20. Halo Theme Mjolnir Mix (Halo 2)

Ah yeah, if Halo knows one thing, it's how to instill Halo-based patriotism.

I may not be the biggest Halo fan, but damnit, Halo has some of the best music you can ever hope to hear in gaming. Oddly enough, when Halo 2 came out, I didn’t have an Xbox. So, instead of purchasing the game, I purchased the soundtrack. From there I was hooked, listening to the first track over and over again, imagining what the game itself must be like. I’d wager that without the Halo theme, the Halo series wouldn’t have been as possible of a marketing boom as it turned out to be. Maybe.

19. Tempest City (Blast Corps)

Even though I never played it, the game sure LOOKS cool, I assume anyway.

While I never played Blast Corps, I heard a lot about it. Turns out people either love it or hate it, as seems to happen with most games. Since I never played it, all I have to go off of is the soundtrack, which I’ve listened to a number of times. My favorite track turned out to be Tempest City, and judging from just that one track, I’d have to assume the game was incredibly intense and awesome, like Transformers done right. But I’ll probably never play it, so perhaps I’ll never know.

18. Intro (Banjo-Kazooie)

Hey! Who gave that bear a banjo? Oh his name IS Banjo? That's clever.

Banjo-Kazooie was a game that Nintendo Power effectively hyped to me, promising me the best game I’d ever played. While it wasn’t the absolute best game, it was still incredibly good, and to this day I’ve never been as excited about a game’s release. So when I patiently sat and watched the intro begin, I was delighted to have a bear playing a banjo for me while a witch doctor rocked a fiddle, flute, and xylophone. If the intro alone doesn’t make you happy, brentalfloss’ With Lyrics (not for kids) will put you over the top.

17. Robo’s Theme (Chrono Trigger)

How do games manage to craft robots that I identify with so well? There's witchcraft in there somewhere.

Trying to pick a favorite track from Chrono Trigger is not an easy thing to do. Every track is a good track. And while some stand out more than others, such as the battle with Magus, I have a soft spot for Robo’s Theme, and part of this may be that it syncs up with “Never Gonna Give You Up.” Seriously, it really does. I’m not kidding.

How something that awesome happens is beyond me, but the bottom line results in me loving Robo more than I thought possible.

16. Funky’s Fugue (Donkey Kong Country)

Why do games love to put gorillas in sunglasses so often? Oh well, it works for Funky Kong, so go with it.

I played the hell out of Donkey Kong Country when I was a kid. I still play the hell out of it now and then. So naturally, I’m going to have a favorite track. It was once more extremely difficult to find one or two to pick out as a definitive favorite, but when pushed to it, Funky’s Fugue came out on top. The reasoning here is that I’d hop into Funky’s airplane barrel thing purely so I could hear his music, otherwise I’d never have a chance to listen to that track in the game. Wasting time in a game purely for the music? That sounds like a favorite to me.

15. Setzer (Final Fantasy VI)

Such a dapper man in his coat and fancy outfit. I hope to look that good someday.

Yet again, Final Fantasy VI was a tough one to sift through. I can at least say that I’ve managed to keep this list down to a single song per game, so that amounts to something. But how could I choose which FFVI track to place above all others? While the Opera sequence is good, I’m kind of tired of it. It dawned on me that in my head, I was always remembering the scene as it plays out in the game, immediately followed up by Setzer’s Theme, or simply Setzer as the soundtrack calls it. The theme of the gambling airship pilot always sent me over the edge with glee, so that’s how it gets to top the FFVI tracks. Didn’t break the Top Ten, but not too shabby.

14. Endless Challenge (F-Zero X)

Sadly, no Falcon Punch in the mix, but still good.

I’m cheating and I know I am, but this is my list. Endless Challenge is not actually a track from F-Zero X. It’s far cooler than that. The composers, Taro Bando and Hajime Wakai, crafted a pretty solid soundtrack for the game comprised mostly of remixed themes from the previous game. However, feeling that they were cooler than just that, they released a full guitar remix album of the game’s soundtrack, meaning that instead of MIDI files each track had real instruments kicking our ears in the teeth with rock. I don’t care that I’m cheating, Big Blue never sounded so good. Plus, this was by the original composers anyway, so it totally counts.

