It's been about 5 and a half years since I did my last Top 100 list. Due to my OCD and compulsion to constantly create lists in my head I think it's time for an all new Top 100.
My first thought was to reevaluate the old top 100, but fuck it, it's easier to pick 100 new games that I didn't have on the list last time. In the past 5 and a half years I've played more than I usually have, largely due to COVID. And in that time I've played a lot of new great games.
Plus, when I made the last list, I avoided adding multiple games from the same franchises. So I can dip back into the Dragon Quest pool and a few others.
Anyway stay tuned. Starting tomorrow we're doing this shit again.
My first thought was to reevaluate the old top 100, but fuck it, it's easier to pick 100 new games that I didn't have on the list last time. In the past 5 and a half years I've played more than I usually have, largely due to COVID. And in that time I've played a lot of new great games.
Plus, when I made the last list, I avoided adding multiple games from the same franchises. So I can dip back into the Dragon Quest pool and a few others.
Anyway stay tuned. Starting tomorrow we're doing this shit again.
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SupremeAC (9m)
I remember me and my friends geeking out over X-Men Children of the Atom back in the day. Good times.
I never got into MvC games. I imported Saturn copy of X-Men vs SF with 4MB RAM cart, though, which was an amazing game.
Over the years I've have pretty much become aware that I'm more or less alone on an island in my defense of Yoshi's Story and how good! I think the game really is. No it is not difficult. So for everyone who thought they were getting a direct sequel to Yoshi's Island, I get the disappointment. However, that doesn't take away from all the things that make this game great.
At the end of the day, Yoshi's story is the definition of what a relaxing game should be. You can pretty much play through the game with a minimal skill level and get through the whole thing. Whether that's where your abilities cap out or you just don't put forth much effort, you're going to be able to get through the game. That said, if you actually do work to achieve the bigger goals, new levels that are a bit tougher open up. So the game actually rewards the amount of effort you put into it.
But "effort" really isn't an important word to use when talking about Yoshi's Story. This is a game that's meant to just be played and enjoyed with no stress to the player. It might also be meant for 5-year-olds, but that's probably different write-up. This is really just meant to enjoy a relaxing soundtrack, a low sense of urgency, and simple pleasing aesthetics. In fact, as this game came out during the height of shitty looking 3D games, I always thought it was particularly refreshing to go back and enjoy how good this game looked.
It's been a game that every couple years I go back to when I want to just play a game and chill out. It's a game that I'm very happy exists.
Yeah that's pretty awful. As is the song they sing every time you complete a level.
Somewhere out there is a hacker who I need to thank. Thanks to the great PSN hack of 2009 or 10 or whenever the hell that was, the Sony gave out a variety of games as an apology. I chose infamous, which was a darn good game in its own right, but the one I am most thankful for was Little big planet.
LBP was a pretty remarkable game. By the late 2000s, 2D platformers were pretty much a dead genre. Even Nintendo wasn't making very many of them anymore. But here comes Media Molecule with this amazing Game that not only is extremely fun, but it absolutely feels fresh and unlike any other 2D platformer. Quite a feat really. Between the sackboy character, the craft world, it's floaty physics, sticker system, and everything else it felt completely unique. Everyone took notice, even Nintendo. Reggie himself said it should have been a Nintendo game. Pretty high praise.
What really need the game special though was a feature that wasn't that important to me. The level creator. And well, I might not have cared much about it, a giant community sprung up of people who were devoted to the game and would spend hours making levels and even attempting to recreate other beloved games. One person who really enjoyed this would be my son.
My boy was about 7 years old or so when I let him play LBP for the first time, and he was completely hooked trying to play People's games, and make his own. For whatever reason he was really hooked on all of the horror games that were being created. I would be sitting on the other side of the house and I would hear this shrill shriek from a little kid that would then turn into giggles as he would replay these same levels over and over and over, and yet still find a way to be surprised.
It was also through this that he pretty much destroyed My old PSN account. At the time I wasn't comfortable with him having his own account, so I'd let him use mine. That way if any undesirables tried to message him I could see it. That wasn't the case, but what did happen was hundreds of other young kids who were playing this game sent him friend requests and messages to ask if he wanted to play. My inbox was ultimately filled up from this and eventually I had no choice but to Nuke the account. Thanks kid....
That kid also turns 18 and graduates high school in about a week. Time definitely flies. So, whenever I think of LBP, I immediately go back to him as a little kid having an absolute blast playing by himself and his obnoxious online friends. So once again, thanks. Hackers. Probably never would have touched this game had it not been for you guys.
I think for most people, Final Fantasy 7 gets thrown around as the jrpg that was officially rang in the "next generation" on the PlayStation. For my money though, it was Suikoden.
It was so unlike any game that came before it. You had traditional turn-based combat, but you could have a team of six characters, where you could have different team-ups depending on who is in the party. In that regard it was like Chrono trigger but on steroids. And then aside from that, you had these giant strategy battles that while they were simple, really changed the scale of the combat.
And the best part of all was there were 108 characters in the game. Not quite all of them would join you in battle, but all of them would play some sort of role as you wandered the world recruiting them to live in your castle and fight for your side. That scale was just unlike anything I had seen before.
My biggest regret with the game was waiting slum before I finally played it. There's little question that Suikoden was a victim of bad box art. It's not quite as horrendous as Mega Man, but there's really nothing that makes me want to check this out. So I easily walked by it a hundred times before I finally decided, "well, I got nothing else to play so maybe this?"
Turned out to be an amazing decision for me. The game isn't overly long at about 20 to 25 hours, and I remember beating it the weekend that I got it. So it pretty much kept my butt glued to bean bag where I would play games in my shit hole apartment for those full 3 days.