GameSided Roundtable: Our Favorite 10/10 Games

Martin Benn (Twitter)

My personal 10/10 is Super Mario 64. As a kid and now, so many open worlds took from that world Mario inhabited. Even with the limitations of tech at the time you can see it’s imprint everywhere in the open world genre. First person scanning, platforming, open interactions with objects, interactions with laymen all around, and other mainstays of the genre.

Other games close to my favorite are Uncharted 2 is a fantastic ride, Final Fantasy X was my first final fantasy game and blitzball is still my favorite, Star Fox 64 has my favorite but drastically underused universe in Star Fox, and God of War 3 is just a cinematic marvel of scope and size. There are plenty of other games I think are just amazing for a variety of reasons. But my personal favorite, the game that made me love video games on the system that made me love video games will always be Super Mario 64.

Eric Chrisman (Twitter)

My favorite 10/10 is not actually my favorite game. That’s Chrono Trigger, because I’m an RPG nut and that may arguably be the finest RPG ever made. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have some glaring issues. A great 10/10 isn’t necessarily a flawless game, but one that is nearly so, and moves the genre forward significantly, if not creating an entire new one. So under those qualifications, my favorite 10/10 game is Super Mario 64. True, it wasn’t the first 3D platformer, Jumping Flash 3D on the original PlayStation predates it, and there are some little known games before that such as Alpha Waves. But Super Mario 64 is noteworthy for so many things modern platformers and 3D games in general still struggle with today.

An open world hub full of interesting secrets all its own, incredibly tight control, and my god, that camera. Maybe it was the acknowledgement that Mario was in fact being filmed that allowed the developers to play more with the camera, because it is perfect, never gets in your way or messes up your angle. Combine that with levels that still come off as original an exciting to play (multiple times in fact with different goals) and you have this gold standard for 3D games that was created almost 20 years ago. Games today still can’t top it, and can rarely even come close to matching.

Rebekah Valentine (Twitter)

I can honestly say I did not ride the nostalgia train for Chrono Trigger. I didn’t pick up the game until the remake came out for the DS, so I guess technically my vote is for the remake, but Chrono Trigger is by far the most perfect game I’ve played. Plenty of people have written about the greatness of Chrono Trigger: the well-written characters, the engaging story-telling, the beautiful soundtrack, the (for their time) detailed graphics, the combat system, and all that goodness contributes to its rating. But what ultimately sells me on Chrono Trigger and pushes it from a 9.5 to a 10 is its completeness.

When I finally put down Chrono Trigger, I could honestly say that there was nothing else I could have wanted in that game, nor was there an overabundance of pointless content. The game was long, but not too long. The plot was deep and intricate but ended exactly where it needed to, leaving just enough loose threads for a sequel to be possible, but not necessary. The characters were all fully developed through their sidequests, there were a few optional dungeons and a New Game+ mode to make the optional endings easily accessible. The dungeons and bosses were significantly challenging, and the world felt fleshed out, mysterious, and real.

Chrono Trigger, for me, was like a full symphony that was played perfectly, without embellishment or unnecessary grandeur. Even if all the elements of a game are wonderful, it’s the coming together to form something complete that pushes an already good rating, for me, to a 10.