Games

[icycalm]

Another list I'll turn into a frontpage feature eventually. So here's what I have so far:

8-bit: Famicom
16-bit: Mega Drive/Super Famicom (an absolute tie, impossible to pick one)
32-bit: Saturn/PlayStation (not too familiar with this generation, so I accept arguments)
64-bit: PlayStation 2
128-bit: Xbox 360
256-bit: Playstation 4/Xbox One (it's anybody's guess)

And yes, the bits thing is facetious.

[icycalm]

And yes, the criterion is the breadth and quality of the library. If it were the hardware quality I'd be posting it in the hardware forum and it'd be a very different list.

[icycalm]

On second thought, the PS definitely wins the 32-bit battle. Out of the three great games of that (console) generation, Biohazard, Tenchu and Metal Gear Solid, two were PS-exclusives, and then you have the PS library's far greater breadth, so I don't think there's much room for argument here. So the list becomes:

8-bit: Famicom
16-bit: Mega Drive/Super Famicom (an absolute tie, impossible to pick one)
32-bit: PlayStation
64-bit: PlayStation 2
128-bit: Xbox 360
256-bit: Playstation 4/Xbox One (it's anybody's guess)

It'd be nice if I could also resolve the 16-bit tie. Perhaps a list of key titles on both sides could help. Maybe I'll try that later.

[icycalm]

But let's just say, for the sake of argument, that the SFC wins, and also the Xbox One. This would reveal a very interesting pattern:

8-bit: Famicom
16-bit: Super Famicom
32-bit: PlayStation
64-bit: PlayStation 2
128-bit: Xbox 360
256-bit: Xbox One

[zinger]

As far as I'm concerned the best side-view action / platform games for SFC and MD. There are several more cool titles of course, but I'd say these are the absolute best. No clear-cut winner there, indeed.

SFC

Actraiser
Actraiser 2
Contra Spirits
Demon's Blazon Makaimura Monshoohen
Hagane
Juusoo Kihei Valken
Karura-Oo
Rockman & Forte

MD

Alien Soldier
Chelnov
Contra The Hard Corps
Daimakaimura
Rocket Knight Adventures
Strider Hiryu
The Super Shinobi
The Super Shinobi II

There's no noteworthy MD parallel to Wild Guns, which is an incredibly well-made SFC fixed screen crosshair shooter. MD on the other hand of course completely crushes the SFC's scrolling shooter library (the only really notable one for SFC is R-Type III, and maybe Super Aleste, as far as I know).

[icycalm]

Decent lists, but dude. No Super Mario World or Chou Makaimura on the SFC side? Super Mario World could practically hold the fort on the SFC side all on its own. And Super Shinobi II on the MD side? That's hardly a 4-star game, and probably even a 3-star one if you don't feel too charitable about it. Hagane is good, maybe even very good, but definitely overrated by you guys (I mean you, Josh, and maybe even Recap too).

The main thing is Super Mario World though. That game, together with The Super Shinobi, is still the most fun I've ever had side-scrolling in my life. I should get around to writing that review at some point. You guys have a tendency to overrate the less known games, and that's a terrible attitude to have for anyone who aspires to criticism.

Nevertheless, your list did prove a point, and I suspect that if we widen the genres it includes we won't get anywhere further. Take SRPGs, for instance: SFC has the Fire Emblems, MD the Shining Forces and Langrissers. Maybe the Fire Emblems give it a bit of an edge, but the MD has the edge on shooters, so overall they are more or less equal again. And what other genres are there? SFC has Super Mario Kart, but MD had the Super Monaco GP games, so again the SFC comes out ahead, but the huge margin in favor of the MD with shooters still covers the distance.

Then again the SFC comes out well ahead in terms of JRPGs, doesn't it? And in the 16-bit generation, that genre was still pretty damn decent. That said, the Phantasy Stars were also pretty great, so I don't know. Am I missing anything?

[icycalm]

Someone should ask Recap what he thinks. I'd ask him myself, but I've been banned from there.

[icycalm]

My bet is he'd pick the SFC because it has a much larger, indeed apparently huge library of obscure games, many of them of decent to even great quality -- if Recap's own reviews are to believed, and at this point I don't see why they shouldn't. And this could well tip the balance in favor of the SFC, but I am not well enough versed in that part of the system's library to make a decision on the matter.

[zinger]

Not sure about JRPGs, but the SFC has Chrono Trigger which is basically the only JRPG I've been able to really enjoy (although to quite a limited extent). As for SRPGs I've been digging in to 16-bit turn-based tactical games lately, and will give you my perspective when I'm done.

For now I'd go with the MD, but as you said, the SFC has a huge amount of obscure belt-scrollers, strategy games and whatnot, and I've mostly bothered with the type of games I like best, which is fast-paced action. After I'm done with the strategy games, I doubt there's much more I can get out from these systems.

I could never get in to Choo Makaimura. Maybe it's a great game, but I have to put off my final verdict for now. Regarding Super Mario World, that's a game I played a lot as a kid and have very fond memories of. Lately it just didn't click with me though, and I can't say for certain how I feel about it. So yeah, that's why I didn't include them in my lists.

