All great things must come to an end, and the 1990s met such a fate. With today’s coverage we close the book on GameRankings.com’s best games of the 1990s decade. After 1998’s historically great (arguably the greatest) year, 1999 was a bit of a letdown. Today, we bid farewell to arguably gaming’s most important decade…
Category: Opinion
The Never Ending Realm features video game reviews, fan-fiction, fan-art, and more! Since 2003. Read all of our opinion pieces here!
The Best Games of 1998 According to GameRankings
By my reckoning, 1998 is the greatest year in gaming history. No other year had or has had as many great games released within it. In 1998, the Nintendo 64 continued its trend of having a historically great game and taking the best game of the year awards (for the 3rd year in a row)….
The Fall of the Winglies is Under Development but Lacks a Publisher
The Legend of Dragoon fans have had a rough two decades awaiting a sequel, or even a prequel, for the cult classic. However, the wait is over. It seems that the game’s rich lore will receive a much-needed prequel in the form of an unlicensed title. Legend of Dragoon Director, Masayuki Kasebe, confirmed the rumors…
Spencer: Microsoft in Talks to Buyout FromSoftware for $4 Billion
Elden Ring’s success (of selling 12 million units within 2 weeks of its launch) has piqued both Sony’s and Microsoft’s interest in the Japanese developer. This week, Xbox head Phillip Spencer confirmed that the software giant is aggressively pursuing the developer. The buyout negotiations were confirmed by Spencer on a recent interview with Digital…
Throwback Bit Thursday: Dead or Alive 3
The original Xbox was an amazing machine for its era. At times, the system truly felt like a generational leap over the PlayStation 2. The reason for this? Microsoft’s hardware was multiple times more powerful than Sony’s most successful machine. The Xbox Flexed its Muscles at Launch Halo: Combat Evolved alone was enough to…
The Best Games of 1997 According to GameRankings
Ah! 1997! The year where pop music and JRPGs boomed into mainstream consciousness. By this time, the Sega Saturn was done, as rumors of a successor codenamed “Black Belt” were flourishing quickly in western media. Proof of the Saturn’s impending doom is that none of its games made it to the top ten listing…
Throwback Bit Thursday: Summoner
Before I get started, I want to state that playing 2000’s Summoner over the past few days reminded me of two things: How subpar the PS2’s launch lineup was, and how far away Western RPG developers were behind their Japanese counterparts 20 years ago. How times have changed. Role-Playing Games were Essential to Console…
The 10 Best Games of 1996 According to GameRankings
Personally, 1996 is dear to me. Super Mario 64, which might be my second favorite game of all time, arrived along with my favorite console of all time, the Nintendo 64. For music, it signaled the arrival of Goo Goo Dolls to mainstream prominence with their hit single “Name”, and yes, I also danced the…
Elden Ring Sells 12m: Are Turn-Based JRPGs a Thing of the Past?
It is well known that Japanese role-playing games, also known as JRPGs, had their golden era more than two decades ago in the mid to late 1990s. Heck, we even wrote a historical lesson on the topic a few years ago on this site. Removing Pokémon games from the fray, JRPGs have played second…
Throwback Bit Thursday: Super Mario Odyssey a Homage to the Mario Saga
This week, I reached the Super Mario Odyssey credits for the second time since 2018. The first time around, I mainly rushed through the game trying to get just enough moons to reach the finish line. It was a fun experience, and I greatly enjoyed Nintendo’s technical mastery of the Switch hardware at the time….