Contest Stats and Discussion - Part 1377

I'll take a console contest over no contest. (And it's better than years too)

UltimaterializerX posted...

But PC would win and everyone would pick a Nintendo whatever in their bracket.

Nah the Ps2 would win. Nobody outside of this site would care enough to make a PC Rally.

Nah, SNES would win.

PC would not win on this site. At some point I would think PS2, but I don't think that generation could take on SNES anymore.

Overall GotY poll today:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/9791-

Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth got snubbed from this poll in favor of Balatro, probably due to the vote stuffing in that poll.

Yeah, looks like the cheating would have mattered if it wasn't caught.

Huh, looks like the Astro Bot/Zelda poll was stronger than I expected. Thought Metaphor would definitely be in 2nd place here.

KamikazePotato posted...

Huh, looks like the Astro Bot/Zelda poll was stronger than I expected. Thought Metaphor would definitely be in 2nd place here.

Now it's in 2nd place as of the most recent update.

The New Jersey vote stuffer is going with Metaphor: ReFantazio today.

Metaphor: ReFantazio currently has 73.08% in New Jersey.

All hail the Rebirth

I did not expect Astro Bot over Metaphor, though it could still go the other way.

OG FFVII would have 80% in this poll. What a failure!

The real story to me is how well Echoes of Wisdom is doing, even with another better Nintendo game in the poll. The Zelda name will take you far!

Also, glad to see Balatro in the poll over LaD on account of the vote stuffing. My Game of the Year!

It’s really impressive how every game in a ten option poll is over 6%. It was a pretty strong year I guess.

I think it's a decent year, but it's because it probably has no huge dominating titles.

LightningStrikes posted...

The real story to me is how well Echoes of Wisdom is doing

If it did any worse that would be a flop imo. Performing like a decent zelda should.

It's doing better than Link's Awakening, which makes sense because it's a better game.

It is but also Link’s Awakening isn’t that good by 2019/2024 standards!

Yeah though this year has a deep field but not any monsters by the look of it. Also noting that Balatro looks stronger than in the mid-year poll.

Actual Link's Awakening would murder Echoes.

Which makes sense because it's better and by 2025 standards

Nah. It’s also the worse of the two versions, the remake is much better. It’s a great 1993 Game Boy game!

To be honest Link’s Awakening would struggle against most polygonal Zeldas, even the weaker ones because that issue of technology would hold it back and frankly rightly so. We saw this when Breath of the Wild buried Majora’s Mask.

The Final Vote tomorrow will be good.

LightningStrikes posted...

We saw this when Breath of the Wild buried Majora’s Mask.

When did this happen? A Zelda poll? BotW was only in GotD2 as far as contests go right

Sunroof posted...

The Final Vote tomorrow will be good.

I wonder if there will be a semifinal poll as it is so close for second place as of now.

pjbasis posted...

When did this happen? A Zelda poll? BotW was only in GotD2 as far as contests go right

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/8090-bonus-battle-majoras-mask-vs-breath-of-the-wild

Oh nice the two Decade champions.

Yeah well, Daddy Ocarina would put BotW back its place.

LightningStrikes posted...

Also noting that Balatro looks stronger than in the mid-year poll.

I suspect that Balatro has long legs. I personally went from not hearing about it at all a few months ago to seeing the GotY talk and good word of mouth last month to being a bit addicted to it myself now.

most indies generally do

games like Stardew Valley and Hollow Knight overperformed in game of the decade relative to their goty positions, it wouldn’t shock me if Disco Elysium was a lot stronger now and games like Hades/StS do stronger in a potential setting

LightningStrikes posted...

It is but also Link’s Awakening isn’t that good by 2019/2024 standards!

Oh GTFO that game is perfect any year. Remake was phenomenal too.

imagine telling movie buffs that old movies suck because they're black and white and the cg was terrible

I can imagine that very well, film is a medium that has evolved and improved substantially. Anybody interested in the medium except extreme fans of certain eras will tell you that. When Christopher Nolan won Best Director at the oscars last year, the key point of his speech was that film is still a young medium which still had do much potential to grow. We are in many ways still near the beginning of the medium and it’s going to continue to develop and we will continue to see new films that are pushing the medium further and further.

This is even more true of video games as they are more iterative and a much newer medium. I can say with some confidence that the best game ever has not yet been released. This is a good thing, and if we get to the end of our lives and Link’s Awakening is one of the best games ever, that to me would be tremendously disappointing.

To be clear, I’m not saying old things are bad at all. I’m not being Jim Ryan here. Link’s Awakening is great and I love playing older games too. It’s just that there have been advancements and it has been surpassed.

chiming in to say ladx holds up phenomenally in the year 2025 of our lord

The battle for second place is wild. Keeps going back and forth.

