My Top 115 Favorite Video Games (25-21)

Click here for the introduction!

25. Kirby’s Dream Land 2 (Game Boy)

Kirby’s Dream Land 2 released during a time when a sequel to a game that I loved wasn’t an expected or familiar occurrence to me, so when I learned that there was a second Kirby’s Dream Land? Hoo boy! Dream Land 2 is just as important to me as the original, if not more so. This sequel is basically an expanded, much more robust version of the first Dream Land and it remains one of the most important games of my childhood. I loved all the varied worlds, seeking out the mysterious Rainbow Drops, and finally reaching the true finale. One of the big reasons why I really connected with Dream Land 2 was the new animal friends that Kirby could team up with. Not only am I someone who has always had an affinity with animals, but there’s a real sense of adventure and friendship here, and there’s an epic feeling as the game draws to a close. Besides the new animal buddies, Dream Land 2 also featured copy abilities, unlike the first game, and since the only other Kirby game I had played was that first game (and not Kirby’s Adventure, where copy powers were introduced), I actually played all the way up to the penultimate world without having any idea this was an aspect of the game. After getting stuck and having to consult the manual, my whole world changed when I learned of Kirby’s then relatively new ability and it only made this game that much more incredible to me. Dream Land 2 is also notable for introducing my favorite villain in the Kirby series, the enigmatic Dark Matter, and kicking off a three-game saga that would continue in Kirby’s Dream Land 3 and conclude in Kirby 64. I was so fascinated by this strange new villainous force that I basically included a rip-off of it in a short story that I wrote in the third grade. Finally reaching the true final boss of Dream Land 2 felt triumphant on its own, but it would be years before I finally succeeded and saw the true ending of this extremely special game.

24. Super Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins (Game Boy)

From Kirby to Mario, it should be clear if you’ve been following this list just how special the Game Boy and its games are to me, and how formative and crucial they were in my video game history. Game Boy was my go-to game device as a kid and I perhaps have more fond childhood memories with it and its games than any of the consoles. Super Mario Land 2 is emblematic of this time in my life. This game is my childhood in a tiny gray cartridge, and while I’ve been saying that I have three earliest gaming memories that were very formative for me (one more still to come), I probably should have said four, as this game is definitely mixed up in that time period. I feel like I must have played Six Golden Coins for several years and I brought it with me everywhere: in the car, on vacations, to the beach, to friends’ houses, etc. It influenced my imagination in countless ways, prompting me to dream up my own “zones” in the same spirit as those in the game and draw out maps on napkins. It’s more than just nostalgia though. I described my admiration for the Game Boy era of Nintendo eccentricity when talking about Wario Land II and Wario Land and Super Mario Land 2 is one of the quintessential examples of this imaginative spirit. There is no Mushroom Kingdom. There is no Bowser. There is no pandering nostalgia-bait. There is no goddamn desert land. There is Mario’s messed-up bizarro twin, Wario in his debut appearance, there is a carrot that grants Mario bunny ears, and one of the worlds is a gigantic mechanical statue of Mario where you fight the three little pigs in Lego land (this statement is 100% accurate, I assure you). One of my favorite things about this game is these creative worlds and the great sense of progression and detail that each one presents. Another world is Tree Zone, where Mario explores a gigantic tree starting at the roots, ventures into its sap-filled interior, and climbs up into its branches to explore a giant beehive and bird’s nest. It’s all a far-cry from the bland regurgitated environments Mario so frequently tromps through today and I can’t think of a better reminder of the wonderful creativity and variety that Mario once displayed in each and every new special adventure of his than Super Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins. Also, just to set the record straight: Mario in space? This game did it first. Sorry, Galaxy.

