Lurker > Naye745

in literally any poll involving a non-gen 1 pokemon versus a (not-bottom-5%) gen 1 pokemon, the gen 1 is going to win

this shouldnt have surprised anyone

---

it's an underwater adventure ride

probably equal to the odds of it being the first gameplay screenshot when you google search "diddy kong racing"

---

it's an underwater adventure ride

41. The Jackbox Party Pack [series] (Multiplatform, 2014-present)

Here it is! The obligatory Jackbox game inclusion in the Board 8 topic. It's tough to say exactly where Jackbox should be among my favorite games; it's really got more in common with party board games than just about any video game. Thus, I've decided to give it the coveted X1 award and throw it at 41, figuring it's close enough to a good representation of how I feel about it. Anyway, here's three reasons why Jackbox is the best "party" video game ever made, by a landslide:
1: Jackbox has variety!
At the time of this list, there are roughly 30 unique Jackbox mini-games across the seven Party Pack games. The games can emphasize skills such as drawing, creative writing, trivia, and perception, among others. Obviously owning all seven games is not exactly cheap, but even within one single Pack you'll get a pretty solid spectrum of choices. As someone who also loves games with either a huge amount of inherent variety or a lot of options to play differently each time, Jackbox fits in the mold of my favorites as well. It's a Kirby Super Star-like Swiss-army knife of a game; malleable to be exactly what both you want and the situation demands.
2: Jackbox is good!
The fact that Jackbox (or at least some amount of its games) has gone over well with just about everyone I've ever played it with is a testament to its quality. Perhaps even more noteworthy is how it holds up relatively to the number of games that have come out since trying to copy its formula. Those games suck. I'm not sure if anyone else had the experience of playing "That's You!" on PlayStation, but it's long-winded, overwrought, and never nearly as clever as even a mediocre Jackbox game. I also think despite being an "adult" game Jackbox is very good at not falling into the Cards Against Humanity (and its numerous godawful copies) trap where the joke is just the offensive crap written on the card. Jackbox is rarely explicitly offensive, at worst setting you up to say something naughty, but you're usually able to play it as straight as you want. And you're almost always filling in the blanks here - the humor actually comes from stuff you make or say, individually or collaboratively. Not surprisingly this makes for a better game experience than something like Cards does after you've seen a racist joke card two or three times.
3: Jackbox is social!
Jackbox has been the foundation of a huge chunk of my social experiences, in some capacity, since its release. Whether it's as a simple "ice-breaker"-type option in a group of relative strangers, or a chance to goof around with my closest friend, Jackbox works to perfection. I've played it with Board 8ers! I've played it with my tightest friend group! I've played it with my family! Heck, I've played it with my friend's families! Each time I've come away with some moment of everyone laughing at something ridiculous, and with some silly inside joke that caught on from the session. I've probably rambled a little too much about the pandemic in parts of this list, but this has also been a game that's given me some social space and connection during the past miserable year. Turns out, a game you can easily join into over your phone/computer during a Zoom chat is a pretty great and accessible option when nobody can go out and actually see each other. And especially when it comes to non-gaming friends, it's something they're actually into that can bring us together right now. I think it's always tough to rank multiplayer gaming alongside single-player experiences; they're just radically different things for different situations that encompass a different part of my personal life. But undoubtedly Jackbox is at least top-tier in that capacity - I have no doubt I'll be playing these games as a part of my life for as long as they keep making them.

Top 5 Jackbox Games: Drawful - Fibbage - Push the Button - Blather 'Round - Quiplash

---

it's an underwater adventure ride

42. Landstalker: The Treasures of King Nole (Genesis, 1993)

Following in the footsteps of Zelda and Okami, here's yet another open-world story-driven adventure game where the protagonist has a tiny fairylike companion. Landstalker is clearly meant to at least look like The Legend of Zelda, with its blond-haired, green-clad elfish hero in a medieval fantasy kingdom. Fortunately, though, Landstalker does a lot to distinguish itself: there's much more in terms of towns, dialogue, and plot progression than in the 2D Zeldas. The game's isometric fixed camera lends itself to a lot of visually-confounding platforming challenges. And the story is generally charming if not particularly original - treasure hunter Nigel is looking for the titular treasure of King Nole, and adventures and hijinks ensue.
There are a lot of wonderfully standout bits; the labyrinthine Greenmaze is light on enemies and spikes, but designed to abuse the pitfalls of the game's isometric camera to hide the next pathway in plain sight. The Crypt is a series of brain teaser-style puzzles requiring you to solve riddles outside each of its jail cell rooms, and reminds me of Paper Mario 2's near-endgame sequence in the Palace of Shadows, dialed up to 11. And the game's dungeons are memorable, difficult, and unforgiving - falling from a tricky platforming section can send you back to several rooms prior and having to redo their tough platforming again.
Ultimately, it's not so much any one thing that makes it stand out as particularly exceptional - the sum of the whole package is greater than the parts. Despite being the 16-bit console our family owned, I've never particularly warmed to the Genesis; there were just a lot of games that didn't suit my style. But Landstalker always stood out as something a cut above (most of) the rest: full of the best ideas from other AAA titles of its era, but still absolutely its own thing.

---

it's an underwater adventure ride

44. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (N64, 1998)

Talking about Ocarina of Time in 2021 feels like an impossible task: either you breathlessly explain why Ocarina is clearly one of the best video games ever made, or you unfurl a laundry list of flaws that summarize why it's severely overrated. So here I go, trying to straddle the line in-between the two and give a measured take of (perhaps) the most popular video game of all time.
Ocarina's combat was a really smart choice for 1998 - the Z-targeting system became the basis for Zelda swordfights in every other game going forward. Compared to Wind Waker five years later, though, the depth of combat options is a little lacking; most fights are either a couple of simple slashes or are a little sluggish and belabored (like the Stalfos). The dungeons are pretty solid overall though, similarly, I think later games got a little more creative with how items were used and didn't rely on anything nearly as tedious as constantly rummaging through the item menu to take on/off the Iron Boots in the Water Temple. And structurally, the game does a good job keeping things moving, not getting you bogged down in unnecessary sidequests (hey Majora's Mask) but giving you lots of cute optional mini-games and quests if you want to go down that road.
What makes Ocarina such a standout classic, for me, is its (at the time) unparallelled storytelling and atmosphere. Of course, the game's storyline is essentially a re-working of A Link to the Past, with the "collect 3 trinkets -> get the Master Sword -> travel to alternate world -> find all the 6/7 sages -> go beat Ganon" parts all fully intact. The 3D environments and characters, with their more comprehensive worldbuilding, bring this plot to life, actually giving faces and storylines to all of the Sages and their respective temples. And speaking of the temples themselves, their atmosphere is fantastic, from the music to their downright creepiness. If the child dungeons feel like a simple introduction to the game, the adult temples are where the seriousness of the plot begins to take shape. The Forest Temple brings home how much blight has befallen your cute childhood home, and the Shadow Temple is wonderfully dark, spooky, and weird.
I also adore the game's titular instrument and its fascination with music. There's something inherently satisfying about playing out tunes on the ocarina, whether it's for intended game purposes or just messing around with its simple functionality. (you can flatten or sharpen notes for some reason!) Even without being super relevant gamewise, there's something that always gets me with the sequences where Sheik teaches you one of the Temple warp songs on the ocarina - they're part of the many moments that (imo) still hold up to this day.
I don't think in 2021 Ocarina of Time is the revolutionary experience it was when first bringing over the Zelda franchise to 3D in 1998, but I do think its charms and general gameplay flow still hold up great. And as someone who's played and enjoyed enough of the Zelda games throughout the years, I feel pretty good about still placing it fairly high on the gaming pedestal, even despite its limitations.

43. Okami (PS2, 2006)

Fast-forward eight years to 2006, where a relatively unknown Capcom development studio took the core structure of Ocarina of Time and...outdid Zelda? Okami is a visually brilliant, cel-shaded adventure game where you take control of the sun goddess Amaterasu, in the incarnation of a cute white doggo with a sword. (Eat your heart out, Pokmon.) As Amaterasu, you wander around an open world, fighting enemies, completing quests, and accruing a myriad of collectibles, all while accompanied by a miniature traveling companion. Sound familiar? Sure, and Okami makes no real pretense of not being directly inspired by the Zelda franchise.
But the game absolutely stands on its own; the game's core gimmick is the "Celestial Brush", an ability that allows you to draw various symbols on the screen during battles for different effects. I can't speak for the game's many HD ports, which have improved controls, but on PS2 it was both a little clunky but still functionally fine. The game's combat also interestingly takes you into a darkened and portioned-off screen when you encounter an enemy on the overworld, meaning you have to "resolve" enemy encounters by defeating them or actively running away, instead of just being able to breeze by them on the map entirely.
What really endears me to Okami, though, is its story. Divided (largely) into three big sections, Amaterasu follows along with the stories of a legendary swordsman slaying a giant dragon, a palace cursed by a nine-tailed fox, and a snow-covered mountain housing the ultimate demon. All of these tales largely follow along to actual Japanese mythology, and are rendered beautifully in the game's lovely cel-shaded visuals. There's a whole host of little stories and sidequests adding color in-between, making the whole plot feel absolutely unique from not only the Zelda franchise but all of gaming as a whole. And the Eastern influences feel sincere, respectful, and earned by the game's narrative complexity.
I didn't end up checking out Okami until 2010, fully-cleared it, and haven't touched it since. And just putting together this writeup, I'm feeling inspired to bust it out and give it another go, the memories are so endearing and charming. It's a game that manages to take the structure of a Zelda game and make something greater out of those parts, and I can't recommend it highly enough.

---

it's an underwater adventure ride

46. RollerCoaster Tycoon (PC, 1999)

RollerCoaster Tycoon was basically the right game, at the right time, for the right person. After growing up with SimCity 2000 and SimTower, and soon before diving into games like The Sims and even Animal Crossing or Harvest Moon, RCT landed right in the middle as a top-notch simulation-style game, though part of MicroProse's Tycoon series rather than with Maxis' Sim moniker. Coincidentally, in 1999 I was just starting to get into roller coasters (in real life) for the first time - my fear of heights gave way to an ambitious attempt at riding Kennywood Park's famous Steel Phantom roller coaster, and I immediately loved it and all of a sudden amusement parks (and roller coasters in particular) were my favorite thing in the world.
Of course, none of that would have landed so flawlessly if RCT weren't an absolute gem of a game. I think RollerCoaster Tycoon's finest quality is it's so well made that it can serve as a really strong instance of several different types of games for different people. It's an in-depth economic simulator if you really want to dig into the particulars of managing ride prices, advertising campaigns, and research of rides. (There's an awesome Youtube channel that I got into last year that delved into the nitty-gritty of little bits of the game to exploit them to extremes, like the guest pathing in the Hedge Maze rides.) RCT is also a fun game to just poke around in - you can name your guests and follow them around the park all day, or watch people race in the Go-Karts, and it's all rendered in surprising depth and detail.
But RCT works perhaps best as a complete game experience - the numerous scenarios require you to handle lots of different types of challenges in different types of parks. And whether it's tackling your favorite park in different ways, or just continuing to play even after passing the final goal, RCT is there for you. The ride builder is also excellent, comprehensive, and simple. It's very easy to complete a functional and okay coaster, and very hard to make a great one. There's just so much to love in this package, it's a game I still love coming back to even in 2021, and honestly that's even without having played its sequel RCT2 or the OpenRCT mod that is reasonably popular (at least, among said guy whose Youtube vids I watched). It's easily my #1 simulation-style game and I'd be willing to argue I have underrated it here, having not played it in several years at this point.

