EVERYBODY VOTES 2 PART II: THE SELECTBUTTON.NET TOP 64 VIDCONS 2020 (voting closes september 22, 2020, midnight cst!!)

[anonymous]

here are the matchups to discuss this time! we’ll be having a lopsided number of matchups until we knock a few things out of the of loser’s bracket! voting opens september 18, 2020, midnight cst, and closes september 22, 2020, midnight cst!

EVERYBODY VOTES 2: THE SELECTBUTTON.NET TOP 64 VIDCONS 2020 - Challonge

the next 13:

• FINAL FANTASY VI
• REZ

• THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: LINK’S AWAKENING
• MIRROR’S EDGE

• SUPER MARIO 3D LAND
• SKY ODYSSEY

• OUTRUN
• FINAL FANTASY TACTICS

• BABA IS YOU
• BUBBLE BOBBLE

• WCW/NWO REVENGE (AKI N64 wrestling representative)
• UMIHARA KAWASE

• YUME NIKKI (2004)
• GUNSTAR HEROES

• DISCO ELYSIUM
• SILENT HILL 2

• SILENT HILL
• KLONOA: DOOR TO PHANTOMILE

• DOTA 2
• ELEVATOR ACTION RETURNS

• SUPER MARIO BROS.
• ANIMAL CROSSING

• OUENDAN / ELITE BEAT AGENTS series
• EARTH DEFENSE FORCE series

• DRAGON QUEST III
• THE LEGEND OF ZELDA

reminder that since this is double elimination, all losers here will still have a shot in the loser’s bracket! (ties will be settled via melty blood netplay)

[captainlove]

Oh boy, the heavyweights are out.

[RT-55J]

CRUSH THE OLD ORDER AND CREATE A NEW SOCIETY

[satanwasanta]

I had a lot of fun writing my pick reasoning for the prior bracket due to either not knowing or having tangential relationships to those games but looking at this I’m about to being

As Boring As Possible

cos I’ve beaten a lot of these games and that kinda

Sucks Cos I Actually Like Them

[yarusenai]

I must defend what is right. I fight for Sky Odyssey. I have been fighting for Sky Odyssey for many years. This is my first volley against all who would vote Super Mario 3D Land.

@yarusenai

i was reading wind, sand and stars by antoine de saint-exupery earlier today. it’s a memoir regarding his work as a pilot for an airmail company in the 1920s/30s. i stopped after only 20 pages or so because the visual imagery was too strong and beautiful for me to take very much of in one sitting.

Thus, when Mermoz first crossed the South Atlantic in a hydroplane, as day was dying he ran foul of the Black Hole region, off Africa. Straight ahead of him were the tails of tornadoes rising minute by minute gradually higher, rising as a wall is built; and then the night came down upon these preliminaries and swallowed them up; and when, an hour later, he slipped under the clouds, he came out into a fantastic kingdom.

Great black waterspouts had reared themselves seemingly in the immobility of temple pillars. Swollen at their tops, they were supporting the squat and lowering arch of the tempest, but through the rifts in the arch there fell slabs of light and the full moon sent her radiant beams between the pillars down upon the frozen tiles of the sea. Through these uninhabited ruins Mermoz made his way, gliding slantwise from one channel of light to the next, circling round those giant pillars in which there must have rumbled the upsurge of the sea, flying for four hours through these corridors of moonlight toward the exit from the temple. And this spectacle was so overwhelming that only after he had got through the Black Hole did Mermoz awaken to the fact that he had not been afraid.

another passage, regarding losing their bearings and going way off course, burning through their fuel and desperately trying to figure out where to land:

But the airports one by one had been waking each other up. Into our dialogue broke the voices of Agadir, Casablanca, Dakar. The radio stations at each of these towns had warned the airports and the ports had flashed the news to our comrades. Bit by bit they were gathering round us as round a sick-bed. Vain warmth, but human warmth after all. Helpless concern, but affectionate at any rate.

