In order: II > I > 64 >DOOM II It's got the archvile (hot) and the agitated skeletons (also hot) and the SSG (groovy). The incredible amount of wads makes it so there's always something new to play. >DOOM Classic. I like to go really fast in the first episode. I prefer the its levels from DOOM II's but I still like the new enemies too much to put it there. >DOOM 64 I feel bad putting it at the last place. I love its mood and strangeness compared to the others, no less because of the slight changes in gameplay (very small changes in enemy speed, fire rate, health, and so on).

>>982586 Ranking the Doom games is hard. If I had to do it it would probably be done in release order. I just prefer the level design in 1, and 64 is great but it's not Doom 2.

>>982576 >Phantasy Star II >There's more of a story here, but not much. Phantasy Star II has a much more in-depth and oppressive story than most RPGs of the 16bit generation - but the problem is that most of it lies in officially licensed supplimentary books, radio shows, and side-games. As I understand it, the team got a lot of positive feedback on the character focused story of Phantasy Star I - but other games with more generic characters and more spartan storylines seemed to be more popular. They weren't sure on which direction to take the game, so they erred on the side of memory limitations. Fans really enjoyed the fleshed out story elements, so they went all out with Phantasy Star IV (originally intending for it to be a Sega CD-based game with animated cutscenes and voice acting). >Phantasy Star III I am a big fan of Toyo Ozaki's designs, and I hope if (and it'll never happen) a Phantasy Star III remake is ever done - they choose to go with her more Sailor Moon inspired design. https://huguesjohnson.com/ps3/toyo.html Fringes of Algol is fucked up? I really hope someone saved off all their artwork and scans - or the problem can be easily fixed As for a game series... I'll go with Quest for Glory since Phantasy Star was the second of my two favorite franchises growing up. #1 - Quest for Glory II: Trial by Fire This might be a bit controversial, but overall I found second game to be much more robust than Shadows of Darkness. Each character class has their own well defined path with a wealth of puzzles, and you get a proper fighters and mages guild to join. Thieves get the short end of the stick, but that's going to be a running theme for the franchise past the first game. Combat is an evolution of QFG1, this time employing all the numbers on the NumKeys for various slashes, parries, dodges, blocks, stabs, etc. Enemies will have a short windup animation for you to identify and press the most effective key - be that a block, sidestep, dodge, or a quick lunge attack to interrupt them. There's tons of opportunity for exploration as well, though sadly most of it's procedurally generated. That said, if you bring enough water and rations - you can actually manage to walk clear across the country to enter Rasier before the game intends you to. The game is on a time limit, though events flow fairly linearly and there's plenty of time to practice your skills and get supplied, so there isn't much pressure - but this can work against the game. Once you enter Rasier, you're limited on your abilities to rest as the Inn's bedrooms are closed off during the day - which leads to a lot of just wandering the streets aimlessly waiting for the clock to move. You could go out and fight monsters, but a story event limits that shortly after entering the city and there's nowhere to resupply. >Quest for Glory IV: Shadows of Darkness This is usually brought up as the fan favorite. Production values are quite high for a game of it's era, including a fully voiced CD version with John Rayes Davies narrating "the script from hell" for how long it was. The voice actors often ad-lib and joke around, do impressions, and the developers left all of it in because they found it hilarious. The story itself is quite good, being much more focused on the characters and their relations in the small town of Mordovia. You initially start off as a distrusted stranger - everyone hates you, is indifferent to you as they expect you to die quickly, or thinks you're nothing but trouble - but you slowly become a welcomed and beloved part of their town as you help people and do good deeds for them. Several characters key to previous games and lore make a return appearance in this game, and there are lots of opportunities for unique events for all of the character classes - however there is only one all-purpose guild hall which has seemingly been abandoned, with only one (hidden) character to interact with. Thieves have some unique content here, but being a small, dying, community - there isn't a whole lot to steal. Combat is... a mixed bag. The designers thought they'd go with a more popular "Street Fighter II" inspired combat system which feels clunky due to them being adventure game developers, not fighting game devs. Rather than key combos for special moves, you just press icons which let you cast spells in combat. >Quest for Glory I: So You Want to be a Hero This game is a very well put together experiment in marrying adventure games and Action RPGs. Everything feels a bit small - from the size of the realm, to the stakes at hand. You are, after all, just a freshfaced and inexperienced adventurer fresh out of correspondence school. This also makes the franchise feel much more comfy in it's tiny Bavarian-inspired setting. This game has, probably, the most balanced amount of content for all character classes. Thieves have a proper guild to join (and pay dues to), with a fence that will also sell you advanced tools. Fighters can train with the swordmaster on the castle ground and clean the stables (for strength), and mages have several magical allies from which to buy supplies and even play mini-games against to test your magical skills. Combat is, unfortunately, fairly lackluster - with the EGA version only having basic dodging, shield/parry, and thrust utilizing only the basic arrow keys. Spells can be cast via text input, and as this is an SCI game - it pauses combat while you type. This is fair to the player, but interrupts the flow of combat. QFGII has this problem as well, especially since you have more offensive magic options - so spamming F3 to repeat the last input isn't as viable. The combat in the VGA remake is marginally better, but it's a copy/paste of the QFG III combat schema, so I'll mention it there.

>>982590 >Quest for Glory III: The Wages of War This is the black-sheep of the core series - as it wasn't fully planned in the overall franchise roadmap. The designers felt the hero hadn't matured in his skills enough between QFGII and what he'd be facing in QFGIV, especially since QFGII introduced the Paladin class at the very end of the game - and you wouldn't have a character in Mordovia from which to learn the ethos and skills from. QFGIII takes place in a very unique (especially for the time) African setting where you're tasked with stopping a war between two tribes, and potentially stop the release of a demon seeking to return to the land. Despite having a large city to explore, with various different social classes and a large bazaar from which to buy quest items and supplies from - there isn't much there for developing your character. Fighters will get most of their training from the Simbani village, as they are more warrior oriented (you learn how to chuck a spear, lol) and Mages can earn their first Staff from a quest given by a character in the main city - as you don't spend enough time around the magical Leopardmen to learn anything useful from them. Thieves are just shit out of luck here, as there's very few uses for actual stealth/thievery based skills. Paladins get the most content, as your mentor guides you around the beginning part of the game teaching you about the class - and most puzzles are designed to be solved by Paladin skillsets. However, in order to use this class you need to have earned the Paladin class in Quest for Glory II first. Combat is, I think, the worst in the franchise here. Well, second worst. Unlike in QFG I EGA & II, or even QFG4 - none of the hits feel like they connect - and HP isn't taken off in chunks, but degrades over time. So you'll often be just spamming certain attacks and waiting for their HP bar to sap itself down, which is in itself dangerous since your stamina bar also slowly saps with each action - making stamina management very difficult to gauge. It feels very unsatisfactory, especially since enemy attacks are very poorly telegraphed. The main interface for combat is a menu at the bottom of the screen with four buttons for melee combat (two dodges, block, attack) and a center button which switches you over to magic attacks - replacing the melee buttons with a choice of spells to cast). Despite all this, I found the world design and story to be very well done and it's one of my favorite QFG games despite it's many shortcomings. >Quest for Glory 5: Dragon's Fire Game is shit. Originally, it was never supposed to happen. Sierra had been going through some personnel and financial troubles after their HQ moved to Bellview WA, and the company was starting to move away from adventure games into more action-oriented titles like Half-Life and KQVIII:MoE. It took a massive letter writing campaign by the fans convinced the higher ups that a new entry would sell. Unfortunately, damned neared everything fell apart mid development as the company was bought out by CUC Ken Williams CUC'd his company to death and they had little interested in them aside from butchering the company for IPs and resources. Lots of planned features and scenarios for the title had to be cut due to budgetary constraints, and a lot of time was wasted in redesigns - going from a voxel based engine to a 3D based engine. The game lost almost all of it's charm in the transition from the gorgeous 2D hand-painted assets of QFGIV into very blocky and primitive 3D models. The genre of the game was also changed from being an Adventure title with RPG mechanics, to an Action RPG with light Adventure game mechanics. A transition that could have been eased somewhat if the combat was robust - but sadly it wasn't. Though you do get a wider array of weapons, and can even use different armors now, combat basically just boils down to clicking on an enemy - and then spamming click over and over again until they're dead. Environments feel like generic corporate slop, populated by uninteresting characters. Even the returning characters from previous games neither look or behave anything like their earlier versions. A big selling point in here was that you could get married to one of the franchises leading ladies - but despite all the romance and relationship building of QFGIV, and literally fighting off the armies of hell to rescue your love, you can still get cockblocked by some arbitrary game mechanic like being the wrong class. Yosemite Studios (formerly Sierra HQ) was shut down shortly after, making it noteworthy at least as the last game ever released by the studio.

>>982586 I get you want to fug the skellington but Doom 2's level design is way too shoddy to be ranked above either 1 or 64 even with the extra enemies. When ranking games you shouldn't be counting fan content, either. My ranking would be 1 > 64 > 2.

>>982626 That's fair. Without fan content I'd put Doom 2 way back. Maybe I should replay vanilla Doom 2 to remember how bad it is.

>>982632 >the arrow on Downtown I forgot about that. Having to do that for the player to figure out where to go shows how poorly MAP13 flows, it's like a bunch of smaller levels awkwardly thrown together in cubes.

Trails in the Sky FC & SC>Zero & Azure>Sky 3rd>Nayuta>Cold Steel 1 & 2>Cold Steel 3 & 4>Reverie >Trails in the Sky FC & SC I'm counting these two as one game because they essentially are. It's one long story with FC being the first act and SC being the second and third. They have the same characters and take place in the exact same world. The gameplay is mostly the same, aside from a a few refinements SC makes to the orbment system. It's a fantastic experience that delivers on every level. >Zero & Azure These two are connected in similar way so I'm counting them as one game too. Azure feels a little more like a sequel than a continuation of the same story, but I still have a hard time remembering which parts are in Zero and which are in Azure. It's also a very solid experience all around and I have a soft spot for games that take place mostly in one big city, like Radiata Stories. I'm ranking it lower than Sky FC & SC because this is where the things I dislike about the later Trails games first rear their head. >Sky 3rd 3rd feels more like a side story to FC & SC than a proper Trails game. It's great for what it is, I just like the traditional Trails format better. >Nayuta Even less like a Trails game than Sky 3rd. I'm not sure why they called this a Trails game to begin with. It's more like Gurumin or Ys. Still very fun though. >Cold Steel 1 & 2 This is where the decline of Trails begins for me. It's where Falcom decided they were going to pander to the lowest common denominator. There's still a lot of fun to be had with it but the magic isn't there anymore. >Cold Steel 3 & 4 Just a retread of 1 & 2 but worse in every way. >Reverie I'm still working my way through this a little at a time. It's more of the same as what was in Cold Steel. They obviously have no idea what to do with the old characters anymore and the new characters bring nothing new or interesting to the table. I can only play it for a little at a time before getting bored. I want to finish it so I can play Kai, which I hear has a new setting and mostly new characters. I'm so tired of Rean 'n pals. Rean was never that special to begin with, just an even blander version of Lloyd, yet they decided to center 4 and a 1/2 70+ hour games around him. I hate him more than Lightning from FF13 at this point. I have a lot more I could rant about regarding Trails but I think I'm going to stop here.

Fallout 1>New vegas>2>3>shelter>4. I haven't played all of the games. 1 is by far the best out of the bunch, The game is an actual piece of art. 2 I have attempted numerous times but never once has it gripped me like the first game does. 3 is fun as long as I ignore the fact that its supposed to be a fallout game. New vegas is 3 but the story is actually good and a worthy successor to the first game. I can't actually decide if NV or 1 is my favourite game of all time. Ask me on different times of the day and it is a 50/50 split whether ill say its 1 or NV. 4 is just garbage. Shelter is a mobile spinoff that is just kinda whatever. I can't really get mad at it like I get mad at 4. I have also jacked off to it multiple times which probably colours my perception of it. I have not played 76 and I haven't played nearly enough of tactics to judge it.

>>982708 >I have also jacked off to it multiple times which probably colours my perception of it. Those assaultrons are something else, man.

>>982712 To shelter, not 4. I like to pick one dweller to be my self insert. Then he and he alone gets to fuck every woman in the vault.

>>982718 Oh yeah, I also mixed up 76 and Shelter when I first read it. Strange. Understood. I'll bet you get everyone pregnant in there. Very nice.

>>982590 >Phantasy Star II has a much more in-depth and oppressive story than most RPGs of the 16bit generation - but the problem is that most of it lies in officially licensed supplimentary books, radio shows, and side-games. As I understand it, the team got a lot of positive feedback on the character focused story of Phantasy Star I - but other games with more generic characters and more spartan storylines seemed to be more popular. They weren't sure on which direction to take the game, so they erred on the side of memory limitations. Fans really enjoyed the fleshed out story elements, so they went all out with Phantasy Star IV (originally intending for it to be a Sega CD-based game with animated cutscenes and voice acting). I'm surprised they didn't try to put any of that into the main game when they made the PS2 remake. They could still do that with a modern remake of the game but I can't see Sega doing that any time soon.

>>982724 That's extremely silly. I rank them AMX-116 (?) < Zee Zulu < MS Zaku based on the amount in their bellies >>982639 Now this is more related.

