.

21. Super Smash Bros. Melee (Gamecube, 2001)

It is absolutely wild looking at this character select screen for the first time in probably 10 years. What seemed so momentous at the time seems so small now.

From its release in 2001 to through the end of 2004, I would say I played Melee with my friends more days than not. That's not an exaggeration. None of us could drive yet, we were in middle and early high school. We had part time jobs and not much else to do. We played 2-3 hours after school almost every week day. For years. In the summer, it was more variable. Raining? Sweltering? Melee. Nice out? Raise hell outside. But to say we played thousands of hours of free for alls is not an exaggeration. There were usually 6 of us, so it was your classic "3rd and 4th place pass the sticks" situation. One kid, Javy, was not well liked because he steadfastly refused to pick anyone but Fox or Pikachu. But every friend group needs a villain sometimes, and I think he reveled in the role a bit, in part because he got pretty good with both, while the rest of us were either fucking around with random selection or were playing a wider array of characters in rotation. He became a figure to rail against, someone with a target on his back. We wanted him in 3rd at best. We didn't want someone hogging the stick by having specialized so well with just one or two characters. We didn't gang up on him, because we were still all out for ourselves, but if he was in a match, he had to stay sharp.

The sad thing is that all our data was erased by the true villain of this story, a lumbering oaf named Dave, who, late in the summer of 2004, yanked out the memory card out of my Gamecube (it was always my system; my parents had bought me one of those nifty carrying cases) while we were playing at the previously mentioned Boys and Girls Club, vaporizing the record of those thousands and thousands of battles.

We chased him out of the building with a pool cue.

He didn't come back for two weeks. And when he did, he avoided us. To this day, I have no idea why he did it, other than that he was one of those cruel, dumb teenagers who did things just to do them.

Ultimately, it didn't matter. The damage was done. Disheartened by the erasure, we barely played it after that. The bonds in that friend group eroded broke apart as 2004 wound to a close. I haven't seen or spoken to any of them in nearly as long. I wonder sometimes if Melee was the only thing that kept that friend group going as long as it did. Who knows.

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#21. Elevator Action Returns (Arcade, 1994)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQfxM7QzOiM



I've talked a couple times about playing games in the arcade during my DDR days. Here's another one of those games! It's not a popular hit by any means, but for years, it was always fun to pop on over to this cabinet for a play. I'm not amazing at the game, but I got decently good at it, and could run through the whole game on a dollar or less. It's about a 30-45 minute playthrough. It later released on the collection Taito Legends 2, which I bought, and had a lot of fun playing even more at home. Sometimes it's fun to turn to a shorter game and just play through the whole thing in one sitting, and this is often I game I put in when I'm feeling that vibe.

The original Elevator Action was uh, nothing special. I'm amazed it got a sequel, especially because the sequel came over 10 years later. The original game involved a spy breaking in to the top floor of a tall skyscraper, and descending towards the bottom, while breaking into various doors along the way to collect classified info. It was a run-and-gun game, but very slow paced.

The sequel uses that same basic premise, but adds a bunch to make it way more fun. There are now three characters to choose from (Kart Bradfield, Edie Burret, and Jad the Taff; maybe the best-named trio of characters in video game history?), each of which plays a little different and has a different weapon. The action is a lot better paced than the original, but still calculated. There are way more environmental features to interact with and destroy. There are more doors to get things from, some containing power ups and new weapons. The first stage is a skyscraper, similar to the original, but later stages go through a variety of buildings and scenery, and in a less-linear layout.

Graphically, the sprites were pretty sharp for the time, but the game really shines through with its sense of style. It really feels like it pulls inspiration from every '90s action movie. There are a variety of locations, and even within them, every screen looks different. Explosions are huge and satisfying, and there are tons of small details all over in a way that just makes it feel good and look good to run through levels. On the sound side, Yasuhisa Watanabe does the music. He made a lot of fantastic soundtracks for bad and/or lesser known Taito games, and he got the assignment again here. It's another set of songs from him that I love.





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Gonna do a quick recap of my list now that I'm up to my top 20.

100. Ninja Gaiden
99. Dragon Ball FighterZ
98. Outland
97. Out of the Park Baseball 21
96. The Binding of Isaac
95. Kirby's Dream Land 3
94. RollerCoaster Tycoon
93. Shadows of the Damned
92. The King of Fighters XIII
91. Strider (2014)
90. Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons
89. Kamui
88. Gain Ground
87. Resident Evil (2002 REmake)
86. Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3
85. Solstice
84. Raiden (series)
83. Ori and the Blind Forest
82. Ogre Battle 64
81. Mega Man Legends

80. Rez
79. Punch-Out!!
78. G-Darius
77. Pop'n Music (series)
76. Shovel Knight
75. Thunder Force V
74. Final Fantasy Tactics
73. Under Night In-Birth Exe: Late
72. VA-11 Hall-A
71. Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors
70. Spelunky 2
69. The Legend of Zelda
68. Brave Fencer Musashi
67. Lumines
66. Final Fantasy VII
65. Metroid Fusion
64. The Witness
63. Street Fighter V
62. Hotline Miami
61. Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse

60. F-Zero GX
59. Undertale
58. Everybody's Golf
57. Tecmo Super Bowl
56. Donkey Kong (1994)
55. Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island
54. Mega Man X
53. Super Smash Bros. Melee
52. The World Ends With You
51. Metroid Prime
50. Windjammers
49. VVVVVV
48. Samurai Shodown (2019)
47. Groove Coaster
46. Space Invaders Extreme
45. Shinobi 3
44. Mega Man 3
43. Mega Man X4
42. Street Fighter 2
41. Deadly Premonition

40. Cave Story
39. Bioshock
38. We Love Katamari
37. Chrono Trigger
36. Street Fighter 3: Third Strike
35. Silent Hill 2
34. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
33. Steins;Gate
32. Wild Arms 3
31. Dragon Quest V
30. The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening
29. Sleeping Dogs
28. Dance Dance Revolution (series)
27. Cuphead
26. Ys 1
25. La-Mulana
24. Final Fantasy V
23. Guilty Gear Xrd
22. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
21. Elevator Action Returns

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#18. Spelunky (PC, 2013)
This is quite possibly the most addicting game on my list, and this time, a true roguelike, and the best there is. The appeal of this game to me is all about the STRATEGY. Its a platformer dungeon crawler sure. But you really need to think about what youre going to do with your limited resources and time. Does spending time in the level digging for more gems make sense? You might need that money to buy something good in the shop, like a jetpack or pickaxe, but then you might wind up using most/all of your bombs or ropes, you might run out of time in the level and have to deal with the ghost, you might run into an annoying enemy on your way and take some damage to your much-needed health. These are the kinds of decisions I find my self wrestling with in a Spelunky run, in an attempt to make my life progressing through these levels as simple as possible, as going start to finish winds up being really damn difficult because near-perfection is required. Sure, you start with 4 health, but you have no i-frames at all so any one thing that hits you can bounce you around the level, sending you into more enemies, arrow traps, spikes, off the edge, any number of ridiculous things. And I gotta say, running on an intense 45-minute run through the game, all loaded up with great items, shitloads of bombs, and a ton of health, getting tapped by a random spider you dont see drop from the ceiling, to knock you immediately into an Abominable Snowman who grabs you and throws you off the edge man it really sucks but you cant help but laugh at the ridiculousness of how you can die sometimes.

