Favorite Games of All Time*

[ECM]

*But with a twist!

In most cases, people tend to pick their all-time favorite games from a pool that includes all the usual suspects *not* because they still play/have played those games in the past decade, but because those are all 'safe' choices that nobody can generally quibble w/, e.g. OOT, SMB3, Tetris *gag*, etc.

So for this thread, I am imposing one, simple, rule: I want to know what your favorite games are THAT YOU STILL PLAY REGULARLY.

I'll define "regularly" as pulling out a game you haven't played in a couple of years, playing through it again, and still enjoying it because it's fun, not because it is clad in a blinding, nostalgic, sheen or because you're supposed to think it's awesome...kinda like my love of Return of the Jedi (even more than Empire) as a kid when I can't even watch it anymore because, my God, those fucking ewoks (I think part of that problem is Ep. 1-3, but that's best saved for another conversation).

I have too many from the 16-bit era to list and make this reasonable, so I'm just going to pick ten eleven (in no particular order);

*Resident Evil 4: I've played through this at least 4x since its original, Gamecube, release and I will play it again, probably when it comes out on HD consoles. It really is a complete and utter classic and is, perhaps!, the best game of the last decade or so. (It's certainly Mikami's best game.)

*MUSHA: I've played htis game at least once a year since it came out in 1991 (I think it was '91...too lazy to check) and I *still* love it. It's probably my favorite shooter of all time simply because it (and Spriggan) are the only shooters I still go back to *every year* two decades after their release.

*Spriggan: as above.

*Actraiser: the best game on SNES, period, slightly edging out LTTP and SMW. I can't get enough of the sublime fusion of arcade action and Populous-style god game, it's just too bad the only game in the past 20 years that has come even close to replicating this is FFCC: MLAAK (awesome, awesome game!) and that lacks the arcade action completely.

*Alisia Dragoon: call me crazy if you must, but I still play this game once a year for the past twenty years and I *still* love it each and every time. (I also love its 'spiritual'¹ sequel Psychic Warlock Taromaru, though the latter is more of a boss rush and too easily cheesed² to make it to classic status.)

*Shining Force II: I play this a bit less frequently than the others because I want to at least try and forget the broad outlines of the story, but it's almost assuredly my favorite SRPG of all time, w/ only the recently released Tactics Ogre redux on PSP and, maybe, Final Fantasy Tactics in the same league.

Why? For starters, it's a hybrid S/JRPG in the sense that it has spoke and wheel design whereas most SRPGs are battle-battle-battle. The characters are terrifically-endearing and the variety of them, from a creature/character design perspective (Yogurt!), is wonderful. And it is (well, was) just challenging enough that you won't be able to walk all over it the first time through.

*Dynamite Headdy: everyone goes on and on and on about Radiant Silvergun or Ikaruga or Gunstar Heroes when talking about Treasure but, little do they know, it's actually one of the favorite games of the staff at Treasure and it's also my favorite game by them. I love the aestheic, I love the play mechanics and I love pretty much everything about it.

*Black Tiger: probably my all-time favorite arcade game, though it has some competition w/ Mr.Do, many of Atari Games' machines, and, of course, Strider.

*Strider: it doesn't matter if this is the arcade or Genesis port (sorry PCE fans, I have to draw the line at the Super CD abomination), but this game has it all: fast action, lots of awesome set pieces, and the near-future, Cold War, backdrop is ace.

*Bonk's Revenge: it's hard for me to even say this, but there's a chance (just a chance!) that this is my all-time favorite pure platform game. Something about the style, the gameplay and the whimsicality of it all really, really does it for me and I play this game at least every year or two and still love every minute of it.

*Super Bomberman 2: the pinnacle of Bomberman-ness! The only reason I don't play this pretty much every day is that I don't have anyone, locally, to play it with but, my God, do I love me some Super Bomberman 2!

If I had to pick a couple of games I haven't played in ages that I love to death (but will almost certainly never touch again) we'd be looking at Ultima IV and Ultima V, games that, if games can be art, are, quite literally, the only two that would probably ascend to that lofty status. (But let me be very clear: these games are shrink-wrapped, double-bagged, sealed in mylar, entombed in a jeweled sarcophagus, put aboard the Titanic and sunk to the bottom of the ocean levels of nostalgic wonderment, as they came along at the perfect time in my life--when everything else was pretty dire--and carried me through a lot of bad shit so, yeah, there's that.)

