Lurker > ctesjbuvf

+3 The Last of Us
+2 New Super Mario Bros. U
+1 Final Fantasy XIII
-1 CrossCode
-2 Heroes of the Storm
-3 Katawa Shoujo

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Guinness Book of World Records is the name of the diary that belongs to azuarc, the winner of the Game of the Decade II guru contest.

Round 1 Division 5 Day 10
Dark Souls III 69.93%
Dishonored 30.07%

Prediction Percentage 85.88%

The Souls franchise including Bloodborne and so on was certainly one of them most interesting this contest and of the decade. The first Dark Souls is widely respected as being one of the most influencing games this past decade and its easily the most popular of the three Dark Souls games too. The difference between them in contest strength appears greater than the difference in how much the fanbase likes them, but that can be contributed mostly to the original Dark Souls being the most influencing one.

Dark Souls III being the second one of them to make the contest probably didnt surprise anyone. The second one is the least popular one by a decent margin. Dark Souls III was mostly expected to win in this match and then lose the next match, but it had an outside shot of doing better than that. Bloodborne looked a lot better than last time, maybe Dark Souls III would be stronger than we thought.

Dark Souls III did just about what you would expect of it. Dishonored is past its peak and will probably slowly be forgotten, while Dark Souls is still talked about a lot. Dishonored didnt even make the bracket in 2015, where it more relevant. It just didnt really do anything groundbreaking and while being a fine game for most part, it was overshadowed. It managed to hold Dark Souls III down enough for New Vegas to remain the favorite in the next round, of thats any achievement.

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Guinness Book of World Records is the name of the diary that belongs to azuarc, the winner of the Game of the Decade II guru contest.

Round 1 Division 5 Day 10
Fallout: New Vegas 79.40%
The Stanley Parable 20.60%

Prediction Percentage 91.38%

This is one of the most straight forward matches of the entire round and that says a lot. The Stanley Parable had basically no matches it could win and is just happy to be here. Its cool that something can go from being a mod in Half-Life 2 to being remade for a release as its own game and get representation in a contest like this. The contest was perfect for shining light on things like that, even though getting blown out in round 1 means we quickly forgot about them again, particularly when theres eight games up on the game day and just one of the matches is interesting.

Something worth noting about this match is that Fallout: New Vegas also didnt appear to be much hurt from people thinking less of Bethesda than they used to. Its hard to make much of it when against something like The Stanley Parable, but it was still good news for the many people taking Skyrim far. Or at the very least it meant no additional reason to worry. However, a bunch of people theorized that New Vegas might simply be immune to a backlash. Its older and doesnt have the issues that generally caused the criticism and most importantly it was only published by Bethesda and not actually developed by them. Regardless, it would remain the favorite in its round 2 match, just like it was before the contest.

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Guinness Book of World Records is the name of the diary that belongs to azuarc, the winner of the Game of the Decade II guru contest.

But they also considered that prediction percentages would naturally decay and made suggestions that had you getting more points per match every round.

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Guinness Book of World Records is the name of the diary that belongs to azuarc, the winner of the Game of the Decade II guru contest.

This topic is some of the most contest fun I've had that didn't involve ongoing matches. Great work transcience!

Looks like I have been pretty good at this! the only one so far I've gotten wrong is picking 2008 and not 2007 for highest vote total. Realizing the importance of destroying fodder, which was easily achieved in villains and female contests, was what made me get most of them. Including that L-Block (and Draven) were bait, which I was the one (or at least one of the people) to point out. Best votals for a match ever does not mean you'll have the greatest vote total individually when you're against Link, Cloud and Snake!

Funny enough, I was right about Solid Snake having the most matches. I figured not missing other contests than 2018 and getting maximum or one away from maximum in the contests you could get the most from, while not ever going out before top 8 would put him ahead of Samus and Sephiroth. Samus also never missed top 8, but she also only once had as deep a run as Snake and that was a shorter contest by number of rounds. I completely ignored Link and Cloud as possibilities however and they were tied for second! I didn't consider the importance of getting additional late round matches in so many contests, which made up for the missed brackets.

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Guinness Book of World Records is the name of the diary that belongs to azuarc, the winner of the Game of the Decade II guru contest.

Round 1 Division 5 Day 9
Super Mario Galaxy 2 87.25%
Return of the Obra Dinn 12.75%

Prediction Percentage 95.45%

It makes me happy that Super Mario Galaxy 2 would become the game to score the highest percentage in round 1 of the contest and also among the best ever! It speaks volumes about Return of the Obra Dinn, and well get there, but it also says something about the Mario franchise. You basically have to have played and enjoyed Obra Dinn to vote for it here. More than Galaxy 2 even. With the forced voting and with the Game of the Decade title in mind, almost no one will not just vote for one of the most critically acclaimed games of all time. Mario games are perfect at taking advantage of that system and Obra Dinn it not the type of game that stands out among picture of eight games, which might save something like Baba is You from dying as badly as it might have had.

Super Mario Galaxy 2 looks good here, though its hard to make much of it when Obra Dinn is easily at the bottom of the games in the bracket. Unfortunately for Galaxy 2, it was in no position to make much use of any gained strength. It was never losing before round 3, and while a few looked at the chance of upsetting The Witcher 3 or just feared a Nintendo game would go berserk in the part of the bracket that had otherwise tried to avoid Nintendo dominance, just like Super Mario RPG did last games contest. At the same time as this match, however, we had The Witcher 3 doing almost as badly on a game people actually know what is. Even with potential SFF in that match, Galaxy 2 did not look to be on that level.

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Guinness Book of World Records is the name of the diary that belongs to azuarc, the winner of the Game of the Decade II guru contest.

