My Personal Top 100 Video Game Project

Nassim
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Re: My Personal Top 100 Video Game Project

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BleuPanda wrote: Thu Jun 11, 2020 6:39 pm Persona 3 with controllable party members is great - there's rumors going around that Persona 4 Golden will be released on Steam soon, so hopefully the PSP version of Persona 3 will eventually follow.
I was hoping for a Persona 4 Golden Switch port, but Steam will do !
I've got some big changes coming in my life, and a few games still on my to do list (looking at you Nier Automata), not counting upcoming releases like Cyberpunk 2077, so I don't know if I would have time to go to both P4 and P3, but P4 for sure would immediately go to the top of my "to play next" list.
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Re: My Personal Top 100 Video Game Project

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#60. Hollow Knight (2017)
Developed by Team Cherry

Hollow Knight merges two subgenres which regularly prove hard yet popular to imitate. Instead of having a proper title, both of these are named after the games which started it all. This is not a unique trait – the first-person shooter genre was commonly referred to as Doom clones. FPS became the popular term once other games improved upon its foundation. This suggests that other entries in these subgenres have failed to differentiate themselves enough to force us to collectively determine another name. Looking at my own top 100, this appears to be largely true – Hollow Knight is the only game here belonging to the Metroidvania and Soulsborne subgenres outside of, well, Metroid, Castlevania, and From Software’s variously titled games. The fact it manages both would seem an extraordinary feat, but the truth is that these two genres share many common elements. Hollow Knight exploits this to massive success.

A Metroidvania game does not necessarily need a map, but lacking one tends to be a frustrating feature. Hollow Knight manages to maximize its tension by delaying this element. Each new area requires finding a cartographer who sells a basic map, forcing you to stumble around blind until you pick up his literal paper trail. Even once you find the map, it does not automatically update with each step – the knight must rest at a bench first. This little change makes a massive atmospheric difference, which is key to selling the Soulsborne experience.

Another key element of Metroidvanias is a world where each area needs to be revisited, and Hollow Knight is loaded with hidden rooms. A lot of paths are blocked by requiring upgrades, but many of these locations have alternative entrances. Hollow Knight feels very open compared to others in the genre, which can sometimes feel like linear games with the illusion of limitless direction. Large swaths of Hollow Knight can be taken in any order. There are also dozens of side areas I passed over repeatedly before finally noticing an entrance – once you think you’ve seen everything, you’ll suddenly discover an entire sub-area with its own boss. There was even an early game boss I failed to stumble across until I neared the end. Most Metroidvania games will have a few hiccups where there’s only one rather obtuse path forward. Hollow Knight simply has so many paths and such an open structure that you’ll never run out of places to explore.

Hollow Knight features many of the surface-level Soulsborne elements, such as the need to recover resources from wherever you died and the bench-to-boss runs. But what really sells these games are their foreboding atmospheres. Many developers confuse this for brutal difficulty despite the Souls series employing an unusual system for mitigating the challenge if desired. Hollow Knight is just challenging enough. Bosses like the Watcher Knights will absolutely roll you over in the first few attempts, but it never feels unmanageable. The patterns are clear enough to show why you failed; the challenge is less about overwhelming the player and more about understanding the exact moments to attack. The gameplay is effortlessly smooth, ensuring that these numerous attempts are actually enjoyable.

But, again, these games aren’t hard purely for the sake of difficulty. They make each new and sprawling location feel like a reward, giving a sense of trespassing within places which needed utmost protection. At least from my perspective, the true joy of this genre is not the boss fights but seeing the massive world unfurl. By giving only the slightest direct information, these games largely rely on environmental storytelling. A lot can be gathered just be seeing which bosses are protecting which area, and the lack of explanation makes some locations truly terrifying despite the cartoonish art style.

The lack of RPG elements actually feels essential here. Instead of simply levelling to gain power, improvements are scattered across the world. In the rare case you do come across a boss which seems too hard to manage, that’s all the more reason to turn around and explore another corridor. With dozens of charms to equip, mask fragments which increase health, and pale ore to improve your weapon, there’s always something around the corner which might give the right advantage. You may end up grinding to be able to buy a few great charms, but the most charming element of this game is the way it rewards constant progression.

Hollow Knight is all about the sensation of being lost. In fact, this might just be the biggest Metroidvania out there, and the whole experience is dizzying. From the first descent into the Forgotten Crossroads to the absolutely nightmarish run through the White Palace, every area leaves its mark. Maintaining the perfect difficulty to be challenging but never hard enough to outright block progression, Hollow Knight captures the spirit of Dark Souls while remaining surprisingly accessible.
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Re: My Personal Top 100 Video Game Project

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#59. Fallout: New Vegas (2010)
Developed by Obsidian Entertainment

While the Fallout series has been around for a while, the series went through a total transformation after changing publishers. The first two games were classic isometric WRPGs. As soon as Bethesda took over, they essentially changed it into The Elder Scrolls with a different setting. Fallout: New Vegas now feels like the most essential game in the series, combining the gameplay of the latter entries with the charm of the originals thanks to being developed by many involved in the older games.

New Vegas did not always sit atop that pedestal. Bethesda games are always busted, but New Vegas felt particularly unstable. When I first bought the game, I put it down after only an hour due to my character’s gun constantly bobbing up and down at random. It was the type of flaw which did not outright break the game but made the visual interface nauseating. It took picking up years later after tons of patches to see the true quality.

Fallout is at its best while being humorous. The numbered Bethesda entries have their fair share of comedy, but the settings can be a bit drab. Strolling through the National Mall in Fallout 3 is certainly a compelling experience, but the Las Vegas setting allows some brilliant nonsense.

What makes The Elder Scrolls work and thus Fallout by association is the massive amount of content to explore. Where most RPGs consist of caves and keeps, the retro-future setting of Fallout offers some truly unique locations. The series staple is the fallout vaults, which is how people survived into the present day. However, each and every vault was actually an experiment. Diving deeper and discovering their stories is always a joy. One feels lifted straight out of a Shirley Jackson social horror story while another has been overrun with fungus. The lore runs deep, always maintaining a darkly humorous atmosphere even as it descends into madness.

The quests are always a riot thanks to the many oddball factions. One gang consists of Elvis impersonators while one of the major factions vying for power has regressed into ancient Roman culture. The strip offers a dusty yet colorful environment, with each of the casinos having their own bonkers narrative. Despite being post-apocalyptic, so many of these areas feel alive.

I’ve always been a fan of how this series handles its nature as an RPG/FPS hybrid. The V.A.T.S. system is a stylized way to momentarily emphasize strategy over shooting. And while there are stat increases, a lot of the fun in levelling is choosing from the massive variety of perks. Some add new dialogue options, others make V.A.T.S. more versatile, while another reveals the entire map. There are so many ways to play this game, especially when considering the typical morality system which offers several ways of handling each quest. One of the most ingenious details is how dialogue options can change depending upon your build – including some special lines when your character is particularly unintelligent.

We put up with Bethesda’s glitches because the core experience tends to be so strong. There’s just so much to do here, and the game accommodates whatever playstyle you choose. With Obsidian’s brilliant writing, New Vegas is simply the best Fallout game.
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Re: My Personal Top 100 Video Game Project

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#58. Bayonetta 2 (2014)
Developed by PlatinumGames

For all intents, the Bayonetta series filled the void left by the Devil May Cry series between 2005 and 2019. The first game was directed by Hideki Kamiya, who also directed the first Devil May Cry. Bayonetta 2 generally built upon that first installment, which was personally marred by my experience with the atrocious PS3 port.

What Bayonetta 2 may lack in mechanical depths is made up by the simple pleasure of its dodge mechanic. Called Witch Time, a successful dodge will momentarily slow down time and let Bayonetta get in a small combo. There’s a simple grace to the flow of battle. While the best Devil May Cry games have deeper mechanics, their basic enemy designs could be all over the place. In Bayonetta, everything feels tightly built around these simpler ideas. For the average player, Bayonetta 2 is absolutely a top-notch gameplay experience.

Like Devil May Cry, Bayonetta can also be really dumb. Where Dante is an edgy dork, Bayonetta pushes a dominant sexy image to the point of absurdity. A lot of games try and completely fail at being sexy, usually to the point of embarrassment. By being so unabashedly at the center of the presentation, Bayonetta’s take is oddly compelling. The character was designed by a woman, and this feels key to explaining why it works. Her sexy performance comes off less like fanservice and more like a power move. While obviously not successful for everyone, she somehow appeals to the four major corners of human sexuality. Bayonetta is a power fantasy for both lesbian and straight women and a fabulous inspiration to drag queens everywhere – in fact, I believe she might be least appealing to the straight men for whom we usually assume these sorts of characters are designed.

The whole series oozes style. Everything from the basic enemies to the boss battles to the backgrounds remain in constant motion, and the frequent shifting in and out of slow motion builds upon this. Sometimes billed as stylish action games, having such a frenetic energy is key to the experience. The narrative and characters are the exact kind of joyous nonsense you would expect from Devil May Cry, just with a more feminine tone.

Character action games like Bayonetta 2 are some of gaming’s simpler joys. The whole game can be completed in only a few hours, but there’s a ton of variety to draw you back for more. From new weapons and abilities to harder difficulties and an alternate character, this is the type of game that demands being played a few times. With such a stellar combat system, this demand is far from a problem.
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Re: My Personal Top 100 Video Game Project

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#57. Dark Souls III (2016)
Developed by FromSoftware

The strength of FromSoftware’s output over the last decade is how much they switched up combat over each iteration while maintaining the same foreboding world-building. The basic mechanics remain largely the same, but the change in feel between Dark Souls, Bloodborne, Dark Souls III, and Sekiro is distinct enough for each to stand apart.

Dark Souls III feels like a halfway point between Dark Souls’ methodical enemy design and Bloodborne’s ceaseless assaults. Where the first could be conquered largely by going slow and steady, Dark Souls III requires constant but careful aggression. While I tend to prefer the two extremes of those earlier games, Dark Souls III uses this new system to craft some of the greatest boss fights in the series.

But what makes these boss fights so great goes beyond the mechanics alone. While losing some of the original game’s intricate connections, Dark Souls III makes up for it by expanding the scope of each individual location. Many of the connections in the first game felt like neat reminders that all of its areas were surprisingly close. Here, the shortcuts are a necessity. Soulsborne games are all about the checkpoint-to-boss run. The game rewards exploration by cutting many of those paths shorter. What makes this world design so great is mechanically simple – many central bonfires have a few exits, but all but the first remain locked until you progress. By seeing a locked door, the game is providing an unspoken hint – your next stop likely involves finding your way back to the same point from the other direction. This really emphasizes the bosses as the grand finale of the entire location instead of just the third or fourth checkpoint. They might send you back to the beginning, but the beginning is rarely that far – if you’ve earned it.

Despite the extravagant presentation of these locations, subtlety is the key. These games are constantly teaching the player what to expect while relying on us picking up the pieces. It’s never holding the player’s hand, but it’s rarely dropping the player into uncharted territory.

Games which are challenging purely to be challenging rarely click with me, but the best Soulsborne games always feel like they’re teaching me something new with each death – which is actually why I tend to prefer the runs between bosses to the bosses themselves. While you may die a few dozen times, there’s rarely a point while exploring where you’ll feel as if you’re not making progress. Most bosses are simply asking the player to use their skills to the best of their abilities, which is common enough in most video games. If you’re not particularly good at a certain boss, it can devolve into a repetitive and hopeless battle. Some enjoy the thrill of overcoming these odds, but certain moments can feel like distinct blockades from what I truly enjoy about the genre.

But what makes the Soulsborne games so surprisingly accessible (sans Sekiro, which doesn’t actually fall into the genre but is still related and feels like a serious step down for this and a variety of other reasons) are the options provided to mitigate this difficulty. These are RPGs, after all, and sometimes all you really need is a few more levels or a weapon upgrade. If you’re truly incapable of beating the boss on your own, that’s fine, too – one of the coolest features allows the option to summon other players for help, which practically changes the genre entirely.

One thing worth mentioning is how much skill this game involves. There’s nothing quite like starting up a new character and realizing you’re capable of rolling over those early bosses. This is not a number’s game like a traditional RPG at all – who needs more HP when you can avoid the attacks entirely? These other options can make it easier, but victory is ultimately possible at any level.

The online features have always been a highlight. In Dark Souls III, you can become embered to increase your maximum health. However, while in this state, other players can invade. General invasion isn’t too common, but certain areas are designed for constant swarms. The covenant mechanic offers a ton of variety in how these encounters come about, and the possibility of invasion adds a constant tension even after familiarizing yourself with an area. Players can also leave notes on the ground to warn others, which can eliminate many intentionally cheap moments as long as you bother checking.

Despite Bloodborne being a separate series, its eldritch influences left an obvious mark. The first boss in Dark Souls III has been corrupted by a writhing black mass. The next has devolved into moving on four legs. Others like the Dancer of the Boreal Valley carry an inhuman grace. All of the bosses have their own iconic presentation and play against the mechanics in their own ways; no two bosses are alike, even the two which should be. The game also has a phenomenal soundtrack, adding that extra epic ambience to each encounter.

There are also three distinct areas most of us would miss without a guide, with one of these areas being hidden behind an already optional area. With such a foreboding atmosphere throughout, stumbling across what feels like you were never supposed to find is an unforgettable experience. No matter what location you’re in, there’s always a dark beauty to this game. The final location and its bleeding sun is truly breathtaking.

Dark Souls III is largely more of the same – but when something is part of an era defining movement, that’s not a bad thing. Offering just the right amount of nostalgia while otherwise pushing boundaries, Dark Souls III helps prove the Soulsborne formula is imitable – the only problem is most other developers have yet to figure out how.
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Re: My Personal Top 100 Video Game Project

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Relevant to both this and an earlier discussion, Persona 4 Golden was just released on Steam.



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#56. Persona 3 (2007)
Developed by Atlus

Atlus’s Persona series, starting with 3, mixes a ton of disparate elements into a surprisingly effective package. Persona 3 is the simplest take on the formula, but that simplicity has helped keep it distinct from its sequels. Where 4 and 5 weave intricate plots throughout the massive length, 3 feels more episodic. This allows the social element to feel more centralized.

The selling point of Persona is the way it mixes classic JRPG elements with the visual novel. Set over the better part of an in-game year, each day gives you time to do only a few things. The main character has just started at a new high school, where he’s dragged into a group fighting Shadows which invade the city during certain times. At the center of all this is a massive tower which the player must climb over the course of the 80+ hour game.

As a teenager, a social life is also necessary. Throughout Persona 3, you will meet characters corresponding to tarot cards. The player can summon his own personas with those labels, and improving relationships with these characters makes his personas stronger. These connections are a necessity – fresh personas tend to be under-leveled, but the experience boost from a strong bond gives a powerful edge.

Thus, the game is all about balancing time between building those bonds and conquering that tower with little direct guidance. The game suggests reaching a certain floor by certain points in the story, but it’s up to the player to find the time. Unfortunately, party members will grow tired over time, limiting how much you can explore during a single in-game day. Though this game is massive, time is always limited – unless you follow a guide, you will simply have to ignore some social links. Though well-integrated into the gameplay, these social links are also well written and serve to better emphasize the setting outside of the party members.

Something which has always intrigued me about Persona is how it manages to capture the feeling of an epic without necessarily being one. Despite its size, the majority of Persona 3 feels like a slice of life story which gets repeatedly invaded. Though plenty prefer the stronger narrative presence in the later games, Persona 3 lends itself to a more laidback experience. By breaking the experience into daily activities, it’s a story which is easy to take in pieces – or if you’re really engaged, it can have the same effect as the Civilization series. I’ve definitely found myself promising to only play ‘one more day,’ with the longer dungeon sequences being a nice reminder to take a break after that day turns into a week.

As with the mainline Shin Megami Tensei games, the Persona series has its own strong combat engine compared to other JRPGs. While a bit simpler than Nocturne’s turn press system, the one more system still emphasizes the need to hit weaknesses. In this system, each character acts separately, and they can chain together multiple hits if they keep hitting weaknesses. The main character might be well-equipped to hit whatever weak point is present, but that’s where the time mechanic becomes essential. Magic costs SP, and SP generally only recovers once you rest for the day. This forces a heavy focus on resource management during each trip – the last thing you want is to use more days than necessary to climb Tartarus. You need that time for social links!

While the overarching narrative remains in the background throughout most of the second act, the finale hits hard. Throughout most of the game, why you’re stuck fighting these shadows is a mystery. The finale goes to some heavy places, a perfect payoff for such a long journey.

It would be careless of me not to mention the soundtrack. From the soothing Velvet Room piece which serves as a series staple to the J-pop bops scattered throughout the cities and battles down to the dark ambience of key revelations, everything here stands on its own while perfectly adding to the game’s modern atmosphere. The highlight is “The Battle for Everyone’s Souls,” which plays during one of the final battles. Starting with heavy metal guitars, the song soon gives way to the Velvet Room vocals. These two disparate sounds are seamlessly mixed together and help make this one of gaming’s most unforgettable final bosses. The guitars reinforce this difficult battle, while the serene vocals serves as a reminder of how far you’ve come with these people. Another highlight is the tragic yet empowering “Memories of You” which plays over the credits. The fact both of these come from the ending reinforce the fact this game simply gets better as it goes – and it starts pretty strong!

Persona 3 helped establish one of gaming’s best formulas. The year-round social mechanics sets a perfect stage to really get attached to the characters while also serving a gameplay purpose. Like any other Shin Megami Tensei game, this is a JRPG which provides a legitimate challenge. Plenty of games mix genres to varying degrees of success, but few match how Persona 3 uses elements of the visual novel to add weight to its procedurally generated dungeon crawler.
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Re: My Personal Top 100 Video Game Project

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#55. Hotline Miami (2012)
Developed by Dennaton Games

A brutally difficult top-down shooter with a narrative and atmosphere yanked straight from a David Lynch film, Hotline Miami is a game like few others. The story revolves around Jacket, a silent hitman who dons animal masks before slaughtering his targets. What starts as a traditional video game set-up quickly unravels once it becomes clear Jacket’s silent acceptance of these demands speaks to an unspoken trauma.

