Top 10 Video Games of All Time

My top 10 favorite video games all time and a short review of each:

These rankings will really only reflect my thoughts on single player video games. I mostly play sports, fighting, and party games, but those games are way different than games that are meant to be single player campaigns, so those will be the ones that I rank here. I will have separate reviews for these games that go more in depth later, but here is a summary of my feelings on my 10 favorite games: (full reviews and comparisons for each game will come later)

1 – Spiderman 2

This is my favorite game of all time. It is just about as perfect as a video game can get.

3 Best Things

Boss Fights
Traversal
Simplification

The boss fights are the best I have seen in any video game. This game perfectly balances cinematics, drmatic scale, fun and enaging gameplay, and difficulty to the point where almost every boss fight is fantastic. My personal favorite is the Lizard fight, but the fights with Kraven are really good too.

The traversal is so fun. The swinging is better than ever, and the web wings are really fun too. It really is amazing that they were able to make just going from place to place fun in itself.

I enjoy that they simplified the combat from the original. This time around they just mapped gadgets and abilities to buttons, which makes combat much more fluid, instead of pausing each time you want to switch gadgets. The new abilities (especially the symbiote ones) are super cool and really fun to use.

3 Worst Things

The Ending
Miles
Side Quests

The story, for the most part, is very good… but the ending is a little lack luster (I’ll talk about the main plot hole of the story in my full review). The ending is meant to set up Norman Osborne as the bad guy for Spiderman 3, I get it, but it could have been executed better. Why didn’t they just let Harry die after he was defeated? Then Spiderman would have been more directly responsible for his death. I get it, good moment for Miles bringing him back to life temporarily, but come on. Norman is now dead set on getting revenge on Spiderman even though he did literally everything he could to save Harry? Eh, this was probably the sloppiest bit of story telling across both games.

Miles felt like he didn’t belong a lot of the time. The story is very Peter focused, and it feels like Miles is really put on the sideline for a lot of it, and when he does get in, I just want to get back to Peter most of the time (except for the boss fights where you use Miles, those are really good). Also, why should I care about his deaf girlfriend? I get it, he can have a girlfriend too, but she is so uninteresting and slows down the pace of the whole game. She was hardly even a character in the Miles Morales game, so why does she suddenly get so much screen time? She’s so lame that she I can’t even remember her name, and don’t really care to look it up.

The side quests weren’t as good as the originial game. The Hunter Blinds were fun, but not as fun as any of the bases in the original. The Symbiote Nests were pretty fun and unique though. I thought the teases for Carnage and Chameleon as future villains were cool, but the lead up wasn’t very fun. Mysterio was a really lame fight too. My main problem is with the Brooklyn Visions quests. The ONLY reason I did those was to 100% the game.

Conclusion

Despite the flaws (which don’t really matter that much except for the side quest one), this games core is so good, that it makes this game too good rank any lower than first. If you have a PS5, you need to get this game, heck, it might be worth it to get a PS5 just for this game.

10/10

2 – Spiderman

This game is almost as good as the sequel, but it doesn’t quite reach the same highs, so it has to be the runner-up on my list.

3 Best Things

Stealth
Side Missions
Story

I like how this game prioritizes using stealth to methodically take down groups of enemies. It is so satisfying, especially because it is much harder and more strategic than in Spiderman 2 or Miles Morales.

Taking pictures of landmarks around Manhattan was pretty fun, and it definitely was cool to see everything since I have never been to New York. The Black Cat hideouts was a cool Easter Egg to tease her involvement in the DLC. The variety of crimes is better than in the sequel too. The Taskmaster challenges were pretty good (Screwball was not). My favorites were the enemy bases, especially the Sable Outposts. Much better than in the in the sequel and really fun to try and reach all the requirements of each one.

The story was actually really good. This might even be one of the better spiderman stories ever told. Mr Negative and Doc Ock are extremely effective enemies. You really root for Peter to make things right with MJ, and the conclusion was a borderline masterpiece. The DLC was less intriguing, but still entertaining.

