I wouldn't complain if this was the winning ballot. Interested in all of these games. And I love the vote for REmake!

Leaving some votes blank, and open to suggestion! I voted Genesis of Treasure because it does seem like a fun collection for an Arcade Special. And I made my case for Another World in the lobbying thread.

In the light of strengthened rollover decay, I've adjusted my ballot by removing two titles in favor of Space Rogue. I realized that spreading my votes thin for both StarTropics and Threads of Fate won't help them get out of the bottom 50% this time around.

The Genesis of Treasure

In the last nomination thread, I highlighted nearly all of Treasure's high-energy and inventive Genesis/Mega Drive games, the titles that helped the studio break free from Konami's shadow. Now, let's take a closer look at why each of these games deserves your attention.

Gunstar Heroes

Treasure's debut title, Gunstar Heroes, regularly appears on lists of the best Genesis games, and for good reason. While it takes cues from Contra with its run-and-gun gameplay and classic power-ups, it also pushes the genre forward through clever stage design and inventive mechanics rather than relying solely on punishing difficulty.

At the start, you choose between two characters: one can shoot while moving, and the other can aim freely in eight directions. You also select one of four weapon types: rapid-fire, laser, homing, or flamethrower, and later combine them for stronger or hybrid attacks.

The arsenal doesn't stop at guns. You can perform sliding kicks, body slams, and even throw enemies (or your co-op partner!) for explosive damage.

The early game lets you tackle four opening stages in any order, each with its own unique twist. The Strange Fortress, for example, features a creative board-game sequence where dice rolls determine what type of challenge or mini-boss you'll face next.

Despite the Sega Genesis's technical limitations, Treasure found ingenious ways to push its hardware. By stitching sprites together and using rotation effects, they created massive, articulated bosses that felt alive. One of the most famous is the humanoid form of the Seven Force boss, an impressive showcase of both creativity and technical mastery.

If you only have time for one title from The Genesis of Treasure Arcade Special, make it Gunstar Heroes. It perfectly captures the balance of challenge, spectacle, and inventiveness that defines Treasure's best work.

McDonald's Treasure Land Adventure

If you thought Grimace's Birthday, that charming free Game Boy Color game from the 2020s, was the only good McDonald's console title, think again. Back in the early '90s, McDonald's Treasure Land Adventure proved that even a corporate mascot could star in a genuinely fun platformer.

Commissioned by Sega, the project gave Treasure a chance to show off their game design chops under a familiar brand. It was meant to be a safer, attention-grabbing debut, but Gunstar Heroes' huge success quickly made that safety net unnecessary.

What sets this seemingly standard platformer apart is its clever HP system. Throughout the journey, Ronald McDonald can spend some of his health gems to unlock new areas or even damage bosses, adding a light strategic layer to an otherwise straightforward adventure.

While it's much easier than Treasure's usual fare, it still delivers the studio's signature mix of lively setpieces, imaginative stages, and tight mechanics. It's the perfect entry point for players who found Gunstar Heroes a bit too intense, offering a gentler taste of Treasure's creative spark.

Dynamite Headdy

This is Treasure at their most chaotic, colorful, and completely unrestrained. Dynamite Headdy bursts with theater-inspired visuals, hyperactive sound design, and wild gameplay that never lets up.

As the name suggests, Headdy literally fights with his head, tossing it in eight directions to attack enemies or latch onto nodes for platforming tricks. Throughout the adventure, you'll collect more than a dozen alternate heads, each granting unique abilities like the powerful Hammer Head, the Vacuum Head that pulls in enemies and items, or the Invisible Head for stealthy moments.

The real magic, though, lies in its variety. Nearly every stage introduces fresh mechanics or visuals without ever feeling disconnected from the core gameplay. Whether you're in a side-scrolling shooter segment or an offbeat platforming challenge, the game's consistency in physics and control keeps the mayhem manageable.

Take one standout sequence: during a tense fight with Trouble Bruin, Headdy must keep attacking while restrained by his foe's grip, a claustrophobic twist that still feels true to the game's logic. Moments earlier, you were navigating a swaying 3D-like platform section, showcasing Treasure's boundless imagination within Genesis hardware limits.

With its dazzling creativity, strong level design, and dynamic pacing, Dynamite Headdy is a highlight of The Genesis of Treasure Arcade Special lineup. For the best balance of challenge and fun, stick with the Japanese version; it avoids the artificial difficulty spikes added to the Western release to deter rentals.

