Contest Stats and Discussion - Part 1373

LightningStrikes posted...

But also if you ask people which is the better game between Melee and Ultimate, most even on this boomer-ass website would say Ultimate. Case in point!

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/8438-what-is-the-best-all-time-super-smash-bros-game

Yeah, Ultimate would rSFF Melee. People inherently understand it's a better game. I don't think that means it's stronger indirectly though. This is the Melee/Brawl argument all over again!

Wasn’t the argument actually the opposite for Melee vs Brawl? And it turned out to not be the case? Regardless God of War looked great until its last match suggesting possible SFF. RDR2 also makes Ultimate look legit no?

Eh, I think it looked fine. People suggested rSFF in Ultimate/Odyssey, too, so who knows what actually happened.

Just speaking from personal experience, I'd say Ultimate is the best Smash game. Do I still love the series like I did back in high school and college? No, because I don't have the time to invest in games like that anymore.

It's just the consequence of this site getting older.

I will say, taking a look at RDR2, it would be a virtual tie with GoW against The Witcher 3 (extrapolated 34.40 vs GoW’s actual 35.52) while GoW was well clear of RDR2 in 2018. So unless RDR2 strengthened in that time (and to be fair it did come to PC then) that does suggest that GoW was somewhat undervalued against The Witcher 3.

LightningStrikes posted...

I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree but I’d be surprised if Smash had gotten weaker. Like sure the DOJO hype was fun but how much did that actually cut through? And to join War in the “not to be a sales figures person but…”, Ultimate had the biggest opening sales for an exclusive ever when it came out (a record I believe TOTK now holds), the hype was absolutely there for it, we just weren’t talking about it as much.

I think multiplayer games in general have gotten weaker. It's not necessarily just due to changing tastes, but also changing demographics. People more into multiplayer games have more reason to leave the site than people that are predominantly into single player games.

I would not take it for granted that Pokemon is #4 or better. The conversation and general mood among that fanbase around newer games, the franchise in general, and its developer has soured horribly since Sword and Shield came out and the average gamefaqser still doesn't care deeply about anything besides the first two games. I'd give Smash a shot at the upset.

Pokemon's certainly not beating Final Fantasy. Everything not-RBY/GSC (or a remake of them) would lose to even FFIV, and might all lose to FFV or FFXII too. Back in the late 2010's when people were at least reasonably content around the direction of the franchise and the vibes from Pokemon Go weren't yet a distant ephemera, I could see reasons to consider the upset despite that, but nowadays? nope.

Yeah, I don't think Pokemon > FF is a given considering its modern games are even more poorly received than FF's in general, but I'd at least give it a chance. I don't think Smash would be competitive with FF.

AxemRedRanger posted...

I would not take it for granted that Pokemon is #4 or better. The conversation and general mood among that fanbase around newer games, the franchise in general, and its developer has soured horribly since Sword and Shield came out and the average gamefaqser still doesn't care deeply about anything besides the first two games. I'd give Smash a shot at the upset.

Pokemon's certainly not beating Final Fantasy. Everything not-RBY/GSC (or a remake of them) would lose to even FFIV, and might all lose to FFV or FFXII too. Back in the late 2010's when people were at least reasonably content around the direction of the franchise and the vibes from Pokemon Go weren't yet a distant ephemera, I could see reasons to consider the upset despite that, but nowadays? nope.

Pokemon over Final Fantasy isn't a given, but everything not-FF7 may as well not exist for the impact it has on the strength of the FF series. We've seen this before.

And given how Cloud has fallen off a cliff in recent years while Pokemon has skyrocketed...let's say there are reasons to doubt FF is a given.

I think two-game series were inherently weakened by their lack of library in a Series Contest and so SSB as a series would arguably jump more than any other series.

Outside of LoZ, I think SSB has won the most GotY-awards here since the last Series Contest. It was previously a two-game series with no GotY-awards, and now it's a five-gane series with three GotY-awards. I don't see it having lost any hype-polls since then either at a quick glance, so people have stayed excited about the series in addition to its wins. SSBB/SSB4/SSBU has each beaten the best games from any other major series in their generations too besides LoZ.

Only real argument in my mind is that SSBB-hype heightened its 2006-performance enough to make its gains since then not as impressive. I can see that case, but I think it's gone up since then.

