EB Minion's Top 25 Games of All Time
by EB Minion

Before graduating from high school, I took on a great personal gaming challenge for myself; I went back to the days of old-school Sega gaming and I beat all of the Phantasy Star games in order. I'd never done it before, and in fact the only game I'd actually played back when I first had a Sega was Phantasy Star IV, and even then I didn't beat it. Hell, I didn't even get to the first Dark Force! So deciding to do this was an undertaking of great importance. So when Phantasy Star appears on this list, I'm not referring to the first game, I'm referring to the entire series.

Of course, Phantasy Star IV was clearly the best of the group. Its method of story delivery was the best of any of the games, the battle system was crisp and involving, its setting was damned original and it successfully wrapped up a four (or three, depending on if you count PSIII or not) part game series as completely as possible. But that's also why I include the other three games in this. Phantasy Star IV was a conclusive finale, but it would never have had the impact it did if none of the previous games were made.

I remember watching the final credits roll by in Phantasy Star IV, eventually leading to "THE END," as the music came to a fade and a still image remained on the screen. I found I couldn't just shut off the game just yet. I'd just reached the end of a saga. It took a long time to absorb that it really was the end. It wasn't too long ago that I was cruising through the Algol star system for the first time, killing that bastard Lassic and freeing the planet from his tyrannical grasp, and then destroying the dark force behind Lassic's corruption. And then jumping a thousand years into the future, witnessing the corruption of the system driven by technology, once again fighting against a force that threatened Algol. And then finding myself on the world-ships that had fled Parma before its ultimate destruction, a thousand years of culture and technology forgotten. Every time, there was another story, and I was somebody different. There were always new allies, and always the story managed to progress.




Here we go, an actual obscure title you're not likely to have heard of unless you randomly scope Japan-only RPGs. Live-A-Live was one of those treasures for the SNES that never made it out of Japan, which is both predictable and a giant shame. It wasn't your standard RPG by any means. When I first got the ROM, as recommended to me by a friend, I wasn't sure what to expect from it either, but the result was well worth playing.

Okay, get this. You play through seven different scenarios in the game. Each scenario is a different character and a different time period. The choices you're given for scenario basically gave me absolutely everything I'd ever wanted to play as in an RPG but never actually got to: Cowboy! Caveman! Giant robot! And there's frankly a lot more than those concerned, but deal with more typical fare. You got your ninjas and street fighters and psychics, too, and they're all very likeable characters. But the game goes beyond giving you a wide variety of characters, and also provides a great deal of different gameplay. You'll be playing a stealth mission to avoid enemy contact in one game, and in another the game parodies a fighting game. The varied experiences really help to keep the gameplay fresh.

Why this game kicks ass: The style. Live-A-Live's central theme is good versus evil, life versus death, and you find touches of that popping up in every scenario. But what's startling about it is how maturely this conflict is portrayed. By the time I reached the game's climax, I was thoroughly moved. If you perform the right conditions beforehand, the game's ending is the most exciting, fist-pumpingly awesome collection of denouements ever. Lordy LORD do I wish this'd get Americanized and ported to the DS.

Also, it's still the only game that ever let me pilot a giant robot of mass destruction. That alone is worth the cost of admission.



Now THIS was a bizarre little game that had me confused as a kid. Look at that title! Back in the day, there was no way I could remember that whole title, so whenever I rented it from the store, the only way I could find it was by looking for the game with dancing cloves on the cover. Because it is a game where a vampire kid in a cape and hat fights walking vegetables and cat girls.

Awesome points: Hat and cape! Even if Spike was a vampire, I didn't really want to play a game where you suck people's blood, so an action-RPG where you knock enemies silly using only a cap and a hat was pretty cool in my book.

Easy RPG! This was the first RPG I ever managed to beat. Back when I only lived to play video games, there were very few games I managed to beat, and RPGs with their sprawling world maps and all-encompassing storylines were very daunting for me. But when I played Spike McFang, it was a dream come true. The game has a lot of potential plot, the sort of thing a kid could play with in his head for a while, but never anything too heavy to absorb. It was light-hearted and simple, easy to get behind.

Beating the game was probably the coolest part about it. The enemies are fairly non-threatening at first; the aforementioned cloves and cat-girls and whatnot. The boss fights aren't much better, as they come in the form of giant trees and lieutenant cat girls. But as the game progresses, the enemy that you're fighting takes on a more serious nature, and really builds the game up in a way that I thought was the coolest thing ever. When the Iceman cometh, he actually sacrifices himself to save Spike and the others, keeping them from going down with the rest of the Ice Castle. General Von Hessler's right-hand man is a woman who loyally infused herself with dark powers to accommodate her master. And of course Von Hessler himself, the vampire bastard who'd begun the war against the 3 vampiric nations of the world, boasted the most fiendish wicked magics and 16 whole bars of life and a second form. Truly badass.

