Our Favorite Games of the Decade (2000-2009)

[Chakan]

Alright, guys, I was going to do this with a little more elaboration and not really aim for group discussion, but that's not fun! So here we go. Let's discuss.... OUR FAVORITE GAMES OF THE PAST DECADE!

Spoilers are welcome, because we are, after all, talking about what makes these games great.

I'll start us off with a couple:

Shenmue II
Wow. Just wow. If you had played the original Shenmue and thought it was a snoozefest, Shenmue II shows up with a chainsaw and smacks you in the face with it repeatedly. Although the game still uses the same engine, AM2 packed it full of much more diverse, interesting content. The pacing was so much better and I can remember sitting down to play it, pretty much doing nothing else for a couple of days as I ran through the game.

The new characters are cool and fun, overall. Wong is a dumb kid, similar to dumb kid sidekicks from 80s movies. Ren was a cool character. Joy was a hot chick. Xiuying was a gorgeous martial master. Don Niu was a great Asian kingpin. Yuan was a crazy androgynous bitch(?). Who could forget Cool Z?!?

Master Baihu was a crazy looking character. Man, after thinking about Shenmue II for 10 minutes it finally came back to me how cool this scene was at the time.

The chainsaw chase scene was fun. Hell, I enjoyed the whole tower portion of the game. I'll admit it.

There's a lot of other scenes I'm forgetting, as I haven't played through the game since 2004 or 2005. A great sequel that really upped the ante.

The rooftop fight with Don Niu was a great climax, with Lan Di hanging from a helicopter just feet away. It was an exciting moment, which kept you wondering what would happen after you got past Don. Would Ryu be able to catch up to Lan Di and challenge him face to face?

Evidently not, as Lan Di escapes. The epilogue in rural China was pretty cool and hinted at many more interesting things in store for Ryu. Since so much time has elapsed since this games' release, it will take a miracle for us to ever see Shenmue III released, wrapping up the storyline in some fashion.

Resident Evil 4
Another great sequel, RE4 reinvinted the series and did so quite well. Gone are the tank controls. Gone are the overally campy cutscenes. Gone are the zombies, really! I just spent so much time thinking and typing about Shenmue II that I'm hesitant to go into great detail here. I loved the gun upgrading system (which came back in RE5, which is also great, but not as evolutionary as this one). I loved being able to go up levels in structures, jump around, and interact with the environment more. Hell, now you can finally secure a door with a bookshelf, buying you some time to loot the room of supplies.

[Necrocheese]

Skies of Arcadia

It's a strategy RPG, it has an awesome story with twists, and you get to battle both man to man and ship to ship/giant monster and explore EVERYTHING. Even fight underwater sea monsters when you retrieve the ship that feel from the moon. There isn't anything not to like about it for me.

It's just fucking awesome. My only problem is that it made me expect much more from modern rpgs.

Just like

Arc the lad: Twilight of the spirits

Yea, this game had some mechanics issues, and weird bs like not being able to get items from battles unless you picked them up during the fight. BUT THE STORY. It was so mind numbingly awesome that all of those little issues were disregarded.

The music in both is great as well.

[otana_uk]

The Ryu/Ren relationship was one of the bestest things I've ever seen in a video game.

And goddamn a couple of weeks ago I had to choose between Grandia II and SoA and I choose the former. Didn't realise you were a fan of SoA Necro. Hopefully I'll get to play it sometime

[Vejetto]

My picks for the decade would be Skies of Arcadia, Grandia II, FFXI, Rogue Galaxy and Mass Effect. If I were to pick one of these five I'd pick Skies. The game is simply put pure light hearted fun. Which let us all be honest is something that is very very much lacking in the rpg genre lately. Seems the average title is more driven by anti-heroes and revenge than simple fun.

I'd ask for a sequel but I no longer have any faith in Segas ability to make one of quality. Rogue Galaxy is probably the closest I will ever see to what I want from a Skies sequel.

