General RPG Lists: Greatest RPGs

Hi, all!  Before you partake of the fifth, yes that's right this list has been rereleased almost as many times as Skyrim now, version of this rant, let's all huddle up real quick for a little announcement:

I...will be taking 2025 off.

Well, I mean, not ENTIRELY, I guess.  Obviously there's this rant, and I'll be damned if I let an opportunity to showcase more stupid RPG Valentines pass me by, and there'll be an Annual Summary rant for sure.  I might also throw a few others up here and there over the course of this year.  But by and large, I'm gonna take a break from ranting in 2025.

And the reason for that is probably about what you'd think.  After doing this regularly for close to 20 years now, I'm understandably a bit burnt out.  I still like sharing my thoughts with all the Audience Not Founds out there, but coming up with those thoughts is getting harder and harder.  You may have noticed that in the past couple years, only a comparative handful of the rants I've written have been based on RPGs in general or a game that I hadn't played in the last 3 years.  And that was still functional when I had both Shin Megami Tensei 5 and SMT Persona 5 to yap about, as I got a lot of rant mileage out of each of them, but I can't really depend on there to be a game I play each year that happens to stimulate a solid 10-ish rants out of me.  I mean, okay, granted, I'm probably gonna get a good few out of how obscenely awful Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE is, but still.  With my having said most of what I've got to say about the games I've played in the past, I'm fresh out of rant reserves and need some serious time to build up a few as a cushion once more.

I'm also just older, busier, and less able to focus on tasks than I used to be, and writing is thus something I have less time and effort to put into in general.  Frankly, I'm just not gonna be able to keep up my 3-a-month standard at the pace at which I write now.

So anyways...I'm gonna be largely absent for 2025.  The hope is that I'll be building up a nice, robust reserve of rants to keep me afloat when I come back in 2026.  I'm sorry to anyone who might genuinely be disappointed by this, but this is and always has been a hobby, and for me to keep this hobby going any further in any meaningful way, I'm gonna need a good, proper break from it to rev myself back up again.  I hope you'll at least be able to enjoy the new content being added to today's List, and the bits and pieces that do go up this year.  Thanks for reading, both this and in general.

Now, onto the actual damn rant already!



This was a list of 10.  Then 15.  Later 20.  And then 7 years ago, it was made a list of 25.  But the fact is, I'm still playing RPGs, and I'm getting more and more selective about the games I play (in spite of what you might think of the man who voluntarily experienced Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE from start to finish last year), which means more and more truly, spectacularly magnificent titles that I'm adding to my resume all the time.  With a current count of 439 RPGs under my belt, over 100 more than I'd played at time of this rant's last update, even a list of 25 of the greatest seems insufficient now, and a normal jump of just 5 more would only be restoring titles to this list that had been pushed off by newcomers like Disco Elysium and Pyre.  So today, we're expanding the list of the Greatest RPGs of all time to a whopping 35 places!

And even then, this list STILL, in accordance to the laws I set down for myself in its last iteration, reflects significantly less than 10% of all the games I've played from this genre.  In spite of being so long, this collection still very much represents the absolute cream of the crop.

So, logically, that means that even if you don’t see your favorite game here, I hope you won't yell at me. Believe me, I know that there’s an absolute TON of great RPGs that didn’t make the cut. You genuinely have no idea how much I hate that I couldn’t get Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume, Shadowrun: Dragonfall, A Dragon's ReQuest, Horizon: 0 Dawn, and several other games onto this list.  How frustrated I was when I finally admitted to myself that, realistically, there's just never going to be a time when Fallout 1, which is 1 of my absolute favorite RPGs of all time and in no small part defined me as a person, makes it on here.  But it just wasn’t in the cards, no matter how great such titles are. Believe me, I wouldn’t begrudge anyone a spot on their Top 10 or whatever list for, say, Deus Ex 1, or Baldur's Gate 3--it’s just that with all the amazing RPGs I’ve played, even such laudable, excellent works as those can’t quite cut it.

Anyway, I think that's enough yapping and delay.  Without further ado, the 35 greatest RPGs ever created!



35. Shin Megami Tensei: Persona Q1 (Nintendo 3DS)

This is an odd one, particularly to start this list with, because by all rights, SMT Persona Q1 should be way higher on this list, and also, not here at all.  Basically, for something like 3/4ths of the game, Persona Q1 is just a fun, simplistic piece of fanservice-y fluff with the casts of both Persona 3 and 4 bouncing off of each other, interacting with themselves in ways they normally couldn’t (Theo and Elizabeth’s dynamic is damn hilarious), and playing off a couple of likable but largely unremarkable original characters, as they progress through an improved version of an Etrian Odyssey system of dungeons whose connections to one another and to the OC couple are vague and handwave-y enough not to pay too much attention to.  It’s pleasant, but nothing particularly intriguing.

BUT, once you hit the major plot twist revelation at that 75-ish% mark...Persona Q1 becomes an emotionally overwhelming, heartbreaking, impassioned examination of existential fears and the question of what makes a life worth having lived, posing a question so heavy and postulating answers so profound that the experience still lives with me, and likely always will, in ways more significant than even most games on this very list can boast.  I was moved to tears by the tragedy of the truth of Persona Q1, and it wasn’t the last time the game would make me weep--1 of my most fond and embarrassing memories as a gamer will always be that I finished playing this game during a long wait at a car dealership as my vehicle was having some work done.  I was sitting there, in the waiting room--in a corner faced away from the rest of the room, admittedly and thankfully--as tears streamed down my face while the ending played out and taught me a poignant lesson about the human condition.  Seriously.  Just...imagine walking into a dealership, all set and ready to lease a brand new Toyondalet 20Teen Speedster Supreme Plus Deluxe, and the first thing you see as you happen to glance to your left is some dumpy 30-something-year-old sitting in the corner while his airbags are replaced, lacrimating uncontrollably as he snuffles and snorts ugly-cry snot back up his nostrils while staring down at the screen of the same game system on which your little brother plays Mario Kart.  It's wildly amusing to me, in retrospect.

But anyway, that all makes Shin Megami Tensei: Persona Q1 a title that’s baffling to place here.  Going strictly by the quality of its best quarter, and how well it makes meaning and sense of what led up to that moment, SMTPQ1 should probably be much further into this list, up there with absolute RPG titans like Omori and Final Fantasy 7 (and as a side note, what an amazing thing it says about the SMT series and its Persona subseries that this would still not make Persona Q1 the best the series has to offer?).  But then again, no matter how excellent its last quarter, a game that’s 3/4ths enjoyable but largely immaterial fluff probably shouldn’t be here at all!

Well, the Honorable Mentions are all tied up with specialty cases like DLCs and fan mods and whatnot, so I can’t take the coward’s way out and just throw this game down there.  So I guess the best I can do is give Persona Q1 a permanent spot on this list as an opener, because it’s just too extraordinarily wonderful not to be here, and yet too cluttered with filler to be above any other, inarguably deserving title.


34. Final Fantasy 10 (Playstation 2)

FF10 has its share of detractors, but it’s overall quite well-loved, and for damned good reason.  This treasure of the genre boasts an emotionally powerful and intelligent story packed with themes and perspectives on religion, sacrifice, love, and purpose, several excellently dynamic characters, and some of the most moving scenes in any RPG.  Both overtly and subtly, Final Fantasy 10 is enjoyable, touching, and deeply meaningful.


33. Children of Zodiarcs (Personal Computer)

Children of Zodiarcs is a hell of a heavy ride, and it’s not shy about punching you in the heart, again and again, as it tells its story of extreme class divides, the nature and toxicity of hatred, and the manner in which the pains we inflict upon the rest of the world perpetuate themselves unto innocents, again and again, until finally they come back to destroy us, as well.  There’s a lot of wisdom and inspiration to take from Children of Zodiarcs, if you can weather the frank brutality of the world that it showcases and endure the heartbreak it will inflict upon you over the course of its harshly hopeful narrative.


32. Shadow Hearts 2 (PS2)

Ah, Shadow Hearts 2. The uniquely moody, gloomy, yet over-the-top and amusing atmosphere created with Shadow Hearts 1, which perfectly mixes the reality of Europe and Asia in the first half of the 20th century with mysticism, really hits its stride in this sequel, just in time to accompany an interesting plot whose arcs are surprisingly well-connected, given how clearly each part is defined by its setting and villains. Toss in a truly excellent and unique hero, a solid and diverse cast, a love story that’ll have you bawling like a babe, and some moments that are just plain awesome (a battle between a hell demon and Rasputin aboard a flying battleship? Hell YES), and an all-encompassing sense of quirky humor that works surprisingly well with the dark, serious tone of the game, and you have a real winner.


31. Mother 3 (Game Boy Advance)

The sequel to RPG cult favorite Earthbound (Mother 2) was heavily yearned for and anticipated for many years before Nintendo finally bit the bullet and made it. I think everyone hoped that a sequel would do the original game proud, perhaps even be as good as it, but I doubt many people would have ever imagined Mother 3 could surpass its predecessor. Yet it has, and by a lot. Earthbound was a singularly bizarre adventure, defying description with its quirky humor and presentation--it was like playing a piece of abstract art. Mother 3 manages a complete return of this same unusual and appealing style, but manages to throw a huge curveball on it with a huge injection of emotion into a plot that is jaw-dropping in how poignant it is in spite of (perhaps even because of?) all the quirky humor sown into it. And when you look past the creative nature of the game, you find an equally creative plot, too. Mother 3 will make you laugh aloud, it’ll make you think, and it’ll make you sniffle and get teary-eyed. And it’ll do all of these things in the same 5 minutes.


30. Grandia 1 (Playstation 1)

I don’t know what to say, really. I love Grandia 1. The characters are good, the plot is solid, and this game, above every other RPG I’ve ever played, creates a sensation of exploration and adventure, through its great music, strong attention to cultural and natural diversity in its setting, and the enthusiasm of its protagonist. It has a lot of truly excellent moments, such as Sue’s goodbye, and reaching the top of the End of the World, and many of its small aspects are great, too, like the dinner conversations (which became a delightful signature of the series), and one of the few turn-based RPG battle systems that’s actually kind of fun to play. Grandia 1 has great appeal and will always have a special spot in my heart.


29. Quantum Entanglement (PC)

Large Battleship Studios is probably my first or second favorite game developer, and Quantum Entanglement is, to date, the best example of its works, though all have been marvelous and strong contenders for a spot on this list.  QE is many things--a gripping, tightly orchestrated horror game of both the survival and psychological variety, an engagingly witty comedy thanks to its constant and clever banter and monologue, an interesting character-driven study of existence past the limitations of memory, a subtle work on trauma and living with its lingering hold, and an amazingly compelling love story, both between its active main characters--1 of the best I’ve ever seen in an RPG, it should be noted--and one that transpires in higher planes, across time and reality.  Humor is masterfully used as a counterpoint to the tension and the grief, the concept of love and personal qualities of the self that exist beyond the confines of a single existence are played upon, a romance is told with genuine chemistry which is simultaneously developing and deepening realistically and also somehow already and always fully present...in many ways, Quantum Entanglement is a great example of the hallmarks of LBS’s finest qualities, and in many others, it’s a unique entity unto itself.  But on both counts, it’s truly excellent, and well-recommended.


