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.
75. X-COM: UFO Defense (Mythos Games, 1994)
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. 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.