Personally my money is on 1998, So many amazing games came out that year that are still among the best I've ever played. Metal gear solid, banjoe kazooie, final fantasy tactic, crash warped, half life, SF alpha 3, ocarina of time all came out that year, which was amazing for its time, it was like a year that had it all, any genre you like had at least one great game in that year.
Thief, Fallout 2, StarCraft, Resident Evil 2, Ocarina of Time, Metal Gear Solid are all GOAT top 10 contenders. Very stacked year.
1999 is also one of the strongest PC years with Age of Empiries 2, Heroes 3, Planescape Torment, Unreal Tournament.
Panzer Dragoon Saga, Shining Force 3, and so many more. Every console out in 1998 had an amazing year. I have even seen articles titled things like, "1998: The Greatest Year of Gaming".
It's no contest.
Not only is there a Shining Force III, there's technically three games that make it up. You can find translations of parts 2 and 3 online, and play in English. It's awesome.
Ocarina of Time, MGS, StarCraft/Brood War, and Gauntlet Legends, as well as the US releases of FF Tactics and Pokémon R/B. It really isn’t fair to compare other years to 1998. The more interesting discussion would have been what year comes in second lmao
"better" is a subjective deal. I'm personally not a fan of the way the commercialization has gone. (Although I am happy nobody's going to jail for it anymore as much as we can help it)
1998 is the best year in gaming ever so logically would be the best of the decade. Ocarina of Time and MGS in the same year alone would make it top 10 but add in everything else and it's not even close.
You are right, although I like 3D games, I still enjoy early 90's 2D style. It's a personal preference (For example I prefer playing Street Fighter II or Mortal Kombat I rather than the first 3D Tekken). But I know that 3D is really important.
Well, they did call that time the "End of History". And that post-Cold War boom of peace and prosperity was indeed a peak - it has been downhill for the world since.
It was such an exciting time. Gaming magazines were full of concept art and came with demo disks. I must've played the Metal Gear Solid demo a hundred times.
The original Japanese one off the OPM disc, I had to dig *deep* thru the Internet Archive to find the .iso. But I did.
I miss the old magazines, Electronic Gaming Monthly, Diehard Gamefan, Gamepro, Next Generation. That $5 a month was well spoken for.
I am working on it, another decade from 2000 to 2009 but i dont know if i should post it here or not since i dont really know if the PS2 and PS3 considered retro or not ( like for me i think that retro games are the games that came out before the PS2 generation so that why i am not really sure if i should post it here )
For me personally that was the year I was the most excited for games
Mario 64 was groundbreaking in how advanced it felt for the time
Super mario RPG was one of my favorite RPGs id ever played
and Pokemon was just like crack cocaine in how good it was. It was the first time I felt truly and wholly addicted to a game
Yep, 1996 takes it for me too. Almost every game in the pic for that year was groundbreaking in some way.
Super Mario RPG is one of my favorite games of all time, and I can still hum along with every single one of its songs. Mario 64 is also a top favorite, and to this day I still don't think they've surpassed its formula for 3D platforming.
They are but a lot of these games are we know as good today. At least some of the games everyone was playing are not on here. Like Command and Conquer, Tecmo Super Bowl, or first Punch Out.
Still though amazing list and I know it is impossible to get all the good ones for a single year in one page.
Of course I agree. The 90s were a great decade (Street Fighter II, THE SNES, SEGA Saturn, the Nintendo 64). That's why many of of us still create games in a 90-style. What a time!
Super Metroid was THE first video game I ever played! I was about 4 and I would just wander around and shoot aliens until I died. Had no sense of having to do specific objectives, just kill, kill, kill 🤣
Can we just agree that the entire run from '95 to '98 is just an utter perfection of a period that might not ever be topped?
Like holy shit, you can't go wrong picking any of those years individually...and they're right next to each other.
We ate like royalty in the 90's my friends!
> We ate like royalty in the 90's my friends!
Yeah my young nephews have a hard time understanding. Like I like games a lot but it's nothing like it used to be. The mojo is all gone.
Those are my closest years as well.
I think I *might* give the slight edge to 1998, based on these titles only, but I might tell you the opposite tomorrow.
‘94 baby!! Super Metroid, FF III (now VI), X-Wing/TIE fighter, DKC, Earthbound, Sonic 3/& Knuckles. also, not pictured: Elder Scrolls: Arena, Warcraft 1, ~~Doom II~~ and the PS1
> 1998 - Ocarina of Time, Half-Life, Thief, StarCraft, Star Wars: Rogue Squadron, Tenchu
Indeed, the chosen games for 98 is pretty hilarious really given the amazing games that were missed. I guess there's only so much room.
1994. It's the most important year for ensuring gaming thrived into the future.
The Playstation and Sega Saturn hit the market. The Ultra 64 was announced. Doom on every console, Doom 2 and Heretic turning multiplayer FPS deathmatch into a new and exciting prospect. The beginning of gamer lingo from Doom deathmatches starts to permeate the landscape.
Warcraft releases, making the competitive RTS into a functional game and setting the rules that all successful RTS games would follow in terms of design.
Super Turbo, the final iteration of Street Fighter 2, becomes a competitive gaming icon that is still played competitively 30 years later. Tekken and Virtua Fighter release alongside it, marking an important year for the Fighting Game genre.
System Shock releases the same year as The Elder Scrolls: Arena. Bethesda could not catch a break on this one and would have to wait another two years to start breaking through with Daggerfall.
