I really enjoyed reading the other posts in the thread. Also since Gen 5 of Pokemon came up daily reminder that Gen 5 is best gen though it seems like more and more people are finally appreciating this. I will probably write a second post interacting with the other games because there were a lot of interesting observations already.


Favourite Game: The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. Always Morrowind. Yes the game is janky, but it's janky in a fun way and it's certainly the most immersive action RPG that still has serious CRPG elements like skills and attributes that matter. The setting is a very immersive and bizarre yet grounded fantasy that gives a strong impression of authenticity in how the game portrays its own lore and world. The magic system slaps and you can basically do anything you want include become incredibly OP and have the life of any NPC held in your hands and steal the souls of living gods. The game world is small and yet jam packed with secrets hiding in nooks and crannies, fun and sometimes bizarre sidequests. It also doesn't hold your hand and you can explore however you want but you may be raped by high level enemies. This is just one of those games many people come back to every few years for nostalgia and it can still feel fresh and new as demonstrated (or perhaps facilitated) by its vibrant modding community which continues more than 20 years after the game's release.

Best Story: Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. I think most people know what the story in this video game is about now because of video essays and stuff but the way it treats terrorism, social control, mass communication, and freedom of thought. The game has been heavily criticized for changing its protagonist in the middle of gameplay however I think this was something that people realized wasn't really bad in hindsight, just people got blindsided after playing the first game and getting a bait-and-switch away from playing the same character as the first game. Truly "absolute cinema" as the youths say.

Favourite Art Style: The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. I only realized this on replay this last year, but the visual style of Wind Waker is just great! The game's toon style works really well with the graphical capabilities of the GameCube console. The toon shading used for lights and shadows is impressive, both visually and from my perspective as a very amateur graphics programmer (see this post for more examples of graphics stuff. I'm also counting music in terms of "art style" even though that's not conventionally interpreted, I think the music is part of the art and it really contributes to the Wind Waker "vibe". I especially love the four part choral harmonies that play whenever Toon Link conducts the music.

Biggest Personal Impact: Since there's already a thread on The Fruit of Grisaia on the forum, just read the review there since it's better than what I could've written. However the main gimmick of the character stories is deeply impactful and changed my perspective on approaching the issue of the problem of evil and suffering in the world.

Best Combat: Not much to say here other than when you get into a gun fight in any of the Stalker games for the first time, you are probably going to soil your undergarments.

Overhated: Fortnite is actually pretty fun with friends. Don't get me wrong--there are MASSIVE problems with this game; but now that Marvel Rivals exists, can we all team up and hate that instead, please?

Underrated: I remember when Bravely Default was teased for 3DS as a revolutionary JRPG back when I still played lots of JRPGs as a kid...and then I just...never played it, or even heard about it again. Gave it a try a few months ago and I was instantly hooked! It's a simple and cookie-cutter story, but it's endearing and the gamplay mechanics are good. I'm not saying it's the best thing ever, but it needs a little more love and I barely see people talk about it. By the way the music in the game SLAPS

Overrated: Undertale doesn't suck. It isn't bad, and is in fact pretty good, and overrated doesn't mean bad. But I think the people who overrate Undertale as the best game ever are falling into a common trap, the same trap with DDLC and other "subversive" games. Usually "subversive" games tend to be overrated because the story relies too much on the subversion and everyone gets obsessed over subversions. It seems like we're in a culture where everything has to be subversive nowadays, everyone likes Deadpool etc...but this is also a matter of personal taste.

Needs a Remake: Shadow President was an old DOS game where you essentially controlled the US and made decisions on behalf of the President. You have to win elections and if you do controversial stuff your cabinet officers will resign. The overall goal is to prevent Saddam from invading Kuwait and create peace in the Middle East. Given how advanced map games are nowadays, this game definitely deserves a remake because it could be a lot more engaging than slop like HOI4.

Criminally Underlooked: Uplink is a game about Hollywood-style hacking. The tagline is "hack the world" and the world is your playground to break into computers...for good, or for evil. The main story involves a virus designed to destroy the internet, and offers two polar opposite endings. The game isn't particularly difficult, but it's really really fun to play for the first time.

