by cloudymusic
Throughout my nearly three decades of playing video games, I've never really cared enough to try to rank my favorites, but I thought it might be interesting to try as an exercise. This list is likely to change from time to time as my opinions evolve or as I remember games that I've accidentally left out, but for now, here's my best attempt.
This is in no way, shape, or a form a list of what's "best," or a review-like ranking. I fully admit that my own nostalgia and personal sentimental value factors into these choices heavily. This is literally just a list of my favorite games, in my own mind.
Showing 1-10 of 73 items
The first Super Nintendo game I owned, and still one of the most engrossing games I've ever played. Even after seeing every inch of the game world several times over, it still feels like it's full of secrets to find. In addition to fantastic and well-balanced gameplay, top-notch sound and graphics round out the package.
I may not have as much patience for long JRPGs as I used to, but the detailed art design, world-building, cinematic score, and deep party customization are as evident as ever. None of the other games in the series, before or since, were able to capture my heart to the extent that this one did.
A hair's breadth away from being my favorite Final Fantasy title, full stop. Oustanding presentation and a story that keeps you guessing, if somewhat hampered by its localization. The music here is, again, some of the best in the franchise. The only real marks against it are a somewhat uneven difficulty curve in the game's second half, and again, a mediocre localization.
It was a daring idea to make a game based around nothing but boss battles with some quiet exploratory sections in between, but I believe it succeeded completely. Atmosphere and quality art-and-sound direction go a very long way towards getting me to love a game, personally, and this game has all of those things in spades.
The finest 2D platformer ever created. The controls were razor-sharp, every single detail was polished to a mirror sheen, and the majority of the (numerous) levels had at least one secret exit to find. A massive, fantastic platformer.
While I like most of the games in this series to an extent, this one is by far my favorite. Instead of the heroes fighting back against a world-ending force, the story simply centers around two nations at war, giving equal attention to the large-scale and small-scale issues created by the conflict. Also working to its credit are a huge array of recruitable characters -- common to all the games in the franchise -- an interesting combat system, and turn-based strategic battles to mix things up. Observant fans will note that a variety of backstory groundwork is innocuously laid here that will only come back around in future installments almost ten years later.
The first Persona game to include "life simulation" elements, which felt pretty novel at the time. I generally prefer the tone and style of this game to Persona 4; I feel that P3 is extremely good at conveying a pervasive sense of mood, where the entire game -- even the ostensibly upbeat moments -- has this persistent feeling of unease hanging over it. As I said before, atmosphere goes a long way with me, so that earns this game a high spot on this list. As with Persona 4, every inch of this game is just dripping with style, and it made quite an impression on me back in 2007.
The original Apple II release was an astonishingly-animated, mysterious, stress-inducing action-platformer. It was also quite creepy to my young self, due in part to the grisly violence and sparse, metallic Apple II soundtrack. The expanded Super Nintendo release is my definitive version of the game, featuring beautifully-detailed graphics, an excellent musical score, and significantly expanded levels.
FF7 obviously gets a ton of backlash in response to being fanboyed over, but I simply loved it at the time because it was a great combination of what I loved about FF6 plus technological advances like gorgeous prerendered backgrounds and CD audio. No matter how much backlash it gets for being "overrated," I'll still always just consider it a damn solid mid-90s JRPG.
If there's one failing that I can level at Secret of Mana, it's that it has almost no story to speak of, and what *is* there is marred by a terrible script localization. However, it more than makes up for that via excellent real-time action-based combat, a variety of weapons and magic to experiment with, and a neverending variety of new places to visit. Simultaneous multiplayer support was the icing on the cake.