Top 100 Genesis games of all time

[retronostalgia]

"RetroNostalgia, why are you necroposting in a thread that's been inactive for almost a decade?"

Because I've finished a Top 100, based on all of the contributions to the individual top 10 lists in this thread!

A couple months back, Classic Gaming Quarterly did a video on the best TG-16 games that *aren't* in the system's top 10. (It's great, check it out here.) He mentioned being interested in doing something similar for the Genesis, but not having a good "definitive" ranking of the best games. So, I decided to manually go through the top 10 thread here, compile all of the individual rankings, and combine them into one overall ranking. It took a while, but here are the results for the Top 100:

Rank	Game
1	Sonic.the.Hedgehog.2
2	Streets.of.Rage.2
3	Gunstar.Heroes
4	Shinobi.III..Revenge.of.the.Ninja.Master
5	Sonic.the.Hedgehog.3...Knuckles
6	Phantasy.Star.IV..The.End.of.the.Millenium
7	Sonic.the.Hedgehog
8	Lightening.Force..Quest.for.the.Darkstar
9	Streets.of.Rage
10	Rocket.Knight.Adventures
11	Revenge.of.Shinobi
12	Thunder.Force.III
13	Alien.Soldier
14	Vectorman
15	Aladdin
16	Castlevania..Bloodlines
17	Golden.Axe
18	Contra..Hard.Corps
19	Phantasy.Star.II
20	Road.Rash
21	M.U.S.H.A.
22	Shining.Force
23	Castle.of.Illusion.starring.Mickey.Mouse
24	Streets.of.Rage.3
25	Ghouls..n.Ghosts
26	Strider
27	Comix.Zone
28	Shining.Force.II
29	Beyond.Oasis
30	Teenage.Mutant.Ninja.Turtles..Hyperstone.Heist..The
31	Herzog.Zwei
32	Mega.Turrican
33	Columns
34	Dynamite.Headdy
35	Street.Fighter.II..Special.Championship.Edition
36	Mortal.Kombat
37	Ristar
38	Landstalker
39	Monster.World.IV
40	Wonder.Boy.in.Monster.World
41	Truxton
42	Earthworm.Jim
43	Road.Rash.2
44	Super.Street.Fighter.II..The.New.Challengers
45	Ranger.X
46	ToeJam...Earl
47	Golden.Axe.II
48	World.of.Illusion.with.Mickey...Donald
49	Out.Run
50.5	Phantasy.Star.III..Generations.of.Doom
50.5	Quackshot.starring.Donald.Duck
52	Fire.Shark
53	X.Men.2..Clone.Wars
54	Target.Earth
55	Ghostbusters
56	El.Viento
57	After.Burner.II
58	Trouble.Shooter.Vintage
59.5	Super.Fantasy.Zone
59.5	Zombies.Ate.My.Neighbors
61.5	Forgotten.Worlds
61.5	Shadow.Dancer..Secret.of.Shinobi
63	Mercs
64	Ecco.the.Dolphin
65	Alisia.Dragoon
66	NHL..94
67	Alien.3
68	Pulseman
69	Mortal.Kombat.II
70	Road.Rash.3
71.5	Desert.Strike..Return.to.the.Gulf
71.5	Jungle.Strike
73	Gaiares
74	Thunder.Force.II
75	Kid.Chameleon
76	PGA.Tour.Golf
78	Out.of.this.World
78	Panorama.Cotton
78	Rolling.Thunder.3
85	Cool.Spot
85	Flashback..Quest.for.Identity
85	Flicky
85	Gauntlet.IV
85	John.Madden.Football..93
85	Phelios
85	Rolling.Thunder.2
85	Shining.in.the.Darkness..The
85	Splatterhouse.2
85	Trouble.Shooter
85	Virtua.Racing
91	Captain.America...the.Avengers
92.5	Mega.Man..The.Wily.Wars
92.5	Punisher..The
96	Altered.Beast
96	Chakan..The.Forever.Man
96	Sagaia
96	Super.Hang.On
96	Tiny.Toon.Adventures..Buster.s.Hidden.Treasure
99	Valis.III
100	Sunset.Riders

(In the case of ties, the average rank is shown.)