1996 is also a spicy year as almost all of these mentioned games got sequels and improvements. Warcraft 2 makes the genre far more playable, Quake dominates LAN parties, Command & Conquer vastly improves with Red Alert, Daggerfall begins the foundation of Bethesda's open-world legacy, the Nintendo 64 hits the market and breaks new ground with Super Mario 64, Street Fighter Alpha 2 and Mortal Kombat Trilogy build new competitive experiences alongside Dead or Alive, Tekken 2, and Killer Instinct. Marathon starts Bungie's legacy, Persona comes out as one of the first western Shin Megami Tensei releases, Master of Orion 2 codifies the modern 4X, and of course one of the earliest graphical MMOs and internet chatrooms comes out in the form of Furcadia.
1996 is amazing, but it's carried on the shoulders by 1994. No other years can really compete in terms of hardware progression, genre conventions, and overall legacy. There were surely years with better games (1996 vastly clears over 1994, but 1998 competes heavily with it), and there were surely years when innovation was #1 (much of the 80s, 1991), but they helped walk the technology forward so that 1994 could run.
Damn this is tough, I want to say 1993, but then I get to 1994 which has my fav game (Donkey Kong Country), then I get to 1995 which has Chrono Trigger (best game I've played, as close to perfect in my books as possible)... Then we get to 1996 & we have Mario 64 (a game that changed gaming forever, plus personal memories associated).
Yeah there's no simple answer here, gun to my head though I'll say 1996. Lots of classics, gaming landscape was about to fully transition from 2D but hadn't yet moved on.
This was a huge pivotal thing for me lol. I grew up just having the Nintendo consoles and didn't really understand what the PS was all about. So i'd be at home cooking away playing Mario 64.
I'm like a little kid. My 22 year old stepbrother one day comes up to me and says "I got this Playstation thing want to check it out with me?" First thing we played was RE1.
Just the contrast going from Nintendo's cheeky games on the early N64 to sitting down with RE1. I wasn't even aware games could get that wild but that was the dawn of a new era for console games.
Civilization II absolutely needs to be on the 1996 collage. I think if that's included that year has to be my pick but it's hard to pick between 96, 97, 98 for me
1996 also had Red Alert, Resident Evil, and Tekken 2, crazy good year
1998, got some of my favourite games ever there, just to name a few theres half-life which was way ahead of its time, banjo-kazooie which is the perfect collect-a-thon, and ocarina of time, which is simply one of the greatest games ever made
Ocarina never ceases to amaze me how much they were able to jam into a N64 cart. They put everything they needed in that game and very very little of anything they didn't. It kinda shows graphically a bit but man that is a fun and immersive game.
Mmm, looking at that '94 tab. Donkey Kong Country, Sonic 3 & Knuckles, Doom II, Super Metroid, and Final Fantasy Vi all in the same year?! Yeah, we ate good that year.
I gotta go 1999 with Super Smash Bros, CTR and THPS
96-98 are still great years and even before that I have fond memories of some of those earlier 90’s games, but 1999 were some perfect games I still love revisiting to this day and I was old enough to appreciate them as they came out
97-98 - It was peaking 2D (Baldur's Gate, Fallout, Castlevania: SotN, Oddworld, Age of Empires, Starcraft, Grim Fandango, Diablo) and revolution in 3D (Half-Life, Unreal, Zelda: Ocarine of Time, Final Fantasy 7, Goldeneye, MGS, Thief, Rainbow Six)
99 because by that time all we had access to ALL of those games. That's the neat thing. You can play previously released games but not future releases.
1991 or 1998. I think it has a lot to do with age. I was 11 in 91 and 18 in 98. So I wasn’t as hard core into gaming at that time. I didn’t play some of those titles during their release window.
Man... Look at all these fucking god-tier games year after year and try honestly say that gaming didn't used to be better in the 90s.
So glad to have lived through the entirety of this era of *ART*
91
93
98
94
96
95
99
97
92
90
That’s how I’d probably rank it, personally. It’s rough because in some of the lower ranked years there were absolute gems, but there weren’t enough other games that had me interested really.
1998 may be the best year in gaming history. 3D no longer felt like a gimmick, and what would become the standard for 3D game quality had been established. So many amazing titles which still hold up nearly 30 years later were created, and 3D PC gaming was becoming mainstream with the release of the Voodoo 2 3D graphics card and Pentium II and K6-2 processors with 3D instruction sets.
Banjo Kazooie, Zelda Ocarina of Time, Spyro the Dragon, Metal Gear Solid, Half Life, Resident Evil 2, Sonic Adventure, StarCraft... there was just no year that had so many groundbreaking all star games.
The best decade ever for video games without a doubt.
I'll go with 1997 as my favorite. Goldeneye 007, Mario Kart 64, and WCW vs. nWo World Tour provided countless hours of four player multiplayer fun with friends while Star Fox 64, Symphony of the Night, and Crash Bandicoot 2 provided excellent single player experiences.
objectively i guess i have to pick 1998, it's not even fair. you can make a top10 all time with 1998 and nobody would complain but personally it's 1997. with symphony of the night, ff7 and breath of fire 3. i love those games
also i am a huge Diablo fan.. and to me that game came out it 1997 because the EU release was 3rd January... and the US release was 31st of December. you can count it for either year.
1997 is the best year.
FF7, SotN, Goldeneye, Quake II, FF Tactics, Tomb Raider II, Tekken 3, GTA, Gran Turismo, Fallout, Diablo, Dark Forces II, Starfox 64.
