#50

YoY: -9

Platform: PC      My Rating: 8.8/10

Easily one of the more obscure titles on my list, Grandia II was originally a Dreamcast JRPG and a sequel to a Sega Saturn game, though the two only share some thematic and gameplay elements. I played the game some years back on PC, and as a fan of the original already, I thoroughly enjoyed my time with the sequel. Obviously, being over 20 years old now, some aspects of the game haven't aged all that well, the graphics and voice acting most notably. However, the rest of the game is still a lot of fun to play and experience.

The soundtrack by Noriyuki Iwadare is genuinely great, and the battle system is one I would love to see other games in the genre make us of. The story is admittedly not breaking any new ground, but it's a engaging tale nonetheless, and the characters work very well together to create a genuinely memorable main cast. As a side note, the game also features quite a few very famous voice actors in leading roles, including Jennifer Hale, Cam Clarke, and Jodi Benson, who you might know as the voice of Disney's Ariel. 

I have such a hard time with these kinds of lists. My top 10 games or so, I feel pretty good about. After that, it's like oh, is this my 14 or 15th favorite game? I don't know. The further I go down the list, it feels less like I prefer a game over the other, and more I like different things about each game. And there are a number of games that I haven't played in a while, and I might be rougher or better on them than I really feel about them.

Based on how I currently feel:

50: Uncharted 1

Uncharted 1 is probably one that I am being overly rough on. It's not as exciting as the latter games, and it was a pretty clunky experience. 

49: Radiata Stories

This is probably a worse experience than I remember. But I have really fond memories of this game. I remember this being a pretty unique experience. You could recruit NPCs to go along with your adventures.

48: Super Mario Galaxy

This one didn't quite hit me the same way it hit a lot of other people. But it's a great game, and enjoyed it thoroughly. Jumping from small planets is a cool idea, but at the same time it does feel a little bit disorienting where you'll sometimes go upside down or something. 

47: Dark Cloud

A really fun game. It's a cool combination of dungeon fighting and city building. There's a lot of room for improvement with this experience. The fighting could be better. But as a package, I haven't played many games quite like it (and I would wish to play more). 

46: Super Smash Bros Brawl

A title that is especially fun to play with friends. 

Honestly, Smash Bros Brawl was my fave until Ultimate came along. Yeah, the game was a little floaty, tripping sucked, and Subspace Emissary wasn't all it could be, but it hit all the right notes and I was never into the hyper competitive aspects so it was super fun for me. Underrated game. My ranking goes: Ultimate, Brawl, Melee, For WiiU, for 3DS, then The original (not that it's bad, it just really doesn't hold up like the others; then again I feel that way about almost all N64 and PS1 games).

Time to start this, don't want to play too much catch up this year.

#50 - Panel de Pon - Super Nintendo

Best puzzle game? Best puzzle game. I always come back to this, is pretty engaging to always be competing against something in its story mode, part of the reason why I also love Tetris 99, and I love the constant play of strategy between cleaning up combos as fast as possible, deciding to take some time to set them up, or making split second improvised combos to keep the damage going to the other player/CPU, is such a beautiful, tight, fast paced puzzle game that I'll never get tired of, in any of its versions. 

#49 - Pokemon Sword - Switch

I should put Black and White here next year, I love that game as much, or Super Mystery Dungeon. I wrote a decently lengthy post last time about why I like this game, so I'll make it a sort of bullet point this time.

Best new Pokedex, legit like every single new design, and there are some cool type match ups and alternate forms here, the group of legendary Pokemon is honestly awesome and gave me one of the best set pieces in the series.

Also love the cast, characters like Hop and Leon is something that at first glance would be something I'll be meh on, but they won my heart really well, the other rivals, the gym leaders, Sonia, etc. are also great.

Music score is pretty much at its peak, taking elements like the gym leader battle of B/W changing for the last fight and making that concept a lot more dynamic and incorporating the setting in the track, much like how it does with the final battles of the rivals. Slumbering Weald pretty much opens the game and is one of the most hauntingly beautiful, catchiest, and incredibly atmospheric pieces of music in the franchise.

