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[mopspear]

16-bit only got too big for it's breeches when it tried to do 3D. There was enough power there do enough without getting too ambitious and failing. I think it's aged the best partly due to this.

The PS3/360 era is when a lot of modern concepts were invented that would feel more familiar to us today. PS2/XBOX era can feel strange in that regard. Like you can communicate easily enough with someone in the 1600s in English but ye are going to have a harder time before that.

Bad frame rates in the PS3/360 generation though.

 

[The_hunter]

Aren't we using 64 bit processors right now, lol.

 

[March Climber]

I just entered to say that I'm glad the ugliest generation is near the bottom of the list (Playstation, N64, Saturn).

 

[CashPrizes]

Everyone knows it is SNES and PC games of the 16-bit era (and some Genesis games).

Link to the Past and Super Mario World and FF6 and Chrono Trigger and Contra 3 and Super Castlevania and Super Metroid are all arguably the best games of their series. Plenty of other greats that are still fun to play today are FF4, Secret of Mana, Mega Man X 1 and 2, ActRaiser, TMNT Turtles in Time.

PC has Tie Fighter, X-Com, Day of the Tentacle, Civilization 2, Monkey Island 1 and 2, Doom 1 and 2. All of those games are still eminently playable today (X-com the controls are a little fiddly but still worth it).

I was an even bigger Genesis fan at the time but fewer of the games are best in their genre types. The ones that still hold up are Phantasy Star IV, Landstalker, Contra Hard Corps, Castlevania Bloodlines, Shining Force 1 and 2, and Streets of Rage 2 .

 

[CashPrizes]

I just entered to say that I'm glad the ugliest generation is near the bottom of the list (Playstation, N64, Saturn).

I agree. There seems to be an insurgence of people making games with PS1 style graphics..... like why? Those games looked like shit. They only looked their best (Metal Gear Solid) when they were making creative decisions to hide how limited they were.

I personally think a lot of PS2 era games are hard to go back to, 16bit and PS3/360 are the sweet spots.

 

[Danny Dudekisser]

128bit

But you need either a CRT or a good upscaler.

And it's remarkable how good those games still look with the proper hardware. I'm genuinely surprised when I fire up a ps2 game on the Retrotink 4K after a while away from it - art style really ruled the day back then.

Gen 6 is my answer, too. I think the games have aged incredibly well and are easy to go back to even if you didn't play them at the time. Pick-up-and-play appeal was still alive and well. I get why people would suggest the 16-bit era, though.

 

[Pasta la Vista]

Chose PS2, Xbox, GC Gen. Games on those systems were pushing the hardware. Konami, Capcom and Squaresoft were the kings at that time. Towards the end of the generation they were pulling off stuff that was mind blowing for the time. RE4 on GC felt like a next gen game when it came out and ultimately influenced the entire 3rd person shooter genre. The Silent Hill and MGS games were also insanely detailed for the time. FF 10, 11 and 12 were incredible feats, when Square still raising the bar with their tech in games. FF11 in particular being on PS2 is a massive feat, if you played it back in the day, you know.

And even though they weren't so popular at the time as they are today, Atlus was at their peak with SMT, Persona, Devil Summoner games and Digitial Devil Saga. When the father of SMT family, Kaneko, was still involved.

 

[NotMyProblemAnymoreCunt]

For me it's the PS2 Era, all those consoles during that Era including the Dreamcast had fantastic games in full 3D in every genre. The variety of the PS2 library and how massive it was is still amazing to me. Especially since lot of the games haven't been rereleased yet on modern consoles.

Yes the PS1 Era was groundbreaking in regards to 3D Graphics but during that Era lot of the games used prerendered backgrounds and the ones that didn't usualy looked and ran bad. Metal Gear Solid and Vagrant Story were two of the few exceptions. But the PS1 Era was super important. The PS1 Era needed to walk for the PS2 Era to run

With the PS2 Era the increase in the 3D Graphics actually gave very beautiful games like Final Fantasy 10, Final Fantasy 12 and other other games. I was playing Final Fantasy 12 HD Remastered on Switch and man that game has aged super well. The game still looks fantastic

But with PS2 Era it was the games that really made that Era legendary. Yes PS2 got most of the games and had the most amount of great games but the Dreamcast, GameCube and XBox had a lot of great games too but not the amount that PS2 had

I felt that was the Era where game companies were being headed by gamers who wanted to make games that they and other gamers would love. Plus being given a bigger budget for a lot of these games. Japanese and Western developers were doing great financially during this Era

I think the PS3 Era is when bean counters started to take over these companies and is the reason why lot of modern gaming isn't as good

 

[Daniel Thomas MacInnes]

I'd say Gen-6 (Dreamcast, PlayStation 2, GameCube, Xbox, maybe Wii & 3DS?) has aged the best, as nearly everything we've been playing ever since has just been prettier versions of the older classics. And there's definitely a case of diminishing returns. I'd be perfectly happy with any of those consoles. And, yeah, I know it's cheating to put Nintendo Wii and 3DS into that mix, but those systems are basically the same tech.

Gen-5 (3DO, Jaguar, Saturn, PlayStation, Nintendo 64) is my personal favorite, thanks to the endless experimentation and innovation, but mostly because I was there when it happened. Most kids today would probably find most of the videogames of that era to be too rough, too choppy, too glitchy, or too outdated. Even then, I'll bet there are at least a dozen titles they would consider all-time classics.

Gen-4 (Turbografx, Genesis, Super NES) had its ups and downs, and if you're a fan of 2D games, it will be seen as a glorious age. So many classics to enjoy. That said, there's a lot of shoddy and roughshod games as well, and thanks to the existence of video stores, I got to experience them all. So that definitely colors my thinking a bit. That said, I do have a Genesis here in my room (mostly for style points), and I'm always wishing for another Super Nintendo (such a great system). I'm telling myself to seek a publisher for that "Sega Genesis 500" project that's been sitting on my shelf for a decade.

Honestly, this is the absolute peak of videogames, it's like Led Zeppelin's middle period, and you can't go wrong with that.

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

The 16-bit era is the one that has less compromises going back to.
8-bit struggles with too few buttons, punitive gameplay, and repetitiveness due to limitations. The simple, snappy gameplay and the short duration of most games are enjoyable, though, provided the game isn't badly programmed.
32-bit struggles with camera and framerates.
128-bit is, on average, much poorer than most like to remember. Very flat graphics were needed to achieve good framerates, and if you wanted to make things look better, performance would inevitably tank. Many games were either very redundant or very barebones. Also, interlaced resolution looks pretty bad on CRTs.
7th gen is generally better than 128-bit, except for framerates and loading times.

All of this is if you take them natively as they were.
Each one improves tremendously with modern enhancements and QoL features. There's way less games not worth returning to if you adjust a few things.

 

[ahtlas7]

Gen X, sorry grandpa here got confused, I meant to say: Gen X.


For real: 360

 

[German Shocks]

Gen X, sorry grandpa here got confused, I meant to say: Gen X.


For real: 360

Crackdown for the 360 still looks good.

 

[Soodanim]

I think there are 2 kings. 16bit and 128.

16 essentially mastered 2D. Simple as that.

128 got over the stumbling blocks of the early 3D and still had creativity and experimentation out the wazoo, but hadn't yet suffered ballooning budgets, the chase for HD not always going well, and the search for the brownest browns imaginable.

 

[kunonabi]

While I still consider the 32-bit era the most exciting and interesting if we're talking about ease of returning to or showing to people who missed it has to be 16-bit. It still manages to be super visually appealing and the controls and gameplay are much easier to pick up for somebody trying it for the first time.