What if I told you there was a way to plug some major plot holes of The Last Jedi while also deepening the lore and fixing Luke and Rey's characterizations without having to change a single scene from Episode VIII? Sounds impossible right? Well it probably is, but I'm going to try anyway. Just humor me for a second.
So as we all know, Disney's new Star Wars trilogy is coming to a close this holiday season, and it's been a divisive addition to the franchise to say in the least. Now personally, I found The Force Awakens to be a derivative take, but ultimately pretty enjoyable and a decent way to reintroduce audiences to the Star Wars universe. It wouldn't have been the direction I'd have gone, but I can accept it for what it is, and no matter what people tell me, there's no convincing me its quality is in any way comparable to how bad the prequels were. They just aren't even close. Having said that, while I didn't have the same response of visceral hatred toward The Last Jedi either, I definitely had much more problems with this film than Episode VII, in large part due to some important missing context and outright broken logic that was hard to wrap my head around.
For instance, Rey was able to lift dozens of heavy boulders with the force and take on Commander Snoke's elite guards without any real Jedi training. After all, Luke spent most of the narrative denying Rey her requests for training, and he never really caved to her demands to the very end. Even The Force Awakens at least provided some kind of context to explain Rey's abilities. In the interrogation scene, Kylo was peering into Rey's mind with the force, and she could have theoretically picked up on how he was doing it because of that, so she was able to use a mind trick against the guard to escape. And likewise when she was battling Kylo at Starkiller Base, he had been previously wounded by a Wookiee Bowcaster, which had already been shown to be a deadly one-shot kill weapon, so it gave Rey a fighting chance. Yet in The Last Jedi she seemed to have special abilities just because. These are the sorts of things that Luke couldn't do until spending an entire film training with Master Yoda. This is where many criticisms come from when they talk about Rey being a "Mary Sue" character who is just good at everything for no real reason.
But an idea dawned on me as I was watching trailers for Rise of Skywalker. It may be too late for The Last Jedi to explain away these plot holes, but Episode IX still has an opportunity to address them, and in ways that could really make the plot interesting.
Consider the first trailer for Rise of Skywalker that was released. In this trailer we see a brief glimpse of Rey in Dark Jedi robes wielding a red lightsaber. Now the most obvious interpretation of this is that Disney wants you to speculate that Rey could turn to the dark side in this chapter. Another possible take is that this is just a premonition or vision of what may become if Rey makes the wrong choices, but it doesn't necessarily happen by the end of the film, so it's really just a bait and switch to get audiences intrigued. However, my take on this is something entirely different.
Let's consider one of the later trailers. In this trailer, Rey remarks, "People keep telling me they know me. No ones does." And then Kylo responds, "But I do."
What if Kylo really does know? What if he knows that she was a former student of the academy as well? What if the shot of Rey in Sith robes isn't a glimpse of what may come to pass, but what already happened? Rey once turned to the dark side with him.
Let's get even crazier with this theory now. What if Rey actually learned the secret ability of Darth Plagueis the Wise that Palpatine spoke of to Anakin? She then used it to resurrect ancient dark side force users known as the Knights of Ren. Now with the help of the Knights of Ren, and with Kylo and Rey joining their ranks, they ransacked the academy and turned on Luke.
But afterward Rey wasn't satisfied. She still wanted to learn more about the potential of the dark side, so she sought out Palpatine's resting place and began resurrecting the Emperor himself. But as she was in the process of doing this, Luke finally caught up with her and defeated her in a duel before she could complete the resurrection. Rather than killing her though, he decided to spare her life and wipe her memories with the force. It was the only thing he could do to spare her because to allow her to live with such a dangerous power that she's already done so much damage with was too much of a risk, but he also couldn't bring himself to kill his own student that he failed to train and guide away from the dark side.
Now Palpatine exists in some half-resurrected state and is still trying to manipulate Rey through the force to complete her destiny and make the Emperor reborn. This is where Rise of Skywalker picks up.
All of this could add so much contextualization for why Luke felt like such a failure. It wasn't just that he lost Ben, but Rey too. And she already wreaked so much damage from resurrecting the Knights of Ren, destroying the academy, and nearly bringing back the Emperor. I think much of the problem with why Luke's characterization didn't work with everyone is because it didn't show much of what really happened the day the academy fell. I think if Rise of Skywalker really showed the scale of the loss; the students getting murdered en masse, and the whole thing being orchestrated by two of his own most promising students, that would have weighed heavily on him. So much that it could have made him doubt that the Jedi teachings are even the right way anymore if this is what they can potentially lead to.
This theory also fixes Rey being a Mary Sue because she's already been shown to be capable of falling to the dark side. It explains why she just has incredibly gifted force powers despite never having any proper training. It also further deepens the connection between Kylo and Rey. Their history goes much further back than their first encounter in The Force Awakens. Kylo and Rey once had a close relationship at the academy, which was what led to Rey siding with him once she learned what happened between Ben and Luke. It further explains the origins of the Knights of Ren, why Rey has amnesia about her past, and how she arrived on Jakku.
And to top it off, this theory also provides a clear narrative path for how the Emperor can return for Episode IX without invalidating Vader's sacrifice and triumph over the Emperor in Return of the Jedi. Instead of having some cheap plot contrivance like Palpatine somehow surviving the fall or it was just a clone all along, he still truly died in that moment. It's just that now Rey is going to bring him back.
He could still play on Rey's insecurities about her past and her longing for meeting her parents, so maybe he manifests as the fake voice of her father, urging her to bring him back. The early parts of the film could focus on Rey rediscovering her lost power, which provides yet another opportunity to fix another problem with The Last Jedi. Rey can use her power to bring back Luke as well.
I always felt that Luke's death in The Last Jedi was a little out of place and unnecessary. His story arc seemed incomplete, and he didn't have much of a chance to do anything meaningful in the film. I was frankly OK with Luke starting out as a grumpy old curmudgeon at the beginning of the film, but then you're supposed to follow a natural character arc where Luke warms up to Rey, rediscovers his youthful optimism, and finally goes out to do heroic Jedi things again, but we never really saw much of that. With Rey's power restored in Rise of Skywalker, this can be an opportunity to bring Luke back as more than just a force ghost.
