RANK 39 (6 votes)

A game that absolutely raised the bar of standards for open world game design, maybe to an unfair degree. BOTW to me isn’t about the destinations you travel to but about how you journey around Hyrule. Thanks to its free-form mechanical structure, physics and chemistry systems, combined with the tools given to the player, there’s a real sense of constant decision making and flexibility for those decisions to allow for player expression across the world like no other. I see it sometimes jokingly called “babies first Immersive Sim”, but it’s telling to me that even years after its release, with notably a lot of the open world game industry trying to copy BOTWs homework, that many fail to capture the small moment-to-moment player experimentation elements that truly made Hyrule a joy to explore and a breath of fresh air.
(DrDelicious)

RANK 28 (8 votes)

On paper, Symphony of the Night sounds like a trainwreck. It's a game that can be broken in half with a million setups like using twin Crissaegrims to slash enemies 120 times per second or the Alucard Shield + Rod combo to nuke enemies just by touching them while absorbing their health. The visuals consist of an uncanny amalgamation of hand-drawn 2D art, pixel art, and 3D models. Yet, as Alucard said, Dracula's castle is a creature of Chaos; everything about this game embodies that concept flawlessly. Thousands of weapons and items either are just lying around Castlevania or spawn randomly; the sheer amount of items to find make every playthrough feel at least subtlely unique. The voice acting for the dub is legendarily dreadful, and honestly that was for the best; nobody is playing a Castlevania game for the story, but everybody can at least remember the iconic "Die monster!" scene. Symphony of the Night is lightning in a bottle stemming from a sheer lack of restraint in game design and visual consistency. It is more than the sum of its parts and the sheer soul of the experience revolutionized the metroidvania genre forever for good reason.
(C_F)

RANK 81 (3 votes)

RANK 22 (10 votes)

Every lens through which you can view Majora’s Mask reveals startling new depth. As a standalone title, as the “avant-garde” Zelda, from a purely mechanics focused view to a narrative one, all aspects of the work complement and reinforce each other. The soundtrack – equally somber, whimsical, and haunting – enhances the strange, melancholic tone. That atmosphere in turn bolsters the themes of the story that are themselves so deftly woven into the mask mechanic and three-day cycle. To say that Majora’s is more than the sum of its parts would be almost reductive – implying both that the parts themselves are anything less than brilliantly executed and that their effect on each other is merely additive rather than multiplicative. Some of the most memorable time I’ve ever spent with a work of art, filled to the brim with all sorts of small yet meaningful moments that have left a lasting impact on me. A landmark moment in game history.
(Hylianhero777)

RANK 5 (22 votes)

The draw here for most tends to be the infamous protagonist switch, but were you really ever playing as Raiden? Our old-school brethren played as Solid Snake, recreating their routes from Shadow Moses in the sterile halls of Big Shell, while Johnny-come-latelys jumping into the series after trying MGSV probed at the now-archaic control scheme wondering where Venom Snake's crouch-walk and OTS-aiming went, but absolutely no one played as Raiden, not even the supposed FOXHOUND agent himself. Seven million people all crowded around their PS2s trying to convince themselves they were Snake, just to be slapped in the face for even daring. You are not Snake. Have you ever even shot a gun? You'll never know what it means to kill.

It wasn't until Raiden toyed with his high-frequency blade in the bowels of Arsenal Gear that Metal Gear Solid 2 let you embody his story, soaring to wildly cathartic heights before strangling you in the mess of violent contradictions that formed his life. To truly shear himself from the ideal of Solid Snake, he needed to divest himself from the expectations of the player, giving them the parting kiss of a climatic final boss before retreating with his lover, shielding themselves from your gaze with "This is for your ears... only."

MGS2 somehow opened and shut the book on all of these concepts while seamlessly integrating them into the best stealth experience of its era. KojiPro at their most unorthodox and daring.
(Pangburn)

RANK 81 (3 votes)

RANK 47 (5 votes)

Final Fantasy VII may have truly brought JRPGs to the mainstream two years later, but Chrono Trigger was the genre’s first true blockbuster. Brought to life by an absolute dream team of minds, most notably Hironobu Sakaguchi (Final Fantasy), Yuji Horii (Dragon Quest) and Akira Toriyama (Dragon Quest/Dragon Ball), Chrono Trigger is a celebration – and arguably pinnacle – of everything JRPGs had done to that point. Its epic scale and wealth of exploration is tempered by a very manageable difficulty and streamlined pacing, making it accessible even to RPG novices. And while some players may point to its simplistic plot and themes as a shortcoming, its excellent script and masterful storytelling show that the best of humanity can be found in these simple virtues that even a child – or cavewoman – can understand. In being one of the few games that has similarly affected this humble blurb-writer at whatever age he has played it at, Chrono Trigger shows that it – rather aptly – transcends time.
(iyellatcloud)

RANK 64 (4 votes)

RANK 47 (5 votes)

