“Pound-for-Pound” is a popular phrase in combat sports that is used when two or more fighters
of different weight classes are compared. Framing comparison in a pound-for-pound manner
allows analysts to overlook weight class differences and just focus on skills, techniques, and
speed.
Video games find themselves in a similar situation. Games like Doom and Angry Birds are
clearly groundbreaking, but given the differences in technology, genre, economics, and other
elements, it is difficult to directly compare one to another. However, when comparing games
with a “pound-for-pound” mindset, a unique list of video games and their importance is able to
be crafted.
1. Super Mario World (SNES)
Super Mario World is the sixth game in the Mario Bros. franchise, but it is arguably one
of the most important entries in the series. In addition to introducing fan-favorite
character Yoshi as well as being the inspiration for the cartoon series of the same name,
Super Mario World remains one of the best-selling games of all time, with over 20
million copies sold. Additionally, as the first Mario game to be developed for the Super
Nintendo Entertainment System, it showed that this franchise could adapt to evolving
gaming technologies.
Super Mario World also benefits from a replayability that has kept fans engaged since it
was released in 1990. Not only do fans just love playing the game as it was originally
intended, but Super Mario World has a strong presence in speedrunning communities and
continues to influence modders.
As it is, few games will ever come close to the pound-for-pound impact Super Mario
World has had on gaming.
2. Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
With 1993’s The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening being a commercial and critical
success, the team behind the Zelda franchise had a massive challenge in front of them as
they would have to top this entry. Five years later, Ocarina of Time – the fifth game in
the franchise – would be released and would be met with near universal praise. As a
matter of fact, as of 2019, Ocarina of Time was the only game to have a score of 99 on
MetaCritic.
Ocarina of Time was the first Zelda game to utilize 3D graphics while continuing the
franchise’s traditions of merging adventure with puzzle solving, learning gameplay with
worldbuilding, and in-game accomplishments with narrative and character growth.
The game was also groundbreaking in how it addressed problems new to 3D games. Navi
was not just another character to be turned into merchandise and that helped out Link,
this fairy helped players understand what to look for and where to go in the game’s 3D
enjoyment. Ocarina of Time also got help from Mario 64’s development team and
normalized new camera angles so that players could better understand a level’s space
from a third-person perspective.
3. Tetris
The beauty, efficiency, and longevity of Tetris stems from its simplicity. Falling blocks
of various shapes that players have to arrange to create straight horizontal lines is a
simple concept that Tetris excellently executed. As a result, this game that was created by
Alexey Pajitnov in 1984 on a Electronika 60 computer has officially and unofficially
been on almost every new gaming platform in the following decades.
Birthed in Soviet Russia, Tetris also marked a unique period of gaming in which
businesses outside of Russia had to negotiate with someone in Russia for rights to a
game; at a time when intellectual property really wasn’t a thing in Russia. In addition to
its unique place in the history of international commerce, Tetris is one of the few games
that is documented to invade the dreams of its players. As has been documented in
several academic articles, the Tetris effect / syndrome is a phenomenon in which Tetris
repeats in the thoughts of players long after they have stopped playing.
Tetris remains a monument to brilliance in simplicity.
4. Final Fantasy VI (Final Fantasy III in the US)
It is difficult to imagine a time in which Final Fantasy wasn’t part of the pop culture
landscape. Since 1987 sixteen FF games have been released with Final Fantasy XVI
currently in development, as well as dozens of remakes and spin-offs. (And this does not
include the various films, shows, and printed materials that Final Fantasy has been
adapted to.)
Of this pedigree, Final Fantasy VI rises above other franchise entries to such an extent
that it is not only considered the best Final Fantasy game but many consider it to be one
of the greatest games ever made.
Initially released in North America under the title of Final Fantasy III, the sixth entry in
the Final Fantasy pushed the SNES to its absolute limits when it came out in 1994.
(When Square Enix began working on the seventh game, they realized that they would
have to focus on non-cartridge systems because standard cartridge technology would no
longer be able to contain the developer’s ambitions for pushing future Final Fantasy
games to the limit.) Still, FF 6 was not only a masterpiece of software, it also
successfully built characters, plots, and various choices into a one-of-a-kind player
experience. Additionally, FF 6 was one of the few games at the time that dealt with
issues of dictatorships, chemical weapons, personal redemption in the face of apocalyptic
violence and teenage pregnancy.
Even though its elements of the game seem constrained by the technology of the mid-
1990s, much of Final Fantasy VI remains ahead of its time.
5. Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!
The Punch-Out!! franchise started life as an arcade game released in 1984, and was so
popular that Nintendo almost immediately began the work of adapting it for the NES
home console. During this process, changes would be made to Punch-Out!! that would
turn the 1987 version into one of the most popular games of all time.
As the dev team realized that they would have to overhaul the game because the NES was
nowhere near an arcade’s processing power, the then President of Nintendo of America
Minoru Arakawa became a huge fan of Mike Tyson. This meant that as the game
changed the player’s avatar from a wire-frame being to a short and skinny character
named Little Mac, Nintendo made a deal with Tyson to use his name for the game and
make him the final boss.
Now titled Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!, the game was one of the first games to be attached
to a real-world athlete. Additionally, the NES version had a plot, unique background
music, cutscenes, more characters than the arcade version, and a save-progress system.
All of these changes were small on their own, but combined to create a game that was fun
and incredibly replayable.
In addition to setting a high bar for how games incorporate real athletes, it remains
relevant in many speedrunning communities.
6. Diablo 2
In a landscape dominated by Mario Bros., Pokemon, and similar child-friendly games,
Diablo was a franchise that stood out like an oncoming storm on a bright day. But while
1997’s Diablo proved to Blizzard that there was a market for games that scared people, it
was Diablo II that revolutionized the franchise.
