Board 8 > Thirty years of video games -- a transience retrospective.

(+) Yeah! (+)

1997: Final Fantasy VII > Mario Kart 64 > Star Fox 64 > NFL Blitz > GoldenEye 007 > Mortal Kombat 4 > Diddy Kong Racing
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Respect the Rumble Pack.

Also, I forgot DKR and MK64 were both released in the same year. What a high point for kart-racers.
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It's a high point because Mario Kart 64 was released.

DKR no thanks
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HaRRicH posted...

Respect the Rumble Pack.

also who remembers the Nintendo Power promo video they sent out for Star Fox 64 where they pumped up the Rumble Pack

there was also that DKC1 promo video where they teased Killer Instinct at the end
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Tag

Gosh, do I love SOTN
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I'm sure I had a Playstation at this point, and it was entirely because of Final Fantasy VII. The Playstation Underground CDs became a thing, too, and that got me to buy Wild Arms and SotN. I don't remember if they were the reason I bought Parappa, but I got that at launch. I think there was a demo for Bushido Blade, so I bought that. I think it was a video game magazine that got me to buy SaGa Frontier, which I really didn't like (but my friend did).

I remember debating over whether I wanted a PS1 or a Saturn when they both came out, and I eventually decided on the PS1. I think it turned out all right!

I still have a bunch of those huge cases PS1 games originally came in.
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If we're talking about old promos for N64-games, allow me to jump a year ahead and point out the greatest thing Jon Lovitz ever did:

https://youtu.be/mwbWxaIA4bM
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HaRRicH posted...

If we're talking about old promos for N64-games, allow me to jump a year ahead and point out the greatest thing Jon Lovitz ever did:

This reads very differently if you switch "promos" for "pornos."

Now that's a link I want to click!
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I think Goldeneye's impact is being underrated. That was probably the most influential game in the entire N64/PS1 era. It put console FPSs on the map - which to this day, are still slightly popular! - and it was the biggest multiplayer experience in any console game so far. Street Fighter II was legendary but it was 1 v 1. With Goldeneye you could play with all your friends at the same time.
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From CT to Diablo/Quake, I mostly took a break in gaming. Chrono Trigger was the last game my brother and I played together, taking turns playing it through, watching. It was part of how we grew up. After that, he graduated and joined the Air Force and I found a girl and the next year gaming just wasn't a thing for me. A little bit of Mechwarrior 2. A very brief attempt at caring about Secret of Evermore. Definitely a change of seasons there. Chrono Trigger as the cap on my childhood/teenage years of being a gamer, hey, a good way to go out.
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Some other notes about 1997:

Kirby's Dream Land 3 essentially closed the book on the SNES.

Tekken 3 hit in arcades! This seems like an oversight!

On PC, Dark Forces II is historically good, and also we got Age of Empires!

EDIT: Oh and Street Fighter III. I don't remember it being this early but apparently it was!
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1996
San Francisco Rush: Extreme Racing
Metal Slug
Die Hard Arcade
Dead Or Alive
Street Fighter Alpha 2
X-Men Vs. Street Fighter
Soul Edge (v2)
KoF 96

Arcade quality was still going strong, even if it was starting to fade from the public eye.

To think, my favorite arcade game still has not been released
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I'm too lazy to make a separate NBA topic but this might be my favorite highlight of the year tran

https://streamable.com/b2ycs
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Dr_Football posted...

I'm too lazy to make a separate NBA topic but this might be my favorite highlight of the year tran

https://streamable.com/b2ycs

xfd the clippers are hot garbage this week
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the Clippers are making Buddy Hield look like Reggie Miller

I love it
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KamikazePotato posted...

I think Goldeneye's impact is being underrated. That was probably the most influential game in the entire N64/PS1 era. It put console FPSs on the map - which to this day, are still slightly popular! - and it was the biggest multiplayer experience in any console game so far. Street Fighter II was legendary but it was 1 v 1. With Goldeneye you could play with all your friends at the same time.

thanks for writing this. I was thinking earlier today and meant to write, but didn't: Goldeneye is probably the most important game to Nintendo on the 64. Mario broke ground in 3d platforming and Zelda in 3d action/adventure games, but no one game meant more to the Nintendo 64 than Goldeneye.

that said, I wouldn't go close to saying it's the most in the whole era. but I come from a PC background...
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LOLIAmAnAlt posted...

Street Fighter Alpha 2

oh man

put that at the top of 1996

one of my favorite fighters ever
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1997 Top SHINE 5

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night - Finally the Metroid gameplay that I loved but in a much better franchise.

