After 1 year, Opinion Seed has mainly become a repository of my think-pieces on some entertainment products. And since the majority of those products have come from Cinema and Videogames, I’ve decided to compile the following list of my personal favorites of each field.
If you ask me next month, the order or even the entries might change, and that’s why I decided to extend from a more typical Top 10 or Top 5 to a Top 25. This way, you get a broader and more descriptive portrayal of my tastes.
And even if I’m doing this to commemorate the first year of the site, this list also serves as a point of reference to understand why I score a certain product the way I do. After all, my opinions are built from the marks this Top 50 left in me.
Let’s give priority to the oldest art form:
25. HEAT
Who doesn’t like a good heist movie?
I certainly do. As a matter of fact, this is a great choice to start the list, because this film is an elegant encapsulation of what I like in entertainment: action with content. Clean and not presumptuous narrative content that is in line with the action, the aesthetic and the audiovisual techniques employed.
And this is a very good one!
The first 20 minutes are some of the best in cinema history, having influenced a lot of set-pieces of modern filmmaking. Al Pacino and De Niro are at the top of their games, and they are forces to be reckon with, alone or when sharing the screen. And Michael Mann, the director, was ahead of its time, by delivering an action movie in the 90’s that wasn’t over-the-top and made its shots count with a minimalistic approach to visual storytelling that enhanced the stakes in very effective ways.
24. A GHOST STORY
I know there will be 48 more entries in this page, but after these 2, you already have a pretty good idea about who are you dealing with. I’m the person that likes intense action as much as films where the characters don’t move or speak.
A Ghost Story, written and directed by David Lowery, is one of the most powerful movies I’ve ever seen. And, counterintuitively, I felt that force in the quieter and more motionless scenes.
Rooney Mara, for example, has one of the best scenes I’ve ever seen in film, and she doesn’t utter a word.
23. TABU
I was so happy when I realized that Tabu, a film from my home country (Portugal), would crack this Top 25.
It’s here by its own merits. Tabu is one of the best stories I was ever told. And I say “told” because that’s the genius behind this film. The storyboarding masterfully framed by Miguel Gomes (writer and director) really makes you feel like you are in a trusting place absorbing a fable someone who has seen a lot of life decided to share with you.
22. RUSH
If this list is serving a purpose of describing me a bit better to my readers, let me be clear: I find motorsports quite boring. I acknowledge the risks these pilots are putting themselves trough, but I never felt the watching to be compelling.
“Look the way he’s driving… Like an old man.”
This line is in the trailer perfectly explains why on hell a film about Formula 1 managed to get on this list.
Ron Howard, one of the last traditionalists in filmmaking, decides to impress in this one. The film is loose, yet confidant, it reverberates, but with a focused poignancy. Rush is a movie that is having fun without losing its composure.
Everything has an edge to it. A fire that never leaves the core of the visuals or the actors’ eyes. Howard is doing some extraordinary directing here. He’s letting everybody push their luck without unbalancing the final imagery. The editing is the right type of aggressive, making this the best sports movie ever (it managed to captive a hater like me at least).
Hans Zimmer and the other sound teams are contributing with some impactful waves, and the two acting leads (Hemsworth and Brühl) are unleashed like we’ve never seen before, delivering human exceptionalism that has its own revving engine.
21. CHILDREN OF MEN
The premise may seem like the secret sauce, but the trick is in the camera.
Children of Men is one of the best examples of why Ricciotto Canudo called cinema the seventh art. Even if this film immediately catches your attention with its lore, the higher level of sensorial captivation begins to being felt, almost unconsciously, when your eyes are caught in the photographic rhythm painted by Emmanuel Lubezki (the director of photography).
Yes, the world building by Alfonso Cuarón (writer, director and editor) is impeccably realized, the acting of Clive Owen is as strong as it is relatable, but what is distinguishing this art piece from a novel or a theater play is the crafting of points of view and angles Lubezki wants us to experience. You feel like you are really there, because of his artistic choices.
Cinematography is the art of conciliating the rhythms of space (theater) with the rhythms of time (writing). And Children of Men is one of the prime examples of a cinematographic mark in storytelling.
20. GLADIATOR
It’s quite a feat that, almost 20 years later, there hasn’t been any epic historical film as impressive as Gladiator was at release, particularly in the last few years when technology really has given filmmakers the tools needed to surpass Ridley Scott’s masterpiece.
Not only is this film one of the greats of its genre, but also manages to feel different and still very refreshing. It’s difficult to pinpoint what makes it special, but, in the end, I think it was its focus that helped it stand out. In just 3 hours we get a complete hero’s journey, with an incredibly paced character arc that manages to flush out the personal and the larger context, never at the cost of each other.
The protagonist serves as the vessel that transports us to the world but not as the typical one direction rover that takes waves of plot and never deviates. No, Maximus is unpredictable and his actions (or non-actions) are more on the side of human than theatrical character. Of course Russell Crowe is doing some nuanced acting here, but the focus of the writing is truly remarkable for the genre.
Penciling the grandeur and describing it as a backdrop of a non-supernatural singularity was a risk. Yet, the writers nailed it. You never feel like focusing on this gladiator is jeopardizing your enjoyment of the Empire power fantasy.
19. LOST IN TRANSLATION
I don’t like the premise of James Bond.
So, I was delighted when I saw this exquisite work by Sofia Coppola.
Lost in Translation is my desire for Bond: grow old and depressed, go to Japan, meet an attractive younger woman, who is also depressed, and learn to appreciate life without the smugness or the density that come from an antiquated notion of duty.
