Yesteryear GOTY Discussion [1987 Edition]

[Death_Strandicoot]

Let’s discuss our favorite game from each year.

Previous threads:

• 1985 - TBD

• 1986 - Out Run

Rules:

• One game per person.

• Feel free to change your mind.

• Be excellent to each other.

• Have fun.

What counts as a “1987” game? Well, that’s up to you, but there must be some argument to be made that the game first released in some capacity in 1987. For the purposes of my examples below, and my personal criteria, is the game’s first release in any region/platform must be in 1987 for it to count. You get to use your own rules.

Notable Active Platforms in 1987:

• Apple II

• Apple Macintosh

• Arcade

• Atari 5200/7800

• Commodore 64

• Commodore Amiga

• MS-DOS IBM PC

• NEC PC-8800 & PC-9800 Series

• Nintendo Famicom/NES & Famicom Disk System

• Nintendo Game & Watch

• Sega Master System

• ZX Spectrum

Some Notable Games of 1987:

(but please go deeper and feel free to pick something not mentioned here)

• After Burner

• California Games

• Contra

• Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei

• Dizzy - The Ultimate Cartoon Adventure

• Doki Doki Panic

• Double Dragon

• Final Fantasy

• Karnov

• The Last Ninja

• Maniac Mansion

• Mega Man

• Metal Gear

• Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!

• Operation Wolf

• Phantasy Star

• Police Quest: In Pursuit of the Death Angel

• R-Type

• Shinobi

• Sid Meier’s Pirates!

• Space Quest II: Chapter II - Vohaul’s Revenge

• Street Fighter

• Super Hang-On

• Tecmo Bowl

• Wonder Boy in Monster Land

• Ys I: Ancient Ys Vanished

• Zelda II: The Adventure of Link

Notes

• Votes will be charted/tabulated occasionally

• The winner(s) will be declared on 1st, but voting will continue and votes may change.

• Voting will permanently close on the 15th, but discussion may continue indefinitely.

[Death_Strandicoot]

My first instinct is Contra but the 1987 release is just the arcade version, which is far inferior to the 1988 NES port

I also think Doki Doki Panic is a great game, but I definitely prefer the 1988 conversion into Super Mario Bros. 2.

I adore what would come later in the Final Fantasy, Mega Man, Metal Gear, and Street Fighter franchises, but am fairly underwhelmed by their first entries.

So that leaves me endorsing the NES Punch-Out!!

The previously released arcade Punch-Out!! games were not great. The sprite scaling isn’t used to particularly good effect, the opponents are hard to predict which makes it less about pattern memorization and more about luck & reaction, and hearing “body blow!” over and over isn’t a great time.

The NES game is the first time the franchise really “got it right”. The controls feel snappy, the opponents behave in specific, learnable patterns, and the sprites are huge and detailed for the NES.

The green-haired wireframe boxer protagonist is replaced with the iconic Little Mac, with his ponk jumpsuit and green gloves; a tiny Rocky who Mighty-Mouses opponents five times his size. Mac has a spectacular star punch that’s super fun to use and feels special due to being relegated to the Start button. You get some risk/reward action because you can store up to 3 stars, but lose them all if you get hit before you throw your big punch.

Okay, sure. The game has some issues with stereotyping which I make no excuse for, though it’s mostly tame overall, especially for its era.

Oh, and the original cover athlete is now a convicted rapist. However, that means it’s also a Nintendo game that gives you a chance to punch a convicted rapist in the face until he falls over.

Thankfully, there is no way to give Mike Tyson any money by purchasing a copy of Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! or Punch-Out!! Featuring Mr. Dream, and I do think, as long as it is approached as a game of its era, it’s my favorite game of 1987.

[Funbil]

Unlike 1986 I don’t have any particular fondness for 1987… There’s some great ones like Legacy of the Wizard and Otocky that are definitely very good games but not really what I’d consider Game Of The Year material. I’ll toss it to R-Type

[Mnemogenic]

It has to be Dragon Quest II for me. I adore it. It feels like a game made by people who knew what the jrpg genre was going to be, but could only get part of the way there.

My favorite thing about it is how open it is. Once you get a ship, it points you in a direction, but you can go almost anywhere and start collecting the doodads you need for your quest. I think the first time I played I collected all of them before finding the item that helps you locate them.

