1991 vs 1988

Ulti's Analysis
What a weird match. We all knew 1988 would be weak, but any year highlighted by any main line Zelda title getting 12% is hilarious. I'm looking at this 1988 list and all I'm seeing are Zelda 2, Castlevania 2, Mario 2, Metal Gear, and Ninja Gaiden. So it was the year of awkward sequels and awkward new IPs. I actually really like Zelda 2 and Mario 2, but I get why most people wouldn't.

When you look at 1991, it's good, but it's not "75% better than 1988" kind of good. Outside of Super Mario World, which is definitely a great game, there's a lot of mid-tier strength here. Final Fantasy 2, Sonic 1, F-Zero, Castlevania 4, Tecmo Super Bowl, Battletoads, Ninja Gaiden 3, The Simpsons, Metroid 2, and Street Fighter 2 are all games I've played and enjoyed, but pretty much all of them feel like mid to low mid tier contest strength. I get that depth matters and Zelda 2 is weak, but it sucks seeing it get blown out so hard. That game is criminally underrated and deserves better.

I don't have a ton of personal anecdotes here, because we probably all have the same story about a lot of these games. "Loved Simpsons in the arcades", "Loved Street Fighter 2 in the arcades", "How the fuck did they get on the moon in FF4, anyway?", and so forth. The one cool thing here though is my best friend had the world speed run record in Castlevania 4 for like an hour once. He spent months getting it just right, then someone comes along and busts him up immediately. He quit speed running after that.