I imagine a final battle where after Rey realizes she's been tricked into bringing back the Emperor, she has to team up with Luke in one last showdown against him. It could end with Luke being heavily wounded in the fight, so as a final ditch effort, he channels the rest of his force power into Rey, giving her the combined strength to strike the Emperor down. With the battle finally over, Rey tells Luke that he wasn't a failure. He gave them hope and she had a second chance to follow the path of the light because of him. So Luke can finally pass away with the dignity he deserves.
And that's how you conclude Rise of Skywalker. Now there are a couple of last points that should probably be addressed in order for this theory to work. Firstly, one would naturally beg the question why Kylo didn't bring up this past between them before. To answer that, consider the context in which they reunited. Rey was being held captive by the First Order and a big scary Sith guy in a mask was intrusively prodding into her mind to extract information from her. From her perspective, this guy wasn't to be trusted, so even if he had mentioned it, she wouldn't have believed him anyway. And Kylo probably already concluded the same once he peered into her mind and saw that her memories were gone. He knew that he had to start from scratch if he was going to have any credibility with her.
The second problem is that having the ability to resurrect people is pretty broken and some restrictions would have to apply in order for it to not be too overpowered. Maybe because resurrecting someone disrupts the natural order of life and death, it might twist you more towards the dark side each time you use it, or it weakens your connection to the force until it cuts you off entirely, or maybe it runs the risk of flat out killing the user as well. Whatever the case, some limitations should be established so Rey can't just keep using it indefinitely.
As a final touch, I also think it would be pertinent to include some scene showing Snoke's initial manipulations of Ben; demonstrating that he didn't turn to the dark side solely because of Luke's actions, but because Snoke played on his insecurities toward Master Luke. Furthermore, I think a scene that fully contextualizes Luke's own lapse in judgment toward Ben would be helpful as well. If we could see what Luke saw when he peered into Ben's mind; maybe even see a premonition of Han Solo's death by his son's own hand; then it would be much easier to see why Luke lost it so suddenly in the moment before regaining his composure. With this added context, I think Luke's character could be fully justified while still allowing for the moral ambiguity in the story that Rian Johnson was going for.
And with that, you have fixed The Last Jedi. Mostly. Not really. But at least some of it, and it makes for a pretty entertaining movie to boot. Would JJ actually go for this theory though? Probably not. I don't think the current team behind Rise of Skywalker would be this creative or concerned with tying up loose ends in the lore, but we can still dream. In any case, we'll soon find out one way or another as Rise of Skywalker hits theaters tomorrow.
Look, I'm not here to rain on anyone's Game of Thrones parade. If you liked the most recent episode, more power to you. There were certainly plenty of high points to be found in it. When it wanted to, it did portray the white walkers with a sense of ruthlessness and urgency that they deserved. But personally, I just can't ignore the numerous glaring writing mistakes that were made, especially for a show of GoT's caliber.
It's unbecoming of it, particularly because for so long the show was great at providing numerous twists and turns in the plot without ever breaking its own rules or having the characters make irrational decisions for the sake of fanservice and cheap Hollywood thrills. Yet unfortunately this episode, "The Long Night", was littered with them.
[Spoilers ahead, just in case you didn't figure that out by now based on the subject matter]
We were already beginning to see the plot unravel last season, but this felt like on a whole other level. Tyrion hides in the crypts instead of commanding on the wall. The Dothraki are stupidly thrown away in an unnecessary charge when you already have trebuchets to pick the white walkers off from afar. Dany lands in a field that makes her an easy target for a swarm of undead to overwhelm her. Jon is left with nothing to do but wander around until he gets pinned down by the white dragon. Arya just materializes out of nowhere to slay the Night King despite no proper buildup to it by the end of the episode, and no explanation of how she slipped by 30+ white walkers that were surrounding the Night King and Bran. Not to mention that she has no real rivalry built up with the Night King. He didn't murder her parents or abuse her sister. If the Night King was destined to fall this episode, it should have been by Jon's hands, having witnessed the Night King's ferocity in previous encounters.
But of course, the Night King shouldn't have even been on the front lines to begin with if his army's fighting strength is predicated on his sole existence. There is no reason he couldn't have just stayed on the sidelines to the very end until his army demolished Winterfell by sheer numbers, then retrieve Bran after the dust has settled. But apparently according to the writers, the way you win at Chess when you start with thousands more pawns than your opponent is to send your King out front so he can be easily checkmated.
The worst offense of all with this episode though is not all the glaring plot holes and breaches in logic made by the characters, but the fact that fundamentally, it completely collapses the foundations of Game of Thrones' plot that were laid out from season 1 episode 1. From the very beginning, we were teased that the white walkers were coming, as if it were some deep foreboding omen; a Westeros-shattering event. Something that would shake the very foundations of the world. They were constantly scheming what appeared to be some grand plot beyond our understanding while Westeros' kingdoms squabbled over power grabs. Yet in the end what happened? They didn't even advance past the very first establishment south of the wall before they were completely wiped out, making their impact less effective than pretty much every other army in the series. This was the great terror that almost conquered Westeros and had to be sealed away by a giant magical ice wall thousands of years ago? It's a complete joke.
So here's my basic script rewrite, which took me all of a few minutes to conceive in my head, just to show how easily an amateur writer could have done a better job with this episode:
First, Tyrion provides battle tactics instead
of whoever the idiot was that ordered the Dothraki to go commit suicide
for no reason. Since this is the final season, this is one of the last chances for Tyrion to show off his knack for being a good leader even if he isn't necessarily a good fighter, so Tyrion instructs the Dothraki to split into 2 flanks that
hide in wait from the east and west.
A line of unmanned torches are strewn along north of the keep in order to help them signal when the white walkers arrive. This allows us to recreate the eeriness of the Dothraki charge scene, but without the idiotic tactics. We see that the torches start to dissipate, signaling that the white walkers have arrived, so they begin with a trebuchet barrage
that puts pressure on the white walkers and forces them to move.
Once
the white walkers reach close enough range, the dragons swoop in and
create a line of fire that cuts off the rest of the army's advance,
making it a smaller front line that can't overwhelm the Unsullied. The
Dothraki then come closing in from the sides to fully pin them down and
pick them off. But now just as the living start to get their hopes up,
the white walkers make their surprise counter attack with the white
dragon swooping in to destroy one of the Dothraki flanks. The dragons
are forced to refocus their efforts on that, while eventually the wall
of fire clears and the white walkers continue their advance.