3 Worst Things

MJ Segments
Task Master
Doc Ock Fight

The MJ segments suck. I would rather these parts of the game just be turned into cut scenes. While they still suck in Spiderman 2, at least there aren’t nearly as many and she gets a gun. In this one it is just pure stealth and there are way too many. It really slows things down when the gameplay is otherwise really fun with Peter.

Taskmaster is one of my favorite Marvel villains, and he is really cool in the game until you fight him. He is so easy to beat. The game makes it sound like he is studying your every move and he is a real threat, but you can literally just spam webs and gadgets, beat him up, then rinse and repeat. Really underwhelming when he is an otherwise really cool villain.

The Doc Ock fight is really good from a narrative and cinematic perspective, but is lacking in the gameplay department. It is way too easy. Maybe that was by design since Doc Ock’s main strength is his leadership and intellect, but without any of the Sinister 6 members to back him up, he’s really easy. While it is a cool fight on paper, it just isn’t interesting from a gameplay standpoint, and is especially disappointing considering it is the final fight, and all the boss fights in Spiderman 2 are much better.

Conclusion

This game was my favorite of all time for about 3 months until I played Spiderman 2 and I realized just how much better the gameplay and boss fights could be. This game nails a lot of details that Spiderman 2 overlooks though, so this is a close second in my rankings.

10/10

3 – Persona 5 Royal

This is the best RPG of all time, and was almost my favorite overall, but there is one fatal flaw that keeps it from being perfect.

3 Best Things

Style/Theme
Villains
Phantom Thieves

This game is the most aesthetically pleasing piece of art I have ever seen. The UI is fantastic, the soundtrack blends perfectly with the tone of the story and the environment. Even the words of the songs go perfectly with the game’s characters and tone to the point where I don’t think they could have done any better.

I thought the villains (for the most part) were done very well. Kamoshida was a great initial villain as he is insufferable and the initial conflict is extremely personal for everyone involved. Shido is a pretty good main antagonist as well. Throughout the game, each conflict is especially personal for a specific character, and I like that the Shido arc is mainly attached to Joker himself. Akechi and Maruki really steal the show though. They are both very well written characters, and I’m glad you get to know them before it is clear that they are villains. Each dungeon is also very well designed and reflects the villain they are associated with very well. I’m really glad they went with more traditional dungeons instead of the auto generated dungeon crawling in the other persona games.

The main cast is very entertaining and they feel like a real friend group. Ryuji, Ann, and Makoto are my favorites, but Yusuke and Futaba are really good in their own right. There is one character that kind of throws off the dynamic later in the game (more on her later), but this is one of the best and most entertaining main casts in a game that I’ve played.

3 Worst Things

Okumura Storyline
Haru
Ryuji Slander

I don’t think this is exactly a controvesial opinion, but I think it is pretty safe to say this isn’t the best part of the game. The Okumura storyline is frustrating for multiple reasons. I’ll get more into the details in my bigger review, but I think Okumura is the most poorly done villain, Haru is the most forced member of the Phantom Thieves and doesn’t feel like she belongs with the rest of the group, Morgana is a selfish little brat, and I am completley on Ryuji’s side. While this whole arc is essential to Akechi’s plan, it is just really frustrating and kind of a slog while you’re going through it, and I wish Morgana’s character would have been handled better, and Haru would have been made more interesting.

You might be able to tell, I don’t care for Haru. One of the main reasons I love this game so much is because the Phantom Thieves feel like real friends and it is fun to listen to their banter. Haru is not funny, she’s not cool, she’s not fun to fight with, and she has the weakest voice acting of the main cast. She should have been left as a seperate Confidant, then her character would have been tolerable.

This last one is kind of a nit pick, but I think Ryuji is slandered a bit a too much. From Morgana constantly making fun of him (even though he doesn’t do that to anyone else), to the when he gets beat up after sacrificing himself, he gets too much hate.

