I think this is the point in the list where I’m starting to list games that I can get a little obsessive over. Either a rougelike that hooks me and makes me dive deep, or just a fantastic adventure in the case of Zelda and Donkey Kong. There are times where any of these games could be higher on a certian day, but hey. On the day that I made this list, this is where the chips fell.
40 – Crypt of the NecroDancer
Year Released: 2015 | Platform: PC
There aren’t many rhythm games that I enjoy, but Crypt of the NecroDancer is one of them. Another roguelike with plenty of weapons, characters, and biomes to discover and explore. What makes Crypt of the Necrodancer unique is that the entire engine of the game is tied to a beat. Every move or action for both you and the monsters happens on a beat. If you can keep up with the song, you’ll rack up a sweet multiplier and start raking in the gold.
This system is slightly panic educing, as you need to move your character around the map, position yourself so you can damage the enemies while not falling into any other traps, all while having milliseconds to decide on your next move. I find it really comical when I’m having a great run, but I suddenly fall off the beat, then get dogpiled into oblivion.
Despite the fact that I can’t keep a beat to save my life, I ended up really enjoying Crypt of the NecroDancer. It was perfectly engaging, fun, and frenetic enough to capture my attention and not let go.
39 – Final Fantasy V
Year Released: 1992 | Platform: SNES
This one is a bit of a cheat. I realized while putting this list together that I had a game repeated twice, so I needed to fill a gap. Thankfully, in the time between creating this list and posting it, I’ve embarked on my Final Fantasy Project, and one of the absolute highlights so far has been Final Fantasy V.
Final Fantasy X was already featured further back, and you’ll see Final Fantasy IVin a future post, but Final Fantasy V was the first new (to me) Final Fantasy that really made me smile. The job system on display here was just so much fun to explore, and unlike Final Fantasy III, I didn’t feel punished for swapping jobs. Instead, near the end of the game when I had several jobs mastered, I was rewarded with some ultra powerful stacking abilities that just made me feel so excited to run into battle.
I know there are more depths to plumb with this system than what I did in my first play through, and if I’m being honest, Final Fantasy V is so far the FF game that I’m most likely to go back and replay once I’m done, just because that system is so varied. I can also see how the job system here was developed into the Tactics series, which are some games that I absolutely love.
38 – The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap
Year Released: 2004 | Platform: Gameboy Advance
Alright, you’re gonna start seeing a lot of Legend of Zelda as we move up this list. It, and Pokemon have been my two favourite franchises since I was a little kid, so, there’s quite a lot of affinity built up here.
The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap takes Link’s iconic toque and turns it into an intrepid sidekick. The titular Minish are a race of miniscule elves, and Link is able to grow and shrink to interact with the Minish’s world. Nintendo did a fantastic job of imbuing the Minish point of view with a ton of charm, with things like, riding a lilly pad over a lake by using a jar that blows wind. The graphics are really bright and each of the biomes have their own distinct identity, and the music is phenomenal.
37 – The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Year Released: 2023 | Platform: Nintendo Switch
I’m actually using this entry to represent both Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, which might be silly, but it’s my blog, so I’ll do what I want.
I always try to go into Zelda games blind. I purposefully avoid reviews, previews, designer discussions, everything. I want to discover the game on my own. I also vividly remember when Breath of the Wild was first announced in 2013, then was delayed at least twice, much to my dismay. But when I finally launched Breath of the Wild on my brand new Nintendo Switch in 2017, I was hooked. I loved the open world, free-flowing gameplay, and the discovery that came from… literally everything. I would launch the game, set my marker on a point just across a small field, and then two hours later I’d be turning my game off, not having reached that marker. That feeling of discovery gave me such joy that I played it every moment I could for three months straight.
I was a bit disappointed that the traditional big puzzle solving dungeons were pushed to the side in favour of the 120 shrines and 4 divine beasts, but I still recognized that Breath of the Wild was a monumental achievement.
Then Nintendo did it again with Tears of the Kingdom. The base map of Hyrule looks the same, but it feels like everything has been shuffled. In addition to shuffling the main map, to my full surprise when I discovered it, there’s a whole second map in the underworld. While that map is fairly barren, it’s not insignificant by any stretch of the imagination. Also, the real trick for Tears of the Kingdom is the ability to build all kinds of machinations. I don’t really have the imagination necessary to really dive deep into this mechanic, but seeing what others have built and seeing how the physics of the world react to creative problem-solving has been an incredible experience.
