Welcome back to our Best Year in Gaming March Madness bracket competition! Yesterday we finished off the Northwest Conference, and today we’re moving on to Round 2 in the Southwest Conference. Yesterday’s results were our closest to-date, with 1993 barely edging out 2007 and 2019 barely beating 1992. ’92 and ’07 losing are pretty big upsets, and it’s interesting to see a strong year of the early 90s go down to a year in the past decade. But hey, there’d be no excitement if there weren’t some upsets!
Results: 1993 and 2019 win
As we enter the Southwest Conference for round 2, we’re looking at two new entrants in our pair of matchups.
VS.
It’s really difficult to pin down the best year of the 8-bit era, but I believe that it’s 1988, and that’s primarily on the backs of Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario Bros. 2 (US) being released in that same year. There are a number of other very good games in the list – titles like Mega Man 2, Dragon Quest III, and Ninja Gaiden all come to mind, plus the birth of the Madden franchise and Altered Beast. 2011 is back this round after beating 2020 in the first round, and I honestly felt it should have lost that matchup. Still, 2011 offers Uncharted 3, Deus Ex Human Revolution, Limbo, Dead Space 2, and Bastion in its lineup, so it’s not exactly a lightweight.
VS.
1989 represents the height of Nintendo’s power in a lot of ways, even if it wasn’t the year their magnum opus released. Stellar titles were all over the place for the NES while the release of the Gameboy set the company on a path of handheld dominance that continues to this day with the Switch… and all this while Sega and NEC were ramping up releases on their 16-bit platforms. Of course, 1989 has its work cut out for it as 2015 enters the competition, boasting a stellar lineup of both tabletop games – Codenames, Pandemic Legacy, and Age of Sigmar – as well as video games, with titles like Bloodborne, Undertale, Fallout 4, Witcher 3, Mario Maker, Soma, and Cities: Skylines.
If you’re interested in voting on the outcome, head over to our Patreonand join our Discord server to vote. Otherwise, check back tomorrow for the winner and the next matchup in the Southeast Conference.
This article is part of a larger series on the best year in gaming. For more years, click this link. Have any questions or feedback? Drop us a note in the comments below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com.
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