Iceman's 30 for 30: Thirty Games, Characters, and Moments for my 30th Birthday

As its the 30th day of the month, I cant think of a better time to welcome you all to a project that I shamelessly ripped off (with much-appreciated permission) from Leonhart!

Im going to be turning thirty years old on October 30th, and while Im not at all freaked out about it, I recognize it's still a milestone. Plus, my wife and I always planned to start trying for a family once I turned 30, so with any luck, there will be a little NBIceboy or Icegirl entering the world sometime in the next year or two. And once that happens, though Ill never stop gaming completely, I know Ill never again have the time for it that I used to - or, if not never, then at least not for quite a few years.

So this seems like the perfect opportunity to combine my birthday celebration with a celebration of my most enduring hobby, the one on which Ive easily spent the most hours since I first picked up a controller at around four or five years old. Ive had a lot of interests in my life, and though others have taken precedence on occasion, none of them have been nearly as lasting and multifaceted and omnipresent as video games. Honestly, when you get right down to it, most of those others have probably been at least partly inspired by video games in the first place. The industry has changed over the years and so have my tastes, and there are periods where I dont always have the motivation to actually pick a game and turn on the power button for any system in my living room, but I can truthfully say that anytime I do, theres still no feeling quite like it.

For anyone who remembers Leonharts original project, this isnt going to be exactly the same. His was basically three separate ranking projects in one - his 30 favorite games, 30 favorite characters, and 30 favorite moments, in order. My version isnt truly a ranking at all. What Ive done is simply identified thirty games that feel particularly important to me, that have shaped me as a gamer or even a person in some cases. The thirty games most crucial to my gaming story, if you will. Starting on Monday, August 4th, Ill be posting writeups for one game every three days until October 30th, and for each one, Ive also chosen my favorite character and the most memorable or impactful moment to also be included in the writeup. Granted, the majority of these selections would definitely be included if I made a real Top 30 list for any or all of them, but there are some fun exceptions that I still have (hopefully) interesting things to say about.

Does the number 30 look weird to anyone else yet? Well, Ive got good news. Theres technically 34 games on this list, because Ive got a couple of duologies and one trilogy included. I made that decision for games that feel, to me, like one collective experience where something vitally important is lost by not playing the game(s) before or after them as well. Its my birthday; I can do what I want. And indeed, what this project is really meant to be at its core is a birthday party that celebrates the hobby itself, and B8 is invited by virtue of being my favorite place ever on the internet.

Writeups will be posted in chronological order of the games North American release date, with the exception of my #1 favorite game of all time that will be skipped over and saved for the final post on my birthday. The majority have been written ahead of time, so unless something very unexpected happens, theres little to no chance of going off schedule.

Lastly, I should probably mention up front that this project includes a lot of text. Due to the nature of this list, I didnt want to censor or otherwise limit myself, so the writeups are pretty long, and will usually include such things as musings on the nature of stories themselves or rants on why games should be taken more seriously as art or simply anecdotes from my personal life. If youre looking for pithy two-paragraph reviews consisting of The movement is fun in this game but the combat is pretty repetitive, and the OST has some real standouts but is overall pretty hit-or-miss, youre not gonna see much of that here. For better or worse, youre getting blow-by-blow accounts of my history with these games and/or deep reflections of why they made it onto this list in the first place. Im hoping to examine the widely beloved titles that are included from some uncommon angles and maybe turn a few folks on to some of the weirder, lesser-known ones. More importantly, though, I just want to talk about some cool games with some cool people.

Alright, I think thats enough for an intro post now. Later this week, Im going to post some honorable mentions that I considered and then well be kicking things off for real on Monday!

Sweet

tag

Not sure if I will comment much but tag

Hard to believe I did this project over 9 years ago now

It's almost time for a 40 for 40 next year

Tag.

Just turned 30 back in March. Feels weird, man.

Tag

I think this means you are the youngest b8 user

Leonhart4 posted...

Hard to believe I did this project over 9 years ago now

It's almost time for a 40 for 40 next year

I didn't even realize it had been that long ago, wow. Clearly it stuck with me!

kateeeeeeeeeeee posted...

Tag

I think this means you are the youngest b8 user

I believe that's true, yes. I think at one point there were a couple younger ones, but they're not here anymore.

Back when you were an impressionable 21 year old

Oof, now I'm really feeling old

Make it stop

Make time stop

Got some stuff to do this weekend, so I'll go ahead and do this now.

HONORABLE MENTIONS
In no particular order, except alphabetical.

Aeterna Noctis
Most satisfying game Ive ever played is the headline here. Im someone thats very motivated by personal achievement, so I love finishing tough games, and this is among the toughest. A big and expansive Metroidvania, and between the platforming (making use of a teleport arrow mechanic that is absolutely incredible) and the boss fights, there were probably close to a dozen challenges in my playthrough that made me think Id never get past them, and every time I did, it brought the same amazing feeling. Didnt make the list because my analysis would mostly boil down to saying all of that in different ways, but if youre looking for a game that makes you feel good about your successes, this is it.

Crazy Taxi
Leaving this one off hurts, because Ive poured a lot of hours into it in multiple different stages of my life, and its one of the few games I could name thats been equally enjoyable in all of them. That includes my honeymoon, when my wife and I went to an arcade that happened to have a cabinet and she got to laugh at me bouncing off of walls because Id never played it with a steering wheel before. Ultimately, though, everyone knows why this game is fun, it's not really impactful in regards to my tastes at all, and I couldnt figure out any angle with which to approach the Character section.

Cuphead
Gifted to me by the awesome PrivateBiscuit in the Steam Secret Santa one year (thanks again, if you're reading!), I credit Cuphead with giving me some actual confidence as a gamer. My early days in the hobby involved a lot of failure, and I spent a long time being intimidated by difficult games until this one finally forced me to get over myself and see that I was actually a pretty solid player. That was a huge watershed moment that opened up a ton of new potential titles for me, some of which (like the aforementioned Aeterna Noctis) have become all-time favorites. But this is another one that's been covered from every conceivable angle by others, I think, and there may or may not be a similar sort of game that's already included on the main list

Dota 2
If someone were to tell me Dota 2 was the best game ever made, I wouldn't argue with them. I get that perspective and am sometimes even tempted to adopt it myself. MOBAs are an incredible piece of the hobby, especially for someone like me who has a background in team sports and loves to have the option of scratching the itch for that kind of competition with video games, and Dota is the best of them by far. Fantastic game for spectators, too. All that said, Ive never played enough or gotten good enough to speak about it intelligently, and again, the perspective I COULD theoretically take with it would overlap pretty heavily with another game that's of greater import.

Guild Wars
My MMO of choice in my teenage years, as I never got into WoW. Almost merited inclusion through sheer attrition, given the time I spent on it, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized I don't really care about it anymore. It's more of an interesting footnote than anything.

Hades
I had my time of being addicted to this like everyone else did, to the degree that it's the only game in recent memory to evoke the old childhood feeling of being upset that I had to go to school (now work, obviously) specifically because it was eating into my gaming time. But once again, no one needs to read the same basic review for the 2187th time, and its not an integral part of my journey such that it demands a slot here.

To the Moon
A beautiful, wonderful game that I believe everyone should play in their life sometime, but I don't think it'd be an interesting writeup for me to just type out my stream-of-consciousness ruminations on why it would or wouldn't be a good thing to have a company like Sigmund Corp. in the real world, and there's really no other way to discuss it aside from literally just explaining the themes which has also been done ad nauseum. Incredible piece of art, but not a game for this project.

Tunic
Like with Cuphead and Dota, there's something else in this project that does what Tunic does, but better. I still have a ton of respect for it, though, for its willingness to be obtuse and often inscrutable so as to truly sell the feeling of adventure and exploration in a strange world. Plus, solving the final puzzle with some assistance from my wife will forever be one of my favorite gaming memories. Exactly the kind of game that I gravitate to these days, but its exclusion will make sense when we get to, say, early October.

Oh hey, I've played To the Moon. Really interesting concept for a game, but yeah, I don't think I'd rank it on a list like this.

I only very vaguely recall how a topic like this goes. Maybe I'll do one...eventually.

azuarc posted...

I only very vaguely recall how a topic like this goes. Maybe I'll do one...eventually.

I don't have that kind of time anymore. But I'll read this at my own leisure, so... tag.

NBIceman posted...

with the exception of my #1 favorite game of all time that will be skipped over and saved for the final post on my birthday

I'm thinking I know what game this is considering how much we've talked about it over the years. Unless something changed, of course.

BlueCrystalTear posted...

I'm thinking I know what game this is considering how much we've talked about it over the years. Unless something changed, of course.

There are a fair few people here who know which game it is, yeah. It's not super hard info to find.

First game tomorrow!

HINT: The only game from the 1980s on this list, featuring, appropriately for a Board 8 project, a Noble Niner in his second appearance.

Mega Man 2 feels like the safe prediction

Indeed!

