Well it's the holiday period and it being the end of the year, I'm usually way too free and get bored and start finding things to do. If you have followed me, you may have noticed that sometimes, I'll be so bored that I'll end up writing lists for things I like and of course, the same thing has happened this year. And not just games, I wanted to do one for Pokemon cards and after thinking of what the best one could be, of course it hit me, why not a list for the best cards released in 2021?
But with a twist! An opinion based list would probably be too common and I'm pretty sure no-one wants to listen to my opinions so I thought why not do with based on statistics. Since we've got Play Limitless , Trainer Hill and PokeStats at our disposal, I can easily find some ways to go about it. The main thing here is to show which cards that were released in 2021, be it a re-print or something new, made a huge impact on the standard meta during the year, be it Battle Styles, Chilling Reign, Evolving Skies or Fusion Strike, and considering both pre and post rotation.
The way I did it, I only counted events with 256+ people and only counted the top 8 decks because doing more tourneys or more than top 8 will mean way too much info and I probably won't have the time to finish it. I'm a lone soldier here anyway so I have to make do with some limits. So the results won't be as accurate as possible but it's the best solution I could come up with. And since it's 2021, why not a top 21 list instead of 15 or 20 or 30!
(Just in case, all results are based up till time of writing, which was 22nd December 2021, it might be released much later than that)
As for some of the calculations you'll see, this is how I worked it out:
Total Points - Points counted using Trainer Hill's points for Regional style events (256+) (1st = 200, 2nd = 160, Top 4 = 130 and Top 8 = 100)
Seasonal Points - Pretty much the total points divided by the quarter the cards was from (Battle Styles/4, Chilling Reign/3, Evolving Skies/2 and Fusion Strike/1)
Average Points - Taken from the amount of events played in that quarter: (using this gave me Total Average and Quarterly Average Points)
Battle Styles - 24
Chilling Reign - 14
Evolving Skies - 2 (Pre-Rotation) and 13 (Post-Rotation)
Fusion Strike - 6
Quarterly Average Points - I had a feeling my first two methods would still heavily favour cards that were released early on so I wanted to try a system where I would divide the average by the quarter they showed up (Battle Styles/4, Chilling Reign/3, Evolving Skies/2 and Fusion Strike/1) just to make it more fair. These may not be the best systems to use and I didn't have time to look through the whole year as I'm the only one working on this so worked with whatever I could go with.
Some cards came close but didn't quite make the list, the ones being close were Victini VMAX, Cross Switcher, Leafeon VMAX, Sylveon VMAX and Echoing Horn. There are some obvious stuff that didn't show up and my reasoning for them:
Sobble - I wasn't sure which one to put, either Sobble or Inteleon but a lot of decks have gone with the 70 HP sobble so I thought Inteleon ended up seeing more play because of that and went with it.
Genesect V - Again, wasn't sure if I should put this or Mew VMAX but if we were to think about it, would it be just as good without Mew? Some have tired and none have made it succesful.
Rapid Strike Energy - Great card, but sees play almost exclusively with Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX decks and as a one-off with Rapid Strike Urshifu V in Suicune decks
Single Strike Energy - Another great energy card but just like it's counterpart, it sees plays exclusively with Houndoom BST and if not for Houndoom, it might not even see play
And if you're wondering how I ended up ranking each card, I went with a simple solution. I'd take each of the ranking each card had from the different points system and gave them all an average ranking on where I thought they'd likely end up being ranked and from there, it was just sorting who went where. So pretty much each ranking divided by 4 here is how it was decided. Like I said, I wanted to do it statistically and I thought this was probably the best way I could think of.
So with that in mind, here is the top 21 cards that were released in the year 2021 that made an impact on the game looking at Standard format and how it did in big tournaments based on events on Play Limitless (so before you start going at me, "Player's Cup doesn't count and I didn't even think about it"). And if it does look messy, it probably is because I can't remember how many times I kept changing how I would calculate the points and which system to use for this bit:
#21 - Jolteon VMAX - Evolving Skies
Total Points: 1,240 (21st)
Seasonal Points: 620 (21st)
Total Average Points: 144.74 (21st)
Quarterly Average Points: 72.37 (21st)
Wins: 1
Top 4: 6
Top 8: 9
Saw play in: Jolteon VMAX
First up is Jolteon VMAX, which initially didn't see much play at first for the weird reason that while Jolteon VMAX was in Evolving Skies, Jolteon V was actually only a promo and to get it, you'd have to get the Alternate Art version from the set, making it pricey difficult to get. It did get one big win in Evolving Skies and it's still the only one yet, though it's now one of the more successful decks with the release of Mew VMAX and will likely continue to be a force in the format going into 2022. One of the better spread decks in Standard format at the moment.
#20 - Fan of Waves - Battle Styles
Total Points: 3,350 (15th)
Seasonal Points: 837.5 (20th)
Total Average Points: 328.71 (19th)
Quarterly Average Points: 82.18 (20th)
Wins: 4
Top 4: 8
Top 8: 28
Saw play in: Usually a one off in many different decks such as Victini VMAX, Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX, Greens decks, Dragapult VMAX, Cinderace VMAX, Leafeon VMAX, Ice Rider Calyrex VMAX, Suicune V/Ludicolo, Sylveon VMAX Rapid Strike Box
Not quite Enhanced Hammer but a good alternate at the very least. It saw play as a one-off in many decks at the start before not seeing much play at all for the next few months. Inteleon decks would end up start picking it up to slow down decks like Rapid and Single Strike mainly for their energies and it has seen a suddenly spike in play thanks to the emergence of Mew with it's Fusion Strike Energy. Don't be surprised to see more Fans going into 2022.
#19 - Crystal Cave - Evolving Skies
Total Points: 1,890 (20th)
Seasonal Points: 945 (17th)
Total Average Points: 318.21 (20th)
Quarterly Average Points: 159.1 (15th)
Wins: 3
Top 4: 5
Top 8: 15
Saw play in: Mostly Zacian V/Zamazenta V or Duraludon VMAX decks and also a one-off in Mew VMAX
This one card pretty much pretty much made the Zacian/Zamazenta deck one of the better decks going into the new rotation. Having lost Lucario & Melmetal-GX and Metal Frying Pan, Zacian lost some ways to reduce damage but in comes a card to help heal damage and not just to one Pokémon as well! Duraludon has seen a rise in play with the release of Fusion Strike with Crystal Cave helping it's tank-ability strategy. Even Mew VMAX will play a one-off Cave to help heal their benched Genesect Vs to stop from spread decks hitting it for the perfect number.
Melony needed the perfect partner when it was released in Chilling Reign and of course, Ice Rider was just that. It started life as a top 3 deck with the ease of hitting 250 for just two energies and potentially one-hit certain VMAXes thanks to Inteleon making it a favourite amongst players. Even though it's no longer a top 5 contender in terms of decks in the last few format, it's still one of the better decks around, and now along with Suicune V, as a great partner to work with if needed.
#17 - Houndoom - Battle Styles
Total Points: 3,550 (14th)
Seasonal Points: 887.5 (19th)
Total Average Points: 406.76 (14th)
Quarterly Average Points: 101.69 (18th)
Wins: 4
Top 4: 15
Top 8: 27
Saw play in: Single Strike Box, Umbreon VMAX, Gengar VMAX
The reason you don't see Single Strike Energy on this list is because if you are playing that, you will be playing Houndoom because it's Single Strike Roar ability helps to attach it from the deck, which is incredibly helpful to speed up your game plan. It saw little to no play in the first two formats until Umbreon VMAX was released, which is when the Single Strike decks finally thrived. And now having a Dark-type attacker to counter the many top decks with Dark-weakness, Single Strike decks have now become one of the best decks in the Standard format. There has been many occasions where either having 3 or not having a single Houndoom pretty much decided how your games would go, I cannot say how much more important this one card has been to those kinds of decks.
#16 - Cheryl - Battle Styles
Total Points: 3,920 (12th)
Seasonal Points: 980 (16th)
Total Average Points: 357.15 (18th)
Quarterly Average Points: 89.28 (19th)
Wins: 3
Top 4: 19
Top 8: 29
Saw play in: One-off in Jolteon VMAX, Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX, Corviknight VMAX, Mewtwo & Mew-GX Dark Box, Eternatus VMAX, Malamar VMAX, Togekiss VMAX,
These kind of heal cards will always find a way to make itself a pain to deal with in any format it's in and while it did take a while, Cheryl did end up being a staple in decks like Jolteon VMAX and even early on with Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX. It made perfect sense for decks using Bronzong to move energies around and even the new Inteleon VMAX would utilise a four-off since it's game plan revolves around not having energies on itself but where Cheryl thrived the most were with decks that tend to attack with just one energy cost (Rapid Strike Urshifu and Jolteon comes to mind).
#15 - Umbreon VMAX - Evolving Skies
Total Points: 3,320 (16th)
Seasonal Points: 1,660 (13th)
Total Average Points: 397.18 (15th)
Quarterly Average Points: 198.59 (12th)
Wins: 4
Top 4: 14
Top 8: 25
Saw play in: Single Strike Box, Gengar VMAX, Eternatus VMAX
Lycanroc-GX has returned in the new form of Umbreon VMAX! This one card pretty much made Single Strike a deck people found awkward to play with into one of the best decks in the format. It's been a top-two deck for the last quarters and it's not hard to see why. Having a gust option on a Pokémon has always seen success and for that reason, it's even seen play in some decks with either a 3-2 or 2-2 line just for the gust option, with Eternatus VMAX the one making the best use of it. And being a dark attacker hitting for 160, it's the card big psychic decks like Shadow Rider VMAX, Dragapult VMAX and Mew VMAX all don't want to see.
#14 - Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX - Battle Styles
Total Points: 6,640 (7th)
Seasonal Points: 1,660 (13th)
Total Average Points: 422.86 (13th)
Quarterly Average Points: 105.71 (17th)
Wins: 9
Top 4: 26
Top 8: 49
Saw play in: Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX with either Jirachi TEU, Cinccino SWSH or Inteleon CRE, partnered with Dragapult VMAX or as a tech attacker with Sylveon VMAX or Zeraora V Rapid Strike Box
So honest true, when I first started making this list, Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX was initially first on my list. Then I moved it down to 3rd when I decided to include re-print cards. Then I started working on a points system and it kept going down to 7th, then 10th, and now down in 14th. Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX is one of the best attackers in the game, it has two great attacks, one that hits 150 when it moves into the active for just one energy and of course, the other hitting 120 to two Pokémon (or 150 with either Passimian or Scope or if you're lucky enough to have both, 180 on Vs).