Winterfell
is still basically fucked at this point, but it at least shows that the
humans aren't complete morons when it comes to tactical planning. They retreat to the keep but still get
overwhelmed by sheer numbers. Arya manages to take out the giant shortly after he breaks down the keep door, as she's too small and agile for him to keep up with, and her blade forged by Gendry proves to be deadly. This gives us a nice substitute for her scene with the Night King as it shows how overpowered Arya is without completely breaking the narrative, but it
doesn't make much difference anyway because the numbers are just too great.
Dany and Jon defeat the white dragon
but lose Jon's dragon in the process, so Jon goes to join the rest of
the army to help fight in the keep. With Dany's dragon finally able to return its attention to the battle on the ground, they might be able to turn back the tide, but at this point the keep is already thoroughly overwhelmed, and the Night King and his lieutenants are now making their appearance armed with ice spears. They arrive in a spread-out formation which allows them to target Dany's dragon from multiple angles.
Meanwhile Jorah, having witnessed first-hand what the Night King did to Dany's dragon when they were trapped on the island of ice, now sets his own plan into motion. He suspected the Night King would come to try and claim another dragon eventually, so rather than retreat to the keep when the signal was given, he and several Unsullied posed as corpses on the battlefield to lie in wait while the Night King had all his forces deployed to the front lines at the keep. Now with a clear path to the Night King and his lieutenants, Jorah and his small band of Unsullied stealthily make their move. Dany spots the Night King too late as one of his lieutenants has a perfect shot lined up, but Jorah catches him off-guard and scores a clean kill, saving Dany from losing their last dragon. Jorah and the Unsullied then make their way straight toward the Night King, but the king simply responds with raising his hands, and suddenly Jorah is surrounded by a new horde of white walkers that quickly dispose of him and the Unsullied.
Now I'll admit here that this plot point is perhaps a little contrived in order to give Jorah a heroic death saving Dany one last time. One could argue that Jorah couldn't have perceived how the battle would play out this far ahead. You could add a little foreshadowing in the previous episode where Jorah perhaps mentions some blurb to the Unsullied about how he's got a plan to get at the Night King, but the show switches to a different scene before he elaborates on what exactly that is. Then it doesn't come off as too entirely out of left field and builds a little extra mystery and excitement for this episode. Or, we could just write it so that Jorah is badly injured during the initial fight and gets knocked out or something, so he is never able to retreat back to the keep. Then he only barely musters the strength to get back up and take out one of the Night King's lieutenants before dying. Either way, I think it's appropriate to at least give Jorah a heroic sendoff, even if his attempts still prove futile.
Anyway, Dany is devastated, but there's no time for remorse. At this stage it has become clear that Winterfell is lost. Dany knows if she were to try and lunge for the Night King now, she would likely get hit by a spear before she could even reach her target, and the longer she lingers, the greater the risk that she could lose their last dragon. Tyrion, Arya, Brienne, Sam, and a few other survivors retreat to the crypts with Sansa and the gang, and they follow a secret underground passage that leads south out of Winterfell, avoiding the white walker hordes. As the battle continues, the white walkers surround the keep and crowd in the entrance to the crypt, leaving Jamie,
Jon, and a few other soldiers still stranded on the surface with nowhere to run. With the remaining
dragon left, Dany lays down 2 parallel lines of fire south out of the
keep to make a narrow path for Jamie and the others to escape on horseback. As the white walkers begin pouring through the entrance to the crypt, Brienne decides to hold her ground, blocking the white walkers' path and
buying them time while Sansa and the others escape through the underground
passage. She dies valiantly defending the passageway while the remaining survivors escape. This more or less wraps up the episode. It ends with the Night King standing menacingly atop the keep wall, overlooking the devastation with a look of satisfaction once more, and just as it dips to black, the roar of Jon's fallen dragon can be heard; resurrected as yet another white dragon.
And that's your basic outline to keep building up the threat of the white walkers while still allowing key characters to survive. A couple things to note though for some details I left out. There are several things you could end up doing with Bran in this episode. It could be an interesting plot point if Bran does in fact get captured or killed by the Night King. We still don't fully know the implications of what this would mean for Westeros going forward, and it could be something intriguing to explore further. Or, he could just be with Sansa in the crypt the whole time and he escapes with the survivors to be saved for a more important role later in the season. Either way, the script we actually got has Bran reduced to nothing more than a worm on a fishing pole, so frankly both of these options are preferable to what we ended up with.
Another possibility I've heard suggested about what the Night King could do as a smarter course of action is just skip Winterfell entirely and use his dragon to fly far past Jon and Dany's defenses. Since he can raise the dead, he could theoretically just sneak into some backwater town in the middle of the night, slay a bunch of people in their sleep and raise them all back as part of a southern army that he could then use to flank everyone by surprise. This would be an actually clever subversion of expectations, though I'd still say with the way I've written it, it could still play to the Night King's benefit to try and claim another dragon or two at Winterfell instead, which he does achieve in my version of events.
Now the white walkers are a bigger threat than ever, and we can have a three-way finale between the army of the dead, Cersei, and the Targaryens. To be honest, I'm fine with it if the writers wanted to have the Night King defeated all along, but it was just too early in the plot to feel earned with this episode. They should conquer at least a good half of Westeros and allow us to really feel that winter has come before having a final showdown with Jon and the Night King. That would have been far more cathartic. As it stands now though, the white walkers are a completely wasted element in the narrative; reduced to one-note baddies that leave no real impact on the world despite nearly a decade of buildup and scheming behind the scenes.
It's clear the writers decided after a certain point that they had lost interest in the white walkers, and the real threat that holds the most intrigue to them is Cersei. This is Game of Thrones after all; it's in the title of the show, so to a certain extent this outcome should have been expected. But if that's the case, then why bother with all this teasing and buildup for 7 seasons? If this was all they had planned for the endgame of the white walkers, then they shouldn't have even bothered with this plotline at all.
Everybody likes top 10 lists. You like 'em. I like 'em. We just can't resist the urge to sequentially number random things. But only I've got the super special list; the factual, scientifically tested, FDA approved list. Using my fine-tuned methodology, I was able to definitively prove with precision measurement just what video games provide the highest objective entertainment value for your buck.
