Without a doubt the finest fighting game in the world  – Virtua Fighter 5 loses out by lacking the comprehensive training mode, something that definitely should have gone into the 360 version. Characters and stages are beautifully rendered with water, snow and sand thrown about by the fighters’ movements, and lighting and camera effects emphasise the dramatic action. Even now, the PS2 version impresses.

Two-player mode is, as usual, reliant on finding an opponent at your level. If you’re lucky enough to know someone willing to pit their Pai against your Sarah, make the most of it as there’s enormous fun to be had. Even though VF5 on 360 features online play, it can never provide the accuracy needed to perfect your Dragon Smash Cannon or Tetsuzankou.

Even if you can’t find anyone, VF4:Evo compensates with the greatest single-player mode in a beat ‘em up: Quest mode. Virtua Fighter mixed with role-playing parts, you take on VF players at Tokyo’s top arcades, gaining experience and collecting items to customise your character. Your opponents are based on real players from Sega’s VF.net arcade network, so you face AI versions of Chibita, Napoleon, Ohsu, DemonKitty, Kyasao and more. There’s a real sense of achievement when you manage to defeat one, and with the tiered ranking system there are still promotions and items to be won long after the final tournament has passed.

The real beauty of Virtua Fighter has always been in finding a character you click with, learning their moves and building combos and strategies. Evo’s training mode contains all character moves as well as their best attack series, combinations and tactical advice. It teaches you how to predict and escape attacks and throws, which attacks are best countered with grapples, when and where to dodge and the meaning and application of Evading Throw Escapes, Half-Spinning Attacks, Sabikis and everything in between. The deeper you go, the more you discover and the more wonderful and engrossing it all becomes. Virtua Fighter 5 may be bigger and prettier, but without a Dojo mode it doesn’t give up its subtleties as easily; had I started with VF5 I would have been playing at scrub level for much longer.

I think certain players might have convinced themselves VF’s not for them, but with an open mind, a little instruction and the right character, it proves itself as a hugely rewarding game of limitless depth and opportunity.

A bona fide Sega classic and one of the all-time great RPGs, Skies of Arcadia and the revamped Skies of Arcadia Legends are brilliant examples of what it means to be a Sega game – optimism, adventure and endless blue skies. 

The lead character Vyse, member of the Blue Rogue Air Pirates, is the quintessential young RPG hero, but rather than falling into the hot-headed or angsty clichés he’s endlessly optimistic, determined and adventurous; the son of a pirate, he’s wanted this kind of adventure all his life, so he throws himself headlong into action without hesitation. He’s not the only memorable character, though – über-cool gunfighter Gilder is constantly harassed by the lovesick Clara, De Loco is a Doctor Octopus-inspired madman and Sigmund Freud would have had a field day with Vigoro. The interplay between these characters, particularly Vyse and his tomboy teammate Aika, is classic, with plenty of comic interludes and facial expressions to make the dialogue scenes much more enjoyable than your average RPG.

Of course, this isn’t your average RPG in any sense. Yes, it’s full of turns-based battles, experience points and random encounters (frustratingly so at certain points), but it innovates within these areas. Aside from the standard hand-to-hand fights, at times you’re attacked by other ships in the skies and have to defend yourselves with cannons; when fighting Armada Generals or the enormous Gigas creatures, these encounters are absolutely without parallel. Standard battles are entertaining too, of course, with plenty of over-the-top magic attacks to please the eye and strategy to keep the brain happy. Skies of Arcadia Legends adds extra "Wanted" battles against notoriously difficult Air Pirates that rank among the hardest enemies you’ll encounter.

Each land you explore has its own culture, architecture and customs, from the ancient Japanese Yafutoma to the secluded jungle city of Ixa’taka, and this is reflected in a varied score that never dips below the excellent. The opening theme is leaves you in no uncertainty about the adventure ahead of you, and the music that accompanies the end credits is almost unspeakably enjoyable, which is to say nothing of the huge amount of music in between: when battles begin to go badly the music changes accordingly, hugely increasing the intensity, but when you gain the upper hand the music changes to power you across the finish line. It’s a simple system but one that adds so much to the battles. The only real downfall to Skies of Arcadia Legends is its poorly compressed music, which is markedly inferior to the Dreamcast original, and despite the wealth of extras in Legends I’m still playing through on Dreamcast for the sheer joy of the soundtrack.