45. Everybody's Golf (PS4, 2017)

If there's one thing that all of us (well, most of us) writing for this list can agree on, it's that golf video games are a blast to play. After growing up with Mario Golf for the N64 and GameCube and having decent battles with friends for most of the 90s and 2000s, my roomates and I were particularly excited for Everybody's Golf, which landed right around the time I moved in with them in mid-2017. Having never played a Hot Shots Golf game before (but having heard good things) I wasn't sure what to expect, and despite being cautiously optimistic, I was still blown away.
The game's quality as a simple-to-play/easy-to-master Golf sim, paired with its colorful characters and boundless charm, made it instantly one of my favorite golf games of all time. The three of us blew through the main story mode, unlocking all the courses and tons of stuff for our custom characters, in a matter of weeks. We met up for multiplayer games basically every night. And we even played around with the somewhat ridiculous online mode that allows you to drive a golf cart around the course.
The tricky part here is, I don't own a PS4, and was always playing my friend's copy of this. After a couple months of heavy play, we moved onto other stuff, so aside from that initial investment I've really never touched the game since 2017. (I think we played one round of multiplayer a couple years back, but that's it.) If I had put enough time into the online leaderboards and playing the DLC courses and just generally getting into the game for a longer period of time, I think I could easily rate it a bit higher and usurp my all-time favorite golf game. But with my personal limitations, I remember the great times and a lot of details have been lost from memory - and thus it lands a little shy of the Top 40 here.

---

it's an underwater adventure ride

48. Super Smash Bros. Melee (GameCube, 2001)

Although the original Super Smash Bros. was definitely an unexpected smash-hit (heh) party game, this was the entry that solidified the series as the juggernaut behemoth it is today. Melee more than doubled the playable characters, stages, and items, and added so much additional content and polish to the project that SSB64 looked so paltry by comparison. Where OG Smash had only a couple basic modes, SSBM had a single-player adventure mode spanning different Nintendo worlds, a whole gaggle of extra mini-games like multi-man melee and home run contest, and almost 300 collectible trophies featuring all sorts of Nintendo characters as a complete celebration of their history. And while Smash 64's menus were minimalist in visuals and sound, Melee's are sharp and sleek, and coupled with the best goddamn menu theme in video game history: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2Ax21yobJ0
Of course, it's all about the gameplay in the end, and Melee delivers there in spades; the speed and technical play of the game is still unmatched even three entries and 19 years down the road from its release. I'm not a huge fighting game person, so the competitive scene has never been a draw for me and I'm not particularly swayed by that in either direction, but it's a testament to the game's lasting quality that it's still so beloved.
And I'd be remiss not to mention just how memorable it was playing Melee for the first time back in 2001 - a friend of mine got the game on launch day and came over and we spent all night unlocking the full cast of characters (including playing a bunch of Self-Destruct versus games to get the requisite 700 matches for Mewtwo). In the months after launch, I remember a bunch of other gaming nerds at my high school getting together for tournaments using the in-game tourney mode. It's hard to beat that nostalgia, so Melee still has such a high perch on my all-time faves.

47. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (Switch, 2018)

That said, it's hard to discount the most recent Smash Bros. game entirely. Ultimate has just an absurd amount of playable stages and characters, comprised of the entirety of the series' span. (Everyone is here!) The gameplay feels like the best evolution of the engine from Brawl to Smash 4 to today, and can stand on its own merits and differences relative to Melee. And whether or not you're fond of DLC in games as a concept, it feels at its best here, bringing in surprise characters like Persona's Joker, Sephiroth, and Minecraft Steve all into the Nintendo universe. The character balance is really good here too - as I've said earlier, I dont really play competitively, but I do know that a huge amount of the 80+ character roster is actively used in tournament play, which only speaks to the quality of the balance in general at any level of play.
The single-player story mode is good and charming, though not nearly as cinematically compelling as Brawl's Subspace Emissary. Though maybe a bit repetitive, it does a good job at following along with Nintendo's Smash mission statement post-Melee: celebrate the crazy variety of the game universes throughout all of Nintendo history.
On any given day, I could probably rate one of Melee or Ultimate above the other, but having mostly had my time with Melee run its course, I felt like Ultimate deserved to finish on top here. Either way, they're worthy of the claim to two of the best multiplayer experiences in all of gaming.

---

it's an underwater adventure ride

on a similar note, your "[season]'s best moments" vids have been excellent the past couple weeks! i think it's been neat that the netflix seasons have brought in new fans and a renewed interest in the old seasons

---

it's an underwater adventure ride

as someone who has not rewatched much of the series at all but who has a pretty good memory, it's a nice way to revisit the seasons without paying for cbs all access or finding them through means of dubious legality

i also think rob has a pretty diverse group of panelists and does a good job at getting out of the way of letting them speak, i get that large parts of survivor fandom has can be frustrating but i'm impressed with the series so far

---

it's an underwater adventure ride

Has anyone else been keeping up with RHAP's weekly Survivor season rewatch/countdown? I've been enjoying the deep dives into lots of stuff I had long forgotten but is still buried in my memory somewhere. I also like the user-voting submissions, and I updated my overall season ranking to see how theirs compares. (so far, I'm nearly identical.)

Also given that it's been quite a while since we've had Survivor at all and I don't really follow other shows I'm enjoying seeing some RHAP faces I haven't seen before - some of these folks are really great.

---

it's an underwater adventure ride

50. Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow (DS, 2005)

In a rare move for the series, Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow is a direct sequel to its predecessor, Aria of Sorrow. This allows it to expand on the story and systems from the original in a much larger game. There's one of the best castles in the series - the size and variety of environments is great, and the variety of enemies is pretty solid (though there are the usual palette swapped variations later on). The bosses are pretty great too, they're challenging but not to the point where you can't learn their patterns to win and have to rely on swaths of healing items. And the story, while less novel than Aria of Sorrow, is still pretty decent and does the now-standard Symphony of the Night thing where the "basic" ending at the top of the castle is not nearly the actual end of the game. The soul system is back from Aria as well, and it's still easily the best mechanic the series has produced - here you can even power up souls by collecting more of them and you can use collected souls to forge more powerful weapons. It's perhaps a little tedious but none of it is necessary, and it's much better than the convoluted systems that weigh down Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, for example.
Dawn of Sorrow is just really solid overall - it's my favorite of the DS trilogy easily and I think the peak of the handheld era. As an early DS-era game, it uses unnecessary touchscreen gimmicks, but they don't intrude in the game too much. (Hot take alert: I actually really like the seal-drawing to finish off bosses; I think it's a satisfying way to cap a challenging battle by banishing them to the shadow realm. I absolutely get why people hate it though.) As someone who loves Metroidvania-style games, Dawn of Sorrow is pretty much the safest bet of all of them; it has a good balance of difficulty, has a lot of variety of weapons and powers, is packed with content, and also doesn't get bogged down too much by bloat.

49. Mario Kart 8 (Wii U, 2014)

For all intents and purposes, it's the definitive edition of Mario Kart. Counting the DLC or the Deluxe edition, you've got 48 tracks, 30+ characters (including other series crossovers) and a whole host of vehicles, weapons, and modes. As much as I love Double Dash's gameplay feel, you pretty much can get whatever you want out of MK8, since the numerous vehicle options let you tailor your driving experience to your liking, whether that's fast drifty cars or tight-turning bikes. Online play is surprisingly great here too; I feel like since MK Wii, Mario Kart online play has been the one consistently decent subsection of Nintendo's generally disastrous online service. Even Battle Mode, which was terrible and largely forgotten upon MK8's release, got a huge upgrade with the Deluxe release on Switch, adding five unique modes on actual Battle tracks, and it's similarly integrated into the online well.
The gameplay additions in MK8 are both solid and largely non-intrusive: Coins return from the 2D Mario Karts, giving you a small speed boost as you go up to 10, trick-boosts off of jumps/ramps and hang-glider sections are back from Mario Kart 7, and there are upside-down portions of track where your vehicle shifts into a hovercraft and can gain boosts off of track sections and other vehicles. The courses are the best in the series; there's not a ton of duds (the weakest tracks are the intentionally simpler ones) and the variety of themes and ideas poured into them are always impressive. Plus let's give MK8 a shoutout for being the first non-Smash game to actually formally recognize F-Zero in the past 15 years. Somehow even in a completely different series, F-Zero is still the best part of this game.
The whole of these past two entries is basically "I like this series a lot and this is a slam-dunk entry on that series." Each aspect of the game is excellently crafted and builds upon previous entries' strengths while improving their weaknesses. I've had a ton of good multiplayer sessions with friends in MK8, even playing with 4 players online in the same room via two TVs and Wii Us, back in 2015 or so. There's really just a limit on how much I can rank "really solid multiplayer experience" over the more transcendent game picks later on my list.
Top 5 Courses (w/ Deluxe/DLC): Big Blue - Mount Wario - DK Jungle - Sunshine Airport - Rainbow Road

---

it's an underwater adventure ride

Half-way Round-up:
100. WarioWare: Smooth Moves (Wii, 2007)
99. Unreal Tournament (PC, 1999)
98. Pikmin 2 (GameCube, 2004)
97. Crypt of the Necrodancer (PC, 2015)
96. Kirby & the Amazing Mirror (GBA, 2004)
95. Final Fantasy Tactics (PS1, 1998)
94. Time Crisis II (Arcade, 1998)
93. Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow (GBA, 2003)
92. DJ Max Portable (PSP, 2006)
91. Zany Golf (PC, 1988)
90. Super Mario Maker 2 (Switch, 2019)
89. Contra 4 (DS, 2007)
88. Mega Man 5 (NES, 1992)
87. Super Castlevania IV (SNES, 1991)
86. The Oregon Trail (PC, 1993)
85. TimeSplitters 2 (Multiplatform, 2002)
84. Fat Princess (PS3, 2009)
83. Hotel Dusk: Room 215 (DS, 2007)
82. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 (Multiplatform, 2000)
81. Pokmon Go (Mobile, 2016)
80. Final Fantasy IV (SNES, 1991)
79. The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures (GameCube, 2004)
78. Super Mario Bros. (NES, 1985)
77. Mario Tennis (N64, 2000)
76. Chip's Challenge (PC, 1990)
75. Elite Beat Agents (DS, 2006)
74. Bust-A-Move (Arcade, 1994)
73. Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin (DS, 2006)
72. Crystalis (NES, 1990)
71. StepMania (PC, 2001)
70. Tetris & Dr. Mario (SNES, 1994)
69. Minesweeper (PC, 1992)
68. Mario Kart 64 (N64, 1997)
67. Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii, 2010)
66. Pokmon Picross (3DS, 2015)
65. F-Zero: Maximum Velocity (GBA, 2001)
64. Metroid Fusion (GBA, 2002)
63. Pikmin 3 Deluxe (Switch, 2020)
62. The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds (3DS, 2013)
61. FIFA 98: Road to World Cup (PC, 1997)
60. Resident Evil 4 (GameCube, 2005)
59. Celeste (Multiplatform, 2018)
58. Mario Kart: Double Dash!! (GameCube, 2003)
57. Pikmin (GameCube, 2001)
56. The Sims (PC, 2000)
55. Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Switch, 2020)
54. Sound Voltex [series] (Arcade, 2012-present)
53. Tecmo Bowl (NES, 1989)
52. Q*Bert (Arcade, 1982)
51. Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout (PC, 2020)

-Breakdown by Decade-
1980s: 4
1990s: 14
2000s: 21
2010s+: 11

---

it's an underwater adventure ride

51. Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout (PC, 2020)

