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 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 was a hard vote. Bubble Bobble is cooperative arcade excellence, but I really have a soft spot for Shining Force 2's expedition-themed story. While much of the story is fuzzy, it's one of those games that gives me a warm feeling every time I play (which isn't as often as I'd like). It's a great refinement of the original, and while it lost a little charm, it has deeper mechanics and a more interesting story.

SF2 is probably responsible for why my mind keeps coming back to "expedition" stories like Strange Journey.

One of the problems with Shining Force II is that it feels more "padded out" compared to its relatively tight and focused (for an RPG) original. As a result, I find the characters less unique (as unique as you can be in a cast of 57 centaur knights) and endearing and the story has that fuzzy quality than Niahak mentions, but the gameplay and overall design are top-notch.

Bubble Bobble is also fun and cute and has an interesting spin on "what you're supposed to do" and "how you're supposed to do it" that older arcade titles were great at, but the gameplay itself starts to get stale before you even get through its 99 levels. Good for one long session of screwing around with a co-op friendo, but no real reason to go back to it or keep cranking quarters in.