Top 100 Games of All-Time: #87

Hitman: Blood Money

Release Date: May 26, 2006

Platform Played On: PS2

2018 Placement: #65 (-22)

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What It Is:

Hitman has had a lot of different evolutions, but the premise has always remained the same: you’re Agent 47 and you go on missions to assassinate targets in many, many, many different ways. They range from the classic headshot bullet to dropping chandeliers on people to throwing them into a garbage truck to be mushed up into little cubes. You can rig a barbecue to explode or snipe someone from across an entire level or throw them off a rooftop. The world is your oyster in Hitman, as long as your oyster involves murdering people.

Hitman: Blood Money is the apex of the first wave of the game series, coming out on the cusp of the fifth and sixth generation for PS2 and XBox 360. It takes everything from the first three games of the series and refines it, along with making the levels more sandbox in nature which allowed for a lot more planning and stylish kills. It’s also the first game of the series to properly introduce staged accidents, allowing you to get away with some creative and unique kills that can be hilarious in their deviousness.

Why It’s Important To Me:

At some point in late college/early post-college I picked up a Hitman collection on PS2 that had Hitman 2, Hitman Contracts, and Hitman Blood Money on it. Me and a friend sat in my basement and played through all three games together (not in one sitting) and that’s how I fell in love with the series as a whole. It was an absolute blast just swapping the controller back and forth every time we failed at stealth and got murdered by trigger happy guards, or laughing as we maniacally stacked bodies and one by one murdered every single NPC in a level just to say we could.

Blood Money was the best of the series because it gave us true sandboxes to play in and allowed for so much obnoxious fun. It added the coin, which can be used as a distraction, and is one of the main items associated with Agent 47 now (along with his Silverballers). It was the tightest execution of Hitman gameplay (until the most recent revival trilogy on the PS4) and holds a special place in my heart as the game that represents the franchise for me and the fun I had with the semi-co-op.

My Strongest Memory:

Like many people, it’s the suburbs level where you’re tasked with eliminating someone in witness protection. Called “A New Life,” you infiltrate a kid’s birthday party to kill the man in witness protection and retrieve some microfilm. But the plot of the mission isn’t as important as how open the level is and what hilarity you can get up to within it.

The aforementioned garbage truck did a lot of heavy lifting during my playthrough of this: at one point me and my friend attempted to put every NPC in the level into the garbage truck for shits and giggles. (It’s one of the few body storage places that can hold infinite bodies.) You can disguise yourself as a clown, you can blow up the target’s barbecue grill, or you can just go ham and shoot everyone. It’s probably not as impressive now, especially compared to the gigantic levels that the new Hitman trilogy has introduced, but back when the PS2 was the cutting edge of technology the freedom and fun this particular level gave made the game an undeniable classic to me.

Why It’s #87:

I love Hitman as a series – aside from the very first one, I’ve owned and played every single entry (including Hitman Go). As much as I love the wild sandbox playthroughs, what I love more is the getting to play it with other people and encouraging my friends to find cool ways to complete an assassination. I haven’t gotten to enjoy this particular brand of Hitman togetherness in a long while and I miss it. I’m also not sure if this one holds up in comparison to the new entries – I haven’t had a chance to play this one in a while – but I still fondly remember the missions from this game as cementing my love of the franchise.

Top 100 Games of All-Time: #88

Batman: Arkham City

Release Date: October 18, 2011

Platform Played On: XBox 360

2018 Placement: #93 (+5)

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What It Is:

Hot off the success of Arkham Asylum, Arkham City just simply gives you more of that game. Expanding the prison to include entire districts of Gotham, the world you have to explore as Batman is much larger. There’s more enemies, more Bat gadgets, more plot twists, more villains from the Rogues Gallery, and most importantly: more Riddler trophies. (This is a joke. Don’t kill me.)

