Much like any other type of media, the games you grow up with undoubtedly shape your taste in games as an adult, and the mid to late 1990s was a prime time for video games, when the industry was growing like never before. Great games were releasing everywhere, and audiences were flocking to them.
Born in August 1999, while I was technically alive for four months in the 90s, I wasn’t exactly out in the world experiencing the culture of the age. As such, I consider myself a 2000s kid, meaning I missed out on this era filled with future classics. While I can go back and play them now, I can’t experience them with fresh eyes, unbiased by the attitudes of the modern age.
Still, that’s not going to stop me from butting into the discussion on what the best games of the era are. Partly because I think it’s important to get fresh perspectives on old media every now and then, and partly because, as a young person, it’s my superpower to make you – yes, you specifically – feel old.
So with that said, here’s my pick of the best games that came out before I was born.
Metal Gear Solid (1998)
See? I’m doing it already.
Stealth action is a genre that arguably peaked in the 2010s. Games like Dishonored, Hitman, and the Batman Arkham series felt like the culmination of the greatness that Metal Gear Solid set in motion in 1998. Not only is it near-flawless from a mechanical perspective, but its writing is far better than it has any right to be. Solid Snake is a larger-than-life character who has remained a gaming icon for over 20 years despite only truly being the star of one game.
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (1991)
Being born so far after games like this come out also means I often experience them in different ways from those who were there when they were released. I first played this Zelda game in about 2005 because it came with the Game Boy Advance I got for Christmas the previous year.
To put it simply, I was very bad at it. I didn’t understand the formula of a Zelda game or the puzzles inherent in the series’ dungeons, so I just stumbled around, occasionally tripping into story scenes and boss fights. I only got about halfway through the game before revisiting it in my late teens – and yet, I still have very fond memories of that experience. The visuals and audio design stuck in my mind all this time and I wanted to know more about this world, even if I didn’t really understand how to do it.
Wario Blast: Featuring Bomberman (1994)
To dive into slightly niche territory, this is a game that I got at the age of 4 when my mum gave me her Game Boy. She gave me a bunch of different games with it: Metroid 2, Tetris, and Super Mario Land, just to name a few. Yet, for whatever reason, this was the game I simply couldn’t stop playing.
I’ve played plenty of other Bomberman games in the years since and they’re all…fine, but this game is a cut above for reasons I can’t quite put my finger on. Maybe it’s how I find it hilarious that Bomberman got second billing in his own game because Nintendo was scared audiences wouldn’t know him. Either way, it started a lifelong obsession with Wario as a character, so I guess it was the right decision.
Half-Life (1998)
While my first consoles were Nintendo handhelds and I love the Switch in the current generation, I’ll always be a PC gamer at heart, so I was going to have to play Half-Life eventually.
It’s certainly a much slower-paced game than I’m used to – especially for a first-person shooter – but it leverages that slower pace to tell a gripping story, and that’s what I think makes this game special. The world of Black Mesa is simultaneously whacky and crushingly intimidating as lots of vaguely defined and ethically questionable scientific research gives way to the horrors of another dimension. It’s no wonder that every Valve game that came after this attempted to match this game’s tone.
Final Fantasy VII (1997)
It took me a long time to get into JRPGs. Aside from Pokémon, I was often off-put by the genre until I finally found one that clicked with me in my late teens, Octopath Traveler. As that was a retro-style JRPG, it made sense to go back and play some retro JRPGs, and Final Fantasy 7 was the obvious first choice.
There are plenty of classics that I think are a bit overhyped, but Final Fantasy 7 deserves all the fawning it gets from those who played it at the time. The battle system allows for both intense action and careful tactics while the story takes you on an unforgettable journey with some of gaming’s most well-written characters.
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater (1999)
The Tony Hawk games were great at leaning into the loose joyriding aspect of skateboarding. I’ve never done it much in real life, but the fantasy of cruising around town on a board is strong, even if you don’t want to admit it. While I think some of the later games were a big improvement on this original, I still can’t deny that tricking around this game’s maps is totally radical – to use the lingo of the time.
Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 (1994)
Back onto my mum’s old Game Boy, here’s another Wario game that made me love the character. As a proper 2D platformer, Wario Land was one of the first games that allowed me to see my own growth as a gamer over time. I struggled with this game a lot when I first played it, but I slowly started to learn and understand the language of games through playing it, which in turn led me to get better, beat bosses, find secrets, and so on.
It’s a very fun platformer, but more than that it was one of the first times in my life that I remember truly “getting” video games and wanting to dive deeper into how it all comes together.
Pokémon Gold & Silver (1999)
Despite Pokémon being one of my favorite franchises and owning both a Game Boy and GBA as a kid, my first ever Pokémon game was Platinum on the DS, so I had to go back and catch up with the old games once I discovered my love for the series.
Out of the main series games released in the 90s, Gold & Silver stand head and shoulders above the originals. Red & Blue is a very enjoyable streamlined experience, but Gold & Silver expands the games into something truly special. With even more Pokémon to find and a more complex region to explore, I found Gold & Silver to be a much more challenging experience and a fulfilling game. Plus, that’s not even mentioning one of the most expansive post-games in the series’ history.
Super Mario 64 (1996)
After playing Mario Odyssey and realizing that it was one of the best games I’ve ever played, it made me curious if it truly had always been that way. To no one’s surprise, I discovered that yes, 3D Mario games have always been this good.
Despite it being one of the first landmark 3D platformers ever made, I didn’t find much frustration at the lack of modern design. Yes, Mario’s moveset is less flexible and offers fewer possibilities than the modern games, but once I’d gone through a short adjustment period, I was navigating it like it was second nature.
Several of the games I’ve praised so far feel outdated by modern standards, but Mario 64 just doesn’t, and it makes me grateful that Nintendo usually keeps these big 3D Mario titles to once a generation because it makes them all feel magical.
Sonic 3 & Knuckles (1994)
Mario may be great, but I was always a Sonic kid.
Despite growing up through Sonic’s worst era as a series, I managed to avoid the horrors of Sonic 06 and Shadow the Hedgehog, instead staying in the golden land of handheld. There the Sonic Advance and Sonic Rush games shielded me from the awful 3D games, even if it did give me an unhealthy amount of nostalgia for Sonic Chronicles.
All of that to say I much prefer the classic 2D Sonic games to anything released in the last twenty years. Sonic 3 & Knuckles was the pinnacle of that, no question. The levels were nice and complex but still allowed for long stretches of satisfying momentum-based platforming with three classic characters and an unrivaled soundtrack.
Written by Ryan Woodrow on behalf of GLHF.
