12. Super Metroid
Another one of the SNES' big 5 games. Super Metroid wasn't the first Metroidvania. That title belong's to the first game in the series. But the NES couldn't quite bring the Metroidvania genre to it's full potential. Super Metroid looks and feels as if somebody over at Nintendo had spent weeks watching the old Aliens films, and reading sci-fi comic books. The level design is intricately laid out, so that the player is always discovering new things, while being slowly guided in a general direction. Most games of this era shackle the player, telling them where to go, and what to do. Instead, this game just gives you a giant playground with various power ups and abilities thrown in, and sets you free. This leads to a natural progression, and growth of your character. It all culminates in one of the greatest boss fights ever. You're sitting there at the end of the game, and you're dying. Then the most unexpected, epic, and sad thing happens to save you. It makes you look at the creatures you've been hunting down, and killing in a different way. Anyway, this is an absolute must play, and it has lead to many copy cats, which are arguably just as good. This one just did it twenty years before them.
11. Metroid Prime
Oh look another Metroid game. Retro Studios somehow kept the same feeling in the art direction while moving the game to 3D. Prime added three key elements that didn't quite exist in the previous games. They are the descriptive lore, the 3D Morph Ball, and the different scan settings. The ability to scan and read about everything added a massive catalog of lore to the series. Whoever did the writing at Retro Studios pulled out all the stops for this. Everything in this game has great descriptions in the scan visor. How do you make a description of just a simple door sound so compelling? The Morph Ball in 3D leads to some of the most unique and interesting puzzles in any game I've ever come across. Once you get the magnetic Morph Ball the puzzles really get crazy. The X-Ray, and Thermal visors are the first ever rendition of Batman's "Detective Mode", Geralt's "Witcher Senses". These modes of gameplay for revealing hidden secrets of the map have become a staple of many games. Metroid Prime is an absolute classic and perfect to a degree that few games reach these days.
10. Resident Evil 4
WELCOME... MR. KENNEDY!!!
This may be a long one. This game did sooooo many things right. This was the first game to have context sensitive actions dedicated to a single button. This meant that climbing, opening a container, kicking a plagues etc. all worked on the same single button. Then we have the introduction of quick time events. Except that they weren't lame, or easy. They spiced up boring cutscenes and turned them into thrilling sequences. The Knife fight halfway through the game is tense and memorable, because you're not just a passive spectator anymore. The game forces you to stay on your toes, or die, and that leads to feeling the same tension as Leon. The weapon and item storage system is genius. Forcing you to make do with limited space in your cache of items lead to a great survival horror feel. All the weapons are upgradable, leading to multiple ways to play the game. Do you want to pistol snipe people for headshots, or SMG everyone to death? How about using a high powered rifle throughout the entire game? RE4 constantly changes things up on the player, meaning no two encounters are alike. One minute you're holding off a horde of crazed villagers in a little house, and the next minute you're riding down a minecart as villagers take potshots at you (with thrown axes). In most games escort quests suck, but RE4 revolutionized them, by having the escort character be carried away instead of take damage. This is another game that is PERFECT, PERFECT, PERFECT!
