Lurker > TheKnightOfNee

sign me up for another season

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ONLY FIVE CAN LADDER.
Sushi, kamikaze, fujiyama, nippon-ichi...

wigsio did do a good work

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ONLY FIVE CAN LADDER.
Sushi, kamikaze, fujiyama, nippon-ichi...

I'll give another since lists are still going

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ONLY FIVE CAN LADDER.
Sushi, kamikaze, fujiyama, nippon-ichi...

still looks like it's lasting

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ONLY FIVE CAN LADDER.
Sushi, kamikaze, fujiyama, nippon-ichi...

And that leaves me with just 10 games to go! Quick recap post! What will the remaining 10 be?!

100. Ninja Gaiden
99. Dragon Ball FighterZ
98. Outland
97. Out of the Park Baseball 21
96. The Binding of Isaac
95. Kirby's Dream Land 3
94. RollerCoaster Tycoon
93. Shadows of the Damned
92. The King of Fighters XIII
91. Strider (2014)
90. Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons
89. Kamui
88. Gain Ground
87. Resident Evil (2002 REmake)
86. Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3
85. Solstice
84. Raiden (series)
83. Ori and the Blind Forest
82. Ogre Battle 64
81. Mega Man Legends

80. Rez
79. Punch-Out!!
78. G-Darius
77. Pop'n Music (series)
76. Shovel Knight
75. Thunder Force V
74. Final Fantasy Tactics
73. Under Night In-Birth Exe: Late
72. VA-11 Hall-A
71. Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors
70. Spelunky 2
69. The Legend of Zelda
68. Brave Fencer Musashi
67. Lumines
66. Final Fantasy VII
65. Metroid Fusion
64. The Witness
63. Street Fighter V
62. Hotline Miami
61. Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse

60. F-Zero GX
59. Undertale
58. Everybody's Golf
57. Tecmo Super Bowl
56. Donkey Kong (1994)
55. Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island
54. Mega Man X
53. Super Smash Bros. Melee
52. The World Ends With You
51. Metroid Prime
50. Windjammers
49. VVVVVV
48. Samurai Shodown (2019)
47. Groove Coaster
46. Space Invaders Extreme
45. Shinobi 3
44. Mega Man 3
43. Mega Man X4
42. Street Fighter 2
41. Deadly Premonition

40. Cave Story
39. Bioshock
38. We Love Katamari
37. Chrono Trigger
36. Street Fighter 3: Third Strike
35. Silent Hill 2
34. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
33. Steins;Gate
32. Wild Arms 3
31. Dragon Quest V
30. The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening
29. Sleeping Dogs
28. Dance Dance Revolution (series)
27. Cuphead
26. Ys 1
25. La-Mulana
24. Final Fantasy V
23. Guilty Gear Xrd
22. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
21. Elevator Action Returns

20. Silent Hill
19. Eastside Hockey Manager
18. Super Castlevania IV
17. Lunar 2: Eternal Blue
16. Mega Man 9
15. Persona 4 Arena
14. La-Mulana 2
13. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
12. Mother 3
11. Super Mario RPG

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ONLY FIVE CAN LADDER.
Sushi, kamikaze, fujiyama, nippon-ichi...

#11. Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars (SNES, 1996)



The first RPG I ever played was Dragon Warrior on the NES. It was kind of fun at the time, but then I went back years later, and it definitely felt dated, even though I had no other RPG experience to compare it to. The second RPG I played was Final Fantasy Legend 2, which I borrowed from someone for a bit. That didn't exactly feel groundbreaking either. When Mario RPG came out, I put it on my birthday list, but very apprehensively. It was a Mario game, so I surely needed to give it a try, because every Mario game had been great. It also had those cool 3D-ish graphics that Donkey Kong Country used. But it seemed darker in tone, especially on the boxart. And I think I liked RPGs, but I wasn't sure how much I really did?

Super Mario RPG ends up merging that colorful, exciting, fun adventure feel of Super Mario games with an interesting story, world, and battle system that you would hope to find in an RPG. Area maps are more than just wandering until you find battles, as some try to straight up mimic Mario levels. They have enemies to avoid, hidden treasures in the air, moving blocks to jump on, and pipes to go down. Battles opted for a selection of A/B/X/Y options that are clearly visible, instead of bogging down fights in menus. They also have timed hits, which make every battle interesting to some degree. I also like that weapons all have different animations and timings, and spells have different inputs even (rotating d pad, holding a button, etc.).

Mario RPG also has loads of mini-games and side events to keep things fresh. Music composing, barrel jumping, paratroopa climbing, mine cart riding, Yoshi racing, ghost flag hunting, statue polishing, wedding accessory gathering, a casino; There are loads of things to do, and many of the dungeons have interesting ways to go about them and make each one special from the rest.

Many classic Mario characters and enemies appear, some fleshed out way more than ever before. Bowser is an especially big one, as he grapples with wanting to hate Mario, but needing to work towards a common cause. Toad and Princess Peach fit right in to what you'd expect, but also add more to those characters.

But Mario RPG also has a whole cast of new characters, and they felt very memorable to me. Geno was obviously a huge new one that stuck with a lot of people, as his high demand to appear in Smash Bros would indicate. I thought he had super cool style as a kid, and liked how they explained him coming in as an outsider to the Mario world. Mallow's a little goofy but fun. Croco and Johnny and Valentina and the Axem Rangers and others all make for really interesting villains along the way. Mario also uses its wide variety of designs to help make NPCs unique and memorable, and less about just filling in info for the character. Like the trio of Snifits could be anything, but being Snifits helps make them so memorable. Oh, and then there's Booster

Humor and charm is another area Mario RPG shines. There's lots of sarcasm and off-hand comments. Some fun things include Frogfucious using a lakitu to appear as if he flies, Mario's weird acting segments, the strange folks in Seaside Town, Garro's statue description, the dreams from the Dream Cushion, the Star Hill wishes, and going into debt at the Marrymore suite. Booster's Tower and the Snifits is a huge source of fun moments, with the curtain game playing so well. The wedding/cake segment might be tops though. It's just like a rapidfire series of wacky moments. The thought of boiling a cake or eating it whole is still funny to me.

Mario RPG is also not a long RPG, but it does a lot of things. It fit well in that measurement of pacing that I've described in other writeups, if it can be measured. When I was younger, I could beat the game from start to finish over a weekend. I love how quick I can get from fun moment to fun moment.

Also, much like with Zelda: Link to the Past, I spent a bunch of my free time making a whole personal strategy guide for this game. I drew maps (which was a bit of work, being isometric view) for the whole game, tried to include every secret (though I know I was unaware of the casino entrance at the time), wrote up step-by-step instructions, and enemy names with best guesses at HP. I was pretty into this game too. I've tried some other Mario RPG games since this, and none of them close to capturing all the high feelings I got here. Maybe in some ways, but it's hard to check all the boxes and do it as successfully as Super Mario RPG did.

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ONLY FIVE CAN LADDER.
Sushi, kamikaze, fujiyama, nippon-ichi...

#12. Mother 3 (GBA, 2006)



Like many other people, I didn't play Earthbound when it first came out, but many years later. I finally played it around 2005-ish. I appreciated the humor, the quirks, the music, and many big chunks of it, but overall, Earthbound was... decent. The pacing of the game was all over, with some segments way longer than needed, and some stretches not so fun.

When I heard about Mother 3, I was a little interested to at least try it and see if it was better than the previous game. And then there was the eternal wait. Finally, the fan translation happened. I was familiar with fan translations from a few games, like Cave Story and La-Mulana, which appeared earlier on my list. Reading the updates from the people working on the translation actually made me a lot more excited for this game, so I ended up playing it from day 1 of that patch.

Mother 3 is broken into chapters, which I think really helped the pacing feel for how they wanted to tell the story. The first few chapters all focus on different characters, as sort of a prologue to the main adventure, and allow time to lay several different strands of story. The first chapter comes in strong with all the goofy and weird things you'd expect, but then it just hits with such a blast of emotion too. It really sets the tone for how this game wants to be goofier, but also tell a very touching and engaging story. The later chapters pull together to one larger story involving all the characters. There are also ties to Earthbound that happen later on, so it really helped that I had played that before to fully appreciate what was happening here.

For the battle system, Mother 3 brought back the best thing about Earthbound, the rolling HP counter, but also added a fantastic new feature. You can tap along with the rhythm of the battle song to turn a single attack into a combo, up to as many as 16 hits. Some battles have a simple beat and let you rack up the hits, but boss battles can pull out all the stops weird syncopation, odd time signatures or changing tempos. As someone who played tons of rhythm games and loves that genre, the merge here was entirely up my alley. Trying to score 16 combos in every battle, or even in every attack was exciting, along with listening to the variety of songs and styles, which Mother 3 certainly has plenty of.

I loved Mother 3 so much that I went and bought a copy of the strategy guide that Fangamer put out (Pork Army Survival Manual), even though I didn't really need it after playing the game. I just wanted more of this game, and it was a fun book that was a great companion to go with the game experience.



