Contest Stats and Discussion - Part 1383

The Sonic 3 movie and Knuckles TV series convinced everyone Shadow is the better character

(Shadow Generations being the best Sonic game might've helped a bit too)

Leonhart4 posted...

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/4139-northeast-division-round-2-tales-of-symphonia-vs-god-of-war

I was rather bullish on Symphonia's strength from 2009 being legit when so many people complained about it being a 4-way wonder when it beat God of War, which somehow must have been LFF'd by GTA: San Andreas, because there's no other way it could have lost. I don't know if this counts as a moral victory despite the loss or not because Symphonia was in a deadlock with GoW until the morning vote. Unfortunately, the morning vote heavily favored GoW, and it was able to pull away quickly to secure the win.

I wouldn't necessarily call Tales of Symphonia a 4-way wonder, but it definitely had Sore Thumb Factor in that match, so the smart money in a singles match against any of the three (except maaaaaaybe San Andreas) was going against ToS.

MacArrowny posted...

The Sonic 3 movie and Knuckles TV series convinced everyone Shadow is the better character

(Shadow Generations being the best Sonic game might've helped a bit too)

I haven't played or seen anytying recent Sonic yet, but nice because Adventure sure convinced me he was not lol.

Tails seems to get second even.

Poor Knuckles ain't what he used to be

People just see Knuckles as more of a meme now between boom and Uganda and Knuckles etc

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6129-best-game-ever-day-20-round-2-super-mario-64-vs-final

Mario 64 started above 70% and dropped the rest of the way, so the only drama here was seeing if FFT could avoid the doubling, which it did.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6130-best-game-ever-day-20-round-2-zelda-twilight-princess-vs

Persona 4's newfound strength was kinda (?) on display here because it was only projected to get 27% on TP based on the GotD X-Stats. It was hard to envision TP beating Mario 64 next round because, even though it was stronger now, there was no reason to believe Persona 4 would beat Final Fantasy Tactics.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/4140-northeast-division-round-2-grand-theft-auto-iii-vs-half-life

The Oracle average for Half-Life 2 was about 60% here, so GTA3 overperformed relative to expectations. It's probably the only GTA game we came out of this contest not feeling bad about (not that we would ever see it again).

I could see GTAIII get a little boost from the contest title if anything did in that first GotD (at least it was a feature much more noticable in the second). It would make sense to me at least.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6131-best-game-ever-day-21-round-2-zelda-ocarina-of-time-vs

This was the first sign of potential weakness we saw from Ocarina of Time. The Oracle average was 83% and it fell well short of that. Plus, it had a bad early vote (it only had 73% at the freeze), which is atypical for mainline Nintendo, which suggested it was getting antivoted.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6132-best-game-ever-day-21-round-2-okami-vs-final-fantasy-ix

The trend of Okami and Amaterasu managing to get at least 40% in defeat continued here. Other than that, this match wasn't too interesting.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/4141-east-division-round-2-smash-bros-melee-vs-morrowind

This match basically went the way you'd expect. Melee dominated the Power Hour and was pushing for the tripling early. Morrowind used the Euro vote to slice percentage. Melee recovered a bit with the morning vote.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6133-best-game-ever-day-21-round-2-dk-country-2-vs-fire-emblem

Fire Emblem was the Oracle favorite going into this match because people assumed it would be stronger than Xenoblade. It's possible it was and DKC2 was riding a bandwagon off of its big upset the round before, but either way, this was not a back and forth, down to the wire match like its previous match had been. The final result was close, but Awakening never made a serious attempt at a comeback.

For the record, the Guru picks for this match were:

Xenoblade - 44.16%
Mario Maker - 26.90%
Awakening - 20.30%
DKC2 - 8.63%

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6134-best-game-ever-day-21-round-2-banjo-kazooie-vs-castlevania

BK had been a dark horse upset pick pre-contest, but by the time this match rolled around, the writing was on the wall. SOTN's Oracle average was about 61% and that's basically what it got. It was the clear favorite to win again next round, too.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/4142-east-division-round-2-perfect-dark-vs-call-of-duty-4

The Oracle average for CoD4 was about 59% here, so it fell short of that. It was proving to be a one-year wonder, and we knew it was in big trouble against Melee next round.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6135-best-game-ever-day-22-round-2-zelda-a-link-to-the-past-vs

It's unfortunate we didn't really get to see LttP's true strength in this contest because of its path. We don't really know how strong FFIV is, so it's hard to gauge what it says about LttP.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6136-best-game-ever-day-22-round-2-metal-gear-solid-v-vs-dark

72% of Gurus picked MGSV, although it was essentially 50/50 in the Oracle by the time this match happened. Dark Souls was one of my upset specials that actually paid off in this contest.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/4143-east-division-round-2-pokemon-platinum-vs-fire-emblem-path

Not much is less interesting than a boring SFF match, and that's what we got here.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6137-best-game-ever-day-22-round-2-super-metroid-vs-super-mario

77% of Gurus picked Galaxy beforehand, but Super Metroid had an Oracle average of 54% by the time of the match. Even then, it was a stunner seeing a Metroid game laying the smack down on a mainline Mario game. Super Metroid had already cemented itself as one of the stars of this contest, and it wasn't done yet.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6138-best-game-ever-day-22-round-2-final-fantasy-xii-vs-zelda

It's weird seeing a mainline Final Fantasy game get effortlessly doubled and even weirder that no one was surprised by it, as the Oracle average was 67% for Majora's Mask. It was showing its GotD run was no fluke.