The thing is Smash didn’t look all that great in 2006. I highly doubt Smash would only get 58% on Sonic now or get 60/40’d by Super Mario Bros. I would take Smash over at least Pokemon.

Again, I don't think the two game thing mattered that much. We assumed it would, but Smash was 4th place that contest by a pretty comfortable margin and Kingdom Hearts did just fine, too.

LightningStrikes posted...

The thing is Smash didn’t look all that great in 2006. I highly doubt Smash would only get 58% on Sonic now or get 60/40’d by Super Mario Bros. I would take Smash over at least Pokemon.

Nah, I think there's a pretty clear gap between Zelda, Mario, and every other Nintendo series, but Smash did pretty well even considering that. Getting 40% on Mario is pretty darn impressive considering it wasn't that far behind Zelda and FF (46% on Zelda and 48% on FF). Smash being worth 35% on Zelda is actually a solid showing considering nothing else was even worth 30%.

LightningStrikes posted...

Has Smash’s popularity decreased? Ultimate was extremely well received.

As for Fallout I don’t think it would win but I think it’s probably top 10. A new Fallout is absolutely worth more than a new Final Fantasy however!

Now that Fallout is Microsoft exclusive? Not a chance. FFXVI would crush Starfield here too. I doubt Starfield would even be top 5 for this year's games here.

(Tears > Baldur's Gate 3 > Mario Wonder > FF16 > RE4Make > Spider-Man 2 > Starfield maybe)

WarThaNemesis2 posted... Pokemon over Final Fantasy isn't a given, but everything not-FF7 may as well not exist for the impact it has on the strength of the FF series. We've seen this before.

And given how Cloud has fallen off a cliff in recent years while Pokemon has skyrocketed...let's say there are reasons to doubt FF is a given.

What recent years? FF's big declines happened a decade ago now! It's hard to sift through all of 2013's nonsense but the FFVII cast overall probably looked better in 2018 than in 2013 and that was before the FFVII remake came out, while Pikachu was about equal with Crono both contests and in 2018 we confirmed Charizard and Mewtwo were frauds or have dropped and Squirtle and Missingno. didn't even show up. (I guess Red looked reasonably good though.)

Yeah “recent years” for FF means “a decade and a half and much of the series’ lifespan”.

As for Starfield, don’t underestimate it. Most of the site has a PC. More than PS5 ownership even. Of course if it’s the same format as the last three years, the final will be TotK (sequel)/Starfield (original)/Resident Evil 4 (remake), though Baldur’s Gate 3 is probably the actual number 2. With that said I think Starfield’s own flaws and criticisms could hold it back, not because it’s Microsoft.

ZenOfThunder posted...

was FF16 a bit hit? I'm not as into the gaming scene as I was when 15 came out but I remember that game was big in the cultural zeitgeist. I saw a lot of people talking about it and despite not playing it myself I know all of the playable character's names

FFXVI has an 87 Metacritic score, compared to FFXV with an 81 Metacritic score. So yeah, it fared better than FFXV in at least one area.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3257-division-4-round-1-l-block-m-knight-ryu-sf-the-dog

that time we got The Duck Hunt Dog into the contest and he wasn't even in Smash yet

LightningStrikes posted...

Yeah “recent years” for FF means “a decade and a half and much of the series’ lifespan”.

As for Starfield, don’t underestimate it. Most of the site has a PC. More than PS5 ownership even. Of course if it’s the same format as the last three years, the final will be TotK (sequel)/Starfield (original)/Resident Evil 4 (remake), though Baldur’s Gate 3 is probably the actual number 2. With that said I think Starfield’s own flaws and criticisms could hold it back, not because it’s Microsoft.

I mean, it's the combination of not being great and not being on PS that would hurt Starfield and are why it's not a top 5 2023 game for GameFAQs.

That’s a surprisingly respectable performance for a last place Nintendo joke-ish character facing down both a stronger “real” Nintendo character and a stronger Nintendo-aligned full-blown inanimate object joke character.

The conversation around FF16 turned sour after it came out (and it wasn't very positive in the lead-up either). I've seen way more negative opinions floating around than positive ones, and even the positivity is couched in a lot of caveats. Reminds me of FF15 in that regard!

LeonhartFour posted...

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3257-division-4-round-1-l-block-m-knight-ryu-sf-the-dog

that time we got The Duck Hunt Dog into the contest and he wasn't even in Smash yet

It's funny that Duck Hunt is now in Smash, but any gain would be nullified now that Ryu is also in Smash.