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ONLY FIVE CAN LADDER.
Sushi, kamikaze, fujiyama, nippon-ichi...

#13. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (SNES, 1992)



This was the first Zelda game I played, and this has always felt like what Zelda should be. I missed out on the NES games when they were still new, but when I got my SNES, it was the Link to the Past bundle. I wasn't overly excited for this game or anything, but it was the included game with my new system, so of course I played it.

So, LTTP came with this Top Secrets guide in the box, and it gave various hints about dungeons in the game. It was probably a great idea, because there are a lot of places kids probably would get stuck in this game. Anyways, I was at school, telling kids I had this game now, and some kid told me it was a hard game or something, and I said, It's okay, the game came with this page of hints to help me through the tough puzzles. And then one of my friends said, Oh that thing? I just threw that away. I didn't need it. So when I got home, I threw the Top Secrets hint page away, because I was gonna get through the game without it too!

I probably could've used those hints, because I know it took me quite a while to get through the game. I think I ended up asking other kids for hints anyways down the line. I also drew up maps of dungeons with notes for treasures. But maybe all this extra struggling immersed me more in the Zelda experience, and is why I have such fond memories for the game.

Once I was able to beat Link to the Past, I ended up playing through it a lot. It has a lot of common elements with games I really like: It's well paced from start to finish; There are quick movement options, from the pegasus boots to the whirlpools to the flute; There are secrets to be found everywhere to reward exploring, some with important items, some with helpful items, and some with just unique characters or experiences. Also, the game still holds challenge even when you know what you're doing. Mothula is a special kind of jerk, for example. The game can be played trying to collect everything, trying for as little as possible, trying to take some weird out of order route, whatever. It's a game you can play in numerous ways to get many experiences out of just one product.

One summer, being really into some strategy guides I had received for games, I decided to make my own strategy guides for a couple games, which included Link to the Past. I drew maps of the overworld, the dungeons, labeled all the treasures and secrets, wrote step by step instructions for each area, made boss strategies. It was a pretty detailed project. It's long since gone now, but for the years I did have it, I was pretty proud of my work.

After Ocarina of Time, I had played the five main Zelda games up to that point. Even though OoT borrowed a lot of its structure and flow from LTTP, it just felt less fun in a lot of ways, and I didn't feel like 3D was the direction I wanted Zelda to go. I ended up not playing a single new Zelda game until A Link Between Worlds came out. The strong relation to LTTP was what finally got me to give the series another go. It was a fun game with a lot of nostalgia for LTTP, but once again, I found it hard not to compare and consider how much more I liked LTTP than the other game. And I'm okay with this. I've come back to the SNES classic a hundred times, and have always found enjoyment here, and probably always will.



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ONLY FIVE CAN LADDER.
Sushi, kamikaze, fujiyama, nippon-ichi...

#14. La-Mulana 2 (PC, 2018)





I have kickstarted two games in my life. One was Mighty No. 9. Following the great success of the Mega Man's revival in Mega Man 9, I was eager to make that happen again. And then, uh, well, see... yeah, let's move on. The other kickstarter was for La-Mulana 2. I've also mentioned before how much I enjoyed La-Mulana, and knowing that it came from just a group of three guys, I was excited to help make it happen again. Or even, to get a game anywhere close to La-Mulana.

See, La-Mulana felt like a world crafted with such painstaking care to arrange it properly and make it cryptic enough to be hard, but still possible, I doubted they could actually hit that again. I had concerns that La-Mulana 2 would end up being too cryptic, or that hints might be too obvious and thus too easy, or that the world just might not connect up at all. There was also a long long wait from when I donated to kickstarter, and when La-Mulana 2 released. In that time, Mighty No. 9 came and went, and I had a lot of concerns about a kickstarter project turning out terribly.

I'm sure you can guess from its position on the list that La-Mulana 2 turned out decently well. The gameplay is largely the same as the first game. There are numerous areas to explore in a non-linear way, clues are hidden all over and fairly cryptic, but make sense with some thought. There's items to collect that grant new abilities and open new areas. The areas are new and interesting, and there are a lot of great songs, so that aspect is different. But it's largely the same stuff, and as I said above, I really didn't expect them to meet the same level. It's also a bigger and longer game than the first, so the epic exploration adventure seems even more intense this time around.

Like the gameplay, the The game stars Lumisa, daughter of the first game's protagonist Lemeza. The La-Mulana ruins were destroyed after the first game, but monsters are still coming out for some reason. It's discovered that there is an entrance to a second set of ruins, which Lumisa then goes and explores. The starting village is the same location (although it's a bit more of a tourist trap now) and some characters reappear. The story also works in the previous generations of people again as well. Both on the story and gameplay front, it ends being a lot like La-Mulana, just on a bit bigger of a scale.

It's worth going in to some specific events that helped make this game extra special for me. This game was released shortly after my daughter was born. I was on leave from work for a couple weeks. Now, taking care of a baby is a lot of work, very stressful and tiring, as they need a lot of attention and time, and you're on their sleep schedule. But in those early months, kids also can't go anywhere, and their sleep schedule includes lots of naps. So whenever there was that little bit of downtime for a nap, or because she was on the playmat, I would play La-Mulana 2. And then I'd have to stop to hold and walk around the room, or to change a diaper, or whatever, and I'd sometimes be mulling over these clues and puzzles. Then a nap would start, and I'd jump in to try some things. I think the La-Mulana games are tough to just rush through on a first play, and need some of that thinking time, and it worked out really well in that regard. I also get lots of thoughts back to those infant months when I think about or play La-Mulana 2, and it's a nice association to have.

I also decided with this game not to look up solutions to anything. I wanted to solve every puzzle on my own. A couple hours in, I got hopelessly stuck. So I turned to a strategy I hadn't used in decades, and I pulled out a pen and notebook. I drew maps of every area and diagrams and notes and ideas. I think again, being home more with a kid, I had some extra time at home to really devote myself to this. I went full old school with the game, and it was honestly a great time. There were a lot of a-ha! moments, a lot of struggles, a lot of moments where I felt like a genius. Writing everything out also helped me catch some nice design decisions, things that just added to the feel of the world. I think as a result of when that first play happened, and how I went about it, I'm always going to look a little more favorably on this sequel as compared to the original, even though they are both fantastic games.





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ONLY FIVE CAN LADDER.
Sushi, kamikaze, fujiyama, nippon-ichi...

#15. Persona 4 Arena (PS3, 2012)





Persona 4 Arena was a very weird creation. I'm not sure how this came to exist, but they took an RPG series that was gaining traction and gave it a fighting game spin-off. Arc System Works, who developed Guilty Gear and BlazBlue, stepped in to help Persona look like just as wild of an anime fighting game as those others. Sometimes weird things happen and they work out well.

The story of Persona 4 Arena is, uh, well, the characters from Persona 4 are here. And then some Persona 3 characters are here too, I guess because they are also popular. And then there's a character named Labrys. And also Shadow Labrys (and in Persona 4 Arena: Ultimax, every character has a shadow version of their main form, so there is a Labrys and a Shadow Labrys and also a shadow Labrys and wow it's every bit as confusing as you'd think). Anyways, don't ask me about stories in fighting games, I never know what's going on. The real story is that two characters are fighting to deplete the other's lifebar first.

Gameplay-wise, Persona 4 Arena intended to simplify the fighting game experience. There are just four attack buttons, so pad players could just use the face buttons. The game also introduced auto-combos, which have actually caught on fairly well since this game. You can just go A-A-A-A-A and do a full set of moves, right into a super, if there is enough meter. It's not the strongest combo, but it's good damage and helps people do the super moves that may have trouble with the standard motions.

But despite all the simplification, Persona 4 Arena is a very deep and complex fighter. Two of the attack buttons are for the character's light/heavy attacks, but the other two attack buttons call out their persona to do a light/heavy attack. It can look pretty chaotic out there with two characters and two personas. Each character has 4 cards under their life meter, and every time you hit the opponent's persona, it breaks one of their cards. If all 4 cards are gone, they can't use the persona for a period of time, taking away half their attack buttons, but also other functions like super attacks or bursts. Sometimes it can be more strategic when counterattacking to take away a persona instead of going for damage now. Or maybe when trying to rush in, using your persona can open up the opponent, but it also leaves the persona open to be broken. The personas add a neat additional layer of strategy to the fights.

Another interesting mechanic is that when a character gets low on life, they enter awakening and get a big boost to meter and defensive stats, and have access to a new super. It may be more advantageous to end a combo early at times to prevent the opponent from entering awakening, or on defense, purposely get hit by a stray fireball or something to enter awakening. There are also techniques available to extend combos to obscene anime fighter length, using bursts and One More Cancels.

One last gameplay mechanic to mention is that there are a bunch of status effects that incur from certain special moves. Poison slowly drains life, rage increases damage but disables blocking, mute temporarily locks out persona-based special moves, panic flips left/right directions on the controller, charm steals SP, and shock temporarily prevents movement. These help add that RPG flair to the fighting game.

