Time to reveal the best of the best.
Here comes the Top 5!
If you’re just finding the list, I suggest you start at the beginning and work your way along from there:
Let’s go!
5 - Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
Bioware are one of my favourite developers and the thought of them working with the Star Wars license was really exciting. I’ve loved Star Wars since I was a kid, and I knew that with their fingerprints on the IP, something special was going to arrive. And something truly wonderful appeared on the Xbox in 2003.
KOTOR is a mash-up of real-time gameplay and (during combat) a game-pausing turns-based system for queueing up attacks, Jedi powers and other actions. At first, your customisable character can pick some attributes that distinguish him/her from others, giving you a chance to mold your experience to the type of play you want to focus on. Do you want to rely heavily on force powers? What about hacking, security and laying traps? Or projectile weapons? If this is starting to sound a bit like Star Wars: Dungeons and Dragons, that’s because that’s essentially the basis of this design. Bioware’s previous games were based on D&D and they were hand-picked to develop this game based on that track record.
Soon after starting your adventure, you meet a bunch of allies, primarily Jedi Bastilla Shan, Mercenary Carth Onasi, Zaalbaar (a Wookiee) and Mission Vao (a bratty Twi’lek who likes to find trouble.) As expected, the dark side gets involved, and as it’s set thousands of years before the movies, this is not the Empire, but rather the Sith at the height of their power. Darth Malak makes his blockbuster appearance missing his lower jaw, wielding an iconic red lightsaber and demanding information. What happened to his master, Darth Revan, the most powerful Sith Lord ever?
As you’ve been wrapped up in this madman’s seemingly fruitless quest, you find yourself being chased across the galaxy, working with the Jedi Council to train your fledgling Jedi focus. You’ll meet new and unlikely allies, fight recognisable Star Wars monsters and races, all the while, wonder what exactly is going on with your friends, who have been cagey with you since the first visit to Dantooine.
As you level up and invest ability points in various skills (pro-tip, Force Lightning and its upgrades are pretty powerful) you give yourself more options to queue up in the game’s beautifully designed battle system. This game actually got a mobile port a few years ago and it works staggeringly well, with the game-pausing system suited well to a phone or tablet. It also holds up remarkably well on PC and Xbox for a game that’s over 15 years old. Lightsabers and blaster bolts still look and sound fantastic in game.
But the real party piece of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic is its story. I can state with no exaggeration that it is a better Star Wars than most of the movies, and has the greatest scene of any Star Wars media that I’ve ever consumed. The shock factor that hits you like a sledgehammer about two-thirds of the way through this game is a strike of narrative genius unlike anything before. It takes all the best elements of Star Wars and puts you right in the middle of it all.
It is worth mentioning the sequel, Obsidian developed KOTOR 2, which hits on a lot of the same beats, but lacks the killer blow of the astonishing storyline of the original. Also, even if you’re not an MMO fan (like myself) I can highly recommend that you dive into the cinematics that were created for Star Wars: The Old Republic, which Bioware developed a few years later. If you like Star Wars, they’re a must-see. Likewise, if you haven’t experienced the awe and wonder of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, what are you waiting for? It’s incredible.
4 - The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
This slot could have gone to Morrowind, and probably would have a couple of years ago, but I’ve actually been back to Skyrim for two further full playthroughs in this time (one on PC and one on Switch) and each time I’ve gone back I fell in love with this world and the fun you can craft for yourself in it.
Skyrim’s charms are many. First up, the story, centred on the extinct world of dragons being reawakened, and the Dragonborn (that’s you) is the key to overcoming the impending threat. This main quest is epic is size and variety, but in itself is only scratching the surface of what you can do in this game. It’s entirely possible (and even recommended) to ignore it for dozens of hours at a time, go explore the northern wastes or the small towns of the continent, and lose yourself in the many side quests and various guilds that you can work for.
Your character is immensely configurable from the start too, offering you specialisations and abilities. Are you a dual-wielding magic user, a big lumbering buffoon with heavy armor and a two handed sword, or a sneaky ranger who prefers poisoned arrows, fired from the shadows? The freedom to choose is yours.
