Author Topic: NWR 15th Birthday: The Best Game of the Past 15 Years  (Read 8454 times)

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Offline NWR_Neal

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NWR 15th Birthday: The Best Game of the Past 15 Years
« on: March 07, 2014, 01:34:00 AM »

We're doing our versions of March Madness. 68 games enter, only one wins.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/feature/36765/nwr-15th-birthday-the-best-game-of-the-past-15-years

On March 7, 1999, PlanetN2000 launched. 15 years later, we're still here, though we've changed a bit. This time for our anniversary, we're going to try to determine the best game that came out on a Nintendo platform since we started, and you get to help us. You can check out some fun history stuff here, if ya like.

The staff got together and determined four games from each of the past 15 years that we thought were the best of that year. We also made space for eight wild card games. To rank these games, we averaged the Nintendo World Report review scores with their MetaCritic averages. It might seem a little convoluted, but it makes sense, especially if you're an amateur bracketolgist like me. As you'll see in the brackets in the image gallery below, our four top seeds are Super Mario Galaxy, Resident Evil 4, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, and Metroid Prime.

We're going to start with the eight wild card games, so turn the page and check those games out, then go vote on them in the forums.

If you're curious, here's the rough schedule of events:

  • Wild Card Round (68 Games Remain) - Voting from March 7 to March 11
  • First Round (64 Games Remain) - Voting from March 12 to March 14
  • Second Round (32 Games Remain) - Voting from March 15 to March 17
  • Third Round (16 Games Remain) - Voting from March 18 to March 20
  • Fourth Round (8 Games Remain) - Voting from March 21 to March 23
  • Final Four (4 Games Remain) - Voting from March 24 to March 26
  • Finals! (2 Games Remain) - Voting from March 27 to March 29
Neal Ronaghan
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Offline Adrock

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Re: NWR 15th Anniversary: The Best Game of the Past 15 Years
« Reply #1 on: March 07, 2014, 01:38:53 AM »
It's a toss up between Metroid Prime and Resident Evil 4 for me though I'm leaner towards the former.

Offline Neifirst

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Re: NWR 15th Anniversary: The Best Game of the Past 15 Years
« Reply #2 on: March 07, 2014, 07:41:37 AM »
Paper Mario: TTYD is only a wild card!  I hope it gets the votes it deserves - by far my favorite of the Paper series.

Offline ejamer

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Re: NWR 15th Anniversary: The Best Game of the Past 15 Years
« Reply #3 on: March 07, 2014, 08:05:25 AM »
Fun idea. Is this the first time that Video Game March Madness happened?
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Offline Shaymin

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Re: NWR 15th Anniversary: The Best Game of the Past 15 Years
« Reply #4 on: March 07, 2014, 08:58:14 AM »
Zebes regional: Wow, you guys made me root for the meteor in the 16-1 matchup. Well played. Also, if the wild card doesn't crush in the 1st round here, there is no justice on this planet.

Umbrella regional: I think the wild card can make it out of R1 if it's Pap... Xenoblade's a 4 seed? mrgrgr...

Mushroom regional: Fire Emblem can make the sweet 16, and it'll give Galaxy a run for its money there.

Hyrule regional: Two typos there: You spelled Platinum "Diamond/Pearl" and Rouge Squadron 2 should have "11" next to it.

Then again, if I was booking, we'd have the Reyn/Final Destination/Comet/Malamar divisions, so take my words with as much NaCl as you need.
Donald Theriault - News Editor, Nintendo World Report / 2016 Nintendo World Champion
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Offline NWR_Neal

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Re: NWR 15th Anniversary: The Best Game of the Past 15 Years
« Reply #5 on: March 07, 2014, 09:25:01 AM »
Hey folks: should we tighten up the voting time periods? Right now, each round is 5 days. Do you think 3 days would be fine?

Wild Card round will still go until next Wednesday because we're still putting together the write-ups and content for the round featuring 60 new games, but do y'all think a 3-day window for each successive round would be enough time?
Neal Ronaghan
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Offline Leo13

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Re: NWR 15th Anniversary: The Best Game of the Past 15 Years
« Reply #6 on: March 07, 2014, 10:17:48 AM »
Yes, tighten up the voting time period.


How is 3D World a Wild Card and New Super Mario Bro U is in? Didn't you mean to flip those 2? I've never talked to a single person that thought U was better than 3D World

Offline NWR_Neal

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Re: NWR 15th Anniversary: The Best Game of the Past 15 Years
« Reply #7 on: March 07, 2014, 10:34:32 AM »
How is 3D World a Wild Card and New Super Mario Bro U is in? Didn't you mean to flip those 2? I've never talked to a single person that thought U was better than 3D World

Read the explanation! We picked 4 games from each year from 1999 to 2013. NSMBU and 3D World came out in different years. We have the wild cards to make up a little bit for years with tons of great games.
Neal Ronaghan
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"Fungah! Foiled again!"

Offline ejamer

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Re: NWR 15th Anniversary: The Best Game of the Past 15 Years
« Reply #8 on: March 07, 2014, 12:52:18 PM »
I agree about tightening the voting period if possible. 5 days per round is going to drag on for a long time.
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Offline Ceric

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Re: NWR 15th Anniversary: The Best Game of the Past 15 Years
« Reply #9 on: March 07, 2014, 02:44:00 PM »
3 Day window probably be better.  Also the ability to do all the votes on the page be cool but I get why we can't.
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Offline Mop it up

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Re: NWR 15th Anniversary: The Best Game of the Past 15 Years
« Reply #10 on: March 07, 2014, 04:21:30 PM »
Hm, this could be an interesting series of polls, and just in time for March Madness to boot.