Early on, I played quite often online with Theo72. He used Teddie, and I quickly felt like Teddie was also the character for me. Teddie wasn't my favorite character in Persona 4 by any means, but in Persona 4 Arena, he is maybe the most wild thing in the game. Teddie is what we call an item character. One of his persona's attack is to throw an item. There are over a dozen items, each very different. There's a smoke bomb that just makes it hard for everyone to see, there's a firecracker that bounces up off the floor and ceiling repeatedly until it hits, there's a plate of poisonous food, there's an oil drum that slowly rolls along the floor, etc. A big part of his game is just getting items out there, then using their madness to either start or continue combos. He also is very comical in his animations: swinging a giant baseball bat, throwing a fish along the ground, punching a giant boxing glove out of his mouth, turning into a 16t weight, flattening into a pancake, or turn into a circus clown on a giant ball. The circus ball is a super attack that is completely unblockable (the opponent needs to jump over it), but if you can lock down the opponent into blocking using items first, the super can become a truly unblockable attack.

When I first got into Persona 4 Arena, I had already started competing in Street Fighter tournaments. P4A was the first fighting game I competed in beyond the Street Fighter series, so it was important for me really learning to get good at the whole genre, and not just one game. It also helped me meet new groups of people, ones who weren't Street Fighter players but were still at the same event as me Now, I typically enter somewhere between like four to eight different games at a fighting game tournament. The first tourney I entered this was a local one, and I lost all my games. Then I entered it at Evo 2013, and I managed to go 2-2, which was very encouraging.

My drive to keep playing the game more and to get better at it was really helped when I found out I lived near one of the top P4A players in the USA (possibly the top player, depending on who you ask). I learned a lot about forming a game plan and correcting mistakes I had been making. I never became a truly top level player or anything, but I won some local events, and made top 8 at a couple larger tournaments, so Persona 4 Arena has been good to me in that regard.

I also need to point out that the updated version, Persona 4 Arena Ultimax was known in Japan as Persona 4: The Ultimax Ultra Suplex Hold, and it is such a shame we didn't get that amazing title over here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BT2E2hV9pFg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-E8DVdgUOM

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ONLY FIVE CAN LADDER.
Sushi, kamikaze, fujiyama, nippon-ichi...

#16. Mega Man 9 (Xbox 360, 2008)



Mega Man games were kind of a big a deal to me growing up. I had been playing them since the NES days, and they had always been among my favorites. It was even around this time that I was starting to switch my online nickname over to a Mega Man-themed nickname (oops this old still exists here though). I still owned those old games and loved them. I was finding fun with newer Mega Man games as well, but really wanted more of the classic stuff I loved. Mega Man 9's announcement was a huge moment for a lot of people, and I was one of those people.

Mega Man 9 most heavily draws from Mega Man 2 as inspiration. There's no slide or charge buster, and several music tracks are just lifted straight from Mega Man 2. But that's okay, because Mega Man 2 is great!

There are a lot of smart design choices in this game that appeal to me and really make me enjoy each stage. One common thing people talk about is how the weapons seem to be balanced in strength, but it's not just that. They all have unique uses/properties, and often function in multiple ways, so that every weapon seems to have a purpose. The Hornet Chaser can pick up items, the Laser Trident breaks the barrier blocks, the Jewel Satellite reflects enemy bullets, the Tornado Blow allows for higher jumps, the Magma Bazooka can be charged up, the Black Hole Bomb can suck in surrounding enemies/projectiles, the Plug Ball travels along surfaces to hit in accessible enemies, and the Concrete Shot can create temporary platforms. The levels are designed such that each of these should be useful at some point, making your path easier and also more streamlined.

And that takes me to the second point, is that the levels flow so well. It takes some special weapon usage (and yes, bringing up the menu to switch), but stages can just be run through pretty continuously. There's very little stopping and waiting for an enemy to line up, or for an enemy to end yet another invulnerable cycle. With smart item usage, you can just kind of keep going. And it's not like, you just zip up some walls and skip whole chunks to move through quickly, there's still most of the game to navigate, you can just do it without feeling like you're wasting time for nothing.

As I mentioned before, there are a lot of callbacks to NES Mega Man, which are super fun, but there are a lot of things that are brand new, but feel entirely like what you would see on the NES. The whole game felt like a love letter to games of my childhood and slots in alongside the best of them.



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ONLY FIVE CAN LADDER.
Sushi, kamikaze, fujiyama, nippon-ichi...

It was interesting to read about Gemfire, that's a game I've only seen boxart of. I think I made an assumption about what the game was in my mind, and it seems that I was way off.

Also, there's something about those isometric detailed pixel images in SimCity 2000 that gives me a warm feeling to see (and I get the same feeling from Roller Coaster Tycoon, Age of Empires, etc).

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ONLY FIVE CAN LADDER.
Sushi, kamikaze, fujiyama, nippon-ichi...

#17. Lunar 2: Eternal Blue (PS1, 2000)





Growing up, I had video game magazines with ads for Lunar games on the Sega CD. I always thought they looked cool, with anime characters before I even knew what anime was. I didn't get to experience the Lunar games on the Sega CD, so the Playstation updates were where I eventually played the series. I enjoyed Lunar: Silver Star Story, so I was excited to try Lunar 2: Eternal Blue when I found out that would also come out for the PS1.

Eternal Blue starts with Hiro and his pet dragon Ruby finding a mysterious girl, Lucia. Lucia was sent to Lunar to prevent it from being destroyed by Zophar. They travel to find the power to stop Zophar, meeting other characters along the way, each of which go through some level of development on a personal level as well. Eternal Blue is set 1,000 years after the first Lunar game, so it is mostly a separate story from the original. There are still connections to the first game, through the world and seeing how it's changed in that time (and remained the same), along with some characters who still reappear due to plot reasons, like the dragons, and also my favorite character from the first game.

There are few improvements made form the first game to the sequel. Battles move a little faster, cutting out some of the downtime in basic moves and speeding up the simpler encounters. There are more cutscenes and more dialogue, which was a big deal at the time, when quantity of each was still a thing in RPGs people wanted more of. There is an epilogue added to the end, unlike with the first game, so even after wrapping up the main story, you can run around the world with your endgame setup and wrap up some more personal story to the characters. And of course the actual packaging of the game came with more stuff than the first, including the soundtrack, a making of documentary, a pendant like Lucia wore, a hardcover manual, and mini-character stands. It was like a collector's edition experience before collectors editions were even a thing, and it was every copy. I listened to that CD quite a bit back in the day.

Working Designs was the company in charge of bringing Lunar to the USA. They were very unique, which some people weren't so big on, but other people loved. I personally thought they were amazing. The packaging mentioned above was a big thing of theirs, as they tried to make all their games feel special to buy. They also went wild in their translations, filling them with jokes and pop culture references, generally when the original text was just kind of filler fluff from NPCs. Some people want literal translations, and that sure didn't happen, and I'm sure some of the references are very dated now. But in a game like this, it made it so fun to just talk to every townsperson and examine every thing. You never knew what kind of interaction or comment was coming up next.

I also bought the strategy guide for Eternal Blue. Working Designs made their own strategy guides for their games, rather than sending it out to BradyGames, Prima, etc. Because they wrote it themselves, it had the same kind of special care feeling as the game, coming in a hardcover book with a reversible dust cover and a ribbon bookmark attached. They were also able to fill it with more official artwork than you would normally get. It also was full of humor, dumb jokes and references and puns everywhere, even more than the game's localization contained. It was fun to just sit down and read sometimes, I found it so funny and it added to the experience of the game itself.





A long time ago (like 15+ years ago) I used to use the above picture of Lemina as a userpic for online forums and stuff. This game just holds a lot of fun memories from that time in my life. Seeing this picture, or clips of someone playing the game, or whatever just brings me back to very specific times and places.

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ONLY FIVE CAN LADDER.
Sushi, kamikaze, fujiyama, nippon-ichi...

Oh, also worth noting in regards to Super Castlevania IV - Back when I was part of the VGMusic of the Day crew and our youtube channel existed, the very first song I uploaded was from Super Castlevania IV. That soundtrack is pretty high up there for me personally.

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ONLY FIVE CAN LADDER.
Sushi, kamikaze, fujiyama, nippon-ichi...

#18. Super Castlevania IV (SNES, 1991)



Super Castlevania IV may be my favorite Castlevania game now, but it wasn't always. I went back and forth over Castlevania III and Symphony of the Night for a while. Eventually, after going through this game like 30 times, it ended up here.

For an early SNES game, SCIV looks fantastic. It's not the best in the series, but it still looks appropriately dark, gritty at times. It also sounds fantastic, some of the best work using the SNES sound. The music is actually amazing work, especially when you consider how early in the SNES's life this game was. And sure, the game has that one level to show off all the Mode 7 effects, which is kind of cheesy now, but it's not a bad stretch by any means, it still plays well and is kind of a nice memory to a past time.