It’s one of those solid sequels that expands on everything the first game did and makes it better. It listens to fan feedback from the first and changes up the formula (the boss fights are actually interesting now!) and also makes a bunch of quality-of-life adjustments. While Telltale’s Batman did a great original story and felt like a new take on the hero, Arkham City makes you feel like the Batman in an action-sense: it’s by far the best adaptation of kicking ass as the Caped Crusader, in my opinion.

Why It’s Important To Me:

I liked Arkham Asylum a lot, and while its claustrophobic, small island setting was intentional it still felt a little too small for me. When I want to be Batman, I want to be able to glide through Gotham and take out thugs after diving off a tall building. I want to have sidequests and random shit happening underneath the surface of the main plot. The constraints of the Asylum setting gave some neat set pieces but I wanted more.

Arkham City expands it to the perfect size and feels just right. (Arkham Knight goes too far with the Batmobile, unfortunately.) I got to explore Gotham and find random clues to side stories of the Batman mythos – and when the pieces clicked and I figured out who was behind one caper, there’d be another caper to pull me in. There’s enough gadgets and moves in combat to make fighting thugs fun but not too complex that it gets frustrating. And the story itself is awesome – the way everything comes together in the final act and for the final boss is just absolute perfection.) Enemy Within was a great take on Batman, but Arkham City still reigns king as my favorite Batman video game adaptation due to its combination of story and action-oriented gameplay.

My Strongest Memory:

Not including the final boss/ending (which I won’t spoil in case somebody hasn’t seen it yet) it has to be the Mr. Freeze boss fight, of course. It’s not an exaggeration to say that this particular fight is one of the best boss fights of all time due to the setting, the mechanics, and your opponent. Even though Mr. Freeze isn’t the main antagonist of the game, he throws a significant wrench into plans towards the middle of the game, which culminates in a spectacular throwdown that encapsulates everything a Batman boss fight should be.

If you’re not familiar with the game or the fight, there are multiple ways to damage Mr. Freeze as he stalks you through the battle arena. But each time you use one of your advantages, he adapts to your attack and you can’t use that gadget/trick/whatever against him for the rest of the fight. It’s a battle that makes you use your brain as well as every trick in your arsenal, and makes it that much more satisfying when you finally take him down.

Why It’s #88:

This is one of the few games in this area of the list that was on my list in 2018 and actually moved up in placements. The more I thought about this game the more I realized how much I appreciated the story and the mechanics of the overall game. Yeah, there are a few too many Riddler trophies in this one, but beyond that it’s probably the best rendition of Batman in a video game – even if it sets up storylines for the final game that Arkham Knight ends up bumbling. Still, everyone must appreciate the majesty of the combat and all the wonderful depictions of Batman rogues gallery in this game.

Top 100 Games of All-Time: #89

Toejam & Earl

Release Date: March 12, 1991

Platform Played On: Wii (Virtual Console)

2018 Placement: Unranked

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What It Is:

Toejam & Earl is a very unique game that’s hard to describe. The title characters are from Funkatron and crash their ship on Earth, so they have to navigate past hazardous Earthlings while recovering their spaceship’s parts that have been scattered to the wind. It’s kind of like a co-op roguelike in some ways, because one mode involves going through randomized levels of Earth trying to find the ship parts. It’s not super action-heavy though; as a player you rely on presents that can be good or bad to spice up the gameplay and make it past everything trying to kill you. And if you play with a partner, sometimes they’re trying to kill you too which makes the adventure even more hazardous.

The music is funky (since Funkatron is the planet Toejam and Earl hang from) and the humor is wacky (you identify presents through a Carrot Man and can sneak up on Santa Claus to get more presents to use). Boogeymen sneak up on you and shout “Boogie boogie boogie” as they take away your health. You’ve gotta watch out for lawn mowers, scientists, and more as you reveal map tiles through exploration, trying to find the exit to the next level along with your ultimate goal of rebuilding your spaceship.

