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[Cyrano]

By the beginning of the year, he means that I ended the voting on Jan 2nd. No one had a chance to play any 2015 title

But what about the Jan 1st drops!? =O

Sorry, and again, thanks for the info.

 

[Lothar]

Seeing FFVII that high on the list hurts my soul a little. Going to keep believing it's just the nostalgia talking.

The real problem is FFIX being #11. When even most FFIX fans can admit that the gameplay is not that good and is extremely slow (the ones that are honest), there's a problem. That hurts the list's credibility.

 

[AnathemicOne]

Holy fucking thread necro. And nice OT change, the lack of Witcher 3 on the 2014 list was about to give me an aneurysm.

 

[BigWeather]

Ultima VII at #68 is terrible. And the only Ultima? C'mon! Heck, Ultima IV is even in the banner (and rightfully so)! Commodore/Apple/Atari/PC GAF has to rally and get some of the oldies on the list this year. =)

 

[kswiston]

Ultima VII at #68 is terrible. And the only Ultima? C'mon! Heck, Ultima IV is even in the banner (and rightfully so)! Commodore/Apple/Atari/PC GAF has to rally and get some of the oldies on the list this year. =)

I had hopes that GOG would boost old CRPGs, but it seems like fewer younger gamers are willing to try those than they are JRPGs. Hence a ton of 1990-1995 JRPGs on the list, but next to nothing from the PC side of things.

The real problem is FFIX being #11. When even most FFIX fans can admit that the gameplay is not that good and is extremely slow (the ones that are honest), there's a problem. That hurts the list's credibility.

GAF loves Final Fantasy IX. It was higher in the previous 2013 thread.

Holy fucking thread necro. And nice OT change, the lack of Witcher 3 on the 2014 list was about to give me an aneurysm.

These threads always get bumped months after the fact. What's weirder is that you can search Google and find threads on other forums discussing our list (in the case of RPG Codex, to point out our shitty collective taste ). Considering that a large part of why I made the threads was to turn people onto new stuff (or remind veterans of stuff they may have missed by reading all of the vote submissions), I'm glad the threads get bumped every few months.

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

God the salt people drag in these threads are 15% of the reason I take part in them.

Also, thanks for doing this, Kuwabara!

 

[Cyrano]

God the salt people drag in these threads are 15% of the reason I take part in them.

Also, thanks for doing this, Kuwabara!

That is a very exacting percentage of salt. I would like a more detailed breakdown. What % would you say are for lulz?

I like to think any list is mostly being done in good fun, or good trolling. Either way the internet wins.

 

[zero shift]

As I said above, I'm planning to make the thread this year.

I'll probably put it up either tonight or tomorrow.

Awesome!

This sounds amazing to do, but I'm not sure how we'd even cover it...

I feel of two ways to do it.

The first would be to do it just like this thread. An all types of games go thread. The advantage would be a "clean" list that displays what most people think the best games ever are. The downside is that so many games are different from one another that it would be hard to really give a fair ranking to them. How does one rank The Last of Us compared to say Mario Kart. There is also the issue of if historical influence is a mater of judgment or just whether or not the game is the best to play today. Many people would scoff at Street Fighter II not being in a "best game ever" list, but the reality is that game has long been surpassed by its successors. Hell this actually happens in this thread as people complain that the list is more of a popularity content than what should be considered "essential" RPGs to play through. So the first way to do it would be similar to Edge's "100 Best Games to Play Today" list where it compares the best games you can play in 2015.

The second way to do it would be similar to the first, however have two separate lists for games that are single player focused and games that are multiplayer focused. It is hard enough to compare Half-Life 2 to Bayonetta 2, it is even harder to compare Life is Strange to Street Fighter IV. Therefore I feel that it could be best to split multiplayer and single player up. The problem is that as time goes on the lines between single player and multiplayer blur. For example would one say Xenoblade Chronicles X is single player or multiplayer? How about Bloodbourne? What about Monster Hunter 4? As time goes on singe player and multiplayer seem to be merging and this could be a problem making such a list in the future.

I had hopes that GOG would boost old CRPGs, but it seems like fewer younger gamers are willing to try those than they are JRPGs. Hence a ton of 1990-1995 JRPGs on the list, but next to nothing from the PC side of things.