The visual presentation is consistently trippy, with Jacket repeatedly confronted by masked figures commenting on his actions. Are these people somehow involved, or are they even people at all? The fact Jacket wears these masks suggests they might be his own hallucinations. Colors flash along the edge of the screen with every kill, and later chapters mess around with ideas like having the entire screen twist to simulate dizziness. The soundtrack consists of frenetic electronic songs which only adds to the hallucinatory experience.

The gameplay is highly addictive. While challenging, the levels are quick enough to never be frustrating. With each of Jacket’s masks offering different advantages, there are tons of ways to tackle each stage. My preference is to sneak around and melee everyone I can; guns can be quicker, but they can also draw bigger crowds. Jacket is as fragile as any enemy, so every encounter is tense, especially once the game starts mixing in guard dogs and portly men who are immune to melee damage and can survive a few shots. Instead of having an inventory system, Jacket simply uses whatever is available. This tends to force the player to fight their way up to the better weapons.

Horror in video games can come about in many ways. The traditional survival horror genre goes for the obvious with a protagonist facing off against evil creatures. Hotline Miami is one of a rare class which goes for dissonance between player and character. Playing as Jacket feels wrong, but the experience is so strong that you’re going to continue, even as the world collapses around him. While video games have been established as a medium for interactive narratives, few games realize the potential for discomfort by only offering the protagonist the wrong path. Where such a story in any other medium would likely be an emotionally distant character study, Hotline Miami forces you to play along in a psychopath’s sadistic game.

Short and to the point, Hotline Miami mixes together chaotic gameplay, a soundtrack consisting of nothing but hypnotic bangers, and a dizzying narrative into one unforgettable experience.
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Re: My Personal Top 100 Video Game Project

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#54. The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (2003)
Developed by Nintendo EAD

The Wind Waker apparently was a controversial game when released. Dropping an aesthetic established in two medium-defining games and replacing it with colorful cel-shading was a bold move. For a perfect example of the backlash, the only year Link legitimately lost one of the many GameFAQs character popularity contests was 2003, when the picture for the match featured Wind Waker Link against Cloud Strife’s new and improved Kingdom Hearts model.

As someone who really started gaming during the Gamecube era, Wind Waker was actually my introduction to the Zelda series. The backlash has certainly died down in the ensuing years, and for very good reason. With early 3D video games, a stylistic art style trumps realistic graphics. The Wind Waker still holds up where many of its contemporaries now look dated. If I have repeatedly praised Nintendo for this feat, it is only because their dedication to making their games actually hold up visually was surprisingly uncommon. The Wind Waker has a charm like few others, and its colorful nature actually heightens the darker moments.

While Wind Waker’s ocean can feel a bit empty (it is an ocean, after all), I always enjoyed weaving my way through uncharted waters while moving to the next destination. There’s a sense of mystery behind this design, and knowing each square of the map has to contain something worthwhile gives a purpose to this exploration. This barren world in contrast to the open plains of Ocarina of Time also heightens the stakes; how could the world be left in such a state?

While each Zelda game since Ocarina of Time has had its own unique gimmick (barring Twilight Princess, which essentially operates as OoT 2.0), Wind Waker is one of the few to capture its own unique presentation while perfectly incorporating Ocarina of Time’s sense of progression. Each of the central dungeons have their own distinct appeal. Dragon Roost Cavern and Forbidden Woods both have a grand sense of scale which is then outsized by the even grander Tower of the Gods. The Earth and Water Temples make great use of Link’s allies.

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker is in an odd position where most of its exceptional qualities are outdone by other installments in its series. The fact it still manages to be an all-time classic simply showcases the quality of Zelda’s basic formula. The dungeons might not compare to Ocarina of Time, the world certainly isn’t as expansive as Breath of the Wild, and the ocean gimmick doesn’t match the impact of Majora’s Mask’s three day cycle. But Wind Waker consistently displays all of the key elements in a surprisingly disparate series. If I had to suggest one game to truly capture the spirit of The Legend of Zelda in its entirety, The Wind Waker would be at the top of my list.
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Re: My Personal Top 100 Video Game Project

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#53. Overwatch (2016)
Developed by Blizzard Entertainment

The danger of writing about online-only games which are constantly evolving is that the game I experienced and placed among the all-time greats might no longer exist. Blizzard are certainly capable of fumbling a good experience, and the last time I checked out Overwatch presented a much-needed balance fix which also ballooned the wait time for matches. As such, the quality varies at any given time.

But what Overwatch manages at its core is an evolution of the team-based shooter. Like Team Fortress 2, Overwatch features a large cast each filling a distinct role. Overwatch’s is much larger, with each character placed in a very specific niche – thus, there’s a bit more focus on choosing the right character for the team.

What sets Overwatch apart is its heavier focus on support and tank classes – there might be twice as many DPS classes, but its several healers certainly outpace TF2’s rather limited medic. Mercy takes on the medic’s basic function, healing allies with a continual beam while boasting key abilities to zip around the map to dive in and out of safety. But if that’s not your style, Lucio zooms around with the ability to both heal everyone in his presence and also boost their speed – all while being free to get in a few blasts himself. Ana is a healing sniper, able to heal in huge bursts from a great distance. My favorite, Moira, throws balls of energy which can offer either continual healing to teammates in range or sap health from enemies. Her playstyle forces her onto the frontlines, as her basic healing ability is directly linked to her damage output. The tanks are just as varied. Playing supporting classes in other games can sometimes feel like playing a necessary but unwanted part, but I actually find playing support in Overwatch an absolute blast.

While Team Fortress 2 eventually added various weapons for each class, I actually prefer the lack of options within each character in Overwatch. Every Soldier: 76 you face has the same capabilities, so it’s easy to look at the current teams and immediately know what you’re facing. Despite the ease of comparison, this helps differentiate these two classic games – TF2 maintains a greater focus on pure skill, while Overwatch puts an emphasis on adaptation. Overwatch feels more like a strategy-FPS hybrid than a traditional shooter. So, as someone who has never cared too much about the shooting aspect of FPS games, it should be clear why I prefer Overwatch.

Despite its ever-expanding roster, I think the true aesthetic highlight is the game’s various maps. Places like King’s Row and Eichenwalde ooze with personality. While a few assault maps are a bit too chokepoint-heavy, the rest of the maps tend to be great (especially on competitive, where you play both sides and simply have to get further than the opposing team). Even during a particularly bad round, each map takes just the right amount of time.

I’ve never been the biggest fans of multiplayer games, especially in my adult life, so it’s surprising something like Overwatch gripped me like few others. There’s simply something charming about its aesthetics and limited variety. Honestly, my main reason for avoiding multiplayer video games is how much focus the industry puts on the FPS genre – I switched to board games because they offer more variety. Overwatch is yet another shooter, but its emphasis on teamwork and strategy while offering classes which operate outside traditional FPS controls makes it infinitely more accessible.
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Re: My Personal Top 100 Video Game Project

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#52. Red Dead Redemption (2010)
Developed by Rockstar San Diego

I have previously observed that Red Dead Redemption feels like the serious counterpart to Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto franchise. Where the sequel pushed realism to the point of artistic absurdity, the first game manages to feel like a more mature experience while also maintaining the chaotic freedom of a sandbox game. The original Red Dead Redemption is simply Rockstar’s formula in its greatest form.

John Marston is one of their more compelling protagonists, a flawed man with a torrid history trying to escape a criminal world which keeps pulling him back in. Part of his appeal is simply due to genre – any point GTA tries to make can be lost in its overwhelming violence. These mass shootouts are simply the nature of the western genre, which helps make Marston more relatable. His position in the narrative helps establish sympathy – he is being forced into this macabre role by the government at the threat of losing his family. There’s a sense of fatalism which permeates this entire experience.

A big selling point of open world games is their massive maps. These worlds have only gotten bigger with time, but some games really lack proper emphasis. I don’t believe any open world game has had a stronger moment than the first time you cross the border into Mexico in Red Dead Redemption. Seeing the map suddenly expand beyond what you initially imagined was mind-blowing, and setting this to a gentle ballad by Jose Gonzalez sets a perfect mood. This is how you make each section of a map feel meaningful.

The controls in Rockstar games tend to feel a bit wonky, but RDR reached a high point without all the extra baggage of their later works. The Dead Eye mechanic was an ingenious system to implement in a style which until then had struggled with fluid shooting mechanics. Additionally, riding horses through the desert simply feels more engaging than holding down the gas button and breezing through a modern city. While Liberty City might offer more scenery, I greatly prefer not having to play a pedestrian dodging game every time I need to get from point A to point B.

Like every other Rockstar game, the missions are a grab bag of stray ideas. While there may be few which stick out among the pack, the simple fact is that the gameplay in RDR is so much better than their other games that these are a consistently strong experience.

The finale is Rockstar’s most emotionally resonant moment. Marston achieves everything to be reunited with his family. But in true Western fashion, nothing ever comes easy. It’s important that Red Dead Redemption is not set at the height of the Wild West but during its final breaths. Like Eastwood’s Unforgiven, this is the story of people being bluntly erased from a changing world. Many games have unwinnable fights, but the way this finale slowly builds toward Marston’s acceptance of this fate is unforgettable. After sending his family off to safety, Marston steps out and faces an entire firing squad. The game naturally goes into Dead Eye, a mechanic which until this point has given the sense of being superhuman. But it’s simply not enough against such a large crowd. There’s a reason Red Dead Redemption 2 had to be a prequel – when Marston goes out gun blazing, the Wild West dies with him.

Games will keep evolving technologically with time, and Red Dead Redemption 2 has pushed limits like few others. But technical complexity only does so much for an artistic experience; the original Red Dead Redemption simply does more with less. No other game has both captured and expanded upon the atmosphere of a spaghetti Western in this way. If RDR2 is a video game explicitly attempting high art, then RDR1 is a perfect slice of the type of genre fiction which drew us all into the medium in the first place.
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Re: My Personal Top 100 Video Game Project

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#51. Bioshock Infinite (2013)
Developed by Irrational Games

The original Bioshock built itself around a semi-obscure philosophy called Objectivism and dragged it into the depths of the ocean. Bioshock Infinite is one of those ‘bigger and better’ sequels which throws nuance out the window. Where the citizens of Rapture tried to escape, Columbia is a floating city, the type of place which the world cannot ignore. The city is ultra-nationalistic, formed to be a ‘better’ America. Naturally, this better America is a cult which worships the Founding Fathers and has turned racism into a beloved pastime. Thus, the central concept of Infinite leaves less room for the imagination. Every facet of an Objectivist society was explored in the original, from medicine to art to the common worker. There’s not many ways Infinite can say racism is bad which we don’t already know.

So it says something else entirely.

Something is very wrong about the experience from the beginning. Columbia is at peace when Booker DeWitt first arrives. After a forced baptism, the player is free to stroll the city streets. You will soon pass a barbershop quartet singing “God Only Knows.” As in the song by The Beach Boys, released five decades after the setting of this game. It would be easy to write this off as a stylistic oddity – isn’t it funny, these characters singing a completely anachronistic song which happens to have ‘God’ in the title? But then you encounter a calliope cover of “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.” CCR’s “Fortunate Son” is the hymn of the revolution. You may be stuck exploring a racist dystopia, but the question actually hanging over the experience is how these songs came to exist in this time period.

Columbia is merely the backdrop for a game which is really about itself. When people beg for sequels, certain elements are expected to carry over or else it will not be recognized as a true sequel. Pokemon has gyms, Zelda has dungeons, and Bioshock has biopunk cities featuring extreme philosophies. The problem here is that no real-world philosophy has quite the same baggage as Ayn Rand’s Objectivism. Replicating that feeling either requires misrepresenting a reasonable philosophy through extremism or exploring something the audience already agrees is bad. When Booker eventually jumps into a reality where the revolutionaries win and are just as evil, it doesn’t read as a legitimate statement – Bioshock must intrinsically frame the dominant philosophy as negative, or else it is no longer Bioshock.

That’s not to negate Columbia itself. This is a wondrous world to explore, and zipping through its skyline is a mesmerizing experience. The exaggerated displays are still compelling, simply more as outlandish nightmares than a believable dystopia. There’s something special about walking through an exhibit and suddenly having to battle robots shaped like the Founding Fathers. As the game transitions to outright acknowledging its multidimensional nature, the locations become suitably horrific. The original Bioshock was defined by its atmosphere, and this is one of the few areas where Infinite captures the same magic in a straightforward way. While I’ve never been the biggest FPS fan due to the gameplay, the Bioshock series makes perfect use of the mechanics to tell a seamless narrative, rarely taking control from the player.

As reality crumbles around them, the true heart of this narrative is between Booker and Elizabeth, the young woman he had been sent to rescue. While the racism which pervades Columbia is cartoonishly evil, Booker himself is struggling to cope with his own involvement at the Wounded Knee massacre. The balance between atmospheric extremity and more nuanced personal struggles is key to this experience. As Booker tears through this city, it feels as though he’s fighting against his own past horrors. Bioshock Infinite is one of many great games from the 2010s exploring bonds between a guardian and the person they protect. Booker and Elizabeth are both complex characters, but what makes this bond stand out is that Elizabeth is ultimately the more dangerous of the two.

The video game industry has an unfortunate tendency to emphasize sequels over new properties. Several series have struggled to come to terms with the fact their basic concept does not support further elaboration. Bioshock Infinite is not the only game to find a way out through metatextual acknowledgement, but it’s a rare experience to do so while maintaining the emotional heart. Bioshock Infinite laments an experience which cannot be replicated. The magic here is that the lament itself has proven equally inimitable.
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Re: My Personal Top 100 Video Game Project

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#50. INSIDE (2016)
Developed by Playdead

INSIDE is a masterpiece of surrealist horror seamlessly integrated with truly ingenious level design. Each area introduces an unforgettable concept, both stylistically and in its handling of platformer-based puzzles. Though the game can be completed in a single sitting, each second will make your skin crawl.

What makes this so effective is that INSIDE never stops to clarify its events. The game begins with a boy fleeing armed guards. This suggests a basic story of survival in a dystopic setting. There’s only one problem. This boy is not escaping. As the title suggests, you quickly realize he’s heading deeper inside this monstrous facility. With every door revealing a greater horror, you’re left begging for answers. None of these rooms quite connect to one another. And when the game finally delivers an answer, things only get worse from there.

INSIDE, like Limbo before it, has a very simple art style. The protagonist even lacks a face. One might wonder how this can cause such effective horror, but the simplicity allows the developers to get away with some truly grotesque violence. You do not want to die in this game. Not only because it means going back to the last checkpoint, but because the death scenes are legitimately distressing. Whether he’s being ripped apart by guard dogs or shredded by a propeller, the little details they put in are nauseating. This reinforces the central question; why would anyone put themselves through this danger?

This is the part where I suggest turning back if you want to avoid meaningful spoilers. Because this game is built around constant atmospheric shifts, discussing any level in detail beyond the first without spoiling any surprise borders on impossible, but I would also be doing this game a disservice by limiting myself to surface observations. Even then, words cannot capture the presentation of these moments; this is truly a game which needs to be experienced, blind if possible.

After being chased through the countryside, the boy arrives in a city where people shamble in file like a pack of zombies. The boy is forced to join this line, keeping pace in hopes the guards don’t notice something off. As they get further in, the people start doing certain actions which the player must follow. This methodical moment is already tense, and the game will likely earn a deserved kill when you inevitably freeze up after finally being discovered. There are no rules to this game beyond survival, and the key is recognizing when the primary threat changes.

The one room I’ll never recover from is the shockwave chamber. After spending most of the early parts of this game avoiding enemies, the boy finally comes across an empty room. Every few seconds, a shockwave pulses through the entire area. If you do not have cover, you will instantly be blown apart. This starts simple enough, requiring the player to dodge between obvious safe points. But later cover includes moving machinery, some of which moves much quicker than the player. The level becomes a horrifying timing puzzle, requiring you to find the exact moment for temporary cover. It’s terrifying and oppressive and I never felt a greater sense of relief than when I finished this nightmare.

This is followed by a flooded chamber, where the boy enters a small sub and must avoid long-haired girls who will quickly break through the glass and drown him. They can be scared off by light, which requires a fine balance between forward movement and paying them attention. Again, these levels work due to the lack of information. What, exactly, are these girls? It doesn’t matter – what does matter is that whoever is behind this facility has unleashed all of our worst nightmares.

And then there’s the finale, which is the one part I should really emphasize not reading about if you’re unfamiliar. At the same time, I was actually exposed to the finale without context and did not realize until I reached the ending – that’s how off the rails INSIDE can get.

During the final moments of this game, the boy swims inside a vat and releases a gigantic writhing mass of human bodies which quickly consumes him. And then you begin controlling that mass. The final level feels like playing as Spirited Away’s No-Face as he rampages through the bathhouse, with the gathered scientists fleeing in terror as the mass mows them down. More than ever, you have absolutely no idea why you’re doing this. The mass eventually breaks outside, tumbles down a hill – and then it’s over.

It takes a second for the pieces to click. This actually is a game about escaping, but not in a way anyone would have imagined. You were not helping this boy survive. Rather, in a game with constant elements of mind control, you were the pawn of a psychic eldritch abomination. Many cosmic horror stories feature characters being tricked into helping Ancient Ones. INSIDE succeeds in making you play that role, putting yourself and the poor boy through a horrifying ordeal in the name of assisting something which has no right to exist. Unlike other games which force the player into a moral dilemma, INSIDE does not reveal you’re doing something wrong until it’s too late.

INSIDE is as tightly-focused as video games come, telling a riveting narrative purely through environmental storytelling while packing unforgettable level design.
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Re: My Personal Top 100 Video Game Project

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#49. Super Mario World (1991)
Developed by Nintendo EAD

The secret of this writing project is that, despite being perhaps the most famous video game series, Mario is absolutely proving to be the hardest thing for me to write about in this context. What is there to say about Super Mario World which hasn’t already been said about Super Mario Bros. 3 or the other platformers which expanded upon this formula? I can’t even say it took SMB3 and did it better, as there’s been times where I preferred the older game. It’s like trying to define the word ‘the,’ something so foundational that describing it requires more technical knowledge than simply using it.