28. Rakuen (PC)

Rakuen is an earnest, heartfelt game that ties itself to a real-world tragedy while telling its suite of tales about the patients of a hospital and the courses of their lives that brought them there, through the classic analogy of a connected fantasy world both influencing and being influenced by the real world, a la Labyrinth, the Neverending Story, and many others.  It’s a genuinely inspiring story of courage and acceptance in the face of loss, and profoundly moving in its great happinesses and tragedies, all poignantly relatable in their being so anchored in the real world--I daresay that anyone and everyone who plays this game will feel, in its most powerful moments, a sympathy that penetrates deep into their hearts and resonates with griefs and joys they’ve known in their own pasts and presents.  Few games are as emotionally powerful as Rakuen.


27. Pyre (PC)

Pyre is a singularly artistic game that is both signature to the excellence that Supergiant Games is known for, and entirely unlike any of their other titles.  Filled with interesting and well-written characters, it's a great, dignified story of the injustice of corrupt and tyrannical governments and their law, the vital necessity of social revolution, what it is to redeem oneself, loyalty and the heartbreak of farewells, inhumane forms of incarceration, the question of whether a peaceful revolt can succeed (and, indeed, of whether a revolution can truly succeed if it was not peaceful)...all told through an analogy of the unfortunate fact that succeeding at sports is the only way many of the disenfranchised of society can raise themselves in the world.  Yeah, I really would never have expected a sports RPG to be so elegant, intriguing, and artful, but Pyre is a happy surprise.


26. Torment: Tides of Numenera (PC)

There are 2 ways of looking at Torment: Tides of Numenera. Either you can be disappointed that it doesn’t come close to living up to its predecessor, Planescape: Torment...or you can be like me, and recognize that even just being in the same ballpark as Planescape still makes TToN absolutely amazing. The intellectual depth of this title is staggering, daunting, even, a story of purpose and immortality and analysis of the joys and suffering that is the human existence, set against a marvelously intriguing, creative world both wondrous and grotesque, brought to life through countless sidequests and NPCs with more depth than most games’ main characters. It both feels and acts like its predecessor, investigating many of the same ideas and themes, yet in new ways, going in new directions with them, finding new foundations for its concepts that allow for fresh perspectives and conclusions on the same questions and conundrums we thought were reasoned out to completion in Planescape: Torment. This is a truly spectacular work of thought and philosophy.


25. Suikoden 1 (PS1)

Suikoden 1 takes the player through a nation-wide conflict, a civil war of epic proportions that nonetheless never loses sight of the individuals and humanity of the conflict. Good plot, good characters, good ideas, good execution, good themes...this is just a solidly good game in its every aspect.

Note: Steam link put up before the remake's release; I am simply hoping (praying) that this will be a competent remaster which stays strictly true to the source material.


24. Final Fantasy Tactics (PS1)

Ah, FFT. As much or greater a leap in a new direction for the Final Fantasy series as FF7 was, this one looked at the ideas and aspects of medieval times (like most RPGs) and, instead of just throwing a bunch of fantasy cliches together, gave us a game that in many ways realized the nonfiction of medieval Europe--warring countries, vicious slaughter, political intrigue carried out by greedy, power-hungry nobles, and a religious super power that didn't come even close to living up to its supposedly holy, peaceful philosophies (although granted, the church of medieval Europe wasn't quite so bad as to be mistakenly worshiping the Anti-Christ, but still, the core similarity's there). This was a game where the dark, fantastical nature of part of its plot, involving magic stones and hellish demons, actually kinda takes backseat in the player's interest to what would normally be background subplots of political intrigue and backstabbing (metaphorical AND literal).  It's basically everything that Fire Emblem eternally aspires to be.  FFT's plot is terrific, the setting emphasizes it very well, and the cast has several key characters who are very well-created. Its quiet power over the player holds up today as well as it did when it was first released.


23. Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous (PC)

With 1 of the most absolutely, awesomely epic fantasy plots of all time, moved by a great cast of unique, multifaceted, well-written personalities (including some really wonderful romances!) and fearsome, interesting villains and conflicts that just keep ramping up, and underscored by an execution that brings the tabletop gaming experience to life in a single-player video game better than any RPG I’ve seen before (aside from its own predecessor), Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous is already such an excellent fantasy RPG experience that the conclusion of its first chapter alone feels as high-stakes and epic as most other games’ finales.  Compound that with a ton of directions in which you can take the story’s events according to your alignment and the kind of higher being you most want to be, nuanced consequences to your decisions, actions, and words, an incredibly rewarding and awesome secret true ending (even if it is also the most hidden in gaming history; seriously no one will ever get it without a walkthrough), and a cool, ever-present theme of ascension and transcending limits to be more than you thought possible, and you have an absolutely kickass game!


22. Fallout 4 (PC)

Most of the Fallout series is excellent, and to be honest, it’s kind of difficult to choose one game over the other, because their excellence is very uniform. Fallout 4 is an insightful, subtly deep examination into the essence of the United States: its beliefs, its politics, its history, its culture and pop culture, its ideals, and its people...just like Fallout 1, 2, 3, and New Vegas were. It’s the Fallout series’s thing (76 notwithstanding), and each game does it really damn well. The ambient storytelling in Fallout 4 is especially masterful, even for the standards of the series, and with a strong cast, an interesting plot, and a thoughtfully subtle narrative, Fallout 4 is a remarkable RPG, another fine addition to what may be the greatest RPG series out there, and my personal favorite of the franchise.


21. Fallout: New Vegas (PC)

It’s a damn close call between which is greater, but even though I personally like Fallout 4 the best, I have to hand it to Fallout: New Vegas: it’s got a plot whose relevance and heft has more for you to take away from it, and connects every so slightly more strongly to the core principle of the series: exploring and understanding ourselves as a nation (for US citizens, at least; though I daresay there’s enough universality that those playing in other countries can still gain much from this series. Even more than Fallout 4, Fallout: New Vegas has all sorts of hidden themes of, references to, and comments on the USA to find and contemplate, and you know me--I love a game that makes me think. Even on the surface, though, Fallout: New Vegas is a very cool game with a compelling cast and cool story, both open-ended, and linear enough that its plot is straightforward and clear.


20. Fallout 3 (PC)

The best of its series, Fallout 3 does all the same things intellectually as its fellows, and generally just as well, but its setting provides it stronger thematic power (if you’re gonna base a game’s themes around the United States of America’s essence, then you’re naturally gonna get the best and most material if you have it take place in the Washington DC area), and the plot both feels more personal and relevant to the protagonist than all of its peers but Fallout 4, and is generally more epic in its scope, purpose, and ambitions. I also have to say that I find the conflicts and characters and villains of Fallout 3 generally more compelling than Fallout: New Vegas’s and Fallout 4’s were, providing great symbolism and meaning. In addition, I think that Fallout 3 more than any other game in the series makes excellent use of the post-apocalyptic setting. That’s not to say that Fallout: New Vegas, or 4, or 1, or 2, were in any way lacking...it’s simply to say that even in a series filled with such excellent titles, Fallout 3 stands out as a masterpiece.


19. Disgaea 1 (PS2)

If anyone ever tells you that a comedy cannot also be deep and meaningful, there are 3 things you should direct their attention to. The first is Futurama. The second is any game by Large Battleship Studios. And the third is Disgaea 1. Nippon Ichi's most famous offering is also, I think, its best (although I DID really like Makai Kingdom), and concrete proof that a humor RPG can still have depth and great emotion. What starts out (and keeps on being) a very funny adventure of adorably maniacal demons and a ditzy, equally adorable angel evolves into a grand tale of friendship's enduring power, and love's irrepressible, redeeming nature. The inherently goofy air to this game is great for grabbing your attention and keeping it, and it amazingly doesn't interfere whatsoever with the story's poignancy, making this game not only the best Humor RPG I've played, but just plain one of the best RPGs I've played, period.


18. Omori (PC)

Mother 3 is great, this much is undeniable.  Well, Omori is basically Mother 3, if Mother 3 were massively upgraded in its writing and thematic effectiveness, had more involved and developed characters, and didn't shy away from directly, knowledgeably, psychologically addressing the pain, suffering, and terror of loss, repression, trauma, and guilt.  Omori is elegant, thorough, expertly assembled, and highly affecting--when this game wants you to feel as its characters do, you absolutely do, whether that be happy and content, or sad, or devastated, or unnerved, or outright terrified.  Its psychological intensity is gripping, and only all the more powerful thanks to the deliberate juxtaposition of the innocent, happy dream world that paces and foreshadows Omori's heavier content.  Omori is definitely 1 of those RPGs that will always stay with you.


17. Final Fantasy 7 (PS1)

Okay, yeah, okay, yes, I know, okay. Yes. Fine. YES, Final Fantasy 7 is perhaps the most overrated, over-hyped RPG of the most overrated, over-hyped RPG series ever. The sheer number of mindless, utterly tasteless fanboys and fangirls of this game, most of whom idolize Sephiroth while being unable to correctly spell his name, defies imagination--it's like Twilight, except that FF7 doesn't destroy brain cells like getting drunk while deeply inhaling gasoline fumes as you shove a blow torch up your nose.

But just because it's not God's gift to Playstation 1 games doesn't mean it's not still a great game. It has an interesting, involved plot that incorporates a lot of ideas that, at the time, were pretty new and creative (some still are, really), and it also has a pretty good cast of characters to enact the plot, too--sure, the villains are all boring and empty, and Vincent and Yuffie barely have enough characterization between the two of them to qualify as NPCs, but the rest of the cast have at least a fair amount of good development, particularly Tifa and Cloud. Tifa's character has a lot of depth and realism, but in a subtle way that requires some consideration to recognize. Cloud, on the other hand, has his character development right in the spotlight--and it's pretty impressive. Before Cloud, there weren't all that many RPG heroes with real, solid personalities and depth of character, and he seemed to more or less pioneer the idea of an interesting, quality hero who draws a lot of his character from his shortcomings and spiritual inadequacies--we've had plenty of fairly mentally imbalanced heroes since, as well as ones who agonize over the limitations of what they can do and the mistakes they've made in the past, but Cloud was one of the first and best to do stuff like that. Hell, he's still probably the most mentally screwed-up RPG protagonist I've seen who wasn't either a villain himself and/or got proper characterization.

In addition, FF7 sold its atmosphere with its music and setting, creating a world to draw you in far better than most other games, which complemented the plot and brought everything together. Regardless of how many stupid people happen by unfortunate chance to share my opinion, and how hard SquareEnix works to retroactively cheapen this game with every lackluster time-waster sequel/prequel that they foist on us, FF7 will always be a true classic.


16. Mass Effect 1 (PC)

Lemme ask you something: did you ever watch a science-fiction show or movie, or read a science-fiction book, or something like that, and just feel completely entranced by its size, scope, and creativity? You watch/read/whatever it, and you just have this feeling that you've been taken to a place or time that has more or less infinite possibility for adventure, excitement, and general cool new experiences? Like the thing that you're watching/reading/whatevering is just the tip of the iceberg (or maybe Star Destroyer's a better term here), and there's just so much else that can be seen and explored in this sci-fi galaxy, universe, time, or whatever?

It's the feeling I got when I watched the Star Wars trilogy, played the games, and read the books during my youth--just that you could go anywhere in this entire imaginary galaxy, at practically any time in its history, and be caught up in something really cool and interesting. From watching the deathblow to an evil, galaxy-spanning Empire to just reading the random tales of a no-name bounty hunter in that same galaxy, Star Wars has always held my attention and impressed me.*

Well, when I played Mass Effect 1, that feeling swept over me for a second time. The makers of this game invested a tremendous amount of thought and care into this setting, going far beyond most sci-fi media's first offerings by not only inventing species, events, technologies, mysterious stuff, and so on, but going into huge detail on it all, as well. Just about every really cool, unique part of the Mass Effect universe is detailed for you in journal entries, should you care to know more of the imaginative science fiction all around you as you play. The game also captures the awe-inspiring feel and concept of space exploration, to me, better than anything else I've ever encountered. You know how when you were a kid, you went through a phase (or entered one and never got out of it) where you were really into real-world space exploration? Just feeling a sense of excitement and awe at the idea of exploring the infinite cosmos? Well, maybe you did and maybe you didn't, but I did, and when the map screen comes up in ME1 and begins playing that calming, yet somehow exciting music of exploration, I feel like a little kid again, looking at all these planets and stars with detailed descriptions like you'd find in an astronomy museum exhibit.