13. Rock Solid (Conker’s Bad Fur Day)

You silly squirrel, always gettin' drunk and rocking my socks off.

If you haven’t noticed, Rare games have appeared four times thus far. I’m sad to see the state that Rare is in these days, but back then, Rare had it going on and then some. A somewhat underrated game (insomuch as anything other than complete Nobel Prize-winning praise is not doing this game justice), Conker’s Bad Fur Day was a brilliant sample of work that pushed every boundary the industry had in place, specifically when it came to language. I could easily have placed the song of The Great Mighty Poo on here, but I’m a techno nut, so when a game does a great job with techno, I take notice. Therefore, the background music from the rock peoples’ club, Rock Solid, is one of my favorites. And it’s even over seven-minutes long (my version). Man, did they understand techno or what?

12. TMNT Main Theme (TMNT)

This game is impossible, but the intro music is to die for.

I’ve never beaten the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game, though I’ve tried many, many times. I even tried again at PAX this year. I’ve managed to reach the Technodrome, but never Shredder himself. I did at least manage to make it past the title screen, but that was as far as I ever wanted to go since the intro music is so damned good. I keep hoping someone at Overclocked Remix decides to take up this track and add in some real guitars and drums. In the meantime, I’ll keep putting TMNT into my NES and just setting the controller down so that I can hear this track as many times as I want. Who wants to beat a game anyway?

11. Wily Stage 1-2 (Mega Man 2)

Apparently Wily isn't just an evil genius; He seems pretty competent with music, too.

The track that everyone else assumes is the best Mega Man track, the background music from Wily Stage 1-2, is undeniably epic. It is definitely a track you can point to and say, “Don’t like NES music? This song rocks and you know it.” Every time I manage to get to Wily’s Castle in Mega Man 2, only to be greeted with this track, I get goosebumps. This really is super popular for a reason…but then again it’s only number 11 on my list. Don’t let that fool you! I love me some Wily Stage 1-2, but if I placed it at the top of my list, how interesting would that be? Really?

That’s all for today! Curious what my ten favorites actually are? Come back Wednesday for the conclusion!

Want more lists? Check these out:

-Ten Pokemon You’d Rather Not Evolve

-Ten Games That Work Better As Rentals

-My Top Ten Most Unattainable Toys

I still place this above most other games. Can anything change my mind?

I love video games. I play them frequently (and sometimes write about them, as you may have noticed). I always get excited with every new Mario and Zelda game, or anything that seems to interest me beyond a simple, “Oh, that looks like a fun game to rent.” But when I get down to it I always inevitably say to myself, “Yeah, this is good, but it’s no Mario Bros 3/Ocarina of Time/Final Fantasy 6.” Why is that? I know I’m not the only one to think this way. We’ve got to a point where we’re demanding games replicate our favorites from the past, but when they can’t we throw a fit. Can we ever make a new “Perfect Game?” Let’s Think Deep.

The Problem With Perfection

A good recent game to use as a jumping point here is New Super Mario Bros Wii, a game that borrows heavily from the classic Mario games, specifically Super Mario Bros 3 and Super Mario World. It seems almost like a “greatest hits” from the 2-D Mario platformers. I loved it. I wrote about this on more than one occasion. I stand by my statements. But I didn’t like it as much as Mario Bros 3. Why? Because it wasn’t Mario Bros 3. That’s not a very fair thing to say, but it just didn’t wow me like Mario Bros 3 did when I was a wee child. Perhaps the nostalgic aspect got in the way and forced me to find a qualifier somewhere, so that when I said, “This game is amazing!” it didn’t somehow, in some way, obliterate the memories of my childhood past. I simply can’t allow myself to like a Mario game more than 3, purely because I remember childhood as something wonderful and the world today as something bleak. How can something from a place that’s bleak outshine something from a world that was wonderful?

Can I ever separate this moment from my mind when playing new Zelda titles?

The same problem presented itself when I played through Twilight Princess. I thought Twilight Princess was one of the best Zelda games, let alone best games, I’d ever played. I’d rank it somewhere within my top 15 games of all time. But I couldn’t bring myself to like it more than Ocarina of Time. “Oh wow, this is so cool! Uh, but, Ocarina was better.” Was it really? It’s impossible to tell since at the time of its release, Ocarina of Time was the absolute peak of adventure-style video gaming. It was, to me (and many others), the perfect game. If you’ve never played it before and try playing it now, you might not really agree with that statement. In fact, you may think I’m crazy for ever liking the game in the first place. It just holds so much of my childhood in it that it becomes hard to separate it from what it is and how I remember it.

