Delays have become more common lately and several games have not been improved by it. Does delaying games work out better for Nintendo?
2023 broke video game industry records, both in the quantity and quality of acclaimed, financially successful games. NPR staff and contributors bring you their favorites.
Tears of the Kingdom's latest numbers show it and Breath of the Wild are gaining on the rest of the Zelda series' sales.
No surprise. People always wildly overestimate how well games sold before about 2010. People also have a habit of lumping all Nintendo first party games together and assuming that because 3D Mario, Smash, and Mario Kart games sell like crazy, Metroid and Donkey Kong must also sell like that. It's only really with the last few games that Zelda has jumped up into that higher Nintendo sales echelon.
remember those PS2 days where games were lucky to hit 1-2 million. Like that was the benchmark for most good games. Sure there were obviously exceptions, but by and large 99% of games probably sold like 3 mil or less. RPGs especially were often lucky to hit 500-750k which is why a lot of those PS2 RPGs are so valuable today.... Gaming really has ballooned now that it consists of kids from the 80s up through present time.
The well-known magazine EDGE just turned 30 years old, and to celebrate, this month’s issue contains a ranking of the top 100 greatest games released over the past 30 years.
How predicable
There are dozens of games on that list which are way better than BotW and sometimes I feel like these “Top X list” makers know that deep down.
I tend to agree I played through it for the first time about 6 months ago and I really liked it but I wouldn't say it's the best game in 30 years I felt it had a lot of flaws and moments where I was bored Top 100 sure but honestly not top 10
EDGE must've put its Top 100 together before the 6th September as Starfield is not on the list.
It's just opinions though Fox, whilst BotW didn't resonate with you (and many others), it did with millions of others.
Out of curiosity, do you have a personal top game? I really struggle with this question personally, I bounce between Last of Us, Bioshock and Bloodborne as my faves, but BotW is certainly up in my personal top 5.
This is fair. It's completely subjective and ultimately someone's opinion, maybe a consensus of opinion with their staff, but still opinion. I don't agree it's the greatest, but I would struggle to say what is. At the moment I am playing the Personas and I absolutely love them. Persona 4 especially...maybe if asked at this very moment I would say Persona 4. Lol. Another time, Suikoden. Another Street Fighter. Ugh. Too difficult to choose for me.
I'm pretty happy that Ocarina of Time and BoTW were somewhere on the list, and both were highly rated.
The issue is it’s more flawed then people will admit but other games will be nitpicked to death by journalists. We’ve all seen it, they will say one game has X, Y and Z issue but Zelda it’s like “ahhh it’s not that bad, long as it’s fun”. They didn’t even criticise the weapon breakage system until like a month or so later when articles started to come out over it. That right there is pretty suss, whatever you think of the game.
Personal favourite? Of all time? No. I just can’t
However. Zelda wise? What deserves to be above BotW. Easy.
A Link to the Past, Ocarina of Time, Wind Waker, so on.
I think these lists are compiled by groups of people, so while a group of (for example) 10 folks might all, individually, have another game in the top spot on their personal list, so one will have Chrono Trigger as their no 1, someone else will have God of War, or whatever, but if BotW is in almost everyone’s top 5-10, then obviously it’s gonna add up and in the end, BotW is the overall winner …
I think many/most of us agree BotW is a great game, but I also think many of us will have a specific game or specific games that we personally just rate a little bit higher.
In the ends, lists like these are just celebrations of gaming’s high points, and of course a starting point for many discussions about which games deserve to be there, and which games should have been there in that list.
have you ever considered that a game like Zelda has way more mass appeal than a souls game for example? Before clicking on this article, I knew which game would most likely be nr1 and that so many people would complain about it. Because of that also way more non-gamers get to play the game, I'll use my uncle as an example. The man's almost 80, only owns nintendo consoles (even the old game and watch ones) and basically only plays Zelda. If I'd ask him to give botw a rating I'm pretty sure he would give it a 9.5 or 10/10. Is that review now less legit because he didn't play twisted metal, mgs, moh, ff 6-9? No it's not, reviews are an opinion piece anyway and it's all a matter of perspective. That's why no value at all should be held to a sum of review scores and why it's honestly pathetic that you and others cry over this.