The honest truth it, as good as it is, it just hasn't seen much success in bigger tournaments. It's only been considered a top 3 deck in the Fusion Strike quarter, which if you're keeping count, the 4th quarter of this format which does raise questions as to why it didn't do so well in the first 3 quarters. Then again, having a Psychic weakness can be a problem as they are three big decks using Psychic-type VMAXes which does stop Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX from reaching it's full potential and likely will stay this way till it rotates sadly.
#13 - Mew VMAX - Fusion Strike
Total Points: 2,310 (19th)
Seasonal Points: 2,310 (8th)
Total Average Points: 385 (16th)
Quarterly Average Points: 385 (5th)
Wins: 4
Top 4: 8
Top 8: 17
Saw play in: Mew VMAX/Genesect V
One of just two cards from Fusion Strike to be included in this list but of course, Mew VMAX had to be included. We have not had a clear BDIF for a long time until this showed up. Sure it may only have seen play for the last two moths of the year but it's clear to see how much of an impact it's already made in this short space of time.
Mew VMAX is that deck that just has it all to make it the clear BDIF from this format and likely for the rest of 2022, it has:
A built in-draw engine with Genesect VMAX
Clean 210 attack from Genesect which has the downside of not being able to attack the next turn but as Mew VMAX has a free-retreat, this can easily be worked around
The ability to take cheeky donks with Meloetta in Turn 1 for 210 damage
Power Tablet giving it +30 damage
Shred-like attacker in Max Miracle to cancel out irritants like Decidueye
Sky Return-style attack in Mew V's Psychic Leap
Dyna-Barrier attack from Latios preventing damage from VMAXes
Takes 20-less damage thanks to Oricorio
Elesa's Sparkle attaching 2 Fusion Strike energies from the deck
Speaking of Fusion Strike energy, it stops abilities affecting it such as Quick Shooting from Inteleon CRE
And if you think having that amount of options wasn't bad enough, Mew is one of the few decks that can get away with playing Cram-O-Matic too! With that crazy amount of options, it's no secret why Mew VMAX is the clear BDIF going into 2022, but since it did only just show up, it's only featured in the middle of the list but still a decent placing I'd say.
#12 - Suicune V - Evolving Skies
Total Points: 3,720 (13th)
Seasonal Points: 1,860 (11th)
Total Average Points: 493.97 (11th)
Quarterly Average Points: 246.99 (10th)
Wins: 3
Top 4: 14
Top 8: 30
Saw play in: Suicune V/Ludicolo EVS/Inteleon CRE and Ice Rider Calyrex VMAX/Suicune V/Inteleon CRE
If I was biased, this wouldn't be here and it'd be in the top 10. It's no surprise how much I like Suicune V as a card, and also people may not know that Suicune is actually my favourite legendary Pokémon too! Melony already had a great partner in Ice Rider Calyrex VMAX but Suicune V gives the Water supporter a second attacker to go with, and one that is a Basic attacker too.
Not only does it have a useful first ability to just draw one card, but also Blizzard Rondo punishes anyone who may over-bench. It can go from 80 damage, to 200 damage to even 320 damage with a little help from Ludicolo from Evolving Skies. Paired with the likes of Inteleon and the aforementioned Ludicolo, it's made Suicune one of the better decks in the format, not quite a top 3 deck yet though sadly as evident from it's points and why it's only 12th on here. But in saying that, a Suicune V deck did win the POG Worlds 2021 championship.
And speaking of Melony, it shouldn't be a big surprise to see it alongside Suicune on this ranking having been a go-to deck for many players in the past few months. Melony in some ways is similar to my personal favourite supporter of the past years, Welder, but instead of attaching 2 energy of a certain type from hand, it attaches one certain type from the discard. That's the good part of it. The bad part is that it can only be a V Pokémon.
Still that hasn't stopped Melony from seeing play with any deck featuring either Ice Rider Calyrex VMAX or Suicune V, or in many cases, featuring both at the same time. Lately it's also seen play with Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX to help it get back-to-back G-Max Rapid Flow attacks. Easily the best Supporter card to be released apart from one other...
#10 - Shadow Rider Calyrex VMAX - Chilling Reign
Total Points: 6,160 (9th)
Seasonal Points: 2,053.33 (9th)
Total Average Points: 586.33 (10th)
Quarterly Average Points: 195.44 (13th)
Wins: 8
Top 4: 26
Top 8: 47
Saw play in: Shadow Rider Calyrex VMAX, with and without Alcremie VMAX
Shadow Rider made claim to the title of BDIF the moment it was released in Chilling Reign and it's not hard to see why. Having a Trade-style ability is always a good thing but instead of discard a card, it actually attaches a basic Psychic energy to a benched Psychic Pokémon. And as I've always said, anything that helps to speed up energy attachment is always a really helpful thing and one to watch out for.
And even though Shadow Rider was the BDIF in just one quarter (Chilling Reign) the impact it made that one part of the year was enough to put it in 10th spot on this list. Not a single attacking Pokémon released in 2021 scored more points in one quarter than Shadow Rider Calyrex VMAX this year so it had to be well represented on here. There is sadly a good reason why it's not seeing much success and part of the blame can be put to Mew VMAX, as it being successful meant more Dark decks seeing play, which indirectly affects Shadow Rider from doing well.
#9 - Tool Jammer - Battle Styles
Total Points: 6,580 (8th)
Seasonal Points: 1,645 (15th)
Total Average Points: 679.65 (7th)
Quarterly Average Points: 169.91 (11th)
Wins: 6
Top 4: 25
Top 8: 52
Saw play in: Initially only saw play in Victini VMAX, Decidueye DAA, ADP/Moltres and Eternatus VMAX, saw a rise in play with the release of Leafeon VMAX and Umbreon VMAX and also Galarian Weezing SHF
Tool Jammer was an interesting one to figure out. Initially I only had it near the bottom half of the ranking but once I looked into the results, it kept showing up! It first saw play as a cheeky one off tech in decks like Victini VMAX and Eternatus VMAX as a way to not fully rely on Tool Scrapper, which many decks were still relying on.
That all changed when Leafeon VMAX was released. Leafeon's attack was all about hitting for as much retreat cost as possible and with Galar Mine, that helped it even more. So naturally most deck would try to cover with Air Balloon and that's where Tool Jammer comes in. Not only does it stop it from giving less retreat cost, it's also been the cause of much pain for decks like Zacian and Suicune that were hoping to survive a hit with their Cape of Toughness. One of the more underrated cards to come out of this year.
#8 - Battle VIP Pass - Fusion Strike
Total Points: 2,910 (17th)
Seasonal Points: 2,910 (7th)
Total Average Points: 485 (12th)
Quarterly Average Points: 485 (1st)
Wins: 5
Top 4: 10
Top 8: 22
Saw play in: Mew VMAX, Single Strike Box, Malamar CRE/Rapid Strike Box
Now this one did surprise me a bit, for the longest time I had Battle VIP only as high as 11th and as low at 20th at one point. And then I decided to try a quarterly average system and that's where Battle VIP Pass shone through.
It's no secret to see why it has the best score in that area. It may have only seen play in one format but that in one format, the two best decks, Mew VMAX and Single Strike Box, are the two main decks that rely heavily on getting Battle VIP Pass to set up it's attackers and their support Pokémon, be it Houndoom or Genesect. And even though it's only useful in the first turn, it's clearly a worthy addition with how successful it's been in just two moths, with 5 of the 6 decks winning 256+ tourneys all having Battle VIP Pass in their deck.
We didn't get many great tech cards but if I may, I'd like to think Galarian Moltres V was probably the best tech to come out of this year. It showed up at the same time as Shadow Rider Calyrex VMAX which many had predicted to be an instant BDIF and it having a Dark type weakness meant Galarian Moltres saw play in all sorts of decks. It became ADP-GX's main choice for a partner, helped bring a new version of Mewtwo & Mew-GX with the Dark Box variety, and helped Dark decks like Eternatus VMAX and Malamar VMAX speed up energy with good ol' Energy Switch thanks to it's Direflame Wings, easily one of the best abilities in the game at the moment. As I've said, any sort of energy acceleration is always a good thing and I like those kinds of decks.
It's not a bad attacker too as 190 can trouble a lot of Vs and two shot all VMaxes as the simple price of hitting 30 to yourself. And with Raihan releasing in Evolving Skies, it made Moltres an even more viable partner for many decks, sometimes even get a Moltres fully powered up out of nowhere! Lately it's been the partner of choice for Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX to counter it's psychic-weak matchups and to help accelerate energy for G-Max Rapid Flow, it's even seen play as a partner for the likes of Sableye V, Leafeon VMAX and Sylveon VMAX. After all, when you've got the likes of Mew VMAX and Shadow Rider Calyrex VMAX ready to do well in any event, just having Galarian Moltres V can sometimes be enough to swing the match to your favour.
I did mention a while back that Melony was the best Supporter card released this year apart from one other who was similar to it and that of course is Raihan! If this was up to me, I'd have it easily in the top 5. Raihan was easily my favourite card to come out of Evolving Skies and it's seen instant success right off the bat with as many as 9 different decks utilising it!
It has the catch of only being able to use the turn after one of your Pokémon is knocked out but the comeback potential helps it. It does the same thing as Melony but instead of just Water energy, you can attach any basic Energy and not just to a V, but to any Pokémon! And instead of drawing 3 cards, you get to search your deck for any card. You might even say that's better than Melony in some ways. It's found natural partners in Inteleon decks that can easily search it out and easily powering up attackers such as Galarian Moltres V, Suicune V, Decidueye DAA, Dragapult VMAX and Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX. One of the better cards to come out this year and I can't see myself not placing one Raihan in any deck I play moving forward. Along with Suicune V, Inteleon and Moltres V, probably my favourite card to come out of this year.
#5 - Path to the Peak - Chilling Reign
Total Points: 9,450 (5th)
Seasonal Points: 3,150 (6th)
Total Average Points: 973.99 (5th)
Quarterly Average Points: 324.66 (8th)
Wins: 11
Top 4: 37
Top 8: 73
Saw play in: Mainly in Pikachu & Zekrom-GX, Ice Rider Calyrex VMAX, Rillaboom/EggRow-GX, Togekiss VMAX, Jolteon VMAX as a one off in Rapid Strike Box, Shadow Rider Calyrex VMAX and Mew VMAX
Power Plant was gone but it's replacement didn't take long to show up in the form of Path to the Peak. For a while both cards were legal in Standard. Path does the same thing Plant did a while back, forcing people to play the Stadium war and playing as many as 4 stadiums to stop certain V decks from doing it's thing.
