BoB's Top 100 Games

[Bolivar]

Idk, the other TES games have all the archetypes you listed, while Morrowind's topography was immersion-shatteringly simple and fake. With the exception of Red Mountain, the world was unrealistically flat, and Bethesda put arbitrary fog in the game to hide just how small it really was. One of the last things you do when modding the game is increase the view distance, but it's a double edged sword in that seeing how close the major landmarks really are makes you feel like you're in an amusement park rather than an open world. It killed the wonder and curiosity of exploration for me, while Oblivion and Skyrim didn't need smoke and mirrors to assure you that you're in a fantasy world brought to life.

Of course the silt striders, the telvanni strongholds, the canals of vivec take care of that well enough on their own, perhaps to a stronger extreme than Skyrim's graphics can. Unfortunately, Morrowind suffers from the burden of being a video game, and it just doesn't have the gameplay to back it up. Even the simple act of moving is a painful experience, a problem modders have tried to solve since the games release over a decade ago and haven't quite figured out.

I beat Morrowind and Tribunal, so obviously that says something about just how strong the story and aesthetics are if I spent that much time with the game. But there are games that have everything Morrowind did along with fun gameplay to boot, some of which are lower ranked on your list.

[Loony BoB]

I never modded it so I never got the 'amusement park' feeling, but I never felt that it was a short ride from A to B. As for your thoughts on the topography and all that - Oblivion was, for me, one of the most boring landscapes ever. Sure, it had hills and whatnot, but I could travel for a very long time and still feel like I was in the same place. It suffered more then FFXIV 1.0 for having long zones where you can travel from one end to the other and have nothing change.

[Bolivar]

Well, I already admitted Morrowind has better diversity, but there's another inverse here. Sure, it had the wastelands, the swamps, the shores but I always knew what I was going to find there, and most of the time it was just more cliff racers.

In oblivion, I'd stumble upon an abandoned church being used by necromancers for messed up experiments. Or a wrecked ship with its dead crew still prowling is depths. Or an island fortress with an underground labyrinth where criminals hunt people for sport. I'd much rather have a traditional setting that surprises me every step of the way than a unique setting that throws cliff tracers and druegh at me LITERALLY every step of the way.

Although I can have the best of both worlds and play Final Fantasy XII instead

[Loony BoB]

Did a lot of that happen on Shivering Isles or something? I don't recall some of the stuff you're talking about in vanilla Oblivion. D=

EDIT: Actually, I remember the island fortress now. It was interesting but in the end still looked pretty much exactly like the rest of Oblivion. xD

[Spuuky]

Oblivion is a boring, dull, lifeless void full of automatons pretending to be shopkeepers. What a waste that world was. Skyrim was a bit better, but no, Morrowind's world is SIGNIFICANTLY better than both of them. The actual physical size is irrelevant when compared to the spiritual size of the world.

That's why Gothic games are better than Elder Scrolls games, of course.

[Madame Adequate]

Anyone who thinks Oblivion had an interesting or immersive world needs to get some standards holy crap. Yeah Morrowind is a lot smaller than the fog leads you to believe but so the hell what, it's all so superbly crafted that it doesn't matter. Plus, 'flat'? Yeah if you're in the Ascadian Isles and Bitter Coast maybe, but even the West Gash and Grazelands have big rolling hills and stuff, and most of the rest of Vvardenfel is so mountainous that making your way through the foyadas or gaining reliable levitation is a big part of getting around.

Games that had everything Morrowind does: TES III: Morrowind.

[Aulayna]

Morrowind is one of the most overrated games in video game history.

[Quindiana Jones]

It's only overrated by MILF and Pike. Everybody else gives it exactly the amount of credit it deserves.

[Loony BoB]

50. Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII
PSP, 2007

In VII, I really liked Cloud, really disliked Aeris and thought Zack was a random moron or something. In CC:VII, I really disliked Cloud, really liked Aerith and thought Zack was a moron. But a likeable moron! And yes, I differ Aeris & Aerith spellings depending on the game. I like Aerith. I don't like Aeris. It's funny how the same character can be so much more likeable in one game than another.

Angeal was pretty awesome too. Genesis... eh. I don't care for his poetry readings, and that's sometimes about all he has. I really, really liked seeing Sephiroth as a 'good guy'. But enough of the characters - the game! I really loved this game and I didn't even complete it. When I say that, I mean, I completed the storyline (which ends in one of the greatest dramatic moments in the history of FF), but I didn't do everything else in the game... notably the treasure hunt type things they have. I should have done more of them because they were pretty cool. I loved the Yuffie stuff, she was hilarious.

The battle system I vaguely understood, although never mastered. The story itself was surprisingly good, the music was good, the feel of the game in general fit the FFVII world perfectly. I know a lot of it might conflict with VII stuff because Angeal/Genesis weren't in VII, for example, but I liked how they played that out and made it work anyway. This, for me, was a great game to supplement an even better game. Which SE aren't great for normally, let alone the rest of the gaming world... so I'm happy.

[Skyblade]

If you "vaguely understood" Crisis Core's battle system, then you mastered it. If Square ever again makes a primary game mechanic based entirely on luck, I'm not going to be happy.

I mostly agree with your breakdown and assessments of characters, except that I never finished the game. I got about as far as the journey to Nibelheim, but then I gave up.

The game was at its best when it was handling the backstory of the FFVII characters. Who Sephiroth was, why he was a hero, how the Turks operated, how Zack and Aerith hooked up, what happened to Wutai during and after the war... This was all great stuff. The new characters in this part of the game, like Lazard and Angeal, were ok, but it was really the cast from the game that really drove it and made it awesome. Seeing why people looked up to Sephiroth, what he was like in a situation where he wasn't a psychotic world destroyer, that was all great.

And, best of all, there was Zack. Zack was awesome. Great writing, brilliant interactions with pretty much the entire team, good story and personality. Then he cut his hair. And I hated him from that moment on. He went from being a fun, enjoyable character with a rich personality to a brooding twit worse than Cloud in most of the Compilation games. That personality change pretty much sealed the deal for me, though I was already driven away from it by two other issues I had with the game. The first of which was the slot machine, and the second was Genesis and the game's "story".

The story of this game was horrible. Not only was it a retcon of FFVII, it was a completely unnecessary one. There was absolutely no reason for Genesis to be in the game. He didn't add anything, he removed layers of depth that the story might have had by giving you a clichéd villain. Everything about the events that occurred could have unfolded without him (since, y'know, he wasn't in FFVII, so we know he wasn't needed), and it would have been a serious character-driven drama instead of the farce with the monsters and the new big bad.

I loved the beginning of the game. When you're just living in FFVII's world, exploring Midgar or Wutai, meeting familiar faces (like Yuffie, who was completely in character), doing squats, meeting Aerith (and the brilliantly written relationship the two had), meeting Tseng and getting teased about your low pay grade... When that was going on, I thought this game was brilliant (again, except for the slot machine). Once the game stopped being about FFVII and started being about Genesis, though, I quit. It just lost everything that had made it great before.

[Madame Adequate]

ahahahahahaha

[Bolivar]

I think I just realized this entire thread has been one sprawling troll, at least starting from the FFIX placement.

[Slothy]

But that must mean he's trolling everyone, because obviously Crisis Core being on the list at all is laughable, but Morrowind is definitely better than Oblivion. I mean, he's trolling so many groups of people on so many levels that I don't even know how I'm supposed to feel about his list anymore.

[Aulayna]

ITT: People are still shocked by BoB's opinions.

I mean come on, this is the guy that said Soup is drink.

Why are you people even surprised anymore?

[Aulayna]