MooMan1's Top 25 Games of All Time
by MooMan1

Strongest Point: All the balance work they did to fix up the issues from Red/Blue. They introduced the Dark and Steel types, split the special stat, stopped making so many god damned poison pokemon (~33 in RBY, making them the most populous type), broke up the bag into pockets, etc.

I'm a gigantic Pokenerd. I've played every single generation of the pokemon games through at least twice, if not more (thanks to emulation, I probably played RBY at least five times, probably many more). I own Pokemon Diamond for Christ's sake, and I plan to buy both Pokemon Platnium and the Silver remake they're making for most likely the DS. They caught me hook line and sinker on the franchise, and for good reason: they're fun damn games. I don't care what you say about cutesy or kiddie, they're great goddamn games, the best of which were (in this man's opinion) Gold and Silver. The balancing they did for the series was so much it deserves mention twice. In RBY, Psychic was the wonder type. Effectively no weakness (the strongest move they were weak to was effectively ~50 power, and all of two pokemon learned it), only one type resisted it (other Psychics), and the aforementioned proliferation of Poison types all combined to make it too good NOT to have on a team. GSC changed that by making Dark, one of the two types introduced, completely immune to Psychic, as well as making Psychic weak to it. In addition, it was not until DP (I believe) that any useful Psychic learned a move that hit Dark super-effective. The second type resisted Phychic as well. They colored everything, added 100 varied and sundry pokes, made it a bigger game, introduced the day/night cycle... the list goes on. Every game after this followed in its footsteps by adding a ton more, but it's felt very gimmicky. GSC added enough to change things major, but not enough to do that, and that is what makes it great. My one gripe is that they introduced the "wandering legendary" archetype here: a legendary that doesn't have the God damn dignity to stand around and be caught, so they run around the fields of the game until you run into them. There's been at least one in every game since, even the RB remakes that didn't have one in the first place.


Strongest Point: The class system. Things called Djinn come in four elements and can be set to characters to influence their class, which affects everything but the equipment they're allowed to equip.
,br/> Another solid JRPG, this time with a story that's actually worth the paper it may have been written on. It starts from the first game as fairly standarrd "those gize are bad, kill them to save the world", until you hit the second game and you realize that the bad guys from the first game were really aiming to save the world, and you were stopping them. It's a really great story that manages to have SOME level of restraint and even manages to leave a few loose ends unrelated to the plot (i.e. Sheba's origin story, which is never resolved ingame, but you can piece it together on your own). Battle's nothing special, attack block magic, but there are Summons and Djinn to liven things up. Djinn are set to a character to strengthen them and influence their stats and available magic. You can use them in battle as a stronger attack, but it sets the Djinn to standby, which means it isn't strengthening your character. You can use standby'd Djinn, however, to Summon, which is exactly what it sounds like. The graphics are incredible (and GS1 was a launch title to boot), and the music was done by the massively talented Motoi Sakuraba, the guy behind such scores as Valkyrie Profile and the entire Tales of series. speaking of which...

ALSO: as the screenshot demonstrates, I am a gigantic nerd. Felix, Jenna and Piers' namesakes are pretty obvious, but bonus points if you know what Arisu is from.


Strongest Point: Zelos Wilder. He's a lech, funny, self-absorbed, and still manages to be one of the most complex characters in the game. Also, you can kill him if you know what you're doing. Members of the party have been offed since that one Phantasy Star entry whose number escapes me, but how many party members have died at the party's own collective hand?

Tales of Symphonia is most notable to most of the world because it was the first truly great RPG to grace that little box of games, the Cube. I remember it because it's fucking awesome. Battles are fun as hell (what a thought!), what with the whole action battle system or whatnot. There are eight characters, six of which are technically viable to play as (although you'll only truly excel with maybe four). The plot, if you forget about the relation of the twists to the disc you're on, is quite surprising, with about four attemped huge twists in the game, the best of which is Lloyd's +20 bluff skill scene. There's a ton of stuff to do, and when the fights are as fun as they are in Symphonia, it makes you want to do it all. It's like Grandia II, only better (and I can say that because I finally played the game).


Strongest Point: Fuck, I don't remember shit about those games.

This game got me my Genesis, and with it, Sonic. It's really a funny story. One day, I was sitting around in my grade school's after school program, when one of the teachers, of all people, comes around asking for help in her copy of Donky Kong Land. Me being the vidya-starved child that I was, I accepted, and handily defeated the first boss for her, the area of her troubles. Over the course of six months or so, I ended up beating all her copies of Donkey Kong Land (she had all three), and I gave some help to Wario Land II on the side. Ultimately, she gave me the Genny she'd been lugging around in her trunk for years that one of her ex-boyfriends gave her. The rest, as they say, is history.


Strongest Point: Unleashing a perfect storm of several hundred projectiles and chugging the Dreamcast's framerate into oblivion.

Fuck yes Treasure, you are the greatest producers of shmups ever! Bangai-O is Treasure's loving take on both the arena shooter and giant robot anime. It's an arena shmup, only it's played from the side instead of the top, introducing gravity to the mix. There are two types of attacks, homing missiles and reflector shots. The best part, and the part that makes it truly epic, however, are the (for lack of a better term) super attacks. Press R, and your robot releases about 20 projectiles onto the screen. Your proximity to enemy fire, however, multiplies this, until you hit the cap of 400 (!!!) projectiles onscreen. Needless to say, this kind of firepower chugs even the mightiest of consoles. THe N64 version can get down to ~4 FPS for a good 30 seconds if you know what you're doing, and even the Dreamcast feels the burn, getting down to about 20 if things get especially hairy. It's this kind of thing that makes the game worth playing.