Contest Stats and Discussion - Part 1379

Never played either game and haven't particularly liked PS3 Demon's Souls despite several tries. But Skyrim seems mostly well liked for having vast amounts of content despite often criticized combat and story/characters/world and I generally prefer my games to end once they're out of the good stuff of the latter, so it was not a hard vote.

I'm more pointing out that almost half the votes are people who don't play the series, but Dark Souls can get a lot of votes in a poll against a strong game. Or even over 60% against a Metal Gear game.

I've voted for games I've never played many times!

ya know that's true I vote for my bracket or what I think I'll like more if I haven't played either

Been so long since I voted in one it slipped my mind

It's nice that the GameFAQs Contests website, Ngamer's website, and the Oracle website have all gone down just in time for this GotD2 recap!

That means basically all of my info is going to be coming from the B8 Wiki now that I can't access any other contest database.

Sad that all this info is disappearing because there are no contests to keep them active. One step closer to the end.

Damn, even the match pic archive is gone for now.

:(

End of an era. ;_;

We should've put more on the wiki.

I don't know if anyone knows how to get a hold of creativename to let him know about it. He may not even want to keep it active at this point.

I see Ngamer post once in a while but I don't know if he reads these topics anymore.

Creativename's site goes up and down sometimes. Hopefully it will be back up soon.

Edit: Also, unless I got really lucky with my random testing, the Poll Updates for 2020 all seem to be on the Wayback Machine.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7915-division-1-round-1-zelda-breath-of-the-wild-vs-the-outer

Breath of the Wild was one of the biggest favorites we've had in any contest. If you were picking against it, you were probably betting on an outside rally (Witcher 3 was considering the most likely candidate). Well, it certainly demonstrated why it was the favorite, outperforming even its high Oracle average by 2% here.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7916-division-1-round-1-halo-reach-vs-life-is-strange

Halo was the clear favorite here, but there was some rumblings about a Life Is Strange upset. After all, the Xbox was at its nadir here, and this was a third tier Halo game. It couldn't have been very strong. And sure enough, it wasn't. This was an indictment of Reach's weakness, not a show of Life Is Strange's strength, as we would see next round.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7917-division-1-round-1-final-fantasy-xv-vs-edith-finch

What Remains of Edith Finch was considered a candidate for weakest game in the field. Normally getting tripled by an FF game isn't that terrible, but when it's FFXV, that's pretty bad. However, Edith Finch did not finish last in the X-Stats! It finished 6th from the bottom and just barely stayed above 10% on BotW!

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7918-division-1-round-1-hollow-knight-vs-tales-of-berseria

This was one of the most debated round one matches. Hollow Knight was the Guru favorite, but Berseria had more picks in the Oracle. I suppose seeing Velvet win a match in 2018, even against bad competition, made us think a non-Symphonia Tales game had a chance. Turns out it wouldn't even be close as Hollow Knight exceeded even the expectations of those who picked it to win. Could it possibly score a big upset against FFXV in round 2?

Whoever was nice enough to put my write-ups on the wiki for this contest accidentally put the wrong one in at times it seems. Maybe I should check up on that, it's a bit of a shame.

That Breath of the Wild showing seemed impressive at the time but would only get more so as things went on. Not much to say about the rest.

I could be misremembering, but I recall that mere tripling by FFXV sending huge warning alarms about XV's strength, and even we weren't prepared for just how weak it would be.

WarThaNemesis2 posted...

I could be misremembering, but I recall that mere tripling by FFXV sending huge warning alarms about XV's strength, and even we weren't prepared for just how weak it would be.

Yeah, looking ahead, it was still the big favorite against Hollow Knight in the Oracle, but the average was under 55%, so we had low expectations for it after round 1 and it still managed to go below the bar!

I think I helped get Edith Finch in but yeah I knew it would be weak

great game though

Yes, FFXV to round 3 was not debated pre-contest, it was now and in particular because indie games looked so good throughout round 1 (then trash after round 2 lol).

ctesjbuvf posted...