Of course, it's not just the atmosphere of the game that makes it so great. It's got about as cool a sci-fi plot as I've ever seen outside a book by Asimov, the characters are very good, the villains are decent (although Saren was a lot more interesting before I read the ME1 prequel book, honestly...but I guess that's neither here nor there), the presentation is good all around, and everything's pretty darned epic. I really love this game.


15. Shin Megami Tensei 1 + 2 (Super Nintendo Entertainment System)

These games really have to be counted as 2 parts of a whole.  They tell the same overall story in 2 parts, they have the same premise, and they're both brilliant in the same ways.

These games, more than even Earthbound, lends credence to my belief that an RPG's true worth is independent from graphics and gameplay, relying only upon its plot, characters, and any other writing-related aspects. SMT1 + 2 are annoying to play and ugly to look at, with crude 1st-Person dungeons almost no more advanced than those of Phantasy Star 1 on the Sega Master System, and with an annoying level of difficulty that inspires far more frustration than sense of challenge.

But man, the plot of these games? The general ideas? Magnificent. I stand firm in my believe that SMT1 and 2 are some of the most brilliant RPGs I've come across, closer to classic literature than they are to a Final Fantasy or other game of their genre. I did a rant on this before, so I'll be brief--SMT1 brings you to, through, and past apocalypse on Earth, to a world of warring deities and mythological creatures of every culture's legends, where you choose whether to ally yourself with God, Lucifer, or to deny both and stand for humanity alone. The game puts forth insightful ideas and philosophies on Christianity, humanity as a whole, belief, and logic vs. emotion, all while featuring a myriad group of mythological individuals that you can fight against or ally with, depending on whether you agree with the ideals of the game's take on God or Lucifer, or disagree with them entirely. Like many truly great works (heck, like most truly great works on the same subject of Christian mythology), this title is a chore to get through, but very worthwhile and intelligent.

SMT2 does pretty much everything SMT1 does, often better, while improving the character development (which was admittedly slight in the first game) and raising the stakes--while the first game's events decided whether the forces of God, Humanity, or Lucifer gained authority over the last nation of humanity, this game determines for good whether the future of the world will be based upon chaotic emotion, lawful divinity, or neutral self-determination, and you actually meet the two individuals calling each side's shots this time. There's really nothing more to say here; SMT2 is simply a logical step up in quality and scope from the already impressive SMT1, and together, both games represent incredible creativity, philosophical insight, and writing in general.


14. Tales of Berseria (PC)

This, my friends, is why the Tales of series has been chugging along these past 20+ years: so that it could, one day, put aside its mediocre Zestirias and Eternias, its subpar Phantasias and Destinies, and its outright crappy Symphonias and Vesperias, and produce something truly spectacular. Tales of Berseria is a game that flies in the face of its own genre, having the ambition to argue that these negative feelings of humanity that are so decried in countless RPGs are, in fact, not only an intrinsic part of what makes us human, but also valuable. And it has the audacity to argue that idea excellently, through an engaging story filled with poignant, personal twists and which elegantly circles back again and again to 1 family's tragedy, as well as a villain great for the cloak of salvation that he dons, a memorable and excellently-crafted cast that embody the "vices" of humanity in sympathetic and likable ways, and a unique, amazing protagonist whose tragedy, triumphs, hatred, nurturing nature, and passion bring her story to life as no one else possibly could. Tales of Berseria is thoughtful, complex, and emotionally gripping, and it takes all the best storytelling conventions of its franchise while avoiding the pitfalls that so many of its predecessors suffered. Superlative stuff, all around.


13. Knights of the Old Republic 2 (PC)

Yeah, it may be buggy as hell, and yes, it may seem like it's only 90% complete (because it basically is)...but Knights of the Old Republic 2 still manages to be spectacular. The game's great characters and plot not only entertain and have deep messages of humanity to convey, but also tie in very strongly to the source material, using the old and giving new perspectives on it (without just retelling a story you've already seen/read; I hate it when outside-media RPGs do that). KotOR2 has oodles of exquisite intellectual and philosophical content to tickle your brain with, particularly through the mouth of its main villain, and stays entertaining to the end, while never losing its origins' themes, settings, and atmosphere. This game may be the greatest expression of the soul of Star Wars ever made...and what an involving, nuanced soul it turns out to be.

And it only gets better with the restored content mod!


12. Nier: Automata (PC)

Nier: Automata is 1 of the most philosophical games ever created. It's a good story on its surface level, to be sure, creative, complex, and exciting, with memorable characters and singular aesthetics...but where it really shines is in its smart, thoughtful approach to the questions, concepts, and conflicts of existentialism. It builds upon the great thinkers of the past who have grappled with this subject, referencing, considering, and even at times arguing with the words of famed philosophers like Nietzsche, Marx, and Jean-Paul Sartre, to name only a few...but as it does this, Nier: Automata also uses the mechanics and audience's preconceptions of the video game, a new medium of expression that no previous philosopher has had a chance to utilize, to illustrate its points on existentialism as they never have been before, and even to forge ahead and discover new ground on the matter. Yoko Taro may very well be the next name that we recognize and add to the list of great philosophers who have explored the meaning of human existence, and Nier: Automata is the flagship work that will put him there.


11. Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 (PS2)

Persona 3 is a refreshingly different, incredibly complex and layered story taking place in modern day Japan, all the while using the ideas and details of the Tarot Cards to provide the themes, events, and insights of the game's plot and characters. The main story is great, and the sidequest stories, known as Social Links, are even better. What I love about this game the most, though, and what really elevates it to this list, is how deep it really is when you start to look at its every aspect from the Tarot angle--there's always another level of meaning to the game's events, characters, ideas, and even gameplay to be found that goes back to connecting with the themes and insights of the Tarot deck, letting them provide ideas and meaning to the game and having the game's interpretation and employment of the cards in turn analyze and thoughtfully dissect the nature of Tarot cards and readings with the same level of depth and intelligence that other SMT titles do with more "mainstream" forms of spiritual belief. All that, AND it's still a beautiful, excellent story with some fantastic characters even at its surface level.


10. Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 5 (Nintendo Switch)

SMT Persona 5 is an engaging, fun, earnest, passionate game with great ambitions, sharp writing, memorable characters with marvelous chemistry, realistically loathsome villains, and a creative, well-plotted, and excellent story.  The tale it tells is a rich and rewarding one, which represents the well-meaning rebellion of the adolescent beautifully, and contains 1 of the best-constructed, most awesome pivotal moments I’ve seen in the genre.

More than that, Persona 5 is a compelling, direct sounding of the alarm against the failings of Japan’s society and the unhealthy attitudes of its culture, as it makes an adamant, uncompromising defense for those who are different from the norm and utters a harsh indictment of collectivism.  And yet even in the midst of its harshest rebuke against its nation’s societal ills, the game never errs from a clear and present celebration of Tokyo and its people--at every moment it’s clear that Persona 5 is no scornful condemnation, but a hopeful call to arms to a nation and people that it loves and knows can do better for themselves.

And frankly, from children with unaddressed counseling needs to the short attention span for serious issues that social media has created, and from sexual predators whose misconduct is overlooked because they’re professionally successful to CEOs who ruin the lives of countless human beings in the pursuit of their own insatiable greed, there’s more than enough crossover of social injustices and real-world villains between Japan and western countries that Persona 5 can and should be as inspiring a tale of social revolution and justice for we overseas audiences, too!

It’s flashy, it’s fun, it’s thematic and showy about it, and it’s intelligent and passionate in equal measure.  Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 5 is a fantastic RPG!


9. Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga 1 + 2 (PS2)

As with SMT1 + 2, I honestly cannot split these two games apart to give them credit; to take either game for itself only and not count its virtues in comparison to its sequel or predecessor is to deny the game praise it deserves. SMTDDS1 + 2 share a single plot that uses concepts of Hinduism and Buddhism for its foundation, taking the religions' ideas, beliefs, and mythology and using them to tell a story that is not only a very good adventure in its own right, but is an extremely creative and brilliantly insightful look into the Buddhism and Hinduism’s tenets. These are games that you can contemplate and debate for hours at a time, over and over again for as long as you like. I think the way that SMTDDS1 + 2's creators crafted their plot and characters to work with, analyze, espouse and harmonize the fascinating concepts of Hindu and Buddhist religious thought can honestly only be called genius, easily comparable to the way the games above, Shin Megami Tensei 1 + 2, do with Christianity. But while SMTDDS1 + 2's genius and intelligence are equal to SMT1 + 2's, the story this duo tells is, to me, more moving and inspiring, and its cast more interesting in their own right, so it's Digital Devil Saga that edges the original pair out, albeit just barely.


8. Undertale (PC)

Undertale is a magnificent combination of heartwarming joy, great humor, Earthbound-styled surreal fun, sharp deconstruction and critique of RPGs and their players, poignant emotion, creeping terror, a study of consequences, and insight into the dangers of combining godhood and boredom. With terrific characters you'll love, heartwarming scenes that'll put a tear in your eyes, creativity up the wazoo, and a unique and terrifying villain, Undertale is definitely 1 of the greatest games I've ever played. Anyone who scoffs at the idea that crowdfunded Indie RPGs can have comparable quality to what the rest of the gaming industry can produce has clearly never experienced Undertale.


7. Final Fantasy 9 (PS1)

FF9, the best game of the RPG genre's poster series. A neat and imaginative plot combines with a great cast of deep and memorable characters to deliver an experience both new and old to any fan of the series--meant to be a nostalgic throw-back to the earlier games in the series, yet holding much of the play style and general plot progression of the (then) newer games, as well. Funny thing is, the game meant to serve as a reminder, a remix of sorts, turned out to be so well-constructed and well-written that it stands on its own better than the rest of the series does.


6. Wild Arms 3 (PS2)

Wild Arms 3. What is there to say, but that it is simply magnificent? You get a terrific protagonist by any counts who completely reworks RPG protagonist gender differences, a rival who is actually the most appealing character in the game instead of the least (and who actually has decent character depth, too!), a supporting cast that's solidly appealing and never just forgotten and pushed aside for the main people to get more development time, a long and really imaginative plot, an actual attempt by the Wild Arms series to deliver on their promise of a Wild West-themed setting (for the first and still last time!), several really interesting villains, and a never-ending sense of purpose, direction, and effort with the game's progression--no one ever just stops being developed. You get gripping characters, particularly in the case of the protagonist, to the end. I fucking LOVE Wild Arms 3, and can't recommend it enough.


5. Chrono Trigger (SNES) 

For the better part of a decade, it was unthinkable to me that CT would ever be anything less than the best RPG ever made. While it was, eventually, ousted from the top spot beyond all expectations, this game remains, in my opinion, the ultimate classic RPG, a truly perfect expression of originality and fun. If you want a great set of characters that you'll remember forever having an exciting and creative adventure involving a fairly simple, adequately well-reasoned time-travel plot**, or just the best RPG the older generation of games has to offer, Chrono Trigger is it.