It’s hard to find a more misfit duo than Murray and Johansson, but they never make it awkward or forced. It is still one of the best chemistries I’ve seen on screen.
18. PAN’S LABYRINTH
Only someone who has reached complete mastery in his craft could turn a child’s fairy tale into a dark and nihilistic depiction of war and dictatorships.
This is probably the film I think about more often. From the unsettling aura always present to the acceptance of its narrative threads slowly but inevitably suffocating the hope and optimism for humanity out of you; this was the closest a piece of fiction was to teaching me a lesson the same way a traumatic event in real life does.
17. INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS
Tarantino knows you know we don’t need window dressing when “Killin’ Nazis” is in order.
And by completely removing any semblance of discourse about sides or motivations, ironically, the narrative becomes more palpable, the imagery more vivid, and the action less desensitizing because the struggle is more lived-in instead of a scholarly take on the events.
16. THE SOCIAL NETWORK
This film gets better by the day, doesn’t it?
You notice it immediately in the first scene of the movie. Which is infamously known nowadays as the “99-takes” scene. The myth goes that David Fincher (the director), before starting principal photography, went to Aaron Sorkin’s house (the writer) and asked him to read the script out-loud with the rhythm he imagined when he was writing it. He handed over the pages, took a stopwatch out of his pocket and timed the screenwriter’s speech.
Then, shooting with the actors began. Jesse Eisenberg and Rooney Mara are on location ready for the first scene, and Fincher takes the same stopwatch out of his pocket and says: “You have to nail it in 6 minutes”.
This technique, certainly grueling for the performers, was used in every scene and set the tone for the entire movie.
Everything ends up working because Jesse thrives in fast and verbose scenarios, Sorkin is probably the best at creating those, Fincher knows how to create a visual mood that seasons the exposition, and even the soundtrack by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross helps buffering the intensity of the pace.
The Social Network is getting better over the years because it has layers that are much more than just intensity. This film is about density.
Yes, it is commenting on the intensity of these new business models and how rapidly they permeated our culture and made a small group of young programmers a bunch of money. Yet, it was also giving us a dense wave of decisions and behaviors that, if responsible for some structural shifts in the fabric of human interaction but their cornerstones lie in the minds of people who despise that same interaction, maybe should be questioned and studied.
The more you revisit this movie the more you’ll notice how it uses cinematographic techniques to not allow us to be hypnotized by the impressive swiftness of the brave new world of tech, and make us see the true substance inside that intensity.
15. SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE
This is a delight.
And, to this day, I have a hard time understanding why so many people were shocked by its 8 Oscars, including for Best Picture.
It is one of the few winners that I can completely relate with the passion coming from the Academy. This is much more than just a romantic drama. It’s an ambitious screenplay that wants to transport a fairy tale to the dirtiness of the real world, and an audacious group of filmmakers led by Danny Boyle (the director) and Anthony Dod Mantle (the DP) that decided to frame this story completely from the perspective of a portable digital camera.
The editing, the music… Imagine Walt Disney animation during rush hour in Mumbai.
14. HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS
When I think about this film, one concept comes to mind: contours.
This is probably the best work of contours I’ve ever seen in the silver screen. First, it is very impressive how the design choice of pairing costumes and makeup color with the dominant tonalities of the set is never visually unpleasant, bearing that the filmmakers stick with that choice for the entire movie. They really had to get creative.
Secondly, it is also impressive how indoor sets and outdoor sets are as different as they are narratively poignant. A lot of care and attention to detail was given to their artistic reproduction.
And finally, the contours. The way light, natural light and colors were used to make the characters have a meaningful presence despite their camouflaged wardrobes is astonishing.
I would love to have some film classes to come close to understanding how this was done.
13. THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING
How do you transpose one of the most influential narrative visions of recent memory to an audiovisual format?
Through character.
And despite the underrated performances of Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen or Viggo Mortensen, what makes this trilogy of movies the best adaption I’ve ever seen is how Peter Jackson (the director) understood that the most important character in all of J. R. R. Tolkien’s legendaria is the world – trees, marshes, rivers, mountains, caves, castles – in this case, Middle-earth.
By deciding to conduct principal photography of all the trilogy in New Zealand for 438 days from October 11, 1999 through to December 22, 2000, shooting at over 150 different locations, Jackson captured on camera the most important element of Tolkien’s vision: an era and aura of remoteness and untamed landscapes.
Fellowship, of all three movies is the one that shows this the better, since its essence lies precisely on Frodo experiencing, for the first time in his life, the enchanting vastness of Middle-earth.
I had read The Silmarillion, The Hobbit and TLOR years prior to the movies announcement, and still have them as my most beloved literature. But when I exited out of the theater after this first movie, I was floored, because I never thought that a film could be so good at recreating the limitless imaginarium that is penciled in a book. And these tremendously complex books, in particular!
It must have been very demanding to design production on-location this way for the three movies, simultaneously. However, as you will attest in another entry from this trilogy, higher in the list, I truly believe that it paid back in spades! The combination of practical effects provided by the beautiful rawness of New Zealand, and the comradery and sense of family that came from the “traveling circus” inherent to this type of production, resulted, in my opinion, in one of the most life-affirming creations in cinema, despite its fantastical nature.
12. MAD MAX: FURY ROAD
Speaking of realism, I don’t know how no one died during the filming of this movie, if “90% of the effects were practical” as stated by George Miller (the director).
It should be noted that I’m not questioning the veracity of said statement. I felt in my skin and glands the effect of a movie filled with real and organic action. As a matter of fact, 10 minutes into the movie, my heart rate was already above normal. Nothing would prepare me for almost 120 of that.
