Best. Minigame. Ever.
 

Inspired by discussion in the Dark Cloud 2 thread, I decided to revive this one from its untimely death during the crash.

Virtually all genres of games have 'em. ESPN NFL 2K5 had air hockey and I think darts. Final Fantasy X has Blitzball. Daxter for the PSP has dream sequences you play through. Et cetera, et cetera.

The thought behind this thread is for you to post the minigame(s) you enjoy and the game(s) it came from. None of this "FFX cuz of Blitzball." stuff though.

And since I've mentioned it twice in the opening statement, you can probably guess that Blitzball is in fact my favorite minigame of all-time. I will continue to hope that Square-Enix will design a Blitzball Online based on the minigame from Final Fantasy X, not X-2.

I spent about 150 hours playing Blitzball just so I could master it to the point where I didn't even need to see the screen to play. Blitzball is by far the most addicting minigame I think I've ever come across.

Other than that, Final Fantasy 7 had the submarine simulator. And that was also a ton of fun. You just basically control a submarine and move around until you spot and enemy, and then it's torpedos away. I'd love to see the minigame reappear under the PS3's capabilities, but we'll have to wait and see for that.

Final Fantasy 7 snowboarding. 'Nuff said.

I have wasted, probably, more time on that minigame than the actual story itself. A friend and I use to just sit there and race against each other (via the ghost moogle) to see who could get a faster time.

Also, who remembers the Gradius sequence in Blades of Steel? :D

The cooking mini-game in Suikoden II was great fun. Having chefs show up out of nowhere just to have a cook-off was awesome.

FFVII's snowboarding game was more fun for me than the submarine one was. Its simplicity combined with the speed of it made for some fun times. Granted, I didn't put more than 15 minutes at a time on it, but I'm not a huge mini-game player.

Dragon Quest VIII's roulette game kept me pretty occupied, but I'm not sure if it was because it was fun or because I used it to quickly and easily gain a lot of great armors.

Star Ocean: Til the End of Time's battle arena sucked out a lot of my time, partially because it was fun, and partially because I used it to gain a shitton of experience and currency using double exp and triple fol battle bonuses. Fighting against the blue dragon and the dragon rider was fun and reward at the same time!

FFVII's battle arena should be mentioned as well. It was a lot of fun decking emoCloud out with the Ultima sword, mystile bracelet, and serious business materia and then rolling through the eight rounds trying to survive while breaking all kinds of equipment to get the most points.

FFVII's chocobo breeding and racing go hand in hand here and were both a ton of fun the first couple of times I played through the game. Subsequent playthroughs had these two mini-games be less fun since I knew exactly how to go about getting through them as efficiently as possible.

I know that I'm leaving out about fifty-two mini-games that I really enjoyed, but I will allow others to cover those, or I will revisit them later in the thread.

Fun Fun Sonic from Sonic Shuffle, of course.

"You *boing* bastard! You *boing* stole my *boing* trampol *splat*"

"No... NO! I *boing* can clear the *boing pop* gap! I *Iron ball to the face* *splat*"

*Destroys 18th Dreamcast Controller*

Snake VS Monkey from MGS3/Subsistance (I've never laughed so hard)

Blitzball from FF-X (best sport game EVER! lol)

Don't know if this is quite a mini-game, Geometry Wars Evolved

God damn you.

Geometry Wars Retro Evolved can be classified as a mini-game, imo. It is in PGR3, is not the full game (which is not really any different from the Live Arcade) and probably the only reason to play it. It's fun as hell.

Hmm... mini-games aren't coming to me right now, but I remember playing Triple Triad off Final Fantasy VIII a lot as well as Tetra Master with Final Fantasy IX and Final Fantasy XI.

In Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne, there's an arcade room somewhere in Asakusa where you can play a cool little block-pushing puzzle game. The goal is simple: get to the designated point on the board and you win the level. There are all sorts of obstacles to push around and manipulate, including blocks that can be pushed into pits to form new platforms and bigger blocks that rotate around a set point. It's pretty long -- it took me about two hours to solve all the levels -- and it's significantly challenging.

There's a Magatama prize for making it through, but I found the satisfaction of beating all the levels rewarding in its own right.

Is there a Flash game out there or even an old console game that plays like this minigame? This is the sort of thing I'd love on a handheld.

SouthJag: I didn't mean that part about FFX in the way you think. I like FFX and I love BlitzBall. But I hate sports games with all my might. (why spend $60 for a sport game when you can just go outside?) Therefore what I meant was that BlitzBall is the only "sport" game that I play, even though it's a mini-game. Do you see what I mean now???

I also forgot to mention Tekken Force mode in Tekken 3... not 5.

See how much fun you have trying to play baseball by yourself.

Why spend $60 on a fighting game when you can just go to the mall and pick a fight with some emo kid. Why spend $60 on a racing game when you can just go get in your car and drive somewhere. Why spend $60 on an FPS/military strategy/espionage game when you can just go join the military.

Anyway, I am glad that dude mentioned Triple Triad, as I forgot to mention it and it is one that I always enjoyed playing a whole lot.

Slayer X, I was mad because you're just listing the minigame, not telling why you liked it. For example --

I have no clue what Tekken Force mode is. So describe it briefly and say why you liked it.

The fighting game in Xenogears.

I've organized tournaments based on that fighting game (Although, Fenrir is SO goddamn overpowered it's not even funny.) It's pretty deep and fun once you get near the end of the game with the large numbers of gears to choose from.

Please don't use words like "some", "short", "small" or "briefly", it only gives people more excuses to slack off.

Slayer X, his point was don't just list names, you need to describe and explain why you like the minigame and preferably what the minigame is about in the first place.

Personally, I have an addiction for Paper Plane in Wario Ware. Of course, the whole game is made of minigames and I'd have a very hard time choosing a second favorite since Skateboarding, Jump Forever, Scooter Commuter and countless other microgames (the games in the main play mode, as opposed to the unlockable minigames like Paper Plane and Jump Forever) are all wonderful.

http://reviews.chemicalkungfu.de/images/paperplane2.png

Paper Plane has you guiding a small paper plane floating downwards in an endless freefall. As you float down, pipes of different sizes act as obstacles as you need to control your plane's angle by pressing left or right. The steeper the angle, the faster the drop. Each obstacle you pass gives you one point and the game continues until you touch an obstacle and your plane explodes in cloud of white paper confetti.

It's a charmingly simple game, though slightly more complicated than Jump Forever or Skateboarding (which require you to press only one button). The fact that your plane is constantly falling and you can only make it drop faster or slightly slower (as opposed to making it rise even a little), means you need to get a perfect rhythm to the floating or you will be too far to guide your plane past the next obstacle. My personal best is 214, which I achieved while taking the tram to my aun't appartment in town. I was about ready to stop around 102, but for some reason decided to play till I died and just kept going.

Unlike most other games in Wario Ware, Paper Plane doesn't really get harder or faster as you proceed in the same sense the other games do. The obstacle shapes and sizes change, but if you get the rhythm right, I think it's quite possible to reach over 400 easily, completely unlike most of the microgames where eventually the speed gets so fast it's humanly impossible to keep up with the time limit.

Much calmer and more relaxing than a good amount of the mini- and microgames in Wario Ware, Paper Plane remains awesome as it only works well for quick 30 second speed games (you get a kind of lap time announced to you, so you can even try to float down as fast as you can for extra challenge) or 30 minute marathon sessions (believe me, even one 1 minute spent on a single event in Wario Ware counts as marathon lenght).