[IronMongeR]

Fallout 3

Maybe I pick this because it is still quite fresh in my mind as opposed to something I played 10 years ago. Regardless, it is an epic experience, and I don't think any game (barring Oblivion) has taken over my life in the same way Fallout 3 did. Ok the original 'ending' was a pain in the ass - not being able to play on after the main story. But even before that was fixed, it was possible to enjoy everything the game had to offer, easily 100 hours of play.

There were a few annoying bugs here and there, and random game crashes, which although common on the bloody Xbox 360, was still a pain in the asshole. But there was sooooo much goodness, so many places to visit, so many quests to do, such an awesome setting, such a satisfying feeling when you decapitate a bandit with a shotgun, that I could easily rank Fallout 3 in my top 5 games OF ALL TIME.

[Chakan]

WARNING: I TALK ABOUT NOTHING BUT RPGS IN THIS POST!

Wow, are we all going to say Skies of Arcadia was one of the highlights of the decade?

Was talking to Necro about it the other night and it kind of pissed me off how the game was treated when it was released. Everyone was poo-pooing on random battles in RPGs, even when there were very few examples of RPGs without said feature. I can think of the Lunar remakes on PS1 right off the top of my head. But everyone was saying the game was complete shit just because it featured random battles, even though it was an extremely common feature of most RPGs at the time. So why was SOA getting punished for an industry standard?

I fell in love with Skies right away because it's characters weren't forced to be angsty, amnesiac jerkoffs. It's world was bright and gorgeous. I loved recruiting people, hunting for treasure, the ship to ship battles, and OMFG SKIPPING BATTLE ANIMATIONS BY PRESSING START!!!! MOAR GAMES NEED TO DO THIS MOAR OFTEN! SERIOUSLY! I could go on about Skies for hours, smiling as I suddenly remember more about the game that I loved. I am setting a goal for myself to play through the game again this year. It's been way too long.

Grandia II was also pretty sweet.

I will miss FFXI, I still do. It's not necessarily just the whole ole' "addicted to an MMO" thing, it's more than that. SE put a lot of care into that dated piece of shit. There's tons you can do in the game that you can't in all of the WOW cookie cutter MMOs available now. The best part? The majority of the players seemed to be my age and have a sense of humor. It was always easy to make new friends and entertain yourself for the evening. I honestly think FFXI helped me sober up and stop drinking as much, because I always had some goal to chase.

Rogue Galaxy! I started it up and got distracted by life. It seems really cool and I'll definitely have to go back.

I just remembered the Shadow Hearts games, since we're talking about RPGs right now. Did anyone else try these out? The character designs and the setting were pretty different for the time. The ring system was a nice break from the usual X-button bash.

Then there's the Shin Megami Tensei games, or "Pokemon with friggin' demons" as I always describe it to people. I thought Pokemon was an "ok" game and never got into it. I fuckin' ate up SMT: Nocturne when it came out. I never did finish it and think I've restarted the game twice, putting ~20 hours into it each time. Later, I would get both Devil Summoner games release in the US and Devil Survivor on the DS. Really fun games for people who get into dark themes. Save the world or conquer it?!?

....

I've made it this far down my post without mentioning Nippon Ichi? For shame! In 2004, I played Disgaea and La Pucelle Tactics, but not in that order. I loved them both dearly, but for slightly different reasons. Disgaea was fun for it's over-the-top, ridiculous heights of leveling. LPT had a decent story, some interesting stealth maps (in a SRPG?), and good lord, look at the main character's chest size! That's official artwork, too, son. It really didn't matter that much to me, but I like to, you know, use commas; and it gave me a great excuse.

Later on, I would get Phantom Brave when it came out and I think I was one of the few people that enjoyed it. The title system, characters-as-utilities, endearing story, and many other things added up to an experience I enjoyed. I think I spent more time post-game with Phantom Brave than any other Nippon Ichi game.

