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

(+) Yeah! (+)

69.



Super Hexagon is the purest video game there is. You last maybe two minutes max, and that's if you're really good, and every second feels like 10 as you try to survive. This game is all about overstimulation as you spin in circles while the backgrounds assault your eyes. It's you vs. the game in its most natural form. If this was in an arcade, it would eat up quarters like crazy.

I love Super Hexagon. I take it for a spin all the time, but never for more than 5-6 minutes because that's about all the human body can handle.

---

okay, that's another tier down. I feel like the next bunch of games is a big jump up. we'll kick those off tomorrow.

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

79. final fantasy 7
78. golf story
77. we love katamari
76. etrian odyssey 5
75. super smash bros ultimate
74. mike tyson's punch out!!
73. dragon quest 3
72. holedown
71. shadow hearts 2
70. bleed
69. super hexagon

---

68.



Shadow Complex has no right to be anywhere near this list. It's one of the ugliest games ever made, a tribute to the greys and browns of the early HD era. But man, this game is just fun to play. It nails the progression of a good metroidvania and feels great when you're running from room to room at top speed. Aiming with the right stick and going for headshots was a new twist to these kinds of games and added a layer of combat depth. There's a lot wrong with this game but I love metroidvanias and this is a fun one.


---

I'm kinda surprised it's still good to go back to after all the good Metroidvanias we've had since then! It was certainly fun at the time, though. It was the first Xbox 360 game I bought!
---

yeah, that was exactly my thoughts too. I figured the game would fade away now that we had metroidvanias crawling out of every corner.

---

67.



This is a tricky one for me! This game has my name all over it. I love tight and tough 2d action games. I love run based roguelites. I love spinning the wheel of random upgrades and seeing what might happen. The gameplay here is really strong and each weapon brings a completely different playstyle -- almost like there are six different playable characters. I don't know about "balance" between weapons, but each weapon is unique and you can make every one of them work really well. This game is kind of amazing.

But.. I also don't like the progression of the game? Like, everything involving conversations with the various gods is a negative for me. I don't like any of the parts between runs. It feels like a checklist and I skip half of the dialogue out of apathy. The progression within runs is weird too -- you can more or less go with the same upgrades every time if you want. I ended up beating the game 7 or 8 times in a row by just going for the same build and demolishing Hades with it. That's more on me and my lack of variety than anything, but the idea of a roguelite is to force you into whatever the game throws at you and to have different experiences each time. I felt like the design betrayed that.

But that gameplay, man. That feeling when you're surrounded by monsters in act 3 and need to kill the skeleton dudes before they respawn. Trying to deal with the act 3 boss who is a pretty famous brick wall. The number of risk-reward decisions you have to make throughout a run is impressive. This game is really good, just a little rough around the edges.

---

transience posted...

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

I don't.

---

feel like Hades is probably in my top 20.

Spelunky 1, Isaac, and Hades the roguelite/like holy trilogy for me currently

---

66.



This is another top RPG of mine that hasn't aged particularly well. A lot of people give FF7 grief for being hilariously outdated, and rightly so, but FF9 isn't much better. The easiest thing to point to is the load times, and sure, those are bad - but I find the overall battle speed and pacing of the game to be the bigger culprit. It just doesn't move at the pace that it feels like it should.

But FF9 is great! I love the cast and, more importantly, the world that it creates. It feels lived in. This game features great boss encounters and climactic scenes. It's interesting in how the pacing can fall down inbetween those scenes, but when it's time to crescendo, FF9 does it as well as anyone. I think FF9's class system creates true separation between characters which is very welcomed after FF5-8 strives to make every character more or less the same. Only Vivi can cast Blizzard and Zidane's the only one that can steal. I like that in my classic JRPGs. FF9 is a throwback to the heavily influential FF4 in so many ways, and as someone who grew up adoring those early FF games, it's very appreciated.

---

65.



In my mind, Persona 4 occupies this middle ground between 3 and 5. Not just because of release order, but in terms of the overall approach to how the game is structured. Persona 3 really leans into the gameplay side of the equation with some quick dialogue, and Persona 5 rambles on endlessly. Persona 4 is just... good? It's a nice middle ground. It feels like the proper blueprint of what a Persona game should aim to be going forward.

