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

[Mogri]

I never got a chance to play Vagrant Story, but it's so far up my alley I should be charging rent. I hope it gets a remaster someday.

 

[4-So]

I bought Vagrant Story at release on the strength of "Square game!" and that was a mistake. (You'd think I would have learned my lesson with SaGa Frontier, which I also did not like, but I must be slow on the uptake.) In any case, I appreciate it was something unique and well-received but I have no love or nostalgia for it. It's one of those games I appreciate on a conceptual level, and from a distance, but I have no interest in playing.

Mario Kart 64 made my list but it was toward the bottom. I think the only entry in that series that I have more fondness for might by Mario Kart 8.

 

[Sarge]

@ShakeWell: Yeah, I've been tempted to drop back all the way to composite and just see what pops out. Just a CRT helps a lot, though, because of the massive amounts of dithering on the system by design.

I also find that PS2 looks absolutely fantastic on a CRT, and you can really tell it was designed around that technology.

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

Mario Kart 64 is not a personal favorite, but I can't blame anyone for loving it. It's just mechanically a super solid game that still holds up well today. If my friends played a bunch of this with me instead of DKR I'd probably love it too.

Vagrant Story is a game I really love the idea of but it just never fully clicked with me for a lot of reasons. And it didn't help that when it came out, I was still completely enthralled by Front Mission 3 and putting hundreds of hours into that instead.

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

I just put together a short audit of the list so far, just to kinda see where things have done and how many of my picks had made the list/how many were left off so far.

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64-62: King's Field (II); Ghost in the Shell; Worms Armageddon. (66pts)
61-58: Resident Evil; Ape Escape; X-Men vs. Street Fighter; Threads of Fate (67pts)
57: Bomberman 64 (68pts)
56: Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards (69pts)
55: Klonoa: Door to Phantomile (71pts)
54: Um Jammer Lammy (72pts)
53: Suikoden (73pts)
52-51: NiGHTS Into Dreams; Dance Dance Revolution (74pts)
50: Shining the Holy Ark (75pts)
49: Half-Life (81pts)
48: Grandia (81pts)
47: Panzer Dragoon Saga (83pts)
46: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater (85pts)
45: Dragon Quest VII (85pts)
44: Bushido Blade (87pts)
43: Parasite Eve (87pts)
42: Street Fighter Alpha 2 (88pts)
41: G Darius (91pts)
40: PaRappa The Rapper (91pts)
39: Valkyrie Profile (93pts)
38: Sin and Punishment (93pts)
37: Grim Fandango (94pts)
36: Silent Hill (94pts)
35: R-Type Delta (96pts)
34: Diablo (115pts)
33: SaGa Frontier (117pts)
32: The Misadventures of Tron Bonne (121pts)
31: Marvel vs. Capcom (122pts)

Honorable Mentions:
-No One Can Stop Mr. Domino! (18pts)
-Incredible Crisis (62pts)

30: StarCraft (125pts)
29: Star Wars: Rogue Squadron (127pts)
28: Radiant Silvergun (127pts)
27: Breath of Fire IV (128pts)
26: Diddy Kong Racing (129pts)
25: Perfect Dark (130pts)
24: Street Fighter Alpha 3 (140pts)
23: Paper Mario (141pts)
22: Megaman X4 (143pts)
21: Legend of Mana (149pts)

Honorable Mentions:
-Arc the Lad II (50pts)
-Wild ARMs (59pts)

20: Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete (155pts)
19: Resident Evil 2 (163pts)
18: Mario Kart 64 (165pts)
17: Vagrant Story (175pts)

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1) This is already a damned fine list. I think once we finish the teens, I'll have a pretty good idea of what the top 10 will end up being though. TT is pretty predictable sometimes.

2) It's mildly interesting to me that none of my top 5 picks have made the list thus far. (And projecting further, 8 of my top 10.) I assume that's because I'm just a real basic bitch.

3) Of my 25, 10 have made the list in some form (a few were honorable mentions though) thus far. Another 10 I think are dead-ringers for still making the list. I have hopes for 1 or 2 of the remainder to make the list, but I'm not betting on it. And the last 3-4 are the longest long shots ever.

 

[dosboot]

@WisteriaHysteria Heh, I hear ya. Your situation is probably different, but typically my lists do not get more than a few entries that are exclusive to (and/or characteristic of) Playstation, which for most of our gaming-related megalodomes seems like why few of my picks rank highly.