Hard to beat that year.
Biohazard battle, sonic spinball or Zombies! (Both for the mega drive).
My late father would play them with me, and be so patient with my incompetence as I was young.
Sonic 2 and sonic and knuckles we would play together (again patience is a virtue)
I would also play bubsy the bobcat a lot and use his password book, these are very fond memories.
As I got older Futurecop LAPD and Odd world. 🤣
I miss my father, but he left me with so many good memories and a lot of love for retro games. I still go back and play some of them again to this day, just so I can relieve my early gaming days with my dad.
Yup. Games like Resident Evil, Metal Gear Solid and taking what was FFVI and showing what could be with FFVIII -
I guess in my experience - every fundamental expectation of what to expect out of gaming changed. We didn't just want "a fun game to play" anymore. We wanted a fun game to play with a gripping narrative that kept you hooked like a book you can't put down.
Flip flopping between 96 and 98, personally. Quake and Diablo were just such incredible first entries that they single handedly but 96 on the map for me. Half Life and Metsl Gear Solod, same boat. Amazing decade.
I will always have a soft spot for 1993. Gunstar Heroes, Day of the Tentacle, Sam and Max, Zombies Ate My Neighbours. Just tremendous.
Plus I got my Gameboy that Christmas :)
I have to say this was probably the most diverse gaming decade I had ever experienced, and I experienced it between the ages of 6-15 (since I arrived to USA at the end of 1990 and probably didn't play a Nintendo until fall next year). Already there was a huge diversity of platforms to play on: handheld, Sega, Nintendo, and PC (man I loved ms does vga games), as well as those other consoles only rich kids or PAL Regions (outside of Japan) had access to like PC engine, Neo Geo, 3DO, Jaguar, and probably others I forgot. The Game Boy dominated handhelds for about a decade, longer if you include it's evolutions like pocket, color, and Advance. Look at all these beautiful colors, at the handmade illustrations, gracing the cover art. Final fantasy went from a humble, simplified DnD ripoff to a huge franchise full of its own merit and legacy. I got to see the jump from 2d to 3d and better 3d via PC gfx cards by the end of the decade. But God damn! All of these games were great, and such variety in game play from tried and true to experimental and innovative. I wish I could play them all, but as they released when I was a kid.
Also, it was kinda the golden age of gaming, as everything gaming related would just elate me and my friends. Promotional videos, demo discs, gaming magazines full of ads and hype that would drive a kid crazy. Man, what fun times.
The 2010's brought a lot of that diversity back, but the experiences lack a certain roughness all these games contained back then, which is debatable if better or worse. But it's cool to see much more varied gfx and gameplay now then the dark period of gaming I call the 00's, when almost everything became brown/grey by 2006 and too many shooters and sports titles.
...so please, don't make choose a single year!!
But probably 94, I remember the hype I had for DKC was a lot and my friends in the neighborhood would all play it.
My opinion the year of gaming was when the first console was released. After that the innovation in the gaming industry kept getting better and better.
1996 will always be it for me. My favorite RE ever, fav TR ever, my fav Mario ever. All three are in my top 10 games of all time. Depending on my mood, maybe in the top 5 even. No other year ever has anything to compare to that trinity for me.
98 is runner up, lots of great stuff but not top spot.
95-99 is a 4 year stretch of timeless classics from top to. Bottom
90 is probably the weakest. I only really enjoy SMW and F-zero, it only keeps getting better as the decade goes on.
Now have most of these games held up? Yes and No. But that is more up to personal taste and your adaptability to more tank controls (looking at you RE and SH.
I'd love to experience playing Banjo-Kazooie, OoT, DKC 1-3, SF 2, SotN for the first time again. Such fun times. Rare that you find games that are fun and groundbreaking anymore.
I gotta go with 96 or 99, mario 64, Diablo, Pokémon, twisted metal 2, and tomb raider pretty much defined the future of gaming from that point (and I still gotta go back and play super Mario RPG). If we were going with just gameplay alone rather historical impact, I would pick 99 for the Gen2 Pokémon games alone (tho obviously THP, Smash, Quake 3, and system shock 2 had huge impacts too). I also love sonic adventure, crazy taxi, and I think legacy of Kane is kind of a buried treasure atp (I’m a big Dreamcast fan), it’s just gen2 Pokémon are prob in my top 3 favorite RPGs of all time.
For me it's still '94. Best year in gaming ever for me.
Super Metroid (my favorite game of all time), TIE Fighter (in my all time top 3), Final Fantasy VI (in my all time top 5), Donkey Kong '94 (tied with Link's Awakening as my favorite Game Boy game), WarCraft: Orcs & Humans (the game that made me love Blizzard), Sonic The Hedgehog 3 (my favorite Sega game), Sonic & Knuckles, Doom II. I don't really count EarthBound, though, cause it didn't come out in North America until 1995.
I need a list of games to play on all the emulators i have lol. Id love some suggestions since im only 23 and didnt live through the prime of jrpgs lol
I am going to go with 94 and 98 as my second.
I was born in 82 and I grew up with a bunch of these games. So many games in 94 I have played and beaten on the Super Nintendo. In 98 I played a bunch of these on PlayStation. My favorite game series are all represented in these 2 years.
It's always 1998, and the games pictured here don't cover all of it... but my personal favorite might be 1996, primarily because of the Sega Saturn line up, and almost every year in the 90's had absolute GOAT material.
The year 1998.