Why It’s Important To Me:

Sometimes a game becomes a favorite simply through osmosis. My podcast partner-in-crime HarveyZ lists this as one of his favorite games of all-time, and therefore I’ve played it many times with him (and also watched him play it with others as well). And if you play a game enough and spend enough time with people who love the game, you start to love it yourself.

While this wasn’t a game I grew up with – I was a Nintendo kid and never had any Sega system – it was a game my friends did. So when it showed up on the Wii’s Virtual Console, I ended up buying it to partake in the joy and have learned to respect why it captured their hearts. It’s a light-hearted, fun, shooting-the-shit game where you can grief your partner but also high-five them. And I appreciate that.

My Strongest Memory:

Back when I was recording Let’s Plays for YouTube, me and HarveyZ sat down and did a full playthrough of Toejam & Earl together. I still think it was one of the best (if not the best) thing to come out of the year’s worth of videos I did for the channel and was one of the first rumblings that eventually led me to start a podcast with him later. If you want to watch it, you can start here (it’s divided into six parts – please ignore the bad audio, I’ve learned a lot podcasting and did not do any audio editing for YouTube in ignorance).

Anyway, this playthrough had a lot of the fun, ridiculous moments that playing video games with friends result in. And in this case all of those moments were caught on camera to relive over and over! It’s the camaraderie that comes along while play this game (and games like it) that endeared Toejam and Earl to me. I even ended up buying a special edition of the new Toejam & Earl just because of how much I bonded with my pal over the original and it’s earned a special place in my heart.

Why It’s #89:

I have a feeling this would have ended up a lot higher on my list if I had the same nostalgia for it as I do other games I played in my childhood. I still love it, but it’s a different kind of love that misses the high emotions of it being a game that was formative to my opinion of video games in general. As it is, though, it’s still a timeless classic that can be enjoyed just as much nowadays – it doesn’t lose anything with age.

Top 100 Games of All-Time: #90

Mega Man 9

Release Date: September 22, 2008

Platform Played On: Wii

2018 Placement: #63 (-27)

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What It Is:

In 1996, Capcom released Mega Man 8 on the Playstation with updated, nice visuals and the game was not received well. So the mainline franchise laid dormant for over a decade until Capcom went back to their 8-bit roots and made a retro Mega Man 9 for the Wii/360/PS3 generation of consoles. At the time, Mega Man fans were ecstatic to see not only the Blue Bomber return to action but for the developers to have captured the original series’ look even with certain updates.

But on top of returning to retro roots, the game itself was very, very good. The music bopped like a Mega Man game should, the stages were fantastic, and the weapons were unique and actually useful to some degree. They also added fun things like trophies, challenges, and other odds and ends that modernized the game without sacrificing the old-school NES feel of the originals. And they included the first woman Robot Master!

Why It’s Important To Me:

Gun to my head, if you had to ask me my favorite video game franchise of all-time, I would have to decide between Mega Man and Final Fantasy. They’re the two biggest franchises that I grew up on and symbolize how my two favorite genres – platforming and RPGs – came to be. So for one of my all-time favorite franchises to sit and get dusty for over a decade of my prime game-playing years; well, it was heartbreaking. I was one of the many who was shouting and jumping for joy when Mega Man 9 was announced.

MM9, while not being my favorite Mega Man game, represents the idea of hope. That a long-dead dream can come back and knock your socks off: a game can give you everything you wanted out of a revival and not suck. That even though nostalgia plays a big role in how you think about your childhood, new variations on your childhood favorites can still capture and deliver the feelings of joy you had in the first place.

My Strongest Memory:

Honestly, it was probably the first time I heard the Tornado Man stage theme. It was released as a music sample before the game came out and when I listened to it I knew that the game was going to be quality. I mean, just listen to this banger of a stage theme. How can a game disappoint when it has music this good?

