NOW YOU'RE POLLING WITH POWER. SUPER POWER. Console Poll, vol. 2 - 4th Generation RESULTS

Hello ILX! In the end we managed to get 25 ballots for this poll, five more than the 3rd gen poll from last year!
Four TV consoles (SNES, Genesis, TurboGrafx-16, NeoGeo) and two handheld consoles (Game Boy, Game Gear) were represented in the nominations for this poll. I have narrowed it down to the top 78 per your ballots, because there was a two-way tie for 77th place.

This is probably my favorite generation of video games. So many of the games that made this list (and a good chunk that didn't!) would end up on my "desert island," more than any other generation. The Game Boy was my jam for over a decade of my life and changed the way I spend my free time (would I play Marvel Puzzle Quest if not for GB Tetris? Probably not). The Super Nintendo was a gift I got when the N64 came out (my mom's boss got their kids an N64, and my mom got the hand-me-down SNES), and, looking back, I feel incredibly lucky to have had it instead of the N64.

I hope you enjoy this rollout! Big thanks again go to Karl Malone for collecting, cropping, resizing, uploading and even putting IMG tags on all of the amazing box arts you're going to see in this one. No screenshots this time aroundů If you want to see how the games look, I recommend you boot 'em up!

http://i.imgur.com/QEEajd9.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/zL5K3yY.jpg
77 - Rings of Power - 38 points / 1 Vote

http://i.imgur.com/ToInrAT.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/j1Vooe9.jpg
77 - Final Fight - 38 points / 1 Vote

oooooooooops

Let's see if this works!

http://www.mobygames.com/images/covers/l/70084-final-fight-snes-front-cover.jpg

(if anyone is reading yet: do you prefer the score/title above or below the images?)

Looks fine as it is to me.

below is cool

same here.

as far as screenshots go, almost all of the backs of the boxes feature a few, so it should be easy to get a feel for what they look like.

also as far as screenshots go, sorry about mistagging the final fight cover, and if there are any more mishaps in the rest of the countdown (hoping there aren't) the anger and confusion should be directed my direction!

rings of power looks pretty sweet. for some reason the dragon popping its head in the side of the playing field on the back of the box looks like exactly the thing i want to be doing right now

final fight is classic, of course, especially multiplayer, but the annoyance of constantly having to try to avoid hitting whoever you're playing with drops it down several notches in my book

i thought Rings of Power was probably obscure but sad i'm the only voter. at the time i thought it was amazing. a huge isometric open world RPG that kind of points towards Baldur's Gate, with real character, depth and mystery. probably only held back by a clumsy control set but once you get over the frustration of making the party do what you want this is a ton of fun imo

(will i'll take a quick tour through the image spreadsheet again to make sure the tags line-up - that way i don't have to be nervous the rest of the countdown and you don't have to take the time to check before posting them all)

http://i.imgur.com/suZlLpZ.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/2pPtNrI.jpg
76 - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time - 38 points / 2 Votes

@Karl Malone let me know if any of them change! Because I am posting from a .txt i pulled from that spreadsheet

http://i.imgur.com/q0jhJmp.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/CCpx68U.jpg
75 - Mortal Kombat 2 - 40 points / 2 Votes

TOO LOW

i mean, i didn't vote for it either i guess, lol, but come on.

i vividly remember my dad calling me into the living room for a very awkward chat about how the game i wanted for xmas was rated Mature and i was 10

I only played this game for maybe ten minutes of my life for the first year it was out, but that doesn't mean it wasn't one of the most important games in my young life. i owned at least 3 magazines that dedicated their cover stories to MKII, a game I was not allowed to play. One of the mags, Tips & Tricks, even had frame-by-frame recreations of the finishers for every character (this was like a 22-page article!) with the codes to do them. I read and looked at tihs obsessively. Some kids had porn. I had game rags.

xp lol basically same!

if i was honest i probably shd've found a spot for MK but i don't really know which ones i've played on what system and i've never been able to pull off finishes without cheats enabled because i'm Not That Kind of Gamer so i left it off in the end. i really appreciate the whole series's gonzo-ness tho

(i've gone through half of the images for the rest of the thread and haven't found another fuckup, so i think the final fantasy III/final fight snafu is an isolated incident (spoiler alert: FFIII places in this poll))

fond memories printing out movelists on our loud dot matrix printer.

i loved how many secrets and bonus things they put into MKII. ofc "Toasty!" was a huge middle school in-joke at the time.

http://i.imgur.com/fbmNA8h.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/22E1Yj4.jpg
74 - On the Ball (a.k.a. Cameltry) - 40 points / 1 First-place vote / 1 Vote

(same game, two regions covers since we could not find a back cover for on the ball!)

left field

http://img.gamefaqs.net/box/9/8/9/50989_back.jpg

admittedly not a v. revealing back cover

well then

xpost On the Ball

this was my vote. i think this game sold somewhere between 30-45 copies. it is not the #1 game of the era, but it belongs in the top 100 so i threw it as many points as possible.

the ball is the center of the screen, and you rotate the screen around it as gravity constantly pulls it toward the bottom of the screen (sort of like a labyrinth-style wood and metal ball maze in real life, held sideways). the music is intense, the timer for each level set to promote maximum anxiety, and it makes people some people physically nauseous even to watch (although, similar to a crazy driver, if you're in the driver's seat it's not as nauseating).

it's actually a really fucking cool game. i wish more people would try it.

oh sweet, thanks for finding the back cover NV - i couldn't find it after 5 minutes of searching and had to move on

it sounds way more intense than the low quality screenshots are able to convey, will try and emulate it at some point

http://i.imgur.com/rUmxgF7.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/rO25EQe.jpg
72 - Final Fantasy IV (a.k.a. Final Fantasy II) - 42 points / 2 Votes

my top 5 were all RPGs of some stripe and i didn't vote for a single FF game in the end. that was probably a mistake but i didn't play any of them at the time iirc. VII was my introduction and also what put me off the franchise for ages, i've played quite a few of the 4th gen games on emulation in the last few years but never fallen deep in love with any of them. somehow they're too samey or too vanilla for me.

i should probably have voted for final fight but i can't quite disentangle my memories of it from those streets of rage 2 so i decided not to, sorry big guy

http://i.imgur.com/mKu4ZQ7.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/fM861yB.jpg
72 - Nobunaga's Ambition - 42 points / 2 Votes

xp. would've voted final fight but i primarily played the arcade version (inveruglas caravan park, loch lomond).

http://i.imgur.com/339uB4l.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/wsdDMYW.jpg
69 - Castlevania: Bloodlines (a.k.a. Castlevania: The New Generation) - 43 points / 2 Votes

just realised i was an actual adult before any of these games were released, explains a lot about my foibles and omissions i guess, synapses already hardening

i have no clue how the top 20 will go. i kind of assumed FFII would be in there. maybe others were like me and thought one FF game (III) on the ballot was enough, but FFII is an excellent game as well

http://i.imgur.com/bbVLG4O.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/tZjHN80.jpg
69 - Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen - 43 points / 2 Votes

http://i.imgur.com/8DunJXl.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/vEabLKb.jpg
69 - Wonder Boy V: Monster World III (a.k.a. Wonder Boy in Monster World) - 43 points / 2 Votes

i still have to play ogre battle. i've played gba tactics ogre, and the psp remake of the snes tactics ogre, but never the progenitor.

http://i.imgur.com/l9W7ahl.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/zEtHfKh.jpg
68 - Cannon Fodder - 43 points / 3 Votes

Wow MKII is very much too mow! This game is a classic. Played the shit out of it at home and in bars.

Cannon Fodder is a great game but I had it on PC, didn't vote for this version.

http://i.imgur.com/E6u9Y8p.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/yoa74yl.jpg
66 - ToeJam & Earl in Panic on Funkatron - 44 points / 2 Votes

http://i.imgur.com/877qymn.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/EPykmcm.jpg
66 - UN Squadron - 44 points / 2 Votes

http://i.imgur.com/tm2tYSU.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/RnthEUj.jpg
65 - Super Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins - 44 points / 1 First-place vote / 2 Votes

Lots of games I've never played so far.

don't think i've heard of un squadron, looks fun. wonder what went wrong with the first three evil projects

UN Squadron is my fave shmup of the generation and one of my faves of all time. I actually bought it on eBay when I started collecting my "dream collection" of snes games.

and 6 golden coins is amazing! such a great soundtrack (SML and SML2 both kill it) and introduces a hat made of bunny ears, which is fantastic.

in my mind super mario land 2 is the superior game to the first one (and one of the best in the series overall) but somehow just doesn't quite attain the aura of classicness that the first has

Yeah never heard of UN Squadron either, same for Rings of Power.

Voted for Toe Jam & Earl 2, pretty cool mash-up of genres including little rhythm game interludes, music is slap bass heaven. love Cannon Fodder and Wonder Boy but mostly on different machines i guess. threw Cannon Fodder a vote anyway because it's sooooo good but surely designed to be played with a mouse for maximum efficiency.

WOW. I was just looknig through the SML2 soundtrack for a specific song, but I found a different song... that gets stuck in my head ALL THE TIME... and I had no idea where it was from!

How in the world was Castlevania Bloodlines rated GA while Panic on Funkotron got a T? Pervasive Rap Content?

don't understand the rating system but seem to remember there may have been edgy fart-related humour in PoF?

http://i.imgur.com/otuKXj1.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/tjKsdvi.jpg
64 - E.V.O. The Search for Eden - 45 points / 2 Votes

love the cover of final fight. mayor mike haggar is a sensitive man. i'd vote for him.

Antoher stone-cold classic but unfortunately impossible to find cheap on ebay. Love to have that one in my collection. xp

Panic on Funkotron, rated T for Teen due to Strong Rap Content and Pervasive Farts

Have never played Rings of Power but I looooove Baldur's Gate so much, will have to check that out

Never played On the Ball either, gonna have to warm up my old timey kindle fire with the emulators on it tonite

http://i.imgur.com/nRVrhNE.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/NW0z7SJ.jpg
63 - Road Rash II - 46 points / 2 Votes

TOO LOW

E.V.O. is the first SNES title on the list that i'm completely unfamiliar with. just guessing from the title and description, do you gradually evolve depending on what kind of stuff you eat?

i didn't play road rash til PSX era but it was an absolute classic

racing games have never got better than whipping some dude with a chain whilst avoiding oncoming traffic

i loved the different US regions and the "amusing" character quotes between races, game is perfectly balanced imo

i have very strong memories in my mind of playing raod rash 2 on the genesis with my friend. the two of us trying to beat the single playr game. sometimes you'd go up over a hill and as you came down, you'd hit a car that you couldn't see. now that i'm a "video game professional" or whatever i still think of thaat as the example of bad game design when i close my eyes.

also every time it happened my friend david would yell "THAT WAS A SET-UP!" which i find really funny to this day, because i think it's the only example i can think of of someone calling a non-frame-job a "set up"

i will have a lot of these fun little stories over the course of this rollout

xxxp

E.V.O. is the first SNES title on the list that i'm completely unfamiliar with. just guessing from the title and description, do you gradually evolve depending on what kind of stuff you eat?

― I look forward to hearing from you shortly, (Karl Malone), Tuesday, October 4, 2016 4:03 PM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

you fight and eat stuff to get xp, use xp to evolve cool new parts of your body (stronger skin, claws, an angler fish light on your head, etc) and eventually you evolve legs and start all over as an amphibian! and then later you evolve... reptilenesss and start all over as a reptile!!!

haha "SPEED AND BLEED", so good

aw man i made a song somewhere out of road rash samples, if i can dig that up i will post it...

SPEED AND BLEED i was gonna mention that hah

adam i wanna hear that song!

yes do it

RRII is where i first came across the word "brah" iirc thanks to Hawaiian rival

http://i.imgur.com/Pr9eWZj.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/86Et0lm.jpg
62 - Shinobi III - 47 points / 2 Votes

Real ninja sound effects

that top screenshot there is the ninjas on a surfboard level. it's that kind of game.

Ninja sound effects? b-b-b-but

unbelievable YUGE bosses, the best bosses, it's true

Here's the Road Rash song I made about 13 years ago:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9jqUOlcDLaKZzZHQ25Xb18xZHc/view?usp=sharing

http://i.imgur.com/jc9Nxra.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/wsB3K2B.jpg
61 - Shadowrun - 47 points / 3 Votes

The ultimate foe? Your own mind.

foreshadowing the rest of your life

good work Adam, cop siren brought back the memories

I've tried playing through this on an emulator, but the combat seemed like a slog. Great atmosphere, though.

oh shit adam thats awesome haha

http://i.imgur.com/ikspYpr.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/wUWpU0E.jpg
60 - Kirby's Dream Land - 48 points / 2 Votes

http://i.imgur.com/KdPTgQi.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/syjHLDR.jpg
59 - Secret of Evermore - 50 points / 2 Votes

i also bought evermore on ebay years later intending to play it at some point, but i was never able to figure out how to play it right. i'll have to go back one day, the tim rogers love affair with it pretty much sold me.

http://www.actionbutton.net/?p=390

http://i.imgur.com/UgWYMU4.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/IH8L3PM.jpg
58 - Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse - 50 points / 3 Votes

I very nearly beat Secret of Evermore back in the day, but my younger brother OVERWROTE MY SAVE FILE as he hastily, thoughtlessly saved his own and I haven't played it since. I am still traumatized. Great game though!

loved this era of bragging about 16 bit consoles and 24 meg cartridges as if anybody knew what those numbers meant

http://i.imgur.com/ah7BE2Z.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/jDsYu7A.jpg
57 - Super Empire Strikes Back - 51 points / 3 Votes

MALOOOOOOOONE x-( x-(

shit

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/04/Super_Star_Wars_-_The_Empire_Strikes_Back_Coverart.png

http://i.imgur.com/0DxLxEz.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/WGV914s.jpg
56 - Contra 3: The Alien Wars - 53 points / 4 Votes

http://i.imgur.com/1VYttrH.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/YjZJZQa.jpg
55 - Final Fantasy V - 54 points / 2 Votes

http://i.imgur.com/wVw19oX.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/RALyBvK.jpg
54 - Tetris Attack / Panel de Pon - 54 points / 3 Votes

only six left today but seems like i lost everyone so i am gonna post them a little more quickly

http://i.imgur.com/2rOtKzJ.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/9kGabL4.jpg
53 - Shining Force - 56 points / 2 Votes

http://i.imgur.com/i219DSx.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/TJJTyCA.jpg
52 - Front Mission - 57 points / 2 Votes

^ SUCH a good game. played through a fan translation on an emulator and again when it came out officially on DS. so great. and the shop menu music is the chillest of all time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkMhJ6STWzY

http://i.imgur.com/JGqV0Ea.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/pIuPKBd.jpg
51 - Streets of Rage III - 61 points / 3 Votes

^have not played, but fighting kangaroo on box + old man metal arm = i am interested

Wait, the box says the cyborg is the newcomer. So this game-series created new fighters, and thought of a kangaroo before they thought of a cyborg?

http://i.imgur.com/m8ELeWy.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/FL0wd9O.jpg
50 - Zombies Ate My Neighbors - 61 points / 4 Votes

protip for SOR3: if you avoid killing the kangaroo when you get to him (and just take out his trainer) you can play as him

http://i.imgur.com/XRsOd63.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/aNvdZ8S.jpg
48 - ActRaiser - 63 points / 3 Votes

ActRaiser haunts me to this day, because I never played it. so many times at movie gallery, deciding which game to rent, always starting in alphabetical order. ActRaiser always caught my eye, every single time, and I'd look at the back of the box, almost decide to give it a try, then pass.

http://i.imgur.com/nsrn27M.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/1sWny6g.jpg
48 - Micro Machines - 63 points / 3 Votes

That's the last one for today! More to come tomorrow. And then the day after.