The big thing with this game, for me, is that is just feels fun to play through each and every time. Some people who play SCIV want something more challenging, because it is easier than most other platformer Castlevania games. I can get that, it is easier than others, and I really like the challenge presented in most of the series. The eight way directional whipping can be seen as too powerful, but also, it's a whole lot of fun. Striking enemies at all kinds of angles while walking, doing jumps, moonwalking on stairs, it offers a lot of freedom to move around and just do things. The whip flail is a nice addition as well. It's one of those games where the total package just makes me feel like I am doing cool things all the time, and I still get joy turning on the game and playing through the same levels for whatever countless time this may be.

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ONLY FIVE CAN LADDER.
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#19. Eastside Hockey Manager (PC, 2015)



This is the highest sports game on my list! As a fan of hockey far more than all other sports, it would make sense that a hockey game lands here.

Eastside Hockey Manager is the hockey equivalent of Football Manager or Out of the Park Baseball (which as on my list back at #97). It's a general manager/coaching sim, where you set up the team how you want it, tell the AI players what to do as much as you want, and then sit back and watch to see how things ultimately play out. A big reason this is here, and OotP farther down the list is just my familiarity with hockey. I know what player strengths and strategies I want to use, I know how the draft system works, I know how contract restrictions and the salary cap play out, so I'm not wasting time looking all this up. And even if I didn't know this so well, I don't feel it's a terribly complicated system to work with, so I can focus more on setting my lineups and trading players and hoping old useless guys just retire already. And of course, there are a ton of stats to browse and track for both the present and historical.

EHM doesn't receive quite as much love from its developer as those other sports sims. They get yearly updates, but EHM is the same EHM. Luckily, Steam workshop and dedicated fans step in with yearly roster updates and work to keep the game balanced. European leagues and minor leagues exist too and get the same update love. There are also some fan mods adding historical or fictional teams/leagues, and it's fun to pretend you're managing a WHA team that may still exist today.

I've been playing this off and on for years, sometimes sticking with the same league that's decades deep, or starting a new one. I find it's a great game to put on while sitting at home and watching real sports. During downtime or breaks in the play, I can sim a couple days or a game in EHM. It's a game that has a lot to do, but also something I can jump in any time without having to worry about doing a lot, if that makes sense.

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#20. Silent Hill (PS1, 1999)



I didn't play this until a few years after Silent Hill 2, but the original is my favorite in the series. It's not quite as strong a story as SH2, but Silent Hill really excels as a horror game. And really, if I'm playing Silent Hill, a big part of what I'm looking for is a horror game.

Silent Hill 2's story focuses more on analyzing characters within the confines of Silent Hill, but the first Silent Hill is more about the town itself, what it can do, and why it is what it is. The main character, Harry Mason, gets in a car accident and goes unconscious for a bit, and when he awakens, his seven year old daughter is missing from the car. He starts searching for his daughter, which takes him into the town of Silent Hill. Harry realizes the extent of madness that can exist in Silent Hill along with the player, as he encounters the warping realities of the town, cultish behavior, and more history about events in the town than would be expected.

The main reason this is up so high is how consistently great the horror aspects were, how many moments stand out. Tank controls are weird to some people, but I've always been fine with them, and they allow for some very strong fixed camera perspectives. There's an alleyway at the beginning that immediately hits home how unsettling the game will get. The school has several great moments, with the room of lockers being a multi-layered series of emotions and weirdness. The hospital contains my absolute favorite bit, as you advance upward to higher floors. There is just often a very real sensation of serious shit is happening, I absolutely know it is and it is frightening, but I also don't specifically know what the shit is that is happening. Silent Hill draws from all kind of weird and suspenseful horror sources, like Jacob's Ladder, The Exorcist, The Shining, various David Lynch works and Alfred Hitchcock works, among many others. The game does a great job taking many things that work from many different sources, but still making it a unique experience to Silent Hill.

Silent Hill really uses visual and sounds to its full advantage. It's an earlier 3D game, but unsettling fog and darkness and snow and spotty lighting both help to hide problems in draw distance & add to the unease. Scenery can look unwelcoming and hostile enough here. Like, I know it's bad news, you don't have to show me in greater detail, no thanks. And then the trademark Silent Hill radio static and Akira Yamaoka sound effects and music build the feelings as great as ever. It's a shame the main team that developed this has moved on and we'll never truly get a Silent Hill game on par with this first couple ever again.



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Gonna do a quick recap of my list now that I'm up to my top 20.

100. Ninja Gaiden
99. Dragon Ball FighterZ
98. Outland
97. Out of the Park Baseball 21
96. The Binding of Isaac
95. Kirby's Dream Land 3
94. RollerCoaster Tycoon
93. Shadows of the Damned
92. The King of Fighters XIII
91. Strider (2014)
90. Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons
89. Kamui
88. Gain Ground
87. Resident Evil (2002 REmake)
86. Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3
85. Solstice
84. Raiden (series)
83. Ori and the Blind Forest
82. Ogre Battle 64
81. Mega Man Legends

80. Rez
79. Punch-Out!!
78. G-Darius
77. Pop'n Music (series)
76. Shovel Knight
75. Thunder Force V
74. Final Fantasy Tactics
73. Under Night In-Birth Exe: Late
72. VA-11 Hall-A
71. Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors
70. Spelunky 2
69. The Legend of Zelda
68. Brave Fencer Musashi
67. Lumines
66. Final Fantasy VII
65. Metroid Fusion
64. The Witness
63. Street Fighter V
62. Hotline Miami
61. Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse

60. F-Zero GX
59. Undertale
58. Everybody's Golf
57. Tecmo Super Bowl
56. Donkey Kong (1994)
55. Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island
54. Mega Man X
53. Super Smash Bros. Melee
52. The World Ends With You
51. Metroid Prime
50. Windjammers
49. VVVVVV
48. Samurai Shodown (2019)
47. Groove Coaster
46. Space Invaders Extreme
45. Shinobi 3
44. Mega Man 3
43. Mega Man X4
42. Street Fighter 2
41. Deadly Premonition

40. Cave Story
39. Bioshock
38. We Love Katamari
37. Chrono Trigger
36. Street Fighter 3: Third Strike
35. Silent Hill 2
34. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
33. Steins;Gate
32. Wild Arms 3
31. Dragon Quest V
30. The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening
29. Sleeping Dogs
28. Dance Dance Revolution (series)
27. Cuphead
26. Ys 1
25. La-Mulana
24. Final Fantasy V
23. Guilty Gear Xrd
22. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
21. Elevator Action Returns

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#21. Elevator Action Returns (Arcade, 1994)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQfxM7QzOiM



I've talked a couple times about playing games in the arcade during my DDR days. Here's another one of those games! It's not a popular hit by any means, but for years, it was always fun to pop on over to this cabinet for a play. I'm not amazing at the game, but I got decently good at it, and could run through the whole game on a dollar or less. It's about a 30-45 minute playthrough. It later released on the collection Taito Legends 2, which I bought, and had a lot of fun playing even more at home. Sometimes it's fun to turn to a shorter game and just play through the whole thing in one sitting, and this is often I game I put in when I'm feeling that vibe.

The original Elevator Action was uh, nothing special. I'm amazed it got a sequel, especially because the sequel came over 10 years later. The original game involved a spy breaking in to the top floor of a tall skyscraper, and descending towards the bottom, while breaking into various doors along the way to collect classified info. It was a run-and-gun game, but very slow paced.

The sequel uses that same basic premise, but adds a bunch to make it way more fun. There are now three characters to choose from (Kart Bradfield, Edie Burret, and Jad the Taff; maybe the best-named trio of characters in video game history?), each of which plays a little different and has a different weapon. The action is a lot better paced than the original, but still calculated. There are way more environmental features to interact with and destroy. There are more doors to get things from, some containing power ups and new weapons. The first stage is a skyscraper, similar to the original, but later stages go through a variety of buildings and scenery, and in a less-linear layout.

Graphically, the sprites were pretty sharp for the time, but the game really shines through with its sense of style. It really feels like it pulls inspiration from every '90s action movie. There are a variety of locations, and even within them, every screen looks different. Explosions are huge and satisfying, and there are tons of small details all over in a way that just makes it feel good and look good to run through levels. On the sound side, Yasuhisa Watanabe does the music. He made a lot of fantastic soundtracks for bad and/or lesser known Taito games, and he got the assignment again here. It's another set of songs from him that I love.





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#22. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (PS1, 1997)



Symphony of the Night was the first non-Metroid game of this style I played, back when we probably just referred to them as Metroid-style. I was already a fan of Metroid, and I was already a fan of Castlevania, or at least the classic style. One of the more appealing things about Castlevania back then was the style. The gothic architecture that was even present in the old games, the nods to monster movies, and just the level of detail typically being far above most other games. SOTN took all that and kicked it into high gear, blowing away any game I had played at the time in terms of visual details and variety in scenery and spritework.

