#2
This game contains the greatest of plot-twists ever in a video game. And I never saw it coming it was me.

The third place goes to *drumroll* Pandora's Tower. ARandomGamer guessed it right.

This game is just brilliant. The environments are so gorgeous. And the monsters are in a way majestic and beautiful. And you go in and kill them. This is because you need their flesh to drive back a curse, that is fallen onto your love and turns her into a monster herself.

You have a timer for setting out into the ancient buildings that house these monsters. At first I was using the time up, but the mood conveyed through music, dialogue and animation is so depressing as she begins to turn already before the timer runs out, that I later on tried to be back as fast as possible.

The relationship with Elena is an important part of the game. And it feels good to make her presents and make her happy. I don't know how the developers were able to do that, but it worked that way. And they made the game so, that at least for me I felt empathic about her destiny. And how she has to overcome the revulsion to eat the flesh that temporarily resets the curse.

So you set out to these towers that hang on chains above and seemingly endless abyss and are filled with strange contraptions, stranger monsters and interesting environments.

I also like if a game gives me hints about what happened as something I can find while exploring. It is so cool reading about an scientist making experiments with the beast and later another note from the same scientist as he flees when everything was going downhill. The mystery what happened here, what creates the curse, this drives me to explore more.

The fighting is great. The chain the character uses is useful in fights and for solving puzzles.

This game wasn't released at first in America. It came a year later to the US than to europe, published by XSeed there. That game was part of operation rainfall, for the games that weren't published by Nintendo of America for reasons unknown. But this game made not as much a splash as Last Story and especially Xenoblade Chronicles (which deserves the praise). But I think everyone with a Wii or WiiU (which is compatible) should try this game. It would be nice if this game would get a remake.

Wikipedia, MobyGames, OGDB, IGDB

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcTFWKf-Yo0

#3
Freespace 2
Previous Year: #3

The game that rounds out my top 3 is Freespace 2. While my top 50 generally goes through a lot of changes every year, the top 3 has remained the same for over 15 years, and I don't expect that to change any time soon. I remember back in the late 90's when I first played Freespace 2 I was absolutely blown away by the game's graphics, and then hooked by it excellent gameplay, interesting story, and a mission structure that created a constant feeling of uncertainty during every singe mission. It always felt like anything could happen, and more than just a few times the game successfully manages to take the player by complete surprise.

Simply put, at that time, and even to this day there are very few things quite as amazing to behold than a massive dreadnought tearing another apart with gigantic beams that cut through space destroying everything on their path. The only unfortunate downside to this game is that it ends on a cliffhanger that will most likely never be resolved. Regardless, this is still the best game of its kind and one of my all time favourite games without question.

Hint for #2:

11,000 years have passed since the war to decide the fate of the world's species was won by humans with the aid of dragons and their knights.  

I'll continue with my list:

#30 Pokémon Platinum - My favorite pokémon game, I love the Sinnoh region and the champion battle is easiliy one the best and most challenging of the whole series. The game is packed with a lot of post-game content and it feels like the definitive pokémon experience to me.

#29 Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time - My favorite Ratchet game, not only it has the characteristic humor and fun gameplay of the series, but, differently to the other games, you can actually explore the outer space between the planets, where you'll find planetoids which feature different stuff to do, including some of the best platforming challenges in the series. Also, it has my favorite story from all the Ratchet games.

#28 Final Fantasy VII - This game has a lot of memorable moments and a nice cast of characters. I felt really sad when Aeris died. The materia system is very well done and the battle system is fun even if the game is not super challenging. The amount of side content that this game has is incredible, with stuff like fighting the Weapons, the Gold Saucer, chocobo breeding (I spent lots of hours breeding chocobos...), as well as all the stuff you can find in the world map.

#27 Suikoden II - This game's writing is top-notch, it particularly amazed me how brilliant were Shu's strategies in the battlefield. I love all the things that you can do in your castle and how the castle develops as you add more characters to it. The sidequests that you do to get more characters to join your army are also really good.

#26 Final Fantasy X - Really memorable and engaging story, that kept me wanting to know what would happen next. Game has one of my favorite turn-based battle systems in any j-rpg and the visuals and music are incredible, though I wish the level design felt less linear and it had a proper world map. 

#25 Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door - Such an amazing ride that feels like grand adventure through a world with lots of unique and unconventional locations that don't feel like the typical Mushroom kingdom (typical jungle/ desert/ snow/ lava worlds), heck, you even visit the frigggin' moon and a floating battle dome. The game's characters are all very charming and unique, with Vivian being my personal favorite. The battle system is amazing like in the first game.

#24 Super Mario Galaxy - This game really wowed me the first time I played it and the concept of travelling through space with Mario was truly breathtaking. The levels are overall very well designed, with the Gusty Garden Galaxy being my favorite. The music and visuals are just top notch.

#23 Super Mario 64 - Another game that amazed me the first time I played it. Even though the game is from 1996, it doesn't feel dated at all, Mario's set of movements is incredibly varied and allows you to tackle the levels in many different ways. It's just a joy to control Mario in this game. The freedom of exploration and the variety of levels are other aspects of this game that I absolutely adored and the soundtrack is amazing.

