Lurker > Lightning Strikes

I voted 3 but its actually 2. Xenoblade and Skyrim once.

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Abzu and Soma have terrific ones, as said (thats almost all of the game for Abzu). And to that point, Subnautica does it really well. Of the Donkey Kong Country games, Tropical Freeze has the best ones.

One that I think gets forgotten is Metroid Prime 2.

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New premium podcast called the HotSpot with Jeff, Brad and Vinny :O

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Surprised people were so down on Skyrim and up on Persona 5! Sonic Manias big win over SMB always struck me as pure SFF so Personally ns 5 winning big did not shock me really.

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I think Ngamer makes a really good point about TLoU spoilers and peoples reaction to them (dont worry no spoilers here dont ban me NG). A lot of them are represented in the worst way possible, its not the same as playing the game. And thats a take Ive seen more and more. The only thing is, the games not out for another six weeks and I dont think the opinion will improve fast enough to save it in its match (though it wasnt going to win anyway).

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Also Nintendo still has the largest presence on the show floor of any publisher (well until now!). They just didn't do a live press conference is all.

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No way this would be an Xbox exclusive (at least for longer than a few months). It's just for marketing.

Anyway, that looked cool. When is this set though? Because I thought it was 800s but they said England which didn't come about until about a hundred years later.

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Breath of the Wild
Xenoblade Chronicles
Mario Odyssey
Dark Souls
Witcher 3
Mass Effect 2
God of War
Persona 5
Smash Ultimate
Skyrim
Portal 2
Resident Evil 2
Last of Us

Haven't played:

Dragon Quest XI
Persona 4 Golden
Pokemon HGSS

However, these are all really, really good games.

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Surprisingly not Ace Attorney, I was hyped for that from seeing magazine screenshots before I ever even came here.

Persona is the big one, specifically Persona 3.

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TLoU. Its easily the shortest of those, and the sequel is out soon. I would have said Witcher 3, but if you have access to the first two you should play them first.

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Huh so I see SWERY has watched True Detective now as well as Twin Peaks

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Tom Bombadil posted...

a trans villain

so woke

Not only that, but to steal a turn of phrase from elsewhere, the one trans woman being portrayed as a brutal murderer and beating a lesbian to within an inch of her life then trying to kill a pregnant woman is basically TERF fanfic. There is nothing remotely woke about that. There are just far right trolls trying to make everything about them who are best ignored.

Of course it seems that the character is not trans, and it was all just a big troll from /v/, or /v/ being unable to conceive of women with different body types.

Anyway, after sitting on it I think this could be great if done well. It's actually using player agency to tell a pretty interesting story and convey the themes of the game. What disheartens me is hearing from people who have watched it that the scenes seem undercooked and the animations and performances are not all there. That's just a couple of opinions of course, and I haven't watched myself. But that is part of what needs to land for something like this to work.

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What did he do this time?

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As a rule anybody who complains about the simple presence of any group is generally no good. However if this character is trans that's a really crappy way to portray your only trans character ever. It won't be the neckbeards who are complaining the most about that, and this time the complaints may be justified. However as more comes out it seems unlikely that the character is trans so it doesn't matter.

I'm a bit torn on this, after giving it some thought. On the one hand, it sounds bold and interesting, but it also sounds both like a massive bummer that will turn a lot of people off at the midway mark, and also something incredibly tricky and ambitious that I don't know if Naughty Dog has the chops to pull off. They need to basically make a character sympathetic and understandable out of whole cloth after something really horrible. I'm not sure they will. If they succeed however, it could be remarkable. It's a huge risk. But we are also only two weeks clear of a game that took a massive narrative risk, it sounded extremely stupid in the spoilers, people complained about it, then people actually played it and it really paid off.

I will say, to the people complaining about Joel's death in the middle... What kind of game were you expecting? This was always on the cards and is really the only logical end for that character in that world. Everything that happens after, on the other hand, I can see being offputting if not handled well. Not only might they fail to make that character understandable, but there is a real risk of just falling into misery porn and brutal violence for its own sake like that poorly judged Paris Games Week trailer. For me the thing that actually sounds lame is the cultist stuff, which sounds like possibly the most trite thing you can do in a story like this.

The thing that it really surprises me nobody talks about is the fact that Dinah actually doesn't die as was heavily telegraphed in the earlier trailers. So it was a red herring after all.

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UshiromiyaEva posted...

The answer to this is which one sells more copies.

