[Question] Top 20 Games of the last 20 Years?

I approached this similarly to Tails in that I wasn't really looking for what I considered to be the objectively "best" games that I played, but rather which left the biggest impressions on me as a gamer and as a person. What was most interesting to me in compiling and then culling this list is the timing of everything. It's very apparent how the amount of time I have to play games has drastically changed over the years, and how games from my childhood have left a more significant impression on me that recent games - I'm sure this will the case for most people who respond to this, though. It also emphasizes the amount of time I spent on RPGs relative to most other genres.

I am absolutely not going to attempt to order these by preference unless I have to because that's way too difficult.

Taskmaker [1993, PC]

My first home computers as a child were Macs and I played a lot of shareware games growing up, this among them. It's not particularly deep but I played the hell out of it. It was also what first encouraged me to try to learn about hex/resource editing and pixel art, in order to put my own art into the game.

SimCity 2000 [1993, PC]

I think almost everyone who had a computer of some kind has played SC2K. This was my first SC as I'd never played the first one, but it stole countless hours of my life with the freedom to plan, terraform, and annihilate cities. YOU CAN'T CUT BACK ON PLAYING SC2K! YOU WILL REGRET THIS!

Super Metroid [1994, SNES]

This is one of the most perfect games I've ever played, from any genre, on any platform. The gameplay has so many interesting mechanics that are relatively easy to learn but phenomenally difficult to truly master. The graphics were fantastic, the music incredible, and the level design impeccable. It is probably the best example of a sequel that took what its predecessor had done and then improved on absolutely everything, without sacrificing any of what made the previous game so great. I cannot think of a single flaw.

Final Fantasy 6 [1994, SNES]

Does anyone really need an explanation of why this is here? Many argue this to be the greatest RPG of all-time, and while I don't personally agree with that it's a masterpiece of a game. I vividly remember that the first time I rented it as a kid I loaded up a save file that was on the game in the world of ruin, and went to the fanatics' tower. I had no idea what the hell was going on, and was very confused. I'm not sure why but that memory has always stuck with me when I think about this game.

Mega Man X [1994, SNES]

Like Super Metroid, I consider this game to be the perfect example of what it's trying to do. Before Capcom started running the Mega Man franchise into the ground, this game was released and I played it at a friend's place after he got it for his birthday, or something like that. It is, to this day, my favourite Mega Man game. The way it teaches you how the game mechanics work without a condescending and laborious tutorial is exactly how this kind of thing should be done. The music is also my favourite from the entire series.

Dark Forces [1995, PC]

Like the earlier "PC" games on this list, I played the Mac port, which was okay because its graphics were way better. I'd played things like Wolfenstein and Doom and Marathon previously, but this was an FPS that grabbed me in a way none of the others had, because it had source material I was both familiar with and of which I was a huge fan. I remember getting lost for hours in the sewers, and god damn man, every time I saw a dianoga surface was NOPE.JPG. Also you could look up and down, which was cool and something I wasn't used to from Id's games.

Full Throttle [1995, PC]

I had to get a LucasArts adventure game in here somehow, and the first two Monkey Island games were before 1993, so Full Throttle it is. I played the demo over and over as a kid and when I eventually played the full game I was a little bit surprised that it felt as short as it did compared to the other LA games I'd played, but man did it make every moment count.

Earthbound [1995, SNES]

This is possibly my favourite game, ever. I think I was in grade 5, and during our lunch break I was playing with some friends outside, and one of them started talking about this game. I don't remember exactly what about it he said, but he mentioned that it was set in the modern day and that you could eat hamburgers to recover health. Based on literally only that conversation, knowing nothing else about the game, I asked for it for Christmas and got it. Anyone who played the game back then understands why I hold it in such high regard. Anyone who hasn't played it should probably just kill themselves because their life is empty.

Terranigma [1995, SNES]

I loved Illusion of Gaia growing up, but Terranigma is Quintet's crown jewel as far as I'm concerned. This game was able to make me feel responsible for the game world and concerned with how my actions would impact it. The story was incredibly engaging and interesting, and wraps up with one of the best endings of any game I've ever played. If you haven't played this (and that's possible, since it never saw a North American release despite being fully translated into English for it's European release) you have to.

Chrono Trigger [1995, SNES]

Anchoring the 1995 juggernaut team of SNES RPGs is the other game that people tend to place up with FF6 as the greatest RPG ever made. This is another game where I have to really try to find any flaws. My only complaint is that it was really easy, but since I play RPGs primarily for the story and not for the difficulty it's not a particularly bothersome issue for me. This game might be what I would use as an example of the perfect RPG. The settings were all interesting and beautifully illustrated, the multiple characters interesting, the battle mechanics (dual/triple techs) really cool, and the music phenomenal. This game's attention to detail was great. I was talking with RR about this in IRC, and things like the Sun Stone side quest really exemplified how well the design team used the time travel mechanic.

Edit: I was thinking about this the whole time I was writing about Chrono Trigger, but then I forgot to actually put it down. I liked this game so much that it inspired me to write an entire pen and paper RPG adaptation a la Dungeons and Dragons with a magic system, dual/triple tech mechanics, and all sorts of other shit, when I was around 13 or 14 years old. To this day this is very likely the nerdiest thing I've ever done.

Mario Kart 64 [1997, N64]

Then the Nintendo 64 came out. This was a sleepover staple, and I don't even know how many nights I stayed up playing this game with friends until those absurd hours where everything becomes the funniest thing you've ever witnessed. BLOCK FORT REPRESENT.

