Reality

Gatcha Force - apparently a cult classic on gamecube didn't like it I adored the visuals, and I really liked the PROMISE of a kitchen sink approach to variety - really letting you use anything, including the 50 foot tall dragons, ICBM Launchers, Time Stopping Samurai, a choice of going with 4-5 good charathers or upwards of 15 cheapos. The game has the surface level downside of having bad audio/story (Having recently played the Might and magic:Clash of Heroes puzzle game spinoff, that is a GOOD example of barebones, while this is considerably below that.... Being Barebones is FINE, but giving players 0~ish feedback for doing this is NOT fine. The actual things holding the game down are that basically,circle strafing takes over HARD. You are free to try out the newest thing for the first half of the game, but the Chapter 4/5 missions simply give the enemy 2X to 3X as many points worth of robots to work with, and the horde cannot be beaten without digging in for attrition.. This is fair enough with the gimmick charathers, but all but the very best melee archetypes have this problem - melee in this game works "fine" in the versus mode (which is 2 on 2) but the main story mode is typically 2 on 4, so you can simply be hit out of any combo when "at best" ... but often you don't even get to hitstun that first guy, because the "melee arc tracking" is pretty atrocious on most guys... only the ones with the widest swords or who have automatic lunges built into their melee attacks really stand a hope, while most ninjas,samurais,martilal artist, etc are stuck in horrendous endlag while whiffing air. Even when you do "confirm" the game is WAY overgenerous with knockdown invulnerbility, so you can't afford to remain for the 2nd finishing 60-70 damage melee string without leting them hit you first and/or backing off to get in clean again. The game's true random new part requirement is also bthe first time I got to chapter 3 and restarting)affling (and I got to experience it in full by losing my save file--- I got expensive things like vampireknight/chainsaw knight before ever getting normal knight. The bigger problem is "elite" parts that must be obtained as data capsules - on paper you have to obtain them "twice" but it's not based on the # of data you have, but specifilly having all letters.... My biggest sore was Drill Robot who requires an A data and a B data. I did two full playtrhoughs and ended up with 5 A datas and 0 B datas, so I never got to experience him. The storage system is not optimized and guranteed to fill up (about halfway in second playthrough) this would be okay with gen 3+ pokemon's box system, but thinfa in the "HARD storage" must be manually moved into the active 200 box, which must have empty slots BEFORE confirmation. .... Looking online many players complain about HP sponging but I found this minimal as a sideeffect of mostly sticking to only good parts (after the first 6 hours of free experimentation wore off)

Today's candidate for game's that got worse with sequels

Gettting Age of Wonders 3 for sure, maybe try Underail or Lords of Xulima.

I want the Silly Symphonies to get recognition. Probbably as stages though, since pinning a most recognizable charather would leave like the Three Little Pigs and Big Bad Wolf as pretty much the only options.

MP 3 - The best all-around N64 game, minigame and board wise. MP 2 - Costumes are awesome butthe N64 suffers more slowdown than MP3 (probbably why MP 3 has a cardboard storybook art design) there's no "fast movement option", Map specific duels/item minigames instead of random are a big problem. MP 7 - I think it's neck and neck with 6 for best minigames of the gamecube games but my family preferes it because it does win in variety. MP 4 - Drastically diferent item design (like 80% just mini shroom and mega shroom) Minigame length is all over the place (single hit elimination games that end in less than 5 seconds or epic minute+ games like dungeon duos/hotel mario. I think the board map play is REALLY good though. MP 6 - If I wanted "mario party I win the most in" it would be #1 but... MP 6 has like half of its minigames incclude platforming elements, which pretty much biases it way toward a player who plays 3D collectahons (probbably not every member of the family group)... I also think that it basically has only 2 usuable board maps and being the last mario party game where you could duel for stars + the sluggish shroom makes it extra cutrhoat. MP DS - Solid minigame set Super - Ability to practice directly while reading the rules insted of seperately hitting R/Z to enter a practice version of the minigame is A+... but the minigame list is VERY short, The alternate modes are fun to try but add too much length to playtime over standard, dice changes are whatever. MP 5 - I actually really like the minigames in 5, but I think its board maps are the blandest in the series, no matter which theme it is, they ALL have a near identical figure 8 pattern. Family also strongly objects to the "pay money to use your own items" although personally I think the potential to make a "walk of power" on a small loop is more disruptive (because then you get the effects FREE) MP 1 - This game is surreal and worth experiencing. Highlights include - previously bought stars on becoming chance time spaces (Luigi engine room/wario canyon/DK jungle) leading to a board with like 5 of them, the super tight economy caused by the majority of minigames subtracting money from the losers, and the title screen changing to whichever charather was the winner of the last game. Never played 8-10, GBA

Mostly Luigi, sometimes Wario,Waluigi,Mario ... human preference mostly because of how funny and aggresive the taunts were in the gamecube games

Remember that time when the Twisted Metal developers made a better Godzilla game than Pipeworks?

