I mean, this year.

A contender for greatest year in gaming ever, though for me 1998 would top it. If only barely. I don't think this poll can have a wrong answer. In Europe this year also saw the release of the N64 so the 1996 N64 games to me were also 1997. As if 1997 wasn't awesome enough. Just off the lists in this thread, the ones I played and loved most are, in unranked order;
- Age of Empires
- Diablo
- GoldenEye 007
- Star Fox 64
- Tekken 3
- Dungeon Keeper
- Quake II
- Star Wars - Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II
- Crash Bandicoot 2
Today there haven't even been this many great games during this entire decade yet. And the last. GoldenEye deserves a mention, because this game was revolutionary and one of my all-time favourites. So does Jedi Knight and Age of Empires. And Crash 2. And of course Star Fox 64. Then, besides my list, there's things like Final Fantasy VII obviously, which I personally never played because I didn't grow into the series beforehand when it wasn't released in Europe so this never caught my interest. Similarly, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night went under my radar. In hindsight, it's likely I would've liked that game very much. I played Diddy Kong Racing as well, but I've always found it inferior to Mario Kart 64, and never really liked it.

Anyway though, it doesn't even stop there, because 1997 was also the year of Blast Corps and Theme Hospital. Blast Corps was a quirky memorable game I loved. The best one however, is actually Theme Hospital. To this day this game's humour, presentation and mostly relaxed gameplay stands out in a very, very positive way. There hadn't been a game before and there hasn't been a game since that captured its 'soul'. It immediately was and still is, one of my all-time favourite games.

So I'm afraid I'll vote for 'Other', with Theme Hospital.

Ah yes. The announcer. We had a Dutch version of that. I'll never forget him shouting "HET IS BETAALDAG" ("It's pay-day").

Bullfrog was great in its heyday. I just voted for Theme Hospital, another Bullfrog game from the same year. I loved how in the intro cutscene of Theme Hospital, the Keeper guy is sitting on a bench. EA ruining Bullfrog, was one of the biggest reasons for my hatred towards EA and why I've never bought a game published by them ever again. Them ruining Maxis was the other.

A stacked year but I've got to give it to Final Fantasy VII.

The multiple runner ups are: Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Final Fantasy Tactics, StarFox 64, Tekken 3, Mega Man X4 (Iriiiiiiiiiiis!), Diablo, Tomb Raider II.

I love all those games, although some might have aged a bit poorly (Tomb Raider, Diablo)

As much as I love AoE, Diablo, and Starfox 64, I had to go with Goldeneye 007.

Talk about childhood memories of late night multiplayer matches while eating pizza. Perfect combination along with the epic campaign and timeless music. That pause menu music though 😎

Honestly I think my favorite game that year may have been Star Wars Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight. Age of Empires 1 was also nice, but AoE 2 blows it away. Never played most of the others as I bought a very limited number of N64 games and never owned PS1. I do like FF7 characters and story from the Advent Children movie and the remake, but never played the original game.

I dont have any strong feelings about any of these. Ill give it to Final Fantasy VII. Fun game and very beloved by a lot of gamers.

FF7 was awesome. My first entry in the series like many others.

A great game from start to finish but far from perfect for me. Boss battles were the biggest bullet sponges I had encountered so far and the random encounters already got on my nerves back then. The special animations in battles were great but got very repetitive. However the story, quests and pre-rendered cut scenes were awesome. Exploring the environment was just as awesome. (minus the random encounters) A long game too on 3 discs!

Another game that got my interest on Playstation was Gran Turismo

I saw it playing in a nightclub we used to visit frequently back then. Brilliant marketing. It was playing in the lounge area on several machines. Got tired of dancing, take a break, a beer and race around against a friend. Which quickly became a tradition. After clubbing we used to go back to one of our friend's houses to drink some more after the clubs closed and play Gran Turismo until the morning. This continued with GT2. Basically most of my early time with Gran Turismo was spend drunk, stoned or coming down on xtc playing between the hours of 4AM and 6AM. And always slow down before the last corner not to be the one that gets punted off right before the finish!

However VRally got a lot more love from us back then

The game that got me into rally racing. It was fast, fluid with instant restarts. The best instant restarts in fact, no pause, no count down, no getting back up to speed, it simply instantly teleported you back to just before the finish line on your best lap so far, already at full speed. This made hot seat lap attack battles great fun. Pass the controller to beat each other's best lap over and over until resulting lap in the game was one death defying max risk ultimate lap :)

Another great game to get stoned with was Riven

It was so relaxing to walk around the island exploring. Amazing ambience, great music and sound, just beautiful. Of course actually solving the game required focus, making notes and deciphering a numerical system. I think it was a 5 based number system if I remember correctly. Puzzles were tough and ultimately I needed help from a FaQ to get through some of the more elaborate puzzles. The story was intriguing and I lapped up every document I could find. Riven wasn't just a game, it was a full experience. I still feels like going on holiday.

