A bit late to the party here but I did sign up and am going to post my full list now. Sorry guys I was going through some issues for a while there. Anyway...

I rated the games based on Graphics, Gameplay, Controls, Story, Sound, and personal Tilt.

#45 Baldur's Gate 3 

Baldur's Gate 3 is the only game in recent years that was able to break into my top 50 games list at number 45. This game made my list for three reasons. First off the story, while not incredible on its own, is absolutely massive in its scope. The number of choices that your character can make is crazy. Larian really went all out by thinking of nearly every scenario that a player-character could do. There's so many hidden secrets in the game and funny racial or class based reactions. It makes replaying the game an absolute joy. Secondly its a game I can play with my friend who doesn't have the fastest reflexes anymore. He can take his time making his choices in the game and enjoy it. Third the amount of customization that you can do with your characters as far as class builds go is insane. You can multiclass up to 12 times becoming a jack-of-all trades that has taken one level in every class. Each of the 12 classes has three or four sub-classes. Some of them have even more. There's also races and sub-races. Anyway, long story short you can make hundreds of characters in this game that play a little differently. Anyone that has spent time coming up with new Elden Ring builds knows what I'm talking about. The game has a few issues like having bad tutorials that don't explain how a tabletop RPG works, and friendly AI that can sometimes be braindead, when it comes to following you around the map. Oh, and a horrible bug that can lock you out of a good ending. But despite those flaws I'm having a blast with BG3. I'm on my 2nd playthrough and have logged 250 hours into it. 

1. Mass Effect 2 Xbox 360 G10 G10 C10 S10 S10 T10 10
2. Metroid Prime GameCube G10 G10 C10 S10 S10 L10 T10 10

3. Sekiro PS4 G10 G10 C10 S9 S10 L10 T10 9.8

4. Dragon Quest 11 S Switch G10 G10 C9 S10 S10 L10 T10 9.8

5. Hollow Knight Switch G10 G10 C10 S9 S10 L10 T10 9.8

6. Into the Breach Switch G10 G10 C10 S10 S9 L10 T10 9.8

7. BotW Switch G10 G10 C10 S9 S10 L10 T10 9.8

8. Dark Souls PS3 G10 G10 C10 S9 S10 L10 T10 9.8

9. Final Fantasy VI Advance GBA G10 G10 C10 S10 S9 L10 T10 9.8
10. Chrono Trigger SNES G10 G10 C9 S10 S10 L10 T10 9.8

1. Xenoblade Chronicles Wii G10 G10 C10 S10 S9 L10 T10 9.8
   12. Fire Emblem 3H Switch G10 G10 C10 S10 S9 L10 T10 9.8

   13 Etrian Odyssey 4 3DS G10 G10 C10 S9 S10 L10 T10 9.8

14 Super Metroid SNES G10 G10 C10 S10 S10 L9 T10 9.8
15. Super Mario Galaxy Wii G10 G10 C10 S9 S10 L10 T10 9.8
16. Super Mario Galaxy 2 Wii G10 G10 C10 S9 S10 L10 T10 9.8

17. Super Mario Odyssey Switch G10 G10 C10 S10 S10 L9 T10 9.8
18. Resident Evil 4 Gamecube G10 G10 C10 S10 S9 L10 T10 9.8

19. Dragon Quest VIII PS2 G10 G10 C9 S10 S10 L10 T10 9.8

20. Ocarina of Time N64 G10 G9 C10 S10 S10 L10 T10 9.8

21. Valkryia Chronicles PS3 G10 G10 C9 S9 S10 L10 T10 9.7

22. Pokemon Silver/Gold G10 G10 C9 S9 S10 L10 T10 9.7

23. Super Mario World SNES G10 G10 C10 S8 S10 L10 T10 9.7

24. The Last of Us PS3 G10 G10 C10 S10 S10 L8 T10 9.7
25. God of War PS4 G9 G10 C10 S10 S10 L10 T9 9.7

26. Stardew Valley Switch G10 G10 C9 S9 S9 L10 T10 9.5

27. Super Street Fighter 2 HD Remix Xbox 360 G10 G10 C10 S9 S9 L10 T10 9.5
28. BlazBlue Calamity Trigger PS3 G10 G10 C10 S8 S9 L10 T10 9.5
29. Okami PS2 G10 G10 C9 S9 S9 L10 T10 9.5
30. Horizon Zero Dawn PS4 G10 G10 C9 S9 S9 L10 T10 9.5

31. Ninja Gaiden Sigma PS3 G10 G10 C9 S9 S9 L10 T10 9.5

32. Persona 5 Royal PS4 G10 G9 C9 S9 S10 L10 T10 9.5

33. Neir Automata PS4 G9 G9 C9 S10 S10 L10 T10 9.5

34. KotOR PC G9 G10 C9 S10 S9 L10 T10 9.5
35. Paper Mario TTYD GameCube G10 G9 C9 S10 S9 L10 T10 9.5
36. Majora's Mask N64 G10 G10 C10 S10 S10 L8 T9 9.5

