This is my whole list, it's almost the same as the one from the previous year, the only change I did was swapping the positions of two games.

Honorable mentions:

#55 - Dark Cloud 2 (PS2)
#54 - Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy (PS2)
#53 - Bravely Second: End Layer (3DS)
#52 - Tales of Symphonia (GC)
#51 - Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (NS)

Top 50:

Happy new year to everyone.

Missed the last few days but I will go back and read through the little blurbs some of you do.

Looking forward to seeing the results! Especially interested to see where TotK ends up, even though I'm not a fan of the series xD

#2

Elden Ring

9.8/10

Elden Ring is probably the most rewarding game I've ever played. 

There are a staggering number of locations in this game. 40 hours in this game I was wondering when the map would stop expanding. It feels big not because of the size of the map. But because of what's in it. 

The world feels so imaginative and dreamlike. And the environments get more interesting the further you go in. You have massive towering castles, a magical school, A volcanic mountain with a strange mansion at the center, A desolate rotting landscape filled with dead. A ghostly village atop a snowy field. And a giant golden tree that can be seen from almost everywhere across the map.

There are 146 unique enemies you'll encounter in this game. And at least 123 unique bosses. That is a crazy amount of variety. And the combat is kept interesting by the staggering amount of abilities, spells, summons, and weapons you will find in your journey in the lands between.

The boss fights are some of the most thrilling I’ve experienced in any game. And this game has some of the coolest designs of any game I’ve played. A four winged dragon that wields a bolt of lightning. An armored beast that shoots energy blasts out of his sword. An alien life-form with a body I can't even describe. and many more.

The open world exploration is made so great by the variety of rewards and the challenges you face, and also the strange and unique npc's you'll meet along the way many of which have interesting backstories and quests. The game has many cool dungeons to explore the most interesting being the legacy dungeons which are reminiscent of the more linear styled dungeons from Dark Souls. Because the game is open world you can leave a tough boss fight that is overwhelming you, come back and steamroll the boss or at least give yourself a little better fighting chance. This makes the game accessible to newcomers to Souls-likes without taking away the challenge.

Elden Ring is my favorite of the Souls games and has become my second favorite game ever. And I’m looking forward to seeing the next big game from From-software.

It is worth noting that I think your number for bosses is off. I counted like 177-178 bosses in the game but only like 75 unique bosses. I don't consider that a bad thing like some people do, but I don't know where you get the 123 unique bosses number. 

And yeah, something truly special about Elden Ring if you ask me. My first souls game was Bloodborne, then I went to Dark Souls 1 and Dark Souls 2. My first run through Dark Souls 1 was 50/50 (Half of it I LOVED, half of it I HATED), and my hatred for Dark Souls II is fairly well known now. when 3 came out I fell in love from the start, with Bloodborne and Dark Souls III becoming faves of mine. 1 grew on me, then Sekiro happened and I loved that. then Demon's Souls Remake came out and I loved that, warts and all. Elden Ring came out and I loved that. At this point I just accept that Miyazaki in particular seems to have a direct link to my personal tastes and I'll buy anything that has his involvement. He's not let me down once and I genuinely think he's getting better every time, with Elden Ring really feeling like a culmination of everything we loved about the prior games mashed up into one. 

I still personally like Bloodborne better but only by a small margin. That might change with the inevitable release of the DLC.  

20. Super Mario Galaxy 2
When it comes to pure level design, Galaxy 2 outstrips Galaxy 1. The worlds are more cleverly designed, the new Spin Drill and Rock power-ups are great and adding Yoshi unlocks a host of other gameplay options. I love both games, but this one falls a bit lower on my list because of things outside of just the levels. Spaceship Mario, although neat, is not the Comet Observatory and Lubba is no Rosalina. The music is good, but borrows heavily from Galaxy 1. The overworld map just was not as satisfying a way to choose levels. Still, the gameplay is fantastic and more than deserving its #20 spot.