Note: I'm not linking to the Steam version.  Play it on an SNES emulator and watch the in-story cutscenes on Youtube.  Any version that ties itself in even the mildest way to the embarrassing disaster that is Chrono Cross should be avoided.


4. Suikoden 2 (PS1)

There are a few games from the PS1 whose copies can be sold for over $100, sometimes over $200--or, if you’re looking for an unopened copy, even 500 fucking dollars on Amazon. Suikoden 2, though, is the only one that I can say, with no personal doubt whatever, is 100% worth that price.*** This game's superb characters and epic plot pull at your emotions, give you cause to think and contemplate, and, really, probably leave you at the end a better, more understanding person than you were at its beginning. Suikoden 2 is the kind of game where if you’re not shedding tears multiple times over its course, you might just have to get someone to box you up and send you in for repairs, because your Human Imitation Program is clearly malfunctioning.

Note: Steam link put up before the remake's release; I am simply hoping (praying) that this will be a competent remaster which stays strictly true to the source material.


3. Planescape: Torment (PC)

To play Planescape: Torment is to be amazed. There were times in this game where the masterful writing just left me stunned. And I mean that. Stunned as in sitting in my chair, staring at the screen, unmoving, utterly blown away by what I had just read, seen, contemplated, felt. This plot-heavy RPG wonder is insightful, creative, clever, entertaining, and moving, using the cool, expansive setting of the Dungeons and Dragons planes (and you KNOW you've got a cool game when a demonic war that spans across a twisted rope of connected realities for all time is just the background to the game's focus) to tell a story of a man that can't die, and his search for answers and identity through a complex world of truth and lies, magic and technology, reality and the formless, examining the essence of mortality, the power of torment, and asking the question infamous of this game: What can change the nature of a man? Well, Planescape: Torment is so amazing and engrossing, that you may very well find that your answer to that question is "This game."


2. Disco Elysium (PC)

To even describe Disco Elysium is a daunting task.  I mean, okay, surface-level, it's easy: it's a 70s cop show RPG in which an amnesiac detective solves a murder mystery.  But what Disco Elysium actually is, is a ferociously creative work of hauntingly insightful, beautiful, and gripping philosophy and prose that speaks of the nature of beautiful impermanence, a treatise on the past and the ways both grandiose and subtle that it completely overtakes our present when we least expect it, and an insightful examination and tribute to the concept of failure.  Every facet of its lore and interactions are nuanced and heavy, its every NPC better characterized and more human than most RPG main cast members.  The writing of this tale of humanity's hope and entropy, is both artful and excellent to an almost unparalleled degree on every level.  If you had but 1 work to put forth as a depiction of what it is to be human, what human culture and society and history and individualism and existence is all about, I think you could be very confident in choosing Disco Elysium to be your representative.


1. Grandia 2 (PS2)

Grandia 2, to me, is to the next generation of RPGs what Chrono Trigger was to the older one. The game has an involving plot that goes from average to seriously interesting quickly but subtly, sneaking up on you with its quality and several really interesting, creative plot twists that you honestly will not see coming. It also has one of the greatest RPG casts ever assembled--not a single member of Grandia 2 is bland or badly-developed, each of them has a lot of characterization to go through, and most of them redefine their character archetype to be something new, original, and deep. Grandia 2 is not just an exceptionally fine game, it's also one that reminds you of the power of subtle creativity--so many aspects of this game's plot and characters are the kind of stuff you see in all kinds of other games, shows, animes, etc; yet Grandia 2 takes each one's cliched foundation and builds something new, different, and excellent with it that both interests you and refreshes your interest in the old cliches and what can still be done with them. It is, ultimately, the epitome of the best of the classic JRPG, and the ultimate specimen of the bread-and-butter RPG that defines this genre.  Give this game a chance, and you'll love it to pieces. I don't know if I'll ever encounter a better game than this one, but if I don't, I can be well-satisfied with what I've got.


Honorable Mention 1: Mass Effect 3, with MEHEM or AHEM Installed (PC)

If not for the ending, Mass Effect 3 would have been on the main list above, as it is the greatest entry in the amazing trilogy, even outclassing the original Mass Effect! Full of unparalleled emotion, a terrific cast, an engaging plot, poignant and epic moments, and a ton of really interesting ideas, Mass Effect 3 is a masterpiece...except that it ends so unimaginably badly, as I have noted countless times before, that it actually physically sickens me to think about. You never know just how horrible an ending can be, just how much it can damage your happiness and the quality of an entire series, until you play Mass Effect 3.

However, with the Mass Effect Happy Ending Mod installed, you can play Mass Effect 3 with the confidence of knowing that you're headed for a well-made, appropriate, strong ending to the series. I've done a rant on this mod's virtues, but suffice to say, it has restored ME3 to its rightful place of excellence and now I can actually put it on this list. Since it requires outside intervention to correct it and make it a real Mass Effect, I'll keep ME3 as an Honorable Mention, instead of giving it an actual place on the list, but it sure as hell is never losing its spot here. And if you're interested, I'd say Mass Effect 3 with MEHEM would qualify for 10th place here, right between Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 5 and SMT Digital Devil Saga.


Honorable Mention 2: Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer Expansion (PC)

On its own, Neverwinter Nights 2 is no more than passable, an acceptable but largely unremarkable Dungeons and Dragons venture that ranks somewhere between the original, bland Neverwinter Nights 1, and the moderately okay Baldur’s Gate 1. I couldn’t figure out, playing through it, why everyone praised it so damn much.

Then I finished the main campaign and moved onto its sequel-expansion, Mask of the Betrayer.

You know how I have this perpetual hard-on for Chris Avellone’s works? Hell, 4 RPGs with which he’s had significant involvement occupy spots in this rant already. Except that it’s now 5, because the Mask of the Betrayer expansion for Neverwinter Nights 2 is goddamn fucking incredible. Deep, meaningful, insightful, intensely creative, Mask of the Betrayer is the reason to play Neverwinter Nights 2, make no mistake. This expansion is more fiercely thoughtful and intelligent than most of the RPGs I mention above, approaching grand ideas and concepts of humanity and our connection to one another with the same level of excellence and care that you see in Knights of the Old Republic 2, and even Planescape: Torment. It also has a great cast to help bring its weighty thoughts and themes to life.

Mask of the Betrayer isn’t a game in its own right (and it requires you to have played the lengthy, somewhat humdrum main campaign for you to appreciate it to its fullest), so it doesn’t exactly qualify for a space on the main list itself. Nonetheless, it is far too excellent not to be mentioned here in some capacity, so I’m giving it an Honorable Mention. And if you’re interested, I would say that, if I were to count this as its own game and put it on the list proper, Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer would qualify for the 14th place here, between Knights of the Old Republic 2 and Nier: Automata.


Honorable Mention 3: Shadowrun: Hong Kong: Calfree in Chains Mod (PC)

With these honorable mentions, we've given applause to an RPG that's amazing just so long as you mod out its 1 self-destructive moment, and an expansion that is by itself the entire reason to own its game and an adventure of nearly unparalleled intellectual virtue...let's do 1 final Greatest RPG Honorable Mention, then, for 1 final category that isn't quite right in the official list, but is too good not to pay homage to within this rant: fan-created campaign mods.

The Calfree Trilogy mods for the Shadowrun games as a whole are utterly amazing, and are arguably the best part of owning the PC Shadowrun games. Of the Calfree Trilogy, though, the final game in the series, Calfree in Chains, is the best. I did a whole rant on the trilogy that covers most of my points here, so let me just summarize: if you're a huge Shadowrun fan who wants to see more of the universe's history explored, enjoying the classic Shadowrun thrills of runs, heists, and socio-political commentary, then you NEED to play this mod. But if you're just a gamer who wants to play a story of great emotional depth, high quality of substance, with a great and memorable cast you can meaningfully engage with and shape, gut-wrenching and unexpected twists, beautiful romance, and masterful narrative style that adeptly uses themes and foreshadowing, then you NEED to play this mod. It's just a truly excellent product overall, and if it were on this list, it would occupy the 27th spot, between Pyre and Torment: Tides of Numenera.



...I swear one of these days I'm gonna have a small list rant that is faster to write than a long regular rant. It's gonna happen. Really.













* Er, most of the time. The prequels were garbage, and the animated stuff that went with them was at best so-so. But most everything else is good!


** Sure, there are some fair paradoxes, but, y'know, not much that doesn't come up with any other time-travel story. And frankly, RPG-wise, CT's about as good a time-travel plot as you're gonna get--most, I've noticed, are either silly and pointless (Dark Cloud 2, Final Fantasy 8, Robotrek), have the time travel stuff only be plot twists rather than serious parts of the story (Dark Cloud 1, Kingdom Hearts 2, Rogue Galaxy), or they strand the cast in the past for at least 3/4ths of the game so that the time travel aspect doesn't even seem to be present (Star Ocean 1, Tales of Phantasia). Chrono Trigger's one of the few who do a good job with it in a major way.


*** Not that you shouldn't seek out a means to pay substantially less to play it, if possible. I'm just saying that if the only option were to pay that much for it, it'd be 1 of the few games actually worth it.

Annual Summary 2024

I tried, okay?

I tried really, really hard this year to bring about a return to the golden days when I’d be crushing well over 20 RPGs each year.  I gave it my all, dammit!  But all my best efforts could manage in 2024 was a mere 15:



A Dragon’s ReQuest
Baldur’s Gate 3
Child of Light
Cris Tales
CrossCode
Dragon Quest 1
Mr. Saitou
Odessa
Pokemon Generation 9
Shadows Over Loathing
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 5
Smoke and Sacrifice
Super Lesbian Animal RPG
Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE
Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion



I mean, it’s better than the last few years, I suppose, but it still falls really short of what I wanted to accomplish this year.  Damn Baldur’s Gate 3 being so long it took me actual MONTHS to finish!  Seriously, I was actually pretty much on schedule until August, and then I decided to stop putting it off and conquer the most famous and lauded RPG of the last 5 years, and...yeah, here I am, in the middle of November as I write this, only having JUST finished the damn thing.  It was a good run, don’t get me wrong, but goddamn the size of that game!

Worst thing is, I’m pretty sure I’m not even gonna get all that much rant mileage out of it.  At least with other recent free-time Galactuses like Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous and SMT Persona 5, I got a decent handful of rants out of them (especially the latter; are you guys completely sick of me talking about Persona 5 yet?), but I think I really only have a single rant idea for BG3, and it’s gonna be on something everyone already complains about anyway.  Ah, well.

Anyway, Baldur’s Gate 3 might have devoured a truly outrageous amount of my time, and the other games on that list up there certainly consumed their own share (or more than their share; I think we should get rid of the mirror test and instead judge the intelligence of a life form by how quickly they abandon a playthrough of Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE), but there was certainly plenty of other stuff I did this year, too.  And because I just can’t write one of these Annual Summary rants without making that fact your problem, here’s what else I got up to this year!


Anime: I actually watched some new and current anime this year.  Usually I’m years behind on practically every piece of media I consume, but this year I feel remarkably contemporary!  Of them, the most widely known is Dungeon Meshi, which I liked and especially appreciated for its underlying messages about self-care and respecting ecosystems.  I even more enjoyed Tis Time for Torture, Princess, which is way, way more of a fun and feel-good title than you’d think a story about the forces of hell torturing a woman would be.  And I also checked out I’m in Love With the Villainess, because, if it hasn’t become apparent at some point in the past 20 years, I’m an incurable yuri romantic, and it was...likable?  Mostly?  I mean, I have some definite issues with it, mostly regarding the way that the protagonist woos the girl she’s into, because it’s dipping way too deeply into established and terrible tropes of anime and sitcoms that are basically just sexual harassment.  But at the same time, the characters are likable, the foundations the show’s laying for the romances do seem otherwise genuine, and the story and world are interesting and have unexpected depth and twists for what seems like a simplistic premise.  There are also moments in the show of frankness about the state of Japan’s perceptions of same-sex relationships that cut through decades of intentionally damaging cutesy yuri tropes that delegitimize female homosexuality, and I greatly respect these moments.  So yeah, it holds itself back at times in frustratingly classic and problematic ways, but I do like I’m in Love With the Villainess, and hope it gets to continue in a second season.

