Polygon put together a ranked list of the 12 greatest video game series of the 1980s and '90s, and you already know I had to look. Rankings of this era are basically catnip for anyone who grew up blowing into cartridges, and this one covers the two decades where franchises were actually born, not just rebooted for the fourth time.

Polygon's writeups go beyond the nostalgia angle, arguing for each series based on what it contributed to design, not just how fondly we remember it. I won't spoil the ordering here, because half the fun of a list like this is the moment of discovery when your favorite lands higher or lower than you expected, and the other half is being furious about it five seconds later.

But I'll plant my flag somewhere: the '80s and '90s were the last time a series could earn its reputation purely on the strength of consecutive entries. Squaresoft shipped Final Fantasy IV in 1991, V in 1992, and VI in 1994 in Japan, three mainline games in four years, each one clearly moving the medium forward. I want to say I grinded through all three on imported carts with a dictionary in my lap, and modern me still can't believe that cadence existed. Try to picture it now. Today it feels like a big franchise gets one shot every several years, with a live-service patch schedule filling the gaps in between. Different economics, different rhythm, and I'd argue we lost something in the trade.

My only real gripe with lists like this is the math. Two whole decades of gaming squeezed into twelve slots means somebody's childhood gets left on the cutting room floor, guaranteed. Whatever your personal deep cut is, the Gradius fan, the Bomberman loyalist, the person still holding a candle for a brawler that never got its due, one of you is walking away annoyed. That's less a flaw in Polygon's list than simple arithmetic. A top 12 of twenty years has to cut somebody.

Go read the full ranking at Polygon and see how close your personal top 12 lands to theirs. Then argue about it, because that's half the point of these lists.

Me, I'm just going to sit here and wonder which of today's series someone will rank in 2040. That list writes itself a lot harder than this one did.