“This movie and this kind of intensity are not for everyone” were precisely my thoughts.
And I still wished I could go on the roller coaster again.
At the same time, this experience is much more than just a chemical high. Theatrically, like I said, it’s an impressive feat, with over 150 stunt performers, including Cirque du Soleil and Olympic athletes. Visually, the film is a prime example of what differentiates cinema from other storytelling formats. John Seale (the cinematographer) came out of retirement to help Miller transpose the 3500 panels of storyboarding to the same amount of shots in a film, since the screenplay had a parsimonious amount of dialogue and George wanted his vision to be understood without words. More, the majority of the film is running below 24 frames per second (the traditional choice) so every detail of the shot can be fully assimilated by the audience. Night scenes were filmed in bright daylight, deliberately overexposed and colour-manipulated.
And much much more.
In a film that wants to convey complex themes like feminism and violence against women almost solely through a visual metaphor of a continuous chase, attention to detail is paramount. The film was shot from June 2012 to December 2012, but only released in 2015 because Miller really wanted it to stand out from other action films. To do so, he worked many years alongside his wife, Margaret Sixel (the editor), to compose clean and strong images of the themes to convey.
11. DUNKIRK
If you’ve following the first year of this website, you already know my opinion about this film.
If not, here goes a summary:
It’s Christopher Nolan’s best movie (not necessarily my favorite), his magnum opus, a masterpiece. It’s least presumptuous blockbuster I’ve seen in years, whilst is revolutionizing the war movie genre in just 106 minutes.
This screenplay, directing and editing are on a whole different level. Normally, you remember the helicopters playing Die Walküre in Apocalypse Now, D-Day in Saving Private Ryan, or even the 75 soldiers single-handedly rescued by Desmond Doss in Hacksaw Ridge. And even if the rest of these movies are all-time classics, the fact remains that they all share Joseph Campbell’s monomythical structure of “The Hero with a Thousand Faces”. We all cite these specific events of those movies, not only because they are amazing, but also due to the fact that, by following “The Hero’s Journey” narrative pattern, they need those moments of grandeur in order to make the more intimate ones effective as emotional anchors.
Dunkirk has a different structure. And I’m not talking about the signature play with timelines that Nolan uses to adorn the story being told. The structure chosen to support the narrative was elegantly built on a simple concept: let’s make a war movie where we are listening to Wagner, while landing on Normandy, and saving wounded on Okinawa the entire time.
The movie is about the defeat of Britain, in France, during World War II. And instead of building a screenplay around the melodrama that lead to the defeat, Nolan focused on the real drama of the boots on the ground. It’s not a movie where introspection and personal growth contrast with the action, to make you connect as a viewer. There is no time for that. You will understand that retreating, despite not being the most glamorous of military maneuvers, is very intense for the psyche of the defeated soldiers, the families back home waiting for their safe return, and even the commanding brass organizing said retreat. It’s a scenario that shows that, in war, anything that can go wrong will go wrong.
Survival is used in this film much more than a trope to serve as conduit to human nature; it is the narrative’s metronome. By choosing to do a film that is, in its entirety, an intense event like the 3 examples I gave from other movies, your link to the characters and context does not come from the calm moments in the rollercoaster, but from well-acted and properly angled moments of fear, stress and intense focus. That’s why the actors didn’t need to speak a lot, that’s why the movie didn’t need to be 2 hours long. You can relate faster to primal than to melancholy. It’s in your biology.
10. SPIRITED AWAY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsrWpFmB2bQ&feature=youtu.be
In 1997, Hayao Miyazaki gave the following generations of animation artists and designers one of the most referential works of the medium: Princess Mononoke.
But that’s not the reason why Miyazaki is a revered master. That came just 4 YEARS later!
When Spirited Away released no one thought it could live up to the standards set by Mononoke.
Oh, it went there, and then some!
Spirited Away is not only one of the best animation movies ever, it is a cinematic masterpiece, regardless of genre.
And that’s not just my opinion. It won Best Motion Picture at the Berlin International Film Festival (Golden Bear), one of the toughest juries in cinema.
This film is ageless. Of course it has flawless animation, but its biggest feat is immediately noticeable when you see how smooth the amount of detail in each frame transitions to the next, with an added cinematographic artistry.
It really is an exorbitant amount of detail.
But that’s not showboating technology that wasn’t available in prior Ghibli movies. It’s crafting a visual environment that is thematically coherent with the narrative being presented.
And that’s precisely where Spirited Away excels: telling a story of the sensations felt by the main character, Chihiro, through a cavalcade of painterly moods and framings of the world.
The myriad of scenarios and liveliness going inside each of them is impressive in mere technical terms, but when you realize that all, despite their differences, are contributing to an intentionally chaotic depiction of a child’s mind when taken out of her comfort zone, then the visual content gains another layer.
This film is grand, fantastical and frightening, like the coming of age of any child who realizes for the first time that her parents are also people and the world can be seen through her own eyes.
9. ZERO DARK THIRTY
It’s hard to put a finger on what makes this movie feel like one of those historical dramas with kings, queens, battles and knights.
But it does.
Without large-scale battles. The music isn’t overly orchestral. And the characters spend a lot of time behind desks.
Yet, Kathryn Bigelow (the director) managed to make it feel BIG.
Maybe it is the way time and space were distilled so flawlessly throughout this chronicling of the decade-long UbL hunt. Maybe it is the grandiose performance given by Jessica Chastain. Maybe it is the screenplay by Mark Boal that didn’t leave any method, any occurrence, any stone unturned. I don’t know. It felt like a continuous and exhausting endeavor, a gigantic organism that was almost impossible to move, and then mutated on its own, leading to real human loss. And this tactile exasperation unified the stakes into a larger than life feat.