36 – Slice & Dice
Year Released: 2021 | Platform: Itch.io, PC, Mobile
There’s something special about playing a game a lot when it’s in early access, or it’s 1.0 release, then coming back to it a few years later and experiencing all the updates and upgrades all at once. That’s been my experience with Slice & Dice, and it is wonderful. I get all this new content, but I also don’t have to go through the effort of learning a whole new roguelike system.
Slice & Dice is a rogue like game where you play a team of 5 heroes, as they crawl through a series of battles. Each hero is represented by a die, and on each turn, you roll those die and apply their effects. From generic hits, to ranged attacks, to cleave attacks, to cruel attacks (x2 to enemies with less than half health), to so many more, your goal is simply to destroy your enemies before they do the same to you. After each enounter one of your characters will level up, or, you’ll be given a new piece of gear to modify one of your chracters. With over 100 heroes and much more loot to pick from, each run feels different, and the feeling of power you get when you utterly break the final boss over your knee is addicting.
There’s a reason why this game never gets uninstalled from my phone.
35 – Tetris
Year Released: 1989 | Platform: Anything with a screen
While the screenshot is from Tetris: Effect, this entry stands in for all the Tetrises out there. It’s a classic exciting puzzle game that has endured the test of time, and it also kind of served as a benchmark for me as a gamer. My mom and I used to play The New Tetris on the Nintendo 64, and she’d whoop my butt up and down the block. Until I got my first job, and with my first paycheque, bought a platnium GameCube and Tetris Worlds, and actually sat down and practised this game, until I finally surpassed her.
I also toyed with the idea of putting Dr. Mario World in this spot, as I absolutely loved that mobile game, to the point where I was ranked in the top 100 players. But considering that it’s a discontinued live service game that you can’t play anymore, I decided to leave it off the list entirely. I weep for lost games.
34 – Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
Year Released: 2004 | Platform: Nintendo Gamecube
Another Gamecube game, Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door is still the best game in the Paper Mario franchise, and the reason why I keep trying all the games that have come after it, just for the off-chance that Nintendo can make lightning strike twice.
It’s a joyful, funny adventure that has such great characters. From Peach and the pervy computer, to a wacky Bowser, and endless witty sidekicks. The turn based gameplay with it’s wide range of moves and badges to mix up your abilities, I loved this experience, and it came completly out of left field when I first played it way back in my teenage years.
33 – Bravely Default
Year Released: 2013 | Platform: Nintendo 3DS
While I’m not a fan of a lot of the 3D games that graced the Nintendo 3DS, because I find the 3D models to be ugly as sin. my biggest annoyance with Bravely Default’s style is the toothpicks they use for legs. Seriously, look at some screenshots. None of the chracters have feet! But I’ve never been a graphics first gamer, and the gameplay of Bravely Default (and it’s sequel, Bravely Second: End Layer), hooked me from the very first battle.
While turn based like the NES trilogy of Final Fantasygames, what sets Bravely Default apart is it’s namesake. Characters can “Brave” on their turn to take multiple actions in one go. Or, Default, to defend themselves, and store up a turn for a later use. This ebb and flow of actions makes playing a turn based JRPG a breeze. For the random encounters, just brave all your characters and (hopefully) you’ll wipe them out in a single round. For boss encounters, have everyone default and wait for your moments to strike.
That system, coupled with a Job system reminiscent to Final Fantasy III, made Bravely Default one of my favourite Square Enix games on the Nintendo 3DS.
32 – Donkey Kong 64
Year Released: 1999 | Platform: Nintendo 64
Now here’s an entry based solely on nostalgia, as I haven’t played this since like, 2001. Donkey Kong 64 is a 3D collect-a-thon platformer on the Nintendo 64. Donkey Kong, along with his friends, like Diddy, Tiny, and Lanky, traverse worlds, collecting multicoloured bananas as they try to stop King K. Rool from destroying Kong Island.
I say this lives on Nostalgia, because I’m pretty sure if I went back and replayed Donkey Kong 64 now, I would get endlessly frustrated with it. Each Kong can collect a specific colour of banana, and wield a unique gun, and have unique abilities. Each of these unique traits are used to unlock more parts of each level, so each other Kong can get further and collect more of their colour bananas. Now, as I said, it’s been a long time since I played this, but I’m pretty sure the amount of back tracking involved with ensure I never finish this game again, let along complete it.
