Board 8 > transience's top 100 games -- 2023 edition.

(+) Yeah! (+)

It's that time again.

No fancy intro this year. I'm going to do this pretty quickly this time -- most people here have read my lists that I do every couple of years and know my thoughts on most of these games. I'll probably keep my writeups short, just a few sentences about each game, and do them in groups of 5 or something like that. That way I can wrap this up in a couple of days rather than dragging it out.

As always, if anyone wants a longer writeup or curious about my thoughts on something, I'm always happy to do that. There's just only so many things you can say about Final Fantasy 6 or whatever when you're writing about it for the 17th time!

Tag

Tag

Always enjoy these

I think I'll skip pictures this year since I'm doing multiple games in one post, but if people want them I can bring 'em back.

#100. Golf Story

Just a lovely, twee little dumb game about hitting a golf ball and sometimes solving a murder mystery. I will always play video game golf and this game's charm really hits home. It's too bad the long awaited sequel (Sports Story) is apparently a buggy mess, and even if it weren't buggy it just wouldn't be that fun. Not that I've played it, but yknow.

#99. Dragon Warrior Monsters 2

This game expands on the excellent first game but more isn't really better than it comes to the Monsters games. Give me the classics and I'm good. I love the Monsters games and DWM2 is still a really fun, addictive game but I prefer the simplicity of the original.

#98. Holedown

A lovely little breakout clone on mobile devices. This game is dopamine central and the progression makes it really addictive. You can lose hours on this thing, or if you're like me, just throw on a podcast and play endless mode until suddenly it's an hour past your bedtime.

#97. Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus

I'm not an FPS guy at all but this game's storyline is enough to get me in. Wolfenstein 2 is so ballsy with its narrative decisions and it's so fun to see what utter nonsense these guys will write. This is a game you can enjoy by just watching the cutscenes and cackling at the stuff that's on the screen. I'm still mad 5 years later that they basically ended the continuity that they set up with Wolfenstein 1/2 and never gave this game a proper sequel.

#96. We Love Katamari

That lovely little sweet spot between when the game was fresh and fun, and when the game actually controlled properly. I wish they'd rerelease this game instead of the original, a game that's easily the most nostalgic but controls like absolute doo doo. I'm not even sure if this game still plays some 18 years later but I'll always think about it fondly in my memory.

I prefer DWM2 to the original, but both are fantastic. Unfortunately the Joker games couldnt quite recapture their charm!

#95. P1 Select

Michael Brough makes these lovely minimal little grid-like strategy games -- think chess -- and my favourite of them is P1 Select, a mobile game that sorta plays like the most minimal strategy RPG you can find. It's a fun little high score run type of game where every run lasts like 3 minutes and your high score is averaged across your last 16 runs. I'm apparently 6th in the world. Love this stupid thing.

#94. Dragon Warrior 3

A classic! The best of the NES games and the blueprint by which NES RPGs are defined. I've played this so many times and the DQ series is one big nostalgia trip so I don't come back to it much these days, but it's a damn fun game.

#93. Half-Minute Hero: The Second Coming

The original is certainly more charming but this game expands on the only good game mode -- Hero 30 -- and somehow turns it into this 20 hour mega RPG with a branching story and tons of world building. It's crazy, it's stupid, it's overkill and it works.

#92. Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow

There's a long list of metroidvanias that are right around this spot but miss the list. This one stays on because it's a classic DS game in the heyday when the DS was brand new, and a game that would be better if it ever got ported to another platform and removed all of the touch screen nonsense.

#91. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

It's just a good damn game all the way throughout. It's never great in my eyes, but super playable any time and is the blueprint for other, better games. Yeah, I never got too enthralled with this one like others did but it's definitely a stellar game, especially for the time.

#90. Monument Valley

It's kind of obvious by looking at it, but this game is so picturesque and serene. The mechanical structures unwind in the most delightful ways and you just feel good. I come back to this every few years and forget how all of it works and get to experience the joy once again.

#89. Into the Breach

This run-based strategy RPG hit mobile this year (by way of Netflix??) and reminded me of just how good it is. I spend so much time trying to plan out my moves and wonder how it's even possible to handle battles without taking damage. I have to assume that there's a way but my dumb brain isn't good enough for it. Most SRPGs feel like, well, RPGs but this thing feels like chess, and there's no better game in the world than chess. It also makes me feel dumb sometimes. Oh well.

