HF Retro Game of the Year - 1991 - Vote in the Poll!

[saluki]

I'll probably be the only vote for Super G&G but I loved that game as a kid.

Spent too many hours trying to beat it. Never did.

 

[member 157595]

I'll probably be the only vote for Super G&G but I loved that game as a kid.

Spent too many hours trying to beat it. Never did.

The whole point of these polls is to talk about games, specifically those that have positively influenced the industry. If we all agreed we'd all be wrong. Period.

Super Ghouls & Ghosts is a great game. The barrier to the casual player is the difficulty but the game was specifically designed with the difficulty in mind. When I die in SG&G, it's because I don't know/remember exactly what to do (since there's little, if any, margin for error), not that it's outright cheap like Battletoads.

 

[saluki]

The whole point of these polls is to talk about games, specifically those that have positively influenced the industry. If we all agreed we'd all be wrong. Period.

Super Ghouls & Ghosts is a great game. The barrier to the casual player is the difficulty but the game was specifically designed with the difficulty in mind. When I die in SG&G, it's because I don't know/remember exactly what to do (since there's little, if any, margin for error), not that it's outright cheap like Battletoads.

Believe it or not I was an even bigger fan of Ghost & Goblins.

I couldn't play as much as I wanted in the arcade because my quarters would have run out too quickly but when the NES version came out I was glued to my TV for an endless amount of time.

Never did beat that one either. I guess I'm not so great at those types of games. I sure love them though.

 

[member 157595]

Believe it or not I was an even bigger fan of Ghost & Goblins.

I couldn't play as much as I wanted in the arcade because my quarters would have run out too quickly but when the NES version came out I was glued to my TV for an endless amount of time.

Never did beat that one either. I guess I'm not so great at those types of games. I sure love them though.

Ah, I feel differently about the original than you.

I never played it in the arcade, but I did play Ghosts & Goblins on the NES. Now, I love SG&G, but I definitely do not love the NES version of Ghosts & Goblins. Every weapon except for the knife is garbage and you're ill equipped to deal with the hell that is coming. SG&G has much more variety and power-ups, is better designed, more attractive to look at and listen to and underwent far more testing before release. I still have my SNES cart but it's getting flaky.

Both games have a very specific type of difficulty, predicated more on memorization than reflexes. The difference for me is that your character in SG&G seems to be designed with the gameplay in mind, and the original seems to be hacked together a bit.

 

[saluki]

Ah, I feel differently about the original than you.

I never played it in the arcade, but I did play Ghosts & Goblins on the NES. Now, I love SG&G, but I definitely do not love the NES version of Ghosts & Goblins. Every weapon except for the knife is garbage and you're ill equipped to deal with the hell that is coming. SG&G has much more variety and power-ups, is better designed, more attractive to look at and listen to and underwent far more testing before release. I still have my SNES cart but it's getting flaky.

Both games have a very specific type of difficulty, predicated more on memorization than reflexes. The difference for me is that your character in SG&G seems to be designed with the gameplay in mind, and the original seems to be hacked together a bit.

I do remember the constant restarting until I got the knife.

Or at least I do now. lol Thanks for bringing back a nightmare. Sometimes it would take like 1/2 hour to finally get the knife, only to lose it by accidentally jumping into the fireball 5 minutes later.

 

[Osprey]

Believe it or not I was an even bigger fan of Ghost & Goblins.

I couldn't play as much as I wanted in the arcade because my quarters would have run out too quickly but when the NES version came out I was glued to my TV for an endless amount of time.

Never did beat that one either. I guess I'm not so great at those types of games. I sure love them though.

I, too, had a fascination with G&G on the NES. It might've been partly because it was a reasonable facsimile of the arcade game and playing an arcade game at home was every boy's dream come true in the 80s. It might've also been partly because I never owned it, myself, so I was eager to play it each time that I was at a friend's house (that I didn't get to visit very often). Maybe, also, I wanted to beat it so badly because of its notorious difficulty. Whatever the reasons, I play it now and realize that the gameplay is rather bad and not as much fun as I remember. Oh well. Every NES game can't hold up like Super Mario Bros., I suppose. I kind of still want to beat it, but I imagine that I never will because I won't want to play through all of the levels the required second time. My memory is fuzzy, but I think that I might've beaten all of the levels once and then called it quits after the 2nd, harder run started.

 

[Commander Clueless]

I don't think you all understand exactly how much Lemming blood is on my hands....

 

[RandV]

I wonder how my early gaming years would have turned out if I discovered Civilization on the SNES - I always favoured the strategy games like Shining Force or Ogre Battle but they were few and far between.

Though while it's basically my favourite series now for 1991 I feel like Civilization I was more of a beta version of the series while A Link to the Past was was 16 bit pixel perfection that still remains an amazing game today, so gotta go wit that.

 

[Osprey]

I don't think you all understand exactly how much Lemming blood is on my hands....

They walked over those cliffs under their own free will and you were actually doing your best to save them. Just keep telling yourself that...

 

[Commander Clueless]

They walked over those cliffs under their own free will and you were actually doing your best to save them. Just keep telling yourself that...

I wish I could believe that, but younger me had a morbid streak.....

