LSD: Dream Emulator (Playstation, 1998)

LSD (short for Lovely Sweet Dream, not the drug) is more about what you are seeing than what you are experiencing.  Based on the dream journal of Hiroko Nishikawa, the game takes place in those scenarios which came to him in his sleep.  There are no goals, no obstacles, and no ending.  You navigate through the dream in a first person view, and if you touch anything, you are randomly sent to another part of the dream, and it will become increasingly strange as you progress.
Video games are not only a visual medium, they are an interactive medium.  LSD mostly betrays interactivity in favor of visuals.  You are essentially a passenger in your own dream, wandering from one strange location to another, much like an actual dream.  Every image in the game is creative, bizarre, and slightly unsettling (or highly unsettling) and it is hard to talk about this game in terms of the concrete.  One must instead describe instances in its whole.
The game is designed to be wholly random.  You will be placed in any location in the dream, and the textures and inhabitants of the dream change every time.  In one location, you may be on a bridge in a formless void, and the bridge leads (on either side) into the mouth of a giant mask with Japanese characters covering it.  In another part of the dream, you will be in a tight hallway, and a giant face will emerge from the wall.  In another part, you will walk around a dark town, with Japanese houses concealing dim corners, and a giant geisha girl will float over your head and away into the darkness.
The visuals of this game inspire beauty, wonder, fear, and awe, sometimes all at once.  Consider the dream where you are under a highway bridge at night, with nothing in sight but a faint light.  Cautiously approaching the light, you find that it is a streetlight, and there is a body hanging from a noose tied to it.  Typical horror games will throw constant jump scares at you, without taking the time for buildup of tension or suspense.  LSD isn't even a horror game and it inspires more fear and dread in its players than most.
This game reminds me a lot of the 1929 silent short film "Un Chien Andelou," by Salvador Dali and Luis Bunuel.  That film was a series of dreams that were not held together by a congruent plot or characters, which to the average viewer, probably sounds awful, but it is actually one of the best visual experiences of the silent cinema.  That's what LSD is like.  The game brings to you into a dream-like state, where you can only marvel at its beauty, impossible to describe in the confines of waking reality.  Its removal from logic is its strongest asset.

Advance Wars (Game Boy Advance, 2001)

Advance Wars (2001) was a game that came out at the eleventh hour, and if it had waited another day, it may have become impossible to release at all.  The game was released on September 10, 2001, only a day before the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.  Being a game that seriously understates the brutality, horror, and tragedy of war, I think it is safe to say that it could not have seen the light of day if it had waited any longer.  Despite its connection to a tragic history, this is one of the finest war games I have played.
Advance Wars presents war in an oddly positive and silly fashion, which you would think would be detrimental to its presentation, but in a way, amplifies its qualities.  By ignoring the harsh aspects of battle, the game is allowed to focus on one thing:  the strategy of war.  This is a turn-based strategy game, where players take turns moving pieces around a board, attacking each other, and building their armies.  So deep are the mechanics of the game as to make it nearly perfect.
The single player campaign mode of the game has you as one of four commanding officers of the Red Star army, in a war against the Blue Moon army and their CO, Olaf.  The other officers working under you are Andy, Sami, and Max.  Each CO has different strengths and weaknesses, which give an additional layer to the strategy.  For instance, Andy's troops are strongest in the rain, but have trouble in snow.  Max's tanks are more powerful, but his long range capabilities are less than normal.  In addition, each CO has a special power they can use when a meter fills up (caused by casualties on either side), such as Andy's ability to repair all units, or Olaf's to instantly make it snow.
The game plays like an extreme version of chess.  There are many different pieces to work with, including infantry, tanks, boats, and planes.  Each unit has a health of 10, and when two units get into combat, the result depends on a number of variables.  The type of unit, who initiated the strike, the terrain, and the CO issuing the attack.  The less health a unit has, the weaker it becomes in a skirmish.  Different terrain and weather conditions affect movement.  Infantry can walk over rivers and mountains, whereas tanks cannot.  Movement takes gas, and attacking takes ammunition, and failure to ration and distribute supplies can be costly.
Funds are allocated from allied cities every turn.  To make a city your ally, you must make an infantry unit capture it.  Cities are crucial because they offer higher defense, funds, and if you station a wounded unit in one, they will recover two health each turn.  Also capable of capture are bases (which allow you to build new ground units), ports (which allow you to build ships), and airports (which allow you to build planes and helicopters).  Building new units costs funds, and the better units are quite expensive.  While there are units that are favorable to have in your army, none are without weaknesses.  The bomber can dole out massive damage to land and sea units, but cannot fight back against other planes.  Rocket launchers can attack units from far away, but is helpless at close quarters.
Victory is achieved by one of two situations:  capture the enemy's headquarters or destroy every enemy unit. In the campaign mode, there may be more objectives, for instance, there is one mission where you are only tasked with surviving ten turns (and you are heavily outnumbered), and another where you have to capture so many bases before the enemy does.  No two battles will be the same, and the game offers many variables that always keep the game feeling fresh.  In one battle, there may be an emphasis on naval combat.  In another, there may be fog, which limits your visibility and it becomes a careful guerrilla fight.  Every situation has been thought out and given life.
In today's gaming world, there is a large focus on war games.  The Call of Duty franchise comes out with a new title every year, always focusing on the negative of war.  They are right to say that war is a horrible thing, but that message has grown tired.  Advance Wars came out (barely) in a time before the Iraq conflict, and fear of terrorism, where a focus on strategy was all the game needed to make itself shine.  You aren't just some soldier wielding a gun, thoughtlessly shooting at every target in sight.  You are a Commanding Officer, the brains behind the operation, the strategist who will lead your troops to victory and glory.

Bonk's Adventure (TurboGrafx16, 1990)

While the SNES and Genesis were butting heads in the spotlight, NEC's TurboGrafx16 was quietly doing its own thing in the background.  The system was technically the most powerful on the market at the time of its release, being an 8-bit system with some extra processing parts thrown in to make it appear to be 16-bit.  This was during what has been called the "bit wars," where systems were marketed by how much power they had instead of the games you could play on them (like Sega's "Genesis does what Nintendon't" ad campaign).  NEC figured they needed a mascot with a great game to promote their third place (even behind the pre-Sonic Genesis) console, so they came up with Bonk.
Bonk is a large-headed caveman, who is tasked with saving the princess of the moon from the evil King Drool.  He fights by slamming his enormous noggin into enemies, either by headbutting or diving head-first into them.  Enemies in the game are, appropriately enough, dinosaurs.  Bonk has a life meter which depletes as you take damage, and you gain life back by eating fruit.  If Bonk can find and eat some meat, he becomes more powerful.  His attacks shake the ground and stun enemies.  Eat another piece of meat and he becomes invincible for a time (but not before his head explodes into a cartoon mushroom cloud).
The game looks and plays fantastic for a TurboGrafx16 game.  Attacking can take some time to get used to, but once you have it down, the game offers a platforming experience like no other.  Since you can control Bonk's falling speed, you have more control over where you land than in most games.  Character sprites are drawn very well, with a cartoon style that takes full advantage of the console's limitations.  The levels are eclectic and atmospheric, taking you to a frozen tundra, underwater cave, deep jungle, even inside the digestive system of a larger dinosaur.
Bonk's Adventure (1990) came just before the big mascot craze of the 90's, when every company felt the need to create a hip (in that 90's kind of way) character to sell their games.  Nintendo had already established a huge cast of characters, with the likes of Mario, Link, Samus Aran, and more.  These mascots of the 90's could be good (Crash Bandicoot, Sparkster) or really bad (Bubsy, Awesome Possum) mainly centered on the quality of the games they were in.  Lucky for Bonk, his game was very good, allowing him a couple sequels on his home console, and a few more on Nintendo consoles.
Even though the TurboGrafx16 was not nearly as popular as its contemporaries, it still had a solid library of games, crowned by Bonk's Adventure, one of the finest retro platformers from before the days of warring technology.  After fading into obscurity for over a decade, Bonk was given a new adventure on WiiWare, which was largely neglected.  It is hard to find a TurboGrafx16 game that has aged as well as Bonk's Adventure has.  It is a gem back from the days before video games even dreamed of being called art.

