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30 for 50: Celebrating Five Years of Listings

Johnny Unusual

(He/Him)
Any liquid is a beverage is you care not for your life.

Also, I think water is VERY interesting. The way we have made it a utility. The way it is sold bottled. Our world's water crisis and how we are or are not dealing with it. If anything, it might be too grand.
 

JBear

Internet's foremost Bertolli cosplayer
(He/Him)
As someone who frequently cites water as his favourite drink and seems to be in a decided minority, I think it'd be interesting to see on a list, yes.

In any case, I adored the snack food top 50. I have almost 100 posts in that thread (including two different photo sets), and it's my favourite top 50 to go back and re-read besides my own. I recommend it! Such a fun topic for a list, and where I first firmly decided that I would primarily vote for top 50 topics as far from video games as possible, because those topics are way more interesting.
 

Mogri

Round and round I go
(he)
Staff member
Moderator
Water is also my beverage of choice. I don't tend to drink sodas.
 
#9: Stand Tall, and Shake the Son of a Submariner! Talking Time’sTop 50 JRPGs
Ran from May 9th, 2016 to June 21st, 2016
Host: Double Dracula
Top Animu: Chrono Trigger

This was the first one I submitted a list for, and it was far and away the biggest contest we've ever had. Over 60 lists, 85 pages, and the #1 got over 1,000 points, and that's using the old 1-25 point system over the now traditional 11-35 system. It took place when active membership was still pretty high, and TT does like its Jerpegs. It was tough figuring out which one to feature, but in the end, this one just felt right.

Selected (by me) Entry:

STxpeU2.gif



#3 - EarthBound

Ape & HAL Laboratory . SNES . August 27, 1994


522 points . 33 votes . Highest rank: #1 (Cyrael, FelixSH, Isrieri, Loki, Octopus Prime, Patrick, TK Flash, Raven)

TK: Earthbound was divisive way before it was legendary. Even by '96, about half of the gamers you’d ask would say they loved it to death, and the other half would call it cartoony, boring, cookie-cutter garbage that is wacky for the sake of being wacky. There’s probably been more said about this game in the last twenty years than anything else out there.

Both points of view are valid. It is a shallow Dragon Quest clone and its 90s America twist seems so obvious in hindsight. The graphics are big, bright, and colorful, like something you’d see in a children’s picture book, or maybe a Peanuts comic. The playable cast is almost entirely silent which makes them that much easier to write off and too similar to casts of countless NES RPGs.

At the same time, Earthbound grows deeper the more you observe it. Consider the Mani Mani Statue. Many first-time (or even returning players) overlook its significance and write it off as a sub-plot trinket. Look a little closer at who is using it and on whom and a deeper narrative begins to emerge. With a bit of imagination, you can even wring complexity from minor gag characters. The few lines between Jeff and his father speak volumes. Can you while away an evening contemplating the self-actualization tale in dungeon otaku Brick Road and drawing parallels to the playable cast? Sure. Not that I recommend doing that. You can draw many conclusions that probably aren’t exactly what the creators of Earthbound intended, but that isn’t because it is misleading. It’s a case of masterful extraction. Things have been left out of the game so that the remaining elements add up to more than their sum.

Or maybe you look at it and they don’t add up, in which case you probably didn’t vote for this game. Or maybe you found more meaning in its slightly more straightforward, long-delayed sequel [Double Dracunote: Hi!]. Like I said, it’s divisive. I, for one, am an EarthBound lover for life, no matter how much ill-will and spite Nintendo seems determined to pour on people like me. But that’s another topic for a different day.
 

WildcatJF

Let's Pock (Art @szk_tencho)
(he / his / him)
Hey the first one I took a part on! This was a topic near and dear so I had to, haha. Chrono Trigger was #1 then as it remains now.
 

JBear

Internet's foremost Bertolli cosplayer
(He/Him)
That was the thread that finally gave me the push to track down a repro cart and play through Mother 3.

And the thread where Wildcat first promised me that he was going to play through Suikoden 3. (IIRC, I wrote a big love letter to S3 to kick off at #50.)

*taps watch*

Mostly though, I just remember it as the cleverest thread tag I ever came up with; I've been chasing that high ever since. (Cloud Computing)
 

Lokii

(He/Him)
Staff member
Moderator

The idea with the headers in this list was that the game's character had received a little reward. Starting in the mid-teens they were awarded a congratulatory pint or other adult drink (such as Ness here with the champagne flute), some featured runner-ups got pity blunts, and the top 5 received progressively bigger crowns culminating with

1598755584539.png
 

WildcatJF

Let's Pock (Art @szk_tencho)
(he / his / him)
That was the thread that finally gave me the push to track down a repro cart and play through Mother 3.

And the thread where Wildcat first promised me that he was going to play through Suikoden 3. (IIRC, I wrote a big love letter to S3 to kick off at #50.)

*taps watch*

Mostly though, I just remember it as the cleverest thread tag I ever came up with; I've been chasing that high ever since. (Cloud Computing)

It's in the top 3 RPGs I plan to play next, alongside Dragon Quest XI and Phantasy Star. Given Eiyuden just wrapped up and I'm super stoked on it I'd give it a super high likelihood it'll be sooner than later ;)
 
That was the thread that finally gave me the push to track down a repro cart and play through Mother 3.

I can say with confidence that this and the Suiko 3 love letter happened in a different thread. I know because I've reread that thread five or six times.

Yes, some of us go back and read our lists again. I know JBear does, and I think Drac and Mogri have, too.
 
Last edited:

Falselogic

Lapsed Threadcromancer
(they/them)
I vaguely remember a conversation about repro carts w/ jbear about this. I wonder if it was the same thread? I know I now have a repro cart of Mother 1 & 2 and one for Mother 3...
 
