Best Games of 1997
Ranked by our critic's grades, best first.
GoldenEye 007The console shooter that proved the genre belonged in the living room.Read the review
Final Fantasy VIIThe RPG that made the whole world care about Japanese role-playing games.
Final Fantasy TacticsA political tragedy about class and church corruption, running on the deepest job system Square ever shipped.
Castlevania: Symphony of the NightThe game that put the 'vania' in Metroidvania and made 2D defiant in a 3D world.
Gran TurismoThe real driving simulator arrived and made every other racer feel like a toy.
Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes BackNaughty Dog spent a year fixing everything the first Crash got wrong and shipped the sharpest platformer on the machine.
Armored CoreA garage simulator with missions attached, and a debt system that can ruin a save file.
Grand Theft AutoThe top down original nobody would call fun today, but every open world owes it the idea that a city can simply be there.