Kid Icarus (NES, 1986)

The Greek myth of Icarus tells the story of a man and his father, who fashion wings out of wax and feathers in order to fly and escape from prison, but Icarus does not heed the warnings of his father not to fly too close to the sun, and his wings melt, dooming him to perish in the sea.  Kid Icarus (1986) is not a video game retelling of this story, but does use Greek myths and legends as its base.  It is also an amalgam of every style of gameplay that was available on the NES, from platformers to shooters to dungeon crawlers and RPGs, and a nearly flawless mixture of all its elements.
In Kid Icarus, you play as the angel Pit, a tenderfoot soldier in the goddess Palutena's army.  One day, the ruler of the underworld, Medusa (not Hades) invades Angel Land, imprisons Palutena, and turns all of her soldiers to stone, except for Pit.  It is up to Pit to rescue Angel Land.  Having been cast out by the attack, Pit must climb from the underworld, to the Earth, scale the clouds and return to the overrun Angel Land Kingdom.  To help defeat Medusa, Pit must also collect three sacred items (the legendary bow, wings, and shield).
Kid Icarus has been described as a mixture of Super Mario, Metroid, and The Legend of Zelda, and that is pretty accurate.  Like Super Mario, each level is designed with an emphasis on platforming.  Like Metroid, you fight by shooting at enemies and gain power-ups.  Like Zelda, every four stages there is a dungeon  with a boss to fight at the end.  Killing enemies grants you points, and every ten thousand points your health bar is increased.  All of these very different elements come together seamlessly, and make a game where every new level is a fresh and new experience.  Everything is held together by the game's marvelous aesthetic, which for the first time on the NES, was starting to look realistic.
This is not a perfect game by any means.  It has its share of flaws which can make it frustrating at times.  The controls can be a little slippery, which is made obvious by the fact that many levels require you to jump with precision across skinny platforms.  The difficulty curve in this game is all over the place.  The beginning of the game offers the most challenge since you are at your weakest, and then levels off at an easier pace once you start getting more powerful.  Some of the enemies in this game can be downright sadistic, such as the grim reapers, who will send a plague of mini-reapers after you if it spots you.  There are the infamous eggplant wizards, who will turn you into a helpless eggplant, and the only way to change back is to find a hospital hidden away somewhere in a dungeon.
The game's shortcomings are overshadowed by its many great traits.  Since no two levels are the same, there is a high incentive to keep playing to see what challenge lay before you.  This is one of the first games to offer multiple endings based on how well you do in the game, which gives it a good amount of replay value.  Then there is the feeling of satisfaction you get for completing each level.  While the game is frustrating at times, I can never call it unfair.  If you die, you are sent back to the beginning of a level, but you are given infinite lives, and a password each time you die (which you can use to resume playing if you leave the game).  This is one of the most difficult games on the NES, and completing the game is one of the most satisfying feelings you can achieve as a gamer, and the ending is rewarding enough to make it worth your while.
Kid Icarus was not a huge success upon first release.  It gained something of a cult following in the years after its initial run.  There was a sequel on the Game Boy, called "Of Myths and Monsters," but Pit would not make another appearance in a game until he was made a playable character in the fighting game Super Smash Bros. Brawl, approximately fifteen years later.  He recently got another game of his own on the 3DS, Kid Icarus: Uprising.  The NES game will always be a gem of its illustrious library, and one of Nintendo's finest and most criminally overlooked achievements.

Adventure (Atari 2600, 1978)

It was exceptionally rare to have a game on the Atari 2600 that could actually by completed.  Almost every game was endless, with a focus on getting a high score, rather than having a quest with an ending.  The technically superior arcade games were like this, so games on the 2600 sought to emulate them.  The couple games that did have endings included Raiders of the Lost Arc, ET, Mountain King, and this game from the 2600's earliest lineup, Adventure.
The story is as basic as it gets.  You are some kind of adventurer, and your chalice (possibly the Holy Grail) has been taken from you by the dragons of the world, hid it away in their black castle.  To get it back, you must navigate your way through mazes, solve puzzles, and slay many dragons.  This game has three difficulty settings.  The easiest is fairly short and simple to win with only one maze to navigate through and the resources fairly easy to find.  The second has two caves, two mazes, and the bat, who will relocate objects throughout the game.  The third level is like the second, but with every object places randomly in the maze.
Games on the 2600 required a huge amount of imagination to make its rudimentary graphics resemble what they are meant to.  The sprite you control is a square.  A sword looks more like an arrow.  Keys barely look like keys.  a blue maze makes me instinctively think of water, and my assumption is validated by a bridge (shaped like a pair of brackets ] [ ).  The bare-bones presentation must be excused to enjoy the game, and is in fact, one of its charms.  This holds especially true for early 2600 games, which came out long before Activision would make some of the best looking games for the system.
The graphics were a necessary sacrifice to fit the gameplay into the cartridge's memory.  Your only actions are to move, pick up items and drop them with the button.  To slay a dragon, you only have to touch the sword to it.  There is a surprising level of strategy that subtly comes into play with this simple play mechanic. If I want to go into the black castle with the black key, should I go back and find the sword before I progress?  Where do I place the bridge to go forward, or even create shortcuts?  Is there any way for me to use the bat to my advantage?
Adventure has grown a kind of charm that comes purely from its technical limitations.  This game was programmed by one man, Warren Robinett, in a time when Atari did not allow its programmers and designers to have a credit anywhere in the game.  Robinett found a brilliant way to sneak around this.  He made a hidden room in the game, accessible by cryptic means, which holds the credit "created by Warren Robinett," also the first easter egg in gaming.  We may now credit this man for taking the first bold steps to what would become modern video gaming.

Phantasy Star IV (Genesis, 1995)

The RPG was a genre that was not favored highly on the Genesis.  Sega's 16-bit console was suited mostly to action games that were quick and cheap to produce, not lengthy, expensive RPGs, which were still a niche genre in the States.  The first Phantasy Star game was released for Sega's ill-fated Master System, their equivalent to the NES.  Considered to be a good game, but not very well remembered and a commercial failure.  Phantasy Star II was one of the earliest games for the Genesis, and is well-remembered by fans, but has not aged well.  Phantasy Star III is easily the worst in the series.  However, Phantasy Star IV (1995) is an underrated masterpiece of retro RPGs.
You play as Chad, a new recruit of the Rangers, essentially an emergency response, and police force of the planet he lives on.  He and his friend Alys are sent to small village to investigate a monster infestation.  One outbreak of monsters leads to another one, and before long the cause of them all is revealed to be the doing of a man named Zio.  Zio has been spreading a false religion across the planet, perverting the people which gives fuel to his master plan, resurrect the evil deity, Dark Force.  1000 years prior to this game (in fact, the events of the first Phantasy Star) a warrior names Alis defeated Dark Force and sealed him away.
Phantasy Star IV follows the basic RPG template set by Dragon Warrior, but perfects it.  You may have up to five characters in your party, who come and go as the story goes along.  You gain experience from random enemy battles, and characters level up, gaining new skills at certain levels.  All characters can fight with a weapon, but some characters have different abilities.  Some characters are avid magic users, having the best spells, while some have more techniques, special moves that are unique to each individual character. In earlier Phantasy Star games, the battle systems were rather awkward.  Both II and III used a system where character actions had default sets, and you let turns play on until you won, lost, or told the game to stop.  In IV, This is abandoned in favor of a simple to use menu system, and only one turn plays at a time.
The art style of this game is eclectic, to say the least, but nothing feels out of place.  The game takes place in the distant future, but most technology has been forgotten.  People live in adobe-style houses in desert towns.  Relics of the high technology of the distant past are sealed away deep underground.  You uncover some of these in your fight against Zio, and the include a tank, a burrowing vehicle, a a few spaceships.  There are several planets to travel between, all unique in their landscapes and denizens.  Story elements are told in comic book style cutscenes.  All of this is tied together by an anime aesthetic.
For a Genesis game at this time, it is a fairly ambitious and gutsy game.  Religious materials were still taboo with Nintendo, so in this game, having the themes of false gods, messiahs, and dogma handled maturely and seriously is actually quite remarkable.  Zio promises the people an easy and false route to paradise, at the cost of their souls.  Going into one of the Zio temples throughout the game you will be assaulted with the mindless remarks of the zealots therein.  There is no way to awaken these drones to the truth, you just have to accept that the people you must save are the ones who are against you.
Phantasy Star was always meant to be Sega's answer to Final Fantasy, but do they stack up next to Square's giants?  In short, not really.  These games have always been behind the inventions and innovations of Final Fantasy, but the fourth installment of Phantasy Star does hold up on its own.  By this time, Final Fantasy VI had come out and it was too late for this series to play catch-up, but in its own way is something special that could only be one of those rare RPGs for the Sega Genesis.

