70. Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne (Atlus, 2004)Shin Megami Tensei is a franchise known for three things - its branching story paths, allowing the player to recruit demons, and of course being brutally difficult, requiring a great amount of player commitment and many, many deaths and continues to complete. Nocturne is no different, providing a plethora of tricky dungeon puzzles, difficult bosses and all but requiring mastery of the game's fusion system and party customization to succeed. Still, its haunting dreamlike atmosphere, compelling storyline, interesting characters and replay value make it a game that, while it may make you curse a lot, also proves to be extremely rewarding once you batten down and commit yourself to it fully. Nocturne is Shin Megami Tensei - and Japanese RPGs - at their finest.
69. Deltarune (Toby Fox, 2018)
Some might call it uncouth to add a game that's only 2/7ths done to my top 100 games list, but I don't care; Deltarune is totally worthy of the honor. Taking the core gameplay of Undertale to new heights with party-based design, as well as much more challenging encounters (taming most enemies is a multi-step process now, especially bosses), it also never loses sight of what made its predecessor great. The vivid, colorful environments, the expressive characters who never once fall into being lazy cardboard-cutouts (even the antagonists are very well-realized, three-dimensional characters with their own motives and personalities) and it's not afraid to show its emotional side, running the gamut from hilarious to disturbing to tender while never once feeling forced. Even with only two chapters done, it's a brilliant experience; hell, even if it never gets finished, it'll still be one of the best gaming experiences I've ever had. In an era where 99% of all time and money in the medium of video gaming goes into pretty-yet-empty 3D backdrops, models and textures that'll age about as well as milk and algorithmically-generated bland filler just to meet some arbitrary publisher-mandated length quota, with another 3 years of multi-gigabyte patches to follow just to make it slightly resemble an actual, finished product, it's nice to see developers who still remember what really makes gaming great.
68. Star Control II: the Ur-Quan Masters (Toys for Bob, 1992)
An undisputed classic, Star Control 2 is an ingenious blend of Starflight's open ended exploration and top down combat inspired by one of the very first video games ever made (Spacewar!). Set in a future where the nefarious Ur-Quan empire has enslaved countless races, you return home after a lengthy scientific exploration journey aboard an alien ship to find Earth similarly enslaved, it's citizens trapped beneath an impenetrable force field; from there you set out to gather resources, upgrade your ship, make alliances with other races across the galaxy and eventually take the fight to the Ur-Quan. A great concept for sure, and the quirky sense of humor and excellent music make it a captivating journey. The game has also since had the 3DO version's source code released, resulting in an excellent modern update (simply called "The Ur-Quan Masters" for copyright reasons) to numerous platforms that's also free to download and play.
67. Starflight (Binary Systems, 1986/1991)A groundbreaking game in the mid-80s and still a standout one today, Starflight was amazing for the sheer amount of depth it provided; the player was given free reign to explore the galaxy, recover resources to sell, find inhabitable planets, interact with alien races (both diplomatically and in war), and generally carve out their own niche in a vast universe. Of course, there was an underlying storyline as well, and a good one at that - the player's ultimate goal was to decipher clues found throughout their travels, unravel the mysteries of the galaxy, find out exactly why extinction-level events threaten every major star system they run across, and put a stop to it once and for all.
66. Dark Cloud 2 (Level-5, 2003)
One of the first RPG released on the Playstation 2 was Dark Cloud, a game touted as a "Zelda Killer" by Sony despite the fact that the two really played nothing alike (and Dark Cloud lacked much of the polish of the game it set out to "kill"). Dark Cloud 2, however, was a significant overhaul to the gameplay, streamlining it in some respects (from six playable characters to 2, though each now wielded two weapons as well as a special ability), giving it more polish, and just a sheer amount of content with things like challenge medals, minigames, high quality voiceover and a much more colorful, cel-shaded palette on the whole. A long, but satisfying adventure with a constant sense of fun and wonder throughout.
65. Marvel VS Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes (Capcom, 2000)Even as someone who was blown away by the early Marvel-Capcom crossover games, Marvel VS Capcom 2 managed to impress me on a level no other fighter had (and few others have since). With a roster of 56 playable characters, comprised of every character from previous crossover games and a handful of new ones, the same fast-paced gameplay that never misses a beat and teams of three (who can call in the other two characters to assist or chain Hyper Combos together for huge damage), the game is just a blast to play. I'm not a huge fan of the bizarre CGI backgrounds or the strange light jazz soundtrack they got for this crazy crossover fight, but in terms of gameplay it's still among the best fighters ever made.
