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I can't understand why you would feel so committed to trying to 100% Loco Roco. I have a slight itch for completionism too, but i usually stop when i realize it's making me hate a game.

Orcs and Elves was a neat one, I would still love to see more things like that out of Id. Also, i have had multiple friends, independent of eachother, insist to me that Radiant Historia is the best game on the DS. So maybe that's a thing, i don't know, i didn't play that one.

DS This one was hard, there's just been so, so many great DS games. A few that i might have mentioned, like Hotel Dusk, Trace Memory, and Lost Magic, have already come up in the thread, so i won't retread those mentions. The World Ends With You - If i had to pick one game to call the DS's best game, i think this would probably be it. No other game on the DS makes such full use of the system's distinctive hardware features to create such a complete, coherent, original, and fully realized whole. That its enviroments make for one one of the most visually stylish games of the last generation of games just sweetens the pot. Unavoidably, it has some problems too. It's a game that is trying to do so many new things, something had to give. The issue here is that each ability you add to your character has its own touch input during battles, and certain inputs overlap in problematic ways, it can make the game seem particularly frustrating and broken. It's still something you can customize your character around and it's not a reason to skip the game. Tetsuya Nomura's character designs being all over this game will also probably scare some people off, but it really shouldn't, this one is something special. Ghost Trick - I love the quirky characters and story-telling of the Phoenix Wright games, but i think Ghost Trick, from the same designer, has all of the same appeal and is built on a much more interesting puzzle/adventure framework. To break it down, you're a ghost haunting your way through a city at night, manipulating objects to influence the actions of the people around you, all in an effort to try and unravel the mystery of your death. It's also so genuinely funny and charming, it's a game so many more people should play. I'd love to make a more passioned argument for people to catch up on this game, but as a relatively brief and linear adventure with a very twisty narrative, it's much too easy to spoil. Still, if more people would play Ghost Trick, i would be very happy. (The iOS port is apparently quite nice, if that's an option.) Castlevania - No one in particular, all three of the games the DS got were really great, and they might end up having been the last real Castlevania games with the way the series has been going. Dawn of Sorrow is probably my favorite of the three because of the way it builds on Aria of Sorrow's excellent game systems, but Dawn has a lot of awkwardly implemented control gimmicks owing to it being an earlier DS release with an obligation to use the hardware's unique traits. Portrait of Ruin is probably the most roundly solid of these DS releases, dropping the gimmicks of the previous game, but suffering from somewhat bland environment design. The last of the three, Order of Ecclesia, was a bit of an oddity in trying to find a balance between the old-school Castlevanias and the games that came after SotN. It's quite beautiful, with elaborate backgrounds and very detailed sprites, but can feel a little constraining if you expect broader freedom to explore. Bangai-O Spirits - This one's just for me, i love this game. It's incredibly janky, it's amazing that the DS doesn't burst into flames as hundreds of schizophrenically flickering projectiles are rendered onto its screen. I still just have so much fun with this game though, it's one i still pull out to mess around with when i'm bored. Treasure's done a few of these Bangai-O games now, and i think this is the one i still have the most fun with. (If anybody is actually interested in Bangai-O, don't be intimidated by the dense onscreen action. It's not like a bullet hell game where you need pixel perfect dodging skills, it's much more about the abilites you load up with and the ways they can be used to counter different enemies and situations.) There's also a really great level-editor and a crazy file-sharing scheme where you can output your level data as sound to record and share over the internet. I could easily keep going, but i want to keep these relatively short. There are so many great games on the DS though. Some other things that i think deserve some championing: Megaman ZX/ZX Advent, Aliens: Infestation, Metroid Prime: Hunters, Contact, Infinite Space, Kirby: Canvas Curse, Kirby: Mass Attack, Nanostray 2, Lunar Knights, Scurge: The Hive, Sonic Rush, Glory Days 2, Lost in Blue, X-Scape, Metal Torrent. (Those last two are DSi-ware games!) Nintendo DS, you were pretty alright.

There's a heart piece in the vast lava cavern and wasn't that also where you have to save the guy who wants some milk? I haven't seen anything else particularly distinct about that stretch of the mountain though, for having such a huge trail of signs leading you through there, there doesn't seem to be much at the end of the trail. I think it's more about there being a portal down there that might be the only way to one of the Lorule dungeons? I'm not sure, it's actually the only one i haven't done yet.

