The whole game is minimalistic. Other than the spirit sending you on your quests to destroy colossi and your own character calling to his horse, no one in the game ever speaks. You never go up levels, and you never find new equipment. The sword and bow with which you begin the game are the same ones with which you’ll finish. Your character’s only stats are his life meter and his grip meter. And while these can be improved by hunting lizards and eating fruit, this is neither spelled out anywhere in the game nor is it necessary to the game’s completion.

The colossus battles are epic, and the music and landscapes only add to the drama. I often found myself wanting to yell out loud when I found my character wildly scrambling and gritting my teeth to hold onto the arm of a hundred foot tall colossus who was flailing wildly to dislodge the human insect who was stabbing at him with a pinlike blade. yes – the game lends itself to flowery descriptions.

For a game with no dialog, Shadow of the Colossus has pathos. Nothing is ever spelled out, but as the game progresses, you find yourself asking whether slaying the majestic colossi is the right course of action. After all, what have they done? Whom have they harmed?

I won’t spoil any more for those who may still be considering returning to 2005 to play the game, but Shadow of the Collosus holds a well-earned place in my top 20 games of all time.

12- Resident Evil 2 (Capcom, Sony Playstation, 1998)
In many ways, Resident Evil 2 doesn’t hold up well. But I enjoyed the game so much that even after twelve years, it remains one of my favorite games of all time. In 1998, Resident Evil was still coming into its own. The first game had a bit of a haunted house vibe, and terrible terrible voice acting. This sequel improved the voice acting, improved the plot, and greatly improved the graphics. Plus, the scope was so much larger – rather than zombies haunting a house, the infection had spread to the entire city. The parallel storylines followed by the game’s two playable characters was a further stroke of genius.

The game’s story primarily involved learning about how the T-virus outbreak had occurred, and learning about the even worse G-virus that the Umbrella Corporation had been developing. The fun was in discovering new enemy types along the way and enjoying the scripted cheap scares, which were plentiful. Sitting in my room at night with the lights turned off, I ate that shit up.

I suppose the decision to place this game as highly as I have isn’t an entirely rational one. It’s more about the joy that the game brought me when I first played it.

11- Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (KCE Tokyo, Sony Playstation, 1997)
The aspect of Symphony of the Night which I’ve lauded most has always been its amazing soundtrack, but that’s far from the best thing about the game. Aside from the soundtrack, and aside from the fact that the graphics were absolutely outstanding in 1997, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night was a fantastic 2d platformer that gave you an open world, RPG elements, and so much more.

Symphony of the Night was the first Castlevania game to give your character levels and an inventory. As the game progressed, you could pick up artifacts that would grant you new powers such as a double jump, flying kick, and the ability to shapeshift into a wolf, bat, or a cloud of mist. You could gain familiars who would fly alongside you, casting spells, healing you, or just attacking everything in sight.

And the boss monsters in Symphony of the Night were memorable. Trevor, Grant, and Syfa from Castlevania III made a comeback, Waterbound Sylla from Greek myth was present, and as always in Castlavania games, Death himself made an appearance. But “Granfaloon” may be my favorite Castlevania enemy of all time: a giant sphere composed of corpses. The corpses fall off and rise up as zombies to attack you. And when enough have fallen off, Granfaloon begins firing freaking laser beams at you!

As the game progressed, you could learn magic spells or buy them from the merchant. These consisted of Street Fighter-like quarter circle motions, double button presses, or something similar. They were often difficult to pull off on a D pad, but they were very useful.

Symphony of the Night gave you two weapon slots, and two buttons with which to use them. You could dual wield weapons, such as a whip and a mace, or use a two-handed weapon, or use a sword and shield. One of my favorite magic items in the game was the shield rod, which when equipped alongside a shield allowed for a special attack: when you pressed both your weapon and shield button simultaneously, you’d trigger a magical effect based on what shield you had equipped – each shield in the game had its own unique effect. And there were dozens of shields in the game. In fact, the number of different magic items in the game was so huge that it would be nearly impossible to find them all. And many had totally undocumented powers. Many were the times I’d pull off some crazy effect and have no idea how I’d managed to do it.