To put this another way – critics like video games with stories because it gives them something easy to write about.

So let’s try to get technical. I’ve played plenty of platformers in my life; what is the specific element which sets Mario apart? For me, Mario simply controls better. It’s surprising how many platformers out there never end up feeling quite right. The ease of adjusting Mario’s movement as he jumps gives the player a perfect sense of control. Many other platformers introduce weapons or more realistic momentum. Mario keeps things so simple that platforming and fighting are one and the same. But it’s not as easy as reducing all enemies to jump damage. I just played through Sonic 3 & Knuckles, which shares a similar design philosophy, except there are times when jumping will not do damage – you have to jump in a specific way or else the character does not enter the necessary ball form. Other platformers are too floaty, which feels unnatural and reduces the urgency which typically makes the genre engaging. When a platformer’s controls gets too complex, it can sometimes feel as though the game is not properly responding to certain inputs.

The 2D Mario games always managed to avoid that feeling. It’s all about jumping, with the only real complexity coming from its intuitive button mechanics. Mario will jump higher if you hold the button down longer. Most platformers incorporate this mechanic, but Mario’s singular focus means the stages are constantly building upon this one mechanic. World introduces an alternative jumping attack, but this is importantly assigned its own button. There’s just enough depth, but each element is intuitive. We can talk about level design, but even the most basic levels work because these mechanics provide such a solid foundation.

Yoshi was a key addition to the series. Mario’s lovable dinosaur pal changed up the basic mechanics, but again in an intuitive way. His presence offers some nice variety and helps Mario access distant paths. This also leads to a particularly uncharacteristic bit of dark humor on Nintendo’s part. One level requires Mario to ditch Yoshi to make an otherwise impossible jump. His sacrifice will never be forgotten.

With steadily increasing difficulty built around these mechanics, the levels are all expertly crafted. There are also a significant amount of secret levels and alternative paths which reward exploration in a largely straightforward genre. Getting to the final level doesn’t take too long, but the game has so much to offer. With such fluid mechanics, more levels is always better, especially when several of those bonus levels require absolute mastery of these controls.

In video games, Mario’s influence is ubiquitous. When discussing platformers, the easiest option is to note how it differentiates itself from this franchise. Sometimes, these added layers can make Mario seem too simple in comparison. But it’s not simple due to neglect – this simplicity has always been an informed creative decision. Nintendo has done their best to ensure all their major franchises remain mechanically accessible while lending themselves to distinct level designs – the later success of Super Mario Maker reveals how endlessly variable this system can be. Super Mario World just happens to be the 2D Mario formula at its arguable best.
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Re: My Personal Top 100 Video Game Project

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#48. Kingdom Hearts II (2006)
Developed by Square Enix Product Development Division 1

From the beginning, Kingdom Hearts was one of those ideas which should have never worked. Even its creation seems improbable, starting as a literal elevator pitch as someone from Square Enix ran into a Disney exec on an elevator. The colorful world of Disney mixed together with the stylish Final Fantasy series seems like something which should appeal to exactly no one, yet it’s become one of the most popular JRPG franchises. The fact it took that odd creation as a jumping point to become one of gaming’s most convoluted narratives is both asinine and completely on-brand. Even several games in, I can’t help giggling as Donald Duck talks about ‘the darkness.’

But few songs hit my nostalgia like “Dearly Beloved.” Kingdom Hearts is nonsense, but it’s my nonsense. II stands high above the rest, fixing the clunky feeling from the original and, well, not being the later games. This game helped mark a huge shift in action gameplay alongside Devil May Cry 3 and the original God of War; graphics have advanced considerably, but the gameplay of these games are as smooth as ever.

The original Kingdom Hearts played a bit safe with its Disney choices. The only real surprise was The Nightmare Before Christmas, which had more to do with Disney otherwise keeping it away from their other animated properties. Everything else shared a generally colorful aesthetic. Kingdom Hearts II switches things up with Timeless River (designed to simulate the black-and-white Mickey Mouse cartoons) and Space Paranoids (which captures the neon cyberpunk style of the original Tron). Even the more obvious inclusion of The Lion King involves transforming Sora into a lion cub, which puts a fun spin on the combat. There’s also the more, uh, realistic Pirates of the Caribbean level, which might be a weak point but reinforces that each of these levels really capture their own unique traits.

Combat in the original was fun if a little basic. II maintains the simple feel while adding a few more options, the most central being the drive forms and reaction commands. The drive forms give Sora distinct boosts and unique traits. These are integrated well, as you can eventually unlock permanent upgrades for Sora through levelling these forms. They all level using different mechanics, which gives a reason to keep using each of them. This carries its own risk, as overuse can transform Sora into the Anti Form, where he loses most of his abilities but gains incredible speed.

Reaction commands break up the tedium of hitting the same button over and over. Certain moments in battle will reveal an enemy’s weak point, which can be engaged with through a separate button press. This may not sound like much, but gameplay is the one element this series was smart enough to keep simple. It’s just enough to make things more exciting.

The boss battles are a real highlight. Though I still don’t quite get Organization XIII on a narrative level, more humanoid bosses tend to be more engaging, and their presence offers a hefty amount. The Final Mix takes this further by offering even more difficult versions of each member, including those not actually present in the central narrative. What makes humanoid bosses great in action games is that those which are well-designed feel like a battle on even ground, even as the boss pulls off impossible feats. With so much fun content in the Final Mix, Kingdom Hearts II is one of the few RPGs which gives a compelling reason to grind for end game content.

While the opening hours can be a bit tedious after the first playthrough, Roxas’s story is a strangely resonant microcosm of the series’ themes. Having still not played Chain of Memories, I’m certain there are bits I’m missing, but “Looks like my summer vacation is over” still hit me like a brick the first time through. I think that’s the defining feature of Kingdom Hearts as a narrative – even if you don’t fully understand the overarching plot, it still manages to find the emotional core through the experiences of the characters.

Kingdom Hearts II takes the best of the RPG and Action genres, creating one of the most vibrant series in gaming. While its story may not be for everyone, it’s a rare RPG where the narrative might be its weakest hook. In fact, the individual moments count for more than the narrative at large – in a series where visiting Disney worlds started as the main selling point, Kingdom Hearts II simply has the best of the bunch. Over a decade later, this is still a blast to play.
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Re: My Personal Top 100 Video Game Project

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#47. Zero Escape: Virtue’s Last Reward (2012)
Developed by Chunsoft

General spoiler warning: Virtue’s Last Reward is the sequel to 999; the central concept of VLR is built around the plot twist of the first game. Since I cannot discuss any meaningful element of VLR without bringing up that twist, be warned that this will be spoiling that earlier game. (Surprisingly, I’ve managed to avoid meaningful spoilers for VLR itself – which, being a visual novel I can praise without narrative spoilers should itself be taken as a sign of its quality)

Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors started off with a killer concept and transcended to something else entirely with the revelation that the whole thing was a psychic experiment drawing information from alternate realities. The problem with this system was that only two of the paths really mattered, and they had to be completed in a specific order to reach the true ending. By acknowledging this concept from the beginning, Virtue’s Last Reward is better able to implement mechanics to make these various realities connected.

The big thing here is the inclusion of a flowchart which fills in as you stray down the various paths. The player can jump to key moments – the first game required starting from the beginning each time, which could get rather tedious even with a skip dialogue feature. Additionally, the puzzles down each path are completely unique. Where 999 had only two meaningful endings, VLR hides secrets down several paths. Basically, it’s a total overhaul of the first game, to the point that rereleases of 999 now include their own flowchart. It’s hard to explain the joy of experiencing a story with multiple canon endings.

By making each path count, there’s simply more time to make all these concepts and characters matter. Each of the nine characters, including the protagonist, are harboring some major secrets. No one is here just to spout off psychological concepts and game theory – they certainly still do that, but there’s a lot more going on as well. Which path you take first can completely change your perception of other routes; no two players will really experience the same narrative until it’s all tied together at the end.

Another key change is the addition of meaningful decisions. In 999, all you really had was which door to choose and making sure to hear a few important conversations. In addition to the doors, the characters of VLR are constantly forced into a game implementing the Prisoner’s Dilemma. Each character starts with three points, and they will be released if they manage to score nine – whoever escapes first will seal everyone else inside. If their score hits zero, they are immediately executed. If they choose to ‘ally’ with each other, those involved gain two points. Both betraying results in no change, while being betrayed results in losing points while the traitor gains more. This gives the player more meaningful influence over the paths while also providing a better read on what these other characters represent. Who appears too trusting, and who will predictably stab everyone in the back? The game makes sure to play a few neat tricks here and there, just to keep the player alert.

The escape room segments continue to be a fun way to break up the tedium and stop this from being a traditional visual novel. They also help add to the Saw-inspired atmosphere. Most come for the story, but simply having the player actually interact with these puzzles is a convincing method to get inside the head of the protagonist. Otherwise, he would simply be a character you sometimes command, which can shatter the illusion of player-protagonist connection. This game wouldn’t work if you didn’t feel personally betrayed by these characters at key moments. This feeling is emphasized by the Prisoner’s Dilemma segments occurring between those who solved these rooms together.

I’d prefer not to dive into any more details – this is simply a brilliant narrative structure with tons of effective twists. The entire Zero Escape series feels like a key example of how video games can tell narratives in a way other mediums cannot, and Virtue’s Last Reward is the highlight.
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Re: My Personal Top 100 Video Game Project

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You obviously love Japanese RPGs.

Play the Trails series, now.

It's best to start at the start with Trails in the Sky. But starting with Cold Steel is fine too as an introduction.

It's an amazing JRPG series. There are 9 games already, which take place in three different countries in the same world at the same time. It's a slow burn kind of worldbuilding, where they take their time and set up the pins before knocking them down. Slow character development before a massive payoff. And some of the best turn based JRPG combat I've ever played.

Based on your list, it's a crime that you have not played these games and you will love them.
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Re: My Personal Top 100 Video Game Project

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#46. Gunstar Heroes (1993)
Developed by Treasure

Treasure is one of gaming’s hidden gems, a company which pushed stylistic boundaries while largely refusing to capitulate to the industry’s demands for sequel after sequel. Their focus on unique IPs gave them freedom to experiment without solidified expectations, and their output like Ikaruga and Sin & Punishment stand among gaming’s most singular experiences. This all began with Gunstar Heroes, a run and gun shooter that pushed the Genesis to its chaotic limit.

Like most games in this genre, Gunstar Heroes is largely simple to play. In the beginning, you choose between four basic weapon types. What makes this special is that the characters have two weapon slots, and these two slots can be combined to make a specialized attack. With 4 basic attacks and 10 combined variations, there are simply a ton of options in a genre where many games stick to the basics.

The four basics have their own specialties: force has rapid fire, lightning offers a long-range piercing attack, chaser homes, and flame is strong but short-ranged. The combinations logically combine the two concepts, with two of the same weapon simply offering a stronger variant. So, lightning and fire make a short-range mega weapon, while lightning and chaser can shift the player’s focus to movement while the weapon automatically and slowly chips away at enemies. A key feature in the initial options screen is the ability to choose between free or fixed controls. Free allows the player to move and shoot while fixed stops the character while firing but allows more directional control with aiming. Certain combinations work better depending on the control scheme.

The inclusion of cooperative gameplay is also a boon. It’s always fun to let a friend join in, but this particular game benefits from two players meaning two different weapons. Really, one thing I’ve always missed from this era is the rather common implementation of co-op. Whether it’s something as simple as controlling Tails or being able to play the full game on equal terms as in Gunstar Heroes, I sometimes find myself going back to this era because so few modern games even attempt to replicate the experience. With chaos being one of Treasure’s central tenets, a second player only builds upon the madness of Gunstar Heroes.

Gunstar Heroes is one of those classic ‘easy to learn, hard to master’ games. Playing is as simple as holding the shoot button and moving. But as the game throws out more and more enemies, your focus will turn more to the layout of the stages; how do you use these mechanics within this location? The challenge is less about hitting the enemy than maintaining your health throughout these massive stages. The central bosses all push the limits, especially on the harder difficulties.

Seven Force is among the most striking boss fights I’ve encountered. Tucked away in only the second of seven levels (though you can and probably should play the first four levels in a different order), this boss goes through either five or seven distinct forms depending on difficulty. Each of these forms have as much health as a full boss, so the entire fight becomes an endurance run of mastering his simple yet changing mechanics. This is one of gaming’s best brutal yet rewarding experiences; he is fully manageable once you get the game down pat, but getting there seems impossible at first glance. Adding to the experience is the detailed design, with each section of Seven Force’s several bodies being animated as distinct pieces. Gunstar Heroes is absolutely one of the best looking games of the fourth generation, and that is on full display during this fight.

While games like Contra have been around forever, Gunstar Heroes went above and beyond. Mixing smooth yet variable gameplay with challenging designs and a vibrant style, Treasure created a chaotic classic. This is the run and gun genre perfected; no other even comes close.
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Re: My Personal Top 100 Video Game Project

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#45. Final Fantasy VII (1997)
Developed by Square

As someone who largely experienced 90s video games as a teenager in the mid-2000s, the overwhelming popularity of Final Fantasy VII has always been a bit jarring. The reasons for its commercial success are largely nonsensical now; this was seen as an example of cutting edge technology? But what gets people to pick something up in the first place can differ from what sticks with them. Square sold this game based on cutscenes which looked much better than the standard gameplay, but people who bought in were rewarded with the latest iteration of a solid franchise that had been largely overlooked during the previous generation.

Square simply does memorable characters better than most companies. While plenty of games feature deeper protagonists with stronger characterization, that quality rarely extends to the supporting cast. With Tetsuya Nomura’s distinctive designs, each individual party member has become a video game icon. One of Final Fantasy’s greatest strengths is its Seven Samurai-styled collection of disparate heroes coming together for a shared cause, and VII is absolutely the most consistent cast in the series. Even relatively minor characters like Zack Fair and Rufus Shinra have captured the imagination.

Final Fantasy VII truly outshines its legacy. Cloud Strife is absolutely deserving of his place as one of the definitive video game protagonists. Square themselves seems to have lost track of what made him special, framing him as the quiet brooding type in later appearances like Kingdom Hearts. The whole point of his actual character arc is that Cloud is deeply disturbed and has been clinging onto a personality which is not his own. One of the game’s defining moments has Cloud break out of this shell and become his true, more joyous self.

What makes this change special is how it affects our understanding of the cast itself. Cloud is caught inside gaming’s most famous love triangle, which is already complicated by one of the participants being the victim of gaming’s most well-known spoiler. But with this twist comes the realization that Aerith is drawn to the performance while Tifa has been longing for the real Cloud.

The surprise of FF7 is how it wades through some complex territory. Ecoterrorism, corporations killing the planet, identity, betrayal, death – this features some heavy stuff compared to most mainstream hits, and it seems that later entries were wary of tackling anything too controversial once 7 shot the series into the spotlight.

So many of these moments are magical. Stepping onto the world map for the first time, Sephiroth standing amidst the flames, that famous twist at the end of disc one – Square knew how to direct our attention. The standard presentation would have never been enough for this ambitious story, so the cutscenes really do assist in generating emotional resonance.

But the highlight of the presentation has always been the score. Nobuo Uematsu is the biggest name in video game music for a reason, and everything about Final Fantasy VII’s soundtrack is phenomenal. Beyond the simple beauty of the music, Uematsu expertly links many of these songs together through distinct motifs. Even as the party strays far from where they began, these motifs are a constant reminder of everything being connected.

What made Final Fantasy such a definitive JRPG experience between the SNES and PS2 eras was the way each game offered its own unique spin on a sturdy foundation. While VII stands as the most popular, they are each of a distinct quality where any individual entry would be a reasonable favorite (except perhaps VIII). The Materia system does a fantastic job of giving the player control over what their characters can do. The fact there are many powerful Materia throughout the world also makes it essential not just to level but to hunt these items down – any JRPG that gives a meaningful way to power up outside of shopping and grinding has a distinct advantage.

The hunt for these Materia also highlights the size of this world. There are so many sidequests and secret bosses. Yet even while restrained to Midgar, this world feels huge. There’s always some new corner to explore, and the game offers some serious rewards, including two full-fledged party members.

I’ll never quite have the nostalgic association with FF7 like those who got to experience it upon release. Even then, the core experience stands strong – turn-based gameplay never really ages and the narrative concepts have remained unique. There’s a reason everyone had been clamoring for a remake – the graphics have always been the sole barrier for new players from an otherwise flawless game. But with Square deciding to experiment with the remake, the original remains a distinct and definitive experience.
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Re: My Personal Top 100 Video Game Project

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#44. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Trials and Tribulations (2007)
Developed by Capcom Production Studio 4

Point-and-click adventure games had been around for decades before the Phoenix Wright series took off in America, but they had faded into obscurity sometime around the late nineties. This genre was a method of telling more engaging narratives, but the actual gameplay commonly fell into moon logic territory. By telling the story of a haggard defense attorney gathering evidence, the Ace Attorney series made the narrative and puzzles act as one. Many games treat their stories like window dressing, even if those stories are high quality. Here, understanding the narrative is key to progression.

All of the Ace Attorney games beside Apollo Justice are great, but the third game goes a few steps beyond. The key element is consistency. Most games in the franchise have at least one weak case, but every case in Trials and Tribulations is strong in its own way. The first two entries had thematic consistency, but Trials and Tribulations was the first game in the franchise to really feel like it was telling a single large story throughout all five cases.

Later entries would follow this format, but none have quite matched the quality. Stories like this are all about the characters, and Trials and Tribulations contains two exceptional antagonists. The game opens with a flashback case showing how Phoenix Wright and Mia Fey met. Unlike earlier games where the first case was little more than a tutorial, this is actually one of the best cases in the series. The obvious antagonist of the case is Dahlia Hawthorne, a beautiful young woman dressed in white and carrying a parasol. She’s so perfectly innocent that butterflies surround her like some discount Disney princess. Her transformation into a caustic sociopath is predictable based on the common format of the first case, but what makes her special is that Mia clearly has history with this young woman.