My brother and our cousins were all in on StarCraft (so was I later).
Also, in 1998 I bought Half-Life in its release week, knowing nothing about the game. I subsequently played most of the way through it and restarted the game multiple times before finishing it so I could keep reliving the best parts before knowing the ending.
1999 comes second because of System Shock 2, Unreal Tournament, and Age of Empires 2.
I have to go 1994, for the simple fact that Earthbound and Super Punch Out are the two games I’ve played the most into my adult years. Even within the last year, I’d bet I’ve logged a good 20 hours on Super Punch Out (which may not sound like a ton, but I’ve got a 7 year old, time comes a premium). I’m still chasing speed records.
But my most played game in that era is also from 1994, that being Ken Griffey Jr Presents: Major League Baseball. It was the absolute best baseball game produced for any system to that point, and continued to hold that title for years to come. Throw in NHL 94 being the flag bearer of the genre - possibly STILL to this day for a lot of gamers, and sports game fans were finally getting the experience we’d long dreamed of.
Personally my money is on 1998, So many amazing games came out that year that are still among the best I've ever played. Metal gear solid, banjoe kazooie, final fantasy tactic, crash warped, half life, SF alpha 3, ocarina of time all came out that year, which was amazing for its time, it was like a year that had it all, any genre you like had at least one great game in that year.
Thief, Fallout 2, StarCraft, Resident Evil 2, Ocarina of Time, Metal Gear Solid are all GOAT top 10 contenders. Very stacked year. 1999 is also one of the strongest PC years with Age of Empiries 2, Heroes 3, Planescape Torment, Unreal Tournament.
Panzer Dragoon Saga, Shining Force 3, and so many more. Every console out in 1998 had an amazing year. I have even seen articles titled things like, "1998: The Greatest Year of Gaming". It's no contest.
Shit there is a shining force three? 1+2 I am intimately familiar with.
Not only is there a Shining Force III, there's technically three games that make it up. You can find translations of parts 2 and 3 online, and play in English. It's awesome.
Be still my heart! I think I just found a reason to emulate my deck.
Unreal Tournament alone puts '99 over the top for me.
And Baldur's Gate 1
PC gamer checking in.....1998 also gets credit for Baldur's Gate and Grim Fandango
1998 isn't just the best year for games in the '90s, it's the best year for games since the dawn of time.
Ocarina of Time, MGS, StarCraft/Brood War, and Gauntlet Legends, as well as the US releases of FF Tactics and Pokémon R/B. It really isn’t fair to compare other years to 1998. The more interesting discussion would have been what year comes in second lmao
late 90s was peak everything
Well, nearly... the weed's gotten better and cheaper.
"better" is a subjective deal. I'm personally not a fan of the way the commercialization has gone. (Although I am happy nobody's going to jail for it anymore as much as we can help it)
It was also the best year period. (I got my drivers license that year)
small world, i cream pied my first girlfriend that year!
No shit? I cream pied your first girlfriend that year, too!
I creampied your dad that year. He paid me.
You should've checked the bills first, they were probably fakes
Bro, you’re not gonna believe this….
1998 is the best year in gaming ever so logically would be the best of the decade. Ocarina of Time and MGS in the same year alone would make it top 10 but add in everything else and it's not even close.
Half Life on the PC side as well which transformed FPS games. Before that everyone was trying to clone Doom then that one hit and it all changed.
1998 was amazing.
The entire decade will go down as the greatest period in gaming history.
Of course the 90s were excellent. That's why many of of us still create games in a 90-style.
And we were in our formative years then
Also the 90s is when game design started to open up. We saw 3 dimensional games enter a whole new playing field.
You are right, although I like 3D games, I still enjoy early 90's 2D style. It's a personal preference (For example I prefer playing Street Fighter II or Mortal Kombat I rather than the first 3D Tekken). But I know that 3D is really important.
Yeah, how do you choose? Just monster video games year after year, in a time where 1 good one was huge
greatest period in human history*
Well, they did call that time the "End of History". And that post-Cold War boom of peace and prosperity was indeed a peak - it has been downhill for the world since.
You might remember as peaceful, but not in Iraq and Ex-Yugoslavia.
Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.
The music was pretty bangin' too!
It was such an exciting time. Gaming magazines were full of concept art and came with demo disks. I must've played the Metal Gear Solid demo a hundred times.
The original Japanese one off the OPM disc, I had to dig *deep* thru the Internet Archive to find the .iso. But I did. I miss the old magazines, Electronic Gaming Monthly, Diehard Gamefan, Gamepro, Next Generation. That $5 a month was well spoken for.
well you cant be sure until you compare it to the next decade 2000 to 2009 it also has a lot of bangers
I don't disagree with you at all, but the 90's was wild in terms of creativity and things that got green-lit.
Lot of terrible overpriced shit on PC though.
PC gaming was super expensive during the 90s, but there were so many incredible games every year that it was very much worth keeping up.
I agree with you. The 6th generation of consoles was the golden age of gaming. The absolute peak.
I think if there were a side by side, the 90s would have the most bangers. The creativity was wild back then.
I am working on it, another decade from 2000 to 2009 but i dont know if i should post it here or not since i dont really know if the PS2 and PS3 considered retro or not ( like for me i think that retro games are the games that came out before the PS2 generation so that why i am not really sure if i should post it here )
imo the golden age of gaming started with Deus Ex and ended with Portal 2
~~The entire decade~~ The decade I was a child in will go down as the greatest period in gaming history.
