The Shrine

They're having a little contest. Vote your top 10 games from a drop down list of about 100-150 games, and then try to guess which games will be voted top 10 overall.

For mine:

Ocarine of Time
Skies of Arcadia
Final Fantasy 8
Earthbound
Goldeneye 007
Chrono Trigger
Vagrant Story
Soul Calibur
Xenogears
Grand THeft Auto: Vice City

For my votes on what the top 10 will be:

Ocarina of Time
Final Fantasy 7
Chrono Trigger
Super Mario Brothers 3
Grand Theft Auto Vice City
Metroid Prime
Warcraft III
Final Fantasy III (6)
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
Super Mario 64

I guess it won't be long until we're 10 years old as well, a year and a half =)

This would be real hard to do, but I think the best way to do it is to list the games that I played more than once:

Super Mario World
Final Fantasy Tactics
Chrono Trigger
Zone of the Enders
Vagrant Story
Super Metroid
Rez
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
Final Fantasy 3
System Shock 2

I'm sure there's others, but those are the ones I can think of. As far as what people will pick, I'm sure I don't give a shit, because they will pick something as dumb as Super Mario Brothers (the original) or the original Zelda, or some game (of Nintendo) that 200 years old.

Maybe we should make a list of what games we've played more than once, instead of what we think is the "Top Ten".

I could only get 5 out of my top 10 list offhand, but here you go:

Manhunt
Daikatana
Fighter's History
E.T. for the Atari 2600
The Atari Jaguar and all of its games combined

oh boy... i'll do the games i've replayed (most old):

Xenogears
FF6
FF7
Chrono Trigger


Wait a minute, this is an impartial list because as i only got to #4 i realize all of them will be RPGs... how do you replay a normal game?

I'll do a top 10 instead:

Castlevania:SotN
FF6
Xenogears
Street Fighter 2 Turbo
Baseball Stars
Killer Instinc
Half-Life
Warcraft 3
Diablo 2
Dr. Mario

EDIT:: i didnt look at the dropdown, so i have no idea if these games are on there... i suck at this game.

If I list games I've replayed I get:

FF6
Super Mario 64
Super Mario Bros. 3
FF7
MGS
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
Super Mario World

I think that's eat. I'll have to think about what the rest of my Top 10 would be.

Hmmmm, usually if the game is good enough for me to finish once, I will play it again. There are some exceptions, Breath of Fire 3 comes to mind. I'll put in games which I have probably played for more than 100 hours total instead.


Utopia
Sid Meier's Civilization II
Sid Meier's Civilization III
Goldeneye 007
Mario Kart 64
Mario Kart
Animal Crossing (probably)
Starcraft
Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Skies of Arcadia
Final Fantasy 8
Final Fantasy III
Chriono Trigger
Xenogears
Super Mario Brothers
Donkey Kong Country
Donkey Kong Country II
Donkey Kong Country III (probably)
Sonic the Hedgehog II
Kirby Superstar
Castlevania III
Dragon Warrior III
Final Fantasy Legend II
Faxanadu
NHL 94
NHL Stanley Cup
NHL Hitz
NHLPA 93
No Mercy
Soul Calibur
Soul Calibur 2
Street Fighter Alpha 3
Mortal Kombat II



I'll edit more in as I think of them. I think the majority of games I have played over 100 hours have been multiplayer though. Even some games like Aniomal Crossing, Donkey Kong COuntry, Kirby, and Super Mario Brothers are on that list because of the multiplayer aspects in them. It's just so damn easy to sit there and play a multiplayer game for 6+ hours and not even realize it.

The problem with replaying games so much is that it's hard to get around to newer games =P

The Seeker wrote:The problem with replaying games so much is that it's hard to get around to newer games =P

That's my thing. I usually don't have all that much time for playing games, so if I'm actually going to bother to replay a game, it must be a pretty damn good game, if that's the case.

Final Fantasy III came in at #10, I guessed #8, I'd say that's a fairly good guess =)

A bit late but games I've played more than once:

FF4, 6, 7, 8, T
Chrono Trigger
Terranigma
Vagrant Story
Shining Force 1, 2

RPGs are hard to play more than once because today's RPG set themselves up so that it is only fun to play it once due to both its length and the fact that most of the supposed plot enjoyability only comes from not seeing some obscure plot twist ahead of time. Back in the good old days, games aren't necessarily better but they didn't rely on totally throwing off the player, so you already know what to expect and if you liked the first time you might be compelled to do it again because the enjoyment wasn't from the 'not knowing'. Also, even if the games aren't better back then, they're certainly shorter so you don't have as much junk to put up with if you want to play again. Take a game like Xenogears and no matter how good a game it was, it'd be torture to replay it again through the hour-long forced dialogues that you already know.

Another thing that effects gameplay is all the optional stuff that's almost mandatory. Take a game like FFX which I played 100 hours on but never replayed. Everything you can do in the game is pretty cool whether it's Blitzball or filling out the grid or whatever, but all the extra stuff still won't compel you to play the game again. Of course if the game is good enough to play 100 hours on one play then that's probably good enough. Unfortunately this is rarely the case and extras get substituted for replayability.

Games like Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross has the right idea. Once you beat it once you should be able to blitz through the game the next time. If your game is good people will slow down on the replay to enjoy it, and if it sucks at least playing it again isn't painful.