Round 3: The Ontario Bracket

[Jordan]

Doom II was my easy first vote.

For my second vote, I chose Zelda II, which is a woefully under-rated entry in the franchise. This is a wonderful platforming action RPG, from back before Symphony of the Night redefined the genre.

For my third choice, I went with Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance. It's easily just as good as the Wii entry, maybe slightly better, and alongside that entry (its direct sequel), the pinnacle of the series.

I think it's better than the Wii game.

The Wii game is more difficult and I do like some of the gameplay improvements they made. Their ideas for elevation and crossbows were cool...they then proceeded to stupidly discard these changes in later games, as is typical of Nintendo franchises.

I really disliked how generic the supports were and the pacing of Radiant Dawn, however. I thought it was dumb that most of the characters were unavailable for a large portion of the game. It made no sense to me that the best characters tended to be pre-promotes or/and late game characters. So many characters were completely useless because of that.

Aside from these gameplay gripes, I also thought the story was totally crappy in comparison to Path of Radiance.

Believe it or not, Zelda II is the first Zelda game I played. I played the original Zelda game a bit later. Zelda II is probably the worst introduction to the series ever since it is a departure from the formula. However, although some people hate it, I thought it was a decent game overall. I wouldn't rate it higher than a lot of other Zelda games though. I voted for it in this poll, but for me it loses to other stuff like Link's Awakening (zelda dx being the version I played), A Link to the Past, and the Oracles games.

[VictorViper]

Doom II and Pac Man CE DX for me. I adored Zelda 2 and agree that it's woefully underrated (often despised), but it is not deserving of a vote. KoF 13 was gorgeous and fixed a lot of the problems (content) its predecessor had, but settled with a crippled version of the systems introduced in 12, which was something I couldn't forgive.

[The Shoemaker]

Their ideas for elevation and crossbows were cool...they then proceeded to stupidly discard these changes in later games, as is typical of Nintendo franchises.

I knooooow

Such good gameplay mechanics. There were some really good maps in Radiant Dawn about defending your base that required elevation.

I really disliked how generic the supports were and the pacing of Radiant Dawn, however. I thought it was dumb that most of the characters were unavailable for a large portion of the game. It made no sense to me that the best characters tended to be pre-promotes or/and late game characters. So many characters were completely useless because of that.

Supports I agree. It was somewhat redeemed by having a decent amount of separate conversations between multiple characters that resulted in you getting items, but that may have been in POR too.

Radiant Dawn spoilers

Spoiler

I really liked the risk it took by splitting the armies up. I understand that a lot of people want to play as the characters they like throughout the entirety of the game, but some of the best moments came from the maps where you were fighting characters from the other team, and then doing a role reversal the next map. I also really liked how much of a challenge the Daein chapters were, really added to the agency of the story for them. It was also great for replays because you had to plan out like 20 chapters in advance what characters you wanted to use for the Daein chapters later on in the game, and to a lesser extent the same with the Crimean characters. I also thought it was awesome when you had to manually split the characters up into three teams and pick and choose what team needed what and who had better supports. And of course the final 5 chapters where you had to choose like 12 out of 70 characters to bring with you. I always trained my Daein characters extra hard so that they would be viable come this time in the game.

But I should probably save this for when Radiant Dawn actually shows up

[Kong Wen]

Surprised to see Mario Kart Wii getting any votes here. I think people must have really short memories with regards to these games, and may be attributing some of the fun of Mario Kart 8 back on the previous entry.

[Jordan]

Spoiler

I really liked the risk it took by splitting the armies up. I understand that a lot of people want to play as the characters they like throughout the entirety of the game, but some of the best moments came from the maps where you were fighting characters from the other team, and then doing a role reversal the next map. I also really liked how much of a challenge the Daein chapters were, really added to the agency of the story for them. It was also great for replays because you had to plan out like 20 chapters in advance what characters you wanted to use for the Daein chapters later on in the game, and to a lesser extent the same with the Crimean characters. I also thought it was awesome when you had to manually split the characters up into three teams and pick and choose what team needed what and who had better supports. And of course the final 5 chapters where you had to choose like 12 out of 70 characters to bring with you. I always trained my Daein characters extra hard so that they would be viable come this time in the game.

