Spurred on by some games I've been playing recently and a few threads I've been reading today, I wanted to make a thread to have people provide their opinion on what they think the most 'balanced' games are.

What do I mean by balanced?  Well, I mean, games that had well designed gameplay, but also good progression of difficulty.  When you were playing it, you felt the game was challenging, but not so much that it was cheap or frustrating or unsatisfying.  In short, what games have the best combination of gameplay and difficulty progression.

As examples, I'm going to list the ten best examples I can come up with.  By no means do people need to list 10 games or follow my example.  These are just examples:

1. Ocarina of Time (N64) - Kind of a no brainer to list this one.  While many people consider this game to be one of the best of all time, part of that goes to the fact that it had such superb development.  Even down to the smallest detail, you can see they were focusing on how the player would respond to each new area, each new dungeon, even each mini-game.  Its truly one of the most balanced games ever made.

2. Chrono Trigger (SNES) - While many people may love the game for a number of reasons, one major factor for that love may be its sheer balanced gameplay.  The ability for a person to literally go from the beginning of the game to the end fighting every enemy once and always being at the appropriate level for every boss, every fight, everything you face.  And still feeling challenged.  It is the epitome of the balanced JRPG.

3.Tetris (GB) - Really now, what's more balanced then the original Tetris?  Its the most basic but original form of staged progression with skill as your only tool of proceeding to the next level.

4. Super Metroid (SNES) - While most Metroid games have good balance, Super Metroid is just one of those games that's nearly flawless in its gameplay/difficulty ratio.  It had everything, from boss battles to hidden items to find to challenging obstacles to overcome.  But everything was done so well, you hardly even noticed it.  And that's its greatest effect.

5. Resident Evil 4 (GCN) -When you think of RE4, the first thing that comes to mind may not be 'balance'.  In fact, for many of you, it may be 'annoying bosses and quick time events'.  But make no mistake, in the midst of all these things, there's a lot of carefully crafted progression.  While you may think the huge hulking giant near the beginning of the game was annoying, it was just preparing you for tougher bosses later on.  Which you probably cleared a lot easier.  And even when you did die, it was a lot easier to defeat bosses or areas a second time when you knew what to do.

6. Metal Slug (Arcade/Neo Geo) - Ah, the original Metal Slug.  The sequels may have added a lot of variety and fun to the series, but the original is still the most balanced.  Which may be why its still remembered as one of the best games ever made.  Sure, you may die a lot playing it, but its the perfect example of a game where trial and error really does make you better.

7. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (PSX) - What is there to say that hasn't been said for many of these games.  Symphony of the Night not only went that extra mile with how they developed the game, but the games progression is very well developed.  Each boss sets a new challenge and the areas in between let you utilize every item, weapon and action Alucard can muster.

8. Bugs Bunny Birthday Blowout (NES) - What's this!  An NES game!  And a not very well known one at that!  Well aside from one particularly famous skit on a certain site, where it seemed said person didn't even play the game correctly, this game actually has some of the best balance out there.  Each area gets a little more difficult and your skills can be used in various ways to get you out of all sorts of jams.  An all around well developed platformer that surprisingly has very good balance on the level of a Mario or Kirby title.  Speaking of which...

9. Super Mario Galaxy (Wii) - When it comes to Mario games, there's so many and some of them aren't balanced at all.  Some of them are quite hard, like The Lost Levels, while others are almost too easy, like Paper Mario.  But among them all, Mario Galaxy comes out as not only the most balanced Mario game in my eyes, but one of the most balanced games out there.  Each new area brings new challenges, and a set of goals that are both fun and challenging that make you utilize all the gameplay elements given to you.  And that's exactly what good balance is.

10. Dragon Quest V (SNES/DS) - In a game that spans over 25 years, you are able to capture over 70 monsters to use in your party and marry one of three girls, there's a ton of variables that go into the gameplay side.  But through it all, somehow the games developers managed to take those things and use them to make the games progression balanced.  Even with such random variables as allowing the player to explore an open world and recruit any number of monsters to use, somehow the the games bosses are still a challenge, but not overbearing.  Much like Chrono Trigger, this other Yuji Horii developed RPG is a testament to balance in JRPGs.

Guild Wars (PC) - In PvE, there were some hugely overpowered tactics you could use, but in PvP, there was never a character build that could not be countered by another build. People invented some great builds over the years, and the fact that people can keep coming with new skillsets to use in a good combination speaks volumes of its balance IMO.

i thought galaxy was like what your describing

i also thought Brawl was the MOST balanced fighter i have ever played. nothing like other fighters where unlocking a new characters meant that he was stronger than the ones you had before (DBZ BT3)

Really?

You might want to rethink that one.  Unless of course that's the skit you're talking and in that case, well, you're just wrong.  You might like the game but a bad game is a bad game (and yes, I've played it).

TF2 is very balanced.

Funny how opinions are 'just wrong'.

And yes, that was the 'skit' I was referring to.  And yes, as I said, he was playing the game wrong.  Most likely you were as well.  Would you run into turtles headfirst or hit a hammer brother from the bottom while Playing Mario?  No.  Then why did he smash Clocks with a hammer and jump into fire enemies and then complain 'the game sucks'!  I love AVGN, but this is one time he seemed to just be trying to make a game seem bad by playing it wrong when it wasn't bad in the first place.

Saying I like a game is an opinion but if I like something like Bomberman Zero that doesn't make it a good game.

Just because you shield something with it's my opinion doesn't mean you can't be wrong.  Bugs Bunny Birthday Blowout is a bad game, plain and simple.  I honestly don't remember why it's terrible, I just remember I saw it for $0.99 years and years ago and thought well this could be interesting since I enjoy random NES games and it was ass.

Again, you can like bad games, that doesn't make it a good game.  That game was easily on the middle-low teir of NES games.  Not bad enough to be an LJN game but not good enough to be actually good.  There's a very good reason a lot of people haven't played that game.  If it were actually good, you would haven't have to preface it with not very well known and I wouldn't be able to buy it for $0.99.

Starcraft should be on that list. Maybe not when it first came out, but now it's probably the most balanced RTS of all time.

I always bring up Wave Race Blue Storm as an example of the best difficulty progression to suit me. It wasn't easy to run through it, but neither was it frustrating.

Alrighty then, think what you want.  I really don't want to start an argument over 'what's the basis of an opinion'.  This thread isn't about what games people personally like or a thread about starting arguments.  Its about what games you yourself found to have good balance.  If you didn't understand the implied opinion of everyones choices, then oh well.  I even said 'opinion' in the first sentence of my first post.

All I'm going to say further on the subject is you're trying to say my opinion is 'wrong' with your own opinion on the game.