1996 vs 1989

Results
Round One Sunday, May 7th, 2017

Ulti's Analysis
I get that most of this contest was predictable, but man was 1989 going to be weak. This year was basically Mega Man 2 and nothing else, though I will give tons of love to Dragon Warrior 1 and The Guardian Legend all day long. One of the best things in this entire contest was Allen putting that game into a match picture, and if you guys haven't played that game you really missed out. Think space-faring futuristic Zelda 1 crossed with an overhead shooter. It sounds weird, but it's an incredible video game. Play it.

1996 was honestly a very thin year by 1990s standards, but the good games it has are really good. The obvious ones here are Mario 64 and Super Mario RPG. Virtually everything good that can be said about those games has already been said, but Mario RPG has a special place in my heart. I met two of my best friends in middle school through that game, and it happened to be the game I was playing when my mom came home and told our family she was terminally ill. It was the summer after eighth grade. I'll never forget it. To this day, I still think of Mario RPG as the last normal thing I was doing before my family was ripped apart. I still feel weird playing it, though obviously that isn't a video game's fault. Most people will find this paragraph a bit weird, but I don't care.

Diablo 1 deserves some love somewhere in here. There are a lot of things about that game where people could honestly call it the best game in the series, and its influence was insane. I'm still convinced From Software modeled the chalice dungeons after that game.

So yeah. Sorry if this PCA is a bit personal at times, but I've always meant to do something like this and I figured this PCA was as good a place as any. Having a lot of this in print to live on gives me a good sense of peace about things.