I actually really like simple and sometimes primitive games for their speed and readability Best in an RPG usually boils down to lot of related things - best charather progression (ala buildporn/skillltree stuff), best actual combat, and best encounter design (many great battle systems wasted because enemies are too weak for involving yourselfs in their potential) I think for me with JRPGs SMT: 3 Nocturne - you can argue that game over on main chaather death is a problem (even though their are revive spells, your allies cannot use them on you, only you on them) Otherwise it probbably has the most strengths and fewest weaknesses of the Atlus games - Stacking Buffs / outright reflection, changing team throughout the game both for simple power, and also to shuffle weaknesses (mostly to optional bossses) Shadow Hearts : Covenant - very system heavy, but the thing that is most obvious is the timing system (Paper Mario /Legend of Dragoon)... however it is variable based on equipped choice, you CAN take a slow moving ring to kind of bypass it or go high risk high reward with a really narrow fast one. Equipment choices are sometimes pretty low, though. Vagrant Story - Very Unique single charather RPG - Con - insanely slow menu load time, unfriendly to blind players with even 1 change in skills/weapon sometimes making difference between single digiting a boss or easiliy killling it) Most people remember it for its atmosphere > gameplay, but I am other way around. Missed potential games - Grandia/Child of Light - I love the timeline system of Grandia (and modern spirtual succesors copying it) but charather development aspect of combat is awful - in G1 it's a "use spell to gain firemagic experience" and enemies are so weak that it doesn't matter... Child of Light has a "Final Fantasy 6 materia-light" system but it's just functional but not special. Both games lack strong enemies to actally demand deep-diving their systems. Monster Sanctuary - A monster collection game, but with 4 skill trees on every pokemon and really involved ways of how things syergize within both a single leveledd up mosnter or given team of 3 -- downside any simple "beater" pokemon is fine for all but the last 2 dungeons/bonus challenges, altough to its credit the game does weed out players who don't try to learn how the systems work at that point. SRPGs / TRPGs - complaints vary game to game but there's like 2 main aprroaches to SRPG "Snappy" and "class mix and match" - A lot of people love the likes of Final Fantasy Tactics or Tactics Ogre, but their job system is flawed in various ways (low difficulty of single classing the game, item based healing beating all magic healing , hard limits to number of charathers deployed per map, etc etc) The enemy also is MUCH further behind the player in these games than in more simple games, as on top of the struggle of unit movement/placement it generally has nearly vanilla skilltrees. Snappy games can generally do more interesting things on the battlefield (elevation, limited cover system, AI keeping within range of its own allies instead of zerging) but its hard to say how much simpifcatino is too much - a straight attack-defence system with global high hit rates is pretty easy to math out for a human, and you don't want all 12~ of players units feeling TOO alike. Occasional comparision with western games revoves around trying to claim theyr'e not in the same genre as the ONLY way to defend the "real" SRPGs as being good games, even when you go down onto 2nd string games like Shadowrun:Dragonfall,Expedetions:Conquistador,Wasteland 2.. let alone the elephants -- a Friend of mine is trying HARD to sell me on TroubleShooter:Abandonded Children, which might dethrone my traditonal favorite (Front Mission 3) For me and Western RPGs Temple of Elemental Evil - It really is pretty much the best turn based tactical implementation of D&D (Knights of the Chalice only serious rival) Does have shortcomings of.... the non combat part of the game being tedious, non-setpiece fights can be similiar (BUGBEAR) , rules violation of Polearm+Attackofoppurtunuity/greaterwhirlwind) Battle Brothers / Jagged Alliance 2- but of course they are skirmishtactics hybirds and some people may not consider them RPGs at all. Missed potential games Baldur'sGate/Pilars of Eternity 2:Deadfire / Pathfinder:Kingmaker - now as for these things... for a lot of people they are synonomous with combat in the western RPG context.. but personally, compared to other RPGs, the gulf between playing "straight" and "cheesing" is even larger than normal ... and Real Time with Pause automatically prevents like half the RPG community from liking the anyway so calling them best overall is a stretch. I think my real problem is that even though they are all party based.. you don't really "fight" like a party , wizard duels will predominate, or a super buffed melee guy on point will predominate - and after solving a given combat's main problem the rest of your party ... are just extra baggage to manage and if anything, encouraged to be left doing simple stuff (hence the Real time). Minor combats and trash fight really emphasie this of course Divinity:Original Sin - the status effect everything to death game - fun to think around combat, but game breaks down even in a blind playtrhoguh about 3/4 the way through because the expert skills are simply too much and can end combat turn 1 in a lot of cases... Especially vulnerable to repeat playthroughs where you can have multiple charathers with summons, or will commit even harder to AoE crowd control than you did the first time. Again I love the primitiveness of a blobber like Wizardry/Might and Magic/Lord of Xulima, but i don't want to move goal post from "best" to "best at what it sets out to do"

Tales of games or Star Ocean games mostly. Fighting game commands hidden in car combat games like Twisted Metal / Vigilante 8 is more mindblowing than hiding them in RPGs