But not as much as I hope Tis Time for Torture, Princess gets renewed.  That’s still the winner for me of this year’s new animes.

...Oh, yeah, I did actually watch 1 other brand new anime this year.  And you know what?  I’m not gonna pretend otherwise or make excuses: I actually, sincerely liked Gushing Over Magical Girls.  Call me degenerate or worse, but I’m standing by this show, even if it is basically porn that happens to skirt around the definition as such by only strict technicalities.  Underneath all the gratuitousness and indulgence, there’s a story about embracing one’s sexuality and encouraging others to be similarly true to themselves that I think is not only compelling, but genuinely healthy.  I’m definitely not into all of its facets (some cases’ potential issues of consent are only barely and retroactively dodged, and I’m really not thrilled with Alice’s presence), but...ultimately, the show seems to be as much about frankly and earnestly encouraging its audience not to suppress or hate themselves over sexuality, and reassuring the watcher of the normalcy of having kinks, as it is about just gratification.  And I can respect that and the need for it, particularly in as repressive a culture as Japan is toward the unusual (the fact that I played Persona 5 earlier this year has probably heightened my ability to appreciate this sort of thing, too).

Then again, I might just be a gooner fumbling for ways to fool himself into some feeling of legitimacy.  Who knows.

Lastly, I rewatched Cowboy Bebop again as I showed it to my dad, and Non Non Biyori again as I showed it to my sister.  Both were pretty much as excellent as I remembered, although NNB seems somehow to only have gotten better with time.  It really is such a lovely, simple, heartfelt work.


Books: I didn’t get as much reading done this year as in the last few, but I did still manage to keep up with it.  This year I revisited an old childhood favorite series with a few installments of The Time Warp Trio (by John Scieszka) that I’d never gotten around to before: Hey Kid, Want to Buy a Bridge, Sam Samurai, and Viking It and Liking It.  Viking It and Liking It was nostalgically entertaining, but I didn’t think Sam Samurai was as enjoyable as I remember The Time Warp Trio usually being, and honestly, Hey Kid, Want to Buy a Bridge was surprisingly subpar.  I wonder if I’ve perhaps simply outgrown 1 of my youth’s diversions?

...Nah, this blog’s existence is pretty strong proof that that’s not possible.

Actually, disappointments from authors who should be sure wins was a bit of a theme for my literary experience in 2024.  Ray Bradbury’s The Toybee Convector collection of short stories was a remarkable letdown; I think there was a total of 2 or maybe 3 offerings in the whole compilation that I found any value in reading at all, and only its namesake especially impressed me.  When Bradbury hits, he nails it, but when the man misses, it’s by a country mile, and it seems like it’s 50-50 on which it’s gonna be.  Relatedly, Ordeal by Innocence by Agatha Christie was meandering, disappointingly uninvolving for the reader, had characters that fell flat, shoved some Since We’re Not Related It’ll Be Okay in there without any need for it, felt needlessly critical and ignorant towards adoption at times, and betrayed a laughably biased perspective toward Nature vs. Nurture.  I mean, there have been some bad Agatha Christie works (most of the time they involve her simping for her own Mary Sue, Miss Marple), but Ordeal by Innocence almost doesn’t even read like she wrote it, rather seeming more often than not to just be your regular subpar mystery story of the same time period.

Still, it wasn’t all disappointment.  Sy Montgomery’s Of Time and Turtles was a solid work, and a reread of Westmark reminded me yet again of just why I love Lloyd Alexander so greatly.  And while I’m not a poetry person by any means, I found Celtic Nan, by John Hopkins, to be quite engrossing and powerful, a telling and very personal glimpse into the life of an educated everyman that’s both intelligent and accessible.  Definitely recommended for any poetry fan, or possibly even for those who don’t care for the stuff, like me.


Non-RPG Video Games: I actually played quite a lot of games besides RPGs this year, which...might account somewhat for my total of RPGs being lower than it should be.  But that’s sort of not my fault!  I thought that Inkulinatie, Itorah, My Big Sister, and To the Moon were all RPGs when I went into them, and it was only partway through each of them that I realized that I really couldn’t count each as such.  I don’t regret playing them, though; Itorah and My Big Sister are decent, To the Moon deserves its strong critical praise, and Inkulinati is stylish and fun.  I also played the new Princess Peach Showtime, because it looked fun, and it most certainly was.

My sister also had me play Broken Age, which was very clever, inventive, and neat, a great example of the classic point-and-click adventure like Full Throttle and Monkey Island, complete with their requisite personality and offbeat humor.  Had an awesome plot twist, too; I genuinely was floored by it.  Finally, I replayed Slay the Princess again as I showed it to my sister, which was a great experience, because Slay the Princess is, as I noted last year, just an absolutely brilliant, inspiring experience that’ll stick with you probably forever.  


Streaming and the Like: Watch Batman: Caped Crusader.  Like, right now.  Forget this stupid rant, ignore your hobbies and responsibilities, and go watch it.  Batman: Caped Crusader is basically Bruce Timm telling his past self to hold his beer.  I love it and if it doesn’t get as many seasons as Batman: The Animated Series did, it’ll be a damn crime.

Actually, this was a fantastic year for superhero cartoons on several points, not just for Batman.  Over on the other side of DC, My Adventures With Superman might actually be the best Superman cartoon created--it does a wonderful job with his character and with establishing its own spot in the DC multiverse with its interpretations of classic cast members (this might be my favorite Supergirl) and even some new ones.  It’s artistically simple but pleasing, energetic but not overbearing, it’s got action and drama and reflection in all the right ratios, and maybe most startlingly excellent, Lois Lane is sharing equal billing with Superman as the show’s protagonist--and it’s created a version of Lois that makes this idea work.  I mean, I guess it’s been tried before to at least middling success with the 90s’ Lois and Clark, but My Adventures With Superman manages to create a show just as much about Lois as Superman that doesn’t have to retreat back to the territory of a romantic drama: MAWS is a legitimately engaging, exciting, excellent superhero show, using the setting and cast and concepts to their fullest intended purpose.  And make no mistake, that doesn’t mean the show is at all lacking in the human drama department, either--in fact, this is easily the most believable, engaging, sweet, and compelling depiction of Lois Lane and Superman’s love story I’ve yet seen.  It’s great stuff and so, so pleasing to see, and I’m giddy to see where it goes next.

And goddamn, X-Men ‘97.  Just.  Wow.  Trying to successfully revive and continue something as timelessly and uniquely excellent as X-Men: The Animated Series, a show which also is steeped in the unreasonable rose-tinted light of nostalgia, is normally just outright impossible--something like that was only ever going to happen once, and even if its exact quality could be replicated, surely it still wouldn’t live up to the irrationally inflated expectations of nostalgia.  And yet, somehow, beyond pragmatic expectation and traipsing wildly into the realms of hope and divine intervention, X-Men ‘97 is exactly as purely awesome as it should be.  The show is something akin to a miracle, honestly, and I can’t wait to see Season 2.

Since we’re still talking cartoons, I also saw the second season of The Ghost and Molly McGee this year, which was a lot of fun and shockingly emotional in its conclusion.  Admittedly, pretty much everything involving the Chens was intrusive and subpar--I’d hazard a guess that they’re the result of corporate meddling as some braindead execs decided they couldn’t take any chance of another Owl House non-straight protagonist situation--but as a whole, Season 2 is more of the fun wholesomeness that preceded it.  Hilda’s final season was also great, as one would expect from the quietly artistic work.  And lastly, not all of my superhero cartoons this year came from the traditional DC/Marvel arena--Kid Cosmic is a refreshing, fun, and pleasingly stylized superhero show that, like nearly all their ventures, showcases the ferocious creativity, passion, and talent of both Lauren Faust and Craig McCracken.  In fact, I’m gonna commit some heavy heresy here and now: I think Kid Cosmic is Craig McCracken’s best work to date!

There was also some non-animated stuff I watched this year, too, if you can believe that.  As the CW DC universe always is, DC Legends of Tomorrow continues to be a fun and very guilty pleasure of mine through its second, third, and fourth seasons...although I will say, I think that DCLoT manages to come through in ways that The Flash never could, because, as the show carries on and moves away from its (admittedly kinda cool) first season war with Vandal Savage, it’s better able to embrace the lightheartedness and silliness of its premise of B-squad superheroes doing a Doctor Who thing.  With the limitations that budget and live action impose, and the difficulties of maintaining the same level of stakes and drama over successive seasonal arcs, DC Legends of Tomorrow does far better with going in a more “let’s just have fun with this” direction than The Flash trying to earnestly maintain its gravity and drama.

I also watched the new Fallout show, which was surprisingly great--after the debacle of Fallout 76 and finding out that that smug nitwit Todd Howard had attached himself like a barnacle to this project, I didn’t expect much, but the Fallout show was clearly made by people who understand and respect Fallout, from its first game on (hell, they even kept the acknowledgement of 76 to a minimum; that’s how you know they’re legit).  I mean, I have a few issues with the show and goddamn does my heart weep at the fate of Shady Sands, but...yeah, this was an authentic Fallout product.  

Lastly, my sister had me watch It’s Okay to Not Be Okay.  I’m really not the K-drama type, honestly, and I’ll admit, while I didn’t mind watching it, most of my experience with It’s Okay to Not Be Okay didn’t really impress me.  It had some definite good qualities and moments!  Just wasn’t my kind of thing.

...Until the end of the show, when...I dunno, it all just suddenly came together into something really elegant, interesting, intelligent, and moving.  The ending of It’s Okay to Not Be Okay is so deftly executed, so carefully constructed, that it was like watching a landscape as the sun rose, and seeing that what had seemed unremarkable in the dark was suddenly striking and pleasing to behold.  The show’s conclusion, to me, puts all that comes before it into an elegant lens, and leaves you feeling genuinely good, a satisfaction like finally closing the book on a period of your life and moving forward into the next.  It made me think of the feeling one might have at finally hitting a landmark in therapy and moving forward in a more self-actualized way, which might be exactly as the creators intended their ending to feel, as the show is partly about trauma, neurological conditions, and psychiatric help.  I dunno, I think I’m probably overselling it--but it was still an interesting and pleasing experience to have an ending to a show so positively change the way I viewed all that came before it.  Very neat.


Other Crap: Jesus Christ are we already on Page 6 of this stupid rant and I haven’t even gotten to the damn RPGs yet?  Ugh, let’s run through the rest fast: still working, still caring for an adorable and very sweet leopard gecko, still cooking new things now and then, still having to do a lot of real-life stuff, and now I’ve added to it all some time spent each week on selling stuff on Mercari and eBay for myself and my mother.

There.  Let’s hurry up and get to the actual subject of the rant, already!

(RPGs, in case you’ve forgotten, which after 6 pages of hearing me fall all over Fallout and exclaim about X-Men and gush over Gushing Over Magical Girls, who could blame you?)



RPG Moments of Interest in 2024

1. I actually do like the fact that they made a sprite for the Dragon Quest 1 hero carrying the princess in his arms bridal-style.  It’s a cute touch.

