This Old Neon Forum

Round Three of the “Best First Game in a Series” side-event consists of 2 polls of 8 games each.

• You can vote for up to four (4) games in each poll.
• The top four games will advance to the category finals.
• You can’t change your votes once they’ve been submitted, so click carefully. Voting closes on Saturday at 11:59 P.M. ADT.

VOTE HERE

Poll 1 of 2

Batman: Arkham Asylum (2009, Multiplatform)
BioShock (2007, Multiplatform)
Dark Souls (2011, Multiplatform)
Doom (1993, PC)
Mega Man X (1993, SNES)
Metal Gear Solid (1998, PS1)
Sid Meier's Civilization (1991, PC)
SimCity (1989, PC)

Poll 2 of 2

Castlevania (1986, NES)
Half-Life (1998, PC)
Pokémon [Blue/Red] Version (1996, GB)
Shining Force: The Legacy of Great Intention (1992, Genesis)
Sonic the Hedgehog (1991, Genesis)
Super Mario Bros. (1985, NES)
Tetris (1989, GB)
The Legend of Zelda (1986, NES)

This Old Neon wrote: ↑03 Jun 2019 00:38 Poll 1 of 2
Batman: Arkham Asylum (2009, Multiplatform)
BioShock (2007, Multiplatform)
Dark Souls (2011, Multiplatform)
Doom (1993, PC)
Mega Man X (1993, SNES)
Metal Gear Solid (1998, PS1)
Sid Meier's Civilization (1991, PC)
SimCity (1989, PC)

Arkham Asylum, Dark Souls for sure. In addition to being great games on their own, they're also the best games in their respective series. That's bonus points.

The rest is a battle between Doom, Mega Man X, Civilization, and SimCity...

I spent more time with Civ 1 than with any other game in that series, so I'll probably vote for that one, and then it'd be hard not to give Doom influence points.

This Old Neon wrote: ↑03 Jun 2019 00:38 Poll 2 of 2
Castlevania (1986, NES)
Half-Life (1998, PC)
Pokémon [Blue/Red] Version (1996, GB)
Shining Force: The Legacy of Great Intention (1992, Genesis)
Sonic the Hedgehog (1991, Genesis)
Super Mario Bros. (1985, NES)
Tetris (1989, GB)
The Legend of Zelda (1986, NES)

Castlevania is an easy vote here as one of the rare nearly-perfect action-platformers in a huge genre of great games.

Gotta vote for Shining Force as one of my all-time favourite tactical RPGs. It has so much character, and it's pretty impressive for it to be better than Shining Force 2 and Shining Force CD, because those are both very strong games.

The Legend of Zelda is an easy vote, too. It's still one of the best games in the storied series, and a shining exemplar of the genre that any new entry in the series has to be compared to.

My fourth vote will probably be for... Pokémon, just because the Kanto monsters are so iconic and well-designed. I don't really see Tetris as a good example of a first game in a series—especially the GB one—and while the original Super Mario Bros. is good and influential, the game itself hasn't held up as well as many of the other games in this bracket.

This Old Neon wrote: ↑03 Jun 2019 00:38 Poll 1 of 2
Batman: Arkham Asylum (2009, Multiplatform)
Dark Souls (2011, Multiplatform)
Mega Man X (1993, SNES)

Poll 2 of 2
Super Mario Bros. (1985, NES)
Tetris (1989, GB)
The Legend of Zelda (1986, NES)

Winners!