Be it Shadow Rider, Mew, Suicune, Umbreon, Galarian Moltres and specifically Dedenne and Crobat, a lot of decks have found themselves to be stuck whenever a Path was in active and many players have lost games due to the old Path and Marnie strategy, where you hope to give your opponent little to no chance of making a comeback. And often times, it does work. (Unless your opponent is a Mew then usually they draw out of it).
I'll be the first to admit, initially this card wasn't even on my first draft list! And I was silly to completely miss it out because it's been one of the better cards to come out of this year and the results has proven just that. Psychic typing always do seem to have that extra ball search lately, we had Mysterious Treasure not long ago but Fog Crystal is just as good. You either get a basic Psychic Pokémon or a Psychic Energy, the perfect card for the four decks mentioned above.
And it's shown why it's so good. Shadow Rider made full use of it not just to set up their board but having the energy to accelerate and draw more cards would end up meaning it won the game faster than most decks. Dragapult had a fair better time setting up thanks to Fog Crystal. Even Malamar made full use of it to set up Inkays and all it ever needed was one energy to attack anyway. And finally, the new BDIF, Mew VMAX, is also a psychic type so that was always going to be an auto-inclusion.
#3 - Inteleon - Chilling Reign
Total Points: 12,370 (3rd)
Seasonal Points: 4,123.33 (2nd)
Total Average Points: 1,427.25 (3rd)
Quarterly Average Points: 475.75 (2nd)
Wins: 8
Top 4: 50
Top 8: 98
Saw play in: Well, too many decks to name.
Now this one I did have a hard time of choosing who would better represent the fact that the Drizzle + Level Ball combination has pretty much created a new style of deck this year. Many of those decks still played a 70 HP Sobble while only a few chose not to play Inteleon. After all, it's got a free 20 snipe anywhere, how can it not be good? I did have a tough time deciding if Keep Calling Sobble should be in this spot or this Inteleon, since without the Sobbles, you might not even get these Inteleons set up anyway, but in thinking about it, a lot of people have kept playing the 70HP Sobble so I had to give this one the nod with that in mind.
The whole line has been super playable, be it Keep Calling Sobble to set up your board, Drizzle to search out any Trainers you needed or Inteleon to help you reach numbers for certain KOs or even SWSH Inteleon to search for Trainer cards. This whole combo with Level Ball have created/improve these deck archetypes:
Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX (One of the most played decks in all of 2021, helps to set up all sorts of numbers for both attacks and to just generally set up an attack too)
Ice Rider Calyrex VMAX (A constant force since Chilling Reign)
Decidueye DAA (Helps sets up Decidueye even quicker and reach certain numbers faster)
Rapid Strike Malamar (Best one-prize deck in the format for the longest time)
Dragapult VMAX (Helps spread even more damage on the board and that combo became the BDIF during Evolving Skies quarter)
Leafeon VMAX (Perfect partner to help Leafeon set up numbers and search the specific combo pieces it needs for big attacks)
Suicune V (Since Evolving Skies, one of the more popular decks in the meta and it's a natural partner to set up and hit perfect numbers along with Ludicolo)
Zacian (Yes it even saw play with Zacian to make it a powerful one-shot machine)
Jolteon VMAX (Probably the best partner for it since Jolteon will need a bench mon to be sniped for the full effect)
Sableye V/Galarian Weezing SHF (More for the set-up option and an easier way to power up Sableye up with snipes and a great way to search out Raihan too)
Hoopa DAA/Galarian Moltres EVS (Probably the best new one-prize deck to come out in the latter half of the year and once again each piece helps to set up attacks and damage)
I mean, this just shows how important Inteleon and it's family has helped to make the game in some ways more fun seeing as you don't need the help of some random V or GX to set things up. It makes me happy to see that a stage 2 card is now viable to play, that's how I've always liked playing the game anyway, I'm really not a big fan of silly "Big Basic" mons. Each stage has an important role to play and all that couldn't be possible without the help of the next card on this list.
#2 - Level Ball - Battle Styles
Total Points: 16,910 (2nd)
Seasonal Points: 4,047.5 (3rd)
Total Average Points: 1,629.26 (1st)
Quarterly Average Points: 407.32 (3rd)
Wins: 11
Top 4: 63
Top 8: 129
Saw play in: Before Chilling Reign, saw play in decks like Mad Party, Spiritomb and even as a one-off in Single Strike Urshifu VMAX. After Chilling Reign, any deck with Inteleon in it.
Even before the introduction of Chilling Reign, Level Ball actually did see success, taking 3 wins alongside the likes of one prizer decks Mad Party and Spiritomb, all having attackers less than 60 HP. Even Single Strike would use it just to set up Houndours! So it was already a good new card coming out of Battle Styles. And then Chilling Reign hit.
We did have Drizzle for the longest time but both Sobble and Inteleon from Chilling Reign made it an even better. Thanks to Level Ball, you can easily set up 4 Sobbles on board and start getting anything you need from your Drizzles. The 12 decks mentioned above and made full use of Level Ball just to get Sobble and Drizzle in play and to much success too. It's also a good way to set up techs like Lota and Lombre, Pyukumuku, Galarian Zigzagoon and Rowlet. The fact that the Drizzle-Level Ball combo has seen success with many different archetypes just shows you how popular it is, you could even say it's probably the most played draw engine of the year. If this was based off my own opinion, I would have Level Ball easily in the #1 spot.
#1 - Escape Rope - Battle Styles
Total Points: 19,320 (1st)
Seasonal Points: 4,830 (1st)
Total Average Points: 1,563.6 (2nd)
Quarterly Average Points: 390.9 (4th)
Wins: 20
Top 4: 74
Top 8: 151
Saw play in: A four-off for Spiritomb. As a one-off in many decks such as Victini VMAX, Centiskorch VMAX, ADP-GX, EggRow-GX, Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX, Pikachu & Zekrom-GX, Mewtwo & Mew-GX/Welder Box, Eternatus VMAX, Dragapult VMAX, Sylveon VMAX, Jolteon VMAX, Ice Rider Calyrex VMAX, Suicune V, Leafeon VMAX, Mew VMAX.
Surprised? I sure was. But then again, I did just list down 16 different decks that saw success with an Escape Rope in their deck, that kind of statistic we can't ignore. Escape Rope is obviously a really good just because for an Item, it's a gust card, which can sometimes even win you the game outright if your opponent is trying to make you hit into the one Pokémon that can take a hit while the rest of their bench can't or even better, when they just have one Bench, making it an instant gust. Not just a good card offensively, it also helps you get one of your active Pokémon out if it happened to be stuck in front.
So it can't be a surprise to see why it saw so much success this year. Granted, it's not really a new card, it was legal just a few years ago but it's always been good so I had to include it. It scored the most points and and all 4 quarters, it was always one of the highest scoring card in events. There may be other great Item cards better than this but if you think about it, Level Ball is restricted to just 90HP or less Pokémon and Fog Crystal to just Psychic types, that doesn't hold Escape Rope down as pretty much any deck can make it work. And for that reason, that's why it is the best card released in 2021 from a statistical point of view and possibly in the opinion of others too. I hope you enjoyed reading this and thank you for stopping by my page!
Well it's the holiday period and it being the end of the year, I'm usually way too free and get bored and start finding things to do. If you have followed me, you may have noticed that sometimes, I'll be so bored that I'll end up writing lists for things I like and of course, the same thing has happened this year. I didn't really get to do much during 2021 but one thing I did get to do was re-discover my enjoyment of video games.
For a few years I didn't really play much games, focusing on just trying to graduate from University and also focusing on the Pokémon TCG stuff so it's been fun to get back into it this year, trying all sorts of different games too. So I thought, well why not share my favourite games that I've played for however long I've played games for (which is probably a good 23-24 years now I'd say). Be it from the early days of PS1 or N64, to the glorious days of the PS2, the trusty reliable PC, the handheld stuff of PS Vita, PSP, Nintendo 3DS, DS and Switch and also the current favourite, the PS4.
I'm not much of a gamer to be fair, you'll see that I tend to play the same kind of games throughout the years but for me, I enjoy playing those games so why eat up more of my time and play even more stuff when I might not have the time to play it. You'll see that my choice of games will probably be quite boring, some outdated, but that's the ones I've liked.
Continuing on from the previous entry, this time it's the games I play the most! So anytime I'm playing games, you can be pretty sure it's from these 3 Genres, be it Racing, RPG-Pokémon or Wrestling. And even for racing I've decided to split it into two, one for non-F1 games and one for F1 games since I've bought way too many of them! And since these are my favourite types of games, I thought I'd go with a Top 10 list instead of 5 for the previous one.
My 10 Favourite Wrestling Games
We start with where it all began. The first video game I probably ever saw was WWF WrestleMania, and the first one I got really into was WWF Attitude. Even my first PlayStation game ever was a WWE game, the connection has been there for a long while. For whatever reason, I've never failed to buy a WWE game for as long as I can remember because it was always fun and the first one I did skip was the last WWE 2K20 because of how bad I kept hearing it was. It's almost 3 years and we're still waiting for a new one to show up. And before anyone asks, no I didn't get to play No Mercy and that's why it's not on here.
Honorable mention: WWF WrestleMania (Arcade, Sega Gensis - 1995) - I didn't own this game but I do remember playing this and really enjoying it. It was Mortal Kombat but with WWF superstars in their place, with a lot of whacky stuff like Undertaker hitting you with an actual tombstone or Bret Hart using hearts to attack you. And for a game released in 1995, the graphics were top notch, I really liked it!
10) WWF Attitude (PS1 and N64 - 1999) - GameRankings Rating: 79
This was the game that started it all for me. I started out just happy to watch my cousin play it because I was too young to play games properly. Slowly but surely I learned a bit and then it was my turn to play on our N64. For a starting point, I thought this was the perfect game for me.
The buttons can be quite the pain in the ass since you needed to hit specific motions to hit certain moves but then again, same can be said for Mortal Kombat and I did like playing that too! The season mode was challenging, you start off wrestling on house shows, moving up to Heat, then Raw, then challenging in the European Championship scene, then the Intercontinental Championship scene and finally the WWF World Heavyweight Championship scene.
And for a game in 1999, I always thought the entrances and sounds were way better than any other wrestling game I've seen around that time period. Better than War Zone too which I vaguely remember. The taunts at the start of the matches were classic, Shane McMahon and Jerry Lawler were actually good on commentary and the fans chanting or booing for or against your wrestler made it feel like you're actually wrestling. Good stuff!
9) WWE SmackDown vs Raw 2011 (PS3 - 2010) - Metacritic Rating: 74
SvR 11 wasn't the best in the SmackDown vs Raw bunch but if you think about it, that was the best era for WWE games so the fact that is is just the first of four more entries on here says a lot. 2011 was not bad, the new dynamic physics system meant that object actually moved around like they would in real life, it's the little thing like that does matter!