Round 1 Division 5 Day 9
Stardew Valley 71.17%
Destiny 28.83%

Prediction Percentage 68.26%

This match went as basically every one of us expected it to, but it was still able to fuel the indie fear since Stardew Valley did better than most people expected it to do. In that regard, Destiny is the perfect opponent. Its bad and it was also in the previous contest where it was killed by Starcraft worse than it got killed today. If you expect some kind of SFF in that match, then Stardew Valley looks really good here. Not that in would matter much because Stardew Valley was never going to beat Super Mario Galaxy 2 regardless of how well it did this match.

Destiny has every reason to decline, of course. Our site has never been too huge on multiplayer games like this one but even less than we used to. Five years is a lot of time. You should expect things to change quite a bit between then and now. It makes it harder to compare and to predict, which has its ups and down for contest nerds. Its easy to see how much things can change in that time by looking at the character battles of 2002 and 2007. Or looked at 2004 and 2005 and see how much one year can do. If youre declining by each passing day, then five years can make you decline a lot.

Not to take any credit from Stardew Valley. It looks good here, and its probably one of the actual strongest indie games with the exposure and popularity it has had. It just wasnt in any position to take advantage of it itself. On the other side of contest, however, I think its pretty clear that the main reason Stardew Valley went over 70% was Destiny and not itself.

Its a shame we have so many fewer brackets these days. Almost everyone that makes one has some contest knowledge. I dont think theres much of a chance that Sardew Valley would be the favorite with the activity in these we had a decade ago. On Board 8 it would, of course, but this is a clear casual trap.

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Guinness Book of World Records is the name of the diary that belongs to azuarc, the winner of the Game of the Decade II guru contest.

Big Bob posted...

I actually really like Assassin's Creed Origins/Odyssey. The main stories aren't great, but they did such a great job recreating ancient Egypt/Greece that I really don't care. And the Discovery Tours alone are worth a look.

Maybe that's worth playing more fo them for? It would not be high priority, but when looking at the upcomming Valhalla, everyone about the world seems fascinating enough, but it gets harder to care with what stories they've come up with recently. I'll probably keep some eye on the series for a long time, because Assassin's Creed II and Brotherhood are fantastic games. Also, my girlfriend's little brother (13 years younger than her and me) loves the series and loves to talk to me about it because his sisters and parents aren't that big on video games and I know the series, which has made me consider looking at it a bit.

UltimaterializerX posted...

You got this, bro. Im enjoying the various perspectives, just make sure you finish the project!

Yeah, don't worry about that. Yesterday saw the daily work taking more time than expected, so I got to do 2 instead of the planned minimum of 4, it's not a big differnece and it'll be made up for by most other days of the weak having more that 4.

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Guinness Book of World Records is the name of the diary that belongs to azuarc, the winner of the Game of the Decade II guru contest.

Those two will have to be the only two today, but it should be okay, because I did a lot yesterday and I should be able to make up for it tomorrow. Besides, Thursday is a holiday here, so it's a long weekend where we'll get through a ton of matches.

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Guinness Book of World Records is the name of the diary that belongs to azuarc, the winner of the Game of the Decade II guru contest.

Round 1 Division 5 Day 9
Mass Effect 3 60.63%
Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty 39.37%

Prediction Percentage 64.54%

If this match reminds you of another match, its probably the fantastic Starcraft vs. Mass Effect 2 from 2015. That one was quite the nail biter. Starcraft is known for delivering to good matches. Mass Effect 2 didnt end up looking ahead of the other two Mass Effect games, but its loss against Metal Gear Solid 3 was all kinds of weird. Another issue is in that is how Mass Effect 3s contest went. Mass Effect 3 is rather infamous for being second in the unadjusted x-stats of 2015. It was the game Undertale just managed a comeback against in round 1 and thus its buried under all sorts of weird stuff. I mean, if you believe that Mass Effect 3 is on that level, then this is an easy match and next round should be closer than most thought.

Mass Effect 3 is one of the most controversial games this decade probably. It was initially disliked by many, but also cared a about by a great amount. The people complaining are always louder, so it might not be as bad as it seemed, but it still split the fanbase. DLC eventually fixed some the issues, but the damage had been done. Andromeda will always be the weak link now, but it also went into the forgotten realm. Everyone agreed it was awful. Mass Effect 3 is discussed more. The second game is the one that is remembered for being the best. In a contest called Game of the Decade, that will matter more than ever. Itll never reach those highs.

Then theres Starcraft II. I dont think anyone for a single second thought that it would be anywhere near the original one. The first has strength, but the second one was never that popular. Its hurt more by any issues people might have with Blizzard today because its more recent. There is room for the difference between the Mass Effect games to be rather big and still have Mass Effect 3 win this match, so Mass Effect 3 was favored here with a good amount of certainty, just like the result shows it should.

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Guinness Book of World Records is the name of the diary that belongs to azuarc, the winner of the Game of the Decade II guru contest.

Round 1 Division 5 Day 9
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 84.07
Assassins Creed Odyssey 15.93%

Prediction Percentage 92.23%

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was one of the most hyped returning contestants from the 2015 contest. The game has become a huge phenomenon, widely regarding as being one of the best games of the decade anywhere, which has only increased since release. In 2015 it did not look all that great, being a bit behind GTAV. You had to bank on it increasing from there to keep it far, and some did! Taking it as far as the finals. The Witcher 3 is also being remembered for the comment on the contest CD Projekt Red made when being contacted in a rally attempt. They didnt notice it in time because of thanksgiving and wouldve liked to have been noticed further in advance so they could do something. That stuck with us. The Witcher 3 had some serious rally potential.

Not that it would be needed today. Assassins Creed is way past its peak and Odyssey is easily the weakest of them to make the bracket. It was clear in 2015 that the franchise had fallen from grace by being trash in 2015. Ezio also looked way better in his debut than he did last time. They pumped out too many half-assed games too quickly and not even fans could keep up. Ive never played past the Ezio trilogy personally and it wasnt just because of lack of interest. One of the games would have to be seriously well received if I were to give it another go.

