Sacred Symbols+, #399 | Colin and Brad Rank the Consoles (and Final Fantasy Games)

Sony or Nintendo? S tier! Lol needed a third party on this cast to give a little push back.

Aaron

Great episode. I really want Colin to finish FFX. The ending is one of the best in video games

Trent Piccicacco

So im 5’7 and 233 i guess im just a fat piece of Shit

Jay

NES is a strong B. Owned one and never really liked the games for it other than tmnt and chip n dale. N64 is a c. That controller sucked and the games were primitive. Game boy Advsnce Sp I’d rank the highest of Nintendo at an A with the Gamecube.

Robbie Cooper

We need a Chris and Dustin tier list in the future so us younguns can compare what we grew up with

DeathByClams

I get that the PS5 can do everything the PS4 can, but I don’t see it as better than the PS4 still. 360 at A is a crime, especially when you put PS3 above it. 360 is GOAT tier.

NeO JD

I would listen to endless episodes in this format with you two. So many topics available. Great stuff. Thank you!

Josh Daniel

Salutations Sacred Sirs,

Mario Campanelli

The controller is fine. Most likely a skill issue

Luke Oliveto

A bit American centric which is fair considering where the guys are from, but interesting how different regions have had totally different histories, the NES barely featured in Europe compared to the master system (which actually sold closer to 20m units) - and the Mega Drive was a huge deal too. Never really knew about the Saturn until much later but I did have a Dreamcast, it's great to see Sega doing well again!

David D

The way Colin has always viewed the Genesis is pretty on brand for someone who never really owned one. There were a ton of great games on there. I was thinking the other day about the quality of the X-Men games we got. The crazy variety we had on there. It definitely stood it's ground with the SNES. PSP is an S for me. I like a lot of people used it ....fully. Even going so far as to get a Dexdrive and transfer my original PSX saves of JRPG's so I could continue playing them on there. PSP was where I played Sega CD games like Snatcher. Scumm games like Full Throttle. It was also host to quality first party games and 2 excellent Metal Gear mainline ones. 360 is GOAT status. All games ran better on it that gen. It's online and services were top tier. Exclusives out the ass. Really cemented social gaming. It allowed me to maintain friendships with close friends I haven't seen in person in years because we all moved in different directions. Plus that red ring was like a blessing in disguise. I would buy the console for 60-80 dollars on ebay or in lots. Call 1-800-4-MY-XBOX and send them in and get a fixed console back all paid for by MS. Great times. To me GOAT Tier is for the systems that changed the game. PC (Grand Daddy of them all), NES (Saved gaming, Birth of many franchises that still exist today, Introduced gaming to mainstream), PSX (3D Gaming and Movie quality stories Adult themes, Allowed easy development of experimental game genres), PS2 (DVD introduction pushed everything from PSX further allowed games like GTA III to be made. Evolved framework of game development everything after is mostly better graphics versions), Xbox 360 (Mainstream rise of Social Gaming, Birth of Netflix and Streaming Platforms, The beginning of Digital marketplace and day one digital releases, Caused mass adoption of the HDTV standard).

Mark Michaels

You can't have multiple consoles as the "greatest of all time". Nobody brought that up?

Michael Brennan

S for n64 is lunacy. The controller alone is horrible. A is a super respectable and high spot for it.

Bailey Callis

Always happy to see my boy Zack 👑

Bailey Callis

Loved this idea and would like more tier/rankings - especially Mega Man bosses. Would be cool if you can cut in the boss battles as well but probably a ton of work

MnTwinsfan92

No physical edition at launch hurt it.

The Rose Experience

I gotta say, if pretty much every system ends up an A or S, what’s the point in ranking things? You either use the scale or don’t really bother, you guys kinda graded on the IGN review scale curve. The lowest was what, a B?! The Final Fantasy discussion was a lot more fluid and fair. Also, N64 an S Brad? It’s your ranking sure, but living through that generation of Nintendo was a proverbial nightmare if it wasn’t relegated to your second console, the release schedule sucked. Sure in retrospect it seems just fine as you list off 10-15 games, but the N64 is easily the worst generation of Nintendo along with the Wii U. It’s more a C or D all in all if you’re using the scale.