This film also manages to unify the modern warfare movie. On one hand, we have the action flicks where soldiers tend to be depersonalized and clustered into an imposing volume for the purpose of visual spectacle and to give an emotional backdrop to our hero’s motivations. On the other hand, we have military/spy thrillers where a bunch of intellectuals can’t stop talking, then time jumps, and they are saying smart things again, but it never looks like there are human feelings in those rooms.
In ZDT we follow Maya from the moment she lands in Pakistan in 2003 for her first field assignment, an analyst taking part of prisoners’ torturing and interrogation, to the moment she enters a plane to take her home after having confirmed that is bin Laden in the body bag.
We see her staggered, we see her motivated, we see her yelling at her boss, we see her defeated after a workday, we see her eyes giving up, we see her eyes piercing the uncertainty around her, we see her crying.
The film would be very strong if the angle was only Maya. But no, she is our conduit to a world we aren’t even close to comprehend, and the cinematography elevates the scope to a much bigger scale than a portrait.
8. THE DARK KNIGHT
Being obvious doesn’t mean it shan’t be expressed. As a matter of fact, what could be more fundamental than to remember the factual past to inspire us to supplant it?
Heath Ledger was the best actor I have ever seen.
Doing the Joker and Ennis in Brokeback Mountain just 3 years apart is much more than just a great achievement in method acting. He filled those characters with his poetic soul, and reached immortality.
It would be an insult to call his Joker performance or The Dark Knight, for that matter, the best of comic-book movies. Sure, they are. But that’s not saying much. We’ve had 20 Marvel movies in 10 years and, despite all the box office records, none came close to TDK.
First and foremost, The Dark Knight doesn’t look like a fan-service power fantasy. The Heroes and Villains are not archetypes to play around and learn a few morals along the way. They are complicated. They feel and look lived-in. Like the city and all the scenarios shot by Christopher Nolan.
This is a great film on its own because the screenplay seems to come from within and not from without. The cinematography is not a crutch for some kind of character study. No. The cinematographic expression is a character in itself. A powerful agent that is weighing on their psyches and influencing their actions.
And I love the fact that the score composed by Hans Zimmer sounds powerful without resorting to triumphant motifs.
Batman is the Detective in Detective Comics (DC) and this film is much more crime drama in Chicago than action heroes in Gotham.
7. GONE GIRL
This movie makes me shiver.
Despite coming late into production, it’s impressive how David Fincher this film looks and feels.
Colors and natural elements are masterfully used to convey density and claustrophobia. The music by Reznor and Ross, like I said, still give me the occasional discomfort. The wall of minimalistic information of the script, written by the original novelist – Gillian Flynn –, puts you on edge without making you exert anything. It’s just there, always there. That doubt.
And the acting, particularly from Rosamund Pike, is so good that future viewings will always give you something new.
6. ARRIVAL
The Kuleshov effect is a film editing (montage) effect demonstrated by Soviet film-maker Lev Kuleshov in the 1910s and 1920s. It is a mental phenomenon by which viewers derive more meaning from the interaction of two sequential shots than from a single shot in isolation.
This film has the best Kuleshov effect.
But it’s so much more than just a technical piece.
What this movie has to say about the human experience, anthropocentrism, leaving a mark through shared stories, is vast enough to feel daunting but not picturesque to a point of being larger than life, because the point is precisely life.
The cinematography by Bradford Young is near painterly and the soundtrack by Jóhann Jóhannsson is telling us the secret of the movie from the very beginning.
5. THE DEPARTED
I just love how Martin Scorsese (64 by the release of this movie) always makes movies with the energy of a 34 y.o. director.
This film never stops, from the first minute to the last. And he always finds a moment for his characters. Their meaningful not due to the real name in the credits but because an action well written and acted counts when there are so many moving pieces, at such a fast pace.
Everyone matters:
DiCaprio, Damon, Nicholson, Wahlberg, Sheen, Winstone, Farmiga, Anderson, Baldwin, Dale, Rolston…
4. HERO
This film is the reason why I am a cinephile.
Visually alone it taught me art.
But when those visuals were THAT WAY because of the story being told, I was glued to the screen.
Those colors, that minimalism and space in the frame DO NOT seem to have much plot in them.
Completely wrong.
That same space is filled with argument and narrative tension. What seems like emptiness is, in reality, the secrets still to be uncovered by the end of the film.
I highly encourage everyone to watch or rewatch this movie. It has a simple premise with a bulky culmination. The action is easy to follow because the design is elegant, but there’s nuance in the fighting, like a whispering conversation. And there are romance, grandeur and soothing music, all very pleasing, and all with a very unique artistic usage.
3. THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING
How do you land a plane that has been in the air from October 11, 1999 to 17 December 2003 and, meanwhile, has been in-flight refueled by 19 Oscar nominations, with 6 wins, and also a lot of old and new fans’ hype?
By delivering large-scale events that, motivationally, result from the sum of individual choices to face fear and struggle.
You’ve seen the size of the world in the first two movies, and you’ve followed these characters throughout it. It has become clear that even kings and wizards are afraid and unsure about the next course of action. These are relatable protagonists.
So, when time comes to be put in extraordinary circumstances, you see the challenge from their point of view and it looks gigantic.
That’s why this film swept at the Oscars: 11 wins out of 11 noms; totalizing 17/30 for the trilogy. Because the techniques applied to render its cinematographic vision are completely aligned with the intimacy needed for the characters’ studies. Like I said above, Middle-earth and Sam, or Gimli, or Aragorn have the same dimension in these films. And that not only is an unparalleled achievement because the environments are vast and the heroes are restrained, but also is the essence of the books – even the frail can make a difference in this world, since it is also fragile.