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/d/d5be79d3.jpg

Mega Man 2
My earliest gaming memories are so fuzzy that even calling them memories might be a bit of a stretch. The first console I ever personally owned (at a very young age) was a Nintendo 64, which my parents received from some family friends who, I was told, were finally punishing their son for too many instances of failing grades and exceedingly bad behavior. I have no idea whether that reasoning was true or if it was just a scare tactic Mom and Dad were using to give me a little extra incentive to be a good kid. Anyway, around that same period, I was spending a couple of days a week at my grandmothers house with my much older cousin, who had an NES and a couple dozen cartridges that for whatever reason he let me play sometimes. Nobody in the family, myself included, can recall which came first, but my assumption is that it was in fact the NES, if for no other reason than that I doubt my parents wouldve been inclined to take that offered N64 if they didnt already have some evidence to suggest Id enjoy it. With that in mind, theres a pretty good chance that the first video game I ever played was Mega Man 2.

Even if thats not the case, its definitely the game that I have the most vivid recollections of playing in those early days. My cousin had all the big stuff, of course - Mario, Zelda, Kirby, Duck Hunt - and I spent many an afternoon on all of them, but their combined playtimes paled in comparison to the number of hours I spent with the little blue robot. And maaaan, did I suck. I was far too young to be tackling these games that were even considered pretty difficult by people with developed brains and skill, and Im quite confident that the number of Robot Masters in the whole series I ever managed to beat back then without my cousin doing 95% of the work could be counted on one hand that had lost some fingers to frostbite.

I wish Id learned a better lesson from that. Classic Mega Man should have beaten any fear of failure right out of me and demonstrated that, no matter what, there were going to be things in this world for which I didnt immediately develop a proficiency. Alas, I think all it actually did was contribute to my perfectionism. So it goes. Regardless, I just kept on banging my head against those walls, because even among the boiling frustration and appalling lack of success, I was still having a great time. THAT lesson did stick, that the struggle of pushing toward an achievement is often as fulfilling as the achievement itself, and that challenging yourself in that fashion is kind of addicting. Inside every person with a strong competitive streak is a fundamental desire to see how much they can really accomplish, and MM2 was the first sign of that mentality growing in me.

Something about the classic Mega Man games struck a perfect chord with me thats still resonating some 25-odd years after. Ive played the X games, the Battle Network games, the Legends and Star Force games, weird spinoffs like Command Mission, ROM hacks and fangames, and spiritual successors like Azure Striker Gunvolt. Ive got Mega Man shirts, Mega Man mugs and coasters, Mega Man wall art. I wore a Mega Man costume for Halloween one year as a kid. The mouse pointer on my home computer is 8-Bit Mega Man. My cell phone ringtone is Were the Robots and the text notification is the classic Mega Man death sound effect. I banged a knee on my desk when jumping out of my chair for his Smash Bros. reveal. Hell, I named one of my cats Tango after the cat from the series. Looking at anything to do with the franchise just makes me happy even now. More than any other game or series, its a portal back to a time of incredible newness in my life that I think we all wish we could recapture sometimes, where I was just starting to figure out what I liked and didnt like and the possibilities were basically endless. Mega Man didnt have a particularly strong influence on, say, the genres of games that Id eventually be drawn to the most - itll be a few more writeups until we get to a real formative game in that respect - but it sure did leave an impact in other ways.

So, with all that said, lets talk about Mega Man 2 specifically. I finally went back and beat all of the classic games in the series a few years ago (by the way, despite the fact that Ive become pretty damn good at video games over the years, including difficult platformers, Im still bad at Mega Man games), and though I enjoyed most of them and found the quality pretty consistent throughout, 2 still ended up being my favorite of the bunch. This was a labor of love from the development team - poor sales of the original had Capcom uninterested in a sequel and the staff only managed to get the okay by agreeing to put their own free time into it while working on other projects. They must have all been zombies by the end of it, because the development cycle was only three or four months and, among other things, included design input sourced from the public. Keiji Inafune later called it the best time he had working at Capcom.

And the result is what I consider the first real Mega Man game, as snobby as that sounds to say. The original was a bizarre experiment in comparison to everything that came after, with its points system, lack of passwords, strange refight format, and most of all, only six Robot Masters. MM2 was obviously lacking in some things that would later become staples as well - the slide, the charge shot, Proto Man, Rush, Eddie, etc. - but I kind of enjoy that purity, and their absences don't make the game feel like it's missing something crucial. Once you drop into a level, youve just got a simple jump button and a simple shoot button to get through all these obstacles, with no support to speak of. Its a pretty cool setup all on its own. Then you start picking up a few weapons and the fun factor of the game shoots through the roof because the devs hadnt really figured out how to balance Robot Master powers yet. The Metal Blade famously eviscerates almost everything, and for the handful of enemies that it bounces off, youve got the Quick Boomerang thats almost as good. Mega Man 2 nails its overall game feel: its tough, but you feel super powerful for most of your time spent playing it.

Really, theres not much it doesnt nail. The Robot Master designs? Mostly awesome, with Crash Man, Quick Man, and Metal Man all being among my all-time favorites. The stages? Memorable, whether youre talking the iconic death beams in Quick or the aggravating platforming on the Goblins in Air. The music? I mean, come on. I sometimes have a slight preference for 6s OST depending on the day and I think 4 juuust edges them both out, but 2s earns its insane popularity and then some, and its impossible to overstate its influence.

Obviously, my first video game ever would have merited inclusion on a list of this type even if my cousin had been of a less discerning taste and built an NES collection highlighted by Tiny Toon Adventures or something, and of course a game thats had such a strong and lasting influence on me would have been a no-brainer as well. I love that Mega Man 2 is both. I love that what was, in all likelihood, my initial introduction into this wonderful hobby is a title thats remembered fondly by tons of gamers besides just me, and that has stood the test of time and remained fun to play all these years later. I can scarcely imagine a better entry point.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/4/416da40d.jpg

The Character: Mega Man
"I can take it, Doctor. I wanna do this, no matter the cost. Hook me up!"

Who else but the Blue Bomber himself?

This section for some of the later games on the list will feature characters with richly defined, complex story arcs that result in some of the best development not just in video games, but fiction as a whole. Mega Man is Not that. Despite the franchise hiding some oddly deep and expansive lore (at least relative to how important the plots tend to be to its games), the protagonist is a mostly simple character no matter what incarnation were talking about, and thats no more true than of the Classic one that Im talking about here.

Hes endured for a reason, though - you dont get to be a Noble Niner by accident. Straightforward though he may be, hes extremely likable. A humble assistant robot who bravely volunteers to be turned into a fighter just because he knows people need his help. All he wants is peace, but hell go to war for it if he has to, time and again with no hesitation. That concept of the earnest, genuine, all-loving hero gets maligned a lot, especially because they have a tendency to end up coming off as one-note and preachy, if not even a little whiny. Look no further than what X eventually became, for example. I think it fits just fine in the context of Classic Mega Mans world, though, taking into account the influence of the man who built him and for what purpose. Plus, there is that one controversial time in MM7 that Wily very nearly pushes him too far.

I also think he suffers a bit from the fact that so many of the other characters in his own series seem to be created specifically to look cooler than he does. Proto Man, Bass, Zero, even someone like Axl - theyve all got extra details all over the place to make them stand out. Honestly, though, Ive always appreciated the modesty and sleekness of Mega Mans design. Its well-suited to his role as an unassuming hero that rose from his much more ordinary purpose, and works well with the changing colors for different powers, too, given the visual limitations of his 8-bit beginnings.

Really, that entire core concept of stealing the abilities of defeated foes is as much the main selling point for Mega Man as a character as it was for the games themselves. It feels like an idea that was pretty far ahead of its time, and it made him stand out as a protagonist immediately. He even has a built-in excuse for that annoying video game trope where characters in sequels lose all the abilities they gained previously - his distaste for fighting and inherent hopeful streak make it completely reasonable that hed happily discard the weapons he keeps acquiring anytime the immediate trouble is at an end.

Unfortunately, the year 200X has long since passed us by without any good-hearted old robotics scientist coming along to build him in the real world. Theres still hope for 20XX, though. We all know that robot uprising is coming eventually.

The Moment: The Intro and Title Screen
Its the clear choice, and Im not nearly crazy enough to pretend otherwise. If its not one of the coolest intros ever in a video game, its damn sure the coolest one of its era.

The design of Mega Man games is such that they dont really lend themselves to moments in the way that Ill most often be speaking about them in this project. When the entire point of the game is that you have eight stages at your disposal that can be done in any order, you lose out on the ability to design in a traditional fashion where you slowly ramp up the stakes and difficulty as the player improves at the game. Even in the more micro sense of the levels themselves, players are mostly dealing with bite-sized, single-screen obstacle puzzles and then immediately moving on to the next one; theres never any breathing room for things to stick in your mind when youre constantly having to deal with the next thing. Sure, the Wily stages have their occasional heart-pounding sequences, and every once in a while youll have an individual obstacle like the aforementioned Quick Man lasers that stand out, but nothing in the gameplay ever leaves what Id call a lasting impression.

