the SB 64 part III: THE THIRD LIGHTING (voting closes october 4th, 2020!)

King of Posters
1

exciting matchups to discuss this week with favs like katamari damacy and demon’s souls! voting begins october 1st 2020, midnight cst and ends october 4th 2020, noon cst!)

  • KATAMARI DAMACY
  • SUPER STREET FIGHTER II TURBO

0 voters

  • RESIDENT EVIL 4
  • THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: MAJORA’S MASK

0 voters

  • UNDERTALE
  • CRAZY TAXI

0 voters

  • SHADOW OF THE COLOSSUS
  • PUYO PUYO SERIES

0 voters

  • THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: BREATH OF THE WILD
  • STREET FIGHTER III THIRD STRIKE: FIGHT FOR THE FUTURE

0 voters

  • CAVE STORY
  • TETRIS: THE ABSOLUTE: THE GRANDMASTER 2 PLUS

0 voters

  • KILLER7
  • SUPER METROID

0 voters

  • CASTLEVANIA: RONDO OF BLOOD
  • MYSTERY DUNGEON: SHIREN THE WANDERER (1995)

0 voters

  • DEMON’S SOULS (2009)
  • NIGHTS INTO DREAMS…

0 voters

  • RIVEN
  • SONIC MANIA

0 voters

  • OUTRUN 2
  • GAME BOY CAMERA

0 voters

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This is rough.

3

Gotta give it to Katamari. Between the cutscenes, the music, the dialog (which wow i gotta play through it in Japanese now) it’s so great. I didn’t nominate Katamari but that was probably me being contrarian. No one’s arguments about Super Turbo swayed the needle. And in ST Ken has too many command kicks!!!

I give Majora a lot of shit because the dungeons are absolute trash and the bosses are infuriating. I played the first third of RE4 recently and it’s still fantastic and tense and they have a cave troll. Giant catfish monster! Shooting fish for fun and profit. But Cania’s post the first time pointed out that like Katamari, Majora’s Mask is about something. So I am giving it to Majora.

More later.

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KATAMARI DAMACY
vs.
SUPER STREET FIGHTER II TURBO
I like both of these, but… nah im voting Super Turbo. Just because it set the standard and seems boring doesn’t mean it’s uncool. It has Cammy, that’s extremely cool.

RESIDENT EVIL 4
vs.
THE LEGEND OF ZELDA MAJORA’S MASK
I dread thinking of replaying both of these.

UNDERTALE
vs.
CRAZY TAXI
Undertale no question. Crazy Taxi isn’t fun to play at all. Yeah I said it it.

SHADOW OF THE COLOSSUS
vs.
PUYO PUYO SERIES
I’m going with the one that has good controls here, let’s go drop blobs.

THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: BREATH OF THE WILD
vs.
STREET FIGHTER III THIRD STRIKE: FIGHT FOR THE FUTURE
Breath of the Wild is cooler than Third Strike no question. Why haven’t they brought Remy back?

CAVE STORY
vs.
TETRIS: THE ABSOLUTE: THE GRANDMASTER 2 PLUS
I don’t like Tetris all that much.

KILLER7
vs.
SUPER METROID
Gotta go with the one I actually played, so Superb Metroid it is. I’ve also beaten that one multiple times.

CASTLEVANIA: RONDO OF BLOOD
vs.
MYSTERY DUNGEON: SHIREN THE WANDERER (1995)
Again, going with the one I played here. Plus Rondo is really fuckin good.

DEMON’S SOULS (2009)
vs.
NIGHTS INTO DREAMS…
Demon’s Souls no question. I still have no idea what the fuck I’m going in NiGHts

RIVEN
vs.
SONIC MANIA
Played rule, even if I haven’t beaten it.

