NOW YOU'RE POLLING WITH POWER. SUPER POWER. Console Poll, vol. 2 - 4th Generation RESULTS

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27 - Pilotwings - 100 points / 4 Votes

super street fighter II
- which new character was your favorite: dee jay, cammy, t. hawk, or fei-long?? i'm guessing none of them were, which is why this was a somewhat disappointing release for me at the time despite it refining what were already excellent mechanics. i guess a lot of people consider SSFIITurbo to be the definitive street fighter of the era

yes the mew characters were disappointing. i had the PC release of Super Street Fighter II Turbo (god i love that long ridiculous name) and it was easily one of the best arcade to PC ports ever.

Rondo of Blood - what can you say? from those german-language anime cutscenes in the intro, you know you are in for a treat. featuring glorious 16-bit CD synth arrangements of the always baroque and flashy Castlevania music style. feels more than ever like prog rock. gameplay is incredible, love the hold-the-whip-button-and-you-are-moonwalking mechanic. level design is very cool and very classic. i always thought Super Castlevania IV was too muddy and dis-proportioned compared to the older games but this feels like a proper sequel to Castlevania 3 (or Simon's Quest, given that it re-creates a town from it on fire in the first level). Maria is a cool character too. what other games can you throw an attack cat at a skeleton? the double jump is a lot of fun too. i don't mind the added anime flavor, it kind of goes with the music and the art design, bringing the Castlevania series from straight gothic horror closer to dark fantasy.

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26 - Legend of the Mystical Ninja - 101 points / 4 Votes

recently i saw my uncle, who i hadn't seen in a really long time, and out of nowhere at dinner he said "what was that old game you used to play all the time? all you would do is skydive and refuse to deploy the parachute, and laugh and laugh as you crashed into the ground." eventually, after beating pilotwings about 100 times (it was a launch title, i think, and one of two SNES games i had for several months), that's what it became to me. just a ridiculous stuntgame, trying to make perfect human-shaped silhouette holes in the landscape in particular spots after a 5,000 foot descent.

very underrated part of pilotwings was the rocket launcher mission (?!?!?!) you had to do after proving your mettle in recreational sports (?!?!?!). "now that you have mastered the hang glider, you are ready to murder dozens of people with this rocket launcher. good luck!"

lol yes, good to have a game that let our young selves act out gruesome suicidal ideations.

iirc the rocket launcher mission was in an assault helicopter? v fashionable in that gulf war pt. 1 era

top 25 begin now!

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25 - Another World/Out Of This World - 101 points / 1 First-place vote / 4 Votes

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24 - NBA Jam - 113 points / 5 Votes

Looks like a classic victim of vote-splitting. Only one person put both games on their ballot, and I think it would've made top 10-15 combined.

Btw we are about to enter some serious stone-cold classic territory.

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23 - Donkey Kong Country 2 - 115 points / 5 Votes

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22 - Super Mario Land - 118 points / 5 Votes

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21 - Super Castlevania IV - 121 points / 5 Votes

wtf just #21 this is an outrage

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20 - Sonic The Hedgehog - 128 points / 7 Votes

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19 - Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars - 129 points / 7 Votes

i used to love super mario rpg

only game i actually replayed a few times

normally the box art is so much more inspiring than the game but that dynamic seems flipped on gunstar heroes.

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18 - ToeJam & Earl - 136 points / 6 Votes

Speaking on uninspiring box art...

(that was in ref to TJ & Earl)

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17 - Sonic the Hedgehog 2 - 161 points / 9 Votes

SONIC AND "TAILS" TEAM UP!

That's it for today... the top 16 (see what i did there lol) tomorrow!!!

Recap in my next post, followed by my thoughts in the post after since I was kinda doing 20 things at once while posting so I wasn't sharing my feelins

