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!
HOW TO VOTE
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 one might be controversial, but it's a much easier vote for me to make. IMO Yoshi's Island is one of the weakest mainline Mario games, a step back from the perfect Super Mario World in almost every way (art design, stage design, world design, control/feel, music, etc.).
Destiny of an Emperor is an excellent early RPG that feels like Capcom was innovating mechanics on their own rather than just trying to borrow from existing RPGs of the time (being able to recruit nearly every enemy general in the game, HP being your soldiers, magic spells being tactics, selection of magic spells for your whole team being dictated by who you appoint as your strategist, the excellent and useful "all out" autobattle ability, its clever treatment of story set-pieces like Lü Bu's betrayal, etc.). Wonderful game.
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Even though Yoshi's Island is great, I have to vote for one of my favorite RPGs.
Everything Kong Wen said is true, but it's also fared better than other, better regarded games of the time like DQ3/4 in that it runs more quickly and savepoints are frequent. Of course, those games have had several remakes that have ironed out many of their rough edges, while DoaE just has a host of fanmade romhacks. Even DoaE2 didn't iterate very well on the things that made the first stand out - it runs more slowly, restricts equipment, and limits officer recruitment and the GB game... does its own weird things.
Making it into the top 256 is better than I expected, though, and I won't be disappointed if it loses to Yoshi's Island.
This is hard. Yoshi's Island is trippy as hell, has great gameplay, is super fun, and did I mention it's trippy as hell? It's always amazed me how Nintendo - and Mario games in particular - get tabbed as being lighthearted/kid-oriented when so many of them make me actively wonder what they're putting in the water over at Nintendo development HQ.
On the other hand, Yoshi's Island has crying baby Mario, which is almost enough to give DoaE the nod here. But not quite.