Whoever was nice enough to put my write-ups on the wiki for this contest accidentally put the wrong one in at times it seems. Maybe I should check up on that, it's a bit of a shame.

That might have been me but it wasn’t malicious or anything if so. Did you do a mixed review topic or something at one point?

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7919-division-1-round-1-monster-hunter-world-vs-bravely-default
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7920-division-1-round-1-sekiro-shadows-die-twice-vs-ni-no-kuni

Monster Hunter: World vs. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice was a heavily debated round two match pre-contest, and they put up near identical performances in round one. If you picked Sekiro to win next round (like me), it was difficult to rationalize Ni No Kuni beating Bravely Default, so I certainly wasn't feeling good after these results.

This did tell us that Bravely Default got a pretty unfortunate draw and would have won a match (and maybe two) with better bracket placement.

Leonhart4 posted...

This did tell us that Bravely Default got a pretty unfortunate draw and would have won a match (and maybe two) with better bracket placement.

If you switch Bravely Default with Octopath Traveler, I actually think BD not only gets to be the one to expose Undertale, but straight-up wins the fourpack too.

UltimaterializerX posted...

That might have been me but it wasn’t malicious or anything if so. Did you do a mixed review topic or something at one point?

Oh I'm entirely sure it's just a simple copy/paste error and nothing ill-intended. I have everything saved so I'll just check up at some point. I noticed two pages within the first 8 having a different write-up, but that might as well be all.

No no Kuni ends up looking pretty good as well actually.

As for winning that four pack, Shovel Knight did get the developer tweet, but if that doesn't happen, I think Bravely Default could pull it off.

ctesjbuvf posted...

No no Kuni ends up looking pretty good as well actually.

Oh, I agree. It was just hard to argue it would be stronger than Bravely Default.

Oh yeah, I had Sekiro in round 2 but I didn't believe it after this result.

It's a good thing I wasn't a fan of Fromsoft back then, lots more bad results to look at now.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7921-division-1-round-1-the-walking-dead-vs-bastion

This was considered a big upset. The Oracle average for Walking Dead was over 58% here. We were dubious of indie games in this contest, but Bastion's upset gave us some pause. Round 1 would become known for indie darlings, and it started here.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7922-division-1-round-1-dragon-quest-xi-vs-trails-in-the-sky-sc

Trails in the Sky SC is a Board 8 darling and got in solely on the backs of its fans on the board. We knew it had no chance of winning, but DQXI surpassed its Oracle average by nearly 8% in this match. It showed why it was the favorite to get out of the lower half of this division to earn the honor of getting blown out by Breath of the Wild.

There are more popular contenders for Star of the Contest, but DQXI had an absolutely incredible one.

DQXI looked great, but also got exactly where everyone thought it would. I'd say Witcher 3 or Xenoblade deserves that title. BotW is honestly also up there for that beastly a performance.

Well, it would've been hard to go further than expected considering that would've required beating BotW! DQXI did look good every round though.

I agree with ctes though DQXI did look really good. The star is probably either Xenoblade or, well, Breath of the Wild which sounds odd to say.

Well, BotW dominated a contest in a way we haven't seen outside of 2002 Link, so it was a star in its own right. It's a shame we'll never see it in a proper Games Contest.

Yep if there’s another BGE it will probably be the most competitive without a rally… ever. You could definitely make the case for like four different games.

For fun, who is the star of the contest each year?

2002: Crono or Link
2003: Cloud
2004: Frog or Samus
2005: Bowser?
2005: Mario
2006: Snake
2007: Master Chief or L-Block
2008: Kirby or Snake
2010: Charizard or Snake
2011: Red/Blue
2013: Mewtwo or Draven?
2018: Zelda (HM to Tifa)

2004: Chrono Trigger, Melee or Starcraft
2009: RBY?
2010: Shadow of the Colossus, Majora's Mask or Brawl
2015: Super Mario RPG or Undertale
2020: Xenoblade or Witcher 3

Didn't put too much thought into a bunch of these so I might be missing something.

