It's been about 5 and a half years since I did my last Top 100 list. Due to my OCD and compulsion to constantly create lists in my head I think it's time for an all new Top 100.
My first thought was to reevaluate the old top 100, but fuck it, it's easier to pick 100 new games that I didn't have on the list last time. In the past 5 and a half years I've played more than I usually have, largely due to COVID. And in that time I've played a lot of new great games.
Plus, when I made the last list, I avoided adding multiple games from the same franchises. So I can dip back into the Dragon Quest pool and a few others.
Anyway stay tuned. Starting tomorrow we're doing this shit again.
My first thought was to reevaluate the old top 100, but fuck it, it's easier to pick 100 new games that I didn't have on the list last time. In the past 5 and a half years I've played more than I usually have, largely due to COVID. And in that time I've played a lot of new great games.
Plus, when I made the last list, I avoided adding multiple games from the same franchises. So I can dip back into the Dragon Quest pool and a few others.
Anyway stay tuned. Starting tomorrow we're doing this shit again.
Recently Spotted:
*crickets*
I believe that was "Geohot" George Hotz?
While Monster Hunter 3U will always be my favorite in the series, I probably spent more time with Monster Hunter World. Without question, it holds my record for the most time I've ever spent with the series, and that doesn't even count the additional time with Iceborn. I know a lot of purists didn't care for the changes to the item gathering, but that saved so much time that you could devote to hunting. And as a result, I actually found this easier to just pick up and play a single round.
But what I really appreciated about it was the regions themselves. There were as many as in previous games, but God damn. Did they make up for it with the size and scale of them. For the first time it actually felt like you were really exploring a huge world. I remember I was still finding New paths and areas in the first ancient Forest well after I had already put in over 100 hours into the game.
Even the hubs were cool. They were constantly evolving as you completed missions and it was always worth spending a little time wandering around just to see what changes had been made. The same went for the seasonal celebrations at the online hub. Always fun to see how the decorations and themes would change. And at the end of the day, how could you go wrong? Hanging out with a bunch of scientists who are basically hanging out in an opium den? Good times.
Hell yeah! Monster Hunter World baby! I vaguely remember renting Monster Hunter for the PS2 back in the day and it didn’t quite click with me. Just very briefly played it. Picked up Monster Hunter Tri on the Wii U but just never got around to really playing it either. That all changed for me when Monster Hunter World came out. It completely hooked me on the franchise. Monster Hunter World: Iceborne and Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak are easily two of my most played games ever. Needless to say I’m pretty hyped for the upcoming Monster Hunter Wilds.
Do you like killing Innocent children, women, and old people? If so, I've got the game for you. Kagero: Deception II. When I first picked up the game, the back of the box made it sound interesting. You're going to attack people using traps? That's different. However, I learned it wasn't as much trapping people as it was torturing people in traps. But hey, that turned out to be pretty fun.
The game rewarded the player by connecting your traps together in order to end the victim's life in a grandiose fashion, ensuring that the last day of their life was also their worst one. Sure, you could set up an arrow trap to hit somebody as soon as they opened a door. That's certainly effective. But is it as much fun as having someone walk into a bear trap, then drop a jar of oil on them, and then have a flaming arrow barbecue them?
Kagero who provided a lot of moments like that, and while it got a little uncomfortable at times, it was tough to argue. It wasn't fun. It was also maybe one of the first games that made me really appreciate that. Sony was going after more mature games. Although in this case you might have to make an argument as to why catapulting someone into a waffle of spikes and then electrocuting them is in fact more mature than jumping on a turtle.
When most kids got their NES, it probably came with some game pack in. Super Mario Brothers, Gyromite, duck hunt, etc. But for a brief period of time, Nintendo offered a cheaper version of the console that didn't come with a game, but instead came with a big magazine that was a directory of all the games that had been released up until that point, which was somewhere in mid-1988. That directory had a description of each game, the box, art, screenshot, and some sort of tip or secret. That was the version that my neighbor got, and I probably spent as much time reading that as I did playing a lot of games.
That directory also opened my eyes to a lot of the early obscure NES games that had already disappeared off in shelves by the time I got my own console. Athena, Spelunker, Super Pitfall, Mighty Bomb Jack, etc. Admittedly, most of these were third party games that weren't particularly good, and really no one missed out on not being able to play them. There were exceptions though, and Solomon's Key was one of them.
Trying to find a copy of this was a really big priority for me back then, but I never found it. I played it once for a minute at a friend's house, who was the rich kid who had every game in the world, but he wouldn't let me play it long because we had to play ice hockey or something like that.
I wouldn't actually get my own copy of this until the Virtual Console. I don't remember if it was the first game I got on the VC, but it was one of them. And surprisingly it actually held up as well as any NES game did, largely due to it being a puzzle game with pretty decent controls All things considered. The only problem with it, was this game was fucking hard. I really don't know how any kid could have possibly finished this back in the day. There weren't unlimited continues, there weren't saved games. You had to be good, smart, and well, good and smart I guess.
Ultimately it wouldn't be until it came out on the virtual console that I ever finished it. God bless those save states. It was well worth waiting to finish it at that point though. There was a small but fairly active miiverse community for the game, and it was actually a lot of fun talking to other people, and listening to their bullshit about being able to finish without dying once. That's right, bullshit. No one's that goddamn good.
That said, I still finished it. Over 25 years after I first discovered it, but I still finished it. And you're goddamn right I'm proud.
The boxart reminded me of Solstice, a game my cousin (or is it nephew?) had. We never came close to beating it, but it was just a very different and unique experience. I guess most of that is because it was an isometric game when most everything we played were 2D platformers.
That said, what I will always remember about solstice was how weird it was that the cover of the game was a really jacked looking wizard. The ad for the game took it to an even different level.
And on that note, happy early Frigay?