I expected Assassins Creed to look absolutely terrible here. I remember when predicting percentage that I just kept going lower and lower on it and it just didnt seem right. The serious doesnt have many people caring about it any longer and I could see almost no one vote for it above The Witcher 3, one of the games that are always brought up anywhere when discussing Game of the Decade. Furthermore, Odyssey actually drew some inspiration from Witcher, causing them to be similar in some ways. The SFF hammer was in the hands of Geralt, and man, did it hit. Even if you expected anything Assassins Creed to be complete trash these days, this was a good performance. You could certainly be happy if you picked Witcher 3 to go far at this point. Though we still needed to see the other top finalist contenders in the bottom half.

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Guinness Book of World Records is the name of the diary that belongs to azuarc, the winner of the Game of the Decade II guru contest.

new page

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Guinness Book of World Records is the name of the diary that belongs to azuarc, the winner of the Game of the Decade II guru contest.

PostContestUlti posted...

The prediction percentage on Octopath Traveler > Undertale is almost identical to picking Witcher 3 to make the final.

As someone who picked the first and missed the second one, it's patently absurd to suggest I deserve the same credit as people who picked the most important match of the contest right.

And no one suggested that they should! I clearly said that in my post.

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Guinness Book of World Records is the name of the diary that belongs to azuarc, the winner of the Game of the Decade II guru contest.

Still interested!

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Guinness Book of World Records is the name of the diary that belongs to azuarc, the winner of the Game of the Decade II guru contest.

Yeah, I thought I screwed up second highest vote total for a while just because it was so much to catch up on.

It was also funny to see Samus take the lead for a while. Got the easier opponents that year lol.

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Guinness Book of World Records is the name of the diary that belongs to azuarc, the winner of the Game of the Decade II guru contest.

The villains contest surge made me think Sephiroth might end up in second lol.

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Guinness Book of World Records is the name of the diary that belongs to azuarc, the winner of the Game of the Decade II guru contest.

It's possible!

But I'm not all that sure about 05, 06, 10 and 13. Especially 05, I'd guess Bowser there for sure, it's probably the most important thing of them too.

I was on the fence about it when predicting and I still am.

Edit: I realize now 2005 was what you said. Somehow I took that to be the villains contest >_>

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Guinness Book of World Records is the name of the diary that belongs to azuarc, the winner of the Game of the Decade II guru contest.

The villains contest doesn't need particularly high votals for Bowser and Ganondorf to still net a higher vote total per match than you would on average in 2007 and 2008. Competition was that weak. They also did well enough on Sephiroth that the match might be in line with what you'd usually get in 4-ways.

Squall could win that one, but regardless of the outcome, I feel pretty confident you'd rather destroy fodder in the villains contest than advance in 4-ways in terms of vote totals.

Edit: it's not the contest to make a difference, but both Bowser and Ganondorf were division winners in 2018, while Squall lost in round 3 because he drew Zelda. Due to the losers bracket, that means they had at least three more matches than him each. Bowser beat Alucard, so I suppose four for him.

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Guinness Book of World Records is the name of the diary that belongs to azuarc, the winner of the Game of the Decade II guru contest.

Leonhart4 posted...

Yeah, you had to have historically bad competition but it's also a testament to just how high vote totals were in that era.

transcience only made me more certain in my case by revealing what match Link achieved that in, because that one had Link achieve godly percentages.

2008 and 2007 had the highest votals, but they weren't leagues ahead of the contests right before them.
The average vote intake even win you win a match those years is probably below what you get from losing a close match the years before it. So Bowser and Ganondorf destroying fodder in the villains contest probably makes a huge difference, as would Tifa tearing apart the female contest.

We'll see if it's enough to be in first, but the point stands.

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Guinness Book of World Records is the name of the diary that belongs to azuarc, the winner of the Game of the Decade II guru contest.

I don't think 2007 and 2008 are the best contests to rack up total votes unless you badly blew out fodder though. You're splitting the votes more, so I doubt it's that big a disadvantage for Bowser only making round two in those.

I ended up picking Tifa over Vincent in the other one. Getting to murder the female bracket 1v1 should be worth a lot.

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Guinness Book of World Records is the name of the diary that belongs to azuarc, the winner of the Game of the Decade II guru contest.

I think it's interesting to see it highlighted through prediction percentages how much more important it is to get later matches right than early matches.

No one is actually arguing that rounds should be worth the same, just that the number of possible entries divided by two format has issues.

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Guinness Book of World Records is the name of the diary that belongs to azuarc, the winner of the Game of the Decade II guru contest.

What a great idea, this topic is totally me.

