My Favorite Game from Every Year I've Been Alive Part 1 (1991-1996)
Jumping the bandwagon!
I’ve Outed Myself as an Aging Millennial
There’s a trend on social media where people list their favorite thing from each year they were alive. Mostly movies, but I thought it’d be fun to do it with videogames. Do it I did, and in the only way I know how: by writing too much text.
I’ll be going over each year giving a brief summary of what was going on at the time, to give you a quick snapshot of the era, and then go into the videogames.
Enjoy my terrible picks and feel free to leave a comment saying how much of a hack I am for not picking Chrono Trigger as my favorite game of 1995.
1991
I just got here, and I don’t know what I’m doing. What’s the rest of the world up to? Well, Operation Desert Storm started, which was another leg of the middle-east forever wars. The Internet starts, as in, the World Wide Web is launched, allowing millions to access information and communicate across the world. Little did they know all the porn that would be unleashed a few short years later. Freddy Mercury dies, Nirvana releases Nevermind, and a little-known rapper by the name of Tupac Shakur releases his debut album.
What about the games? Well, it was something, alright. Battletoads releases, introducing thousands of children to the concepts of frustration, failure and how not to break your controller. Streets of Rage premieres with its first entry, along with the first Puyo Puyo game and none other than Sonic the Hedgehog drops his first game on that same year.
With all that going on, Capcom decides to release Street Fighter II and invent a new genre.
Out of all these landmark titles, which one could I possibly pick as my favorite?
My pick for 1991- Streets of Rage
Out of all these, I think Streets of Rage is my favorite. Not by much. If I’m being honest, I’ve played these previously mentioned games, but not to the point where I’d say they’re favorites. I don’t like Sonic the Hedgehog much (heretical, I know), and the other games were important, but I prefer their sequels. Street Fighter II is great, but that’s the base version, and the one I like, like most people, is Super Turbo, which didn’t come out until 1994.
Streets of Rage is a very flawed game. It’s janky, weird and it’s incredibly easy to jab-lock enemies. It’s still fun, and it laid the foundation for a great series of beat-em-ups. The sequels were better.
1992
While I was still trying to achieve sentience, the world was awash in conflict. The biggest one being that anytime you turned on the radio, you had a 50/50 chance of being assaulted by either “I’m Too Sexy” by Right Said Fred or “Jump” by Kris Kross. This constant psychological torture was the direct inspiration for the Saw franchise.
In the realm of videogames, things weren’t much better. Street Fighter II kept stealing everyone’s lunch money, we got another Sonic game, Mario jumped into a kart and invented Kart racing, and the first Shin Megami Tensei game releases, unknowingly setting off a chain of events that would result in Persona, and some of the most annoying fans on the planet.
Wolfenstein 3D was released, providing the groundwork for the FPS genre. Along with that, another influential game was raising the bar on videogame violence. A little known fighter by the name of Mortal Kombat, the game that would be responsible for the creation of the ESRB and the lightning rod for the moral panic of the time.
My pick for 1992: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time
If you have niche encyclopedic knowledge of Ninja Turtles games, you’d know that Turtles in Time released in 1991. That was the arcade version. The one I picked is specifically the SNES port that came out in 1992. It has more levels, better music, and more consistent gameplay, even if the graphics are noticeably worse.
The reason why I picked this version specifically is because it was one of my earliest gaming memories. I started playing games on a hand-me-down NES, but I was very young and didn’t think of games as a concept. I thought the NES was a fun toy that had Mario. I didn’t know there were different games or other consoles. Then I played Turtles in Time at my cousin’s house, and learned about all sorts of games.
I used to play this for hours with my cousins and my brother. We could never get too far, because we were dumb kids, but we still had a ton of fun with it. Years later, I revisited it with my brother, and we managed to beat the game. It was the first time I actually beat a game that once seemed impossible, and I’ve been trying to chase that same high ever since.
The game still holds up, too. It’s a lot of fun to pick up and play. For the deep impact it had on my soft, baby brain, TMNT IV Turtles in Time for the SNES gets the top spot.
Runner up: Streets of Rage 2. SoR2 improved on every aspect of the first, and it’s a great game, but I didn’t play it until decades later, and it doesn’t have the same sentimental value as TMNT does.
1993
At this point I had finally attained sentience, but I still didn’t know what a videogame was. I saw a Gameboy, I think. I don’t know what I was up to back then. Probably eating dirt and looking for dangerous chemicals to drink.
