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

[Shareefruck]

Personally, I tend to think of 96 to the early 2000s as the dog days of videogames, and it's the start of when I completely lost interest in the appeal of the medium as a whole, outside of a few blips here and there.

At the time I thought was just growing out of it and rebelling in that immature "that stuff's for kids!" kind of way, but in hindsight, I think I just legitimately just dislike the direction that the medium went in after that, with a focus on polygons, first person shooters, online multi-player games, etc. and everything moved towards bigger, more customization, and less minimalism.

1990-1995 is when it gets really good, IMO-- to me, it's the golden age, where charm, minimalism, and big-budget polish, talent, and production values all intersect, and multiple masterpieces seemed to be coming out every year (although I didn't really appreciate them at the time as a kid). Whereas nowadays it feels like AAA games have all the polish/production/talent but none of the charm/personality/soul and indie games have all the charm/personality/soul but none of the polish/production/talent.

 

[RandV]

Some great stuff:
-Dark Forces
-Mech Warrior 2
-Warcraft II
-The Dig
-Worms
-Tekken 2
-Full Throttle
-Descent
-Tie Fighter Collector's Edition (probably doesn't count)

Fro JRPG fans the list is about as solid as you can get with no FF influence, though some of these games weren't translated at the time and had to be played later with emulators + translation packs: Chrono Trigger, Earthbound, Front Mission, Tactics Ogre, Terranigma, Phantasy Star IV, Dragon Quest VI, Tales of Phantasia, Suikoden.

I'd say 95 is going to come down to Chrono Trigger, Earthbound, and Warcraft II.

 

[Frankie Blueberries]

That was pretty much its selling point as the actual gameplay wasn't as gripping with these mining spaceships shooting lasers instead of the gibbing that happened with the other FPSs out there.

It could be very disorienting though which was fun - the map design definitely took advantage of that.

Yeah, I remember playing it and had those feelings of being disorientated as well. I also remember finding keys that were super similar to DOOM.

 

[Do Make Say Think]

Not really trying to make an argument but Nintendo now has 4 GOTY wins, 1996, 97, 98 and 2018.

I don't think it is bias so much as just a reflection of where the industry is at certain times. Nintendo dominating the late 80's and mid 90's makes perfect sense. Then GTA took over, then XBox and Playstation.

If the results show any bias it is towards 'open world' and RPG type games. If it doesn't have a hundreds of hours of content then it almost certainly aint winning this board's award.

Nintendo didn't develop Goldeneye though.

I mean Rare "belonged" to Nintendo studio back then but still. I personally don't consider it a Nintendo/1st party game.

 

[Do Make Say Think]

Fro JRPG fans the list is about as solid as you can get with no FF influence, though some of these games weren't translated at the time and had to be played later with emulators + translation packs: Chrono Trigger, Earthbound, Front Mission, Tactics Ogre, Terranigma, Phantasy Star IV, Dragon Quest VI, Tales of Phantasia, Suikoden.

I'd say 95 is going to come down to Chrono Trigger, Earthbound, and Warcraft II.

I doubt many people here played Earthbound

I'd be surprised if Chrono Trigger didn't win. I have fond memories of Warcraft II but man the gameplay was so damn limited when thinking about it today (I mean the two sides mirror each other almost exactly except for one unit and the spells the magic users have IIRC?).

 

[Shareefruck]

I doubt many people here played Earthbound

I'd be surprised if Chrono Trigger didn't win. I have fond memories of Warcraft II but man the gameplay was so damn limited when thinking about it today (I mean the two sides mirror each other almost exactly except for one unit and the spells the magic users have IIRC?).

I don't think it has a chance in hell of winning either, but Earthbound sure would be my pick for best game of 1995. It might be the best example of inspired and charming creative writing in a video game that I can think of, personally, in a medium where even the best examples of writing feel overly amateurish, self-serious, and campy compared to other mediums.

Chrono Trigger's a great choice, and is easily the more well rounded game, though. It's pretty damn perfect, is accessible, and holds up beautifully, in sound, visuals, storytelling, and mechanics.

 

[NyQuil]

Earthbound seemed pretty innovative to people who weren’t old enough to be exposed to the original Maniac Mansion.

 

[syz]

I played some Chrono Trigger like 2 months ago and it's still amazing, tbh. Sucks that every accessible version of that game has shit load times now though.

Will probably be true of plenty of games moving forward, once we're past the N64/PS1 dark age.

 

[Desdichado93]

My vote goes to a game that is not the list and that game is Close Combat.

 

[RandV]

I doubt many people here played Earthbound

I'd be surprised if Chrono Trigger didn't win. I have fond memories of Warcraft II but man the gameplay was so damn limited when thinking about it today (I mean the two sides mirror each other almost exactly except for one unit and the spells the magic users have IIRC?).

Yeah you're probably right onWC2, that's just my own personal bias in play as that's the RTS with all the nostalgia for me. While yes the two races mirrored each other other than that it was a massive step up in the genre.

