Galcian

GSI, I was going by Japanese release dates. Super Mario Bros. 3 came out on October 23rd, 1988 in Japan.

The reason I go by Japanese release date is because for Japanese games, it's the games debut. Sometimes it takes years for a Japanese game to be localized, and I don't think it's fair to those games to be pitted against Western games that are more up to date. Look at Epica Stella. It came out in 1998, where it was fairly impressive, but it didn't come out here until late 2000 when it had titles like Chrono Cross and Final Fantasy IX to compete with, so I'd rather judge the game on 1998 standards than 2000 standards.

Gozan, my favorite Amiga games were the Turrican trilogy, which didn't start until 1990. By the time I got to my 1990 list (1988 isn't the only list I've written, I've gone from 1987 to 1997) there were just too many awesome games for me to bother with Turrican.

Atomicapondula, I'm a console gamer all the way, but you'll note in my 1987 and later lists that MSX games are littered about.

I'm the one who wrote that list, and that's my opinion. Blake Snow, the very idea of Contra being ranked higher than Ninja Gaiden is hyperbole. Hell, even ranking it higher than Forgotten Worlds would be as such. Forgotten Worlds was everything that Contra was and much, much more. I love Contra, but I wont deny that most of why people love it is because of nostalgia. I look back on a lot of games I loved on NES these days and say to myself "Jesus, what was I thinking?" Nostalgia and fondness can sometimes hide a game's flaws. I think all those games are better than Contra, and unless you can give me a detailed explaination why any of those games are inferior aside from your fond reminiscence of childhood experiences, I suggest you accept that and shut the fuck up.

PS, about the date of Zelda II's release, I went by GameFAQs release dates and all they had was 1988. That's a bit nitpicky though.