Okay part 2.

#3 Final Fantasy VIII

Be aware of spoilers. You have been warned.

All I have gushed about so far is the amazing storyline, but now the combat deserves some merit too. For someone who has no idea how it works, it would make for a solid and challenging playthrough. It is a very unique system where you have to junction abilities to stats and magic. It becomes closer to the job system than the traditional JRPG where everybody can do a little bit of everything. Except in this game, everybody can do everything, you just get the choice in doing so, they just can't always do it because of the link to the Guardian Forces. For example leveling up a GF that can use steal or a  GF that is combat oriented or magic oriented. Then you can put those special GFs on anybody. At fist just doing whatever and not farming up any magics can lead to a decent story challenge as most first playthroughs might do. Beating the final boss is always difficult, but with efficient junctions, magic and item usage, it is doable even without farming. Somehow as a kid, without a strategy guide or the Internet, I managed to also get all of the secret GFs in a normal playthrough. I must have noticed how many empty spaces were on the GF screen and just had to figure out how to get them. I felt that all of that counts for intuitive gameplay for a first playthrough. But then I got older and replayed the games, upon 2nd and 3rd playthroughs I realized many things. So these extra playthroughs can be just as special. Now with expert knowledge of the junction system and a desire to beat the game efficiently, one can easily take advantage of the farming and make most fights completely trivial. By grinding key magics, and keeping your level low, each fight is done in seconds. Your power is based on junctions but the enemy power is based on your level. Junctioning powerful magic to the best matching attribute will give you a great stat boost. With this one can simply enjoy the story in full again and be satisfied with mastery over a game that once beat you down over and over again. Another way to grind is through cards. And well these cards are obtained through the best minigame in Final Fantasy, Triple Triad. This minigame was so good that they ported it to FFXIV to be the main minigame for the MMO as well. Starting from the bottom with pathetic cards and working your way up is so addictiing. The strategy put into placing your cards in order to maximize your offensive and defensive potential is just immaculate. You can card your enemies in battle as well instead of getting loot.

Getting money is also an entirely different system, where you get money based on your rank, and only over time. Your rank can be improved quite easily, especially in the 2nd playthrough by doing well with the early missions. Otherwise you have to take the tests that teach you about the game in Balamb. Speaking of Balamb, other story aspects I forgot to mention earlier that were awesome include the battle of Galbadia. IE the battle of the gardens, or in other words gigantic flying cities with militarized students fighting for their lives. Other aspects include unlocking the airship Ragnarok, or dealing with time compression, a very complicated but unique plot point. This game came shortly after FFVII, but also shortly before FFIX, 2 great games in the FF series. But it has such a unique take on the FF series that it definitely finds it's place in my top 3 games of all time, and I think it warrants a try from any RPG fan.

Well I guess I was wrong and still wrote a ton about this game, same as the others. Even distant memories flow into my brain as I think about this game again. I hope to play it again soon, and once again experience the story of Squall, Laguna, Zell, Selphie, Irvine, Rinoa, Quistis, and all of the others.

Going to post this a little early.

1: Bloodborne

Bloodborne is a game that I did not expect to enjoy. It was my first Souls game, and I tend to go out of my way to avoid games with a more horror aestetic. Instead I enjoyed it from the first moments. It has what is easily the most rewarding dodge mechanic of any game I've played. It has an amazingly consistent world.

This is one of those games where I enjoy just walking around. Everything about how the player controls just feels good. 

The world is brutal and haunting. This game has some of the most rewarding secret areas of any of the Souls games. It has a smaller set of weapons than the other games, but it has the most satisfying weapons of all of them.

Surprise! Another Final Fantasy game.

#2 Final Fantasy X

Be aware of spoilers. You have been warned.

To be honest, I think this game only beats out FFVIII due to recency bias, but here we are. Either way, I consider them both pretty equal. I am not sure where to start with this one, but I guess I will start with the characters. First we have the main character, that you can name who is defaulted as Tidus. Unlike a lot of game main characters, he is quite upbeat, outgoing and encouraging. He was after all a celebrity in his city. Right away, you can tell he is prideful. He is basically one of the fist isekai-ed main characters in a game. He comes from a high tech world and ends up in a much lower tech world. He meets an old friend called Auron. This guy is like the master, and much like Tidus he uses a sword. Auron is quiet, serious and to the point, because he has a goal to achieve. Already this pair is quite the cool combo, like master and apprentice, but there are more cool characters to talk about. Next is Rikku, who I had a crush on at first sight, same thing happened to Tidus. She can steal from the start and her overdrive can be quite overpowered. She is also a foreigner in the world much like Tidus. It resonates with me to this day as a foreigner myself. Next is Wakka, one of the most interesting characters because of his religious views. He apparently has such power in his figure that he can throw a playing ball to kill enemies. Beautifully voiced by Joe Dimaggio, who also voiced Bender in Futurama, he has such a cool buddy feel. Then we have Kimahri, as a kid he was my favorite. He is a blue lion with a horn. He uses a spear and can learn monster abilities by draining them. His level path on the Sphere Grid is always optional, because he starts in the center with a short path. You can make him into another beefcake powerhouse, a fast thief, or a 2nd rate mage. Since he is a little weaker earlier, the game also has a bit more difficulty when using him. Next is Lulu, a black mage with a scathing personality. She is nice but acts as the adult in the group. And lastly Yuna, a white mage summoner who develops her personality quite a bit through the game.