2. Uhh...is it just me, or is Pokemon Generation 9’s Penny just (a less nuanced) Futaba from Persona 5?  Like, it practically feels like plagiarism.

3. A random encounter in which an old man walks up to you, shoves money in your mouth, and starts screaming into your ear for an operator to put his son on the line, having mistaken you for a payphone, is a perfect example of why I just absolutely cherish the Loathing games.  Seriously, Asymmetric Publications, how do you come up with absurdist hilarity like this?  Consistently, for decades!?

4. You guys know the Chrono Compendium?  The undisputed most comprehensive site on the web regarding Chrono Trigger, and longtime staunch and thankless apologist for Chrono Cross, which tirelessly attempted to do SquareEnix’s job for it in finding a way to justify and reconcile Chrono Chross being canonically tied to Chrono Trigger? Yeah, well, right before I put out last year’s Annual Summary, the Chrono Compendium finally threw in the towel on finding a way that CC can not only make any sense on its own terms, but actually fit into the canon and thematic purpose of CT.  The straw that broke the Compendium’s back was when 1 final interview with Cross’s creators made it clear beyond any doubt or defense that they never knew nor cared what they were doing.  Why, after all, should ZeaLity and other fans drive themselves mad trying to make Chrono Cross minimally functional as a sequel or as a story in its own right for free, when the ones who were paid to do so couldn’t be bothered?

Well, whether it’s 20 seconds or 20 years after beating it, there’s certainly no wrong time to start hating Chrono Cross.  Welcome aboard, Chrono Compendium!  And thanks for the article; you’ve managed to find a couple things seriously wrong with this shitty game that even I somehow hadn’t realized in all these decades!

5. Cris Tales’s final boss is a cheap-shotting little fuck.

6. Scams and organized crime, sexual harassment/predators, abusive teachers, corruption, refusal to view women as human beings in their own right, predatory host clubs, the 99% conviction rate, employee abuse, bullying and the must-win mentality, those who abuse the power of shame and regret and honor, a fickle and short-attentioned public, those who need counseling not getting it, suppression of journalism, and good old repressive collectivism as a whole...Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 5 is DONE with anime and video games playing around and being vague about challenging Japan’s societal problems.  Where those that came before it contented themselves with metaphors and light suggestions on how to do better, SMTP5 goes straight for its culture’s throat, and I strongly approve.

7. Between a Loathing game balancing out its signature humor with some genuinely unsettling moments of otherworldly horror, Super Lesbian Animal RPG turning out to have a lot of genuine drama and an earnest save-the-world plot that takes itself seriously, and Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion having a hell of a tonal shift when you start getting into its world’s history, I have been surprised again and again this year by the depths and facets of RPGs whose surface level would suggest simple fun only.  I mean, I expect the signature good-natured wit and charm of a Large Battleship Studios title like A Dragon’s ReQuest to come with a side of life-changing pathos, but it seemed like everywhere I looked this year, the cutesy Indie RPGs were jumping up to flex their dramatic muscle.

8. Look, I don’t want to discount the tremendous power of Nurture to overcome one’s Nature, and of course I subscribe to the belief that we choose our own path in life.  With that said, though, all bets are off the moment your parents name you fucking Gharnef.  You are destined to be the main villain of an RPG and there is simply no getting around that fact.

9. Lost my Switch and had to replace it this year, losing all my save data for every game I’ve played on it in the last 7 years in the process, as well as the game that was in it at the time.  This seemed like a horrible accident at first, but I’ve since come to realize that misplacing my Switch may have been a willful act of my subconscious to save me from continuing to experience Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE, at any cost.  But apparently my subconscious didn’t know about Youtube Let’s Play channels!  Nice try, idiot!

10. Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days was sweating bullets this year, let me tell you.  Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE wanted that trash can lid crown for Stupidest RPG Title Ever real bad.  KH3Whatever still pulled through in the end and remains the dumbest, but it was definitely a close call.

11. Bravely Default 2’s B’n’D is the true successor to Triple Triad’s legacy.  You can keep your Gwent, and your Queen’s Gambit, and all that other noise, it’s B’n’D that I’ve loved enough to sink hours into truly mastering!

By which I mean that I learned at some point to use Martha on the first round and just let her win the game for me.  Because Bravely Default 2 knows damn well that Martha is Best Girl, no matter what context.

12. To most staunch, lifelong players of video games, fall damage is a fiendish and hated villain, an eternal curse upon any game that implements it.  And yet, in what may truly be the most astounding feat of all from the game, Baldur’s Gate 3 inverts it, and turns fall damage into a fucking hero.

Is that a gang of thieves moving in for the attack on raised wooden platforms?  Minsc could you be a dear and hurl them off those platforms 1 at a time like you’re on a yeet assembly line?  Oh, what’s that?  A grotesque monstrosity made of gold just initiated combat while standing on her balcony?  Well gee I do wonder if the truly colossal weight of being a golem made out of a precious metal would escalate the damage from a 3-story drop to truly gargantuan levels?

Goodbye, Gortash, and do be sure to ring the bell on your way down to let the previous floor know you’re about to visit, would you?

13. Forget Tav, forget the Blade of Frontiers, even forget Minsc and Boo, if you can stomach the blasphemy.  To me, the quiet, earnest kindness of Spatula Farggo makes him the biggest hero of Faerun.



Quote of the Year
Runners-Up

"Grrr...Well, at any rate, we’ve determined that hamburgers are incapable of conveying the majesty of space.”
  --Caroline, Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 5

“Magic sure is weird.”
  --Cloud, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth

“Pauline, please!  This isn’t right!  This isn’t you!”
“You’re not wrong, dearie.  I’m not at all dressed for a funeral.”
  --Crisbell and Pauline, Cris Tales

Winner
Just Literally Everything That Minsc Says
  --Minsc, Baldur’s Gate 3

...But if you just want a single winner for our quote of the year, then I suppose we can settle for:

“I...I can touch you...
I can’t believe this!  I can touch you, big brother!”
  --Tiki, Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE

I didn’t add the text color there, by the way.  That’s color-emphasized in the game.

Just...good God, Fire Emblem, we all know what you’re about, but could you at least try to play a little coy, at least?



Best Prequel/Sequel of 2024
Winner: Baldur’s Gate 3
While very much its own adventure with its own identity, BG3 builds itself very artfully upon the saga that preceded it, directly relying upon the events of BG1 and 2 to form parts of its history in ways that longtime players will recognize and most often appreciate.  That it brings Jaheira, Minsc, and Boo back is good, but the fact that it manages to do so while giving Jaheira some great new character development and escalating Minsc and Boo to new heights of their signature heart and hilarity is a real feather in BG3’s cap.  Now I’ll be the first to say that the game’s not a perfect sequel, because they did Sarevok dirty and they did Viconia filthy--and you can expect that grievance to be showing up in rant form at some point in the future--but it’s a damned good successor to the heart, soul, and history of Baldur’s Gate nonetheless, and what failings it has as such are partly assuaged by BG3 also connecting itself lightly to the events and lore of other D+D titles of old like Neverwinter Nights and Planescape: Torment.  I mean, hell, you could even argue that BG3’s a truer entry in the franchise than Baldur’s Gate 2 was--at least this one’s actually about Baldur’s Gate.

Runners-Up: Mr. Saitou; Shadows Over Loathing; Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 5
I’ll admit, I hoped for a more heavy and dramatic follow-up to Rakuen than Mr. Saitou is, but it’s still got poignant heart to it, and uses the ideas and lore of Rakuen to tell another story of connections and empathy that’s definitely of the same vibe as those that characterize Rakuen, so it’s a solid sequel.  Shadows Over Loathing is more of the same signature, off-kilter and friendly humor that so greatly endear Kingdom of Loathing and West of Loathing to me, and it manages to actually up the ante a little by delivering on its occult horror theme with some bits that are kind of unnerving and alien--it’s a sequel that recaptures the greatness of its forebears, and finds a way to add to it, and it was strong competition to BG3 for winner here.  And lastly, Persona 5 is a fantastic game that once more examines and exalts the spirit of youth on the cusp of adulthood that SMT Persona games embody and explore, to even greater, edgier, more stylized fanfare than before.  It’s more of the same in a great way, while deliciously different and all the greater for it.


Biggest Disappointment of 2024
Loser: Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE
Anyone familiar with Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE knows that it is a beautiful convalescence of disappointment, a perfect amalgamation of failed expectations from so many different directions that its existence might actually be the miracle that proves that God exists, and that He hates us so very much.  I’m going to keep it light here because I’m pretty sure I’ll be doing a number of rants on this shitty game in the future, and 1 of them is almost surely going to be examining the myriad ways it disappoints, but to briefly outline it: Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE is a crossover between Shin Megami Tensei and Fire Emblem that has no connection to SMT and barely any connection to FE (and what connection it has, it undercuts by hitting its pre-established FE characters with amnesia), its writing is terrible, its main characters are shallow surface-level OCs, it’s more about the Japanese entertainment industry than about any kind of adventure, and that focus on the entertainment industry is shockingly superficial and unrealistic.

If you played it because you like Shin Megami Tensei, you’re disappointed.  If you played it because you like Fire Emblem, you’re disappointed.  If you played it because you like RPGs, you’re disappointed.  Hell, if you played it because you have an interest in entertainment or the idol industry, you’re still disappointed.  Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE fails basic, reasonable expectations on every level.

Almost as Bad: Cris Tales
Cris Tales is one of those cases where the game’s actually fairly good, it just still disappoints because it doesn’t live up to its promise.  For a tale about a woman able to hop between past and future in every location and in battle itself to save her planet from an Ultimecia-like threat that comes from another time, CT is remarkably low-key and relaxed in its general presentation and the way it executes its major events, and there are moments, particularly toward the end (as is usually the case), where it’s clear the developer had to cut planned content and rush things along.  Cris Tales IS good and I did like it, it just wasn’t all that it could and should have been.


Best Finale of 2024
Winner: A Dragon’s ReQuest
Assuming that the finale is the events preceding and including the best ending, that is--most of the “normal” endings to the game are interesting (and even important to see for better understanding of Aurelia’s character, as well as some context to Hinoki Jr.’s for later), but it’s the ultimate ending that best represents a conclusion to this grand adventure.  The finale to ADRQ is epic and at times even awing as Hinoki steps foot within the still-raging calamity that broke and made her world, faces and understands the origins of her adversaries, reaches out to connect to and be saved by the incredible legacy she’s created, and finally steps forth to keep living her life beside the women she so dearly loves.  It’s an atypical but gripping and wholly satisfying conclusion to an epic tale of love, trauma, and adventure, and a great promise that even greater things are yet to come for all.

Runners-Up: Baldur’s Gate 3; Child of Light; Super Lesbian Animal RPG
Honestly, the endings for each of these games are exactly what they should be.  BG3 concludes itself with a massive, epic struggle of the ages that represents a culmination of all facets of the adventure that came before it, and shows how the choices and events of each party member have played out for them.  Child of Light ends with a great struggle against its antagonist as Aurora fully grows into her role, all to the lovely, melancholic fairytale mood that CoL revels in, and Super Lesbian Animal RPG wraps itself up as a story of love, empathy, and healthy conflict resolution...while still providing some satisfying just deserts for a certain unrepentant Earthbound-knockoff jerk, of course.  Each game’s finale is very in line with its style and direction, and all are great, satisfying conclusions.

...Well, depending on your decisions in BG3, I suppose.  There’s plenty of shit that can happen in that ending which really sucks, but you have only yourself to blame for it.  Next time, ask yourself what Boo would do!