Old CRPGs are just too obtuse. Hell even many from the mid to late 90s are.

Seeing FFVII that high on the list hurts my soul a little. Going to keep believing it's just the nostalgia talking.

I replayed it recently and it still holds up fairly well.

 

[Confounding Factor]

Opened this thread expecting to see Chrono Trigger at #1 and would have been disappointed if it wasn't.

Good list, even better is the highest ranked FF game deserves it.

 

[kswiston]

Old CRPGs are just too obtuse. Hell even many from the mid to late 90s are.

True. That is why all the modern streamlining that some hardcore fans hate happened in the first place. Not many people want to manage food reserves, keep track of dozens of active quests from vague journal quests, or bother to learn more complex magic systems where buffs/debuffs, range, recharge time, etc are all critical to playing well. JRPGs have always tended to skip most of that stuff.

 

[Xbro]

Oh man, can't believe Pokemon Gold/Silver are up there over the other Pokemon games. They are by far the worst Pokemon games for me.

I consider them the best, and many others. That would probably be why.


And why is Persona 3 so high?

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

That is a very exacting percentage of salt. I would like a more detailed breakdown. What % would you say are for lulz?

I like to think any list is mostly being done in good fun, or good trolling. Either way the internet wins.

Not the list itself, the "ZOMG Y U NO..." posts afterwards from people who didn't vote.

 

[kswiston]

I consider them the best, and many others. That would probably be why.


And why is Persona 3 so high?

Persona 4 was 1 vote away from dethroning Chrono Trigger.

 

[orthodoxy1095]

I feel of two ways to do it.

The first would be to do it just like this thread. An all types of games go thread. The advantage would be a "clean" list that displays what most people think the best games ever are. The downside is that so many games are different from one another that it would be hard to really give a fair ranking to them. How does one rank The Last of Us compared to say Mario Kart. There is also the issue of if historical influence is a mater of judgment or just whether or not the game is the best to play today. Many people would scoff at Street Fighter II not being in a "best game ever" list, but the reality is that game has long been surpassed by its successors. Hell this actually happens in this thread as people complain that the list is more of a popularity content than what should be considered "essential" RPGs to play through. So the first way to do it would be similar to Edge's "100 Best Games to Play Today" list where it compares the best games you can play in 2015.

The second way to do it would be similar to the first, however have two separate lists for games that are single player focused and games that are multiplayer focused. It is hard enough to compare Half-Life 2 to Bayonetta 2, it is even harder to compare Life is Strange to Street Fighter IV. Therefore I feel that it could be best to split multiplayer and single player up. The problem is that as time goes on the lines between single player and multiplayer blur. For example would one say Xenoblade Chronicles X is single player or multiplayer? How about Bloodbourne? What about Monster Hunter 4? As time goes on singe player and multiplayer seem to be merging and this could be a problem making such a list in the future.

Personally, I'd like to see the list take the route of the first way you mentioned. I think separating the multiplayer-singleplayer thing just gets a bit too messy the further forward we move in time and the more syncretistic games get.

The bigger issue I think is the one I bolded. HG101's recent "200 Best Video Games of All Time" eschewed historical importance and seemed to target the games they thought were the ones that best held up. In talking about game selection they wrote that:

Building the list was not particularly democratic. Basically, a bunch of us staff members started by listing our own personal favorite games and used that as a starting point. Then, we mapped out which genres we wanted to cover and how many entries to allocate to each. Additionally, each entry was chosen specifically to represent something. For late 90s/early 00s first person shooters, we chose Jedi Knight and No One Lives Forever, since those were the best representative of that era. Other lists select games based on historical importance, or its quality at the time of release, but we wanted this to be a list of games that were still worth playing today. The list we initially assembled had some gaps - for example, none of us had selected any real time strategy games - so we reached out to many of our other contributors to round out the list, as well.

In GAF's discussion about the book, there have been some people complaining about the lack of very notable titles like Ocarina and FFVII. Granted, that wouldn't happen on GAF, but that does raise the question: would we want to communicate a focus on the game now? Versus how it felt fifteen years ago or based on its historic importance? Are we crafting a list of games for other super-enthusiasts like us to delve into gaming history? In other words, people who don't mind dealing with archaic game design and some old jankiness? Or are we crafting a list that some kid who grew up in the 2000's could use to find games that still feel great years later? Is it even possible to communicate this to voters and have them actually think about it? Should we even bother?