"Skateboarding" is an even simpler game, where you guide 9Volt, the game's obsessive retro Nintendo fan, on a skateboard and dodge obstacles by jumping or ducking. For each obstacle dodged, you get a point and again the game goes on till you hit something. As the game proceeds, you're required to dodge birds that fly at you at different speeds and patterns, making the game a bit trickier as it goes on. It's all down to reflexes and timing in the end and I've only gotten up to 128 for my best.

Jump Forever is ridiculously addicting rope jumping game that really only requires you to press A for jump and nothing else. It's possible to move left and right, but there's no real reason to do this. The rope's swing speeds up a little after a certain amount of cycles and later on becomes more random, at which point you usually mess up the timing and hit the rope. I think I've only gotten up to 69 or so, but you keep coming back for the simple gameplay and the super addicting music that plays along to the tempo of the game.

The "love making" minigame in God of War is one of the most hilarious and unique minigames I've ever seen.

My favorite minigame has to be "Galaxy Monkey" from the original Ape Escape. That is one of the most addicting and fun space shooters I've ever played. Everything about it is great! The highest level that I've made it to was 60 something.

I don't know if it really counts as a minigame, but the Mercinaries mode in Resident Evil 4 was pretty intense. The Super Chainsaw maniacs are perhaps the freakiest thing ever.

The optional landing sequences in the Ace Combat games are fun. Has anyone else tried landing in the most unusual way possible? I've landed on a carrier going at it from the side before.

The dream sequence in Metal Gear Solid 3 was good for a few seconds of entertainment. I still don't know why it's in the game.

Any of the mini games in Gemity in Star Ocean Til The End Of Time rocked. I used to play those for hours. I loved the little chess thing. I can't beat the computer on the highest level though. I always draw with it (i'm just too good)

The Motorcycle chase in FFVII was the best game to me. I loved that when i played it in game, and whenever i went to the Golden Saucer, that's all i played on. I wasn't ever really a fan of the snowboaring however.

Blitzball from FFX was the most addictive mini game i have ever played though. I remember a couple of summers ago, i would play this from the minute i woke up to the minute i went to sleep again. The music is addictive in it as well and i kick ass with Tidus. I came up with the (almost) perfect strategy to defeat most of the teams. The Al Bhed were always a pain in the ass though.

My pick would have to be Sushi-go-Round from Pokémon Stadium. Granted, I haven't played very many minigames...

My favourite minigame ever is "Go To Sheep" ~_~ or whatever the sheep jumping game was called in Warioware Twisted I believe. All you had to do was press A when a sheep got close to the fence so that you could jump it and help the boy sleep. The more sheep you got over the fence the better your score.
The catch: These sheep don't go in single file all that peacefully! At first they come at a steady rate, but they may slow down, speed up, or even reverse at will! Some sheep are also transparent which can distract several people. On top of that, the sheep all speed up in general after 50 or so come by. The look on the boy's face is priceless when you fail and let the sheep crash into the fence. He wakes up wide-eyed and you just screwed up his sleep schedule :)

Warioware consists purely of micro and minigames which are all so blissfully nutty:

- Paper Plane is also lots of fun, already appropriately given a mini tribute in one of the above posts.

- Pyoro in Warioware Inc. is lots of fun too. You are Pyoro, the bird with the long tongue, who is trying to shoot down all the magically falling seeds from the sky. The backdrop changes depending on your score with all sorts of psychadelic colour schemes. The high score is initially 10000 points, and you can get 500 points I think if you shoot the seed if its close to the top of the screen still. Think it's easy?
The catch: The seeds fall down at insane speeds after a couple of thousand points. Not enough? There are lots of seeds. The kicker? Each seed you miss wrecks the floor space that Pyoro has to navigate, essentially limiting your movement space. If a seed falls on Pyoro, then it's game over!

It looks like only one person said Triple Triad so far, so I'll be the second person. I normally hate mini-games in video games, but TT in FFVIII just rocked. It's so good that you could basically play TT without touching the actual main game at all, although you do need to advance in order to get the better cards. FFIX tried to one-up TT with Tetra Master, but it failed miserably. The rules were much more complex, thus making it less fun to play.

