It’s fascinating how my tastes for some of these games can change from week to week. When this list was built, I was pretty happy with it, but now a few weeks later while I’m actually writing out the paragraphs of text, I find myself questioning some of my choices. Rock Band at #70? Above Final Fantasy X? Seems strange, but hey. No one ever accused me of making sense before, and they surely aren’t going to start now!
70 – Rock Band
Year Released: 2007 | Platform: Xbox 360
Rock Band, developed by Harmonix, built off the success of Guitar Hero, which focused only on guitar-based gameplay, Rock Band expanded the experience by incorporating drums, bass, and vocals, turning what was an addicting solo game into a full-band performance. It quickly became a popular party game in my house, bringing over friends and coworkers alike, who all loved to play.
This was the first time I realized that experience matters in video games. I was able to pick up and start off on medium difficulty, then progressed up to hard fairly quickly. A friend of mine who did not play video games, struggled endlessly on easy.
I am musically challenged in real life, so I really appreciated Rock Band giving me the opportunity to be a bit of a rock star in my living room.
69 – Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles
Year Released: 2003 | Platform: Nintendo GameCube
Starting off with a negative, to get the full experience of Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles, you 4 Game Boy Advance and 4 link cables and 3 friends. I mostly played the game solo, but I did have a few experiences playing with one other, and boy was that fun.
In Crystal Chronicles, you helm a crystal caravan. A deadly miasma has swallowed the land, and it’s only repelled by these giant crystals. Unfortunately, these crystals need to be recharged each year, so enters the crystal caravan. They adventure across the world, collecting what they need to recharge the crystal. When playing solo, a computer controlled moogle carries the torch that keeps the miasma around your party at bay, but in multiplayer, someone has to carry it. On the plus side, if playing with the GBAs, everyone’s screen gives them some unique information, like a map, or items. Players can cast the same spell on the same spot to power it up (turning a fire spell into fira or firaga).
Despite not having friends or the necessary peripherals, I loved Crystal Chronicles. The general aesthetic of hope in a ruined world was charming. The music was rustic and beautiful, and I always wanted to go back and play this more with a full party of characters. Alas, it was not meant to be.
68 – Tales of Vesperia
Year Released: 2008 | Platform: Xbox 360
Tales of Vesperia was the second Tales of game I ever played, right after Tales of Symphonia. While the combat felt a less exciting, the graphics were certianly improved. The story felt a lot more mature and dark in this entry, especially with the main character, Yuri. An ex-knight now vigilante/hero of the common folk, he takes problems and injustice into his own hands and deals out justice as he sees fit.
Yuri is constantly torn between doing the right thing, and following the law. A perfect chaotic good protagonist, who is constantly clashing up against his lawful good friend/rival, Flynn. As with most good JRPGs, the journey and growth of each of the characters is the real joy of the game, and the cast of Tales of Vesperia have some significant growth.
67 – Super Mario 64
Year Released: 1996 | Platform: Nintendo 64
Honestly, this would have been much further back on my list if I hadn’t just replayed it with my 4-year-old. Super Mario 64 represents a major leap forward in platforming games, beautifully transitioning from the 2d space into the third dimension. The worlds are unique and fun to explore, the music remains a favourite to this day, and honestly, it’s just fun to play. It has been really special to see my daughter go from learning how to use the joystick, to being able to navigate the castle to get to the world she wants, then hands the controller over to me to tackle the hard parts.
66 – Hollow Knight
Year Released: 2017 | Platform: PC
Hollow Knight, developed by Team Cherry, is a masterpiece in the Metroidvania genre. The hand-drawn art, evocative music, and intricate world design really set it apart from the crowd. The atmosphere of Hollow Knight is eerie and mysterious, drawing players into a haunting, underground kingdom filled with secrets, challenges, and rich lore.
Moving on from the excellent aesthetic, Hollow Knight has tight, responsive platforming with an unforgiving difficulty curve, particularly in its combat and navigation, which is constantly testing your skills and patience. Despite the challenges, the reward of unlocking new areas, abilities, and discovering secrets creates a constant sense of progress and accomplishment. This is what a labour of love looks like.
