**Mischief Makers**
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Since I was 10 in 1997, there are about 100 games I could put here as my favorite game of all time. Nostalgia glasses and all. In a year that had goldeneye, blitz, diddy kong racing, mystical ninja, and snowboard kids, I still have to give it up to Mischief Makers. It blew my little 10 year old mind. Shake shake shake
@“exodus”#p52984 Still probably my favorite 2D fighter. They don't em like they used to
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@“zm1704”#p53073 diddy kong racing, mystical ninja, and snowboard kids
Love all of these. Somehow haven't ever given Mischief Makers a real shot, despite being one of the elect N64 Faithful, but you're inspiring me to give it a rip.
**Tomb Raider**
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Alright hear me out. I've long wondered how much pop culture influenced my early interest in history and archaeology. It's one of the things that's driven me to taking on this side-research gig of exploring archaeology in games and other media. Interestingly my earliest memories of interacting with a pop culture "archaeologist" is not Indiana Jones, but Lara Croft. I had the original tomb raider on the Playstation in around 1997 and I played it a lot. I remember it being very challenging, harder than any of the other Playstation games I was playing at the time. I also do not remember ever perceiving Lara Croft as an archaeologist at all - which she really isn't. Croft is an interesting character in this way: She is meant to be a trained archaeologist, I think with a doctorate in the subject, but absolutely nothing about what she does is even remotely related to archaeology. Indiana Jones at least is an actual professor and we see him doing that job, albeit poorly, from time to time. Croft just does what's on the tin - she raids tombs. Also this game had dinosaurs for indiscernible reasons which I think did a lot to contribute to the seemingly intentional confusion about the difference btw the sciences of archaeology and paleontology among journalists. Also, that wild trapezoidal box for the PC version!
I figured I'd go in a different, more obscure direction with
a surprising blend of dating sim and building sim. The idea is that you not only manage a student's academic performance like in your average dating sim, but also create and manage your own school, presumably in service of the former. I've yet to play the game myself, but it's a deeply interesting premise for a game. For now, though, I defer to Vysethedetermined2 for info on it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JD-rcy-2LI
(I also considered making this entry *Mystic Ark*, a game I have played and enjoyed.)
@“rearnakedwindow”#p53099 Glad I could inspire haha. It has some weirdness that I used to only find on Sega consoles that I really love, but with some N64 goodness. I think you'll dig it
Oh no, 1994, how can I pick just one from a ridiculous selection of bangers?
I cannot lie. On several occasions I've been moderately addicted to this game, in particular the time trial mode. My first experience of it was as part of the collection of NES games in the GameCube Animal Crossing, to the point that I would play AC just for Wario's Woods.
I know it's kind of a dump game with virtually no depth to it however there's a very satisfying sensation to arranging blocks and seeing them disappear with frame-perfect (or near enough) input. In that respect it _feels_ like a fun game when you embrace it's mechanics but offers little else that really challenges the dedicated.
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@“LeFish”#p53249 I had a very similar Animal Crossing experience with this game. Come to think of it, Animal Crossing is how I first played any NES games at all, giving me a perhaps skewed perspective on the importance of Wario's Woods in the catalog.
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**Mario Paint!!**
God. what a fantastic little program for silly little weirdo kids. I have a lot of personal nostalgia for this one because my sweet ol dad got me an SNES with a bunch of games for Christmas one year, and when the SNES mouse came broken he repaired it (at great difficulty, my dad is not well-versed in repairing electronics in the slightest) and I just always thought that was so nice.
Anyway, this game has a really quirky atmosphere that not a lot of games compare to. The music, animations, and weird little Mario flourishes make it feel cozy and free-spirited! Which is great for an art application because it created a whimsical fun space where creativity was encouraged in every corner. Oh, and the animation making software, while rudimentary as hell, is what ultimately lead me to learning how to animate in Flash! (RIP)
It also wouldn't be fair to Mario Paint to not mention its music sequencer- which has perhaps had caused more of a cultural impact than the entire rest of the game combined. (the fly swatter minigame being in WarioWare is probably this game's only other major lasting legacy in the public consciousness) I love watchin' videos of folks more talented than I will ever be lovingly recreating the USSR national anthem in this music sequencer inside a Mario game that you needed a whole ass mouse peripheral to play. (I know it's kinda cheating because this particular one was made in the PC program that is a little more feature rich than the SNES original but wahtever)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exQLEi7fM5Y
Good stuff!
