BOOTLEG BLOG

My Top 10 Favorite Video Games Of All Time!

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My personal favorite games with mini spoiler-free(minus one) reviews to go with them

These tend to fluctuate and change a lot but this is probably the closest I'm gonna get to a set list, hope everyone enjoys!

10.
Pizza Tower

Do you like Wario Land? Do you like going fast? Do you like old greasey anxious Italian men? Then Pizza Tower is the game for you!

You play as Peppino, an anxiety ridden debt filled Italian man who owns a pizza shop, his shop is threatened by the big and scary PIZZA FACE, and he must stop him before his shop explodes!

With an art style that makes it simultaniously makes it feel like something straight out of Ren and Stimpy and like it was painfully drawn frame by frame in MSPaint, both of which are compliments by the way, Pizza Tower has charm baked(lol) into every corner of the game.

With extremely solid controls and great level design, I was hooked the moment I started, the insane speed you can hit as this neurotic man is genuinely insane. The game can be extremely challenging as well, and it does a damn well good job as making it feel like a victory when you overcome a major challenge unlike some games that just make it feel like a chore.

Pizza Tower is a very stressful game in the best way possible, in many different ways, like the timers at the end of every stage, Peppino's constantly restless animations, and the music, oh my god the music.
Without stating any spoilers, when you get to the track "PIZZA TIME NEVER ENDS" you will know true dread.

This game is honestly the best representation of the average modern day anxious minimum wage worker's average week. Unironically. We need more greasey sweaty anxious characters in media and less cute and timid anxious characters. I see you, not showering before work because you slept in and now in a panic. HIS ONLY COHERENT WORD YOU CAN HEAR HIM SAY IS "PARANOID"

Anyways, Pizza Tower is a game about funny Italian man, play it.

9.
Team Fortress 2

I was genuinely unsure if I wanted to include this game considering it's uh, current state, but with how much time I've put in this game (though much less than others) I feel like I sorta have to.

TF2 is one of the extremely few FPS games I have fun with, it's extremely solid and satisfying gameplay coupled with it's silly characters and world make for an insanely fun experience.

Having a wide set of possible play styles while still only sticking to 9 playable characters so it doesn't get overly complicated and difficult to balance(hint hint nudge nudge)

And despite the game being sorta of life support with Valve refusing to put any effort into the game, there's still many ways to play the game without having to touch the casual servers that have been overran by bots.

I'm personally a Medic and Heavy main, Heavy having some issues with his "when you're winning it's great! when you're losing UUUGH" syndrome that could be fixed with a major update VAAAVLE he's still incredibly fun. And Medic easily being the one I'm best at, even if I'm an insane person who consistently uses The Quick Fix.

Though it's a hard game to suggest in it's current state, it's something I've never quite been able to find anything else like, TF2 is special, just wish Valve could see that.

8.
NEEDY STREAMER OVERLOAD

NSO is a very normal adventure game where you just go by the name P-chan and you're here to helo your cute girlfriend, Ame-chan, going under the alter ego of omgkawaiiangel, to become the world's most famous streamer! How sweet.

Actually no, I'm not even gonna try to play around it, NSO is a game about that's simultaniously a dark comedy parody of how bad streaming culture is and a psychological horror into those who get sucked in the world of fame the most, those who are validation starved.

The perfect blend of genuinely being extremely funny with all the weird hate and admoration comments Ame gets and a very compassionate yet deeply dark depiction of someone who's mental illness and trauma has caused them to intensly crave attention from everyone and anyone possible, rather than just shrugging it off as "oh they're just an attention seeker lol they don't actually have problems."

The game is also fun in a strange way, trying to balance Ame's stats of stress, affection, and mental darkness to get every ending possible.

I don't wanna take any risk at all that'll cause spoilers so if you would like to see me talk about this game in more detail you can read so here

7.
Portal 2

Goddamn it Valve has done it again.

Portal 2 was once my favorite game of all time and though it no longer sits at that spot it still holds a special place in my heart.

Taking the short but fantastic masterpiece of Portal 1 and expanding upon it in the best way possible, with fantastic dialog, a great story, and fantastic puzzles that make you feel great after completing them.
Or incredibly stupid because the solution was actually pretty obvious.