The other key antagonist (though far from a villain) is Prosecutor Godot. Each game in the franchise has a rival prosecutor, usually with their own personal connection. Prosecutor Godot starts off as a total unknown. Despite this, he despises Phoenix Wright with a fiery passion. His appearance adds to the mystery, with him wearing a robotic mask with three red lights which covers the top half of his face. Who is this coffee-chugging jerk, and how does this all connect?

One of my favorite elements of Ace Attorney is the expressive animations for the characters. Part of the fun of proving someone wrong for the first time is seeing their exaggerated reactions. Godot has many classics, with some unknown person sliding a cup of coffee down his bench like he’s in a game of Tapper. He’ll even chug a glass now and then just to do a spit take. Many visual novels settle for stationary sprites, yet Ace Attorney puts in enough effort that the designs themselves are a large part of the draw. The finale of the game’s devastating fourth case would have lost a lot of its punch without these evocative images.

The series effortlessly juggles a few atmospheres. The first case stands out because the outcome is obvious; there wouldn’t be an Ace Attorney series if Phoenix Wright was found guilty. Thus, it’s a rather lighthearted experience where we get to see the generally serious protagonist as a love-struck young man. But most villains in this series disappear immediately, yet Dahlia casts a wide shadow over the following events. The middle cases are more straightforward in their goofiness, which feels necessary as they lead into a rather dire finale. This could be a bleak criminal procedural throughout, but it’s those moments of humor and humanity that give Ace Attorney its undeniable charm.

The gameplay operates more as a logic puzzle than a series of button inputs, but anyone who criticizes this experience for not being enough of a video game is speaking nonsense. This experience would not work in another medium – no one who watches a let’s play will understand the thrill of finally connecting the pieces of evidence. During the trials, the player must sift through testimonies and point out where statements are contradicted by evidence; sometimes, the player must press for more information before the witness slips up. It’s that ‘a-ha’ moment where Wright shouts “OBJECTION!” which really drives this series.

To really highlight these moments beyond the killer reaction sprites, this series consistently has phenomenal soundtracks. The cross examination music carries an introspective ambience, while the music which plays during a successful objection really gets the blood pumping. These central themes have a few variations, getting more frantic as Wright gets closer to the final truth. The real highlight in Trials and Tribulations is Godot’s jazzy theme, “The Fragrance of Dark Coffee.” The prosecutors are great antagonists because they always act so smug – part of the fun in being right is wiping the smiles off their faces. When you first encounter Godot, this piece helps exaggerate his overconfidence. What’s truly wonderful about “The Fragrance of Dark Coffee” is how absolutely somber it becomes once you truly understand his character.

The Ace Attorney series helped to showcase that mysteries are one of video gaming’s strongest suits. The fact it has been successfully imitated in the tonally-distinct Danganronpa series shows this was more than a few lucky elements coming together. Ace Attorney paved the way, and hopefully more developers will push the genre in new directions. Outside of horror, no other narrative genre is improved quite as much by putting the audience in the central role. Few mysteries have ever hit the raw emotional depths of Trials and Tribulations.
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Re: My Personal Top 100 Video Game Project

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#43. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (2011)
Developed by Bethesda Game Studios

While Morrowind will always have its fans (I still need to give it a fair attempt), Oblivion took the Elder Scrolls series in a more accessible direction which resulted in some serious mainstream attention. Unfortunately, Oblivion had a rather bland presentation. It laid the foundation for something great but failed to do much with it. Five years later, Skyrim fulfilled all of Oblivion’s promises, capturing a mass appeal which has resulted in an almost excessive presence.

What Elder Scrolls does better than most open world games is a legitimate feeling of freedom. Games like the Grand Theft Auto series require a certain amount of progress before parts of the map open up, while something like Breath of the Wild still feels centralized around eventually heading to confront Ganon. For Skyrim, the central quest feels like just another set of side quests. Instead, there are loads of guilds with their own massive storylines, and even random exploration can lead to tons of minor quests. A lot of open world games simply don’t offer enough of a reward to encourage straying from the main roads. These games treat exploration as an option; Skyrim treats exploration as its core foundation.

A surprisingly unique feature of Elder Scrolls is the first-person presentation; most of the other classic open world games tend to be from a third-person perspective. This helps lend to the sense of immersion, which would otherwise be shattered by the distinctly blank protagonist. I truly think this simple point is key to Skyrim’s resonance. There’s a different atmosphere between guiding someone like Geralt through the wilderness and exploring a cave with no avatar acting as a middleman.

The sheer volume of content beats out most comparable franchises. If you really want to see everything Skyrim has to offer, it will take a few dozen hours more than any of Bethesda’s Fallout games. Importantly, most of these quests are strong, and the level designs actually have distinct atmospheres (which was the biggest blow against Oblivion). With so many options for character builds, it can also be fun to start up a new game.

Like the Super Mario series, discussing Skyrim feels strangely nebulous. Open world games feel as inescapable in the modern era as 2D platformers had been back then, and The Elder Scrolls has a rather basic feeling compared to those which followed. It’s easy to discuss the great open world games in relation to this series, but what does Skyrim offer alone?

When I think of Skyrim, my mind leaps to Minecraft, a sandbox game which has become comparably inescapable. If Skyrim solely represented the freedom to explore, then Minecraft would be the indisputably better experience. Instead, Skyrim fills a niche between freeform games like Minecraft and the more structured WRPG experience. Each of these individual areas is a guided experience, but it’s the freedom to tackle them in any order or not tackle them at all which separates Skyrim from other open world games. Without pressuring the player to continue down the main path, we are free to play however much we want. The volume of content is necessary for that experience – while Skyrim offers hundreds of hours of content, not everyone will explore every inch of the map. Our individual experiences with this game can be very different.

The greatness of Skyrim lies in its masterful take on a necessary form. Like most WRPGs, The Elder Scrolls draws heavily from the tabletop gaming experience. Systems like Dungeons and Dragons offer near infinite variability, but that is limited by the need for a Dungeon Master. A successful experience requires a balance between the DM’s designs and the player’s freedoms. Skyrim captures the experience of the rare DM who not only accepts but fully encourages going off the rails. Other games might offer meatier narratives by forcing our attention, but Skyrim is a rare game which feels like a personal journey.
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Re: My Personal Top 100 Video Game Project

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#42. The World Ends with You (2008)
Developed by Square Enix and Jupiter

Nintendo has not released a traditional console or handheld system since 2001. Dual screens, motion controls, autostereoscopy, a handheld-console hybrid; there’s always some gimmick. This would be great if so many of these concepts did not end up overlooked outside of a few key first party games. Those later gimmicks have moved toward changing the console experience rather than offering a new gameplay potential, as if Nintendo has accepted this underutilization.

The true selling point of the original Nintendo DS was the implementation of a touch screen, which predates the popularity of touchscreen-based smartphones by a few years. The dual screen aspect was often implemented as a convenience. Some games used the screen for a map, while others used it for menu navigation. Most developers seemed wary of forcing the player to engage with both screens simultaneously.

By building a combat system around this split screen, The World Ends with You stands as the definitive DS experience. Nothing quite like this has happened before or since. TWEWY can be classified as an ‘action RPG,’ but its action is entirely singular. Even rereleases can’t quite capture the magic due to a change in technology forcing the combat to be overhauled.

The way TWEWY works is that protagonist Neku Sakuraba fights using the touchscreen while his partner can be controlled with button inputs. Using the controls aren’t too complex, with all the necessary buttons being limited to one side of the console. The challenge comes from finding the right combo on the top screen while maneuvering Neku on the bottom. Both characters share their HP bar, so you must put in a strong performance with both.

Part of the ingenious design involves the pin system. Neku comes across a variety of pins which change his attack patterns. These can activate in a variety of ways, from tapping the enemy to touching an icon of the pin itself to shouting into the microphone. You can seek out the pins which best suit your playstyle, but mastering the best might require stepping beyond your comfort zone.

While this has familiar RPG elements, levelling is more a modifier than a straightforward improvement. The player can choose which level they want to play at. Why choose a lower level? The bigger the gap between your max level and the level being used, the better the drop rate. This results in a highly adaptive difficulty slider. If really struggling, the player can sacrifice their drop rate to max out their HP. Otherwise, the game challenges you to play on the lowest level possible to maximize rewards.

The narrative is one of Square’s more creative inventions. Set in modern Shibuya, Neku wakes up invisible to most of the passing crowd. He soon learns he is in a week-long game to prove his worth of returning to life. He doesn’t even remember dying, having lost most of his memories. The game features some of Square’s most striking characters, from the anti-social Neku to the smug Joshua to Sho Minamimoto, who endlessly spouts strange math references. This narrative is shrouded in mysteries which consistently ramp up the stakes, and these characters are far deeper than they first appear.

Tetsuya Nomura’s character designs can be hit or miss, ranging from the iconic styling of Final Fantasy VII to Lulu’s dress, which consists of dozens of belts for some inexplicable reason. The characters in TWEWY are ludicrous in the best way, coming across as exaggerated takes on modern Tokyo fashion. The best detail is Neku’s headphones, which he insists on wearing to block out the noise of other people. What better way to establish a moody teenager?

The music adds to this ultra-modern atmosphere. Songs blend together hip hop, electronic, rock, all with a distinctly Shibuya-bend. Real-world elements of Shibuya play a major part in this presentation, from its scramble crossing to the statue of Hachiko. The never-ending yet unreachable crowds help highlight Neku’s isolation. The contrast between Neku’s desire to be left alone and this forced distance helps build toward the game’s central message. The title is both esoteric and perfect. “The World Ends with You” at first suggests the total isolation of Solipsism before establishing itself as a suggestion to open up. Our experiences in this world are limited to what we choose to engage with, so we can only reach a better understanding by attempting to connect with others and learning their view of the world. Underneath this ultra-stylized exterior and all this glorious combat is a moving story of a lonely teenager coming to terms with his purpose in being alive.

The World Ends with You is a prime example of video games as a boundless medium. Presented with a new technology, the team behind TWEWY took every option to maximize the experience. A game like this is not immediately accessible, but the developers took a risk while relying on the belief that the audience would recognize the potential and take the time to adjust. TWEWY goes beyond a singular experiment with its stylish presentation and engaging narrative. This is not a gimmick but a fully-realized experience which transcends what many imagined these technologies were capable of producing.
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Re: My Personal Top 100 Video Game Project

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#41. Final Fantasy VI (1994)
Developed by Square

While IV and V are truly great in their own right, VI is when the Final Fantasy series started churning out downright masterpieces year after year. VI builds upon IV’s narrative foundation (V still stands as a distinct entry), telling the story of a bunch of plucky adventurers as they fight to save their world. Where IV was always centralized around Cecil and most of its revolving cast consisted of temporary characters, VI does away with a protagonist entirely.

Some will argue that Terra or Celes are the ‘true’ main character. This doesn’t really matter. Significant is the fact that this structure allows the game to constantly split the party while never relegating any party member to a minor role. This culminates in a final dungeon where the player must split their 14 party members into three teams of four. Many JRPGs have giant casts, but few utilize them all in such a meaningful way.

This split structure also helps highlight each member of this colorful cast. While the quality isn’t exactly consistent, characters like the Figaro brothers, Terra, Celes, Shadow, and Locke all rank among the best in the series. Then there is the first unforgettable villain in the series, dancing mad court mage Kefka Palazzo. His colorful outfit hides a ruthless sadist who only wants to see the world destroyed. The game doesn’t even treat him as a serious threat initially. His cackling soundbite is spine-tingling, and he’s one of the few convincing displays of destructive nihilism. There’s no cheap stab at creating sympathy – Kefka is a living embodiment of evil, plain and simple. The heroes absolutely have to stop him.

And what makes Final Fantasy VI so effective is that they don’t. Not initially. The game is divided into two distinct halves. The opening is rather straightforward beyond its branching paths, but the second half turns closer to an open world experience as Celes finds herself in a shattered world. All of the heroes have been split up, and the team must reunite to have a chance at getting their revenge on Kefka. This atmospheric shift was key in establishing FF6 as having one of the first truly great video game narratives, and it also gave the player a chance to have their own sense of control as they sought out the remaining heroes.

With its fourteen party members, FF6 stands out by giving each of them a clearly defined function through a special command. Sabin pulls off awesome physical feats which must be input like a traditional fighting game. Gau imitates enemies through his rage ability. Edgar utilizes special tools with a variety of effects. Each and every character fills a niche. Meanwhile, the esper system gives the player a bit of control over how the characters level and gain magic.

Most modern JRPGs have Final Fantasy IV to thank for establishing solid narratives in traditional video games. Final Fantasy VI refined these elements. From a strong cast to a surprisingly dark narrative to a large world to a phenomenal soundtrack by Nobuo Uematsu, this is everything you could ever want from a Final Fantasy experience, years before VII finally set the world on fire.
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Re: My Personal Top 100 Video Game Project

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#40. Half-Life 2 (2004)
Developed by Valve

The original Half-Life helped establish the location-based set piece shooter which would eventually take over the FPS genre, but Half-Life 2 was the perfected form. Few worlds had felt so detailed and alive. Like Super Mario Bros. 3 with the platformer, Half-Life 2 stands as the ideal form. Later FPS games would follow its lead, but nothing has ever outright replaced what Half-Life 2 offers.

Half-Life 2 exchanges the original game’s unending laboratories for a distinctly Eastern European setting. Where that first game could be sterile and blocky, every inch of this new environment is covered in little details. Gordon Freeman’s trip inside City 17 begins with an uneasy peace. Awakened on a train after years under the G-Man’s stasis, he finds the world has been taken over by an alien race as a result of the first game’s experiments. Any rebellion has been apparently quashed, and Gordon is led through checkpoints under the surveillance of a brutal police force. Being unarmed and surrounded by future enemies is a tense experience, which is a recurring atmosphere throughout. Any time this game gives the player just enough to feel capable, some new threat emerges to reduce all confidence.

This game is loaded with strangely memorable little moments. One of the first involves an abusive officer knocking over a can while blocking the path. He commands you to pick it up and throw it in the trash. You can do so and he’ll let you pass through. Or you can throw it in his face. He’ll chase you down, which just so happens to leave the route unblocked once you maneuver around him. Then there are the physics puzzles, such as loading one side of a plank with cinder blocks so you can jump to a ledge from the other side. These moments are largely cheesy excuses to show off the physics engine, but they are effective in doing so.

Half-Life 2 really ramps up once Gordon received the gravity gun. Seemingly meaningless small objects have been scattered throughout this land as trash. With the gravity gun, all of these items can be picked up and turned into makeshift ammo. After receiving this gun, the game throws you into what just might be the greatest level in any FPS - Ravenholm, a town long-abandoned after a headcrab infestation. Set in the darkness of night, the game temporarily becomes a zombie nightmare as Gordon must largely rely on his surroundings. Some previous survivor has set traps, which Gordon must set off without getting himself decapitated while doing so. But the easiest method of survival involves grabbing one of the scattered saw blades and chopping these headcrab zombies in half. The lead tension of the gravity gun is it’s only as powerful as your surroundings. This forces the player to keep their eyes on whatever they just shot. You do not want to lose the only saw blade in the immediate area while being swarmed. With the way it combines an inventive new combat method with an absolutely terrifying location, this section alone would be enough to call Half-Life 2 a masterpiece.

But the game just keeps being fantastic. Another level finds Gordon playing the floor is lava. While on a beach, any step directly on the sand results in being swarmed by antlions. With the trusty new gravity gun, this area can be traversed by building a moving path of stray parts. And then there’s the finale, where you lose everything but the gravity gun, which somehow becomes supercharged and suddenly starts working on organic matter. This is when the game finally gives the player a break and lets them feel all-powerful.

This game does have some notorious interruptions – while avoiding cutscenes, it instead locks Gordon into rooms while other characters talk at him. Later games would improve on this by having conversations occur while the player can still meaningfully explore. This is Half-Life 2’s one negative trait, a strong idea but poorly implemented. But this game does have some expert storytelling, and that’s all through its environment. Just seeing the state of the world after the end of the first game says so much, and you can tell the stories of each of these locations simply by looking around. Half-Life 2 set a new standard in narrative immersion.

There are a few obvious leaps forward as one looks through the history of gaming. Pong led to Pac-Man led to Super Mario Bros. led to Super Mario 64. Half-Life 2 was the final step into the modern era, the game which signified all tools being made available. There’s never going to be another vertical shift across the board on this level; graphics and physics engines will keep on improving, but Half-Life 2 signaled the end of objective technological leaps involving game design itself. Any game beyond this point had to prove its worth not by technological innovation but by making the best use of those available tools. But no game holds up merely through technical showmanship – Half-Life 2 is an unforgettable experience through and through, with its focus on in-game physics not just a gimmick but central to the entire experience.
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Re: My Personal Top 100 Video Game Project

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#39. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (2015)
Developed by CD Projekt Red

When I recently discussed Skyrim, I drew attention to the fact that it sets itself apart by making the open world RPG experience feel like a personal journey. The Witcher 3 goes to the opposite extreme – this is Geralt of Rivia’s epic story and you are along for the ride. Being at either end of the spectrum is not a good or bad thing, but the experience comes with different expectations. There are tons of preposterously long RPGs trying to tell an epic story, but few maintain such high consistency throughout every hour like The Witcher 3.

Despite falling into the open world RPG category, the closer comparison is less Elder Scrolls and more Red Dead Redemption. The Witcher 3 has all the structure of a Rockstar game but with a levelling and magic system. The Witcher 3 captures the best of both, full of lively cities and endless nature to explore. With Geralt being such a strong character, there’s an actual push toward following the main path; yet there are limitless distractions along the way.

An original setting is key, and while The Witcher features plenty of familiar tropes, there’s also a lot of wild direction. The moment which really made me grasp how unique this story would be involved a family being haunted by a botchling – a creature arising from improperly buried stillborn infants which preys on the pregnant. This game is dark, but rarely in an edgy way. Where a company like Rockstar sometimes views a ‘mature’ experience as loading their games with a lot of immature jokes, The Witcher 3 actually feels like a meaningful mature narrative.

