please elaborate
7 Likes
Final Fantasy 6 is one of the only jrpgs that makes perfect use of the inherently busted and compromised format. The fact that it is a loose conglomeration of badly balanced and weirdly broken systems is a strength, not a weakness. It’s as interestingly structured as the Odyssey, and like the Odyssey, it’s not talked about in terms of its structure often enough; instead the focus is usually all on some fantastical beats that only comprise like a third of the story. And it is one of the extremely few pre-redbook chiptune soundtracks that is improved, rather than impoverished, by being rendered in full orchestration. My parents, who don’t listen to any music made before 1960, legitimately loved this piece enough to actually request often that I play it. Unprecedented:
(I wish the orchestra was better, but what are you gonna do.)
Rez is cute, but it’s not “synaesthetic” in any meaningful way, and it ain’t Star Fox, a game I would’ve nominated if I’d been willing to break my very strict PC-only policy.
Vote to FF6.
Link’s Awakening is probably not the best Zelda game, but it is definitely the most emotionally affecting Zelda game. The ending is beautiful. But it talks too damn much, and ultimately its design, which you could describe as “refined,” I would rather say is conservative.
Mirror’s Edge did something nobody ever did before in an aesthetic nobody ever really attempted before. It has flaws, sure, but you know what it also has? Huge frickin balls. The first game to make me grateful I carried a 150-pound HD-CRT into my basement apartment to hook it up to my egregiously expensive PS3.
Vote to Mirror’s Edge.
I never played 3d Land, but I’m just gonna lump it in with Mario Odyssey, which I have played and which, like 3d Land, has gotten pretty good press around here. I don’t get it. I don’t like it. I don’t like that every world is in broad strokes a natural beauty shot through with round candy bullshit. I don’t like that there are a zillion tiny platforming challenges and the game says, hey, man, just like, do the ones you want, man. Well fuck you, if you don’t care about what moons I get I don’t either. I think Nintendo and I are just not on speaking terms any more. I can’t interpret anything they do as anything other than a direct insult to my intelligence.
Sky Odyssey is the Japanese arcade version of SimCopter, and really, what could be better than that. Nothing, that’s what.
Vote to Sky Odyssey. The superior Odyssey.
I don’t care bout Sega. I do think Outrun 2 is pretty good. But Outrun is not Outrun 2. Could Outrun inspire a Canadian academic in midlife crisis to spend significant time and effort writing a reflexively racist retranslation? Don’t answer that. You know the answer.
Vote to FFT.
Baba is You is an extremely clever premise executed to its fullest (or perhaps beyond its fullest), but Bubble Bobble is one of the greatest coop games ever made. Coop is life. Coop is love.
Vote to Bubble Bobble.
I’ve read the impassioned elegies and the heartfelt stories and I guess I understand intellectually but I just can’t summon even one shit for professional wrestling, and I feel like all its videogame incarnations completely waste the potential of the medium in order to simulate mundane reality. Isn’t the best pro wrestling videogame like, Asura’s Wrath?
Games based on giving you a playground in which to exercise one focused, flexible, simple to understand yet complicated to master physical manipulation are good games.
Vote to Umihara Kawase.
This one is surprisingly difficult for me to suss out. I dearly love both walking sims and run 'n guns. I like games where people move their legs I guess. Both of these games contain novelties, things I’ve never seen before. I didn’t really have the emotional response to Yume Nikki a lot of people did, I just thought it was a cool, slightly offputting place to explore, like an adolescent Mahole. But neither am I blown out of my seat by the pure Genesisness of Gunstar Heroes, that aesthetic only satisfies me to a point. I guess I’ll just go with what I perceive to be the underdog.
Vote to Yume Nikki.
I understand the triumphs of atmosphere and propounding a theme through mechanics that SH2 represents, I really do, but at the end of the day I just don’t like survival horror games. Point and click adventure inventory puzzles without humor, attrition based combat that laughs at you for inefficiencies you don’t even recognize until you die multiple times. Instead of feeling stressed and anxious I just feel annoyed. Disco Elysium throws out any pretense of synchronous challenge and really focuses itself completely on its strength, which is writing. Also I played it for 10 minutes at sbranson, got an incredibly lucky early roll that made Busted’s eyes pop out of his head, and shrug is still furious at how I bogarted the tv for a singleplayer experience no one else cared about.
Vote to Disco Elysium.
