Lurker > Paratroopa1

Super Metroid

Bane_Of_Despair posted...

Oh good, the episode of the Powerpuff Girls that was just nonstop Beatles references isn't just a fever dream I had once

Cruella DeVille was also my first thought

I think Qirin/Qilin/Kirin should move up a tier just barely, it's prominent enough in japanese entertainment nowadays

NFUN posted...

btw, Pegasus is a specific creature, not a race, so Medusa should definitely count as an answer for Gorgon

The idea here is: "pegasus" is widely understood as any horse with wings in a modern context, whereas "medusa" is still generally known as a specific character; if you ask people what kind of creature medusa is, or you asked them what a "gorgon" is, they'd be like, what?

azuarc posted...

Also, why is Sword of Vermilion in that poll? lol

It was one of my last cuts, was trying to give Genesis more representation

MoogleKupo141 posted...

its hard for me to imagine any adult American not knowing what a lot of these things are but also like a year ago I encountered a girl who didnt know what lava is

I could sort of understand how this might be a possibility, given that I assume that playing a lot of video games has me thinking about lava more than the average person. (I said this same thing when I told Anagram that his sisters weren't going to know what a chimera is.)

I'll say my piece: I don't give one single fuck about the Target burning down, and the discussion around it is consistently framed in completely the wrong way. It is always framed as though it is a matter of poor tactics, generally assumed to be from either a failing of moral duty, or from an inability to check one's rage, or from some sort of misunderstanding about how to achieve revolution. As if oh, these silly poor people, if only they could understand that burning the Target down isn't helping the situation. But it is not a matter of tactics. This was never a question of "should we, or should we not, burn down the Target," like they held a vote on this shit.This situation has far escalated past the ability for tactics to even come into play. This is a matter of inevitability, stemming from the breach of the social contract by those in power.

People who are powerless cannot be held responsible for not upholding the social contract when those in power have ignored it - it is not a social contract that they have ever agreed to, and they can only be expected to pay any attention to it so long as the power are upholding their end of the bargain in keeping the peace. If the powers that be can ignore it, then you can't go all surprised-Pikachu face when suddenly, some shit is on fire. This chain of events all starts with the people in power - in this case, the Minneapolis Police Department. By summarily executing citizens in the streets, by failing to hold their own accountable for misdeeds, and for attempting to violently put down peaceful protests, the MPD has completely failed to keep the peace; they are the ones responsible for Minneapolis burning, full stop. It cannot be the responsibility of the people they are oppressing to ensure that the city does not burn.

Nobody regards it as ideal for places of commerce to be burning down, and nobody considers it ideal for people to be dying as a result, but it is the inevitable consequence of civil unrest, and civil unrest is what you get when people have nothing left to lose. Frankly, the concern trolling about Target in particular is embarrassing to me - we should all be completely indifferent to whether or not the Target is standing, unless anyone thinks that a megacorporation like them that does little to serve its community and prefers to line its own pockets is an unquestioned moral good. If it is true that they have given great amounts of funding to the police, then they too take ownership of their own store being burnt down, and so be it. I would prefer to live in a world when Target and the community can co-exist peacefully, but we do not live in that world, and no amount of finger-wagging at vague "rioters" and "looters" is going to change a damn thing.

LordoftheMorons posted...

Lol guess I'm blocked

You sort of earned it

I think ghosts and unicorns belong on the same tier in the sense that I think it would be almost impossible for someone in my culture to not have heard of either, I largely agree with Anagram's top tier in that sense (again, would drop centaur from it, I would not be shocked to meet someone someday who has not heard of a centaur, but not having heard of a unicorn is preposterous)

I think cerberus has to drop to mid tier, it is not as well known as a phoenix or a cyclops or fucking bigfoot

Cerberus is basically only anchored by its appearance by Harry Potter really, otherwise it's clearly mid at best

MoogleKupo141 posted...

I feel like youre underrating golems here.

Id bet more people know a golem than a basilisk at least.

mnkboy907 posted...

I'd probably drop centaur out of top tier down to just high tier.

Also needs stuff like elf and dwarf in either high or top tier.