The Rose Experience

I believe Switch was in the "Not enough XP" tier. They said the run for the switch isn't over yet so wouldn't be right to give it a rating until the book on it is closed.

Zach

N64 is the most overrated system. A handful of games can’t overpay other systems that had more quality ten fold, but not as great as the handful of 64 games

Jason Thompson

Nailed it

joefray_

I loved my Vita but yeah. It completely failed its goal and was an indie?niche JRPG device.

Grimace From McDonald’s

Draven E.

I would love the topic of console ranking to come back with a bigger panel, and a variety of gaming backgrounds. Maybe have some sort of criteria as well.

Bryan Lozano

Did I hear it right that Switch was trash tier or did I mishear that when they were doing summaries? If so does anyone have timestamps for the switch conversation very curious the rationale for trash if so

Mark Keller

I definitely think FF16 is a Final Fantasy game, I just don’t think it’s an RPG.

Zackery Parkerson

When you compare the exclusive lineups from the PS3 and put them against any console from that generation you’d be hard pressed not to have it right at the top of the heap. Yes the hardware and UI were massive issues, but when first party harnessed it correctly given the tooksets and time PS3 was outputting the best looking and performing games of the generation.

The Rose Experience

Vita should be trash. We were promised a console like experience and it became a glorified low budget indie machine, with barely any exclusives. Come at me bros. Loved the episode anyhow.

Your Boi Nicky V

This is a good episode but Colin can’t apply an ounce of objectivity to PS3. A $600 console with few exclusives until 2009 when Sony’s 1st party got into gear is a flawed console. And even after that point, the third party ports were usually worse than 360.

My most hated race is the 400m dash

Liar

Jason

Ps2 is the GOAT! Am barely 5'6 and I can put on muscle like no other. Am pretty sure there are alot of health benefits to being short and the idea that we can't get women is also complete BS. Have pulled in more tail than past roommates who were over 6 foot.

Eric J

If FF9 Remake isn’t announced next month I feel like the project is dead. Which would be heart breaking for me. Love that game.

Philip Dunphy

PS3 is a B at best

Casey Cieslikowski

Can’t wait for Megaman ranking the master robots. I totally don’t like Megaman 7 so I’m hoping to hear about the big sprites and cheap deaths for the snes and rerelease

William Thomas

Yes!!! I just heard this part and man do the characters flesh out with the story over time it’s on point. Now I may be bias but this was my first ff game I beat through and through on ps2 back in the day. The voice acting was a new thing at the time and some of the lines got placed in by accident the elder scrolls oblivion style. Colin should replay it sometime and do a knock back on it or something. It’s legit and doesn’t get enough credit where it’s due because of the ironic laughing scene

William Thomas

Yep ps3 did everything as they once said

Robbie Agnew

FFX is S tier. Please finish it all the way through Colin. The characters are incredible, you’ll learn to love them.

Robbie Agnew

Yeah man. It sucked out of the gate. Metal Gear 4 and Last of Us are standouts....but I basically played exclusively on 360 that gen. Infamous and Uncharted never spoke to me.

Ryan Zimm

NES, 360, PS4 are probably my top 3. Ps5 has better games, but you'll never convince me it is a better system than the OneX....if only for the Quick Resume. That is my favorite feature like...ever

Ryan Zimm

🎉🎉🎉🥳🥳🥳🥳🎊🎊🎊🎊🎊🍾🍾🍾🍾🍾🍾💃💃💃🕺🕺🕺

Adam Barnes

To me, snes and ps3 are the goats, with GameCube coming up third right behind it.

Caleb Peacock

PS3 in no world is S-tier.

Dana Anderson

I'll take an LSM rankings podcast any day. Pretty cool too getting some cool console memories from Colin I've never heard before. Also impressed by Brads knowledge. Brads new mic is great too. At least for my podcast player, his audio in previous episodes came in pretty hot and echoey. A+ Episode.