Space Invaders (Arcade, 1978)

You've heard me talk about the "difficulty curve" in video games before.  It's the term for the natural increase in a game's difficulty as you progress through it.  Any good game tries to keep this at a steady pace, so not to make early parts of the game too hard, or later parts of the game too easy.  Space Invaders (1978) is the game that invented the difficulty curve, and by complete accident.  When programming the game, the developers made a mistake that caused the aliens on the screen to move faster as their numbers slowly dwindled away.  Voila, the first game that gets harder as you get better.
The gameplay of Space Invaders is so ingrained in gaming's subconscious that I probably don't need to explain it, but being one of the first of its kind, it sticks around in our memories.  You control the green spaceship in the never ending mission to defend Earth from the eponymous aliens.  There are four barricades (floating in... space?) which you can hide behind to shield yourself from enemy fire, but they break away with each shot they endure.  As stated, the more aliens you dispel, the faster they get, until there is only one extra-terrestrial zooming across the screen.
The largest lasting legacy of Space Invaders is how many other games of this kind it inspired.  Midway's Galaga, Konami's Gradius, and even Nintendo's Star Fox owe their success to the groundwork laid by this game.  It received a port to the Atari 2600, and it is a nearly identical port to the arcade, but with the addition of several dozen gameplay variations.  You can play with the barricades moving, no barricades, with another player, or have the aliens invisible.  Space Invaders would have a plethora of imitators on the 2600, and for years to come elsewhere, and to be honest, some of those later games are better, but would not have existed if it weren't for this early gem.

Psychonauts (Multiplatform, 2005)

It is impossible to talk about Psychonauts (2005) without first talking about its auteur, Tim Schaffer.  He started working for LucasArts and producing such classics as Secret of Monkey Island and The Day of the Tentacle.  Eventually he made a game called Grim Fandango which was critically applauded at the time but the public dismissed it, and due to the game's poor sales, Schaffer was let go from LucasArts.  He went on to form his own company, Double Fine, which is still going strong today.  Their first project would be a game called Psychonauts.
Looking at Psychonauts, you can see Schaffer's fingerprints all over it.  The expressionist art design, the quirky sense of humor, and a story which takes something mundane and turns it extraordinary.  In this case, the game takes place at a summer camp for children with psychic abilities, and during a "briefing" by the ex-military Coach Oleander, a young boy named Raz crashes in, having just run away from his home of the circus to attend the camp.  Fellow coaches Sasha Nein and Milla Vodello are intrigued by this young boy who seems to have abilities well beyond his years, but call his parents to pick him up regardless.  Raz must become a Psychonaut in a day or two before that happens, and his dreams are ruined forever.
What is a Psychonaut?  They are the special agents who have master every telekinetic ability and are literally sent into people's minds to cure them of their mental illnesses.  The overworld of the game is the camp, which offers much exploration opportunities, and each level takes place in the mind of different characters.  This allows every visual style and level design imaginable to come into the game and not feel out of place.  No two levels play the same, and they are all incredibly fun.  Oleander's mind has you fighting your way through a battlefield, Bodello's mind is a dance party where you use your newly learned hovering abilities to zoom around like a pinball, and Agent Nein's mind is a planetoid cube and shooting gallery.
Some of Psychonauts' best features are it's sense of humor and artistic design.  The look of the game is very obviously taken from German expressionism, where shapes are skewed, bent, and shadows are elongated.  Characters resemble most anything BUT human beings, but this gives everyone a unique look, making most of the characters highly memorable.  This is helped by the game's wonderfully written characters and dialogue.  The humor in the game ranges from visual gags to ironic dialogue.  One of the funniest scenes in the game is where Raz goes inside the mind of a giant lungfish (the monster that lives in the lake) and becomes a giant movie monster ravaging a city of miniature lungfish.
The game seems to follow Freudian psychological theory religiously.  Characters who are insane reveal (inside of their minds) that events from their childhood's caused their psychosis.  This even goes for the sane characters.  For instance, you encounter a woman who, drowned in her own self-pity, has lost her mind and behaves erratically.  When you go inside of her mind, you find out that she was a famous actress, haunted by the spirit of her mother, who left her at school for girls to live with a new boyfriend.  The inside of her mind is a stage, and you are the director.  You make changes to the script, mood lighting, and endure the heckling remarks of a critic.  It would be easy enough for the game to hand out backstory in exposition, but it is clever enough to incorporate every story element into the gameplay, making a game that is completely seamless in every regard.
It is a shame that not more people have played Psychonauts, because it is one of the most original and fun games I have ever played.  Its fluid combination of different gameplay styles (adventure, platforming, RPG) and original level design, with thought-provoking psychology and genuinely funny humor make this a game deserving of higher praise and sales than it received.  Its base of fans has slowly grown over the years, but there is still not much chance for a Psychonauts 2.  Tim Schaffer is the premiere game designer and auteur from the United States, and fans can always look forward to his games being original and creative.

Pokemon Red & Blue (Game Boy, 1998)

Yes, Pokemon.  Before the trading cards, the merchandise, the television show, and the inevitable backlash, there was a revolutionary pair of RPGs for the handheld Game Boy, which were designed and programmed by only four people.  Game Freak was a tiny Japanese game development company looking to make a smash hit.  Final Fantasy VII had popularized the RPG for the older crowd of gamers, so they sought to create something that younger would be able to understand and enjoy.
Pokemon Red and Blue (1998) take full advantage of its Game Boy hardware.  By this time (even in Japan where the games were released three years earlier) the Nintendo 64 was out, and Game Freak might have only had the resources to develop a game for the 8-bit handheld.  Therefore, the game has a classic, but still distinct, art style, and classic RPG design.  Where Pokemon differentiates itself from the others is its deep party customization and story.
The story of Pokemon is great because it doesn't come with any pretenses and doesn't take itself seriously.  Where most RPGs were stories of legendary heroes having to save the world from some kind of apocalypse, Pokemon is about a young boy who simply wants to become the master of, well, Pokemon.  What is a Pokemon?  Why, they are the creatures that inhabit the world of this game, which a Pokemon trainer (namely, you) can catch and train to battle for you.  There are 151 of these creatures to capture, giving the game virtually limitless possibilities for customization.  You start by receiving your choice of one of three "starters" from Professor Oak, whose grandson is your rival.  With your first Pokemon, you set off to capture more, train them, beat the eight gym leaders, and then tackle the Pokemon League, four masters of Pokemon that you must face in succession.
Within its own universe, this all makes logical sense.  You catch Pokemon by using Pokeballs, which convert the living creatures into computer data which can be transported anywhere.  Pokemon battles take place between trainers, where you engage in one-on-one battles.  Each Pokemon can learn four moves, which are learned by leveling up or using TMs (technical machines).  You can carry only six Pokemon with you, and all subsequent ones you catch are sent to your PC.  The reason that there are two games are that in each game, there are a different set of Pokemon you may capture, and the only way to get some of them was to trade via link cable with a friend who had the other version of the game.  This system has persisted to this day.
One thing I noticed upon my recent re-visiting of Pokemon was how dark it can get in certain parts.  There is a gang called Team Rocket who appear from time to time (this was before the characters Jessie and James made them silly) who do some cruel things with Pokemon.  They illegally capture, trade, and even kill them.  The spirits of dead Pokemon go to the Pokemon Tower in Lavender City (whose creepy music was rumored to have caused child suicides in Japan).  On Cinnabar Island, there is a burnt laboratory where the Pokemon clone, Mewtwo, had gotten out of control and destroyed it, killing the scientists within.  I said this was a game for children, right?
The Pokemon franchise would explode in the States over the next few years, but its popularity was short lived.  By the time the third generation of games came along, fans had grown out of it.  I, myself, was a huge fan of Pokemon when I was a kid.  I watched the TV show, played the games, and collected the cards (I never actually played the card game).  The last entry I owned was Ruby.  The series didn't die though; it is still going strong to this day and continues to set sales records.  I was worried that the original games would feel dated, but like so many of the other favorites from my childhood, Pokemon has aged like fine wine.