I had a lot of fun with Donkey Kong 64 when I was a kid. But as an adult who doesn’t have much time for video games, I’m much more likely to start up a replay of Banjo-Kazooie instead.
31 – Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island
Year Released: 1995 | Platform: Super Nintendo
Yoshi’s Island is quite the game play depature from a game sporting the title “Super Mario World: 2”. Instead of Mario running and jumping on Koopas, getting powerups and having a sense of velocity, Yoshi’s Island saddles a multicolour series of Yoshi with a baby Mario, and sends you on a slower adventure. The art is amazing here, with everything having a wonderful pencil crayon aesthetic to it.
The monsters are all cute, and the music is just wonderful. Yoshi’s can jump on baddies, but their main tool is throwing eggs, which, in addition to dispaching enemies, can also be used to solve puzzle, knock down crates, and help you progress past seemingly impossible high cliffs.
If your goal is just to reach the end of every level, then Yoshi’s Island is a simple, fun game. If you strive for 100% on every level, which means finding 5 flowers, 20 red coins, and keeping Mario’s star-power health at 30, then this game turns into a challenge, even for adult me. I highly recommend giving this game a go.
The way my game group operates, is that we rotate hosting between each member. Whoever’s turn it is to host, gets to pick the game(s) we play that evening. Sometimes we finish our game a bit early, so the host gets to break out one of their smaller games to cap off the evening. Such was the case the other day when Blokus 3D hit the table.
We had just been handed a crushing defeat in the final mission of Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle Earth: Shadowed Paths expansion, which meant our campaign had finally come to a close. As some kind of detox from the heavily thematic combat oriented game, the colourful blocks called to Bigfoot, who plopped it onto the table.
Blokus 3D (otherwise known as Rumis) is a three-dimensional abstract strategy game. All players receive the same pieces, then take turns placing piece after piece, trying to be the player who comes out on top. Literally. The victor is the player who has the most blocks of their colour when viewing the final structure from above.
The game starts with a template being placed down on the plastic lazy susan creating a form for the structure that you’re going to build. The structure also goes up in steps, where the first row can only be one block high, while the second row can be up to 2 blocks high, and so on until you reach 6 blocks. The only other placement restriction is that the block you place must touch another block of your own colour (which is the opposite of regular Blokus rules, where your blocks cannot touch other blocks of your colour). Beyond that, players just alternate taking turns until someone runs out of blocks or no players are able to play anymore.
The lazy susan is a nice touch, as there will be times when the structure has created a cliff, or your only spot to place is now from a single square poking out the back of the structure. The play area on that lazy susan has ridges, so the blocks don’t go flying off the base when you rotate it, but that same consideration does not extend to the blocks themselves. An errant sneeze could send your whole game scattered across the table. Not that I would know….
A big part of Blokus 3D is placing your blocks in such a way that it benefits you, but also doesn’t let your opponents completely hem you in. in a higher player count game, a poor placement and cutthroat opponents can see a player eliminated after a single block placement. I appreciate the depth in this thought, the short term gain of getting a lot of blocks on the top-most layer, but not working towards the later game of having more placement options.
It’s quite nice having a three-dimensional positional abstract game. There’s no randomness, no luck involved in Blokus 3D, just skill and strategy. It’s a spatial puzzle that tickles the brain in a delightful way, and a game that made me instantly want to play it again and again. It helps that games are so short, with only, like, 12 pieces allocated per player. At 2 players, it’s a knife fight in a phone booth as you try desperately to avoid giving your opponent a leg up, and at higher player counts it’s more tactical. Rewarding you for having multiple options each turn, and snapping the perfect spots when the time is ripe.
I enjoyed Blokus 3D more than it’s 2D cousin, but I have always enjoyed spatial puzzles, and the inclusion of the 3rd dimension feels new and exciting to me. I wish the blocks weren’t quite so slick, so I could play this with my kids and not worry about their non-dextrous fingers knocking the whole game over, but as it stands, it’s a great cerebral puzzle to bust out at the end of the night when you really feel like crushing your opponents and punishing them for their lack of forethought.
I just looked at my usual online game stores, and it looks like Blokus 3D is hard to find. But hey, maybe this can be the grail game that gets you into thrift stores and yard sales.
If you ask “What is the best Final Fantasy game?”, or read any Final Fantasy games tier-list or top list, you’ll find Final Fantasy VI and Final Fantasy VII most often cited as the best Final Fantasy games every. Alongside those two, manywill cite Final Fantasy Tactics as their favourite game of all time, let alone of the Final Fantasy franchise. The cult following that adores Final Fantasy Tactics is strong and pervasive.