This game is just overall good. It has likable characters, though it still drones on way more than I'd like. The story is good, the gameplay is good. Nothing is ever particularly amazing in this game, but it's such a cohesive and solid package. Sometimes there isn't anything more to say than "yeah, that game is good."

---

Yeah, I still like P4 the best. I think it hits the sweet spot for me, although I have to play on NG+ so I can blaze through the dungeons.

And FFIX has always felt kinda slow to me, but I don't necessarily mind it because the world is just so enjoyable to be in.

---

Do the modern FF9 ports speeding things up help at all?

In Hades I almost always chose the weapon that had a darkness bonus. I think that helped give the runs more variety. I also got all the Steam Achievements, something I haven't done with any other game, so that helped to keep it interesting.
---

you can speed up the game speed but it still takes like 5 seconds to get into them for some reason. also the speed up options, at least the ones built in, are either normal speed or like 5x speed, nothing inbetween.

---

64.



The OG. I love the original's open structure, where you just kinda go anywhere and do things in any order, something they went really far away from until, I guess Breath of the Wild. Secrets are tucked into every corner and bush, which probably seems archaic to anyone born after 1985 but you guys didn't grow up on Nintendo Power like I did. Zelda 1's map is inscribed into my DNA at this point.

Because of its open ended nature, this game works great with various rom hacks, especially randomizers. There's a lot of ways to milk entertainment out of this game and I'm here for most of them.

---

alright I've got a hot prediction list of 45 games I think will show up on the remainder of the list

(44 now because Z1 was one of them)

---

most of them, if not all, are probably right!

---

Yeah I'm pretty confident on about 40 of them. We'll see!

---

63.



It's a different kind of Mega Man! Okay, not really. Like 90% of this game is still classic Mega Man. Capcom knows that Mega Man fans have a very specific expectation of what a Mega Man game is: 8 bosses, rush coil/jet, energy tanks, 3 lives, all the stuff that's been there for 30 years. But MM11 starts to change things on the edges to smooth out the experience a little. Difficulty levels, weapon selecting, a dedicated slide button and the new double gear system.

The double gear system is the biggest change, with the ability to power up weapons or slow down time. It's a good system that any proper Mega Man fan goes out of its way to avoid because who ever needed such tweaks in Mega Man? But if you embrace it, it's a really cool system that adds a lot. This game has a pretty good set of weapons and it's fun to power them up and crush a boss. I do wish they'd go another step further and remove the idea of lives from Mega Man, but maybe they save that step for Mega Man 12, assuming it ever comes.


---

Missed that one! I completely forgot there was ever even a MM11.

---

Still haven't played that one, but I need to get around to it sometime.

---

62.



It took me a long time, but I came to terms with what Metroid Fusion is when I stopped thinking of it as a proper Metroid game. This game dumps a lot of Metroid traditions, the most obvious of which is the excessive narration. Super Metroid gives you an intro and leaves you alone while Fusion unlocks doors at a computer's whim and overexplains what's going on in the world behind those locked doors. It's jarring, and that's to say nothing of the removal of core Metroid abilities like the bomb jump or the single wall jump.

Metroid Fusion is more of a cinematic metroidvania that does a great job of setting a tone. It could have leaned into a lot more - this game could have been a lot scarier than what they settled on. There are sections where the SA-X gets the jump on you and it's legitimately terrifying because you're helpless. The newest Metroid makes you feel the Dread when the EMMI is chasing you, but it's contained to specific areas and the penalty for dying is minimal. It's got nothing on the SA-X.

Metroid Fusion definitely suffers from its linearity, but as a tone-setting horror game, it's pretty good. It could have been better if they played up that angle more, but it's still pretty fun to rip through.

---

61.



The second Edgeworth game does a fantastic job of telling a cohesive story across all of its cases. It's probably better at that than any other Ace Attorney game. Minor characters from earlier cases become major players later on. Culprits that have been caught end up coming back into the fold as the overarching narrative wraps around them. The end scene in this game features something like 17 of the game's characters in one room trying to figure out what the hell is going on, set up by a mastermind.

The Edgeworth games have never felt as important or magnanimous as the mainline Ace Attorney games due to lacking a proper trial system. Still, their focus on navigation and actual exploration lets them weave a scenario that rolls things out at their pace instead of waiting for the trial to drop the bombs. The first game did a pretty poor job of this but AAI2 nails it.

---

I should play AAI2 someday. Maybe after I struggle through GAA.

