1) Maybe Tales of Symphonia?

Decided to make a change and now Skyward Sword is in the post above instead of Shadow of the Colossus (but that doesn't mean SotC is out of the top 50)

I need to stop with the indecisiveness

#5

Valkyria Chronicles (PS3)

YoY: =

To this day, there have been exactly two games that have impacted me emotionally to such an extent that I've had to walk away from the game for a little while, and this is one of them. For that reason alone Valkyria Chronicles deserves a spot on my list. Everything else besides that are why it's so high on it. The first thing I noticed about the game were obviously its visual, and specifically how they looked in motion. Once I actually got to play the game I fell in love with its tactical gameplay, story, and characters.

I also thoroughly enjoyed the numerous allusions to real-world history. The game is set in an alternate version of Europe and during that world's version of WW2. It's genuinely fun to realize how specific events and places are represented in the game's fictional world. The way the game conveys character is also really clever. Each of the characters has specific potentials that can activate during combat, and they're all related to them as people. Some of them might feel uncomfortable in specific environments, prefer certain people in the squad, or be otherwise influenced by some other events in combat. It's a great, subtle way to tell players about the characters in the game without having to spell everything out. 

Valkyria Chronicles is one of the genuine hidden gems of the 7th console generation, and as far as I'm concerned, the second best game of the whole generation. The best game of the generation is up next.

#3: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

A masterpiece. I have the Gamecube version. Twilight Princess for me always stood in the shadow of my #2, being "only" my second favorite Gamecube game. If I wanted to play Zelda on my Wii I'd mostly rather go for Wind Waker but when I replayed Twilight Princess I suddenly wasn't sure anymore which one I liked more. It's gameplay absolutely still holds up today. I think the HD version looks like crap actually, but the original still holds up even graphics wise. Why? The HD version is way to bright, the shading is off, the facial animations look weird. It's like they cranked the contrasts up to maximum. The original is dark not only in it's story but also visually. Thankfully Skyward Sword HD doesn't look like that.

Twilight Princess is great in nearly every aspect. It's dungeons are fantastic with some of the best bosses in the franchise and also some of the best items in the franchise. The structure is great and prevents it from feeling repetitive. The environments are fun to explore and offer all sorts of secrets, there are some awesome sidequests and great side characters. Midna and Zant are great characters with great character arcs. The relationship between Link and Midna is especially well done. The story is fantastic and dark but doesn't compare to Majora's Mask in that regard.

The only part I didn't like on repeated playthroughs is the tutorial (I don't remember my first playthrough anymore). It's to long. But ultimately everything there plays a role in some way. It's like one long chain where one part leads to the next. But ultimately the part with the goats could have been cut and replaced by a different excuse as to why Epona is hurt. You learn to ride your horse but only actually need it way later.

That said Twilight Princess is incredibly well made with some section being outright epic. I love the fights against the big Bulblin for example. They make me feel like a skilled knight. Same goes for when I fight Darknuts  Link being a bit older than in the other Zelda games makes him also kinda more mature and through that he take the figure of a tole model for the kids of the Ordon village. I think this is a great aspect of the game.

The final boss from the Arbiter's Grounds the Twilit Fossil Stallord is my favorite of the game and I think also my third favorite in the series, with Koloktos from Skyward Sword being my second favorite. The fight against Zant is also very remarkable with the way you revisit many places where previous boss fights happened. Blizzeta in the Snowpeak Ruins is also pretty cool with the way she turns into a monster before the fight being pretty scary. Argorok is also alot of fun, probably my second favorite boss in this game. The final fight against Ganondorf gets better with every phase and ends in an epic duel with Ganondorf who then dies in the end while standing, which I always found really impressive. Ganondorf's look in this game is my favorite. Zant's death on the other hand is so gruesome that it has something comical about it.

My favorite dungeon is Hyrule Castle, which is also my second favorite dungeon in the whole franchise after the Ancient Cistern in Skyward Sword.

Twilight Princess features some pretty freakish cutscenes that have carved themselves into my mind for all eternity. The soundtrack is pretty great but doesn't quite hold up to the best in the series.

Twilight Princess is my second favorite game from my childhood and my second favorite Gamecube game. I hold it in high regard and have very strong nostalgia for it.

That took alot of time to write. I feel like my texts for Zelda games way longer than for the others. I have a special passion for that franchise. Should make my #2 text today too to have enough time for my #1 tomorrow. It deserves extra effort.

Guessed by coolbeans

'Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic' is the best game out there in a lot of things, obviously, when you're the #2 greatest game ever made. At first, I was a bit reserved. My mother had illegally downloaded the game, back when this was as easy as getting out of bed, and was playing it for a bit. It didn't really look like what I was used to when it came to a Star Wars game. I was used to things like the 'Jedi Knight' series, and 'Jedi Outcast' (#19) wasn't old yet and games like those were grittier, had more action and had more familiar faces and locales. Knights of the Old Republic however was cleaner, you mostly see faces and a lot of text and the game is mostly quite slow paced.