Of course, a LOT of it was my stupidity as well. I certainly wasn't qualified to lead a herd of....well, anything, really.

 

[member 157595]

I wish I could believe that, but younger me had a morbid streak.....

Of course, a LOT of it was my stupidity as well. I certainly wasn't qualified to lead a herd of....well, anything, really.

You could say that playing Lemmings is like being a cult leader.

 

[member 157595]

I do remember the constant restarting until I got the knife.

Or at least I do now. lol Thanks for bringing back a nightmare. Sometimes it would take like 1/2 hour to finally get the knife, only to lose it by accidentally jumping into the fireball 5 minutes later.

Oh GOD the fireball was such a piece of shit weapon. The worst part is that you kept it after you died.

My favorite weapons in SG&G were the knife and bow. Both ruled though the targeting on the powered-up bow admittedly pissed me off at times.

 

[Frankie Blueberries]

Here's my proposed list for best video games of 1990:

Act Raiser
Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse
Dragon Quest IV
Dr. Mario (GB)
Final Fantasy III (Japan only - might remove this one)
F-Zero
Mega Man 3
Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake
Military Madness
Ninja Gaiden II: the Dark Sword of Chaos
Smash TV
StarTropics
Super Mario World
The Secret of Monkey Island
Wing Commander

Any recommendations?

 

[SolidSnakeUS]

I picked Link to the Past but Wing Commander II could of been on this list too.

I agree above that Wing Commander should be on that list.

 

[saluki]

For 1990 my friend had RR Tycoon and was obsessed with it. I would have fun watching him play.

I eventually matched his obsession, but not until RR Tycoon 2.

 

[Osprey]

Yeah, Railroad Tycoon could be added. Also, King's Quest V should be on the list, IMO.

 

[WarriorOfGandhi]

write-in vote for SimAnt

 

[member 157595]

So, a personal Street Fighter II story that just happened yesterday: My wife was playing with a tiger toy with our 16-month old daughter, and kept saying "Tiger!", "Tiger!" etc. Eventually, I said "Tiger Uppercut!" and did my best Sagat imitation. Both my wife and baby stared at me with mouths open.

I'm curious to see how much further back we can go with this. My gaming experiences extend back to around 1986 or so when my family first got a NES, but I'm likely older than many on this forum. 1986-1997 is my forte, after the late 90's my gaming experiences decline rapidly. I didn't play anything when it was new prior to 1986 and know little about PC gaming prior to around 1993. From 1983-1984 there was virtually nothing coming out on consoles due to the crash of 1983, but computer games were still going strong. I consider myself qualified to talk about Atari VCS and arcade games prior to the crash but I was too young to play those games when they were new and I'm far from an Atari expert; the NES was my first love. It's highly unlikely that anyone here played video games prior to the era of the Atari VCS; you'd have to be in your 50's today and video games were rare at that time.

 

[member 157595]

Here's my proposed list for best video games of 1990:

Act Raiser
Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse
Dragon Quest IV
Dr. Mario (GB)
Final Fantasy III (Japan only - might remove this one)
F-Zero
Mega Man 3
Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake
Military Madness
Ninja Gaiden II: the Dark Sword of Chaos
Smash TV
StarTropics
Super Mario World
The Secret of Monkey Island
Wing Commander

Any recommendations?

No one here likes FFIII more than myself but unless you lived in Japan you didn't play it in 1990 if you were even aware of it in the first place. I don't think we even got FF1 here until 1990 or so and FFI is nowhere near the game FF3 is. SMW also didn't get released in NA until 1991 but everyone with a Nintendo Power subscription or that followed the gaming scene at the time was aware of that game before it was released, so I think it's valid to include it in the 1990 list.

SMW is going to dominate the rest of the console games, but I am interested to see what the PC gamers can come up with. They're up against one of the greatest games ever made so they better bring their A game.

 

[Morbo]

write in vote - Hunter

 

[LokiDog]

Metroid II was the most tense I’ve ever been playing a game. The score and lack of dialogue, like in all Metroid games, amps things up but the evolved metroids, stumbling across a shell... then eventually finding the beast (whether on purpose or not) and the horrible sound that it made, scrambling to switch to missiles and get into a good position to fight from... Metroid II and Super Metroid are the best games I’ve ever laid hands on.

 

[The Macho King]

Metroid II was the most tense I’ve ever been playing a game. The score and lack of dialogue, like in all Metroid games, amps things up but the evolved metroids, stumbling across a shell... then eventually finding the beast (whether on purpose or not) and the horrible sound that it made, scrambling to switch to missiles and get into a good position to fight from... Metroid II and Super Metroid are the best games I’ve ever laid hands on.

Metroid II (and the 3ds version for that matter) are a bit too repetitive when compared to the other entries. I know Metroid II was limited by the platform, but still.

 

[LokiDog]

Metroid II (and the 3ds version for that matter) are a bit too repetitive when compared to the other entries. I know Metroid II was limited by the platform, but still.

It definitely could be repetitive but it also had me wound tighter than any horror survivor type game I’ve ever played after. The tension was just unbelievable.

 

[Blitzkrug]

Link to the Past is among the 3 best games in the series and is a top 5 SNES game. No contest.