Updated 1/25/24:

NEW:
Library of Ruina at #26
Chants of Sennaar at #152

GONE:
Little Nightmares II
Tetris

*Persona 5 Royal replaces Persona 5 due to surpassing it in plays (#20)

Updated 2/1/24:

BACK:
Little Nightmares II at #248
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past at #249

GONE:
Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance
A Short Hike

Updated 2/8/24:

NEW:
Tekken 8 at #16
Gitaroo Man at #125
Inazuma Eleven 2: Blizzard at #250

GONE:
Rhythm Heaven
Omori
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

thank you for this list especially with the "most popular version" thing

Updated 2/15/24:

NEW:
Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth at #3
Persona 3 Reload at #17

GONE:
Little Nightmares II
Inazuma Eleven 2: Blizzard

Updated 2/22/24:

NEW:
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown at #210

BACK:
Wonderful Everyday at #249

GONE:
Neon White
Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling

Updated 2/29/24:

NEW:
Helldivers 2 at #173

BACK:
Inazuma Eleven 2: Blizzard at #250

GONE:
Wonderful Everyday
Garou: Mark of the Wolves

Have you thought about expanding this to a top 500? I see several classics landmarks for the industry have either been removed or are just barely clinging by atm, and are gonna drop out soon. Meanwhile, several very divisive or esoteric games are in the top 100.

@Bakkestaffen: Personally I'm in favor of "esoteric" games being on here because it gives them more exposure, but I definitely agree that much of this list doesn't feel like it represents the community's overall opinions. That being said I don't think it'd be right for me to change the format of the list just because I don't like its contents, plus 250 seems to be the standard for lists like this. I think the best solution would be if the site implemented weighted averaging, but that's obviously out of my control.

Yeah, I can see your point about those games needing more exposure, of course. I also agree with you about weighting like Glitchwave does. Most games with 10k+ plays seems to be getting punished for being easily accessible relative to others on this site. For example, I looked up SNES games on GW and Super Metroid, Earthbound, Super Mario World and Yoshi's Island are much higher on the ranks there. Chrono Trigger and FFVI have more or less the same spot. This site loves various RPGs on average much higher than GW too.

Updated 3/7/24:

NEW:
Heroes of Might and Magic III Complete at #21
428: Shibuya Scramble at #157

GONE:
Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island
Inazuma Eleven 2: Blizzard

Updated 3/14/24:

NEW:
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth at #20
Balatro at #78

GONE:
Cuphead
Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus R

Just came up with another idea; What about a full list of games that used to be a part of this list but have dropped out and have reached the point that they'll most likely stay out of the list forever?

@Bakkestaffen: If you're just looking for a list of highly rated games without any size constraint this might help you.

Updated 3/21/24:

NEW:
Fear & Hunger 2: Termina at #38
Granblue Fantasy: Relink at #206

BACK:
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess at #235
Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island at #238
Cuphead at #239
Omori at #244
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past at #245
Wario Land 4 at #247
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe at #249

GONE:
Super Monkey Ball 2
The Curse of Monkey Island
Golden Sun: The Lost Age
Finding Paradise
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown
Blasphemous II
Valkyrie Profile
Hatsune Miku: Project Diva F 2nd

Suspicious amount of movement this week.

100% bombing since the games with the least plays have been the ones affected the most, it takes fewer half stars to get them out the list, it has been noticeable in the top spots as well.

@Morio86 Is this list really that relevant on here to the point where enough people would be doing this? Sure, you could argue that it's for the full list, but most of these 'barely 1k games' have been present on that for ages as you don't even seem to require 500 plays for it to appear there (Panzer Dragoon Saga is on there at currently 461 plays), meaning that this supposed bombing should have happened long ago for them.

I do agree it's a bit suspicious, though. I wish we could see the users that rated, but that feature is currently removed.

Updated 3/28/24:

NEW:
Moon: Remix RPG Adventure at #109

BACK:
Pokemon Black at #237
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate at #243
Metal Gear Rising Revengeance at #247
Pikmin 2 at #249
Star Wars Battlefront II at #250

GONE:
Helldivers 2
Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey
Klonoa: Door to Phantomile
Capcom vs. SNK 2: Mark of the Millennium 2001
Hypnospace Outlaw
Starcraft

@Bakkestaffen I think it is bombing. I reviewed Yo-Kai Watch 2 a few weeks back and it was at 4.2 and now it suddenly has 10+ new ½-star rating, but also dropped by .2. This also happened to other games with similar rating and fewer plays, like Yo-Kai Watch 3, the Flower Sun and Rain DS port and 25th ward. It's incredibly suspicious.

The manipulation is so obvious that I'd say denying that it is happening is even more suspicious - it looks like someone ran a script (or, LMAO, did it all by hand because they're just that spiteful) to bombard every game above a certain plays + rating threshold that didn't meet their "standards" with multiple new ½ ratings.

A less level-headed person than chump would simply temporarily shut down the list over this. I know I would.

@ebrl I think so too now. I've changed my mind. Don't try this Kafkatrapping nonsense with me, please. If you're insinuating I'm the person behind it, then wow...

I wish the feature to see the users who has given the rating would return soon, then we would see the overlap of users that has given the 0.5 ratings.

Seems to me like whoever's behind this is just trying to manipulate average ratings overall, not this list specifically, since it looks like games that wouldn't be eligible are also being hit. If this list didn't exist I doubt the bombing wouldn't be happening. That being said, it'd probably be wise to pause updates while this is going on, as the recent changes will be basically reversed once the mods fix the ratings. This has happened before and it was resolved within a few weeks, but it'll probably take longer this time since we have no way to report the accounts being used for bombing. If it looks like it hasn't been sorted out by next Thursday I'll skip that week's update.

Is there really any point in stopping the updates until we can pinpoint the sock accounts giving the 0.5 ratings? It could take months, if not more than a year before the display of game logs returns.

@Bakkestaffen: I just asked for help about the situation on Discord, so I'll wait for a response from the mods before doing anything. I probably should've tried contacting them earlier, apologies.

I checked Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix has a 4.54. Higher than the original. Does it count to be on the list?

@GracefulEG: It needs to have more plays than the original KH2 to be eligible for this list.

No list update today, but the site update releasing tomorrow is going to re-enable viewing game logs, so hopefully that means the issue will be resolved soon.