Don't! Get! Eliminated!!
Fall Guys takes its cue from Takeshi's Castle, MXC, Wipeout, and the horde of heavily-padded over-the-top game shows by pitting players in a battle royale obstacle course gauntlet with a single winner (usually) prevailing at the end. Its appeal is pretty clear - it's simple, cute, and addictive. There are race rounds, team rounds, and survival rounds mixed in, so there's enough variety and luck built in to ensure that even less skilled players feel like they always have a chance. It's easily my favorite new game from 2020, though I absolutely haven't played a lot of new games in 2020, so take that for the grain of salt it is.
[Mid-review Pivot #1!] So, uh, I have a confession here. I've played exactly 10 games of Fall Guys. (I did win once!) I don't own a PS4, I don't have a gaming computer, and my current internet connection is an absolute mess. It's really hard to justify placing a game I have so little direct experience with on my list at all, let alone this highly. On the other hand, 2020 was just a goddamn weird year and my life's experience with friends, gaming, and community has been shaken up a whole lot from the norm. I found myself digging into Twitch catching speedruns, tournaments, and some favorite chill streamers a lot over the course of the year, and over the summer a ton of people I followed really got into Fall Guys. Some of them ended up pivoting to the game entirely, devoting a ton of hours to playing, hosting, and participating in tournaments over the past 5 months. And I've probably ended up watching hundreds of hours of the game at this point - I weirdly know a game I've barely played like the back of my hand. But the surprising level of positivity and community I've seen from the game makes it stand out; the players who I follow are absolutely competitive as hell and want to win, but there's not the mad toxicity built into its culture like so many other online multiplayer games (minus the "lol dead game" trolls). I really appreciate the, for lack of a less cliched term, "positive vibes" that have come out from the game and its community, especially given my inability to really fully connect with friends across the country in 2020.
[Mid-review Pivot #2!] I'm gonna go on a rant about video games, competitiveness, and the industry in general here, so feel free to back out because there's not really much more important about Fall Guys that I haven't already said.
There are too many video games about shooting people, and there is too much violence in video games. This isn't a statement saying I have a problem with those things existing, but that the range of interesting video game concepts and ideas is still drastically lagging behind concepts trotting out those simple tropes. It's a huge deal to me that Fall Guys exists, because it's a battle royale game that doesn't demand that you kill or shoot anyone, and it's a competitive game that doesn't demand you beat down your opponent. It's immensely refreshing to me that there's clearly space for a multiplayer competitive game that is lighthearted and cute, and seems much more focused on having short, fun experiences rather than a dramatic long-form competition. This kind of thing is a big reason why I've never been into Starcraft, or League of Legends, or Overwatch, and why the other shooty BR games lost their appeal to me quickly; there feels like too much toxicity in the culture which I think to some extent comes from the structure and design. Fall Guys might not be the best battle royale or competitive game, but I really just want to see more competitive games out there that eschew conventional aesthetics and designs and make something especially memorable. I find myself rooting for it to succeed for all of that, and I hope that its success (and that of other indie games) inspires more competitive games that feel like they're designed for me in the future.
Anyway, sorry about the rant. Fall Guys is great. If it ever comes to Switch, or I get my compy situation resolved, and it continues along with enough support, it'll probably end up being a Top 25/20 all-time game for me. For now, it (and my long-winded rants) will mark the midway point of this countdown.

---

it's an underwater adventure ride

52. Q*Bert (Arcade, 1982)

Q*Bert's my favorite old-school arcade game. Shrouded in the weird geometric shapes and goofy green and purple enemies is a pretty basic concept - move around the block pyramid to land atop each of the blue squares, turning them yellow, as enemies chase you around. The game has a more clearly defined progression than a lot of other old high-score games; each stage changes color to mark it clearly from the rest, and a new "level" adds a new gimmick to the color-switching, maybe it's having to jump on each square twice, or the squares switching back and forth so you have to plan a more cohesive path. Most of the enemy types are pretty straightforward, and though some of them are more tricky and annoying than others they all feel like they mesh excellently with the game's basic mechanics.
I ended up only really getting into Q*Bert off of a friend's PS3 arcade classics version, where we'd trade off to beat each others' high scores. Since then, it's a game I always seek out when I spot it at an arcade; I took this pic at like 2 AM while drunk at a barcade in Cincinnati 5 years ago:

This isn't a super impressive high score or anything, but I had a hell of a time rolling through the game trying to take the top score. Sometimes it's the little things that stand out, and I'm sure this goofy memory didn't hurt me from throwing it up to 52. But I love a good high-score game (as a couple games later on will attest to) and even though I've never taken to a lot of the old arcade classics, I do love me some Q*Bert.

---

it's an underwater adventure ride

54. Sound Voltex [series] (Arcade, 2012-present)

This was a game that I knew I liked immediately upon playing it for the first time. It's a BEMANI-series AAA rhythm game title, which comes with all the positives of basically any of those games: great original music, a cohesively produced aesthetic, and clean and satisfying gameplay. The control setup (see above for example) is two rows of 4 and 2 buttons respectively, along with two knobs in the top left and right corners. Grey lines appearing in the four lanes correspond to the central white buttons, while orange lines mark the bottom two buttons (they'll appear in lanes 1/2 and 3/4 respectively). The centerpiece, of course, are the analog knobs, which appear as pink or blue lanes hovering above the main track and must be followed by rotating the knobs quickly or precisely (depending on the track) along with the music. Similar to Beatmania IIDX, the combination of digital (basic button presses) with analog (the knobs) really feels challenging, unique, and satisfying. Here's a (fast) youtube video example of what the hell's going on: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFWMwscsxLo
There's a couple very small strikes against this series that keep it from being a top-50 placer: I don't really love the music as much as the other BEMANI series; I think it follows Vocaloid and other trends a little too much and has less interesting and different music. (There's still a lot of good stuff though.) As someone who is probably too ignorant to know better, it feels like its aesthetic is capitalizing on a lot of anime/weeb trends of the past decade, which is probably why it's gotten so popular, for better or worse. The other problem is that I really haven't been able to play it much - it's in Round 1 arcades but the nearest one is a couple hours from me (plus 2020 is a thing) and I've only really gone in on it at conventions. Home controllers are a thing but paying for a decent setup is outside of my price range right now. Anyway, it's still a great game - if you like basically any Japanese rhythm games you'll probably have a good time with this.

53. Tecmo Bowl (NES, 1989)

Another cheat entry, this is really about the Tecmo series as a whole but I don't know if I can classify it as an ongoing series technically? So I compromised and just picked the oldest game here I've played. If you're one of those people (Hi Nick) you can just pretend I picked Tecmo Super Bowl or whichever one you like best here and that's just as accurate.
I ended up getting into Tecmo kinda late through the DS release Tecmo Bowl: Kickoff. Kickoff had a pretty cute editor that I used to remake the actual NFL at first then a custom league I made up for fun. (Shoutouts to the multi-time Tecmo Bowl champion Pittsburgh Cannons!) It also had a...stat-gaining system (?) that you could use to level up players. Ultimately because of this everyone is slow and exploiting the CPU AI is easy - once I figured out Tecmo in general I basically steamrolled the AI, but I still had a good time with it. Later on I played some of the SNES Tecmo games a little bit, and I plowed through the NES Tecmo when it was ported to Switch online. I've followed along to multiple remade Tecmo leagues through B8 projects and Youtubers, etc. The game's charm is pervasive through basically every single of its iterations, great and bad alike.
What I think makes Tecmo so rad is that it's a brilliant facsimile of football. It clearly is structured and functions like football, but it's...not quite actually football. Kickoffs are wonky because the kicking team is so radically faster that you have to zigzag run like a champ to make up ground. Defensive plays don't exist so you have to play around the inherent weaknesses of the built-in coverage. Tackles end up culminating in a sort of rugby-scrum-like battle where both players mash like hell to escape or bring down the runner. And everything about Tecmo, from its cutaway action sequence "cutscenes" to its janky physics to its basic pixel graphics, ends up coming out making the whole package look even more endearing. The extensive fan scene that has continued building modern rosters of the game basically 30 years after its release is a testament to just how charming Tecmo is, and also how it is such a satisfyingly simple contrast to the complex behemoth that Madden has become.
For all of that, Tecmo is my #1 sports (non-racing) game on the list. Shoutouts to QB Eagles, Touchdown Thurman Thomas, and of course, Tecmo Bo Jackson.

---

it's an underwater adventure ride

56. The Sims (PC, 2000)

As a fan of SimTower and Sim City 2000, it came as no surprise that I ended up loving The Sims; the next great Sim-franchise game was full of creativity, charm, and cleverness. What I certainly couldn't have anticipated is the extent to which The Sims absolutely exploded as a franchise, quickly dwarfing the heights of previous Sim titles and later establishing itself as one of the most successful video game franchises in history.
What I think makes The Sims absolutely great is that it's a video game that is almost entirely devoid of objectives. Do you want to "play it straight" and build a crappy house and slowly take your Sim-family up the job ladder to afford better luxuries? You can do that. Do you want to use the infamous "rosebud" money cheat to gain loads of cash and build ridiculous mansions? Go ahead. Do you just want to make a swimming pool and delete the ladder out to watch your Sim slowly drown? Uh...that's kind of creepy, but hell, you can do that as well. Even relative to say, Sim City 2000, where there were more direct goals, objectives, and a feeling of something you were supposed to be doing, The Sims captured my imagination by being a game I could just sort of mess around with for as long as it continued to be fun.
A few years back, a friend and I messed around in The Sims for a couple hours, making a character and building a simple little house, and then left the game idle to see how well he'd get along on his own while we watched a hockey game. After the first intermission, we came back just in time to see him burning himself alive while trying to cook a roast. It's good to see some things never change.
Despite only really playing music on the title screens and the Buy/Build menu, The Sims has a really memorable and unique soundtrack. And the playful adaptation of a 1950's suburban utopia aesthetic holds up pretty well too. There's just a lot of little stuff to love, and it's a game I found myself going back to over and over throughout the early 00's to casually play in lots of different ways. I can't speak to any of its sequels, but the original felt nearly perfect.

55. Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Switch, 2020)

And now for something...not completely different. I'm gonna cheat a little bit here - while I'm claiming this spot for the newest entry, this entry is really a stand-in for the entire Animal Crossing franchise. Although there are definitely strengths and weaknesses to each of the different games, the whole experience feels like too much of the same thing for me to feel like I can rank any of them individually. And hey, it's my list, I get to do what I want, etc.
Just like The Sims, Animal Crossing is a game that defies convention by intentionally avoiding linear progression and clear objectives. And although simulation-style games had been fairly popular for a while on PC, something of that scope and with Nintendo's degree of polish and quality hadn't really been seen on console. Upon the launch of the GameCube version in North American in 2003, it pretty much took over my life for a few months. The basic gameplay loop of building up your village and acquiring new stuff was really satisfying and charming, and the structure of having new things to do every real-life day was a refreshing twist to the "sped-up realtime" structure of other sim-games. Eventually, I started running out of new things to discover, got a little bored, and moved on to other stuff.
Fast forward to 2020 - I've played a couple AC games in the meantime (Wild World and New Leaf) and quickly moved past them. Excited to try out the new AC game with some compelling new features with friends, I preordered New Horizons and was ready to check it out with people at midnight and play along in real time. Well, uh...that didn't quite pan out as expected, for obvious reasons. What ultimately ended up happening, though, was that everyone was playing through ACNH and kind of discovering it together in real-time. In a lot of ways, it is still quintessentially Animal Crossing - it gets samey and boring after a while, of course - but the level of engagement with other real-life friends made it stand out specifically in the context of 2020. It mirrors my placement of Pokmon Go; I don't think I would have had an Animal Crossing game nearly this high before this year, but the social aspects in New Horizons really put it over the top. Coupled with fairly frequent updates adding new features and holidays, Animal Crossing has kept me playing for nearly a year for the first time ever. And for a game that demands you check in every day, even for a little bit, I have to say that's pretty impressive.
Shoutouts to ACNH's incredible soundtrack and absolutely lovely main theme, and the deluge of memes that it spawned over the internet across the whole of 2020. You've helped make the world a slightly more tolerable place.

