Live ranking

The full ranking.

5,035 video games face off in duels and 368,051 duels have already been settled. The ranking is recomputed with every vote: filter by genre, decade, platform or period.

83 games Reset

  1. 1 Tetris 1989 · Puzzle 1,880
  2. 2 Super Mario Bros. 1985 · Platformer 1,867
  3. 3 Super Mario Bros. 3 1988 · Platformer 1,803
  4. 4 Kirby's Adventure 1993 · Platformer 1,782
  5. 5 The Legend of Zelda 1986 · Action-adventure 1,756
  6. 6 Mega Man 2 1989 · Platformer 1,691
  7. 7 Zelda II: The Adventure of Link 1987 · Metroidvania 1,678
  8. 8 Castlevania 1986 · Platformer 1,665
  9. 9 Mega Man 3 1990 · Platformer 1,657
  10. 10 Metroid 1987 · Metroidvania 1,640
  11. 11 Mega Man 6 1993 · Platformer 1,620
  12. 12 Mega Man 1987 · Platformer 1,611
  13. 13 Disney's DuckTales 1989 · Platformer 1,607
  14. 14 Final Fantasy 1987 · JRPG 1,605
  15. 15 Battletoads / Double Dragon 1993 · Beat 'em up 1,584
  16. 16 Dragon Warrior 1986 · JRPG 1,577
  17. 17 Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels 1986 · Platformer 1,574
  18. 18 Karateka 1984 · Fighting 1,571
  19. 19 Battletoads 1991 · Beat 'em up 1,570
  20. 20 Mega Man 5 1992 · Platformer 1,570
  21. 21 Ice Hockey 1988 · Sports 1,570
  22. 22 Disney's Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers 2 1993 · Platformer 1,549
  23. 23 Castlevania II: Simon's Quest 1987 · Metroidvania 1,544
  24. 24 Final Fantasy II 1988 · JRPG 1,543
  25. 25 Excitebike 1984 · Racing 1,533

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FAQ

Questions about the ranking

How is this ranking established?

The ranking comes solely from player votes, in duels between two games. Each vote updates an ELO score, the rating system used in chess: every game starts at 1,500 points and its score moves duel after duel.

How often is the ranking updated?

Continuously: every duel voted immediately adjusts the score of the two games involved. The badge on the right shows how each game's rank moved over the past seven days.

How many games take part in the ranking?

5,035 games, selected for their fame, face off in duels. The full GameForever catalogue covers tens of thousands of titles, across every era and platform.

How can I see the best games by genre, decade or platform?

Use the filters at the top of the page: genre (RPG, FPS, platformer, strategy...), decade and platform (PC, PlayStation, Nintendo, Xbox, SEGA). Filters combine, and the selection is numbered from 1, from the highest ranked down; each game's world rank stays shown on its own entry. The period filter instead ranks on the points gained recently, from 7 days to 12 months (all time by default).

Why can an indie game finish ahead of a blockbuster?

The ELO score measures neither sales nor budget, but the preferences expressed in duels. An indie game that regularly wins its match-ups against higher-ranked titles climbs mechanically, owing nothing to its production budget.

What is the difference between the position in the list and the world rank?

The position is that of the selection on screen, numbered from 1 and carried on from page to page: filter on RPGs and the top RPG becomes number 1. The world rank depends on no filter and is shown on each game's own entry, along with its duel count and win rate.

Why rank by duels rather than by a score out of 10?

Absolute scores saturate: nearly every game that matters ends up between 7 and 9, and what is left of the gap often says more about a site's audience than about the games. A duel asks a question you cannot answer with "both", and it lets a 1994 game and a 2024 game be compared without correcting anything: they are not scored on two scales, they are set against each other.

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