Gadgetory

the year is 1990 and over the course of this year in Japan we see the release of multiple home consoles and handhelds that officially complete the fourth generation of gaming systems including the lesser known turbo Express the Neo Geo from SNK The Game Gear and most importantly the Super Famicom from Nintendo which a year later would be redesigned slightly for the Western market as the Super Nintendo now when the Super Famicom came out in Japan it only had two launch titles but they were both amazing and both of them are on this year's list for best games the first of which is of course Super Mario World in many ways Super Mario World simplified and condensed the things that we saw in Mario Brothers 3 you could no longer stock up on multiple power-ups the number of power-ups went down only three and the overworld map only featured traditional levels no little minigames with toad at the same time though World featured an overworld map that actually connected multiple zones rather than just being a patchwork of different thematic lands it also featured an entire hidden bonus world for players that were especially crafty yet navigating levels and it added one of the series most iconic characters aside from Mario himself Yoshi coming in four different colors this cute little guy gave Mario whole new ways to explore levels including the ability to jump off of him to achieve greater heights than normal though sometimes this came at the expense of sacrificing yo K himself top all of this off with some of the best visuals and most memorable music of its time and it's easy to see why Super Mario World was the highest selling game on the SNES now like I said there were two games that came out for the Super Famicom at launch and the other one revolutionized and kick-started the racing game genre F 0 F 0 was the first popular racing game to move away from traditional cars and instead take things to the future with some of the fastest paced racing ever seen in gaming while the game might appear super simple if you've never played it before boiling down just going fast and getting to the finish line there's actually a lot more depth that each racer you could choose from had different stats including acceleration max speeds and toughness with running an obstacle slowly draining health possibly killing you with only being able to do little repairs at the start of every lap plus simply getting first at the end of the race wasn't enough every single lap you need to rank higher than you did the lap before making every moment of the race count and not just the last 10 seconds f-zero went on to have a number of sequels and even an animated series and the game's frantic futuristic racing inspired a whole new genre of racing games so with a Nintendo out of the way let's talk Sega around the same time the Super Famicom was being released and yet again we had another successful Mario game Sega was trying to find their own character that could push to have the same kind of mascot power as Mario and in 1990 they secured the rights and licenses to one of the most well known characters in the US and worldwide Mickey Mouse debuting on the Sega Genesis Castle illusion starring Mickey Mouse was a fantastic platformer and one of the better examples of a licensed game that didn't go horribly wrong the game had Mickey exploring and fighting through a number of levels using a combination of popular platforming mechanics of the time allowing Mickey to defeat enemies by jumping on them or using projectiles he had a limited stock of like apples and marbles the game owed its success to its fantastic level design great soundtrack but most importantly its visuals which were not only incredible for their time but even did a few things no other games had for instance giving Mickey idle animations turning him into a much more active and lifelike character than other platforming heroes of the time that would just stand around like statues shortly after it's released the game also got an 8-bit version ported to the Master System and Game Gear and a few sequels were released years later more recently the game also got a two point five platformer remake that was released in 2013 now fourth up on this list is the sequel to one of the best games of 1987 but sadly is another game that we didn't get in the US until about a decade and a half later and that's Metal Gear 2 Solid Snake while the u.s. got another watered-down game that was metal gear and name only with snakes revenge the msx2 in Japan got sequel to the original game that laid the foundation for the rest of the series Metal Gear 2 had a large number of upgrades over the original that would continue to be seen across the entire franchise after it made the leap into 3d including the ability to crouch and crawl underneath objects to hide or silence your footsteps or radar system that would show you where enemies are relative to your location and enemies that actually had peripheral vision and didn't simply see in a straight line making their ability to detect you way more dangerous than before you could also argue that this game's plot is what inspired the rest of the series with the iconic Metal Gear Solid on PlayStation retracing the same steps but with different names and implications for the rest of the franchise Metal Gear 2 stayed as an exclusive in Japan until it was part of Metal Gear Solid 3 subsistence and by extension the HD collection released in 2011 now for last on this year's list I saved my personal favorite one of the greatest point-and-click adventures ever made The Secret of Monkey Island back during a time when LucasArts still existed and did more than just license out Star Wars games left and right they also made a number of successful point-and-click adventure games Monkey Island being the first to come out in the 90s starring a witless yet surprisingly at times genius aspiring pirate by the name of guy brush 3-foot in his journey to become famous and defeat the undead pirate lechuck until was released most point in flicks were focused purely on the puzzles which served as a good challenge for fans that kind of thing but Secret of Monkey Island took things a step further by injecting the formula with storytelling and humor that made the entire experience extraordinarily entertaining despite its tone the games puzzles took some serious thought that put most point click games of today to shame while at the same time having some of the most hilarious dialogue and ridiculous situations giving players the motivation to push onward in the game not just to defeat its challenges but just to see what's stupid or strangely intelligent thing guy brush would do next multiple sequels have been released over the years including a set of games released by telltale before they went knee-deep into doing licensed storytelling games while the original got a special edition voiced remake released in 2009 which is an absolute must grab if you have yet to play it so those are the best games of 1990 there were a whole lot more classics that came out that same year so make sure to let me know down in the comments what your favorites are as always guys thank you so much for watching the video and I will see you later