23. Final Fantasy 7 and 8

I was a Genesis guy so I totally missed out on the FF craze of the SNES. I never really played any RPGs, my one experience with one was Dragon Warrior on the NES which I enjoyed but was turned off by the turn based battles. Still the idea of traveling a world and battling interesting beasts was very alluring. I think I tried Phantasy Star once on Genesis and was instantly turned off by how slow it all was. So RPGs didn't interest me until they looked like the most state of the art game of all time. Enter FF7, the landmark game that made RPGs mainstream and was a major part of creating Sony's dominance. FF7 going to the PS1 was the biggest shock of that generation, it signaled the end of Nintendo's grip on third parties. One reason was the catridge based N64 couldnt handle the space needed for Square's epic, they needed 3 discs to contain this massive game. FF7 harkens back to a time where the ambitions of the developers were huge, sure we get gigant 100 hour games all the time now but their world is no where near as varied as FF7. A game with what has to be hundreds upon hundreds of pre rendered backgrounds, fully detailed and totally unique from one location to another. A game with a true overworld with an airship to explore. A game so vast that to remake it today will take multiple games and many years to complete.

The hype around FF7 was something else, I remember all the magazine spreads, the commercials, the looks of this game was unlike anything. It felt like the first true video game summer movie event with new visuals that we could never dream of before. I was swept into the hype, here I am wanting an RPG on day one, a genre I had not cared of before. From the opening moment with that train arriving and that iconic music playing I was transfixed. FF7 was an adventure of a lifetime, its cast is iconic, the music legendary, the world unmatched in its beauty.  What I loved most was how this game let you play everything, whether it was a bioke chase or a seige of a mountain base, all of it was playable in some form of mini game. It wasn't just get into turn based combat which there was a ton of, the game constantly surpised with gameplay moments that were different. Entire chocobo racing mini games, breeding even that tied into the games biggest secrets, the summons. Secrets upon secrets, it hit every note I love about exploring and understanding a game world. The story was fantastic as well with one of gamings greatest villains, I still recall spending close to an hour with the incredible final battle, one of my favorite memories of that era.  FF7 encapulates the PS1 era perfectly, it was that kind of ambitious development that made the era so special.

A year or two later they did it again with FF8. This time the graphics were taken to new heights as they didn't look like lego people, they were rendered as they should look in battle and cutscenes. The backgrounds more detailed than ever and the cutscenes were rivaling what was happning in movies. I was beyond hyped for FF8, FF7 quickly became one of my all time favorite games so I had to have the sequel immediatly. I still remember the day after school where i went to game store and bought FF8, took it home and read the manual as I always did first out of tradition and then put in the first disc and was floored by the opening sequence. I loved the school setting, felt like some sort of X-men like training ground with a huge explorable ship. All the elements that made FF7 so great to explore were still around. Sure there is controversy with the odd junction combat system where you need to absorb "ammo" from enemies, it was not a well conceieved system but it still lead to some great battles. It had one of my favorite mini games of all time, a full fledged card battle within the game, I put so much time into Triple Triad.

What FF8 did great was create epic movie like moments. To me the assualt on the home base is one of the greatest moments in gaming. It's that kind of exciting thrilling setpieces that stand out in games, its what makes Uncharted and MGS so memorable and FF is not afraid to dabble in moments like that. These two games made me a FF fan for life and I have played every one since. I do not like how the overworld has shrunk over time, how worlds lost that magical variety they once had, how parties started to shrink. While the graphics have gotten insane the scale of the games have never reached the grand epic feel of FF7 and 8.

I tried to like Final Fantasy 8. I really did. I probably made it 75% of the way through before I just called it quits though. Maybe even further than that. It couldn't have been too much left before I hung it up.  That said Triple Triad was awesome.  

FF7 was epic though. I almost just bought it again for my tablet, but I think there are still some bugs that the mobile version has that S-E never bothered to fix.

One thing about every FF until the last few...they always have perfect difficulty balance for the boss fights UNTIL the last 1 or 2 of the game. Then all the sudden you're underpowered & have to spend 5+ hours running in a circle to get in enough fights to level up enough that you can actually finish the damn games. That always annoyed me. Like they just had to make sure the game was going to take people at least 50 hours to beat. Even if 5 hours of that is running in a circle.

22. The Witness

The greatest puzzle game ever made. Lets just start there, its hard to describe the genius of this game and how it presents its concepts for the player to discover organically. There is no direction, no instructions, little to no story, you are simply dropped off on an island and you discover what to do on your own. It starts with some power lines on the ground that lead to panels that you interact with through line puzzles. Yes for the misinformed you may say this is a game all about line puzzles but that would be a gross understatement. The lines are the method of input to solve these puzzles, much like a pen and paper would be the method to solve any written puzzle. Each panel builds on the concept on the one before it, introducing one new variable, one new rule that start to compound with the other rules to more and more complex puzzles until you reach the end of that line panels... then you are on your own.

Its an "open" island in the way a metroid game is open, you can go anywhere in the world when you have all the skills, but in this game the skills are simply knowlege. You can unlock ANY location if you know the solution, nothing is stopping you, you simply have not learned what you need to learn. Its a beautiful thing, like how Link finds a hookshot and now all these possibilities are open, when you learn what four colors dots on a graph mean its like finding that hookshot but for your brain. The game is all about the scientific method, from the way every puzzle is presented to the way the story is unfloded from quotes of the greatest scientific minds in our history, this game is a celebration of SCIENCE. And it is not afraid to bring in religion into the discussion, now all of this is in the "background" but as you explore you will slowly see all the themes Jonathan Blow is trying to convey and he does so masterfully. In every aspect this game is a masterpiece in design.

So you have the metroid like world but thats only fun if the areas you access feel different and boy does this game do that in spades. You start off in a nice meadow and then end up in a desert world complete with a huge pyramid filled with new puzzles. Every area is a new style of puzzle and the run the gamut of so many senses and concepts. Throughout the game you will cover sight, sound, light, time, math, perspective, its incredible how varied the puzzles get. Plus this isnt basic stuff, prepare to have a notebook, prepare to do some math problems, it will test every aspect of your logic skills. It is what every puzzle game should strive to do.

Then there is the big reveal, a game wide mechanic that was there from the second you start the game right in your face. If you dont figure it out on your own it is revealed in a grand moment that could easily be considered one of the greatest a-ha moments in gaming history. If you do figure it out before hand (as I did) you feel proud, so its a win win. This is the ultimate puzzle game where every aspect is perfectly honed into a beautiful package that stimulates curiosity, exploration, ignenuity and simply makes you think. It is brilliant.

I need to try and get into The Witness again. Phantasy Star Online always sounded interesting!