37. SubNautica PC G10 G10 C9 S9 S10 L9 T10 9.5

1. Fallout 3 PC G9 G10 C9 S9 S9 L10 T10 9.5
   39. Mortal Kombat 9 PS3 G10 G9 C9 S8 S9 L10 T10 9.4

40 Advance Wars DS (DS) G10 G9 C9 S9 S9 L10 T10 9.4
41. Arkham Asylum PS3 G9 G10 C9 S9 S9 L10 T10 9.4
42. Mario Kart 8D Switch G10 G10 C10 S8 S9 L10 T9 9.4
43. Ni No Kuni PS3 G9 G10 C9 S9 S9 L10 T10 9.4

1. Suikoden II G9 G9 C9 S10 S9 L10 T10 9.4

45. Baldur's Gate 3 G9 G9 C9 S10 S9 L10 T10 9.28

46. Monster H.W. PC G10 G10 C9 S9 S8 L10 T9 9.28
47. Super Mario 3 NES G10 G10 C10 S8 S9 L9 T9 9.28
48. Portal 2 PC G10 G9 C9 S9 S9 L9 T9 9.28
49. Halo Combat E. Xbox G10 G10 C9 S9 S9 L9 T9 9.28
50. Tales of Symphonia G9 G9 C9 S10 S9 L10 T9 9.28

Yeah this is also what made the game get into my list this year. Larian is the sort of studio that will make several 3D models for a single fight in the game. And then they will do that over and over again. So you are always encountering new enemies. It's like the opposite of Final Fantasy where you just get a pallet swapped version of older enemies. 

Damn, the number is the hardest part!

#20

Change YoY: -1   My Rating: 9.4 / 10

Not sure if this is a controversial statement or not, but Nier: Automata is easily the best game PlatinumGames has ever made, and a big part of that is the story. Platinum have always been great at the gameplay side of things, but their storytelling won't win any awards any time soon. On the other hand, Yoko Taro, the game's director, has always had the opposite problem. His stories and characters have always been great, or at the very least interesting, but he had never before had the freedom and the budget to match his storytelling vision, until Nier: Automata. I've been a fan of both for a long time, but neither one has done anything else on the level of this game before or since. Nier: Automata is one of the rare examples of a story that could only really be told in a video game. There are elements of the story that I won't spoil, which would not really work in any other medium, literally all the way up to the game's ending credits. Part of the reason is that those elements are also part of the gameplay, so taking one out would also impact the other. The story itself is also excellent in general, dealing with themes such as existence, humanity, the value of life, and many other often rather dark subject matters. 

One of the main reasons Nier: Automata is this high on my list, besides the exceptional gameplay, great story, and one of the best video game soundtracks of the last decade, is the sheer emotional impact it had on me. Though there were numerous moments throughout the story that will likely remain with me for a very long time, there is also a specific scene in this game that basically forced me to take a break from the game. Again, I won't spoil it, but that makes Nier: Automata one of exactly two games out of the literal hundreds, if not thousands at this point, that have had such a profound impact on me that I've had to put down the controller for a while and just reflect on what just happened and try to accept it. That is something special, and makes me simultaneously want to go back and replay the game, as well as never touch it again.

#19

Change YoY: -1   My Rating: 9.4 / 10

Inarguably the most successful and most influential JRPG of all time, Final Fantasy VII very much lives up to the hype, even if certain elements have suffered due to the passage of time. Look past those things, and at its core Final Fantasy VII is still an absolutely brilliant game. Even then, the few aspects that don't quite hold up are mostly due to the game's age and the era in which it was made. The graphics are naturally dated, and some moments would probably no longer be acceptable if the game was made today, but the one aspect that hurts the game the most is its honestly quite shoddy localization. The translation into English is simply not very good, rife as it is with errors, weird and awkward sentences, and even mistakes that unintentionally altered certain scenes. The quality of the game still shines through, but it's still a shame that such an important part of the game falls so far below acceptable. It was very common at the time, but for such a high-profile game, you'd expect better.

One of the most brilliant aspects of Final Fantasy VII is the decision to make its main character an unreliable narrator. We get to witness numerous events from Cloud Strife's point of view, yet we don't learn until much later that his recollection of events is at best incomplete, and at worst completely fabricated. This gives the game a sense of mystery and even unease, since if the player pays attention from the start they will begin to notice some strange inconsistencies in Cloud's story as the game progresses. This is also the source of many of the game's most important and well-known twists, the only thing holding the story back being the poor translation that often leaves certain aspects of the story somewhat unclear. However, it also has some very strong theming around topics such as environmentalism, corporate greed, terrorism, and various other political and spiritual issues that run through the entire story and most of its important characters.