Recap:

48 - Micro Machines - 63 points / 3 Votes
48 - ActRaiser - 63 points / 3 Votes
50 - Zombies Ate My Neighbors - 61 points / 4 Votes
51 - Streets of Rage III - 61 points / 3 Votes
52 - Front Mission - 57 points / 2 Votes
53 - Shining Force - 56 points / 2 Votes
54 - Tetris Attack / Panel de Pon - 54 points / 3 Votes
55 - Final Fantasy V - 54 points / 2 Votes
56 - Contra 3: The Alien Wars - 53 points / 4 Votes
57 - Super Empire Strikes Back - 51 points / 3 Votes
58 - Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse - 50 points / 3 Votes
59 - Secret of Evermore - 50 points / 2 Votes
60 - Kirby's Dream Land - 48 points / 2 Votes
61 - Shadowrun - 47 points / 3 Votes
62 - Shinobi III - 47 points / 2 Votes
63 - Road Rash II - 46 points / 2 Votes
64 - E.V.O. The Search for Eden - 45 points / 2 Votes
65 - Super Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins - 44 points / 1 First-place votes / 2 Votes
66 - UN Squadron - 44 points / 2 Votes
66 - ToeJam & Earl in Panic on Funkatron - 44 points / 2 Votes
68 - Cannon Fodder - 43 points / 3 Votes
69 - Wonder Boy V: Monster World III - 43 points / 2 Votes
69 - Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen - 43 points / 2 Votes
69 - Castlevania: Bloodlines - 43 points / 2 Votes
72 - Nobunaga's Ambition - 42 points / 2 Votes
72 - Final Fantasy IV (II) - 42 points / 2 Votes
74 - On the Ball - 40 points / 1 First-place votes / 1 Vote
75 - Mortal Kombat 2 - 40 points / 2 Votes
76 - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time - 38 points / 2 Votes
77 - Final Fight - 38 points / 1 Vote
77 - Rings of Power - 38 points / 1 Vote

KM you should play ActRaiser it's good

FF2 with only two votes is insane but I guess everyone opted for 3 instead and didn't want to waste two votes on FF games

Secret of Evermore is amazing & I'm glad it made the cut

and we're off! woohoo!!!

stunned at 'turtles in time' getting only two votes. in the very wacky Dom poll of 2008 it was the #56 greatest game ever. obviously that is crazy, but i think a lot of people treated it as stand-in for its genre. and surely there is not a better home-console version of the 2.5D side-scrolling cooperative beat-em-up? colorful, fast, fun, satisfying, trading on a popular license but by no means coasting on it. yeah i dug streets of rage too, but only because all i had was a genesis. at the very least, this has to be the best turtles game ever made, besides the arcade one itself.

i want to say mortal kombat never ever spoke to me as much as street fighter - it was just uglier, and SO much stiffer in terms of control and animation. but i have to cast my brain back to 6th grade and remember that i, too, gazed deeply into the magazine screenshots showing the differences between the SNES and Genesis versions. was this my first encounter with the idea of "censorship" in my actual lived experience? the injustice of that blood turned into sweat! laughable! i definitely rented the game and played it very thoroughly, and i'm sure the digitized actors wowed me more back then than they do now... but i really don't think there's all that much to it. also about half the characters are pretty boring. i basically never played the sequels except once or twice at friends' houses. not enough to make any sense of the giant casts of characters, or learn any moves or anything.

tetris attack is a real hoot. not much to say about it beyond that - if you haven't played it, play it, but play it two player.

shining force is great and REALLY fascinated me in 1993. as i said in the voting thread, it hasn't held up so well in terms of certain gameplay and interface choices, and (aside from a couple of hidden character things) it's painfully linear. very close to someone's observation about final fantasy I, on last year's poll, that essentially once you put your name in you are done making choices for the rest of the game.

zombies ate my neighbors is way too hard, but it is great co-op fun. the kind of thing where if you don't personally need to beat it, you can be satisfied playing the first few levels over and over. very fun music too IIRC.

man, seeing the box art nice and big is a good reminder that while the NES era gets most of the lolz for terrible cover art, it definitely did not end there. "shinobi iii" looks so cheap and generic.

several of these - ogre battle, actraiser, shadowrun - are ones i always heard i needed to play but never once saw a copy of, and somehow just forgot to ever check out via emu. others, like 'on the ball,' are totally new to me. this is fun!

is secret of evermore really an okay game? i remember starting it, getting a little while in and being like "this seems like it's for littler kids than me." but if you take away all the trappings/reputation around it, is it basically fun?

i definitely remember being amazed by how the mortal kombat characters looked just like real life. now i feel somewhat less amazed.

besides a couple of others that will certainly show up micro machines (well, the second one) was my favourite racing game of this era, and maybe the most fun multiplayer of all of them.

i want to say mortal kombat never ever spoke to me as much as street fighter - it was just uglier, and SO much stiffer in terms of control and animation.

although i said upthread that MKII deserved to place better tahn it did, this is otm. MKII is all about the fatalities, basically. the fighting itself was noticeably worse than SFII even when it was first released, and time has not treated it well. all the characters have the exact same speed, same jumping height and distance, everything. you're playing different versions of the same character, with different special moves and fatalities. SFII, of course, had a completely different feel depending on who you were playing as, not even taking special moves into account. still, MKII was such an important part of that era, and it deserves to place a little higher than it did.

not sure i ever played mk2 and i voted for 3, is 3 considered inferior?

3 had a weird lack of focus, MKII had that nice "Big Trouble in Little China" feeling to the aesthetic whereas 3 added cyborgs and Paul Blart mall cop.

MKII was a big one for me. i liked the first game enough to get the SNES version but MKII i remember knowing the release date and asking walmart to hold it for me. maybe the fighting game mechanics were sub-SF2 but to me it was a rich, deep game with a million secrets and little tricks. that they actually included "Friendship" and "Babality" options was kind of amazing at the time -- it was like a playground rumor come true.

TMNTIV is really something else. there's not much to the game, and you are sort of fighting one type of bad guy (foot clan soldier) throughout the entire game. and yet the presentation holds it all together. the music, the graphics, that neat mechanic where you fling your opponent forwards into the screen. i rented this game and beat it several times before bringing it back and then buying it anyways the next week. it was a hell of a lot of fun!

Tetris Attack, they need to remake that for phones

o wait i didn't vote for any mortal kombat. sorry mk, needed to make sure that sparkster gets the top 3 placing it deserves

many xps but EVO was the best
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gv6FHOYf-Sk

wistful feeling of having missed out following these results. i guess i was just playing sensi soccer and football manager constantly on the amiga at this point, probably civ games. looking at the box art is terrific tho, totally transports me back to having to wait months to get a game, going into the shop every week and looking at the back of the box, expectations spiralling out of control. sort of similar now in a way, many of these i think i want to grab on an emulator but inevitably will disappoint.

Gonna post a little different today, since I have a lot to do not at the computer I'm going to to a little "sprint" every hour or so of like 8 things in rapid successiun.

http://i.imgur.com/LMzTg6y.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/RmUZu1a.jpg
47 - Shining Force 2 - 64 points / 2 Votes

oh man slow down on these if you're under any pressure at all! i for one won't even have a chance to respond to anything more til the end of the day so less of a deluge works fine on the reader's end too. just sayin'! i know i post something like this on every poll and i'm probably in the minority.

http://i.imgur.com/ueYupJN.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/1arJ6ac.jpg
46 - Harvest Moon - 64 points / 5 Votes

nah it's just that later today I'll need to run some errands so it'll get a little clustery

^also this game is for "city kids of all ages" lol

http://i.imgur.com/g4OLo2h.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/30KgQZq.jpg
45 - Revenge of Shinobi - 66 points / 2 Votes

http://i.imgur.com/OrWXEGb.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/FC0q8CB.jpg
42 - Super Street Fighter II + Turbo - 67 points / 3 Votes

i didn't play Harvest Moon til emu days. which, given its VERY late release on the SNES (1997 in north america!), isn't actually such a long gap - maybe two or three years! anyway, i gave it a vote as i remember sinking a surprising amount of time into what was really a fairly pointless time-waster. the aesthetic is very soothing, and as many, many facebook-era games have discovered, there is a really addictive satisfaction in watching your little farm gradually grow more, and more, and more productive.

in that sense it's really descended from, idk, simcity or something like that. few pre-digital experiences scratch exactly this same itch. maybe like collecting baseball cards or something. when i began, this binder was all empty plastic sleeves, but now, look! and tomorrow, more! more! model train sets and things like that also involve boundless imagination of what will soon be filling out the landscape, though there you're engaged much more creatively in what will happen. anyway it's an important genre, for better or worse, and at least this one makes it all kind of cute and sweet. glancing at wikipedia it seems there was a lot of the game i never really saw - "after an earthquake or lightning strike, for example, the player can meet the "Harvest Sprites" who live in tunnels under the farm." wow!

http://i.imgur.com/7W87jHO.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/DIgvIfm.jpg
42 - Flashback - 67 points / 3 Votes

for harvest moon fans, stardew valley just got a new update this week.

played super street fighter ii a bit in the arcades - basically just enough to check out the new characters, really. it was a full two years past the first game's release and while it was a classic the whole thing was wearing a little thin for me. never played any of the later ones more than once, though i was glad they kept the cartoon 2D style alive. had there been one of that style on the N64 i would have been super interested (and frankly i bet it would have helped that system a lot but that's hindsight).

tried to play flashback during the voting for this poll and could barely get past the first screen. maybe i was missing something but the control scheme seemed REALLY sluggish and non-intuitive.

ah the memories brought back by that shinobi box art make me wish i'd voted for it. i don't think i ever got very far though - was it very difficult or was i just very bad?

and v nice re flashback though again i don't think i ever got past that 'death tower' stage. i am probably just very bad

like c'mon guys prince of persia already solved the basic mechanics of this genre years ago, just do that. it felt like all the bad no-name platformers for the NES where you're like, man, couldn't they just reverse-engineer the control/movement from super mario bros.?

http://i.imgur.com/76VtIY6.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/N3roL6P.jpg
42 - Phantasy Star IV: The End of the Millennium - 67 points / 3 Votes

iirc yes flashback's controls are quite rough, a lot of emphasis on being pixel perfect for things that seem like they should be simple

http://i.imgur.com/LtcSRRZ.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/Dt1GXon.jpg
41 - Breath of Fire - 69 points / 3 Votes

http://i.imgur.com/3iwBPOS.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/53JRc0g.jpg
40 - Streets of Rage II - 70 points / 3 Votes

NOW YOU'RE PLAYING WITH FIRE. SUPER FIRE.

damn that blurb is violent

love the back of the BoF box. one dinky screenshot, set inside what was already by then a fairly old-fashioned-looking TV, then a semi-liefeldian drawing of like a lion man. amazing it sold any copies at all.

as for SoR2 yeah wow, what a blurb. also i don't remember fighting baseball bat guys with DON'T WALK signs for heads, but that would have certainly made for a fun game.

http://i.imgur.com/1r0g39r.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/KmuZ17i.jpg
38 - SimCity - 70 points / 4 Votes

Amazing game. I think people are still trying to find a foolproof no-cheat way to get to 999,999 population.

http://i.imgur.com/ryvPHFr.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/31zlIoV.jpg
38 - Gunstar Heroes - 70 points / 4 Votes

i guess i never read the sim city box because i remember being amazed and horrified when bowser turned up to destroy my precious city

http://i.imgur.com/y2gY8qM.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/dYnCwuo.jpg
37 - NBA Jam Tournament Edition - 77 points / 5 Votes

ah the memories brought back by that shinobi box art make me wish i'd voted for it. i don't think i ever got very far though - was it very difficult or was i just very bad?

it's tough, definitely requires some memorization. there is an infinite shirukens cheat that is a big help. you go to the menu, dial down the number to 00, and wait 10-15 seconds until it changes to an infinity symbol. this is extra helpful bc of the spinning attack you can do if you attack after double jumping, you throw a half dozen in a semi-circle, which is a really good strategy particularly for bosses.

Revenge of Shinobi really is something else. the music of course is insanely cool. the levels are really crazy. i have a soft spot for the sort of impossible techno-fortresses these games specialize in from time to time. there is a great and very challenging level where you are running alongside a highway and have to jump on and off of it (only red cars hit you). while you are doing this there are nuns that walk into frame, throw off their habits to reveal they are ninjas, and attack you. so so cool.

last but not least are the many IP-infringing bosses in this game, from Spider-Man to The Terminator. this game is schoolyard rumors come to life. at one point you face off against Godzilla.

Phantasy Star IV was really well done imo and i prefer it to any other 16-bit RPG outside of FFVI. really love the more anime style of it all, robot with cat ears and all.

Gunstar Heroes is just non-stop WTF but it can get extremely challenging. i remember getting stuck on the dice rolling level and just feeling like i was in hell. great two-player game! reason enough to check out anything else Treasure ever made.

Gonna post a couple more and then go out to take care of errands, the second half will be like an hour or two later

http://i.imgur.com/M2pIg3g.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/DfqowIn.jpg
36 - Super Mario All-Stars - 78 points / 3 Votes

^obviously unimaginably classic but it didn't feel right to be voting for a compilation of previous generation games (nicely touched up tho they may be)

http://i.imgur.com/XB3DHJX.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/DLxOoQg.jpg
35 - Rock n Roll Racing - 79 points / 4 Votes

http://i.imgur.com/9rxMPL2.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/GWdkqJ7.jpg
34 - Crusader of Centy (aka Soleil) - 80 points / 2 First-place votes / 2 Votes

^Had to double-check this one... two first-place votes, zero other votes. some people love this! and some people like me had never heard of it!

http://i.imgur.com/pyqxm3X.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/pyqxm3X.jpg
33 - Langrisser II - 81 points / 3 Votes

hmm

http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/langrisser/langrisser2-md.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/rU4qDwG.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/iyjOfsK.jpg
32 - Earthworm Jim - 86 points / 6 Votes

Ok break time! To be continued in a couple of hours.

i'm sorry i didn't vote in this! my few attempts at a ballot were pretty pathetic and i didn't wanna do what i did in the NES poll and vote for a bunch of PC games whose ports i hadn't played. kept telling myself i'd brush up via emus but never did :(

just wanna say contra 3 is a great co-op experience and has a surprising variety of levels, some of which (crawling around in zelda-style single-plane movement clinging to the superstructure of a skyscraper?) i almost feel like i must have made up

def wanna hear from the crusader of centy crew

thought at first that was orig street fighter 2 at 42 and was like wtf even i know that's wrong

harvest moon
- only played this in the emulator days. i think i remember considering renting it but the idea of a farming simulator just seemed awful. turns out the game is very, very addicting, and it made my top 10. it still holds up, too! the ps4 release of stardew valley is the most anticipated release of the season for me, i can't wait.

super street fighter II
- which new character was your favorite: dee jay, cammy, t. hawk, or fei-long?? i'm guessing none of them were, which is why this was a somewhat disappointing release for me at the time despite it refining what were already excellent mechanics. i guess a lot of people consider SSFIITurbo to be the definitive street fighter of the era (like people who are really into competitive fighting games and can pull off enormous combos at will, i mean) because of that, but i was more of a Top 20 Player on my Block kind of kid, so i was happy just sticking with regular ol' turbo.

flashback
- the controls were awful, but at the time i remember thinking they were really realistic, both in terms of animation and the feeling of real weight and momentum. mario had a great feeling of weight/momentum as well, but it was much more videogamey and floaty (and AWESOME). flashback felt like you were put in the shoes of a dude with below-average athleticism, thrown into a bizarre situation. despite renting it a few times, i never got very far at all. i suck at adventure puzzle games in general though so ymmv.

breath of fire
- i really need to play this. or was it a sequel that everyone loves? i'll wait til the final rundown to make a decision, but i've never played any of them.

simcity2000
- so classic. and surprisingly playable for a console port! bonus contemporaneous PC gamer review scan: http://dl.pcgamer.com/pcgarchive/SimCity2000.jpg

NBA Jam T.E.
- i feel like i spent many, many hours with this game, but it didn't really leave any lasting effect on me other than knowing all the announcer slogans by heart. it was fun! was it a dream?

super mario allstars
- like merseydeux said, this is obviously an amazing collection, and they did add important useful things (like being able to save), but i didn't feel right voting for NES-era games. i really need to go back and beat all the lost levels, i'm not sure i ever did!

rock n roll racing
- i haven't played this! it's definitely on my list. paranoid! highway star! born to be wild (my first ever memory as a human being)! bad to the bone...god i fucking hate that song. i'll give it a shot!

earthworm jim
- this game (and the sequel) was immensely enjoyable when it was released, but like battletoads, i just suck way too bad it these days. i miss my young adult motor skills, they were great there for a while.

actionbutton review really making secret of evermore sound like some sort of grail

what the hell is Crusader of Centy

Rock'n'Roll Racing is THE shit. Let the carnage begin!

sim city would be a way better game if you could play as mayor mike haggar

Man I fucking hated Super Mario All-Stars. It was like if they took all the Beatles albums and remixed them with cheesy 80s production.