65 -Thomas Was Alone
Year Released: 2012 | Platform: PC
Can you fall in love with a square?
Mechanically, Thomas was Alone is one of the simplest platformers I’ve ever experienced. You’re just a square, moving and jumping. Other squares come in and out, offering different shapes to help traverse the platforming section. It’s clean and minimalistic. Thematically, the narration gives each of these squares character and personality, and it’s done so brilliantly, that you’re left mourning when a square goes away. A beautiful example of what story can accomplish, and how you don’t NEED beautiful graphics to feel emotionally connected to a character.
64 – Left 4 Dead 2
Year Released: 2009 | Platform: PC
Left 4 Dead is a cooperative survival shooter game, and Left 4 Dead 2 improves upon the original in every way. Eventually, the characters and levels from the first game were just ported right in, so two games for the price of one!
Left 4 Dead 2 plays much better with a group of friends. The goal of the game is to run through a map, collection weapons and gear, and battling hordes of fast moving zombies to get to the safe house, which acts as a checkpoint. In the final chapter, you’re tasked with surviving and accomplishing goals until an escape vehicle arrives to rescue the party.
It’s hard to find a better couch coop game than Left 4 Dead 2. It’s frantic, fast paced, and requires teamwork, especially when one of the special zombies gets their greedy little claws into your skin. Surviving feels like an accomplishment, and you feel like an unstoppable team when you overcome all that the game throws at you.
63 – The Messenger
Year Released: 2018 | Platform: PC
This is one of the few games I’ve actually covered in detail on this blog before.
Another metroidvania like Hollow Knight, The Messenger felts like a product of passion. Sabotage Studios wanted to create a fun game that paid homage to the games that made us who we are today. I highly recommend checking out my review if you’re intrigued, and wouldn’t hesitate to recommend playing The Messenger game to completion.
62 – Mario Strikers Charged
Year Released: 2007 | Platform: Nintendo Wii
I think the first video game I ever covered on this blog was Mario Strikers: Battle League for the Nintendo Switch, because by the time I finished playing it, I had emotions. Angry ones. But let’s not dwell on those. Mario Strikers Charged is battle soccer mario game for the Nintendo Wii. This edition added charged shots, which when executed properly, launched the character into the air, and fired off like, 9 shots on the goal. The game then switched to the goalie, who using motion controls, had to defend the net.
This entry is entirely thanks to the competitive friends I had at the time, and the joy we got from utterly destroying each other.
61 – RollerCoaster Tycoon 2
Year Released: 1999 | Platform: PC
Alright, this was one of the very few PC games that I had as a kid. Of course, one of the earliest memories is my sister and I rigging the rollercoasters to launch off the ends of the tracks, and dropping the unhappy customers into a pit from which they can’t escape. As I got older, though, my sister and I worked together to complete all the maps, which sometimes required some very specific finagling. Like putting a “No Entry” banner in front of the exit at just the right moment so that we’d get our population goal before our approval rating plummeted.
RollerCoaster Tycoon is a game best enjoyed with a cold drink in one hand, and a whole day of time to waste, as it really can and will just take over your whole day. It’s fun designing your own roller coasters, even if no one will go on them, and planning out a park is a joy once the whole thing comes together.
Going through these games is really reminding me that the years in which I played the most games are far behind me. Sure, today I have more money so I can buy a lot more games, but the amount of time I give to each video game is vanishingly small. Almost every game on this portion of the top 10 was released between 2000 and 2010, when I was between the ages of 10 and 20. Being an adult sucks sometimes!
90 – Pokémon Snap
Year Released: 1999 | Platform: Nintendo 64
I really don’t know who, in the height of Pokémon craze, thought “Battling and catching Pokémon is boring. We need more photography games!” and yet, they were right! Pokémon Snap is incredibly accessible and offers a unique way to explore a 3D Pokémon world without the usual RPG elements. It’s so engaging that even my sister, who usually isn’t into Pokémon games, loved it. The gameplay is straightforward: you move on rails, passing by various Pokémon, and you need to snap their pictures at just the right moment to score points. There are even tricks to get the Pokémon to pose in certain ways, or get them to interact with the world around them, or even with each other.