The Mega Man 2 title screen leaves a lasting impression. If the job of an intro is to build excitement for whats to come (and, well, it is), they dont come much better than this one. Its a perfect example of 8-Bit Mega Mans masterful ability to make the most of the technology and resources at its disposal, using little more than a few pixels worth of animation and a genius bit of musical wizardry to craft this quintessential piece of the mediums history.

Close your eyes and Im sure you can picture it pretty accurately even now. You can see that lovely, vast cityscape, lights all a-twinkling, with a few lines of text telling you all you need to know about the games plot in less than thirty seconds. And then you can see the viewpoint slowly panning up the building in the foreground. The music, which youll recognize as a throwback if youve beaten the original game, gradually quickens. Finally, at the top, we find our hero, hair blowing in the wind, gazing out at the place hes ready to once again fight to protect. The beat drops and the music goes wild. Youre humming it right now in your head, I bet. Maybe you take a few more seconds to appreciate it before you actually hit Start to choose your difficulty. But once you do, the killer tunes abruptly stop. The helmet comes on. Get hyped. Get ready. Its time to get to work.

There's one more dimension of this project, which I didn't mention originally because it's not attached to every entry and therefore doesn't fit the "30" theme as neatly. It didn't feel complete without a ranking component, though, so I'll be following a good portion of the games with some quick-hitters inspired by that topic in some way. Basically just another excuse for me to talk about things I like because I have no self-control, and bonus reading for people who want it.

Mega Man 2's contribution is pretty straightforward: my Top 10 Robot Masters:

10. Spark Man (MM3)
His weapon is a little lame. The in-game sprite work doesnt do a great job capturing his cool design. The stage has nice visuals and its Doc Robot version is the best of the four retreads, for whatever thats worth (and if that sounds like damning with faint praise, it is), but its nothing particularly great or memorable. But that theme. That absolutely awesome theme. I dont care that its a short loop - if you put a gun to my head and really forced me to choose a favorite Robot Master song, itd be Spark Mans. And when you have that incredible distinction, youre automatically one of the ten best Robot Masters.

9. Crash Man (MM2)
Heres a little trivia for you: did you know that Crash Man is the only MM2 Robot Master that never appeared in the Battle Network series? I dont understand why, because it seems like he was tailor made for it, but its true. Was Ground Man really a better choice? Anyway, Crash Man makes this list largely off the back of music and design. His stage is a nice concept but a bit annoying and dull in practice, and his weapons only claim to fame involves the Boobeam Trap that everyone justifiably hates. But his theme is universally and rightfully recognized as great, and I love his design enough that the deficiencies dont seem so bad.

8. Wave Man (MM5)
In what is becoming an early trend, Wave Mans best asset is his stage theme. Its a fairly unique one in a series that so often tends toward more up-tempo and wild beats (though Mega Man 5 as a whole got a little experimental there), and is one of my go-to relaxing pieces of VGM because its just so smooth and chill. That said, I also think this guy has one of the more underappreciated and too-often-forgotten designs in the classic series - the trident and blue/yellow color scheme makes for a striking sprite, and then you add in a harpoon hand, too? Hes very pointy. His stage probably goes on too long and the weapon is nigh-useless, but I feel like Ive gotta give this guy some flowers for his good points because few others ever do.

7. Tengu Man (MM8)
Two Robot Masters in a row with stages containing rare autoscroll sections, huh? Weird coincidence. Anyway, Im not a giant fan (heh) of either of the mainline classic games in which Tengu Man appears (though, in fairness, RM&F is the one Im the least familiar with by far), but hes a highlight of them both. I love the design in particular, and I wish there had been more boss designs pulled from mythology in general instead of just having eighteen different fire and ice designs, but I digress. His fight in MM8 is enjoyable with or without his weakness involved and feels like a practice run for the much-lauded Storm Eagle, and his aforementioned autoscrolling section is one of the more fun stage gimmicks in that game. Definite highlight of the latter half of the series.

6. Tornado Man (MM9)
The only green Robot Master that isnt kind of silly looking in one way or another, Tornado Mans design has always felt super retro to me in that it wouldnt be out of place in even the earliest series entries - fitting, given that MM9 was a concerted effort to return to roots. His excellent groovy theme feels like a bit of a throwback, too, and is accompanied by a great stage thats a nice challenge if you dont have the Rush Jet. Even his fight is good, and not completely trivialized by just having his weakness. Similar to Wave Man, the main thing holding him back is his weapon, as its solidly one of the least interesting ones from MM9 despite how useful it is, but the rest of the package is more than enough to earn high marks.

5. Blade Man (MM10)
Mega Man 10 is, unfortunately, a mostly middling entry in the classic series. Middling level design, middling music, and a middling lineup of Robot Masters and weapons. Blade Man rises above all of that to become the most complete offering from that game. Im not saying his design isnt ridiculous, because it definitely is, but in a way that it kind of becomes awesome again, and I love the look of his stage, too. Castlevania-esque. The Triple Blade is top tier for the series and, though its mostly not anything special compositionally, I find myself randomly humming his theme fairly often. Just a great all-rounder.

4. Knight Man (MM6)
Apparently Im a fan of medieval-themed Robot Masters, huh? Knight Man kind of takes most of what I like about Blade Man and does it just a little bit better. His design is cool and straightforward without unnecessary frills. The stage captures that storming the castle vibe, backed by a great stage theme which, as with a lot of Mega Man 6s music, brings a cool intro and a grooving outro. The Knight Crusher is an excellent reward with a lot of applications in other stages. There probably wouldnt be many rankings that would have him this high, but I dunno, I have a hard time coming up with bad things to say about him.

3. Metal Man (MM2)
Boring pick, but what do you want from me? The Metal Blade is just such a quintessential part of the Classic Mega Man experience that it just feels impossible not to love its wielder. Hes not just a one-trick bot, though - Ive always thought his stage has one of the cooler overall aesthetics in the series, and of course the music is a standout even by Mega Man 2 standards. The fact that his own weapon deletes him from the game in the refight is a funny bonus quirk, too.

2. Pharaoh Man (MM4)
With Toad Man being such a joke of a fight, hes the popular pick for the starter stage in Mega Man 4 for a casual playthrough. But I can never resist just going straight to Pharaoh Man, because its definitely my favorite stage in the series. Having to navigate the upper levels of quicksand before you hop down into progressively deeper levels of the tomb itself is the closest you can come to a Mega Man Lara Croft experience without giving ol Rock some triangular-prismatic boobs. Pharaohs weapon and fight are nothing special, but his music is some of the best and most energetic in the franchise. Never fails to hype me up for the rest of the game. Oh, hey, and remember that time he just punched Mega Man in the face in the cartoon?

1. Quick Man (MM2)
Awesome, sleek design? Check. Fantastic, earworm stage theme? Check. Great, powerful weapon? Yep. Iconic, fun stage that ends in the toughest and most frantic fight in the game? Thats a check from me. Quick Man is top tier in every conceivable category for a Robot Master - even his appearances in other games tend to be memorable in one way or another! I dont even know what else I could say about him. He laps the field, speed pun intended.

No interest? Just no MM2 takes? No matter either way; I've got a schedule to keep.

Game #2 Hint: We slide forward a full decade for a game featuring another beloved mascot character, challenged for its status as the peak of its genre only by its own remaster a couple of decades later.

Oh yeah, I meant to comment on this but I forgot. MM2 was my favorite Mega Man Classic game until MM9. Still a fun game!

Might be stretching the definition of mascot character but that sounds like FF7. I suppose it's probably something else I can't think of...

I dont think I've ever played any megaman game for more than 20 minutes...

Most of my megamaness just comes from picking him in mvc1 and the battle network(?) show

Oh yeah and he was in sfxt. Not that I ever picked him in that

Silent Hill 2/Pyramid Head? Though that may be a bit over a decade and more remake than remaster.

Like an actual decade from mm2?

...oot?

Re2?

Leonhart4 posted...

Oh yeah, I meant to comment on this but I forgot. MM2 was my favorite Mega Man Classic game until MM9. Still a fun game!

MM9 would probably be my second favorite, and it's probably a better game, so I don't blame ya there.

kateeeeeeeeeeee posted...

I dont think I've ever played any megaman game for more than 20 minutes...

Most of my megamaness just comes from picking him in mvc1 and the battle network(?) show

It's funny to think that the most integral franchise to my gaming history is just a minuscule footnote in someone else's. But it's also really cool that Mega Man's just been in so much stuff that someone can have that kind of familiarity with him even without playing his games.