I'm bback for a few mins! Five more now, ten more later tonight!

http://i.imgur.com/SHdR1UJ.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/GMP2aar.jpg
31 - Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow - 87 points / 4 Votes

http://i.imgur.com/zFjOFMG.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/wlBxrYI.jpg
30 - Sonic & Knuckles (and Sonic 3 + Knuckles) - 87 points / 1 First-place vote / 4 Votes

http://i.imgur.com/tIO9tqr.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/x4E5id4.jpg
29 - Castlevania: Rondo of Blood - 94 points / 1 First-place vote / 3 Votes

http://i.imgur.com/hxwvaEP.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/INH8ssX.jpg
28 - Mega Man X - 99 points / 8 Votes

http://i.imgur.com/bM5CbYP.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/49QwYLn.jpg
27 - Pilotwings - 100 points / 4 Votes

super street fighter II
- which new character was your favorite: dee jay, cammy, t. hawk, or fei-long?? i'm guessing none of them were, which is why this was a somewhat disappointing release for me at the time despite it refining what were already excellent mechanics. i guess a lot of people consider SSFIITurbo to be the definitive street fighter of the era

yes the mew characters were disappointing. i had the PC release of Super Street Fighter II Turbo (god i love that long ridiculous name) and it was easily one of the best arcade to PC ports ever.

Rondo of Blood - what can you say? from those german-language anime cutscenes in the intro, you know you are in for a treat. featuring glorious 16-bit CD synth arrangements of the always baroque and flashy Castlevania music style. feels more than ever like prog rock. gameplay is incredible, love the hold-the-whip-button-and-you-are-moonwalking mechanic. level design is very cool and very classic. i always thought Super Castlevania IV was too muddy and dis-proportioned compared to the older games but this feels like a proper sequel to Castlevania 3 (or Simon's Quest, given that it re-creates a town from it on fire in the first level). Maria is a cool character too. what other games can you throw an attack cat at a skeleton? the double jump is a lot of fun too. i don't mind the added anime flavor, it kind of goes with the music and the art design, bringing the Castlevania series from straight gothic horror closer to dark fantasy.

http://i.imgur.com/sjescuC.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/sIQFe4q.jpg
26 - Legend of the Mystical Ninja - 101 points / 4 Votes

recently i saw my uncle, who i hadn't seen in a really long time, and out of nowhere at dinner he said "what was that old game you used to play all the time? all you would do is skydive and refuse to deploy the parachute, and laugh and laugh as you crashed into the ground." eventually, after beating pilotwings about 100 times (it was a launch title, i think, and one of two SNES games i had for several months), that's what it became to me. just a ridiculous stuntgame, trying to make perfect human-shaped silhouette holes in the landscape in particular spots after a 5,000 foot descent.

very underrated part of pilotwings was the rocket launcher mission (?!?!?!) you had to do after proving your mettle in recreational sports (?!?!?!). "now that you have mastered the hang glider, you are ready to murder dozens of people with this rocket launcher. good luck!"

lol yes, good to have a game that let our young selves act out gruesome suicidal ideations.

iirc the rocket launcher mission was in an assault helicopter? v fashionable in that gulf war pt. 1 era

top 25 begin now!

http://i.imgur.com/zdG4el8.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/oFRDXc8.jpg
25 - Another World/Out Of This World - 101 points / 1 First-place vote / 4 Votes

http://i.imgur.com/AKvzPhN.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/4QRjlGC.jpg
24 - NBA Jam - 113 points / 5 Votes

Looks like a classic victim of vote-splitting. Only one person put both games on their ballot, and I think it would've made top 10-15 combined.

Btw we are about to enter some serious stone-cold classic territory.

http://i.imgur.com/fwK7Uj0.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/J2kv9wA.jpg
23 - Donkey Kong Country 2 - 115 points / 5 Votes

http://i.imgur.com/5LfNnoy.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/caJPchV.jpg
22 - Super Mario Land - 118 points / 5 Votes

http://i.imgur.com/Pe2TmqS.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/XtWLKhT.jpg
21 - Super Castlevania IV - 121 points / 5 Votes

wtf just #21 this is an outrage

http://i.imgur.com/WSCKnff.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/2IRw30j.jpg
20 - Sonic The Hedgehog - 128 points / 7 Votes

http://i.imgur.com/azEpDw0.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/UJb4sdF.jpg
19 - Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars - 129 points / 7 Votes

i used to love super mario rpg

only game i actually replayed a few times

normally the box art is so much more inspiring than the game but that dynamic seems flipped on gunstar heroes.

http://i.imgur.com/dUQ8MtW.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/3IBIscB.jpg
18 - ToeJam & Earl - 136 points / 6 Votes

Speaking on uninspiring box art...

(that was in ref to TJ & Earl)

http://i.imgur.com/HXKUOIe.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/7ZvJ9d2.jpg
17 - Sonic the Hedgehog 2 - 161 points / 9 Votes

SONIC AND "TAILS" TEAM UP!

That's it for today... the top 16 (see what i did there lol) tomorrow!!!

Recap in my next post, followed by my thoughts in the post after since I was kinda doing 20 things at once while posting so I wasn't sharing my feelins

17 - Sonic the Hedgehog 2 - 161 points / 9 Votes
18 - ToeJam & Earl - 136 points / 6 Votes
19 - Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars - 129 points / 7 Votes
20 - Sonic The Hedgehog - 128 points / 7 Votes
21 - Super Castlevania IV - 121 points / 5 Votes
22 - Super Mario Land - 118 points / 5 Votes
23 - Donkey Kong Country 2 - 115 points / 5 Votes
24 - NBA Jam - 113 points / 5 Votes
25 - Another World/Out Of This World - 101 points / 1 First-place votes / 4 Votes
26 - Legend of the Mystical Ninja - 101 points / 4 Votes
27 - Pilotwings - 100 points / 4 Votes
28 - Mega Man X - 99 points / 8 Votes
29 - Castlevania: Rondo of Blood - 94 points / 1 First-place votes / 3 Votes
30 - Sonic & Knuckles (and Sonic 3 + Knuckles) - 87 points / 1 First-place votes / 4 Votes
31 - Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow - 87 points / 4 Votes
32 - Earthworm Jim - 86 points / 6 Votes
33 - Langrisser II - 81 points / 3 Votes
34 - Crusader of Centy (aka Soleil) - 80 points / 2 First-place votes / 2 Votes
35 - Rock n Roll Racing - 79 points / 4 Votes
36 - Super Mario All-Stars - 78 points / 3 Votes
37 - NBA Jam Tournament Edition - 77 points / 5 Votes
38 - Gunstar Heroes - 70 points / 4 Votes
38 - SimCity - 70 points / 4 Votes
40 - Streets of Rage II - 70 points / 3 Votes
41 - Breath of Fire - 69 points / 3 Votes
42 - Phantasy Star IV: The End of the Millennium - 67 points / 3 Votes
42 - Flashback - 67 points / 3 Votes
42 - Super Street Fighter II + Turbo - 67 points / 3 Votes
45 - Revenge of Shinobi - 66 points / 2 Votes
46 - Harvest Moon - 64 points / 5 Votes
47 - Shining Force 2 - 64 points / 2 Votes
48 - Micro Machines - 63 points / 3 Votes
48 - ActRaiser - 63 points / 3 Votes
50 - Zombies Ate My Neighbors - 61 points / 4 Votes
51 - Streets of Rage III - 61 points / 3 Votes
52 - Front Mission - 57 points / 2 Votes
53 - Shining Force - 56 points / 2 Votes
54 - Tetris Attack / Panel de Pon - 54 points / 3 Votes
55 - Final Fantasy V - 54 points / 2 Votes
56 - Contra 3: The Alien Wars - 53 points / 4 Votes
57 - Super Empire Strikes Back - 51 points / 3 Votes
58 - Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse - 50 points / 3 Votes
59 - Secret of Evermore - 50 points / 2 Votes
60 - Kirby's Dream Land - 48 points / 2 Votes
61 - Shadowrun - 47 points / 3 Votes
62 - Shinobi III - 47 points / 2 Votes
63 - Road Rash II - 46 points / 2 Votes
64 - E.V.O. The Search for Eden - 45 points / 2 Votes
65 - Super Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins - 44 points / 1 First-place votes / 2 Votes
66 - UN Squadron - 44 points / 2 Votes
66 - ToeJam & Earl in Panic on Funkatron - 44 points / 2 Votes
68 - Cannon Fodder - 43 points / 3 Votes
69 - Wonder Boy V: Monster World III - 43 points / 2 Votes
69 - Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen - 43 points / 2 Votes
69 - Castlevania: Bloodlines - 43 points / 2 Votes
72 - Nobunaga's Ambition - 42 points / 2 Votes
72 - Final Fantasy IV (II) - 42 points / 2 Votes
74 - On the Ball - 40 points / 1 First-place votes / 1 vote
75 - Mortal Kombat 2 - 40 points / 2 Votes
76 - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time - 38 points / 2 Votes
77 - Final Fight - 38 points / 1 vote
77 - Rings of Power - 38 points / 1 vote

Sonic the Hedgehog 1 & 2 were games I always had to play at someone else's house. I never had a Genesis, but my cousin did (who lived with my grandma) so probably 90% of the Sonic I played was there. Those, and Aladdin. On a giant old tube TV she had. I remember being really stressed out by the drowning mechanic. More than most other games I can even remember.

Super Mario Land was one of the first games I had for the GB (and one of the only ones for a really long time). I have no idea how long it took me to beat but in my memory it was years. The SML games are vastly underrated/underrepresented in the zillions of remakes I find, I really miss having that "superball" 45 degree angle projectile attack. And the music!!

Donkey Kong Country 2 - All three of these games really. Wow. Really came out at a time that was post-secrets in a way, where you could find out about most secrets pretty early on if you were interested enough (magazines and maybe even early internet for me). But there were still moments where I found things through my own exploration and it felt like I was the only person in the world who knew about them.

NBA Jam 1 & TE (& Hangtime) - The game mechanic for this was fun enough but it was never A+. There were easy ways to force turnovers (if you hit turbo and shove at jsut the right time on a pass inbound, you could knock them down every time), but what really made it special was the presentation. Trying to see all of the different jams was the best part. And the voice!

Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow - TOO LOW! One of the best games ever made. Once I was done with it, I started playing competitively with my friends, and we all picked our teams and printed little posters, and nobody was allowed to have the same Pokemon as anyone else (which was bullshit since I got the game last, so the starters, the legendaries and mewtwo were off bounds). In fact, I'm gonna look up a tier lsit now and see if I can remember my old team. Marowak, Magneton, Golduck, Hitmonchan I think?, and nope, can't remember the other two. All "low-tier." No wonder I never won.

Rock n Roll Racing - one fo the first games i played a LOT of on emulator, dunno how far I ever got but I felt like I got pretty far... loved the level-up mechanics in this one. At the time. Idk if they held up.

Super Mario All-Stars - don't think I voted for it, for reasons noted above... they're Nintendo games, which made it easy to cut it (on a ballot that needed a LOT of cuts). Since I didn't have a Nintendo, though, this is mostly how I played these games. SMB2 in particular I don't think I had EVER played, and it is DOPE.

Super Street Fighter II + Turbo - I, for one, loved the new chracters. I primarily played T-Hawk when my friend got this, Deejay sometimes, and in later games (Alpha 3 I think? Or another? I forget), Fei Long. I can't do Street Fighter anymore because proficiency has all but ruined it -- everyone's either too good, or too bad -- but I miss the days of the old Red-Queen days of constant improvement simultaneous with friends. Before the Internet ruined it for all of us, you know.

Harvest Moon - another one I played via emu a lot, this game made me feel very chill and I loved it. I remember NOTHING though.

Games I am reminded I have to play, or have learned I have to play from today's list: Toejam & Earl(s), Seven Stars RPG, Langrisser II, Crusader of Centy, Streets of Rage 1/2/3, Phantasy Star IV

Breath of Fire getting more votes than Final Fantasy II is way fucked up

Maaan, I saw Super Mario Land pop up and was looking forward to the sequel's proper placement in like the top ten, having totally missed that it showed up yesterday. Bah. Guys! SML 2 is maybe my favorite old-school Mario game! You gotta check it out!

I'm guessing whoever voted for Another World hasn't played it recently. Not good. Flashback is so much better.

Just had a flashback of my own seeing that NBA Jam (aka that game my brothers played) cover for the first time in decades.

mario all-stars is a good idea but not very well-executed. strange that they put such time into redrawing all the art (which looks, y'know, fine, but somehow wrong) and then got the control so not quite right. it's not unplayable but it's strange to play a mario game that doesn't feel fine-tuned, they're normally so effortless and here somehow the little fine details are missing and it feels like playing mario through a slight delay or something.

rock n roll racing is such fun.

earthworm jim was good for a rental, and one of the best-looking (least drab) genesis games. i definitely enjoyed playing it. otoh it maybe epitomizes this whole post-Sonic tendency for your character in a platformer to take up way too much screen real estate, and for the growing number of frames in, say, a jump animation to oddly make the thing feel too smooth, like rotoscoped animation, with the effect of lowering the overall kinetic energy of bouncing around the screen. in games not themed around speed gimmicks the frustrations of this become rapidly apparent.

rondo of blood followed by megaman x is a nice sequence - two kicked-up-a-notch 16 bit re-dos of 8-bit smash series. castlevania, as in super castlevania iv, gets a massive upgrade in control which knocks off most of the bullshit parts of I and III's difficulty. the levels are gorgeous, the bosses are gorgeous. for 'classic' style castlevania this really might be the best one, depending how much you want to test yourself and find meaning in life through taking on really impossible games. when i got ahold of it in high school, i played a lot of rondo of blood, but it wasn't the kind of play where i felt pride in accomplishing anything. was just fun to see the next level. i did like unlocking maria and playing it through again with her, that was cool. anyway it's just such a great execution of a trusty formula/setting. mega man x i remember much less clearly and the differences with the NES ones are much significant. the "x" was doing a lot of the work, at the time, of convincing kids like me that it was somehow tougher and badder and all that.

i already expressed my 'another world' disappointments on the voting thread i think. great to look at, and a cool approach to storytelling that was sadly not incorporated into a better game.

sonic 2 was my sonic pick. all the sonic you really need, tbh, and has enough that improves on the first one (especially the "crouch and get the speed built up" mechanic) that you really can't make the first one the canonical pick. also the levels really evoked something for me that i can't really articulate now. not the level design but the art and names and all. sonic 3/knuckles is probably better looking (or has better gimmicky setpieces, can't remember). tails, and the comic book extended universe generally, must have launched a thosand furries. the bonus stages in this are kinda bullshit but it was satisfying as FUCK to sit down for the afternoon and nail a perfect run and get all the chaos emeralds and EARN your super sonic status.