As I progressed through the game and watched the completion percentage counter in the inventory screen approach 100%, I grew a bit sad. i didn’t want the game to be over. How amazing was it then when I reached what appeared to be the final room in the castle and found a second castle suspended upside-down atop the first? And the meter hit 101%…

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is available as a download on the Playstation Network. If you’ve never played, I highly recommend it.

45-Dungeons and Dragons: Tower of Doom (Capcom, Arcade, 1993)
Comparing this updated top 50 list to the list I made years ago, Tower of Doom is one of the few games that has actually moved up. Previously, I’d had it listed in position 50.

Tower of Doom was the best of the 4-player arcade cabinet games. You could play a fighter, dwarf, cleric or elf. You could pick up new weapons, extra arrows for your bow, magic items, and gold to spend in a store between levels. The cleric and elf had a list of spells right out of the Player’s Handbook which improved as they went up in level. Everyone except the elf had a shield that was useful in the same way as the Knight’s shield in Trine. Plus, certain characters had moves that were performed like the special moves in Street Fighter 2. These were bull rushes, rolls, dive attacks, and slides – as useful for evading traps as they were in melee.The game’s combat was far more technical than most sidescrolling beat-em-ups.

There were branching routes in the game, secret areas, and the list of enemies in the game included kobolds, ghasts, troglodytes, manticores, medusa, a beholder, and a couple dragons for stage bosses. That’s the kind of game you’d never imagine having seen in an arcade, and that’s why the game is on my top fifty list.

44-Neverwinter Nights (Bioware, Windows, 2002)
If it weren’t for the Aurora toolset that let you create your own adventures, complete with its complex scripting engine, this game would never be in my list. I viewed the included adventure in much the same way that I viewed Rivers of Light back in the day – as an example of what you could do with the adventure construction set they’d handed you. And I spent long evenings for a year building my adventure, complete with custom music and custom rules for wandering monsters and setting camp. My adventure had four possible endings.

43-Autoduel (Origin Systems, Commodore 64, 1985)
For a game that was released twenty-five years ago, I do a lot of thinking about and writing about Autoduel. And if I could see only one old game remade as a modern video game, this would be it.

The main draw of Autoduel to me was the degree to which you could customize your vehicle. You could create a compact, sedan, station wagon, or van. You could select which tires and which engine to use, and assign armor to the sides and the undercarriage. You could load up with machine guns, recoilless rifles, rocket launchers, flamethrowers, and lasers, positioning them on any side of your vehicle. The game even had smoke screens, oil slicks, mines, and spike droppers.

The best thing is that the game was an RPG. You could take the vehicle out on the road on courier missions, hunts, and missions for the FBI. You’d make money through missions, arena battles, and by selling parts salvaged from other vehicles, and use the cash to upgrade the car you had. Meanwhile, your character’s driving, gunning, and salvage skills would slowly increase.

42-Borderlands (Gearbox, Windows, 2009)

Since Borderlands is such a recent release, I likely don’t have to talk much about it. I’ve written plenty about it on this site already. Great shooter, RPG elements, fantastic art style, multiplayer co-op added quite a lot. Too bad the storyline sucked and the PC matchmaking was broken.

41-Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse (Konami, Nintendo Entertainment System, 1990)
I have a very warm feeling when I think about Castlevania 3. Had it been out on the Wii Virtual Console earlier, I’d have bought it immediately. Checking now, I see that it was released in January 2009 – guess I’ll have to go buy it.

Until Symphony of the Night came out years later, Castlevania 3 was the best platformer I’d ever seen. It had branching paths, incredibly creative levels, hidden secrets, and three different playable NPCs with vastly different abilities that you could recruit. Grant the pirate could climb walls, which let you get to a lot of otherwise inaccessible locations. Syfa the wizardress got spellbooks rather than the axe/knife type items that Trevor would pick up, so she could throw fire, freeze enemies with ice, or protect herself with these weird power globe thingies that would spin around her. Alucard was the best. His basic attack was a projectile, and he could change into a bat and fly around.

The levels included factories full of giant pendulums and spinning gears, rivers that you’d have to wade through unless you could freeze the water with Syfa’s ice power, and an amazing level where blocks would drop from the sky, eventually allowing you to climb on them to reach a high ledge. Maybe you had to play it in order to get it, but I loved it.

Make sure to come back next week for games 40 through 36, which include selections from the racing, rpg, fps, and light gun genres.