Like many groundbreaking sequels, Diablo II didn’t just build on Diablo, it used the first
game as a launching pad because Diablo II was bigger and better in almost every way.
For instance, while Diablo only had sixteen similar levels. In contrast, Diablo II took
players to such different environments it felt as if they were exploring a world. Further,
players got to select from five characters instead of the previous game’s three. The game
is also remembered for its incredible soundtrack creating an immersive soundscape.
Diablo II not only benefited from having a team of 40 people (as opposed to Diablo’s 20
people), it also benefited from being part of Blizzard’s Battle.net service. This not only
turned Diablo II into a multiplayer experience, but it gave the game near-infinite
replayability. As a result, Diablo II remains such a joy to play that Blizzard still provides
support for this game over twenty years after it was released in 2000.
7. Halo
Few gaming franchises will ever be launched with the pressure that faced Halo: Combat
Evolved. The home console wars featured Playstation and Nintendo battling while Sega
had stopped making its own gaming system given that the Dreamcast sales were so
disappointing. Despite this, Microsoft greenlighted the development of a gaming system.
Of all the games Microsoft could have selected as Xbox’s launch game, it was surprising
to some that a Halo – a first person shooter – would be selected. As Kevin Bachus (who
was Xbox’s Director of Third Party Relations from 1999 to 2001) told Bloomberg,
“We’re not going to even ship Halo because as we all know, as an immutable law of
physics, first-person games don’t do well on console.”
And yet, Halo blew everyone away. The game not only introduced the world to Master
Chief (a character who quickly became a pop culture icon), it showed the world just how
powerful the Xbox was as a gaming system while its multiplayer feature created a new
standard for multiplayer experiences and modernized the first-person shooter for the 21 st
century.
Outside of standard game play, Halo inspired a variety of fan content – such as Red vs.
Blue – that allowed the game to benefit from early internet fan communities. And while
esports events were still fairly small, Halo events energized this field and helped it grow.
In short, Halo wasn’t it just a game, it was a sign of what gaming in the millennia would
become.
8. Street Fighter II
Initially released for arcades in 1991 before being converted to home consoles in 1992,
Street Fighter II was released just when the industry needed it the most. Arcades were
beginning to struggle and home console gaming needed more hits in order to solidify its
place. Street Fighter II was not only the financial success the industry needed, but it set a
foundation for games to come.
By improving on first Street Fighter’s special moves and adding combos as well as
improved gameplay, Street Fighter II invigorated head-to-head battles between players
that would become pivotal to the development of fighting game esports. Additionally, its
inclusion of Chun-Li added a layer of inclusion that has only helped the specific game
and franchise as a whole age well.
Outside of the gaming industry, Street Fighter II set Guinness records such for being the
first fighting game to use combos, being the most cloned fighting game, and being the
best-selling coin operated fighting game. To date, few games come close Street Fighter
II’s popularity. In other words, Street Fighter II not only impacted the industry, it left a
mark on the world outside of gaming.
(An in-depth overview of Street Fighter II’s impact and legacy can be read here.)
9. Wii Sports
Released in late 2006 as part of Nintendo Wii’s launch, Wii Sports was a collection of
five sports games; these being golf, boxing, baseball, bowling, and tennis. Similar to
Halo, Wii Sports was set to be the flagship game for a brand-new system. Unlike Halo,
Wii Sports also had the extra burden of proving to consumers that motion detection
software and hardware could be successfully incorporated into gaming. And it
tremendously succeeded.
Over 45 million copies of Wii Sports were sold, and it was featured on popular TV
programs such as Late Night with Conan O’Brien, The Colbert Report, the 80 th Academy
Awards, and many more. Additionally, Wii Sports found gaming consumers in
demographics the industry typically ignored. While gaming at the time focused on young
men, Wii Sports became a family friendly experience and was even used by senior
citizens to stay active. Research even showed that the game encouraged people to
exercise more.
Wii Sports is another example of a game transforming the industry by not only
developing a new interface, but by being bold enough to appeal to people the gaming
industry typically ignored.
10. Resident Evil
Given how popular the zombie genre is now, it is difficult to imagine a time when
zombie media wasn’t an ever-present part of pop culture. This was the case in the early
1990s, until Resident Evil came along.
As the first game to use the term “Survival Horror,” Resident Evil helped name and uplift
an entire genre of gaming. While it has traditional gaming elements of collecting items
and killing enemies to level up, the narrative and atmosphere of 1996’s Resident Evil
immersed players into a nightmare with zombies. It was so terrifying it was one of the
first action games to be given an M/17+ rating. It was also the first game to use tank
controls.
Like many of the greatest games, Resident Evil has a legacy outside of gaming.
According to the BBC, “Simon Pegg, the star and co-writer of Shaun Of The Dead, traces
the zombie revival back to the release of Resident Evil, a video game that terrified and
transfixed PlayStation users in 1996.” Alex Garland, the writer of 28 Days Later, credits
the first Resident Evil game with inspiring his zombie movie; telling the Huffington Post
“Sometimes 28 Days Later is credited with reviving the zombie genre in some respect,
but actually, I think it was Resident Evil that did it because I remember playing Resident
Evil, having not really encountered zombies for quite a while, and thinking: oh, my god, I
love zombies! I’d forgotten how much I love zombies. These are awesome!”
Beyond these influences, Resident Evil has inspired its own movie franchise, animated
films, upcoming televisions shows, novels, comic books, merchandise and nearly two
dozen video games.
Resident Evil might be about the undead, but it appears the franchise is unlikely
