Introduction by Mike Salbato

Welcome to part 2! Once again, we're compiling a range of features here, from music-centric interviews to a pair of "best of" lists, and a sometimes-used feature with "Complete Coverage," so please enjoy a second week of feature memories.

We'll admit, we haven't done these in awhile, but mostly because we're working on something for RPGFan in general that will mean all games get similar treatment... but more on that later. In the late '00s and early '10s, we had a handful of Complete Coverage hubs, which compiled the multiple reviews, features, music reviews, and more for a certain title. As you can see, we ran an extensive one for Mass Effect 3, but we also had Complete Coverage for Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, indie darling To the Moon, and the comeback of Deus Ex, with Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

While not quite as mind-blowingly-popular as its companion piece (more on that next week), our Top 20 DS Games feature was still great fun to put together. An eclectic mix of games, from RPGs to visual novels, led us to change the title from "Top 20 DS RPGs" to what you see here, because we simply couldn't omit things like Ghost Trick.

Perhaps one of the lesser-known features on this list, a couple of our team members attended a Video Game Orchestra performance in Boston, and while there, managed to chat a bit with some names that, you know, might just be familiar to RPG music fans, such as Hitoshi Sakimoto (Final Fantasy Tactics), Yoko Shimomura (Kingdom Hearts), and more. It's a quick read, but fun to have several legendary composers in one place.

We've done some "best of" for specific consoles, and even console generations, but some of those lines get blurred over the years, with some consoles debuting mid-generation, and ports to other platforms. On this feature, we just set a block of five years and picked our favorite RPGs from any platform within those years. It's perhaps one of the most extensive such lists we've ever done, and each item on here links to other coverage like reviews, music, and more.

Our Best Female RPG Characters actually ran first, with this followup in 2012. Instead of simply picking a bunch of "cool guys," for Best Male RPG Characters," we wanted a good twist, so we chose guys that represented certain roles, such as Family Man, Anti-Hero, and more.