While Witcher 3 is massive, there are rarely moments which feel like a waste of time. Compare how it handles potion brewing to other games with crafting. Each potion requires a certain set of ingredients, yes, but this is a one-time event. These potions are then replenished with a bit of alcohol. Thus, using potions does not devolve into running through fields and picking every flower you see just to make sure you have enough. It avoids one of the medium’s biggest faults – there’s a constant fear of ever using this sort of item because one might need them later. Instead of the mundane picking of flowers, obtaining a lot of these potions are a side quest themselves.

Witcher 3 is loaded with customization options. There is a skill tree which gives boosts to your stats, but the game also limits the player to twelve of these being active at any given time. There are also mutagens which can be equipped to modify certain stats. The refillable nature of the potions and oils make them a central part of Geralt’s abilities. None of these account for too much strength on their own, but finding the right combination and making sure to actually use them all is important.

All open world games tend to emphasize the size of their maps. While The Witcher 3 is big, the true appeal is how varied each location feels. From the open plains of the beginning to the massive city of Novigrad to the snowy Isles of Skellige, each region has its own distinct atmosphere. With the dense political conflict of the central plot, this distinction is key in establishing the conflicting factions. There are also just loads of minor quests, and many of these really emphasize the dense lore which has no place in the main narrative.

Though open world games are the current craze, there are plenty which feel hollow. The Witcher 3 makes every inch feel necessary, whether to simply establish a realistic atmosphere or to hide away hundreds of secrets. Add in a particularly complex narrative with political intrigue and oozing with fantastic lore all situated around an outstanding protagonist, and The Witcher 3 is simply an unbeatable RPG experience.
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Re: My Personal Top 100 Video Game Project

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#38. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017)
Developed by Nintendo EPD

Breath of the Wild just might be the most ambitious Zelda game yet, transposing the traditional dungeon puzzles all across an open world map. While trying on this new form, The Legend of Zelda manages to maintain its colorful style. And despite all the space, the central cities are among the most populated places in the series. Like The Witcher 3 and Skyrim, this is an open world game which never feels empty or lifeless.

In classic Nintendo form, Breath of the Wild sets itself apart by capturing the large scale of an open world game while maintaining a simple focus. The grand majority of side quests in this game revolve around shrines, which reward the player with orbs which can be exchanged for increased health or endurance. By letting the player know what they stand to gain by completing each shrine, BotW offers a straightforward sense of progress despite its open nature. While some might deride the lack of complexity, this simplicity separates this experience from its endless competition.

The puzzles themselves are expertly designed. Many are built around Link’s unique tools and end up being ingenious timing or physics puzzles. A few more offer challenging battles. The best go a step beyond and involve the outside world. Some involve finding the right thing to gain access, like one shrine demanding Link approach while riding a buck. At the far corners of the map are a few labyrinths which feel like mini-dungeons. My absolute favorite is Eventide Island, hidden in the southeastern corner of the map and only accessible with a hefty stamina wheel. This sequence operates as a microcosm of the full game, stripping Link of his armor and items and forcing him to make do with what he finds until he manages to find and place three orbs.

Navigating the world itself can be its own puzzle. Each major location has a tower which must be climbed to reveal that section of the map. This again offers some form of a guided experience, as the tower will usually be the first place the player will want to tackle. Each of these have their own dangers to overcome, adding to the sense of this game being a series of micro-dungeons. Yet travelling is never a hassle – the game offers fast travel to any of its towers and shrines.

Each corner of the map has its own immersive gimmick. Cold mountains and an active volcano require the right gear to safely navigate. The Lost Woods are as dizzying as ever, while the Gerudo town requires Link to pass as a woman to enter. Adding flavor to many smaller locations is a bardic bird named Kass who will sing songs hinting at hidden shrines. BotW has a dense cast for a Zelda game with many heroic figures, yet this wandering accordionist stands above the rest thanks to being the one recurring face among the wilds.

The art style might be The Legend of Zelda at its best, mixing the vibrant colors of The Wind Waker with the more realistically proportioned designs of the other games. Anytime I climbed to the top of a tower, I had to take a moment and look around to take in the sights. The Hyrule Compendium encourages taking a closer look, letting Link keep track of every creature, enemy, and item he stumbles across by taking a picture. Everything from the mountains to the wildlife to the trees is a wondrous sight.

This Hyrule is a partially ruined world, and nothing quite reinforces this like the guardian stalker. These mechanical, spider-like beings hunt down anything which crosses their line of sight. Areas like Hyrule Castle Town remain largely inaccessible due to their presence, and the reward for finally crossing the field is a saddening glimpse of what was lost. The stalkers also have a simply anxiety-inducing theme anytime they begin their hunt, with most encounters devolving into a mad dash behind cover just to make the music stop. There will be several times you abandon all current goals just to panic and dive off a cliff, and there’s nothing quite as fulfilling as finally learning how to take these suckers down.

This game is filled with some surprising emotional depth, especially once you unlock a feature on Link’s Sheikah Slate (the legendary ancient iPhone) which allows him to regain lost memories by visiting certain places on the map. These moments really help build the otherwise distant relationship he now has with Zelda, who’s been busy warding off Ganon during the 100 years that Link was unconscious. This is absolutely Zelda at her most complex, and the reversal of her being the one trapping Ganon this time is a perfect note.

Yet the most powerful moment comes completely out of nowhere and largely by chance. Link has a tendency to climb all over everything to try and get to new locations. When he climbs onto the railing of a certain bridge, an NPC will mistake his unthinking heroics for a suicide attempt. What makes this moment so compelling is its unexpectedly organic nature. Most conversations with NPCs are prompted by the player, and the few who reach out are usually there to block access to certain areas. No one expects an interruption in this particular location with this particular trigger. It’s a small moment, yes, only accounting for a few lines of dialogue. But Breath of the Wild is all about hundreds of small yet brilliant moments stitched together.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild offers the same scale as any massive open world game. What makes it stand out is the vibrant Zelda charm mixed with Nintendo’s penchant for simple yet expansive creations. Skyrim can feel like several distinct episodes while The Witcher 3 is firmly divided into acts. The unique aspect of BotW is that Link conquers these many shrines to gain better favor with the goddess before confronting Ganon. Even taking down the Divine Beasts is in purpose of that central conflict. By shaping every action around this battle, Breath of the Wild manages to feel like one distinct journey from beginning to end; the only difference is how you get to that end.
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Re: My Personal Top 100 Video Game Project

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#37. Doom (2016)
Developed by id Software

The original Doom is as frantic as video games come, requiring the player to weave in and out of demonic fireballs and charging enemies as they dive deeper into hell. As the first-person shooter evolved, the genre shifted towards a more realistic presentation. With this realism came a seemingly contradictory shift. As bullets started flying faster, battles became more methodical. Few modern FPS games allow the player to simply run headfirst into a group of enemies while dodging their shots. Honestly, the original Doom feels like it has less in common with Half-Life than classical shooters like Contra. The genre has largely lost the focus on simple maneuvering.

No game has quite captured the spirit of Doom like, well, Doom, which perfectly earns the shared titled. 23 years later, Doom 2016 feels like a glimpse into an alternate reality where the genre had forsaken needless realism and focused on evolving direct confrontations. While other FPS games might have more compelling set pieces, no modern FPS offers as much adrenaline-pumping fun as Doom 2016.

The key difference between these two mindsets can be broken down into two concepts: projectile versus hitscan bullets. With the now-common hitscan method, the game simply checks if the target was in line of sight and applies damage based on this check. No bullet is generated; this method is used to simulate the rapid velocity of actual gunfire. The player simply hits whatever they were looking at when they press the fire button. Projectiles, on the other hand, generate an actual object which must move through the space between gun and target, meaning the bullet could potentially be dodged. Projectile bullets can move at various speeds. A lot of modern FPS games relegate projectiles to weapons like rocket launchers.

Doom is lucky to have its setting. The game can get away with slower attacks because most demons aren’t going to charge at the player with modern human weaponry. This gives a distinct design while never feeling unnatural. With attacks which are easier to dodge, Doom makes up for it by throwing wave upon wave of enemies.

Playing through a level of Doom feels like a dangerous dance. The player must keep track of the various enemies and their attack styles, picking off those which pose the most immediate threat while dodging continual fire. An ingenious element is the implementation of glory kills. After enough damage, most enemies will become staggered. The player can perform a melee attack, resulting in a brutal animation as Doomguy tears the demon apart. The reward for making this dangerous approach is a little bit of healing. Thus, a lot of Doom 2016’s gameplay can involve staying at close enough range to benefit from this risky yet constant source of health. This results in there never being a lull during combat. Meanwhile, the game contains enough secrets to make exploration just as fun.

Traipsing into hell itself seems like the perfect recipe for horror, and the many monstrous designs would suggest as much. But there’s a very distinct atmosphere given off by the first enemy. He gives off a horrid scream, which could be taken as an attempt at intimidation. But the more you add up the pieces, the clearer it becomes that these demons literally fear the Doom Slayer. This turns Doom 2016 into the perfect power fantasy. The player gets to be the nightmare which keeps demons up at night.

The appeal of Doom is simple. Through intelligent enemy design, the game manages a unique balance between constant movement and aiming. This is a game which stands apart from its contemporaries. Many FPS games reward patience, but it’s so much more satisfying to charge a crowd of demons and blast them in the face with a shotgun. I hold many of my favorite games on their pedestal due to particularly resonant moments or sheer innovation in tandem with their quality gameplay. Doom 2016 never has a big revelatory moment where it feels like I’m seeing something no game has done before. The gameplay alone is just that thrilling for it to stand with the best of the best. Few games have ever been this fun.
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Re: My Personal Top 100 Video Game Project

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#36. Metal Gear Solid (1998)
Developed by Konami Computer Entertainment Japan

While the stealth genre had obviously been around for a while (this game follows Metal Gear 1 and 2), Metal Gear Solid helped popularize the genre. The gameplay itself has been massively improved upon; the simplistic enemy A.I. is almost comedic, with plenty cracking jokes about the guards being severely nearsighted. The gameplay of the original MGS only holds up as a simplified, arcade-style experience. The simple fact is, the non-stealth-based bosses stand out because the basic gameplay does not quite function as it should.

Metal Gear Solid is a flawed experience from nearly every angle. If analyzing art was as simple as going down a checklist and marking off every element which did not quite work like some emotionally void inspector, then MGS could easily be disregarded as a nonsensical attempt at capturing the spirit of an 80s blockbuster film in video game form. But the story of Solid Snake infiltrating Shadow Moses Island has hung over the industry for a reason. Despite the numerous flaws, there’s never a moment when Metal Gear Solid stops being engaging. The series has had several strong sequels with much-improved gameplay, but few have hit at the same level.

The key to Metal Gear Solid’s success is how each new section pushes the experience in an insane direction. This is assisted by the colorful cast of characters, from FOXHOUND’s team consisting of six animal-themed villains to Solid Snake and his support to the mysterious cyborg ninja Gray Fox. We kept playing because we never knew what Kojima would end up throwing at us.

The six central member of FOXHOUND are what really guide this experience. Liquid Snake leads the band of terrorists, somehow failing to challenge his twin brother even with the advantage of a helicopter and eventually a Metal Gear. Revolver Ocelot makes his stellar debut as a gun-twirling Russian western wannabe, and the eventual torture sequence is unforgettable. Sniper Wolf leads a stellar boss fight and a few classic lines in regards to her strange relationship with Otacon. Vulcan Raven exists. Don’t even get me started on Decoy Octopus.

Okay, maybe the FOXHOUND team isn’t without its issues. But what matters is the set-up, how this game establishes an elite band of soldiers gone rogue. Everything in Metal Gear Solid is larger than life, and the boss fights are suitably challenging and rewarding experiences loaded with that extra bit of meaning.

Of course, I had to save the best for his own section. Hideo Kojima enjoys messing with his audience, and no moment since has quite matched Psycho Mantis. Everything about the fourth-wall breaking works, from the memory card reading to the vibrating controller to the HIDEO input display. The cleverest moment is the need to plug the controller into the second port. Little moments like this pervade the rest of the game. Revolver Ocelot taunts the player directly during the torture sequence, pointing out how long it’s been since they last saved. Meanwhile, reaching one of the characters by codec requires looking at a screenshot on the back of the box.

Metal Gear Solid is emblematic of early video game storytelling. In a medium waiting to be taken seriously, Hideo Kojima threw every stray concept into a blender. The medium would go on to tell better written and more socially relevant narratives, but something about MGS’s absurd and almost juvenile approach to storytelling gives it a special place. For Hideo Kojima, anything goes, and the singular moments throughout Metal Gear Solid stand far above its otherwise shaky foundation. Like the best pulp novels, Metal Gear Solid sinks its nonsensical teeth so deep that even the flaws are just part of the charm. And the sad thing is, we’re likely never going to see something of this nature again on the AAA level – even Kojima’s later work ended up becoming needlessly complex. The original Metal Gear Solid is B-movie action through and through, and I mean that in the most loving way.
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Re: My Personal Top 100 Video Game Project

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#35. Streets of Rage 2 (1992)
Developed by Sega, Ancient, MNM Software, Shout! Designworks, and H.I.C.

The beat ‘em up is one of the simplest genres around. You play a character who walks along a straight road and beats up anyone who dares cross their path. This is classic ‘easy to learn, hard to master’ territory, and this simplicity is key to the cooperative dynamic which made a lot of these games popular with any of us who had siblings.

This is one of those classic genres which faded away in the early days of the medium, though I’d argue the ‘character action game’ genre captures the spirit in a new form. There simply wasn’t much variance between games in the genre, so there was little reason not to stick to the best of the best. Streets of Rage 2 stood at the top.

More than any other video game, Streets of Rage 2 is indebted to its soundtrack. I would argue this is the greatest video game soundtrack ever. During early video game eras, music was limited by technology. A few ingenious composers worked their magic and invented what would become a new genre during the NES era. The Genesis had a bit more power, but not much. Even a classic like Final Fantasy VII on a later console has many people who prefer the soundtrack in a fully orchestrated form – the game itself was limited to what the PlayStation could handle, with most of the tracks suggesting something beyond the actual sound.

Meanwhile, the music from Streets of Rage 2 cannot be improved beyond what managed to fit inside the Genesis cartridge. Yuzo Koshiro looked at the Detroit techno scene and made a masterpiece in the genre. This is the type of music so simple the Genesis can process the sound flawlessly, yet complex enough to be truly excellent dance music. The music perfectly reinforces the game’s aesthetic of a city being overrun with crime, where every alley leads to another mugger or three waiting for a roundhouse kick to the face. Between its pulsing beats, shrill sirens, and frenetic rhythm, it’s simultaneously anxiety-inducing and an absolute jam from beginning to end.

It’s hard to define what makes the gameplay of one beat-em-up better than another. But I’ve played quite a few, and Streets of Rage 2 simply feels smoother than most. Despite the easy inputs, the game gives a ton of options beyond simple punch and kicks. Approaching a character can lead to a grapple, the characters can do a mid-air kick, and so on. Many enemies are designed around cancelling out a few of these techniques – that flying kick is essential when someone runs at the player knife-first, for example. The many weapons can also be picked up for longer range or to be thrown. The playable characters offer their own variety, from the aptly-named skater known as Skate to the slow but powerful professional wrestler named Max.

Even the character designs are wonderful, from the central cast down to the bosses and even the minor mooks. There are fat fire breathers, bikers who torment the player until knocked away from their machines, women with electrified whips. One boss uses a jetpack and another boss fight consists of two robots. The sprite design of all of these are lovingly detailed. As minimal as the narrative can be, so much is suggested purely through these unique designs.

Streets of Rage 2 is simply a masterwork of Genesis-era presentation. From the music to the visual design, everything about this game will stick with you. Many beat ‘em ups fall quickly into repetition, but Streets of Rage 2 overcomes this with a stunning aesthetic and consistently smooth gameplay matched with ever more complex enemy designs.
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Re: My Personal Top 100 Video Game Project

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#34. Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair (2014)
Developed by Spike Chunsoft

There are certain pieces of media I will praise which I feel the need to partially explain with my concept of the High School Angst Factor. The most emblematic work of this particular niche is the film Donnie Darko. Its view of life and human relationships are absolutely juvenile, but it all works perfectly if you take the film as an exaggerated embodiment of the lonely teen experience. The problem is, most people refuse to take teenagers seriously, and thus look down on these works which attempt to confront those heightened emotions. These are the works that ask, “what if high school really was as bad as your anxiety led you to believe?”

The Danganronpa series works within this same exaggerated structure. For many of us, high school was an emotional battleground. Some of us were bullied for immutable traits, others hid struggles at home, while those who led the gossip were constantly aware how easy those words could be turned against them. At the heart of the series is a predatory force who abuses their knowledge to manipulate others into harming one another.

Danganronpa 2 works so much better than the other two games in its series largely due to the cast. The first game rapidly chews through a third of its cast before you ever truly connect with them, and most remain underdeveloped. The characters in the third game are too exaggerated to connect with – this may be intentional, but that still lessens the emotional impact. The characters in Danganronpa 2 balance on the line between absurdity and believability, adding up to what just might be my favorite ensemble cast in any video game. The other games in this series hooked me with their central mystery. In Danganronpa 2, I became so attached to these characters that I truly dreaded progression.

The bellweather character of Danganronpa 2 is Gundham Tanaka. On the surface, he’s the most bizarre member of the cast. Gundham dresses in gothic fashion and constantly speaks of himself as an evil overlord. Yet he’s not the ‘Ultimate Sorcerer’ or whatever you might imagine. No, he’s the Ultimate Animal Breeder. The more he speaks, the clearer it becomes that his behavior is a defense mechanism for his underdeveloped social skills. He’s that awkward kid who understands animals better than people and knows certain abrasive behavior will turn people away. Under all the more extreme characters is a meaningful explanation to ground them - except maybe Ibuki, who really appears to be a hyperactive yet loveable goofball.