17 - Sonic the Hedgehog 2 - 161 points / 9 Votes
18 - ToeJam & Earl - 136 points / 6 Votes
19 - Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars - 129 points / 7 Votes
20 - Sonic The Hedgehog - 128 points / 7 Votes
21 - Super Castlevania IV - 121 points / 5 Votes
22 - Super Mario Land - 118 points / 5 Votes
23 - Donkey Kong Country 2 - 115 points / 5 Votes
24 - NBA Jam - 113 points / 5 Votes
25 - Another World/Out Of This World - 101 points / 1 First-place votes / 4 Votes
26 - Legend of the Mystical Ninja - 101 points / 4 Votes
27 - Pilotwings - 100 points / 4 Votes
28 - Mega Man X - 99 points / 8 Votes
29 - Castlevania: Rondo of Blood - 94 points / 1 First-place votes / 3 Votes
30 - Sonic & Knuckles (and Sonic 3 + Knuckles) - 87 points / 1 First-place votes / 4 Votes
31 - Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow - 87 points / 4 Votes
32 - Earthworm Jim - 86 points / 6 Votes
33 - Langrisser II - 81 points / 3 Votes
34 - Crusader of Centy (aka Soleil) - 80 points / 2 First-place votes / 2 Votes
35 - Rock n Roll Racing - 79 points / 4 Votes
36 - Super Mario All-Stars - 78 points / 3 Votes
37 - NBA Jam Tournament Edition - 77 points / 5 Votes
38 - Gunstar Heroes - 70 points / 4 Votes
38 - SimCity - 70 points / 4 Votes
40 - Streets of Rage II - 70 points / 3 Votes
41 - Breath of Fire - 69 points / 3 Votes
42 - Phantasy Star IV: The End of the Millennium - 67 points / 3 Votes
42 - Flashback - 67 points / 3 Votes
42 - Super Street Fighter II + Turbo - 67 points / 3 Votes
45 - Revenge of Shinobi - 66 points / 2 Votes
46 - Harvest Moon - 64 points / 5 Votes
47 - Shining Force 2 - 64 points / 2 Votes
48 - Micro Machines - 63 points / 3 Votes
48 - ActRaiser - 63 points / 3 Votes
50 - Zombies Ate My Neighbors - 61 points / 4 Votes
51 - Streets of Rage III - 61 points / 3 Votes
52 - Front Mission - 57 points / 2 Votes
53 - Shining Force - 56 points / 2 Votes
54 - Tetris Attack / Panel de Pon - 54 points / 3 Votes
55 - Final Fantasy V - 54 points / 2 Votes
56 - Contra 3: The Alien Wars - 53 points / 4 Votes
57 - Super Empire Strikes Back - 51 points / 3 Votes
58 - Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse - 50 points / 3 Votes
59 - Secret of Evermore - 50 points / 2 Votes
60 - Kirby's Dream Land - 48 points / 2 Votes
61 - Shadowrun - 47 points / 3 Votes
62 - Shinobi III - 47 points / 2 Votes
63 - Road Rash II - 46 points / 2 Votes
64 - E.V.O. The Search for Eden - 45 points / 2 Votes
65 - Super Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins - 44 points / 1 First-place votes / 2 Votes
66 - UN Squadron - 44 points / 2 Votes
66 - ToeJam & Earl in Panic on Funkatron - 44 points / 2 Votes
68 - Cannon Fodder - 43 points / 3 Votes
69 - Wonder Boy V: Monster World III - 43 points / 2 Votes
69 - Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen - 43 points / 2 Votes
69 - Castlevania: Bloodlines - 43 points / 2 Votes
72 - Nobunaga's Ambition - 42 points / 2 Votes
72 - Final Fantasy IV (II) - 42 points / 2 Votes
74 - On the Ball - 40 points / 1 First-place votes / 1 vote
75 - Mortal Kombat 2 - 40 points / 2 Votes
76 - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time - 38 points / 2 Votes
77 - Final Fight - 38 points / 1 vote
77 - Rings of Power - 38 points / 1 vote

Sonic the Hedgehog 1 & 2 were games I always had to play at someone else's house. I never had a Genesis, but my cousin did (who lived with my grandma) so probably 90% of the Sonic I played was there. Those, and Aladdin. On a giant old tube TV she had. I remember being really stressed out by the drowning mechanic. More than most other games I can even remember.

Super Mario Land was one of the first games I had for the GB (and one of the only ones for a really long time). I have no idea how long it took me to beat but in my memory it was years. The SML games are vastly underrated/underrepresented in the zillions of remakes I find, I really miss having that "superball" 45 degree angle projectile attack. And the music!!

Donkey Kong Country 2 - All three of these games really. Wow. Really came out at a time that was post-secrets in a way, where you could find out about most secrets pretty early on if you were interested enough (magazines and maybe even early internet for me). But there were still moments where I found things through my own exploration and it felt like I was the only person in the world who knew about them.

NBA Jam 1 & TE (& Hangtime) - The game mechanic for this was fun enough but it was never A+. There were easy ways to force turnovers (if you hit turbo and shove at jsut the right time on a pass inbound, you could knock them down every time), but what really made it special was the presentation. Trying to see all of the different jams was the best part. And the voice!

Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow - TOO LOW! One of the best games ever made. Once I was done with it, I started playing competitively with my friends, and we all picked our teams and printed little posters, and nobody was allowed to have the same Pokemon as anyone else (which was bullshit since I got the game last, so the starters, the legendaries and mewtwo were off bounds). In fact, I'm gonna look up a tier lsit now and see if I can remember my old team. Marowak, Magneton, Golduck, Hitmonchan I think?, and nope, can't remember the other two. All "low-tier." No wonder I never won.