Yeah, rerun that poll today and we're discussing three-way SSB LFF.

KamikazePotato posted...

The conversation around FF16 turned sour after it came out (and it wasn't very positive in the lead-up either). I've seen way more negative opinions floating around than positive ones, and even the positivity is couched in a lot of caveats. Reminds me of FF15 in that regard!

No one hates FF more than FF fans.

Yeah, The Dog getting 14% is pretty impressive, IMO considering that L-Block was in the poll as well.

Well my point is more that Starfield not being on PS shouldn’t hurt it, more people here have a PC than a PS5. I imagine the coverage for ability to play Starfield is pretty good. What will hurt Starfield is the actual issues with Starfield. Of course with that said I think the narrative around Starfield is better than the narrative around FFXVI, though the latter should be stronger here at least at first because of the Final Fantasy name.

Though actually, I’m gonna say it: the problem Microsoft games have isn’t platform availability. It’s that other than their sims Microsoft’s AAA output has been not very good for over a decade. Before Starfield what was the last big budget non-sim Xbox Studios game to actually get a great reception? Gears of War 3? In 2011? We have seen some of their smaller games like Ori look good for that level of game so I really think the issue is the games themselves not the fact that people can’t play them. It just has not been a good generation and a half for them in terms of software output. Starfield is supposed to be the start of them turning that around and it’s a good first step but they need ten Starfields not just one.

Now on the sim side they’ve had some good stuff but that gets very siloed off in terms of the conversation. None of those are GameFAQs games except for when Forza Horizon 4 looked weirdly good in that one GOTY poll.

LightningStrikes posted...

Well my point is more that Starfield not being on PS shouldn’t hurt it, more people here have a PC than a PS5.

It's GameFAQs. Of course Starfield not being on the PS5 is going to hurt it. That's still the main way people here play (non-Nintendo) games.

Again I think there are a lot of people quietly playing “console” games on PC. PC ownership has been consistently pretty high, and even just high-level PC ownership is higher than PS5 ownership. More people on here can play Starfield than FFXVI if the console polls are accurate.

Of course the other side of that is the fact that people vote for games they’ve never played because they heard good things. Which is why games outperform their playrate percentages all the time.

KamikazePotato posted...

The conversation around FF16 turned sour after it came out (and it wasn't very positive in the lead-up either). I've seen way more negative opinions floating around than positive ones, and even the positivity is couched in a lot of caveats. Reminds me of FF15 in that regard!

Weird, because I was consistently skeptical of the game pre-release and felt like a pretty big minority in doing so!

LightningStrikes posted...

Again I think there are a lot of people quietly playing “console” games on PC. PC ownership has been consistently pretty high, and even just high-level PC ownership is higher than PS5 ownership. More people on here can play Starfield than FFXVI if the console polls are accurate.

Of course the other side of that is the fact that people vote for games they’ve never played because they heard good things. Which is why games outperform their playrate percentages all the time.

I mean, I own a PC, but I don't play games on it. I don't think ownership numbers are necessarily what to look at for PC because it doesn't tell you how many people are actively gaming on one.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/9057-best-of-2022-platform-of-the-year

I'd say something like this is more indicative.

Starfield will be hurt by not being very good, tbh

AxemRedRanger posted...

I would not take it for granted that Pokemon is #4 or better. The conversation and general mood among that fanbase around newer games, the franchise in general, and its developer has soured horribly since Sword and Shield came out and the average gamefaqser still doesn't care deeply about anything besides the first two games. I'd give Smash a shot at the upset.

Pokemon is in a weird position when it comes to a potential Series Contest happening again. It is known that there are 3 different groups of Pokemon fans on this site, an idea I talked about when debating the ability of HGSS to act as a proxy for GSC in the GOTD2 contest, but this is also relevant for Pokemon's strength in a Series Contest. These were the 3 groups of fans I had identified:

The hardcore fans - They'll play every mainline Pokemon game out there. This group makes up around 30% of the site. They might be less likely to vote for Pokemon in a Series Contest being fully aware that the series has gone downhill in quality.

