Welcome!
Here is my list of my favorite games of all time.
I will limit this list to my top ten, because there probably won't be that much I can write about beyond that, and because last time I tried this it blew up to my top 50 and I couldn't finish the list. Be aware: there will be spoilers.
A handy and helpful table of contents is below.
#10: Minecraft
At this point, Minecraft is now a classic, a staple of games, like bread. Everybody knows Minecraft, and because of that, you probably are asking why it's above so many other games.
I guess it's just because I have the most experience with Minecraft in terms of the subgenre that is "games where you can dick around with friends in a free environment." Other games like gmod and Terraria are probably more substantial (and I really should play Terraria, it's been in my backlog for a while), but Minecraft is the only one which I have played for years.
My experience with Minecraft started out with the 360 Console Edition. It was one of only two games that we had for the console that weren't Kinect games or Halo (the other being Sonic Generations), and we made the best of it. Later on, we got the Java Edition, and it was pretty much my first real online multiplayer experience (besides maybe Mario Kart 8 but I'm not sure how much of that I played online then).
The game's huge community also provides plenty of mods and stuff. I haven't really played modded minecraft that much (only really getting into it myself last year) but it is a nice change. I guess that's what I like about Minecraft: even after so long, it keeps on giving.
(though I guess it may just be that I'm not cultured enough; again, I need to play Terraria.)
#9: Pizza Tower
Pizza Tower is the newest game on this list, and also the newest paid game I've played in general (technically Wee Tanks released its version 1.0 later, but I started playing that before). Despite being less than two years old, it still manages to be a classic, and this will probably only be cemented in the years to come.
The first thing I thought of when I saw Pizza Tower was that I didn't really like the artstyle. I thought it felt a little weird with no-antialiasing and only basic coloring on these high quality sprites. What's nice about it though is that I got used to the artstyle, and now I think it's a good fit.
Once you get past the artstyle, this becomes an insanely fun platformer. Once you master the stages, you feel like nothing can stop you. It's a joy to play as both Peppino and the Noise.
I've gotten all P-ranks as Peppino and almost all of them as the Noise. It never felt old practicing the levels to get them (except Gnome Forest, but that level's pain point, a tricky section 4 minutes in where one wrong move equaled losing your combo, was fixed in an update). Overall, this is peak platforming.
#8: Rhythm Heaven (Series)
Yes, I know that the entire Rhythm Heaven series is four games, not one. If you want a split ranking of the four entries, here you go:
- Rhythm Heaven Fever
- Rhythm Heaven DS
- Rhythm Heaven Megamix
- Rhythm Tengoku
The reason why I'm ranking these games together in one place is because I played and completed them all around the same period of time in late-mid 2020. This period, which I mark as the peak of my personal "Age of Emulation," was defined by these series of games.
Megamix would give me something new to do on my 3DS for the first time in years, acting as a sort of precursor to when I hacked it the following year. Fever would show the true might of my laptop in emulation, showcasing its true power, a vast improvement from my previous ultra-cheap model. DS and GBA gave me something else significant to play on my phone for the first time since another game later on this list was installed 3 years prior. (And yes, I did play all of Rhythm Heaven DS on my phone. Surprisingly, the only games that were much easier on an actual DS were Rockers 2 and Drummer Duel.)
It's always fun to come back to replay my favorite minigames. Rhythm Rally and Lockstep for DS, Screwbot Factory, See Saw and Flock Step on Fever, Polyrhythm for GBA (shoutout to Polyrhythm Mania!); these are some games that will always be just plain fun.
(Also I hate Moai Doo-Wop and it's delayed PaRappa 1-ass controls)
#7: Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story
I have played through almost every Mario RPG at this point (the only one I haven't played is the original Super Mario RPG, though I still haven't finished Superstar Saga), and yet I still consider this game, one of the first two Mario RPGs I've ever played (right alongside Partners in Time), to be my personal favorite of all of the Mario RPGs.
Of course, there's the nostalgia factor. I have plenty of memories of being stuck at specific parts of the game (a little while with the Dimble Wood Carrot eating game, another little while with Blizzard Midbus, then a long while with Dark Bowser), but I also remember my successes as well (specifically the time where, after beating Blizzard Midbus, I basically blazed through almost all of the bosses right up to the final boss). It was one of the earliest examples of struggle leading to the sweet, sweet reward of success. (I especially remember the day which I finally got good enough at button mashing to get to the next phase of the Dark Bowser fight, where I then proceeded to finally beat the game. That was a good day.)
But I don't just like Bowser's Inside Story because I'm nostalgic for it, I also like it because it is a really solid adventure. It's rewarding to get to the end of an area and complete objectives, it's fun to battle enemies, and it's full of stuff to find. I may not have much specifics to say in this regard, but it's an all-around solid game.