The rest of the world was embroiled in conflict, as is always the case. Czechoslovakia split off into Czech and Slovakia. Two imaginary internet points to anyone who can find both on a map without googling it. The World Trade Center was bombed, which is why Biggie Smalls says “Blow up like the world trade” in his 1994 hit single “Juicy”, leading many zoomers to think he somehow predicted 9/11. Speaking of blowing up, the Waco siege, where the ATF torched David Koresh and a couple dozen kids. Don’t talk about that, focus on the religious wackos. The ATF is a totally trustworthy organization.
Along with that, the most important children’s media franchise started in 1993. That’s right, it’s Veggie Tales, which introduced the world to Christian vegetables. I know many who came to Jesus after hearing the cucumber preach. Along with that something called the Power Rangers also premiered in the US. It doesn’t have proselytizing produce, so I don’t really care.
Enough about world events and religious veggies, we’re here for the videogames. It was a pretty big year for those, too. We got more sonic, more Mario, more Street Fighter 2. Wait, that doesn’t sound particularly impressive.
What is impressive is the release of one of the most important games ever: Bubsy. The first Bubsy game released in 1993 to collective shrugs and a very small chorus of “I guess?”. This crappy little platformer somehow spawned a franchise, and it featured the worst games in existence. Bubsy 3D is still remembered to this day thanks to its technological achievement. Instead of making a game the traditional way, the developers of Bubsy 3D used cutting-edge tech to put the concept of a middle finger into a disc and have it play on a Playstation. Revolutionary stuff. It was what inspired the modern Triple-A game landscape we have today, where every release is packed to the gills with middle fingers to the consumer.
There were some less impressive titles here, too. The incredibly overrated Myst released this year. The puzzle game that’s suspiciously absent of puzzles. It indirectly inspired The Talos Principle, so I guess it gets some points for that. Not many. There was Awesome Possum Kicks Dr. Machino’s Butt, which I talked about in a previous article.
Then there’s this little known title named DOOM. The game that practically invented the first person shooter genre, revolutionized PC gaming and thrilled billions for years to come. DOOM still holds up today, showing that fundamentally solid gameplay is timeless. You don’t need a lot of bells and whistles, just make things with purpose. A lesson modern game developers missed, since most shooters released after DOOM can’t compete with it.
My Pick for 1993: Megaman X
Even though I love DOOM, it’s still not my favorite game of 1993. That title goes to: Megaman X. Sure, DOOM changed gaming for ever, and it’s still a great game, but I haven’t beaten DOOM 20 times. Ever since I was a tiny baby (but after 1993), Megaman X has been one of my favorite games ever. It takes the already rock-solid Megaman formula and gives it a few tweaks and updates. It lets you take on any of the 8 robot masters, now renamed to Mavericks, in any order as always, but it adds special effects to each stage cleared. If you beat Storm Eagle, Spark Mandrill’s stage changes, with Storm Eagle’s ship crashed into it. Small touches like that bring a new layer of exploration to the game.
The controls feel smooth and responsive, the music is fantastic, the graphics are gorgeous. It’s not too challenging, but it’s a ton of fun nonetheless. It has enough content to be satisfying, but not enough to drag on or overstay its welcome. In my opinion, it’s a perfect game. Not THE perfect game, mind you, but it does what it sets out to do perfectly. 10/10, no notes.
I replayed it after some years back when the Megaman X collection released. The one on PS2, not the new one that splits the games into two separate packages. That one sucks. It splits the series in half, so you get Megaman X1 to X4 in one purchase, then X5 to X8 in another. What a ripoff. Pay $20 for the best games in the series, then pay $20 more for X5? Six? For SEVEN!? Capcom should be paying me to play that crap.
Anyways, I was playing the collection on PS2, years after playing X1 as a kid, and I still remembered the location of every heart tank, weapon capsule and secret. I was shocked. I used to think I had a bad memory, and I still do, but that made me realize that my memory only sucks when trying to remember important things. If it’s dumb videogame trivia, that stuff will stick to my brain like frying an egg on an old pan.
For its impact on my young self, and the fact that it still holds up and I play it regularly, Megaman X is my favorite game of 1993.
Honorable mention: Violent Storm. A great, fast-paced arcade beat-em-up with music that’s so 90s it will give you a flat top haircut if you listen to it for too long.
1994
I don’t remember what I was up to back in ‘94, but I do know that some stuff was going down, as per tradition. OJ Simpson stabbed Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman (he did it) and lead the world on a televised chase in his iconic Ford Bronco. It was just like one of them movie films you see on the tee-vee. The Rwandan Genocide starts, and I don’t have any jokes for that. Amazon is founded, and no one knows the horrors in waiting there. Who in 1994 could have conceived of the wage cage? No one other than Bezos, of course. The idea that you could order a cheap, plastic trinket from China and have some underpaid worker in a 90,000,000 square foot warehouse ship it to you in one day was still in the realm of science fiction. If you ask me, it should have stayed there, but you didn’t ask. Bill Clinton bans assault weapons. What is an assault weapon? Who knows. The guys making the laws sure don’t.
