38. Seiken Densetsu 3?

37. Valkyrie Profile?

#39 - This game can be combined with another cartridge. It marks the debut of a certain red guy.

39. Super Mario 64

First Played: 1998

Times Completed: 10+

Back in 1995, I was watching a TV show called Bad Influence and was completely amazed by Mario (and Kirby) being played in 3D on the Ultra 64. I had all sorts of questions like, "But what happens when you die? Do you just fall through the floor? That'd look weird in 3D" and "How are they going to cope with Kirby being able to fly in any direction?". Well, somehow Nintendo figured the Mario one out, but maybe they're still stuck on the Kirby one. About 6 months later I had a Sega Saturn and then the PS1 and N64 both arrived in my house in 1998 so 3D games weren't quite the novelty they seemed in 1995. But that didn't take much away from Mario 64, the game was still unbelievably well made.

Surprisingly, this remains my favourite Mario game. The controls are still good, the level design is top notch and most Power Stars are fun to collect. The only complaint I have is the camera, it’s not bad enough that it spoils the game, but later games definitely improve this aspect. It never gets old, no matter how many times I’ve started a new game, it’s always a fun playthrough, even to 100%. As usual, Koji Kondo provides a timeless soundtrack and to this day, I will never skip the credits sequence to this game, it's just so good.

Sonic 3 & Knuckles, or maybe just one of the two, depending if you consider them one or two games.

Unguessed

A big addiction during the first half of the 7th Generation was the one dealing with plastic instruments. After having played 'Guitar Hero III' for the first time I ended being attached to it for a couple years, buying all the subsequent games year after year when they came out. It's hard to believe this one came out twelve years ago, it certainly doesn't feel like it. Because I played the third game first, it remains the best one in my mind. The fourth, fifth and sixth game had gradually less interesting soundtracks, and became gradually easier. Today, there are days when I feel like playing Guitar Hero, I still want to play this game, but I can't really because the PlayStation 4 isn't backwards compatible, and I don't exactly feel like pulling out and setting up my PlayStation 3 for half hour of game. Of course there was a Guitar Hero on PlayStation 4, but that one isn't even fit to tie this one's shoes. Guitar Hero III, when the games were still fun.

So that wasn't guessed, I was of course talking about the final song during the credits; Through the Fire and Flames. Which was a ridiculous song, but went down as kind of the holy grail of songs to beat. Let's move on;

#38: Luckily there's a weapon that can change it's phase modulations, otherwise resistance would be futile.

Not quite. I think I found something like 103. I didn't really pay too much attention to that until fairly late into the game, and when I looked a few things up I realized I had already locked myself out of a few characters, so I just went after the ones I had the patience to get and left the rest. I'll probably replay the game some day, and I'll make sure I'll get all of them then.

Sonic the Hedgehog 3, yeah.

Yeah, I read about Clive and Elza after I finished the game, so I'll see about doing that stuff another time. I did read about the endings as well and how you can get the different ones, and I got the other non-true ending since it was fairly easy to get without too much extra work.

Yeah, I see it kind of like the original Super Mario Bros, while neither were the first of their kind, they introduced or refined so many aspects of the 2D or 3D platformer, that they still felt like something completely new. Then most games that followed, borrowed heavily from them, sometimes even copying questionable things like how the 3D Gex games won't let you see the pause menu if you pause in mid air.