However, I figured, at this time I wasn't really a fan of console gaming and Star Wars is still Star Wars so I gave it a shot. Pretty much from the first moment I was blown away by its story, its environments, its characters and its scope. The story is more Star Warsy than actual Star Wars movies, bar maybe the very first one. I love a simple "good versus evil" story, it's one of the tropes ac my list, and this is the greatest example of it. The famous twist in the second half blew my proverbial socks off more than anything ever. And the worst part is, that in subsequent playthroughs you notice there had been hints all throughout the game given by party members, Jedi NPC's and the villain Malak, who's monologues are epic by the way. I obviously bought the legal game not long after, and I even bought the mobile version of this game a few years ago, that's how great it is. And oh, poor Trask, he knew of nothing, at least he went down with the ship.

I'd say it was time well spent.

I agree with pretty much everything, and kind of makes me think why I never have it higher than I always do in my own lists. I assume the cutscene you're talking about is the one with all the falling upside down Ilia's. That cutscene, and yes fighting Darknuts, is awesome!

One more for today. Not sure if I'll be able to get through the rest of the games tomorrow, since I'll probably be quite busy, but we'll see.

#4

Dark Souls (PS3, PS4)

YoY: =

So, what exactly should I say about Dark Souls that countless other people, myself included, haven't said thousands of times before. It's difficult, but fair. If you die, it's most likely your own fault. The lore is deep, fascinating, and often hard to decipher. The gameplay is satisfying and requires patience. All of those things are true, but it's all been said so many times that it starts to feel pointless to repeat them. I suppose I'll just talk about my own experience with the game.

I initially bought Dark Souls back in 2012, before the DLC had come out. I had heard a lot of people online talk about what a great and rewarding game it was, but that it was also very challenging. So, I started the game, created my character (a pyromancer if I remember correctly), and set off into Lordran. The opening cinematic was suitably epic, even if parts of it were quite difficult to figure out without any other knowledge of the game's world, but it set the scene perfectly and got me excited to start playing. The game started, some random knight dropped a dead body into the cell where I was, and off I went. About 10 minutes later I was dead for the first time, trying to beat the first boss with the dinky, broken sword I had on hand, because I hadn't realized you weren't actually supposed to fight it yet.

I beat the boss on my 3rd try I think, and then I was on my way to Lordran proper. Then I was told by a weird knight that I had to go and ring two bells. Still not entirely sure why, but at least I had a goal now. Again, off I went, picking a direction and ending up in a graveyard a moment later. Death #3 soon followed. After a little more experimentation I finally figured where I was supposed to go, slowly making progress, frequently dying, but still moving forward at least. The Taurus Demon took a couple of tries, but it wasn't too bad. I met a friendly knight who really seemed to like the sun. He at least seemed nice. The drake that had announced his arrival some time earlier in Undead Burg had taken residence on the bridge and seemed very reluctant to let me pass. I died to it too, having long since lost count of the number of death. I got through though, but I was still kinda lost and confused about why I was doing any of this. And screw those rats under that bridge. The boar enemy took a few tries to figure out, but I did eventually managed to whittle its health down, before it ran into nearby flames and killed itself, leaving me feeling both happy and annoyed at myself for not figuring that one out for myself.

I found a huge cathedral, and a seemingly-friendly blacksmith nearby. There was also this weird knight sitting by a huge gate, but I couldn't really do anything about that at that point. The demon down the stair from the blacksmith pretty much sealed that path off for now, so up to the Cathedral I went. I did find a way back to the Firelink Shrine with an elevator, which was a cool touch. Slowly, and very painfully I made my way up the cathedral, and I eventually came across a knight in weird golden armor behind bars. I had found a key earlier, so when he asked me to, I freed him. What could go wrong there? Further up I went, and there was the familiar boss fog door.

Now, for some context. At this point I hadn't realized how summoning help for the bosses worked. The humanity items seemed like they had some interesting uses, but I hadn't really figured out what its purpose really was. So, I simply walked into the Bell Gargoyles boss fight like I had into the previous bosses. I did reasonably well for a first attempt, until the second gargoyle joined the fight. I died. And I tried again, and again, and again, but could never finish this one damn boss off. Eventually I started looking for other paths to take, but I just ended up in another dead end. I still had no idea why I was doing any of this, outside of some vague hints and allusions to what might happen once I rang the bells. This is where my first journey through Lordran ended. Me bashing my head onto a gargoyle-shaped brick wall and getting nowhere doing so. 

I left Dark Souls behind for a few years at that point, telling myself that I'd return to to try again later, and moved on to other games. And for quite a while the game box sat on my shelf untouched, and whenever I picked a new game to play, I passed it by. Eventually, a Youtube Let's Play channel I follow began uploading their first playthrough of Dark Souls, and after watching them make their way through the game in much the same way I had done a few years earlier. After a few episodes, I decided to finally give the game a second chance. I made a new character, took my time with the game, and slowly it began to open up to me. I began to puzzle together the intricacies of the gameplay, while also putting together a better picture of the story and lore.

