glazball

Lots of great suggestions in this thread.  I also highly recommend Jeremy Parish, Game Sack, Gaming Historian and PandaMonium.

A few I really like but haven't seen mentioned:

NES Friend - short, easy to digest videos

Sega Lord X - focuses obviously on Sega, mostly Genesis and Saturn

ShoryuGame - focuses on fighters, particularly KoF and Neo fighters

Cannot Be Tamed - she doesn't focus exclusively on retro games and is easy on the eyes!

Basement Brothers - Neo Alec is documenting every Neo Geo game in order

spida1a - Chris Bucci reviewed every TG game for his TurboViews series.  Truly excellent stuff.

Pff do people still remember Puff Daddy or give a shit about his song?  It's already forgotten by me.  Kashmir will live on for ages.

On 7/22/2022 at 4:22 PM, final fight cd said:

I know aes is expensive, but what games are hard to find? I have zero knowledge of the system, but the only one I can think of is metal slug. Which, now that I think about it, I don’t know if it is just expensive or also hard to find.  

I believe there are only 6 known copies (each) of English AES versions of Kizuna Encounter and Ultimate 11.  If you had Elon Musk's money, you might be able to convince someone to sell.  Otoh, some Atari 2600 ("R11" lol) carts have only 1 or 2 known specimens in existence and it would be simply impossible to find them even with unlimited money.

Atari 2600 US/NTSC fullset is basically impossible to complete.  Neo Geo AES (any region) would be a very close second.

Indeed @doner24, and in case some didn't know, the solo in While My Guitar Gently Weeps was performed by Eric Clapton.  Amazing song and one of George's best.

Love the poll but I'm still hesitant to vote until we are all agreed on what those 10 games are for each system.  Also, "Neo Geo" doesn't really work as a choice since the MVS and AES markets are wildly different.

Yea this is a very interesting thread idea.  Maybe it could be a poll?  Lots of great answers here and it will be hard to pick.  It's interesting that Dreamcast and Gamecube haven't come up yet either.

I'm leaning Saturn but before I give my final answer, would TG-16 include CD games or would those be considered a separate platform?

I remember it being the first RPG on the N64 so of course I had to play it.  I honestly can't remember many specifics about it though, other than spamming Water Pillar (which looks like "caterpillar") a lot.  It was completely middle-of-the-road but did have some charm and one day I'll peek at it again for some nostalgia.  Those early days of the N64 were fun.

Indeed, a tough question but fun to think about!  The last game I can remember renting was Blast Corps on N64.

One of my favorite NES titles.  The silver box games represented a giant leap forward on the NES at the time.  Though I remember a fit of rage or two when a thief would steal and item or an Eggplant Wizard turned me into a helpless vegetable, I loved it.  Still love it today.

A fine idea, but one thread may not be enough since there are thousands of trophies and achievements across PS and Xbox systems.  There are forums dedicated to just trophy/ach. discussion for every game, plus a thread in each game subforum for people looking to boost particular trophies.  I used to use them quite a bit back in the PS3 era when I was more of a trophy whore and met a few cool players that way.

You may know all this already, so not trying to shit on the thread.  Good idea, but you may have more success boosting achievements on a forum like that.

Billy Joel the best songwriter of all time?  Yea, no lol.  I do have a soft spot for his greatest hits collection though.  Personally I'm surprised to see Jimi losing to a mediocre song like Don't Fear The Reaper.  I mean, wtf?

My wife and I binged for the last month or so and just got caught up with this last half-season (the final season 6) of Better Call Saul.  I believe the second half starts next month.

I wonder if Saul lives??  jk  I am curious what will happen to Kim though.

Dancing Queen vs. Purple Haze had me pause for a while too....  I love them both.  But after all, this is a "classic rock" poll right?  Had to go with Jimi.  Maybe ABBA would win had it been a weaker Hendrix tune, but classic rock doesn't get much more iconic than Purple Haze.

Out of curiosity, how do you know the game works?

Some good pictures and descriptions posted here in the thread would be your best bet for getting info.  Let's see what you found!

Also, congrats on finally being a Dreamcast owner.  It's one of the best game systems of all time, imho

Very surprised we haven't seen Portal 3 after all these years.  Both are great games - fun, clever and universally appealing.