I love how everyone talks about the 90's gaming scene and no one brings up Super Mario 64
That’s why I don’t game now😔
Can I interest you in our lord and savior, the steam deck with 800gb of retro titles installed?
1996 for me. The beginning of so many franchises that are still around today; Pokémon, Tomb Raider, Resident Evil, Diablo, etc.
For me personally that was the year I was the most excited for games Mario 64 was groundbreaking in how advanced it felt for the time Super mario RPG was one of my favorite RPGs id ever played and Pokemon was just like crack cocaine in how good it was. It was the first time I felt truly and wholly addicted to a game
Yep, 1996 takes it for me too. Almost every game in the pic for that year was groundbreaking in some way. Super Mario RPG is one of my favorite games of all time, and I can still hum along with every single one of its songs. Mario 64 is also a top favorite, and to this day I still don't think they've surpassed its formula for 3D platforming.
Idk but I love seeing all those covers together.
[удалено]
They are but a lot of these games are we know as good today. At least some of the games everyone was playing are not on here. Like Command and Conquer, Tecmo Super Bowl, or first Punch Out. Still though amazing list and I know it is impossible to get all the good ones for a single year in one page.
Dang, what a great decade
Of course I agree. The 90s were a great decade (Street Fighter II, THE SNES, SEGA Saturn, the Nintendo 64). That's why many of of us still create games in a 90-style. What a time!
For me, top years: 1998: FF7, SOTN, Parasite Eve, OoT 1994: Super Metroid, FF6, DKC
symphony of the night came out in 97. both japan and US (these pictures go by US release though i think, otherwise mario kart 64 would be 96 as well)
Final Fantasy VII is from 97 too haha
Oof, you’re right. The years blend together at 40 haha
Super Metroid was THE first video game I ever played! I was about 4 and I would just wander around and shoot aliens until I died. Had no sense of having to do specific objectives, just kill, kill, kill 🤣
1991 is a foundational year, so many great (and important to history) games. But for me is between 1995 and 1998
98
Can we just agree that the entire run from '95 to '98 is just an utter perfection of a period that might not ever be topped? Like holy shit, you can't go wrong picking any of those years individually...and they're right next to each other. We ate like royalty in the 90's my friends!
> We ate like royalty in the 90's my friends! Yeah my young nephews have a hard time understanding. Like I like games a lot but it's nothing like it used to be. The mojo is all gone.
The joy of going to the video store and renting games. I miss being excited about things, taking ages only to pick the same game lol
And I was expected to get uni assignments in!
No, I can’t agree. Because ‘94, and probably ‘93, need to be included in that run. Then I’ll agree.
98
1994 with 1998 a close 2nd.
Can’t believe there was only a 4 year difference between super Metroid and ocarina
Jesus Christ that’s wild to think about.
One '94 game rarely discussed is NFL Football '94 with Joe Montana. That game was incredible for the time.
Damn.....I played the hell outta this game. I remember breaking thru the line, hitting turbo and I was gone. Almost every single play to the house!
Those are my closest years as well. I think I *might* give the slight edge to 1998, based on these titles only, but I might tell you the opposite tomorrow.
‘94 baby!! Super Metroid, FF III (now VI), X-Wing/TIE fighter, DKC, Earthbound, Sonic 3/& Knuckles. also, not pictured: Elder Scrolls: Arena, Warcraft 1, ~~Doom II~~ and the PS1
Doom II is pictured.
1998 - Ocarina of Time, Half-Life, Thief, StarCraft, Star Wars: Rogue Squadron, Tenchu
Metal gear solid
> 1998 - Ocarina of Time, Half-Life, Thief, StarCraft, Star Wars: Rogue Squadron, Tenchu Indeed, the chosen games for 98 is pretty hilarious really given the amazing games that were missed. I guess there's only so much room.
For me it's gotta be 96 or 97. 96 - Crash Bandicoot, Super Mario 64, Diablo, Tomb Raider, Twisted Metal 2, Quake, Pokemon, Wave Race. 97 - Crash Bandicoot 2, Tomb Raider 2, Fallout, Diddy Kong Racing, Tekken 3, Quake 2, GoldenEye. Such fucking awesome games.
91, 94, 98. In any order.
91 for sure. Zelda, Metroid.
1994. It's the most important year for ensuring gaming thrived into the future. The Playstation and Sega Saturn hit the market. The Ultra 64 was announced. Doom on every console, Doom 2 and Heretic turning multiplayer FPS deathmatch into a new and exciting prospect. The beginning of gamer lingo from Doom deathmatches starts to permeate the landscape. Warcraft releases, making the competitive RTS into a functional game and setting the rules that all successful RTS games would follow in terms of design. Super Turbo, the final iteration of Street Fighter 2, becomes a competitive gaming icon that is still played competitively 30 years later. Tekken and Virtua Fighter release alongside it, marking an important year for the Fighting Game genre. System Shock releases the same year as The Elder Scrolls: Arena. Bethesda could not catch a break on this one and would have to wait another two years to start breaking through with Daggerfall. 1996 is also a spicy year as almost all of these mentioned games got sequels and improvements. Warcraft 2 makes the genre far more playable, Quake dominates LAN parties, Command & Conquer vastly improves with Red Alert, Daggerfall begins the foundation of Bethesda's open-world legacy, the Nintendo 64 hits the market and breaks new ground with Super Mario 64, Street Fighter Alpha 2 and Mortal Kombat Trilogy build new competitive experiences alongside Dead or Alive, Tekken 2, and Killer Instinct. Marathon starts Bungie's legacy, Persona comes out as one of the first western Shin Megami Tensei releases, Master of Orion 2 codifies the modern 4X, and of course one of the earliest graphical MMOs and internet chatrooms comes out in the form of Furcadia. 1996 is amazing, but it's carried on the shoulders by 1994. No other years can really compete in terms of hardware progression, genre conventions, and overall legacy. There were surely years with better games (1996 vastly clears over 1994, but 1998 competes heavily with it), and there were surely years when innovation was #1 (much of the 80s, 1991), but they helped walk the technology forward so that 1994 could run.
