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[timetokill]

NA here. Once again, thanks for doing an awesome giveaway max. I'm BIG into scifi and The Swapper looks AMAZING so I really hope I win.


I wanted to quickly mention Majora's Mask.

One of the things I loved so much about Majora's Mask was how they reused a lot of the characters in Ocarina of Time, especially the support or bit characters, and made them into new characters. It actually enhanced the feeling of strangeness that the game had, coming from Ocarina of Time, making things feel familiar but oddly different. That's a difficult feeling to convey in a game!

I actually showed the Majora's Mask 3DS trailer to my sister last night for the first time. She never played Majora's Mask, and actually never completed Ocarina of Time -- she repeatedly would play the game until the Water Temple and then restart the game. Nevertheless she loved OOT.

So when I showed her MM, I was surprised at how quickly she recognized some of the characters. "Hey, isn't that the Windmill guy?"

Majora's Mask, better than any game I can think of, does the "hey, isn't that _____" moment. The gameplay loop of experiencing things over and over again furthers that point, playing with your sense of familiarity and oddity.

 

[Pro from Dover]

Deadly Premonition. I don't want to post spoilery videos/summaries/etc. but I'll just say that the relationship between Francis York Morgan and Zach is the smartest and most surprising in all of gaming. I have never been blown away by a game's narrative more than the thirteen hour run I put in to finish this game. GOAT

Need to second this for sure.

My entry (for a NA version) would be High Moon's Deadpool.

Spoiler

Nevermind the clones of Mr. Sinister

I'm talking about the clones of Gambit. Deadpool is attacked by waves of these guys all screaming "Mon'Amie Mon'Amie" like a nut-punched squirrel. What makes them stand out to me is that these clones feel more like how Deadpool sees Gambit in the first place and they represent that mockery (he doesn't like him.) Since Deadpool is writing the game, of course that is what Gambit would be.
Oh yeah, not only does Deadpool star in Deadpool, he also wrote it.
Deadpool also has more than one personality.
And here is Deadpool showing us two fingers:

 

[Converse]

Oh, it's my pleasure--how could I forget someone with a Doom Patrol avatar? I mean, not quite as memorable as a Batman R.I.P., All-Star Supes or Invisibles avatar, but it'll do

Glad to hear things are going well for you! I do a lot of these giveaways so be sure to keep an eye out for them!

Ha, nice picks. Something about the pastel-neons and mixture of kitsch and gravity in lots of the 1980s DC comics has always appealed to me. But, I digress -- will keep an eye out for future threads, always enjoy reading the memories.

 

[maxcriden]

Ha, nice picks. Something about the pastel-neons and mixture of kitsch and gravity in lots of the 1980s DC comics has always appealed to me. But, I digress -- will keep an eye out for future threads, always enjoy reading the memories.

Oh, I can totally appreciate that. And thanks, it's a lot of fun doing them.

 

[weekev]

I won last time so i dont mind someone else getting it this time but couldnt resist my favourite bit of recent lore. All Mario games are based on Mario clones, every time you get a 1-up it creates a clone of Mario and every death is a perma death, as shown by this trophy from Smash...

EU

 

[deadflower81]

First game that comes to my mind when I think about clones/copies is...Lemmings!

Great game, and probably the first puzzle game i've ever played on my PC!

Here the first level of this great gem!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoEQu11XJwE

Region: EU

 

[maxcriden]

I won last time so i dont mind someone else getting it this time but couldnt resist my favourite bit of recent lore. All Mario games are based on Mario clones, every time you get a 1-up it creates a clone of Mario and every death is a perma death, as shown by this trophy from Smash...

EU

I think there's an NA version of the trophy with slightly different text, too. I thought that was very clever and hilarious.

 

[Piscus]

I really wanted to write about....

The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds. If for no other reason than this song. Give it a minute. You'll be hooked for all ten hours.
Anyway, A Link Between Worlds has a strong sense of duality. Lorule is a broken mirror world of Hyrule, filled with its own versions of Hyrule's characters (including

Spoiler

Link and Zelda

). The whole ending of the game is

Spoiler

using Hyrule's Triforce to restore Lorule's Triforce

. Doesn't get any more dual than that! I loved this game to death once I started playing it. I beat it in its entirety on my third day (with an average of 8 hours gameplay per day, according to my play log, haha). I truly hope we see more of Ravio and Hilda again someday!

However, since ALBW has already been mentioned, I'd like to bring up another lost Zelda gem:

This game SCREAMS clones/copies/duplicates. When Link grabs the Four Sword, he is split into four separate versions of himself! You'd think that having three copies of yourself with you would come in handy, especially since you are all trying to save Princess Zelda. However, anyone who plays this game will quickly learn...

...this game ruins friendships.
Four players team up. In order to advance, you have to work together. But in order to actually win, you have to compete against each other. Chaos ensues as characters race to get the most force gems, stabbing each other in the back when necessary. Secondary weapons, heart pieces, keys - take whatever you must to give you an advantage over your "friends".