So no, no SMB3 (I do love it, but I don't pull it out any more than once every five years, if that), no OOT (played it (and loved it) the one time on N64 and have no desire to go back to it), no Sonic³, no WoW (WoW is a mental disorder/social game a la Farmville⁴) and no fucking Tetris!

(More no Tetris: Yeah, OK, sure I like playing it if I'm not doing something useful--like thinking up ways to annoy elchevalier--but the fact that this game makes it on 'best game ever' lists, not because it's a 'best game ever' or because anybody is really going back and still playing this that isn't as a cellphone time-killer before the bus/plane/space shuttle departs *deep breath*, but because of its influence drives me insane when games like PuyoPuyo (as just one of many examples) destroys it in virtually every way.)

Anyway, I have more, of course, but I think that's a reasonable list of (some of) my favorite games of all time and these would all be in, at least, Top 25 ever.

¹ Speaking in game mechanics terms, not because there is any connection at all between the games.
² There's an exploit in this game that makes it incredibly easy for the primary level sections (which does not work on the boss battles, since you need a scrolling screen to pull it off).
³ Bizarrely enough (?) I actually go back to the Sonic games these days more than the older Mario games--am I alone in this?? I say this because, even back then, I thought the Mario games (as much as it pained me as a SEGA blue bleeding heart) were superior.
⁴ I'll explain this some day, but I'm pretty sure anyone here that has actually played it for any serious amount of time will understand what I'm getting at.

[feilong80]

workin', so here is the short version:

Actraiser, for all the reasons you stated. A-W-E-S-O-M-E game.

Xcom: UFO Defense. Can play at any time and still do. Actually, eerily similar to Actraiser in that it fuses two games together, though differently (of course) than Actraiser.

Phoenix Wright Series (the first 3 games). I replayed the first game 3 times. Yes it is comedy, but it is so well written (and localized!) that I just get hooked into it each time.

Lots more, but again, work.

[hero0flight]

My favorite games of all time (following your rule) are:

Final Fantasy IX: I love this game. The graphics, art design, story, and battle system make it, arguably, the best Final Fantasy game. I've played through it 5 or 6 times. I was actually just thinking of starting a new game this week.

Super Mario RPG: This is the first RPG I ever played, not too long after its release. I really liked it back then and still do to this day. I finished going through again last year. Each time I play, I try a different team. My favorite team is Mario (no choice), Geno, and Peach. Why can't there be a remake of this game for the DS?

Legend of Zelda Link to the past: Another favorite (obviously). No matter how many times I play through it, the game is still fun. While the GBA version isn't as pleasing to the eyes, it's still good, but when I want to play link to the past, I bust out the super nes. This Zelda is by far still my favorite zelda game.

Final Fantasy Tactics: Another game I play a lot. I have only played through maybe twice, but I have started a lot of new games on this one. The game is so open because of all the of the job classes, so there are so many different ways to play the game.

Metal Gear solid and metal gear solid 2 sons of liberty: LOVE these games. I played through these games a lot back in the day and popped in Sons of liberty last year. I don't grow tired of these games. I played Snake Eater and liked it, but it didn't have much replay value for me.

Metal Slug X for ps1: My friend and I played through this game ALL THE TIME. Absolute favorite metal slug game.

[elchevalier]

Short list as of right now:

Lords Of Thunder

I just can't get enough of this game, from the soundtrack to the level design to the gameplay to everything. It has to be my all time favorite shooter, who cares if it's not the most challenging or complex or whatever, it's a ton of fun.

Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistance

I'm mentioning Subsistance because of the alternative camera that truly makes a lot of difference. No question that this is to me the best game in the franchise, when Kojima leaves the bullshit aside the man can hit the nail regarding great gameplay, and yes, a very fun story.

Resident Evil 4

What Eric said.

Aliens vs Predator (Capcom)

My all time favorite beat em up, can't get tired of it.

Final Fight

Yes, it's dated and what not, but it got the whole atmosphere and characters very much right. Piledriving street punks with Haggar never gets boring.

Sonic CD

Back when Sonic was not just good, but really really good.

[ECM]

Lords of Thunder *is* awesome and would have been on my list (w/ a dozen other shooters, minimum) if I wanted to spend a few days putting together a complete, Top 100. (I actually just played through that again a few weeks ago along w/ Gate of Thunder.)

