FFIX?

20. FFIX?

18. Valkyria Chronicles?

Both correct!  It's funny that Alex posted his clue right after mine.

#36 Animal Crossing New Leaf

Sadly, this will probably be the last time this game shows up on my top 50 list. Animal Crossing always gets better with each new release, and I try not to put more than one game per series on this list, so New Horizons will almost certainly take it's place. Animal Crossing's visuals and sound design are so damned charming. The way the world curves around you as you walk, the goofy nonsense chattervoices of your neighbors, the way your villager reacts to a dropped beehive. Then there's the gameplay which is basically, a friend, and relaxing life simulator. Animal Crossing New Leaf drops your character into a village full of well, Animals. You are then tasked with going on a collectathon hunt for Fossils, Fish, Bugs, Furniture, Clothing, and Friends. Everytime you find a new item you can either sell it for cash (and pay to make your house bigger), turn it into the local museum, or gift it to a neighbor. The game has an internal clock, and calendar that changes the game based on the time of the day, and the time of the year. You'll usually exhaust your village of important things to do within the first hour of the first day, but every morning the game refreshes it's stock of things to find. A result of this is that most people play Animal Crossing for about an hour a day, just gathering their morning mail, fossils, talking to people, and catching whatever new bugs or fish the change of seasons brings. Lots of different villagers can move in and out of your village too. New Leaf has a ton of replay value because of all this, and it's my 2nd most played game on the 3DS. I could not be more hyped for it's Switch successor New Horizons, which comes out in March!

#35 Halo Combat Evolved

And here is what I can confidently call Most Influential Game of the Decade (2000 - 2009). Quick! How many games come out every year that are multiplayer FPS games? And how many people play those games on a twin analogue stick controller? Yeah, Halo pretty much changed console FPS for good, when it came out. Yes, Goldeneye also paved the way for console FPS, but Halo was the first game to allow you to hook up multiple consoles, and have multiplayer matches with up to 16 people at once. The lore of Halo, that there's this alien coalition of religious zealouts out to destroy humanity is just really damned original. So is the fact that almost the entire game takes place on a massive ringworld. My favorite Halo levels are the ones where you stumble upon a group of human soldiers being besieged by Covenant. You can then run in and change the outcome of the battle, by doing several important things mid fight. Halo was originally developed as an RTS game and it shows in these levels. There's a sniper keeping your poor marines from advancing to cover, an alien tank that's shooting mortar rounds at you, and ranks of grunts marching in for the kill. These levels where you turn the tide of battle between two opposing groups of NPCs really feel like a battlefield, because of their RTS origins. Later on you get a similar feeling when the Flood, Covenant, and Humans all have a three way fight in the final levels of the game. The AI holds up really damned well too. Enemies know just how to use cover, jump out of the way of a grenade blast, flank you, or in the grunt's case, flee in hilarious terror! I really do just want all FPS AI scripters to play this game, and focus on making their NPC enemies half as smart as the ones from Halo. Especially the Elites. Those guys were brutal at times! Playing some of the re-released versions of this game in co-op mode on Legendary difficulty is a blast to this day!

#34 Advance Wars Dual Strike

Damn I miss this series! If Intelligent Systems ever gets tired of making Fire Emblem games, it sure would be nice for them to pay this series a visit! What makes this series so different from Fire Emblem is that your units are not unique characters in the game, and that you can buy more units mid battle. Intelligent Systems really pulled out all the stops with this entry including every single commander from the first two games, a serious commander customization system, and several new units. But, by far, what makes this game shine are the two front battles! You'll be commanding a small assault team on the top screen, while defending your main base, with another team, on the bottom screen. Neither of the two teams can have any effect on the other team's fight, but if you lose one fight you either lose them both, or the remaining fight becomes much harder. Think of how the Rebels trying to take out the Death Star's ground based shield generator effected the ship battle above, and you'll get the right idea. Different commanders in this game have different effects on units. One commander might give all helicopters a +1 movement bonus. Another commander will make your artillery and sniper units shoot farther. Every match you get to use two commanders at once in a single army.This is hands down, one of the best tactics game's I've ever played!

Correct!

#24 - Final Fantasy IX (PS1): FF9 was the first PS1 Final Fantasy I played, after beating all titles on SNES. I remember being impressed with the graphics and the CGs at the beginning of the game. A true masterpiece to finish the PS1 library, and still one of my favorite RPGs ever!

Metroid: Samus Returns?

Samus Returns?

#33 Arkham Asylum 

In case you haven't noticed by now, one of my favorite genres is Metroidvania. I especially like it when other games borrow heavily from this genre. So, whether you want to call Arkham Asylum a Metroidvania game or not is beside the point. I prefer this one to the sequels, simply because the tighter spaces make for more things to discover per square foot. Batman has a huge list of Gadgets in this game from plastic explosives, to zip lines, to a wide array of batarangs. You'll use a lot of these devices to get past the games stealth sections, where you are tasked with taking out every enemy without being seen. Or at least most of them without being seen. Batman isn't bulletproof and these villains are packing machineguns, so all it takes is two or three enemies aware of where you are and you are pretty much toast. There's plenty of places high above to grapple hook to, ducts to crawl in, and destroyable walls to blow up. Outside of the stealth sections you'll fight enemies that come at you with just their fists, and no guns. Lots of great villians from Batman's rogues galleries show up in this game as well. Oh, and the voice cast is straight out of the 90's animated series. So there's that. Anyway, it still holds the crown for best superhero game to date. Yes, even better than Insomniac's recent Spider-Man game!

#32 Smash Ultimate 

I'm going to be lazy with this one. It's freaking Smash Bros. But with every character included. And a very beefy single player mode. And everything has been tweaked down to the Nth degree. There's a reason this is the best selling fighting game of all time!

#31 Valkryia Chronicles

I'm always torn between this one and the 4th one. Anyway I love this game for its unique take on strategy. The game is a mix of turn based, and RTS. Your army takes turns acting in real time. Totally makes sense! Or to put it another way you take turns controlling your army characters in a 3rd person shooter mode. Valkyria Chronicles has an excellent story happening in an Anime version of Europe, during an Anime version of WWII. The game looks gorgeous thanks to it's watercolor artstyle. 

What did Mnementh guess?

OK, I fell massively behind, which means at some point I will spam the thread with game descriptions for the already guessed games. But to get ahead, I need to drop further hints for the upcoming games.

#24 Guessed by The_Liquid_Laser: Return to Zork

a) Return to one of the oldest gaming series in existence.

#23

a) The only Wii entry in this classic series featuring magic, shapeshifters and kingdoms.

#22

a) This is the first entry in a series, where you command a group of units through various missions.

#21 Guessed by Darashiva: Deus Ex: Human Revolution

a) Play in Detroit and Shanghai.

#20

a) Prior to the release of the newest entry a few months ago, this game was the best-selling entry in an old series.