39. Mirror's Edge

(Xbox360/PS3/PC, Digital Illusions, 2008)
I don't have a head for heights. Inside a building, it isn't a problem, but out in the open, I get an incredible urge to jump from high places and a horrible weakness of the knees. Standing on a footstool and looking up and down does very little for me, if I catch the view out of a window, my eyes tend to do a dolly reverse (Accomplished by moving my eyes backward whilst simultaneously zooming in....or something)

Faith Connors however, suffers no such trauma, if she did, she would be on the unemployment line. Faith is a "Runner" a maverick courier whose job is to deliver packages to their destinations away from the prying eyes of her city's totalitarian leaders. In a world where constant observation has eliminated crime. All communication is monitored, Faith and her friends are here to ensure that your private business stays that way. High above the prying eyes, The runners travel from building to building. at the peak of physical perfection, they are fast, agile and fearless. When Faith's sister Kate is framed for the murder of an eminent politician. Faith must use all her skills and more to save her sister's reputation and maybe her own life.

Played in first-person, Mirror's Edge attempts to accurately capture the feelings of speed, disorientation, balance and adrenaline felt by the world's finest Parkour artists. The player controls Faith as she makes her way through various zones of the picturesque city, avoiding the various government hit-squads chasing her and, of course, doing her best not to become a sticky mess on the streets way down below.
It is like no other game, it strongly encourages the player to avoid combat (though high-flying melee attacks are available) and concentrate on moving through the scenery with grace and fluidity, using all the acrobatic moves at Faith's disposal to make the journey fast, but as smooth as possible.

The graphics are basic but this is presumably to keep the speed up, the city is brilliantly portrayed as being crystal clear and squeaky clean, whilst still conveying the dark "1984"-esque overtones of its totalitarian government. The game has no HUD in an attempt to truly allow the player to immerse in their surroundings. The music is beautifully composed and conveys both the calmness and isolation of the silent rooftops along with the pulse pounding action of running from gunfire some seventy stories above the ground. Once the player has mastered the controls, getting Faith from A to B can be a thing of beauty as she runs, jumps, slides, rolls and vaults her way to her destination without missing a beat.

Mirror's Edge isn't for everyone, the gameplay doesn't vary much and many players may get bored partway through. A first-person game without an emphasis on shooting may even terrify some players (I earned an achievement for finishing the game without ever firing a gun. A proud moment in my gaming lifetime) the game also has frantic camera-bob and much spinning and rolling, so it's really not for the motion sick.

I thought Mirror's Edge was artistic, stylish and sublime and have played it through several times. Special mention should be given to the character of Faith Connors, a down-to-earth, attractive, capable, brave, strong and intelligent protagonist.
Mirror's Edge did badly in the sales, pushed aside by the more obvious first-person experiences. The really sad part was Mirror's Edge lack of success conveys to developers that originality is a no-go area and guarantees us crappy cut-and-paste shooters for many more years.
Fortunately, it appears Mirror's Edge will be getting a sequel, so the people who did enjoy it have reason to celebrate.

Please take the leap of Faith, because if you make it, it'll be poetry in motion.

40. Time Gal

(Arcade/Various Home, Taito, 1985)
As of this writing it's the very beginning of the year 2010. Now, to me, 2010 sounds pretty much like it's "The Future" (Although SNK always assured me that the future "is now") but as I look around I see that, sadly, old movies and 1940's Bugs Bunny cartoons were lying all along, I have no hoverboard, no laser-gun, no spaceship car and The Running Man isn't a legitimate gameshow (Yet) What I'm missing most of all though, is super cool anime girls time travelling in ridiculously small costumes. For that, I still have a couple thousand years wait left, until then, 1985 will have to suffice.

Time Gal is the second Laserdisc game to enter the 100 list. I explained at length in my Dragon's Lair entry what LD games mean to me and why, so I'm not going to fight for their existence here. You know how the game works, video plays out and you react to the linear controls with split second timing in order to prevent our heroine from a grisly demise. In Time Gal, the player controls Reika, who appears to be some kind of law enforcement official in the year 4001. The game begins with the evil, beardy, Luda stealing a time-travelling device capsule and laughing like only a badguy can as he disappears into the fabric of time to wreak havoc.
Reika is hot on the case, using a small gem in her smaller costume, she travels through various time periods taking on every single deadly situation known (and not yet known) to man. Armed with a laser pistol and the ability to briefly pause the action "TIME STOPPU!" Reika must track down Luda and stop him before any paradoxial damage can be done. Reika is Sarah Conner and Luda is Miles Bennet Dyson.

