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80. Metroid: Zero Mission (Game Boy Advance)
The original Metroid for NES has not aged well. In concept, it’s brilliant and
revolutionary for its time and it still has an eerie atmosphere of isolation to
this day, but refilling one’s health and missiles after dying is such an egregious
chore and the copy-and-paste level design makes things not only extremely
confusing (in a bad way) but also just rather dull a lot of the time. Enter Zero Mission, an excellent remake that
addresses these issues as well as gives the game a visual makeover and an
interesting extra chapter after the finale. What Zero Mission may lack in terms of the original’s stark atmosphere,
it makes up for by being a much more playable and well-designed experience.
79. Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (Wii)
Prime 3 is
my least favorite of the trilogy but it’s still a worthy Metroid experience. While I prefer sinking my space bounty hunter
boots into one, intricately-detailed world, I still appreciate that Corruption switches things up by having
Samus be able to jump into her ship and explore multiple planets. The game is
gorgeous for a Wii game (once again, Retro Studios is an exceptional talent
when it comes to art direction and world-building) and each environment that
Samus visits is distinct. Corruption also
sees one of the best uses of the Wii’s motion controls with simple and fluid
point and shoot mechanics and I even get a kick out of the gimmicky stuff as
well, such as turning the Wii remote to turn levers and so on. The game also
features some pretty decent voice acting, though I personally still prefer my Metroid more isolated and quiet than
this; still, the game knows when to shut up and chatty bits are mostly few and
far between. Corruption is a
satisfying end to the stellar Prime
trilogy; it’s just unfortunate that at this present time it is also, sadly, at
nearly ten years old the last great original Metroid game we’ve gotten.
78. Portal (PC)
If you’ve never played Portal,
stop reading and go play it. I won’t outright spoil anything major here, but if
you’ve somehow missed this game and haven’t been in the loop in regards to nerd
culture in the last ten years or so, this is definitely a game best experienced
blind. Portal is an unassuming
masterpiece. Originally packed into The Orange Box, it begins as a rather straightforward puzzle game, albeit one
with a really neat mechanical hook, as the player moves from test chamber to
test chamber solving increasingly difficult puzzles with the portal gun as a
robotic voice on the intercom blandly guides them on. It’s rare that a game is
as genius on as many levels as Portal is,
because as brilliant as the game’s central portal mechanic is, what ultimately makes
the experience so memorable is how it fools players into thinking it is just a
series of puzzles…until that dull intercom guide starts talking about android
hell and promises of cake, and you start to question, “Wait, what did she just
say?”. Furthermore, enterprising players might use the portal gun creatively to
sneak behind a wall and land themselves in a part of the facility they aren’t
supposed to be in, where they’ll likely find mad scrawls and implications that
“the cake is a lie”. No one expected the writing and the narrative to
overshadow the unique mechanics in Portal,
and no one expected the unmistakable mark that the game would leave on popular
culture. Portal is one of a very
small number of games that I can’t personally find a single fault in, and if
you somehow haven’t played it (and ignored my earlier suggestion and are still
reading this), please do yourself a favor and change that.
77. Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island (SNES)
Yoshi’s
Island is a wonderful game made with love and care and effort. I could point
to its disparate elements: its gorgeous art-style that hasn’t aged a day, its small
but unforgettable soundtrack, and its imaginative level designs and bosses…but
ultimately this game just has a certain feeling about it that I can’t quite describe.
When I think of Yoshi’s Island, I often
think of the cave levels. The sparkling rocks, the waterfalls in the distance,
maybe some mist pervading the scene, little ghost creatures carrying lanterns,
giant mushrooms and little munching plant monsters, and above all else that
absolutely enchanting music. There’s just nothing else quite like it. I
distinctly remember how appealing this game’s box-art and overall look was to
me as a kid, and how much I really wanted to play it. I remember playing it at
a friend’s house once, but I unfortunately didn’t experience Yoshi’s Island in full until the Game
Boy Advance port, though I now own and have completed the original and superior
version as well, don’t worry.
76. Sonic Colors (Wii)
The game that brought Sonic back into my life. Don’t get me
wrong, I’d still been consistently replaying the classic Genesis games over the
years, but when it came to actively following the Sonic series, I’d largely tuned out after one disappointing and
poorly received game after the next was churned out. I hesitated for a while
but I eventually took the plunge again with Colors
after positive reviews and seeing what simply looked like an overall very solid
game. I’m so glad I did because this game made me remember why I fell in love
with Sonic as a kid. It has flaws, such as its obnoxious writing and stiff 3D control (most of the game plays from a 2D perspective, which fares better control-wise), but its creative
and beautiful worlds like Planet Wisp and Aquarium Park, its wonderful and
catchy soundtrack, and its layered level designs all brought to mind the 2D
Genesis games that I grew up with, and yet the game still felt very fresh as
well. With the Wisp power-ups, Sonic Team also finally found a gimmick in this one that supplemented Sonic’s core gameplay in a positive way
instead of divided it or bogged it down. In short, I was a Sonic fan again, for better and for worse (and with the recently announced Sonic Mania, right now I’m happily leaning more
towards “for better”).
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The games continue next time with #75-71!
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