It obviously worked out, moving Castlevania to the Metroid-style, because now it's Metroidvania-style. I prefer this to the other Metroidvania Castlevanias, though. I've played through this one probably more than all the others combined, so there's a lot of familiarity and nostalgia. The castle is packed full of discovery too. Drops and random drops and breakable walls and a ton of secret rooms. It just feels like every place has something to do, even if so many rooms aren't important, and so many pickups are already useless by the time you get them.

Movement also feels great in SOTN. The backdash is stupidly amazing. It's also stupid to turn backwards and mash triangle to get places quick, but it just feels so so good. I pretty much never walk in this game. It's all backdashing and jumping like a madman. Then you can double jump and stomp on enemy heads. Then there's the transformations to zoom about in. Good movement can make even bad level design seem fun (see: some parts on this game's back half).

The music is of course super memorable. It was one of the more amazing things I had ever heard at the time, and it's still great today. I also put this game in my CD player a lot to get that bonus music track on it. It was a very cool remix of Dracula's Castle. Also, it's funny to think that Tak Fujii, who is mostly known now for the infamous 2010 Konami E3 conference & presenting Ninety-Nine Nights 2, is also a musician who played guitar on this game's soundtrack. That's right, the killer guitar solo in The Tragic Prince (Clock Tower)? It was that guy who played it. Extreeeme.

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#23. Guilty Gear Xrd (PS3, 2014)



When I was in college, I would get together with that group of DDR friends to play other games sometimes. One of the more common choices was games in the Guilty Gear series. At the time, I was awful at fighting games, and lost way more than I won. It didn't matter though, because Guilty Gear was so stylish, so wildly fast, and it was just so fun to do things and see things, I had fun regardless.

Years later, when I got really into the fighting game scene, Guilty Gear was something I hadn't touched in a long time. But then Xrd came out, looking as stylish as ever, and I wanted to get back to this series. It was still a 2D fighter, but it was a 3D game with some very slick cell shading and playing on a 2D plane. Like, you'll never know it's a 3D game until there's something with a camera rotation, like a super move or a round finish.

Guilty Gear has a lot of characters that fight with a unique weapon or have some kind of unique gimmick. There's a lot of variation in the cast. I ended up deciding to use Faust, the doctor who fights with a gigantic scalpel and throws out random items. He creates chaos all over the screen for both players. It's great for someone like me who doesn't memorize elaborate or complicated setups, but instead tries to just out-react and out-space, and hopefully remain calmer in wild situations. There are others who are fun to use though, even the characters I barely know are fun to just do things with. Finding fun characters to connect with is definitely a big part of making fighting games fun.

I wasn't actually good at Xrd for a couple years (and I'd still argue that maybe I'm not good, but I am at least competent). There are a lot of systems at play, both on offense and defense. I'm still learning things about this game because of how deep it is, but also, it's okay if you never truly know it all, because there's so much. You can spend 50% of meter to cancel a move on hit or block to extend a combo or make it safe. You can spend 25% of the meter to cancel a move that doesn't hit (or cancel absolutely nothing) to cause a very brief pause & allow you to escape bad situations. There are bursts as a one-time get out of jail free card, blitzes to deflect moves, counter-blitzes to blitz back someone who blitzed you, dead angle to get out of blocking. Combos will do more damage on someone who's been blocking a lot but less on someone with low health. There are also different weights and gravities to consider during combos too.

When I was getting together with friends for games weekly in 2018 and 2019, Guilty Gear Xrd was the most common game we broke out. It was common to have games that just turned into everyone laughing too, the way this game is set up just leads to some silly things.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppvMgvC5ZzA&t=250s

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Whiskey_Nick posted...

Oh man that FF5 rom hack with the cave, that thing was my obsession one month.

Hell yeah Fiesta! Mayo for all!

Yeah I was definitely playing the Ancient Cave hack daily. It was so addictive and really got me learning the ins and outs of FFV.

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#24. Final Fantasy V (1992, SNES)



JOB SYSTEM

This is easily my favorite Final Fantasy game. It's been at that point for a while, but the annual Four Job Fiesta pretty much sealed it. The jobs aren't all even in strength, but it's such that you can pretty much run with whatever assortment of jobs, and make things work in battles. Some just require a bit more strategy than others. As a result, there's just so much variety in how you can go through the game. There's a special bit of fun in playing the game for the sixth time, and just realizing that you can equip some accessory or item with an elemental affinity, and now a tough boss is totally trivialized, but really only due to some certain support skills you were able to throw on your jobs.

For a while, I was playing the Ancient Cave romhack too. It's a randomly generated set of 99 floors of dungeon, and in treasure chests along the way, you'll find items, jobs, magic, etc. It's all random, so you can get some total crap, or some great stuff, but it really leads to making up strategies on the fly and experimenting with what the game's job system can do.

To top it off, the game's script takes itself way less seriously than any other Final Fantasy. It has some good humorous moments, and just some oddball stuff as plot points. I embrace goofy things, so all of this is right up my alley. And then with characters, Gilgamesh is one of the best villains in a game and really adds a lot to the game when he's in it. Galuf is one of my favorite Final Fantasy characters as well. Why can't we have more good old man characters in RPGs? (and not those, grizzled old man battle veteran who also is 25 years old, but he's an old man because he teams up with a gang of 16 year olds)

The music is great, as is typical of Final Fantasy, but I think I'd put it in the higher part of FF-music rankings. Battle on the Big Bridge and The Decisive Battle are absolutely fantastic and full of energy. I love the second and third world map themes. There are a lot of other good choices here. The Final Fantasy Anthology version on PS1 came with a CD with a few music tracks from the game (not the best selection, but it had some good ones), and I listened to that more than I should have back in the day.

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ONLY FIVE CAN LADDER.
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#25. La-Mulana (PC, 2005)



La-Mulana is not a game for everyone. It's heavily inspired by old games from the 1980s, mostly for the Japanese MSX computer system, with Maze of Galious being the primary inspiration. The main character is a little Indiana Jones-ish and carries a whip, and goes to explore the ruins of La-Mulana after receiving a letter from his father, who has also explored the ruins. There ruins consist of several interconnected areas which make up a large, non-linear world. You collect items to unlock passages or gain abilities and proceed, similar to what Metroid/Castlevania games do. But true to its older inspirations, the control is stiffer, the clues can be incredibly cryptic, and the ruins are full of traps that can lead to quick deaths, so there is some trial and error involved. And although the traps can seem random, there's usually a hint that they exist or a yeah, I saw that coming feeling to them, so it's not completely unfair.

The original version of La-Mulana was a freeware game created by just three people. The graphics and music were built to be very accurate to the MSX appearance and sound. The main character even carried around an MSX computer, and some of the collected items were program cartridges that you could load in solo or tandem to gain abilities. It later received a remake, in which the graphics and sound got a pretty significant overhaul, and a few parts of the gameplay were cleaned up/smoothed out. The MSX carried by the main character was slightly more modern in function now. I think I prefer the original music and its much more faithful chiptune emulation, but for the most part, the upgrades work well.

(screenshot from original version of the game)


I spoke earlier of just how cryptic the game is, but it's worth noting just how extreme this is. There are tablet with notes all around the ruins you can read, left by past adventurers in the ruins. There might be a tablet in the 3rd area referencing an item, and another tablet in the 6th area with more information on this item, and a tablet in the 7th area telling about the puzzle to get the item, but the item is in the 2nd area and you have to use it in the 4th area to make progress. It's a game that strongly encourages taking notes, because you're never going to remember what each hint was or immediately realize what they mean. The remake is nice for this, because it allows you to save the text of a limited number of tablets for later reference. But even when you have all the text, La-Mulana is very good at speaking in riddles, and you may be clueless about a solution right in front of you. The ruins can become very thinking-heavy. Especially with the amount of traps and instant-deaths, brute forcing your way through puzzles will very rarely work out. My first time through, I had to look up a couple solutions, because I just felt totally stuck, but I did my best to try and reason out as much as I could.

At the end game, there is an optional Hell area that can be unlocked. It's basically kaizo-style gameplay, full of tricks and "gotcha" traps in every room. I'm not sure who ever found the place first, or made it through all the Hell puzzles first, because both can be so so so convoluted, but I am thankful for that person. That allowed me to look up the few hints I needed to experience the true struggle, but still work my way through.

There is also a story that is way more deep than it would seem at first glance, with a whole history on the people in the land worked in. The amount of work put in to the story, all the complex clues and puzzles, and piecing together the massive non-linear world is crazy impressive, because again, it was just three people who made this game. I've played through the game a handful of times, and due to the massive size, I've had to completely re-work puzzles in my head each time. It's just a very satisfying experience and gives a feeling of accomplishment to play through.

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BY GAWD he did it

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It all comes down to the clock!