Alien Soldier

Arguably the toughest game of the bunch, but also one of the most exhilarating. Alien Soldier takes the intense 2D run-and-gun formula of Gunstar Heroes and distills it into a near-endless parade of boss battles. Most stages are just a short prelude before you’re thrown into another showdown against one of 25 strikingly designed foes, ranging from the cool to the downright grotesque.

At the start, you choose four weapons from a set of six for your bird-like super-soldier. Each has different ranges, spreads, and strengths, and taking duplicates increases ammo reserves. You can swap weapons mid-game whenever you find a pickup, and matching icons refill your ammo while boosting capacity.

Survival hinges on mastering two key mechanics: the counter and the teleport. The counter (performed by double-tapping the shoot button) absorbs enemy projectiles and converts them into health pickups, occasionally deflecting attacks back at the boss, a lifesaving move since most bosses fill a third of the screen and can shred your HP bar in seconds. The teleport lets you zip across a quarter of the screen in an instant; when your health is full, crashing into a boss during a teleport deals heavy damage at the cost of some of your life.

For your own sanity, it's worth switching from Superhard to Supereasy mode in the Options menu. You'll get unlimited continues and a password save system. It won't make the fights themselves much easier, but at least you won't have to start all over every time Alien Soldier humbles you.

Light Crusader

Did you know Treasure also made a top-down, isometric dungeon crawler for the Genesis? Light Crusader is the oddball in their otherwise explosive action catalog, and all the more interesting for it.

You play as Sir David, a knight investigating a sprawling underground crypt linked to mysterious disappearances in a nearby town. The sparse storytelling does its job, leaving most of the focus on exploration and gameplay.

Unlike many isometric games of the era (like Landstalker) that restrict movement to four diagonal directions, Light Crusader lets you move freely in all eight. Sir David feels nimble, with snappy walking speed and long, floaty jumps that make navigation smooth and responsive.

Combat, however, can be awkward. His short sword forces you to get uncomfortably close to enemies, relying on hit-and-run tactics unless you use your limited stock of magic. Fortunately, the spell system adds some depth; you can combine up to four elemental spells for unique effects, like mixing fire and earthquake to create a devastating meteor strike.

The game's physics engine also adds charm and personality. Pushable blocks follow gravity and can fall off ledges, and yes, you can cheekily shove around townsfolk too.

While Light Crusader doesn't rank among Treasure's best-known titles, it's a fascinating experiment that proves the studio's willingness to step outside their comfort zone. It's a solid, imaginative dungeon crawler that shows even Treasure's lesser-known works were brimming with creative curiosity.

The Grue That Binds

What better way to celebrate the Colossal Game Adventure event, inspired by the original text adventure, than with a buffet of games built around heavy reading and thoughtful decision-making? Now we're talking.

Mother 3

Ever since its 2006 release on Game Boy Advance, Mother 3 has built a reputation as an even more powerful experience than EarthBound, thanks to its emotional storytelling and commentary on modern life. Rather than just riffing on Western culture, it dives into heavier, more relevant themes that still resonate today.

A strong pick for CGA, since its narrative depth and subject matter are guaranteed to spark plenty of discussion.

Sid Meier's Pirates!

In an era where roguelites are everywhere, the structure of Sid Meier's Pirates! feels refreshingly different. Your career doesn't end with a random death; instead, time and age are your real limits, and your pirate ultimately retires as their body gives out. Each career plays out differently, with shifting political alliances, opportunities, and world conditions that keep every run feeling distinct.​

That sense of evolving possibility nails the adventurous spirit that fits Colossal Game Adventure perfectly.​

Crystalis

Crystalis is a snappy, top-down 8-bit action RPG where you can move freely in eight directions and slash your way through enemies with style, all backed by energetic music. Its mix of brisk pacing, accessible combat, and strong atmosphere gives it a timeless quality that still feels easy to get into today.

Space Rogue

vili's write-up really sells Space Rogue as something special. Its seemingly clunky quirks by modern standards actually help the game feel more like managing a "real" ship, capturing the fiddly, systems-heavy charm of classic sci-fi spacefaring. The result is an experience that feels closer to wrestling with an actual spacecraft than piloting a slick modern UI abstraction.

StarTropics

I already knew StarTropics from dabbling in its sequel, but revisiting the original makes its identity clearer. It plays like a more action-focused, Americanized twist on the original Legend of Zelda, with a stronger emphasis on jumping and plenty of contemporary, US-flavored visual touches.

