SE5: One-Offs: Finals

[This Old Neon]

Welcome to the "BEST GAME EVER!!!" Project's fifth Side-Event: One-Offs!

You can vote for 2 games in this bracket. Vote carefully—you can't change your vote after submitting it. The top game at the end of the week will be crowned the "BEST NEW IP / UNIQUE / ONE-OFF GAME EVER!!!"

1984 - Duck Hunt - NES
1999 - Planescape: Torment - PC
2001 - Ico - PS2
2010 - Super Meat Boy - Multiplatform
2010 - Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective - DS
2013 - Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons - Multiplatform
2014 - Shovel Knight - Multiplatform
2015 - Bloodborne - PS4

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

[VictorViper]

I had to make a nasty choice, and Meat Boy ended up a pile of giblets for it. Brothers was a must-vote, especially in this category, so it came down to Bloodborne or SMB. While I consider Meat Boy to be a perfect game, at the end of the day it's "just a platformer". Bloodborne, on the other hand, freshened up one of my favourite formulas in the last 10 years and stands out as the current best in its series (cue category irony) (which itself stands above all others in its basic genre). BB and Brothers it is.

[Kong Wen]

I had to make a nasty choice, and Meat Boy ended up a pile of giblets for it. Brothers was a must-vote, especially in this category, so it came down to Bloodborne or SMB. While I consider Meat Boy to be a perfect game, at the end of the day it's "just a platformer". Bloodborne, on the other hand, freshened up one of my favourite formulas in the last 10 years and stands out as the current best in its series (cue category irony) (which itself stands above all others in its basic genre). BB and Brothers it is.

That's pretty much why I didn't think about Bloodborne. I had to vote for Super Meat Boy for somehow being a thrillingly unique and excellently-executed game in a trotted out genre. Great example of a great one-off. I strongly considered Brothers as well, especially since I ranked it highly on my overall BGE list this year, but I had to go with Planescape: Torment on this one, for similar reasons as my SMB vote. It's a D&D RPG, but it does the genre so well that it's deserving of attention and accolades that it unfortunately seems not to have gotten except in retrospectives like this event.

[VictorViper]

I definitely needed to think on my vote for Bloodborne over SMB - it's honestly impossible for me to justify one over the other with any real personal legitimacy. In the end, neither are technically one-offs, so that helped a tiny bit. But aside from simple time spent, I think the fact that Bloodborne is only a spiritual successor to the Souls games is precisely what allowed it to deviate and improve on the established formula (and thus, earn my vote). The setting, level design, world-building and gameplay innovations all show a level of mastery that can't be denied. I remain excited for you to play it, assuming you ever play another video game again.

[Kong Wen]

I definitely needed to think on my vote for Bloodborne over SMB - it's honestly impossible for me to justify one over the other with any real personal legitimacy. In the end, neither are technically one-offs, so that helped a tiny bit. But aside from simple time spent, I think the fact that Bloodborne is only a spiritual successor to the Souls games is precisely what allowed it to deviate and improve on the established formula. I remain excited for you to play it, assuming you ever play another video game again.

It's one among the several video games I have played lately. I didn't get very far, because I found the opening areas to be a real slog compared to the Souls games, not just in terms of how bleak and difficult they are, but more in terms of how purposeless it felt. I'll certainly get back to it when I'm over my current puzzling phase, because the gameplay itself felt as good as Souls (not better, yet) but I'm not "excited" about it like I am for Dark Souls III.

[evildevil97]

For Shovelry!

[VictorViper]

Get through it, Kong. I'm excited for DaS3 as well, but BB is completely bananas. Seek the healing church; that's all the direction you need.

[Ouenben]

I didn't get here in time or I'd have given Super Meat boy a vote

[Kong Wen]

I didn't get here in time or I'd have given Super Meat boy a vote

Make sure you're here for the tie-breaker then! Coming later today.