Exploring Skyrim’s many Holds and regions illustrates a magnificent and daunting job undertaken by the designers in not only creating a rich, believable world, but also a living culture and history that plays out before you.
Skyrim is special to a lot of players. It feels like a genuine next generation upgrade after Morrowind and Oblivion before it. Both games have taken 100s of hours of my time as well, and I eagerly await more news on The Elder Scrolls VI.
3 - Mass Effect 2
Time for a suicide mission.
Mass Effect 2 has some of the best level design ever in a game. The endgame, the lead up to the suicide mission, the bonds you’ve made with your crew… They all come to a head in an agonising hour of edge-of-your-seat tension.
Before that point, you’ll have seen your ship, the Normandy, explode at the start, your character, Shepard resurrected. The stakes are high, and now you’re forced to work with the shady Cerberus corporation, a group with unclear motives seemingly invested in saving the human race (and allied aliens) from the inevitable arrival of the Reapers - a power magnitudes more advanced than yours, that intends to destroy everything in their wake.
Mass Effect 2 essentially forces you to start everything from scratch. All your buddies from the first game - nowhere to be seen, at least not right away. You need to get a new crew together, stronger, faster and better than the last one, and do the bidding of The Illusive Man, at least enough to keep him appeased, while you figure out what’s actually happening out there.
Gameplay in ME2 (and ME3, which to be completely honest, is actually just as good a game as this one) is a twist on the cover-based squad shooter, really. It’s a sci-fi RPG under the skin, but the bulk of your actions will be coordinating your trio of units through firefights, keeping safe and taking down the enemy.
The Mass Effect games are Bioware’s spiritual follow-up to Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, with many elements shared between the two. You can pause and queue up actions, those less pronounced than in KOTOR. ME is much more about real-time and reflex action than slow methodical planning. Much like KOTOR, Mass Effect’s story is the primary draw. If you’ve somehow gone the last ten years without trying Mass Effect, I’d urge you to give it a try. Dive in with Mass Effect 2 if you like. The first one, while very different, has some story elements you’d want to catch up on first, but is otherwise fairly skippable. ME2 is a cinematic achievement and an all-time classic video game.
2 - Shining Force III
Over 20 years ago, Sega quietly released Shining Force III on the Sega Saturn, a console that was nearing the end of its life-cycle. This sequel to the two Mega Drive classic tactical JRPGs arrived to fanfare from a small but noisy Saturn fanbase and went largely unseen by everybody else. And it blew everything else away.
Shining Force III, at face value, looks like a typical anime-inspired Japanese RPG. Underneath, what we have here is the game that perfected the turns-based tactical game, added layer after layer of heart and character, and filled the gaps with secrets and things to discover. Building on the foundations of the original and its incredible sequel, Shining Force III took the series into 3D, added new elements of lore and gave the two warring factions in the game real stakes. Then it filled the story with intrigue, betrayal and mystery. Sure, the translation from Japanese was a little ropey. But the whole thing worked.
Team Sonic / Camelot, who developed SFIII decided to split the game into three parts, and it was largely due to the fact that the Dreamcast was kicking off and the Saturn’s lack of popularity in the west, that only the first game made it to the USA and Europe. Scenario 1, as it turned out, was only one third of the game. I had played through it (no joke) over twenty times over the next couple of years. I was desperate to play Scenarios 2 and 3. It looked like that would never happen. Not unless I wanted to learn Japanese and find the extremely rare discs online. Then, lo-and-behold, a few years ago, a fan driven translation project was initiated, driving the development of a Saturn emulator, and more than 10 years after giving up hope of ever finding out what happens at the end of the story, Shining Force 3 was back. I played Scenario 2 breathlessly over one joyful week, and Scenario 3 over the following fortnight. Playing them and seeing all the sides of the story, using characters from one faction who I had fought so many times before in the first part… It didn’t matter that the game was a couple of generations old by now, it was the best gaming experience I’d ever had. It took my love of this game and multiplied it.
