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

(+) Yeah! (+)

wow, that feels pretty low for CT

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it's not too bad. technically the lowest it's ever been though!

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i don't think chrono trigger has a long runup to get going at all - the medieval era is immediately compelling imo
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oh don't get me wrong - it gets going quickly, but it doesn't peak until later, and its peak is extended (like 6 hours straight)

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26.



Persona 3 is much more my jam than 4 or 5, and presumably every other Persona in the future. Its structure just fits me better: there's a plot but it doesn't drone on like later games do. P3 is still a long game but it justifies its length with letting me do my social links and with the dungeon crawling than jibber jabber.

The tone of Persona 3 is also something I really love. The end of the game especially is just dark and dreary and fantastic. Persona 5 wins the music category but P3 holds its own with songs that really fit that world.

P3 is pretty outdated by Persona standards, even FES, but P3P nails it in terms of feeling just modern enough. There are certainly some more friendly changes in later games but P3P is enough for me. It takes some shortcuts to match the portable system, like movement via a cursor instead of direct character movement, but I'm fine with that. There's even a female mc route that's slightly modified and is appreciated.

But it's that tone that really sells me above everything else. I love this game. I could play P5 Royal or whatever but I'd rather just play P3P again.

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I've only played FES. I would try P3P if it was available in any easy way.

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Persona 3 nailed the endgame so hard that every future Persona game has and will be compared to it. The first half of the game is kind of a slog, but it picks up starting with the October full moon and the last month is just incredible in terms of atmosphere, characterization, and storytelling.

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yeah, for sure. there's definitely a month or so in there where it doesn't really feel great. the rest, though, is pretty good.

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well at least we're out of the JRPG section

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theres actually not too many more!

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Still got at least FFT, FFV, Dragon Quest VIII, Xenogears, and Xenosaga 3.

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25.



This game has undoubtedly the most dreary and crushing narrative of any game I've played. There's probably some lower budget, bite sized game that can beat it, but as far as notable releases, it's this. The story of Lee and Clementine is really something and it only hits harder as I get older.

It's a really hard game to rank because it is undoubtedly the game of 2012 -- and nine years later, I still can't imagine ever playing it again. Its narrative is so crushing and the choices I made are just canon. I can't overwrite those memories or that experience. So, on the right day, this could be in my top 10, and on other days it's barely a game. It's tricky. It's one of the ten strongest emotional experiences I've had, for sure. I can remember exactly where I was and what time it was when I played the final episode.

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Crushing experience for sure with TWD. Made me cry like a baby.

But also dropping that asshole Ben down the tower was so damn satisfying. Quickest decision I made all game was 'let go' Grinned ear to ear the whole time


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24.



I really like that DQ8 goes with essentially 4 characters the entire game. The remakes added more, and you've usually got the King and Medea with you, but overall the entire game has a main cast and there's no fluff.

DQ8 is the first DQ to come into proper 3d and it looks and sounds great. It has a really strong villain, at least for the first half of the game, and the world is super well realized. There are a few scenes in this game that really knocked me over back in 2005. The 3DS enhanced port eliminates random encounters, speeds up battles and has a bunch of other QOL improvements that are very much needed for this game to still feel modern. DQ11 largely does what 8 did but in HD and with additional modern improvements, but it's not quite as good with its storytelling and scenario setting as 8.

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23.



Just, one of the most playable games ever made. I put this game on all the time and rip through it in an hour or so, sometimes less. You can kinda scale the difficulty to how you want based on if you want to do things the hard way or what. (doing things the hard way isn't even that bad after 10 years of poking at it on and off.)

There's been a lot of work going into this game lately - mostly since the game went open source and people have been contributing to improving the core game. There are new level packs and all sorts of silly stuff. I just stick with the core game - because the core game is really good.

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Fun game. Great soundtrack. I don't have much to say about the game itself and I don't think I'll ever play it again, but it was a good time.

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potentially the best video game name of all time


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22.



I love that this game is... kinda easy, honestly. I mean, it's not Mario or anything. You've gotta be good at the game and know the boss weaknesses, of course. (though you can also just go for a buster run without any real threat.)

