23.) Developed by: Published by: Released: February 12, 2002 It's rare that most classic games get updated in such a way that the original gameplay still comes through. It's even less likely that moving the game from 2D to 3D would preserve the charm and challenge of the original, but Maximo did both. Developed not in Japan like the old 8- and 16-bit games, it was instead helmed by an internal US development studio. It was, in a word, brilliant, and still stands as one of the best 3D updates of an old-school classic ever made.
It was challenging, offered tons of depth and proved that, yes, you can in fact make a game every bit as hardcore as the original while updating things to keep it fresh. For those that whine about how easy games are these days, throw this one at them and watch the magic happen. 22.) Developed by: Nippon Ichi Software Published by: Released: August 25, 2003 Strategy role-playing games have been around for decades now, but it was Nippon Ichi Software's tongue-in-cheek approach to the macabre land of demons and angels that truly perfected the grid-based setup of classics like Ogre Battle and Final Fantasy Tactics.
Plus, let's face it Disgaea superfans, the first game still has the best characters (and Prinny voice actors, d00d!); no offense to Adell and Mao, but Laharl, Flonne and Etna are where it's at. It wasn't just the cute, dark world that created though, it was the ease in which players could move their units around and make tag-team attacks. That you could cancel out of moves or stack multiple actions in quick succession lent itself far more to setting up ridiculous tag team strikes. The first game's then-ludicrous numbers have since been surpassed thanks to people that power-leveled through the game and influenced NIS to make its own adjustments to things, but for sheer amounts of depth, grind-ability, story and relatively newbie-friendly approach to executing actions within turns, nothing beats the original. 21.) Developed by: Published by: Released: September 24, 2002 For developer Sucker Punch, the second time was the charm. Its first game, Rocket: Robot on Wheels was an underappreciated gem on the N64, but their follow-up caught the attention of Sony Computer Entertainment America and with a little first-party backing, more people finally got to see what the Bellevue, WA-based development house was capable of.
Turns out, it was a rather magical traditional platformer that mixed a stunning amount of detail on animation and character design with gorgeous art direction and gameplay that was almost constantly being changed up. There were mini-game-like boss battles, time trial runs on all the levels and, if you beat said time trials, you were taken on a little audio tour by the developers for each of the levels, detailing how the flow and layout changed over the course of development. Rarely does a game offer such pristine controls, gorgeous visuals and enjoyable characters right out of the gate, but html' class='autolink' Sly Cooper most certainly did it.
Nov 14, 2008 Trying to come up with just about any ranked list of games for the PlayStation 2 when it's enjoyed such ridiculous success has to pass for cruel and unusual punishment.