Yeah, maybe I was setting myself up for disappointment by being hyped for a game simply based off one music track. But it turned out I ended up loving the game too, so I think the hype was well worth it. And then when I heard the music for stage 1 of Wily’s Castle? Oh yeah. That’s the stuff. Mega Man music at its best is top-tier across video games, I tell you what.

Why It’s #90:

This one was a hard one to put so low. But the truth of the matter is that while I love this game (and the series, which you’ll be seeing more of later, I promise you) to death, there are a lot of other games that I have an emotional connection to that this one is missing. And “it gave me hope that I could still get new, enjoyable Mega Man games” can only carry it so far in the list. Especially since Mega Man 11 came out two years ago and I’ve yet to hear anything about Mega Man 12 or Mega Man X9 *coughcoughCAPCOMPLEASEcough*

Top 100 Games of All-Time: #91

Borderlands 2

Release Date: September 18, 2012

Platform Played On: XBox 360

2018 Placement: #66 (-25)

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What It Is:

An up to 4-player co-op looter shooter that has a lot of humor and a lot of meme references. It builds on the world and aesthetic of the first game and promises lots and lots of guns. And it delivers. It also gives you four different classes (+2 DLC classes) each with 3 different skill trees so whatever playstyle you enjoy, you’ll probably find it in here.

Borderlands 2 is packed to the brim with characters, sidequests, story and just plain mayhem. It’s not a game that takes itself seriously at any point in its run-time. There are probably going to be characters that get on your nerves and other character who you’ll love to death. It’s not a game for everyone, but even if the humor isn’t your thing there’s actual surprising story developments thrown into the game as you progress to keep you hooked on the plot.

Why It’s Important To Me:

I played the first Borderlands solo and it was an entirely fine, if not easily forgettable, experience. Borderlands 2 remains one of my favorite co-op games simply because of all the memories I associate with it. I had a ton of fun with friends playing through this entire game, both in the base game and the DLC, and that just made the experience of the game’s wackiness that much better. It’s a game to joke around and shoot the shit during, screaming at each other when you flip over the fifth vehicle in a row accidentally.

But it wasn’t just the co-op. The game had some serious story beats that really caught me offguard considering how tongue-in-cheek the rest of the game is. It also makes the mostly silent protagonists of the first game into vocal agents of the plot that help you in the second, expanding on their personalities and making you grow to love them even more. Lilith will always be the #1 siren in my heart since she was who I played the first game as.

My Strongest Memory:

Have you ever gotten a text from two friends, panicked, because they’re stuck in a barn in a video game and can’t figure out how to get out? Well I have. They were both contained in a mutual hell of their own making: listening to Bandit Buzzards fly around the barn singing Ride of the Valkyries for twenty minutes before I logged into Borderlands 2 and figured out how to get them out of the situation.

It was an absolutely absurd moment – especially because they were simply missing a ladder and could have easily gotten themselves unstuck without my help – but it’s the first thing I think of when I think about ‘Borderlands’ as a whole. It’s this kind of co-op, friendly nonsense that makes me enjoy playing video games with friends in the first place.

Why It’s #91:

Borderlands 2 is an odd duck. It’s a game I have a strong fondness for due to the experiences I shared with others. But it’s also a time capsule. I played Borderlands 3, co-op, with the same friend but we barely made it 6 hours in and never completed it. My tastes have changed a little bit and the gameplay (and humor) hasn’t developed in four games. It was enjoyable at the time and made a lot of memories I wouldn’t change for the world, but I also don’t know if I can ever go back to it. You can’t recreate the perfect storm and that was when Borderlands 2 existed for me. But I still must honor it in my top 100.

Top 100 Games of All-Time: #92

Super Meat Boy

Release Date: October 20, 2010

Platform Played On: XBox 360

2018 Placement: #77 (-15)

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What It Is:

You are Meat Boy. Bandage Girl has been kidnapped by the evil Dr. Fetus and you have to rescue her. And that’s it! That’s all the plot you get for this twitch platformer that will (likely) frustrate you to no end.