As if that wasn't enough, the game was only playable in multiplayer by using Game Boy Advance systems as controllers (connected via Gamecube-GBA connection cables), so each player had their own private mini-screen. Whenever a player would enter a house or a cave, they would disappear from the TV and appear on their GBA screen, away from the eyes of other players. If you were sneaky enough, you could slip away and steal more than your fair share of the chests or items before other players could get to you!

Seriously, this game ruins friendships. You can watch some dudes play here.

Spoiler

They seem to keep it cordial, but they are still in the beginning.... you may find them obnoxious.

Turns out it's hard to find a good image showcasing how the two screens work, but this might help...:

I never did get to beat the game. Despite owning four cables (two of which I modded myself to work with Micros) and having three GBAs, the game is best enjoyed with four Link clones, and getting three people to play the game with me long enough to make any actual progress has always been a struggle. I think the game was ahead of its time, really. And not only being on the Gamecube, but also making players have extra cables and systems in order to play it probably put this game in it's grave before it ever had a chance to blossom. Maybe someday we will get a Wii U version, where players can "team up" online or use their 3DS systems as controllers locally. I can dream....

Here's the map screen music, a personal fave. I really like this song (especially at 0:33) and this song, too (dat rain!).

End with this song. I told you, you can't resist!

I'm in NA. maxcriden is my hero!

 

[Killer Yakuza B]

There's been several entries for The Legend of Zelda series already and I know it's the obvious answer, but while reading Max's opening post and the contest's rules no other games came to mind as fast and I don't think I've played any other series of games more fitting to the topic of duality and dualism, both as metaphysical or philosophical duality or as the physical separation of body and soul, with clones, copies, duplicates, spiritual possessions, doppelgängers or twins appearing in one way or another throughout the series, often more than one in the same game.

My first Zelda game was A Link to the Past and it's one with a very obvious theme of duality. A doppelgänger is someone's double, often appearing as a metaphysical apparition and a bringer of bad luck, but in ALttP the whole world has a doppelgänger in the form of the Dark World, and everyone in it is in turn a doppelgänger of its Light World counterpart. Doppelgängers are usually portrayed as dangerous; seeing your own double or that of your family or friends is considered a bad omen in various mythologies and folklore. Link's own doppelgänger appeared as an enemy for the first time in the second Zelda game and has appeared again several times throughout the series. In ALttP, Link's Dark World double appears as a pink bunny* in another example of dualism as a philosophy of the mind with a clear separation of body and soul as two distinct entities. This is another common theme in the Zelda series, where ghosts and spirits appear often, and spiritual possession is a regular thing. Most of Majora's Mask revolve around these themes.

Doubles are also very common in Zelda. It's common practice in the series to show a game's secondary characters, sometimes with slight variations, in a different game set on a different world in a different time. One of the first examples of this, if not the first, was in Majora's Mask where Termina worked as a double or parallel world to Ocarina of Time's Hyrule. Several of Ocarina's characters' doubles appear in Majora, and again in Minish Cap and so again in another game. Sometimes it's not the same character exactly but someone who shares a trait or a similar name or role in the story. As far as clones go, in Four Swords Adventures and related games, Link is multiplied by four and the whole game, from story to gameplay revolves around these four identical copies. More recently, in one of the best examples of duality in the Zelda series, A Link Between Worlds features Hyrule's "doppelgänger world" in Lorule, complete with doubles of several characters that include Link and Zelda themselves.

I'm not one to give a rat's ass about the Zelda timeline or the continuity of the storyline or any of that. But all of these themes and the series distinct, characteristic and deep world building is definitely one of it's strongest attractions. Back then, games usually came with a small, fold-out catalog on top of the instructions booklet. I used to love and collect these, they were my source of videogame information most of the time since gaming magazines were (are!) so scarce around here. One of these catalogs had a small picture of the whole overworld from the first Zelda game and that was my first contact with the series. I was mesmerized by that thing, must have stared at it for hours and hours without being sure what I was actually looking at or even if it was a sidescroller or not. Later, my brother somehow got his hands on a small Toys R Us holiday catalog that had a lot of games, one of which was A Link to the Past. It was only the cover, but now I knew the game existed. Someone, I have no idea who anymore, lent us the game when I was around eight or nine years old and I was in total bliss. I clearly remember walking back from school two days later, planning how to beat one of the first dungeons on my way home, only to find that my brother had to give the game back. Life was hard for little gamers in Cuba, specially ones who didn't own Zelda. Some time later, during summer vacation at my grandparent's house, I was playing with a couple of friends and my cousin when one of my cousin's friends, who didn't have a SNES, came over to play a game someone had lent him. One look at that beautiful cartridge and my cousin and friends had to play alone for the rest of the summer (this got me into a big fight with my cousin, who was always more into the real world than I was).

