Board 8 > transience's top 100 games -- almost 2022 edition.

(+) Yeah! (+)

It's that time again! I've been doing these lists every couple of years for damn near half my life now and it's become a tradition to list them out on here. So, here we go again.

For anyone who hasn't followed my lists for the last 15ish years here, expect a lot of JRPGs and 2d action games/platformers. First and third person shooters often trigger my motion sickness so you won't see a lot of those here (though there are a few). I like me some indie games, but not at the expense of a good classic game from a major franchise.

Usually I write a few paragraphs about each entry but my tastes are pretty set in stone in my old age. So, instead of biggish writeups on the same games yet again I'll just do a quick thought or anecdote I have for each game. By the time I get to the top games I might have more to say, and I'm always happy to go into more detail if anyone is interested in more.

Without further ado, I present.. a bunch of Dragon Quest and Ace Attorney games!

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I wonder if I could even guess half of them these days

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tag

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Always here for this even though it'd be wildly different from my own!

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Tag

Tagging for Ace Attorney


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The Mana Sword posted...

I wonder if I could even guess half of them these days

you probably could! it's not like I do a big taste overhaul every year

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Celeste took the top spot last time, right?

I like Celeste, but here's hoping for a better number one !!

I hope Metroid Dread is top 30 too

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Metroid Dread hype! (Assuming it's on the list since I'm actually not sure what you thought of the game!)
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my hype is to see where Great Ace Attorney 2 lands (I assume GAA1 ain't making this list based on your initial reaction to it)

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Tag

Been in the nood for a good old ranking

so, I super struggled with what to do with GAA2, since it isn't an actual release in NA. is it its own game? if it is, I might need to reconsider its placement. if not and the consideration is both games together... that's a totally different judgment.

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I'd consider GAA1 and GAA2 separate games since they were originally released separately, and you technically have to access them separately even within the English release.

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Tag

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hmm, okay, I think I can go with that. I'll rework a few things and then get started later tonight after I get my kids to bed.

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Tag

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100.



I still prefer the simplicity of the original Portal to the technically superior sequel. There's something about being introduced to that world, and the test chambers, that really appeals to me. I actually prefer that section to the more natural FPS environments you see in the second half. I think it sets a better tone with Glados and the unusual look of the test chambers and the way it introduces mechanics. I love that, and always go back to it to try to reclaim that feeling of wondering what the heck is going on.

One thing I've been thinking about a lot lately is the iteration of sequels and what happens when a mechanically superior sequel loses some of the feeling that made the original special, even if it's just that the sequel had the unfortunate luck of coming after the concept was defined. Portal's one of those for me. I hope they never make a Portal 3 because I can't imagine being at all interested in it conceptually.

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99.



Uniracers is the most 90s-ass game that was ever made. Playing this game makes me want to put on MTV's Headbangers Ball or destroy some poor kid in Mortal Kombat 3 at the local arcade. This game's music and general attitude just exudes 1994. Uniracers is one of the simplest racing games ever made thanks to its 2d plane, even moreso than Super Mario Kart or even some of the arcade games of the 80s. It's so easy to pick up and play and doesn't have the awful rubberbanding of the original SMK. Give someone 10 minutes to get used to the controls and they'll be great competition. It's a unique game that calls back to an era and I really loved that time for games. Playing this makes me want to watch the Disney Afternoon. Hell yeah this game rules.

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98.



Okay we'll get past the early 90s nostalgia pull here momentarily, I promise. This game was so novel at the time that every single piece of it resonates super strongly. I like to take the sporcle quiz asking me to name every monster in this game, and I usually get every one because back then you got to know those suckers. After all, the experience tables in original NES Dragon Warrior were so grindy that you just knew everything there was to know about DW1's monsters.

Back in the day, I could walk through the dungeon where Princess Gwaelin was held hostage without using a torch because I had made dozens of attempts trying to kill that Green Dragon motherfucker. I have tons of little anecdotes like that. I'll always know the exact square where the axe knight is that guards Erdrick's Armor or where the fairy flute lies next to Kol. Every piece of this game stands out as special even if the game itself is the most rote, by the numbers JRPG ever made.

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97.



This game's audio really makes it soar. What could have been a simple 7/10 puzzle game punches way above its weight with the little touches of the goo balls making sound, and the kinetic energy that the soundtrack brings. I suck at World of Goo - and really, any game you primarily play with a pointing device - but that feeling that the game exudes is special. And hey, when you fail, you fail kinda spectacularly and even that's kinda fun in its own way. Thank god for the rewind options in the game because redoing a level kinda sucks.

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96.



