Top Ten Games I Think About Regularly
I’m still thinking about Souls of Chronos and Final Fantasy XVI so I wanted to have a lighter post this week about games I think about regularly. I got a memory of what will be the #1 game on this list this week and it gave me the idea for this post.
The rules:
1) The game must be at least 5 years old. I’m looking for games I haven’t played recently and where the game pops into my subconscious for some reason with minimal conscious prompting
2) I cannot have written about the game for content on this website or my former Patreon blog. If I make a mistake, please feel free to correct me if you have read my content and notice a game has been covered.
3) Each series can only be listed once, even if I think about multiple games in a series.
Let us begin:
#10
Google Image Search, www.giantbomb.com
Fallout 3 is a game I never played, but I spent many hours watching the game with an old friend. It was always a little frightening for me when I was younger with the VAT system but it is nice to have those high school and early college memories of seeing him play Fallout 3. I was definitely bored and impatient then but I miss those moments now. Fallout 3 was his obsession for a long time and it was great to see him be so aware of everything in the game and the consequences of all of the decision trees. While I don’t have a specific memory of this game that stands out, I remember the ambience.
#9
Image used from ebay.com via Google Images
My dad and his brother traded Pirate’s Gold and Aerobiz back and forth throughout my childhood and I have fond memories of both of these games. In particular, my favorite memory was finally being good enough at the game to conquer the earliest era in the game. It was difficult because it had minimal supplies and well established cities unaffected by war. My dad and I would take turns commanding our pirate army when playing together and playing alone this game was a great introduction to how imaginative a video game could be. Beware of the Spanish in game though, they always knew how to mess up a good run at sea or in land battles.
#8
Image from realmofdarkness.net
There are many good Dragon Quest games but the one I think about often is Dragon Quest VIII. Dragon Quest VIII has a quirky cast of characters and a very good job system. While this is the normal Dragon Quest Standard, VIII holds a special place for me because it challenged me to think about how to utilize resources and tactics. I was a relatively young gamer when I first played Dragon Quest VIII and when I started to replay the 3DS version, I realized I played the original very poorly. I leveled characters a little haphazardly and didn’t read some of the skills clearly with my other characters so I missed out on good combo potential. I definitely have to play more on the 3DS version, maybe I should get that back from my brother-in-law at some point.
#7
Google image Search used from Wikipedia.com
This is the other game from my youth where I have good memories of my dad. This turn-based airline simulator is a great mix of strategic thinking, timing, and competition. I remember many a Sunday afternoon spent taking turns running our airlines and trying to beat the other two computers players. I also found that I liked simulation games from my experience of playing Aerobiz. Considering most of the games I had played up until that point were sports or side-scrolling platformers, Aerobiz exposed me to a new genre. I was not aware of the Super Nintendo and all of the RPG games it had and now as an adult, I’m finding myself going back to SNES role playing games. We all learn about our gaming preferences at our own pace and Aerobiz was very key for me finding mine.
#6
Image from Amazon.com listing found via Google Image Search
I wish I could play this game again. I’m not sure what happened with my DS collection but Spectral Force Genesis was one of my favorite games on the DS. This grand strategy game built a great world with dozens of rival factions and a great use of the stylus on the DS. The best feeling was realizing I was building a solid empire and finding a couple of other good competing empires to slowly weaken and take over. Conquest was challenging because it required multiple strikes at the same location to weaken castle walls and troop levels. Patience was so important in this game because attacking too early without enough reserves made counter-attacks very difficult to defend. All in all, I think a lot about the Mei Mei Knights, either trying to win as them or conquering them in the early game so I didn’t have to see the fairy cutscenes. :P
#5
Google Image Search from Amazon.com
XBOX 360 had a brief hey-day of having really good RPG’s. Lost Odyssey, Infinite Undiscovery, and Eternal Sonata were three great games to be inviting to RPG fans who struggled with issues with the early launch of the PS3. This is still one of the most creative RPG’s I’ve ever played. The game is based on the dream world of Frederic Chopin where music is key to the combat. Dream Chopin is a tall man with a purple hat and I loved having such soft music in a game. Overall, definitely a game idea that I wish was developed more as no game has really taken a similar approach since. (Nostalgia and Searching Tracks on Spotify.)
#4
Google Image Search for Amazon listing
Shadow Hearts Covenant was a dark RPG set in Eastern Europe. I accidentally bought the sequel first so I had to go back and play the original Shadow Hearts after beating this game. The combat reminded me of the addition system in the Legend of Dragoon with its wheel. (The only reason Legend of Dragoon is not on this list is because I played it last summer so it does not meet the rules I set above.) The intrigue of Rasputin as a wizard, Anastasia as the Princess of Russia and a variety of enemies makes me wish I was better with emulators or that I could get all of my old games from my sister. I don’t know that my sister completely realizes she’s sitting on a game collection worth a couple grand, but it’s been fun to see her go through all these games I went through as a child. Yuri is such an intriguing character and at some point, I should play through this game again.
#3
Google Image search leading to IMDB.com image
This is the level of quality I wish every Star Ocean game had. I did rip apart the newest Star Ocean in a blog post around a year ago and it is because it was nowhere close to the excellence that this game was. Having to learn to stun lock Lenneth using Thunder skills to prevent her from doing several hundred thousand damage to all of your characters was something I could never master, but it was fun having characters who could level to level 255. This game was an obsession for months in my childhood and I still think of Cliff’s Sphere of Might animation and the multiple planets to explore in Star Ocean. Again: Multiple Planets, Diverse Party Members, High Quality Crafting System, this is what I want in a Star Ocean game.
#2
Image taken from ebay listing found via a Google Search
My first turn-based strategy video game. I still remember the music, the secret ways to hide troops to attack commanders, and the poor territories that always seemed to lose turn 1. Feudal Japan was a vicious place and this game captured that ambience so magnificently. I was so young playing this game that it took me a while to figure out the best ways to give rice to the peasants and how to position troops between all five units you could have. Different territories had different ways to utilize resources best and I was impressed with the 17 fief and the 50 fief games. Each played very differently and most games didn’t have multiple options at that time. I should play the more recent entries but there was definitely a magic with this NES game. It did rerelease on the Super NES so I should go look for it in the retro game store.
#1
Google Image Search taken from Amazon Listing
Ahh, I think about this game often and haven’t gotten a chance to replay it because Playstation emulators are really hard to operate for me. This is the beginning of the mystery dungeon genre. Every Chocobo Mystery Dungeon or Pokemon Mystery Dungeon I hope captures even a portion of the charm of Azure Dreams. This game had everything, romance, quests for people in town, a world that existed but couldn’t travel to, and a deep lore for the monster dungeon. The random dungeon generation was phenomenal and the monster collecting and breeding were top notch. My best friend showed me this game from high school and I was lucky to snag a copy of this game a while later. What a work of art. I was thinking about this game this week and I thought that I need to write this piece and also I need to play this game again. This is a game that warms my heart.
I enjoyed gaming from a very young age so I hope this piece gives you some ideas about a new game to enjoy or warm memories from your playthrough of these titles. If you like this top-10 list, let me know in the comments. As always, be on the lookout for more podcasts and content from Phenomena Gaming.
