No One Can Stop Mr. Talking Time's Top 50 32 & 64-Bit Video Games!

Issun said:

X-Men vs. Street Fighter 67 Points, 3 Votes

At the turn of the century one could not shake one's stick in an arcade without hitting a Capcom fighter. Along with their Street Fighter franchise, they also had deals with both Marvel and SNK. While both series did well, it's the Marvel games that have stood the test of time. I'm not too knowledgeable on the differences between this and the full-on Marvel games, but I'm sure the people that voted for this one can edify you in the comments.

Click to expand...

I also voted for XMvsSF - I had it at #5. (I had the final boss of the game as #17 on my list of boss fights.)

Here's what I had to say about the game from when I was talking about the boss fight:
"X-Men vs Street Fighter elevated fighting games to a super-human level with action that would look and feel right at place in a comic book or cartoon. And fighting with a tag team partner also added another dimension to the strategy, spectacle and carnage."

I am not really all that familiar with the MvC series so I don't think I can speak on that.

clarice said:

I've played Ape Escape when i was a teenager. It took some time to get used to the controls, but when i did, i finally understood why this analog stick was a fun thing. Loved the soundtrack, still love it to this day. I want to replay it....

Click to expand...

I replayed it back in 2019. It still holds up fantastically. Definitely play via PSX - the PSP port leaves much to be desired, even if the technical aspects are a bit better. Losing that second stick and some wonky collision detection make for bad times.

Peklo said:

Anyhow, I was another one of the Ghost in the Shell votes. It's such a triumph of polygonal design and presentation, as well as a downright inspired use of the license for its moment in time. The mid-'90s rush toward multimedia in the video game space is usually viewed with embarrassment in hindsight, but it was the perfect context for a concept like Ghost in the Shell to exist in, thematically and metatextually speaking.

Click to expand...

It really is one of the licensed triumphs of the era. Especially considering how bad-to-middling other licensed anime games of the era were, like that really awful Dragon Ball fighting game that basically got dropped in the early '00s with only the most minimal localization (iirc, it was basically sold as an "import" that wouldn't be region locked from your US console) or that truly terrible actual import Ruroni Kenshin fighting game.

Issun said:

Resident Evil 67 Points, 3 Votes

While 1992's Alone in the Dark kicked off the survival horror genre in the west, Resident Evil popularized and perfected it. As you explore the creepy mansion, action and jump scares are aplenty, but it's the atmosphere that really made this game. Please do not order the Jill Sandwich.

Click to expand...

This is surprising, but not that surprising, I guess? I think more than anything, I'm surprised it showed up in the Honorable Menchies when I ranked it as high as I did (14), which does have me a bit concerned that one of my lower-ranked games didn't make the list at all, though I suppose it's possible that game has more traction than I expected.

At any rate, I think this is a symptom of the original RE being overshadowed by both the unabashed masterpiece that is Resident Evil 2 the same generation, and perhaps to a greater degree, the GameCube remake of Resident Evil. I think there's a segment of the audience that views the PS1/Saturn/DS version as essentially obsolete (with an exception for the DS version, I guess, since until REHD showed up on Switch, it was the optimal way to play the game portably). And that's not necessarily wrong. The 2002 remake is absolutely the better game, in my opinion. It adds a lot without really taking anything away, and it is a perfect example to point at when illustrating that massive jump in tech represented by the transition from 5th gen to 6th gen game machines (compare it to, for example, the Shadow of the Colossus remake on PS4, which is fantastic in its own right, but two generations removed from the original game, still doesn't hit you the way the GC Resident Evil does). Still, the impact that original game had on me (it was the first PS1 game I owned) has me going back to it with surprising frequency, even if I rarely finish a run.

I guess what I'm saying is, if you've only played the REmake or haven't gone back to the original game since the remake came out, you should play the PS1 version.

I'm one of those folks that just got around to REmake recently, because survival horror isn't really my jam. I do have a lot of respect for it, though, and enjoyed my time with it. Not a relaxing game to play at all, though! I do have access to the original game, so I probably should give it a whirl one day.

Two drops in and I'm already kicking myself for forgetting Worms.