Oh man, I just kind remembered this alternate game mode we used to play a lot. I don't recall the details, but it had something to do with the first player out becoming the bomb, and then everyone else would change objectives to try to use a star to take the bomb out, while avoiding being blown up by them, or something like that. Man that was fun.

WCW vs. nWo [1997, N64]

My step-brothers were huge wrestling fans, and we used to rent this game frequently. Watching VGCW, it's really kind of funny how little the mechanics of wrestling games seem to have changed over the last 15 years. This game wasn't amazing by any means, but the 4-player multi was always super entertaining and it's something that I still remember fondly.

Goldneye [1997, N64]

There's a lot of stuff I didn't include like Mario 64, Ocarina of Time, etc. It's interesting that up until this point, pretty much every game on my list was single player. The release of the N64 really shows how adding more than 2 people to a multiplayer game opened up a lot of replay value.

If there was a game that occupied more late nights and summer vacation sleepovers than Mario Kart 64, Goldeneye was it. As far as consoles are concerned this is the breakthrough FPS game and I'm sure everyone who had an N64 and friends has fond memories of this game. It was another one of those games that lended itself to the creation of your own rules outside of those imposed by the game to stretch the replay even further.

Fallout 2 [1998, PC]

Similar to how I felt about the LucasArts games, I needed a Fallout on this list. While the first one was perhaps better defined in its goals as a game, I always liked 2 more because it was longer and felt more wide open, which is one of the things I felt was important to Fallout games. I loved the skills system and how things that boosted your ability to communicate actually had an impact on the game by altering your dialogue options.

Suikoden 2 [1998, PSX]

Another case where I wanted to have a series represented and had to choose between games. I love Suikoden 1 as well, but this game just had everything I was looking for. I think part of what made it so great was that it was the same world as the first game, with character overlap and other cameos, so whereas everything in the first game was new, this game had those wonderful moments of familiarity that sometimes comes with playing sequels.

Age of Empires 2 [1999, PC]

This is the only game that's ever caused me to literally take my computer to a friend's place and have a legit LAN party. Teaming up against AI opponents was always fun, and I can still remember the feeling of panic as enemy combatants rushed toward my meager defenses. Few things in gaming were as satisfying as having a civilization completely wiped out save for a lone villager who had made it to an ally's settlement, only to rebuild and return to annihilate your previous assailant.

Asheron's Call [1999, PC]

This was one of the early MMOs. A friend of mine from an IRC channel I used to chill in back in the day gave me an extra beta key he had, and holy shit did I ever play the hell out of that game. There was something intoxicating about playing in a persistent world with thousands of other people, and I sunk more hours than I can guess into this game. I still have friends to this day that I met through it, and no other game I've ever played has evoked the same kind of feel for me that this game has. I've tried other MMOs here and there over the years, but none of them will ever compare to my memories of AC.

At the time, as I was still in high school, I found myself needing some extra income but didn't really have the time to devote to a regular job. Instead, I made a few extra bucks ghostwriting papers for a couple of people I knew going to university who had no interest in English courses but didn't want to have their GPA take a hit. I didn't have a credit card in order to pay for the subscription at the time, and my parents didn't like the idea of games with recurring fees, so in order to pay for it I had to get a friend of mine from IRC (who was conveniently a customer of mine) to let me use his credit card info, and then he'd just subtract the subscription fees from whatever he owed me for writing his papers.

Super Smash Bros. Melee [2002, GCN]

2002 was the year I graduated high school, so I had a lot of free time for a little while after that. None of us actually owned a Gamecube, but this game was so much fun we would plan Gamecube nights where someone would actually rent the system (with all the associated pain in the ass of renting a console) and we'd go to this one guy's place who lived on a fair bit of land and thus didn't have any neighbours nearby when his parents were on vacation, and load up on pop and snacks, and play this game forever. We'd play random matches where the winner kept their controller and the others switched, we'd play huge multiple-entrant tournaments, and we'd do this until the sun started to come up.

Tales of Symphonia [2004, GCN]

This was the first Tales game I'd played, and it is still my favourite. I don't even care how "lol JRPGs" it is, I legitimately thought the story was interesting, and I didn't find it convoluted or overbearing which are the more common criticisms I see. The music was wonderful, and represents to me one of the last Sakuraba-composed games I really really liked from a musical perspective. The art was charming (and looks awesome as hell with Dolphin resampling) and the battle system was fun as hell when playing with others. Playing through this game is one of my fondest gaming memories.

Mother 3 [2006, GBA]

Due to my fondness for Earthbound, I was eagerly awaiting the translation for this game for a very long time. I wasn't sure how I'd feel about it given the weight of the nostalgia I had for its predecessor, I was looking forward to it. It's a very different game. It has all the same charm that you would expect from Itoi but it's presented with a very different feel. It's a very heavy game compared to Earthbound, and that's precisely why I like it so much. It's different enough that it tugs at the nostalgia a little bit, but it doesn't depend on it. This is another game (like Terranigma) where if you aren't going to finish it, don't even bother playing it. The ending is fantastic.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Vaginal Assault

I loved this game for one particular reason: a bajillion characters. About 100% of those characters were lame with either no story, too little story, or not an interesting story, but those characters were there

You very badly need to play Suikoden.

There's nowhere I can't reach.