OUTRUN 2
vs.
GAME BOY CAMERA
Outrun

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katamari vs super turbo is oof. katamari is a miracle. it is engaging, confident, wholly original, melancholy, cathartic, and human. I don’t know where the fuck the soundtrack came from, it feels like a thing excavated from an asteroid and directly transplanted into this weird low budget video game developed in namco’s basement. it’s a great video game. and I’m still voting for super turbo, because I’m taking super turbo as far as this thing lets me. SF2 may as well have invented the competitive video game, and ST is by far the best version of that game. it is exactly as playable today as it was the day it was released. anyone could theoretically ask me to play some super turbo at any time and I’ll always have fun. anytime I play a fighting game my enjoyment of that game is proportional to how close it feels to super turbo.

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There are old blurbs in here for killer7 and Demon’s Souls that I wrote too early because I couldn’t read the bracket order.

KATAMARI DAMACY

It’s going to Katamari, the game that let me roll around in its global village sandboxes. I can’t play fighting games and only appreciate them aesthetically, and I really only enjoy the Soul Calibur and Tekken home versions that provide a lot of single-player content for us no-friend-havers

RESIDENT EVIL 4

VastleCania made a good argument for Majora earlier but when I finally played it on 3DS, I appreciated how moody it was for a Zelda but got totally lost in trying to figure out how to proceed even with the baby mode modern Nintendo-wanting-to-please-everyone tutorials. It’s going to RE4 that I’ve probably cleared 20 times. Would recommend emulating GC/Wii as the HD versions running at 60fps made the button mash QTEs impossible for me. I also feel like maybe the first Dead Rising does a better job with the conceit of juggling priorities on a timer.

CRAZY TAXI

It’s going to arcade Sega again. Every time I tried to play Undertale I just lost interest. I think I was put off by the game seeming to penalize you for killing enemies because I couldn’t see a way around not killing them.

SHADOW OF THE COLOSSUS

I think without SotC I probably wouldn’t have known about IC/SB. Maybe my gateway was earlier through shmups.com but I remember a Tim Rogers piece leading me here and something about the colossi essentially being inverted Zelda dungeons that kind of made my jaw hang open for a bit. It’s the only Fumito Ueda game I played to completion. The environmental puzzles in Ico and Last Guardian just ended up confusing and frustrating me, though I plan on going back to them because I wanted more of that world that evoked so much with so little.

BREATH OF THE WILD

Going to go with BotW, though I appreciate 3S aesthetically. BotW is big, beautiful and bold. It’s one of those well done open-worlds where every object feels hand-placed as if each has a specific contextual purpose. I like that the shrines are (mostly) bite-sized dungeons that suit the portable Switch. I never found all the shrines and it didn’t feel right to look them up with a guide, but I hope to finish them all someday.

CAVE STORY vs. TETRIS TGM2+ abstained

It’s going to go to Cave Story even though I haven’t played much of it. The TGM games are too intense for me to enjoy. I like that incoming pieces have unique audio cues. Maybe I should just abstain since I don’t feel strongly enough about either so voting doesn’t feel right.

KILLER7
SHIREN

Going with Shiren. It’s probably the only rogue-like (series) that was approachable enough for me to get into and enjoy what eventually became multiple installments. I know this is dumb but I can’t play non-metroidvania castlevanias and would just admire them aesthetically from afar.

DEMON’S SOULS
SONIC MANIA

I never played Riven, did play Myst and found it charming, and without Myst’s influence on that era I probably wouldn’t have been able to experience the FMV games that made up a good chunk of my childhood. But, I’m giving this one to the game I actually played, even though the later levels became a slog for me. Sonic Mania is at least as good as any Sonic Team 2D Sonic but I especially appreciate it for using or expanding ideas from the old games, like an interpretation of the Sonic 2 beta’s Dust Hill Zone and the revamped old zones.

OUTRUN 2

Outrun 2 no question. Want to say this is the better Outrun of the 2 and I changed my vote to FFT in the last round in part to reflect that. If it comes down to Outrun 1 vs 2, even though 2 owes a lot from its ancestor it is the better and more accessible game to play now. Outrun 1’s sprite scaling is beautiful but as you go down sharp turns and sudden elevation changes I start to feel like a dog trying to keep its footing in the back of a moving truck. I am also making Outrun 2 my salutary farewell vote to the end of an era because this game ended up being one of the last great hurrahs of Sega’s godlike arcade studios as people increasingly gamed at home/away from an arcade cabinet. Want to add as a pointless anecdote that the one time I actually got to play Outrun 2 in an arcade in the Philippines’ Mall of Asia, its steering wheel was busted or uncalibrated and it kept interpreting every turn as a sharp veer to the right, and my leg-braced foot could barely flex the pedals. Even with those limitations (maybe partly because of them) it was still a good time.

