Topic: What are your top 10 games of all time?

Couldn't find a thread on this topic so I thought I'd make one. What are your top 10 games of all time? Could be your favourites or the games you think are the best.

Mine are;

1. Zelda: Ocarina of Time
2. Zelda: Majora's Mask
3. Mario Galaxy
4. Breath of the Wild
5. Resident Evil 4
6. Super Smash Bros. Melee
7. Pokemon Leaf Green
8. Chrono Trigger
9. Super Mario 64
10. Zelda: The Wind Waker

Chrono Trigger would be higher if I can get around to beating the final boss and seeing the ending. But even from what I've played it is something special. The music, atmosphere and world building that game creates is beyond anything iv ever played.

In a semi-particular order:

1. Earthbound
2. Donkey Kong Countries 1, 2, & 3 (is that cheating to pick all 3? Oh well)
3. Shadow of the Colossus (Ps4 remake. Blew my mind. Immediately bought the soundtrack afterwords)
4. 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors
5. Rollercoaster Tycoon
6. Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
7. Animal Crossing: New Horizons
8. Super Mario Odyssey
9. Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney Trilogy
10. Catherine: Full Body

This list changes weekly, save for a few. Usually what defines a game as a favorite for me is if my enjoyment goes beyond the time I spend playing it. I own about 5 Mother/Earthbound albums, several shirts, and other fan made merch. I played it young and it shaped my personality. Or, for instance, after playing 999 (a visual novel/puzzle game) I started reading novels, including ones referenced in the game ( Vonnegut's 'Cat's Cradle').

Constantly changing in order but

1. Devil May Cry 3
2. Persona 3
3. Devil Survivor
4. Final Fantasy X
5. Marvel vs. Capcom 2
6. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
7. Marvel's Spider-Man
8. Bloodborne
9. God of War
10. Devil May Cry 5

Honorable mentions: Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, MGS2, Batman: Arkham City, Catherine/Full Body, Persona 2 Innocent Sin, Final Fantasy VII & IX, NiER Automata, Dark Souls III, Sekiro, DOOM 2016, Street Fighter III 3rd Strike, REmake 1 & 2, and Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic.

@TheFrenchiestFry I forgot Devil Survivor! That'll be on mine next week.

@Losermagnet In terms of my tier ranking for MegaTen, my highest tier is usually reserved for Devil Survivor, Persona 2/3 and the Digital Devil Saga duology. That game is one of the few I consider truly flawless

1. Metroid Prime
2. Super Smash Bros. Melee
3. The Orange Box
4. Paper Mario
5. Mother 3
6. Star Fox 64
7. Majora's Mask
8. Super Mario Galaxy
9. Xenoblade Chronicles
10. Banjo Kazooie

Those bottom 5 could be replaced with at least 10 other games depending on my mood.

We did have a top 15 games of all time thread somewhat recently:
https://www.nintendolife.com/forums/other_gaming/top_15_games...
It is a few months old, but the most recent reply is from a few weeks ago so it's still somewhat relevant.

@Cynas turns out i put my top 15 on that thread, and it's actually very similar to the one i posted here. Maybe my favorite games don't change as often as I think.

I did remember to put Devil Survivor on that one, at least.

@TheFrenchiestFry it really is fantastic. That was the one that made me realize I need to get more SMT games.

I also forgot Dark Souls. I played it for the first time recently and yup, I get the hype.

In no particular order and with a self rule of just one for franchise it is:

The Witcher 3
Final fantasy VII
Super Mario 64
Sonic & Knucles
Xenoblade Chronicles 2
Mafia
Command&conquer: red Alert
Link to the Past
Tomb Raider
Metroid zero mission

@Losermagnet I typically say my list changes quite a bit too but I think my list is mostly the same as what I put in the other thread. There are a few I'd probably switch out though. I just played 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim recently and that honestly might make the top 10, although that could just be recency bias.