BONUS SIDE NOTE: I'm currently thinking about how I would've ranked this game had I not played it when I was younger. I wonder if I would've ranked it along the same line as Superstar Saga, where I like it but I don't consider it that great (mainly due to some disengaging moments). Maybe I would've considered Superstar Saga better had I actually played it when I was younger, not just heard of it and seen its sprites in other stuff I saw. It's similar to how I feel of the original Mario VS. Donkey Kong, where I think it's a good game but due to how I played later entries as a child and didn't experience the original until the age of emulation, I don't think of it as fondly.
#6: Celeste
I'm pretty sure if you're on this site you know about Celeste. It's everybody's favorite trans/depression allegory about climbing a mountain!
I love platformer games, especially difficult ones. This would've been made clear in my old top 50 list way before, but since the only other platformer game before this was Pizza Tower, I would like to point this out. Celeste is known for its tough platforming, and I ate it up. This is a well designed difficult platformer with tight mechanics and great visuals.
By the time I started playing Celeste in 2021, I was well versed in difficult platformers, though it still took me a while to complete the main campaign. I was especially proud with beating the Farewell chapter, which took me over 1300 deaths the first time through. There was a period where I practiced extensively to try getting the Farewell Golden Berry, which culminated in a 17 death Farewell run, but I ultimately never accomplished it (maybe someday).
But we're not done with Celeste yet. Celeste is home to what I would call the single best game mod for any game: the Strawberry Jam Collab, the true reason why this is all the way up at #7.
The Strawberry Jam Collab is probably best described as "the Super Mario Galaxy 2" of Celeste, but as a mod for the game rather than a standalone thing. It has many levels with difficulty ranging from around early to mid-vanilla game to the Celeste equivalent of a Geometry Dash Extreme Demon. If there was something missing with Celeste, it was continuing to increase the difficulty until it became too much for any sane person to handle, something which this mod delivers on.
Not only does it deliver on difficulty, it also delivers on banger levels. Treehive's fun easy gameplay. paint's absolutely amazing theming and accessibility. Honeyzip Inc's cool ziplines. The strange yet unique mechanic of Pointless Machines (plus that name that goes hard). Attack of the Clone's fun concept and theme. Bee Beserk's bee theme (again, though I found all the bee courses to be very fun). Toggle Theory's very unique theme and cool style. Superstructure's cool theme and gameplay. System.InvalidMapException's fun gameplay. FLOATING POINT's neat theme and gameplay. Garden of Khu'tara's amazing visuals. kevintechspam.bin's gameplay that makes you feel like a legend.
This is not even mentioning the amazing soundtrack for most courses. My personal favorites have to be Psychokinetic and Chromatic Complex, which are both certified bangers, though basically every course I listed in the previous paragraph and most other courses have banger soundtracks.
It is also amazing that this mod has by far the best way I've seen to teach the complex maneuvers necessary to beat the later stages. While I did rely on videos a lot for them to know what to do, I was able to pull it off thanks to the gyms. Even playing with only my Steam Deck and a will to complete it all, I managed to get all the way to the Grandmaster lobby.
Overall, even with all of these complements I feel like I haven't given the Strawberry Jam Collab enough credit. It is an insane feat, and it's why Celeste is one of my favorite games.
#5: Super Mario Galaxy 2
Super Mario Galaxy 2 was basically the Mario game of my childhood. Even though I have played Mario Galaxy 1, Super Mario 64, and years later Super Mario Odyssey, Super Mario Galaxy 2 remains my favorite out of the 3D Mario platformers. Why? Probably just my memories, but also because it's a great game.
Super Mario Galaxy 2 was probably the earliest out of any of these games on this list, and was one of the first real games I played in general. In terms of Mario platformers, it was probably just my third, after NSMBW and Galaxy 1. My playthrough of the game, however, wouldn't end for a long time.
I don't remember much of my first playthrough before I got to the green stars. I just remember struggling through the special world. Once I got to the green stars, however, I can remember a few details. There was one green star in particular, the third one in Flipsville Galaxy, that I really struggled with. I kept trying to get it, only to die by falling up. It turns out that a homing ground pound gets the job done. I specifically remember it being the last green star I needed to collect before reaching 240 stars, which then unlocked the Grandmaster Galaxy, a galaxy I had only barely seen in the videos of the old Youtube. It took a while, but eventually I beat the Perfect Run in 2014.
Overall, what probably makes this game so great is that it is very replayable. I can always just go to my Steam Deck, boot up Mario Galaxy 2 and play through a mission for a good time. It is simply one of the best platformers.