Anyway, some good guesses in there, but I got a little cute with the wordplay in the "slide" part of that hint.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/e/e1669a96.jpg

Game #2 - CTR: Crash Team Racing
CTR is a bit of an outlier in this early portion of the list, where the first handful of slots are largely dedicated to games that had a considerable hand in shaping my future tastes. This isnt one of those games. Ive played a decent bit of Mario Kart in my time and still enjoy the occasional round with friends, but those sessions have a pretty low ceiling on them. Racing games just dont really excite me, whether were talking about the cartoony kart stuff or the realistic Gran Turismos of the world. Naughty Dog somehow hit all the right notes with this one, though. If you combined all the time Ive spent playing other racers AND even other Crash games, I guarantee it wouldnt match the hours poured into Crash Team Racing, even if I dont include the excellent remaster in the equation.

What makes it so different? The biggest thing, at least for me, is that games like this tend to live and die with what they can offer in multiplayer settings. CTRs triumphs start, stubbornly, with the single-player content instead, and specifically with Adventure Mode, in one of the finest examples of how small tweaks on a blueprint can give something an entirely different feel. Objectively speaking, theres not much more adventure included than there would have been in a more traditional menu-based track selection. Theres very little non-linearity and not much to do in the overworlds between races, so until you start getting into the optional content, all it does is add a bit of extra downtime that isnt strictly necessary, albeit with the inclusion of a simple plot tying things together. Apparently my monkey brain is easily fooled, though, because it sure FEELS expansive, not to mention fairly novel for its time. The small act of driving to the next race in those overworld areas (which are bizarrely expansive considering how empty of real content they are - a lot of effort put in for comparatively little tangible payoff) makes the experience so much more complete. You feel like the real race car drivers you see out on the highway, hauling their trailer to the next track in search of more and more thrills. And, as barebones as the story is, I appreciate the effort made to include one at all when I think we can all agree that its not exactly a necessary component for a game of this kind. Oxide is an enjoyable villain that feels right at home in the Crash universe as an evil racing alien, and the fact that several of the boss tracks are among the very best in the game makes all the big milestones feel suitably consequential. Its amazing how much more fun something can be made when its just presented in a slightly new way.

Anyway, said optional content is where the single-player really shines - that is, the Relic Races and CTR Challenges for collectible Tokens, which were both clever twists that forced you to attack tracks in different ways. The former encouraged some fun flexibility in the way it demanded you explore every bit of every path available to you to get a good time instead of just finding a good line and running it for all three laps, but Ive always had an even bigger soft spot for the Token challenges with how creative they could get. Some letters could be in spots that led players to some of the more well-hidden shortcuts, while others forced you to make suboptimal plays up to and including going backwards to collect them, and still others buried themselves behind some obstacle off the beaten path that youd never notice or interact with in a normal race. And no matter what, you still had to win, too! Both modes could make you feel like you were playing a completely new track when they were firing on all cylinders, and they kept 100% (or, technically, 101%) completion from feeling like a boring or stale proposition. Compare CTR to fellow spinoff Crash Bash and the kind of inane, frustrating challenges it came up with, and youll have an even greater appreciation for what Naughty Dog managed to pull off.

Of course, none of this would matter if the races themselves didnt have a rock solid leg to stand on, but fortunately, CTR doesnt fall short there either. Powersliding and hangtime boosts form a combo of mechanics that is nothing short of genius and sets the game well apart from other kart racers, taking ideas that were already established in the space and making them cooler. There is no downtime in a properly run race here. You will be jumping off of ramps and keeping rhythm on your slide boosts from the moment the green light shines until the second you cross the finish line. These things work in concert with the actual steering dimension of the gameplay instead of being a distraction from it, and when you start to really nail down its intricacies, theres not much that feels more smooth. Especially when you throw in the shortcuts. Every track has at least one, however tiny or giant, and with one notable exception, theyre not at all reliant on items. Practice enough and you can hit them all anytime you like, even if youre already in first and getting nothing from the weapon boxes but beakers. This sort of design also allowed for plenty of experimentation with verticality in tracks that was pretty ahead of its time and led them to feel much more dynamic - indeed, many of those shortcuts take you to upper levels of the courses. Items are cool, too. Many of them are just legally distinct palette swaps of things Mario Kart already came up with, but a full stock of Wumpa Fruit powering them up was an inspired invention as something that was rewarding and fun but not often vital. Even with all that in mind, though, CTR is still accessible on a casual level, which is obviously important. You can do cool stuff and be perfectly competent without needing to sink in a lot of hours. Easy to learn, hard to master is an overused phrase, but it applies here, and I will always adore games that can actually pull it off.

(cont'd in next post)

(cont'd)

I wouldnt consider myself an expert in the genre, so maybe this opinion doesnt mean much, but its always felt like Crash had the highest skill ceiling of any kart racer. Or, at the very least, the big-name ones. That lack of downtime, the ubiquity of clever shortcuts, and all the practice needed to maintain the highest level of boosts on every track create an environment where theres always something new to learn or refine. The gameplay is so good, in fact, that the remaster a full twenty years later changed basically nothing about it, because it didnt need to. After not having played the original in years, I felt completely at home in Nitro-Fueled within roughly an hour because my muscle memory was still so strong and the mechanics so identical. No need to tinker with perfection, especially when even with all the time Ive sunk into both versions of this game, theres only a small handful of tracks that I feel Ive figured out at a high level.

Its amazing this game started as a soulless, derivative kart racer that just had a Bandicoot-colored coat of paint slapped on it midway through development as an attempt to inject some personality. Theres exceptions to the rule (Smash Bros. being the big one), but usually projects that take those sorts of routes to their release end up as disasters. Im looking at you, Star Fox Adventures. This is another of those success stories, where Naughty Dog managed to maintain the feel of the series they knew so well, as this is as identifiably a Crash game as it is anything else. The buffoonish slapstick humor is there. Most tracks are based on stages from the platformers. The OST is jaunty, with a healthy dose of frantic dissonance present throughout. It all fits perfectly into the established universe such that I dont feel the need to speak about it with caveats or grade on spinoff curves. Crash Team Racing is the best Crash game, plain and simple, and even after 25 years, nothing else in the kart racing genre has been able to top it, either.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/7/7311f033.jpg

The Character: Penta Penguin
Penguin yay one.
The Crash series boasts an impressive amount of colorful characters, but I dont have much of an attachment to any of them. I get as much of a kick out of the titular bandicoots loony antics as the next guy, the villains carry an appropriate level of cartoonish evil to them, and the supporting cast all manage their own little entertaining quirks, but none are quite interesting enough to talk about for the purposes of this project.

Thus, this second writeup is where we get probably the most oddball character pick of the entire list, and fittingly, its a little guy who made his video game debut in CTR itself. For those unfamiliar, this adorable flightless bird is the only racer in the game that is only playable if you enter a cheat code, the reason for this distinction being that Penta wasnt quite finished. Intended as more of a secret joke character than anything (in the Smash Piranha Plant sense, not the early Dan Hibiki sense), he brought some oddities with him. Namely, the mask power-up shows Uka Uka (the evil mask) in the item box, but actually summons Aku Aku (the hero mask). Even funnier, a couple of his voice lines are just monotone readings of the words Penguin Yay One and Penguin Yay Two, provided by one of the programmers, because they either forgot or didnt have the opportunity to remove them as placeholders. While later iterations of the game fixed these issues, the PAL and and NTSC-J versions of the game retained some weirdness anyway, giving him maxed out stats for some reason.

My enduring love for Penta stems more from what he represents than anything else. I mean, yeah, penguins are awesome, but thats just a bonus here. First of all, I miss cheat codes, and Pentas is one of my favorites just because of how often I used it. My routine for a large part of one summer was to wake up, turn on my PS2, plug in the cheat, and then race with Penta for the rest of the day; at one point, it was as ingrained in my mind as the Contra Code. Thinking back, I never actually used cheat codes for cheats. Invincibility modes and the like never held much appeal to me. Things like this, though, for secret characters or levels or other extra content like that? I couldnt get enough - if I ever had the option of playing the super-secret cheat-only character in any game, I was gonna do it.

But even beyond that, Penta stands out simply because hes still around at all. Say what you will about modern remakes/revivals/etc. of video games, but I would argue that if nothing else, many of them are being made by people who have genuine affection for the originals. Look at fellow Sony mascot Spyro and his Reignited Trilogy as another strong example. Penta Penguin is quietly emblematic of that idea. Hes featured in the Dingodile fight in the N. Sane version of Warped, with a trophy referencing him by name. He gets cameos in Crash 4, and a shout-out skin in that crappy mobile game. And, of course, he returns in Nitro-Fueled. Still only unlockable through a code, still with his Penguin yay voice lines (fully finished now!), still adorable as he can be. Beenox went the extra mile, though, with nods to his mask item glitchiness as well. He uses them both randomly now, and its been fully integrated into his personality where he sometimes acts cutesy and innocent only to turn around and laugh evilly or mock the other racers from moment to moment.

All this for a cheat-only joke character from a spinoff racing game. Its an amazing example of how these minor inclusions or glitches can inexplicably ascend to take on a life of their own, like Nuclear Gandhi or the very concept of canceling in fighting games. Pentas not on that level, obviously, in terms of impact or infamy, but I adore that hes continued to exist, and that his original, unfinished, untested status has evolved to make him a truly unique character. Its always wonderful to see the efforts of folks making games out there that love this stuff as much as we do.

