Blog:Grust's Top 20 Favorite Games of the 90s

Yes, 20 games this time. The 90s was my childhood and it was an awesome time to be alive. Kid's entertainment ruled the world, anime become popular in the west and still is, Game journalists were more reliable, writers knew how to do gross-out humor, and of course the video games, many of which are still to this day, my all time favorites. In honor of both my childhood and a great decade, here are my top 20 favorite games of the 90s. For this list, I'm naturally listing games that came out around 1990 to 1999. Because I've listed many of these games in the past, I'll probably do some copy pastes, just a heads up. Now onto the countdown.

20. Final Fantasy 7: The game that finally made JRPGs popular in the west. While combat is similar to most other games in the series, it finally helped JRPGs explode in 3D. The materia system allows you to customize your party. Want Barret, the big muscular black guy to be a white mage? Equip him with healing materia. Want Cloud, the nimble former Soldier who wields the big freaking sword to be a black mage, Equip him with fire, blizzard, thunder and other offensive magic, want Tifa to be a thief, equip her with the Steal or Mug Materia. Want to make Yuffie somewhat useful? Sorry Materia ain't a miracle worker. This can give the game a ton of replayability. Also the anime style of the characters like Cloud and Sephiroth make for some great character designs.

19. Mortal Kombat 2: When this hit SNES, Nintendo learned how bad censorship was with the first one and left this intact leaving for great combat, blood, gore, and brutal deaths. The game is quite challenging and never beat it, but some moves I still remember even if I haven't played in a long time. This game helped redeem the SNES allowing it to beat Sega Genesis and Nintendo to triumph over Sega. And now the SNES is my favorite console of all time.

18. Street Fighter 2: I'm not a hardcore fan of Tournament Fighters but if I had to pick a favorite, it's 2. It invented the combo system which was originally a glitch, some very recognizable characters including Ken Masters, Ryu, and Chun-li, which offer great fanservice. The action in the series feels fairly fast compared to Mortal Kombat which I feel makes the combat more fun to play. When I saw this on Switch as well, I was quick to buy a copy.

17. Sonic the Hedgehog 2: This is the first Sonic game I ever played and still my favorite 2D Sonic game. The series introduces Tails allowing a second player to join in to do co-op or race through the stages. While the Chaos Emerald stages are harder, you have more chances to play them as when you get 50 rings, you merely have to go to a checkpoint and reach the bonus stage. The soundtrack is great with Aquatic Ruins being my favorite as well as Robotnik's theme.

16. Sonic Adventure: Not counting Sonic's 3D Blast, this is the first 3D adventure to feature Sonic. It allows you to control several other characters like Amy Rose, Tails, Knuckles and others. Each one has different gameplay mechanics allowing for variety. And by beating each character's scenario, a final scenario unlocks allowing Sonic to become Super Sonic and conclude the story.

15. Resident Evil 2: Regarded as probably the best tank control style Resident Evil, you play as either Claire Redfield or Leon Scott Kennedy, two of my all time favorite characters in the series. To unlock the true ending, you must play as both with the first scenario affecting the outcome of the second. Unlike the first game which became cheesy over time, this helped take the series in a dark turn with all of Raccoon City going to hell in a zombie apocalypse, you encounter a gun owner who's soon devoured by zombies and even the police station is swarming with zombies and horrible monsters. To escape this hell, you must solve puzzles and ration your resources, killing only if you really have to. It also introduces a new virus, the G Virus, which can make someone practically immortal, regenerate and evolve after every defeat and can implant embryos in anybody creating new horrible monsters.

14. The Donkey Kong Country Trilogy: I can't decide between them I love them all. Fun platforming, different gameplay styles depending on your character, mini-games, and graphics that showed what the SNES was capable of. All games have a variety of enemies, some even needing some requirement to beat. For instance, all 3 games have a muscular character that Diddy or Dixie can't simply jump over to defeat. But if they use a barrel or if Donkey or Kiddly jump on them, they can be defeated. I will say the bosses in the first game aren't as interesting as ones in the sequels. This is because most of the first game's bosses are just supersized enemies. (Copied from Top 10 SNES Games)

13. Aladdin for Sega Genesis: While the SNES version is good too, this version allows Aladdin to weild a sword and the graphics feel more like I'm controlling the cartoon. You also collect apples which can be used for ranged attacks and is necessary for the last two bosses, Iago and Jafar and if you run out of apples, more replenish giving you a chance to succeed. Several songs from the movie appear in the game as well, such as Prince Ali and A Whole New World.

12. Super Mario Bros. 3: Often regarded as the greatest NES game of all time, Super Mario Bros. 3 took what was awesome about the first games and cranked it up to 11 with so many upgrades. In addition to improved graphics, the game is much bigger with 8 Countries with numerous stages in between making for a much bigger game. Even more, while the mushroom and fire flower make their return, numerous new power-up appear including the leaf which gives us Raccoon Mario, a tanooki suit that has the flight abilities of the Raccoon but also lets Mario turn into a statue to evade enemies, a frog suit for faster swimming, and many more. I said this before but the amount of variety in this game makes me love it more than Super Mario World. (Copied from Top 10 NES Games)

11. Illusion of Gaia: The only reason I didn't add this to my Top 10 SNES Blog was because I forgot. But time to fix that. Illusion of Gaia is a unique RPG because instead of leveling up by getting experience points, you level up by killing every enemy on screen to raise strength or hit points. As you play you can also transform into two other characters to progress and solve puzzles. Also this is an RPG that has extra lives, pinch me I'm dreaming. The locations are based on real life areas and the final boss is quite difficult but worth playing for the challenge.