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ONLY FIVE CAN LADDER.
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hurt and double hurt kcf

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ONLY FIVE CAN LADDER.
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Hi everyone! I am going to skin the cat now!

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ONLY FIVE CAN LADDER.
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hurt and extra hurt apollo

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hurt dp

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ONLY FIVE CAN LADDER.
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#26. Ys I: Ancient Ys Vanished (PC, 2013)



I'm using the release of the Ys I & II remake released for PC in 2013, Ys I & II Chronicles Plus, as my basis for the release version and date here. This game's been released quite a few times and updated a few times over, so it's still essentially the same thing. The subtitle of the game has also changed a few times, so sorry if I'm not using the most commonly accepted version.

Even though I played the first Ys game 30 years after its initial release, it carried this amazing magical RPG feeling. I was worried it might be really dated, but the parts that might feel old actually work out nicely. Battles are just reduced to a bump mechanic. You hit an enemy head on, it hurts you, you hit them a little off-center, that's a-okay. It seems kind of silly, but fighting in the game moves fast as a result. You see some enemies, bump a few times, and move on. A lot of old RPGs were kind of a slog, but Ys I has a pretty quick pace to it. You can just keep moving and beat the whole game in a couple hours.

Much like Zelda: Link's Awakening, the story begins with the main character's ship sinking and washing ashore on an island. It results in a much more personal and intimate storyline, and less of the big epic tale that RPGs of the time often aimed for. Some of it ends up being very cliche, but there's a reason it became cliched, and it works well in the context of this game. It somehow evoked very strong feelings of nostalgia to play this, despite the fact that I had no actual nostalgia to draw on. Later games improved on things technically, but something about the feeling of adventure felt strongest and most familiar in this game. That, long with the speed of the game, kept it feeling appropriately old school without any of the old school slog.

The final boss is notable for being an absolutely insane difficulty leap from the rest of the game. That could be a huge minus, but given the short length of the game, the fact that it's just this boss, and that I was able to learn how to beat him, I was more okay with the stupid challenge it presented and actually found it kind of fun.

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*dropkicks Steiner*

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*spinning heel kick DP*

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CherryCokes posted...

Shuma/Doom/Amingo, most often

I'd occasionally work Venom, Sentinel, and Morrigan in as well.

I wasn't a fan of Doom myself, but those other two characters were really fun.

Really though, with a cast that size, you can just jump around to anyone and find some fun team combos.

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Cokes, what was the MvC2 trio of choice for you?

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#27. Cuphead (PC, 2017)



Like most everyone else in the world, I got really excited for Cuphead when I first saw it. The old 1930s cartoon style looked amazing. I wasn't even considering how it would play, it just looked so darn nice. Luckily, when it released and I gave it a go, I learned that it plays wonderfully too.

Cuphead kind of uses the Contra-style run and gun gameplay. You can pick some different weapons and abilities, and swap between two weapons. There are a few traditional stages, but most of this game consists of boss fights. All the bosses have multiple forms, allowing for interesting battles and interesting transitions in the animation and theming. The final stage is especially fun, throwing in even more battles and variety.

There's not much more to add, it's just an incredibly solid game with a perfect aesthetic.


And darn right I kept that double digits my first time beating the game, I'm proud of that.

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Ah whoops, I messed up the fourth youtube link on my DDR post. This below video is the song Instertion. I had originally linked the song Ecstasy (with the video till being there), but then I thought, "Nah, Insertion is better" and I only updated the text.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcghW36x6UM

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#28. Dance Dance Revolution (Arcade, 1998)



For a while, DDR would've been way higher up my list. It was probably pushing number 1 for a chunk of my life. There's a few reasons why it's fallen, some I'll get into later, but a major reason is just that I'm older and not in the same great shape I was 20 years ago. When I used to run and go on bike rides, I could play DDR all day. Now? I'll play one or two sets, and I gotta sit down because my old man body can't handle it anymore. It's still fun, but that reality of needing to tone it down is a big mood.

DDR ended up being a big part of my life through high school and college year. I first played it at 2000 in the mall arcade, and it quickly became the main game I played there, as I mentioned in the Street Fighter 3 writeup. When everyone else in high school got into the game, we all had home versions and would play at each others houses. I ended up becoming the guy who was really good at DDR in my high school. Everything about it, I was obsessed with.

DDR was the first game I ever entered a tournament for, and also the first game I ever won anything in. The first few tournaments didn't go that well, because despite being the best in my school, there were much better people in the general area. One tourney was ran on 5th Mix, a version not at my local arcade. The qualifying/seeding song was The Cube, which wasn't on any version I had access to, and Stepmania wasnt really a thing yet. So, I found a copy of the song on Kazaa or whatever, and looked up the stepchart on DDRFreak to try and practice. Unfortunately, I never did figure out how this stepchart synced up to the song, so I never truly practiced it. See, The Cube was also used as a song in Beatmania IIDX, and the DDR version was shortened by removing the middle section, and the mp3 I found was the IIDX version.

After I moved halfway across the state to start college, I went to a tournament and noticed a couple familiar faces from those high school tournaments. It turns out they had also started at the same college. The next Monday, I went to my chemistry lecture, and realized two of them shared a class with me. There were multiple reasons here to hang out more, so 5 of us at that tournament became a good group of friends. We also kind of ran the Michigan State DDR scene for about 2003-2006, with our group winning pretty much every tourney in the area (except the one that attracted a bunch of out of state players). I continued taking a bunch of classes with those guys, playing other video games with them, even rooming with one at a point. Some of them are still good friends to this day. (I may get more into this on future writeups!)

I also ran a DDR tourney once. Well, the easy part of it. I had a friend high up in the University Activities organization, and she helped get the venue space on campus and equipment, and they did all the promotion. I got the rules together so we could run two concurrent tournaments, one for strong players and one for casual players, and I ran brackets and stuff.

Eventually, I started playing DDR a little bit less and less. It was kind of expensive to keep going to the arcade as much as I was. The arcade also hadn't upgraded past Extreme, (Supernova was out, and In the Groove was a big thing too) so most of the time I was trying to work towards AAAs on songs I played hundreds of times. It got a little discouraging to think, I have to get 300 perfects and 0 greats on this song to make an improvement on my score and then get 299 perfects and 1 great multiple times. And like I said, I played other video games with that group of friends, so we changed our habits a bit over time. DDR became more of a casual game, and I think I'm fine with it there now.

Here, have some songs that I like

Boom Boom Dollar (2nd Mix)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8S3pwezmVM

Captain Jack (3rd Mix)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARAj0aAMfxc

La Senorita Virtual (3rd Mix CS)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZmkMv5rsRE

Insertion (5th Mix)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXHVgV20ZqY

Sexy Planet (From Nonstop Megamix) (7th Mix)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkLLoiuB_I0

PARANOiA (kskst Mix) (DDR X3 vs 2nd Mix)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfeBiyHU_po

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ONLY FIVE CAN LADDER.
Sushi, kamikaze, fujiyama, nippon-ichi...

#29. Sleeping Dogs (Xbox 360, 2012)



Of all the games I've played in the Grand Theft Auto-style, Sleeping Dogs is by far my favorite. I think the setting is a big part of this. This Hong Kong setting feels so alive, so interesting, so cohesive. The mini-games and side events all fit with the theme of the city. The conversations around town and the radio stations all sounds appropriate (and the radio choices were very interesting, some really nice music here). Something about having to drive on the left side of the road was an unexpected detail to all this that made things somehow more fun? It was a struggle at times to fight basic road instinct and not crash the car.

The fighting aspect of the gameplay was very well put together. It focused more on hand-to-hand combat than GTA games normally would. It was more in line with stuff like the recent Batman games. There are attacks and counter-attacks and holds. Moves can be chained together into combos. You can learn more moves/combos as the game goes on, and there is a ton of environmental interaction in the fights. Some of them are so silly and so satisfying, even though they can be quite violent. The first time I threw a guy into a fish tank was a special moment.

The story in the game is especially strong. The premise sounds very basic - the main character is an undercover cop, trying to infiltrate gangs. Over time, there's the question of whether to uphold the law or to help family and friends. It's presented with plenty of moral questions is what's right in a situation actually what is right to do? The characters that seem very authentic in their behavior and relationships, and that's a big part of what makes this story turn out so well.

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ONLY FIVE CAN LADDER.
Sushi, kamikaze, fujiyama, nippon-ichi...

#30. The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (Game Boy, 1993)



As a kid, I played quite a bit of Game Boy. My parents were divorced, so there was a lot of driving between the two houses, which was prime Game Boy time, if the lighting was right. Also, if I didn't pack along a console to the other house, then the Game Boy was what I got to take with me. One of the games that I put in the most time with was The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening.

