Friday, August 15, 2008

SuperPhillip's Top 100 Games of All Time

There's one more golf game review for tomorrow, and this one will be for the Playstation 3. You can probably surmise which one I'll be putting under the microscope. Until then, it's Friday so it's time for another five of my personal favorite games period. Since it's a week of golf, why not include two of my favorite golf titles as well? Actually, I did just that this week! Enjoy!

As always:
The first ninety games are in NO particular order. For someone with OCD, compiling a list of 100 games in order would drive me absolutely crazy. There's a good mix of titles from multiple consoles, developers, and genres. Hope you leave this list with some fuzzy memories and good times.
- Final Fantasy VIII (PS)

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Eight Isn't Enough

I don't know, but ever since Square-Enix made the shift to the Playstation 2, Gamecube, Xbox generation of game consoles, the main line of Final Fantasy has faltered in quality. I very much did not enjoy Final Fantasy X, the online role-playing grind fest in Final Fantasy XI did not appeal to me in the least bit, and Final Fantasy XII left an odd taste in my mouth.

Regardless, the Super Nintendo and Playstation Final Fantasies are epitome of masterpieces. Final Fantasy VIII was released off the humongous success of Final Fantasy VII-- a benchmark for the series. VIII is considered by many to be the black sheep of the PS1 Final Fantasy series. I disagree with that. Sure, you had to draw magic and some summons from enemies which bogged the game down if you didn't enjoy it, but I really enjoyed monsters leveling up with me. I had no problem achieving Level 99 with my main party because I didn't really have to grind which FF7 had and so did FFX (I never finished either of those for that reason by the way).

Cap the fun off a great love story with a plot twist that set many fans to throw this title out and one of the best minigames off all time-- Triple Triad, and you have my pick for my favorite Playstation Final Fantasy. Didn't see that one coming, did you?

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- The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap (GBA)

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The Tiniest Zelda Adventure Yet

The evil Vaati has turned the Princess Zelda into stone, and now has his eyes set on taking over Hyrule. Enter Link, a young boy poised for adventure. He meets up with Ezlo, a talking cap, in the Minish Woods that grants him the ability to shrink down to the mythical Minish (or Picori) people's size.

What follows is an adventure made up of five incredibly cleverly designed dungeons and a world taking Link from the heights of Mt. Crenel to the expanses of Castor Wilds. The big sidequest revolves around collecting and reuniting kinstone pieces with other people in the land of Hyrule. Fusing kinstones will open up blocked caverns, create new passages, unlock new treasure chests to open, and a myriad of other happenings.

The Minish Cap may just be five dungeons long, but there's a lot of content to tinker around with. It's just an exceptional title, and it marks the final adventure Capcom's Flagship studio would ever partake in-- as it was disbanded recently.

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- Mario Golf (N64)

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A Hole-in-one.

Mario Golf for the Nintendo 64 holds a special place in my heart. It was the first golf video game that I really got into-- it was a bridge title that led me into even more fun and fantastic golf titles such as Hot Shots Golf and Tiger Woods. The title had six sprawling courses all humbly modeled after the Mushroom Kingdom. You had courses in highlands, tropical islands, and even a championship course which had bunkers, greens, hazards, and fairways in the shapes of various Mario characters. Round that out with an impressive cast of characters both generic human and Mario veteran such as Bowser, Yoshi, Donkey Kong, Princess Peach, and even the hard-hitting Metal Mario!

For addicted players like myself, you could even import your own character from the Game Boy Color version to play on the Nintendo 64 version with his or her own personalized stats! Very cool at the time, and really, it still is!

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- We Love Golf (Wii)

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At the very least I do.

I just finished reviewing Camelot's We Love Golf after the many demands of my readers who e-mailed me wanting me to get off my butt and start reviewing new games. Little did I know that my first review out from my hiatus would impact me so positively. Simply put, We Love Golf is an extremely entertaining golf game that challenges the player just enough in later stages without being overly frustrating. Yep, I'm looking at you, Hot Shots Golf: Out of Bounds! Regardless, the graphics are bright and colorful, there's plenty of unlockables and things to do, modes to conquer, and there's just enough courses and characters to keep the variety coming. Some may complain that the difficulty is too simple. These same people probably only played through the first of three tournament modes. We Love Golf is a game I can see myself returning to just to play a quick round for fun. Something I don't do often after I've completed a game to virtual perfection.

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- Golden Sun (GBA)

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More energizing than Sunny-D!

Three games in this Friday edition that have music composed by Motoi Sakuraba and developed by Camelot-- go figure! Golden Sun was the RPG that Game Boy Advance owners were craving for. I was absolutely blown away by it. Combat was fast and frenetic, the world was full of humor, adventure, and mind-bending puzzles, and the graphics and sound were simply top-notch. I didn't really enjoy the sequel, The Lost Age, as much as I wanted to. Golden Sun led the player where to go in a somewhat linear fashion, but The Lost Age was more open-ended (too much so in my case) to where I would get lost and not know or have a clue on where to go.

Sequel disappointment aside, I greatly look forward to if and when Camelot decides to create the final chapter in the incredible Golden Sun trilogy!

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I'll see you next week for five more my personal gems in my video game collection! Same day next week!

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