It’s almost completely subjective, of course, like all “Top N Media” lists. I doubt anyone’s going to put, say, Action 52 on their best games list, but past a certain threshold of quality you can’t really make a sound objective argument for any particular game to be included or excluded.

To echo Edges’ comment, I also think that how highly different people rank different titles can be greatly affected by when they played them. I completely slept on the N64 when it was current, but I played Wind Waker at launch and enjoyed it thoroughly. I got the special edition, so when I finished WW I put in OoT but stopped almost immediately because it felt like a weak demake of the game I’d just spent weeks playing. I’ve tried it again in later years but I just can’t stick with it. I understand why it’s an Important Game, historically, and I can imagine how it would’ve made a deep impression on many people who played it when it came out (I’d probably be one of them), but all I see now is how rough it is around the edges.

And then there are variations in personal tastes. I don’t think I’ll ever play Stardew Valley. That’s not the developer’s fault, nor is it mine, any more than anyone’s at fault if someone who doesn’t like bananas doesn’t want to eat a chef’s award-winning banana cake.

The real meat of a “Top N” list, if any, is in what the author says about the games and why they chose them, not in the list of games itself. Unfortunately, this article doesn’t say much beyond very nicely constructed review summaries that have been written dozens of times already.

It might be more interesting to identify a particular gaming “itch”, and list a few popular games that scratch it, as well as some perhaps lesser-known games that do, games that seem like they should but don’t, and games that seem like they wouldn’t but do. And most importantly, for each game, why.

Seems to be a fairly standard list - Gungeon and DQ11 are the only surprises to me

I disagree with Ocarina of Time’s hype, I’ve always thought it aged poorly, and wasn’t as impressive at the time as people claim. Closer to Goldeneye than Super Mario 64. I could go on but I’m really just yucking other people’s yum and that’s not very fun.

It is always interesting to see people’s lists, I’ve been thinking about compiling a bunch of these top 10 to top 100 lists into some amalgamation of the internet’s average greatest of all time. And then playing all of the ones I haven’t played before.

I don’t agree with the entries I’ve played.

Symphony of the Night for example is a great game, but it has a lot of faults and the difficulty is badly paced. People also tend to forget how much you are just running around to get anywhere.

I also think that the original Hollow Kinght is much better than Silksong - in almost every aspect: better atmosphere, better music, better gameplay. Silksong just tried to be more of everything and even more difficult. That way the devs kind of forgot what made the original fun and they ended up adding too many gauntlet rooms, for example. It’s all a bit watered down.

Resident Evil 2 was great back in the day, but it has always been silly and clunky. The first one has better atmosphere and is more focused.

Skyrim is The Great Time Waster, but have you stopped and asked yourself whether it’s actually a good game? It’s badly written, the progress you make in the side quests is kind of stupid (Boom! You’re the new Archmage now!) and the combat doesn’t work right. It’s fun, but not what I would call one of the greatest games of all times.

Stardew Valley is just one in a mass of similar games. A good one for sure, but the best?