Click here for the introduction!
45. Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 (Game Boy)
Another Game Boy game from my childhood
that’s bursting with creativity and that signature oddness that defined
first-party Nintendo games for the system in the 90s, Wario Land is not only a fantastic sequel to the already excellent Super Mario Land 2, but it’s also one of
my favorite platformers of all time. This was Wario’s first game all to himself
so Nintendo really had complete freedom in what they could do with the
adventure, and it really shows. The Wario
Land series is appropriately like some bizarro inversion of the Mario
series, and what I love so much about it is that it’s not chained down by all
of the conventions and tired staples of the latter. With nothing holding him
back, Wario journeys to Kitchen Island to steal the treasure of the Brown Sugar
Pirates and explores memorable locales such as Mt. Teapot and Parsley Woods,
hunting down hidden treasures and finding secret paths. The game features a world
map similar to its predecessor, but the world is even more dynamic. For
example, the first time you venture through the first world, Rice Beach, it
will be low tide. Later on, however, one can revisit the beach when the tide has
come in and has flooded previously explored levels, which allows access to new areas. Wario Land also has a very strange
and memorable atmosphere and much of its soundtrack is decidedly mysterious,
culminating in a presentation that brings to mind The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening in ways.
44. Super Metroid (SNES)
Haunting. If there’s one word to describe Super Metroid, it’s "haunting". Another word might be "brilliant".
The opening title screen immediately sets a mood that is completely absorbing
and the rest of the game follows suit. Super Metroid is a master of atmosphere, exploration, game design,
sound design, music composition, 2D pixel art, and hell the game even succeeds wonderfully
at minimalist narrative, with subtle examples of great in-game storytelling and
a world littered with details and little moments that tell the story without
words or without ever removing interactivity, including one of the most
memorable finales in video game history. I waited years to finally play this
classic on the Wii Virtual Console and it did not disappoint. Super Metroid is one of those games that
represents just about everything I love about the medium and is basically just an
experience extremely catered to my own personal tastes.
43. Castlevania: Circle of the Moon (Game Boy Advance)
Bloodlines
was my first Castlevania game, but Circle of the Moon is the game that made
me fall in love with the series. After constantly reading about how great this Symphony of the Night game was and then
how great its immediate successor Circle
of the Moon was in Electronic Gaming Monthly (which I subscribed to for
years and have just about as many fond memories with as I do with the games on
this list), I finally decided to give Circle
of the Moon a shot. It instantly made me nostalgic for the Castlevania games I played as a child
and I soon found myself addicted to exploring Dracula’s dark abode. I played Circle of the Moon for a long time,
mainly because it can be a very difficult game with very little hand-holding,
but I have fond memories of waking up early to play it during the summer and
also of playing it around October. I remember finally finishing the game
feeling truly triumphant. Circle of the
Moon might have my favorite atmosphere of the Metroidvania games; it perhaps feels closest of them all to the classic Castlevanias in this regard and has
a very classically gothic appeal. Its soundtrack is mainly comprised of remixes
of old tunes, but besides them all being terrific arrangements, at the time I
didn’t know they were recycled works. Also, the protagonist’s name is Nathan
and although it may be a bit silly, it just heightens my connection to this
game even more.
42. Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow (Game Boy Advance)
Aria
of Sorrow rounded out the GBA Castlevania
trilogy beautifully. By this time, Koji Igarashi and company had just about
perfected the Metroidvania formula
and Aria built on and refined just
about everything in the previous games from a mechanical standpoint. After
experimenting with different magic and ability systems with each new release,
the developers finally arrived at the Tactical Soul system, which is my
favorite ability system in the series by far. Not only was collecting the soul
of every creature addicting and a lot of fun, but trying out each unique new
ability was exciting and lent so much variety to the game. This was only
compounded by the wide variety of weapons that Soma Cruz, the game’s
protagonist, could wield, which all featured unique visual designs and
mechanical properties. One of the most memorable aspects of Aria of Sorrow though it its colorful
cast of characters and bonkers narrative, which took the Castlevania mythos to an interesting new place and an interesting
new time period: the future year of 2035! That said, the narrative does some
really bold and intriguing things with the well-established Castlevania canon.
41. The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap (Game Boy Advance)
One of the more overlooked Zelda titles, The Minish Cap is a true gem. It is easily the most visually
gorgeous of the 2D Zeldas, and I long
for the series to make a return to something akin to this game’s lovingly-drawn spritework and
artistically-painted environments. This lovely art-style only enhances the
game’s inventive central theme of shrinking down to explore the nooks
and crannies of Hyrule hidden in cracks in the wall, on top of rafters, in
patches of tall grass, and beneath stones. I love this premise and I love how
much detail was put into the Minish society and the little secretive places that they
call home. The Minish Cap also has a
wonderful cast of characters including Ezlo the talking hat and the devious
villain Vaati, a huge and bustling Hyrule Castle Town that is one of the best
communities in the series, and it’s one of my favorite games, so of course the
soundtrack is great too. The Minish Cap
is a delight and one of the most underappreciated entries in the long-running Zelda series, which is a shame since it
is also one of the best.
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More to come in #40-36! We're getting close!
Click here for the introduction!
