We're kicking off the Negative World March Madness: Third Party Edition, where our favorite non-Nintendo games go head to head and only one may prevail. The matchups are as follows:

(1) Monster Hunter Tri vs. (16) Little King's Story
(8) Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow vs. (9) BIT.TRIP.RUNNER
(4) Harvest Moon 64 vs. (13) Cave Story
(5) Shantae: Risky's Revenge vs. (12) Beyond Good & Evil

(2) Resident Evil 4 vs. (15) Lost Winds: Winter of the Melodias
(7) Contra vs. (10) Sonic the Hedgehog 2
(3) Secret of Mana vs. (14) The World Ends With You
(6) Phoenix Wright: Trials and Tribulations vs. (11) Mega Man X2

Vote for the game that you think should win the matchup. Please vote on every matchup. Not having played a game does not disqualify you from voting. If a game has appeared on multiple platforms, use your discretion in choosing which version to consider. Please cast your votes in the following format, bolding the game that you choose to advance:

(1) Game 1 vs. (8) Game 8
(4) Game 4 vs. (5) Game 5

Polls are open until Sunday, March 22nd, 2015 at 11:59 PM EST. Enjoy!

Tournament Link

URL to share (right click and copy)

(1) Monster Hunter Tri vs. (16) Little King's Story
(8) Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow vs. (9) BIT.TRIP.RUNNER
(4) Harvest Moon 64 vs. (13) Cave Story
(5) Shantae: Risky's Revenge vs. (12) Beyond Good & Evil

(2) Resident Evil 4 vs. (15) Lost Winds: Winter of the Melodias
(7) Contra vs. (10) Sonic the Hedgehog 2
(3) Secret of Mana vs. (14) The World Ends With You
(6) Phoenix Wright: Trials and Tribulations vs. (11) Mega Man X2

a) My love for Pikmin 3 has spilled over to a love for Little King's Story, even though I've never played it. As far as I know, there's no hunting for mushrooms in Little King's Story.
b) I can't vote for every Castlevania game, so I'm throwing another bone to the Bit Trip guys.
c) I like platformers
d) I like Zelda knockoffs, too

e) RE4 is one of my favorite games ever.
f) Tough draw for Contra, I feel. I have affection for both, but Sonic 2 is probably my favorite in the series. Nostalgia vs. Nostalgia.
g) The battle of shit that's too long to bother with. I pick the newer one, since it's newer. New things are cool.
h) I was hard on Phoenix Wright last round. Solidarity for my fellow Wright.

Posted by

kriswright

on: 03/21/15, 01:14

Edited:

03/21/15, 01:15

@TheOldManFromZelda

"If a game has appeared on multiple platforms, use your discretion in choosing which version to consider." Resident Evil 4 is the same way, lots of people prefer the Wii version. Just vote as you wish.

@chrisbg99

"Please vote on every matchup. Not having played a game does not disqualify you from voting."

Posted by

Jargon

on: 03/21/15, 01:44

kriswright said:

As far as I know, there's no hunting for mushrooms in Little King's Story.

There is, but the mushrooms hunt you back...

Posted by

TriforceBun

on: 03/21/15, 02:20

(1) Monster Hunter Tri vs. (16) Little King's Story
(8) Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow vs. (9) BIT.TRIP.RUNNER
(4) Harvest Moon 64 vs. (13) Cave Story
(5) Shantae: Risky's Revenge vs. (12) Beyond Good & Evil

(2) Resident Evil 4 vs. (15) Lost Winds: Winter of the Melodias
(7) Contra vs. (10) Sonic the Hedgehog 2
(3) Secret of Mana vs. (14) The World Ends With You
(6) Phoenix Wright: Trials and Tribulations vs. (11) Mega Man X2

- I haven't played either Monster Hunter Tri or LKS. Basically a coin flip.
- Castlevania easily.
- Haven't played HM64 and only a tiny bit of Cave Story. Another coin flip.
- Shantae vs. BG&E is a hard choice. A lot more stuff stands out about BG&E than Shantae when I think about them.

