Console Game Poll vol. 2 - Vote for the best 4th Generation Console Games (SNES, Genesis, Game Boy, etc) here! (Ballot Deadline: September 26th)

Hi again everyone! The time has come to cast a ballot for games released during the FOURTH generation of consoles. Games were nominated from the SNES, Genesis/Mega Drive, Neo Geo, Game Boy, and Game Gear.

You have three options for your ballot type.

Ballot types:
- Weighted. You can nominate up to 20 games, in order, and they will receive 40, 38, 36... 6, 4, 2 points respectively.
- Unweighted. You can nominate up to 20 games, in any order, and they will all receive 21 points.
- Hybrid. The first games will receive weighted points (40, 38, 36...) and anything after the "weighted" section will receive the remaining points, split equally.

Send your ballots to the gmail address I created years ago for the PS2 poll: ps2ilx&gmail,com (replace the & and the , and you get a real e-mail address -- try it at home!).

If the scoring system is a little overwhelming for you, just make a copy of this spreadsheet and use it to build your ballot. Put as many ranks as you want on left side; it will give appropriate scores to everything you rank, and everything you leave unranked. You can copy-paste from this or just send the excel sheet, doesn't matter to me.

BALLOT DEADLINE is August 26th, 11:59 EDT. Rollout will happen sometime after that.

I added codes for consoles, btw. In the square brackets, you'll see these letters:
S = Super Famicom / Super Nintendo
G = Sega Mega Drive / Genesis
N = Neo Geo
T = TurboGrafx-16
b = Game Boy
g = Game Gear

If any of those symbols are wrong, let me know! I'll make sure to fix it before I post the results.

In case you're wondering, here's the complete list of games nominated:

[S] 7th Saga
[S] ActRaiser
[S] ActRaiser 2
[SG] Aero the Acrobat
[S] Aerobiz
[S] Aladdin
[G] Aladdin
[G] Alien Soldier
[SG] Another World/Out Of This World
[S] Axelay
[S] Bahamut Lagoon
[b] Baseball
[SG] Batman Returns
[S] Battletoads in Battlemaniacs
[G] Beyond Oasis/The Story of Thor
[SG] Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon: Another Story (Angel)
[T] Bomberman '94
[T] Bonk's Adventure
[S] Breath of Fire
[S] Breath of Fire 2
[G] Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday
[SG] Cannon Fodder
[G] Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse
[b] Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge
[G] Castlevania: Bloodlines
[T] Castlevania: Rondo of Blood
[SG] Chaos Engine
[SG] Chester Cheetah: Too Cool to Fool
[S] Chrono Trigger
[SG] ClayFighter: Tournament Edition
[G] Comix Zone
[S] Contra 3: The Alien Wars
[G] Contra: Hard Corps
[SG] Cool Spot
[G] Cosmic Spacehead
[G] Crusader of Centy (aka Soleil)
[S] Cybernator/Assault Suits Valken
[S] Darius Twin
[S] Demon's Crest
[SG] Desert Strike
[b] Donkey Kong
[S] Donkey Kong Country
[S] Donkey Kong Country 2
[S] Donkey Kong Country 3
[b] Donkey Kong Land
[S] Dragon Quest V
[S] Dragon Quest VI
[S] Dragon Warrior III
[G] Dune: The Battle for Arrakis
[T] Dungeon Explorer
[G] Dynamite Headdy
[S] E.V.O. The Search for Eden
[S] Earthbound
[SG] Earthworm Jim
[SG] Earthworm Jim 2
[b] F1 Race
[SG] FIFA International Soccer
[S] Final Fantasy IV (II)
[b] Final Fantasy Legend
[S] Final Fantasy Mystic Quest
[S] Final Fantasy V
[S] Final Fantasy VI (III)
[S] Final Fight
[S] Fire Emblem: Thracia 776
[SG] Flashback
[S] Front Mission
[S] Fushigi no Dungeon 2: Fūrai no Shiren
[S] F-Zero
[b] Gargoyle's Quest
[G] General Chaos
[SG] Genghis Khan II
[G] Ghouls 'n Ghosts
[G] Golden Axe
[S] Goof Troop
[S] Gradius 3
[G] Gunstar Heroes
[S] Hagane
[S] Harvest Moon
[G] Haunting starring Polterguy
[S] Hebereke's Popoon
[S] Illusion of Gaia
[S] Indiana Jones' Greatest Adventures
[SG] Joe & Mac
[SG] Jungle Strike
[S] Ken Griffey Jr Presents Major League Baseball
[G] Kid Chameleon
[S] Killer Instinct
[S] King Arthur's World
[S] Kirby Super Star a.k.a. Kirby's Fun Pack
[S] Kirby's Dream Course
[b] Kirby's Dream Land
[S] Knights of the Round
[b] Kwirk!
[G] Landstalker
[SG] Langrisser II
[S] Legend of the Mystical Ninja
[S] Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
[b] Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening
[SG] Lemmings
[SG] Lemmings 2: The Tribes
[SG] Lion King
[SG] Lost Vikings
[S] Lost Vikings 2
[S] Lufia & the Fortress of Doom
[S] Lufia II
[SG] Madden NFL '94
[S] Magical Quest Starring Mickey Mouse
[S] Mario Paint
[b] Mario's Picross
[S] Mega Man & Bass
[S] Mega Man X
[N] Metal Slug
[S] Metal Warriors
[b] Metroid II: The Return of Samus
[SG] Micro Machines
[T] Military Madness
[G] Monster World IV
[SG] Mortal Kombat
[SG] Mortal Kombat 2
[SG] Mortal Kombat 3
[G] Mutant League Football
[G] Mutant League Hockey
[S] Mystical Ninja/Ganbara Goemon 1 & 2
[SG] NBA Jam
[SG] NBA Jam Tournament Edition
[T] Neutopia
[T] New Adventure Island
[SG] NHL 96
[SG] Nobunaga's Ambition
[S] Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen
[S] On the Ball
[S] Parodius
[G] Phantasy Star IV: The End of the Millennium
[S] Pilotwings
[S] Plok!
[S] Pocky and Rocky
[S] Pocky and Rocky 2
[b] Pokemon Gold/Silver/Crystal
[b] Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow
[S] Pop'n Twinbee
[SG] Populous
[G] Psycho Pinball
[G] Pyramid Magic
[b] Qix
[G] Ranger-X
[G] Revenge of Shinobi
[G] Rings of Power
[G] Road Rash
[G] Road Rash II
[SG] Rock n Roll Racing
[S] Romance of the Three Kingdoms IV: Wall of Fire
[S] R-Type 3: The Third Lightning
[SG] Saturday Night Slam Masters
[S] Secret of Evermore
[S] Secret of Mana
[S] Seiken Densetsu 3
[G] Shadow Dancer
[S] Shadowrun
[G] Shining Force
[G] Shining Force 2
[G] Shinobi
[G] Shinobi III
[S] Sim Ant
[S] SimCity
[G] Skitchin'
[GT] Snatcher
[G] Sonic & Knuckles (and Sonic 3 + Knuckles)
[G] Sonic The Hedgehog
[G] Sonic the Hedgehog 2
[S] Soul Blazer
[S] Space Megaforce
[SG] Sparkster
[G] Splatterhouse
[S] Star Ocean
[S] StarFox
[SG] Street Fighter II & SFII' Turbo
[G] Streets of Rage
[G] Streets of Rage II
[G] Streets of Rage III
[G] Subterrania
[SG] Sunset Riders
[S] Super Adventure Island
[SGN] Super Baseball 2020
[S] Super Bomberman
[S] Super Castlevania IV
[S] Super Double Dragon
[S] Super Empire Strikes Back
[S] Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts
[S] Super Mario All-Stars
[S] Super Mario Kart
[b] Super Mario Land
[b] Super Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins
[S] Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars
[S] Super Mario World
[S] Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island
[S] Super Metroid
[SG] Super Off Road
[S] Super Punchout
[S] Super Puyo Puyo
[S] Super Return of the Jedi
[S] Super R-Type
[SG] Super Smash TV
[S] Super Star Wars
[SG] Super Street Fighter II
[S] Super Turrican
[G] Sword of Vermilion
[S] Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together
[g] Tails Adventure
[S] Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time
[S] Terranigma
[b] Tetris
[S] Tetris Attack / Panel de Pon
[G] Thunderforce IV
[S] Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster Busts Loose!
[G] TMNT: Hyperstone Heist
[G] ToeJam & Earl
[G] ToeJam & Earl in Panic on Funkatron
[S] Top Gear
[S] Umihara Kawase
[S] UN Squadron
[SG] Uncharted Waters: New Horizons
[S] Uniracers
[G] Vectorman
[b] Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3
[S] Wario's Woods
[b] Wave Race
[S] Wild Guns
[G] Wings of Wor / Gynoug
[G] Wonder Boy V: Monster World III
[G] Xenon 2: Megablast
[G] X-Men
[S] Yoshi's Safari
[SG] Ys III: Wanderers from Ys
[SG] Zombies Ate My Neighbors