Breath of Fire getting more votes than Final Fantasy II is way fucked up

FFII is the only one so far that I'm shocked at how low it is. Granted, FFIII is like a magnitude better, but FFII is still a pretty sweet game

I was obsessed with FFII when I was a kid. I voted for FFIII as the representative Final Fantasy, not sure it makes so much sense now. Breath of Fire wasn't a bad game, though.

Langrisser II: I voted for this one, though I wish Der Langrisser was on here. Der Langrisser had a branching storyline where you could join the antagonists which forced you to kill your old allies, or you could decide to go on your own and defeat everyone to create your own empire so you could end war and racism (the race here being demons like draculas and godzillas). It had some fun strategy elements, like a step up from the Shining Force games, and an early 90s anime aesthetic that appealed to my hopeless teenage nerd side.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnakUvv2U-Y

One thing in common I just realized between Breath of Fire and Der Langrisser was that the stories had you kill the benevolent god who were ruling the world you were playing in; at least with Der Langrisser you had to make that choice if you decided on the independent path. Not sure what Japan's deal with that theme was, but I thought it was pretty interesting when I was a kid.

oh man slow down on these if you're under any pressure at all!

for sure, I don't think I'll have time to properly comment til the weekend, feel free to draw this thing out as long as you'd like

I must at least say, as one of two Crusader of Centy votes, if you like A Link to the Past at all, gotta play Centy. It's almost a long lost Genesis-only Zelda title, only it's better than that because it's just different enough to be it's own thing. The item system is replaced with a collection of friendly animal companions! And they trail behind you two at a time and do all manner of things!

And the music!

It's got time travel too! Such a good game, so good I put it at 1 no prob, no deliberation at all

'Crusader of Centy' didn't ring any bell so I just googled it and found that its French name was 'Soleil', which was indeed a terrific game that I a) had totally forgotten about, and b) played the shit out of. I had no idea it was called CoC in the US. otherwise I would have totally voted for it!

“If you meet the Buddha, kill him" xxp

i'm v hungover so sadly will have to limit myself to say Breath of Fire fucking rules and pisses on any FF game and also

Crusader of Centy super fucking rules, if it's a Zelda-like it outplays its inspiration and sheesh is totally on the money and high five, i made it number 1 too, easy

except the desert is super aggravating but then you get to go to Heaven so it's okay

it just milks its mechanic beautifully, revisit the same places in a different time zone like Chrono Trigger, learn to talk to animals and plants and go back to all those creatures you couldn't understand earlier, helpful rabbits in your equipment pack, nicely pacifist story that comes together a treat to make you feel all guilty, best RPG no sweat

FFIV suffers from the fact that its slavishly devoted to the emotional journey of a blond jock named cecil and makes all the other characters opaque and transient. FFV otoh is fantastic for how weird and difficult it is. its hard to get lost in the game, you kind of get shoved from place to place w/o ever needing to explore much but exploring is really unpleasant. it often seems like almost every living thing in the world is trying to devour you. i think of all the early FF games its the one in which the hostility of the world map - on which each tiny clutch of houses is surrounded by wilderness teaming w/monsters - best fits the hostility of the game design. nothing is ever really explained. in order to find the rarest items and most powerful spells you have to wander w/o direction in that wilderness, risking death for uncertain and probably inessential reward.

also fwiw my vote for langrisser ii is probably really a vote for der langrisser - ive only played the saturn port which is named the former but actually a copy of the latter i think? im happy its the highest placing of the three srpgs i voted for since its definitely the best, although i had the impression that ogre battle had a stronger reputation. and was actually released in english.

I just realized that most of the ones I really cared about and gave most of my points to have already placed. Except for Sword of Vermilion which I can safely say I played more than any other pre-PS1 console game and was high on my ballot but which I've learned over time is basically just a FF clone so it probably didn't get much love here.

TOP 16 TIME

http://i.imgur.com/NLq4hJE.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/YANeJNF.jpg
16 - F-Zero - 171 points / 8 Votes

^not a goof, that is actually in the top 16

for a reason. one of the best SNES games.

http://i.imgur.com/5YQhphl.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/K00Vx4A.jpg
15 - Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening - 179 points / 9 Votes

I went back and tried to play F-Zero and I just couldn't get into it. MAybe through the lens of having played the superior SM Kart. TBH I think I even prefer Stunt Race FX over F-Zero and nobody would venture to call that a good game. Nobody but me anyway.

Also re: Link's Awakening, I am of the challopsy opinion that Zelda games just aren't very good BUT if I were going to vote for any of them it'd be Link's Awakening. I dunno if I can explain why a) i don't like these games (they just... never clicked for me? and believe me, i've tried... I think I beat LTTP, and Ocarina, and got p far in Awakening, and p far in the first one) and b) why I preferred this one. I feel like Awakening had kind of... like... more of a story? A sad story? I can't remember. I should play Majora's Mask tho.

http://i.imgur.com/T6xOiYH.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/gbjFFMs.jpg
14 - Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island - 194 points / 8 Votes

http://i.imgur.com/nSNxVW2.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/TpxAWms.jpg
13 - Donkey Kong Country - 204 points / 12 Votes

^ While I love both of these games, they feel like they are in the wrong order

http://i.imgur.com/1GnICo4.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/b9qbHc6.jpg
12 - Super Mario Kart - 204 points / 1 First-place vote / 11 Votes

i was always Yoshi.

wow super mario kart pretty low imo. will m correct that f zero lives in its shadow.

link's awakening has an eerie, melancholy vibe in locations, music, and yes, eventually, story: it's a small personal/metaphysical quest rather than an epic opportunity to save the world; the final boss shuffles through the forms of classic zelda bosses past; the "wind fish" might be link, or dreamed by link, or sharing link's dream, or something, it's pretty rad for a zelda plot

when i try to decide whether link's awakening or link to the past is better i end up stacking all that stuff ^^^ up against the guy who lives under one of the bridges in lttp

Sonic 1 > Sonic 2. Trippier bonus round.

SMK too low, game is top 3 of ALL TIME hands down

I'd have to agree with that.

but....tethering.

http://i.imgur.com/K2gAYxC.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/fMbKQds.jpg
11 - Super Bomberman - 209 points / 9 Votes

xpost i get why it's there, and it's part of why people love the game (you can be bad and still have a chance to win) but i wish they would have included an option to turn it off

wtf is tethering?

slowing down the winners and speeding up the losers to keep the race close. "rubber band" effect.

whoever is ahead gets punished by being artificially slowed down and giving everyone who's behind better items so they can catch up.
same thing happens in nba jam and other games

like i said i get why it's there and it definitely makes it a much better party game. no one wants to sit around playing with the mario kart expert who crushes everyone every single time

i just wish there was an option to turn it off

Super Bomberman caught my eye when Next Generation magazine named Super Bomberman 2 the third-greatest game of all time purely on the basis of the multiplayer game. I bought it and liked it, but I could only play two player. I didn't have enough friends.

smk's powerup ration scheme provides an interesting incentive to not always be at the head of the pack (maybe duck back a minute or so and see if you get a triple-redshell instead of another banana, then pull forward)

named Super Bomberman 2 the third-greatest game of all time purely on the basis of the multiplayer game

too low

these last few games look like something i would have chosen, with bomberman, yes, a little higher

it was an awesome party game

i never played or got into the zelda games for the gameboy though

So many times I would immediately accidentally get caught and blow myself up, and then you just have to sit there and wait for the other players to finish the game. After a while I was like fuck this!

also i played donkey kong country so much...that probably would be in my top 10

bomberman is one giant cross-generational votesplit: i've never played super bomberman 2 and i don't even know which bomberman on which system i should actually be championing. (on the NES poll i put a bomberman at #1 on principle that turned out to have no multiplayer or something.) but bomberman-the-concept is so so so good, absolutely one of the very small handful of best multiplayer games.

http://imgur.com/a/8X4B6

amazing list, changed my life, got me into so much good shit

snes super bomberman 2 rules them all dude

http://i.imgur.com/SxCohZm.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/A0LABYZ.jpg
10 - StarFox - 218 points / 9 Votes

xp to mr snrub that lsit has nhl powerplay at #40, what the

lots of fun things on that list. i had to smile and agree with marble madness at #15, although i'm sure no one else would agree today!

http://i.imgur.com/aoh2uQM.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/MgeID21.jpg
9 - Secret of Mana - 222 points / 11 Votes

that action button secret of evermore review was heavily critical of secret of mana, but secret of mana rules. i haven't played evermore, so perhaps it's even better, but that still wouldn't diminish the greatness of mana.

one key, though, is that i played through it with my sister. the multiplayer aspect of it was key.

this thread has convinced me I need an SNES emulator right now. Only ever had Genesis from this generation :(

ps I assume everyone is listening to this reading the rollout? https://nmesh.bandcamp.com/album/welcome-to-warp-zone-4-hour-vgm-mix

i bought an snes controller with a usb adapter and it works amazingly well

xp

http://i.imgur.com/9ffzNJU.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/ah7BE2Z.jpg
8 - Super Metroid - 288 points / 11 Votes

Note the point jump, getting into rarified air now

http://i.imgur.com/QVU8wJd.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/mdG4E3O.jpg
7 - Street Fighter II & SFII' Turbo - 292 points / 11 Votes

http://i.imgur.com/tjKsdvi.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/6sDnjhK.jpg
6 - Earthbound - 304 points / 3 First-place votes / 11 Votes

OHHH NOOOO

http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/mother/src/covers/eb.png

MALOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONE

sorry everyone.

Man, that Edge article has me salivating about the next generation, and it hadn't even got to the good stuff yet.

turns out that the thing i do on ilx where entire words and even parts of phrases go mysteriously missing in the middle of sentences, also happens when i fill in a spreadsheet. i tried to be careful.

*ducks*

on the plus side i think i'm going to give emulated link's awakening a try today. never owned the original gameboy, so i'm looking forward to it! also the super mario lands

play mario lands w sound on! hopefully emulator doesnt sound bad!

have tried and failed to love Super Metroid and Earthbound. i get why people like the latter and maybe i just need to get further in but it just drags for me

super metroid took me a while too but i did eventually get it

here we go... top 5 incoming!

http://i.imgur.com/yRLoL06.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/iKLBa3U.jpg
5 - Tetris - 313 points / 1 First-place vote / 13 Votes

i loved super metroid because of the mood it created

i used to play at night in the dark and loved the music

at the time, the worlds seemed so big and crazy, and the 'puzzles' were enough to keep me engaged

but i had already been a massive fan since the first nes game

http://i.imgur.com/ixBS1tV.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/ToInrAT.jpg
4 - Final Fantasy VI (III) - 371 points / 2 First-place votes / 12 Votes

I get it with FF3 but I don't GET IT get it. There are just a lot of other jRPGs I love a lot more on the SNES. then again that's a lot of nostalgia and maybe not necessarily taste? like i have a uge soft spot for illusion of gaia. is it a bad game? i can't remember!

also where did everyone go it's the final 3 soon!

still hungover :/ i feel much the same as you about the whole FF series

pretty sure i know what the top 2 are, just not the order

actually i can guess the order

This was the one with the 'opera scene'? I heard about that in hushed tones.

It is indeed. Opera scene is in a nutshell my problem with FF3; it seems like it's overreaching a bit and doesn't hit as hard for me as it seems to for everyone else.

Anyway... *DEEP BREATH BEFORE POSTING #3*

http://i.imgur.com/V4uCzDI.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/qX2XWaO.jpg
3 - Chrono Trigger - 433 points / 3 First-place votes / 14 Votes

ah i didn't realise that there were still 3 to go - thought this might be number 1. i didn't rate it that highly cos it's not my fave but i have to admire its ambition and world-building

Sometimes I feel kinda dumb because I have Tetris on my Vita like the last 20 years haven't elapsed but...c'mon, man, it's Tetris.

(Also have Chrono Trigger and FF Origins on my Vita. Taking full advantage of those graphics, dontchaknow.)

chrono trigger really should be #1

oh wait my #1 vote should be #1 but still it's one of the greatest games of all time for sure

I might spend the next week drinking heavily and playing the shit out of these games since it looks like my Disney trip is a bust. It's sort of like going on a ride, right?

(xposts since i posted #3)

Conversely, this is my numero uno. And one of my top games of all time. No matter how epic it got, the characters grounded it. They were sweet and cared about each other. (SPOILERS BEGIN HERE) And this is despite the fact that with a few exceptions (Lucca-Crono, Frog-Magus) they all met during the adventure. Also, this is something that is kind of only occurring to me now, but probably explains my love for this game: every single character in this game is lonely until they join the party. Crono is mute. Lucca is an introverted nerd. Marle is locked up in a castle, unable to have friends. Robo's a malfunctioning robot whose brothers beat him up. Frog has been turned into a monster. Ayla is the next chief, but has a hard time with sexism. Magus is misunderstood/also an asshole. Add into that a wonderful time-travel story (we saw the future! it's terrible! but we can stop it from being terrible! let's do it together by visiting cavemen, knights, and INSANE FLOATING MAGIC SECRET HISTORY RENAISSANCE TIMES!) and you get something really touching and special and it's one of the rare games that NAILS everything else. The art, the rpg elements, everything are just wonderfully tuned and presented.

It also stands as the only "multiple ending" game I've gone through many times to see the multiple endings; and I did it because I couldn't bear for the game to be over, and the thought of infinite possibilities let the game kind of live forever in my mind.

The closest this genre has ever gotten to perfect.

I haven't played thru it in years, might be time for another go-around. It's released on the Vita?

So many times I would immediately accidentally get caught and blow myself up, and then you just have to sit there and wait for the other players to finish the game. After a while I was like fuck this!

I don't remember whic one of the many Bomberman that was but I remember there was one where when you'd die you would go around the battlezone and throw bombs at the other players. That was fun.

Secret of Mana <3

p sure that was 2

Alright, let's put a bow on this! Here are number one and number two! I forgot to make joke #1/#2 so we're just DOIN' IT for real!

http://i.imgur.com/U89Fot7.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/0XDzymT.jpg
2 - Super Mario World - 473 points / 19 Votes

http://i.imgur.com/KQtwhgL.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/PN2nkeP.jpg
1 - Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past - 522 points / 3 First-place votes / 18 Votes

god just thinking about bomberman makes me want to devote my life to being a champion bomberman player

I'll post a recap later!

Can't argue with that #1

fair

forgot Zelda hadn't appeared. it's not as good as Crusader of Centy.

lttp was my #1.

chrono trigger is also either the best or second best time travel video game of all time (maybe day of the tentacle is better?)

i still have never beaten a zelda. i used to care, as recently as a few months ago, but you know what, i don't even care anymore. fuck it.

