Contest Stats and Discussion - Part 1380

I'm pretty sure a werewolf breaking down a door in Bloodborne scared me harder than anything in the RE series.

RE7 is a little scary imo

Resident Evil games are not scary at all outside of regenerators in 4 and a bunch of 7. Beyond that they’re action games.

Bloodborne is a very bad first experience for that genre. Elden Ring or Dark Souls 1 are what a newbie should go for.

The only thing Resident Evil has is a few jump scares.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/8025-division-8-semifinal-elder-scrolls-skyrim-vs-mario-kart-8

This match went very similarly to Witcher 3/Galaxy 2 in that it was tight at the freeze, and then it was a rise to heaven afterwards. The problem for Skyrim was that there was no reason to believe Galaxy 2 and Mario Kart 8 were equals, so this was not an encouraging performance if you had it making the finals.

also note to self: I just realized I have the wrong start date for Villains on the opening post

it's May 3rd, not May 7th

Is Mario Kart 8 the strongest Mario Kart?

pjbasis posted...

Is Mario Kart 8 the strongest Mario Kart?

Nah, I wouldn't take it over Mario Kart 64. Maybe not Super either. I don't think it'd necessarily be far behind them though.

We don't really have a good handle on how strong Mario Kart 64 is. What little info we have on SMK says it is even with Super Metroid.

Mario Kart consistently gets terrible draws in Games Contests for whatever the reason (or gets shafted entirely in some cases, like MK8 being the only representative in 2015 and having no reps in 2004).

Except for Mario Kart 8 in this contest.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/8026-division-8-semifinal-pokemon-heartgold-vs-nier-automata

Last match of Round 3!

This was a debated match. Most people took Pokemon by default because it's Pokemon. Others went with Automata because it was a well received game from 2017 (which had shown itself to be a strong year), and 2B had overachieved in 2018.

Automata kept it close for about the first hour, but then Pokemon gradually pulled away. With that, all the remakes/ports of older games were in the division finals.

Unfortunately, the contest took a break until May 5 because Allen introduced a Second Chance Bracket Challenge, and so he gave us a week to fill them out. It kinda killed the momentum of the contest at the wrong time.

Super Metroid has boosted since it's original fights with Super Mario Kart.

Seeing as how Breath of the Wild is the second-strongest Zelda game, I can easily see Mario Kart 8 being the strongest in the series. I know we talk about nostalgia on GameFAQs, but MK8 has a biggest presence than any other game in the series.

Eh, I wouldn't compare Breath of the Wild with Mario Kart 8 in terms of impact. Sales, maybe, but that's about it.

Really? I see Mario Kart 8 as a juggernaut. I wasn't surprised that Mario Kart World was the game Nintendo went with for the Switch 2 launch.

Mario Kart as a series is a juggernaut. It's one of the best selling games on every Nintendo system it's on.

Doesn't necessarily translate to contest strength though.

Mario Kart Wii sold tens of millions of copies and then in GotD1 it let Phoenix Wright get kinda close to it and almost got tripled by Pokemon GSC.

If sales = strength then Minecraft and GTAV would have been the finals

Sales can be a decent barometer for strength within series though if the game that sold well also has critical success.

I don't think it's a coincidence Breath of the Wild was capable of completely overwhelming the power of nostalgia and that it also happened to have outsold the entire 3D series combined (until Tears of the Kingdom). And Tears of the Kingdom is very likely the strongest game of the decade if it weren't for Baldur's Gate 3 existing (a game that, also coincidentally, combined historic critical appeal with selling like 7 times as many copies as BG2 did).

Mario Kart 8 (and Deluxe) alone make up almost 40% of the series' lifetime sales and is probably the most well-received Mario Kart since 64, so I'd expect it to be significantly stronger than Wii was.

I think MK8 is the third strongest at worst. It could potentially be the strongest, but I wouldn't pick it.

Leonhart4 posted...

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/8026-division-8-semifinal-pokemon-heartgold-vs-nier-automata

Last match of Round 3!

This was a debated match. Most people took Pokemon by default because it's Pokemon. Others went with Automata because it was a well received game from 2017 (which had shown itself to be a strong year), and 2B had overachieved in 2018.

Automata kept it close for about the first hour, but then Pokemon gradually pulled away. With that, all the remakes/ports of older games were in the division finals.

Unfortunately, the contest took a break until May 5 because Allen introduced a Second Chance Bracket Challenge, and so he gave us a week to fill them out. It kinda killed the momentum of the contest at the wrong time.

I’m still shocked this match was close. I was in the “it’s freaking Pokémon” camp, and rereading all this (thank you for the time!!) has made me realize the remakes and ports should not have been allowed in. Like yeah RE2 is a new game and all, but losing it is a worthy sacrifice to keep Persona 4 Gold and Pokémon HGSS out.

I think remakes are fair game, especially something like the RE-makes that are pretty much a different game entirely with the same plot.

Updated ports and reskins like P4G and HG/SS, not so much.

Yeah, I think RE2 was fair game. It was a completely remade from scratch game. HG/SS toes the line a bit more, but I was generally okay with its inclusion.

You start getting into case by case stuff that site runners don’t have time for tho. Like which versions of Metroid 2 should get in? There’s like 5 of them.

