In no particular order:
Mass Effect 2
Final Fantasy VI
Final Fantasy X
Super Metroid
Chrono Trigger
Demon's Souls
Disgaea (series)
Half-Life 2
Star Fox 64
Pokemon (series)
Kingdom Hearts II
Super Mario Bros. 3
I was originally going to do a Top 10 list (although without trying to order them), but I wound up with 12, and can't bring myself to remove any of them.
I intend to do full writeups on these soon/later, but for now here's the highlights:
Mass Effect 2: Highly cinematic while keeping player involvement; many roleplaying opportunities. Most responsible morality system I've ever seen. Fun combat. Emotional story. Occasionally tough decision-making. Many excellent characters.
Final Fantasy VI: Large, varied cast. Beautiful soundtrack. Highly nonstandard second half. My favorite video game villain.
Final Fantasy X: Highly tactical battle system. Many memorable, hard bosses. Lots of character development to go around. Very well-told story. Several large plot twists.
Super Metroid: Large, interesting world to explore. Many fun/interesting powerups. Surprisingly emotional scenes near the end. Speed running and sequence breaking are a blast and add absurd amounts of replay value.
Chrono Trigger: Fantastic music. Excellent battle system. Some very interesting plot twists. Did things well that no games before and very few since have even attempted. Time traveling sidequests.
Demon's Souls: Excellent mechanics across the board. Difficulty is punishing, but reasonable. Very freeform leveling system. Exhilarating, intense boss fights.
Disgaea: Headcrushing depth, but nothing is obtuse and everything gets explained at a perfectly reasonable pace. Gameplay that extends far beyond the end of the story. Lots of big shiny numbers. Surprisingly good stories and many sympathetic characters. Very fast, yet very tactical, combat.
Half-Life 2: Mechanically solid. Player the driving force behind the events of the game. Often ingenious level design. Some incredibly cathartic weapons.
Star Fox 64: Fantastically responsive controls. Area 6 is one of my favorite levels in any game ever. The best dynamic difficulty ever implemented. Highly replayable.
Pokemon (series): Nearly as deep as Disgaea; less of the depth is explained in-game, but less knowledge of it is necessary to succeed. Many interesting strategies. Player vs. player matches are intense and allow for many "I know you know that I know" scenarios.
Kingdom Hearts II: Extremely fun, responsive combat. Highly entertaining bosses. Drive forms are an absolute blast.
Super Mario Bros. 3: Many varied worlds and powerups. Numerous secret areas. Solid platforming.
GO PLAY TACTICS
ReplyDeleteI played Tactics. I kept playing Disgaea.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I know. I just wanted to say that again. Also, Simba w/ force field because he's a cub.
ReplyDeleteIt's probably accurate to say that each game appeals to our respective styles in ways that etc. you can fill in the words from here. Doesn't Disgaea have a mechanic that specifically rewards and encourages grinding?
Fun fact: I have no idea what Disgaea looks like at any point of gameplay. Never have I seen a screencap of it. Everything I know about it is from you talking about it.