What is the best console EVER?

[crisium]

Casual gamers will forget about the SNES 15 years from now, but people who posts on forums will still play the old classics and many will appreciate the SNES. You just have to google "best snes games" and you can get started once you get an emulator.

 

[TheSlamma]

It will be the Xbox 720.. hurry up so we can get DX11 going and stop reusing the Unreal 3.5 an IW 3.0 engines to DEATH!

NES and SNES and all those were fun at the time but gaming really does just get better. Every time I try to play an emulator or any game from GOG I just get bored in minutes... the memories are more fun than the games that's for sure.

 

[exdeath]

People who don't understand probably never played those types of games (RPG) to begin with and have always judged games by their graphics and button mashing action. Of course button mashing action games have gotten better since all there is to improve its graphics. These people are who are responsible for the current casual mainstream situation we are in, the people in Gamestop drooling over "more detailed and realistic graphics zomg moar guns zomg!!1!"

But where are the games that made the SNES so memorable today? 80 hour stories with 3 disc symphony orchestra soundtracks, etc?

I would be thrilled with an original game of the quality of Chrono Trigger, Link to the Past, Final Fantasy 3, etc on 360.

I love Metroid Prime, this is a perfect example of a treasured retro classic being done right in the modern age. It retained all the intangible elements that made Metroid and Super Metroid so good. The game was the priority, they didn't focus on graphics first.

Xenosaga it's another example of a recently modern "SNES era quality" series.

 

[exdeath]

Parents claiming that the SNES is the best system ever, and that the opinion isn't due to nostalgia, could always put their money where their mouth is and test it out via their own children.

I'm working on my 9 yr old nephew.

It's hard, because all he knows is what he's been exposed to him and has had pushed in his face all his life by the mainstream and what his friends play.

All he plays is CoD games, running around the same 10 meter square map in the same 3 buildings and alleys in circles shooting the same opposing players over and over again for hours on end and somehow that's fun to him? If it's genuinely what he likes more power to him, but I at least want him to have exposure to other things and not blindly eat the same salted reheated turds hes fed by EA and Activision.

Because of the piece of shit that is CoD he lacks the capability to play or comprehend any other game. He can't even enjoy Borderlands or Fallout 3 without getting easily lost or frustrated because he isn't used to things in games like open ended non linear game play plot and reading comprehension and things like weapon and character stats, skill choices, quests, short term vs long term gains, long term quests that span the game or several levels, exploring, interacting with NPCs, experimenting, etc. I bought him Borderlands thinking he'd enjoy it since it's a shooter, but introduce him to more than just pressing 1 button... but he says it's "too hard".... #$@(#$*@)$* CoD can go to hell.

Thanks to modern games he doesn't know what to do if there isn't a BIG FLASHING ARROW pointing in a straight line telling him what to do or where to go or who to kill, and then completing the quest automatically for you if you fail it 3 times. He doesn't get perks and become god when he dies repeatedly and can't kill things in one hit right away, he has to start over with less money and ammo than before and gets frustrated. He honestly tries but CoD has completely ruined his attention span and he always ends up going back to the easy and rewarding button mashing CoD nonsense.

There is hope though, I have him starting to get drawn in on Golden Sun Dark Dawn on the DS to the point he begs me to bring my DS again, and it's not even THAT great of a game. Briefly I saw that unblinking gaze in his eyes that one gets when absorbed into another world... There is hope...

I'm thinking about having him start out on something easier like Mystiq Quest, Secret of Mana, and work him into Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time, etc then drop the Final Fantasy/Xenogears bombshell when hes ready. I just have to find time to sit and play with him for 8+ hours to keep his interest until things get interesting and the "cant put the controller down" phase starts to set in. I was also thinking the Pokemon games, they are supposed to be really good and have RPG and adventure elements but I've no experience with those.

I feel mean though... if I'm successful, he's going to branch out on his own and hes just going to get sad and disappointed when he realizes that there isn't really a similar experience on his Shooterbox 360.

 

[Fingolfin269]

Secret of mana would probably be awesome to play with your child/nephew since it has co-op. I played that game with a friend of mine when it was released and the co-op feature is probably why it was my favorite of the square games. I do love chrono trigger though.