---

it's an underwater adventure ride

58. Mario Kart: Double Dash!! (GameCube, 2003)

Purely from a control basis, I think Double Dash is my favorite Mario Kart game. Something about its floaty drifting mechanics and fast-twitch mini-turbo blue sparks just meshes with my MK playstyle - in basically every game from Wii onwards, where you can customize your vehicle or pick between karts and bikes, I want to try to tailor my machine to feel as much like Double Dash as possible. Additionally, DD has some of my favorite item mechanics - I don't love the absurd amount of Blue Shells this game introduced, but having to manage two items is tricky and interesting, and having to actively defend shell attacks from behind (rather than just holding an item behind as defense) is really satisfying, and makes defending a lead far less simple.
I think Double Dash holds up great, too - I think it's a big difference between the bulk of GameCube era games versus a large swath of N64 games; they just hold up much better both in terms of visuals and design. The 16 courses are a mixed bag, some of them iconically great and many relatively forgettable; though the 16-course-gauntlet All Cup Tour mode is a unique inclusion and it rules. Battle Mode is a lot worse than MK64, though I do enjoy the Bob-omb chucking mode, which fits Double Dash's more flat and open courses. Overall, its unique control scheme was a turn off for some (including a friend of mine who sold me my copy back in 2003) but is also its strongest point for longevity - sort of like Smash Bros. Melee relative to its sequels, it feels like the last one that stands out on its own before all follow-ups were mostly the same-but-better.
I like Mario Kart, Double Dash is unique, Double Dash is good, here it is.
Top 5 Courses: Rainbow Road - DK Mountain - Daisy Cruiser - Bowser's Castle - Wario Colosseum

57. Pikmin (GameCube, 2001)

Now for my #1 ranked Pikmin game, the worst Pikmin game of the three main games. What? I've said in the prior writeups that I think there's not a whole lot between the three Pikmin games, and that each has distinct strengths and weaknesses. Pikmin 1 undoubtedly has the least content and the worst controls of the games in the series. What Pikmin 3 streamlined in terms of control (locking onto enemies and targets) and management (it's actually possible to quickly choose a Pikmin color you want), especially upon a replay, is notably lacking in the original. In the original, your Pikmin get themselves burned or drowned quite easily, and will also occasionally trip on the ground or lag behind awkwardly. In terms of content, there's a "Challenge Mode" which is at least something, but you're basically doing the main story mode, which isn't super deep or long, and that's it.
So what is it doing here? There's something that I love about Nintendo's ability to sell a mood and story through its visual and sound design, and the gameplay structure, that endears me to their characters, stories, and games much more than a convoluted 100 hour RPG with mountains of sidequests and content really ever could. Pikmin 1 is a masterstroke of this design process, exploring concepts of loneliness, desperation, and hope not only through its daily journal logs but through the core gameplay. The core conceit of being a stranger in a strange land means you discover new enemies, areas, and ways for things to go wrong along with the main character - Pikmin can and will die a lot in your first playthrough. The 30-day doomsday timer means you're playing the whole game with a ticking time bomb in the background (though realistically even a novice player should easily be able to collect all 30 parts in the game's timeframe). And the collectible parts slowly building up your spaceship creates a satisfying visual comparison with your progress (and the protagonist's success). Pikmin also cleverly contrasts the beautiful environments with the harshness of nature - a game around doing your best to avoid the brutal death of your tiny companions is presented in a colorful and cute way, but losing Pikmin always feels bad; and like I said before, it will absolutely happen quite a bit.
Undoubtedly many of those elements are present in the sequels, but the original has that unique property of always drawing out every one of the best qualities of the series for me, without feeling too directly game-ified, like it does in Pikmin 2's dungeons and Pikmin 3's more linearly objective-focused areas. I could probably pick a different favorite of the three any given day, but I feel good placing the game that represents the series' (and Nintendo's) best intangible qualities at the top of the heap.

---

it's an underwater adventure ride

60. Resident Evil 4 (GameCube, 2005)

I've never been a fan of horror in general, whether in movies, games, or other media. I'm not keen on excessive violence and gore, and supernatural scary stuff just does nothing for me. Turns out, the timing was perfect for Resident Evil 4 to overcome my preconceived biases, as I was agressively seeking out "good" games I hadn't played before and the buzz surrounding it was off the charts back in the mid-00s. The secret to RE4? It's really just an excellent action game, rather than bringing something exceptional in the horror department, and that's pretty much exactly what I was looking for. The game does a good job at whisking you off to somewhere different after one segment might start to get too stale - the initial creepy village vibe leads to a sprawling gothic castle, for example. I was pretty bad, so I took a lot of deaths early on, which is the kind of "horror" vibe that actually works for me: being concerned of what's gonna come next because it might kill you, not just of a startling jump-scare or whatever.
There's not a ton to go on here about: RE4 is such a solid game and a fun experience I would be remiss to leave it off the list, but it's also not particularly my style of game so it didn't check a ton of boxes for something I love either.

59. Celeste (Multiplatform, 2018)

I don't think I'm breaking ground by saying that this is probably the best indie platforming game ever made. Taking a cue from other many-deaths-quick-respawn platformers, Celeste makes its game simple yet challenging, and encourages even its least-inclined players to keep on going until they get the movement just right to surpass an obstacle. And following the Super Mario Bros. platforming prime directive, Celeste is a game where just moving around feels fun. Its small set of basic actions works together well in tandem with whatever novel gimmick has been introduced for the stage to make a satisfying set of puzzles.
The story is a lot more satisfying than in most other indies too - combine that with the game's really solid visual and sound design and you have a setting a lot more endearing and memorable than most of the other platformers with similar mechanics. I haven't really dug into the game's extra content - the B and C-side challenges were beyond my interest in an initial playthrough, but they're absolutely there if you want more to do, or more challenge, or whatever. Add that in with speedruns and hidden collectables, and you've got a pretty sizeable little game if you're looking for it.
For me, though, I just really enjoyed the pace and feel of the main plotline, and the ending segment is absolutely excellent and felt like the perfect cap to a great game. Celeste, for me, may not have reached the heights of other AAA titles and my utmost favorites, but it is a shining beacon of what is possible for indie games to aspire to, both in quality and in critical success, that I almost feel bad for not putting it a bit higher here.

---

it's an underwater adventure ride

62. The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds (3DS, 2013)

After two gimmicky DS Zeldas that used extensive touchscreen controls and novel settings, Nintendo went with a far more traditional route with the first new 3DS Zelda game, returning to the Hyrule of A Link to the Past. ALBW's overworld is a near-perfect copy of A Link to the Past, though the game's items, dungeons, gimmicks, and story are vastly different. Most interestingly, you have the option to rent any of a large chunk of major items at any point: boomerang, bow, fire rod, etc., for a handful of rupees (you can also purchase 'em later on for a large chunk of change). It's a gimmick that works pretty well, though it's especially buoyed by a game design that largely lets you go wherever you feel like going next. A relatively open-world Zelda with modern design sensibilities is a very fun experience - I like heavily-gated-progression games (there's a reason why I have a boatload of Metroidvanias on the list) but I also really appreciate games that give the user lots of different options in their play experience.
On the other hand, the 2D-walls-Link gimmick is good, but rarely used in particularly exciting ways. There are some clever puzzles but it never stood out as a central part of the experience. It's probably the least compelling plot-point in the surprisingly deep and excellent story, which twists the ALttP Dark World as Lorule, an alternate-universe counterpart to Hyrule. Groan-inducing name aside, there are satisfying twists to what and who the people there appear to be.
ALBW is a lot like the previously-listed Pikmin 3 to me: it's a really satisfying sequel, really good to play through, but also did not speak to me in any exceptional way. Thus right around the cusp of the Top 50 seems the most appropriate place to put it. I ended up only going through this in 2018, and I could stand to replay it again; I could definitely see it bumping up some spots on re-reflection.

61. FIFA 98: Road to World Cup (PC, 1997)

This one's gonna be tinged with a whole lotta nostalgia, so buckle up. As a kid growing up, my two biggest interests were probably sports and geography. I used to be super into learning about countries of the world and flags and capitals and such - I was a big ol' nerd, to say the least. On the other hand? Wasn't really grabbed by video games at that point, or at least more standard fare such as Final Fantasy and Zelda. FIFA 98 was probably the most ambitious soccer game EA had put out at that point - its core conceit is that you can take the helm of literally any of the 200+ qualifying countries and try to qualify for (and win) the 1998 World Cup. To say the least, that's the thing that made my geography/sports brain explode with anticipation. But, was it good?
Well, clearly, yes. This dated-as-heck intro video featuring Blur's Song 2 blasting in your face over flashing country flags, ugly polygonal gameplay footage, and not-terrible 3D stadium renders is a testament to the kind of excitement this game brought me in the late-90s:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xN0fLiun-bY
The Road to World Cup mode is legit as hell; playing as tiny countries like Tahiti or San Marino was both challenging and engaging. Later FIFA games ended up porting the World Cup qualifying mode into its own game, but it's mixed in here with the "main" game, which also has 11 world leagues - the standard English Premier League, La Liga, Serie A, etc., with a couple goofy ones like Malaysia (?) and a fake US league.
The team/player editor was pretty great too, there were a lot of uniform options and rad hairstyles to give your players. I remember making-over the not-real US league into one of my own and playing some seasons through that too. There was also a novelty indoor-soccer feature that made for ridiculous games.
The soccer itself is pretty good but arcadey - it's outpaced by later games but was absolutely good for its day and is still very playable. But the experience of the game itself - the soundtrack of Song 2 and a whole bunch of Crystal Method songs, the extensive amount of teams and game modes, and the novelty and quality of its World Cup 98 licensing - makes it my favorite and most nostalgically satisfying soccer video game experience ever. I couldn't not mention this rad game and its place among my favorite ever sports games on this list.

---

it's an underwater adventure ride

winged pikmin are very good in some spots but get overrun in others. they might be a little too good if you know what you're doing but i'd argue that you're already totally fine in general if you're at that point

---

it's an underwater adventure ride

64. Metroid Fusion (GBA, 2002)

Only one off of a true crossover with Nee here for same game, same spot. Metroid Fusion is probably the most divergent Metroid game from the standard formula outside of Hunters (which sucks) or the spin-offs. Fusion has you progressively obtaining power-ups that let you travel to new places, yes, but actively blocks off large portions of the world map at a single time and has you following the instructions of a spaceship computer on where to go and what to do. It's fairly linear outside of a few sections that require you to find a hidden door the game refuses to tell you about, or the hidden pathways between spaceship sectors that you can use to get powerups in old areas that you'll never even encounter if you're just following along with the game. There are a wide array of boss fights, most of em pretty good, though the final couple boss encounters are pretty straightforward and underwhelming.
The main unique selling point of Fusion is its narrative, which starts with Samus tracking unexplained disturbances and explosions on an abandoned spaceship, building up to being actively hunted by a full-powered Samus clone (SA-X) across the ship. This plays out over a handful of "chase scenes" where you're suddenly dropped into an area with the SA-X's presence and have to hide or run away. These help add to the sense of tension and pseudo-horror-game fear that is unlike any other Metroid game, and they're excellent.
The game is super solid, has tight controls, a lot of hard replayability options (like 1% item runs) and is a fluid and engaging experience. It just never hits the highs for me of the best Metroid games and is far more linear and restrictive than most, which knocks it down a little bit. Still an excellent game, and representative of a really clever way to twist the series' formula.

