[PPOTW] Which console generation was the best?

[Hells Malice]

6th was probably the one I enjoyed the most overall, but that probably has more to do with the free time I had then and not entirely so much with what came out.
7th has my favorites of all time though.

But really anything from 3rd onward I enjoyed plenty of, though I started gaming in the 4th gen.

 

[JulietStMoon]

The first one is correct.

That's what I thought.

So, pray tell, how does the existence of 9 CoD games (one per year) in any way lessen your enjoyment of other games in the 7th gen?

Don't get me wrong, the 7th gen had its issues, I'm not denying that. But saying 7th gen sucked because of the existence of CoD would be like saying that 7th gen was the worst because of the existence of Angry Birds. In other words, it's pants-on-your-head stupid.

 

[WiiCube_2013]

I grew up with cartridge consoles such as NES (3rd Gen), SMD (4th Gen) and pirated Famicoms (3rd Gen) too and I loved those times so yeah it was hard to pick but I chose the 3rd Gen.

The later gens (6+ and beyond) will take many years to ever be considered classics.

I still play SMD and NES to this day because it's that damn awesome!

 

[Mr_Pichu]

You know it was the fourth gen. The 16/32bit NeoGeo MVS and it's little brother the Sega Mega Drive were the best in this Pichus opinion. While certainly there were some excellent games on the SNES 16/24bit. Like today there was much rivalry amongst the different console camps.

 

[TemplarGR]

This question is difficult to answer in a forum, because most participants tend to vote for the gen that their favourite game or series belongs. For example they are Final Fantasy X fanbois so 6th must be the best, amirite?

I voted 5th although i don't like most of the games that got released on consoles back then. But in terms of innovation, new gameplay possibilities etc, you can't go wrong with 5th. With 5th you had everything, 6,7 and 8 are just evolutions of what came in existence during the 5th period of gaming.

Since i mentioned consoles, let me say that imho the golden era of gaming was between 1993-2003/4, ON THE PC. Hands down. And this period covers all of 5th and the early part of 6th console gen. It has gone downhill in gaming since then.

 

[VMM]

I admit nostalgia is a huge factor on my choice, but Gen 4 had a huge quantity of high quality titles:
Super Mario World, Sonic, TLoZ:aLttP, Donkey Kong Country, Megaman X, Earthworm Jim, Chrono Trigger, Kirby Super Star,
Zombies Ate my Neighboors, Battletoads in Battlemaniacs, Alladin, Super Ghouls n' Ghosts, Ultimate Mortal Kombat
III,
Super Metroid, Goof Troop, Streets of Rage, TMNT: Turtles in Time, Golden Axe, Super Bomberman etc

PS: Take a note that I don't posted sequels or prequels to not get the list repetitive.

 

[pwsincd]

im looking at 2nd 3rd and 4th with nostalgia glasses on , but really i think the 4th has to be it..

 

[BORTZ]

While this is a matter of opinion and possibly numbers, i really think that some of the best titles to come out ever, were between generation 4 and 5. 4 Because we had been making 2D games for 20 some years at this point, and the hardware of the SNES and Genesis really helped us go the extra mile with game creation.

Then Gen 5 really took everything we knew, threw it out the window and made us start over. So companies made some of the best titles we have ever seen. Long franchises were taken from epic to legendary in one generation thanks to 3D processing and disk based media. Final fantasy, Mario, Zelda, all ushered into a relm of 3D for the first time ever.

 

[zachtheninja]

SNES/Genesis. Those games look beautiful scaled to any resolution. (Beauty being relative to the observer, of course.)

 

[Taleweaver]

This question is difficult to answer in a forum, because most participants tend to vote for the gen that their favourite game or series belongs.

Don't forget age. I doubt the majority of this forum was born during the first, second or even third generation. And while the third is somewhat known because nintendo recycles so much, there's hardly any knowledge of those first two generations. And with standards just starting to get set (and arcade games being the absolute norm), I doubt many are going to vote for it. Playing a game of pong or pacman now just isn't the same as playing it back then. The importance doesn't show...

 

[The Catboy]

Gen 4 will always hold a place in my heart. I grew up on my SNES and still own my first SNES, which has gone through a house fire, been stolen once and returned, then same person who tried to steal it poured super glue in it, but it still works perfectly. Not to mention so many of my favorite games are on the SNES, from Yoshi's Island, Final Fantasy 3 (well to be correct it was 6,) Super Mario RPG, Mega Man X, ect ect. Plus it's basically the only generation I go out of my way to emulate or play portable.

 

[JulietStMoon]

been stolen once and returned, then same person who tried to steal it poured super glue in it

Was this a crazy ex?

 

[The Catboy]

Was this a crazy ex?

Kinda, more like a crazy ex friend.

 

[stinkoman]

Sixth is absolutely the best IMO. It's probably the last generation where legitimate competition existed between all the competitors, there was a huge amount of diversity in games, and the libraries on different consoles were vastly different. There were games on the DC, PS2, and GC that made a compelling argument for each of 'em, not like recent generations where it's the same shit on every platform. Fifth suffered from people not entirely understanding how to use 3D in games yet, 7th has basically been PC lite for a while. Fourth would probably be second on my list, with every other suffering from either a lack of compelling exclusives or just extreme datedness. Other than the NES, which has quite a few games that hold up pretty well. Plus you've got Pikmin, Ratchet and Clank, Chibi-Robo, Sanik, Super Mario Sunshine, Smash Bros Melee, Tak, Wind Waker, Crazy Taxi, and a shitload of other quality games.

 

[grossaffe]

I gotta go with 4th generation as that was the pinnacle of 2D gaming. There was a lot of creativity, challenge, and replayability in those games.

6th Gen would probably rank as #2 for me. The 5th generation, for the most part, introduced 3D gaming, but most developers had yet to figure out how to best handle 3D gaming. We saw a good deal of experimentation with some resounding successes, but a lot of flops, as well. 6th Generation built upon the beginnings of 3D gaming and developers learned how to really work in a 3D environment. There was still plenty of creativity, but it was better executed.

The 7th Generation, while adding better graphics, and improved engines/physics, seemed to have lost focus on gameplay. I feel like 7th gen was kind of like the beginnings of story-driven games (obviously not the first gen to do it, but it seemed to become more of a focus this gen). It also became a gen obsessed with shooters and and the "badass" anti-hero. A lot of Press 'A' to win games, too, because the developers wanted to show off cool animations with their new hardware. I'm hoping 8th gen can be to the 7th gen as the 6th gen was to the 5th or the 4th gen was to the 3rd. Take on some of the stuff that started to happen in 7th Gen and make it actually work. A story-driven game doesn't have to lack gameplay. A good game engine doesn't have to play itself just so all the animations can be super-slick.

 

[FireGrey]

I started at the 4th generation, I kind of missed out on the 5th gen even though we had a PS1 (Never touched it, only played the SNES) but I started to play a lot of N64 at my friends house during the 6th gen.
I unfortunately never got a gamecube, but I loved playing smash bros melee and OoT on it (didn't know that OoT was an N64 game back then) wherever I could.
During the 7th Gen I got a Wii and loved playing Mario Kart Wii on it, got a DS and R4 and got a PS3 sometime down the line, then got rid of it cause I never played it and I've recently got another PS3 to play GTA 5 (My friend was selling his PS3 for cheap so i thought why not).
And this gen it's mostly 3DS + PC and Wii U whenever my friend is over.

 

[Guild McCommunist]

I said 7th because I'm not "muh nostalgia".

 

[Flame]

wait............... we gonna put ouya in this poll.... i was gonna vote for 8th gen.