Star Fox 64 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Eu6cJXpmME

Goldeneye 007 - Facility/remote mines only for life

Diddy Kong Racing - If you ask me to pick this or Mario Kart 64 I'm picking this game every day of the week.

Final Fantasy VII - I didn't actually play FF7 until a few years later but I did play the demo over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over....
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and thanks to all for keeping me honest on dates. arcade games are tough to find a central list so unless you have games in mind, it seems hard to curate all of that information. one thing I kind of want to do, after doing this project, is put in some effort to make a definitive list and host it somewhere. the problem is, I'm wayyyyy too lazy for that.

I was actually thinking that SF3 = Third Strike which as far as I can tell is 2000. but, of course, regular old SF3 is actually a thing! whoops. and Tekken 3 is definitely an oversight - I have it included in my 1998 writeup that is forthcoming. this is going to be a doozy. give me a couple hours.
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One of the biggest gaps in my gaming life is never getting to play SF3 Double Impact. The arcade in the mall closed down before that one came out, and it only came out on Dreamcast on consoles, so I never got to experience top tier Sean. Third Strike basically made the first two versions obsolete, sadly.
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time for fightcade. Theo and I still play hyper fighting against each other on that!
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That's actually a good question - what was the most important game to Nintendo of the N64 era? Goldeneye was a great game but the FPS path on Nintendo consoles is... GE... Perfect Dark... and then uh Splatoon maybe? I'm almost going to side with MK64 or Mario Party though it doesn't feel right, either.

As far as the overall FPS scene, Goldeneye is a gem. It's biggest influence is almost arbitrary. Still there's Quake and that's the biggest FPS influence.
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I still have the old tall CD/DVD case style Symphony of the Night somewhere. That's just a timeless game for me. I love it more than Super Metroid (but often list them consecutively in my top 20)
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neonreaper posted...

I still have the old tall CD/DVD case style Symphony of the Night somewhere. That's just a timeless game for me. I love it more than Super Metroid (but often list them consecutively in my top 20)

My copy was black label smaller case, and I'm pretty sure I picked it up at launch. Was there really a tall version?

transience posted...

Tekken 3 is definitely an oversight - I have it included in my 1998 writeup that is forthcoming. this is going to be a doozy. give me a couple hours.

To be fair, Tekken is a PS series in my mind. I have to remind myself that they are arcade ports
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neonreaper posted...

That's actually a good question - what was the most important game to Nintendo of the N64 era? Goldeneye was a great game but the FPS path on Nintendo consoles is... GE... Perfect Dark... and then uh Splatoon maybe? I'm almost going to side with MK64 or Mario Party though it doesn't feel right, either.

I think the most important game to Nintendo was Mario Kart 64. Cross-generational appeal, excellent use of the four controller ports, and I still enjoy being personally welcomed at the start of every session.

EDIT: Although it is kind of ironic that Playstation had an arguably better Kart Racer. They certainly did not have any superior FPS, platformer, adventure game, or party game.
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the throughline is clearly Goldeneye to Halo. Goldeneye showed that there is a market that wants those kinds of games and Halo figured out how to make it work. more on that later.
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I don't think Goldeneye actually meant much to Nintendo's future - not like they kept churning out mega popular FPS games. It meant a hell of a lot for the N64 itself and the console industry at large though.

As far as the whole era goes: I think it's hard to equate stuff like Goldeneye and Quake. The PC FPS scene and the console FPS scene were very different beasts until the middle of the PS3/360/Wii era, where they started to converge. Hell that goes for PC vs. console in general.
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transience posted...

arcade games are tough to find

http://www.arcade-museum.com/year_detail.php?year=1996
just change the year in the url!!
otherwise you will need to create an account to search past 50 results
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KamikazePotato posted...

not like they kept churning out mega popular FPS game

They had a good stretch with Golden-Eye, Perfect Dark, and the Metroid games.
Then the Wii came out and they stopped
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transience posted...

the throughline is clearly Goldeneye to Halo. Goldeneye showed that there is a market that wants those kinds of games and Halo figured out how to make it work. more on that later.

I'd say that's actually the least clear line, because we know all that went into those two games developments.

There's an insanely popular genre on PCs. On platform struggles to handle the graphics for it because of how it computes floating point operations. The other platform is owned by friggin Nintendo. So, you weren't going to get much (though what we did get was good.)