Leonhart4 posted...

It's weird seeing a mainline Final Fantasy game get effortlessly doubled

I guess we didn't know at the time, but it could get a lot worse.

Final Fantasy XIII never even made it into a contest, which is a lot more embarrassing than getting doubled by a strong game.

MacArrowny posted...

Final Fantasy XIII never even made it into a contest, which is a lot more embarrassing than getting doubled by a strong game.

I didn't even realise that. Funny thing is it'd probably do better now than when it was new.

There will never be anything that represents modern Final Fantasy's reception on this site better than Lightning's peak being when she had zero released games.

Hype is often more powerful than the actual release

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/4144-east-division-round-2-valkyria-chronicles-vs-smash-bros

Now it was Brawl's turn to show off. It had the advantage of getting day matches while Melee was getting night matches, but it had looked better between the two so far.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6139-best-game-ever-day-23-round-2-grand-theft-auto-v-vs-super

Here's another instance of the board owning the casuals. Only 22% of total brackets had SMRPG winning, but the Oracle average was nearly 59% for it. It had nearly 64% at the freeze and nearly 61% at the end of the Power Hour. It dropped quite a bit overnight due to having a nearly nonexistent European vote. 56% of Gurus had Mario RPG winning, as opposed to 25% for GTAV and 18% for Oblivion.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6140-best-game-ever-day-23-round-2-gta-san-andreas-vs-chrono

And the board gets to own the casuals again! Only 13.47% of brackets had Chrono Cross winning and the Oracle average was about 55% for it. About half of Gurus had CC winning. About 27% had San Andreas and about 20% had World of Warcraft.

Not a good day for GTA fans.

I did have an idea for dueling match pics if we had got Super Mario RPG and San Andreas in the following round involving Booster and Wrong Side of the Tracks, but sadly, San Andreas couldn't follow the damn train.

TeamRocketElite posted...

Not a good decade for GTA fans.

Fixed that for you.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/4145-southeast-division-round-2-super-mario-galaxy-vs-pokemon

This was considered a disappointing performance by Mario Galaxy because it failed to SFF a second tier Pokemon game. Sure, Pokemon is difficult to SFF, but it's not totally immune to it, as we would see next round.

It does resist it a lot. I think Smash can SFF it better than Mario can too.

TeamRocketElite posted...

Not a good day for GTA fans.

For Chrono Cross fans, though...

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6141-best-game-ever-day-23-round-2-the-witcher-3-vs-metal-gear

MGS2 was the big favorite here, but 20% of Gurus picked Witcher 3 to score the upset. It didn't manage to pull it off, but it did put up a respectable number, even with the developers not trying to rally for it this time.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6142-best-game-ever-day-23-round-2-fallout-new-vegas-vs-resident

The Oracle average for RE4 was about 60% here, so it fell a little short of that. It could be blamed on Fallout 4 hype helping New Vegas a bit, so it didn't seem to be a sign of weakness for RE4.

I think we dodged a major bullet with that match coming the day after thanksgiving. The developers did rally for it in different things at the time, but they didn't respond in time to the attempt coming from here. They responded after the match saying they weren't around due to the holiday so people should've reached out sooner.

That 2015 Witcher 3 result looks so weird. It was back when Witcher 3 was just a game, not a phenomenon. It has to beat MGS2 by worse than 54-46 these days.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/4146-southeast-division-round-2-dragon-age-origins-vs-zelda

No surprise to see Twilight Princess to lay the smack down on Dragon Age. This is one of those "might have been" series, where you wonder how big Dragon Age could have gotten if they hadn't botched it.

Was ME1 stronger than DA1 at that point?

Mass Effect ranked higher than Dragon Age in the X-Stats by a good bit (ME1 is projected to win with about 58%).

