Board 8 > transience's top 100 games -- almost 2022 edition.

(+) Yeah! (+)

heroicmario posted...

Lists!

the prodigal son has returned, once again, for the biennial tradition

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I came at the right timeright between two Zeldas! Im surprised MM is above LTTP for you, but its not a bad move.

Also, I dont think I ever played Half Minute Hero 2, but the first one was tremendous

the second one takes out all of the non-rpg stuff and expands on it. it's better, but it's also way longer than it should be (something like 20 hours?)

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Yeah, Majora's Mask was the first Zelda to really wow me.

(Still mad it beat FFX though)

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84.



I don't have much to say here. God of War is fun and the second one really amps up everything. This game climaxes in a really great way and I still find it fun to play today.

I also never felt the need to move on after this game. I remember playing the demo for God of War 3 and thinking it was just... too much for me, too much gore and trying to be shocking for shocking's sake. I also never bothered to play the 2018 game because I'm just kind of over the series and don't want any more. But yet, I can go back to this game and still love it 15 years later. Who knows!

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2018 is a lot less like that, as I'm sure you know. I think it's worthy of a playthrough because they really make it into a whole new experience, gameplay and tone.

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83.



One of the NES's true gems. Crystalis was ahead of its time and compares favorably to pretty much anything else out at the time, whether you want to compare it to top-down action games like The Legend of Zelda or to turn based RPGs. This game is really ahead of its time and kinda suffers for it as a result. Crystalis could have benefited from a four button controller, more memory for its large world or a halfway decent translation. Despite that, its mechanics are unique and still resonate today, though there are a few things that feel like holdovers of an archaic era. I love this game's simplicity and charm.

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Crystalis is good but I juat cant love a game with dungeon design that awful.

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I think it would be better with an expanded tileset. again, the limitations of the NES

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Even to this day, there's no game quite like Majora's Mask. No game feels as alive and the three day system is still such an unique way accomplish that. Even if the game has flaws, I appreciate the core concept a lot.

_stingers_ posted...

2018 is a lot less like that, as I'm sure you know. I think it's worthy of a playthrough because they really make it into a whole new experience, gameplay and tone.

Second this - it's quite different and imo a lot better than the first three.

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82.



The first game in this collection is kind of miserable. I'd rank it as the worst AA game, below AA4, for being exceptionally slow and, honestly, boring.

GAA2 fixes most of that. It's almost like GAA1 is a tutorial game to set you up for the real game. There's still a lot of nonsense here -- they continue to use a jury system that doesn't work and it's overwritten in the way that most modern AA games are nowadays. Herlock Sholmes is still a pretty big negative in my book. But case 2 is really clever and I love case 3. I think it's the best case in the game and can hang with some of the best from the mainline AA games. Case 4/5 is also good but I don't really like the twist they took with your main rival and the case is a little too convoluted for my tastes. It's still good, just not as good as case 3.

Overall, this game makes me really want an Ace Attorney 7. Playing as Ryunosuke is fun but I need the real thing. Hopefully someday it comes into being.

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yeah, one day maybe I'll give it (God of War 2018) a look. it seems like it's good and it's certainly got the critical acclaim behind it. all I hear in my head when I think about it is BOY and ehhhhh.

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I really need to push through GAA1 at some point. I finished Case 3 and just stopped.

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Yeah, G2-3 is the best case of the two games by a decent margin. I really enjoyed playing as Ryunosuke, but yeah, I'm ready for AA7.

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GoW2 was a whole era, man. That game kind of defines a certain period of time for me - I think that and DQ8 was about the time I had finally gotten a PS2? I remember that being a definitive experience. Agree about GoW3 being too much of everything. I played - but never finished - GoW 2018. It felt pretty solid, but I fell off of it after a few hours.

I own Great Ace Attorney and *really* need to play it, haha.

i think all the pieces were there in g2-4 and g2-5, just spread out too far

i disagree about aa7 though, think i may actually have even liked playing as ryunosuke more than phoenix
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AA7 is more about seeing out the events at the end of AA6 than wanting to control Phoenix again. there's just so much investment there

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Yeah, AA6's ending kind of left things hanging in a way we haven't really seen from the series before. I just want to see where they go next.

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81.



I suck at FPS games for numerous reasons so I don't come to them for tight gameplay. I prefer a wild story and oh man does the recent Wolfenstein series deliver. Wolfenstein 2 starts with BJ in a wheelchair after the events of the last game, with a max of 50 health, rolling up and down the stairs while messing up scores of Nazis. The game just continues to escalate from there. Some of the scenes in this game are just unbelievable. I don't even want to go into detail because it's worth seeing it play out.

I play these games on easy. It actually works out great because I love blowing up hundreds of Nazis without a ton of resistance and letting the scenario play out. It actually plays on about my skill level because these games aren't so easy and I suck. This game is stupid fun and I wish they'd make another honest effort at a big game instead of what they've been pumping out the last couple of years.

