Japan Votes on All Time Top 100

[theMot]

Ahhh yes everyone loves a top 100...

http://next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2401&Itemid=2

What do you think? The number one game is Final Fantasy X while FF6 (my favourite) is down in 25th place fighting amongst the rats and mice! :angry:

AS you'll notice lots and lots of RPG's. It will be interesting to see how this list compares to the DP readers top 100 when (if?) it's finished.

[Mayhem]

All I'll say is that the list for here had a reasonable number of RPGs nominated and rather weighted towards one particular thing ;)

[theMot]

RELEASE THE LIST OR DIEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!! MOFO! @_@ LOL

[Snapple]

I thought everyone always talks about how Dragon Quest "owns" Final Fantasy in Japan in terms of popularity. Then why are the top two games Final Fantasy?

[Aussie2B]

I thought everyone always talks about how Dragon Quest "owns" Final Fantasy in Japan in terms of popularity. Then why are the top two games Final Fantasy?

Yeah, I was rather baffled by that too. o_O And I would've never guessed that the top ranking Dragon Quest would be 3.

It's kinda funny because just last night my boyfriend offered a ride to a Japanese guy who came to the US just two years ago to attend college here, and my boyfriend's brother was showing the guy the video game purchases he made. When he showed the Japanese guy the copy of Final Fantasy I+II on GBA, he said "In Japan, we prefer Dragon Quest", haha.

Anyway, while I have to admit that I consider nearly all those games on the list pretty good and fairly worthy of being on a top 100 list, the order is so wonky to me. Super Mario Bros. 3 at 99? That hurts me, man. It sorely needs some variety too, and this is coming from someone who LOVES RPGs.

And what the hell is Machi? o_O I'm surprised that such a highly ranking game would be completely unheard of by me.

[§ Gideon §]

Seeing the top 10 or so, my stomach clinched! It was three parts laughter, one part surprise, and one part getting the wind knocked out.

I don't know what Machi is, either... I don't really care, actually, since I can probably guess...

[Haoie]

Don't take such polls seriously, they're statistically invalid in any case.

[Aussie2B]

Well, I looked Machi up. It's a Saturn game, and it's one of those interactive novel games. Supposedly it's an extremely good one, but I imagine it's all but impossible to play without being fluent in Japanese (and this is coming from someone who plays Japanese RPGs and simulations with barely any knowledge of the language).

[DDCecil]

According to my "Sega Saturn Games are #1" review book, Machi is the 5th highest rated Saturn game of all-time (getting a 9.4743). Only Eve Burst Error, Grandia, Yu-No, and Legend of Heroes V scored higher...

Of course, Death Crimson is the worst rated (Out of all 945 games reviewed), and deservingly so :)

[Richter Belmount]

76. GTA: Vice City (2004)

anyone surprised from that? Just seems very weird to me

[kentuckyfried]

76. GTA: Vice City (2004)

anyone surprised from that? Just seems very weird to me

I'd bet a nickel it's the kitchiness of the 80's music that makes Vice City popular over there.

[DeputyMoniker]

Maybe FFX lost something in the translation because the protagonist was a little bitch...I don't know how anybody could consider it to be the best game of all time. I also don't play RPGs to be (seemingly) required to play a sports mini-game.

Again...maybe it lost something in the translation...but X-2 made the list? I didn't like X enough to even bother trying it but I've never heard someone say it was very good.

I'd have expected RE2 to score higher than RE1.

Tales of Destiny is another game I didn't personaly like. I've always heard good things about it but...meh.

[Austin]

Wow, Squaresoft is in the hiz-ouse.

I was expecting a lot of RPGs, but this list blew me away. That's a LOT of RPGs.

[Massimiliano]

Dragon quest sold more than final fantasy.
But seems that finally, they prefer final fantasy.
Was a bit disappointed to see how far is final fantasy 6, regarding all the others.

[jajaja]

Damn thats alot of RPG in that list. No doubt the japanese like this genre hehe.

[snes_collector]

Wowzo, that's a lot of RPG's, more than I expected. But Super Mario World 60th? What's up with that, it should be atlease top 30.

[diskoboy]

I'm probably about to catch major hell for this....

But as an American gamer, am I the only person who could give two shits less about what Japan thinks?

I mean honestly, why should I care? Japan is obsessed with RPG's and personally, I laughed my ass off at 96% of the list. Aside from the Zelda and Phantasy Star (another one that shopuld be on the list but isn't..) franchises, I cannot play RPG's. They're extrordinarily boring, IMO. My games must have constant action and explosions a-plenty to keep me entertained. RPG's should stick to pen and paper or PC's where they belong.

I'm sorry, but Japan is totally overrated in my book. And Pac-Man, and Space Invaders not being on the list?? The 2 most influential games in the entire world? Those two games started a yen shortage for christs sake!! Yeah... That list is total shit.

EDIT: Now lets wait to see who'll start the racism debate again, because there are hardly any western developed titles on that list. Oops... Guess I just did! :roll:

[Sylentwulf]

I'm probably about to catch major hell for this....

