I think I posted on here years ago when I was still dripping in high school brand edginess™ so imma just update my picks with my new worldly knowledge.
#1: Shovel Knight
Shovel Knight's a pretty good platformer that pretty much just grabbed elements from other platformers and put them into one game. It's good, it's not the holy fucking grail of indie games or master difficulty curve or any of that shit. So many people praise this game for being something beyond what it is and that shit gets old. Pretty much everything the game does has been done before and done better.
#2: Super Mario RPG
Paper Mario's just sorta better, and this game hasn't aged as well as people think it has. Still a good game though.
#3: Majora's Mask
This one's more just personal preference but Majora's Mask just doesn't do it for me. I never played it as a kid, which is probably a big part of my feelings, but the time limit on an exploration based game reeeeealy turns me off here, and this game has some of the shittiest dungeon designs in Zelda history. Still a good game and I can respect the changes and innovations it created, but it's just not my cup of tea.
#4: Dark Souls
It's just Monster Hunter but with a bunch of bullshit thrown in. This might be slightly warped since I've only played the PC port which is notoriously awful, but I hear praises for the game and figure I'll reinstall and give it the old college try about once or twice a year, and every time I just fucking hate this game. The level design in the second part of the game is so laughably bad that I can't believe people actually enjoy this. It's not "ooooh arjahn you don't get it it's really hard cuz it's supposed to be really hard BUT IT'S FAIR!!!", it's off screen enemies throwing fucking firebombs at you and not telegraphing attacks. Monster Hunter is hard but fair, this shit's just poorly made.
#5: Paper Mario the Thousand Year Door onward.
The original Paper Mario is my favorite game, I mean, ever. It's perfect, it's aged beautifully, it's probably the only "funny" videogame that ever actually made me laugh, the combat's super enjoyable, the characters are memorable, the exploration and badge systems are great, just a wonderful little game.
Now then,
Every sequel has sucked enormous donkey dingle.
TTYD gets a lot of praise, and admiteddly it's not as bad as the others, but holy shiiiit the backtracking in this game. Go play it again now and you'll see that the game has so much fucking walking. Even the good levels have egregious amounts of walking. Oh you want to look around the wrestling arena? Better walk alllllllllllllll the way around and allllllllllllllll the way back then talk to one dude and proceed to walk allllllllllllllllllllllllllll the way back to the start. There's one level where you seriously have to take a 5 minute walking path 3 or 4 times in a row. It's just so fucking tedious. I also really didn't like any of the characters, which is weird because, like I said, I loved or could at least tolerate most of them in the original.
Then we get to Super Paper Mario where they decided to turn their successful turn based RPG franchise into a shitty platformer... ok.
Then we get to Sticker Star where fucking Jumping on enemies requires very limited resources so you're encouraged by the game's mechanics not to fight anything to learn the game's mechanics...ok.
![[+]](images/collapse_collapsed.png "[+]")
Spoiler#1: Shovel Knight
Shovel Knight's a pretty good platformer that pretty much just grabbed elements from other platformers and put them into one game. It's good, it's not the holy fucking grail of indie games or master difficulty curve or any of that shit. So many people praise this game for being something beyond what it is and that shit gets old. Pretty much everything the game does has been done before and done better.
#2: Super Mario RPG
Paper Mario's just sorta better, and this game hasn't aged as well as people think it has. Still a good game though.
#3: Majora's Mask
This one's more just personal preference but Majora's Mask just doesn't do it for me. I never played it as a kid, which is probably a big part of my feelings, but the time limit on an exploration based game reeeeealy turns me off here, and this game has some of the shittiest dungeon designs in Zelda history. Still a good game and I can respect the changes and innovations it created, but it's just not my cup of tea.
#4: Dark Souls
It's just Monster Hunter but with a bunch of bullshit thrown in. This might be slightly warped since I've only played the PC port which is notoriously awful, but I hear praises for the game and figure I'll reinstall and give it the old college try about once or twice a year, and every time I just fucking hate this game. The level design in the second part of the game is so laughably bad that I can't believe people actually enjoy this. It's not "ooooh arjahn you don't get it it's really hard cuz it's supposed to be really hard BUT IT'S FAIR!!!", it's off screen enemies throwing fucking firebombs at you and not telegraphing attacks. Monster Hunter is hard but fair, this shit's just poorly made.
#5: Paper Mario the Thousand Year Door onward.
The original Paper Mario is my favorite game, I mean, ever. It's perfect, it's aged beautifully, it's probably the only "funny" videogame that ever actually made me laugh, the combat's super enjoyable, the characters are memorable, the exploration and badge systems are great, just a wonderful little game.
Now then,
Every sequel has sucked enormous donkey dingle.
TTYD gets a lot of praise, and admiteddly it's not as bad as the others, but holy shiiiit the backtracking in this game. Go play it again now and you'll see that the game has so much fucking walking. Even the good levels have egregious amounts of walking. Oh you want to look around the wrestling arena? Better walk alllllllllllllll the way around and allllllllllllllll the way back then talk to one dude and proceed to walk allllllllllllllllllllllllllll the way back to the start. There's one level where you seriously have to take a 5 minute walking path 3 or 4 times in a row. It's just so fucking tedious. I also really didn't like any of the characters, which is weird because, like I said, I loved or could at least tolerate most of them in the original.
Then we get to Super Paper Mario where they decided to turn their successful turn based RPG franchise into a shitty platformer... ok.
Then we get to Sticker Star where fucking Jumping on enemies requires very limited resources so you're encouraged by the game's mechanics not to fight anything to learn the game's mechanics...ok.