Final Fantasy VII also features a wonderfully flexible battle system built around the game's use of Materia as a source of abilities and stats. There are countless different combinations that the player can tinker around with. The game's world is also among the most iconic of all time, with locations like Midgar, the Northern Crater, Cosmo Canyon, and others being fondly remembered for a very good reason. Finally, it also has one of the all-time great video game soundtracks, composed by Nobuo Uematsu. Again, the game is not without its flaws, but they do very little to detract from its overall excellence.

#18

Change YoY: -1   My Rating: 9.4 / 10

For quite a few years after its release, Horizon Zero Dawn was my favourite open world game ever, by quite a significant distance. From the moment I first played it, I absolutely loved just about everything it had to offer. The world was intriguing and beautiful, constantly pushing me to find the next secret or new location beyond the map's edge, the characters, Aloy especially, quickly hooked me with their stories, and the audiovisual side was absolutely fantastic. The score by Joris de Man, The Flight, and a few others is exceptional, and visually the game remains one of the most beautiful open world titles I've ever played thanks to its brilliant art direction. More than a few times I found myself simply stopping to admire the game's gorgeous locations and just taking everything in. I must also commend the voice acting, especially by Ashly Burch as Aloy, though the rest of the cast is great as well.

I also found the gameplay a lot of fun, as the game made me feel like I was constantly improving alongside Aloy, and over time toppling more and more dangerous robots that had earlier felt like insurmountable threats. Each encounter with a new enemy felt dangerous and tense, but as I learned more about the various robots, fighting them became almost second nature as their attacks and various tells became almost second nature, just like what Aloy goes through in the story. The expansion to the main game, The Frozen Wilds, is also one of the best DLC releases ever in my opinion, as it expands the world, the story, and the gameplay of the base game without ever feeling tacked on. In general, I loved discovering more about this world that Guerrilla Games had created.

There are, naturally, some issues with the game as well. In the main game, the conversation animation never quite works right, the characters' mouth movements very often feeling unnatural and stilted. Fortunately, they improved the system a lot in the DLC. I also often found myself running out of inventory space, even with full upgrades, leading to quite a lot of annoying fiddling throughout the game. All of that is ultimately insignificant, though. The story, setting, the mystery surrounding the past, the characters, music, visuals, and gameplay are all wonderful, and though it's no longer my favourite open world game thanks to a pair of titles that were released in 2022, it remains not only the best game of its release year, but one of the best games of its entire generation.

As I have sort of a tradition for I'll end my list by posting my Highlights of the Year (or technically since I started my list last year, since my number 1 was actually one I played at the end of last year), this used to be focused games that didn't make my list, but since I made a full Top 100 and wrote about most of these already I'm just gonna list those ones and throw in one last highlight I managed to sneak in in December.

1. Final Fantasy VII Remake
2. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
3. Clair Obscur
4. Deltarune (Chapter 3 & 4)
5. Dragon Age: Origins
6. Alan Wake II
7. Astro Bot & Playroom
8. Hollow Knight: Silksong
9. Stray
10. OneShot
11. Super Mario Wonder
12. Attack on Titan 2

Guessed by ohwaitwe'renotdoingthatpart

♪ Regardless of warnings the future doesn't scare me at all ♪

Kingdom Hearts is super flawed and super fun. This is essentially my second time diving into the series, I played 1-2 in short succession years ago and now I've played Birth by Sleep, Dream Drop Distance, A Fragmentary Passage and am in the middle of Kingdom Hearts 3 all within a month plus some loose change and I think I'm enjoying the series a lot more now despite playing the less highly praised entries. The thing is if you go into Kingdom Hearts with a logical sort of reviewer mentality (with I technically am) it's incredibly easy to find flaws, the story is literally Nomura throwing darts at a plot board for one, but I think every fan of Sisney films who've played these games wanted to like them and it's really not that hard to do so if you just take the flaws for what they are and enjoy the positive parts, cause the positive parts are huge, these games are so fun and they have (you guessed it) heart. I'm getting a faint Tales of vibe from them, only I'm sailing the seas with Jack Sparrow instead of starting from scratch with an original game world. And sure, those worlds are definitely a lot deeper but… Jack Sparrow. I suspect at least one of these games will probably make my list next year even if the competition is getting fierce, at the very least the last two entries are much better than people give them credit for.

With that my list is fully complete and I wanna thank everyone who participated this year, especially those that kept the Discussion Thread alive. The jury's still out on when the results will be ready but we'll make sure to get them to you at some point!