Stewy108

Love when people rank stuff

Repede

Shoutout Brad for name dropping Morrowind Xbox exclusivity. Best action adventure rpg of that generation

Bartevious

Gotta say I loved this idea and this episode! Ideas for next rankings: Zelda games, jrpgs franchises, exclusive franchises, best OSTs…

Breno Bezerra Bluhm

This is a chill, play a game and listen to a podcast ass podcast. Could listen to these episodes all day.

Shortsoptional

You can’t do worse than most modern lists that almost entirely have FFXII within the top 3 universally. Such revisionist nonsense. Anyway, as the biggest Final Fantasy fan in the world, here goes! (From worst to best, including online & true numbered sequels) II (worst) XIII III VIII XV I X-2 XI XIII-3 XII V XIII-2 (fixed almost everything wrong with XIII) VI XIV XVI IV X VII IX (Best)

The Rose Experience

Some of the ranking are a bit frustrating but being from the uk when people say the NES saved video games maybe in the US that never happen here it was the ZX Spectrum the Commodore 64 and the Amstrad that saved it here we where a pc country during the 80s and early 90s all our games were on tape. Will always remember the squeak of it loading with nostalgia lol .

Garry

The major spoilers are sign posted and you're given an opportunity to skip but there isn't timestamps for it. Might want to skip to the end of the FF section if you want to miss all of them.

AngelOfCake

Great episode! Love the lists hope they argue about picks more in future lists, it’s not a good tier list without passionate disapproval of tier placements.

Krusher99

I love these episodes. Would love a tier list of PS1/Gamecube/Xbox games.

Remington Wilson

Nice ranking

Lunar Tear

Original X-Box is S tier and probably the best Microsoft console. It had the superior graphics of the generation but it's the hard drive and to some extent xbox live that rocket it up that high. It was really leading the pack.

LongJohnSivers#1Fan

I got into Saturn late and played all of the great games. SOTN with the mods is the best version of the game imo, playable Maria, new areas, the boss fight against Maria (which has one of the best music tracks in all cv.) Then you have street fighter alpha 3, which used the japan only 4mb cart, is the best version of the seminal fighter imo (even over the arcade version yes.) Then the 3 panzer dragoon games are all s tier games with great art style music and controls, they have a taste all their own. Shining Force 3 is a forgotten jrpg masterpiece, as is Shining the Holy Ark. Dragon Force is a remarkable strategy rpg where you control whole armies. Guardian Heroes is one of the amazing beat em up ever, but it’s deeper than other games in the genre with more options to upgrade and progression. Fighting Vipers, Fighters Megamix, great 3d fighters. Amazing racing titles like Daytona and Sega Rally. The BEST bomberman in Saturn Bomberman. Burning Rangers is a cool game about futuristic firefighters. Best version of Battle Garegga. Nights with the 3d controller is so funEtc etc etc Saturn is one of the coolest, most underrated consoles. For me it’s s tier or even GOAT tier

Matthew Christ

Not really, aside from the launch woes, the games that came out during that era were top notch

Yiorgos

In of the mind that you gotta be reeaal selective with the GOATs. S-tier is there for the god level shit, GOAT means greatest of all time and y’all were handing em out like candy.

Bogey

If you guys played a single online game past 2005 (that isn’t a fucking final fantasy mmo) Xbox 360 would be your highest rated console. Online service is like an entire column that is just missed in this entire conversation. Best exclusive from 360/ps3 generation wasn’t last of us. It was party chat 💅

