NES/Handheld:
1) Fire Emblem 7 - A nice game, with a simple system, and lots of quirky and likable characters? Sign me up! Doesn't hurt that the translation was really well done.
2) Final Fantasy 1 - Lots of nostalgia points here, certainly. That said, it's one of the best, and the reason why a lot of what we have now even exists, so definatly deserving of a high ranking.
3) Final Fantasy 3 - Decent gameplay and the first FF to have anything resembling polish. Set the standard for a while to come, and better writing than FF4!
4) Super Robot Taisen: Orginial Generation 1 - Just a fun little romp. Pity it doesn't have the same appeal of the real SRWs, but it's still fun despite that.
5) Fire Emblem 8 - It's FE7 but missing something. The writing and plotting just seems to be a touch down, and everything Ephraim touches turns to lead as the "perfect" character. Bonus points taken off for Eirika managing to always be the one in distress, even when she's riding off to protect her brother.
6) Pokemon RSE - These two are definatly a trade off. I mean, they're roughly equal to me, just today I'm rewarding the gameplay refinemens and additions more than...
7) Pokemon RBY - The fact that this is where it all begins. Which is a worthy marker for a few points, especially when it's a pretty classy game.
8) Final Fantasy Tactics: Advanced - Not as bad as it's hyped to be. It feels really slow for some reason, the plot is simplistic at best, and there's some severe issues with gameplay surrounding freaking Sleep and the brutal overpoweredness of it combined with Steal: Anything (Though Ability most of all). Oh, and crippling easiness in a game it was easy to power up in. But, not that bad if all you're looking for is a fun diversion.
9) Golden Sun - It's generic and overly cute. That's all that can really be said about Golden Sun, and even then, they do manage to be somewhat interesting in their mechanics and setting. Just... everything beyond that is dull, dull, dull...
10) Final Fantasy Legend 2 - Breakable weapons? Check! Random Stat Gains? Check! Game not built around those? Check! I suppose this game would rank higher if I had ever managed to beat it. But I've yet to force myself past the body level.
11) Dragon Warrior 4 - Even the good Dragon Warriors are still Dragon Warriors.
12) Lufia 3 - Just like the good Lufias are still Lufias.
PSX Era (2 of 2):
1) Suikoden 2 - Good story, good music, good package. Sure, the gameplay isn't all there, but gameplay isn't everything. all in all, for a bunch of reasons, this is probably my favourite game of all-time. So, there's only one place this game can take on any of my lists.
2) Valkyrie Profile - Not to say there aren't some other pretty good games on this list. A unique presentation of the world it takes place in, complete with a focus on the individuality of a twenty character cast. It's such a shame VP2 went the exact opposite direction with this, as the uniqueness and the unpretentious kicking of ass was the selling point of this game.
3) Final Fantasy 9 - Now that we're gone with the great games, here's the merely very good stuff. FF9 does have the annoying main and villain, but the first half of the game is done well, and the setting is interesting. Not to mention, Chocobo Hot & Cold was downright addictive.
4) Lunar:Silver Star Story Complete - A simple story told well. Nothing much to really recommend it, just a really solid game that doesn't drop the ball.
5) Wild ARMs 1 - And now we're at the games that are good, but found an area or two to mess up in. This game starts with your standard this doesn't mesh at all standard setting. Well... except for the cowboy mage princess. Not to mention you have the silent main for no apparent reason. That said, this wasn't bad, and with a lot of polishing/editing it could have been great.
6) Breath of Fire 3 - Another game that starts off great, and then you wonder where the point got off to. You eventually find it by the end of the game, but by then you've spent twenty hours slogging through the world for the sake of slogging, and that's a bit much.
7) Legend of Mana - Gameplay is practically non-existant, moving forward in the plots isn't necessarily obvious, and sometimes hard to find. And it just didn't appeal to me that much. Bonus points for naming a tech Paint it Black though.
8) Tactics Ogre - Good story, horrid gameplay. The stiffness I could live with, honestly. It's more the fact that at lower levels, stats matter too much, and the level up bonuses are large enough that a one or two level difference is crippling. Toss in permadeath and no three turn grace period where you can revive your characters (why is FFT the only game to use that? It's a brilliant idea!) and the fact that all your new characters start at Level 1 is just added aggrivation.
