Contest Stats and Discussion - Part 1378

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3772-midgar-division-round-1-riku-vs-ramza-beoulve

Not much to say about this match because it basically went exactly as expected (the Oracle average was only half a percent off of the final result), so you didn't have a reason to suspect what was coming next round for Riku if you had him beating Falcon.

I am bummed that Ramza never got a win after two close calls though.

Riku needs to get in smash.

Ramza probably also weakened a great bit, so Riku's weakness was hidden here.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3773-midgar-division-round-1-captain-falcon-vs-wander

We're kind of in an uneventful stretch of the first round here, so I'll just mention a personal anecdote. I made the Wander pic for this match, but some people complained that it was just a screen grab (as was my Ocelot pic, but it was harder to tell!). My rebuttal is that Wander has to be the hardest modern character to make pics for because he has no official artwork. You're just pulling something straight from the game and it's not gonna look good either way!

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3774-midgar-division-round-1-leon-kennedy-vs-vault-boy

There were some people who were worried there'd be some confusion about the name Vault Boy and that he should be called Fallout Boy instead. I don't know anything about Fallout, so I can't speak to that, but it didn't seem to affect his performance here. A lot of us were quite surprised to see Vault Boy get nearly 40% on Leon Kennedy (the Oracle average was 67.55%).

And then we never saw Vault Boy again. I doubt he'd do this good again since this was the height of Fallout here, but it's kind of a shame he never got another shot.

You don't think Vault Boy would do good post-TV show?

Again, I don't know anything about Fallout. I had no idea he was featured in the show. I guess I should have assumed he was because he's the mascot character. In that case, he might still do fine.

vault boy is more of a mascot than anything else

think of him like stamp in ff7 remake (except more prevalent)

Leonhart4 posted...

Again, I don't know anything about Fallout. I had no idea he was featured in the show. I guess I should have assumed he was because he's the mascot character. In that case, he might still do fine.

Way way way back in the day, people were taught do a thumbs up and if a nuke mushroom was smaller than your thumb you were safe. Really.

That’s the impetus of Vault Boy.

I don’t know if that was the height of Fallout here. The show could help a lot.

There's no way a show matters more than a universally acclaimed game. Although maybe the peak was GotD1

pjbasis posted...

There's no way a show matters more than a universally acclaimed game. Although maybe the peak was GotD1

I guess it depends on how much of an effect you think the Castlevania and Witcher shows had on Alucard in 2018 and Witcher 3 in GotD2 respectively

although the thing with Fallout is there isn’t like a go to character for it, but it can maybe help New Vegas

Before and after the show, the Fallout series’ playrate on this website increased by 1%! The big effect of these shows is drawing more people to the games and drawing people back who fell off. I think Fallout can definitely benefit since those games saw huge sales boosts, same with The Witcher, The Last of Us and others. The only one I wouldn’t expect to benefit from a major adaptation is the most successful of them all, Mario. Because everybody knows him and he gets new games constantly.

It does take me all the way back to the Series contest and Silent Hill vs Fire Emblem with people wondering if the movie could push Silent Hill over, which it did not. The issue there I think is that the film was not overall well received and had a middling box office run. Not terrible, but not enough to dispel the notion of video game adaptations as bad either. Now we have critical and commercial hits so I think the dynamic has changed.

It also gives me an excuse to say an idea that’s been stuck in my head for a while. Whether franchises hold or weaken mainly seems to be down to relevance rather than necessarily a change in reception. The demise of Half-Life on this site seems absolutely linked to that series just vanishing from the public consciousness as Valve did nothing with it. So popular adaptations are a way of franchises staying relevant even if they aren’t getting new games.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3775-midgar-division-round-1-sackboy-vs-kratos-aurion

This is another instance of casuals besting the board. Sackboy had a 63% prediction percentage, but Kratos was a decisive favorite on the board. Kratos wasn't strong by any means, but he had demonstrated himself to be high end fodder in all of his appearances.

Sackboy had only been in the 2008 contest, but he had finished dead last with under 10% of the vote. In hindsight, he may have been affected by being in the poll with three other Playstation-adjacent characters (Snake, Vivi, and Wesker). It's also possible this is just a matter of casual recognizability. You may not care much about Sackboy, but you're more likely to know who he is than Kratos.

I wonder how strong Astro Bot would be in a contest. At least as good as Sackboy but probably quite a bit better?

Yeah this was the moment it was clearly joever for ToS characters.

To be fair to Sackboy in 2008, his game was not actually out yet so he no doubt got a lot stronger. As for Astro Bot, he would be far stronger but I’m not sure how much so.

LightningStrikes posted...

The demise of Half-Life on this site seems absolutely linked to that series just vanishing from the public consciousness as Valve did nothing with it.

On the other hand

Chrono Trigger

LightningStrikes posted...