Microsoft buys Bungie and they weren't pointing to Goldeneye. Especially once the dev kit came in (and whoops there, but it worked out).
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1998
https://i.imgur.com/HYIIrvu.jpg

Hoo boy.

Notable Games:

Baldur's Gate
Banjo Kazooie
Brave Fencer Musashi
Breath of Fire 3
Dance Dance Revolution
Einhander
F-Zero X
Fallout 2
Final Fantasy Tactics
Gran Turismo
Grim Fandango
Guilty Gear
Half-Life
King of Fighters '98
Mario Party
Mega Man Legends
Parasite Eve
Pokemon Red/Blue
Resident Evil 2
Spyro
Starcraft
Tekken 3 (PS1)
Thief
Xenogears
Zelda: Ocarina of Time

transience's take:

1 - Xenogears
2 - Final Fantasy Tactics
3 - Dance Dance Revolution
4 - Zelda: Ocarina of Time
5 - Parasite Eve

Overall: 6th

Gamerankings Top 5:

1 - Zelda: Ocarina of Time
2 - Tekken 3 (PS1)
3 - Gran Turismo
4 - Half-Life
5 - Metal Gear Solid

1998 is the first year of truly aggregated data so I'm switching to that. Besides, Nintendo Power gets less and less relevant from this point forward. I'd actually question its usefulness after 1995 just because the N64 was such a Nintendo-heavy platform.

Anyway! 1998 is a monster. There are enormous games on every platform. It's clearly one of the 3 or 4 biggest years in gaming ever. Most people just give 'best year in gaming' to 1998 without even thinking. It's just beaten into everyone's heads at this point. It's like a best album list and Nirvana's Nevermind.

I would love to ask a gaming historian - someone way more knowledgeable than myself - to try to rank 1998's biggest games in terms of importance. It's impossible. I just spent 30 minutes trying. Here's my list from 10 to 1:

https://i.imgur.com/ujXmnMG.png

Xenogears was the first RPG that felt directed. The first true follow-up to FF7, Xenogears was the first game that really used camera angles and sound effects to such great use. Other games have used music effectively, but FF7 couldn't touch Xenogears in terms of sound design. The result is a cinematic RPG that is unmatched by any other RPG on the platform. The scope of Xenogears is jawdropping even by today's standards. Karma Hunter, one of the biggest MGS fans I know, told me after playing through Xenogears that he now understood where MGS2 got its inspiration from.

https://i.imgur.com/Mntgycg.jpg

Baldur's Gate put this kind of game on the map. Isometric, point-and-click lore-heavy PC RPGs were huge for a real long time and they owe their inspiration to this game. The most obvious throughline is Diablo to Baldur's Gate to Dragon Age, at least the first one. Someone like neon will probably tell me that this belongs a lot higher (or maybe he thinks it's just a byproduct of the great Ultima IV?) -- I'm being conservative here partly because I know very little about it, but also because the game that everyone points to for inspiration is its sequel, Baldur's Gate 2.

https://i.imgur.com/5NStJDZ.jpg

Final Fantasy Tactics blew minds here in 1998. The first game with the Final Fantasy name on it since 7, FFT was absolutely nothing like that game. People still mostly loved it though thanks to its deep story and mechanics. Games like Tactics Ogre and Fire Emblem weren't out here in 1998 so this felt like something completely new and fresh. It combined Final Fantasy's great job system with the political backstabbing of a Matsuno game. The interesting thing about FFT is that it's simply never been outdone in the 20 years since its release. When people talk about wanting fantasy SRPGs, they talk about Final Fantasy Tactics. It's still the king of its subgenre so many years later.
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https://i.imgur.com/yVqhg2m.jpg

Gran Turismo was huge. This game looked freaking amazing in 1998! FF7 was the Playstation 1 showpiece but Gran Turismo moved like twice as many units, maybe even more than that. It was both super casual and super hardcore. Nintendo had its silly kart racers and those were nice but the real s*** was over here on Playstation and everyone ate it up.

https://i.imgur.com/AeFMuP0.jpg

Dance Dance Revolution gave arcades one last push. The Playstation was powerful enough to reasonably emulate arcade games; Tekken 3 was huge on PS1 in 1998 thanks to its near-perfect port job. Arcades started to need something more sophisticated - peripherals, gimmicks, you name it - in order to compete. DDR offered that. Within a year or two, ripoff games like Pump it Up and In the Groove would pop up all over the place. DDR is as simple as stepping on arrows but Tetris was as simple as rotating bricks. Sometimes ingenuity is dead-ass simple.

