It's a lot of harmless fun. Humourous too, though like I said it's mainly a children's game so it's gameplay is simple. There's no micromanagement of your territories or technologies or even units to train. Each turn you get a set number of Magic Potions based on the number of regions you own to strategically strengten a couple. After that you can choose to attack an adjacent Roman region from one of yours or hand the turn over to the computer. Rinse and repeat. The platform, fighting or mini-game whack-a-mole levels hidden under a couple regions aren't anything special either, but they're good to break up the gameplay and keep it fun. And it is, sometimes simplicity is a good thing.

17. Super Mario Odyssey

This newcomer game comes in at #17. If failed to rank higher than the other Mario games due to a post game that just isn't compelling. The beauty of this game is that it's basically a Mario game with 30 different power ups. This means that every five minutes of every level you are doing something a little different, than what you've done before. This helps to keep the game feeling fresh throughout the 20 hour main story. There are only around 13 levels in this game, but they are all massive and bursting with hidden Moons to find. But why am I talking about this, when Dunkmaster 5000 does it so much better? 

16. Super Mario Galaxy

Super Mario Galaxy takes Mario into a whole new plane of existence with the genius gravity mechanic. Jumping around and between planetoids, abusing the different gravities to do different things just felt so fresh and unique at the time. The bosses are all excellent, and fairly difficult. Even that piranha boss at the start of the game could nearly take you out on the first try. Once you beat the game with all stars you get to play again as Luigi, with a higher jump and harder areas. Oh and that final boss battle with Bowser is the best fight these two have ever had. 

15. Valkyria Chronicles

A beautiful engine, with a unique hand drawn look to it. A turn based battle system that adds all the great things about RTS battles without any of the downsides. IMO this is the best turn based strategy game ever made. The way this game works is each character has a turn in which you can freely move around the map ala a 3rd person shooter. How long you can keep moving is determined by your class. While you move, and while enemies move the opposing side can counter fire at you. This means you get the RTS advantage of having positioning mean more, with the turn based strategy advantage of having time to plan out your next move. 

15. Yakuza 2

A game that had me wanting to continue until I beat it. The best buildup in the entire franchise is waiting for the final showdown with Ryuji Goda. There were many other awesome boss battles, and I liked how the story focused on two rival clans facing off rather than going up against the CIA or the police force like later games.

15

MediEvil

• Sony PlayStation
• 1998
• Adventure
• SCE Cambridge

One of the best PlayStation games and one of the best adventure games in general, 'MediEvil' was a fresh take on the genre and a take we sadly haven't really seen since. The game centers around the fallen knight "Daniel Fortesque", who is hailed as a hero in a past war, but in reality wasn't anything of the sort. When the evil sorcerer Zarok plans to strike again, Fortesque is resurrected to battle his old nemesis, but remains undead.

The game does not take itself very serious, which is good. There's a lot of slapstick comedy in the way enemies are animated, certain events in cutscenes and in dialogue. The final battle is particularly interesting when antagonist Zarok shows his wizardry skills, or lack thereof. Gameplay-wise the battle is also unique, the first phase for example has the player empower undead allies with bolts of lightning in a sort of field battle instead of fighting any enemy directly.

The rest of the game is equally memorable. The combat remains satisfying and the levels also contain various puzzle sections. Souls of the defeated will be collected in the chalice, which unlocks new and stronger weapons and shields if filled completely. The series remained on the original PlayStation sadly, with a port of the first game to the PSP, but i hope one day there will be a new sequel on a modern console. It deserves to be a trilogy.

#14
I could put down this game's most famous quote, but then everybody would immediately know which game I'm talking about.

These next few games should be the hardest to guess.

#15
I sure like hats.

Getting very close to the top 10 here. Here are the hints for the next two games.

#14: You hunt down your former mentor who betrayed her country for the greater good.

#13: This game is often considered the black sheep of this series partially because it wasn't directed by the same person as the other games. Also less clearly connected to the other two games.

#16
The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky SC
Previous Year: New

Last year I had only included the first game in this series on this list, and now 12 months later there are a total of four games from it on this list. It has essentially become my second favourite JRPG series over the last two years, to my huge surprise. I never expected to like these games as much as I did, but very few games have given me the same feeling of satisfaction from playing them as the two Trails in the Sky games have. I haven't yet played the third one, but if it's even close to as good as the first two it'll probably find its way onto this list in the future as well.

#15
Final Fantasy X
Previous Year: #13

Final Fantasy X is the game I bought a PS2 for. On that regard it remains the only game I have ever bought an entire console for. Never before or since have I gotten a console for the sake of one game, but FFX made me do that, and quite frankly, I wasn't disappointed. It's easily one of the best games ever made for that console, and one of the best games in the entire Final Fantasy-series, which for those interested is my favourite series of games. An amazing game that I have replayed several times over the year, and probably will do so again many more times.

Simplicity is often very great, especially if the simple base we build upon is working well.

Seriously, do I need to spell out the games name?

game #15

Hint 1: Combine materials gained from slaying monsters to get magical stones.

Hint 2: It's a spinoff of a long-running series (that started in the 80s).

Hint 3: As you fulfill quests the tavern gets emptied.

Hint 4: Deep in the labyrinth is a ... waterfall?

Hint 5: What the hell happened in this Forsaken Land?

Hint 6: What Wizardry did you put in this tale by taking away your memory?

HInt 7: This PS2-game was made by a japanese company well-known for their RPGs, although the series it is a spinoff from is a western RPG.

As mZuzek guessed correctly my game #17 is Metroid Prime 3: Corruption.

As I said before, the Wii was my entry-point into console-gaming. So this is my first Metroid. And it is a good introduction. The old 2D-jump-and-shoots are not my gameplay, 3D FPS is more my thing, I played that before on PC. And Metroid combines a SciFi-setting with cool looking environments and the shooting with exploration through the scanner and puzzles involving different expansions of the suit.

Overall the game kept me busy and I had fun from the beginning to the end.

This was also my introduction into the Metroid lore and I was very intrigued.

Wikipedia, MobyGames, OGDB, IGDB