64. Metal Slug X (SNK, 1999)
Metal Slug X is a somewhat more polished reimagining of Metal Slug 2, eliminating much of its slowdown while remixing its gameplay with new enemy patterns and a slightly different boss order. For my money, though, it's also the best Metal Slug game ever made, with a perfect blend of design cues, destructible environments and that good old gorgeous 2D animation, not to mention one of the greatest final battles in video game history. This really is a title that must be experienced for any fan of arcade action.
63. Picross DS (Jupiter, 2007)
Picross is a logic puzzle series where, using numeric clues indicated in each row and column, you chip out spaces with the ultimate goal of revealing a picture. The original Game Boy game was only modestly successful outside of Japan, but there it was popular enough to get a sequel on the Super Famicom and eventually another sequel on the Game Boy. It also got entries on the DS and continues to get more as downloadables on the 3DS and Switch. They're all quite enjoyable, but the DS entry is the one that ate up an entire six months of my life in college. Just a perfect little game to play whenever you have some time to kill.
62: Quake (Id Software, 1997)
Every modern FPS owes much to Doom, but with apologies to that classic, I have to say I much prefer Quake these days. It took some time to win me over, but after really taking in its atmosphere, gorgeously designed 3D maps, creepy enemies and relentlessly fast-paced design, it's pretty hard to go back. Moreso when it has some fantastic addons like Arcane Dimensions and the two official expansion packs that expand upon the experience in some pretty amazing ways, adding new some of the most well-crafted new enemies, stages and bosses I've seen in any FPS. Quake kicks ass and is the quintessential Id shooter from the 90s.
61. Divinity: Original Sin II (Larian Studios, 2017)
I never had much interest in the Divinity series; they all just seemed like mediocre knockoffs of games that came before them at a glance, and judging from the unimpressive reviews most of them have gotten, I'm not too far off in that assessment. Original Sin was allegedly their big breakout title, but I didn't much care for it either; the constant bugginess and jank, inane dialog and slow, tedious combat just wore on me before long. However, Original Sin II is where they finally got things right. It takes the inventive and playful ideas of the original game and puts them in a smooth, responsive engine, and it actually becomes a ton of fun to explore the world, find hidden secrets and clever ways to reach out-of-reach items, and enemy battles are used more sparingly so you don't get utterly sick of combat within the first dozen or so fights. But when it does happen, it's a thrill to turn the field of battle to your advantage at every opportunity - dropping oil and setting it ablaze, teleporting enemies into spikes or fire fields, channeling lightning through mist, knocking them out with chloroform and backstabbing their friends, to name just a few. The narrative is also vastly improved this time, with far less grating party banter and voiceover, genuinely engaging and witty dialog and a plethora of well-written and interesting pre-fab protagonists (and you can still create your own if you choose). Some of the other mechanics are also unique and downright inspired; conversing with animals, eating the dead to see their memories; even the ability to choose the dominant instrument in the music is something I've never seen in another game. Hell, I don't even mind the crafting as much now - it actually makes sense and doesn't just turn the game into a tedious scavenger hunt as most similar systems tend to. It took a long road to get here, but Larian made a damn fine RPG with Original Sin II.
Shin Megami Tensei is a franchise known for three things - its branching story paths, allowing the player to recruit demons, and of course being brutally difficult, requiring a great amount of player commitment and many, many deaths and continues to complete. Nocturne is no different, providing a plethora of tricky dungeon puzzles, difficult bosses and all but requiring mastery of the game's fusion system and party customization to succeed. Still, its haunting dreamlike atmosphere, compelling storyline, interesting characters and replay value make it a game that, while it may make you curse a lot, also proves to be extremely rewarding once you batten down and commit yourself to it fully. Nocturne is Shin Megami Tensei - and Japanese RPGs - at their finest.
A groundbreaking game in the mid-80s and still a standout one today, Starflight was amazing for the sheer amount of depth it provided; the player was given free reign to explore the galaxy, recover resources to sell, find inhabitable planets, interact with alien races (both diplomatically and in war), and generally carve out their own niche in a vast universe. Of course, there was an underlying storyline as well, and a good one at that - the player's ultimate goal was to decipher clues found throughout their travels, unravel the mysteries of the galaxy, find out exactly why extinction-level events threaten every major star system they run across, and put a stop to it once and for all.
Even as someone who was blown away by the early Marvel-Capcom crossover games, Marvel VS Capcom 2 managed to impress me on a level no other fighter had (and few others have since). With a roster of 56 playable characters, comprised of every character from previous crossover games and a handful of new ones, the same fast-paced gameplay that never misses a beat and teams of three (who can call in the other two characters to assist or chain Hyper Combos together for huge damage), the game is just a blast to play. I'm not a huge fan of the bizarre CGI backgrounds or the strange light jazz soundtrack they got for this crazy crossover fight, but in terms of gameplay it's still among the best fighters ever made.