Threads of Fate and X-Men vs. Street Fighter almost made my list. Worms Armageddon might have actually made the list, if I had thought to include any PC games. Which I didn't, I think mostly because I didn't own a PC for most of that time period.

Of what we’ve had so far, I voted for King’s Field, Worms Armageddon, and XMvSF. Kind of surprised to see the latter two make it, even as also rans, but great games all.

King’s Field I played very recently, which always gives an advantage in my listing process. I don’t think I was aware of it at the time, being a Sega loyalist who thought the PlayStation was ridiculous, but it’s the sort of game I would have looked at screenshots of and dismissed - for a while in the early days of 32 bit consoles I thought 3D was super-ugly compared to what 2D games were doing by then. Now I love its aesthetic and really enjoyed its early 3D gameplay, navigating a twisty series of corridors, all alike.

Worms Armageddon was the only (primarily) PC game on my list. I’ll recycle an anecdote from an earlier thread:

Yimothy said:

I used to play Worms Armageddon with my brother pretty often. In my team of worms, I had one named “Inigo Montoya” and another called “My Father”. After like a zillion games which didn’t give me the setup, eventually one of my brother’s worms killed My Father and Inigo Montoya was able to reach the killer afterwards. I announced “Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.”, and then dropped my banana bomb or baseball batted the worm into the sea or whatever, finally getting my payoff.

At the time my brother was not familiar with The Princess Bride.

Click to expand...

It’s kind of silly, but that’s the sort of game WA was - relentlessly silly, very flexible, and as fun as you could make it. We used to customise the settings for maximum explosion sizes, all the optional weapons on, and ninja ropes of maximum length and infinite number. Very bad for tactical play, but a lot of fun. The ninja rope remains my favourite grappling hook in all of gaming - you could extend/shorten it and swing left and right at will, and it was rigid, meaning you could swing up on top of it, though it would bend around land edges as well. Get up some momentum and you could fling your worm across the map with it. The standard tactic in our house was to navigate to an enemy worm on a very long rope, drop something very explosive, and retract the rope to make a getaway in the few seconds before your turn ended. I’m pretty sure that’s not how the game is meant to be played, but it didn’t matter in WA.

X-Men vs Street Fighter was a game that blew me away. The 32-bit generation corresponded with my teenage years, and I was into Street Fighter. I didn’t read comics but I’d seen the X-Men cartoon. XMvSF was like the pinnacle of 2D excess at the time, with its huge sprites, massive special moves, and reactive stages, and the gameplay was similarly excessive, with huge jumps, so many moves performable in the air, the on the fly character switching, doubled up super moves and so on. I was not that impressed with 3D at the time, and this was a perfect example of what 2D could be doing if people would just keep doing it. The later games in the vs series probable have more refined gameplay or whatever, but their expanded rosters had more characters I didn’t care about than ones I did, and they didn’t get there first like this one did.

I love that story. Well done. It was probably even funnier since he had no idea what just happened.

Sarge said:

I love that story. Well done. It was probably even funnier since he had no idea what just happened.

Click to expand...

Yeah, that's a great story. Thanks, Yimothy.

Had a ton of fun with Worms: Armageddon, too. A friend of mine used to sleep in my house so we could play Worms (...and settlers and diablo). To this day the voices (in portuguese) are stuck in my head. Every now and them something happens and i think of them; but since the only person i know that has played Worms is that same friend, i only quote Worms when i'm with him, hahaha. (In general i hate the nerd custom of quoting stuff, but i make an exception for this.)

Again, i don't like horror, but i do like a couple of Resident Evil games because of their atmosphere, their mood (the remake of 1, RE2, parts of RE4). At a glance, RE1 seemed to me to be just campy, so i avoided it so far. But

ShakeWell said:

I guess what I'm saying is, if you've only played the REmake or haven't gone back to the original game since the remake came out, you should play the PS1 version.

Click to expand...

I hear you! Yes, sir!

Sarge said:

I replayed it back in 2019. It still holds up fantastically. Definitely play via PSX - the PSP port leaves much to be desired, even if the technical aspects are a bit better. Losing that second stick and some wonky collision detection make for bad times.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the tip!