This one is tough for me. Spelunky 1 is one of the greatest games of all time. Spelunky 2... is basically just Spelunky 1 with different stuff on the periphery. The movement, the jumping, the enemies, the jerk shopkeeper -- it's all there, and it mostly feels the exact same. There's new fluid dynamics and mounts that you can ride and the environmental traps in each area changes.. but the core feel isn't really improved at all. And that's good -- because Spelunky 1 is just about perfect. I'm still looting the shop and wrecking enemies with the shotgun and dying in the most ridiculous ways.

But... I still haven't found a really compelling reason to play it? Like, it's technically amazing, right up there with probably the most influential/greatest roguelite of all time. Usually an iterative sequel will bring some kind of mechanical change that renders the old one obsolete. But this one? I'm just as happy playing the original. It's just not the same playing what feels somewhat like a rom hack or a remix, as opposed to a new experience. I love playing Spelunky 2, but if I never played it again I don't feel like I'd be missing out. It's weird.

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Tag

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Tag

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95.



This game is kind of terrible in its own unique way. It's just so overloaded with random crap! I'm not even sure if it's good random crap or if it's just random for random's sake. The joy of a good Isaac run, at least for me, isn't in beating a tough boss or even in playing a smart run. It's in the absolute smorgasbord of modifiers and seeing what madness might come next. Maybe you'll get some kind of powerup that lets you poison enemies and fly over them while you summon 3 familiars that shoot fiery poop at them but can also explode and kill you randomly. That's just the Binding of Isaac, man.

I'm never sure if my winning run is because of the luck of the draw or if I did something clever. There's so much literal shit seeping out of every corner of this game that just seeing what shows up next on roulette wheel is a joy, almost separate from the game itself. I just want to know what the hell is going to happen. It feels dangerous to play this game, because if I want to understand anything properly it's going to take hundreds of hours. Instead I just poke at the demon and give myself over to the wheel of randomness.

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StartTheMachine posted...

I like Celeste, but here's hoping for a better number one !!

smh

Also, I'm looking forward to following along, even though I probably won't comment much.

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Tag.


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94.



Mega Man 3 is a great companion piece with Mega Man 2, one of the greatest games of all time. It even adds series staples like the slide and rush that put it ahead of 2 in some respects. The music is great. Except.. it also has some glaring issues like game-crushing slowdown if there are more than like 2 enemies on the screen, or difficulty that oscillates from extremely easy to reasonably hard numerous times throughout the game. Why is the middle of the game so much harder than the end, where they give out energy tanks like candy? Those issues put it a ways behind 2 on the Mega Man hierarchy, but it's still really fun to rip through it. It has that fun factor that later Mega Man games are missing.

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Mega Man 3 is pretty good. I feel like after this, the NES Mega Man games all jumble together for me and I have a hard time telling them apart.

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I could never get into any of the NES Mega Man games... not sure why. I liked the few X games I played.

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93.



AA5 is a great return to form after AA4 threatened to ruin the canon of the entire series. They went and made two Edgeworth games after AA4 because of how badly it compromised the timeline and some of its main characters. That return from the brink is AA5's biggest triumph.

With that said, it's actually easier to talk about AA5's shortcomings than what it does well. What it does well is obvious - it brings the AA franchise onto a new platform with resounding success and shows that the series has a future beyond the Fey storyline. You can tell good stories without relying on the past.

But the cases and storylines themselves? The final villain is underwhelming and I'm not sure anything that happens in this game is even all that noteworthy. The game really short changes Apollo Justice, the purported main character of the previous game. That would be okay if Phoenix had some kind of development but he's more or less a blank slate in this game. You could probably skip the game and not really miss out on anything. It's certainly the least essential of all the mainline AA games. I think the best piece of this game is actually the DLC case which is totally throwaway and legitimately great. Without that case, it probably doesn't make the list.

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I love Dual Destinies. It has a high percentage of really good cases. It doesn't bother me that it doesn't really advance the storyline. Like you said, it had one job, and it succeeded. Part of that success was playing it safe. DD's success gave SoJ the leeway to try something different.

Also Blackquill is excellent, but I know you're not as high on him as I am.

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I like him a lot! I looked back at our list and I had him at 18 while you had him at 9. we both think he's good. I might go even higher now, not sure.

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92.



Michael Brough makes a very specific kind of game. His games are grid-based strategy games with a specific rule set and a small possibility space. They're simple and elegant and clear. Brough is heavily influenced by board games like chess and go, which is quite literally the best inspiration possible since chess is the GOAT and would probably be #1 on the list if it happened to begin on a video game platform instead of on a board.

P1 Select is a simple mobile game where you simultaneously control 9 different 'guys' that cycle based on your movement. Each time you move, you get a different attacking pattern. You can think of it like an ultra-slimmed down tactics game where you control all of your units within a single square. It's maddening to play at first and really addictive. Of all the Brough-like games out there, this is the one that I come back to over and over.

