I didn't think it was possible, but they apparently took Super Mario Bros. 3, already a refined version of the original, and managed to refine it even more. That the SNES was actually able to pull this off may be part of what makes so many consider it the greatest console of all time. This one didn't have quite as many straight power-ups as the third iteration, but Yoshi basically counted as several, and I was honestly having too much fun to care, anyway. And on the topic of Yoshi, he was awesome; the characterization from Yoshi's Story and beyond may be questionable, but there was a lot to like in Mario's long-tongued, invincibly booted, shell-empowered dinosaur mount with a bottomless stomach. I loved being able to replay any completed level at will; not that playing through the entire game for one specific spot was a terrible thing, but getting the choice was very nice. It was also a great idea to include hidden exits throughout, and the creation of the Star Road to help with travel around the rather large world map. The Koopa Kids made their last major appearance for years, and even brought a little more variety with them in this showing's fights.
One of the things I really have to praise this game for doing right was its endgame. Not only was the final area filled with some tricky levels (I have to grind my teeth whenever I remember the Ghost House where you have to manipulate the coins upward to an unseen platform), but the final level was great in the amount of variety you could choose between for your path to the end; and I just had to laugh when I found the secret path to the Back Door. But even more, there were the unique obstacles in Star Road, followed by the intense challenge of the inexplicable region beyond that. Seriously, what was that place? Platforming heaven (or hell, depending) with upbeat island music? I still have to laugh when I think about how many times I died trying to clear that one level where, if I recall, there is no floor and your safety is assured only by pipes, balloons, and the heads of hapless Paratroopa. And there's one of its middle stages I remembered from a recent play through: you're running through icy terrain for a while, and then you get to a spot with many consecutive difficult jumps. You have to keep moving quickly while doing this and while crazy numbers of Cheep-Cheep soar at you. And then, just when it seems like everything's cool and under control, the game throws one of those giant Banzai Bills at you. I was laughing so hard I nearly fell to my death, then and there. That level sums up the entire place and everything I love about Super Mario World perfectly: just when you think you've handled everything the game has, it throws out a new curve. That's a feeling I'll always adore.
4. Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars
The first of Mario's platformer-RPG outings, and the only one to be a Square-Nintendo collaboration. This featured the most dynamic turn-based battle system of its time, thanks to timed hits. I always enjoy that exchange early on where Toad introduces them: the Goomba's more than willing to throw itself at the man who's killed so many of its kind with absolutely no effort, but once it's explicitly told the mass murderer knows about timed hits, it decides to leave. The introduction was handled interestingly, with a typical Mario plot and no menu or post-battle rewards until Exor's arrival, and not even any dialogue for most of that period. I thought it was a nice way to mark the shift from traditional Mario to RPG. The original characters, including the villains, were pretty colorful, like the psychotic Booster and his Snifit henchmen, the gullible crybaby Mallow, the eternally hungry Belome, and the blatant reference Axem Rangers. I'm still not sure what the hell Valentina was supposed to be; is her actual head that green bird, or is it that pinkish oval? Or both? Oh well, she gets kudos for, in an age where all mention of alcohol was violently excised from video games, fighting with a martini in hand. That fight was surprisingly tough, too, particularly for a game that was mostly easy. Also of special note were the Bundt fight (ah, the joys of duking it out with a cake), Czar Dragon (wailing on the zombifying exiled leader of Dragon Russia is always fun), and Smithy himself. And that's to say nothing of optional bosses Jinx (the densest collection of martial arts badassery of all time) and Culex. That fight with Culex, aside from pretty much being the hardest in the game and a huge Final Fantasy shout-out, many interpret as a metaphor for Square's break with Nintendo, which seemed pretty profound to me as a kid. And that's when I adopted a slightly altered spelling for my net-name.
Aside from that, I just have some warm memories of this one. The ending gave a nice look back on all the game's major players, with some nice closure scenes, like Mallow's induction or the wedding of the freaks. There's a lot of nostalgia attached to this great game for me.
