Board 8 > Robazoid's Top 100 Games: Writeups by request

(+) Yeah! (+)

Inspired by transience's topic, I updated my top 100 games list while bored at work. I didn't want to put in all the effort to do 100 write-ups, but it seemed like a shame to put this together and not show it to anyone. So, here it is! However, if you're interested in my thoughts on any of these, I'd be happy to type up something short. Why is FFXIII my favorite FF? Because of the great story, characters, and especially the combat system! What the hell is Winged Sakura: Mindy's Arc? It's like anime Plants vs Zombies! What even is Antiyoy? It's a super simple yet deceptively complex strategy mobile game I play to kill time at work! All these valuable insights and more, available by request. I also accept accolades for my impeccable taste (or, more likely, mockery. It's a strange mix of popular games, ones I doubt anyone else has heard of, and unpopular games ranked really highly).

1- Life is Strange (+Before the Storm)
2- Super Metroid
3- Minecraft
4- Subnautica
5- The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
6- Stardew Valley
7- Pokemon FireRed/LeafGreen
8- Heroes of Might and Magic III
9- Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War
10- Half Life (+Black Mesa)
11- AI War: Fleet Command
12- Ar nosurge Plus: Ode to an Unborn Star (+Ciel nosurge)
13- Final Fantasy XIII
14- Diablo III
15- Highway Blossoms
16- Factorio
17- Dynasty Warriors 8
18- The Sims 2
19- Dark Souls 3
20- The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky (+SC)
21- The House in Fata Morgana
22- Final Fantasy X-2
23- Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII
24- The Void
25- Pathologic 2
26- Life is Strange: True Colors
27- The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel (+2)
28- BanG Dream! Girls Band Party
29- Star Control II: The Ur-Quan Masters
30- Dead Rising 2
31- Team Fortress 2
32- Persona 3 Portable
33- Dungeon Travelers 2
34- Total War: Warhammer II
35- They Are Billions
36- Contagion
37- Chrono Trigger
38- Aquaria
39- Hollow Knight
40- Hyperdimension Neptunia Rebirth 3: V Generation
41- Tomb Raider (2013)
42- Cook, Serve, Delicious!
43- Lost Dimension
44- Final Fantasy VI
45- Duck Game
46- Disgaea: Hour of Darkness
47- Persona 4 Golden
48- Mass Effect 2
49- Half Life 2
50- Ace Attorney (Series, first four games + the two Investigations games)
51- Metroid Fusion
52- Terraria
53- 7 Days to Die
54- The Metronomicon
55- Idle Planet Miner
56- The Forgotten City
57- The Last of Us
58- Winter Voices
59- The Longest Journey: Dreamfall Chapters
60- Tales from the Borderlands
61- Until Dawn
62- Portal 2
63- F.E.A.R.
64- Borderlands 2
65- The Urbz: Sims in the City
66- Lobotomy Corporation
67- Valheim
68- Raft
69- World of Final Fantasy
70- Farming Simulator 2015
71- Grand Theft Auto V
72- Final Fantasy IX
73- Move or Die
74- PUBG
75- Ghost 1.0
76- Final Fantasy VIII
77- Salt and Sanctuary
78- Remember Me
79- Orwell
80- Winged Sakura: Mindy's Arc
81- Love is Strange
82- Civilization II
83- Galactic Civilizations II
84- Stellaris
85- Saint's Row IV
86- Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door
87- Hitman: Blood Money
88- Starcraft II
89- Animal Crossing: New Horizons
90- Super Mario 64 DS
91- Mega Man X (+X2)
92- Super Mario RPG
93- Lands of Lore
94- Dying Light
95- Dead Space
96- Her Story
97- The Cat Lady
98- The Dark Eye: Chains of Satinav
99- Antiyoy
100- Spelunky
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Robazoid posted...

86- Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door

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I havent played TTYD in a depressingly long time, easily over a decade. It'd probably rank a lot higher if I could and my memories were fresher. I still have a lot of really powerful memories from it, though! The Glitz Pit chapter was fun and unique, I remember loving Rogueport, all the party members were great... now I'm sad I can't easily replay it.

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40- Hyperdimension Neptunia Rebirth 3: V Generation

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Hi Roba, I apologize for calling you a dummy or whatever for liking Super Metroid so much. No idea what my state of mind was, honest!

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Robazoid posted...

42- Cook, Serve, Delicious!

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I need to play Black Mesa. Writeup specifically for it?

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Robazoid posted...

13- Final Fantasy XIII

Very curious how this is the one of the franchise that got this high.

(Also, pretty amusing coincidence)

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Highway Blossoms is great so I'd like to hear about that

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I admire your LiS top placement king, pls explain to everyone why it's so good

heroes 3, best faction? Also do you play WoG fan expansion?

Rampart is my favorite faction that isnt considered OPed (conflux, necropolis)

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Hbthebattle posted...

40- Hyperdimension Neptunia Rebirth 3: V Generation

I haven't loved every Hyperdimension game (Rebirth2 and Noire in particular felt like huge slogs), but I loved V Generation! Every game has fun character interactions and a grindy yet addictive RPG system, but what made 3 so good for me was a bunch of little improvements. In particular, I loved the system it introduced where doing little things like running around or jumping unlocked slight stat improvements. It also introduced Plutia/Iris Heart, who is easily my favorite character in the franchise

LinkMarioSamus posted...

Hi Roba, I apologize for calling you a dummy or whatever for liking Super Metroid so much. No idea what my state of mind was, honest!

I actually don't remember this, so I suppose I can find it in my heart to forgive you. Super Metroid has a lot of nostalgia for me. It was one of the first games I managed to beat as a kid without my brother's help. Even beyond those memories, though, it's just such a well put-together world with satisfying exploration. I try to only replay it every few years so that I kinda forget certain areas (thank you, my poor memory) and can play through it all over again. Maridia was always my favorite zone because I always manage to get lost in it!

BetrayedTangy posted...

42- Cook, Serve, Delicious!

I haven't played the sequels for this yet despite meaning to, but I loved CSD years back when I played it! I have a soft spot for games like this. I played most of the Papa Mia games on Kongregate back in the day. You start with one recipe and a few customers, but eventually the game is just a struggle to keep up with a constant flow and a dozen recipes. The slow build-up into that chaos, and the rush that comes from conquering it, is something I always enjoy. It's fun to memorize all the recipes until I'm speedily cooking things on autopilot.

StartTheMachine posted...

I need to play Black Mesa. Writeup specifically for it?

I'm a crazy person who likes original Half Life more than Half Life 2. I love the setting and the progression through that underground facility. Black Mesa is just Half Life but with Half Life 2's graphics, which is a pretty significant step up! It isn't an exact remake, if you have a good memory of HL1 there will still be plenty of surprises. Xen in particular was expanded a lot (maybe a little too much in my opinion, but it was still better than the original). Not much else to say than that, it's basically HL1 but prettier and arguably better. I definitely recommend it

trdl23 posted...

13- Final Fantasy XIII

I remember you followed my topic in 2017 where I last made my top 100, sad to see you've already forgotten why I love XIII (just kidding, that was a long time ago and I don't expect everyone to remember everything about my video game preferences!). XIII was my first FF, which might have something to do with it, but I think it'd be my favorite regardless. The combat system in particular is great and I'm sad it never took off to be in anything else. I understand the complaints people have about the hallways and the slow progression in the early chapters, but by the end XIII becomes legitimately difficult. I still have fond memories of switching between paradigms and slowly knocking a monster into the air for Lightning to demolish. Lightning is also the best Final Fantasy character and one of the best characters in gaming, so that helps! And yes, it being in 13th place is a fun coincidence

(I'll get to Highway Blossoms and Life is Strange a bit later, this next one is quicker to answer)

Metal_DK posted...

heroes 3, best faction? Also do you play WoG fan expansion?