63. Pikmin 3 Deluxe (Switch, 2020)

Almost undoubtedly the premier Pikmin experience. Game #3 streamlines the controls by making it easy to sort out Pikmin by color, lock onto enemies, and manage tasks by automating movement of your trio of captains. The cute and enjoyable storyline provides you with clear gameplay objectives while giving you the freedom to explore the multiple huge regions to find secrets. Fighting enemies and bosses has never been more satisfying - the aforementioned control options make it a lot easier to avoid catastrophic mistakes destroying your Pikmin horde. And the main bosses are quite varied, testing different kinds of management skills from chucking bomb-rocks to whistling Pikmin to safety to chucking the appropriate color Pikmin on a boss's weak spot. And the Pikmin colors themselves are easily best-balanced here, there are no colors that feel almost entirely pointless or way too overpowered.
Basically everything about Pikmin 3 was really good; it's a game that's incredibly easy to jump back into and play through for a few hours. I didn't end up playing this one until the Switch release, so I'm just including that version, which includes some extra missions and side-modes and consolidates the Wii U touch-pad controls into the on-screen interface. Ultimately, for whatever reason, I never found myself totally engrossed in the experience the way I was with the original when it first came out. I think all three Pikmin games absolutely have their merits and weaknesses, and while 3 is the most balanced and the strongest of the bunch, it didn't end up quite being the highest on this list.

---

it's an underwater adventure ride

66. Pokmon Picross (3DS, 2015)

I have Wigs to thank for this one; at a rhythm game tournament in New Jersey in August 2016 he introduced me to this game and I literally played it daily for nine months. Pokmon Picross is a free-to-play 3DS game that limited the amount you could play it (though you could spend picarats to recharge your meter) and limited the amount of content you could access (though you could spend picarats to unlock more). Of course, picarats cost real-life money. However, if you were patient enough, you could earn a meager daily picarat income and eventually buy the next set of levels after a few weeks, hence playing it for nine months straight.
Picross is a pretty fun concept; like I said in the Minesweeper writeup, it's exciting and novel for a while until it becomes fairly rote. You're given a set of numbered clues for each row and column, and use them to fill in squares until you make a picture. Cute pictures of Pokmon absolutely helped out with the appeal, and there's like 200-300 stages worth of content in the game, plus the daily challenge is pretty compelling as well.
It's always hard to quantify where something like this ranks - it's not particularly replayable and even if I did the experience would be entirely different - but for getting me into picross in general this absolutely deserves a spot in the countdown.

65. F-Zero: Maximum Velocity (GBA, 2001)

F-Zero is one of my all-time favorite video game franchises, without question. Racing games have a pretty natural appeal to them, and F-Zero always seemed to know how to strike the right balance of making interesting and crazy tracks while never forgetting that the racing itself should be the star of the show.
In summer 2001, this was the game I got with the launch of the Game Boy Advance, playing it pretty much nonstop for two months including during a two-week vacation in northeast Canada. On one hand, I kind of retroactively wish I would have cared more about the trip, but on the other, F-Zero: Maximum Velocity is an excellent game, and was hard as hell to master. Structured around the formula of the original F-Zero, you race through five laps of a track, earning a boost after each lap, and also having to ensure you are within the top few places after each lap, decreasing from 15 to 10 to 7 to 5 to 3 (or something). It's punishing, though both the levels and the game's physics aren't as brutal as the original. Even so, as a kid, I managed to beat all the cups on all the difficulties, unlock all the characters, and set some pretty rad records on the Championship Circuit.
The game looks really solid for early GBA - the SNES-style Mode-7 works well here - and there are a lot of creative courses. There are certainly better F-Zero games, and full 3D is always more suited for racers anyway, but FZMV is still pretty fun to go back to, even if there's a lot of nostalgia baked in there. This the only F-Zero entry coming for quite a while, but I still wanted to give the series its due - there's no excuse for why there hasn't been a follow up in over 15 years at this point.
Top 5 Courses: Ancient Mesa: Split Circuit - Tenth Zone East: Plummet Circuit - Cloud Carpet: Long Jump Circuit - Synobazz: Championship Circuit - Cloud Carpet: Icarus Circuit

---

it's an underwater adventure ride

68. Mario Kart 64 (N64, 1997)

If I were making this list solely on how much I liked a game when it first came out, this would undoubtedly be higher. It's pretty common to knock N64-era games for how they hold up, and in MK64's case there's a little bit of truth and exaggeration when it comes to that. Race mode is still totally playable, but multiplayer really chugs at the framerate. I think the courses are still relatively decent nowadays, though there's obviously a degree where just driving around in 3D was super novel and some of the simpler courses are basically just that. The AI is also comically rubber-bandy, you can take the classic Rainbow Road shortcut and skip 40% of a lap and those suckers will still slingshot their way back toward you by the end.
Battle mode, though, still absolutely rules. The more modern adaptations of battle mode are definitely enjoyable, and are much more streamlined with a more robust set of modes and options, but I absolutely love the classic three-strikes-you're-out player elimination knockout balloon battle in MK64. Matches of Block Fort or Double Deck that would go on for ages while the bottom layers were littered with perpetually bouncing green shells and strategically hidden fake ? blocks - that was the stuff of legends. I played hours of back-and-forth first-to-X-wins games with friends and it still hasn't gotten old. Skyscraper is a garbage level though.
There are other MK games I have yet to rate; I first played Mario Kart on my cousins' SNES in the mid-90's and I was immediately hooked, so I was always somewhat attached to the series. But MK64 was probably the one I specifically loved the most at any given time, it's just been passed up over time by its technically superior predecessors.
Top 5 Tracks: Toad's Turnpike - Yoshi Valley - Rainbow Road - Royal Raceway - Mario Raceway

67. Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii, 2010)

I actually only played this for the first time last summer, so this is a pretty fresh experience. Mario Galaxy 2 is the most sequelly sequel that ever sequeled - it aggressively pinpoints everything that people liked and wanted more of from the original and gives you exactly that. And hey, that isn't totally a complaint; more is good, and the unique concept of Galaxy's gravity-shifting planet-hopping really had a lot more creative value to be extracted. And after replaying Galaxy 1 via 3D All-Stars, I really appreciated all the unique things that Galaxy 2 had going for it, and the way that the games complement each other - there's a lot of ideas very briefly touched on in the original that get fleshed out with more stars in the sequel.
On the other hand, I absolutely love the main Mario franchise, and particularly adore just about every one of the 3D releases - if there was ever a time to get nitpicky, this is it. Galaxy 2 frustrates me in some ways where it just fails to match the charm and design sensibilities of the original. (At least, in my opinion.) The simplified hub world is a plus, allowing you to quickly and easily get into stages via a simple level selector - but that makes the teeny storyline bits with Lubba and the faceship all the more tedious, annoying, and unnecessary. The game cuts down on the comet challenges (especially purple coins) from the first game, but that makes each unique galaxy feel a lot less fleshed out and comprehensive. The whole experience is streamlined to maximize playability, but in doing so loses out on so much of the charm and sense of world-building that made the first game such a magical experience.
Galaxy 2's individual level design has some absolute gems, on par or better with the very best from the first, but the complete experience is lacking something that made the original shine so brightly upon its release. Obviously, as you can tell from this whole writeup, that game is coming much later here and I'll touch upon those particular strengths when we get there, but at this point I'm putting Galaxy 2 down in a tier with a bunch of other very enjoyable but not "greatest-of-all-time"-level games from series that I love.

---

it's an underwater adventure ride

70. Tetris & Dr. Mario (SNES, 1994)

I wasn't sure exactly where or whether to put either of these two games on the list, so I just cheated and used the combined game for both! Ultimately, I much prefer my puzzle games competitive, and this game was one of the first to really branch off in that direction. Back when I used to play this with some friends in high school, we referred to the combined Tetris/Dr. Mario mode as "The Gauntlet" for some reason, which has stuck with me to this day. Tetris is definitely the better game of the two, but I have a soft spot for Dr. Mario, whose level-based progression satisfies my more completionist vibe. I imagine most everyone will have some version of Tetris on the list, and despite considering Tetris 99 and just basic NES Tetris, this seemed the most appropriate for my sensibilities. Good times all around here.
(Also, sorry, I don't particularly like Puyo Puyo so PPT/PPT2 never stood a chance.)

69. Minesweeper (PC, 1992)

Sometime in the mid-2000s I got really into Minesweeper. At first, I was just trying to see if I could figure out the game that baffled me when I was five years old, and after learning it wasn't actually especially hard I got pretty decent at it. I played mostly expert, got some pretty solid times, then kind of put it away after it lost its novelty.
At some point, though, it started becoming by go-to game for listening to podcasts or music. For whatever reason my brain needs some degree of basic activity when I'm just listening to something, otherwise I get too antsy and impatient. Minesweeper was perfect for covering that base of giving me enough stimulus and things to click on while not being too distracting from whatever I want to listen to. To this day, I still bust it out for some very casual games whenever I've got something on in the background. I'm at 8384 games played, with a solid 22% winrate.
Placing this was pretty hard, since like most mental puzzles (such as Sudoku or even Picross), the novelty wears off at a certain point and you can't specifically recapture the magic of when you were "figuring out" the game. So ultimately I decided for the meme placement since it captures the "importance" of it in my life while not seeming too high. Not bad for a little game pre-bundled with Windows!

---

it's an underwater adventure ride

72. Crystalis (NES, 1990)

I think most folks of my age grew up falling in love with either the Legend of Zelda or Final Fantasy. Me? I had Crystalis, one of the first games that successfully combined open world exploration, a boatload of items and abilities, and an RPG-style leveling-up system and storyline. Crystalis has a similar kind of cadence to Final Fantasy IV, where story moments happen suddenly and dramatically. The whole set of psychic powers always seemed super rad to me as a kid, I still can't think of many games where Telekinesis is something learn. And as someone who has never loved RPGs particularly, having no turn-based battles was a plus. And hey, there's that absolute banger of an overworld theme, too. Somehow despite not being a fighting game fan I still managed to place two SNK games within three spots of this list; what an achievement!

71. StepMania (PC, 2001)

Honestly debated for quite a while whether this was enough of a "game" for the list, but as you can see, here it is. StepMania is a freeware PC Dance Dance Revolution simulator, and because it's so good, it is basically the only one you have heard about or ever will hear about. Since its release, it's been all over the place - the popular fan-game In The Groove uses StepMania as its engine, and was over arcades in the US in the mid/late-2000s. In addition, there's an absurd amount of original user-created content by this point, ranging all over the place in difficulty, length, and gimmickry.
StepMania was the stepping stone to get me from DDR to more complex hand-based rhythm games. I've never gotten bonkers good at it - I always preferred optimizing my timing to playing super dense or difficult charts - but I'm still "pretty alright". As stated earlier, the vast network of content means you can find something that will play to your interests, as long as the central conceit of a 4-button rhythm game is compelling enough.
I'm gonna spoil my own list here - DDR itself is on the list too, and there's a lot of stuff I'm kind of omitting here to save for that writeup. But StepMania itself has been a unique experience of enjoyment, and one that has largely stuck with me over the course of 20 years, and really deserved both recognition and a place in the Top 100.

