With the latest generation of hardware a combination of being ludicrously expensive and generally having uninteresting software line-ups, it looks like the realm of video games is going to be dead to me for a while. So! It’s time to look back and judge once and for all, which system was the best!
There are two judgments made: The highest overall score and the highest of the highs. Overall score is a tally of all the essential games on that system. Highest of the highs is a tally of the scores only from games rated 3 or 4.
We have a list of the “essential” games to play on each system. It’s not necessarily the ONLY games you should play, but the ones that SHOULD be played. If you dropped a new person into the world of games and needed to explain to them why video games are fun, you go by our list.
These are the Canon rankings of games. They’re based on my experience so that’s objectively the correct ranking.
There are plenty of games that are historically important, but they’re not Essential to play, so they’re not on our list. Super Mario Bros 1, Sonic 1, and Mega Man 1 are historically extremely important, but they’re not “essential”. They don’t hold up well in the modern day and what they do that’s special has been far outclassed by later games in their franchises.
We tried to avoid remasters/remakes/ports/compilations unless the new version did something significantly better or important compared to the original release.
Round 1 will look at the handheld systems!
Sound off in the comments if there’s anything that escaped our infallible eye!
With the highest overall rank and second on the "highest of the highs", you can't go wrong with the original Game Boy.
Two classic-style Castlevania games worth playing with Castlevania 2: Belmont's Revenge and sadly Sonia's only adventure with Castlevania Legends.
Donkey Kong '94, the best game with Donkey Kong and the only great iteration on the arcade game they've done. It's madness that they've never done a real sequel to this game and every spin-off has added a bunch of lousy mechanics that make the game less fun.
Kirby's Dreamland 2, my favorite of the Kirby games and a great refinement of the gameplay. Played it enough to max out the score counter, which then causes you to gain an extra life any time you earn points and it turns the game into an audio nightmare of the 1-up noise constantly playing!
Legend of Zelda Link's Awakening! Second best Zelda game and it was on the Game Boy!
Two fun Mega Man games with I and IV, helpfully going with Roman numerals to set it apart from the NES games and with a fun twist of adding Robot Masters from different mainline games. And it introduced the Mega Man Killers. I'm a big fan of Enker.
Pokemon Yellow gets our Pokemon spot. It's a danged solid RPG, with few extraneous features, it gets to the point and stays fun for the journey. And Yellow is the way to go so you can get all the starters and it has the Jessie and James Team Rocket!
Mario also gets two entries with Land 2: Six Golden Coins and Land 3: Wario Land. Danged solid platformers with good additions to the genre thanks to the overworld, secret exits, and collectible treasures. And Land 2 gave us Wario, who then in turn gave us Captain Syrup!
And finally, Game Boy Tetris. It's a classic for a reason. My mom was willing to keep me stocked on batteries for my Game Boy because that meant she could play Tetris too. I was deeply saddened that the recent Tetris collection didn't have this version of the game and it's one of the main reasons I haven't bought it. NES and Game Boy Tetris ARE Tetris to me. All the rules you need and none of the extraneous junk they've added to Tetris over the years. Holding pieces?! What the hell is that garbage...
Flipping things with top "highest of the highs" and the second highest overall rank, we have the DS.
Three of the best modern Castlevanias with Dawn of Sorrow, Portrait of Ruin, and my second favorite CV game, Order of Ecclesia. Those three alone make a great argument for the handheld.
A solid remake of Chrono Trigger that we allow on the list because I think it surpasses the original. New content, a new ending, a cleaned up script, and an exploitable bug to boost character stats to reduce the tedium of battles against grunt enemies and replaying on New Game Plus to get the other endings. Chrono Trigger was a great farewell to the 16-bit era of turn-based RPGs and a nice place for me to mostly walk away from that style of game.
Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime. It's a weird game, part RPG and part tower defense maybe? It's cute, quirky, and one of the few games to make the Dragon Quest franchise interesting.
Kirby's Canvas Curse is a really solid spin-off for Kirby and one of the best ones. Unique and weird in good ways, it made a neat case for touch screen games that few really followed up on well.
The Mario & Luigi games are fun and the DS added Partners in Time and Bowser's Inside Story, finding ways to revive turn-based games by adding timing-based action to them. BIS has some questionable writing and characters and was leaning towards the tedious exposition slogs the franchise became, but the action was still good at this point.
Phoenix Wright is a series that I really wanted to improve and smooth out its bumps, but the series never really managed to. Ace Attorney still ranks as the best for me, warts and all. Great characters, fun writing, effective social satire, and an interesting gameplay style that Capcom never managed to really master.
