12: Metroid Dread

12 actually is Super Mario 64, by the way.  

11) My first thought was Smash Ultimate but I know you like 4 best. My second thought was Pokémon X and Y and that seems more right.

Indeed it is. Been a while since I've done it, but if three butterflies appear, punching them makes a 1-up and a couple of bombs appear.

Just the one set of clues left til we're on to the top 10

11 (incorrect guesses - Super Mario 64)

- Like the games before and after this, you come across an eel problem. In this game, it’s mandatory to complete this mission, whereas in the others it’s not.

- This particular eel has a problem with their oral hygiene, which has made the waters of the bay poisonous.

Current list - https://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread/247804/the-official-thread-the-14th-annual-greatest-games-event-post-only-once/4/#3

Time to dip into the TOP 10.

#10: Okami as guessed by drbunnig.
Bring back harmony of nature and people with your brush.

#9: Tokyo Mirage Sessions#FE as guessed by UnderwaterFunktown.
These wanderers from magical kingdoms support kids in modern day japan and help them in their entertainment career.

#8:
Second time to build, this time to defeat the evil Children of Hargon.

#7: Pandora's Tower as guessed by drbunnig.
Give gifts to your beloved... like Monster flesh she has to eat raw.

#6: Xenoblade Chronicles as guessed by UnderwaterFunktown.
Start at the bottom leg and go up to the head.

10 I'd guess is Okami

7 I think is Pandora's Tower?

Guessed by @TruckOSaurus

I still can't get over how a Spanish development was entrusted with making a sequel to 19-year-old Metroid Fusion and made it feel so natural and true. There's a vast difference in technology between this and its predecessor, but outside of the technical factors surrounding the games, nothing else feels off - this feels exactly like what Metroid 5 should feel like, it feels like it's exactly what Metroid Dread was supposed to be all those years ago and is now. This is especially notable given that it's a Nintendo property, and most Nintendo games recently have failed to feel like "organic" continuations of their predecessors, even when they're sequels being led by the same developers, never mind something this far removed from the original team.

I... don't have much else to say about it. This game is so amazing. I've played it and replayed it many times, I even did a randomizer run recently, it's always so much fun - in truth, this is the first Metroid game where it already feels incredibly fun to control Samus from the very start, without any power-ups or upgrades, just moving around feels awesome! The fact that they chose to bring living Chozo into the story was risky, but it paid off big time, it felt like a 35-year build-up to something that was always planned to happen, it was just that well executed. The atmosphere is... well, it's pretty unique, and that's awesome because every 2D Metroid game has been very unique from each other, though the soundtrack was far from memorable. And that final boss, just, wow.

Metroid Dread is a classic, it was an instant classic when it came out. I don't know how you make a sequel two decades on beloved by everyone - after all that time, there's so many built up expectations, so many perceived notions of what the series should be like, some people are bound to be disappointed. But Dread disappointed nobody, it's just that good.

Top 50 >>

Guessed by @UnderwaterFunktown

The most overhated Pokémon games, or maybe they deserve the hate, I don't know, I love these anyway. I know many see them as the first games of the series' new era where all the games are rushed, but me, I see these as the last great games, the last to be directed by Junichi Masuda, and I really feel like he put his whole heart into this. These were the last to have real heart. And really they had a lot of effort put into them too, what with roughly 800 Pokémon models designed and animated for this, models that are still being reused to this day.

Anyway, it's the heart that wins me over with these. The story might not be exactly Shakespeare, but somewhere in its ankle-deep characters it finds a theme and an important message, that humanity is destroying the beautiful world we were blessed with, and that rings true now more than ever as the world has only gotten worse and worse since then, both in environmental terms and in human society at large. I don't know that the game answers those concerns, but then again, what does? All we can do is keep going, each one of us trying to make things better every day, trying to spread love to each other and doing our best, and that's what this story is about. Maybe it didn't hit for most people, but it hit me hard then and harder now.

Also, the soundtrack is unbelievably good, I still can't get over how good it is. I don't know what happened with this one because most Pokémon games share many of the same composers but no game in the series comes close to this level of music, every battle theme is a certified banger, as are many of the other songs that play throughout. Given how I strongly I value soundtracks in games, maybe that's the main reason I connected so much with this. Either way, yeah, I'll always love Pokémon X & Y.

Top 50 >>

#15

Change YoY: =    My Rating: 9.4 / 10

Final Fantasy VIII is probably the most divisive main entry in the whole series. While every game in it has both its fans and detractors, there's usually at least some level of consensus when it comes to the general opinion the fanbase has on any given game. You can usually expect to see certain games at or near the top of any list of the best FF games, if not in the same order, regardless of who makes it, just with one common exception. Opinions regarding Final Fantasy VIII vary wildly from person to person, some considering it the best in the whole series, while others put it at the bottom of the list. I don't belong to either group, though obviously going by this ranking you can probably guess that I consider it an excellent game, though not quite the best in the series. I'd say it's roughly on par with VI and VII, and a little behind two others I'll talk about later.

Final Fantasy VIII was the first game in the series I ever played, though I had seen someone else play VII before that, so I wasn't really sure what to expect from it. I was very new to JRPGs in general at the time, having only played a few of them on the SNES at one of my friend's, and none to completion. As a result, Final Fantasy VIII was very much like stepping into an entirely new world for me when it came to video games. From the moment the first notes of 'Liberi Fatali' hit and that opening cinematic started, I was hooked. I had simply never seen anything quite like it before, and to this day it remains one of my favourite intros to any video game. 

In general, the music was something that immediately stood out to me from the game. Each new track was just perfect for the moment and location it played in, hitting an early game crescendo with The Landing-cutscene, and only really improving from there. The rest of the elements, from the story to the characters and gameplay slowly fell into place over time, and by the end it had became my then-favourite game of all time. Obviously, other titles have since overtaken it, but this is one of the games that I can still go back and replay without any problems whenever I feel like it, which is something I did just earlier this year with the remastered version. The game still holds up remarkably well, and with the improved graphics the remaster is a great way to experience the game, though it does have some minor issues that were not present in the original.

9) Tokyo Mirage Sessions?

6) Shadow of the Colossus?