Part one: What is the best game to come out of the 80s?
This is the second part of the series. This is eventually all going to get compiled into one megathread for people who want gaming recommendations from Chapos specifically. Other decades and consoles will come in sporadic subsequent threads.
Expanding on your choice is definitely a plus.
Doom. The answer is Doom. Why? Because it sold more copies than Windows.
That isn't enough? None of these games listed had spawned an entire genre named after them 'Doom-clones' before consolidating into First Person Shooters.
Most importantly tho, it's a game that still has a heavy following with massive sweeping mods and fan support that are still discussed to this day. To my mind, it is the pinnacle of proof that if people weren't specifically paid to develop video games, they'd still make them anyway. Art is beautiful. Turning demons into a fine, gristly, paste is art.
Planescape Torment
Mechanically a pretty clunky RPG with an even wonkier interpretation of the already-wonky D&D 2e rules, but it didn't really matter because the setting and the story and the characters were so amazing. The beautiful painted backgrounds mean it really still holds up really well now too.
I have tried to play that game so many times over the years and every time something in my life gets in the way of me finishing it.
I broke down and just read plot spoilers for the story and characters... and wow.... super impressed. Also like how a huge amount of the "level progression" seemed based around talking to NPC's instead of killing NPC's.
If you decide to give it another go, the enhanced edition makes really good use of the higher resolution to show more of a location at once, and give a better feel for the places
And yeah I love that the combat very much takes a back seat to all the dialogue and exploration (and much of the combat can be skipped). Baldur's Gate 2 is much better as a "proper" RPG but I think everything else makes Torment the much better game
Fully agreed. One of these rare games that can touch you as profoundly as a great book.
I almost chose Doom too, but then I remembered how much I hated trying to find the keys. The rest of the original is fantastic to this day.
That's a tough choice subjectively, but in a more objective sense it's Starcraft. Doom holds up really well, but later games really added to the formula. They still haven't figured out how to beat Starcraft Brood War.
Starcraft 2 is good, better in some ways but way worse in others. It was so-so in 2010, has gotten a lot better even recently, and I'd say it's great now. But it can't quite recapture that thunder.
The best currently imaginable RTS would be some kind of intentional swing at Starcraft 1.5, where you fix the randomness of the shitty pathing, but also keep the control and movement slow and difficult, just more consistent. And you'd have to not worry about making it too similar to Brood War. It would be pretty similar.
Yeah I agree it influenced a lot more games. Also FPS grew and grew while RTS stagnated, so it has a much greater legacy. As a game though, Brood War is the only 90's game that is really relevant today as a game itself.
Chrono Trigger is probably the best JRPG ever made, and I would argue out of the 90s as well. Perfectly balanced difficulty with great and varied characters, a fun combat system, and some timeline fuckery that doesn't feel contrived.
I've logged more hours into Smash than I have from any other game from that decade however.
Pretty much everything Lucasarts made during that decade
Still haven't played OoT. Are the controls a pain in the ass at this point?
I'll see if I can get an emulator to run it. Come to think of it, I never finished SM64 either.
Final Fantasy 7 seems a pretty solid pick. New graphics, lots of things to do in the game, some replay ability. Story about eco-freedom fighters going after a company whose operations will literally destroy the world. Got some circle of life stuff going on in the lore. There's something about aliens (I thought Aeris was supposed to be the last descendant of them) I think that never seemed to go anywhere. Cosmo Canyon. Unreliable narrator in the main character was a pretty interesting twist to teenage me.
Honorable mentions to:
Resident Evil 2, to quote myself from decades ago, "Holy crap, I'm playing in a movie."
Xenogears, had a novel combat system for an RPG and the a chunk of the reveal in the story is how the entire human(?) race on the planet was created by some advanced civilization's planet killer weapon that got loose, crashed on a planet, and was slowly trying to rebuild itself over thousands of years by using the population in subtle ways. Also, the weapon was being worshipped as God, the creator.... Which, to my atheistic self was just cheffs kiss at the time.
Armored Core, I have no idea what is going on with the story but I could never get into Mechwarrior and this scratched that itch.
Colony Wars, was an off brand "Star Wars" X-Wing/Tie Fighter type game. Solid space fighter with James Earl Jones as the narrator. And you're tiny fighter got to fly around big capital ships and watch them explode in terrible plygons with limited shading.
My picks are overly simple so don't hate.
I don't know if it's the best or most groundbreaking or anything, but I def played Golden Eye 007 the most at the time. Getting people around the neighborhood to come play was always fun.
Runner up for me is probably mario kart for N64. I played it some at the time, but I played it a lot more when I was in high school and my friends would "drink & drive" which we would set up so you had to drink a full beer before you crossed the finish line. Which was also fun. Lol.
I loved Mario Kart as a kid. I could never quite beat 150cc though. My reflexes were always and still are terrible.
I played the fuck out of Goldeneye like pretty much everyone my age. It was a total cultural phenomenon. That said, it doesn't hold up super well with all the great dual analog shooters.
I believe it. I haven't played it in over 20 years, probably.
Still fun for the nostalgia. Just feels super weird compared to today's control schemes.
It's got to be Pokemon RBY & GS. G*mers go suck a lemon.
Honourable mentions are everything by LucasArts, Fallout, Goldeneye & Age of Empires
Also Codemaster's Colin Mcrae Rally
Road Rash 64
Earthbound + Chrono Trigger
Doom was already mentioned, but definitely Doom. More specifically, Doom 2 nightmare deathwatch on brit11.wad.
