I'm mostly doing this to contribute to activity in the Game thought forum; it's been on the rise for a little while. =)
A few things to note about the list: I'm posting games that were (from my perspective, it'll be different for other people, obviously) like a very eventful moment that changes everything: a benchmark, a monument, a turning point, however you want to designate it. So, not "I'm looking forward to this next installment of Mario Kart" type thing. Also, sleeper hits like Goldeneye 007 won't be on the list - monumental game but had an unremarkable release. These are games that I was hyped about over a lengthy period, and their releases are like entering a new era of gaming. The last thing is I'm going to ignore games from other companies that had similar impacts unless they were granted licenses by Nintendo or are licenses owned by Nintendo in some way (i.e. Super Mario RPG, DKC, Kirby, would all be valid; GE007 and Ken Griffy Baseball would be valid too even though they aren't Nintendo licenses, they were acquired by Nintendo and passed onto the other companies); so no Final Fantasy.
1. Super Mario Bros. This isn't very surprising as it's the introduction to gaming fandom for tens of millions of people, especially those around my age. For kids in the mid-80s, this game already had a massive reputation before it became widely available in Toronto. Every kid knew about it. And given my age, it was this game that kicked off the whole video game craze. This game
2. Super Mario Bros 3 - for years after its release, this would remain the most hyped game in the history of video games. This game had the Wizard to market it... a film no one outside my age group cared about much, but it was everything to us cuspers/MTV generationers. What was great about this one is that the game truly lived up to its hype. It was bigger, badder, and better. Despite the NES glitches and slowdown, it remains a fun game to play to this day (which I can't even say about the original Zelda game, though I still find Zelda 2 fun to play).
3. Donkey Kong Country - This game was hyped by Nintendo sending out VHS tapes to what seemed like every kid in North America. It was pumped up heavily in magazines like Nintendo power, and it was kind of mindblowing. The next-generation hardware was putting out 3D games, but they looked slow and sluggish. This game had colour and detail beyond what was supposed to be possible on a 16-bit console. This had two results, 1. Nintendo finally won the 16-bit console war, and 2, the 16-bit era extended another 2-3 years.
4. Ocarina of Time - The obvious pick seems to be Super Mario 64, but I was already looking past that game at "Zelda 64" which I rather expected to be much more like Breath of the Wild than the Ocarina of Time we got. Ocarina of Time was also the first game to have a big theatrical trailer from Nintendo. This game surpassed Super Mario Bros 3 as the most monumental feeling release for a Nintendo game.
5. Wii Sports - This was mania. This game drove what remains to this day the fastest-selling video game console of all time. The N64 era marked Nintendo's biggest mistake of all time. The Gamecube, while much loved today, was, in reality, probably the most empty feeling era in Nintendo history. Wii Sports marked the end of that. It also marked the end of Nintendo's weak attempts to have their own quirky version of a Playstation. Wii Sports was not only monumental, but it was also the beginning of a new era for Nintendo. While far from the best game Nintendo has released, it remains Nintendo's most monumental. It was the beginning of the Rennaissance.
6. Super Mario Galaxy - Wii Sports wasn't alone; only a year later, Nintendo showed the first great 3D Mario game (of course, my opinion, most people would say Mario 64, but I didn't enjoy it all that much). Galaxy was exceptional in every way, it brought a feeling of adventure not in the series since Super Mario Bros 3, and that was accompanied by depth, isolation, and sadness (yes, sadness) to an extent never achieved by a Nintendo game before (maybe to a tiny extent on Star Road in SMW). The little pockets of wonder were wonderful. Super Mario Odyssey, the Switch's big follow-up, failed to match this release.
7. Xenoblade Chronicles - This game marked the return of top quality RPGs to Nintendo consoles. There was a whole movement called "Project Rainfall" to get these games over to North America when it seemed they were not coming. When Nintendo announced Xenoblade Chronicles, it felt like a victory - even though it was probably in their plans at some point, given the game was translated for Europe a year prior. While I liked Xenoblade Chronicles X even more, the original Xenoblade Chronicles was the monumental release. XCX would have felt more monumental on the Switch, IMO. Final Fantasy 12 was a game I always felt had a lot of potential, but fell short of it (I blamed the exit of Yasumi Matsuno).
8. Zelda: Breath of the Wild - the second Zelda game on this list. Nintendo dedicated an entire E3 to this one game in 2016 (well, that's not really true, they had a lot of 3DS games, but no other Wii U or Switch games). They demoed the game for about 6 hours across the three days and allowed E3 goers to play for an hour. The game holds a lot of similarities to Xenoblade Chronicles X, but FAR more intricately crafted. It learns from XCX, and about 100 of the staffers from that project worked on Breath of the Wild during the last three years of development. Like Super Mario Bros was the NES's killer app, Wii Sports was the Wii's killer app, Breath of the Wild became the Switch's killer app. Not only that, but it fulfilled what I was hoping for with Zelda 64. Anyway, at the Switch launch event, Nintendo outdid the Ocarina of Time trailer (and this is where the voice acting was revealed too). I think the thing that I liked best about this game is similar to a lot of other games that I tend to like a lot: it allows the players to accomplish things by doing them the wrong way - but Breath of the Wild did this much more effectively than other games in the past had done (Minecraft, Dwarf Fortress, Trine) giving Breath of the Wild a very distinct sort of feature.
Some honourable mentions include: Xenoblade Chronicles X, Super Mario World, Super Mario Kart DS.