As mentioned, this is a procedurally generated Roguelike dungeon crawler. The goal is to get to the end of each level! Theres lots of split paths and alternate ways to go, which provide a ton of other exploration and how you want to play the game options. You start with 4 health, 4 bombs, 4 ropes. The bombs blow up walls which can lead you to areas that have items or gems/money. The ropes allow you to climb to higher areas. Theres just an endless amount of fun stuff to try too in this game and a ton of mechanics. For example, you can try attacking the shopkeepers to take all their stuff, but youll enrage them and theyll go after your ass hard for THE REST OF THE GAME. But its worth it if you can kill them for their stuff and the shotgun they will try to kill you with. Theres altars to Kali, which if you sacrifice enough bodies (dead or otherwise, allies or enemies) youll be rewarded with various goodies. The jetpack is awesome and the best item in the game. Theres a whole myriad of stuff like this to explore with, and a ton of items which a lot of them may seem like they suck, but they all have their situations in which they may prove useful. As I mentioned the decision making earlier, maybe that gun that makes Spider Webs, normally useless, can be really helpful if youre out of ropes and need a controlled way to ascend. There are rocks everywhere. You ALWAYS want to have one on you (or anything to carry) because not only can you use it as a throwing weapon, but you can use it to set off arrow traps that shoot when they detect movement, or hit a bat at a tricky angle (since your default whip has a sad short hitbox), or Im sure you can find some other use

I mentioned the Ghost earlier too-I should clarify on that. You cant just dilly dally in each level, eventually the ticking clock of the Ghost will emerge after 2 minutes on each level. The Ghost can go through walls obviously, and slowly hones in on you. He is pretty difficult to avoid and if he touches you, its instant death. The Ghost can be useful too if you are crafty because he turns gold dust (normally worth small amounts of money, and found in most walls after you blow them up) into valuable diamonds!

I know that when other people have seen me play this game they comment on how I have such a different playstyle, but I think this game really lends itself well to playing however you want- Fast and brisk, Slow and methodical, spending all your gold right away on whatever you see in the shop, trying to save it for the more expensive items you may or may not find later, or not minding hanging around in the level long after the Ghost invades- if youre good at evading it, or have good means to evade it (like the jetpack!). This ticking clock mechanic per level is much like Crypt of the Necrodancers music.



When you die, and you will die a LOT, you can instantly get right back into the game, and youll be energized to get going again. This is the kind of game where each time you play, youll get better and understand more tricks to get farther. I cant say youll get further each time, because theres always some random thing waiting to one hit kill you, like when you miss the whip on a bat and it hits you as result before who knows what happens, but youll definitely at least do better each time.

So yeah-for me this game is all about the variety- the different ways you can approach a level, the strategic thinking of item conservation, and when to spend stuff, the ridiculous amount of hidden areas (and how you access them), and the fantastic difficulty level. Ill leave off with how you can get to the fabled City of Gold.

Its very simple. You need to find the key somewhere in 1-2, 1-3, or 1-4, then use that key on the chest hidden in the same level (often at the bottom of a snake pit) to get the Eye of Udjat, which allows you to see where gems are buried in the ground but also somewhere in World 2 Jungle it will start flashing when you get close to the secret entrance to the Black Market, so you need to bomb the ground to open it up, then in there buy the Ankh for $50K, which allows you to come back to life once if you were to die, except in World 3 Ice Caves where if you die on the stage with the Moai statue, you will come back to life inside the Moai statue where you can get the Hedjet which is one of the 2 keys to the city of gold; the other key is the Scepter which you get by killing Anubis in 4-1, and hopefully you have the glue and a bunch of bombs cuz the easiest way to kill him is to stick bombs to him while avoiding his black hole attack, but if you kill him you get his Scepter and can use the powerful Black Hole attack which is great except it can also fuck you over cuz youll probably accidentally attack a shopkeeper or gravitate a stray arrow into you or something but ultimately it doesnt matter because you need to find the City of Gold entrance in 4-2 and give up the Hedjet and Scepter in order to gain access and then youve discovered the City of Gold!!!!!

Or you dont have to do that. But you can!



Also, I'll just add that while I have been enjoying Spelunky 2, I think on the whole it's a bit more frustrating/not as good. They altered it so you can't jump as high which I still haven't really gotten used to -it drastically changes how the whole platforming feels- movement was much better in 1. There's also more "traps"you can get stuck in and need to use a bomb/rope. Spelunky 1 had very smart procedural generation, where you would NEVER find yourself in a situation where you NEEDED a bomb or rope to FINISH a level unless you used one in the first place to get yourself into a mess like that; ie a pit with no ledges to climb back up might generate in 2 but not 1. I also think the difficulty curve is off- World 1 is too hard and World 2 (at least the fire one) is too easy. Still great game though.

Next up: A game with a divisive ending.

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15.) Rune Factory 3 (3DS, 2009)


This to me is easily the best of the Rune Factory games, which is in turn, a really fun expansion on the Harvest Moon games, done by looping RPG mechanics. Your main character is actually a sheep monster which is a fucking great concept and lends itself to his outfit with the sheep fur.

This is also the point in the series where the writers have run out of standard bachelorette ideas and so just go buck wild with crazy painters and extremely sleepy girls and its just a fantastic way to go. The cool thing about this particular game is since your sheep form is really good at fighting you are free to invest your time and energy into making things other than weapons which I like.

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#41 Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King (PS2, 2005)


Unlike the vast majority of the board, I am not much of a fan of JRPGs. It's not like I hate them and have played dozens in my lifetime, but that was mostly back when I was a kid in the 2000s. These days, I have a lower tolerance for experiences that require me to put in a lot of time but give back just mild entertainment. It also doesn't help that they tend to have a higher emphasis on plot only for it to be inane in a bad way full of weak writing regurgitating the same banal themes with thin characters pretending to be deeper than they are. Now that I have everyone hating my gaming opinions more than usual, it probably comes as a surprise that my highest ranked RPG is a JRPG, that it landed as high as this, and that it is DQ VIII.

It helps that series' signature charm that is always on full display. It may seem weird, but with its iconic enemy varities and their goofy appearances, I actually enjoyed the basic battle system. The story is also an enjoyable one. While there are some serious moments, it never felt too melodramtic, cringy, or more importantly undermine the overall tone of the game of a majestic adventure. The beautiful world full of awe-struck features (Empyrea's shadow in particular stuck out with me) may suck you in like it did me, but nearly everywhere you go, you will be in store for some silly puns and a lighthearted sense of humor that doesn't feel like they are trying too hard.

This lengthy journey unfortunately doesn't have great XP distribution, and the stats of enemies really ramps up as the game goes on, so I have to bring up the dreadful concept of grinding. 95% of the time, I find it an irredeemable flaw with the game, but I have never truly minded it in Dragon Quest, only because the hunt for the infamous Metal Slimes is actually kind of fun. In the 3DS version of the game, you can see the monsters on the map, so you don't have to blindly get into battles hoping to get one.

Developer Level 5 had a great showing for the PS2, but DQ VIII was head and shoulders above the rest.

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40. Portal 2 (PS3, 2011)
39. Portal (Xbox 360, 2007)




I had played several of Valve's games before Portal including the previously mentioned Counter-Strikes, the Half-Lifes, and Team Fortress 2, but their excursions into the puzzle genre ended up being my favorite.

It wasn't until the Portals that I began to appreciate enviornmental-based puzzle games. I'm sure that I don't need to explain, but Chell, the protagonist, has now powers of her own, and the Portal gun she possesses is extremely basic. One button releases one color (blue/orange), another releases the other color. You can only have one portal of each color out and pressing the same button twice will result in the old portal being replaced by the new one. Going through the orange portal for example will have you exit via the blue portal, and vice-versa.

Despite the basic idea, they had a lot great ideas for the gun with the test chambers. Lasers, turrets, and springboards are just a small amount of all the clever uses the Portal gun can assist you with. While not an open-ended kind of puzzle game, there's more flexibility than you would think given the various obstacles, and they typically give you leeway with precision. Portal 2 actually added quite a few gameplay elements to the fold, maybe the biggest of them being several types of gels that make objects slide fast or bounce high. The learning curve for these were quite easier than one might think.