>Baldur's Gate 2: Shadows of Amn This is handily the greatest vidya RPG ever made and among the greatest video games of any kind ever made. It's not quite as open-ended as a proper Dungeons and Dragons game, but anyone who has ever played that before knows that that little bit of focus eliminates all manner of stupid bullshit. Neither does it ride a railroad, so you will have different adventures depending on how you play. They fact that you can play the same character that you made for Baldur's Gate 1 affords you the unique opportunity to live one character's life from level 1 commoner to level 20 demigod. And it takes forever to play. It's the kind of game that eats months of your life for a given play-through, but it miraculously never overstays its welcome. Then there are the characters. Minsc, Viconia, and Edwin are iconic among D&D fans, and the villain is the kind of sick and perverted evil that devs can't get away with putting in their games anymore. >Icewind Dale By the time this game was released, tabletop D&D had already moved on to 3rd Edition and away from THAC0, but the game play created for the Baldur's Gate series was too good to let die. As a result, there are a lot of 3rd Edition elements mixed in, and the result, while not true to the tabletop game, was slick and fully mature. It actually plays better than Shadows of Amn does, but it is missing the characters and scale that made that game so extraordinary. >Baldur's Gate: Throne of Bhaal So, you have lived the life of your little miniskirt-wearing half-elf druid from a youth spent catching rats in a barn behind Candlekeep to sending Jon Irenicus' damned soul to the hellish plane of eternal slaughter, but there is one last step to take in Elfstar's journey--the one that has been teased since you first heard Alaundo's prophesy in the original game! That's right, here is where your character has a chance to become a god... or to just tell the other gods to fuck off and let her be once and for all. What makes this game fun, apart from the narrative conclusion is just how many little things are hidden in it, and they actually matter. For example, if you found and kept the pantaloons from the previous games you will have an opportunity to acquire a goddamned giant power suit. You can also hang out with the damned but still powerful soul of the first game's Big Bad. The game almost feels like a victory lap, albeit with fighting demigods. >Baldur's Gate Most of the characters who became iconic in Shadows of Amn got their start in the original game, and they were a lot of fun even then. This one will feel shockingly low-budget to modern gamers and even to gamers who played Shadows of Amn first. The cut scenes are comically bad, and the graphics are not on par with the later entries. Still, what made the later games extraordinary is present here. It is an enormous game that will eat months, and it allows a lot of freedom to forge your own path. You can't just do whatever you want, though. Your party will have things that they absolutely need to have done, and the story itself will assert itself like a dungeon master who really, really wants to get to the villain's big reveal. There is more of a railroad to the story. It is worth playing through. Just be sure to play it before you play the later games, because it will look like a weak entry if you do not. >Tales of the Sword Coast Bridging the non-existent gap between the first game and Shadows of Amn, this entry consists of two adventures, one on a cursed frozen island and another in a cursed tower. The Durlag's Tower adventure is good, and if you have played the first game already you will be quite motivated to want the doppelgangers dead. The big problem with the game is what it does to Shadows of Amn if you go on to play that with the same character. That is, it makes the later game way the hell too easy by setting you up with a ton of experience and high-quality equipment. It all evens out by the time you get to Throne of Bhaal, but you may prefer a challenge in the first half of Shadows. >Baldur's Gate 3 Ew, 5th Edition.

Finally an interesting thread. >lightyears ahead of its time Heh. I've always been curious about Phantasy Star from an outsider's perspective, but some things about it kinda turns me off from it, namely the front-facing sprites for combat. I vastly prefer sideview and isometric perspectives for JRPG combat myself. Still though, IV's sterling reputation will probably eventually see me playing it at some point and the spritework did look good enough to make me be willing to play them.The few videos I've seen online showing gameplay of the games seem intriguing, especially how the overworld and the cities feel to navigate, its definitely a unique atmosphere compared to most JRPGs. Is there anything more you can say about IV to hook me in on it? I wouldn't be surprised if the quality of things like story, characters and music is as you say, but is there anything more specific you can say about it in those respects, like a moment or some way you were feeling while going through it or anything like that? I've heard the games are somewhat/loosely connected; how much do you really miss out by not playing them in order? As for my chosen series, I've played a decent amount of Fire Emblem games so I'll start with that. FE7 >>>>>> 3 Houses (Tentative) > FE Echoes: Shadows of Valentia > 8 > 4 > 5 (tentative) > 13 > 14 > 6 >Fire Emblem 7 (Blazing Sword) Or just Fire Emblem (GBA) in the west. I remember first playing this on an airplane around 9 years ago and somehow feeling a sense of nostalgia for a series I never played before. The fact it pulled that off is honestly incredible. Its honestly a brilliant game from every perspective imo. It has the most varied map objectives in Fire Emblem and the best map designs, the best written characters and story, and so many secrets and unique dialogues. The music used fits pretty much every scene well that I can think of imo. The spritework and animations are the best in the series. The gameplay is ridiculously fun and its tied for my most replayed game with around 7 times or so. (Maybe 8 or more). Considering I don't like replaying games and prefer to try new ones after finishing them, that's a high accomplishment indeed. The narrative is compelling and draws you in, the replay incentives are high, pretty much every playable character is likable, and the main characters development is handled well.There were several times in my first playthrough that I thought I was getting close to finishing the game, only to be surprised that it kept going (for the better). The people who designed this game were geniuses imo. It also pretty much hits a lot of the things I want in a game. The character relationships are outstanding as well and really help it stand out from the rest of the games in the series. It also bucks and twists a lot of the trends and conventions that I've seen with the franchise for the better (though I only realized that in retrospect after playing the other games, which makes me appreciate it even more). The more I look into the game, the more impressed I become with it. Its easily got the most heart, soul and attention to detail poured into it out of all the games in the franchise I've played thus far. Its a moving experience imo and is truly something beautiful. >3 Houses This is more a tentative opinion since I've just been enjoying my time with it so far, but I'm only partway through the game before I put it on an indefinite pause a while ago. I'd guess I'm probably around 40-50% done with the game, but I've enjoyed the gameplay loops and progression systems well enough so far. They clearly take some sim aspects from the newer Persona games to add to the usual support system and I enjoy them well enough. It seems to have ambition which is a good sign to me. Sure some things could be better but I like enough of the characters and the "feel" of playing the game enough to be content and looking forward to see how the game turns out. Hopefully its not disappointing. Map design is average, but I like the mechanics of shit like squads and whatnot. >Echoes: Shadows of Valentia The presentation, music, and a lot of the story are all high quality and the fun of being able to do absolutely broken shit with broken units definitely help put this higher than it would be otherwise. Map design is not impressive, lack of dialogue and depth on most characters in the story, and dungeon navigations are only okay, but I still had a lot of fun with it otherwise just because of the ridiculous things you can do in this game, like summoning an army of phantoms in a single turn, teleport around the map with ease, or being able to shoot with bows up to 5 squares away and whatnot. >8 (Sacred Stones) Its a pretty good game, but unfortunately that's as far it goes imo. It lacks the ambition and frankly, the content and depth needed to truly cement itself as truly great. The aspects it does have in its favor are competently handled. Good spritework, decent characters, good music, decent story. Unfortunately its also too damn easy. It also adds aspects I don't really care for such as overworld map grinding and other shit that takes me out of the experience, but its solid enough to keep someone enjoying it. Gameplay is still fun, but it needed more content period and feels only 80% finished and a bit rushed especially towards the end of the game. >4 (Genealogy of the Holy War) This game clearly had a lot of ambition, but had issues with its execution imo. One can easily say it was things like hardware limitations. This game does have a lot of interesting advantages in its favor such as being able to deploy every unit in your army on every mission, extremely broken legendary weapons which are fun to use (but you also have to deal with enemies that have them, makes for an interesting time). Enemies come in squads and that's more of an unusual challenge to deal with compared to the design of a lot of other FE games where its usually just scattered hordes or individual units placed in certain locations. (I prefer the latter but its still interesting). The music is amazing, possibly the best in the series. A solid game, and many consider it their favorite in terms of story. I can understand the sentiment, it was clearly influenced by Legend of the Galactic Heroes. It uses interesting storytelling devices, trying to create a grand narrative of the wars between nations, the politics, the intrigue, and the horrible acts of governance including shit like child hunts, plus a massive twist **that everybody knows about by now*. However, there were some notable story flaws that were irritating enough to reduce my enjoyment of the game, namely the ridiculousness of Sigurd's romance and the weakness of the second half of the game by comparison and the game design is a bit clunky, plus the maps are huge (which is understandable for the scale it wants to convey, but it also gets kinda old too after a while). (1/2)

>>983141 >5 (Thracia 776) I put this on indefinite pause after getting around halfway through it. Its got some great presentation, great music, and very interesting ideas. I loved the crusader scrolls and the possibility of leveling up constitution and fucking movement, and the intense fog of war is really something. Being able to capture enemies and take all their items is a pretty broken and interesting mechanic (though annoying to pull off sometimes). Fatigue is interesting (if a little tedious), and its got a decent amount of varied objectives and interesting story turns from what I've seen thus far. Its got a good kind of old school vibe to it similar to 4, just with a lot more polish on the superficial side of things. The portrait sprites are great. The story seems solid enough so far (though I'm concerned with what I've heard that it won't be all that great, plus its a midquel to 4 so I kinda know where its going to end up more or less). Unfortunately, its design systems have many issues that are pretty much made to shit on the player. You don't really feel like you've executed incredible strategies against overwhelming odds as a tactician when you succeed. Instead, you feel like you've just crawled through a labyrinth made out of shit while the enemy is constantly throwing old jars of hardened cum at you. In fact, I stopped playing after a map similar to that idea. It felt very irritating to deal with and was more tedious than fulfilling. >13 (Awakening) Awakening had a horribly boring and half-baked story after the Gangrel arc. The map design was not impressive either, and I did not like the simplified, chibi-esque 3D models used for combat (that seemed to be everywhere on the 3DS library). The characters were decent, especially if you dive into supports with a surprising number of likable people, but still felt lacking in some respects, especially child character supports. Gameplay was pretty bland. Music was alright but yeah, this really wasn't great. I finished it once, and that's all I'll probably ever do with it. >14 (Fates) Technically I only played Birthright. I had Conquest, but after playing Birthright and falling fucking asleep in the middle of the game and stopped playing on my 3DS for months, I had no hope for Conquest considering people were saying its story was even worse. I hated the combat system and the new, convoluted and horrible weapon triangle. The debuff system was tedious. Dragon veins were a gimmick mechanic. In Birthright the map design was dogshit. (People say that the gameplay in Conquest is better WRT map design but I don't give a shit, I'd rather play a good SRPG that has both good gameplay *and* good story, and I didn't like Fates gameplay to begin with, alleged good map design won't fix that). The only thing I really liked about it was some of the character designs I suppose. >6 (Binding Blade) Strictly speaking it is objectively not the worst game on the list (that belongs to Fates imo), but it was by far the most disappointing for me. I went into it after 7 expecting a similarly great game and instead got a dogshit story, dogshit characters (plenty of whom were horribly ugly and disposable), the same objective for every single fucking map, mediocre (and at numerous times awful) map design, and a much less balanced experience with unpleasant combat and horrible mechanics like ambush spawns. Very few unique units or animations compared to 7. Plus the hit rates were terrible. No romances for any characters besides Roy (most likely the worst-written protagonist I've seen in FE) and all-around terrible supports. Its shocking how they made such a masterpiece of a game in FE7 only a year later after this disgrace. The best thing I can say about this game was that I liked the true ending, but the shitty ending credits for the characters pretty much ruined that. It also shit on the main characters from 7, the only characters I liked from 7 in 6 was fucking Bartre and Karel (Marcus was okay I guess). I have high hopes for Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn when I get around to them. Unfortunately most of my experience with FE after 7 has just been "yeah, that was a good/alright game", whereas I was hoping for a lot more great games from the franchise. Ike's games are all that's left besides the ones I haven't finished yet. They have a sterling reputation in the communities I've seen, so I'm hopeful for them. 3 looks decent but is pretty low priority for me.

Single Player: Jedi Academy>Dark Force 2>Jedi Outcast>Mysteries of the Sith This series had very fun core gameplay. You know what most of its didn't have? Sane level design! They're all full of dumb mandatory "puzzles" that have no place in a shooter/slasher. Jedi Academy's level design is rarely exceptional, but it works and the only puzzles are clear puzzles that have a relatively logical reason to be there. With Dark Forces 2 the weird puzzles often feel like they're there to demonstrate the Sith Engine's capabilities (some of which, like the level where a ship shifts around as it falls to the ground in real time, are still genuinely neat pieces of tech), which at least makes it feel like it has a point. The same can't be said of Outcast, where the level design is just opaque for its own sake, and full of bad gimmick choices (How about introducing the lightsaber in a level where its absolutely terrible? How about how after you've got almost all your powers back and are one of the most dangerous people in the galaxy, you get a stealth segment with instant game over for failure) that its excellent saber combat can't make up for because you so rarely get a chance to actually have fun with it. Mysteries of the Sith takes last for just being plain retarded in level design. Need to get into a locked building? Did you consider going far enough away so the door opens (while the alarm is still going off and the men on the roof are still shooting at you!), then using the sniper rifle to hit a console inside and stop the door from closing? No? What's wrong with you! Many levels are just plain old bad outside of their puzzles, which is pretty bad for a level pack. >>982586 Doom's biggest weakness when compared to Doom II is the lack of Super Shotgun. One of the worst things about Doom is that Imps and Lost Souls aren't consistent 1HKO with the shotgun and are a dice roll even if all pellets hit. Same for pinkies and if they're 2 or 3 shots to kill. Super Shotgun mitigates that issue by making all three (four counting the glorified pallet swap) guaranteed one shots with super shotgun. >>982590 >Phantasy Star IV (originally intending for it to be a Sega CD-based game with animated cutscenes That does explain a lot about the cutscene style. I do wish more games copied the manga panel presentation PS4 used. It's really neat.

>>983141 >Is there anything more you can say about IV to hook me in on it? I wouldn't be surprised if the quality of things like story, characters and music is as you say, but is there anything more specific you can say about it in those respects, like a moment or some way you were feeling while going through it or anything like that? One of the things that gives the story and characters more impact than they probably would have had otherwise is the way cutscenes are handled. Like anon mentioned above, this was originally supposed to be a Sega CD game with FMV cutscenes. I guess when they switched it to a regular Genesis game, they kept the storyboards for those cutscenes in and made them like comic books. The story would still be good without these, but they really help it go that extra mile. Something I really like about the story and setting in general is how it merges fantasy with science fiction. When most games try this, they just end up making fantasy and more fantasy but with a sci-fi coat of paint. But Phantasy Star is good about making these elements feel distinct, but to the degree that they feel like they don't belong together in the same setting. IV goes even further and adds a post-apocalyptic element into the mix. This even bleeds over into the gameplay. For example, some your party members are androids and since they're not made of organic matter, spells and potions meant to heal organic matter don't work on them, so you have to use repair kits or let them repair themselves as you walk. They also have high defense against physical attacks but have no aptitude for magic, which means they are very weak to magic attacks. There are a lot of little things like that which, together, add a lot for me personally. The only other game I can think of that did something similar was Arcanum. >I've heard the games are somewhat/loosely connected; how much do you really miss out by not playing them in order? Not much. The games are connected, but the stories are standalone and each game takes place centuries after the last. The references to earlier games are more like fanservice than anything critical to the story.