Conclusion

This game is so good and so addicting, that the over 120 hours I put into beating the game didn’t even feel like a slog. Unfortunatley the game slows down a little bit during the Okumura arc, so it isn’t perfect, but the rest of the game is near flawless.

9.5/10

4 – Metroid Dread

This is the only metroidvania I have ever been able to really get into, and this didn’t disappoint as it is one of the most rewarding games I have ever played.

3 Best Things:

Atmosphere

Difficulty Scaling/Upgrade Progression

Controls

The pacing of this game’s upgrades are so perfect. As you go through the game, you never feel like you absolutely need an upgrade, but once you get one, you wonder how you were able to live without it. This game does a fantastic job though of not making any of the power ups too overpowered and even though you moveset becomes more powerful as the game progresses, the bosses only get harder and harder which is a very impressive balance of rewarding the player while also raising the stakes.

This game controls so well. Everything works super well, and you never feel cheesed by poor control, which really raises the skill ceiling. I find that in order to beat this game, you have to master it, which is really cool because in a lot of games you can just cheese it by finding something overpowered. This game requires that you “get good” and it is all the more rewarding because of that principle.

The atmosphere is really cool too, especially in the E.M.M.I. zones. The eerie silence only occasionally broken by the E.M.M.I.’s pursuit is exhilarating. The game does a great job of making you feel isolated and lost, and that you are really on your own as the odds are stacked against you. This game has a really cool vibe to it.

3 Worst Things

Boss Rush
E.M.M.I.s Dissapear
Infinite Jumps

There is one point in the game where I think the pacing is a little weird. For much of the early game, there is a lot of exploration throughout the map to get from boss to boss, and you have some time to breathe, but eventually it gets to a point where it seems like every other room has some sort of boss or mini-boss, and it gets kind of lame after a little while because I like the exploration so much.

I feel like the importance of E.M.M.I.s really dies off towards the last 3rd of the game. The first two E.M.M.I.s feel very menacing, and you constantly have to go through their territory, but after that they almost become trivial as you can kill them much quicker and don’t have to be around them as much. Maybe it’s because I got good to the point that they just weren’t a problem anymore, but it feels like the game changes focus to the robot chozos, which are way less interesting obstacles.

One upgrade that feels a little overpowered is when you get infinite jumps. It is really nice for boss battles, but makes exploration way easier, and it feels like you can kind of cheese some areas. It’s a very minor flaw, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

Conclusion

This game is definitely the hardest I have ever played, but because of that, it is the most rewarding. With how well this game controls, you really feel like you can do anything if you practice enough, and it feels great to master.

9/10

5 – The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild

This was the first open world game I have ever played, and it is definitely the best. The world is built up so well through its design and story telling that this game is really a work of art.

3 Best Things

Map
Story
Side Quests

The map is so well designed. There are almost no spots on the map that are empty, and there is always something to do. For a game made for the Wii U, this game looks amazing. All the different biomes are unique and bring interesting challenges, and every city and town feels like an exciting find. If I was teaching a course on map design, this would be the best example I would give.

I think the story of this game is extremely underrated. Using memories to tell the story that all happens in the past is a very good way to do an open world game, and it is very well done. Seeing Zelda’s struggle to become the woman she wants to be versus what she is expected to be is really good, and the scale of the calamity is captured very well, both through the memories and through seeing all the ruins and the state of all the inhabitants of Hyrule. While the story is pretty minimal and mostly optional, it is still very good.

The side quests in this game are mostly really good and varied. I especially like the ones that have you go and fight a big camp of monsters because that is always fun and you get good rewards.

3 Worst Things:

Dungeons
Bosses
Difficulty Scaling

The dungeons are just about everyone’s least favorite thing about the game. None of them are very fun. The lead up is always fun, but the puzzles are normally pretty lame, and the interior of all of them look basically the same. Vah Medoh is the only one like since you can rotate the entire dungeon and the setting high up in the air is pretty cool, but the other ones stink. The rewards are really good though.

