Here I go!
Okay, okay, you got me! I talk about this one a lot. But if you have ever played a Monkey Island game then it should be no secret why: Monkey Island has always been a mix of excellent puzzles, fantastic humor, brilliant music, and just plain fun gameplay. Monkey Island is a series that anyone can get into but that will challenge the player at all turns. It's a thing of beauty when a game can do that, it truly is, and Monkey Island does that through the majority of its games. Sure it's not perfect, but the first two Monkey Island games are by far some of the greatest point-and-click adventure games of all time and since taking over, Telltalle games has done a pretty fantastic job at keeping the series alive.
(How appropriate. You fight like a cow.)
My absolute favorite? Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge.
This is an easy one: Metroid has been through everything, including the passing of generations and changes in gameplay style. What's wonderful about the series is that all these changes have worked quite well. Don't get me wrong, I still think the Prime series (minus Prime 3: Corruption) is terribly overrated, but I can appreciate why it works for some people. For what it's worth, Prime offers a different experience, one that is slower and more focused on adventure and exploring. Other M is the absolute opposite, focusing solely on combat above anything else (and it does combat perfectly). But nobody can honestly look at Metroid and say that it hasn't gone to many places and the truth is that the series is pretty spectacular overall.
(Super Metroid for the SNES)
My personal favorite is Other M, if only because I enjoy how fast and furious it is and how many options you have for disposing of enemies. Truth be told I think Other M stands amongst the best of the best in the Metroid series. My boyfriend, on the other hand, absolutely adores Super Metroid (as do I) and he loves doing speed playthroughs in as little time as possible. The entire series is just a work of beauty and everyone can find something to like if they so choose.
I'm sure you were expecting this one to make it to this list and you have very good reasons to do so. The Legend of Zelda is one of the longest running series in gaming history and it is in fact nearly flawless. The series spans through several different generations and platforms, including handheld systems, and still continues on being just as good today as it ever was. What can be said about this one besides that? Some of the best games of all time have come from this series alone, including (but not limited to): The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, the Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap, and the Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages.
The most interesting thing about Zelda is that even as it managed to evolve from 2D to 3D it still managed to keep the same feel of the original ones. It's one of those very, very rare transitions between 2D and 3D that actually works. What that means for the series is that all of the games contain incredible dungeon design, brilliantly designed puzzles, and what is easily the most awesome repertoire of game bosses to ever exist. Even in easier iterations like Wind Waker the bosses are all still fuckin' spectacular to say the least.
(The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past for the SNES)
Pick almost any Zelda you want and you'll find something incredible. What's best is that this is true at any age. That's what makes Zelda worthy of making to this list at number three. My personal favorite in the series? Majora's Mask.
I still remember first getting my hands on The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind for my Xbox (shut it! I didn't have a good PC to run it at the time!): I was daunted at the incredible freedom the game offered. I was so used to playing games where everything was scripted that I had grown into the "what do the developers want from me?" mentality that comes along with linearity (think: Final Fantasy). It's almost always about what the developer wants from the player, from puzzles to actions. Morrowind was the first game I experienced where I actually had to stop and think because it had suddenly become a question of what I wanted from the game. It was an eye opener and needless to say that Morrowind remains to this day as one of my absolute favorite games of all time. Soon enough I was building pillow forts...I mean that literally: I would break into houses, steal pillows from unsuspecting owners like some kleptomaniac version of Goldilocks ("This pillow's just right!"), and then escape into the night, to the outskirts of Balmora. It was there where I would stack pillows upon pillows to build walls as high as I could, and when I couldn't build any higher I would use "Levitate" to drop them from the top. And even though pillows seemed to continue to disappear in town, I was glad that not one person questioned why a massive pillow fort was growing, seemingly overnight, right outside the main town gates.
I'm going to make a confession: I have a profile in Morrowind that clocks in at just over 200 hours of gameplay. How many of those hours did I spend actually pursuing the main quest? Not a single one. I've never actually beaten the main quest in Morrowind. That's right, I spent 200 hours just dicking around with the game's engine, having a blast, as you can clearly tell by my pillow fort story; and mind you, I'm not the only one who made one of those. YouTube "Morrowind Pillow Fort" and you'll see what I mean. I spent hours perfecting all kinds of ridiculous things, like how to use telekinesis to rob shop owners blind while standing five feet away from them, or spending hours upon hours building massive book arches above the river than ran through Balmora's center. But that's the crux of why Morrowind is so great, and that also applies to the entire series.
(The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall for the PC)
The Elder Scrolls makes it to the list for being something different, downright experimental, but equal parts unforgettable. There is no other game series not made by Bethesda that offers such an interesting experience. The Elder Scrolls, even with the weak entry of Oblivion (the fourth installment) is still leagues ahead of almost anything else. What really, really gets me is that each time an Elder Scrolls game was released Bethesda just gave a big "Fuck you!" to all those developers "streamlining" and simplifying the role playing aspects of their RPGs.
