GB's 100 Games: 25-21

 A good mix of the obscure and not-obscure today, including what is probably the highest-rated game on this list that nobody reading has ever heard of.

25: Mario and Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story
Genre: RPG
System: Nintendo DS
Developer: AlphaDream
Publisher: Nintendo
Released: September 14, 2009

This quality RPG has a number of pros to gush over. You have the return of series darkhorse Fawful as a major character, the usual fun action-based battles the Mario and Luigi series is known for, and perhaps most notably of all is the ability to play as Bowser, who is regularly one of the best characters in Mario RPGs. In fact, Mario and Luigi pretty much take a side role here - while they're certainly important, the storyline mostly revolves around Bowser. The final fight and ending are a rare moment of greatness for the long-suffering King of the Koopas.

However, this game also features something I detest: mandatory touch-screen minigames. I felt a wave of tedium rush through me every time gameplay was interrupted to do some inane tapping and swiping, with the "pollen" minigame being the worst of the lot. Also, special anti-kudos to the moron who thought including an unskippable sequence halfway through where literally nothing happens would be an enjoyable addition to gameplay.

Despite those flaws, Inside Story is a fun and creative game and deserves this spot.

24: Super Smash Brothers Brawl
Genre: Party Fighter
System: Nintendo Wii
Developer: Sora
Publisher: Nintendo
Released: March 9, 2008

Who else followed the development of this megaton bomb? Sakurai and his Dojo were great fun to follow along with, even though the multiple delays were agonizing.

When Brawl finally hit, I had a ton of fun with it - but ultimately I did not come back to Brawl as frequently or as feverishly as I did Melee. While Brawl improves on Melee in many ways, there are others where Melee was better designed. The higher number of items that can backfire, the removal of Mewtwo, and of course tripping are three examples. I also was a bit disappointed in Brawl's trophy selection, which consisted almost 100% of reused character models from Brawl and other games, unlike the obscure and unique depths Melee plumbed to. Also a waste of time was the section featuring incredibly short demos of characters' original games. They should have included full games or nothing at all.

But all that aside, the gameplay is still fun. I love the create-a-stage feature, even though the parts are WAY too generic for a game like this. I also liked being able to save screenshots and replays. Subspace Emissary was pretty cool - I liked the cutscenes, and they managed to tell a pretty damn good story considering nobody was allowed to talk. The new characters are mostly great choices, and just like in Melee, one of the obscure characters managed to find renewed success. Last time it was Marth (Fire Emblem gets localized after far too long), and this time it was Pit, finally getting his third game. I hope Smash can do that again with the fourth game - whether I play a series or not, I hate when one is abandoned despite people offering money for another entry, because it's happened to me and I know that feel, man.

23: Pokemon Trading Card Game
Genre: RPG
System: Game Boy Color
Developer: Hudson
Publisher: Nintendo
Released: April 10, 2000

This has got to be the biggest bargain in my entire gaming life. I picked up Pokemon Trading Card Game at GameStop for a whopping two dollars back in 2009 or so. I then got over twenty hours of gameplay out of it.

In Pokemon Trading Card Game you go from one card club to the next, defeating club members and challenging club leaders. It's basically the format of the main games simplified and turned into a card game. Winning battles gets you booster packs that you can use to modify your starting deck (which is, naturally, centered around Bulbasaur, Charmander, or Squirtle).

Now, when I was a kid during the height of Pokemania, I collected a ton of the cards, I read books and magazines about the cards, I endlessly organized and traded the cards, but I never played the card game. I could play it in my head, I could tell you good strategies, I even bought a couple of those instant decks, but I never went ahead and actually played the darn thing, partly because the only person I could play with would be my younger brother who didn't know the rules. We did play a simple Top Trumps-style game with the cards that revolved around using Pokemon HP and weaknesses, though.

So anyway, a decade later, I finally run into this game and it costs less than it would if Nintendo put it on the 3DS Virtual Console, so you know I'm not missing this opportunity. All that stored knowledge about the first year of Pokemon came flooding back, ready to be put to good use.

This game was a time capsule from the turn of the millennium, weaponized for maximum nostalgia. It was amazing.

22: Space Invaders Get Even
Genre: Shmup
System: Nintendo Wii (WiiWare)
Developer: Taito
Publisher: Square Enix
Released: December 1, 2008

Thirty years. Thirty years they put up with your crap. Yes, you, the puny humans with the dumb cannon. Thousands of them descended upon the earth all those years ago, but every last one blipped out of existence, neutralized by that accursed cannon, the Core Cannon.

