Top 20 in post-Reagan Japan

King of Posters
#1

With the current emperor of Japan set to abdicate in few days and have Japan enter a new official era Famitsu polled readers to find out what the best games of the previous era (starting from 1989 to the present) were. 7,158 votes later and

    1. Chrono Trigger
    1. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
    1. NieR: Automata
    1. Final Fantasy VII
    1. Okami
    1. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
    1. Final Fantasy X
    1. Pokémon Red/Green/Blue/Yellow
    1. Dragon Quest V
    1. Xenogears
    1. Vainglory
    1. Suikoden II
    1. Mother 2 ( Earthbound )
    1. Splatoon 2
    1. Tactics Ogre
    1. Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G ( Monster Hunter Freedom Unite )
    1. Kingdom Hearts
    1. (tie) Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
    1. Final Fantasy XV
    1. Final Fantasy XI
    1. (tie) Pokémon Diamond & Pearl

While we don’t have the number of votes for the full list, it is mentioned that Chrono Trigger’ s #1 place happened thanks to the overwhelming support from fans in their 30s. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild placed #2 in overall votes, but was actually the top-voted title for readers in their 40s. Meanwhile, NieR: Automata mostly got its votes from readers in their teens and 20s, and was actually #1 most voted title for those age groups.

It’s also worth noting that Vainglory by Super Evil Megacorp snuck its way onto the list as the only Western-developed game, which is a bit of a head-scratcher looking at its company but let’s not forget that it’s mostly a list made to have fun with the Famitsu readers, so it shouldn’t be taken too seriously.

It’s kind of simultaneously odd yet as expected?

2 Likes
#2

I’m confused by the placement of every Final Fantasy game on this list except for VII

#3

and… splatoon??

#4

vainglory lmao

2 Likes
#5

what a boring list

but i guess famitsu is the mainstream mag

#6

Famitsu polls always have the most unsurprising outcomes.

FFX, Kingdom Hearts, FFXI, and Diamond/Pearl being in a top 20 best list bothers me, though.

2 Likes
#7

What are Splatoon 2 and Metal Gear Solid 3 doing on this list of RPGs?

2 Likes
#8

Genuinely surprised Okami gets that much support.

I guess there’s a reason it’s been ported to everything tho.

#9

confirmed: the switch is officially for old people

3 Likes
#10

i’ve been meaning to bring this up the past several times chrono trigger has been brought up around here, and now seems as good of a time as any to get this off my chest…

*adjusts mic*

…

*ahem*

…

:clap: LUCCA :clap: IS :clap: A :clap: BOY :clap:

#11

.

#12

xenogears and chrono should switch places

#13

the breeziest RPG and the most sluggish

#14

Seems like the opinion of Famitsu readers is that JRPGs are the best genre but they don’t make good ones anymore. Whereas in every other genre, the best exemplars came out just recently.

Interesting to compare to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CEDEC_Awards which has some overlap but seems more thoughtful overall. The least cliched picks there are in the “sound” category: including Korg DS-10, Idolmaster, and Rhythm Tengoku Gold.

1 Like
#15

Final Fantasy did a lot better then Dragon Quest on this list. It got me a little curious as to how popular they were comparatively so I looked up sales numbers.


Seems most of the Dragon Quest games sold around 3 million, and then 3 million again when remade, which could have easily been a lot of the same people.

Final Fantasy VII and X crushed Dragon Quest, with 10 and 8 million sales originally.

It’s a reminder that even popular titles barely touch the 7.7 Billion people on the planet. Makes me wonder how popular/niche other mediums are. It’s a lot harder to get an estimate of how many people have read a book or seen a movie.

#16

Even today, Pokemon Go still has 150 million monthly active players. Mobile phone games are in a totally different league of playerbase compared to console/PC games.

1 Like
#17

Pretty dismal list, but you have to wonder what an anglosphere version would look like

1 Like
#18

Pretty impressive that Nier 2 did that well

Okami is a better Zelda game than everything between OoT and BoTW. I’m not surprised at its placement.

1 Like
#19

So is Shadow of the Colossus but that’s not in there for some reason.

A lot of other Japanese-made games critically acclaimed outside the country ( Katamari Damacy, Persona, Souls games) are nowhere to be found either; although I don’t know how much of that is Famitsu respondents being unrepresentative of the Japanese playerbase.

#20

Pls tell me this survey was conducted via mail in form.