CUMSoftware

Eric Golley

A rectangle man and Colin says thomas was alone 😂

Tristan Kimball

I agree that FF7 is largely overrated in a historical context. Its storyline is interesting but messy and poorly translated in the original version. The materia system essentially destroys any reason to pick one character over another aside from Limit Break damage, it is so overstuffed with micro and mini games that it's actually kind of funny to replay it today. That said, it might be the ultimate 'you had to be there' video game release of all time. Everything about the game, at the time felt new and exciting, from the change in platform, to the change in setting and tone, to the upgrade in visuals and presentation. In a lot of ways, FF7 had the same kind of record scratch effect on the RPG genre in the west that Evangelion (which came out not long before and heavily inspired a lot of FF7 in terms of tone and story) had for anime in Japan. It also has some very iconic characters, both in terms of character but also in terms of look. The challenge of upping the detail but ensuring the whole cast was immediately readable on screen led to some very iconic designs. Final Fantasy 8 kind of had the opposite problem. It had a great story that was well told and fairly well translated. But the characters were pretty forgettable on the whole, certainly not iconic. It wanted to be Titanic, but landed closer to Pearl Harbor in terms emotional impact. FF8's biggest issue IMO was that the draw system and junction system was just not very fun. There was a lot of possibilities afforded by them, but actually managing and practically applying them wasn't very fun. Battles in FF8 just became... really boring and kind of chore, which is bad when battles are the bulk of the actual interactive game part of a Square RPG.

SL

AGREED! There’s a place for the business aspect of video games but I much prefer hearing the boys talking about their experience with the games they love.

Brett Altmiller

Question, I’ve only discovered FF recently with 7’s remake and 16. Is this safe to listen to or are there major spoilers? I plan on playing through them all.

Cormac

I loved the Final Fantasy tier list. I mostly agreed with the list except for the placements of 7 and 8. 8 is an easy S tier and better than 7 in almost every way. 8 has the best soundtrack in the entire series. The praise 7 gets continuous to baffle me.

Birds Aren't Real

From what I played I agree with the most of the FF rankings. I would create a rung for six above seven out of spite. I beat it recently and it was so so good. I can't imagine what it was like to play 30 years ago. I'm going to follow Colin's advice and beat FF7 before tackling the more recent releases. Might change my mind. FF2 was kind of odd. With a couple extra scenes and slightly better writing it might have placed in A. FF8 is kind of special to me. I agree with where it was put but it was quite formative for me. I was a broody teenager but more importantly, you could completely break the game before the end of the first disk(been a while so probably second). Running away wasn't the way to do it. The Junction System was rife with ways to become way overpowered early. It got me to think of games as a set of systems, that can be broken is odd ways to benefit me. Works well in my profession too.

AngelOfCake

All you guys had to do was add another category for the Switch. It belongs under S tier but would have been hilarious and fair under “Stinky” tier.

Michael Mashpotato

Now we are talking! Let’s goooooo

Robbie Agnew

My ranking of the core FF games. 6 12 9 5 4 7 15 16 10 13 8 3 1 2 I’m lower on 10 than most cause it literally gave me some of the worst headaches Ive ever had. I have no idea why. I listen to the music from the game without issue. But I couldnt play more than an hour or two of it at a time. Looking forward to your ranking.

SL

Haven't got through the whole thing yet but if PS6 launches with PS5 and PS4 backward compatibility, a disc drive and Bloodborne... I'll probably buy it on day one. I don't think I bought a console new since NDS. The last one I bought was a switch second hand off ebay for about £120 just before lockdowns started. PS3 is kind of sad in a way. I don't think we'll ever see something like it released to the mass market in such a way again. It was just so weird on a technical level. You look at some of the output from it now and some of those games would look good released today but a lot of other stuff around the same time looks quite dated. Bad for business but interesting to the nerds among us. Ninty might do something odd but I suspect they'll keep the hardware dull for a while. Wouldn't be surprised if they switched(!) to a similar tech to PC/Xbox/PS in about a decade or so if it was cheap/powerful/energy efficient enough.

AngelOfCake

Frankly we could use a lot more content like this. Not necessarily news or industry related. Just the boys talking about games.

Michael Welter

Extemporaneous, I have never heard that word before but now I want to use it in a sentence and see it baffle other people.

Josef Barker

Bracing myself for the Final Fantasy tier list, though I have a good feeling about where the boys will stand with things. EDIT: Ended up being a very solid list. Thumbs up.

Lunar Tear

Thank you LSM, I and many appreciate you keeping the train moving through tough times. 🩵

latenitecali

Colin + Brad hell yeah

Mattveego

First!

Cyprus Davis