Earthbound though while a lot of people didn't play it at the time it's such a cult hit that you've had years now for people to give it a try, and from those that did it has a really strong fanbase. This far back the game you're voting for doesn't necessarily mean you played it that year, like I voted for Daggerfall which I didn't play until '99 or 2000.

 

[Mount Suribachi]

Over the range of time I was talking about, those two systems outsold everything else.
I never even owned an NES but it's pretty clearly the defining console of the 80's. Certainly post-crash.
Sega had its moments but was never the dominant console. The Playstation doesn't completely take over until the lateish 90's in terms of games sold outside of a few titles.

The PC side was always more distributed even when it had more overall market share.

I wonder if it might be a regional thing. I'm English and I don't know anyone who owned a N64, or a NES before then, although I know a few people who had a Gameboy back in the day. Maybe its my age (I was in my mid-20s in '96).

Conversely, all my mates had Sega Megadrives in the early-mid 90s. Mid 90s I transitioned to the PS1. Late 90s went PC. YMMV.

 

[NyQuil]

My vote goes to a game that is not the list and that game is Close Combat.

It was a pretty innovative squad-based combat sim.

The fact that you couldn’t order your soldiers into certain suicide was kind of refreshing.

 

[No Fun Shogun]

Mario RPG

 

[SniperHF]

I wonder if it might be a regional thing.

I'm sure there are some regional differences out there. Pockets of differing popularity for whatever reason.
There also used to be a lot more import differences on release date or prices. Some games didn't make it to places officially until much later.

 

[The Macho King]

My first gaming system was an Intellivision so I’m good to go until the early 80s.

Pitfall was my jam.

But I'd say at least go toward the beginning of the NES era. After this do year + console/PC specific. With console games dominating, I feel a little left out.

 

[NyQuil]

Pitfall was my jam.

But I'd say at least go toward the beginning of the NES era. After this do year + console/PC specific. With console games dominating, I feel a little left out.

Well, it’s more about the discussion than the actual voting.

 

[SniperHF]

I'd say 95 is going to come down to Chrono Trigger, Earthbound, and Warcraft II.

I suspect it will not be all that evenly split. It might be a little closer than this year's but when we did the top 50 games all time thing several years ago Chrono trigger won #2 pretty easily. Though I suppose it's possible the voting population has changed a bit since then. But probably not that much.

 

[Pilky01]

I definitely remember playing Pitfall on my older brother's (or probably my mom or dad''s) Atari. Dont know which Atari it was, but we had Pitfall, Ghostbusters, that game that was called Karate on NES, Ms Pac Man. I liked it and played it enough to be blown the f*** away by Super Mario Bros on NES when my dad brought that home in like 1991 or 1992.

 

[Osprey]

Well, it’s more about the discussion than the actual voting.

That's what every loser says .

I don't fist pump and yell "Yes!" at my monitor when there's been good discussion. I want my favorite games to win, darn it, and I'm bitter when they don't!

 

[WarriorOfGandhi]

I'm only good to contribute through the SNES era because I'm pretty sure Mario, Duckhunt, and that caveman game are the only OG Nintendo games I ever played. My earliest memory of a computer game is playing Brickles on a black and white Macintosh in like 1992.

 

[Commander Clueless]

Once we're done the Retro GOTY voting, we should all go back and play the winners again, and then come back and redo the votes.

 

[SuperScript29]

My favorite on that list is Super Mario RPG, but I feel like Super Mario 64 will win this easily.

 

[CantHaveTkachev]

Super Mario 64 was a game-changer for me...such a revolutionary game

 

[SniperHF]

Might as well get the '95 list going.

Here is everything suggested so far, I haven't gone through them yet.
Star Wars: Dark Forces
-MechWarrior 2
-Warcraft II
-The Dig
-Worms
-Full Throttle
-Descent
Street Figther Alpha
Chrono Trigger
DK Country 2
Yoshi's Island
Earthbound,
Front Mission,
Tactics Ogre,
Terranigma,
Phantasy Star IV,
Dragon Quest VI,
Tales of Phantasia,
Suikoden.
Command & Conquer

 

[Frankie Blueberries]

Might as well get the '95 list going.

Here is everything suggested so far, I haven't gone through them yet.
Star Wars: Dark Forces
-MechWarrior 2
-Warcraft II
-The Dig
-Worms
-Full Throttle
-Descent
Street Figther Alpha
Chrono Trigger
DK Country 2
Yoshi's Island
Earthbound,
Front Mission,
Tactics Ogre,
Terranigma,
Phantasy Star IV,
Dragon Quest VI,
Tales of Phantasia,
Suikoden.
Command & Conquer

I'd suggest Mortal Kombat 3/Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 and Rayman. I'm probably in the minority, but I also really enjoyed the Beavis and Butthead game (played it on PC).