This Old Neon Forum

Welcome to the #BGE2020 Elimination Round of 512!

Each game is seeded based on its performance in the two opening rounds of pools. Every game in the Upper Bracket has defeated multiple other games in 1-on-1 polls to get to this point. These are still the best of the best.

Polls are updated weekly, typically on 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!

Well, this is an unfortunate matchup at first glance. Super Paper Mario is definitely the worst game in the Paper series, being nothing more than a glorified 2D platformer game with the occasional 4th-wall/2nd-dimension-breaking gimmick. Quite disappointing for a new entry on a new platform for a series that had been quite good on N64 and GCN.

On the other hand we have RTK2, the best entry in the pure-strategy early series. Fantastic 2D map of China, fantastic board-game-like battles, nice simple stripped-down stats for your generals, armies, and cities, a huge cast of varied generals with different strengths and weaknesses to deploy for war, diplomacy, or city-building. And a lot of options for how to actually approach the game: sneaky tactics to turn enemies against each other, straight-up war, or a focus on alliances and recruitment. Quite ahead of its time for a 1991 console game, but yet still completely digestible and easy to understand and get into (and get good at). Plus it had large-scale local multiplayer! I distinctly remember playing marathon sessions of this game with 5 other friends all plotting against each other lol

So, arguably the best game in a storied strategy series vs. the laziest game in a knock-off series with a mascot's name in the title. *twirling finger gesture*

I haven't played any of the Paper Mario games since the Gamecube. It sounds like all of them fall just short of having consistent RPG mechanics, which is a shame because the first two were great. Origami King sounds closest to a return to form, but still far short of TTYD. Watching a friend play through Super Paper Mario was enough for me to avoid it.

I only rented RTK2 on SNES, but owned RTK3. RTK2 felt much faster paced and I always wanted to pick it up... but it got expensive pretty quick. Koei games never really had the drop in value that most other SNES games did in the '00s, so I never did fill that gap in my library.

Wish the Wii U VC had all the SNES games, and not just RTK4. I tried it a bit and couldn't stick with it.

Niahak wrote: ↑07 Mar 2023 15:36 I only rented RTK2 on SNES, but owned RTK3. RTK2 felt much faster paced and I always wanted to pick it up... but it got expensive pretty quick. Koei games never really had the drop in value that most other SNES games did in the '00s, so I never did fill that gap in my library.

When I bought the SNES mini, I may have added RTK 2 to its library of ROMs.

I was kind of surprised they left the VC with just RTK 4—definitely one of the more impenetrable games in the early series.

Kong Wen wrote: ↑07 Mar 2023 04:07 Well, this is an unfortunate matchup at first glance. Super Paper Mario is definitely the worst game in the Paper series, being nothing more than a glorified 2D platformer game with the occasional 4th-wall/2nd-dimension-breaking gimmick. Quite disappointing for a new entry on a new platform for a series that had been quite good on N64 and GCN.

I'm not voting for either, but there's a good argument to be made that not only is SPM not the worst Paper Mario, it's not even in the bottom half. Sticker Star was, for my money, atrocious. Put me off ever playing another PM.

Super Paper Mario doesn't get my vote, but that's only because RTK II is effectively what cemented the love of the SGZ era in me and is just such a well-made game in general. Arguably, it has not been surpassed in the RTK series, except purely in terms of video and audio quality.

That said, this is tough for me because although SPM is not the RPG that 1000 Year Door was, it's still a very good game - the variety of levels and characters is great, the world-flipping mechanic makes for some very effective gameplay and puzzle-solving, it's a genuinely funny game, and it has a good story.