And suddenly into this conclave burst Toulouse, the headquarters of the Line three thousand miles away, worried along with the rest. Toulouse broke in without a word of greeting, simply to say sharply: “Your reserve tanks bigger than standard. You have two hours fuel left. Proceed to Cisneros.”

it reminded me vividly of sky odyssey, one of my favorite video games (i recently passed along my english copy on here). immediately after reading that second passage i quoted, i put the book down and ordered a copy of sky odyssey of my japanese ps2.

sky odyssey is so wonderful to me because it takes place in a small group of islands with isolated human settlements and remnants of ancient and abandoned human settlements. the terrain is very dramatic and riddled with canyons, caves, waterfalls, mountains, and all sorts of interesting things. there’s even a level that reminds me slightly of the first passage i quoted .

obviously the game takes a lot of liberties with both geography and physics, but just reading a bit of st-exupery’s book made it clear that in some ways it’s not extremely far from the reality of what many people experienced. and what they experienced is so temporal, borne of not only their own lives but also the state the world was in during their life. no one will ever again have the experience of flying mail from france to south america, operating with only your visuals and manual instrumentation, carrying the thoughts and feelings and ideas of hundreds of people in your cargo and passing through a world above the clouds that very few humans had experienced at that point in time. even if you retraced the route in a similar aircraft, everything from the regulations to the scenery would be so, so different in 2016 than it was in 1930.

and, just as an example, the first quoted passage is something i would love to have experienced. and i can’t. but maybe i can get a taste of it.

fortunately, memories can be preserved and shared. obviously writing is one of the biggest ways – it’s how i learned about mermoz’s experience and how i’m sharing my thoughts on it with you. it can also be passed along visually – although it wouldn’t have been possible with the technology of the time, the experience can be preserved in a photograph. and there is nothing stopping anyone at any point from drawing, painting, etc. a picture or pictures of the experience, whether it’s the person who experienced it themselves or someone hearing about it.

[Sakurina]

Maybe put the part number before the colon?

[loki]

final fantasy vi is okay. rez is panzer dragoon but ugly and boring and with a stupid gimmick.

link’s awakenening is a good game that i have fond memories of. mirror’s edge is almost a good game, all its interesting ideas damned by its flaws.

super mario 3d land is ok, it’s a mario game. they’re all ok i guess. sky odyssey is a very interesting game i want to play more of.

after final fantasy vii was a massive hit, square still didn’t release tactics in europe, can you believe it? all we had were rumours like “cloud is a secret character” and “chocobos evolved from chickens, so it must be set in ffvii’s past”. i still haven’t played it, but even if i had, i can’t imagine it being better than outrun tbh.

bubble bobble took tower of druaga’s bullshit secrets, made them semi-optional and put them in a game that’s actually fun to play.

for over 20 years, certain people have been saying that the n64’s wrestling games are the best ever, and i always just think “haven’t they played fire pro?”. it’s weird how over the past decade umihara kawase went from being a super-obscure snes exclusive that only sb/ic-adjacent people seemed to have heard of to being a series with entries on a bunch of modern consoles that you can just buy for a few pounds, isn’t it?

gunstar heroes is the genetic forbear of alien soldier and gunstar super heroes. those games are better than it, but it’s still excellent.

i haven’t played disco elysium or silent hill 2

i didn’t play silent hill a lot when it came out, but it’s still very tied to late 90s culture for me, for some reason. i love the atmosphere, the empty american town, the school from kindergarten cop, etc. klonoa is a really really pretty game, but it never really hooked me, though i’ve tried a few times even as recently as it currently being on my ps vita’s memory card right now.

elevator action returns is an incredible game. it’s awesome to play alone or with a friend, it’s aesthetic is amazing, it’s an undeniable classic that stands out among its peers in the real golden age of arcade games.

i’ve play super mario bros, and i’ve played animal crossing, and i don’t really care about either of them

EDF EDF EDF

dragon quest because i already voted for a zelda in this post

[Polygonzo]

Beautifully said. I’ll add my own words eventually but simply put: I will fight for Sky Odyssey all the way, a game I treasure. Also, going by unimpeachable Pokemon logic, flying (Sky) beats ground (Land) so this is a no-brainer, people!

