I'm very surprised, that Suikoden didn't make it into the regular top 50. I didn't vote for it or its sequel, but I thought it was really beloved here? Or is that more the second game?
#57: Bomberman 64 68 Points, 3 Votes
Bomberman was one of the first truly great party games. While the N64 version eschewed some of this aspect in order to focus on translating Bomberman into a 3D action platformer, the result was good enough to make the single player campaign one of the most celebrated entries in the franchise.
And with this, I stand corrected - I hadn't thought that anyone aside from me would vote for this game. I recognize that it's not the greatest game, but I love how much it tried to translate Bomberman into the 3D space. The rough graphics look absolutely beautiful to me, and I have a ton of nostalgia for it - despite never really owning it, I had borrowed it a few times from a friend.
What I love so much about this game is, that so much of the levels (at least of some) is just there for hidden stuff. Specifically the very first level is great in that regard - I think you only need to visit 1/3 of the level. The rest is just there for you to find the hidden, golden squares and alternative costumes for Bomberman in multiplayer. The golden squares made you explore the levels, and find out how the bomb-jumping worked. The bosses were particularly interesting to me, as you could beat just beat them, of course. But you could also hit them at specific spots, that would alter their apearance, which would present you with a golden square. There were five of these in each level, and normally, you could just visit a level, find one, come back and get the others. With bosses (which was every second level), you needed to get all five in one go. That included the one you got from beating the boss within a time limit, which, granted, made the whole thing into a gamble. Bosses needed to expose their weak spots, you see, and if they didn't, they didn't, at least for some time. Like, the first world had a dragon boss, with you on a high bridge. Sometimes, the dragon would dive under the bridge, switching sides. This was the time where you had to bomb his wings, so they would partly burn away, and give you a golden square. Stuff like that. It's not necessarily super fun, but I just love how hard they tried to use the 3D, to give you stuff to explore.
Also, I found the evil bombermen (like that red lady, who is actually a guy, I think, but I interpreted the pixels as female) really cool. I was 10 at the time, so I think that's fair.
I could never completely beat the game. After collecting all the golden squares, you unlock a sixth world. And the third of these levels makes you do insane bomb jumping stuff, that I just couldn't pull off, no matter how hard I tried. A shame, because I really put a lot of time into this game, but that was too hard for me.
Anyway, really love this game, and what it represents to me.