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I was going “I thought there was a new voting thread thing tonight?” until I wandered into the axe and went “…I see.” I hope the next one gets put in the developmental forum, and by the time we reach the finals it involves completing a massive ARG that takes a decade to solve at which point the person who gets to cast the sole vote realizes that the most SB game was the friends we made along the way.

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Oh before anyone votes this round I urge you to link up with another forum member and play TGM2+ Co-Op mode on Parsec. If I didn’t have a baby I’d be doing all the work here. I fought really hard to put this specific tetris on the list because of co-op mode. It is only in the Plus mode and maybe if I was super cool I’d get the rom out there.

One of my great joys when SButts are in Tokyo is finding a TGM2+ cabinet and asking them “Have you played coop tetris?” The response after playing is almost always “let’s do that again” and then after three games “wow I wish we didn’t have other things to do this is great!”

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Yikes

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KATAMARI DAMACY
vs.
SUPER STREET FIGHTER II TURBO

I replayed Katamari recently and it holds up. Songs I didn’t appreciate in my 20s like Lonely rolling star and Roll me in are now classics. Maybe give it a try if you haven’t played in a while

RESIDENT EVIL 4
vs.
THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: MAJORA’S MASK

Dang there is way too much Zelda in here and Majora’s mask is unpleasant but it’s such a singular piece of work.
Remember exploring the village right before the moon crashed, while this music played?

UNDERTALE
vs.
CRAZY TAXI

I finished Undertale feeling pretty mixed, there are lots of great ideas but it really really drags and « never replay this game or you’ll hurt the characters ! » is cloying
Crazy taxi is… moderately cool.
I’m open to arguments

SHADOW OF THE COLOSSUS
vs.
PUYO PUYO SERIES

SotC, another magical game I played in one feverish sitting over one night

THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: BREATH OF THE WILD
vs.
STREET FIGHTER III THIRD STRIKE: FIGHT FOR THE FUTURE

A vote against BotW is a vote against crafting

I’ve bought like 60 Switch games so far and BotW is my least favorite lol. It doesn’t respect the player’s time (not in an interesting way) and I strongly disagree about it providing anything to elevate it meaningfully above other open world lawn mower games.
Also surfing on shields consumes their durability that’s fucked up

CAVE STORY
vs.
TETRIS: THE ABSOLUTE: THE GRANDMASTER 2 PLUS

Co-op Tetris sounds great. Cave story also was great though I prefer Kero Blaster. Undecided.

KILLER7
vs.
SUPER METROID

Kill the sacred cow

CASTLEVANIA: RONDO OF BLOOD
vs.
MYSTERY DUNGEON: SHIREN THE WANDERER (1995)

Had a real good time with Rondo on the PSP. Shiren 1995 lacks some pizzaz compared to other mystery dungeon games and its box art is fucking hideous. I can’t care about the mystery when the characters look like this!

DEMON’S SOULS (2009)
vs.
NIGHTS INTO DREAMS…

Demon’s of course

RIVEN
vs.
SONIC MANIA

Uuh I need to hear some arguments

OUTRUN 2
vs.
GAME BOY CAMERA

I never played Outrun 2 but there are no games that make you want to play them more after seeing them run for 20 seconds

4 Likes
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katamari - it’s an, possibly the aesthetically tight lil dude, and i’ve never liked the hitstun trappy shit of old fightmans like st
majora’s - never really cared about resi
undertale’s actual combat/uncombat mechanics are really fucking delightful but it’s not so interesting to move around beyond that so - CT
sotc - i suck at puyo, even though i’ve probably played a chunk of puyos over the years; sotc with a solid framerate is very convincing
3s obviously - botw maxes overworld crafty shit when what i like about zeldas is the dungeons and they completely fudged those in this. the speedruns these days are pretty wild though
tetris - there are metroids i like more than cave like…
super metroid, which i still feel i’m waiting for the true and real successor to
rondo - never played shiren
demons - cool ost
riven - there are better sonics
outrun 2 - i don’t really do racemans but this one is just so proud of itself