(spoilers for Portal 1, naturally)

Our protagonist Chell finding herself in some sort of isolation chamber for test subjects, in a complete state of stasis for who knows how long, is awoken in an emergency by a small eyeball robot just named Wheatley. After escaping you stumble across the remains of Glados after defeating her in the previous game, but she is not dead, and she is not happy with you, taking both you and Wheatley away to have fun, do some tests, like old times.

The enviromental design to this game is also fantastic, seeing nature overtake this sterile lab filled with the haunted echos of morally questionable tests.

If you've somehow never played Portal 2 please do, a fantastic fps puzzle game.

6.
Sonic Adventure 2

I vividly remember the hell I put my Mom through just so I could play this game, I specifically asked my Mom for a Gamecube for my birthday along with this game, the Gamecube had been pretty dead at that point so we had to go through every corner to find one. And the moment we got it I became obsessed with this game, just as obsessed as I knew I would.

In my mind Sonic Adventure 2 is THE Sonic game, the one that defines what he's all about.

SA2 follows two split stories, one following our heroes and their adventure to stop Eggman on his latest method to take over the world along side a mysterious black and red hedgehog that looks oddly similar to Sonic and a flirty bat girl working along side them.

And the other story follows Eggman, finding a long buried family secret of a man made weapon in the form of a black and red hedgehog, along side a strange bat girl by the name of Rouge who's secretly working for G.U.N. to get an eye on Eggman.

Easily having one of the strongest stories in the franchise with most of the problems coming from the poor English translation (PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE GET A RETRANSLATION MOD AND PLAY IT WITH THE JAPANESE DIALOG PLEAAAAASE) that still makes me emotional to this day.

Though the gameplay can be rough around the edges at points I still feel confident that the gameplay overall is still extremely fun. Sonic and Shadow's stages are top tier, Knuckles and Rouge's stages get a lot of unnecessary hate as I find them super fun minus like 2, and though I consider Tails and Eggman's stages the weakest of the 3 I still find them very fun for the most part.

Oh and of course the Chao Garden, can never forget about the Chao Garden, I've wasted way too many hours on it.

SA2 is still a strong game to this day, play it.

5.
Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky

Explorers of Sky has made a major impact on me for many reasons, the big one being that it was the first video game to ever make me cry as a kid.

You find yourself washed up on a beach, with only 2 memories, your name, and that you're a human. But after being awoken by a Pokemon(depending on who you selected at the beginning of the game) you discover that you yourself have turned into a Pokemon.

After explaining your lack of memories and being a human to the Pokemon you were awoken by get shoved by a duo of a Zubat and a Koffing, them quickly stealing the strange rock that the Pokemon had with them. You then agree to help them get that rock back, and with such a simple start begins a beautiful story about friendship, trust, and goodbyes.

Explorers of Sky is one of my go-to comfort games, it's story being simple but so enjoyable and genuinely engaging, with probably my favorite post-game in anything ever. Hell the post-game is so popular people joke about how it's the REAL start of the game.

The dungeon crawling is simple but not completely mindless, you still have to put thought in your choice of moves and managing your resources without it feeling overbearing.

I genuinely have more emotional attachment to this very game than literally any of the mainline Pokemon games, and this franchise was pretty big for me growing up.

A fantastical world with beautiful pixel artwork, gorgeous and fun music, amazing characters(Bidoof my beloved), and so much more to love.

4.
Celeste

I'm not the first person to say that their life has been changed for the better after playing Celeste, and I doubt I'll be the last.

You find yourself playing as a young adult woman named Madeline, finding herself in a rut in life she ends up out of sheer impulse to climb one of the most difficult mountains to climb, Celeste Mountain. Little does she know she's gonna find herself in a journey to change her life entirely, finding new friends, and facing her inner demons and anxieties.

Celeste is a game about suffering from anxiety, how it impacts everything in life, and how to overcome it. This game helped me accept my problems with anxiety and showed me hope, showed me that I can keep going.

Celeste's gameplay follows a lot of the same beats at a lot of hyper-difficult rage inducing platformers, but it avoids any discouragement by simply never mocking you, the game never really shuns you, if anything it's constantly encouraging you to do your best. Encouraging you to beat that level, complete it at your own pace.