10. Mario Kart 64: To this day one of my favorite racing games though 8 is a threat to that. This is my first experience with Mario Kart and it helped make Kart Racing my favorite sub genre for racing games. There are 4 cups and 16 locations to race in with Rainbow Road being my favorite track for the colorful graphics and the music and the length of the track. Also the power ups to give you a lead to your opponents and even maintain the lead. A super fun game and a big reason why I view the 64 as extremely underrated.

9. Super Castlevania 4: I make a habit to play this every October. The dark atmosphere, the attention to the smallest of details (at the beginning you see two bats coming out of the eyes of a skull mountain, a great soundtrack, frightening monsters, and Dracula. A remake of the original, you play as Simon Belmont, taking on the task to defeat the demonic vampire himself. The gameplay is among the best in the series with jumping being smoother, and you can whip in 8 directions and swing. Bosses are tough especially when you run a marathon leading up to Dracula himself. Even better, as you go further into the castle, several stages reuse music from the NES trilogy, updating it to sound like real music rather than digital. (Copied from Top 10 SNES games).

8. Chrono Trigger: Regarded as possibly the best JRPG ever made.... you know what I'm unworthy to do this one justice. Here's Projared gushing about this phenomenal JRPG.

7. Final Fantasy 6: Kefka!!!

6. Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island: One of the SNES's best platformers and started a sub series for Mario with Yoshi as the protagonist. You take control of various members of the Yoshi clan to rescue baby Luigi with Mario tracking his brother location and bring the future plumbers to their parents. As you devour enemies, many become eggs which are used for attacks and even solve puzzles to progress. Each area has a fortress and a castle each containing one boss, which are enemies mutated by Kami's magic. The final boss with Bowser is also pretty epic with Bowser as big as Godzilla.

5. Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars: It's not a long RPG but it's bright, colorful, fun, and I view it as the best gateway game for anyone wanting to get into the genre. The gameplay is simple, but not boring, the enemies are on screen so battles aren't random. The game even has star power-ups, allowing Mario to insta kill enemy mobs for easy experience. There are tons of mini-games, my favorite is catching beetles. Bosses are silly and despite being more evil than Bowser, Smithy is a silly boss. If you've never played a JRPG, start with this game. (Copied from Top 10 SNES games)

4. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past: I love this game, the large world, the numerous dungeons, the puzzle solving, everything that made me fall in love with Zelda. This game set many staples that have stuck with Zelda for decades. The theme of exploring two worlds, two sets of main quests (pendants then maidens), Zelda assisting you (it's minor but she helps open the secret passage), Pieces of Heart, side quests, and the Master Sword, one of gaming's most iconic weapons. While I still love Ocarina of Time more, even I'm forced to admit what makes it great wouldn't be possible if ALTTP didn't do it first. (Copied from Top 10 SNES games)

3. Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon: It's a real shame this never made a classic status for the N64 as it's one of the best games on the system. Combine the secondary items from Zelda with some platforming, boom, now you got MNSG. The plot is silly and nonsensical, the villains aren't very threatening but are treated as such and the ending makes me laugh and laugh. Throughout the game, your characters also receive magical powers that can be used to progress and collect hidden items and encourage backtracking. But what really cements this as one of my favorite games are the giant robot battles. At three points in the game, you take command of giant robot Impact to take down kaiju sized robots. Plus Impact's theme song is so good. I don't speak Japanese, but I can almost sing this perfectly. (Copied from Top 10 Favorite Games of All Time).

Since you all know what the top 2 are, I might as well put honorable mentions here.

Honorable Mentions

 * Every good game that came out this decade: What you expect, I love this decade.

2. Super Mario 64: I said this about a million times right now, but I hold a lot of love and appreciation for this game for what it did for 3D gaming. Very fluent controls and multiple worlds to explore and inventing the mission system which was originally created because of hardware limitations but was so well received that it became a staple in many games ever since. And I know that Sunshine Galaxy and Odyssey are bigger and better I won't deny that but each of those games also have a gimmick to them. Sunshine has FLUDD, Galaxy has the spin jump and star shooting system and Odyssey lets you possess items and enemies. With Mario 64, there is none of that. It's just Mario, with just his skills and his skills alone. (Copied from Top 10 Favorite Games of all Time).

And number 1 is yeah you know what it is.

1. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: The Zelda franchise's first 3D game and it has aged very well even after 20 years. The world was so massive at the time but it also kept you on the right path. A ton of treasures to find like pieces of heart and the Gold Skulltulas. One reason I still prefer this game over others like Twilight Princess or even Breath of the Wild is the stylish deaths of the bosses. Say you eat a boss in Twilight Princess or Wind Waker, they writhe and turn to smoke that's it. Meanwhile King Dodongo gets woozy from the fight and rolls into lava. The lava hardens as his body is encased leaving only his smoking head. I love these death animations as they were and still are some of the most creative. The gameplay is fun, the puzzles are good to solve. I'm even one of the few who doesn't even mind the Water Temple. The only negative I have is Navi, but if you ignore her, this game is still awesome and easily not only my favorite game of the 90s, but my all time favorite game. (Copied from Top 10 Favorite Games of all Time with some altering).

The 90s was an awesome time to be a kid and not cuz of video games. This was an awesome decade for entertainment in general in fact. Sees next blog: Grust's Top 15 Reasons the 90s Rocked.

Grust: Pleasure overload. While I'm working on my excitement, if there are any games from the 90s you love, let me know in the comments.

