These Are Distance W. Dotter's Top 100 RPGs

With that out of the way

https://youtu.be/0hzygq_qHEI?si=5g1867qossLMTNlb

#95: Magical Whip: Wizards of Phantasmal Forest (DSiWare, 2010)

Pal, do you remember?

Like- do you remember this shit?

Nintendo DSiWare shit. Who else remembers the Nintendo DSi? I sure do. I had a black one with a scratched the fuck up screen from constantly playing games that required you rough it up, and this was the only thing I remember ever downloading from the DSiWare store. I'm told it's a clone of Bubble Bobble? I ain't never played Bubble Bobble, I tell ya what, but clearly it rules if it's a tenth as good as Magical Whip: Wizards of Phantasmal Forest (2010). Look- look this game's title up. Go to youtube and look at it. Really, it's that simple. Trust me- you'll probably get something outta it.

What does this game offer you, you might wonder? Well, to put it simply, it's an omakase of game design. Like Pac-Man- you know when you open this, it's the next twenty minutes of your life, and it's gonna give you just a *little* bit of drive to keep moving forward. No more, no less. You're gettin'that Funny Twenty. I'm gonna be honest: I don't think I ever saw anything past the third level in this game. I love it dearly.

And if that abandoned arcade salesman's promise doesn't sell ya on it, here's anything one I got for you: it's a game about wizards. Mages, to be exact- we can get into why a Mage is lesser than a Wizard later, but I promise you as you continue your path towards enlightenment that'll matter less and simultaneously MORE to you. A girl in a wizard and/or witch's cap is going to slowly matter more and more to you as these years weigh heavy on you. You'll regret dismissing owning one as a Clown Shoes Maneuver, and while you did come around to buying Clown Shoes as that dawned, it'll be December by the time you feel the urge for a crooked cloak of the head to go up there on top o ya. Ten months until you can buy Halloween Bullshit, homie. Tough shit. We're going to the Ren Fare with our DSis. Die Alone.

#94: Yakuza Kiwami (PS4, 2016?)

This game isn't good.

Why is it on this list then? Because I have a story for you right NOW. This shit came out in 2016. I think. Around that time, I got a copy of it for 30 bucks around the date it released. I don't know how. About a year after playing it, and being very disappointed they'd ruined Yakuza 1 with a bunch of front-loaded new add-on bullshit, I tried to make my dad play it.

My dad's gaming habits are fairly typical. His favorite games are Mario 3, COD MW2, Wolfenstein: The New Order, and Final Fantasy 1. I thought this would be a good time for him because, in my experience, no one hates Yakuza. Just like- across the board. He got through all the opening bullshit in this game. The stupid errand-running bullshit, y'know? And then the first fight in the game happens inside an office building. And he quit.

What complete jackassery. His issue wasn't with the combat system or the plot, from what I could tell. Just the idea of having to participate in something as low stakes as violent debt collection in an office building pissed him off. I cherish this memory....I think? It's just a weird Thing. Certainly the only interesting aspect of Kiwami 1.

#93: Phantom of the Paradise (DVD, 1974)

EVERY COUPLE MONTHS I JUST GET THE URGE. I WATCH THIS OVER AND OVER FOR THE ENTIRE DAY. IT HURTS. I'M ADDICTED.

#91: Pokemon Adventures (My Books :3)

#90: Metal Slug 2 (PSP, 1998)

It's the year 2023. I haven't touched too many arcade games that weren't, literally, in my local arcade. My bestie is a total KOF-head. They talk about SNK and Capcom's history with me a lot. At some point, I realize my only experience with Metal Slug is watching my best friend in high school play it on their PS3 one night at a sleepover. Metal Slug 3, specifically. I'm leaving on a business trip to live with a filmmaker thanksgiving week I download Metal Slug Anthology for the PSP in advance. I'm going to Get Learned.

That's when I saw the title screen

Dude. DUDE...

look up the Metal Slug 2 title screen. Look at the character Fio Germi's face. What a fucking expression. I could give a long-winded speech about how the stages are highly varied. About how the ultra-difficult final boss is too absurd to be enjoyable, and how I love that. Or how the announcer's omniscient voice fills me with so much joy every time I pick up a new gun.

Or, I could just show you Fio's face. Get It?

#89: Not A Hero (PS4, 2015)

I think I like this game? I think I do. I have some fond memories of playing all of it in one go when it was free on PS4. Most reviews for it aren't positive, and most reviews aren't really detailed. Fair! Not much to say about it, y'know? But I think it's got a bad rep at this point, and maybe it shouldn't?

#71: Murderhouse (Nintendo, 2020)

#69 Failteacher Yuri NOW! (Tumblr, 2024)

#64: Triangle Agency (Tabletop, 2024)

I funded this Kickstarter the second I saw it. I'll be honest: it's inspirations confound me. Control is The Big One from what I can tell. I liked Remedy's first Max Payne game, and recently Alan Wake has become a favorite of mine to watch others play while I eat my dinner in a discord call or on their couch, but I don't really like Alan Wake. Like at all, really. It feels trite. Simple. I'm a metatextual obsessive. I love myself some postmodernism. But, still, I laugh and shake my head whenever Alan Wake complains about being stuck in someone else's story. And more importantly: an obvious inspiration for TA was the SCP Foundation website.