I agree that golems should go up one and centaurs down one

Bear in mind my stance on setting fire to Target isn't so much "setting Target on fire is a good idea; it is a preferable course of action over not setting Target on fire" so much as "downtrodden people have every right to feel like setting some dumb shit on fire when they live in a hellworld and you aren't even trying to keep the peace" but like, seriously, fuck Target

I find it a thoroughly confusing worldview that anyone thinks we are all living better lives for having Target in them

Consumerism is a hell of a drug

Bonk's Adventure is kind of a joke entry lol, "hey look, it's a TG16 game, representation!"

I do already have regrets on a couple of matchups but oh well, constructing a perfect bracket is really hard

I don't know what a jotun is

Drakeryn posted...

imo you need to expand your tier system, all of those are well-known

There is most definitely a line between high tier and mid tier, I literally have already proven this to anagram earlier

Because the 90's were so stacked, I decided to make a mock bracket of just the years 1990-1994, and do 1995-1999 separately, because I thought it would be interesting. I considered doing it by console era but release year seemed simple.

- Games were eligible if a) They were first released in North America from the years 1990 to 1994, or b) They were first released in their country of origin (by that, I mean Japan) from the years 1990 and 1994 and didn't make it overseas until the next console generation. There are some games released in Japan in 1994 but in NA in 1995 so if you think a game is missing, make sure it's not that. (Some games that were "missing" in 80's showed up here!)

- Seeding does not necessarily correspond to overall strength. I kinda eyeballed it by a combination of both GameFAQs strength + overall notability, and I allowed some overseedings and underseedings as a result, especially to create some spicier matchups. Trust me, I know some of these seedings are eyebrow-raisers, but they have to be.

- I tried really hard to be as thorough as possible and I'm terrified that I'll have just completely forgotten a game somewhere, but hopefully not. My bad if there are any truly inexcusable snubs in here that I forgot about.

- If your favorite game didn't make it in and you are sad, sorry! It was a tough call on some of these and I tried to include as wide a variety of titles as possible.

- If your favorite game didn't make it in and you are mad, or you're mad that it got a bad placement, it's because I hate your favorite game and I hate you and I wanted to specifically make you angry. It was all a conspiracy to piss you off.

- Half of these games have a port on GB by the same name because it was the early 90's, or came out for a bunch of consoles. I didn't bother to specify in most cases, just assume it's whichever version of the game that would do best.

- Of course Sonic 3 & Knuckles is eligible. I'm not a monster.

Cape Division

1) Super Mario World
16) Bonk's Adventure

8) Breath of Fire
9) Dragon Quest III

5) Streets of Rage 2
12) Star Wars: TIE Fighter

4) Lemmings
13) X-COM: UFO Defense

6) Killer Instinct
11) Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest

3) Mortal Kombat II
14) The Legend of the Mystical Ninja

7) Mega Man 5
10) Final Fantasy III

2) Sonic the Hedgehog
15) Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master

Rambi Division

1) Donkey Kong Country
16) Herzog Zwei

8) Super Punch-Out!!
9) Fatal Fury: King of Fighters

5) Dragon Quest V
12) The Magical Quest Starring Mickey Mouse

4) Kirby's Dream Land
13) Star Control II

6) Tekken
11) Lunar: The Silver Star

3) Contra III: The Alien Wars
14) Final Fantasy Legend II

7) StarTropics
10) X-Men

2) Sonic 3 & Knuckles
15) Sam & Max Hit The Road

Magicite Division

1) Final Fantasy VI
16) Commander Keen in Invasion of the Vorticons

8) Super Ghouls n' Ghosts
9) The Elder Scrolls: Arena

5) River City Ransom
12) Ys III: Wanderers from Ys

4

The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening

probably still the only video game to make me weep openly

It's Midna but Ezlo is awesome

Mandrill and Armadillo are fantastic and everything else is kind of bad

Washington

Golden Sun

Washington

Washington

(non-identical message)

Washington

Here are the runs that I caught that were highlights for me, there were other runs I enjoyed but these were the ones that stood out the most for me personally:

Zelda II RBO - Super interesting routing and glitches and a pretty clean run. I know Zelda II pretty well and this was novel.

Donkey Kong Country 2 - DKC2 feels like a pretty solved game at this point but it's always enjoyable to see - it's just one of those standard-bearer speedruns that's always a good watch.

Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon - An incredibly clean run of a difficult category, COTM is every bit as good a speed game as the classic Castlevanias.