Time Gal is one of my favourite Laserdisc games, with classic old-school anime art and a wide range of action packed scenes that take much pleasure in re-writing events that may or may not have happened. For example, did you know the world was full of ghosts in the year 666A.D? or that Godzilla roamed the earth in the year 70000000B.C? Time Gal can certainly teach you a lot about history you didn't know. The game also correctly predicts the Gulf war by having the 1990 level take place on a tank filled desert battlefield. Taito and their wacky crystal ball. If I was in charge, Time Gal would be a part of the education curriculum.
I love Time Gal, the game and the girl herself, Reika is a beautiful and lovable heroine, her blantantly sexist design counter-balanced with her skilfull abilities and quick wits. Time Gal, being a Laserdisc game, suffers all the perils and pitfalls that come along with that genre, linear non-gameplay, lack of control and much trial and error.
But if you've been reading this far into my project, you'll know that I'm beyond caring about those issues in a game like this. Time Gal has great art, nice tunes and a real eighties feel to it, more so than any other LD game I've played (and believe me, I've played them all) For anyone wishing to try it out, I strongly recommend the rare Playstation version for glorious video and some nice dip-switch options.

If girls in the future are as cool as Reika, Y'know what? You can shove your hoverboard, Marty.

41. Last Ninja 2

(Various Home, System 3, 1988)
Ninjas are back in the 100 Videogames list, in fact they're "Back With A Vengeance" (It says so right here on the poster.) Armakuni is no Mystic Warriors pink and green ninja though, Armakuni is the LAST ninja, clad head to toe in black, trained to mental and physical perfection, as fast as a cheetah, as deadly as a shark and as quiet as a snake. Armakuni is the most dangerous man on earth.

Just don't ask him to jump over a lake. PLEASE DON'T.

Last Ninja 2 was released at the end of the 80's for a variety of home formats. An isometric 3D adventure, Last Ninja 2 sees Armakuni, the last of an assassinated ninja clan, flung from ancient Japan into 1980's New York by the evil Shougun Kunitoki. Given no time to become accustomed to his frightening surroundings, Armakuni must rely on his training and mastery of the martial arts to track down his sworn enemy and end their rivalry.

Last Ninja 2 is an incredibly sophisticated game, with artistic graphics, fantastic dark music, well designed levels and an intuitive combat system. The various scenes in and around New York are nicely created and feature a wealth of puzzles to solve and brutal fights to overcome, be it by fist, staff or nunchunk. Armakuni must negotiate his new world and it's many obstacles and does so with the true spirit of a golden ninja warrior. Upon facing Kunitoki, a battle to the death will decide on Armakuni's fate once and for all (Well, until Last Ninja 3)
Last Ninja 2 is a well drawn, well composed and generally sound product, the real problem here isn't with Ninjas, or Shoguns, or New York...

..It's with lakes.

You see, Last Ninja 2 suffers from unbearable depth perception problems, which makes jumping an incredible chore. Despite being a finely honed ninja master, Armakuni seems unable to leap accurately or stick his landing. At the end of the first level (Central Park) Armakuni has to leap onto a moving boat then off again to cross a lake. Whilst the problem varies depending on the format played, this sequence is an absolute nightmare and is infamous in the retro-gaming community, having cost many frustrated players many lives.
Once the lakes are crossed, the player will not have to suffer a similar sequence until a much later level, but after the loss of a life or two, the damage may already have been done.

Last Ninja 2 has artistic graphics and an awesome music score, It has a nice range of weapons and some intriguing levels and puzzles. The C64 port is arguably the finest version and the one I'd recommend to anyone wishing to try it for the first time.
Those jumps can be so frustrating though, that many may never have the forgiving nature to commit to experiencing the full beauty of the game.

42. Do! Run Run

(Arcade/MSX, Universal, 1984)
The cherry-loving clown is the star of a series of arcade classics which in one way or another "borrow" liberally from other arcade classics, the fourth game of the series steals ideas from Qix, Pac-man, Congo Bongo, Mappy and the original game of the series, which in turn, stole from Dig-Dug. Even the game's title is stolen from a song.