Aside from TT, lots of the mini-games except one in Pokémon Stadium 2 were fun. It's good to see furrets starring in one of them!

I actually thought the Chocobo Hot and Cold game from FFIX was good. While certainly not the best, it occupied my time as I tried to complete everything.

Several minigames from Suikoden IV were also enjoyable once I finally learned how to play.

The casino games in any of the Dragon Quests. Whether that be poker, blackjack, and/or roulette. Or the fun little unique games in there. Each Dragon Quest game I play I usually lose interest in the story when I hit the casinos. I'm in the casino trying to get enough coins for a sword that's only nominally better then stuff you can buy in shops.

Uhh I think I have a gambling problem... :(

Nutty is indeed the word. It's not just how most of the games are "crazy", but they also manage to be so utterly endearing in execution and idea. Shaking the dog's paw for instance and watching his ears as he's pleased.

I always crack up at the weightlifting game where you need to madly bash A and up randomly so the guy gets the weights up. The final "WAIYAAAAA!!" he let's out when he succeeds is priceless.



I also greatly enjoyed the fishing game in Ocarina of Time. Plenty of games tried to repeat the formula with gameplay twists and exciting camera angles, but none really matched the perfect atmosphere and subtle controls the Ocarina fishing had. I don't remember my best catch, but by god was I proud of it.
And hell, you can snatch the hat from the shopkeeper's head, and you need to be ridiculously accurate at it. How awesome is that?

Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete's battle pong was awesome. It was crazy, multiplayer randomness. Protecting your fort was really hard.

My favorite mini-game of all time has to be the cooking game in Suikoden II. I don't really remember the details, but I do remember that it was wacky in-game take of Iron Chef. I wish they would bring that little contest back in a future installment of the series.

Legaia 2: Duel Saga's planting scheme is one of the best ever, if your digits are hardcore enough to finish the whole field in less than 13 seconds. Just press a combination of buttons (R1 L1 R1 Down X) consecutively. Sounds fun? In 13 seconds without using a pre-programmed controller it is a test of kick-ass.

Even though it's not really a minigame, the Ft. Condor battle in FF7 was also a lot of fun, and a nice departure from the game's traditional play. Setting up the right amount and type of troops at strategic locations was really enjoyable.

Speaking of pong, as Mucknuggle brought up, the loading screen of Test Drive for the PS2 was Pong. If two controllers were plugged in, you can play two-players or if it was just you, you'd play against the CPU. Lots of fun though, and the game wouldn't interrupt your Pong match either -- just press start to begin the race.

I'm quite surprised this hasn't been mentioned already - Kirby Super Star for SNES. Great game, great minigames. To be honest, I've probably spent roughly around the same time playing the actual game, as I have with the minigames. It's just a great overall title. Breaking through the earth with your hand is fun, too.

Another would be the fishing in Breath of Fire III. Reeling in octopus was endless amounts of fun, and I've clocked in at least a good 20 hours on doing that alone. It's peaceful, it's easy, it gives you food, and it also helps towards the actual game.

Suikoden IV's Rita-Pon consumed at least 10 hours of my gametime on that game, Its really fun and addicting, i remember where i used to play it for hours just to hear Rita say those cute words.

Another good minigame was Xenogears - Battle arena, i still remember when me and my cousins will play 2 players and use a weak ass mecha just to beat xenogears, it was really fun and entertaining.

I just remembered the plays from Suikoden 3.

You could make some seriously hilarious conversations with certain characters in certain roles. (Admittedly, I used a Gamefaqs guide to help me do it, but with so many goddamn characters, I didn't have the time or patience to find out which ones were worthwhile, although generally the worst actors were the best.)

