No One Can Stop Mr. Talking Time's Top 50 32 & 64-Bit Video Games!

Two of my favorites! I put Street Fighter Alpha 3 in my #12 spot, and had some intense matches with a friend of mine. I stuck to my bread-and-butter Ken, and he used Shin Akuma. I'm proud that I managed to keep my wins at 50%; between him being quite good at Raging Demon and keep-away fireballs, it took some serious skill to hang. (To be clear, neither of us are tournament-level fighters, don't get the wrong idea.)

As for Paper Mario, I'm actually (slightly) surprised I put it as high as I did, but I was completely floored by it back in the day. As mentioned in my blurb, I was expecting the worst and it shattered my expectations. I might be committing a heresy here, but I think I prefer it to The Thousand-Year Door. I really should give it a replay some time.

Of all the Mega Man X games besides the first one, the fourth installment is the most celebrated. It's not hard to understand why, either. 2 was pretty good, and 3 was decent, but 4 did enough new things while also recapturing some of the original's magic.

It was not the first to appear on the Saturn and Playstation, of course. 3 was given an upgraded port a year earlier. But 4 was the first to fully take advantage of the 32-Bit CD-ROM hardware. It showed in the cutscenes, of course, but it was the environments that truly benefited. Each level felt fully alive, with lusher graphics and more camera angles than ever. The boss fights, too, were more complex, from a Peacock that could hijack X to a Drago(o)n that was basically Ryu from Street Fighter. Add to that the ability to play as Zero, giving players different abilities and a new story path, and some new tricks (the final boss is one of the most difficult bosses in all of Megadom), and X4 is the whole package.

Sarge said: Surely I can't be the only one that found Mega Man X2 and X3 disappointing. The original game was nearly perfect, and the follow-ups, while good, felt uninspired. Well, apparently the move to new hardware reinvigorated the team, because MMX4 returns the series to glory. Having a fully playable Zero also adds tremendously to the replay value, changing how you approach challenges and being an absolute joy to play.

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Legend of Mana was the beginning of Square's 2000 "Summer of Adventure" (with Mana releasing in June, Threads of Fate in July, and Chrono Cross in August), with all sorts of neat doo-dads if you pre-ordered the games, especially if you pre-ordered all three of them. Threads of Fate I didn't come to until a couple of years later, but Legend of Mana was a must-buy for me. I loved Secret of Mana, and this looked like a worthy successor. It turned out to not quite be what people were expecting, but it's a great game nonetheless, and it is my favorite Mana/Seiken Densetsu game.

Reconstructing Fa'Diel is a blast, placing areas, then exploring them, never knowing where you're going to end up next. Are you going to help a rodent Sherlock Holmes solve a murder?Are you going to learn Dudbear? Or are you going to help Nico with yet another hairbrained scheme? The open-endedness was magical, with each new area providing a brand new adventure, though I especially loved when the poet Pokhiel showed up. I'm a sucker for windy philosophizing, what can I say? (This may or may not come into play later down the list.)

It also helps that Legend of Mana has some of the most gorgeous 2D spritework and backgrounds even today, and as for the music, it features some of Yoko Shimomura's best work. As for the gameplay, I said SaGa frontier was one of Akitoshi Kawazu's most accessible games, but this one may take the crown (as long as you don't try to figure out crafting, gods help you then). It's a complete package, and while it was divisive upon release, especially when we did not get Seiken Densetsu 3, time has been kind to it. There's even a remaster coming out next month, and you know I'm excited.

I realize it's a tempting narrative to default to, but it really doesn't seem like Kawazu had much or anything to do with the design of Legend of Mana. He's credited as producer, and while that's often a vague position that can often encompass creatively integral duties as well, he is on record describing just what his development duties involved with the game were, and he only talks about budgeting, scheduling, protecting the team from pressure and interference so they could work--the very definition of a producer's work. Whatever kind of opinion one holds about Legend, the granularities of its game design should probably be credited to other staff who worked on it.