The final battle will stick with me forever. I was 6 levels short, and so the enemy's attacks were terrifyingly effective and mine were pitifully weak. Jump, Spike! Hide behind that alcove! Throw your hat through the wall at him! DODGE THE LIGHTNING! Surely it was a fight that lasted me an entire hour before I finally defeated Von Hessler, returning him to his senses with hope of a renewed peace and prosperity for all.

Spike and I were heroes that day. I can only wonder if he still remembers those days we spent jumping over logs and innocently popping balloons with the hat-throw.



This is another game where I give homage not to the specific game in the title, but rather to the series. Specifically, the original Sonic the Hedgehog games on the Genesis, from the first straight on to Sonic and Knuckles.

The game was always fun to play, when I wasn't getting killed by suddenly running onto spikes or getting hit without any rings or falling into bottomless holes in the ground. But what I always enjoyed most was getting to the boss. It was always Robotnik, so the game developers had to come up with a bajillion different gimmicks to his vehicle that you had to fight in every game. Getting to see what they came up with next was (sadly) the highlight of my childhood gaming experiences.

Now of course the boss fight was the highlight of playing through the levels, but I think it was really a lot more than that, too. Sega did an excellent job of upping the ante every single game. In Sonic 1, the showdown was in the deepest part of Eggman's mechanical hellpit, you against his electric lasers and giant crushing death pistons. Getting caught in those damn things was instakill and committing their jittery timing to memory was your only hope of survival.

Sonic 2, Robotnik starts getting creative from the start. I mean, first boss fight he's trying to run Sonic down with a car with a drill attached to the front. Good LORD he must want that hedgehog dead. Or maybe he was just getting crazier. God knows that entire Casino Night Zone didn't bring his sanity into any greater clarity. Still, this game shot higher than the original game quite literally. Sonic lays siege to Robotnik's giant air fortress and flies after him into space, then fights a mechanical clone of himself... and then a slick Robotnikish giant robot with giant detachable flying spikes for arms. Duuuuude. The music for the last segment of the game alone is worth playing, the final boss is probably the most memorable final boss music I've ever heard, and the ending themes are just wonderful. That montage at the end? With Tails flying to help Sonic? Pure awesome.

Then came Sonic 3 and Sonic and Knuckles and holy CRAP the levels are huge. I don't think I've ever fully mapped out even one of em. But the boss designs step up yet again and the death machines get bigger, more detailed and waaaayyy more capable of kicking an unprepared newb in the face. Sonic and Knuckles really was the last classic Sonic game; once you've fought the end bosses of THOSE levels, how do you step up from there? The final incarnation of the robot-shaped-like-Eggman was clearly a hundred times bigger than Sonic and the final battle was in space, the planet clearly displayed in the background. Whoa.

Chasing him down to take back that Master Emerald was the final desperate struggle. You really knew that once you finally caught Eggman, there was no way he was coming back. He was really throwing everything he had at you, his only tactic left being to stall Sonic until his rings run out. But you could see the struggle, and actually being able to see that expressed in the gameplay really was just the crowning moment of the Sonic the Hedgehog series. Rest in peace, you fat bastard.



Mario RPGs are always good. I think by now this is a proven fact. There's nothing cooler than seeing evil be trounced by, of all things, a plumber in overalls. But the Mario and Luigi saga clearly stands out by boasting not one, but TWO plumbers. This is a guaranteed formula for awesome. For one thing, it's one of the few games where Luigi is on equal ground with Mario as far as gameplay goes. And for another, Nintendo hasn't stopped remembering how to create an involving battle system since the first days of the original Super Mario RPG. Every single battle is punctuated by me actually being able to actively defend against enemy attacks, and I love it.

But this isn't why the game kicks ass, though that certainly helps. No, it's definitely got to be how the enemies in the Mario & Luigi games are bigger, nastier and way more evil than what you're going to find in any of the normal canon. Villages are slaughtered, innocent people are hurt, and the bad guy always seems to be one step ahead of you. And then you take those suckers out by jumping on their heads repeatedly and smashing their toes with hammers.

Now don't get me started on how indescribably cool it was, teaming up with Baby Mario and baby Luigi. Performing team attacks with those four was just a damage orgy I can't describe with words alone. And they went up against an entire planet's armada and came out the other side shining. If nothing else, it really boosts Mario's reputation as an honest-to-god hero whenever he shows up in an RPG. Oh, and Luigi too.