Excellent work.

#24: Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES)

Another beloved platformer. Super Mario Bros. 3 is the best NES game ever made and also one of the best platformer of all-time. It was the first time Mario got the ability to fly, you now had a map with toad houses for power ups, enemy encounters and alternate paths, castles and airships. The game also saw the introduction of Bowser's children (although Nintendo later backtracked on this) which made for some interesting boss fights. To top it all off, the stages featured some pretty neat level design providing a great challenge for players.

#23: A game with a lot to sea.

Wind Waker?

Big post to catch up, couldn't post last two days, so here's three games at once (bear with me, wall of text), and a hint for the one tomorrow.

#26

'SimCity 3000'

for the PC released in 1999.

A city builder that widened my horizon. Not only figuratively, but also literally. The game was quite complicated for it's time and could really suck the player in for hours. 'SimCity 3000' made me conscious of the task of planning cities and neighbourhoods and managing everything well enough. I wouldn't call it an educational game of course, but it did provide me with both fun and knowledge and had a big impact on what interests me in real life.

'SimCity 3000' wasn't the first game in the franchise I played, that honour goes to it's predecessor; 'SimCity 2000', and I had also played the very first SimCity before I got into '3000'. Naturally, the game is all about building a city. As big as possible. Zoning residential areas, commercial areas and industrial areas. Providing them with roads, electricity and water and construction things like schools, police stations and leisure facilities.

Many hours have been sunk into this game, but moreso on it's superior successor. The biggest city I ever made in this game had about 400k inhabitants. Big, but not monstrous like some I've seen on the internet. I've always wanted to be able to make things bigger than a single city, to be able to create a whole country of cities. Sadly that wasn't given to me by this game, but luckily...

#25

'The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask'

for the Nintendo 64 released in 2000.

The second entry in this list for my favourite franchise is 'Majora's Mask'. It's a bit of the black-sheep of the Zelda series, though another entry in the series could also get that title. Straying away from the 'normal' Zelda formula and story, 'Majora's Mask' focusses a bit more on the human aspect of the Zelda world and plays into your fear and depression with it's dark and mysterious and often creepy tone.

The game is one of the original ones, and the story and the way the main gameplay mechanic, those of the masks and the time system, plays into it was flawless. For the rest, the game follows what's been done so excellently in the Zelda series. The game features some ingenious dungeons, and cool use of items as wel as lots of stuff to explore. The game's probably most famous for it's extensive side-quests.

The game also pushed the N64 to it's technical limits. A next-gen system was already out, the SEGA Dreamcast, and the second was on it's way, the PlayStation 2, so the Nintendo had something to show with this game. It certainly didn't fail to impress. With the extra RAM of the expansion pack, the system could pump out some seriously beautiful games in the later part of it's life. Us Europeans were extra lucky, because we also got a stunning box-art, which I would consider one of the best ever made!

#24

'Asterix'

for the PlayStation released in 1999.

'Asterix' for PlayStation is quite an unexpected game to pop up in such a list, because I don't think the creators's ambition for this game was ever to make one of 'best games of all-time'. It's a simple game, modelled a bit after the board-game 'Risk' with some platforming mini-games in between. However, the game takes out all the unnecessary stuff, and molds it into a simple-to-understand package.

That's probably what makes the game so good, it's simple yet fun and addicting. Don't let the game fool you with it's kiddie Asterix exterior though. It will actually get quite challenging. Like in Risk, the objective is to conquer land. In this case, conquer Gaul, or France, back from the Romans who took it. The more you advance towards Italy, the more powerful Roman defences become.

To do this, you must fortify regions you own with soldiers represented as the famous kettle containing magic potion. You get a certain number of reinforcements each turn to distribute as you choose. The player also uses these to attack Roman camps in enemy provinces and battles are then automated like Risk's roll of the dice. Sometimes however, a region would contain a mini-game. These are often little levels in 2D platformer-style where the player simply needs to reach the end of the level to conquer the province, which is a nice change of pace.

#23 Hint:

Phew. Lot's of words so I'll make this clue a short one. This game in a famous franchise took the series to an even darker and more ominous place, where the player often had to run for the more powerful (yet very familiar) enemy.

Resident Evil 2 or Resident Evil 3 Nemesis?

Hint for number 23.

This game has a pirate, an Uno ripoff, cameos from another game in the series, and two world maps.

No, but nice guess. The game I mean could indeed be placed in the survival-horror genre, even moreso than it's predecessor, even though it and the series don't officially belong there.

Haven't posted a hint in ages.

28: The first game in a new IP from late last gen which some criticise for being over-milked. Two other games from this series are further up my list.

27: A game whose story many find pretentious (though I loved it). It's a puzzle game, or perhaps several different but related puzzle games rolled into one.

26: This was much higher up my list until I played the new HD remake earlier this year and I realised it wasn't really all that great. I should really stop doing that.

25: Not hugely popular amongst fans of the original. Fortunately, I've never played the original, though I do love a game in the same genre by the same developer (with a completely different setting).

24: The last great entry in this franchise to date, and the way things are looking, perhaps the last ever. I hope not, though. One important revelation in this game is that the protagonist is not alone...

23: Building on one of the best known games of all time, and complete with some questionable reproductive biology (for the first time).

29. Pokemon X (NR)

This earned its spot by being the best Pokemon game since Gold and Silver.  Just about the only thing I was disappointed with was the somewhat limited postgame in terms of extra areas to explore.  The megas are interesting to track down but aren't a subsitute for the missing legendaries in this game.  The roller blades are genius and make moving around the map far more enjoyable.  The mega evolutions really shake up the gameplay which has bee rather stagnant for quite some time.  The fairy type presents some interesting matchup considerations especially when combined with various other types.  The wild pokemon balance is exquisite in each region and really makes the world seem more interesting when you run across a large variety in even the starting areas.  The game is extremely generous, throwing multiple starters at you as well as all sorts of items, evidence of just how large the game has become that in order to completely fill out your inventory items have to be essentially thrown at you.  Features like super training have also made breeding pokemon significantly more enticing and allow a broader base of experimentation with pokemon I might not have considered using otherwise.

28. Mario Kart Double Dash (23)

Of all the Mario Kart games I felt like this one offered my favorite selection of tracks.  The two player kart mechanic added extra fun for parties and a little more strategic choices in items.  In addition the changes to the powerslide technique were welcome to at least me due to my distaste for figuring them out in Mario Kart 64 time trials.  Among the tracks I liked:  Baby Park - This one felt completely original for its small size and was quite interesting with more laps. Daisy Cruiser - running through all the different paths on, of all things, a cruise ship felt like a really creative course.  Walugi Stadium - Took all of the great parts about the Wario Stadium course and somehow turned every race into a completely crazy adventure.  DK Mountain - It had a cannon and a long windy downhill section, end of story.  The Entire Star Cup: Wario Colosseum, Dino Dino Jungle, Bowser's Castle, Rainbow Road - The courses felt complex enough that people were going to make mistakes and it really would let you figure out who was the best.  I still think that these are the best Bowser's Castle and Rainbow Road courses created to date.  The addition of more racers in grand prix was also great and I the blue shells are slightly less of an annoyance because of how fun it is to try to dodge them or at least get others caught as well.