1. Who has been in the most character battle matches? (Link | Cloud | Sephiroth | Solid Snake | Samus) - It's not Link or Cloud, they've been out of the field too often and has nothing to compensate. Between Snake and Samus, it must be Snake. Neither of them every left early, but I can think more where Snake for further than the opposite. I don't think Snake even needs the Battle Royale to beat her. Sephiroth is the wild card, but I think I'm sticking with Snake regardless. Seph was eliminated ASAP in the final part of the 2018 contest and the villains contest wasn't that big.
2. Link has the highest single match vote total in contest history (oddly enough, in a fourway match). Who is second? (L-Block | Cloud | Zelda | Draven | Samus) - From reading Leon's post, it has got to be Zelda. L-Block is complete bait here. You're thinking finals are the biggest matches, but there's no way Link did not achieve that in an early round. You need completely fodder to get such.
3. Which non-Noble Nine member has received the most total votes in contest history? (Bowser | Squall | Ganondorf | Ryu | Kirby) - Seriously considered Squall, but he never got much further than Bowser. The one contest he had without Bowser, he drew Snake in round 1. Bowser had a lot more matches in 2018, that even with the low votals can make up for a bit. Bowser also has the villains contest, that could make the difference. Ganondorf should also be considered for the same reasons.
4. Which franchise has been in the most character battle matches? (Sonic | Mega Man | Pokemon | Chrono) - It's really hard to try to get an idea of Pokemon, but I think I'm gonna roll with the combination of Mega Man, Mega Man X and Zero. Mega Man was a lo ahead of Pokemon when it started getting serious.
5. Which of these Final Fantasy VII characters has received the most total votes? (Aeris | Tifa | Vincent | Zack) - It's tough being confident in any of these, they all missed some crucial contests. If our later contests had the heyday votals we used to have, I'd pick Tifa for sure. I don't think it's Aeris either, she often exit early and being in the early contests doesn't matter if you miss later. Vincent had the most important contests, but never really got to destroy fodder, did he. It can't be Zack. I'm sticking with Tifa
6. Which contest gathered the most total votes? (2003 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2010) - I think I recall reading this before.
7. Which winless character has gathered the most votes? (Guybrush Threepwood | Ramza | Kratos Aurion | Cecil | CATS) - Gotta pick CATS when he can actually win something. Contest appearences must matter the most here and he wins that. He even has a villains contest, which was his best appearence.
8. Which non-Noble Nine member has the highest average number of votes across all their contest matches (minimum 10 contest matches)? (Dante | Master Chief | Aeris | Yoshi | Yuna) - I'm going with Master Chief. First of all, he never got SFFd to death, but I think the key point here is that he had early exits in the recent contests with much lower votals and you probably want that here.
9. Which of these Pokemon characters has received the most total votes? (Charizard | Mewtwo | Red | Missingno) - It has got to be Mewtwo. I think he has the most matches and his run 2008 and maybe even rallied in 2013 has got to mean something.
10. Which Noble Nine member has the least number of contest matches? (Mega Man | Sonic | Solid Snake | Crono | Mario) - This must be Crono with his several early exits.
11. Which "kain" has the most contest votes? (Kain (Legacy of Cain) | Kaim Argonar | Kane | Caim | Kain Highwind) - I guessed, I have no idea, but I know who Kain Highwind is.
12. How many characters have received less total votes than Tanner? (0 | 4 | 11 | 28) - I'm going for the high number. 2013 had so many characters and low votals. It must have racked that number up a bit.
13. Link has the most votes in contest history. Who is second? (Cloud | Solid Snake | Sephiroth | Samus) - THis made me reconsider Link and Cloud's chances in the first question. I'm going with Cloud, he featured in all the high votals matches too and used to destroy stuff better than Snake and the others.
14. Which franchise has the most character battle wins? (Half-Life | Fire Emblem | Portal | Mass Effect | Mother/Earthbound) - I was gonna pick Mass Effect, but then I remember Weighted Companion Cube.
15. Which perennial contest failure has received the most contest votes? (Kefka | Tidus | Magus | Donkey Kong) - I don't know. I started out thinking making the villains contest would be deciding, but Kefka missed other contest. Tidus never did IIRC. I could see it being all four here, honestly.
16. How many of the top 25 highest voted characters were developed outside of Japan? (0 | 1 | 3 | 6 | 9) - Looking through the topic, this is my best bet.
17. The worst winning percentage for a contest character who has won a match is 12.5% (1-7). Who is it? (Lloyd Irving | Laharl | Ratchet | Wesker | Sam Fisher) - I'm simply trying to think who could've had that many matches and I'm gonna use the Villains argument again.
18. Which of these Metal Gear Solid characters has received the most total votes? (Big Boss | Liquid Snake | Revolver Ocelot) - I'm thinking Liquid Snake takes it by appearences.
19. Which of these series' has had the most character battle matches? (Fire Emblem | Tales of | Xeno- | Starfox | Ace Attorney) - There's so much Tales of stuff I probably don't even know is Tales of stuff... Starfox has had some success, so I'm rolling with that.
20. Which 'sidekick' character has the most contest wins? (Knuckles | Zero | Yoshi | Vivi) - I'm thinking it must be Zero or Yoshi. I've been annoyed several contests and Yoshi always gets fed to some big character before getting to be in a debatable match, so I'm going with him Zero.

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Guinness Book of World Records is the name of the diary that belongs to azuarc, the winner of the Game of the Decade II guru contest.

That might well be it.


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Guinness Book of World Records is the name of the diary that belongs to azuarc, the winner of the Game of the Decade II guru contest.

+3 Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker
+2 Devil May Cry 5
+1 Hyrule Warriors
-1 Street Fighter V
-2 A Hat in Time
-3 The Witness

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Guinness Book of World Records is the name of the diary that belongs to azuarc, the winner of the Game of the Decade II guru contest.

+3 Pokemon Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire
+2 Super Mario 3D World
+1 God of War
-1 South Park: The Stick of Truth
-2 Professor Layton and the Unwound Future
-3 Shin Megami Tensei IV

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Guinness Book of World Records is the name of the diary that belongs to azuarc, the winner of the Game of the Decade II guru contest.

That marks the halfway point of round 1 and a quarter of everything. Any overall comments or suggestions so far?

Not much of round 1 was very exciting, it was mostly just hyping future marches. I try to give an impression of how the board was thinking at the time versus what we know now actually happened in most matches. In some cases the latter is better served for a later match. I try to talk a bit about both games in the matches, mostly look at the losing game see if there's something there to be said. I also try not to derail from things relevant to the match very much. Occasionally, there's an opinion on a game to add some personality, and sometimes I discuss something I feel is worth discussing but isn't directly related to the match yet does not have a more obvious time and place.

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Guinness Book of World Records is the name of the diary that belongs to azuarc, the winner of the Game of the Decade II guru contest.