To restate Elixir, Kirby Superstar indeed had some fun minigames. I'm looking especially at Megaton Punch (it wasn't too hard to get a perfect score, or close to it, and crack popstar in half in the process), and Samurai Kirby (I always died at Metaknight in hard mode, less than 13 ms reaction time required!).

Offhand, I'd consider single event Road Rage in Burnout 3 to be my biggest time waster. My game clock says 25 hours...At least 15 of those have been spent in that one mode. Dunno if that counts as a mini-game or part of the actual game.

Also, the switches in La Pucelle were a fun mini-game in their own right, as was Ys VI's Boss Rush mode. And Dragon Warrior 3's arena and DW4's casino added some healthy playtime overall.

But the best? All of the games included with SNK vs Capcom: Match of the Millenium (Neo Geo Pocket Color). There was a Bemani game (the best of the bunch...They could've done a whole game on rhythm presses for various character themes), target shooting, dummy slicing and one with Arthur jumping over pits to avoid ghosts. And these were in addition to survival mode and first hit mode.

YES. I basically stopped playing the main World Tour mode in favour of Road Rage. If only Burnout Revenge let you play the individual modes freely like Burnout 3, I think its Traffic Attack would become my new late night lover. "OUTTA THE WAY, CLONED GREEN VAN"

Also, you know Sonic & Knuckles? Sure you do, had those famous characters, Burly Bob and Gumbazzo the Giraffe. When you shoved any old cartridge into the top of it, you'd get that fancy error screen, but if you mashed in a code, it'd let you play a sort of neverending version of its bonus levels where you walk around the semi-3D checkerboard, jumping blobs.. and.. blobs.. getting.. rings. I got pretty addicted to that. Then it started all over again when it became its own seperate game in Sonic Mega Collection.

I loved this in the GBA original (ha ha ROM ha ha). Then I was crushed when I couldn't find it in the GameCube port which I purchased instead. CRUSHED. >=|

I remember that! Man, I got to like level two hundred and something (or maybe it was one hundred and something; it was so long ago I forget, quite far either way)...and then lost the code. :(

I'm gonna mention a pretty obscure one. The game Time Stalkers (aka "Climax Landers") on the Dreamcast, though it wasn't that good in my mind in and of itself, had an addicting VMU minigame called "Dungeon IV". You basically ran around in a Phantasy Star-esque dungeon, killing baddies, leveling up, getting better stuff, descending further down into the dungeon, etc. The battles weren't turn-based, and once you died, that's it. It might sound a little boring, but I actually found it quite fun. I think I ran out the VMU's batteries a couple of times from playing this game.

I'm partial to the pirate ship duels in Sly Cooper 3, myself. It's only supposed to be a short segment of the game, but I wasted hours just going around blasting up pirates left and right. One-on-one ship duels get to be pathetically easy once you figure out how to outmaneuver the computer ship, but it gets pretty hectic trying to sail around and prioritize targets when you're up against three ships at once.

I always enjoyed the Mercenaries mode in the Resident Evil games, especially in the fourth one. Playing as Krauser and Wesker alone make this mini game the BEST!

When I was a kid, I went NUTS over the snail maze game built into the Sega Master System. I don't remember what level I got up to though. :(

Final Fantasy VII has that card-game that's just incredibly addictive. Got plenty of cards that way.

FFVIII-triple triad was quite phenomenal. i really liked the ability to change rules in areas depending on where you played. the add and same rules made things pretty crazy too.

though i never had the opportunity to utilize the massively multiplayer function of uber battle pong in Lunar:SSSC it was quite fun too.

ape escape in general has some pretty amusing minigames being that it utilized the analog sticks for the first time.

Galaxy monkey: grab a friend, cause its Twoplayer. shoot on screen enemies to progress deeper into space. pretty simple, but the pigs that inflate after getting shot can alter the win streak.

Specter Boxing: (also t2woplayer) i played this for hours on end (and wore away the soft rubbery coating on the twin analog sticks (;^_^) ). the right and left sticks control the arms of the monkey respectively. by rhythmically alternating punches, you could inflict more damage to the squealing contender.