The fact that Nintendo itself developed this oddball, more Western-feeling adventure just makes it all the more intriguing.

Threads of Fate

Here's another of Squaresoft's experimental late-PS1 projects. Threads of Fate offers a simpler, breezier take on the action RPG formula, somewhat reminiscent of Brave Fencer Musashi but with a more streamlined approach.​

You choose between two protagonists, each with their own storyline: Rue, who can transform into defeated monsters, and Mint, who fights with ring-shaped blades and mixes different types of magic. That combo of dual perspectives and lighthearted tone makes it an easy one to want to try.

What a lucky number for Lufia II! Too bad that doesn't work in the CGA voting threads, because each game/Arcade Special can receive up to 5 votes per user.

Rationale and thoughts:

• ALttP: I lobbied for it, so naturally I'm going to put as many points in as I can! (For the rest, I just spread the votes as evenly as possible.)
• Space Rogue: I wouldn't have looked at or heard of this one but for /u/vili's lobbying. Sounds interesting. The description of it dredged up some old memories of playing the shareware game Solar Winds: The Escape
• Another World: /u/CannibalisticApple lobied for this one. This one I have played before, though I don't recall if I ever beat it. I believe I rented the SNES version of it one weekend. I'm also old enough to remember seeing it running on a demo machine at a Babbage's store once, probably on an Amiga. And as a graphics engineer, the fact that the game engine is implemented as a tiny little vector graphics VM ([1], [2], [3]) is just too cool.
• Aria of Sorrow: Lobbied for by /u/Lapbunny. I've played and beat the original Castlevania and Super Castlevania IV. (In fact, I still remember buying Castlevania with my allowance at Babbage's one dark and wet evening. The copy I had was a DOS PC port of all things, if you can believe it. Later, I became a bit jealous of a friend who got it for NES. Such smooth scrolling...) But I've never played SotN or the later games. I do like Metroids, though, so I figure I'll probably like one of the 'Vanias of the Metroidvanias. And if Lapbunny and /u/kfwyre recommend Aria as a good entry point, then I'm game.
• Crystalis: I can't track down who said it, but I could have sworn someone here was lobbying for it as sort of a contemporary of Legend of Zelda with some surprisingly ahead-of-its-time touches. Sounded interesting.
• Maniac Mansion: Nominated by CannibalisticApple and discussed recently. I do think an October spooky-wacky LucasArts trifecta of this, Day of the Tentacle, and Zombies Ate My Neighbors could be amusing. But I'll toss it some votes now.
• StarTropics: I've never played this one that I can remember, but I do remember hearing of it. It sounds interesting as a non-Square early JRPG.
• Lode Runner: I had this one on the family Apple II+ computer as a young kid. And I remember it later inspired some of my experiments in gamedev as a teen. I haven't played it in a very long time, but I certainly wouldn't mind revisiting it.
• Lufia II: Boosted by /u/endymiion, /u/JCPhoenix, and /u/zod000. I once got pretty far playing this, but never quite finished it for some reason. I remember quite liking it, so I think I just got distracted by something else. But I'd certainly be up for giving it another try! (I'd have given this two votes like I did for other games if I could, but I'm at the limit. I had to pick one game to go short and this one's already in or near the lead vote-wise.)

Meta: Voting felt easier this time around than last time due to the shorter list. Counting, I see 28 nominees this time vs. 51 last time. I recall trying to make a short list to figure out how to allocate my votes and then realizing that even if I gave them only one vote each, I still wouldn't have enough votes.

I wish I had more time to write up a good lobbying post for REMake, but I'll leave some of my highlights for the game.

• The pacing and cinematography are top notch
• The voice acting is hilarious, and the characters are extremely likable
• Inventory takes up physical space. This limits how many items you can carry and introduces a fun strategic element to the game. You'll always put thought into picking up and consuming items.
• To save the game, you use consumable ink ribbons, which take up space in your inventory. If you've run out of ink ribbons, you can't save. If you want to pick up a new item, but your inventory is full, you might consider ditching your ink ribbons to store the new item.
• Ammo is a limited consumable that you can easily run out of. Naturally, this leads to some really tense moments where you're down to your final bullets and have to plan out and execute how you'll approach a situation. Of course, the game is great about suddenly introducing a new enemy type to completely derail your plans. Overcoming the situation when that happens is absolutely thrilling.

FWIW, there's a typo in your Lufia II that was picked up by the tallying script. It should be Sinistrals.