Round 1 Division 4 Day 8
Fire Emblem: Three Houses 66.66%
South Park: The Stick of Truth 33.34%

Prediction Percentage 80.49%

The red flag was up when Awakening had its match, but on top of Xenoblade overperforming, Three Houses looked nothing like a division winner now. I mean, full respect for going for the exact doubling. The percentages are there, it was just a few votes away. Thats satisfying. It was an underperformance however and Three Houses needed the opposite of that to still be considered the favorite to make it out of round 3 when Xenoblade was looking so good in the other match.

Everyone knows what South Park is. The games are also well-liked enough. Theyre nothing big though, the seeding and the lack of the other one makes that clear. You should not believe it to be riding super high on the name alone, just because people know it. Everyone here knows Fire Emblem too so the forced voting shouldnt make much of a difference. Three Houses had to hope that somehow South Park was significantly better than expected or that Xenoblade SFFd Splatoon more than the already expected high amount. It didnt seem great for it.

This match was another loss for 2019. Every game from that year looked off, except for remake of a 1998 game, which has a clear explanation for being a possible exception. Perhaps were too slow to try out new games these days. Thats certainly not something that would surprise me. Its also possible it was just a bad year, but relative to Resident Evil 2, the other things looked further away that the Game of the Year polls indicated.

Perhaps Three Houses had some level of anti-votes behind it. The Smash Bros fanbase consists of some of the most whiny, greedy, and impatient people on the planet. Byleth, the main character of Three Houses, being revealed for Ultimate was not taken well among the fanbase. Fire Emblem had already been hated on for having too many representatives compared to what people thought it deserved and theyre also quite similar many of them. Then Byleth was the fifth character in a fighters pass that otherwise had only third party stuff. You can see where the disappointment comes from, but Smash fans dont get disappointed, they riot. I think its entirely possible that Three Houses was anti-voted because of it, but it had to be a bit for it to make a difference in the Xenoblade match as things looked now.

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Guinness Book of World Records is the name of the diary that belongs to azuarc, the winner of the Game of the Decade II guru contest.

Round 1 Division 4 Day 8
Dragon Age: Inquisition 48.09%
Ori and the Blind Forest 51.91%

Prediction Percentage 38.19%

This is one of the most hilarious matches of the whole round. It was not the most exciting contest round to be fair, but this one still fully delivered. Almost no one saw this coming before the contest began. There were some gurus that went ahead with the upset, but it wasnt a popular pick. Despite the success of indies so far, only two people had this in the oracle, and this match eliminated all but four remaining people in last man standing. The upset had been considered a bit during the contest, but we had seen indie games doing better than we expected them to, yet no one could really believe Ori was within striking distance in this match. Partly because Ori is from the middle of the decade and not from the last years, which seemed to be the best thing. Mostly because the match just wasnt expected to be close.

The match was close within the first five minutes, but that was a huge sign that wed see an unexpected result. Ori was ahead at the freeze while being the underdog. The next update had everyone pretty excited, but it shouldnt have come as a surprise when Ori then jumped up quite a bit. It did the same thing the next update, and despite the match being close, it was never in doubt, and Ori never looked back.

Dragon Age: Origins did pretty good in its Game of the Year poll and in the previous Game of the Decade. Nothing fantastic but enough to win a match like this for sure. It disappointed a bit against Super Mario Galaxy in 2015, but that was completely overshadowed by the fact that Super Metroid > Super Mario Galaxy suddenly became the clear result. It also wasnt enough to make much of it, but perhaps it was a small warning sign of decline. Dragon Age: Inquisition was never going to be as good as Origins, but man its still a hard fall.

Ori and the Blind Forest was a for a while considered a contender for best indie game. It wasnt initially, but this surprised us all enough for it to be. It should be mentioned that I think its status as an indie game is a bit in grey. It started out as that, but Microsoft backed them for three of their four years of development. It had a lot of exposure at E3 before release. Most indie games just hope to be included in some montage. It doesnt make this result less impressive though!

Dragon Age: Inquisition finished second in the 2014 Game of the Year polls behind only Smash 4. That means that judging from those, it should be the strongest 2014 representative in the contest. That means nothing though. 2014 is probably the worst year of the decade overall and I have a hard time seeing it beat Bravely Default or Bayonetta 2 today. Even South Park: The Stick of Truth looks to be within striking distance judging from this fourpack. It also obviously loses to Mario Kart 8, but they didnt share a poll then. I dont know what happened to Dragon Age, but it apparently fell off a huge cliff. Unless something big happens to that franchise, we should not have it coming back again.

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Guinness Book of World Records is the name of the diary that belongs to azuarc, the winner of the Game of the Decade II guru contest.

Round 1 Division 4 Day 8
Overwatch 55.90%
Death Stranding 44.10%

Prediction Percentage 72.66%

This was a fun match in the sense that both games had a chance of being really bad on this site. It was essentially a matter of what game would be anti-voted the least, neither is particularly liked here. Its been a long time since anything from Blizzard had success here. The only real success anything had is probably when Diablo reached the semi-finals of the contest. The games have never been fodder here, theyve just not been as good as theyve on a lot of other sides, despite stuff like World of Warcraft having some of our most popular FAQs.

Both Overwatch and Death Stranding did just alright in their respective Game of the Year polls. Not fantastic, but both looked like something that could win a match if they got the right one. Overwatch just barely beat DOOM, which looked like a beast not many days prior, but was also fresh off the release of DOOM Eternal. Both of them were behind Final Fantasy XV, Uncharted 4 and Pokemon Sun and Moon, which doesnt sound too great. Death Stranding was just behind Bloodstained and just ahead of Devil May Cry 5, which by their recent results looks good enough. It was then behind Sekiro and Resident Evil 2.