 

[exdeath]

I should also mention a lot of my ebay sales are to teenagers or parents of 14 and younger kids who are starting to get into retro gaming. The buyer who bought a Final Fantasy III SNES from me bought it for their 14 yr old grandson and it's THE thing he wanted most for his birthday.

Since I collect complete in box and don't resell them, most of my sales are just loose carts that I have duplicates of. So the people buying those just want the game to play at a fair affordable price that isn't through the sky like a mint boxed copy. Many don't even care the condition as long as they can have it and play it.

Ran into another kid at the swap meet last night, around 10 yr old who ran right past the Wii/360/PS3 games and excitedly started flipping through the SNES/N64 games and the FIRST one he went for was Zelda Ocarina of Time on 64.

Makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside. Kids today can tell you everything about an M4 carbine that they've learned in video games, but don't know who Link is? Sigh.

 

[Doppel]

They're not too young to play the supposed greatest system of all time. If it's the greatest then it should hold up and have a place in households everywhere even today. Parents claiming that the SNES is the best system ever, and that the opinion isn't due to nostalgia, could always put their money where their mouth is and test it out via their own children.

BTW, I've never said I dislike the SNES. I loved it. I just think it plays favorites in my mind in a lot of ways due to nostalgia. Just like 90s music.

This is a fair view. I'd quit gaming now if I had to only play SNES. It was awesome in its day though. Using your logic (and maybe we should) basically the newest console is always the best because it is the one people play the most.

Exdeath it could be your ephew's age. I was probably 12 before I even knew what an RPG was. I played it because I had nothing else at the time and within an hour or so I was hooked hard. It is not an immediately rewarding genre.

 

[exdeath]

Yeah couldn't live with one system. It would be hard to pick 4 even... SNES, NES, PS1, PS2, N64...

I could probably live without NES. I had it as a kid along with 2600 and its just TOO old. Don't get me wrong I still enjoy it but in the end it was just a bunch of blocks with bleeps and blips still at that era. Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time over original Zelda all day every day.

If Ocarina of Time wasn't so damn incredible I wouldn't care about 64 either, since it was also one of the first "modern systems" that had a sudden and painfully obvious lack of RPGs cold turkey. (Everyone moved to Sony.) It also lacked Metroid.

See its not just nostalgia for the oldest stuff. Just happens that the best games ever made happened around a particular era.

When Nintendo goes the way of Sega and is making Zelda, Mario, Metroid, and Pokemon on 720/PS4, it will be the 64 we all look back on that broke them. They lost Square, Konami, Capcom, and etc to Sony and have never recovered since.

 

[reallyscrued]

Obviously <fill-in-the-blank>. It's so obvious.

If you owned one, you'd know.

 

[reallyscrued]

I'm working on my 9 yr old nephew.

It's hard, because all he knows is what he's been exposed to him and has had pushed in his face all his life by the mainstream and what his friends play.

All he plays is CoD games, running around the same 10 meter square map in the same 3 buildings and alleys in circles shooting the same opposing players over and over again for hours on end and somehow that's fun to him? If it's genuinely what he likes more power to him, but I at least want him to have exposure to other things and not blindly eat the same salted reheated turds hes fed by EA and Activision.

Because of the piece of shit that is CoD he lacks the capability to play or comprehend any other game. He can't even enjoy Borderlands or Fallout 3 without getting easily lost or frustrated because he isn't used to things in games like open ended non linear game play plot and reading comprehension and things like weapon and character stats, skill choices, quests, short term vs long term gains, long term quests that span the game or several levels, exploring, interacting with NPCs, experimenting, etc. I bought him Borderlands thinking he'd enjoy it since it's a shooter, but introduce him to more than just pressing 1 button... but he says it's "too hard".... #$@(#$*@)$* CoD can go to hell.

Thanks to modern games he doesn't know what to do if there isn't a BIG FLASHING ARROW pointing in a straight line telling him what to do or where to go or who to kill, and then completing the quest automatically for you if you fail it 3 times. He doesn't get perks and become god when he dies repeatedly and can't kill things in one hit right away, he has to start over with less money and ammo than before and gets frustrated. He honestly tries but CoD has completely ruined his attention span and he always ends up going back to the easy and rewarding button mashing CoD nonsense.

There is hope though, I have him starting to get drawn in on Golden Sun Dark Dawn on the DS to the point he begs me to bring my DS again, and it's not even THAT great of a game. Briefly I saw that unblinking gaze in his eyes that one gets when absorbed into another world... There is hope...