All in all, Skies of Arcadia is a refreshingly original RPG, not just in many of its elements (its boat travel predates Wind Waker by several years!) but in its approach to character. Throughout all the hardships that befall him and his crew, Vyse never loses optimism, and can always be replied on for a clenched fist of determination in times of need. Skies of Arcadia is pure Sega, and one of the greatest roleplaying games ever. I just wish the sequel rumours were true.

Just missing out on the hallows of my all-time Sega top 5 is ace fire-fighting adventure Burning Rangers, the Saturn’s last hoorah and a perfect slice of Sonic Team gaming.

Burning Rangers is remarkable not just for being one of only a handful of games dedicated to saving lives, but for its unique style: combining anime cutscenes and full voiceovers with gameplay places BR more in line with an interactive cartoon dissected into four episodes. Each character’s personality shines through, from Big’s nobility to Phoenix’s snide comments, and short cutaways in each level bring a strong sense of teamwork to the Rangers. Sonic Team originally planned for the player to switch between team members in levels, but personally I always find the focused approach more worthwhile, showcasing as it does the teasing relationship between Shou and Tillis as well as their individual determination in saving lives. There’s plenty of humour in there, particularly over the team’s radio communication system, most of which you can use on a PC if you pop your game CD in the disc drive.

Stylish though it is, there’s no shortage of substance in Burning Rangers. An extremely streamlined control system lets you rip through levels like there’s no tomorrow, and one of my favourite innovations is the ability to escape an incoming fire by tapping Down as the walls visibly heat up. It’s extremely simple and admittedly wouldn’t work in many similar games, but it succeeds in giving real-time reactions a QTE-style quality without interrupting the game flow. The other major innovation is the use of audio direction instead of music and a game map; Chris Parton issues directions automatically, but can also be called upon with the tap of a button to send you the right way. Aside from its functional performance as a guide system, it’s also extremely effective at developing the story within a level, as other Rangers radio in with their current locations, requesting teleportation for survivors and assistance with everything from lifts to locks. It’s a unique take on character development that keeps the story flowing, limiting the number of interruptive cutscenes to a handful within each level.

Burning Rangers communicates in other innovative ways, too; many of the characters you rescue send emails of thanks, often explaining their actions and giving little insights into their lives, from boyfriends and pets to aspirations and dreams. It’s a great feature that humanises the survivors, and often reveals secrets such as artwork and sound test if you manage to find members of Sonic Team. There’s always someone new to rescue too, as the levels are randomly generated each time you play, extending the replay value immensely.

All in all, Burning Rangers is an amazing game that is, I feel, sometimes cruelly overlooked in the annals of Sega and Sonic Team greatness (although Sega Europe have a football team named “Burning Rangers”!). The fact is it came out at a difficult time – the Saturn was nearly finished in Europe and the Dreamcast was on the horizon, and I’ve no doubt if it were a Dreamcast launch title it would be remembered for the amazing game it is. It could even have used real-life email!

Considering we saw a resurrected NiGHTS, I believe the much more commercial Burning Rangers could find a home on any of the current generation consoles.

Stripping the action from the Panzer Dragoon series and replacing it with RPG battles might seem like a step backwards, but the combat in Panzer Dragoon Saga is as exciting as any shoot ’em up and involving as any RPG. The most amazing part, though, is the dragon-morphing system, which lets you alter its form to favour Attack, Defence, Speed or Spirit. Seeing the dragon cycle between colours and different forms is absolutely stunning even today, and favouring one form makes mastering that attribute’s magic quicker. Being able to change your form mid-battle to pulverise weakspots or fire up a magic shield is a crucial skill and feels fantastically satisfying.

I wanted to start by mentioning the gameplay – so much has been written about its graphics that I thought it was important to focus on the game itself. That’s not to say it doesn’t deserve its praise: the character designs, lighting, architecture and atmosphere are all unmatched in the Saturn’s catalogue, and there are more breathtaking moments in its four discs than many RPGs I’ve played since. The many hours of FMV cutscenes are stunning in their detail, but many of the cutscenes are rendered with the in-game engine, which is years ahead of its time for a game released in 1997.