The bosses are usually too easy and a lot of them feel the same. The Hinoxes are a joke, and the same can be said for the Taluses. The blight ganons are kind of cool, but mostly underwhelmingly easy except for Thunderblight Ganon which is the hardest fight in the game. Weird that just another dungeon boss is the hardest, huh? Calamity Ganon is pretty easy, and I’ll talk about why a little bit more in my difficulty section, but he is the beast that has been terrorizing Hyrule for 100 years, I feel like he should at least pose some challenge. Molduga is a cool boss and probably my favorite though, unfortunately you kind of have to go out of your way to find it.

This game starts off pretty challenging. When you only have 3 hearts, limited food, and a bad horse, exploring can be a daunting task at times as Guardians will one shot you as well as stronger enemies that you aren’t ready for… However once you get some meals in your inventory, all the abilities from the Divine Beasts, and some armor, the game becomes trivial. Unless you get one shot (and don’t have any fairies or Mipha’s Grace) you can just pause, eat, and keep fighting. This makes bosses like Calamity Ganon almost impossible to lose to. The game starts off at a perfect difficulty, and then becomes easier as you go on.

Conclusion

While I have my problems with the difficulty and dungeons, they are relatively unimportant when it comes to the game as a whole, which is really at its best when you are exploring Hyrule’s great map and learning about what happened during the Calamity.

9/10

6 – Persona 4 Golden

Out of the 3 main Persona games, this one has the least flaws. There is not a single thing I don’t enjoy about this game, but it doesn’t quite reach the highs that the others do.

3 Best Things

Characters
Humor
Social Links

All of the main characters in this game are really likeable, which I can’t say the same about the other two persona casts. Yosuke is my personal favorite, and even though I think Naoto is definitely the weakest of the main cast, she is still quite likeable. Even the characters that aren’t part of the normal team are really good like Dojima, Adachi, and Nanako. Every character has really good voice acting, brings a unique dynamic to the group, and has a good character arc. Very impressive that wasn’t a single dud (though Teddy is kind of annoying sometimes, but he is mostly funny, so I’ll allow the occasional annoying voice line)

This game is really funny. Yosuke and Kanji are probably the funniest, but Chie and Teddy also have some really good lines. Much like Persona 5, the Investigation Team feels like a real friend group and most of the jokes land. Even some side characters like Kou and Daisuke can be really funny. This is one of the funniest games I have played for sure.

The Social Links in this game are the most consistent in the series. I enjoyed every single social link I did, and I was able to finish all the ones I cared about (I didn’t do any of the part-time job ones because I never once needed money for anything). I think this game does a good job of continuing each main character’s development from the main story into these links and really rounds them out. My favorite Social Link was probably Dojima’s, but you could make an argument for any social link and I could see where you’re coming from.

3 Worst Things

Difficulty
Dungeons
No EXP for Inactive Party Members

The difficulty isn’t very well balanced. The beginning of the game is very challenging, especially the final boss in the Yukiko dungeon and Kanji’s boss fight is probably the hardest in the game. The problem is that those are the first two dungeons. The rest of the game isn’t the easiest thing ever, but I never lost a single fight after Kanji except for a few times that Yu got one shot or got ganged up on by a few attacks in a row.

The dungeons are a huge improvement over Tartarus in Persona 3, but I still just don’t like the randomly generated dungeon crawling. Each of the themes were good, especially Mitsuo’s, and I like that each of them tried to have a gimmick that set them apart from the others, but unfortunately the gimmick was only left to one floor each. Naoto’s was especially annoying. Marie has the best dungeon in the game by far because the gimmick is challenging, makes you have to strategize, and lasts the whole dungeon. Also, the music in Nanako’s dungeon slaps.

Unlike in Persona 5 and Persona 3 Reload, there is no way for party members that aren’t currently fighting to gain EXP, so it is really hard to change who you want to fight with once you get to middle part of the game, so I just stayed with Yu, Yosuke, Yukiko, and Kanji the entire time and never really gave anyone else a second look because it would take too long to catch them up.

