35. Skies of Arcadia

First Played: 2003

Number of Times completed: 3

Skies of Arcadia is a typical enough JRPG, but it does everything so well that it remains one of my favourites. Developed by a team of Sega JRPG veterans, coming from the Phantasy Star and Panzer Dragoon teams, this is quite a different experience from either but ultimately I enjoy it more. The game has a feel of optimism and grand adventure, in a similar way to Grandia but as much as I like Grandia, I think Skies of Arcadia does it better, and the way the 3D overworld of the skies is uncovered as venture forth and make discoveries is a great touch that gives a feeling of exploration. The music is really incredible and I like the way the overworld theme adapts to reflect nearby areas. As well as the typical sized party of memorable characters, you can also recruit additional crew members to give advantages in battle or in exploration.

Skies of Arcadia was ported to the GameCube, with a few extras and this is where I first played it. Unfortunately, the Dreamcast and GameCube are the only places to play this game (outside of emulation). I would really like to see a port to modern systems.

You know, I didn't even realise you wrote Kirk: Hope, I just ignored that bit....ah well at least I guessed right. It's a really good game and it easily made my list too (though I do like the DKC trilogy a lot more).

#41 Majora's Mask

Majora's Mask started out as my most hated Zelda game. We went from Ocarina of Time with 8+ dungeons to this with only 4 dungeons. That made the game feel lazily developed, to my 16 year old eyes. But as time went  on a few things happened that made this game better and better, in hindsight. It became clear that Ocarina was once in a lifetime game that was virtually impossible to top. I also realized that Majora's Mask only had a year and half development time. Finally, with the releases of Windwaker, Twilight Princess, and Skyward Sword it was clear that Majora's Mask was unique and special in a lot of ways. The intricate time travel system, where you had to relive the same three days was brilliant. Characters in this game had their own schedules, and lives. So if you wanted to get a certain mask or piece of heart you had to visit different places at different times, using time travel to get items and unlock events that you normally wouldn't be able to get without time travel. For example: Let's say the postman delivers a letter on the 1st day, but he will only give that letter up if you have an item that can be obtained on the 2nd day of the game. But that item in turn requires another item that needs you to wait until a certain someone has left their house on an errand on the 1st day, right when the postman is delivering the letter that you so badly want! Being able to transform into each of the three different races in the Zelda universe made each dungeon unique. Honestly it was basically Super Mario Odyssey's mechanic only 17 years sooner. Every time you put on a mask to turn into a race you were effectively in a different body than your own. Then there was the ridiculously dark story, and the fact that you were in a parralell dimension to Hyrule. So you got to see doppleganger versions of all the traditional Zelda characters. This gave the writers more free reign to write the story that they wanted, and not another "defeat Ganon" story. It worked out extremely well!

#40 Xenoblade Chronicles 2

Monolithsoft is hands down the best open world designer ever. "But their games aren't really open world!" Sure their games aren't truly open world, but they have something other open world games don't have. Explorabilty. Xenoblade 2's open areas are complex and intricate in a way that other open world games just aren't. You can get lost in a Xenoblade 2 area. How long did it take you to find every nook and cranny of the Gormott province? Now, how long would it take you to find all the secrets in a similarly sized open world area? Well, the field's just outside of Whiterun are about twice the size of Gormott and contain pretty much jack squat. Just a few farms, and maybe a cave or two. Lots of games will have small intricate levels, and lots of games will have large open expanses of nothing. Xenoblade 2 just strikes that perfect middle ground. I thoroughly enjoyed the unapologetic anime characters and story. What a lot of people saw as pure cringe in the plot, I saw as the game just taking the piss out of itself. A key example are the Poppi and Tora maid jokes. This self aware comedy just made the game so much better. There's a ton of characters to recruit and use in this game. The game is grindy without feeling grindy, because you naturally unlock things as you explore the world around you. You don't notice that you had to sent characters on 1000 missions, because while that was going on you were fighting new monsters, or figuring out how to get to that new area you can see, but can't quite reach yet. The battle system is even better than the 1st Xenoblade and the most fun I ever had was unlocking all of the burst orbs mid combat to do a combo to the final post game boss. I still have to play Torna so this game may get a better ranking next year. 

#39 Tales of Symphonia

This is my favorite Tales game. The adventures of Lloyd, Genis and friends is just a really damned good example of an action RPG. The game follows a typical town, dungeon, town outline, but just keeps you interested overall with it's excellent writing and plot. Between each town and dungeon is a really nice explorable overworld area with a lot of off the beaten path things to do. Thanks to being an action RPG the combat never really gets boring or tedious. It really is a shame that I can't talk more about this game, but 90% of its greatness has to do with the plot, and I just don't want to spoil it for anybody. Just play it!

Yes Descent was a decent game... I'll see myself out now...

#45 - Custom Robo Arena - DS

A fairly deep and engaging action game where you control your little robo in a arena, quite a lot costumization with their weapons and parts, gives them long range slower attacks, faster short range and the like, never played the multiplayer component but it seems like a lot of fun given the single player, a fairly challenging and well done story mode, which seemingly for this series it likes to go from 0 to 100 in darkness from time to time, more so the Gamecube game, overall a very solid game that I wish Nintendo would bring back.

