10/10 games

[mingot]

Ultima IV - By today's standards this is a pretty simple game, but at the time it just felt epic. Amazing story, which was different than the standard "collect weapon parts, kill x bosses, go kill final boss" scenario. Huge continent, with different cities that actually felt different. An actual conversation system. A reagent based spell system. I played this game until the copy protection destroyed my floppy drive. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_1541#The_drive_head_misalignment_issue

Ultima Online - Can't say enough about what this game meant. Early and widely popular MMORPG which was different than most modern MMORPGs in that the entire world, sans the small city areas were PvP+. Monster AI always sucks, but when you're really only worried about your fellow gamer life is more interesting. Also had the concept of land/home ownership, which was huge. On interesting thing was that this game was eventually patched to shit, so it didn't end up as a 10/10 game, but it sure started there.

Super Mario 64 - Wow. I was really out of the console business when I played a demo of this game and it had me hooked. Bought an N64 the second one was in stock.

Eternal Darkness - Amazing creep atmospheric game that pulled you in. If you were used to, and didn't like, RE controls this seemed like heaven. Some of the insanity effects were amazing (simulating the volume on your television going down, the gamecube crashing).

SSX Tricky - Played this game for the better part of a half a year competing with my brother in law for high scores. Great controls, fun trick system, fun music, and big difficulty on medaling on some of the boards gave this a lot of replay value. In my opinion one of the must have games for the GC.

Bioshock - C'mon do I even need to say anything?

 

[capefeather]

I'm glad that this thread didn't ask for a favourite game. There are so many excellent games from so many different perspectives, I have come to believe that pointing out one favourite is largely an injustice to the rest of them.

Final Fantasy VI: I have come to value two aspects of a game: simplicity and NPC/world development. This game is a great example of the latter. The obvious example of Kefka comes to mind, but the Empire in general is ultimately a lot more charming than the emotionless hellspawn armies of Final Fantasy II, or the mostly generic grunts in IV or VII. So many of the imperial soldiers have actual personalities that are obvious during the short time in which you meet them. The gameplay system is great, at least for one where you can heavily customize characters; they do a good job of not having PCs turn into demigods too quickly. This game also has probably my favourite video game soundtrack (lots of games come really close, though). The many glitches in the game are funny, too, and somehow most of them do not even impede normal gameplay.

Chrono Trigger: Ultimately I prefer FF6, but I really love the gameplay system that exists here. The combo system is awesome, but what I think separates this game from others is the bosses. Each boss requires its own strategy (even the final boss!), so that spamming the strongest attack you have will get your ass kicked pretty quickly. The time travel mechanic also serves almost to make the world itself a developing NPC. I find it unfortunate that just about all of these are done away with in Chrono Cross, which is otherwise a very worthy sequel in its own right. I really dislike the Chrono series fanbase, though...

Super Metroid: My shining example of simplicity (sorry, Portal). Super Metroid has its world do just about all of the talking, even getting NPCs to teach gameplay (but not explicitly!). It's really fitting for a character who's supposed to be a bounty hunter, and I think that that aspect has been lost in later games and remakes. I'm not going to judge the Metroid Prime series, though, as I haven't played those games.

Mother series: This series really has both simplicity and really strong character development. Again, I wish I could find the time to play the original, so I'll talk about the other two. I find it truly astounding that 2 and 3 go about the NPC development in vastly different ways and both are wildly successful at it. With 2, the world comes to life as every place you visit has its own wacky personality. Hell, it has a talking rock advance the plot at one point. 3 takes a "home base" approach to its world (much like Final Fantasy II, but executed a lot better). It's awesome to see Tazmily develop every time you go back; it really makes it worth talking to everybody every time. Both games have truly creepy endgames, too, again each in its own different way.

Super Mario World: Another shining example of simplicity. Nintendo really milked the hell out of the "new" capabilities of the SNES here without diluting the gameplay with overly complicated, gimmicky crap. It's a real testament to to the simplicity of the game that the hack editor for this game has a huge amount of functionality. The cape is the only "extra" powerup (I don't consider the Fire Flower an extra powerup since it's in almost every Mario game), and it's one of the most broken powerups ever conceived in a game, but I've come to see that as a strong point that helps the game's replayability, almost like a New Game Plus in RPGs.

Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest: The thing that really gets me about this game is that it has strong world development in a platformer. David Sirlin said it best for me: the strong point of the secret bonuses here is that they're not sprinkled randomly into a level. The bonuses are important parts of each level, almost as if the levels were built around them. The music is truly fantastic, too.

StarCraft: I had to put a competitive game in here. Simply put, this is one of the most asymmetrically balanced games in existence. Each of the three races has its own dynamic and personality, causing strikingly different matchups. I'll admit that I haven't played very many RTSes, but I've yet to see the personality differences in StarCraft matched in any other RTS I've played.

Super Smash Bros. Melee: This game emphasizes simplicity so much that some people cringe at the idea of calling it a fighting game. Where are the lists of button combos that you have to memorize just to make a character function? Where's the nervous shuffling of feet signifying a quiet struggle for spacing? Why don't the characters ever just fall down and die? SSBM takes character personality in a different direction, encoding it in universal game mechanics and in having each character react differently to them. This makes the game largely balance itself. Sure, a lot of characters are "bad", but the top is quite varied, and it says a lot that the "best" characters rarely actually win tournaments. (Yet they STILL managed to screw it up in Brawl...) I think that the thing that gets me the most about this game is that it's a departure from the increasingly cutesy portrayal of Nintendo's flagship characters, instead having Mario, Link and Pikachu duke it out to see who's the most badass of them all.

grr too many awesome games

 

[wickdaggler]

there's a bunch of games on here that I haven't played, and if there as good as the ones that I have played that were mentioned, I'm defiantly going to go out of my way to play them

anyway inorder of how much I loved them:

Cave Story
the best game I've ever played to date
I could go on for days about the graphics, music, and mechanics and how they all fit together perfectly but honestly the selling point of this game is the storytelling. A lot of modern games could learn a lot by playing this and experiencing the confusion, immersion of the world, and connections to the charecters that you meet for like, two minuets at most. That and lots of things about the protagonist are interpretable. Silent protagonist at it's finest. Speaking of which:

Super Metroid
The world in here is more beautiful than quite a few modern games I've played, not to mention the isolation, and the feeling you get when finding something new... it's all amazing

Mother 3
Play this game.

Sonic 3 & Knuckles
The work that went into this game is evident everywhere - the physics, the backgrounds, the length of the game... it's the pinnacle of the sonic franchise

Chrono Trigger
A very fun RPG with a awesome battle system, unique bosses, and a bunch of very unique places that you can visit. The branching ending thing was really cool too.
I loved it.

Shadow of the Colossus
This is a wonderful example of storytelling through games, with the whole isolation thing. I borrowed this from my friend and never ended up finishing it, but the worlds were the most beautiful I've ever seen in a game, the collosi really were gigantic, and taking them down was very satisfying.

Link to the Past
The only zelda game I've ever played, aside from phantom hourglass, which I picked up after beating it. As you can imagine I was very disappointed. Compared to LttP, the puzzles in PH were downright disappointing, and the story was meh. LttP is a wonderful game and I recommend it to everyone.

Pokemon Puzzle Challenge
I played a lot of this as a kid. I recently picked it back up and realized I could still beat hard mode without a sweat.

Pokemon Gen 1 & 2
duh

 

[Curtains]

Resident Evil Directors cut: Excellent story and just generally one of the most scary games ive ever played.

Grand Theft Auto San Andreas: The best out the series. Ton of shit to do. 200 + hours on it easily (ps2 died) big map fantastic story and voice work. Graphics are meh for 2011 but at its time it was pretty good.

Modern warfare 2: Great multiplayer 150 hours on it. Some broken stuff but thats what makes it fun.

Battlefield 3?: I might get this game. I just switched to battlefield bad company 2 from cod and i have been enjoying it. If battlefield is gonna be a larger scale it just might be my favorite game of all time.

 

[Ride The Lightning]

Final Fantasy X: Great gameplay, great soundtrack, great storyline, all around an amazing game to play.