I won't get too much into the details of it, but the experiment involves tying the test subjects to a chair and screaming in their face until they repeat back the results I like. Occasionally blunt instruments may have been utilized to control for certain... variables. Out of ten thousand test subjects, the data came back with unanimous consensus. 100% of participants agreed that this top 10 list is indeed the most accurate and correct list for the Greatest Games of All-Time and Outside of Space-Time. Just in case you happen to find yourself being sucked through a black hole to a timeless, empty, dimensionless void, you can be confident that this list still remains true even while you're there.
So without further ado, here are Mini's Top 10 (Factually) Greatest Games of All-Time:
#10. Zone of the Enders: The Second Runner - MARS (PC, 2003-2018)
Most people know the name Hideo Kojima from his work on the Metal Gear series. He's a game director that has made himself famous for extravagant over-the-top plots and hour-long cutscenes. While I do appreciate the Metal Gear series myself, unfortunately I think that franchise as a whole has suffered from wildly varying quality control. The first game could be considered groundbreaking for pushing the envelope on cinematic storytelling in video games, but its graphics and gameplay haven't aged particularly well, and its numerous sequels all seem to take trade-offs and sacrifices for every step forward they make.
For Zone of the Enders: The Second Runner on the other hand, the game is a massive improvement over its predecessor in almost every way, and it has never seemed to get the acknowledgement it deserves for being quite possibly the greatest mech game ever made. It's faster, leaner, prettier, and just a damn good time.
While it is a fairly short game, it also is almost entirely devoid of filler, with each advancement in the plot revealing something interesting and substantial about its characters or lore. Although the story itself isn't nearly as convoluted or original as Metal Gear's, it makes up for this by just being tightly-paced and sufficiently detailed enough to stay invested in. Kojima still does have his fun with bombastic storytelling and dramatic character interactions, but without all the bloat of multi-layered government conspiracies, clones, and artificial intelligence pulling all the strings behind the scenes. It's just Dingo and his orbital frame; smack-talking to everyone he comes into contact with for funsies.
The real star of ZOE2 though is not its story but its gameplay. It so perfectly captures the speed and exhilaration of intense fight scenes that you would see out of action anime, and does so without the controls feeling loose, clunky, or too unruly to handle. Though it is an unorthodox control scheme, once you get used to it, controlling Jehuty is a breeze. I'm actually rather surprised that there hasn't been a Dragon Ball Z game that has adopted a similar system since, as it would be an excellent fit for the franchise. But Zone of the Enders really is one of a kind, and there's nothing else that has been able to so effortlessly combine frenetic action with concise and dramatic storytelling since.
It also goes without saying that this game was absolutely gorgeous upon release. Its semi-cel shaded aesthetic helped it age phenomenally, and it's only gotten better with two HD remasters over the years. That's why I recommend the MARS edition of the game, which includes the latest 4K textures and 5.1 remastered audio.
#9. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (Switch, 2014-2017)
Wait, what the hell is this? A racing game on MY top 10 list? What a JOKE. That's like putting Madden or FIFA in there. WHO DOES THAT? There must be some sort of mistake. Let me double-check my notes... Oh nope, it's got Mario in the title, so it checks out.
Your surprise is as big as mine. I can't be bothered to care about anything even vaguely sports-related; racing games included. That's why Mario Kart 8 blew my mind in 2014 when I was suddenly enamored by its stellar presentation, content, and controls.
While seemingly just another racing game like any other when you first pick up and play, it's all the little details in this package that manage to keep elevating it ever so slightly with each passing return. The crazy anti-gravity tracks, the colorful visuals, Luigi's death stare, vehicle customization, the extreme diversity of environments, the slick elegance of pulling off a long drift followed by a speed boost; everything it does is executed with such fluidity and grace. It's like licking your ice cream cone in slow-motion.
Mario Kart 8 embodies the greatest of "easy to pick up, difficult to master" games. With each increasing difficulty, you need to get a handle on a new aspect of the gameplay in order to succeed. Anyone can breeze through starting out on 50cc, but by 100cc you'll want to get a good grasp on the layout of the tracks and when to use various items. At 150cc, you'll need to have mastered drifting around corners in order to survive the sharp turns, and by 200cc, you will need to bring all your cards to the table and master braking while drifting at just the right moments to stay on the track, or you can't hope to 3-star every Grand Prix. The gradual ramping up of difficulty naturally forced me to learn new techniques without being too overwhelming at first, which made the experience incredibly satisfying; constantly driving me to come back for more.
Mario Kart 8 is also one of the few online experiences that Nintendo mostly gets right. I very rarely experience lag or the general jank that often comes with poor online connectivity.
The game originally launched for Wii U, but it was later ported to Switch in the form of the deluxe edition, which includes all previous DLC as well as a completely overhauled battle mode; making it the recommended way to play. My only real gripe with the Switch release is the inclusion of "smart steering", which is enabled by default and hidden away in obscure menus in order to disable it. I don't have a problem with making the game more accessible, but smart steering's aggressive implementation is overreaching and unnecessary.
As someone who isn't really qualified to make this assessment, Mario Kart 8 is the greatest racing game ever made. Luckily, I'm scientifically backed by my rigorous study of ten thousand captives volunteers, so I'm confident in making this claim anyway. Mario Kart 8 did the impossible. It didn't just make me care about a racing game; it made me fall in love with it. And for that, it deserves a spot on this list.
#8. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD (Wii U, 2006-2015)
Of course we have to have a Zelda title, so here we are. I know what you're thinking though. Twilight Princess? Really? What about Ocarina of Time, A Link to the Past, or every hipster's favorite choice, Majora's Mask? Well look, I have mad respect for these games. I've wasted countless hours getting lost in Ocarina of Time myself, but I think Twilight Princess doesn't get enough credit largely due to its place in time. It really doesn't do a whole lot new or different with the Zelda formula, yet had it came out in place of Ocarina of Time, it would have been heralded as a masterpiece just the same.
Ocarina of Time was both my first experience with the Zelda franchise and my previous favorite, but as much as I view it to be an iconic classic as well, I have to be honest and say that I found the latter dungeons in the Adult Link half to become a bit of a slog at times. As the game progressed, it became less interested in contextualizing why you're wandering around all these spike-and-lava-filled corridors and felt a little mechanical after a while. Just free the sage from the next dungeon you need to plunder, and that's roughly the full extent of your motivation for moving forward. In essence, Ocarina of Time starts out strong but slowly loses steam, whereas Twilight Princess in contrast does the reverse; starting out rather dull but gradually building into a crescendo, finally culminating in a spectacular four-phase showdown against Ganondorf. It makes for a more satisfying story progression.