The central trinity of Hajime Hinata, Chiaki Nanami, and Nagito Komaeda is quickly made apparent. In many ways, Danganronpa 2 is a deconstruction of the simplistic theme of the original game, which pitted hope against despair. In contrast to the optimism of the first protagonist, Hajime Hinata remains largely cynical throughout. Meanwhile, a central problem in the original game is that one character guided most of the investigation. Chiaki takes on a similar narrative role, but her lack of expertise gives other characters more room to speak. In many ways, she simply acts as a calming agent among everyone else’s panic. And like the protagonist of the first game, Nagito Komaeda is the Ultimate Lucky Student. He clearly strives to be the embodiment of the shallow ‘hope’ which overwhelmed the original game’s message, which obviously annoys the more cynical Hajime.

Like most games of this type, it can be difficult to discuss without spoilers. While I will not discuss anything beyond the first trial in detail, too much of Danganronpa 2’s spirit relies on a twist during the first trial. Thus, the next two paragraphs will freely discuss that revelation.

Halfway through the first trial, it becomes apparent that Nagito Komaeda set everything up in the hope that he would be murdered. In his frenzy, he explains his twisted desire to be a stepping stone for everyone else. Danganronpa 2 posits hope as a negative delusional energy which thrives in moments of despair – to create a need for hope, Nagito intentionally drags his fellow students into despair. Even Nagito’s label as the Ultimate Lucky Student is corrupted in a similar fashion – his unnatural luck has more to do with surviving awful predicaments, which naturally requires him to constantly be put in horrid situations. After a lifetime of this perpetual torment, it makes sense his view of hope and despair are so entangled.

This twist adds a lingering internal tension which the other games lack. All of these games have a clear external agent serving as a puppetmaster, but Danganronpa 2 is smart enough to include a blatant antagonist among the central cast. Hajime acts as a perfect foil to Nagito’s nonsense – in such an awful situation, one can’t fall back on mere hope.

Much like the cast, each of the six cases are better than anything from the original game. The chemistry between these characters makes this possible. Even when cases tread familiar ground from the first game, they work so much better because you’ll inevitably be pointing a finger at a character you actually like. While it’s easy to compare this series to Ace Attorney, keeping each case focused around the same set of characters adds extra emotional potential. This culminates in the fifth case – no other video game moment has hit me so hard. It’s something which simply needs to be experienced, a disarming mystery only Danganronpa could pull off through all its twisted logic and rules.

Which, I have gone all this time talking about the narrative. But like Ace Attorney, the gameplay is the narrative. Making sense of these various characters and their potential motivations is key to solving these mysteries. One of the fun ways to compare the two series is how, in each Ace Attorney game, the cast tends to get bigger with each case. More characters means more suspects. Danganronpa works in reverse. One might think the shrinking cast would make the mysteries easier to solve, but there were few moments in the second game where I identified the murderer until right before the game prompted the final accusation. These are well-crafted mysteries with dozens of stunning “a-ha” moments – and a few other moments where proving the truth feels like a sinister but necessary act. Survival has rarely felt so numbing.

Like its characters, Danganronpa 2 hides some serious emotional depth beneath an aggressively stylized exterior. Video games are the perfect medium for mysteries, and this game with its island setting is a magnificent evolution of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None. Looking past the aesthetic can be hard – even as a huge fan of Phoenix Wright, I spent years overlooking this series because its thematic content appeared exploitive. I assumed from the edgy presentation that this is a series where death came cheap. This may have been true in the original. But in Danganronpa 2, each and every death carries weight. Plenty of stories have copied Battle Royale, but Danganronpa 2 is the first since the original book to really treat all of its characters like individuals with their own dreams for the future. While this may appear a hokey high school horror on its surface, at its core is a deeply upsetting tragedy.
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Re: My Personal Top 100 Video Game Project

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#33. Xenoblade Chronicles (2010)
Developed by Monolith Soft

The western release of Xenoblade Chronicles is one of those wonderful moments where gamers came together to bring about an absolute good. This niche JRPG was never planned to reach a worldwide audience, but a group known as Operation Rainfall came together to show Nintendo that this game could easily achieve a positive reception in the west. It’s hard to believe what now seems the definitive JRPG of the seventh console generation required an audience to beg for its release – if only such a plan could have worked to bring over the still missing Mother 3.

Xenoblade Chronicles feels like the one game to really capitalize upon Final Fantasy XII’s example as a bridge between the traditional and MMO RPG experience. Each new area is simply massive with tons of minor quests to fulfill. With some areas blocked off by high-levelled enemies, there’s always encouragement to come back later. This game is simply loaded with content from beginning to end and perfectly establishes an expectation for more.

More than just the size, these areas are simply beautiful. Stepping onto the Gaur Plains for the first time is breathtaking, with all its jutting rock formations and roaming packs of rhino-like Armus. The bioluminescent glow and eternal fog of Satorl Marsh creates a dreamlike quality. Throughout many of these areas, the titanic Mechonis looms in the background. This game is set on the bodies of two dormant giants, a world truly like no other.

While most modern JRPG games have avoided random encounters, the way in which Xenoblade Chronicles handles this aspect is quite inventive. Some enemies will chase down the heroes on sight, while others go on sound and can be snuck by with care, while others will respond only when a nearby member of their species is attacked. Thus, many late game areas can be navigated purely by watching your step around the enemies. Meanwhile, enemies six levels lower than the party simply won’t engage on their own, making older areas easier to navigate. There are enough quests which provide experience that the player will never have to grind – in my most recent playthrough, there was never an area I entered under-leveled. This game is perfectly paced.

The gameplay feels like a perfect midpoint between turn-based and action combat. Like FF12, the characters are set to auto-attack every couple seconds, but they also come loaded with special moves. Shulk’s abilities highlight the way positioning works in this game. Two of his attacks only work to their full potential from the side, while another works from behind. Meanwhile, enemies choose their targets based on an aggro system related to damage received. Thus, if Shulk is dealing the most damage, the enemy will stay focused on him, resulting in these weaknesses not being exposed. However, Shulk has an ability which temporarily reduces his aggro, which results in them turning their focus to an ally. Thus, most battles revolve around a rhythm of dealing a big early attack, shedding the gained aggro, and then getting a few more hits. Making another teammate specialize in drawing attention is almost essential. Each party member is playable and require their own unique rhythm to function at their full potential. This focus on positioning and timing gives the right oomph to make even basic encounters exciting.

Shulk also has the ability to foresee disaster, which is perfectly integrated into the combat. He can warn allies when an attack is likely to leave them dead or seriously wounded, allowing the player to give a direct command to these otherwise AI-controlled characters. Shulk’s weapon, the Monado, also has several abilities to mitigate these disasters, such as being able to generate shields which reduce certain attacks to nothing. As enemies become more complex, juggling these abilities is both essential and a lot of fun.

Xenoblade Chronicles is defined by constant promises of something bigger and better which it manages to fulfill over and over again. The progression is obvious from the beginning – Shulk and pals start from the bottom of the giant Bionis, climb to the top, and eventually cross over to the other giant, Mechonis. The narrative starts off in a rather familiar place, but the pacing is exceptional enough to make it work, while the second half finally starts going into surprising places. Some moments seem inevitable, but seeing them in action leaves quite an impact.

While several of the party members first appear like standard JRPG fare, little ‘heart to heart’ moments are scattered across the map which flesh out their individual characters. Each pair has several of these moments. It’s simply a nice feature to see the party members interact on their own, without the context of forwarding the central narrative and without necessitating the presence of the protagonist. I knew this game was working a special charm after realizing even the cutesy mascot character had hidden depth.

Xenoblade Chronicles is simply a massive JRPG with a ton of heart and a battle system which remains engaging throughout.
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Re: My Personal Top 100 Video Game Project

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#32. Silent Hill (1999)
Developed by Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo (Team Silent)

I will very openly remark upon how difficult it is to return to the first PlayStation era. Graphics were blocky while most games featured rough controls. The fact I played the original Silent Hill a decade after the fact and it still managed to terrify me is a testament to how the development team created something magnificent within these constraints.

Silent Hill succeeds by actively attempting to hide these graphical limitations with ideas which build upon the horror. The perpetual fog is the most famous example. Harry Mason’s visibility is limited to only a few feet, making even outdoor sections awfully claustrophobic. If we could simply see into the distance, nothing at all would be scary. It’s this sense that an enemy could stumble into range at any time which ramps up the tension.

At certain points, the world shifts another layer closer to hell. This transition is signified by an air raid siren. The first transition is unforgettable. Harry stumbles into an alleyway which slowly gets darker. The camera remains angled to prevent the player from seeing where he’s headed. This first encounter is presented almost as a nightmare, but it’s the second time as Harry travels through the elementary school where the player must truly confront this other world. Everything becomes rusted and covered in blood while an all-consuming darkness replaces the fog.

Few locations in video games are as iconic as Silent Hill. All of these elements add up to the suggestion that this wretched resort town preys upon the psychological fears of its visitors. Where a series like Resident Evil was focused entirely on external threats, Silent Hill went straight beneath the skin. To truly praise the atmosphere, Silent Hill manages to be more terrifying when no enemies are present. This game thrives on the anticipation of something worse. And, boy, do things get worse, and that’s saying a lot when the streets themselves are terrifying. The music adds to the experience, with the soundtrack jumping back and forth between dark ambience and violent industrial pieces.

While video games started pushing toward cinematic ideas during the PlayStation era, most which made this attempt like Resident Evil or Metal Gear Solid were happy to wrestle with B-movie shlock. These obviously worked – most games were still pushing toward sheer fun, and these stories perfectly matched traditional game design. But Silent Hill feels like the first real success at going beyond blockbuster fare and really pushing into the territory of art films. Silent Hill is a game with the ambience of the most terrifying David Lynch films, throwing horror after horror at the audience with only a sliver of context.

The real kicker is the completely ordinary nature of Harry Mason. He’s not a trained cop like the Resident Evil protagonists. He’s just a writer. There’s no confidence in him getting through these encounters, which encourages avoiding conflict whenever possible. There are few other humans he runs into along the way, and there’s this dreadful sense that he can’t help any of them – not that Silent Hill would allow their escape, anyway.

Despite its age, Silent Hill still stands as one of the best examples of ambient horror. While its sequel would improve upon this experience on nearly every level, it cannot be understated how much this first game pushed narrative presentation to new heights. The original game perfectly established one of gaming’s most iconic locations, and the simple fact is that we might have never gotten this specific design if not some ingenious handling of the PS1’s technical limits. I struggle to think of another game which benefited so much from working within the constraints of this era.
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Re: My Personal Top 100 Video Game Project

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#31. Final Fantasy IX (2000)
Developed by Square

In many ways, Final Fantasy IX feels like the last traditional Final Fantasy, as much as a series which constantly changes features can have a traditional form. Most grew to know the series with the SNES and PS1 titles, with all six games built around the Active Time Battle system. Though the last entry on the PS1, FF9 felt like a throwback to the SNES titles, focused on a more fantastical world than 7 and 8 while also featuring character designs by Yoshitaka Amano. Even the battle theme features the signature bassline from the earlier games. In many ways, IX is the best of both worlds and feels like a celebration of the whole series up to that point.

There’s a certain charm to Final Fantasy IX that the other games never achieved. Though the plot ends up as dire as any other entry, the game features a consistently lighter atmosphere. Each central character is designed to look nothing like another. The standout here is Vivi Ornitier, a shy boy with a design based upon the original Black Mage. Even the world design feels fresh, mixing together the more medieval styling of the earlier games with ever-present future technology.

Though it might be a minor point, I simply enjoy having more members in the active party. The SNES Final Fantasy games had four or five characters each, yet 7 and 8 reduced this number to three. FF9 brings this back up to four. Meanwhile, the twist on the ability system feels concise yet expansive. Each weapon comes with its own ability, which can be used whenever the item is equipped and becomes permanent after enough use. This gives a greater meaning to both finding and using each weapon.

Nobuo Uematsu is at the top of his game here, the final Final Fantasy to exclusively feature his music. The music is generally more whimsical than the other entries while also featuring some of the most singularly emotional pieces in the series. As mentioned before, the main battle theme builds upon the classic bassline to great effect. Many of the best tracks are limited to single moments. Otherwise minor character General Beatrix is elevated to another level through her wondrous piano theme, “Roses of May.” “The Darkness of Eternity” stands alongside the other classic final battle themes. My personal favorite is “You’re Not Alone,” which plays during a powerful moment where Zidane rejects the assistance of his friends after a devastating revelation. The piece starts as a gentle, melancholic arrangement, slowly building until finally bringing in a guitar and then chanting. It’s an epic theme to a great moment.

While I began by discussing the lighthearted charm, this cutesy aesthetic masks some of the darker themes in the series. The “You’re Not Alone” sequence helps elevate Zidane into a strong protagonist after a rocky introduction – one thing that often gets neglected when discussing the Final Fantasy protagonists is how much they evolve during the course of the story. Zidane and Tidus both get the short end of the stick. Characters like Cecil and Cloud start off cool and then gain more depth, while these later protagonists start as obnoxious teenagers and slowly mature. They may be abrasive, but seeing them grow is ultimately a rewarding experience.

Final Fantasy IX is the series at its most existential, with both Zidane and Vivi getting the brunt of this theme. Vivi is one of the best characters in this series, and this extends far beyond his iconic design. As a character, he is unaware of his origins. An early moment has the group stumble across an assembly line where black mages are being manufactured. What, exactly, is his purpose in existing? The revelations only get worse from there, but like Zidane, he’s not alone. This is a game about characters trying to break free of their intended purpose, whether it involves social roles or being literally manufactured. Kuja makes the perfect foil as the central antagonist. Where the heroes are learning to cope with their destinies, Kuja lashes out.

Final Fantasy IX also takes one of my favorite pages from the SNES era and jumps between characters until they finally come together. The game even includes a dungeon where the player must split the party into two. There’s also a massive world to explore, with plenty of rare collectables to gather. This game offers everything you could want from this series.

Everyone has a different Final Fantasy they call their favorite - the series is just that good. But IX stands as a culmination of all the stray ideas the series had explored during its breakthrough era. The only reason it gets less attention is due to the Wind Waker effect – certain gamers simply refused to try a game with this art style. Which is a shame, as this truly captures the spirit of Final Fantasy on every level.
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Re: My Personal Top 100 Video Game Project

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I never got the appeal of Xenoblade Chronicles, compared to other RPGs. The combat just has none of the stuff that makes JRPGs fun for me. You can only control one character, and unlike ARPGs like Tales and Star Ocean you can't jump or dodge, you can't switch characters or give direct commands. It makes combat dull and based on attrition of stats.

The story is okay but so many of the mechanics lack the immersiveness that makes RPG stories so appealing. The 'Heart to heart' mechanic turns character development into boxes to check off from a list. And quests are all wandering around gathering little glowing orbs on the ground. The game is like all work and no strategy.

Kudos for putting FFVI above FFVII. Play Trails. Hopefully you like FFTactics and Xenogears, both top ten all time for me.
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Re: My Personal Top 100 Video Game Project

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Jirin wrote: Thu Jun 25, 2020 1:51 am I never got the appeal of Xenoblade Chronicles, compared to other RPGs. The combat just has none of the stuff that makes JRPGs fun for me. You can only control one character, and unlike ARPGs like Tales and Star Ocean you can't jump or dodge, you can't switch characters or give direct commands. It makes combat dull and based on attrition of stats.

The story is okay but so many of the mechanics lack the immersiveness that makes RPG stories so appealing. The 'Heart to heart' mechanic turns character development into boxes to check off from a list. And quests are all wandering around gathering little glowing orbs on the ground. The game is like all work and no strategy.

Kudos for putting FFVI above FFVII. Play Trails. Hopefully you like FFTactics and Xenogears, both top ten all time for me.
Like I said when you first mentioned Trails, I added the series to my steam wishlist - which, if the summer sale starts up today as rumored, I will probably pick up the first. As for FFT and Xenogears, my first attempt at playing them was in college, which was a bad time for me as far as finding time to play video games, especially RPGs. The inherent limit with a project like this is I can only rank games I have played - FFT is one of those games that I can probably guess would be in my top 100 based on other things I like, but the problem is finding time and the mindset to start it up. While I do like a lot of longer games, they also kind of wear me out.

I could probably provide a list of the big games I have yet to play to make sense of some exclusions. At this point, I feel like I've played most of the major console classics outside of the RPGs. PC classics are my real weakness, but I've tried over and over to play RTS games and early WRPGs and nothing clicks.
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Re: My Personal Top 100 Video Game Project

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#30. Okami (2006)
Developed by Clover Studio

I will always favor unique art styles over realistic graphics, and Okami is a testament to how well a game can hold up if the developers simply add some style. 2006 was a year into the Xbox 360 and saw the release of both the PS3 and the Nintendo Wii. Plenty of great games were released in the early years of these new consoles, pushing graphical boundaries. If we talk about Gears of War or Oblivion these days, it certainly isn’t for the then-impressive graphics. Yet Okami on an even older console has maintained its position as one of the most beautiful games ever made.

The visual design is made to evoke classical Japanese ink wash and Ukiyo-e paintings, using cel-shading to emphasize the effects. This goes beyond a mere visual quirk, as the narrative features figures from Shintoism and Japanese legends. This is simply one of those games where I’d find myself in awe, stopping to look around at the little visual details.

Even major gameplay mechanics revolve around this artistry. The player can freeze time to control a Celestial Brush. This can interact with the world in certain ways, from offering different methods of attacking enemies to revitalizing wild life. There are many gods to find to receive new powers for the brush. While plenty of games have unique styles, Okami is one of the few which seamlessly integrates the design as part of the gameplay experience.

As an actual game, Okami plays much like a Legend of Zelda clone. Which, it’s rather strange to realize, but there are very few major games which have outright copied the 3D Zelda formula despite its many influences. Due to this, Okami still feels like a fresh experience – with a new Zelda only being released every few years, there’s plenty of room for imitation. Okami very much captures the idea of a wide world to explore with several major dungeons being central to plot progression. In fact, Okami was released the same year as The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, which also happened to feature a (temporary) wolf protagonist. This is a prime example of when a copy matches the quality of the original – in fact, it was Twilight Princess which felt too derivative of its own series.

The combat is quite involved – it’s easy to tell this is from the same director as Devil May Cry and Bayonetta. Battles lock Amaterasu into a temporary arena with enemies. The game has several weapons to unlock, which mixed with the brush mechanics make some truly unique encounters. It’s not quite on the level of a full-fledged action game, but it settles into its own niche.