23. Metroid Prime 2: Echoes (GameCube)

Metroid Prime 2 definitely seems to be the underdog of the Prime trilogy, and that’s a shame because it’s an exceptional experience. Prime 2 is probably one of the creepiest titles in the Metroid series and also one of the most creative in my eyes. It has this very oppressive, harrowing atmosphere, and it really feels like, as Samus, you’re stranded on a twisted, hostile alien world. As I’ve discussed before, the whole “light and dark world” motif has been done to death when it comes to Nintendo games, but Echoes’ take on the concept at least feels inspired. I love how the very air of Dark Aether is corrosive as it really adds a great deal of tension to this eerie other world, and makes it really feel like a place you don’t want to be in. Dark Samus was also introduced in this one, and she (or it) is one of my favorite takes on the whole “dark doppelganger” cliché; she’s creepy, powerful, and she wants you dead (and she also has a badass theme). What chiefly comes to my mind about Echoes though is its richly-realized locales, which all stand out sharply in my memory, such as the rain-soaked Torvus Bog with its subterranean secrets and the beautiful, Tron-esque Sanctuary Fortress, which is definitely one of the most stand-out locations in the series. Retro Studios’ knack for creating believable, immersive alien worlds really shines in Echoes, and I felt completely absorbed in the flora, fauna, and terrain of Aether. As I may or may not talk about next time, the original Metroid Prime was initially a bit of a mixed experience for me, so in a way Echoes feels like my Metroid game; I was familiar with the Prime formula at this point, and it allowed me to get immediately sucked into this game and to quickly fall in love with it.

22. Super Mario Sunshine (GameCube)

Oh Sunshine, you underappreciated, underplayed gem. I was so excited for this game and remember pouring over every new screenshot and detail that would emerge in the latest issue of EGM. When it finally released in the US in late August of 2002, I spent every remaining minute of my summer vacation playing it and continued doing so as I entered my freshman year of high school. Like the Game Boy, the GameCube was a special time of experimentation and unbridled creativity from Nintendo; a time when they focused on doing interesting things with the games themselves rather than with the controller you use to interact with them. Super Mario Sunshine is one of many examples of this creativity. It’s not the revolution that Super Mario 64 was or the grand crowd-pleaser that the Galaxy games are, but it’s sort of like the “Majora’s Mask” of the Super Mario series; a bold, creative follow-up to an immensely well-regarded and important game that feels more low-key and intimate in its own way. It won’t appeal to everyone, but those who recognize its magic will surely fall in love with it.  One of the things that makes Sunshine so special is the connected, detailed world of Isle Delfino. Being able to gaze into the distance and see other locations and how everything connects lends a sense of cohesion to the experience that I really love, and this great sense of place is strengthened by a potent atmosphere that takes the theme of a tropical vacation and fleshes it out to its limits with a variety of memorable locations, including a peaceful village resting in the hills, an offshore amusement park, and an eerie haunted hotel on a beautiful twilit beach. There are less “levels” than in other 3D Super Mario games, but Sunshine focuses more on building a world than linear challenges, and there is a great emphasis on quality over quantity as each area is densely packed with little details, including the central hub of Delfino Plaza. The result is a Super Mario game that feels less like a series of levels and more like a Mario RPG in 3D platformer form. There’s a great sense of context in Sunshine and this applies to its much-maligned narrative as well. While the game’s voice acting may be a source of great derision today (and largely for good reason), I still appreciate the effort put into framing an adventure that was more than just “Bowser kidnaps Peach” and back in 2002 I was just amazed that a Super Mario game had voice acting and such a relatively fleshed-out storyline.

There is just something so joyous and lively and “feel-good” about Super Mario Sunshine. I could go on about the incredibly fluid mechanics, which are probably the best of all the 3D Super Mario games, the jubilant sound design and soundtrack, the bright and luscious visuals, and those amazing water effects, but simply put Super Mario Sunshine truly is unique in this series and easily one of my Mario favorites.