BONUS SIDE NOTE: I always remembered watching a video of the mission "The Shadow Lining" in Cloudy Court Galaxy where the player jumped slowly to collect the launch star pieces at the first half of the stage, something which I always recreated when I played the mission, even after I had long forgotten where that video came from. Well, I *had* forgotten it, up until I watched a video of somebody going through the beginner's DVD years later, which I didn't know about. I was casually watching it up until one of the clips in the "challenges" section, where I saw the exact behavior I always did. I was like "wait, that's where that was from?" and I was surprised at how I had seen the same clip on old Youtube. I'm glad I got closure on that.
#4: Bug Fables
2021 struck again later with this one. It's crazy to think that over the short period from March 2021 to March 2022, I would play through 3 of my top 4 favorite games of all time (4 of my top 10) for the first time.
As the last of the games I played during this period, Bug Fables had a lot to live up to, especially because my play sessions would feel very similar to Hollow Knight. I was well-versed with this type of game, and I knew it would at least probably be fun (especially considering I had recently beaten Paper Mario TTYD for the first time the year prior), but I didn't know if it would match my experience from last year. Thankfully, it did.
For the most part, Bug Fables is a very happy game. Seeing the main trio form their strong bond from nothing was something I really liked to see, and the world was really charming. The game may be dark at times, but it is mostly just you as three bugs exploring a wonderful world full of fun characters and mighty foes.
One thing I was looking for during my first playthrough was a standout character, much like Quirrel from Hollow Knight. I wanted another character I could really attach myself to, and I got that, except I didn't just attach to one character, I attached to 3: the entire Team Snakemouth. They are basically the perfect trio of characters: they play well off of eachother, and they are great as individuals as well. It's no wonder why I enjoy to draw silly comics of them. Team Snakemouth satisfied my need for characters I could attach to (something which actually harmed later attempts to play through other games; I kept looking for characters I could attach to, but could never find any. It dampened my experience for games like Ori and Rain World, even if they are well designed experiences. I might write about games I tried to get into but couldn't at a different time.)
There is also just so much to do in Bug Fables. There are many areas to explore, many beasts to fight, many discoveries to make. It was really fun the whole way through. All in all, Bug Fables was just a really solid adventure which I latched onto strongly thanks to its charm.
#3: Levelhead
Now we enter the big 3, the games which I personally consider my favorites. If you ask me "what's my favorite game," I'll probably mention these 3 games.
The story of why I like Levelhead so much begins with the Mario fangames available in 2013. Back then, I would play many different Mario flash games and build my own levels. I loved to build random stuff in Super Mario 63 and the Super Mario Flash series. However, there was one game which I wanted to play with more than anything else: Super Mario Bros. X. Sadly, this game was a download, and I guess I was too dumb to figure that out.
My desire for building Mario levels stayed strong throughout 2013 and 2014. The latter year is significant, as something big to me would be announced that year: Mario Maker, an official, feature rich way to build Mario levels.
Throughout the entire gap between reveal and release, I was hyped for Super Mario Maker, as I really wanted to build levels. Then, on release day, I was surprised when the game came as a delivery. To this day, it was the only game I've ever gotten on release day, and it was worth it.
Even though I tend to think of more than just Mario Maker when I think about my experience with the Wii U, Mario Maker was the game that I had played most on that system. I made tons of levels, and I watched the community flourish, from the auto level that was the best thing from day 1 to today, with every level beaten.
Fast forward to 2019. Super Mario Maker 2 released, and I got it. I was initially hyped, but later on, the game just grew increasingly disappointing. Making levels just wasn't fun. My itch to create stuff was still there, but I could no longer satisfy it with Mario Maker, and by this point my ideas were too advanced for flash fangame editors. While I did finally figure out how to get Super Mario Bros X, it proved to be too advanced for me.
I needed a middle ground where I could create cool stuff without needing to do too much. I wanted a new Mario Maker, something which satisfied the needs of a more skilled player with bigger ideas. That was when, in early 2021 with some money to burn, I remembered a Ceave Gaming video about a game called Levelhead.
I got started playing Levelhead's campaign and it immediately showed Levelhead had plenty to work with. It was familiar, but had some new stuff that made things interesting. I then went on to the editor and it was there where I got to experience how a well designed editor should work. Because Levelhead is a PC game, it can take full advantage of mouse and keyboard controls, and it does so wonderfully. Every item is easy to access and there are a plethora of shortcuts. The editor is better than Mario Maker 2 even with just a controller or a touch screen.
What really set apart Levelhead, however, was the community. It was a small enough community that it is chill, and there are plenty of building events. The one I did the most was the weekly power build, where every week I had a short 1 hour to make a full level. For a long time, this was something to look forward to nearly every week; in fact, I still do participate in them occassionally. Levelhead is the first (and arguably the only) game where I feel a significant connection to the community, and that's what makes it stand out among the rest. It may not be as good as the next two games, but it is a personal favorite.
