What do you consider the greatest game ever created?

[Sumez | 3,040]

Anyway here's my list of other potential games I'd all argue for a position as "greatest game ever created" outside of what I already mentioned. I really can't pick one, it totally depends on my mood.

These are mostly all related to some kind of personal taste, so I don't see any issue with people telling me either of those games isn't worthy of it. (that said, you can't deny that they are all great! ;P)

• Super Mario Galaxy
• Symphony of the Night
• Dark Souls 1
• Final Fantasy VI
• Chrono Trigger
• Rainbow Islands

Edited December 6, 2019 by Sumez

[arch_8ngel | 1,597]

5 minutes ago, BriGuy82 said:

Lol, wtf? English man, english. Is that like a kaldeiscope?

Pong and early games were done on an oscilloscope. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennis_for_Two

[Tulpa | 3,581]

5 minutes ago, BriGuy82 said:

Lol, wtf? English man, english. Is that like a kaldeiscope?

Tennis for two. Was predated by oxo.

 

[Tulpa | 3,581]

dp

 

Edited December 6, 2019 by Tulpa

[arch_8ngel | 1,597]

7 minutes ago, Sumez said:

If a game isn't worth playing from the beginning every time you pop it in, then it definitely isn't worthy as a contender of the title "the greatest game ever created". SMB3 isn't a bad contender though.

I hope you appreciate the irony of you making this statement and then two posts later listing numerous 40+ hour RPGs on your list of prospects of the "greatest"

[Nintegageo | 582]

13 minutes ago, jonebone said:

I like the Pac-Man nomination.  I can't get behind Tetris but I see Pac-Man casting a pretty wide appealing net.  

Actually that was the other one that came to mind. Simple but rewards practice, and almost universally enjoyed by anyone. Obviously there is no one game that everyone enjoys but these are both great choices in my opinion.

[Sumez | 3,040]

9 minutes ago, arch_8ngel said:

I hope you appreciate the irony of you making this statement and then two posts later listing numerous 40+ hour RPGs on your list of prospects of the "greatest"

Lol, I get your point.

It's obviously very different types of games, and I think a lot of people complaining about "lives", "game over" and "a lack of saves" try to employ the logic of those types of games to older games that just aren't designed that way.
I also made a whole post talking about Tetris. Imagine making a savepoint halfway through a Tetris run XD

That said, the reason I picked those two RPGs specifically is that even to this day, I still feel like just popping them in and playing them from the beginning, and have done so multiple times.
Really, no other RPGs ever had that effect on me. Probably because a majority of them would become a lot more bloated and slow paced going forward.

Edited December 6, 2019 by Sumez

[BriGuy82 | 806]

7 minutes ago, arch_8ngel said:

Pong and early games were done on an oscilloscope. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennis_for_Two

The more you know.

[arch_8ngel | 1,597]

Just now, Sumez said:

Lol, I get your point.

It's obviously very different types of games, and I think a lot of people complaining about "lives", "game over" and "a lack of saves" try to employ the logic of those types of games to older games that just aren't designed that way.

That said, the reason I picked those two RPGs specifically is that even to this day, I still feel like just popping them in and playing them from the beginning, and have done so multiple times.
Really, no other RPGs ever had that effect on me. Probably because a majority of them would become a lot more bloated and slow paced going forward.

Do you really think that Super Mario World would not be a lesser game if it lacked save states?

Why should that same logic not hold for SMB 3 (which is a larger game) just because they give you the whistle for potentially skipping worlds?

 

 

And there is a substantial difference between being willing to replay an RPG from the beginning, on occasion, and playing it from the beginning EVERY TIME YOU PUT IT IN THE CONSOLE!

[DefaultGen | 5,569]

SMB3 has no save feature because it's so great that you should experience its entire greatness every time you put it in.

[Tulpa | 3,581]

1 minute ago, DefaultGen said:

SMB3 has no save feature because it's so great that you should experience its entire greatness every time you put it in.

My hind end can't sit for hours and hours anymore.

[Splain | 2,629]

I think BOTW is a really great game. Of course, if you bring it up, people will complain about weapon durability, or that they don't like cooking, or that durians break the whole cooking mechanic anyway, etc., ignoring the LOADS of great stuff in the game. So the question becomes this: what's "better?" A game that does 5 things well, or a game that does 3,000 things well and 25 things poorly?

