Alright, let's get to the top 10. Probably gonna be a few days into the new year before I finish this list up.
10. Red Dead Redemption
I know that many, perhaps most, would have RDR2 ahead of this. Personally, I just can't get there. 2 certainly has a top tier story, performances, and the world is beautifully realized down to every minute detail. But the thing is, RDR1 isn't exactly a slouch in these departments either, it's damn fucking excellent, in fact. And where RDR2 often feels tedious to play, due to some overbearing systems, and poor pacing, RDR1 was just a fun to play all the way through. And come on, that ending...legendary.
9. Legend of Dragoon
One of the first JRPGs I ever played, and my favorite PS game to this day. I generally replay it once per year. Some of it is a bit basic. Color coded characters. Obvious writing tropes for certain characters. Hell, even the names of a lot of enemies are hilariously uncreative. That said, none of it hampers my love for this game. I love the world, the story, the characters, the lore, and I love the addition combat system. The fact that this IP remains utterly untapped by Sony, is a crying shame.
8. Jade Empire
Speaking of untapped IP...Jade Empire. Another game largely forgotten in time. Released in a golden era of RPGs, and Bioware's own personal prime, this game could have made for every bit as good a franchise as the later released Mass Effect, and Dragon Age games. It's got all the hallmarks you expect from them, so if you ever played a great Bioware game, you know pretty much what to expect. I cannot understate enough, however, that just because this game was quickly overshadowed by Bioware's greatest games ever, doesn't mean that this game isn't fucking amazing. Because it is. Play this game!
7. Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
My personal favorite ES game. There are arguments to be made for why Morrowind before it, or Skyrim after it, might in fact be the superior games. Skyrim is certainly more enjoyable to play on a minute by minute basis. Morrowind is in many ways a deeper RPG. Oblivion however, sits at a cross between them. More fun to play than Morrowind, deeper than Skyrim, and imo the best writing and quest design that Bethesda has put forth in any of these games. The perfect blend. It also didn't hurt, of course, that this was my first Xbox 360 games, and that was a pretty damn memorable way to start a generation. The Thieves guild and Black Hand questlines in particular will always stick with me.
6. Elden Ring
Undoubtedly, the most impressive game FromSoft has made to date. Leading up the release of this game, I very much was expecting "just" open world Dark Souls, and while that is in many ways exactly what it turned out to be, I never imagined it would be executed to such masterful effect. Even in the opening hours of Elden Ring, I was still unconvinced that this game would live up to all the pre-release hype. But the game just never stopped the surprising and delighting me, the deeper I got. The world design in wonderful, and it's got one of the best maps (and utilization of said map) that I've ever seen in a game. Of course, it's excellent in all the ways that FromSoft games are usually excellent, but it's really scale that sets this game apart. I think I lost track at the amount of times I gasped at the scale of this game during my initial playthrough. And not in the "oh god...there's more..." way, that many games induce these days.