But the true selling point is exploring this beautiful world. There are so many little things to do, and like Zelda with its heart containers, exploration is rewarded with outright improvements which can make the central game easier. Each location has its own charm, and there’s a playful nature to much of the experience. Part of this is that Ammy is literally in wolf form, meaning she can’t speak. The Navi-like Issun does all the talking for her, who is just as annoying but in a more intentionally comedic form.

Okami is a great example of exploring familiar ground in a new way. This is a Zelda clone, but like the many actual Zelda games, it does just enough different to be its own unique entity. From controlling a wolf to its focus on painting not just as an art style but as an element of gameplay, there is no game quite like this. That’s the bizarre truth about Okami – it is easy to name the conceptual influences, but the combination of all those pieces has proven inimitable.
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Re: My Personal Top 100 Video Game Project

Post by Jirin »

FFTactics and Xenogears would be in my top ten, and story wise in my top five, so if you get a chance I’d highly recommend them.

Also Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga since you like Nocturne and Persona.

And Celeste since you listed some indie platformers.
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Re: My Personal Top 100 Video Game Project

Post by BleuPanda »

I have played Celeste, at least - I ranked it at #172 while organizing this list. And the Steam sale indeed started today and I got the first Trails game (along with, uh, 20+ other games...)

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#29. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (1997)
Developed by Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo

Where several other series gracelessly stumbled into the PlayStation era and its 3D technology, Castlevania was a rare series which decided to hold back and continue to evolve 2D gameplay. While its contemporaries were treading murky water in a new form, few 2D games had ever felt as smooth as Symphony of the Night.

That’s not to say Symphony of the Night was just another Castlevania with a stronger aesthetic. The series started as a traditional platformer, but Symphony of the Night mixed in elements from the Metroid series. This led to the specific niche being titled ‘Metroidvania.’

This is a popular style to imitate among indie developers, but few have ever neared the heights of the two games which popularized the genre. The format is an excuse to make platforming games with one giant world. The difficulty here is making sure that world both offers reasons to revisit earlier areas while also never being too unruly. The trick to a good Metroidvania is a design which subtly guides the player in the right direction while giving tons of room to explore.

Another key element is a certain thematic consistency. Get too scattered without much cycling back through older areas, and a ‘Metroidvania’ game might simply come off as a traditional platformer where the levels are linked together. Symphony of the Night achieves this by being all about Dracula’s Castle. Even as Alucard wanders through endlessly different halls, this feeling of one massive location remains throughout the experience. This sense of one epic level is something few genres can pull off.

And then you reach the top, and this massive world literally turns upside down. The second half of the game finds Alucard in an inverted castle, which carries over the exact same layout with stronger enemies. While plenty of games get deserved flack for repeating areas, the realization they had to design these areas to work in both directions is truly impressive. Despite the same visual aesthetic, navigating these areas becomes an entirely new experience. Meanwhile, the player is still able to explore based on their knowledge of the original castle. It’s a bold choice which could have come off as simple padding, but it turned out to be an efficient and effective way of doubling the length of a fantastic game.

The combat in the Castlevania series has always been simple fun. Most of it revolves around the cycle of getting close enough to enemies to land a hit, with a few special moves to hit from some distance. The skill is based around adapting to the unique enemy designs. Some fly around the screen, others give narrow windows between attacks. Add in the fluid movement, and it’s simply enjoyable to wander aimlessly around this castle until stumbling into the next boss.

A major reason I prefer Metroidvania games to traditional platformers is their focus on sustained damage. In games where levels are broken into smaller chunks, death tends to come in one or two hits. For a proper Metroidvania, enemies slowly chip away at health, and the challenge stems from trying to safely arrive at the next safe zone. I find this experience less stressful – dying in a traditional platformer can feel like punishment when the game keeps sending the player back to the beginning when only one section is actually giving trouble. It feels as those these games are asking the player to be perfect and exaggerating any failure. Generally, when you die in a Metroidvania, it means a lot of little things went wrong, so going back to the last check point actually feels deserved.

Dozens of great Metroidvania games have been released since Symphony of the Night, but few have matched the contained environmental design. Sure, the maps have gotten bigger, but the sheer style of Castlevania is difficult to match. Outside the genre, few moments are as shocking as the castle flip. Symphony of the Night offers tons of surprises and variety, all made easy to consume through its top-notch 2D gameplay.
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Re: My Personal Top 100 Video Game Project

Post by prosecutorgodot »

Wow, Okami. That's an inspired pick.

I will also add Trails to the list of games I hope to eventually play.

Great writeups for T&T and DR2.
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Re: My Personal Top 100 Video Game Project

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#28 (tie). Super Mario Galaxy (2007) & Super Mario Galaxy 2 (2010)
Developed by Nintendo EAD Tokyo

Most video game sequels go in a few obvious directions. Like Left 4 Dead 2, some simply improve the mechanics until the original is reduced to obsolescence. Like Twilight Princess in relation to Ocarina of Time, some stray too close while failing to capture the same magic. Like the other Zelda games, some sequels go out of their way to carve out their own niche. Super Mario Galaxy 2 is the rare sequel to simply match the quality of its predecessor on nearly every level. Both feel individually essential as two of the finest examples of 3D platforming.

Super Mario 64 was an essential work in bringing the platformer into the third dimension, but its clunky mechanics in comparison to the smoothness of SMB3 and Super Mario World correlated to a shift in level design. Nintendo built bigger levels with more areas, changing the focus from smoothly bopping off of enemies while racing toward the end to exploration. This became perhaps the definitive form of the 3D platformer, but there was still room for other games to capture the simple magic of essentially running an obstacle course.

With smoother controls and a shift back toward more linear level designs, Super Mario Galaxy felt like a return to the classic Mario formula. If 64 was about exploration, Galaxy was instead about navigation – most levels would lock you onto a minor planet until figuring out the path forward. Most of the time, this would be as simple as finding the next launch star to shoot off toward the next section, but getting there was always inventive.

Part of this is Super Mario Galaxy’s unique take on the power-up system. In most of the older Mario games, these power-ups simply made the game easier. The classic Super Mushroom gave Mario another hit before failing, while the Fire Flower made it possible to fight enemies from a distance. In Galaxy, the power-ups are more situational, meaning the individual areas which include them are built around their functionality. These don’t quite have the iconic element of these older power-ups due to this, but they help each section of Galaxy capture its own charm.

Part of the appeal is purely mechanical. Mario feels smoother in 3D than ever before, as his methods to combat enemies feel more natural. The spin attack is key to this; where punching and kicking required sometimes difficult directional input, spinning allows for the entire area around Mario to be attacked. This lends itself to quicker, less precision-based enemy encounters. It is difficult to overemphasize how fluid this game feels due to this simple change. Simplicity of movement was key to the initial success of the series, and it took over a decade to get it down pat with a third dimension – but they finally succeeded with Galaxy.

More than a refinement, Super Mario Galaxy also pushes boundaries by questioning the very core of the platformer. Based on a simple understanding of gravity, most platformers are built around the idea that falling off the stage means instant death. Galaxy shakes this up with gravity being processed in varying directions. Most of its stages wrap around to simulate the idea of minor planets. The danger of falling is still there, but made obvious with black holes. The fact Nintendo managed to make this both function and so easy to visually process as a player is one of their most astounding feats. Moments where you jump from one planet only to have gravity shift toward another are awe-inspiring.

The two Super Mario Galaxy games can be praised for capturing the spirit of the classic Mario games and perfecting the controls of the 3D installments. But Galaxy goes a step beyond due to its unique mechanics. These power-ups and the use of gravity resulted in some of Nintendo’s most inventive level designs. The fact that they sustained this creativity across two full entries is truly astounding.
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Re: My Personal Top 100 Video Game Project

Post by Jirin »

I prefer the first Galaxy over the second, for two main reasons. First, the levels are a lot more 3d whereas in 2 they lock you into flat horizontal perspectives a lot of the time. Second, the way it tells you to take a break after you play for 45 minutes, or tells you how great you're doing when you die a few times on a level, or offers cheats with no way to turn them off just feels patronizing.

I don't know what you think of Odyssey, but I also think both Galaxies are much better than Odyssey just because in Galaxy every star feels unique, whereas in Odyssey there's 50 versions of the same moon all over the place and collecting turns into a repetitive chore. Like, 50 goomba stacking, 50 trace walking, little puzzles that feel like activity books from a pediatrician's waiting room, like 200 just from buttstomping random spots on the ground. It gets real tedious real fast.
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Re: My Personal Top 100 Video Game Project

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#27. What Remains of Edith Finch (2017)
Developed by Giant Sparrow

Sam Barlow, developer of Her Story, once described What Remains of Edith Finch as not a walking simulator but a ‘narrative WarioWare.’ Few descriptions have ever felt so apt.

Fair warning, this is a game best experienced blind. It’s hard to call anything below spoilers considering the nature of the story, but the experience might still be ruined with any minor details which I find necessary to explore while describing why this resonated with me.

The constant shifting of this game’s nature is key to capturing the central theme. This is the story of the Finch family as told by the only living member, Edith. As long as they can remember, the family has been seemingly cursed to die tragic deaths, most at a young age – most generations see a single member live long enough to have children. Again, this is not a spoiler. At any time, the player can pause and look at the family tree which is marked with years of birth and death, which is filled in with pictures as Edith learns their stories.

The game certainly starts as a walking simulator, with Edith approaching her family’s abandoned estate. They lived on an island, with the matriarch of the family sealing off the several bedrooms as shrines to the deceased. As such, the house continued to grow upwards into a perilous tower as the generations went on. This is an unforgettable location, both in the originality of its design and what it represents, a gigantic monument to those otherwise doomed to being forgotten.

What Remains of Edith Finch shakes things up once Edith enters the room of Molly Finch, who was born in 1937 and died in 1947. Edith reads her diary, which transitions into Molly’s memory of the day she died. This starts with a similar control scheme as Molly searches desperately for food after being sent to bed without dinner. After swallowing some questionable berries and a tube of toothpaste, Molly goes to her window and transforms into a cat, chasing a bird through the trees. Then she becomes an owl, and then a shark. It’s the shark which really hits people – the shark falls out of the sky and has to flop down a mountainside to find the ocean, almost getting hit by a car on the way down. It’s a bit awkward to play through (it might be the weakest of the several narratives), but it so perfectly captures the headspace of this character once you realize this is the dying fantasy of a girl who accidentally poisoned herself.

What these constant changes in style do is establish a theme that, despite their unifying curse, each of these were individuals who deserve to be remembered in their own way. The overall experience is macabre – this is the story of a young woman exploring the deaths of her several family members after her mother kept this information hidden. Yet it looks upon death only to make a grander statement about life – we need to cherish these fleeting moments, because we never truly know when everything will end.

What makes this theme come through so strong is that, despite their obvious curse, the Finch family chooses to live. While their stories focus on their deaths, the rooms where you must find these stories first expose the player to their aspirations. Barbara was a child star. Calvin wanted to be an astronaut. Milton enjoyed painting. And all of their deaths ooze with irony.

The ways in which these stories are told is also unique. Outside Molly’s straightforward diary, we get these stories through flipbooks, poetry, and a therapist’s condolence letter. The most striking is a schlocky horror comic about Barbara, a perfect statement on how horrific deaths can become cold cultural fodder. In a story about how we honor the dead, this is a poignant moment about how we sometimes reduce people to nothing more than victims.

Like a walking simulator, there is no way to fail these levels. Yet that does not stop each of them from being engaging. There’s a controversial trend over games forcing players to commit awful acts. Edith Finch is in a similar boat, as each level forces the player to act out someone’s death. But it’s the framing of these as memories which makes this easier to swallow. Still, many of these moments are difficult to get through in their own ways. Calvin’s sequence is a prime example. You know exactly what’s going to happen as soon as you find yourself sitting in a swing placed precariously close to a cliff. But the game forces you to put yourself through the same stupid decisions, if only to better understand what these characters must have felt.

What Remains of Edith Finch saves the best for the penultimate story. The therapist’s note about Lewis is absolutely devastating, and the gameplay is like nothing I’ve experienced. As it begins, Lewis is working his job at a cannery, where he’s stuck performing the awful task of deheading fish over and over and over. As his therapist notes, Lewis admitted to creating elaborate fantasies to play out in his head which started to become hallucinatory. As you play through this sequence, this fantasy takes over more of the screen until Lewis’s present moment is completely overtaken. During this time, the player controls both the movement of fantasy Lewis and his grabbing and deheading of the fish. If you stick with it, the awful clanking of the machine pounds over and over again. Like Calvin, it is obvious where this story will be headed, yet actually playing through this sequence is about as devastated as a game has left me.

When we talk about video games as an art form, we get stuck on comparing narratives. Many games simulate movies, simply showing a few scenes with little being implemented into the gameplay experience. Meanwhile, there’s a common adage in writing workshops: show, don’t tell. Video games are a wonderful form because they offer us the ability to go one step further. A great video game narrative goes beyond showing – a great video game allows the audience to experience the events from a personal perspective. What Remains of Edith Finch is simply a flurry of these moments. Where the grand majority of games are about avoiding death, this odd little title demands the player die over and over again. Yet at the heart is an achingly beautiful tale about the desire to live and move on to something greater. Though this is a game which can be completed in a matter of hours, every single second has lingered with me.
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Re: My Personal Top 100 Video Game Project

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#26. Super Mario Odyssey (2017)
Developed by Nintendo EPD

As mentioned while discussing Super Mario Galaxy, there are now two major variants of the Mario formula. While it took over a decade for the series to finally manage effortlessly smooth gameplay in 3D, both Galaxy and Super Mario 3D World were designed in the classic obstacle course style. It took another decade for Nintendo to return to the open level exploration formula with these smoother controls. Luckily, they went all out with Super Mario Odyssey, featuring 14 massive kingdoms. After 21 years, Super Mario 64 finally has a worthy successor.

Though not quite an open world game, Odyssey captures the magic of gigantic areas with little things to explore around every corner. These levels are loaded with power moons, which Mario needs to gather to move on to the next kingdom. There are so many of these that the initial trip through the game only requires gathering a fraction of the total, making it easy to choose which ones to chase after until you inevitably return for 100% completion. With over 800 scattered across these many worlds, Odyssey provides a reason to search every corner.

Odyssey makes a major departure by doing away with the traditional power-ups, instead introducing a hat which can possess over 50 different entities. Like Galaxy, this results in powers being more situational. For example, the Moe-Eye statues have sunglasses which reveal hidden platforms, but their movement is limited, especially while wearing the glasses. Glydon allows Mario to glide down from great heights. One section involves racing a round Shiverian who moves faster by bouncing off corners. All of these are simple to control as a Mario game should be, but it offers a large variety in navigation.

The kingdoms are wildly different and feature some of the best visual designs Nintendo has offered. The gloomy Cap Kingdom which opens the game is covered in fog and is almost monochromatic, yet it still captures the Mario charm with its rolling hills and friendly residents.

The Metro Kingdom hits twice. Upon first arriving, New Donk City is cast in the darkness of night and Mario must navigate a modern city under siege. After that, Mario gets to explore a bright and colorful city full of skyscrapers to climb. This can be a bit jarring with its realistically-proportioned human residents, but Nintendo is clearly having fun with that choice. One of the game’s most unforgettable power moons comes from sitting next to a lonely man on a bench. If the power moons are there for us to explore every inch of these kingdoms, there’s something charming about using some to capture the spirit more than the physical layout.

Even the Ruined Kingdom, which serves more as an interlude than a true kingdom, stands out. Despite their various designs, the other kingdoms all fit within the Mario aesthetic. The Ruined Kingdom pointedly does not, instead looking like it was pulled from a Dark Souls game. Yet this clash in design helps build it up as a truly unique location, which is key in making it a minor yet memorable sequence.

Though it took a few decades for the Mario series to really recapture the design of Super Mario 64, plenty of other great games followed in its footsteps. Like Super Mario Bros. 3 and World, what makes Super Mario Odyssey stand above many of its competitors is the simplicity and smoothness of the basic mechanics. These many kingdoms are largely fun to explore because of how easy it is to get around with Mario. With Super Mario 64 not aging particularly well, Super Mario Odyssey has taken its place as Nintendo’s definitive open-level platforming game.
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Re: My Personal Top 100 Video Game Project

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#25. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998)
Developed by Nintendo EAD

Ocarina of Time is essentially the Holy Grail of video games, and it’s easy to understand why. If Super Mario 64 was the first grand leap into 3D gaming, then Ocarina of Time was the solid landing. It’s not that it manages to outright avoid the clunkiness of other early 3D games, but it does enough to mitigate those issues to still hold up well enough mechanically for a new player to enjoy the places where it truly excels.

The key feature of OoT’s mechanical design is the lock-on camera. Instead of constantly having to wrangle with camera controls, a simple button press allows the player to keep a single enemy in focus. But I’m not one to overemphasize revolutionary features – this idea has been replicated hundreds of times over, and the feature has been improved. If simple technological leaps were the only element Ocarina of Time had going for it, then there would be no reason for a modern player to favor it over the sequels.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time captures a sense of scale like few other games. It all starts with a humble beginning, young Link exploring Kokiri Forest to gather his sword and shield before assisting the nearby Great Deku Tree with a curse eating away at his insides. This tree sends the young boy on a quest to protect Princess Zelda from the nefarious Ganondorf.

Our perception of size is not necessarily proportional to the actual size of a game’s map. Part of the magic of a game like Ocarina of Time is how it captures the imagination in getting from one point to another. So many of its best surprises are from the realization that some important location or item has been just out of the way the entire time. An area turning out to feature more content than expected does just as much to impress as a wide open map where everything is scattered about.

Kakariko Village is the perfect embodiment of this detailed design. On first visit, it feels like a nice breather zone before continuing up to the Gorons. But a bit of exploration reveals a few mysterious locations, such as a graveyard or a windmill. The narrative eventually necessitates a return to this quaint village to discover the dark secrets hidden beneath. No area in Ocarina of Time’s version of Hyrule feels like a simple stop along the way. All of these places are hiding some secret, whether it be a heart piece or two or an entire central dungeon tucked away.

