Topic: GCN10 Honorable Mentions

[broodwars]

Different strokes, but I really liked the simplification of the battle system.  I found managing every single character's deck in the first Baten Kaitos incredibly tedious, especially as the cards changed over time and you had to keep an eye on them.  The battle system in the first game is also incredibly slow and obnoxious at times (though it still has strategic appeal), with the characters calling out every attack at a very deliberate pace and then the game stopping to show the Results screen after every combo.

By contrast, Origins is all about the Speed of Battle, and once you increase your bond with Sagi enough, the game does a pretty consistent job of always tossing you just the card you need when you need it to continue a combo.  So you set up your hand in-battle for your first character, and very quickly you start developing absurd demonstrations of utter ass-kickery like THIS.  It's simplified, but it's fast and fun and I'll gladly take more hours of enjoyment from the rest of the game over the hours of deck management I had in the first game.

And no one can say with a straight face that the original Baten Kaitos had a good dub, especially if you left the audio settings at their default state so you got that "tin can" audio effect.  Baten Kaitos Origins, though, has an excellent dub, mostly because Nintendo didn't dub it themselves.  And considering the game was a budget title, I always thought the game was quite lovely and the story is leaps and bounds better than the first game's (despite the first game having a really well-done plot twist halfway through).

I still liked the original Baten Kaitos for all my gripes with it, but Origins is just a better game with a better story; a more exciting battle system; better characterization; much better dubbing; and IMO better music.

[Crimm]

I actually found constructing the perfect deck to be a bit zen. "Is that card there the best I can do? No? Then let's replace it."


I had a set deck for each combination I used with any frequency and actually enjoyed toying with new cards to see how they could best be integrated. At the very end of the game my best deck was meticulously groomed for perfection.


As for the dub, you'll see I explicitly addressed the dub in the post. I won't, however, agree that the overall plot of the prequel is better than the original. The characterization is, but I feel like a lot more creative energy went into the first game's story and the second game piggybacked on it.

[ejamer]

I'm torn about Baren Kaitos. Lots of neat ideas, a fun card-based battle system, cool combos and card-generating moves to uncover, and a decent story that improved significantly during the second half of the game... yet it's still a game that I traded away and have no interest in playing again. It just never drew me in enough to move from "good" to "great" status.

Sure do wish I could find a copy of Origins though. If it's as good as the first game then it deserves at least one play through.

[Ian Sane]

With TP and Four Swords getting honorable mentions it's pretty obivious that Wind Waker is in the top ten.  I think Four Swords is better but it likely suffers from Pikmin 2 syndrome where no one played it.

Wind Waker is a game that could be called both underrated and overrated.  Its supporters would call it underrated but I think their support of the game is so aggressive that it is overrated.  It just is not nearly as good of a game as its fans say it is.  And it isn't a bad game either.  I think the graphics switcheroo controversy created an "us vs. them" mentality in the gaming community.  There were those that were furious at Nintendo and those that supported it.  In the end Nintendo delivered a pretty damn good game.  But that's too middle-of-the-road to allow either side to "win" thus each side underrates or overrates the game based on what side they took to support their argument.  "Wind Waker is the best Zelda game ever so the cel-shaded graphics were a good idea!"  "Wind Waker is a weak Zelda game so they should have stuck with realistic graphics!"

I personally think both WW and TP are disappointing compared to the N64 Zeldas.  The Cube Zeldas are only superior in graphics and improvements to the controls.

[UncleBob]

With TP and Four Swords getting honorable mentions it's pretty obivious that Wind Waker is in the top ten.  I think Four Swords is better but it likely suffers from Pikmin 2 syndrome where no one played it.

I do love Four Swords Adventures, but I don't know if I'd say it was better than Wind Waker.  I'd love to see Shadow Battle mode brought back - the multi-player modes in the DS Zelda games just don't compare.

[rlse9]

Donkey Konga was a blast to play.  I got the game the week it came out while I was in college and it became a big hit with the people in my dorm, most of whom weren't gamers.  I actually thought the song selection in the game was good, not necessarily songs I'd listen to but they were all fun to play.  Donkey Konga 2 on the other hand had a song list with a lot of songs that I like but I didn't find them nearly as fun to play.

[Ian Sane]

Ikaruga as an honorable mention?  Geez, my favourite Cube titles are all getting the short end of the stick.

I think the suggestion that because shmups aren't massively popular anymore, that Ikuraga isn't a top ten pick is nuts.  Why don't you just list the top ten best selling games if you're going to use popularity as a measuring stick?

It is quite common for games that were not that popular at the time to later be recognized as one of the essential games for a console.  No one gave a damn about Herzog Zwei when it was out but it regularly makes top 10 lists for the Genesis.  Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy III are routine top 10s for the SNES, yet RPGs were not very popular in North America during that time.  Both games got more attention when RPGs took off on the Playstation.  You could always exclude them because at the time that was a niche genre.  Ikaruga is the best shmup on the Gamecube and probably the best of its generation.

[NWR_insanolord]

Ideally, popularity shouldn't factor into it, but since our list was decided by vote among the staff the games that were part of it had to have been played by enough people to receive support. The top ten aren't necessarily supposed to be the best ten games on the system (obviously, considering the lack of Pikmin 2).