My favorite faction is Tower because it has a 7th level ranged unit. Annihilating armies before they even get to me with Master Gremlins, Mages, and especially Titans is my jam. I've never played WoG, mostly I just play the version available on GOG. These last few years, I also mostly just replay one huge scenario map over and over, Reclamation. It's a re-creation of North America and it's gigantic and really well put together. Starting with a town on either side of the continent and slowly pushing outwards is always a lot of fun. Some games I do really well, other times an AI hero comes through a portal with seventy gold dragons and it's game over for my empire. Heroes is just a really addictive game, and I have a lot of nostalgia from playing it growing up.
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Shonen_Bat posted...

Highway Blossoms is great so I'd like to hear about that

It's my favorite visual novel for a reason! It's a fairly simple story, a romance between two women on a road trip who get swept up in a gold hunt. Their relationship just really resonated me. It wasnt perfect, I thought some drama in the middle was a bit unneeded, but the parts that were good were really good. Amber and Marina played off of each other super well, and the slow build into their romance was so sweet. I even liked the realism that a portion of the story is Amber trying to figure out if Marina is even into women, it felt so realistic. Even the H scenes (added via patch) added some neat characterization as opposed to just smut (not that I'm against smut, it was just nice to have more too)

I still haven't played the sequel, Next Exit, but I've been meaning to for awhile. I did play the next VN these people wrote, Heart of the Woods, and I didn't enjoy it anywhere near as much. The friendship between the two main girls in that was compelling, but their respective romances both felt so contrived. There was no realistic buildup or doubts like HB had, just suddenly two characters are banging, and of course this century-old ghost is a lesbian, it's a yuri VN why wouldn't she be? Ugh. Amber and Marina had more chemistry in one scene than those two romances did combined.

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I'm always here for Ace Attorney writeups

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Robazoid posted...

17- Dynasty Warriors 8

What puts this so far above the other Musou games for you? (Unless I'm missing one)

Robazoid posted...

43- Lost Dimension

I bounced off this pretty hard because the traitor system seemed awful to me, but I didn't really play enough to give it a fair judgement. Would it be worth giving another chance?

Robazoid posted...

54- The Metronomicon

Hadn't heard of this, but I'm interested after looking it up.

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MechanicalWall posted...

I admire your LiS top placement king, pls explain to everyone why it's so good

Ah, Life is Strange. It might seem an odd choice for first place given that I really hated the ending, which you'd think would matter in such a story-driven game. The journey building up to it was still amazing, though! Even now, years later, thinking back on LiS makes me feel warm inside. It has a perfect atmosphere. Everything from the art style to the colors to just sitting someplace for a few minutes and hearing Max's thoughts while listening to calming music, I love it all. The main plot builds up like nothing else I've ever seen (and then stumbles at the end, but, hey, nothing is perfect). I also love the characters, especially Max and Chloe. Chloe in particular is unchallenged as my favorite fictional character. She's an unrepentant ball of sass, but LiS is so good about letting you see her from so many angles that I understand and empathize with her even during her worst moments. Such masterful writing is rare.

Speaking of Chloe, I also loved the prequel starring her, Before the Storm! It was made by different people and there's always the danger they won't understand what made something great or they might exaggerate character traits. They really understood her. My favorite scene was in Episode One when she smashes up the junkyard. A lesser writer who didn't understand her would've just had her cry, but that isn't how Chloe processes emotions, she gets angry and breaks things. So good. It also had the patented LiS atmosphere and knocked it out of the park with Rachel, so unlike many others I didn't mind the lack of supernatural powers. Chloe had the power of sass! Sadly, BtS also kinda stumbled near the end, but, hey, nothing is perfect.

I'm looking forward to the remasters of these games that are coming out soon, it's been awhile since I replayed them.

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best nosurge hymmnos/reon song

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Leonhart4 posted...