21. Golden Sun and Golden Sun: The Lost Age (Game Boy Advance)

Similar to Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Sonic and Knuckles, Golden Sun and Golden Sun: The Lost Age are merely two halves of the same big adventure, originally intended to be one large game but split up due to hardware limitations and developer ambitions. Funnily enough, Golden Sun was recommended to me by a random stranger I was chatting with in a random chat room at the dawn of the internet age, and it then became my first Game Boy Advance game along with Sonic Advance. I thank that person (whoever they are and wherever they are now) because they were right: Golden Sun is fantastic. It is pretty much my ideal RPG: a traditional battle system with a large, explorable, interesting world, with unique psychic powers called “Psynergy” that are used in puzzle-solving and combat mixed in for good measure. The gorgeous sprite-based visuals also have to be seen to be believed and these are easily some of the prettiest GBA games around, featuring visually-stunning and over-the-top summons and magic attacks. The “Golden Sun” portion of this two-part journey is certainly great, but in a way it sort of feels like a prologue to The Lost Age, which is where the experience really takes off, opening up the great world of Weyard and featuring multiple continents, islands, intricately-detailed villages, complex dungeons, and a vast ocean to explore. The Golden Sun saga also takes a different tone from most JRPGs and features a refreshingly easy-to-follow and not overly complicated narrative, but the narrative structure is nonetheless very interesting. There are basically two central groups that set off on a journey at the start of the first game, each with opposing goals, and in Golden Sun you play as one side and in The Lost Age you switch perspectives and play as the other. The situation in the game then is not a straightforward “good vs. evil” tale as in many RPGs, but that’s all I’ll say about it. In addition, if you play both games (which you obviously should), you can transfer your characters from Golden Sun into The Lost Age, an element that comes into play as The Lost Age goes on. Of course, it wouldn’t be one of my favorite games of all time if the soundtrack wasn’t amazing, and the Golden Sun/The Lost Age OST is really something quite different. The music has a very signature sound and a certain style that I find very unique, and it ranges from peaceful and relaxing with many of the town themes to downright inspirational when it comes to the world map and traveling themes.

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Only twenty games left? Yup! #20-16 is next!

My Favorite Summer Games

It’s a hot, sunny day in the middle of July right now and an air conditioner is blaring in my right ear. It’s summer. I have many fond memories tied to the summer season and unsurprisingly, many of these memories involve video games. There are several video games that are intrinsically tied with summer for me and always will be, mostly because it was during summer that I played them, but also for reasons involving the content and nature of the games themselves. What initially gave me the inspiration for this post was the recent release of Splatoon. Nintendo’s kid-squid simulator is a perfect summer game that I think was ingeniously released right at the beginning of the season. Splatoon is a game about a bunch of sea creatures splatting each other with ink-filled super-soakers by day and having rad, neon-lit dance parties by night. Sounds like summer to me.

I’ve also played a few other games this summer thus far that also seem well-suited to this time of year: the Uncharted series is filled with action and adventure and is inspired by summer blockbusters, while The Secret of Monkey Island is a pirate-themed adventure through a fantastical version of the Caribbean. All of these games fit in nicely with my long history of summertime video game experiences, several of which I’d like to talk about right now. These games aren’t all necessarily among my favorite games ever (though most of them are), but these are all games that embody summer to me and it’s on these hot, air-conditioned midsummer days that I reflect on them fondly.

Sonic Adventure 2 (Dreamcast)

Sonic was a huge part of my childhood (I played the games, read the comics, watched the shows, and turned my living room into Marble Zone one time) and I was enamored with the original Sonic Adventure on Dreamcast. It’s not shocking then that I was awaiting Sonic Adventure 2 with bated breath, and I very clearly remember finally picking it up at the start of summer vacation in June of 2001, when it was released in North America. I remember reading the back of the case and eagerly pouring through the manual, carefully studying all of the character profiles in anticipation of the game (as anyone from my generation and before it can probably relate to, this “manual ritual” was mandatory back then). I specifically remember thinking something like “this is gonna be good” in an excited, awed sort of way. I put so many hours into Sonic Adventure 2 that summer, and spent so much time just replaying the levels over and over again just for fun, even the much-maligned treasure-hunting stages (hell, especially the treasure-hunting stages, which I loved exploring). Sonic Adventure 2 hasn’t aged as gracefully as I would have liked, but my fond, happy memories of playing it that summer are eternal.

Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards (N64)

Exactly one year prior to my Sonic Adventure 2 summer, I was perhaps even more giddy for the arrival of Kirby’s long-awaited 3D outing on the Nintendo 64. This list isn’t intended to be ranked or anything, but Kirby 64 embodies summer for me perhaps more than any other game on this list. While this has much to do with the time in which I played it, Kirby 64 gave me such an amount of perfect bliss and excitement back then. It’s the kind of whimsical, imaginative platformer that I purposefully played slowly, taking in every unique level and sight and sound. I remember playing Kirby on the Fourth of July and thinking about playing Kirby while swimming in a friend’s pool. I remember fighting the whale boss at a friend’s house and searching tirelessly for the last crystal shard I needed. It’s a game that in my mind followed me all through that summer vacation, and remains not only one of my favorite games of all time, but one of my favorite summer gaming memories.

JRPGs: Final Fantasy VII (PS1), Lunar Legend (GBA), and Chrono Cross (PS1)

In one way or another, Japanese RPGs have always seemed to be largely associated with summer for me (and spring actually, but maybe that’s for another time). Whether it was watching my older brother play the Final Fantasy games long ago, or flirting with Final Fantasy VII when one of my childhood best friends came over one summer day, or of course, my own experiences playing them, JRPGs with all their adventure and beautiful, mysterious worlds and stories and spiky-blue-haired characters have often been summer games for me. Three JRPGs in particular stand out in my mind as cherished summer experiences.

Final Fantasy VII

I already mentioned playing it a bit with a friend one summer, but it wasn’t until years after that I sat down one summer to really get into Final Fantasy VII myself. This was years after the game’s prime and I already knew a fair bit about it, but it still intoxicated me with its now famous brilliant opening sequence, its unforgettable world that blended machinery and magic brought to life by detailed pre-rendered backgrounds and a poignant soundtrack, and its winding and intriguing narrative. All of this makes for a game brimming with an atmosphere that I can still feel. For me, much of my experience with FFVII is wound up in summertime. I fondly remembering visiting Cosmo Canyon for the first time and hearing that music start up, a moment that perfectly embodies that kind of wonder and adventure and freedom that the summer months brought when I was younger.  

Lunar Legend

For a couple of summers in a row when I was in high school, I worked at an auto-insurance agency for a few hours three days a week. I was actually working there the summer I started playing Final Fantasy VII and I was also working there the summer I picked up Lunar Legend for the Game Boy Advance on a friend’s recommendation. I vividly remember working at Curley Insurance in the morning, being home by noon and eating a delicious roast beef sandwich for lunch, and spending the rest of the day and evening playing Lunar Legend. Lunar Legend isn’t my favorite RPG ever (and I’ve since heard it’s one of the weaker versions of the original Lunar), but it’s a colorful, magical journey and just classic JRPG goodness.

Chrono Cross

The final JRPG I want to talk about is probably the most summer-y of them all for me, and easily one of my absolute fondest summertime video game experiences. I was in my second year of college at the time and decided to replay Chrono Trigger on a whim (it’s always a good time for Chrono Trigger). I played it for a good chunk of my second semester and ended up completing it right at the start of summer, when I suddenly realized that I’d never played its often overlooked sequel, Chrono Cross. I remembered watching my brother play some of it years ago, and decided to borrow it from him and give it a go myself finally, because hey whatta ya know, it was summer vacation. Chrono Cross is one of those games that I not only associate with summer because that’s when I played it (I specifically remember trotting through an underground river in one of the game’s many enchanting locales, with my screened windows open on a pleasantly warm summer night), but because the game’s content itself is very summer-y. The experience opens in a pristine fishing village and the first real “dungeon” is a beach. You explore a bunch of islands while sailing on a small boat, and your main character trots around in shorts and a bandana (and, for the record, also has blue hair). The game’s world is brought to life through beautiful hand-painted backgrounds and everything is just so colorful and rich with detail and natural beauty. The mesmerizing soundtrack is the entrancing garnish here that ties all this together, and getting lost in the depths of this enigmatic and beautifully melancholic adventure is one of my most cherished summer gaming experiences.