Each world had 20 levels – both light and dark version – and a boss fight at the end. There was nothing between you and the end of each level except a whole bunch of obstacles that will instantly kill you, and all you have to rely on is your expert platforming skills. It’s fun, it’s bloody, and it’s an essential challenge for any person who enjoys platformers. The game also had a stellar soundtrack by Danny Baranowsky in it’s original release – later updates replaced the music with a lot of inferior tracks (although some fine ones) so I really recommend playing the original version if you can.

Why It’s Important To Me:

Platforming has always been one of my top 3 favorite genres in gaming. And in 2010 when this came out, platformers were having a resurgence in mainstream acceptance. We were starting to crest over the bald space marine wave and indie games were stepping out into the spotlight again. Super Meat Boy grabbed my heart and my fingers as it was snappy and fast and just a pleasure to play. It’d been a hot minute since a good platformer had really gotten its hooks in me and for a long while Dr. Fetus was my personal nemesis.

I tried for a long time to 100% the game. I got fairly close (it was the only achievement on the 360 I didn’t get for the game) but in the end I wasn’t able to get everything done before I finally let the game best me. Still, it revitalized the platforming genre for me and also helped put indies on my radar. Between Super Meat Boy and a few others in 2010, I knew from this point forward good games could come from anywhere and not just the AAA advertised developers.

My Strongest Memory:

I’ve got two for this one. The first is the Battle of Lil’ Slugger: the first boss of the game. The level itself is a fairly straightforward chase but the music is just so damn good – please listen to it if you haven’t. I played this level and was just floored by the soundtrack to the point that I played the level several more times just to hear it again and then went and bought the soundtrack so I could listen to it on my iPod. I also immediately sent the song to my friends being like “HAVE YOU HEARD THIS AWESOME SONG OH MY GOD.” It was immediately a hit to me.

The second was unlocking The Kid. I Wanna Be The Guy is a famously unfairly hard platformer game and The Kid is from that – a secret guest character to be unlocked. And true to the game he hails from, the levels you have to beat to unlock him are a terror. I spent a good hour or two on his three (yes, only THREE) levels refusing to let the game beat me and when I finally beat them all I was ecstatic. I’m pretty sure I actually got up and shouted. I’ve lost a lot of patience for repeating challenges over my years of gaming, but back then I still had the drive and it was so worth it to conquer those stupid levels.

Why It’s #92:

There was a time that Super Meat Boy would have ultimately been higher on my list simply because its soundtrack rocks and it’s a really well done platformer. And while I feel this game is important in gaming history and paved the way for later platformers like Celeste, it’s been a long time since I played it and the magic has faded a little, especially since I can’t play it on new systems because I just can’t play it without the original rockin’ soundtrack. Maybe on the day I can pull my 360 out of storage, hook it up, and play some of my old favorites this will rise in the rankings again. But until then Meat Boy has to survive in the 90s.

Top 100 Games of All-Time: #93

Doom

Release Date: May 13, 2016

Platform Played On: PS4

2018 Placement: #71 (-22)

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What It Is:

Hell has come to Mars, and it’s Doomguy’s job to clean it up. Pull out your pistol, shotgun and BFG because it’s demon hunting time!! Sure there’s plot, but Doomguy doesn’t give two shits about it! He doesn’t care about puzzles, thought-provoking moral dilemmas, or anything really outside of kicking demon ass and chewing bubble gum. And he’s all out of gum.

Some games try to change up their style to keep things fresh, but Doom was a breath of fresh air in an FPS environment that was very much Call of Duty-ized over the last decade or so. It’s all about motion – there’s no ducking behind cover and waiting for your health to regenerate. You’ve got to be in the thick of things with your chainsaw to refill health and ammo and moving fast through each battle room to take on the demon surge. Shoot demons, shoot demons, and shoot demons – that’s what this game is about and it doesn’t ever stray from that.