3. EarthBound
I still remember seeing Nintendo Power's preview for this one. There was some appeal in the idea of playing as a regular kid, albeit one with psychic powers, in a normal world. In hindsight, I'm happy 'normal' was used so loosely; it would have cost the game dearly. You suspect the game will put in about anything as an enemy around the time you're bashing New Age Retro Hippies and blue-obsessed Insane Cultists into the ground, and have long since been convinced by the time hieroglyphics start peeling themselves off the walls to hurt you. In spite of the unquestionably limited graphics, it makes a solid showing of atmosphere, particularly in the abstract realms that are Moonside and Magicant. Better than that was the game's great sense of humor. Like the fifth cop in Onett who decides against fighting you after his four buddies get whomped, the sea captain who apparently throws his socks at the giant sea monster you fight, the way using the Trout-Flavored Yogurt Machine in battle damages enemies, and, of course, the inexplicable "Fuzzy Pickles" Camera Man. Eventually going back and buying the $10,000 or so 'getaway house' in Onett shows the sense of humor particularly well; you only see the front and side of the house from the outside, making it look like all the other houses, but actually stepping inside your new residence reveals that, among other things, the entire back wall is missing.
That sense of humor made the game by itself. And there was more. The plot wasn't the most complicated, but it had its twists and it was a very enjoyable ride. It was cool for Ness to draw power from all the world's Your Sanctuary locations, then become immensely powerful after confronting the evil in his own mind. The final boss fight was brilliantly done: your victory comes not through your own power, but through all the bonds the characters formed with others. That could have turned out incredibly cheesy, but EarthBound pulls it off with style and heart. The entire experience is just too charming for me to help but love this game.
2. Chrono Trigger
Time travel. There's very little middle ground: its use tends to produce either trash or brilliance. Guess which one I think Chrono Trigger is. The party manages to cover a lot of variety in its seven slots, covering among other things a medieval frog swordsman, a prehistoric woman brawler, and a young woman with a maniacal laugh and more brains than God. Seriously, Lucca's ridiculously smart. She first builds a machine for teleporting matter with her father's help. After twice seeing this machine send something through time, she creates a portable device to duplicate that effect within an hour's time. She goes on to repair a sentient android created centuries after her time, and convert an ancient power source into a cartridge for her superweapon. And she apparently only builds from there in the sequel. Anyway, putting kid geniuses aside, the rest of the game's cast and plot were very well done. Magus is one of the coolest characters video games have ever seen, perhaps for what may be his most famous line in one of the secret endings: "If history is to be changed, let it change! If the world is to be destroyed, so be it! If it is my fate to be destroyed, I must simply laugh!" There are few more badass things to say before going on to fight what amounts to destiny itself. Those secret endings in general were a great idea. Sure, some were a touch lame, but most, like that Magus ending, were all kinds of awesome.
There are a lot of other things to really like about it. Multi-Techs were an awesome development, and really gave the feel of teamwork more than any other game I've ever played. Also nice was the way it explained why the group was limited to three, instead of leaving it unaddressed. Sure, it didn't make a whole lot of sense that you could switch out party members whenever you wanted, but hey. Another kudos for not requiring you to keep the spiky-haired protagonist in your party, beyond a certain point. Odds are solid you still would, but it was nice to have some freedom in that regard. Probably what I really have to applaud Chrono Trigger for was its endgame; few other RPGs have handled it as well. There is a side-quest for about every character in your party (a shame Ayla got screwed out of that), through which you get some resolution on dangling plot threads, some character development, and some of the game's ultimate equipment. And you get to put it all to use in the awesome final dungeon that is the Black Omen. Curiously, it's optional. But it finally puts the villain's go-to lady out of her misery and gets you fully prepared to take down that world-eating, extra large porcupine. After which comes one of the most satisfying video game endings I've ever seen. I wonder far too often why Square has so forsaken this series.