>>983175 >but to the degree that they feel like they don't belong together in the same setting. * *but NOT to the degree

>>983175 >I guess when they switched it to a regular Genesis game, they kept the storyboards for those cutscenes in and made them like comic books. Well, they kept the inspiration. The original Phantasy Star IV game was supposed to feature a return of Alis Landale who had disappeared sometime after the events of PSI. Phantasy Star Gaiden for the GameGear has her return as a party member, but you're on an entirely different planet called Copt It would have been a kind of "Return of the King" moment, since Algol had been without a Landale ruler unifying the system since a "totally accidental" shuttle the Mother Brain was ultimately in charge of had an accident that wiped out the last of the Landale rulers a few decades before the start of PSII. But the ideas never really gelled together, and with the failure of the SegaCD, they decided to change the story entirely for PSIV on the Megadrive. Some of the old elements leaked in, which is why Alys Brangwyn resembles Alis Landale so much - and she has a great affinity for Rune, who inherited Lutz's consciousness and will. The Manga panels were an attempt to keep some of the fluidity and dynamism of a FMV, but make it fit on a cartridge. Also, I have a pet theory that Coral from Phantasy Star Zero is actually a far future Copt, but in reality I really doubt that the PS0 dev team even knew PS:Gaiden existed - let alone were inspired by it >For example, some your party members are androids and since they're not made of organic matter, spells and potions meant to heal organic matter don't work on them, so you have to use repair kits or let them repair themselves as you walk. They also have high defense against physical attacks but have no aptitude for magic, which means they are very weak to magic attacks. There are a lot of little things like that which, together, add a lot for me personally. By the same token, healing spells and normal healing items don't work on your android party members either. You need to utilize Repair Kits and special built-in repair mechanisms. This is one of the things that really pissed me off about Phantasy Star Universe and later games. While Resta always healed everyone in your party - with PSO, Caseal characters were immune to biological based attacks. They couldn't be paralyzed or poisoned, but they were especially vulnerable to electrical attacks shorting them out and preventing them from attacking. This invulnerability to most status effects was the trade off you got for not being able to use Techniques. That all changed in PSU and later games. Now robot characters can use techniques and get poisoned for some dumb fucking reason. Officially, in PSU it's because Caseals have a culture of organic matter inside of them which can be used to siphon and channel photons from the environment - and in PSO2 it's because robotic characters aren't actually robots, they're cyborgs who are basically just brains in a jar mounted on a mech frame. In either case, that doesn't really make sense as those biological components would be mounted on a specialized interface device and sealed off from the outside environment to maintain a sterile environment. How the fuck does a toxic attack to a metal chassis poison or cause paralysis in a hermetically sealed culture? It's just there to be fucking lazy and streamline the games for casual assholes who just want to chat with their friends while smacking around space monsters with not-light sabers. Also, speaking of Phantasy Star characters making returns - if you're interested, someone decided to fully translate the Phantasy Star IV Memorial Drama CD a few years back. It takes place a few years before PSIV - back when Rudy/Chaz was just a street urchin picking pockets before crossing Alys. He meets up with Nei from Phantasy Star II, who turns out to be a clone of the original Nei created by GENE to finish off what the Biolabs had started in PSII - working a 1,000 years to perfect the ultimate biomonster/super soldier hybrid. Well, Nei was just the template - and they end up facing off against NM-2011, eventually getting help from Wren and Demi to shut down the system. After which, Rudy has his memory wiped and SEED takes over the project in order to create Rika as a companion to mankind that would infuse beneficial genetic mutations into the population to help them survive the degrading environment. https://yumpoplala.com/phantasystar/translations/drama-cd/

>>982902 >and the villain is the kind of sick and perverted evil that devs can't get away with putting in their games anymore I think they could get away with making someone like him these days, they just couldn't make refined and complex as Irenicus. He would have to be a 1-dimensional, comically evil, borderline retarded, barbarian who exists only as something the player can relish in destroying. >>983141 I agree about 7 being the best. It's the only one in the series that doesn't have some major flaw holding it back. Path of Radiance feels like one step forward, two steps back from the GBA games. What's there is great but it ends up feeling unfinished in my opinion. That's probably why they wanted to make a sequel to it. Radiant Dawn realizes the potential PoR's gameplay had. It can feel rather gimmicky at times though. And I hate what they did to many of the returning characters. And the new protagonist is insufferable.

>Sonic Adventure 2 Tied with just a few other games as my favorite game ever. I think Sonic Adventure did a great job at adapting "Classic Sonic" gameplay to 3D, but while Adventure 2 is different in a lot of ways, what makes me like it better is the score and ranking system, and all the unlockables you get. I love that the scoring system isn't just about being fast, but that is important. It isn't just about killing a lot of enemies, but that is important. It's also about doing tricks, and that ties into the level design which is well crafted to make it so that when you get an A Rank, it's because you are playing cool. Getting an A-Rank in this game makes you look and feel and play fast and cool. You're doing cool tricks and you're killing enemies in neat ways and you're doing it all without slowing down. This is what captures the epitome of Sonic as a character and franchise to me. He and his games aren't just fast, they're fast and cool. And it makes it supremely fun to play. Another thing I love that no other game in the series has done well is the mission system and the unlockables. Those extra missions are formulaic, in that they're essentially the same format in each level, but they all make sense. Beat a level, get 100 rings, find a hidden chao, beat the level fast, beat the level on hard mode. And get a good rank on all those missions. Then you actually unlock cool things. Beat all missions with a character and you get a cool costume for that character. Get all A-Ranks for a character and you get an alt-character for multiplayer. The multiplayer is meh but it's still really cool to unlock playable Chaos and Tikal. Get all A-Ranks for the entire game and you unlock an accurate 3D adaptation of Green Hill Zone, which is still one of my favorite unlockables ever. I was so surprised how well they translated it to 3D, and I wish they did the same with more levels. I'd play a whole game of 3D Sonic 1 in this style. Other games in the series have tried to use the ranking system, but they've never done it as well. Many of them just measure your time. Others do count killing enemies, and some do have tricks, but none incorporate all three together with level design that makes it feel like it all flows naturally when you manage to get an A Rank. Part of that is probably that Boost Sonic doesn't feel as free, so nothing flows as well. I'd also argue the level design has never been as good as it was after Sonic Adventure 2 The elephant in the room is that Sonic gameplay is only about 1/3 of the game. But I never got the complaints about Knuckles' gameplay. It feels reasonably like a 3D version of Sonic & Knuckles' gameplay, but they ask you to explore more than focus on getting from A to B. I'm perfectly fine with that. I don't think I like it as much as Sonic's gameplay, but I like it a lot. I get why people are annoyed that the emerald radar only tracks one emerald at a time, but I also understand why the developers did this. Tracking all three at the same time makes things so easy. If the levels could have been much bigger, then maybe tracking all at the same time would be fine, but I also understand this is a Dreamcast game and this is only 1/3 of the game. So while I can imagine how this gameplay style could have been better, I still like it a lot. Robotnik gameplay is more different but I feel it still nails the fundamental ideas that I like. When you're doing it right, everything flows very smoothly and it feels cool to do. You don't have to focus on score unless you want A-Ranks, but when you do, it feels cool to get a high score. Your score relates to your satisfaction with the actions you're doing. I also understand why people are disappointed that Tails is in a mech, but I always understood that this was really Eggman gameplay and Tails is just good Eggman here. I also understand that Tails' gameplay was far too easy in the previous game, because he's OP in a 3D game unless you dedicate a lot more focus to much more unique levels for him. While I'd like that, it's just not what they were going for here, and I still like this. I also liked the hub worlds from the previous game, but I understand why some wouldn't want them in a Sonic game, and I appreciate the more action-focused game you get here. I consider it a lateral move, since the hub worlds are good in the other game, but the action stages are even better here. I enjoy both styles. I loved the Chao Garden when I was a kid, but now I get bored of it. People complain about the Adventure Fields and other gameplay styles in this game and the previous game being slow, but the Chao Garden is the slowest thing in the world, and people like it saying that it gives them a breather or whatever. Sure, but it's a bit too much of a breather for me these days. It is very cool how complex it is, and the chao are cute and the music is great and everything, but this is the point where I rush through and abuse glitches so I can get back to the action. And oh yeah, it must be said that the music is amazing. I love all of it. I love Sonic's buttrock. I love Knuckles' rap. I love Rouge's jazz. All the music in this game is amazing. But then that goes for the whole series. But this is among my favorite soundtrack in a series that always has amazing soundtracks. And I almost forgot the story, even though it's a big part of the game. I like it a lot. I like how even though the main arc of the series was wrapped up last time, this one ties into it well, with subtle but effective references to things that happened before. I thought it was so cool to look into Robotnik's backstory. I love how the story actually has a lot of subtlety to it, with the most famous example being how the game never explicitly explains why Shadow looks like Sonic even though he's like 35 years older than him. But if you look closely, there is an explanation that ties into the series' deep lore. And it's so subtle that some people would probably say it's not even intentional, but I think it's intentional because the game has lots of references that themselves go unmentioned, but if you look at them all together, they imply things that make them all make sense together (like say the Artificial Chaos, and the replica Emerald Shrine. Also the Biolizard emerging from the ARK can be interpreted as a dragon emerging from a giant Egg, which was mentioned in the manual for Sonic 3. More on that later). I do like the story of Adventure 1 more, but this one is really cool.

>Sonic Adventure I like the sequel better but this is the game that nailed the basic gameplay formula of Sonic in 3D. I do think the levels are much simpler than Adventure 2, which makes the sequel better, but the movement here is inherently fun, and that goes a long way. I understand why people don't want hub worlds, but I enjoy them a lot. I really appreciate how intricate they are, with NPCs all having their own little story arcs that intertwine with each other, but are totally optional to interact with. I also think the game does an excellent job at making the hub worlds feel much bigger than they are. They're just intricate enough to give you a good sense of exploration, especially with the hidden secret moves, and hidden emblems, not to mention all the NPC dialogue which is its own little reward. I do think the map in the Gamecube version makes exploring the Mystic Ruins jungle too easy. It reveals how small the location really is, and kills the magic. In the Dreamcast version, it's much easier to get lost, and that's the point. I love how the story is essentially the finale to the story arc that was being built up since the Genesis games, bringing back so many old plot points and expanding on them with the power afforded by a CD-based console which could now do more intricate cutscenes and voice acting (even though I do love how the original Sonic games tell their stories with no dialogue at all). They even bring in Sonic CD, which wasn't part of the arc before, and tie it in. They flash back to the manual from Sonic 2. Even the thing with Chaos coming out of the Master Emerald ties in with the Japanese manual of Sonic 3 saying that Knuckles' people had a prophecy of a dragon coming out of a giant egg (which in that game seems to refer to Robotnik and the Death Egg, but is recontextualized here). I also love how the story is told in a non-linear fashion, with six intertwining stories. And you can stop playing one story and play another, switching between them whenever, but regardless of the order you play in, what you're doing is piecing things together in your head, including the NPC mini-arcs. Like there will be a moment where Sonic & Tails get knocked out for a bit, but other characters aren't knocked out, so if you play as them, at a certain point in their stories they can see Sonic & Tails knocked out on the ground, and if you talk to NPCs at that time, they'll have dialogue that Sonic & Tails can never see, since they aren't active at that moment in chronological time. But Sonic is only 1/3 of the game. I'd say Knuckles is my second favorite. I like the exploration, and I think his controls feel reasonably like Sonic & Knuckles. Tails is a really cool idea, but his gameplay is too easy due to his levels being only moderately altered Sonic levels. At the same time, I understand why making whole new, extremely expansive levels just for Tails, might have been outside the scope of the game. I do appreciate that all the levels in the game are shared between characters, and I think it's cool how they mostly work, even though they could work better. Sonic gets the most focus out of anyone by far, and that makes sense. But I do enjoy the rest of them. Amy is fun for some more classic platforming. She also has the stealth element but that's not really deep or anything, so it's not why I like playing as her. Gamma has pretty neat gameplay but again I feel it's too easy and I think they fleshed it out and improved it a lot in the sequel. Gamma does have the best story, though, as we all know. And then there's Big. Everyone hates Big except for me. But I don't love his gameplay either. Fishing isn't my thing so I can't compare it to other games very well, but I do appreciate how some of his levels have some platforming and exploration to find the best fishing spots. All of his levels should have done that. The actual fishing mechanics always felt a bit janky, but I never found it terribly hard either. I could imagine this gameplay style being expanded and fleshed out into something much better, and I would probably enjoy it, but it's sort of just a beta test here. I like Big as a character though. His story is funny. I like how he's just like a random guy getting caught up in the adventures of these people trying to save the world or whatever. The music is amazing. I talked about it in Adventure 2 but I might appreciate it even more here, partially because it helped to pioneer a lot of things that Adventure 2 just follows up on. I love the songs with lyrics and all that. And a lot of the character themes in Adventure 2 are just significantly altered covers of themes from Adventure 1 (Though I think I love Adventure 2's It Doesn't Matter even more than Adventure 1's). Something I didn't mention with Adventure 2 but applies there is that all the songs are essentially from the characters' POV and fit their personalities so well. Ian Flynn clearly knows all the lyrics to It Doesn't Matter and Open Your Heart, because he quotes them all the time, but then why doesn't he make Sonic act like those songs say he acts? Because they fit perfectly with his philosophy in the games, and consequently the philosophy of the games themselves, which even shows in the gameplay. It's all about freedom (which is part of why I don't like the Boost games as much. The movement feels much more restrictive). The same goes for all the other characters. All the songs are supremely catchy. And I love how some of the songs are even references to older games, like how Tails' theme, "Believe in Myself," is essentially just adding lyrics to the theme from Bridge Zone in Sonic 1 (8-bit). Is that some deep character thing tying Tails to a level in a game from before he was invented? Probably not. (But if I was writing the comics I'd say that the first time Tails saw Sonic and started following him was in Bridge Zone during that game). But it's a cool reference either way, and a good song either way. And the Chao are a bit less complex than in Adventure 2, but really as a kid I loved them in both games, simpler or not. Now I'm a bit bored by them either way. I think I might say the Chao Gardens are much interesting in Adventure 1, though, so I give it minor points for that. I also appreciate how they tie into the story of this game. >Sonic Mania Plus It's Sonic 3 & Knuckles but even better. A bunch of characters that are all fun to play as. The Special Stages are even better, so good that I think I'd even play a whole game of stuff in that style. The music is great, the graphics are great. Encore Mode is a lot of fun. It is lame that Sega made them re-use so many old level themes, but the actual level layouts are all a lot of fun. The only thing I'd say is worse than Sonic 3 & Knuckles is the story, which is basically an excuse plot, but I as much as I raved about the stories above, they're actually my lowest priorities.