The Moment: One Hundred and One Percent
This moment is a very personal one, by which I mean that it has very little to do with the game compared to what it has to do with my own ineptitude. CTR is a pretty easy game to beat and not notably more difficult to fully complete, especially in comparison to the somewhat famously frustrating and obtuse platformers for which the bandicoot is more known. The Relic Races take a little bit of skill for their straightforwardness, but are ultimately pretty forgiving in their requirements. Theres also some Crystal Bonus Rounds present, which drop you into the games version of battle maps and ask you to collect a number of crystals littered about in a certain amount of time. Again, that may have taken a couple attempts since you had to learn the whole map from scratch, but you certainly didnt have to be a speedrunner to get them done. Finally, the CTR Token Challenges made use of a few clever hiding spots, but a good portion of them were trivial and could pretty easily be found and finished on the first try.

And then theres Tiger Temple.

Tiger Temple is an excellent little track, one of those aforementioned examples that takes heavy inspiration from mainline platformer levels. It comes relatively early in Adventure Mode and serves as one of a couple of tracks that really tries to start teaching you boost management - its curvy and has a lot of small-to-medium-sized jumps placed close together, plus lots of opportunities for offroading once you start to get good at it. More importantly, though, it has a giant stone face carved into a wall at about the midway point, whose teeth open when you hit it with an item to reveal the only shortcut in the game that requires the usage of any kind of power-up. Thats not really a big deal in a normal race, but its a big deal when one of the letters for Tiger Temples CTR Challenge (the R, to be exact) is at the end of that little shortcut and young Iceman cannot figure out how to get there. I just couldnt do it. The amount of hours I spent staring at that letter, messing around in Time Trial so I wouldnt be bothered by other racers, is frankly embarrassing. I tried jumping over low walls, driving straight into bigger ones, searching every inch of that track for something I may have missed, and not once did it occur to me to roll a bomb at that damn wall.

Heres the really stupid part: the door is stuck open during the Relic Race, because there are time crates in there. How did I miss that? Well, its simple. I did the CTR Challenge first. Thats just how it was. Always. Every track. I did the CTR Challenge, and *then* I did the Relic Race. Young Iceman would have found it unfathomable to reverse that routine, even when faced with such an insurmountable problem.

So, in the most on-the-nose fashion possible, I was stonewalled. These were the days before it was easy to just go to YouTube and look up videos for any possible obstacle in a game, and though I was obviously aware of GameFAQs already, it was still the cheat code website for me, and it would be a few more years before I understood that I could use it for walkthroughs and such. By the time I did, it never occurred to me that they might hold the answer to my torment here. I dont even remember what eventually did lead me to this discovery. It was years later. Might have been a speedrun, might have just been someone offhandedly mentioning it on a forum I really dont know. But I do remember my mouth falling open, in what was again the most appropriate reaction I could imagine given the nature of the shortcut. I took the first opportunity I got to boot up an old save file, head straight to Adventure Mode and then to Tiger Temple, and finally get that accursed Token. With the Blue Gem Cup unlocked at long last, it just took a few more races before I could save again and see what Id waited to see for those innumerable cycles of the sun. 101%. I was done.

There was nothing grandiose or thunderous about this moment. No triumphant fist pump or shout of jubilation. And recreating it down the line in Nitro-Fueled was a pitifully pedestrian task. But that first time of being able to lean back in my chair with a satisfied smile and the knowledge that Id finally finished a game that Id loved for so long gave me a sense of fulfillment that far outstripped the significance of the accomplishment itself. Theres something about having accidentally created a white whale like this through such a silly oversight that makes it feel more meaningful, like its something thats distinctly mine. After all, with the long list of legendarily tough enemies in video game history, how many folks can say that one of their greatest adversaries was a giant, golden, floating R, just taunting a would-be completionist from its secret passage?

The only time I've ever played Crash was the time they have you play a level in Uncharted 4

I actually thought of CTR when thinking of guesses but picked wrongly lol.

Leonhart4 posted...

The only time I've ever played Crash was the time they have you play a level in Uncharted 4

Had to look this up, I didn't have any idea it was a thing. That's a fun shout-out.

They're good games! I don't think any of them are amazing outside of CTR, but I always enjoyed them well enough. Despite the shot I took at it in the writeup, I even think Crash Bash has its high spots.

Thorn posted...

I actually thought of CTR when thinking of guesses but picked wrongly lol.

I do have a ton of respect for SH2 and its story, but I never actually played it myself. Not much of a horror guy. Solid guess, though!

Hell yeah, I love CTR. If I made a similar list, CTR / Nitro-Fueled would definitely be on it (with my boy Dingodile as the character).

I also played way too much Crash Bash as a kid, so I have a soft spot for it. It was one of the few video games my sister actually liked, so we played together a lot. I liked the battle levels where you throw crates at each other, and she liked the pogo levels. Not a whole lot of depth to them, but they were fun!

Glad there's another CTR fan here; means you'll probably have some opinion on this ranking!

Top 10 CTR Tracks (Including Nitro Kart and Nitro-Fueled)

10. Koala Carnival
Design-wise, this track really isnt all that interesting or creative - it is, in fact, just a giant oval - but its just so colorful and fast and high energy that it feels more substantial than it is, especially since it makes for such strong theming. Its a circus, so yeah, of course youre gonna just kind of be running in a circle, jumping off of high things, making a lot of noise, turning yourself into a spectacle. I like a lot of the flatter, twisty-turny tracks in CTR as much as the next guy, but something like this has its place, too. Its very much in keeping with the spirit of the game.

9. Out of Time
Here, Im specifically speaking of the Nitro Kart version of this track. NK wasnt a great game, and though its antigravity mechanics were fairly novel for the time, they didnt materially add much to most of its tracks. Out of Time is the exception, as the giant clock face you drive across with its foreboding second hand is an unforgettable setpiece that makes an already-good track into a memorable one. I also love the windmill toward the end that youll hit if you jump too high for adding an extra dimension to consider in your overall strategy, and the theming is cool in that its a desert track that isnt aggressively desert-y.

8. Megamix Mania
Crash Team Racing meets Mad Max meets the paintball episodes from Community. Pretty sure I dont really need to say anything else, so lets just move on.

7. Jungle Boogie
Short CTR tracks, at their best, do an excellent job of playing to the strength of the games mechanics, because you basically have to be constantly doing something without much time to think about it. Jungle Boogie is one of those. It packs a lot of tight curves and small movements into a course without much excess real estate, and you have to master them all to perform well. And, like Koala Carnival, it nails the track feel in using its verticality to evoke the sense of traversing a jungle, complete with some high-up vine-swinging-esque moments. Ive never personally gotten great at this track, but I still always enjoyed seeing it pop up in online lobbies. Thats the mark of a good one.

6. Papus Pyramid
Maybe a bit of a controversial pick, as I know this track isnt especially popular, but Ive always found its relative clunkiness to be a lot of fun. The climb up the pyramid itself is probably a little too narrow and crowded for me to call it good design, but it feels so great when you master it and can get through quickly without hitting walls. CTR doesnt really play with claustrophobic sections all that often, so it stands out. Then youve got a couple of high-risk, high-reward, tight shortcuts that take some practice to hit consistently even without having to consider the Piranha Plant ripoffs lining the track. So yeah, its messy, but in such a way that you feel accomplished when you complete a clean race (or even just a clean lap) on it.

5. Oxide Station
A suitably epic conclusion to CTRs Adventure Mode in its final race with Nitrous Oxide, that stands firmly as a fun track in its own right in other contexts. Famous for multiple unintended exploits in the original game, born from Naughty Dog running into memory limitations that also made it unavailable in multiplayer, the Nitro-Fueled version maybe lost a little in character but made up for it with a feeling of completeness. The color scheme lends a welcome feeling of otherworldliness to the look, its twisty and fast, and racing on a space station is just inherently fun. I love the feel of jumping out into space for a few seconds - it feels like a distinctly Crash idea. High skill ceiling here, too, which Ill always appreciate.

4. Polar Pass
Probably one of the more beloved tracks in the game and featuring some of its most iconic shortcuts, Polar Pass doesnt really need me to explain why its good, but Ill give it a few words anyway. Its a fast track, but deceptively long, with a lot of small moments to gain an advantage even beyond the shortcuts. The seals make for a good obstacle because they can never be trivialized, but theyre predictable and always leave time to prepare. The shortcuts really are the defining feature of the track, though. The point at which I was able to consistently nail the jump over the wall as a kid is the point at which I really started to feel like I was getting good at the game.

3. Hot Air Skyway
Want to make Iceman fall in love with a video game level? Making it casino-themed is a really good start. Hot Air Skyway was already an iconic CTR track, and that extra bit of flair in NF only made it better. I would conquer my horrible acrophobia to go to a sky casino. Anyway, the track itself is great. Good sections that make the most out of CTRs sliding mechanics, a small speed-check shortcut early in the track with an unhinged execution one at the end, and an awesome theme on top of it. The only thing stopping this track from being even higher is that, compared to the rest of the top 3, one well-timed item hit can really ruin your race in a way that feels unsatisfying.