Conclusion

Persona 4 is consistently great, and it is really fun the whole way through unlike the other Persona games that have some slow spots. The story and message, which I didn’t talk about yet, are both the best in the series, and the twists were done really well as a lot of the time you have to figure out stuff for yourself instead of the game just handing you the answers, which works perfectly into the theme of the game.

9/10

7 – Super Mario Odyssey

This is probably the most polished game I have ever played. There is not a single thing I don’t like about it, and it is really just held back by being a 3D platformer, which isn’t the best medium to tell an amazing story and be that impactful as a work of art.

3 Best Things

Controls
Kingdom Design
Collectibles

This game controls super well. The physics work perfectly, it runs super well, Mario has a really fun moveset, and you can do basically whatever you want. All the capture abilities work very well too. Just a super polished experience.

The kingdom design is really good. Each one feels different as you explore them, and they all look fantastic. I also like all the souvenirs that you can get with the purple coins, it really makes the customization in this game stand out from other Mario games.

The moons are really fun to find most of the time. It is easy enough that it is not a grind to get through the whole game, and difficult enough that it is fun and rewarding to 100% the game. The purple coins are fun to find as well.

3 Worst Things

No Luigi Multiplayer
Birds
Difficulty

While this is not something that is necessary, it would definitely be fun. I wish there was Luigi multiplayer just so that you could play with someone else locally because the multiplayer this game does have sucks. (Luigi balloons are fun though).

Those dumb moons where you have to hit the shiny birds are the worst moons in the game.

The game isn’t very hard, but that isn’t too much of a problem for a game like this. I just wish that maybe the final Bowser fight was a little harder.

Conclusion

This game is really good, and there really aren’t any negatives, it just doesn’t reach the artistic highs that other games on this list reach.

8.5/10

8 – Super Mario Galaxy

This is one of the first video games I have ever played, and it still holds up today. It amazes me that this game can look as good as it does on the wii, and Gamefreak can’t make a pokemon game on Switch 2 that looks as good as this.

3 Best Things

Level Design
Bosses
Soundtrack

The level design is really good. Almost every level feels so unique as you go from galaxy to galaxy. My personal favorites are the ones where you get to use the ice flower power up.

The bosses are really good. They all feel unique, they all are a decent challenge, and most of all, they are just really fun to fight. Bosses can be pretty hit or miss in platforming, but almost all of these ones land, especially Bowser.

The soundtrack is fantastic, and super nostalgic. The music in the observatory and the library are my favorites, but basically every other track is fantastic as well.

3 Worst Things

Dumb Platforming
Multiplayer
Speed of Mario

I feel like some of the platforming doesn’t work super well. That’s kind of a side effect of the weird gravity affects, but this is really only a problem in some specific spots/

The multiplayer is garbage. I wish a second person could play as Luigi or a luma or something.

Mario feels pretty slow, which makes this game a little harder to come back to after him being so fast in Odyssey.

Conclusion

This game is extremely polished, very impressive for the oldest game on this list. There are a few stars that I really don’t care for, and some times in can feel a little like a slog, so it isn’t quite as good as Odyssey, but it is still worth playing years after its release.

8.5/10

9 – Persona 3 Reload

Persona 3 is my least favorite of the modern trilogy, but it does some things better than the rest, it just has a lot more glaring flaws. Still, a great game nonetheless.

3 Best Things

Character Development
Emotional Storytelling
Voice Acting

The character development in this game is peak. Junpei going from an insufferable jackass to a courageous badass is really good. Yukari’s arc is good as she goes kind of selfish and whiney, and she grows to become more sympathetic and brave as she opens up to the other members of SEES, especially the protagonist and Mitsuru. AIGIS goes from just being a shadow killing machine, to basically the main character of the game, as she knows more than she lets on. She goes from a heartless robot to having the most heart on the team (except Junpei cuz he’s a great guy). Mitsuru’s development is decent as well as she learns to be less distant.

