I'm sure people are dying to see what made number one, same way people are dying for another Michael Bolton album. Finishing off this list wasn't easy considering the amount of games I've played and the quality that has existed in the industry for a long time. But I did manage to figure out a clear number 1 and I stand by it, so let's get this party started with...
10. Silent Hill
This game was the object of obsessiveness for me at the time. I constantly read guides and walkthroughs, looking for any secret not yet discovered, for some reference I might've missed, for some clue to what the heck was going on. I found most everything I was looking for. It just shows what happens when people take the time appreciate what they're trying to make.
This is another game that I covered so I'll keep it short. Silent Hill freaks me out. It may be pixelated and poorly controlled, but it does well to throw you into a hostile environment with no way out other that pushing forward through some of your worst fears. This game was designed to put your character through Hell. The series definitely found its stride with later games, but this one kicked it off for me and did something different with the survival horror genre.
Silent Hill isn't a place you leave, it stays with you always.
9. Metal Gear Solid
And the game I rented the most award goes to Metal Gear Solid. I probably could've bought this game a few times over with the amount of times I rented this from Blockbuster. Back when the PS1 was getting strong this game was released. It was in all the magazines, raving about Solid Snake who only appeared in games on the MSX, NES and SNES beforehand, none of which I played on their original console. But how could I ignore the constant barrage of talk and hype plastered all over my Official Playstation Magazine, I finally had to see what the big deal was.
The big deal was a game that took a 2D series and brought it to life with 3D. You could argue 2D Mario or 2D Zelda are better than their 3D counterparts, but Metal Gear Solid is a series that belongs in 3D.
Much like Silent Hill, this game had a lot for the player to take in. Fully voiced characters, live action cutscenes mixed with ingame graphic cutscenes, this game was a benchmark in gaming.
The story was about as complicated as a tangle of spider webs and it's characters were nice and rounded. It was refreshing to see a game that had a message to say, and did so through the art of storytelling. It combined new-age technologies with conspiracy theory craziness; throwing in one of the most bad-ass gaming heroes and the gravely voice of the great David Hayter, and you have gold. Metal Gear Solid was about being a one man infiltration unit, slipping in unnoticed and sneaking around to uncover the secrets of Shadow Moses. How you approached a situation was entirely up to the player. You could take to the shadows and masterfully make your way through to your next objective, or you could just say screw it and run in guns-a-blazing. The important thing to take note of is the game handles both situations quite well. You can be the sneakiest bastard in Alaska or you could just Rambo everything, the game facilitated both to their full potential. You got an arsenal of weapons and gadgets to play with (including a card board box, how you use it is up to you) and the game lets you have all the fun you want, the way you want. Feel like laying a path of mines in front of a soldiers route? Go for it. Feel like holding him hostage while at the same time using him as a body shield? How delightful it must be.
Hideo Kojima's level of detail that he puts into each game makes him the man he is today, and this game is no exception. Hideo Kojima also sought to it that this game had Easter Eggs all over the place. The oddest one of all has to be the ghosts that haunt the entire game. I believe there's about 45 of them and they only show up when you photograph a certain area. It's touches like that which make you want to explore every inch of this game.
It's weird to think about it now, being placed before Metal Gear Solid 2 and Metal Gear Solid 4 considering the game could've just not had a sequel and it would've worked. But Hideo Kojima couldn't say no to giving Snake more opportunities to strap C4 to a guards back and count the paces before hitting the trigger (which never gets old by the way).
This game was also brilliantly used in a flash back sequence in Metal Gear Solid 4. One of the most powerful moments in my gaming life was returning to Shadow Moses after all that time. It made me realize how much players have gone through with the series, and where most of us probably began the journey. When you get emotional about a game, you know it's good, and that's why its number 9.
8. Final Fantasy XII
Yes, never before was there an offline Final Fantasy that got so much hate from the community (until 13 came out). I can see why people didn't like it, but I don't think people appreciated the great changes Final Fantasy XII made to the series. It's almost a sin to put this game up so high, but I really just find it to be a fun experience.
