Top 25 Video Games Lists v2.0: Cable's NES Nostalgia 15 & 2 (starts pg32)

[ariich]

i can die happy knowing i have positively influenced your life 

[Crow]

12. Full Bore

While every game on my list thus far has ranged from "pretty dang good" to "really dang good", I still think that there's a very noticeable gap between how much I like the remaining 12 games on this list and everything else beneath them. Really, any of the upcoming games from now until about #6 could go toe-to-toe with each other, and the remaining 6 aren't a massive step up, but. Yeah, we've definitely reached the "really freaking fantastic" category of games on this list.

And what better way to start out that category than with a very unassuming game about a cute little boar? Ahaha. Okay. Story time. I got this game from a $1 humble bundle tier well over a year before I even played it. I had absolutely no expectations going into this game except that it looked like it would be pretty solid. Needless to say I was absolutely floored by what I found. This game, while it may look like a puzzle platformer, is almost exclusively just a pure puzzle game, with a small number of execution-based puzzles scattered throughout its game world. And the game world itself... well, it's pretty expansive. There is, again, no place you can't immediately go to, no puzzle you can't immediately solve. The game world is set up very much like a metroidvania but there are no powerups or locked doors.

What makes this game so great is how the exploration is handled - finding new and clever ways to get to places. The puzzles are all block-based; blocks you can dig through, blocks you can push, blocks that interact with other blocks to perform a variety of functions. And the game goes through great lengths to explore as many different possible puzzle setups as they can get out of the basic setup. Anywhere that it looks like you might be able to get to, you probably can, but it won't be immediately obvious. And every puzzle you come across that looks impossible probably has a very elegant solution, but one that you have to chip away at to discover.



 Seriously, the puzzle design is beautiful, and it never once feels repetitive despite the fact that there are well over 200 distinct puzzles throughout the game world. The game keeps itself fresh by constantly introducing new mechanics - there are four major worlds, the first being fairly standard to introduce all the basics but the other three each introducing and playing around with a new set of mechanics. And the puzzles can range from "solving effortlessly in a single attempt" to "I've been here for half an hour and I still have no clue what I'm doing" but in nearly every case when you solve a puzzle you feel a distinct sense of accomplishment. That's what I like. That's rewarding game design right there.

Aside from the gameplay itself there's a lot to like about this game. It's got a semi-retro style but still modern enough to end up looking pretty darn beautiful, and each world has its own atmosphere to keep the game feeling fresh. And the soundtrack, it's really bloody good - something like cowboy garage rock, is the best way I can think of to describe it. It's not something I can say I have any point of reference for but damned if it doesn't set the tone for each of the worlds perfectly. And the story is pretty interesting as well; a lot of it is hidden away in computer terminals you find throughout the game, shedding light on the backstory of how the boars and boarkind all came into sentience, and what happened to the rest of the world in the process.

If I had to nitpick, I'd say that the true final boss battle is... not particularly good. But that's maybe, at best, 2% of the entire game's runtime, and the positives absolutely crush the negatives here, so it's just a shame it ends on a bit of a sour note. But I digress. The game basically has everything I'd want in a puzzle game and provides a very compelling and atmospheric world to explore alongside it, and considering the sheer quantity of puzzles here it's also surprisingly replayable. I went back only about a year or so later and was still quite challenged by a lot of the puzzles despite having solved them all before. And I imagine in a year or two I'll be able to come back and have a pretty fresh experience with it a second time. Just, really wonderful little game, a definite hidden gem of the indie scene.

[Crow]

11. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations

Okay, it's absolutely impossible to find decent-sized screenshots for this game given that it was a originally a GBA game so excuse the use of wallpaper. Anyways. This was pretty well foreshadowed I'd imagine, considering that I outright said so and also made passing reference to both this series and another series yet to appear on my list in a previous writeup. But yes. I was half-tempted to cheat and put the entire original trilogy on my list since it is bundled that way on the Wii shop, but no, I definitely have to stick with the best overall game in the series. But, seriously, go check out the entire trilogy. Heck, check out the entire series. Aside from the weird detour of Apollo Justice, every other game is pretty damn great at worst and absolutely fantastic at best. And even now I bet if I let it sit, the newest game in the series could possibly dethrone this one as my favorite, we'll see.

But this game in particular. For those who are unaware, the Ace Attorney series is a visual novel-styled game where you play as a defense attorney (specifically Phoenix Wright in the original trilogy, though not exclusively; you spend two cases in this game playing as Mia Fey, for one). It's very over the top and hammy in the best of ways. The writing in the series tends to be really great and diverse; you have a lot of great humor, you get a lot of great and complex mysteries, you get a variety of interesting and unique characters, and you get a good number of heart-wrenching, emotional moments to boot. And nowhere is that best exemplified than in the third entry in the series and the final game in the original trilogy.

The game doesn't go out of its way to add any new mechanics to the gameplay; it uses basically the same gameplay formula as the second game in the series. A formula that, for the record, is pretty damn good. About half the game is spent investigating crime scenes - poking around for evidence in a number of locations, and talking with witnesses and with the defendant to squeeze as much information out of them as you can for the trial. The second game added the Psyche Lock mechanic that really breathed life into these segments, which tended to feel really slow and often a bit guide dang it in the first game; instead now you know flat out when someone has something they want to hide, and it's up to you to figure out how to wring it out of them.



The trials are, as ever, still the more exciting part of the game however. You get to really put the pressure on witnesses and expose their lies, new evidence and testimony appearing all over the place to really provide some wild twists and turns. The trials are mostly spent either presenting the right piece of evidence or pressing the correct witness statement to uncover a contradiction, and slowly the pieces will fall into place to reveal who the true culprit behind each murder is. And it's always murder. Always. Which is a great storywriting device honestly, sets the stakes really high for every case, so I can't complain. The game is probably the hardest in the entire series, with a lot more instant failure scenarios and a lot of higher penalties in general. Save scumming is recommended, for sure.