These characters all go on a journey together to defeat the final boss. The final boss is ever present throughout the story, but he doesn't really talk. Instead he is like a natural disaster, wherever he goes, destruction is left in his wake. You learn quite a bit about this boss through the lore of the story and the world itself. Another major boss serves as the typical antagonist with weird obsessions, like one with Yuna. These characters all face internal and external issues throughout the story.

As mentioned before with Wakka and his religious views. This game has interesting take on religion and some of the most interesting storylines about blind faith or someone's morals is tested throughout the story. For example, "You can't use technology, it is against my religion!" But what if that technology might save people? What if the leaders of your faith use technology, but tell you that you can't use technology simply to control you. These laws put into place simply to keep the peasants from getting strong while the leaders bask in the strength of technology. In fact the whole journey is called a pilgrimage, which of course has religious connotations.  This pilgrimage is supported wholly by the elders of the faith. So much so, that they do not want anything about it to end. They want a cycle of a controlled world affected by periodic suffering, and a period of peace. This helps keep them in power because each time the final boss is defeated, they are validated through their methods. It is kind of like the cycle of life and death, and it makes one wonder how such a thing would handled in the real world. I think at least the world would be more consistent, united against the threat with a consistent population curve. Each time this threat is defeated, the world would rejoice and relax for a time. Makes one wonder if pandemics could be released to quell the population periodically by the elites.

Back to FFX, of course one of the evil bosses wants to become this natural disaster and "free" people from their suffering. Another character is on the opposite end of the religious technology factions. She comes from a group of people who constantly use technology to kidnap summoners like Yuna. "Why?!?!?!?" the main character asks in one of the most moving scenes in all of video games. While kidnapping sounds like a serious crime, especially if they are kidnapping the "saviors" of the world, the main character soon learns that it is to keep the summoners safe. Because the pilgrimage always ended in the summoners death and at least one of their guardians. At this point the main character cares deeply about the summoner and his fellow guardians, but they couldn't tell him the whole truth. By this point we know of the main characters father, who also got isekai-ed into this world. So far he and his father had lead parallel lives with both characters believing that a happy ending was inevitable. Another revelation is foreshadowed with the opening scene and one of the best songs in gaming, from which the main character is telling his story. Up to that point we were all just playing the game in the past and finally when this scene shows itself again, I was like "Wait this seems familiar..." So it is revealed that in an epic scene that not only does the summoner have to be sacrificed but also the guardian will become the final boss. The main character has personal stake in this because he found out that his father is actually the current monster final boss. His father doesn't want to keep killing people, but he is a monster and has to do it. Thus, he wants his son to kill him, but the main character wants to end the cycle of suffering forever.

He still wants to figure out the mysteries of this world, as he finds out he and his father came from a time 1000 years in the past. As stated, he came from a world that was technologically advanced further than present day Earth. He finally gets back to his city in the present and it is just ruins completely destroyed by a warring faction, it seems impossible for the main character to comprehend. Everyone is consistent with that information though, so he has to accept it. The main character being different and ignorant to this new world is genius because we can be put into his shoes quite easily. Back in the ruins of his city, he finds nobody lives there except the strongest of all monsters. So the ruins are quite preserved without much human interference. The opening scene again is quite brilliant because the main character looks upon the ruins of his destroyed home city and tells us his story. So at this point everyone in the game and everyone playing the game wants to know why and how he and his father were transported to this world. The ending of course can leave much to desired, but in the end, it is a satisfactory conclusion. The undead people especially can finally move on.

There I go again, going on and on about the story and not talking much about the gameplay combat. The gameplay is very simple turn based combat, but the game is probably the best for strategizing against the enemy, since you can see when everyone's turn is in battles, as well as the affects of your actions. It is nice for using each character efficiently. Most important magics in the game series come back, but FFX adds special physical attacks too that can inflict ailments or dispel strong buffs. So the strength build characters aren't always just auto attacking.

Again unexpectedly, I have to go.