>Sonic 3 & Knuckles It found what I consider to be the perfect balance between pure speed and exploration, and the levels usually make it feel like even when you're exploring you aren't going slow. Three characters that are all super fun to play as. Tails is sort of Sonic but easy mode, but he also has his own locations that make him worth playing on his own. Knuckles has a lot of exclusive content, and I appreciate that some things are deliberately made harder for him. Sonic is improved with these little touches like the insta-shield and the elemental shields. I like the elemental shields a lot more, and I think it's cool how they come with special moves that basically all got adapted into regular moves in later games. The only thing I wish is that there was a way to control Tails as Player 1 when playing as Sonic & Tails, sort of like how Sonic 4 Episode II does, but oh well. The graphics are improved over all previous games. I still remember getting the game when it was new, and I was blown away by the 3D models on the title screen, and then still very impressed by how the detailed sprites almost looked 3D even though they weren't. The music is great, but again it's always great in this series. I even sort of like the Sonic Origins versions, but it's hard to not feel weird about them after all these years of being used to the Michael Jackson songs. The story is really cool, how it takes elements from Sonic 2's manual and then expands upon them in a much more complex way. While a lot of it is in the manual, the game does a great job communicating it through cutscenes and background elements. I appreciate how the cutscenes manage to do it all without any dialogue. I think it's super cool that you don't just get a secret level here, but the first Super Sonic level, which is an awesome finale. I think it's so cool how Knuckles' story takes place after Sonic & Tails, but the game never explicitly says it anywhere, but instead leaves little clues everywhere that show it. As I mentioned about Sonic Adventure 2's story, the subtlety makes it so cool. The 3D Special Stages blew my mind as a kid and are still fun now. And the Lock-On Technology? Awesome. Knuckles in Sonic 2 was so cool, and playing infinity Blue Spheres stages gave me many hours of fun. I also like how there are separate Bonus Stages that are themselves kind of fun. The slot machine one can sometimes be a bit distracting since you can just keep playing it for so long, but saying that I want to play it so much that it's distracting is a good problem to have. There's a big gap in quality before the next entry. I don't think any other Sonic games are nearly as good as 3 & Knuckles. But I still like many of them a lot. >Sonic Frontiers Kind of janky, and fundamentally still the Boost gameplay that I don't love (more on that later), but the open world thing was pretty cool. Graphics look good, but the worlds looked pretty boring, and I hope the next game tries harder to have interesting art design. Music was alright but not the best. Story was better than every game after Unleashed, but that's kind of a low bar. But there's so much to do and I did get very lost in the game. They released a free DLC like a year after release that was actually incredibly substantial. It really should have been part of the base game, because it's tons and tons of important content. I feel kind of weird placing this higher than Generations, because it has a lot of problems, but it also had some fundamentally good ideas. Other games have better fundamentals but fuck up execution. Other games have better execution but not as great fundamentals. This hits a middle ground that worked for me. >Sonic Generations (360/PS3) The best Boost game. I don't love Boost, but I gotta admit the game is pretty well made. Replacing the Werehog with Classic Sonic was obviously a good choice. The graphics look great, and the music is great. The story kind of sucks, but whatever. The game is too short and easy, in my opinion, but not so much that I don't enjoy it a lot. I'm looking forward to Shadow Generations. Maybe that will fill in some of the gaps that I feel this game has. I was also very disappointed with the level choices. Going back to old levels is really cool, but then they picked stupid levels. Sonic Adventure's level? Speed Highway. Sonic Adventure 2's level? City Escape. Are you fucking kidding me? We don't need two city levels. And obviously the most iconic level from Adventure is Emerald Coast. City Escape is THE city level, so that's the one that should be in the game, not Speed Highway. But then they picked the beach level from Heroes instead, so that would make Emerald Coast redundant. But what levels in Heroes were more unique? Probably the future-city or haunted house levels. I'd have gone with them. Or alternatively, use levels that appear in multiple games. Like Ice Cap is in Sonic 3 and Sonic Adventure. Using it would cover two games at once, then Sonic 3 could still use a different level. Anyway this is a bit pedantic and it's still a great game, but this has been bugging me since 2011. >Sonic CD I never played this as a kid, and it feels like sacrilege to say I like it better than Sonic 2, but I think I like the exploration elements. I like looking for Robotnik's robot making machines. I like looking for the Metal Sonic holograms. The time travel mechanics could be used more effectively, since unless you suck you'll never even go to the Bad Futures, and really all you want to do is go to the Past and stay there (since sure fixing the past then going to the future makes the Good Future really easy, but the game isn't that hard to begin with), but either way it's still a lot of fun. The music is great. I much prefer the Japanese soundtrack, which ties together with songs having references to each other, but even the American soundtrack is still good. The animated intro and outro are cool as hell. Metal Sonic is a cool character and his boss fight is one of the better ones in the series. I'm not sure if I like how there are two separate ways to get the good ending, since if you want to get the best ending you gotta get all the Metal Sonic Holograms, and if you're doing that you probably got all the robot-making machines and thus don't have to get the Time Stones. And the Special Stages are super cool and a lot of fun. I think I'd have given a separate reward for all Special Stages and all robot-making machines. But again, this is a pretty minor problem overall. >Sonic 2 Excellent level design, excellent movement. The spindash feels so natural that as a kid I would always forget that Sonic 1 didn't have it. The music is excellent, the graphics are excellent. The story is cool even though it's almost all in the manual. It's a bit weird that when you think about it you never actually see an exterior shot of the Death Egg, either in the game itself or in the manual, except for a tiny thumbnail on a level select screen that you need to enter a cheat code to access. But I didn't even notice this for like 30 years, so whatever. The Special Stages blew my mind as a kid, and while I don't like them as much as the ones from 3, CD, or Mania, I still like them a lot. While I do think the games that came after this improved on it, this is the baseline by which I judge the series, and sort of games in general. I think it does almost nothing wrong, and the closest thing I have to criticism is that later games make it even better.

>Sonic Unleashed (360/PS3) I don't like the Boost gameplay as much as the Adventure-era gameplay, but Sonic Unleashed was so polished and presented so well that I have to give it a lot of points. Plus, the first time I saw Boost I wasn't as sick of it yet. It was novel. Then the graphics and music were amazing. The story also tried to hit a middle ground between the anime of all the previous games and the nothingness that the fake-fans and critics wanted. So we got a cool story that did still touch on neat concepts and themes, but a bit lighter, but not too light. I liked it. I also liked how it gave Sonic a bit more pathos than he has in any other game, but didn't turn things into a melodrama like some of the adaptations do. People complain about the Werehog, and while I think it's not as fun as the Daytime stages, I do think it's not bad. I still have fun with it. Again, that's probably partially because I never loved the Boost, and the presentation of the graphics and music was so excellent. >Tails Adventure I love this game. I'm tempted to maybe even put it above Sonic 2 and Sonic CD. Take Tails, set him in a more Metroid-type adventure game. It's awesome. Tails is slow in the game (which is explained in the story, since it's a prequel from before he met Sonic and learned to be fast), but I don't think that hurts the game at all. Great graphics for a Game Gear game. The game does have discrete levels, unlike Metroid, but you go back and forth between them, using items to go to new locations, so it still captures the same idea, and does it very well. >Shadow the Hedgehog It's Sonic Adventure 2 but only Sonic/Shadow gameplay, only the specific movement mechanics and level design are just a little fucked up. I don't mind the guns, I think they fit well enough into the gameplay. I end up ignoring the vehicles except when I need to use them, and on those rare occasions I don't mind them. I think the story is cool as hell, and I love how it ties into Sonic Adventure 2 so well that they feel like one story. I like the choose your own adventure type thing and think that it does the morality system better than almost any other game, since it leads to different missions and then different levels. You really only end up repeating the three missions from the first level three or four times each (and that's the most repetition in the game), but given that the game encourages you to go for A-Ranks, you're expected to do even more than that. That said, I never enjoyed the game enough to actually get all A-Ranks. I still kind of want to, because Super Hard Mode sounds really cool, with all the levels in order, and new dialogue that takes place after the main story, but I just don't like the game enough to get all A-Ranks. But do I like it enough to beat the main story? Yes. >Sonic Heroes I like the basic gameplay style, since it's Sonic's gameplay from Adventure, but it's just fucked up enough to not feel as good. The team mechanics don't change things as much as you'd think, but when they do, I don't think it's good. The Flight formation makes it so you're usually just a sucker if you don't use it, even though it's slow, since Sonic and Knuckles are slippery as hell and make it way too easy to slip off an edge. Plus Sonic lacks a projectile move. Now, the game could incentivise you to be fast, to be Sonic, but unless you're going for A Ranks, that never happens. And frankly, I don't enjoy the game enough to go for A-Ranks. It always bugged me that the characters were all shiny here, for some reason. I was always a little disappointed that the story was downplayed compared to previous games. But the music is still pretty great. Well, not as great as before. Frankly the main theme is cringey, and while Shadow and Chaotix's themes are pretty catchy, they're also a lot more cringey than anything from the previous games. Team Rose's theme, though? Masterpiece. Way better than Amy's theme from Adventure. Metal Overlord's theme, "What I'm Made Of," is one of the coolest in the whole series, but it only plays very briefly, and you're unlikely to even hear the whole thing. But anyway, the basic gameplay is still sort of like Sonic's gameplay from the previous 3D games, so I still like that. >Team Sonic Racing Good racing game. It is better in multiplayer since the team mechanic is actually important. The graphics and music is good. I like that it has a story, even if it's very light. The gameplay does have complexity, but it mostly revolves around the team mechanic. I prefer when the complexity is in your specific movement, and in the track design. This game does that fine, but I prefer Crash Team Racing (which really doesn't have any team mechanic at all, and I've always wondered why it was called that). >Sonic Forces People talk shit about this game and I don't get why. It's Sonic Generations 2. Is it as good? No. But it's pretty damn similar, so I have a hard time saying one is good and one is shit. They're both fine. It's Generations but not quite as well designed. It's still fine. >Sonic 3D Blast Sonic 3D Blast is an excellent game, and I'm tired of pretending it's not. I think it does a good job at feeling like Sonic's movement, not to mention Sonic's world. I think the graphics are very cool, especially on Saturn. The music is great, and though the Saturn version has different music, I'm not sure which I like better this time. Maybe the Genesis, but they're both great. The Special Stages are a step down from Sonic 2's, in my opinion, but they're alright. Some people say they don't like how you have to collect the flickies, but I do appreciate how it forces you to explore and appreciate the level design more. Plus, I appreciate how the game is a sequel to Flicky, the arcade game, as much or more than it's a sequel to Sonic. I also must mention Sonic 3D Blast: Director's Cut, which improves upon the game drastically. The original director of the game, Jon Burton, made a romhack of it over 20 years later. He tweaked the movement and physics, he tweaked the Flicky AI. He added a level-select (with a nice basic-map-like UI), along with Time Attacks and Score Attacks on every level, with very well designed target times/scores. He added playable Super Sonic, and he made it so you can only get one Chaos Emerald per zone, to encourage you to actually play the harder Special Stages later in the game (since if you were any good at the original, you would get all the Emeralds halfway through the game and never play the later Special Stages). My only wish is that someone would somehow port this to the Saturn version, and also give the Saturn version an option to play either the Saturn or Genesis soundtracks. The Saturn graphics are actually better, and that's the only thing Director's Cut is missing. But it's an excellent game either way. It's an excellent game without Director's Cut, even. >Sonic Rush Adventure This game is so much better than all the Advance and Rush games before it, and I'm surprised I don't see people talk about that more. Everything is more complex. There's so much more to do. I like the boat sections, I like the exploration in the levels. The level design is better than before. The challenges are more varied and interesting. The story is much more complex and interesting. The graphics are the same style as Rush but more is done with them. The music is good in all these games but I think this is my favorite music of the handheld games so far. Great game.

>Sonic R Again, I'm a defender of this game. I love the 3D platforming racing. I understand some people find it odd that the characters control like cars, but I got used to this in about one second. The game's problem is that it has far too few tracks, but I do appreciate that the tracks are very complex and give you reason to explore them thoroughly. That doesn't make up for the lack of tracks entirely, but it makes up for it a little bit. I fucking love the soundtrack. I love the grahpics, even though I can't really argue they look as technically good as Mario Kart 64, Diddy Kong Racing, or Crash Team Racing. But the art design is very good. I appreciate that the manual gives a story. It's only in the manual, but it's more than a lot of racing games do, so it's a tiny little touch I like. >Sonic Triple Trouble People say this is the true Sonic 4. I understand the sentiment. That said, it's not as good as Sonic 3 & Knuckles in any way. It's not even close. But is it a very good platformer, especially considering it's a Game Gear game? Definitely. Also, it's neat that it has a bit more of a story than the other 8-bit games. >Sonic Chaos This game is an awful lot like Triple Trouble, but Triple Trouble is just a bit more polished. First truly playable Tails (who isn't just an alt-skin for Sonic). Very cool. Alright, maybe I'm putting this and Triple Trouble over the Advance games out of nostalgia, but these two just feel a lot more like Classic Sonic. Their movement isn't perfect, but they tried. I respect that. >Sonic Advance 2 I think the Sonic Advance games are very overrated. I don't think they control as well as the old games or have nearly as good level design. I also always wondered why the graphics sucked compared to the original games. That said, I do still think they're good, and I love the many playable characters. >Sonic Advance 3 I like that there is more exploration here, looking for Chao, and I like the team mechanic. But the team mechanic is not used as much as you'd think, and I ended up just getting very frustrated with some of the chao. A lot of stuff where if you miss something you can't backtrack and have to start the whole level over. Still pretty cool game though. >Sonic Rush I think the Advance games are overrated and I think this is overrated. But still good? Sure. It bugged me when it came out and people were acting like it felt like Classic Sonic just because it was 2D. It's nothing like Classic Sonic. But it's still fun. A bit simpler than Advance 2 and 3, which I found surprising. But it was good. >Sonic Advance Same as above but I think I recall thinking the sequels improved a little bit. They were pretty close in quality though. >Sonic 2 (8-bit) I do think the 8-bit games just kept getting better (until the last one), so this isn't as good as Chaos or Triple Trouble, but it's great. Some of the Emerald hiding spots are kind of bullshit (Sky High Zone), but the fact that this game has a secret level for getting all the emeralds is really cool, and makes me want to get all the emeralds every time. I remember the music in this game more than the other 8-bit games, too. >Sonic Riders Addictive and unique feeling racing game. The controls feel a little fucked at first but you can get used to them and they end up feeling very complex. Also, very cool graphics, very cool music, very cool story. >Sonic Lost World (Wii U) It feels a lot like Sonic Colors but it's actually 3D and uses it in interesting ways. Does it succeed? Not always, but I respect that they tried. The story is fucking lame, but at this point we were used to that. I like the game but it's not my favorite. >Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity It looks like Sonic Riders but it doesn't really play like it. Everything's pretty fucked up, honestly. But you get used to it, and I still had a lot of fun with it. I like racing games. It helps that the graphics, especially the pre-rendered cutscenes, look excellent. Music and story are both really cool, too. In fact, this game shows Eggman's front company, the legitimate face of his business. That's interesting. They should do more with that. >Sonic Spinball (16-bit) I find it strange that this game gets a bad rep these days, because I remember it being very popular back in the day. When I was in the target audience when the game came out, me and all my friends just considered this to be one more Sonic game, exactly as legitimate as Sonic 2. It was really cool that you do play as Sonic, and he does move like he does in the regular games. Now I do feel how it's not nearly as good movement, but since it isn't an enormous part of the game, it feels close enough to have a very good effect. Casino Night Zone had pinball, and it was really cool. Now here's a whole game of that. Awesome. I love that the levels are complex and actually take advantage of being a video game. Too many pinball games have "realistic" tables, but that's lame. The ones that do unique stuff are cooler. This one has levels that feel like levels rather than tables, and I love that. I love that it has bosses, even if they're mostly very simple. Maybe I'd say the game is a bit too hard, but maybe that's because I suck. I don't even hate the music, even the music that everyone hates on. Even the music that it turns out was literally glitched and can be fixed by changing a single byte in the code. Okay, maybe that one. Look, the music isn't as good as the other Sonic games on Genesis, but it's still good. Very good game overall. Good graphics, too. I forgot to mention that. >Sonic 1 (16-bit) The first game. It's great, but it was improved upon in most sequels. But it did get that momentum-based gameplay down. I love the idea that if you can play well, you're rewarded with gameplay and level design that feels like it flows well. If you're good, the game almost becomes easier, until you fuck up, then things get hard. That said, there are earlier games that I might think did it better. Super Mario Bros: The Lost Levels might be one. Ninja Gaiden might be another. Still, great game. All that said, I find it a little crazy that this was meant to compete with Super Mario World, and that it did well in that regard. Mario World just has so much more to do. This game is very short and simple by comparison. That said, it has excellent graphics and excellent music. So take that great presentation and put it on inherently fun movement? I guess most people, especially back then, didn't actually beat games anyway. And if that's the case, then sure, this gives Mario World a run for its money. >Sonic Colors (Wii) It's fine but I don't love it. They took the Boost from Unleashed but simplified it even more, so it's practically a playable cutscene when it's actually in 3D. But really the game is almost all 2D. But the 2D doesn't even try to feel like Classic Sonic. It doesn't even feel like Rush. It feels like Sonic Blast, which is the worst Sonic platformer in the series. Now, this is better than that, but still. This game doesn't deserve its very high reputation among critics and normalfags. It's fine, but it's nothing great. >Sonic the Fighters Pretty cool fighting game. I'm not the biggest on the genre, and this isn't my favorite of the ones I do like, but it's fun. The characters have cool moves that make you feel like the characters. The cartoony squash and stretch stuff is neat, especially in a polygonal game. Some people might not like early 3D low-poly stuff, but I love that stuff, and I think this game has good art design that makes it work. I like that you can unlock Super Sonic. I like the HD version with secret characters.

