Game List

This format of a favorite game list has been popping up all over lately and it’s a fun way to approach the topic. I think Russ from Retro Game Corps got it right when he did his list in reverse order. Without further ado, here is my list!

Game Everyone Should Play

Supergiant’s first hit, Bastion, is an easy pick here. It’s an approachable style of game, not difficult, and has loads of charm. I loved uncovering the secrets of this world almost as much as I loved listening to the narrator’s gravelly voice when I first played this game many years ago. In fact, it might be time to revisit this one…

Nostalgic Childhood Game

I could have picked any number of Pokemon games for this, but Pokemon Emerald stands out in my mind because, when my parents bought it for me, they put it in my cereal bowl that morning. What a way to wake up! What an insufferably long school day that followed!

Best Retro Game

I’ll admit to not having played many retro games, so FFVII is a simple pick for me. I didn’t grow up with the game like a lot of folks did. In fact, I played it for the first time just a couple years ago. But, as you might see looking at my list, it had a big effect on me. I understand completely why it’s so beloved.

Best With Friends

Any Smash game works for this pick, but I have the most fond memories with Brawl. My man Ike never lets me down.

Turn My Brain Off

I don’t tend to play many mindless games, so I struggled with this pick. But sometimes the little joys of running about my island in Animal Crossing is just what I need.

Not Usually My Thing, But…

Extraction shooters, battle royales, roguelikes, none of these are usually my bag. I don’t like losing so much progress when I die in a game (I tend to die a lot). However, I’ve been having an absolute blast in Arc Raiders since it came out. The community around this game is truly special, and the feeling of getting better at dealing with the various Arc threats is intoxicating.

Best Multiplayer

Both Destiny games work here, but I played a lot more of Destiny 2. The raids in these games are some of the most engaging and memorable experiences in all of gaming. It truly breaks my heart to see Destiny fall from grace, because I’m just not sure we will ever see anything quite like it again.

Best Soundtrack

If you’ve played Expedition 33, you know. If you haven’t, make it next on your list.

Favorite Antagonist

I didn’t love Crisis Core as a game. Its gameplay and narrative are much weaker than the original game. However, watching Sephiroth slowly transform from superhero to the villainous madman we know from FFVII was heartbreaking.

Favorite Protagonist

The Horizon series would make a top 5 favorite game list for me and part why is how well I connected with Aloy. She’s a well-written character with interesting personal nuances that make hanging out with her for a few dozen hours a delightful experience. It’s rare for a game to have a protagonist that’s a real person instead of some empty shell for the player to place themselves in, and that risk paid off in Horizon. The song In the Flood from the Forbidden West soundtrack beautifully captures what I love about Aloy.

Criminally Overlooked

The Custom Robo series is awesome! I played an absolute ton of Arena on the DS in high school, but I think the GameCube version is a better game overall, even if its robo customization options are lacking in comparison.

Needs a Remake

Supposedly the KOTOR remake is happening, but I’ll believe it when I see it. I haven’t played the OG games, so I’m desperately holding out for a reimagining of them.

Overrated

I know that God of War (2018) is universally beloved, but I just don’t get it. The narrative was… okay? The whole trope of “dad’s wife dies and he takes out his anger on the kid to begin with, but then dad and kid go on an adventure and bond” is played out. This game didn’t execute that narrative in any new or particularly interesting ways. I had such high expectations from the praise this game received, but was thoroughly let down by it being rather mid overall.

Underrated

Colosseum and its sequel are by far my favorite Pokémon games. Particularly Colosseum’s darker tone and its novel (for the time) all-double-battles-all-the-time mechanics were just magical. It’s no surprise to me that double battles are now the official format for competitive Pokémon, and Colosseum started it all. I nearly picked this title for Best Soundtrack, too. The Pyrite Town theme lives in my brain.

