The Well-Red Mage occasionally poses questions to his readers and fellow bloggers, which I admire as a way of encouraging conversation within our community. His recent question spawned from a fun Twitter thing, where everyone was asked for their favorite game for every year they’ve been alive. For example, I was born in 1981 so I’d have to choose a favorite game released each year between then and now.
There’s no need for exposition; only names or images will do just fine.
1981 – Ms. Pac-Man
1982 – Xevious
1983 – Bomberman
1984 – Excitebike
1985 – Super Mario Bros.
1986 – Metroid
1987 – The Legend of Zelda
1988 – Super Mario Bros. 2 USA (shout-out to Phantasy Star)
1989 – Friday the 13th
1990 – Super Mario Bros 3
1991 – Super Mario World
1992 – The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
1993 – Mortal Kombat II
1994 – Final Fantasy III/VI
1995 – Chrono Trigger
1996 – Resident Evil
1997 – Final Fantasy VII
1998 – The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (sorry Metal Gear Solid, Xenogears, and Resident Evil 2!)
1999 – Final Fantasy VIII
2000 – The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask
2001 – Final Fantasy X (sorry Silent Hill 2, Ico, and Halo: Combat Evolved!)
2002 – Metroid Prime
2003 – The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker (sorry Silent Hill 3 and Fatal Frame 2!)
2004 – World of Warcraft
2005 – Resident Evil 4
2006 – The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
2007 – Mass Effect (sorry BioShock, and shout-out to WoW’s Burning Crusade expansion!)
2008 – Left 4 Dead (shout-out to WoW’s Wrath of the Lich King expansion!)
2009 – Dragon Age: Origins
2010 – Mass Effect 2
2011 – The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (shout-out to Dark Souls)
2012 – Persona 4 Golden
2013 – The Last of Us
2014 – Dragon Age: Inquisition
2015 – Undertale (shout-out to Bloodborne!)
2016 – Final Fantasy XV
2017 – NieR: Automata
2018 – I’ve yet to play a 2018 release.
There were a lot of tough choices for certain years, but that was a fun trip down memory lane. I was absolutely sure certain games would make the list (like Metroid) until I realized they released the same year as something else (The Legend of Zelda).
Got any favorites during these years?
P.S. – Yes, I’m aware I’m old.
Cheap Boss Attack 
That one-two combo of Wind Waker and Metroid Prime made the GameCube years pretty special!
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God yes, haha. It’s a shame I detested Mario Sunshine so much, but at least we had Luigi’s Mansion.
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Definitely a polarizing game! Sunshine was the one Nintendo game I ever willingly sold. I played it for like 6 hours and still could not control Mario well at all. Rage-sold it for $40 and bought a used 3DS and Majora’s Mask 3D. I liked that one much better :)
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Yeah, I hated the FLUDD so much. That game was just a miserable experience buried under a candy aesthetic.
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Here here. Some people love Sunshine though – go figure. Great list! Just got my own up – some similarities but pretty different! I ended up beating Nier: Automata btw, endings A-E – amazing game.
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It’s great how these lists paint a nice picture of the person making it. You’re definitely into the long adventures, mostly turn-based, but taking sudden breaks for Nintendo IPs and Left 4 Dead, one of my personal favorites from years ago :)
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Yeahhhhh, I have a soft spot for Nintendo IP and rpgs.
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I started working on this today at work, while waiting for Excel to get its ass into gear. I was worried I wouldn’t find anything between 80 and the Nintendo years. Boy was I wrong. I struggled with 1982. I was just going to Tweet it, but it might warrant a post. This is a damn good list. I think I’d wait on 2018 anyway, since it’s so early in the year.
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Yeah, I wasn’t too concerned about 2018. The Shadow of the Colossus remaster will likely be my first 2018 game, then God of War in April. I’d like to check out Lost Sphear, which released today, but I wasn’t impressed by the demo and it seems to be getting lukewarm reviews. At $50, that’s quite a gamble when I wasn’t exactly enthralled by I am Setsuna beyond its combat and soundtrack. I’ll grab it when its on sale instead.
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Yesh…$50? I liked it and I don’t know if I’m willing to pay that much. As of right now, I have plenty of games in my possession right now so I’m not jonesing for anything else to buy unless I happen to come across something I’ve been looking for for a while.
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Yeahhhh. I am Setsuna launched at $40 and seemed far more polished (in comparison to Last Sphear’s demo, anyway), so I don’t think I’m willing to gamble $50 when I have so much other stuff to play. $20 is probably my sweet spot.
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I still have I Am Setsuna to play. Maybe I’ll do that first. Lost Sphear isn’t really on the top of my list to buy, despite Squeenix sending me email after email about it and Dissidia hehe.
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Yeah, Lost Sphear is getting slightly above average review scores (6/10s-ish) and scores don’t usually mean much to me, but their concerns are ones I had playing the demo. It felt like they were taking all of the cool ideas from other 16-bit RPGs and instead of figuring out how to incorporate them in meaningful ways, they just threw them together and hoped for the best. I wanted Dissidia pretty bad since I love the FF universe, but wasn’t too wild about what I saw in the beta. I’m sure it’ll plummet in price at some point so I’ll wait until then, unless by some small miracle Red Box stocks it at their kiosk.
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Squeenix relies a lot of its name, and despite some of their worst foibles, that still seems to work. I really want them to release Octopath. THAT’S worth $50-60.
I wish I were still into fighting games. Working on my Games Alive list has enlightened me to the era I was a fan of them. I think one of the Tekkens was the last one I really played.
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You and I are a lot alike right up to 2000! What would you say was the hardest year or era for you? Definitely the 90’s for me. But MAH MAN picked Chrono Trigger, like a super awesome boss.
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Late 90s was tough. Mid-2000s were pretty easy since it wasn’t the best of times, but early 2000s when Gamecube, PS2, and Xbox were at their prime seemed to default to whatever Zelda or Final Fantasy released.
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2002 was tricky for me – I had four contenders. You can see them in my honorable mentions.
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Big thumbs up for some of those early entries- Friday the 13th and Excitebike were definitely contenders here, too.
Awesome list!
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Hey, thanks! You seldom hear of people actually enjoying Friday the 13th, but I played the hell out of it growing up. Some great music too!
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Another amazing list to see with some amazing titles in it!
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It feels like we dont have any game in common haha!
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