2. THE REVENANT
I truly believe that, in 100 years, we will be talking about cinematographers and directors like Emmanuel Lubezki and Alejandro G. Iñárritu with the same tone we use to speak of Vincent van Gogh or Rembrandt.
The artistry that went into each scene of The Revenant is of a level that is pushing the medium to a new phase. Those two had already collaborated to great success in Birdman. But this movie?!
The cameras capture the imposing presence of the wilderness, and suddenly you are close to these humans and the toll its hazards have on them. This film has some of my favorite landscape shots and close-ups. It reveals the dangerous beauty of nature AND the depths of the human will.
One of the most impressive artworks I’ve seen to date, exponentiated by the fact that they had to craft it in loco.
1. INCEPTION
This is my kind of movie.
Subdued with great action scenes. A layered narrative that is, for the most part, realized on-screen. Intelligent use of time, framing, editing and technical post-production that only cinema can do to wow you. Credible acting. And a soundtrack that is as spectacular as the visuals.
A film like that would be strong enough to be at the top of my list. But, when I found out that this story was a metaphor about the process of making movies…
- Inception
- The Revenant
- The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
- Hero
- The Departed
- Arrival
- Gone Girl
- The Dark Knight
- Zero Dark Thirty
- Spirited Away
- Dunkirk
- Mad Max: Fury Road
- The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
- House of Flying Daggers
- Slumdog Millionaire
- The Social Network
- Inglourious Basterds
- Pan’s Labyrinth
- Lost in Translation
- Gladiator
- Children of Men
- Rush
- Tabu
- A Ghost Story
- Heat
Now, it’s the turn for Videogames. An artistic field that I’ve seen evolve so much since the first time I picked up a controller. It’s the next level of storytelling. Where the receptor’s input can introduce change in the narrative constructs and flow.
25. BIOSHOCK
Games from the First-person perspective were a personal turn-off for a very long time because they always seemed too narrow-minded, in the sense that they were more focused on simulating the toying around with the objects in front of you, than integrating stylistically the avatar with the context.
So, a few hours into Rapture – the city in BioShock – and I was starting to broaden my own horizons about the genre.
It is precisely because of the first-person point-of-view’s limitations that this game works so well. The claustrophobic design of the geometry is exacerbated by not having the spatial awareness of a third-person perspective, and from that refocus emerges a more measured attention to detail, that is met with an equal care from the developers of the game.
I was really impressed with the intelligence behind the environmental storytelling.
24. THE WITCHER 2: ASSASSINS OF KINGS
Despite being a huge fan of high fantasy, until I found The Witcher 2, I had never been in contact with a fiction of this style.
The fantasy I had consumed, at that point, was always getting its narrative motor from an idealistic vision of motivations and culminations.
However, when The Witcher 2 ended I was surprised to see a realization of fantasy that did not care to have a fable-like punch line.
It was as if magic and dragons had to cope with the grittiness and savagery of medieval times and not the other way around.
Really cool take on the formula.
23. ROLLCAGE
Alongside puzzles, driving games are my least favorite genre in all of gaming.
I can see their merits, particularly in showcasing technological advancements in simulation every time a new generation of consoles arrive, but I was never in gaming because of tech or mechanics.
Still, every full moon, a racing game piques my interest. And Rollcage is the best example of that.
It has the core mechanics of the genre, but just goes bananas with them. Just watch the trailer, please.
And the soundtrack is sooo good and in line with style.
22. PERSONA 5
Speaking of style…
What a stylish piece!
The anime-look is not a convention; is an identity that oozes from the screen with such bravado that one is instantly engulfed in its rules.
This artistic confidence helps a lot in establishing connections with the different characters and, by so, with the meta-narrative.
A smart use of primary and secondary colors, coupled with aggressive lines in the geometry, rapidly tell you how’s it going to be: Are you in for this cool as hell train ride?
And if you are still on the fence, listen to this groovy jazz-rock and tell me if you don’t want to go on an adventure with these cats.
The first review I posted here on Opinion Seed 😉
21. THE ELDER SCROLLS V: SKYRIM
Call me old-fashioned, but I’m a proponent that games should be played first and watched on twitch second.
We have cinema for the watching part of our lives. Interacting with a world and getting feedback is the uniqueness of games, what surprises you, what makes you come back. Look at Mario. The experience it’s not in the visuals. It’s in making that jump.
Having said that, Skyrim was the first game I knew was one of the greats, just by watching it being played by Brad Shoemaker on Giantbomb.com.
He looked at a mountain, far far away, something that is usually just background for narrative purposes, and decided to go there. Yeah right.
He walked there, running into some people or creatures on the way, and suddenly the skybox was no longer there because we were climbing. We were in Tamriel.
At the top of the mountain, we were just savoring the view and the wonderful music by Jeremy Soule, and then a roar in the air. A Dragon.
We fought it. It was tough. But we won.
I had just experienced something incredible, vicariously. I wanted that just for myself. I wanted to role-play in that world.
And, when I finally did, it lived up to all those expectations, and then some.
20. NIOH
Samurai and Ninja are historical figures that have always captivated me.
Them having their origins in Japan, and games also having a considerable cultural footprint in that country; I was always a bit disappointed that I had never found a game that captured the feudal aesthetic AND controlled well.
I remember Nioh being announced by original developer Koei in 2004 under its working title “Oni”, and thinking “here’s another one to add to my disappointment”.
Well, it was worth the wait.