The real joy of Pokémon Snap comes from the pride of capturing that perfect shot, much like in real-life photography. Back when the game was released, there were kiosks where you could turn your photos into stickers by inserting your Nintendo 64 cartridge. Sadly, growing up in the middle of nowhere meant I never got to make my own stickers, but the game itself was a blast and a memorable part of my gaming journey.
89 – Tales of Xillia
Year Released: 2011 | Platform: PlayStation 3
Buckle up, because you’re going to be hearing about a lot of games from the “Tales of” franchise on these lists. I won’t belabour every game by going over the trademark Linear Motion Battle System each time. What makes Tales of Xillia special is the locations, they’re the most imaginative of the entire franchise. I also really loved the way they played with the incarnation of Maxwell in the main character, Milla (for those who don’t know, Maxwell is usually an end-game summon in the Tales of games). I thought Tales of Xillia had quite a fresh, more modern world than most of the Tales of games up to this point, and I thoroughly enjoyed the game, even if the story was a bit slow to get started.
I somewhat lament that Tales of Xillia is locked to the PlayStation 3. I mean, I have the console and the disc, so I could hook it up and play it, but that would require me going down to my garage, and that just seems like a lot of effort these days.
88 – Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos
Year Released: 2002 | Platform: PC
Growing up, we had the family PC in the living room, with it’s MASSIVE 32GB of storage and 256MB of RAM. Needless to say, it was not a gaming device. And my family didn’t really dive into PC games, as we had the Super Nintendo for video games. When I was in my final year of high school, the graduates fundraised all year, and we managed to purchase a Dell Laptop for each of the graduates (there were only 3 of us after all). Once I had that laptop, I finally had the chance to go back and play some of the greatest hits that PC gaming had to offer, and one of my favourites was WarCraft 3.
Surprisingly, consoles are awful at RTS mechanics, so it was a genre I never really dove into. But playing WarCraft 3, and it’s expansion, I can see why it was so revered. I never ventured into playing against other people, but the single player campaign was engrossing, the gameplay was exciting and tactical, and to this day I’m quite fond of my time playing WarCraft 3.
Sure is a shame that World of Warcraft just prints money, because I really don’t like MMOs…
87 – Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift
Year Released: 2007 | Platform: Nintendo DS
Spoiler Alert, you’ll see Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced higher up on the list, but FFTA2 was a really great follow-up to an utterly stellar game. While on the easy side, I loved so much about what this entry enhanced. More classes, more abilities, more character types, a bigger map, more equipment, it’s everything a player should want, right?
I was disappointed in the story, which was significantly worse than its predecessor. I also found the auction house mechanic to be an unnecessary diversion. But even still, FFTA2 is one of the best tactics games around, and is actually the game I’m playing as I was creating this whole list.
86 – Yoshi’s Cookie
Year Released: 1992 | Platform: Super Nintendo
Now this is a classic that my mom and I played the ever loving heck out of. And a real hot take here, I always enjoyed this more than Dr. Mario.
Yoshi’s Cookie is a simple puzzle game. You move cookies on the X and Y axis until cookies of the same type stretch all the way across the cookie grid, then they clear. As you play, cookies descend from above and from the right, adding to your grid. Each level is cleared when all the cookies have been cleared.
The sound effects in Yoshi’s Cookie are wildly distinct, and to this day, I can still here the bright and cheery chirp that happens when a line of cookies clears. I don’t think it’s really worth going back and playing today, but I still harbour significant nostalgia for this clever puzzle game.
85 – SoulCalibur II
Year Released: 2003 | Platform: Nintendo GameCube
When I was creating the list of games that would go into the lists, then looking at all the amazing games that got cut, I consoled myself with the thought that sometimes, I would say that an entry for a game stands for the whole series, and that’s how I feel for SoulCalibur II. I chose this edition, because it’s the one I played the most, although I did play a significant amount on my friends Xbox as well, then we spent an unhealthy number of hours on the PS2 with SoulCalibur III.