https://i.imgur.com/Pc69Bi7.jpg

Ocarina is somehow the hardest game to rate on this list? You can make a case for it being #1. Like Mario 64, Ocarina quite literally defined the right way to handle exploratory action games. The most obvious mechanical pull is Z-targeting but the entire experience was a revelation to so many. I put this one relatively low just because it feels like the influence was somewhat limited to future Zelda games. It's an incredibly important game but how often do you hear people say that something felt Zelda-like? It's sorta one of a kind. There's a broad, invisible hand kind of influence here due to its overwhelming popularity but nothing specific stands out and 1998 is a year of absolute killers.

https://i.imgur.com/7iU0Kzz.png

Starcraft quite literally dwarfed the RTS genre for I don't even know how many years. 10? 15? Did anything ever actually break through the Starcraft bubble? For many people, this was the only RTS game - the others just didn't even exist. Starcraft hit at a time when online play was starting to blossom and its multiplayer was the go-to game on PC for years. It also helped prop up an entire country's economy but that's impossible to measure. All I can say is that from 1998 until about 2006, Starcraft was one of the most popular games on the planet.

https://i.imgur.com/l2aq2hZ.jpg

Metal Gear Solid's cinematics were unreal. That intro alone was rewriting the playbook of video games in real time. You knew when you saw it that it was special. They were crediting voice actors! What the heck is this? It felt like it was from the future. Besides the story stuff that is very clearly significant, Metal Gear Solid helped birth the stealth genre. The genre existed prior to 1998 but it felt nonexistent; maybe there were games on the PC (Thief also came out in '98) but nothing like this, nothing with this much flash, and certainly nothing on the consoles. The closest thing to stealth was survival horror.

https://i.imgur.com/Mxa8Lt3.jpg

Half-Life feels more important the further we get from it. The cinamatic FPS is a staple of every video game now. Half-Life blew people away with how integrated its campaign was with its gameplay. It's almost impossible to remove the influence of Half-Lilfe because it exists in damn near every game with a gun over the last 20 years.

https://i.imgur.com/mRtxqL4.jpg

My god. Pokemon set off a fad that hasn't died off in 20 years. It can subside but it just keeps going. The game boy was pretty dead prior to this game coming out and then skyrocketed to more popularity than any platform ever had. Pokemon was a dangerous and powerful thing and its popularity skyrocketed to levels that very few games had seen before or since. Pac-Man is the only legitimate comparison to date. It hasn't influenced other games THAT much but it's hard to deny how huge this game was. It sold like 50 million copies or something stupid. This is my pick for the biggest game of 1998.
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Anyway, that little thought exercise shows just how big 1998 was. I didn't even list killers like Fallout 2 or Resident Evil 2. Grim Fandango might be the most loved adventure game of the 90s. Tekken 3 was a killer app for PS1 much like SF2 was for the SNES; Guilty Gear and KOF 98 came out in arcades too. Just a monster year.

On a personal level, 1998 was all about Xenogears. I went to a friend's house in 1998 and watched him play the Xenogears demo and it just destroyed my brain. A PS1 was mine the day that Xenogears came out.

(Side Note: I didn't mention it in my 1997 writeup, but I played FF7 on the PC. It was mostly fine outside of some technical hiccups in North Cave, but I always wonder if maybe I missed something by not experiencing it on the PS1 originally. I don't think I did - ultimately, I think I wasn't blown away by FF7 because I had been playing Final Fantasy hard for 7 years before it came out and it wasn't that shocking to me. FF6 was largely similar and I knew that game inside and out by 1997. Anyway.)

Xenogears was probably my most formative video game experience ever. It singlehandedly brought me back to video games. It's the most powerful nostalgia experience I can think of despite the fact that I was a teenager when I first played it. A lot of 1998's monster games missed me but Xenogears is such a strong game that it almost doesn't matter.

FFT is also a wonderful game. There are so many gameplay possibilities that are raised by its systems and the story/characters/music hold up too. I still play FFT every year or two just to explore those great systems again. That is a great damn game; it's a shame no one ever made a superior version of it. The closest thing is the Tactics Ogre remake on PSP which, while great, lacks a certain something that makes FFT an all-timer.

Another game that screams 1998 is Parasite Eve. Man, Square was killing it in 1998. Parasite Eve was shocking because it took Square's amazing cinematics and applied them to a survival horror setting. Parasite Eve was unusual for the time - it was only 8 hours long and tried to present itself as being more of an action game than an RPG. It was damn cool though - too bad the movement speed is so pathetically slow. That keeps me from wanting to replay it.