Of course where this game really shines is in its story and characters. This game introduces quite a strong group of characters - a new, enjoyable prosecutor, some great new villains - one of the most loveable and one of the most hateable, both in wonderful ways. And the game brings back a loooot of the older ones, from both the first and second games. And not just the really major characters, a good number of the smaller roles from both games are back in this one. And with good reason - the final case of this game ties up so many hanging plot threads from the first two games, and it's probably largely responsible for this game's placement alone. Though the final case of the second game still stands as my absolute favorite in the series. There's also, easily, the most shocking outcome of any trial in the series in this game, though I won't say when.

It's really hard to say much about this game especially, since it's both a heavily story-based game, and the third game in the series, for which a good deal of context would be needed just to fill in the gaps. Which I don't intend to do. I'd instead recommend playing through the original trilogy by yourself, since really all of them are pretty great games. They're all great at evoking a wide variety of emotions and providing solid mysteries for the player to unravel, and just really enjoyable for it.

[Crow]

by the way i intend to do the top 10 one at a time but i'm gonna try and keep a better pace for the rest of these

especially with how mcuh i want to talk about them all, they're all so good

[Crow]

10. Dustforce

I will preface this with a warning that this game is, no joke, one of the hardest games to "beat" in all of existence. Because this game goes hardcore. This game demands perfection, quite literally, to even unlock all its stages, much less clear some of the hardest ones. I have not "beaten" this game and I never will. I haven't even cleared two of the hardest stages in the game, much less perfected them. And that's... fine. I've cleared the vast majority of the game several times over despite the challenge, because this is just a damn fun game to play.

Dustforce is a parkour platformer where you play as a janitor sweeping up dust, leaves, slime, and whatever else needs cleaning. And the controls are... very tight and polished, with so many little quirks to them that keep the platforming varied on its own. You have a basic jump and double jump. You have a dash maneuver. You have a light, fast attack and a powerful, slow attack, and a special move you can use when your special gauge is full. And you have so, so many ways to combine them. Killing an enemy gives you a jump charge, which lets you use either one more midair jump or dash. You can dash downwards to gain a lot of momentum and keep dashes going to maintain speed. Killing an enemy also keeps your vertical position fixed for a second, resulting in scenarios where you bash through enemies while moving directly sideways through spiky corridors. You can slide on just about anything - slide up a wall after a jump, slide down a slope with momentum, slide on a goddamn ceiling if you have the speed for it, sure. You can run up a wall or across a ceiling for a brief period of time too. There are so, so many gameplay quirks to this game and watching it in motion is an absolute joy.



And the game's scoring system is really well-designed. You are scored on precisely two things: Keeping your combo going as long as possible, and cleaning as much dust or trash as possible. Your combo runs out after about 5 seconds of not cleaning anything, and also breaks if you are hit or die, and thus getting a perfect rank requires both not dying and completing things fairly fast - but there's no arbitrary time limit where being a fraction of a second over is the difference between ranks. And clearing all the dust is pretty straightforward - anything at all left and you don't get that S rank. This includes defeating every last enemy in the level, naturally, as they're all dirty and in need of cleaning. And the game does another great thing - there's no lives system and frequent checkpoints, probably every 5-10 seconds or so on the harder levels. There's not a lot of trial and error and tedious replaying of levels to clear them. No, the game lets you practice each individual hurdle of the level separately, but the real challenge is to chain them all together for that SS rank that you absolutely need to unlock the higher tiers of levels. And yes, perfection is absolutely required, you cannot unlock all the levels in each tier without getting SS in all the levels of the previous tier.

The end result of all this well thought out game design is a game that's probably the hardest "fair" game I've ever played, but one that almost never gets frustrating, even it its most impossibly hard moments. There's really only a few places this wavers - the level Hideout is notoriously hard for all the wrong reasons and not particularly fun, and while I can see the appeal of the Difficult levels in the highest tier, I don't find them particularly fun to play. But I can just, choose to not play them, which I do tend to do. Hideout's the only one I take real issue with since it's part of the main game itself. But then, when you have over 65 decently-sized levels and only one of them's a real clunker... that's pretty impressive on its own.



And it definitely helps that the game's aesthetic is just gorgeous. The level design is kind of blocky but there are so many little details and the art style is very pleasant to look at. And the soundtrack is utterly fantastic, a lot of very chill electronic tracks that help keep frustration in check. Some games blast this loud pump-up music while providing really difficult challenges and that usually just serves to make me hate the music for backing this already frustrating task and creating a spiral of misery. This game avoids that by having the music work counter to the challenge and I really, deeply respect it for that. I do legitimately think the choice of chill music is one of the best game design choices here.

The game is basically everything I'd want a precision platformer to be - very smooth to play and more interesting in chaining acrobatics than making you go through absurdly tight platforming, while still providing a very high level of challenge. Some of the gold tier levels are absolutely fantastic pieces of level design - Night Temple and Backup Shift especially, love them to bits despite how difficult they are. If you're up to the challenge I'd definitely recommend this game, but I really honestly would not recommend this to the casual player, as it's a pretty inaccessible game with a steep learning curve. But it definitely gets some of my highest personal recommendations, easily. A pure gameplay game that works on practically every level.

[Sacul]

Yeah I want to play the Phoenix Wright games one day 

[Crow]

play them all bcuz they're great

[Crow]

9. Zero Escape: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors

Okay, I swear to god this placing at #9 is a total coincidence, but it's a pretty hilarious one. 999 rounds out the trio of visual novel games on this list, being the most straightforward visual novel of the bunch, though still having its own gameplay to boast. It's the first in the Zero Escape trilogy of games, as well, and my personal favorite, though I recommend playing through the entire trilogy for sure. In order though, absolutely, no other way to play it, since each has massive spoilers for the previous game in it by nature. And the story of the series is the real big draw here, the story and the characters together.