Unfortunate, because the final few areas and encounters of Wind Waker are actually really amazing.

Honestly, i don't think it's anything worth going back to, it is the weakest of the core Mario games. (Excepting, perhaps, the NSMB games.) I think Sunshine is just drowning in pieces that feel like they needed a few more passes before being shipped, it's really clunky and frustrating in a way that virtually no other Mario game feels. Maybe people will disagree with me? Surprise me, internet.

Nintendo's seriously gotten so fucking good at making these stereoscopic games look awesome, i'm quite sad that the 2DS is now going to marginalize it. Perhaps the coolest part is how character and object models lean up from that angled stance to a proper standing position when the camera zooms in for the wall-merge camera, so it makes the effect relatively invisible in actual gameplay. The only noticeable exceptions are some static statues, like the ones in that screenshot, and certain other static environment objects. They cannot animate out of their weird LTTP-faithful lean, and it leaves them looking super, super weird if you catch sight of them with the wall-merge camera. The statues both north of the eastern bridge and in the field south of Link's house look crazy. (The environments themselves, however, aren't so skewed that it's noticeable.) It's ultimately a subjective opinion, but I don't think i'm exaggerating when i say that the 3DS has been, in terms of games released, the most exciting platform this year. There have been so many phenomenal games coming out on it, particularly if you're into RPG's.

If you're just fast-traveling around and prone to missing a lot of things, maybe the one thing most worth spoiling is the cave east and then south of Link's house, which in this game contains the starting point for a lengthy quest that lets you upgrade your owned items. A lot of people seem to be missing the Pegasus boots too, which is another really obvious one, there's no reason to not have those before reaching Lorule. Additionally, if you have any clear memories of LTTP, it's worth looking for some familiar secrets. The guy under the bridge is still there and still has a bottle, but many other secrets contain new things, like large and elaborate optional dungeons with some of the more challenging and complicated puzzles in the game.

This is a game i want to see speedruns for, i want to see how those kinds of people break this game down for the purposes of an optimized playthrough.

That generally seems to be the popular consensus that i've seen, that it's no longer particularly recognizable as a Dead Rising game, but is still pretty good on its own merits. How is the performance holding up? Is it getting really framey at all? That seems to be the thing people are freaking out about the most.

Persona Q is apparently being designed by some of the Etrian Odyssey dudes, which maybe explains the chibi art.

I really like Excite Truck, it was probably the best launch game for the system, but i really don't know that i'd argue it's one of the best Wii games overall. At the very least, it does a better job using the tilt sensor for control than Mario Kart Wii did, that's for sure. You don't notice the motion control's latency in Excite Truck since it's purpose built for that input. Wide open stretches of track where turns are clearly visible far in advance, etc. It knows the limitations of the control scheme it's working with and is built with that in mind. About Excite Bots not being released in Europe, I don't think Excite Bots was very good, for what it's worth. It's Excite Truck with, essentially, a ton of motion control QTE's embedded into the courses.

So the wall-merging gimmick is actually way more interesting than i was expecting it to be, the game uses it in some pretty layered and uncharacteristically complicated puzzles, and the system even led to something else that i wasn't expecting. In this game's overworld, which is slavishly faithful to LTTP's overworld, the wall-merging mechanic effectively breaks a lot of the gating that, in LTTP, would have prevented you from accessing many areas until much later in the game. Giant boulder in your path? Merge into the wall, scoot on past it, and hop back into 3d space. It's kind of delightfully liberating to explore this familiar overworld in this fashion, which is now gated in much different and less extensive ways. (Additionally, these new mechanics lead to spaces, virtually unchanged from LTTP, featuring new puzzles and secrets embedded into their layouts in some fairly surprising ways.) Barring the NES originals, it really is a pretty unprecedented degree of freedom to see in a Zelda game, having almost complete free reign over the primary game world after only just the first dungeon. Not only does Ravio rent out most of the expected items right up front, a lot of the other passive upgrades are easily obtained and very early on. It actually gives you so much so early on, i wonder if it can maintain its momentum, though i haven't even seen the dark world yet. Regardless, right now, i think it's pretty phenomenal. I'm really loving it. I'm going to stick with that earlier comment though, i think you might miss out on a lot of the subtlety if you haven't played LTTP. It's unfortunate that LTTP is not presently available on either the Wii U VC or the 3DS VC, that seems like a missed opportunity on Nintendo's part.

