80. Mother 3 (Nintendo/Brownie Brown/APE, 2006 in Japan)
Mother 3 is a game with a very long and troubled production history; beginning in 1994 on the Super Famicom, moving to the Nintendo 64 Disk Drive, then the N64 once the 64DD tanked, then finally being cancelled in late 2000 when the Gamecube was announced and the team had failed to make much progress due to their inexperience with 3D game development. Then it was picked back up in 2003 and finally released on the Game Boy Advance in 2006, undergoing heavy rewrites and changes all the while. This does show up in the final product, as the game has a rather uneven difficulty level and several segments feel rushed (particularly the last two chapters). But in spite of its problems, this is an Earthbound game through and through. That means a quirky sense of humor and some surreal set pieces lain atop a surprisingly heartfelt and dramatic storyline. Well worth checking out for any RPG fan, especially in light of a very high quality fan translation that was completed in 2008.
79. Startropics (Nintendo, 1990)
A rare example of a game never getting a Japanese release despite being created by a Japanese development team. They were missing out, though, as Startropics is a high quality title. Essentially an Americanized Legend of Zelda, the game features a more modern environment replete with a lot of Zelda's puzzle-oriented dungeons, giant bosses and action-driven gameplay. Further matching the theme, your weapons included things like baseballs and yo-yos, and you were given a submarine to patrol the game's environments (navigated by a character who bears a strong resemblance to ROB), all in a quest to rescue your uncle from an alien overlord who seeks to conquer Earth and destroy the last of a race called the Argonians. It's a bit outlandish and fiendishly difficult at times (particularly the final dungeons), but the sheer charm of it makes Startropics into a memorable experience nevertheless.
78. Tyrian 2000 (Eclipse Software, 2000)
I've never been a big fan of shmups, but Tyrian 2000 is definitely an exception, providing challenging gameplay with plenty of pop. Drawing inspiration from the likes of R-Type and Zanac while introducing many elements of its own, Tyrian has a lot to offer. In addition to a story mode that has you collecting points to purchase ship upgrades, there are other clever game modes like an Arcade mode that lets you collect powerups and input Street Fighter style moves to do special attacks, minigames like "Destruct" (an artillery combat game similar to Scorched Earth or Worms), plenty of alternate paths and hidden content and a strong sense of humor. All in all, just a fun, kickass game for the PC platform; it's a pity Eclipse Software never made more games after this one.
77. The Simpsons (Konami, 1991)
Like many who grew up in the '80s and '90s, I was a watcher of the Simpsons during their prime years, and many of its amazing jokes are pemanently burned into my brain. As with any popular property it had its share of tie-in video games, and while most of the Nintendo games were pretty crappy, Konami's arcade beat-em-up has endured as a classic of the genre. Like many Japanese-developed licensed games based on western properties, it's based on a very specific era of the show - season 1, in fact - and has just enough weird Japanese design sensibilities worked in (like an out-of-nowhere Kabuki themed boss) to give it its own unique personality. It's also just a really fun beat-em-up with some clever mechanics like team-up attacks, minigames between levels to score extra points and some awesome and incredibly distinct sound design replete with voice clips from all the original VAs.
76. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (Nintendo/Monolith Soft, 2023)
While I enjoyed Breath of the Wild, I didn't love it; it just lacked that all-important focus on secrets and puzzle solving of a good Zelda and the overall bland world design, lack of rewarding quests and lack of dungeons made it feel a bit lacking in spite of its stronger elements. Tears of the Kingdom makes up for everything that game lacked and then some, giving you not one, but THREE large maps to explore, some amazing new mechanics like weapon fusion and being able to build your own contraptions to aid in battle or get around faster, and the good old Zelda mainstay - tons of secrets and content that all feels highly polished and incredibly rewarding to experience. Simply put, this game blew me away, becoming not just one of my favorite Zeldas, but one of the best games ever created, period.
28. Sid Meier's Civilization IV (Firaxis Games, 2005)
The
Sid Meier's Civilization franchise has always been a popular one, and
many fans consider IV to be the pinnacle of the series. It isn't hard
to see why, either, as it takes everything great about its predecessors
and polishes it to perfection, adding in a few new mechanics without
disrupting the balance (particularly the Beyond the Sword expansion,
which adds in many new units, buildings, randomized events and roads to
victory). It's also highly customizable, with the player able to tweak
just about every element of the game to their liking with
easily-editable XML files and a publicly available SDK. But beneath it
all, it's still good ol' Civ - build cities and armies, research new
technologies, build world wonders, and reach one of the win conditions
before your opponents do. Plus, it has Leonard Nimoy doing the narration; you can't argue with that kind of awesome.
74. Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride (Chunsoft, 1992)
Dragon Quest was never exactly a huge name in the west, but it still had a substantial following; not enough to get Enix to localize its two entries on the Super Famicom, however, which is a shame as its fifth entry is considered one of the best games in the franchise (and even the series' creator, Yuji Horii, has said it's his favorite). It certainly upends quite a few popular tropes - you're not the chosen hero of the story, but rather spend a good chunk of it searching for them, and it incorporates passage of time and multiple generations into its narrative, which is something still relatively few games attempt. It even incorporates a bit of Bard's Tale or Shin Megami Tensei into its design by letting you recruit monsters to your party, who can level up over time and become quite formidable allies themselves. A surprisingly ambitious and unusually dark entry in a series that normally prides itself so heavily on adhering to tradition.
73. Marvel VS Capcom: Clash of Heroes (Capcom, 1998)
An arcade game I must have sunk well over $50 into during a class field trip, and I don't regret it one bit as this game is just as fun now as it was then. The incredible presentation and visuals (including some clever interactive stages), plethora of hidden characters, amazing soundtrack and intense gameplay are all honed to perfection here, and of course it features the star of one of my favorite franchises of all time (Mega Man) as a playable character, which was a huge plus. It may be largely overshadowed by its sequels, but to me, the original Marvel VS Capcom is over-the-top fun at its most pure.
72. Axiom Verge (Thomas Happ, 2015)It's still a mystery to me how one guy working on his own can make an incredible 2D Metroid game, yet Nintendo, with the vast amount of money and resources at their disposal, hasn't done so in over a decade. Well, regardless, Axiom Verge is a stellar game in the same mold, combining moody chiptune music and the same feeling of isolation in an eerie, organic alien environment as any good Metroid title. Add in some unique powerups, a plethora of clever weapons, tons of hidden secrets and plenty of enormous boss fights, and you've got a hell of a good time.
71. Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest (Rare, 1995)
Another example of a groundbreaking game getting an equally groundbreaking sequel, Donkey Kong Country 2 had more of everything to offer. Stage variety, hidden secrets, animal companions, sharper visuals, better music... it really was a step above the first DKC in every respect. Hell, it even took a page from Super Mario World's book and had entire hidden worlds to discover if you found enough special coins to unlock them, and these stages were among the toughest the game, so your skills had to be honed to a T just to stand a chance at making it through them. There were even some clever cameos from other Nintendo characters if you managed to collect enough hidden DK coins before the ending. Now if only they could get their act together and make another sequel even half as good as this...