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I'll have to pick Final Fantasy 4 since it's the game that got me into playing games. I'd played lots of games before this - on the NES, the Atari 2600, on the C64, and on the Apple II (all systems shouted out on the latest episode, mostly by Frank) but FF4 is what made me a LIFELONG GAMER(tm). For reasons that are probably obvious too: That a game could have a _real_ story, and _real_ characters, and a combat system that seemed ridiculously robust to a 6 or 7 year old. This game was **hard** for me and I solved all problems by grinding for hours and had fun doing it. An all-timer for me.
dang I‘m really on Final Fantasy today huh? I think I’ve referenced different Final Fantasy games in three different threads today.
https://www.mobygames.com/images/covers/l/222113-ultima-vi-the-false-prophet-dos-front-cover.jpg
The first Ultima I played, and indeed one of the first games I played on our own computer at home. We got a 286 at the end of 1990 and the first games we got for it were Ultima VI and Stellar 7.
I’ll defend U6 as an excellent rpg until the end of my days.
(edit: I worded the above a bit awkwardly. This isn’t one of the first games I ever played, rather one of the first computer games I played at home on our own computer)
@“rejj”#p54401 omg that box art OWNS
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(Very late 1988 in Japan, 1989 everywhere else, also what even are release dates during this era)
Ninja Gaiden is the best 2D platformer. Sure it's Castlevania but faster, sure it's got those cutscenes, sure it has that spin slash, but what makes it is the level design. When you are holding right, you are a god. The minute you hesitate, things spawn in from all directions and juggle you down a pit without fail. Enemies you've already killed respawn directly on top of you. Hammer brothers pop up on every ledge and troll you. Just for hesitating once. Is this intentional, just a glitch, a limitation of the engine? Does it matter? The end result is a game that teaches you how to utterly destroy it by punishing anything less than perfection, and then pays you off with until this game unheard of graphical candy. What more could you want in a vidyagame?
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A perfect little straight-to-VHS action movie of a game, Downtown Nekketsu Monogatari has everything you want and nothing in excess. The simple beat'em up combat is frantic and meaty. Of course, it has punches and kicks, but it also has blocking (!), down attacks, better (or at least more interesting) weapon physics than many games today, and, uh, the ability to pick a dude up and beat his friends to death with his body. The triple strikes are some of my favorite things you can do with a single button press in any video game. The light RPG elements, humor, and story complement the action nicely, but what makes this game special to me is all the side details: the way the enemies talk to you while you're fighting, through text that you can and will usually ignore; the way you can do normal things like hug a teddy bear or get a smile from a waitress; the way you can wander around aimlessly if you want, in a genre that normally confines you to a strict path and pace. I love that there are so many food/clothing/etc. options that aren't fulfilling a merely functional effect. This game world is simple and gamey, yet it doesn't feel reductive or fake or made just for the player. Sometimes I play this game and just roleplay, walking around, eating, avoiding fights, and trying to find the person I love with as little conflict as possible.
I'd argue that The Friends of Ringo Ishikawa eventually perfected this form, but I believe that the melancholy and existential humor that Ringo brought to the forefront were sneaking around in its ancestor all along. A hard, brilliant gem that gleams like Saturday morning.
There was some cool stuff that came out in 1988 and I was really caught between this and Altered Beast for different reasons. Ultimately, though, the game I picked here had a much greater impact on me as a child so here we go...
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I could go on and on about how this was a revolutionary game that changed the landscape for what platform adventure games could be... but we all know that story.
At school in my hometown I was a Sonic kid through and through, defending the blue hedgehog to the death in sandbox arguments. But when I visited my grandma during the summer and the holidays, all she had was a NES and was I just not going to play video games?? Nope, I was gonna suck it up and play some got danged Mario. My siblings and I used to spend hours with this game just passing the controller back and forth and doing the little arcade style versus challenges. Being able to play this game became something I wold look forward to gong to visit my grandma. She never got anything other than an NES well into the 2000s so we would still visit and play the heck out of this game even though we had much more advanced games at home. It never was, and still never is, boring.
Where in the USA is Carmen Sandiego?
Multi-platform (we had it on the Apple IIGS)
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This game came out the year I was born and is one of the first games I can remember playing. It had rankings for repeat players, and I could never get past Gumshoe (I was 4 years old man) and I’ll never forget my father, never a “gamer” again, earned the rank of Super Sleuth which I thought was hecka impressive. The game came with this gigantic book with information about American geography and you needed to look up answers in the book to catch the villains. Formative for me for sure.
@“Syzygy”#p55084
i still think about this
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The Oregon Trail
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With its stunning graphics, nail-biting hunting action sequences, strategic resource management, and enriching historical perspective, Oregon Trail was a staple of school computer class for decades. It's very accessible game with enough depth and emergent gameplay to captivate young minds. It's also a game design philosophy you don't really see that much any more, It's worth going back to as an adult at least once.
Punch-Out!! (arcade)
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The original arcade release of the future-classic came out swinging, dominating the NA market this year. The premise, controls, art, and animations are all strong and engaging. Each opponent having a trick to make a KO significantly easier to achieve is frustrating design in retrospect, but is emblematic of the secret seeking/play-ground secret swapping culture at the time.