I voted for King's Field II despite barely putting time into the game myself personally. Several years back I bought all 3 localized KF games and it was The Ancient City that really grabbed me for any substantial amount of time, but reading playthroughs of the earlier games definitely solidified that I would enjoy them just as well once I get around to it more seriously. Plus those PSX aesthetics are astounding.

Ah, and

Yimothy said:

We used to customise the settings for maximum explosion sizes, all the optional weapons on, and ninja ropes of maximum length and infinite number. Very bad for tactical play, but a lot of fun. The ninja rope remains my favourite grappling hook in all of gaming - you could extend/shorten it and swing left and right at will, and it was rigid, meaning you could swing up on top of it, though it would bend around land edges as well. Get up some momentum and you could fling your worm across the map with it. The standard tactic in our house was to navigate to an enemy worm on a very long rope, drop something very explosive, and retract the rope to make a getaway in the few seconds before your turn ended. I’m pretty sure that’s not how the game is meant to be played, but it didn’t matter in WA.

Click to expand...

When i was in grad school, the dude at my side in the lab used to play games all day and there was a day that he installed Worms: Armageddon and i played with him. And i was surprised that he wanted to play exactly like this, hahaha.

The highest damage, as I remember it, was dropping a banana bomb into an enclosed space. The initial explosion would damage the worm, but then all the secondary bananas would hit the ceiling and explode in the same area. Huge damage.

Yimothy the Inigo Montoya thing made my day. I definitely remember my friends and I having silly names and doing voices for all the worms, but the specifics are gone from my memory. Just a general good feeling of a hilarious time with friends.

Did Armageddon have the sheep weapon? I remember one of my friends obsessively using the sheep but feel like it might have been a later game in the series.

I think it had two - one that would bounce along erratically before exploding, and the super sheep, which would fly and could be steered with the left and right buttons but went pretty quickly and was hard to control.

Yimothy said:

I think it had two - one that would bounce along erratically before exploding, and the super sheep, which would fly and could be steered with the left and right buttons but went pretty quickly and was hard to control.

Click to expand...

Yep, that was the sheepy arsenal at your disposal in Armageddon.

Oops, didn't see this had started already. Catch up time:

Worms - I played more knockoffs of this than anything else (like Korea's Gunbound) but they are indeed very good games.
GitS - I always saw the abused box for this at the local Blockbuster, and just assumed that as a licensed game it was trash. Oops!
RE - Issun, with games like this, did you consider this and say, the Director's Cut to be distinct games? Or were any votes lumped together.
Ape Escape - a game I never played much of, but adored everything about it. I miss when games were like this; very list-worthy.
Threads of Fate - This is my first submission to make the list, and I put it in at #22. Which was probably too low! Oh the regrets. Still love it to pieces.

Issun said:

Ah, Square's Summer of Adventure. I'm sure a hefty percentage of tyrants remember it fondly, and at least 4 of us have played its middle child.

Click to expand...

I still have my back pack! (Lost the water bottle though.)

Peklo said:

Dewprism I'm not nearly as experienced at yet, but the little I've seen speaks volumes about what kind of curtain call it was for Square on the system, and how special. Unimaginably gorgeous game.

Click to expand...

It's an incredible game. The miles this game gets out of its limited, but expertly designed polygon models could be a masterclass in visual design and minimalism. This game has just so much range and character to it. It's really a shame it ended up getting overlooked by so many at the time because it's just legitimately good in almost every way. And it's gorgeous not just visually but audibly as well, the soundtrack by Junya Nakano just sounds so unique and delightful, I'm convinced this game alone is what got the guy work on FFX not long after. Very under rated talent.

I didn't know Threads of Fate was so well regarded. I guess I need to actually play it, at some point.

Also, considering we are already at over 60 points, some of my top choices are very likely already out, even lower than nr. 64. Oh, well.

Yimothy said:

I think it had two - one that would bounce along erratically before exploding, and the super sheep, which would fly and could be steered with the left and right buttons but went pretty quickly and was hard to control.

Click to expand...

