How the ranking is calculated

One score per magazine, never merged

Every review keeps its original score, exactly as printed in the magazine. Nothing is blended at the source: scores are only combined at display time, based on the sources you choose to count.

Bringing very different scales down to /100

Each magazine had its own scale: /5 (Nintendo Power, GamePro), /10 (EGM, often 4 reviewers scored separately), /100 (GameFan), stars (Next Generation), or a mix of numbers and qualitative labels (Game Players, e.g. “AVERAGE” = 5/10). Every score is converted according to its magazine’s own scale, never guessed case by case from its value alone. The original raw text is always kept in the database, including when no reliable conversion is possible.

Correcting each magazine’s own severity

Not every editorial team used its scale with the same severity: across the whole database, GameFan’s average score sits around 82/100 while Next Generation’s stays near 53/100. Without correction, a game reviewed only by a generous magazine would start with a structural head start of about fifteen points. Before the ranking is computed, every score is therefore re-centred: its magazine’s average is subtracted and the database-wide average added back (the result is capped to 0–100). This correction is only used to compute the aggregate score: everywhere else, pills and game sheets show the original scores, exactly as printed.

Why a weighted average

A game rated 100/100 by a single magazine would beat classics confirmed by 6 or 7 different sources: a plain average favours isolated cases. The ranking therefore uses a weighted average (IMDB-style) that pulls games with few sources towards the overall mean, while games with many sources stay close to their own average.

Japanese titles and release dates

Famitsu reviews are catalogued under their original Japanese title. When a game’s Western counterpart is identified with certainty, both entries are merged at display time and all their scores count together in the ranking; on any doubt, they stay separate rather than risking a wrong merge. Special case: when the Japanese and Western releases are substantially different games (reworked content), each entry keeps its own scores and a cross-link lets you jump between them. The date attached to Famitsu reviews is the Japanese release date, often shifted — sometimes by years — from the Western release: these dates are flagged with a “JP” badge in the ranking.

Current limitations

Some sources (US community spreadsheet, Super Liste) have no year attached to each review. Part of these dates has been reconstructed via Wikidata; games still missing a year remain listed, but drop out of the ranking as soon as the time range is narrowed, since we cannot guarantee they belong to it.