Even though I stand by that Tempest 2000 is the best game of 1994 and that Doom 2 and Sonic 3 and Knockles are up there, I totally forgot some of the runners up:

Virtua Fighter 2 is a top 3 3D fighting game imo. Daytona USA is a phenomenal arcade racer, with one of my favorite video game soundtracks of all time. Ditto Sega Rally Championships, which is actually my favorite racing game of all time. Castlevania Bloodlines and Contra Hard Corps are great additions to two of my favorite franchises. And then I cannot fathom nobody talks about Donkey Kong for the Gameboy. That is one of the greatest puzzle platformers of all time, and the greatest Gameboy game to star the plumber. Also the best game of the 90s to feature Donkey Kong.

Super Metroid was such a great game. My favorite side scroller and in my top 20 games of all time. BUT... Final Fantasy 6 is the RPG GOAT, and may be in my alltime top 5, so it gets my vote.

Let me contradict myself a little and say that I'm no longer into ranking stuff. Two masterpieces can provide top tier but very different kind of enjoyment.

The top 3 being what they are is certainly no surprise. Just hope FF6 doesn't end up 3rd...

This masterpiece deserves at least runner-up!!!

Final Fantasy VI gets my vote easily.


Donkey Kong Country is second to me on that list. Sonic and Earthbound followed by that.

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.

Games are very much a product of their time just like any other media. So while good to judge games on their own merits, the context can't be ignored. Earthbound I guess was a bit too Japanese for it to catch on in the US, especially the marketing, and it never even got released in Europe!

Though Nintendo spent about $2 million on marketing,^[17] the American release was ultimately viewed as unsuccessful within Nintendo.^[35] The game's atypical marketing campaign was derived from the game's unusual humor. As part of Nintendo's larger "Play It Loud!" campaign, EarthBound's "this game stinks" campaign included foul-smelling scratch and sniff advertisements.^[26] At the time, Digital Trends described the campaign as "bizarre" and "based around fart jokes".^[38] GamePro reported that they received more reader complaints about the game's scratch and sniff ad than about any other 1995 advertisement.^[39] The campaign was also expensive. It emphasized magazine advertisements and had the extra cost of the strategy guide included with each game.^[40] Between the poor sales and the phasing out of the Super NES, the game did not receive a European release.^[17] Aaron Linde of Shacknews believed that the price of the packaged game ultimately curtailed sales.^[26]

Badly handled release.


I actually prefer the older 'simpler' RTS games like Dune 2 and the original Warcraft. Grouping units, rally points all added more complexity next to automation. I've always preferred micro managing I guess. Plus a sequel already starts at a disadvantage for me, seen most of it before. I love Warcraft 2 as well, 3 I lost interest and was into Age of Empires and Command & Conquer instead. Which I also 'quit' after the first 2 in those franchises. Just like Valve, 3 is a tough number fro me lol. It  sometimes backfires, or rather keeps good things for later. I didn't play MGS3 until after MGS4 got me back in the franchise (I started MGS3 on ps2, quit after 2 hours) and now think MGS3 is the best of the series.

What I hear you saying here is that Nintendo needs to localize Mother 3.

I voted earthbound, because I loved that game. But I could make a case for probably half of the games in the poll. Sonic 3, DKC, and Super Metroid being the easiest for me to argue in favor of.

This poll has about a day left, and it's been the one that is most interesting to me so far. Shortly after I posted it, FF6 shot up to an early lead, but by the end of the first day DKC and Super Metroid had both surpassed it, with the latter game having a comfortable lead. Currently Super Metroid still has a good lead, but FF6 has caught up to DKC. Super Metroid looks to be the likely winner at this point, but there is still enough time that FF6 or DKC could possibly catch it.