On a thematic level, the idea of succession and the future is among the things this franchise has executed the best, how Sonia becomes the Pokemon professor, Marnie and Bede becoming new gym leaders in their different ways, Hop finding his own future, and Leon himself, doing his job as a champion and protecting people during Dynamax outbreaks, and then you become champion and the post game is doing what he used to, some story elements in this game might be rushed and others underdeveloped, but that core theme was done excellently. Also the championship itself is great, making the gym battles feel like an actual event, people following your journey, it nails the idea of a "League" in the Pokemon League. And ending it all on a fantastic re interpretation of the Hall of Fame tune as the champion battle theme is the best closer they could have given me, it helps that Leon is a legit good Champion team wise as well.

DLC is great too, would have liked Arceus to just expand on the design set by the Isle of Armor, hopefully S/V goes for that.

#48 - Potionomics - PC

I finished this game 5 days ago, been waiting for this for a while, and god, it was beautiful. I like some time management elements in my games, is part of why I like Majora's Mask, why I prefer Pikmin 1 and 3 to 2, and why I used to love Atelier back when it was mechanically interesting and a unique RPG instead of what that is now, but that is not a rant for this thread, so I was pretty excited for this game, time management where you manage a potion shop, with the potion crafting itself reminding me a bit of Atelier, just that this is more pure math to balance the ingredients, and also managing time to hang out with other characters and build relationships with them.

Time management can elevate a pretty simple game, which is the case for Potionomics, you have potion crafting, haggling with a simple deck building game to maximize the cost of the potions you make, and a lot of menu-ing for fairly simple gathering of materials by sending out adventurers with potions, pay other crafters to expand your shop and have better cauldrons for potion making, plus pay guilds to gather rarer materials, buy ramdomized treasure chests, or pay for marketing deals and spells to help you in the haggling, all of this is pretty simple but is elevated by how you manage your time, also spending time with the other characters will net you new cards to use for haggling, plus each of them having a small story arc to go through. Is not super overwhelming, and playing well enough means having more free time to use on whatever activity you want, for example I always made good enough potions to not need to use the marketing deals, and always had good materials where I didn't need to take a chance with ramdomized treasure, that balance combined with your competence as a player makes for a lot of the flow of the game, and again that time management, it makes one try to always do a good job, think well of what materials you'll use, which need replenishing, etc. it adds a great layer of strategy with that simple addition to the game loop.

Besides the gameplay being excellent, the charm is another great high of the game, fantastic animations, UI, the charming characters, a nice little heartwarming story, a surprisingly excellent soundtrack and dem boss battles make for a memorable setting on top of it. And dem boss battles, the game is 50 days long, and you have a competition against a rival every 10 days, you are tasked with making a type of potion with a recommended quality before each competition, another flexible element, you can make the best potion possible and get an auto win if is of higher value than the one from your opponent, or go with a not as powerful one and haggle your way to maximizing the value in the competition to get the win, another flexible element of the game.

Game was everything I was expecting and it managed to surprise me beyond that, something I'll look forward to replaying in the future.

Nice write-ups guys ^^

Love the banners @S.Peelman 

No guesses last time huh, thought at least one of these would be easy. But anyways here's another few hints, last one for 50.

50) On the surface it's the video game equivalent of a documentary,

about a group of tiny games made between 2008 and 2011

by the fictional game developer "Coda"

But in reality the whole thing is by a very real game developer best known for a certain Parable.

47) Memes about memes.

And an invincible cyborg.

46) The nightmares' worst nightmare.

They tried to seal him away, but when all hell breaks loose he awakens once again.

50 - The Beginner's Guide?

Exactly, there it is!

Another round of hints:

#50: Guessed by Machina: Descent
You are PTMC's best Material Defender!
Blow up asteroids!
But better search your escape way before you trigger self destruction.
Shoot the robots before they do it with you.
You fly in your spaceship through the mining tunnels.

#49: Wake up with a hell of a hangover.
Can't remember a thing.
Wait, I see text in my vision?
Now I am speaking with myself.
With all these hallucinations or visions I could as well be a visionary.

#48: What will happen to Stibbons this time?
Razum-dar has a task for this one.
Crafty Lerisa never leaves her crew behind.
Abnur Tharn is a pain in the ass.
Help Valaste and Shalidor.

#47: Guessed by coolbeans: Project Zomboid

#46: Legend of Wesmere
Under the Burning Suns
A Tale of two brothers
The Hammer of Thursagan
Heir to the Throne