I saw a tweet that said that Japanese gaming magazine, Famitsu, asked 7000 people what their top 3 games of the Heisei period were. Heisei started in 1989 so that's a huge pool of games to choose from. The top 3 for them was Chrono Trigger, Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Nier: Automata. So of course like the self important little shit that I am, I'm going to tell you my top 3 games of the Heisei period.
#3 Hotline Miami
This entry could have been one of so many things. It could have been Undertale, it could have been ANY Shin Megami Tensei game, it could have been Dragon Quest 11. Ask me tomorrow what my number 3 would have been and I promise you it will change, I just can't really pick with great certainty. The game that sticks out in the front of my mind right now though is Hotline Miami. Released in 2012 (Heisei 24) it was a violent, retro style half action half puzzle game that had you don an animal mask and mow down men in white suits. It was fast, frantic, fun as hell and became one of my core speedrun games for a long while
If you've not played it then please give it ago. Great gameplay, great soundtrack and great style. It's cheap on Steam so don't dilly dally, go buy it NOW
#2 Shadow Hearts
Shadow Hearts is a sort of unique JRPG released in 2001 (Heisei 13) on PS2. It follows the adventures of half Japanese, half Russian protagonist Yuri Hyuga as he travels across Asia and Europe in an attempt to stop all manner of nightmare creatures and an English gentleman from doing all manner of unspeakable things. The games most interesting point was its "Judgement Ring" battle system, every time you did ANYTHING in a fight you had to play a sort of little timing mini game that would decide the outcome of your action. Miss the ring and you'd fail your attempt but get right near the edge of the hit zone and you'd be awarded bonus damage/healing or, lets say if you were using a stat-up item, a greater increase to that stat. The game also had a sanity system where if your characters fought for too long the stress of battle would cause them to go berserk and you would lose control of them.
Yuri also had an ability to fuse into one of about 21 demons to aid you in battle, all with really cool abilities. If you REALLY knew what you were doing you could get some secret demons too that would essentially break the game and make you an unstoppable power house. Getting them was a challenge but when you pulled it off the reward was very much worth it.
It also has a sequel, Shadow Hearts 2: Covenant which is also worth playing but nothing quite beats the charm that the first game had.
#1 Panzer Dragoon Saga
I mean, I gush about this game a lot, did you really think it could be anything else for me? Released in 1998 (Heisei 10) for the Sega Saturn, Panzer Dragoon Saga is easily one of the best RPGs I've ever played in my damn life and almost nothing has come close to besting it.
I could go at LONG length about why this game is so good but instead I'll just link my playthrough of it and you can see it for yourself
I'm also learning how to speedrun it currently so drop in the stream to see my progress with that.
If you can play it for yourself you ABSOLUTELY should. Don't question me, just do it.
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Of course, 1989 to 2019 is an extremely long time so I'm sure almost everybody will have a different set of 3 games that mean a lot to them. If you feel like telling me your top 3 then let me know, maybe you'll really love something that I've not heard of and I can find a hidden gem that I missed during my youth
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