Another issue that was also raised by the HG101 staff was that of similar games:

Additionally, since we wanted to include a broad selection of titles, we didn't want to list too many similar games. So, to accompany each selection, there's a "see also" sidebar of another game that's related in some way - either being part of the same series, from the same developer, or sharing some thematic link - that's also worth checking out. However, sometimes we still feature multiple games in the same series in the Top 200 list if there's enough different to talk about them. For example, it seemed redundant to feature both Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World, since they're both fairly similar, but we gave a separate spot to Yoshi's Island, since there's enough that stands out to make it worth that distinction. But this "see also" spot is also used to highlight why we picked one entry over another, while still relating that both are excellent.

So do we do something similar? Would we exclude titles from the same series and also include a similar "see also" section? Other questions of course remain, like how recent of games to include.

As a note, I PM'd kswiston to ask his thoughts about me trying to do your idea of doing the general "Essential Games" thread at some point, so if you have any further thoughts (or want to lend help collaborating), I'd love to hear them.

 

[Uthred]

In GAF's discussion about the book, there have been some people complaining about the lack of very notable titles like Ocarina and FFVII. Granted, that wouldn't happen on GAF, but that does raise the question: would we want to communicate a focus on the game now? Versus how it felt fifteen years ago or based on its historic importance? Are we crafting a list of games for other super-enthusiasts like us to delve into gaming history? In other words, people who don't mind dealing with archaic game design and some old jankiness? Or are we crafting a list that some kid who grew up in the 2000's could use to find games that still feel great years later? Is it even possible to communicate this to voters and have them actually think about it? Should we even bother?

Personally I feel that the most utility is provided by making a list focused on "Now" i.e. if you were to sit down today to play a game which X amount of games would provide the best experience today? Some older games will still easily make the cut and some wont because they've been supplanted by later entries in genres they may have very well created. Even if you decide to include historical significance/impact (which I feel is a mistake because without actual proper research its impossible to objectively gauge) I think that you absolutely have to bother and moreso that it is of critical importance to convey the context of the list to the voters. Top X lists often come across as clickbait, and often are when posted on websties, because either through design or ignorance they exclude or fail to define their context.

You see it in every incarnation of this list for example, people complaining that A, B and C werent included despite how "important" they were while other people argue they shouldnt have been included because theyve been surpassed and so on. At least if you clearly and concisely convey the context of the list at the start it'll cut out some of the pointless arguing and leave room for more solid discussion. I mean if you decide to focus on the now and leave out historical significance people will likely complain. But its better to have your criteria critiqued than have your criteria be confusing.

Another issue that was also raised by the HG101 staff was that of similar games:

So do we do something similar? Would we exclude titles from the same series and also include a similar "see also" section? Other questions of course remain, like how recent of games to include.

As a note, I PM'd kswiston to ask his thoughts about me trying to do your idea of doing the general "Essential Games" thread at some point, so if you have any further thoughts (or want to lend help collaborating), I'd love to hear them.

I think you should leave the age entirely open, from Pong on basically. If you explicitly define the criteria for the list the voting itself will filter stuff out so you'll get a purer picture. The one risk is that you may have less impressive numbers because a wider selection of games may be picked. But I think thats interesting data in its own way, especially if you present it well. Regarding leaving out similar titles, I would be hesitant to do so. Assembling a curated list like the HG101 crew were doing is a little different from tabulating the results of a survey. In the former you're interested in seeing the list express the curators criteria and taste, if they include for example 10 similar rpg's theyre going to sound very similar in their criteria for inclusion. However with surveyr results if 10 rpg's show up in a row it represents something different, the popularity of the genre with the voters, possible voter demographics and so on. One approach might be to condense series into one entry based on total number of votes and then have the entries in the series ranked within that by their actual number of votes.

 

[zero shift]

True. That is why all the modern streamlining that some hardcore fans hate happened in the first place. Not many people want to manage food reserves, keep track of dozens of active quests from vague journal quests, or bother to learn more complex magic systems where buffs/debuffs, range, recharge time, etc are all critical to playing well. JRPGs have always tended to skip most of that stuff.