#88. Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!

It wouldn't be one of my lists without this game sneaking into the back half. Punch Out is the most playable damn game and I can take out Tyson even without playing it for years. The muscle memory is just part of my being and it feels good to do it each time.

#87. Etrian Odyssey 5

I kind of hate the Switch because it killed the concept of the DS game. Ace Attorney is pretty close to dead and Etrian Odyssey never had a chance. This game is where they added a lot of quality of life changes to the franchise. It isn't as good as 4, but it's a really good game. Someday I'm going to pull out my DS and grind my way back through again.

#86. Persona 4 Golden

I dunno. It's good? Maybe really good? P4's in this weird spot where it probably deserves to be a lot higher but there are other Persona games I could play. I don't know when I'll say "hey, what if I played the third best Persona game again?" since, y'know, they're all pretty much the same thing but with different scenes (and yet they feel somehow still the same). I bet I'll get there in like 10 years when I'm feeling nostalgic for... lots of yellow? Sure!

Aw yeah P4G

#85. Vampire Survivors

Now here's a dumb game. You barely even play this thing -- it feels more in line with old idle RPGs or clickers than an honest interactive video game, and that's coming from someone with several Ace Attorney games on the list. But Vampire Survivors has this ja ne seis quoi to it where things just pop off and it's cool to watch all the weapon effects overlap until your eyes hurt and don't even have to touch the controller for the entire screen to melt. What a game. Does this still make the list in 5 years? Probably not, and that's okay!

#84. Super Hexagon

This might be the only action game that thrives on mobile. Super Hexagon runs last a minute if you're doing well and a lot less than that if you're not. It's perfect for getting in and out without having to sit down and boot up a game. I rarely play this game for more than 6 minutes at a time and it works perfectly for that.

#83. Crystalis

A classic NES RPG, and the prototype for action RPGs to come. This game would have been better if it was released on a system that was more capable than the two-button NES, but probably wouldn't have felt as special without seeming like this incredible achievement that was years ahead of its time.

#82. Bleed

One of those annoying games that's really good, but the sequel just outclasses it in every way. It's hard to be super excited about Bleed when Bleed 2 exists, but also, this game is damn incredible, an amazing achievement that was one of those Xbox Live Indie Games, if anyone remembers that platform. Not even XBLA.

#81. Nobody Saves the World

Hey, speaking of Bleed. This game is Ian Campbell's love child after he joined a studio, basically the follow up to Bleed 2. Nobody Saves the World is this amazing mashup of like, Final Fantasy Tactics and 2d Zelda, where you're leveling classes and completing all these mini progressions within each class while also wandering around a world that feels straight out of Zelda. The powerups work really well in tandem and each form is super unique. It's also easy to forget about it once you've let it pass for a few months - I expected it to end up a lot higher than 81, but a year afterwards I'm not sure when I'll actually go back to it. Ah well.

#80. Final Fantasy VII

I think the Remake has let me appreciate OG FF7 a little more. It hasn't moved up my list or anything but the bloated nature of Remake reminds me to appreciate FF7's relative brevity. I don't think this game plays especially well from a 90s JRPG perspective (most FFs around this time are more enjoyable in battle), but the tone and feeling of it is amazing, especially considering what they had to work with aesthetically. The soundtrack really carries this game, even with the sound quality being subpar.

#79. Shadow Complex

Give me a highly competent metroidvania and it'll make its way onto my list. (unless you're Hollow Knight, I guess.) Shadow Complex is a drab mess in the aesthetics department but this game is so easy to just run around and lose yourself in. Before you know it, 2 hours have passed and you're always a couple of rooms away from the next interesting thing.

#78. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

I just appreciate this game from a distance more than anything else. It's fun to play, sure, but it's seeing all the stuff shoved into this game that opens my eyes. I always refer to this game as a virtual museum and it's definitely its best quality.

#77. Persona 5

It's better than Persona 4 is pretty much every way -- the style, the music, the gameplay -- and yet it's pretty much the same quality, with this game being ever so slightly better across the board. This game is stuffed with content (sometimes to its detriment) and the atmosphere is good. I would like this one a lot more if it was on a portable system. Persona's day structure always made it feel like it belonged on a handheld. Too bad the cutscenes drone on. Anyway I'm being too negative on Persona. This game is really good!