My absolute favorite, as you can obviously tell, is Morrowind. I don't think any other in the series will ever top it for me, but believe me when I say that I am eagerly awaiting The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.
You thought it was going to be Mario, didn't you? Admit it! Unfortunately for Mario fans the series simply didn't make it to the list. Mind you, Mario as a series is nothing short of spectacular, but for me it lacks one thing or another when compared to the rest of the series I have thus far mentioned. But I'm sure you're asking yourself: "Why Panzer Dragoon?"
Because I said so! Now go away!
*Puts fingers in ears*
LA, LA, LA, LA, LA! I'm not listening!
Only joking! Only joking! There are many reasons why Panzer Dragoon as a series takes this spot, not the least being that it has four games which are all incredibly innovative and absolutely flawless. Let's begin by taking a look at the first three core games and then we'll get to my favorite...
Panzer Dragoon is, mostly, a series of rail shooters a la Star Fox. Basically, Panzer Dragoon was SEGA's answer to Nintendo's space traveling fox and not only was it a great answer, it was a better one. Panzer Dragoon expands on the ideas of rail shooters by implementing plenty of great ideas, the most obvious being the abilities to move around enemies 360 degrees and being able to move the camera just the same. You might not think this makes much of a difference, but it actually does: with the ability to move around enemies comes bigger challenges. Think about this for a moment...you can now trail, flank, and outflank enemies, which means enemies will now have more weak points or specific weak points and you have to find them. It's no longer about simply dodging by moving up, down, left, and right on your screen; now you have to dodge up, down, left, right and you also have to trail, flank, and outflank enemies because some attacks cannot be dodged unless you move to safe spots around the enemy. You might think this is enough, but it's not: the series also contains the ability to morph the dragons which the riders use. Three different forms exist: Glide Wing form which is speedy but has weak firepower, the Base Wing which is the well rounded option with decent speed and decent fire power, and the Heavy Wing which is the slow behemoth that packs an insane punch. Now keep in mind that each of these forms has advantages and disadvantages with enemies you encounter, so now you have to keep in mind all that dodging I mentioned and the morphing of your dragons. But there's more: there are also what are called "Beserk Attacks" which are special attacks unleashed by the player when a special damage bar fills completely, and the thing is that each dragon has its own Beserk Attack that does something completely different.
But those are just the gameplay mechanics. The core Panzer Dragoon series also happens to have incredible level design (with branching paths), incredible boss battles, exquisite art design, an interesting overall story arch, and even its own made up language (yeah, it's that intricate!). Really, Panzer Dragoon goes out of its way to do things no other rail shooter ever has and it does those things so well that it's hard to go back and play the less intricate offerings the genre gives us. That's why Panzer Dragoon is the greatest gaming series of all time: it takes everything that was built upon already and improves it tenfold. This isn't just true of what it does for rail shooters. It's also true of what it does for JRPGs...
Oh, did I forget to mention that one of the four games in the series is a JRPG? Well, it is. Not content with simply destroying the competition in the rail shooter front, SEGA set out to make history once more. The end result? Panzer Dragoon Saga; quite possibly the greatest JRPG ever made. Remember when you first saw Final Fantasy VII and you were blown away by Cloud's deformed Popeye forearms and the pre-rendered backgrounds? Yeah, Panzer Dragoon Saga had high quality character models, full voice acting, and nothing was static. The game was light years ahead of the competition in almost every way imaginable. How long did it take for Final Fantasy to have voice acting? It was in Final Fantasy X, and don't you forget it! Saga was doing it years before. But what's voice acting, right? It's cool and all, but what else did this game do to deserve so much praise? It was flawless and imaginative. That's what made it deserving of so much praise.
(Panzer Dragoon Saga for the SEGA Saturn)
Remember how the battling in the core games is so much more intricate than the battling in other rail shooters? The same applies here. The battle system of Panzer Dragoon Saga is intricate to the last minute detail and it is still one of the best (rivaled only by the battle system in Final Fantasy X-2). Here too you could move around enemies in 360 degrees, except now you had energy bars that would be consumed depending on the attacks you used (think: Final Fantasy's "ATB" bars). The thing is that there were three of them and you could perform multiple attacks depending on the cost of each attack: that meant you could actually chain attacks together. The interesting thing is that bosses in the game would often have weak spots but the weak spots would change, forcing your entire strategy to be reworked. It was also more dramatic and much more cinematic than any Final Fantasy battle system has ever been. The dragon morphing system of the series also received great attention to detail and unlike the other Panzer Dragoon games the dragon in Saga can morph into hundreds of different forms. This is because Saga allows the player to change five different statistics of his or her dragon which can lead to many different variations never before seen in the series.
So to recap: beautiful attention to detail, incredible art design, great story, flawless games, innovation, and SEGA also took risks with the series. That's what makes Panzer Dragoon so incredible. Did I forget to mention the fantastic musical scores for each? Well...
My personal favorite? Saga, but Orta is really close behind.
- Kharlo -
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