The big difference between this game and the rest of the series was the combat system. Not only was it in real time, but it also followed the MMO formula of wandering around and fighting enemies, dealing with aggro and linking. This was quite the refreshing system after 20 years of battle screens and random encounters. And for once in the series, it wasn't over when your party on screen was wiped out; you could dig into your other party members to continue the fight. It wasn't until this game made this change that I realized how illogical RPG combat really was. In FFVI if your party died, it was just game over; but what about the rest of the people traveling around with you? What about them? Well FFXII changed that and it was good. Since everything was in real time, you could only control one out of three party members. This brought about the gambit system. It was a way to manage the AIs of the other characters, so they acted only according to what you told them to do. It allowed players to use their command skills instead of relying on the hit or miss nature of pre-programmed AI. The only drawback was having to find all the commands options. And near the end of the game, all gambit setups turned out to be very similar anyways.
The world was also quite something to explore. It felt like exploration had opened up again from the linearity of FFX into fully explorable maps. I enjoy traversing every area, discovering new ones and finding new challenges along the way. In fact, a lot of the world map was completely optional from the beaten path. But not just the areas were quite expansive, there were a host of other optional content one could partake in when they had the time. Quests, bosses, treasure, all lay hidden for those willing to look for it.
One of the major complaint about this game was the leveling system and the means of which players could learn to equip their gear. A character could only equip a piece of gear once they learned how to use it through LP on a board. This was a rather confusing method considering every time the past when you found a piece of gear, you could just throw it on, no problem. But now your characters were apparently so stupid, they had to go through the proper training class, complete a set of courses, be reviewed by the high council and graduate from the academy of hats before they could wear the next upgrade.
While the above was ridiculed, the following was cause for great ire. The story and the characters were not really up to par with fan standards. But then really, what Final Fantasy plot and cast of characters really is brilliant? Final Fantasy 8? Final Fantasy 10? I think players like to think Final Fantasy as some literary masterpiece, when really it's more on the fanfic level of storytelling. Analyze any plot from any one of these games, and you'll realize how ridiculous some of them are. Though, but comparison, Final Fantasy XII's story was a little empty at times, mostly due to staffing issues, and some characters were just flat-out usless (Vaan and Penelo...), I never found it a reason to hate the game.
Again, the reason I loved this game because it was so different from the rest of the series, and it tried new things that I had never seen in a console RPG. After FFX was so linear, I thought the full-range exploration era of RPGs was over, and then this game launched with better graphics and bigger areas.
7. Shadow of the Colossus
Team Ico strikes again with their 2nd game. Shadow of the Colossus sealed their place in gaming history by delivering yet another classic game that didn't feel comfortable being another copy and pasted game thrown in the market. SotC is a unique game that has yet to be replicated.
The story once again is very minimal and open to various interpretations. I get the feeling that this game is a prequel to the Ico game, but really, it stands great on its own. The story is you bring your girlfriend / sister / random stranger? to a temple of a dark god and have to go through the task of ridding the holy lands of their guardians or colossi. So most of the game is comprised of finding the colossi and slaying them.
Once you find the colossi, the really impressive part of the game begins. These bosses are HUGE, and are probably the best in gaming. Each one has their own attitude and way to be felled. From flying colossi, underwater colossi, colossi that walked around on all fours and colossi that were stationary: there is no limit to variation when tackling these behemoths. I kid you not that some of these bosses feel more like skyscrapers than bosses. But the way they move and react to your presence makes them very lifelike.
This is a game that has to be played to truly understand why it's great. For every good thing it does, there's also good in what it doesn't do. The game could've had enemies along the way to bog down the traveling, but the creator's wanted to showcase the environments instead. And they were beautiful. The game could've had some cheesy plot, but it let the player read into what was going on. It could've contrived some overly complicated combat system, but all you needed was a sword and explosive arrows (which were hilarious to fire at your horse) and the rest was up to you. Simple in it's nature and execution, this game is brilliant.
6. Donkey Kong Country
Forget Mario, the Donkey Kong Country series was platforming to me. I picked out the first game because it was the one I probably played the most. The graphics were ultra polished for the SNES, the game play was solid and the soundtrack was SNES gold. There is so little to not like about this game, and the fact that Nintendo deemed it worthy to bring back has been a long time coming. It's funny how the original game of Donkey Kong featured both Mario and Donkey Kong, and now they both have successful platforming games on the SNES.
This game made it so high up because this is really all I played back in the day. It's an easy game to pick up and play and just have fun. And that's the real point of gaming, to just have fun and be entertained. No stat grinding, no overly complicated stories or character developments, just a gorilla named Donkey and his buddy Diddy. Not much else can be said, so let's keep going.