I’ll remember the first 10 minutes of Silent Hill for the rest of my life. I don’t think any other PSX game so beautifully used its graphical weaknesses as strengths. I was more scared by the opening of SH than I was by anything in the entirety of SH2. Yeah I know I just said I don’t like survival horror games but probably I like cute platformers even less.
Vote to Silent Hill.
If Dota 2 garners even a single vote I will be furious. Meanwhile,
JAD THE TAFF
Vote to Elevator Action Returns.
Even after all this time, the original SMB still has something like an ideal intersection of pleasantness, menace, and surreality to undergird the fundamental weirdness of a 2d platformer, a genre that is flooded with examples despite its core mechanic making almost no physical sense. It’s a purely videogame phenomenon, and SMB is a pure videogame.
If I’m going to grind at a menial task in order to earn a bauble, I’m at least going to do it online with other people.
Vote to SMB.
EBA seems pretty cool and fun but it makes these really annoying WHOMP sounds every time you press the thing which really undermines everything the game is trying to do imo.
EDF seems pretty cool and fun but it regularly suffers massive slowdown which is totally awesome and the game uses to its advantage.
Vote to EDF.
The promise of the original LoZ has never really been fulfilled by its successors. A handful of them are great in their own right, but they achieve greatness by sectioning off one piece of the experience LoZ offered and refining it. Which I’m not against, and it’s smart design, but… though many games are “bigger” than LoZ, almost none feels as huge.
Dragon Quest is nice but something I don’t have any real fondness for. It sure was fun to jointly play the first one at sbcon and get that Druaga, everyone working together feel. And in theory I appreciate the narrative achievements of games like 3, 4 and 5 - games made by adults that treat you like an adult but are still comprehensible to children. The “comfort food” feeling never worked on me though. I don’t eat comfort food in real life either. At some point DQs just get too conservative for me.
Vote to LoZ.
12 Likes
ah shit i gotta change my vote now
what game was i thinking of??
To be fair most first person games don’t let you do this. I remember being worried that ME: Catalyst might not let you see your own body.
I don’t have much vocabulary for describing music, but I’ll give this a shot.
The 3D Land theme has a similar melody to the theme shared by the NSMB games on DS, Wii, and 2DS. I’d say the 3D Land theme harkens back to the NSMB theme without directly referencing NSMB. The NSMB theme is annoyingly catchy, while the 3D Land theme is joyously catchy. This is evidenced as follows:
-
The enemies in NSMB are obliged to stiffly strike a pose at the sound of the “Waah” instrument. They do this while dutifully following their set paths toward certain doom.
-
Mario fluidly hops, skips, and jumps to the theme music in the attract mode of 3D Land. The music is infectious, and Mario is having a good time.
1 Like
Gunstar Heroes is one of my top 10 games of all time. I love everything about it; the title screen animation and theme, the chip and dale esque coop where you launch your partner at people, the seven force fight, melon bread, the amazingly conceived level where you’re on a screen being monitored by all the villains as they one by one step away to come fight you. i don’t even mind that it pulls the BS “finish on hard for the true ending” schtick that adds like a line of dialogue when you do. it’s the best action game of the 16 bit era.
5 Likes
Fair points but I just want to make sure you know that 3D Land’s closest analogue is SMB 3. It’s stage-based, tightly designed with well defined challenges, lots of variety, etc. Pretty much the opposite of Odyssey’s design ethos. You would probably like it.
5 Likes
FINAL FANTASY VI
vs.
REZ
ff6 is a cool, earnest, accomplished thing. it’s stuffed to the brim with pleasures. rez is fine and interesting, but not a match for ff6.
FF6 wins
THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: LINK’S AWAKENING
vs.
MIRROR’S EDGE
nothing you do in mirror’s edge is something i want to do. the movement is hypothetically neat but in practice i find it a weird compromise and i don’t find it that enjoyable. you are always interacting with the environment in more or less pre-determined ways such that it feels like a nauseating first-person tony hawk run instead of hitting any kind of fantasy of a visceral chase sequence. neat ideas - it feels like a draft for something much better that never came.
LA is the the most “zelda” zelda, in all the good ways. there are some annoying things about it but i don’t like ME at all so
TLOZ:LA wins
SUPER MARIO 3D LAND
vs.
SKY ODYSSEY
donkey kong '81 is better than sm3dl
sky odyssey wins.
OUTRUN
vs.
FINAL FANTASY TACTICS
out run wins, flawless victory (fft is cool but shit ain’t got nothing on out run)
BABA IS YOU
vs.