[loki]

i already have a copy of sky odyssey, now i want a copy of that book

[yarusenai]

It has some awkward parts taking place in North Africa written from a real gross colonial mindset but apart from that I reflect on it fondly and do think it’s worth reading for sure. It’s a very specific exploration of humanity holding out and connecting despite the vast, uncaring expanse of a planet that we occupy that I really respect.

[captainlove]

Quite a few here that I haven’t played which makes this a little easier.

FINAL FANTASY VI
vs.
REZ

Of the two I’ve only really played Rez. However, FFVI is the only remaining pre-2000 game on my backlog and I don’t think I’m gonna get to it in time. I’d really appreciate recommendations for the best translation as I hear the original SNES translation is quite spotty. Rez is pulsating, quantised music at my fingertips but too short for me. I went to a talk by Mizuguchi last year and he seemed like a pretty cool dude interested in the latest thing to help him express synaesthesia. In Rez’s case it just happened to be a shootgame. Given the lack of music games and the fact that FFVI is gonna eat many votes here I’ll throw a bone to the underdog.

THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: LINK’S AWAKENING
vs.
MIRROR’S EDGE

Link’s Awakening is likely the first game I ever played. However, Mirror’s Edge secures my vote for standing out from the crowd. Link’s Awakening is like the best Zelda game by virtue of having almost no obvious flaws but the series deviated from what it laid down here. Only Majora’s Mask really comes close to its style. Mirror’s Edge is brimming with potential as well and deserves to be remembered and played. The art direction is literally perfect. Just get rid of the guns! I will be championing ME.

SUPER MARIO 3D LAND
vs.
SKY ODYSSEY

I haven’t played either. I go to Google Sky Odyssey because I’ve never heard of it and WAIT A MINUTE! I AM TRANSPORTED TO A TIME. A time when a young captainlove was reading a Playstation magazine listing the upcoming releases that piqued his interest. He sits transfixed as his future self recalls the gleam of a yellow biplane between glossy leaves. What is this thing? A game that he recalls wanting but has never played. I forgot about this! I had imagined it for so long before something happened to that memory. I want to play it! The music, the vibe. My brain is racing remembering this. My vote goes to whatever the fuck I just experienced.

OUTRUN
vs.
FINAL FANTASY TACTICS

I have no horse in this race.

BABA IS YOU
vs.
BUBBLE BOBBLE

Baba is You got to a point where I ceased to have fun and every puzzle was a series of get this over there to get this over here and then this over there rather than the reality-warping promise of the initial levels. The grammar folds in on itself and it just becomes a frustrating exercise in counting the number of steps in a puzzle. It’s the same reason I slid off Stephen’s Sausage Roll. I haven’t played Bubble Bobble so I’ll go with the flow on this one.

WCW/NWO REVENGE (AKI N64 wrestling representative)
vs.
UMIHARA KAWASE

I vote Umihara Kawase for the same reason as Mirror’s Edge. I’ll usually choose innovation over iteration in most cases. Umihara Kawase is such a cool concept and rewards player expression in spades.

YUME NIKKI (2004)
vs.
GUNSTAR HEROES

Haven’t played either but have heard good things about both.

DISCO ELYSIUM
vs.
SILENT HILL 2

Disco Elysium was OK. I liked how much it would let me do and the internal monologues of the ‘skills’. I quickly lost interest in it though. Silent Hill 2 is very good but I think I preferred 3 overall. I think I like 2’s mood, plot, cutscenes, and extreme darkness but I wouldn’t ever play it again. Still, it compelled me more than Disco.

SILENT HILL
vs.
KLONOA: DOOR TO PHANTOMILE

I’ve not played either but I’d be inclined to keep Silent Hill in here to make things fizzy.

DOTA 2
vs.
ELEVATOR ACTION RETURNS

DOTA2 is toxicity without 9 friends. I also don’t really see what sets it apart from others within its genre. I’ve never played Elevator Action Returns but Elevator Action Deluxe was dope.