Nioh is the smoothest power-fantasy for feudal Japan aficionados like me.
19. TEKKEN 3
Fighting games are in a genre that is an exception for my tastes.
I tend to absorb more out of games when their mechanics and systems serve and elevate the interaction and immersion in a world and its narratives.
That’s why you will find many action-adventure and role-playing games at the top of this list.
Fighting games, like I said, are the exception.
A good fighting game has such instant-fun mechanics and another layer of mastery and discovery, alongside its focus on detailing as much of its ingrained limitations, like characters and backgrounds, that learning out to play a fighter is a narrative on its own.
There is a myriad of games in this genre. Ones focus more on the elegance of the mechanics, like Street Fighter, others spend more time in giving depth to the fighters, like Mortal Kombat. But none reaches the robustness in both camps like Tekken.
Tekken 3 is, in my opinion, the best example of this “volumetric” feel I speak of.
This entry DID NOT look or feel like it belonged in the Playstation 1 era. The animation was so nuanced, the characters had a weighty presence, and the sound of each hit was populated with a more meaty realism than it had any right to be.
Mortal Kombat 3 was violent and the characters looked more “realistic”. But Tekken 3 felt like the true game for adults.
18. ASSASSIN’S CREED: BROTHERHOOD
Assassin’s Creed was one of those games that immediately took control of my imagination at the time of its reveal.
The first game was a bit disappointing precisely because our imagination created unrealistic expectations, since no other game had tried to realize those same thoughts.
Then, the second game was a major success, partly because our expectations had been adjusted and Ubisoft tackled the lack of gameplay variety of the first with variety in terms of story and personalities.
Following the reception of 2, they released Brotherhood that, now, introduced new combat mechanics and city management systems that finally came closer to offering the possibilities everyone wanted in the first installment.
I consider Brotherhood the best entry in the franchise because it was the culmination of gradual upgrades that always felt meaningful and non-derivative. Black Flag is probably a better game, but Brotherhood is the best realization of that core mechanic of parkour in ancient times in emblematic cities and monuments.
17. GRAND THEFT AUTO: VICE CITY
I was born in ’88, so I don’t have any nostalgia for the eighties.
But when I played this game, its confidence and sense of place and style made me understand why those years are so iconic.
The gradient going from laissez-faire to outlaw, in a period that is not that distant from ours, expresses a sociocultural aura so different from the exceptionalism and rectilinear fabric we’ve come to know from capitalistic societies that it seems like it existed in a prohibited faraway fantastical land.
Take me down to the paradise city
Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty
Take me home (oh won’t you please take me home)
16. FINAL FANTASY X
The more I reminisce about this game, the more impressed I am about its artistic choices.
At first glance, this game is transporting us to a vibrant and colorful world. Spira has a lot of tropical settings even.
As you play, you start noticing how the plot threads are becoming heavier and darker: nihilism, insignificance, inevitability, death.
Still, the environments and the characters’ disposition keep being lighted with positive energy. And, by the end, you understand that that juxtaposition is precisely the message of the game.
Enjoy the journey.
15. MASS EFFECT 2
I tend to prefer RPGs in a medieval fantasy setting than in a science-fiction one.
Color me surprised that, suddenly, Mass Effect 2 was becoming one of favorite games.
Attentive writing and sober design make genre-bias look infantile.
I was impressed by that universe and curious about its lore. And I cared for its inhabitants on a macro and micro level. Not in a “what’s the outcome for me” logic, but coming from a genuine interest to get to know the stories of these characters and learn with the depth inside them.
Mass Effect 2 also has one of the best final acts I’ve ever seen.
14. DISHONORED
This is such a rewarding game if you savor it slowly.
It’s still very good if you just follow objectives, since the controls and level design are so intuitive that you find yourself in unison with the rules of this world in no time.
But if you decide to explore all the options at your disposal, both in terms of gameplay tools and arquitectural landings you’ll find an immersive simulation where every object has a story to tell, either mechanically or narratively.
13. DARK SOULS III
My favorite book of all-time is The Silmarillion by J. R. R. Tolkien.
The Silmarillion, different from The Hobbit and even The Lord of the Rings, is concerned more with the theological and philosophical underpinnings of the world than with the narratives themselves. It consists of extensive writings on such topics as the nature of evil in Arda, the origin of Orcs, the customs of Humans, or the nature and means of Elvish rebirth.
The book is divided into five parts. The first part, Ainulindalë, tells of the creation of Eä, the “world that is”. Valaquenta, the second part, gives a description of the Valar and Maiar, the supernatural powers in Eä. The next section, Quenta Silmarillion, which forms the bulk of the collection, chronicles the history of the events before and during the First Age, including the wars over the Silmarils that gave the book its title. The fourth part, Akallabêth, relates the history of the Downfall of Númenor and its people, which takes place in the Second Age. The final part, Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age, is a brief account of the circumstances which led to and were presented in The Lord of the Rings.
Quenta Silmarillion, for its chronological positioning and themes addressed, is the most exquisite sequence of literary creation. In that sense, I would much like to see it expressed through another medium. Cinema, serialized TV or a videogame, for example.
Nothing had ever come close until Dark Souls III was released.
Even the two prior entries did not quite get there, either due to tech limitations or narrative focus.
DS3, however, could pass as a Quenta environment.
The world is already built and permeated with lore and myths from the origins, but it is also injured as a result of conflicts ignited by the pantheon, and in that semi-fragile state entities are testing and positioning their presence and knowledge.
The canvas of DS3 really shares some similarities with Quenta Silmarillion. The nature of being is not totally defined and the supernatural powers are still present with their own motivations, more than caretakers but fading away.