---

it's an underwater adventure ride

74. Bust-A-Move (Arcade, 1994)

As someone who has never been particularly skilled or interested in fighting games, I find it interesting that competitive puzzle games, of all things, are what really seems to get my competitive juices flowing the most of any H2H gaming experience. Some people like stacking Tetris blocks forever, but I personally always end up falling for the puzzle games with a really juicy competitive back-and-forth. I even got into Puyo Puyo (or Kirby's Avalanche to be specfic) for a bit with a couple friends who were also learning the game and getting better against each other, despite not being super fond of that game in general.
Anyway, Bust-A-Move (or Puzzle Bobble in some versions) is a really cool puzzle game that involves lining up chains of same-colored bubbles to clear them off your screen (and potentially create garbage for your opponent). I've mostly played it on various Neo-Geo multiple-game arcade cabinets that definitely had some version of Metal Slug on them. It's a really fun twist to involve shot-selection and shot-making with the usual puzzle game franticness. That little extra bit of manual dexterity required makes it stand out, and also makes for hilarious moments when you inevitably blow a very important shot. I've got a couple more pure puzzle games ahead on this road, and this game is pretty much the posterchild for why those games are where they are.

73. Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin (DS, 2006)

By this point, we kind of knew what we were getting from the Castlevania series under IGA, both in terms of games of great quality but a lot of similar ideas. Portrait of Ruin is not particularly adventurous in any regard, in terms of story (basically some minor Belmont-adjacent characters) or gameplay (if you played Dawn or Aria of Sorrow, you know what kind of beats the game is going to hit). The two-character system is...fine, though not used in a ton of interesting ways, but gives you more character options to use and customize.
On the other hand, the minor adjustments are generally very good; the smaller areas within paintings help the game breath beyond just a huge castle, and give the game some new kinds of settings and enemy types. There's tons of extra content - an optional heavy-difficulty labyrinth, multiple alternate playable modes with max-level settings, and lots of secret areas/items/quests/other goodies.
It's tough to say what makes this one great other than iterating well on a tried-and-true formula and shifting gears just enough to separate itself, but I always have a good time replaying through this one; when I booted it up a year and a half ago I had like five or six separate completed save files already. Sometimes you just want a solid Metroidvania, and you could always do much much worse than Portrait of Ruin.

---

it's an underwater adventure ride

time to copy wigs' list and change things around just enough to avoid plagiarism...

76. Chip's Challenge (PC, 1990)

An extremely basic PC puzzle game from the early 90's, Chip's Challenge involves the titular character racing around mazes to collect the required number of computer chips in order to reach the exit. Some of the various obstacles you'll encounter are block puzzles, colored keys and doors, various footwear required to traverse fire/ice/etc., and enemies like fireballs and, uh, "teeth". It's fairly standard stuff, but the game does a really good job at keeping challenges fresh and not getting bogged down by samey-ness. (I liked Adventures of Lolo,but there are definitely times when that game got a little repetitive.) The colorful but simple visual style actually holds up really nicely, and it's one of the things that got me addicted to playing it in the late 90's. I'm not sure it entirely holds up to a #76 standard, but it's a neat game that is one of the first clever exploration/level-based puzzle games I ever got into. I think there's some pretty easily-accessible ways to get this game now; might be worth checking out if you can manage it!

75. Elite Beat Agents (DS, 2006)

Hmm, where have I seen this one before...? EBA isn't my favorite, nor the deepest, nor most replayable, rhythm game of all-time, and it's not particularly great by any of those standards. What it does have is oodles of charm and a strange-but-engaging premise, reminiscent of other story-based rhythm games like Parappa the Rapper.
Elite Beat Agents is a rhythm game with a plot, and that plot is quite silly: You play as a cheer squad service, tasked with raising the morale of various struggling strangers in desperate need of help. And of course, you do this by tapping and dragging your stylus along numbered buttons/paths in time with popular music. The core gameplay loop is very engaging, it's a smart use of the DS touch screen (there's a decent amount of this on my list, it seems), and the storyline is both largely humorous and unexpectedly touching. I had first played its Japanese predecessor, Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan!, which largely goes through the same story beats, but ended up loving the sequel more due to the English translation (with my lack of Japanese knowledge) giving the stories more emotional oomph.
I think the game's a little too thin and easy to ever go much higher than this, though. 19 songs is very small for a rhythm game songlist (especially by 2006) and the only difficulties really worth playing once you've gotten the core gameplay down are the two hardest, which are essentially the same. (The hardest has slightly smaller targets and flips the layout of the chart.) But it left quite an impression - enough to get a placement here.
Top 5 Songs: Canned Heat - Jumpin' Jack Flash - September - You're The Inspiration - The Anthem (for laughs)

---

it's an underwater adventure ride

played lolo for the first time at the end of 2020 and found it surprisingly enjoyable. it's not on my list but i should play its sequels sometime

---

it's an underwater adventure ride

78. Super Mario Bros. (NES, 1985)

At the outset of making this list, I had no intention of trying to reward games for being "important" or "influential". Somehow, this managed to sneak its way onto the list anyway, for two particular reasons. One, Mario platformers are one of my favorite all-time series, many of whom I have played and replayed and replayed again over the course of 30 years of gaming. In my mainline Mario game ranking this one is the big delineation point between the "good" and the "great" games, perhaps occupying a space on either side depending on what perspective I'm taking. There's a degree to which putting down the path for so many games (in and out of the series) that will be on this list later is of indisputable worth.
Second, just playing the hell out of Super Mario Bros. 35 for the month after its release went a long way toward increasing my fondness of the game and, most of all, its level design. Turns out the folks making the original Mario Bros. were very good at making smart platformer levels, and getting to know each of them a little more intimately than I had ever bothered to do before made them feel a lot better. Mario 1 also stands out especially well compared to its sequels, either American (SMB2/Doki Doki Panic) through its simplicity and ease of play, or Japanese (Lost Levels) because it doesn't overstep the difficulty to a frustrating place. It's a game that, despite controls a little tight by modern platformer and Mario-platformer standards, holds up well and is especially playable. And maybe there's a teeny bit of me that wanted to channel the spirit of "praise the important historical artifact" within this list.

77. Mario Tennis (N64, 2000)

Despite the name, what really made this game stand out is its quality as a really really good and simple tennis simulation. The Mario-based gimmicks are pretty much limited to the Bowser court, which has items and tilts and isn't very good, and if we're stretching, the degree to which characters like Boo and Shy Guy cause the ball to spin. Otherwise, it's just Tennis, baby! And it feels very satisfying. Controls amount to a couple of basic types of swings, and a couple of more complex inputs for lobs and drop shots, but you're basically just tasked with trying to position yourself and fake out your opponent. It's perfect! Later Mario Tennis games leaned into Marioified special moves and I wasn't interested in any of that. As someone who has played...enough real-life tennis, I just enjoyed the purest experience of that in game form, and of course it was Mario (or maybe more fairly, Camelot) that nailed it.

---

it's an underwater adventure ride

i agree with most of this tar15 take. its not a great season. did spare a pretty enjoyable team at the first leg non-elim though

---

it's an underwater adventure ride

80. Final Fantasy IV (SNES, 1991)

I have a confession to make: I've never beaten a single Final Fantasy game. In both this game and the one I have higher on this list, I made it to the final boss area and, through a combination of being underlevelled and impatient, couldn't get to the end credits. Generally, I'm not too fond of RPGs, and at a certain point near the end when the story has basically run its course, I lose interest in the purely mechanical race to the finish line. So, uh, why the heck do I have FF4 here, a by-the-book RPG if there ever was one?
For starters, the game's flow and pace is actually generally very good. Battles feel pretty quick and manageable, and when you encounter some of the tougher late-game boss encounters at just the right level, they're very satisfying. I remember taking on some of the late Four Fiends fights and losing several times before getting the flow just right, and they're some of the most satisfying RPG boss encounters I've ever had. The simplicity of the game's system - a rotating cast of characters of generally standard RPG classes with the spells and attacks you'd expect - and a fairly linear world map/story progression keep things moving along nicely.
More than anything though, I absolutely love the story, perhaps because I played it in the mid-00s among a swell in RPGs that had become significantly more complicated and convoluted. My best description of FF4's plot is that it plays out like an action movie, or a season of 24. Characters' motivations and plotlines come to a head quickly and explosively, and then you're quickly whisked off to the next point of drama. The heavier narrative threads of moral ambiguity and redemption are good too, but they are never weighing down the story to the detriment of the more fun stuff. There are a couple other Square RPGs quite a bit higher (including the aforementioned other FF game) but 4 will always have a particular place in my heart for just being so dang charming and great.
Top 5 characters: Rydia - Cid - Yang - Cecil - Tellah

79. The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures (GameCube, 2004)

Probably the unlikeliest Zelda game ever made, the component requirements to actually play the game in its best form (with four human players) most likely stopped a ton of people from ever getting to play it. And it's a shame, because if you could actually get a group of four players each equipped with a GBA and the GBA-to-GameCube link cable, you were in for a treat.
Four Swords Adventures is the spiritual successor of the similarly titled side-game Four Swords that was bundled with the GBA Link to the Past port a year earlier. It's fun but fairly short - you can get through the randomized missions to the end in about 30 minutes. FSA is a more comprehensive experience, both in following along a fully fleshed-out story, and in really doubling down on the competitive aspects as well. All players' current Force Gem (essentially Rupee-equivalents) counts, along with their place, are depicted on the screen, and a trophy is awarded at the end of each stage to the player who collected the most.
Playing the game solo is totally doable, and it's a fun if forgettable experience. But going through the campaign with three other friends was a blast, and our instinctive competitiveness made the whole endeavor so memorable. In one stage, players are navigating a mysterious village to uncover paths and power-ups to get to the end. I remember while being stuck and figuring out where to go, we also were busy trying to snipe each other with bombs to steal each others' force gems. In another level where players have to dodge searchlights while swimming through a castle moat, we kept intentionally getting caught to try to grab more gems. It's the kind of experience that no other Zelda game, and very few cooperative games, really can pull off successfully. And for neither the first or last time on this list, I'm giving a unique multiplayer experience extra points for simply being so memorable.

---

it's an underwater adventure ride

First-fifth Round-up:
100. WarioWare: Smooth Moves (Wii, 2007)
99. Unreal Tournament (PC, 1999)
98. Pikmin 2 (GameCube, 2004)
97. Crypt of the Necrodancer (PC, 2015)
96. Kirby & the Amazing Mirror (GBA, 2004)
95. Final Fantasy Tactics (PS1, 1998)
94. Time Crisis II (Arcade, 1998)
93. Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow (GBA, 2003)
92. DJ Max Portable (PSP, 2006)
91. Zany Golf (PC, 1988)
90. Super Mario Maker 2 (Switch, 2019)
89. Contra 4 (DS, 2007)
88. Mega Man 5 (NES, 1992)
87. Super Castlevania IV (SNES, 1991)
86. The Oregon Trail (PC, 1993)
85. TimeSplitters 2 (Multiplatform, 2002)
84. Fat Princess (PS3, 2009)
83. Hotel Dusk: Room 215 (DS, 2007)
82. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 (Multiplatform, 2000)
81. Pokmon Go (Mobile, 2016)

-Breakdown by Decade-
1980s: 1
1990s: 6
2000s: 10
2010s: 3

---

it's an underwater adventure ride

82. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 (Multiplatform, 2000)

One of the best versions of the series that upon its release permanently became synonymous with skateboarding video games. On a run at the most recent GDQ, a runner commented that THPS games are basically platformers, and I couldn't disagree with that argument - they're mostly about precise jumps and a ton of movement options - and it's a big part of why the games are so satisfying and addictive. THPS2 has a distinctive and memorable licensed soundtrack, some of the series' best levels, and lots of good multiplayer modes and options to boot.
Like Mega Man or Mario Party, THPS's second installment takes the original's good concepts and makes them better, while adding features that were missing to create their definitive installment. And while some THPS sequels were similarly excellent (and regarded by some as superior) the amount of time I put into THPS2 puts it a cut above the rest.