In the world of videogames, the PlayStation releases in Japan right at the tail-end of the year. We see more Sonic, the release of Super Metroid, and Bubsy 2. Earthbound was also released this year, making it the most influential game no one would play for the next 20 years.
We also saw the release of classics such as Darkstalkers, which revolutionized the fighting game genre with its innovative combo system, colorful graphics and half-naked catgirl. Daytona USA and Cruis’n USA, two great USA-themed racing games released this year, showing the world that America is THE place for driving. If you ignore the horrible traffic in any city with more than 2,000 people. And the crumbling infrastructure. And the gas prices. We also saw the first Madden NFL game. Like Amazon this same year, no one would suspect that this tiny seed would spawn a massive, eldritch tree that would swallow entire countries.
Even with this massive smorgasbord of games to pick from, narrowing down my favorite for this year was incredibly easy. Hotel Mario, baby! That’s right, the CDI classic that launched a million YouTube poops and forever altered my vocabulary, introducing inane phrases like “toasters toast toast” “lotsa spaghetti” and “the enclosed instruction booklet” that made everyone around me realize I was a weirdo.
My real pick for 1994: Donkey Kong Country
Another perfect game. Donkey Kong Country is a triumph of 2D platforming. I know there are some that say DKC is just about the graphics, and the gameplay isn’t that great. Those people are objectively wrong, and they probably smell bad.
Donkey Kong Country manages to pack each level with finely-crafted platforming challenges. It gets tough at some points, with the ultra-precise barrel launching sections, but those are a ton of fun. Each world has its own distinct theming, the visual storytelling is excellent with how each world gets progressively more industrial until you finally reach King K. Rool. The controls are great, the character’s weight and jumps feel excellent and each level is built around their abilities perfectly. There are tons of cool gimmicks, keeping things fresh, and a mind-boggling amount of secrets and side content to explore.
All that without even mentioning the soundtrack, which is phenomenal. David Wise should get a medal for his compositions and how much he managed to squeeze out of the SNES’ sound chip.
Donkey Kong Country gets my pick for favorite game of 1994. I have fond memories of wasting hours playing this on an old, decroded wood-paneled TV from the 80s that kept flickering.
Runners up: Alien vs Predator (arcade), Shaq Fu.
1995
I still don’t know what I was doing in ‘95, probably shoving crayons up my nose, but the world was once again wrapped in conflict. OJ Simpson is found Not Guilty in his trial, which was wrong, but who am I to question the all-consuming wisdom of our judicial system? Oklahoma City was the site of a deadly terrorist attack, no jokes there. Tokyo was also hit with a terrorist attack; 14 dead and thousands injured after a sarin gas attack. Again, no jokes. Flight 965 crashes, killing 160. Jesus Christ. Let’s move on.
In the videogame world, we have more sequels. Bomberman 3, Final Fight 3, more Madden. We also have the release of a little known game called Chrono Trigger. As of writing this, I still have not played Chrono Trigger, so let’s move on from that before I get hit with rocks.
The PlayStation releases in North America, bringing with it Jumping Flash, Rayman, and Riiiiiiidge Racer. Remember that one?
This year doesn’t have many games that I consider great, other than the aforementioned Chrono Trigger, which I still haven’t played (much hasn’t changed since that last paragraph), but there are three games which I would consider for my favorite of this year.
First off is Yoshi’s Island. This is an incredible platformer. It explores its mechanics thoroughly with different variations and gimmicks. Each level is full of cool stuff, the transformations are a really fun touch and they vary the gameplay just enough to keep you interested. The controls, again, are impeccable. The music is fantastic, each track is full of life and personality and a lot of them are still stuck in my head to this day. The only bad thing about this game is baby Mario’s ear-piercing shrieks when he goes into the bubble. The developers thought this wasn’t stressful enough, so they added a timer and a ticking alarm sound. I remember the first time I ran out of time and baby Mario got captured by the minions. The change in art to sudden pre-rendered 3D and the sense of failure made me shit my little pants as a tyke.
The second is Megaman 7. Much like Megaman X, I played through this multiple times to the point where my parents forbid me from playing it. Forbade? They banned it. All megaman was banned after I binged X and 7. Megaman 7 isn’t the best Megaman game. It’s a lot shorter, and a lot easier, but it was my introduction to the series. I had an NES, but the only thing I played on it was Super Mario Bros, Duck Hunt and Excite Bike. I didn’t know any other games existed. Megaman 7 was my favorite Megaman game for a time. The stages are great, the robot masters are memorable, the graphics still look gorgeous and the soundtrack is one for the ages.