Universe Mode was included for the first time here, not the best one but it was pretty good for a first attempt I'd say. It was nice to see how things that happens in a match can affect rivalries, rankings and all sorts of stuff.
Road to Wrestlemania was still around but I really liked this one of the bunch. The Rey Mysterio amnesia story is one of my all time favourite, seeing the loveable Mysterio play a heel character is something we've not seen in WWE at all. I did like the mode mainly for the fact that whoever you picked, you could roam around the arena before starting your match, you could get into impromptu matches, and even have funny cut scenes. Christian and Edge had some of the funniest stuff I've seen in a wrestling game and Christian mocking Big Show with German techno music is one of my favourite things of all time. Here, I even recorded it back in the day:
8) WWE SmackDown vs Raw 2007 (PS2 - 2006) - Metacritic Rating: 80
2007 was the first to be on the PS3 but I didn't have the PS3 early on, so I was stuck with the old PS2 system but it was still not bad in all fairness, we still had all the new features from the PS3 on the PS2 as well. The new analog control was something interesting, it took me a while to get used to it but I did end up liking it for that period, made doing grapple moves a lot more easier. There was also environmental hot spot for you to use around the ring.
Create-A-Championship was improved with loads of new stuff thanks to the spinner belts so of course, I spent quite some time designing my own belts to use. I did like the Create-A-Stable idea but I didn't do much with it sadly. The Locker Room mode from 2006 was back but this time a bit bigger, it had two floors to keep all the stuff you collected in the game which was a neat touch, we need this feature back!
Season mode was decent, you could pick anyone and most had voice-over dubs for things happening in the cut-scenes except for those guys who didn't speak English like Umaga and Khali. Heck you could even use Legends for this like Stone Cold Steve Austin. There weren't that much stories but some of them were great, especially the Royal Rumble story. I liked how you could improve your entry number if you beat someone on Raw/SmackDown who had the higher entry number, why hasn't WWE done anything like this in real life???
7) WWE '13 (PS3 - 2012) - Metacritic Rating: 76
This game appealed to me right away for one reason, the Attitude Era mode! I grew up in the Attitude Era so of course I was gonna be super psyched about this! It took over the Road to WrestleMania mode and I honestly didn't mind it. Sure we were playing out things we'd seen in the past but this was the stuff I grew up watching so of course I was more than happy to go with it. You had the D-X story, Kane vs Undertaker, Steven Austin, The Rock, Mankind and WrestleMania 15.
And that wasn't the only good stuff. Because of Attitude Era mode, there were plenty of older wrestlers in this game and also loads of stuff to unlock in the game! Bret Hart, British Bulldog, New Age Outlaws, Ken Shamrock, X-Pac, the 3 faces of Foley, Kevin Nash, LOD, and even younger version of current wrestlers like Chris Jericho, Undertaker, Kane, Edge and Christian to name a few.
Oh but not just that, classic arenas from 1997 to 1999, championships, attires, and even bonus matches for the Attitude Era mode. Universe mode now had stats and rankings added to it which I really liked. To help that, now it was possible to have branching storylines just from the outcome of matches, which makes up for the lack of current day season mode in the game itself.
6) WWE SmackDown vs Raw 2010 (PS3 - 2009) - Metacritic Rating: 81
Like I've mentioned a few times before, any game that allows me to customize stuff to my hearts content is a winner for me and SvR 10 was one of those games I played a lot just for that. So much so, this is one of only 3 games I have collected all the trophies possible on PlayStation, my first game to have the exclusive Platinum Trophy!
Story Designer mode appealed to me in a lot of ways. I'm someone who likes to create stories out of nothing so the fact that I could actually make a whole story in this video game setting, my 19 year old mind was off to the races. Attitude Era vs Modern Era, CM Punk going on a quest to win all the championships, D-X vs Nexus, Who stole my Royal Rumble entry spot?, turning a jobber into a champion and my favourite, the new Manager of WWE haha. Too much things you could think up of to do on here.
And it just wasn't the stories, they also included Superstar Threads for the first time where you get to give any superstar 3 alternate attires. I'm someone who always wants wrestlers to have a different look for any occasion so of course, I would try to re-create all the special attires I had seen in real life and put it in the game or make my own new version of attires for some of the guys. You've heard of Blue-tista but what about Orange-tista? Yup!
5) WWE 2K19 (PS4 - 2018) - Metacritic Rating: 76
It's kinda sad that this is the only PS4 wrestling game on my list but it shows how bad the 2k series have been. Apart from the first one which was 2K14, something that also only picked up so not really their own effort, this is the only other good WWE game 2K Sports have done. It's also the last wrestling game I've bought because 2K20 was the absolute worst wrestling game ever made which is amazing considering how good 2K19 was. How did they fuck it up that badly?
The roster itself is one big selling point, being the biggest in the franchise with over 200 wrestlers, the current superstars and a lot of old favourites were in the game too which made me happy! Hey, AJ Styles is the cover guy, that's good too. MyCareer was the best they've done here, you start off as an Indie wrestler trying to make it to WWE itself. Loads of different cutscenes on here which is more than the rest of the other version, you can even discover things around the backstage area before matches so that felt fun. Building up attributes through a tree system was cool too.
The showcase mode was centered around the return of Daniel Bryan which I was a big fan of, and played all of it. Funny how he's no longer part of WWE then eh. 2K Towers was a nice idea, it was gauntlet style matches, similar to the Towers seen in Mortal Kombat games so that was a nice piece of nostalgia for me. Universe Mode here was the best one yet, I've played at least two seasons of it by now. The championship system was really good and now there's money in the bank to add it on the fun on who has the next shot. I'll still play it from time to time since PS4 is all I've got at the moment.
4) WWE SmackDown! Shut Your Mouth (PS2 - 2002) - Metacritic Rating: 82
Ok yes, the game after this was the one I actually bought first but I needed to get more of my wrestling fix in so I went and bought Shut Your Mouth and I'm glad I did, the game was also quite fun. Not as good as it's successor Here Comes the Pain but still not a bad effort over all. I mean you could climb up over the Titantron and jump off the Fist, take a ride of Undertaker's bike, wrestle in a train station?
Create-A-Wrestler here was fun because a lot of the face template given/unlocked here were based off older wrestlers and even a few celebrities. Want to re-create classic legends like Bret Hart, Andre the Giant or Mick Foley, they're all there! How about guys who weren't with WWE at that time like Ken Shamrock, Steve Blackman or D-Lo Brown? Heck, you even had faces for Harry Potter and even the legend himself, David Beckham!!! Yes of course I had to re-create Becks, it's not everyday I get to use one of my all time favourite footballers in a different game. Even his England jersey was in the game, fit with his number 7 of course.
Season mode is what makes this game so much fun for me. It's not just one year worth of stories but 2 years! You start off with the WWE Draft, which you get to control for your brand. You get the move around the backstage area, meet other wrestlers, sometimes even fight them. You can even go to WWE's The Times in NYC or visit your boss and ask for a title match! And there's a lot of things to unlock. But here's the catch, when you win a PPV match, you get to pick one out of 5 or 6 unlockable items, meaning you might have to replay the season mode a few times just to get everything. And honestly, why not? There's so many different stories that could happen, and how you react to it could change how it goes, and some of the stories even mirrored what happened in WWE which was cool, be it Flair vs McMahon, Triple H's return or debut of nWo as well.
3) WWE 2K14 (PS3 - 2013) - Metacritic Rating: 74
The first attempt from 2K Games for a WWE game was probably their best attempt of the whole lot which really says a lot about how their games have gone ever seen. It's been so bad that 2K20 was the first time I didn't buy a wrestling game that I could have gotten and we didn't get a 2K21 game. 2K22 does look promising but who knows.
2K14 had easily the best roster of any wrestling game and that is all thanks to the new 30 Years of WrestleMania mode. It was very similar to the Attitude Era mode from WWE '13 but it puts you in the story of a match in each WrestleMania and relive the big moments of whichever story was happening. And you get to unlock all of the WrestleMania arenas in the game which was cool.
It wasn't just 30 Years that was cool, Beat the Streak Mode was amazing! Trying to beat the Undertake on the hardest difficulty ever was a real pain in the ass. But a challenging one. You could even defend the Streak as the Undertaker in a Slobberknocker mode which finally returned from Here Comes the Pain, that's one of my favourite match types. The new OMG moves were a nice touch, saving up one or two finishers to pull off big moves like a suicide dive or your finisher on a table or outside the ring, that gave you more options on how to finish the matches. 2K really needs to get back to making good stuff.
2) WWE SmackDown! vs RAW 2006 (PS2 - 2005) - Metacritic Rating: 84
You already know why I've got this as high up as possible and it's for one simple reason. GM MODE!!! Ah yes, the game that gave us General Manager mode. I played this mode way too much to be honest. The whole game was quite fun too honestly and it's one of the few games I own in my collection that I didn't actually buy from here in Singapore, I got the game while I was visiting family in Vancouver, Canada and the game just so happened to release at that time and my cousin did have a PS2 and we did bring our memory cards, so why not?
Not much else was added to the game apart from a few new matches, including Buried Alive and Fulfill Your Fantasy. Steel Cage matches were much better which was nice. The new momentum bar that replaced the Clean/Face gimmick from the last game was a welcome change and I think it's better. A small feature that was added was the Stamina bar which actually has stayed on till this date so it shows how good this idea was. You can't be running around all the time right? I also liked the new Locker Room mode they had in this game to showcase all the stuff you collected in the game, a forgotten mode that I thought was pretty cool.
But yes I played this game mainly for the GM Mode. Season mode was ok, not the greatest but it got by. This was the first time we got any kind of mode like this where you controlled a roster and you made all the decisions. You get to sign the wrestlers, decide who's the champion, who fights them, what kind of rivalries will be the showcase, what matches to put on and if there needs to be a gimmick match. You can even set your promo time to either hype up your show or possibly ruin the other show. And you're doing all this while battling the other shows so keeping up with ratings was a big thing which I really liked. I honestly wished they would focus on GM Mode more and hey, it's coming back in 2K22 so let's hope they've done it right.
1) WWE SmackDown! Here Comes the Pain (PS2 - 2003) - Metacritic Rating: 85
There's only one choice here, you all knew it had to be this. It can only be SmackDown! Here Comes the Pain. The first game I ever got with a console and till this day, possibly still my favourite game of all time! Not just favourite wrestling game but favourite of all the genres! I like it so much I've got two boxes of this, bought one in Canada just because it was on sale! Also the other reason was because I played the first game so much the disc had been ruined so I had trouble playing the game at times.