Pac-Man (Arcade, 1980)

The story of Pac-Man (1980) goes that the developers at Midway noticed that the bulk of their audience was male, and not wanting to miss out on the potential for more money, they sought to make a game that would appeal to women.  In order to properly gauge what women would find appealing in a game, the designers would casually listen in on ladies' conversations, and made a few discoveries.  These women talked mostly about food, so they decided to make a game based around it.  The goal of Pac-Man is not to kill everything on a screen to advance, but to eat all of the pellets in a maze, whilst avoiding ghosts.  By eating one of the larger power pellets, Pac-Man would be granted the temporary ability to eat ghosts.  He himself is shaped like a pizza, and each level is denoted by a fruit.
Gaming is an industry that is still to this day idiotically marketed mostly to men.  This is poor marketing since statistically, 60% of all people who play video games and use the internet are female.  Pac-Man was a groundbreaking success because it found a gender neutrality that allowed Midway to target the entire audience of gamers at the time, and is possibly the catalyst for bringing women into the gaming mainstream.  Technology is always typically attributed to be masculine, so games targeted to men are more likely to be combat-driven and complicated in design.  Pac-Man uses one stick, is simple in design, but becomes difficult in practice.  Theoretically, the game should go on forever, but a programming glitch makes the game unplayable on the 256th stage.
Pac-Man inspired a glut of imitators, which inspired some lawsuits.  A game for the Magnavox Odyssey 2 called KC Munchkin, which was a blatant copy, was tried for copyright infringement.  Other games, which were able to get around this by making slight changes to the gameplay, included Mousetrap and Alien for the Atari 2600 (Yes, a game based off of the movie Alien was a Pac-Man clone).  Consumers were not fooled by most of these titles, as the original Pac-Man was still better than all of them.  The hype died off in 1983, when a rushed and poorly made port came to the 2600, appropriately sounding the end of that age in gaming to usher in the age of Nintendo.
The biggest influence Pac-Man had on the industry was to introduce one of the first and most well-lasting gaming mascots into the public conscience.  Before that, you played as a ship or some kind of indescribable shape.  Pac-Man was a character that (although basic) you could latch your sympathies onto.  There was some real conflict between the four ghosts (whose motivation is still questionable) and the round, hungry protagonist.  for the first time, gamers felt like they were playing as someone, a trait in gaming that persists strongly to this day, to the point where it is expected as a given.

Guitar Hero (Multiplatform, Series)

Guitar Hero (first released on the Playstation 2 in 2006) is a series of games about rock music, that very much had a life like that of a rock star.  It came onto the scene in 2006 on the Playstation 2, looking as fresh and new as anything possibly could have.  Its plastic guitars found their way into many homes, as the squealing plinks of wrong notes slowly turned into shredding solos.  Like anything popular, many imitators came along (Rock Band, Frets of Fire, etc) and Guitar Hero's own need to assert itself as the best and original caused it to go overboard and burn out.  This first game had an undeniable charm and dignity to it, that by the time the sixth or seventh game came along, drowned in its own glut.
I would argue that the first three games in the series were the great ones, that have not lost their novelty unlike many of the other games.  The first Guitar Hero started as basically a garage band project.  The developers had trouble convincing popular music groups that they ought to license out their songs to a risky title from an almost unknown studio.  It was a success however, mainly due to its excellent design, which takes full advantage of rock star legend, lore, and culture.
You start by naming a band, picking a guitarist (a colorful cast of memorable characters) and then starting out at your very first gig, a seedy bar on the east coast.  You work your way up to commercial success.  The rock experience in your own living room.  Playing the actual game is a wonderful experience.  You have five fret buttons, a strum bar, and "whammy" bar, used to add a little "wah-wah" to long notes.  This is an extremely simplified version of an actual guitar, but I think that a realistic guitar setup would be overwhelming and too difficult to play casually.  I once knew of a guy who claimed that Guitar Hero would be a great way to teach someone how to play a real guitar (one of the more uneducated statements I've ever heard).
No, Guitar Hero is not at all a good way to learn real guitar, but it is a video game, a simulation of the activity of playing an instrument.  No one talks about how Pong is a poor way to learn tennis.  A great selection of songs, a superb sense of humor (comparable to that of This is Spinal Tap), and bright and colorful graphics make this game a treat to play.  The sequels did much to improve on the formula of the original game.  For instance, in Guitar Hero, hammer-ons and pull-offs (that is, slurring a string of notes together) was needlessly confusing and unreliable.  In Guitar Hero II, it is much easier to pull them off.  There are more songs, characters, and a better multiplayer mode in the sequel.  The third game added battle mode and online multiplayer, as well as the most infamously difficult song in the series (Dragonforce's "Through the Fire and Flames").
From there, Guitar Hero caught itself in a tailspin that led to a crash.  Subsequent sequels didn't add much, if anything at all, and the sheer number of them coming out annually was too much for even fans to keep up with.  When Rock Band came out, gamers went to war over which series was better.  To me, it was easy that Guitar Hero was superior, by the simple virtue that it was first, and Rock Band was a clear carbon copy of it.  By that time, people had ceased to care about guitar themes rhythm games.  This is called "backlash," a negative response due to over-exposure in the public.  I can still look upon the first games with fond nostalgia, and they bring me back to a time when these kinds of games went all the way to "eleven".

Gunstar Heroes (Genesis, 1994)

Treasure were one of the premiere game developers for the Sega Genesis.  Their games are characterized by having some of the most impressive and stylish visuals on the Genesis, which give even the technologically superior Super Nintendo a run for its money.  Their first Genesis title was the quirky and fun platformer Dynamite Headdy.  They also made the Japan-only run-and-gun game Alien Soldier, which features some of the Genesis's most impressive visuals.  Fans generally agree though, that their best game was 1994's Gunstar Heroes, a platforming shoot-em-up, and one of the best games on the Genesis.
In this game, you play as Red (and a friend may play as Blue in simultaneous multiplayer), who must recover stolen jewels that were taken from them by the traitor Green.  An evil General wishes to use the jewels as a means to awaken and control a doomsday device.  A la Mega Man, you may choose which levels you want to play in any order (up to a point).  No two of these levels are the same.  In a genre that mainly only focuses on combat in progressively more difficult environments, Gunstar Heroes uses this combat in completely creative ways.
The first thing that is creative in this game is the combat itself, and the weapon system.  There are four weapon types, and you may combine any two of them to make more powerful weapons.  For instance, combine flamethrower and machine gun and you get exploding bullets.  Combine laser and homing weapon and you get a homing laser.  I usually combine two homing weapons, which creates a kamikaze of rapid-fire homing projectiles.  Add in a broad range of melee attacks and you have a fairly diverse arsenal.
Each level is also crafted to be wholly original.  One level has you rocketing down a mine shaft on a robotic mining cart.  Another level has you piloting a ship through space, shooting at obstacles and dodging lasers.  My favorite level has you playing a board game where you throw a dice, move spaces, and then must complete an obstacle course or defeat a boss.  Another great thing about this game is its creative and challenging boss fights.  There is a large emphasis in this game on fighting bosses, and they are no exception to this game's streak of originality.
No, there aren't any messages or themes to explore in this game.  Yes, it is a game that highly relies on combat as a means for progression rather than creative problem solving.  However, there is an immense joy to be found in this game.  I think that games on the Sega Genesis were most at home in the realm of simple, arcade-style action.  Some of the best games on the system are this way.  Vectorman, Sonic the Hedgehog 3, and certainly Gunstar Heroes, are games that sought to push their platform's technical limitations to the very limits, and deliver a product that impresses and entertains, still to this day.