Jak II: Some people might complain that this game is too hard, but that's what makes it so fun. This game is very fun to play, and has GTA elements in it as well. The storyline is pretty cool.

GTA San Andreas: One of my favorite GTA games, mainly because you get to be black and get your own gang.

Ratchet and Clank Going Commando/Up Your Arsenal/Deadlocked: Ratchet and Clank was always a fun game to play, these three are my favorites.

Pokemon Black and White: 5th gen is the best out of the other gens, IMO.

Dark Cloud 2: You're probably thinking, "WUTS DAT?!", but this is my all-time favorite game to play. There is literally tons of shit to do, and gets addicting after a while. And the story line is very complex and surprising as well.

 

[Firesong]

World of Goo also btw!
incredible and unique visuals
wonderful soundtrack
intriguing "plot"
fun actual gameplay
for me, there is nothing about this game that is less than incredible (except the lifespan (which is still pretty good), but that doesn't count because you can pick it up for fucking £1.79 (so $3) on the app store)
seriously it's on par with so many other games in this thread (well the ones i've played at least) but no one else has it, so no one knows :(

and Okami.
it's like zelda but with better visuals

 

[UncleSam]

Although I've loved a ton of games I have played, these are a few that, in my opinion, stand out amongst the rest:

Megaman Battle Network 3: In my opinion the second most underrated game of all time, the combination of fluid, engaging game play and a surprisingly powerful plot made this my favorite game for several years. The peak of the single most underrated game series of all time, it worked on every level of entertainment I can imagine a video game touching.

Halo: Combat Evolved (or Halo 1): I am not a fan of the Halo series (or FPS games in general), but this was tremendous. The smooth controls made it easy to feel involved in the game rather than a bystander issuing commands, and the graphics were remarkable for when it was made. Entertaining, challenging, and engaging story wise, I doubt I will ever play another shooter I enjoy as much as this one, and that's not even to mention the revolutionary graphics and level design (for when it was made).

Metroid Prime 1: In a similar manner to how Halo revolutionized FPS games, Metroid Prime reinvented both the Metroid franchise and exploration games in general. The controls are fluid and intuitive while the graphics remain passable today (which is saying something for a game a decade old)...noticing a trend here?

The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time: Yes, it is annoying so many people love this game. I was personally determined to hate it after playing Wind Waker and learning that everyone and their mother preferred Ocarina of Time to what I considered the best Gamecube game I had ever played up to that point, so I picked up the Gamecube version of this game. Thirty hours later I realized that, contrary to what I had set out to do (prove to myself Wind Waker was superior), this was simply a more majestic, complete, and engaging title. The godfather of video games; I would love to hate it just to be "progressive", but I can't.

Rise of Nations: Remember when I said I thought Megaman Battle Network 3 was the second most underrated game of all time? Well, this is my pick for most underrated. For the (majority) of you who don't know, this is an RTS game along the lines of Age of Empires, except in the course of a normal game of Rise of Nations one's chosen nation progresses from the Ancient Age to the near-future, Information Age. I've played Starcraft, Civ 3 and Age of Empires 2, and none of them attained the same level of wholeness and balance that this game does. Whereas many RTS games are based on spamming military units, Rise of Nations introduces a tremendous amount of economic and resource-gathering complexity that makes one's military play second fiddle through the early stages of the game, similar in many ways to how real nations must wage war. Without a strong economy, a nation's military will be largely cut off from reinforcements or support, and the tolls of attrition and the time it takes to capture cities and assimilate them to one's own nation requires a large amount of support to be effective. In short, I prefer Rise of Nations because of it's similarities to real life warfare and nation building. Additionally, it looks very good graphically for a game made in 2003.

I could go on and on about my favorite games, but I think just one more mention will suffice:

Pokemon Red and Blue: I doubt I need to explain why I think the Pokemon series is tremendous here, so I will just say that, though the game play has remained largely the same (or even improved) in recent generations, none of the sequels has had the emotional power of the first one. From the first encounter with Gary to Team Rocket killing Marowak to Giovanni's final words and the last battle with Gary, I've never found a video game world as memorable or as moving as this one.

