Jirin's favorite 50 video games

[Jirin]

BleuPanda's list inspired me, especially since he seems to have very similar taste to me.

No slow rollout here, just one post with brief comments.

50. Braid

This is a simple indie puzzle platformer with a mechanic where you can rewind time. But not everything rewinds, so rewinding is part of the puzzle, and every level behaves a little different. And it's the sort of minimalist story that establishes itself subtly and perfectly for a major payoff.

49. Dragon Quest 11

I'm not super into the Dragon Quest games. They are the RPG series that takes no risks and is happy with simple cartoony fairy tales, but they're much better than every other series at doing exactly that. DQ11 does that formula nearly perfectly.

48. Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor

A tactical RPG with the Shin Megami Tensei style. Weird plot, where you get an app that shows a number above everybody's head saying how many days until they will die, and everybody trapped in the city will die within a week. It's got some balance problems but other than that it's spectacular.

47. Galaga

My go to arcade game, another case of simplicity leading to perfection.

46. Legend of Zelda

The OG that launched the series. No helper character, no handholding, just a big open world with nine dungeons.

45. Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky

For those unfamiliar, Trails is a series that already has nine games in it, that take place in three different countries around the same time. And oh yeah, the developers say they have "Told about 60% of the story they want to tell". Huge amounts of dialog, huge amounts of world building. Turn based RPG combat with lots more elements of strategic complexity, some of the best characters in JRPG history. This game started it all.

44. Ninja Gaiden 2

One of the best examples from the NES eras where 2d platformers ruled. People talk about the first game more, but the second is the best. The difficulty is earned, it doesn't just come from hawks coming out the minute you jump across holes.

43. Nier Automata

An action RPG, where you play androids fighting a war against robots thousands of years after the human race is extinct. Existential, emotional, unorthodox. It has one major flaw that you have to play a large part of the plot over again exactly the same way for the second time. Otherwise it's immersive and amazing.

42. Super Mario Kart Wii

It's hard to pick among the Mario Karts because they're all great and all so similar. This one gets bashed because a lot of people don't like the motion controls. But it also had bikes and inward drifting which made mastering it so much more rewarding than other Mario Karts.

41. Tales of Symphonia

Tales is another one of those super long-running JRPG series. Anime tropes, yup. Widely varying quality. This one is the first 3d entry and mostly nailed it on the first go, and has some of the most memorable characters in the series.

40. Star Ocean 2

The Star Ocean series is an offshoot from the Tales series. Different, more experimental, known for unusual character recruiting systems and elaborate item crafting systems. 12 characters, 8 you can get on any playthrough and one of the first to have elaborate post-game dungeons, gives it major replayability. And the 'private action' system where you have private conversation and raise affection levels with other characters paved the way for similar systems in most modern JRPGs.

39. Tales of Vesperia

Another Tales entry. Very similar to Symphonia only made the combat more crisp and varied and was the first Tales games to have darker themes like a main character who is a vigilante, murdering evil people who the law refused to touch.

38. Valkyrie Profile: Silmeria

Another wildly experimental game, from the same developers who made the Star Ocean games. The battle system is bizarre and really somehow works, and the dungeons have puzzle-like 2d platforming that keeps you interested. The Valkyrie Profile system has you controlling the Valkyries of Norse mythology, and it's set up so as you're reaping mortal souls you gradually realize the truth about them. As a prequel to the original the story goes in really bizarre directions, but somehow it all works.

37. Castlevania III

Another one of those iconic NES platformers. It nails the mood and atmosphere, level design, and balance, and mixes things up by giving you companions with different control styles.

36. Tales of Berseria

The most recent and my most highly rated of the Tales games, also the darkest one which turns the series' cliches on their head and puts you in the role of a carnivorous demon seeking revenge against the seemingly heroic leader, who ends up wanting to steal everyone's free will to spare them from pain.

35. Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel

The sixth Trails game and first of the quartology taking place in the Erebonian Empire. It refines the battle system and takes place at the same time as the Crossbell duology, the 4th and 5th games of the series. This is the setup game where you travel and learn about the world as the conflict is slowly established, and has some of the best character development I've ever seen.

34. Super Mario Kart 7

My favorite Mario Kart game mostly based on the best stage design the series has to offer. I could have easily included six or seven of them but instead picked my favorite two.

33. Persona 4

The Persona series is really two different series, the first two which were totally different and the newer ones, 3-5, where the game takes place in a school over a calendar year and balances dungeon crawling with developing social links at school. As strange as it seems, the two somehow blend together really well. This one is the weakest of the trilogy because it's the one with the weakest mystery and resolution. But it introduced the idea of every dungeon being based on the inner demons of a character you're going to recruit, which was taken to the next level in 5.