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6143-best-game-ever-day-24-round-2-metal-gear-solid-vs-earthbound

MGS1 was the only game in the series that had looked good in round 1, but it was not so lucky this time. The Oracle average was almost 64% and it struggled to break 60% here. It's clear this was a stronger Earthbound than we had seen in 2004, but this was still not an encouraging performance.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6144-best-game-ever-day-24-round-2-shadow-of-the-colossus-vs-red

Allen knew what he was doing when he set up Shadow of the Colossus to face MGS1 in round 3. It put up similar numbers on Red Dead Redemption, but nobody really thought it could actually win next round. Perhaps the most surprising thing for me is that SotC had a 40% prediction percentage in a fourpack with a Rockstar game.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/4147-southeast-division-round-2-bioshock-vs-kingdom-hearts-ii

BioShock is another one of those games that always manages to look impressive in defeat. The Oracle average for KH2 was about 59% here, but the real surprise was that it had more picks in the Battle Contest Challenge. It was probably the overall favorite, too, as KH2 only had 29% of total brackets.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6145-best-game-ever-day-24-round-2-metal-gear-solid-3-vs-bioshock

Again we see BioShock looking good in defeat, albeit with a caveat. MGS3 had about 55-56% here, and then Mass Effect 2/Starcraft became a rally war. Naturally, BioShock was the beneficiary of both rallies, although it mostly just turned it into a 50/50 match and it didn't make any consistent cuts.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6146-best-game-ever-day-24-round-2-starcraft-vs-mass-effect-2

Mass Effect 2 built up a 300 vote lead early, but Starcraft rallied to take the lead and build up a 550 vote lead of its own. ME2 counter-rallied and survived the suicide mission of out-rallying the original rally master. It was hard to know what this meant for MGS3/ME2 next round, but it felt like a tossup at this point.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/4148-southeast-division-round-2-modern-warfare-2-vs-kingdom

Once again, the losing game had more picks in the Battle Contest Challenge, and KH1 only had 38% of total brackets. The Oracle average was about 61% here, but I feel like this performance was attributed to MW2 being worse than we thought. Either way, there was no clear favorite headed into the Kingdom Hearts showdown next round.

What would MW2 get in a rematch today? Like 25%?

Oh I hated Starcraft vs Mass Effect 2. Why did Gamefaqs make me choose between two 11/10 games.

Any chance GameFAQs still thinks older CoD games are okay even if they don't care about the new ones?

MW2 is one of the best multiplayer games of all time. Even Activision know this hence why they refused to include the multiplayer when they remastered the campaign.

We have seen both CoD 4 and Black Ops in relatively contemporary contest settings, for what it's worth. The former tanked, but the latter was far worse - though to be fair, CoD probably became even more hated-when-it's-not-ignored from oversaturation in those 4.5 years. I would assume still more of that has happened in the subsequent 5.5 years, and MW2 lacks CoD 4's genre-iterating, franchise-defining respect. As one of the few clearly weaker games widely viewed with too much contempt to be a magnet for KH antivoters, I'd put MW2's over/under at 20% in that match and take the under there.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6147-best-game-ever-day-25-round-3-chrono-trigger-vs-final

With round 3, we transitioned to only two matches per day, so I'll only post one at a time now. Pre-contest, FFX was actually the Guru favorite. This was supposed to be an upset special for me, but somehow a lot of people bought into it, too, so I apologize!

But even after two rounds making it clear Chrono Trigger was winning this match, virtually nobody saw this coming. The Oracle average was 57.55% and only one person actually overshot the final percentage. Chrono Trigger actually had over 68% ten minutes into the match!

While some people tried to chalk this up to SFF, this result became solid proof for others that Chrono Trigger could actually beat Final Fantasy VII and maybe even Ocarina of Time, too. Of course, we'd never get the chance to find out, so all the people who tried to say "CT never would have won anyway" didn't have to worry about eating crow on that prediction. It's just too bad we never got a chance to find out, but overwhelming rallies with predictable outcomes that make it so we have zero impact on the actual results and turn us into spectators for our own contests are much more fun.

Rallies are FUN. You don't hate FUN, do you?

We knew already, but this was the real statement. Chrono Trigger was an absolute beast and it is a shane we didn't really get to see it.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/4149-south-division-round-2-final-fantasy-x-vs-borderlands

Final Fantasy X basically did as expected here. Nothing too exciting.

Leonhart4 posted...

This was supposed to be an upset special for me, but somehow a lot of people bought into it, too, so I apologize!

I pushed it too. CT looked bad (relatively speaking) in the 4-way contest, and Crono's spotty performances made it seem like the series would continue to decline. Then the next site shift happened.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6148-best-game-ever-day-25-round-3-smash-bros-melee-vs-kingdom

Anyone who says Chrono Trigger wasn't on pace to lay a beatdown on Melee akin to what it did to FFX either has forgotten or conveniently neglects to mention this match. KH2 got nearly 45% on Melee and FFX ain't losing to KH2.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/4150-south-division-round-2-golden-sun-vs-gta-san-andreas

Outside of Brawl/Melee and the last few matches, perhaps no result this contest produced more complaints and dissatisfaction than this one. San Andreas was a slight favorite on the board, but there was definite concern that this match taking place on the release date of a new Golden Sun could impact the result.

Golden Sun had a slight lead at the freeze, but it quickly went up from there and it was clear early that San Andreas would lose. Only 13% of brackets had Golden Sun winning, and San Andreas had three times as many picks in the Battle Contest Challenge, providing our third "upset" in four matches there.