>Sonic Labyrinth People hate on this game but I disagree. Do they not understand that you're supposed to spindash to get around? And when you do that, the physics feel pretty good. It's a decent isometric exploration game, with some decent use of three dimensional design. The graphics are excellent for an 8-bit isometric game. The music is pretty good. The only thing that's bullshit is that the good ending requires getting two secrets which are frankly absurd. Did you know you don't just need the emeralds to get the good ending, but also there's one level that has a secret time limit you aren't told about? There's a clock in the background that actually moves (but since it's an isometric game you only see it from one area of the level), and that's your clue. That still bugs me from the time I beat the game and didn't get the good ending and didn't know why. But honestly I do still like the game. That's a kind of petty complaint. >Sonic 1 (8-bit) Now it seems to finally be relatively common knowledge that Sonic 1 and 2 on Game Gear and Master System are their own games and not ports. So what is this? Not quite as good as the real Sonic 1, but it is very good. All the sequels would improve upon it, but it's a solid platformer with good physics (even if not as good as the real Sonic 1) and good level design. That airship level is pretty neat. And the music is good. I've already mentioned that Bridge Zone later became Tails's theme, and that's cool. >Sonic Shuffle Mario Party clone, but I love the way it uses cards instead of dice. It replaced RNG with strategy. The VMU shows your cards, so other players can't see your cards. The best use of the VMU by far. You can grab cards out of other peoples' hands, but you can't see their cards when you do, so it's a bit of luck, but there are times when you might be able to figure out if someone has a certain card, then grab or avoid that card. The graphics are really cool looking, and the music is good. I love that it has a pretty significant story, but I wish the characters and concepts came back in more games and comics and stuff. You can unlock a bunch of secret characters, and different characters actually have different moves for getting around the boards, which is awesome, and also have different stats for card battle minigames. Then there are the actual main minigames, and maybe they aren't as great as Mario Party's, but they're alright. Keep in mind this came out before Mario Party 3. Anyway, I don't love Mario Party, and this is similar, but I do think it does a few things even better. Is it a better game overall? Idk, but it's definitely got really good ideas. I wish it was ported to modern systems and given online/lan play. I hate online play, but frankly some sort of online or lan connection would be the only way to replicate the function of the VMU and let you actually have your own secret hand of cards. >Sonic Pocket Adventure Pretty decent, but very overrated, probably due to very few people ever having a Neo Geo Pocket Color, so those that had it were probably very dedicated. I hear this is a 16-bit system, so why are the graphics generally worse than the Game Gear games? That said, the gameplay is fine. It's a bunch of rehashed level themes, with downgraded adaptations of old music (but used on the wrong level themes. But for all the complaints, the platforming is alright. The Special Stages are Sonic 2 style, and not as good, but alright. When they do original things that aren't from the old games, it's cool. Some stuff near the end of the game. It's mediocre but worth checking out for a fan. >SegaSonic the Hedgehog Fun arcade game with cool graphics and good sound. Even better in multiplayer. If you have a trackball and can get it set up, it's even better. I'm assuming you're emulating since the cabinet is old and was always so rare, and Japanese only. But even without the trackball, it's a fun game. Very short, but for an arcade game, that's fine. >Chaotix I wanna like this game more than I do. It has excellent graphics, but excellent enough to justify buying a 32X? Probably not. Really cool music, but nothing beyond Genesis level. The Special Stages are impressive, probably my favorite before Mania, but they aren't enough of the game. I'd play more of them if they were there, though. But then there's the game's central gimmick of the rubber band thing. Cool, and there are ways you're supposed to be strategic with it, what with holding one character in place and then slingshotting and stuff, but really what ends up happening is you bounce around the levels randomly until you get to the end. It barely feels like you're in control. This makes it much more fun in multiplayer, so I'd recommend playing it that way if you can find someone who wants to actually beat the game with you. The game is also hurt by the way zones are selected randomly, which means there isn't much of a difficulty curve. I enjoy the game, but some significant problems hold it back. >Sonic '06 Ambition and rushing killed this game. If it was finished, I still think it may have been my favorite. It was Sonic Adventure but expanded dramatically. But it never got anywhere close to finished, and we all know how that went. Project '06, the fan-remake, aims to "fix" it, and people are saying it's doing a good job. Some people are even crazy enough to say that it's good, or even the best Sonic game. They're fucking crazy. The game was so unfinished that to finish it would require tons of completely new content, and lots of content being changed dramatically. But we don't know exactly what the devs would have done, so fans "finishing" the game wouldn't be finishing it, they'd be making a new game with some elements of the old game. Plus, even Project '06 is nowhere close to finished. It's missing huge chunks of content from the actual game. But even the parts they "fixed" don't matter that much. Glitches were never Sonic '06's biggest problem. It was the fact that the game didn't have very polished mechanics or level design. They would have changed a lot more before being finished. Well actually the biggest problems were the loading screens in the Town Stages. I expect Project '06 will actually fix that, but still, it won't be enough. All that said, the graphics blew me away at the time, and the music is top notch. People complain about the story but I actually like it. Fake fans were complaining about Sonic having a story, demanding it be simpler, "like the old games" (even though the old games had the story from Sonic Adventure. Really what they wanted was SatAM or just Mario). So Sega made it so in Sonic's story he just fights Eggman to save a princess. They saved their autism for Shadow and Silver's stories, and I think those stories are really cool. I like how Shadow's story is like an epilogue to the last bunch of games. He's now confident in who he is, but how will he deal with a world that still may never trust him entirely? They handle that story well. But they did fuck up and say Blaze was from the future instead of an alt-dimension. Autistic fans have headcanons that make degrees of sense, but they clearly fucked up here. But does it ruin the entire story? Naw. It's not important enough to ruin it all. Anyway, not a good game, but I must admit that I can never hate it entirely due to still liking the fundamental gameplay style from Sonic Adventure, and still seeing a bit of what the game could have been. That said, I think people who say that even Project '06 is actually good are fucking crazy. The game sucks in ways that can't be fixed without changing it far beyond a technical level, and at that point it's practically a different game.

>Sonic Battle I almost put this game higher, but then I remembered that the way I made it actually semi-enjoyable was by grinding an early mission to max out points so I could actually use all the cards I get. A four-player brawl with RPG mechanics is interesting, but I found it sucked until I removed the main RPG mechanics. The cards were fine though. The story is very cool and ties in to the main games way more than it has any right to, but it's pretty weird that the deepest lore is hidden behind New Game + Mode. Anyway it's alright but I don't love it. >Sonic and the Secret Rings Why do people like this game? Oh right, because it's on Wii, you "go fast," and you only play as Sonic. I don't like complaining about controls, but the controls fucking suck here. Frankly, it's not even that the Wiimotes don't work, it's that the game was designed for them, so the way you move practically automatically feels incredibly restrictive. Platforming never feels natural. The story is sort of cool, I suppose. Pretty weird that this and Riders came out within a year and were both about Genies. And '06 was the same year and also had the islamic demon, Iblis. And Rivals 2 less than a year later had Ifrit, and there's a boss in this which is called Ifrit (but since this takes place in a world within a world they're not the same Ifrit). Sonic Team got really into arab stuff around this time, I guess. The graphics are good. The music would be cool if you didn't hear the same one bar of the same song every time you click any button on any menu or results screen. >Sonic Rivals 2 It's almost exactly like Sonic Rivals 1 (which I'll talk more about next) but the rubberbanding is pretty much fixed, and you now have twice as many characters. They're voice acted now, too, which is cool. But do they expect me to beat the game eight times (once with each character) to see all the different story elements? That's fucking crazy. You thought beating Sonic Heroes four times was boring? This game doesn't even have a Last Story. And at least Heroes' characters were difficulty settings, and Chaotix was a little different. Here the characters have slightly different moves, but not enough to feel different. Tails and Knuckles can't glide or climb whenever, for example. It's a special move. So really everyone feels very similar, and beating the game eight times thus feels way too boring. >Sonic Rivals 2D platforming racing game. Sounds like it makes sense. Too bad the controls, while trying to ape 2D Sonic controls, don't feel like the old games at all. The rubberbanding is the worst I've ever experienced in any game ever. The story is kind of neat, but it fucks up and says Eggman Nega is from the future instead of an alt-dimension, even though he and his backstory were only introduced a year earlier in Rush. But whatever. I can overlook that. It doesn't ruin the game for me. But the game isn't very great to begin with, so there's that. Graphics are alright and music is good, though. And oh yeah, beat the game four times to get the full story, even though there is no Last Story to make it feel fulfilling at the end. The four characters do not feel different enough to make it not feel repetitive. I'll beat Sonic 3 & Knuckles three times with three characters and not feel like I'm repeating myself. The same can't be said here. But at least you aren't expected to do it eight times. >Sonic Blast The worst Sonic platformer by far. Bad level design and bad physics. They got too ambitious with the graphics, and the sprites are too big, making the screen feel too cramped to see much. But then Donkey Kong Land is an excellent game, and that's in black and white, so actually they just fucked up here, and I shouldn't be saying it's the fault of ambitious graphics. The graphics are kind of cool for 8-bit, and it is cool to have playable 8-bit Knuckles, but still, this is just a massive downgrade from the previous 8-bit Sonic games. Shame since it's the last one. >Tails Skypatrol A horizontal shooter that moves very slowly and only lets you shoot one bullet at a time, very slowly. The graphics are sometimes ambiguous and make it hard to tell what you can touch and what you can't. I've heard people say the game is alright when you get good, and I won't say I'm great at it (though it's very short so you can beat it easily), but idk, I don't like it enough to get good. >SegaSonic Cosmo Fighter Galaxy Patrol Very simple vertical shooter, but with cool graphics and sound for the time. Probably would be more fun if I was a little kid that could fit in the moving cabinet, instead of emulating it. I mean this is probably more of a ride than a game, but I'm counting it. >Waku Waku Sonic Patrolcar Same as above but even simpler (since Cosmo Fighter was basically the sequel). >Sonic's Schoolhouse Boring and kind of creepy. Barely a real game. Games I haven't beaten (but I'm working on it): >Sonic Spinball (8-bit) >Tails & The Music Maker >Sonic's Gameworld >Sonic Unleashed (Wii) >Sonic & The Black Knight >Sonic Colors (DS) >Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing >Sonic Generations (3DS) >Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing Transformed >Sonic Free Riders >Sonic Lost World (3DS) >Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric >Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal >Sonic Boom: Fire & Ice

Aw shit I forgot Sonic Drift and Sonic Drift 2. Drift 2 is much better but I mean it's still pretty much the same thing so it's not gonna be far in the rankings. I've never loved 8-bit racing games. I need that sense of good 3D. That said, I like some of the tracks, and these games were late enough in the 8-bit era that they took lessons from Sega's many previous racing games and made them pretty good. But it's all relative. I have low expectations here. Did I really have more fun with these than with Rivals? No, but they're shorter. So I'll put them above Blast but below Rivals. Drift 2 is higher than Drift one, but otherwise right next to it.

>>983312 And Chronicles. I forgot Chronicles. It sucks balls but I liked it better than Battle. It goes right above Sonic Battle.

>>983302 I still think the PC version of SA2 is the best way to play the game mainly due to QoL mods like being able to find multiple emeralds with Knuckles, fixing the sumersault to preserve momentum, and making the mecha stages feel good to play. I just wish I could play more stages as Sonic/Shadow.

>>983334 I don't like changing actual mechanics of games, especially games where things like score are important. It changes the difficulty, and I don't like that. That said, yes, the PC version of Sonic Adventure 2, with mods to fix many bugs that it otherwise has, is the best version. Not only is it HD (which I don't care about much, but it's something), but the mod I like the most (aside from the ones that just fix things and make the UI look like the Dreamcast version) is the retranslation, which gives you subtitles actually accurate to the Japanese version, and not just a transcript of the English version. But that's just because I'm autistic and hate all forms of localization.

>>983310 >I almost put this game higher, but then I remembered that the way I made it actually semi-enjoyable was by grinding an early mission to max out points so I could actually use all the cards I get. A four-player brawl with RPG mechanics is interesting, but I found it sucked until I removed the main RPG mechanics. The cards were fine though. The story is very cool and ties in to the main games way more than it has any right to, but it's pretty weird that the deepest lore is hidden behind New Game + Mode. Anyway it's alright but I don't love it. Uhh what is the deepest lore?

>>983364 When you beat the game and then do a New Game +, after every chapter you get to read a chapter of Professor Gerald Robotnik's journal. It's only text, no visuals, but it gives the story of how he found Emerl, but GUN tried to take him and turn him into a weapon. This inspired him to make sure that his future creations (AKA Project Shadow) would bond with him and Maria (since she is pure) and learn humanity, so that GUN could never succeed at turning it into a weapon. There is also a bit more stuff about "The Fourth Great Civilization" which created Emerl. This is the tribe that the Knuckles tribe was fighting against in the backstory (including in Sonic Adventure's flashbacks), and would later be seen as The Nocturnus Clan in Sonic Chronicles. The regular game also has a lot of this stuff, but these extra bits between chapters in New Game + add a lot more, which is weird because this isn't the type of game I'd want to beat twice. It's a very long RPG. The second time around you can go way faster, though.