Once you finally don your Hero's Tunic, the game offers a great variety of dungeons and set pieces while placing a larger emphasis on story to provide greater motivation for what you're doing. The combat is enhanced by various optional sword techniques that you can acquire, the boss battles have an epic sense of scale, and its half-anime, half-realism aesthetic is a unique blend that works really well for it. Midna is not just a superior assistant to Navi; she is Best Assistant. Of all-time. Ever. There will never be a better assistant in a Zelda game. Also you just start out as Adult Link this time with no jumping through hoops.
Nowadays the ideal way to play this game is via the remastered Wii U version for the enhanced visuals, but you can't go wrong with the original GameCube release either. Just avoid the Wii version for the shoehorned motion controls.
If you think about it, Twilight Princess is everything great about Ocarina of Time but with extra polish. It has more story, more content, a smoother framerate, and more refined mechanics. The problem is if you already played a previous 3D Zelda, it might feel all too familiar, so it's easy to overlook. But for me, this isn't reason enough to dismiss it. Sometimes doing things the same but just better is good enough, especially when your foundation is built on a masterpiece. So in the end, I'm gonna out-hipster the hipsters here and go with Twilight Princess. Sorry Majora's Mask fans. But let's keep it real, you can't go wrong with any Zelda really.
Shut up Skyward Sword. I wasn't talking about you.
#7. Super Mario 64 (Nintendo 64, 1996)
Mario is quite possibly the most iconic video game character of all-time; single-handedly being responsible for reviving the industry after the video game crash of the 1980s. So far-reaching is his indomitable might that it's no wonder there are not just one, but two titles starring the Italian plumber on this list.
Out of all the Mario titles over the decades, Super Mario 64 stands out the most notable to me; not just for being the first 3D Mario experience, but for managing to be so memorable and engaging that it still remains his best adventure. There's just something magical about the entire experience, from its infectious soundtrack to the simple pleasures of exploring Peach's castle. I was always eager to see what mysteries lie behind the next locked door or hidden passageway.
The victory fanfare followed by a "Here we gooo!" after acquiring a new star always gets you pumped so that you want to jump right back into the level and hunt for more. Swimming through the tranquil waters of Jolly Roger Bay while being entranced by its hypnotic tunes is a sublime trip. Spinning Bowser around until you finally toss him to the wind with a "So long-a Bowser!" puts a big dumb grin on your face. There are so many special moments this game creates that no other Mario title has managed to replicate since.
Mario 64 radically changed the gameplay from the traditional sidescrollers by opting for a hub world with nonlinear gameplay. Nintendo could have easily just stuck to the usual Mario formula but in 3D, yet despite being in deeply unfamiliar territory, they went above and beyond the call anyway and completely reinvented the plumber as we know him. It was impressive enough how ground-breaking this game was for the Mario franchise, but on top of this, it ended up defining an entire genre of collectathon adventure games that would emulate this formula for a decade.
It cannot be overstated how much of an impact this game left on the industry. Sure, there were 3D games that came before it, but Mario 64 fully realized the potential of the medium by crafting a world and mechanics that can only work as well as they do in a 3D space. More than any other game throughout the industry's entire history, Mario 64 felt like the biggest leap in next-generation entertainment; ushering in a new era where the baseline for a AAA experience must be in 3D.
#6. Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii, 2008)
First I went with Twilight Princess as Best Zelda, and now I'm going with Brawl as Best Smash. Look, I can't help it folks, it's just science OK? I had to go through a lot of blunt instruments to get to the truth on this one, and this is the result we got, so DEAL WITH IT.
It's hard to talk about the virtues of Brawl without first addressing its controversial legacy. Coming off the heels of the massively popular and highly competitive Super Smash Bros. Melee, for many Brawl was seen as a disappointment upon its launch. Director Masahiro Sakurai doubled down on his insistence that Smash at its core is a party game, not a hyper-competitive fighter. This led to some design choices that left Melee fans out in the cold. For my two cents on the matter, I prefer something a little more in-between, but Brawl still ended up working very well for me.
Brawl reduced the overall speed of combat, making it feel more in line with the N64 original. On top of this, it introduced the infamous tripping mechanic, which would cause your character to fall over and interrupt movement entirely at random. While I can't deny that tripping was just a bad design choice no matter how you look at it, what I can say is that it was still mostly inconsequential, and the derision leveled against it is largely overblown. In fact, I can't think of a single instance where tripping actually caused me to lose a match. With only a 1% chance of triggering upon a dash, you could often go several matches without experiencing a single trip, and even if you did, the chances were even more rare that you ended up severely punished for it.
Brawl's slower combat speed tends to get a bad wrap too, but something I always thought was missing from Melee was the sense of impact from landing a good hit. In the first Smash Bros game, you felt the crunch when you got slammed by a well-timed smash attack or a fully-charged special. With Melee on the other hand, there was very little weight behind most attacks. In a way, this was necessary in order for Melee to maintain its faster speed, but it also deflated a sense of satisfaction from each individual hit. Brawl's return to a slower style of combat brought back some of that feeling of weight behind a good punch.
Of course, now with the further refined mechanics in Smash Ultimate, Sakurai has found ways to bring back the smash in Smash without sacrificing speed, so we get the best of both worlds, but Brawl still barely inches out the latest entry for one reason: content. I've never been big on fighting games, and one of the major reasons for that is due to a lack of varied content. Most settle for slightly different dress-ups of the same old versus mode in order to diversify themselves, but it's not enough to escape the feeling of repetition. This is especially exacerbated by the fact that most stages in fighting games don't actually impact the gameplay at all and merely serve as visual backdrops. This is not the case when it comes to Smash.
In stark contrast to other fighting games, the Smash Bros series makes movement a lot less restrictive and more free-flowing, giving players the ability to more easily traverse uneven ground and elaborate layouts. This allows each stage to bring something different to the table with hazards, power-ups, and varied terrain. Then you've got an assortment of other fun bonus modes like Break the Targets and Home-run Contest. But what makes Brawl truly go even further beyond any other Smash Bros is its ambitious Subspace Emissary mode.
Subspace Emissary is a massive sprawling campaign mode that turns the game into a sidescrolling adventure featuring every iconic Nintendo character. Players journey through lengthy stages full of obstacles, enemies, and boss battles; all neatly woven together with numerous cutscenes showcasing the characters' bombastic interactions with each other. To date, I can't think of any other fighting game that has attempted a story mode on this scale and made it work as well as it does in Brawl.
