1991 Ranked
Damn, 1991 was a pretty good year for video games, huh?
List items
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Final Fantasy I and II are essentially gamified tabletop RPGs, and they don't hold up particularly well to a contemporary player. What's the fun of a tabletop RPG without a robust story? Final Fantasy III has a plot, but I understand that it's pretty thin. IV is the first title in the FF series in which the plot and the world design were the reason for the season. FFIV isn't *complicated* per se, but it's got complexity. It's got your typical fairy tale good vs. evil A plot, but the characters in your party have lessons to learn, feelings to reveal and arcs to evolve around. There really aren't so many games from the SNES era in which this is the case.
Speaking in a contemporary sense, FF IV's lack of deviance from that afore-mentioned fairy tale A-plot is what keeps it timeless; it fills in the tropes you'd typically associate with a light v. dark storyline with surprising depth. The main character, initially a beloved hero under the service of a benevolent king, abandons the service once he sees the aftermath of a battle and is forced to reckon with the brutal imperial nature of his homeland; his romantic interest and best friend do not. The plot ends up with the protagonist wrestling with imperialism generally, building a team to fight against the brutal world power he'd helped sustain over the course of his life. It's not, like, Tolstoy or anything, but it's a whole lot to chew on for a story delivered via a video game cartridge.
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Hard to overstate what a game changer SFII was, and anyone reading this is undoubtedly aware of that. SFII really is a timeless experience - it doesn't have all the bells and whistles of a modern 2D fighter, but because the genre itself is essentially built around the structure of SFII, the fundamentals you'd want out of a fighter are just as satisfying here as they are in any titles developed past this point. In fact, SFII's general lack of complexity in commands make it *better* than some of its progenitors for the average player who wants to enjoy the tactics and thrill of the game without having to memorize hundreds of unique commands and rules.
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If Super Mario Bros. 3 is Nintendo's first timeless classic, Super Mario World is the first true Mario title. It might be less interesting in a singular sense vs. its sharper and more challenging progenitor, but it generated most of the core traits of the Mario series writ large. Despite the fact that both games are functionally similar, Nintendo obviously dedicated a great deal more time ensuring the game's central map felt like a grand, cohesive space to explore. I think you could reasonably argue that the original Super Mario Series encapsulates recent titles like New Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Land 3D, and Super Mario Run, whereas Super Mario World is the start of an offshoot series that leads to Super Mario 64, Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario Odyssey
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Another World/Out of This World is a foundational narrative video game that makes some *infuriating* game design decisions in order to justify its existence. What Another World does is more impressive than anything else released in 1991: despite the fact that it's a challenging precision-platforming side-scroller (in the vein of the more contemporary Limbo or Inside), this format is used to depict a sci-fi adventure with a full, cinematic narrative without any dialogue that relies on visuals and game mechanics to tell its story. And it tells a pretty fun story, making use of a distinctive art style that feels way, way ahead of its time, depicting terror, friendship, and wonder with an extremely limited toolset but doing it *really* well in spite of that.
Yet, because this was a game released in 1991 developed primarily by one man, a perfect playthrough of Another World would take maybe twenty-five minutes total. Consequently, the game is *absurdly* difficult to compensate for its runtime, relying heavily on infuriating platforming challenges and nonsensical puzzles to elongate what would otherwise feel like a huge ripoff to the player who would've spent nearly $100 on it. Unlike latter-era games influenced by it, Another World does not iterate on its many inevitable death sequences as the game progresses, nor does it use failure as a tool to communicate further narrative. Instead, it's this wonderful narrative space that punishes the player with increasing gratuity for experimenting with its levels.
An important game, no doubt, but also an inherently frustrating game thanks to the realities of the video game industry during the time of its release.
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The first Sonic title is a better aesthetic and mechanic success than great singular project. It's a very good game, but it's got big level design flaws. There's a lengthy chunk of sequences midway through that require quite a bit of precision platforming, and for a title focused on momentum it feels at odds with the game's core appeal. It's got an all-over-the-placedness that maintains through most of the franchise, which has never been able to define itself by any one concept outside of 'it's fun to go fast.'
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Streets of Rage 1 and 2 are aesthetically perfect, but mechanically dull. This first title is a lot of fun, but because the only real mechanics are 'how am I controlling space in this limited 3D plane' and 'slam either the punch one guy or punch multiple guys button,' you can only get so much out of it. In the early goings the lack of complexity makes the game feel skeletal, but once it gets tough towards the end it instead feels unreasonably brutal.
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SkiFree has a threatening energy. It's a game in which you exist for a while and then are eaten alive without any warning. There is a secret that will prevent you from being eaten by this monster, but only three people on this planet know it, and who knows how to find them. If this is all there is to life, can we truly be SkiFree?
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I know this one's seen as a classic beat 'em up, but like any beat 'em up, gameplay is slippery, weightless, and arbitrary. Kinda a waste of time, then
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Playing Battletoads in 2020, it's obvious to me that it is, without any question whatsoever, a Bad Game. It goes way above and beyond difficult for longevity's sake. It's MEAN, man. And nearly every difficult platforming sequence is hard to read. I don't really get why anyone, like, WANTS the Battletoads back? They have no individuality or character, and the only games in the franchise are ruthless and unrewarding
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I'm ethically opposed to The Simpsons Arcade Game. I don't want my favorite cartoon family beating the shit out of random townsfolk! That is not why I like the Simpsons!
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Maybe it doesn't read as such on paper, but I imagine having to make a video game adaptation of Home Alone would be extremely difficult. 'You're a little boy being hunted by wanted criminals, and your most iconic moment is you screaming in pain.' Can't wait to play that shit on my Game Boy Color, Jesus Christ
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