Top 5 Games (up to PS1)

I’d have to say Chrono Trigger, Parasite Eve, Xenogears, Front Mission 3, and Paper Mario.

Yours?

Wow, a post. That’s unusual. :v

Final Fantasy 6, Secret of Mana, Chrono Trigger, Bahamut Lagoon, and idk fuck it, Final Fantasy Tactics.

What can I say, there was a time when Square could do no wrong. Now, they’re just crap. :confused:

Watching a The 3rd Birthday lets play reminded me of just how far Squeenix sank back in those days (yes, I’m referring to 2011 as ‘those days’ on a message board reestablished 14 years ago). Its just amazing at what a cobbled together piece of crap it was, and their mainline stuff like FFXIII wasn’t much better.

As for favorite games of that era. Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Megaman X2, Star Fox, Goldeneye and Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link (with a crapload of honorable mentions that includes all the usual suspects).

Super Mario Brothers 3, Legend of Zelda LTTP, Final Fantasy 6, Seiken Densetsu 3 (Beats 2 in my book) and [strike]Quest 64[/strike] Chrono Trigger.

Honorable mention for F-Zero X because of Sinistral and the hilarious memories of playing that.

[ol]
[li]Final Fantasy VII
[/li][li]Pokemon (R/B/Y)
[/li][li]Armored Core
[/li][li]Xenogears
[/li][li]Metal Gear Solid
[/li][/ol]

Picking top 5 is hard because the snes and ps1 eras were gold.

FF Tactics, Xenogears, Secret of Mana, Chrono Trigger.

Definitely honorable mention to F Zero X. I’m not sure about whether or not I should include Goldeneye, Mario Kart 64, CV SOTN or Mario 64 because these were genre excellent titles that each spawned genres.

FF7 and 8 did not age well.

I’d debate that FF6 didn’t either. The gameplay is just incredibly unchallenging as, outside of certain boss gimmicks, all you ever needed was to mash attack to win, while the Esper system is way too unregulated and makes everything else look redundant, and the main plot involving Terra, Celes and Locke feels kinda awkward in retrospect. But then, I’ve always felt that the incidental party members and the whole Floating Continent bit were the strongest parts anyways, so while I wouldn’t say that its a bad game, I would say that it doesn’t really qualify as Top 5 material anymore.

The gameplay is super easy, no argument, it’s why there’s ROM hacks out there to make things a little harder probably. But the tale and the characters remain memorable where I really still give no shits about Selphie, Zell, Emo Git and his band of misfits.

You’re not wrong, man. FF6 was never even remotely difficult, especially with a few dozen playthroughs under your belt. But challenge level aside, that game has a lot going for it. It’s one of the best looking games on the Super NES. The soundtrack still sounds amazing even 22 years after its release. The storyline, which I’ve almost completely memorized, still never fails to hit me right where it’s s’posed to.

And you know, the nostalgia thing. Playing FF6, to me, is like revisiting the best moments of my childhood.

I’m not going to argue that the game isn’t one of Square’s better efforts at writing a videogame, but there are places where you can see the nip/tuck the game’s plot took during development, and in the retrospect of other games from the Guch, I feel that said nip/tucking was what really gave the game its legs to stand on.

Or to put it in another way, ever since I’d heard about the whole Celestina thing, I can’t help but notice just how similar the plot beats are between Celes and Terra, and how many FF games from that era places emphasis on the main character and his relationships to the villains and the female lead(s) over the rest of the cast (i.e. FFs 4, 7, 8 and 10). Because of the decentralized nature of the main plot, the rest of the cast doesn’t get nearly as overshadowed as they would’ve in something like FF4 or 8.

Not that Celestina was the only noticeable issue with the game’s writing coughCrescent Islandcough.

Yeah, the graphics and random battles are pretty worn out at this point, though I have to admit I still find FF7’s blocky characters kind of charming in their own way. FF7’s story and flow are still pretty good, imo. I’m looking forward to the remake.