---

it's much better! it helps that you have the backing of familiar characters.

---

AAI2 is super good. It might be peak Edgeworth, too. 2-4 Edgey is tough to beat, but I think this game comes close.

---

in general, I think I'd only recommend GAA if people have already played through all the mainline games. it's still totally likable, but you could be playing those instead.

---

60.



I have an announcement to make: after god knows how many hours and however many thousands of holes, I've finally broken free from Desert Golfing. This was my go-to mobile game for something like 6 years whenever I had a few spare minutes and wanted to idle. The persistence of the game (almost) never ending and the simplicity of just poking at a few holes here and there was pure joy for my dumb brain who didn't want to really do anything.

Two reasons for this. One was that a sequel came out last year, Golf on Mars, which iterated on the formula ever so slightly, changing the physics and making the world a little more persistent (meaning you could scroll the screen and not have to start over at the beginning of the hole). Golf on Mars was fine, but lacked some indescribable quality that Desert Golfing had. The other reason is I found new mobile games to poke at over time, which I'll go more into later in the list. I'm pretty happy that I finally broke this addiction because man, no one needs to spend hundreds of hours hitting a ball on a 2d plane endlessly!


---

transience posted...

The other reason is I found new mobile games to poke at over time

another genshin impact player I see

---

59.



The music in this game! It's so good. It fits absolutely perfectly with the thumping of the gameplay. Enemies aren't even really after you, at least most of them. They're just kinda enjoying the music, going about their pattern, all that.

Necrodancer is all about pattern recognition and being able to think within the beat. I'm.. pretty bad at this game. I've never beaten it, though I've been to the last act. But it's so good. It's so, so good. They made a Zelda themed Necrodancer, and don't get me wrong, Zelda music is good. But it's not Necrodancer music, which is some of the greatest in-game music of all time.

---

58.



An absolute classic, and one of the top contenders for games I've clocked the most hours on all time. This game was just about all I did throughout my adolescence unless a new Final Fantasy came out. I spent so many hours and dollars playing this in the arcade, and then even more time on the SNES version. Even today, I can still throw this on and have a great time. I will be throwing out quarter circles until my hands no longer work.

---

Its weird to think that I was only like 3 years old when SF2 came out. It must have been an old game by the time I actually have memories of playing it.

---

Tag!

---

57.



A lovely little action puzzle game where you control two characters with two analog sticks. Brothers is fairly simple with its puzzles, kind of like a Monument Valley, which is good because the struggle comes from trying to control both guys simultaneously. It's not easy to split your brain into two to do this, especially when your guys are going in different directions! It's intentionally obtuse, and for good reason.

Without going into details, the end of this game merges story and gameplay in such a profound way. It creates a truly great video game moment. This game manages to be highly emotional despite not speaking a word of English, and that moment is suuuuuper memorable. The rest of the game is pretty fun too, but that moment is why this game rates so highly.

---

56.



So, Beneath the Mask. Has there ever been a better RPG song? That thing sets a goddamn mood, and defines pretty much the entirety of Persona 5. Take away Beneath the Mask and this game drops a few spots at least. I might even rank it below 4!

Persona 5's music and style is just outstanding. It carries the game for sure. On the other hand, I think this game is really poorly paced, with random conversations amongst your team going on for long stretches, sometimes hours longer than it needs to. But it has great gameplay, really cool social link/gameplay interactions, and a strong climax. It's too bad that the final act of this game lets it down!

---

guess you haven't played Royal then (i have no idea if it fixed any problems)

---

nah. one time through a 100 hour game is enough for me

---

transience posted...

67. Hades

Like, everything involving conversations with the various gods is a negative for me. I don't like any of the parts between runs. It feels like a checklist and I skip half of the dialogue out of apathy.

Wowww, that is literally the first time I have heard this opinion on the internet. Every person I've seen has given extremely high praise to the game's dialogue (including myself, and I hate dialogue in video games). Why do you think the reason was, that it didn't work for you??

---

yeah, I've heard others praise it too. I just don't think it's very interesting, like at all.

---

55.



Nothing says "2000s" like Geometry Wars. The original Geometry Wars on XBLA defined the early downloadable experience and the sequel improved on it in some pretty major ways. There are six radically different modes here for a twin stick shooter fan and each one is a lot of fun. I love gunning for high scores in this game, and the old high score integration with friends was great. (Not that anyone actually plays this game anymore, but hey.)