Huh. While all credit of course goes to the actual designers, I'd be surprised if they didn't at least have some of Kawazu's oeuvre in mind when working on the systems for this one - while it does have a lot of differences from games Kawazu actually did the design work on, it shares that feel where you can dive deep into really esoteric systems if you want to, or you can just do stuff and see what happens.

Anyway, I love the hell out of Legend of Mana and it could fall even higher than 5 on my list depending on my mood. Issun pretty much covered the high points already, but I also love the way it weaves quirky but touching vignettes into multiple over-arching storylines, even while being open enough that you can do tons of stuff out of order - an impressive feat of plotting and writing. (It's a testament to how good the game is that I still have warm fuzzy feelings about the story and characters overall even though I categorically disagree with the morals and themes of one or two of its major plot threads!)

Peklo said:

...protecting the team from pressure and interference so they could work--the very definition of a producer's work.

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This one is pretty big and dips into the creative side of things though. If a producer doesn't like something enough, they can get it removed from a game. If they like something and fully understand why the devs want it in the game, then they're better equipped to go to bat and battle corporate to keep that stuff in the game that corporate doesn't understand. And if he likes this one designer who does things the way he likes, he can do the paperwork and lobby to get that designer on his project. He most likely wasn't hovering over coders and designers having his finger prints on every little detail of the game like a director would. But him being there over a different producer with different proclivities more than likely sets the tenor for what the dev team can do and get away with, and what they know their producer will have their backs for.

There's always a push in most media I feel to ignore or give the producers less credit for some creative output, and to a certain degree that's probably warranted. Especially when these days you've got a long litany of honorary producers mixed-in into the credits to obfuscate things for the layman. But I think most people probably over correct on how little credit to give key producers. If it wasn't an important creative duty, then you would probably see a lot less powerful/influential game directors being the producers on their own games.

Regardless of how much creative input Kawazu actually had in the game's development, it sure as heck feels like a Kawazu game. Stuff like an ridiculously obtuse and convoluted blacksmithing system that includes hidden information and no explanation of the mechanics is par on his course.

Kirin said:

even though I categorically disagree with the morals and themes of one or two of its major plot threads!)

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I'm assuming you're talking about "BTW It's my moral imperative to let everyone do whatever they want, even if that means homeslice is gonna destroy the world." Which, yeah no, and sounds like a really weird interpretation of certain tenets of Buddhism and Taoism.

I voted for Legend of Mana from the power of pure nostalgia. It's far from my favorite Mana game but it stands out because of how it subverted my expectations on what a Mana game should or can be. I remember it being shockingly easy but my memory is fuzzy. In any case, I look forward to digging in again next month in the remaster.

I ended up bumping Tony Hawk's Pro Skater from my list in favor of Mega Man X4 at the last second. Just a solid game and a better transition to new hardware than Mega Man 8 was.

Issun said:

I'm assuming you're talking about "BTW It's my moral imperative to let everyone do whatever they want, even if that means homeslice is gonna destroy the world." Which, yeah no, and sounds like a really weird interpretation of certain tenets of Buddhism and Taoism.

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There's that, but even moreso (disclaimer that it's been a while since I played so I may be mixing up details) I remember one of the scenarios, I think the one with the fairies, really played up a "nobility of suffering" sentiment which I kind of abhor.

WisteriaHysteria said:

Especially when these days you've got a long litany of honorary producers mixed-in into the credits to obfuscate things for the layman.

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"These are the guys that just drove by the studio." Tom Servo, Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie

I had Alpha 3 as #6 on my list.

Issun said:

One thing the Playstation, Saturn and Dreamcast versions had that really sold this game was World Tour mode

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Yeah, that was a fun way to make more out of the single player experience (but I only played and completed it as Ken).