[Garrett.exe]

I like a lot of these games, but I would have to agree that they have better sequels still to come pretty much across the board. I haven’t actually played Dragon Quest II so I can’t vote for DQ again.

It may not get many votes, but I’m going with Final Fantasy. I actually like this one more than the next couple games in the series at least, and would probably still rate it above some of the double digit numbered entries as well. It’s light, breezy, and fun. You can name the characters after your friends and level them up a million times. You can cast haste to make your monk do like 300 attacks in a row. If you play in English you get to experience a funny translation.

Won’t be the last time I vote for a Final Fantasy in these threads. It will be the last time for at least a little while though.

HM: Punch-Out, Mega Man, Castlevania II

[Kiki]

This one is hard, doesn’t feel like there is a huge stand-out obvious game for me. I like and respect games like Phantasy Star, Final Fantasy, Mega Man, Probotector, Doki Doki Panic, Metroid, Zelda II and Shadowgate, but I’m not sure I like them enough to declare one a victor.

I wasn’t expecting this, but I think I’m gonna have to go with Wonder Boy in Monster Land, not because I particularly enjoy playing it, but because I respect the everloving crap out of it. What a cool and interesting game! A side-scrolling action-RPG for the arcade?! And it was so hard as balls that I’m still unsure how I beat it even with a guide and save states. Just a dense slab of tricks, secrets, mysteries and peculiarities. An adventure grander than its own better judgment. This one is running on pure ambition!

Sure, basically every Monster World game after this is both more accommodating and enjoyable, but there’s still something magical about the original Monster Land. Like partaking in the unlikely legends of an old folk hero, too fantastical for even the player to replicate!

Also, look at those shopkeepers! That’s what we call iconic.

And while it was made for the cover of the Mark III version a year later, I’d be remiss not to feature this piece of gorgeous artwork. What a beauty!

Special shout-out to Plump Pop, a hilarious co-op arcade game from Taito where you are parenting couples of dogs, cats and pigs bouncing their offspring on trampolines to take down baddies. Don’t bother playing this one alone, though. The real laughs will only come with friends.

[UncreativeOutput]

I still think it should jump to a random undecided year for each new thread.

Gotta keep 'em on their toes.

[Kez]

This is quite a strong year but nothing really jumps out as a clear winner. While Punch Out!! is a great game I haven’t ever really sunk my teeth in it. Zelda II is probably the game I’ve had the most fun with from this list, so I’ll nominate that.

There is a wisely under-the-radar modern fan remake of Zelda II that I can highly recommend, I played through it on Steam Deck last year and loved it.

[chazumaru]

For reference, some potential additional candidates missing from the OP list:

• 1943 (Arcade)
• Arkanoid: Revenge of Doh (Arcade)
• Black Tiger (Arcade)
• Bubble Ghost (Atari ST)
• Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest (Famicom Disk System)
• Dragon Spirit (Arcade)
• Dungeon Master (Atari ST)
• Faxanadu (Famicom)
• Final Lap (Arcade)
• Getsufūmaden (Famicom)
• Hoshi wo Miru Hito (Famicom)
• J•E•S•U•S (PC-8801)
• Lupin the 3rd (Famicom)
• Megami Rescue (Arcade)
• Mortville Manor (Atari ST)
• Nakayama Miho no Tokimeki High School (Famicom Disk System)
• Pac-Mania (Arcade)
• Shadowgate (Atari ST)
• Sorcerian (PC-8801)
• Tiger Road (Arcade)
• Wizardry (Famicom)
• Wizball (Atari ST)
• Wonder Momo (Arcade)

---

My vote goes to the masterpiece Phantasy Star. Pretty much a flawless game in 1987.

The Complete Story of Phantasy Star: The Greatest 8-Bit RPG | Kim Justice

Finally, Phantasy: Phantasy Star | Segaiden 067

Phantasy Star One 35th Anniversary: A Retrospective Gaming Documentary

I don’t really need to defend the game, but I can make you feel guilty not voting for it! You won’t have many other chances to let a female director win these yearly polls. You won’t have many other chances to let a game with a strong female protagonist, a genderfluid secondary character, a lovable hunk and his cute cat win the yearly poll. And you won’t have many other chances to vote for a game programmed by a proper criminal.