The emotional story telling is also peak. Shinji’s death is so impactful. It is such a powerful driver for Ken and Akihiko’s development, and you can feel the impact of his death looming over the entire rest of the game. Chidori’s death is so heartbreaking because of how bad you feel for Junpei, and once again her death is used really well for Junpei’s development. Aigis’ social link about the concept of death is kind of repetitive, but makes the ending all the more tragic as the protagonist dies in Aigis’ arms before the rest of SEES can finally meet him again after their memories come back.

The voice acting is so good. Yuko has my favorite voice actor, as she turns an otherwise boring character into my favorite character in the whole game. Junpei’s voice acting is also amazing and one of the best in the series. Yukari, Aigis, and Toriumui all have really good voice acting too.

3 Worst Things

Tartarus
Slow Start
Poor Social Links

The highs in this game are higher than in maybe any other game I’ve played, but the flaws affect the gameplay in a huge way. Tartarus, which takes up about half the game, is kind of boring. The combat is overall pretty easy and repetitive (but pretty satisfying nonetheless), and the seemingly endless, repetitive, uninteresting, autogenerated dungeon crawling is really grading. It is really a chore to get through.

The story is very slow in the beginning, and not much really happens until Shinjiro dies. I can see how this helps the overall narrative as the members of SEES start off as just coworkers who don’t really like each other, and eventually they become a close family forged through loss and fighting towards a common goal, but from a gameplay perspective it is really boring.

I really like some of the social links. Yuko, Kaz, Maya (Toriumu), Odagiri, Tanaka, Yukari, and Mitsuru have really good social links, and they can stand up to some of the best ones from P4 and P5. However, some of them are just really boring and or cringy. Chihiro, Keisuke, Maiko, and Bebe are all super boring. Akinari’s story is so dramatic from the very beginning to the point where I really can’t help but cringe. Oh, but if you want to talk about cringe, talk about the Gourmet King. Nozomi Suemitsu. He is insufferable. He is the most despicable creature ever conceived. He is so unlikeable that the only times I hung out with him was when I absolutely had to. The only thing that can redeem him (somewhat) was the moonwalk.

Conclusion

This game’s story, characters, and message are so amazing that it really is a shame that the game lacks in the gameplay department so much, especially since the other Persona games have really good gameplay.

8.5/10

10 – Undertale

Undertale is one of the most unique games out there, and it is a bonafide classic… I just wish it was a little longer.

3 Best Things

Soundtrack
Bosses
Choices Matter

Undertale’s soundtrack is iconic. Everyone has heard megalovania, but the rest of the soundtrack is amazing as well. Everything fits its environments, characters, and fights so well, that thai might be the most perfect soundtrack ever (except for maybe Persona 5).

The bosses in Undertale are so well done. I love how pretty much each one has a special gimmick. The music for these fights are all awesome too. Each of these characters (except Muffet) are all really well written and extremely entertaining. The difficulty is also really good as each of these fights except for maybe Toriel or Papyrus provide a good challenge.

This is the only game I have played where your choices matter (except for Persona 4 to an extent). Your choices have consequences. You are rewarded with friendship and a happy ending for everyone when you show mercy, but if you kill everyone, you yourself are seen as a monster. Very cool concept for a game, and I wish more RPGs would do stuff like this in the future.

3 Worst Things

Random Encounter Slop
Length
Customization

I’m not a huge fan of random encounters, and it can get annoying at times. It’s not as bad as in a game like Pokemon, but it still isn’t my favorite. I prefer how encounters are handled in Deltarune for sure.

I wish the game was longer. The game feels very short, especially when you are on a neutral route. The game is so good, I just wish there was more of it.

I wish there was a little bit of customization, but I can see how that probably wasn’t on Toby Fox’s mind as he primarily made the game all by himself. I don’t know, it would have been a neat option.

Conclusion

This game is one of my favorites, and its soundtrack is perhaps the most iconic in all of gaming. It doesn’t quite reach the highs or have the same polish as games that are ahead of it, but I think everyone should give this game a try.

8/10