 

[Nastyjungle]

Huge amounts of Nintendo lovin' in this post, but I'm a Nintendo kid so what can I say.

Super Metroid
Just pure excellence. Not my favorite Metroid game, but easily one of the best SNES games. Totally alone and without any direction, its up to you to figure out all of the games secrets, and there are a million of them. I am a true lover of games with percentages completed, and Super Metroid (as most Metroid games) is a total collection-fest. The music is atmospheric, the environments are beautiful, and the platforming can get really tricky at times. Excellent game.

Metroid: Prime
While Super Metroid was fantastic, Metroid Prime is the pinnacle of Metroid excellence. I remember stepping onto Tallon IV for the first time and being totally amazed, I'd never seen anything like it before. Even more collection oriented than Super Metroid, you had to collect scans of everything in the world as well as collect your items. Getting 100% without outside help was incredibly difficult, and I think the closest I ever came as a kid of my own was 90 some. Retro Studios really knew how to handle the series, and its unique mix between first person shooting and explorer is really fantastic.

Earthbound
Earthbound is a quirky little RPG that never really made it big in America despite lots of advertising. Earthbound is one of those games that you either love or you hate. It's never just 'ok'. The people who hate it really hate it, and the people who love it think it is absolutely fantastic. I am, of course, one of those people. I don't really know what to say about this game; you can't really describe why it's so excellent, it just it. A definite play for RPG fans and non-fans alike.

Mother 3
The big bro to Earthbound, it basically improved it in every way possible (except for characters...Earthbound had way more likable characters imo). Slightly less quirky, but still very odd, this game can even be heart wrenching in parts. Never made it outside of Japan due to poor sales of Earthbound in other parts of the world, however.

Monster Hunter Freedom Unite
This game is a fucking animal. I have never played a series that has more shit to do in it than Monster Hunter. There are so many quests to go on, so much stuff to build, and so many monsters to kill. I actually bought my PSP solely so I could play this game, and it was well worth the money. Quests range from laughably easy to basically impossible, with hundreds of different armor sets, 13 different kinds of weapons with their own crafting trees, as well as a good 60 boss monsters to fight, this game can have you playing for a long, long time. Special mention to Monster Hunter Tri as well; quite a bit smaller than FU, but the multiplayer is fucking fantastic.

Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest
Yeah ok basically everybody has already explain why this game is awesome, but it really just is. Awesome platforming. Awesome levels. Awesome everything. Best DKC by far.

Chrono Trigger
Great RPG, great story, cool time travel, blah blah another one you've probably heard a million times. Go play it already, if you haven't. Oh and this is a great song.

Super Monkey Ball
Ahhh shit this is the best party game ever, period. I used to go over to my friend's house every single day and we would sit and play this for hours. Another game that goes from really easy to insanely difficult. Super Monkey Ball 2 also gets a mention here, but my friend didn't have it and neither did I, so I wasn't able to play it until recently. SMB2 is fucking ridiculously hard, but still fun.

Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door
The second PM improved on the first 100 fold in my opinion. I've played this game probably a million times over, and it's still incredibly entertaining. I would maybe go so far as to nominate the Glitz Pit as the funnest stage in any video game ever. Everything in this game is just a treat for the eyes, the paper cutouts look fantastic and the paper effects during cut scenes are awesome.

The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker
Unpopular opinions, go! WW is a tricky spot some people, but I personally love it. It's tied for my favorite Zelda game. I love Toon Link and the cell shaded style of the game. It's so incredibly charming. The enemies and people look fantastic, and the music is good too. Boat traveling did get old very fast, but the rest of the game is A++.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
Another Zelda game that isn't OoT or MM. Don't get me wrong, I love those games as well- but I seem to be the only one that really, really, loves TP. Everything about it was fantastic to me. Slightly on the easy side, it was still a great game. It was nice and long, and the enemies and bosses were excellent. I loved the kind of gritty brown-and-bloom that it had too, which a lot of people criticize. Collection-fest as well, which may be another reason I thought it was so great.