BUBBLE BOBBLE
the bubble bobble theme is great! iconic! otherwise i can’t be arsed to care about this series at all
baba is you wins because i don’t give a fuck about bubble bobble
WCW/NWO REVENGE (AKI N64 wrestling representative)
vs.
UMIHARA KAWASE
umihara kawase is awesome
wrestling is fine
umihara kawase wins
YUME NIKKI (2004)
vs.
GUNSTAR HEROES
gunstar heroes is not my favorite treasure game. it is A treasure game, though, which means it’s better than almost every other game by default! great game. i’ve never played yume nikki but it seems great and very striking. tough call. i’ll give it to yume nikki because i like the vibe. gunstar heroes is totally worthy of the win, but i gotta go with my gut.
yume nikki wins
DISCO ELYSIUM
vs.
SILENT HILL 2
i haven’t played disco elysium and it seems interesting. silent hill 2 is a great game, though i prefer (and nominated) the first one over it by a solid margin. i’ll give it to DE just because it seems fresh, though realistically sh2 is a great game and one of my favorites. same deal tho - going with my gut
DE wins
SILENT HILL
vs.
KLONOA: DOOR TO PHANTOMILE
silent hill stomps this one
DOTA 2
vs.
ELEVATOR ACTION RETURNS
dota 2 wins specifically due to bachelor and slime’s commentary the other night. sorry elevator action returns 
SUPER MARIO BROS.
vs.
ANIMAL CROSSING
smb has to win this. animal crossing gc has a copy of smb inside of it and it still loses.
OUENDAN / ELITE BEAT AGENTS series
vs.
EARTH DEFENSE FORCE series
edf wins
DRAGON QUEST III
vs.
THE LEGEND OF ZELDA
dq3 all fucking day. this is a tough one but dq3 is cheating because you have all the different versions and most of them are good. zelda just has the one really and it’s great but i mean. sorry tloz
dq3 wins
7 Likes
i’ve played yume nikki and while i respect what it’s going for, the environments are too large and you move too slowly through them that i immediately get bored and want to do something else. i’m sure that’s part of the appeal and makes it even more dreamlike for a lot of people but i think it’s a snooze in execution.
3 Likes
enjoyed 3d land and thought odyssey kinda stank
2 Likes
I have less than no interest in playing either of these games, HOWEVER, one of them is a subpar final fantasy game with some good spritework, and the other is really compelling conceptually and interesting to watch. If you think a mediocre JRPG is better than flying through geometry and making living jams then I don’t know what the fuck to tell you
REZ
For those of you in attendance to the previous QoP, you are perhaps aware that my Zelda opinions should never be listened to. I’ve played like none of the games, they hold no place in my heart, and I like Twilight Princess. Also, Shrug was right and I do like Four Swords Adventures, I just didn’t remember it existed when I sent my shitpost list wait where was I going with this
Anyway Mirrors Edge is still a beautiful game to this day and honestly that’s all I need
Mirrors Edge
This one is kinda tough for me, because I would never in a million fucking years play Sky Odyssey, but I find it interesting. On the other hand, I would play Super Mario 3D Land, but don’t particularly find it like mind blowing or anything. But only cowards abstain, so
Sky Odyssey
Yeah like hell I’m voting against FFT
Final Fantasy Tactics
Baba Bobble. Bubble is You. Bubble is Bobble. Bubble You. Baba is Bobble.
So on the one hand, I think Baba is You is a clever and cute puzzle game. On the other, I have never touched Bubble Bobble but I love that little dinosaur. No this isn’t close for me, but isn’t it fun to pretend?
Baba is You
So I really liked WWF Attitude on the PSX (which was tbf also released on N64), mostly because i just like wrestling, though. Umihara Kawase on the other hand is brilliant and adorable soooooooooooooooooooo
Umihara Kawase
Not even fucking close, sorry Gunstar Heroes
Yume Nikki
So here’s the thing: I have played neither of these but am strongly emotionally compelled by both. Only one of them that’s interesting enough to me to make me think about playing it and try to convince other people to, though.
Disco Elysium
This one is actually kinda close for me, but I’ve ALSO played neither of these games. Silent Hill speaks to me, but Klonoa is so cute and charming and I could actually see myself playing it. So, I’m honestly kind of beat here? Silent Hill makes me feel more things though, and I already voted against SH2, so
Silent Hill
I’ve played DOTA2. I actually used to play a lot of MOBAs, at a point in time where I was a person I consider fully separate to who I am now. I honestly don’t even understand the appeal of competitive online games, outside of like 1v1 stuff and EVEN THEN I really don’t feel the appeal these days. MOBAs are a special beast, though, and need be slain, and it’s good that they’ve fallen out of fashion
Elevator Action Returns, otherwise known as Not DOTA2
Super Mario Bros.? Now that’s a great video game. Animal Crossing? Now that’s a video game that depresses me. Despite that, there’s only one of them I’d think about reaching for.
Animal Crossing
Why play Earth Defense Force when Kyoei Toshi exists
Ouendan / Elite Beat Agents series
Again, I have no love for Zeldo, aside from Morrowind II (Breath of the Wild). Dragon Quest has toriyama designs.
Dragon Quest III
10 Likes
Rez vs Final Fantasy VI
In my teenage years, I wanted to play Rez more than any other game. I thought, this is games as art. I didn’t own a Dreamcast but it got ported to the PS2. I was ready. Weird thing about the PS2 release of Rez, it was printed on a CD instead of a DVD. This means that my dusty machine would only read the disc 25% of the time. I used a laser cleaning disc that helped it read 50% of the time. I would leave it on when I wasn’t playing just to avoid the trial and error of reinserting the disc.
It actually felt worth it. I think?
Now, for this poll, I tried to play the disc on the Dreamcast I now own and oops my Dreamcast doesn’t read discs any more. I want to believe that it is still good and I’m trusting everyone on here to tell me the truth.
I played Final Fantasy VI maybe ten years ago. I did it because I wanted to play “the best games of all time” and it felt mostly like checking a box. Under those circumstances, I don’t think I allowed myself to enjoy it. I think it’s the only Final Fantasy that I’ve actually completed, so it deserves kudos for that. I like the strange spells that Strago can use. “Traveler” deals damage to an enemy equal to 1/32 of the party’s total steps taken and costs (total minutes played)/30. That’s wild! I think I can be convinced that this game deserves the vote over Rez.
Decision: Rez
7 Likes
FINAL FANTASY VI vs. REZ
Rez is a game I bought a vibrator because of. It’s about the size of a mouse. It’s in a velvet pouch. I still have it in the box (though I took it out to show you all here). I have used it to play the game (not like that). It is pretty powerful. It kinda adds some feeling to the game.
The game doesn’t need it, but it’s cool. I like this game a lot.
The only mainline FF games I have finished at 1, 13, and 15.
Winner: Rez
THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: LINK’S AWAKENING vs. MIRROR’S EDGE
I beat Link’s Awakening a long time ago and it was a good time. The Gameboy Color I beat it on was eventually lost to the ravages of time/dorm theivery. It also has that adorable Amiibo.
I have never finished Mirror’s Edge because I didn’t care too much about it. BUT YOU DO HAVE FEET and that deserves recognition. But maybe not this recognition.
Winner: Link's Awakening
SUPER MARIO 3D LAND vs. SKY ODYSSEY
I have never played either of these, but I always dreamed of being a pilot before it became obvious that my size and poor eyesight were gonna make that a big old no no, so.
Winner: Sky Odyssey
OUTRUN vs. FINAL FANTASY TACTICS
It’s cool that someone redid the script to Final Fantasy Tactics, but man, OUTRUN. Like Yu Suzuki dreamed of driving across America with a girlfriend in a Ferrari and made a game about that. He later would make a hyper realistic simulation of the Ferrari he ended up buying that could be run on three screens and three Dreamcasts at once. I think I read in the interview that he has a wife and a kid, so I guess he got a girlfriend at some point. I don’t think he ever drove across America with her in his car though.
Also, the LP of the Outrun soundtrack is like my go to for cheering up.
Winner: Outrun
BABA IS YOU vs. BUBBLE BOBBLE
Fuck, this is a tough one. Baba Is You is a really impressive game, but Bubble Bobble was a big game for kid me. I also really love how expressive Bub and Bob are as sprites. So.
Winner: Bubble Bobble
WCW/NWO REVENGE (AKI N64 wrestling representative) vs. UMIHARA KAWASE
I love professional wrestling conceptually, even if in the real world, the whole industry is problematic as fuck. That being said, I didn’t have an N64, so I never played this. I have played some Umihara Kawase, but I gotta go with the puroresu.
Winner: WCW/NWO REVENGE
YUME NIKKI (2004) vs. GUNSTAR HEROES
Gunstar Heroes is great. It’s probably not my favorite Treasure game (That is either Guradian Heroes, GH Advance, or Silvergun, probably?) but it is great. And the first videogame vinyl I bought, and it rules. Love that Genesis sound. Fuck the haters.
I’ve never played Yume Nikki for longer than five minutes. Nothing against it, but it just never hit me, and certainly not Gunstar levels.
Winner: Gunstar Heroes
DISCO ELYSIUM vs. SILENT HILL 2
I haven’t played Disco Elysium, but Silent Hill 2 is the game I have thought about probably the most in my life. I could write a lot about that here, but I still think about it a lot. And the soundtrack is great.
Winner: Silent Hill 2
SILENT HILL vs. KLONOA: DOOR TO PHANTOMILE
I’ve never touched Klonoa, and Silent Hill is like the perfect PS1 aesthetic.
Winner: Silent Hill
DOTA 2 vs. ELEVATOR ACTION RETURNS
Dota 2 is bullshit; I don’t even care. Elevator Action Returns is 100% NOT BULLSHIT. It is the most NOT BULLSHIT possible. It is great.
Winner: Elevator Action Returns
SUPER MARIO BROS. vs. ANIMAL CROSSING
Super Mario Bros is the better, more important, whatever game. I get that. Animal Crossing is a game that has made so many of my friends make up stories about animals and their bizarre machinations. And I have spent a ton of my own time doing things here. So fuck it.
Winner: Animal Crossing
OUENDAN / ELITE BEAT AGENTS series vs. EARTH DEFENSE FORCE series
Putting EDF as a whole series denies a lot of the evolution that has taken place over the series. But whatever, even the first one is more interesting to me than Elite Beat Agent.
Winner: EDF!
DRAGON QUEST III vs. THE LEGEND OF ZELDA
Dragon Quest all day every day forever. I played the first game to completion when I was like 9. It’s just in my head/heart/etc forever now. I can’t help it.
Winner: Dragon Quest III
8 Likes
SUPER MARIO 3D LAND
vs.
SKY ODYSSEY
All of the Mario places severely lack natural occurrences.
BABA IS YOU
vs.
BUBBLE BOBBLE
Bub and Bob fall slowly. BABA IS QUICKSILVER
WCW/NWO REVENGE (AKI N64 wrestling representative)
vs.
UMIHARA KAWASE
Umiiharaa off the tuurrnbucklllle! I’m not familiar enough with wrestling games, any fluidity is lost on me. Wrestling games seem more focused on timing while in close proximity than on collapsing space, which is what Umihara does best with her fishing line. Replacing shooting with running make Umihara Kawase seem like a more interesting evolution in its respective genre.
YUME NIKKI (2004)
vs.
GUNSTAR HEROES
Both are diamonds in the rough, but that only feels like a strength in Yume Nikki.
SUPER MARIO BROS.
vs.
ANIMAL CROSSING
Mario’s jump is cooler than anything you can do in Animal Crossing. The operational space in Animal Crossing is probably more engaging as a whole, but not enough to win me over.
DRAGON QUEST III
vs.
THE LEGEND OF ZELDA
If I had grown up playing Ultima instead of Tower of Druaga, I’d still probably vote for Zelda.
7 Likes
I tell myself that it’s unfair to choose both Silent Hill and Silent Hill 2 when so many other worthy series didn’t even make the initial cut, but can I do otherwise?
4 Likes
I feel like a lot of the comments regarding WCW/NWO Revenge are missing the point re: “I never cared much for wrestling”. It’d be like blowing off Goldeneye because you didn’t care for James Bond movies, or Mario Kart 64 because you didn’t care about go carts. The Aki wrestling games are among the best multiplayer games on arguably the most (local) multiplayer-friendly consoles that ever existed. Liking wrestling adds something for sure, but the reason people remember it years later isn’t because it is a wrestling game but because it is a damn fine multiplayer experience.
7 Likes
GoldenEye and Mario Kart 64 are much friendlier to pick up and play party multiplayer than a wrestling game. I’ve gone to parties a long time ago where people had these games on the TV and I never felt like I had any understanding of how my inputs translated into anything my wrestler was doing nor did I really have any clue what the win condition was. It was miserable, and I kept trying to understand for a good 45 minutes.
That shouldn’t be a problem with a good party multiplayer game, and GoldenEye and MK64 don’t have this issue.
5 Likes
not every good multiplayer game has to be a party game
3 Likes
I mean, Mario Kart 64 was a much easier game to pick up and play but having been in college when both games came out the Aki wrestling games seemed to be easier to pick up than Goldeneye if you didn’t have experience with FPSs previously. Granted you seemed to be stuck playing it an environment where the other people didn’t even bother to tell you how to win a match in it which would likely suck.
2 Likes