Why It’s Important To Me:

I’ve never been much of a first-person shooter fan – I played the original Doom back in the 90s and dabbled with Goldeneye and Perfect Dark on consoles. But most FPS games that I really enjoyed had some sort of extra element to them: your Fallouts with the RPG elements and the VATS system or your Bioshocks with the Plasmids/Vigors. I never got into Call of Duty because I am hard against Activision and also military shooters never really appealed to me, and every time I’ve tried to play Far Cry I fall off the wagon a few hours in.

But Doom 2016 embodies all my strongest feelings for the straightforward FPS genre. It’s fast-paced, it’s frenetic, and you’re always switching between all your weapons on the go as you’re bombarded with attacks. It forces you to really get into the thick of the action through the mechanics – there’s no slow-paced gameplay to be found. It’s just plain fun, too. The design philosophy behind the game is “people like shooting things with awesome guns, so let’s let them do that a bunch” and they didn’t get bogged down with anything else. And that’s why this version of Doom just works.

My Strongest Memory:

Honestly I don’t really have one for this game – mostly because the entire game passed by me in one big, gory, demon-infested blur. The final boss was pretty memorable and I had a lot of fun fighting it – it was challenging so I felt accomplished beating it but it wasn’t hard enough that I yelled at my television.

And I think that’s probably my biggest takeaway. This game (on whatever difficulty I played it on – probably the “normal” setting) was enough of a challenge to be interesting but never too much that it got frustrating and I wanted to give up. It was a breath of fresh air in a sea of mediocre games chasing the trends. The more I thought back on it, the more I loved how refreshing the experience was compared to other games I’d been playing.

Why It’s #93:

Has a sequel ever made you think slightly less of a game? Even if it was unintentional? Doom Eternal kind of did that for me with this game. While Doom 2016 trimmed the fat and gave a lean, directed experience that was all killer no filler, Doom Eternal added back a bunch of bloat that was a little unnecessary. It doesn’t diminish the greatness of Doom, but unfortunately I still have a bit of leftover sadness that pushes this lower down the list than it’s 2018 placement. It’s lack of story also hurts it like other games I’ve listed before. Even though I don’t want a complex story with my run-and-gun gameplay, its only appreciation for mechanics and not an emotional connection that makes me love this game.

Top 100 Games of All-Time: #95

Into the Breach

Release Date: February 27, 2018

Platform Played On: PC

2018 Placement: Unranked

What It Is:

Have you ever wanted to fight giant bugs in cool mechs in a puzzling scenario? Well that’s what Into the Breach gives you in spades. There are several different squads of mechs you can unlock and if you feel like it you can mix and match them to your heart’s content. Every mech has their own advantages and disadvantages: it’s up to you to figure out how to use their abilities in the most efficient bug-killing way. Along the way you can get power-ups and pilot upgrades as well to enhance your abilities and give you more options in each tactical situation.

It’s more of a puzzle game than a tactics game because every round you will clearly see all the information: where enemies are attacking, where new enemies are spawning, what order all the moves will be in, etc. It’s up to you to figure out how to safely defend the buildings full of civilians from the bugs while not losing your mechs (or your pilots). The variations in mech strategy and the roguelike elements allowing you take on anywhere from two to four worlds per run for completion purposes give this game a ton of addictive replayability.

Why It’s Important To Me:

This game was a perfect short burst game for me – before I got into other roguelikes, Into the Breach was my go-to “I have 30 minutes to kill let’s boot up a quick game of Into the Breach.” I keep meaning to buy it on Switch so I can also have it on the go because it’s a perfect game for handheld and travel. The combat puzzles you’re faced with each game are straightforward but still require you to think carefully and not act too fast, and that’s the kind of puzzles I like.

