Yeah Sleeping Dogs is the "disappointment" that SE had because it only sold a million copies instead like the 100 million they were hoping for. It actually got high praise and sales but it became more infamous for a time period when SE was known for having unrealistic expectations for their third party titles.

I was the only person to nominate Vagrant Story, but due to the technicality that it's associated with the Ivalice franchise and because it made the amount of entries uneven, I ended up choosing to drop it. Front Mission 3 and Tactics Ogre were also my noms. I love me some SRPGs. I knew Front Mission 3 was likely a doomed title because I think Rez09 and myself are like the only people I know on this forum who has played it. I felt Tactics Ogre would have done a bit better but it was up against KH2 and I think all the forum members who praised this title in the past are no longer active.

I think the one entry that really surprised me that didn't get nominated was DQV. Considering how much praise this game got from the forum a few years back, I was surprised no one really bothered. Valkyrie Profile is another title I was expecting to see a nomination for that didn't. Soul Blazer being the sole entry of the Gaia trilogy to get nominated was also a bit of surprise for me as I figured most people remembered Illusion of Gaia and Terranigma more fondly. I was also hoping a SaGa entry would have gotten in, but didn't hold my breath for it, but I was surprised only Secret of Mana made it through among the Mana franchise. I figured Final Fantasy Adventure and Seiken Densetsu 3 would have been nominated. I also expected KH to do better than it has. In fact one of my least favorite entries is the one that actually survived the first round but I know I'm in the minority in thinking KH2 was bad, so I'm not surprised it did better than the spin-offs but I figured KH1 would have made it. Which reminds me...

I think the biggest surprise overall from my own side of things was seeing Xenogears get the second highest amount of nominations out of this whole process with six nominations. To put this in perspective, the third highest noms were Secret of Mana, DQVIII, and Chrono Cross with three nominations a piece. I think this caught me off guard because I often feel like only Fynn, Forsaken Lover, and myself are the only people who ever talk about the game on a regular basis on this forum.