And they have had enough.

Space Invaders Get Even has to be one of the most genius ideas for an arcade sequel I've ever seen. In SIGE, you play as the invaders' UFO - that big red thing you shot for bonus points in the original game. A swarm of 100 Invaders follow your ship loyally. The UFO, like in the original game, has no weaponry - to fight, it shoots off clouds of invaders. You can change your shot type between one of several different ones, each suited for a different situation - the standard shot makes 20 Invaders zip out and ram a target, then retreat back to you. The drill shot is great for boss fights and makes 25 Invaders form a large drill of death and grind away at one specific location for several seconds.

If an Invader is hit by an attack while at rest, it dies. You can make more Invaders by waggling the Wiimote and Nunchuck, but this leaves you open to attack so you need to find a safe place to do it. If the ship itself is hit, you suffer a time penalty, and you lose if you run out of time before finishing the levels' objective. You can get more time by destroying stuff and abducting cows, and you can fully heal yourself in a Stonehenge monument or clear the screen with a mothership bomb.

There are two things that really grabbed me about this game besides the engaging gameplay. The first is the leaderboard - this was my first experience with an online leaderboard, and it was very addictive. The fun gameplay combined with the relative lack of competition (enough to be worthwhile, but not so much that I was doomed to languish in the hundreds of thousands) gave me the inspiration to try and climb the ranks. In early 2009 I reached probably the highest ranking I'll get on any game - 13th overall highest score in the entire world, with only two Americans above me (The leaderboard displays players' regions). Since then I fell a bit due to more people playing and me being unable to break through the scores any better - I checked the boards a couple years ago and I was somewhere in the upper twenties. I managed to get back into the teens with a few more high scores, but I may have slipped again since. I bet I'm still on the Top Thirty, though. If you ever get this game, look for me - I used "Kracko" as a username.

Anyway, the other thing I really liked about SIGE was that they took an ancient arcade game and gave it a story. There's some voice acting in this game - an Invader narrates the opening, but the rest of the dialogue is between a group of humans, mostly military (although a devastated farmer will get on the mic sometimes if you abduct a cow). There's some banter that actually gives the Invaders some backstory and motivation, and it's both silly and interesting.

The thing SIGE is probably most famous for is that, although it's only 500 Wii Points, only one of the seven levels (two stages and a boss battle) is available, with the rest divided up into three 500-point level packs. As long as you know about it beforehand I don't see an issue - this game was originally meant to be a retail release, and 2000 Wii Points translates to 20 bucks, which sounds typical of a retail game. Also, this way you can spend five bucks for a small but fun game and if you like it you can buy the rest. This is the only time I've bought DLC, and I didn't even really consider it DLC since it was more like just buying a 20-dollar game.

21: Metal Slug Anthology
Genre: Run-And-Gun
System: Nintendo Wii
Developer: SNK
Publisher: SNK
Released: December 14, 2006

Now, normally I wouldn't include an entire compilation disc on the list, but I've made an exception here for a few reasons.

1: The Metal Slug games are difficult to find elsewhere, released one or two at a time on PS2 and Xbox or Virtual Console.

2: All six games here (Plus Metal Slug X, an improved version of Metal Slug 2) are pretty much the same with minor differences in gameplay, so it's more like one big game with six worlds than six separate games. I will however single out Metal Slug X and Metal Slug 3 as my favorites.

3: The absolutely vital addition of infinite continues and restart-where-you-die allows anyone to play these normally very hard games, and if you're ready to step it up you can limit your continues and raise the difficulty. This accessibility is precisely what makes this game score so high - fun without frustration.

In the Metal Slug games, you play as a soldier who must take on an entire enemy army single-handedly (or with a friend). The name comes from the series' iconic tanks. Almost every vehicle is a "Slug". The tank is the Metal Slug, but there's also airplane slugs, helicopter slugs, robot slugs and animal slugs. Gameplay is fast, frantic, and fun. You'll die a lot, but the option to have infinite continues allows you to shoot to your heart's content.

The graphics are amazingly fluid and beautiful - some of the best sprite art I've ever seen. The music is pretty great, too, and the sound effects are satisfying.

A word of note: If you play the Wii version, you'll want to use a GameCube controller to play. And don't get the PAL PS2 version - it has controller lag issues. Aside from that, shooter fans will have a grand old time.