[UncreativeOutput]

I just went to do my due diligence. And then came back here to post after 10 seconds, because I remembered the only actual possible answer is Nethack

[sapphicvalkyrja]

This is in some ways an emotional pick, but for me it can’t be anything other than Final Fantasy. While it wasn’t the first game with a battery back-up save system, but it’s the one that felt most impressive to me, tracking so many different things (multiple characters, hundreds of pieces of equipment and chests and quest / story progression). The game feels positively huge, too, even relative to something like The Legend of Zelda from the year prior, with its overworld map and multiple methods of traversing it to gate progression through the world creating a sense of scale that other games of the era never quite managed, in my opinion

Plus, Uematsu was really doing some work on that NES machine (I honestly think later renditions of this one lose something relative to the original, even):

[Video Soundtrack] Mt. Gulg [FINAL FANTASY I]

The “class change” mechanic in the game would also later go on to be a formative part of the series in terms of character growth, though many later entries would often focus more on narrative growth instead. The simplicity of the moment, and the effective spritework making it truly feel like your characters had “grown up” works still, though, and is a testament that sometimes, mechanics can do a lot to tell a story all on their own

Throw in the some incredible paratext in the walkthrough / manual and the gorgeous maps, equipment index, and bestiary, and you have a package that’s unforgettable. To this day, it’s Final Fantasy that makes me miss things like manuals and other paraphernalia in modern games

There is certainly some nostalgia in this pick for me, as the original remains my favorite of the pixel era Fantasies Final, but I also do think there is a certain elegance in its simplicity and in the way it leans more toward being a dungeon crawler than the more narrative-driven games in the series that would follow after

And coming from the video games narratives girl, I suppose that’s a pretty big compliment

[Taliesin_Merlin]

Honorable mention to the arcade game Rastan, which was a solid choice well into the 1990s. Muscular guy, great music, smooth sword swings, a flaming sword.

Rastan (ARCADE 1987) - Gameplay - FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE GAME - STAGE 1

I also considered Nethack, but the version in 1987 isn’t the version I love. That one comes into being by the early 1990s with 3.0.0 and 3.1.0 with the addition of more special levels (while still being pre-Sokoban).

But I have to go Phantasy Star.

I first played this game as part of the Phantasy Star Collection for the GBA. I had already played 2, 3, and 4. What I found in 1 was substantial for 1987. The anime-style artwork and cutscenes were gorgeous and vivid. The game was trying a lot of little things that sometimes cropped up in RPGs of the time, like the possibility of talking to enemies and improving your ability to talk to them, or grid dungeons with secret passages. But the mechanical foundation was solid: fight monsters, gain levels and gold, get stronger.

Alis, Myau, Odin, and Noah are a versatile team, maybe the earliest RPG party I remember as individuals rather than as generated characters or titles (the Hero, the Prince, the Avatar). The game is also effective at creating a sense of worlds, not just the starting planet but two others the party can shuttle between via starship.

Without casting any slight to Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest II, Phantasy Star for me represents the complete package of what I was looking for in games: memorable characters, traversible worlds, gorgeous art, slapping music, solid advancement, and a rough edge or two (having to figure out or look up how to get and use cake, the talking mechanic) just to throw in some surprises.

[Karasu]

I have to go with my gut! And it’s saying Shinobi. It’s not in any way as important as some of the other choices (like Ys I in particular) but it has such a specific vibe. Plus the soundtrack is excellent!

Arcade Music - Shinobi Soundtrack

[TracyDMcGrath]

It’s the 1982 USENIX conference in Boston, and Ken Arnold and Michael Toy are speaking about a little game they wrote at UC Berkeley called Rogue (more in that…earlier?). Jay Fenalson is in the audience, glued to the talk and curious about how they were able to create randomized levels for their game. He asks them for the source code after the show and they say no, so he gets to work writing his own version of the game, which he names Hack (get it? because…well, nevermind). The game is based heavily on Rogue, but adds several notable things, such as shops, which will become genre staples.