Yep, it was definitely the erratic one. Good times.

FelixSH said:

I didn't know Threads of Fate was so well regarded. I guess I need to actually play it, at some point.

Click to expand...

It's one of those mega-niche games where basically nobody played it, and so few people played it you can't even call it a "cult classic," but the handful of us who did loved it a lot. Some of the platforming mechanics in particular might feel off and not hold up to modern scrutiny, but I still think it's a fascinating game and worth people trying out. There's really nothing like it. Where you have an action RPG that follows two different POV characters and each character plays completely different from each other. And it's a lot of fun when their perspectives/stories intersect, even in little innocuous ways like say, when you see an empty treasure chest the other opened.

WisteriaHysteria said:

RE - Issun, with games like this, did you consider this and say, the Director's Cut to be distinct games? Or were any votes lumped together.

Click to expand...

It didn't really come up as much as you might think, but my criteria was that two different versions had to be so different that they could be different games, which would not have been the case with RE, even if I had had to worry about it (all votes were just for basic RE, although one did specify Director's Cut if the distinction needed to be made).

#57: Bomberman 64 68 Points, 3 Votes

Bomberman was one of the first truly great party games. While the N64 version eschewed some of this aspect in order to focus on translating Bomberman into a 3D action platformer, the result was good enough to make the single player campaign one of the most celebrated entries in the franchise.

#56: Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards 69 Points, 3 Votes

Kirby 64 belongs with the best of the franchise. While it wasn't the first to do 2.5D platforming, it integrated it into Kirby's aesthetic remarkably well, and the game is still as fun today as it was 21 years ago.

#55: Klonoa: Door to Phantomile 71 Points, 3 Votes

Speaking of 2.5D platforming, this is the granddaddy of them all. Klonoa is a joy to control, and while some of the later stages can be a bit finicky, Klonoa stands as one of the greatest platformers ever made.

#54: Um Jammer Lammy 72 Points, 3 Votes

When PaRappa the Rapper had success, the devs asked, "what's next?" They decided on a lamb that rocks. Um Jammer Lammy didn't blaze any trails, but it expanded on its predecessor in weird and wonderful ways, even taking its protagonist straight to H-E-Double Hockey Sticks.

#53: Suikoden 73 Points, 3 Votes

Suikoden was the first great RPG on the Playstation, and is still one of the great RPGs even today. Its sequel gets more love, which is arguably deserved, but this game set the standard for a continent-spanning series of friendship, betrayal, and the human cost of war. It's also just so wonderfully speedy.

A bunch of mine in here, again--all of them except the bookends. Kirby 64 to me is the peak of the series: the Shinichi Shimomura-directed games are particularly compelling and none more so than the concluding treatise on what they had to offer as a distinct expression of it. Klonoa's probably one of the most perfectly-crafted, tonally and aesthetically striking video game total packages there are--I cannot place any niggling caveats in it. Um Jammer Lammy is quietly revolutionary, I think: after the mockingly stereotypical first game, a '90s girl power indie rocker with anxiety issues as her central arc being cast as the star of a game would be exceptional in any era, but especially so in context of the time in the medium. It's one of the iconic women-led games from that time as a result, while also serving as a particularly dense, improvisational exploration of the rhythm genre that Parappa had codified.

Suikoden got cut from the list because I feel like I've talked about it a lot already, and will be the first of I'm sure many such compromises.

I'm very surprised, that Suikoden didn't make it into the regular top 50. I didn't vote for it or its sequel, but I thought it was really beloved here? Or is that more the second game?

Issun said:

#57: Bomberman 64 68 Points, 3 Votes

Bomberman was one of the first truly great party games. While the N64 version eschewed some of this aspect in order to focus on translating Bomberman into a 3D action platformer, the result was good enough to make the single player campaign one of the most celebrated entries in the franchise.

Click to expand...

And with this, I stand corrected - I hadn't thought that anyone aside from me would vote for this game. I recognize that it's not the greatest game, but I love how much it tried to translate Bomberman into the 3D space. The rough graphics look absolutely beautiful to me, and I have a ton of nostalgia for it - despite never really owning it, I had borrowed it a few times from a friend.