The problem is there can be a balance between depth and accessibility, as The Witcher III has shown. It is kind of ironic that while WRPGs have been casualized over the years JRPGs have become more hardcore. It is now JRPGs that are pushing the RPG genre forward in many ways while WRPGs seem to be stuck from the previous decade. Mainstream success really does have a curse attached with it.

Personally, I'd like to see the list take the route of the first way you mentioned. I think separating the multiplayer-singleplayer thing just gets a bit too messy the further forward we move in time and the more syncretistic games get.

The bigger issue I think is the one I bolded. HG101's recent "200 Best Video Games of All Time" eschewed historical importance and seemed to target the games they thought were the ones that best held up. In talking about game selection they wrote that:



In GAF's discussion about the book, there have been some people complaining about the lack of very notable titles like Ocarina and FFVII. Granted, that wouldn't happen on GAF, but that does raise the question: would we want to communicate a focus on the game now? Versus how it felt fifteen years ago or based on its historic importance? Are we crafting a list of games for other super-enthusiasts like us to delve into gaming history? In other words, people who don't mind dealing with archaic game design and some old jankiness? Or are we crafting a list that some kid who grew up in the 2000's could use to find games that still feel great years later? Is it even possible to communicate this to voters and have them actually think about it? Should we even bother?

Another issue that was also raised by the HG101 staff was that of similar games:



So do we do something similar? Would we exclude titles from the same series and also include a similar "see also" section? Other questions of course remain, like how recent of games to include.

As a note, I PM'd kswiston to ask his thoughts about me trying to do your idea of doing the general "Essential Games" thread at some point, so if you have any further thoughts (or want to lend help collaborating), I'd love to hear them.

Pretty much agreed on all fronts. Personally I think historical significance should be thrown out the window. I think these lists are the best when it is games that are currently the best to play right now. Otherwise all the lists look very similar with Super Mario Bros. being at #1 and Ocarina of Time being at #2. It is a very difficult thing to dive into. Also it would be great if you make it, since I'm too lazy too.

 

[kswiston]

Having done 5 of these threads, I can tell you that it next to impossible to impose any sort of mandate on what games people pick. I've had people vote for 5-10 Final Fantasy or 5-10 Pokemon games in here and nothing else. Does that match the spirit of the thread? No, but what are you going to do if you want to value participation of adherence to complicated rules?

For a general gaming list, I'd just frame it as a list of your all time favorites that you think everyone should play. People can take that their own way. Even on GAF the vast majority of people don't have the sort of comprehensive gaming knowledge to do a best of all time list that doesn't reflect their personal experience and biases.

 

[Firestorm]

59) Tales of Vesperia (2008)
Genre: Action RPG
Platforms: Xbox 360, PS3
Completion Time: 40-60 hours
Available Digitally? NO

It is available digitally on Xbox Live Marketplace. Just $15 which is cheaper than Amazon. I do think those who are interested in Tales and only plan to play one title in the franchise should choose it for console or Abyss if on handheld though. Symphonia was awesome but both of them are stronger games.

 

[orthodoxy1095]

Pretty much agreed on all fronts. Personally I think historical significance should be thrown out the window. I think these lists are the best when it is games that are currently the best to play right now. Otherwise all the lists look very similar with Super Mario Bros. being at #1 and Ocarina of Time being at #2. It is a very difficult thing to dive into. Also it would be great if you make it, since I'm too lazy too.

Hehe, I'll try to make it then, but I'll probably check in for your input too!

Personally I feel that the most utility is provided by making a list focused on "Now" i.e. if you were to sit down today to play a game which X amount of games would provide the best experience today? Some older games will still easily make the cut and some wont because they've been supplanted by later entries in genres they may have very well created. Even if you decide to include historical significance/impact (which I feel is a mistake because without actual proper research its impossible to objectively gauge) I think that you absolutely have to bother and moreso that it is of critical importance to convey the context of the list to the voters. Top X lists often come across as clickbait, and often are when posted on websties, because either through design or ignorance they exclude or fail to define their context.