#76. Gorogoa

This game is literally just moving around four picture frames to solve some weird esoteric puzzles. But, man... this thing is enchanting, seeing the kid drop fruit into a basket or climb up a ladder or whatever. I can't explain it. Some games just grab you and this one does that to me. I even go back to it and do it all over again. It makes me happy.

I still need to play the Royal version of Persona 5 sometime, but I'm not ready to make that sort of time commitment right now.

You get a Steam Deck? Seems like you'd enjoy one, considering your affinity for portables.

We <3 Katamari had a remaster leak, so I'll finally get to check it out.

Speaking of competent Metroidvanias, Astalon: Tears of the Earth might be worth checking out. It has a lot of creative ideas and it's pretty well executed, though the game's main conceit may or may not click with you. There's two twists - you swap between three characters, all of whom have unique powers, and you have to start from the beginning of the castle every time you die (progress is kept). Both of these work surprisingly well!

it looks okay, kinda like Momodora or something like that. your 3 character switching writeup reminds me of Greak: Memories of Azur, though, and I really really didn't like the demo of that game.

oh and I don't have a steam deck yet. they're expensive and I can already play all the games I'd want to play on it. one day though.

transience posted...

I kind of hate the Switch because it killed the concept of the DS game.

Legitimately a tragedy of the modern era. Steam Deck has definitely filled that gap for me though

(tag)

transience posted...

I kind of hate the Switch because it killed the concept of the DS game.

Yeah, I really like the Switch as a home console, but it doesn't fill the same niche as a true portable and it kinda sucks that because it was so successful that a Nintendo portable system will just not exist for the foreseeable future.

I've been using my Vita a lot lately -- my favourite system, period -- and went back to the Switch and man it is a bad portable console. It's just too big. I've always worried that the steam deck was the same kind of thing because it's more powerful than the switch. not sure about the physical dimensions but I can't imagine it's that sweet spot that the Vita is.

LTTP was #91 on my list from a few months, ago too :sunglasses:

I super hope the new We <3 Katamari Reroll rumors are true because ughh I wanna play that really bad. I wanna play the level on a race track where you go fast.

#75: Mega Man 11

They made a new Mega Man, it was good, it sold well, and it modernized a bunch of stuff just enough for the hardcore fans (sup) to not revolt... and then never made another Mega Man again. This game is really solid! I look forward to an eventual MM12 but Mega Man might be in that weird spot where any release is just pandering to a boomer audience.

#74. Geometry Wars 2

This game is so 2009, and maybe the only XBLA game that didn't find its way to another platform. It must be some licensing thing. GW2 still slaps and the visuals are still really impressive 15 years later. One of the big draws of this game was competing on leaderboards and, well, nobody sane still plays this game at a high level. Still, it's fun to throw on for a few minutes and get your face blown off by the visuals. Kinda like Vampire Survivors, I guess? Actually, my first reaction on Vampire Survivors was that it felt like a dual stick shooter without having to aim. Anyway.

#73. Monster Train

Put this on mobile and it probably rises 40 spots. I just love playing these kinds of games on a phone. Monster Train is really good, kinda like Slay the Spire conceptually but also nothing like it thanks to its multi floor mechanics and different classes. It's nice as a palette cleanser when I've just played too much Spire.

#72. Street Fighter 2

An absolute classic, and easily a top 5 most played game in my lifetime, not to mention a top 5 most influential game. There's not much of a reason to play it these days, and if I do, I end up playing Super Turbo which is not my favourite (hyper fighting forever). These days, playing modern SF makes me feel like the oldest person in the world, so playing a game like 2 is pure comfort food. I just need someone at the same skill level and that's just never gonna happen.

#71. Hades

The combat mechanics are a dream in Hades. It's a lot of fun to build out your character and see the weapons pop off, and these devs have always been amazing at game feel, especially that roll. I never got deep into this game like I probably should have after I hit credits, but it's really good. Looking forward to Hades 2.

tag

transience posted...

#77. Persona 5

It's better than Persona 4 is pretty much every way -- the style, the music, the gameplay -- and yet it's pretty much the same quality, with this game being ever so slightly better across the board. This game is stuffed with content (sometimes to its detriment) and the atmosphere is good. I would like this one a lot more if it was on a portable system. Persona's day structure always made it feel like it belonged on a handheld. Too bad the cutscenes drone on. Anyway I'm being too negative on Persona. This game is really good!