32. Super Mario Bros

The OG, that practically invented modern games, and for all its limitations made a nearly perfect game on the first try.

31. Final Fantasy IV

Another game that practically invented a genre. The combat system was nothing new, started by Dragon Quest, but they not only balanced the combat to be less clanky and grindy, they gave it a new level of narrative and character development.

30. Persona 2: Eternal Punishment

The second of two Persona 2 games. In the first game the good guys lose, and it creates a twisted version of the world the second game takes place in. Not the most accessible game, but dark and intriguing and rewarding to those who learn how to play it.

29. Super Mario World

What more can you say about the Mario games? It took an already great formula, added Yoshi and secret exits and all sorts of other neat widgets.

28. Final Fantasy V

Out of the SNES Final Fantasies, probably the weakest story but the best combat. The job system made the combat and skill development system best of class.

27. Super Mario Brothers 2j/Lost Levels

I didn't get to play this until Super Mario All Stars come out because they originally reskinned Doki Doki Panic and called it Super Mario Bros 2 instead. It's known for being punishingly hard, but when you grew up on these games and the normal ones are too easy for you now, that's what you want.

26. Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel 2

After the first game set up the pins, this knocks them down. And sets up for the 3rd game to have crossover with the main characters from the Crossbell games. I have not played the 3rd yet.

25. Megaman 2

Megaman is another example of a simple perfect formula. Eight stages. Beat the boss, get their weapon. Each boss is weak against a different weapon, so if you find one too hard, you just go to another stage and come back with their weakness.

24. Star Ocean: Till The End Of Time

Out of all the super experimental Tri Ace games, this one might be the most bizarre, with one of the weirdest but coolest twists ever. The strong/weak/guard attack system was somehow perfectly balanced to make the same old ARPG combat new and different.

23. Hollow Knight

The best Metroidvania I've played since Super Metroid. No levels in this game, if you're struggling on a boss, you can't just grind, you have to git gud. But also the atmosphere and story is simple and elegant, and the world is paced and laid out so you gain the skills you need just when you need them.

22. Megaman 3

The best of the Megaman games, where they added sliding, and also had 'Doc Robot' stages where you go through destroyed versions of four of the levels and fight versions of the Megaman 2 bosses. Before they started repeating themselves and adding gimmicks that didn't work as well.

21. Divinity: Original Sin 2

A punishingly hard game where resources are finite and you walk into enemies stronger than you every five minutes. But if you get through all that, it's incredibly deep and rewarding with a deep world and interesting characters.

20. Persona 3

The first of the school sim Persona games. It has its problems like for some reason not letting you control most of the party. But it established a winning formula.

19. Super Mario Bros 3

The best 2d Mario game. Possibly the most amazing accomplishment with the NES limitations, but also the best world design in series history, with unconventional mazes and variety.

18. Super Metroid

Another of those perfect examples of the genre, with a world that gradually opens up to you as you gather more abilities, perfect atmosphere, minimalist story with perfect payoff. This is the game I got most into speedrunning once, because control is deep enough that you can do really amazing things when you learn it.

17. Zelda: Link to the Past

Possibly the formative game of my single digit age gaming experience. Before Zelda started trying to have a story and handholding the player with helper characters. You explore and discover things on your own, figure out complex dungeon mazes on your own and one of the most rewarding games ever to advance forward in.

16. Super Mario 64

The first real attempt at 3d platforming, and they did a better job than most games have done since. A lot of 3d platformers dumb it down, they only use 2 out of 3 dimensions at once. They got around the limitations of the memory by replacing the level driven progression with big playground stages and struck gold.

15. Fire Emblem: 3 Houses

Maybe the longest game to ever have this much replayability. You play as a professor in a military academy and you choose one of three houses to teach. Based on your choice you have different characters, different story. On top of that you can recruit characters from other houses and combat is deep enough that you can play in a totally different way every game. And whereas most games only have character development between the main character and the other characters, there are skits between all the other characters too, giving them more depth and curing the "Everybody's life revolves around you" problem a lot of JRPGs have.

14. Catherine

A puzzle game by the makers of Shin Megami Tensei, where men who are unfaithful to their girlfriends experience dreams where they have to frantically make their way up a crumbling tower, and if they die in the dream they die in real life. Maybe the best puzzle game I've ever played, also insightful and weird.