The premise is that nine strangers have all been gathered up and locked on a sinking ship to play the Nonary game. In nine hours, the ship will sink, drowning the players along with it. To win, they have to open the door with a 9 on it to escape from the ship. And the big catch. Each player has a bomb inside them that will go off if they break any of the game's rules. Just to throw a bit of a life-or-death stakes into the mix, you know. The players also have no reason to trust each other and they all believe the mastermind of the whole game, Zero, is among them, leading to plenty of betrayal and violence from within the group, even aside from the players who break the rules. Yeah, it can be a pretty bloody game.



Or... it might not. There are several points in the game where you choose which path to take (which numbered door to open) and the story can change in significant ways depending on the path you take. There's only one correct path to see the true ending of the game that wraps up the overarching story and allows the players to escape, as well, though you will definitely stumble upon some other paths before you see it. The multiple path structure of the game keeps replays feeling fairly fresh, as does the ability to skip over any text you've already seen, though it comes with the minor annoyance of having to replay puzzle rooms that you've already solved.

Oh yeah, the main "gameplay" of the game is escape-the-room type puzzles scattered throughout the ship. None of them are particularly difficult but they're not too easy either, they hit a nice sweet spot of challenge, and since the scope of the puzzles is confined to a pretty small area even if you get stuck it's not hard to eventually figure out what you need to do. The only real gripe with these is the need to replay them, something the sequels did away with entirely to their benefit. The true ending is also a lot harder to find in this game than in the other games in the series; there's really no indication until you stumble upon the path that you've found the right one.

What this has over the other games, at least in my opinion, is its aesthetic and its story. Visually this game looks the nicest to me out of all three games - I prefer the 2D spritework to the ugly models of the second game and the awkward animations of the third game, though neither of them look really that bad. And the music here is definitely the most memorable in the series, and the most foreboding as well - some of the tracks really help create a suspenseful, terrifying atmosphere, it's great. And there's one track in particular that plays during some of the most emotional scenes in the game that's just really fantastic.



It's really hard to say much about the game without spoiling major details of the story, but it really is quite fantastic. Things go downhill pretty fast and there's a lot of great twists and turns, some of them pretty cleverly foreshadowed, and I don't want to spoil them here. The characters are all pretty great too, each having a strong and distinct personality and each having their own motivations and relationships with the other characters. The writing is much more like a novel than the other games in the series, too, the localization team did a great job with this one in particular.

This is just all-around a great game and probably my favorite story in all of video games, really. It lacks the gameplay polish of the other games in the series but the writing is where it shines the brightest and definitely makes it a strong contender for one of my favorite games of all time. Unfortunately it loses out to the 8 above it mostly on lack of polish and lack of much gameplay, but still, definitely would recommend checking this game and this series out. The first two games are coming to steam next year and the third game's already there so very soon you'll be able to grab the whole series rather conveniently, hint hint.

[Crow]

I wonder if my entire top 10 is gonna get this little love lol
#1 and #2 will at the very least and #5 too but the rest are at least a bit more well known

[Sacul]

I've got this one on my list, so I'll grab it whenever it's on Steam - can't be bothered with DS emulators

[Crow]

8. Ori and the Blind Forest

No, that's not some painterly concept art I've used for the game image there. That's an in-game screenshot. The entire game is that beautiful. If that's not justification for this game being so high up my list, well then... good thing everything else about this game is fantastic too. But yes let's get that out of the way, this is one of the most visually stunning games I've ever seen. Forget all those FPS games that try to emulate the real world as closely as possible. This is the kind of game I want to look at. Astounding levels of detail, tons of colors and a very vibrant and cohesive world that really feels like a living, breathing environment due largely in part to how great it looks. And on top of that the soundtrack is gorgeous as well. On aesthetic alone I'd probably give this game a perfect score.

But beyond that, what really draws me to this game is that - surprise - it's a metroidvania. And one that pulls of the concept very well, might I add. While the game does have a combat system, it's not very in-depth nor is it a major selling point of the game - which I'm glad for, really. It keeps the focus on the platforming and the fact that the combat and platforming go hand-in-hand makes it work all the better for me. Especially when you get the bash move that completely redefines both the combat and platforming of the game. Really makes the game fun to play. This game's controls in general are really damn great. Ori is fairly light but not floaty in the slightest, the gameplay is kept fast and fluid, and the majority of the powerups exist only to add even more depth to the platforming. It's a really fun game to play.



Good controls alone would mean nothing if it was paired with poor level design, though. Thankfully this is not the case - the large, sprawling world is full of a great variety of challenges both in terms of platforming and combat, every powerup you get has good use made of it, and the difficult scales up at juuust the right pace. And the game can get pretty challenging, though certainly not as hard as Dustforce or some of the upcoming games on this list. I'm not sure the game ever puts you in the exact same scenario twice throughout its length, and considering that the game world is pretty meaty (but easy to traverse from end-to-end once everything opens up, and the definitive edition also added a nice fast travel feature) that's a pretty impressive task. Add to that a number of area-specific gimmicks that integrate smoothly into the standard gameplay and the game's diversity keeps it quite replayable - I should know, I've probably played through this one front-to-back a half dozen times at least.

The game also decides to forgo boss fights in favor of some grand chase sequences that really put your platforming skills to the test, and these tend to be some of my favorite moments of the game. I saw a lot of people complaining about the first sequence being a big difficulty spike but I honestly am not sure I agree with that sentiment - I think it's just right for that point in the game. They're able to pull off some cool cinematic moments that really show off how gorgeous the game's animation is during these sequences as well.