Just one thing though. Mr Do! doesn't give a shit what you think.

The most punk rock of all the early video game heroes, Mr Do! spends his time in Do! Run Run running full pelt over a multi-tiered board, collecting Pac-Man's dots and drawing boxes around them with Qix's line in order to turn them into Super Pac's fruit products, he must do all this whilst avoiding Dig-Dug's dragons.
An incredibly frantic, fast-paced and frankly confusing game, Do! Run Run sees the player either gather the dots or take the time to draw a box around them in order to turn them into various high-scoring fruits. Chased by several monsters, Mr Do! can either throw a ball at his enemies or crush them under rolling logs. A board is cleared once all the dots/fruit are collected or all the monsters are killed. After a set period of time, the monsters change design and speed up. On top of all this, collecting letters makes MORE monsters appear which Mr Do! must defeat to collect MORE letters to earn an extra life.

Mr Do! loves to plagiarise, but he does it with such style and fashion that you can't help but love the little bastard, this disregard for copyright law, coupled with his ability to create some of the surrealist arcade classics ever, make Mr Do!, in my eyes, one of the damn coolest characters to exist in videogames. Do! Run Run is so rebel yell it even has a hidden diamond which gives the player a free credit. Take that Mappy you police-mouse prick.

Finally, the game has awesome music, with the game's first board wailing out one of my favourite pieces of frantic VGM ever. To summarise, Mr. Do! is so hardcore he got his own Neo-Geo game, he is a clown who eats cherries, owns a castle, crushes Dragons and has an exclamation mark in his name. Rumours persist that if you fail to leave cherries outside the Taito offices, he turns up in your bed at night....

...With a knife.

I love Mr Do!, My girlfriend CALLS ME "MR. DO!"
When a girl pet names you after a small pixellated ball throwing clown from 1984, it doesn't get any better than that, my friends.

43. Metal Gear Solid

(Playstation/PS3/PC, Konami, 1998)
Do you think love can bloom, even on a battlefield?
It's an incredibly emo question, but we're dealing with an incredibly emo game.
Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear Solid hit the Playstation running during the classic gaming year of 1998 and immediately blew everything else out of the water. Resurrecting a long dead franchise and simultaneously defining a whole new genre, MGS managed in one fell swoop to go one better than most games previous to it and become the blueprint for many, many games to follow afterwards. It was as if MGS arrived and arrogantly stated to all other developers "This is how action gaming should be done and how you are going to do it from now on"

Assuming you are a gamer yourself, you know what Metal Gear Solid is about, with its espionage based, "Trust no one" plot and its tactical stealth gaming, but over ten years later, it's easy to forget how inventive the game was back in '98. MGS re-wrote the book on many things in videogames, story-telling for example. For those who weren't RPG savvy, the idea of having videogame characters with REAL emotions, lives and backgrounds was shockingly cutting edge. MGS broke rules by encouraging players to stay AWAY from gunfights and to look for quieter, less violent routes. It dared have long cut-scenes and the controversial Codec screens which at the time seemed to go on forever (but are borderline subliminal compared to the series' current standards) These are all examples of features many games have today and we should be reminded of where their influence lies.

MGS has superb controls and a smart inventory system which keeps the game flowing smoothly even during frantic action scenes or the epic boss battles that feature from time to time. Special attention must be paid to the game's attitude toward music, voice acting and writing which, despite the debate as to whether a game should "be like a movie" or not, provide an engaging atmosphere, with great effects and instantly memorable music. Hum a tune from MGS right now, I bet you can. I bet it's the "Guards on alert" theme.
An essay could be written on the narrative itself. The script manages to be deep, intelligent and enthralling whilst simultaneously being over-wrought to the point of cringe-worthy. The beauty of the Metal Gear storyline lies in it's pro's and its con's though, as to have a storyline that wasn't brain-meltingly complex and a script that wasn't eye-rollingly emo wouldn't be Metal Gear. Don't get me wrong, I find the MGS writing immersive and emotional in many places, the aftermath of the Sniper Wolf battle for example, but some exchanges between characters are so "Get over yourself" that they reach a level of groan inducing.

It appears Hideo Kojima's series is set for further incarnations, including games in different genres and expeditions into the backstories of other characters. The Metal Gear franchise was revived twelve years ago and goes from strength to strength. There's a good chance however, that no game will match the initial "Wow" factor that MGS had.