Chrono Trigger (SNES, 1995)

Chrono Trigger (1995) is easily the best of Square's non-Final Fantasy games, and one of the finest RPGs of all time.  The game takes place in the year 1000 AD, and a young boy named Crono is going to a fair in celebration of the 400th anniversary of when his country, Guardia, won the war against the fiends, a race of monsters who now live on another continent.  At the fair, Crono runs into a girl named Marle (who is revealed to be a princess) and the two of them hit it off immediately.  They go up to the square where Crono's friend Lucca, a young scientist, is revealing her new invention, a transporting machine.  When Marle volunteers to try it out, something goes wrong and the machine opens up a wormhole, which she is engulfed in.  Crono rushes after her, and finds that he has been sent back in time 400 years.
It is the middle ages, during the war against the fiends, and Marle has been mistaken for the kingdom's queen.  The real queen had been kidnapped, and since the search was called off once Marle was found, this causes a butterfly effect.  Marle is erased from existence since the queen, her ancestor, had perished along the timeline, undoing generations of family lineage.  Crono and Lucca (who has since developed a way to control time gates) are joined by Frog, a knight sworn to protect the queen of Guardia, and they set off to rescue the real queen.  As a result, Marle is brought back.  Upon returning to 1000 AD however, Crono is arrested and found guilty of kidnapping the princess, and in escaping, the kids find another gate which takes them to the year 2300 AD.
The future is bleak, as endless dust storms rage across the planet, and obliterated cities decay in ruins.  A barely functioning computer module shows surveillance footage from 1999 AD, the Day of Lavos.  Lavos, the harbinger of doom, erupts from the planet's core and rains destruction upon the high-tech civilizations of the world, annihilating everything.  Humanity has been barely surviving for the 300 years since this apocalypse.  The kids decide to use their time travelling capabilities to stop Lavos and save the future.
This somewhat lengthy opening to the game offers an ingenious tutorial on the rest of the game's mechanics.  These are the butterfly effect and decision making.  By interacting with the past, you can alter the course of history and change the future.  Decisions you make in the various time periods can have a positive or negative effect on history.  For instance, you may interact with several people at the fair where you meet Marle, and the actions you take will effect how the trial goes.  Likewise, the things you do throughout the game will impact the overall ending you get, of which there are more than twenty.
Worry not, for this game is also as packed with action as it is with intelligent decision making and time-travel.  Unlike its counterparts of the Final Fantasy series, battles are not random encounters.  Enemies can be seen in all regular environments, some minding their own business, some actively attacking you, and can be avoided or faced head on.  Also unlike Final Fantasy, going into a battle will not take you to another screen. Battles occur wherever you happen to be, and the environment can have an influence on the way these fights go.  Each character has a regular attack, and a set of techniques (which use individual Tech Points, similar to MP) to deal extra damage.  Characters can also combine techniques, such as the cross cut with Crono and Frog, where they both slice through an enemy.  Some techs allow you to attack multiple foes.
The combination of fantasy and science fiction elements would become a trend in almost all future Square games, and nowhere does it make more sense than in Chrono Trigger.  Time periods range from the prehistoric era to antiquity, the middle ages to modern day, and the post-apocalyptic future to the end of time.  Every character is fleshed out and brilliantly written in this game.  Every one has a unique personality and backstory, something that was rare in games of that era, and still fairly scarce today.  There are very little negative things I have to say about this game.  It speaks to me on an intellectual, emotional, even spiritual level at some points, something I cannot say for many other pieces of popular media.  It may be a perfect video game experience.

Final Fantasy VII (Playstation, 1997)

For the first time in series history, a Final Fantasy game was released on a non-Nintendo console.  Square was planning to release Final Fantasy VII on the Nintendo 64, but when they found out that the system would still be using cartridge-based hardware, they reconsidered.  The two-year-old Sony Playstation looked like a far better option, since it used CD's for its games, which offered more storage space to make a bigger game.  Even with that additional room, the game spanned three discs.  Well worth it though, since Final Fantasy VII was the most massive and ambitious Final Fantasy game at the time, and my personal favorite.
The story centers on Cloud, a pessimistic and anti-social ex-member of SOLDIER, a military force of the totalitarianist government, Shinra.  He joins a terrorist group called AVALANCHE, led by Barret, who blow up energy reactors in the city of Midgar.  These generators, called mako reactors, are using the planet's blood (or lifestream) for electricity.  Cloud doesn't care about their eco-extremist views, he is only interested in payment for his services.  After a successful bombing of one of these reactors, AVALANCHE regroups at the bar run by Cloud's childhood friend, Tifa.  She provides some of Cloud's motivation, since he made a promise to her (when they were children) that if she needed a hero, he would be hers.
Attempting another bombing, AVALANCHE is caught by Shinra, and attacked.  The attack separates Cloud from the rest of the group, and he encounters the flower girl, Aeris (Aerith in Japan).  Not long after meeting her, he has to protect her from police who wish to abduct her.  Cloud finds out that this is because she is the last living descendant of the Ancients, a race of magical beings who came to Earth seeking refuge, but were met with discrimination and then, extinction.  Cloud comes to fall in love with her over the course of the game, before one of the most famous moments of this game.  Cloud and Aeris manage to regroup with AVALANCHE, but not before Shinra attacks their hometown and base, killing every member but Barret and Tifa.  They decide to retaliate by attacking Shinra headquarters.
This attack is a failure, and they are captured and put into holding cells to be later executed.  Before the execution, however, some mysterious force has destroyed large portions of Shinra HQ, allowing Cloud and friends to escape.  The assailant is revealed to be Sephiroth, former leader of SOLDIER, and long thought to be dead.  He came there to liberate Jenova, a malignant genetic experiment, and his mother.  Sephiroth wishes to summon a meteor to blow a hole in the Earth large enough for him to merge with the lifestream, allowing him to become a god.
Such a lengthy explanation of the plot is necessary to explain the game's revolutionary play mechanics.  The new system for customizing characters is Materia, magical spheres that can be equipped to any character's armor or weapon to grant them its ability.  Materia exist for all skills, from magic spells to summons to statistics boosts.  As you battle, you gain experience points, which are attributed to characters and Materia.  They may level up, multiply, and be conjoined with other Materia.  Similar to Magicite from Final Fantasy VI, Materia allows any character to learn and master any skill.  They also play into the story.  Materia come from the lifestream of the planet, and it a Black Materia that Sephiroth plans to use to summon meteor.  The only thing that can possibly stop meteor is the White Materia, which only Aeris can use.
Battles have also been re-imagined.  For the first time, your party can only be comprised of three characters.  Another first is full-3D modelling for battles (normal environments use pre-rendered backgrounds, similar to matte paintings in old movies), and limit breaks.  Each character has a Limit meter that fills as they take damage, and when it is full, they may use a variety of character specific attacks and skills.  Most of Cloud's limit breaks involve dealing heavy amounts of damage to enemies.  Most of Aeris's are defensive moves, such as healing HP for all characters.  Limits would become a mainstay in the series, though it would be re-named in a few instances.
Final Fantasy VII has received much praise over the years, which has recently turned into backlash.  Many die-hard fans consider it to not only be the best game in the series, but in all of video gaming.  I think that like movies, determining which title is the "best" is impossible because of how vague a statement that is, and how difficult it is to compare games of different genres and generations.  I don't think Final Fantasy VII can be called THE best game of all time, but it is one of the most important.  It was the first RPG to be both a critical and commercial success in the United States which would turn the genre and Square Soft into industry giants to this day.  Its themes of environmentalism, terrorism, fascism, poverty, and even religion are handled fairly well given the atmosphere of the time it came out (we still have trouble talking about these things today).  In spite of all of the worshipers and detractors of this game, it can be considered one of the best video games ever created, and a fitting end to the golden age of Square Soft.

Final Fantasy VI (SNES, 1994)