19. Rayman Legends
This is one of my favorite 2D platformers. The action is fast and frantic with strange and creative twists thrown into each of the levels. But what really sells it is the music levels. Running, jumping, punching and grinding in time to the beat as enormous set pieces flash past you just brings a smile to my face every time I played them. Whether it was goblins gargling out 'Black Betty' as a caste explodes around you or 'Eye of the Tiger' played on Spanish guitar as you dash through the Land of the Dead. If every level had been like these, this game would be in my top ten,

18. Elite Beat Agents
This game made the best use of a touch screen in any game I've every played. Rhythm games are nothing new, but the gameplay loop of tapping the screen, dragging held notes and spinning the wheel was and still is addicting. The framing device itself was a lot of fun too, and fully embraced how ridiculous its premise was. The song selection could have been better, but I can't complain too much since it introduced me to 'September' and 'Canned Heat'.

17. Super Smash Bros Melee
The first Smash Bros game on N64 had been a favorite of mine for years when this gem came out. It was easily the game I played most often with my friends. Then Melee took everything I loved about the original and improved it. Controls were tighter, fights were quicker, the roster was bigger, you got two single player modes and a host of special missions to play through. The opening cut scene alone was one of the coolest things my young mind had ever seen and I watched it almost every time I booted up the game no matter how many times I'd seen it before.

16. Donkey Kong Country Returns
Although not having King K Rool was a bit sad, this game showed that Retro absolutely had matched and exceeded Rare at their own game. The game was gorgeous for a Wii game and packed with fun and challenging levels. Many people did not enjoy the waggle tech, but it was minimal enough that it never bothered me. I 100%'ed this game which was a real challenge given how insane the final secret level was, but after beating it I was mostly just sorry there wasn't more to play.

15. Tears of the Kingdom
You can't help but compare this game to its immediate predecessor. And while I think BotW was better, there was still a lot to recommend TotK. Ultrahand and Ascend are two abilities that you could an entire game around all by themselves and the ability to build whatever insane thing your heart desires is an absolute selling point. What I liked most of all was the sheer verticality of the game, going from floating islands all the way into the depths of the underworld and back. I am happy that I stumbled upon Autobuild fairly late into my playthrough as once I had that the temptation to cheese my way through various obstacles was ever present. But still, I spent hours beating shrines, collecting and upgrading clothing, completing quests and just enjoying all that this Hyrule had to offer. And the updated Ganondorf was an absolute beast, a great return for a classic villain even if he spent little time on screen.

Hope you all had a good new year. Like last year I have one last batch of write-ups in me as I recount some of the highlight of my gaming year that didn't make the list. Since quite a few of the great games I played in the last year ended up making the list I only have 4 other highlights to mention, but they're really great ones though, so that probably makes up for it.

Right, I mentioned I'd do a recap of my full list, so here goes. 

4 new games made it into my top 50 this year: Final Fantasy XVI, Control, Monster Hunter World, and Horizon Forbidden West.

This meant that the following games fell off: Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, Kingdom Hearts II, Ni No Kuni, and Grandia

Otherwise there was relatively little movement on my list, with one exception. The biggest jump up was just two spots, by Uncharted 2, and most other changes were also within five spots from last year's list, but the biggest drop was quite drastic. Dark Souls II fell by a total of 15 spots, as it unfortunately didn't quite hold up as well as I remembered after I replayed it last year.

# of games by platform:

Each game is listed under the first platform I played it on.

PS1: 6

1. Suikoden II (#45)
2. Grandia (#27)
3. Final Fantasy VII (#19)
4. Final Fantasy VIII (#15)
5. The Legend of Dragoon (#2)
6. Final Fantasy IX (#1)

PS2: 4

1. Okami (#43)
2. Persona 4 (#28)
3. Final Fantasy X (#9)
4. Shadow of the Colossus (#6)

PS3: 9

1. Uncharted 2 (#47)
2. Journey (#38)
3. Dark Souls II (#33)
4. The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel (#26)
5. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (#23)
6. The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II (#21)
7. The Last of Us (#13)
8. Valkyria Chronicles (#5)
9. Dark Souls (#4)

PS4: 18

1. A Plague Tale: Innocence (#50)
2. God of War 2018 (#48)
3. Spiritfarer (#39)
4. Control (#37)
5. Monster Hunter World (#35)
6. Tales of Berseria (#34)
7. The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III (#32)
8. The Last of Us Part II (#31)
9. Valkyria Chronicles 4 (#30)
10. Yakuza 0 (#29)
11. Final Fantasy VII Remake (#25)
12. The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel IV (#24)
13. Nier: Automata (#20)
14. Horizon Zero Dawn (#18)
15. Uncharted 4: A Thief's End (#14)
16. Dark Souls III (#12)
17. Elden Ring (#10)
18. Bloodborne (#8)

