29) Persona Q?

Yes!

34. Dragon's Dogma

One of the PS360 era's biggest sleeper hits. Much like Alien Isolation, I bought this game during a bit of a dry spell, without much expectation, and ended up completely in love with it. Climbing around on monsters, cutting off limbs, stabbing them quite literally in the ass, etc...what's not to love about that? All the classes/jobs had their own unique, enjoyable flavor, that kept the gameplay highly engaging all the way through. The Pawn system was quite interesting, and could be greatly expanded for a future entry, and I really liked the idea of the endgame, with a shared world boss that players all across the world have to tackle together over the course of many battles (this too could be greatly fleshed out). It's been a long-ass wait for a sequel, but hopefully it'll be worth it.

33. Batman Arkham City

The best Batman game we've gotten to date, and Batman is awesome. Not much more need be said.

32. Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth

So, Lord of the Rings was pretty much my most favorite thing ever as a teenager. Yea, shocker, I know. I also love strategy games, and so Battle for Middle Earth was just perfection for me. 2 campaigns, that let me either follow the story of the movies, or fight for Sauron and tear it all down? Sweet. All the heroes and villains with huge impact abilities to affect battles? Nice. Command armies of all the various races and monsters of Middle Earth? Rohirim cavalry running over orcs, Ents stomping orcs, Olyphants stomping everything? Fuck yes. I actually also quite liked the very simple, modular base system they had in the game. One they abandoned for the sequel, and ironically, would have been a much better fit for a game built to also ship on consoles. In any case, probably one of my most played games of all time.

31. Dishonored 2

Memory is a funny thing. It can mislead you greatly. I loved Dishonored 1 so much at the time it released, being the spiritual successor to Thief that I didn't fully know I needed in my life, that I actually viewed it in a very distorted lens for a while. So much so, that when I first jumped into the sequel, I wasn't impressed with it. This is just Dishonored 1.5...Arkane didn't do enough with 4 years...it doesn't have the same magic...etc. These were the thoughts running through my head playing the first hour or so of Dishonored 2, and I actually put it down. In fact, I didn't return to it for a couple of years. Alas, I eventually got back around to a craving for stealthy assassination in my life, so I played the definitive edition of Dishonored, and Dishonored 2, back-to-back. Wow. The Dishonored 2 is so many leaps and bounds better than the first game, it actually blew my mind how basic the first game felt in comparison. Like a proof of concept to the sequel's masterful execution of pretty much every aspect. Particularly the level design, which is just an absolute masterclass. Sometimes, it's good to be wrong. Once you finally realize it, of course lol.

30. Borderlands 2

If we could just take the gunplay, and gun variety of Borderlands 3, and throw them into this game, we'd have the perfect Borderlands game. I think it's generally agreed upon that Borderlands 2 is the best in the series, and it's for good reason. The story, the characters, whether it's base game, or DLCS...it's all excellent. I still go back and re-play the whole thing with some friends every now and again, cus it's just a damn good time. For contrast, I couldn't name a single new character from Borderland 3, nor do I care to ever play through that campaign again.

Let's face it: Borderlands 2 is the best in the series because of Handsome Jack. Handsome Jack is one of the best villains in video games, even in entertainment media. There isn't even a moment in the game you are unaware of him, the (pretty epic) intro cinematic shows Handsome Jack as the very first thing you see and goes on to set him up as the villain. Everyone you meet talks about Jack. And then pretty early on Handsome Jack starts talking to you via COMM. And comments everything you do. That fulfills for one the function that you always while looting and following other stories you always keep remembering your big goal. Kinda like Hyrule Castle or the Elden Tree are constant reminders of your goal in their games. But the audio connection also gives the devs room to develop Jack as a character. And he is pretty awesome. So yeah, I say 2 is the best game in the series because of Jack. May he rest in pieces.

Jack is certainly fantastic, and he was amazingly utilized in Tales of the Borderlands as well. That said, him being a constant presence, only worked so well because the character himself was so well written. The twins in Borderlands 3 are a constant presence too...problem is that they're just super annoying, and cringey. It came across as the devs trying way too hard to replicate Handsome Jack again, instead of coming up with a compelling new villain.

But the problems of Borderlands 3 extend beyond its writing as well. They got it into their head to create all these huge, empty, and often stupidly twisted maps that you have to traverse with vehicles from one end to the other over and over again to reach various objectives. Nobody is playing Borderlands for that. We wanna run around, shoot stuff, use cool abilities, and get loot. Not have the experience constantly broken up with average at best vehicle combat and traversal.

Wildermyth was a game kept hearing good things about, so I gave in and tried it myself. And this was a good decision. Because Wildermyth is actually innovative.

In it's core Wildermyth is a story-driven development game, where you make decisions to bring forward your band of adventurers. Things will be broken up by events, including fights in a tactical RPG manner. The game features multiple campaign, each will stretch over decades, with your heroes getting older and younger folks (possibly their kids) taking over.

In it's core these elements are done decently well, especially given it is made by a small indie team. But what makes it special is the way it handles story. The story of Wildermyth is procedurally generated. This sounds bonkers, but let me explain: the game uses story templates, broadly describing an event. The characters put into it can vary and so can the direction it takes depending on your decisions or the character of your party members involved. That can change the outcome of these events.

But they also often change your character considerably. A dream that leads two of your party members away on their own journey might end up with the dreamer gaining crow wings and feet. Or fire hands. They can also be maimed in combat and for instance lose an eye. So you start seeing the adventure so far on the depiction of your heroes.

While each campaign has some set story templates, most of the events are drawn from a random pool, so each playthrough ends up completely differently. This works surprisingly well.

A lot of the story is presented in a comic book style, with your actual characters put into the panels and the speech bubbles are differing depending on choices or character traits.

The characters start off as normal people, they just act in the face of danger, picking up a pitch fork or a pan and facing the monsters. A special mention for the magic system here. The Mystics manipulate objects that are on the tactical map. For instance they can coerce wood to explode into splinter, damaging nearby foes. That can be a door or a book shelf. Or if there is a plant, a tree or bush, they can grow their roots to entangle the enemy. Interesting way to implement magic.

All in all I am wondering why I never before saw such an idea implemented. It is a cool way to create unique stories that are also engaging. If all I think the scope is lacking, a bigger team instead of a small indie could do a lot with this basic idea. But as it is Wildermyth is a great experience. I hope other creators see this idea and developing it further, as I feel the full potential of this style of storytelling is not yet reached. So I wonder how this will evolve in a decade and shape future games. I am pretty sure it will.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8T6wqsRa1IU&t=35s&ab_channel=IGN

Phew, I am finally back on schedule. Check out Wildermyth. Anyways, upcoming games are:

#29: guessed by UnderwaterFunktown: Persona Q

#28: Silver haired girl.
The Dawn Brigade rebels against the occupation by the Begnion Empire.
Although generally in a long running series, it is the direct sequel of the previous game that was on the console before.
Grow your army from mission to mission.

#27: Meet a talking skull.

_{ranking in the guessing game, list so far}

27: Bit of a wide selection for this one, but let's go with The Curse of Monkey Island.

Not this one.

Probably one of the most impressive games ever made in a lot of respects, but there are other games that I think are more fun to play.