Just like Final Fantasy IV, this game was re-titled for its North American release.  Fans of the series grew up knowing this game as Final Fantasy III, blissfully unaware that it was actually Final Fantasy VI.  Regardless, it is a some kind of blessing that we DID get this game, because this is the most fully realized, ambitious, and enjoyable RPG of the 16-bit era.  Long time fans of the series argue that either this game or Final Fantasy VII is the best of them all, and those who pick this game have some fairly strong points.  It is the last title to be 16-bit, the last to be on a cartridge, and also the best of them.
This game starts by gracing us with one of the most iconic cinematics of the era, showing Terra, a brainwashed girl, and two empire soldiers riding their mechs (bipedal tanks) across the desolate snowy wastelands to a small mining town, with the intention to steal the crystals.  Terra somehow manages to break free, and is saved by a thief named Locke.  He encourages her to join the resistance group he is a part of, led by the flirtatious king of Figaro, Edgar, and also includes his estranged brother, Sabin.  They discover that the Emperor is collecting these crystals, called Magicite, to try and harness their magical powers.  It is revealed that long ago, humans could use magic, but lost this power due to their recklessness and technology.  The Magicite is actually the incarnation of a dead Esper (formerly known as summons) who come from another realm.  The Emperor is being influenced by the maniacal general Kefka, who wishes to harness all of the Esper's power for himself, to become the new god of magic.
Final Fantasy VI is epic in all regards.  The interpersonal relationships the playable characters have adds much emotional depth and weight to them (and there are a lot of them).  This is the first time a Final Fantasy game used a steam-punk aesthetic instead of the typical European renaissance style.  This allows many creative visuals of a post-apocalyptic world where European architecture and futuristic machines conglomerate together.  The visuals are always clashing, and always eye-pleasing.  The Super Nintendo was already known to have the best graphical prowess at the time, but this game pushes all of its power to the limit.
Terra is the very first female lead in a final Fantasy game, and she is still the best one.  She (and every other character) is written very well, with human traits and great dialogue.  She is a target of the empire because she is one of the few living people who can naturally use magic.  This is because she is actually a hybrid of human and Esper.  To stop Kefka from destroying all of existence, they must seal the portal to the Esper's world, which runs the risk of killing Terra in the process.  Speaking of Kefka, he is arguably the series' best villain.  He is a twisted, sick, demented, and vile human being.  He ruthlessly kills and destroys with fetishistic delight, understanding nothing but hate.
To compliment the incredible story and characters, Final Fantasy VI has one of the series' best systems for customizing party members.  Each character you add to your roster has their own person-specific abilities, such as Sabin's blitz moves or Edgar's arsenal of tools.  When you collect pieces of Magicite, however, you can equip them to any party member, and as they gain experience from battles, that Magicite levels up and imparts some magic and summoning abilities to them.  Just like Final Fantasy II, with some patience and resolution, any character can learn any skill.
Final Fantasy VI is most likely the RPG that Square had dreamed of when they made the original game.  It is the most realized and epic of all of the 2D Final Fantasy games.  The story reaches heights which video game storytelling had previously never imagined, with its emotionally charged characters and plot.  Consider the opera scene where Celes, an ex-general for the empire, is made to stand in for the ill-fallen singer, and the lyrics of her song actually reflect her concealed love for Locke.  The music adds so much dimension to this game, perfectly matching every mood and scenario of the story.  This would be the last time a Final Fantasy game would be released on a Nintendo console, but oh, what a way to go.

Final Fantasy V (Super Famicom, 1992)

Part of the reason why half of the retro Final Fantasy games were not released in the United States was because at the time, RPGs were a fairly niche genre which most American gamers were not accustomed to.  Releasing one of these games was a fairly big risk due to the cost of localization.  RPGs contain a relatively large amount of written dialogue and text, which is expensive and time-consuming to translate from Japanese to English, especially if the game is not expected to do well in sales.  Even the well-known Final Fantasy series was not invincible to this, and Square's next installment, number V, was the last of these games not to be released in North America.
Final Fantasy V follows Bartz, Lenna, Galuf, and Faris, a group of people who are brought together after a meteorite crash causes the four elemental crystals to lose balance (notice any themes in these games?).  These crystals form a seal on the evil sorcerer Exdeath, who wishes to destroy the world.  This game has, admittedly, one of the weaker stories in the series, but is made up for by its characters and gameplay.  Unlike other Final Fantasy games, V does not take itself as seriously and features more humorous scenes of character interaction.
This game revives and perfects the job system.  The greatest thing about this game is its amazingly deep character customization.  There are some new classes added, such as time mage and berserker, but the way you are allowed to every class is astounding.  Like Final Fantasy III, you may change character jobs at any time, and level them up in battle by collecting experience points and ability points.  New to this game though, is how you can combine classes.  Each time a class gains a level, the party member learns a new skill which they never forget, and if you change classes, you can equip one of these skills to the new class.  This allows virtually no limit to the party configurations you can devise.  You can have warriors who use time magic, red mages who can summon, magic users who can use swords, etc, etc.
Battles are, in all other respects, identical to Final Fantasy IV.  The active-time system is back, which is probably the best battle system the series would ever have.  It would stay in until Final Fantasy X on the Playstation 2, but popular belief suggests that the series had begun to slide downhill by that point.  This fifth game's perfection of the job system is enough to make it stand apart from the rest, regardless, and keep it held high as one of the best Final Fantasy games.  It is remarkable that even at five games, the best still had yet to come.

As a side note, all three of the Japan-only Final Fantasies have received ports on American systems retroactively.  Final Fantasy II is available on Final Fantasy Origins on the Playstation (which also includes Final Fantasy I), and on iOS.  Final Fantasy III was first released stateside on the Nintendo DS.  Final Fantasy V is available on Final Fantasy Chronicles on the Playstation (which also includes Final Fantasy VI).

Final Fantasy IV (SNES, 1991)

Final Fantasy IV was the first game in the series to be released on the brand-new Super Famicom and Super Nintendo systems, making it the second North American Final Fantasy game.  Because there had been no Final Fantasy II or III in the States, Square decided to rename this game Final Fantasy II, hoping that it would avoid confusion.  I actually own this copy of the game.  This is the most re-released installment in the series, having been ported to the Playstation, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS and more, and for good reason.  Final Fantasy IV is one of the finest games in the whole franchise.
The game stars Cecil, captain of the Red Wings, the airship armada of the kingdom Baron.  He has orders to collect the elemental crystals, slaughtering innocents along the way.  Racked by the guilt, Cecil gains the courage to speak out to the king, and question his motives.  The king relieves Cecil of his post, and when his friend Kain tries to stick up for him, he is also dismissed.  Cecil is left with a package to deliver to the valley of Mist, and upon reaching this town, the package reveals to be a bomb which burns it to the ground.  The only survivor is an orphaned girl caller, Rydia.  Startled she calls a Titan which causes an earthquake which separates her and Cecil from Kain.  Cecil eventually discovers that Baron is being controlled by the mysterious Golbez, and his four fiends.
I could fill this entire article with a plot summary about this game, which is one of its best defining features.  Final Fantasy IV is the first game in the series to feature a fully realized plot with deep, interesting characters, twists and turns, and a genuine feeling of weight to it.  Characters have relationships with one another.  Cecil is in love with the white mage Rosa, for whom Kain also has affections for.  Rydia comes to forgive Cecil after he protects her from some guards.  There are more characters than I could do justice to, since they are all marvelously written.  Each new hardship the cast is faced with pulls at the heartstrings, aided by one of the greatest musical scores ever composed for a video game.
The game also perfects the gameplay of the previous games, while yet again reinventing itself into something fresh and new.  The biggest improvement is the introduction of the active-time battle system.  The way this works is that each party member and enemy has a time bar that when full, allows them to take a turn.  This makes battles fast-paced and dynamic, more interesting than before.  For the first and only time, your party could hold five characters, and they came and went as the story progressed.  Each character has a job class predetermined for them which is crucial to them as people and the story.  Cecil starts as a dark knight, but by finding his own redemption for his past actions, he may become the paladin.  Characters gain experience for winning battles, and gain new job-specific abilities with each level.
This game benefits immensely from the Super Nintendo's superior hardware.  The 16-bit processor allows more colorful and detailed characters and environments, and exquisitely composed music.  Final Fantasy IV was the biggest game in the franchise yet, in terms of scope, technology, and ambition.  Since no one stateside knew about Final Fantasy II and III, this game was counted as a gigantic step forward.  From the first Final Fantasy, it is an immeasurable step forward.  Compared to the Japan-only entries, it still propells light-years ahead of them, and would begin a golden age for Square Soft titles.