Once again, here's a game that deserves way more justice than I can hope to give it here. Metal Gear Solid is an unmissable experience that should played by anyone who has an interest in picking up a controller. It's violence, tragedy, action, excitement, music and almost zen-like sensibilities make MGS an opera in videogame form. It's one of the finest works to grace our humble hobby, as while many games can entertain, very few have heart and soul.

Do I think love can bloom, even on a battlefield?
Yeah, I do.

44. Golgo 13: Top Secret Episode

(NES, Vic Tokai, 1988, JPN title: Kamigami No Tasogare)
Duke Togo AKA Golgo 13 is an assassin for hire and the world's greatest sniper. Appearing in many Manga books, anime and live action films since 1969, The brainchild of Takao Saito has travelled across the globe silently executing targets in the unlikeliest of situations with paranormal precision whilst still finding time to bang every hot girl he comes across. A silent, unmoving and emotionally blank man. Golgo 13 has a perfect record. If you're on his list, you're already dead.

He can't flying kick to save his life though.

As one of two NES games featuring our boy Togo, Top Secret Episode features side scrolling fighting, helicopter schmupping, scuba diving action, third-person dialogue exchanges and first-person sniping and tunnel sections, a lot for our humble NES to comprehend. Golgo has been hired to investigate the disappearance of a biological weapon known as "Cassandra" which has fallen into the wrong hands. The adventure takes Golgo around the world as the player controls our lanky hitman in one of his deadliest adventures yet (Oh, and into a fight with HITLER'S BRAIN).
Golgo 13:TSE is REALLY difficult, both in its design and in its unresponsive control system, Golgo's sprite trundles along with a small variety of attacks that have a habit of "ghosting" through the enemies, along with a super high flying kick that's fairly useless. Occasionally someone will take a shot at Golgo and the game switches to an Operation: Wolf style shoot-out. Once Golgo makes it to his contact there is a long dialogue cut-scene before he's sent back to his clunky war. Occasionally, Golgo will enter a building and the game will switch to a very basic first person section as Golgo negotiates a maze of corridors, trying to avoid booby traps with the aid of the provided map. As mentioned above, there are also scuba diving sections and very occasionally, a sniping situation which proves very unlucky for any man on the business end of Golgo's rifle scope.

So the game is quite sluggish and gets incredibly unfair once gun turrets and robots come into play against our ambling hero, but in the game's favour there is some great music, an intelligent storyline and an attempt to squeeze a whole host of genres into the NES's tiny memory. Top Secret Episode is more a victim of biting off a little more than it can chew and whilst it handles the shootouts and first person sections bravely, the side scrolling levels leave a lot to be desired.

Then again, tell me another game where smoking cigarettes and working the chicks gives you EXTRA HEALTH.

Now that's how you level up, Square.

45. Fiendish Freddy's Big Top O'Fun

(Various Home, Gray Matter, 1990)
Many things were created to bring joy and laughter, things that bring a smile to your face and a song to your heart. Somewhere along the line, someone thought that the epitome of fun was a fully grown human in terrifying makeup and garish clothing, climbing out a tiny car and attacking his friends. Someone, somewhere, thought Clowns were damn funny.

I don't fear Clowns, but I know people who do and I understand their reasoning. Clowns are scary and sinister, that's why they are a staple of nightmarish horror: The Joker, Clownhouse, Stephen King's IT etc. Fiendish Freddy is the worst type of Clown, he's not an Auguste, or a Pierrot, or even a Hobo clown, he's one of those "wants to kill your employees and run you out of business so they can build an apartment complex in his name" clowns.
Fiendish Freddy's Big Top O'Fun consists of a series of circus act mini games, not like a Wii circus game though, as the titular clown has been hired to ruin your acts by bringing slapstick death and destruction to your performers, from throwing explosives at your juggler to obscuring the vision of your knife thrower and, as a comical coup de grace, cutting your tightrope walker in half with a circular saw.

Clowns sure are funny.

The player performs the various acts to the best of their ability, in spite of Freddy's interference and is judged by EVEN MORE CLOWNS after each act. Successful performances will cough up the cash to keep your circus up and running, but a string of failures will bring the final curtain down on the big top o'fun. Up to five players can take it in turns at each act, with the winner being the player who draws the most cash overall.

