Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

The other half of "Metroidvania." Koji Igarashi took the Castlevania franchise in 1997, threw out the linear levels, and created an RPG-exploration hybrid with the best 2D sprite work of the 32-bit era. Alucard's inverted castle reveal — doubling the game when you thought it was over — is one of gaming's greatest twists. The voice acting is legendarily terrible ("What is a man? A miserable little pile of secrets!"), but the gameplay is flawless. Still the gold standard for 2D action-RPGs.