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91.



I can't put into words how weird it is to play this in 2021. 95% of it is a classic metroidvania, one that really helped define the genre post-SOTN and Super Metroid. But then out of nowhere comes some weird touchscreen gimmick that didn't play then but suuuuper doesn't play now. I love touching the screen to break ice blocks to create a path for Soma to get a potion! It fits so well into the gothic theme.

If I could change like 5% of this game - the random soul drops that are required to get the best ending, the boss seals, any of the other touchscreen gimmicks - then this game could be a lot better. It's still great! I love fighting the bosses and wandering around the maze. Dawn of Sorrow is the most traditional of the DSvanias and is good to return to years later outside of the weird gimmicks.

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I think there's a modded version that removes all the touchscreen stuff? Seems like that'd be the way to go nowadays.
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I wonder how you'd do that. the boss sealing sure, but you'd have to rewrite the design of some rooms. I guess there's nothing stopping you though

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90.



Half Minute Hero presents itself as a micro-RPG where you have to save the world in 30 seconds, and it is absolutely that, but it feels more like an action puzzle game where you're taking in information about the world you're trying to save and then acting on it quickly. I love that loop of trying to figure out what the heck to do and then executing on it perfectly within the time limit. The game throws all kinds of mechanics and characters at you in rapid succession. It's a nice change of pace from the slow-paced, methodical JRPGs that are usually made. Also, the soundtrack here is nuts.

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89.



The Builders games are way better than you would expect, especially the second one. On their face they seem like Minecraft games with Dragon Quest tropes built in for fanservice but it actually feels the other way around. Builders is more of an action RPG with clear objectives than any kind of free-wandering build what you want game. Sure, you can go off and do that on your own if you want, but the actual quest and plotline is the goal here and it feels decidedly DQ. It's pretty cool.

One bummer here is that the superior Builders 2 is based on the story of DQ2 which is a bottom tier DQ. Hopefully they make a Builders 3 that's based on DQ3 because that game is rad.

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NOPE
Dragon Quest 2 is indeed rather bad but the only bottom tier Dragon Quest game is # 98.

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yeah but did you get it with nintendo power it's a true classic

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88.



This game is good! That's honestly all I have to say about it. I don't find it especially exciting to play and don't get the joy that others do when they explore the map (it's a good map!). The dungeons are OK. I won't throw any shade at LTTP because it's so extremely solid but it's not a game that I'm ever dying to play. That said, it's one of the most playable games ever made and I find myself picking it up on a random virtual console service all the time just because it's there and it's good. I'm not sure that a more competent game has ever been made.

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tag

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87 spots too low but I'll allow it

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thank you for your permission

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if I was gonna guess at your top 100 beforehand, I don't think I'd have picked LttP to be on here, so I'm actually a little surprised!

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87.



This game is just lovely. There are puzzles, yeah, but they're not especially complicated since there's only so many possibilities of what you can do. It's just nice to walk through this space and watch the clockwork tick as you pull a lever or flip a perspective. Monument Valley is kind of the perfect mobile game and it fits the touch screen so well. Put this on a PC and it probably doesn't stand out, but on a small screen where you can lay in bed and take in the art? So good.

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86.



This is a fascinating game. Everything works together to create an incredibly stressful experience. If you don't get through enough people, your family dies. The game layers on additional forms that you need to search through and the clock is forever ticking while you try to find discrepancies. The soviet era backdrop is bleak as hell and the music sets the tone. Occasionally you let through a terrorist that blows up the station and you have to shut down early, which hurts your pocketbook and maybe your kid will die.

All of the layers work together so well, and if you want to go against the grain, there are lots of moral decisions to make that go down all kinds of different story paths. None of them are especially good, but they're all interesting. Do you let the wife in without the proper paperwork after you admitted her husband? Do you work with the illuminati-adjacent group that bribes you, or turn them in? What about the person who tells you about the rapist who has their papers in order? I personally can't be bothered to walk through every path because this game is stressful enough that I don't want to suffer over and over, but every once in a while I'll throw this on and get screwed over by the brutal environment that this game lives within.

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Yeah that game has always sounded interesting to me but I've never taken the plunge

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Lists!

85.



I've never been a big fan of traditional Zelda. Ocarina is fine, I guess, but it's not an especially interesting time. Majora, though, has the omnipresent clock that ticks down on you and the imagery is kind of a nightmare. Watching the town move like clockwork is pretty interesting as you rewind over and over again. I don't love the gameplay because it still is rooted in that traditional 3d Zelda formula and this game is more or less an Ocarina rom hack -- but the mechanics of how everything works around that is really cool to watch play out, time and time again.


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