I sometimes forget that Sam & Max originated as comic books, so my vote the funniest games/characters probably goes to the Portals with GLaDOS, Wheatley, and Cave Johnson as three of the funniest characters in gaming. The passive-agressive GLaDOS, incompetent Wheatley, and cantankerous Cave are phenomenal from the moment you meet them. For a series where the plot isn't really important, creating such rich characters that you want to hear from again and again was probably quite the arduous task, but man, the final product that we get to experience just makes it seem like the writers were coming up with lines so fast and so easily. I know that the voice acting for this was exhausting, but damn did they knock it out of the park. We had a female villain quote contest within the past year or two, and GLaDOS had like 10% of the field. I think Wheatley and Cave Johnson did extremely well in Johnbobb's Best Character from X Year contest, so I know the majority agrees.

While Portal 2 adds a lot more to experience, including a separate co-op campaign, I do slightly prefer the original because it was one of the more perfectly succinct gaming experiences that I've had.

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#19 Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood (Playstation 3, 2010)

There are like a million games in the Assassin's Creed series. For like a decade, they made at least one every year. And I've only played five of them, so I cannot say for sure that Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, is the best one of them. But it is my favorite.



This is the second game in the Ezio Auditore "trilogy," following Assassin's Creed II, and while II got a lot of things right and was a very good game, Brotherhood is an improvement in pretty much every single way. It was not surprising to me, because II had a similar relationship with the original Assassin's Creed. Unfortunately, that trend did not continue with future AC games. In my experience, Brotherhood is where the series peaked.

But what a peak it was! The end of ACII saw Ezio travel to Rome, and that's where Brotherhood takes place over a large portion of his adult life. The single city setting allows a level of focus that sets the game apart from its predecessors, and the gameplay and story benefits greatly as a result. And when the city is not enough, there are individual missions set out in the countryside that provide some variety. Also returning are the wonderful underground/tomb sections that focus on exploration. Of course, there are tons of little missions and things to do scattered throughout the city, and climbing up Rome's historic buildings is still satisfying at this point.



The game also featured a then-unique multiplayer mode that I thought was perfect for the series. It gives you an opportunity to use the stealth and assassination skills that you take for granted in single player against other humans, which is deeply satisfying when it works. It wasn't the main thing about the game, but it was a nice addition that added value.

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#13 - Final Fantasy X (PS2, my GotY for 2001)


If wed have begun this project as recently as 7 years ago, I wouldve told you that Final Fantasy X is in my unassailable top 3 with Resident Evil 4/Metal Gear Solid 3. Over the coming two weeks you will see if time has treated those other two games much better, but this write-up will specifically address FFXs fall from grace.

Lets cut back to the summer of 2001 for a bit. I am 13, and persistent in holding out on my Nintendo fandom, because I am only allowed one new console every generation, and not quite old enough to really understand how to save up several hundred dollars yet. Sony gets the jump on Nintendo and releases the PS2 a year earlier than Nintendo can get their Cube out the door. I dont really quite have a pulse on whats big in the gaming world at this point; my only source on this kind of info is through the issues of Nintendo Power at my local library.

But my friend has a new PS2 and wants me to try out this game he got with it. I head over to his house and he pops in Final Fantasy X. I start a new game, and the first thing Im treated to is this fucking badass shot of a city getting destroyed accompanied by heavy metal. If that isnt a direct hook to a couple of 13 year olds, I dont know what is. I was floored. How were these graphics even possible in a video game? I had only ever seen polygons before, and this scrawny sports man is so realistic? I dont understand, but I must own this.

I would end up asking for a PS2 as a junior high graduation gift the following May, saving up enough to get a used copy of FFX, and blasting through the game in a month. I had no clue this idea of turn-based combat games even existed until Paper Mario. I actually skipped over the SNES when I was little, which was the heyday of the genre, and the N64 was severely lacking in that department, so FFX was opening an entire new world for me.

Unfortunately, now we must fast-forward to late-2016. I had been aware of the remaster coming out years earlier, but Im not too into the idea, because turn-based RPGs are not what I consider great targets for remasters in general. Looking better doesnt contribute much to its overall quality. But oh my god, someone has remade the entire soundtrack into Tidus laughs and Ill be damned if Im not going to experience the game in this way. I buy it, download the mod, and get to work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOzM4ClFG1o

and the magic just isnt there for me at all anymore. I get to Djose and the game is just so boring. Having enemies weaknesses tied directly to your characters stats and weapons doesnt detract much from an initial playthrough but boy does it make combat ridiculously stale super fast on a second or third time through. I still really enjoy the story, the characters, even Tidus cheesy voice acting, but its easily the highest-ranked game on my list that I would actively refuse to play anymore. It also opened my eyes on turn-based RPGs, which my list has been chock full of. By the time I finish, 15 of the 17 RPGs on my full list will be turn-based, and ultimately, that is all thanks to FFX.

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#15 - Radiant Historia (DS, 2011)

Radiant Historia is the best turn-based jRPG released on a Nintendo handheld in North America. Remember that statement for later. In typical Atlus fashion the game came out for the DS only a month before the 3DS was set to release, and was largely ignored at the time but received a 3DS remake later on (which I have not played).

Radiant Historia's main character is Stocke, and he's no jRPG teenager on a quest to save the world here; this guy's a military man who isn't an idiot and will typically make better strategies in the game, making good use of the White Chronicle, a device that can change the events of time. Stocke goes down two paths in the game, both of which he uses his unique abilities and events in the other timeline to continue each one separately. It works relatively well even with the disjointed timeline being as it is.

One of the main highlights of Radiant Historia is the battle system, where each party is on a 3x3 grid. Several actions attack certain areas of the grid, other actions may set a trap on a certain square, and some may knock opponents around the grid. Using these abilities to move enemies around and chaining your attacks together is the key to dealing massive damage to enemy opponents. Several bosses, however, take up the whole grid and make this battle system somewhat useless in the end, which is kind of a silly way to make the game harder.

I've always been a big fan of the soundtrack (but I know board 8 isn't, as VGMC has told me this for years). I've put down a few tracks to listen to, if you want!

Soundtrack Links:
Blue Radiance
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6Bn4ekQnfw
The Edge of Green
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byKBS63FAPY
The Red Locus (my personal favorite)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=998oVF2XbAQ
Shadows Dance in the Darkness
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkPEOJwr1KU
-HISTORIA-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bLb5HF1oKI

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#38 Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves


While stealth platforming with the smooth-as-silk Sly is still front and center, each game after the first Sly had a smorgasbord of gameplay features in an attempt to keep things constantly fresh, including controlling multiple characters and incorporating as many genres as they could pack in the ;arge open-world, heist-driven structure that they introduced in the second game. Against all odds, Sucker Punch made it all work in a game that includes participating in a dogfighting tournament, helming a pirate ship, and doing some deep sea diving all the while giving you another fun tale full of lively, memorable characters both new and old.

This wasn't the final Sly game, but it was the last great one. It is no coincidence that it was also Sucker Punch's final full Sly game before moving onto inFAMOUS. Now the series is all but dead. RIP my heart.