Something had suddenly clicked in my mind, and playing the game felt very different than before. The deaths to the bosses no longer felt so demoralizing. They were often frustrating, sure, but no longer in a way that made me want to stop playing. The various locations had a logic I hadn't noticed before, and gameplay that had felt slow and clumsy now felt deliberate and tactical. I had finally understood how the game worked. Some 80 hours later, Dark Souls had become one of my favourite games of all time, its world, lore, gameplay, music, and atmosphere near-unrivaled by any other game. It just took me a while to get there.

This turned out quite long it seems.

#2: The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

Another masterpiece and up until a few years back my favorite game. Back in the day I would spend endless hours 100%ing it over and over again. Wind Waker was the second Zelda game I played after Phantom Hourglass. Contrary to Twilight Princess I do remember my first playthrough of Wind Waker, or at least my first impressions of it. It was the first non handheld game I played and I was immediately absorbed by it's beautiful world. I love cel-shaded graphics. 

While as a whole the dungeons aren't on par with other entries like TP and OoT the Earth Temple and Wind Temple are fantastic and among the series best, the former more for it's atmosphere and the later more for it's excellent level design and great use of the wind for transport. The Earth Temple is my favorite from this game with the Redeads and especially the Floormasters being absolute nightmares, they always made my heart pound. I also love the mirror puzzles. The first two dungeons, the Dragon Roost Cavern and the Forbidden Woods are generally well done, the Dragon Roost Cavern having some more interesting like where you're on the outside and I like the bossfight against Gohma. The Forbidden Woods are generally rather unremarkable though, but the section where you get there is great. The Tower of the Gods is a great dungeon with the first half in particular being very unique. Gohdan is my favorite boss in Wind Waker. He has a much more interesting name in the German version, Quartoxuma.

The Forsaken Fortress is a non traditional dungeon, you visit it twice. The first time you're unarmed and need to hide, the second time you're strong and obliterate all the enemies that you were hiding from previously. Brilliant. Phantom Ganon and the Helmaroc King are both great bosses with Phantom Ganon's second fight in Ganon's Tower being even better. The first time around you were weak and the Helmaroc King just picked you up and tossed you away like some trash. The second time around you beat him in an epic fight. Again brilliant. These things signify how far Link has come since he was just an ordinary boy in the beginning. But he was still to weak to pose any threat to Ganondorf.

While Ganondorf looks cool in TP in Wind Waker with how bulky he is and the way he is shown in cutscenes he is really intimidating. Ganon's Tower is very straight forward and leads into the awesome fight against Puppet Ganon. The scene where Ganondorf grows into this monstrosity is engrained into my mind. The final fight against Ganondorf tops even the one in OoT for me, it fantastic. The cutscene before that gives the way Ganondorf acts alot of weight, having lost everything he was working all this time. It made me feel genuinely sorry for him for a moment, until he snapped and decided to take bloody revenge.

The combat is great, not really deep or anything but fun and it's always satisfying to pull of some stuff. The hole on Outset Island below that huge stone head where there are dozens of floors with enemies is my favorite part of the game. Just fighting them all is so much fun. Forgot somehow to mention it, but in TP there's a similar place and it's also a ton of fun and very challenging. I like how in Wind Waker you can pick up certain weapons enemies drop snd fight them with those. Seeing tiny Link pick up a huge broad sword three times his size never stops being funny.

The sidequests are in part very interesting. The whole thing with the photos is great and getting all the figurines made in that gallery is fun. Their descriptions are sometimes hilarious. That's the biggest and best sidequest in the entire franchise. Many of the others are great too. The minigames are fun. That dude his minigame on Windfall Island is funny, I could never get enough of the way he says "sploosh". Never gets old.

There is a large amount of island, all very unique with their own secrets and treasures. I always loved exploring them all and finding everything there is to find. I also always had to have them all on my map. Those fish always say "twah" when they pop up out of the water. I will never forget that sound, I've heard it hundreds of times.

The story is surprifingly great. On one side you have a broken man who got tortured for centuries and only wants one thing: get his destroyed home back and see it flourish. He is ready to do anything to get to that goal. On the other hand you have a boy who's sister gets kidnapped and he is determined to save her. He will also do anything to reach his goal, including genocide of certain piglike creatures. On his journey he gains more skills and power and gets then chosen by the godesses to succeed the chosen hero who is no more. It's a story of two opposites that are more similar then they think. Simple and great.

The soundtrack is top shelf quality. One of the best in the series. The Dragon Roost Island theme is my favorite.

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker generates massive nostalgia for me. I love it like almost nothing else. For most of my life it my favorite game ever and was surpassed by something that was destined to do so. Wind Waker is my favorite Gamecube game.

Just wanted to also touch upon the section where you gather the triforce pieces. The site started lagging probably because it was to.much text so I had to wrap it up earlier. I do not dislike it like others do. I think it's a good way to make people explore the more remote islands more.

Also I forgot to talk about the combat in Twilight Princess, which is kinda dumb, since I think it's one of the best on the series. The different special skills you obtain from the dead hero's ghost enhance the entire thing by alot.

These two games will always stay high up on my list, they hold a special place in my heart.