This Old Neon Forum

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!

This ought to be good. A game no one has played in a well-known strategy series vs. a Japan-only puzzle game no one has played but has Mario in the title.

I'm voting for RTK7 because it did something hugely innovative for the strategy series: it turned it into an RPG! Instead of being a top-down strategy game where the player controls the actions of the kingdom at large, in RTK7 you follow one general who then gets to go and exert their influence on various aspects of the kingdom, depending on their job. Koei refined this a LOT with later entries RTK8 and RTK10, but this gets credit for being the first one.

RTK7 has a special place in my heart over 8 because it is an incredibly relaxing game. Part of that's because it is very easy (especially combat), but part is the artwork, interface and music all meshing together to form a cohesive core that is just cozy.

Other than the bizarre loading screen baby. And some of the grating combat music.

I think 10 managed to be better overall, but 8 was a bit of a letdown even if mechanically it was more interesting.