3-way GotY poll today:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/9792-

Judging by this early vote, I guess Astro Bot is getting stuffed.

Solid showing for Rebirth

And to think I panicked after seeing how it performed early on in the first poll

Forgive me for forgetting FFVII always wins

Gotta be some SFF between FF7 and Metaphor. Boring finals tomorrow if there is one.

The New Jersey vote stuffer is going with Astro Bot today.

Astro Bot currently has 52.17% in New Jersey.

FF7 always wins. I am sick of it. Just to remember the old times...

LightningStrikes posted...

To be clear, I’m not saying old things are bad at all.

it was a glib back and forth, it's not like that I don't agree in the general that games are better than they used to be.

But for me that's really about looking at the average games. Masterpieces of their time are still masterpieces today, because they still work. Lots of times when someone says something about a game is aged, it's actually just a "cultural" difference. Your expectations changed, not because you got used to a higher standard, but just because trends come and go. 2D games were seen as old and limited in the late 90s and mid 2000s until indies brought them back and revived old genres that were seen as "aged".
And games were designed for a smaller, more narrow audience. There's nothing like animal crossing back then after all! But on the other hand FromSoft literally made games based on old "forgotten" design elements and popped off harder than ever.

I think a lot of the conversation gets cut off when people throw around the word "aged" so easily. It feels like someone trying to cover their subjective opinions with an objective blanket and then they don't have to explain themselves anymore.

pjbasis posted...

I think a lot of the conversation gets cut off when people throw around the word "aged" so easily. It feels like someone trying to cover their subjective opinions with an objective blanket and then they don't have to explain themselves anymore.

Agree, it often becomes a lazy buzzword. Just say you don't have a tolerance for old games or something. It's fine if some of these games are hard for you to go back to, but it doesn't mean they've aged poorly. You just don't have the patience for older video game conventions. I get it. There are things I don't have patience for anymore, like limited lives in hard games.

I disagree with a lot of this rhetoric, because if you take some of these "aged" games and apply the exact same game design philosophies to games made today, you would get games that are poorly-reviewed and criticism that they have poor game design.

For example, I played Phantasy Star IV and Shining Force II last year. Both games were probably absolutely amazing in their time. In fact, I'd love to see an HD-2D remake of PSIV and a modern-day sequel to SFII, because I see what people like about them!

However, game design wise, they do NOT hold up. They are bad at telling the player how to progress in the game, combat is very basic, and SFII in particular could learn a lot about UI design from modern Fire Emblem games. You could not plop a player in front of one of these games and expect them to enjoy it the same as, say, Octopath Traveler.

I will admit they were both fantastic in their time, and I will even say PSIV's story holds up very well! But these games absolutely have aged, and there is nothing wrong with saying that. If Sega decides to expand on their RPG releases (and considering 2024 was a fantastic year for them), I would love fully-fleshed out remakes or sequels to both of these.

Big_Bob posted...

For example, I played Phantasy Star IV and Shining Force II last year. Both games were probably absolutely amazing in their time.

See I think you're making a big assumption here. What do you mean probably amazing? Maybe you would have played them back then and thought the same thing: good but not great. You just wouldn't articulate it as aging. You might just say something like RPGs are not for me, they're slow and cumbersome.

You're articulating some criticisms that would exist about those games when they came out. That's not aging poorly.

Nah changing standards can make some aspects not hold up. The perfect example would be the way games handle saves. That is an aspect of older games that is absolutely something that holds them back today but was not necessarily criticised at the time.

Password based saves are a lost art.

There was nothing more satisfying than trying out random passwords and having one of them work

I think whether or not something counts as aging vs. always being a problem depends on the game and exact features. For example, I think a lot of early PS1 and N64 games didn't age well because seeing games in 3D was really awesome at the time and led to people downplaying those games' other shortcomings. But now that 3D games are the standard, those early Gen 5 not only look bad in comparison but without graphics wowing people we're more critical of their other problems. On the flip side, many well-rounded SNES games such as Chrono Trigger have aged very well since there's not as many newer 2D games to compare them to, and their flaws aren't as bad.

I think another aspect of aging game design is that in the old days, games shipped with manuals, and players were expected to read and familiarize themselves with the manual to play the game. These days, common practice is to work the tutorial into the game itself, and manuals themselves are integrated into the game.

Like in my Phantasy Star example earlier, you would have no idea what a lot of the spells do without a manual explicitly telling you (or by trial and error). These days that's bad design, back then it was common practice.