@Issun Out of curiosity: how many total games received at least 1 vote? Using this one could calculate how many games ranked from the average person, I think (the calculation assumes everyone voted for the same number of games though).

 

[ThornGhost]

There's almost certainly no question of what #1 will be. What's been interesting to me is the PC to console dynamic in the list. TT has almost always been more interested in console games of the era, but I wonder how much metagaming folks were doing, trying to build balanced lists that rewarded games they understood to be great, but maybe didn't have personal experience with.

 

[Issun]

#16

I dreamed I was a moron.

Developer: Squaresoft
Publisher: Squaresoft
Platform: Sony Playstation, PC
Release Dates: February 11, 1999 (JP), September 9, 1999 (NA), October 27, 1999 (EU), October 29, 1999 (AU)
189 Points, 7 Votes, Highest Vote: #4 (Issun)
​

We all knew we were going to start seeing the Final Fantasy series show up sooner or later, and it's probably no surprise that this one ranked lowest. For it is as beloved by those who enjoyed it as it is loathed by those who did not. It would be over a decade before there was another entry as divisive.

Final Fantasy has always been about doing things differently with each installment, but with #8, it rocked the boat quite a bit. It took an even bigger step towards blending sci-fi with its fantasy, and the field models shed the super-deformed look of previous games. The story still spanned time and space, but it focused on a group of five soldier-students and one resistance fighter, rather than the massive casts of previous games. Levels and gold became almost vestigial in favor of the Junction System.

It was a bold experiment, and many players (myself included) loved what it attempted. It is also understandable, though, how off-putting it was for many others. Time has been kind to it. it has gotten a full remaster, and you see more praise than vitriol now. Love it or hate it, it was definitely gutsy on Square's part, and if nothing else we can also agree that Edea/Adel/Ultimecia were one of the most fascinating villains the series has ever produced.

WisteriaHysteria said: My favorite Final Fantasy, with my favorite cast, setting, and soundtrack. It's also the foundational FF to me, as it is the game that most defines the franchise's identity as ambitious, trail blazing, ever changing, and forward looking versus other franchises that prefer to always look in the rear view mirror.​

Sarge said: I'm going to go on record as not actually caring a ton for the PSX Final Fantasy games (FFVII = good, FFIX = meh). But FFVIII was my favorite of the lot, and while I also tired about halfway through Disc 3 of trying to do all the optional stuff, it regained momentum when I decided to just make the final push.

Selected Track:

 

[Issun]

#15

There are people I want to protect, and so I need power.

Developer: Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo
Publisher: Konami
Platform: Sony Playstation
Release Dates: December 17, 1998 (JP), August 31, 1999 (NA), July 28, 2000 (EU)
215 Points, 7 Votes, Highest Vote: #1 (breakman)
​

If you asked me one single PS1 Classic you absolutely should buy from the PS3/PSP/Vita storefronts before they close down, this would be it. It is a sweeping 30 hour epic of war and intrigue and humanity, yet there is very little fat to trim. It has a breezy, easy-to-learn battle system given depth by the massive cast of characters to recruit. It builds on the first game, yet it stands on its own extremely well. It has beautiful, expressive spritework, a masterful score, and challenging boss fights. Out of 108 recruitable characters, almost none of them feel redundant. Only two other villains in video game history (Kefka and GlaDOS) can compete with Luca Blight for greatest in the medium.

Even though it has a few bugs here and there, Suikoden II is one of the very few games in existence that I would call just about perfect. It's a shame that so few people got to play it at the time. I have a feeling it would have ranked higher if they had.

Sarge said: Despite getting off to a slow start, Suikoden II eventually becomes a riveting tale of politics, friendship, and... vampires? What it loses in brevity from the first game, it more than makes up for down the stretch.​

WisteriaHysteria said: Greatest RPG ever made, in any time period.

Selected Track:

 

[Kirin]

I don't hate FFVIII! But I also didn't vote for it, mostly because I didn't want my list to be over 50% Squaresoft by volume. I also kind of "played it wrong" my first time through, clinging to the old paradigm of leveling up and only making things harder for myself in the process. From a greater distance, I definitely can appreciate what the junction system was trying to do, even if it seemed a bit obtuse at the time.