Monkey climber (ape escape 2): CRAZY!!! this game was quite amusing. you shimmy up and down vines to collect the 5 bananas in the stage as fast as you can. it's controlled in a manner similar to that of specter boxing (left stick-left arm etc.) but in order to grasp the vines, R1 controls the right hand, and L1 controls the left hand. it later becomes a feat to launch one's self across the entire stage to get an isolated banana.

Mesal Gear Solid (ape escape 3): it's a 5 stage monkey themed metal gear solid experience with ape escape controls. it's pretty long. i spent a couple hours playing through it (saving hostages, and collecting monkeytags). it was very amusing.

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and the non-ape escape minigames worthy of mention.

Legend of the mystical Ninja (SNES)- all of them. there are several of them, but my favorites were hockey (air hockey vs. comp/2p), mole (8 button mole-whacking game easy is nice, and hard is difficult), and maze (pso style dungeon where you collect powerups).

Point Blank-Quest Mode: i thought it was pretty cool. they made a mini-rpg out of a story about a mysterious treasure found on an island out in the middle of nowhere that needs meticulous exploration.

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but most of all, i'd like to credit the minigame games such as:
Incredible Crisis (psx)-an assortment of different button mashing games. as well as some more intellectual types.
Bishi Bashi Special (psx JP)-a series that i find to be the predecessor of wario ware.
Wario Ware$ inc. (GBA/DS/GC)-the game that aims at completing microgames in rapid succession without failing more than 3 times (in the main mode at least)

i'm sure there are more that i like... but this should be enough for now...

The best mini-game ever was the Cooking Duel from Suikoden II. This was given to America shortly before Iron Chef hit our shores, so the idea felt fresh and original. The execution was simple enough but it was still addictive and you could count upon certain Army members to award full points to certain dishes each time.

Along this line was the Cooking Duel from Star Ocean 2. It actually had a better mechanic than Suikoden, since the skill of the chef and tools used mattered for once. But you always fought against some interdimensional whackjob and the judging was based off a computer AI who was notoriously biased against you. But the fun was in watching the dishes get "prepared" in front of you. (Wilted Salad? Let's pretend that didn't happen.) I never stopped getting a kick out of the "woob-woob-woob-woob-woob" sound they made as those huge polygons shifted about.

Also from Suikoden II was "Chinchirorin", that dice game you played with Shilo in Two Rivers. Some felt the game was annoying, but I thought there was a subtle strategy involved. I spent a lot of time playing it. I don't remember how it works anymore but if I had a copy of Suiko II still, I'm sure I could waste an hour or two refreshing my memory.

"Liar's Dice", from Leisure Suit Larry 7: Love for Sail (PC), was such a great mini-game that a friend and I made our own version with some plywood beams and a couple magic markers. It's definitely a thinker's game with tons of bluffing. Larry added the "strip" factor but the game works just as well without.

Breath of Fire III and IV had some of the best fishing mini-games during a time when seemingly all RPGs had some quasi-fishing game available. But most sucked (Lookin' at you, Legend of Legaia). The tugging patterns suggested by the game were annoying but thankfully you never truly needed them. I caught plenty of marlins and blue whales without any strategy other than casting my line by the huge, shady silhouettes in the water. Fish could be redeemed for prizes and a special bait allowed access to a "rare-item" shop, which I thought was a neat touch.

One of the best and most addictive mini-games was "Tekken Bowling" from Tekken Tag (PSX). You could play as most of the characters, choose your techno-track and have at it amongst friends. It was nice since one of my friends would cheese up the battlefield with Hwaorang but he couldn't touch me at Bowling when I used King.

Also, I must be the only person who spent hours and hours perfecting the Basketball Throw mini-game from FFVII. It was annoying and required split-second timing. But with practice, it became like second nature and it proved to be the quickest and easiest way to earn tickets. I also liked the flashy hoop. I'm easy to please.