I'm thinking about having him start out on something easier like Mystiq Quest, Secret of Mana, and work him into Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time, etc then drop the Final Fantasy/Xenogears bombshell when hes ready. I just have to find time to sit and play with him for 8+ hours to keep his interest until things get interesting and the "cant put the controller down" phase starts to set in. I was also thinking the Pokemon games, they are supposed to be really good and have RPG and adventure elements but I've no experience with those.

I feel mean though... if I'm successful, he's going to branch out on his own and hes just going to get sad and disappointed when he realizes that there isn't really a similar experience on his Shooterbox 360.

And this post is fucking great.

I don't want to insinuate that CoD single-handedly ruined a generation of gaming...oh no wait, yes I do.

 

[Fallen Kell]

For me it would probably be the N64 with the SNES nipping at it's heals. To this day I can't think of a game that impressed me more than Mario 64. (I don't do RPG's so throw that right out the window in this equation for me). Maybe it was that I had the N64 first and that was my intro into 3D. If it wasn't for them going cartridge and the cost that involved I think the system would have done much better overall, it had higher game prices and limited developers since they had to prebuy a huge number of cartridges.

Yeah but N64 games have aged very poorly.

I think it really has to be the SNES for several reasons. First off has to be the controller. It essentially introduced the standard in game controllers from that point onward. Aside from the addition of analog control sticks, every modern console's controller builds off ideas introduced with the SNES controller (left/right index finger/trigger buttons, attempt to ergonomically shape controller to better fit in hands, easily reachable array of buttons for thumb (which PS still uses to this day)). Then you have the real jump in graphic power over previous game systems, allowing for the first real 3D graphics in games (aside from previous attempts that could only simply show 3D wireframe) with games like Starfox. Then there were the iconic RPG's from what is probably to this day the hayday of Squaresoft, US Final Fantasy 2 and 3, along with Chrono Trigger, and Secret of Mana. Then add in Zelda, Super Metroid, Super C, Super Castlevania, and many others. These are all games which are still very much fun and playable to this very day. That is not something you can say of the start of the 3D era of games, like Turok, or the other early FPS's games out there (other then for the nostalgia standpoint of Doom, or Doom 2). Games for the PSX and N64 really have not aged as well due to getting into the era of the graphics makes your game, not the gameplay (which we are still seem to be stuck in).

 

[exdeath]

Yeah early generation 3D games didn't age well at all.

The best games on PS1 are either all 2D or some combination of 3D with 2D sprites or vice versa. Perfect example everyone is familiar with is FF7, it's mostly a 2D game. I can't think of one pure 3D game on the PS1 that is collectible or sought after, it was really pretty terrible with the limited poly count, non perspective correct texturing, and dithering galore.

N64 you have Zelda, Mario 64, Goldeneye, Banjo Kazooie/Tooie, Conker's Bad Fur Day, Super Smash Bros, Mario Kart 64, and some Pokemon games, pretty much it. I'll grab the rest just because they are dirt cheap and there only only 296 titles so it will be a relatively easy system to get a complete collection for.

 

[JujuFish]

N64 you have Zelda, Mario 64, Goldeneye, Banjo Kazooie/Tooie, Conker's Bad Fur Day, Super Smash Bros, Mario Kart 64, and some Pokemon games, pretty much it.

Couple of other Rare games that were among the N64's best: Donkey Kong 64, Perfect Dark.

 

[CZroe]

The consensus will probably change about 10-15 years from now when 12 year olds who are playing their 360s now are asked this same question.

The thing is, he's not waiting a decade. It would be surprising if general opinions were different every time it was asked. Instead, he's surprised that people still like the same consoles. It's not like he's talking about having asked the question only twice over 20 years.

 

[Ichinisan]

The complete ridiculousness of your post prompted me to register after lurking for a while, just to let you know how ridiculous it is!
Congrats on getting me to register!

Anyway back to the question at hand.
For me it would be a toss up between the SNES and the Saturn.

Moar poasts. Please maek them.

 

[RagingBITCH]

Couple of other Rare games that were among the N64's best: Donkey Kong 64, Perfect Dark.

Perfect Dark was crap. I played that game all of 3 times after it came out before selling it to a friend for $50. I was happy getting even that much for it.