#44 - Ys Origin - PC

The peak of the series for me, because video game prequels are just the best. The most refined Ys with its classic and simple hack n' slash combat, the usual linear but well designed world (in this case just a tower), the incredibly memorable boss fights, with a fairly good story for Ys standards, the amazing music the series is known for and honestly, I would rather have Yunica than Adol as the protagonist of this series. Just a short and sweet adventure.

#43 - Iconoclasts - NS

Time for a couple of Metroid style games, first the more story driven one, Iconoclasts is an amazing experience, on top of solid mechanics and exploration worthy of the genre, inventive bosses and catchy OST, it has a really good story going for it, establishes characters that aren't right or wrong in their ideologies and fairly flawed personalities, they feel incredibly human, you'll dislike the main cast at times, other times you'll like them, but that is the charm of it.

#42 - Shantae & The Pirate's Curse - Wii U/NS

The best Shantae adventure, it has the best designed world of the series, plus really good abilities that makes you feel more empowered when you backtrack and clean up the world, since the world is so well adapted to the use of these like the best Metroid games, is the game of the genie with the best pacing and mechanics. It also continued a nice story arc set up by the previous game, making the series feel connected and giving it a grander sense of narrative, while still keeping it simple, which sadly was done away with in Half Genie Hero. Anyways, Pirate's Curse is an excellent, fun time.

Crazy action games time.

#41 - Viewtiful Joe 2 - GC

Sequels to Hideki Kamiya's directed works are usually a super polished version of the previous title, Kamiya gives a framework for an incredibly original and charming game that will hopefully get a sequel that perfects the mechanics, VJ2 is one of those titles, very few match the pure fun of this 2D platformer beat em up series and 2 is a great step up for the already beautiful first game, if you like Okami, Bayonetta or W101, this is another of those instant classics. With its very original movie themed mechanics, slow down time, fast forward and zooming in not only for the good variety of combat mechanics and smart puzzles.

#40 - Yakuza 0 - PC

Yakuza is a basic beat em up, with a ton of side stories and minigames to enjoy, but what I really love about them, is how gamey they are, the developers understand that a video game can have a wacky, amazingly fun gameplay and during cutscenes you can tell a grounded and emotional story, I respect the series and the dev team for that, they aren't ashamed of making a video game with this kind of more realistic visual style. A very hype af video game.

#39 - Devil May Cry 3 - PS2

Still the best Devil May Cry for me, it has an amazing pace, the game knows when to throw the next boss fight, the next big moment, when to slow down, is a fantastic ride from beginning to end on top of a great amount of mechanics sustained by enemy and boss designs that makes you exploit them to a very good extent.

#38 - Bayonetta 2 - Wii U / NS

Bayonetta 2 fixes every issue with the first game and delivers one of the most tight action games ever alongside the mighty DMC3, again helped by a very good pace, which is very important in this genre, the great combat of Bayonetta 1 polished up, added more punch to it with the Umbran Climax mechanic, with a nice close up story that ties so well to the first game, pretty much surpasses the first game in almost every aspect, except the final boss.

#37 - Xenoblade Chronicles X - Wii U

I'm that weird guy that prefers this to Xenoblade 1 and 2 by a decent margin. Mira was an absolute joy to explore, all 5 continents have a great sense of scale and it delivered on having a lot of things to do within that scale. Here the main story isn't the most important thing, the spotlight is on the side quests, the best of the series, the amount of worldbuilding and development you get out of these is incredible, loved the world so much that I 100% the game, clocking around 220 hours on it. The artsyle and monster design is incredible for me and give it that extra feel to making this world feel truly alien.

X has a good number of flaws in its combat and gameplay and the end of the main story leaves a lot more to be desired, because cliffhangers are fun, it has been a painful wait, more so when the studio decides to redo an already complete game instead of continuing the one that needs it the most. But those flaws didn't take away from one of the most immersive worlds I had the pleasure to experience, it truly captivated me.

And this is all tied together by the masterful soundtrack done by Hiroyuki Sawano, the greatest gift of X was getting an entire video game soundtrack made entirely by one of my favorite composers, the identity of Mira was cemented with the music and I won't have another game without him on board.

A fairly flawed but unforgettable game for me.

Here are my next set of clues:

35.  Gummi Ship

34.  The story and characters in this fantasy game bear a decent resemblance to Star Wars.  Although, I guess that means the Chewbacca role would be a bunny woman in this case.

33.  "We're tired of making the most popular franchise ever.  You make it this time."

32.  This is the first time this fantasy series had voice acting.  The main character did a lot of talking to himself as a sort of narration.

31.  The villain in this game is kind of like the Joker in a fantasy game.

As DXX-Rebirth promises higher resolution and better visuals on the old game files, I'll try it out in the future. Maybe thatsoftens the blow to play an old game. Anyways, I am serious that the six degrees of freedom are a hard pill to swallow if you are used to normal 3D games. At first I was totally lost in these levels, because I had way too much options in which directions to go. And it is easy to overlook a door in the ceiling. If you get used to it though, it is a lot of fun alone navigating the levels.

#33: Super Mario Maker (which one isn't in your hint)

#32: Final Fantasy X had Tidus talk a lot to himself