Well, it seems like Allen's solution was let in stuff unless it might otherwise break the contest (a.k.a. OoT and MM 3D)

part of me would've been morbidly curious about how OoT 3D would've done though

Was OoT 3D allowed in GotY polls?

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/4585-best-of-2011-best-portable-game

Ports usually don't do well in GotY polls though

Voters are smart enough to recognize the distinction in this case, so maybe it'd apply to OoT3D for something called Game of the Decade

LeonhartFour posted...

part of me would've been morbidly curious about how OoT 3D would've done though

This is also why Dark Link should have made a contest.

TeamRocketElite posted...

This is also why Dark Link should have made a contest.

We'll discuss him (and others) as we get a little closer to the Villains Contest retrospective!

I guess I can talk about the Villains Contest while we're in between contest matches. The official name for the contest was "Got Villains?" (An outdated reference even in 2005).

We deduced very quickly that there was only one reason to host this contest: To give Sephiroth a contest win so CJayC could retire Clinkeroth (or semi-retire as it turned out) for SC2K5. I don't know if there's another contest out there where the winner was more obvious than this one. Maybe Breath of the Wild in 2020, but you still had the potential for a rally. Nobody even dared to pick against Sephiroth for this one. He had literally 3/4 of the brackets pick him as the overall winner. That's an absurd percentage, but it really was that obvious.

The Villains contest was a fun concept with approximately 0 interesting matches.

KamikazePotato posted...

The Villains contest was a fun concept with approximately 0 interesting matches.

Hey, there were a few fun ones

Including the last contest match that made me legitimately angry

CATS vs Ansem was awesome

Diablo's run was the most interesting part of the Villains contest. I find that kind of stuff more interesting than wire-to-wire matches.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2004-triforce-division-round-1-kuja-vs-master-hand

Shaped like a glove

There were some fun moments in the Villains Contest, but it did kind of peak with the last 3 matches of R1. That was three hilarious days, but still.

Magus and Shadow also should have been allowed in, in hindsight. I do remember there being some surprise when Donkey Kong didn't make in, since Ceej had specifically called him out by name on the nomination form as someone that was eligible. The logic was that there was at least one game where he was the villain all the way through, and I remember people pointing out that by that logic Mario should be eligible as well due to Donkey Kong Jr., so I wonder if Ceej changed his mind.

IMO, in terms of strength, what we saw from Super Mario Kart and Mario Kart 64 in 2009 was about on par with what we saw from Mario Kart 8 in 2020, it's just that the latter was more impressive. That's with the former two being unable to avoid other Nintendo games to boot, unlike the latter, and widely played and nostalgic 90s games tend to hold up very well here. I thus think Mario Kart 8 is an at least decently distant third in its franchise, faring much better than Wii because of the Switch's significantly superior standing here and because the crossover DLC turned it into an event.

Yeah, the Villains contest should have been the Rivals contest, allowing Magus, Shadow, and others to deepen the field.

We could have had Magus blow a division tailor made for him to win one contest early.

Yeah, Magus being in Villains would've exposed him a little sooner, but it also would've meant we didn't get to experience the same level of shock when he lost to Knuckles.

Leonhart4 posted...

Yeah, Magus being in Villains would've exposed him a little sooner, but it also would've meant we didn't get to experience the same level of shock when he lost to Knuckles.

Knuckles would have also taken advantage of the expanded field, so who knows?

I do wonder what the field would've looked like had CJayC allowed "rival" characters (or one-off villains who are primarily heroes like Mario or DK) in rather than pure villains.

Like I'm almost positive Seifer makes it because there's no way Ultimecia was getting more nominations than him. I also wonder if the theme of the contest would impact how people would vote for someone like Mario.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1970-who-do-you-think-will-win-the-villains-character-battle

I was looking for any pre-contest polls for Villains, and there were a couple. I love that Sephiroth was such an obvious winner that CJayC put two different options for him.

Sephiroth beats Ganondorf still right

pjbasis posted...

Sephiroth beats Ganondorf still right

I think so. I don't think Ganondorf is as strong as he used to be. Also you'd have to entertain Vivi beating Seph if you think Ganondorf beats him.

Although maybe Tears of the Kingdom gave him a boost.

Samurai dorf goes pretty hard.

But the time may have passed already

If Sephiroth didn't have Smash and Remake/Rebirth I would entertain the chance that his complete implosion would continue.

But while I think he's still primed to lose to a lot of characters we wouldn't normally entertain, I don't think Ganondorf is one of them.

Luigi > Sephiroth was a decently popular pick last time, though Luigi didn't make it there. It could've been close. That was before Smash and FFVIIR though. I don't think TotK will have boosted Ganondorf notably, he didn't seem too changed from BotW.

Well, I wouldn't expect Ganondorf to boost much from Breath of the Wild when he was relegated to CALAMITY GANON

Leonhart4 posted...

Although maybe Tears of the Kingdom gave him a boost.

TotK pictures certainly don't hurt.

TeamRocketElite posted...

TotK pictures certainly don't hurt.

I thought fandom banned hornyposting

LightningStrikes posted...

I thought fandom banned hornyposting

Oh dear Zelda will be in big trouble if we have another Character Battle

All BotW/TotK pics will be banned