BioShock (PC)

Like many in my culture, when I think of summer, I think of beaches and the ocean. Perhaps less common is how I think of a decaying art deco city at the bottom of the ocean, crawling with deranged and deformed people scavenging its leaky corridors and hulking diving suits escorting little girls with gigantic syringes that feed on the aforementioned mutated peoples’ corpses. It’s summer! Actually, it’s BioShock, a groundbreaking title that I first began one summer years ago. I recall going to the beach one day, and that night, still sandy and sunburned, exploring the haunting halls of the city of Rapture. The game’s deep ocean setting and immersive adventure captivated me that summer and I still associate BioShock with the season today. Perhaps it is no accident then that I am currently playing through BioShock Infinite for the first time.

Super Smash Bros. Melee (GameCube)

I’d be making a huge omission if I failed to mention this one. I don’t remember if it was just one summer in particular or several in a row, but back in high school my friends and I would hang out and go swimming in my friend’s pool what feels like almost every day and afterwards we’d smash and smash for hours. I have many memories of those times and many in-jokes arose, such as “NO!” and “BOP!”. Unless you are one of the four of us, you have no idea what those mean, but that’s fine; what’s important is that summer nights are all about Super Smash Bros. Melee and a duel taking place at the Fountain of Dreams as Marth, Link, Captain Falcon, and Sheik fiercely duke it out to that kickass Gourmet Race remix.

PC Games

Doom 3

This is a bit of a weird entry, but I have a lot of memories with playing and watching other people play PC games during the summer. See, I grew up playing games on consoles and handhelds and PC games have mostly throughout my life been a kind of special, exotic commodity, something I’d mostly tangentially experience through friends, but not something I got to experience myself often (listen to my podcast for more details on my PC gaming history). It just happens that a lot of those memories with PC games come from the summer months. I played the aforementioned BioShock on PC actually, but I also began one of my most beloved titles, Half-Life 2, during late summer (though Half-Life 2 is also very much tied to fall and my first semester of college). Then there are cases of memories where I was often bored at the time, such as watching my friend play the Command & Conquer games and Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast during the summer to no end (hi, Dan), but that I strangely look back on fondly now. I also played a good chunk of Doom 3 on PC with that same friend one summer. I’m sure there are other memories lost to time (here’s another one: playing around with emulators way back when during the summer), but those are a few that I have with PC games.

Pikmin 3 (Wii U)

This is a more recent memory; last summer actually. I also wrote a review of Pikmin 3 as well as a spoiler-heavy follow-up post about its finale that hopefully sum up a lot of what makes the game so special to me, so give those a look for more details. I wrote another piece about playing the original Pikmin and at least starting Pikmin 2 one summer, but Pikmin 3 is the one I really associate with summertime. See, it was late summer and I was on the verge of leaving a crappy job I had been doing for three years. I knew I only had a few weeks left there, so coming home at night to immerse myself in Pikmin 3 somehow felt all the sweeter. Pikmin 3 seemed like a game perfectly tailored for cool, late summer nights. Its lush, nature-rich setting and picturesque environments suited the season well, and when out and about during the day, even when on my break at work, I would stare at plants and small patches of flowers and vegetation and imagine little Pikmin running around and try to think of how different environments could be a level in the game. I mention it in the review, but this spark of imagination I got from Pikmin 3 is often a trait many of my favorite video games share.

Super Mario Sunshine (GameCube)

Even though Super Mario Sunshine actually released at the very tail end of summer in North America and a good chunk of my initial experience with the game came in early fall, I still remember sinking my teeth into it the last week or so of my summer vacation that year. Surfing around on bloopers, collecting coins, hovering about with my water pump jetpack…good times. Do I really need to explain this one? It’s Super Mario Sunshine; everything about the game embodies summer and it’s also one of my favorite games of all time. It was a requirement that I put this one on the list, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t have fantastic memories playing it late summer.

