Season 52 rankings: Preliminary thread

[superaielman]

This topic will open Sunday evening. Check back then!


RULES
Choose TWO games/Forgotten Warriors. You must choose two, and can not choose more than two. This is to provide some balance- some people will yes most ideas, some will no most ideas. Picking out the best helps window down what to rank.

RULES REGARDING (single) FORGOTTEN WARRIORS: They do not take up a slot, if they're from a ranked game. They still need to beat out the second place game for nominations to get to the next stage.

Don't:

Suggest a game for ranking for humor/trolling/for the hell of it. Please put some effort into your suggestions and pick the best games for the DL overall. Save the comic failure for NR.


What makes a good rankable game?

* games that are well-played within our group, and hence will get good vote numbers
* games which are well-played outside of our group, and hence will attract newbies
* games with well-developed or memorable characters
* games with interesting duellers battle-wise

Feel free to ask any questions about the process here.

And now on to the suggestions that have been made through the voting page. You don't have to stick to this list, but most people do read through it to refresh their memory of unranked games. Also gives you an idea about fan demand.

[superaielman]

Persona 4
Writers: 12/19
Suggestors: 8
Art: Easy to find
Acessability: Easy to find
Vote potential: Average
Current potential: Below average to average
Notes: Huge improvement on the writer's front this time. Has good internal/playership overall and has pretty solid demand.  It's one of the last real PS2 RPGs released and got good reviews overall, so that makes sense.

Wild ARMs 5
Writers: 12/19
Suggestors: 5
Art: Easy to find
Accessability: Easy to find
Vote potential: Average
Current potential: Below average
Notes: The writers are good and it has demand. Nothing really has changed with this title, the interest is eh and it's not as popular as WA4. Though being as popular as WA4 is a tall task.


Wild ARMs: XF
Writers: 9/19
Suggestors: 3
Art: Easy to find
Accessability: Easy to find
Vote potential: Below average
Current potential: Well below average
Notes: It's hard to judge how well a PSP title will do in the DL, but it's safe to say we'll be waiting a little while longer on this.


Xenosaga 3
Writers: 10/19
Suggestors: 2 (One FW nod for Allen)
Art: Easy to find
Accessability: Unknown, assumed to be easy to find
Vote potential: Below average
Current potential: Below average
Notes: XS3 managed to lose writers; other than that it's still got the same problems.

Barkley: Shut up and jame
Writers: 5/19
Suggestors: 2
Art: Unknown
Accessability: Easy to find
Vote potential: Well below average
Current potential: Extremely low
Notes: No.

Other suggested ideas:

Kartia: 1
SO1: 1
FF12 FW: Larsa: 1
FE10: 1
Etrian Odyssey: 1
Xenogears FW: Hammer: 1
PM2: 1
Sonic: 1
Suikoden Tierkreis: 1
FFMQ: 1
Pokemon DPP: 1
Riviera: 1
Live a live: 1
Chaos Wars: 1
Cross Edge: 1
Aedis Eclipse: Generation of Chaos: 1

[superaielman]

Persona and Wild ARMs 5.

P4 I consider to be the strongest idea here by a ways for a lot of reasons. Good on all fronts, should end up stronger than P3 (It already is on paper), and benefits from having a fairly interesting cast.

WA5 I suggested last time.  Nothing's really changed, so it works. Probably will abstain on it second stage and let others argue on it. XF needs more internal, as do SO1/DQ5. Soul Nomad is in theory ready, but I have strong reservations about ranking that game.

Nothing else is strong enough to be worth considering.

[OblivionKnight]

Persona 4 and Wild ARMs 5.  Probably the best options now, for all that WA5 is a bit boring.

Also, Aiel, Sonic got some nods, and it's not there!  Add!

[superaielman]

Sonic got one nod, it's in others.

Topic unlocked, forgot to do that earlier.

[Dhyerwolf]

P4 and WA 5.

[Sierra]

P4 and WA 5.

Easy.

[AndrewRogue]

Kingdom Hearts/KH FW- Sora: Popular game with a large following. Has a number of fans in the DL. Interpretation issues and ways to take things do exist, but I think they are generally overstated to some degree. Then again, I have some of the loosest interpretations in the DL proper, so maybe I'm just underestimating the problems that actually exist. Still, the base game is popular, has potential write-up bait, it spawned a popular sequel... Yes, arguments and problems exist around the game on the whole, but we've had this before (Fire Emblem jumps to mind) and can be worked around. It really continues to seem like an odd, missing member of the DL.