70. Wario Land II (Game Boy)
The Wario Land
games represent a special kind of oddness and creativity that blossomed in
Nintendo’s suite of titles for their Game Boy handheld back in the 90s. Because
they weren’t developing a big console game, Nintendo’s designers probably felt
less pressure to deliver on certain expectations or adhere to certain
conventions. This kind of freedom really shows in games like the Super Mario Land titles, The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening,
and of course the Wario Land games. Wario Land II differs quite a bit from
its predecessor: Wario is impervious to damage, for one thing, and the game has
also gotten rid of the Super Mario World-style
world map. Instead, a narrative plays out across a bunch of stages played
immediately one after the other, but depending on what actions the player takes
or what secret routes they find, their path can branch and the final outcome of
the adventure can vary wildly. It’s a really interesting set-up for a
platformer and one that encourages replaying levels and discovering every
secret the game has to offer. Wario Land
II is like a treasure trove that keeps extending deeper downwards until you
discover the final, ultimate secret. Full of imaginative levels and packed with
mysteries, I got completely lost in Wario
Land II as a kid and it kept my face glued to my Game Boy screen until I
had found and seen everything.
69. Kirby Super Star/Kirby Super Star Ultra (SNES/DS)
Like most Super Nintendo games on
this list, Kirby Super Star is another
game that I wanted to play for years, but was denied on account of me not
having a Super Nintendo. While it eventually came to the Wii’s Virtual Console,
I actually first experienced Super Star
in its original form when I was in college. My roommate had somehow acquired a
Super Nintendo and a box of games (something about his aunt finding it in her
attic or something) and one of these was of course the elusive Super Star. I was overjoyed to finally
experience the game and everything was going great until my save data somehow
got corrupted when I was nearly finished with the adventure. I did restart and
complete the whole game from scratch, but this nonetheless really soured my
initial experience with Super Star unfortunately.
All the same, from The Great Cave Offensive (my favorite) to Revenge of Meta Knight to Milky Way Wishes and more, Kirby
Super Star is a greatly enjoyable time from beginning to end. While I
mainly prefer the more standard Kirby
adventures to Super Star’s oddball
“multi-game” approach, I still appreciate the title’s uniqueness. The 2008 DS
remake, Super Star Ultra, is my
preferred version of the game and includes all of the original game’s modes as
well as several new ones that all fit in nicely. In many ways, Super Star Ultra feels like the ultimate
Kirby game, offering a robust and
fulfilling Kirby experience that covers
a ton of ground and contains most of the iconic characters and elements from throughout
the series.
68. The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds (3DS)
It had been a long time since a
new Zelda game had given me the kind
of feeling that A Link Between Worlds
did. It brought back the free-form, exciting sense of exploration and discovery
that the classic top-down Zeldas are
known for, and it did it with several twists. The item-shop idea allowed for a
wonderful sense of freedom and the extremely well-implemented wall-merging
mechanic allowed for numerous angles to puzzle-solving and completely changed
the way I thought about top-down Zelda.
To top it all off, A Link Between Worlds
also uses stereoscopic 3D to lovely effect and this is just another way this
game subtly brings something new to the classic overhead Zelda design. While it’s not flawless, there’s just so
much I could praise about this game: I could on and on about the wonderful
soundtrack (with a surprising amount of great original compositions), fantastic
dungeons, and the way that the game constantly played with my expectations and
surprised me in all sorts of delightful ways. Beyond all this, ALBW also just has that special Zelda magic, as evidenced by moments
like its touching ending sequence.
67. Super Paper Mario (Wii)
The first two Paper
Mario games get plenty of love, and rightfully so, but Super Paper Mario seems to get a raw deal, and it pains me to see
it occasionally lumped in with the likes of the soulless Paper Mario: Sticker Star as “one of the bad Paper Mario games”. While at its mechanical core, Super Paper Mario is a platformer and
quite a departure from its turn-based RPG brethren, its heart and soul is
completely in line with the smartly written, wildly imaginative, and subversive
originals, perhaps even surpassing them to an extent in these regards. Full of
memorable new characters (and new roles for existing ones) and interesting
locations, Super Paper Mario is
brimming with personality and creativity. Like its predecessor, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, Super Paper Mario largely eschews well-worn-out Mario series tropes and instead sees Mario
and his companions traveling to the pixelated palace of a nerdy chameleon who
is a parody of Nintendo’s very own fanbase, a prehistoric land where overworld-dwelling
rock people and underworld-dwelling flower people are at war, a convenience
store in space, and even to…well, I won’t spoil that one. And even though it
lacks turn-based battles, in its structure, atmosphere, ancillary mechanics,
and storytelling, this adventure is every bit an RPG at heart and fits well in
line with its predecessors. Speaking of storytelling, one of the aspects of Super Paper Mario that stands out the
most is its narrative, which takes some surprisingly thoughtful and interesting
turns for a game starring Nintendo’s mustachioed mascot, and is ultimately a
uniquely touching tale for the series.
66. Pikmin 3 (Wii U)
I associate Pikmin 3 with late
summer nights, peaceful and cool, crickets chirping a lullaby outside the
window. Similar to Unravel (and I
suppose many games on this list), Pikmin
3 is another very “me” game. Pikmin 2
is special to me and a great game, but it’s a bit bloated. Its follow-up condenses
things and delivers the most refined, polished, accessible, and quite frankly enjoyable
game in the series. It takes some of the great aspects of Pikmin 2 and melds them with a sense of urgency and greater
narrative heft more akin to the original Pikmin
and spins it all into a wonderful adventure with a potent atmosphere that
feels almost profound. It’s hard to describe the kind of unique feeling that the
Pikmin games have but this essence is
perhaps more prominent than ever in Pikmin
3. An experience that combines my love of nature with my love of little
things with my love of engrossing interactive experiences, its locales are
gorgeous, its characters charming, its design satisfying, and its memorable final
chapter left such an impression on me that I felt the need to dedicate a whole post to it separate from my review.
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We approach the halfway point next time with #65-61!
