I have to disagree. While it certainly had a number of excellent, and some of the best, RPGs out there, 2000-2010 is the golden age of RPGs. 1985-1996 was the first decade, when everything was fresh and new, tropes were still being created, templates were being developed and used, then the PS1/N64 era everything went a bit quiet, not a lot of true greats to compete with it, and then you hit like 2002 with the PS2 and it starts to pale in comparison. The transition from PS2 to DS was jarring sure, but if you love RPGs there is no way you can argue that the SNES era>PS2/DS decade. There are way more variations on the genre, not just the usual medieval/steampunk stuff that everyone was putting out. You got stuff like that sure from DQ 8 and FF12, but then you got stuff like the Persona games, the Kingdom Hearts series, one offs like Radiant Historia, Ni No Kuni and Infinite space, and a whole slew of new concepts. The only thing that I can say beats the PS2/DS decade of RPGS is Terranigma, that game is always above all else for me.
If we're talking decades, then I really think SNES does win. While there were a number of RPGs in 2000 to 2010, from...let's say, 90 to 00 (since that also splits between two generations, though I was more referring to 91 to 94 when I said that), you had more impactful RPGs than you did from 2000 to 2010. Sure, in 2000 to 2010 you got Persona, Final Fantasy games, Kingdom Hearts and all that goolash, but with the 90s to 00s you got Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross, and Deus Ex among others. This was when games started getting serious about their narratives and realized that they could leave an impression on the player through animation, aesthetics, and music rather than simply words and context.
But I don't really think it's best to compare just the SNES to what is 2 generations, hence why I use the entire 90s to 00s deal here (or, if we want to go general, SNES/Playstation 1). This is where you saw a lot of new ideas of the industry that are, nowadays, only held back by their outdated GUIs and, depending on the case, lack of modern concept. This was also around the time that developers started to recognize RPGs as the parent genre it is and started branching beyond the goto- that is, Turn Based RPGs. It was an age of creativity, and we started seeing games like Live a Live, a game which experimented with multiple narratives that eventually come together, Chaos World, which was essentially he precursor to The Last Remnant, what I would say are some of the best Final Fantasy games, which developed class making, customization, and darker, more personal narrative storytelling. This was also the age of Monster Collecting games such as a good deal of the Shin Megami Tensei games (including the main games, mainline spinoffs, and the original Persona entries), Monster Rancher, Jade Cocoon, and various Dragon Quest titles.
This is just the tip of the iceberg, and heck, the more that I think about it, the more that I really think that the SNES alone could be a good contender for the PS2/DS together, and I certainly think that if I were to pick a would be more contemporary system to pair it with such as, say, the Gameboy, it would probably still come out on top. Reason being, even if SNES were to have less good RPGs than the systems, together or apart, I think that it would still qualify as a Golden age partially as a matter of quantity, but also because here you would see a number of important RPGs and classics, many of which would do quite a bit to branch out the RPG genre as a whole, really test what the gamer, or rather, the consumer in general was willing to stand in terms of mature content in storytelling, and try out numerous concepts. But I think if we're too look at the PS2/DS, we really don't see that as much, and it's not as if it's not possible, The World Ends With You is one of the best and most unique games I've ever played, and despite what I said about Chaos World, The Last Remnant still does well to experiment with ideas in much the same way. But regardless, I don't think we see as many classics as we did in the SNES days.
In short, I really think it's the overall quantity and quality that makes it such a good contender for the best (and if not that, certainly the most important) of the Golden Ages.
