Bottom 768 — Week 10 — Poll 19

[This Old Neon]

Welcome to the #BGE2020 Elimination Round Lower Bracket!

Each game in the lower bracket is still seeded based on its performance in the two opening rounds of pools! Every game in the lower bracket has already been defeated by another game in a 1-on-1 poll to get to this point. This is their chance to claw their way back into the main event... but the stakes are high. The games that lose in these polls are out of the tournament for good! The games that survive will face the next crop of upper bracket losers in the next round.

Polls are updated weekly, typically on Saturday... or 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!

[Niahak]

Oh darn, I like Wild Arms 1 a lot (...see avatar).
It stands out from other JRPGs in its setting (pseudo-wild-west), tone (it's frequently morose, or hopeless-feeling), theme (loneliness), exploration (Zelda style tools/puzzles)...

Spoiler

I appreciate especially that although you fight your hardest, you frequently can't prevent loss of life. From the funeral after the invasion to Alhazred's monster-seed attack on a town. Many JRPGs don't bother depicting loss, but it's a part of life.

It has its flaws, and its sequels go off the rails hardcore post-3, but it was an ambitious and interesting game. Although I think Alter Code: F isn't as good, the ACF artbook is one of my prized gaming-adjacent collections. It's fantastic.