I had to make some judgment calls when assembling the list... for example, do I treat Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles as two games, or one? What about Streets of Rage 3 vs. Bare Knuckle 3? (In both of these cases, I chose to treat them as one game.) It was also not always possible for me to tell for certain whether someone's list was ordered or not. Still, I think the results do pass the "smell test".

Let me know what you think!

Also, if anyone has a good suggestion for file hosting, I can also post the raw data I assembled, along with the R code to generate the combined ranks.

[Seingalt]

Nice work, retronostalgia!

I'd love to learn more about how the combined ranks are calculated.


Nealy 10 years ago I did something similar: http://https://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthread.php?15208-Your-20-favorite-Mega-Drive-Genesis-games
The scoring is explained in the first post. Results (Top 50 only) are on page 5.

[Phantar]

"RetroNostalgia, why are you necroposting in a thread that's been inactive for almost a decade?"

Because I've finished a Top 100, based on all of the contributions to the individual top 10 lists in this thread!

It's been ages since I handed out some rep. Time to rectify that. Nice work!

Let me know what you think!

Lots of no. 85's in there! I know it results from the amount of data you had to go by, but it looks kind of strange. Still, I am amazed you were able to generate a Top 100 from that data pool, and one that seems quite alright, too (still, It's strange to see ANY Top 100 of Genesis games that includes "gems" such as 'Flicky' or 'Captain America & The Avengers'... especially with the former ranking just as high as 'Virtua Racing"

Seems like more data would be needed for a more concise List; maybe combining it with Seingalts linked Top 50 might help in that regard?

Still, very nice work!

[retronostalgia]

Nice work, retronostalgia!

I'd love to learn more about how the combined ranks are calculated.

I started by trying out the RobustRankAggreg library in R, but it started giving me clearly wrong results (like negative ranks.) I didn't have the time to figure out why, so instead I just did a simple average of everyone's ranks and re-ranked. (This approach assumes that all games not in a given top-10 list are ranked lower than all games that *are* on that specific top-10 list.)

Nealy 10 years ago I did something similar: http://https://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthread.php?15208-Your-20-favorite-Mega-Drive-Genesis-games
The scoring is explained in the first post. Results (Top 50 only) are on page 5.

Very cool, I missed that thread but it looks full of data I can add. I'm going to have very limited free time over the next six months or so, but rest assured I'll tackle it once I get the bandwidth. Thanks!

[retronostalgia]

Lots of no. 85's in there!

Yep, the lower you go on the ranking the higher the odds that a game was only featured on a small number of lists and the higher the probability of a tie.

Seems like more data would be needed for a more concise List; maybe combining it with Seingalts linked Top 50 might help in that regard?

Yes, exactly. The top-10 thread had 58 submissions at the time I did my initial aggregation and Seingalt's thread he pointed me to looks like an excellent way to improve discriminatory power for the lower game tiers. (I don't expect the overall top-10 to change much if at all, though.)

[o.pwuaioc]

I started by trying out the RobustRankAggreg library in R, but it started giving me clearly wrong results (like negative ranks.) I didn't have the time to figure out why, so instead I just did a simple average of everyone's ranks and re-ranked. (This approach assumes that all games not in a given top-10 list are ranked lower than all games that *are* on that specific top-10 list.)



Very cool, I missed that thread but it looks full of data I can add. I'm going to have very limited free time over the next six months or so, but rest assured I'll tackle it once I get the bandwidth. Thanks!

If you want to send me the data and the code, I could take a look at it. I'm not familiar with that particular package, but you've piqued my interest.

[princetontiger]

Thank you for this!!!! I recently got my Sega Genesis mini, and I've been looking for a fan compiled list to get the 'wisdom of the crowds'. I don't want an edited list or one person's opinion.

[Seingalt]

I recently started an other attempt to compile a Top 100 list by polling the Sega-16 community.
The voting is still ongoing until February, 28th.
Every forum member can participate and have a say in the final ranking: Sega-16's Top 100 Mega Drive/Genesis games