Anyways, SoulCalibur. It’s a one v. one fighting game, where each of the characters has a unique and distinct weapon. From Talim and her dual elbow blades, to Kilik and his staff, each character has benefits and drawbacks. The roster in SoulCalibur II is limited by today’s standards, but I never found myself wanting for more characters. Each one has a story that intertwines with the other heroes, and playing through each character’s story is a joy. As with all fighting games, it’s best played with a group of similarly skilled friends, and SoulCalibur feels like a well-balanced game. Sure, my friends gave me a hard time for picking Kilik so much with his impressive reach, but they all learned how to dodge his staff and get in close to punish.
I don’t like very many fighting games, and I’ve barely touched the series since SoulCalibur III, but if I was going to suggest a fighting game, SoulCalibur would be high on my list of picks.
84 – The World Ends with You
Year Released: 2007 | Platform: Nintendo DS
Gosh, here’s a game that came out of nowhere for me. I picked this one up fairly blind, mostly on the pedigree of publisher Square Enix, and the punk anime aesthetic. Damned, this game blew my socks off the first time I played it.
In The World Ends With You, you (Neku) wakes up without any memories in a crowded intersection of Shibuya, and are thrust into a death game that takes place over 3 weeks. You team up wth a bunch of characters as you battle ghosts and spirits, trying to unravel the mystery and survive.
The gameplay is fascinating. On the bottom screen with a stylus and gesture controls (slashing, tapping, holding down the stylus on an enemy, etc.), you control Neku, who equips various pins that give him different attacks to take down the enemies of the day. Simultaneously, on the top screen is one of your partners, who has attacks that they can preform by pressing specific directions on the D Pad to match symbols on the top of the top screen. Thankfully, if you choose to ignore the top, it gets poorly controlled by an AI. I absolutely adore it when games take advantage of the uniqueness of it’s host hardware.
The combat is wild and frenetic, while the story offers twists and turns that rival almost any other game. I love games that make you feel like you’ve reached the end of your journey, then SURPRISE TWIST! It’s only just the beginning, which is exactly what happens here. I slightly regret not having picked up the sequel, Neo: The World Ends With You. I know I will one day, but time at the moment, is a luxury,
83 – Wii Sports
Year Released: 2006 | Platform: Nintendo Wii
The pack in software for the Nintendo Wii was an absolute Banger. 5 simple sports, that showcase the motion controls, turned out to be one of the most played games in my household in 2007. Baseball, and Tennis, I barely remember, as the sports of choice for us were bowling, golf, and boxing. Boxing, ended up being mostly a mash/swing-fest as we frantically flailed at each other. Bowling was the party game that we broke out all the time. And golf, was what my mom and I played, which, I have to stop and tell you, that I got a hole in one, once. It was glorious.
I strongly feel that every console should have a pack in game, and here, Nintendo delivered.
82 – Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories
Year Released: 2004 | Platform: Game Boy Advance
Hey look, it’s the only Kingdom Hearts game I’ve beaten. Which isn’t entirely my fault, I played ~15 hours of the first one, only to have my cousin save over my save file, and then I played it again to about ~20 hours, only to have my PS2 memory card get eaten by a friend’s dog, and at that point, I just haven’t bothered to go back.
But this isn’t about my woes in replaying Kingdom Hearts, this is about the Game Boy sequel, Chain of Memories. In Chain of Memories, Sora wanders into Castle Oblivion, and immedately loses all of his memories, because that’s the magic of the castle. The game takes you through all the locations from the first game, remeeting all the Disney characters. The gameplay, is a real time action battler, much like the original Kingdom Hearts games, but now all of Sora’s cards are represented by cards. Both yours and your opponents cards/attacks have numbers attached to them, and when two attacks are thrown out at the same time, the card with the higher number wins.
The story isn’t what drew me into Chain of Memories, but the card battling system was super intreging to me. Once you complete Sora’s story, you take control of Riku, and lose the ability to customize your deck, instead are forced to overcome any challenge with the deck the game chooses to give you.
I always meant to go back and play through the Kingdom Hearts series, but I’ve yet to prioritize them. Until something changes, Chain of Memories remains as my sole Kingdom Hearts experience.
