[[Writing About My Favorite Games]] We've reached the top 10. Again, these are are ordered higher than the other 15, but unordered amongst themselves, barring maybe one exception. With that said, this has been fun, and I hope you enjoy reading my thoughts on the rest of my favorites. --- ## Okami **Okami** is a wonderful game, I don't think anyone who's played it would deny that. What makes it stick out to me all these years later is that it sort of shifted the axis of how I engage with art. Up to this point, games that I was obsessed with led to me consuming as much content as I could about them. **Okami** was different. I cared so much about this game that I wanted *other* people to know how I felt about it. So I did! Back then I loved video reviews because I wanted to take in as much footage of games as I could - especially given the fact that I didn't have the money to play most of them. So I downloaded a bunch of existing clips from IGN and GameTrailers, booted up Windows Movie Maker, and narrated over them using a script I wrote in my dinky spiral notebook. I would have been about 12 when I did that. The method back then was to rigidly separate reviews into **GRAPHICS** / **AUDIO** / **STORY** / **GAMEPLAY**, and that's exactly how I did it. Jokes aside, this was a big moment for me. You can trace a direct line from Okami's release to pretty much everything I do now, from streaming games to writing about them on this blog. That's either super cool or a terrible thing, depending on who you are. I even tried to get onto the path of becoming a video game journalist but thank god I dodged that bullet! ## Chrono Trigger Thinking back on it, **Chrono Trigger** is probably where I get a lot of my impatience from. Figures that a game with such pitch-perfect pacing would 'cause me to chase that high for the rest of my life. Very few games meet the standard though. **Chrono Trigger** is the definition of not wasting one's time. It is perfection wrapped in a 20ish~ hour experience. It is, in my opinion, the most polished game on the SNES. It takes you on a wonderful journey, then says goodbye the moment it knows that journey is over. It just has that *sauce* man. The music, the art, the duel and triple techs, the different endings, the tropes. I have nothing new to say about it that hasn't already been said, but I play this game once a year and it still holds up. It probably always will. ## Shadow of the Colossus The "videogame as art" debate is as old and tired as I am, so I won't go into it. But when I still needed my favorite hobby to be validated as a kid, **Shadow of the Colossus** was the game that set the standard for me. I'm pretty sure it's the first game I ever cried about! I spent hours on GameFAQs forums after I finished it, trying to uncover every bit of lore, every secret, theorizing on the story with other like-minded obsessives. I don't care if videogames are art, but I certainly know that **SotC** is. The way it turned the concept of slaying monsters on its head blew the brain out the back of 11 year old me's head. Also, shout out to the GameStop at Park Meadows Mall guy who told my mom there wasn't any violence in this game so my mom would buy it for me. What a fucking legend. Forever indebted to you GameStop guy at Park Meadows Mall. ## Kingdom Hearts 2 Oh **Kingdom Hearts**. A series that once changed the entire trajectory of my life and which I now abhor, I still consider **Kingdom Hearts 2** one of my favorite games of all time. What a lot of people don't get about me as a critic of sorts is that I'm a hater because I care. I consider ambivalence to be the worst reaction one could have to art they've engaged with. I am extremely passionate about **Kingdom Hearts**, and **KH2** is a big reason why. It's one of those games that solidify what makes videogame sequels so cool - bigger, more polished, more ambitious. It introduced Roxas, one of the best characters in the series and one of my favorite videogame characters, period. The final section of this game is still so unbelievably sick that to this day I go rewatch [Sora cut buildings in half](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIu8qZnAcy8) just to feel something. It is *aesthetic* as the kids say. I want to be clear. Everything about **Kingdom Hearts**, from its annoying fans to its incompetent director, is so ass now. But it didn't use to, and I'll hold onto that in my heart[^1] forever. ## Ocarina of Time It's Ocarina of Time. Do I have to explain? Here just go read [[Save Your Game Please]] it gets the point across and is some of my best writing! :D [^1]: heh.