HF Retro Game of the Year - 1996 - Super Mario 64

[Ducks in a row]

Mario 64 over Mario World sounds nuts to me, especially when you factor in aesthetics. I don't think any Mario game feels as nice to control as World does, personally.

I can see the argument for 64 over Yoshi's Island, despite aesthetics, though.

Yep Mario 64 over Super Mario World sounds nuts to me as well.

I wouldn't be able to put Mario 64 over Yoshi Island. Yoshi Island is such a fun game and I like the challenge they have in the game to get a perfect score from all the levels something that Mario games before didn't have and the look of the game is wonderful to me.

 

[TheDoldrums]

That '95 list is interesting. A bunch of amazing games, but none of them really stand out as the clear cut GOTY.

I mean Chrono Trigger is often regarded as the best RPG of all time and regularly voted as such by a lot of publications/polls. But the genre doesn't seem to have a huge following here so it will be interesting to see how this goes.

 

[Commander Clueless]

OT, but speaking of Chrono Trigger, it's on for $10 on Steam right now.

Still worth a play after all these years, if I have never played it before?

 

[Frankie Blueberries]

I've never been a huge fan of JRPGs, but Chrono Trigger has always been a game I've wanted to get around to playing. I own a copy of the Nintendo DS version (can play on 3DS) and hacked my mini SNES to include it, so I really have no excuses for not playing it yet.

 

[RandV]

OT, but speaking of Chrono Trigger, it's on for $10 on Steam right now.

Still worth a play after all these years, if I have never played it before?

I'd definitely say so. As a fan of the JRPG genre I've never liked Chrono Trigger nearly as much as everyone else, but it's easy to recognize it as the best example of a timeless classic from that era that should be just as easy to play today for the first time as it was back then. Great music, good story, and smooth gameplay that trims a lot of the excess time fillers that you'd find in other old JRPG's. That actually makes the game a bit shorter for the genre, somewhere in the 20-30 hour range, but that's probably more of a good thing here.

 

[Shareefruck]

Chrono Trigger is as good today as it was in its heyday, and still holds up as one of the better RPGs you can play. It also has fewer accessibility/quality of life barriers than other classics.

Steam has fixed a lot of the issues it initially had with Chrono Trigger, and it's better to take a shot with it there than not to try it at all, but the Steam version is still not as strong of a version as the Super Nintendo version, IMO. There are some things about it that feel compromised.

It's closer to a callously thrown together hack-job that they're desperately trying to patch to avoid bad PR than a lovingly considered quality port worth supporting, IMO.

 

[TheDoldrums]

OT, but speaking of Chrono Trigger, it's on for $10 on Steam right now.

Still worth a play after all these years, if I have never played it before?

It is without a doubt one in my top 10 favourite games so I am not impartial, but I do think it holds up pretty damn well for its age.

It's not a 80 hour slog like some JRPG's. The pacing is brisk, it will be a 20-25 hour journey. I do think it's probably the most accessible RPG of that era. You can see enemies on the map so there are no random encounters. The game is easy enough that you can skip some of these battles if you choose and not have to grind. The soundtrack is as good as it gets for 16-bit games. Traveling through time to see changes in the same areas is always a cool mechanic in games imo. The story is pretty simple to follow but presents deeper questions if you really get into it.

I think a lot of classic games are best enjoyed by people have already played them, with nostalgia covering up for the flaws of their era. Like Shenmue was just released on modern consoles and it feels like something I should like, but I'm afraid I just won't get into it with no prior love for the games obscuring the obvious datedness of the package. Or take Xenogears, a game I'm replaying right now. I adore it, but would be very hesitant to recommend to anyone who's not already a big JRPG fan. There are quality of life, pacing and other issues that I could easily see frustrating a lot of people even if I think the incredible story is worth the headaches. But CT is not like that. I know multiple people that have tried it for the first time in the past few years and really liked it.

 

[syz]

Steam Chrono Trigger is a port of the awful mobile port. They've done some work on it since they put it out but I still dunno how good it is.

Better versions available on DS/Vita/PS3(?).

 

[Ceremony]

I mean Chrono Trigger is often regarded as the best RPG of all time and regularly voted as such by a lot of publications/polls. But the genre doesn't seem to have a huge following here so it will be interesting to see how this goes.

Chrono Trigger was voted the best game ever by this board in 2014.