[jonebone | 1,312]

As much as I love SMB3 I have to agree it should get docked for not having a save feature.   Zelda came out in 1987 in the states as the first battery backed NES game (I believe?) and SMB was 3 years later in 1990.  The technology was there.

However, SMB3 made SMB1 obsolete, at least to me.  You look at those two games and it's hard to believe they are on the same hardware.  SMB3 really wowed everyone back then and it is still a good game to pick up and play.  At least the NES classic added the save state (or SNES Super Mario All Stars.)

[Sumez | 3,040]

20 minutes ago, arch_8ngel said:

Do you really think that Super Mario World would not be a lesser game if it lacked save states?

Why should that same logic not hold for SMB 3 (which is a larger game) just because they give you the whistle for potentially skipping worlds?

Well.. Basically because they give you the whistle for potentially skipping worlds.

If SMB3 had the "completion" aspect that SMW has, a save battery would be an interesting addition, but it's just not designed that way. I have played SMB3 countless, countless times. And probably half of them have been on the All-Stars version, which does have battery save, and I've never had the memory of starting from the beginning and working my way to the end outside of the surprisingly few times I've actually played from stage 1 to the final boss in one long sitting.
Conversely, if SMW didn't have all of its secrets that you'd typically go back and revisit older stages to find, and didn't have the ability to backtrack across the entire game world, but instead allowed you to immediately go to any other world less than 5 minutes into the game, what purpose would the savegames serve outside of letting you imprint the fact that you've beaten some or all of the stages, only so that it can inform you of that later on?  

Instead, to me, SMB3 is just a bunch of individual stages in individual worlds, all of which stand out to me in their own ways. It's never been my goal to beat every stage, it's my goal to play every stage. I don't care about having a badge of honor in storage on the cartridge, telling me that I've done it.

  

9 minutes ago, jonebone said:

it's hard to believe they are on the same hardware.

Kind of unimportant detail here and now, but in a lot of ways, they really aren't.  SMB3 wouldn't have been remotely possible with the limited amount of RAM and storage space SMB1 had access to.

Edited December 6, 2019 by Sumez

[DefaultGen | 5,569]

1 minute ago, Splain said:

I think BOTW is a really great game. Of course, if you bring it up, people will complain about weapon durability, or that they don't like cooking, or that durians break the whole cooking mechanic anyway, etc., ignoring the LOADS of great stuff in the game. So the question becomes this: what's "better?" A game that does 5 things well, or a game that does 3,000 things well and 25 things poorly?

I would skew towards the simpler game being "greater" personally.

Tetris will probably be on top of puzzle games for a long time. If BOTW2 fixes all the little things in BOTW and has a better framerate, better cooking system, and (imo) harder dungeons, it could essentially supplant BOTW. This happened with Uncharted. UC1 came out, everyone thought it was the bees knees, then UC2 completely polished every little thing, and now people look at UC1 like it's some kind of archaic wreck even though it's still amazing. Since there isn't really much in Tetris that can be fixed, an entire paradigm shift would be required to beat it.

[Andy_Bogomil | 816]

GTA is the same. People say GTA 3 was the greatest and it was definitely the biggest jump but so many things got fixed as the series progressed. I enjoy San Andres way more than 3 now but 3 is still the more important game in the series with the foundation it brought for everything that came after it. 

For the greatest game I would stick to the big titles like Tetris, pacman, SMB, DOOM, etc. That are getting inducted into the hall of fame. Currently probably games like WoW and Minecraft even though I've never played either game. 

If BoTW had dedicated dungeons it would have probably been one of the best games from a subjective standpoint. I think Chrono Trigger would be up there too and I'm not even a huge RPG fan but that game is pretty amazing from every aspect. 

 

[RH | 5,058]

I extol the praises of old Squaresoft titles whenever I can, but I've gone back to the same game for probably 30+ years-- Galaga.

Yes, it's one of the first arcade games I remember, but it's a fun, early, arcade space shooter.  Excellent for a quick session, good for world record settings.  Sounds and looks awesome as a single-arcade unit in a game room (though if I ever get one, it will be the Ms. Pac-Man combo unit so I can have 3 games in one).  It's the perfect arcade game and, to me, the single-best game has to be an arcade title, even though I don't play many of them.  We owe so much to gaming, in general, from the obsessions earlier gamers had in the early arcade era.

[arch_8ngel | 1,597]

17 minutes ago, Sumez said:

Well.. Basically because they give you the whistle for potentially skipping worlds.

