What games are truly masterpieces?

[Captain Vegetable]

My masterpieces would need to evoke some kind of emotional responce (including, but not limited to: Awe, elation, imersion, and other obscure feelings I feel it is only right we classify as emotions). Here they are, in the order that I think them up in:

Rez
Beatmania
Vice City
Phantasy Star Online
Valkyrie Profile
Skull Monkeys (I'm doing my best, Hero! I haven't forgotten!)

[xS]

Persona 2: Eternal Punishment.

[Kidnemo]

In no particular order:

Final Fantasy Tactics - psone
Street Fighter Alpha 2 (gold) - arcade
Metal Slug X - Neo*Geo
Final Fantasy 2(4j) - snes
Zelda series - multi-format
Mario series - multi-format
F-Zero - snes
Guardian Heroes - saturn
Skies of Arcadia - DC
Super Castlevania 4 - snes
Jet Grind Radio - DC

There are tons and tons more, those are just the first how-ever-many that popped into my head...

[Captain Vegetable]

How dare I forget Skies of Arcadia!!!

And I guess Ikaruga has creeped onto this list in recent days. Now that I can chain properly, it's much more intense.

[BioMechanic]

Pong
Pac-Man
Space Invaders
Gyruss (my favorite arcade game ever)
Galaga
Super Mario Bros.
Contra NES
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
Metal Gear Solid (I don't like it, but I don't deny its classic-ness)
GTA3 (same thing here)
Rez
Ico
Samba de Amigo
Tennis 2K2 (best 4-player game ever)
Tetris
Fatal Frame (the only game I've quit playing due to genuine fear)
Resident Evil (PSX/GC) - to quote Yoshi
Vagrant Story
Parasite Eve
Cosmic Smash
Jet Grind Radio
Metropolis Street Racer
Burnout 2: Point of Impact
Soul Calibur

[Frogacuda]

Pong was just a clone of early Odyssee prtotypes. Hardly a masterpeice.
Good to see another Gyruss fan, though. Love that game to death.

[BioMechanic]

Originally posted by Frogacuda
Pong was just a clone of early Odyssee prtotypes.

Oh yeah? I didn't know that. Pretty cool. Pong was my own personal introduction to gaming, and I still play it 20-odd years later.

Heh - aren't many Gyruss fans round these parts. Gotta love that digitized Bach.

[NeoZeedeater]

Willy Higinbotham was the first to make a video tennis game back in 1958, several years before Ralph Baer's Odyssey prototype.

[DarkCrow676]

Final Fantasy 7 was a true masterpiece in my opinion. The only game I could really play over and over and over. I've grown too attached to that game that all the other Final Fantasy's do nothing for me.