Eugh I don't really want to write anymore but just know that I also like basically all of the Mario games really well too; special mentions to Sunshine and both Galaxies. Oh and, of course, Pokemon.

 

[wickdaggler]

oh crap I forgot about BN3, and Dark Cloud 2

both are fantastic games for reasons mentioned above

 

[Nietzsche]

Super Mario 64, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Team Fortress 2, Legend of Dragoon, Final Fantasy 6, Link's Awakening, Oracle of Seasons/Ages, Final Fantasy Tactics, Starcraft, and La Mulana.

La Mulana was an amazing game (vaguely played like sort of a cross between Metroid and Zelda) with one of the best soundtracks I've ever heard. Go play it, is free PC game.

 

[Layell]

Legend of Zelda Oracle of Ages and Seasons:


The best handheld Zelda games bar none. Many people are quick to say that Link's Awakening was amazing, but it has nothing on these two. Ages is more puzzle based and Seasons more combat based. In ages you have a two worlds concept similar to LttP but where travelling to and from both happens more often and strategically (the dungeons alternate present and past). In seasons you can change the time of year, allowing access to more areas, which you unlock as you progress. You can beat one and then use a password to continue the game and unlock more cool stuff.

 

[Umbreon Dan]

how has nobody mentioned starfox64

 

[CaptKirby]

how has nobody mentioned starfox64

Because for a game to be "a 10/10" its flaws cannot detract from it too deeply. Starfox 64 is not one of those games.

 

[Daenym]

Seconding Golden Sun and Golden Sun: The Lost Age.

Those games are simply amazing. The intricacies connecting some of the characters, the terrific main enemies throughout the games, and the fact that it's all elemental-themed. And then, once you've beaten that game, there's the ability to rearrange your classes into an overwhelming number of combinations.

Kingdom Hearts

When I first heart about this game, I reacted like I think a lot of people did. A kid with a big key hitting Disney characters. What is wrong with the world? Then a friend of mine played it and I watched, and was completely and utterly blown away.

For me, I think one of the best selling points is the hero. I usually hate the main character in anything, much preferring the supporting characters. But something about a main character who is not just strong and persevering, but optimistic, in the face of what he's up against just breaks up some of the mundane that hits me in a lot of games.

And the whole re-imagining of Disney worlds just amazed me, fitting these characters into worlds and stories that I knew so well, or even throwing classic Disney characters into completely new worlds.

Finally, the fact that this game makes me tear up every time I play it says something. I don't ever cry at sad things, but a good "power of friendship" moment in a game, movie, etc. can really bring tears to my eyes.

KH2 might've gone a bit overboard with some plot intricacies, but made up for it with a very awesome and upgraded combat system. The GBA and DS games weren't anything to write home about, but KH:BBS on PSP was just as phenomenal as the original game.


So overall I'd say that games that have a chance of being 10/10 in my book need to have a very strong story more than anything else. And no matter how many times I play through those games (4ish for GS, 6ish for KH) I'm never let down.

 

[Xaqwais]

Very glad to see love for Majora's Mask. Not taking anything away from Ocarina, but I often have to defend my opinion of Majora's Mask over it.

But as for a 10/10 Zelda game, my vote goes to A Link to the Past. As said, beautiful gameplay, overworld, side quests, dark tones, and difficulty at the perfect level.

I played through Cave Story recently and it was super amazing but I didn't think of it as a perfect game at the time. Now that I think about it, there is nothing wrong with it, that I can think of. Music is great, story is great, gameplay is great, artwork is great. List goes on.

Continuing on with platformers, I'll list Super Mario World. I think of it as the best Mario game. It has a very amazing engine (people still make hacks for it), great iconic music, fantastic level design. For the same reasons, I'll also list Sonic 3 and Knuckles. I have a slight biased towards S3&K since I played it more as a kid but both these games are just great.

Now that I look at my list, I see a lack of "new" game (Cave Story arguably doesn't count). It's not that I have a "new games suck compared to old ones", it's just I can't think of anything that strikes me as perfect, though aforementioned Majora's Mask and games like Smash Bros. Melee do come close.