#17

Change YoY: NEW!   My Rating: 9.4 / 10

The big hit game everyone's talking about this year, and yes, it really is as good as people say it is. I can't say Clair Obscur came out of nowhere or anything because there was a ton of hype for it based on all the trailers and details we'd heard prior to its release, but I doubt anyone expected it to be quite as great as it turned out to be. From the moment the game begins, it creates an atmosphere all its own through clever use of music, visuals, and dialogue. The introduction alone is one of the most effective in all of video games, and from there the game just keeps getting better until the very final moments.

Not only was the story incredibly well-told and written, the characters were some of the most memorable I've seen in years in any video game, bolstered by exceptional voice acting by a cast of very talented people. The art design is gorgeous, the look and feel of the various locations found throughout the world of Clair Obscur are unlike any I can remember seeing before, and the musical score is among the finest of the last decade, if not more. On top of everything the game features an excellent turn-based battle system that takes inspiration from some of the finest examples from the past and adds its own unique style and flavour to it. The gameplay created some of the most satisfying gaming moments of this past year for me.

For my money, this is the best game of 2025, and in general one of the best games of this whole console generation. What minor issues the game does have (some of the minigames aren't all that fun, and if you do a lot of exploring later on it's easy to make some of the storyline bosses underwhelming in terms of challenge) do not in any way detract from what is an overall incredible game.

#16

Change YoY: =   My Rating: 9.4 / 10

Final Fantasy VI is the game that turned the whole franchise from "just" one of the better JRPG series around to arguably the vanguard of the genre, the one pushing it to greater heights that other series aspired to reach, a status the later games would eventually cement. For many years, for better or worse, where Final Fantasy went, others would follow. Every new entry carried heavy expectations to push the genre to the next level in one way or another, simply because it was the biggest series of its kind. Fortunately, for quite a long time the series was in top form, capable of shouldering those expectations, and as far as I'm concerned the streak of exceptional games started here in Final Fantasy VI.

Earlier games in the series had contained various elements that approached true greatness. Final Fantasy IV had pushed the storytelling and character arcs to the forefront, but overdid the dramatics a little, as several times throughout the game a character sacrificed themselves in a heroic effort to save the others, only to get resurrected with little to no explanation somewhere down the line. Final Fantasy V had further developed the job system introduced in III to great effect, creating what is still one of the best gameplay systems in the whole series, but on the flip side the story and characters were much more straightforward and simple. Both games had some truly great elements, but fell short on others. Final Fantasy VI marks the first time in the series when just about every element came together to create something genuinely fantastic. 

The storytelling was more mature and felt more logical despite the increased complexity brought on by the large cast, the characters had far more depth and felt more relatable, the music remains one of the all-time great scores in video games, as Nobuo Uematsu pushed the SNES soundchip to its limits with massive tracks like Dancing Mad and the opera sequence, and it features one of the best storyline twists of all time, when the villain effectively wins halfway through the game. Visually it has naturally aged somewhat, but much of the pixel art is still gorgeous today, and what few other shortcomings the game has can generally be attributed to the limitations of the technology. Final Fantasy VI is the best game on the SNES, and one of the best games of all time, regardless of genre.

#15

Change YoY: =   My Rating: 9.4 / 10

Horizon Forbidden West is one of the best open world games ever made. I loved the first game already, the setting and characters it introduced us to, the beautiful visuals and excellent music, as well as the gameplay elements that allowed for various different ways of tackling combat encounters. In Forbidden West, all of those elements are still in place, just ever so slightly improved and polished even further. Had it not been for another game released the same year, this would now be my new favourite open world game ever. Alas, just like the first game was sadly overshadowed by Breath of the Wild, Forbidden West suffered similarly thanks to Elden Ring, which I will talk about later. The setting remains one of my personal favourite worlds in any video game, the intricate history that is unveiled over time providing a wonderful backdrop to your adventure. This also felt like a fitting continuation to the first game, as the truths Aloy learned in Zero Dawn drive her to seek further answers in entirely new places and engaging with ever-increasing threats.

Speaking of, the characters, Aloy first and foremost, are still great. I find Aloy to be one of my favourite characters in video games, and the rest of the cast is excellent as well, both the returning familiar faces and the new additions. I very much enjoyed spending time with them at various points in the game, whether during quests or just sitting back to hang around at their base camp to learn more about them as people. The gameplay also saw various new additions, with new weapons, many new enemy types, and more elements added to make it ever more varied than before. This is also an absolutely gorgeous game, and the soundtrack is filled with memorable pieces

While the first game felt like Aloy's journey to discover the history of the world and the truth behind what led to its current situation, as well as finding out about her own past, Forbidden West was much more about her learning to trust others and forging closer relationships with people, though still obviously also fighting to save the world at large. Just as much as the game was about tackling these dangers, it was about Aloy coming to terms with the fact she couldn't do everything on her own, that she had to trust others to help her. This is also a significant element in the game's excellent expansion, The Burning Shores, where most of the runtime is spent working together with another character who ends up becoming very important indeed to Aloy by the end of that story.