BOTTOM 16 — Poll 1

[This Old Neon]

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!

[Sharecrow]

I’ll have to abstain here. Galaxy is good but not sure if I’d like it more than Hades or not…

[Kong Wen]

I knew I had a feeling of déja vu... this is a rematch between these two games, which first went toe-to-toe in the first week of the Top 256 back in May 2023. Super Mario Galaxy won the match way back then in a 5-5 tie thanks to its higher seeding. And now here they are again, both in the lower bracket, both guaranteed a final rank among the 24 "BEST GAMES EVER!!!"

As I did back then, I'm voting for Hades. It ties a bunch of roguelike-lite recursive gameplay & gradually-build-up-via-failure gameplay staples together in an eminently playable and cohesive way. Plus it has a great unfolding narrative and good characters. Like, it's so good at these specific things that they don't really need to make any more of these games.