The polls suggested that would be somewhat close, so you had to go with your gut feeling of how theyd do in a contest setting. Theyre both games that Id expect to do better in multi-ways polls, because they have their supporters, its just not that many. The percentages seem to agree. Overwatch is past the days where it got all too much attention, its probably not disliked too much at this point if it ever were. Death Stranding is a lot more recent, but it also a lot more our type of game.

It can be argued that the match came down to something like Death Stranding being disliked more, but I dont think thats what it is. Look at the prediction percentage? It came down to bracket votes. I dont think Overwatch being the top option mattered any, that wouldve only mattered when making the bracket since the games are side by side now. Overwatch was probably favored by quite a bit because its the more known name. The match is close enough and the votals low enough. I think bracket votes decided this one and it doesnt matter all that much, because the winner was never getting past Xenoblade even before Xenoblade exceeded expectations.

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Guinness Book of World Records is the name of the diary that belongs to azuarc, the winner of the Game of the Decade II guru contest.

Round 1 Division 4 Day 8
Xenoblade Chronicles 78.43%
Splatoon 2 21.57%

Prediction Percentage 77.66%

In a contest where everything released in 2017 manages to look good in the end, even things like Resident Evil 7 and Ys VIII that had all odds against them, Splatoon 2 sure just rolled over and died. I mean sure, this is a SFF beatdown, and sure, Xenoblade Chronicles turned out to be very good, but this still looks bad on the other side of the contest unless there is A LOT of SFF.

Splatoon isnt exactly the franchise that is in line with GameFAQs the most. Its respected to some extend for being a decent new IP. The sequel is basically just the first game with continued updates because they needed it on Switch instead. Story Mode is fun in both games, but its mostly just more of the same. Even so, the original Splatoon managed to hold Metal Gear Solid below 80% last contest. Its difficult for me to see the second one being any worse than that. At worst, it would be the same, but I have a really hard time seeing being released on Switch and getting Smash representation not doing the name any favors. This could be Zelda levels of SFF then, and it might be hard at first to think Xenoblade could be capable of that given that it has been a bit niche even though loved by most that played it. However, Splatoon is exactly the type of game you should extend to roll over and die when facing SFF. Nintendo fans like it well enough, but its no ones favorite. At least not on our site. As soon as it faces something people have strong feelings for, everyone will turn to the other game. Xenoblade also isnt as niche as it used to be since it got Smash representation and spawned more games. Its also coming on Switch very soon!

Regardless of any SFF, Xenoblade instantly became the favorite to win the division. A lot of people thought the winner of Xenoblade and Three Houses would go the final 8. The match against a potential Rockstar game reminded everyone of San Andreas against Golden Sun a decade ago and we know what to pick now. Three Houses was the favorite because of a combination of two things. Xenoblade and Fire Emblem: Awakening lost to the same opponent by an almost equal amount in 2015, and everyone expected Three Houses to be stronger than Awakening. Today, Xenoblade exceeded expectations by quite a lot. Three Houses also underperformed a bit, but that wasnt enough for Xenoblade. Obviously, an SFF match is never the best way to measure anything, but it was already hard to argue Xenoblade took the title as favorite instantly.

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Guinness Book of World Records is the name of the diary that belongs to azuarc, the winner of the Game of the Decade II guru contest.

Round 1 Division 4 Day 7
Red Dead Redemption 78.87%
Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective 21.13%

Prediction Percentage 94.77%

Red Dead Redemption was an exciting entry to have back again. It looked fine in 2015 all things considered, and it recently got a very well received sequel which could boost the franchise name. Unlike in 2015, it did not have a predictable a path. Any possible Rockstar hierarchy is not something we have seen before as the games usually dont get far enough to meet. Before that there was Persona 4 Golden to worry about. P4G vs. RDR was one of the most discussed round 2 matches both before and during the contest, though most of the discussion centered around the potential P4G had. Today they had similar enough high percentages against super weak games for us to not be any closer to a conclusion of that match.

The board vote today was of course nothing short of hilarious. On one side we have a Rockstar game, which is not board 8s cup of tea. On the other side, we have a game from the developer of Ace Attorney in the same genre, which is as much board 8s cup of tea as it possible gets. It has always been amusing how it is so. Perhaps there is some overlap between interest in contests and interest in those games. Of course, Ghost Trick is not as big, but its still right down our ballpark.

Ghost Trick has the honor of being one of only three games from the DS to make the bracket, the other ones being Pokemon HGSS, which is a remake and from 2009 in Japan, and Call of Duty: Black Ops which I can say with certainly that not a single person nominated because of its DS port and Im sure it being released on DS is news to some people too. So congratulations to Ghost Trick I suppose! The DS is a wonderful console no doubt, but its a long time ago by now. Even the representation of the 3DS is quite limited. Its not like were missing out on much. 2010 was the last year of DS before the 3DS released. The biggest snub is easily generation 5 Pokemon, which couldve made it in. Then theres a Golden Sun and a Harvest Moon, but Im not surprised they didnt make it.

The real surprise to me is that there is no Ace Attorney game in the bracket with Ghost Trick being the closest thing to a representative. Did we forget or what happened? Board 8 controls the nomination to such a big extend that it sure feels weird. Metacritic matters too, but games of worse critics have made it in. I have never played Ace Attorney myself despite being here for so long, so I dont know much about them. It might simply be that the more recent ones arent as well liked, so we did not care enough for them, but I still cant help but be a bit surprised.

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Guinness Book of World Records is the name of the diary that belongs to azuarc, the winner of the Game of the Decade II guru contest.