We also played Liar's Dice as a drinking game back in college. It's great that I played Larry back then, because it took most of the other people a few beers to catch on to the rules.

I thought of one more cool minigame: the Moredhel wordlocks from Betrayal at Krondor. They were basically word jumble games with riddles for clues, but I appreciate the way the game worked the idea into its setting. I don't know if all the riddles are original, but some were pretty clever.

Quite a far cry from the puzzle boxes of Onimusha, which were functional as a minigame, but hardly engrossing or endearing. As you can probably tell, I enjoy puzzle games a lot.

Heh, I remember the dice game from Suikoden, too. In the first game it was the premier abusable way to get scads of money to outfit your entire army. I'd save the game there in the castle and continuously bet the farm. Usually I'd walk away loaded, since it got pretty easy once you figured out the right strategy.

Too bad they cut down on the cash payout in Suikoden 2 so that it wasn't nearly so exploitable.

Dart from Shenmue. Sorry the murderer can wait :(.
you play eh dart. Nothing special. just Dart.

It was just the atmosphear in the dirty club and the betting, sweet.

Since a lot of mini-games come from RPGs and such, what about...the ones from fighting games?

I'm not sure if this counts, but the "Boost Mode" from Guilty Gear: Isuka is really fun, and I guess you could say, another element to Isuka, rather than just a mini-game.

And who could forget the original Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter II Turbo. In Mortal Kombat, you had that damn mini-game where you had to break the blocks, ranging from wood to ruby. I remember my cousin kept screwing me up on those. And Street Fighter II Turbo, with the "smash the car" and "break the barrel" mini-games. Those were fun.

Ahaha, TEST YOUR MIGHT. I had heaps of might at the time, due to the obsession with 'turbo' buttons on third party controllers. "TEST YOUR MI-*Crowd cheers*"

Do the Maxi-games from Ratchet & Clank 2 count? I've spent countless hours on those. The 99-round Battle Royale ones were completely nuts,but not as nuts as the Skill Point challenges where you had to take down an entire horde with just a puny wrench. Wrench ninja,indeed.

"Would you like to try a game of Lucky Hit?"

I agree with FF7 motorcycle chase, FF8 Triple Triad, Zelda64 fishing, and Lunar battle Pong. All great in their own right. Other minigames of note are Grandia II's arm wrestle (first one that actually took advantage of analog buttons) and of course the original versus Mario Bros. in SMB3. You can't beat the classics. :) Jetpack in DK64 was a pleasant surprise too.

Edit: Oh, and add SSBM's Homerun Contest to the list. There's just a certain pleasure in hitting that sandbag guy with a baseball bat. :)

Greatest mini-game EVER.

I loved it so much...definitely more hours playing it than the rest of the game lol.



I loved FFVIII's card game, perhaps the best of the series (though I liked IX's as well).

Umm...FFVII's Snowboarding is an obvious one, as was the battle arena (gotta get Omnislash), but my favorite from the entire game was the motorcycle mini-game. Simply amazing.

Oh, I loved that submarine minigame in FF7. I spent hours playing it at the Gold Saucer. That thing deserved it's own full game. I loved everything about it, visualizing the ocean floor as a polygonal grid was so cool. Man, I feel like playing it right now.

All this talk of FFVII reminds me of the snowboarding mini-game in Sonic Adventure (PSone RPG = DC platformer = yes!) I spent a lot of time on that as well as the NiGHTS pinball game chucked in there. It's still awesome when Sonic floats around the level for a little bit. NiGHTS 2 plz Sega, make it a kart racer.

Ohhh just like a few others said, I'm going for Triple Triad from Final fantasy 8.

It was fun enough trying to get all the cards around the world, i hated that travelling gambler, or whatever it was called who you basically stalked around for ages. I HATED the random rule so much though, oh gosh.

