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Japan's Top 100 Games
Next Generation has a piece with the Top 100 Games of All Time, as voted by the nation of Japan. From the article: "1. Final Fantasy X (2001) 2. Final Fantasy VII (1997) 3. Dragon Quest III (1988) 4. Dragon Quest VIII (2004) 5. Machi (1998) 6. Final Fantasy IV (1991) 7. Tactics Ogre (1995) 8. Final Fantasy III (1990) 9. Dragon Quest VII (2000) 10. Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998)"
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
* my favorite isn't on the list, so it can't be "right"!
* the list is biased toward older / newer / console / PC / handheld / RPG / arcade / puzzle games!
* the list doesn't mean anything, lists like this never do (of course they don't)
* oh man, I completely forgot that game, that was fun.
Lists like that are compiled regularly. It's hardly news, but hey, if it reminds you of a game you haven't played in years or lets you know of a gem you'd never have known about otherwise...
No Katamari listed in the top 100 Japanese games? Outrageous! We are most displeased!
Where was cousin Ace? Playing Animal Crossing (#43)?
We have no idea what you are talking about.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
The real winners here are Roman Numerals.
This list is yet another good example of east-west differences in gaming. If you look at the list, the biggest group are games that are heavily story-driven, but which don't give the player too much freedom. In fact, I found only one typical Western game on the list, Wizardry, which placed 66th. This doesn't mean that eastern gaming culture is bad; it's just different. However, with the proliferation of Japanese consoles in the US, resulting in larger numbers of Japanese games here, the eastern culture seems to take over the western one in gaming, at least on store shelves. It is no wonder then that whenever a western-style RPG is released (Arx Fatalis, Gothic, Morrowind), it creates a very fierce following of people who are starved for more freedom in their games.
I don't know that it's an age problem necessarily, but I'm sure Famitsu's market is a fairly limited demographic.
If the readers of say, PC Gamer (in the US) were to be polled with the same question, their list would likely be dominated by FPSes and strategy games, probably ignoring less "hardcore" games like The Sims. Likewise, if you were to survey the readers of a European Nintendo mag, they'd probably favor Nintendo games over any others.
This isn't a case of ballot stuffing; it's just a matter of demographics... the people who read Famitsu tend to favor traditional, Japanese RPGs. In reality, there are Yu-Gi-Oh games that have outsold some of those top-ranking FF titles, so clearly this list isn't a very accurate representation of game popularity.