Frankie Blueberries
Allergic to draft picks
- Jan 27, 2016
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HF Retro Game of the Year - 1991 - Vote in the Poll!
- Thread starter Frankie Blueberries
- Start date
NyQuil
Big F$&*in Q
This is a really tough year.
Have to go with Civilization.
HM: Link to the Past, Street Fighter II, Monkey Island II
Have to go with Civilization.
HM: Link to the Past, Street Fighter II, Monkey Island II
It's Civilization for me, as well. It popularized/established the 4X genre and was one of the games that got me interested in history.
Monkey Island 2 was great, as well, but not too much different from its original the year before.
Monkey Island 2 was great, as well, but not too much different from its original the year before.
tacogeoff
Registered User
Agreed. I'm speaking entirely from a console perspective, since I have never played the original Civilization or any other PC game prior to late 1993. My old Commodore 64 had broken down by the late 80's.
Ninja Gaiden III and Super Ghouls & Ghosts are both as hard as fossilized dinosaur shit, and interestingly enough both games are hard for different reasons. SG&G, like many of its ancestors, is a game predicated on extreme memorization, while NG III is a "reactionary" type of difficult predicated on reflexes and intensity. NG III is definitely the worst of the NES trilogy IMO.
Sonic the Hedgehog was the game that made me really want a Genesis. We couldn't afford more than 1 new game system at a time, so I played this at a friend's house. The first and best real contender to Mario.
I like SOR but SOR2 is far better. Interestingly, both Sonic and SOR franchises had their best Genesis version as the 2nd out of 3.
No need to say anything about Street Fighter II. It transformed arcades and fighting games forever, and unlike Mortal Kombat was still awesome once ported to consoles. I personally find the MK series a bit overrated; SF games in general control better and have superior gameplay. For what it's worth, SSF2 Turbo may be the best fighting game I've ever played.
Tecmo Bo Super Jackson Bowl is my favorite sports game of all time. If you can't have any fun playing this game you're dead inside. I love the shit out of this game and it was the source of innumerable fights between my younger brother and myself in the 90's. The developers took a page out of the Mike Tyson's Punch-Out playbook and stressed gameplay over some misguided attempt at realism (which the NES wasn't even remotely capable of emulating.)
FFIV is my favorite FF game ever, and I love it to the point that the "Theme of Love" from that game was played by a live band as my wedding song (good luck out-nerding me after that admission.) FFVI is a better game, but I like IV more.
Super Castlevania IV is one of the 3 best games in the Castlevania series, along with SOTN and Rondo of Blood on the PC Engine (definitely not the mediocre SNES remake.) However, SCIV absolutely blows Rondo out of the water in the controls department. The game looks, feels, sounds and plays brilliantly for 1991. It's hard to compare it to SOTN since the two games are so different.
All that said, I consider the SNES Mount Rushmore to be Super Metroid, Link to the Past, Super Mario World and Chrono Trigger, and the first three should be set in stone. Others may disagree with me but LTTP is hands-down the greatest Zelda game I've ever played. OOT is a masterpiece, not denying that, but I'd take LTTP over it. It's so impeccably and unassumingly well-made that you don't even fully realize how great it is on your first playthrough. It's exquisite. It's still fun no matter how many times you play through it, the gameplay is utterly timeless.
Ryuji Yamazaki
Do yuu undastahn!?
- Jul 22, 2015
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YoSoyLalo
me reading HF
Castlevania is just as great as these games. I picked LTTP tho. Very tough choice between those two.
Civilization pretty easily out of the games I've played on this list. SF2, Link to the Past, and Lemmings were all very good too.
The Crypto Guy
Registered User
- Jun 26, 2017
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Well it's close. I'm guessing the majority of people who've played both would choose Civilization as the better game if it were given a vote.
Zodiac
Registered User
- Jul 6, 2003
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The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
Super Castlevania IV
Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts
all very close for me, and some of my very top favorites from the days of the SNES.
went with Castlevania IV, tho. it's my favorite Castlevania game (haven't played them all - only a few), and it had some of the best music ever on the SNES. played the crap outta that game.
Super Castlevania IV
Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts
all very close for me, and some of my very top favorites from the days of the SNES.
went with Castlevania IV, tho. it's my favorite Castlevania game (haven't played them all - only a few), and it had some of the best music ever on the SNES. played the crap outta that game.
It's closer than I expected. I don't expect it to remain close, though, because all 5 people here who have played the original Civilization have already voted
.
McRpro
Cont. without supporting.
Another thing: Battletoads is incredibly overrated.
It looks great for a NES game and controls fine. However, one must address the difficulty. It's not that it's one of the most incredibly difficult video games ever made...it's that the difficulty curve is the most irregular of any game I've ever played. Games are supposed to smoothly ramp up in difficulty and this game absolutely does not.