I'm always here for Ace Attorney writeups

I hope you aren't expecting too much, I couldn't manage anything close to the writeups you've done for Ace Attorney (I'm pretty sure it was you who did a big AA writeup topic a few years back). I also haven't played the first four games since 2009 when I went through them all at once. It might seem like cheating to lump them all together into one space, but they really do blur together into one single, awesome experience for me. They're VNs in a lot of ways, with witty writing and fun characters, but I love the mystery elements a lot too. I wasn't always smart enough to figure them out without looking up hints, but once everything finally clicked together it was always epic. I never played any of the mainline games after Apollo Justice (which was fine, it didn't turn me off the series or anything).

I played the two Investigations games much more recently, in 2016. I remember the first one being less good than the second, which was amazing. Kay Faraday is still my favorite AA character, I really liked seeing another side of her in the one case where she lost her memory.

If only my memories were fresher, I'd love to give you more! They were fun games and I really should get around to replaying them, along with finally playing the rest.

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TheArkOfTurus posted...

17- Dynasty Warriors 8

What puts this so far above the other Musou games for you? (Unless I'm missing one)

I've been playing Dynasty Warriors since 3 (not 9 yet though, I've heard bad things). I never really branched out to other musou games, I played like twenty minutes of one Samurai Warriors once. Dynasty Warriors is enough for me! It even inspired me to read Romance of the Three Kingdoms! It's also a series where each new entry effectively replaces the previous one, which is why 8 is the only one listed.

I just love the simple joy of slashing through hundreds of goons in that warm and familiar setting. DW has some strategic elements and sometimes enemy generals can put up a fight, but for me it's mostly just mindless fun. Sometimes that's all I want out of a game, to carve through a whole army single-handedly.

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Alright, I'll be the one to ask it.

Robazoid posted...

28- BanG Dream! Girls Band Party

This one, right here.

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TheArkOfTurus posted...

43- Lost Dimension

I bounced off this pretty hard because the traitor system seemed awful to me, but I didn't really play enough to give it a fair judgement. Would it be worth giving another chance?

I didn't mind the traitor system. Since it's randomized, I actually kinda liked the situations that emerged from it. The fire girl was carrying my team but then she was my last traitor and I was so heartbroken. I guess it wasnt great that character arcs could be cut short with no conclusion by random chance. But, frankly, none of their stories were all that compelling. Neither was the main plot.

What really sold me on the game was the combat system. The way you could chain attacks with assists and counters was great, it turned every battle into a kind of puzzle. And, once I understood the system, it was also possible to dominate it! The guy who could phase through doors in particular let me pull off some truly epic strategies.

If you felt any potential from the combat, I'd say give it another shot. I can see how it wouldn't be for everyone, though!

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TheArkOfTurus posted...

54- The Metronomicon

Hadn't heard of this, but I'm interested after looking it up.

I had always wanted a rhythm game RPG. It just felt like such an obvious combination to me. There was one, Before the Echo, that I'd played that was close, but not quite close enough. Then I found The Metronomicon and it was like someone had made this game especially for me. It was the perfect blend of RPG and rhythm gameplay, exactly what I'd always imagined. The story and characters were fun too.

Of course, a rhythm game lives or dies on its music. I really loved the whole soundtrack, but when I made a topic on B8 recommending it no one else liked its style as much. There have been a ton of DLC song packs since release but I never bought any and don't know how they work. Listen to a few trailers and see if you like the music, that's my suggestion.

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NFUN posted...

best nosurge hymmnos/reon song

I actually had a playthrough topic for Ciel/Ar nosurge and I remember ranking my top five. I have the topic saved on my computer at home though, I'll post that once I get home from work.

The nosurge games were amazing, though. It's hard to recommend to anyone because step one is watching a fifty hour fan translation of Ciel nosurge on Youtube, but it's more than worth it! Ion is my second favorite video game character, only barely losing to LiS Chloe. These games weave such an epic narrative, and the songs were of course always climatic highlight. The combat in Ar nosurge... it was fine, but not really what I was there for. I still fondly remember the time I spent in that world with those characters.