2. Gingerbread Joyride
CTR does snow tracks well! Ive always loved Christmas, and this track definitely captures the holiday joy. Super technical with a lot of small time savers literally around every corner, and great shortcuts, the first of which is my absolute favorite in the game and the second of which takes a decent amount of practice to really get right. Even the music is nice - undoubtedly Christmas-y, but not annoyingly and aggressively so. Theres a distinct possibility that this is the track Ive played the most in my life, because its event coincided pretty perfectly with the point in which I was logging the most online playtime of Nitro-Fueled. Would probably be #1 if not for the big jelly obstacle things at the very end, which just feel obnoxiously tacked on.

1. Cortex Castle
I dont think its really considered as such by many, but this always felt like the quintessential, signature CTR track. Maybe thats actually Hot Air Skyway? I dunno - this would be MY pick. Mario Kart tracks based on Bowsers Castle are always cool, and Cortex Castle manages to carry that torch for its own enduring villain character without feeling like a ripoff (although, admittedly, the spiders being obvious Thwomp stand-ins is kind of funny). It nails the overall look and feel, with good music on top of it and the hilariously ugly stained glass windows being an inspired touch. The courtyard section is a particular highlight for how tough it is to navigate perfectly and the inside bridge shortcut is among the best. It also feels extra satisfying to jump completely over the outside stairwell with a single hop when youve got enough speed. Its big, its cool, its fairly tough and satisfying to play well - no complaints.

Game #3 Hint: A Dreamcast RPG. No, not that one. No, not that one either. This one, ironically, struggles with what to do between its rising and falling action.

I'm not sure which ones you think are that one and the other one, but I'll assume you mean Skies of Arcadia and Phantasy Star Online.

So my guess would be Grandia II.

Grandia II is great, but nope, we're going even weirder.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/2/28342e0a.jpg

Game #3 - Time Stalkers
The first real off-the-wall pick of the project goes to this bizarre relic of my Dreamcast-heavy childhood. Im almost positive this is the first RPG I ever played, and at the very least I can say for sure that it was the first non-Pokemon RPG. Known as Climax Landers in Japan due to its status as a crossover between a handful of games developed by Climax Entertainment (who most people would probably recognize from Shining Force and absolutely nothing else), Time Stalkers is primarily a roguelike that came along a good while before the genre exploded in popularity. It proved to be just a little too weird for most players and reviewers who had become used to the more straightforward gameplay systems present in games like Final Fantasy, and so even on a system famously lacking in RPG offerings it soon faded into extreme obscurity.

Ill give a full overview here because I dont imagine anyone reading has this game in their backlog and would be disappointed by spoilers. Time Stalkers places you, initially, into the shoes of a boy named Sword. Yep, really. Sword is an adventurer who happens upon a mysterious book and is magically transported to another world on a floating landmass made up of broken pieces of other worlds. Hes greeted by an old man just called Master (creative names in this game, to be sure), who tells him that Sword is one of several heroes being pulled into this Ring World, and that their only hope to return home is to find the dark evil causing it all and destroy it. In practice, this means exploring and fighting through a series of randomly generated dungeons with all of the plot taking place in between. Sword is soon joined in this quest by Nigel, an elven treasure hunter; Rao, a boring soldier from a world at war; Pyra, a sassy witch; and Lady, an aristocratic thrill seeker.

I absolutely adore many of the ideas in this game, starting with the worldbuilding. These disparate locales making up Ring World arent just the bog standard fantasy fare - youve got members of a jungle tribe that hasnt even invented the wheel yet plopped down right next to a high-tech, sci-fi airship complete with teleporters. One of the tribesmen is fascinated by all these new things and wants to explore it all, while his elders and family are distrustful and try to discourage him. Youve got a little piece of a Japanese town from our world with streets leading to a hamlet of anthropomorphic dogs and sheep - one of their inhabitants is drawn to the wildness of the aforementioned tribesman, while another quickly has a psychotic break and becomes convinced that he is the worlds true creator. Theres a fairy tale princess determined to have as many adventures as possible against the objections of her high-strung guardian knight. Theres a ton of interesting potential content here, and thats just the NPC examples!

Unfortunately, none of them really go beyond the surface level. We dont get any kind of real narrative sidequests where we follow an arc from beginning to end. Its all just kind of a couple lines of dialogue that get updated periodically but never advance or go anywhere at all. And thats kind of the recurring theme with this game and the reason it mostly falls on its face. Its just a little too ambitious and haphazard with too little meat on the bone.

Take the gameplay, too. Its got monster taming, randomized dungeon layouts, item management, customizable stats on level ups, and, in what I can only assume was a direct response to accusations of its contemporaries being too grindy, a roguelike structure where you reset to level 1 at the end of each dungeon. How much of this is actually well implemented? Uhh

Well, the leveling isnt. You basically have two modes in a Time Stalkers dungeon: steamrolling or getting steamrolled. If you diligently fight everything you come across, you will very rarely be threatened by anything, bosses included. If you dont, things will become nigh impossible. So you end up having to sort of grind anyway. Then theres the monster taming, which is cool in theory but basically just boils down to capturing them in a vaguely Pokemon-style game of chance and having them fight alongside you sometimes without any real input into how they grow or anything, and most of them dont feel at all unique. Theres some effort put into making the dungeons look distinct, but ultimately theyre all just a set of winding corridors that dont have any material difference in feel. Seeing the pattern? The fun ideas are there. The execution is not. Ring World becomes an accidental parallel for Time Stalkers itself - its amalgamation of fragmented, mismatched worlds reflects the feeling given off by the whole game, where some traces of forward thinking are constrained by design elements too firmly stuck in the past for one reason or another.

The main plot is where the most missed potential comes from, though, which brings me to

The Moment: The Heroes Hunger Strike
As this project is meant to be celebratory, Ive kept almost every aspect as positive as possible. Unfortunately, the most memorable moment in Time Stalkers is a bit of a negative one, which Im selecting anyway because its relevant to my overall thesis on the game.

It becomes obvious pretty quickly, both to the in-game characters and likely the player, that Master is the culprit of everything. He has some degree of omnipotence and created Ring World to serve as his own personal, fully controllable, living, endless story.

Sword is the first to suss this out, and after determining that he cant harm Master physically, he defaults to the next best plan of using his cleverness and bad attitude to just antagonize his enemy at every possible turn, culminating in a plan where he constantly attacks Masters invincible Ring World avatar (at great pain to himself) just so Masters attention will be diverted from watching the other heroes go on the adventures that have been crafted for them. This enrages Master to the point that he jumps to extreme measures for revenge - namely, taking away the Heroes ability to eat or drink and effectively damning them to be the Black Pearls crew from the first Pirates of the Caribbean.

Its a cool story beat that goes a long way toward defining some broader themes at play in the game, but it lasts all of two minutes. We get a fade to black immediately after Master inflicts the curse, which transitions to the Heroes laying around talking about how theyve lost track of how long theyve been suffering and how horrible its been, and in the very same scene, Sword negotiates a deal to go on one last adventure after which everyone can return to their worlds. And thats that. A big dramatic moment and turning point that appears and is resolved in fewer lines of dialogue than some RPGs would use to set up a kill these random monsters sidequest.

Its all just so disappointing. Time Stalkers creates a legitimately interesting world and builds the skeleton of a great thematic story of unwilling heroes rebelling against a creator whos bent on planning out every step of their journey. Theres a dash of Biblical spice thrown in where, for example, said creator tends toward disproportionate retribution when his Heroes get out of line to support those religious undertones that are common in a lot of JRPGs. Theres even, I think, some fascinating ideas about the nature of fiction itself - its all but acknowledged in-game that Masters adventures are trite, unimaginative, boring affairs that pale in comparison to the intrigue inherent in people just living their true lives, and that his desire to have his tales go on forever misunderstands that stories are valuable in part because they end.

The game seems to want to make a point that, while our books and movies and, of course, video games are all well and good, they can never replace the richness and fullness of actual existence. We can and should enjoy them, but they should never be used as a substitute for something thats missing from life. Its a clever structure to use to get around the fact that Climax Entertainment clearly didnt have the resources, in multiple ways, to produce a genuine epic RPG story, and I very much like the intended message, but turning the game into what is arguably a sort of meta deconstruction thing doesnt mean that theres any less of a feeling of missed potential permeating every corner of the experience. It would have been so great to feel the Heroes misery during the hunger torture. What if monsters had attacked the town during the curse and they were forced to fight through the pain, valiantly gutting it out (through tangible stat penalties, even) until they were eventually overwhelmed But then still not dying, because that was just another part of Masters revenge?