Fiendish Freddy's Big Top O'Fun is a novel game featuring large, cartoony sprites, classic circus music and a sick sense of humour. The games are fairly enjoyable but a little trial and error, often requiring several plays before you get the hang of each act. The Spectrum and C64 ports do very well to incorporate all the scenes, sound and music of the Amiga version but the C64 loses graphic quality and the Spectrum loses ALL colours (The entire game is in black and blue)
One massive problem holding the game back is a horrible loading system, on tape it's incredibly hard work and multi-loads everything, you seem to be pressing play every two minutes. The Amiga version still suffers from lengthy load times which break the natural flow of the game.
Fiendish Freddy is still a good concept idea though, with a warped vision of entertainment and a nice visual and aural style which captures the classic "Roll up Roll up" circus feel. It's worth trying out just to experience it. With all the horrible family mini game packs pouring out, maybe someone should give Freddy a call to come along and liven things up.

And, now, from a Sesame Street episode, proof that Clowns are HILARIOUS!

I swear after he said "Me too" I thought he was gonna put a gun to his head.

46. Wayne's World

(SNES/MD/Genesis, Radical Entertainment, 1993)
Read through my list (please) and look at some of the beautiful works people have created for your interactive entertainment. These are the results of hard work and dedication of talented and committed people. They put drive, passion and effort into creating something that will bring escapism, joy and pleasure. Works that will last through the ages and be referenced for years to come. These people got paid for their work and are rewarded with successful careers doing what they love.

The people who made Wayne's World got PAID.

Straight for the jugular here as I'm not going to bore thee with details of the movie (which I am fan of, incidentally) Wayne's World was crapped onto consoles amongst the early 90's rage of saying wacky things like "Not!" which was as nauseating as people today saying "How random!" (No, actually it wasn't as annoying) A horribly made platformer, the game follows Wayne Campbell as he searches for Garth who has been taken by something or other. Armed with his guitar, Wayne fails to make his way through each scene, attacking things like drum kits and milkshakes in a series of totally nonsensical and badly designed levels.

In between the levels we get misplaced attempts to capture the feel of the TV show, which features bad digitised stills of the characters reading long monologues that lose any potential humour when displayed as written word. The in-game samples are fuzzy and badly clipped, they are also sampled straight from the movie, as the actors I'm sure were not available to take part in the making of this abortion. Thankfully.
The controls are unresponsive, Wayne's jumping is unreliable and his attacks are slow, leading to much energy loss and repeated shoutings of "NOT!" "NOT! "NOT!" with him finally crying out "NOT WORTHY!" when he runs out of energy. The backgrounds are boring and repetitive and even the basics such as collision detection and difficulty balance have had no work put into them.

There is no reason whatsoever to play this, it's a crime against videogames and against Wayne's World. It's horrifying to think of the undiscovered talent that was struggling to find a place in the industry whilst these fucking cunts got paid to puke this pile of shit onto the shelves.
There's a bigger story here. You see, my rage isn't solely because of Wayne's World itself or with Radical Entertainment, it's just this game reminds me of the forever existing culture of video game companies that pay people to churn out bad games that they are fully aware are terrible, but knowingly release it to "con" gift buying relatives, franchise fans, movie goers or simply naive gamers into parting with their money for a product the company KNOWS isn't worth paying for.

Games that fit that description still exist today, maybe more so, as do the people who make them. Games with misleading titles and box art, bad games based on popular kids franchises, game shows or movies, made lightning fast and rush released, long before they've reached any level of quality control. If you are involved in the making of that type of game then you are a prick. I hope you lose your job and have to give up your house. Stay the fuck away from the industry we love, you are con artists shilling your wares and exploiting unknowing customers in order to make a quick buck, so you can grab the few undeserved sales you can and vanish into the night, leaving your unlucky victims disappointed and out of pocket.

Fuck you and the horse you rode in on.

47. Kikstart 2

(C64/Spectrum/Amiga/Amstrad, Mr Chip, 1987)
As of this writing, many people are classing Trials HD as their game of the year for 2009, the downloadable stunt fest is simple in concept but incredibly difficult to master and dangerously addictive. It has attractive 3D on 2D plain graphics and is all about the physics of gravity, motion, momentum and balance. As a package it is a superb score/time attack experience.

