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With a job system that still stands heads and shoulders above all other games in the genre, Final Fantasy Tactics is a game equally deep and challenging in both mechanics and story. It also has the secret best romance in gaming as one of its sub-subplots.
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Not only is this game the gold-standard for competitive multi-player RTS games, it is also a shining example of what can be achieved when an RTS developer decides to take their single-player campaign seriously.
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In terms of mechanics and design, Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 is the be-all end-all of fighting games. How Capcom managed to achieve this level of approximate balance, while simultaneously giving players a nearly infinite number of options, is nothing short of a miracle.
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Final Fantasy IX is the first game in the series to have actual characters since VI. It manages to elevate Final Fantasy with the technical advances of the Playstation era, while recapturing the magic that seemed lost from the SNES era.
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Konami gave Kojima millions of dollars, and he used it to troll the entire gaming world in the most perfect way possible. Metal Gear Solid 2 is Kojima walking away from an exploding building without stopping to look back.
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Fire Emblem: Awakening is the result of taking the best parts from every iteration in a historic and lengthy franchise, then stitching them together into a single, flawless experience.
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When it comes to quirkiness and attitude, no game can top Earthbound. This game does whimsy and wonderment like nothing else, and is incredibly fun to play to boot.
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Not only does The Last of Us represent a masterful return to 3D stealth mechanics, it also manages to elevate writing and acting in games to a whole new level. There are no heroes or villains, just the wretched messes we call people.
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The Walking Dead finally delivers on the promise of moral choice in games by putting the player in situations where they really need to stop and consider what the right the to do is. The fact that these situations are almost always extremely tense and time-sensitive only makes it better.
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Plenty of games have had incredibly gripping stories, but I can't think of series that has built to a climax quite as satisfying as the one at the end of Trials and Tribulations. This game offers the ultimate payoff for a tangled tale spanning across three games.