The gameplay on this game is easily my favourite in any wrestling game, it was fast and it was fun. So fun even a few of my friends and I would stop by a game shop near my place that had the game up for anyone who wanted to try and we'd all give it a go because of how good it was. Even non-wrestling peeps got into it, it was that good! Body damage displays were finally shown which helped in matches.
You could finally break submission holds with rope break which was a feature that we needed. They also gave us the Elimination Chamber for the first time in this game and hey, this is also the first game to even have "Legend" characters in so I was hyped for that! Too bad they didn't have entrance music. Another cool thing was all the good stuff you could do backstage in matches. You could climb a cell backstage and jump off it, set your opponent flying if they stood in front of a smoking pipe, ride around Undertaker's bike and drag them around with it. Or hell, ride a helicopter in Times Square and jump off the freaking chopper doing an elbow drop! It was silly but that's the kind of fun wrestling games should be!
And of course, we've got possibly the greatest career mode in any wrestling game ever seen. I know what some people will say, but there's no voice-overs! Who needs them I'd say! The voice over stuff meant stories were pretty much set in stone with no changes. Without it, anyone could play in any role which to me, that's how it should be!
The amount of storylines in this game is just mind-blowing! You can play 3 different seasons and see different stories played out each time with different wrestlers involved too. I also liked that you could go to specific areas in the backstage places and speak to wrestlers, maybe gain your rep points with them, piss them off and loss points. Or speak to the GM to get a title shot or even moved to the other show. Honestly, this is the epitome of wrestling games to me and I don't think I'll see any wrestling game ever beat Here Comes the Pain.
My 10 Favourite Racing (Non-F1) Games
I'm a racer through and through, always been a racing fanatic so of course, I was always going to buy racing games, be it F1, road cars, street cars, NASCARs, rally cars, demolition cars, doesn't matter, bikes or buses don't matter too, anything that I can drive and race on, I'll be on it. No drift cars though, not my kind of thing. And sure enough I've played plenty of racing games so making a top 10 for this wasn't going to be a problem. The problem comes in decided what actually makes the list.
Honorable mention: Jet Moto 2 (PS1 - 1997) - This is probably the first racing game I ever played in my life and I can still remember it vividly. Racing around different locations on jets that looks like motorbikes? Heck yes! You could do stunts with them, and it was a fun racer on the PS1 days. I even bought it on the PS3 when they had PS1 classic games up.
Initially I had Jet Moto 2 in this spot and as I was doing some of my research, my silly self just remembered....wait I did play LEGO Racers! One of the first games I had on the PC and 9-year old me really enjoyed playing this. I like LEGO and I like racing, how can it go wrong? And it didn't. I'm a little surprised LEGO hasn't gone back to trying another version of this.
It's pretty simple to get into. You build your racers (and most of the time I used what I had in real life too with my racing sets), you build your car which had a few different templates too and you're ready! The Power ups were simple to learn, you had Green for speed, Red for attacking the others in front, Blue for defending and Yellow are traps to disrupt the others behind. And then there's the White bricks which were added power for those effects, the more bricks you collect, the more powerful they become!
There were about 7 circuits to beat with a champion to beat in each circuit too (and they all mastered a specific power up), each featuring 4 tracks, the second 3 being all mirrored and the last circuit in the final boss race. The captains were based on some of the more popular minifigures during the 90's, some of which I actually did own like Johnny Thunder, Basil and Baron von Barron. Some circuits had short cuts too, you just had to find a way to access them. This game was fun! And yes, as of writing, I just re-downloaded the game and forgot how fun it was.
9) Need for Speed Underground (PS2 - 2003) - Metacritic Rating: 85
I'm not much of a fan of the drifting and street racing style of racing, but I did like the first NFS Underground. The big thing that got me into the game was the amount of things you could do customise your cars which I really liked. Not only can you upgrade your car's engines, drive-train, suspension, turbo, weight but you could also customise the visuals of the cars. Give it a new paint, change the bumpers, custom side skirts, add spoilers or neon lights or even stickers!
I did like that there were a number of different style of races you could do in story mode too. The traditional circuit style races, knockout style mode to eliminate the last guy on that lap, sprint races with one other rival, drifting which I honestly was not a fan of at all and drag racing which is something I wasn't used to. There was style points to win in the game which was cool too but it was always connected to drifting. Oh well, not a bad racing game, but again, the PS2 had so many great racing games. It was fun, story was nice, it's just not my cup of tea.
I enjoyed the TOCA series, great racing games in the PS2 era but the problem was, there were so many great racing games that came out during the PS2. What I liked about TOCA series, especially TOCA 3, was the amount of actual racing championships were included in the game. You had the likes of IndyCar, DTM, V8 Supercars, Monster Truck, Go-Kart Racing, and even a Williams BMW F1 car from 2005! I mean they've got IndyCar and F1, I'm sold! So sold that I bought the PSP version as well.
They also had two different story modes to go with. For Pro Career, you can choose different categories of racing and climb up the ladder for them, those categories being Classics, GT, Oval, Touring Car, Off-Road, TMS and my personal favourite, Open Wheel. This was the first game that made me feel what it was like to be a racing driver. I could start from Euro Karts, move up to Formula 1000, then Formula Palmer Audi, then Formula Ford or Formula BMW, then to F3 and finally to the Williams F1.
World Tour was the other story mode, and probably the one people like me played the mode. There were the cuts scenes as always with TOCA on here too with your trusty Scottish mechanic helping you out. You had a choice of picking 1 of 2 or 3 different genres to try, move on to the next, and keep moving up the ladder until you reach the final stage, and yup, it's the Williams F1 challenge. Great game, gave me that feel of what it was like to be one of the many F1 guys I've always looked up to.
Not the best Burnout game but it was still pretty good. How good? I even bought the remastered version for PS4! Burnout Paradise was a bit different since it was an open-world style racer. Explore Paradise City and start finding all sorts of races to do or even take down some rare cars to add to your collection.
You had the option of point-to-point racing, circuit racing, time trials, takedown challenges, showtime mode which was the crash mode from older Burnout games, eliminator mode and also drift mode, which obviously I hated. And there were so many races to play, it wasn't easy to find them all too since the map was quite big. I never got to try the DLC stuff until the remastered version which had the Big Surf Island included and that added more fun stuff. Give us more Burnout games please!
6) Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (Switch - 2014) - Metacritic Rating: 92
Mario Kart has always had some of the most fun kart races on all sorts of handheld consoles but the funny thing is, Mario Kart 7 was the first one I owned for myself when I got the 3DS. In fact, it's still the only one I actually own since 8 Deluxe is actually my brother's but I've been holding on to it this whole time.
It's the usual same formula as always, just single player modes along with multi-player and online too. From there you either have Grand Prix, Time Trial, VS Race or Battle mode. For Grand Prix, you have to do 4 races from different maps and the winner is the one who scores the most points. And in this one, there's loads of circuits to race from, from the OG Game Boy days to the DS days and everything in between.
You have the same old fun stuff, the banana peels, the red shell, the green shell and the dreaded blue shell that destroys the first place driver. This games are always fun to play, especially with friends. When it comes to fun kart racing games, we've seen the likes of Sonic, F1, even Lego from the first entry on this list, but it'll always be Mario Kart that sets the benchmark for these types of racing games.
Codemasters always knew how to do great racing games, as seen with the TOCA series so I was excited to see what they'd do with the new GRID series. And I wasn't disappointed since the first one was an instant hit. The moment I saw the trailer, I was hooked, and they played the cool remixed version of No One Knows (UNKLE remix) by Queens of Stone Age!
Flashback was a new feature they introduced here and well, it's one of the best things ever added because not only does it stop you from making a mess, you could save yourself the trouble of crashing out right away and just, rewind back. It's so good that other GRID games have been using it as have all F1 games by Codemasters.
The World Tour mode was neat. The first race was already cool since you get to do a short street race around the streets of San Francisco! I've been there many times and often wondered what a race there would look like, they gave me my answer. After the race race you'd be offered drives and you could earn money for how well you did, and getting more offers or even setting up your own team.
The better you did, sponsors will come calling to you and your reputation goes up too. They had different parts for the different regions in the game too which I liked. Japan had the street and drifting stuff, US had the GT stuff with some stock cars and Europe had the traditional racing stuff. Great racer for the PS3 era, one of the few good ones.
Only started getting into the Project Cars series when it came to the PS4 systems but I have enjoyed the first two games, not so much the 3rd game, that was the biggest let down in a long while. Project Cars 2 was probably my favourite because it felt like it was built to be a racing game for motorsports fans. The online mode was pretty good too which is saying something plus there was a focus for the eSports peeps.
You had Open Wheels, GTs, LMPs and Touring Cars. The career mode was fun too since you can go through all of the 5 different genres in the game. If you're like me, you probably went for the Open Wheel stuff first, you can start off in Formula Rookie and from there you get to choose your path for the next adventure and if it's Open Wheel you're racing in Formula C first, then move up to Formula Renault 3.5, then to Formula X (based off the old school ChampCars) and finally the top tier, IndyCar! Any game with IndyCar in it is a big win for me. There's even vintage IndyCars in the game too.
But the great thing is that all these different cars do handle very differently and the game shows it too, driving an LMP2 isn't the same as Renault Clio or one of the Ferrari Challenge cars. The better you do in the game, more manufactures will start taking a notice and might even sign you up to do some races for them which is always cool, makes you feel like the real thing. If you keep doing well, you get to do the Proving Grouds challenge where the best of the best compete to become a Factory Driver for that manufacturer. This career mode might as well be the most realistic for us to feel what it's like to be one of those racing drivers in the real world too.
3) NASCAR 2005 Chase for the Cup (PS2 - 2004) - Metacritic Rating: 87
Here comes the first of 3 back to back PS2 racing games released in 2004, what an era that was. Surprised? Well yes, a NASCAR game was so good I've got it up to 3rd here. But Chase for the Cup might as well be the best NASCAR game ever made in all fairness and even if it was some other series, I'd still buy it if they had all the same stuff in it. I mean I don't follow NASCAR that much but this game taught me a lot about the series I thought I had some idea of.
Fight to the Top was the career mode and dare I say, this might be one of the best career modes I've seen in any racing game. You start as your own driver and the first thing you get to do is a street race with Ryan Newman! You then try to work your way up through the four tiers of NASCAR, from the Featherlite Modified Series, then the Craftsman Truck Series, the National Series and finally the main one, the NEXTEL Cup Series.
The one cool thing I liked about this game is that you could race as a hero or a villain. There was this feature where you could either share a draft with a rival, meaning now you've got a friend who will help you our, or intimidate a rival and they'll try to wreck into you. The other awesome part is while you are making your way up the NASCAR ladder, you can actually have your own race teams in the smaller tiers in a bid to help you earn more money, be it from results or merchandise. You can either drive it or hire someone else it, while also under contract with a Cup Series car in the top tier.
