Top 128: 3/16 - Dark Bracket

[This Old Neon]

Welcome to the "BEST GAME EVER!!!" Project Top 128 Brackets!

You can vote for 1-4 games in this bracket. Vote carefully—you can't change your votes after submitting them. The top 4 games at the end of the week will advance to the Top 64.

3 - Dark Souls - 2011 - Multiplatform
30 - Portal - 2007 - Multiplatform
35 - Final Fantasy Tactics - 1997 - PS1
62 - Jagged Alliance 2 - 1999 - PC
67 - Thief: The Dark Project - 1998 - PC
94 - Space Rangers 2: Rise of the Dominators / Space Rangers 2: Dominators - 2004 - PC
99 - Castlevania: Symphony of the Night - 1997 - PS1
126 - XCOM: Enemy Unknown / Enemy Within - 2012 - Multiplatform

You are encouraged to discuss your choices and your reasons for selecting the games you did.

[Kong Wen]

Damn, this is the first (and maybe only) bracket where I'm having a really hard time deciding on how to vote.

Dark Souls and Final Fantasy Tactics are probably my #1 and #2 favourite games of all time. Portal is right up there. Those three are guaranteed votes. But then I need to decide between XCOM and Symphony of the Night as well!? Madness!!!

[Niahak]

Used all four. Dark Souls pretty clearly deserves a vote, in my book. So does FF Tactics.

Symphony of the Night also feels like an obvious choice - subgenre pioneer and one of the most refined action/RPG game experiences out there, with lots of secret things to be found.

Space Rangers 2, I think I nominated - it's a wonderful game. A little janky, but it spans the RTS, turn-based strategy, RPG, Action, and Adventure genres over the course of a sprawling, randomly-generated universe with a great sense of impending threat.

Jagged Alliance 2 is a good game, but it has a lot of competition in XCOM which is a much more focused, if less deep, tactical experience.

[VictorViper]

Used up all four for this one. Dark Souls would have made for an easy choice if I had to pick only one, but I'll gladly take the luxury of voting for SotN, XCOM and FFT, all personal favourites.

[Sharecrow]

I only voted for Thief here. The others I either don't have enough exposure to to feel strongly about or didn't like enough. Thief was awesome, though. I hid so many bodies...

[Pluvius]

Putting JA2 in the same bracket as XCOM, where people are already going to be wasting votes on Dark Souls and FFT (as well as voting for SOTN and Portal). Good job, RNGesus.

Rob

[SkyPikachu]

Portal
It feels a little to short but apart from that this is my all time favorite indie game. The whole idea and physics are amazing.

SoTN
Never thought I'd like these types of games but I really like it. Exploring is fun and you feel like you're on a real adventure and the controls are tight.

[Spore]

Portal
my all time favorite indie game.

I mean... like...

[Humphries90]

Portal. Short. Sweet. One of the most clever and funny games ever and certainly Valves best effort (aside from Portal 2).

Final Fantasy Tactics. Never released in Europe at the time. How dare they! My next door neighbour got a pirated copy, we spent hours and hours playing it together. Absolutely loved the job system. I remember I was walking in my town once and on the off chance I went to a local game shop. For no reason I asked if they had Final Fantasy Tactics. Low and behold the had one import copy. Probably the luckiest day of my gaming life.

[Kong Wen]

Argh, this bracket is so stacked. I've come back in here multiple times, resolved to voting, but have had to walk away and think some more.

Votes for Dark Souls and Final Fantasy Tactics were a given.

The latter is my favourite game of all time. I've played it inside-out, beating it multiple times with so many different class combinations and self-imposed restrictions. The maps are well-designed to allow for multiple engagements. The job system is flawed in implementation, but the basic design is wonderful. People complained about the convoluted plot, but I found it very interesting and engaging (probably because I had played through enough times to understand it!).

The former is one of my favourite newer games. Everything fits so well together in this game, from the sluggish, realistic movement that forces you to plan on the fly and commit to your actions, to the dark, terrifying atmosphere and lore that's subsumed into the background enough to feel like actual history that's being lost to time. This game gives you multiple ways to play, and there's always something new to learn, either about the world, or about how to approach it. Like FFT, this is a game that I challenged myself to beat with self-imposed restrictions (this seems to be a running theme for how to earn a place on my favourite games list...)—in this case, beating the whole game at Soul Level 1. Fun stuff!

So they were obvious votes. Now for the tricky part.

I cast a third vote for Portal. As I've stated, I have great memories with this game, and I happen to think it's one of the better puzzle games I've ever played. Great story, great slow-burn reveal as long as you've managed to avoid spoilers. Short, but focused.

The games vying for my fourth and final vote were Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and XCOM: Enemy Unknown. I made the tough decision of just cutting them both loose. They're not on the same level as the previous three games for me, and while I wish I could see them both advance to the next round, I'm not going to throw my hat in with either of them here. Baconspeed.