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There was a discussion about this awhile back in chat, and I thought I might as well throw this out - 1998 was an incredible year for gamers. A wide variety of quality games on all systems came out, including the starts to and peaks of many vaunted series. Here's a short list to help you out, based on American release dates.

Final Fantasy Tactics
Xenogears
Metal Gear Solid
Resident Evil 2
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Starcraft
Half-Life
Tekken 3
Unreal
Grim Fandango
Banjo-Kazooie
Gran Turismo
Panzer Dragoon Saga
Pokemon Red/Blue
Radiant Silvergun (Japan-only)
Thief: The Dark Project

So what do you think? Best year ever? I think so, mostly because there aren't any counterexamples that can provide the breadth and depth of quality games.

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this is a blog mostly about comics and videogames
END SPOILER

It was definetly a year of originality. They breathed life into old genres, and even put a couple new ones into the American mainstream (I'm looking at you MGS)

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Dead Winter. A nice comic.

If you say so, lol. And who knows, you may very well be speaking for the majority of gamers out there. As for me, FFT and Ocarina of Time were the only games out of that particular list that I have/had any interest in (granted, I'm not even familiar with a few of those titles, so eh).

This post has been edited by Galsic on 12th December 2005 19:25

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Console RPG Cliches

As far as I'm concerned, 1981 was the best year ever, mostly because that's when I was born.

1991 was a good video game year though.

Adventure Island II (NES) - One of my fav. series.
Final Fantasy II (SNES) - No explanation needed.
Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past (SNES) - see above
Star Tropics (NES) - a very good NES title
Super Castlevania IV (SNES) - First Castlevania to come to the SNES


1994 was another good year

Act Raiser 2 (SNES) - good sequel game
Art of Fighting (Genesis/NeoGeo) - fighting + NeoGeo = nuff said
Earthworm Jim (SNES) - I this game
Final Fantasy III (SNES) - Another great entry to the series
Mega Man VI (NES) - It's a Mega Man game
Samurai Showdown II (NeoGeo) - See "Art of Fighting"
Sonic & Knuckles (Genesis) - Good entry in a classic series
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (Genesis) - See above
Uncharted Waters: New Horizons (SNES) - I like this game


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kame, tortue, tortuga, schildkröte, tartaruga, turtle

"Arthur Dent?"
"Yes."
"Arthur Philip Dent?"
"Yes."
"You're a total knee biter."

1992-1995 were so God-incredible the best imo.

That's when SNES games started evolving into BETTER games.

Favorites

• Final Fantasy V
• Final Fantasy IIIus
• Chrono Trigger
• Mega Man X-X3
• Street Fighter II

I liked more others too.. But those are the fastest I could think of in 30 seconds

This post has been edited by NeoEx-Death on 12th December 2005 19:54

I agree with you, laszlow, that 1997/1998 was quite a stellar year; for all ye reading this, don't forget that 1997 produced Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (the game that started the 'Castle-' part of the term 'Castle-Met'), as well as one of our favorite Final Fantasy games, Final Fantasy VII.

I'd like to add another era to any list of important video game eras, and that's the era just past the 'video game bust' that I read about somwhere on Wikipedia. It's the 1985-1987 era. Why? Note the release of the following series-starting games:
Metroid (Japan 1986, N. America 1987)
Final Fantasy (Japan 1987, N. America 1990)
Dragon Quest/Dragon Warrior (Japan 1986, N. America 1990)
Castlevania (Japan 1986, N. America 1987, Europe 1988) (note also Vampire Killer, Japan 1986)
Super Mario Bros. (Japan and N. America 1985, Europe 1987)
Bomberman (Japan 1985, N. America 1987)
Ghosts 'n' Goblins a.k.a. Ghouls 'n' Ghosts (1985)
Mega Man/Rockman (1987)
Metal Gear (Japan and Europe 1987, N. America 1988)
Bubble Bobble (1986) (later spawned side-series Puzzle Bobble)
Phantasy Star (1987)
Nintendo Wars (Japan 1988)
Legend of the Mystical Ninja (1986)
Gradius (1985)

Notably missing from this list, but still from the same generation, are Sonic the Hedgehog (1991), Kirby (1992), and Fire Emblem (1990), however.

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Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

You can find me on the Fediverse! I use Mastodon, where I am @[email protected] ( https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey )

I personally think the 90's was a good decade in general for the evolution of gaming. Square's best decade too...

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Neneko is Neneko because Neneko couldn't be Neneko if Neneko wasn't Neneko!
--as quoted from Neneko, Mahoraba {Heartful Days}

I can stab a man with a thick paperback book thru the ribcage.

98 was without a doubt the best year ever. So many great franchises were started or redifined (MGS, GT, GTA, BK, HL, Thie, Unreal) and created some great entries into previous franchises (OoT, RE2, Tekken 3). Let us not forget that MGS remains in my top 3 list for best gaming franchises of all time.

An interesting thing I saw on G4 earlier this year (one of the only things) was an entire episode of cinimatech dedicated to the great games of 98. Really intersting to see that so many games came from jsut that year.

I did think that the original RE was 98 too, but guess not.

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"We're not tools of the government or anyone else. Fighting... fighting was the only thing I was ever good at, but at least I always fought for what I believed in." - Frank Yeager (a.k.a. Grey Fox)

I can definitely swing along with the 1998 vote, especially since I'm an FFT'r and, after playing most of those listed games in said year, I've finally been introduced to Xenogears which pretty much rounds out any doubt I have. Chrono Trigger and other games may have been standouts with a few other games in the years prior, but looking at the likes of Resident Evil 2, Half-Life and the others, I can see a high percentage of 'em becoming classics, if they weren't considered to be already.

