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. Hades (Supergiant Games, 2020)
2020 was seemingly the year of action-roguelikes, and Hades is probably the best-acclaimed of all of them. Following the story of Hades' son as he attempts to escape from Tartarus and make his way to Olympus, it's got plenty of the usual roguelike tropes - different weapons and upgrades to purchase and find, currencies to upgrade your character between runs to give yourself a better shot next time, and of course, plenty of risk-versus-reward tradeoffs in the form of making deals with Chaos. But what sets its apart is the presentation of its story, becoming another element that gradually gets revealed the more you play through the game, die off and return to the start; all of the characters are amazingly well-written and performed, and seeing all of their interactions each time you die and return to the start keeps you invested and ensures you never get frustrated. A very challenging, yet stylish, immaculately well-made and highly rewarding experience that will keep you coming back for "just one more try" we'll into the early hours of the morning.
76. Skullgirls: Second Encore (Autumn Games/Lab Zero/M2, 2012)
A sleeper title that slowly built its way up to becoming a cult classic, Skullgirls is a great fast-paced fighting game with some fantastic hand-drawn animation, very creative character designs and surprisingly innovative elements - infinite combo protection, virtually no unblockable attacks, and surprisingly robust rollback netcode that makes playing online a breeze even without a super-high-end connection. Even the story is great, which is pretty rare in the fighting game genre; it hits the perfect blend of humor and drama and ends up being extremely memorable. It may never be as big as Street Fighter or Tekken or (ugh) Smash, but it's the one I'd much rather play any day of the week.
75. Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Eluisive Age Definitive Edition (Square Enix, 2019)
Dragon Quest is a series that was largely ignored in the west for a long time, but XI was the first in over a decade to really take off and become regarded as one of the genre's finest. It's easy to see why, too - while the core design, aesthetics and even sound effects and music cues have stayed unchanged for over three decades now, the game is so finely polished and flawlessly executed in every respect that they add to its overall charm, not subtract from it. The characters are fantastic, the writing is solid and Akira Toriyama's distinct character designs are brought to life with expressive animations and great voiceover. There is still a heavy focus on monster killing and item farming, though you can greatly speed up the combat and even assign party members to AI control to quickly blaze through mundane fights and switch back to manual on the fly whenever necessary. The game even pays homage to all of its predecessors with a game-spanning questline where you set the past straight, which is just awesome. Lots of companies are content to just make cynical cashins that look the part but are no fun to actually experience, but Dragon Quest XI gets it, embodying everything great about old-school RPGs while working in enough quality-of-life features to ensure that it remains fun to even the most jaded modern RPG fan.
74. Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete (Game Arts, 2000)
I never could afford a Sega CD as a kid, so the groundbreaking Lunar games went completely over my head at the time. Thankfully they got two very high-quality remakes on the Playstation, and when I played them I wasn't disappointed in the slightest. Lunar 2, while I consider it the weaker of the two games, is still an extremely compelling experience, combining the feel of a good animated movie with some solid RPG mechanics and surprisingly good animation and voice acting for its era, not to mention a very strong love story as the focus of its plot. Oh, and an absolutely stellar soundtrack, of course. I may not have had exposure to its original iteration until many years after the fact, but Lunar still stands as proof that the CD format could do a lot for the genre that the old memory-limited cartridges simply could not.
73. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (Konami, 1997)
While it wasn't the first game in the franchise to utilize an open-world style of exploration (that being the relatively unpopular Castlevania II), Symphony of the Night was the game that took it to perfection. Giving the player tons of options and abilities, as well as an enormous castle environment to explore, ensured that Symphony of the Night is a widely played game that still enjoys a massive cult following to this day. While I never was a big fan of the Castlevania franchise, there's no denying that SOTN is a very worthwhile endeavor for the sheer amount of gameplay it offers - challenge runs, speedruns, or just casual playthroughs are all a blast in this one. Oh, and it's got some really kickass visuals and music to boot.
72. 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...
71. Final Fantasy V (Squaresoft, 1992 in Japan)
There has been (and always will be) a lot of debate about which 16-bit Final Fantasy is the best, and to me, that answer will always be "Mystic Quest". I kid, I kid; put down the torches and pitchforks. The answer to me is V (keep them down), and that comes in large part due to the sheer genius of its gameplay. Returning to the choice-based system of Final Fantasy III, letting you pick any of thirty or so classes and change them at almost any time, it also allowed you for the first time in the series to mix-and-match abilities from those classes, letting you customize your party to an insane degree. Want a monk that can equip armor like a Knight? You can do it. A summoner that can use white magic? You can do that too. A thief who can wield axes? Yep, it's possible. It was even the debut of my favorite Final Fantasy class, the Blue Mage, who copies powerful-but-usually-expensive monster spells for later use. But most fun of all, your base Freelancer class keeps bonuses you've earned from classes you've mastered, becoming an uber-powerful juggernaut class at the end of the game. Sure, it's a bit uneven difficulty-wise and certainly not the best SNES RPG in terms of storytelling, but I was having too much fun with it to care. Final Fantasy V was great, is great and always will be great.
