Round 4, in which we commit adultery

[This Old Neon]

Round 4, in which we commit adultery

You can vote for 1-3 games in this poll. Vote carefully—you can't change your votes after submitting them. The #1, #2, and #3 ranked games at the end of the week will move on to Round 5.

1990 - Strider - Genesis/MD
1997 - Castlevania: Symphony of the Night - PS1
2000 - Final Fantasy IX - PS1
2001 - Conker's Bad Fur Day - N64
2002 - Romance of the Three Kingdoms VIII - PS2
2003 - Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time - Multiplatform
2006 - New Super Mario Bros. - DS
2007 - Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure - Wii
2008 - Fallout 3 - Multiplatform
2009 - Spelunky - PC

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

[Turai]

Another pretty weak outing, I was tempted to give Conker a vote, but decided to maximize FFIX's chances as it is my fave numbered FF from that era (and the last truly great one in the series).

[Humphries90]

Romance of The Three Kingdoms VIII. THIS is why I'm in China. This is the game I've put more hours to than any other. I loved starting as a random officer or warlord and making my own stories, becoming the best I could be (or causing as much chaos as possible). Conquering China certainly wasn't easy, but I often accomplished it. It's close to my favourite game ever, and yet it's the only game in the series I've played (Europe was pretty shafted back in the day. I'm still mad that they advertised RotTK IX for release yet never did).

Love this game so much.

[The Shoemaker]

Zack and Wiki was a gem of the Wii era. The motion controls weren't perfect, but the puzzles were really well thought out, and the game was a surprisingly full package considering it appeared to be just a point and click puzzle game. It had a lot of charm to it and many different ways to puzzle each puzzle, with humourous results for both winning and losing. The final challenge of the game was really impressive.

[VictorViper]

Gonna need some time to mull this bracket over. Yowza.

[SkyPikachu]

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night a game I thought I'd hate but ended up loving. I still haven't finished it but I've played a fair bit of it. It still looks pretty good as well graphically.

[Kong Wen]

I came late to Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. I had played plenty of other Castlevania games, and other Metroid games, and I thought I would find it over-hyped. But it's a solid game that lives up to its reputation. The castle design is masterful. The enemies are interesting. The platforming handles perfectly. And the RPG system, while some elements are extraneous, is actually quite engaging. I think there are better exploration-platfoRPGs out there, but this is certainly one of the contenders.

It's hard to find a more avid Three Kingdoms (and by extension, Koei) fan, but I can be critical of some of their more middling games in the saggy midsection of their staple franchises. Despite that, Romance of the Three Kingdoms VIII is an excellent game. It's unlike most earlier RTK games in that, instead of playing as the "kingdom" itself (in true grand strategy form), you actually choose and play as one person in a kingdom, either a general, civil servant, or even the ruler. This introduces an RPG element into the strategy format, in that you have to manage your own character's abilities and relationships while trying to influence the course of your kingdom, sometimes without direct control if you're not a ruler. This idea was introduced in Romance of the Three Kingdoms VII, which was frankly pretty bad, but RTK VIII refines it quite nicely here (it would later be visited, again with excellent results, in RTK X).

My final vote was for Fallout 3. I spent a couple hundred hours in this game fully completing all the content, all the quests, all the DLC, and exploring the whole map. I loved VATS, I loved socializing with the other characters, collecting stuff at my house, stumbling upon weird random encounters in the wilderness, etc. I think the post-apocalyptic wasteland world of Fallout 3 is one of the best, most charming, and most harrowing in games.

[Jordan]

ROTK VIII is my favorite of the ROTK games. I spent hundreds of hours on that one, so it gets my only vote here because by contrast I don't care about many of these other games. I've actually played most of the games on this particular poll and either felt lukewarm or just slightly good about them.

The game would definitely be better if we could commit adultery in it, though.

[Niahak]

I must be one of the few people who prefers VII to VIII.

VIII has more features, but aesthetically VII is one of the most soothing games I've played - and also has some of the weirdest art choices I've seen (such as the baby loading screen). I play it every now and then when I need something to calm me down.

If I revisited one of the "officer RPG" games for an extensive re-play, it would probably be X. I think VIII gets a little bogged down in details and runs a little slower than I'd like. X's campaign mode gets things rolling faster than typical battles and the quest system is pretty cool for when you're an officer and the ruler is being passive, too. I still have all of the PS2 ones around in case I end up changing my mind.

All said, IX is my favorite, so I'm one of those evil strategy purists...

For this category I'll have to think a bit. Symphony of the Night is a guaranteed vote, but I might add Spelunky.

[Kong Wen]

I must be one of the few people who prefers VII to VIII.

VIII has more features, but aesthetically VII is one of the most soothing games I've played - and also has some of the weirdest art choices I've seen (such as the baby loading screen). I play it every now and then when I need something to calm me down.

If I revisited one of the "officer RPG" games for an extensive re-play, it would probably be X. I think VIII gets a little bogged down in details and runs a little slower than I'd like. X's campaign mode gets things rolling faster than typical battles and the quest system is pretty cool for when you're an officer and the ruler is being passive, too. I still have all of the PS2 ones around in case I end up changing my mind.

All said, IX is my favorite, so I'm one of those evil strategy purists...

We're on the same page on pretty much everything except for VII. Of the "RPG"-like RTK games, I prefer X the most. But I prefer the hard strategy entries overall. Among the modern entries, it's a toss-up between IX and XI for me—I loved both of them for different reasons. But of course my heart still belongs to the older classics (particularly II and III).