It's time for an epic battle between the only two consoles that are truly a part of the G.O.A.T. list.: Super Nintendo Entertainment System vs. PlayStation 2. SNES is 27 years old while PS2 is 18 years old, so both are certifiably "retro". SNES is retro 2D while PS2 is retro 3D. So, which console is your favorite? As for me, I can't pick. It's too close. IMHO, SNES narrowly edges out but we're talking about nanometers worth of distance. I grew up with the PS2, but I'd say that it's Chrono Trigger and Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past that throws it just over for me. And that's not even bringing up Super Castlevania IV or Super Metroid. Or, hell, EarthBound, Secrets of Mana, or Mega Man X. When you cross over to the PS2, however, what do you have, honestly? Grand Theft Auto III? Ohhh. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City? Ooooooh, getting hotter. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas? Now you're just teasing me. Kingdom Hearts, stop playing with my heart. Silent Hill 2 is flat-out art, but not quite as much as Shadow of the Colossus. And you can't go wrong with Final Fantasy X, Ōkami, Klonoa 2, or Ratchet & Clank. Just goddamn. You're dealing with top-tier video games no matter where you go. And that's what matters. That's why the Xbox One got off on such a bad start compared to the PS4 and neither have been considered very highly in their respective series, as well as why people still diss the Kinect and even the Wii for being gimmicky (though I have no problem with the Wii)— it's about the games. It's why the Nintendo Switch is already talked of as a potential rival to the Nintendo 64 in terms of awesomeness and legacy but the Wii U came and went without many people realizing it even existed. It's also one reason why the PS3 took such a long time to get off the ground, besides the massive price-tag. The games define the console. The hardware's just how it's played. Sega never had the absolute best in terms of software line-ups, though they did always have the most experimental and artsy. The Dreamcast should be a G.O.A.T. console, and some even consider it one out of pity. But Sega chased away all the third party developers and their in-house studios, while creative, couldn't keep the entire console afloat in the post-90s era when third-party development could make or break a console (which is one reason why Nintendo no longer really fights console wars). And I suppose that's almost what we're seeing in this retroactive console war between the SNES and PS2. Besides the dimensional war, there's also the war between first-party and third-party developers, as I don't think Sony is behind most of their best titles, whereas the SNES classics were mostly first-party. And before anyone dares say it, I'll get it out of the way myself.
Ps2 for me all the way. I fondly remember playing gta3 for the first time with my brother, taking turns playing while the other would guide where to go with the map that came with the game. Also Vice city was just perfect.
SNES for me. It boils down to quality across the life of the console - the SNES started out high quality and maintained that throughout its entire lifespan - and hell, the games even look and play good to this day, almost 30 years later. In every category, you can find a SNES game that beats the PS2 catalogue, barring (perhaps, and this is VERY debatable due to how well 16 bit sprites have held up over the decades) graphics. That's not saying that the PS2 was bad, just that it got a much slower start and improved over its lifespan. It didn't really start hitting its stride until a few years after the console launched, barring a few early standouts like Gauntlet and Dark Cloud. It started getting really good in 2004 (4 years after the console launched) with games like Suikoden 4, The Bard's Tale, GTA: San Andreas, Dragon Quest VIII, and others launching that year.
You say that, but I raise you Grand Theft Auto 3 and Vice City (my personal favorite in the series), Kingdom Hearts, Silent Hill 2, and Metal Gear Solid 2. All of which were released in 2001 or 2002. And while San Andreas was indeed the superior game, 3 is the one with the much greater legacy. I'd say that the SNES has better RPGs by far, of course. Then again, any console that has Chrono Trigger and EarthBound can't be beaten. But I'd say that your comment perfectly encapsulates why the SNES and PlayStation 2 are in the same G.O.A.T. category. They started off with gems and ended with gems and filled their lifespans with gems. Since it's self-evident with the SNES, I'll go to the PS2's corner: what games came out around 2005 that mattered at all? Well, Resident Evil 4, God of War, and Shadow of the Colossus... Meanwhile, the Gamecube had many good titles and great titles, but it's definitely not Nintendo's high point. And the Xbox could have been a true classic, but it released in 2001 and Microsoft all but forgot it existed as soon as 2005 rolled around even though one of my personal favorite 'overlooked' games for it— Dreamfall: The Longest Journey— came out in 2006. Most of its games were more graphically capable hand-me-downs from the PS2, but there was always Halo and KotOR. Either way, Japanese hardware was out of control between '91 and '06 and I'd argue it's only just started really competing again.
RPGs - Chrono Trigger, Earthbound, Final Fantasy 2/3, Shadowrun... too many to name, pretty much. Fighting games - Street Fighter II, Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Killer Instinct (SFII is pretty much the de facto standard for ALL fighting games to live up to) Racing games - Mario Kart, F-Zero Platformers - Super Mario World, also too many others to name Action-Adventure - Secret of Mana/Gaia (ARPGs count here), pretty much also a case of too many to name Sports games - Super Punch-Out, Tecmo games (baseball, basketball, football, etc) Beat-em-up games - Battletoads and Double Dragon, Final Fight, Knights of the Round, and more FPS - Doom, Wolfenstein 3D (3D for "three times as definitive as any other franchise entry) SRPG - Ogre Battle, Fire Emblem, Bahamut Lagoon, Front Mission, Puzzle games - Super Tetris, Yoshi's Cookie Shmups - Gradius III, Super R-Type, R-Type III Sims - Sim City, Sim City 2000, Civilization, Harvest Moon, Mechwarrior, Nobunaga's Ambition, many more Trivia games - wins this one on default too, because I can't remember Wheel of Fortune or Jeopardy having a PS2 entry, let alone Family Feud About the only category that PS2 wins over the SNES in is (debatably) sports games. And that's primarily because of Tiger Woods Golf and the Madden franchises, plus NBA/etc. PS2 wins open-world games by default because carts had limited space in comparison to disk-based media.