81. Pokmon Go (Mobile, 2016)

In the summer of 2016, Pokmon Go arrived and took quite literally the whole world by storm. For a few weeks, you couldn't go anywhere without finding someone walking to catch Pokmon or reclaim a gym. That experience alone was totally unique, and pretty fun, but with a game that was full of bugs and fairly lacking on content or depth, a lot of folks lost interest pretty fast and it faded away.
Well, not exactly. Pokmon Go undoubtedly had growing pains in its now nearly five years (!) of development, but it's advanced into a pretty thoroughly engrossing game now - with online trading and competitive battling, multiplayer legendary boss battles, and even live paid events to obtain rare Pokmon and items. On its own merits it's a neat game, but I really have never been so enamored with it to place it among my favorite games. However, as a social gaming/real-life-crossover (?) experience, it goes beyond anything I've probably ever played. At the insistence of a real-life friend, I picked up the game back in 2018 for a while and found myself making new friends for raid meetups, spending hours walking through parks to catch Pokmon, and standing in freezing-cold rain to follow a raid train to several locations. (Okay, I had an umbrella.)
It's almost impossible to quantify where that stands among largely more traditional single- or multiplayer-game experiences, so I'm throwing it into the X1 - "I want this on the list, but I don't know where the hell to put it" - space of honor. 71 is gonna be another similarly weird one, hooray!

---

it's an underwater adventure ride

84. Fat Princess (PS3, 2009)

I think this might be the only MOBA game I've ever played, which says a lot about both me and MOBA games, quite frankly. For a couple months in 2009/10, my friend (who owned the PS3) and I played the snot out of this game, getting pretty damn great at it. The lighthearted aesthetic and the ease of play hide a decent amount of depth and skill, but also keep it from being as exhaustingly sweaty as most popular multiplayer online games. There was a neat mechanic where you could actively switch to the losing team if there was an imbalance in teams, and I found that once I got pretty good I could jump over to the bad side and still be competitive.
Unfortunately all good things have to end - I think there were a few good updates but after we stopped playing it felt like this one pretty much dropped off the map. There's another game up on this list that is another strong example of a popular online game genre getting a cute theme and a lot of lighthearted charm that is a good 2021 counterpart to Fat Princess, so I'll save the rest of those kinds of comments for then.

83. Hotel Dusk: Room 215 (DS, 2007)

Hotel Dusk is a really neat game from a time when it seems like developers were finally figuring out exactly how to best utilize the DS. A game where you spend the whole experience by holding the system sideways, like a book, telling a noir story with black-and-white hand drawn characters is very novel and gimmicky, but absolutely works here to perfection. Each of the game's chapters sees the main protagonist reveal more about his past while uncovering the truth about one of the many colorful characters in the Hotel on a very long evening - the gruff hotel manager, the lazy screw-up busboy, a popular writer, a mysterious one-eyed woman with a rad eyepatch, etc.
Its storytelling is lovely even if the gameplay is sometimes a bit too obtuse and clunky (I think there was a puzzle or two where I looked up the solution or at least some sort of hint) but the overall pay-off is worth it. It's hard for me to feel SO strongly to place this much higher, but it's a must-play for anyone who owns a DS and really exemplifies the kind of original content that console had to offer.

---

it's an underwater adventure ride

what is..."wii u"?

---

it's an underwater adventure ride

86. The Oregon Trail (PC, 1993)

Is this too high on my list? Probably! It's the most renowned educational game of all time. The Oregon Trail smartly combines elements of action, long-term planning, decision-making, and resource management into a weird pseudo-simulation of 19th century wagon travel and adventure. The game stands out for me for two reasons; first, the game has a surprisingly effective use of narrative. You name your travelling party at the start; random encounters, events and illnesses shake up the core experience; and if/when you die you're even tasked with writing an epitaph for your character that sits on the trail for any future playthroughs. Each game takes on its own cadence - it's not exactly a roguelike or anything, but it's narratively memorable and a step up from both its educational and "standard" video game contemporaries.
And secondly, it's a solid high score game! In eighth grade, my homeroom had a handful of old Mac computers and I got into replaying this every day for a while. Once I was able to consistently finish the trail, I tried playing with harder and harder professions (less money, higher score multiplier) until I had a formula for crushing the top of the game's high score charts. And ultimately the whole experience was memorable and enjoyable enough that it snuck into my favorite games of all-time.

85. TimeSplitters 2 (Multiplatform, 2002)

It's the Saints Row of console FPS games. In an era when Halo ushered in a wave of tight and serious FPS entries, TimeSplitters 2 is light, silly, and arcadey as hell. With a multiplayer mode full of tons of different characters, game modes, and customization options, TS2 felt completely at home on GameCube, alongside other party hits like Smash Bros. And I had a complete blast in multiplayer sessions with this - like i said with Unreal Tournament, the arcade style of the game is such that you aren't spending too long after a death trying to get new weapons and kills and such again; it works exceptionally well for a casual player who has far less experience.
I don't really have any fondness for the game's ugly and dated character models and visual style, but I still love FPS games that have such a high pick-up-and-play quality to them and miss that era of my life when I would casually devote hours and days to those sessions with friends.

---

it's an underwater adventure ride

88. Mega Man 5 (NES, 1992)

I think it's a testament to how many of these suckers Capcom churned out in quick succession that I'm taken aback that MM5 didn't come out until after the SNES era had already gotten started. Like every other NES Mega Man game, you pick stages one at a time from a list of 8 Robot bosses, and once clearing those fight off a gauntlet of stages leading to Wily itself. What impresses me about 5, though, is how much the level design diverges from the rest of the series up to that point - games had largely been iterating on the designs of Mega Man 1 and 2 ad nauseam. 5 has a stage built on a moving train, another with a sidescrolling jet-ski course, and one where the whole gimmick involves switches in gravity. The cleverness and originality of the main levels, along with the series' first set of collectibles (grabbing a hidden letter in each stage unlocks a secret weapon), helps the whole experience feel renewed, despite its obvious structural similarities. As someone who played through the series (mostly) sequentially on the Mega Man Anniversary Collection in the mid-00s, I was pleasantly surprised by 5 when it rolled along, enough that it snuck to my all-time favorites.

87. Super Castlevania IV (SNES, 1991)

Speaking of the SNES era, here's one of its earliest releases - out before the aforementioned MM5. I don't have nearly the experience with the level-based Castlevanias versus the IGA Metroidlikes of more recent times, and was pretty excited to dive into this one when I picked it up in the mid/late-00s, after having tackled most of the big Metroidvania titles. And while Castlevania IV is obviously not as deep or as long of a game, it still feels fairly modern - movement is fluid and the Vampire Killer has a lot of mobility and flexibility. Game difficulty can be harsh but in most cases enemy patterns and weaknesses can be fairly learned, outside of maybe some of the more obnoxious end game bosses. Plus, the game has some killer uses of the SNES's famous Mode 7 scrolling, with rotating rooms, spinning tunnel corridors, and swinging chandeliers; it's a shame that the game's more interesting and novel uses are stacked at the beginning half.
Like I said with Contra 4, sometimes a simple and straightforward action game just really hits the right spot. There are many Metroidvanias to come here, but I wanted to celebrate this gem as well.

---

it's an underwater adventure ride

egg emergency the actual top tier game

pokemon stadium games were fun but largely forgettable, my favorite thing about them was unlocking 3x speed in the game boy emulator and thats not even really the game itself

---

it's an underwater adventure ride

90. Super Mario Maker 2 (Switch, 2019)

You all know what this is, so I'll skip the cursory summary. Mario Maker, in general, is such an awesome tool and such a home-run concept that I'm still kind of shocked it ever got made. Mario Maker 2 ups the ante on the creative potential, adding a bunch of new enemies, power-ups, and themes to the mix. Additionally, there's competitive or co-op multiplayer, and a full-on story mode which showcases a lot of novel design ideas.
So, uh...my big problem with Mario Maker in general? I don't exactly know what the hell to do with it. Generally, I gravitate toward games with lots of specific goals to mark your progress, which (story mode aside) is so not what SMM is. I'm not an overflowing-creativity type - I'm much more inclined to just play rhythm games rather than try to design charts for them, for example. The abundance of online content makes it hard to consistently find good content, or at least consistently find the kind of content I want to play. And the very poor Nintendo online makes multiplayer much less compelling than its potential. My fondness of Mario platformers and my love of what Mario Maker can be at its best gets it a mention on the list. But I'm not convinced it'll every really be a game for me.

89. Contra 4 (DS, 2007)

Contra 4 is a straight-up old-school action game, basically ripped from the NES era, minimal lives + continues and all. The game does a good job at giving you options to work with - there's several difficulties and challenges included - but eventually you're still just going to be tasked with conquering the steep difficulty curve of the game itself. The game is just so damn fun, though - difficulty is very punishing but absolutely fair, and designed that you can absolutely learn from every mistake in future playthroughs. And the action is consistent and flows fantastically well, its always up with the best moments from the rest of the original Contra trilogy. My only minor complaint is really mired in the structure of the DS itself: Action happens on both screens, so sometimes bullets can get lost visually in the gap between them. And honestly? That's all I really have to complain about. I got my ass kicked repeatedly and still ended up loving this gem. With the rise of indie games we (fortunately) have a whole lot of creative and stellar 2D action games once again. But in 2007, when so many franchises were bringing 3D to their DS offerings, Contra 4 was just a straight up throwback, and it was absolutely perfect.

---

it's an underwater adventure ride

awful? or amazing?
i'll let you decide

---

it's an underwater adventure ride

92. DJ Max Portable (PSP, 2006)

One of the most addictive and enjoyable handheld rhythm games in what was frankly a pretty dang good era for handheld rhythm games. Shamelessly lifting most of its design aesthetic from the beatmania IIDX games, DJ Max feels much like the Pump it Up to IIDX's DDR (along with the obvious Korean-Japanese comparisons to boot). That said, it's an excellent game with lots of standout tracks, and absolutely stands out on its own merits. There are a lot of different modes (I think 4,5,6, and 8 buttons are all supported on this version) but 6-button is the best and feels like the truest incarnation of the game's formula. Timing windows are generous, but having to play the entire game on a handheld with button controls probably demands a healthy bit of leeway. Interestingly enough, I never actually owned this game (despite playing a whole bunch back in the 06/07 range) and so I can't speak to its DLC and sequels, but they did do a PS4 version a few years back that was killer and had a bunch of the "classic" tracks from this version.
All in all, an excellent start to a great and still ongoing series. Can't recommend them highly enough.

