#20 Xenogears
It’s pretty easy to see why this game has such a rabid cult following. It’s genuinely unlike anything else at the time, and perhaps still is on an island all it’s own.
Say what you want about the second disc and the fact it was rushed to completion, what is there is so good that it hardly even matters. The writing in this game is so deep and complex that it takes hours upon hours of study and deep dives to fully understand it’s many intricacies.
The ambition on display is what set Tetsuya Takahashi and his wife Soraya Saga apart from other game writers at the time, and it’s all brought together with a fun battle system and some of the best cinematic direction I’ve ever seen in a PS1 game, putting it up there with greats like Metal Gear Solid and Vagrant Story for it’s use of imagery and camera direction to push the medium into it’s next stage of storytelling excellence.
#19 Chulip
What’s not to love about a game where you kiss telephone pole people, get caught streaking by a lion statue guy, find yourself getting surprise-massaged by a stranger on a playground, hunted by a crazed doctor with a full-body sized needle in the dead of night, and end up surviving all of that only to die because you pulled a pile of shit out of the nearby trashcan?
It’s the endless surprise of Chulip’s charming world that carries through it’s somewhat frustrating gameplay loop. You absolutely have no idea what is going to be around the next corner, and it never doesn’t surprise when you get there.
What sets Chulip apart from everything else ever made is the why behind the what, and it’s a game well worth looking up developer interviews and articles for. It’s a quiet masterpiece with a heart of gold which brings a consistent drip-feed of joy to overcome it’s gameplay downfalls.
#18 Klonoa: Door to Phantomile
Take a simple gameplay gimmick and cute visuals, and slap them together into a platformer.
Seems simple, but Klonoa is anything but. Because despite it’s dime-a-dozen mascot platformer looks, it goes above and beyond your average video game.
The sheer charm of this game stands up there with the greats like Kirby, but it wraps it all up in a story that hits surprisingly hard when it comes to emotional beats. It’s odd to play a cute puzzle platformer that leaves you watery-eyed and contemplative after all is said and done, but Klonoa pulls it off and then some. A genuine masterpiece in the genre and a must-play no matter which of it’s multiple releases you get.
#17 Terranigma
The Zelda clone formula can sometimes come across very samey in it’s design directions. Thankfully, there were companies like Quintet that saw that as a challenge to overcome.
The third in their loose thematic trilogy of games that started with Soul Blazer, and continued with Illusion of Gaia, Terranigma takes all that those two games built and amplifies it to a level that puts it up there with it’s top contemporaries like Chrono Trigger or Final Fantasy VI in terms of storytelling and polish.
It’s a game that tells a story that means a lot, and it does it all while keeping you guessing at where it’s going to go next. Placing that story within a perfectly developed action game full of challenge and excitement, and you have an action RPG you simply cannot miss. A true great that doesn’t get the recognition it deserves.
#16 Grandia 2
There are some games that get by on pure charm alone. Grandia 2 isn’t necessarily one of those, but it’s certainly a large component of why this game stuck in my mind for as long as it did after playing.
It feels like a Saturday morning cartoon brought to life, with vibrant colors and bombastic characters playing out episodic-feeling scenarios with Monster of the Week bosses to work your way towards.
Driving all this home though is a combat system that feels truly and wholly complete. As if the original Grandia battles were taken and polished to a lusterous sheen.
It’s a breezy playthrough that’s never TOO challenging, and never over-stays its welcome. Throwing in some great character moments and some creative dungeon designs, and you have a JRPG that simply feels warm and familiar every time you play it.
#15 Celeste
The term “perfect” doesn’t ever seem appropriate when discussing a video game, but if I was ever to use the term with any real meaning behind it, it’d be for Celeste.