(i will still give link's awakening a go, though)

the only thing that could have improved super mario world was to make it more difficult.

i beat lttp not that long ago (maybe 5 years or so?). when i was a kid i think i got to like the 3rd or 4th dungeon in dark world before giving up. i don't think i ever beat link's awakening - i got to the end maybe but you need to open the egg with instruments or something and i didn't figure that out. i did complete the entire mini giving gifts game that starts with winning that yoshi (?) at the claw game.

it's tough to directly compare link to the past, SMW, and chrono trigger in a ranking system. all three are pinnacles of the genre, so whichever one you prefer just depends on what kind of game you prefer (super metroid, same thing)

high point of lttp besides the guy under the bridge: looking down on the lost woods from the top of death mountain. real sense of a world connected to itself, probably more so than koholint island (def more so than ocarina imo, even than the cramped but brilliant majora's)

Super Mario World is totes overrated. SMB3 with SNES graphics.

(speaking of the best time travel games xp)

SMB3 with SNES graphics would prob be better than super mario world

so, ballots in here?

Yeah, let's just use this thread for it all

STONE-COLD CLASSIC TIER
1 - Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past - 522 points / 3 First-place votes / 18 Votes
2 - Super Mario World - 473 points / 19 Votes
3 - Chrono Trigger - 433 points / 3 First-place votes / 14 Votes
4 - Final Fantasy VI (III) - 371 points / 2 First-place votes / 12 Votes
5 - Tetris - 313 points / 1 First-place votes / 13 Votes
6 - Earthbound - 304 points / 3 First-place votes / 11 Votes
7 - Street Fighter II & SFII' Turbo - 292 points / 11 Votes
8 - Super Metroid - 288 points / 11 Votes
9 - Secret of Mana - 222 points / 11 Votes
10 - StarFox - 218 points / 9 Votes
11 - Super Bomberman - 209 points / 9 Votes
12 - Super Mario Kart - 204 points / 1 First-place votes / 11 Votes
13 - Donkey Kong Country - 204 points / 12 Votes
14 - Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island - 194 points / 8 Votes
15 - Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening - 179 points / 9 Votes
16 - F-Zero - 171 points / 8 Votes
17 - Sonic the Hedgehog 2 - 161 points / 9 Votes

BELOVED TIER
18 - ToeJam & Earl - 136 points / 6 Votes
19 - Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars - 129 points / 7 Votes
20 - Sonic The Hedgehog - 128 points / 7 Votes
21 - Super Castlevania IV - 121 points / 5 Votes
22 - Super Mario Land - 118 points / 5 Votes
23 - Donkey Kong Country 2 - 115 points / 5 Votes
24 - NBA Jam - 113 points / 5 Votes
25 - Another World/Out Of This World - 101 points / 1 First-place votes / 4 Votes
26 - Legend of the Mystical Ninja - 101 points / 4 Votes
27 - Pilotwings - 100 points / 4 Votes
28 - Mega Man X - 99 points / 8 Votes
29 - Castlevania: Rondo of Blood - 94 points / 1 First-place votes / 3 Votes
30 - Sonic & Knuckles (and Sonic 3 + Knuckles) - 87 points / 1 First-place votes / 4 Votes
31 - Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow - 87 points / 4 Votes
32 - Earthworm Jim - 86 points / 6 Votes
33 - Langrisser II - 81 points / 3 Votes
34 - Crusader of Centy (aka Soleil) - 80 points / 2 First-place votes / 2 Votes
35 - Rock n Roll Racing - 79 points / 4 Votes
36 - Super Mario All-Stars - 78 points / 3 Votes
37 - NBA Jam Tournament Edition - 77 points / 5 Votes
38 - Gunstar Heroes - 70 points / 4 Votes
38 - SimCity - 70 points / 4 Votes
40 - Streets of Rage II - 70 points / 3 Votes

SOLID TIER
41 - Breath of Fire - 69 points / 3 Votes
42 - Phantasy Star IV: The End of the Millennium - 67 points / 3 Votes
42 - Flashback - 67 points / 3 Votes
42 - Super Street Fighter II + Turbo - 67 points / 3 Votes
45 - Revenge of Shinobi - 66 points / 2 Votes
46 - Harvest Moon - 64 points / 5 Votes
47 - Shining Force 2 - 64 points / 2 Votes
48 - Micro Machines - 63 points / 3 Votes
48 - ActRaiser - 63 points / 3 Votes
50 - Zombies Ate My Neighbors - 61 points / 4 Votes
51 - Streets of Rage III - 61 points / 3 Votes
52 - Front Mission - 57 points / 2 Votes
53 - Shining Force - 56 points / 2 Votes
54 - Tetris Attack / Panel de Pon - 54 points / 3 Votes
55 - Final Fantasy V - 54 points / 2 Votes
56 - Contra 3: The Alien Wars - 53 points / 4 Votes
57 - Super Empire Strikes Back - 51 points / 3 Votes
58 - Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse - 50 points / 3 Votes
59 - Secret of Evermore - 50 points / 2 Votes
60 - Kirby's Dream Land - 48 points / 2 Votes
61 - Shadowrun - 47 points / 3 Votes
62 - Shinobi III - 47 points / 2 Votes
63 - Road Rash II - 46 points / 2 Votes
64 - E.V.O. The Search for Eden - 45 points / 2 Votes
65 - Super Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins - 44 points / 1 First-place votes / 2 Votes
66 - UN Squadron - 44 points / 2 Votes
66 - ToeJam & Earl in Panic on Funkatron - 44 points / 2 Votes
68 - Cannon Fodder - 43 points / 3 Votes
69 - Wonder Boy V: Monster World III - 43 points / 2 Votes
69 - Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen - 43 points / 2 Votes
69 - Castlevania: Bloodlines - 43 points / 2 Votes
72 - Nobunaga's Ambition - 42 points / 2 Votes
72 - Final Fantasy IV (II) - 42 points / 2 Votes
74 - On the Ball - 40 points / 1 First-place votes / 1 Vote
75 - Mortal Kombat 2 - 40 points / 2 Votes

FOND MEMORIES TIER
76 - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time - 38 points / 2 Votes
77 - Final Fight - 38 points / 1 Vote
77 - Rings of Power - 38 points / 1 Vote
79 - Streets of Rage - 36 points / 2 Votes
79 - Haunting starring Polterguy - 36 points / 2 Votes
81 - Sword of Vermilion - 36 points / 1 Vote
82 - Bahamut Lagoon - 34 points / 1 Vote
82 - Beyond Oasis/The Story of Thor - 34 points / 1 Vote
84 - Golden Axe - 33 points / 3 Votes
85 - Killer Instinct - 33 points / 2 Votes
85 - Mortal Kombat - 33 points / 2 Votes
87 - Demon's Crest - 32 points / 1 Vote
88 - Mario Paint - 30 points / 2 Votes
88 - Terranigma - 30 points / 2 Votes
90 - Lemmings - 30 points / 1 Vote
91 - Parodius - 28 points / 2 Votes
91 - Dragon Quest V - 28 points / 2 Votes
93 - Gargoyle's Quest - 28 points / 1 Vote
94 - Gradius 3 - 27 points / 2 Votes
95 - Landstalker - 26 points / 1 Vote
96 - NHL 96 - 25 points / 2 Votes
97 - Super Off Road - 24 points / 2 Votes
97 - Soul Blazer - 24 points / 2 Votes
99 - Pyramid Magic - 24 points / 1 Vote
99 - Bomberman '94 - 24 points / 1 Vote
99 - Lost Vikings - 24 points / 1 Vote
102 - Desert Strike - 23 points / 2 Votes
103 - Final Fantasy Legend - 22 points / 2 Votes
104 - Monster World IV - 22 points / 1 Vote

ALSO REMEMBERED TIER
105 - Madden NFL '94 - 21 points / 1 Vote
105 - Metal Slug - 21 points / 1 Vote
105 - Psycho Pinball - 21 points / 1 Vote
105 - Super Return of the Jedi - 21 points / 1 Vote
105 - Super Star Wars - 21 points / 1 Vote
105 - Thunderforce IV - 21 points / 1 Vote
105 - Pop'n Twinbee - 21 points / 1 Vote
105 - Super Double Dragon - 21 points / 1 Vote
105 - Dune: The Battle for Arrakis - 21 points / 1 Vote
114 - Romance of the Three Kingdoms IV: Wall of Fire - 20 points / 2 Votes
115 - Xenon 2: Megablast - 20 points / 1 Vote
115 - Tails Adventure - 20 points / 1 Vote
115 - Kirby Super Star a.k.a. Kirby's Fun Pack - 20 points / 1 Vote
118 - Illusion of Gaia - 18 points / 1 Vote
118 - Yoshi's Safari - 18 points / 1 Vote
118 - Aladdin - 18 points / 1 Vote
121 - Ecco The Dolphin - 16 points / 1 Vote
121 - Aerobiz - 16 points / 1 Vote
121 - Lemmings 2: The Tribes - 16 points / 1 Vote
121 - Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 - 16 points / 1 Vote
121 - Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday - 16 points / 1 Vote
126 - Umihara Kawase - 12 points / 1 Vote
127 - Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon: Another Story (Angel) - 10 points / 1 Vote
127 - Super Punchout - 10 points / 1 Vote
127 - General Chaos - 10 points / 1 Vote
127 - Aero the Acrobat - 10 points / 1 Vote
127 - Earthworm Jim 2 - 10 points / 1 Vote
127 - Lufia II - 10 points / 1 Vote
133 - Comix Zone - 8 points / 2 Votes
134 - Star Ocean - 8 points / 1 Vote
134 - ActRaiser 2 - 8 points / 1 Vote
136 - Populous - 6 points / 1 Vote
136 - Sparkster - 6 points / 1 Vote
138 - Subterrania - 4 points / 1 Vote
138 - Jungle Strike - 4 points / 1 Vote
138 - Kid Chameleon - 4 points / 1 Vote
141 - Wings of Wor / Gynoug - 2 points / 1 Vote
141 - Sim Ant - 2 points / 1 Vote
141 - Metal Warriors - 2 points / 1 Vote
141 - Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts - 2 points / 1 Vote

I reckon I was the only voter the Landstalker

xp confirmed

Only game that I actually skipped sleep entirely for.

i beat a link to the past like a dozen times when it was released

because each time i wanted to find all the hearts

i totally do no get super mario world being in second place

for what it stands for, maybe placed at #5 would make sense, but even then, i think i finished it once and never really wanted to play it again even though they changed the worlds a bit to get you to play it again

Noodle Vague's best 4th Gen Console Games - in descending order

1. [G] Crusader of Centy (aka Soleil)
2. [G] Rings of Power
3. [S] Breath of Fire
4. [S] Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
5. [G] Shining Force
6. [S] Super Mario World
7. [S] Super Mario All-Stars
8. [G] Road Rash II
9. [S] Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars
10. [G] ToeJam & Earl in Panic on Funkatron
11. [S] SimCity
12. [S] Chrono Trigger
13. [G] Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday
14. [G] Sonic the Hedgehog 2
15. [SG] NBA Jam
16. [SG] Cannon Fodder
17. [S] Harvest Moon
18. [S] Earthbound
19. [S] Parodius
20. [G] Golden Axe

Oh man Gargoyle's Quest didn't get any love either

My own ballot, bold didn't place:
1. Chrono Trigger
2. Earthbound
3. Front Mission
4. Bahamut Lagoon
5. Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow
6. Super Mario Land
7. UN Squadron
8. Super Mario World
9. E.V.O. The Search for Eden
10. Mortal Kombat 2
11. Rock n Roll Racing
12. Illusion of Gaia
13. Tetris
14. Final Fantasy Legend
15. Super Mario Kart
16. Donkey Kong Country 2
17. NBA Jam Tournament Edition
18. Haunting starring Polterguy
19. Subterrania
20. Harvest Moon

yeah i've beaten lttp countless times. don't even want to think about it really. mordy i wonder if you got stuck in the ice palace, that's the hard one imo.

here's mine - not sure why i included sim ant except to pad out my ballot:

[S] Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
[S] Chrono Trigger
[S] ActRaiser
[S] Super Mario World
[SG] NBA Jam
[b] Tetris
[S] Pilotwings
[S] Donkey Kong Country
[SG] Lost Vikings
[b] Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening
[SG] Super Off-Road
[S] Aladdin
[b] Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3
[S] Secret of Mana
[S] Killer Instinct
[G] Golden Axe
[S] ActRaiser 2
[SG] Earthworm Jim
[G] Sonic the Hedgehog
[S] Sim Ant

lol i only played sim ant on pc but loved it obsessively even tho it was broken. the manual was in two parts: the manual, and then a longer section that was just ant facts. to this day i know a lot about ants.

after each beating it did get easier for whatever that's worth

i would rush through things and by the third time you'd get a nice routine going and just focus on hunting for heart pieces or talking to the right dudes in the right order to help you move along faster

that's in reference to lttp btw

Oh shit, how did I forget to vote for Ecco the Dolphin?!?! Loved that game!

I'll post my ballot as soon as I'm somewhere other than my stupid Gmail-blocking workplace.

also forgot to vote for ecco tho i think i liked the album more <joekz>

ha, my vote got On the Ball in juuuuuust ahead of Mortal Kombat II. no regrets.

games that deserved better:

94 - Gradius 3 - 27 points / 2 Votes (i should have voted for this, given the amount of time i spent playing it...wait a second, WHERE THE FUCK IS SUPER R-TYPE? NO ONE voted for it!?!?! that game is amazing, we have all sinned)
97 - Super Off Road - 24 points / 2 Votes (holds up very well even today, multiplayer esp. but even single-player)
127 - Super Punchout - 10 points / 1 Vote (!!!!!!!! i'm the only person who voted for this? are you all fucking insane??)

my ballot, SNES-exclusive, sorry

1. [S] On the Ball
[S] Secret of Mana
[S] Tetris Attack / Panel de Pon
[SG] Street Fighter II & SFII' Turbo
[SG] Another World/Out Of This World
[S] Final Fantasy VI (III)
[S] Harvest Moon
[S] Super Mario World
[S] Super Mario Kart
[S] Earthbound
[SG] Earthworm Jim
[S] Pilotwings
[S] StarFox
[S] Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island
[S] Donkey Kong Country
[S] Super Punchout
[S] Super Metroid
[S] Gradius 3
[SG] Super Off Road
20. [S] Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars

KM iirc you were a big marble madness stan too?

wait, i did vote for gradius 3. phew.

but still, super r-type was the superior game, i think. zero votes is terrible.

shooters just not my bag

i'm a huge marble madness fan (in fact, i was slow to this thread the last hour or so because i watching this excellent talk by the creator: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/184925/Video_The_making_of_1984s_Marble_Madness.php), but it didn't come out for SNES and i didn't play the game boy or genesis ports.

127 - Super Punchout - 10 points / 1 Vote (!!!!!!!! i'm the only person who voted for this? are you all fucking insane??)

I would have voted for the NES version for sure. I'm not sure I played the SNES one.

xp i asked bc yr #1 here seems v similar

it's true, i love marble games. nothing gets the heart going faster

[S] Super Mario Kart
[S] Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
[gb] Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening
[gb] Tetris
[SG] Street Fighter II & SFII' Turbo
[S] Secret of Mana
[gb] Gargoyle's Quest
[G] Landstalker
[S] Super Castlevania IV
[S] Super Bomberman
[SG] Rock n Roll Racing
[SG] Mortal Kombat 2
[gb] Super Mario Land
[G] Sonic the Hedgehog 2
[S] Contra 3: The Alien Wars
[SG] Earthworm Jim
[G] Gunstar Heroes
[SG] NBA Jam Tournament Edition
[SG] NHL 96
[S] Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts

Bold didn't place.

