The '90s were probably the decade wherein I had the most in common with typical gamers. Notice how three of my top ten faves of the decade also won out in the voting here for their respective years of release, for instance (Super Metroid, Chrono Trigger, and Final Fantasy VII). That 3:1 ratio of agreement is unlikely to persist in either the next decades we venture through in these threads, I suspect. I remember starting to feel a real disconnect between the culture of the gaming mags I was reading and other fans I met on the one hand and what interested me the most on the other from I would say 2001 onward.
Much of the '90s I had spent eagerly anticipating the generalized leap to 3D. Now though it's actually more often titles from the late 16-bit era that I wind up revisiting more. There was just something special about that particular moment in time, right at the cusp of the big leap but not quite there yet wherein those two different worlds seemed to almost merge into one in a way that I appreciate more now in retrospect. The Super NES library from 1994 and '95 in particular is among my most expansive and treasured.
The 90s marked the end of an era in console gaming history in particular. Up until the turn of the century, each new console generation had been greeted by a new dominant actor: In the first console generation, it was simply the Magnavox Odyssey, in the second, Atari ruled the roost, in the third, Nintendo, in the fourth, Sega (most of the time anyway), and in the fifth, Sony. After the turn of the century, no more. The cost of entering what we would call the AAA gaming space became too prohibitive and market consolidation really started to take hold. It just didn't feel as wild or interesting to me anymore somehow, despite the industry's best efforts at boundary pushing. Still, I found plenty of games to like; just not all the same ones that most people seemed to. One area of major divergence that I'll highlight right now, for example, is that most of my favorite first-party Nintendo games actually were part of the GameCube era, which was among the big N's least popular systems. Well we'll get to the details in future threads.
Last edited by Jaicee - on 25 October 2023