This is the Zelda cartridge that would eventually become mine and the one that is right next to me, inside a drawer on the same desk I'm sitting at right now. Apparently my cousin's friend's friend didn't care much for it since he took Home Alone 2 as a permanent, irrevocable trade in what has to be the deal the century. Home Alone 2, for those who don't know, is probably the single worst game in the SNES's catalog and my go to game when talking about bad games. In contrast, A Link to the Past is still my favorite game, probably the one I've played the most in my life, and one of the things that I talk about when I talk about happiness.

ALttP Screenshots:

ALttP Music Samples: Title / Majestic Castle / Dark World / The Silly Pink Rabbit!

* Reading a recent thread here on GAF, seeing so many people say that Link was “too happy” in Mario Kart 8 made me smile to myself. As if Link was some sort of medieval badass when we all know that Link, actually, is a pink bunny.

 

[The Spoony Hou]

This still on? Well, I just thought of my entry: Terranigma, for SNES (only in Europe)!

NA here.

As the game starts, you're in a village in the underground living happily. But, out of curiosity, you open pandora's box (always a bad idea), everyone gets turned to stone, and you get ordered to break the seal on the continents on the surface to fix the situation. After that, you go out there and help the ages go by and reach back the point in time where the seal happened.

The duality part comes from a point in the game where, on the surface, you see a girl who looks just like your childhood friend. And soon after, you find a village just like yours, but destroyed, and you find your own grave. Now, the explanation for all that only comes at the end, if I remember right.

One of the allures of the game is that you're exploring our world, and seeing some events from our history. Goes from stone age, middle ages, age of exploring, and so on, all the way into the future, where shit happens. Oh yeah, and it's an action RPG, the third in the Soul Blazer series. The best in the series, and one of the few reasons Europeans can laugh at the US, at least gamewise .

 

[maxcriden]

This was really, really difficult to choose winners. BTW, the next giveaway is going to be EU/AUS only. It'll make sense when you see it.

NA winners:

(Pardon the one line that was cut off in the log. I didn't know what the character limit was. So to inform the game of its exploitation was to what? To whaaat???)

[Edit: NA.]

Taking the Ikaruga idea of duality and bringing it into a creative take on a Metroidvania, Outland is probably my #1 XBLA title of last generation. Created by the masterminds behind such games as Stardust and Resogun, Housemarque made an enthralling adventure set in a unique setting of what appears to be native South American ruins.

There's been several entries for The Legend of Zelda series already and I know it's the obvious answer, but while reading Max's opening post and the contest's rules no other games came to mind as fast and I don't think I've played any other series of games more fitting to the topic of duality and dualism, both as metaphysical or philosophical duality or as the physical separation of body and soul, with clones, copies, duplicates, spiritual possessions, doppelgängers or twins appearing in one way or another throughout the series, often more than one in the same game.

EU winners:

Great giveaway max as always! I didn't know this game but your thread made me curious so I'm going to participate with:

EU region here and good luck to everyone participating!

Kage Bunshin no Jutsu: Rise of a Ninja Believe it! Edition - Xbox 360

EU region here, well NZ/Aus to be exact but if thats not an option I can use EU codes fine on Wii U.

(EU)

 

[Piscus]

So many good entries this week! Congrats to all of the winners!

 

[MissileTrick]

Congrats to the winners! I wonder what the next is going to be , I feel like I should know this but am drawing a blank. Either way I look forward to watching it go in play.

 

[Camjo-Z]

BTW, the next giveaway is going to be EU/AUS only.

So you're saying that people are really going to dig the next giveaway?

 

[maxcriden]

So you're saying that people are really going to dig the next giveaway?

Well, I'm not giving away a yacht club membership.

 

[Platy]

Damn !

Can't believe I missed this thread (for the NA ones at least) ... had a good answer with a pretty obscure browser game :

Cursor*10 and it's sequel are games where you cooperate with duplicates of yourself, but playing as recorded duplicates of your previous "life"

The grandfather of Time Force

 

[Camjo-Z]

Damn !

Can't believe I missed this thread (for the NA ones at least) ... had a good answer with a pretty obscure browser game :

Cursor*10 and it's sequel are games where you cooperate with duplicates of yourself, but playing as recorded duplicates of your previous "life"

The grandfather of Time Force

Speaking of Cursor*10, have you tried Onore no Shinzuru Michi wo Yuke for PSP? I downloaded a demo of it one time and thought it was pretty good, it's basically a spiritual successor.

 

[Killer Yakuza B]

Wow, thank you so much! The Swapper is a game I'm really looking forward to play and I wouldn't have been able to do so without this giveaway. Thanks again to maxcriden and everyone involved in these. And congrats to all the winners, of course!

 

[JCho133]

Congrats to all the winners! Those were some cool choices (Outland was a great one in particular!)

 

[oatmeal]

Baha, too late.