Rock n Roll Racing - one fo the first games i played a LOT of on emulator, dunno how far I ever got but I felt like I got pretty far... loved the level-up mechanics in this one. At the time. Idk if they held up.

Super Mario All-Stars - don't think I voted for it, for reasons noted above... they're Nintendo games, which made it easy to cut it (on a ballot that needed a LOT of cuts). Since I didn't have a Nintendo, though, this is mostly how I played these games. SMB2 in particular I don't think I had EVER played, and it is DOPE.

Super Street Fighter II + Turbo - I, for one, loved the new chracters. I primarily played T-Hawk when my friend got this, Deejay sometimes, and in later games (Alpha 3 I think? Or another? I forget), Fei Long. I can't do Street Fighter anymore because proficiency has all but ruined it -- everyone's either too good, or too bad -- but I miss the days of the old Red-Queen days of constant improvement simultaneous with friends. Before the Internet ruined it for all of us, you know.

Harvest Moon - another one I played via emu a lot, this game made me feel very chill and I loved it. I remember NOTHING though.

Games I am reminded I have to play, or have learned I have to play from today's list: Toejam & Earl(s), Seven Stars RPG, Langrisser II, Crusader of Centy, Streets of Rage 1/2/3, Phantasy Star IV

Breath of Fire getting more votes than Final Fantasy II is way fucked up

Maaan, I saw Super Mario Land pop up and was looking forward to the sequel's proper placement in like the top ten, having totally missed that it showed up yesterday. Bah. Guys! SML 2 is maybe my favorite old-school Mario game! You gotta check it out!

I'm guessing whoever voted for Another World hasn't played it recently. Not good. Flashback is so much better.

Just had a flashback of my own seeing that NBA Jam (aka that game my brothers played) cover for the first time in decades.

mario all-stars is a good idea but not very well-executed. strange that they put such time into redrawing all the art (which looks, y'know, fine, but somehow wrong) and then got the control so not quite right. it's not unplayable but it's strange to play a mario game that doesn't feel fine-tuned, they're normally so effortless and here somehow the little fine details are missing and it feels like playing mario through a slight delay or something.

rock n roll racing is such fun.

earthworm jim was good for a rental, and one of the best-looking (least drab) genesis games. i definitely enjoyed playing it. otoh it maybe epitomizes this whole post-Sonic tendency for your character in a platformer to take up way too much screen real estate, and for the growing number of frames in, say, a jump animation to oddly make the thing feel too smooth, like rotoscoped animation, with the effect of lowering the overall kinetic energy of bouncing around the screen. in games not themed around speed gimmicks the frustrations of this become rapidly apparent.

rondo of blood followed by megaman x is a nice sequence - two kicked-up-a-notch 16 bit re-dos of 8-bit smash series. castlevania, as in super castlevania iv, gets a massive upgrade in control which knocks off most of the bullshit parts of I and III's difficulty. the levels are gorgeous, the bosses are gorgeous. for 'classic' style castlevania this really might be the best one, depending how much you want to test yourself and find meaning in life through taking on really impossible games. when i got ahold of it in high school, i played a lot of rondo of blood, but it wasn't the kind of play where i felt pride in accomplishing anything. was just fun to see the next level. i did like unlocking maria and playing it through again with her, that was cool. anyway it's just such a great execution of a trusty formula/setting. mega man x i remember much less clearly and the differences with the NES ones are much significant. the "x" was doing a lot of the work, at the time, of convincing kids like me that it was somehow tougher and badder and all that.

i already expressed my 'another world' disappointments on the voting thread i think. great to look at, and a cool approach to storytelling that was sadly not incorporated into a better game.

sonic 2 was my sonic pick. all the sonic you really need, tbh, and has enough that improves on the first one (especially the "crouch and get the speed built up" mechanic) that you really can't make the first one the canonical pick. also the levels really evoked something for me that i can't really articulate now. not the level design but the art and names and all. sonic 3/knuckles is probably better looking (or has better gimmicky setpieces, can't remember). tails, and the comic book extended universe generally, must have launched a thosand furries. the bonus stages in this are kinda bullshit but it was satisfying as FUCK to sit down for the afternoon and nail a perfect run and get all the chaos emeralds and EARN your super sonic status.

Breath of Fire getting more votes than Final Fantasy II is way fucked up

FFII is the only one so far that I'm shocked at how low it is. Granted, FFIII is like a magnitude better, but FFII is still a pretty sweet game

I was obsessed with FFII when I was a kid. I voted for FFIII as the representative Final Fantasy, not sure it makes so much sense now. Breath of Fire wasn't a bad game, though.