I think I would have to choose Perfect Dark as my fave game from the past 15 years. The only other contenders would be Super Smash Brothers Melee and Mario Kart Wii, I've certainly played all three games the most. But those two are less "unique" than Perfect Dark. It sucks that those two games are going against each other though; no idea what I'll pick there!

Offline Phil

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Re: NWR 15th Birthday: The Best Game of the Past 15 Years
« Reply #11 on: March 07, 2014, 08:02:14 PM »
I like this more than March Madness. This tournament doesn't make The Late Show enter reruns for several weeks. :)
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Offline NWR_Neal

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Re: NWR 15th Birthday: The Best Game of the Past 15 Years
« Reply #12 on: March 11, 2014, 11:40:39 PM »
Round 1 is underway. I'll be posting the pages over the next few hours, but feel free to vote on everything now in the March Madness subboard.
Neal Ronaghan
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Offline Leo13

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Re: NWR 15th Birthday: The Best Game of the Past 15 Years
« Reply #13 on: March 12, 2014, 11:32:58 AM »
In the planet Zebes region, my favorite is A Link Between Worlds...and there isn't a close second (at least not to me I'm sure there are many people that will opine differently)

Offline Leo13

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Re: NWR 15th Birthday: The Best Game of the Past 15 Years
« Reply #14 on: March 12, 2014, 11:34:13 AM »
Let me specify. The above statement is only true for part 1 of the planet Zebes region.

Offline Leo13

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Re: NWR 15th Birthday: The Best Game of the Past 15 Years
« Reply #15 on: March 12, 2014, 11:36:53 AM »
In Planet Zebes 2 my favorite is Donkey Kong Country Returns with Mario 3D world a very close second.

Offline Leo13

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Re: NWR 15th Birthday: The Best Game of the Past 15 Years
« Reply #16 on: March 12, 2014, 11:49:46 AM »
In the Umbrella Corporation Region Part 1 I feel compelled to discuss 2 of the matchups, I loved Rhythm Heaven and I hate Epic Yarn. Yes I realize most people loved Epic Yarn for the visuals which really were cool and creative, but after about 40 minutes of being in awe of the visuals I realized it's an incredibly boring game.


The other one is Ogre Battle 64 is such a cool game; however, Xenoblade is my favorite game of all time. I didn't learn about it until it was going for $100 on ebay. I GameFlyed it (can you say Game Flyed for rented from Game Fly) I signed up for a Game Fly account for 1 month to try Xenoblade and decided it was worth the $100 people were paying for it. Now I'd tell you it's worth even more. I'm hoping enough people played this one for it to go all the way to the Championship (I've yet to hear someone that played it and didn't love it)

Offline Leo13

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Re: NWR 15th Birthday: The Best Game of the Past 15 Years
« Reply #17 on: March 12, 2014, 11:57:56 AM »

I have 1 thing to say about Umbrella Corporation Region Part 2:
Zelda: Four Swords Adventures is one of the most underrated games I'm familiar with. It was super fun and most people don't even know it exists. I'm very happy to see that the sages as Nintendo World Report had the wisdom to include it even though it probably won't survive the first round.
My wife and I played this one together and really enjoyed it. I'd love to see an HD remake of this on Wii U integrated with 3DS I'm sure the Wifi connection would be fast enough to do it that would be so AWESOME!


Re: NWR 15th Birthday: The Best Game of the Past 15 Years
« Reply #18 on: March 15, 2014, 02:59:15 PM »
Majora's Mask and Ghost Trick both out after the first round?! God what is wrong with you people?

You hurt me, NWR community. You really do. :(

Re: NWR 15th Birthday: The Best Game of the Past 15 Years
« Reply #19 on: March 15, 2014, 03:22:25 PM »
Good to see actually Majoras Mask is overrated
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Offline Leo13

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Re: NWR 15th Birthday: The Best Game of the Past 15 Years
« Reply #20 on: March 21, 2014, 12:57:26 PM »
Hey these links are taking me to the results page of the last round! In other words we can't vote on these new matchups

Offline Mythtendo

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Re: NWR 15th Birthday: The Best Game of the Past 15 Years
« Reply #21 on: March 21, 2014, 01:25:27 PM »
I'm glad Majora's Mask was quickly eliminated, I always thought that game was too over-rated.


Hmm, yeah the Elite 8 links just go to results from the previous round.

Offline InvaderREN

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Re: NWR 15th Birthday: The Best Game of the Past 15 Years
« Reply #22 on: March 21, 2014, 02:38:43 PM »
Voting not working for me either :(  I'll check back later to see if link fixed.

Offline NWR_Neal

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Re: NWR 15th Birthday: The Best Game of the Past 15 Years
« Reply #23 on: March 21, 2014, 03:08:45 PM »
Voting not working for me either :(  I'll check back later to see if link fixed.

Sorry about that. I didn't update the links. It's fixed now!
Neal Ronaghan
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Offline lwright

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Re: NWR 15th Birthday: The Best Game of the Past 15 Years
« Reply #24 on: March 21, 2014, 03:35:04 PM »
Now, I'm curious. This round determines the winner of each of the 4 brackets, but which 2 brackets will face which 2 brackets in the final four?
Is it possible to have a Galaxy 1 vs Galaxy 2 semi or could that only happen in the final?