91. Zany Golf (PC, 1988)

Undoubtedly the weirdest pick on my entire list. Zany Golf is a cute and creative miniature-golf simulator with only 9 holes. The game gives you a set number of strokes to complete each hole, carrying any leftovers with you as you advance, making finishing the whole course a reasonable challenge. The game is still visually appealing, in a classic SimCity 2000/Roller Coaster Tycoon isometric-pixel-art kinda way. And there's a lot of really neat mechanics, too, with a hamburger that jumps over the hole the more you click it, and "magic carpets" that you can use your mouse on to control your ball's movement.
The real reason this is on the list is its place in my childhood as one of my first video game triumphs. Back in elementary school, my gifted class teacher pulled this out as a cute way to teach us some basic physics/geometry (I guess???) and its inherent difficulty took on a legendary status among my classmates. After many attempts (and failures) I managed to bring a run to the final hole and beat it on my last (or next-to-last, whatever) stroke.
There are a lot of technically better games below this one, but I wanted to give a shout-out to a classic bit of 80's MS-DOS game design that I have nothing but the fondest memories of.

---

it's an underwater adventure ride

94. Time Crisis II (Arcade, 1998)

Light gun games are typically some of the most b.s. of 90's arcade fare - quarter munchers that required significant memorization and ridiculous reaction times to get past large chunks of the game. Enter the Time Crisis series, using a foot pedal as its key non-shooting mechanic to dodge attacks and hazards appearing on the screen. Time Crisis 2 is my favorite; it moves along at a rapid pace, full of ridiculous action set-pieces (including the above boss who swings a giant missile at you as his main attack), and lacks some of the unnecessary complexity of its sequels. It's light-hearted fun and significantly fairer than other game series, and still stands out as one of the most appealing and high-quality arcade shooters of all time.

93. Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow (GBA, 2003)

The third and undoubtedly most-beloved of the three GBA Metroidvanias, Aria of Sorrow has a lot going for it: a surprisingly engaging storyline with multiple endings, a fun cast of characters, and super-tight controls and movement. Despite its game size and length, it's the first Castlevania handheld game to really stand up to Symphony of the Night in terms of control fluidity and game mechanics. Its signature mechanic, the Soul system, allows the player to acquire special abilities from every unique enemy in the game, ranging from special attacks to permanent stat boosts to effects that progress the story farther. It's great and simple, so much that it was reused in the game's direct sequel and also in a similar capacity in IGA's Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night.
Aria of Sorrow is super fast and breezy - the game can be beaten pretty comfortably in under 10 hours in a first playthrough and in a few once you know what you're doing. And perhaps that's also one of its biggest weaknesses - the game is significantly easier than most of its predecessors and its castle is one of the smallest of the Metroidvania titles. But it's very fun and charming, and the Soul system ensures that replays still feel fresh and different. There are more of these to come in the list, and Aria is certainly a strong game, just one without some of the depth and detail of other series greats.

---

it's an underwater adventure ride

96. Kirby & the Amazing Mirror (GBA, 2004)

The Kirby series feels like it can often be a well of untapped and unreached potential. Spin-offs like Air Ride that never got fully fleshed-out, 3D platformers like Kirby 64 that never got a proper sequel, or gimmicky platformers like Canvas Curse that only touched the surface of their novel concept - all these are abundant in the series' history. Kirby and the Amazing Mirror lands, perhaps barely, above these to make a complete and satisfying experience.
You've got typical Kirby gameplay - travel across some levels, swallow enemies, collect powers, and defeat bosses. The game's gimmick is that the entire world is an interconnected map, la Super Star's Great Cave Offensive, but much larger and less linear. Because the only thing gating your access to any portion of the game is having the right power, which can be found across the whole map, you can basically go anywhere and do any boss in any order. This works well, giving the user a lot of control over their experience, but also leaves the whole thing feeling somewhat unfocused. Additionally, across the map are unlockable Kirby colors, sound test records, and permanent health upgrades, so at least if you've run into a dead end there is something to find. On the other hand, there's still the feeling that a more focused Metroidvania Kirby experience, with more thorough gating and progression, and more comprehensive powers, could be the top-tier Kirby game that the series has been missing for quite a while.

95. Final Fantasy Tactics (PS1, 1998)

This is probably the highest-quality game in the bottom, say, 25% of my list. Final Fantasy Tactics was a huge turning point in the popularity and design of console strategy RPGs. It's immensely replayable, rewards players for both their time and skill, and has one of the best plots in the series - a somewhat overwrought but satisfying story of political intrigue that despite some awkward translation holds up super well.
But alas, I've never beaten this game...I made it to chapter 3 and was getting destroyed too much to make it farther. And the prospect of building up job skills through a bunch of classes to properly round out my team seemed daunting and exhausting. The game's great, and I am very not great at it. It deserves recognition for its quality, but also seemed hard to toss any higher due to my own lack of expertise.

---

it's an underwater adventure ride

98. Pikmin 2 (GameCube, 2004)

Probably the hardest and most complex game in Nintendo's weird and delightful RTS/gardening simulator-mashup series. Each of the three main games has its own series of strengths and weaknesses - Pikmin 2 is the least urgent due to having no time limit of days, and the storyline is collecting trinkets like batteries and shoe polish to pay off your company's debt. New mechanics are a bit hit-or-miss as well; the new Pikmin types are wildly imbalanced (Purple are great! White are not!) and switching captains is not nearly as fleshed out or useful as in Pikmin 3.
Still, when the game is on-point, it's outstanding. The game's dungeons are diverse and challenging - and provide a mechanic unique to Pikmin 2 alone. And some of the bosses are terrifying and unforgettable - the steamrolling Waterwraith and the disgusting Empress Bulblax are right among the best in the series.
I guess it's my own lack of recency and experience in playing this one that (spoilers) puts it bottom among the trilogy for me. And hey, there's a GDQ run in like 3 hours if anyone's interested in revisiting it!

97. Crypt of the Necrodancer (PC, 2015)

Man, where the hell do I put this game? A rhythm-based roguelike that was so successful it attracted Nintendo's attention and got them to license Zelda onto it. And as a rhythm game veteran, this should be a home run for me, right? Well, uh, not quite. First things first, I am absolutely awful at this game. I've managed to get through (most) of the main levels, but I generally run into problems by being obsessively on-beat to the point of getting myself caught in bad situations far too often and not being willing to break combo to get out. And hey, the game's so easy to restart that dying over and over isn't too brutal. But there's a limit to my...interest in just losing a whole bunch, and occasionally getting through? There are undoubtedly skill levels that change the experience drastically, and I'm not sure if I'm ever compelled (or good enough) to reach that, just to make the game as enjoyable as I want it to be.
But...it's such a cool concept, with a really charming artstyle, and great music, that I still wanted to give it a spot here on the list. And there's always the potential that some time I pick this up again it all clicks and it rises like 50 spots.

---

it's an underwater adventure ride

100. WarioWare: Smooth Moves (Wii, 2007)

Smooth Moves is an excellent marriage of game series and console - the WarioWare series has always lent itself to gimmicks and quirks, and here's the quirkiest, most gimmicky console of all! WWSM also features perhaps the silliest example of the series' offbeat humor, introducing each new method of holding the Wiimote (er, the "Form Baton") through a brief, zen-like soliloquy describing the control scheme with a colorful one-liner. Because of this, I have a pretty distinct memory of my first playthrough, which happened with a small group of friends taking turns playing the different characters' story missions. The game's multiplayer content is solid as well, but inexplicably locked behind the entire single-player story. Smooth Moves maybe doesn't have quite as much depth or content as its predecessors, but it's so memorable and one of a handful of games to really squeeze a lot of fun and different ideas from the Wii's motion controls. And hey, I'm just an absolute sucker for this series as a whole.

99. Unreal Tournament (PC, 1999)

In my mind, this is the quintessential arcade-style FPS. Loaded with maps and tons of customizable features (both developer- and user-created), UT was one of the big standouts at the start of an era overrun with a deluge of multiplayer FPS titles. Since I have never been much of a PC gamer, most of my experience came playing my brother's copy, and only occasionally online. (Hey, it was the early 2000s...)
FPS games aren't my thing, but the fast pace of this one just works. I find that getting frustrated over significant differences in skill lessens a lot when you can just jump back into the action right away. There's a reason UT was immediately successful and is considered a classic, and I had too many good times with this not to fit it onto my list.

---

it's an underwater adventure ride

there is a lot of PAINFUL and genuinely inexcusable backtracking in ttyd, but it's such an extraordinarily fun game to play through that you can forgive its shortcomings.

that doesn't stop them from being totally valid in an argument for why it's the inferior game to the original, though!

---

it's an underwater adventure ride

final honours!

HM07: jubeat [series] (Arcade, 2008-present)
I'm going to have a lot of rhythm games on the list, and in nearly all of the cases, trying to rate individual entries, especially in arcade releases where there are constant updates, is not in any way worth the effort. So, in those instances, I'm throwing the [series] tag on and lumping everything together.
Anyway, jubeat is one of the more popular modern Japanese rhythm games, featuring a 4x4 grid of large square buttons, each overlaid atop a small display. When the button lights up, you press it, and that's it, that's the game. On one hand, its simplicity allows it to be very accessible - it's always one of the most popular games at the conventions and events I've been to, despite having a plethora of cabinets. And that simplicity hides a hell of a lot of depth, because the difficult charts (Level 9 and 10) require a lot of technical precision; figuring out how to place your hands to hit awkward patterns of 4+ buttons quickly and in time takes a lot of effort.
It's a great game, but I have less fondness and/or history with it than the other rhythm games on the list, and there are already going to be enough of those as-is.

HM08: Meteos (DS, 2005)
Honestly, I really wanted to put this on the list. Outside of one specific puzzle game that's going to show up very high, this might be my favorite puzzle game that I've ever played. It's clever and weird but still fairly intuitive and uses visual and sound design shockingly well for what was...basically a DS launch title.
Unfortunately, I haven't played this in over 10 years. I plowed through it for a while in my random DS games playthrough topic on this board back in like 2008, and somehow it stopped working for the flash card I had played it on, so I mostly forget how the hell it works and what gameplay was really like enough to place it on the list proper.

---

it's an underwater adventure ride

I find it interesting that your take of the "definitive" Metroid game is the one that (maybe aside from Other M) takes liberties with the Metroidvania formula the most!

---

it's an underwater adventure ride

i do not like ants, in any capacity

---

it's an underwater adventure ride

HM05: SimTower (PC, 1994)
Despite being almost certainly the inferior counterpart to SimCity 2000, SimTower won me over by being the more micro-level Maxis urban simulation game of the 90's. I spent more time than I'm willing to admit naming individual sims and following them around their day(s) in the tower.
On the other hand, the game is pretty shallow and fairly limited in the amount of things you can tinker with - there's a lot of different restaurant and retail shop types, but they all function basically the same, and the bulk of your gameplay time is going to be spent on managing elevator traffic and making sure you have enough housekeeping staff. Still, it's a very charming game and emblematic of Maxis' creativity in their many 90's hits.

HM06: Kirby Air Ride (GameCube, 2003)
Two mediocre racing games in one! Kirby Air Ride features a unique control system where you're always accelerating forward and have to hold A to stop. "Top Ride" is, fittingly, frozen in a top-down view with more simplistic courses and graphics. They're both...totally fine, but the real reason Kirby Air Ride is so good and memorable is the City Trial mode - an open map scramble to collect power-ups and find good (perhaps Legendary!) vehicles before a single challenge, such as a race, a long jump, or a demolition derby. Despite the limitations of this mode (there's only one City map, and there's no way to do multiple challenges after the power-up gathering) it's by far the best thing the game has going for it. If they ever made a sequel (Whatever happened to all the Kirby spin-offs we used to get? Why does Mario have a monopoly on fun spin-offs nowadays??) it could be genuinely incredible. Sadly, that ship has probably long since sailed.

---

it's an underwater adventure ride