Reserve-... nah. I'm gong to keep making this joke :3
I had my top eight pop in my head straight away but the last two gave me trouble so I took them off my honorable mentions list and slapped them on there. That ain't a good look.
10.
Final Fantasy VII ; has Tifa, umph
9.
Pokemon Gold/Silver/Crystal ; Forcing cute monsters to enter battle is back with bigger the fanfare, bigger everything. Day/night cycles suck. The game's bigger but the second half with the Kanto half might as well not even exist when the level scaling doesn't accommodate your team's levels. Still, RIP Satoru Iwata and thanks for somehow cramming Kanto in there when the failures at Game Freak couldn't.
8.
Paper Mario ; I played this after Thousand-Year Door and it's apparent to me I would have liked the QoL additions that TTYD added. Combat, music, plot, partners are all lower quality, comparatively. By itself, it's darn good and worth a mention
7.
Final Fantasy VIII ; My favorite PS1 FF. Here almost entirely for the Junction System which is broken as heck. And that's a good thing. I like breaking stuff. The beginning is kinda grindy to prepare getting broken but it's smooth sailing after. Also has Quistis. Wears glasses and uses a whip, I can't.
6.
Mega Man Xtreme 2 ; The downports of these Mega Man games are my favorite because they're simple in every single way. Everything in the games are straightforward like level, progression and boss design. Even the upgrade system is simple. Just stack all the attack boosts and watch bosses HP drop to zero in 2-3 hits.
5.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone ; The best Harry Potter game in existence is on the GBC. Surprisingly has really good use of color. And it really shows when you explore Hogwarts in its entirety. As for following the book/movies, I gotta give the devs credit.
4.
Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow ; Sequels usually add something to the original game by adding all the stuff they couldn't before. RBY -> GSC is one instance where I prefer the first game. Too much useless stuff in the sequel. The combat system is kinda kooky at first glance and it's extremely broken when you stumble upon that "everything wrong with RBY" picture. Nevertheless, what a grand adventure to have as a kid. Some kid chilling with an NES in the bedroom to travelling all around the region to become the best trainer. Almost fairy tale-like.
3.
Super Mario 64 ; Getting all 120 Stars is one of my crowning achievements as a kid. It's not like it's anything special when most other kids my age did the same thing but look, I thought 120 was a lot of stars and to see my star count reach that number slowly but surely filled me with glee.
2.
Pokemon Trading Card Game ; The hallmark of card games in video game form. The music is indisputably amazing. The nuances of the real life game translates perfectly in a cartridge. Ronald is a moron. Pokemon TCG has it all. The beginning is really slow with the snail pace text speed but after you finish that practice duel, sky's the limit. You're given a deck and free to battle anyone. Win booster packs, update your deck, battle some more. I still get a thrill at bringing out evolved Pokemon fast and raining (heh, Blastoise deck is nice thanks to its ability) death on my opponent who can't fight back with their weak basics and taking prize card after prize card.
Some of the hardest battle themes your eardrums can handle
Club Leader
Grandmaster
It's incredibly disappointing the sequel never made it. It did what GSC couldn't; add a second island with a ton of content. You can play as a chick too. The original didn't really have a plot (collect medals and get the Legendary Cards) but here, Team Great Rocket must be defeated as they kidnapped the Club Leaders.
Here, listen to this and this is just the scrub TR music. I kid you not.
TR normal battle
and
Castle
Yep, I really got rep TCG2. It is worth playing and then some.
1.
Diddy Kong Racing ; I got Pokemon TCG wearing the card game crown so I got DKR tricked out with the purest jewelry possible as it's still the best kart racer out there.
In a kart racer, I'd have to argue the most important aspect to be the handling. As someone who only used light and medium characters in the game, DKR handles very well. Wasn't really too patient as a kid so I didn't take the time to learn how to properly play as Krunch and his fellow heavyweights. The level design in the most, for half of it, is basic with very few sharp turns. Only when you reach the endgame where you expect nasty curves left and right, playing light characters is a blessing. And it feels so good to hit those turns and hit them right. Using the hovercraft is kinda iffy but if you drift, they handle almost as well as the kart and plane. Oh, I didn't mention the three vehicles? There it is. And the cool thing is some levels in the game give you a choice to run more than one vehicle. For example, in Hot Top Volcano, the hovercraft is harder to play than the plane due to the plane path not really being subject to the harsh lava waves. Though there are obstacles like pillars and bridges to compensate. So to me, I thought it was really cool to have such courses offer different ways to challenge you no matter what vehicle you picked.
For story progression, you're placed in a large island where you can travel almost anywhere on your choice of vehicle can take you. You must collect balloons by winning races to open new areas. If you're an utter masochist, you can take a kart out to sea and slowly make it to the one of the four subworlds, which is on a smaller island. Try it out but it'll be really boring. At first, you have no choice but to race really simple courses in the Dinosaur subworld but you start to collect more balloons and start entering more challenging races. At the end of each subworld is the boss of that domain and that's where your skills are put to the test. Seriously, they put up a good challenge. Triceratops (hitting him with missiles is so satisfying) and Octopus dudes can take a hike. Walrus is probably the easiest and the Dragon is rough when you get hit by the fog. Vehicles are locked per boss so if your plane handling isn't on point, you better forget about racing Dragon. Eventually, you end up in space (don't ask me how) where the levels get bigger in scale giving you more routes to take or get smaller and tighter where good turns are rewarded. In the end, the game has really darn good progression. You WILL get better at handling all vehicle types and the bosses act as a test to see if you're good to proceed to the next area.
To top it all off, David Wise composed the soundtrack. Yeah. Bro, wherever you are, this game's soundtrack, I can't even. Childhood jams right here.
Fossil Canyon
Frosty Village - the definitive Christmas song
Pirate Lagoon
Greenwood Village
Star City
x. Crash Team Racing ; It's like DKR, except worse in everything
x. Final Fantasy IX ; With a battle system this slow, no thanks. For a one and done, it's good.
x. Mega Man Legends ; 3D Mega Man. I should get around getting the strongest weapon so I can manhandle the final boss
x. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time ; It's OK
x. Pokemon Puzzle Challenge ; My mind can't wrap itself with all those different swapping techniques
x. Pokemon Puzzle League ; So freaking hard. Respect to those that can conquer the League.
x. Pokemon Snap ; Closest thing I'll get to a real life Pokemon tour
x. Yoshi's Story ; I don't know if I can dock points for this when half the reason it sucks is because of the controller and battling it
x. Mario Party 3 ; Best Mario Party. I probably remember it best for the Mt. Rushmore but with Mario characters. I
think I liked the minigames in here the best. I don't really remember because Mario Party minigames are homogeneous.
x. Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets ; Another case where the sequel pales to the original.
I have a lot of PS1 games that I haven't beat. Some of those could probably make their way into my top 10 but too late ¯\_(ツ
_/¯