This Old Neon Forum

Round 2: Bracket 11/16 - ELEVEN

You can vote for 1-2 games in this poll. Vote carefully—you can't change your votes after submitting them. The #1 and #2 ranked games at the end of the week will move on to Round 3.

1981 - New Rally-X - Arcade
1982 - Pitfall! - A2600
1987 - Final Fantasy - NES
2000 - Sin and Punishment - N64
2001 - The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons - GBC
2009 - Skate 2 - PS3/X360
2009 - Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth - DS
2009 - Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time / Ratchet & Clank: A Crack in Time - PS3
2010 - Last Window: The Secret of Cape West - DS
2010 - Pac-Man Championship Edition DX+ - PC

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

Every Ratchet and Clank game I've played probably will get a vote from me, and this is definitely one of them. I didn't play the other PS3 R&C games, but A Crack in Time was stellar.

Skate 2 was loads of fun for me a huge improvement over the original and I nearly nominated in the first place before realising about the weighted nomination.

Who nominated?

Edit: Claytone?

Edit2: It was Shoe.

Holding off for now since I own, but have not played the original S&P. I'll try to fix that this week.

I voted for Final Fantasy. While Dragon Quest was my first love, Final Fantasy was the OG RPG with which I spent the most time, researching the monster charts on the back of the map, grinding by killing sharks in the sea between the starting town and the elf town before braving the Marsh Cave, and experimenting with different party formations. It's a true old-school classic. This makes it somewhat unpalatable to new players, but the original, despite some bugs and mechanics that don't work, is a purer expression of what this game was supposed to be than some of the eeeeeaasy remakes.

I also voted for Pac-Man Championship Edition DX+ (yes, even though I didn't vote for Pac-Man), because this game remains the ultimate example of how to remake/reboot an ancient classic arcade game with new mechanics and accessibility in mind while still remaining an engaging experience.

I'd probably say the original Final Fantasy is worthy enough. I really liked choosing the class at the beginning of the game, you could experiment with different combinations to find out which one worked best. Can't say I ever completed it though.

Although I can appreciate what Final Fantasy was trying to do, and I played it back in the day, I can't stand to do so nowadays. I see Phantasy Star as a better expression of the same ideal that is more palatable, despite early directionless-ness. That's as someone who played Phantasy Star nearly 20 years late. The SaGa game boy games (or FF Legend if you prefer) offered more interesting party-picking than FF, so that part of it doesn't hold much interest for me either.

I don't see much else I can support here, though, so it's an abstain from me.

Well, Friday is here and I didn't get to S&P, so I'm happy to cast the (currently) tying vote for Pac Man CE DX+. Namco handled this "sequel" brilliantly by changing the core dynamic, ensuring both games retain their place. DX didn't refine the experience (how would you refine CE in the first place?), but shook things up by making ghost chains the way to huge points this time.

I still took a second vote here, a throwaway to Skate 2. This game enhanced and refined the original in important ways, and still nailed the urban exploration elements. This game celebrates the havoc of skating anything you see, anywhere you see it. The Skate series made THPS look like a bad hack of Top Skater. Great, great stuff from EA(!).

Final Fantasy and Pac-Man CE DX+ have advanced to the next round.