5 Likes
13

wow jeez the real demon’s souls starts here huh

i think rondo and shiren is about as close to a tie as we’ve had that’s rough

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Katamari vs. SSF2T

so, I definitely love and respect ST (tho I fall in with flashier fighting games more). but katamari is truly special. I don’t really think I can give a particularly personal motivation to this? I just really like games that are built around their own particular control scheme, and then put into their entirely own little aesthetic world, and katamari feels so nice to play, and replay, and it becomes this thing where you want to rerun and get a better katamari not just because you want to do better, but because you want to run through that stage again and it feels great.

sorry fighting granddad, rolling a ball takes my vote

RE4 vs Majora

this ain’t hard at all. resident evil. tbf, I’d vote resident evil in nearly any zelda/re matchup. and RE4 is one of the best and tightest designed ones. had a replay of the steam version a few yeas ago and got shook by how tight the game felt to control even with a lesser controller with a maybe slightly uneven framerate.

the aiming in RE4 is just magnificently satisfying, and the limitation on having to stop to aim means you get to put all your focus into getting shots just right. the sway and resistance guns give just adds to this. each gun has their own feel to using them.

the turning in RE4 and the very limited view (even in widescreen) also works in its favor. you can really only see so very little at a time, so looking around, quick turning, and listening all feel really important. the execution on doing everything is kinda fiddly but also really, REALLY accurate.

also, big on the thing type monsters and gore and goofy action dialogue. pure winner. and leon is kinda hot.

majora’s mask is seriously cool but it’s a zelda so it can never do any of the things I just described RE4 doing, but I love the little clockwork world with things happening on a schedule, the multiple little stories that often feel so bittersweet at best. how parting and death are so common throughout. for some reason I always think of the sadness of the guard watching the children happily play as the apocalypse approaches.

but yeah, RE4

Undertale vs CRAZY TAXI

uh… fuck. undertale? I mean, I really like crazy taxi. I actually really do.
but also, I’m someone who when presented with the option of not hurting any of the cute monsters and dogs get absolutely filled with glee. like, hugging an adventure time volcano and sacrificing some health to heatdamage in order to make it feel better and solving the “fight” on nice terms is something that makes me happy. I never did the genocide route. never will.

you know, I love misery games but if Nier gave me the option to stay my sword I would and consequently ruin the game.

anyway, undertale

SotC vs Puyo Puyo

I like sotc the least of the ueda trilogy. I like the game most when I’m just wandering around, and I think this is just cause I don’t entirely vibe with sequential puzzle bosses, though I admit to being in love with many of the colossi as creatures.

I think I still lean into it more than puyo puyo. dropping puyos and building chains is good, but when it comes to versus games, the kinda indirectness you deal with in versus puzzles drops my appreciation a bit

Breath of the Wild vs THIRD STRIKE

I’ve only played like 20-30 minutes of botw trying to speedrun through the tutorial stuff so I can fuck off and do what I want (didn’t get there). seems nice and cute.

third strike though

Cave Story vs Best Tetris

I don’t know that tgm2plus is the best tetris but it sure feels like it. handling is so smooth!

cave story is cute and I’ve been playing it in prep for this vote. am at the secret final thing cause curly died and I refused to accept that so I looked up how to save her and replayed the entire game up to that point and incidentally that was also the path to the true ending.

leaning towards tgm2+, but maybe this changes on finishing. I’m not actually super strong on either game. one is smooth (tgm2+) and one is cute (cave story).

killer7 vs Super Metroid

a few times every year I just rewatch a bunch of scenes from killer7. been doing this for more than 10 years.

can’t give you any intelligent analysis on why but this thing is under my skin, in my blood and this is the first vote I’m VERY invested in seeing my pick win.