And Suikoden... man, I should've voted for Suiko2 even though I personally didn't come to the series until the PS2 era, and much to my shame have never even done a full play-through of it. I hope it gets another re-release someday.

 

[Adrenaline]

I think TT might like JRPGs

 

[Yimothy]

I like both of these games, but didn’t vote for either. Not sure why not, at least for Suiko II, which I’m sure I like more than some of the stuff I did vote for. Maybe I was feeling contrarian. I think Luca Blight is kind of cheesy, maybe that’s it. When I got to the climactic battle with him in the game I made a mistake setting up my first party, so I rushed through and didn’t put anybody in the other parties thinking there’d be a confirmation prompt at the end and I’d be able to reset the parties. There was no such prompt and I went ahead with suboptimal parties and got through anyway, which undermined the (ridiculous) tough guy thing they were trying to do for him.

I do really like Suikoden, though, and II is a good one. I named the player character Marx, which I don’t recommend because there’s a moderately important NPC by that name in the game.

 

[4-So]

Final Fantasy 8 was in the middle of my list. It's probably my favorite FF on PSX, even if I have more nostalgia built into FF7.

 

[WildcatJF]

Suikoden II was very high on my list at #5. Konami's strongest effort in the genre, and the reason I backed Eiyuden Chronicles, the spiritual successor. A masterful game on every front.

 

[Daikaiju]

I think TT might like JRPGs

To be fair, this was a good era for JRPGs and their adjacent genres

 

[Sarge]

Well, it's pretty obvious both of these made my list. Final Fantasy VIII comes in at #21, and I have no idea if I'd get tired of the draw system these days. But I had a blast with it back in the day, when a friend of mine kindly gifted me a brand new copy. I also had a strategy guide I was borrowing, and that was what helped contribute to my burnout before the final push. I honestly suspect that I'd probably like it even more on a replay.

Suikoden II comes in at #8 on my list. There really isn't a lot here that couldn't have been done on an SNES, much like the first game. But it's so tightly-designed with a blisteringly-fast battle system, and weaves such an effective yarn, that it doesn't matter. Much like Skies of Arcadia, it shows that executing the classic formula to perfection can be more than enough.

I've told this story before, but I almost missed out on owning this game. My brother and I had bought Tales of Destiny II earlier in the day, and were tight on funds. We saw the game in a Software Etc. and debated whether to get it. In a moment of prescience, my brother says, "What if we never see it again?" Boy, was he right. Outside of current-day retro stores, I never saw it for a reasonable price again.

 

[Peklo]

There really isn't a lot here that couldn't have been done on an SNES, much like the first game.

I don't think this is really the case. It's an assessment consistently directed at both PS1 Suikodens because they superficially track as archaic, but they're very platform-entrenched games in their audiovisuality and everything they accomplish through that context: the music's live instrumentation or convincing synthetic facsimiles thereof combined with the sheer scope of the soundtracks that would've been an impossibility on cartridge media and storage; the intricacy of the battle presentation from the 3D arenas that allow for dynamic camera pans, angles and zooms and the amount of huge sprites animated at once on screen; the higher-resolution assets throughout, whether traditional pixel art or digitized maps, breaking far beyond the limitations of tile-based RPGs as they'd existed before then on previous systems. I don't think any of these aspects should be taken for granted in how deliberate they were in making the most of the platform's potential in the stylistic direction chosen for the games.

Anyway, I didn't vote for Suikoden II, because I don't really like it. Final Fantasy VIII was an actual cut but it doesn't mean I like it any less than whatever I ended up voting for.

 

[Sarge]

Yeah, I don't entirely disagree; I probably overstated my case a bit. There are definitely things the PSX is doing that the SNES would have been hard-pressed to replicate. At the same time, however, I don't think a potential SNES version would have been significantly compromised, either. The soundtrack in particular would have been tough to bring over without a ton of cartridge space (or an SNES CD), though.

Basically, I'm saying it's very 16-bit in presentation, despite the graphical flourishes. I view that as a good thing in an era where most polygonal games didn't age well at all.

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

LOL just as I go off on none of my top 5 making the list so far, here's TWO of 'em. I'm surprised FF8 ranked to high, and S2 so low, but that's how these lists go!