Final Fantasy III (Famicom, 1990)

Final Fantasy III is the last game in the franchise on the Famicom (Japan's NES), and yet another title that American audiences would miss out on.  The first North American release of this game did not come until it was remade in full 3D for the Nintendo DS handheld system.  Regretful, since Final Fantasy III is possibly the most realized RPG experience of the 8-bit era.  Once again, Square Soft reinvented the series, combining some of the best elements from the first two games, and adding some vast improvements to their mechanics.
Final Fantasy III follows four children who find that they are destined to become the light warriors, heroes called by the sacred elemental crystals to fight back the forces of darkness and restore worldly balance.  It is prophesied that this happens every thousand years, and last time there were four warriors of darkness who were called to defeat the overpowering light.  If balance cannot be restored, then the elements of nature will fall into chaos.  The seas will run wild, the earth will decay, the winds will stop.
Upon coming into contact with one of the four major crystals, they are bestowed with small crystals that can grant them the abilities of different job classes.  Yes, Final Fantasy III is a return to the old job system from Final Fantasy I, with some major improvements.  Now you may change any party member's class at any time, and there are many additions to the jobs you have to choose from.  New here are the likes of summoners, dragoons, and blue mages.  There is high incentive to experiment with multiple class variations and combinations.
Some of these jobs are somewhat useless, such as the viking class which is too similar to the superior warrior class to be of much use (the only difference is they use axes).  The additions that are original are some of the most powerful in Final Fantasy though.  Summoners are a must-have in the party.  They may use the brand-new summon magic, which calls holy beasts to fight alongside you, often dealing massive amounts of elemental damage.  These summons, interestingly enough, come from the lore of Hinduism, Judaism, and Islam.  Blue mages may learn bestial abilities, which, with some patience, can be helpful.  Dragoons are swift fighters who can use jump, which makes them temporarily invincible, and then they deal massive damage after two turns.
One of the most refreshing improvements to this game are how the sins of the previous games were completely removed.  Ineffective hits are a thing of the past, since now, when a party member is about to attack a felled enemy, they intelligently move on and attack the next living thing.  Back is the charge-and-level system of magic, but it is easier to use now that there are magic-restoring ethers in the game, and levels of magic are allowed to have charges in the double-digits.  Once again, experience points are earned for defeating enemies, but not only do they go toward building general character statistics, they go to building class levels.  The higher your class level is, the better you are at their skills, and changing jobs will not remove any of the experience you gain.
Like the previous games, Final Fantasy III is not perfect, but can be counted as a major improvement to the series as a whole.  Its weakest point is its story, which is not very cohesive throughout the game, plus the story can get repetitive, and fails to carry as much weight as Final Fantasy II.  The strength of its gameplay alone makes up for this though, since it allows more customization than ever, and offers enough incentive to keep playing just to experience more powerful jobs and build characters.  The only direction Final Fantasy had to go from here was up.

Final Fantasy II (Famicom, 1988)

The first Final Fantasy game did well enough that exactly one year later, Final Fantasy II was released, only in Japan.  Since the first game tied up its story tightly, Square felt no need to make II a continuation of its story, so they decided instead to make it a completely original game.  The story of Final Fantasy II follows four kids who are orphaned in an attack on their hometown by the wicked Empire.  The Emperor has opened a portal to a world of monsters and is controlling them in a plot for world conquest.  One of the kids, Leon, is separated from his friends, Firion, Maria, and Gus, and the three of them join a rebel faction.
This is actually one of the better plot-lines in the Final Fantasy series, due to the way it is told throughout the game.  The centerpiece of the story is the war between the Empire and the resistance, and it does a marvelous job at making it feel like a war.  There are some genuinely sad moments when characters you've known and fought alongside with die.  Yes, this is the first entry in the series to feature themes of death and war.  For one of the less-played and discussed titles in the series, it also introduced a few things which would become standards in all titles to come.  Final Fantasy II introduced Cid, here an airship pilot who runs a ferry service.  In all of the following games he would have something to do with airships (with a few exceptions).  Also introduced are the Chocobos, giant birds that will carry you across the map if you are lucky enough to stumble upon them in the forest.
Final Fantasy II improves upon everything in the first game (despite still holding a few flaws like ineffective hits).  For the first time in the series, the story and characters were the focus of the game.  Every character you encounter has a personality and back story that weave into the plot.  There is a significant amount more dialogue here than in the first game.  Another thing that is improved is the battle window and graphics.  The first game had a revolutionary side view of the action (most RPGs at the time used a first-person view) which showed each character in your party and every enemy, with stats on the side.  There was very little animation due to the low budget of the game.  Final Fantasy II reduces the clutter by placing all of the information at the bottom, and now every different action has a different animation.  Magic users no longer have to struggle with leveled charges, because now each character has MP (Magic Points) which is spent with each spell.
The biggest improvement in the game is the leveling system.  No longer can you choose which class each character will be.  Instead, each character may potentially learn any skill, attacking, magic, and more.  Also gone are experience points, in favor of a new system which takes into account every action you take in and out of battle.  The more damage you take, the more your defense and HP (Health Points) go up.  The more you attack, the better you get at a certain weapon.  The more you use magic, the better you get at each spell.  This system is not hard to cheat though.  You can have party members attack each other to raise HP significant amounts in a single battle.  There is a glitch where if you select an action, and cancel it, the game does not un-count the action from your experience, allowing you (with some patience) to level up attributes of which you did not actually use in battle.
This system is strange to get used to at first, but it actually makes building characters more interesting than in the first game since you can make progress with every battle, and it is more realistic.  The first game featured a heavy emphasis on level grinding to progress, but this game has a much faster pace, helped by its new systems.  The Final Fantasy series likes to reinvent itself with every new installment, and even when a game fails for one reason or another, their constant experimentation is admirable.  If every game were like Final Fantasy I, I doubt the series would have survived as long as it has.

Final Fantasy (Famicom, 1987 / NES, 1990)

"The world is veiled in darkness

The wind stops,

the sea is wild,

and the Earth begins to rot.

The people wait,

their only hope, a prophecy:

'When the world is in darkness

Four warriors will come...'

After a long journey,

four young warriors arrive,

each holding an Orb..."

In 1987, a little Japanese game developer called Square Soft was on the verge of bankruptcy.  With only enough funds to create one more game, they decided to make a fantasy RPG inspired by Dragon Quest and Ultima.  They decided to call this last game Final Fantasy.  And of course it was a massive success, which catapulted Square into the forefront of RPG development for the rest of time.  The game would take another three years to see a North American release, where it received lukewarm praise and sales.

As explained in the opening text, the four orbs that control the elements of the world (earth, fire, water, and wind) have been dimmed by four elemental fiends, and you control a party of four warriors to restore light to the orbs.  The thing that made Final Fantasy stand out at the time was its deep class system which adds a large layer of strategy to the game.  You may select the character class of all four of your party members.  The choices are warrior, monk, thief, white mage, black mage, and red mage.  Warriors have the highest strength, monks can use bare fists (the advantage is not having to buy weapons), thieves have higher evasion and eventually become the ninja class (the strongest in the game), white mages can use defensive and healing White magic, black mages can use offensive Black magic, and red mages can use some Black and White magic, as well as moderate weapon strength.  

The game essentially gives you no sense of direction, meaning you must figure out where you are supposed to go to progress.  You eventually gain vehicles like a sailboat, canoe, and the series-standard airships, which can be used to fly between locations.  Your first objective is to save a princess from the dastardly Garland, and once you do that, the king issues a bridge to be built, and then the rest of the continent is open to you.  Garland will return in the game's climax, in a turn of events which is as original as it is confusing.

The game is still fun to play today (I have completed the original version of the game) but still comes with its flaws.  For one, this game has what are called "ineffective hits".  This is where if you tell two characters to attack the same enemy, and the enemy dies before the other party member gets to attack, when they take their turn, they will swing at the open air and miss.  This happens more often than it should (it shouldn't really happen at all) and causes much frustration.  Another quirk is the magic system.  There are eight levels of spells for each type of magic, with a number of charges that can be used for each spell.  The maximum number of charges is nine, which severely limits how much magic you can use.  The only way to restore charges is to stay at an inn.  Despite these legitimate complaints, Final Fantasy is a great and challenging experience.  Its combination of fantasy, science fiction, and customization ensures that no two playthroughs will be the same, and always enjoyable.

