How would you grade this Generation of Games?

[Mustang]

With the announcement that the PS5 will be coming out next year (holiday months), I guess this marks the beginning of the end for this current gen. Personally, like last gen, I don't think we really need any new consoles because it feels like games are finally starting to flourish, or take off, if you will. And as of right now, unless these new consoles are fully backwards compatible I see no reason to get one and I don't plan on double dipping on any game whatsoever (with games like Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Ghost of Tsushima and Nioh 2 still in development) and that includes getting remasters or collectors editions and whatnot (anything from this gen getting a remaster can piss off).

That being said, I'd probably give this gen a B-/C. There were very little games that held my interest. If I wasn't playing a fighting game, Nioh or Persona 5 my ps4 was basically used for watching movies. Granted, I will admit that I've become even more picky when it comes to games these days so I'm probably being a bit harsh (Most of the games I've played were fighters and the main thing I judge fighters on is netcode and it was terrible for all of them). A lot of the time most of the games I have was just not able to keep me interested.

I don't want to dwell too much of the negatives though.

My favorites from this gen:
Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Nioh
Persona 5
Metal Gear Solid 5: Phantom Pain (despite the abysmal story, the gameplay made up for it entirely)

I gotta give a nod to the Musou games as well since I've played a lot of those to get me through some boring and stressful times. I also gotta give a nod to Yugioh: Legacy of the Duelist and Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 since I can just jump into those and kill time. I guess you can say my experience with this gen has basically been spent playing obscure Musou games or Yugioh and never really diving into much of the AAA titles. There's still hope though

I'm looking forward to:
Ghost of Tsushima
Final Fantasy 7 Remake
Genshin Impact
Nioh 2
Persona 5 Royal
Persona 5 Scramble
Dusk Diver (just recently found out about this and it's coming out next week)
Shenmue 3
Cyber Punk (starting to check out on it though)
Doom Eternal
Tales of Arise

I may get into the new gen very late if it don't have BC, let alone get into at all considering I'm still playing catch up since I have such a huge catalog built up. Anyway, thoughts and such.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I'd say that overall, this gen had a lot more to offer than last gen which was a bit too overly-obsessed with games trying too hard to impress people on a technological level rather than a mechanical one. That said, we still had to deal with quite a lot of that and many other issues carried over from last gen. It's an improvement, but nowhere near the heights of the 4th and 6th generation of consoles.

[Foggle]

I would say it's the third best generation overall after the 6th and 4th gens, with the main caveat being that a lot of the good stuff is download-only and/or PC-only. AAA titles are still largely focusing too much on spectacle over substance but the return of Capcom and Sega as quality development studios shows that there's still hope for big budget event games yet. Lately there's been an increased focus on promoting "auteur games" by the likes of Yoko Taro, Hideo Kojima, Swery65, and Suda51, which I have very much enjoyed seeing. Indie gaming has overcome its growing pains and now offers a wide variety of diverse experiences instead of just throwback platformers and "walking simulators," and the releases in those genres have improved exponentially over as well. My favorite genre of games, the "immersive sim," is now more alive than it's been since the early 2000's thanks to Arkane, and Nintendo has continued releasing hit after hit as always. It also looks like space sci-fi is finally coming back into vogue as a setting for games, and publishers are now much more willing to take risks on visual novels and other nichest of the niche Japanese releases for localization. All in all, the industry has grown a lot over the past 5-6 years, much like it did in the SNES/Genesis and PS2/Xbox days, only this time it had to spend a lot of time digging out of the hole it dug itself into with the 7th gen. The "games as a service" trend is concerning, but it has yet to really affect single-player releases so if it does have a negative impact on the kind of games I like it probably won't be felt until next generation.

My favorites:
Control
Dishonored 2
Divinity: Original Sin
Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze
Doom
The Evil Within
Hitman 1 & 2
Iconoclasts
Lisa
Nier Automata
Prey
Resident Evil 7 & REmake 2
Sonic Mania
Wolfenstein: The New Order/Old Blood/New Colossus
Yakuza 0

Good chance The Outer Worlds, Devil May Cry 5, and Bayonetta 2 will help me turn it into a top 20 but I need to play more of them first. Other two spots would go to The Missing and either Dusk or Bloodborne, but I still need to check out Disco Elysium which sounds like it'll be extremely my shit.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I'm surprised that Bloodborne didn't make your list.

[Foggle]

I'm surprised that Bloodborne didn't make your list.

That's why I think it was a really good generation, because there are so many games I loved to choose from!