Video Game Reviews – The Top 100 Reviews

Top 100 SNES Review: #2 – Super Metroid (1994)

Enter The Flow

An immediately immersive game.

Screen Shot 2018-11-10 at 8.04.38 PM

Sydlexia’s Ranking: #2/100
My Rating:

Gahh. I’ve been ill all week.

Since I was quarantined in my bedroom on the third floor, I decided that I needed to simulate some kind of social interaction. I ended up playing Super Metroid where you are a sole explorer on an isolated planet with no intelligent life forms. I did end up making friend with a larva, though.

While it might have been an overdosage of Dollar General Store Brand Effervescent Cold Relief, the draw into planet Zebes core was immediate — all I wanted to do was explore, be rewarded, and explore more. You could say that the gameplay was almost as contagious as my flu 😷.

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Top 100 SNES Review: #3 – Final Fantasy 3 (1994)

I’m Not Crying 😭

The characters in FF3 are superb — I feel like I’m saying goodbye to dear friends.

Screen Shot 2018-10-02 at 8.17.36 PM — This mountain backdrop was very convincing in the early 90s y’all.

Sydlexia’s Ranking: #3/100
My Rating:

Man, has this weekend been junk. I took a practice board exam to only be border line pass/fail again, had to create a research presentation on clinical education that I’ve put off for a month, and had to write a PICO (Patient Intervention Comparison Outcome) on the effects of cardio rehab on pulmonary function. At least I got to save the world while bawling my eyes to 16-bit characters; that really brought me back down to earth.

Something really has been lost in the sandbox era of RPGs — with open worlds and forge-your-own-path plots, no one needs to tell a good story anymore. The allure of Elder Scrolls and Fallout isn’t the characters, it’s that you can do whatever you want.

FF3/6’s back end is non-linear, but infuses each moment with meaning and significance through finding each of its 14 characters. The subtle discoveries and deeper understanding of the characters you play burgeon them from simple pixels into case studies of human nature.

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Top 100 SNES Review: #15 – Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island (1995)

Yoshi’s First Job

As an introduction to a capitalist economy, Yoshi begins to build his CV through babysitting local children.

The Baby Sitter’s Club: A Cornucopia of Diversity

Sydlexia’s Ranking: #15/100
Developer: Nintendo
My Rating:

I forgot how much I played this game as a kid. Like having your friends tell you what you did while blacked out, Yoshi’s Island brought back all sorts of things I had forgotten: the fuzzies, monkeys, highly stylized drawing, and baby Mario’s hypertensive-crisis-causing cry.

I don’t have much experience as a baby sitter so I can’t really grade Yoshi’s post-natal care performance, but that doesn’t stop the game from doing it. Having a big piece of game play focus on collecting flowers, red coins and stars was odd, but the game is so damn cute, it’s hard to resist.

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Top 100 SNES Review: #40 – Lufia and the Fortress of Doom

Sunk Cost Fallacy.

As the hour count continued to rise, I continued to play to not lose out on time already invested.

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Sydlexia’s Ranking: #40/100
Developer: Taito
My Rating:

“Individuals commit the sunk cost fallacy when they continue a behavior or endeavor as a result of previously invested resources (time, money or effort)” (Arkes & Blumer, 1985).

You know, I like to think of myself as rational. Who doesn’t like to imagine themselves as an autonomous agent living out their free will initiatives? Unfortunately, Lufia and the Fortress of Doom dissolved any notion of me being in control of my facilities. This game is a hot piece of garbage, a big to-do list from hell, and it could only be my irrational, emotional processes that made me continue.

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Top 100 SNES Review: #70 – Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong’s Double Trouble (1996)

The Dumbing Down of America.

And the frail quilt of patched-together, leftover parts.

Screen Shot 2018-08-17 at 8.37.14 PM — Dixie and Kiddy on a quest to destroy meritocracy.

Sydlexia’s Ranking: #70/100
Developer: Rare
My Rating:

Cranky Kong is a prescient figure in the Donkey Kong Country series; complaining of video gamers today, he warns how things to use to be harder and how easy we have it today.

I never thought he would live to see the day where it happens to his own family.

Donkey Kong Quest 3 (DKC3) was a very late installment on an old system — the N64 was released months prior when DKC3 was released for SNES. Because of this, it didn’t garner much attention as many people already moved to the new, shiny system. This is a good thing: DK3, while fun, is a step back from the other two installments on the SNES, mocking us with a false sense of achievement.

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Top 100 SNES Review: #64 – Pocky and Rocky (1992)

What Just Happened?

P & R is weird and hectic. Come for the colorful, far-east imagination, stay to see the bizarre, then leave as soon as possible.

Screen Shot 2018-07-28 at 3.19.59 PM — Pocky and Rocky transversing the mountainside.

Sydlexia’s Ranking: #64/100
Developer: Natsume
My Rating:

It’s almost been 6 months since I’ve seen a Tanooki (Super Mario Bros. 3 Review).

Over that period of time, I’ve lived in another state for 2 months, wrote 50 blog posts, had someone squat in my subleased apartment using old Virginia common law, taught myself guitar posting videos on instagram, and reengaged with the Viola. Will Pocky and Rocky serve as a guide post for the future, making such an impact as to recall events in between?

Probably not. This game is a bit of mindless fun, but nothing really pulls you in.

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Top 100 SNES Game: #52 – Gradius III (1991)

Anxiety Attack With a Large Coffee.

How much stimulus can the human mind handle? Exactly enough to juggle and dodge 1300 sprites of doom.

Screen Shot 2018-07-21 at 3.52.45 PM — A Gradius III and Double Dragon cross over?

Sydlexia’s Ranking: #52/100
Developer: Konami
My Rating:

One theory for general anxiety disorder is that it’s due to some lowering of neuron-firing threshold. The entire nervous system is more excitable, and it takes very little stimulus to get widespread action potentials promulgating through your central nervous system.

If you don’t have this problem, Gradius III will surely give it to you: one-hit death, complicated bosses, tricky navigation, a hundred projectiles. While some might view beating the game as an accomplishment, I believe getting through it without increased cortisol levels more of a feat.

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