Retro Is In

There has been a big push from major developers as of late to search back through their “classic” games and find some gold to resell, either in a remake of the classic or in a straight port to one of the online networks. Nintendo hit on a great concept with the Virtual Console, an online marketplace devoted almost entirely to selling us out treasured memories back for a reasonable price. Both the Xbox Live Arcade and the Playstation Network have gotten into this, even offering games from more recent past. One of my best friends is playing Final Fantasy VII for the first time now that he’s downloaded it from the Playstation Network. He’s so devoted to playing it that he’s selling me his other new purchase, Fable II, for $15. Is he liking it? Well, he’s found numerous gripes, of which I can agree with, but he’s still playing it for some reason. It just isn’t as amazing for him as it was for me.

You can download this right now on the Virtual Console for $10. Why haven't you?

Why is that? Final Fantasy VII is regarded as one of the greats, so how can anyone dislike it now? It all has to do with timing. I played it first when I was still relatively new to RPG’s. It was also the first game I played on my Playstation. I fell in love with the characters and really cared about what would happen in the story. The only commitments I had while playing it were to school (which was unimportant to me), and nothing else. I didn’t need sleep so long as I had a mission to do and a Sephiroth to defeat. I was able to look past all the flaws and see nothing but a fantastic game. When I try and play it now I can’t even get myself past the first disc, let alone finish the game.

So back to New Super Mario Bros Wii: People have a gripe with it for failing to be as good as its predecessors. I don’t think that’s quite fair. I especially hate hearing that it’s just a rehash of previous games since it’s a new freaking game with new levels and new power-ups and all that jazz. It’s a new game, just with references back to other games in the franchise. It knows where it’s coming from, but it’s willing to at least try to do something new within the established old. Why? Because fans love this sort of thing. That game has sold millions of copies –MILLIONS- and I have a feeling it wasn’t because people were just settling for whatever they could get their hands on. No, fans snatched it up by the mustache-loads because it was a good game that reminded them of something they loved from their past.

Is this the best selection of bosses you'll ever find? Hard to tell.

Capcom has been perfecting this for a while now, what with their final definitive release of Street Fighter II, a game that pretty much everyone who wanted to buy it already had. Still, it was a big success. They did the same thing with Marvel Vs. Capcom 2. They also tried bringing Bionic Commando into the new age with a big-budget new entry in the series, which ultimately flopped. However, their HD remake of said game was a huge success. A while ago they released a new Mega Man game with 8-bit graphics and an 8-bit soundtrack. And people downloaded it like…well I’ll tell you what that analogy is when you’re older, kids. It did so well that Mega Man 10 has just been announced and will follow suit with the same style and everything. Retro is in. But why?

You Can’t Change The Past

As I said, people can’t let go of their childhoods. A lot of really good games have come out in the past year (Arkham Asylum, Uncharted 2, Mario & Luigi 3, just to name a few), yet none of those will be on any “Best Games Ever” lists. The most recent “new” game to start appearing on those lists is Resident Evil 4, a game that Capcom ported from the GameCube to the PS2 and then the Wii since it had done so well. Final Fantasy XIII comes out in mere days, but will fans place it above all the others? Very doubtful. They’ll find something to gripe about, purely because it isn’t the game they first played and it isn’t the game they first loved. I want to say that Super Smash Bros Brawl is better than Melee, because it is, but I can’t force myself to say it. Something about admitting that the game I spent so much time and energy loving is now inferior is just something I can’t do.

I would gladly be forced to play this game for the rest of my life and only this game. I loved it that much.

