yeah wtf
seeing people vote for riven over sonic mania, i think i have some insight into what those people who complained about deus ex getting beat by the game boy camera were talking about
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I often take credit for Katamari Damacy coming to America and I will continue to do so but I may vote against it here for a laugh, for fun, to show that I’m a real wild card. Cuz Katamari could be the greatest game of all time but fighting games are the greatest genre of all time…and where would they be without Street Fighter 2? Nowhere good, I’ll tell you what. I played Tongue of the Fatman and Karate Champ and Pit Fighter okay I remember how things used to be.
I regret ever playing the 3DS port of Majora’s Mask. I thought it was mostly a drag. I loved that Ocarina of Time port though. That surprised me. I guess all my Majora’s memories involve helping weirdoes and I blocked out all the dungeons. Just wanted to stop shoving blocks and get back to hanging with my friend Tingle. So I will not vote for Majora’s Mask.
I have bought Resident Evil 4 like…5 times now? And every time I’ve replayed it. I guess you could say I like that game. Leon has some nice suplexes.
I liked Undertale but I never finished it cuz I didn’t want to do the fights. I guess I’ll vote for it though, why not, maybe it’ll trick people into thinking I’m not someone whose tastes ossified 30 years ago. Plus the music in Crazy Taxi sucks, sorry, that whole genre is trash and it’s only palatable when you cram it into a Sega game.
I think this Select Button list is a very good list as far as these things go, and despite all my inflammatory talk I don’t think any of the games on it are bad.
Except Shadow of the Colossus. I really don’t like that one, and I hope it loses to Puyo Puyo in a slime-slide.
I think Breath of the Wild is a much better game than Third Strike but I bet someday soon someone will make an open world game that makes BotW look like a joke. A fighting game that looks as good as Third Strike? Not as likely. So this one is hard.
Actually Arcsys will probably do it by 2023, they’re really good with graphics now huh. Maybe I’ll just vote Zelda then.
I prefer Kero Blaster to Cave Story. I prefer Tetris to almost anything. I meant to gamer stream co-op TGM2+ but I forgot cuz all I do nowadays is sleep, eat, draw, and play Dota. Maybe someone else has already shown off the co-op. I haven’t read this thread yet, nor did I finish reading the other one. I’ve been busy, okay. Busy playing The Beautiful Game (Defense of the Ancients 2).
I said this once and I’ll stand by it even though I don’t know if I really meant it:
And Super Metroid is better than both.
I replayed Rondo of Blood a few months ago. I was obsessed with it for, like, a week. I beat it multiple times. Solidified my opinion that it’s the best action game of its time. Why do I feel this way? I don’t know, I already forgot, I just know I liked it a lot okay, get off my back.
In the 00’s I tracked down every single console rougelike I could solely cuz I loved Shiren that much but right now I don’t want to play one ever again. Unless it’s Shiren. Which I still haven’t beaten. And probably never will. So I will not vote for it this time.
I was never a big on-line poster but I was one of the few people saying “This looks great” as soon as Demon’s Souls was launched and I pre-ordered that shit and it was the only reason I didn’t sell my PS3, which was an otherwise absolutely pitiful console when it came to exclusive software. I’ve been on this train from the start, I’m not getting off now, I was right about this game, I’m right all the time…!! Just reminding you okay.
Billy Hatcher is kinda underrated. I beat that game. It had a nice soundtrack.
I still haven’t played Riven for more than 30 minutes but I am always planning on going back to it. Someday I’ll learn what all that door closing talk is all about.
I probably put just as much time into Sonic Mania and I thought “this is pretty good” and then I forgot it existed until now. So I will vote for the game that I remembered.
Outrun 2 is the best game ever made and I do not think I will ever vote against it. The only way it could be better is if you could put my handsome face into the game, using a Game Boy Camera, or some other device.
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What I will say about Sonic Mania is that it feels miraculous that it exists and that it is as good as it is and sometimes I feel like I take that for granted. This is a game that shouldn’t exist, or at least shouldn’t be an official game that had a budget and was completed and not relegated to a short fangame demo of a couple stages. But also, man, did it need 40 Blue Spheres stages? I replay Mania once every four months or so out of boredom and I haven’t touched Blue Spheres since the game came out and I cleared them. did it need the returning of some questionable level and boss gimmicks? did it need Sandopolis stuff in there? wouldn’t this game be better if a non-trivial amount of its content were removed and not replaced with anything? It would. None of its low points are as low as any of the lowest points from the games it is inspired from but it feels, like, hardheaded, to have them? Considering how much it seems to understand and capitalize and build upon Sonic’s good points otherwise. Some of its levels are the best in the franchise, its Special Stages are the best in the franchise, yet, it doesn’t completely ascend from the games it builds upon. I think it’s because of its insistence on bringing back some weak elements from the older games, but maybe part of it too is that so many of its levels are revisits and remixes so it doesn’t feel like it can completely stand on its own legs.
