I didn't rate all of them, because I either haven't played all of them or haven't spent enough time to feel comfortable rating them. I almost feel like I need a breakdown here, so *affects Mario voice* here we gooooooo!
S Tier: I feel like, for my tastes, these are obvious.
- NES, on the whole, has the strongest set of platformers perhaps ever. While a lot of the RPGs are grindy, it still has
Dragon Warrior III/IV and
FFIII, among others.
- SNES should be patently obvious - some of the greatest games
ever, and RPGs by the boatload, most of which don't exhibit the bloat of coming generations.
- The PS2 gets in on account of just
how many quality games it has in every conceivable genre. While the RPGs tended to get longer for my tastes, I still had an absolute blast that generation.
A Tier:
- PlayStation gets a slot solely on RPGs. The only reason it doesn't get S-Tier is because I feel many of the other genres just haven't aged well at all.
- Wii, surprisingly, gets a slot here. Yes, tons of shovelware, but if you're willing to look, there are some fantastic third-party games, as well as some of Nintendo best first-party work in some time.
- Sega Genesis doesn't make S-Tier for me, but that's only because, while having some absolute top-notch titles, I feel the dropoff happens more quickly than on SNES from that top tier. In retrospect, it's actually quite impressive Sega put out as compelling a product as they did given its also-ran status in Japan.
- Xbox 360's presence might surprise y'all here, but I'm serious, that system had a great selection of games, including (surprisingly) some very good JRPGs. Plus, it almost always had the better multi-platform games.
- I honestly wasn't sure if GBA should go as A-tier or B-tier, but I ultimately went with A, because it does have some excellent RPGs and great action games. I do think it suffers from perhaps too many SNES ports... but given that timeframe, SNES ports that were portable absolutely would have been in demand.
- Nintendo DS barely misses S-Rank. Barely. I put so much time into that system. Ask me another day, and I might actually put it there. Massive set of genres. I think the only real thing that holds it back is that, while it certainly hosted a ton of JRPGs, I'm not sure it has many original titles that can compete with the top of the SNES era.
Chrono Trigger is hard to top, ya know? It's also too bad that we didn't get a PSX-style remake of
FFVI instead of that game showing up on GBA.
B Tier:
- The Nintendo 3DS is a great system. I ding it, though, because I think the RPG genre, at least for my tastes, continued to drop off a bit.
- Nintendo Switch has some outstanding games, but I'll be honest, I don't put a whole lot of time in during the gaps. I'd probably think differently if I'd just give in and snag some of the other first-party titles.
- Game Boy is a very good system. It also has some terrible games, and many of the platformers are compromised by too-large sprites. But it gave us
Link's Awakening, so there's no way it could go into the C-Tier, ever.
- Gamecube was marred by some of the weakest first-party games Nintendo put out. Sorry,
Sunshine fans. But it had friggin'
Metroid Prime, so yay!
- PS3 and PS4 are kinda in the same boat, although I favor the PS4 a bit. The latter has some tremendous exclusives, and it was so successful that you can find darn near anything, but... gaming design shifted a bit, so the big titles aren't up to my tastes. PS3 has some killer exclusives, too, but falters because of weak multi-platform performance.
- PSP hurt to put here. But if I'm being honest, I probably got even more mileage out of it as a PSX/emulator handheld than I did a PSP platform. Not many top-tier RPGs, either, but quite a few very good ones.
- Neo Geo has too many fighters for me to rank it higher than this. Fantastic games (
Mark of the Wolves, y'all), but not much variety.
- Saturn was hard to rank. I almost put it in the C-tier. Almost. But it still has some very good RPGs, some very good action games, and lots of excellent arcade ports, especially fighters. That's enough to get a B.
- Dreamcast is the same deal. It didn't last long, but I think I'd put it above the Saturn. More fantastic arcade ports, splendid fighters, and even a couple of excellent RPGs. Plus, it looks glorious on a VGA monitor.
C Tier:
- Atari 2600/Intellivision/Colecovision all get lumped together. If I'm honest, for my tastes it might even be a D, as I rarely play them, but I have very fond Intellivision memories (
Sea Battle was great!), and they were very important systems, especially the 2600.
- N64 has some outstanding games. It also has a lot of junk, and not many RPGs, so unlike the PSX, there isn't much to float it up higher.
- Wii U saw Nintendo trying their darnedest to keep it alive. Lots of fantastic first-party titles, but not much else, and a system that was very confusing for outsiders. Basically a Switch prototype. Much better than its reputation, though - in some ways, it's a modern Dreamcast. Maybe I'm underrating it a bit here, or I'm overrating the Dreamcast.
- Game Boy Color was kind of an afterthought. Exclusives were pretty weak overall.
- Game Gear has some good titles, but just couldn't compete with Nintendo. I don't hate it, but I don't love it.
- NGPC is one I hate to put here, but it has the same problems as the Neo Geo - massive lack of variety. It's a great little handheld if you love chibi fighters (or
Faselei!).
- I hated to put the Master System here, but I feel like the lack of third-party support really hurt it. I also didn't care for a lot of its exclusives. I still have a lot more respect for it after our SMS month, though.
- TG-16/Duo was also hard to put here, but if I'm being honest, the TG-16 really lacks the sort of games I love (platformers). Shooter fans should
adore the system, though. The CD side has a lot of RPGs... that I can't read. So there's room for this to move up, but based on what we got, it gets a C.
- Poor Vita, getting no respect from me.
Ex and I had some discussion about this before - I think it lacks the sort of RPGs I really like. It's definitely not lacking in them, though! Sony's bungled support of the system really hurt it, too.
- The original XBOX was solid, and a great place for multi-platform games, but many of the exclusives weren't my jam. I absolutely loved it as an emulation box, though, and still use it for that on occasion.
D Tier:
- 3DO didn't have enough great games for it. Too expensive. 'Nuff said.
- Virtual Boy was clearly a failure. There's only one reason it doesn't get an F, and that's
Wario Land.
- I've never actually played a Lynx, but the few games I've played on it are... okay, I guess, and sometimes just bad. Not a big fan of all the arcade ports.
F Tier:
- Oh, hai, CDi. Not a great gaming system, too expensive.
- I briefly had a Game.com. It ain't good.
- Jaguar actually had a couple of good games (
AvP comes to mind), but it's not enough to keep it from a failing grade.
Whew! Lots of verbiage there. Sorry for the long read, y'all. Feel free to ignore.