Quote

Uncharted Waters: New Horizons (SNES) - I like this game

Same. Poker's fun. =p

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It's gonna be a glorious day
I feel my luck can change

I agree wholeheartedly that '92-'95 was without a doubt the best era for gaming. The time of the SNES and Genesis/Mega Drive will likely never be beaten.

As for '98, it was an okay year. Only a handful of games - all of which I can't think of at the moment - came out then that I had any interest in. In terms of the late '90's, I highly prefer '96 and '97 though.

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Words of Wisdom:

If something can go wrong, it will.

If anything simply cannot go wrong, it will anyway.

If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong. - Murphy’s Law

Boing! Zoom! - Mr. Saturn

1998 = FFT and OoT

That's enough for me

I may have to agree with Lazlow.

FF Tactics and Xenogears- So good, but so pooly funded and rushed.

Problem is that Planescape: Torment was made until '99, that's my major qualm otherwise.

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Really Random Quote of the Day: "Short of changing human nature, therefore, the only way to achieve a practical, livable peace in a world of competing nations is to take the profit out of war." - Richard M. Nixon

So if you're done reading this, you know I have nothing to say and you've wasted your time. Thank you come again.

Quote (SilverFork @ 12th December 2005 16:30)

As for '98, it was an okay year.  Only a handful of games - all of which I can't think of at the moment - came out then that I had any interest in.  In terms of the late '90's, I highly prefer '96 and '97 though.

Just to emphasize what I noted above, I personally consider 1997 to be part of the same era as laszlow's "1998".

But you also mention 1996...what games were you thinking of?

This post has been edited by Glenn Magus Harvey on 13th December 2005 08:56

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Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

You can find me on the Fediverse! I use Mastodon, where I am @[email protected] ( https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey )

Quote (Glenn Magus Harvey @ 13th December 2005 03:56)

But you also mention 1996...what games were you thinking of?

For '96, I was mainly thinkin' of the earlier N64 and PSX games, especially Super Mario 64 and the first Resident Evil (my favorite, tied with RE4) among a few others, as well as some of the latter SNES games including Bahamut Lagoon, Super Mario RPG, and the original Harvest Moon.

This post has been edited by SilverFork on 13th December 2005 11:39

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Words of Wisdom:

If something can go wrong, it will.

If anything simply cannot go wrong, it will anyway.

If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong. - Murphy’s Law

Boing! Zoom! - Mr. Saturn

Ocarina of Time is enough to give 1998 my vote
One of the greatest Zelda games ever
and FFT coming out in '98
98 ruled

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"Have you ever seen a baby do that before?"

Reading this posts makes me put jet fuel on my time machine and hop on back to the mid 90's, that christmas day 1995, the box with the psONE was given to ME!, go through all those beatiful days once again.

It's hard to pick one year in particuar, and it's hard not to agree with 1998 been the best year ever, the list on the first post has some incredible games, but Final Fantasy 7 was released in 1997, so I have to go with 1997!

Me going crazy here, I created my own FICTIONAL greatest year of video gaming

- Final Fantasy 7
- Ridge Racer REVOLUTION
- Tekken I
- Resident Evil DIRECTOR's CUT
- Mega Man X 3
- Xenogears
- Dynasty Warriors 2
- Super Mario Bros 3
- Battletoads VS Double Dragon
- Mortal Kombat TRILOGY
- NBA JAM T.E.
- Earthworm Jim
- Gran Turismo 4
- Genma Onimusha
- Galaga
- Safari Hunt
- Duck Hunt
- STAR WARS: Shadows of the Empire
- Doom
- Turok
- Halo
- Street Fighter II
- Street Fighter ALPHA 3
- Final Fantasy DAWN OF SOULS**
- Final Fantasy CHRONICLES**
- Final Fantasy ANTHOLOGY**

**original or re-release!!

DAMN! that was a good fic-year!!

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PS3 tag: TipoDLuffy

"...quite possibly the greatest game ever made"

My favorite gaming years would fall between the late '80's to early '90's. I am diggin' the modern games, though, and not just the re-made old titles and sequels/prequels.

This post has been edited by FabulousFreebird on 14th December 2005 13:55

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"Thought I was dead, eh? Not until I fulfill my dream!"
Seifer Almasy


"The most important part of the story is the ending."
Secret Window


"Peace is but a shadow of death."
Kuja

Well, if I try to pick a personal favorite period in gaming, I simply cannot choose. In my top ten favorite games (again, rather arbitrary and subject to change) I see one 1997, one 2000, one 1994, one 1995, two 1996, one 1998, one 1988, one 1999, and one 2005. I suppose my favorite era of gaming would be the mid 90s to late 90s, as I have one game from each year of 1994 to 2000 on that list, with a median of 1996.5 and a mean of 1996.8, but I don't care.

What I noticed was that 1998, which is a single year and not five years (for all of you "I consider these two/three/five years to be the best" cop-outs), had a large variety of quality games, including several games that either started something incredible (Starcraft, Half-Life, GT, Pokemon) or brought a particular series to new heights and popularity (OoT, MGS, Tekken 3). 1998 was a massive year for the PS1, N64, PC, and Saturn, brought us the second-most popular Game Boy game(s) of all time, and in general saw the creation of many games that are on many short lists of the greatest games of all time.

Edit

sentence structure

This post has been edited by laszlow on 15th December 2005 02:49

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this is a blog mostly about comics and videogames
END SPOILER

I consider the best era of gaming 1990-1996, all hail the mighty 16-bit era!

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~TornadoOfSouls~