But as an American gamer, am I the only person who could give two shits less about what Japan thinks?

I mean honestly, why should I care? Japan is obsessed with RPG's and personally, I laughed my ass off at 96% of the list. Aside from the Zelda and Phantasy Star (another one that shopuld be on the list but isn't..) franchises, I cannot play RPG's. They're extrordinarily boring, IMO. My games must have constant action and explosions a-plenty to keep me entertained. RPG's should stick to pen and paper or PC's where they belong.

I'm sorry, but Japan is totally overrated in my book. And Pac-Man, and Space Invaders not being on the list?? The 2 most influential games in the entire world? Those two games started a yen shortage for christs sake!! Yeah... That list is total shit.

EDIT: Now lets wait to see who'll start the racism debate again, because there are hardly any western developed titles on that list. Oops... Guess I just did! :roll:

Why you should care is because besides the xbox, 90% of all other games and hardware start off in japan

[Aussie2B]

Chances are if you asked the typical Joe Shmoe American what his favorite games are his list would be dominated by (if not entirely) Western-developed games. Different cultures have different tastes, and neither is more "right" or "wrong" than the other. Each country caters to the tastes of its people, and that's to be expected because it's good business.

You also really can't blame people for liking what they grew up with. Really, Japan certainly has a greater fondness for Pac-Man at this point than the west does, but even so, the typical Famitsu reader is probably young enough that they never experienced the huge Space Invaders and Pac-Man craze. When similar lists are made by a Western audience, just how many 2600 games do you see on the lists? Usually not many.

On the flip side, a lot of the gamers around here are NEVER going to understand the appeal of Japanese-developed games or RPGs because, frankly, they're too old. They grew up in the era prior to NES, when most games were developed in the US or the UK, so whether intentially or not, they still to this day are going to skew to games that are Western-developed and have that same feel. Similarly, those of us who are 5-10 years younger likely grew up with NES, where almost all the big hits were developed in Japan. People may want to believe that they're not so easily influenced, but I know that the reason I play Japanese games almost exclusively is because that's what I grew up with. So if I made a list of my top 100 games, I bet no more than 15 games would be Western-developed (and nearly all the ones that would make it would be from Rare, which obviously was heavily influenced by Nintendo).

As for the comment about RPGs sticking to "where they belong", that's incredibly moronic. Sorry, but it's true. Anyone who isn't completely ignorant about RPGs would realize that Japanese RPGs and pen & paper/PC RPGs are ENTIRELY different, enough so that they could be in different genres. I mean, I love Japanese RPGs, but I have zero interest in those Western RPGs. Wishing to eliminate an entire genre just because you don't like it is exceptionally rude, and goes against everything this community stands for.

[diskoboy]

As for the comment about RPGs sticking to "where they belong", that's incredibly moronic. Sorry, but it's true. Anyone who isn't completely ignorant about RPGs would realize that Japanese RPGs and pen & paper/PC RPGs are ENTIRELY different, enough so that they could be in different genres. I mean, I love Japanese RPGs, but I have zero interest in those Western RPGs. Wishing to eliminate an entire genre just because you don't like it is exceptionally rude, and goes against everything this community stands for.

You're right.... I grew up long before the NES days and I have a vast knowledge of videogames before a good percentage of you were even a tingle in your fathers' pants. Until Zelda came out, the east and west both made similar styled games. And i'm sorry, but console RPG's just don't do it for me. It doesn't matter if they were developed by Japan, America, Britian, Mexico, I don't care. Even western developed KOTOR and Jade Empire were more boring than whale shit, IMO.

And as for eliminating a whole genere, I never wished any such thing. I'd be quite pissed if my Level 46 Paladin on World of Warcraft just up and dissappeared. I just said RPG's and consoles just dont mix, in my book. Again.. Japanese, American, I don't care.. The only RPG's I enjoy are on PC's where the experience of playing is alot deeper than it is on the console. The only reason I don't like any Japanese RPG's is because they're pretty much all the same game. The art all looks the same. The stories are pretty much similar, and most of the time make absolutely no sense (sometimes because of a bad translation, sometimes they're just outright insane!)

I'm sorry if you were offended by my opinion, but I stand by it. Any Japanese person with a minute hint of video game history, no matter what year you were born, would realize how much emphasis Pac-Man alone had on this industry (Katamari anyone?) not to mention Space Invaders (Galaga and practically every other shooter that followed owes a debt of gratitude to SI). Oh.. and both were developed by Japan.

[Aussie2B]

I never said I was offended, and there's no need to get all high and mighty because you have more gray hairs than some of us here. As we're all aware, age has NOTHING to do with knowledge about games (or knowledge in any subject, for that matter). Most gamers, whether young or old, tend to only stick to modern games and know next to nothing about the history of video games as a whole, so obviously age doesn't instantly bestow knowledge. On the flip side of things, there are plenty of retro gamers who prefer to ONLY play and collect games from their childhood, so we got plenty of people around here who don't know much about gaming besides the 2600 or other pre-crash consoles. That's their prerogative, but they're not exactly capable of discussing the merits of games like Goemon, TwinBee, and Tengai Makyo due to their lack of knowledge in Japanese gaming as a whole, nor are they in any place to be insulting such games. There is little value in an opinion from a person that neither enjoys nor knows much about the object in which they're presenting their opinion on.