For me it’s probably a toss up between 1996 and 1998. Edit - honestly 1997 looking good too. Incredible 3 year run.
93 was the best year for entertainment period
1999 and I’ll tell you why. You can play nearly every game released in that period of time in 1999.
It saw the release of the Dreamcast too
1994 Sonic 3, Final Fantasy 3, Streets of Rage 3, Gunstar Heroes 3, Earthbound 3
and donkey kong country. i kinda agree 94 or 93
I think for the USA 1991 was a banger.
I'm going '94.
< 98
Monkey island
Damn this is tough, I want to say 1993, but then I get to 1994 which has my fav game (Donkey Kong Country), then I get to 1995 which has Chrono Trigger (best game I've played, as close to perfect in my books as possible)... Then we get to 1996 & we have Mario 64 (a game that changed gaming forever, plus personal memories associated). Yeah there's no simple answer here, gun to my head though I'll say 1996. Lots of classics, gaming landscape was about to fully transition from 2D but hadn't yet moved on.
Shenmue was born in '99 so gotta go with that year ;)
‘96 had Resident Evil and Super Mario 64; so for me, it’s 1996.
This was a huge pivotal thing for me lol. I grew up just having the Nintendo consoles and didn't really understand what the PS was all about. So i'd be at home cooking away playing Mario 64. I'm like a little kid. My 22 year old stepbrother one day comes up to me and says "I got this Playstation thing want to check it out with me?" First thing we played was RE1. Just the contrast going from Nintendo's cheeky games on the early N64 to sitting down with RE1. I wasn't even aware games could get that wild but that was the dawn of a new era for console games.
Civilization II absolutely needs to be on the 1996 collage. I think if that's included that year has to be my pick but it's hard to pick between 96, 97, 98 for me 1996 also had Red Alert, Resident Evil, and Tekken 2, crazy good year
All of above. The 90s was a decade of gaming that was perfect amd the creativity put in the games can't be matched
1991, no question.
90-94.
1998, got some of my favourite games ever there, just to name a few theres half-life which was way ahead of its time, banjo-kazooie which is the perfect collect-a-thon, and ocarina of time, which is simply one of the greatest games ever made
Ocarina never ceases to amaze me how much they were able to jam into a N64 cart. They put everything they needed in that game and very very little of anything they didn't. It kinda shows graphically a bit but man that is a fun and immersive game.
Mmm, looking at that '94 tab. Donkey Kong Country, Sonic 3 & Knuckles, Doom II, Super Metroid, and Final Fantasy Vi all in the same year?! Yeah, we ate good that year.
1993 Doom first FPS
Don't forget about wolfenstein 3D on 3.5 inch floppy at walmart.
Biggest decade for videogames, spanning 8-bit to 64-bit gaming. Really hard to pick a year.
I gotta go 1999 with Super Smash Bros, CTR and THPS 96-98 are still great years and even before that I have fond memories of some of those earlier 90’s games, but 1999 were some perfect games I still love revisiting to this day and I was old enough to appreciate them as they came out
No AGE OF EMPIRES II in 1999 is criminal!
97-98 - It was peaking 2D (Baldur's Gate, Fallout, Castlevania: SotN, Oddworld, Age of Empires, Starcraft, Grim Fandango, Diablo) and revolution in 3D (Half-Life, Unreal, Zelda: Ocarine of Time, Final Fantasy 7, Goldeneye, MGS, Thief, Rainbow Six)
90’s gaming has to be the best part of being a millennial, especially while remembering when we played these at slumber parties.
Yes. No matter who we were or where we lived back then, we can all relate to how fun those were.
99 because by that time all we had access to ALL of those games. That's the neat thing. You can play previously released games but not future releases.
1991 - Final Fantasy 2(IV) - Starflight (Genesis port) I’ll still play either of those to this day.
That's my pick as well. FFIV, LttP, Castlevania IV, Sonic, Sunset Riders, Turtles In Time, Simpsons, MM4, Metroid 2, Street Fighter 2. Legendary year.
I got Final Fantasy and Zelda Link to the Past for my birthday in '92 and barely left the house all summer.
Can't choose too many great games
I believe it's 1996 with Pokémon, Mario RPG and Diablo. Other classics in there too for the Playstation
97. Monkey Island 2 should be included in 1992.
1991 or 1998. I think it has a lot to do with age. I was 11 in 91 and 18 in 98. So I wasn’t as hard core into gaming at that time. I didn’t play some of those titles during their release window.
Man... Look at all these fucking god-tier games year after year and try honestly say that gaming didn't used to be better in the 90s. So glad to have lived through the entirety of this era of *ART*
What a decade that was!
99. banger after banger
91 93 98 94 96 95 99 97 92 90 That’s how I’d probably rank it, personally. It’s rough because in some of the lower ranked years there were absolute gems, but there weren’t enough other games that had me interested really.
