#42 - Heavenly Sword (PS3)

As guessed by Kantor.  Having never played a God of War or Ninja Gaiden game (I know, I know) I picked this up on the cheap recently and was blown away.  The game was absolutely gorgeous to look at, the set pieces were really enjoyable and the scale towards the end of the game was fantastic.  And the story was surprisingly well told, as well as the characters being incredibly touching (particularly Kai).  A great treat that I really wasn't expecting.

Clue for my #41 - one of the more obscure games on my list.  A PS2 RPG which was ported to Gamecube some time later, casting you as queen of an empire and a goddess reborn.

42nd - Vagrant Story (PSX, 2000)
The first game on my list set on the Ivalice lore created by one of the best Squaresoft director, Yasumi Matsuno, Vagrant story is an epic tale of soul searching, betrayal and death, with Ashley Riot searching the truth behind the events of the murder of his family, assasination of a proeminent duke of Valencia and the truth behind the events that led to the sinking of the city of Lea Monde and the organization that seeks to use the city's power. 
With an unique mix of action RPG mechanics and puzzle solving plus dungeon crawling, Vagrant Story's gameplay is one of the most expansive and hard to master in any RPG. The Battle system, which heavily uses elements from another Squaresoft masterpiece, Parasite Eve, is complex enough that it can possibily put off a lot of newcomers to the genre and hardened veterans as well. Chain combos with small time windows, Risk Arts, Break Arts, Defensive Abilities and a huge crafting system with over 15 parameters which each influence your chance of sucess or failure against every enemy in the game, all this has to be mastered in order to have an opportunity to progress in the game.
Vagrant Story also has a very extensive character development, with a lot of characters showing a very well thought planning, such as Ashley, Sydney, Callo, Hardin, Guildernstern and many other, less proeminent characters. 

      

Summoner 2?

Forgot to add hints for number 41:

- One of the many dickish Japan only best versions of a PS2 amazing Square RPG.

You certainly know your stuff! :)

I bought my PS2 with Summoner back in the days and I kinda enjoyed it, so I bought Summoner 2 too. It was kinda a shame that they removed random field encounters on the 2nd though, even though Summoner 2 was much better than it's predecessor.

Yeah, I've had mixed feelings about Summoner 1.  I played 2 first and then went back to play the original, and it just never pulled me in.  I liked the random field encounters actually, but everything else about the game was just so slow (chaining combat; story progression was slow etc.)  

I feel like they really got everything right in 2.  The story flowed much better; the characters were more interesting; the combat was faster paced and many of the set pieces for the story were very interesting (particularly city of masks, which was just beautiful).  Wasn't too long either, clocked in at about 18 hours to finish.

Nice to meet someone else who's played the games, though :)

I liked the story too, particulary the ending, where she becomes the tree of Ulah herself after defeating the Tempest. I always thought that was a pretty nice ending . Plus, I enjoyed the ability of expanding the kingdom through Maia's actions, reminded me of Terranigma in some sorts.

Same here, not a lot of people played both Summoners.

Good picks, KylieDog! I remember renting Maximum Carnage from the local video store. That was a ton of fun.

Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast (or it could also be Jedi Academy because that's basically the same thing).