Top 10 Underrated Emotional Moments In Games

Today I'm running through some emotional moments that don't get a lot of airtime. Little jolts from various games that meant something or hit hard in their own ways. Obviously I'm missing about a hundred worthwhile things from this list, and it's just what came to mind for a top ten.

My Top 11 Worst Square Game Areas

This started out as a "worst RPG areas" list, but I was drawing a blank on non-Square entities so it became a Square list. Not to dump on Square here, as they're my favorite game developer of all time (with Konami and From Software essentially tied with them, but yeah). These are worst areas, so not limited to dungeons. Can also be overworld zones, provinces, etc. Because I'm limited to Squaresoft, the whole list won't be dominated by Phantasy Star 2 dungeons. Also, this list won out over the competition, "Top 10 Thiccest Dragon Quest Maous" so there we go.

My Top 10 Tedious Boss Fights

 

In honor of Romancing SaGa 2's terrible final boss, today I'm looking at a bunch of tedious boss fights. These are fights that gave me varying degrees of grief, not necessarily because of the difficulty, but because of their tedious elements. You know the type of fight, the kind you want to skip every time you replay a game.

Eighteen Games That Were Huge Letdowns (Updated for 2024)

Today I'm going to look at nine eighteen games that I had high initial expectations for, expectations that were shattered once I got ahold of them. This is a bit different from my Games I Tapped Out On Midway Through and Games I Didn't Enjoy But Still Finished lists in that, whether I finished these games or not, they didn't live up to the hype in any way.

Note: There are a few "no-brainer" entries that won't be on the list (for instance, No Man's Sky) because I haven't played them. Also, there are some games that very much deserve to be on this list (Fable) but won't because I played them well after release (aka after I knew better than to expect anything). In short, this list is limited to things that I played while the hype was still strong, only to find them to be a huge letdown. Also, nothing on this list is necessarily a bad game. Some of them might fall into that category, while others might just be things that didn't jive with me personally.

Note 2: Previously posted in January 2018 with nine entries. Updated with nine new ones.

My Top Ten Game Boy Games

 

After the Gremlins 2 disaster, which I needed a hazmat suit to deal with, it's time for a palate cleanser. Surprised I haven't done this before considering it's my first system and the one I've got all this sentimental attachment to. This is simply the ten I like the most, not the ten I think are actually the best. Though it's likely 80 or 90 percent of this would overlap with a ten best list regardless. Not including Game Boy Color, as I'm one of the people who consider it a separate system (also no real sentimental attachment). Here we go.

Ranking the Dark Souls 3 Areas From Worst To Best

 

Dark Souls 3 is certainly the most refined of the trilogy (quadrilogy, if you count Demon's Souls). I found that it was lacking a little bit of the grittiness and mystique of the earlier games in the series, but so goes the price of progress.

Ranking the Sekiro Areas From Worst To Best

 

Not a Soulsborne game but I absolutely consider Sekiro to be one of Fromsoft's "big seven" and a part of the overall series. It plays very differently from the rest, though, and is considerably more challenging than any of them. At least until you realize the game doesn't really penalize you much for spamming block. In any case, this game is tremendous and I had a huge amount of fun with it. While ER is their best game overall and Bloodborne is pound-for-pound the most interesting, Sekiro might be the most fun out of all of them. No character-creation in this one, but it allows the game to do a lot more with the emotions of the main character. No build variety either, which allows the game to have really focused gameplay that is centered more on mastery than finding a meta.

Ranking the Bloodborne Areas From Worst To Best

 

Good to finally get some Bloodborne content on here that isn't me hating on the game. While Elden Ring is Fromsoft's magnum opus, Bloodborne might be pound for pound their most interesting game. It's the only other one that sometimes challenges ER's supremacy for me, depending on the phase of the moon when you ask.

Ranking the Dark Souls 2 Areas From Worst To Best

A game with very low lows and very high highs. The dynamic range for zones in this game is a lot more variable than the rest of the series. I'm one of the few people who likes this more than Dark Souls, and I find it much more polished and streamlined. Well, for the most part. the Adaptability/Agility stat was unnecessary (and never appeared in any other From game) and the rolling wasn't nearly as good as the other games - which probably accounts for the vast majority of people's gripes about this game. Level Adaptability to 30ish to get Agility to 105ish and your rolls are basically as good as the rest of the series, which, essentially, "fixes" this game. It's kinda like triggering all of Alia's speeches and then backup-saving so you can play Mega Man X5 normally after that. Regardless, on with the list.

Ranking the Dark Souls Areas From Worst To Best

 

The second game in the series, but as of right now the "oldest" if that makes any sense. It's the only one that doesn't look amazing. Though maybe its muddy grittiness is a plus, I'm not sure. Despite having masterclass-level stage design, this has slowly become my least-favorite of Fromsoft's big seven soulsbornekiros. Not as pretty as all of the others, more rudimentary, and just kinda dark and unforgiving. Which, for some, makes it perfect. After the more normal level and level select format of Demon's Souls, this game's world layout is pretty much the next evolution of the Metroid formula and would define their games from here on out.