Maybe thats a little too subversive for the standards of the day, so how about just throwing in a few actual character arcs? They wouldnt have even had to be that creative. Nigel and Pyra were from the same world but different eras - give them the beginnings of a romance and see where it takes them. Lady couldve been an adventure junkie because it gave her an escape from her otherwise stifling upper-class life. Maybe Rao wouldve appreciated the paint-by-numbers journeys Master fashioned over the random senselessness of his warring home. Create some emotional inner conflict from the possibility that these characters might consider staying in Ring World for one reason or another so that you can really drive home the point of the story by the end.

This probably seems like an oddly critical writeup for a game I deemed interesting enough to include in this project, so Ill note that I do think Time Stalkers manages to be kinda fun despite all the jankiness. That said, its more important to me than it is enjoyable. Even as a kid, I think I was dimly aware that this game isnt great. But even if I couldnt articulate it, I think I was also aware that there was a lot of potential in it and that it might be smart to seek out some other games like it. Many years later, JRPGs are so comfortably my favorite genre that I can never even decide whats in second place, and Ive gotta give some credit to the beginning of that journey. Its like Time Stalkers was the video game equivalent of my first crush. In retrospect, there wasnt much special about it, but it helped me understand what I like, and I can see why Kid Iceman (Icekid?) found it attractive.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/9/9be30f78.jpg

The Character: Sword
There are a lot of things waiting for me. Not all good, Im sure. A lot of things That youll never know. Try asking my friends - theyll all give you the same answer.

Swords characterization is pretty solid. His sour demeanor, tendency to ill temper, and preference for navigating disputes by hitting things with his namesake weapon mask an admirable determination and shrewdness, and most of his more headstrong meathead moments end up looking impressively calculated as the plot unfolds. Hes perceptive enough to peg Master as the, um, mastermind early on, and understands his psyche well enough to leverage his desire for a grand finale as the key to freeing the party from the aforementioned torture. Its a good foundation, with more personality and entertainment value than the rest of the party put together, and I like him as an example of how to write a straightforward thinker without equating it to ignorance. You wouldnt guess any of it by looking at his weird design, either. Its very much going for a cool dude vibe for the era, but he also looks more than a little vampiric in his dapper outfit and some of the facial features for reasons that are never explained. Who knows? Those sorts of things always fascinate me.

Anyway, I left him out of my little character rant above because I actually think the barebones point-A-to-point-B of his journey is pretty damn satisfying. When we first meet him, hes wandering aimlessly, in large part due to an argument hes had with an unnamed girl about how much their world sucks and about him being a jerk in general. He just wants to brood for a while, and getting sucked into Ring World is distracting him from the moodiness. He never even finds much of a grand purpose throughout the story the way most JRPG protagonists, especially of that era, usually do - his entire motivation for all the rebellion is that he doesnt like being messed with or forced into things. But he does, if nothing else, find some things to take away from the experience that allow him to grow from a nihilistic jerkass into Well, still kind of a jerkass, but a little more emotionally available about it, and at least he admits to having friends now.

His quote above, the last thing he ever says to Master, is the perfect final act of defiance for the guy that was so determined not to play by the rules that were forced upon him. The pinpoint parting shot that would hit his enemy in a way that none of his physical attacks ever could: the reminder that all of the Heroes are going back to live lives far richer than any of Masters trite attempts at curated adventures could hope to match. Sword may be pretty dissatisfied with his lot in life, and maybe his world does suck, but its still his story and his alone, and no one else gets to experience it. And that means something. You can never underestimate what a person can hold dear when they dont have much to hold at all.

All of this is to say that, next to the setting, Sword is the best thing about Time Stalkers and, I think, a pretty strong indicator that Climax did in fact have a fairly strong general idea of what they were going for with the game. Its a shame that vision ended up as something of an Edward Scissorhands-esque title in its incompleteness and awkwardness.

NBIceman posted...

Top 10 CTR Tracks (Including Nitro Kart and Nitro-Fueled)

Most of these are good choices. Not a huge fan of Megamix Mania, personally (I find the paint bomb hazards really annoying and hard to see). My top 10 would include N. Gin Labs, Deep Sea Driving, Android Alley, and Electron Avenue, for sure. Electron Avenue would definitely be my #1, but Cortex Castle is a good choice, too.

mcflubbin posted...

Most of these are good choices. Not a huge fan of Megamix Mania, personally (I find the paint bomb hazards really annoying and hard to see). My top 10 would include N. Gin Labs, Deep Sea Driving, Android Alley, and Electron Avenue, for sure. Electron Avenue would definitely be my #1, but Cortex Castle is a good choice, too.

N. Gin Labs is probably my most notable exclusion, yeah. I know a lot of people love that one. I just don't find the speed tunnel all that interesting, and I think the rolling barrel obstacle just kind of makes its section of the track unfun. Electron Avenue definitely got heavy consideration, though. Would be in the top 15, no doubt.

Anyway, no additional ranking for Time Stalkers. Apologies to the dozens of folks that were surely on the edge of their seat hoping for one.

Yesterday was wild and packed, so I didn't even have time to get on here and leave the hint. Honestly, though, I never really came up with a clever one for this game anyway.

Regardless, the project continues.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/6/691793ae.jpg

Game #4 - Spyro: Year of the Dragon
One of the things I miss most from my gaming-filled childhood, alongside having effectively infinite time to play them, is the collaborative single-player experience. You all probably know what Im talking about. Sitting around with a buddy or two, passing the controller around every time you accomplished something or died, cheering each other on or making fun as the situation demanded it, turning something that could be enjoyed just fine on your own into a shared journey where the failures somehow felt every bit as wonderful as the successes because they made equal contributions to the memories formed. True cooperative games can be great in their own right, but they dont capture that same feeling. Thats one Ill never get back.

I dont quite know why Spyro 3 sticks out in my mind above the rest of those games that I played like that - there were plenty - but it does. Its not even a game that necessarily lends itself to that sort of controller rotation, as death isnt terribly frequent and eggs dont kick you out of levels the way a lot of main collectathon finds do, but we came up with a system that worked and adventured together until we could adventure no longer.

These days, the PS1 Spyro trilogy is notable for the extreme lack of consensus on how to rank it. Anywhere on the internet that these games get discussed, up to and including Board 8 topics, will see all three games put in all three positions pretty much evenly. Personally, I always have been and always will be a committed 3 > 2 > 1 guy. I think they really came into their own when they started to focus more on the mini-game-esque challenges in Riptos Rage that were then more refined in YotD versus the more pure platforming experience that the original entry was. That's a big departure from my usual feelings on games, admittedly. I'm normally a purist of the highest order who's turned off by games that pack in additional half-baked playable characters and too many bite-sized segments that completely change the gameplay for small rewards. But it works here. The only individual Dragons I remember in the first game are the small handful of particularly obnoxious ones to reach, but I remember a decent amount of specific Orbs and a whooooole lot of specific eggs. Also, frankly, I don't think the seriess platforming is ever very interesting, even at its best, but that's a comparatively minor reason.

Im not saying every egg was a winner. With 150 total in the game, some were bound to fall flat. Yeti Boxing stands out as a big swing and a miss. The tank fights in Haunted Tomb couldve used a little more work, because the most reliable way to win is interminably slow and boring. Hell, two of them in late-game levels are just dull, featureless slides that control horribly. But the good, memorable ones are far more plentiful, even setting aside those that required some actual clever exploration, which was one aspect that never did leave the series. The puzzly golden goose hunt in Charmed Ridge, the Wild West shooting gallery in Dino Mines, Sheilas sidescrolling stroll in Desert Ruins, Bentleys mountainside climb in Bamboo Terrace, the straightforward bad guy gauntlet in Fireworks Factory, all the skateboarding I could boot the game up right now and immediately bring a huge smile to my face by playing any of those. Speedways were always a fun distraction that included the continuations of Hunters feud with barnyard animals from space. Sparx levels were surprisingly decent top-down shoot-em-ups. Chasing down the taunting Thieves never got old. Going with such a large total number helped with the pacing compared to the relatively small amount of Orbs in Spyro 2; enjoyable eggs got you excited for the next one that was right around the corner, and you never had to dwell on frustrating ones for too long. And I'll say this, too: even the worst eggs in YOTD didn't provoke anything close to the rage that the damned Breeze Harbor pelican did with his infernal trolley.

The early days of Spyro overflowed with pleasant appeal in all the ways you always hope a video game will, and this one was simply the best of them. The titular protagonist was relatable for a kid, having just the right amount of nineties tude and bringing the cool factor of playing as a fire-breathing dragon. There was a constant sense of humor that never felt like it was trying too hard and that was at its best here with Hunters perpetually hapless lack of self-awareness, the often-bizarre plights experienced by the denizens of the worlds you visit, the silly names and animations of the rescued dragons, and a couple extra things that I'll touch on later. The universe kept getting bigger, with new supporting characters in the cast and cameos from older ones. And in addition to all of that, the whole journey had a lovely low-stakes, Saturday-morning-cartoon sort of vibe to it. Everything feels light and airy. No one task is ever particularly difficult, you get bits of treasure for doing pretty much anything, and the only aspect that seems to take itself seriously at all is the hammy main villain that thinks shes way more important than she actually is. There was far too much love poured into the Forgotten Realms for them to be anything but welcoming from beginning to end. Its summer vacation distilled into a collectathon. Its the imaginary world you made up with your friends in that dense patch of trees near your neighborhood. Its an adventure, to be sure, but one that gives back three times as much as it demands.