This is probably the game I embraced the role-playing the most. The moment I sensed that I was controlling an avatar in a world with an aesthetic so close to my vision of the one from the period in Quenta, I started caring for how that world perceived my character: his clothes, the way he approached confrontations, what weapons he used, I started only using one weapon because I cared for the mythology of him and his weapon… I was no longer Filipe. I was Fenwenor.
12. DEVIL MAY CRY
The coolest and most fun I ever had with a game.
11. BLOODBORNE
Bloodborne is a masterpiece.
It is Hidetaka Miyazaki’s finest opus.
The way the architecture, the creatures’ design and the gameplay mechanics not only are completely in line with the themes, but also change as the narrative evolves, making sense of prior situations in the game, works in such a perfectly coherent continuum that it is hard to imagine a craftsmanship with so much care and attention to detail.
I’ll just leave an example here:
There’s a point in the game when you realize, because of the way story and lore are unfolding, that your traditional Hit Points bar is not a “Health” bar but an indicator of your current “Mental fortitude”, and that’s why, from the beginning of the game, you can regain “health” if you attack your enemy right after he hits you.
10. BIOSHOCK INFINITE
This is probably the most ambitious proposition I ever witnessed.
The team at now extinct Irrational Games tried to incorporate so many gameplay innovations and storytelling drivers, that Infinite is Top 10 worthy just for landing most of them.
Just in the first hour you start to notice how themes like religion, government surveillance, segregation, authoritarianism are becoming more and more pervasive. Simultaneously, the gameplay tools are even more wide-ranging and fine-tuned than in previous BioShock games.
Like I said, not all those parts search for their deeper essences, but the sum of the total orchestration is extraordinary and presents itself as a very sturdy building.
9. THE LAST OF US
Very few times in life you get to be there and experience a change in paradigm.
I’ve been playing videogames and looking at them critically for a significant sample of time to feel confidently saying that The Last of Us was one of those shifts.
How do I know that?
Because there were a lot of people who don’t play or care for videogames, particularly artists from other fields, that suddenly were incorporating The Last of Us in their discourse.
The gaming industry had just taken a next-step in its natural evolution.
A new reference had been added to the chronology.
For gamers, TLoU represented an even deeper accomplishment. One of those occasions when gameplay and story are perfectly in tune, neither is compromising the other, and both are top of the class.
8. GOD OF WAR
This is not a mercurial decision. God of War (2018) really is special.
For me, this videogame resonated in a much more fulfilling way than an all-encompassing term or qualifier. I’ve already played a lot of games and watched many movies in my life, and, from this point, I can safely say that God of War was the best experience I had in terms of caring for what happens to the future of a cast of characters.
From adventure thrills, technical amazements to emotional stakes, this game is a beautiful tale that puts its arm around you and shows its world. It never loses the grip of what truly means to show someone something.
All these days after seeing credits, I still find myself nodding in respect for how the development team at Sony Santa Monica managed to so tightly enrich a self-enclosed journey with such grand fantasies, explicit or implicit. Damn, they really scaled everything in reference to that pace and tone of the first hour, without ever losing nuance, swings or intrigue.
7. ONIMUSHA: WARLORDS
The combination of beautifully crafted pre-rendered backgrounds, artistically positioned fixed-camera angles, right amount of degrees of freedom for movement and actions, and music and sounds diligently in tone with the epoch, makes Onimusha my favorite realization of the Sengoku period in Japan.
Adding to those positives, the fact that this game, in particular, has such a minimalistic approach to scope and story, it helps in conveying a familial aura and immersive sensations.
6. BUSHIDO BLADE
The fact that, more than 20 years later, there aren’t any fighting games better than Bushido Blade, a game that did not control so great even at the time, is a testament to the magnificent design decisions that are imbued in it.
There are no health bars. The combatants are defeated if their vital organs are pierced.
If an arm or a leg is struck, that limb is incapacitated but you can still fight back, either with weaker one-handed strikes, or using your smaller side-weapon like a knife or a gunsen (Japanese war fan). Or even throwing sand/dirt at your opponent 😉
Each fighter is specialized in 2 or 3 techniques, but can select any weapon. Of course there are more moves available to him/her if the selected weapon is the best for his/hers arts.
And each weapon has different attacks for the 3 stances your fighter can be in.
Like I said, no fighting game has come close to recreating martial arts at this level.
Additionaly, the story mode of Bushido Blade adds another gameplay mechanic: the Bushido code. Certain moves and tactics are considered dishonorable, such as striking a foe in the back, throwing dust in their eyes, or attacking while they bow at the start of fights. Acting dishonorably will abruptly end the player’s playthrough after a certain point in the story, displaying a message berating them on their behavior.
Per-fect.
5. RED DEAD REDEMPTION
Before Red Dead Redemption, I did not much care for Westerns. And I was a bit squeamish about the way Rockstar Games was going to handle this new endeavor for them, since I didn’t like GTA IV, and their control of the cars, something they had been doing for many years, was filled with jank.
How were they going to deliver horse riding then? Something ingrained with so much more animations to deal with.
Rockstar knocked it out of the park.
Horses felt better than any game with driving.
But much more than controls, this game nailed the ambience.
Rockstar’s games are, for the most part, an approach at satirizing the American way of living. That time, in Red Dead, they decided to go for the period piece atmosphere and ended up maximizing their strengths as a studio: the attention to detail, the diversity of scenarios, the personality of the writing.
The frontier built by these developers felt grounded. Riding or walking in it was never just a trail from A to B. You found yourself wanting to look closer at the occurrence of life in this world because it was having its own stories, independent of yours.