WA 2>1>3>4>5>remake/port of 1 into 3's engine Not exactly the most original ranking list but the game series was already wild west zelda with a jrpg battle system and toku shit taped onto it. 3 was interesting but got dumber than 2 at the end and 4 just felt like they were just trying to write something even more schizophrenic than it mixed with a gundam/Sunrise B tier anime plot. 5 felt more half-assed than 4 writing wise and feels padded as fuck in a bad way, I played them in a row a few years back. Exoskelloteen is based off of WA4.

>>983388 3 was gay.

>>983389 3 had several story arcs that just got gayer the longer you played it which just confused me since I didn't hate the characters at all, it just gayer and gayer since the villains got stupider and stupider, kind of like 4 except 4 was funnier in how retarded it got.

>>983391 >>983388 What about XF?

>>983392 I played XF for a couple of maps and thought it was kind of funny when one of the female party members talked half-heatedly about dating a dog but I just didn't feel like playing it at the time, it looked like an ok low budget multi-class SRPG with VN segments but I just wasn't in the mood after 5.

>Momodora: Moonlit Farewell >Momodora: Reverie Under The Moonlight >Momodora: III >Momodora: II >Momodora: I Love a series that just gets better with every release

>>983401 This is giving me a real strong Cave Story vibe and it looks really comfy.

>>983392 >>983394 If you go into XF expecting an SRPG, you're going to be disappointed. It's actually a puzzle game with SRPG elements. For example, there's a map where you have to shoot a certain number of stones within a certain amount of turns. Given the layout of the map and the skills of the character involved, there's literally only one way to clear that map. About half the maps in the game have similar puzzles where unless you do exactly what the developer intended, it's an instant game over. I might have enjoyed the game if I had known it was a puzzle game going into it, but I went in expecting an SRPG, so I never finished it. This is a shame because I liked how movement was done by hexagons rather than the traditional squares, and I loved the class system, which felt like a refinement of Final Fantasy V's. XF's combat and class system in an actual SRPG would make for a damn fun game.

>>983425 I'm probably wrong, but I think Momodora pioneered the gameplay mechanics of fighting a giant monster girl and having to repeatedly smack her in the tits to defeat her.

>>983436 this gif is me playing virt-a-mate on my quest 3

>>983430 A linear puzzle solving SRPG makes sense with Wild Arms but I'm guessing they were just trying to make the game look more appealing to fund from Sony by adding multi class bullshit to it.

>Hyrule Warriors I fucking love Hyrule Warriors. Didn't think I would, because the little I played of Dynasty Warriors back in the day really bored me. But someone got me this as a gift because I like Zelda, and I was surprised that it ended up being one of my favorite games ever. Great mix of combat and strategy. Tons and tons and tons of content. The graphics look cool. The story is actually really neat. I love getting to play as all these classic characters from the series, and even the new characters are great and fit perfectly well into the series. CIA is a big girl for me, and she fits right into that rotating "evil wizard" role that sometimes goes to Agahnim, Zant, etc. I also like Volga, basically a humanized version of Volvagia so that you can make him playable. Cool idea, and since names in the series do sort of shift and evolve over time, as characters reincarnate, it works even better. Also, people say Breath of the Wild doesn't make sense since it has Rito from the Wind Waker timeline but also Zora from the Twilight Princess timeline. But Hyrule Warriors solves that. It takes place in the Twilight Princess timeline, but elements from the Wind Waker timeline merge in due to time travel. Counting this game as canon makes perfect sense and solves a problem in the very next game. This is probably also my favorite co-op game (along with its sequel), as it has just enough strategy to make you have to work with your teammate, but not so much that you have to both be autistic for it to play it reasonably. Excellent multiplayer. But I first played it on 3DS without multiplayer and it was still my favorite game. The same person got me the Switch version after seeing how much I enjoyed it. Anyway I never even really beat Hyrule Warriors because while the story mode is enough content to be good, it has that other mode where you do grid based maps with different missions on each square, and there are so many maps and so much content to go through. I don't know if I can ever do it all. >Age of Calamity Technically superior to Hyrule Warriors in many ways. The graphics are better, the maps are more complex, the combat is more complex, the story is more involved. It is really cool how it ties into Breath of the Wild. That said, even though the previous story was simpler, I did like seeing all the old characters. But really the only reason I give the other game the edge is because it has so much more content. I was able to 100% Age of Calamity eventually. But really they're both excellent. All the compliments I gave to the first game apply here as well, except that one has even more content. Not that this doesn't also have tons and tons of content, mind you. >Wind Waker I like the graphics. Fite me irl. Honestly most Zelda games feel pretty samey, and I'm okay with that because I like the formula. So I like the graphics and music and stuff here, and I actually like the sailing. The Great Sea isn't very different from Hyrule Field/Termina Field/etc, but it's way bigger and gives me more to explore, which I like. I also actually like the sailing mechanics more than just riding horses, which I never thought was done particularly well in Zelda. So it's not that I like this way more than other games, but if I have to pick, I think I'd pick Wind Waker. >Skyward Sword I never got the hate for this game. Some of the hate was for The Sky, but I just saw that as like a glorified level select. That was fine though because there was tons of actual exploration to be done on the surface, so it felt pretty similar at the end of the day. Again, I have to admit the graphics help me decide here. When I first saw it at E3, the graphics blew me away. I loved how it mixed the Wind Waker and Twilight Princess artstyles together and found a really good looking medium. Some people complained about the motion controls, but their bodies just weren't ready. I thought they were well done and fun. Some of the uses were more fun than others (flying was one of the worst), but this certainly never made the game worse for me. People say the game is linear, but all the Zelda games since Link to the Past, or maybe Zelda II, were incredibly linear. I never felt this one was much more linear than the others. So again, it's not that I like this much more than the next on the list, they're incredibly close, but there are a couple things that give it an edge for me. >A Link to the Past One thing I sort of respect about Zelda is that while the 3D games don't feel like glorified 2D, they also don't feel absurdly different. They don't feel like different series, and it doesn't feel like the 2D entries are missing anything really. Link to the Past has excellent puzzles and fun combat and great graphics and sound. What can I say that hasn't been said? The only thing I don't really like is that the map numbers the dungeons, and I think that makes it a bit too easy. Again, when people complain about linearity in Zelda, this is what I think of. But this is never what people are complaining about. Anyway, great game. I just wish someone would port the Palace of the Four Sword to the SNES version. The GBA version is fine, and there are at least ways to access the extra dungeon without beating Four Swords, but I'd much prefer the SNES resolution over the other minimal changes the GBA version made, except for the new dungeon. I want the new dungeon. >Twilight Princess It's like Ocarina of Time but even better. I'm probably showing my bias here in that I just don't like the "realistic" looking graphics as much as the cartoony ones. But these main games mostly play the same, so whatever. I don't have much to say that I haven't already said. It's a typical entry but really good. No fucked up gimmicks to mess with things. The Wolf doesn't feel like a really fucked up gimmick, it fits pretty naturally. >Breath of the Wild These new games changed the formula pretty significantly, but not so much that it doesn't feel like the same series. I do sort of miss the dungeons with their more complex puzzles, but the exploration here is excellent. The climbing is pretty fun, though I hate when it rains and I pretty much just have to wait if I want to keep playing. But there is so much to explore and the world feels so rich. Every area feels deliberately crafted. I 100%ed this, including all Koroks and maxing out all armor. I shouldn't have done it, and when I did it, and Tears of the Kingdom was already coming out, I told myself that I wouldn't do it in the next game.

>Tears of the Kingdom Then I did. I 100%ed the same fucking game again. Because I guess I had enough fun with it. Now, I'm exaggerating a bit when I say it's the same game. At first it doesn't at all feel like that. You begin on The Great Sky Island and it is new and it feels very big and gives you a lot to explore. Then even when you go to the surface, key landmarks are changed and moved around. Just changing the locations of towers and stables goes a long way to making things feel very different, since your focus points are now in places you didn't focus on as much before. The underground section is very fun. Though it's not as full and complex as the surface, making your way through the darkness, trying to reach points of light you see in the distance, is actually a lot of fun. Once you light up the whole place, it's a bit less cool, but there are still some neat things to find down there. Now for things I was a bit disappointed with, I'll start with the sky. There wasn't as much to do up there as I hoped. It certainly wasn't 1/3 of the game. It wasn't even nearly as much as the underground. A side effect of making the sky a main point was that you could easily just shoot up through the towers and drop down to any area on the surface, which really killed the sense of exploration and made the world feel much smaller. Part of that though is also because by the end of Breath of the Wild, once you're familiar with the world and good enough to traverse it easily, of course it feels smaller. While the world feels big again at first here, it takes less time to feel small again, and being able to instantly warp practically anywhere, even moreso than just with the regular warp points, doesn't help that matter. It makes exploration far too trivial. One other thing is the crafting. It's kind of cool how creative you can get, but the game doesn't incentivise it well enough. Sure, you can do stuff, but there is no good reason to. It would have been better if the game thought of ways to make you have to think more with that mechanic. Still, I just beat the game like two weeks ago and had a lot of fun.. I told myself I wouldn't get all the Koroks again but I did. That's how fun it was. >The Legend of Zelda I like the sense of exploration here, which really goes away in the sequels. People say it's bullshit, and a couple of secrets kind of are, but all the essentials are perfectly reasonable. Combat is a little stiff, but you can get used to it. Much harder than the sequels (except maybe Zelda II), but the sequels are all too easy. >Zelda II I love Zelda II. People say it's too hard, but I don't really find it harder than Zelda I. You just have to approach fights very deliberately, but then that's the case with tons of games from back then. The exploration is still here, and the combat is fun once you get the hang of it. Graphics are good for the time. Music is great. It's just very addictive gameplay, though. That's what makes me like it a lot. >Link's Awakening It's like Link to the Past II. That's great. You'd think it would be a lot more downgraded for Game Boy, but it's not. Being able to unequip your sword so you can equip something else isn't used that often, but when it is, it's cool. The graphics are excellent, the music is excellent. The story is cool. It's a little small compared to Link to the Past, but feels comparable. I do prefer the DX version, not just due to color, but due to the new dungeon and that one extra sidequest. I haven't bothered with the Switch version since I understand it actually doesn't have the DX content. So it actually has less content? Am I wrong? Does it have new stuff I'm missing that makes up for it? Crazy. Anyway good game though. >Ocarina of Time I know it's sacrilege to put it this low, but it's only because I like the other games so much. But I never found the graphics here to be outstanding, even in the '90s. The gameplay is good, but aside from a few things, like shooting, I never felt the 3D added that much. That's both a good and bad thing. I don't want it to change too much. But it also means it doesn't get an automatic advantage over Link to the Past. I'm sounding negative but it's only because I already said so much positive about the series that applies here. Oh yeah, I do think it's really cool that you're essentially playing the backstory from Link to the Past, even though little bits are changed, and that would lead to decades of timeline autism. But I like it. >Oracle of Ages >Oracle of Seasons I'm putting these together because they're pretty much one game. Link's Awakening II. Pretty much everything I said there applies here. In fact, maybe I'd put them in the exact same spot, but when I think about it more closely I think I enjoy Awakening more than Ocarina and Ocarina more than these. Anyway they're cool. I like the puzzles with the time travel and season mechanics. I like the alt worlds they have. I like the extra bit at the end when you combine the games. The graphics are some of the best on Game Boy Color. Great stuff. >Majora's Mask I don't love the time mechanic. Cool stuff is done with it, but it also results in significant repetition. If you don't do some stuff perfectly, then you have to repeat even more. And in a series about exploration, I want to be able to take as much time as I want. Anyway it's still Zelda though so while I don't love everything about that gimmick, the core gameplay is still excellent. >Four Swords Adventures Might be weird to list this here, since it's kind of a weird spinoff, but I had fun with it. I only ever even got to play it single player, but it worked well. More action focused than most of the series, but I liked it. >Minish Cap Those little collectable statue things are a real fuckin' bitch to collect. That's what comes to mind when I think of this game, probably just because I'm autistic and 100%ed all these games and when you get to the end of this game, you're gonna spend a lot of time on this shit if you want to 100% it. Anyway the rest of the game is all good though. Cool dungeons and all that. No gimmicks that really fuck it up. >Phantom Hourglass The boat here isn't as good as Wind Waker but I still like it. Some people don't like the stylus being used for everything, but I totally got used to it and just didn't think about it. It worked well. The graphics are really cool looking. There is that one dungeon that you keep going back to that people complain about, but each time you go back, the parts you did before are now much easier since you're getting better, so I never thought it was a real problem. I like Linebeck in this game. One of my favorite characters in the series. He's funny, yet I care about him a bit. I mean I'm not playing Zelda for the story, but when I find myself caring about it, then cool. >Spirit Tracks People complain about the train, but I liked it. Kind of like Pac-Man. That said, would I have liked to explore on foot more? Maybe. Anyway it's the last game with some nominal improvements and a train instead of a boat. It's good but I don't have much more to say. >Link Between Worlds This is a great game and everything but I'd like it more if it wasn't reusing the overworld from a previous game. It doesn't even feel as different as Tears of the Kingdom does from Breath of the Wild. The dungeons are cool, though. I don't like the rental mechanic, so I just ignored it entirely. The game is pretty easy, and maybe the rental mechanic had something to do with that. Still, even if it's too much like Link to the Past, being a lot like one of the best games ever made is a good problem to have.