killer7

Rondo of Blood vs Shiren the Wanderer

has there been a clear pattern yet that I love horror games? I also just love horror inspired aesthetics. castlevania ain’t horror, but I love skeletons, ghosts, spooky castles, hammer horror inspired figures and so on. I’m also decently good at the old vanias, and enjoy their stilted, limited moveset. rondo keeps the limitations but adds options that make them more interesting. your jump direction is fixed for example, but you can turn around and attack the direction you are moving away from. you can also jump to and from stairs. and if it’s too hard you can play maria whom belmont jump limits don’t apply to.

shiren is cool but I don’t have this same overall affection for it.

Demon's Souls vs Nights

demon’s souls was specifically made for me. like, yeah, this is it. THE videogame.
every so often, maybe once a year, I’ll replay demon’s souls. I’ll get the executioner’s burlap bondage outfit and I’ll immerse myself in the dark and slime of this filthy, awful fantasy setting. the sequels are mostly cleaner. not as dark. not as weird.

you can hear these change in the music, cause tracks like this never came back
https://youtu.be/PBYLtyaGXP8

still love all the sequels

Riven vs Sonic Mania

mania may be great, possibly best sonic game, but riven is a fantastic place. lonely, mysterious, gorgeous, and just a few puzzles that span through the game. everything else is just observing and gathering clues as you learn about the island and the people living there.

Outrun 2 vs Game Boy Camera

mostly played the ps3 port of outrun 2 sp, but I love, LOVE this game. love it at home. love it at the arcade. and I think most people also love it if they get to play it. the drift is just so easy and feels great, and the places you go are magical as are the transitions.

have introduced multiple people to it and even total non-gamers have enjoyed it cause it’s always a good ride and it’s easy to get into.

actually game boy camera vs deus ex never mattered, it was always outrun 2

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which one?

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we’re starting to get in the thick of it, huh

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*rubs hands together* ooooo this is where it gets exciting

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I can never play Cave Story again since I realized the player character is turned slightly to face the camera. It caught me by surprise even though every NPC in the game is shown from that angle, including curly who is almost a palette swap. It makes me feel like nicalis somehow went back in time and fucked with it. He should be facing all the way to the right like mario in mario 1. he’s focused on a mission.

  • green nose
  • blue ear
  • receding hairline
  • antenna coming directly out back of head
  • black outline around head

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Well. It’s not Killed 7

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This reminds me of the Lone Survivor protagonist who’s supposed to wear a face mask. I only ever saw him as having one giant goofy smile

image
image1920×1080 360 KB

BUT now that we’re in the middle of the covid-19 pandemic, I only see the mask, as intended

8 Likes
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I want to vote against outrun 2 out of spite, since outrun 1 is here for some reason and killed FFT. but then I want to vote against camera out of spite because it killed deus ex somehow. luckily I don’t have to fall into any kind of horrible spite trap, because outrun 2 is just a great game. I’ve been playing it again lately. I kind of had the itch to buy hotshot racing, but then I remembered how many times I’ve told myself I have a million games and I don’t need to buy any more for almost any reason, so I decided to just play the game hotshot racing wants to be. gee golly willickers, batman, I should listen to myself more often! I’m just pretending outrun 2 here is outrun 2006, because that’s just Outrun 2 Mega Game Of The Year Edition. someone should be prosecuted under international law for the sorry reality of this game no longer being available for purchase anywhere. I’m surprised ferrari even knew it existed. sure sucks when your brand is being devalued by appearing as the centerpiece of an amazing niche video game that no one in the world has ever disliked! anyway, when this game got delisted it wiped my save for some reason, but now I’m back 8 years later or whatever to play this a little bit every day because you can’t possibly not have fun with it. I get to push a beach ball with a ferrari testarossa. you dodge ufos for some reason. you gotta beat guys in races so they don’t steal your girlfriend. you can listen to like 4 versions of magical sound shower. it’s so smooth and clean and you can just drift forever if you want ~~ I wanna go far away ~~

7 Likes