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18. F-Zero X (N64, 1998)

It is fall of 1998, and I'm with my family in a Best Buy, trying to decide on which current-gen console we're going to invest in. It's a few months before Pokmon, and Nintendo, and video games as a whole all start to take over my life, so I'm mostly excited by the thought of playing the latest NCAA Football entry on the PlayStation. My brother is much more drawn to the upcoming release of Zelda on Nintendo 64, and as the one with much more interest in gaming (at the time), and the one with actual money (and seniority), he convinces us to go with it. But obviously we had to have a game to go with it, as Zelda wasn't due out for another couple of months. Memories of how exactly we landed on F-Zero X are hazy, but as someone who liked their experiences of both Mario Kart and Wipeout, it was a pretty safe choice. And thus my two-plus-decade long love affair with the F-Zero series, and its...sadly paltry selection of games, began.
F-Zero X made a lot of sacrifices visually to run at a constant 60 fps (very uncommon among N64 games) - it's backgrounds are hazy, there's very few non-track elements on the courses, and it's just generally quite ugly. But the gameplay is so, SO smooth. F-Zero's claim to fame is always its absurdly high speed, and as such its perfect framerate is almost essential in capturing that so well. As a bonus, it misses out on the problematic N64/PS-era "texture hell" graphics - its minimalist courses make it very clear where hazards, walls, and boosts are along the courses, and it still holds up exceptionally well to this day. X also nails so many other aesthetic elements that you can forgive its graphical limitations: the stylistic comic-book themed characters and menus, the incredible heavy metal soundtrack, and the ridiculous robot voice effects (YOU'VE GOT BOOST POWER! POUR IT ON, YOU'RE WAY OUT IN FRONT!! YEAAAAH, THE FINAL LAP!!) all stand out so distinctly in my memory.
X also introduced a number of novel innovations, most of which would quickly be adopted as standards for the series. Boost power allows you to deplete your power gauge for a temporary speed boost, rather than just earning one per lap as in the SNES edition. A full 30 racers compete on a track at the same time, earning points for placement in each course across an individual cup (and that also means 30 unique vehicles and drivers to play as and unlock). Vehicle attacks such as the side-swipe and spin are added here, and you can earn extra lives in a cup race by taking out enough opponents. There's even some novel additions like the X Cup (comprised of six randomly generated courses) and Death Race (take out the other 29 cars in a looping course as fast as you can) that only appear here, but are just as enjoyable.
But the game's courses are the huge stars here: they're outstanding technical roller coasters that really make the most of the translation to a 3D environment. You've got big jumps, little jumps, steep banked turns, loops, corkscrews, half-corkscrews, tubes, half-pipes, full-pipes, all flying at you at over 1000 km/hour. There's a giant oval course with near-nonstop boosts, there's a course with a staircase of deadly jumps at the end, there's a course that's almost entirely a treacherous halfpipe with no walls, there's a course shaped like a giant hand - every one of them kicks ass. But unlike Mario Karts, F-Zero is an uncompromisingly fair game; you don't get power-ups or items to work your way back in front, you've got to do it all on your own racing merit. And there's no Lakitu to save you if you drive off an edge or fly off the course from going too fast; you lose a machine and have to try again. This makes multiplayer perhaps a little bit less accessible to new players, but also makes competing for fast times and high scores extra compelling. I only beat a couple of the staff ghosts back in the day, but a good friend of mine conquered them all and regularly submitted times to fan-created online leaderboards. The courses are so wonderfully crafted that it feels good to optimise every last turn, jump, and boost to perfection, and then do it again.
And though I made a brief reference earlier, I can't end without mentioning the game's incredible music. X has so many awesome and memorable tunes, and its guitar-laden tracks feel so tonally different to what you might expect from video games of the era. There's something extra special about the combination of headbanging metal to precision high-speed racing - it just works and the whole game leans into it perfectly. The guitar arrange edition soundtrack, released in Japan, is one of my all time favorite video game soundtracks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMnp2c4wl7Y
For a period of my teenage years, I listened to this thing nearly every damn day, and popping back in now and hearing a couple tunes is just an absolute treat.
There's only one racing game that has managed to capture my heart in the same way as this one, and it shares a heck of a lot of similarities, but we won't be seeing that on the list until the top five. Playing its courses feels just as wonderful as it did back in 1998 - and if you haven't played this one by now, shame on you. If I'm willing to concede that Mario 64 "holding up" is debatable, I'll hear no arguments for X - it's certainly ugly, but it still runs like a champ and absolutely kicks as much ass as it ever did. I could ramble on forever (guess I sort of have) about F-Zero, and why Nintendo should be held criminally responsible for not giving us anything in the series for the past 15 years, but we'll always have X as a beautiful gem of a game, and I'm so thankful for that.
Top 5 Courses: Sector Beta - Red Canyon - Port Town - White Land - Silence

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#18 Bioshock Infinite (Playstation 3, 2013)

I really love all three Bioshock games, and while I felt good about the order that I ended up ranking them in, I think that all of them stood a good chance to be my favorite. But there is an evolution of the series through each entry, and the Bioshock formula is markedly improved each time.



The major improvements with Bioshock Infinite are in terms of the characters and setting. Booker Dewitt is the first player character in the series to speak or have any sort of personality, which makes the story more flavorful, if slightly less personal. Elizabeth coming into the picture somewhat early on gives Booker someone to bounce off of throughout the game, which is welcome. Like Bioshock 2, their relationship is really the core of the game, and as much as I give Bioshock 2 credit in that area, Infinite pulls it off even better. Even though Booker has a personality, I felt a lot like I was Booker while playing the game, and felt a responsibility and fondness for Elizabeth.

Like Rapture before it, Columbia is once again a wonderful and mysterious place that is a job to explore. The "city in the clouds" is impossible, and staggering in its size, but feels pretty real and true to its turn-of-the-century period. Throughout the game you go to a lot of different neighborhoods with distinct feelings, and you can see that there is so much more to Columbia than what you can access. Infinite once again takes on more philosophical narratives, this time the ideas of American Exceptionalism and religious revivalism. The designers put a ton of work into the art and throughout the city are tons of unique murals and posters that demonstrate the beliefs and culture of the people of the city.



The way the game plays is once again improved from previous entries, although not as starkly as 2 did from the first game. The skyhooks and rails of Columbia provide a lot of nice mobility options in the battle arenas and amp up the pace of fights.

I do have to mention the DLC. I'm not really taking away points for it, but after the nice bonus the Bioshock 2 DLC provided, it's a shame that the story DLC for Infinite turned out to be downright awful. Acting as sort of an epilogue, it feels completely reactionary to criticisms of the game's story, and yet manages to only make any problems the story had worse. Something that retroactively makes Infinite's story worse, which left a bad taste in my mouth afterward. Luckily, it's not hard to tell myself that the DLC is just bad fanfiction and leave it out of my regard for the rest of the game, which I still love very dearly.

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#11. Borderlands 2 (PS3, 2012)



After playing BL1 alone, I was in love with the series and hyped as heck for a sequel. BL2 is better in every single way. I first played with Icon, and man did he ever spend a lot of time healing me. I am the run in and have no attempt at defense type. Later played with Wigs, Bartz, MSG, TLO and others. BL2 was a game I beat so many times, with multiple groups. We played this at various times over 7 years. Heck they even did a DLC 7 years after the game came out. Handsome Jack was an outstanding villain, Mr. Torgue is one of my all time favorite characters, and the rest of the cast and various one offs are all really good. Oh yeah the DLCs are almost all fantastic this time around. Hammerlock DLC is not good. The rest are excellent, Torgue and Tina DLCs are top tier content. BL2 did a good job of letting people get Legendary items but not making them a drop on every enemy like in BL3. The shooting mechanics are crisp, there is a wide variety of areas and enemies. It boggles my mind that I have a shooter so high up on my list, but here we are.



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#17. The Last of Us (PS3, 2013)
If Uncharted is the summer action-adventure blockbuster, The Last of Us is well, the zombie thriller. I never really had a HUGE interest in zombie movies or media. But I have found it interesting sometimes, specifically when the story is a little more about the human aspect of things, the idea of survival, how relationships are affected in an apocalyptic scenario. Im sure theres more out there that focuses on it than I believe there to be, but for the bit I have been invested in, the storytelling is key. So that for me is basically The Walking Dead and The Last of Us.

The gameplay in TLOU is good, but its the narrative around the gameplay that really shines. The action sequences are your Uncharted style of 3rd person shooting mixed with stealth. As is usual for me, the stealth sections are more fun and interesting, trying to take out infected or those types that will do anything to stay alive silently is more in your favor than engaging. You engage too for your standard Uncharted shootouts, but you may not last as long here, especially against hordes of zombies, and thats because your supplies are low-most of the game, if youre playing on a harder difficulty, is rife with trying to be as conservative as possible with your ammo and supplies, as you really dont get much and need to get creative when you run low or out. The supplies in this game function as parts, and when you get enough parts you can craft tools; med kits, smoke bombs, explosives, molotovs, shivs, etc. And again, this will all be in limited supply so being of wary of this throughout the run is a dynamic in survivor style games that I like. How the gameplay integrates with the story is great. There are a lot of slow narrative sections, where maybe youre just trying to find your way through a collapsed building or whatever, with dialogue and such throughout, where you have some time to slow down and look for parts, and I think the game flows very well between these sections. The Winter section with Ellie is probably the best and most tense and exciting parts of the game.