Back in the 80's Britain had a TV series by the name of Kickstart, it featured an array of mentalists attempting to complete wacky courses on trials bikes whilst simultaneously trying not to die. It was very popular and ran for nearly ten years.
Off the back of this show's popularity, Mastertronic released two games that were mysteriously similar to the show (they just dropped the "C" from the title) Today, we look at the superior second game. Kikstart 2 was a bare bones bike trials simulator in which one or two players would race along a course, negotiating a series of jumps, water hazards, fences, pot-holes, lakes and many other obstacles, using the physics of speed, momentum and balance to traverse the trickier sections. Failure to judge the terrain or stick a landing would result in the rider performing an awesome 30 foot forward flip over the handlebars (A stunt I achieved myself once at the age of about six)

There was an impressive selection of courses but the real beauty came from the in-game course designer, which allowed players to build their own death tracks from all the items available. I spent hours with my friend Gary designing what we thought were the ULTIMATE stunt environments, looking back, we just stuck a bunch of ramps together and added fire, but hey, I was like seven years old, ramps, wheelies and fire were pretty damn exciting.
Kikstart 2 was fun, smooth and incredibly competitive, the C64 version had the one of the single most memorable and catchy SID tunes ever composed. Like the current success of Trials HD shows, just over twenty years later, some concepts never change, you can ramp up the graphics and sound for the new generation, but as long as the "hook" is still there, you've got playability for life.

True story. When I played GTA: Vice City, I attempted the bike trials arena and repeatedly failed. Thank God for my friend Linus, who then sang the Kikstart 2 tune on a loop whilst I tried the course once last time.
I passed with flying colours. Sometimes, it's all about the motivation.

48. Castlevania: Symphony Of The Night

(Various Home, Konami, 1997)
How do you encapsulate some of these games in short text? With some games it's a challenge, with others, it's clearly impossible.
Castlevania: SOTN is a game which has already had so much written about it, so all I can do is briefly describe the game then attempt to put across my opinions of it. I'm pretty sure I can't sum up a game like this in a short journal entry.

Originally released for the Playstation and Sega Saturn, SOTN marks a massively important new direction for the long running Castlevania franchise, taking their standard action platform style and adding incredibly deep RPG elements and open ended gameplay, along with a Pandora's box of secrets and immense replay value.
Set roughly halfway through the muddled Castlevania timeline, SOTN sees Alucard, son of Dracula and the most emo man ever, traverse the castle attempting to stop his father's wrongdoings, along the way he will meet Maria Renard and Richter Belmont, sporting an all new crazy personality.

So begins an epic and labyrinthine story that unfolds across the huge castle, featuring an enormous array of rooms and monsters for the player to work their way through, collecting a variety of weapons, armour, familiars and spells along the way. Though at heart a platformer, SOTN features all the HP, MP, attack points, defence points and levels you would expect from any standard RPG, including specific weaponry, armour and items to help defeat each and every creature you come across. After many hours of searching, collecting and fighting. Alucard will face Richter, defeating him will be the end of the game.... or will it?
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is a perfect game, featuring lavish, beautifully animated visuals, a classically performed music score and an incredibly deep game engine. It is a game that can be blindly fired through and completed, without the player even realizing what he could have missed or been missing, as what was the end for many players, could merely be the halfway point for others, or even 25% for the die-hard Castlevania player. The game encourages the player to spend as long periods searching every nook and cranny of the castle and finding as many magical items as possible in order to open up a whole new host of routes, rooms and vicious boss fights against an army of the most satanic creatures ever dreamt up for a videogame.

Every inch of SOTN screams class, from the art, sprites and backgrounds to the visual effects, sound and the above mentioned music score. SOTN is a game that demands your attention, your best playing abilities and some lateral thinking skills. Konami proudly present you with one giant riddle then sit back as you slowly work your way through the puzzle and put all the pieces together. Very few games carry the same level of excellence in all departments, and when the only real negatives come from the horrible, but thankfully brief voice acting, then you know you are playing something that is nothing short of brilliance. SOTN's commitment to beauty and excellence makes it the videogame equivalent of Rembrandt, Da Vinci or Mozart.
I was wrong, I can sum it up in one line, let alone a whole entry:

Castlevania: Symphony Of The Night is a masterpiece, it's one of the best games ever made.