Action Games, Ranked
Swords, and lots of them. Ordered the same way as this other list I did, just according to how much I enjoy them rather than their importance or whatever other metric. I'll get round to the other Ninja Gaidens someday, or so I hope.
Some other stuff that came to mind:
- I don't think of "character action" or "stylish action" or whatever you wanna call it as a thing, which is why not everything here would fall into that basket. I've always just called them action games, which is arguably a bit more vague, but I think most of the games on this list share enough DNA for you to know the type of stuff I mean. Let my hand wringing be a lesson as to why we should unironically go back to just calling everything [verb]-'em-ups.
- I like everything down to and including Furi (and sort of Lords of Shadow), just to different degrees. I also think more highly of No More Heroes in particular than its position implies, it's just that this list is primarily looking at these games through the lens of mechanics.
- As far as directors go, my favourite's actually Itsuno overall, even though Kamiya beat him to the very tippy top of this list. If I was being wishy washy enough to include ARPGs here, you'd better believe Dragon's Dogma would be a solid #2.
Some other stuff that came to mind:
- I don't think of "character action" or "stylish action" or whatever you wanna call it as a thing, which is why not everything here would fall into that basket. I've always just called them action games, which is arguably a bit more vague, but I think most of the games on this list share enough DNA for you to know the type of stuff I mean. Let my hand wringing be a lesson as to why we should unironically go back to just calling everything [verb]-'em-ups.
- I like everything down to and including Furi (and sort of Lords of Shadow), just to different degrees. I also think more highly of No More Heroes in particular than its position implies, it's just that this list is primarily looking at these games through the lens of mechanics.
- As far as directors go, my favourite's actually Itsuno overall, even though Kamiya beat him to the very tippy top of this list. If I was being wishy washy enough to include ARPGs here, you'd better believe Dragon's Dogma would be a solid #2.
32 Games
I know this is a bit of a grey area as to whether it's a beat 'em up or an action game in the vein of DMC, but I like to think of it as both. If you understandably feel it doesn't belong, pretend it's not here.
3
6
10
Just ignore that, like, a third of it is also a stealth game. Alright?
Btw did you know that the planned sequel to this eventually became Dead Rising?
Btw did you know that the planned sequel to this eventually became Dead Rising?
12
I'm telling you, man. The multiplayer for this was sweet.
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2 Comments
Yeah he's definitely got one of the strongest CVs in the industry. I don’t enjoy DMC1 anywhere near as much as anything Kamiya made after it, or any of Itsuno's DMCs, but it’s pretty mad to think about how much it got right on the first try. Whenever I play a similar, more modern game and the camera gets stuck on/can’t see through parts of the environment for example, all I can think about is how it already solved that kind of thing over 20 years ago.
coralqueenkanans
2 years ago