Red Dead Redemption feels meaningfully populated because every organism is not less important than you.
4. NIER:AUTOMATA
Appearances deceive.
And even though I consider myself a person that respects that trap, I never expected that beneath the surface of a videogame with high-heels and samurai swords I would come across a narrative built on robust philosophical arguments about consciousness, self-discovery, life and History.
NieR:Automata’s story and subject matters are not hidden in some kind of esoteric narrative. Yoko Taro and his team had the rare courage to be very direct and descriptive about the topics they wanted to address.
What starts of as a very archetypal Anime structuring, with some occasional comments on “feelings vs machines”, gradually becomes a very fulfilling story, centered on meticulously built arguments about the meaning of History, about life not being just a chain of events but a process of self-discovering, what is consciousness and, more importantly, where does it stem from.
All these might read has very vague and quasi pseudo-intellectual premises that tons of other products have built their messages on, but I have read my fair share of Hegel, Nietzsche and Sartre to, at least, be comfortable saying that Yoko Taro and his team did their homework and managed to land very difficult and complex rationales into this game with incredible grace.
3. THE WITCHER 3: WILD HUNT
Despite being set in a fictional fantasy world, Wild Hunt is the most realistic game I have ever played.
In a micro level, from protagonists to extras, the majority of individuals are telling a story and expressing behavioral syndromes, either through dialogue or through their daily routines. And, at a macro level, those routines and traits are all contributing to give shape to cultural forms and laying the anthropological foundations of a society.
Regions and cities felt different, without the hand of the game developers being obvious. Normally, culture and history are smeared into towns through design. In The Witcher 3, the differentiating factors are noticeable in the accents of people’s voices, are they talkative or more silent because their land was ravaged by war, is this region specialized in dairy products or wine…
Of course there are stark differences between cities, but that comes from geography and distance to the term of comparison. Changes in cultures and, consequently, architecture start to be apparent after travelling a lot, which gives an additional meaning to your journey – learning more about the world.
Even more impressive is the complexity given to the interactions between you and the people. The gameplay never jumps out as an adventure; instead, it emerges as consequences to how personalities mix and react. That’s why “side” quests and the “main” story have the potential to be equally intriguing. The juice you extract from a mission is dependent on the personality of the people involved and not on their social hierarchy.
You will come out of this game with the sensation that you met new places and new people.
2. METAL GEAR SOLID 3: SNAKE EATER
These next two entries are the marks in my history with videogames that were responsible for molding my perspectives on the industry and its merits as an artistic field. So, it will be very difficult for any game to top them in my mind. The Witcher 3 came close, though.
Metal Gear Solid 3, because of its creator’s – Hideo Kojima – passion for movies, was the moment I realized videogames could compete, and even surpass cinema, as an audiovisual vessel for spectacle and entertainment.
Everything as an angle to it. The same sleight of hand that we sometimes don’t catch in movies, and renders a mystique to our wonderment of the experience.
Kojima goes even further and construes a tale with never before seen forms and scenarios that, with intelligent montage, never feel forced or whimsical.
And that’s why MGS3 is a personal formative game. I realized that one of the greatest strengths videogames have above other mediums is offering us the unbelievable without feeling out of place.
1. FINAL FANTASY VIII
My story with videogames began with a Mega Drive.
I never cared much for Sega games and what they were trying to express.
Then, Sony came knocking on the door with a different proposition for games.
I was intrigued. Particularly because they were putting their technological money where their mouth was.
It was a rough start. The blocky nature of the first 3D games, instead of turning world building more similar to our transformations of reality, it broke immersion in some of us, distorting our experiences with greatly written games.
I know I’m on the minority, but I couldn’t get past the look of Metal Gear Solid 1 or Final Fantasy VII.
Videogames were about to become an occasional entertainment, like playing cards with friends.
Then, the year of 1999 came. I was flicking through a magazine and noticed that a critic gave a very high score to Final Fantasy VIII. I decided to read the complete analysis. Ok, seems nice. I might put it in my Xmas wish list.
Christmas arrived, and there it was… FF8. I was disappointed. I can’t recall now which other games I had put above it on the list.
I was determined to trade it in and use the money to buy another. Especially when I noticed that the box came with a crack in it.
Let’s just say I still have that box.
I don’t remember what (or who =D ) made me not trade it. But that moment is responsible for a percentage of who I am today.
My love for Videogames and my undying belief and respect for their power as a storytelling medium comes from Final Fantasy VIII.
At first, the game made me come back after the initial hours because of its visual art and music. The pre-rendered backgrounds in each town were mesmerizing; the character designs had a great balance of edginess and sobriety; Guardian Forces were imposing and cool; and the music by Nobuo Uematsu was magical.
As the hours went by, what started as aesthetic attraction was evolving into a psychological connection. The themes and narrative of the tale I was taking part in were unbelievable, like I said above, and exhilarating to think that the imagination can go to such incredible places.
Having these feelings while you find yourself actively interacting with a world, its characters and being an endogenous variable in the progression and changing of a story, is the greatest triumph of videogames and their biggest contribution to the arts we give as a species.
- Final Fantasy VIII
- Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
- The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
- NieR:Automata
- Red Dead Redemption
- Bushido Blade
- Onimusha: Warlords
- God of War
- The Last of Us
- BioShock Infinite
- Bloodborne
- Devil May Cry
- Dark Souls III
- Dishonored
- Mass Effect 2
- Final Fantasy X
- Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
- Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood
- Tekken 3
- Nioh
- The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
- Persona 5
- Rollcage
- The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings
- BioShock
Opinion Seed 