I should make it clear here that I never got into Super Mario World or Mario 64, largely since I never owned those Nintendo Consoles. I know that those games were huge and everybody and their cat has incredibly fond memories of them, but alas – I don’t. I likewise never played any of the Tomb Raider games. Ever. Obviously, I am defective. Other platformer franchises lacking from my repetoire: Jak & Daxter, Ratchet & Clank, Laurel & Hardy.

In looking back at my favorite platformers, I’ve got to notice that all but one are 2D platformers. It just seems like the 3D platformers as a rule just don’t work as well. First-person platforming like Mirror’s Edge or the horrible platforming portions in the original Half-Life just don’t work. While third-person platforming in 3D games is generally better, it can fail pretty hard at times. The 3D platforming in games like Super Mario Galaxy and Psychonauts was mostly okay, but the platforming in Prince of Persia: Sands of Time and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed annoyed me so much that I had to stop playing both those games before I’d gotten a quarter into either.

So now, I’d like to share my own favorite platformers, going back as far as the early eighties.

• Jumpman (Commodore 64, 1983)
  
  Jumpman’s great strength was its variety. While in the game’s early levels the premise was as simple as running around, jumping over monsters, and colecting red dots, the later levels got far more complex and varied. In some levels, you had a gun, and the button would fire the gun instead of jumping. One level let you throw lances to kill a dragon. Many levels are very puzzle-like, containing triggers that open or close doors, add or remove sections of floor, or move floating platforms. In one level, you create an explosion each time you jump. And I remember one level that generated clones every five seconds who would follow your exact path in the same way as the shadow selves in Braid – if a clone touched you, you died, so you had to keep moving.All of the above is from memory, but reading through the wikipedia page now, I see that there were 30 levels in the game. I always played on “randomizer” so as to experience the later levels I’d never have reached if I were playing straight through.Jumpman is supposed to (eventually) be released for the Wii Virtual Console, but if you’re impatient, a fan remake is available here.

• The Great Giana Sisters (Commodore 64, 1987)
  The version of this game that my brothers and I always used to play was a hacked version. The sprites had been changed to make them look like Super Mario Brothers. The levels were far far different from the actual Super Mario Brothers game, but they were fun, and they were at some points very difficult. But I was 15 years old. I got very good at the game, and played a lot of it. My brothers and I still have fond memories of inventing stupid names for each of the game’s monsters.

• Kenseiden (Sega Master System, 1988)
  I never owned a Sega Master system, but I borrowed one from a friend for a few months when he’d moved along to some better console – perhaps a Genesis. My favorite game on the SMS was Kenseiden. You played a Samurai, fighting various monsters, spirits, and demons. Each time you beat one of the game’s bosses, you’d get a scroll which detailed a samurai sword technique. You could gain overhead slashes, running cuts, and higher jumps.The game’s sixteen levels also had branching paths – you could skip certain portions of the game and take the path you wanted. I don’t remember seeing this in any other contemporary platformers until Castlevania 3, a few years later.

• Double Dragon 2 (Nintendo, 1988)
  The Double Dragon series is half platformer, half side-scrolling beat-em-up. I’d played the original Double Dragon, and I later played Double Dragon 3, but what I really liked about Double Dragon 2 was the variety of moves available. I suppose I liked the game for many of the same reasons I fell in love with Street Fighter 2. The spinning hurricaine kick was easy. The super uppercut was harder, but still doable 90% of the time. The tough one was the jumping hyper knee.In Double Dragon 2, you could punch your enemy and get him into a headlock. From there, you could give him overhead elbows, knee him in the stomach, or throw him over your shoulder. You could also kick him straight out of the headlock. This allowed you to throw enemies over cliffs, instantly killing even the tougher ones. I used to go through entire levels trying to throw or kick every single enemy over a cliff. It was fun.

• Castlevania 3: Dracula’s Curse (Nintendo, 1990)
  Maybe it was just because Castlevania 3 was the first game in the series that I really got into, but I absolutely loved this game. Maybe it was because you could pick up extra traveling companions along the way – there were 3 extra characters, and depending on the path through the game you chose, (branching paths!) you could pick up Syfa, Alucard, or Grant. Grant was a pirate character who could climb on walls, Alucard was a vampire and could throw fireballs and change into a bat, and Syfa was a wizard who could cast various spells instead of throwing axes and knives. Awesome.

• Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (Playstation, 1997)
  I played Symphony of the Night on my Playstation and was immediately blown away. Amazing game. The game’s music was better than anything I’d ever heard. And the addition of RPG elements such as leveling and equipment changed Castlevania in a fundemental way that has carried through in all of its successors. Although I hear a lot of hype today about how Borderlands is changing things up by combining RPGs and Shooters, Symphony of the Night did that more than ten years ago when they combined RPGs and Platformers. They also added in Street Fighter like movements in for casting spells and using certain items’ special abilities. The number of secret spells and abilities in the game is huge. And hidden areas are absolutely everywhere. I don’t think there’s any platformer that I’ve put as much time into as I have Symphony of the Night.

• Super Mario Galaxy (Nintendo Wii, 2007)
  Mario Galaxy is the only 3D platformer on this list. While games like Trine and LittleBigPlanet run on a 3D engine, they’re still fundamentally 2D in their gameplay. Super Mario Galaxy is a truly 3D platformer, harking back to Mario 64. The levels are incredibly varied, allowing for flying levels, underwater levels, 2D levels, ray surfing levels, and even a Monkeyball level. The power-ups are equally as varied, and you can complete the game without being forced to complete the 30 most difficult levels. Personally, I only got 96 stars.

• Trine (Playstation Network, 2009)
  
  Yes, I rave about Trine quite often. I love the game. It definitely belongs here amongst the ranks of the best platform games I’ve ever played. You’ve got three characters, each of whom go up in levels and gather loot synchronously, and you can play with two or three players should you be so inclined. The game’s puzzles tend to have more than one solution, so if your wizard dies, it’s likely that you can get across that chasm without creating a magical bridge. Plus, the game has some very doable trophies, and it’s fun for me to think that there’s a game out there other than Plants versus Zombies in which I’m actually capable of getting 100% completion. A platinum trophy? Geez – I’ve never yet even gotten a gold one. Sign me up.

I’ve been wanting to do a music segment for a while now, and the first game that came to mind for music is Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. The mp3 is nearly 13 minutes long, whereas I was shooting for 10-12 minutes, but given the number of songs I squeezed in, I’d say I did fairly well. If you’re interested in a sampling of some of Symphony of the Night‘s best music, give it a listen.

I should also mention the plethora of technical difficulties I experienced during this recording. Firstly, I was terrorized by (and subsequently smote) a massive bee. Secondly, my cat at one point jumped up onto my server and sat himself down on the intake fan. I jumped up to unseat the feline and my foot caught on the microphone cord – I thought I’d broken my USB condenser mike, but thankfully it survived.

Lungfishopolis MusicCast – Castlevania Symphony of the Night

Keepers is a weekly segment in which I discuss games I’ve played that I’ve seen fit to keep after playing. I generally sell a game that I’ve finished, so the only reason I keep one is because I plan to replay the game some day. Classifying a game as a “keeper” is generally a badge of merit.

I’ve always enjoyed Castlevania games, and Symphony of the Night is the best game in the series. You can buy it now as a downloadable “classic” version, but I’ve still got my Playstation 1 disc, which I kept even when it was going for upwards of $100 on EBay.

The game is just phenomenal. It set a precedent that changed the basic formula of the Castlevania series from then on. RPG elements in additon to the platforming allowed you to equip different weapons and armor, buy better gear, and even cast spells by performing Street-Fighter-like joystick motions. You could summon familiars, turn into a bat or a wolf, and find dozens of hidden passageways.

On top of all of this, the orchestral score for the game isn’t synthesized: it’s a real orchestra, and the music is fantastic. I’m actually listening to the Symphony of the Night soundtrack as I type this.

But probably my favorite part of the game is all the special abilities that aren’t documented anywhere. For example, I found that if you equip a specific rod with a shield and press two buttons together, you cast a unique spell. And with that rod, there’s a different spell for each shield, which makes previously worthless shields suddenly useful. There are many items like this, and the only way to find their abilities was to stumble onto them. I know that you can likely find a list online somewhere now, but back then if there were online walkthroughs, I wasn’t reading them.

I have very fond memories of watching my completion percentage approach 100% and growing a bit sad. Then I found that there was a second upside-down castle atop the first and that the percentage actually went up to 200%! Glee!