Round 1 Division 4 Day 7
Persona 4 Golden 77.77%
FTL: Faster Than Light 22.23%

Prediction Percentage 88.36%

Persona 4 Golden was probably one of the most exciting entrants to the contest in every sense. How would it boost from the huge success of Persona 5? How much would it matter that its a remake? On top of that its a remake of a game that was released before this decade and thus its eligibility is up for debate? How much would it matter that its a Vita exclusive, when the Vita is a good contender for last console you want to be exclusive to? The range of contest strength we believed it could be in was bigger than what most games had, and it had the perfect bracket placement for its run to be as exciting as it gets too.

It was never going to lose in round 1, even if all the things that I mentioned before went against it as much as possible. However, you could make a case for it losing in rounds 2, 3, 4 and 5. For how many games can you make reasonable different brackets that has it losing in so many different rounds. We often see an early match that is important because we know the winner will advance several times. This isnt even that! It could reasonably lose in any of those rounds and its a good reason as to why division 4 was perhaps the most important division in the bracket and the most difficult one to get perfect.

It was hard to determine much of Persona 4s future in the contest from this match though. Read Dead Redemption delivered a similar blowout. You could argue which losing game is better, but at these percentages that barely matters. Both games also had reasons for potential anti-votes. For P4G that would be the aforementioned status as a remake that a lot fewer people played than the original. FTL is exclusive to PC, which is also something you really dont want to be exclusive to in a GameFAQs contest. Unlike our Vita exclusive, its also not a genre we particularly care for. Its fine, but it was no surprise to see it end up as badly as it did. I sure hope that there are people appreciating all these fodder games got in, because these are the kind of matches were getting as a result.

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Guinness Book of World Records is the name of the diary that belongs to azuarc, the winner of the Game of the Decade II guru contest.

Round 1 Division 4 Day 7
Cuphead 68.28%
XCOM 2 31.72%

Prediction Percentage 77.96%

Cuphead was very well received upon release, being among the leading contenders for strongest indie game in the bracket. Unfortunately, it had a pretty predictable path, but there were a group of people that took the upset against GTAV in the following round. The number ended up being smaller in the oracle than in the guru, but if we had a tally the day before the round 1 matches, Im sure it would be higher. Indie games had been huge and had been winning matches they were not expecting to. Being an #8 seed, that task was tougher for Cuphead, but at least it got the one #1 seed that could hoped to be beaten already.

Cuphead itself looked a fine deal better than what was expected of it. It had easily the smallest blowout of the day, but most people agreed it was facing the strongest of the losing games, which on this side of the contest look to be true. Not that XCOM 2 is worth much mind you, we just had a solid amount of fodder going out today. Round 1 was a lot about taking out the trash and today is one of the most extreme cases if that, as 31% was the highest a losing game got. Im not saying anything is wrong with XCOM, its just not exactly the type of game we care very much. Itd probably do better if it had been released on Switch before the contest and not shortly afterwards, but it still wouldnt have made a difference in many matches, certainly not this one.

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Guinness Book of World Records is the name of the diary that belongs to azuarc, the winner of the Game of the Decade II guru contest.

Gall posted...

Funny thing is, I gave Dragon's Dogma a lot of credit. Enough credit where I thought it would win its fourpack. So at the time, I saw Shovel Knight handily beating it as more fuel for the "indies are strong" train.

Is it really like Devil May Cry? Because I've never even played it, but I was under the impression that it was like a western RPG. I do know it has a dedicated fanbase that's been playing for years, but they obviously didn't show up to vote.

I haven't played it either, so I'm not sure how alike they are, but they're similar and made by the same people.

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Guinness Book of World Records is the name of the diary that belongs to azuarc, the winner of the Game of the Decade II guru contest.

Round 1 Division 4 Day 7
Grand Theft Auto V 79.27%
Baba is You 20.73%

Prediction Percentage 95.06%

Considering Grand Theft Auto V was a #1 seed in Best Game Ever, it should surprise absolutely no one that it would also be that in Game of the Decade. Once again, its a recipe for disaster, because its not one of the 8 strongest games in the bracket and not close to either. Its division looked to be among the worst. Of course, thats partly because of itself being the #1 seed. Yet it was enough for a a fair share of people picking it to win the division. The far most popular opinion however was that the Nintendo game coming out of the lower half would beat it, if Persona 4 Golden or maybe even Read Dead Redemption didnt get to do the honor first. Even Cuphead had been a fun little upset worth taking for a few people before the contest. Indie games were seemingly on a new level this contest and many expected Cuphead to be the best of them. All three winning games today both looked pretty good today facing similar fodder. It appeared GTAV would be in trouble if it could not impress against Baba is You.

I think it looks pretty good all things today. Most people likely dont recall it doing well, because GTA has just about as bad a board vote as it gets. If you have that and the match isnt close, people are unlikely to come back and notice how much you rose over the course of the day. It had only 71% at the freeze. Cuphead had 74% at the freeze and was expected to be facing the better game. Even though GTAV rose to heaven from there and Cuphead dropped quite a bit, people were still hyped about the possible upset for days to come until the word that the percentages changed significantly had spread enough at least.

Baba is You ends up being near bottom of the x-stats to the surprise of not a single person. Even so, I think getting almost 80% on something when youre as disliked at GTA is pretty great. Baba is You is probably also among the hardest fodder for GTAV to look great against, simply because its as different from it as it gets. The simple design catches your eye almost immediately among these 8 games, surely more so if Cuphead wasnt next to it. Im surprised it made it in, though it was of course only barely. I played the game during the contest because of seeing it here and because of its name. Ive been nicknamed Baba in real life a few places before and I had enough coins on Nintendo Switch to get almost free, so I gave it a go. Unless you use guides in which case its obviously super easy, its probably one of the contenders for most difficult game in the bracket. This is the only one Ive played so far because of the contest, but I mention it because its a small side effect of these contests Ive always really liked. When we spontaneously try out and enjoy games because they were in the contest, that we mightve played otherwise.

