Rudie’s Top 100 Video Games

Final Fantasy XV

PS4, Square Enix, 2016

At the core of Final Fantasy XV (FFXV) is a relationship between four men that feels real. They are really friends and I’m going to see their friendship for 50 hours. They are going to drive across miles of highways listening to every possible Final Fantasy soundtrack. They are going to fight near incomprehensible battles for almost comprehensible reasons. It is a game about hanging out with four boys and seeing them being bros. I enjoyed it all the way through.

Why anything is happening for the entire length of the game is not something the game wants to stop and explain to the player. It is Square-Enix coming out of the nosedive that was the ps360 generation and the game is filled with every dumb idea someone had. There is beautiful food to look at. One of the boys takes pictures randomly throughout the game and you get to look at them at chapter ends. There is blatant real world branding of things that I, in the real world, could buy.

The friendship is what stays with me. When one of them has a breakdown, the others are there to tell them it is okay. There is a moment midway through the game,  on a moving train, that brings together Square-Enix’s excess and Nomura’s angsty-cool-bullshit into a quiet moment of emotional honesty. 

NiGHTS ~into Dreams~

Saturn, Sonic Team, 1996

I still don’t understand NiGHTS Into Dreams, despite playing it for 20 years. I don’t care. I find drifting through its floating rings to collect blue orbs to make a jellyfish explode activating bonus time until I pass the checkpoint and start the process over again compelling. Of course it failed in comparison to Sonic The Hedgehog, did you read that explanation?

It is a beautiful game with astounding music. I’m throwing Christmas NiGHTS in this entry with its pile of unlockables and bevy of different holiday flavors. You either think NiGHTS is great or inexplicable; in my case it’s both, and the poetry of video games.

Immortality

PC, Sam Barlow, 2022

An actress appeared in 3 movies and then disappeared. I am tasked with just looking over the incomplete mixed footage of the movies. I click on things on screen to be transported to a different scene from any of the 3 movies. I hone down what object or person to click. The whole time I make judgments about what is happening. 

I was shocked how often my judgment was subverted or proven wrong. There is no game over. I am just reviewing and selecting footage. I can fast-forward and rewind. My opinion changes. That is incredible. I review more footage. Eventually the credits are shown. I can still look for more footage though the game is also saying I should make my own judgments at this point. It doesn’t want me to be a completionist.

Yakuza Zero

PS4, Ryu Ga Gotoku Studios, 2017

I’ve been playing this series since the US Release of Yakuza 1 on PS2. I’ve played through multiple entries completely in Japanese, regardless of if I was at a level to understand them or not. I am telling you Yakuza Zero because it is The One To Play. It’ll get you into the door. Feel no need to play all of them. I’ve played them annually for almost twenty years. 

Trying to consume these small scale big world Japan-simulacrum punching simulators in a row would only destroy you. If perhaps you play too many of them then find yourself in Kabukicho, then you might find reality breaking around, waiting for a random street fight or a betrayal by your Yakuza boss.

You can stop the story at any time and do a near endless pile of side-content. The game will indeed force the side content into your face. Relax and play the game at your own pace. Enjoy bubble economy in all its absurd briefness.

Shanghai 2

PC Engine CD, Hudson Soft, 1990

In 2023, I helped select button dot net catalog, in English, every single PC Engine/Turbografx 16 game ever released. I still can’t believe we did it . I played a lot of games because of this.

What I played more of than a lot of those other games was Shanghai. I fell in love with Shanghai. I love this matching game played with Mahjong tiles arranged in a beautiful pattern. I play it constantly. It is a default video game for me now. I keep the game on mute. Shanghai 2 for the PC Engine has clean readable tiles. I listen to music. I play two or three games. Time passes. Shanghai will now stay with me for the rest of my life.