You see it in every incarnation of this list for example, people complaining that A, B and C werent included despite how "important" they were while other people argue they shouldnt have been included because theyve been surpassed and so on. At least if you clearly and concisely convey the context of the list at the start it'll cut out some of the pointless arguing and leave room for more solid discussion. I mean if you decide to focus on the now and leave out historical significance people will likely complain. But its better to have your criteria critiqued than have your criteria be confusing.

I agree pretty much all around. When I make the thread then, I guess I'd try to lay it out clearly that we're going to focus on the "Now" as a playable overview of gaming rather than as a historical lesson.

I think you should leave the age entirely open, from Pong on basically. If you explicitly define the criteria for the list the voting itself will filter stuff out so you'll get a purer picture. The one risk is that you may have less impressive numbers because a wider selection of games may be picked. But I think thats interesting data in its own way, especially if you present it well.

In regards to the age issue, I'm not suggesting leaving old games off. Pong onward would be fine. I am wondering though if there's any value to having a recent cutoff point. E.g., if the voting occurs in 2016, do we say 2015 games are eligible? Or does that create a recency bias? I'm not sure. I'd lean towards allowing a game from any year, but it just came up in my head as a question.

Regarding leaving out similar titles, I would be hesitant to do so. Assembling a curated list like the HG101 crew were doing is a little different from tabulating the results of a survey. In the former you're interested in seeing the list express the curators criteria and taste, if they include for example 10 similar rpg's theyre going to sound very similar in their criteria for inclusion. However with surveyr results if 10 rpg's show up in a row it represents something different, the popularity of the genre with the voters, possible voter demographics and so on. One approach might be to condense series into one entry based on total number of votes and then have the entries in the series ranked within that by their actual number of votes.

The last idea is interesting. I'm not sure how people would react to that, but it's certainly an option.

I guess my idea is that I was imagining myself as someone who came across the list by chance. Say I Googled "Essential Games" or something and found the GAF thread. Is it really that interesting of a list to me if the list has multiple Persona, Mario, Zelda, GTA, Sonic, Halo and Street Fighter entries? If that were me, I'd be thinking "I just want to play one GTA or one Street Fighter. What's the definitive one I should invest my valuable time on?" I guess one option is to encourage people in the OP (and encourage them in the thread) to try to choose one game from franchise as the "best representative" rather than including multiple entries. Then we could still allow series to have multiple appearances in the final list, if it were to happen, but still hopefully cut down on redundancy.

Having done 5 of these threads, I can tell you that it next to impossible to impose any sort of mandate on what games people pick. I've had people vote for 5-10 Final Fantasy or 5-10 Pokemon games in here and nothing else. Does that match the spirit of the thread? No, but what are you going to do if you want to value participation of adherence to complicated rules?

For a general gaming list, I'd just frame it as a list of your all time favorites that you think everyone should play. People can take that their own way. Even on GAF the vast majority of people don't have the sort of comprehensive gaming knowledge to do a best of all time list that doesn't reflect their personal experience and biases.

Fair point. I guess the question then is if its even worth it to mention the ideas of picking "best franchise reps" or the best games "now" (ones that hold up). Because to be honest, I don't know that we're going to engender a lot of discussion if we just pop out a list that looks like one of a million others that gaming websites put up.

 

[b3b0p]

Why is Phantasy Star (any of them) not on the list? I'm talking about I, II, III, or IV.

I played Phantasy Star not that long ago and found it extremely fun and addicting. Not too hard, interesting, and addicting. For such an old game it holds up well.

The numbers don't matter. The games are good. Put them in any order.

Can someone comment on Gamecube Paper Mario versus the Nintendo 64 Paper Mario? I played the N64 version and that was a total snoozefest. Beyond easy and required zero skill and was way to repetitive, but I powered through it. I have the Gamecube version in my backlog.

 

[BasilZero]

Good to know I have played the first 8 games on the list

Need to play the 9th one - planning to do so soon.

 

[ekimneems]

Secret of Mana at 53? What is the average age of GAFers???

 

[Uthred]

For a general gaming list, I'd just frame it as a list of your all time favorites that you think everyone should play. People can take that their own way. Even on GAF the vast majority of people don't have the sort of comprehensive gaming knowledge to do a best of all time list that doesn't reflect their personal experience and biases.