Other MM games will shut you down somewhere, a boss or a Wily stage or something, but MM2 you can kinda coast. It makes MM2 something you can play casually, instead of something where you have to get used to getting screwed over by pixel perfect jumps or what have you.

MM2 has some objective flaws for sure, bad hitboxes or that awful wily 1 boss that you have to be kinda perfect on. But other than that, this game is just a joy.

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Oh yeah, MM2 is just pure fun.

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21.



This is a great, great game. It also has some wonky parts, like having to manually set save points or the lack of direct combat. I didn't really think they were a problem, but then Ori 2 came out and proved that yeah, you can make this great game better. Now, going back to this game feels a little awkward.

But it's still really awesome. Ori is easily on Metroid's level in terms of movement-based metroidvanias. At first it's fairly basic, but halfway through and you barely even touch the ground as you're bashing off of enemies and living on the walls. The music is great and the level design forces you to be excellent, which feels really great because this game is just a dream to play.

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I still need to play the sequel to see how it compares, but the sense of progression was pretty good.

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gonna try to get to the top 10 today!

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20.



I love building up guys in FFT. FFT's class balance isn't perfect or anything, but a lot of different classes are viable and it's fun to mix and match skills across classes. There are only a small few classes to neglect, and even those can be just fine if you really want to use them. Sure, you can crack this game like an egg if you really want, but I've actually never really used calculators due to the fact that I can one-shot enemies with just about anything once I get to the endgame.

The only hangup I have with this game is that, at least for me, my builds largely are complete by the time I finish chapter 3, and so I tend to just get bored and stop playing before the end. I'm here for that customization, and when it fades away I just can't be bothered to see it through. The story is good, don't get me wrong, but it's better when we have a bunch of political players and they're almost all wiped out by the time you get to chapter 4.

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I'm pretty sure I've never used like half of the job classes in the game.

Also I enjoy having Orlandu as a one-man wrecking crew in Chapter 4.

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I hate Orlandu. Game-breaking character.
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I usually don't use the unique characters because it's hard to ever get away from holy sword or whatever their special skills are.

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KingButz posted...

I hate Orlandu. Game-breaking character.

That's why he's great.

But I'm also not playing the game for the jobs or the challenge. I did a Geomancer SCC once but other than that, I just populate my battle party with unique characters and wreck stuff.

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I started a Monk SCC and got to chapter 3, but then I learned all my abilities and again got bored.

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Leonhart4 posted...

That's why he's great.

But I'm also not playing the game for the jobs or the challenge. I did a Geomancer SCC once but other than that, I just populate my battle party with unique characters and wreck stuff.

That's how I always played it. It felt like it made sense with the progression of the story.

It was always weird how in jRPGs despite the world's usually recognizing how important your quest is by the end of it, you're still expected to save the world with the one dude who happened to share the same dungeon cell with you at the beginning.

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19.



I've long felt that 9 was the best game in the classic Mega Man series on a technical level. Each level, weapon and boss are really well designed. The only downside to the game is that a couple of the jumps in the Wily stages are brutal. You almost have to train your muscle memory to pull them off correctly, and for casuals like me who play it and then come back 1-2 years later, it's basically starting over.

I still think they're kinda brutal, but man, I think the game is good enough to just barely put it over 2 as my favorite in the series. Jewel Satellite is a lot of fun for just rocking through stages, Trident is good for blasting through guys, Needle has its uses, Concrete is a great weapon for crushing minibosses as well as a way to get around levels quickly -- everything in this game just feels super good.

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Yeah, I didn't finally play MM9 until a year or so ago, but it became my favorite MM Classic game by the end of it. Just great level and weapon design all around.

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18.



I just love this game. I've played it so much that I can probably recall all the important breeding combinations from memory, even though it's completely useless information to retain. DWM2 has more monsters and depth but in this case more isn't always better. DWM1 keeps it simple with randomized dungeons and a small but effective hub world. It has all the classic monsters and abilities that you'd want, and nothing beyond that. Some of the later games add more stuff but it doesn't really improve the total package.

This is the game that I play when I want to watch RPG numbers get bigger. I love the slow drive from starting with weaklings and turning them into gods. It never gets old.


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DWM is one of my favorite Gameboy games on account of the cartridge was black

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sound reasoning

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17.