81 – New Super Mario Bros. Wii
Year Released: 2009 | Platform: Wii
I’ve always loved 2D Mario games, but when New Super Mario Bros. Wii hit the scene, and introduced 4 player simulationous multiplayer, I was skeptical. And for good reason, the biggest critisim I’ve seen for this game is that the other players get in your way, especially when they die and the game freezes for a couple frames. But those aspects never bothered me, I was able to compensate for the freeze frames just fine, and the utter hilarity that came with having 4 players at the same time just can’t be beat.
I ended up bringing New Super Mario Bros. Wii to a friends house shortly after launch, and we played a 4 player game from start to finish because we were just having so much fun. From leaping off each others heads, to purposefully throwing each other into lava pits, I haven’t full belllied laughed while playing a Mario game in such a long time.
It’s a weird experience, starting a new top 100 series. In my head they sound like a good idea, after all, it’s 10 more posts for my blog! But I often forget how much effort actually goes into just creating the list, let alone writing out my thoughts for each game.
Regardless, what will be interesting is that unlike my board game top 100, I’ve been playing video games since I was 5 years old. A lot (and I mean A LOT) of these games are steeped in nostalgia and are created cherished memories that I hold dearly to this day. Speaking of nostalgia…
100 – Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster Busts Loose!
Year Released: 1992 | Platform: Super Nintendo
I didn’t watch any of the Tiny Toons cartoon series, but somehow the game Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster Busts Loose made its way into my household, and I loved seeing young bubs dash, slide, and jump his way through the levels. A pure platformer, the whole goal of the Buster Busts Loose is to make it to the end of the level, alive. Familiar faces show up frequently, from the Tasmanian Devil destroying the cafeteria, to a wild west train ride, to leaping to and fro on hot air balloons, I loved playing this game over and over. It was bright, colourful, and fast, often requiring daring leaps of faith at the climax of an exciting level.
99 – Fire Emblem Engage
Year Released: 2023 | Platform: Nintendo Switch
Hey, I actually wrote a whole review on Fire Emblem: Engage when I played it back in May. The summary of that review is that I had FUN playing Fire Emblem: Engage. I was engaged with the army building aspects, tweaking my characters classes, and getting through each battle without a casualty, which is what I really want out of a Fire Emblem game. I’ll save you the though, Fire Emblem: Three Houses didn’t make it onto my top 100, because SO MUCH of the time was spent in between battles. Running through the school, doing all the side tasks and talking to the ludicrous number of characters took up entirely too much time. I felt that Engage had a much better balance between the tactical combat (which I love) and the army management/dating sim aspects (which I’m less fond of). It also tapped into my nostalgia vein really well, as a longtime fan of the series, seeing all the old lords come back was a real treat for me.
98 – Sid Meier’s Civilization V
Year Released: 2010 | Platform: PC
It’s kind of hard to believe that I never played a Civilization game before Sid Meier’s Civilization V. That gap in my gaming history was mostly thanks to the fact that I was a console gamer for most of my life, until about 2014 when I build my first PC and picked up Civ V for cheap.
Civ V is a civilization building 4x game (Explore, Expand, Exploit, Exterminate). Players take control of a historical faction, complete with their own special bonuses, and lead their civilization through the ages into prosperity. You’ll create cities, expand your armies, and crawl across the world until you bump up against your neighbours, and eventually conquer them. Civ V is played on a hex map, so it’s basically a board game, but with enough math going on under the hood that you wouldn’t ever actually want to play it on a table.
Civ V is the kind of game that keeps you up until 4 in the morning, saying “Just one more turn…”. The game drip feeds accomplishments and achievements to you, always dangling the next carrot for you to chase. I’ve only finished a game of Civ V once, as I often just end up starting a new game, as that exploration and expansion aspect of the game is what I really enjoy, not so much the combat and conquering. At least not with these mechanics.
97 – Celeste
Year Released: 2018 | Platform: Xbox
Celeste is another platforming game, but this one doesn’t rely on blind leaps of faith. Instead, you play a red-headed heroine named Madeline as she scales a mountain and faces her inner demons and anxieties. The platforming in Celeste is tight and utterly satisfying, and the dialogue and characters are heartfelt. Most of the game has a sombre, melancholy vibe to it, especially when Badeline shows up and heckles Madeline.