Issun said:

announcers

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Torzelbaum said:

I think the SF Alpha 3 announcer is the best announcer in any fighting game - I like to refer to him as the Perfect Machine of Hype.

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Two more games I voted for! Mega Man X4 clocked in at #19 for me. Interestingly, I didn't play it on PSX/Saturn, but via the PC port, which played just as well (from what I could tell) as the console versions.

Legend of Mana was the last game to make my list, and I had a whole bunch of stuff that could have slotted in there. In the end, Mana's brawler-style gameplay and beautiful visuals won me over. I really should make another run of the game... maybe I'll pick up the remaster?

I have always looked at Mega Man games with envy. I am completely dreadful at platformers and have very little patience for them. But they’re so cool and are very fun to watch. I can’t put many of them on my personal lists because of how Anti-Fun they are to me personally but I love watching them and people having fun with them and X4 always seemed like it fleas deserving of being on a list like this from a distance.

LoM is a game I wanted to love and always appreciated for how ambitious and beautiful it was. It just came at a bad time in my life to fully appreciate it. I dunno if I could get the most out of it now either on account of my lack of gaming patience these days, but I’ll buy the remaster in a heartbeat just to throw money at good things that deserve support.

"lom is kawazu" is definitely an oversimplification at best but it's a game that (especially mechanically) is not really all that explicable as a followup to sd1, 2, or 3 either. i've heard a lot of the team came fresh off of saga frontier, and there are some obvious presentational connections between the two (the quest completion eyecatches, for example).

but it's really ok for a game to be inexplicable. i may have my some thoughts about what the game may be similar to and perhaps even inspired by, but in the end it's a very..."open" game. there's no pressure to play a certain way or do a specific thing, and so much of the game experience is defined by the player's choices because the game doesn't obviously react to most of them. the game is kind of simple and easy at a surface level, so choosing and making weapons, raising and naming pets, and all those kinds of personal customizations are just ways for the player to inhabit the world on some small level. there are certainly some things that crop up where the game suddenly prompts or continues a quest that the player might not expect, but the underlying sense of interaction is very different from saga games. anyway, i've said a lot about all that elsewhere. #22

mmx4 is cool. #15. i don't have many big thoughts about this one as i don't know that i'd consider myself a deeply invested megafan, if anything i'm more just invested in the robot aesthetic of the post-classic series. and, well, especially because of zero, who of course got a starring role for the first (and best, at least out of the x series) time in this one.

oh, and the boss intro screens are so good, a peak capcom aesthetic to me. playing monster hunter rise lately i had to smile at all of the intro scenes for that, because they feature weird little rhyming lines and funny epithets (usually alliterative, or featuring some other kind of wordplay) and it really just brought me right back.


same worm it's even better with audio set to monster hunter language (or japanese, i assume, but i only use the former) because it's got an old voice wailing out the lines over louder instruments but i couldn't find a video with both that and english subtitles

Mega Man X4 is one of my Top Five Mega Men. It's SO good. This generation doesn't get enough credit (and definitely didn't during its time) for the AMAZING 2D work done on PS1 and Saturn. The peak of pixel art, if you ask me. X4 is gorgeous, and with full playthroughs available as X and Zero, both of which are completely unique, it's just, yeah, really really good. Also asks the important question: WHAT AM I FIGHTING FOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRUGHDLHASDL:FH:LSH?!

It interesting that these two ended up together in that they both have freaking amazing pixel art but in *wildly* different styles. Hard-edged vs. soft, high-contrast shading vs. watercolor-y pastels, etc. They're both beautiful in totally different ways.

X4 is probably my 2nd favorite entry in the X series, but I didn't put it on my list. Finally getting to play a full MMX game as Zero was too fucking cool as a teenager.

Legend of Mana was #18. I haven't played it in a while, and I've only ever completed one story arc. It's a beautiful game.

