My Favorite Games - Playstation

I've been thinking about making up a favorite list for a while now but that's something that's usually done at the first of the year. You know, "Favorite Games of 2006" or "Best RPG for non-RPG fans" or "The 10 Best Games You Never Heard of". But I'm not that patient. If I get an idea that I like I don't want to sit on it because I just might forget about it. Even if I write it down I'm bound and determined to lose whatever scrap of paper I wrote it on. So I started to make my list and I realized I had a problem.

How could I do a Top 10 lists of all my games? Is Gears of War better than Legend of Dragoon just 'cause it's newer and looks more real? Would those things influence what makes the list and what doesn't? And how could I narrow it down to just 10?

I have an inventory list of all the games I own, what system they're on, if I have the strategy guide, what genre it is, if I've finished it or not and whether or not my brother has the game as well. This list is separated by system so it's easy to pull out the list in the store and when I'm standing in front of the Game Cube section and only have to look to see what GC games I already have. It's much easier looking through 1 or 2 pages than 9 or 10. I started glancing through the lists and jotting down the names of games I really liked. But I was still hung up on which should be ranked higher Gears or Dragoon.

Then it hit me. Why not do a list for each system? My 10 favorite games for Playstation, Super Nintendo, etc. Brilliant idea. I wouldn't have to decide between Gears and Dragoon; I could have them both. And more columns. And I have to admit that some of them I still haven't finished yet, but that doesn't mean I don't still love the experience . . . I just have too many other games and not enough time to play them all.

So here's my favorite games for the Sony Playstation and why I like them:

#1 Legend of Dragoon - This was the first game I finished, but that's not enough to earn it the top spot. It was the first story I've cared about. The characters, the world, the outcome. I lost many hours playing this game trying to find every Star Dust and getting every piece of equipment. And that's not counting mastering all the combat moves. For a while there I didn't think I'd ever master some of Haschel's combat attacks. I remember feeling a great sense of accomplishment each time I got to a point in the story when I had to put a new disk in the playstation. I even started it all over again to see how much of everything I could find without using a strategy guide for help.

#2 Final Fantasy IX - I love Vivi!!! And even though it took me a while to understand how to play the game Tetra Master once I understood it I loved it. I could spend hours just playing that game alone. Steiner is hilarious and you can't help but love a mini-game where you need to capture frogs (even if you spend most of your time cursing while doing it). And your main character is a lovable thief . . . with a tail. You gotta love that.

#3 Chrono Cross - I can't tell you how many times I've restarted this game just to see which characters I could enlist in my party and how they interact with each other. If I had just stuck with my original save I would have been long done with it by now but I'm still tinkering around with "how" I want to play the game. I love the field effect that comes into play during the battles. It's very frustrating planning your moves to get the fields all green only to have the enemy launch a red attack before your last player gets a turn. Or even worse have your enemy take advantage of the field colors and do more damage to your characters than you're prepared for. It's never the same old turn based battle system of other RPGs where the field effect is concerned. And you have to use just as much, if not more, thought and consideration to the magic that you bring into the battle as much as how you use it during battle.

#4 Legend of Legaia - The first time I played this I got lost. I left the village and had no idea where to go. I wandered around a lot, leveled up a lot, before I finally realized I needed a little help. Once I figure that out I deleted my save and started all over again. Why? Because I felt like I had cheated because I didn't pay enough attention to the clues people were giving me. Legaia is another game that added a wrinkle to the combat system outside the normal turn based we had all come to love. There were hidden combinations you could use to do more damage. You had to play around with the directional pad to figure out what those were. You were never sure you had learned them all so each new discovery was a thrill of excitement.

#5 Abe's Oddysee/Abe's Exodus - Okay I'm listing 2 games here, but can you really tell the difference? Besides, who knew farting and belching could have such a significance in completing a game. The Oddworld games are all hilarious and I wish more people would play them so the developers would make more.

Now for some Honorable Mentions:
Ape Escape, Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy I, Frogger, Pipe Dreams 3D, and Pong

These are MY favorites, but I curious. What do you think about my list? What games would be on your list? Stay tuned for lists for the other systems that I own.