Mine changes all the time, there should be a fighting game on this list but I couldn't pick between Mortal Kombat X, King of Fighters XIV, Samurai Shodown and Guilty Gear Xrd

1. Final Fantasy VII + Remake
2. Metroid Prime Trilogy
3. Super Mario Galaxy
4. Bayonetta 2
5. Sin and Punishment 2
6. Mario Kart 8
7. Zelda a link to the Past
8. Fallout New Vegas
9. Mass Effect
10. Journey

Not in order but:
1. Kid Icarus Uprising
2. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
3. Roblox (I know no one still plays that game, but It is just Stupid fun, buggy mess so it is on here. Also the game was my childhood so...)
4. Kirby (All of them)
5: AC:NH
6: Fire Emblem Three Houses
7: DKC (All of them)
8: Any good fighting game (I just don't like the mature ones)
9: Breath of the wild
10: Tetris (all of them except the classic ones)

No order specifically but mine is:

• Final Fantasy X
• Final Fantasy VII (original)
• Xenoblade Chronicles: DE
• Xenoblade Chronicles 2
• Dragon Quest XI
• World of Warcraft
• Metal Gear Solid 3
• Metal Gear Solid 4
• Kingdom Hearts
• Kingdom Hearts 2

Im basically an RPG guy 😂

The ordering is mostly arbitrary. Also, I have more of a top 20 than a top 10, so hard choices were made to wittle this list down.

10) Resident Evil ("REmake") (GC) - My favorite GameCube game, and probably the most visually attractive game of that generation. This game took the hokey, cheesy original and COMPLETELY transformed it into something elegant and atmospheric. What I really liked about this remake, as opposed to something like more recent RE remakes, is how, despite the almost complete transformation of the game on a visual and tonal level, it still maintains the same basic gameplay as the original. This is a perfect fusion of classic game design with newer hardware grunt to revitalize a classic.

9) Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward (3DS) - A story that could arguably only ever be fully realized in a video game, VLR is a masterful combination of postmodernist narrative techniques, engaging psycho-drama (your character and a group of other, ostensibly unrelated people are trapped together in a literal Prisoner's Dillemma game, where the ultimate end result of repeated betrayals is death), fantastic escape room puzzle gameplay, and an engaging structure that encourages the player to keep playing in order to uncover better endings.

8) Corpse Party (PSP) - The original indie game, the history of this creepy classic extends back to the 90s. It's amazing how far evocative writing and effective binaural sound design can take a game. The plot doesn't stray too far from classic J-horror tropes, but it's how effectively it utilizes those tropes to create a memorable nightmare that makes me love the game so much. It's worth mentioning that the 3DS port is the definitive version of the game, though, even if I'll always mentally associate it with the PSP version, which, to my knowledge, was the first one to actually make it overseas.

7) Silent Hill (PS1) - IMO, this is still one of the scariest games ever made. The bleak, fog-ridden environment is one of the great marriages of artistic vision with technical limitation (the fog was primarily designed to hide the draw distance of the town you can run around and explore), Akira Yamaoka's soundtrack is otherworldly and spooky as hell, and I think anyone can relate to the desperation of a father trying to find his daughter in what amounts to Hell on Earth. The sequel has a better plot and characters, but I prefer the purer, more oppressive horror atmosphere of the original.

6) Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony (Vita) - I initially had a bit of a tough time getting into this climactic entry in the series, but, for my money, it's the best game in the series overall, with some of the best trial writing, the second best cast of characters, a rather brave and thought-provoking ending, and an astonishing amount of original post-game content.

5) Cuphead (PC) - My all-time favorite boss rush and action-platformer game. Even putting aside the game's jaw-dropping presentation, it controls perfectly and has some insanely creative boss encounters. It's a game I can play over and over again without ever tiring of.

4) Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalyse (3DS) - A controversial entry for mainline SMT fans, primarily for its prevalence of anime tropes, humor, and comparative lack of atmosphere when put up against entries like Nocturne and SMTIV. While it's certainly the odd duck out in the SMT family, though, it also features one of the most satisfying, polished, and well-balanced campaigns in the entire series. I also happen to like its main cast a lot. For me, it combines the strong character appeal and humor of Persona with the difficulty and brilliant mechanics of SMT to create something truly remarkable.

3) The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Switch) - My first Switch game, and still my favorite title on the system. BotW takes the idea of an open-world adventure game and approaches it from a completely fresh direction. The world itself is completely open to the player, who can explore it in any way they choose. The world itself is designed to constantly draw the player's attention to landmarks or curiosities that make it consistently engaging. BotW ditches the icon and side-activity mania of almost every other open world title in favor of making the world itself something constantly surprising and interactive. It's a world you have to SURVIVE. BotW also ingeniously ties narrative progression into exploration, tasking the player with finding particular locations illustrated in pictures that allow Link to remember what happened in the distant past, before Hyrule was destroyed. This is a game that impressed and delighted me in every way.