 

[TheDoldrums]

Chrono Trigger was voted the best game ever by this board in 2014.

Interesting, well before my time here. I was mainly referring to how no JRPG had won one of these polls so far.

 

[Shareefruck]

Steam Chrono Trigger is a port of the awful mobile port. They've done some work on it since they put it out but I still dunno how good it is.

Better versions available on DS/Vita/PS3(?).

It sounds like they've done a decent job addressing all the glaring issues that made the release a complete trainwreck, but it's still better to experience a copy with consistent framing/pixel resolution and maybe proper CRT filters, IMO. Even something as simple as the swinging pendulum in the title screen not synchronizing with the ticking sound feels totally amateurish in the Steam Port.

How it looks after the patches:


The DS version is pretty much a perfect port, though, so I'd recommend just emulating that instead and supporting them some other way.

Even ignoring the superiority in features/polish/overall effort, just aesthetically, it actually looks really good with the dual screen appearing horizontally, because the pixel art looks better when it isn't so stretched out, and with scan-lines, which make it look really nice, crispy, and consistent, IMO. I mean, look how nice and considered this looks:

... and compare it to this abomination, which I think looks really ugly and messy (I mean, for Christ's sake, pick a resolution and stick with it!):

I would hate for someone's first experience with the game to be with the latter.

 

[Commander Clueless]

It sounds like they've done a decent job addressing all the glaring issues that made the release a complete trainwreck, but it's still better to experience a copy with consistent framing/pixel resolution and maybe proper CRT filters, IMO. Even something as simple as the swinging pendulum in the title screen not synchronizing with the ticking sound feels totally amateurish in the Steam Port.

How it looks after the patches:


The DS version is pretty much a perfect port, though, so I'd recommend just emulating that instead and supporting them some other way.

Even ignoring the superiority in features/polish/overall effort, just aesthetically, it actually looks really good with the dual screen appearing horizontally, because the pixel art looks better when it isn't so stretched out, and with scan-lines, which make it look really nice, crispy, and consistent, IMO. I mean, look how nice and considered this looks:

... and compare it to this abomination, which I think looks really ugly and messy (I mean, for Christ's sake, pick a resolution and stick with it!):

I would hate for someone's first experience with the game to be with the latter.

After reading your post, I thought to myself "Self, you have an old DS laying in a pile somewhere, don't you? Why not just get it for DS?"

And then I saw $70 on Amazon...


I'm thinking I may pick it up on Steam sale sometime and then take your suggestion of...uh...totally legitimately playing properly.

Yeah, that.


EDIT: I almost forgot I own a PSTV

Is the Vita version similarly good?

 

[member 157595]

Chrono Trigger is my favorite video game of all time, and the finest RPG I've ever played. I own it on SNES, PS download and DS. I don't want to get into the details here because I'll wait for the 1995 poll (EDIT: my sweet spot is 1985-1995, so I'm hoping we go back to 1995 and beyond, considering this forum is far removed from the biohazard known as the main boards, and is still very much worth reading.)

I am so psychotically possessive of that SNES cart that I barely let anyone else touch it.

 

[Do Make Say Think]

OT, but speaking of Chrono Trigger, it's on for $10 on Steam right now.

Still worth a play after all these years, if I have never played it before?

Have you played and liked a JRPG before?

If so, then yes. It's probably the pinnacle of the genre (I'd have FFVI above it but it's REALLY close).

Chrono Trigger was voted the best game ever by this board in 2014.

Preposterous.

And this is coming from someone who tracked down a physical copy of it back in 1995 while living in Europe and traded almost every single game I had to get it (I still remember how excited I was when I saw it haha) and completed it every year from like 1995 to 2012.

This medium has a lot more to offer than JRPGs in terms of "best game ever" although 2014 was an especially weak year for video games.

 

[The Macho King]

I've never been a huge fan of JRPGs, but Chrono Trigger has always been a game I've wanted to get around to playing. I own a copy of the Nintendo DS version (can play on 3DS) and hacked my mini SNES to include it, so I really have no excuses for not playing it yet.

I'll say this - if I were going to recommend someone play a (non-tactical) JRPG, it would be Chrono Trigger. I'm not a huge fan of the genre (outside of SMT and Wizardry-likes such as Etrian Odyssey), but Chrono Trigger is a solid, mainline JRPG that doesn't get too Japanese for me.