1. Final Fantasy VI
Finally. The top of the mountain: my favorite video game of all time. I'm almost at a loss for things to say. Pat did a brilliant job in his Final Fantasy retrospective entry; I think he expressed damn near everything I love about the game, and a lot I might not have thought to mention. There's bound to be a lot of overlap, but time to say what I feel about this great game. Starting big: Kefka. In every game I'd played before, the villain proved either ridiculous and not terribly evil (King DeDeDe), or dark and rather nefarious (Golbez). Kefka managed to blend the two, personified in his laughing maniacally as he poisons the entire Kingdom of Doma, pointedly ignoring that some of his men were still held prisoner inside. That event was made particularly horrifying since it actually seemed both menacing and possible; we weren't talking about some evil-embodying mage using a sealed magic power to blow away portions of the world, we were talking about poison and one man's willingness to subject an entire people to slow, painful death. And even while he's committing these horrible acts, he's just so over the top he's actually still entertaining. And that wasn't today, when I've developed some level of detachment from what I play, but back when I deeply connected myself into the games I played. Which is more than a little creepy and sad, in hindsight. Oh, well. It remains an impressive feat and Kefka is the most effective combinations of manic villainy and comic relief I've ever seen.
The rest of the cast, while a ways off from the evil clown, was still mighty impressive. Locke's insistence that he throw himself into protecting women makes him seem like any other generic hero, until the complex behind it is revealed. Setzer remains one of my favorite characters ever, just for his sheer coolness factor: the man abducts an opera diva to marry her on his casino zeppelin, and then casually agrees to honor his word to the group of rebels who scammed him. That's just awesome. And that's before he starts kicking inordinately large amounts of ass with a pair of Fixed Dice. Shadow and Relm's relationship is one of the most subtle and brilliant developments I've seen in the series. And Celes's attempted suicide is the single most affecting and realistically motivated scene I've ever witnessed in a video game. And an excellent prelude into what the World of Ruin is like. Really, Final Fantasy VI just has the best endgame experience I've ever seen. The going's very rough at first, appropriate in the post-apocalyptic world, with only one party member and super-powered random encounters. Gradually, you reassemble a party, and then... The moment when the Falcon takes flight is on my top moments for any game. The music suits it perfectly. You have control of the airship rather early, and, though you knew the world, you have no idea what's become of most of it. It's a wonderful blending of exploration and familiarity, as you reclaim every damn member of the ensemble cast, and then finally take back the world. And every one of those characters (not counting Gogo and Umaro) gets to actually play a role in the final dungeon, as opposed to just sitting on the airship for no particular reason. It's the best application of a 'splitting up' dungeon I've ever seen, and only makes that last portion of the game more enjoyable. It's not a perfect game, of course, but it does so much right that its flaws seem trivial by comparison. In my eyes, there is no better experience to be had in gaming than Final Fantasy VI.
I didn't think it was possible, but they apparently took Super Mario Bros. 3, already a refined version of the original, and managed to refine it even more. That the SNES was actually able to pull this off may be part of what makes so many consider it the greatest console of all time. This one didn't have quite as many straight power-ups as the third iteration, but Yoshi basically counted as several, and I was honestly having too much fun to care, anyway. And on the topic of Yoshi, he was awesome; the characterization from Yoshi's Story and beyond may be questionable, but there was a lot to like in Mario's long-tongued, invincibly booted, shell-empowered dinosaur mount with a bottomless stomach. I loved being able to replay any completed level at will; not that playing through the entire game for one specific spot was a terrible thing, but getting the choice was very nice. It was also a great idea to include hidden exits throughout, and the creation of the Star Road to help with travel around the rather large world map. The Koopa Kids made their last major appearance for years, and even brought a little more variety with them in this showing's fights.
The first of Mario's platformer-RPG outings, and the only one to be a Square-Nintendo collaboration. This featured the most dynamic turn-based battle system of its time, thanks to timed hits. I always enjoy that exchange early on where Toad introduces them: the Goomba's more than willing to throw itself at the man who's killed so many of its kind with absolutely no effort, but once it's explicitly told the mass murderer knows about timed hits, it decides to leave. The introduction was handled interestingly, with a typical Mario plot and no menu or post-battle rewards until Exor's arrival, and not even any dialogue for most of that period. I thought it was a nice way to mark the shift from traditional Mario to RPG. The original characters, including the villains, were pretty colorful, like the psychotic Booster and his Snifit henchmen, the gullible crybaby Mallow, the eternally hungry Belome, and the blatant reference Axem Rangers. I'm still not sure what the hell Valentina was supposed to be; is her actual head that green bird, or is it that pinkish oval? Or both? Oh well, she gets kudos for, in an age where all mention of alcohol was violently excised from video games, fighting with a martini in hand. That fight was surprisingly tough, too, particularly for a game that was mostly easy. Also of special note were the Bundt fight (ah, the joys of duking it out with a cake), Czar Dragon (wailing on the zombifying exiled leader of Dragon Russia is always fun), and Smithy himself. And that's to say nothing of optional bosses Jinx (the densest collection of martial arts badassery of all time) and Culex. That fight with Culex, aside from pretty much being the hardest in the game and a huge Final Fantasy shout-out, many interpret as a metaphor for Square's break with Nintendo, which seemed pretty profound to me as a kid. And that's when I adopted a slightly altered spelling for my net-name.
