Correct on both.

28: Super Mario World. XD

Guessed by Flilix

The Nintendo 64 is my favorite video game system of all-time. Many came and went since, but it still has had the most games that resonated with me. The games on the system never tried to be more than what they are, they were focussed on new innovations in gameplay and they had a certain magic and wonder that's absent in today's games. Many will say it's just 'nostalgia'. But it's not. The games there are genuinely special. 'The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask' is no different. Obviously, this game would always be compared to its famous predecessor so it shouldn't pretend to be more than it was; the sequel to a beloved and groundbreaking game. And that is exactly what 'Majora's Mask' is, Nintendo took the base of its predecessor and upon it built a video game that took liberties and was different, but of a smaller scale, respecting it's parent. This is the perfect sequel, a supplement that fits after the ending of the first game, and I hope Nintendo realised this in the development of another sequel in the Zelda series that faces a similar challenge; the upcoming sequel of 'Breath of the Wild'.

One game worked better on my picture format than the other. Majora's Mask sadly didn't really. I think I'll change the background pics to artworks instead of screenshots next year. Anyway, next game;

#20: I didn't know at the time, but I actually played the better version of this game. On DOS, your character was blond with a plain white shirt and the health bar was merely triangles, but on Mac OS, sprites and backgrounds had a bit more detail, the health bar looked like actual bottles and your character, fitting his title, was even wearing a turban!

I never played these. Went back just to look at the old Unova dex. Lots of classics in there! Which is better? B/W 1 or B/W 2?

Prince of Persia

Yes!

You knew that quickly enough. Great game.

#25 Into the Breach

Into the Breach is a turn based Rogue-Like, where you control a team of three mechs trying to protect humanity's cities from giant bugs. Like Subset Games' previous game FTL, you are thrown into a randomized shop every few turns, and can stumble upon a great variety of Pilots or Crewmembers while playing. The shop lets you buy mech parts to upgrade your mechs as you go through the game. Pilots all have special abilities that improve after leveling up. The brilliant thing about Into the Breach is that it literally tells you what the bugs are going to do on their next turn. It is up to you to then spend your turn doing whatever you can to prevent damage to your cities. There are two health meters in Into the Breach. The first one is the health of your mech. The second one is the health of  your power grid. If cities take damage your power grid is damaged. If your power grid falls your mechs lose all the power that was being supplied to them, and that means game over. Because of this, you'll often find yourself having to decide whether to have a mech jump in front of a bug-bullet that was meant for a power grid building, or just let your grid take the damage. There are a lot of ways to tackle the puzzles this game throws your way. Standing on a fissure with a mech will prevent bug reinforcements from coming out of the ground, but will damage most mechs in the process. Pushing a non-flying bug into water kills it instantly. Raising a smokescreen will prevent many bugs from firing. You can even push and teleport bugs so that they wind up inducing friendly fire on their own kind! With 9 different mech teams to choose from the game is endlessly replayable. Into the Breach is easily one of the best three tactics games of the decade!

20- Dragon Quest VIII

#23

Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 (PlayStation 2)

Change From Last Year: -1

Still the only game in the Persona series I've actually played, though that's mostly because I just haven't yet found the time to play any of the other games. As you can probably guess from its placement in my list I absolutely love this game. The battle system is fun, the music is great, and visually the game still holds up very well thanks to its art style. However, the reason Persona 4 rises above most other games in its genre is its story, and especially its characters and the relationships you get to build with the during the game. 

If I have to criticize Persona 4 for something, it's for the length of some of its dungeons, which often have a tendency to go on for way too long. This is mainly an issue because the dungeons are randomly generated and eventually just end up feeling repetitive because there's no visual variety in them. Once you've seen one floor of a dungeon, you've more or less seen the whole place, and it really gets dull after some time. Besides that, though, this is an amazing game. Even when I was getting seriously annoyed by some of the longer dungeons, I wanted to push through so I could get to the next story beat or character interaction. 

#22

Grandia (PlayStation)

Change From Last Year: -1

I actually replayed Grandia earlier this year for the first time in over eight years, partly because I just wanted to experience the game again, but also because I wanted to see how well it still holds up after so many years, and honestly, besides the obvious dated visuals and the poor voice acting, it's still a genuinely excellent game. The battle system is something other games in the genre should just steal because it's so good, the story is a refreshing take on the usual "save the world" trope in JRPGs, and the characters are some of my favourites in video games in general. 

I love the genuine sense of adventure Grandia manages to create throughout its duration, with a constant sense of discovering the unknown wherever you travel in the world. This makes the main characters very relatable as they are discovering most of these things right alongside the player, as the main characters entire reason for going on journey is to become an explorer finding undiscovered lands.