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!

I replayed the first couple hours of Crystalis recently on Switch NES classics...
For such a wordy game, it really does very little to tell you what you should be doing next. You might get some vague directions, but there's not much useful. Some enemies are straight-up invulnerable to your hits the first time you meet them. Sometimes it's a hint you shouldn't be where you are yet. Other times you're expected to just dodge around them and keep moving.

It's longer (and grindier) than I remembered, too. Where I left off, I remember at least 4-5 largish zones along with some back-tracking. Fond memories of actually reaching the end of the game and getting a (for the time) very large info-dump throughout the final sections.

I still like it a lot - it's the standout Action RPG of the NES for me. If Guardian Legend had a more interesting growth mechanic, it might edge out Crystalis though.

On the basis of spawning All Your Base - however unintentionally - i have to give a vote to Zero Wing.