Diablo 2/Diablo 2 FW- Diablo: PC game hype. Seriously though, a fairly classic and archtypal RPG. Certainly seems to have players in the DL itself and undoubtedly has players outside of it. Probably a better bet than BG was, unfortunately. Concerns about a BNet rush exist from what I recall, but I kind of wonder how realistic that actually is. Interpretation issues exist, but I really don't find them to be any more insurmountable than some other games in the DL.

[superaielman]

BNet rush managed to completely fuck up a Gamefaqs contest where tens of thousands of people voted.  Even if we got a 100th of that kind of rush, it'd be far more voters than the RPGP ever had, let alone us.  Anything related to Blizzard is a fantastically bad idea.

We also have next to no internal crossing on anything PC game related.

[AndrewRogue]

GFAQs is also a site that is significantly, significantly more well known to begin with. I'm not discounting the possibility, but I am curious as to how realistic the concept of eating a BNet rush actually is. I suppose it could happen and that would obviously be a bad thing, but I develop an earnest curiosity on, realistically, if it would happen (as opposed to could).

On the internal, I'm kind of curious what the actual numbers are here. Either way, it is an unfortunate circumstance that the PC RPG internal remains so bad. So, might as well push concepts where I can to put awareness up. *shrugs*

Besides, it was either this, Symphony of the Night or nothing for a suggestion. ^_~

[superaielman]

I am seriously not going to get into an argument about why a Bnet rush would be bad when we  average 65-80 votes a week in a contest where popularity shouldn't in theory matter. Even a tiny fraction of what SC got would pretty well bonk the site for good.

Diablo? Probably around 6-8 offhand? It's the same thing as every PC game. There isn't enough internal playership for anything PC related to survive on site. BG may have worked with good internal, but it never had that in spite of nonstop kicking/abuse/whipping. The cross over with console games isn't there, especially now that most of the rankable PC games are several years old.

Edit: Knock yourself out with SotN hype.

[Cmdr_King]

Wild ARMs 5- I'd have supported it last time, but ran out of slots and it's less interesting in the DL sense than MK/MMXCM.

Suikoden III FWs (Little Viki and Ruby)- I'm a bit iffy on other truly new games, so feels like a good time for this bit of bookkeeping (I mean, rank 60+ characters and leave out 2 is a bit odd.  'sides, BUG and VIKI.)

Persona 4 is the other worthwhile idea here and... well.  Honestly, for the sake of simplicity, I'd rather wait another couple months and just rank the entire game together rather than neccessitating ranking bosses later down the line, y'know?

[DjinnAndTonic]

Wild Arms XF - Probably the most well-played (and well-liked among those who've played it here) of the handheld options (only Gen 4 seems to rival it?). Strong cast. Interesting duellers. Adorable puppy hype. And if we were ever going to rank more generics, I'd want these guys. Just a really interesting set as a whole to me. Not a large cast to rank, either.
Alright, I'll bite. Let the Hugo Hewitt Hype Train begin!~ >.>;;
FW Hugo Hewitt (WA4) - Most memorable member of Brionac to me. Had the coolest power and coolest fight scene, even when he was being owned by Raquel. Apart from memorability in WA4 plot, also one of the more interesting spoiler bosses.

FW Prier (LP:T) - Following the 'bookkeeping' idea, Prier seems like a good FW candidate. Her skillset isn't particularly vast, but as the sole representative of her battle system, she could be interesting. Also, if she goes up against any non-humanoid opponents, she can Purify them to join her team! Only takes four turns! (Don't take this seriously) On a serious note, she's a decent Middle and good writeup bait from a fairly well-known game that has the requisite number of writers iirc. No interp difficulties, and she has a lot of equipment options.

There's still a bunch of other FWs I'd like to see - some SaGa ones (Nusakan, LUTE!, RIKI!), WA4 (Hugo!), the rest of S3 (why not?), FE9 (Ellincia, dammit), along with a few NR FWs (Sora, Jack Russell, SMT3 Dante, PB Ash, SN Revya, AT Reyvateil pair, FF12 temps/bosses)

Personally, I wouldn't be opposed to seeing some SoloRPG mains get in as FWs (VS Ashley, SotN Alucard, PE Aya, CCFF7 Zack, Ys Adol), but that doesn't seem to be a popular idea ...

The only full games left I'd like to see ranked from PS2 are P4, WA5, FF12, Soul Nomad, Ar Tonelico, Growlanser 5, Rogue Galaxy, and Dark Cloud.  And even those it seems better to FW.