Find a youtuber or reviewer that has the same taste as you and let them inform you if you are unsure if a game is for you. People are more attached to what number the media gives a game than getting enjoyment out of a game and it's just dumb.
@ -Foxtrot
Show us your top 100 so buddy, as that's obviously the only one that counts.
Tetris better than God of War.. hhhhh
I feel like they just put whatever to make it sound they know about all genres..
Shenmue 1, A Link to the Past, Gran Turismo 3, Jak and Daxter, GOW 2, WipEout 3, Code Veronica, Soulcalibur for me MUST be in there..
Tetris is - unironically - better than any God of War.
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It’s just their opinion, not an objective assessment of quality. You’re free to make your own top 100 list whenever.
botw is not even best zelda game on nintendo switch (and definitely not best zelda)
It is a solid list, many of them I agree with, but I'd very much replace something like Morrowind with Baldur's Gate 3, and put Divinity Original Sin II up there as well.
This is a personal opinion, but in my mind Grand Theft Auto III and V do not need to be there either, nor Outer Wilds, The Witness, Doom, Fortnite, Tomb Raider, The Sims, Fallout 3, Street Fighter IV or Minecraft.
I'd replace them and select the top games out of the likes of Xcom 2 (new), Heroes of Might and Magic 3, Fallout 2, Grim Fandango, The Secret of Monkey Island II, Myst, Nier Automata, Xenogears, Final Fantasy Tactics, Chrono Cross, Vagrant Story, Suikoden I-III, Shadow Hearts I-III, Final Fantasy XII, Dragon Quest V, VIII and XI, and Mother 3.
From what I've heard...outer wilds likely needs to be on that list.
Not to be confused with outer worlds.
That's the beauty of these kinds of lists though, I find the Edge list interesting and your choices too. There are so many great games out there.
I would put lots of games in my list that many have probably never played, but I adored on my Amiga back in the 90s. A list without Cannon Fodder, Populous 2, Syndicate and especially Sensible World of Soccer seems sacrilegious to me 😄
Anyway dood, you have great taste in games, some great picks you suggested.
Love those games! Populous 2, Cannon Fodder, Syndicate and Sensible Soccer. Had some great time with those games in the 90s. Also loved games such as Pool of Radiance, Ultima IV and V, Death Knights of Krynn, Awesome and Paradroid etc. There were so many cool C64 classics such as Way of the Exploding Fist and Last Ninja II, and Dragon Skulle.
Well GTA III pioneered the entire modern open world genre and catapulted a multibillion dollar franchise that everyone knows. Street Fighter IV literally saved the fighting genre and was a huge game in an already established household name. Not having them in the top 100 ignores that and actually doesn't make sense. It seems like you just like a lot of RPGs and fantasy games.
I feel like this list was compiled by one person instead of multiple staff members at Edge Magazine, mainly for some of the more odd games that I would not expect to be common on most of these kinds of lists.
Not so much top 25 for me, but the spread of the top 100 has a few of those surprises.
it depends, if you have a strong leadership, vision and focus for the project or game, delays can help alot because the person in charge knows what it needs to realize the task, but if you don't have that, delays could completely destroy your game, take for example Cyberpunk terrible management and end result, it wouldn't matter if they delayed the game even more cause the issue here is not time is the horrid management.
"but a rushed game is forever bad"
~ not in these days of day1 patches, subsequent hotfixes and continued updates.
And the over-reliance on these conveniences has given rise to sub-par deliveries.
“A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad.” To bad they didn't listen with Cyberpunk now look at it. Honestly I like a game that is pushed back work out all the kinks maybe add new things to the game. I don't liked rushed games pushed out the door call it done for the holiday sales. I also don't like remakes that have half the content cut and sold at full price like RE3 remake. I will gladly wait for a game that is not rushed and had the extra time worked on it it shows they actually cared for the game when making it. I can understand minor bugs and a few updates to correct the bugs but unlike Cyberpunk you patch as you go I hate.
Looks @ E.T. & BF4