5. Chrono Cross
With as much regard as I hold this game, it's kind of weird putting it at number 5. Chrono Cross is a hard game to say is great because it is technically a sequel to the legendary Chrono Trigger, but not in the traditional way. It's more like a closer look at a minor detail of the world of Chrono Trigger and only focuses on one time setting and cast that almost has nothing to do with Chrono Trigger. On paper, it's almost like a step backwards for the series, no time traveling, no Crono, what was this game supposed to be? Despite casting aside a lot of what made Chrono Trigger a classic, Chrono Cross stepped up with all new ideas and an all new cast to give us one of the biggest RPG hits of all time. I firmly believe that Chrono Cross did the impossible by surpassing its predecessor in just about every way possible. And for those whining that there's no Chrono remember: it's called Chrono Cross, not Chrono Trigger 2.
You follow around another mute protagonist named Serge who has the misfortune of sidestepping to a parallel world that is almost exactly the same as his own. So why is this world worth visiting or caring about? Well, in this new version of the world, Serge is dead. Thus begins a journey to figure out the mysteries of the Frozen Flame, the enigma that is Kid and bringing one of the loose plot threads of Chrono Trigger to an end. The plot gets very complicated and the logistics of some of the time-travelling back story end up as discussions on how, if time travel was possible, it would work and changes the events of history. One of the most interesting points in the story is the visit to the city of Chronopolis. An entire city that was thrust backwards in time by one of the three sages accidentally, thus altering the time space continuum and causing a rift in the dimensions. Wrapping your head around it does take some time and a whole lot of reading, but it's non-the-less fascinating.
The graphics were the best PS1 had to offer and the soundtrack was nothing short of amazing. Yasunori Mitsuda composed his magnum opus with this game. Previously responsible for Xenogears and Chrono Trigger, he really came through with this game and delivered. Every single piece of work helps the player fully realize every single area, moment and mood in the entire game. I still hold firm that this is the greatest soundtrack ever composed for a game.
While Chrono Trigger had a select few cast of characters, Chrono Cross had over 40 playable characters. This may seem like massive overkill. How could each character possibly have a fleshed out background, personality and developing story. Well they do. Somehow the dev team managed to create each character with a unique personality and storyline which made them memorable. The way they did this was creating scenarios that followed only a certain number of the total cast along the way. It took about 3 playthroughs to find everyone in the game, and characters, data and levels carried over into the next game.
New Game+ has always been a preferred feature of RPGs to me and the Chrono series has it in spades. I think it's important to have the option to use all the progress you've made for your next adventure.
The best part of the game had to be near the end in the aftermath of the orphanage scene. If anyone has played the game, they know of a moment that only lasted for about a minute before jerking you back into reality. What ensued in that 1 minute was nothing short of one the most beautiful moments in gaming. A point at which the story drew up startling revelations and helped define Kid as a character. The contrast of emotions of the character and the backdrop of destruction was just a brilliant combination of scenery and story.
4. Resident Evil 4
Resident Evil 4 was another game covered in another post. Without going into reasons, this game revitalized the Resident Evil franchise and defined new standards in gaming. It's one of the few games I've purchased twice for two different platforms just to tackle all the extra content. It was a big game when it was released and it's legacy will never be forgotten.
3. Xenogears
Touching. That's what this game amounts to emotionally. It's weird how stereotypical this game starts out, but then it evolves into something so complex and unique, you can't help but follow each step of the journey with the greatest anticipation of what could possibly happen next. The story alone is worth play for because I've never read anything like it. It borrows from sci-fi culture, religion and anime, and combines it all into one cohesive story line that follows the life and struggle of Fei Fong Wong. Each character leaves such an impact on your that your heart breaks when the game is over. If I had to pick a game to remake or continue as a series, it would be Xenogears Episode V: Deus Ex Machina.
The game didn't have the best graphics around: sure the mechs looked cool, but the character models were horrible. But it did have a stellar soundtrack, even though much of the game relied on ambient noises instead of actual music. Each character carried with them some burden or struggle which they had to overcome. Even the antagonists, you wanted to feel sorry for them since they all acted like human beings. Ramsus gets a special mention for being one of the most tragic figures in gaming simply because he believe his existence is meaningless after feeling like he was the most important creation of God. This game isn't afraid to delve into the human mind, you're frequently taken on Fei's mental journey through his various personalities and incarnations.
