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Two years ago, I made a list of 50 video games that I deemed my favorites of all time. However, some of the games listed didn't really belong there, because I had hardly ever played them. On the other hand, there are a handful that should have made it, so here's a second chance I'm giving to myself.
50)Bust-a-Move/Puzzle Bobble (Super NES): Not much to say about this, being it's a puzzle game, but this used to be my favorite game on the Super 6-in-1 that Brian's friend James used to have.
49)The Oregon Trail (DOS): How many times have I played this one back in 3rd Grade? Enough for anyone to lose count.
48)Super Buster Bros. (Super NES): Another favorite of mine back in 3rd Grade. Too bad we could only play it down in Virginia at the time.
47)Super Mario Land (Game Boy): My favorite game back whenever Joel used to bring his Game Boy.
46)Jason Storm in Space Chase 3 (DOS): You get to collect all kinds of things! Teddy bears, diamonds, ice cream sundaes, floppy disks, fruit... This whole game is a virtual treasure trove!
45)Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time (Super NES): Yet another nostalgic favorite, from when Brian borrowed it from his friend Craig.
44)Super Mario 64 (Nintendo 64): Yeah, I remember when we first played this around Thanksgiving of 1996. That was when the Nintendo 64 was brand new, two years before we bought our own unit from Cousin David.
43)Final Fight 3 (Super NES): Best of the Final Fight trilogy on the Super NES! Best music, best graphics, and the game also lets you find secret paths!
42)Super Mario World (Super NES): Nifty stuff galore! Mushrooms, tulips, stars, balloons, keys, P-switches, eggs, and plenty more! Isn't it nice how everything takes up exactly the same square number of pixels on the screen?
41)Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES): Even more cool shit here! (I actually played this on the Super NES, but after having watched the Angry Video Game Nerd's review for it, it hardly sounds different on the original NES than it does on an SNES cartridge, unlike all its prequels.)
40)Kirby Super Star (Super NES): Yet another one of my old-time favorites, back when me and Brian used to rent this at Blockbuster in late 1996. Too much to say about this, even though this feels more like eight eighths of a game than eight games in one.
39)Mahou Poipoi Poitto (Super Famicom): This was my favorite game of the ones I downloaded during my gaming drought of 2003.
38)Super Valis IV (Super NES): Another favorite of mine during the aforementioned gaming drought. Yeah, it's a butchered version of the original TurboGrafx-CD version, but guess what? After watching a gameplay video for the TG-CD version, I like the music in this version better (especially in level 2).
37)Makeruna! Makendou (Super Famicom): The game that made it here as "Kendo Rage". Found out about it in volume 48 of Nintendo Power, played it on SNES9X, included the main character in my version of SMW2: Yoshi's Island rewritten, and that's what led me to play a certain game on the PC-FX and to seek the OAV.
36)Wonder Project J2 (Nintendo 64): The game I saw a screenshot of in Nintendo Power during 1997, re-discovered in 2001, and finally downloaded a ROM and translation patch for just two years ago.
35)Donkey Kong Country (Super NES): Another one of my favorites that Brian used to borrow from Craig.
34)Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (NES): Challenge! When you collect enough experience points, decide whether you need to recover your life or magic power, or you can wait for a defense boost.
33)Sonic Advance 2 (Game Boy Advance): This is where Cream the Rabbit debuted in the Sonic franchise.
32)Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Game Gear): My first video game. Even though the graphics are inferior to most games, they feel nostalgic whenever I look at them.
31)Castlevania V: Dracula X (Super NES): My favorite of the Castlevania series, for one reason: MUZAK! Why is this game the only one in the series to have kick-ass music in every level?
30)Sonic Adventure 2: Battle (GameCube): Two words: Chao Garden.
29)Sonic Adventure DX (GameCube): This one came first, but has more stuff to it.
28)Sonic CD (Windows): Past, Present, Future. You always want to go to the first, so you can make the last of those good.
27)Shadow the Hedgehog (Playstation 2): Shoot people, break stuff, ride stuff, and choose which side you're on! ("I take orders from no one! I do as I decide!")
26)Knuckles Chaotix (Sega 32X): A must-play for any fan of side-scrolling Sonic games! This game stands out for being the only Sonic game on the 32X (which to begin with, had relatively few games compared to any standalone console).
25)Sonic 3 & Knuckles (Genesis/Windows): Need I say it again?