Overhated

Mass Effect Andromeda is not a great Mass Effect game, but is a superb RPG. I played this first out of all the ME games, so I do have a sort of soft spot for it, but I genuinely love what Andromeda brings to the table. It’s combat and traversal are vastly improved over the original trilogy and the characters are wonderful and charming in their own way, though they do pale in comparison to the original cast. Its narrative is a little bland and a lot predictable, but it was still engaging. Andromeda’s main failure is that it’s a Mass Effect game. The original ME trilogy was lightning in a bottle, and Bioware has struggled to recapture that since.

Best Combat

I can’t believe it took so long for games like the Jedi series to be made. Chopping Stormtroopers in half with a lightsaber is ultimate fantasy and Respawn’s series absolutely nails the combination of Force powers and swordsmanship that make Jedi so cool. I particularly like how they incorporated some more obscure forms of lightsaber techniques in these games, such as dual blades or the double-sided blade the Darth Maul favors. Jedi Survivor also has a great story and quirky cast that make it all the most endearing.

Biggest Personal Impact

You may notice that many of the games on this list are relatively recent. While I’m well and truly in my 30s now, I grew up almost exclusively on Pokemon and then transitioned to Halo and other multiplayer games once my friend group in high school did the same. For most of my gaming life, I’ve been playing competitive multiplayer games like shooters and League of Legends, as well as thousands of hours invested in MMOs such as Guild Wars 2. For a long time, I didn’t think I had what it takes to finish an RPG. I had played Halo campaigns, but never a 30-plus hour story mode.

It wasn’t until a coworker pressured me endlessly to play Mass Effect¹ that this changed for me. As soon as I got hooked on Mass Effect, my brain was rewired to crave single-player, story-driven games and I’ve played almost nothing but those since then. The Mass Effect trilogy made me laugh and cry more times than I can count and to this day I’ve found little that can compare.

Favorite Art Style

I’m loving the resurgence of pixel-art games in the last decade or so. I think the Super Nintendo era was perhaps peak art design in gaming, and it so exciting to see modern takes on that style. Sea of Stars happens to be a recent entry that really nails that aesethetic. It’s a wonderful game in all aspects, but good lord is it just so pretty to look at.

Best Story

Citizen Sleeper contended for my favorite game, full stop, and that’s entirely because of the story. The way that the tension in both the narrative and gameplay intertwine with each other is masterful. Just as you feel you’ve got our bearings, gameplay-wise, a new narrative threat will show up to upend your world. The cast of characters is colorful and nuanced, and I loved how the story responded to my choices. It’s akin to reading a book at times, but I often think back to my time on The Eye and wish that I could experience it for the first time all over again.

Favorite Game

This was a hard one. You’ll see that this is the third time an FFVII game appears on this list, and certainly Rebirth stands on the shoulders of all that came before it. The ambition and scope of this game is staggering, the likes of which I’m not certain we will see again.² My favorite games are all worlds that I can lose myself in — Horizon, Mass Effect, and Destiny are all great examples. But Rebirth was on another level for me. This was the first game where I ever thought to start 100%-ing zones. I did everything there was to do in Junon before moving on, a gaming first for me! I stopped doing that for fear that I’d never finish the game, but I still took on a huge amount of side content that I almost always skip over in other titles.

That speaks to just how badly I wanted to spend time in this world. Square turned barren areas of the largely empty world map form the PS1 era into lovingly crafted, impossibly dense, and visually stunning worlds. I’m still sometimes in awe when I think back to just how much there is in this game. And how much of that is really excellent content. I lost count of how many minigames exist robust enough to be standalone indie releases!

The portion of FFVII that Rebirth covers also has two of the most gut-wrenching deaths in all of video games³, but in true Final Fantasy fashion, has plenty of humor to counterbalance that.

Favorite Game for me is probably the slot on this list that will change the most often — recency bias and all that — but something about the world of FFVII will always remain special to me. That, and the Cosmo Canyon theme being stuck in my head.