I could have sworn I voted for Road Rash II. I should have voted for it.

sorry i joined this thing super late and this has probably been covered but

parodius (parodiusu da! shinwa kara owarai e) for the super famicom would've been in my top 10

as would super dodge ball for the super famicom -- kunio-kun no dodgeball da yo zennin shuugou (https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%81%8F%E3%81%AB%E3%81%8A%E3%81%8F%E3%82%93%E3%81%AE%E3%83%89%E3%83%83%E3%82%B8%E3%83%9C%E3%83%BC%E3%83%AB%E3%81%A0%E3%82%88%E5%85%A8%E5%93%A1%E9%9B%86%E5%90%88!)

that super dodge ball for the super famicom would probably be in my top 5

a few other japan-only games would make my top 10 probably

so here are some of the games i will be checking out after this poll:

21 - Super Castlevania IV - 121 points / 5 Votes (never got around to playing this one. it is time. probably not the first i'll try out on this list though)
22 - Super Mario Land - 118 points / 5 Votes (music cranked per will m's suggestion)
26 - Legend of the Mystical Ninja - 101 points / 4 Votes
29 - Castlevania: Rondo of Blood - 94 points / 1 First-place votes / 3 Votes
33 - Langrisser II - 81 points / 3 Votes
34 - Crusader of Centy (aka Soleil) - 80 points / 2 First-place votes / 2 Votes
35 - Rock n Roll Racing - 79 points / 4 Votes
41 - Breath of Fire - 69 points / 3 Votes (so the original is better than II? i don't know why i always thought the sequel was better known?)
59 - Secret of Evermore - 50 points / 2 Votes
64 - E.V.O. The Search for Eden - 45 points / 2 Votes
65 - Super Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins - 44 points / 1 First-place votes / 2 Votes

everyone who hasn't should play actraiser that game was great

you forgot Gargoyle's Quest and Landstalker xp

i'm gonna play yoshi's island (been hearing people call this a masterpiece my entire life) and i guess crusader of centy! and evermore? and secret of mana maybe finally? and

So far as I know BOF II is considered a generally better game than the original breath of fire, but it must be untrue because ILX said so

III is my fave but I couldn't remember enough about II to place it

Karl you MUST add Bahamut Lagoon if you find yourself with enough time to play through another medium-size RPG! if you ever played FF6, and remember those parts where you move your guys on a board and when they run up against another team they do a regular battle, it was kinda like that!

Nice! I will add it to the list for sure. i am unemployed right now so it might be a decent time to take one on.

my list was v canonical (bold didn't place)

1. Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
2. Super Castlevania IV
3. Super Mario World
4. Tetris
5. F-Zero
6. Super Mario Kart
7. StarFox
8. Street Fighter II & SFII' Turbo
9. Pilotwings
10. SimCity
11. Sonic the Hedgehog 2
12. Micro Machines
13. Super Mario Land
14. Streets of Rage II
15. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time
16. Earthworm Jim 2
17. Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow
18. Sparkster
19. Super Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins
20. Desert Strike

can't really remember which was part of which earthworm jim game so i should have been more strategic and thrown those few points to the first, but really it is entirely undeserving of beating pokémon. uh, even tho my own list says so

thanks again will! too bad Haunting just missed out on the top 78, another great very much slept on genesis title along with Beyond Oasis (82 woooo) and of course Crusader of Centy.

Didn't expect Link to the Past to take it all tbh but I expect all of you Zelda voters to give Centy a shot if you've got the time, if Noodle and I haven't convinced you yet I'll do my damndest when I have time to comment on the whole lot

Yoshi's Island is too low. Arguably the best platformer of the generation and certainly one of the most completely-realized in terms of control, art direction, music, level design, etc., just coming together to make something that has a complete feel. Hat is also off to Matsumoto for responding to calls for a more contemporary, polygonal type game, with maybe the most hand-drawn-looking 2D game ever made. Apart from maybe Chrono Trigger I don't think there's a better-looking game on the SNES. More importantly, it's a serious step forward from Super Mario World, which itself is basically a very pretty, perhaps slightly bigger, version of Super Mario Bros. 3.

That's not really a slight on SMW, since SMB3 is one of the most fun games ever made, but SMW's only important design contributions (and they are important) were adding the save slots, and building in the revisiting of levels by offering secret paths out, and the switch palaces to invite you to go way the heck back to stuff much earlier in the game. Yoshi's Island OTOH adds the egg-throwing mechanic (which once you get the knack feels very natural and very satisfying, especially with the bank shots) and, crucially, makes revisiting levels a huge part of gameplay as you try to max out each one and earn the secret levels that way. (Clearly it was part of the same line of thinking that was also generating Mario 64's star system around the same time.) Maybe most enjoyably, it's the first game in the series to actually feature a full complement of unique bosses, which makes you realize in hindsight what a huge lapse it was for SMB3 and SMW to rely so much on the repetitive Koopa kids and Boom Boom/Reznor. Oh, and the levels are great. I think my only real gripe with the game is everybody else's: Baby Mario is pretty annoying, but of course that just makes you want to rescue him all the more. I have to believe that if this had been the pack-in title, and SMW had been released late in the system as "More Classic Mario-Style Fun With Mario!" their positions on this list would be reversed at the least.

Super Metroid is classic obv. I actually played back through it just a few months back during a productivity trough. The great things are the things everyone always praises - the atmosphere, the control, and (ToastyFrog deserves credit for really making the case here) the show-don't-tell approach to storytelling and instruction. The only real minus is that it's not particularly challenging; I did get briefly stuck in a couple places but otherwise it foresages the difficulty curve of its grand, magisterial progeny, Symphony of the Night: with or without RPG elements the game seems to unfold just like a classic JRPG, you gain new attributes and powers just in time to need them, meaning that the increasingly creepy and unsettling depths to which you descend are rarely any harder than the place you just left. If you compare it to basically any random NES game the drop in difficulty is kind of staggering. (In particular there is almost no actual platforming in the classic sense; there are a couple areas in the water zone where a fall will really annoy you because of the long journey back up, but generally all the hand-eye coordination stuff of maneuvering around difficult terrain, dodging gaps in the blocks, all that stuff is gone and on some level it kinda feels like the whole game is walking from place to place. But what places through which to walk!

SFII, I mean what can you even say? I loved the point someone made above about how the different fighters (Ryu and Ken aside) actually do feel differently and play differently. It's the kind of game that almost works like a 'grower' album does - - - characters you initially write off as sucky do have a play style with which they're genuinely dangerous and fun to use. (I admit I never got into Zangief though.) Music and sounds are also very much on point - not just the famous speech blurts, but all the thwacks and punches really do the job. One of the most reliable pick-up-and-play two-player games out there?

FFIII's achievement is not only its staggering bigness but how much of that bigness really does feel filled-out. Most of the huge cast are interesting little 16-bit pixel characters, and nearly all have some kind of interesting play mechanic (though, in a parallel of Zangief, I pretty much wrote off Sabin's blitzes immediately and never bothered much to figure out how the fuck Relm was supposed to really work). The World of Balance twist is dope, the totally optional subquests for badass gear are super satisfying. The only thing I've ever really complained about is that, in comparison with the SoM and Chrono Trigger approach of bright, saturated, colorful art, this one has always felt pretty drab. If those games didn't exist, I would never even think of that though. Similarly, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Amano's character art, while certainly distinctive, seems to belong to a different (considerably weirder and trippier game), and then the in-game character portraits are mostly kinda lame. (Not that I think every game should have Toriyama's distractingly recognizable faces, but something a little more special-seeming than the menu portraits in this game might have been appropriate.) I'm also someone who was never in any way floored by the opera scene (though I was charmed, in the late 90s, by the MIDI 'voice' tones).

Can't say anything at all useful about the top three, but I really like Will M.'s reading of the Chrono Trigger cast. Kinda gives you, over and over, a certain special feeling of identification that I think young adult literature often likes to pay off (examples aren't coming to me just now) of the lonely nerd character discovering a place where they belong, real friends for the first time, and all while on an adventure! I don't know why exactly but I do think you're right, there is something in this game where you just unconsciously accept that these characters come to like and depend on each other as they go through this strange adventure. This is maybe oversold to a melodramatic level with regard to the lengths they go to save Chrono, and tbh somewhat undersold with Magus joining the party - you'd think there would be more chances for dialogue to show this strange alliance developing or deepening. anyway i love this game. just beautiful to be in this world. all the environments are great. and man...talk about paying off on the time-travel gimmick!

Here's my ballot. I put most Nintendo classics at the bottom to get more points towards more obscure games. Unique votes in bold.

1 SG Another World/Out Of This World
2 S Super Metroid
3 S Chrono Trigger
4 T Castlevania: Rondo of Blood
5 S Demon's Crest
6 S Final Fantasy VI (III)
7 S Super Castlevania IV
8 S Mega Man X
9 G Pyramid Magic
10 S Soul Blazer
11 g Tails Adventure
12 SG Street Fighter II & SFII' Turbo
13 SG Lemmings 2: The Tribes
14 S Dragon Quest V
15 S Umihara Kawase
S Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
b Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening
S Super Mario World
S Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island
S Super Mario Kart
I haven't finished reading the thread yet but I'll make some comments when I do.

S Earthbound
S Final Fantasy VI (III)
S Chrono Trigger
S Donkey Kong Country 2
S Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
S Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island
S Super Mario World
S Final Fantasy IV (II)
S Final Fantasy V
S Secret of Evermore
S Donkey Kong Country
S Super Mario All-Stars
b Tetris
S Dragon Quest V
b Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening
S Lufia II
S Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars
S ActRaiser
S Terranigma
S Soul Blazer

This is the era of gaming of of which I have the most fondness and emotional investment

It's weird to me that Link To The Past always tops these kinds of polls, and Zelda polls in general, as Link's Awakening is imho a better Zelda game and prob the best in the series (hardware limitations aside). LTTP is terrific of course but had so many weird lulls (the crystal monologues, Sahashrala tablets, Death Mountain in general), disappointing bosses, it's been the biggest case of diminishing returns upon replay. But it was amazing the first time!

Final Fantasy III is just wonderful on replay, it's the only game I grinded to 9999/9999 for no reason other than I couldn't let it go

Super Metroid is perfect in every way, best SNES game imo

No interest in DKC and generally find Rare (Goldeneye aside) to be the least-interesting developer with the highest rated games, their games just go clunky clunky clunk

Super Castlevania IV only flaw is that I wish it had branching paths or RPG-elements or something, it just is long long long, but every level is solid and every boss is great except for the ballroom dancing ghost duelists who I recall from the manual were named Fred A-Scare and Paula Ab-ghoul which I thought even at age 10 or whatever was a weirdly post-modern pairing. Dracula is a perfect boss. This is the best soundtrack of the era too imo.

Mega Man X is too low imo, it's pretty much a perfect platformer, and I'd see X2 in the top 75 also.

Gradius III was terrific, but had several shitty levels, from this era I preferred Nemesis for Game Boy.

Tetris was good but I prefer the N64 version "The New Tetris", those Delphine games are PC games in my head not SNES games, same for SimCity

Yoshi's Island was beautiful but clunky in control and design and I had to play it with the sound off because of Baby Mario's crying, the final boss was amazing, the Poochie levels made me want to pour water on the console and learn how to skateboard instead

Biggest omission probably because of rarity is Super Aleste/Space Megaforce, definitely emulate that guy it's so good

And the most "too low" on this list is Contra III, which is, for me, tied with Gradius V and Radiant Silvergun as Treasure's best game. It plays out like a ballet, never a repetitious moment and everything that happens is so perfectly tuned mechanically, I never get tired of playing and dying and playing and dying. Not so into the Mode 7 levels.

If I'd voted:

1. Super Metroid
2. Contra 3
3. Link's Awakening
4. Mega Man X2
5. Castlevania: Rondo Of Blood
6. Final Fantasy III
7. Space Megaforce
8. Chrono Trigger
9. Link To The Past
10. Mega Man X

except for the ballroom dancing ghost duelists who I recall from the manual were named Fred A-Scare and Paula Ab-ghoul which I thought even at age 10 or whatever was a weirdly post-modern pairing.

loving this bit so much. booo at yoshi's island control being termed 'clunky' though

agree about rare. they infuriated me in the n64 era. yelled and yelled at banjo-kazooie after getting really hyped for it as a mario64-loving kid looking for methadone. but so inelegant: so many collectibles, so many unlockables, ugh. and i'm not necc a pc snob but frankly real shooters always ruined goldeneye for me. (perfect dark tho me and a friend had a lot of fun playing through for the cinematics as much as anything. pretty good camp. unfort also one of those really late games in a console cycle that doesn't, if it's being honest, run on the console.)

also agree about contra 3 and mega man x, both beautiful games although i've only played a very little of the latter (and no other mega men).

trying out a few games tonight with the attention span that comes from having all the games you want for free.

-- dc otm that you can see the beginnings of mario64 in yoshi's island. was disappointed at first upon being confronted w a flurry of menus and explanatory dialog boxes -- that banjo-kazooie chill! -- but then they seemed to taper off and the game obv has some interesting mechanics. i like that a central one is shitting out your enemies.

-- earthbound: can def see the appeal here, the tone is very weird and neat and i appreciate the mundane setting. love your fantasy-fulfillment parents who just say you're so brave! good luck out there! take the dog! but it is kind of ugly.

-- secret of evermore: this is very interesting! as the tim rogers review says it's v much a western take on the jrpg. tone of its writing is very close to lucasarts (actually it steals a joke from monkey island in the opening five minutes) and the whole interface has clearly been designed by people who are trying hard to have good ideas. not far enough to really know how good the ideas were. very pretty tho and of course i loved its small-town movie-theater opening.

-- sonic the hedgehog 2: whee i guess

-- shining force: ha the little portraits of people you talk to are like ultima 7. bailed when a whole bunch of guys ran up to me at once and introduced themselves and joined the party, just kinda thought, idk if i'm ever gonna care about you.

-- crusader of centy: several points very early on in this (the church, the castle, the castle dungeon) are very lttp, like literally down to the curtains. heart sank when someone told me that if i got the bronze and the silver AND the gold medal at the training grounds the king would give me the magic sword. that is not as cool as a fog-filled forest. but i barely got anywhere, the animal stuff is very intriguing, and who knows maybe i'm being set up for a twist wrt the magic sword.

have tried and failed to love Super Metroid and Earthbound. i get why people like the latter and maybe i just need to get further in but it just drags for me

oh man if you think Earthbound is a slow burn wait til you play the sequel!

of course it's incredible, just like Earthbound is, it might even be better, it's the only game I've ever played that made me tear up a bit at the end

Such a good looking game tho! I just find the format of Mario games to be somewhat unexciting. The Yoshi's Island bonus levels I recall as being REALLY challenging, don't think I ever beat all of them.

Xp, I was talking about Yoshi's Island

Still haven't gotten into Earthbound, waiting for a flu or somethjng

re: Centy, yeah man it's all about the animals. you get a sword from the king sure, but it ain't magic til you get some animal friends, and they just get better and weirder as you find more and then you get friendly with a damn leviathan and it's just so much more satisfying than getting a different color sword

the earthbound combat notifications reminded me of wasteland, of all things. particularly enjoyed the useless kid whose automatic actions every round are things like "cowers sobbing" and "complains to you" and "edges closer to the King Cobra".

yeah such a fantastic, dry humor in Earthbound, I know it was for me at least but I think your experience with Earthbound depends greatly on whether or not you're playing with the "strategy guide" it was packaged with, which was more like the best instruction manual you've ever seen, with all manner of background info and lore and pictures.

