1994, Game of the Year

[UnderwaterFunktown]

SvennoJ said:

UnderwaterFunktown said:

I feel a little bad for Earthbound sitting at 2 votes since it's a close second to me. The gameplay itself isn't amazing but overall it's a great experience that manages to fluctuate between a bunch of different vibes successfully and also the clear inspiration behind some of my favorites later down the line.

I feel the same for Warcraft sitting at 2 votes. However with a lot of PC games, first one created the word of mouth, second one got the sales and popularity, Plus PC was still niche in the 90s compared to the popularity of consoles. Which was kind of a good thing as it allowed a lot more original games to flourish instead of already gravitating to certain templates and long lines of sequels. Those were there too of course, Ultima, Might and Magic and other long running series.

Earthbound might as well have suffered from the already so well established franchises on SNES. Metroid had already made a name on NES and GB, with the 3rd game having learned a lot already and creating a great platformer on SNES. And thanks to its sprite based graphics it aged a lot better than many early 2.5D / 3D games. But indeed, Earthbound showed that RPGs are so much more than just suited to fantasy settings. Yet in the end, pioneers are rarely rewarded as well as refined sequels and spin offs.

I don't think I fully agree with your statement there at the end, I think there are many examples of games getting some extra credit for what they helped start, but that does require the game itself to also be fairly popular I suppose, so maybe what you're saying holds mostly true on PC.

Honestly I'm also more a believer that games should be judged on their own merits (despite my comment about Earthbound inspiring later games, I suppose. Didn't mean that was why I liked it, it's solid in its own right). I'm a big Warcraft fan for example, love 3 and 2 is pretty great as well, but my god 1 is rough in my eyes (RTS might just be the genre that has aged worse in terms of controls), so I never really considered voting for it even if it started a franchise I love.