I have a very hard time pinpointing any flaws in this game as well. It may be close to a perfectly designed game. All the systems and restrictions work in tandem to form an absolute joy of a game to play. I never felt like the game was cheap or unfair and I never got frustrated because of a specific set-up because 10 times out of 10 it was my fault for moving too fast and not being careful about all my options. Sometimes a game just clicks with you and how much brainpower you want to put into a game, and this one was the Baby Bear just right fit for me.

My Strongest Memory:

One runthrough I got to the second phase of the final mission and I thought I was done for. From the very first round of the phase I thought I had an impossible task ahead of me. I’d taken too many hits already in the first phase; if the enemy got even one successful hit off on me they would deplete my power supply and I’d lose the run. And from first glance the enemies had boxed me into a corner and I was prepared to curse out bad game design because I was in a Kobayashi Maru no-win scenario.

But instead of gnashing and wailing I sat down and concentrated; I looked over every inch of the tiled map and weighed all my options. It took me a good ten minutes, but I realized there was one perfect way to activate all my mechs and survive the round. And I did. And then I did it again in the next round. And the next, until suddenly I was victorious and successfully blew the bugs to oblivion and saved that universe. It was one of the most satisfying victories I’ve ever had in any puzzle/strategy/roguelike game because it was a series of impossible scenarios where even one wrong placement would end me. But I made it through and damn did it feel good.

Why It’s #95:

I love this game to death and can’t think of anything wrong in it’s design. All the mechs are fun, the enemies are varied, there’s plenty of goals and achievements to work towards (and they unlock more mechs in-game so they aren’t pointless trophies), and it’s got that addicting “just one more run” feel. And while everything about the game is solid, at its core it’s a very basic, light-on-story puzzle/strategy game. The mech dressing and universe appeals to me but it lacks the emotional punch games higher on this list have given me. I wouldn’t have considered it a flaw before, but a certain roguelike that will appear later on this list changed my mind about story in rogue-likes forever. But it doesn’t diminish the quality of everything else in the game – this is a must-have game if you have even an ounce of fun solving puzzles.

Top 100 Games of All-Time: #96

Final Fantasy X

Release Date: December 17, 2001 (NA)

Platform Played On: PS2

2018 Placement: Unranked

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What It Is:

The 10th game in the Final Fantasy franchise, the first Final Fantasy on the PS2, and the first to get a numbered sequel in X-2. Like previous Final Fantasies, it’s an RPG that relies on turn-based combat and an involved story that takes place over many hours of gameplay. It changes up the formula a little bit in a few ways, though, to the point that it has my favorite combat system of all the Final Fantasies. First, your entire party is readily available at any time and you can switch them out in combat whenever you want, thereby making it truly feel like a party on an adventure and not forcing you to sideline characters. In addition they remove the ATB/time systems in battle in favor of a global turn order where you can see both the enemy and your next turns. This ends up giving you time to think and also adds a layer of strategy to the battle.

Final Fantasy X also has the Sphere Grid, which is one of the most complicated skill trees for leveling in Final Fantasy history but also a personal favorite of mine just because. It’s no materia or Magicite, and the Zodiac boards improve upon its general idea, but it’s a visually neat system even if it ends up being complex for complexity’s sake.

Why It’s Important To Me:

There are three mainline Final Fantasies that are in a league of their own (and will all show up later on this list) and that’s not really debatable. But I waver back and forth between the fourth best and it really depends on my mood. Last time I did this list, I’d just gotten off revisiting FFXII through Zodiac Age and was on a high off of its job system, characters, and story. But this time around I’m appreciating FFX due to it’s characters, story (and ending!), combat, and music. It also features Seymour who has the absolute wildest hair for any villain in any media ever created.

Final Fantasy was a series I grew up with and so the series always has a special place in my heart. X in particular I remember strongly because it was my first PS2 game (technically I had it and Metal Gear Solid 2 at the same time, but they were the two games I got with my PS2 back in 2001.) I still remember being wowed by the improved visuals in CGI cut-scenes and listen to voice-acting for the first time in a Final Fantasy game. Even if some of the dialogue is very cheesy and some scenes are so bad they’re good, I still love it for being one of the two games that made me go wow at the possibilities on the PS2.