Another reason the Smash series just stands out in general is its unique accessibility over other fighting games. By stripping away the need to pause the game and memorize intricate button combos for each character, Smash Bros is infinitely easier to jump right into with any new character and instantly gain a decent grasp of their move set. There's really no end to the praises I can sing for this series and how much it breaks genre conventions to great success.
Brawl in particular has been around the block for so long that numerous mods have been made for it. Recently my ideal choice for experiencing it is with Balanced Brawl mod in Dolphin emulator. Balanced Brawl fixes what little gripes I had with the game, removing the tripping mechanic and lightly tweaking the characters to make everyone more well-rounded and competitive. And with crisp 1080p 60 FPS graphics in Dolphin, I'm still able to get a lot of extra mileage out of it. Though if you don't have a capable PC, Balanced Brawl is still fully playable on Wii with a SD card and original copy of the game.
#5. StarCraft: Brood War (PC, 1998)
This game was so effective with its execution that it made the entire rest of the genre irrelevant for me. Command & Conquer? Meh. Age of Empires? Yawn. What's Warhammer 40K again? Oh well. Why bother when we've already achieved the pinnacle of Real-Time Strategy? Blizzard spoiled me so much with this game that afterward I struggled to latch onto any RTS not produced by them. Any time I would attempt to try something else, I would just think, "I'd rather be playing StarCraft right now."
StarCraft is the game that birthed modern eSports and turned playing video games into a career. Thanks to its polished gameplay and South Korea's mad obsession with it, StarCraft will forever go down as a legend in the video game industry.
The special sauce that makes StarCraft what it is can be attributed to a number of ingredients. Chiefly among them is the distinct designs of the three playable races in the game. Each plays radically different, yet all can hold their own and turn into a force to be reckoned with once you master their ins and outs. It's a delicate balance to maintain, but the payoff is a lot of added replay value as you could experiment with so many different styles of play. A moody soundtrack and unique interface design also accompanies each race to add to their distinct feel.
Then there's StarCraft's campaign, which features complete story arcs for all three races and is chock full of memorable characters, political backstabbings, and also surprisingly, a great sense of atmosphere. There are haunting scenes of marines bearing down in the trenches; giving it all they have until they realize they're out of ammo and there's nothing left to save them from the encroaching swarm of Zerg. A great sense of melancholy can be felt throughout your journey with the Protoss, as the proud and ancient race must continually make one heartbreaking sacrifice after another in order to secure their future. Lots of great moments permeate the experience on top of delivering exceptional RTS gameplay.
And finally, StarCraft offers the robust Campaign Editor, which includes many of the same tools used by the developers to craft the game's level designs. So versatile is its capabilities that users could create levels that entirely change the genre of StarCraft, from RPG to capture the flag and tower defense. With the inclusion of the editor, StarCraft's replay value is seemingly infinite, as even when you grow bored of the core RTS experience, players can always be creating something new to explore. More than any other tool that Blizzard has released for their games, I find StarCraft's Campaign Editor to strike the best balance between accessibility and complexity.
Thanks to remaster work done on the game, it has now also recently earned the distinction of being able to run on a toaster and in 4K at the same time. The remastered version of the game now retails for $15, which is pretty much a steal for one of the greatest game experiences of all-time. Or you can just literally steal the base game because Blizzard now offers it for free, you cheapskates.
#4. Final Fantasy VII (PC, 1997-1998)
Now we're really getting into the hard choices where I had to make some tough compromises. I knew at least one JRPG had to make this list, but I didn't have room for any more, so this came down to a fierce battle between Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VII. Either one of these games is easily deserving to be here, but in the end I decided it's more satisfying to stuff it to all of FF7's trendy critics who love to remind us how overrated this game is, and [insert FF# here] is really the best one. No. Fuck you. Final Fantasy VII is the best. Now GET OUT.
Nah but seriously, Chrono Trigger is a wonderfully-crafted game. However Final Fantasy VII arguably offers everything that Chrono Trigger has and more, even if its execution is occasionally sloppier in doing so. You've got the classic turn-based battle system, a colorful cast of characters, a god-tier soundtrack that will forever be immortalized in your soul, and a sweeping epic story to save the world from a once-venerable hero who tragically turned coo-coo for Jenova Puffs. Or something like that.
But what really sets this game apart for me is that Final Fantasy VII marked the first time in my experience with the medium that truly crystallized video games as an art form. Nothing quite rivals the feels train that this game brings right from the moment that it pulls up to its first stop in Midgar. FF7 doesn't just settle for a cast of likable characters that you can get invested in. So much of its story actually speaks to the human condition and touches on real life issues that are still resonant today. Mega-corporations exploiting the world's natural resources, the high cost of war, mental health, the morally blurred lines between vigilantism and terrorism, the fragility of human life, moving on when your greatest hopes and dreams have been crushed; FF7 touches on a number of themes, and it does so in such a way that feels so genuine in the moment.
Amidst all the JRPG jargon of mako reactors, materia, and Jenova cells, there are numerous small human moments that help keep the story grounded and give this game so much character. When you learn what Shinra did to Barrett's hometown and his best friend, suddenly his rants against the system don't sound so much like the ravings of a wannabe hero who maybe let his idealism get carried away, but instead they reveal a deeply troubled soul whose rage is all too real.
At first glance, Cid just seems like a crotchety old man who treats his assistant like garbage, yet when you learn of how close he came to realizing his childhood dream of becoming an astronaut, and how a last-minute complication shuttered the space program, it's a tragic moment that sheds a completely different light on his character. It doesn't excuse his behavior of course, but it does let you understand him.
The brilliance of FF7's narrative is not just in the dialogue, but the visuals as well. While so many JRPGs tend to opt for bright colors and clean aesthetics, FF7 is decidedly dirtier and feels more lived in. It gives a sense that every place has a rich history behind it often without any direct exposition needed. Before you even set foot in Cid's house, it's quite apparent that his rocket has seen better days. It towers over the town in a dilapidated state, crooked at a slight angle from its failed launch and covered in moss from years of neglect. Incidentally, this is also a great metaphor for the current state of America's space program...