I fucking hate that website

Circa 2015, being in middle school, it was impossible to not hear tell of this site and it's powerful creative energy. It's supposed dedication to creating a new Internet Culture Mythology for the 21st Century's idea of folk tales. I always, and still do and always will, find it absurdly lame. The SCP Foundation is the web-fiction equivalent of being a guy who says 'Actually, that Miami Vice movie is pretty dope'. I.E.: No one disagrees with you, but they sure wish they did.

All that being said: corporate tragicomedy with intense horror movie overtones lit a fire in me. I am currently a few mysteries into DMing a campaign of my own with three of my closest friends. A vampire, a freak, and an intern have solved a murder mystery, flirted with space rocks, and put their primary care physician in Forever Jail. And slowly, but surely, the stupidest plot twist I've ever written will be unveiled to them. Spoiler alert: life ain't just about triangles, kid.

#60: Pokemon StormSilver (DeSmuME, 2012)

#59: A Cuban Sandwich (My Stove, 2024)

#51: Payday 2 (Windows Personal Computer, 2012)

You know this game. You know it's legend, it's history, etc, right? You do. You just do. This game proliferated so much online culture, in a weird sorta way, for so many years. Not any more! Payday 3 being so user-unfriendly kinda killed all that. But I have so many memories of that game. My childhood friend I don't talk to any more, Marcy- I remember when the White House Heist leaked. We were 17 and we had a podcast. A dumb lil jokesy one. And the day White House launched, we played it on Death Wish for our first run together and got REALLY into it. I had her bring her tower PC to my house so we'd be in the same room together during it. I could go on about that fond memory, but instead, I'll tell you a story about how I nearly broke someone playing this game:

My friend, Izzy, is playing this game with me for I think the third time? And we're doing a generic bank heist. Y'know the bank. I can probably recall that whole bank from memory now that I think of it, actually-.

Izzy starts screaming about "blue guys" saying there's "blue guys around" and asking "what they are". I don't fucking know what she's talking about. I say "do you mean the boys in blue out there?" jokingly. They scream "No! There's guys who are BLUE!". I have zero clue what this means. I start repeating "there's no blue guys! There's no such thing as a 'blue guy'!" over and over. Two more heists. Golden Grin and then Breaking Point. In the middle of Breaking Point, I realize what's happened: they're contours. The outlines on the cops I've been recruiting to our side with the Joker Ace skill. But on my screen, they're white because I changed the option in the settings. Izzy, who's game is still on default settings, is seeing blue!

I don't admit the realization for two more days. Every conversation we have, even while not playing Payday, is punctuated by screaming matches about 'blue guys' with 'blue on them'. I shake my head and smile every time they beg for help. Eventually, I admit I realized a while ago what they meant. She laughs the hardest I've ever heard her laugh.

I miss this game.

#45: Kingdom Hearts 0.2: Birth by Sleep - A Fragmentary Passage (PS4, 2017)

#28: Ace Combat Zero (PS2, 2006)

#26: Volcano Princess (Windows Personal Computer, 2022)

#12: Masks: A New Generation (Tabletop, 2018)

Still my favorite TTRPG to this day

Masks is still my favorite TTRPG system to this day. It's easily the one I've played the most at this point, starting with a campaign where I played a Doomed with an assorted group of me, a quick-to-rise American, a Swedish DM, a French Delinquent player, a British Star player, and a Polish Transformed player. It's supposed to be a young superhero group thingymadoodle, complete with rebellious politicking, weird love triangles, and secret-supervillain-family-members. To this date, I've never actually played it as a superhero thing. I just rip the system into a weird, not-that shape because it usually limits the aesthetics to a thing I don't actually like that much. There's an old quote- something like "the best X-Men comic issue would just be 22 pages of dialogue" or something to that effect. I don't read these dang comics. I don't like 'em. But the source drama they inspire is the kind of shit that fuels my writing.

Before you ask: No, I don't know why I'm like this either. Maybe it's just my soul's undying need for contrarian actions.

Here's the Quick Summary: Masks' stats are based upon your character's self-perception instead of their abilities. In a game of Pathfinder, you might try to break down the wall of an olden castle. Your character's strength stat influences the d20 roll that comes of the action, but does not have any effect or impact on/from their emotional state by design. In Masks, your character might use a hammer weapon they have to bust their way through a wall during an escape sequence. Their roll is influenced by their "Freak" stat, i.e., their perception of themselves as a freakish, inhuman 'thing' instead of a person. With low Freak, the slip up, or they give up simply because they find themselves incapable. This interests the fuck out of me. I love the accidental developments that come from this because it's based in actual character psychology, rather than the D&D syndrome of "I guess my character is obsessed with sugar cookies now" moments of character development. Recently, I've been stuck DMing these games, but for once I've shifted to the position of player again. My character, Josephine "Hippocrates" Roquetaillade, began as a typical Janus archetype. Basically, superhero trying to keep their secret identity covered up. Through a series of events, my character shifted into a doctorate degree-holding mad scientist who is deeply obsessed with protecting their best friend, one of our other players' characters, to a fault. I am so happy every minute of the day remembering this girly's little exploits. Lol and lmao. I hope my creative spirit never dies.

#11: A Nice Glass of Water (My Table, 2024)

#9: Destiny 2 - Lightfall (PC, 2023)

#3: Death Stranding (PC, 2020)