And there may lie the problem of creating the perfect game. Companies will never be able to top their most successful games. Mario Bros 3 will still be Mario’s best side-scrolling adventure whereas Mario 64 will be the best 3D platformer period. Ocarina of Time trumps just about every adventure game out there. Final Fantasy 6 or 7 will always be favored over the new titles coming out. Even games that are similar to games in other series will always seem inferior. Shadow of the Colossus was and is one of the best game experiences I’ve ever had. Oops, someone at one point called it the “Zelda Killer.” Silly them, now no Zelda fan will ever love it more than their favorite Zelda title. I went out of my way to hate the game even before it was released on the grounds that it was blaspheming my beloved series. First Person Shooters keep getting touted as “Halo Killers” and so far there have been few to even come close to the mighty throne, with only Modern Warfare being the apparent rightful heir. It seems a surefire way to prevent your game from ever being considered one of the greats is to proudly proclaim that it already is. No one will allow that.

So can we create the perfect game? No, no such game exists. Even the mighty Ocarina of Time has major flaws. No matter what someone makes, someone else will always find a reason to dislike it. It seems to me that the best way to make something near a “perfect game” is to make something unlike anything that’s come before it. Sure, borrow attributes if you need to, but don’t do it so much that people are forced to compare it straight-paralleled to another game. If you can make something without any constraints then it might just excel to new heights. The task of doing that, though, is nigh impossible. You have better luck just staying with what works. Why is it you think Nintendo is so reluctant to create new IP’s in favor of new Mario, Zelda, and Pokemon games? Because people will buy the new games in the franchise no matter what, even if they don’t think it’ll be better than the games they remember. But they’ll always hope.

What do you consider the perfect game? I think Super Mario Bros 3 is as close as one can come to perfection. Ocarina of Time is clearly a favorite of mine as well, but I understand when someone isn’t interested there. But what are your favorites? Do you have a game that you’re certain is perfect? Do you feel that Mega Man 2 got it right and all the games afterward just couldn’t live up to it? Do you think that Modern Warfare 2 perfected the multiplayer standard in a game? Do you believe that World of Warcraft is the end-all for MMORPG’s from now until forever? I bet you know what comes next: Leave a comment. I can’t find out any insight if you don’t give me some. The button’s right there, so use it to enlighten me further. I implore you.

Japan always gets better coverart.

Okay students, class is in session. Please pull out your Nintendo and plug in Mega Man 2 for today’s lesson of Games You Should Have Played. If you do not already have a copy of Mega Man 2 on the NES, it is available in the Mega Man Anniversary Collection released on the GameCube, PS2, and Xbox, and is currently on the Wii’s Virtual Console for a grand total of 500 Wii Points, otherwise known as $5. Yes, this one will only set you back $5.

The Mega Man franchise has somewhat of a stigma nowadays since it constantly releases an update every year that doesn’t seem enough like a totally new game to justify the purchase. Back in the times of the NES there was only one Mega Man series and it was just called Mega Man. The first game came out and became a standard for the use of a non-linear progression through the game (you could choose any of the 6 stages to play through in any order), and each Master Bot you defeated rewarded you with a new weapon.

The Master Bots were each weak to one other weapon, so by beating Guts Man you get the ability to throw rocks, allowing you to defeat Cuts Man extremely easily. This is known as the Rock, Paper, Scissors style of gameplay that Pokemon would later go nuts with.

All of these Bots can kick your butt...except for Bubble Man.

The first Mega Man game is good, but it wasn’t until Mega Man 2 that the franchise took off and became a legend. Instead of just 6 Master Bots, there were 8 (the series standard). Levels were perfectly designed, bosses were interesting, the difficulty was just hard enough without being overly frustrating, and the game was just fun, the most important factor in all games.

This is a game I’m going to consider a skill-building game. To be good at platform shooters, this is one of the games to start with. When you develop the needed skills here then you will be a stronger gamer in the future. No tutorials, no holding your hand through the stages, nothing to make it overly complex.

This is a proving ground for young gamers. The older generation had to prove their worth on the field of Mega, now it’s the new generation’s turn. Mega Man 9 may be out on Wii Ware, Xbox Live Arcade, and Playstation Network, but Mega Man 2 shows where it got its roots.

Robot fish. You fight robot fish. Go play this game!

Go find a copy of the game and at least get to Wily’s castle for the absolute best track available on the NES. Kids, the music in this game is so deeply imbedded in the minds of older gamers that we’ve considered having these songs played at our graduations, weddings, and funerals. Respect the classics and indulge.

You won’t have to spend more than a day to power through the game in one sitting, though it does have a password system for the scrubs who need a few tries or have other things to do in between gaming sessions.