Link's Awakening has maybe more charm than any of the other Zelda games I've played. The island of Koholint feels smaller and more intimate than other Zelda lands, but still very enigmatic and full of discoveries. The inclusion of Kirby-like enemies and Mario universe creatures adds an interesting feel. The overworld is broken into individual screens like the original, but almost every screen has some kind of landmark or unique feature or importance, and it helps make each screen feel fairly memorable in their own ways. It's like a compact Zelda adventure, but doesn't feel compact at all, because there is no wasted space. The music is also some of the best the Game Boy has to offer, and the ending by far is the most emotion a Game Boy game has ever pulled out of me.

Despite playing this so much, there were a lot of spots in this game that tripped me up. Perhaps it was because I often played days apart, and in 10-30 minute chunks of time. Eagle's Tower in particular was tough to wrap my brain around. Any time I got through it, I think it was partly due to luck. The main puzzle in that dungeon was just so hard to keep track of. At some point, I learned of the select button map skip trick. From then on, I always used it in Eagle's Tower. It's a pretty funny glitch that allows for a whole bunch of chaos. There's a really fun Let's Play by a guy named MeccaPrime that uses this glitch, linked below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3uzz1xlaqU

Of course, I need to talk about the Switch remake. It's mostly the same game, but with some small changed. There are a few quality of life improvements (big ones include more teleporters, sword and shield are always accessible). There are a few more collectibles and some bonus content. The real big thing is the appearance and sound are upgraded. The redone versions of the Game Boy music are fantastic, the end credits music especially is a treat. I'm in love with the style of graphics they moved to as well. All that charm I talked about earlier, the remake cranked up to 11. It's a very worthy update to the game.



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ONLY FIVE CAN LADDER.
Sushi, kamikaze, fujiyama, nippon-ichi...

#31. Dragon Quest V (SNES, 1992)


(image from DS remake)

I've played most of the mainline Dragon Quest games. It hasn't been in order at all, but I think I still got to DQV as my fifth game. It wasn't until this game that I realized why Dragon Quest is as big a deal as it is.

The battle system, as always in these games, seems simple on the surface. But really, it just doesn't dive in to unnecessary flash and convoluted mechanics like some RPGs may. It just keeps clear what it's trying to do, but with a greater level of depth than expected. Monster designs are always a high point too, with goofy, creative, and iconic creatures roaming the lands. You can also recruit monsters to your party, and have them fight alongside you. It adds a little fun to the random battles, and probably helped pave the way for the Dragon Quest Monsters games that would come later.

The story in DQV revolves around family, different generations, the passage of time. The scope of the story is an epic tale, but places it all on a more relatable, individual level, covering the ups and downs of life, happiness and tragedies. There are multiple scenes where the emotion is captured perfectly, and I could feel the same feelings that were unfolding on the screen. It's remarkable that a game as old as this was able to capture that so well.

There is also an aspect of the story where the main character can fall in love and select a bride. Some things branch off from there, depending on the choice. Being an all-encompassing tale about life, having a major choice in the matter makes it feel more like your story, giving more emotional involvement to the player.

An anime adaptation based on Dragon Quest V (aptly titled, Dragon Quest: Your Story) came out a year or two ago. I don't think it fully measured up to this game, trying to condense the whole story into a movie length, and make things new and interesting in some ways. But it did remind me of how great DQV was, and seeing some more memorable scenes from this game play out in movie form, it just hit the emotions so hard.

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ONLY FIVE CAN LADDER.
Sushi, kamikaze, fujiyama, nippon-ichi...

#32. Wild Arms 3 (PS2, 2002)



I feel like everyone who has played Wild Arms games has a different favorite. It's weird that there's so little concensus, but each one has different strengths and styles to appeal to different people. Wild Arms 3 is the one from the series that really clicked with me.

WA3 still leans heavily into the wild west setting, before the series toned it down a lot. That setting is one of the big appeals of Wild Arms to me. Michiko Naruke's soundtrack was at its strongest here and matched the setting so well. The western setting gets a little jRPG-ish later on, but not any crazier than any other jRPG from the time. Wild Arms 3 also went with a cel-shaded look, which was kind of a trendy thing at the time, but they added a sketched look over it, and I think it turned out well here.

The story starts off with four separate prologues, following each of the four main characters when they were solo. They all meet up on a train, during a train robbery and join together. All four are solidly good characters, there's not really a weak link here. Along the way, there are multiple groups of recurring rivals to bump into and sometimes fight, and those recurring characters are all lots of fun.

There are a lot of mechanics in this game that are unique or ambitious or weird or even antiquated, and I feel like they're all in my wheelhouse, even when they might not be for most people. Dungeons often have puzzles, and characters have tools specific to each for solving said puzzles. One real nice touch when inside dungeons, you get a limited number of cancels to random battles. Say you're running around, a little exclamation point pops up to say a battle's gonna start, but you think, nah, I don't want to do this fight so you hit a button, and the battle is canceled, and you keep moving around. It's great when you're trying to hit the next save point or when you've healed before a boss and don't want another fight. Battles rely strongly on buffs and weaknesses, which made for a lot of interesting boss battles. I felt like I could've just gone through dungeon after dungeon, battle after battle, and never get tired of it thanks to the amount of variety in what are normally repetitive activities.

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ONLY FIVE CAN LADDER.
Sushi, kamikaze, fujiyama, nippon-ichi...

3D Dot Game Heroes is a game I bought at some point because the art style looked cool, but I've never actually seen it in motion or looked to see how it played. As a result, it's kind of sat on my shelf. I am suddenly a lot more interested to try it after reading that writeup, Wigs.

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ONLY FIVE CAN LADDER.
Sushi, kamikaze, fujiyama, nippon-ichi...

#33. Steins;Gate (PS3, 2015)



Following up the game that was a gateway for me to play visual novels is 100% definitely a visual novel.

Steins;Gate is a story about a group of students whose hobby is taking electronics, computers, etc. and creating new inventions, generally of the useless variety. Somehow in this, they accidentally invent a machine that has properties of a time travel machine.

There is a lot of care in the writing to make everything seem as legit and real as possible. It's not like time travel is discovered and everything kicks into high gear, but rather there is gradual experimenting and discovery to learn what the hell is even going on? There is a lot of discussion on science and physics and scientific history to make the science in this game all seem as plausible as possible. It seems like it can be rather complex, but it serves to really narrow down what the rules are with the invention, and make clearer what can happen and what's at stake. Eventually, things do kick in to high gear, and it's a real roller coaster of events. There are some strong emotions and sharp turns in the plot to be found.

A good story is of course amplified by good characters, and Steins;Gate has a very memorable cast. They each get their time to shine as the story unfolds, and are important in some manner. Several of them also lean down some branch of nerd/otaku/internet culture, and I think it helped that I was familiar with all of those to some degree. Cell phones also play a crucial role in this game, and communication is run through text messages at times. I think that helps all the characters become very real, seeing them typing conversations versus their spoken conversations, and talking with them about their very specific hobbies.

I know there is more to the series, but so far I've only played this game. I really want to see what more of these games have to offer. I also very recently bought the Steins;Gate anime series (like, a week ago) and want to watch that soon.

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ONLY FIVE CAN LADDER.
Sushi, kamikaze, fujiyama, nippon-ichi...

#34.Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (DS, 2005)



I had never played anything resembling a visual novel game prior to Phoenix Wright, but I was convinced they would not be my thing. Well, B8 went nutso over this game. I didn't jump on immediately, but for weeks and months I kept hearing the praises. The case solving and evidence gathering looked like enough diversion on top of the story to convince me to finally give this a shot. And uh, the fact that the game is here should tell you how that went.

All of the original trilogy is great, but this first game is my favorite. I'm sure some of it is because of how fresh it all hit and the nostalgia is going to last more. But also, there are so many great moments in this game. From late in 1-3 through the end of 1-4 was just a mad rush of excitement the entire way. Every new thing that happened in that stretch was amazing or wild or hilarious. 1-4 is also my favorite case in the series, and by a large amount. One specific witness examination in that case is just a perfect piece of video gaming. PW:AA of course has so many fantastic characters. I think this game had the strongest prosecution of any in the trilogy. So many of the side characters here are even very memorable, enough that many become recurring characters. And why does the bellboy look so much like Alec Baldwin?

I only ended up playing the original trilogy of Ace Attorney, never moved on to the Apollo Justice or Investigations. I did open up to more story-driven games and visual novels after this though, and am pretty thankful for that! As evidenced by 999 and Va-11 Hall-A being on my list earlier, when the story and characters and writing are good enough, I can really have a good time.

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ONLY FIVE CAN LADDER.
Sushi, kamikaze, fujiyama, nippon-ichi...

#35. Silent Hill 2 (PS2, 2001)



This was my introduction to the Silent Hill series, and really horror games as well. I think Zombies Ate My Neighbors was the closest to a horror game before this, and that's more parody. Or maybe Metroid Fusion? Whatever, moving on.

Silent Hill games tap into the style of horror I like best. There is a lot of unknown tension. The scenes and sounds are a little unsettling, a little different from the expected norm, a little weird, and a little unclear. Sometimes something jumps out, but it really doesn't lean into jump scares. Sometimes nothing at all happens, and that lack of payoff just makes me doubt myself and helps build the next actual scary event. Pyramid Head is also one of the best villains of all time and really a terror to run into. And Akira Yamaoka's music is perfect for setting all the scenes.