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With Mania I got the sense that they understood how the originals could be drastically improved upon but consciously didn’t want to make such a massive leap forward (playing it conservatively because of the series “unfaithful” history/fan perception?) and pretty much stuck to polishing the old formula with all its pros and cons. Like, maybe they had the “next game” in mind and that’s what’s coming, a more radical refinement idk.
I’ll be a bit disappointed if a classic 2D Sonic doesn’t at least win its first bracket. What’s left now, Sonic 3 & Knuckles? I know there are a lot of Advenure fans here but I never liked the 3D ones as much as the Genesis (and CD…) games.
But when I think about the spirit of Mania, and the additional characters DLC etc…I do start to doubt my voting against it. It’s pretty fucking cool.
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If two people get parsec and one of them has retroarch y’all can Doubles Tetris. I managed to do it with Bachelor who is 6000 miles away from me! It wasn’t perfect but it was playable and we could both briefly glimpse it’s beauty. Grab the other person you live with. Anyone can play Tetris.
Here’s a very short ancedote. I played this with a friend for about 40 minutes before the world went to heck. They are not a game player. They had a very different method of playing that was not…high level tetris. After a couple of games which they loved but clearly we frustrated each other. He commented, “We play very differently.” And I bit my tongue on saying anything. This story does not make me look good.
But I am sure anyone posting on celery butan dot shoes is an excellent Tetris player. I’ve even played this with @BIGHEADMODE ! and… @spacetown maybe??
Anyways the next time I see any of you I am excited to play Tetris The Grand Master 2 Plus with y’all. Terror Instinct is the 3rd game and does not have doubles.
God Now I want the Ikaruga super-play two ships one guy video but for Tetris Doubles.
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think you played it with me and @dylan for our warehouse closing visit
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Resident Evil is most notable to me in that it has 3 pronounced high points (REmaster, RE4, RE2 remake) that have almost nothing in common. Is 4 the best of them? idk, but I think I once called it the game of that particular generation. it sits towards the beginning of a putrid era of game design in the mainstream space, where half the games half wanted to be it, and nothing was anywhere close. it felt like a miracle then in how fresh and playable it was; it feels like a miracle now in how narrowly it avoided falling into the game design abyss that immediately followed. the first half is undeniably better than the second, but the first half is also better than any other 3D action game I’ve played, so what are you going to do. 2004, with this, Katamari, MGS3, WoW, and Half Life 2 is the last year I can actually pin games to in my mind.
Majora’s Mask is a zelda game. I don’t like Zelda much and we have all of them in this bracket except the ones you’d imagine. It has a nice soundtrack and maybe it’s sad or something, idk, just play Demon’s Souls.
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Woah feel super bad this slipped my mind. That was also cooooollll.
Remember Tetris Friends? That was cool. What happened to that?
Lol i actually dont remember playing it but maybe we did. I mostly remember that coop zombie game about love??? What was that? And tomato ramen
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omg i forgot it was house of the dead branded
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Cave Story is such an excellent little thing. I love watching people play it for the first time and see just how good the game is at nudging players and instilling a sense of curiosity, fear, and wonder. Also, the cavalier manner in which the protagonist’s name is thrown around these days is tantamount to sacrilege. I had to work to find out that name, and so should the dang kids.
However, I’m switching my vote from Cave Story to TGM2 after remembering doubles tetris and how last year my wife got me a doubles tetris/pacific rim t-shirt that the yetee made 5 years ago. I guess true love really is magically procuring an out-of-print t-shirt for your partner after they mention it in a random conversation.
Still haven’t actually played that mode yet (soory).
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omg I have to post in here hold on
Killer 7 may be a critique of all the Bad Things, but it saves most of its criticism for the player. that idea was already frayed in 2004, in 2020 it is not even worth this paragraph. Nier Automata would fit this SB niche better, and would make for a very difficult vote.
it became fashionable to dislike Super Metroid after 75% of steam listed indie games in the last decade tried to be it, but it might be worth noting that they all failed (maybe hollow knight? cribs a bit much from souls?). Super Metroid is not Metroid 2. that’s ok, you can prefer one and still esteem the other. they’re both essential to me. 2 is hostile, focused, a bit scary, and always makes you feel lost while never making that feel pointless. I don’t know how they accomplished that with no map and such limited means of differentiating the environments. Super is moody, gorgeous, a bit mysterious, inventive, and playable. it makes you want to try things. it makes you want to find things. it makes you want to run around and take it in. it feels both restrained and lavish. it has such wonderful sound effects
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KATAMARI DAMACY
vs.
SUPER STREET FIGHTER II TURBO
Katamari Damacy is a miracle. An entirely integrated masterpiece of tone, look, sound, and control.