Sorry, i should have been more clear. Your post did spark me writing that comment, but I didn't mean to imply that you, specifically, were having an unnecessarily harsh opinion about the game's visuals. I was speaking more to having seen it be a semi-common sentiment about the game, in addition to, in the past, people having had very polarized opinions every time the series gets a visual overhaul.

I think it's cool that the 3D World map has you free-romaing around and looking for secrets and basically treating the overworld like its own level. (This is said having not played 3D World.)

I love how much the art style is paying homage not just to the sprite art of LTTP, but its concept art. It's a very, very specific look, and i'm digging it. I'm surprised, honestly, that people aren't into it more. (Though i shouldn't be, i guess. When have people ever not had exaggerated reactionary opinions about the aesthetic design of a new Zelda game?) I think ALBW is pretty wonderful though. I've put a few hours into it and i'm really into how weirdly specific it is about some of the things it's trying to emulate, while simultaneously putting just enough of a new spin on those things to still feel like a fresh new game. It evokes a kind of nostalgic deja vu, and i'm not sure this game would be as effective for somebody without any fond memories of LTTP. So generally, my initial impression is that this is the kind of game that is wonderful now, but i think Nintendo only gets to do this once. If they show up next year with a spiritual sequel to Link's Awakening, i don't think it will be so warmly received. (In the context of it being a spiritual successor. There's the other issue of it being less-guided and less-linear, which is certainly a good direction for the series. I'm not deep enough in to really pass any judgement on how true those promises are, though.)

Cing's adventure games on the DS did a lot of weird stuff like that. Another Code/Trace Memory had one puzzle that required you to angle the hinge in a certain way so that you could see the bottom screen reflected off the top screen, creating a complete image where you would otherwise see only nonsense. Hotel Dusk was their best game though... I assume. I mean, a lot of their games didn't get localized to North America, including Last Window, the sequel to Hotel Dusk. (Did Trace Memory/Another Code's Wii sequel get released in Europe?)

I'm going to go with the left knee choice that seems fairly popular. I definitely cannot afford to lose use of either of my arms, and i'd still have my right leg to facillitate driving cars. So yeah, i don't need you, left leg. Go ahead, become an unbending trunk of flesh.

Have you played it? You should play it, it's really, really great. I think, at the time of its release, opinion around the game was really poisoned by a lot of the knee jerk reactions people had towards it. (I suppose it's understandable, reviving a series in a completely different shape than what is expected is always fraught with danger. Personally, i came at Nuts & Bolts having no particular feelings of attachment to the prior Banjo Kazooie games and didn't really care that it wasn't a slightly crappy 3D platformer.) Okay, okay. PSP. I'm guessing there's probably not a lot of PSP fans here, and not without justification, it's kind of a shitty handheld. The battery life is terrible, the sleep mode is buggy and never really worked right, the control never felt quite right on any of the hardware revisions; revisions that all introduced their own weird problems with the screen, and all the silliness with sticking a mechanical disc drive in a handheld where power is at a premium. (Nevermind the atrocious load times that came with it.) So yeah... Hey though, put aside all of that, because the PSP somehow still ended up having this massive, excellent library of games. (Sticking with the theme though, i'll go to some of the bigger ones that i think people might not immediately consider, because i'm pretty sure everybody with a passing interest in the PSP has played Lumines.) Loco Roco & Loco Roco 2: Just go , it really speaks for itself.Killzone: Liberation: I have not played any of the other Killzone games, but Liberation struck a chord with me. The way it pulls all of the mechanics of a more fully realized shooter into an isometric action game on a platform that doesn't seem like it has enough sticks or buttons to do what this game aims to do. Liberation pulls it off though, albeit with a slightly awkward control scheme. You've got some light squad command mechanics and combat with a functional emphasis on cover, strafing and evasion. It actually reminds me a fair bit of Origin's Crusader games, which is about the highest praise i can give it. (It also had a huge free add-on, but it happened pre-PSN, so i don't know if it's still available.) Metal Gear Ac!d & Metal Gear Ac!d 2: The Metal Gear Ac!d games are insane. They deliver the stealth-based tactical action you would expect from Metal Gear, but with two big differences: It's turn-based and your actions are powered by a customized deck of cards that you build over the course of the game. You might draw a card that lets you equip a rifle to an empty inventory slot, and then use another rifle card with a corresponding ammo type to let you fire that equipped rifle. That's really just where it starts, with many more specialized cards themed around things reaching deep into Hideo Kojima's history as a developer, and it really results in what i think are two of the coolest turn-based tactics games i've ever played.