I still remember seeing Nintendo Power's preview for this one. There was some appeal in the idea of playing as a regular kid, albeit one with psychic powers, in a normal world. In hindsight, I'm happy 'normal' was used so loosely; it would have cost the game dearly. You suspect the game will put in about anything as an enemy around the time you're bashing New Age Retro Hippies and blue-obsessed Insane Cultists into the ground, and have long since been convinced by the time hieroglyphics start peeling themselves off the walls to hurt you. In spite of the unquestionably limited graphics, it makes a solid showing of atmosphere, particularly in the abstract realms that are Moonside and Magicant. Better than that was the game's great sense of humor. Like the fifth cop in Onett who decides against fighting you after his four buddies get whomped, the sea captain who apparently throws his socks at the giant sea monster you fight, the way using the Trout-Flavored Yogurt Machine in battle damages enemies, and, of course, the inexplicable "Fuzzy Pickles" Camera Man. Eventually going back and buying the $10,000 or so 'getaway house' in Onett shows the sense of humor particularly well; you only see the front and side of the house from the outside, making it look like all the other houses, but actually stepping inside your new residence reveals that, among other things, the entire back wall is missing.
Time travel. There's very little middle ground: its use tends to produce either trash or brilliance. Guess which one I think Chrono Trigger is. The party manages to cover a lot of variety in its seven slots, covering among other things a medieval frog swordsman, a prehistoric woman brawler, and a young woman with a maniacal laugh and more brains than God. Seriously, Lucca's ridiculously smart. She first builds a machine for teleporting matter with her father's help. After twice seeing this machine send something through time, she creates a portable device to duplicate that effect within an hour's time. She goes on to repair a sentient android created centuries after her time, and convert an ancient power source into a cartridge for her superweapon. And she apparently only builds from there in the sequel. Anyway, putting kid geniuses aside, the rest of the game's cast and plot were very well done. Magus is one of the coolest characters video games have ever seen, perhaps for what may be his most famous line in one of the secret endings: "If history is to be changed, let it change! If the world is to be destroyed, so be it! If it is my fate to be destroyed, I must simply laugh!" There are few more badass things to say before going on to fight what amounts to destiny itself. Those secret endings in general were a great idea. Sure, some were a touch lame, but most, like that Magus ending, were all kinds of awesome.
Finally. The top of the mountain: my favorite video game of all time. I'm almost at a loss for things to say. Pat did a brilliant job in his Final Fantasy retrospective entry; I think he expressed damn near everything I love about the game, and a lot I might not have thought to mention. There's bound to be a lot of overlap, but time to say what I feel about this great game. Starting big: Kefka. In every game I'd played before, the villain proved either ridiculous and not terribly evil (King DeDeDe), or dark and rather nefarious (Golbez). Kefka managed to blend the two, personified in his laughing maniacally as he poisons the entire Kingdom of Doma, pointedly ignoring that some of his men were still held prisoner inside. That event was made particularly horrifying since it actually seemed both menacing and possible; we weren't talking about some evil-embodying mage using a sealed magic power to blow away portions of the world, we were talking about poison and one man's willingness to subject an entire people to slow, painful death. And even while he's committing these horrible acts, he's just so over the top he's actually still entertaining. And that wasn't today, when I've developed some level of detachment from what I play, but back when I deeply connected myself into the games I played. Which is more than a little creepy and sad, in hindsight. Oh, well. It remains an impressive feat and Kefka is the most effective combinations of manic villainy and comic relief I've ever seen.