And the story of the game! It's... pretty fine. I'll admit, I think they made it a bit more of a selling point than they should have, especially with one of the later twists in the game being a flat negative as far as I'm concerned, but it's a serviceable and pleasant story for the most part and the main villain is imposing enough to feel like a real threat, appearing numerous times throughout the course of the game.



Here's the part where I would nitpick about the game. Would, but can't really, since the developers released a definitive edition of the game about a year after the initial launch. And from the state of that edition, you can tell the developers really, REALLY listened well to criticisms the players had. One of the biggest gripes was the inability to revisit certain areas after you'd cleared them, and the inability to continue your file after you'd cleared the game. This could leave a few collectibles permanently missable as well as leave 100% map completion impossible, but this was revised in the new edition so that you could go back to these areas - and as well, one collectible placed in area you still can't return to (for valid reasons) was moved elsewhere leaving nothing permanently missable. Add to that the addition of fast travel and a new area with a few new powerups and the game ends up feeling quite polished at the end of the day.

A running trend with all the entries in this top 10 (and, well, honestly looking over my entire list, ever single game up to now, but the top 10 especially) is that the games here are games I can sit and play for a long time. Case in point, I got this game on release day, and only started playing it after I was done with classes for the day, like 3 PM or so. And I just... played straight through the game from beginning to end before I went to sleep that night, taking like one or two short breaks for dinner and all. Because this game is just that engrossing and gorgeous. I knew immediately that it would stand as one of my favorite games of all time and, yeah, I don't see it going anywhere any time soon. Just a fantastic game on every front. The tiniest of tiny issues with it, but it's really a joy to look at.

Also, Ori is adorable. Just saying.

[ReaperKK]

I have Ori but yet to really sit down and play it. It is an incredibly stunning game though.

[Bolsters]

I have been aware of the existence of this game for some time, but have yet to play it.

[Sacul]

>beautiful art
>metroidvania

I'm sold on this one 

Also I'll take some guesses for the rest of the games on the list, in no particular order:
Okami
Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons
Super Mario Galaxy
Metroid Prime
Pokemon Platinum? or 4° gen

Unlikely but:
Limbo
Journey
ICO
Shadow of the Colossus

[Crow]

One of those is correct
Two of those are series that had honorable mentions and thus didn't rank on my list proper

[Sacul]

Oh gotcha. But really, get the Metroid Prime Trilogy if you can, amazing games imo.

[Crow]

I meant Mario more than metroid tbh but maybe I put metroid prime 2 on my hms I forget lol? all three aren't on my list though

I've never even played gen 4 pokemon btw

[Bolsters]

Cave Story is a possibility.

[Crow]

7. Antichamber

Oh yeah, now this is the kind of puzzle game I dig. Instead of following the standard first-person puzzle formula, this game seeks to make its own rules as much as possible and a large part of the game is figuring out those rules. And the rules tend to be preeeetty weird. The game delights in non-euclidean spaces and you can find yourself going through a long hallway that opens up into the room you just left, or taking half a dozen right turns in a row without looping in on yourself. The game's map is also pretty decent expansive, resulting in getting lost in the nonsensical maze being a pretty easy task. The inclusion of a central "hub" room you can warp back to at any time that also contains a map of the game where you can warp to most rooms from is very, very much appreciated.

The game does eventually include some more standard puzzle elements after it gets out the introduction of its weirder mechanics, too. The central mechanic of the game is a gun that lets you shoot blocks, and throughout the course of the game this gun gets upgraded several times to allow you to do more with these blocks. There's quite a number of puzzles scattered throughout the game map and they tend to integrate with moving through the map in various ways; climbing up a wall using only two blocks by creating a staircase by removing and replacing the same blocks over and over as you climb, guiding a connected chain of blocks a specific way to create a bridge, among others.



The game also has an interesting collectible - nothing physical, but scattered throughout the game are black & white pictures that, when you click on them, reveal a short phrase, often relating to the puzzle you just solved to unlock it, or hinting at the solution to a future puzzle just up ahead. And there's quite a lot of them tucked throughout the game providing their own incentive to explore as much as possible. The game is decisively non-linear and there are a lot of different paths you can take to end up at the same goal points, but going out of your way to explore as much as possible to find everything is sort of a joy in itself since there's more puzzles to solve and different scenarios to overcome. There's also the hidden pink cubes which serve no real purpose and tend to be tucked away in the hardest-to-find areas, just as a little bonus. Nothing keeping track of them though.

Speaking of those, the one unfortunate thing about this game is that the state of the game is perpetually in "mostly complete, but not really quite finished" due to the pink cubes and the extra area they were intended to unlock. There's been no word or update from the developer in over 4 years and it's safe to say that's never going to happen at this point, but honestly, even without the extra secrets there's still a lot of meat to the game and if you don't know about those pink cubes you'd never tell the game was never quite finished, so it really doesn't bother me much.



On the subject of the game's aesthetic, I'd have to describe it as "very minimalistic, but really bloody gorgeous". That goes for both the visuals and the audio. The main color of the game is definitely white, but there's so many vibrant rooms and nice colors as well as some really cool geometry and I really find this game is a joy to look at, even if it's not the most detailed and elaborate game on the market in terms of style. And the soundtrack is very ambient and soothing, really incites a chill feeling. This game as a whole is very zen because of its aesthetic, there's very little frustration and no pressure or rush to reach the end, you're totally free to move at your own place and explore the bizarre world you've found yourself in.

I'm trying to avoid spoiling any of the interesting mechanics of the game itself here since it's really best to be experienced and learn things on your own, but this is definitely one of my favorite puzzle games of all time and one I'd recommend anyone check out. It's interesting I get to talk about this one at the same time as I'm playing The Witness (another fantastic puzzle game that I'm sure would've made this list if I'd played it earlier) as they both have a lot of "learning mechanics through experimentation instead of tutorials", a kind of puzzle-solving that really works well for me it seems. That feeling you get when the puzzle suddenly clicks into place and you get a moment of epiphany and understanding - that's what I really look for in puzzle games more than anything else and it makes solving puzzles feel all the more worth it.