 

[Moo]

Donkey Kong Country Returns

Resident Evil 4

Zelda Twilight Princess

Kingdom Hearts (2)

 

[Squarewalker]

Defense Of The Ancients aka DotA - I've spent over 2 years playing this, and it's the most entertaining game I've ever encountered. There are two glaring problems with it, though: every match lasts around 45-60 minutes, and you better have people you know as teammates, otherwise games will degenerate into senseless flamewars over even the smallest mistakes and in consequence there'll be a lack of further co-operation; leavers and clueless people also completely ruin it of course, which is why I only play on garena, in rooms that have a high level entry restriction.

StarCraft: Broodwar - Arguably THE most balanced RTS of all time, the Korean proscene is still alive which is a testament to that fact. It's a very fun game, but it's also mechanically demanding and very unforgiving due to its older interface (you need really good unit control, multitasking, macro and fast handspeed in general). Also note that Bnet and iCCup are full of only smurfs and Koreans these days, so better find a buddy to play this with.

StarCraft 2 - not quite as fun or as balanced as SC BW, but it's a lot easier to play due to the new interface and things like auto-mine, smart-casting, MBS, etc.; and there are a lot of tournaments with huge prize pools all the time, so this one actually makes sense to attempt to get very good at (the ladder of Bnet 0.2 is great; unfortunately though, that is the only thing that is actually good about the new Bnet)

then there are the classic RPGs like Golden Sun, Seiken Densetsu 3, etc.

 

[Calculus]

Not sure if anyone's going to back me up here, but I'd say that Tales of Symphonia was one of the best games I've ever played. As a kid, I thought that the storyline was MASSIVE (two disc games on a Gamecube always caught my eye) and I really enjoyed the characters. That being said, I haven't played any other "Tales" games and I'm a pretty casual gamer (nowadays not even playing much at all), but I'd like to see some of the less conventional choices represented here.

 

[Steelicks]

in this thread: people with very good taste in games! like seriously, five or so mentions of Donkey Kong Country 2!

 

[sax king]

Wow I have a couple great thread

ANY MARIO KART (except for double dash) Seriously, if I could only have one game ever, it would be MKWii. The greatest game I've ever played. I love every kart, every character, and every track. Same holds true with MKDS and MK64. I simply didn't like MKDD. I didn't think it was original, it didn't have cool enough tracks and cool enough carts. I did like the characters (seriously, Boo, Petey Piranha, and Bowser Jr? NICE!).

Paper Mario 1 and 2: Paper Mario 1 was my game for all of elementary school. Amazing story, amazing gameplay, and amazing graphics. Same holds true for PM2. It was an extension for PM1, and it was exactly what I wanted from a sequel. An extension of the old one with refreshing but not ridiculously new changes.

Donkey Kong 64: As you can tell, I liked the N64. But this was the best 3D non-RPG platformer ever. I thought it was funny, I LOVED the levels, and I liked the bosses and characters. The action was smooth and the game was surprisingly complex and enjoyable. Can be quite difficult at times, but if you're up for a challenge, I advise it

Banjo Kazooie/Tooie: Did I say DK64 was the best platformer? I meant this. I ran into Tooie before Kazooie, and it is the best game ever. It's SOOOO funny, and it's sooo unique. Every level is awesome, and there is so much to each lever. Those of you who have played it know how incredibly complex the environment was (Grunty Industries level for Tooie/Rusty Bucket Bay level for Kazooie). Soo much fun, with so many collectables and soo many challenges.

Conker's Bad Fur Day: Rareware is my favorite game company, and this one takes the cake as the funniest. Seriously, it has that South Park feel. It feels like it was supposed to be for little kids, but then they start swearing and drinking and smoking. I like the boss battle against the giant piece of shit (The Great Mighty Poo).

LoZ Wind Waker: Who doesn't like this game? It's the most fun and whimsical of all the Zelda games. The graphics make it so much cooler than others like the Twilight Princess or Ocarina of Time, and the fun, cartoony style makes it much more playable for casual players. There are plenty of collectables and plenty of things to keep you coming back to it. The fact that there are over 64 islands makes it difficult to do everything, and then there's multiple things to do on each island and things to do on the sea.