Ranking the Demon's Souls Areas From Worst To Best

Time for some Fromsoft content. They're my favorite game devs and make my favorite games, and I've barely mentioned them on here except to not like Bloodborne before I understood what it was (a mistake previously made with FFVI in 1995 and Xenogears in 1999). I think I later revised that, at least. Doing several of these lists, now that I've played most of these games several times over.

The Top Twenty Classic Final Boss Themes in Gaming

Today I'm listing what I consider to be the twenty best final boss themes in the lexicon of classic gaming. There are many final boss themes that I've never heard, so your mileage may vary. RPGs will be over-represented, as most of the great epic final battle scores that come to mind are from those very games.

(Originally posted many years ago as a top 17. Now with several more added and all of the broken music links fixed)

Ranking the Lord of the Rings Vol. 1 (SNES) Fellowship From Best To Worst

 

Today on this most auspicious of days, it's time to rank the characters of LOTR Vol. 1, one of the top classics from Mandingo Interactive.

Ranking the Pre-Millennium RPGs I've Finished

Pre-millennium was the golden age for gaming in a lot of ways, especially when it came to traditional RPGs. This list is kind of a supplement to the big 1000 list, just a fun thing for me to think about while I do that.

Note: Counting 2000. One can technically say 2000 was the end of the decade, and either way I feel like the real changeover from retro to modern happened in 2001 with the advent of the PS2/XBox generation. So Dragon Quest VII just barely gets spared from being on the list and probably scoring pretty low on it.

If something I played is a recent remaster/port and very close to the original, it counts as me playing the original for ranking purposes. Like the Langrisser games, or Romancing SaGa 2. If it's a full-on remake it doesn't count, like the completely-overhauled PSP remake of Ys 3 doesn't count as me playing OG Ys 3.

Top 20 Title Screen Themes In Gaming

 

Been a while since I did a top list. The usual top list disclaimer applies: This is my personal take and it's off the top of my head. Plenty of great things are going to be missing, either because I never played them or just straight-up didn't think of them. Your mileage may vary. There's a special hell reserved for the people who post "No [X Y or Z]??" comments on every top list. However, if you have any suggestions, totally drop them in the comments. I'm grading off of a few criteria here: How good the track is, how well it fits / sets the tone for the game, and how memorable/iconic it is overall.

17 Games I Tapped Out On Midway Through (Updated for 2022)

 

For me to not finish a game that I've put time into, something drastic has to occur. Sometimes a game simply doesn't gel with me. Sometimes it gels fine, yet I find it too difficult to get to the end. This list will cover games that I simply reached the end of my patience with, one way or another, and had to stop playing. Some of them I enjoyed up until around the point where things went bad. The games on this list are by no means bad games (well, some of them are), but simply games that at some point I found myself disliking so much that I just gave up. I'll discuss the why and how of each one, looking at where they went wrong. 2022 Update: Some of these have now been beaten, so I'll get into the how/why. New additions are in bold.

12 Bosses That Were Tougher Than The Final Boss

Time for another list. This features mostly RPGs, but not all. Only main story bosses count. No uberbosses (Ruby Weapon, FFVII), postgame bosses (Nemesis, FFX), or optional fights (Warmech, FF1). The only criteria for this list is that it's a main story boss that exceeds the final boss in difficulty, or at least causes more grief for the player than the last boss. Also, one boss per game.

Final Fantasy Uberboss Rundown (Now with XIII and XV)

Final Fantasy is a series that has uberbosses in abundance. What's an uberboss? Not a German boss, but good guess. Anything that falls into the postgame and is (usually) more difficult than the actual final boss of the game is an "uberboss". In recent years more people have started referring to them as "superbosses", likely in an attempt to sound less German. The Final Fantasy series, in addition to brimming with androgynous girlboys, sports many of these uber/super bosses. In Final Fantasy, "beating the game" often means you're just getting started because there's usually a huge postgame where the real challenges are.

Top 15 RPG Overworld Themes of the 90's

Today I'm looking at some of the greatest overworld themes from 90's RPGs. That might seem like an oddly-specific kind of list; the fact is, some of the greatest video game music out there can be found on the world maps of 16- and 32-bit RPGs. Any music that plays on a world map or overworld qualifies. I'm limiting it to one entry per game, which makes for some tough decisions when it comes to the several games on the list with multiple great overworld tunes. I can't promise there won't be a ton of Final Fantasy featured here. It's a subjective list; your mileage may vary. If I left a particularly great overworld theme out, comment below and let me know.

Top 15 Biggest Troll Enemies

 The idea behind this list is to look at regular enemies rather than bosses; I feel like bosses get plenty of lists and mentions, yet regular enemies go largely unsung. What are the most difficult/annoying regular enemies I've ever faced in games? That's the subject of today's list, so let's have at it. I give you...the Top 15 Biggest Troll Enemies.