alright, I got a big-ass bowl of spicy samyang ramen and a salted leek pancake in front of me, let’s get crackin’.
MINECRAFT (a game i have played)
vs.
SUPER STREET FIGHTER II TURBO (a game i have played)
my harm reductionist politics have me analyzing this along three axes:
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minecraft makes many kids very happy and teaches them the power of collaboration. street fighter ii makes kids very upset because it means somebody has to lose and their child-sized egos aren’t capable of taking that blow.
-
minecraft’s popularity will presumably lead to more engineers in the future. street fighter ii’s popularity has presumably led to cases of carpal tunnel and hypertension.
-
minecraft players have never personally done me wrong. street fighter ii players have bumped into me while i was playing iidx. well, okay, they were street fighter v players, but i assume they’ve played ii at some point.
it is an unmistakable win for minecraft. it gets my vote.
CRAZY TAXI (a game i have played)
vs.
METAL SLUG 6 (Metal Slug 3 romhack) (a game i have not played)
so at first i was going to vote for crazy taxi, simply because the intrinsic joy of moving around 3d space in a vehicle tends to eclipse the thoughtless plodding of feet. but then i remembered a conversation i had with a friend the other day in which they told me crazy taxi was where they first got introduced to the offspring, and i don’t like the offspring. we listened to the song by the offspring they knew from crazy taxi and i thought it was real lame.
i also think there is a much higher level of craft in metal slug games, although i’ve only beaten the first one, so as someone who is campaigning for more intentionality in all things i can’t leave ol’ slugger out to dry. i’m going to vote metal slug 6.
EVERYBODY VOTES (a game i have not played)
vs.
PUYO PUYO series (a game i have played)
the puyo games make @slime happy, and slime is one of the only other people on this forum who plays rhythm games, so i consider us allies and i am happy to defer to her judgment. in slime i trust.
also, i have never even heard of everybody votes – is this a real game? or a collective dream of the forum? even if it is the real silicon deal, it’s not enough for me to forsake a rhythm game ally. i will be voting for the puyo puyo series.
STREET FIGHTER III THIRD STRIKE: FIGHT FOR THE FUTURE (a game i have played)
vs.
CONTRA: HARD CORPS (a game i have not played)
can you parry in contra? i don’t know if you can. but i know you can parry in street fighter iii, and although i am absurdly bad at that game, pulling off a parry feels real, real darn good. i do not have enough faith in contra that they could create any sort of moment that tasty in their game, so, despite all my reservations against street fighter players espoused in the first matchup, i am going to vote for street fighter iii.
YAKUZA 0 (a game i have not played)
vs.
SUPER METROID (a game i have not played)
well darn, this is a tricky one. i have played yakuza games and i have played metroid games, but never these specific games. based on my experiences i’m lead to believe yakuza 0 would be a more memorable experience for me, if only because i have better 3d spatial memory than 2d memory. also, i can use yakuza for japanese practice, but what life skills does super metroid have to offer me? another factor is that i feel like wherever yakuza 0 takes place will have more hang-out-itude than any location in super metroid, although i’m happy to be proven wrong. so yeah, i’m going with a vote for yakuza 0.
NIGHTS INTO DREAMS (a game i have not played)
vs.
SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 2 (a game i have not played)
i’m going to be honest, i don’t know shit about these games except that people like them and they’re landmarks of sega’s first party development efforts. i have never played them and don’t really plan to unless someone makes me. so as an arbitrary deciding factor, i think i would have a lot more fun hanging out with the entity from nights than i would hanging out with sonic, or anyone from the sonic universe for that matter barring the edge case scenario of knuckles performing the pumpkin hill rap. this will be a vote for nights into dreams.
GAME BOY CAMERA (a game i have not played)
vs.
DEUS EX (a game i have not played)
the game boy camera was the first truly accessible digital camera, and as someone for whom a primary motivation is the accessibility of both experiencing and creating art, it would take a lot to beat that. unfortunately for deus ex, i played it once for ten minutes and remember being very bored, and i’ve heard it’s one of those “immersive sim” games, the only one of which i’ve played was the most recent prey and i also thought that was pretty boring. even against a lesser foe deus ex would be really struggling, but against a heartfelt device meant to spread the joy of photography? not a chance. a vote for game boy camera it is.
IKARUGA (a game i have played)
vs.
FINAL FANTASY XIV (a game i have played)
wow! already at the final matchup of this round, i have a lot more thoughts on this one. i have beaten the main story quest of final fantasy xiv (that is, i’ve seen the credits roll in the base game, never touched the expansions) and i have fiddled around in ikaruga but i don’t think i’ve ever even made it past the second stage.
my initial thoughts when i glanced at the matchups was that i have big beef with final fantasy xiv for being such a power fantasy compared to the beautiful player-agnostic plot and atmosphere of final fantasy xi – the mechanical aspects of the game were fine, but i was really soured by the tone of the storyline. i play an mmo not to be the center of everything, but to be a bit player in the world. i think mmo games should play to the strength of having a real community and have that feeling of fame and importance be something earned from other players rather than something given to everyone by the plot.
ikaruga, on the other hand, steps beyond agnosticism to become player-antagonist, as most shmups are, and as one of only two iidx players on the forum (shout out to my other rhythm game ally, @Sakurina) it should be obvious that i truly live to suffer. there is something incredibly appealing to me about a game that genuinely expects me to give up and gives me no quarter (no pun intended and no credit feeding allowed) in surpassing the challenges it sets out for me.
what’s swaying me more than anything is knowing that some amount of people, perhaps even enough to be referred to as “many” have met and fallen in love in final fantasy xiv. i might still be bitter because of my breakup at the beginning of this year, but i really am a hopeless romantic and any game that can foster connections like that makes my heart swell up in a way that video games rarely do. final fantasy xiv is a game that is capable of reaching beyond itself and beyond the typical limitations of the medium and really affecting tangible, positive events in the world around it, and for that it gets my vote.