Before and after the show, the Fallout series’ playrate on this website increased by 1%

also you'd have to wonder how much an increase in playrates actually turns into votes. Quite a fraction I'd imagine, depending on the mu

pjbasis posted...

On the other hand

Chrono Trigger

To this day I wonder what that boost was all about.

pjbasis posted...

On the other hand

Chrono Trigger

The way this website works is that games from 1990-2001 are timeless while "newer" games have to fight tooth and nail to retain any relevance.

This site loves Japanese RPGs and among specifically JRPG fans Chrono Trigger is still considered a big contender for greatest JRPG of all time and stays relevant for that in any community where that is likely to come up. I don't think nearly as many of the users here are going to think about, care about, or participate in comparisons of how Half-Life 2 fits into best FPS games of all time discussions to nearly the same extent, even if many of them really liked the game in 2004 or 2007 or whenever they played it - and that we've probably shed a lot of the voters that might have done so.

HL2 > Chrono Trigger

There I said it. Obviously not in a contest setting, where it would lose like 70-30.

In a just world Half-Life 2 would be a top 5 game on this site

There are definitely many who view Half-Life 2 as an all-time classic but maybe not as many on this site. Although Chrono Trigger has stayed in the conversation for a lot longer I suppose.

We also don’t really know how much stronger it got because it had two of its three wins be in SFF matches and then it got eliminated by a Melee rally. Definitely better than 2009 where it lost to Super Mario 64 with Yoshi’s Island in the poll but by how much is unclear.

I highly doubt CT/FFX was an SFF match. We've seen little evidence of disproportionate overlap between modern FF and CT.

Not to mention CT was putting a beating on Melee that was trending to be in the ballpark of the FFX match (which the registered voters results essentially confirmed).

CT was a beast and would've beaten OoT, but rallies make contests so unpredictable and fun.

Leonhart4 posted...

I highly doubt CT/FFX was an SFF match. We've seen little evidence of disproportionate overlap between modern FF and CT.

Not to mention CT was putting a beating on Melee that was trending to be in the ballpark of the FFX match (which the registered voters results essentially confirmed).

CT was a beast and would've beaten OoT, but rallies make contests so unpredictable and fun.

You call Draven and Undertale's wins fun?

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3776-midgar-division-round-1-ryu-vs-balthier

Balthier is one of those characters for me that it's a bummer he's not stronger than he is. The Oracle average for this match was only 63% here, so maybe people thought he'd be stronger outside of 4-ways or something (I got a top 5 prediction, no big deal though).

Leonhart4 posted...

I highly doubt CT/FFX was an SFF match. We've seen little evidence of disproportionate overlap between modern FF and CT.

Not to mention CT was putting a beating on Melee that was trending to be in the ballpark of the FFX match (which the registered voters results essentially confirmed).

CT was a beast and would've beaten OoT, but rallies make contests so unpredictable and fun.

What were the registered voter stats? Because CT looked like it was below 60% when the rally started unless Melee was rallying from the very start (possible).

Registered voters were like 62-38% CT over Melee.

OoT may have still won in the finals due to ~Nintendo magic~ but it legitimately looked weaker than CT in every round. Was our last chance at seeing Zelda dethroned without a rally.

Interesting. Suggests FFX gets 46% on Melee with no SFF but that is making the assumption that Melee wouldn’t have an advantage with non-members without a rally. How did Ultimate do with non-registered voters in GotD2?

Looking into it seems that CT actually slightly underperformed on FFX through its first round performance on Ratchet & Clank, though this is pretty easily explained by Golden Sun getting stronger mid-GotD (it did have a game release), Ratchet & Clank weakening and just good old fashioned statistical variance. It certainly would have been close either way but we’ll never know for sure.

I think Zelda is beatable without a rally though. Baldur’s Gate 3 has looked tremendous every time we’ve seen it. I can certainly see it winning at least a hypothetical GotD3 contest. If only there will ever be another one!

LightningStrikes posted...

Interesting. Suggests FFX gets 46% on Melee with no SFF but that is making the assumption that Melee wouldn’t have an advantage with non-members without a rally.

Generally speaking, Nintendo did better with registered voters than non-registered ones (except when Melee was rallying of course lawl)

Balthier's lack of strength coincides with what I think the general gaming trend shows, that since Morrowind came out WRPGs have been kicking the ass of JRPGs.

This site is still RPG-centric, but JRPGs themselves have been eaten up by WRPGs.

The Wii/PS3/360 era really screwed up the JRPG genre. Not a whole lot of notable titles during that period. People were down on the Final Fantasy XIII games, and I think that affected the genre as a whole.