Langrisser II: I voted for this one, though I wish Der Langrisser was on here. Der Langrisser had a branching storyline where you could join the antagonists which forced you to kill your old allies, or you could decide to go on your own and defeat everyone to create your own empire so you could end war and racism (the race here being demons like draculas and godzillas). It had some fun strategy elements, like a step up from the Shining Force games, and an early 90s anime aesthetic that appealed to my hopeless teenage nerd side.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnakUvv2U-Y

One thing in common I just realized between Breath of Fire and Der Langrisser was that the stories had you kill the benevolent god who were ruling the world you were playing in; at least with Der Langrisser you had to make that choice if you decided on the independent path. Not sure what Japan's deal with that theme was, but I thought it was pretty interesting when I was a kid.

oh man slow down on these if you're under any pressure at all!

for sure, I don't think I'll have time to properly comment til the weekend, feel free to draw this thing out as long as you'd like

I must at least say, as one of two Crusader of Centy votes, if you like A Link to the Past at all, gotta play Centy. It's almost a long lost Genesis-only Zelda title, only it's better than that because it's just different enough to be it's own thing. The item system is replaced with a collection of friendly animal companions! And they trail behind you two at a time and do all manner of things!

And the music!

It's got time travel too! Such a good game, so good I put it at 1 no prob, no deliberation at all

'Crusader of Centy' didn't ring any bell so I just googled it and found that its French name was 'Soleil', which was indeed a terrific game that I a) had totally forgotten about, and b) played the shit out of. I had no idea it was called CoC in the US. otherwise I would have totally voted for it!

“If you meet the Buddha, kill him" xxp

i'm v hungover so sadly will have to limit myself to say Breath of Fire fucking rules and pisses on any FF game and also

Crusader of Centy super fucking rules, if it's a Zelda-like it outplays its inspiration and sheesh is totally on the money and high five, i made it number 1 too, easy

except the desert is super aggravating but then you get to go to Heaven so it's okay

it just milks its mechanic beautifully, revisit the same places in a different time zone like Chrono Trigger, learn to talk to animals and plants and go back to all those creatures you couldn't understand earlier, helpful rabbits in your equipment pack, nicely pacifist story that comes together a treat to make you feel all guilty, best RPG no sweat

FFIV suffers from the fact that its slavishly devoted to the emotional journey of a blond jock named cecil and makes all the other characters opaque and transient. FFV otoh is fantastic for how weird and difficult it is. its hard to get lost in the game, you kind of get shoved from place to place w/o ever needing to explore much but exploring is really unpleasant. it often seems like almost every living thing in the world is trying to devour you. i think of all the early FF games its the one in which the hostility of the world map - on which each tiny clutch of houses is surrounded by wilderness teaming w/monsters - best fits the hostility of the game design. nothing is ever really explained. in order to find the rarest items and most powerful spells you have to wander w/o direction in that wilderness, risking death for uncertain and probably inessential reward.

also fwiw my vote for langrisser ii is probably really a vote for der langrisser - ive only played the saturn port which is named the former but actually a copy of the latter i think? im happy its the highest placing of the three srpgs i voted for since its definitely the best, although i had the impression that ogre battle had a stronger reputation. and was actually released in english.

I just realized that most of the ones I really cared about and gave most of my points to have already placed. Except for Sword of Vermilion which I can safely say I played more than any other pre-PS1 console game and was high on my ballot but which I've learned over time is basically just a FF clone so it probably didn't get much love here.

TOP 16 TIME

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16 - F-Zero - 171 points / 8 Votes

^not a goof, that is actually in the top 16

for a reason. one of the best SNES games.

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15 - Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening - 179 points / 9 Votes

I went back and tried to play F-Zero and I just couldn't get into it. MAybe through the lens of having played the superior SM Kart. TBH I think I even prefer Stunt Race FX over F-Zero and nobody would venture to call that a good game. Nobody but me anyway.

Also re: Link's Awakening, I am of the challopsy opinion that Zelda games just aren't very good BUT if I were going to vote for any of them it'd be Link's Awakening. I dunno if I can explain why a) i don't like these games (they just... never clicked for me? and believe me, i've tried... I think I beat LTTP, and Ocarina, and got p far in Awakening, and p far in the first one) and b) why I preferred this one. I feel like Awakening had kind of... like... more of a story? A sad story? I can't remember. I should play Majora's Mask tho.

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14 - Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island - 194 points / 8 Votes

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13 - Donkey Kong Country - 204 points / 12 Votes

^ While I love both of these games, they feel like they are in the wrong order