SH2 also has a really great story to it, and the game has a lot of symbolism to go with it. I've definitely realized new things every time I replay it. Compared to other Silent Hill games, the story in this game gets a little less into what is the town of Silent Hill? and more into how it affects people in it. The characters are all very interesting and have flaws and help bring so much to the plot, more than it may seem at first glance. Angela's final line of dialogue in the game has always stuck with me in particular, that's such a strong scene.



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ONLY FIVE CAN LADDER.
Sushi, kamikaze, fujiyama, nippon-ichi...

I have 65 games posted, 35 more to go! Here's my list so far:

HM Castlevania 64
HM Minesweeper
HM Super Mario 64
HM Mega Man X6
100. Ninja Gaiden
99. Dragon Ball FighterZ
98. Outland
97. Out of the Park Baseball 21
96. The Binding of Isaac
95. Kirby's Dream Land 3
94. RollerCoaster Tycoon
93. Shadows of the Damned
92. The King of Fighters XIII
91. Strider (2014)
90. Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons
89. Kamui
88. Gain Ground
87. Resident Evil (2002 REmake)
86. Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3
85. Solstice
84. Raiden (series)
83. Ori and the Blind Forest
82. Ogre Battle 64
81. Mega Man Legends
80. Rez
79. Punch-Out!!
78. G-Darius
77. Pop'n Music (series)
76. Shovel Knight
75. Thunder Force V
74. Final Fantasy Tactics
73. Under Night In-Birth Exe: Late
72. VA-11 Hall-A
71. Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors
70. Spelunky 2
69. The Legend of Zelda
68. Brave Fencer Musashi
67. Lumines
66. Final Fantasy VII
65. Metroid Fusion
64. The Witness
63. Street Fighter V
62. Hotline Miami
61. Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse
60. F-Zero GX
59. Undertale
58. Everybody's Golf
57. Tecmo Super Bowl
56. Donkey Kong (1994)
55. Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island
54. Mega Man X
53. Super Smash Bros. Melee
52. The World Ends With You
51. Metroid Prime
50. Windjammers
49. VVVVVV
48. Samurai Shodown (2019)
47. Groove Coaster
46. Space Invaders Extreme
45. Shinobi 3
44. Mega Man 3
43. Mega Man X4
42. Street Fighter 2
41. Deadly Premonition
40. Cave Story
39. Bioshock
38. We Love Katamari
37. Chrono Trigger
36. Street Fighter 3: Third Strike

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ONLY FIVE CAN LADDER.
Sushi, kamikaze, fujiyama, nippon-ichi...

#36. Street Fighter 3: Third Strike (Arcade, 1999)

It's another Street Fighter game! Unlike other ones on my list, this isn't every variation of Street Fighter 3. It's just Third Strike (which was the third version of it, after New Generation and Second Impact) because I never played the other two versions. Street Fighter 3 originally had a bunch of new characters, and some fans of Street Fighter 2, like me, were all who are these new folks and kind of stayed away. By the time the Third Strike update came, more returning characters were added along with more new characters. The unknowns were a little less unknown by now, and because I was in arcades a lot to play DDR, I also started playing Third Strike when I wanted to rest my legs.

Third Strike probably has the most defined style of any Street Fighter game. The high quality 2D sprites, the backgrounds, the music, the deep announcer voice. It all leans into a more modern style with, I think, a lot of hip hop inspirations. At the time, it sure felt like a cool game, but the aesthetics have all turned out to be pretty timeless, and still cool today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9pePpxU58M

Street Fighter 3 had a few new mechanics to make it interesting. The parry is the big game changer. Instead of blocking by holding back or down-back, you can also hit forward (for high hitting attacks) or down (for low hitting attacks) as an attack makes contact with you. If you time it right, the attacker very briefly pauses, and you can put out an attack as a counter. You can really call out someone for being predictable in their actions with this, and it works as an exciting comeback mechanic (see Evo Moment 37 below, aka the famous Daigo Parry video). Even at a lower level of play, just parrying a fireball can make you feel like a million bucks, as it has this satisfying sound effect to it. Another big Street Fighter 3 change was to give characters a choice of 3 different supers. Some are a big attack, some can be comboed into, some boost your abilities, some hit opponents out of the air, etc. This allowed people to play characters in their own unique style. One super might let you be more defensive, another to rushdown more, and the third let you score a big hit as a counter. Instead of, say, fighting a bunch of Ryu players over and over that all do the same stuff, you may have all the fights play out entirely different.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuSMEVhPvTY

About ten years ago, Street Fighter 3: Third Strike Online Edition was released. It followed Street Fighter 4's massive popularity and added online play to Third Strike, really boosting the amount of people who played it. I jumped back on the train at this point too. I wasn't good at it at all, but I had been getting better at Street Fighter 4, so I started to see some improvement on Third Strike too. B8er IglooBob (who I don't think has been around for a few years?) got really into Third Strike too, so I would play online against him a decent amount. He was playing a lot more than I was, so my slow improvement was outpaced by his, but I still had fun pushing buttons against him. IglooBob is actually one of the top players in the US now, like he's expected to place in the top 8 of tournaments, and he's traveled to Japan for big tournaments too.

At some point, I started entering Third Strike tournaments at fighting game events, since I sometimes play it and I was already there for something else. I am proud that I've never gone 0-2, and always at least advanced somewhere in the bracket, so those Third Strike Online Edition training days actually did pay off. I also won a tourney once (at an anime con so uh the bracket wasn't that tough, but there were some other legit people there).

There's a group of guys in Michigan I've gotten to know who are all about older fighting games, with Third Strike at the top of the list for them. One of them owns an arcade cabinet and they all get together all the time. It's fun to play against them at events and tournaments to see how well I can hold up before getting destroyed. They're nice people too, helped me learn more about Third Strike and really make for fun experiences no matter how good or bad I do. In a big online tournament a week ago, one of those guys made it into the top 8 bracket, but eventually lost against IglooBob. I wonder if they've ever crossed paths before.

The one real flaw with this game is that some very cool characters are just not that great, not with any of their three supers, and it feels like a big struggle. It would be cool to play as Alex or Q, but I would just have a bad time more often. And a big apology to anyone who thinks Twelve is cool. His best super has him change into a clone of his opponent. When your strongest move is to be a different character, you know there's some big problems.



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ONLY FIVE CAN LADDER.
Sushi, kamikaze, fujiyama, nippon-ichi...

#37. Chrono Trigger (SNES, 1995)



Chrono Trigger is going to be on a lot of lists, we all know there's a lot of reasons for this being a good game. I want to highlight one aspect of the game though, something that I don't think gets pointed out as often? Or at least from what I see.

Chrono Trigger has incredible pacing. You start off in a fun area with fun events, just long enough to learn controls and meet a couple characters, and then off you go to the main part of the story. Each new area you go to is quick enough to get in, get a feel for it, hear the cool music, fight some battles, a little talk, and youre moving on to the next place or event. The game shifts between time periods and slides characters in and out enough that nothing has a chance to get stale. Even the time periods that may be a little long at one time leave enough threads unresolved that you know there's more to come back and do. On top of the characters and music and gameplay and story being solid, Square nailed the intangible feel of the game as well.

The DS remake adds some bonus content, and it's immediately clear what was tacked on. It's like driving a truck straight into a wall, and progress there takes so much more work and time and seems less fun. I'm not holding any of that against Chrono Trigger, of course, because none of it was in the original game. It's just that the extra content helped make clear exactly how well-planned the events in Chrono Trigger were.

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ONLY FIVE CAN LADDER.
Sushi, kamikaze, fujiyama, nippon-ichi...

#38. We Love Katamari (PS2, 2005)



I'm just writing the word Love instead of the heart symbol throughout this because even explaining this is faster than finding the symbol.

Katamari Damacy was a unique experience that I luckily got to play pretty soon after its release. When We Love Katamari came out, looking bigger and better than the first, I knew I had to have it and play it. Except, I didn't own the game. My girlfriend at the time got it. We played on her copy of the game a whole bunch. I went through the whole game and put a lot of time into it. Eventually we broke up, so at some point, I had to find a used copy for myself. And I started over, went through the whole game, and then collected every item (even those darn flowers). I very rarely put that much effort into doing 100% of a game, especially something I've fully beaten before. It's kind of a big deal that I put that much work into We Heart Katamari.

It helped that this game truly did improve upon the original. There were more weird characters and weird stories and weird interludes, more eccentric songs, and more things to roll up. There were new types of levels, so you could try for speed or size or accuracy or finding specific items. And everything that worked in the first game? They just left it how it worked. It's amazing they just got the Katamari formula completely right on the second game.

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ONLY FIVE CAN LADDER.
Sushi, kamikaze, fujiyama, nippon-ichi...