Discussion Thread – The 13th Annual Greatest Games Event

[UnderwaterFunktown]

Alright I'll just post my next 5 now before I get too far behind. The unguessed ones were 30, 29 and 26 which were Persona 3, Tales of the Abyss and Diablo III.

Placement/ Last Year	Write-up	(Box) Art
#30 #33	Persona 3 FES Persona 3 is a bit of a lobsided experience with a lot of excellent elements and some that are lacking. The story is one of the excellent elements with an epic finale as well and the music is another one with a top tier soundtrack. There are also several interesting characters both in and outside of your party which is great since half the experience of a Persona game is interacting with those characters. Unfortunately, the other half of the experience, the dungeon crawling, leaves a lot to be desired here. Tartarus is quite simply repetitive with more than 200 randomly generated floors with mostly just aesthetic differences, and the combat, while not terrible as such, is very limited by the fact that you only directly control one of 4 party members. Now it is true that the later PSP version fixed this problem, but unfortunately it was a downgrade in many other regards, leaving Persona 3 in an awkward place with no one definitive edition, which is why (as unlikely as it is) I think it could benefit immensely from a ground-up remake someday combing the best of both worlds and giving Tartarus a serious rework. A man can dream at least, but regardless, even flawed as it is there’s still enough greatness here for me to consider P3 among my favorite JRPGs.
#29 #27	Tales of the Abyss Unlike Persona 3 with its “lopsidedness”, Tales of the Abyss is to me a very balanced JRPG that delivers strongly on all fronts even if it doesn’t necessarily stand out quite as much in any particular one. It mimics closely another game higher on my list and well that might be part of the reason I love it, learn from the best as they say. Tales of the Abyss is probably overdue for a replay however as, while I remember the characters well, some of the details of the story are getting hazy to me by now, but I do know that I thoroughly enjoyed it the first time around.
#28 #29	NieR: Automata 2017 was really a packed year for great games, so I think many, myself included, only got to try out this gem a bit further down the line. It has long been clear that Platinum knows what they’re doing when it comes to combat and yep; they nailed it here as well. Throw on top of that a beautiful semi-open world and some great characters and it’s a recipe for success. I have to admit that the story itself is a bit up and down for me, but when it hits, it hits hard and there are certainly some parts in there that I won’t soon be forgetting.
#27 #25	Super Mario Odyssey Well yeah, it’s Super Mario Odyssey what can I say? It’s fun, it’s charming, the open levels are a blast to explore and the new moves Mario can pull off with Cappy allow for more advanced platforming than ever. It’s a pretty easy game to beat for sure, but also provides some challenges here and there for those that are up for the task. I think my one issue with this platforming masterpiece was that the many, many moons were sprinkled a bit too generously around the levels. It does kind of devalue them a bit when sometimes you can get one for simply ground-pounding in the right spot. But regardless of its questionable moon economy I would most definitely call Odyssey one of the best 3D platformers out there.
#26 #23	Diablo III A bit of a divisive title for sure, but personally I always liked Diablo III and after the Reaper of Souls expansion there was a while were I really loved it. I think the main reason I enjoyed it so much is that the combat itself just feels head and shoulders above other top-down RPGs I’ve played. There are tons of abilities to choose from with variations to each one, and while I know a few were against it I very much enjoyed that you could respec on the fly since it let you try out everything and allowed you to go for a completely different build if you found some gear that complimented it. It also serves to the game’s credit that I felt compelled to create characters of every class and get them to high level. It’s been a few years since I’ve played the game now, but maybe one day I’ll pick up the Necromancer DLC and give it another go.