Two years later he releases Hack on tape at the 1984 USENIX conference in DC. Andries Brouwer makes some changes and streamlines the code and releases it to the net.sources newsgroup on Usenet later that year. As the first game like Rogue to have its source code released openly online, Hack spawned several ports and versions from various other programmers, notably Don G. Kneller’s DOS port and R. Black’s port for the Atari ST. All the while, Andries Brouwer is still releasing updates to the base version of Hack he released to Usenet, and these ports start to multiply and diverge. Mike Stevenson decides this is becoming untenable, and he organizes a central version of the game’s source that will have hundreds of testers and contributers and a centralized team of devs to organize and maintain the code. He announces his intentions, compiles the best ideas from all the versions available into a single release, and titles this centralized version of Hack that’s being developed on Usenet:

Nethack (1987, self released)

Nethack in 1987 is basically just a hack of Hack. There are some notable changes like the Wizard of Yendor being able to revive after death and the addition of spellbooks and fountains and throne rooms, but a lot of what makes Nethack Nethack isn’t here yet. No branching paths, no quests, no Medusa, no Vlad, no Castle, and no Astral Plane. However it’s hard to put a year on Nethack that isn’t 1987. Even the upcoming 3.7 version makes some major changes like non square rooms and a long needed nerf to Valkyries; the game is still very much a fluid and changing thing. So to point to 1989 when 3.0 adds the Castle or 1993 when 3.1 adds the Gnomish Mines feels silly. What makes Nethack Nethack is that it’s the first open source game that’s like Rogue to be developed by a team online. It’s a game with so many people working on it that you will never as the player encounter something that a dev hasn’t encountered first and then added flavor to. If you step on a polymorph trap while wearing dragon scale armor you will of course morph into a dragon. And if you sit while you’re a dragon you will of course lay dragon eggs. And if your dragon children grow up with you around to look after them they will of course still consider you their mom even after you become a human again. And if they still consider you their parent they will of course let you fly around on them across pools of lava, breathing fire on your enemies. And of course if they fall in love with a succubus while you’re saddled on top of them flying over a pool of lava, you will of course fall to your death as they disrobe for said succubus. Of course! Because The Dev Team Thinks of Everything; that’s what makes Nethack Nethack, and that idea of a massively multideveloper online role playing game is what makes Nethack, by several county miles, the best game of 1987.

[goatmyboat]

Unlike last year (1986) I haven’t spent enough time with really any of these to have a solid opinion. Which gives me a perfect excuse to dig through the nes/arcade/mastersystem games currently on my misterPi sisterPi!

If I had a gut feeling pick it would probably be Darius since I think the ultra wide gimmick is really fun for a shooter. I might be back later in the thread with a different pick we will see.

[Gemstonez]

Oh, this is easy!

Mutant Night

Arcade Longplay [629] Mutant Night

I was born in 1987 too. Mutant Night and I were separated at birth. I became a human, and Mutant Night became an arcade game. But I’m glad we reconnected later in life.

[TracyDMcGrath]

UPL was just consistently knocking shit out of the park in this era. I didn’t really get into the non shmup games as much until the Arcade Archives releases in the late 2010s but they’re really slept on

[tomjonjon]

It would be cool to have a UPL thread. I’m not familiar with much of their work.

[Tradegood]

Normally I would probably say Final Fantasy I since it’s such a great game that I return to every couple years. The original NES version is so playable and its class system gives reasons to keep coming back and trying something new.

However, I’m going to vote for Sid Meier’s Pirates! Even 38 years later it feels groundbreaking and there’s nothing quite like it. It’s a player directed simulation sandbox, and while stuff like Oregon Trail predates it, this feels like a momentous shift into what sim games could be. At the time, simulation games were mostly like War sims or Air Traffic Control sims, but this feels like one of the the first to really playfully incorporate role playing and modeling history through the lens of game systems. Sid Meier of course went on to things like Civilization and Railroad Tycoon, but it feels like this is where it all started. It heavily influenced the genre the genre of economic / trading simulation games.

The game itself is filled with super interesting decision making and character interactions. It’s all about creating your own adventure, deciding who you will be loyal to, sinking ships, hunting pirates, finding treasure, trading between ports, and even romancing the Marquis’ daughters. You don’t have to be violent in this game and there’s no set ending, you can just grow older and choose to retire.

It has an excellent 3d remake that came out in 2005, and there are others that came after, like Uncharted Waters, Anno, Patrician, and Port Royale which are clearly inspired, but the original still has a real charm to it.

[Magnanimous]

I think my vote will be R-Type, at least for now. I could be talked into voting Nethack, or maybe Phantasy Star (although I’ve only played IV).

A lot of 1987 games seem more interesting than fun in terms of moment-to-moment gameplay, but R-Type goes down smooth. Although I’m not sure if the arcade version specifically is the best.