I agree that I might have been a little generous there with The Super Shinobi II, but as for Hagane, I think it's heaven. It might not have had as big an impact on me as The Super Shinobi, but not far from it. There's a reason for why it's so obscure: The theme is unusally dark and exotic, which is part of why it's so engrossing -- I love horror and dystopic settings. On the other hand I'm a bit sensitive when it comes to bright and cute themes.

[icycalm]

Regarding Super Mario World, that's a game I played a lot as a kid and have very fond memories of. Lately it just didn't click with me though, and I can't say for certain how I feel about it.

I am not sure exactly what you mean by "lately", but the last time I played the game was circa 2001-02 on the GBA (the port), and though I had fun with it, I had nowhere near as much fun as when I played it on my SFC on release, and if I tried playing it again today I am sure I wouldn't be able to bear it for more than 10 minutes. That doesn't mean the game is bad, all it means is I've already played it -- twice, even, and obviously every subsequent playthrough will give me less and less pleasure.

There's a reason for why it's so obscure: The theme is unusually dark and exotic

I played the first couple of stages and they seemed like standard fare to me. Pretty, but not by any means unusual for either the era or the genre. Besides which, since when did games become obscure because of "darkness" or whatever? It's obscure because it wasn't marketed enough or covered enough by the magazines.

[zinger]

Lately as in the last two or three years. I first played it around the time of its release, when I was about five or six, and then put some more time into it when I borrowed my friend's SNES five or six years later. I feel weird about making any judgements based on those experiences since I was only a kid. Back then I thought Primal Rage and Clayfighter was the shit. :)

[icycalm]

That does make sense, though I too was about that age when I played Pong, and I remember everything perfectly and feel perfectly fine about judging it without the need to replay it. Same with early computer games which I played a few years later, even strategy games which were much more complicated than a Mario game. Super Mario World itself I played when I was about 13, but the fact is that I have complete confidence in my powers of judgement at any age, and cannot remember an instance of liking something which later turned out to have been shit. Primal Rage and Clayfighter for example I didn't even bother playing because everything about them screamed shit. Replaying many of these games would even SPOIL my judgement of them, it seems. I remember for example trying to replay Defender of the Crown a few years back, when I discovered Amiga emulation, and wondering, "Can THIS really be the game that made me fall in love with videogames?" And indeed it had been. But the disappointment was not because the game had been shit in the first place, and my opinion of it at the time had been mistaken, but simply because 1. I had already finished it all these years before, and 2. There have been such tremendous advances in the genre since then, and I have become so accustomed to playing such infinitely more advanced games, that it would obviously be a huge letdown to go back to what the standard was three decades before. In such cases I steer clear of replaying and trust my memory to do the job of providing an accurate evaluation of what the game did and meant at the time of its release. The additional insight I've gained since then is simply used to place the game within the framework of what has happened in the years and decades after its release. The only time replaying an old game seems to improve the quality of my evaluation of it is in the case of games which I played very briefly and superficially, and hence do not remember much about them (and hence are generally not very good).

But that's just me. It's interesting to learn that my experience is not universal.

[Amor fati]

Would you include the Atari VCS and other consoles released in the 1970s as part of the same generation as the Nintendo Famicom or a previous one?

[icycalm]

I haven't thought about it because the first console that interests me is the Famicom. At any rate, the Famicom wins regardless of which consoles we may say were part of its generation. If you or someone else would like to suggest a previous generation and its winner, go ahead and do so.

[icycalm]

This is gonna be the next article I'll write, to put an end, once and for all, to all bickering about which console was the best for each era (meaning, which library was the best).

It will be broken up in generations generally according to Wikipedia's scheme [ > ], with two exceptions:

1. The GC and Wii belong to the same generation
2. The Wii U belongs to the same generation as the 360 and PS3

The awards will actually start from the third generation, because the previous ones are bleh and blend into each other, and they will end with the current, eighth generation with a prediction about which console will prove the best, as well as an overall award for best console ever, regardless of era. So the categories will be:

3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th

plus

prediction about 8th

plus

best console ever

Note that I will not deal with handhelds (what with handhelds being consoles for retards), and that ties will be acceptable (i.e. two or more consoles being tied for first spot).

If you wanna put down your choices or try guessing mine, or both, you are welcome to do it in this thread and see how your choices or guesses compare to mine after the article goes live.

It's gonna be a lot of fun and very educational, so please look forward to it.

[El Chaos]

I'm gonna try guessing your choices, icy.

3rd - Famicom
4th - Tie: Mega Drive, Super Famicom
5th - PlayStation
6th - PlayStation 2
7th - Tie: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3
8th prediction - PlayStation 4

The reasons for the prediction would be its popularity leading to more publishers wanting their games on it, and superior specs allowing for more ambitious and complex games.

[DJ Orwell]

This thread immediately came to mind:

http://culture.vg/forum/topic?t=4518

I searched "bits" "facetious" to find it.

[icycalm]

Damn, I knew I'd done this sort of thing before! But anyway, the feature will include a lot more detail, and maybe instead of only giving the top console per generation I will give a full ranking.

Thanks for the heads-up. It will save me some effort.

[JC Denton]

Threads merged.