Would actually give the HM in 2018 to Alucard over Tifa. The only character she beat that she wasn’t projected to was Sephiroth and I think that says more about him than her. She actually came in slightly under her projections, though she held up better than other FF characters.

My oracle for the next BGE Finals

Ocarina of Time - 55.3%

(SM64 beat CT in a very controversial match)

Was Tifa the favorite against Luigi and Mega Man X? She might have been, but I don't recall. It's still a string of debatable matches she won at least.

But I had forgotten about Alucard and agree that he deserves it too.

I believe the order for that division was Tifa > X > Luigi, although they all had decent support

Really wish I had access to the Guru numbers

2002: Link
2003: Cloud
2004: Frog
2005: Diablo
2005: Mario
2006: Snake
2007: L-Block
2008: Snake
2010: Charizard
2011: Red/Blue
2013: Pokemon in general if that counts, or if not Draven
2018: Zelda

2004: Starcraft
2009: RBY
2010: Majora's Mask
2015: Undertale
2020: Xenoblade

Series: Super Mario Bros.
Year: 1998

Tifa was projected to win with just over 51% in the x-stats as I remember it, and wound up falling short of that. Which basically lines up with her earlier performances. What made her impressive was almost every other Final Fantasy character looking like absolute garbage while she more or less held up.

Tifa and Vivi both looked great. I'd be curious to see where Vivi falls in the hierarchy these days, particularly if/when this fabled FFIX remake sees the light of day.

Vivi is the other one along with the FFVI duo. Although Vivi did do less well on Donkey Kong than previously. That might have been more thanks to Donkey Kong though.

LightningStrikes posted...

Vivi is the other one along with the FFVI duo. Although Vivi did do less well on Donkey Kong than previously. That might have been more thanks to Donkey Kong though.

DK was definitely stronger, almost certainly due to the format requiring you to vote in all matches. DK doesn't beat Leon Kennedy before 2018.

Vivi got 48% on post-BotW Ganondorf. You can argue Ganondorf wouldn't get much of a bump from the game since that version of him isn't in the game, but I think Zelda in general was on a high, so he probably benefited by proximity. He got 56.4% on Dante the round before, and we know Dante is a solid higher end midcarder. Vivi outdid Dante by 4.5%, so yeah, he was legitimately a beast that year.

Too bad we didn't get a real read on Ganondorf in 2018 due to facing Link round 1 (terrible job by Allen for putting Ganondorf in a position to face Link right away, by the way) and then getting stuck with Bacondorf in his other match.

I think it’s more getting new games and the Switch that helped Donkey Kong tbh. But otherwise I broadly agree.

LightningStrikes posted...

I think it’s more getting new games and the Switch that helped Donkey Kong tbh. But otherwise I broadly agree.

I think that helped too, but the format seemed to benefit characters who are generally well known, such as Pac-Man.

2018 was the first character battle since even smash 4 was released right? So there were two smash boosts between 13 and 18

The issue is all those characters had good reason to get stronger outside that. It didn’t help say, Bomberman who didn’t. Of course we cannot prove any of this.

Important to remember that before Donkey Kong’s last one-on-one appearance prior to 2018 his last game was Donkey Kong Jungle Beat in 2004. That series was in an odd place in the 2000’s. It was doing better by the time 2018 came around.

LightningStrikes posted...

It didn’t help say, Bomberman who didn’t. Of course we cannot prove any of this.

Bomberman isn't on the level of a Donkey Kong or a Pac-Man. I don't think he's the best counterexample to use.

I don't think it was entirely the format, but there's good reason to think it would benefit the characters people are more likely to be familiar with.

pjbasis posted...

2018 was the first character battle since even smash 4 was released right? So there were two smash boosts between 13 and 18

Ultimate wasn't released yet at the point of the contest. And Smash 4 had started hype by the time of the 13 contest though Mega Man was the only new reveal that was in the contest.