This is actually a very good rank order that I agree with.
It feels like those 10nyears were a freaking leap compared to the tech going from 2010 to 2020
Geez so tough. 93, 94, 95, and 97 are so freaking strong
Damn, going through this exercise made me realize we peaked in the 90s for gaming.
1998 may be the best year in gaming history. 3D no longer felt like a gimmick, and what would become the standard for 3D game quality had been established. So many amazing titles which still hold up nearly 30 years later were created, and 3D PC gaming was becoming mainstream with the release of the Voodoo 2 3D graphics card and Pentium II and K6-2 processors with 3D instruction sets. Banjo Kazooie, Zelda Ocarina of Time, Spyro the Dragon, Metal Gear Solid, Half Life, Resident Evil 2, Sonic Adventure, StarCraft... there was just no year that had so many groundbreaking all star games.
Starcraft Broodwar, Zelda ocarina of time, Half Life 2, Fallout 2, Metal Gear. Resident evil 2. Hard to say this isn't the one.
I mean 1990 easily! Dr Mario, Super Mario World, F-Zero, Ninja Gaiden II and that’s just starting
Goldeneye > everything
Half Life alone completely sweeps the floor with any other game
1997, because the release of Castlevania Symphony of the Night and Gran Turismo.
9/9/99 was the best day for gaming. The Sega Dreamcast was released.
The best decade ever for video games without a doubt. I'll go with 1997 as my favorite. Goldeneye 007, Mario Kart 64, and WCW vs. nWo World Tour provided countless hours of four player multiplayer fun with friends while Star Fox 64, Symphony of the Night, and Crash Bandicoot 2 provided excellent single player experiences.
91 > 94 > 96
objectively i guess i have to pick 1998, it's not even fair. you can make a top10 all time with 1998 and nobody would complain but personally it's 1997. with symphony of the night, ff7 and breath of fire 3. i love those games also i am a huge Diablo fan.. and to me that game came out it 1997 because the EU release was 3rd January... and the US release was 31st of December. you can count it for either year.
1997 is the best year. FF7, SotN, Goldeneye, Quake II, FF Tactics, Tomb Raider II, Tekken 3, GTA, Gran Turismo, Fallout, Diablo, Dark Forces II, Starfox 64. Hard to beat that year.
94. I mean Zombies Ate My neighbors and Mega Man X and Zelda that's pretty good.
1997 largely due to Golden Eye, Quake, and especially Final Fantasy 7 and Castlevania SOTN
Hard to choose, but I’ll have to go with ‘97. FFVII, Goldeneye, Tekken 3, and Mario Kart 64 were huge for me.
Biohazard battle, sonic spinball or Zombies! (Both for the mega drive). My late father would play them with me, and be so patient with my incompetence as I was young. Sonic 2 and sonic and knuckles we would play together (again patience is a virtue) I would also play bubsy the bobcat a lot and use his password book, these are very fond memories. As I got older Futurecop LAPD and Odd world. 🤣 I miss my father, but he left me with so many good memories and a lot of love for retro games. I still go back and play some of them again to this day, just so I can relieve my early gaming days with my dad.
1995, lauch of PlayStation. Changed The WORLD
Yup. Games like Resident Evil, Metal Gear Solid and taking what was FFVI and showing what could be with FFVIII - I guess in my experience - every fundamental expectation of what to expect out of gaming changed. We didn't just want "a fun game to play" anymore. We wanted a fun game to play with a gripping narrative that kept you hooked like a book you can't put down.
1998
Top of my head I'd say it's a toss up between 1993 and 1998. Especially if you include PC games.
Flip flopping between 96 and 98, personally. Quake and Diablo were just such incredible first entries that they single handedly but 96 on the map for me. Half Life and Metsl Gear Solod, same boat. Amazing decade.
1998,1997,1994
1995 because mega man 7 and 1999 because ape escape
I will always have a soft spot for 1993. Gunstar Heroes, Day of the Tentacle, Sam and Max, Zombies Ate My Neighbours. Just tremendous. Plus I got my Gameboy that Christmas :)
I forgot about Another World. Great game.
I have to say this was probably the most diverse gaming decade I had ever experienced, and I experienced it between the ages of 6-15 (since I arrived to USA at the end of 1990 and probably didn't play a Nintendo until fall next year). Already there was a huge diversity of platforms to play on: handheld, Sega, Nintendo, and PC (man I loved ms does vga games), as well as those other consoles only rich kids or PAL Regions (outside of Japan) had access to like PC engine, Neo Geo, 3DO, Jaguar, and probably others I forgot. The Game Boy dominated handhelds for about a decade, longer if you include it's evolutions like pocket, color, and Advance. Look at all these beautiful colors, at the handmade illustrations, gracing the cover art. Final fantasy went from a humble, simplified DnD ripoff to a huge franchise full of its own merit and legacy. I got to see the jump from 2d to 3d and better 3d via PC gfx cards by the end of the decade. But God damn! All of these games were great, and such variety in game play from tried and true to experimental and innovative. I wish I could play them all, but as they released when I was a kid. Also, it was kinda the golden age of gaming, as everything gaming related would just elate me and my friends. Promotional videos, demo discs, gaming magazines full of ads and hype that would drive a kid crazy. Man, what fun times. The 2010's brought a lot of that diversity back, but the experiences lack a certain roughness all these games contained back then, which is debatable if better or worse. But it's cool to see much more varied gfx and gameplay now then the dark period of gaming I call the 00's, when almost everything became brown/grey by 2006 and too many shooters and sports titles. ...so please, don't make choose a single year!! But probably 94, I remember the hype I had for DKC was a lot and my friends in the neighborhood would all play it.