I originally played Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions on the PSP back in 2009. At that time, I was already a pretty big fan of Final Fantasy Tactics: Advance, the Gameboy Advance follow-up, so I figured I was in for a good time. Unbeknownst to me, is there are a couple point in the game where you are required to do a couple of battles back to back, with no opportunity to respec your team between those battles. One of those fights has the main character fighting all on his own. I stupidly only had one save file throughout the game, and soft locked my progress, as I had set Ramza into a weaker job temporarily so I could unlock a better job in a few fights. At that point I put the game down, and never came back.
Until now! Final Fantasy Tactics recently got a new remaster in the form of the Ivalice Chronicles, with an updated UI, voice acting, auto save, multiple difficulty levels, fast-forward, better camera control, enhanced, smoothed out graphics, and the ability to return to the world map at any point (thank goodness). Unfortunately, I’m too cheap to buy new games, so I decided to load up my PSP emulator and start a play through of the 2007 remaster, The War of the Lions
Gameplay
If you’ve played an SRPG or “tactics” game before, things should be familiar to you. Final Fantasy Tactics puts you in control of a small squad of 4 – 5 units. These units face off against other squads of similiar size on a grid based battlefield, and through any tactical advantage you can muster (or via sheer overwhelming force), you hope to be the one left standing at the end of the day.
Each unit has a job, giving them special abilities to use during combat. Starting as a Squire or Chemist, most characters will just walk around the map and bop enemies on their heads. As you do that, that character will earn EXP to level up and get stronger, and JP, or Job Points, which they can use to learn new skills. As you level up a job, you’ll unlock new jobs. Some make sense, like getting to a level 2 Squire unlocks the Knight job. Knights can equip swords, shields, and heavy armor for beefy HP bonuses, and their abilities all focus around breaking your opponent’s equipment or skills. Chemists, on the other hand, level up to White and Black mages, which in turn unlock Summoners, Time Mages, Mystics, and the powerful Arithmetician.
When a character changes job, they gain the inherent abilities of the job they’re currently using, like the Knight being able to equip heavy armor, or the Archer being able to use bows. As you spend JP to learn skills, you can apply them to your character, even after their job has changed. Further to that, every character has two action ability slots. One is automatically used by the job you have, like Black Magic for a Black Mage. But that second action slot can be filled by any job that character has previously dabbled in. In my case, my Black Mage also has extensive experience as a white mage, giving them great offensive and defensive versatility.
Menus over menus
This system is wonderfully open, allowing you to mix and match jobs and skills to create units that feel truely unique and distinct from one another. You’ll mourn when a character goes down, suddenly feeling the loss of the abilities they were offering your team. You’ll struggle to decide if you should keep an extra character with items so they can use a phoenix down when your main healer falls, or, if you are willing to let go of the skill that increases your chance to hit in favour of being able to hold two swords at once. These trade-offs will have buried in the menus inbetween every battle, constantly tweaking your units to shore up and weaknesses that were discovered in the last battle.
The core gameplay loop of engaging in battles, earning JP, spending JP on skills, tweaking jobs and abilities, and then using those new skills in another battle, is utterly addicting. Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions has stolen a few hours of sleep from me as I push my bedtime into the wee hours of the morning, saying “Just one more battle. I’ve almost unlocked the Ninja, then I’ll go to sleep…”
The downsides of the battles, however, is that they can be long and unfair. More than once I’ve had my whole party wiped out by a random battle, only to reload a save, try again, and steam roll the competition. A well-timed block, the opponents choosing to pile onto your healer, or any number of other factors can cause a snowball effect that makes a map nearly impossible. One time my white mage missed reviving Ramza 4 times in a row (it had a 64% chance to hit), then he disappeared from the battlefield, triggering a game over.
Pictured above: Tactical Advantage
Reloading and bashing your head against a brick wall seems to be a core feature of Final Fantasy Tactics. There are a couple of battles near the end of chapter 3 that, even after grinding, took several attempts and a string of good luck to complete. There was one mission where you had to protect an AI controlled character, and literally before any of my characters had a chance to move, she was KO’d by the 3 opposing assassins. I ended up re-speccing my team to be thieves with high speed so they’d be able to move sooner, then just threw them into the line of fire and hoped the opposing AI opponents would take the bait.