I dont think anyone expects these lists not to be derived from selections arrived at through personal experience and bias. The idea being that the amalgamation of votes ends up showing the overall bias of the forum (as represented by the voters). With that in mind that where the value of the list is derived, after all its explicitly NeoGAF's Top X. Even an attempt at on objective list would require an untenable amount of work, from all parties involved.

In regards to the age issue, I'm not suggesting leaving old games off. Pong onward would be fine. I am wondering though if there's any value to having a recent cutoff point. E.g., if the voting occurs in 2016, do we say 2015 games are eligible? Or does that create a recency bias? I'm not sure. I'd lean towards allowing a game from any year, but it just came up in my head as a question.

Ah thats a good point, speaking for myself there probably is a tendency to over-value newer games simply because the experience is fresher in my mind. I think a recency bias is probably inevitable, either you acknowledge it and move on or you run the risk of setting the cut-off date too far back so the list is "outdated" before its even started. A tricky issue.

I guess my idea is that I was imagining myself as someone who came across the list by chance. Say I Googled "Essential Games" or something and found the GAF thread. Is it really that interesting of a list to me if the list has multiple Persona, Mario, Zelda, GTA, Sonic, Halo and Street Fighter entries? If that were me, I'd be thinking "I just want to play one GTA or one Street Fighter. What's the definitive one I should invest my valuable time on?" I guess one option is to encourage people in the OP (and encourage them in the thread) to try to choose one game from franchise as the "best representative" rather than including multiple entries. Then we could still allow series to have multiple appearances in the final list, if it were to happen, but still hopefully cut down on redundancy.

Fair point. I guess the question then is if its even worth it to mention the ideas of picking "best franchise reps" or the best games "now" (ones that hold up). Because to be honest, I don't know that we're going to engender a lot of discussion if we just pop out a list that looks like one of a million others that gaming websites put up.

The idea of playing the definitive entry in a series is also a good one. I think your best bet is as you said to mention it in the OP and hope people adhere to it as best they can. Kswiston's experience suggests that some people certainly wont but as long as the majority give it a shot it shouldnt muddy the results too much.

 

[kswiston]

Fair point. I guess the question then is if its even worth it to mention the ideas of picking "best franchise reps" or the best games "now" (ones that hold up). Because to be honest, I don't know that we're going to engender a lot of discussion if we just pop out a list that looks like one of a million others that gaming websites put up.

You can do what you want with the voting data after you have it. If the thread is super popular, and you get 500+ participants, you could probably do a top 200 with a reasonable cut off. That would give you variety even if a few franchises are over represented. If participation is more in line with these threads (200ish votes), Maybe franchise grouping would be worth considering. My Top 100 cut off in this thread was 12 points, which in practice meant at least 5-6 people voted for every game that made the bottom of the list (usually more with the 1 point honorable mentions). If your list is bottoming out with games that only 2-3 people voted on, it's going to have a lot of that individual bias that aggregation is supposed to remove.

Personally, I don't love franchise grouping because not all game series are equal in terms of variability. Civ games or mainline Pokemon are basically the same thing every time with some modifications. Someone who has never played a strategy game is probably going to form the same opinion of the Civ franchise regardless of whether they chose to start with 4 or 5. Ditto with Pokemon. On the other hand, The mainline Final Fantasy games have a lot of variation in presentation/Gameplay. The same is true of other long running series like Resident Evil or Castlevania or Tomb Raider where one or more paradigm shift has happened over the 15+ years the franchise has been running.

 

[Vecks]

Can someone comment on Gamecube Paper Mario versus the Nintendo 64 Paper Mario? I played the N64 version and that was a total snoozefest. Beyond easy and required zero skill and was way to repetitive, but I powered through it. I have the Gamecube version in my backlog.

To preface, I'll say that I like both a lot, although I do vastly prefer the n64 one. I played the n64 version 5 times, as opposed to twice for the GC.

The GC game is somewhat harder, but not by much. It expands on the gameplay mechanics, but the format is largely the same and still gets rather repetitive. It does set itself a part from the n64 game by having more chapters that are not quite what you'd expect out of an RPG, but I don't know if that'd be a pro or a con for you. If you didn't like the first, I'd find it hard to recommend the second game in the series because they are really similar.