>Ancient Stone Tablets It's pretty much a sequel to Link to the Past, with a new story and everything, and that's cool. I like how it even loosely ties in to Link's Awakening (implying that's where Link is and why you need to help). Link to the Past is great, and here are a few new dungeons and challenges. The sound is a big selling point, and it's great. The voice acting is cool. I mean it's less cool if you download the fan dub, but this is one instance where I recommend a dub because listening while playing is important, and taking your eyes off the action to read subtitles isn't quite the same. The fact that they managed to salvage and recreate this game is amazing. It's also really cool how it's almost a proto-Majora's Mask, with time mechanics much like that game, just with no way to go back in time. Well now you can pirate it and reload saves and use save states and all that, but if you were playing legit back in the '90s you had one chance and that was it. Still cool though. Its biggest problem is just that it isn't really a full game, but given the technological gimmick it really was, it's still quite impressive. >BS Zelda (first and second airing) There are other maps for this you can download online, from before fans knew the exact nature of the game and had to recreate it with a bit more imagination rather than accuracy, but the accurate versions, two different maps from two times the game was aired, are now available and awesome. Most of what I said about Ancient Stone Tablets is here, but a little less so. It's Zelda I's overworld (but shrunken a bit), but new dungeons, real time mechanics, including high quality music and voice acting. It's really cool. Hell, just seeing Zelda I's world with SNES graphics is cool, and just doing new dungeons is cool, but there is much more to it than that. Again, pretty short compared to a real game, but there are two quests, essentially, and each one is still like four hours long, so it's nothing to scoff at. Really cool stuff. >Four Swords Cool game, but not really a full game. It works surprisingly well if you can actually get at least two players. I managed to set it up with emulators once and it was a good time. I gotta download that DSi version that lets you play it single player. I wonder how well that works. Anyway my main point against this game is just that it's not a full game. I like the content is has for you to play through, though. >Triforce Heroes Who was the genius who thought it was a good idea to make it so you couldn't play this game two player? It's either one or three. Why? And why can't you just move the other ones you aren't actively playing as into formations like Four Swords Adventures? It worked well in that game. Instead you can only pick them up or switch to them. You end up having to play the game like a puzzle game even though that's obviously not the intent. Anyway it's still an okay game if I'm trying to look at it with the standards of a regular game, but I would say it's my least favorite Zelda. Okay, I guess it is better than the CDi games, if I'm being fair to both. But I almost listed them higher just because I'm more mad about how this game fucked up a perfectly good premise that had worked before, and all for no good reason. >Faces of Evil >Wand of Gamelon These go together because they're pretty much the same thing. Honestly, I expected worse. I like Zelda II, so that helps, but I mean don't get me wrong. It's not as good as Zelda II. But the graphics honestly are pretty good, in-game, I mean. The cutscenes also are impressive at the time just on a technical level, even if the artstyle sucks. The game suffers from those nice graphics though because they aren't always clear in terms of things like what you can jump on or interact with. I notice this with a lot of PC games back in the day, where it's more about the technical side than the gameplay. The tech here is cool, but the gameplay has problems specifically due to prioritizing the tech over it. Anyway I mean they aren't very good, but when I actually sat down to play them, I actually found myself having fun by the end. All that said, I did play those remakes from a few years ago, and I imagine that helped, at the very least just by lessening the load times. Ones I haven't beaten yet: >Zelda Game & Watch (and its remake in Game & Watch Gallery 4) >Zelda Game Watch >Zelda's Adventure >Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland >Tingle's Balloon Trip of Love >Link's Crossbow Training

>Rondo of Blood My favorite mix of straight action and exploration. Just adding a map screen and letting you go back to previous levels, then putting a bunch of hidden secrets and paths in the levels, adds so much. The graphics are excellent for 16-bit. The sound is as great as you'd expect from CD. I get how some people like the multi-directional whip from IV, but the backflip here is almost as neat. Maybe it's even better, since the whip from IV might be too OP, but the backflip is just an extra move that makes combat just a bit more complex. Anyway Maria is the coolest character anyway. She's fun to play as, obviously, and I also like how it's funny to have basically a magical girl interacting with Dracula, but Dracula is still played straight. The cutscenes work well there. The PSP version is also really cool, and some of the level changes (which are few) are good, but I don't think I like the graphics as much. If someone played that one over the PCECD, though, I wouldn't say they made a bad decision. >Symphony of the Night I was very skeptical, since this game changed the formula so much, but I really respect that it went out of its way to feel like the old games, with lots of old characters and references and stuff. I don't love how the RPG mechanics somewhat exist to make the game easier, and there are some little quality of life things I don't like, like how when you die you have to reload your save, but overall I do get the love that people have for this game. Richter Mode is awesome, too. It's OP as hell, but it's fun for a second run through the game. I haven't played Maria either Maria mode yet (I understand she plays differently between Saturn and PSP), but I gotta get to that. I must admit that when I was a kid and rented this, I was disappointed that it was 2D, since I figured that isn't why I bought a Playstation. Now I have to admit it's awesome though. >Dawn of Sorrow What makes me like this just about as much as Symphony of the Night is how, not only is it an excellent example of that formula, but its equivalent to Richter Mode is even better. Essentially making it play like Castlevania III was the coolest idea ever, and it didn't feel as OP as Richter Mode in Symphony of the Night. >Castlevania III I love the alternate paths and the multiple characters. But really it's just that it's very well made level designs, along with a basic formula that was already excellent from the first game. It's incremental improvements, but it's excellent at that. Simple, but effective. >Castlevania IV That whip is cool. The graphics are cool. The music is cool. It's an easier game than a lot of the series, but I definitely wouldn't say too easy. >Aria of Sorrow I get why some people don't like just how anime the series started to get by this point, but I don't care much. I liked Rondo of Blood. I found the map here more fun than the two GBA games before it. >Bloodlines The two characters are cool, but honestly I don't know if they make the game different enough to make it all that worth it to play it twice. Still, it's a fun game, so maybe I'd just play it twice anyway. I played the Japanese version translated, and I heard the American version made it harder with limited continues or something. I wouldn't play that one, even though on my run with the second character I did beat the game with no continues. It was pretty easy once I got the hang of it. >Castlevania II People hate on this game but I love it. I didn't like it the first time I played, when it became night and I wanted to still explore the town but wasn't allowed. Then I tried playing again later and got past that and started having fun. I like the exploration aspect, but the platforming is still pretty close to the first game. The exploration is there but not as heavy a part as it would become later, and I like this balance here. Play it with a hack called Retranslation + Map. The retranslation is accurate to the original, and the map is a digitized version of the map from the Japanese manual. It helps a lot, and it's not cheating since you were supposed to have it in the manual. With these things, you realize the game isn't even that hard, at least by the standards of this series. I'd almost say it's a good entry point to the series. >Kid Dracula (Famicom) Plays a bit more like Mega Man than Castlevania, but a little simpler. I'm fine with that. I like Mega Man. I'd recommend this to any fan of either series. >Kid Dracula (Game Boy) It's like the Famicom version but with different level designs. It does have similar setpieces and bosses, but don't be confused, because it is a different game. Both are very good, though. >Castlevania (NES) It's the first one and the basics were all there from the start. It's simple but effective. >64/Legacy of Darkness People hate on this game and I don't get it. I played 64 first because I wanted to see just what the hate was about, but I loved it. I thought it did an excellent job at translating Castlevania gameplay to 3D. It really felt like a proper transition. Then I found out that Legacy of Darkness is basically just the complete version of the game. Yes, it's even better. More characters and all that. It bugs me that like two levels are a little different in 64, and also the opening of the game is cooler in 64 (a tiny little cutscene before the start menu), because otherwise it would be totally obsolete. Anyway, good game either way. >Dracula XX People say this is a worse version of Rondo of Blood, but really it's a sequel to it. Totally different game. But yes, it's worse. Still, pretty good game overall though. The alternate paths aren't done as well, and the hidden things to collect aren't done as well. The level design isn't quite as good. The sound isn't quite as good. But the basic gameplay? Great stuff. A worse version of Rondo of Blood is still very good. >Harmony of Dissonance I remember thinking the two alternate castles kind of bugged me because they weren't quite different enough to make me really appreciate them. I did think it was cool that the story was a sequel to Simon's Quest. Otherwise there isn't much to say here that I didn't say about Symphony and Aria. They're the same formula, and it's a formula that works. >Circle of the Moon I was surprised how much I liked the Symphony of the Night formula in a game designed for you to move like Belmont and not like Alucard. It worked very well. A lot of fun. But my problem is the card system. Very cool in concept, but the drop rate is way too low. By the end of the game I only had a few cards. It made the last boss absurdly hard, even though I wouldn't say the rest of the game was that hard, relative to this series. If the drop rate was higher, I'd probably have had a lot more fun with this game. >Belmont's Revenge Very impressive for a Game Boy game. It's pretty short, but it's good. You can actually find a color version hidden in one of the Konami GB collections.

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>Castlevania (X68000) The hardest Castlevania game by far. The graphics and sound are good. It's a "remake" of the original game in the same way Castlevania IV is, in that it's the same story but original levels, some of them just referencing old levels. It plays well and is tons of fun, but oh my god, this game is so fucking hard. I know people say this whole series is hard, especially the NES games, but this makes Castlevania I and III look easy. It might be one of the only times that difficulty actually made me rank a game lower. I feel bad about that, but there it is. It did impact my fun a bit. But it does have some really cool levels. I'd definitely recommend it. There is a PS1 remake called Castlevania Chronicles, and it has an "Arrange Mode" which makes it easier, but I haven't played that yet.

>Castlevania Legends People hate on this game and I don't get why. It's not quite as good as Belmont's Revenge, but it's still the same basic thing, and that's fun. Having the subweapons be hidden collectables was actually a sort of fun idea, and it's neat that that's the origin of the subweapons from a story perspective, but one thing that bugs me is how you sort of have to guess which of two paths is the one that leads to the end and which is the one that leads to the secret. A lot of games do that, where the "secret" is so obvious it's hard to tell that it's even the secret, so you have to guess which path is "secret," but it is annoying every time. Also, the game is very easy, by this series' standards, anyway. But still a lot of fun. >The Adventure I already talked about Belmont's Revenge and Legends, and this is that but simpler, and maybe a bit harder. It's a short game, being a very early Game Boy game, but what is there is fun. I don't really have anything bad to say about it. It's just that sequels did it better. >Lament of Innocence Why do people hate 64 but like this game? The gameplay sucks, like it was badly trying to rip off Devil May Cry or something. It doesn't feel like Castlevania, and it isn't fun. There is an attempt at more maze-like levels, but they couldn't even do it in one giant world like the 2D games were doing. That would have given it some extra points. And people hate on Legends for being a prequel and explaining the origin of the Belmonts, but this sucks way harder. It's a game about the origin of Dracula, but the guy who becomes Dracula is barely in the fucking game. It's really just about you fighting a separate vampire who looks and acts exactly like Dracula. This game made me stop my massive marathon of the series. I'll keep going eventually, but this totally killed my enthusiasm. I like Simon's Quest and Dracula XX and 64 and Legends, but this game fucking sucks. >Castlevania (MSX) This game seems like it has good ideas, but holy shit the controls suck balls. And then they had the nerve to make this the only game in the series that doesn't have infinite continues, because Konami sold a cart with cheats for their games, and if you had it you got 99 lives in this game. If someone ever ports this to the NES, but just lets you use the NES controls and have infinite lives, I'll be very excited to play it. Until then, this shit is practically unplayable. A real shame, because it seems like good ideas, and the problems are related to hardware and corporate greed. Games I haven't played >Haunted Castle >Chronicles (Arrange Mode) >everything after Lament of Innocence

>>983640 >. But my problem is the card system. Very cool in concept, but the drop rate is way too low. There's a romhack that adds the cards as preplaced items throughout the castle.

>Going Commando I like that it keeps a good balance between platforming and shooting. Later games would lean more toward shooting and de-emphasize platforming, which I found a bit disappointing. The addition of the EXP system here adds so much to the game. Though it got expanded further in sequels, I don't think the additions mattered enough to make them significantly better than the EXP system in this game. The story here was also pretty funny and cool. And it has these other gameplay modes that are really neat, like 3D flying space shooter levels that do a great job of feeling really free and open. There's also a cool speederbike thing that is a pretty decent knockoff of Podracer. >Tools of Destruction This game also hit that balance of platforming and shooting that I liked. The graphics were amazing, and though they tried different graphical styles later, and improved the hardware, I never felt it really got better than this. Some people don't like the story here, since it basically retcons Ratchet into being Superman, but whatever. I'm fine with it. >Ratchet & Clank A bit more platforming than shooting, and I actually like that. Granted, the shooting is vastly improved in all sequels, but since it's not as important here, that's fine. The graphics are amazing and hold up excellently. The story is still the best in the series, with Ratchet & Clank being actual characters who I actually care about, and actual twists that make me care, all wrapped in plenty of good comedy. But mostly I just like that this is a great platformer with fun combat. >A Crack in Time I felt this had a little more emphasis on shooting than platforming, compared to Tools of Destruction, but I'm not complaining. Great game. The spaceship stuff where you fly around to different planets is cool, but it made me yearn for the full 3D flying from Going Commando. >Up Your Arsenal Excellent game, but I didn't like how it prioritized shooting over platforming so it could try to cash in on the online shooter trend of the time. That was never what I wanted out of the series. And now the servers are dead and that whole part of the game is gone. And what remains is a bunch of single player levels that are obviously made for multiplayer deathmatches, and they are the worst levels in the game. The game is still great overall, but since release, I always just wished they took all the effort and time spent on the online multiplayer and put it into more single player dedicated content. >Into the Nexus Pretty much the finale of the series. Though it was sold as a budget game, and shorter than a regular entry in the series, what you do get here is great. It plays a lot like Tools of Destruction, so I'm satisfied. It also wraps up a lot of plot elements (though not all), and even just thematically feels like a nice finale. >Deadocked A spinoff that is very deliberately more shooting with only a little platforming. But it's good at what it does. While it's not my preferred gameplay style, I must give credit to a well made game. And it's not like I don't have a lot of fun with it. >Secret Agent Clank I thought Size Matters was very impressive when it came out. Then this game blew me away. The stealth aspect that the game tries to pretend is important really isn't. Really, it's just like the rest of the series, but handheld. And it's great. >Size Matters It's Ratchet & Clank but handheld. Granted, it's pretty short, but at the time, I fully expected that. This was in the era when most handheld entries in a series were practically a different genre. 3D games would get 2D spinoffs, and all that. But the gameplay is all here, just with not as many levels. Still, great stuff. >Full Frontal Assault Tower defence spinoff. But really it plays a lot like Deadlocked, just all the missions are about activating and defending towers. I liked it. It's a bit short, but it was sold as a budget title, and came with download codes for Quest for Booty and Deadlocked HD, all for like $30 brand new. So they weren't pretending this was meant to be the same type of thing as A Crack in Time or whatever. It's pretty cool for what it is. >All 4 One Four player co-op spinoff. You can play single player, and if you play as Ratchet with Clank as your partner, he jumps on your back and the camera moves just a bit differently and it sort of feels like a regular entry in the series. But it is a spinoff, so it's simpler and more focused on things that can be done with four people at once. It also was sold for cheaper when new (though more expensive than FFA, I think), so that's something. But all that said, I can't pretend I had as much fun with this one as most entries in the series. >Ratchet & Clank (2016) It's a remake of the first game but it's missing some levels. It does have new levels, but those levels suck. They're just boring hallway shooter levels. The levels that got cut are some of the most complex ones, largely from the end of the game. Very disappointing. The story isn't as good as the original because it's based on the movie, which dumbed down the story. It is funny that they set it in-universe as Qwark's version of the movie (so he's saying the movie got it wrong, but of course he's also a liar), but that doesn't make it as good as the original. It does have lots of references to the entire series, which makes it feel like a nice epilogue to the whole thing. Also, I must admit that little quality of life improvements are nice. The shooting controls are better, like the sequels. The EXP system is here. But it doesn't make up for cutting good levels and replacing them with lame ones. >Quest for Booty It's standalone DLC for Tools of Destruction. I like it, but it's too damn short. It doesn't even have Challenge Mode, which is a core appeal of the series that always adds a lot of extra fun. If it just had that, it would have been a lot better. Good thing they stopped making the series after the 2016 entry. I'd hate to see what modern Insomniac would do to it now.

