This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/roms by /u/Macjeems on 2025-06-26 18:40:37+00:00.
I did this as a favor to a coworker who I am helping set up an Emulation machine, and it turned out to be a fun little project, so I ended up putting a lot more effort into it than it probably called for. I’m wondering if there are any major edits I should make, or if I totally whiffed on any lists, before I finalize it and send it off.
For starters, this is not really a “10 best reviewed games” list, I wanted to incorporate popularity, cultural significance, originality, exclusivity, and diversity. To attain a good spread of styles and genres, I gave myself a couple restraints:
- I included only one entry per series per any given system. For example, Majora’s Mask doesn’t appear in the N64 list because I felt Ocarina of Time was (a tiny bit) more essential. Or how only one mainline Mario game appears on the NES list despite all 3 being great.
- I tried my best to only include one version of any given game throughout all the lists, which ended up being tricky because it meant largely avoiding ports, remasters, and multi-system releases (unless I didn’t have the original). Meaning, although Chrono Trigger remastered is arguably one of the best NDS games, it doesn’t make the list because it already sits on the SNES list. Games like RE4 sit on multiple top-10 lists for many systems, but only appears on one list here.
- In cases where there are many versions of a game, I usually prioritized the original if it was considered essential to the system. In some cases, I prioritized whichever version was a superior gameplay experience; for instance, Wind Waker HD is on the Wii U list, while the original is missing from the GC list. This was primarily an issue when dealing with Arcade lists, since those were almost always significantly superior than the home ports, even though many of those ports are hugely important to their respective consoles, but I think I struck a decent balance.
And that’s about it! I could use some feedback, especially on the Arcade lists. I really had no idea how to organize it, and there just are so many important games and systems I ended up breaking it down by company. Also, sports games are really underrepresented, so if there’s any I absolutely should include, let me know!