What I love so much about this game is, that so much of the levels (at least of some) is just there for hidden stuff. Specifically the very first level is great in that regard - I think you only need to visit 1/3 of the level. The rest is just there for you to find the hidden, golden squares and alternative costumes for Bomberman in multiplayer. The golden squares made you explore the levels, and find out how the bomb-jumping worked. The bosses were particularly interesting to me, as you could beat just beat them, of course. But you could also hit them at specific spots, that would alter their apearance, which would present you with a golden square. There were five of these in each level, and normally, you could just visit a level, find one, come back and get the others. With bosses (which was every second level), you needed to get all five in one go. That included the one you got from beating the boss within a time limit, which, granted, made the whole thing into a gamble. Bosses needed to expose their weak spots, you see, and if they didn't, they didn't, at least for some time. Like, the first world had a dragon boss, with you on a high bridge. Sometimes, the dragon would dive under the bridge, switching sides. This was the time where you had to bomb his wings, so they would partly burn away, and give you a golden square. Stuff like that. It's not necessarily super fun, but I just love how hard they tried to use the 3D, to give you stuff to explore.

Also, I found the evil bombermen (like that red lady, who is actually a guy, I think, but I interpreted the pixels as female) really cool. I was 10 at the time, so I think that's fair.

I could never completely beat the game. After collecting all the golden squares, you unlock a sixth world. And the third of these levels makes you do insane bomb jumping stuff, that I just couldn't pull off, no matter how hard I tried. A shame, because I really put a lot of time into this game, but that was too hard for me.

Anyway, really love this game, and what it represents to me.

Ah! If I had recollected Suikoden I'm sure I would have added it to me list! I'm angry that I missed it. Such a perfect little game. I didn't play it the mid 2010s. I had hacked my PSP and had the game on there. It was the perfect game for playing on the 30 minute train rides to and from work every day. For whatever reason the beats in the game just seemed to fit perfectly into that chunk of time. What a joy it was. I still keep intending to get to the sequel some day.

FelixSH said:

I'm very surprised, that Suikoden didn't make it into the regular top 50. I didn't vote for it or its sequel, but I thought it was really beloved here? Or is that more the second game?

Click to expand...

I can't speak to how others approached making their lists, but the breadth of material was so daunting that essentially the submitted list and its order was almost completely arbitrary by deliberate design, as I think that was a personally much more interesting route to take rather than pushing some well-worn canon. I could redo the picks and replace basically everything and it'd be just as valid. For that reason, I don't think one game or another being "missing," placing outside of expectations relative to others, or any other result in the list that comes about is surprising or an indication of how any of them are valued by the participants and community here. You can't pack a lot of nuance into a popularity poll so I've long just used them as a platform and opportunity to highlight whatever seems interesting to me in the moment.

I did not expect Bomberman 64 to list. It was low on my list... I remember liking it well enough and I think I OWNED it but I don't know why. Like, I can't remember asking for it and I can't imagine my parents giving it too me over something on my Christmas list. But I did enjoy it. I remember that. And I think I fought a big fish.

UmJammer Lammy was on my list, two. I didn't own a PlayStation but this is a game I played and enjoyed quite a bit. Also, Lammy has a great character design. And I have "The Flame" on my computer.

I was the other Bomberman 64 vote. I had owned Bomberman 2 on SNES, and thought it had been a better game, but 64 could be played 4P (with the hardware we had on hand), and we ended up playing it a ton. It’s not perfect, but it was a ton of fun. I’m glad it made the long list.

Ooooo I forgot Bomberman 64, probably because it's on my Wii U. Shoot.

I voted for Suikoden pretty highly. While I prefer the sequel, it's an excellent example of the genre and a lot of fun to play.

I love the sound design in Bomberman 64. I can still hear all the cute noises Bomberman makes, the way bombs explode and hit other players, the noise bombs make when you embiggen them... I played the game a lot when I was a kid but I never managed to figure out basically any of its secrets, and now I've never revisited it as an adult.

Suikoden didn't make my list but its sequel did. Just a matter of wanting to pick 1 over the other to make enough room in my list.