We're talking about a game series where the initial box art marketing wanted was Joel holding a shotgun over his shoulder.

I doubt this is much of an issue because Naughty Dog has an enormous amount of power and autonomy at Sony, including in marketing. Remember the last part of the story you mention was Naughty Dog getting the box art they wanted, after all. Whatever the motivations I am 100% confident that this is the story they wanted to tell, and the way they wanted to sell it.

More generally - if you posted a short summary of the first games story, it wouldnt be very impressive. What made it impressive was the way it was presented. So without seeing the whole thing its impossible to make a judgment.


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Hm I see "meme game" now just means "game other people like that I don't".

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ZenOfThunder posted...

Reposting this from the end of the last topic to get this one started off right

escaletedquickly.jpg

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Red Dead Redemption 2.

The story is unbelievably good, the absolute pinnacle of AAA storytelling - and its a real surprise that after decades of Rockstar telling the same story over and over they would come out with this. It is also one of the great open worlds of our time - like Breath of the Wild, it is not about filling out a checklist of things to do in a random order, it is about inhabiting and interacting with a living space.

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Heres my thinking about the top ten games in the contest in rough order:

Breath of the Wild
The Witcher 3
Super Mario Odyssey
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Skyrim
Dark Souls
God of War
Persona 5
Xenoblade Chronicles
Winner of Mass Effect 2 vs. Resident Evil 2, or TLoU

Thats a majority for games released in the second half of the decade, and two of the games from the first half found their popularity later. This really was a decade of two halves.

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shane15 posted...

Pokemon killed all my interest in the contest i'm out.

Itll be out next round. And that match will serve as a good litmus test for how much a straight remake is punished for being that. Nobody expects Skyrim to have gotten stronger so how far above 52% it goes (if it does) will be telling.

On that subject, dont think Skyrim is significantly weaker than 2015 based on what we have seen - there is no way in which Journey isnt going to be far above its 2015 strength days after it becomes free for everyone. Around a third of the site has a PS4 but no PS+, and Id say most hadnt played Journey, not to mention those with PS+ that missed it. And of course, it was just a big PR boost for the game on the whole. Of course, the issue Skyrim faces is that the top tier of the 2010s is a lot more crowded than it was in 2015.

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2 and 7. Still need ME2 to actually win 2 though, but 7 seems locked.

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Oh my god identical matches.

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Come on Nier

Skyrims board vote against Dark Souls will be hilarious.

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Bonus matches would be fantastic, but you wouldnt want to give the results away. So I would suggest special matches with games that already lost old and new. So you could have say INSIDE vs. Obra Dinn (weak masterpiece special), Arkham City vs. Arkham Asylum, FFXV vs. FFXIV, and so on.

Please bring back bonus matches though, they were great.

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I dont think MK8 needs to look weaker than MGSV. MK8 beat Uncharted 4 by more than 2015 MGSV would beat Uncharted 2 - you can make an argument that UC2 beats UC4, but not by that much plus however much MGSV has fallen by. If Skyrim breaks 60% it may well be okay against Dark Souls.

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Batman legit praise Bruce Wayno

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Persona was getting consistently stronger before votals dropped. Indeed P4 made it to round 3 last GotD. This makes sense as the series has gradually gotten more and more mainstream, and Persona is now one of the biggest JRPG, and even RPG, series. P5 sold over 3 million copies and isnt stopping any time soon. It also has a 93 on Metacritic (best for a JRPG since FFIX), with Royal getting a 95 - behind only BotW, Mario Odyssey, and RDR2 this generation. No matter where you have this poll P5 will be elite, though it might be an argument of top 10 vs. top 15.

I grouse about Golden but thats only due to the eligibility argument.

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RDR2 just gained 1.4% well damn. Portal 2 still wins probably but this could get really close.

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Dragon Age has looked good before, including Inquisition. It escaped the doubling from Smash back In the 2014 polls. Its not a shocker that it could beat XCOM cleanly, especially after the Cuphead/GTA result.

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You think Overwatch wouldnt break 60 on FTL?

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Mac Arrowny posted...

Again, there's no such thing as a pecking order for series. We saw SSBU SFF LBW even though Zelda's the bigger Nintendo series.

I agree, Im just pointing out that Xenoblade has no reason to be above Three Houses intrinsically. Its just a stronger game.

Fire Emblem has looked fine by the way. 44-45% on pre-rally Bloodborne is respectable, and that 47% on RE2 looks legit. Xenoblade has just looked great.