In these situations, you’re almost railroaded into having a specific team composition or loadout. This feels like the anthesis of the open-ended team building that the entire game is built around. If you wanted Ramza to be a support character or a spell caster, there’s a boss battle that forces him into a one on one duel. Even if you’re prepared for the fight, the opponent will KO you in 2 hits, forcing you to change your character into one that is specifically built to counter that fight.
Some of these fights will teach you an imporant lesson in having multiple save slots, as there are several battles in the second half off the game that take place right after the other, and if you find yourself unable to progress, without having a backup save, you’ll be softlocked within that battle screen, as a failure will kick you back out to the title screen to either continue from a save, or, start a whole new game.
Story
The story of Final Fantasy Tactics is one of intrigue, plots, villainy, and backstabbing. Ramza is the youngest of a prestigious house, and after a series of unfortunate decisions by those in power, he is thrust into a world embroiled in war. The Black and White lions fight for power and control over the crown, while the church manipulates both sides from the shadows, hoping to capitalize on the chaos. There are dozens of characters, allegiances are ever shifting, and there’s an undercurrent of class struggle that’s particularly present in the first quarter of the game. Ramza, after seeing the callousness of the ruling class, takes a step back and instead fights for justice and peace.
I’m going to start folding in Delita’s insults into my everyday vocabulary
The last act of the game devolves into a supernatural mystery of characters fighting over the Zodiac stones, which transform the holder into monsters of terrible power, which Ramza is quick to put down, and gets labelled as a heritc in the process. The story culminates with the kidnapping of Ramza’s sister to be the host for the resurrection of Ultima, which, again, Ramza is tasked with preventing the coming of the other worldly horror.
What’s interesting about the story of Final Fantasy Tactics, is that Ramza doesn’t come out a hero in the end. He does manage to save is sister and prevent the demons from ruling the world, but very few even know of their existence, and even less know of Ramza’s involvement with stopping the plot. Instead, after the credits, he and Alma take to the road to live out the rest of their lives in quiet peace.
Presentation
I played the PSP War of the Lions remake, which includes a number of upgrades from the original. The animated cutscenes are beautiful and have good voice acting. The localization mostly makes sense, with some really great dialogue that sets the tone for the game. The curses and insults mixed in with the complex political intrigue remind me of reading some really good fantasy novels, instead of the simple childlike dialogue that most JRPGs treat their players to.
Samantha is my mage, Turstin is my knight, but is my archer Alison or Ayleth?
The user interface, on the other hand, could use some work. In Final Fantasy Tactics, the order in which the units will take their next turn is vitally important. But to see the order of your turn, you need to back out of your action menu, press triangle, and select order list, where you’re given a list of names. Hopefully you’ve memorized the names of your units, but the opposing team is basically a guessing game. You can click on each of the names in red and see which one is going to move next, but it’s a pain to do. The character portraits do have a little indicator when you move the cursor over them, giving a rough indication of what order that character is going to go it, but it’s a right pain when you’re trying to figure out which spell to cast and if the charging time will run out before your target takes their next move.
While I generally really enjoy the isometric view of most Tactics games, the camera in Final Fantasy Tactics was constantly giving me trouble. Some maps play with elevation and will have your units fighting in a narrow alleyway. But this makes it impossible to see all the units. More than once I found myself spinning the map around and around, only catching glimpses of units hiding in the corners, and I had to hunt with the cursor to find them. Even worse would be when an enemy mage would start to cast a spell behind a wall that I couldn’t see who or where they were casting. I do like the 3D environments, they do create some interesting battlefields, but the implementation of them leaves much to be desired.
There’s a lot of action going on behind those walls
I spoke before about being buried in menus, and I wasn’t kidding. Every time you want to check on the equipment or abilities of your units, you’ll be going 4 menus deep. While I really loved the job system and customizing my characters, the menu system was clunky and unintuitive. Swapping between characters wasn’t always possible, sometimes you need to back out to the second layer of menus so you could drill down deeper on the next character. Even in the middle of combat, you’ll be selecting which of your action skills to use, then which action, then which target, and if you want to target the unit or the tile, filling the whole screen with cascading menus. This was less onerous, but it is ugly.