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WhiteLens posted...

28- BanG Dream! Girls Band Party

This one, right here.

This is the most expensive game I've ever played. Not counting the three separate Kasumi figures I've bought, I have easily spent over a thousand dollars on stars. Don't play gacha games, kids.

But, if you have to play one, you could do a lot worse than GBP! I got into it from the anime, and now I'm all in on the whole multimedia franchise. I love the Garupa Pico shorts on Youtube, I own a Popipa Weiss Schwarz deck for some reason, I've even started watching the Bandori TV things since they started translating them, so I guess I'm getting my moneys worth.

As for GBP itselft, it's easily the best rhythm game I've ever played. I'm no savant at these games, but I've managed to claw my way up from struggling on easy to regularly getting full combos on level 25 songs. The real draw is the characters, though. We're up to 35 characters across seven bands, 36 counting Marina, and I love them all. Even ones I dislike as individuals, lile Rui, still have fun moments when interacting with their bands. Having a new story to unlock every week has been a pleasure for years now!

It also scratches the monkey part of my brain when I do a daily pull and get a new card. That's why I recently bought $300 in google cards to buy more stars in the yearly Black Friday sale. Don't play gacha games, kids.

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I also just noticed a missing post I had to log out to see, Ulti has my mobile account blocked for some reason but not my main account. Unless someone who isn't blocked wants to point that out to him, I'll do Salt and Sanctuary and Diablo III when I get home so he can actually see them.

Thanks to all the people who requested writeups so far, too! You've kept me busy for three hours at work so far. Obviously I don't want anyone just to request the entire list all at once as a goof, but if you have genuine interest about something or comments about any if my writeups so far, keep them coming.

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Mobilezoid posted...

The nosurge games were amazing, though. It's hard to recommend to anyone because step one is watching a fifty hour fan translation of Ciel nosurge on Youtube, but it's more than worth it! Ion is my second favorite video game character, only barely losing to LiS Chloe.

=D

Ion the best.

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Robazoid posted...

58- Winter Voices

Never heard of this one, write-up please?

Mobilezoid posted...

I did play the next VN these people wrote, Heart of the Woods, and I didn't enjoy it anywhere near as much. The friendship between the two main girls in that was compelling, but their respective romances both felt so contrived. There was no realistic buildup or doubts like HB had, just suddenly two characters are banging, and of course this century-old ghost is a lesbian, it's a yuri VN why wouldn't she be? Ugh. Amber and Marina had more chemistry in one scene than those two romances did combined.

I liked Heart of the Woods more, but I agree the romances weren't as compelling. I thought the drama in HotW felt more legitimate and that the broader (non-romantic) plot was better; I was never really able to suspend my disbelief enough to buy into HB's gold rush plot. Enjoyed them both, tho

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There was definitely a bigger central plot to HotW, but I liked the simplicity of the gold rush more. It wasnt a bad VN, it just wasn't the best one ever like HB was!

Kenri posted...

58- Winter Voices
Never heard of this one, write-up please?

Winter Voices is a super unique game and it was quite the experience, but it was so janky I'm not sure I'd recommend it to anyone.

It's basically an isometric RPG, only you play as a mentally fragile young woman with no combat ability and all the enemies are in her head. You can't damage enemies, the battles are all about surviving X number of turns, or getting across the map, or are kind of puzzles about pushing personifications of doubt onto map squares that destroy them. The story follows the woman as she leaves her isolated town after the death of her father, and she struggles against her doubts and fears and traumas every step of the way. It was a unique journey. The writing was sometimes pretentious, but I enjoyed it.

The downsides are a low budget, frequent glitches, and often janky controls. I also can't vouch for the balance. There's an impressive FFX-style sphere grid of abilities that would really let you approach the battles a lot of different ways, but I can easily imagine choosing a bad combo of skills that would eventually make it impossible to win. I managed to beat Winter Voices but it was always a struggle. A worthwhile struggle, in my opinion, but I have odd tastes sometimes!

