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

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

http://i.imgur.com/NLq4hJE.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/YANeJNF.jpg
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.

http://i.imgur.com/5YQhphl.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/K00Vx4A.jpg
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.

http://i.imgur.com/T6xOiYH.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/gbjFFMs.jpg
14 - Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island - 194 points / 8 Votes

http://i.imgur.com/nSNxVW2.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/TpxAWms.jpg
13 - Donkey Kong Country - 204 points / 12 Votes

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

http://i.imgur.com/1GnICo4.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/b9qbHc6.jpg
12 - Super Mario Kart - 204 points / 1 First-place vote / 11 Votes

i was always Yoshi.

wow super mario kart pretty low imo. will m correct that f zero lives in its shadow.

link's awakening has an eerie, melancholy vibe in locations, music, and yes, eventually, story: it's a small personal/metaphysical quest rather than an epic opportunity to save the world; the final boss shuffles through the forms of classic zelda bosses past; the "wind fish" might be link, or dreamed by link, or sharing link's dream, or something, it's pretty rad for a zelda plot

when i try to decide whether link's awakening or link to the past is better i end up stacking all that stuff ^^^ up against the guy who lives under one of the bridges in lttp

Sonic 1 > Sonic 2. Trippier bonus round.

SMK too low, game is top 3 of ALL TIME hands down

I'd have to agree with that.

but....tethering.

http://i.imgur.com/K2gAYxC.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/fMbKQds.jpg
11 - Super Bomberman - 209 points / 9 Votes

xpost i get why it's there, and it's part of why people love the game (you can be bad and still have a chance to win) but i wish they would have included an option to turn it off

wtf is tethering?

slowing down the winners and speeding up the losers to keep the race close. "rubber band" effect.

whoever is ahead gets punished by being artificially slowed down and giving everyone who's behind better items so they can catch up.
same thing happens in nba jam and other games

like i said i get why it's there and it definitely makes it a much better party game. no one wants to sit around playing with the mario kart expert who crushes everyone every single time

i just wish there was an option to turn it off

Super Bomberman caught my eye when Next Generation magazine named Super Bomberman 2 the third-greatest game of all time purely on the basis of the multiplayer game. I bought it and liked it, but I could only play two player. I didn't have enough friends.

smk's powerup ration scheme provides an interesting incentive to not always be at the head of the pack (maybe duck back a minute or so and see if you get a triple-redshell instead of another banana, then pull forward)

named Super Bomberman 2 the third-greatest game of all time purely on the basis of the multiplayer game

too low

these last few games look like something i would have chosen, with bomberman, yes, a little higher

it was an awesome party game

i never played or got into the zelda games for the gameboy though

So many times I would immediately accidentally get caught and blow myself up, and then you just have to sit there and wait for the other players to finish the game. After a while I was like fuck this!

also i played donkey kong country so much...that probably would be in my top 10

bomberman is one giant cross-generational votesplit: i've never played super bomberman 2 and i don't even know which bomberman on which system i should actually be championing. (on the NES poll i put a bomberman at #1 on principle that turned out to have no multiplayer or something.) but bomberman-the-concept is so so so good, absolutely one of the very small handful of best multiplayer games.

http://imgur.com/a/8X4B6

amazing list, changed my life, got me into so much good shit

snes super bomberman 2 rules them all dude

http://i.imgur.com/SxCohZm.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/A0LABYZ.jpg
10 - StarFox - 218 points / 9 Votes

xp to mr snrub that lsit has nhl powerplay at #40, what the

lots of fun things on that list. i had to smile and agree with marble madness at #15, although i'm sure no one else would agree today!

http://i.imgur.com/aoh2uQM.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/MgeID21.jpg
9 - Secret of Mana - 222 points / 11 Votes

that action button secret of evermore review was heavily critical of secret of mana, but secret of mana rules. i haven't played evermore, so perhaps it's even better, but that still wouldn't diminish the greatness of mana.

one key, though, is that i played through it with my sister. the multiplayer aspect of it was key.