20-year-old spoiler warning, but just in case you didn't know by now, Sephiroth kills Dumbledore. Erhmm, Aeris that is. Aeris. Not to be confused with "Aerith", which is also a lie. Anyway, it's a pretty sad moment. You might have heard of it. It's kinda one of the most iconic depictions in gaming. Not only because of the shocking imagery, but because of the way it was built up to in the narrative. Up until this point, we were led to believe that Aeris was an integral member of the party. She was shaping up to be the main love interest of Cloud, and there had already been several heartfelt and cute moments shared with her that ensured the plot armor was laid on thick. And yet, death still came for her. It's a powerful scene, and the permanence of it makes it all the more potent.
I could go on about the richness of FF7's story, but now let's talk gameplay. Fundamentally, the game's combat isn't all that different from your typical JRPG. It's standard turn-based fare, but it's in the presentation of it that jacks the fun factor up to 11. The flashy limit break attacks combined with the epic god-like summons make it a spectacle to behold on-screen, with one particular summon clocking in at almost a minute and a half of dunking on the enemy with thousands of damage.
The other reason FF7's gameplay stands out to me is in its constant willingness to experiment with various mini-game activities, all the while seamlessly weaving the story into each one. Admittedly, not all of these mini-games work as smoothly as they should, but they help break up the monotony of standard RPG gameplay nonetheless, and when it is at its best, you have Cloud running around town getting into all sorts of silly antics in order to cross-dress as a girl and sneak into a brothel to rescue Tifa.
Final Fantasy VII's only major fault is that its character models look like ass, even by 1997 standards. That's why I recommend the PC version with mods as the best way to play, so you don't have to stare at those laughable brick hands all day. What I don't recommend is waiting for the remake, as the Square of today is not the same company it was 20 years ago, so not only will you probably be waiting another 20 years before it comes out, but most likely many fun quirks about the original will be lost in translation.
#3. Half-Life 2 (PC, 2004)
Ironically enough, around the time of this game's launch, I was mega-hyped for an entirely different first person shooter releasing within the same month. That game was Halo 2. Half-Life 2 wasn't even on my radar, as I never played the first game, and the idea of the protagonist being an unassuming silent nerd running around with a crowbar in a weird orange lab suit gave me an initial gut reaction that this game just seemed too bonkers for me.
On the other hand, the E3 tech demo they showcased was quite impressive from a technical perspective. I never thought such realistic physics were possible in video games up until this point. Half-Life 2 was one of the earliest games to make use of Havok physics, which gave us the first glimpses of what truly life-like interactions could look like in a video game. Yet as technically impressive as it was, the material wasn't presented in a particularly engaging manner beyond "Look what our engine can do!" so it failed to grab me beyond that.
Meanwhile, that E3 demonstration of Halo 2 was completely jaw-dropping. It was full of spectacle, the graphics were an astonishing bump up from the first game despite running on the same hardware, and the booming Marty O'Donnell score made you feel like it was a Hollywood movie coming to life. To this day, I'm not sure I've ever been as hyped for a game as I was for Halo 2.
Then the game came out. I invited my best friend over and it took us just two days to blast through the campaign in co-op mode. While it was a very fun time, there was definitely a lingering feeling afterward that Halo 2 didn't deliver on what was billed to us at E3. The graphics were significantly scaled back, ugly texture pop-in was rampant, and much of the cinematic atmosphere of the demo was only sparsely found in the final product. In fact, its cliffhanger ending was hardly the worst of its offenses if you ask me. I felt lied to.
Fast forward roughly a year later. I caught a glimpse of my brother playing Half-Life 2 on his PC, and I was impressed by the battle that I watched unfold over City 17. It was giving me those same cinematic vibes I once had while watching that demo of Halo 2 way back when, except this time it's actually playable. Right in front of me. And what was up with that giant Combine tower stretching so far into the sky that it went above the clouds? The game had a way of creating a sense of mystery and intrigue through imagery alone, which made me all the more enticed to finally sit down and give this game a try.
It didn't take long after Barney handed me my first crowbar that I became completely sucked into this game and its world. Half-Life 2 has such a grounded sense of realism and grit to it amidst an otherwise heavy sci-fi backdrop. Despite its very linear design, the game is a masterclass in making you feel like you are only a very small part of a much bigger world. Time has already been marching onward for City 17's citizens long before you arrive, and everyone is going about their own daily routines. You'll just wander into a building and witness Combine security raiding apartments; terrorizing citizens without the slightest consideration or acknowledgement of who you are. This kind of world-building was extremely effective at pulling me in.
In contrast to many first person shooters which rely almost exclusively on action to carry themselves, Half-Life 2 excels at both pacing and variety in gameplay. The physics interactions aren't just a gimmick; they are core mechanics of the game, and many puzzles revolve around them. Just when you might start to get bored of blasting away headcrabs and Combine soldiers, the game seems to know right when to shake things up with a vehicle section, puzzle, narrative segment, or a little bit of scavenging and exploration. Combined altogether with some fantastic action set pieces along the way, and you have a recipe for the greatest FPS campaign ever made, even almost 15 years after its release. Half-Life 2 is truly in a league of its own.
#2. Mass Effect 2 (PC, 2010)
It's funny sometimes how such an odd set of circumstances can wind up introducing you to one of your all-time favorites. In the months leading up to Mass Effect's launch, Sci-fi channel (now known as "Syfy") ran a promotional contest to win a free copy of the Collector's Edition. I entered purely with the intent to sell it on Ebay if I even won it at all, as I was struggling to find ways to make money at the time, and initial impressions of the game just didn't grab me.
Astonishingly, the game actually showed up at my doorstep a few weeks later, neatly packaged and ready to play. With the game now placed right in front of me, and knowing that I had an amazing time with the last BioWare game I played (Knights of the Old Republic), I decided that I would at least pop the game into my Xbox once and give it a chance before I turn it over to someone else. What followed was a near-instant reversal of my previous decision to sell the game.
Mass Effect's introductory sequence knew exactly how to hook me in. It wastes no time establishing some intriguing world-building, like how humans are only newcomers to galactic civilization and don't hold any real power or respect. The story steadily drip-feeds you more information about galactic history, an ancient civilization called the Protheans, and how it all connects back to events unfolding now, and it's all done in such a way that, like Half-Life 2, makes its universe feel so much bigger than you, and encourages you to want to explore as much of it as you can.
