I have zero interest in analyzing mechanics in games I only play them for the interesting places, atmosphere, characters and experiences. I came very close to putting driv3r on my list because I was sitting on a couch watching my friend frustratedly fumble through the yacht level while I was feeling very nice about life once, therefore it’s a game of all time for me. that’s the kind of metric applied to the games on my list
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ridge racer type 4
ridge racer 3d
saints row 2
gta 2
yakuza 6
it would be amazing if fake metal slug 6, a half-remembered game almost none of us have played, wins the whole thing
6 Likes
I did my list. I started by coming up with 64 games for the list, and then just cut down that 64-games list down to the ones that I feel more strong about. (aka: i cut six games from the list that i didn’t care that much about) Numbered just for my convenience, not really a best-to-least-best list.
01 Super Mario Bros.
02 Super Mario Bros. 3
03 Paper Mario
04 Undertale
05 Chrono Trigger
06 Gimmick!
07 Rocket Knight Adventures
08 Contra: Hard Corps
09 Contra (NES)
10 Metal Slug X
11 Metal Slug 3
12 Windjammers
13 Neo Turf Masters
14 Twinkle Star Sprites
15 Super Mario Maker 2
THE SONIC BLOCK
16 Sonic the Hedgehog
17 Sonic CD
18 Sonic 3&K
19 Sonic Mania
20 Sonic Colors
21 Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed
SONIC BLOCK END
22 OutRun
23 OutRun 2006/2
24 Fantasy Zone II W (this is the 3DS FZ2 other people mentioned before)
25 Daytona USA
26 Moero! Nekketsu Rhythm Damashii Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan 2
27 Castlevania: Rondo of Blood
28 Team Fortress 2
29 Tetris Battle Gaiden
30 Streets of Rage 2
31 Yakuza 0
32 The Ninja Warriors Once Again/Ninja Saviors: Return of the Warriors
33 Megaman 2
34 Klonoa/Klonoa: Door to Phantomile
35 Crazy Taxi
36 Ranger-X
37 Bloody Roar 2
38 Trackmania 2
THE KIRBY BLOCK
39 Kirby’s Dream Course
40 Kirby’s Adventure
41 Kirby Super Star/Super Star Ultra
42 Kirby Planet Robobot
43 Kirby’s Return to Dreamland
KIRBY BLOCK END
44 Rayforce/Galactic Attack/Layer Section/Gunlock (they’re all the same game, just different names)
45 Jackbox Party Pack
46 Ape Escape 3
47 Doom
48 Quake
49 Jumping Flash!
50 F-Zero GX
51 Super Monkey Ball
52 Street Fighter III (3rd Strike)
53 Umihara Kawase/Sayonara Umihara Kawase whichever comes out on top
54 The House of the Dead 2
55 Streets of Rage 4 (I was in doubt for a bit but the co-op experience really puts it in here)
56 GunBound
57 Super Metroid
58 Star Fox 64
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What do you think of Kirby 64? I don’t think it quite measures up to the ones you’ve listed but I played it recently and really appreciated the kind of hand-crafted diorama-like feel of the levels and how the camera/character moves through them sometimes.
2 Likes
You precisely put exactly what I appreciate about it. It’s probably the prettiest game on the N64. I also like the little cutscenes with the crew between worlds, and the dynamics between the characters. There’s a real focus on a group friendship, even if it’s mostly on the corners of the game that I really appreciate, and it’s definitely the best of the Shimomura Kirby games. I just don’t appreciate it mechanically too much. if there were more fun abilities that didn’t stop Kirby too much (and less annoying shard placements/gates) I might’ve actually put it in my list!
4 Likes
Yeah, I was considering it but left it off for pretty much the reasons you mentioned.
I have to echo Dakota with Neo Contra and Snake Eater
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Two games by terry cavanagh right next to each other? Cool
Super Hexagon is the best endless runner and will never be matched again. I never got very good at it but it’s a party in my brain.
VVVVVV is way more than the sum of its parts. I think I made an argument somewhere on this forum that is is the Most Videogame Video Game. The guy who composed the soundtrack did NOT marry Alanis Morissette and I definitely thought he had. He did not.
