The Best of the Best

[nitro]

Oh this will be fun XD I have too many favorite video games. I see a lot of people talking about JRPGs, so I'll start with that (in no particular order, and immediately off the top of my head).

Final Fantasy VI, Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete, Xenogears, Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross, Super Mario RPG, Kingdom Hearts (for the record, I thought the first one was brilliant, the rest....could go either way), and Xenoblade Chronicles.

I also love tactical RPGs like Final Fantasy Tactics, the Disgaea games, and the PSP port of Tactics Ogre.

In regards to RPGs from the west, I think Dragon Age: Origins is my all time favorite. Followed by Skyrim, Fallout 3, Knights of the Old Republic, and the Mass Effect games.

OTHER GENRES!
Platform: Most Mario games, Banjo-Kazooie, Donkey Kong Country 2, Mischief Makers, Ninja Gaiden (the original NES one. So far ahead of its time), Contra, Kirby Super Star, Gunstar Heroes, Earthworm Jim 1+2, and Conkers Bad Fur Day.

Action-Adventure: Most Zelda games (Not Majora's Mask, or Minish Cap), Terranigma, God of War trilogy, Seiken Densetsu 3, the Metal Gear games (including the MSX ones) the Batman Arkham games, and Illusion of Gaia.

First person (besides Skyrim): BioShock, both Portals, all the Half-Life games, Prey, Wolfenstein, and the first Halo.

Racing: Half the Mario Kart games out there, half the Gran Turismo games out there, Burnout 3, and Cruis'n USA.

Fighting: A lot of Street Fighter games, a lot of Tekken games, the first three Mortal Kombat games (plus the newest one), and Usamimi got me into the BlazBlue series.

Puzzle: Tetris, Tetris Attack, and anything PopCap does.

There are lots of others that I enjoy immensely XD Especially ones that do not fit into one specific genre. Best example I can think of for that would be Braid.

*Whew* I'd probably list more if I had the time to spare. But I don't, so what you see is what you get

[greg]

I've always thought the premise of Kingdom Hearts was stupid. As my friend says, it's like an Internet crossover fanfic that's been made in videogame form. In the early '90s, I would read such fanfics... Bubblegum Crisis / Star Trek: TNG fanfics, Robotech / Star Wars, etc. Some were written well, some of them had so many spelling and grammatical errors that they were terrible. Also, since I just do not like Disney characters, I've always scoffed at Kingdom Hearts. The thought of Goofy weilding a buster sword or Pooh Bear being a white mage or whatever is just silly. That said, I can understand that people would like these games for the exact same reason why they repulse me.

For 1st person shooters, I haven't really cared a lot about the genre, but I really have played the Medal of Honor and Call of Duty WWII games. I've always been a WWII nerd, which is one of the first reasons why I became interested in Japan (ironically, perhaps?).

For 2D fighting games, when people would ask me if I preferred Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat, I always replied, "King of Fighters!" I really love the Marvel vs. Capcom series, and 2 was the best, but I am not happy with Capcom's transitioning their fighting games from pixels to polygons, so I am not so keen on the new Marvel vs Capcom 3. I never played Mortal Kombat because it grossed me out. I have the first BlazBlue game for the PSP, although I am sure it would be easier to play on a home console. I just do not have any current generation game systems. One great 2D fighting game is Asuka 120%. It's an all-female fighting game with very simplistic controls. I have the PC engine version, but the Saturn version is much better. There was a later version for the PS1. It's somewhat similar to Guilty Gear in the way you can keep comboing and air juggling to do lots of damage. Another game that is easy to play and easy to deal tons of damage is Astra Super Stars for the Saturn.

I LOVE strategy/tactics games. It's become my favorite genre. I really enjoy playing Super Robot Taisen games, Luminous Arc (too bad Atlus never released the 3rd game in English), Disgaea (nearly finished with the DS version), and Masaya's strategy games. I haven't spent a whole lot with Langrisser, but I played the CRAP out of Macross: Eternal Love song on the PC Engine. And I'm also currently playing Yggdra Union for the GBA (this was re-released for the PSP). Holy cow, that is such a cool game! It's very similar to Langrisser, but the catch is that you can only initiate one combat per turn. The key is in chaining the combat with adjacent allies. Sting is a very interesting company in that they will take a game genre, and limit the gameplay in some way. People will either love this limitation or hate it.

Sting also made an RPG called Riviera for the GBA (also re-released on the PSP). Movement is more like a point and click graphical adventure, and the amount of times you can search for items or open chests depends on how well you've done in battle to earn points. You then use these points for searching for these items. Weapons are limited to the number of times they can be used. This is actually a very cool twist, in my opinion, and I've never had a problem with running out of "ammo."

Another genre I really love (but I am not so good at) are shmups. I've always enjoyed shooters like Gradius, Aero Blasters/Air Buster and such. I discovered the Area 88 game (called U.N. Squadron in America) at a game arcade next to a movie theater. That was around 1990, when I was seriously becoming an anime fan. I was elated to later discover that it was based off an actual anime, Area 88.

Platforming run-n-gun games are great fun too. I really enjoyed Assault Suits Valken (aka Cybernator) on the SNES/SFC an Assault Suits Leynos 2 for the Saturn (the first Leynos game was called Target Earth on the Genesis). SNK's Metal Slug series is great fun, somewhat similar to Contra, and their Shock Troopers games are fun too (the characters seem like anime-style G.I. Joe characters).

Puzzle games are also great fun. Although my weird wife does not like video games at all, her mom really likes Tetris and we bought her a DSi for her birthday plus a Tetris game. For Christmas I introduced her to Puyo Puyo with the 20th anniversary game. I wish they would release the simpler, earlier versions for the DS though, like in a compilation of the original Compile games. The fever mode is a bit complex for beginners to understand. Unlike other taisen puzzle games like Super Puzzle Fighter, if you chain plenty and cause major damage to your opponent's screen, it was due to skill and not dumb luck. My favorite Tetris game is the Card Captor Sakura Tetris game (even got a poster of it on my wall). It is a very fun taisen puzzle game.

[nitro]

Ahhh U.N. Squadron. Sitting comfortably in my SNES library because it is so damn awesome