 

[Shareefruck]

After reading your post, I thought to myself "Self, you have an old DS laying in a pile somewhere, don't you? Why not just get it for DS?"

And then I saw $70 on Amazon...


I'm thinking I may pick it up on Steam sale sometime and then take your suggestion of...uh...totally legitimately playing properly.

Yeah, that.


EDIT: I almost forgot I own a PSTV

Is the Vita version similarly good?

Honestly, I don't see much of a point in feeling squeamish about emulating games from past console generations, especially if you're willing to spend the money on the latest iteration of it. It's 20+ years old, isn't readily available in its ideal form, doesn't involve real risk, and hell, most professional journalists in the industry don't even seem to have a problem admitting to using it and sometimes even broadcast with it. As long as it isn't being used as a method to completely bypass having to pay for games, I don't see any reason someone's conscience wouldn't be clear doing it, personally.

Don't know about the Vita version.

 

[Shareefruck]

Preposterous.

And this is coming from someone who tracked down a physical copy of it back in 1995 while living in Europe and traded almost every single game I had to get it (I still remember how excited I was when I saw it haha) and completed it every year from like 1995 to 2012.

This medium has a lot more to offer than JRPGs in terms of "best game ever" although 2014 was an especially weak year for video games.

Depends on what you're judging it by. If you're just speaking of mechanics, then I would agree, I wouldn't call it rich, but as a full package, you can't really put a price on getting the charm/sensibilities/details/aesthetic/experience just right.

 

[Do Make Say Think]

Depends on what you're judging it by. If you're just speaking of mechanics, then I would agree, I wouldn't call it rich, but as a full package, you can't really put a price on getting the charm/sensibilities/details/aesthetic/experience just right.

It's a wonderful game, but if someone thinks Chrono Trigger is the best video game ever made, they haven't played enough games.

Now I now someone on here had CT as their number 1 until Breath of the Wild overtook it but that guy clearly adores JRPGs so he's biased

 

[Shareefruck]

It's a wonderful game, but if someone thinks Chrono Trigger is the best video game ever made, they haven't played enough games.

Now I now someone on here had CT as their number 1 until Breath of the Wild overtook it but that guy clearly adores JRPGs so he's biased

I don't see how you can be so quick to make that judgment, personally. Out of curiosity, what types of games did you have in mind that you seem to feel are clearly objectively superior?

I have a games ahead of Chrono Trigger, but not that many.

 

[Do Make Say Think]

I don't see how you can be so quick to make that judgment, personally. Out of curiosity, what types of games did you have in mind that you seem to feel are clearly objectively superior?

Well I have Breath of the Wild as my all-time number 1 but had Half-Life in that spot since 1998.

However I don't think I'd consider Half-Life the greatest game of all time, it was just my favourite. Breath of the Wild probably has a stronger case but even then, I wouldn't call it "the best game ever"

Honestly, I think that if I had to make a call I'd say Tetris is the best video game of all time. Maybe Mario 3. It's tough for sure, but it certainly would not be a JRPG.

 

[No Fun Shogun]

Chrono Trigger's still my second favorite game of all time. DS port was the best, but the addon explanation connecting Dalton to Porre was one of the biggest and most blatant immersion breaking moments in history for me.

Spoiler

They essentially made the comic relief bad guy the one responsible for killing Crono, Lucca, and Marle between CT and CC. **** that noise.

Literally any other character would've been a more sensible option for that, other than maybe Ozzie.

 

[Shareefruck]

Well I have Breath of the Wild as my all-time number 1 but had Half-Life in that spot since 1998.

However I don't think I'd consider Half-Life the greatest game of all time, it was just my favourite. Breath of the Wild probably has a stronger case but even then, I wouldn't call it "the best game ever"

Honestly, I think that if I had to make a call I'd say Tetris is the best video game of all time. Maybe Mario 3. It's tough for sure, but it certainly would not be a JRPG.

Oh, are you factoring all the extraneous stuff like popularity/historical impact/influence and refusing consideration because it objectively doesn't reach the same heights on that end or something?

Personally, I think that those factors have no relevance whatsoever to what the "best" game is, so I definitely wouldn't be able to see eye to eye with you on that.

To me, the best game is whatever you think is capable of providing the most rich and rewarding experience possible. I wouldn't hold it against anyone for giving that honor to Chrono Trigger or suggest that they must not have played enough games because of it, and I don't see anything about it that makes it out of the question.