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Barfing out some love for a few on my list:
Super Mario 64 is one of those sacred cows that’s fun to tip over now and I get it. While the game rigorously devotes itself to the joy of movement like few 3D action games have, the makers spent so much time in grey box bounce-about bliss that the levels themselves were thrown together almost as an afterthought. But you have to ask yourself: Why do we build more playgrounds to grace our lovely cities than we do gauntlets? (Trader Joe’s doesn’t count) I beat it once every year because I can’t get the velocity of those particular verbs (wall kick, long jump, dive!) anywhere else and I like seeing how many different ways I can weave my way through the game i.e. Save the King Bob-omb fight for last and laugh in his face when he says “You’ll have to pick up the pace if you want to take Bowser by the tail” and I already have done thrice. Fool! And while I’ve played it into the ground at this point, I like being reminded of something like, actually you don’t need to activate and use the cannon on Cool Cool Mountain to get down to the bottom-most star, you can jump onto one of those hele-head guys and copter float all the way down there. And I’m still charmed by all the clever hallmarks of Nintendo taking their first big step into the third dimension. There has to be a camera so…let’s make it a character recording the player (and when you approach a mirror, let’s SHOW that character inhabiting the same space as Mario, moving to the player’s input, I LOVE that). It’s got some good secrets but I wish there were more. Ditto for platforming challenges and I was gutted when they cancelled the Disk Drive sequel. This is a game that was bursting with the possibility of enhancement and elaboration. I’ve dug a lot of the subsequent 3D Marios but none of them have that truck-like traction or free form non-linearity (Odyssey is cool but as I’ve said in a past bottom-line review, it’s like glamping with your travel agent. I found it grating how often the game nudges you as if to say “Pretty Impressive, huh? There’s a LOT of stuff!”) Anyway, it’s still my favourite game and even though it turned me into a shameless 3D platformer junkie that gobbled up too many inferior imitations for a long time, it was also the one that inspired me to want to make games and here I am for better or worse.
Diddy Kong Racing opens with the laughter of children so as to scare off any “too cool” types (and maybe lure some actual young children into its crucible of challenging go-kartery). It’s tight and tuned with little boost round the bend nuances that are absolutely necessary if you want to master the tracks and earn all the shit. Again, some more lovely playground stuff: a little open world to poke around in for secrets (and one of the cheekiest methods of unlocking a character ever (Drumstick)), boss jerks to fire upon and finagle in front of, actual good use of Rareware’s fetish for collectibles (the thrill of having to hit silver coins placed at tricky points on the track), land, water and air vehicles (because why not), an abundance of cheats (unlock co-op adventure mode!) and the list goes on.
Gitaroo Man is the interactive zine musical I’ve always wanted (and wish to see more of). Tasty tunes, fresh style and the sweetest interstitial odes to friendship in any game ever. Framing rhythm mechanics around Defend, Charge and Attack in what is essentially a Boss Rush adventure makes for a rad little ride worth replaying like one’s favourite album or comic book.
DOOM 64 is the best proof that DOOM is an idea, an ideal, that transcends its original creators. If one could describe DOOM 1 and 2 as heavy metal and prog metal respectively, this one is psychedelic metal (those beautiful Technicolour terror zones!). It manages to add more “puzzles” while still remaining fast and furious (I feel a more console-flavoured clockwork clearity to map layouts and backtracking). I prefer the gnarly demon redesigns here as well (except for Cacodemon, though it’s still pretty cool here) and the final boss actually kicks butt!
Of course Battlefield 1942 is a shadow of itself these days. If you never got to play the 64-player carnival of chaos at its height, you’ll just have to take my word that this was the best online multiplayer action game of all time.The rush of seeing your team’s flag moving fast across the vast map, knowing someone’s making off with it in a jeep, then hopping into the nearest plane, tailing them from the sky, spraying them with fire, dropping a bomb, blowing their vehicle sky high before bailing by parachute to collect the stolen object…well there it is. With teams of up to 32 vs. 32, tightly coordinated squads work, or go solo and infiltrate territories by stealth. I’m tearing up just thinking about it now. My brother and I still swap war stories.
Katamari Damacy really might be the best video game? You can hand this to almost anyone and after a few minutes of wrangling: joy.
16 Likes
Very few games are as satisfying as being on a good roll in Dragon Quest, and this is one of them. I talked to @slime about this a bit and something about the mouse-driven interface slows the game down in a real crunchy way. Diablo is the oft-compared game but it’s got a lot more impact than any Diablo game could dream of, and each attack feels purposeful.
Impactful is the word of the day here - attacks are big and chunky, each level gained makes an entire tier of enemies into cannon fodder, powering up abilities is totally unsubtle, every piece of new equipment feels like upgrading from a 2 cylinder engine to a 4 cylinder engine to a 6 cylinder engine into infinity.