With beautiful music by the amazing Lena Raine she manages to have the music swim between calming beauty and deep intense panic. Everything in this game in general flows together so naturally.

Everyone on Maddy Makes Games's team did a beautiful job with this game, and I look forward to more works by both Maddy, Noel, and their team in the future.

And thank you, thank you for teaching me how to love myself again.

3.
Sonic Frontiers

The Sonic franchise has had a rocky history of yadda yadda yadda you know the story.

After Sonic 06 was so awful it permenantly ruined peoples' view on the franchise and causing the 'dark age of Sonic' to happen (even though games like Unleashed and Black Knight were actually pretty good imo)

After the backlash of Forces being so mediocre that it was frustrating, Sega finally decided that it's time to take more time developing their next Sonic title.

And they delivered, amazingly.

We follow Sonic, Tails, and Amy, adventuring out to somewhere called the Starfall Island. Tails found out that all of the chaos emeralds somehow found themselves drawn towards the island so they decided to check things out to see what the big deal is. But before they can even land the plane starts malfunctioning and the 3 find themselves flung into a vortex. Sonic manages to make it out fine and now he must adventure to figure out where Tails and Amy went and unlock the ancient mysteries of this island.

The start sounds simple but the story is executed wonderfully

Written by former Sonic Archie writer and current head writer for Sonic's IDW comic series Ian Flynn, you can feel the love and care in every piece of dialog. The first game since Black Knight that feels like it's written by someone who REALLY knows what Sonic is and what he's all about.

The gameplay also scratches a specific part of my brain, the combination of open world elements with the platforming and Sonic's iconic speed-based gameplay feels so nice, and though some of the cyber stages are a bit rough and feel like something out of Forces, particularly with the 2D stages, but it's not something that's experience ruining, if it being number 3 on my top 10 favorite games list says anything.

It gives me hope for the future of the Sonic franchise, we love Sonic here.

2.
Psychonauts 2

I bought Psychonauts 2 on a whim during a steam sale since I heard it was a pretty easy game to get into without playing the 1st one. I was not expecting for it to worm it's weird giant head into my heart as hard as it did.

Psychonauts 2 follows about a week or so after the events of the 1st game, following Raz going to the Psychonauts headquarters to help with the search of Truman Zanotto and one big mystery, the psychic who flooded Grulovia and killed thousands but the original Psychic 6 took down and the person who's trying to bring her back to life.

Psychonauts 2 blends great comedy with genuine empathy and care for the subject matter it tackles. The amount of care and research they do for subject matter such as mental illness and addiction is really nice. Hell Double Fine specifically worked with actual psychologists to make sure things in this game were accurate.

The gameplay is fucking amazing and incredibly addictive, every ability you unlock feels great and useful, it's just so fucking fun. It has easily some of the best platforming and combat in any game I've ever played.

It's also such a treat of a game when you're a massive psychology nerd like myself. Please play Psychonauts 2.

1.
Persona 3 Reload

This is the perfect remake of the game that changed my life.

I've always been a massive Persona fan, Persona 3 Portable being my favorite one from a story standpoint, however both it and it's other versions haven't aged the best from a gameplay perspective, which always kept me from recommending people to play it.

So, when a leak for a Persona 3 remake with the style of Persona 5 dropped, I was, needless to say, extremely excited. I was counting down the days for the game to drop. Playing it along side my boyfriend, I felt like I was falling in love with this game all over again.

The gameplay fixes every single one of my problems with the other previous versions, and even feels better than P5R in my opinion.

The new art work is fantastic, the menus have just as much style as Persona 5 while still having this cold and sad energy that Persona 3 as a whole always gives off. Every single one of the new voice actors do the characters absolute justice, particularly the new voice actor for Junpei Iori, Zeno Robinson, who is genuinely one of the best performances I've ever heard in any game ever.

Genuinely the singular thing I don't like about this game is that it's 70 USD making it not very accessable for some people, so if you want to check this game out keep an eye out for sales.

I'll eventually write a full essay on why this game has impacted my life as much as it is and why I feel like Reload is the best way to play it another time.

But just know, this game makes me cry like a bitch.