Of All Time
I was browsing a Reddit thread called “We haven’t seen a good space opera game where you play a spaceship commander with a loyal crew since 2012”. The image in the post was for Mass Effect 3, to remove any doubt of to what space opera they were referring. Quite a few people pointed out that, in fact, the Outer Worlds series has been released since then. Amongst the pushback that the Outer Worlds is even remotely close to Mass Effect quality, was this rejoinder:
It’s easy to forget that many people here are young kids who only know things that came out this year.
That’s why you constantly hear about <insert aggressively average game here> being “the greatest of all time”, because for them “all time” is like 3 years.
It’s funny to imagine being a part of a cadre of human beings for which it’s somewhat possible to have a comprehensive experience on a matter. Like, if you were to ask what is the greatest adventure novel of all time, you would have literally a thousand years of human written storytelling to go through. Conversely, the first videogame RPG came out in 1980, depending on your definition of RPG. Even if you limit it to “classical” console-style RPGs, that moves the needle to 1986 with Dragon Quest.
My own personal experience with videogames started in the late NES era, and only really kicked off in the halcyon Squaresoft/SNES days of the mid-90s. Although, even then, there were gaps. For example, I never played Final Fantasy 4. Indeed, I tried playing it a few times in the last decade or so, and couldn’t really bring myself to get particularly far. Which shouldn’t be too surprising considering how few modern videogames (that I even paid for!) I complete on average.
And that sort of brings me back to the quote. Obviously young people exist – I hear their distinct cries of “six SEVEN” down the road all the time. And there is always a conversation surrounding whether old games hold up to modern play, even by the people who profess their greatest of all time status. But it nevertheless feels… tragic? Is that an appropriate word? It feels tragic to imagine a young person’s entire view of quality being limited to such a small time horizon.
That is, of course, how everything works. Has always worked. “GOAT” has always had asterisks galore, even (or especially) if denied. Greatest (in my subjective opinion) of All (that I’m aware of) Time (up to this moment). GIMSOOATIAOTUTTM just didn’t have the same ring to it though.
P.S. This makes me officially old, doesn’t it?
P.P.S. I already had an Officially Old tag from two years ago?! I’m actively turning to dust right now.
Posted on December 9, 2025, in Commentary and tagged GOAT, Mass Effect 3, Officially Old, RPG, Space Opera, The Outer Worlds 2. Bookmark the permalink. 4 Comments.
In An Age 
Old indeed, right there with ya.
I think most 80s/90s games don’t hold up, not just graphically (obvious), but the gameplay was really simple, especially arcade-first games.
I’d point to Final Fantasy Tactics as the first game I can think of that DOES hold up in both areas. The ageless charm of the graphics is still there, and while it has some obvious flaws (a few fights are just impossibly hard if you don’t know ahead of time), the gameplay is still really solid, and the story might be more meaningful now than back in 97.
Have there been better turn-based games of that style since? Maybe? I have almost 1000 hours with Battle Brothers, and I was done with the FFT remake after 60. But its still certainly in my top 5, and a game I’d highly recommend now to anyone.
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You’re right. There are definitely some archetypal games that probably hold up pretty well, especially if they are part of a smaller genre. FFT and tactical RPGs, as you noted. If someone really enjoys Metroidvanias, I’m sure that Super Metroid could actually still be fun and relevant; maybe Castlevania: Symphony of the Night as well. Super Mario World is still a fantastic, very polished platformer.
It works for those kind of genres as they are not as prolific. It’s difficult to imagine someone into modern FPS games going back to Doom 2 or GoldenEye or Halo, without already having pre-installed nostalgia. Or, honestly, general RPGs. The pixel era RPGs probably hold up better graphically, but mechanically? It would be a lot to slog through to experience a story that, while potentially ground-breaking at the time, has been borrowed/duct-taped/repurposed a dozen times since.
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This is pretty much the pub conversation I and my pals had numerous times in the 80s and 90s, where people would try to present something as objectively “the best” as opposed to subjectively “their favorite”. Some humdingers of an argument came out of that.
My position was then and is now that it is objectively possible to know what your favorite example of any type of work of art or entertainment is but objectively impossible to know what’s the best. Subjectively, obviously, you can know both.
That has nothing to do with age or knowledge or experience. What does is being able to tell the difference.
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Yes, of course it is all subjective.
My point is that you only really get to pick the best (personal) experience out of the experiences you’ve had. You and I are of… not the same generation, but amongst a group of people who have been around for the growth of the medium of videogames. We’ve been able to enjoy many of the “classics” when they were cutting-edge new releases. Games that may be difficult to look at in the same way today, with modern sensibilities, but nevertheless may still have the juice to compete if given a chance.
A kid entering high school or college today likely only has a 5-10 year experience horizon. Which is how linear time work, of course. But I would say that it’s going to be hard for them to experience those older titles even if they wanted to, for a variety of reasons. Part of it is access (unless emulated), part of it may be worse graphics. A not insignificant part may in fact be that their entire time horizon was consumed with Minecraft, Fortnite, and other “live-service” games.
I just find it bit sad, in a lost potential kind of way. We’ll likely never know if they would have enjoyed Secret of Mana, or Xenogears, or whatever your own personal greatest hits were. They may very well have hated them, and that’s fine. But we’ll never know.
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