But I dont want to sound too much like nostalgia is driving my reverence here. Playing the Reignited Trilogy a few years ago was reinforcement of how great the original Spyro 3 design was in that basically nothing was changed, and it was still awesome. Levels are vibrant, colorful, and distinct, with clear identities and varied inhabitants. Theres enough in them that exploring every corner feels rewarding without being so expansive that they become time wasters - 100% (or, rather, 117%) completion feels like a downright breeze compared to some similar games. The music, while rarely amazing, is always pleasant. Its the total package. Not the most challenging and satisfying game of its kind, not the most groundbreaking or daring, not the most elegant or polished, but even when I attempt to look at Year of the Dragon through the most critical lens possible, I have a tough time coming up with things it doesnt do extremely well at least 90% of the time. Decades later, there arent many 3D platformers to which Id be able to give the same praise. It's a damn hard genre to get right, and it's impressive that Insomniac managed to produce such a winning formula some 25 years ago.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/e/e1c7fbd0.jpg

The Character: Bianca
If I find you here again, I am going to be verrrrry angry and you wont like me when Im angry.
Most media thats consumed primarily by younguns cling tightly to their status quo and static characters. Think about those aforementioned Saturday morning cartoons. Jessie, James, and Meowth will always come up with some harebrained scheme to capture Pikachu and then blast off at the end of the episode. Theyll play at doing the right thing now and again, and theyre affable enough, but they never really change. Im sure many of you could name a similar favorite.

Bianca is the first character I can remember encountering who legitimately went through something that I now recognize as an arc. Early life is so black and white - good people are good, and bad people are bad. Theres no concept of good people doing bad things or vice versa, and certainly no idea that it can even be taken a step further where good people do bad things for good reasons. Going even further beyond, where someone might just up and switch sides entirely? Outright unimaginable. So while Biancas story is about as straightforward as they come, I look back on it quite fondly now for giving me a hint of what was eventually possible.

Shes first introduced as the Sorceresss main lackey, the principal actor involved in the plot to steal the eggs that kicks off Spyro and Hunters sojourn into the Forgotten Realms, and she pops up pretty regularly for a while to offer idle threats or give said Sorceress someone to exposit to in scenes that involve the two of them. As a sorceress-in-training herself, she also gets a few instances of bumbling cuteness while she attempts to practice so that players can start to warm up to her a bit. As the game progresses, she switches to trying to warn Spyro of the continuing danger, promising to take care of the eggs instead, and then strikes up a rapport with Hunter after he falls into the worlds most obvious trap. Things take their full turn when the Sorceress goes on a rant about her plans to eventually kill the dragons they stole for an immortality spell, a part of the plan to which Bianca was not privy before. As far as she knew, they were just trying to bring dragons back to their home because they took most of the magic with them when they left long ago, which is perfectly understandable as a goal. Upon realizing the deception, she immediately completes her face turn, becoming a full-on ally that helps take down the Sorceress in both of her boss fights and continuing in that role in her frequent appearances in later games.

Its interesting now, with my vastly extended breadth of experience, to look more closely at how Bianca is crafted early on to set up her eventual change of allegiance. Shes hilariously bad at being intimidating, with all her attempts at threatening verbiage coming straight out of the Villainy 101 playbook, and even those all carry an undercurrent of not wanting Spyro to get hurt. Her relative incompetence with magic serves two purposes, too, adding comic relief while also being a generally endearing trait. Even her method of transportation is a quiet character detail - she can essentially teleport, which is represented visually by a rainbow streak in the sky, but it always zigs and zags in every conceivable direction before she finally arrives at her destination in a little explosion. I used to just dismiss it as an odd quirk, but at some point I realized it was meant to be another example of her clumsiness as a spellcaster in how much she struggles to control even that. She never comes off as a hopeless buffoon, though, so much as someone with clear talent that's just very new to the whole thing.

Characters are my favorite part of fiction, which may or may not become clear as this project continues even without me having to say it. I love watching them develop and analyzing how their narratives themes speak through them. I love pinpointing the quotes that best define them and celebrating their moments in the sun, the big reveals that make them more than what we thought they were and the lessons they learn that make them more than what they ever thought they could be. Even something thats terrible in every other way can be enjoyable to me if there are a few compelling characters in it. Bianca is nothing special compared to everyone Im thinking of in that context, but shes notable enough to me as that tiny domino that eventually knocks over the big one. Shell always be the first character I ever encountered who ended the story in a different place than where they started.

The Moment: Getting Revenge on Moneybags
I am, somewhat unintentionally, spotlighting a pretty wide variety of emotions triggered by the moments Ive chosen in this project. The first few alone have involved anticipation, nostalgia, confusion, frustration, and satisfaction in some significant way or another. Year of the Dragons most prominent contribution is a pretty unique one, though: catharsis.

Reviled by all, both in- and out-of-universe, the brazenly avaricious, duplicitous, larcenous ursine that is Moneybags spends the entirety of both Riptos Rage and YOTD either extorting or flat-out conning Spyro out of his hard-earned gems. Its the most recurrent gating tool in the original trilogy, used to open up entire levels or paths within them, not to mention certain abilities and, eventually, even playable characters. Its a subtle bit of cleverness to utilize a character like this to halt progression; instead of being annoyed with the game itself, players can direct their ire at a smarmy figure whos a curly mustache away from having every default trait of scumbag money grubbers in the book. It certainly worked on me. I despised Moneybags. Gems were hard to come by when you were a dopey kid that was still trying to figure out how to play video games competently, and every time Id start to build up a decent stockpile, there was that stupid bear again to tantalize me with whatever happened to be on the other side of whatever broken bridge he was standing near.

What made it all work is that he always got his comeuppance. Ripto abused him for a decent portion of the second game, and then the third upped the ante with a pretty funny running gag in which Moneybags is attacked in various ways by all the characters he holds for ransom immediately after they gain their freedom. Getting to do it yourself, though? Thats even better.

The opportunity comes as a surprise on a first playthrough. The Midnight Mountain hub area can be fully cleared as far as you can tell from the Guidebook just like any other world in the game, so theres no reason to expect anything else to happen there. But after youve gone and beaten the Sorceress, theres Moneybags again, just hanging out, absent any obvious purpose. Theres no more cage with an animal friend to release, no more switch that needs flipping, no more portals to open except for that mysterious one off in the distance that requires a huge number of eggs and gems. Hmm.

And so Moneybags makes his big mistake. The one line he hadnt crossed was trying to directly sell one of the eggs, but when he finally comes up with that plan, he decides its foolproof enough to casually blab to Spyro about it. To his credit, he realizes his mistake pretty quickly and then has the good sense to run for his life, but youve been chasing egg thieves all game. Youre used to this. And this guy isnt exactly an egg thief. I mean, he is, but not the kind of egg thi- you get what Im trying to say here.

For the next couple of minutes, Moneybags becomes Punchingbags, as he runs laps around Midnight Mountain in a vain attempt to escape. Every charge or burst of flame that you land triggers an enormous stream of gems to erupt out of his pockets and back into yours until youve recouped every single one that had been paid over the course of the game. Then and only then does the chase finally end, as he coughs up the egg and decides maybe a little too late that his life might be better spent studying the beautiful art of haiku poetry. For those who havent played YOTD, no, Im not making that up. I'll never forget opening up the Guidebook again after this little pursuit to see that the area egg counter now displayed 6/5, thinking it was both the funniest and coolest thing in the world.

I mentioned before that the memorable egg challenges were a large part of why this entry became my favorite in the trilogy and, well, they dont come any more memorable than this. Two games of buildup paid off in the most satisfying way possible. It never gets old, either - I look forward to this every time I start up a new file. Its not the last thing youll do if youre pushing for 117% completion, but its a fantastic post-game reward and the true peak of the adventure.

I really like your approach and writing and have been very much enjoying reading and following along! Haven't played any of these games but can think of one game I'm guessing will be on your list that I might have a lot to say about.

...though, and I realize this is a small nitpick, I believe a majority of VGMC participants are younger than you.

MetalmindStats posted...

I really like your approach and writing and have been very much enjoying reading and following along! Haven't played any of these games but can think of one game I'm guessing will be on your list that I might have a lot to say about.

...though, and I realize this is a small nitpick, I believe a majority of VGMC participants are younger than you.

Thanks for the kind words! Glad we've got a few people here that are liking it, especially with some of these early entries being a little (or a lot) niche. More popular games are coming, for sure!

I admittedly don't pay much attention to the VGMC, so yeah, not super familiar with the users there. Glad I'm not the only one still holding down the fort on the younger side.