Yesterday VGChartz.com released their top 10 games of all time as voted by their forum members.   Notice anything strange? (hint: it’s in bold)

10. Super Mario World
9. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
8. Final Fantasy VI
7. Resident Evil 4
6. Super Mario 64
5. Super Mario Galaxy
4. Metal Gear Solid 4 : Guns of the Patriots
3. Super Mario Bros. 3
2. Final Fantasy VII
1. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Six of the the ten games are either Zelda (2) or Mario(4), Nintendo’s two biggest gaming francises.   That’s two games that control 60% of the top ten greatest games of all time .  What’s more is the list was not made by VGChartz writers, instead it was voted upon by forum members, 57 pages worth of votes with 10 votes per page so thats about 570 people that voted.  Not exactly a huge sample of gamers but decent enough.

Why do we constantly see Mario and Zelda games in every top 10 games list?  We get it, Mario was your first video game and Zelda your first RPGish game, get over it, there are better games out there!

No offense to Zelda fanboys, but it’s the same game every time.  Nintendo hasn’t done anything different with the series since it went 3D on N64.  Ocarina of Time was a great game, but Majora’s Mask was basically the same thing except boring.  I then skipped the GameCube and when I came back with the Wii I found out that after 5 years the new Zelda, Twilight Princess, was the same game as all the other ones.   I got about 2/3 through when I got bored and quit playing it.  For me that’s like a fat guy stopping half way through his meal, it just doesn’t happen.  I honestly can’t recall another game (non-MMO) where I stopped playing when I was more than half way through.

Mario on the other hand seems to be doing a much better job of keeping itself fresh.  Apart from Mario Sunshine, the series is able to change itself  each time and give gamers something new.  But seriously, four Mario games in the top 10,  one or two I’m ok with, but four?

It’s list like these and I guess the rediculas amounts of money these franchises make that will keep Nintendo making Zelda and Mario games forever, which is fine, but Zelda is in need of a serious rebuild.