You can even earn skill points in the race to help unlock a lot of stuff. And there's also the Lighting Challenge which were scenario-based race modes based on what happened in real life NASCAR. This game impressed the hell out of me, and I really wish other series would use this as a template on how to make a racing game. It's one of the few to have all it's feeder series so that's a big plus.
The second of 3-in-a-row PS2 races released in 2004 on the top end of the list and this was a nice little coincidence I found out while writing this, as it was on this date (as of writing, December 28th but this might be released a few days later) 17 years ago, Gran Turismo 4 was released. And in my own view, still the best Gran Turismo of the bunch as of right now.
You open the menu and you're already greeted with loads of stuff which I really liked. Instead of choosing through a menu, you can choose which part of the world to go to buy their cars then head off to events that suited your stage of play at that period, be it Beginner, Professional or Extreme. There was also stuff like License Centre to learn the finer points, Driving Mission to see how well you've learnt, you could even go to a Replay Theatre, or if you're running low of money, head over to the Used Cars area. And from early screenshots from Gran Turismo 7, it looks like this feature is coming back so I'm already excited by it.
What made the game so fun was the fact that there were 700 cars from 80 different manufactures to collect. Yes, I said 700 and that's just in a freaking PS2 game! They ranged from as early as 1886 for the first motor carriage all the way up to 2022 for concept cars from the future, and this game was released in 2004 (and I have some bad news, those concept cars from 2022 you saw? Not gonna happen since it's only days away).
There wasn't just the usual mode for you to just drive around, there's also a B-Spec mode where you're the crew chief and telling your driver how to drive, how aggressive they should be, how safe they could be. The cars were all had their own challenges to drive, you can tell the difference driving a Nissan Skyline to an Audi DTM machine to a Jaguar LMP1 car to a Formula 1 car. This was Gran Turismo at it's peak and if not for it, I would not have bought 5, 6 and the upcoming 7.
I mean come on, what else could it be? I did say my top 3 are all from 2004 on the PS2, so you knew what it had to be. Burnout 3 isn't just one of my favourite racing games of all time, but one of my favourite games of all time period. It was a different style of racing game I was used to, a more aggressive style of racing which I honestly didn't mind at all.
But the first thing that takes my breath away is the selection of music. Burnout 3 might as well have some of the best soundtrack on any video games. Lazy Generation from The F-Ups, This Fire by Franz Ferdinand, Make a Sound by Autopilot Off, Breathing by Yellowcard, I Let Go by Eighteen Visions, Memory by Sugar Cult and my personal favourite, Stay in Shadow by Finger Eleven. All of them classics in their own right and there's a lot more too.
And to the game, you had the World Tour mode where you got to play all the modes in the game from every location. The Grand Prix events would group all these different types of races into one series and you would try to get the highest points to win the GPs. You had the usual circuit racing, road rage where you'll try to see how many cars you could takedown (thus, the name of the game), crash mode to see how many things you could damage and see how much money you'd cause for all the damages. I really liked the Aftertouch feature, whenever you crashed out, you could control your car in the hopes of collecting a rival and causing them to crash too.
Also in World Tour you had Face-Off mode to go one-on-one with a special car and if you win, you'd earn that car. Burning lap was a time trail event but you'd try to use up as much turbo as possible too. Eliminator is in this game too, the last placed car gets eliminated from each lap. All these modes, and 67 different cars to choose from (and you could choose different colours too) and different locations to drive based on 3 areas (US, Europe and Asia), this game was the epitome of fun. Easy to pick up, easy to learn, and you could even do multi-player races with friends to have some fun. Best non-F1 racing game for me hands down.
My 10 Favourite Racing (F1) Games
I'm not just a racing fanatic but also an F1 fanatic. That shouldn't really be a surprise to anyone if you knew me, from me talking about F1 all the time, to my collection of F1 cars (now totalling 99 cars) and anything in between. Ever since 2003, I feel like I've bought almost every possible F1 game I can get on my consoles apart from a few years where I was just busy too play.
While wrestling games and FIFA games have taken a step down lately, I feel like F1 games have taken a step up and it just keeps getting better and better! I mean if you look at the ratings and stuff like that, every F1 games have been given really good reviews since 2016 onwards! Now that's saying something.
Honorable mention: F1 Race Stars (PS3 - 2012) - Ok so I didn't want to include this on the list not to mess up the whole idea of it just being realistic F1 games but this was a fun little game. This was what happened when Mario Kart met Formula One. A fun kart style game similar to the Sonic All Stars and Mario Kart games. Not the best buy hey it's an F1 game!
10) F1 2012 (PS3 - 2012) - Metacritic Rating: 81
Onto the actual F1 game released in 2012. The game was, if anything, just more improvements from the previous ones. Career mode sadly was such a drag since you couldn't do races less than 25% distance and I never do that, since it takes forever to finish a season that way.
At least they did give us Season Challenge which was much more quicker to progress through, and to speed things up even more, we got for the first time, One-Shot Qualifying! I'm sure those of you playing F1 games now know what it is, this is where it all started.
Some of the new additions were quite nice to be fair. The Young Driver Test was a nice way to get newer players into the swing of things before Career Mode started. The thing I liked the most was actually the Champions Mode. The 6 world champions on the grid had their own little challenges for you to try to beat, with them as the level bosses. I mean after all, this was the one rare time we actually had 6 World Champions in an F1 field, that will probably never happen again so I liked that Codemasters did something to commemorate that.
9) F1 2017 (PS4 - 2017) - Metacritic Rating: 86
2017 was continuing the upward progress 2016 started, which honestly has not stopped yet, every other game since 2016 has been brilliant and all credit to Codemasters for that! I never did get to buy 2016 sadly so 2017 was the next one for me.
R&D is even bigger in this game, with loads of options to get into and upgrade, sometimes I felt like I didn't have enough time to do what I had set out to achieve at the start of a season because of the vast amounts of the things to look into. Classic cars were back in, ranging from 1988 to 2010, so pretty much cars from my era which is a BIG plus in my view. You can even drive these cars during career mode for invitational events, and not just time trial too, sometimes even races!
A few tracks had short versions added which was nice along with Monaco at night which blew my mind. Maybe F1 need to explore that option for real. Really enjoyed playing this one, as I have been for the next releases after this.
8) F1 2013 (PS3 - 2013) - Metacritic Rating: 77
2012 I thought was a good one. 2013 was just as good, but with just loads more stuff to play with. For starters, one feature we all wanted to see from the start finally showed up and it was the Classic Content, featuring cars from the 80's and the 90's so of course I bought the special edition just to get these classic cars. And we even got 4 tracks not on the calendar thanks to it, it was nice to race around Imola and Brands Hatch again along with Jerez and Estoril.
Scenario Mode was a nice new addition, it was made in a similar vein to the Champions Mode from 2012. I do wish more F1 games would try to give this a go and have us try fun scenarios and master them (then again the online weekly stuff in 2021 could be in some ways look at as similar to it). Mid-session save was a new feature that I'm sure we all liked, have saved me a lot of pain plenty of times!
This was the game that when I first played it on the new PS3 console, it made me go, wow! The graphics on this game alone was just too stunning, better than any games I've ever seen before. And we are talking about the start of the PS3 life so that shouldn't be a surprise but still, it looked truly amazing. Some of the PS3 games released in later years didn't even look as good at this game did!
The game itself wasn't that bad either. I really enjoyed career mode and I think I played all 5 (or 10, I can't remember) seasons of it. The camera on the game was something else, they even had a TV mode view to watch the race, and it really does look like you're watching an actual F1 race. My favourite feature which was also in the PS2 and PSP versions was the ability to change the starting grid to anything you want it to be. Want the Jordan and Toro Rosso cars starting at the front and have the Renault and Ferrari cars at the back? In this game, it's very possible!
6) F1 2010 (PS3 - 2010) - Metacritic Rating: 84
This is the game that brought back to joy of playing F1 on a console again. Before this, the last game (F1 CE) was released a good 4 years prior! 4 years without an F1 game so imagine my excitement when I heard there was going to be an F1 game again. And it was from Codemasters of all people too, they had done a really good job with the GRID series and the DiRT series, so I knew they were going to do a good job of it.
You start the game and you instantly hear Ian Brown's FEAR in the intro, one of the better songs of that era and with the remix version too. The soundtrack in this game is one of the best I've heard. The menu screen is in the F1 paddock which I thought was cool. Season mode wasn't that good but for the first game from Codemasters, I thought it was really good! The start of ta long line of great F1 games to come out of Codemasters, and 11 years on, it's still giving us great F1 games, especially 3 of the best in the last 3 years.
5) F1 2019 (PS4 and PC - 2019) - Metacritic Rating: 84
2019, for me, was the start of a trio of amazing games Codemasters did. 2018 was good, I just didn't get to play it much during that time. But you can tell how much I liked 2019 if I bought it on the PS4 and also on my PC, double the fun! I still prefer the console version and my PC can't really handle big games like this.
They included 2 classic cars in this, the Ferrari F10 and the McLaren MP4-25 including to acknowledge Codemasters' 10 years of doing F1 games which I thought was a lovely touch. F2 cars were included in this for the first time which was a nice touch. You start your career mode in F2 with two fictional drivers, one as your team-mate and one as your rival, do 3 races and you'd all end up on the F1 grid eventually.
Weekly challenges was added for the first time in this version which I really liked, and have liked for the next 2 games too. I also did like the idea of customizing my own online livery, I'm a sucker for being able to customize stuff to my own liking so that's was a nice new addition too. The replays now looked really good as did the new lighting, this was the start of a great era of F1 games.
4) F1 2005 (PS2 - 2005) - Metacritic Rating: 78
This was a really fun game to play back in the day, it was the best of the lot from the Studio Liverpool crew. The graphics were really good for a game in the PS2 era and I did like the blur effect they had when driving the car, makes it feel like you're driving as fast as you really are. Of course, cars in 2005 sounded amazing and they did a good job with it in the game.
Career mode was fun too. You had to start off with one of the slower teams, work your way up and hopefully by the end of the 5 years, you're winning championships with one of the better teams. AI was a bit rubbish though, that part sucked. I did like the whole bunch of stuff you could unlock in the game, from classic cars, old circuits and extra helmet designs just for achieving certain things in the game itself.
3) F1 Career Challenge (PS2 - 2003) - Metacritic Rating: 91
This is the game that got me started on my fandom that is now known as F1 games. The first F1 game I ever owned and it wowed me. Not only was it good but the fact that I get to play not just one, not just two, not just three but FOUR seasons worth of cars, teams, tracks and 4 seasons in career mode was just freaking awesome.