Kirin said:

It interesting that these two ended up together in that they both have freaking amazing pixel art but in *wildly* different styles. Hard-edged vs. soft, high-contrast shading vs. watercolor-y pastels, etc. They're both beautiful in totally different ways.

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Talking Time : We fucking love pixels!

Torzelbaum said:

Talking Time : We fucking love pixels!

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To that end, I'm legit surprised that a) I was the highest rank for MMX4 at #6 and b) MMX4 didn't rank higher overall.

actually even thinking about this reminded me there's a LoM interview on shmuplations i hadn't read as i hadn't played the game yet and there are quite a few questions and answers regarding the nature of the relationship between this game and saga frontier. including the first one, in which the game's director mentions that some of the core mechanics were things he proposed early in frontier (1)'s development

this is probably the money quote though:

Ishii: The idea of playing the game freely, however you want—yeah, you could probably call that a “SaGa-ism”. When I first joined Square, Kawazu and I used to talk about wanting to “explore fully what it meant for something to be a ‘game’.” In that sense, Seiken Densetsu is me pursuing a different path from Kawazu in answering that question, of what makes a game enjoyable.

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Legend of Mana was part of my top 10 that constantly shuffled as I made this list. It was number one on a couple iterations. This was the first PSOne game I ever owned, and I bought a PSOne to play it when the PS3 was already out. At the moment I definitely feel like I should have had it higher than where I did (7) but oh well.

Today's Honorable Mentions are a couple of stellar RPGs that deserve mention even if they didn't rank.


Arc the Lad II: 50 Points, 2 Votes

Sarge said: The original Arc the Lad was a solid, no-frills SRPG released in the first year of the PlayStation's life. It was mostly a Shining Force CD-style affair, with just story segments and tactical battles in a very short and easy ten-ish hours.

A year and a half later, Arc the Lad II was released, and you'd be forgiven for being gobsmacked at its quality like I was. Everything has been expanded, from the RPG-style exploration, to a new Guild system that has you complete worthwhile quests (for the most part), more challenging battles, and a game that stretches up to 40-50 hours even without side quests.

It also helps that Working Designs exhibits some of their strongest localization work here, making the game feel quite polished. The SNES-style graphics might not have impressed then, but they've held up much better than its polygonal peers.

There were points in the game where I started to get Chrono Trigger vibes, and there are very few games that do that for me. In light of that, I very much see it as one of the best expressions of the style of SRPG that Shining Force kicked off, and highly recommend it to fans of that series.

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WisteriaHysteria said: One of the most criminally underappreciated RPGs out there. Great story, great music, gorgeous sprites, and just an all around good game. It's mildly incredible that a game this good spawned from the first.

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Wild ARMs: 59 Points, 3 Votes

Kirin said:
Wild ARMs isn't exactly a revolutionary JRPG. The early-3D battle presentation is rudimentary, the 2D exploration maps are good but won't knock your socks off, the systems are all serviceable but nothing mind-blowing. It's the setting that really sets it apart. You got your wild west in my JRPG! It actually works and was a breath of fresh air next to just another fantasy setting. More than anything, it's the music that really sells it - sure the overworld is a blatant Ennio Morricone ripofftribute, but the whole thing is just put together masterfully and is one of the most striking soundtracks on the PS1.
Also, it tided us all over until FF7 released.

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One thing Arc the Lad II does that I greatly appreciate and that also still feels pretty unique in video games is that it's this direct sequel to the first game, but also sort of indirect because it follows a different set of characters. Which itself, isn't completely original. BUT! These new characters aren't really meant to replace the old ones. The old one's characters are still out there in the world, doing their thing, being the heroes of destiny while the new characters are really only ever destined to be support characters to them. Which is a really nifty perspective shift that you don't see in many games ever. BUT! That's still not completely 100% original. And *then* the old main characters eventually meet up with the new main characters and join the party! And then it's one big happy everyone's the heroes party! It's so delightful.

