Each game is seeded based on its performance in the two opening rounds of pools. Every game in the Upper Bracket has defeated multiple other games in 1-on-1 polls to get to this point. These are still the best of the best.
Polls are updated weekly, typically on Sunday or Monday. Check back throughout the week to make sure you don't miss a vote!
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This is easy. You only get one vote per poll. The game with the most votes wins. In the event of a tie, the higher seed advances, so don't get complacent!
This is really tough - Undertale is a remarkable and powerful game and would get my nod over many others in this poll. But What Remains of Edith Finch is even more remarkable and emotionally powerful and the storytelling is amazing, immersing you in the tragedies it portrays such that it is always showing and not telling. The variety and diversity of its various sections are impressive and the game boasts an amazing level of creative diversity. Spoiler
Not to spoil anything, but one of the final sections of the game where a character's gradual descent into a world of imagination is literally portrayed onscreen as, with your right hand you perform menial factory work, while on the left you guide a video game avatar through a world whose complexity increases and gradually begins to take over the rest of the screen, is just amazing. Add in the narration in the background, from the character's psychiatrist, of the character's gradual descent into a fantasy world and withdrawal from normal reality...well, it's really compelling.
I was always most moved by the child drowning in the bath tub (from the child’s perspective). You hear his or her parents arguing in the background which leaves you to your own unsupervised devices. Naturally you play and it becomes increasingly fantastic and fun. You find yourself swimming in the water with your toys and your friends. It’s frightening how smoothly a tragic death is portrayed here.
I don’t even remember what the parents were fighting about. They probably wouldn’t either….it didn’t matter. Not on that one day that their son or daughter left them.
No more nightmares, I’ve seen them all. From the day I was born, they’ve haunted my every move.
Sharecrow wrote: ↑20 Feb 2023 19:48
More on What Remains: Spoiler
I was always most moved by the child drowning in the bath tub (from the child’s perspective). You hear his or her parents arguing in the background which leaves you to your own unsupervised devices. Naturally you play and it becomes increasingly fantastic and fun. You find yourself swimming in the water with your toys and your friends. It’s frightening how smoothly a tragic death is portrayed here.
I don’t even remember what the parents were fighting about. They probably wouldn’t either….it didn’t matter. Not on that one day that their son or daughter left them.
Yeah, that is the other section that really hits you in the gut in that game. Spoiler
And it's so much more powerful the way it's presented than if two characters were just talking about it, or even if you were the mom and watching it happen. The fact that you are in the eyes of the child and the argument is happening in the background, and then followed again by the dad's voiceover - it's not just the subject matter, it's that it is presented from different perspectives simultaneously and in a way that is as immediate as possible for the player. Just a real gut punch of a game.