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You don't just SFF blowout games for no reason. Also is Xenoblade higher on the pecking order? Fire Emblem's certainly bigger for Nintendo. The fact that Xenoblade beat the bigger Nintendo game by so much says a lot.

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RDR2 was fine. I also think Rayman was more or less to expectations.

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shane15 posted...

Persona 4 deserves to win D4 after that run.

If we're just going by shocking strength and an upset, Xenoblade is much more impressive. Star of the contest so far.

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Can someone more knowledgeable on the issue of pics help me out a bit? Do we know if we'll be submitting pics for individual contenders or for the entire match yet? I'd like to do something for Xenoblade, but don't have much inspiration for P4G for instance. Thanks!

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Witcher 3 is flying now.

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Oh hey The Witcher well over 60% now.

The Witcher 3 vs. FFX who ya got

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See that I don't agree with one bit. It depends on the match, the trends, and the rallies. "Oh here comes the night vote to rescue Cloud from Samus" is not more interesting than the nuts RE2/Bloodborne match. By that same token, rallied Undertale lolstomping OoT was not more interesting than Celeste vs. Rayman.

"Unpredictable" is only bad if it's unearned. Something like The Last Jedi was good, since it earned what made it unpredictable. The Rise of Skywalker was bad because it played it as safe as possible. And Game of Thrones Season 8 was not bad because it was unpredictable (in fact it was completely predictable), it was bad because it was a poorly drawn and developed mess.

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squexa posted...

SMG2 looked pretty iffy against Stardew Valley, so unless we believe SV is significantly stronger than pretty much every other indie out there, there's only so much stronger SMG2 can be than 2015.

Not by nearly as much as you would think:

Shovel Knight (2015g) has a strength of 18.80 against Base Link.
Mario Galaxy 2 (2015g) has a strength of 27.47 against Base Link.
Mario Galaxy 2 wins with 65.78% of the vote!

And of course Shovel Knight has very good reason to get stronger as well - so Stardew doesn't even need to be the strongest indie for SMG2 to get a fair bit stronger.

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Leonhart4 posted...

Could be a stronger Galaxy 2!

Ill agree with this. Well all agree that Nintendo had good reason to be vulnerable in 2015 (and 2013!) due to the Wii U years, and we can see this through both the top flight if Nintendo games (except for SMW and SMRPG, both of which had shenanigans) not looking their strongest in the stats, and Nintendo not performing as strongly in GotY polls. So it is entirely possible that Nintendo in general is stronger and thatll help games weve seen before. Galaxy 2 will also probably have the registered users on its side. Lastly there is also the strongly rumoured Mario 3D collection coming to Switch this year, so more people have been talking about Galaxy recently.

Even before all that, this looks like a top 20 overall performance for The Witcher. When you take into account those other factors, this could be very good indeed.

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Samus Returns is not really a remake, its s reimagining. Even Nintendo dont say remake. And theres no criteria where you can get Nexus and exclude Q2.

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Nah dont underestimate Golden Sun. That game was a huge deal, easily one of the biggest GBA games, revived that style of game, sold 2 million copies and has a 91 on Metacritic. People on here forget that. If course, that match also happened the day the DS game came out, so that helped.

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KamikazePotato posted...

Come on, GTA. You have 6 hours to do this.

Not to make a comeback, oh no, you're screwed. Just beat RDR's result on Persona 4 to make me feel slightly better.

It looks like it will.

Also GTA never actually looks weak when it chokes which is impressive.

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America flipped to GTA.

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That page may say it all. But it came out before Q2 regardless.

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Waluigi1 posted...

Yeah I'd also say Samus Returns. The rest are either ports, remasters, or just not really a big release.

WarioWare Gold isn't! Though a large majority of the minigames are from the old games.

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I feel from the amount of jokes Reggie has made about Mother 3, if it was up to him he would have released it. That was no doubt a NCL decision.

I think well see it one day though. We got the original after all, though granted that was done and there were even cartridges of the English version.

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ninkendo posted...

I go by the last major game that comes out by that logic it's persona Q2

If we go by original release date Epic Yarn came last, but is also a remaster.

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Strictly speaking what actually did it was the game smashing expectations in Europe, something we can still see in these very polls!

However, I cant see a game like Pandoras Tower ever coming over without Operation Rainfall.

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Xenoblade

Obscure

You see there's your problem. Xenoblade hasn't been obscure for years, if it ever really was.

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