One of the few games more than 10 hours long that I finished last year. Wonderful game.
10 Likes
Xanadu NEXT is remarkably meaty in a way few games could be. Falcom have presented a world so impeccably interwoven that even such a choice as low-level as moving Borfus to the next screen can drastically alter the course of his fate. There has not been a single item, enemy, NPC, piece of writing or room on Harlech Island that has not significantly contributed to the functional game experience or provided interesting narrative text. Never before in an action game have box puzzles given me this deep a sense of satisfaction. Xanadu NEXT stares dark souls in the eyes and says, I’m your daddy.
13 Likes
Super Mario Bros. 3 – So many ideas! So many secrets! So many great musical loops that have taken permanent residence in our minds!
Noiz2sa – Shmup from Kenta Cho. Abstract with simple pastel colors. Bullet hell bliss.
rRootage – This is how I heard about Kenta Cho. A shmup that in a way summarizes the genre. It has four game modes. The first one is Cho’s own design while the other three base their mechanics on Psyvariar, Ikaruga and Giga Wing. Abstract programmer graphics and bullet patterns created using a random number generator meant that Cho could make a bunch of levels for the different modes. There’s a lot there for a shmup fan.
Sky Force – This was originally a 2d shmup from 2004 that was made for PDAs, or Personal Digital Assistants (think Palm Pilot and other devices like that), but got a remaster in 2014 with shiny new 3d graphics and then a few years later a sequel. It’s similar to Galaga in terms of its mechanics but the real draw is the pretty environments, the ship upgrade system where you spend stars on upgrades and the ear-pleasing clack-y sound the game makes when you pick up the stars that pop out of exploded enemies.
Galaga – A true classic! Maybe even the granddaddy of the modern day shmup? I still have the Galaga/Galaxian gameboy cart and that’s a good version of the game to play if you ask me.
Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater – If the MGS series ended with this one it would have been fine by me. Kojima didn’t even want to do MGS2 (which also turned out to be really good) but going back and telling the story of Big Boss like they do in this one was a good decision. The story was great. The settings and characters were great. The game itself is hella fun, as much fun to play with as it is to just play which is always the hallmark of game greatness. Too bad MGS became a victim of its own success.
13 Likes
@anonymous my pick for Sky Force Reloaded can be merged with Sky Force 2014/Anniversary. I love both games and they are interchangeable for me.
2 Likes
Yeah I didn’t want to really pick one over the other since Reloaded is basically More Sky Force but I definitely love it just as much and probably more since there is more of it.
1 Like
Games I had on my list but cut for reasons I don’t remember:
Crazy Taxi
Kane & Lynch 2 Dog Days – I figured this would get by without me but now I’m wondering if we’ll end up with a top 64 that’s 90% Donkey Kong and I feel like I have played a part in that and I am trying to balance things out even though an all Nintendo top 64 would be so funny, to me.
Deadly Premonition
WWF No Mercy – I still have my cartridge and yes it has a create-a-wrestler version of me on it. Also a Sisqo CAW. He had some deadly moves.
WCW/NWO Revenge – WWF sucks, this has LA Park in it.
Breath of the Wild – I feel like this is the best game in its genre by a longshot and I’ve also always suspected that it’ll be outclassed before long cuz boy the game screeches to a halt during every cutscene. But here we are over 3 years later and it’s still the best so hey who knows how long we’ll be waiting, eh.
Mario vs Airman
Steep Slope Sliders – this is kinda like nominating my own game, since it inspired a sizable chunk of it
Sky Odyssey – vote for Dota 2
Pilotwings 
Tetris Grand Master 2 – just lump all Tetris nominations together and then change them to whichever version of TGM is the most garish looking. It is maybe the best game and it is okay if it wins.
KLONOA
Dota 2 
– I already nominated Dota and Snood, this is a joke, please do not count them again. I want to make sure we have a fair nomination process here.
13 Likes
it’s a perfect racing game with a v good boost mechanic, the music owns and the levels own and the cars own. The drift feels even better than the earlier ones. and its sixty fips which really does matter for high speed racing
7 Likes
breath of fire iii
breath of fire iv
grandia
final fantasy vii
shining force 3
4 Likes
i better see more ffxiv representation from my butts hmph
1 Like
you made me worried i’d missed it off mine
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