Favourites (Then and Now Edition)

I'll roll with my top ten, because it's a nice round number that isn't too big or too small. Trying to do my Top 5 would probably reduce me to an incoherent mess for several hours as I tried to decide what to make my fourth and fifth.

1. Xenoblade Chronicles
2. Tales of Berseria
3. Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana
4. Final Fantasy XII
5. Disgaea 4: A Promise Revisited
6. Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition
7. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Blue Rescue Team
8. The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (the original)
9. Dragon Quest Builders 2
10. Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate

If I had answered this a couple of years ago...honestly, I don't think there would have been any changes. Maybe I would have placed them in a different order, but...well, whilst I play a lot of video games and I enjoy most of what I play, it takes a hell of a lot for a game to enter into my top ten and stay there. A lot of them are reinforced by negative experiences with the franchises they're part of, too. Tales of Arise was an atrocious game and reminded me of just how good Berseria was...I have a very hard time deciding whether I prefer Berseria to Xenoblade sometimes. Honestly, my top three have been unchanged since I first played Ys VIII in 2018. The most recent game in there is Dragon Quest Builders 2, from 2019. I am being very specific with Xenoblade by not adding "Definitive Edition" because whilst I appreciate the visual upgrade and small QoL improvements in that iteration, I did not like Future Connected at all.

It's partly nostalgia for the older games on that list, yes, but these are also games I replay regularly, and I enjoy them every time I do replay them. I often think about replaying them when I can't decide what I want to do. I am always making time and plans to squeeze in a replay of at least one of those titles in any given year. Except for Dragon Quest Builders 2 at time of writing (and I'm just waiting for a sale before I buy it on Steam) I have bought them all at least twice on different platforms in some form (I've actually triple-dipped on Xenoblade, FFXII, Hyrule Warriors, and Link's Awakening, and I've bought Disgaea 4 FOUR times now, on PS3, Vita, Switch, and Steam) and I've done everything there is to do in all of them. Disgaea 4's Vita Platinum is actually one of my proudest gaming achievements, because I loved every second of it and I can't wait to do it again on Steam in the near future.

Also, there's a...recency bias, I guess? I've been having cravings to replay some of those games recently. Tales of Symphonia, Pokemon HeartGold, NieR, and Final Fantasy VIII are all conspicuosly absent from that list (they wouldn't be if it was a top fifteen!) but with the former two I didn't have very positive experiences the last time I played them, and I just haven't played FFVIII since at least ten years ago. It's been so long I don't even remember. NieR...I honestly didn't enjoy the PS4 version as much as I did the PS3 version. I liked old NieR more. If/when I play FFVIII again it might creep back into that list if I think about it again. If they ever make a Monster Hunter title better than Generations Ultimate that'll go in there in its stead...although if they keep making games like World and Rise I can't see that ever happening. If there's a Dragon Quest Builders 3 I can see that going in there, too.

My list has been pretty static for a long time, though. When you've played so many games, it takes a lot for something to really leap out at you as special.
 
I'm not sure if I would have many changes either. The core of the games I love are still pretty fundamental to me and nothing has really come out that's surpassed those. Not that I haven't played any good games! But the ones that really impacted me were:
Spoiler:

Looking at that list and how old some of the games were, I think some, if not the majority, of my favorites are most definitely the same.
 
I think my TOP10 list changed a little bit over the last 2-3 years, but other than that, it has been basically same for the past decade.

  1. Portal 2
  2. Heroes of Might & Magic 4
  3. Gothic
  4. Kingdom Come: Deliverance
  5. Spyro 2: Gateway To Glimmer
  6. Amnesia: The Dark Descent
  7. Dragon Age: Origins
  8. The Binding of Isaac
  9. Mount & Blade
  10. Dark Souls
 
I've kinda always had a hard time nailing down a definitive (let alone ordered) list of my favorite anything, but figured I'd take a crack at it anyway. In no particular order and of no especially nice number, I think that of the games I've played my top would be something like:

-Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door
-Fire Emblem Path of Radiance+Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn
-Phantasy Star Online
-Tales of Symphonia
-Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate
-I've played 7 Souls/Souls-like games and while 2 of those I can fairly confidently say are the bottom 2 of the 7, that still leaves how I'm still trying to order the remaining 5, but the #1 would get this spot
-the Xenosaga trilogy
-Xenoblade Chronicles X
-Persona 5
-The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim

there's certainly been some changes over the years though but fuck if I can remember what it would've been at various points
 
Currently my list is roughly

- The Last of Us
- Final Fantasy X
- Fire Emblem: Three Houses
- Finding Paradise
- To the Moon
- Final Fantasy VI
- Orwell: Keeping an Eye on You
- Pokemon Legends: Arceus
- Orwell: Ignorance is Strength
- Genshin Impact

There's some other strong contenders like Final Fantasy IX, other Pokmon titles and Impostor Factory, but I think this is a solid ten. My favourites have evolved a lot over the years. There's a few consistencies - TLoU and FFX are still the top two slots and there's still a Pokemon title in there - but it's otherwise changed a lot over the past three-five years. I only really got into gaming in that time period, so I've played a lot more games recently compared to a long way back and naturally that's broadened my horizons and given me a much wider catalogue to choose from.
 
Most of my core favorites have stayed the same. I still love Elite Beat Agents, Persona 5, Pokémon Black 2, Shovel Knight, Ace Attorney Investigations 2, among others. Persona 4 Golden dropped from it though.

I revisited the game recently and it doesn't hold up. Once you know who the twist villain is you start to realize how poorly written the mystery is. It's a shame since the individual character arcs are better than a lot of people make them out to be. Some songs in the soundtrack are a bit grating and never reached their full potential until the Reincarnation album was made. Others like the outstanding Nevermore are only played once. Gameplay wise it's an improvement from the painfully overrated Persona 3, but it's nowhere near as good as Persona 5. Regular enemy encounters are often too easy once you know their weakness and bosses drag on for way too long. Certain rewards for completing confidants completely ruin the game's balance and make the game too easy. The one thing about this game that has held up though is the atmosphere and setting. As someone who lived in a small town with little to do for several years, Inaba feels like a real place. The main hangout is the supermarket, you have to go to the nearest larger town just to do certain things, and you see the same people in public regularly. They also captured the early 2010s perfectly. Playing the game for the first time made me nostalgic for the year it's set in. I imagine that feeling will only grow over time. I still like the game overall, but it's not in my top ten anymore.

Otherwise all that's changed with my favorites is that I've branched out and tried more games that really blew me away. Anodyne 2, Trails of Cold Steel IV, The House in Fata Morgana, Xenoblade Chronicles 3, Xenoblade Chronicles 1, Beat Saber, American/Euro Truck Simulator 2, and Tales of Berseria have all blown me away recently. They're all in my all time favorites now and I doubt that will change.
 
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