360, PS3, and Wii games don't seem quite ready yet, though at least they're starting to seem viable. ToV, Dis3, FE10, Blue Dragon, SO4, Valkyria are front runners there, probably in that order?

I hope VPDS will finally push us into ranking DS games when that gets some playership.
</rant>
-Djinn

[Taishyr]

I... honestly haven't decided except that everything I've heard of WA5 makes the PCs sound really unappealing for ranking, but I may just be biased by what I hear discussed commonly.. So I guess I'll throw in my two cents later. I'd support FFMQ instead of it, and I suppose I kinda agree with CK on stalling P4 just a bit longer until ranking at least the... two? obvious bosses (Kunino/Evil Kenji) is viable. (I also gutcheck they're the least headachey on respectsplit, buuuuuuuut).

So yeah, not biting on P4/WA5 here, at least not yet.

[Lance]

Wild Arms V
FW: Ilyana (FE9)

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

I'll just pick Wild Arms 5 because I'm sick of seeing it getting into ranking three billion seasons straight and not getting in. Even if it's full of uninteresting PCs, just get it done with, it has enough of a following.

For P4, I honestly think it can wait until the next ranking season with all the PCs -and- bosses. Don't much feel the love for a SH2-style rank, even if I want to see the game ranked. If it has to wait in parts regardless, may as well just leave it be for now.

EDIT: I -do- need a second pick. So, I'll burp Cmdr and go Ruby/Little Viki for registry of my vote's sake, and the argument sorta makes sense, even if I wouldn't personally bother. Honestly, I wish I could just pick only one, because the other ideas make my head explode.

[Ultradude]

Wild ARMs 5 really needs to just get in. Bunch of boring PCs and similar bosses hasn't hindered other games before too much. And hey, I see more than half the cast as having Mediums, and I'm still trying to justify something for Dean and Rebecca. Even if I convince no one else here about it.

I'm still a little shy on P4 for reasons already stated somewhere, and I'd probably push XS3 forward solely for wanting to see the last in a trilogy ranked (and hilarious Jin formsplit lulz), only... it's not getting a single vote yet.

So, FW Sora. Incredibly strong vote potential, interp issues feel generally inflated.

On a side note, what are the internal and general playerships like for the FE6 translation patch? I know it was well-played enough to be a top GameFAQs GBA board for awhile, but that's not saying much given that the DS was already out. Also, probably terrible internal >_>

[Monkeyfinger]

FW Giffca
FW Varin

This round really sucks.

[Cmdr_King]

FE6?  It has a not-insignificant playership here actually, due to some overt FE fans, but never caught enough attention to get serious consideration either.  I'd say probably 6/20 on the writers front, and a handful of non-writer players, though obviously I'm just guessing here rather than speaking as somehow who tracks these things fully.

[074]

FW Varin Omega(DDS) -- DDS boss who is both relatively significant in-game and a solid dueller.  How'd he get passed up, anyway?

FW Hugo Hewitt(WA4) -- Brionac hype, a fun spoiler, and more interesting than the collective cast of WA5.

In other news, *whips Djinn*  If you join in on the Hugo nom train, there might be a chance of getting him in!

[James_xeno]

Xenosaga 3 and Wild ARMs 5.

[dude789]

Persona 4 and Wild Arms 5

[Yoshiken]

Pokemon DPPt
Mother 3

Edited to add Mother 3, 'cause it's made of awesome and seems popular judging from the Futurama tourney thing~

[IhatethisCPU]

P4, FW: WA4: Balgaine. I like his look, what can I say? >_>'


 

[superaielman]

FW Varin Omega(DDS) -- DDS boss who is both relatively significant in-game and a solid dueller.  How'd he get passed up, anyway?

By being a marginal but passable idea from not the strongest DL game in the world? Yoshiken: You can nom Mother 3 here if you want. Varin would be ranked as plain DDS, same as Heat.

For P4, I honestly think it can wait until the next ranking season with all the PCs -and- bosses. Don't much feel the love for a SH2-style rank, even if I want to see the game ranked. If it has to wait in parts regardless, may as well just leave it be for now.

Yes, let's ignore a strong rank because some people want to avoid ranking a few spoiler bosses, this is the way. There's  nothing wrong with waiting (Or arguing to rank the bosses now if people are into that). It's stronger than most of the games we've ranked of late, just due to the mix of good playership and high exposure.