2) Final Fantasy VII (PS1) - Not quite my first JRPG (that'd be Phantasy Star II), but it was the game that made me fall in love with the genre, and that introduced me, more broadly, to the wide world of PS1 JRPGs. It's also the first game that really engaged me with its story. It has aged quite a bit, and I admit a lot of its appeal to me is nostalgia, but I still think it's one of the best games ever released, a true blockbuster that helped to define a console generation.

1) Super Mario Galaxy (Wii) - My favorite Nintendo game of all time to date: a near-perfect fusion of creative platforming, balanced level design, gorgeous music, and a surprisingly melancholy mood that helps to balance the joyful wonder of it all. This is also the game that made me a Nintendo fan when I played it.

Given that we had one of these quite recently, I'll just copy and paste my answer. It's more or less still the same. I haven't had any major changes of opinion since then:

1. Final Fantasy 9
2. Final Fantasy 7 (loved Remake too but need to see the whole series before really rating it)
3. Ocarina of Time
4. Witcher 3
5. Xenoblade Chronicles
6. Mario Galaxy 2
7. Dark Souls
8. Half-life 2
9. Mass Effect 2
10. Final Fantasy 6

@Ralizah You're the only other person I've seen mention a Zero Escape series game (I included Virtue's Last Reward in my top 15, evidently). Can I ask what your thoughts were on Zero Time Dilemma?

@Losermagnet

I platinumed it on Vita after getting it at launch.

It's... fine on its own merits. Not as good as 999/VLR, the 3D models they opted for in ZTD are stiff and uncanny (they probably were in VLR, too, but ZTD is designed to play out like a TV show or movie in terms of its presentation, so their shortcomings are vastly more apparent), and the characterization of various returning personalities is inconsistent at best, but if you like the combination of mystery and puzzles in previous games, that basic structure is still present. Some of its ending twists are really quite bizarre and don't land like the rather shocking twists in 999/VLR, unfortunately.

It's even worse as a follow-up to VLR. It answers very few questions posed by VLR's true ending and mainly just piles on new mysteries that will never be answered. It's also significantly shorter, and the jumbled-up chronology of its events make it so that storylines feel uneven at times.

The one thing it really has going for me is that I liked the really brutal horror vibe of the game. If VLR felt cerebral and science-fictioney, like Cube or some of Cronenberg's work, then ZTD feels more like Saw, where people are forced into making horrifying and impossible decisions that often involve insanely painful execution methods.

I think it's a fun time if you lower your expectations and treat it like an interactive exploitation film.

thats a great comparison. I got it on 3DS at release (got the amazon preorder watch too, eventually) and, after coming to accept its obvious flaws, I enjoyed it. It's a bit of a letdown that it didn't cap off the trilogy in a satisfying way. I wonder if Uchikoshi had difficulty with ZTD; 999 and VLR had so many ideas and narratives, ZTD felt like mostly surface-level detail and creating a more visceral, violent atmosphere. When it got crazy I was still enjoying it.

I try to keep an eye out for other Uchikoshi games, but when I tried A.I. The Somnium Files it didn't really stick with me. I only played one story "thread" and I didn't feel much compulsion to go back.

1) Super Mario World
2) Super Mario Galaxy 1 and 2
3) The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
4) Sonic 3 & Knuckles
5) Super Metroid
6) Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
7) Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
8) Super Smash Bros. Melee
9) Mega Man X
10) Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Man this was tough to make. Basically I tried to narrow it down to all the games I played extensively and to just a few games per franchise, at most. The hard part was the ordering - I pretty much like all the games on my list equally! And yes, I cheated a bit and put SMG 1 and 2 on the same spot.

And it doesn't stop there. I could EASILY put Super Mario 3D World or Super Mario Odyssey in place of the SMG games, they're that good. Would do the same thing for Sonic Mania in lieu of S3&K, Mega Man X4 instead of MMX1, and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate in place of SSBM.

There's been so many fantastic games I've played over the years it's nearly impossible to whittle it down to 10.

Off the top of my head Final Fantasy X, Super Mario Galaxy, Zelda: Twilight Princess, Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (w/Torna), Dragon Quest VIII, Metroid Fusion, Astral Chain, Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Final Fantasy VII Remake, and God of War 2018, but ask me again in a week, lol.