Game Boy Games

The best Mario game you've never played

When I say “Game Boy games”, I’m mainly thinking about classic, original Game Boy games, but this category also extends to the Game Boy Advance and even the DS. I just have loads and loads of awesome memories playing Game Boy/handheld games during summer. In fact, when I was really young, my Game Boy was my game machine of choice and I’d even say most of my early gaming probably took place there. I brought Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins with me everywhere, but also when I went to Cape Cod several summers in a row. I remember playing Wario Land II on a boat trip around a Maine harbor and playing Game Boy Advance games like The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap and Astro Boy: Omega Factor (an underrated gem) at my grandfather’s house in Maine (to be honest, I'm not exactly sure if these three were all during the summer, but I think they all were). Waking up early one summer to play Castlevania: Circle of the Moon and finally finishing it one summer night. So many car trips and family trips over the years, of swapping carts with friends and trying random Game Boy games I’d never heard of and can’t possibly recall the names of. I also can’t neglect to give a shout-out to the Sega Game Gear, and my fond memories of playing Sonic games on it. Then there was another more recent (though still years gone now) car trip to Maine involving the original New Super Mario Bros. (yes, for all the shade I throw at that series, I do have some nostalgic memories tied with it…some) and many more memories of many more games. I could write another whole post about Game Boy memories specifically, and maybe I will, but plenty of those memories are tied with summer.

Other Miscellaneous Games and Rented Games

I’m running out of room here, but I wanted to call out a few more specific games and also all the random games I’ve rented during the summer. Summer months have always been a dry spell when it comes to game releases, and when I was younger and hadn’t built up a backlog three miles long, I would often rent games during the summer, either with friend or on my own. A few of these have become fond memories of mine, such as the summer I rented and played through the game based on the original Spider-Man movie (probably on GameCube). I later bought the Spider-Man 2 movie tie-in game and played that during the summer (also on GameCube), maybe that same summer actually, and both of these were to my recollection a surprisingly solid good time, Spider-Man 2 especially. I also have good memories of renting and soon after buying the original Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell, and also of sneaking around in its sequel, Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow, both on GameCube once again and during the summer from what I remember. I think I also played Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater for PS2, twice in a row (the second time being the Subsistence version), during the summer, so apparently stealth games that may or may not involve sneaking through jungles are a summer thing for me as well (and the Uncharted series adds to this tradition somewhat actually).

There are still many more games I have great memories of playing during the summer, so let’s name a few more notables here. Think of this as the “honorable mentions” list: Kingdom Hearts II (PS2), Watch Dogs (PC), Mario Kart 8 (Wii U), Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii), Paper Mario (N64), The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures (GameCube), and still more games and memories, not even including great memories of replaying old favorites during the summer months.

Summer is a special time. It’s something that has been conditioned in me to be associated with good times throughout my life thanks to its status as a break from school and its focus on fun activities, both outdoors and indoors and of course for me with plenty of video games. These are some of my favorite summer gaming memories. What are some of yours?

Hey, We Started a Podcast

Yup! My friend, Ryan Acheson and I, decided to get together in a room and record ourselves talking about our gaming histories, the merits of Super Mario Sunshine, old PC games, Sonic the Hedgehog lore, and much, much more.

This is the pilot episode to our as of right now unnamed podcast (name forthcoming). Essentially, the main angle here is both Ryan and I pick an important game from our past that the other has not played, and then we compare our partially nostalgia-fueled reminiscence on the games with the other person's fresh, modern take on these experiences. In this inaugural episode, I had Ryan play the original Sonic the Hedgehog for the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive and Ryan suggested I play Rick Dangerous, a game which I had zero experience with before this. Likewise, Ryan had barely any experience with the original Sonic.

Sonic the Hedgehog is available in a lot of places (I also assume you've probably heard of the game at least), but if you aren't familiar with Rick Dangerous and want to get some context for the conversation, you can check out the Flash remake that I played here.

If any of this sounds interesting, or if you just want to listen to two people who like video games perhaps a little too much talk about them while you go on a run or write your thesis or whatever, you can find our musings (and ramblings) at the following links:

Here's the podcast in ogg format.

And here it is in mp3 format.

The current plan is to try to do this around once a month. I've never done anything like this and any and all pointers and constructive criticism is very welcome! Again, this is the pilot, an experimental beginning if you will, and I hope we only improve the format and discussion as we go on!

Please feel free to share this anywhere you want if you enjoy it and find any value in it! We'd appreciate the exposure and it would certainly help encourage us to keep doing this!