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Moon - I mostly just enjoyed the movement in this one a lot. YA YA YA YA YA YA YA

The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening - I'm obviously biased since this is my favorite game but I think it consistently holds up as a speed game, just a lot of nice tech and routing even in warpless.

Freedom Planet - Carol is probably the least compelling of the three characters but this remains one of the most gorgeous speed games.

Night Trap - Fuck, I dunno. This was just weirdly compelling as someone who had heard of this game's reputation but knew nothing about it. Running it blindfolded is an incredibly bizarre idea and that made this entertaining.

Rocko's Quest - I cannot in good consience recommend this run, which is why I am recommending it. The game's a trainwreck and the run itself went a bit off the rails with tech and commentary issues, but I loved it - it felt like a throwback to old GDQ where runs were sometimes more unpolished like this. Wish I could have seen the cutscenes better

Mega Man 9 - Only Mega Man game this GDQ so I'm obligated to highlight it. Very good race with the runners having some interesting routing divergences.

Yakuza Kiwami 2 - I wasn't really that interested in this game until Kiryu picked up a giant traffic cone and beat the shit out of someone with it.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Randomizer - Very chill run. Really love to see randomizer stuff at GDQ obviously, love to see all of the strategy and routing that goes into this.

Half-Life: Alyx - An absolute must watch. I don't know if VR runs are just sort of a novelty that won't be this interesting every time, but this was probably the most compelling run this GDQ imo because it showed me things I've never seen before.

Super Monkey Ball 2 - It's monkey ball.

Super Mario Bros/Lost Levels - I've been watching a fair bit of Kosmic's SMB stuff on Youtube so I've just been super interested in this game lately. Super Mario Bros is arguably the most solved speedrun in all of gaming, which makes it incredibly compelling to watch as a race because you know it's going to be close and you know even the littlest mistakes could make a huge difference. The Lost Levels race might have been even better.

Metroid Fusion - As I stated before, although the race aspect of this run didn't pan out, the 1% Hard category is something I've known was extremely hard to do since 2003, and as a member of the M2K2 community this one's a really big deal for me to see.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - Not my favorite BOTW run ever, but BOTW is just one of the most amazing speedgames and it was interesting to see some of the different things that went into the run that don't matter in other runs.

Pokemon FireRed/LeafGreen - The Squirtle vs Charmander race concept was EXTREMELY interesting - there's more route divergence in this race than any other race I've seen before, and the commentary was great for explaining all the different things that one route handles better or worse than the other, and why they do things in the order they do them in. What a cool run, even if it ended a bit unfortunately.

Crypt of the Necrodancer - Spooty's a beast. With Coda, you never know 100% for sure if he'll be able to pull it off, but never doubt him. One of the most difficult categories to even complete at all that you'll ever see at GDQ.

Pump It Up - If you're big into the dance game scene then it's nothing that you haven't seen before, but getting to see something like this at GDQ for the first time is awesome. I'm so glad that they were able to do something like this given that it's an online event. My mom was really excited earlier today because happyf333tz liked one of her tweets, lol. I think she's a fan.

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City - I really didn't think I was going to be interested in this run at all because I just don't like the GTA series and I haven't enjoyed these runs in the past, but wow, I really enjoyed this one. It's super dense with bizarre tech and tricks and the commentary did a great job explaining all of it - never felt boring.

Super Smash Bros Break The Targets - Blindfolded shit is always really interesting.

Pokemon Shield - Very long and slow at parts but it was a nice way to end the marathon.

Stuff I want to go back and catch:

Secret of Mana
Kid Icarus
Quest 64
One Step From Eden
Virtual Boy Wario Land
Puzzle Bobble 2
A Short Hike
Baba Is You
Mario vs Donkey Kong
Super Metroid

turbopuns3 posted...

I am just now reading this message for the first time (passed out for a nap after I wrote the one before it lol), and, let me be clear in that I don't want to be argumentative here, but I do want to make a clarifying statement.