I will say that I’ve been looking at screenshots of The Ivalice Chronicles remake with some significant envy. The newest remaster looks pretty great, has full voice acting, the graphics and UI is cleaned up, and actually looks like they address all of my issues from War of the Lions
Final Thoughts
As with most of the Final Fantasy games I’ve been playing for the first time, I asked myself, “Is this worth playing in 2025?” For Final Fantasy Tactics, the answer is a resounding yes. The job system remains endlessly satisfying, so much so that I’d happily start a new run right now if Final Fantasy VIII weren’t already looming on my backlog. The War of the Lions remaster still holds up beautifully, thanks to its excellent writing and deep, rewarding mechanics. And if you have access to The Ivalice Chronicles remake, it looks to be the definitive way to experience this classic.
That said, Final Fantasy Tactics isn’t flawless. The clunky menus, uneven difficulty, and occasional cheap battles can test your patience. But even with its rough edges, it’s an easy game to recommend. I’m glad I finally returned to it after all these years, older, more patient, and better able to appreciate its ambition. If I’d played this as a teenager, I probably would have been obsessed. As it stands now, I can at least recognize Final Fantasy Tactics for what it is: a landmark in tactical RPG design that commands respect, even decades later.
A copy of Super Dice Battle was provided by the designer for the purposes of review
Super Smash Bros is a pretty integral part of my teenage years. Many hours were consumed duking it among my friends, be it on the N64, GameCube, or Wii. So when Super Battle Dice was pitched as an homage to Super Smash Bros, I was instantly intrigued. For what it’s worth, I’ve always been a Link main, and I’ve never been a “Final Destination, no items” type of player. I revel in the chaos the items bring.
If I’m being honest, 90% of the reason I keep the items on is specifically for the Home Run Bat. Hearing that sound when the bat cracks the opposing players, it makes my toes curl with joy.
-AHEM-, I’ve gotten off-topic. In Super Dice Battle, players take control of one of the four asymmetric characters, and engage in real time combo building. Using D8’s, you roll your dice, then you can commit one of those die results to one of your combos. Then, keep rolling your dice! When someone completes an attack combo, they shout out “COMBO!” to stop everyone else from rolling. They designate a target, roll the Combo dice to determine damage, the target has a chance to resolve a defense combo, if they have one queued up, then, play continues.
Super Dice Battle offers two victory conditions. Either, the first player to KO 3 other players, wins the duel. Or, in a stock battle, the last player standing, is the overall winner. And for those of you who abhor real time games (I don’t get it, but you do you), there is a slow mode where instead of rolling all your dice as fast as you can, players roll once, all commit together, then roll again once everyone is ready.
With games taking 5 to 10 minutes per brawl, Super Dice Battle is an easy game to play back to back. The frantic dice rolling has all players constantly engaged, and the tension grows with each passing second as the dice clatter over and over. You’ll see your opponent’s dice pools getting smaller and smaller as they assign the dice to their combos, until they’re rolling one die over and over again, trying to get a specific result.
Which is perhaps one of the main frustrations with Super Dice Battle. Your dice pool is limited to 4 dice. Most of the light combos only require two dice, with a third being used to augment the combo a little. Heavy combos require 3 dice, while the support and defense combos need 1 or 2 dice each. You can work towards building multiple combos at once, or socking away one of your dice on your defense skill, but you’ll find yourself stuck rolling one die over and over, trying to get a specific result.
But you don’t have to live so cautiously. Neglect your defenses and focus all your attention on the heavy attack combo to really sock it to your opponents. After all, no risk no reward, right?
However you choose to fight, the first person to complete an offensive combo shouts “COMBO!” and grabs the combo die, a large white die with a bunch of pips. Everyone has a moment to breathe while they commit their final roll, and then the attacking player designates their target, and rolls the combo die to determine how much damage they’re dishing out to their opponent. If your target has a defensive combo, they can trigger that, but once damage has been dealt, you make sure the target hasn’t exceeded its damage threshold, and the game continues.
The combo dice can range anywhere from devastating to ineffectual, depending on the result you roll and the combo you chose. Some combos will add damage for the spiked pips, while others, won’t.
Super dice battle seeks to emulate a real time fighting game using dice, but it feels like it’s running up against the limitations of the medium. It’s not uncommon for multiple players to have a defensive combo, then just take pot shots at each other until something changes. Sometimes in a larger player count game, there would be a cascade effect. One player would attack another, then before that player could reset their defensive combo, the other two would pile on, as it was the most efficient use of their dice. The restrictive dice pool ensures players can’t have all their combos filled at the same time, but it also results in players rolling a single die over and over and over, trying to hit a specific result.