If SMB3 had the "completion" aspect that SMW has, a save battery would be an interesting addition, but it's just not designed that way. I have played SMB3 countless, countless times. And probably half of them have been on the All-Stars version, which does have battery save, and I've never had the memory of starting from the beginning and working my way to the end outside of the surprisingly few times I've actually played from stage 1 to the final boss in one long sitting.
Conversely, if SMW didn't have all of its secrets that you'd typically go back and revisit older stages to find, and didn't have the ability to backtrack across the entire game world, but instead allowed you to immediately go to any other world less than 5 minutes into the game, what purpose would the savegames serve outside of letting you imprint the fact that you've beaten some or all of the stages, only so that it can inform you of that later on?  

 

But you pretty much CAN get to any world in 5 minutes with Star Road

(and only around 24 levels get replayed for secret exits, making the total level count for 100% comparable to SMB3)

 

SMW, with the save states and completion tracking, more-or-less encourages exhaustive playthrough where every level will be played.

SMB3, while I have beaten every level at SOME POINT in time, over playing it for decades, there are huge swathes of the game that are only visited rarely.

[arch_8ngel | 1,597]

Just now, RH said:

I extol the praises of old Squaresoft titles whenever I can, but I've gone back to the same game for probably 30+ years-- Galaga.

Yes, it's one of the first arcade games I remember, but it's a fun, early, arcade space shooter.  Excellent for a quick session, good for world record settings.  Sounds and looks awesome as a single-arcade unit in a game room (though if I ever get one, it will be the Ms. Pac-Man combo unit so I can have 3 games in one).  It's the perfect arcade game and, to me, the single-best game has to be an arcade title, even though I don't play many of them.  We owe so much to gaming, in general, from the obsessions earlier gamers had in the early arcade era.

Galaga is definitely "the greatest" when it comes to early arcade shooters.  Absolutely.

 

[Sumez | 3,040]

I find it weird that anyone would ever consider GTA3 or Uncharted 1 the greatest of anything.

I mean, I liked Uncharted 1, but I don't think anyone ever claimed it was the best of anything. It had a ton of glaring issues right from the get-go (most obviously its tedious repetition), and Uncharted 2 magically fixed all of that. Though the base game behind all the polish is essentially the same, everything that makes Uncharted 2 as special and great as it is didn't exist in any form in the first game.

As for the GTA games I never understood why people liked those in the first place, so it's hard for me to comment on.  But these games are all based on the "more is better" formula, so obviously you can always "improve" them. But it won't fix the shallow core game design (which is fine, I love a lot of shallow games). It's a different type of game.

Edited December 6, 2019 by Sumez

[Splain | 2,629]

Lack of good dungeons in BOTW is definitely valid. The beasts and shrines were neat, but they were just things you did, they were hardly challenges. With a couple possible exceptions, you just sit down and do them. That's my argument against the Mario Galaxy games whenever they come up as possible GOATs. You have 10 minutes? Then you can sit down and do the next galaxy, no friction at all.

[RH | 5,058]

I loved BOTW but any action/adventure/RPG that has non-durable weapons will never be at the top of my list.  People might argue but I just can't stand getting a sword/ax/shield/whatever and it "breaking" after 10-100 uses.

It would have been novel the first time you encountered such a mechanic, but I could never get into it. (Again going back to Squaresoft titles. What is it with me!) But that was the flaw that kept me from ever finishing Final Fantasy Legend I--weapons breaking!

I loved BOTW and you tend to have enough equipment to carry on, but it sucks to get something akin to a legendary weapon... only to have it break after 30 minutes of use. No thank you.  Just make weapons harder to find and make their strength scale with the specific enemy you kill to get it from, and make the better/stronger variants have much rare drop rates... or make the best stuff craftable. Man, I love crafting in games for better equipment.

[guillavoie | 1,213]

I've been saying for quite a while that Super Metroid could be considered a good  contender for greatest video game of all time in a 'pound for pound' comparison with newer and older games. So I'm going to say that, Super Metroid, yeah!

[BriGuy82 | 806]

10 minutes ago, guillavoie said:

I've been saying for quite a while that Super Metroid could be considered a good  contender for greatest video game of all time in a 'pound for pound' comparison with newer and older games. So I'm going to say that, Super Metroid, yeah!

I've never played it.

[DoctorEncore | 3,691]

Tetris and Super Mario Bros. Tetris for sheer entertainment value and replayability and SMB for defining what a 2D, goal/level-based game should look like.

Favorite game, though? Chrono Trigger.

Edited December 6, 2019 by DoctorEncore