This is going to be impossible. I have a hard time selecting only 20 SNES games. Let alone Genesis & Game Boy...

This is going to be educational at least - I think out of that list I've played Tetris and Link's Awakening and that's it.

don't think i'll find it too hard to pick and settle on 20 from memory but feel like first i shd probably have a go on some of the stuff i've never really played

ballot sent

kinda psyched about this

when i was doing the 3rd gen one, i was jsut thinking about how excited i was for the 4th gen one.

This is the ultimate poll of all time in the universe for me

https://nmesh.bandcamp.com/album/welcome-to-warp-zone-tiny-mix-tapes-4-hour-video-game-mix
^frogbs recommendation and perfect for this thread

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yj5XlkOevOY

that is an embarrassingly good list of games! this gonna be tough. it's hard just figuring out the best Castlevania.

btw there is a really cool 16-bit fangame of Metroid II that just got released.

http://metroid2remake.blogspot.com/

Taken down :(

i can't believe this poll refuses to recognise langrisser ii and der langrisser as separate entities. i can only assume this is a deliberate attempt to sabotage its credibility

y'all still have some time, but only 9 days, so maybe start sending me them ballots soon because WE NEED MORE BALLOTS

should i start hectoring ppl who sent ballots via email to the 3rd gen one? i am thinking about it

i might vote in this bc i've played a lot of these games

top 10 feels certain, bottom 10 feels less like a sure thing

Can you submit a ballot that's just one game

you 100% can, but why not more games?

I will submit a ballot I am just lazy and busy

same

i keep forgetting, i will get one done tho

i downloaded an emulator earlier this year and tried playing a bunch of games and i just was not entertained at all and turned it off and never played them again

i think i like the memory of me loving some of these guys as a child, but i can't get into them anymore, which kind of sucks, but whatevs

guys = characters

why not more games?

just a hypothetical

Just gonna pop in here and suggest people try out SHINING FORCE if they've never played it. By modern tactics-RPG standards it's assuredly too linear in all respects but it's satisfying as heck and scratches that 16-bit itch very nicely, if the big SNES JRPG classics have all become too familiar.

And, as previously noted, Yoshi's Island is really just the greatest platformer, and so thorough and labor-of-lovey in its presentation. It's ridiculously cute in a way nobody could pull off now without lapsing into cutesy. Great control with some fresh mechanics, and a solid diffculty balance where you can always double back and try to unlock secrets by completing all the tasks, if you're stuck on the main game. Ahead of its time, in that way.

i downloaded an emulator earlier this year and tried playing a bunch of games and i just was not entertained at all and turned it off and never played them again

have you played through The Revenge of Shinobi?

im getting my ballot together. narrowed it down to the top 50 so far...

another voice in favor of shining force; i had a friend in high school with a genesis and all we would do when we hung out at his house was toss the controller back and forth for SF with the sound off and then blast the Danny Elfman Batman soundtrack while we played