And then there was that one time when triple triad was online, there were a few who copied it as well, but i still remember the old old school original, the one where people ended up typing the ip rather than the site to connect too.

Ah, good times.

There was two minigames in Romancing Saga 3, Thomas' merchant game and Mikhail's rulership game: both are quite addictive and are a nice break from free scenario mode.

a_rabite (?), Jump Forever, there's a reason you can move left and right, is that after 100 jumps, the people with the ropes will move to the left and right of the screen and you'll have to try to stay center. all this, while the speed of each jump changes randomly from fast to superfast to super slow. I know this because I used to play this minigame all the freaking time.

I seriously enjoy ballista in FFXI (the MMO). I consider this a mini-game based on the fact that you have to decide to play it :P it's basically PvP but with a little more to it than kicking the other guy's ass. You're basically split into two teams usually by region, and the idea is to dig in the ground to find petras, and toss them in a rook that changes location every few minutes. You can organize with other people to protect certain rooks from the other team, or try to overtake the other rook, etc. You can dig up various temporary items too that help out. (I found several giant's potions in one game, which boosted my max hp to 2500). The team with the highest petras tossed in the rook wins. It's a load of fun.

I dunno if it's considered a mini-game, but the Gummi Ship stages in Kingdom Hearts II are a load of fun. They look awesome, and there are a lot more bullets flying at you this time around XD. It's also neat to build your own gummi ship completely from scratch (being able to curve and bevel pieces placed on the grid is extremely neat and has led to a few nice designs)

I can't think of too many at the moment. This'll have to do :P

Ugh..where was I when you posted this? -.-

In the 65 hours of Suikoden II I experienced, 30 of that was all on the cook off lol. I remember owning a chef pretty badly, something like 130 points to his 11 or something. It was so fun. The one desert I never had to change was carot shortcake or something like that. There was a few times I'd walk right into a cook off and lose because I wasn't prepared. Plus I like how you could keep doing the cook off even after you've defeated his rival.

The best minigame ever..is TRIPLE TRIAD. You need the JAWS OF LIFE to pry my hands away from the controller when I'm playing this game.

That crazy monkey game in Metal Gear Solid 3 Snake Eater. Come on, shooting and capturing monkeys while playing as Big Boss?! IT'S PURE GENIUS!

Another great minigame is Hexic HD on the Xbox 360's Arcade. Spent a good few hours on that and it was quite challenging in later levels.

Definitely Blitzball from FFX. To me the most addicting mini game ever.
I remember when playing Blitzball the first time in the main game (at the tournament in Luca) I hated it. I thought I'd never manage to defeat any of the teams. but after playing Blitzball for many hours it was lots of fun.
it's a pity that they ruined Blitzball in FFX-2 :/

another one is Snake vs. Monkey from MGS3. that game is just...nuts x)

having been social lately, i relived the minigames of Zelda:Four Swords (GC) and Mister Mosquito.

I always thought that Hammer Tag of Four Swords was rather fun. One person is "it" and must hit another person with a hammer to prevent their timer from running. once another player is hit, they are given the hammer and are "it" until they can hit someone. once a player's timer reaches 1 minute the game ends. so it's literally a game of tag with a hammer. though, having corrupted teamwork throughout the main game, any of the minigames are a great way to alleviate the frustrations (;^_^).

In Mister Mosquito, there is a 2p minigame by the name of "The Reckless Cyclist" in this minigame there are two old men on bikes on a tower stretching far into the sky. the object of this game is to push the opposing player over the edge of the tower. i've witnessed several "matches" lasting 50+ rounds of endless minimalistic fun. i would compare the flow of this to something like pong, for its perpetual aspect.

The "Murder Scene" in Metal Gear VR Mission. Figuring out the murder was so much fun and hilarious.

I don't know if it counts, but the mini game in Mario Party 2 where you are on a big Ball and have to push the other players out of the stage was so funny.