Halo: Combat Evolved (Xbox, 2001)

When I was originally gathering ideas for The Great Video Games, I was fairly certain that Halo (2001) was not going to make the list.  However, the more I thought about it, I do have a lot to say about this game, and it does deserve a place in this archive.  The game did receive massive critical acclaim, and every one of my friends was into it.  I wasn't allowed to even play it (I was 8 years old when it came out, and my parents were adamant that I did not play M-rated games before I was old enough).  When I did finally play it ten years after its original release, I was fairly disappointed.
Why was I so let down?  Perhaps it was because of the unreal hype that the game had built up.  Every new Halo release was an Earth-shattering event for my friends.  I just brushed it off with a "meh" back then.  I didn't even have an Xbox so I didn't care.  I eventually did play the multiplayer at friend's houses, and I was fairly bad at it since I never had the opportunity to practice.  I had more fun fooling around than trying to be competitive.
Another thing that added to the aura surrounding Halo was the controversy.  Politicians at the time attacked this game for being something along the lines of "the deepest pit of debasement and scandal" due to its violent contents.  Halo was their poster child that video games corrupt our kids and that all games should be illegal.  There were reports that kids had committed gruesome murders because they were influenced by the game to do so.  I think the controversy was a bunch of hooey, anyway, since actually playing the game, there isn't anything truly morally repugnant about it.
So what is it about this game that makes it good?  Well, I think (even though I don't like it) it did shape gaming in the 21st century.  With its deep weapons and control systems, vehicles, and the popularization of online multiplayer, it may have perfected the first person shooter.  It doesn't scream of "2001" like a lot of other games do, it has a fairly timeless feel to it.  The controls are perfectly functional, the graphics are still impressive (even beautiful), and multiplayer death-matches have a universal appeal (who doesn't enjoy paintball-esque gunfights?)
The story is fairly great too.  You play as the Master Chief, a Spartan-class marine, the highest rank of soldier in the 25th century this game takes place in.  The human race is in a space war with a race called the Elites, who want to use the enormous ring-world called Halo (which is a life supporting planet, space station and weapon of mass destruction) to eliminate life on the planet Earth.  Their motivation is the most original I've seen in sci-fi.  They are waging war due to a religious conviction they have.  They will also unknowingly release the Flood, a species of aggressive parasite.  Master Chief and his army division crash land on the Halo during a raid by the Elites, and Master Chief must destroy it, while protecting the sentient AI Cortana, who holds valuable information that would spell disaster for the humans if the Elites got hold of it.
In retrospect, I do have a great amount of respect for this game.  Thinking deeper about it, I think it may be an accurate portrayal of the feelings and politics of the early 21st century, the same way "The Graduate" is a reflection on the 60's counterculture.  This was a time directly after 9/11 when the USA was headed for war against terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, and when national pride was on an upswing.  Master Chief represents the all-American man, the perfect soldier who will never back away from the fight for freedom.  The Elites represent that foreign entity we were afraid of, and the Halo is the WMDs.  Perhaps the future will remember Halo this way, as an artful meditation on the culture it was born from and not as "that violent video game that politicians hated".

The Black Box Games (NES, 1984-87)

The Black Box Games refers to all of the NES games that were made by Nintendo for the NES, and were all held together by a similar aesthetic (pictured above).  They came in black boxes, and the cover art was usually taken straight from the game, if not enhanced slightly.  When talking about what makes these games great, it's impossible to do them justice without briefly talking about them individually.  Not all of them are good games, however, some of them are downright terrible.  Therefore, I will talk about all the games that still hold up, with some exceptions for games that deserve their own essays as Great Video Games (for instance, I've already written about Super Mario Bros., and Donkey Kong should be discussed separately).
Duck Hunt is one of a few games that used the NES Zapper, a light gun that worked by detecting targets on the screen when the trigger was pulled.  It is a very simple game, but that is part of what makes this game seem timeless.  All you do is shoot ducks that come up out of the grass, and your dog collects them (a fair weather friend, who laughs at you when you miss).  There is an alternate mode where you shoot at clay pigeons, a fairly accurate simulation of the sport.
Balloon Fight is actually a redesigned version of the arcade game Joust, in which one or two players rode ostriches to fly and land on the heads of other ostriches.  Somehow two little men flying with balloons to attack other balloon-flying men makes more sense.  This game also controls better than Joust.  Press the button to flap your arms and float upward, and the directional pad to steer.  Where Joust had floaty and stiff control, Balloon Fight is very precise.  Another fun mode has you steering around an obstacle course of electric bolts.  Touch anything or fall in the water and you are dead.  This works due to the game's tight control.
Clu Clu Land is the most bizarre entry in this list (which includes mushroom hopping plumbers and wrestling swamp men) in every design aspect.  You play as a little red balloon creature who floats around in little stages where he must uncover diamonds hidden in a picture arrangement, while avoiding enemies.  You fight back by shooting sound waves which stun enemies, and then ramming them into the walls.  This makes no logical sense, but it is still highly enjoyable for its oddness and fun factor.
Wild Gunman is another Zapper game where you are in the wild west, getting into gunfights.  You can fight with one other gunman or two, and there is another mode where you must shoot out gunmen in a saloon coming out of the door and windows.  It is more geared around reaction time than aim, but is a refreshing change of pace from the other games that center on accuracy.  The game is fun to look at, since all of the gunmen are drawn with cartoony style.  The Zapper games always give the player a sense of skill that a lot of other games cannot.
Hogan's Alley is the best of these Zapper games.  It is meant to be a police simulator, where you shoot cardboard cutouts of gangsters, and avoid shooting civilians.  In the first mode, three cutouts roll out and turn toward you, and you must quickly shoot the correct targets.  In the second, you move along a city street, where cutouts move along the scenery.  Again you must shoot the right ones.  In the third, you must juggle cans to land them inside ledges which award different point values.  The game offers wide variety and challenge in all its parts.
Excitebike is a racing game, one of the best on the NES, and one of the best of the Black Box titles.  It is a dirt bike race with precision controls and fun track layouts.  You move up and down in each lane (the tracks scroll sideways and loop Flintstones style) and lean to go over hills and gain maximum jump speed.  You must be careful to not overheat the engine or hit anything/land improperly or you will crash, costing you precious time.  I always love to go in front of other racers and make them crash.  There is also a mode where you can design and play on your own tracks.  All of these Black Box games offer challenge, variety, and most importantly, fun, which has not been lost after all of these decades.

Shadow of the Colossus (Playstation 2, 2005)

Wander is a young man who is willing to do anything to bring his beloved back to life.  His clan let her die, since she had a cursed fate, but he is unwilling to accept that.  He travels to a distant, forbidden land on his horse, Agro, in hopes of finding a way to revive her.  Finding the land, he crosses a gigantic stone bridge into a holy temple, where the spirit Dormin tells Wander that his love will be restored to life if he can slay sixteen colossi, however he may have to pay the price for this.  Determined beyond reason, he sets off with Agro to defeat these ancient giants, equipped with only a sword and bow.
Shadow of the Colossus (2005) masterfully tells an epic story with grand scenery, beautiful music, and amazing battles.  You must hunt down the location of each of the colossi, and then do battle with them.  This is all of the fighting you do. There are no enemies to fight in between battles with colossi.  You ride Agro to each location, with no music, and no enemies.  This would be rather dull if it weren't for the rich visuals and atmosphere in the world of the game.  Every location brings with it a sense of foreboding and loneliness.  The forests are dark and serene, yet unsettling.  Mountain cliffs reveal scenic vistas, overlooking distant areas to explore.  There is a real sense that there is something ethereal about this land.
The colossus fights are worth trekking to as well.  Each battle is unique in the way you have to scale and attack the behemoths.  They are all massive and awe-inspiring, and look as though they really have been slumbering for thousands of years underground, with their dirty fur and bits of plant life clinging to them.  There are a few bipedal colossi, a horse, a bull, a hawk, and some that are indescribable.  Some of them are aggressive and actively seek to kill you, while others are passive, and will only fight back if provoked.  One that sticks out in my mind is a gigantic flying serpent, which does not even try to attack you, even while you are climbing on it stabbing at its vital areas.  When you finally slay it, it feels like it was more an act of murder than a triumph.
Another great thing about these fights is that they play realistically.  The colossi don't follow set programmed patterns, they react to your every move.  For example, the second colossus you fight is a giant bull that emerges from a cliff side cave.  It trudges slowly closer to you, and observes you.  It will not charge, but if you allow it to approach close to you, it will decide to try and stomp on you.  This allows you to fire an arrow at its foot, which will make it fall over, allowing you to climb up its back.  Another great example is the fight with the ogre colossus.  You travel deep into a cave to find an ancient arena.  When you climb down to the floor, a wall breaks open to reveal the colossus.  He chases you to the end, where you hide under some pillars.  He will lean down to swat at you, and this allows you to run out and grab onto his beard.  You must move quickly to his back because he will grab at you, and even once you have reached his forehead, he will shake violently to throw you off.
The most amazing thing about Shadow of the Colossus is how it says so much with so little words.  The sixteen battles are emotionally packed, challenging, and fun.  In between fights, Wander receives visions, some showing the future and some showing the distant past.  It is in these visions that details like the origins of the colossi are revealed, and with such amazing subtlety.  I wish more games would try to put as much subtlety into their designs.  This game is an excellent parable about loss, sacrifice, love, and the distance one man is willing to go to restore it.