9 Grandia - About the combat system, see Grandia 3. However, this game is so easy that that doesn't matter. Especially since this game encourages you to drag out those pointless fights so that you can get weapon and magic exp. As for the story... well... Remember kids, thinking is bad! And doing whatever you want is great so long as it's powered by the human spirit! And, if you do screw things up beyond any hope of slavation, well there's always Deus Ex Machina! Blech!
10) SaGa Frontier - I love the idea behind anthology games, where you have several short stories interacting in the same world. Unfortunatly, the only games I know of like that are Treasure of the Rudras (which has its own glaring flaws unrelated to that), Suikoden 3, and SaGa Frontier. (LaL is close, but not quite what I mean here. Still great) Unfortunatly, this is a game where every kind of growth is random, and the best character in the game might be useless if you don't know the obscure tricks of how to milk their growth. And even if you do, you still need to get lucky. Add in the sheer worthlessness of most plots which still revolve around needing to do the same sidequests each time in order to have the levels to even hope to begin to face the final bosses, and... yeah. Bonus points for Riki, who has the final dungeon you can't leave, but also has no enemies for you to level up on. Epic fail right there, and a good candidate for worst in the tier if it weren't for...
11) Hoshigami - I'd link to a video like Super did (because who doesn't want an endless loop of the level up music?) but somehow Youtube restored my faith in humanity.
PS2 Era (2 of 2):
1) Fire Emblem 9 - All of the options of the SNES FE's, all of the polish of the GBA FE's, and the writing taken from FE7 and improved. Heck, it even has a lord that isn't practically perfect in every way! If it weren't for FE10, which takes all of these ideas and (with the exception of the support system and the 'perfect' lord) improves them, this is the best FE.
2) Final Fantasy X - Good story, good gameplay, beautiful setting. This game is probably objectively the best FF, and worthy of it's place here.
3) Suikoden 5 - For all that the story is probably the best in the series, this game just seems to be missing some of the soul of Suikoden 2 and 3. Probably the graphics being less stylised and therefore looking more sterile. Of course, it didn't help that most of Suiko 3's innovations are also gone, which is a shame as they need to get back to that point. Of course, Suikoden 4's "innovations" are also mostly gone, so I'm not going to complain too much.
4) Skies of Arcadia - It's nice to play a game that isn't full of angsty youths trying to save the world with the power of love, or cutting themselves; take your pick. Instead, just an amusing battle system, stylish (if long) airship battles, and a fun loving exploration of the world that asks you to join in its excitement and optimism. The villains are fail, but I can't help but be lifted up a bit by Vyse's unrelenting cheerfulness.
5) Breath of Fire 5 - A really nice idea executed in an interesting way. It does get a bit tedious at points, and the Dragon meter idea means it can't be a long game. But it is a good one.
6) Final Fantasy 12 - Alright... and now we're in the collection of the not so good stuff. FF12 is a step back in a lot of ways. Specifically, you watch more than play it, taking the role of coach. Which isn't really where I want to be. Now add the fact that there's no reason for two chars to be there that I can see, and that most of the dungeons are simply places you need to pass through and you need chains to get money (but woe befall you if something not in that chain enters your character's sights) and... yeah.
7) Star Ocean 3 - I suppose this game might be worth its hype. Just, the gameplay is of a sort I can't get in to, at all. Which is a shame, since I got to a point where the plot started to get interesting. And then it wasn't, and other things came along, and this just sorta got dropped.
8) Shadow Hearts - Again, only played the first half. But, like with many of the games above, that was apparently the good part of the game. And that only rated an entry this high? Guess I should be glad I never finished the game then...
9) Disgaea - Honestly, if FFX didn't exist, this game would be at the bottom of the list. Sure, the game is funny, but that's all it has. The gameplay, if you want to call it that, is tedium refined to its very core, expressing a belief in the entertainment power of grinding. Man... most everyone else got out of that mindset when the NES passed on. Even Dragon Warrior got the point in the PSX era. So why the flipping hell are we seeing it rearing its ugly head in the era of the PS2? It makes no sense! And this is without the shoddy Exp system that only rewards killing blows, without giving you any reliable way to make sure a given person gets the kill, like other games that reward you for killing do!
10) Final Fantasy X-2 - Honestly, this game isn't objectively that bad. Of course, the tone of the game kinda spits on everything FFX was, so that means I like it less than I would if it had just been some random Squenix game. And that means it manages to, today, get below the rantable Disgaia.