The multiplayer is a great time as well here, a group-focused deathmatch style, based well around the main game. You craft items and sneak around-its a very slow pace because you are more easy to detect if you are loud and running. You have a listen mode like in the game which is slow to recharge and creates a dynamic of move slow, and stick with your group. I probably dont like it as much as some other Naughty Dog multiplayer games, but its more interesting and methodical.

The story is fantastic. The prologue of this game is very sad (if not a little bit cheaply so, but hey it still works really well), and then BAM 20 years later. Joel is a controversial protagonist. You certainly like him more than a lot of the other people in this game, and he has his morals, but this game still knows what its doing with the theres no good people in an apocalypse kind of storytelling, and handles it well throughout (unlike TLOU2, where the point is CONSTANTLY. HAMMERED. IN.). Youre not really supposed to agree with Joel, but you like him, for the most part, in spite of the fact he does some bad things, which he feels like he has to do. Obviously, he is also a very cold character initially, but the relationship he develops with Ellie feels real and natural over its time. It definitely builds up well, and there is a point where a certain event (right after Ellies fight with that cannibal creepy fucker David, fantastically voice acted by Nolan North btw) basically solidifies their relationship for the last third or so of the game, until the end. Ellie is a great and very likeable character (in this game), again feels very real and her relationship with Joel as well. Both are acted extremely well, maybe my tops for voicing performance in all games on my list. What best represents Ellie is her honesty and earnestness. The fact she stops throughout the journey just to read Joel puns from her joke book are perfectly befitting of her. I love those puns. The other characters you meet on the way too, albeit minor, are well done too.



The ending of this game- I really liked it a lot for being a not perfect ending. Joels decision to save Ellie from the hospital, killing the doctors along the way, as that was the only way to save her life- I think it made perfect sense for his character to do that. Its selfish for sure, and shows how much he came to care for Ellie, like she was his lost daughter, and at the same time is totally disrespectful to her since he knows this is what she wouldve wanted, but cant bring himself to lose her. He knows this too, since he lies to her at the end, and you totally understand why he does it, and why Ellie totally doesnt believe him, but chooses to swallow it anyway. This ending moment is quite emotional, bittersweet, and complex and I liked it ended on that air of resigned acceptance, it put a period on the emotional mood of the game.



I liked TLOU2 as well. I dont want to get too much into it here, but I do want to talk about how it resolves that ending. There was a lot I didnt like in it, mostly the general plot, but the characters and plot progression is good, as well as the small moments are fantastic. The scene referring back to this moment where Joel finally tells Ellie what he did (mostly cuz she finally did find more solid proof), the way their relationship then progressed, her not wanting to forgive him, into that one final Joel post-mortem scene where she wants to do her best to reconcile with Joel even though she can never forgive himits all especially emotional and heartbreaking, and well done. Those few Ellie/Joel scenes were the best parts of TLOU2 for sure.

Anyway, this game is a very well told story, with deep and well-acted characters and great character growth, surrounded by solid and narratively fitting gameplay.



Next up: This is probably objectively the worst game in my top 100. I dont care.

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

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#14 - SSX 3 (GameCube, 2003)

While SSX (2012) was a great snowboarding game, the game's peak was definitely in the game with 3 peaks, SSX 3. So many hours through it and I never did actually complete it! However, I got almost all of the medals (including some platinum ones) definitely played it more than any other game in the series, more than Tricky or SSX 2012.

There's no story in SSX 3; you have three peaks that unlock as you continue through the game, and your job is to do as much as you can on each one to keep going through the game. Honestly though, it doesn't need one. The game has different stages for races and tricks (except for the backcountry levels at the top of each peak, which are used for both). Trick events are further split up into Big Air events, which consist of a number of large jumps, Super Pipe events, which consists of a half-pipe on which multiple tricks can be performed, and Slopestyle, which is basically the same as the previous game's courses. There's also freeride options when not doing events, and these lead to various other challenges that can be found on the course, and there are snowflakes scattered all over the mountain that give an amount of money when discovered; some are hidden extremely well and may take multiple attempts to get to. Also, since the three peaks are all connected from top to bottom, it's possible to snowboard all the way from the peak of the 3rd mountain to the bottom of the 1st mountain with no loading times - just one straight ride all the way. The developers liked this game more than the rest when they made SSX 2012 as they lifted one of the backcountry tracks in it and snuck it into that game as a bonus (and it somehow works).

The soundtrack and DJ Atomika did a great job here, and it's this game that I took most of the tracks from and added them to my custom playlist like I said on my write-up for SSX 2012. It just works extremely well.

I know I said this in my other write-up for this series, but doing both of these really makes me want a new SSX since we haven't had one since the PS3/360 days. Though given it's a EA series I'm not holding my breath for one anytime soon. Maybe I should just play some more of these games while I wait a bit more.

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#20. Silent Hill (PS1, 1999)



I didn't play this until a few years after Silent Hill 2, but the original is my favorite in the series. It's not quite as strong a story as SH2, but Silent Hill really excels as a horror game. And really, if I'm playing Silent Hill, a big part of what I'm looking for is a horror game.

Silent Hill 2's story focuses more on analyzing characters within the confines of Silent Hill, but the first Silent Hill is more about the town itself, what it can do, and why it is what it is. The main character, Harry Mason, gets in a car accident and goes unconscious for a bit, and when he awakens, his seven year old daughter is missing from the car. He starts searching for his daughter, which takes him into the town of Silent Hill. Harry realizes the extent of madness that can exist in Silent Hill along with the player, as he encounters the warping realities of the town, cultish behavior, and more history about events in the town than would be expected.

The main reason this is up so high is how consistently great the horror aspects were, how many moments stand out. Tank controls are weird to some people, but I've always been fine with them, and they allow for some very strong fixed camera perspectives. There's an alleyway at the beginning that immediately hits home how unsettling the game will get. The school has several great moments, with the room of lockers being a multi-layered series of emotions and weirdness. The hospital contains my absolute favorite bit, as you advance upward to higher floors. There is just often a very real sensation of serious shit is happening, I absolutely know it is and it is frightening, but I also don't specifically know what the shit is that is happening. Silent Hill draws from all kind of weird and suspenseful horror sources, like Jacob's Ladder, The Exorcist, The Shining, various David Lynch works and Alfred Hitchcock works, among many others. The game does a great job taking many things that work from many different sources, but still making it a unique experience to Silent Hill.

Silent Hill really uses visual and sounds to its full advantage. It's an earlier 3D game, but unsettling fog and darkness and snow and spotty lighting both help to hide problems in draw distance & add to the unease. Scenery can look unwelcoming and hostile enough here. Like, I know it's bad news, you don't have to show me in greater detail, no thanks. And then the trademark Silent Hill radio static and Akira Yamaoka sound effects and music build the feelings as great as ever. It's a shame the main team that developed this has moved on and we'll never truly get a Silent Hill game on par with this first couple ever again.



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Silent Hill: a series that would be on my list if I ever played any of them

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#17 Wing Commander (MS-DOS, 1990)

Wing Commander is the game that kickstarted the space simulation craze of the early to mid-ninties. Yes, it was not the first in the genre, but it had a depth and level of production that blew away anything else that had come before it.