PS5: 2

1. Final Fantasy XVI (#46)
2. Horizon Forbidden West (#16)

NES: 1

1. Super Mario Bros. 3 (#41)

SNES: 1

1. Final Fantasy VI (#17)

Switch: 1

1. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (#42)

Xbox 360: 1

1. Lost Odyssey (#44)

PC: 7

1. The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky the 3rd (#49)
2. Total Annihilation (#40)
3. Stardew Valley (#36)
4. Hollow Knight (#22)
5. The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky (#11)
6. The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky SC (#7)
7. Freespace 2 (#3)

Developers with multiple games:

Square Enix/Squaresoft: 7 games       

Nihon Falcom: 7 games   

FromSoftware: 5 games

Naughty Dog: 4 games

Nintendo: 2 games

Sega/Media.Vision: 2 games

Guerrilla Games: 2 games

Most represented years: (going by EU release dates)

2017: 7 games (Trails in the Sky the 3rd, Breath of the Wild, Tales of Berseria, Yakuza 0, Hollow Knight, Nier: Automata, Horizon Zero Dawn)

2016: 5 games (Stardew Valley, Trails of Cold Steel, Trails of Cold Steel II, Uncharted 4, Dark Souls III)

2020: 4 games (Spiritfarer, The Last of Us Part II, Final Fantasy VII remake, Trails of Cold Steel IV)

2018: 3 games (God of War, Monster Hunter World, Valkyria Chronicles 4)

2019: 3 games (A Plague Tale: Innocence, Control, Trails of Cold Steel III)

There were also 10 different years with 2 games on the list.

# of games by decade:

1990s: 6 games

2000s: 11 games

2010s: 26 games

2020s: 7 games

That's all I can think to write about right now.

You can find my full top 50 and links to each individual write-up  here.

Well, to close things off, I'll post some statistics from my list, starting with the final results for the guessing game! It was a bit of a non-contest really, but here are those of you who guessed my games:

13 guesses: @UnderwaterFunktown
7 guesses: @drbunnig
6 guesses: @S.Peelman and @Veknoid_Outcast
5 guesses: @Darashiva
4 guesses: @Machina
3 guesses: @Mnementh and @TruckOSaurus
1 guess: @BonfiresDown, @psychicscubadiver and @Jpcc86

I think my hints may have been on the easy side this year, which made it basically a "who knows the game and gets there first" contest, but anyway, that's credit to UnderwaterFunktown for always being there to pounce! I stepped back from the audio hints I did last year, but I might wanna bring that back sometime, we'll see.

Now, some tidbits about the list itself:

• This was my first list to have no new entries - the previous fewest amount of new games was 4. That said, there was a "sort-of-new" game with Kingdom Two Crowns (#50) moving into the list after going three years unranked since I first played it.
• With Hyper Light Drifter (#48), Mario Kart 8 (#46), and Rock Band 3 (#44) also coming back into the list, this ties with 2015 as the list with the most games returning from unranked positions.
• Despite the general stability all over the list, there was still a game that broke into the Top 10, with Metroid Prime (#9) rising three spots to change this group of games that was unchanged since 2021, largely due to the remaster it received this year. It was its first Top 10 placement since 2017!
• No Man's Sky (#31) recorded the second-highest leap in any of my lists so far, having jumped a whopping 19 spots up from last year. The only bigger leap came when Thumper (#20) rose 21 spots in 2018's list.

Now, since this is my 10th year of doing this, I decided to make a "compilation" here, a list based on the average position obtained by each game over this decade! It's interesting seeing the wild changes some games went through over the years, or how stable they stayed throughout. I've listed 101 games in total over these years, but I'm only posting the ones that broke into the Top 50 and had at least 3 appearances (sorry, last year's newcomers!). Anyhow, here goes:

Ahem.

Admittedly I'm not too happy with how the colors turned out on that spreadsheet, but it's too much of a pain to go back and rework now.

Anyways, that'll be it from me on here, see y'all on the Results thread!

Top 50 >>