My point didn't have anything to do with the quality of the runner. I wasn't saying "how embarrassing they let this loser into GDQ", my point was simply, don't take races of "INSANELY" difficult categories where even the world class competitors can have such varying results with such high frequency. I love those runs (Necrodancer was awesome) but I just feel they're better left to a single runner. A blowout race makes for a worse show than one person having a rough time with a run, imo. I get the point of having a race to help ensure that the run gets completed, but to that I'd say...there's like 1,500 submissions. More than plenty to just pick a different game if the run is so hard that it's not consistent enough for a marathon. (and again, any run can go sideways. I was just overreacting in the moment. the overreaction and inciting language was where the rum came in)

I dunno, I really enjoyed it! I really like seeing the limits pushed with hard runs that it's possible that a runner might have a really hard time with, and races in this instance can be helpful considering it gives two chances for at least one runner to have a really good run. I don't mind a bit of high variance on races, I agree it's not ideal for there to be a big time difference but I think it makes the close races all the more exciting knowing that there is a chance it won't be that close. Blowouts will happen but I don't think it should dissuade them from trying them in the future.

I think the online format worked well, all things considered. It's obviously not as hype as having an in-person event, and speaking as someone who was lucky enough to go once, trust me, an online event could never replace the live event. But, I do think this online format had its benefits as well, from not having so much tech to setup as well as being able to invite runners who couldn't normally participate and even having some runs like PIU that wouldn't have been possible at a live event, and I think it had its own cool, chill atmosphere. It ultimately didn't feel that much lesser to me than an in-person event - it was well run and still "felt" like GDQ, between the entertaining runs, the strong commentary, the slick presentation and the donation reads.

Well the thing is, even if you were optimistic enough to believe that the pandemic would be under control in January 2021, you have to start preparing for the event well before that. You basically have to start preparing now and we really aren't in a good enough place with the pandemic yet. If things have calmed down in January 2021 then SGDQ 2021 might happen in person, but even that I find pretty questionable.

Not to be a downer, but especially given that this event was a success, it's a near-certainty that AGDQ 2021 will be online. I think the question at this point is whether or not SGDQ 2021 will be online or not - that's gonna be sketchy. AGDQ 2021 should be certain though.

Monster Train, with an honorable mention to Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2

They could have also played it on Zelda Classic, which is technically a remake of sorts, in that it's made in a different engine and stuff

Just because the race wasn't close doesn't mean that it didn't have the potential to be close. Both runners are skilled and one runner had the better day. The runner you're saying they should have been embarrassed to accept was the original pioneer of the category.

turbopuns3 posted...

I only caught the last 20 minutes or so, but on the surface (based on end times) the Metroid Fusion 1% Hard race seems like an embarrassment on whoever scheduled/accepted it. It wasn't even remotely close?

No. 1% Hard is an INSANELY difficult category and it is completely within the realm of expectation that one of the runners would take a few more unfortunate game overs than usual.

Washington
Quebec

I do love BC a lot but Washington is my home

Reg posted...

If you can get it set up with a couple friends, it's pretty cool. There's also a mode (which I don't think is the same one Para mentioned? Unless I'm misunderstanding him) where everybody's items are randomized across everybody's games. So you're not actually sharing items, but it'd be like, you could find Para's hookshot and I could find your boomerang, or you could find your own Fire Arrows.

(*Disclaimer: Never done either of these setups for OoT, but not at all unfamiliar with the concept)

Yeah I only just learned about this from their commentary during the run, this sounds cool as hell too. I think it's a different thing, I'm talking about one where two people actually occupy the same instance (like, you can see each other in the world and you share everything).

There is actually a mod of OoT you can play that lets you play co-op in the same instance of a single game, sharing any items you find and such, but they're not doing that. That itself is a pretty interesting thing to speedrun too though.

They're both playing the same seed, separately. They share information and the goal is to have either player complete the game.

MN
HI

caps

Like, if you feel bad about the GOP being the party of Donald Trump and you're longing for the days of W Bush like this guy, you're not a good person

I think the problem is this mythological idea that the republican party was once pure and principled but that Trump has corrupted it and now all the republicans feel bad

This is 100% the logical next point of the direction the party has been heading for decades, any decent person would have gotten off this train before this

Wreck-It Ralph

it didn't say "movie based on a video game" so I am taking this as an allowable answer

QC
NB

I dunno, they just seem like interesting places to visit. Northwest Territories wouldn't be my first choice of a nowhere place to go, even though I do like those places.

I dunno. I didn't really like it and I felt like other people liked the game more than me.

Super Mario 64

my actual answer is probably Punch-Out Wii though, I am just mesmerized by speedruns of that game

WA
BC

Washington is where I live. British Columbia is where I wish I lived.

I've never heard of SGDQ

Empire Strikes Back