Rife with themes of depression and anxiety, Celeste is so much more than a simple platformer, a-la Super Meat Boy. It’s beautiful pixel art drew me in, and the themes hooked me. Some of the platforming challenges are utterly frustrating, requiring near pixel perfect precision. But when you can overcome a challenge that felt unsurmountable, oh the feeling of euphoria makes those hundreds of attempts worth it.
96 – Braid
Year Released: 2008 | Platform: PC
Braid happened to be one of the first indie games I bought after building my first PC in 2013. I like platformers, and it was highly rated, so I figured I had nothing to lose. What I ended up getting was an amazing little experience. The platforming puzzles tickled my brain just right, the time travel mechanic made it easy to try tricky jumps again quickly, and the twist at the end caught me completely flat-footed.
Braid instilled a love of indie games in my heart. Games made by small teams that felt like they were made by people who love games, and less like pieces of product to be marketed and sold. It’s only a couple hours long, but it was absolutely worth the short trip!
95 – Mini Metro
Year Released: 2015 | Platform: Android
As much as I don’t like to admit it, I spend a lot of time on my phone. Mostly thanks to sitting on the bus. But in general, I don’t like scrolling through social media much, I’d rather be playing a game. Unfortunately the mobile gaming landscape can be kind of a mess. Thank goodness for games like Mini Metro. A simple puzzle game about creating routes to get passengers from location to location. Each game starts so simply, with only 3 stops. But as time goes on, the screen slowly pans out and more locations pop up. Each week you get access to some more things, like more trains, extra passenger cars, more bridges/tunnels, and extra lines. The goal is to just last as long as possible and deliver as many passengers as possible.
Mini Metro is a game my wife and I both got fairly competitive at. We would lay in bed playing the same maps to compare our scores. Never before did I think I would curse a circle out so hard, but when a cluster of stops makes a line have 7 circles in a row, it’s horribly inefficient! Really, any game that gets me invested to the point where I’m cursing basic shapes is a pretty excellent game.
94 – Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition
Year Released: 2018 | Platform: Nintendo Switch
When I first heard that there was going to be a Dynasty Warriors spin-off set in the Legend of Zelda world, I let out a groan. While I love The Legend of Zelda, I’ve never been a big fan of Dynasty Warriors. I’ve always found the gameplay repettive, and I’ve also never been fond of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which Dynasty Warriors draws its story and lore from.
I finally played Hyrule Warriors in late 2020 when my daughter was born. She had awful sleep patterns and would sometimes only sleep if she was being held. Now, if you don’t know, it’s unsafe to sleep while a baby is sleeping on you, so I spent many nights of my paternity leave laying on the couch at 3 in the morning with my daughter sleeping on my chest, and I needed a game that was active enough to keep me awake, but brain dead enough that my sleep-addled brain could comprehend it. I don’t find Hyrule Warriors a particularily phenomonial game, but I do cherish the memories that I associate with the game.
93 – Quest 64
Year Released: 1998 | Platform: Nintendo 64
Now here’s a game that I KNOW doesn’t hold up. Quest 64 has the prestige of being my very first 3D RPG adventure. Its simplicity made it an ideal starting point for my little 9-year-old brain, featuring all the basic elements of an RPG: character interactions, a story-driven plot, food upkeep, combat, levelling, and a search for those little magic gem things. It felt like a pure, early adventurer’s journey, the simple world offered a childlike charm that resonated with me.
However, Quest 64’s simplicity is a double-edged sword. I did replay this a few years ago, and found it utterly lacking in depth. All the mechanics felt watered down, and everything about this game is utterly forgettable. Town 1 and Town 2 are indistinguishable, and I can’t recall the name of anything without looking it up first.
That being said, it still holds a special place in my heart. I recognize that Quest 64 shouldn’t be on any “top 100 games” list, and yet it’s still a part of my history as a gamer, so here it sits.