There's finally a Switch version as part of all the re-releases!

transience posted...

Put this on mobile and it probably rises 40 spots.

i take it you don't have ios? it's already there as of a few months ago. i think they're working on android tho

Tag

oh wow monster train is on ios. I had no idea! hmmm

Yeah, I almost never use my Switch as a handheld. Not a fan of the size.

i'm on the train and this thread has inspired me to play some switch

(though i agree; i like playing my switch more like in bed or at a couch where it's not hooked up, rather than as a "truly' mobile console)

the best use case for the switch is being able to throw it in a bag on a trip and still play a decent chunk of modern games. some games don't work super great on it portably, but your simpler, slower paced games perform pretty well, and that's mostly what I play these days anyway.

#70. Actraiser

Just a classic SNES game, the one that really showed off the power of the system for that first time. It probably doesn't hang if it comes out fresh in 2023, but I have such strong feelings attached to the weird mix of action and town building here. Also I will never play the recent "remake" because it looks like poo poo.

#69. The Legend of Zelda

The open ended nature of this game really works in its favor so many years later. It's the originator of the "randomizer" and might still be the best version of those thanks to its open ended design. I still come back to play this every couple of years and my memory holds up just well enough to know where to go without knowing every single secret. I used to know it inside and out, but not so much anymore, and that's probably a good thing.

#68. Crypt of the Necrodancer

I suuuuuuuck at this game and love it anyway. One day I'll finally beat it? I love rhythm games and this weird dungeon crawler/rhythm hybrid just works for me.

#67. Final Fantasy IX

The most "classic" of the Final Fantasies: I'm more nostalgic over this game than some of the older ones in the series, FF4 or whatever. It's weird because it's very clearly a love letter to that game. I love the story and the atmosphere presented here, but the slow gameplay keeps me from having it much higher. It's not just the battle speed, but also the narrative pacing as you go into some of those slower, less interesting towns.

#66. Dragon Quest Builders 2

This spinoff is way better than it has any right to be. I'm not a Minecraft guy by any stretch but the simple act of building crossed with familiar DQ trappings and a narrative purpose really works for it. I love the grind from entering a dead area to having this sprawling metropolis that looks like a disaster but produces everything I need. This game has a lot of spirit.

tag

#65. Desert Golfing

I love this dumb game. It doesn't belong anywhere near a top 100 but it's just so cozy. I broke my addiction to this thing the day that Slay the Spire came out on mobile, and truth be told, I spend more time these days playing the sequel, Golf on Mars, than Desert Golfing. But the original is just such a weird timeless classic to me that it has to be my pick for this list.

#64. Tales of Maj'Eyal

I'm not well versed in capital-r Roguelikes, but my go-to is this little game, which feels like a custom NES RPG that rebuilds itself for you each time you play it. There's more to this game than I could ever want to engage with, and I often stick with just one or two classes because getting deeper in than that is basically committing yourself to playing just his one game for a year, kinda like an MMO. This game is deeper than just about anything else I play and I can only engage so much with that stuff, but it's really good.

#63. Tunic

This game is just fascinating. It's like Zelda 1 crossed with Fez and maybe a Souls game. Unraveling this game's secrets is so enthralling, something that it doesn't look like it would have if you just looked at its cute isometric visuals and Zelda-inspired combat. Instead, you're learning a whole language and learning the game's mechanics on the fly via finding pages of an instruction manual and all sorts of other crazy stuff. Unlocking how you even engage with this game is what makes it so cool.

#62. Ace Attorney Investigations 2

This might be the most complete Ace Attorney game. No other game is as cohesive as this sprawling game that takes place across 5 cases but is really one continuous story. There are great moments in this game, but it also gets overlong at times so it isn't quite on the level of the top games in the AA series. It feels like the apex of what the AA series can be though.

#61. Metroid Fusion

It's nominally a metroidvania, but feels more like a survival horror game in Metroid clothing. You're stalked in this game and the music is more about eliciting a feeling from you than letting you explore an interesting space. You're getting powerups not to get stronger, but to survive. Once you reorient yourself to those expectations, this game is great. It's not a top tier Metroid game and that is by design.

tag

transience posted...