Oh, and I should probably write something about Ocarina. Ocarina is so easy to like. It feels like video game royalty when you play it, like it descended from the heavens somehow. There's a majestic quality to it. It's a really good game. Kind of empty at times and the camera is awful, but once you get used to that, it feels like the perfect game for that time. Good game.

1996 and 1997 felt like it was building up to what 1998 would deliver. Every market - portable, console, PC - had their absolute greatest games release and there was something for everyone. I think there are 2 or 3 years that can compete on a historical level - 1987 is one, and two more are still coming - but it's tough to argue against 1998.
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Give credit where credit's due: Nintendo's cared about first person shooting long before Rare did Goldeneye...

Duck Hunt
Super Scope

...okay, yeah, I'm being facetious, but there's some kernel of truth there too -- Nintendo's got a history with gun-based gaming.


Dammit, now I want to play a modern Duck Hunt done as a rail-shooter like House of the Dead and Area 51.
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There we go, 1998

Time Crisis II
http://i.imgur.com/LWTY02K.png
I feel bad for my parent's wallets on that one.
Actually no, I got so good at this game I would make it at times to the third act without getting hit.
Third act though, forget it.

Going hard with a friend or even a stranger was so much fun

This game showed up at all the arcades and all the movie theaters and won coin-op of the year.
It's a shame that 3,4 and 5 tried to do too much and never lived up to the greatness of this game.

I will still play this game whenever I see it in the wild.
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transience posted...

people say that something felt Zelda-like?

Whoa all the time.

Okami, Kingdom Hearts (with the action game lock on system), Darksiders, any game where your progress gets stopped to do dumb puzzles, probably a zillion more I don't remember.

Star Fox Adventures was like a Zelda clone. Made by Nintendo of course, but still.

Also I assume you mean OoT. Zelda-like can mean 2D games too.
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1998: Metal Gear Solid > Final Fantasy Tactics > Brave Fencer Musashi > Parasite Eve > WCW/NWO Revenge > Xenogears > Mario Party > Ocarina of Time > Pokemon Blue

Man, 1997-2001 was such a golden age for Square. I bought nearly everything they put out in those five years.
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I agree with Okami and Darksiders. KH I dunno.
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1998 Top SHINE 5

Zelda: Ocarina of Time - First video I ever downloaded on the internet was an OoT trailer from n64.com. My mom actually went to TRU and picked up my gold cartridge for me before I got home from school so it was waiting for me in my room when I got home. She told me a story about the man in front of her didn't preorder and didn't get a gold cart and was super mad about it

Resident Evil 2 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTHaPOOcp7E

Pokemon Red/Blue - I somehow never got into Nintendo handhelds until Pokemon R/B came out. I had the Game Gear and the Nomad before that but then for christmas 1998 my brother Red with a Game Boy Pocket and I got Blue with a Game Boy Color. Pokemon fans for life the both of us after that

Banjo Kazooie - Better than Mario 64 come at me

Half-Life - I don't think I had seen story telling within gameplay before this game so it always left an impression on me the first time I played it.
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who could forget Gootecks, the breakout star of Time Crisis II
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transience posted...

It's like a best album list and Nirvana's Nevermind.

Always thought that album was overrated. I like Come As You Are, and I respect SLTS, but c'mon. I wouldn't even say it was the best album from its year when you have Ten to consider.

And likewise, I think I'm going to question if '98 is singularly the biggest year evar. I see OOT, I see Starcraft, and I see FFT. Oh, and Half-Life. And begrudgingly, RBY and DDR. Okay, that is pretty good. I think we've already seen a year or two I would personally put higher. Only two of those were important to me.

ninkendo posted...

Banjo Kazooie - Better than Mario 64 come at me

^5
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1998... damn.
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Been repping 1998 for best year since....well like the mid 2000s. Fall 2001 was great too, as was Fall 2004. But 1998 as a whole is just too damn good
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ninkendo posted...

Banjo Kazooie - Better than Mario 64 come at me

I'd fight you if I cared enough about Mario 64.
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SM64 > BK, but an argument can easily be made otherwise. BK was fantastic.
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I might be the only person who liked tooie more than kazooie
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Metal_DK posted...

I might be the only person who liked tooie more than kazooie

I'm in that boat as well so at least there's 2 of us.

I forgot Resident Evil 2 was in 1998 God damn. FFT, Pokémon R/B, crash bandicoot warped... 1998 has to be one of my personal top 3 years easily
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