10. Super Metroid - Exploring a planet hiding innumerable secrets beneath its surface, Super Metroid is a claustrophobic and haunting experience where the player nearly always feels outmatched and outnumbered. Weaponry is acquired gradually, expanding one's ability to explore and exterminate slowly. The game's acclaimed map system charts player progress as they visit the organically cohesive environments, accompanied by nothing but the minimalist, muted yet pulse-pounding score. Like the thrilling escape, this game will stay in your memory forever.
9. Kingdom Hearts - KH's sometimes incoherent story deals in intense and adult themes of abandonment, maturation, and relationships. Unlike a majority of the games on this list, it stands out not because of it's sweeping orchestral soundtrack, well developed battle system, inspired crossover between the Final Fantasy and Disney universes, or its lush and beautiful graphics. Instead, one is expected to identify with Sora as he grows from a modest boy to an accomplished hero and learns a few things about the adult world in the process.
8. EarthBound - Truth be told, EarthBound isn't the best game on this list by a long shot. Its turn-based battle system was archaic even by the standards of its time and its graphics, while charming, are unsophisticated and reminiscent of a child's art. However, EarthBound is an example of a game becoming something more than the sum of its parts. It features catchy and stirring musical themes and again features a boy aspiring to become someone more than his upbringing allows; the protagonist Ness develops lasting relationships with a variety of complex characters, each with their own crosses to bear. With its fourth-wall breaking humor, its manipulation of genre stereotypes (common weapons are yo-yos, baseball bats, and the like) and surprisingly epic scale, EarthBound is the dark horse of the list.
7. Super Mario Galaxy - Galaxy finally evolves the Mario series and the platformer in general with inventive and stunning level design that twists, inverts, and rotates the player and conventions in general. Utilizing gravity as the central theme, Galaxy tasks players with exploring dozens of planets, asteroids, and comets in a quest to collect stars once again. Light on combat, Galaxy is robustly designed and will test players' intuition and intelligence yet is so well implemented that never once do you feel cheated. Featuring a surprisingly mature storyline, it stands as the finest game available for the Nintendo Wii, showcasing what attention to design and presentation can create.
6. Final Fantasy VII - What more can be written about FFVII? It ushered in an era of cinematic scale and depth in RPGs, for better worse; it featured one of the most complex and sophisticated character evolution schemes yet seen on a console system, innovated the way graphics and music are integrated into games and gave us one of the most malevolent villains in series history. Playing FFVII is an investment in time and might very well leave you with many questions regarding its overwrought storyline and its imbalanced character development, but witness the fate of Aeris and see if you don't remember this game forever.
5. Secret of Mana - SoM's defining feature is its score. Although the graphics were (and remain) beautiful, it simply can't stand up against the soundtrack. No game I've ever played before or since has balanced the light natural themes of woodwinds and strings with the violent percussion and force of most RPGs. It helps to ingratiate the game into the player's consciousness through its light-hearted and reverent themes early in the game and pulls the rug out from underneath them later on as the tone and story becomes more urgent and the stakes are raised. It single-handedly retrieves the game from the broadly drawn characters and fun, though simple multiplayer-enabled combat.
4. Final Fantasy X - I only played this game last year for the first time and I was almost angry at myself that I had denied myself myself this joy for so long. FFX upends every convention in the series: the bombastic brass instruments are exchanged for flowing woodwinds that lighten the tone of the game and flow like the water that thematically resonates throughout the game; the battle system requires understanding of each character's specialized abilities (Wakka is almost required to attack lithe flying creatures while Auron can pierce even the most well-armored enemies); the presentation of the series, and gaming in general found a new watershed in FFX, whose characters spoke extensively and who appeared almost identically to living people. In every respect, FFX is a journey that transforms both the characters and the player.
3. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past - I've never played and beaten another game more than this one, which absolutely perfected the Zelda formula. ALttP innovated the series by adding several series mainstays, including the Master Sword and the hookshot, and continued the tradition of excellent level design with their complex yet logically designed dungeons. In addition, the addition of a dark world, similar and distinct from the light world, expanded the design and packed in more enemies, more secrets to uncover, and the most dungeons found in a single game. Even the vaunted Ocarina of Time doesn't match the level design, the cohesion, nor the sheer joy of A Link to the Past.
2. Final Fantasy VI - FFVI features the largest cast in the series, yet nearly every character is provided a backstory, a cross to bear, and a moment of redemption. Each distinct character possesses unique abilities in battle based on the famed Job system and characters can be further individuated through judicious usage of Espers, magical familiars that give stat bonuses. Released in 1994, FFVI set a new standard for graphical and audio presentation and the quality of the soundtrack in particular stands over time. Perhaps the last of the traditional Final Fantasy series, FFVI is not to be missed, especially to bear witness to the most deranged and memorable villain SquareEnix has yet produced.
1. Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King - DQVIII is truly a living, breathing world on a disc. Its immense and sprawling world contains hundreds of hours of gameplay and truly reproduces a sense of awe to the player. The first time you step to the top of a hill and look down across flatlands, the first visit to the ruined Trodain castle, the first time you learn how Yangus and your hero meet. Gaming isn't about well-executed battles or crystal clear graphics that blur the lines between fantasy or reality. They're about memories, like the way you felt dying after a grueling battle, or when you first understood the scale of the plot. DQVIII is full of beautiful, understated, and subtle moments that will stay with the player for as long as they love gaming.
I'm not surprised to see so many Final Fantasy games. I didn't know you liked the Galaxy game so much. It was very cute. I love you!