#66. Dragon Quest Builders 2

This spinoff is way better than it has any right to be. I'm not a Minecraft guy by any stretch but the simple act of building crossed with familiar DQ trappings and a narrative purpose really works for it. I love the grind from entering a dead area to having this sprawling metropolis that looks like a disaster but produces everything I need. This game has a lot of spirit.

hell yeah

#60. Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin

This has been my favorite Castlevania game since the day it was released. It's the perfect mix between classic Castlevania and the more modern (not so modern anymore) Castlevania - the sprawling maze-y goodness that people associate it with today. It even has a whip and a sword. The second half of the game especially shines from a traversal perspective.

#59. Shadow Hearts: Covenant

This game hasn't aged especially well but I'm on a big Shadow Hearts kick right now with Pennyblood having been announced. SH2's humor has certainly not held up -- a gay vampire wrestler isn't the hilarious zing that it used to be, and maybe never was? -- but the storyline of Yuri and his demons works really well, and this game ends as strong as any JRPG ever has.

#58. Xenoblade Chronicles

The more Xenoblade that I play, the more exhausted I am of the combat system. Yeah, they add tweaks to it but there's only so many hours I can stand there and let the skills pop off. In reality it's not that different from your classic ATB system but something about it, the characters yelling attacks while I circle around and wait for meters to fill, just doesn't do it for me like it did in 2011.

It doesn't help that Xenoblade 3 is anime to the extreme, a style that I just can't get into. Xeno games have always been anime but Xenoblade 2 and 3 have been anime in that Tales kind of way that irks me, and drags the original down in the process. It's a great game to explore but this used to be in my top 10 and I wouldn't consider it now.

#57. Portal

I figured that this game wouldn't hold up, so I played it last week and, yeah, it totally does. Okay, the cake is a lie is anti-funny these days, but the simple puzzle nature of Portal, along with its relative brevity just really works for me. The game feels good to explore and I much prefer this game's simplicity to what they did in Portal 2, another game I've been playing with my youngest in co-op. That game is fun but the original is where it's at.

#56. Castle Crashers

This is the only classic beat em up that I really like. It's exceedingly simple in all aspects but I don't know, something about it keeps it fun despite it being really mashy. I like building out my characters with the most simple of RPG mechanics and I like fighting the goofy bosses. I love this thing. Its lowest common denominator design really works because it's so ubiquitous and everyone can pick it up and play it competently. It's a great couch co-op game and always will be.

I still haven't played XBC2 and 3 yet because of the reasons you said (the anime qualities and being afraid I'd burn out on the battle system in such a long game), so that's not exactly encouraging to hear!

I don't really think of 3 as that much more anime than 1 personally. 2 isn't for everyone that's for sure.

I only played 2 and I have never played a more offputting game

KommunistKoala posted...

I don't really think of 3 as that much more anime than 1 personally. 2 isn't for everyone that's for sure.

you're not wrong, but 1 really ramps up toward the end of the game (and that's the worst part of XB1). 2 and 3 are just more pronounced. some of those overlong battle scenes in 3 are just hilarious.

#55. Inscryption

Oh man, where to start with this game? At its heart, Inscryption is a deckbuilder with a ton of creepy vibes, and that stuff works super well. But it also has multiple meta layers and iterations of game that are completely different. Some of that stuff doesn't land but the overall presentation and just wondering what the hell the game is going to do next. Even when the narrative completes, there's stuff like Kaycee's Mod that turns into a proper roguelite deckbuilder to give the game extra value. I pop back into that thing on occasion just because I like the gruesome mechanics of the game.

#54. Life is Strange

The Telltale style of game and its descendants are such a weird thing to consider when making a list. These are games that have choice driven narratives but the choices you make are your own personal canon and you don't want to replay them ever out of fear of overwriting that truth. That's LIS to me - a really good story about high school and time travel that I don't really want to experience again.

#53. Ace Attorney 6

This game ends the second trilogy of AA games with an absolute bang. The last case of AA6 sets up some astonishing choices that you can't wait to see where it goes.. and then you remember that this game came out 7 years ago and there's still not an AA7 even announced. It's another casualty of the Switch revolution.