Rayman 2: The Great Escape: A refreshing break from the happy-go-lucky nintendo games, this one was actually kind of dark and was quite difficult. The graphics were jagged and striking in a good way, and the gameplay was quite different from the other games. Still, it was great even though it was quite difficult and caused me a lot of trouble in my youth.

Super Smash Bros Melee/Brawl: After playing all of these games, I want to see all these characters beat the shit out of each other. So SSBB and SSBM have my vote. I like the characters and stages in each of them, and they're a great game with friends over. Every character is fun to play as, and every stage is fun to play. Also, the stage-creator feature has been the most fun part of either of these games. I have some pretty amazingly fun stages, so if you ever want any ideas for these, please ask me.

EDIT: @ Mountain Dewgong
I was like that until I gave in and bought Wind Waker two years ago. Best decision of my life. I wasn't into the whole swords and medieval thing, but Wind Waker showed me just how good some of these games are. I recommend starting with it, and then going to Ocarina of Time.

 

[Diana]

Not sure if anyone's going to back me up here, but I'd say that Tales of Symphonia was one of the best games I've ever played. As a kid, I thought that the storyline was MASSIVE (two disc games on a Gamecube always caught my eye) and I really enjoyed the characters. That being said, I haven't played any other "Tales" games and I'm a pretty casual gamer (nowadays not even playing much at all), but I'd like to see some of the less conventional choices represented here.

100% backing you up on this, I've played it 5 times I think now? Maybe one or two more than that.

Anyway, a few others are ones I really like.

Super Mario Galaxy: Both of them really, though I think the first one is probably barely better. Good luck getting me to stop playing those games, I can't think of a bad level in all of it.

Also seconding Windwaker. And yes, I loved the art and the sailing. It grew on my quickly, and really it's an incredibly well-done game in the normal places you'd expect from the series as well. Ocarina of Time was incredible too.

Okay and one more that's necessary because I grew up playing it and still love it years later: Super Mario World. It was the first game I ever had and it does the 2D platforming thing as well as any game out there.

Edit: I can't believe I forgot Final Fantasy V. The job system that let you pick a job then an ability from another you've mastered really gave a ton of possibilities and I found it great to play around with that.

 

[Mountain Dewgong]

Sometimes I feel like the only person in the world never to have played a zelda game.

 

[Lord Jesseus]

Sometimes I feel like the only person in the world never to have played a zelda game.

I played Ocarina of time briefly and didn't enjoy it.
Other than that I'm with you on this one.

 

[aamto]

10/10s:

Chrono Cross (psx): wonderfully complex story, diverse array of characters and dialogue, beautiful OST.

Final Fantasy IX (psx): throwback FF with the best cast of characters in the series, nostalgic references littered throughout, and a story good enough to pass.

DKC2 (snes): enough has been said about this legendary platformer, the greatest of all games.

Disgaea: Hour of Darkness (ps2): D1 gets the nod here despite D2 (and maybe D3; i haven't played it) have better gameplay. D1 was the first in the series and had the best set of characters and story. this game had it all: funny dialogue, great english voice acting, a surprisingly decent story for such a quirky game, and a massive postgame for perfectionists.

Civilization IV (PC): the game for the intellectual that really requires a lot of strategic thinking and planning. easily the best game in the series, as it is both user friendly at the lower levels and almost frustratingly difficult at the higher levels. the game forces one to really learn its mechanics and exploits to be played at the highest level. infinite replay value too.

 

[cayr]

I'm going to make this longer when i have the time, but right now i just need to make a contribution, because this is a game i absolutely love.

Summon Night: Swordcraft Story 2 For the GBA
This is a not well known game that i just love, this is actually the first action/adventure rpg that i LOVED, the characters, the gameplay was great, you actually cared for your characters, the crafting system, there where so many combinations you could try out for your weapons, I'm just sad that they didn't keep this going in further Summon Night's, and that the third one stayed in japan, never to come. If you never played this game, pleas DO.