Battling was broken up into human combat and mech combat. Humans (or the various other species of intelligent life) could unleash deadly combos and spells on their opponents. Opening up the combo trees corresponded to the combos your mechs could use. While piloted your 'gear', you could perform different levels of attack while consumed a certain amount of fuel, and sometimes, while building up your attack levels, you could entire Infinitely Mode. Basically giving you the chance to punish anything in front of you with extreme prejudice. By the end of the game, mech combat definitely took center-stage, but the game also did well to throw upgrades at you.
There isn't much in the way of optional content, though the game will take about about 50 hours to complete, and the story is at the driving wheel the entire time.
The legacy of Xenogears did live on briefly with 3 Namco games on the PS2 titled Xenosaga. It was meant to lead up to the events of Xenogears but stopped short at Episode III due to budget and copyright issues. So fans have always been left wanting more. What about episode IV? What about episode VI which was outline in the Perfect Works Guide? It's a shame that this series is as fractured as it is today. Most of the original development team left Square Soft and formed Monolith Software, so the chances of a remake or sequel are slim to none at best. It's a real shame to. This is one game that could benefit with a few translation changes and a graphics overhaul. Or maybe it's better we imagine what the game would be like. It's been so long and expectations would be impossible to meet.
2. Final Fantasy VII
Here it is. The big one. The head hancho. The mother of all RPGs. The single game which thrusted RPGs into the spotlight of gaming. The single game which had other development teams struggling to reproduce in order to capture a fraction of the success it had. Final Fantasy VII is less of a game, more of a legacy. If it wasn't for games like Ocarina of Time on the N64, Sony would've just floored Nintendo in the console wars. In fact, I think Ocarina of Time is the only game that can stand toe to toe with Final Fantasy VII in terms of fan base. It's obvious though that no other RPG has a reputation like this one.
It's hard to talk about it since it was my first console RPG and my first official Final Fantasy game. At the time, it was so odd to me. The concept of save points and the battle screen, they were all so foreign. For the first few months, I don't think I ever made it past the Guard Scorpion because I just wasn't that interested. But then I did sit down and play. I played almost everyday until I finally beat it. This is the game that convinved me that RPGs were worth investing my time, my money and my heart into.
Final Fantasy VII really wasn't supposed to be the 7th entry in the series. SquareSoft found themselves in another dire financial situation, much like back in the 80s when they created the series which ended up saving the company. So it's no wonder that the same series did it once again. What came out of it has been one of the most-talked about game, gathering a massive fan base and legend that eclipses the game itself.
With great fan base comes great hatred. Without fail, there's a lot of people that detest this game for what it is. Whether it's being called the greatest thing since the Beatles or the worst thing since E.T. for Atari, I don't think either extreme really has an accurate account of the game. It's almost unfair how this game has been tugged back and forth between people.
Final Fantasy VII is a great game. The graphics haven't aged that well, but the experience is none-the-less enjoyable. The battle system gives you blank-slated character in which you can assign a variety of spells and abilities, building them the way you see fit. The amount of abilities / spells you could allocate was determined by your armor and weapons. The only real problem with the battle system was the magical defense stat was broken, as in, it didn't work. Through some error in programming, the magical defense modifier is never properly calculated. But really, I've played through the game so much, you hardly notice it.
A lot of people like to criticize it's main character: Cloud Strife. The word 'emo' is thrown around a lot with him, and people couldn't be more wrong. Cloud isn't emo, he's a prick. He's a jerk that doesn't really care about anyone other than himself, and it takes a world crisis for him to work with other people. He also happens to be mentally screwed up. I guess this is where people call emo, but he was mentally altered in an experiment during some military plot to reproduce the super-soldier that was Sephiroth. None of the above constitutes emo behavior. People like to throw emo into a character's description whenever they don't fart magical ponies and rainbows with every line. I actually found Vincent to be the more emo character in the game, but no one seems to call him that. It just shows you the ugly side of popularity, when people will overly criticize a game when they've probably never took the time to play it. On the opposite side of that are people who blindly follow this game because it's so popular. The game is great, but it's not the greatest. Objective observations will attest to that.
Unfortunately, this will be a game that will forever haunt Square Enix. I don't think there's been a bigger request to remake a game than there has been with Final Fantasy VII. Expectations and technical limits almost make this task impossible to pull off. It's a shame that this game has been buried under all the hype and slander that it has because really, it's just another Final Fantasy. Every entry before it and every entry after it have tried to add something more to RPGs, and this is no exception.