Goemon's Great Adventure gets my vote.  One of the best games on the console, by any publisher and of any genre.

edit: oops, just noticed 3D platformer.  Oh well, it's 2.5D so just round up.

Man, my musical tastes differ wildly from most of you!  I won't type out a list, but can mention some of my favorite concerts:

1993 - Information Society and Anything Box at Astroworld - ABox has always been one of my favorites and they'll be playing again this July!

1994 - Nine Inch Nails at International Ballroom in Houston.  This show was before Closer was released as a single and his/their popularity exploded.

1999ish - Morphine at Liberty Lunch in Austin - was tripping and this show was just incredible

2005ish - Muse in Austin - almost brought to tears.  They are so damn talented.

Link to the Past did have some quality of life improvments but also a bit of hand-holding.  I will always be partial to the original so I had to round down to a 9.  Truly amazing game!

Of course many early games, including tabletop D&D, used stats and RNG to determine outcomes, imo that was more of a limitation of the times than an intended feature.  The overarching idea behind an RPG is that the player is allowed to explore the world at their leisure and it doesn't matter if outcomes/battles are decided in a turn-based fashion (FF, Phantasy Star, Paper Mario, etc) or in real time (LoZ, WoW, etc).  The exploration is what qualifies LoZ as an RPG, though I'll admit it's not the epitome of JRPGs as we now know them.

20 hours ago, Dr. Morbis said:

I think what a lot of people are missing is that an RPG originally meant a game where the outcome of any given situation (usually battles) was decided by statistics + RNG.  In Final Fantasy, for example, each battle outcome is determined by taking the various statistics of the combatants (weapons, equipment, strength, etc) and matching them against their foes with a "random" algorithim to determine the outcome.  That's the part of playing the role: you're not actually drawing a sword and battling yourself, you're letting the game decide the outcome based on a set of rules and the available stats.  In Zelda 1, Secret of Mana, and all other supposed "action-RPG's" you are actually drawing your weapon to fight the enemy!  You're not "playing a role" of that character - you are that character in the game world.  That is the big difference, and if you use that as a guide, it's pretty easy to see that many of the games classified as RPG's in this thread and elsewhere simply are NOT.  Once you broaden your umbrella beyond this distinction, it's a swift downhill slide and it gets difficult to not just simply include everything under the sun.  You even get people going so far as to classify Zelda 1 as an RPG!!! Now that's crazy...

Galaga certainly qualifies, but I have to agree Paperboy does not.  If the object of a shoot-em-up is to in fact shoot them up, Paperboy does not qualify.  Sure, you release a projectile but the intent is not to destroy something with it (well, for the friendly houses at least!).  Paperboy does not count as a shmup.

@the_wizard_666 brings up some good points above, but I can't agree that a shmup must scroll.  Similarly, a platformer doesn't need to scroll to the right to be considered a platformer (original Mario Bros, Jumpman Jr, etc).  I think it would also be wise to exclude "arcade" as a genre because it's doesn't really fit, at least not for this type of discussion.  Something like Balloon Fight should fall under "action."

For DK3, it's right on the line.  Since the objective isn't to destroy or kill DK with the bug spray, it probably shouldn't qualify as a shmup.  Maybe it should be called a sprmup - a spray 'em up!

6 hours ago, PII said:

In my day The Legend Of Zelda was referred to as an Action-RPG.  There is a large open world to explore.  For me this factor along with the particular sort of excitement that comes with exploring such a world is what defines an RPG more than anything else.  Link also has to seek out and explore dungeons, find hidden items, upgrade his weapons etc. all consistent with an RPG...

I've always considered LoZ an RPG, but after reading many arguments over the years, my opinion has softened somewhat.  However I still feel like it is an RPG.  I think this quote nails exactly why, so thanks!  In my mind, it is the open-world exploration and freedom of movement that constitutes "RPG", even though Link never himself levels up.

I would also downvote Defender of the Crown.  That belongs under the strategy umbrella.

What @Sumez sez.  Any day I have to get up early and go to work is automatically disqualified, so Saturday it is with Sunday a close second.  Those are the only 2 days I get to play games for extended periods, which is what I live for.

Surprised to see Tecmo Cup Soccer Game but I admit I've never really given it any time and don't know much about it.  Is it truly an RPG or (like many others) just have RPG elements?  Great list, thanks for sharing it!