[ECM]

Oh, and welcome aboard to hero0flight

[elchevalier]

M.U.S.H.A

I'm an idiot for not mentioning this one on my previous post. Is also one of my all time favorite shooters, i mean, how can you not get pumped with this game? You play the first level, the track "Full Metal Fighter" kicks in and it's pure video game heaven. I also very much like the combination of advanced technology and ancient Japan.

El Viento

Zig is very much right on this, it's fast paced, has a cool soundtrack, simple yet very effective gameplay. It's what an action/platafformer should be.

Castlevania: Bloodlines

If you had ask me some years ago which was my favorite Castlevania game i would either said Symphony of the Night or SCIV, but in the last two years or so this is the one i keep coming back again and again. From the soundtrack to the level design, this game does everything right.

Street Fighter Alpha 3

I keep coming back to this game for two reasons:

*World Tour Mode: Now this is how you make a good solo campaign for a fighting game (well, either this or like they did in the first two Soul Calibur games)

*Karin, Cody and Rainbow Mika: Very fun characters to use.

[ECM]

If you like the tunes in M.U.S.H.A., check this out:

ocremix.org/remix/OCR00372/

That's my favorite track from the game.

And Full Metal Fighter:

[elchevalier]

Looking at many of our picks: Actraiser, El Viento, Strider, i can't help to notice a pattern: they are all fast paced action/plataforming games. They flow smoothly, they are games where you can go and cause massive ammounts of destruction, or kill many enemies really damn fast. Basically the exact opposite of today's action game, where you are forced to either hide in a corner and wait until the enemy peeks in a corner to shoot it, or forced to button mash a bunch of enemies over and over to advance to the next area.

In a similar way, all these games rewarded your skills, if you knew when and where to hit a boss you could finish it quickly. These days boss battles are looooooooong and force you to deal with QTEs, and other obtuse mechanics in order to finish a boss. All these fitting the mentality of making a game as long as possible, stretching it as much as they can, because if it lasts 20 hours or less then it's not worth your time.

[ECM]

They do reward skill and what makes them so playable, generally, is that they're in 2D. When you bring in the Z axis, you sacrifice precision for depth and 'realism'. So things that were once very straightforward--say, judging where Strider's sword tip intersects w/ Mecha Pon's skull box--become a chore and a guessing game in 3D.

This lack of precision forces devs to come up w/ crazy ways to compensate with things like lock-on (and switching targets while locked-on usually involves something more complex than the Konami code and/or a third hand), which drives up the complexity and, instead of actually make it more precise, usually ends up doing the exact opposite (this is especially the case if you aren't fluent in game 'language' like, well, everyone that bought a Wii[footnote:1]Not becauese they're retards, but because games became so complex, in navigation alone, that it collapsed the hobby for a lot of people.[/footnote]).

The same can be said of camera manipulation taking away precision which is usually, at best, tolerable and, at worst, utterly breaks the game (and the same caveat goes here: a lot of games seem to assume you have an extra hand to input all the commands *and* control the camera which drives up the complexity and drives away potential customers).

Nowadays, more often than not, they compensate for this lack of precision by horrifically dumbing-down the difficulty or offering unlimited continues or, hell, flat-out giving you, essentially, immortality (miss a QTE in God of War? No problem! Just keep repeating it until you get it...right from the second you missed it!).

In theory, (most of[footnote:2]there will still be the problem of target selection, which will probably require some changes to player input, i.e. the controller.[/footnote]) this problem is solved by true 3D, e.g. the 3DS, where you don't have to guess where someones head/torso/eye is when plunging your thirsty blade into their viscera and will, eventually, be the norm everywhere. But, man, have we had to suffer some really bad design/crutches since the PSOne made 3D the *it* thing.

[Borsalio]

Let's see here:

Resident Evil 4: Adding to the love here. The game's a rollercoaster, wow moment after wow moment. The combat is always fun. The story is suitably cheesy, with a line of ridiculous villains and a one-liner spouting hero. And the new game plus mode means you never have to stop playing.

Mega Man 2: Still the best in the series. More polished than MM1, but without the extra complications like the Mega Buster, just pure shooting and jumping. I still have trouble on Quick Man's stage, though, after all these years. And how did I beat the wall turret boss as a kid?

SaGa Frontier: Someday I'll get around to an Irrational Eight post about this game, but short version: I love this game, no matter how user-unfriendly it is and horribly unfinished it may be. It lends itself very well to replays, too, since you can always choose your own path through a character's quest (mostly) and your skills are always a bit random. I've gone through every character in the game (most of them multiple times), as well as the secret dev room and all its super bosses.