Worst RPG of 2024
Loser: Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE
This game is a useless, soulless, generic, vapid sack of turds that accomplishes, says, and gives absolutely nothing.  Nigh every member of the cast is either annoying, generic, or both, it makes no attempt to satisfyingly utilize either of the 2 franchises it’s supposedly combining, its narration reads like an AI wrote it, and its grasp of the entertainment industry--the ONLY thing the game is interested in showing; every adventure aspect of the plot is clearly just included out of obligation--is naively (even unhealthily) ignorant and repetitively halfhearted.  The story stumbles along, animated by one tired cliche after another, barely held together by lurching momentum and cared about by absolutely no one, least of all those who created it.  Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE is an embarrassment to the franchises that it crosses over, and when it’s not disappointing fans of both, it’s blundering its way through a crappy, pointless story that betrays a pedestrian’s understanding (at best) of the industry it claims to be showcasing.  It’s populated by forgettable, dime-a-dozen cliches, and throughout its entirety it is fucking DUMB to an actually insulting degree.  This is genuinely 1 of the worst RPGs I’ve ever played.

Almost as Bad: Dragon Quest 1; Odessa; Smoke and Sacrifice
Odessa is not all that bad, really, it’s just not all that good, either.  Kind of just par for the course with many Aldorlea Games: it’s got some good points, some bad qualities, and it often feels just a little off overall.  Certainly not an outright bad game, but at the bottom of the titles I played this year.  Similar case with Smoke and Sacrifice--it’s a little bad, in that it’s a halfway decent story that might have fit appropriately into 2 hours but was stretched out into something like 12, but not awful or anything.  Once again, it’s just a case of it not being better than any of the other RPGs I played this year.

Dragon Quest 1, on the other hand, IS kind of bad.  I don’t care about nostalgia goggles and “for its time” only allows it so much when Phantasy Star 1, Final Fantasy 1, and The Magic of Scheherazade all came out only the next year.  I don’t recall having heard about the art of telling a halfway interesting story only being invented in 1987, and the hardware was the same, so Dragon Quest 1 doesn’t get a free pass for having a plot with all the nuance of Super Mario Brothers 1.  I genuinely can’t believe that this boring nothingburger is the golden standard that practically every subsequent entry in the series refuses to significantly evolve past.


Most Creative of 2024
Winner: Child of Light
It’s crazy to think of “creativity” and the title of an Ubisoft game in the same sentence, but there’s no denying that Child of Light is a wonderfully endearing, melancholic, and hopeful fairy tale RPG that walks an eloquent line between whimsy and the sadness of displacement, loss, and growing up.  It’s got memorably interesting characters, a classic but individual lore and world, and an engaging approach all its own.  I mean, heck, just the fact that it can manage to maintain an entire script from start to finish (with 1 notable exception) in pleasing rhyme is a point of notable creativity in itself!

Runners-Up: A Dragon’s ReQuest; Shadows Over Loathing; Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 5
Honestly, anyone could make a great argument for any of these titles being the most creative of the ones I played this year.  In many ways, A Dragon’s ReQuest’s way of applying Saint Bomber’s approach to characters and storytelling to a traditionally long RPG, along with its interesting way of incorporating a deconstruction of the nature of RPGs and their evolution over time since the early 8-bit days, tops Child of Light for creativity, and Shadows Over Loathing’s singular, endlessly engaging and bizarrely witty humor combined with an occult adventure and an old-timey 1910s - 30s theme could definitely be seen to do the same.  And the premise, execution, twists, and relentless critique of the flaws of Japanese culture of Persona 5 are ferociously creative, too.  I did give the win to Child of Light, because the others DO still have the formulas of predecessors to build upon, where CoL is a new entity from the ground up, but it’s still a close call with such great, interesting, innovative works to choose from.


Best Romance of 2024
Winner: Argon x Aurellia x Fluorine x Garnet x Hinoki (with a possible side order of Chelisera) (A Dragon’s ReQuest)
Really shouldn’t be a shock to anyone who’s heard me speak before about Saint Bomber’s capacity for writing characters and romance.  The love story of Hinoki and her companions is a long, engaged, and determined one that elegantly links the women in her life to her in genuinely touching scenes and dialogues that emotionally develop these superlative characters and their bonds with one another, while displaying each’s individual and nuanced social psyche.  The love stories that entwine in this polyamorous tapestry highlight and are born from shared histories, deeply rooted wants and insecurities, tender gestures of caring and understanding, personal traumas, moments of great internal courage and adventurousness, and undeniable chemistry.

Making it even better is the fact that this isn’t just a harem-esque polyamory centered around a single figure that all the others love (not that I don’t adore much of Duchess Catherine’s love life in Embric of Wulfhammer’s Castle, mind)--it starts that way, with Hinoki as all the other women’s central figure of affection, but A Dragon’s ReQuest carefully, expertly brings Hinoki’s paramours together with their own moments and connections of love as time goes on, with each new couple in this love polyhedron discovering ardor for one another in their own, unique terms.  And no lack of effort or conviction is given to these “side” romances, either--Fluorine and Garnet’s feelings for each other are treated with the same respect and importance to them as people and as a couple with which each’s romance with Hinoki is treated, for example.  Honestly, one of most poignant scenes in the game (and one of my many favorites) is that in which Fluorine and Aurellia allow physicality to finally find a way to connect them and foray into new emotional territory together.  It’s lovely.  The whole game-spanning multifaceted love story of the main characters is lovely.

Runners-Up: Allison x Melody (Super Lesbian Animal RPG); Astarion x Tav (Baldur’s Gate 3); Karlach x Tav (Baldur’s Gate 3)
I had a lot of good options to choose from for love stories this year, and narrowing it down to these couples was a tough process.  Honestly, it kills me that Larceny x Rowdy from A Dragon’s ReQuest didn’t make it here, just about all the main romantic options in Baldur’s Gate 3 were compelling (Shadowheart was really close to ousting Astarion here), not to mention even a couple of the NPC couples encountered along the adventure, and there were some other good contenders from Super Lesbian Animal RPG, Shadows Over Loathing...hell, even Odessa’s “Taken but it’s his fiancee instead of his daughter” schtick had a decently compelling earnestness to it.

Still, I’ll stand by these.  Karlach’s earnestness, eagerness to give and receive affection, and the way that the complications of loving her intermingle with her personal character arcs, all make romancing her feel the most genuine and good of the many options in BG3, I think.  Astarion’s not far behind, either; his own personal story as a damaged, hurting slave grasping for freedom and revenge in need of help to separate his real desires from the ones his fear forces upon him coalesces marvelously with his finding someone to love earnestly in spite of his initial instinct to merely use that love as a form of security.

And as might be expected of an RPG with a highlight of identity, love, and queer culture, the love story of Super Lesbian Animal RPG’s main couple is well-written, genuine, and touching.  I’m also particularly fond of Allison and Melody’s romance because it’s a great example to writers that it’s quite possible to have a dynamic, engaging, and heartfelt love story AFTER the couple in question actually get together--their relationship is already established and in progress by the time the game starts, a narrative rarity that writers seem to retreat from like vampires from garlic, or Nijisanji from any decision that isn’t pure evil.  And I don’t know why that is, because if Allison and Melody’s tale is anything to go by, there’s no shortage of opportunities for an in-progress romantic relationship for sweet displays, conflicts born of bad communication or projected insecurities, and the combining of both personal and shared growth as they work through their obstacles as a couple and help each other work through their issues as people.


Best Voice Acting of 2024
Winner: Baldur’s Gate 3
BG3’s voice acting is diverse, engaging, emphatic, memorable, and pretty much always on point.  Whether it’s Jaheira’s dryly, bitterly, but undeniably passionate entreaties, Gale’s affable know-it-all charm, Astarion’s expressive smarm and annoyance, Lae’zel’s grumbles and hisses, or one of the many great side performances like those of Withers, the Owlbear Cub, Hope, or Raphael, the game’s always got a well-acted line from a singular vocal character for you from one moment to the next.

I mean, honestly, was there even a chance that Baldur’s Gate 3 wasn’t going to be the winner when it’s got the best, most robust vocal performance yet for Minsc?  I think not.

Runners-Up: Cris Tales; Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 5
Surprisingly few of the RPGs I played this year were voiced, actually, but that doesn’t diminish the vocal work of Cris Tales (Lizzie Freeman in particular does a good job at keeping up with Zas’s Pinkie-Pie-esque energy), nor the fine job that SMT Persona 5’s actors turned in.  Good work, folks!


Funniest of 2024
Winner: Shadows Over Loathing
It’s a Loathing game, and somehow, even after having been at it for more than half of my lifetime, Asymmetric Publications manages to still find fresh, witty, high- and lowbrow comedy avenues just as hilarious as ever.  Between glockenspiel war music, windmills who are mortally invested in snobbery over poets, and discussing the place of evolution in vampire hierarchy, Shadows Over Loathing brings the same fantastic humor that West of Loathing did and Kingdom of Loathing perfected, with a delightful early 20th century theme.  You had me at the “TRY COFFEE: You’ll like it eventually” sign, SoL.

Runners-Up: A Dragon’s ReQuest; Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion
The name should probably be your first giveaway that Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion’s going to be a largely silly venture, and it lives up to its promise with gentle, random humor throughout its course.  Meanwhile, A Dragon’s ReQuest, though as emotionally and deadly serious as often and as deeply as it desires, immerses itself in the fun, oft referential, eternally clever banter and observations that make Saint Bomber’s works so much genuine fun to go through (and increase the stories’ emotional power through skillful contrast) --and this latest title probably contains the most jokes specifically about RPGs, which, as you know, is a major bonus where I’m concerned!


Best Villain of 2024
Winner: Shido (Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 5)
Shido’s a great villain on multiple levels--he’s genuinely despicable, he’s a decent mirror to the hero of the story and negatively connected to his past, he’s introduced with gradual foreboding before he stands in the villain’s limelight, he’s both grandiose and petty as a scummy little low-tier jerk with ambition and a weapon that happened to fall into his lap who begins making aristocratic airs, and as a 2-faced politician who sells himself through a cult of personality, deception, and underhanded tactics rather than qualification with every intention to serve only himself and his fellow elites at the detriment of the common man, he’s...certainly a believable and familiar villain to us.  Shido’s a great antagonist matched to a great game, and the best I saw this year.

Almost as Bad: Madarame (Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 5); Malphon (A Dragon’s ReQuest); Verena (Super Lesbian Animal RPG)
Like what I did there?  The runners-up for the villain category are now “almost as bad” like I usually describe the follow-ups for negative categories.  Cuz, y’know.  Bad guys.  Ha ha.

...Moving on.

As I said in 1 of my previous rants on the game, Madarame, in spite of being pretty small potatoes in the overall scheme of things, is shockingly vile when you really consider him--Shido may be more diabolical and of course his machinations reach and harm incalculably more people, but there’s a special, chillingly personal kind of evil to a man who would simply stand back and watch a woman die when he could have saved her, just so that he could take her greatest work--a painting expressing her new wonder and joy at being a mother--and deface it, then claim it as his own.  An evil compounded by his then adopting her infant son, the one that had inspired her masterpiece that he has defiled and disguised as his own, in the hopes that the child might have inherited her talents, talents that he might one day be able to steal and warp to his purposes all over again.  Just...holy shit, dude, I know he’s not financially ruining families or destroying the quality of life for countless workers or ordering silent assassinations in an attempt to pull a country-devastating coup, but somehow Madarame seems the most outright nasty villain in the entire game.  I gotta applaud SMTP5’s writers, because you wouldn’t think that you could ever find a way to make a plagiarist stand shoulder-to-shoulder with tyrants and CEOs and rapists, but they damn well found a way.