Level 1 -> Pathetically Easy
Level 2 -> Easy
Level 3 -> You have to be shitting me
Level 4 -> Medium difficulty, fun level
Level 5 -> You have to be shitting me Part II. Random obstacles ahoy.
Level 6 -> Please kill me now before these goddamn snakes do which is hard because you literally cannot make a single mistake in the second section of this level.
Level 7 -> hahahahahaha
Level 8 -> Pretty hard but very doable, boss is difficult though
Level 9 -> You don't even realize how ludicrous hard this level is until you've attempted to play through it countless times and are still f***ing dying all the damn time. Another level where you have to be 100% perfect.
Level 10 -> absolute f***ing bullshit. Blatantly cheap.
Level 11 -> even worse absolute f***ing bullshit. You can be 100% perfect here and STILL lose.
Level 12 -> very hard but fun
That's not the mark of a good game. Level 11, in particular, is completely broken. It's not that the game is hard, it's that it's hard in the wrong way and often for the wrong reasons.
It looks great for a NES game and controls fine. However, one must address the difficulty. It's not that it's one of the most incredibly difficult video games ever made...it's that the difficulty curve is the most irregular of any game I've ever played. Games are supposed to smoothly ramp up in difficulty and this game absolutely does not.
Level 1 -> Pathetically Easy
Level 2 -> Easy
Level 3 -> You have to be shitting me
Level 4 -> Medium difficulty, fun level
Level 5 -> You have to be shitting me Part II. Random obstacles ahoy.
Level 6 -> Please kill me now before these goddamn snakes do which is hard because you literally cannot make a single mistake in the second section of this level.
Level 7 -> hahahahahaha
Level 8 -> Pretty hard but very doable, boss is difficult though
Level 9 -> You don't even realize how ludicrous hard this level is until you've attempted to play through it countless times and are still f***ing dying all the damn time. Another level where you have to be 100% perfect.
Level 10 -> absolute f***ing bullshit. Blatantly cheap.
Level 11 -> even worse absolute f***ing bullshit. You can be 100% perfect here and STILL lose.
Level 12 -> very hard but fun
That's not the mark of a good game. Level 11, in particular, is completely broken. It's not that the game is hard, it's that it's hard in the wrong way and often for the wrong reasons.
blue425
Registered User
If you went into an arcade in 1991 you would know this is the correct answer.
My local arcade had five cabs. At its height each one had a line 10 people deep, it was madness. No arcade game before or since ever created that type of hype and atmosphere.
It reinvented a genre which is now so popular people fill arenas to watch the best play. All because of World Warrior.
Big McLargehuge
Fragile Traveler
This is a really weird year...probably the one year of my childhood where there's not a good answer.
I voted Civilization because of what the series became to me...but I was not playing that when I was toddler, nor did I even live in a house with a computer capable of playing it until Civilization III was a thing. Regardless, the vast majority of games on the poll don't move the needle in the slightest as far as my interests are concerned.
Green Hill Zone in Sonic the Hedgehog is probably my favorite gaming experience of 1991...but the rest of the game was never that good.
I voted Civilization because of what the series became to me...but I was not playing that when I was toddler, nor did I even live in a house with a computer capable of playing it until Civilization III was a thing. Regardless, the vast majority of games on the poll don't move the needle in the slightest as far as my interests are concerned.
Green Hill Zone in Sonic the Hedgehog is probably my favorite gaming experience of 1991...but the rest of the game was never that good.
Romang67
BitterSwede
How is Lemmings not winning this? Just because it wasn't part of a wildly successful franchise, and honestly probably wasn't a very good game if I put the nostalgia aside?
Sonic 1 was great, but I think some people underrate it because it doesn't hold a candle to the sequel, which is easily one of the greatest platformers ever made.
It's not winning this mainly because it's up against Link to the Past, Street Fighter II and Civilization, three of the best and/or most influential games in the history of the industry.
The Crypto Guy
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guinness
Not Ingrid for now
I voted Sonic, as I had a Genesis at the end of 1991, and the levels felt completely different vs Mario.
It really showed off the Genesis in 1991. (first Genesis game I played was Altered Beast, around the time it came out at a Kohls of all places, but that game hasn't held up that well IMO). It's amazing to me that Sega could bungle everything so badly outside of the Genesis.
HM: LTTP and SF 2.
It really showed off the Genesis in 1991. (first Genesis game I played was Altered Beast, around the time it came out at a Kohls of all places, but that game hasn't held up that well IMO). It's amazing to me that Sega could bungle everything so badly outside of the Genesis.
HM: LTTP and SF 2.
Frankie Spankie
Registered User
1992 was a tough one for me, nothing really stood out in my eyes. But this one is definitely Link to the Past and that's coming from a guy who never even owned a SNES. I ended up playing it on an emulator and loved every second of it.
KeithIsActuallyBad
You thrust your pelvis, huh!
Link to the Past. As much as I love FFIV, LTTP is still one of the greatest games of all time and my personal favourite Zelda.
The Crypto Guy
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