#10: Talking Dogs and Mystery Solving Teens: Here are Talking Time’s 50 Favorite Cartoons!
Ran from July 10th, 2016 to August 24th, 2016
Host: Octopus Prime
Top Toon: Batman: The Animated Series (surprisingly not The Simpsons)

Selected (by me) Entry:

latest

37. Dexters Labratory (91 Points)
Excellent! My sneaky ways have put me in the lead! I'd give myself a pat on the back, but I'm driving, so I'll have to do it later!
1996-2003
78 episodes (221 segments)
Mystery Solving Teens: Yep
Talking Animals: Well, Dynomutt showed up once. Otherwise the animals make animal sounds.


Dexters Lab was one of the corner stones of the early years of Cartoon Networks existence and kept the lights on at Gennedy Tartakovskys house for several years, and for that, I will be forever grateful.

The show was split into multiple segments focusing on different characters, but the ones that the show were named after involved scientific wunderkind Dexter in his lab, either being pestered by his sister, Dee-Dee, trying to keep his lab secret from everyone else, trying to thwart his mad scientist rival Mandark, or just generally off doing whatever weird stuff you might reasonably expect to happen since this is one of those shows where "science" pretty much means "magic".

Other segments included The Justice Friends (Earths Greatest Superheroes in a cheesy 70s-style sitcom setting), and Dial M for Monkey, in which Dexters pet lab-monkey is secretly a superhero existing as a living pastiche of Silver Age Marvel comics.

Gennedy Tartakovsky only intended the show to last the two seasons and gave it a pretty definitive finale, but the show managed to remain popular so Cartoon Network handed the reins over to Seth Macfarlane and Butch Hartman for the rest of the run, Gennedy coming back to direct the FOR REALZ finale with the TV-movie Ego Trip.
 

WildcatJF

Let's Pock (Art @szk_tencho)
(he / his / him)
I would guess I'd have picked either Cowboy Bebop or FLCL as my #1 if it was episodic back then. Still a tossup for me tbh.
 
Homestar Runner was my #1. I and several others twisted the rules into pretzels to get it on the list. This is the only contest I've submitted a list to that I don't still have my list saved. I must have accidentally deleted it at some point. It mostly wasn't very good though, IIRC.
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
Homestar Runner was my #1. I and several others twisted the rules into pretzels to get it on the list. This is the only contest I've submitted a list to that I don't still have my list saved. I must have accidentally deleted it at some point. It mostly wasn't very good though, IIRC.

IIRC I worded the rules insuch a way as to indicate to everyone that Homestar Runner was a valid choice
 

JBear

Internet's foremost Bertolli cosplayer
(He/Him)
Robot list was covered last week, but I just found this while digging through old TT 2.0 stuff and wanted to share:

robot_calendar.png
 

Falselogic

Lapsed Threadcromancer
(they/them)
I really did enjoy the ice cream on the 30th. Didn't make up for the end of civilization though...
 

Kirin

Summon for hire
(he/him)
Let's see, my top snack was chocolate-covered raspberries, my top JRPG was FFXII, and my top cartoon was Last Airbender. Interesting! I don't think any of those would stay in #1 if I re-wrote those lists today, but they are all still very good.
 

JBear

Internet's foremost Bertolli cosplayer
(He/Him)
My #1 was, is, and ever shall be Nutchos, my snacking white whale. I wake up every morning and frown slightly as I realize that they no longer exist in this world and I'll never taste them again.
 

Torzelbaum

????? LV 13 HP 292/ 292
(he, him, his)
My #1 was, is, and ever shall be Nutchos, my snacking white whale. I wake up every morning and frown slightly as I realize that they no longer exist in this world and I'll never taste them again.
I feel the same way about Planter's Cheez Balls

...

Yes, they certainly no longer exist and there was never an attempt at a modern re-introduction that doesn't taste anything like they are supposed to at all.
 
#11: Who is History’s Greatest Fictional Monster? Talking Time’s Top 52 Villains
Ran from September 19th, 2016 to October 21st, 2016
Host: Adrenaline
Top Meanie-Pants: The Joker

Selected Entry:


2. Darth Vader
STAR WARS franchise (Movies, pretty much all forms of media)
11 votes, 182 points. Top vote: 1st (Adrenaline, Karzac, Masterthes)

Forget the prequels and the expanded universe. You can even forget Return of the Jedi if you want to. Darth Vader in the first two Star Wars movies is the best movie villain of all time. The way he looks and sounds is perfect. It could be goofy as hell, with the breathing and the panel of lights and switches on his chest. But they establish him as a threat in his very first scene, and from then on he is relentless in his pursuit of the rebels' destruction. He can beat them in a dog fight or a sword fight, he can suffocate people who displease him even if they're not in the same room, and he's smart enough to set several successful traps for the good guys, who only escape because good guys win in these movies. And personally, I love his journey to redemption in Return.

Karzac sez: "I don't know if Darth Vader is the scariest villain on this list. I'd probably take him in a fight over lots of others - he certainly goes down fairly easily in the end. But Vader has style. He's got the look, with the black mask and black cape and glowing red laser sword. He's got the sound, the menacing rasp of his voice through his mask and the ominous horns of the Imperial March that herald his arrival. And he's got the gravitas provided by James Earl Jones and one of the most famous lines in cinema. Darth Vader is simply the most memorable, most iconic villain of the 20th century."
 

WildcatJF

Let's Pock (Art @szk_tencho)
(he / his / him)
God who did I pick as my #1........Ganondorf, probably? (yes)

My number two was Shishio from Rurouni Kenshin, and can I put Watsuki himself in instead? Still pissed at his pedophilia.
 
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