Oh, yeah, that's definitely one of the coolest bits. I really, really enjoyed Arc the Lad II, and am glad I wasn't the only vote for it.

Torzelbaum said:

Talking Time : We fucking love pixels!

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I don't have a design in mind, but I really want some pixel art and this slogan this to be one of the rotating banners.

Something Wild Arms and Arc the Lad II have in common besides being first party Sony RPGs for the PS1 is that they both got mediocre late 90s anime adaptations.



I legitimately miss 90s character designs. I also love that Arc the Lad's anime OP is just the semi-iconic main theme from the video games.

Sarge said:

Oh, yeah, that's definitely one of the coolest bits. I really, really enjoyed Arc the Lad II, and am glad I wasn't the only vote for it.

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I only had it at #17 but it's a really good game. It's a shame it came over so late in the PS1's life cycle, and also was not a game that lent itself to easy sequels. In a different timeline, Arc the Lad II comes over a lot earlier, and also gets actually good sequels that increase the prestige and demand for the older games the way Suikoden III sent demand for Suikoden I&II through the roof. Instead, it's just this weird little niche oddity.

Another thing that I find amusing about Arc the Lad II is that Arc the Lad I seems like such a by-the-books, generic D&D inspired fantasy setting. And then Arc the Lad II was like, "Yo, Final Fantasy VII sure was dope, huh?" It would be like if FF7 was a direct sequel to FF4, and the heroes of FF4 were still running around in the background while everything in FF4's world inexplicably became a cyberpunk dystopia. It's pretty wild! And really only not completely ridiculous on account of how brief Arc the Lad I was.

Wild ARMs was my #23. It made a significant impression on my adolescence. The soundtrack is just incredible, but the overall sound design is also a standout and deserves recognition too. The plot eventually gets kinda bonkers, and also does the thing in JRPGs I love where it puts Capitalized Keyword Concepts in special brackets every time it shows up in dialogue. It's a shame I never knew about Wild ARMs 2 until well after the fact, but at least I picked up 3 on the PS2 and in fact the OST for 3 was my very first video game soundtrack purchase. Anyway the original version of Wild ARMs also has the privilege of not being wholly replaced by its future remake: Alter Code F wasn't really that compelling when I tried it and loses a lot of the "early PSX JRPG" charm of the original.

Oh, yeah, I'd love to see the alternate timeline where Arc is remembered well. Still, I'm also a big fan of Twilight of the Spirits, and was really disappointed in the direction they went with End of Darkness after (in my opinion) successfully reinventing the franchise.

Arc III was pretty good, but it skews far too easy. The characters were fun, though, and I could definitely get into the interactions between them through the various jobs. It made something that could have been a lot more mundane pretty enjoyable when coupled with the excellent localization.

I knew about the anime for Wild ARMs (Alter Code F comes with a disc with an episode or two of it), but I didn't know (or forgot) about Arc the Lad. So pretty meh, huh? I'm still tempted to hunt it down.

There is something special about Lunar SSSC. It's not terribly innovative, it codified the anime-->JRPG conventions perhaps more than any other game, and Working Design's localization is truly love it or hate it. And yet. If you were anywhere from your preteens to your early twenties and played this game when it came out, it will probably hold a place in your heart.

Not that you need nostalgia goggles to appreciate it. Perhaps it is because it is so traditional that it stands the test of time. As I said, it pretty much defined the traditional JRPG at a time when the genre was at its peak. Engaging but occasionally grating characters? Check. Pretty 2D art style? Check. By the number story with some neat twists? You got it. Labrynthine dungeons and a battle system that doesn't shake things up too much but also isn't too basic? For sure. And, of course, an instantly memorable song. Lunar's definitive remake was exactly what the genre needed when it needed it, and while it didn't blaze any trails, it certainly defined what we expected from an explosively popular type of game.

WisteriaHysteria said: I still have my Punching Puppet Ghalleon.

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