I think Human Revolution really just needs new models for the generic NPC's, because those guys all look really derpy and awful. The rest of the game is incredibly beautiful.

Nuts & Bolts is easily one of the top five best exclusives on the 360. Love the bitterly self-critical humor and the insane, nested possibilities its toolbox provides. It would be pretty silly to have a retrospective thread about the last decade in gaming and then end up dancing around actually talking about games. I think the DS and PSP are both absolutely relevant to this topic, and Lost Magic was a wonderful game, one of the early DS games that made me feel optimistic about owning that system. Also, it was among the first games on the DS with online play. (If not actually the very first, which it may well have been.) It actually made for a fun little competitive game.

Okay, alright, i want to contribute to this line of conversation. I'm going to do this across a few posts and by platform, and i'm going to start with the Wii because it'll be the easiest to do, having had relatively fewer notable games. So yeah, some Wii games i think more people should play: Xenoblade - Vocal demand for its localization resulting in that limited years-late release has really turned it into one of those games that mostly everybody knows of, but relatively few people have actually played, and it's very unfortunate. Some players will undoubtedly scoff at its wholly expected JRPG story-telling, but it is nevertheless a beautiful, immense, and progressive JRPG that i think is an invigorating exploration of its sometimes tired and struggling genre. So to be absolutely clear, I think it's one of the best RPG's i've ever played. If not for the existence of Super Mario Galaxy, i would call this the Wii's best game. Sin & Punishment 2 - I think Sin & Punishment 2 might be one of the storied developer's best games, it certainly encapsulates much of what works so well about Treasure's best work. It takes the fundamental framework of a well worn genre and treats it playfully, experimenting constantly with different ideas about how it might try to use its core set of systems. At times an on-rails shooter, at times a side-scroller, all while always dancing back and forth between melee-focused character action and ranged shoot em` up combat. It's always challenging, it's always exciting, and it's always doing something interesting. (Just don't try to make sense of the story.) Silent Hill: Shattered Memories - It troubles me that this seems to be regarded as a one-off experiment for the Silent Hill franchise, as i think it's absolutely the direction the series needed to go in. It completely guts the things that don't work about Silent Hill, namely the combat and the overwrought mythology, and focuses on psychological horror and exploration. It, however, doesn't work completely, because it impedes the effectiveness of its own atmosphere by having threats appear only at scripted and broadly telegraphed intervals. Additionally, the way it throws you into new environments every time its monsters appear also frequently leaves you running around in circles, trying to quickly learn the layout while kiting around whichever monster wants to eat your face. So it's somewhat flawed, but it's still a consistently engaging and thoughtful experience that i would liked to have seen more of. Endless Ocean - You're a diver. That's it. That's the game. Go catalogue some fish, swim through some ancient ruins, explore. As a rare Wii game with online play, you can invite a friend along for the journey too. It's a very peaceful, pleasant thing. I'd like to see it get a sequel on the Wii U, it would probably really benefit from the more powerful hardware. (It actually did get a sequel on the Wii, but that introduced some weird narrative elements that i think get in the way of its own strengths a bit.)

When i saw this thread, i instantly felt like i knew of a bunch of games that probably had really dumb store write-ups, but when i looked into them, they were all pretty bland. So that's my contribution to this topic: Failure.

I found Alpha Protocol to be a pretty deeply flawed game, but i'm happy that its cleverest idea - its conversation system - has bled out into many other titles. (Notably, the newer Telltale games.) ODST is, however, i think the best Halo campaign Bungie's ever done. I like Halo 3 more overall for its mechanics and its multiplayer, but ODST's atmospheric presentation and open-ended environments are just absolutely marvelous. The fact that it's also such a stand-alone story makes it an easy recommendation even for non-fans. Going by your picks, i guess you're not expecting people to dig deep for obscure oddities, so how about we reframe this as simply picking a few games from the whole of the last cycle that you feel like you particularly need to champion? ... I think i need to ponder this one a bit.