Geometry Wars 2 is like the only game that never made it off of XBLA, which is a real bummer. Most everything else found its way to PC or Switch or whatever but this one is still exclusive to that old console. I guess it probably got pulled forward to more modern Xbox platforms actually with backwards compatibility. I still need to get one of those.

---

54.



Speaking of 2000s games! I actually still play this game a lot, with my youngest. To my knowledge, there still hasn't been a beat-em-up that has surpassed Castle Crashers in terms of accessibility and replayability. They just don't make too many games like this anymore, and the ones they do, like SOR4 or whatever, just don't do it for me. Absolutely anybody can play this game and it's still fun.

The gameplay is fairly straightforward but the light RPG mechanics work super well and let you run different builds which gives it some interesting twists. There's only so many ways to spec your guy so it can get a little stale, but pretty much any co-op multiplayer game is more fun with friends (or in my case, family), so it's a good time even when the game gets a little old. Plus, if I put it down and come back several months or a year later, it feels fresh again. One day I'll find a game to replace this game, but not yet.


---

Wow the rate of production here puts the #sports chat rankings to shame
---

Hades: Hades was actually the last game I beat! I haven't played a lot of roguelikes but I thought it was a lot of fun. My main complaint is that playing for long periods made me feel like I was gonna get carpal tunnel...

FFIX: I replayed this earlier this year (and actually beat it for the first time ever)! It still holds up for me, though I basically constantly had the speedup feature on for random battles.

---

I don't mess around! (these take like 3 minutes each)

---

I'm with you on Hades. The gameplay itself is a ton of fun, but I just could not get myself to care about the characters or dialogue or story. I dunno what it was.

---

I still barely know what Hades even is

---

you know Bastion, right? Hades is Bastion with randomized elements so that each run is unique, and with some dialogue in between runs. you can compare it to social links.

---

okay, that's another tier down. the next one is mostly classic 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
79. final fantasy 7
78. golf story
77. we love katamari
76. etrian odyssey 5
75. super smash bros ultimate
74. mike tyson's punch out!!
73. dragon quest 3
72. holedown
71. shadow hearts 2
70. bleed
69. super hexagon
68. shadow complex
67. hades
66. final fantasy 9
65. persona 4 golden
64. zelda 1
63. mega man 11
62. metroid fusion
61. ace attorney investigations 2
60. desert golfing
59. crypt of the necrodancer
58. street fighter 2
57. brothers: a tale of two sons
56. persona 5
55. geometry wars 2
54. castle crashers

---

53.



Roguelikes -- real roguelikes -- are crazy. I'm fairly convinced that you can only play one of these games with any kind of competence. There's just too much to know. I've played this game for over 100 hours, mostly play just a single class out of fear of having to start over in learning, and have 3% of the achievements. You know, because there's 1782. I gave it a run last month and it's even significantly different from the last time I played it because these games are essentially live games. It came out 9 years ago.

TOME is a pretty soft roguelike, one with actual graphics, modes that disable permadeath and have some unlockables, like additional races and classes. But it's still a monster to try to untangle, even playing just a single class. There's just so much here that it's dizzying. I'm probably terrible at this game, and I've never actually beaten it, though I've gotten incredibly close. This game is great but it ultimately comes down to how much time I want to invest in it, and I'd need to sink months in to really get good at this. I'm not that monogamous with my games but I do like this thing.

---

52.



I've fallen off of Xenoblade a bit. Open ended exploration of huge open spaces just doesn't do it for me as much anymore, probably since it's become more and more the norm in the 10 years since its release. Games like Breath of the Wild offer what Xenoblade does with way more interactivity and a much larger space. I can also blame Xenoblade 2 a bit which really soured me on anything Xenoblade. That game is no good.

But this game is good! The interactions between your characters are charming, especially early on when the group is small and intimate. This game is framed by the struggle for survival against the mechon, and the occasional conflicts really drive home the difference in power levels. As the game progresses, you slowly gain the upper hand as you unlock more Monado powers. The back third of this game isn't as good as what comes before because that conflict starts to feel unbalanced. All the while, you're exploring new spaces and learning new story revelations and it's real good. The music is pretty strong and the story is pretty good. It's real easy to like this game a lot.

---

Too low

---