>>983659 Yeah, but that's not what the developers intended. I'll count romhacks if they're doing what the devs intended, like Castlevania II: Retranslation + Map, or the recreations of the BS Zelda games. I'll even count Sonic 3D Blast: Director's Cut, since it was made by the original director (I wonder if there have ever been any other romhacks like that). But if it's just a fan fixing a fucked up game, then I don't think it's fair to judge the game itself by that standard. That's the fan's imagination. Speaking of that, I have to play Super Mario Bros. Special for NES. I heard someone ported it to NES, and that alone would make it way more playable. I also heard someone was porting Super Mario Bros. DX to NES, which would be really cool. DX is the best version of that game, but the screen crunch hurts it. If all of it could be put on NES, that would be amazing. Of course I'd also love an All-Stars version, but that's probably asking too much. It would be really cool if someone could get the new content from the Super Mario Bros. Advance games into All-Stars. It would probably be asking too much to get that content into the NES games, but All-Stars seems maybe possible. As it stands, the best version of Super Mario Bros. 3 is the Wii U version of Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3, because it actually added all the E-Reader content. But it still has the screen crunch. As mentioned, if someone ported the MSX version of Castlevania to NES, that would be amazing. It seems like the game has great concepts, but the controls are unbearable. I also mentioned Link to the Past on GBA. I want the Palace of the Four Sword, but I don't want the screen crunch. Fix this immediately, Sega. I heard people are fixing the Saturn version of Symphony of the Night to fix some of the problems like with loading screens just to pull up the map. I don't know if they can ever replace the dithering with true transparencies, but I can live with that if it means that little bit of extra map space and playable Maria. Plus I heard someone else is working on translating it to English (since the Saturn version was Japanese only), and they seem to be aware of each other and trying to make sure these things will go together. That's cool. Now if only they could also add the PSP version of Maria as well, since she is different from the Saturn version. That's probably asking way too much. Still cool though. There are hacks for the Game Gear exclusive Sonic games that make them into Master System games, basically extending the resolution and moving HUD elements to make it look natural (unlike the official Master System port of Sonic Blast). That's really cool, but what I've always wanted is someone to remake the 8-bit Sonics on Genesis. Some people have said they've done this, but they tried to get creative, and they made really new games just based on the old ones. Like that Sonic Triple Trouble 16-bit remake is good and all, but it's just not the same game. It's a new game with some familiar setpieces. What I really want is the exact same level designs, just with Genesis graphics. A lot can be remade easily. Green Hill from the 8-bit version could just be remade by doing a new map with assets from 16-bit Green Hill. Hell, 16-bit Green Hill assets can be used to make Bridge Zone in 16-bit, but nobody has done that. There's one where Bridge Zone is recreated with Marble Zone assets, but it's just not the same. Now, I do get that making new assets for things like Jungle Zone or Sky Base Zone would be harder, but these are Sonic autists. They made a whole new game just to call it a remake of Triple Trouble. Surely it would be easier to just recreate the games exactly but with better graphics. If they're gonna change the level designs at all, I want them only changed just enough to make them work as intended with the Genesis physics, since they are slightly different. Basically, I wish someone would take all the extra content on otherwise inferior versions of games and port them to the otherwise best versions of games. Many such cases.

>>983580 >>983581 >>983582 My ranking would be ALTTP=OOT>MM>LA>WW>Oracles>MC>OG>TP>Z2>ALBW>PH=ST>BOTW>4S>SS >A Link to the Past Virtually perfect. The only flaws I can think of are tiny nitpicks, like the dungeons all having the same music or the NPCs being a little flat. >Ocarina of Time Neck and neck with ALTTP for me. Which one I like more changes on a daily basis. Ocarina builds a lot on what ALTTP did but it also has more flaws, like money being so useless that end up avoiding chests that seem like they're going to have money in them. I think one of the reasons I enjoy it so much every time I play it is because I constantly hear people say it's overrated and not that great, always making its flaws out to be bigger than they are. So whenever I play it, my expectations are lowered and I feel pleasantly surprised by it again. >Majora's Mask Always felt more like an expansion pack to Ocarina than its own thing. It builds a lot on that game and goes in some really interesting directions. I think it leaves a better first impression than Ocarina but when you replay it you begin to notice how much padding and repetition it has. It probably has about the same amount of content as its predecessor, yet it feels like it has much less. I've played ALLTP and OOT more times than I can count but I've only played MM all the way through maybe 3 or 4 times at most. >Link's Awakening. LA is to ALTTP what MM is to OOT. It compliments it very well and has a better story. The gameplay and level design, while not as good, is still top tier. I just wish they could have figured out a way to make the constant item switching less of a pain. >Wind Waker Any game that lets you go exploring on the high seas tickles my autism. It also has the best world of any Zelda game. The dungeons, though, are shallow and mostly forgettable. I think the one where you get the bow and the Master Sword and the one with the bird girl were the only two I liked. But everything else about the game almost makes up for that. >Oracle of Ages & Seasons I like a lot of the interesting things Capcom did with the Zelda formula in these. But again, the dungeons are a weak point. I replayed these not that long ago and have already forgotten almost everything about them. >Minish Cap A really fantastic game. The only problem is it's too short. By the time you're really getting into it, it's already over. >The Legend of Zelda Feels primitive compared to everything that came after but it's quite a bit of fun when you get into the groove of it. >Twilight Princess This is another where the first playthrough is great, but every subsequent one feels tedious at a lot of points. The first half of the game is pretty lackluster and there's very little reward for exploring and going off the beaten path. But the dungeons after you get the Master Sword are incredible. Some of the best in the series. >Zelda II One of the best side-scrolling RPG hybrids. I've never really been into that genre though. >A Link Between Worlds I remember enjoying this the first time I played it but every time I've tried to replay it since, I get bored and stop playing. >Phantom Hourglass & Spirit Tracks These feel like a poor man's version of earlier Zelda games. Neither handles exploration very well, neither has memorable dungeons, and they both have an obnoxious dungeon you have to return to over and over again. >Breath of the Wild There was a lot of potential here but it ultimately feels like an unfinished game with a mountain of padding. The worst part is that its success has shown Nintendo that people are okay with this sort of shallow, extremely repetitive design. I haven't played Tears of the Kingdom because it just looks like more of the same. >Skyward Sword Skyloft is a super comfy hub world but everything else, save for the Ancient Cistern and Sandship, is poor. The most blatantly unfinished game in the series.

>Metal Gear Solid Still an amazing game to play after all these years. The gameplay has the best balance of arcade-y stealth and methodic simulation. It also has the best writing, best aesthetic, and best level design. >Metal Gear Solid 2 A more advanced, more refined, yet ultimately inferior version of the first game, with one of the very few examples of post-modern storytelling that I enjoy. >Metal Gear Solid 3 This one is probably the best one on a technical level, but I don't like how the game is mostly a straight line from beginning to end. >Metal Gear 2 Proto-MGS1 in 2D form with all that goes along with it. >Ghost Babel Another game that's basically MGS1 in 2D form. Not as good as MG2. >Metal Gear Rising A great 3D beat 'em up with an interesting hook. Almost good enough to redeem the legacy of MGS4. Almost. >Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes A remake of MGS1 in the vein of MGS2. Everything about it is inferior, but the base game is still solid enough to make it a fun time. >Metal Gear I barely played this and don't have much to say about it. What little I played was fun. >Metal Gear Solid 4 Worse than trash. It was a deliberate attempt to destroy everything about the Metal Gear series and spit in the face of anyone who liked it. The only reason I'm not putting it on the bottom is because it can at least provoke some kind of feeling in me. The lower games couldn't even do that. >Peace Walker >Portable Ops >Metal Gear Solid 5 I don't care. I played them and they left no impression on me. It was like playing nothing.

>>983582 >>Four Swords Cool game, but not really a full game. It works surprisingly well if you can actually get at least two players. I managed to set it up with emulators once and it was a good time. I gotta download that DSi version that lets you play it single player. I wonder how well that works. Anyway my main point against this game is just that it's not a full game. I like the content is has for you to play through, though. The single player dsi version works pretty good from what I tried out on a 3ds years ago.

>Double Dash Best god damn physics and overall gameplay-presentation-audio synthesis of any Kart Racer I've seen, including CTR and modded SRB2K. The lack of an online multiplayer mode with the BBA only supporting LAN play and the small track selection are the game's biggest objective criticisms, but with decompilations underway these issues might be remedied in the future barring any tranny-invoked legal interventions. Due to the primitive LAN netcode the game uses online MP through tunneling isn't playable and BBA "netplay" for Dolphin is unlikely to happen soon. >DS Goes a different route with Karts lacking inertia while having the tightest fucking controls in the entire series. The single player campaign, pre-2007 aesthetics, manual drifting and Wi-Fi multiplayer make this a solid second best entry in the series only marred by the online multiplayer mode being somewhat primitive with a 4-player limit and a reduced tracklist that even when the official servers were up could be easily circumvented with an AR code. >7 This game introduced the build-your-Kratt mechanic and in my honest opinion does a much, much better job at it than 8. Controls are slightly heavier than those of DS, but they're still acceptable overall and the Kart parts are balanced decently enough that outside of speedrunning contests specific Kart part combos aren't needed to successfully clear corners, there are also no bikes. Underwater sections and most of the new tracks are painfully mediocre, but the classic track selection is great. Official online multiplayer recently shut down, fan servers exist but they all have dicksword tranny rules banning the Hitler Mii I used for 10 years with no issue so I wouldn't recommend them. >Wii Disappointing. Introduces bikes and the perhaps worst item balance since MK64, the controls and physics are a weird mashup of DS' tight inertia-free controls with the heavier physics-based style of DD, except the physics are gone and replaced with precomputed animations which kill your speed, immersion and fun. Kart balance is also a fuck with Karts being a complete joke compared to bikes because automatic drifting doesn't allow for quick drift chains and snaking like in DS and DD while bikes can spam wheelies for free speed boosts with no repercussions. Some karts and bikes also have difficulty clearing corners, though track design is overall fairly good. Has the biggest community of tranny autist speedrunners of any MK game whose official servers are no longer up and running, their serbs are with few exceptions full of subtle pride flag inserts and kernel-level exploits that deter cheaters and anti-semitic d*lph*n *sers, except the Wiimmfi mods are still banning shitloads of cheaters every day. >64 It's a step up from SMK but hasn't aged too well, but is still playable enough despite all the jank and has nice early 3D Mayro aesthetics. No online MP, emu netplay exists. >8 Shit. Second game with the build-your-Kratt-mechanic now feat. bikes, yet the balance here has gone to complete shit with 50%-75% of the Kart builds being unable to clear basic corners on many tracks. The Wii U version has better visuals and audio while the Switch port has an actual battle mode at the cost of many shaders and reverb effects, it is supported to this day but the DLC as of late has gotten heavily (((international))) with tracks using Western game/franchise names for in-game displays/models even when setting the language to Japanese. Online multiplayer outside of Nintendo's serbs exists and unlike other efforts isn't forcibly marred by tranny mods as it uses tunneled LAN via Ryujinx' and formerly Jewzu's local multiplayer emulation. >Advance Better than SMK, but not by much. Emulated link cable multiplayer/netplay not yet available. >SMK The OG. Very floaty controls and overall a highly janky first-time implementation of Kart gameplay mechanics. Not "bad" per se, but clearly obsoleted by later entries in the series.

>>984429 What about Super Circuit?

>>983582 This thread inspired me to put my nose to the grindstone and get really good at Game & Watch games so I could finally unlock the Zelda Game & Watch in Game & Watch Gallery 4. I thought Zelda had a Modern remake and not just Classic Mode in G&W Gallery 4, but I was wrong. A bit disappointing, since some of those remakes are really good, and actually do change things somewhat significantly (which I like, since the originals are still on there). Good game either way though. Glad I beat it. And yes, you can beat it. You might think it's repetitive, since you're going through the same labyrinth each time you beat the boss, but you do get a piece of the triforce every time, and if you complete the triforce you do get a small cutscene. It also gets harder each time you get a piece of the triforce, and by the end you are playing very differently than at the beginning. Also, one of the few (or maybe only) Game & Watch games with infinite continues. You'll lose your points and not get a high score, but you can continue until you either quit or win. And yes, I did continue many times. My highest score was like 2000 points, from getting many triforce pieces without dying, but there were certain rooms I was stuck in and had to continue many times. All in all, the Zelda Game & Watch is an excellent Game & Watch game, but it's still the worst Zelda game I've played, except for Rosy Rupeeland, which I played but didn't beat because the core mechanic of gambling was so incredibly unfun. I'm still gonna go beat that one soon, but I'll probably just use a guide (which I definitely consider cheating), because I know I hate having to guess how much money to give everybody. And yes, I'm including Faces of Evil and Wand of Gamelon. Are they way worse than the G&W in context of their hardware and time? Yes. But which one did I have less fun with? The G&W. Still did have quite a bit of fun though, once I finally unlocked the damn thing. Now I have to look for a way to play "The Legend of Zelda Game Watch." This is different than the Game & Watch. It's an actual wristwatch LCD game. Came out the same year, 1989, and is not by Nintendo themselves, so people say it's not as good. I still wanna try, though. It's based on Zelda 1, while the G&W is based on Zelda II. Both technically have original stories, though. So as far as I'm concerned, the Game & Watch and Game Watch (in that order) are the last entries in the timeline until Breath of the Wild. >>984543 He called it Advance. Evidently he doesn't think highly of it.

Ace Combat 5>4>0>7>6 I refuse to elaborate.

>Fallout 2 Like Fallout, but more. There's some stuff that feels out of place, like mobster town, talking deathclaws, talking plant, etc, but the Vault City/Redding/New Reno/NCR environment is well done. >Fallout More consistent than Fallout 2, and the only reason it's not first is because I prefer Fallout 2 due to it being simply more of everything. The Boneyard stuff is great, the Brotherhood of Steel are assholes who tell you to go kill yourself when you ask to join, the Water Traders are a neat group, and the Military Base is a great region on the world map. >Fallout 4 The environment is shit, the setting is absolutely braindead, the characters are retarded, the base building easily the worst part of the gameplay. Only reason it's above Fallout: Tactics is because of titty mods. >Fallout: Tactics Good tactics version of Fallout, but I don't really like tactics games. >Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel It's Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, but terribly done in the Fallout setting. >Fallout 3 >Fallout: New Vegas Can't stand the gameplay or graphics. Everything and everyone looks like a poorly shaded potato. It looked bad when it came out. It played bad when it came out. The story and setting might be passable in NV, but I can't stand the gameplay.