[ReaperKK]

I started anti-chamber right before my move and I haven't gotten back into it but I loved the little bit I've played. I'm really not into puzzle games (I'm terrible at them) but I am looking forward to playing more.

[Sacul]

I've had this one on Steam for quite a while. Will probably install it and play it soon, sounds pretty interesting 

[Serah Farron]

Was introduced to gaming by my parents for Final Fantasy. I have a Playstation 4 I love to play with my friends and siblings, even my parents.

Got a Steam account just recently and have been addicted to this fun game. Nice read so far and Antichamber seems bloody interesting.

[Crow]

6. Rayman Legends

Rayman was always one of my favorite series growing up. Moreso than Nario for sure and almost as much as Sonic, but unfortunately the poor guy was never as prolific. The original Rayman game remains far more creative and interesting (and challenging!) than the older Mario and Sonic games, and while it wasn't perfect it's a game I've gone back to replay through quite a bit. I actually had the three-in-one pack of the original game and two games' worth of custom levels on the PC when I first played this, and there was always a sense of wonder to the game, even if I was never good enough to clear very far into it. And Rayman 2 I missed entirely, and didn't really enjoy when I went back to play it since it was the beginning of the 3D platformer and all and none of those games have aged well, but Rayman 3 was another game I adored and played the heck out of as a kid, again with a lot of the same vibrant qualities as the first game had.

Then nothing happened for almost a decade... and Rayman Origins came out of the blue to suddenly be, easily, the best game in the series up to that point. Boasting a speedy, parkour-esque style of platforming, breathtakingly beautiful visuals, and just as much creativity as you'd come to expect from the series (plus some nice nostalgia bait), it was basically the perfect platformer. Was. Rayman Legends has all but ruined Origins for me now. Because it just takes everything Origins does and does it better. The engine is more polished - and that's the real dealbreaker with Origins, you go back to playing that right after playing Legends and it just doesn't feel nearly as smooth to play. The graphics are even more beautiful. The creativity is upped to the extreme. The only slight drawback is that Rayman Legends is a fair bit easier than Origins, which had a very satisfying difficulty to begin with. But that doesn't matter since the game is just so damn fun to play anyways.



The game boasts quite a lot of different level styles. There's the standard but diverse levels, the quick-but-tough rescue levels, the very tightly-designed speedrunning challenges, the boss battles, and best of all, the musical levels. Oh, those musical levels. There's potential for an entire game in just those levels alone, the best execution of the concept I've ever seen and probably will ever see. Seriously, you see the trailer for the game that has the first music level (a reworking of Black Betty by Ram Jam) and you're just instantly hooked. What a way to make an impression. The levels all feel great to play, and they're never -too- hard, but they are definitely fantastic spectacles and the music is pretty great for most of them as well.

Oh, and if you did miss out on Rayman Origins, well... something around 2/3rds of the game is in Rayman Legends in remastered level form, so you don't have to miss out on much at all! Granted, the difficulty of a lot of the levels has been toned down (especially the chase levels) and they did bring back the moskito levels, the weakest levels from Origins, but they're still plenty of fun to play and they do have a pretty distinct feel from the Legends levels. I'd still recommend playing Origins anyways since, let's be fair, it's still a great game even if going back to it I have my gripes with it.



The game is just a great balance of spectacle, creativity, and fluid, enjoyable gameplay. It's ridiculously diverse and quite long for a 2D platformer as well, with a great collection aspect to make it even more replayable. Nearly every stage has its own gimmick mixed in with straightforward platforming that keeps the game constantly feeling fresh while also still making it feel like a cohesive game and not a series of unrelated gimmicks. It can be challenging, but never overly difficult or requiring too much precision or finesse. And if you get bored of the main levels, there's daily challenge levels procedurally generated from small pieces of level that are a sort of "how far can you get before you die" kind of challenge that can be pretty fun on their own.

There's really very little I can critique about this game, it's just a joy to play start to finish, and a game that I've come back to several times to replay because there's just so much creativity and quality gameplay on display here. It's gorgeous to look at, fluid as heck in motion, the engine is complex enough to have a lot of little tricks to make going fast in levels an interesting challenge by itself, and those goddamn music levels are just some of the best things I've ever played. Only the highest of recommendations for this one and it's one of the games on this list I expect to appeal to the widest variety of players. We really need another game from this new Rayman series. Any day now whenever you're ready, Ubisoft. I'd hand over the money in an instant.

[Serah Farron]

Just bought the game on steam recently. Awesome timing!

This game is filled with fun and I don't regret this purchase.

[Randaran]

What a coincidence; I literally started Legends yesterday. It's been a blast so far.

Rayman was also one of my favorite series growing up. The first Rayman was my own number one entry, and I also thoroughly enjoy 3. The scoring system added so much to that game.

Just one correction:

Then nothing happened for almost a decade...

Except something did happen. To this very day, I'm still disappointed in Ubisoft for cancelling Rayman 4 and demoting the character to a series of stupid motion control minigame collections.

[Crow]

Haha, no, Nothing Happened

[Crow]

5. Lovely Planet

Let me tell you a story. I'm not a fan of FPS games in general. I've probably played less than a dozen in my lifetime. Shooting is not a very satisfying form of combat and the games tend to be repetitive slogs lacking in gameplay finesse that gets tiresome really quickly. I've played Bioshock and Bioshock Infinite, they're okay, combat doesn't do it for me. I've played Borderlands, it's okay, sniping is kinda  fun, generally doesn't do it for me. But this. This game. The moment I started playing it I was hooked. It's basically super meat boy in FPS form. Quick levels, quick iteration times, one-touch death, a decent level of skill and precision needed. Except super meat boy is a weird game where the player character and level design feel like they come from two different games.