A few things to note about the list: I'm posting games that were (from my perspective, it'll be different for other people, obviously) like a very eventful moment that changes everything: a benchmark, a monument, a turning point, however you want to designate it. So, not "I'm looking forward to this next installment of Mario Kart" type thing. Also, sleeper hits like Goldeneye 007 won't be on the list - monumental game but had an unremarkable release. These are games that I was hyped about over a lengthy period, and their releases are like entering a new era of gaming. The last thing is I'm going to ignore games from other companies that had similar impacts unless they were granted licenses by Nintendo or are licenses owned by Nintendo in some way (i.e. Super Mario RPG, DKC, Kirby, would all be valid; GE007 and Ken Griffy Baseball would be valid too even though they aren't Nintendo licenses, they were acquired by Nintendo and passed onto the other companies); so no Final Fantasy.
1. Super Mario Bros. This isn't very surprising as it's the introduction to gaming fandom for tens of millions of people, especially those around my age. For kids in the mid-80s, this game already had a massive reputation before it became widely available in Toronto. Every kid knew about it. And given my age, it was this game that kicked off the whole video game craze. This game
2. Super Mario Bros 3 - for years after its release, this would remain the most hyped game in the history of video games. This game had the Wizard to market it... a film no one outside my age group cared about much, but it was everything to us cuspers/MTV generationers. What was great about this one is that the game truly lived up to its hype. It was bigger, badder, and better. Despite the NES glitches and slowdown, it remains a fun game to play to this day (which I can't even say about the original Zelda game, though I still find Zelda 2 fun to play).
3. Donkey Kong Country - This game was hyped by Nintendo sending out VHS tapes to what seemed like every kid in North America. It was pumped up heavily in magazines like Nintendo power, and it was kind of mindblowing. The next-generation hardware was putting out 3D games, but they looked slow and sluggish. This game had colour and detail beyond what was supposed to be possible on a 16-bit console. This had two results, 1. Nintendo finally won the 16-bit console war, and 2, the 16-bit era extended another 2-3 years.
4. Ocarina of Time - The obvious pick seems to be Super Mario 64, but I was already looking past that game at "Zelda 64" which I rather expected to be much more like Breath of the Wild than the Ocarina of Time we got. Ocarina of Time was also the first game to have a big theatrical trailer from Nintendo. This game surpassed Super Mario Bros 3 as the most monumental feeling release for a Nintendo game.
5. Wii Sports - This was mania. This game drove what remains to this day the fastest-selling video game console of all time. The N64 era marked Nintendo's biggest mistake of all time. The Gamecube, while much loved today, was, in reality, probably the most empty feeling era in Nintendo history. Wii Sports marked the end of that. It also marked the end of Nintendo's weak attempts to have their own quirky version of a Playstation. Wii Sports was not only monumental, but it was also the beginning of a new era for Nintendo. While far from the best game Nintendo has released, it remains Nintendo's most monumental. It was the beginning of the Rennaissance.
6. Super Mario Galaxy - Wii Sports wasn't alone; only a year later, Nintendo showed the first great 3D Mario game (of course, my opinion, most people would say Mario 64, but I didn't enjoy it all that much). Galaxy was exceptional in every way, it brought a feeling of adventure not in the series since Super Mario Bros 3, and that was accompanied by depth, isolation, and sadness (yes, sadness) to an extent never achieved by a Nintendo game before (maybe to a tiny extent on Star Road in SMW). The little pockets of wonder were wonderful. Super Mario Odyssey, the Switch's big follow-up, failed to match this release.
7. Xenoblade Chronicles - This game marked the return of top quality RPGs to Nintendo consoles. There was a whole movement called "Project Rainfall" to get these games over to North America when it seemed they were not coming. When Nintendo announced Xenoblade Chronicles, it felt like a victory - even though it was probably in their plans at some point, given the game was translated for Europe a year prior. While I liked Xenoblade Chronicles X even more, the original Xenoblade Chronicles was the monumental release. XCX would have felt more monumental on the Switch, IMO. Final Fantasy 12 was a game I always felt had a lot of potential, but fell short of it (I blamed the exit of Yasumi Matsuno).
8. Zelda: Breath of the Wild - the second Zelda game on this list. Nintendo dedicated an entire E3 to this one game in 2016 (well, that's not really true, they had a lot of 3DS games, but no other Wii U or Switch games). They demoed the game for about 6 hours across the three days and allowed E3 goers to play for an hour. The game holds a lot of similarities to Xenoblade Chronicles X, but FAR more intricately crafted. It learns from XCX, and about 100 of the staffers from that project worked on Breath of the Wild during the last three years of development. Like Super Mario Bros was the NES's killer app, Wii Sports was the Wii's killer app, Breath of the Wild became the Switch's killer app. Not only that, but it fulfilled what I was hoping for with Zelda 64. Anyway, at the Switch launch event, Nintendo outdid the Ocarina of Time trailer (and this is where the voice acting was revealed too). I think the thing that I liked best about this game is similar to a lot of other games that I tend to like a lot: it allows the players to accomplish things by doing them the wrong way - but Breath of the Wild did this much more effectively than other games in the past had done (Minecraft, Dwarf Fortress, Trine) giving Breath of the Wild a very distinct sort of feature.
Some honourable mentions include: Xenoblade Chronicles X, Super Mario World, Super Mario Kart DS.