Spoiler

I have to admit that I did really like those levels, but they were kind of imbalanced because Ike's party starts out so much stronger. I also think the newest Fire Emblem game has a better idea for this concept overall. I feel like this kind of faction splitting works a lot better if you can choose which team you want to bat for. I personally liked training some though not all of the Daein characters. Edward and Nolan were really good imo. Meg could become super strong if given attention, but was probably more trouble than she was worth. I thought Micaiah and Sothe were alright. On the other hand, Fiona and the furries that weren't Nailah were really weak, and I personally liked Shinon better as bowman than Leonardo. What really butthurt me though is that some characters are seldom available at all. If you really liked somebody like Tormod, Devdan (Danved?) or Callil...too bad. You'll never get to use them.

[The Shoemaker]

Spoiler

I really liked the risk it took by splitting the armies up. I understand that a lot of people want to play as the characters they like throughout the entirety of the game, but some of the best moments came from the maps where you were fighting characters from the other team, and then doing a role reversal the next map. I also really liked how much of a challenge the Daein chapters were, really added to the agency of the story for them. It was also great for replays because you had to plan out like 20 chapters in advance what characters you wanted to use for the Daein chapters later on in the game, and to a lesser extent the same with the Crimean characters. I also thought it was awesome when you had to manually split the characters up into three teams and pick and choose what team needed what and who had better supports. And of course the final 5 chapters where you had to choose like 12 out of 70 characters to bring with you. I always trained my Daein characters extra hard so that they would be viable come this time in the game.

Spoiler

I have to admit that I did really like those levels, but they were kind of imbalanced because Ike's party starts out so much stronger. I also think the newest Fire Emblem game has a better idea for this concept overall. I feel like this kind of faction splitting works a lot better if you can choose which team you want to bat for. I personally liked training some though not all of the Daein characters. Edward and Nolan were really good imo. Meg could become super strong if given attention, but was probably more trouble than she was worth. I thought Micaiah and Sothe were alright. On the other hand, Fiona and the furries that weren't Nailah were really weak, and I personally liked Shinon better as bowman than Leonardo. What really butthurt me though is that some characters are seldom available at all. If you really liked somebody like Tormod, Devdan (Danved?) or Callil...too bad. You'll never get to use them.

Spoiler

Yes there were definitely balance issues, Ike's team was way too good, and unless you put effort into the other characters you could really just use Ike's team till the end. I loved Edward, Zihark, Nolan and Volke. I made a good Leonardo once, but both Rolf and Shinnon are better. Good point that in some ways the new game is doing the same with the split faction, but it's more like two different games, because once you choose a side you're stuck there. I also thought the constant switching between armies really made you make use of all your characters. Fire Emblem always gives you way too many characters and you'll often not use half of them because you get used to your top 15 characters. The three factions made you make use of a lot of the cast, and kept you on your toes because it was likely you didn't have too many super units. I will say that there probably shouldn't have been so many chapters between the end of Act 1 and when you finally get to play as Daein again. Micaiah and Sothe were alright, characters the game forced you to use whose stats capped too low to really shine in the final chapters.

Also, I had a lot of fun with Mario Kart Wii, but I didn't vote for it. I thought it added a lot of cool courses (too wide though) and the trick mechanic was great. Especially when you were able to do flips up half pipes. I found the battle mode to be great online, something that is just abysmal in Mario Kart 8. The little tournaments they had were cool too.

[Humphries90]

I had lots of fun with Mario Kart Wii too and I've played all the Mario Kart games. Can't understand the hate. I had some hilarious multiplayer sessions with my mates.

[VictorViper]

I don't think anyone is really hating on the game. We're voting on best games ever and MK Wii is commonly cited as one of the worst entries compared to the others. The whole series has likely been nominated.

[Ouenben]

I had lots of fun with Mario Kart Wii too and I've played all the Mario Kart games. Can't understand the hate. I had some hilarious multiplayer sessions with my mates.

At the core Mario Kart Wii is still a fun game, but very flawed, I wouldn't even say it does anything better than
other previous Mario Kart entries apart from having online multiplayer. I enjoyed Mario Kart 64 a LOT, I spent counltess hours on it with friends and family, but I wouldn't consider it one of the best games ever just because I played it alot.

[Claytone]

My vote, as for any bracket with Mario Kart in it, is for "literally anything but Mario Kart."

But also I voted for Pokémon, so I'm also a rube. At least it's what I consider the 2nd best in the series.

I didn't vote for Doom because I still haven't played it by some miracle.