Verena as an antagonist is decently layered and sympathetic, and while it may seem crazy to place her above the entire rogues’ gallery of Baldur’s Gate 3, her intentions and character simply seem far more real and compelling.  Malphon’s got great energy as an antagonist, both amusingly fun, and genuinely malevolent, whose levity can be replaced in moments with deadly gravity that can seem unnerving even to the player.  Her back story’s cool and interesting to learn, and an example of how you do certain elements of a villain’s postmortem character revelations well--by making sure there’s still some time for them to sink in, by not trying to play sympathetic histories or intentions as more important than the wrongdoing they caused, and by fitting it into the game’s grander story and lore naturally and significantly, rather than just shoving new information in out of nowhere.  For these reasons, Malphon succeeds as a villain who we only get a clear picture of after the fact, where Tales of Phantasia’s Dhaos, a man whose villainy basically just amounts to “I have to go now.  My planet needs me,” utterly failed.

And I know that’s kinda neither here nor there, really, but a successful version of this kind of villain writing is so rare, and I bring up ToP’s gross failure in creating a decent villain often enough, that I really do feel it’s important to specifically point out an occasion where it DOES work when it comes about.


Best Character of 2024
Winner: Shadowheart (Baldur’s Gate 3)
Well-written and appealing, Shadowheart’s dynamic character undergoes a compelling crisis of faith when the inherent decency that simply couldn’t be beaten out of her clashes with the toxic demands of perhaps the pettiest god of the Dungeons and Dragons pantheon (which is saying something, considering D+D also includes those petulant losers Myrkul and Bhaal), at which point she hits her stride as a person and her journey becomes one of affirming herself and rising above the propaganda and abuse Shar failed to break her with.  It is (or at least, it can be, if you follow it through to the right conclusion) a bolstering tale of a woman rising to become more than the sum of her faith to shame a goddess by showing that she can live with and past loss, where Shar could only be so broken by it that her pain had to spill out into all that surrounded her.  There’s a lot of good character arcs in BG3 (Astarion’s pursuit of freedom from both his enslavement and from his fear of it is great, for example, and Karlach’s got some powerful moments of grappling with mortality when revenge fails to salve her hurt) and memorable personalities to go with them (Jaheira and Gale are honestly pretty great), but I think Shadowheart stands above the rest.

Runners-Up: Aurellia (A Dragon’s ReQuest); Fluorine (A Dragon’s ReQuest); Garnet (A Dragon’s ReQuest)
Garnet, Fluorine, and Aurellia are multifaceted, deep, and emotionally complex human beings constantly being developed, both subtly and in pivotal scenes, in their own rights and hand-in-hand with one another and their fellow party members, and through it all, they’re remarkably and approachably human and interesting.  And while there are a myriad of ways that these 3 (and make no mistake, Argon and Hinoki are solid, too, I just only fill 3 spaces in this category) are characters with meaningful foundations, dynamic development, and excellent writing throughout, what definitively puts them ahead of all competitors from other games I played this year is probably the fact that they aren’t just limited to 1 major story and arc of development, but rather struggle with multiple major points of growth and conflict over the course of their adventure.

Aurellia, for example, is majorly characterized by the suffering and fury that lurks beneath her austere surface as a result of the tortures she underwent as her family, life, and legacy were maliciously destroyed before her, and the struggle to come to terms with what that did to her heart and the hatred it instilled in her, the potential seed it planted in her heart to become a world-ender should she lose herself to it.  But much of this trauma just coalesced with natural impulses of frustration and difficulties in finding herself emotionally that already existed, and another major story of Aurellia’s character is her struggle to find ways to open up to and connect earnestly with her companions.  And that hardship in getting in touch with herself was largely caused by a demanding, restrictive upbringing and role, which in turn means that another major part of Aurellia’s development centers around her resentment for her position, her kingdom, and her life, even as she strives to be their perfect champion and mourns what she’s lost.  These and several more points of who Aurellia is are all coinciding, usually connected, yet individual major arcs of development that this single character engages in, painting the picture of a real, multifaceted human being rather than just a specifically designed character limited to 1 or 2 major personal story beats.

Now granted, Aurellia is probably the most nuanced and interesting of ADRQ’s cast--hell, I think she’s the best character I’ve yet seen Saint Bomber write altogether--but Fluorine and Garnet aren’t far behind her.  Hell, to be totally blunt, A Dragon’s ReQuest nearly swept this whole category; I’m honestly not sure at all that Aurellia shouldn’t be sitting in the winner’s spot here, in spite of how great Shadowheart’s story is.  ADRQ really is just that good with its character writing.

Okay Cool But We All Know the Real Winner Is: Minsc (Baldur’s Gate 3)
Yeah actually screw all that high-falutin’ critical analysis mumbo-jumbo, keep your Shadowhearts and Aurellias and all the rest, all I really want out of my cast is a hilarious lunatic hollering about his hamster.


Best RPG of 2024
Winner: Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 5
SMT Persona 5 is an engaging, fun, earnest, passionate game with great ambitions, sharp writing, memorable characters with good dynamics, realistically loathsome villains, and a creative, well-plotted, and excellent story.  It tells a rich and rewarding tale, represents the well-meaning rebellion of the adolescent beautifully, and takes a direct, uncompromising stance against the ills and unhealthy attitudes of its culture in an adamant defense of the different and indictment of collectivism, while never erring from a clear and present celebration of Tokyo and its people.  It’s flashy, it’s fun, and it’s intelligent and passionate in equal measure.  Fantastic RPG!

Runners-Up: A Dragon’s ReQuest; Baldur’s Gate 3; Shadows Over Loathing
Shadows Over Loathing may be a comedy RPG, but it’s a hell of a funny comedy RPG, and the addition of an involved plot, more party members with some better-defined development, and a surprisingly effective capacity to lean into the occult theme enough to be genuinely unnerving, have elevated SOL even higher than West of Loathing was.

Not to shortchange Baldur’s Gate 3, but I don’t think I need to go over why it’s here, really.  Not only have I sang many of its praises in this rant already, but it absolutely swept a real awards show back in 2023, and it’s been consistently held up as a new standard for quality gaming since the moment it released.  It’s basically the next Witcher 3 and Final Fantasy 7--very over-hyped, but genuinely excellent nonetheless.

As for A Dragon’s ReQuest...well.  You think my placing SMT Persona 5 above Baldur’s Gate 3 is a hot take?  Friend, if I hadn’t played Persona 5 this year, I’d be courting divine retribution right now, because as far as I’m concerned, A Dragon’s ReQuest is an even better RPG than Baldur’s Gate 3.



List Changes
Funniest RPGs: A Dragon’s ReQuest and Shadows Over Loathing have been added; no games have been removed--Kingdom of Loathing, Shadows Over Loathing, and West of Loathing have all been condensed into a single spot (since, while distinct and worthwhile individual games, you have to admit that the humor in all is of the same recognizable brand).
Greatest Romances: Argon, Aurellia, Fluorine, Garnet, and Hinoki (A Dragon’s ReQuest) have been added; Beast and Belle (Kingdom Hearts Series) have been removed.  Sorry, you classic couple whose care crossed kinds of chronicles from cartoon to Kingdom Hearts.
Greatest RPGs: I haven’t made any changes to this yet, but my plan is for my next rant to be an update and expansion of this list, as it’s been some time, and at that time, Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 5 will be added to it (and possibly A Dragon’s ReQuest, though I’m not sure on that point--Quantum Entanglement would certainly be ahead in the running as far as Large Battleship Studios games go, but it might happen).
Most Annoying Characters: Barry (Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE) has been added; Navi (The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time) has been removed.  Congrats, you flighty, frustrating fairy.
Most Overpowered Characters: Gen (Child of Light) has been added; George (Suikoden 5) has been removed.  Sorry, you 1-eyed 1-shotting wonder warrior.
Pokemon: Ogerpon has been added to Best Pokemon; Wooloo has been removed.  Sorry, you soft, silly spherical sheep simulacrum.
Worst RPGs: I legitimately cannot believe that Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE cannot quite manage to get onto this list.  That’s how obscenely awful the list’s gatekeeper Conception 2 really is.  I think it may be past time to expand this one out a bit further.
I did move Chrono Cross several spots higher on the list, though, thanks to the Chrono Compendium article I mentioned much earlier opening my eyes to the fact that Chrono Cross is, beyond all rational expectation, actually worse than I thought.


Music Additions
Note: Bolded songs were rated an A+.

Them’s Fightin’ Chords
A Dragon’s ReQuest Boss Battle (Boss Battle)
Pokemon Generation 9 Kieran and Terapagos Battle (Event Boss Battle

Hither, Thither, and Song
A Dragon’s ReQuest Great Disaster (Final Dungeon)
A Dragon’s ReQuest Ruins (Dungeon)
A Dragon’s ReQuest: Vintervault (Cold)
Cris Tales Rainbow Lake (Freshwater)

Chime Really Feeling It!
A Dragon’s ReQuest Emotional Difficulty (Reflection/Remembrance)
A Dragon’s ReQuest Sad (Sad)

See You Bass Cowboy
A Dragon’s ReQuest Argon (Character)
Child of Light Aurora Grows Up (Miscellaneous)
CrossCode Jet (Character)

All That and a Bag of Chiptunes
CrossCode Temple of Thunder Remix (General Remixes)
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword Skipper’s Retreat Shack Low Whistle/Oboe Remix (General Remixes)
Pokemon Generation 9 Champion Nemona Battle (Fan Originals)
A Dragon’s ReQuest is now my eight favorite soundtrack!



And that’s it, that’s all for 2024!  Certainly a full and eventful year, if not a productive one for me on the RPG front.  But I have a good feeling about 2025!  For sure!  Really!

...Ah, screw it, let’s face it, I’m never playing more than 15 RPGs in a year again at this point.  Free time doesn’t get less precious as life progresses, only all the more rare.  Well, hopefully I can at least keep playing gems with what time I do have for it.  Another Large Battleship Studios game is mostly complete, as I understand it, Hades 2 is much the same I’m told, and I’ve avoided Cyberpunk 2077 for long enough, I reckon, so 2025 ought to have some great moments awaiting me!  And hell, it’s at least not statistically likely that anything’s gonna be as awful as Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE, so there’s that, at least.

As ever, sincere, warm, and effusive gratitude must go to my friend Ecclesiastes, as well as my sister, who both continue, against all logical recourse, to let me blather on to them about my every whimsical musing regarding RPGs, as I use them as unpaid and greatly put-upon editors and soundboards.  I certainly don’t know what they’re getting out of being the first line of defense against typos and poorly phrased sentences and outright bad ideas altogether, but I’m damned grateful to them for it.

And likewise as always, I’m also incredibly flattered and grateful to Ecclesiastes for also being my Patron.  In 1 of the most unfair twists of sick cosmic humor, HE’S paying ME for listening to my dumb ideas and arguing me out of embarrassing myself with bad takes, and helping me sort out the best phrasing for RPG Valentines, the latter duty probably qualifying as an actual crime to inflict on another human being.  Seriously, with all grateful gravity, thank you, sir.  You’re a damned fine friend.

And thanks to all the rest of you guys who read these stupid rants.  It never ceases to please and amaze me every time I realize that there are actually people out there who read what I write and (presumably) give it some thought.  Hell, even if you don’t, it’s still majorly cool that you’re willing to take time out of a finite existence even just to scorn me.  Sincerely, thanks for reading in 2024!  Happy holidays, and I’ll see you again in the new year!