But we must remember, like it or hate it, Final Fantasy VII is the reason RPGs were popular. It brought in a lot of fans and helped a genre that never really saw mainstream success like Mario or Zelda. It gave a genre a chance to show the world what it can do, and we've enjoyed a plethora of games because of it.
---------------------------------------
It seems like Final Fantasy VII should've been number one. It influenced me in many ways other games just couldn't. And yet I still have one more game to go. This next game wasn't culturally important, and it didn't break any new grounds. No, what it has done though is excel in just about every area. It combines a great story with great game play and I have sunk countless hours into this game, doing everything that can be done, and then going back and doing it again. Challenging myself and finding new ways to play it. The number one game is nothing short of a masterpiece of gaming.
---------------------------------------
1. Final Fantasy Tactics
I just love this game to death. Not only is probably one of the best turn-based strategy games ever made, but it also carries with it one of the best stories ever told in gaming. Clearly taking inspiration from writers like Shakespeare, Final Fantasy Tactics just has everything going for it. By the end of it, I was emotionally drained from the tale of love, deception, betrayal, power struggles, corruption and the all important quest for power.
You followed the tale of Ramza as he attempts to sway the tides of a three-way power struggle over an empty seat of a deceased king. We're given the impression that Ramza's tale is being told from a narrator's point of view, looking back on the pages of history and finding Ramza's actions to be undocumented and never fully seen as a force acting upon the war. It's Ramza's friend, Delita that has been given all the credit for the story's finale, but we slowly learn how historical records can deceive, as Ramza was always acting in the shadow of a much larger plot. It really is over-simplifying everything, but that's the tone of the entire story.
What really keeps me coming back is the game play. The battle system, though inspired from the Tactics Ogre series, is very deep and challenging. You're given a slew of job classes, each one having their own strengths and weaknesses which you have to exploit and overcome on the battlefield. You can also carry over certain job abilities and traits to other jobs, giving you an almost endless possibility of job combinations and set ups. And there is no optimal setup. You need to fashion your characters in the manner best to overcome the next challenge, what may work for one battle, will get you killed in the next. Late in the game though, certain jobs start to overpower others, like archer and Spellsword classes. Archers start off great but then slowly lose their luster while spellswords are introduced to almost game-breaking standards. Magic also starts to take a back seat when battles come down to speed. The polarization is even furthered with the addition of dark knights in the PSP version, basically being suicidal powerhouses that can dish out the damage in droves while being able to heal instantly.
The game is still a barrel of fun, and has some optional challenges along the way. You can pick up new characters with unique abilities and traits, including Cloud from Final Fantasy VII. The PSP also gives the players the chance to wirelessly team up for missions and combat sessions which is a much appreciated feature that has been missing from console strategy RPGs for the longest time. The new co-op missions are no joke either. Square Enix fully understood that players would be looking for a challenge, and taking your Orlandu into battle wasn't a guarenteed win anymore. Two missions that stand out in my mind is the 10 Algus battle where you have to fend off 10 incarnations of your fallen compatriot while trying to prevent being turned into a vampire every turn. The next is the 10 floor dive into the abyss, each floor being harder than the next. But if you come out victorious, the rewards are great. The PSP version also handed us a whole new set of gear to play around with, including the onion armor set.
The game isn't perfect, it can be hard to get a correct camera angle on some of the isometric view points, and the terrain graphics aren't winning any awards, but these are mere fleas of complaints on the dazzling unicorn of triumph this game is. It's always a must when traveling somewhere, especially if you have someone to play with. The game really just never gets boring, even after completing everything there is to complete.
------------------------------------------
Those are my favorite video games. It's easy to see that the PS1 was a major influence on me. There are other games I wanted to put on this list like Final Fantasy IV, Mega Man IV or Pokemon Red. But after weighing all the power some of these games have over me, I feel this list accurately depicts my feelings for them. When looking for a game, I try to find the one's that are unique and don't just rely on the success of other games that came before it, but I can't help being drawn to some of my first-genre games. That's why I made the list of my favorite games and not the best. Everyone looks at a game differently, so the best video game ever is impossible to determine. And besides, everyone knows the best video game ever created is Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.
No comments:
Post a Comment