13. Celeste

A recent indie platformer which takes all the lessons from NES era platformers but adds the modern convenience and polish. The game requires pixel perfect maneuvers, but you only go back to the start of the room when you fail so you don't get frusrated. And after you beat the game the game scales up with B sides and C sides to make it exactly as hard as you want it. The story is also amazing, a simple story of a girl trying to climb a mountain on a whim, and having to deal with the dark side of her personality that splits off from her.

12. Mass Effect

Yes, the entire trilogy is in my top 12. I usually don't like WRPGs, but the way they stage it you feel like the main character is a full participant as opposed to a silent errand boy, and NPCs all have the kind of depth you expect from JRPGs. The combat is very good, the worldbuilding is like a dark realpolitik version of the Star Trek universe.

11. Super Mario Galaxy

My highest rated of the Mario games, the most 3d of the 3d Marios. Variable gravity, real use of all three dimensions, varied stages. If not for a few really badly designed levels nearly perfect.

10. Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga 2

The Digital Devil Saga duology is the most criminally underrated of Shin Megami Tensei games. It's a lot like Nocturne only instead of demons your party is filled with voiced characters. The world is inflicted with a plague that turns everyone into demons bent on eating each other. Warped, weird and awesome.

9. Final Fantasy VI

The pinnacle of old school Final Fantasy. One of those games that expanded the boundaries of the genre. Halfway through the game the world gets destroyed and rearranged, and you have to find your old friends.

8. Valkyrie Profile

One of the most unique games on the list. You play a valkyrie tasked to collect human souls to fight the gods' war. In the B ending track, that's what you do. In the A ending, you realize the way your memories have been manipulated. The appeal of the story isn't even the main story, every time you recruit a character you see the story of how they died, and they're really well written. And it has the platforming dungeons.

7. Mass Effect 3

Disappointing ending aside, it's the entry that perfected the combat system.

6. Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga

Another of those cases where the first game where nobody knows what's going on is a little better.

5. Xenogears

The first RPG I played that made me think you could tell really great, expansive stories in the RPG genre. Two different battle systems, one on foot and one in huge mechs. Twelve thousand years of mythology involving star crossed lovers in an endless cycle of falling in love and her sacrificing herself for the greater good. The land people being treated like lambs for the slaughter by affluent space station dwellers. Stories based around set pieces where you really learn the history and lore of every city. The second disc was rushed and the combat is fluky, and a few of the dungeons are very bad, but the story and characters are the pinnacle of the genre.

4. Persona 5

A game that takes the Persona formula and expands it. Whereas 3 and 4 have randomly generated dungeons, 5 has inventive fully designed dungeons based on the inner demons of a person who is evil but powerful enough for his evil to be socially accepted. Like, a volleyball coach who abuses his players and coerces female players into sex, and people pretend it doesn't exist because they don't question the victories. In Persona 5, you infiltrate their subconscious and change their distorted desires. It's not morally straightforward either, they show you the public response and constantly question whether it's the right thing to do, they even let their egos go to their heads enough to be manipulated into taking the fall for a murder. Just a great game that personifies our darkest desires for the rich, powerful people who do terrible things and get away with it.

3. Mass Effect 2

Out of the trilogy it's the best. It streamlines the combat and focuses directly on the characters. Also you take the role of having to work with an evil organization for the greater cause of good, giving constant moral dilemmas for all of the incredible characters.

2. Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne

The ultimate dungeon crawler. One of the few games grinding is fun because you're constantly recruiting demons and developing their abilities. You're in a warped, distorted version of Tokyo. Do you reshape the world the way you want, do you return the world the way it is, or do you recruit a horde of demons against God? Dungeons are maze-like and complex and really make you work to figure them out. Story is 'simple but elegant', combat is turn based but has buffs that stack, useful status ailments, and a weakness exploiting system that gives you extra turns.

1. Final Fantasy Tactics

Another one of the games that pioneered a storytelling style for the genre. A political storyline that highlights the class system and paved the way for all the later JRPGs that did the same thing. It also popularized grid based tactical combat. When I was in college I learned about a challenge run called "SCC" which basically means you can only use a single class and abilities from that class. Every single game was different from every other. That's how deep the combat was, there are 30 different ways to win and every one required a totally different strategy. I ended up finishing 18 out of the 20 SCCs. Only not finishing knight because they basically have no range abilities and calculator because their abilities depend on abilities from other classes to be remotely useful.

Like Xenogears it raised the bar for storytelling and introduced the 'Best friend who joins the enemy to take them over from within' trope, and also had enough combat variety to make every challenge run a different experience.