Favourite Protagonist: Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, but this really applies to any of the MGS games in the "Big Boss" trilogy. The character of Big Boss is, for those who don't know, basically a villain and a hero, depending on which game you play and how far along in his life he is. Just play the games and find out. Everyone likes the Metal Gear series.

Favourite Antagonist: I like antagonists who have grand evil plans to destroy humanity, the world, etc. and the Master from Fallout easily goes in this category. Fallout: New Vegas's Caesar is highly praised for being motivated by his political ideology but The Master is basically like turning that up to 11. Rather than realizing a certain political regime he wants to evolve humanity by turning them into a new master race (the Super Mutants). Also talking to the Master is really creepy with how he speaks in multiple voices because presumably other people have been absorbed into the Unity. Yeah this guy rocks, and he has a much more difficult peaceful path to defeating him than Legate Lanius or John Henry Eden.

Best Soundtrack: There were SOOO many categories that Umineko no Naku Koro ni fits in, and I was originally planning on putting it in the category of game everyone should play. However, it is simply too long for that. What makes the music of Umineko so great is hard to say, because there are so many tracks and several composers each with their unique styles and ticks. If there is a single word I could describe Umineko's soundtrack with, it would probably be "sentimental". The best songs in the OST either remind me of my childhood, or some classical piece, or a certain time/era/place/whatever. Or otherwise, a certain emotion that we've all felt at one point or another. Please check out this game, because I would write so much more if it were in any other category here.

Best Multiplayer: Team Fortress 2. Need I say more? Seriously--need I?

Not Usually My Thing: OpenTTD. It's just fun dealing with logistics, designing different interchanges for high stress networks (especially when you're on a hilly terrain or have limited space), making sure your finances line up, growing your cities and building bus networks, competing with other players...I'm just listing gameplay elements but man, it's just a bunch of fun.

Turn My Brain Off: Destiny 2 is pure slop. However, this game feels GREAT to kill stuff in, the guns are fun and look awesome, the soundtrack is good, the gameplay loop in PVE is basically totally mind numbing. Pure slop but it's fun as hell.

Best With Friends: Hearts of Iron 3 is my favourite map game. It's a shame that the realistic turn HOI3 had, trying to get closer to micromanaging units, chain of command, supplies etc. was abandoned in HOI4 for the casual-oriented frontline system. Playing HOI3 is much closer to the board game origins of Paradox, but it has complexity that's best handled on a computer game. It's really the only Paradox game that isn't total slop IMO.

Best Retro Game: Deus Ex hands down. Where did all the memes about replaying Deus Ex every year go? IT'S A CONSPIRACY! I don't know when those discussions stopped but man EVERYONE needs to go back and play this game. It's the best Unreal engine game hands down and it really gets the retro vibe just right. The story is superficially just about conspiracy theories but it does have a bit of a philosophical undertone and deals with a lot of similar themes to Metal Gear Solid 2.

Nostalgic Childhood Game: I first played Minecraft in Beta 1.2, though I had seen videos of the game going back to infdev. Old versions of the game hit especially hard. I'm sure Minecraft was part of other people's childhoods here too, so there isn't much to add here honestly.

Game Everyone Should Play: I put Earthbound here because it's mostly inoffensive, though it's fun and wacky and emotional. It's a good family-friendly game where the overall theme is beat the bad guy who has been influencing all the game's towns to make everyone morally corrupted and filling the towns with monsters. The Starmen remind me of David Bowie. Playing Earthbound feels like playing a normal JRPG but microdosing acid especially with the really weird chords in the music tracks and the psychedelic battle backgrounds and colour palettes. I also put this game here because it is mildly subversive though less so than Undertale and as a clear source of Toby's inspiration if you like Undertale you will certainly like this game too.

haven't played enough games to make a meaningful contribution to this thread however i would definitely agree that morrowind is easily my favorite game of all time, even more than tf2. i have an absurd amount of time logged in it, a lot of which has been during the long winters to pass the time

I think my ideal dream life would be as a bosmer living in or around sadrith mora, probably in an ancestral tomb or dwemer stronghold or something. that should sum things up in lieu of a chart

Favorite Game: Anyone who knows me at all knows I go back to replay this game religiously. The levels are just so fun to explore and collect everything and the music is phenomenal and the graphics hold up really well for being a 5th gen title. There are games that come close to capturing my heart similarly but Banjo is the one I go back to the most often so it gets my top spot.