I will do mine this weekend!

sorry i didn't notice this before, but both Flashback and Another World/Out of this World are also on SNES (it's listed as Genesis only)

actually, that's true for others as well, like Earthworm Jim (listed as genesis, but it was also a great SNES game)

is it possible to just add my vote to whichever system gets the most votes for it? doesn't really matter to me either way

My little square bracket things are actually kinda terrible. (SG) means SNES and Genesis, (G) means Genesis, (S) means SNES.

oh! duh, that seems obvious now.

at any rate - voted!

I'm playing Dragon Quest V for the first time; only on the first dungeon but it looks super promising!

For people who don't get motion sick very easily, I highly recommend trying out On The Ball before voting

Finally did a reasonable pass at a ballot, narrowed down the stuff I want to crack open in emu for at least a bit before sorting it. Think I'm going with Shining Force I over II - - - the latter as far as I can tell is MUCH more elaborate and generous with traditional RPG stuff (exploring freely, character upgrade trees, etc.), but I've also realized that I don't think I ever played it back in the day, or maybe dipped into it a bit in the first emu era without getting far. So I can't honestly say it's one of my favorite games or anything.

The first one really is fun - found myself playing one full battle longer than I'd meant to, just cause it scratches that itch of, I wanna select an enemy, get a cool animation and sound effect, and then see them disappear as my character gains experience points. I wanna wander around cute medieval towns and see what kind of things they find for the sprites to do within the limited capacity of their script language. Basic stuff but boy is it fun. The annoying stuff is all in the interface - the people-talking sound is really annoying, and in general item-purchasing and management is kinda dumb. One nice streamlining thing is that it just doesn't fuck with armor at all, and barely has accessory items: you carry weapons, which can be upgraded, but that's about it.

shining force ii is just a better shining force i, particularly in how the battles were staged. ive probably told this story on ilx before but sfii was the first console srpg i ever played and it was a revelation to me - it combined a lot of what i liked about traditional jrpgs (immersion, number-progression, lots of fiddly customization) with more skillful, interesting gameplay. theres not that much depth to it compared to something like ogre battle or even langrisser but in some ways its better for it. the weird randomness of hiding powerful items and special characters in places that players wouldn't really think to look and that the game makes no effort to steer them towards is sort of immaterial to the xp of playing the game, and when you do stumble across one of the secrets it feels more like a bonus them something necessary. like a present just because.

i love SFI, never finished SFII but yeah feel it's better

Suikoden on the Playstation is perhaps my fave of this genre of all time, next poll i guess

It's always tough for me to get around long-baked-in fondness for a game and its world. The "characters" in SFI are about one pixel deep, but since I played the shit out of it at age 12, I've long since layered a lot of personality and accumulated affection into those few lines of dialogue, friendly character portraits, and badass attack animations. I'm just happy to be out adventuring with Luke and Tao and company - we've been through some times.

At a micro-scale I think something similar happens within individual games - I never really took to the last few party members you get in Final Fantasy 6 because man, so much shit has gone on between the rest of us, who are these clowns, they have no relationship to anybody. Of course, in that case it's also that the later characters come as the game's gotten nonlinear and you can shuffle the party around - so you don't have in the back of your mind that sense that "they were there" for key plot moments, tight spots you fought your way through, all that. I think this stuff in RPGs is really sweet and comforting, and like so much else depends on the thinness of the dialogue letting you flesh things out in your imagination while you're hacking away at goblins and clicking through menus to get to the health potion or whatever. Sort of like the flipside of Will's great reflections on single-character action RPGs and the lonely protagonist versus "these people in town."

voted. Paring off Splatterhouse and Shadowrun hurt.

geez, that deadline is sneaking up y'all!

15 people voted in the 3rd-gen poll who haven't yet voted in this one, VOTE OR DIE GUYS & GALS!