24)Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (Super NES): Like with Super Mario World, almost everything takes up one set square of pixels. Gotta love those nice 16-bit graphics!
23)Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (Nintendo 64): The 3D remix of A Link to the Past, which unlike Majora's Mask, stays true to its traditional basis with Link, Zelda, Ganon, and the Triforce.
22)Banjo-Kazooie (Nintendo 64): Like with Jason Storm and Super Mario World, you get to collect all kinds of neat stuff. Honeycombs, jigsaw pieces, eggs, feathers, and more. Oh, and the board game right before the final boss is also worth playing.
21)Snowboard Kids (Nintendo 64): A racing game, with something vital: Items and weapons! What fun is any racing game if all you're doing is trying to go faster, make sharper turns, or make fewer collisions?
20)Whacked! (Xbox): While I prefer Snowboard Kids because of its variety of weapons, Brian prefers Mario Kart 64 because you can strategize on how to take your opponent out in some non-racing arenas. This game fulfills both of those, and I went out of my way to buy it after receiving an Xbox last year for Christmas.
19)Earthbound (Super NES): Nostalgic value! (How did I get my own copy of this just by renting it in 1996?)
18)Chrono Trigger (Super NES): Get far enough into the game, and you can select which characters you take at any time. Plus, lots of equipment to customize your party with, and move aplenty to unlock!
17)Snowboard Kids 2 (Nintendo 64): Feels slightly kiddier than the first game, but what really matters is that all aspects of the gameplay are better. (Do I wanna play SK+ for the Playstation? Yeah! As soon as I can play PSX games on my Playstation 2. The DS game? No thanks.)
16)Zombies Ate My Neighbors (Super NES): Pick up anything you can get your hands on, and don't let anyone die before you save them! If someone's in trouble... run away. Unless you've got a Pandora's Box.
15)Contra IV (Nintendo DS): By far the best Contra game I've ever seen. In Contra III and Contra: Hard Corps, each enemy is confined to a section of a particular level (most of the time, anyway), but here, you fight all kinds of things wherever you are in most levels. What could be better than making mincemeat out of your enemies with a machine gun?
14)Zone of the Enders: The Fist of Mars (Game Boy Advance): You and your enemies can only hit one target at a time. Once someone's killed, they're out! Still addictive as hell!
13)Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest (Super NES): The sequel to Donkey Kong Country, with plenty of stuff to find and a secret world to unlock.
12)DKC3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble (Super NES): Even more stuff to find!
11)Grandia II (Playstation 2): This is not just another RPG. The battle system is unique, and that alone got me out of the gaming drought of 2003.
10)Pokemon Gold/Silver/Crystal (Game Boy Color): Remember the days when everyone waited for Pokemon Gold and Silver to come out in 2000? Those were good times. Got Silver for Christmas that year, and Crystal a year later.
9)Dark Cloud (Playstation 2): No game utilizes fishing, randomly arranged dungeons, and the twelve birthstones better than this game!
8)Super Mario RPG (Super NES): One of the most unique Mario games in existence! What can I say? I'm an RPG fan!
7)Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island (Super NES): What's the best thing about this game? Is it the special effects that could only be pulled off with the FX chip? No. It's seeing whether you get to play a bonus game at the end of each level, and then seeing if you win!
6)Pokemon FireRed/LeafGreen (Game Boy Advance): Decent versions of Pokemon Red and Blue.
5)Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald (Game Boy Advance): These games just get better and better with each generation!
4)Dark Cloud 2 (Playstation 2): For all this game lacks that the first game had, this game has plenty to more than compensate! Play golf, break records, recruit characters, rebuild towns, collect medals... only thing that really sucks is Monica's monster transformations.
3)Grandia III (Playstation 2): How could things get better? Didn't I mention this game just the other day?
2)Pokemon Diamond/Pearl/Platinum (Nintendo DS): Now, this is the kind of game you expect quality out of. As mediocre as certain spinoffs such as Pokemon Battle Revolution may be, Nintendo lives up to its tradition by making sure its main line of Pokemon games get better with each installment. And with the job it did with Super Mario and Legend of Zelda, no wonder that company stays on top of the gaming industry.
So, if this game is the best I've ever played because of the gameplay, then why does it rank #2 on our list? Because #1 is the game that triggers fireworks whenever it gets mentioned, and for good reason:
1)Getter Love!! (Nintendo 64): Here is the game that inspired me to continue with Chronicles of 7th Grade. When I looked through Wikipedia's list of Nintendo 64 games one time in October 2007, this one stood out with its sex appeal and weird-ass title. And as it turns out, this game had been released in Japan on December 1999, the year I had been in 7th Grade.