#22 Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch - This game is just so full of charm, the story had many moments that touched the most sensible strings of my heart, there was certain event at the start of the game that really made me cry ;_; The game's world is so very well done, with a great variety of locations and a feeling of adventure that is just incredible, also, I think the Wizard's Companion book is a really nice touch that allows you to learn even more about the world. Overall, Ni no Kuni has my favorite classic world map from any j-rpg. I love the game's art-style and the soundtrack is just outstanding, dat overworld music.

#21 Final Fantasy IX - This game has one of my favorite casts of characters from any j-rpg ever, with Zidane being my favorite Final Fantasy protagonist. The story has so many epic and memorable moments and I really liked the romance between Zidane and Garnet, I think they're my favorite couple from video games. The game's ending is really amazing and I thought Kuja was a very good villain. Another thing that I love about this game are the Active Time Events, which I found to be a really nice touch that let's you know more about the characters.

#3
The classic of classics

Bubsy 3D

Who guessed my games best?

If someone got the series right or two peoples out it together in pieces I scored half a point.

Now for 7 and 6.

7 is Halo 2. Most of my games are non split screen games. But Halo 2 took the gold medal in split screen action. I rented this game with my friends A LOT and when I finally got it as a gift we played it until it couldn't be played anymore. Many hours spent in this game can really create some awesome moments and I discovered many things over time. Buying the map pack as well boosted the fun, in what would set a precedent for the industry. But besides the split screen multiplayer there was also co-op campaign which is still my top campaign out of all FPS. Playing every level normally the first time was great fun. But after beating the game 100s of times it was time to do more creative things like beating it on Legendary only and driving a ghost throughout the entire level without getting off, even if you have to punch it into a doorway somehow.

6 is Romance of the Three Kingdoms IX. The first few times I attempted to play this game I was deeply disappointed. It wasn't until after the disappointment of RoTK X that I returned to IX and appreciated it's brilliance. The first thing is that it is a ruler only game so it is less focused on RPG concepts and more focused on Strategy. Then as I continued to attempt this game it was very difficult due to the barbarians in the corners. Their power seemed insurmountable but eventually they fell. And with that, they were unlocked to play but at 1/3 of their power. Now this might seem unfair but in the end it became a boon, because you can choose to play as all 4 of the barbarians and they are reduced in power and then give them back to the computer ai and now you essentially have a pretty normal map. Once you get into playing a relatively normal map you can outsmart and overcome stronger enemies through strategy, which has to be one of the most satisfying things in RoTK. Formations, ploys, timing, alliances, misdirection, etc all help a smart player. This game only got better after 100s of hours, but it was certainly worth it.

#3 Chrono Trigger 

EDIT: Mods stop shrinking my images. They are no larger than the ones used by everyone else. 

One of the most important things, gave developers need to learn is that AGLs in games are bad. What are AGLs? Artificial Game Lengtheners (full credit to Dunkey for the acronym), are the parts of a game that are tedious and time consuming simply for the sake of lengthening a game. Oftentimes a game will be fun, but will only take ten to twenty hours to beat. For some reason development studios see that as unacceptable, so they use AGLs to spread the fun content out like too little butter over so much toast. I believe that the JRPG genre is one of the greatest things ever invented in this medium, but I also admit that most overstay their welcome by about fifty hours. The genius in Chrono Trigger is that it removes most of the standard AGLs from the genre leaving pure fun in it's wake. Random battles are gone. Turn based combat uses the speedy ATB system from FFVI. Enemies are placed and spaced out so that you fight them only enough times to hold your interest and no more. Chrono Trigger only takes about twenty to twentyfive hours to beat, but it's a breakneck rollercoaster ride of fun from start to finish. This game has excellent character designs from Dragonball's Akira Toriyama, and a perfect soundtrack by Yasunori Mitsuda. There's a really fun and interesting combo system built into the game, that feels natural. You can combine different attacks like a flame attack, and a sword attack to get a flaming sword attack (See the cover?). Multiple endings and a New Game + mode mean anybody that loves JRPGs should be in for a good 50 hours of completionist playtime. The original SNES cart still commands $80 or more despite DS and PS1 remakes existing. This is the JRPG that transcends hatred of JRPGs. Even if you absolutely hate the genre, you owe it to yourself to play this one. Yeah, it is that good. 

And now for some extra hints.

5. Hint 1: Killing things with heavy metal music never felt so good. Depending on the character you play as you could have a full retinue of bodyguards following you around. For example in addition to the standard 8 bodyguards, if you are the leader, many groups of elite troops may also follow you around.
Hint 2: My favorite character however was a general and in this iteration appears shirtless. His special attack charges him forward while mowing down enemies which perfectly describes my preferred playstyle: a strong berserker who does a lot of damage but has little defense.

4 Hint 1: One of the earliest games to have an achievement like system.
Hint 2: Also had day/night system and fast travel. Get stronger by training, battling, or finding special items.

3 Hint 1: Who will fight the war? The students of course!
Hint 2: This game is very famous for its soundtrack much more then others in its series. Around the same time this game came out part of its soundtrack also went for sale. A famous international singer sung the main song which is a first for the series.

2 Hint 1: For a game, religion surprisingly makes an appearance at the forefront.
Hint 2: The world revolves around one thing, but the religion isn't focused on it as a god, rather an enemy.

1 Hint 1: My favorite character in this game used to have a skill that allowed him to block and counterattack 20 opposing attacks.
Hint 2: One could fight in the world or join battles to show off your skills. Later, one can team up with a buddy or 2 and fight another group directly.