There’s only one shield in Bloodborne: a rusty, wooden shield that says in its description “Shields are nice, but not if they engender passivity.” and this is Bloodborne’s combat approach: don’t be a coward, transfuse your blood with the beasts, ripping their organs off. It’s a very violent game but made in a very elegant way: most of the enemies are battled in cities with gothic architecture or woods that looks like a hand-made scenery from a horror movie, and all of this beautifully interconnected in the same elegancy – and dare I say, even more – as the first Dark Souls. The moon illuminates the floor of those architectures, getting more bloody as the game goes, reflecting the player itself, getting more violent with each fight. Don’t confuse being brave with not being afraid, though. As Eileen, a NPC of the game, says: “Without fear in our hearts, we're little different from the beasts themselves.” We are not supposed to be fearless – this is what makes us humans – but we can’t let it control us. Fight your nightmare and search for the truth, enriching yourself with the frenesi of the battle. Just be careful with all the knowledge you get, the truth may set you free, but if you can't stand it, you will turn into a madman, not so different from the beasts you killed.
(heatten)

RANK 25 (9 votes)

It is rare to find titles in the medium that provide complete freedom to explore unbound by conventional means of progression. Rarer still are those that leave the player feeling that the world they inhabit outside of the game is a warmer, kinder place than the one they parted with at the door. These feelings have only grown stronger the more time has passed since my inaugural flight from Timber Hearth, where you inherit a rocket ship and the dreams of a space program birthed not as a military show of force, but out of a desire to understand the past and present.

The Outer Wilds is no mere puzzle game, its “solutions” betray the simplicity of the answers we expect to see when we march to GameFAQs in frustration. Nothing in the game just "is". You don't understand how to interact with something? The knowledge required simply lies somewhere else. Knowledge in this game is what items are in typical puzzle-adventure games, and the core of the gameplay is conducting science in tandem; experimenting, understanding and forming conclusions -even just tentative ones- to understand and experiment even more. There are few experiences as fulfilling in gaming to me, or in any medium for that matter.
(Nowhere)

RANK 20 (11 votes)

Cereberal, paralyzing, familiar and tantamount to everything we understand is horror gaming. Silent Hill 2 works as a disturbed study of the human condition that is ultimately more empathetic than it is terrifying. A spiraling, macabre dive into how trauma shapes us - and the mind of those who create said trauma. A perpetually enigmatically beautiful and profound piece of work that urges you play it, one that horror games have been trying to catch up to for years since.
(Archagent)

RANK 16 (12 votes)

I’m no gun specialist but, for the sake of argument, let’s look at the first Metal Gear Solid as a revolver. Its analogue parts may appear disparate by themselves, harder to handle and lacking efficiency in comparison to more elegantly designed tools, but together they form a weapon that brims with a unique and unmistakable character. It never fails to leave an impression, even with only six bullets in the barrel.

Its direct sequel etches elaborate engravings into that foundation. While certainly beautiful in their own right, it’s hard to ignore the fact that they offer no tactical advantage whatsoever over its predecessor. Nevertheless, we may continue unraveling the prescience of their craftsmanship for decades still.

Metal Gear Solid 3 could have been yet another modification. Maybe a laser sight, a scope for additional accuracy, perhaps even a silencer. Konami could’ve traded in the old model for an entirely different “gun” (as they would with every Metal Gear to follow). Instead, they reached into their back pocket…and pulled out a second revolver. This time, they’ve got twelve shots.

Metal Gear Solid 3 reaps all of the rewards and consequences of this approach. In several ways, it’s even more unwieldy than either of its forebears, but it deserves to be here, because all twelve of those bullets hit their mark.

It represents more than “one of, if not the best game in the illustrious Metal Gear series”; it isn’t beholden to insular qualifiers. It’s great Cold War Spy Fiction in its own right, drawing from the best of its own legacy and responding to an array of cinematic inspirations. Its iconic and combustible cast of characters has range enough to elicit both laughter and reflection at the drop of a hat, sometimes in the same breath. It’s an endless playground of stealth mechanics whose threshold for mastery is downright ludicrous, carefully paced to coincide with the highs and lows of its story. It’s proof that cutscenes can justify their inclusion on entertainment value alone. It’s a meditation on the evils of nationalism. Its Russian jungle setting does not exist. Kojima’s maximalist design philosophy may appear scattered and disparate, but here, there is always one eye on the bigger picture. In doubling down and committing wholeheartedly to its own soul, Metal Gear Solid 3 becomes totemic.
(CarbonCanine)

RANK 8 (18 votes)

Waving us with "what kind of cop are you?" it's such an elegant way to ask for cynicism, correctness, frustration, respect, pride, or political bore. But there is no correct way for being a cop. I don’t mean that as a political stance necessarily but as an actual mechanic inside Disco Elysium. It’s a beaten horse, it’s a failed mystery, it’s an annoying escapade to a depressing world, it’s another serving for the machine. It’s everything astounding, resonating and thwarting about the human condition and the way we conjure ways to order that same humanity. All encompassed inside another case to resolve, through an isometric camera, furbished stereotypes and tart humor. Disco Elysium preserves a palpable dual spirit of joy and bitterness that comes with history upon the making – no one wins, everyone loses. But there is light anyway. An achievement on videogame writing and holistic experiences. A triumph on destroying expectations. How couldn’t it be? It said the words we all need in our lives: We are the miracle. How? Simple. We’re the detectives arriving on the scene.

(MalditoMur)