I always recommend playing the real-time mode, as the turn based mode feels wrong for a game seeking to emulate a frantic brawl. On the subject of the frantic brawl, the COMBO call, which initiates the damage step, feels like a jarring halt. You go from rolling and evaluating as quickly as possible, to a still moment where you evaluate all your opponents situations, and then select your target based on a carefully calculated decision. The frantic feeling is lost at this moment, but thankfully everyone is back to rolling again soon enough. The asymmetric player abilities are both a boon and a bane. I love changing my characters and how different each one feels to pilot. But having wildly different abilities slows down that damage step as players squint to read what each other player can do, or how they can react or counter the incoming attack. The rulebook does tease more characters coming in the future, so look forward to that!
Part of me wishes there was more to Super Dice Battle. For a game seeking to emulate Smash Bros, I’d love it if there were some environmental obstacles to overcome, or items to give specific combos a bit of extra punch. But for every element you try to add, the bloat and complexity increases exponentially, and I’m not sure if it would result in a better game at the end of the day.
Super Dice Battle does manage to capture some of that chaotic, competitive energy that made late-night Smash sessions so memorable. But it also occasionally manages to get in its own way. The small dice pools and abrupt pauses can undercut the momentum it’s trying to build. Still, for a quick, rowdy filler that thrives on tension, Super Dice Battle manages to deliver plenty of rambunctious fun, provided you don’t mind a bit of die-rolling repetition in your game.
It’s the mid-way point! Hopefully you’re able to ascertain what kind of gamer I am, and what types of games really tickle my fancy.
50 – Cuphead
Year Released: 2017 | Platform: PC
I utterly love the super cute aesthetic, reminicent of the hand drawn animation of 1950’s cartoons and the whimsical score. The cozy, funny vibe gets wiped away pretty quickly once you start playing. The controls are move, dash, jump, and shoot. And for your sake, don’t stop shooting.
A devilishly difficult bullet hell game lies underneath this cutesy exterior. I had so much fun playing Cuphead. Learning the attack patterns, getting better and further with every attempt, I felt like the game was actually rewarding to play. Every loss felt fair, every obstacle felt like you could overcome it, if you’re strong enough to persevere. Cuphead was a fantastic experience, and I wish I could play more games like it.
49 – Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor
Year Released: 2014 | Platform: Xbox 360
With gameplay very similar to Batman: Arkham Asylum, Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor established itself as a fast favourite of mine. The Middle Earth theme infinitely more appealing than Batman, and a dynamic nemesis system that made hunting down the cretin that killed you last utterly satisfying, This was a fun game to play.
Story-wise, I’m always dubious of anything outside the main LotR cannon, as nothing consequential can happen to the story I already know. It’s not like I can find and destroy the ring in this game! Calebrimbor’s ghost teaming up with a human to get revenge is a pretty fine tale to tell, and I’m more than happy for a reason to slay orcs. I can’t overstate how, once you get into the game play of Shadow of Mordor, it’s just really fun violence. Highly recommend this polished title!
48 – Into the Breach
Year Released: 2018 | Platform: PC
A puzzly, tactical, turn-based, strategy game about piloting mechs, time travel, and saving the future from an alien invasion? Sign me right up! But Mechwarrior, this is not. Instead, Into the Breach is a slow, tactical game where everything that’s going to happen is blatantly and obviously telegraphed before you ever push a button. The goal is to save the human race, protect the citizen buildings and the electrical grid. You’ll get to upgrade your mech with new weapons and abilities, push back the alien Vek, keep yourself alive, and eventually, save the earth.
More realistically, you’re going to fail. And when you do, one of your surviving pilots will be thrown through time to start again. As you win, though, you’ll unlock new teams of mechs with wholly different skill sets that are actually surprisingly interesting to play as. A team might specialize in stunning the enemy, or setting the forests on fire. Some will be able to deal huge damage, while others won’t be able to do damage at all, but they’ll be able to push and pull several spaces, which has some huge tactical implications.
Into the Breach is a perfect mobile game. Runs are short, and when you ‘solve’ the puzzle and manage to get through a confrontation without any casualties, it’s utterly satisfying.
47 – Pocky & Rocky
Year Released: 1992 | Platform: SNES
One of the few 2 player coop video games that my mom and I played together, Pocky & Rocky was one of those weird SNES games that no one else I’ve talked to has ever heard of.
Pocky & Rocky is a bullet hell-esque cooperative game where you and a partner take on the roles of a shrine maiden (Pocky) and her tanuki companion (Rocky) as they fight against hordes of goblins inspired from Japanese mythology.