That aside, this game really is worthwhile, if you don't mind putting yourself in a shitty mood! All kinds of nifty cards abound, too, and you never know what you'll find when you go shopping for them. Wanna be an asshole? Play Getter Love!!, and have fun ruining your rivals' dates while having your own!
-----
Now, let's take a look at five of the worst (including one that I'm still fond of):
5)Makeruna! Makendou Z (PC-FX): As a game, it's lame. Cheap-ass soundtrack and sound quality, lame battles, no special effects for so much as an enemy dying, but who cares! It's Makendou! I still can't wait to make a fandub of this game!
4)Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow (Game Boy): This game was revolutionary for its time, but by today's standards, it sucks. Too many things to nitpick about the gameplay. The graphics are a joke, and I'm not the first person to say that. Someone on the Bulbagarden Forum said that, even for Game Boy standards. Even with HeartGold and SoulSilver coming out for the Nintendo DS, the graphics and gameplay in Gold, Silver, and Crystal are still the minimum of what could be considered decent. (Let's not forget that I got Red for Christmas in 1999, when I was in 8th grade. Obsessed with it as I was, that year has no nostalgic points whatsoever.)
3)Digimon World 3 (Playstation): Not the worst game in the world, but what's the point of choosing between sets of Digimon if all of them have the same set of Digivolutions (only in different orders), and you can get the rest of them along the way? Also, each section is rather short, and the game practically expects you to linger around before fighting the bosses. I stopped playing this at around Byakko City, where you can't do a damn thing on your first trip, even saving your game. WTF?
2)Sonic Spinball (Game Gear): No and, ifs, or buts about it. Play the Genesis version, not this watered-down piece of shit.
1)Death & Return of Superman (Super NES): We all know that there are currently no good Superman games in existence. This game is just one of the better games in the franchise, but unlike with Makendou, I don't particularly care for Superman that much. This game, to sum things up, is nothing but fighting the same enemies over and over in any given level--no, for most of the damn game! Eye beams? Useless! Pausing? Well, at least the song doesn't start over, unlike in Global Gladiators, but can't this game either keep going or just shut the fuck up when you pause, instead of humming on whichever note you paused on?
50)Bust-a-Move/Puzzle Bobble (Super NES): Not much to say about this, being it's a puzzle game, but this used to be my favorite game on the Super 6-in-1 that Brian's friend James used to have.
49)The Oregon Trail (DOS): How many times have I played this one back in 3rd Grade? Enough for anyone to lose count.
48)Super Buster Bros. (Super NES): Another favorite of mine back in 3rd Grade. Too bad we could only play it down in Virginia at the time.
47)Super Mario Land (Game Boy): My favorite game back whenever Joel used to bring his Game Boy.
46)Jason Storm in Space Chase 3 (DOS): You get to collect all kinds of things! Teddy bears, diamonds, ice cream sundaes, floppy disks, fruit... This whole game is a virtual treasure trove!
45)Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time (Super NES): Yet another nostalgic favorite, from when Brian borrowed it from his friend Craig.
44)Super Mario 64 (Nintendo 64): Yeah, I remember when we first played this around Thanksgiving of 1996. That was when the Nintendo 64 was brand new, two years before we bought our own unit from Cousin David.
43)Final Fight 3 (Super NES): Best of the Final Fight trilogy on the Super NES! Best music, best graphics, and the game also lets you find secret paths!
42)Super Mario World (Super NES): Nifty stuff galore! Mushrooms, tulips, stars, balloons, keys, P-switches, eggs, and plenty more! Isn't it nice how everything takes up exactly the same square number of pixels on the screen?
41)Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES): Even more cool shit here! (I actually played this on the Super NES, but after having watched the Angry Video Game Nerd's review for it, it hardly sounds different on the original NES than it does on an SNES cartridge, unlike all its prequels.)
40)Kirby Super Star (Super NES): Yet another one of my old-time favorites, back when me and Brian used to rent this at Blockbuster in late 1996. Too much to say about this, even though this feels more like eight eighths of a game than eight games in one.
39)Mahou Poipoi Poitto (Super Famicom): This was my favorite game of the ones I downloaded during my gaming drought of 2003.