Now, if I put Yoshi’s Island and Megaman 7 as runners up, what ground-breaking game could I have picked for my favorite this year?
My pick for 1995: Looney Tunes B-ball. This is not a joke.
In the year that gave us Yoshi’s Island and Chrono Trigger, out of all the SNES games I could have picked, I went for Looney Tunes B-ball. Why? Because it’s my personal favorite out of the lot. It’s the one I played the most. My brother and I used to do tournaments in this game. It’s fun, but it’s admittedly kinda crap. There’s only one court, even though the game tells you you’re playing in different cities, the same three tracks play on loop endlessly and there is very little content.
It has all those flaws, but it’s fun. It’s a solid arcade basketball game with some wacky hijinks thrown in. Each character has a special move, and you can pull them off by purchasing them with gems you pick up on the court. It’s a bizarre system that works in a strange way. This game is the foundation for a lot of core memories for me as a kid, so it’s only fair that I put it as the top.
While scrolling through the list of games released in 1995, I saw some familiar names. Sure, I had to include Megaman 7 and Yoshi’s Island, because they’re great, but only one game made me sit up and go “whaaat” when I saw it, and it was Looney Tunes B-ball.
Runners up: Rayman on the PS1. I loved that game, but it was too hard for me.
1996
The first sheep is cloned, USB is introduced, and the world keeps burning. Rapper Kool Keith, under the name “Dr. Octagon” releases “Dr. Octagonecologyst”, a surrealist experimental hip-hop album that people will insist is good, even when it sounds like the schizophrenic ramblings of a homeless man set to out of tune instrumentals. I’m convinced this album is a test of some sort to see if you can form your own opinion. Other stuff happened, but it was mostly tragic, so I’ll make fun of this instead. Maybe this was considered good back then, because your only other musical option at the time was the Macarena, which was destroying the air waves causing everyone to do the cringey dance. I was at pre-school at the time, and some of the teachers did the macarena. It was the first time I felt second-hand embarrassment.
We don’t care about any of that because 1996 was an incredible year for gaming. The N64 released, bringing along with it certified gaming classics. Super Mario 64 came in to redefine 3D platformers as if it were nothing. Then he revolutionized kart racers with Mario Kart 64. Not content with his wins in platforming and kart racing, he goes on to give us Super Mario RPG, which I hear is good. Yes, it was Mario himself that gave us these games, not Nintendo.
On the Playstation side we got PaRappa the Rapper, Tomb Raider, The first Resident Evil, the forgotten and kind of crappy but still fun Jet Moto, Megaman 8. Not to mention Bubsy 3D.
Now you might be asking yourself, these are all heavy-hitters, and they’re not the favorite? What could I possibly have in my back pocket for this occasion?
My pick for 1996: QUAKE
I say this without a hint of exaggeration: Quake is the best first person shooter ever made. Period. The genre peaked in 1996, and it’s been downhill ever since.
Every enemy has a purpose, every level is carefully crafted, each weapon has its reason to exist. DOOM was the fundamental first person shooter, but Quake perfected the formula. The movement, the bunny hopping, rocket jumping, the insane but completely unintended skill ceiling. It’s a game you can enjoy as a casual player and as a coked-out speedrunner.
The graphics and the minimalist ambient soundtrack come together to form a dark, oppressive atmosphere that puts most horror games to shame. The presentation still holds up to this day.
It laid the foundation for first person shooters. Then every other game decided to ignore what Quake did. Fun movement? How about we cap your speed to a walk in the park? Ten weapons? That’s too many. Have two. Creative guns with unique purposes? What? Just point and shoot at dudes. It’s not that deep, bro. Crafted levels with considered encounters? Just chuck some dudes in a hallway and let the player figure it out. If they’re not having fun, it’s because they’re bad at it.
Runners up: Everything I just mentioned. Except for Bubsy 3D. Metal Slug.
Conclusion
The first few years of the 90s were hit and miss. I didn’t experience any of it, due to the fact that I was a drooling baby. I don’t remember much from this time, and what I have experienced from it has been looking back on it as an adult. I have no real strong opinions on it, but that will change as we go further into the future.
Next time: 97 to 2001. This is when things really get going.
Noooo I had this exact idea but was waiting for another time to write it! Great article
This was great. Waiting for part two!
I won't judge for not playing Chrono Trigger. I played it and I love it, but also I think Chrono Cross (its pseudo-sequel) is better. Everytime I said that, someone throw a rock at me.