Things get hectic in Pocky & Rocky, but it’s so much fun when you manage to accrue a full set of power ups and fill the screen with your bullets (which are either leaves or fireballs, depending on your power ups). I have such strong nostalgia for this game, if my mom and were to sit down and play a game together, it’d very likely be this one.
46 – Sea of Stars
Year Released: 2023 | Platform: Xbox
This might be one of the most recent games on the whole list, and one that I’ve already talked about in depth. There may be some recency bias, and in my review I point out some of my qualms with the game, especially with how it ends, but I still found Sea of Stars to be a highly endearing experience. The music, the visuals, and the characters are all things to love! Not to mention that I’m a sucker for any RPG that has an active combat mechanic, which you’ll see more of those the further up this list we go!
45 – Journey
Year Released: 2012 | Platform: PS3
Journey caught me off guard. What started as a quiet little adventure in the desert, grew into a surprisingly emotional experience. And that’s really what lands it so high in my top games list, that it was able to evoke an emotional response without using a single word.
The Hero’s Journey is a story template that we’re all familiar with, but in Journey, everything happens so organically, that you’d be forgiven for missing each of the story beats. It’s brilliantly done, and culminates wonderfully. The aesthetic of a ruined civilization and beautiful music give depth to the adventure. A high recommend from me
44 – Rogue Legacy
Year Released: 2013 | Platform: PC
Rogue Legacy was my introduction to the roguelite genre. This Castlevania style game features a lineage of heroes, each with randomly determined characteristics. Perhaps you’re a giant with colourblindness, or an endomorph, so you can’t get stunned. Each run through the castle randomizes the room layouts as well, making the experience feel fresh each time.
Rogue Legacy was a fun game to get good at. Figuring out the broad strokes of the castle layout, memorizing enemy attack patterns, and getting the right gear made flying through the castle feel awesome. When you die, you take your gold back to your home and build out a new wing that increases your next character’s stats. I feel that Rogue Legacy strikes a perfect balance between permanent upgrades and reset-able runs.
43 – Enter the Gungeon
Year Released: 2016 | Platform: PC
I have 200 hours in Enter the Gungeon, making it my 5th most played game on Steam. My interest in EtG came in waves. I played for a few hours, then left it for a few months. Then I came back and put another few hours in, got frustrated, and left it for a few months. Then I came back and fell in hard. The bullet hell gameplay, the synergies between the guns and the items, all the secrets to be discovered, I was in love.
I’m actually quite surprised that this isn’t higher on my list, considering how much I’ve enjoyed playing this over the years. And really, I credit Enter the Gungeon for my modern affection for rougelike and rougelite games, which is both a boon and a bane, depending on my mood
42 – Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Year Released: 2018 | Platform: Nintendo Switch
I’ve been playing Super Smash Bros. since the series started on the Nintendo 64 back in 1999. I’ve chosen for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate to represent the entire series, because of its tagline “Everyone is here”. Considering that I’m not a competitive gamer, I feel like every Smash Bros. game has gotten better and better, culminating with Smash Ultimate.
Super Smash Bros. is an arena fighting game where each player takes on a unique character, and tries to knock the others out of the arena. As characters take hits, they fly further and further until the inevitable happens. Featuring representatives from every major and minor Nintendo franchise, Super Smash Bros. is the series crossing smash up that is the envy of every major platform.
While not every fan favourite character gets a fully fleshed out fighter, each game is packed to the gills with references to even the most obscure characters. This really culminated in the Spirits Mode in Smash Bros.Ultimate, where the base fighters with colour swaps and specific quirks were used as avatars for a wide variety of unplayable characters. The adventure mode had literally hundreds of references to characters that just left me tickled.
41 – Borderlands 2
Year Released: 2012 | Platform: PC
The Borderlands series is a post-apocalyptic first person looter-shooter game with cell shaded graphics and a juvenile sense of humour. The series really found its voice with the second game, and that’s the one that I’ve sunk the most time into, particularly because I was able to play it cooperatively the whole way through.
While there are a wide variety of guns, each one with its own unique blend of attributes and quirks, in the end it really is just a pew pew pew shooter game. Pick the gun with the biggest numbers, and use it until you run out of that ammo type, or you find a gun with bigger numbers. I had a real good time with Borderlands 2 specifically, and I’ve played every sequel that’s come out since, but considering my coop partner isn’t available, and my sense of humour has matured while these games haven’t, it’s one of those video games that I remember fondly, while not actually having a strong urge to go back and revisit.