Persona: Since the point of this thread is to note games that you still return to over time, I'll leave out P3 and P4 since they're still relatively new (though I've gone through them both again) and call out the series's beginning, since I still find myself going back to it, rough as it is. When I played this as a kid, the setting was just so unique (besides Earthbound, there was nothing like it) that it really grabbed me. Plus, I do love me some first person dungeon crawling. I even have a soft spot for the godawful localization of the PS1 version.

Earthbound: Speaking of EB, it's pretty enduring as well. I think I actually got different reactions playing through this as a kid and as an adult. As a kid, I just liked having a solid RPG with a unique and quirky setting. As an adult, I appreciate the unusual things the game attempts to do and the amazing localization.

Psychonauts: This one was actually on a yearly replay schedule for me until the last couple of years when I got too busy with that whole grad school and gaming industry job thing. I still get impressed with the variety of levels and gameplay that this game pulls off (Milkman Conspiracy, Black Velvetopia and the Asylum Climb are my favorites).

Final Fantasy 4: Do I keep playing this because I love it, or because Square re-releases it yearly? Little of both, I think.

Gunstar Heroes: My favorite Treasure game. The weapon variety means I can play differently every time (Laser + Flame is the current fav). I love the boss heavy approach the game takes (which Alien Soldier manages to build on).

Star Fox 64: The main reason I keep an N64 hooked up (though Pilotwings 64 and F-Zero X get played too). Multiple paths through the game keep things fresh. And somehow, the wingman chatter still gets me immersed years later.

Kirby Super Star: It's kind of amazing how much content is in this game. There's a good amount of gameplay variety too. I still like jumping into Arena mode now and then.

There's ten, that's a good stopping point. I could list more, but it'd mostly be other entries in the same series (RE2, SaGa 2), so I just picked the ones I replay the most. I like the "Stuff you still play" qualifier, it actually made my list turn out a bit differently than the usual Top 10 Favorite list would.

[ECM]

Bumping this for another:

Dracula X: for good or ill[footnote:1]I may be wrong, but I think this is considered the clichéd, 'hardcore', choice for favorite Castlevania game.[/footnote], this has to be my favorite Castlevania game of all time. (The only other one that comes close is Castlevania III, but I haven't played that remotely as much as this one.)

I actually just booted it up (for the eleventy-billionth) time to grab some potential banner screens and I find that I'm wasting the last two hours playing it again, which has to be, no including the PSP remake, at least the 20th time I've played through this game since the mid-'90s.

Hell, by the criteria I set out for this post, it might even be likely that this, not Spriggan or Super Star Soldier or Devil's Crush or [insert half-a-million, loved, PCE games] is my favorite game on the platform of all time. And I'm OK w/ that, even if it is a cliché.

[elchevalier]

Magical Drop III

I will never, ever ever ever get bored of this game. When i'm not in the mood to play anything else, i can always put this and have a wonderful time.

[runinruder]

The Legendary Axe - Honestly, there are quite a few Turbo titles that I return to regularly, but this one is pretty special to me. I've been playing it for over twenty years now, and I just seem to appreciate it more and more as time goes by.

Shadowgate - Far and away my favorite NES game. It doesn't matter that I know how to solve everything because I love the music and atmosphere so much. Also, it's fun to introduce people to it and see how they try to solve things and which deathtraps they stumble into.

Cosmic Fantasy 2 - I like the story, characters, music, and enemy designs so much that I've played through it well over a dozen times, which is pretty ridiculous for a traditional-style RPG.

Dynasty Warriors 4 - If this were the only game I could play from here on out, I'd still probably never get bored. I like other DW games and other manic brawlers, but the missions, maps, music, and gameplay style in this one all really struck a chord with me.

These would all be in my top twenty-five or so. I also like quite a few of the games you guys have already mentioned: Final Fight, El Viento, Bloodlines, Spriggan, etc.

[AllenSmithee]

Virtua Fighter Series -- I'm usually playing the first emulated on PC if I don't have my Saturn hooked up (where I'd be playing the sequel) and if I have a 360 at the time I'm absolutely loving 5.

Sonic Genesis games -- Never end it! I love these guys. Can't stop playing 'em.

Outrun 2/SP -- This is my cool down game. If I'm upset, I put on Passing Breeze and I win the course of my choice and smile to Last Wave. It is basically how I feel better after a shit day.

Castlevania -- The first one on the NES. I try it basically once a month to see if somehow I beat Death.