I did it at long last.

just went with an unweighted ballot and scrolled up and down the list a few times deliberating. can't say i feel 100% convinced of my choices, conversely i got in the ones that i loved the most

throwing my ballot together presently, just realized I failed to nominate Theme Park! Aaaahhhhhhghh oh well.

2 more days

2 more days until i inevitably extend the deadline GODDAMN IT

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4koDIt68QI

More time to think about it *would* be pretty sweet

Have inadvertently sunk more than an initial checkup into Seiken Densetsu 3. I'd strongly recommend it to anyone who liked Secret of Mana (obv) or 16-bit JRPGs generally....though it's not QUITE the wildly ambitious lost classic I'd convinced myself it was. The story is really linear and threadbare, and the characters are so flat, with so little dialogue, that the much-vaunted replay value of going back and trying different character combinations seems a bit silly. Would have been better with fewer characters and just playing as one at a time, like a LTTP where you can go back and try playing as the thief or something. As it is, there's times it feels like a real 8-bit throwback - bunch of self-similar simple towns with simple people, simple dialogue, just marching along where they tell you to march. Oh, you need GUNPOWDER? Good thing the very next person I talk to knows where I can go get some...

It is *really* good-looking though - richer than its predecessor and brighter than FF6, so only Chrono Trigger beats it out in that department. Great, late tech demo of all the hardware can do. Combat's satisfying (if chaotic and button-mashy), and then stuff like buying and equipping gear is kind of a mess. Overall, I guess I'm gonna go with SoM on the ballot, but this definitely a cool game.

Alright, I am moving the deadline, as we have far fewer ballots than we did for the NES-era one. How about another month?

I'm looking at you, Noodle Vague and BradNelson and f sharp and ste and crut and sheesh and kingfish and tombot and le hague and intheblanks and polyphonic and original bgm and the once-ler and doctor casino and difficult listening hour and old lunch and it's a boy and thomp and mordy! I'M LOOKING AT ALL OF YOU

A month would be great! As alluded to upthread or...I dunno, somewhere, I've been in the midst of renovation-related moving and all my gaming stuff has been boxed up and in storage. This will give me time to utilize something other than hazy memories in casting my ballot.

speaking of basically just unfun memory tests on the narrowest of rails, can we talk about Time Traveler?

aka the "cowboy hologram game", same generation, only in arcades, but what a game! well I never got very far in it, maybe it's a terrible game but to see this in an arcade was absolutely the most "futuristic" thing imaginable.

holograms yo! I like that we're still trying to make holograms a thing in 2016. the world needs dreamers.

There's never been an Arcade Game Poll, right?

speaking of holograms, I went to this place a week or so ago... still open until the end of September!
http://hyperallergic.com/141958/a-house-for-holograms-on-governors-island/

Yeah I definitely wasted some pounds on Time Traveller back in the day, mostly in 30 second bursts of "I don't know what the fuck I'm doing"

Best 80s Arcade Video Game

^^^ some discussion of Time Traveler from a while back.

So y'all got the rest of the week and the weekend. YOU CAN DO THIS IF YOU PUT YOUR MIND TO IT.

We're at 16, we got to 20 on the NES-era one, and everyone kept saying "boy I can't wait til the one after this," so get on it y'all!

Last chance weekend starts now-ish

If you all don't vote...well..

*taps on bulging biceps*

actually the real threat is that if you don't vote, you don't get to complain about the stupid/boring shit i voted for, which will have outsized influence

*taps on bulging biceps*

if you choose to sit this one out, you are a bad citizen

http://s1.ibtimes.com/sites/www.ibtimes.com/files/styles/lg/public/2015/10/23/gettyimages-51086449.jpg

I haven't been on ilx really. two days left? hmn

voted!

ok just voted. This is an era where I'm at least familiar with most of the games, if not played, so I gotta throw in

though I'm kind of sad Super Bomberman 2 wasn't nommed - pretty much an across-the-board improvement on the original

My vote for Super Bomberman was definitely a vote for #3.

This period was my life. Best games. Best systems. Failed to unlurk for the George Michael poll but not going to miss this one.