Season mode was super cool too. You had to go through a series of super license tests to see who will sign you up. The better you do, bigger teams will consider signing you for the next season. You had on track comms with your team and they would reference whoever your teammate was too which I thought was cool. The driving model was amazing for a PS2 game too.
And they don't just recycle it too, the tracks are updated according to whatever happened in those years, like Hockenhim going from the long circuit in 2001 to the shorter version in 2002. And it's not just the tracks that they followed for real, they even had replacement drivers to sub in just like they did in F1, be it Salo filling in for BAR and Ferrari in 1999 or Frentzen and Panis swapping cars near the end of 2001 or even Tomas Enge taking the Prost seat near the end of 2001 to replace the injured Burti. I really enjoyed this game, this was something so different to anything I've seen in a long time. I honestly wish F1 could do something similar to this, multiple seasons in one game and following what happened to the real world with drivers and circuits.
2) F1 2021 (PS4 - 2021) - Metacritic Rating: 83
F1 2021 is pretty much 2020 just with a few good updates but missing some bits as well. Classic cars are gone which made me sad and the thing to replace it? A brand new story mode called Breaking Point.
It follows two driver from the end of 2019 with one of the main character challenging to be F2 champion, moving to F1 and dealing with a veteran teammate. The races in questions? Just a few challenge mode-style races. It was an ok attempt for their first try but they could have done a whole lot more with this idea honestly. It just felt a bit weak and ended too quickly and no way to branch the story to different ideas.
MyTeam is still amazing and I'm currently in Year 9 of a possible 10 for it, which itself is insane for me since I usually never do that many seasons, shows how much I'm enjoying the game. R&D is way better than before, it's now more simpler and you don't have to do 5 practice programmes, just 3 will do and you can even simulate it which I really liked. I don't have to waste time doing the same old thing over and over again!
I did like the podium passes giving us a lot of items to unlock, be it helmets, suits, gloves, car liveries and other stuff relating to our drivers. I didn't do it much for 2020 but been doing a lot of it for 2021. The new updates they've done have been awesome too, adding the Imola, Portimao and Jeddah circuits and also the 2021 F2 cars was a welcome addition. 2021 is one of the best F1 games ever made, some might say even better than 2020. I'd say otherwise.
1) F1 2020 (PS4 - 2020) - Metacritic Rating: 86
Now this is just Codemasters at their best. Sure 2021 was amazing as well but they are just somethings in 2020 that puts it in the #1 spot over 2021. For starters, they had classic cars while 2021 decided to go with the Breaking Point story mode.
The classic cars were great, since it was the 70th anniversary of F1 after all and it was nice to see newer ones in the game too. You had the true classics from the 70's, 80's, 90's, even the modern classics like the 2003 Williams, 2006 Renault, 2008 McLaren, 2009 Brawn and 2010 Red Bull cars! There's also the Michael Schumacher DLC for some of his best cars too.
The biggest inclusion is the brand new My Team mode, easily my number one favourite feature in an F1 game. You create your own team as the 11th team on the F1 grid, you choose an engine supplier, a 2nd driver, sponsors, even create a custom calendar. You can continue to upgrade your facilities, work on your R&D tree and keep improving the team. Drivers can switch teams and F2 drivers are also involved in it. And they've got all attributes in a similar way to FIFA so you can decide which kind of driver you want to sign.
Online mode was not bad, which takes a lot for me to ever say that and I spent some time racing on there. Gameplay was great, car actually sounds good for once and looks great as any F1 game from Codemasters should. They even had modes to focus on the Esports area, something I won't touch since I'm not good enough to ever go for it. But considering everything, F1 2020 is the best F1 game I've ever played. It was hard to choose between this and 2021 because they're both equally good but I had to give 2020 the nod. And it makes me hopeful for the future if you consider that the last 3 games were all really good, they're in the top 5 for a reason and I don't think many genres can boast that, having their 3 recent releases all be the best ones yet. Let's just hope EA Sports don't screw it up.
My 10 Favourite Pokémon Games
And now finally to good ol' Pokémon. My first ever console that I can call my own was a GameBoy Colour and no surprises that the first game I owned for it was a Pokémon game. Most of you reading this probably know me from our adventures in the Pokémon Trading Card Game but yes, I'm a fan of the series too, and yes I play all of the video games too. Just not in a competitive manner because I'm not that good but I'm learning! These games have always been full of adventures and loads of fun so this was one of my more difficult lists to sort out.
Honorable mention: Pokémon Shining Pearl (Switch - 2020) I'm currently playing it right now but even though it's not the best remake we've had, I still thought it was a fun game. It really reminded me of how good Gen 4 truly was, the game was challenging, the story was fun and the post game was loaded with content! The Grand Underground was much better in this game, you could find all sorts of rare Pokémon here, including all the starters from Gens 1 to 4 and the pseudo legendaries's smaller forms! It may get a bad rep for being a remake with no real innovation but I enjoyed it! I thought it was a pretty good effort by ILCA, the first guys to develop a main Pokémon game and not the usual Game Freak for once.
10) Pokémon Y (3DS - 2013) - Metacritic Rating: 88
I'm going to be very honest here, I can't remember much of Y other than Team Flare, the Champion Diantha, who was one of the more challenging champions I've faced in all fairness and the story brining Yveltal back, waking it up from it's egg. They did introduce the new Fairy type and the new Mega Evolutions but that's about it for me.
The new 3D look was a nice touch, dex nav was a nice touch to get a Pokémon with good IVs, which is something I didn't pay much attention of until this gen if I remember correctly since I always thought it to be quite complicated. There was also the new Super Training which helped. Sadly a lot of features were missing, no re-match battles, no mini-games, and worst of all, no real post-game.
All you did was some adventures with Looker and other than going after Zygarde and Mewtwo, that's it. Team Flare wasn't my favourite, didn't care much for them. This gen also had the fewest Pokémon added in a game. This wasn't the best game to come out of a gen but hey, Gen 6 did have one better game coming in three entries time. But there is one thing we can all agree on, Xerneas and Yveltal do have one of the better legendaries themes in any game.
9) Pokémon Sword (PS3 - 2011) - Metacritic Rating: 80
The latest new Gen game we've got and while it isn't one of the best, I can't say it's the worst either. I didn't like the whole Gigantamax stuff, that felt way too gimmicky for me. Yes, the lack of a national Pokédex is disappointing, we know but there were some features in the game that I really liked, especially the new open world area of the Wild Area.
The one big difference from this game was the fact that most of the wild Pokémon shows up in the outer world, something introduced in the Let's Go games. The few random encounters you'll get are usually rare ones.
You can explore this place with rare Pokémon appearing in the outer world in certain situations depending on the weather which I thought was a nice idea. Also exclusive to the open world areas were the raid battles where you and 3 other trainers battle a wild gigantamax Pokémon, trying to beat it and catch it. And it can be a really good one with great sets of IVs too at times. I probably spent too much time in these areas.
But wait, it's not just this one area. Gen 8 was also the first to include DLCs, so you had the Isle of Armor and Crown Tundra stories added to the game, and they've both got open world areas too. All the gyms had a fun puzzles to get through at the very least which I liked and some of them can be a challenge like Raihan, which is a double-battle too. Leon is easily one of my favourite champions and he had a strong team too. The villains however, rubbish. But I did like that the region was based in the UK and the gyms all being in stadiums gave me that feel of it being like a big time football game in real life England. Decent game but considering everything else we had, I can't put it any higher.
Another Gen that I didn't quite click with sadly. Probably for the fact that they took out Gym battles in this game. Sure the totem and kahuna battles were nice but I prefer my gym battles please, don't ever take them out. Nice attempt but no. The trials were just gym battles with a different name, they try to make it sound different but it's not.
The new gimmick for Gen 7 was the Z-moves and I'll be honest, I wasn't that fussed about it. I liked the Mega Evolutions, Z-moves as a one time finisher was a nice idea but I honestly didn't use it much. Plus it had to be a specific typing too.
I did like the new Alolan forms they introduced in this gen and the story wasn't that bad let's be honest. Seeing Lille, who let's be honest is the main character in this gen, trying to deal with what her mother Lusamine was doing was quite interesting, and add in Gumza, not the strongest evil boss but my favourite just because of how goofy he was. I will say the story was one of the better ones at least with loads of twists and turns. All of Team Skull had great themes too.The thing I did like about the Ultra version was the story revolving Necrozma. Before, it was just another legendary, forgotten by most. Here, it's the legendary that makes you travel the Ultra Wormhole (another cool feature I enjoyed playing in the game, you can catch legendaries and even shiny Pokémon thanks to it) to an alien planet to battle it, but in it's Ultra form.
And trust me when I tell you, Ultra Necrozma might be the scariest legendary to go up against, it took out 5 of my 6 mons in one shot! Ultra Necromza's battle theme is one of the best legendaries theme too! The additions of Ultra Beasts were nice but what made me like Ultra Moon more than the original was the post game here, involving Team Rainbow Rocket. They're back! I liked this story and you didn't just go up against Giovanni but also the other previous team bosses, awesome idea I'd say! Even the remix themes were amazing, especially for Lysandre and of course Giovanni who now has one of the best battle themes.
To think that a re-make was the better game coming out of one gen just proves how poor that gen was but hey, Gen 3 was always a fun one. Not my favourite of the whole bunch but I enjoyed it at least. The good bits introduced in Gen 6 did stay on here thankfully, with the Mega Evolution playing a big part with all 3 legendaries in the game (the Primals for both Kyogre and Groudon and Rayquaza's mega which you couldn't just obtain a stone for). I will say, Gen 3 did have some of the best soundtracks in a Pokémon game too,
The story was pretty much the same from before, just with more stuff since it's now in Gen 6 so you had triple battles too, along with unlimited TM usage and Super Training. It was missing some stuff from the original games which was disappointing but I thought it was ok still. It did add the new way to fly around, on a freaking Latias/Latios! Yes, you literally fly around Hoenn on these legendaries to wherever you wanted to go and you could even bump into a wild Flying Pokémon or better still, find a mirage spot to encounter a legendary Pokémon. And there were loads of them here.
There is a proper post-game story this time too with the Delta Episode where you'll fight Rayquaza, befriend it and then, for the first time ever in a game, you get a battle with the mythical Pokémon Deoxys! Now that part was really cool since I never owned it in the past. And that battle took place in outer freaking space! I finally got a feel of what it would be like to be a spaceman and live in the sky. (If you get that reference, you're cool).