About as perfect of a platformer as you could ever hope for, Celeste is simply a joy to play. Even when it’s kicking your ass sideways because this damn Strawberry feels like it’s in such a bullshit spot and how the hell are you even supposed to get that is that jump even friggin’ possible how are you expected to make it all the way over there this is torture I could just skip the damn thing but I swear I’ll get it this time and DAMMIT WHY CANT I MAKE IT THROUGH THOSE SPIKES I’M GOING TO THROW MY FUCKING CONTROLLER AND oh hey, I got it. Hell yeah. I’m so good at video games.
Also, Madeline is best girl
#14 Lost Odyssey
Do you like feeling really, really sad? Do you want a video game to leave you questioning the meaning of existence without love and pondering over your own mortality as the dread of our finite time on this Earth slowly seeps into your psyche?
No?
Don’t play Lost Odyssey I guess.
A brilliantly told story presented in a way that still looks amazing even by today’s standards. Lost Odyssey is the Final Fantasy sequel we never got. The “A Thousand Years Of Dreams” short stories are nothing short of brilliant reading, and there are story beats in here that left me sobbing into my hands like I just watched a puppy die.
It’s also pretty damn challenging for a JRPG, even if half your characters can’t technically even die. So there is that.
It’s a truly beautiful piece of art that everyone needs to experience at least once.
#13 Beyond Good & Evil
I’ve rambled on quite a few times already about my love for worlds that feel fully fleshed out and alive. And Beyond Good & Evil is very heavily carried by it’s world building and the storytelling within.
Taking a Zelda-esque 3D formula, and tweaking it in multiple different ways makes for a game that truly feels pulled away from the rest of it’s action-adventure genre brethren.
It does set pieces brilliantly, manages to create a smallish open world that still feels vast, and does it all with that peak *name redacted ’cause he’s an asshole* style originally seen in Rayman.
Pity we’ll never see that sequel. And that the sequel doesn’t even look like a sequel. AND GOD DAMMIT I JUST WANT CLOSURE ON THE CLIFFHANGER ENDING AHHHHH
#12 Banjo-Kazooie
The Collectathon was barely out of infancy at this point, and quite frankly: it’s never been this good again.
Following up on Mario 64’s shakey formula-defining structure, BK is pure platforming bliss. There is rarely a moment where it isn’t doing something surprising and clever, and it feels fantastic to play all the way through (if you just ignore Rusty Bucket Bay… no one likes Rusty Bucket Bay).
But mechanics and great level design doesn’t mean too much if it doesn’t have style, and it’s a testiment to how peak Rare’s quirky humor was at this point in time that I can practically picture every second of this game when I close my eyes. There is no wasted space and barely any repetition. It’s a theme park full of rides you want to go on again and again and again for the rest of your life.
A timeless classic that I’ll never not smile like a kid when I play. Also, Grant Kirkhope’s soundtrack SLAPS!
#11 Psychonauts
Let’s be real: video game humor is almost always a little cringe. Sometimes its VERY cringe. Occasionally a joke might slip in that makes you chuckle, or is harmless at best, but not a lot of games can claim they’re straight-up hilarious from beginning to end.
Psychonauts has some of the best gag writing I’ve ever seen in a video game, but what’s even more miraculous than that is that it manages to design it’s gameplay around that humor in ways that manage to never feel forced or out of place.
What Psychonauts does best is completely throw out the mold for 3D platformers and define itself as something entirely different. The DNA of point and click adventure games carried over by people like Tim Schafer is very apparent as you play through this game.
Every level feels like an idea for an entire video game in and of itself, and the taking fairly basic mechanics and constantly bending them to different styles of play is remarkable fresh every time they do it. From a level that’s a board game to a Godzilla simulator, you never know what you’re going to be doing next, and every time it drops a new idea on you, it’s mindblowing in it’s originality.
The art direction, the character designs, the constantly one-of-a-kind level themes, the snappy dialogue… it all just meshes so perfectly together to create a truly cohesive whole.
I could have spent this entire section just writing about the Milkman level, which is quite frankly one of the greatest individual levels ever created for a video game.
The Mog Pile 