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80.



I've loved the monsters of this series since I was real young, and so this series is my Pokemon. The act of raising a DQ monster from slime to endgame boss is a great source of addiction and time loss in my life. DWM2 has a ton of classic monsters and introduces randomized magic keys for near-endless grinding possibilities.

I played through the 3DS remake a few weeks ago and... it's okay, but not the same. I'll always prefer the old monsters games and their mechanics. If I liked Pokemon, I'd be team RBY for life.

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okay, that's the end of a tier of games -- our second one, technically. we level up a little bit with the next batch of games.

100. portal
99. uniracers
98. dragon warrior
97. world of goo

96. spelunky 2
95. binding of isaac
94. mega man 3
93. ace attorney 5
92. p1 select
91. castlevania: dawn of sorrow
90. half-minute hero 2
89. dragon quest builders 2
88. zelda: link to the past
87. monument valley
86. papers, please
85. zelda: majora's mask
84. god of war 2
83. crystalis
82. great ace attorney 2
81. wolfenstein 2: the new colossus
80. dragon warrior monsters 2

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Im always super impressed by how fast you dish out the writeups for these

I need to get back to GAA2; Im like an hour into case 2. I probably shouldnt have risked reading the writeup at all, but thanks for not spoiling anything!

I absolutely adore DWM1 and 2; getting every monster in those (besides the stupid event ones where there was a in retrospect clearly false rumor that you could get them from a wonder egg that had been fed three of every item... with a 75% chance) was one of the highlights of my childhood. I havent played the remake since it never got an official release, but the Joker games definitely didnt have the same magic to them (though they were still worth playing).

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79.



FF7 is like a famous movie where every scene is memorable and iconic. Every line, every animation just stands out as being genre defining. I don't love every piece of this game, especially the materia leveling and battle systems, but it's got a good story, good characters and great tone-setting music.

A quick side note: I was always super excited to see FF7 Remake come to fruition, and I think they did a great job remaking this world in such exacting detail. And yet.. I don't have any desire to see a part 2 just because that kind of action game just isn't my jam. FF7R feels like a big budget third person shooter that's adapted for a 1997 RPG and while that's kinda cool in theory, the glacial pace and battle systems just aren't that interesting to me. I'm also just not sure what the heck happened towards the end of that game and I've sorta blocked it out of my memory. OG FF7 is all I need, warts and all.

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I kind of like that FFVII and Remake exist in their own space and do their own thing.

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78.



A lovely little.. well, it's part golf game, and I guess part RPG? It doesn't sound interesting, and honestly it isn't, but it's got that twee vibe to it that people usually invoke with heartfelt RPGs. Whatever "it" is, Golf Story has it. It's so easy to like this game. It feels good to just walk around hitting golf balls and completing random quests for people by hitting a guy with a ball from 100 yards away. And then there's the golf itself, and if you know anything about me, you know that I like me some abstract, goofy, nonsensical video game golf.

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transience posted...

If I liked Pokemon, I'd be team RBY for life.

*approving grunt*

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77.



Katamari is great and the second game is the best Katamari. WLK is the sweet spot between when Katamari figured out good controls and before it just got played out by too many iterations of the same thing. I bought Katamari Reroll a couple of years ago and boy, let me tell you, that first game was not smooth. It had the best music by far but it didn't play right. WLK did it right, and it's the version I would go back to if I felt the itch to play a Katamari game.

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76.



I love the Etrian Odyssey games. They're ultimately about the satisfaction you get from progression and exploration. There's no purer RPG than Etrian Odyssey.

When you start out, every step is dangerous. Every enemy is unknown and your surroundings are vast. As you slowly push through the dungeon, through extremely careful prodding of the environments and the dangerous enemies in each area, you gain this knowledge of what's safe, what the optimal path is and what to avoid. Your characters slowly get new abilities and the drops in the dungeon let you make better weapons. Soon, you manage to map out part of a floor, find a shortcut, and eventually get to the stairs to reveal a new floor. The darkness of exploration has given way to the light, and the moment you descend, you're consumed by that darkness again, poking carefully to see if you can make the next step without dying.

That core loop is great, and EO5 adds a lot of quality of life improvements that make the act of just exploring the dungeon feel better. EO5 is a no gimmicks, you vs. the dungeon and nothing else approach so if you don't enjoy the grind, it's not going to offer you anything back in return. But if you do, this game is great.

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75.



I haven't spent much time playing Smash Ultimate over the past couple of years, but it doesn't feel like it because Smash is just omnipresent. My Smash intake is more about just watching the celebration than actually partaking in it. As I've said before, it's that museum quality, that absolute dedication to authenticity, that endears me to this franchise.

I like playing it too, and if I was of an age where my friends came over to play video games, I would probably adore this game. (My youngest would love it if I took him on, but kicking his ass or letting him win wouldn't be much fun for one of us.) But for where I am in life now, I just like to watch the videos showing off the new moves and seeing how it adapts all of the new characters and stages to the world of Smash. They're always pitch perfect and smart in their implementations of new guys. I don't need to actually play Smash Ultimate to endlessly appreciate the craft that's put in.