Obviously that's not the case for this game. The level design is super tight and fluid to the point where there is no point in the game where you absolutely have to stop moving and wait for something to happen. The gameplay pacing is quick, and the levels are kept quick as well - the longest is still under 30 seconds and some can be as short as 5-10 seconds. Yet the game's difficult enough that its 100 bite-sized levels kept me occupied trying to 100% this for about 15 hours. The main goal of each level is to 1. Get to the exit and 2. Kill all of the red guys (baddies) along the way. Miss one, and you fail the level even if you reach the goal. And there are stars to earn in each level - one for 100% accuracy in shooting, and one for beating a time limit - both can be pretty hard to achieve on a lot of levels, even aside from the difficulty of clearing some of these levels.



The levels are designed in a pretty linear fashion where there's one expect path and taking that path will make all kills and shots line up pretty nicely. The levels start out very basic, standard enemies to shoot and walls in your way, but it's not really until the introduction of some of the tougher mechanics - the apples that cause you to fail if they hit the ground, the slow homing bullets; and don't even get me started on the weirdness of world 5. By the end the game is practically a puzzle game of figuring out the intended path and how to shoot every enemy along the way and levels can be just as hard to figure out as they are to solve, but there's a convenient lookahead feature that can really help in solving some levels.

The game's difficulty curve is also fairly smooth, with only a bit of a difficulty spike at the start of world 4, but in general the pace that difficulty escalates is great; the pace of actions you have to perform increases, the amount of things trying to kill you, the distance of shots you have to make, the reaction time, the complexity of the levels. It all scales up so well. And reaching the end of the game your first time through really feels like an accomplishment, much less reaching the end with all stars collected. The game is just the best realization of the precision platformer formula I've ever played, and it's not even a precision platformer itself.



How about another story. I'm not really someone who takes to speedrunning games. It's too frustrating and too based on muscle memory and I've never really made any serious attempt to do so... except with this game. I frequented the top runner of this game's streams for quite a while and got to witness the game's current WR live, which lead to me trying to speedrun the game myself. My best time for all levels is 25:29 for the record, which is still 5 minutes slower than the WR, but hey, I'm pretty proud of that. I did a lot more individual level running than full game running though, a lot less stressful. But yeah, I've kind of played the heck out of this game, probably the game I've played the most in comparison to how much content it has. I've seen each of the hundred levels in the game probably hundreds of times each.

The cool thing about speedrunning this game is that most of the time, you end up deviating quite a bit from the intended path, to the point where some levels change entirely. Some of the hardest levels casually end up really easy with a speedrun path, and some very unassuming levels become really challenging. And there's just so many cool tricks you can do, jumping up places you're not supposed to reach, doing some cool trick shots to hit targets from far away, finding ways to avoid triggering some obstacles so you don't have to waste time dealing with them. The gameplay of this game is just so inherently satisfying and it's really what makes this game a joy to play, at least for me.

I should also mention the aesthetic briefly. The basic, pastel colors are pleasant enough to look at and it keeps the game from being too visually busy allowing every obstacle to stand out. The music is pretty bright and bouncy but not really obnoxious and it fits the tone of the game well. It's not really the selling point of the game but it all works. The game's sequel, Lovely Planet Arcade, came out earlier this year and while it was pretty solid, it wasn't nearly as fun and didn't provide the same sense of freedom making it not particularly interesting to speedrun; it basically just took the more puzzle-based levels of the first game and limited your movement so you couldn't break them. Clever at times but ultimately forgettable. But the original, the one I've spent too many words talking about, it's really something special.

[ReaperKK]

Your description of the game reminded me a lot of 10 deacons ninja except that 10 second ninja was a 2d game. I'd love to give this a shot some time as it seems like something I'd get hooked into.

[Crow]

Yeah 10 Second Ninja is kinda similar though a lot faster paced & a lot shorter. Just picked up 10 Second Ninja X recently too, need to give it a play.

[Crow]

4. Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock

Okay, c'mon now, who didn't see this coming? There was no way I was getting away with not putting probably the game series I've spent the absolute most time with on this list. I got into the games starting with Guitar Hero 3 and bought pretty much every release from there to this one. And selecting just one game from the series to represent it was a tough choice as a result; Guitar Hero Metallica was a close second mostly for the metal-oriented soundtrack, but I think this game wins out for a few reasons, but more than anything else, the fullest realization of the GHTunes engine.

But first the setlist. I think this setlist is about cleanly divided into "songs that are kind of meh on guitar" and "songs that are friggin' fun as hell on guitar". Guitar being the only instrument I've dumped serious time into, that is; I've played some drums sure but the kit broke really fast on me and I couldn't be bothered to replace it (so I just got a real drum kit instead, which is way more fun than playing fake plastic drums, let me tell you). But yeah. A lot of the lower tiers of the game are pretty drab tracks, honestly, probably included for other instruments, though some of them are kind of boring all-around. But then you also have a looong list of really great ones. How long? Ahem.

Bat Country, Been Caught Stealing, Black Widow of La Porte, Bloodlines, Burn, Call Me The Breeze, Dancing Through Sunday, Deadfall, Fury of the Storm, Ghost, Hard to See, Holy Wars, If You Want Peace..., It's Only Another Parsec, Machinehead, Modern Day Cowboy, Move It On Over, Nemesis, Ravenous, (You Can Still) Rock In America, Scumbag Blues, Speeding, Sudden Death, Suffocated, This Day We Fight, Ties That Bind, Tones of Home (one of my favorite songs in the entire series), 2112 in its entirety, Unskinny Bop. All of them varying levels of "pretty dang fun". And there's a solid number of tracks besides that are enjoyable but not quite as much. That's a lot of fun tracks.



