Persona 3, but FF 12 is also an amazing game, probably the series most underrated one.

I did check out the member GOAT list from last year and the top 10 is this:

Zelda
Zelda
Mario
Mario
Mario
Zelda
Mario
Zelda
Mario Kart
Chrono Trigger

Nintendo is popular everywhere of course but I’ve never seen such a heavy tilt as this. And Twilight Princess at #15 is pretty much unheard of.

That said, the competition isn’t super strong in 2006.

on other sites like resetera and reddit this dispute would be much fiercer, and again zelda was neither the first nor second most awarded game of 2006, it was certainly behind gears and elder scrolls, i'm sure of this because they did a survey on reddit of the most awarded games of the last 20 years

Mother 3 by a country mile, one of my faves.
I also like New Super Mario Bros., Lego Star Wars II, and Wii Sports.

Unpopular opinion - at least in this forum - but FF12 for me. Easily the most underrated FF.
Loved TwilightP as well.
Gears was fine.

Thats about it. Ok year.

The best ever Zelda game came out this year, so of course that gets my vote.

Okami, that is.

One more game I played a lot in 2006, Test Drive Unlimited. It was amazing to race around a real entire island. The final race, loop around the island, took over an hour. It's one of the very few games I got 100% on, just so fun and relaxing to drive around the island. I enjoyed the delivery missions the most, both car deliveries and taxi missions.


I played it so much the road system of O'ahu is etched in my mind and I instantly recognized it while flying over in FS2020 over a decade later.
Of course not hard to remember a crossing like this. I almost made it all the way flying under (bugged terrain on the right far side)


I still like the TDU series more than Forza Horizon. TDU has cringe too but in a more holiday fun way. I'm looking forward to the release of TDU Solar Crown. The Horizon games have gone stale.

It's hard for me to pick between Twilight Princess and Okami. The former is the refinement of the traditional Zelda experience while the latter takes it in a new unique direction, but isn't quite as polished.

In the end I always go with Okami, but I really would need to replay both back to back to see how it feels nowadays

There aren't that many more Nintendo fans than Sony fans here to be honest; FF7 won it's year by miles after all. It's Xbox fans that are an endangered species here.

A lot of folks have multiple systems, so even if they're a Sony fan they might like Twilight Princess. For example I am a Nintendo fan, but I voted for Halo in 2001 and Halo 2 in 2004 over Nintendo's games because I had an Xbox as well.

There was no Mario nor Zelda that year!

See BonfiresDown post above if you need some more convincing ;)

https://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread/247736/1997-game-of-the-year/

GoldenEye is still second 1997 while Half-Life only got 9 votes vs 44 for OoT lol.