6) Pokémon Red/Blue/Yellow (PS3 - 2011) - Metacritic Rating: 88
The OG game will always have a special place in my heart. I played the first ones, even though I didn't official owned them at first since the ones I had were from those cheap 8 games-in-1 style cartridges back in the day, remember those? The first time I saw it being played was actually thanks to my cousin, he had it on his PC somehow and one of my brother's friend also had it on their PC and it got me intrigued on what this Pokémon game was all about.
A few years later and I finally got my own GameBoy while I was stuck in hospital with high fever and the rest as they say is history. The first game was fun. I enjoyed the adventure and of course, I had to re-play it and I got myself Yellow version too. I might have liked this version a bit more because you could play the game with all 3 of the original starters in your team. The Team Rocket story was fun, especially with Jesse and James in the Yellow version, and for post game, you got to fight Mewtwo.
Not a bad first effort by Pokémon. It wasn't an easy game either let's be fair. Sabrina is easily one of the toughest Gym leaders to beat because of how stupidly good Psychic types were in the first Gen. And then there's the original champion Gary/Blue/Whatever you called your rival, he's easily the toughest champion to face not named Cynthia. Even Giovanni I'd say is the toughest evil team boss to face. If this game hadn't done well, would I even be writing this right now and knowing many of the friends I've made in the past few years? This is why I have to give it a higher spot even though, compared to the rest, it's not the best but it's the one that started everything.
5) Pokémon Trading Card Game (PS3 - 2011) - Metacritic Rating: 82
Those of you reading this might know me from playing the Pokémon Trading Card Game in the real world or the virtual stuff as we live in current times, but I have been playing the card game since it first came out all the way back in 1999!
I never took it seriously though, mainly as a way to collect cards and have fun with my brother and friends instead of playing video games. And it's still fun 22 years later, albeit I feel like I'm a much better player now because now I actually know how to build decks properly and play the game at a decent level.
The GBC version was still a fun game, it had similarities to the RPG games. Cards were based off what we had from the Base Set to Fossil along with some promo cards, in real life and exclusive to the game. You had to fight the 8 club trainers (each club focused on the 8 different types in the game), beat them to be allowed the fight the Club Masters and if you beat them, you win a badge just like in the RPG game. You had a rival too and at certain points there was also a Cup you could attend, you had to beat 3 trainers in a row to win a rare card.
And after that, you're off to the face the four Grand Masters, and they decks were focused on the 3 legendary birds and Dragonite. You had a total of 226 cards to collect and you could do that by beating trainers to collect packs. The only real thing in post game was the challenge machines that allowed you to fight all sorts of trainers in a gauntlet style events. As someone who loved the card games, I loved this game, I played it way too much. I need to give this game another go now that I know how to properly play the game and knowing what decks were broken during that time period (aka Haymaker) or rebuild my classic Hitmonlee-Gengar spread deck from before. I honestly wished we had more of these games based on the TCG and no, let's be honest, PTCGO is not really a game, is it?
4) Pokémon White 2 (DS - 2012) - Metacritic Rating: 80
Gen 5 was a really good one, I wouldn't say it my favourite but I did enjoy playing both the original game and the 2nd version. Please don't mess with that ever again. At first I didn't like how there wasn't any of the older Pokémon from other gens in the game initially, all you could use were gen 5 mons but you'd end up adapting to it in no time.
There were a few new changes added into this gen, ranging from seasonal events, triple and rotational battles and rare Pokémons easily seen from a rustling grass or rippling water which I really liked. I will mention this, it says a lot that 3 of my top 4 are all games that released on the DS, that was the best time for Pokémon honestly.
I will say this, Gen 5 might have some of the best music in all of Pokémon. I didn't like how they changed the battle music during the matches to when your Pokémon's HP is in the red zone, that one sucked. The one where the gym leader you're facing has their last Pokémon, a remix of the intro music, that one rocked. Some of the music were remixed from previous gen too which was a nice touch. The story was really enjoyable, be it dealing with Team Plasma (one of the better stories involving the evil team), your rivals or N, one of the best characters in all of Pokémon, and my brother's favourite character so that's saying something. I liked the initial story in White where you went to the Elite 4 thinking you'd fight the champion and they pull the switcheroo, nope you're still fighting Team Plasma, N, the legendary Pokémon and Ghetsis. Oh did I mention, Gen 4's champion Cynthia is the secret boss battle too, one of the scariest surprise battles ever.
The 2nd version added a few more stuff and more areas to view and loads more content in post game, such as memory link, the challenge mode, the key system which gave you new difficulties, battle the White/Black Towers, find older legendaries and err....WORLDS TOURNAMENT!!! Easily my favourite feature in any Pokémon game ever. Worlds Tournament had all past Gym Leaders, Elite 4 members and Champions battle in an awesome tournament with many different scenarios for each tourney, be it regional gym, champions mode, battle against masters known for a single typing, you name it, they got it. And they all had remixed version of their themes too. I don't know how much time I spent playing this mode. Loved it. I'd play White 2 again just for this.
3) Pokémon Crystal (GBC - 2001) - Metacritic Rating: 80
My first official game I got on a Nintendo handheld console was Crystal version, and it's still one of my all time favourite games ever. Gen 1 was great, and then Gen 2 turned it up another notch. I'll say this, Gen 2 is still my favourite games to play and one of the big reasons for it is the simple fact that you don't just get one region to explore but two regions! You don't just get to collect 8 badges, you get to collect 16 badges! Gen 2 also gave us day and night events which was awesome.
Team Rocket is still the big evil team but this time without their leader Giovanni, and they're doing all their usual dastardly plans in the hopes of reaching to their missing leader. Silver might be one of my favourite rivals too, he's just full of evil. We still don't know much about this guy. He did have a kick-ass theme though! I did like that Johto was a place that let you explore the places, you didn't even have to do the gym battles in the right order after Goldenrod. And speaking of which, Whitney's Miltank is still the scariest gym battle to me.
There were some nice events going on in the game, I really liked the Bug Catching contest, that was a fun one. The arcades in Goldenrod was a nice way to relax. Post game? Fight 8 more gyms in Kanto! And also the secret battle with Red, the strongest trainer of the lot. Crystal did have it's own bits, the story with Eusine just showed how important Suicune was, and I liked how it was the main star in this game. And it's battle theme is still one of my all time favourites, for it's time, it was completely different to anything I've heard. And of course Battle Tower, I spent way too much time on there just trying to get a number of wins going with my team, loved it. Battle Tower is now a regular thing and you can thank Crystal for it.
2) Pokémon Platinum (DS - 2008) - Metacritic Rating: 84
And now we come to, in my own opinion, the best era of Pokémon games. Why do I say that? Well it's simple, the numbers 1 and 2 on my list here both came out during gen 4, one was part of the Gen 4 itself, one was a re-make. I never actually bought Diamond or Pearl for whatever reason, I was probably too busy with school at that time so I waited the 2 years to get Platinum. And I thought I made the right choice because even though I did play D/P through an emulator, Platinum just felt way better.
Gen 4 introduced the Global Trade System which meant you can trade Pokémon with anybody on the internet, how cool was that? It wasn't perfect since people can ask for stupid or nonsense trades that don't make any sense but it was a nice idea. The Underground was a nice new feature, something I've remembered enjoying a lot having now played the re-make of Shining Pearl. I did find it annoying that the initial Gen 4 games only had 2 Fire types you could use but thankfully Platinum changed it, it's still only 5 but it's better than just having 2! Gen 4 had some of the better soundtrack too, be it Route 209, Mt Coronet, the snowy route, vs the champion or even against Colress who's theme I really liked.
Sinnoh's routes are some of the most fun in any games, it was well worth exploring every bit of the any area. The ability to challenge high level trainers or gym leaders was one I really enjoyed and played much of and I'm glad Platinum added that in. And of course I have to mention my favourite feature in the game, the Distortion World! This place was wacked out, crazy, weird, and super fun. You were in a completely different world where time and space doesn't matter, controls were difficult because you were moving around an altered parts of Sinnoh. Ever seen an upside-down waterfall? Yup.
And I really liked how when you battle Giratina, it didn't just say a Wild Giratina appeared but instead, the Distortion World's Giratina appeared. Never seen that before. And even if you accidentally beat it without catching it, you can fight it again at it's original spot in D/P, which I think was a first to have a rematch with a legendary. And of course, Gen 4 features the toughest trainer battle of all time, that being the Champion Cynthia with one of the strongest line-up you'll ever face. This took me ages to beat her and you felt a sense of achievement after doing so.
I will have to say, as much as I liked Crystal, Soul Silver takes the cake for me. The Gen 2 re-makes, and I've already mentioned how much I liked games based in Gen 2, did such a stellar job. Re-makes tend to be a bit boring since you know what happens but this felt a bit different to me.
The biggest new feature they added in this game that I really liked was having the first Pokémon on your list follow you around in the outer world. Apart from Yellow, that's never happened! And now you're not just restricted to Pikachu, any mon could follow you around and that was brilliant. A few more games have started to do this.
For a remake, they sure went the extra mile to make this game feel more different to what we're used to. The Pokémon following was one but we also had stuff like the Eusine story being added to the remake from Crystal, the Kimono Girls playing a part of the story, even new routes added to the game with a new Safari Zone, now that part was cool. The Embedded tower lets you catch the weather trio from Gen 3.
Everything just looked different. Goldenrod City looked amazing, even the Radio Tower looked way different than I imagined it to be and it had a balcony too, as did the Lighthouse that housed our beloved Ampy. Viridian Forest was added into the game which we didn't see in the original Gen 2 game. Pokeathlon was another cool new feature I really liked, it served like a sporting event, a much nicer mini-game if you ask me, I preferred this over the contests. You could even take commentative photos with your entire team!
There was even a feature that allowed you to change the music to the original 8-bit version seen in the G/S/C games. Even the Radio had an overhaul, now it could be used to either let you know of Swarms or if you have specific music playing, you could encounter Pokémon from Hoenn or Sinnoh. Oh but I'm not done yet! All 16 gyms, Johto's as well as Kanto's all have had a re-design. Some were for the better in the case of Morty, some for the worse in the case of Claire.
You can even challenge the gym leaders again which I liked and unlike the original game, the next time you challenge the Elite 4, their teams have all improved, so I liked that challenge. Battle Frontier was nice too with 5 different battle modes to play with. Oh and Red is still waiting for you at the top of Mt. Silver. For a re-make game, it felt like a completely new game, there was just so much added to the game that didn't feel like the original, it was just better. And in my own view, the best Pokémon has done to date. And if we are to follow threads, we've had a Sinnoh remake, seems like the next one should be a second remake of Johto? I'll be looking forward to it if it happens. Hope you enjoyed reading my lists and thank you for visiting!