Panzer Dragoon Saga’s rarity is bordering on legendary among PAL Saturn owners – I paid £80 for mine nearly four years ago, and since then its value has actually increased. I seem to remember reading there’s the equivalent of 20,000 A4 pages of dialogue spread across its four discs, which is one hell of a translation job, and the localisation staff deserve huge praise for making such a daunting prospect so rich and coherent. Aside from the dialogue in-game and over cutscenes, there’s also completely optional elements such as books detailing mining, the evolution of dragons, the history of villages and much more. The Panzer world is one of the most detailed and well-crafted in any media, and to see it spread out in front of you both geographically and historically is a real accomplishment by Team Andromeda and the translators.

The downside, unfortunately, is that it’s actually a very short game – I completed it in around ten hours, which is quite expensive if you calculate value by the hour! As an experience, however, it’s a tremendously rich and coherent world where music, art and gameplay combine to create a true masterpiece that, although over quickly, captures the imagination so completely that you want to explore every inch and savour every moment.

ChuChu Rocket may have made it here first, but Phantasy Star Online was the online game for Dreamcast. At a time when MMORPGs were light years away from Guild Wars and World of Warcraft, Sonic Team’s baby emphasised teamwork and action, but still included all the depth you could ask for.

Using three basic attacks you could string into combinations, dealing damage was a great deal more involving than some more modern MMORPGs, but the key to success lay in creating a team of the three character types – Hunter, Ranger and Force – to maximise their strengths and cover each other’s weaknesses. The fundamental problem of communication across different language was overcome by the innovative Word Select system, which used set phrases and keywords to build sentences that were then automatically translated into each user’s languages.

PSO’s problems, sadly, are fairly wide. Combat is repetitive – move, light-light-strong, move, etc. – and in your first twenty hours you’ll probably finish Forest about twenty times. Hackers reigned supreme on Dreamcast – ask any PSO player about Nol, FSOD or Spread Needles and you’ll hear it all – but later versions mostly escaped in comparison. Version 2 added dozens of new weapons and armour, increased the level limit from 100 to 200 and introduced Ultimate mode: very difficult, graphically altered versions of the four main levels. Episodes I & II added a whole new world with new classes, weapons, stages and enemies, and Blue Burst’s Episode IV did the same again. We don’t talk about Episode III.

After the hundreds of hours PSO has taken from me, it almost makes it in by default, but the truth is it’s still a wonderful game that holds some mystic addictive quality I can’t pinpoint. Its adventure, community and teamwork are still hard to beat, and the sheer thrill of finding a red box is one of gaming’s greatest drugs. Profound, Forrest, Gracia and Claude all salute you, Phantasy Star Online. You really do have the knack.

I could have split these into two separate entries, but as they were originally conceived and are best enjoyed as one game, I’ve combined them. In my eyes, Sonic 3 and Knuckles is the greatest Sonic game ever created, but I’ll admit it also divides opinion. Some see it as the point the focus shifted from pure horizontal speed to include more exploration-based gameplay, but for me it’s the most evocative, artistic and imaginative of Sonic’s outings.

One important factor in Sonic 3‘s appeal for me is the inroads it made into developing character, with Sonic and Tails enjoying new moves, from shields to swimming, and obviously the introduction of Knuckles was a huge step at the time. Even the animations moved the characters along – Sonic flexes his muscles while holding onto handles, Tails’s cheeks puff out as he holds his breath and Knuckles’s laugh is brimming with that cheeky menace we’ve come to expect from him. Sonic’s development from two-dimensional sprinter into inspirational hero took a great leap here.

The game’s art is the strongest of the 2D Sonics, brilliantly depicting the Floating Island’s decaying civilisation with a wonderful palette and eye for detail, from curling vines to tiny bubbles, with the glassy sheen and rich blue-and-white of Ice Cap a classic Sega level – even in thick snow, there are blue skies. An important life lesson, you could say.

One of the many small pleasures I get from Sonic 3 and Knuckles (S3&K) is the sense of coherence: the levels are all connected and you see Sonic move from one to another, instead of instantly appearing in a new Zone. It’s a minor thing in the context of a Sonic game, but it goes a great distance to making you feel you’re really covering some ground on the Floating Island, without any overhead map or suchlike. Likewise, the transition from Sonic 3‘s conclusion to the start of Sonic and Knuckles is brilliantly handled, and really does feel like you’re playing an extension of the game, particularly with the addition of Super Emeralds.

Overall, Sonic 3 and Knuckles is a beautifully presented and endlessly rich adventure, full of the series’ characteristic charm and speed (try to keep up whilst on Carnival Night Zone’s candy canes), and the crown jewel in an amazing run of Mega Drive games that ensured, no matter what followed, Sonic was a legend.