To be Continued...

John DiMaggio.

I'm a little shook as a fan of Jake the dog and Bender (the robot) that I don't think I knew that he voices Wakka. 

And FFX is a game that I replay every couple years....

#6 (incorrect guesses - Monster Hunter World)
- Local wildlife numbers are likely to drop when the protagonist arrives on location.
- “Pierre, you litter bug”
- The developer claimed an innocent slip of the hand gave the protagonist their sizeable assets.
- A game that kickstarted a major franchise.

#5 The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
- I’m pretty sure one of every living creature is involved with getting 100% in this game.
- You’ll have to interact with them in just the right way though, otherwise your collaborator will have difficulty doing what he does best.
- There are a number of side quests and mini games, as is normal for the franchise. In this iteration, these quests include post sorting, playing battleships, and taking part in auctions.
- A HD remaster was released a decade after the original. Welcome additions included an optional, faster way to move around the world, and a really cool bottle based messaging system that allowed you to communicate with other players.

#2
- By the end of the second level, you’ll have faced more human foes than you had in the entirety of the previous game.
- Finding the trio of dragons in a level will get you a reward.
- This game introduced vehicles to the franchise. It also introduced a number of new weapons, different costumes depending on the environment, and an item that allows you to light up darker areas.
- There’s also a level where AI controlled characters will help you in battle, as long as you don’t shoot at them. If you do, they will turn against you. This can be tough to avoid initially, as your character auto aims to the nearest person / creature when weapons are drawn. Seasoned players may enjoy the challenge this brings though.

#1 (incorrect guesses - Grand Theft Auto V)
- Vehicles you can command include a car, a helicopter, a train, and a submarine.
- I’m not sure many thought passing through a frog’s digestive system would be on the agenda.
- A regular foe that first appeared in the previous game is given a name and prominence in the story. Before each boss fight, they’ll taunt you and cast magic to make an encounter with a regular enemy more dangerous.
- The above character also attacks you at two different points in the final level, as well as throughout a bonus level in the fifth world.

My list so far

That sure sounds like Wind Waker

Well the unfortunate thing about Reforged is that they basically built in on top of the original which in theory was nice because it allowed people to play together across versions and didn't leave the original game behind, but in reality in means that when they screwed up Reforged they screwed up both versions in terms of menus, bugs etc. (though the majority of bugs have been fixed now so in-game things work fine). But yeah if you have the original on a Battle.net account you can still download it from the Battle.net website and play it, have several friends who have done that (though the download is fairly huge since it's actually Reforged you're downloading, you just don't have access to the new graphics).

That sure sounds like the right answer. The first two clues were in reference to the Pictograph / figurine side quest.

Mmm sounds like a mess. A shame, Blizzard used to be one of the best.

Guessed by UnderwaterFunktown

I love simple good versus bad stories. Especially if there is a good villain to go with it. Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic is such a game and it is a game that is better at being 'Star Wars' than the actual Star Wars movies, except maybe A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back. This game came at a time when I was turned off a bit by console gaming as Nintendo had disappointed me with their offerings on GameCube and GameBoy Advance and I had turned to PC gaming with Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 (#6) and SimCity 4 (#9) in particular. I still loved Star Wars but after having been disappointed before I was still a bit weary even for this game. What I had seen of this game looked a bit strange to me, with a lot of talking, strange worlds and it looked a bit slow without much action. However after my mother tried it for a bit and said I should to, I gave it the benefit of the doubt. Safe to say I should listen to my mother more.

Guessed by UnderwaterFunktown

And there we are, it comes as no surprise that The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is at the top of this list. The Zelda series is my favourite franchise in all of gaming after all, and this game is the epitome of that. I mean even its logo is gold. It started before it was even released, being familiar enough with the franchise already through having played A Link to the Past (#25) and Link's Awakening (#5) I was extremely hyped. In fact I don't think I have ever been as hyped as I was during 1998 when Ocarina of Time was on the horizon. I went out of my way to make sure I would have this game by the end of the year and drew pictures of the box-art to show family to make sure they knew what to buy. The drawing was incorrect, and I didn't even drew the letters in all capital letters, but the idea came across at least and when Sinterklaas came (the Dutch equivalent of the gift-giving part of Christmas) in december I got the game from my parents. I was over the moon, and immediately ran to my Nintendo 64. The game started. A boy is having a nightmare, it is a dark night, raining, the sound of chains as the drawbridge comes down and a horse with a rider runs out of the castle. Lightning in the background and then, a dark horseman. I don't think I blinked or breathed even once.

#2 - Tomb Raider II! How did I not see this earlier! I didn't expect anyone nowadays to have it higher on their list than I have it on mine (14th).