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Sounds interesting, for sure!

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NFUN posted...

best nosurge hymmnos/reon song

Ok I'm home now and can read my saved playthrough topic, this was my top four from Ar nosurge back in 2017.

1. ra-ciel reincarnation
2. yal fii-ne noh-iar;
3. Class::EXPAJA
4. Class::XIO_PROCEED;

Listening to them again now, Class::XIO_PROCEED; is so easily first place that I don't know what past me was thinking. The other three are really good too though. I also want to give a shoutout to LastPandemic, the background theme song for Chapter 11 of Ciel nosurge. The only youtube video of it that I could find looks like it was uploaded by our very own B8er dowolf! Thanks dowolf.

But yeah, XIO PROCEED is my favorite.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9VIF_CWV2s
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Sorry for skipping you initially Ulti, you have my Mobilezoid account blocked (but evidently not my main account so I dunno, maybe we fought over something years ago when I was on mobile).

UltimaterializerX posted...

Salt and Sanctuary with no spoilers would be a neat write up.

If S&S had much of a story I honestly don't remember it, so no spoilers should be pretty easy! I was there for the gameplay, which in my opinion is still the best example of a 2D Dark Souls. I'm not very good at 3D Dark Souls, so getting rid of a third dimension to dodge in was a bit of a hurdle for me. S&S was super hard in a lot of ways. Luckily, I could play local co-op and my brother was good at the game, so I got to experience it without dying ten thousand times. Instead I only died nine thousand times. My favorite part of it was the exploration, the world was really intricate and fun to run around in... when it wasn't being super difficult, at least! I will also say that the few challenges in S&S that I did manage to surpass on my own were all really rewarding.

UltimaterializerX posted...

And why Diablo 3 so high?

I mentioned in my Dynasty Warriors 8 writeup that there are certain series' where a new one completely replaces the previous games, and Diablo is like that for me. D2 might be a better game in a lot of ways, but I'll never go back to it now that D3 exists (and as an aside, I'm boycotting Blizzard with all the bad stuff going on there so I haven't played the D2 remaster). I never minded D3 like a lot of the hardcore fans did, it was fun from the beginning. Still, to me it really came into its own when it ditched the plot and became seasonal and had bounties and rifts. It distilled the Diablo experience into its most pure form. I could make a new Demon Hunter, hit max level, then find really decent gear, and then quit playing, all in the space of, like, three weekends. I still go back to it every year or so.
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Robazoid posted...

97- The Cat Lady

Would love a write-up for this, this game is amazing.

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Snake5555555555 posted...

97- The Cat Lady

Would love a write-up for this, this game is amazing.

This is another one where my memory of the gameplay is a little fuzzy beyond it being a puzzle adventure type game, but TCL was super memorable in a lot of other ways! I loved the art style, it was so dark and unique. The story had a lot of really great moments too. Just the idea of a suicidal woman who basically has the superpower of being unable to die is great, and the plot uses it well with all the situations she gets herself into. Mitzi was what pushed it into the top 100 for me, though. I really related with her character and story.
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TF2

About the Super Metroid thing, I think the problem is that I've played through the game three times, and somehow enjoyed it a lot more the second time than either of the other two. By the end of the day though I still have very fond memories of it, even if not to the extent of Metroid Prime.

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handsomeboy2012 posted...
TF2

I probably played more than a thousand hours of Team Fortress 2 in high school and college, it was my go-to game for a lot if years. It was less serious than Counterstrike, I could just join a server with my preferred map and settings and play for a few hours. TF2 was almost never toxic, which I've encountered a lot in other multiplayer games like LoL. There was too much beautiful chaos for anyone to really get angry about anything.

I have so many memories of building sentries in key positions as engineer, zooming around as scout, setting up sticky bombs as demoman... I could pick whatever class I felt like that day and go wild. Sadly, in recent years, I havent been able to find that feeling again in TF2. Servers all seem to be full of bots or afk people farming hats or whatever, along with just less people in general playing an older game. Multiplayer games seem to be moving away from dedicated servers too in favor of ranked matches or battle royale formats. I'm sad that the fun I had with TF2 is gone and maybe never coming back, but I'll always have the memories!