It really doesn't matter whether you're addressing Japanese RPGs or console RPGs as a whole; the fact of the matter is that you said RPGs should stick to PCs which is the same as saying console RPGs shouldn't exist. In turn, that eliminates an entire genre (with countless subgenres within it) because as I previously stated, console RPGs, in particular Japanese-developed ones, play NOTHING like those Western -developed PC RPGs.

By the way, maybe you see this differently, but I think a list of top 100 games should represent the best games ever created, not necessarily the most influential. The most influential games deserve their own separate list. Pac-Man and Space Invaders are both fun games, but countless shooters have surpassed Space Invaders when it comes down how entertaining it is to play and I would say the same for Pac-Man as well.

[badinsults]

Man, the list seems rather silly. The first Super Mario game is at #20? Come on now. The demographic used for this survey is obviously biased towards RPGs, as I tend to doubt that it could be that heavily populated with them with an unbiased survey.

[PDorr3]

Im suprised in a way that FFX took the #1 spot, I guess I expected either DQ8 or FF7 to be there.

[Cryomancer]

That's only votes from readers of that magazine though.

Ask ALL of Japan and I'm sure it'd be different, that's the problem will polls, it's never what EVERYONE thinks.

[AMG]

I'm shocked to see FFX take the top spot. But overall the list doesn't surprise me.

[delafro]

Actually, there's not a lot of surprises here, as Famitsu has a "Reader's Choice" Top 20 in every issue that's always RPG-heavy. Machi for the Saturn has almost always ranked in the top 10, that game must have some serious fans. Tactics Ogre for SFC is another consistently-ranked older title.

I was a little disheartened to see SFII and Super Mario all the way down in the twenties, you'd figure they ought to at least be in the top 10 of any "greatest games" list.

[Matt-El]

Actually, there's not a lot of surprises here, as Famitsu has a "Reader's Choice" Top 20 in every issue that's always RPG-heavy. Machi for the Saturn has almost always ranked in the top 10, that game must have some serious fans. Tactics Ogre for SFC is another consistently-ranked older title.

I was a little disheartened to see SFII and Super Mario all the way down in the twenties, you'd figure they ought to at least be in the top 10 of any "greatest games" list.


Yeah. I'm thinking that because of the high number of RPGs that a bunch of Otaku just ganged up on it when they saw the chance.

[EasternDynamo1]

I wonder if Grand Theft Auto suffered due to poor translations. It seems to happen from time to time with things coming from Japan to the US. I wonder if the opposite is also true.

[GarrettCRW]

That list, like the ones we suffer through, seems a bit skewed. FF over Dragon Quest? Sorry, don't believe it. Additionally, there are multiple versions of certain games (RE 4 comes to mind). I'd like to see what gamers from the Famicom generation would say-I'm sure it'd be very different from that one, and feature a larger number of games that dominate the US lists, as well (Hitler no Fukkatsu, the Metroid games, some of Capcom, Konami, and Namco's arcade classics, etc.).

[Snapple]

I actually like the list, even though I disagree with it.

It shows me, at least, that the Japanese have their own idea what are the most universally liked and overall best-made games ever.

Popular internet opinion has dictated to us English speakers which games are best, which games we should be recommending to each other, and maybe we subconsciously make each other believe certain games are better than others when that's not necessarily true.

The English-speaking internet has told us that FF6 is one of the best Final Fantasies and that FF8 is one of the worst. But Japan isn't influenced by what we think is or is not a must-have game.

So Japan ranks FFX over FF7, and America ranks FF7 over FFX. It's just different tastes. They probably think you all are stupid if you DON'T think FFX is the best FF like they do.

The unpredictability of the list makes it believable to me. If the games fell in order by what English gamers would consider a logical pecking order, I'd be a lot more suspicious. I expect to see a lot of surprises like Mario 3 falling way down the list.

[Nature Boy]

I mean honestly, why should I care?

Good question - but apparantly you do, in some fashion, or you wouldn't have bothered posting. I'd say you care 'cause you like a good laugh if I had to guess based on your statements :)

Top 100 lists are interesting, not political statements. This particular one tells me that Famitsu's readers are heavy RPG fanatics who don't seem to be into retro much of anything. Could mean they have young readers, could mean something else - who knows?

[Aussie2B]

I'd say they're actually more retro-inclined than the typical American gamer. Sure, most of their choices may be RPGs, but they seem to pay little attention to how old those RPGs are. There is a wide variety of age in the choices.

Of course, if you define "retro" as pre-NES/Famicom, then yeah, there's not much to be seen.

[Lozza]

Too many of the same/similar titles.

Where's GTAIII? :hmm: