losers returns: selectbutton 85 xiii

King of Posters
22

Sky Odyssey
vs.
Dragon Quest III

haven’t played either of these games

Ico
vs.
WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$!

Super Mario 64
vs.
Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater

don’t like either of these games enough to vote for them

Riven
vs.
Silent Hill

two strong mood pieces, but Riven has (strong) value beyond that and Silent Hill doesn’t

Castlevania: Rondo of Blood
vs.
Resident Evil (2002)

yeeeeah this is the hardest one of this group for me. don’t know yet. they’re both games at the peak of their respective series before they went a different direction, which is kind of interesting. is RoB better than SotN? is REmake better than RE4? I have no idea! all four of those games are great.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
vs.
Deus Ex

I like BotW quite a bit, but I’m not voting for a Zelda game over Deus Ex. BotW is just an unashamed fusion of a couple different Zelda games with the trend du jour; no matter how well done that is, it’s not good enough to beat out the wild leaps of Deus Ex, combined with it’s thick 2000 aesthetic, endless janky charms smattered all over youtube, and the wonderful totality of JC Denton’s smarm. dock a point for some abjectly racist voice acting.

Crazy Taxi
vs.
Bubble Bobble

noooo idea. two very good but not great arcade games.

Resident Evil 4
vs.
Donkey Kong '94

haven’t played much DK94 at all, but I’m voting for RE4. big budget camp, arcade excellence, thoughtful mechanical reimaging. really defines about a decade of gaming for me.

2 Likes
23

Sky Odyssey vs. Dragon Quest III
Obstaining?

Ico vs. WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$!
WarioWare gets the edge for being nauseatingly colorful, effortlessly engaging and having perfect comedy timing.

Super Mario 64 vs. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
Gonna give it to Snake Eater for having other worthwhile layers on top of its gradient sandbox levels, layers that interact with each other in a pleasing way. That, and the feeling that Mario 64 sorta peters out after a point, even though I feel its status as a revelation is mostly earned.

Riven vs. Silent Hill
Love Silent Hill’s texture, but I’d rather live in Riven.

Castlevania: Rondo of Blood vs. Resident Evil (2002)
I could listen to Rondo of Blood’s redbook audio and not even have to play the game, and just think about playing it, but that’s exactly the issue isn’t it?

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild vs. Deus Ex
BotW is the only open world game that I’ve moved beyond the point of tolerating, but I think I appreciate Deus Ex’s experimental boldness and well realized roleplaying on rails more.

I think I came to this conclusion since both official and unofficial sequels Deus Ex have been chasing it’s high for 20 years, while BotW feels like a well-constructed endpoint to the open-world question. Is anyone clamoring for even their own imagined version of BotW2?

Crazy Taxi vs. Bubble Bobble
This is probably the one I’ll push for most ardently. Bub and Bob are a cute miracle that pop (hur) transcendently off of 8-bit hardware in a way that few other games can. The sprites, and the way they express themselves, are uncontestable… but I think most of the magic ends there and it’s ultimately a little cruel. Getting at its secrets feels like too much homework (and please don’t tell me about co-op I don’t have no friends kay?).

On the other hand, Crazy Taxi bathtub distilled 90’s Sega fueled by shopping malls and hope, and doesn’t care how you play it as long as you hustle. Its secret techniques are offered to you warmly in the home port, and the game smiles with encouragement if you’re willing to push yourself. I’ll even take it with either version of the soundtrack, with or without the dumb fast food licensing. I just want to powerslide off of a hill and SLAM into the side of a low-poly church while coins fly off of the priest in my car and then a character named “Grandma J” hops in and I rocket start through a van toward a record store.

Gina becomes a cabbie so she can race around in her cab all day, and isn’t as concerned whether her customers enjoy her driving or not.

Resident Evil 4 vs. Donkey Kong '94
This one is kinda tough. I love RE4 forever, but I think its best bits have been convincingly transplanted since, while the compactly designed action-puzzle economy meets unnecessarily diverse but completely essential moveset of DK94 have not been matched, considering especially how consistently it handles itself over the course of the game. The levels avoid feeling like solved puzzle boxes (even though they definitely are) because you’re constantly finding fun new ways you can bend yourself around the level design. When Mario is hurt from falling, but does not die, he lets out a digital whimper that sounds like a bird.

I am just too close to DK94, and don’t have the perspective to say this definitively because it’s second nature on subsequent plays, but I remember Donkey Kong’s final form being really goddamn hard the first time.

9 Likes
24

rondo vs resi is too hard

discovering rondo on a pirated copy of magic engine in 2003 was a fuckin’ treat but as of the last year or so i think bloodlines might be my favourite castlevania?

2 Likes
25

Botw vs deus ex
Botw was fun for a while but I got bored of its rhythm p quickly, I didn’t have a lot of fun in the shrines. The most fun I had was putting my upgrades into stamina and making a mad dash to Hyrule castle and scaling its walls. I tried to get the master sword with temporary hearts and didn’t even get a special message for my cheekiness. Systems feel empty in comparison to deus ex, I’d rather tango with a tangle on my own terms than be free

3 Likes
26

I like this point! It speaks to something I appreciate about Rondo and maybe all of the pre-SotN Castlevanias. That clocktowers feature so heavily is fitting as you’re basically slotting into a clockwork parade in these games, striving to rhythmically fit like any other oncoming killer cog in the machine with the ultimate goal of destroying said machine. Lose the rhythm and the nuts and bolts start flying off. So being able to listen to the music and mentally conjure the accompanying action is a cool thing to have in the back pocket of one’s brain imo, like playing an album and imagining a bassline in your head, but you could also take out an actual bass and jam out or in this case step onto Dracula’s dancefloor and go toe to toe with all the creeps, carried through by those colossal tunes. It’s a challenge as comfort flow zone activity, like cooking a favourite meal. The ingredients and steps are all the same, same smells at the same times etc. but it’s a nice thing to lock into and vibe with.

Bloodlines is great, my first Castlevania actually, but it’s a bit too claustrophobic and cruel for me to enjoy the same way. Rondo’s little touches and tweaks to the formula add up to an endearing exercise I like to return to somewhat regularly: the ominous spoken German intro, beautiful backdrops, integration of alternate paths, hidden maidens to rescue, unlocking Maria and have the option for that Baby Mode when you just want to zip around and hang out and hurl doves, the backflip and back step to better dance with demons and yes, the MUSIC, like this where-the-hell-did-that-come-from track:

I don’t have an argument for why it’s better than Resident Evil which is probably a more significant artefact (and I did vote for its inclusion). Just gotta go with my personal fav on this one.

5 Likes
27

turns out i really don’t like deus ex. the style and talk is dry in a way unappealing to me, and then i kinda just end up playing it like a bad first person shooter cause the alternative (stealth) is even worse. maybe there’s a diplomacy option? who knows. i sure don’t. i don’t care. i made it to the rooftops part and felt miserable playing this.

i only ever got to play 20 minutes of the tutorial in botw, and it sucks that it has that tutorial, i spent that entire time wanting to just get to play the damn thing. but i still had a better time with that. i goofed off climbing around the ruins of a church and it was pretty. i dunno. this is shallow, definitely, but i’m going for botw.

9 Likes
28

voting is now open and will last for one week

4 Likes
29

Riven :pray:

3 Likes
30

slowly playing through sky odyssey and it’s amazing. i understand there’s kind of a treshold to really get into this, but it’s so worth it. diving increases your speed, climbing gives you resistance. winds affect your movement. for a game where you aren’t really supposed to touch anything it feels really physical, and it makes maneuvering canyons, tunnels, falling debris and storms thrilling.

and the more peaceful flights have such a strong mood too, like this short and simple mission through a mining village at night. bright full moon, lit windows, occasional mists, the buildings along the cliff walls as you descend to the mine. i just really love this.

11 Likes
31

i’ve been playing through it again with my friend group and one of them liked it enough to download a ps2 emulator and practice at home just to impress us with their maneuvers the next time we hung out. warms my heart

can’t articulate this well since i’m still half asleep but the balance of tension in sky odyssey feels so nice, that’s something that’s been really sticking out to me this playthrough

6 Likes
32

i think sky odyssey is a game where the devs made a list of cool and interesting things one could do in an airplane and then made a game all about that. perfect premise

5 Likes
33

we need a videogame windmills thread for this + outrun 2 + ico

7 Likes
34

Sky Odyssey and Riven are the two underdogs I want to see break through and face off against the higher tier losers. Once I acclimated to their systems, they evoked actual wonder in me, which is more than I can say for almost all video games.

2 Likes
35

this is the thread where i finally admit i played deus ex for like 2 hours and thought it was the shittiest shit i’d ever played

same with system shock

5 Likes
36

I can understand. I found the first stage in Deus Ex to be the worst part of the game. I don’t feel like it does a good job of presenting itself at all in the beginning. I probably would have just given up on it had I not played it on my Mac back when the catalog of games for the Mac was a tiny fraction of what was available on the PC. It ended up becoming one of my favorite games of all time, but I oddly have this “I understand” reaction when someone tells me they dislike it.

1 Like
37

Its not too late to change your votes to Sky Odyssey! I implore you, vote for a game that is still, even on selectbutton, underappreciated! Dragon Quest III is great, but it is not a unique marvel like Sky Odyssey.

It may not look it, but Sky Odyssey is actually a game full of secrets. There are alternate runways, branching paths, secret planes. I unlocked a Flying Saucer in my save file! They completely change the controls of the game!

12 Likes
38

I do not like the look of Sky Odyssey and turned it off after 5 minutes because fiddlely controls.

But that didn’t stop me from voting for it!

2 Likes
39

Did you get to the UNATCO HQ?
(2 hours is very borderline, maybe you did, maybe you didn’t.)

If you got to the UNATCO HQ, and thought the game was shit, you are unlikely to think any different playing more of the game.

If you didn’t get to the UNATCO HQ and talk with Manderly. You really didn’t experience any of what really makes Deus Ex what it is. The first level is fun to replay after you know what Deus Ex is, but taken alone without going back to HQ afterward would be almost like listening to a joke and not the punchline.

If you played the first part of Deus Ex, but not up to the HQ and didn’t like it, well of course you didn’t!

I enjoy the clumsy half-baked very easy to break stealth and combat of the game, but that really isn’t what made the game so memorable. If it was just that, no-one would care.
Put the laser sight (available in the first level) on the pistol you start with and learn where it actually fires and it is one of the best weapons until you get a machine gun (also sort-of available in the first level!).

40

Don’t give that pistol to Gunther right after you do that like I did on my first playthrough :face_with_symbols_over_mouth:

1 Like
41

okay