Gadgetory

the year is 1989 and after a couple of years of Nintendo totally dominating the gaming market there's finally some new life being breathed into computer games arcades and Nintendo's biggest competitor at the time Sega as they released the Sega Genesis in the United States but Nintendo has their own response by releasing their first handheld console the Gameboy during this year we saw some incredible games on all of these platforms and here are the five best first off is Castlevania three now let's be honest for a second Castlevania to Simon's quest was terrible it was part of Konami's attempt to try and take the original game and make something that was going to last a lot longer and the way they did that was by giving you a lot of unclear directions about what exactly you're supposed to do and force you to grind out killing enemies non-stop in a very nonlinear and honestly not very fun game and thankfully Konami realized that a mistake and fixed that by going back to their roots with Castlevania 3 and found a better way to increase the game's playtime replayability now while at first this game might look like a carbon copy of the original game but with new levels there's two very important additions they made to Castlevania 3 first off branching levels in between certain levels you'll be able to choose where you go next which allows you to complete the game in different orders you can play the whole game and still have levels that you haven't played through giving you a reason to play it all over again and second off the game added sidekick characters depending on which roots you choose to take through the game you'll get one of three different sidekicks who offer new mechanics that handle differently from the main character Trevor Belmont giving you abilities like climbing walls using magic or even being able to turn into a bat for a limited period of time and fly around the screen it was one of the first games to really give you a reason to want to play it over and over again for a reason outside of the fact that it's just that fun which by the way this game is still really freaking fun but you're gonna want to play it over again to see how all the different paths play out second off let's take a look at some of the computer games that came out this year starting with Prince of Persia now Prince of Persia is a game where you have to rescue a princess within an hour literally the game times you for an hour to try and save her and one of the most engaging things about this game right away is just how visually stunning it was for its time most games back then had very simple character sprites where you just see their legs move left right left right and maybe they strike a pose when they jump in this one you have full interesting looking fluid body motions including how you run how you jump how it looks differently between a regular jump and a running jump and how you climb up the side of things creating a cinematic style that no other game of its time really had which was especially important in the game sword fights which created a visually striking form a combat that no other games had it was also important was that this game differentiated itself from most other platformers of the time most platformers are very fast-paced and simple games of just don't fall down pits or quickly get through the level in this though there are traps there are switches you have to be careful not to step on so you actually have to take your time figuring out where is safe to walk and where is not while still having to deal with the game's time limit which is forcing you to rush things giving players the need to have to restart over and over again as they learn the nuances of each games level and complete them as quickly as they can the combination of this game's new take on the platforming genre and its focus on cinematics was revolutionary for its time now during 1989 there was another revolutionary PC game that came out but for very different reasons and that Sim City now for a long time games were mostly focused on trying to recreate things that people found to be fun and regular life trying to recreate sports recreate fighting games things you would see in movies or just puzzles or breathing new life into old school games of originally pen and paper what Sim City chose to do instead was create a game that was focused on resource management timing and planning and watching a city that you build grow over time which ended up being way more entertaining than anyone would have thought before this game was released it won all kinds of awards for its time and started an entire new genre of games and I'm not even talking about simulation style games it started the sandbox in the first place all games up until that point had an objective they had a purpose get to the end of the level do this collect this many items whereas Sim City was just here's a bunch of tools do what you want see where it leads whether that's building the largest city you can or just building a small village and then having you get destroyed by a monster this games wild success led to a ton of direct sequels as well as a lot of interesting sounding spin-offs like Sim earth or even Sim ants and eventually led to another huge sandbox game that is of course the sims forth upon the list let's take a look at one of the best arcade games to come out at this time final fight now final fight is an interesting story because it was originally planned to be a fighting game and in fact was meant to be the original Street Fighter 2 but after the wild success that beat him ups like Double Dragon were having Capcom saw that wanted to make their own money and turned it into a side-scrolling beat-em-up and ended up becoming one of the best final fight was a huge visual upgrade from other side-scrolling beat'em ups of the time and was a huge technical upgrade as well having a much more interesting combat system and playable characters that actually had important differences other than simply how they looked it also doesn't hurt that this game had a fantastic soundtrack great sound effects to accent it and some of the most memorable character designs for both the player characters and the bosses it did so well that the original game got ported and redesigned a few times on different consoles and got two direct sequels as well as an eventual revival on the ps2 that well wasn't very good and while we haven't gotten a new final fight in quite some time the characters still live on by making appearances in various Capcom crossover fighters or even in their main Street Fighter series now last upon the list is one of the most well known games ever made with one of the most well known main themes ever made and that's Tetris now some of you might be thinking hold on Tetris has been around a whole lot longer than 1989 which is true it was available on home computers and even on home consoles like the NES but the version of Tetris that really spread like wildfire and is the most well known version is the gameboy version and really Tetris is the game that made the Gameboy sell as well as it did this is the puzzle game that everyone knew everyone fell in love with and inspired the entire genre of competitive puzzle games not to mention as a case study this game really proves how mobile gaming really benefits from games that are easy to pick up play and put down at any moment you want rather than something involves sweeping large levels now for those of you that are a little salty that Tetris is on this list when it didn't really originally come out in 1989 well good news for you there's a bonus game the fact is Sega hasn't been getting a lot of love on these lists mainly because Nintendo was kicking their butt really hard the past couple years but there's one title that came out this year for the Genesis that's close to my heart and I just can't leave off the list and that's golden axe that golden axe was another side-scrolling beat-em-up that came out this year but whereas most of those games were focused on street brawls or something in an urban setting this game took it full-blown swords and sorcery giving you heroes that were wielding swords and axes and using powerful magic to blow their enemies up sure final fight had more technical fighting and was a better looking game but golden axe let you ride a freaking fire-breathing lizard to attack your enemies with what this game lacked in Polish it more than made up with style and really we have it to thank for the existence of future fantasy style side-scrolling beat'em ups that started incorporating RPG elements as time went on this may not have been the iconic Sega Genesis game which we wouldn't get for a couple more years and 91 when Sonic the Hedgehog comes out but it was the first really huge title that made the system feel like a must-buy so those are the best games of 1989 as always there were a whole lot more incredible games that came out that just didn't make the list so if you've got a favorite that I didn't talk about make sure to let me know down in the comments below as always if you enjoyed the video hit the thumbs up button to let me know as well as subscribe and I will see you guys later