God, what a beautiful and perfect god damn game this is. The sense of speed is perfectly aligned with the control you have over the vehicles. The skill ceiling is super high, way above where I ever am, and trying to reach for perfection is pretty thrilling. F-Zero GX is basically untouchable in the futuristic racing space and this game is basically in the running for the greatest game ever made.

The only reason it isn't higher is that there's only so much you can do with a single player racing game. It's kinda like Ikaruga in that there's about an hour of pure racing content, and while that hour is perfect, after a while there just isn't much more to do besides trying to be even more perfect.


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I enjoy the multiplayer too
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16.



90% of my runs seem to go like this: some random offscreen enemy walks in front of an arrow trap which sends him flying into a bomb box which explodes and sends the enemy's carcass flying at the shopkeeper who then shoots me dead with a shotgun. That number isn't actually 90% but it feels like it sometimes.

That's just part of what happens in Spelunky: each level isn't especially big, just a large-ish room split into 16 sub-rooms. You finish each level in a couple of minutes and there are 16 levels total (usually). But the world has such interactivity and those interactions are fascinating to discover. You can't fall onto spikes without dying but you can walk across them without getting hurt. The ghost will kill you instantly if you stick around a level for two and a half minutes, but any rubies left on the board will turn into diamonds. There are hidden levels and endings with extremely obscure and specific dependencies for even entering. All of that stuff contributes to making Spelunky more than just a maze - even the exits are riddles unto themselves. Oh, and it's a blast to play, too, so long as you can manage the frustration of dying a lot to everything in every crevice of the game.


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15.



This game kinda jams. The music is really good! (is it underrated? not sure, but it doesn't get talked about a ton) The game is at a perfect difficulty, where you really hate getting hit but it's not too hard to avoid if you're aware of your surroundings. Some of the later bosses are rough, but overall it's totally doable.

But it's the basic movement, jumping and combat systems that lifts this game up. This isn't a metroidvania but it presents itself like one, and finding all kinds of secrets in the levels adds an element that your standard Mega Man-like wouldn't have. Speaking of secrets, this game has just a boatload, a lot of them esoteric and completely incidental that can alter what ending you get. It is legitimately hard to get the true ending in this game! You have to make certain jumps, you don't want to trade your bad weapon, you can't miss a trigger point in a boss fight, etc. It's crazy. But even though I hate it, deep down I think I might like it. It gives the game personality and charm, something this game oozes.

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Reminder to just download the freeware version, Nicalis doesnt deserve another cent from Pixels work. Pretty sure there are mods if you want the character graphics from the commercial ports

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14.



I just really like wandering up the side of a mountain. I spend so much time just dicking around in Breath of the Wild, randomly trying to get to a high point so I can fly across the map. There's a million things to do in this game but my favourite thing to do is nothing. I like collecting Korok seeds as much as anything else in this game.

Traditional Zelda isn't my thing - the dungeons are the worst thing about this game. I found a tutorial showing me how to "z-target" enemies like 30 hours in -- yeah, I wander up mountains rather than follow the roads -- and outside of that have never bothered to target an enemy. I'm a sicko who likes to destroy enemy bases by throwing bombs at the enemies for like 20 minutes straight. Why do they do like 4 damage to the enemies but 6 hearts to me?! Even my wife, who doesn't play too many video games, is like 'why are you doing this, you moron?' My answer: because it's fun to watch them go flying and torture them, and because I don't care at all for the combat or destroying weapons. I don't mind the combat, but why waste resources? (I'm that guy who beats every Final Fantasy with 27 elixirs in hand.)

I think the laissez faire structure is the main reason I really adore this game. I can just kinda poke at the corners of the world and have fun climbing towers and flying off of them. I'm excited about the sequel, but I think I'm more apprehensive than anything just because there's probably going to be some mechanical improvement at the expense of looping in more traditional dungeons and other things that really don't appeal to me all that much. I just want to get lost.


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The thing in BotW that forced me to actually use up my weapons was the small inventory limit; the only thing I hate more than wasting a good weapon is not being able to pick one up because my inventory is full!