Every single battle in Shining Force III is built to be a challenge and offer something new. Sometimes that was with puzzle-bosses that require a special action, item or attack to weaken before you could beat them. Other times it was environmental obstacles, like running railway carriages, giant Golems hurling boulders down a narrow walkway that you must traverse, or a hidden game clock in the form of refugees that are being targeted by enemies and you need to save them. This game often gave you a key element of your next impending success somewhat earlier. Whether that’s the recruitment of characters who could fly, or magic users with a necessary spell, or just information you might need to navigate a labyrinth, everything you need is right in front of you, just waiting to be deciphered.
Walking around towns in full 3D, shopping with the blacksmith, opening treasure chests, all of it - never felt so damn exciting and satisfying as it did as Synbios or Medion in Shining Force III. Every betrayal was a stab in the back. Every new weapon found, forged or bought brought with it exciting new special attacks. Every little thing you did, or explored, rewarded you to the fullest, every single time. Shining Force III simply nailed it. It’s a shamefully forgotten masterpiece of RPG design. I think it’s time to boot up that emulator again.
1 - Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Here it is. Number 1.
Take all the love I have in these articles for all of the games that have come before, and kick it up to another level and you get how I feel about Breath of the Wild. There really is nothing close to the magnificence of this game’s design. Before this game, I was a casual Zelda fan who could take it or leave it most of the time. BotW is different. It’s perfection.
Starting Link’s journey and learning the ropes is seamless and effortless by Nintendo. They drop you right in, give you a literal stick to use as a weapon, and send you on your way. Soon, you’re earning your glider, you’re literally diving head first into the world at large, and this open playground full of wonders is before you. You will never experience anything like this again. Savour every moment.
Breath of the Wild has so many things that it does to perfection. Let’s start with its progression. The game leans on your comfort zone constantly, teasing you with a soft-barrier that you don't know how to cross, but has already left you little hints and clues nearby to figure it out at your own pace. A beautiful example early on is the presence of a shrine that you can enter to earn Orbs (which can be spent on stamina or health upgrades) which is atop a hill you can't reach. There's snow all around the hill and going too far in will start to do freeze damage to you. You don't have a special item or armor to counter this. But… Maybe… just maybe if I swing this stick at the bokoblin campfire, it might catch alight. Sure enough, it does. You carry the heat with you, hike up the hill and access the shrine.
There are hundreds of tiny touches like this throughout the game that all feel subtly genius and impossibly rewarding.
The Shrines themselves are another huge highlight in Breath of the Wild. Each one has a type. Tests of Strength are where you fight tough Guardian enemies of varying difficulty in enclosed spaces. Most are a puzzle of some kind, using your glider, or one of the extra special powers you've unlocked with your Sheika Plate along the way. Link eventually grasps the power to make ice platforms, use magnetism and kinetic energy amongst other tricks of physics.
As you uncover more regions and do tasks for the various native species there, you start to gain access to the Divine Beasts, these gargantuan mechanical automatons that house an element of Calamity Ganon's power, which you can quell and turn to your advantage. Link gradually unlocks abilities like Rivali's Gale, letting him launch into the air, making places previously impossible to climb to available.
Your journeys will eventually lead you to a magical forest where the iconic Master Sword is situated, though is far from an easy grasp.
Man, I'm only getting started. There's so much more about this game that is incredible. Climbing towers to unlock the map. Using your weapons sparingly to ensure your best ones are available at the right points in a region. Sneaking through a ninja hideout. Gaining access to a women-only city. Sand surfing. Swimming up a waterfall. Rotating a Divine Beast's interior to reach new sections. Arriving at Hyrule Castle…
I could go on and on for days. But I won't, because I have games to finish, and when I do, I'll be restarting Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Number 1 in my Top 100 Games.
Done.
Thank you for following the series through to the end. Let me know what your favourite games are! Please! And tell me where I'm right, wrong or otherwise. I'd love to know. If you found even one game you want to try out from reading these articles, I'll be delighted. Let me know which ones you feel the need to track down after reading here.
See you folks again in the future for different kinds of gaming related topics.
B