Final Fantasy VIII - Don't really have a lot to say about this one that others haven't time and time again, besides personal anecdotes. I didn't own an SNES until college, and came to the FF franchise later than I assume most of y'all did who hold the 16bit games in way higher esteem than I do. My first FF was 7, which I really enjoyed. But as I alluded to, 8 was the foundations of what I enjoy about the franchise. Being an ignorant grade/middle schooler when these two games came out, I had no expectations for what FF8 would be like, beyond the usual series of expectations you would assume a sequel would have for its direct predecessor. But FF8 is so radically different in almost every possible respect to FF7 in terms of battle system, setting, and characters that it really was what set my expectations for the franchise going forward. It also helped that I loved most of those changes, versus my peers who looked at the game with confusion and frustration, "Why... isn't this just a sequel to FF7? I want to play more of that game instead." FF8 has a lot of warts as a game, but its sheer ambition and what it accomplishes for its era is a masterful triumph. This one was #5 on my list.

Suikoden II - Legitimately the perfect game. Everything about it is delightful. I came to the Suiko-franchise late. Suikoden II came out at pretty much the exact same time as Final Fantasy VIII did, and I was one of the many who would overlook it in favor of what was in the moment the most hyped RPG of all time. (Why is Konami so bad at business???) I bought and played Suikoden III on account of it coming out during a time when there weren't many good PS2 games in general, never mind RPGs. And I was so enthralled with that game, that I went about hunting down a copy of S2. I ended up buying an almost pristine used copy on eBay for ~$90. Which was about $60 cheaper than the average going price at the time, and managed that on account of the poor person listing it had misspelled the game and thus mis-listed it. Best $90 I ever spent. S2 was #2 on my list.

There's almost certainly no question of what #1 will be.

I think there's a big question! I dunno if Issun has said the exact numbers, but I'm pretty sure our sample size here is only in the teens. This list is a lot of fun, but any sufficiently small sample size is bound to have skewed/unrepresentative data. Look no further than #15 on the list, I'm honestly gobsmacked that S2 didn't rank in at least the top10, and that less than half of the people voting gave it a vote. I have my suspicions on what will be the #1, but there's no real way of making an educated guess without the field narrowing some more. My money is on either MGS1 or Zelda OoT. And even that could be wrong if a dark horse candidate like Xenogears can build up enough momentum.

And Suikoden... man, I should've voted for Suiko2 even though I personally didn't come to the series until the PS2 era, and much to my shame have never even done a full play-through of it. I hope it gets another re-release someday.

I also wouldn't hold out any kind of hope on a re-release. Something drastic has to change over at Konami first, like the company getting bought out, or every person in power over there dying off and getting replaced by someone who is not so vehemently allergic to the video game medium. And waiting for a regime to naturally end is a proposition that normally takes decades, if not centuries.

There really isn't a lot here that couldn't have been done on an SNES, much like the first game.

Peklo hit on it already, but Suikoden 1&2 absolutely could not have been done on the SNES. Just from a save file perspective, SNES carts did not have the save file capacity to handle Suikoden games beefy save files that took up multiple blocks on PS1 memory cards. On account of just how many variables there are in the game's structure with regards to recruiting 100+ characters, and a mind bending 80 playable characters. Each one you have to store info for their stats, magic, and equipment. Suikoden 2 as well has a massive amount of text too, text that by itself would have filled a standard sized SNES cart several times over, leaving no room for the graphics and audio. I would entertain an argument about dumbing down the graphics and music to make a back-port possible. But you can't remove the 108 Stars of Destiny, nor truncate the text of the story and still have the core essence of Suikoden remain intact.

 

[Issun]

@dosboot To answer the query: There were 27 lists total. As for how many games were voted for total, I'll post the master list at the end.

 

[4-So]

Yeah. I'm not convinced yet on what the #1 game is going to be. I could think of three that have a better-than-decent shot at it.

 

[Sarge]

Fair enough. I'm buying some of y'all's arguments in retrospect in terms of raw assets.

I don't think stats storage is an issue, though. PS1 memory cards are only 128 KB, so Suikoden II would only take up roughly 17 KB assuming it's using all the space in both blocks. Most SNES carts were 8 KB SRAM, but there were games that used 32 KB SRAM chips. Sim City and Mario Paint are two of them, and I reckon I should have known Tecmo Super Bowl III was another, given how detailed its stat-tracking is.

@4-So Yeah, I've got three in mind that could take it all, myself:

Spoiler

FFVII, Symphony, and Ocarina.