My Strongest Memory:

Blitzball.

It’s a needlessly complicated mini-game that’s included as a diversion but I played the shit out of Blitzball when I originally played the game. I loved the game itself, the different techniques you could use, and how you could recruit and set up your team. It’s probably the mini-game I spent the most time in out of all Final Fantasies (yes, including Triple Triad).

Even now, I’ve recently started a new playthrough of FFX on my PS4 and what I’m looking forward to the most is unlocking Blitzball so I can mess around in it. Story? Pfft, gimme that large water sphere where I can swim around, confuse the enemy team and fire the Jecht Shot to burn some defenders.

Why It’s #96:

It’s been a long time since I played Final Fantasy X and a lot of my memories about the game itself are faded. I totally forgot about how nonsensical and awful the intro sequence is (but it came rushing back to me as I replayed it) but I do remember thinking the same thing back in 2001 and the game comes together once the story takes off and you have a full party. The strongest feelings I have for the game are about it’s combat tweaks and Blitzball, though, and those two things aren’t enough to carry it higher on the list. It IS the fourth-best mainline Final Fantasy, though, at least until I start thinking about Final Fantasy XII again.

Top 100 Games of All-Time: #97

Batman: The Enemy Within

Release Date: August 8, 2017 (Ep. 1) – March 27, 2018 (Ep. 5)

Platform Played On: PS4

2018 Placement: Unranked

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What It Is:

It’s Batman.

Okay, I guess I can be a little more descriptive. This is Telltale Games’ second Batman story, told over five episodes and can continue the story using some choices you made in the first game. It has mild point-and-click gameplay, some QTEs, and a little bit of playing as the world’s greatest detective; but it’s mostly dialogue and dialogue-related choices. But it’s a completely new and unique take on the Batman universe that isn’t tied to a specific comic book story.

But primarily, it’s Batman. You know what you’re getting into when you pick up this game.

Why It’s Important To Me:

The thing about comic book properties is that there is a lot of history to them. There have been so many stories told with our favorite superheroes that run the gamut from awful dogshit to edge-of-your-seat page-turners. And so it’s hard to separate what the collective knows as “Batman” and “the Penguin” and “the Joker” and so on from what the characters could be in a different light. This game takes your preconceived notions of what specific members of Batman’s rogues gallery are and flips them on their heads – I don’t want to go into specifics because the game is story-heavy and I don’t want to ruin it for others.

It also dedicates an entire episode to The Riddler, who has always been my favorite Batman villain. They turn him into a Saw-like trap master which I found to be a great use of the character. This game gave me a new story in the Batman universe with unique takes on characters without feeling like they had to fit into the known existing quantity. And that’s why I was gripped by the story and ended up rating this particular Telltale game so highly – I love being surprised even if the skeletal framework is familiar.

My Strongest Memory:

I can’t really talk about it without spoiling the game. But there is a long build-up over the first four episodes of choices and how you treat a specific character in the game – and how you choose to deal with them has a significant impact on how episode 5 goes down. The final resolution is probably similar across both choices, but it’s about the journey not the destination (as are most Telltale games).

Needless to say, it’s the interactions with that character that really elevate this game to another level for me. Sorry for the vagueness.

Why It’s #97:

I waffled back and forth on whether to include this one at all. There were like five games that were fighting for this position as the first “new” game on the list (as the previous three have all been nostalgia-related picks from my previous 2018 list I felt I had to include no matter what). I bounced between a bunch but finally settled on this one because I couldn’t find a reason not to include it. All the others I remembered flaws or disappointments or reasons I could poke holes in the game. Batman: The Enemy Within doesn’t have any of those. It’s just a well-done story and that’s all there is to it.