38)Super Valis IV (Super NES): Another favorite of mine during the aforementioned gaming drought. Yeah, it's a butchered version of the original TurboGrafx-CD version, but guess what? After watching a gameplay video for the TG-CD version, I like the music in this version better (especially in level 2).
37)Makeruna! Makendou (Super Famicom): The game that made it here as "Kendo Rage". Found out about it in volume 48 of Nintendo Power, played it on SNES9X, included the main character in my version of SMW2: Yoshi's Island rewritten, and that's what led me to play a certain game on the PC-FX and to seek the OAV.
36)Wonder Project J2 (Nintendo 64): The game I saw a screenshot of in Nintendo Power during 1997, re-discovered in 2001, and finally downloaded a ROM and translation patch for just two years ago.
35)Donkey Kong Country (Super NES): Another one of my favorites that Brian used to borrow from Craig.
34)Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (NES): Challenge! When you collect enough experience points, decide whether you need to recover your life or magic power, or you can wait for a defense boost.
33)Sonic Advance 2 (Game Boy Advance): This is where Cream the Rabbit debuted in the Sonic franchise.
32)Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Game Gear): My first video game. Even though the graphics are inferior to most games, they feel nostalgic whenever I look at them.
31)Castlevania V: Dracula X (Super NES): My favorite of the Castlevania series, for one reason: MUZAK! Why is this game the only one in the series to have kick-ass music in every level?
30)Sonic Adventure 2: Battle (GameCube): Two words: Chao Garden.
29)Sonic Adventure DX (GameCube): This one came first, but has more stuff to it.
28)Sonic CD (Windows): Past, Present, Future. You always want to go to the first, so you can make the last of those good.
27)Shadow the Hedgehog (Playstation 2): Shoot people, break stuff, ride stuff, and choose which side you're on! ("I take orders from no one! I do as I decide!")
26)Knuckles Chaotix (Sega 32X): A must-play for any fan of side-scrolling Sonic games! This game stands out for being the only Sonic game on the 32X (which to begin with, had relatively few games compared to any standalone console).
25)Sonic 3 & Knuckles (Genesis/Windows): Need I say it again?
24)Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (Super NES): Like with Super Mario World, almost everything takes up one set square of pixels. Gotta love those nice 16-bit graphics!
23)Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (Nintendo 64): The 3D remix of A Link to the Past, which unlike Majora's Mask, stays true to its traditional basis with Link, Zelda, Ganon, and the Triforce.
22)Banjo-Kazooie (Nintendo 64): Like with Jason Storm and Super Mario World, you get to collect all kinds of neat stuff. Honeycombs, jigsaw pieces, eggs, feathers, and more. Oh, and the board game right before the final boss is also worth playing.
21)Snowboard Kids (Nintendo 64): A racing game, with something vital: Items and weapons! What fun is any racing game if all you're doing is trying to go faster, make sharper turns, or make fewer collisions?
20)Whacked! (Xbox): While I prefer Snowboard Kids because of its variety of weapons, Brian prefers Mario Kart 64 because you can strategize on how to take your opponent out in some non-racing arenas. This game fulfills both of those, and I went out of my way to buy it after receiving an Xbox last year for Christmas.
19)Earthbound (Super NES): Nostalgic value! (How did I get my own copy of this just by renting it in 1996?)
18)Chrono Trigger (Super NES): Get far enough into the game, and you can select which characters you take at any time. Plus, lots of equipment to customize your party with, and move aplenty to unlock!
17)Snowboard Kids 2 (Nintendo 64): Feels slightly kiddier than the first game, but what really matters is that all aspects of the gameplay are better. (Do I wanna play SK+ for the Playstation? Yeah! As soon as I can play PSX games on my Playstation 2. The DS game? No thanks.)
16)Zombies Ate My Neighbors (Super NES): Pick up anything you can get your hands on, and don't let anyone die before you save them! If someone's in trouble... run away. Unless you've got a Pandora's Box.
15)Contra IV (Nintendo DS): By far the best Contra game I've ever seen. In Contra III and Contra: Hard Corps, each enemy is confined to a section of a particular level (most of the time, anyway), but here, you fight all kinds of things wherever you are in most levels. What could be better than making mincemeat out of your enemies with a machine gun?
14)Zone of the Enders: The Fist of Mars (Game Boy Advance): You and your enemies can only hit one target at a time. Once someone's killed, they're out! Still addictive as hell!
13)Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest (Super NES): The sequel to Donkey Kong Country, with plenty of stuff to find and a secret world to unlock.
