Round 6: The Mares of Diomedes

[This Old Neon]

Round 6: The Mares of Diomedes

You can vote for 1-5 games in this poll. Vote carefully—you can't change your votes after submitting them. The top 5 games at the end of the week will move on to Round 7: The Top 128 Qualifiers.

1984 - Marble Madness - Arcade/NES
1992 - Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss - PC
1993 - Batsugun - Arcade/Saturn
1995 - Secret of Mana 2 / Seiken Densetsu 3 - SNES
2001 - Pikmin - GCN
2005 - Dynasty Warriors 5 - PS2
2010 - Epic Mickey - Wii
2012 - Bravely Default - 3DS
2013 - Dead Space 3 - PS3
2013 - Pokémon [X/Y] - 3DS

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

[The Shoemaker]

Bravely Default is a great JRPG. It takes old archiac mechanics and pulls them into the modern age to make a very accessible RPG.

Epic Mickey had a lot of problems from awkward camera angles, floaty jumps and laggy IR aiming with the Wii Remote. It was still a really solid 3D adventure through Disney's past.

[Pluvius]

Kind of surprised to see a bracket this shitty in this round. Abstaining.

Rob

[Kong Wen]

Kind of surprised to see a bracket this shitty in this round. Abstaining.

RNGesus.

I voted for Stygian Abyss, and gave a personal vote of affection for Dynasty Warriors 5. The latter is (IMO) the last great game in the series, before they started really getting stale. It's not as ground-breaking as Dynasty Warriors 3 was, but it was the first game in the series to truly perfect the formula after Dynasty Warriors 4 strayed into some weird territory. DW5 has a big roster of characters, some interesting maps, and a satisfying progression system.

[pdSlooper]

I enjoyed Bravely Default, but it is *not* BGE material. Nice jRPG structure but it's the definition of Squeenix standard, not to mention that

Spoiler

that "here we go again" shit was nearly inexcusable

.

Pikmin gets my vote. It's charming, and it enticed me to play an entirely new kind of game. It's also one of the few Gamecube games I'm willing to play...I hate that controller.

[Jordan]

I'm so torn on this one. Marble Madness is literally the first game I ever played, and I'm tempted to vote for it just out of pure nostalgia. But there's lots of others I like here too...

[Pluvius]

Just realized that this is the bracket that should've gotten the "Augean Stables" title.

Rob

[Kong Wen]

Just realized that this is the bracket that should've gotten the "Augean Stables" title.

[Sharecrow]

I'm putting in the call that I'll be the only one voting for Dead Space 3, but it really is something special. I would have voted for Stygian Abyss as well but I jumped. In retrospect, I think Dead Space 3 is better enough that I can justify singling it out though I need to give Stygian Abyss some written props here.

[Humphries90]

DW5. Not my favourite, but still a great game and as KW said, the last one before it got stale/lost its way.

And of course Pikmin. Go Pikmin!