I’m sure someone who knows something about fighting games could say the same thing about SSF2T, but I’m not, so I won’t.
RESIDENT EVIL 4
vs.
THE LEGEND OF ZELDA MAJORA’S MASK
RE4 is not a third person shooter. It’s the world’s greatest light gun game, the only one where you can move where you want. It’s Time Crisis exploded into the 4th dimension. It’s also really, really funny.
Majora’s Mask is a nice atmosphere ruined by N64 graphics and a nice narrative idea ruined by fetch questing and asinine dungeons.
UNDERTALE
vs.
CRAZY TAXI
I don’t care about Sega.
All the back and forth in here about Undertale’s preciousness, tweeness, and the Tumblrosity of its online fans is missing the point. Take the game entirely on its own terms and it really lays itself bare to you as a wonderful affirmation of nonviolence and forgiveness. I am the biggest anti-twee dude on this forum and Undertale doesn’t even read as twee to me, mostly. It’s so earnest, and there is real evil and menace on display. It pulls no punches. More importantly, it’s a mechanically interesting and rewarding game which is something I don’t think anyone talks about nearly enough, and I think is the reason (even if its biggest fans don’t consciously take it into account) that it became so wildly popular.
SHADOW OF THE COLOSSUS
vs.
PUYO PUYO SERIES
I don’t care about action puzzlers.
Shadow of the Colossus is one of those games where everything that could ever possibly be said about it already has been. But I’ll mention something I don’t think anyone else has, which is the community of secret hunters that has spent literal years combing this ultimately fairly limited gameworld for that one… last… secret, that final revelation, that they know is there. This is one of the only pieces of software to demonstrate in the real world the fairly common cyberpunk conceit (disgustingly parodied in Ready Player One) of the promise of hidden knowledge, available only to the truest believers, buried deep in code. It’s a testament to the game’s beautiful, expansive, silent mystery.
THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: BREATH OF THE WILD
vs.
STREET FIGHTER III THIRD STRIKE: FIGHT FOR THE FUTURE
I think I have to pick the game with the greatest sprite art in human history over the mild reinvention of open world games that still has annoying item degradation and survival-lite mechanics.
CAVE STORY
vs.
TETRIS: THE ABSOLUTE: THE GRANDMASTER 2 PLUS
I don’t care about action puzzlers.
Cave Story is so much weirder than it should have been and stands for what can be achieved by a literally singular artistic vision.
KILLER7
vs.
SUPER METROID
I know killer7 is gonna crush this one around here but I had exploding Samus as my avatar for like, six years. I still have to rep the most Super Nintendo game.
CASTLEVANIA: RONDO OF BLOOD
vs.
MYSTERY DUNGEON: SHIREN THE WANDERER (1995)
I don’t really have a dog in this fight, but I think I have to pick the only roguelike that even sort of interested me over the game that isn’t Bloodlines.
DEMON’S SOULS (2009)
vs.
NIGHTS INTO DREAMS…
I don’t care about Sega.
Demon’s Souls changed my life. I spent $600 on this game. All of a sudden, an entire vista of new possibilities lay before me, of what an action rpg could be; of what kind of characters a game could present to you; of how to build a level in 3d; of how voice acting could actually, like, be good. The crumbled archstone alone is, like, SotC levels of heart-aching mystery. While its more popular big brother Dark is also an incredible achievement, and almost as good, I think Demon’s is still its superior: more cohesive, less explicable, more grim.
RIVEN
vs.
SONIC MANIA
I don’t care about Sega.
Riven stands as much for absolutely creative fearlessness as anything else. The guys who made like one thousand jillion dollars off of Myst could have easily just made another Myst (if you wanna know what that looks like, and how much it sucks, look no further than Myst 3). Instead they took every single element of Myst to the next level, most importantly (but not only) the way “puzzles” should be organically wrapped into the very geography, history, and archaeology of a place - that they shouldn’t be puzzles at all, but just problems.
OUTRUN 2
vs.
GAME BOY CAMERA
I don’t care about Sega…
but…
When I voted against Outrun I said Outrun 2 is the good one, which is still true, and this stupid camera has got to fucking bite it for knocking off Deus Ex.
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I’ve not heard this interpretation of Killer7. I feel like the game doesn’t really comment much on this beyond Garcian and the Smith syndicate being pawns rather than the higher powers wielding them. I never got the impression it was suggesting the player should feel bad for doing bad things but I’m not sure if this is what you mean.
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Sonic was born out of Sega trying to make something palatable for the boring kids who couldn’t connect with Altered Beast. That entire franchise has felt forced and directionless since the very beginning. Like I said I’ve never even played Riven, but I didn’t have to give this a second thought.
I’d vote for Altered Beast over Riven any day though.
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