So uh, I guess there will be another Toejam and Earl next year?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laMURYkJO1s

The first one is pretty high up on my ballot, I think I may have even made room for the second, did not play the third one, looked kind of bad. This new one looks like the third one? TJandE with updated graphics, and I guess adult swim's involvement is encouraging, though the 2-D characters on 3-D backgrounds feels less like PaRappa and more like Newgrounds to me.

Mostly worried about the music. There are only 6 or 7 tracks from the first one but they are all brilliant minimalist weirdo chiptune funk songs. I also really don't feel like the first TJandE needs a graphic update but whatever it's 2016 and I am old get off the lawn etc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FXdbE7AQOU

I dunno how much the music figures into everyone else's ballot, but I mean really, tell me that this isn't exactly what Herbie Hancock circa Headhunters would have come up with if someone had contracted him to score a Genesis game

Voted! Had more Genesis games in my list than SNES, but just looking at the list, if you'd bought both consoles at their release, you'd have felt so much better with a SNES, getting Super Mario World as a pack-in and having access to F-Zero, two of the system's most fun games. Whereas with the Genesis you'd have got Altered Beast and the likes of Flicky and Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle (which is about half as good as Miracle World on the SMS).

Wish I'd paid attention to the noms thread, there's a few GG games I'd have definitely evangelised for. Ah well.

xp some of the games I voted for figure heavily on their great music. It's all part of the experience

actually managed to vote, that's me done for another year

timeline for this to roll out?

i probably won't start the rollout this week, thinking next week tentatively. wanna make EVERYTHING for it beforehand so i can spend the minimum effort making the actual posts.

i'm currently checking the ballots for errors (already found one!), i'll still accept ballots today but after that definitely closed. we got like 6 more since my post friday!

oopssssss i'll try to bash one out later tonight!

I was working on mine yesterday but rearranging text on a Kindle is, it turns out, kind of a total pain in the ass. But I'll finish tonight!

no one nominated super tennis? or micro machines 2? u motherfuckers

sent!

Whew! Pulled my head out of the post-debate cloud long enough to remember this! Sent!

oof, sent mine in just a little after midnight. hope that's okay.

all good, i'm only checking it now. i'll assume that these are the last two ballots unless someone says something by, say, 12:00 today, and get started on the images/etc.

lol of course all of these consoles have different video resolutions which will once again make making attractive images a bit of a pain in the butt

not to mention landscape vs portrait game boxes

Looking forward to those hi-res screencaps of early Game Boy games! So much puke green!

everyone give a huge thanks to Karl Malone for putting together & uploading all of the images for the poll! gonna make it a lot easier for me to get this thing done. I'm actually ready to do it this second, I'm just waiting 'til next Tuesday so I don't split it over a weekend.

shit i hit send before i remembered to think of & write an "always delivers" joke

Thanks Karl! You were always my second favorite member of the Dream Team, just behind Clyde the Glide (gotta rep my hometown and all)

no big deal on the images (as you'll all see, they follow a very simple formula, although i hope everyone will enjoy referring to them during the rundown)

speaking of...STOKED FOR THE MADNESS OVER HERE, is it tuesday yet?? :) :) :)

144 minutes to go

very interested to see how this hashes out, I did try to hit most of the obvious classics, albeit some ways down on a weighted ballot, because, y'know, of course we can all agree on super mario world, would love to see some surprises though

i'm familiar with most of the genesis-exclusive canon, but haven't really played any of them since i never owned one. i plan on using the results from this to decide which ones to tackle first, via emulation

i am the guy waiting outside the coffee shop at 6:58am

:D

looking forward to this, esp w Karl's graphics!

I...HAVE...OOOOOOPINIONS

xpost
oh, they're not anything special! just the basics. you'll see. :)

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

sorry it took so long... in my newly unemployed state i decided ot ignore my alarm clock... for 5 hours apparently :P

thanks for choosing 1UP 1UP 1UP 1UP 1UP 1UP 1UP 1UP 1UP 1UP