When all was said and done, Mass Effect really showcased what a great Star Trek game could look like (despite not actually being Star Trek). But it did have some problems. Numerous side missions were terrible at recycling assets, the framerate was erratic, inventory management got cumbersome, and combat could feel rather clunky at times.
Pretty much all of these issues were addressed in its sequel, Mass Effect 2. Combat feels a lot more fast-paced and fluid, the repetitive side missions were replaced with largely more substantive content, and the inventory system was... well, removed. Not the ideal choice, but still an improvement I suppose.
Mass Effect 2 did have to give and take in a few areas in order to make itself into a leaner game. Much of the intricate galactic politics and alien squabbling that went on in the first game isn't as prevalent here. However, while Mass Effect 1 did give a nicer overview of the universe that BioWare had crafted, the second game does flesh out the seedier underbelly of the galaxy just as well in its own right. With Commander Shepard now reluctantly working for a shady organization called Cerberus, you will frequently find yourself taken to some of the more disreputable and lawless regions of space, and the game does a great job of building an atmosphere around that, with many alien interactions involving ulterior motives and questionable agendas that you have to contend with.
OK so there's a lot of sci-fi and a lot of pew-pew in these games; that's par for the course. But that obviously isn't reason enough for Mass Effect 2 to score so high on this list. What really sets this game apart is in the story of your crew. Or rather, the story that you make of them.
With human colonies being mysteriously abducted by a race called the Collectors and taken to an unknown system beyond the Omega 4 Relay, Shepard is in charge of investigating the reason behind these abductions and putting an end to them. There's just one big problem. Nobody who has attempted to enter the Omega 4 Relay has ever returned in its many years of existence, so you're going to need a crew of some of the best in the galaxy to be prepared for whatever you might encounter on the other side.
This formulates the basis of Mass Effect 2's mission design, as one assignment after another will have you scouring the galaxy to assemble your team. Each time you pick up a new recruit, tons of new dialogue possibilities open up, along with an optional loyalty mission to earn your crew's respect and trust. These loyalty missions are frequently just as fun as the recruitment missions themselves, as you learn much more behind each character's backstory and really get to build a bond with your crew.
This all leads up to the game's explosive tension-filled finale. Aptly dubbed the "Suicide Mission", going beyond the Omega 4 Relay is quite possibly the most epic climax I've ever experienced in a video game. Up until this point, there have been numerous choices you could have made throughout the story to influence the loyalty of your crew and upgrade your ship's technology so that everyone and everything is at the best of their ability. Anything less than that, and it can mean the difference between everyone surviving the mission or no one. When I first played this mission, I wasn't even aware of how many of my crew could possibly die or not, and to what degrees I might be able to influence the outcome, so when I saw my first crewman drop dead, I got paranoid.
Fuck no am I losing Garrus. Mordin and Tali better not kick the bucket either. I started intentionally assigning characters I deemed of lesser importance to more critical roles where I thought they would be at greater risk of dying. This was in order to protect the characters that I couldn't accept losing, but even then, it was still hard to stomach. I had never been put in a place like this before while playing a video game. Mass Effect 2 actually made me feel the weight of my decisions.
Everything culminates in a Lovecraftian nightmare plot twist that reveals a disturbing fact about the enemy, followed by a fierce boss battle against said nightmare. The whole mission is just an insane adrenaline rush of shocking imagery, explosive action, and desperate maneuvers from your crew. Seeing it all unfold with your choices affecting the outcomes is an impressive feat of engineering from BioWare, and I've never seen anything like it since.
With EA slowly increasing its chokehold on its developers over the years, the stars must have aligned for some kind of miracle in order for this game come out the way it did under the circumstances.
Most people probably think when choosing a number one you should carefully consider a multitude of different factors. Level design, mechanics, graphics, soundtrack, etc. The truth is that's all way overthinking it.
All you need to do in order to be taken seriously as a critic and solidify your great taste is to just pick something old. That's why every film critic worth their pedigree knows to pick Citizen Kane as their number one. It instantly validates your pretentiousness along with some other pretty rad benefits. An impeccable mustache and monocle will suddenly materialize upon your face, and you will ascend to an enlightened state where all criticisms are drowned out by the sound of your sipping tea and munching on crumpets.
So of course how could I choose anything other than the mother of all metroidvanias itself? Now you can't tell me Twilight Princess and Brawl aren't the best of their respective franchises. I've got pretentious immunity, bitches!
But it just so conveniently happens that Super Metroid is also great at all of those other unnecessary things I mentioned. Indeed, it feels like every pixel of this game was perfectly laid out; every sound carefully crafted to elicit a certain gratifying feeling out of you. Super Metroid is a game far ahead of its time. When the trend was for games to be bright, colorful, and largely linear affairs, Metroid was a considerably darker open-ended experience. It was an immensely atmospheric game before atmosphere was even a thing in games.
There is plenty of quality to be found in the Metroid series as a whole, but Super Metroid stands head and shoulders above the rest by not only setting the standard for all future metroidvanias to come, but still maintaining its supremacy to this day. While its earlier incarnations felt more like prototypes that had to be viewed through the lens of their time period, Super Metroid requires no such contextualization to appreciate. As a proper nonlinear game, it is neither as frustratingly vague as its predecessors, nor as overly telegraphed as its successors. It gives you just the right amount of tools and clues to figure out where to go next without spelling it out for you. When you discover something new, it is your discovery, which makes for a very satisfying feeling of exploration and progression.
Super Metroid was a game that I could spend countless hours getting lost in during my childhood. Exploring the depths of planet Zebes to uncover whatever secrets I could find was endlessly rewarding, and uncovering hidden power-ups that continuously enhance Samus' power suit kept me coming back for more. Even when there isn't necessarily a treasure waiting around the corner for you, just the simple act of traversing its world and taking in the scenery is engaging enough. With very little dialogue to be found in the game, it often tells a story through careful attention to detail in the visuals alone. And unlike many modern open world games, nothing about it feels like filler. Every area is meticulously designed to bring a new experience.
As a game driven heavily by visuals and atmosphere, it's difficult to express in words exactly what makes Super Metroid so special. All of it just comes together in a package that is greater than the sum of its parts, and it completely immerses you into its world. It's the game that turned my hobby into a passion, and has inspired countless developers. Super Metroid isn't just held up by nostalgia. It's incredibly polished, and will continue to stand the test of time for decades to come.
What are your favorite games of all-time? Let me know in the comments so I can correct you with science.