Wing Commander is fairly direct and simple in its format. As a space fighter pilot stationed on a strike carrier deep in outer space, you play through a series of missions, with opportunities between each mission to chat with the other multicultural pilots and crew. Each mission starts with a briefing that advances the plot and outlines the objectives, and ends with a debriefing outlining your accomplishments, or lack thereof. What was unique for its time is the branching storyas long as you come back from each mission alive, the story will continue whether you accomplish your objectives or not. Throughout the game, occasional cutscenes show the consequences of your successes or failures. Continued failure will make the plight of the carrier more desperate, but until the end of the game, it's never too late to turn things around and find a path to victory. Ultimately, the campaign will end victorious if you play well, or in forced retreat if you do not.



Another dynamic element in the game is the wingmate system. Throughout the game you will be paired with a specific wingmate, who you can communicate with during missions and issue orders to. It's your responsibility to keep them out of trouble; if you leave them hanging, they are likely to die. Like anything else short of your own death, that doesn't stop the game, but it does make the carrier a little emptier and gives you fewer opportunities to get flavor from them between missions. And of course, any mission without a wingmate will be tougher.

My first memories of this game were watching my dad play it when I was very little. He was just awful at the game, and consistently would get the bad ending. I think he gave up after a few playthroughs, but I picked the game up afterward and managed to beat it successfully. I later moved on to other space sims like the X-Wing series, which focused more on space combat than the cinematic and storytelling aspects that the Wing Commander series became known for. Have to give credit to this game though, because it is the reason that all the later games exist, and it still holds up well considering when it came out and how rudimentary it is now. No doubt though that it was completely revolutionary when it was released, and playing through it is one of my favorite video game memories.



The game had two expansions that came out shortly afterward. They both ditch the open-ended structure for more focused, story-driven campaigns, but your save file carries over, including any accomplishments or character deaths. Both were very challenging and added a lot of extra value to the game.

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I honestly did not know there was a space simulation craze of the mid-nineties

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14.) Trails in the Sky FC and SC (2011 and 2015)


Trails in the Sky was really the perfect throwback at the perfect time. It came out at the tail end of that 2000s lull in good quality JRPGs and it got there by reminding me of why I fell in love with the genre in the first place. The aesthetics harkened back to games like Breath of Fire and so did the vibrant personalities of the characters. The game wasn't trying to please everyone - it had a story it wanted to tell. The main character had a strong personality reminiscient of the better final fantasies and the gameplay was a smooth combination of tactical jrpg, turn based jrpg and the innovations present in games like Atelier Iris and Final Fantasy X to have dynamic initiative.

And then the game itself is just brimming with charm and lore. You can read newspapers, you can read the paperback fiction, you can follow the trials and tribulations of minor npcs ranging from newspaper reporters and knights on down to just random children and townspeople who happen to have names. The treasure chests all have unique text if you examine them when they're empty. This world feels alive. The culture of this world has a definite feel to it.

Each of the main characters has their own story and personality and you just end up falling in love with them (except Father Kevin). You have Estelle quoting things she learned in sunday school. Everything is just so damn relatable and living that when the bigger plot beats hit, they mean more.


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how dare you not fall in love with father kevin

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#16. Sonic Adventure 2: Battle (Gamecube, 2001)
I spent so much time playing this game when it came out theres no way it couldnt be this high. At the time, I loved this game and it was the first time in ages I would get to play a new Sonic game-I was going to love it no matter what, and I did. I think objectively this game is pretty bad- especially the camera and controls (but so were a lotof games at the time), and its just horrendously silly. But I goddamn love it so much. Theres no denying, imo anyway, this game is a blast. From the butt rock of Crush 40 to the Knuckles raps to that early 00s AWESOME energy it has to I mean the goddamn voice acting and mixing. I dont want to say its one of those so bad its good games (like Sonic 06, which is legit terrible but its funny bad) because I do think this game actually IS good, but only on a personal level.



I love the Light and Dark story splits that meet up at the end, I love the Sonic/Shadow action stages and how COOL and BADASS they try to make them, especially Shadow, the Sonic/Shadow stages themselves are the most fun of the bunch, and the 5 different missions per stage provide some variety. I love actually getting all 180 emblems in the game, a thing I did back in the day, and A-Ranking them all in order to unlock Green Hill Zone in 3D, the pinnacle of geeking out s a dumb young teenager for me to be able to play that in 3D. I love the emerald stages- I thought it was innovative gameplay to use the clues to find where the emeralds are hidden like a treasure hunt. I think these days this doesnt sound like fun game design, but man I loved doing it. The Tails/Robotnik (Eggman?!) stages are nothing special but theyre ok. I love the goddamn Crush 40 butt rock. Escape from the City, It Doesnt Matter, and especially Live & Learn remain cool in spite of how overcool they were trying to be. It works so well. I can legitimately still enjoy those songs without irony. Hanging on the edge of tomorrow indeed. I saw Jun Senuoe in concert at Magfest a few years ago (without the Crush 40 vocals) and they were still incredible, playing the instrumental tracks from Adventure 1 and 2 (Metal Harbor kicks). I cant believe Shadow actually says IM THE COOLEST during his boss fight. And look man, that final boss fight Is so goddamn dumb and stupid and epic, I mean it is kind of epic. And hilarious. And I love it.



The Knuckles raps are so goddamn good in the same way. Yeah Rouge shes sexy and smooth. Death chamber Death chamber Death chamber. I know that its here I can sense it in my feet. It sure beats fighting with the foes all the time. THIS IS KNUCKLES AND IM BACK. What makes this game so good is its try-hard style, it makes it timeless and remains a blast to think about all the things that made it awesome to Sonic-loving stupid early nerd teenager.

My friend and I also played the multiplayer for a goddamn long time. Like a REALLY long time. Because this game keeps track of your multiplayer record, I had made sure to only play the multiplayer against him to keep our record pure and intact (I'd play w/o a memory card on the rare occasion I was playing vs someone else). I forget what the record is but it's something like 380-290 or something like that. Almost always playing on random (which chooses a random game mode and characters). I don't see him too often these days because he lives overseas now, but when I do see him, we'd still always make sure to play. I'd @JonPen1416 here, but I think his GFaqs account might be gone. We know that multiplayer as inside and out as its possible to know.

And finally, the story and voice acting. Now THIS is so bad its good. I really cant add anything to it. Its perfect. I wouldnt change it or anything about this g-ILLMAKEYOUEATTHOSEWORDS-ame at all. Faker.



One story I want to tell is when this game came out, my friend and I loved it of course. In one of our classes, we had to write essays as part of exams in that history course, like one of those scantron essays with multiple pages, but we knew our teacher never read anything beyond the first page. So for the 2nd page and on, he simply wrote the entire plot of Sonic Adventure 2, but substituted out Character names for things we were learning about. So, for example, here is an excerpt or two (it's still in my possession):

The Articles of confederation were flawed because you needed 9 of the 13 states to agree on a matter and if it was major you needed all 13. This almost never happened. The Constitution escaped from it and went on a journey. Then Democracy and Republicanism met and fought over an emerald. Then the Declaration of Independence appeared and stole it. Democracy broke it and it had to be rebuilt. We learn that the Dec. of Indp. Traveled to a military retreat and freed the Articles of Confederation" (later) "There, Democracy crashed and the ideals were thrown into space, so Democracy went to get them. The Treaty of Paris helped guide the Constitution through the Bicameral Legislature where they met the Articles, the Declaration of Independence, and Republicanism. The States Constitution was caught by the D.o.I. and Constitution had to give it up. Then the Constitution stopped the world from being destroyed for now, but the Constitution and the Articles of Confederation still had to stop the Senate from crashing into the world. They did it, and the Articles sacrificed itself to save the Constitution and the others.

He got an 82.

Next up: A full-blown remake of an arguably good (not imo), but a roughly designed and brutal game to perfect it.

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#19. Eastside Hockey Manager (PC, 2015)



This is the highest sports game on my list! As a fan of hockey far more than all other sports, it would make sense that a hockey game lands here.