For those not in the know, guitar hero is a rhythm game based off of playing guitar, with 5 buttons representing the frets alongside a strum bar. It's pretty basic to pick up but also pretty tough to master. I'm decently good, I'd say, but never really close to the top players, just outright not physically capable of some of the insane stuff they pull off. It's a solid simulation and some of it translates okay to real guitar, some doesn't. It'd probably be harder for guitarists to go from playing real guitar to the fake plastic one, I'd imagine. But it's loads of fun, especially when you nail a tricky solo and feel like a pro. I've spent probably thousands of hours playing the games. I don't know why. They're fun.

Anyways let's get to the real point. GHTunes. Was a brilliant idea that never quite reached its maximum potential. But still was flexible enough to allow people to make some pretty rad covers of songs, or write their own if they wanted to. Here's a cover I did once. And here's a song I wrote. The song I wrote is kind of proggy wanky stuff, which is maybe not great to listen to but fun as heck to play. That's really why the engine works, it's pretty easy to make songs that sound decent and are fun as hell to play.



The conclusion to this little story is that guitar hero sort of gave me the confidence to write music proper, and GHTunes especially helped teach me a lot about scales and chords, even if indirectly. And considering there's literally tens of thousands of tracks uploaded to the platform (at least until they pull servers for the console, that is) it also adds loads upon loads upon LOADS of replay value to the game even beyond the already extensive setlist. It's pretty easy to see why I've sunk more time into this entry than any others. The GHTunes system was introduced in GH:WT, sure, but this was the most expansive implementation of the system and the one I spent the most time in - probably because this is the only game I got on the 360 and not the Wii, which had a limited version of GHTunes compared to the other consoles for some arbitrary reason. Oh well.

It's basically impossible for me to objectively judge this game, but some other things. The game engine is definitely one of the better ones in the series. The hammer ons/pull offs have a fair timing window, strumming isn't as broken as it was in some of the previous games, and the slider notes work fine here as well. The timing window isn't as loose as GH3's but it's not as strict as GH2 or the rock band games. It's just right, makes it easier to pull off fast runs while still requiring the actual finger speed to do so. And the game's pretty graphically solid, they put a lot of work into animations and designs and it's nice enough to look at though my attention tends to stay focused on the notes themselves. Uhh. The guitar that came bundled with the game was pretty decent too, though nothing ever topped the GH3 Les Paul for me, personally. So yeah that's it. Top 3 next, woo.

[Crow]

3. Okami

Okay, let's get this out of the way right away. Look how goddamn gorgeous this game looks. The aesthetic is wonderful and the game just looks beautiful as a result, very colorful, lush, and vibrant. And there are so many unique and interesting locations, all giving off a distinctly Japanese vibe to them. That's not even getting to how good this game looks in motion. Very fluid animation style that keeps the painterly look intact. And oh man, oh man that soundtrack. One of the best video game soundtracks out there, bar none. Northern Country Kamui alone is probably one of my favorite video game tracks of all time but there's sooo so many good tracks here and very few bad or mediocre ones, if any at all. And again it all keeps the Japanese feel of the game, using lots of traditional instruments. Capturing lots of moods; from the epic and bombastic to the gorgeous and beautiful to the playful and bouncy to the haunting and unsettling. Just. Gorgeous game on every front.

Of course, it's up this high on the list so you know it's also a blast to play. Let's have another story. I've never really been a fan of Zelda games. I've tried playing Majora's Mask. Didn't finish it. I only got through like one dungeon of Wind Waker when I tried playing that. And the classic games have never really looked that appealing to me either. Yet here I am, putting a Zelda-like game right near the top of my list. I guess, this just does everything I'd want that type of game to do. A massive game world to explore with many secrets and hidden challenges scattered throughout, and a world that feels enjoyable to explore simply because of how gorgeous it is? A simple but really engaging story based deeply in Japanese mythology? Enjoyable combat that has just enough depth to it but never gets too technical? Massive, memorable boss fights that are creative and challenging? There's so much to do in this game and it's just. Fantastic. The game never feels too long but it's definitely quite satisfying with what you do get.



And of course I'd be remiss not to mention the game's core mechanic - a lot of your special powers are activate by drawing symbols representing each attack. It's a bit fiddly at times and sometimes it feels like the game has trouble recognizing the symbols, but on the whole it's a rather unique and enjoyable way to fight and gives you a few seconds of breathing room in fights whenever you use it. On top of that a lot of the abilities find their use both during the game's platforming and puzzling as well as during combat, and most every power really feels like it has a reason to exist. There's a lot of basic abilities like the elemental brushes, but also the ability to cut, create bombs, bloom or revive plants, slow down time, etc. And there's even slight metroidvania elements where you can return to some earlier areas with new abilities and find treasures you couldn't get to before using your new powers.

The map and level design in the game also tends to be quite good. Each large overworld really feels like a real place, often providing a vast landscape to explore with some challenges along the way. And the way enemy encounters tend to work - scrolls roaming the mainlands that initiate a battle if they catch you, though you can choose to escape the battle if you want. The dungeon designs also tend to be quite creative too, often taking advantage of a few of your powers and creating some interesting platforming or puzzling sections out of them, all while providing some striking scenery and locales. Oni Island in particular is one of my favorite levels in any game ever, both for its interesting main mechanic and just the sheer quality of the challenges it presents, while also being quite mazelike in its structure.



The combat itself is pretty basic; there are three main weapon types and aside from wailing on enemies with your basic attack you're often required to use brush techniques in-battle to dispatch of foes. And every enemy has a particular weakness where after the final hit if you finish them off with a specific technique, they drop demon fangs that allow you to buy rare items. Have I also mentioned how EXP works in this game? EXP is Praise, and it's not gained from battles; rather, it's gained from reviving plants and rejuvenating the land, or helping out citizens with various side-quests. It's an interesting system that provides good incentive to run around and explore as much as you can, and honestly it just feels good to help out the people with their troubles - there's a lot of small minigames and sidequests to keep things from getting boring.