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Yeah, I haven't played much of Smash Ultimate since its release, but it's hard for me not to be captivated by all it does well. It doesn't feel like another Smash game will ever be like this one again.

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I think the next one just picks up where it left off and continues to add more and more stuff. they play it up that way but they're always just going to iterate, because it's so damn popular.

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Yeah, I know they'll continue to do more of the same, but I just don't know that I'll ever care about it the same way again. There just comes a point in a series like that where you don't care the way you once did.

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74.



Punch-Out is perhaps the original puzzle game that's disguised as an action game. On the surface this seems like a sports game, but it's really just an elaborate combat puzzle where you have to learn what the opponent does and counter it. When I was a kid, I just smashed buttons and flailed at my opponents and got utterly demolished. These days, I can walk through this game with relative ease.

Once you get to know this game, it's not especially exciting - but it is fun to try to maximize your skills and demolish these guys. A lot of people hold Tyson up as a trophy that only the greatest gamers in the world can take down, but he's really not that tough. Everything in this game is timing, and once you have it, it never leaves you.

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73.



DQ3 is the defining game in the DQ series -- the FF4 of Dragon Quest, so to speak. Pretty much everything modern originates here -- expanded spell books, classes, weapons, tropes, etc. It feels "classic", and not in that DQ1 way where "classic" just means "old". I like old, but I can acknowledge that the first game isn't a spring chicken in its design. 3 is the first game that feels somewhat modern. I mean, by DQ standards anyway. Even the most recent game is lacking in modern game design, but that's a good thing.

I love this game's expansive world. It's big but not so big that it's unmanageable. This game goes lots of interesting places and the ending resonates super strong with fans of the original. Sometimes simple is good, and that's what this game nails.

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little weird that I have to click on links to open up images just to know what the game is (or derive it from context, but that requires reading), but you're really plowing through these.

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It makes it more exciting when the entire image jumps out at you all at once.
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you have to do that? I just see all of the images at once. if I was using imgur or something like that then only the first picture on a page seems to load, but if you embed them natively you can see them all at once. or at least that's how it works for me.

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Yeah, they just pop up automatically for me. It's probably based on your board settings.

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I have it turned off on mobile to save data
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well I can put names if people want. I like just seeing the art, personally. I think it makes an impact, but if a bunch of people turn off data (they're just pictures..?) then I'll be glad to list the names too.

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72.



I've been playing brick breaking games for something like 35 years. I love them! And my favourite one is this dumb little phone game. Holedown is this dopamine burst where you shoot all of your balls at a single spot and abrupt chaos break out on the board as things just go everywhere. It's endlessly fun and it has a really addictive progression system where you unlock more balls and harder levels. Once you finish the progression, there's an endless mode that I still break out every couple of weeks when I'm bored and need to kill some time.

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it almost kinda sounds and looks like Arkanoid

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transience posted...

you have to do that? I just see all of the images at once. if I was using imgur or something like that then only the first picture on a page seems to load, but if you embed them natively you can see them all at once. or at least that's how it works for me.

It is based on board settings.
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Arkanoid is great. it's better than Arkanoid though (though I do love getting the laser and blowing up a board)

https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/12005105/holedown_animated_02.gif

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71.



Shadow Hearts 2 was one of my very favourite games from the 2000s, a top 10 list staple for years. Of all the RPGs from that PS1-PS2 era, SH2 might have aged the absolute worst. The voicework is extremely awkward and doesn't even match up with the on-screen text. The comedy was novel back in 2004 but just lands poorly now. Some of the dungeon design is really baffling.

But I still kinda really love this game! It's got a ton of heart and a really good story once you put your party together and it stops openly laughing at itself. The main character is extremely strong, so strong that he overshadows the rest of the cast. It has one of the best RPG endings ever. Everything here is good. It just.. doesn't play well in 2021, which is too bad.

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Yeah, I'm sure a lot of SH2 hasn't aged well, but that's always been the Yuri Hyuga Owns Faces Show to me and that part probably still holds up!

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transience posted...

you have to do that? I just see all of the images at once. if I was using imgur or something like that then only the first picture on a page seems to load, but if you embed them natively you can see them all at once. or at least that's how it works for me.

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yuck. azuarc -> My Settings -> Links and Media in Messages if you want to change it

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70.



I've been championing this little gem for almost a decade now. Bleed is a lovely run-n-gun whose main draw is that it controls like a twin stick shooter. I love twin stick shooters and mixing it up with a 2d action game is completely my jam.

Bleed 1 is maybe 75 minutes long and has something like 20 bosses, all of them pretty hard on any mode above easy. You get in, you die a lot and you have a ton of fun. This game is awesome. The only issue with it is that it's completely outclassed by its sequel, which we'll talk about another time.

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