12)DKC3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble (Super NES): Even more stuff to find!
11)Grandia II (Playstation 2): This is not just another RPG. The battle system is unique, and that alone got me out of the gaming drought of 2003.
10)Pokemon Gold/Silver/Crystal (Game Boy Color): Remember the days when everyone waited for Pokemon Gold and Silver to come out in 2000? Those were good times. Got Silver for Christmas that year, and Crystal a year later.
9)Dark Cloud (Playstation 2): No game utilizes fishing, randomly arranged dungeons, and the twelve birthstones better than this game!
8)Super Mario RPG (Super NES): One of the most unique Mario games in existence! What can I say? I'm an RPG fan!
7)Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island (Super NES): What's the best thing about this game? Is it the special effects that could only be pulled off with the FX chip? No. It's seeing whether you get to play a bonus game at the end of each level, and then seeing if you win!
6)Pokemon FireRed/LeafGreen (Game Boy Advance): Decent versions of Pokemon Red and Blue.
5)Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald (Game Boy Advance): These games just get better and better with each generation!
4)Dark Cloud 2 (Playstation 2): For all this game lacks that the first game had, this game has plenty to more than compensate! Play golf, break records, recruit characters, rebuild towns, collect medals... only thing that really sucks is Monica's monster transformations.
3)Grandia III (Playstation 2): How could things get better? Didn't I mention this game just the other day?
2)Pokemon Diamond/Pearl/Platinum (Nintendo DS): Now, this is the kind of game you expect quality out of. As mediocre as certain spinoffs such as Pokemon Battle Revolution may be, Nintendo lives up to its tradition by making sure its main line of Pokemon games get better with each installment. And with the job it did with Super Mario and Legend of Zelda, no wonder that company stays on top of the gaming industry.
So, if this game is the best I've ever played because of the gameplay, then why does it rank #2 on our list? Because #1 is the game that triggers fireworks whenever it gets mentioned, and for good reason:
1)Getter Love!! (Nintendo 64): Here is the game that inspired me to continue with Chronicles of 7th Grade. When I looked through Wikipedia's list of Nintendo 64 games one time in October 2007, this one stood out with its sex appeal and weird-ass title. And as it turns out, this game had been released in Japan on December 1999, the year I had been in 7th Grade.
That aside, this game really is worthwhile, if you don't mind putting yourself in a shitty mood! All kinds of nifty cards abound, too, and you never know what you'll find when you go shopping for them. Wanna be an asshole? Play Getter Love!!, and have fun ruining your rivals' dates while having your own!
-----
Now, let's take a look at five of the worst (including one that I'm still fond of):
5)Makeruna! Makendou Z (PC-FX): As a game, it's lame. Cheap-ass soundtrack and sound quality, lame battles, no special effects for so much as an enemy dying, but who cares! It's Makendou! I still can't wait to make a fandub of this game!
4)Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow (Game Boy): This game was revolutionary for its time, but by today's standards, it sucks. Too many things to nitpick about the gameplay. The graphics are a joke, and I'm not the first person to say that. Someone on the Bulbagarden Forum said that, even for Game Boy standards. Even with HeartGold and SoulSilver coming out for the Nintendo DS, the graphics and gameplay in Gold, Silver, and Crystal are still the minimum of what could be considered decent. (Let's not forget that I got Red for Christmas in 1999, when I was in 8th grade. Obsessed with it as I was, that year has no nostalgic points whatsoever.)
3)Digimon World 3 (Playstation): Not the worst game in the world, but what's the point of choosing between sets of Digimon if all of them have the same set of Digivolutions (only in different orders), and you can get the rest of them along the way? Also, each section is rather short, and the game practically expects you to linger around before fighting the bosses. I stopped playing this at around Byakko City, where you can't do a damn thing on your first trip, even saving your game. WTF?
2)Sonic Spinball (Game Gear): No and, ifs, or buts about it. Play the Genesis version, not this watered-down piece of shit.
1)Death & Return of Superman (Super NES): We all know that there are currently no good Superman games in existence. This game is just one of the better games in the franchise, but unlike with Makendou, I don't particularly care for Superman that much. This game, to sum things up, is nothing but fighting the same enemies over and over in any given level--no, for most of the damn game! Eye beams? Useless! Pausing? Well, at least the song doesn't start over, unlike in Global Gladiators, but can't this game either keep going or just shut the fuck up when you pause, instead of humming on whichever note you paused on?