Go check it out! It's more obscure than the other games on this list but it is well worth it.
#2: Hollow Knight
2021 struck again later with this one. It's crazy to think that over the short period from March 2021 to March 2022, I would play through 3 of my top 4 games for the first time.
Hollow Knight was the first game of what I call the Steam era, the period of time after the age of emulation (even though I've always played Levelhead on PC, I only got the Steam version later in 2021; initially I was on the MS Store version which didn't turn out so great after I switched to Linux. It was the only game I missed from the Windows days, though I did figure out how to build and upload levels before Proton-GE fixed Levelhead). I initially got and started playing Hollow Knight just around the time I finally switched to Linux, so I encountered the hurdle of transferring my barely-completed save to the other OS. Thankfully, nothing went wrong there, because if something did, I might not have continued playing.
Once I got into Hollow Knight, though, I *really* got into it. I had gone into the game knowing basically nothing about it, besides the fact that it was a well designed and difficult exploration game. This decision paid off; it was almost a magical experience adventuring through the game and finding new stuff around every corner. I did struggle with it, but it was rewarding.
Of course, I have to mention Quirrel. I remember the exact moment where he basically became my favorite character in anything, surpassing the former owner of that title who I only kinda cared about, Luigi. I was struggling to beat the Mantis Lords with my inexperience, so I went around searching for something that might've possibly helped. It was at that point where I encountered Quirrel, who told me to go to the city, and I did so. The city, it turns out, is the best area of the game, and I got to sit with Quirrel. I later upgraded my nail, and I basically was able to destroy the Mantis Lords immediately after. Upon their defeat, Quirrel clicked for me. His design is peak. He is very helpful. He is who I want to be. I'm not sure exactly what made him so great to me, but I do really like him. He's a peak character, and he's the only one who's plush I own.
Moving past Quirrel for one second, I continued to explore. Every ability was great, every area was fun to explore. Eventually, I beat the Radiance, but not before admiring the Uumuu bossfight, who's only positive trait is that Quirrel is there to fight with you (in Godhome Uumuu is one of my least favorite bosses because no Quirrel >:( ) (I later sat with Quirrel at the blue lake. Yes, I do admit he's probably dead, but even if there is never an official game with him again there is always our memories (or at least the ability to make fangames/other media with him)). Once that was done, there was only Godhome left.
I basically completed most of what was there to be done in about a month and 35 hours of gameplay. All that was left was the Pantheon of Hallownest, the toughest challenge in the game. It took me many months, but eventually, I reached the Absolute Radiance (but not before dying to the Pure Vessel), and I proceeded to die. But I was happy, for now I could practice the fuck out of her. I played her fight for hundreds of attempts until I mastered every pattern, then I went back to the pantheon. It didn't take much longer, but eventually, I did it. I beat the Pantheon of Hallownest. (I also finally beat the Farewell of Celeste that same day, it was a great day (also completely unrelated tangent: I owned Terraria on that day, but I haven't touched it until the day I'm writing this, 2.5 years later. It's pretty fun.))
Hollow Knight has since cemented itself as the single greatest singleplayer experience I've ever had in any game. While I would go on to play Bug Fables and then other games, I could always return to Hollow Knight. I initially returned with a steel soul run, which was paused after I couldn't leave Quirrel at the city bench. I then went on to play several room randomizers, which I never completed because I could never find the black egg temple or the nailsmith. Finally, this year, I continued the steel soul run I started the year prior, finally beating it then beating it again with 100% completion, fulfilling the remaining achievements. And thus, Hollow Knight was complete, but that's not to say I'll never return. It's a really great game, and with mods, I can always have a new experience with it. (At least I'll return for Quirrel.)
#1: Geometry Dash
There is no other game which I feel more that I'd be fundamentally different without it than Geometry Dash.
I've been playing this game for 7 years at this point, and it has never gotten stale enough for me to stop. A few basic mechanics and the most powerful level editor any game has to offer has fueled some very creative people to build some amazing stuff. Geometry Dash may be a simple game at its core, but this simplicity leads to a ridiculous amount of depth.
I have much, *much* more to say about this game (specifically my journeys in creating levels and playing difficult levels), but for now I will simply leave this: Geometry Dash was what sparked my creativity, and it showed me how to really improve my gaming skills.
I've learned a lot writing about these games. I know what I like in games now, and I know what makes what I like so special to me. I guess, then, that this was a good exercise: I learned something writing it.
I'll probably write about other experiences in the future, but for now, I guess this blog post can serve as a neat little summary of my gaming experiences.