 

[kswiston]

I tried a sort of PC Hall of Fame thread on GAF about 4 years ago. It wasn't as strong an effort as the past two Essential RPG threads have been on my part (looking back, I don't know if I even finished the OP), but I did experiment with an unranked franchise list for the final product.

Note that I didn't know what PNGs were back in 2011...

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=439641

A much better version of that could work in a general games list if you end up with too many votes for the Marios and GTAs of the world I suppose.

 

[zero shift]

I tried a sort of PC Hall of Fame thread on GAF about 4 years ago. It wasn't as strong an effort as the past two Essential RPG threads have been on my part (looking back, I don't know if I even finished the OP), but I did experiment with an unranked franchise list for the final product.

Note that I didn't know what PNGs were back in 2011...

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=439641

A much better version of that could work in a general games list if you end up with too many votes for the Marios and GTAs of the world I suppose.

That sounds like a good idea and that actually came to my mind. The problem is that it would be one hell of a "Hall of Fame" list that would encompass well over 300 games.

 

[orthodoxy1095]

You can do what you want with the voting data after you have it. If the thread is super popular, and you get 500+ participants, you could probably do a top 200 with a reasonable cut off. That would give you variety even if a few franchises are over represented. If participation is more in line with these threads (200ish votes), Maybe franchise grouping would be worth considering. My Top 100 cut off in this thread was 12 points, which in practice meant at least 5-6 people voted for every game that made the bottom of the list (usually more with the 1 point honorable mentions). If your list is bottoming out with games that only 2-3 people voted on, it's going to have a lot of that individual bias that aggregation is supposed to remove.

Personally, I don't love franchise grouping because not all game series are equal in terms of variability. Civ games or mainline Pokemon are basically the same thing every time with some modifications. Someone who has never played a strategy game is probably going to form the same opinion of the Civ franchise regardless of whether they chose to start with 4 or 5. Ditto with Pokemon. On the other hand, The mainline Final Fantasy games have a lot of variation in presentation/Gameplay. The same is true of other long running series like Resident Evil or Castlevania or Tomb Raider where one or more paradigm shift has happened over the 15+ years the franchise has been running.

You raise a lot of great points, especially the issue with determining franchise groupings. Picking a definitive game from a franchise like FF is a weird task when they're all so different. Definitely something to think about for myself.

I tried a sort of PC Hall of Fame thread on GAF about 4 years ago. It wasn't as strong an effort as the past two Essential RPG threads have been on my part (looking back, I don't know if I even finished the OP), but I did experiment with an unranked franchise list for the final product.

Note that I didn't know what PNGs were back in 2011...

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=439641

A much better version of that could work in a general games list if you end up with too many votes for the Marios and GTAs of the world I suppose.

I love that your PC list is in alphabetical order which eliminates the endless whining of "how did X end up over Y?"

Not sure that I'd be able to get away with that in my hypothetical thread, but still. Love it.

 

[Just Some Guy]

Really excited for the new thread lol

 

[Dangansona]

Seeing FFVII that high on the list hurts my soul a little. Going to keep believing it's just the nostalgia talking.

As someone who played VII for the first time 3 years ago on my Vita, it absolutely deserves to be on this list. It's one of the better FF games, way better than XII which is too high on this list.

But the truth is everyone loves different FF games. That's one of the cool parts about the franchise. What frustrates me is when in a series known for experimentation the XIII games apparently are the worst jrpgs ever (sure, as in XIII-2 isn't also one of the better FF games) and the franchise is dead.

Also those saying asking why Persona 3 is so high: It has one of the best tones/atmospheres/soundtracks of almost any jrpg. Also the only one to make me cry besides Persona 4.

 

[Spieler Eins]

Seeing FFVII that high on the list hurts my soul a little. Going to keep believing it's just the nostalgia talking.

Played it for the first time this year, probably the only FF I've had proper fun with.

 

[Thores]

The new thread went up yesterday! I know some people wanted to be notified in this thread when that happened, so here you go.

Some interesting changes this year, including the option to vote for up to thirty games and a new highlighting system where you can give extra points to up to three of those games.