Monkey Island was still going strong and Curse of Monkey island had me laughing all the way through this

Brilliantly made. So much humor in that game, a joy to play.

Another mind blowing adventure was Blade Runner

A police detective story with so much ambience that the game actually got me to watch the movie which quickly became one of my all time favorites. People are still hankering for a remake with many fan recreations around

Maybe one day, or a game for Blade Runner 2049

I also very much enjoyed Zork: Grand Inquisitor "I am the boss of you"

An adventure full of humor and fun puzzles from start to finish and such a great memorable intro.

1997 saw the start of the Fallout series as well.

However I never played the first one. Fallout 3 was my first entry in that series. It still looks good today and is still on my back log.

That year I also ended up playing Total Annihilation, great RTS with massive scale battles

This one introduced recycling. Metal was a valuable resource and after a big battle the battlefield was littered with valuable scrap metal. Clean up crew following the battles to regain resources and take them from the enemies that way.

Another RTS that year was Myth The fallen lords

Its draw were the very bloody battles. You literally painted the world red in its big scale battles. It was also a fully realized 3D world. You could tilt and zoom the camera anyway you wanted but not all the way horizontal. (Basically like BG3 handles the camera)

1997 also saw MMORPG gain popularity with Ultima online. Not the first MMORPG but definitely one that put the genre on the map

It also became known for in game weddings which you can still do
https://uo.com/wiki/ultima-online-wiki/items/wedding-packages/
Of course no guarantee it wouldn't turn into a 'red wedding' lol. I never played the game but did read a lot about it and got me interested in the MMORPG genre.

Instead I played a lot of Dungeon Keeper

Putting the RTS/RPG fantasy game on its head by playing as the 'bad guy', creating an undefeatable dungeon. The enemies were heroes trying to raid your dungeon, besides keeping your monsters in line that is. Very addictive game with plenty humor. Also very cool you could zoom out and build in a more isometric view, then zoom in to walk through your own creations.

1997 also had MDK, Murder Death Kill. A mysterious tps with incredable art style

I don't remember if I ever completed it. I played it on PC and I think it crashed at some point. The art style and totally alien levels left a big impression.


Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee also came out in 1997

I didn't play this until the remake "New 'n Tasty" hit ps+ on PS4 andI  instantly fell in love.

What a fun game, and still so much fun decades later.  Very charming cinematic platformer.

Of course can't forget Age of Empires, the start of a great franchise with many expansions and sequels

Another game we ended up playing while stoned after clubbing. But also a game we later (AoE2) got together for on a Sunday at work one time. To play with 6 people in LAN. It ended in a stale mate as the game slowed down so much we eventually gave up. It took an army half an hour to walk across the map, 200 units on the move times 6 players, the netcode wasn't up to that. (It was meant for 75 unit max, 200 was more fun!)

Yet the game that intrigued me the most, got the most play time and replays in 1997 was Diablo which gets my vote for 1997

Such an addictive and satisfying game play loop. So much to discover, so thrilling to go deeper and deeper underground. It made Diablo II one of my most anticipated games of all time and it delivered. Hype still was rewarding back then lol.

Great year!

FFVII for me. However SOTN and FFTactics are definitely up there. And I have a soft spot for DK Racing. Another stacked year.

And dude I used to obsses over Goldeneye and SFox64 and there AoE, like damn, what a year. 

GoldenEye because of how it revolutionized it's genre on consoles.

As someone that didn't own a Playstation system until the PS2, I didn't get to play games like Final Fantasy 7 and SOTN until I played them on the backwards compatible PS2 years later. SOTN I've tried to get into multiple times over the years, and never get more than an hour or so into it before I decided to play something else. Final Fantasy 7, I played about 5 or so hours of, and didn't like it as the graphics were pretty rough by the time I played it. I came back to it a year or so later and enjoyed it. That being said, I thought Final Fantasy IX, IV, and VI were all better Final Fantasy games than VII. I didn't play Grandia until a few years ago when I played the remaster on the Switch, and was surprised that I actually enjoyed that game more than I did Final Fantasy VII. Star Fox was incredible at the time, especially with the new rumble pack included. It is a bit too short to pick as my winner. My pick is easily GoldenEye, I played that game with my friends and neighbors for at least 2 years, and probably played it for 300+ hours easily. We had the rules like no one could be Oddjob, and I remember pissing off one our neighbors, because he wasn't very good at the game, and we would kill him and as soon as he re-spawned, we would be say I know where you are.