Eastside Hockey Manager is the hockey equivalent of Football Manager or Out of the Park Baseball (which as on my list back at #97). It's a general manager/coaching sim, where you set up the team how you want it, tell the AI players what to do as much as you want, and then sit back and watch to see how things ultimately play out. A big reason this is here, and OotP farther down the list is just my familiarity with hockey. I know what player strengths and strategies I want to use, I know how the draft system works, I know how contract restrictions and the salary cap play out, so I'm not wasting time looking all this up. And even if I didn't know this so well, I don't feel it's a terribly complicated system to work with, so I can focus more on setting my lineups and trading players and hoping old useless guys just retire already. And of course, there are a ton of stats to browse and track for both the present and historical.

EHM doesn't receive quite as much love from its developer as those other sports sims. They get yearly updates, but EHM is the same EHM. Luckily, Steam workshop and dedicated fans step in with yearly roster updates and work to keep the game balanced. European leagues and minor leagues exist too and get the same update love. There are also some fan mods adding historical or fictional teams/leagues, and it's fun to pretend you're managing a WHA team that may still exist today.

I've been playing this off and on for years, sometimes sticking with the same league that's decades deep, or starting a new one. I find it's a great game to put on while sitting at home and watching real sports. During downtime or breaks in the play, I can sim a couple days or a game in EHM. It's a game that has a lot to do, but also something I can jump in any time without having to worry about doing a lot, if that makes sense.

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#12 - Mass Effect 2 (360, 2010)


I legitimately cant think of any other trilogy where the middle entry has blown the other two out of the water quite as hard as Mass Effect 2 did. Not to say that the other two entries are bad; Mass Effect 3 is my #82, and 1 just barely missed the cut. Each of the 3 titles has distinct strengths and weaknesses. Mass Effect 1 built one of the most unique and detailed video game universes the human race has ever seen, but the gameplay is really rough around the edges, and that save point system really couldve used a massive overhaul. Mass Effect 3 went above and beyond with all of its set pieces, and the game may play even better than 2, but it had a few writing miscues, its new characters are mostly throwaways, and the ending couldve been handled a lot better.

I believe Mass Effect 2s only flaw is that it was in fact the middle entry, thus stuck between its world-building prequel, and its story-concluding sequel. Thats really it. The writing is by far the best of the three, the characters are the most fun of the three, the gameplay compared to 1 is a fucking godsend. Build yourself as a Vanguard and Shepard feels like a goddamn panzer tank. Build yourself as anything else and youll still feel awesome, but for real why would you not want to be a panzer tank?

I dont think it can be understated how all the relatively small things that BioWare made better from Mass Effect 1 that people tend not to remember years later translated into a near-perfect action game. The level design from Mass Effect 1 was so bland and monotonous, whereas 2s is so lively and fluid. Running around a room in ME1 never felt like the right move, and it led to a lot of waiting around for a tech or biotic power to come back online. Staying totally still in one spot in ME2 will get you killed faster than just about everything else, and it makes combat a much more engaging experience.

That and the weapon and inventory system in 2 are the two key aspects that brought Mass Effect from a C- action RPG to an A+ one. No longer do you have to spend 10 minutes between planets trying to figure out which numbers you want on your armor and guns. Theres still customization, but its streamlined so much better, and still holds that feel of importance. And no longer gatekeeping guns behind an overheat system is perhaps the most overlooked critical change. In ME1, again, you were incentivized to just hang out in one place until your gun cooled down, so you could go back to shooting. In ME2, youre going to run out of ammo if you stay still, so lets say your assault rifle runs out. Time to go in, shotgun-a-blazing, and try to pick off the stragglers, so you can pick up their assault rifle ammo for the next gunfight. I cant emphasize enough how these two somewhat small design changes led to such a more thrilling game.

All that talking up the gameplay, and yet the star of the show is still the story and its cast. Everyone is so goddamn cool. Jack is a badass, Miranda is neat, Thane is great, Legion is awesome, Grunt is fun, Mordin is an all-timer. There isnt a whole lot of overlap in character dialogue and such, but getting to know the cast and building rapport with them individually is more fun in ME2 than any other game Ive ever played. And it all builds to an ending that, for a game where you kinda ultimately accomplish absolutely nothing, is as satisfying as it gets. ME2 is the ultimate package for a video game, and Im legitimately bummed its somehow not in my top 10. Its an outrage, is what it is.

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#16 The Last of Us (Playstation 3, 2013)

The Last of Us was the first game to ditch the "one series per console" rhythm that Naughty Dog had going, and they ended the PS3 era with a pretty big bang. This one was probably the studio's most ambitious title ever; it remained a third person action adventure like all its prior games, but is completely different in terms of style and subject matter. While everything up to that point maintained a light-hearted and upbeat tone, The Last of Us is the oppositeone of the grittiest and most mature games of the PS3.



I am not saying that is what makes it great or deserving of a spot on the list, but the fact that they pulled off such a complete change of style successfully is remarkable. The Last of Us is a very serious game with a serious story, and it turned out to be one of the best and most engaging stories ever to be found in a video game. Joel and Ellie are a great duo, and they form a legitimately touching relationship that felt real. I guess I really have a thing for those father-daughter relationships, based on how much the Bioshock games also touched me.

It's a gorgeous game. Even in the twisted and disgusting enemy creatures that inhabit the land, there is an amazing amount of detail. The varied landscapes and seasons that are presented all feel lifelike and immersive. The acting is all spot-on, and every major character you meet has the same amount of thought put into them as the main duo.



Of course, it would not make so high on my list if it also was not a blast to play. Instead of the high-octane, guns blazing style that Uncharted embraced, The Last of Us gives you something a lot more thoughtful and carefully-paced. There are often long sections of quiet between deadly encounters, and each area gives plenty of options for how to address the conflict. Sometimes, conflict can be avoided altogether. There are many survival horror elements to the gameplaynot surprising, given its settingsuch as ammo conservation and crafting. You will very gradually upgrade Joel's abilities during the game, although nothing that will really be game-changing.

As Wigs said, the ending of the game is divisive. Which I think is another major credit to the game. You end up caring about the characters so much that what they end up doing at the climax is capable of disturbing your sensibilities. Personally I liked the way that it ended; not that I think what happened was good or right necessarily, but it's a fucked-up game set in a fucked-up world, and I think the ending is true to the characters and to the story, whether you like it or not. And that kind of embodies what I love about The Last of Us after all; the creators took some chances to make a new kind of game that plays its own way and tells its own story. It turned out to be very fresh and innovative and one of the best games ever made.

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#13 - Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor (DS, 2009)

Back in 2009 I had not yet come to Board 8 nor did I have any non-Nintendo systems at the time so my knowledge of the Shin Megami Tensei series at the time was a flat nothing. I saw this game being written up in Nintendo Power for a bit and thought that I should definitely pick this game up. This started a chain reaction in where I would pick up every Shin Megami Tensei game since then and beat only like half of them, but this one I did everything in the game I could. Twice.

Devil Survivor, unlike the main series, is a strategy RPG. However, like most games in the series, it is set in modern-day Tokyo where an outbreak of demons happen. The protagonist sees a number by everyone which is their "death clock" showing how many days a person has to live, though the number can change based on various events. During the game you can talk to various other people within the lockdown zone where the demons are, and at the end you're forced to make an alignment choice to basically depend on what endings you can get, determined by who you visited during the previous days and who is still alive at that time. One person's route is always available, but it's very easy to set the game up to have all six options ready to be chosen, and I've done it many times when playing this and its 3DS remake to completion.

And yes, when I said I did complete both games, it means I beat the bonus boss in both the DS and 3DS versions as well, and knowing Atlus it was definitely one of the hardest challenges I've done in a video game. The 3DS version is still my most played game in the Activity Log on that system with over 125 hours and will probably never be surpassed. I never did get very far into Devil Survivor 2, which is kind of weird as I liked this one so much, but it never seemed to click with me the way this game did. Maybe because it was released on the DS after the 3DS remake of this game came out? In Japan that was reversed so it wasn't an issue there. Regardless of what the reason was for that, the first Devil Survivor is one of the best strategy RPGs available for both the DS and 3DS, and well worth your time.

