45. Super Metroid (SNES)

First Played: 2003

Times Completed: 5

I enjoy all Metroid games, from the NES to the Wii, but this is still my favourite. The exploration, upgrades and the atmosphere are what makes it such a good game. The balance of difficulty is just right and even though I’m pretty familiar with the game, it can still provide enough challenge when I replay it every few years. The gameplay gradually gets more and more complex as you unlock new abilities and you are able to reach new areas of the map. This is pretty similar to all Metroid games, but the execution just seems a little better in this SNES game.

This year I will post 1 hint and leave it up for 24 hours. After 24 hours I will reveal.

#50- Commit genocide against various animals, now in HD!
#49- An impossible to beat game, as the goal is your own. You can start as lowly baron or be an emperor, either way eventually you can certainly see the fruits of your labors.
#48- 10-15 people are introduced from an insane asylum, you must destroy your enemies to further learn about each individual.
#47- Unlike the previous games, this new game series from the same developers was set in Japan and featured deadly musketmen.
#46- The gist of this game is to build better castles than your enemies, because once you had a good economy and castle going, you can easily fend off any attack and build up for a devastating attack yourself.
#45- The first game I played on XBL, it featured online battles in urban settings, and one fun thing to do would be to destroy a building next to an enemy and the building would kill your enemy. Unlike the Halo series it did not receive many sequels.

#50: Pokemon Let's Go?

#47: Shogun: Total War?

#47: Super Punch Out!!

Real-life boxing is boring as fuck but leave it to Nintendo to turn a boring sport into a fun game (they did the same thing with Mario Strikers). Much more forgiving than it's NES predecessor, this game a great cast of characters from all over the world that lean heavily on stereotypes (French weakling, Canadian lumberjack, Mexican Luchador, etc...). The mechanics are fun and there's replay value in the time attack mode where you memorize patterns and completely obliterate your opponents. This a game I often go back to, start a file, get a perfect 16-0 record and put back down until another time.

46: Tenchu: Stealth Assassins

I personally think stealth games peaked on PS1, later games did get more complex, more beautiful but they weren't as much fun. I had a blast playing the first Tenchu game and the primitive AI is very much part of the reason why. There's something very satisfying about killing a guard by bouncing rice in front of his face to land in the dirt and having him walk up to eat it or doing a "Meow" sound to throw off a suspicious guard. Tenchu had you travelling on roof tops, throwing shurikens, executing gory stealth kills and had tons of replayability since each level had different enemy layouts and you could go for a perfect ranking on each of them.

No and no. Capturing and "fainting" is one thing.

Good guess for 47, but I am looking for something on console.

Valkyria Chronicles was a series I never tried, until it came with this entry to the Switch. Before release I started to take an interest and learned that it might be very well to my liking. And so it was!

I like deep tactical gameplay, which is why I prefer usually turn-based gameplay over action gameplay, as the faster paced variant has to be cooked down a bit to make it possible to make faster decisions. But Valkyria Chronicles is actually turn-based gameplay with a lot of deep decision making. The game only uses some tricks to hide the fact. So you can move freely - until you have eaten up your alloted movement for the turn. Also seemingly stuff happens in sound and visually - but if you take notice, this doesn't actually have any effect until the turn moves forward.

So yes, this is turn-based gameplay dressed up to look more like real time. And this is fun! I have the deep decision-making but with more adrenaline as the action seems to go forward.

Also the 3D-view is usually a thing that I would think brings less overview helping my decision. But I do have a map-overview too and the 3D-view give you many visual helpers to help make the right decisions. This is a well thought through interface.

The setting is a fictional setting, which is inspired by europe and World War One. The characters are likable and in their history and actions understandable and each has their own unique character.

Visually the game creates very beatiful images with the style of hand-drawn colored images. This is very nice and I do like a less realistic style very much, if it is done well with artistic intention, which is clearly the case here.

Overall this is a well-made package for a fan of tactical games like me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSmVJc88HxE

50 Tokyo Jungle?

#49: Crusader Kings?

#44

Dragon Quest VIII: The Journey of the Cursed King (PlayStation 2)

Change From Last Year: -2

Still to this day the only Dragon Quest game I've ever played, mostly because the previous games and X never came out in Europe, and IX was on a platform I didn't own. I am looking forward to playing XI at some point in the future though. Regardless, The Journey of the Cursed King is a genuinely excellent JRPG that still looks amazing all these years later thanks to its visual style. It's also very old school in a good way, which is something that has been a hallmark of the Dragon Quest-series for a long time. I love just exploring the massive overworld and discovering secrets and surprises in various hidden corners of the world.

I should probably try and get around to replaying the game at some point, since it's been at least ten years since I played it, which is probably why it has been slowly falling further down in my top 50 in recent years.