 

[Do Make Say Think]

Oh, are you factoring all the extraneous stuff like popularity/historical impact/influence and refusing consideration because it doesn't reach the same heights on that end or something?

Personally, I think that those factors have no relevance whatsoever to what the "best" game is, so I definitely wouldn't be able to see eye to eye with you on that.

To me, the best game is whatever you think is capable of providing the most rich and rewarding experience possible. I wouldn't hold it against anyone for giving that honor to Chrono Trigger or suggest that they must not have played enough games because of it.

"The most rich and rewarding experience possible" is very subjective. That doesn't make it meaningless mind you, just something that is impossible to agree on so I like to use other factors or else I'd equate my favourite game of all time to best game of all time. What I find the most enjoyable is not necessarily what I'd consider "the best". There are some truly exceptional games I care nothing for, but I still need to consider them if I want to be honest in how I approach this topic.

If you told me "I think this game is the best of all-time because it made me feel all these different things" I can't really engage in meaningful debate on the merits of the criteria you use to make the call. We can discuss, lots of fun to be had and things to learn, but that's not trying to establish "what is the best game of all-time".

In fact, I'd argue that "The most rich and rewarding experience possible" would be a barometer to measure "immersion" which is something I abhor in video game discussion.

 

[Shareefruck]

"The most rich and rewarding experience possible" is very subjective. That doesn't make it meaningless mind you, just something that is impossible to agree on so I like to use other factors or else I'd equate my favourite game of all time to best game of all time. What I find the most enjoyable is not necessarily what I'd consider "the best". There are some truly exceptional games I care nothing for, but I still need to consider them if I want to be honest in how I approach this topic.

If you told me "I think this game is the best of all-time because it made me feel all these different things" I can't really engage in meaningful debate on the merits of the criteria you use to make the call. We can discuss, lots of fun to be had and things to learn, but that's not trying to establish "what is the best game of all-time".

In fact, I'd argue that "The most rich and rewarding experience possible" would be a barometer to measure "immersion" which is something I abhor in video game discussion.

Okay, so that really is the grounds of your disagreement. I can see that.

Personally, I fundamentally disagree with that mentality, and see no reason why "best" cannot be something that is objectively ambiguous and ultimately can only be informed by subjective perception of something's true value. For me, it's the only opinion I'm interested in, see any worth in, and that feels warranted to me when it comes to elevating these games and putting them on a pedestal. I feel the same way about other mediums too.

It would be a pretty dumb poll idea if we were just objectively measuring what the most historically significant and culturally impactful game was according to HFBoards, IMO. To me, the purpose of these polls is to determine the sensibilities of this community (as frustrating as I often find them).

I wouldn't really give a rat's *** about what Tetris has done for video games when it comes to declaring how good it is if I didn't feel that it held up as something that is capable of having the highest rewards and being the most personally appreciable creation (which I think a good argument can be made for, to this day)-- Too much focus on the other stuff actually somewhat cheapens what I think is its deserved status, to me.

 

[Do Make Say Think]

Okay, so that really is the grounds of your disagreement. I can see that.

I fundamentally disagree with that mentality, and see no reason why "best" cannot be something that is objectively ambiguous and ultimately can only be informed by subjective perception of something's true value. For me, it's the only opinion I'm interested in, see any worth in, and that feels warranted to me when it comes to elevating these games on a pedestal. I feel the same way about other mediums too.

It would be a pretty dumb poll idea if we were just objectively measuring what the most historically significant and culturally impactful game was, IMO.

I wouldn't really give a rat's *** about what Tetris has done for video games when it comes to declaring how good it is if I didn't feel that it held up as something that is capable of having the highest and most appreciable rewards.

Tetris is probably the most elegant design ever made in video game history: it's clean, everybody gets it, everyone can get good at it and being really good at it is very demanding and skill intensive. It scores very high on every conceivable metric imaginable outside of production values (although there is a VR Tetris now).

As far as the rest is concerned, I brought it up because it was a poll that was ran in 2014. If it's going to be a poll, not just a topic of discussion, I think we should strive for neutral metrics to evaluate games on. Of course we'll never "truly get there" and that's fine, but there needs to be somewhat of an effort towards it or else it's just all relative "well my best experience is this and yours is that... So where do we go from here?"

That is why I always try to distinguish what I prefer to what I think is the best.