On the original subject - I'd have to say the NES. I never had a SNES despite all it's glory. I played my cousin's Genesis quite often but never fell in love with it. We ended up plugging in the NES more times than not when we got bored with the Genesis.

Had the N64, Xbox, and 360. The N64 had a few strong games as previously mentioned but overall a weak lineup. Same goes for the Xbox. My 360 hasn't gotten much play in the past year due to issues reading discs. (And before that, RROD but fixed under warranty)

 

[cmdrdredd]

Some games just don't age well. I tried playing Jet set Radio actually and the sloppy controls and very limited graphic capabilities of the engine used were apparent immediately. I remembered it fondly but that's about it...just memories.

Really hard to go back to older titles and feel like they are still what they were. As someone above said, gaming does get better as things progress. At least I feel that way. However, certain genres have fallen into oblivion. Not least of which is the adventure game or 3D platformer. I suppose the closest we have to this currently is the sandbox games that are presented in 3rd person. Uncharted doesn't count as it's very linear...more of an action movie you get to play through.

I simply don't understand why every game has to be first person. Dishonored would have been so much more badass IMO if presented in 3rd person like Assassin's Creed. I would say the same about Skyrim but they would need to redo all of the character animations. The random kill animation you get when killing a dragon is beyond awkward looking.

 

[Oyeve]

IMO, having owned every single console ever, I am going to go with a tie. SNES and the PS2. For sheer # of quality games for both systems.

The SNES had so many awesome games that make me still play them to this day.

The PS2 has a massive game catalog that I am still playing games on it today.

 

[exdeath]

Some games just don't age well. I tried playing Jet set Radio actually and the sloppy controls and very limited graphic capabilities of the engine used were apparent immediately. I remembered it fondly but that's about it...just memories.

Really hard to go back to older titles and feel like they are still what they were. As someone above said, gaming does get better as things progress. At least I feel that way. However, certain genres have fallen into oblivion. Not least of which is the adventure game or 3D platformer. I suppose the closest we have to this currently is the sandbox games that are presented in 3rd person. Uncharted doesn't count as it's very linear...more of an action movie you get to play through.

I simply don't understand why every game has to be first person. Dishonored would have been so much more badass IMO if presented in 3rd person like Assassin's Creed. I would say the same about Skyrim but they would need to redo all of the character animations. The random kill animation you get when killing a dragon is beyond awkward looking.

Still get goosebumps during the FF3 opera scene on the second stanza when the full orchestra onslaught kicks in. In fact everything in my playthrough recently reasserted that it's just as awesome as it ever was. Then again RPGs aren't really affected by technological limitations like any other game might be. Except that the SNES made such beautiful music it really underscored and emphasized the story and emotion of the game rather than allowing graphics or controls limitations to take center stage.

I think I even choked up more with Cyan, being older and loving kids and understanding how completely destroyed he was more than I did when I was younger...especially the flashbacks and the train scene.

Games without emotion and story to draw you in leave you in the real world where you are always aware of the controller and screen and less oblivious to their limitations.

Games that have a soul (and a good sound sampler) are timeless and unaffected by bad controls or technological limitations because those aren't the primary purpose of such games, just like an outdated terrible e reader doesn't change the content or enjoyment of Shakespeare.

You know you have a great game when the game and the implementation and presentation of the game (eg the technology) can be treated separately.

 

[rayfieldclement]

Some games just don't age well. I tried playing Jet set Radio actually and the sloppy controls and very limited graphic capabilities of the engine used were apparent immediately. I remembered it fondly but that's about it...just memories.

Really hard to go back to older titles and feel like they are still what they were. As someone above said, gaming does get better as things progress. At least I feel that way. However, certain genres have fallen into oblivion. Not least of which is the adventure game or 3D platformer. I suppose the closest we have to this currently is the sandbox games that are presented in 3rd person. Uncharted doesn't count as it's very linear...more of an action movie you get to play through.

I simply don't understand why every game has to be first person. Dishonored would have been so much more badass IMO if presented in 3rd person like Assassin's Creed. I would say the same about Skyrim but they would need to redo all of the character animations. The random kill animation you get when killing a dragon is beyond awkward looking.

I digress....I thought Skyrim and Dishonored would be better if in the 3rd person not the first.