Are "sights and sounds" lists just the new fancy way of saying "favorites" or am I missing something? I think someone has already compiled a list of the highest rated games on backloggd over a certain review count?

I heard of the actual list I just didn't get why letterboxd/backloggd people were making their own 'cause it's fundamentally the same as a best/favorites list which is like the first list most people make lol

It's a blend of personal taste and what you believe is important to The Canon. Faux explains it well:
_It encompasses both the game’s quality and the cultural relevance I see in its release/artistic statement overall. Some entries in their respective franchises/series/spiritual affiliations may have been subsequently - or previously - better but brought less “meat and tongue” to the table (eg. Halo : Combat Evolved over Halo 3).

Is Halo 3 the meat or the tongue?

I think the argument being made is that the original Halo brought more substantially original gameplay to the table vs. an iterative sequel like Halo 3. That's what drove my list above - what games do I really really like, and which of them brought the newest and/or most influential ideas?

Yeah I mean that's how I rate stuff and determine bests/favorites in general. Like, sure if you want to be one of those weird "objective ratings" people you could argue that like, Assassin's Creed Revelations was just the most iterated upon version of Assassin's Creed at the time of its release, so it must have been the best. But it was also the 3rd game in the very samey feeling Ezio trilogy so it didn't feel like the best, it felt like burnout setting in.

I like to think of Halo 3 as a tongue game, personally.

This is also why I cringe at the plethora of low-star Street Fighter II reviews that just say "not as good as later games in the franchise." Like, sure, but it invented the genre as we know it today. I just noticed you have SF III on here lol I guess I would argue that SF II makes much more sense for this kind of list based on what we've laid out?

It’s my list. I get to decide what goes on it.

all great picks - the inclusion of dq5 makes me especially happy

I love the idea of getting a bunch of these together and actually making a proper S&S poll. would be awesome to tally up results from as many active members as possible to get a top 100 list together, with the best case perhaps being choosing people to write a blurb for each once it's done and making a nice formatted list? I won't put my top 10 out until I get off of work and can think about it, but I would be interested in helping organize this if other people are also interested in a compiled list like that.

yeah lets do it

pls do, would be fun

a 100+ of these lists condensed into a top 100 would feel like an accomplishment but so far I have maybe seen 10 in total (counting mine) - doing it with that few feels wrong lol. Maybe posting the idea to the discord would help. I suggest creating a public "list" that just includes the lists of other people and start collecting them maybe (and people will be able to suggest their own s&s in the comments)

mind meld lol I just posted my personal one and was about to start a master list. I think top 50 games would be more reasonable if we can get 100 submissions... just to avoid ties and such. but we can play it by ear, I think if we spread the word in the discord like you said and give a nice wide submission window for lists we can accrue that number

Jumping-in to say that Halo 3 is definitely a tongue game.