Best Story: I was very conflicted on what game to even put here, but I decided on a game that I have struggled to try and get through multiple times but I just keep being compelled to go back to it because the story and the world just draw me in. I also considered some of the more predictable Zelda's for this slot, but ultimately Majora is the one that has the story as it's main draw for me.

Favorite Art Style: This one might seem like an odd pick, but I do feel like Halo 3 was the best balance of technical advancement with graphical styling. A lot of games contemporary to this have a bad rap for focusing a little too much on the realism or going overboard with the bloom, and while those stylings are (in the right cases) a guilty pleasure of mine, they just aren't as memorable to look at comparatively. Also, the graphics of Halo 3 have aged surprisingly well for the generation which makes it less of an obstacle to appreciate compared to a lot of other games of the time or even the Halo games directly sandwiching it. Crysis could've also gone here but considering none of what that game's beautiful graphics showcased was memorable I opted for this instead.

Biggest Personal Impact: Twilight Princess was a lot of firsts for me. The first time I actually saw a game through to completion instead of ragequitting it, the first time I actually connected to displays of romantic feelings instead of being like "ewww" or "eh, okay", the first time I realized I was attracted to male characters in any capacity which would eventually lead me down the rabbithole that defines my current existence. This game is why Zelda means so much to me as a series, and is subsequently why I still cherish video games as a medium even with my more muted participation in the genre in recent years. Also I could've just one worded this entry with "Midna" and yall would've gotten it.

Best Combat: I could've put any of the God of War trilogy here, but I opted for 3 because the optics of killing all the gods just feels so badass and makes the really fluid combat that much more memorable. Basically every modern hack and slash copied God of War's homework but I feel like most of them did a worse job of it than the OGs.

Overhated: I don't know how much this is still the case, but this game got soooooo much shit back in the day. Is some of it deserved? Yeah, this game is quite flawed and there are things I wish it did differently or handled better. But the gameplay for the most part is still the same 3D Sonic gameplay of the Adventure titles, the levels are expansive and impressive set pieces, and the game gives insight into facets of Shadow's character that seem to get glossed over in a lot of other interpretations. Also the soundtrack fucking rules, but thats standard of most Sonic games of the era so...

Underrated: Brawl gets so much undeserved shit because it's not sucking off tournament players, but it's the last time the Super Smash Bros package as a whole felt complete. The single player content on offer makes later entries look embarrassing in comparison and the core gameplay is still Smash Bros. The Subspace Emissary on its own is worth the price of entry, and I wish they would go back to this attention to detail when it comes to the extras.

Overrated: Look, I've tried. I really wanted to like Skyrim. I've started multiple save files. I just can't with it, and I don't know how the masses could. I like the way the world feels, but the characters all give you that dead eyed stare and the combat feels very ragdolly in a way that can be entertaining but is rarely fun and eventually the quests start feeling very cookie cutter. I'd also give an honorable mention to Breath of the Wild for this slot for many of the same reasons.

Needs a Remake: No game has suffered harder from being stuck on the Wii than Super Paper Mario. The game is lacking so hard in terms of quality of life with the forced motion controls and the lack of buttons on the sideways wiimote leading to having to go into full menus to change pixls so you can use the second of your 2 buttons. Also a lot of the assets were designed with HD in mind, probably because early on they weren't sure yet if the Wii could do it or not, which makes it that much funnier that 16:9 was such an afterthought. I feel like getting to experience this on an actual controller in actual HD will help immensely with getting people engaged in this wonderful story.

Criminally Overlooked: Disgaea 6 is perhaps the most misunderstood of the entire series, which is understandable considering that its core mechanic completely changes the genre of the game. It's supposed to be a strategy rpg, but because the automation programming is so robust it kind of turns into a tactical rpg instead. I feel like this change makes it unique amongst its series and an entirely interesting game unto itself that I feel like players could get a lot out of by going into it with that in mind.