Seirei Senshi Spriggan

PC Engine CD, Compile, 1991

The Secret of Monkey Island

PC, Lucasarts, 1990

The Secret of Monkey Island begins with the credits. This way, I know who wrote all the devious puzzles and hilarious jokes I am about to see. It remains the second funniest game I’ve ever played. Many games following The Secret of Monkey Island (including the sequels) try to copy The Secret of Monkey Island by just copying the jokes.

When the jokes are successful, it’s  because they are new and stand alone. They are funny within and without context. Man without a jacket trying to sell jackets that he also clearly doesn’t have. The reward for a tourist trap being a tourist trap. A man with a pin asking me to ask him about Loom. 

And the puzzles are clever. The developers had played Sierra adventure games and want to make sure I have a good time. The solutions have a logic even if the logic is only seen in retrospect. And it has the best lesson of them all: never pay more than 20 bucks for a computer game.

Ys Book I and II

PC Engine CD, Hudson Soft and Falcom, 1990

Ys 1 is so speedy. Leveling and grinding takes minutes. The bosses take more strategy than I would think but also let me know when I’m not strong enough. It has a delightful level of video game bullshit. The bump combat is sharper than you can imagine. The final level is the 26 story Darm Tower. I will max my level midway through and still must become stronger before the end.

Then the game drops me in Ys 2 which is filled with truly fiendish dungeons with teleports and traps and limited visibility. Both games are around six hours. Adol Christian’s adventures have never been better than the first two.

Dark Souls

PS3, FromSoftware, 2011

Dark Souls is video games realized. I descend from a castle town, dodging fire breathing dragons and the shambling undead to an impossibly deep swamp under a sewer system. I then take the road back to the castle town to a new golden city, past dangerous and trap filled forest and fortress. 

The game is simultaneously filled with complete bullshit and perfectly beatable if I take my time or change my way of thinking. Maybe I can just throw firebombs at the boss, or shoot arrows, or roll around like a maniac. It is a comedy when a giant bowling ball crushes me, or the poison saps my life before I can heal. That I take one step too far and fall to my death.

It is about embracing failure and perseverance. I find it amazing that I had so much trouble with my first playthrough (down to breaking a controller (not proud.)) This year, I did a complete playthrough almost casually. I am not saying I Became Great at the game, so much as I understood the rhythms. Sometimes I just have to run. Other times I do have to Become Great. 

While playing other video games, I find myself thinking about the ghost filled flooded city, or a library-prison covered in deadly crystals or two giant emotionless Knights guarding the halfway point of the game. It is shocking how many amazing things are buried in Dark Souls. And it is waiting for you to Become Great and find them.

Steins;Gate Zero

Vita, 5pb, 2015

Steins;Gate, for me, started as a joke because a podcast would not shut up as if it was the Great Japanese Visual Novel. That game is about time-traveling to erase moe from Akihabara while trying to outsmart the guys that run the Large Hadron Collider to prevent World War 3, all from some otaku loser’s shitty clubhouse. My opinion about it has improved, and one day I’ll write proper thoughts about it.

Zero, however, reduced me to tears multiple times. In visual novel language, it is the bad ending sequel to Steins;Gate. I played after experiencing too much loss of loved ones. In Zero, the main character has abandoned pretending he is a mad scientist. He reset time before all the shenanigans of the first game but lost a loved one in the process, a loved one who no one remembers. 

How much someone meant to me is internal. What I could have said, what I could have done plays endlessly until eventually I myself will die. The pain of their loss fades away, which is a separate pain in and of itself. 

What would happen if that person suddenly re-entered my life, and yet did not remember me? This game handles that science-fiction question as well as any media I’ve experienced. I broke down into a puddle in the first 4 hours. 

It goes on from there in a way I didn’t think possible; I was cheering at the ending of this anime-garbage. The characters had won me over. When one particularly annoying character reappears at the end, I felt a surprising elation upon their return. Steins;Gate Zero gave me emotions and experiences. You can’t top that.

Next Up: They look just like us!

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11