The more casual fans - They still play modern Pokemon games, but may skip some mainline games if they don't like some of the game's flaws. These fans may also have a more negative view of the modern Pokemon games (and Game Freak in general) compared to the hardcore fans. This is easily the smallest group of fans, making up an estimated 15% of the site. They are more likely than the hardcore fans to vote for Pokemon in a Series Contest, but may still have enough exposure to the later games to factor that into their decision to not vote for Pokemon (depending on the match-up).

The former fans who quit the series - Most of these fans quit the series after Gen 1 or Gen 2, but some of them may have quit at some point after a later generation. This group makes up an estimated 35% of the site. They should be more likely to vote for Pokemon in a Series Contest because their vote won't be affected by the lackluster quality of the modern games. Their vote would likely reflect their nostalgia for RBY and/or GSC, games that are much stronger than anything that came after GSC.

And then there's the estimated 15-20% of the site that has never played a Pokemon game, but those voting for Pokemon would be out of apathy for either series in a potential match-up. They won't be voting against Pokemon because of the quality of the later games.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3258-division-4-round-1-alucard-falcon-diddy-kratos-a

I really thought Diddy was going to not suck, oh well.

Wonder if he'd do better today since we saw the big Donkey Kong surge in 2018 and DKC2 had its run in 2015.

I think Diddy would definitely benefit from the 2018 format change. Forcing people to vote in four matches per day was like a shot in the arm to every character that's recognizable but not particularly loved.

Alucard obviously still wins that. Not sure about Falcon and Diddy, but in terms of Smash hierachy I would probably expect Falcon to still be higher.

Yeah, Diddy probably still finishes third, but maybe he's at least closer to Falcon than he is to Kratos.

Captain Falcon is weird in terms of "hierarchy" because he was clearly fodder in 2006 (26% on Crono), got stuck behind Fox SFF in 2007, and then emerged in 2008 as a legitimate midcarder and has stayed there since. Seems to me a lot of the boost was from that one clip from the F-Zero anime and general youtube Falcon Punch memes.

Not many sidekicks/secondary dudes are worth more than around 40% on the main character, and I don't think Diddy's quite a Zero that can improve much on that. Modern Donkey Kong is stronger than Captain Falcon but is not worth 60% on him. (he might wreck him directly though given what he did to Falco in 2013). So I don't think a reasonable estimate on Diddy is gonna put him above Captain Falcon.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3259-division-4-round-1-arthas-ike-pikachu-spy

Remember when Arthas was decent for a couple of contests?

Also it feels like Ike has a really high ratio of close matches

Yep that one got rallied pretty high. WoW used to have a decent base to rally before everybody turned on that game. Of course, it helped that Wrath of the Lich King was about to come out, which was both Arthas-centric and the peak of WoW’s popularity and quality.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3260-division-5-round-1-donkey-tails-tidus-cube

Poor Tidus, he has a history of close losses to joke characters between WCC, Missingno, and Ganondorf.

At least he wasn't "cheating at a 2-to-1 rate" here like he was against Missingno.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3261-division-5-round-1-banjo-olimar-mega-man-nero

Man, what a pathetic fourpack this was at the time, and it's even more pathetic now because I'd wager Nero has only gotten worse. Would it be enough for Banjo to steal second place? Who knows! He's been in 4 (5 if you count Rivals) matches and has never gotten more than 25% of the vote.

Nero has had DMC5 since then, so I think he'll have held up fine.

Nero was in that one huh

He was the best part of the game, too.

He was literally the star of the first big trailer, yes

Banjo would beat Nero today obviously.

pjbasis posted...

Banjo would beat Nero today obviously.

I don't know. Yeah, Nero is definitely weaker, but Banjo's big reason to increase since then is Smash, and that's going to mostly be negated because Mega Man also went into Smash.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3262-division-5-round-1-dedede-pit-ryu-h-zero

Speaking of Smash, here's a match with two Smash bottom feeders, but it's alongside a match that was actually really interesting. Ryu H topping Zero is really interesting to look back at.

I take Zero there today hesitating exactly 0 times.

Back when Hayabusa was pretty good.

He may have also benefited from the Standout Factor, where he was a cool, realistic-looking ninja up against three cartoony-looking characters.

Since the subject was raised in these topics and it probably wasn’t worth its own topic Edge did another big best games list (this time of the last 30 years) with contributions from across the industry and Fallout 3 made the list but New Vegas didn’t. Another point in favour of Fallout 3 being the franchise big boy despite the vocal online fandom.