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Since we had a few Highway Blossoms fans in here, I figured I'd post this. I picked up cross-stitching over the last few months (it's a relaxing hobby) and I finally finished my second pattern, a Highway Blossoms one! It was a pretty basic pattern, but it was kind of nice just doing big blocks of color while watching TV shows. Next I'm going to work on a pattern I bought off Etsy of the SM64 paintings, with nine of them arranged in a 3x3 grid. It'll be about eight times bigger than this Highway Blossoms one so it'll probably take me a long time.

https://imgur.com/NKFUIB8
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Robazoid posted...

My favorite faction is Tower because it has a 7th level ranged unit. Annihilating armies before they even get to me with Master Gremlins, Mages, and especially Titans is my jam. I've never played WoG, mostly I just play the version available on GOG. These last few years, I also mostly just replay one huge scenario map over and over, Reclamation. It's a re-creation of North America and it's gigantic and really well put together. Starting with a town on either side of the continent and slowly pushing outwards is always a lot of fun. Some games I do really well, other times an AI hero comes through a portal with seventy gold dragons and it's game over for my empire. Heroes is just a really addictive game, and I have a lot of nostalgia from playing it growing up.

Tower is ok. The units are pretty expensive but fun

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Robazoid posted...

82- Civilization II
83- Galactic Civilizations II

Why Civ 2? Felt like a really bloated expansion on the original with a really bad Windows format, and as much as I shit on 3, I think 3 holds up a hell of a lot better today. I can only imagine that you never played 1 and 2 was your intro to the series, unless there's something I'm really missing.

GalCiv only included here to emphasize that nothing else from the series was listed.

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Civilization II: Multiplayer Gold Edition was the one I grew up playing. I never played 3 but I have played 4 and 5 and I like them both a lot less. I played countless hours of Civ2 as a kid, but despite that I was never very good at the game. I liked playing on the easiest difficulty, where I steamrolled over every enemy, where I got every wonder, where I could build cities wherever I wanted without worrying about if that spot was actually good or not. I guess I played it more as an empire simulator than a strategy game. Civ4 and 5 made a lot of changes to the formula that made playing it like that harder, at least in my opinion. In particular I remember conquering cities was a lot more involved.

I played Galactic Civilzations II similarly. I always played on the absolute largest galaxy with the most stars and planets possible. Then I'd spam colony ships and own 2/3 of the map by the time the colonization phase was over, at which point I was untouchable and the genocide could begin. I dunno, maybe I'm a crazy person but I never wanted a challenge. I just like pushing out into the unknown and watching numbers go up as I colonize more planets (or, in Civ2, make more cities). It's relaxing. Maybe that's why I like idle games too. I've played a bit of GalCivIII but, again, it was slightly different and the whole time I was wondering why I wasn't just playing II.

You didn't ask about it, but Stellaris is the same way (and I haven't played it in several expansions so some of what I say might be outdated). I installed a mod that gave me direct control over as many planets as I wanted (to hell with AI controlled sectors, I got no problem micromanaging everything) and then I took over the entire galaxy.

So to answer your question, I'm bad at 4X games but I like the monotony of slowly colonizing the whole map anyway.
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I'm surprisingly similar to you in playstyle, but I've continued to play every entry in the series. The degree to which you can REX (Rapid Early Expansion) was at its most extreme in Civ 2, but you can still create good empires in later games. You just can't literally own the entire map because now that's a victory condition.

But if you liked 2, you might consider trying *one*. You might have had an updated version of 2 or maybe my computer back in the day sucked, but I always felt like 2 was slower, clunkier, and more encumbered than the original. I also, strangely, preferred the graphics of the DOS. The sprites were certainly better than 2, but it was not a more attractive game.

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