AND a handy kind of "checklist" relegated to the margin you could use if you got stuck advancing the story. which didn't spoil anything and was perfect for a game that starts a litle slow

Just a PSA: Earthbound was released on the Wii U (or maybe it was the Wii) in 2013, and again on the 3DS (new 3DS only I think, because boooo Nintendo) in 2015 or 2016. This PSA is if, like me, you want to complete this game but have been burned by A.) the anti-piracy tricks they put in the game to avoid emulation and B.) borrowing the cartridge from friends in both your childhood AND adulthood multiple times, starting but never completing the game because you don't have time and eventually people get very nervous about not seeing their EB cartridge for a little while.

Will, have you tried Mother 2? Not Earthbound 2 because of course it never saw a release outside Japan on GBA but a team of gracious volunteers did a fine translation job and released it via rom a while back and it is just something else.

it isn't really a continuation in story exactly so you don't need to play any of the previous titles, and the music isn't quite as good HOWEVER! they secretly turned the combat system into a kind of rhythm game and I did not even realize how to use it (or more poetically I had not mastered my instrument) until I was mostly done with the game! and for that alone absolutely everyone must play it.

Yoshi's Island was such a masterfully made platforming game (my #2). Super unique and fun feel, amazing visual style. Nothing else on the SNES played or looked like it

Yoshi's Island was beautiful but clunky in control and design and I had to play it with the sound off because of Baby Mario's crying, the final boss was amazing, the Poochie levels made me want to pour water on the console and learn how to skateboard instead

The crying is what forced me to get good at the game, bc I got so sick of hearing it. and the music is so worth listening to too, definitely my favorite Mario soundtrack

Super Metroid was my #3, mostly on the basis that I fucking love watching speed runs of the game. The game has been broken in half by now, half the "essential" items get skipped or collected out-of-intended-order. It's pretty mindblowing

SMB3 with SNES graphics would prob be better than super mario world

― florence foster wallace (difficult listening hour)

you say that but it only charted at #36

i get that zelda and mario are going to always win out because of the nostalgia factor and people's love for the characters, but for me from a design standpoint the snes pinnacles are chrono trigger and yoshi's island. just really fabulously constructed games, though rpg-wise my fondness is for the fourth phantasy star game and lufia ii (and lufia ii is _not_ a fabulously constructed game).

i feel that had i played yoshi's island at the time it would have been a major favourite, but as it was i only played it on emulator quite a few years removed and when my enthusiasm for gaming was waning. all its qualities were evident but obvs couldn't quite strike me like smw did at age 8

What are the anti-piracy tricks in Earthbound ROMs?

The ROM was programmed to discourage piracy by including routines to add additional random enemies and delete save files before crashing near the end of the game if the cartridge was copied: http://starmen.net/mother2/gameinfo/antipiracy/

Earthbound was my favorite game from that generation, btw:

1. earthbound
2. super metroid
3. the legend of zelda: a link to the past
4. chrono trigger
5. final fantasy vi
6. super mario world
7. street fighter 2
8. terranigma
9. the legend of zelda: link's awakening
10. starfox
11. tetris
12. super mario kart
13. ecco the dolphin
14. kirby's dreamland
15. mega man x
16. secret of mana
17. another world
18. shadowrun
19. donkey kong country
20. f-zero

Will, have you tried Mother 2? (...) they secretly turned the combat system into a kind of rhythm game and I did not even realize how to use it (or more poetically I had not mastered my instrument) until I was mostly done with the game! and for that alone absolutely everyone must play it.

― erudite beach boys fan (sheesh), Friday, October 7, 2016 3:41 AM (thirteen hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I actually did try it when the patch first went out, but there was a lot of control lag on the emu I was usin which turned me off of it. Years later I actually got a cart that let me play GBA games on my DS, but the save file system was broken so I once again gave up early. One of these days I will gt around to Mother 3, and it will be awesome, but... not yet.

What are the anti-piracy tricks in Earthbound ROMs?

― Sharia Laws and Lambchop (The Yellow Kid), Friday, October 7, 2016 3:46 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It's been a while so it's hard for me to remember but depending on the ROM and the emulator I think there were a couple of no-progression points, and I heard that in one particular case you can get your save file wiped RIGHT before you beat the game, which scared me off.

xpost or yeh that

here was my list (T)-Turbografx 16 (G)-Genesis (S)-SNES (b)-Gameboy

TOP 20

(T) Castlevania: Rondo of Blood
(G) Revenge of Shinobi
(G) Streets of Rage III
(S) Legend of the Mystical Ninja
(S) Super Mario All-Stars
(S) Super Empire Strikes Back
(G) Shinobi III
(T) Bomberman '94
(G) Castlevania: Bloodlines
(G) Streets of Rage II
(S) F-Zero
(G) Gunstar Heroes
(G) Phantasy Star IV: The End of the Millennium
(S) Secret of Mana
(S) Super Castlevania IV
(b) Tetris
(S) Tetris Attack / Panel de Pon
(S) Contra 3: The Alien Wars
(S) Mega Man X
(S) Super Mario Kart

Terranigma is so cool and funky. I never got very far in it myself (I remember fighting, maybe, a bird?) but it was so fun, in high school comp sci, to periodically go around to my friend Brian's desk and see what bizarre new turns his quest to rebuild the world from scratch had taken. One day he'd be bringing back plants and animals, then you'd go by a week later and he's helping a video game developer get back on its feet.

Terranigma has one of the strangest and saddest ending sequences I can think of in games, too (although I don't think I actually cried during it, as I did with the endgame for Mother 3).

I'm playing Crusader of Centy now and this game is great. I have no idea how I haven't heard of it before.

Yeah I need to check it out too. A few friends have mentioned it over the years but I keep putting off playing it

(although I don't think I actually cried during it, as I did with the endgame for Mother 3).

and here I thought I was just some kind of weirdo, anyone else played thru Mother 3? Or, has any videogame ever elicited tears from you?

i've been re-visiting Rondo of Blood. so many things to love

- jump on/off stairs at any time by holding up. stairs always sucked in CV but w this mechanic you can just on and off them w ease.
- Super Castlevania IV might have stand-up jazz bass but this is the only Castlevania with SLAP BASS.
- amazing boss rush in stage 6, best one of the series. fighting 5 bosses from the first game? the mummy and frankenstein? yes plz.
- branching paths. every level has a secret exit and a secret boss (?) very good for replay
- that creaky door sound when you push RUN on the start screen. creeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaak. so perfect.

Is this console generation not held in as high regard as the preceding?

btw thx for a v nice poll w lots of great insights, haven't played many of these games but.... yr posts make them come alive

Yeah, great poll all around!

I think this generation is very well regarded, or at least its canon of greats is very very clear and still much-discussed everyplace. If this thread is less rambunctious than the last, that's surely a factor. This is maybe the BEST generation for certain needs, and virtually all the 2D genres which emerged in the NES era but here have their kinks mostly worn out, at least once you escape the lower tier of the usual garbage (usually better looking than the NES equivalent, tho not actually better - tbh Super Star Wars for example borderline here, it looks and sounds phenomenal but really isn't all that fun imo). There's also a demographic bubble effect of course - huge overlap with the 80s kid/millennial cohort, and the period when video game consumption as a steady, non-fad, always-been-there part of childhood took hold.

But you really can own 77 good to great games for these systems, and most are pick-up-and-play. I don't think that will be true again though just maybe sixth-gen would make it.

Pick-up-and-play is not an unalloyed positive IMO, the umbilical cord to arcades.

Nah, I dig that, and some of my enduring faves here (Zelda, the RPGs) are obviously much more serious commitments. Just, from the vantage of my mid-30s, something that has you in satisfying, rich gameplay within two minutes, that you can also set aside after thirty, has immense value. The save slots alone thus might make SMW just slightly more appealing to me than SMB3, assuming one can't emulate the latter.

SNES9x installed (and Direct X 9 installed as well), Yoshi's Island ROM downloaded, USB controller ordered. Thanks poll!

As far as this generation of consoles -- mentioned before I had a Genesis, but not SNES. That was the last console I owned until I bought an XBOX 360 a few years ago. For people of my age, I think the original NES was a bigger deal than this generation, if only because by the time SNES and Genesis happened, altho I still played games, I was frankly outgrowing that stuff in favor of, say, music and the prospect of adult-ish life.

However, I think that is entirely due to my age. Clearly this generation has tons of fans.

The NES was a bigger deal to me too, and I may have more nostalgia for a handful of games on that system than anything here, but the top 77 here just wipes the floor with the top 77 of that era. 4th gen was a huge step up in quality, building on and improving what made that generation great. I don't know if Will plans to run a 5th gen poll, but I suspect it'll have a lot less people participating - the N64, orig PS, and Sega Saturn were a big lateral shift in gameplay towards 3D, and I think the whole generation of consoles suffers from lack of polish. N64 in particular has so few good third-party games, and even some of the first-party games were not great

Well I consider the 5th and 6th generations the greatest, but I am aware there's bias there - it's the first consoles I owned.

I'm sure I'm biased as well - having grown up with the 3rd/4th gen consoles - but I do have a lot of fondness for the PS2 and Gamecube, certainly more than the PS1 and N64. By the 6th gen consoles, the 3D games were pretty much perfected, IMO. The 5th gen consoles just did not do much for me outside of Mario Kart 64 and Smash Bros

But you really can own 77 good to great games for these systems

I'd suggest you could easily own 77 good games for _either_ the SNES or Genesis. I'm not even remotely familiar with the Turbografx library as this was a thing I read about in magazines and not once saw in a store. Not much of a Zelda fun usually but Link to The Past is a definitely classic. I'd still take SMW over it (it's such a simple game on the surface but has endless replay value), and the ROM-hacking community around it is incredible. My #1 was Sonic 3 & Knuckles which I think might be under-played because it came out a little late in the cycle and having to buy two carts was a huge burden - I only ever rented Sonic & Knuckles so didn't get much time to play the locked on game as a kid but as an adult, it's fucking good, long, fun, superb soundtrack, more complex than the preceding games but also still pick-up-and-play.

Never had a Game Boy myself but its library in hindsight trounces the Game Gear - there are a few quality exclusives on the GG though - one that I highly recommend you give a go is Sylvan Tale, which is a top-down adventure in the vein of Zelda, but with the change-form gimmick of Wonderboy 3 on the SMS. Was never released in the West, but it's not accessible due to a fan translation, and it has probably my favourite 8-bit game soundtrack of all time. Oh and Sonic Triple Trouble, Tails Adventure and the two GG Shinobi entries plus GG Aleste are great but it's not a system dripping with great games that you didn't have (or couldn't have done) on the SMS, colour palette aside.

besides a couple of others that will certainly show up micro machines (well, the second one) was my favourite racing game of this era, and maybe the most fun multiplayer of all of them.

Completely missed this poll, but Micro Machines 2 would probably have been my #1.

Having 2 extra controller ports on the cartridge and then even incorporating an 8 player game where 2 people share a controller was immense fun. Possibly my favourite multiplayer game of all time.

Or, has any videogame ever elicited tears from you?

― erudite beach boys fan (sheesh), Sunday, October 9, 2016 3:09 AM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Once I cried describing something from one of the MGS games to my then-gf, i can't remember what i was explaining/which game it was tho. couldn't have been 5... probably something from 1 or 4? i think i was a bit drunk tbh

*FFIII SPOILERS*

I was very emotionally affected when Kefka poisoned the town, because I hadn't played a game where such brutality had so brazenly occurred, and then later, after exploring the train-going-to-the-underworld, when the team gets off and sees Cyan's family getting on, I felt punched in the guy and cried. The final "we love you Daddy!" line or whatever was on the nose, it wouldn't played better if they were simply silent ghosts departing the world, but that moment when I realized the game was going there was the heaviest thing I've experienced in a game

*punched in the gut, *would've played better

holding off going deep on crusader of centy until the genesis usb controller i ordered arrives. this is completely indefensible as i already have a snes controller which works just fine for genesis games but i always wanted a genesis when i was a kid, is the thing.

in the meantime i got to world 2 in yoshi's island and died at the first boss (the bug on the cover) in secret of evermore. both of these games are wonderful imo. baby mario's crying may be annoying (tho not nearly as annoying as zelda's low-hearts alarm) but he is such an original+elegant way of implementing "health", more fun (tho admittedly much more forgiving; when i actually "die" it's almost always cuz i fell off a cliff) than trad mario's power levels. (mario64's straight HP system is one of the most disappointing and unmario things about a personal canonical totem). enemy variety is terrific -- the guys w baseball bats who whack yr eggs back; the psychoactive gasbags who trip yoshi out; the guys who curl up into protective balls you can spit out as projectiles. (always loved eating things w yoshi in SMW as a kid; can't believe i missed out on being yoshi all the time.) the art has the advantage heavily stylized game art always has: it doesn't look dated. (thinking of wind waker vs. ocarina/majora's here.)

secret of evermore is like some ff-zelda-baldur's collision; i really like it. like zelda it's real-time and about swiping stuff w the B button -- but if you don't rest a few seconds between swipes you do negligible damage, so there is essentially a turns/rounds system operating (hence baldur's: it is a turn-based system disguised as a real-time one, which you can also pause at any time to target a spell or direct yr companion's attention at something etc.) all this means some interesting intricacies can be set up wrt boss timing or big multiple-enemies fights, but basic walking along and grinding plays much more like zelda than FF. arcadier. the first dungeon meanwhile was genuinely beautiful (also disgusting): it is the hollowed carapace of an enormous dead insect and you are crawling up an enormous complicated maze made of its decaying innards; as you climb bits of the maze fall away behind you, but instead of reaching dead ends you always reach a long chitinous slide back to the beginning; because the maze decays, no wrong path can be taken twice and you are certain of eventually finding your way through. thought this was a great way to design an FF-style dungeon with no switches, doors, keys, pressure plates, anything. then at the end you fight a giant grub living inside the skull, with the sun shining through empty eyes behind it (this is on both the front and back of the box so i worry it is a high point). v grateful to have learned about this game.

i think video game generations, especially of the extremely fertile 3-4-5-6 sequence, are remembered best based on when you were a kid (or rather, what you had when you were a kid -- i was usually a generation behind, a p common experience prob).

thanks again will even tho i was derelict!

btw every time we do this i make noises about doing a PC (in the literal sense not the microsoft sense, so macs included unless there is outcry) gaming poll but i never follow through. would there be interest in a 90s computer nomination thread? decades is an imperfect taxonomy as always -- secret of monkey island vs quake vs riven vs deus ex is pretty chaotic (conveniently the last infocom text adventure was in 1989, but no such luck of course w e.g. ultima) but imo like democracy everything else is worse. would choose 90s out of selfishness and because i assume the demo is bigger (since 80s kids were also 90s adults who play civ and stuff).

(whoops deus ex is 2000; thought it was 1999. anyway.)

has anyone tried emulating multiplayer games and know if you can do it by plugging in 2 usb controllers?

and i'd vote in a PC poll

yeah emulating multiplayer games is no problem for most emulators

i am totally down with PC gaming poll/series! Long ballots, please....

when Will M. first brought up reviving games as a ballot poll series (way back in january 2015! god, where is my adulthood slipping away to? seems like yesterday), I was arguing for doing PC, arcade and console all together, but with some kind of convoluted way to break up the chronology a bit. Accepting that consoles have gotten split off, I still think grouping by chronology (rather than, say, doing DOS/Windows games and then another poll for Apple/Mac) makes a lot of sense... keep stuff you might have played around the same time together in the same poll.