Favorite Protagonist: Twilight Princess might've been the first game where I realized I had attraction to men, but Resident Evil 4 is where that was firmly cemented. Leon is my absolute favorite and I'll keep it at that so I don't get too gross publicly. Ada is also amazing and my thoughts about her are also not the purest so RE4 is 2 for 2. 3 for 3 if Ashley counts, although my thoughts with her are less pervy and more "god i wish that were me", which was another first in my upbringing at least as far as video game characters go. Maybe I should've put this in most impactful....

Favorite Antagonist: The Shadow Queen. That's it. That's the section. Peach should be badass more often, it suits her well.

Best Soundtrack: Feels almost like cheating to put a game with licensed music in this slot, but I realized if I hadn't it'd just be Zelda or Banjo again and what's the fun in that so I picked the game that gave me the most contributions to my current music taste. I could've also put Most Wanted here but I haven't really played that much myself so while I like the songs from it it didn't feel authentic. But yeah, Underground 2's music fuckin rips. I mean, this game has Skindred. Who doesn't like Skindred?

Best Multiplayer: Out of all the multiplayer games that have been community staples, I personally had the most fun in Halo 1. It's janky as hell but that kind of adds to its charm, and it's still competitive while not being as intensely competitive as other shooters. I did consider Soldier of Fortune 2 for this slot but I think Halo still just barely edges it out, mainly because more of its modes are actually playable and fun instead of only just deathmatch.

Not Usually My Thing, But...: Wife is a big fan of puzzle games, and she put me onto this series of games. I really count this slot as all the Organized Neatly games but Dogs was the first one I had witnessed so it's the one getting named. I normally like games that are a bit more involved, but sometimes a simple puzzle game just fills the void at the right time and this one is insanely good at that.

Turn My Brain Off: I spent a good chunk of my childhood on my PS2 just playing this in freeroam, no objective, just driving around and sometimes getting killed in a silly way. Also if you go to the edge of the map it cannon launches you which is really funny and kid me got way more enjoyment out of that than I probably should have. Also the soundtrack bangs, I'd have put this in that slot too but Underground 2 I feel was more impactful to my music taste so...

Best With Friends: Mario Party, obviously. The only reason I put Superstars specifically is because it seems to be the easiest to set games up in of all the titles, not requiring everyone be local or use janky Dolphin (or even worse some kind of online modded N64 emulator) setups or use single joycon like the Super Mario Party games require for full capability. I wish it had more maps but it just scratches the itch perfectly and I can't see why we would go through the trouble of anything else (except Jamboree since thats a vibe and a half but still).

Best Retro Game: Probably one of the most obvious picks of all the entries on my list, but it's hard to go wrong with 2D Mario. And in any discussion of 2D Mario, it always comes down to are you a Mario 3 person or a Mario World person and I am very much the latter. Mario 3 still alludes me to be honest, it feels unnecessarily punishing compared to World or 1, probably as a result of it still being beholden to the NES's limitations while trying to expand so much. Mario World just feels really fluid to control and getting to go fast in it makes you feel so badass and the multiple paths through the overworld give so much depth. Or you can just 11 exit. Whatever your heart tells you to do in the moment, the game lets you make it happen.

Nostalgic Childhood Game: This game has never left my peripheral. It was part of the original set of games I got for my Nintendo 64 when I got it from GameCrazy back in the day, it was the game I would get put in front of whenever I would be playing someone elses Nintendo 64, it was the first game I ever saw speedran back when 16 star was any%, it was the first game I ever saw machinima of (any other Super Mario 64 Bloopers fans in the house?), it was the game that got me interested in GameShark because I really badly wanted to Moon Jump as well as the custom color codes for Mario. And just as I was about to finally move on from it, one lovely little pannenkoek2012 brought it back into the public consciousness with his A Button Challenge content and other technical deep dives and I realized I was never getting away from this game. And I love it all the more for that. Between this and Banjo, they control so well and so specifically that I still struggle with more modern 3D platformers in comparison because these games are my DNA at this point. I really should practice actually doing runs...

Game Everyone Should Play: The Disgaea series as a whole clicks with me on such a deep level, but 5 is still the best one hands down in terms of gameplay and I feel like anyone with any interest in RPGs at all should give this one a go. The story is solid, the gameplay is immaculate and the overall experience is so invigorating. Also the DLC prinnies make it feasible (and fun) to do a prinny only run. And yes, Fuka counts.