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17. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (PS1, 1997)

I think there's a phenomenon in critical writing of video games where a somewhat-flawed game that historically was lauded as "best in the series" or possibly "best game ever" gets hit with an extra degree of criticism and negativity later on in its lifetime. The best, and most clear example of this, is Ocarina of Time, most likely due to the degree of praise it got immediately upon release and the general overall quality of the rest of the Zelda series. Symphony of the Night is another that feels to me to have hit this phenomenon - it was such a definitive and impressive reinvention of the series upon its release that it totally shifted the dynamic of the series, ushering in the "Metroidvania" era, and quite possibly single-handedly dooming all the failed attempts to bring the series to 3D. (Okay, it's probably that most of those games were hot garbage.) So despite a number of folks who would love to tell you that the best Castlevania game is Aria or Dawn of Sorrow, Order of Ecclesia (ew), or possibly one of the classic linear games like Castlevania III or Rondo of Blood, I'm gonna double down on SotN: I think it's still, easily, the best game in the series in 2021, and despite its "flaws" it still has more than enough charm, creativity, and great gameplay to back it up.
Symphony of the Night has a lot of obvious strengths: its merging of the Castlevania universe with the open exploration of Metroid works perfectly; instead of a linear progression of fixed stages, you have the entirety of Dracula's castle with which to explore, fight enemies, and discover secrets. Additionally, SotN adds on a RPG-style leveling system - enemies give experience points, and enough will level you up, giving a buff to combat stats. This has the benefit of allowing the player to progress past difficult challenges in multiple ways - you can grind up levels, you can keep taking your shot at the combat, or you can seek out extra items, armor, weapons, or health to make progress in a different way. SotN's protagonist is Dracula's son Alucard, and unlike almost every prior Castlevania protagonist, a Belmont with a whip he is not. Alucard comes with a sword, shield, and armor, but they're swiped from you early in the game and you have to acquire (or re-acquire) items and skills to make progress. It has a good balance of customizability and familiarity in its sense of progression, and it works very well.
SotN is also a game with a previously unprecedented level of cinematic flair, for both the series and for 2D action games. The game opens with the ending battle of Rondo of Blood: Richter confronting Dracula, wonderfully campy and beloved voice-acted banter (What is a man? A miserable pile of secrets!), and a user-controlled rendition of the final battle against Dracula. It's followed by a long expositional text scroll accompanying intense, dramatic music, then drops the player into the main game proper with a fancy screen-scrolling swoop into Alucard dashing toward the castle - it's a hell of an opening 10-15 minutes, and sets the stage for the type of game that SotN strives to be. But it's not just the opening - the game fills its chambers with clever nods to the rest of the series, little hidden easter eggs (like the confessional booth in the Chapel that attacks you, or the usable binoculars along the outer wall), and lots of little atmospheric touches. Among all the Metroidvanias, I think SotN's castle is the most comprehensively realized - it feels the most built like an actual structure, and feels the least like a connected series of copy-and-pasted rooms (usually). The game's incredible soundtrack adds some depth here, too - the symphonic quality music brings a level of seriousness and intensity to the experience. And although it might not be as memorable as the opening, the rest of the voice-acted dialogue scenes are still hilarious and charming.
I'll make a quick mention of the game's weaknesses, too: its enemy and area balancing is all over the place; throughout the game, there are bosses that are wickedly hard for the level you are roughly going to be at, and just as many that are comically easy. There's an optional boss that is ridiculously tough to conquer without a ton of items or a very cheesy strategy, while Dracula himself is...not very hard. And there are some insanely overpowered weapons that make most of the endgame a joke. There's a few too many items that exist solely to lazily block progression and force backtracking (gotta go to one end of the castle to get the Blue door key to unlock a blue door at the other end), and others that just feel extraneous (an item to see enemy names?). And as much as I love the campiness of the game's dialogue, it comes across as very silly and is not particularly well done.
Still, though, I think SotN pairs its addictive and engaging gameplay with a ton of charm. There's something to be said about a game being perfectly balanced and even - I think it's important for, say, a fighting game, but in a single-player experience I think some unevenness is not only acceptable but actually good. I think it's nice to find something that's super-overpowered (especially when it's not just handed to you) or to grind out an especially tough boss fight. Having the experience be so much less homogeneous and streamlined makes it feel more real, or at least in this case, less cookie-cutter than some of its GBA and DS successors. And SotN is the introduction of the "fake-out" ending for the series, too: the storyline sets you up to a confrontation between Alucard and the turned-evil Richter Belmont at the top of the castle, but that's only the false or "bad" ending: to reach the entire second half of the game, you have to dig your way into the lowest reaches of the castle to find some hidden items and secrets. It's a little obtuse (and said second-half of the game isn't great), but it's such a memorable way to engage the player with the game's universe: it's not just a restructuring of linear levels into a nonlinear order, but actually shifts the experience with and around those areas as the game goes on.
This was supposed to be a lot shorter of a writeup, but I think all my rambling helps me bring home my point (for my own tastes at least): SotN is not only such an outstanding game for its time that helped set new standards for the series and its genre, but it's also full of unique quirks and charms that really help it stand out among later releases. If Super Metroid can reasonably be considered the game that birthed Metroidvania as a genre, SotN is the one that brought about the name "Metroidvania" itself. And while other Castlevania games (or Bloodstained) might have tightened up the formula, there isn't one that has as much ambition, grandeur, and brilliance as Symphony of the Night.

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#18. Super Castlevania IV (SNES, 1991)



Super Castlevania IV may be my favorite Castlevania game now, but it wasn't always. I went back and forth over Castlevania III and Symphony of the Night for a while. Eventually, after going through this game like 30 times, it ended up here.

For an early SNES game, SCIV looks fantastic. It's not the best in the series, but it still looks appropriately dark, gritty at times. It also sounds fantastic, some of the best work using the SNES sound. The music is actually amazing work, especially when you consider how early in the SNES's life this game was. And sure, the game has that one level to show off all the Mode 7 effects, which is kind of cheesy now, but it's not a bad stretch by any means, it still plays well and is kind of a nice memory to a past time.

The big thing with this game, for me, is that is just feels fun to play through each and every time. Some people who play SCIV want something more challenging, because it is easier than most other platformer Castlevania games. I can get that, it is easier than others, and I really like the challenge presented in most of the series. The eight way directional whipping can be seen as too powerful, but also, it's a whole lot of fun. Striking enemies at all kinds of angles while walking, doing jumps, moonwalking on stairs, it offers a lot of freedom to move around and just do things. The whip flail is a nice addition as well. It's one of those games where the total package just makes me feel like I am doing cool things all the time, and I still get joy turning on the game and playing through the same levels for whatever countless time this may be.

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Oh, also worth noting in regards to Super Castlevania IV - Back when I was part of the VGMusic of the Day crew and our youtube channel existed, the very first song I uploaded was from Super Castlevania IV. That soundtrack is pretty high up there for me personally.

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#15 Star Fox 64 (Nintendo 64, 1997)



Since the first time that I played it, I think Star Fox 64 has been one of the most constant games on my list of favorites. It was incredible when I experienced it first not long after its release, and time has only made me grow fonder of it.

It's one of those games that is so easy to pick up and play, and doesn't take too long to finish. Like Wing Commander, the branching mission path can make each playthrough a little different and helps a ton with making the game replayable. The characters are charming and endlessly quotable, and it looks and sounds great still despite the N64's limitations. The really smooth arcade gameplay still holds up well.



I do not know why this game is so timeless to me, as I never was able to get into any later games in the series. Maybe it's nostalgia, maybe it was just a random gold strike for Nintendo. I don't need another Star Fox game, because I'm always happy to come back to this one.

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poor Peppy getting done fast

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