DWM is so good

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Yeah, Breath of the Wild is the only Zelda game I'd say I truly love. I normally don't care for open world stuff because it tends to overload you with tasks and icons and stuff like that, but BotW is just so...relaxed. It's fun seeing something far off in the distance and just plotting a course to get there.

Also I don't mind equipment breaking that much because it's fairly plentiful, especially as you get deeper into the game.

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Somehow I just never really figured out how to find Korok Seeds when I played the game so my inventory was always overflowing. I got like 2 maybe 3 more inventory slots by the end of the game. Throwing out shiny glowing weapons to pick up a torch hurt.
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I don't mind it breaking, but why even deal with it if I have things that have no limit? I basically just use the master sword only and then go wander while it recharges.

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Hmm, I wouldve thought that someone with experience with true roguelikes would have learned to break their RPG hoarding habits. You just cant do that in those if you want to survive!

I do wish environmental and sheikah slate ability damage had scaled better with enemies as you go through the game, its really only viable in the first few hours. Even dropping guys off of cliffs isnt fatal by the end!

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oh I dont mind using stuff. I just use the least possible and go out of my way to only use whats truly necessary.

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13.



The only thing keeping AM2R from the top tier Metroids is its linearity, a holdover from its Metroid 2 roots. Metroid 2 was designed for the game boy and all its limitations, so they limit the scope by having you descend further and further into SR388. You clear sections of the map that function like wide open levels before moving on to the next. It works fine, but it isn't the backtracking metroidvania that you might expect.

Other than that, AM2R is kind of incredible. Its control scheme is something of a middle ground between Zero Mission and Dread, with dedicated a morph ball button along with ZM-like controls. AM2R has some sections that are at least up there with any Metroid ever made. The second half of this game in particular is extremely strong and the game is surprisingly replayable despite the linearity. There really isn't a whole lot that separates AM2R from the Super Metroids of the world and it's an amazing accomplishment for essentially one guy.

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I made a ranking topic for the games I played last year (only) and BotW didn't even come close to cracking top 14. I think it was like 30th out of 60ish.

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okay, I didn't get to the top 10 but that's okay because the top 12 are basically my top tier.

100. portal
99. uniracers
98. dragon warrior
97. world of goo
96. spelunky 2
95. binding of isaac
94. mega man 3
93. ace attorney 5
92. p1 select
91. castlevania: dawn of sorrow
90. half-minute hero 2
89. dragon quest builders 2
88. zelda: link to the past
87. monument valley
86. papers, please
85. zelda: majora's mask
84. god of war 2
83. crystalis
82. great ace attorney 2
81. wolfenstein 2: the new colossus
80. dragon warrior monsters 2
79. final fantasy 7
78. golf story
77. we love katamari
76. etrian odyssey 5
75. super smash bros ultimate
74. mike tyson's punch out!!
73. dragon quest 3
72. holedown
71. shadow hearts 2
70. bleed
69. super hexagon
68. shadow complex
67. hades
66. final fantasy 9
65. persona 4 golden
64. zelda 1
63. mega man 11
62. metroid fusion
61. ace attorney investigations 2
60. desert golfing
59. crypt of the necrodancer
58. street fighter 2
57. brothers: a tale of two sons
56. persona 5
55. geometry wars 2
54. castle crashers
53. tales of maj'eyal
52. xenoblade
51. actraiser
50. castlevania: portrait of ruin
49. ace attorney
48. etrian odyssey 4
47. ace attorney 6
46. the messenger
45. final fantasy 6
44. life is strange
43. ikaruga
42. dicey dungeons
41. inside
40. fantasian
39. dragon quest 11
38. shadow hearts
37. final fantasy 4
36. suikoden
35. banished
34. final fantasy 10
33. tactics ogre: let us cling together
32. street fighter 4
31. super mario odyssey
30. bleed 2
29. outland
28. chrono trigger
27. final fantasy
26. persona 3 portable
25. the walking dead
24. dragon quest 8
23. vvvvvv
22. mega man 2
21. ori and the blind forest
20. final fantasy tactics
19. mega man 9
18. dragon warrior monsters
17. f-zero gx
16. spelunky
15. cave story
14. zelda: breath of the wild
13. am2r

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MM9 is the best MM.

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