Qualifying Poll 3/10: Seven Days

[This Old Neon]

You can vote for 1-3 games in this poll. Vote carefully—you can't change your votes after submitting them. The top 3 games at the end of the week will earn a spot in the Top 128.

1987 - [Mike Tyson's] Punch-Out!! - NES
1988 - Mega Man 2 - NES
1989 - Tetris - NES
1995 - Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals - SNES
2001 - Wario Land 4 - GBA
2001 - Uplink - PC
2012 - XCOM: Enemy Unknown / Enemy Within - Multiplatform
2013 - Papers, Please - PC

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

[Kong Wen]

Two comments on this poll right off the bat:

1) I don't think the NES version of Tetris is as good or important as the Game Boy version. The Game Boy version already has a spot in the Top 128. We'll see it next round. I'm happy to wave goodbye to its cousin here.

2) You know all those SNES RPGs you always hear about? The golden age of classic JRPGs and whatnot? All those Final Fantasy games that got so much acclaim. Yeah, they're excellent games. Lufia II is better. Along with Chrono Trigger, this is probably the pinnacle of the genre. It has emotional impact. It has brilliant puzzles to rival any Zelda game. It has a great storyline and good characters. It has a variety of interesting mechanics and things to do (including a roguelike dungeon and a monster-raising mechanic). If you haven't tried it, play it. Pirate it. Do anything. It's worth it.

[Humphries90]

Punch-Out!!. Could play it anytime. Not voting for Tetris as I'm waiting for the GB version, because as we all know, Tetris is better on handhelds.

[VictorViper]

I'm also happy to see Tetris go. The GB version is significant for so many reasons, the NES one should have got the axe long ago.

[Niahak]

You know all those SNES RPGs you always hear about? The golden age of classic JRPGs and whatnot? All those Final Fantasy games that got so much acclaim. Yeah, they're excellent games. Lufia II is better. Along with Chrono Trigger, this is probably the pinnacle of the genre. It has emotional impact. It has brilliant puzzles to rival any Zelda game. It has a great storyline and good characters. It has a variety of interesting mechanics and things to do (including a roguelike dungeon and a monster-raising mechanic). If you haven't tried it, play it. Pirate it. Do anything. It's worth it.

I played Lufia II way back when, but made the mistake of renting it and not buying it (with my parents' money, I guess ) before its price spiked. I ended up buying a Japanese copy because it was cheap and available, but I haven't made the time to play it yet... not that I'm sure I could muddle through by now! I remember liking it a lot - much more polished than Lufia 1, which was still pretty good, and better than Lufia TLR which also had a great roguelike dungeon and an interesting battle system (yeah - I know it was in a previous poll, but while it's fun it's not BGE!). Unfortunately, having not played it in 20 or so years, I can't in good faith vote for it based on fuzzy feelings from when I wasn't even a teenager!

Holy cats - it's going for $80 without the darn case! I was going to justify it as a game I'd actually play on SNES, but I'm not even sure I could trust the battery on a random ebay/amazon seller purchase!

Lufia II is one of those holdouts that would be really great to have on Virtual Console, much like Ogre Battle and OB64 that I thought would never make it. It's a little surprising it never made it, since Lufia:TLR did!

[Kong Wen]

Punch-Out!! and Mega Man 2 will advance to the Top 128.

A tie-breaker between XCOM: Enemy Unknown and Papers, Please will be posted soon.