92 – Pokémon Stadium
Year Released: 1999 | Platform: Nintendo 64
I tell this story often, but when I was 8 or 9 years old, my grandparents took my sister and I on a road trip to a family reunion. I was given $100 in spending money. At the first stop, I bought Pokémon Red from the local Wal-Mart for $50, and I spent the other $50 on batteries for my Game Boy. I was the perfect age for the Pokémon craze, the target demographic, and I was utterly hooked. So when Pokémon Staduim came out and had these amazing 3D visuals, I knew I had to get my paws on it.
And eventually I did. But I never did get the transfer pack, so my entire experience playing Pokémon Stadium was using the rental Pokémon to tackle the gym leaders and elite four. And beyond that my sister and I spent an amazing amount of time playing those little mini-games. I never did manage to beat her in Dig, Sandshrew, Dig…
91 – Tetrisphere
Year Released: 1997 | Platform: Nintendo 64
Hey look, 3 Nintendo 64 games in a row. Funny coincidence. Definitely not indicitive of how many Nintendo games are going to be on this list…
I love Tetris, as you’ll find out higher on the lists, but Tetrisphere is a wonky 3D take on the puzzle game. You twist the ball around, slide pieces around, then slam your pieces down on matching shapes that clear that piece, and any attached piece of the same shape/type. The goal of the game is to try and get to the core like it’s some kind of jawbreaker and release the prisioner. It’s pretty simple, I really enjoyed it as a kid, and I’m a little sad that it never made an apperance outside of the Nintendo 64!
I was reflecting on how we as board gamers are constantly putting out top 100 lists. I’ve done 2 in the past 5 years (2021 and 2024), The Dice Tower does one for every reviewer every year, and so many others jump on this trend. I started thinking about putting together my top 10 video games of all time, and immediately had a mental overload. In asking my friends, they had similar experiences, the thought of listing their top 10 video games of all time seems like a Herculean task.
I could do top 10 of each console. I could do my 10 favourite video game series, but narrowing down my 10 favourite games felt impossible, and yet I’m so willing to do it to board games. And so, mostly as an exercise for myself, I’m going to take a trip down memory lane and list out my top 100 video games of all time.
Here’s my rules and caveats for this series. I’m going to mostly focus on single player games. I’ve always been a solo video gamer, but there are a couple of games that are just dramatically better with friends, and it’s the friends that make the game good, not necessarily the game itself. I’m disqualifying any compilations or collections of other games. Rare Replay, Super Mario All-Stars, disqualified, right out of the gate. I’m going to talk about games where I first experienced them, which may be a port or a remaster. And lastly, I’m creating this list with my nostalgia intact. I did not go back and replay any of these games, I’m going completely off my memory of these games. Some of the games will be waaay too high, and if I replayed them now, I’d proclaim them to be utter trash. But for the purposes of this list, I’m keeping my nostalgia goggles firmly on.
Each game individually is eligible, but not the collection as a whole
So, journey with me and let’s talk about some of my favourite video games! I guess to start, I should say that I identify as a JRPG kind of guy. At least, when I was a teenager, forming my identity, I absolutely preferred any game that had a sword over any game that offered a gun. I’ve also been a pretty loyal Nintendo fan for most of my life. I’m pretty quick to pick up any new game in most of their major franchise, which I’m sure will become apparent when Mario makes his 7th appearance. I’ve also really dropped off of major non-Nintendo games in the last 10 years. I never picked up a PS4 or PS5, nor have I gotten an Xbox X/S. I did get an Xbox One two years ago, but my time to play games has been dramatically reduced ever since I started giving all of my free time to my board game hobby. That, coupled with the birth of my kids, has made it quite difficult to find time to just sit down and play a game the whole way through.
Something else to know about me, I generally don’t like horror games, shooters, massively multiplayer anything or beat-em-up games. They’re just not my jam. There are a lot of very popular games that won’t show up anywhere on my lists.
My Honourable mention is and Rocket League. Rocket League is one of the few online competitive games that I’ve ever actually gotten into, and while the game does reduce me to a snarling goblin at times, I can’t deny just how much fun I’ve had over hundreds of hours of smashing cars and making some crazy goals. My hooting and hollering at Rocket League even turned my wife onto the game for a short while, which is pretty special in its own right.
Well, tune in next week to see my #100 – 91! Please share your favourite games with me as we go along this series!