The other incentive to explore and do side-quests is the 100 stray beads, which serve as a requisite secret collectible with a great reward at the end. I won't say exactly what the reward is and you can't get it until your second playthrough of the game, but it's... quite a satisfying reward to say the least. And the stray bead challenges tend to be harder than the rest - a difficult sequence of battles, a tougher minigame, a treasure chest hidden away in a secret spot underground or after a tricky platforming sequence. And none of them are missable in any way, no beads are hidden in places you can't return to. I quite like this mechanic and it provides a lot of extra, enjoyable content to the game to keep me playing it.

I'll admit that the game is certainly a bit rough around the edges and it's now over a decade old, but despite its small flaws it's held up quite well and is easily one of the most enjoyable and memorable games I've ever played, and a game in a genre I usually don't find myself enjoying too. Just a really great game, shame that the sequel was a bit disappointing and shame that the studio was closed shortly after this came out too, really a letdown that we didn't get another game of this quality from them.

Oh and, yes. You absolutely should run around barking everywhere.

[Sacul]

 

Okami is really a fantastic title, replayed it last year on PS3 (which is in HD and looks fantastic), and I think I enjoyed it even more than the first time. As you mentioned, it's a little rough on the edged, but has aged better than lots of games from those years. And the soundtrack is fucking lit.

[Crow]

it's pretty much awesome in every way

[Crow]

2. Environmental Station Alpha

Let me tell you a story. I found this game completely on accident, via a random steam review on another game I was interested in. Axiom Verge to be precise, the okay-but-not-great metroidvania that was heavily influenced by the original Metroid. And I did eventually play that game, and it was... disappointing to say the least. In part because it's not a great game on its own, but also in part because, only half a year earlier, I'd played this instead. It was cheaper, it looked more up my alley, and the review in question made a great positive comparison of ESA vs. Axiom Verge. Obviously, he was spot-on, considering this turned out to be one of my favorite games of all time.

Honestly? This is the perfect metroidvania. I don't think it's ever going to be topped. The game world is a pretty decent size, there are quite a number of secrets to discover, the atmosphere is fantastic, the combat is basic but very heavily skill-based; especially the bosses, which can be kind of tricky but are all pretty unique and challenging fights, the game captures a retro look in the best way, there are quite a lot of great powerups and controlling feels great in this game, the story itself is pretty interesting, and there are even a lot of sequence breaks that were somewhat intended by the developer as sort of a homage to the older metroid games, that of course can let you obtain one of the most powerful items in the game very quickly.



One of the most important aspects of this game is its world and map design. This game does the one thing that will make me immediately love a metroidvania/exploration game in general - a 100% dense map. If you see a hole in the map, there -is- a way to get into it, for sure. And i think that element alone makes exploration so much more interesting - instead of trying to futilely hunt for those last few rooms, you can feel out the entire game map without assistance simply by trying to find the way into blank spots on the map. The only exceptions are secret areas hidden at the edges of the station and even those can be sussed out by searching the perimeter. And alongside the good game design inherent in this kind of map design, it's also really cool how the map of the game very nicely fits into the image of the station presented at the title screen. Very clever.

The combat of the game is very simple - you have a short-range gun that basically functions as a melee weapon. Along the way there are a few powerups, including the obligatory charge shot. What this makes the combat turn into a lot is an exercise in learning patterns and dodging while finding the right moment to strike - something that, honestly, makes for really interesting battles, far more than any long range weapon would. This may have become apparent but I much prefer close-range combat in games that have combat systems - it feels better and makes it easier to avoid the pitfalls that a lot of failed combat systems fall into. There's a nice variety of normal enemies and aside from them there is quite a number of bosses throughout the world, nearly every one of them posing a challenge and all of them being fairly distinct from one another.

The game does hold your hand slightly, directing you towards where you need to go via the map, but figuring out how to get there is up to you, and it often requires a good bit of exploring around, even aside from looking for secrets. There's some backtracking to old areas, sure, but you always take them on with new abilities and explore new paths, and the end result is a fairly decent sized campaign taking you all over the station, confined to a relatively small amount of space. The map fits into about a 25 by 35 rectangle of rooms but due to its density there's still quite a lot of explore. And the story unfolds as you explore, finding the secret of the station and what lead to its abandonment - and the entity behind it all. The atmosphere of the game is great, really capturing each sub-area of the station separately as well as the overall atmosphere of the space station.



And once you complete the Metroid-esque maingame and discovered all the secrets of the station... you find the extra area. And the entire game changes. Shifting away from combat and platforming towards a very La-Mulana-esque level of environmental puzzling, cryptic hints and a hidden language to decode, more and more secrets with no clear ending in sight. The post-game is what really takes this game from "great" to "basically flawless". I'm not going to get too in-depth to keep from spoiling anything but the way the game changes is so fantastic and adds an entire new layer to the game. This game, it really well and truly has it all at this point. Great combat, great platforming, great exploration, great puzzling, great atmosphere, great level of challenge.

I might sound like I'm just raving about every aspect of this game. And you'd be right! It's one of the deepest and most satisfying gaming experiences I've ever had, and one of the most diverse, coming from what looks like a fairly unassuming metroid-like at first. Sure, it doesn't have the greatest graphics or music, but it still manages to create its unsettling atmosphere without it and makes the tribute to the original metroid feel all the more convincing, but this game goes so far beyond the official metroid games to become, in my opinion, the pinnacle of the entire genre. It's probably not perfect and I do have minor gripes with it, sure, but they utterly pale in comparison to how tight and enjoyable the game is as a whole and when I get right down to it I wouldn't really change a thing about it.

But it's not quite the best gaming experience I've ever had, unfortunately, so it lost out to my #1.

[Bolsters]

I like the look of this, so I will play it. Eventually.