I think after Persona 5 came out, the genre reinvented itself and we're seeing a little resurgence. 2025 was fantastic for JRPGs.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3777-midgar-division-round-1-dante-vs-axel

In 2006, Axel got 30% on Mega Man. Four years later, he can only get 30% on Dante. This should've been our biggest red flag that something was wrong with Kingdom Hearts. When something starts to wane, the secondary characters drop off the hardest.

Regardless, Dante had established himself as the favorite headed into a showdown with Ryu next round, but as someone who had the #1 Oracle pick for this match (again, no big deal), I still had high confidence in Mr. Consistency.

WarThaNemesis2 posted...

This site is still RPG-centric, but JRPGs themselves have been eaten up by WRPGs.

They're fewer at least. But Persona looked great most recently and Xenoblade also looked very good.

ctesjbuvf posted...

They're fewer at least. But Persona looked great most recently and Xenoblade also looked very good.

And those games get their lunch eaten by Skyrim, let alone Witcher 3.

Persona 5 got 43% on Witcher 3, and that might be the strongest JRPG here released within the last 15 years.

I could see a scenario where Persona is boosted by multiplatform releases and Witcher/Skyrim decrease a little due to less positivity surrounding their developers but eh

I also think Elden Ring can potentially beat the western rpgs too

BG3 destroys them all though probably

Skyrim and Persona 5 had almost identical percentages on Witcher 3. Skyrim did a little better, but now Persona 5 is probably better than it.

I don't disagree the strongest WRPGs are better, we've seen those matches, it just sounded like the gap was way bigger than it is!

Considering the positive receptions to P3R and Metaphor, plus the bad reception of Starfield, P5 might be able to beat Skyrim these days.

I'm sure it would, they were pretty close in GotD2 already.

I'm not sure how much a game is lifted up by other games if it's already really popular

I think P3R would be helped by P5, not the other way around, for instance, because you've got people playing P3 because of P5. I don't know if P3R introduced a lot of people to P5.

Everybody was predicting that Fallout 76 would hurt Skyrim and it didn’t. With Starfield the game is fine just very underwhelming, it won’t hurt Skyrim unless Bethesda totally fades from relevance as a result.

As for CDPR yeah I doubt that would have any impact, people were voting Witcher not Cyberpunk and they fixed that anyway.

I would buy that Skyrim has dropped a bit though. It's really starting to show it's age, and people are fed up with Bethesda as a whole.

Also I'm just going to say it outright.

Based on Geralt's performances, I would take absolutely nothing out of trying to compare performances against Witcher 3 things.

Otherwise we might need to seriously start talking about Simon Belmont vs. Auron.

LightningStrikes posted...

Bethesda totally fades from relevance as a result.

I think this process has already begun, and it started in-between now and the last games contest. You can only release so many disappointments before people lose hope.

WarThaNemesis2 posted...

Also I'm just going to say it outright.

Based on Geralt's performances, I would take absolutely nothing out of trying to compare performances against Witcher 3 things.

Otherwise we might need to seriously start talking about Simon Belmont vs. Auron.

I mean Geralt's run was pretty typical bandwagon strength

Guy wins a bunch of close matches and people jump on board with that because it's cool, fun, and (for some) unexpected

So yeah, I don't view the Auron match as a true representation of Geralt's strength

Remember, Belmont got into Smash and there was the hugely successful Netflix show. It didn’t have Simon in it though it did make the Castlevania brand relevant again.

Now does Simon beat Auron? Nah. But I can see 45% on Auron. That doesn’t sound that wild to me at least.

KamikazePotato posted...

I think this process has already begun, and it started in-between now and the last games contest. You can only release so many disappointments before people lose hope.

I can see it. Arguably BGS is now at three disappointments in a row. One of those was still wildly successful, and another they supposedly fixed. But they definitely lost their shine. I think the hype behind TESVI will be huge and if that’s a disappointment it will hurt. Or it could live up to hype and be huge! There’s a lot riding on it either way.

The other thing to consider is the possibility that Microsoft will have somebody else make a new Fallout game.

There was a lot of calls during the contest on the board that Persona 5 was stronger than Skyrim based on the earlier rounds. I was one of the biggest defenders of Skyrim. And one of the people to downplay Persona 5 the most, but that was partially because b8 really loves it and overhyped it a bit.

But I have trouble seeing Skyrim keep its strength, in particular if the Game of the Decade title is not there. We have seen company standings affect things a lot of times. Occasionally it seemed like it had too with Mass Effect 2 and Skyrim, yet they got their jobs done, perhaps partially from votes of out respect in that particular contest.

LightningStrikes posted...

Everybody was predicting that Fallout 76 would hurt Skyrim and it didn’t.

I don't really agree. Skyrim was the favorite to reach the final pre-contest. That changed when it was apparent Witcher 3 was stronger during the contest. And Skyrim didn't really look quite as good in 20 as in 15.