- The Lost Winds games were pretty cool, but c'mon. It's RE4.
- Sonic 2 is the one Sonic game I really got into, but Contra is a much better game.
- Coin flip.
- I don't like Phoneix Wright and I'm a big fan of the first MMX. So MMX2 I guess.

Posted by

gojira

on: 03/21/15, 06:15

(1) Monster Hunter Tri vs. (16) Little King's Story
(8) Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow vs. (9) BIT.TRIP.RUNNER
(4) Harvest Moon 64 vs. (13) Cave Story
(5) Shantae: Risky's Revenge vs. (12) Beyond Good & Evil

(2) Resident Evil 4 vs. (15) Lost Winds: Winter of the Melodias
(7) Contra vs. (10) Sonic the Hedgehog 2
(3) Secret of Mana vs. (14) The World Ends With You
(6) Phoenix Wright: Trials and Tribulations vs. (11) Mega Man X2

a) Three-hundred hours of good times can't be wrong!
b) Aria's better, but Dawn is still awesome.
c) Never played Harvest Moon. But I loved the demo of Cave Story!
d) Risky's Revenge, by a factor of... infinity. If BG & E wins this, then Nietzsche was right.

e) Poor Lost Winds...
f) Contra rules. Sonic drools.
g) My fifteen minutes of experience with The World Ends With You trumps my zero minutes of experience with Secret of Mana.
h) Hmm, reading text vs. kicking ass...

Posted by

Anand

on: 03/21/15, 06:24

Edited:

03/22/15, 02:54

@Anand

Might want to actually vote for Contra then

Posted by

Jargon

on: 03/21/15, 08:47

@Anand

You've never played Secret of Mana? Just when I thought you couldn't disappoint me more than you already have.

First Banh Mi, then Asian T-Shirt ladies, and now fast forward to this. What's next -- WHAT'S NEXT?!

Posted by

Mr_Mustache

on: 03/21/15, 09:39

@Anand

Talking about this Nietzsche quote?

"You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist."

Posted by

gojira

on: 03/21/15, 16:14

(1) Monster Hunter Tri vs. (16) Little King's Story
(8) Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow vs. (9) BIT.TRIP.RUNNER
(4) Harvest Moon 64 vs. (13) Cave Story
(5) Shantae: Risky's Revenge vs. (12) Beyond Good & Evil

(2) Resident Evil 4 vs. (15) Lost Winds: Winter of the Melodias
(7) Contra vs. (10) Sonic the Hedgehog 2
(3) Secret of Mana vs. (14) The World Ends With You
(6) Phoenix Wright: Trials and Tribulations vs. (11) Mega Man X2

I don't know that I should've voted on this bracket. I haven't even heard of some of these games.

Posted by

Beardednerd

on: 03/21/15, 20:50

@Jargon
Fixed!

@gojira
No, this one:

“God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?”

@Mr_Mustache
I don't like playing roles in games! I like playing as me. A rebel.

Without a cause.

Posted by

Anand

on: 03/22/15, 02:56

(1) Monster Hunter Tri vs. (16) Little King's Story
(8) Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow vs. (9) BIT.TRIP.RUNNER
(4) Harvest Moon 64 vs. (13) Cave Story
(5) Shantae: Risky's Revenge vs. (12) Beyond Good & Evil

(2) Resident Evil 4 vs. (15) Lost Winds: Winter of the Melodias
(7) Contra vs. (10) Sonic the Hedgehog 2
(3) Secret of Mana vs. (14) The World Ends With You
(6) Phoenix Wright: Trials and Tribulations vs. (11) Mega Man X2

Posted by

Chocobo_Rider

on: 03/22/15, 17:10

@kriswright You should really try LKS someday. It's not quite as good as Pikmin, but it is still pretty awesome and different enough to justify its existence. Kind of like an Okami to Zelda thing.

Posted by

Zero

on: 03/22/15, 17:45

Voting will close shortly.

Posted by

Jargon

on: 03/23/15, 05:27

As expected, Chrisbg99 not voting on two matchups made me fuck up my tabulation. From now on if you don't vote for a match up, none of your votes are getting counted.

Posted by

Jargon

on: 03/23/15, 12:43