I then got Disgaea 2, loved it more than the original, and then Nippon Ichi sold me out for the next generation, publishing for consoles and handhelds I don't really plan on ever getting (PS3, PSP); because I'm out of room!!!

I never got Makai Kingdom. It looked interesting when it came out, but at that point, I was done with the exact same gameplay the majority of their games feature.


I enjoyed Xenosaga overall, being a huge Xenogears fan going in. I'm still working on getting the one game in the trilogy I don't have before continuing with the second game. I didn't reach the same height of appreciation I did for the original Xenogears with it, though.


I thought Dragon Warrior VII was an alright game, though I didn't discover it until late 2003. It was pretty dated when it came out, and played quite similar to the much older games we got here in the States back in the early 90s. However, if you were an RPG fan like me back in those starving days, you were a Dragon Warrior fan. You'll feel right at home, and very intimidated by this epically long ass game. Wow.

Lost Odyssey was a good representative of the JRPG on the 360, which is severely lacking in such games. I think the little stories you can unlock are a great touch, but good lord, do they swallow up your time fast. I'd start reading a story, and about 3-4 pages in, start wondering how long it was. I enjoyed reading them, but for fuck's sake! You had no idea how long you'd end up spending just to finish up a completely unrequired side story. Still, they were fairly well written for a video game.

I think I'll cut it here. I'd hate to click post and lose 15-20 mins worth of thinking/typing. Next post: not as many RPGs. I pwomith.

[Necrocheese]

I'd ask for a sequel but I no longer have any faith in Segas ability to make one of quality. Rogue Galaxy is probably the closest I will ever see to what I want from a Skies sequel.

I saw Rogue Galaxy a few times in stores but was always sketchy on wether it was a cheap rip off or a legit, cool game done in a similar format. It was for the ps2 right? I'll probably have to look at it in more detail now. If you don't mind make a brief overview of the stuff you can do in it, is it turn or action based?

Yes otana, huge SoA fan. I even checked to make sure it was actually released this decade. XD

[Vejetto]

Rogue Galaxy is action based. Combat occurs via random battles but once in a battle you get to run around the field, jump and attack as you see fit. You have an action bar that depletes as you do actions that will than refill as you take a defensive stance or block. Unlike most rpgs the game lets you take the role of any particular party member in your group which is nice if you prefer the attacking style of a different character. You can order your team mates on your own or let the AI do it. The AI is not bad.... but you will hear them yell out "Jaster!" a lot when they want to verify a command. It has a fairly unique weapon upgrading system where you level specific weapons and than can fuse them together to make newer super weapons. The item system is a game in it's own right to be honest.

Similarities between Skies and Rogue Galaxy are the pirate theme and a colorful upbeat world. Rogue Galaxy also has some of the best rpg music on the PS2. I highly recommend this game.

[Necrocheese]

Cool. Action rpgs done right (ie not like the most of the newer Shining Force games, sadly. If anyone know of a good one please let me know.) can be cool.

I'll have to pick it up sometime. I'm assuming you can't use the ship to fight since you didn't list it, but it still sounds good.

[JoshF]

Check out Ys V and VI for the PS2. They were both released in the US I think.

[otana_uk]

OH SHIT IGN ALERT!
IGN's Top 10 Games of the Decade

[Necrocheese]

What a surprise, the vast majority were 1st person shooters.

[Chakan]

Well, we've talked about Bioshock elsewhere. I can't think of any other FPS that was truly notable for me, aside from maybe Portal?

[Necrocheese]

I like the old ones. For instance, I wish I had a computer with windows 95 so I could play more hexen, wolfenstein 3D, etc again.

Wolfenstein 3D was a game where me and my father bonded together, he'd move around and I'd shoot. It was pretty awesome. I did use too much ammo sometimes though.

[JoshF]

Try Serious Sam. It's like an old FPS minus searching for keycards.

Oh and I thought of a good post-2000 game I've actually played: F-Zero GX

I also remember playing SSBM a lot, and that was before I knew you could even do combos in that game.