#52. Etrian Odyssey 4

The best Etrian game isn't just a solid dungeon crawler - there's also an overworld that you can explore. Dungeons are broken into smaller levels, kind of like a regular dungeon in an RPG, and you can tackle them at your pace rather than just continuously descend. EO4 has some of the coolest classes and the interactions between them are probably the best in the series. I wish this game had some of the QOL features that later games had, but it's still the best one despite not having some of that stuff.

#51. Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons

This game is my personal posterchild for the short, 3 hour mid-budget indie game with a narrative punch at the end. Brothers's final punch is as strong as any game ever made and that feeling stays with me some 10 years later. The game itself is a nice little puzzle game where you control two characters with one controller, but really you're just here to experience that last hit, and it's as effective as anything out there.

Yeah, I'm not sure we'll ever get an AA7, but at least SoJ ended on a satisfying note, so it's not like there are dangling plotlines left.

AA7 was in the Capcom leak from a while back. But, as the years pass the chances that it was cancelled rather than delayed then increase.

I dunno why the Switch would hurt chances for more Ace Attorney. Ace Attorney trilogy sold great there - better than any other AA installment! Unless you mean the idea that Capcom can't make small budget games for Switch, which would be unfortunate if true.

I'd guess the actual reason for no AA7 would be that no good ideas for it have come together?

that AA7 leak is from like 3 years ago and it hasn't resurfaced yet. that, along with the fact that it's been 7 years and the only thing we've gotten since are rereleases of old games, suggests to me that they aren't too keen about investing in the property, especially since dev costs increase when you talk about a system with HD capabilities.

We did randomly get the GAA games a couple years ago when nobody was expecting them, so maybe Capcom hasn't given up on the series entirely.

There's also this:
https://www.siliconera.com/ace-attorney-director-and-writer-takeshi-yamazaki-has-left-capcom/

He was the director behind the more recent AA games (other than GAA which was Takumi).

transience posted...

I've been using my Vita a lot lately -- my favourite system, period -- and went back to the Switch and man it is a bad portable console. It's just too big. I've always worried that the steam deck was the same kind of thing because it's more powerful than the switch. not sure about the physical dimensions but I can't imagine it's that sweet spot that the Vita is.

Steam Deck is a chonker. It's way bigger than the Switch.

#50. The Messenger

This game starts as a ninja gaiden clone but turns into a metroidvania halfway through as it morphs to 16 bit. The gameplay mechanics are really strong and the level design is challenging enough to make you master those mechanics. This game can be hard to put down because it's so fun to just traverse the world. Those challenging jumps feel good.

#49. Inside

I always put this game and Brothers in the same box. Inside's narrative punch at the end has to be seen to be believed, and you'll never forget the feeling once you go inside. This game feels like a silent horror film and the level of production is pretty incredible. There's a lot of hand crafted work to make that ending soar.

#48. Dragon Quest XI

DQ11 is lovely. It's basically DQ8 in HD, but the story doesn't hit quite as hard (though it's good) and the music is kind of dreadful thanks to its composer being like 90 years old. There's lots of cool mechanics though and some of the scenes it sets up are shocking (in a good way). There's also a lot of reused assets as you essentially revisit each location 3 different times, and that's kind of a bummer. That's the side effect of designing those darn HD towns, I guess. Anyway, I love DQ games and this is maybe the only true HD game in the series.

#47. Ace Attorney

You know how some people swear by the Star Wars OT and everything else is kinda watered down in comparison? That's me with the original AA trilogy. This game is exceedingly simple compared to where the series eventually goes but just seeing those charming characters connect for the first time is enough for me. This game basically ends two different times and both of them are really strong climaxes.

#46. Haiku, the Robot

An amazing metroidvania from a single creator that was kickstarted. My derogatory shorthand for this game is "Hollow Knight but good" -- it has all the tropes that Hollow Knight brought into the 'vania conversation but done in ways that I appreciate. The bosses are tough but manageable and the inventory management/powerup system is fun to play with. It's just a good damn metroidvania and I will always love those.

CHONKY

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/8/8/4/AAI16ZAAEHpM.jpg

yeah that's huge. I owned a game gear once, not sure I need to do it again

XBC2 has some super lows but also super highs and the best battle system in the series.

I'm withholding judgment on 3 until the DLC is done - my hopes aren't high, but there's some real potential with Monolith/Xenoblade.

1 is still top 10 for me.