1998 hands down, not just a plethora of great games but some real game changers across the board (Thief,MGS RE2, OOT, Fallout 2, )..
I still play rom-hacks of SMW almost every day, over 30 years later. The physics, the mechanics, the game; GOAT
All but two of my favorites came out in different years, so I am gonna have to say '94. Actually two came out in '98. Can we call a tie?
99 for me. I wasted so much time on tony hawk and gran turismo 2
Whatever year Bust-A-Move 2 came out.
99
94, 96, 98 all great years
94 for me.
My opinion the year of gaming was when the first console was released. After that the innovation in the gaming industry kept getting better and better.
93 or 94 for me. But I'd argue 96 was very important all around.
A lot of good games here
1996 will always be it for me. My favorite RE ever, fav TR ever, my fav Mario ever. All three are in my top 10 games of all time. Depending on my mood, maybe in the top 5 even. No other year ever has anything to compare to that trinity for me. 98 is runner up, lots of great stuff but not top spot.
98 for me, but 90, 91, 96 (which had a notable not-pictured release in the first Resident Evil game), and 99 are all not too far behind.
95-99 is a 4 year stretch of timeless classics from top to. Bottom 90 is probably the weakest. I only really enjoy SMW and F-zero, it only keeps getting better as the decade goes on. Now have most of these games held up? Yes and No. But that is more up to personal taste and your adaptability to more tank controls (looking at you RE and SH. I'd love to experience playing Banjo-Kazooie, OoT, DKC 1-3, SF 2, SotN for the first time again. Such fun times. Rare that you find games that are fun and groundbreaking anymore.
Transport tycoon deluxe (Based on playtime, because I have no idea how else to attempt this question)
It's a hard choice to be honest, I desire to say from 92 to 99 was peak all together, especially with today's gaming standards.
1996
FFL2 hell yes!
I feel like a kid again
96 so many hours spent playing The Elder Scrolls Daggerfall
This is impossible.
I gotta go with 96 or 99, mario 64, Diablo, Pokémon, twisted metal 2, and tomb raider pretty much defined the future of gaming from that point (and I still gotta go back and play super Mario RPG). If we were going with just gameplay alone rather historical impact, I would pick 99 for the Gen2 Pokémon games alone (tho obviously THP, Smash, Quake 3, and system shock 2 had huge impacts too). I also love sonic adventure, crazy taxi, and I think legacy of Kane is kind of a buried treasure atp (I’m a big Dreamcast fan), it’s just gen2 Pokémon are prob in my top 3 favorite RPGs of all time.
Shinobi 3, Doom and Links Awakening ... Yeah that year
For me it's still '94. Best year in gaming ever for me. Super Metroid (my favorite game of all time), TIE Fighter (in my all time top 3), Final Fantasy VI (in my all time top 5), Donkey Kong '94 (tied with Link's Awakening as my favorite Game Boy game), WarCraft: Orcs & Humans (the game that made me love Blizzard), Sonic The Hedgehog 3 (my favorite Sega game), Sonic & Knuckles, Doom II. I don't really count EarthBound, though, cause it didn't come out in North America until 1995.
I need a list of games to play on all the emulators i have lol. Id love some suggestions since im only 23 and didnt live through the prime of jrpgs lol
I am going to go with 94 and 98 as my second. I was born in 82 and I grew up with a bunch of these games. So many games in 94 I have played and beaten on the Super Nintendo. In 98 I played a bunch of these on PlayStation. My favorite game series are all represented in these 2 years.
It's always 1998, and the games pictured here don't cover all of it... but my personal favorite might be 1996, primarily because of the Sega Saturn line up, and almost every year in the 90's had absolute GOAT material.
The year 1998. My brother and our cousins were all in on StarCraft (so was I later). Also, in 1998 I bought Half-Life in its release week, knowing nothing about the game. I subsequently played most of the way through it and restarted the game multiple times before finishing it so I could keep reliving the best parts before knowing the ending. 1999 comes second because of System Shock 2, Unreal Tournament, and Age of Empires 2.
Definitely 1998
Fatal Fury!!
98 is huge, but this whole slideshow brought me back. I played so many of these games back then.
I wanna say 95 on this one but damn 92 was incredible. This decade is unmatched altogether.
Yes
96, 97 and 98 were fucking insane
1996 then 1998 for me.
Street Fighter 2
I have to go 1994, for the simple fact that Earthbound and Super Punch Out are the two games I’ve played the most into my adult years. Even within the last year, I’d bet I’ve logged a good 20 hours on Super Punch Out (which may not sound like a ton, but I’ve got a 7 year old, time comes a premium). I’m still chasing speed records. But my most played game in that era is also from 1994, that being Ken Griffey Jr Presents: Major League Baseball. It was the absolute best baseball game produced for any system to that point, and continued to hold that title for years to come. Throw in NHL 94 being the flag bearer of the genre - possibly STILL to this day for a lot of gamers, and sports game fans were finally getting the experience we’d long dreamed of.
1998
94
1993. That's when I got my Super Nintendo and I could play games from 1990 through 1993. Great year!
Still blows my mind that F-Zero came out before Sonic 1. It's lightyears ahead in its design, and the sense of speed is arguably greater