Decades is appealingly simple and if it's arbitrary, it's an arbitrariness handed down rather than chosen. You do end up with the problem where stuff that came out in '89 (and has way more to do with stuff from '90 and '91) ends up getting ranked against unrecognizably different stuff from '80, while on the other hand you find yourself comparing Monkey Island and Half-Life or whatever. I guess that's not such a big problem, really, and it'll always be hopeless since you're also comparing PC, Apple II, Commodore, Amiga, Mac... not to mention some wildly different genres. Could be a really cool free-for-all in the end. If it were me I'd be really tempted to do it as half-decades... but that would be a ton of work and probably just suppress turnout!

the nominations list for a decade of cross-platform PC games will prob end up, in addition to ridiculously diverse, ridiculously huge, so i get the half-decade temptation. but then yr looking at 6 big-ballot polls just to cover the "medium" to 2010 (seven if people wanna vote for colossal cave), plus yeah decreased turnout for all of them.

"dos games" is a tempting poll as it contains lots and lots of games but not unmanageably many and working w a tighter array of hardware power. but then you orphan games all over the place and leave the mac kids waiting for a promised but unguaranteed version for them, just like always.

sry for ridiculouses! just saw we've put it on the list.

agree as regards use as intensifier.

If you're playing Secret of Evermore, remember to use the L and R buttons to let the dog sniff out alchemy ingredients!

Maybe it could just be divided in two? I'm thinking again about 1995 as arbitrary cutoff- not that Win95 or Netscape were directly such watersheds for gaming (and obviously Win95 wasn't at all on non-MSDOS systems) but it just kind of sits at the right point with a lot of things changing, before vs. after - graphics technology, death of shareware, internet becoming a thing, genre shifts (death of adventure games, rise of true 3D shooters etc.). You could also go a little earlier and use MYST or something as cutoff, which might also give more space for 80s classics, I dunno... just spitballing here. It'll inevitably be a blast no matter what!

haven't checked in on this thread yet but it's awesome to see Rings of Power at the top - surprised even one other person remembers that game.

it was an obsession for me when I was in elementary school. It had to be then, because I can't imagine myself having the patience for it at any other time. Even for an RPG there was so much trial and error, so many situations where you had no clue what to do but wander around for hours and hitting the A button in various places. I later found out that the instruction booklet (which we didn't have, since we got it secondhand) contains a lot of the information you needed to beat the game. Which I eventually did, many years later.

Zombies Ate My Neighbours. Christ what a great game. I still remember the music so well.

lol frogs I was exactly the same - second hand cart, no manual, trial and error

what if for PC games you did it by genre + not by year?

When you get into PC games, the division between genres is so enormous, it's like entirely different parts of the brain are stimulated by different procedures.

I have zero tolerance for online multiplayer, and no interest in "pretty graphics" (though I was moved by "Journey" for sure). ADOM continues to be my #1 game of all time, with Tetris at #2, just because of the crazy brain-effects that they have on me. But a close friend of mine who's a huge gamer has no interest in either, he's into DOTA, which is like.. the fucking stupidest game I've ever seen lol. It's almost like games shouldn't be divided by genre but by personality.

fwiw while I'm on it my favourite PC games were ADOM, Star Control 2, System Shock (original only please), Space Quest 3, ZZT, Another World, and Civilization. I loved Epic Pinball and Tyrian too, but that was mostly bc I had a teenage relationship with Epic Megagames the way one might have for a boutique tape label these days

i keep trying to get into ADOM but idk it just doesn't engage me like nethack

Feel like dividing by genre will just cause all nom/voting threads to be completely absorbed by what counts as what genre, while potentially suppressing turnout. Like, just speaking for myself, I'd be much more likely to vote in a poll that just covers the years when I played the most games, than in an ''action games'' or ''strategy games'' poll covering a much longer timespan, where I might really only know 5-10 games total for which I'm super stoked to have the chance to vote. Plus, ranking DOOM versus Star Control II and Alley Cat may be weird, but not fundamentally weirder than idk Dragon Warrior III vs Kung Fu.

I had a teenage relationship with Epic Megagames the way one might have for a boutique tape label these days

Ditto, never thought of it quite this way but it describes me perfectly

Oh man, looking at Epic's output... I forgot all about Castle of the Winds. Or remembered it periodically without calling to mind anything of substance - just an RPG with a very, very "Windows 3.1" look and feel. Some good times there - basically an ugly game and I don't think there was much of a plot, but just looking at some of the icons is bringing back a vague flood of afternoons spent banging around in its nondescript depths.

My older brother was a graphics artist on Jill. Tim Sweeney was often on the phone-- my brother was 15? 16? at the time. Mark Rein hung out in his bedroom and the Digital Extremes guys lived nearby. Brother spent two years as lead programmer/designer on Traffic Department for them only to have it given a soft push; he was so disappointed that he turned down the offer to work on Unreal. (He works at Google now so he's not complaining.)

Castle Of The Winds was amazing amazing, most of their games were. I played One Must Fall to death. I think I won every one of their games except Ken's Labyrinth and Ancients

castle of the winds was i think my first rpg ever. i beat it. not the part you had to pay for of course. just part one: A QUESTION OF VENGEANCE. and yeah it used the generic 3.1 window system, buttons, etc.

otm about epic, tho i never took sides w them against apogee or whatever. just enjoyed the shareware bounty, jumped w CTRL, shot w ALT. (later tho epic were responsible for unreal tournament, a platonic form.) another epic orphan is DARE TO DREAM, a three-part emo adventure epic whose designer, cliff blezinsky, in the unreal era became "cliffyb" and made caustic remarks about dare to dream in interviews. don't be afraid of your feelings cliffyb.

1995-2016 is just as big a mishmash as everything else i think: early CD-ROM games up against eighth-gen console ports. genres depress turnout and cause fights yeah and i like the weird juxtapositions of will's polls. plus:

fwiw while I'm on it my favourite PC games were ADOM, Star Control 2, System Shock (original only please), Space Quest 3, ZZT, Another World, and Civilization.

these games don't have a lot to do w each other! would be plenty happy w ballots that looked like this. w the exception of SQ3 however i think these all fit in 1990-1995 and are thus an argument for it. anyway i will think about decade vs half-decade all day and make a thread tonight while the mainland sleeps.

traffic department 2192 was the coolest thing ever because at the beginning it asked you if you wanted adult themes or not and if you said yes people in the cutscenes had exchanges like "i'm going to bed" "WITH WHOM". adult!

absurdly, almost inconceivably cool to be a 15-year-old graphics designer on jill of the jungle btw. also loved spiritual sequel "xardoz" (?).

xargon.

Funny story about Castle of the Winds - one day, long long ago, I was at Wal-Mart and saw the second game on the shelf for 5 bucks and thought long and hard about spending my allowance money. I eventually passed because I hadn't beaten the first one yet. A few weeks later I went back with the intention of buying it and...it was gone. And I never saw it again.

Years later I found it online and figured I'd put it to rest. Let me just say this, it is way, way harder than the first game. It was so tough I had to get a hex editor to beef up my character and it was STILL difficult. Cool game though.

Lol I am credited as programmer on Traffic Department because I rather gruellingly transcribed about 60% of that dialogue from a typewritten script to code, I was 11. Wrote three music cues for it too but went uncredited. Originally the script was extremely, hilariously coarse, but the PG option was included at Epic's request, and then they got cold feet about the R version still and all the "fuck"s were replaced with local colour like "k'r'roc" and "farq'ing". The original script was so good. I still have the hard copy at my parents' house.

ZZT was always Epic's crown jewel, as far as I was concerned. The gameplay was not that interesting but the programming language was so easy that you could do incredible things with it. My brother and I designed a full screen dragon where invisible walls would sequentially turn into solid walls to create an oscillating dragonhead that would breathe throwing stars at the character.

I have so much nostalgia for MOD music from that time omg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqubUdo-j1Y

And old ANSI based videos created with Thedraw, unfortunately I can't find too much info on them on the internet these days

unfortunately missed most of the discussion (and am enjoying this 90s pc games follow-up) but wanted to vainly post my own ballot for this thing:

Final Fantasy VI (III)
Super Street Fighter II Turbo
Super Bomberman
Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
Langrisser II
Final Fantasy V
Donkey Kong Country 2
Shining Force 2
Secret of Mana
Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen
Super Mario Kart
Yoshi's Safari
Aerobiz
Chrono Trigger
Legend of the Mystical Ninja
Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon: Another Story (Angel)
Star Ocean
Romance of the Three Kingdoms IV: Wall of Fire
Earthbound
Super Mario World

oh god yes, ZZT. my best friend and I poured hours into that game, making worlds and soundtracks that I think we were the only ones to play

totes digging fgti's Epic memories.

re: cut-offs and dates - not that i think it helps particularly, but i'd definitely say that "early CD-ROM" ends in 1993. that year saw myst, 7th guest, rebel assault, and return to zork. maybe all still 'early' in a meaningful sense, not necessarily a medium that's found its footing by any means... but i guess i think 'early' is like 90, 91, 92 - The Manhole, all the Sierra games upgraded with speech (shoutout to the very odd, awkward but kinda addictive Jones in the Fast Lane), Sherlock Holmes... i dunno, fine distinction i guess. i just remember fucking around forever in the early 90s with this wretched compilation CD of dozens of C-list games. one of those things where maybe the CD-ROM drive itself came with five CDs of shovelware, and only one was games (and thus only one was interesting to me). so many miscellaneous CGA and EGA games of no particular distinction. "life and death," the baffling surgery simulator, was maybe the highest-profile title in there.

i also remember, around this time, sierra pushing the idea that what they made (or might someday be making) was really "interactive films," and telling teachers or whatever that what i wanted to do when i grew up was make interactive films. to my credit i am sure i was NOT thinking of 7th guest type things. i just figured king's quest type games would only grow more popular and more advanced.

anyway, though, i could still dig the later break point around '95 or '96 cause it's not like all at once all games started being "CD-ROMmy" - some of the very very best sprite-based, classically "VGA-looking" games are from 93-94! x-com, serpent isle, star control ii, warcraft, etc. just fun to think about this stuff.

i've been playing On the Ball. love it! maybe not a long-lasting pleasure for me tho.

90s PC Gaming Poll, Episode I: A Question of Vengeance (1990-1994) - NOMINATIONS thread - deadline Nov 15

yessssssssss

sweet!

i know this isn't precisely the right thread but i set up 4 controllers w/ my macbook last night and we played multiplayer nes games for hours last night (esp super off road which continues to be like the best game ever). i would've set up some snes games but one of the controllers was an nes usb controller so it only had the two buttons. i had a replacement xbox controller that would've worked but my brother had borrowed it. anyway - 4-player multiplayer nes emulation works perfectly. i assume snes will work well too. anyone have any experience emulating 4 player N64 games?

i haven't had much luck emulating ANY N64 game. i'm using OpenEmu for mac, which works very well with NES/SNES/Genesis/Gameboy titles, and supports almost any other system as well, but it seems like nearly every N64 rom i download crashes within a few minutes, has numerous crazy emulation problems which renders it unplayable, or won't even start in the first place. it's possible i just had very luck with the first 7-10 games i downloaded but after a while i just gave up and went to the older systems.

it's been almost 4 years since i finished this poll. i always wanted to do all of the generations eventually but i guess i kinda fell off after this one? next up would be 5th gen, n64/psx/saturn/some of the weirdest also-ran consoles in videogame history (3do? cdi? jaguar?).

are there still ppl who would play along for the next one on the board? should i do it? i wanna do it. i have been feeling some ps1 nostalgia recently, even if those games are abssssolutely not as easy to play in retrospect (both from a "slightly harder to emu" standpoint as well as a "oh wow early 3d vg controls sure were rough" one).

WHOS IN. HOME GAME POLL VOL 3

why not

wait the cdi was the snes generation, replace that in my previous comment with... uhh... the apple pippin. even weirder

ok! i'll start it soon

oh hellll yeah

Yeah, years of fairly intuitive control schemes have really spoiled me. Playing PS1 (and even some PS2) games now is often like trying to tie a knot with my mind. Like how did I finish RE3 in a day twenty years ago when nowadays I just keep walking into walls and getting ravaged by hellbeasts?

No, let’s wait another 4 years!

jk I can’t wait!

I had a n64 but I only had two games & they were good & I'll vote for them but then I lent it to my brother who then lent it to his girlfriend's brother but then they broke up & that's my sole exposure to this generation, never even saw a ps1 in person, so my ballot will be those two games but I think one of them will win the whole poll so I don't feel that bad RIP

p stoked to give some love to Blast Corps and Tetrisphere

first thing i thought of with this poll was "i'm going to make room on my ballot for Blast Corps, even though i only got to watch my friend play it for 2 hours that one time". looked amazing (at the time)!

i haven't played Blast Corps since probably 1998 but i remember it being such a jam. there's one vehicle with bad, shitty control, but otherwise it's the best-ever spiritual successor to Rampage: you take all your big toy construction trucks and smash all the buildings!!!!!

Console Game Poll vol. 3 - Nominate the best 5th Generation Console Games (1993–2005; N64, PSX, Saturn and more!)

So now that my kid is old enough to play video games I have downloaded some emulators and I ended up playing Aladdin for the first time in my life, and wow this game is really super cool, gameplay is super fun and the graphics are lovely, I can't believe it only got one vote in this poll!

Genesis version I assume.

Actually no I was playing the SNES version, and I just put the Genesis one to see if there was any difference and indeed it's a completely different game! I'll give this one a shot too but my first impression is I really miss being able to bounce around, swing on posts and rocks, climb on platforms etc. all the stuff you can do on the snes version. The graphics and animation are better on the genesis though, that's for sure.

Just watched a cool short doc about the making of the Genesis version (which I've still never played) SNES version was cool tho

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOnUITJqRQQ

This "Devs Play" video on Genesis Aladdin and Lion King is quite interesting. Like how they were forced to make one level in Lion King really hard so that kids couldn't see more than a certain percent of the game during a rental period.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kILeyo1iv0A

SNES Aladdin has a special place in my memory as I played it at a kiosk at Walt Disney World shortly after the game's release. I didn't play it again until I got a good emulator on my PC.

i tried to get into it recently as part of the big batch of titles i loaded onto my SNES mini.... i had a decent enough time bouncing around the first levels but apart from the beautifully done graphics it didn't grab me. i don't think it's a bad instance of its genre (maybe the controls could be a LITTLE tighter), but it's a genre that just isn't my jam these days: platformer with very large sprites and limited screen real estate, loose level design with a lot of meandering around unnecessary paths to collect stuff you don't strictly need.

but boy is it a great-looking game! such smooth animation in the sprites. back then it really did feel like playing a cartoon!

Imagine being 12 in the early nineties and someone told you you could download a file to your computer in 10 minutes and have access to virtually every Genesis/SNes game ever released? Mindblowing. I'm going through one of these bundles right now looking for hidden gems and while a lot of it is pure crap (Captain Novolin anyone?) there has been some rewarding finds:

Beyond Oasis: this Zelda-link RPG for Genesis lets you incarnate Ali, a young Prince who has found a magic gold armlet that once belonged to a wizard.

Trouble Shooter : a fun shoot-em-up in which you play two teenage girls with jetpacks trying to rescue a prince who was taken hostage. There is a real missed opportunity for a 2-player mode though.

Which brings me to a question: what's a good smu with a co-op mode? Nothing too frantic (i.e. not Gunstar Heroes) because my son is new to video games and still struggles with Mario.

lots of beat-em-ups would do the trick (final fight, streets of rage) but I’m not sure about shooters!