Plants vs Zombies, one of the best touch screen games in town. It's on pretty much every system under the sun, but the mobile and DS versions are the tops for me. Amazingly fun to the point that you're willing to overlook the issues and repetition. A damned shamed it never got any sequels or spin-offs. Yep, certainly no future games to shame this one's fine name.
And our top 3rd with the third highest overall score and third highest of the highs: the 3DS.
Blaster Master Zero is another remake that gets into our list because of the sheer level of remakedness it puts forth. A vast improvement over the original, it plays the way the game does in your memories rather than how it actually was in reality.
Shantae and the Pirate's Curse, the high point for the franchise. Wayforward isn't great at level and dungeon design, but Pirate's Curse manages to stay fun despite it. The last hurrah for the sprite designs before it went full and kind of generic anime and before the writing really went down the drain. I like this game but I also have no real desire to replay it.
Steamworld Dig, a masterfully designed/balanced game. Always ready to introduce something new JUST as you've started to get a little tired of what you have and it stays exciting throughout because of how well they reveal new things to you. At its core, the gameplay is super basic, but they do right by it and tell a fun story with neat characters. Sadly, a lot of that good will isn't present in the future games in the franchise and the neat parts have been ground into you until they're dull.
Team Kirby Clash, another fine spin-off for Kirby. And oddly, I'm going to give it praise for its monetization. I think it's one of two free to play games I've ever actually spent money on due to how well the game handles it and what it grants you. Kirby is breaking barriers.
Theatrhythm and Theatrhythm: Curtain Call, they're each kind of the same game but they're also kind of the best rhythm games made so I'm happy to have it on the list twice. Wonderfully designed and enjoyable beyond any other Final Fantasy game. The series just doesn't work without the touch screen, so I sadly think this is the only time the franchise shined so gloriously.
Witch & Hero, it's simple and quirky and super grindy but it's good fun and knows what it is without trying to over-extend itself. I think the sequels did run it into the ground and added too much that didn't improve the game, but the original is well worth a play.
So those are our top 3s, but we had other handheld games that reach to a level of the Essentials.
Game Gear:
Shining Force: Sword of Hajya- Shining Force is among the best SRPGs and Sword of Hajya is a solid and surprisingly meaty one for a handheld.
Game Boy Color:
Dragon Warrior I & II- Gets on our list, despite being remakes. They clean things up nicely and they made the smart decision to pack the two together so it felt like a great value.
Zelda: Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons- Pretty solid Zelda games and maybe the only games that don't feel like rip-offs that you have to buy both versions to get all the content. They're full enough games on their own that the shared epilogue and "round 2" quests just feel like bonuses rather than content that was held from each version.
Resident Evil Gaiden- Look, it's not a GOOD game, but it does some neat things. The battle system is cool and I applaud the game for killing off Leon S Kennedy. It's my canon and you can't take that from me!
Game Boy Advance:
Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow- It doesn't hit the heights of the DS games, but it's the only CV on this system that works well. Most of the characters are awful, the writing is lousy, and it's needlessly grindy and tedious, but bad Castlevania exploration is still pretty decent.
Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga- As good as the others we have on this list with some extra points because it was the first one and everything was fresh and new here.
Mario Kart: Super Circuit- It may not have the grandeur of the future Mario Karts, but it actually feels like a racing game where fundamentals matter more than BS items and constant drifting.
Mega Man Battle Network- A pretty bold departure for the franchise, but thanks to a cool battle system, they pull it off. The story and characters are... mostly terrible, so just ignore them and have fun fighting.
Metroid Fusion- Some of the best gameplay Metroid has had but also just on the edge of the cliff before the story and writing went to garbage for the rest of the franchise.
WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$!- I almost universally dislike the Wario Ware characters and don't even care for the new version of Wario, but dang Wario Ware is a great concept. Microgames!
PSP:
Lumines- Probably the puzzle game that come closest to the shining glory that is Tetris. I can't play it for long in a single sitting, but it's a fine game you can come back to often.
Mega Man Powered Up- Another remake that manages to sneak onto our list, but the game is rebuilt and improved from the ground up, with scads of new content, new playable characters, and is a vastly better game than the original. And it's so damned cute!
Mega Man Maverick Hunter X- A SECOND Mega Man remake on the same system. Mega Man X is one of my favorite games and this version is... worse than the original. But it adds a playable Vile. It's on this list purely for that reason.
Power Stone Collection- A collection of two of my favorite fighting games, and with extra features of its own and a way to do multiplayer easily!