Salnax on 24 January 2021
Thanks for the great work.
Random Observations
- Though I played none of 2020's entries in the Top 100, I was glad to see that there was a healthy supply of new great games this last year. I am, however, surprised that Animal Crossing: New Horizons wasn't one of them, seeing how ludicrously well that game sold in 2020.
- In the Top 100, that's 9 Final Fantasy games, 12 Mario games, and 10 Legend of Zelda games. Impressive.
- It's always surprising to see how so many PC games get so many votes, yet so few PC exclusives end up placing highly. I'm pleased as punch to see Age of Empires II in the Top 100 this time. That game really grew back on me upon revisiting it these past two years.
- At a glance, the NES has 11 third party games in its Top 20, the SNES has 9, the N64 has 3, the GameCube has 5, the Wii has 3, the Wii U has 2, and the Switch has 6. This confirms the generally held idea that Nintendo had better 3rd party support in its early days, but it's recovered somewhat with the Switch.
- Conversely, only 2 of the 14 GB/GBC titles were third party, whereas 6 of the Top 20 GBA titles were, along with 7/8 of the DS Top 20 and 7 of the 3DS's Top 20. In general, third party handheld support seems consistent. Furthermore, if the Switch is treated as a handheld, it fits roughly into the same pattern that's existed since the GBA.
- Looking at the various iterations of PlayStation, you get the feeling that peoples' tastes steadily change every few years. The PS1 is dominated by epic JRPG's flanked by Action and Platform games, the PS2 slightly deemphasizes the JRPG's and platformers in favor of more action and action-adventure games, the PS3 further deemphasizes platformers and JRPG's and brings in more shooters and open world games, and the PS4 continues the trends of the PS3 while this time focusing a bit more on the linear storytelling of games like The Last of Us.
- In contrast, the Xbox platform feels a bit more stable. The Xbox started as a place where you could play shooters and typically PC games, including WRPG's. This also holds true looking at the Top 360 games. Even on the X1, when the platform is starting to diversify, you have shooters like Halo and Overwatch alongside PC-oriented games like Witcher 3.
- Every year, I go through the effort of making sure I included 80's era games on my Top 50, only to later kick the games down to the 50's and 60's when I remember other games I've played. I suspect the same applies to other people, because the 80's need more love.
- At some point, I'd like to see at least a partial Publisher and/or Developer breakdown. In particular, I'd like to see how much of the Square Enix empire is just the Final Fantasy series (you still have big point earners like Nier, Chrono, Kingdom Hearts, and Dragon Quest), how Capcom's diverse library of games is represented (the Top 100 alone has Mega Man, Okami, and Resident Evil, but not Street Fighter or Monster Hunter), how Microsoft and Sony do compared to Nintendo (both overall and by era), etc.
