A_Talking_Donkey

Vagrant Story has my favorite combat system of the 3 (even of the 4 if we're counting Parasite Eve now), and still stands as an interesting game to me. With so many systems at play it actually still feels somewhat deep during replays. So that one, easily.

I do enjoy Xenogears but I think some of the philosophical elements are overhyped and in some ways are actually treated rather poorly. Though I know I'm in the minority with that opinion. The scene where your mechs gets crucified is hilariously dumb, imo. Decent game all around though.

Chrono Cross seemed like your run of the mill JRPG to me, and the story is a mess.

Dante's Inferno - for a game that had such middle of the road reviews, I was expecting the world's most average game. It's actually pretty good compared to other games in the genre. The action is tight, it never feels stale.

Bad Guy is ridiculously good, the rest of the album is trash.

Jägerbombs

It isn't inherently, but it means someone somewhere has settled on that being the right way for games to play - which would have been fine, but once everyone everywhere settles for it than that means a little bit of creative space is gone. It's mostly a "games are art" argument, but it is what it is.

Pokemon but mainly because everyone around me was so hyped over that game. I was 11 when red and blue came out in '98 and at the time I realized it was a subpar strategy game wrapped in the most bland RPG I'd played at the time. Even when I was the target demographic for the game I didn't find it compelling and I think I missed out on a huge franchise that had a lot of potential.

A lot of modern AAA games - and that isn't to say they're bad games. This rant will make me sound old, and in some ways I do feel sort of grandpa-like on games. It feels like the current gen of gaming lost a bunch of medium sized development companies and mainstream games homogenized into a less risky business. Everything ended up feeling safe and (mostly) unexperimental. In turn I haven't felt blown away by most big developers lately. Ham-fisted RPG elements smashed on top of FPSes that all have identical control schemes with very little variation in gameplay, EA Sports Yearly Roster Update, and street racing simulators sent me running in to the arms of underfunded indie developers because at least the technologically outdated stuff they're churning out doesn't all feel like the exact same derivative tripe AAA developers are churning out. It's sort of like how I grew bored of Hollywood's gigantic explosion action flicks and tensionless "horror" movies. Sadly I don't see this getting better until indie developers get their hands on the same tools major developers use since until then the gaming population at large will most ignore them. Again, I'm not saying these games are bad, I'm saying I feel like I've grown out of modern gaming which is sort of disappointing and it feels bad playing games that I find absolutely boring because that's what you do when hanging out with friends.

@supercycle: He means the art is the process of creation, not the end result. The chase, not the catch.

As a music player (rather than a musician) I find that this isn't just a games thing. People who study any kind of art theory often miss the creative part of the doing.

Everyone at Ubisoft and EA.

Sounds vaguely like Tomba, except I don't remember there being a shop juxtaposed between vines - and you don't need a paddle to cross the river.