 

[4-So]

If we want to speculate on the three, I was thinking FF7, Ocarina, and Mario 64.

 

[spines]

although WH's guesses are good too i think the most obvious #1 is symphony of the night, which is also the only game i voted for i sincerely expected to make the top 10. although there's another one i expected to have already showed up, so who even knows now

I wonder how much metagaming folks were doing, trying to build balanced lists that rewarded games they understood to be great, but maybe didn't have personal experience with.

i certainly didn't do any of that and i don't think most people did, i feel like a lot of the discussion here has trended toward "yeah, that's who i would've expected to have voted for that". though honestly i didn't really make much of an effort to diversify my list either, i just like a lot of stuff so it wasn't really hard to keep jrpgs below 1/4 of the list (barely). if there's a really obvious (to me) hole in my list beyond pc games in general it's fps, which is a genre that i've overall only played a little and virtually not single player at all, so half-life and PD both crossed my mind but didn't make the cut

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mk64 is the only game from the last two days i've played much. i think double dash is my favorite in the series (and certainly the one i've played the most), though 64 is pretty iconic in a lot of ways. i didn't vote for it.

ff8 and vagrant story i've owned copies of, but never really got into either, they didn't make much sense to me at the time. i've been intending to give them another shot. suikoden 2 i have no familiarity with at all. i was gonna play the first one first, but then i got lost and dropped my file for 7 years and counting

 

[FelixSH]

While I do like Suikoden, love Lucca Blight a lot as an antagonist and am impressed ny the whole game, I prefered the first game. I mean, it looks amazing, and is all around great, I understand that - but it felt too long (and the fight against the vampire from the first game felt like filler). But maybe I wasn't in the mood, or something, it's so long since I played it.

I voted for FF VIII. It is my least favourite from the PSX FFs, but it is still an FF. I played through it two times, both times using a guide, getting Diabolos and no-enc immediately and only fought bosses. Even did all the side quests, including the card stuff, and abolishing all horrible rules. I liked the game, but the world never quite worked for me. Felt too modern, to me. But I'm very curious how I will like it this time, when I get to it through my project. I'm sure there is a lot to appreciate that I didn't, years ago. I'm curious if you get a decent challenge, if you just fight every monster, like you do in most other JRPGs.

 

[Sarge]

@4-So: Good point, I forgot about that one.

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

Oof, only 7/27 votes for S2. Brutal!

I didn't even think of Mario 64. Yeah, there's just gonna be no way of doing a good prediction right now until a few more cards fall into place. "TT sure like __________________" is a common refrain, but there's still a pretty divergent spectrum of players here who prefer different genres and grew up in different console cycles and even prefer different things from the same genre. I couldn't begin to comprehend S2 as being too long or anything in it being 'filler' because exploring the world and setting is the primary attraction to me for the Suikoden games. But if your platonic ideal is a fundamentally shorter/tighter experience like S1 or Chrono Trigger, I get that. We're all different!

 

[Torzelbaum]

I had FF8 at #7 on my list (but did not have 7 at 8).

Most SNES carts were 8 KB SRAM, but there were games that used 32 KB SRAM chips. Sim City and Mario Paint are two of them, and I reckon I should have known Tecmo Super Bowl III was another, given how detailed its stat-tracking is.

That does make me wonder how much SRAM Ogre Battle had - I do feel like that would have had to track a fair amount of data.

 

[4-So]

Re: growing up with different genres and games, agreed on those points. I didn't vote for a single Sega Saturn game because my exposure to the Saturn begins and ends with the 15 minutes I spent playing a Street Fighter game on a Sears demo unit. My first (and tragically last) Sega system is the Dreamcast.

For this list I decided to only include games I spent enough time with to make a (positive) lasting impression. So while I understand games like Vagrant Story and Suikoden 2 are generally well-regarded, and on other lists I may have voted for them out of respect/appreciation, I didn't have them on my list as I either didn't enjoy it (Vagrant Story) or never played it (Suikoden 2).

 

[Sarge]

That does make me wonder how much SRAM Ogre Battle had - I do feel like that would have had to track a fair amount of data.

Looking at SNES Central, looks like it used the standard 8 KB. Good memory management there! Another game on NES that made excellent use of its memory was Tecmo Super Bowl, which had some excellent stat-tracking much like later games did. I suspect the additional SRAM for TSB3 was tied to the custom players you could create, but I'm not sure.