SUPER MARIO BROS.
vs.
ANIMAL CROSSING

By chance I happened to be playing SMB recently and it holds up very well as a pure platformer. Aesthetically it’s very focused and seems pretty miraculous that it’s as good as it is considering its contemporaries. Never played any Animal Crossing game but I generally don’t have a taste for getting sucked into economies of desire in games. Also I can structurally see through Animal Crossing NPC writing too easily. SMB Wins

OUENDAN / ELITE BEAT AGENTS series
vs.
EARTH DEFENSE FORCE series

EDF is OK, we all have fun laughing at the trashy jank but I’d much rather actually play EBA even though it’s not the most deserving rhythm game to be in this tournament. Jumping Jack Flash was the shit.

DRAGON QUEST III
vs.
THE LEGEND OF ZELDA

The Legend of Zelda wins this for many of the same reasons SMB does. Playing LoZ with another person and you know nothing about the game is single-player co-op at its finest. I’ve never played DQ3.

[parker]

you all had your chance for relevancy. voting ff6 now after turning your backs on ffxiv is a vote for empty nostalgia. by the end this list is going to look like it belongs on the wall at a millenial retirement home. final fantasy tactics is the 2nd best final fantasy game though so it’s okay to vote for that one. you should of just voted for yakuza 0 if you wanted outrun.

I don’t know what umihara kawase is but it looks like it might be a horny game and a wrong kind of horny. you should vote for wcw/nwo revenge because pro wrestling, being the sport of gods, has never been a wrong kind of horny.

I probably played silent hill 2 more than any other game back when but disco elysium is as close to perfect game as is probably humanly possible. a detective rpg with one combat encounter and unlimited personal insanity customization. sh2, mgs2, max payne 2, all the great twos, this game got there in one and with me in the full grip of anhedonia. I didn’t think I’d enjoy any new thing as much as I enjoyed this game.

[Khan]

Well to be fair its not that flying beats ground, it’s just that flying is immune to ground

[Polygonzo]

you’re right, “immune” didn’t have the dramatic flare though >__>

…be immune to the charms of 3D Land and defend Sky Odyssey!

[tt_zop]

Personally I don’t see how anyone could prefer 3D Land to 3D World and Sky Odyssey is really freaking cool, I posted about it at some point as well. All in on Sky Odyssey.

[wourme]

• I like Final Fantasy 6 a lot, but I’m going to have to go with Rez. As many times as I’ve played through it, I can’t imagine it ever losing its appeal. I think I’d have a slightly more difficult time if it were Final Fantasy 4. But I’d probably still pick Rez.

• Sky Odyssey is the easy winner in its match, even though I didn’t finish it because I wasn’t very good with the controls. Easy because I’ve never liked 3D Super Mario games. However,

• Super Mario Bros. beats Animal Crossing for me. It’s just the right combination of surrealism and fun mechanics, well before Nintendo started down the Mario-as-clown path. I did have fun with Animal Crossing, though, and even did the memory card swap to visit another person’s town once.

• Bubble Bobble never gets old. Somehow even its repetitive music never gets old. I was pretty impressed with Baba Is You, though I was another one who found the challenge drained a some of the fun out of the experience in later areas. But I would still absolutely recommend Baba Is You.

• I haven’t yet played enough of Disco Elysium to have an informed opinion, but I like what I’ve seen so far. However, I can’t imagine it topping Silent Hill 2. I sometimes think about all the symbolism that middle school English teachers would claim was present in the books we read. And it probably was, at least sometimes. But one place such symbolism is definitely present and used to great effect is Silent Hill 2.

• I think the most difficult one in this list for me is Silent Hill vs. Klonoa. I’m going to have to think about it some more. It might come down to Klonoa’s music vs. Silent Hill’s atmosphere.

• Probably going to have to go with Dragon Quest 3 over The Legend of Zelda. Only the NES version, though. The remake looks decent but I prefer the original graphics and it’s just not the same without the Old English. I have a lot of nostalgia for Zelda, though. Would I be better off today if I still had the patience to try burning every single bush in the world?

[Tulpa]

FINAL FANTASY VI
vs.
REZ

I don’t feel strongly about either game. This is the most gamefaqs of matchups. I vote Snood.

THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: LINK’S AWAKENING
vs.
MIRROR’S EDGE

Link’s Awakening without a doubt. Mirror’s Edge is decent except for the presence of guns and punching. They took a wonderful premise for a 3d platformer and undid all that good will. Link’s Awakening is one of the few Zeldas I like, and its thanks to the dreamy atmosphere and tight level design. That and you can make a rocket launcher by using the bow and the bomb at the same time.

SUPER MARIO 3D LAND
vs.
SKY ODYSSEY

Look, I like Super Mario 3D LAND. I think it’s good. I can’t performatively dunk on it just because it’s matched up with a personal favorite.

Sky Odyssey has the best Kow Otani soundtrack.

Sky Odyssey 07 - Briefing 2

It’s also a spectacularly well designed arcadey flight sim. Fly through a hurricane! Discover an ancient temple just as your engines burn out! Duck in an out of cliffs to avoid the winds! The stage design in this is more exciting than any flight sim I’ve played before or since. It truly stands alone.

OUTRUN
vs.
FINAL FANTASY TACTICS

Outrun is about impressing your significant other with your talents. No one can ever be impressed by your FFT builds. Outrun.

BABA IS YOU
vs.
BUBBLE BOBBLE

Baba is You made me feel like a genius and an idiot every 5 minutes. Bubble Bobble never had that kind of impact on me. Baba is You. Death to the old order.

WCW/NWO REVENGE (AKI N64 wrestling representative)
vs.
UMIHARA KAWASE

Umihara Kawase is such a perfect platformer, and one of the few in the genre I can stand to revisit. I suppose the complexity of the rope physics and swinging physics means that it doesn’t feel like a solved puzzle to me.

YUME NIKKI (2004)
vs.
GUNSTAR HEROES

DISCO ELYSIUM
vs.
SILENT HILL 2

Disco Elysium has a bleeding heart and soul. It has pathos and depth and actual writing. Disco Elysium made me laugh, it made me think about games, it made me feel real emotions. Silent Hill 2 is great, but it’s not DE.

SILENT HILL
vs.
KLONOA: DOOR TO PHANTOMILE

They’re both good, but I gotta go for Silent Hill on this one.

DOTA 2
vs.
ELEVATOR ACTION RETURNS

Elevator Action Returns. DOTA 2 is an abomination.

SUPER MARIO BROS.
vs.
ANIMAL CROSSING

Animal Crossing. Making friends and talking to people is better than jumping on their heads.

OUENDAN / ELITE BEAT AGENTS series
vs.
EARTH DEFENSE FORCE series

To save our mother Earth from any alien attack
From vicious giant insects who have once again come back
We’ll unleash all our forces, we won’t cut them any slack
The EDF deploys!

Our soldiers are prepared for any alien threats
The navy launches ships, the air force send their jets
And nothing can withstand our fixed bayonets
The EDF deploys!

Our forces have now dwindled and we pull back to regroup
The enemy has multiplied and formed a massive group
We better beat these bugs before we’re all turned to soup
The EDF deploys!

DRAGON QUEST III
vs.
THE LEGEND OF ZELDA

Dragon Quest III, without a doubt.

[stavekoff]

Rez because FF6 is the first game so boring i fell asleep

Mirror’s Edge because Link’s Awakening is the only Zelda where i feel actual malaise at the tought of trying to complete it’s trudging adventure

I’ve only played 3D Land

Outrun because i don’t like tactics genre all that much, FFT being one of the dullest to me

I’ve only played Bubble Bobble

Umihara Kawase is just one of those games i just love, the bouncy fishing line is sooo fun to use, also I don’t care for wrestling games

Yume NIkki is much more intersting and cool to play thru. I kinda only like the Gunstar sequel

abstain

Klonoa is a beautiful dream of a game with fun skill based gameplay and a great made up language

Elevator Action Returns let’s you play as a cool girl, and nobody in Dota is cool

Uh mario i guess

EDF EDF EDF

Haven’t played DQ3 lol

[stavekoff]

ALSO ANOTHER REASON TO VOTE BUBBLE BOBBLE

Bubble Bobble Music (NES) - Quest Begins / Main Theme

all you need baybee

[captainlove]

After having a borderline spiritual time travel experience I have now purchased a copy of Sky Odyssey