All of this is centered on Ocarina of Time’s turning point, when young Link grabs the Master Sword and wakes up seven years later. In this time, the world has fallen into ruin. Like Final Fantasy VI and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night before it, this moment creates the sense of a completely new world to explore. That opening trip out of Hyrule Castle and through the town is especially effective, with the town in shambles and swarming with ReDead.

This transition causes a few neat elements to pop up. Most importantly, with the world changed, many of these mysterious areas become accessible. But what makes this especially interesting is that Link can also jump back in time, with some locations requiring interaction in both periods after the jump.

But the heart of nearly every Zelda game is the dungeons, and Ocarina of Time simply has phenomenal dungeon design. Each of these are filled with strong puzzles and enemies, and figuring out where to go next can be a challenge. The Forest Temple stands as one of the most iconic locations in the series, an eerie, overgrown mansion with twisting corridors and a complex structure. Even getting to this temple is a challenge, forcing Link to navigate the Lost Woods and then a maze. The Spirit Temple makes great use of the age mechanic. Few of the later Zelda games really capture the masterful complexity of these designs.

While Ocarina of Time may have captured our collective attention with its improvements on 3D gameplay mechanics, it is the detailed world design which makes it an enduring classic. Even writing about it now, nearly a decade after my last playthrough, I’m in awe of how much was packed into this relatively small world. While Ocarina of Time laid the foundation for the 3D Zelda series, few of its sequels have even attempted a similarly narrow-yet-expansive design. Every inch of this game has soul.
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Re: My Personal Top 100 Video Game Project

Post by Nassim »

Jirin wrote: Fri Jun 26, 2020 6:24 pm I don't know what you think of Odyssey, but I also think both Galaxies are much better than Odyssey just because in Galaxy every star feels unique, whereas in Odyssey there's 50 versions of the same moon all over the place and collecting turns into a repetitive chore. Like, 50 goomba stacking, 50 trace walking, little puzzles that feel like activity books from a pediatrician's waiting room, like 200 just from buttstomping random spots on the ground. It gets real tedious real fast.
I'm more on your side than on BleuPanda's on that one, Odyssey was a big disappointment for me, especially on the difficulty management. 90% of the game is way too easy and repetitive, the final challenges are pretty hardcore and there is not much inbetween save maybe for the dark and darker side of the moon.

I would add that while some kingdoms are pretty great looking, the snow and lost ones have very little interest both in how they look and how they play.
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Re: My Personal Top 100 Video Game Project

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Nassim wrote: Sat Jun 27, 2020 8:26 pm
Jirin wrote: Fri Jun 26, 2020 6:24 pm I don't know what you think of Odyssey, but I also think both Galaxies are much better than Odyssey just because in Galaxy every star feels unique, whereas in Odyssey there's 50 versions of the same moon all over the place and collecting turns into a repetitive chore. Like, 50 goomba stacking, 50 trace walking, little puzzles that feel like activity books from a pediatrician's waiting room, like 200 just from buttstomping random spots on the ground. It gets real tedious real fast.
I'm more on your side than on BleuPanda's on that one, Odyssey was a big disappointment for me, especially on the difficulty management. 90% of the game is way too easy and repetitive, the final challenges are pretty hardcore and there is not much inbetween save maybe for the dark and darker side of the moon.

I would add that while some kingdoms are pretty great looking, the snow and lost ones have very little interest both in how they look and how they play.
I do love the control mechanics and hats. If you could play this game only doing the platforming and story moons, and all the other stuff was optional side content, it'd be fine. I just don't like games that make you spend a huge amount of time on repetitive chores. Like RPGs that make you grind a lot or do a lot of fetch quests. I like the feeling of constant forward progress.
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Re: My Personal Top 100 Video Game Project

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#24. Pokemon Gold and Silver (1999)
Developed by Game Freak

Note: While I have been listing the original versions of games during this project, the assumption should be that I am talking about these games in their ‘definitive’ form. Pokemon Gold/Silver have both the Crystal version and the 2009 remakes. Though HeartGold and SoulSilver are quite improved thanks to the mechanical evolution of the Pokemon series, the original versions are perhaps the most important games in my experience with the medium – if I treated them all as different entities, I would have put them in a tie like the Super Mario Galaxy games.

While I had grown up with a Sega Genesis, my family purchased that console a year after the Nintendo 64 was released. Similarly, we never owned many great games for it beyond the Sonic series and Street Fighter II – no one in my family actually knew enough about video games to know which were actually good. I played most of my favorite Genesis games a decade later on the Wii Virtual Console.

Thus, Christmas 2000 was a real game changer when I received a Game Boy Color with Super Mario Bros. Deluxe and Pokemon Gold. I would soon pick up a copy of Pokemon Red, but that earlier game was a bit hard to get into after experiencing all the improvements in the sequel. For most of my childhood, Pokemon was the big thing, but no future installment would hit me in quite the same way until Gold’s own remake.

So part of my love for this specific generation is nostalgia. I wouldn’t be surprised if most people’s favorite Pokemon games were the first they played. This is because the experience of playing through a Pokemon adventure has a very unique charm, and the first experience with that charm, no matter the form, will be heightened above those which follow. So even if one can recognize objective improvements in concepts like battle mechanics, it’s hard to negate the personal experience.

But that isn’t to say Pokemon Gold and Silver have no legitimate merits when discussing the most important Pokemon games. While Red and Blue laid out the basic structure, the mechanics were a bit too simple. But as a kid, I didn’t know anything about the special stat or the lack of bug and ghost attacks making psychic Pokemon overpowered.

What I did notice, however, was how needlessly difficult it was to truly catch them all in Red and Blue. Without the breeding system introduced in Gold and Silver, getting all three stages of the three starter lines pretty much required having a friend with a spare copy to reset the game and trade them over. Fully evolved Pokemon were useless in helping to complete the Pokedex. Breeding is as essential to the experience as catching and trading, and it’s bizarre to think this wasn’t included initially.

But the changes and improvements don’t stop there. Dark and steel type Pokemon were added for a bit more balance. Hold items were introduced, which have become an essential variable in competitive play. Splitting the special stat into special attack and special defense helped level the playing field. Even minor changes like the introduction of shiny Pokemon and alternate Poke Balls have become series staples. The jump between the first two generations was simply astronomical when compared to any future changes.

While many of my favorite RPGs view bigger as better, I enjoy Gold and Silver for its almost quaint atmosphere. The first two games in the series really do capture the feeling of a child going on a small adventure. Future games would introduce more dangerous Teams, but I truly feel like the introduction of ‘save the world’ narratives detract from the unique traits of the series. There are a few big moments like confronting the red Gyarados, but that is relatively small scale.

In fact, let’s use the red Gyarados as a jumping off point to discuss how the series uses legendary Pokemon. Starting with Ruby and Sapphire, confronting the cover legendary Pokemon became part of the central narrative. But in the first two generations, these legendary Pokemon were truly legends. There’s something about finding Mewtwo hidden away in Cerulean Cave or Lugia deep inside the Whirl Islands that leaves a bigger impact than being forced to face Kyogre. Having the legends be something to seek out simply gives more reason to explore. Later entries tried to have it both ways, and now the series is bloated with forgettable ‘legendary’ Pokemon. Even the remakes of Gold and Silver unfortunately force these encounters.

All of this is to say, even if later games improved upon the central battle mechanics, Gold and Silver stand as the epitome of design choices. It’s not that these choices are flawless – the return to Kanto is a neat idea without great implementation. But this all adds up to a uniquely cozy experience which few games truly offer. After all, the most iconic confrontation in the series isn’t capturing one of the many cover legendaries or beating the evil team leader. No, the big moment is stumbling through a cave and happening across Pokemon Trainer Red at the end of Gold and Silver. In a series where the selling point is its massive variability, the best moments are rarely forced.

So, Gold and Silver may not be the ‘best’ Pokemon games on a mechanical level – but they are the ‘most’ Pokemon games. With HeartGold and SoulSilver benefitting from most of those mechanical improvements and also improving the Kanto revisit, this trip through Johto still feels like the definitive Pokemon experience.
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Re: My Personal Top 100 Video Game Project

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#23. Psychonauts (2005)
Developed by Double Fine Productions

The platformer has been ever-present since nearly the beginning of gaming, but rarely has the genre been used to tell a tightly-woven narrative. In something like Mario, various world designs exist more to signal mechanical changes, such as an ice world being slippery. Psychonauts goes a step further – the game stars a psychic child named Raz, and each level is an exploration inside the mind of a character. Almost every world in this game is like nothing before or since, and each is loaded with a heavy dose of symbolism to build a mesmerizing narrative presentation.

Psychonauts was directed by Tim Schafer, whose previous experience was entirely contained within the point-and-click adventure genre. In those games, gameplay was treated more as a necessity to pass as a game than a true focus. The real draw was the bizarre narratives and the goofy writing. In many ways, Psychonauts acts as a hybrid of the two ideas – there are several sequences of Psychonauts where the focus is more on figuring out how to progress than in jumping between platforms. This is better understood as a more interactive adventure game than a traditional platformer. The many Mario games and others beat it out mechanically, but few games offer this specific blend of experiences.

The early stages are all safely structured as Raz learns from psychic camp counselors who have learned to better control their own psyche. Agent Sasha Nein’s world is a single cube, as he is able to show exactly what he wants to others. Counselor Milla’s world is a colorful dance party throughout, as she wants the children to have fun while learning their powers. But buried deep inside her party is a room of screaming orphans who had burned to death in a fire. This room is there but neatly compartmentalized. Milla can never forget this fire, but she can at least put it far enough out of the way that Raz will only discover it unintentionally.

The style of these worlds take a hard shift once the plot necessitates Raz visit an asylum. Each has a distinct mental illness which they are struggling to cope with, and this is reflected in how their mental worlds form. This kicks off with Boyd Cooper’s Milkman Conspiracy, an absolutely wonderful level where Raz must explore a twisted 1950s suburban layout while being watched by agents in poor disguises. The design of this world feels like a predecessor to Super Mario Galaxy. All of this adds up to a stage representing a paranoid man obsessed with conspiracy theories, filled with stellar lines as the agents struggle to perform their roles to the point of sometimes even failing to pass as human. I loved hearing dialogue like “When my husband drinks excessively, I may threaten him with this rolling pin, though we still love each other very much,” spoken in a completely monotonous tone.

Other residents are coping with bipolar disorder, anger management, and a Napoleon complex. Each of their levels have ingenious ways of exploring these concepts. In many hands, this whole experience could have fallen into exploitation. Especially with such a goofy atmosphere, there was a risk of making fun of people with these disorders. But with how Psychonauts confronts these topics, it’s less about judgment and more an exploration of how we must learn to cope with past traumas.

There are dozens of ‘goofy’ video games. What sets Psychonauts apart is that Tim Schafer is simply a better writer than the grand majority of people working in the gaming industry. When Psychonauts tries to be funny, it generally succeeds. Raz’s backstory is hilarious, twisting the ‘running away from home to join the circus’ narrative by having Raz’s home be the circus. Lines like “I am the Milkman, my milk is delicious” are inexplicable yet unforgettable. This game is endlessly creative from beginning to end.

Psychonauts may not be the greatest platformer, but it is a simply phenomenal adventure game. Outside of a notorious finale, the levels go above and beyond in their merging of mechanics and narrative elements. This is one of the most singular games to ever exist. How many designers could pull off jumping from a stage where you terrify fish people as a kaiju to helping an aging actress cope with her inner critic? Few works have ever been so scattered yet unified; not a single level operates in the same way, and the fact it adds up to something so grand is glorious.
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Re: My Personal Top 100 Video Game Project

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BleuPanda wrote: Sun Jun 28, 2020 7:14 pm
#23. Psychonauts (2005)
Developed by Double Fine Productions
Well that's a game that succeeded where I think Mario Odyssey failed !
Great platforming, great narrative, every level feels and plays differently and keeps surprising you, the difficulty increases progressively and is never too low nor too punishing... I should replay it (I bought it on Steam a while ago but still haven't played)
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BleuPanda
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Re: My Personal Top 100 Video Game Project

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#22. The Last of Us (2013)
Developed by Naughty Dog

With the Uncharted series, Naughty Dog pulled off every design trick they could to simulate an action blockbuster in video game form. The Last of Us used the same formula to create a more solemn experience. While not shedding the genre label by shifting from Indiana Jones-styled adventure to a post-apocalyptic ‘zombie’ narrative, The Last of Us goes the Walking Dead route by acting as an observation on human morality under the pressure of a decaying world.

At the heart of all this is the relationship between Joel and Ellie. Many of the games I have discussed follow the same guardian and ward structure, but this relationship stands above the others due to the grey morality which corrupts their relationship. The game begins with a prologue where Joel fails to save his daughter during the initial outbreak. Joel’s sometimes vicious need to protect Ellie comes off more as a desperate and entirely self-serving attempt at redemption.

What makes The Last of Us so riveting is the way it rejects player influence. In many ways, the narrative progression feels like the dark side option in a more subtle BioWare game – but the fun of doing the bad route in games which give choices is predicated on the fact that you could have always taken the positive path. Meanwhile, other linear narratives with questionable protagonists tend to be more straightforward. When Kratos slaughters an entire pantheon of gods, his actions end up being extreme enough that it’s easy to consume his story from a distance.

Joel operates in a different capacity because he straddles the line between good and evil. His more shocking actions fall a mere inch outside of acceptable behavior. The grand majority of the time, Joel will be a largely relatable protagonist. But those few moments where he goes too far create a sense of dissonance between player and characters that most games try to avoid. This is a dire follow-up to the question of control posed by Portal and BioShock. Most games make up for this lack by creating the illusion of choice or at least letting the audience play the hero. Here, you’re stuck playing an ordinary and broken man.

The Last of Us manages to pull off its unpleasant narrative because Joel’s actions so perfectly match his character. It’s not that he’s pulling these decisions out of nowhere. Everything fits firmly in the realm of a disturbed man trying to survive while treating a young girl as a symbol of his own past failures. The final moment hits so hard because *spoilers* we realize Joel has not only negated our rather meaningless ability to influence the narrative, but has also robbed Ellie of her own agency while denying she ever had a choice. *end spoilers*

The actual gameplay of The Last of Us is very much in the set piece mindset of Uncharted but at the opposite end. Where Uncharted is all about big things falling apart while Nathan Drake is trapped inside, The Last of Us operates more as a stealth game. The gameplay does a serviceable job and a sequence where you play as Ellie is truly outstanding, but this is not the main draw. Much like Psychonauts, this is an adventure with interactivity. Traversing these terrains is less about shooting bad guys than it is about experiencing the dire atmosphere first-hand.

A rather controversial tweet about the sequel declared it as not being ‘fun’ – and this was meant as praise. Some people took offense at the mere concept, as if The Last of Us Part II was at fault for this person’s poor choice of words. ‘Fun’ is a subset of what people are really after when they engage with media – tragedies and dramas wouldn’t exist if art only existed to be ‘fun.’ What we are really after, even if our vocabulary is apparently limited, is engagement.

So, while not being ‘fun,’ the original Last of Us is absolutely enthralling. This was video game storytelling on a whole new level. Despite its obvious favoring of narrative over mechanics, it was hard to put the controller down after getting started. Every moment had me hooked, from that heartbreaking opening sequence to its many complex characters to that jaw-dropping finale. While the Naughty Dog formula could easily be criticized as a cheap imitation of movies, no other medium could capture the specific sense of dissonance created by playing as Joel.
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Re: My Personal Top 100 Video Game Project

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#21. Portal 2 (2011)
Developed by Valve

Portal is a perfect little experience which proves games don’t need to be particularly long to leave a lasting impact. At the same time, I’m certainly not going to complain that they made a sequel which expanded upon the core ideas while maintaining the same consistent quality in both puzzles and comedic writing, all sustained over a longer experience.

The central concept of the portal gun is one of the best ideas in gaming. In the original Portal, the puzzles revolve around finding the right place to put the two portals, with harder puzzles adding elements of momentum. Portal 2 adds a bit more complexity through the introduction of colored gels. The blue repulsion gel repels anything which touches it, resulting in the player being able to jump onto it and bounce back to a similar height. The orange propulsion gel makes anything which comes in contact move faster, while the white conversion gel allows portals to be applied to otherwise impossible surfaces.

While these are initially introduced as static features, the player soon accesses tubes which endlessly pour out the gel. By placing a portal where the gel lands, the player can splatter the various corridors with the necessary paint. Understanding how all of this works is simple, but figuring out what to place where can be challenging. It’s also just fun to do things like coat the bottom of two adjacent towers with conversion gel, only to place a new portal ever higher up the opposing towers until they’re both completely coated – Valve knows how to make observing physics effects fun. Where the original was largely concerned with finding just the right angle, Portal 2 adds the fun step of first making those angles accessible. The best levels leave Chell in a massive room with little obvious guidance beyond the presence of these tubes.

While the original Portal had a lot of charm, the only truly developed characters were GLaDOS and the Weighted Companion Cube. With the latter being the tragic silent type, it was largely a one-character show. To play against GLaDOS’s cold passive aggressive nature, the game introduces Wheatley, another artificial intelligence who is literally programmed to just be the most unbearable idiot. Stephen Merchant plays the role with a perfect frantic energy, another stark contrast against GLaDOS’s robotic monotony.

And when you reach an abandoned section of the laboratory, pre-recorded messages by company founder Cave Johnson guide Chell through the puzzles. He’s an overbearing tycoon who puts new ideas and profits over safety, making it clear how the company ended up in this mess. He also has a wonderful performance provided by J.K. Simmons. All three of these characters form a perfect triangle of foils, all hilarious in their own distinct style.

There’s not much more to say about Portal 2 without diving too deep into specifics – the charm is simple and straightforward. This sequel expanded upon the already stellar concept of the original. This is the physics puzzle genre at its best, with a wonderful cooperative campaign adding an additional layer of complexity. Meanwhile, the entire experience is wrapped in some of the best writing the medium has to offer. Portal 2 is video game presentation at its sleekest.
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