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50. Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story

The story is one of the better in the Mario series. It's not a "great" story, but does capture the spirit of the Mario series, has plenty of memorable characters, provides plenty of fun scenarios, and Fawful. Bowser makes a great transition to the M&L series, making a great counterpart to the already solid Bros gameplay. The graphics and music are lovely. We also got some great boss fights, including Kaiju Bowser fights. The "Bros in Body" gimmick is good in battles. The game's main flaw would be its slow opening, but the last 85% or so is delightful.

 

49. Mega Man X

I don't like the classic Mega Man games very much. I can appreciate the level design and solid gameplay, but there are too many cheap moments, subpar special weapons, awkward vertical moments, and silly bosses. Top Man existed in one of the more beloved games. Mega Man X suceeds by retaining the best qualities of the NES games, but gives the player far more mobility with the added wall jumping and dashing on continuous stages. The hidden upgrades for Health and armor give good reasons to revisit levels with new powers. And the bosses and powers are consistently enjoyable and useful respectively. Oh, and the music is amazing. REALLY amazing. My favorites are the themes for the Intro stage, Zero, Spark Mandrill's stage, Storm Eagle's stage, Armored Armadillo's stage, Sigma Stage 1, and Dr Light.

 

48. Silent Hill 2

Silent Hill 2 is pretty widely lauded already, so a few scattered thoughts.

First, you know that trend in recent horror games where the player is absolutely unable to defend themself? The focus is almost entirely on running and/or hiding. It's not a bad approach, but I feel Silent Hill 2 does things better by giving you very limited combat capabilities. You can't simply give up when seen by an enemy and/or cornered, you still have the option of using your stick to clumsily beat off the monster. Giving the player hope makes the eventual despair greater.

Hearing the radio's static was weird. On one hand, there was the horror of the unseen monster, but there was also a sense of relief. You spend so much time with just you, James, and the town of Silent Hill in an awkward silence that a monster breaks the tension as much as anything. You fear even the weaker ones, but also welcome the brief relief from the overwhelming lonliness.

James is the rare Great protagonist for this sort of horror. First, he is not an idiot. Too many characters in horror either act like utter dunces or show a complete lack of genre savviness. James is smart enough to know that he is in some fucked up shit and is likely to suffer a horrid fate. It's just that he's willing to accept that. Because he knows that there's nothing outside of the town worth running away to. And you can feel that in his voice, how he moves, how he acts around others.

You know Pyramid Head? I don't think it's a single monster. Not only do you run into two of them eventually, but you just encounter them very often considering how slowly they move if there weren't at least a few of them. And they only stop popping up after they kill themselves. They are slow, deliberate, powerful, and inevitable, but then they choose to stop. You never get to resolve your "conflict" with them. You just move on. Ah. Well played game.

Wow. Such Doge. Much Spooky. So Scheming. Very Silly.