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Guinness Book of World Records is the name of the diary that belongs to azuarc, the winner of the Game of the Decade II guru contest.

Good point too.

I'll edit some of the points I missed into the write-ups on the wiki at some point. I've written a small list, so do keep making them!


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Guinness Book of World Records is the name of the diary that belongs to azuarc, the winner of the Game of the Decade II guru contest.

I'm just surprised at how much it does. Like, basically all voters that care for neither game seemed to prefer Super Mario Odyssey there. It's an extreme case, when the losing game is something everyone knows what is.

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Guinness Book of World Records is the name of the diary that belongs to azuarc, the winner of the Game of the Decade II guru contest.

Round 1 Division 3 Day 6
Super Mario Odyssey 85.97%
Mortal Kombat 11 14.03%

Prediction Percentage 91.57%

Forget about almost everything else, this here is a good contender for weirdest result of the contest. We dont talk about it a lot, because the match was never in doubt and Super Mario Odyssey was expected to win big, but it has 86%! Thats an insane percentage in any match, but this match has just about no overlap between the games. Theyre as different as it gets. Furthermore, while we saw similar percentages elsewhere, that was against games no one knows about. This is against a Mortal Kombat game. Shouldnt they do a little bit better than this regardless of where the franchise is today? Only a single oracle predicted a better percentage for Odyssey that what it got, and he was in second. This is just beastly beyond sense.

This match began the hype of Odyssey possibly upsetting Ultimate. They faced similar games, but Super Mario Odyssey faced the historically bigger franchise and did better. That opened peoples eyes. Prior to the contest, most people recalled how the Smash Bros game has been better than the Mario game on every single console except for N64 and didnt think more of it. Lets break this down for good measure. Super Mario is among the best games on the site and leagues ahead of the original Smash Bros, which isnt that great a game, but just a tease of the good things to come. Super Mario 64 is in all likelihood better than all Smash Games, but its also from a console and time we value higher. Melee are leagues ahead of Super Mario Sunshine, most of which can be credited to the mixed feelings about Sunshine. We can debate forever about how strong the following Smash games are because theyve become mostly obsolete and we will most likely never see them again. Regardless, at the time of being the most recent game in the franchise, Brawl was way better than Super Mario Galaxy despite the latter being decent, and Smash 4 was way better than 3D World, which we will never see in a contest now that it was excluded from this one. Also, all the Smash games wouldve beaten all the Mario games just mentioned except Super Mario 64.

Odyssey did however have its small amount of support with most of them being among our best experts. A lot of this had to do with speculation and doubt about Ultimate, but it was also that Super Mario Odyssey is most likely the strongest game since Super Mario 64, similar to how Breath of the Wild is since Ocarina of Time. It was completely overshadowed by Breath of the Wild in all Game of the Year polls, but we also saw Super Mario 64 getting murdered by Ocarina of Time in 2004 before coming back to beat Chrono Trigger in 2009 despite another Mario game being in the poll. Fans are extremely passionate about Super Mario Odyssey and it shows. Theres a lot more to say about Ultimate vs. Odyssey in future matches, but its hard to argue Super Mario Odyssey did not have the better round 1. When that is said, we also need the friendly reminder of how little worth there is in comparing matches that are blowouts as big as these.

Finally, back to Mortal Kombat 11. What in the world happened here? The x-stats have it at near bottom. The unadjusted stats are obviously worse to it because of the layers of SFF it got buried under, which leaves at it at second to last ahead of only INSIDE, but even being kind in adjustments puts it below every single game we know what is, including disliked stuff such as Dota 2 and Fortnite. It folded so badly. I know that Mortal Kombat is far from what it used to be, but its not disliked as severely as this suggests. Did almost everyone just stop caring about it? Super Mario Odyssey is very well respected, it likely has close to no one voting against it because they dislike it, but it appears here that roughly 14% of the site care more about Mortal Kombat than Mario and that every single person that cares about both or neither prefers Mario. Ill be scared of picking a Mortal Kombat character to win much in the future of the franchise name couldnt save it from this enormous embarrassment.

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Guinness Book of World Records is the name of the diary that belongs to azuarc, the winner of the Game of the Decade II guru contest.

Somehow that went past my head!

I doubt it made that much of a difference here though.

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Guinness Book of World Records is the name of the diary that belongs to azuarc, the winner of the Game of the Decade II guru contest.

Round 1 Division 3 Day 6
Devil May Cry 5 57.41%
Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze 42.59%

Prediction Percentage 70.37%

Im honestly still surprised that this match went this way given recent contests and this one too. Devil May Cry 5 was supposed to win this match, the prediction percentage shows that most casual brackets agree. Being supposed to win the match has never stopped anything from dropping said match before, however. Board 8 expected that to happen here. It was close, but Tropical Freeze was the favorite to win and for good reason! Yet it just didnt come close, and it ends up looking really bad no matter how you spin things. It was in the match for just about 15 minutes, but that appeared to just be the board vote favoring it, perhaps because we thought it would win.

Donkey Kong is known for being a choke artist. Not that its actually an ability. Yet last contest Donkey Kong made two consecutive upsets in his best attempt to throw that title away before doing slightly better on Vivi in their third match. While that was Donkey Kongs third loss, doing slightly better meant a lot. Vivi is clearly stronger than he used to be, partly because Final Fantasy IX is a lot more well remembered today than it used to be, but he was almost riding high on the Mario upset in 2013. Almost everything from Smash Bros had boosted that contest.

Tropical Freeze was initially a Wii U game, but it was very popular and believed to be among the best Donkey Kong Country had offered after a previous disappointing title. Being a Wii U exclusive is no good, but it had been ported to Switch, so it shouldnt matter anymore that it used to be only on Wii U. Devil May Cry 5 was the best thing to come out of the franchise in many years, so people expected a close match, but picking the Switch game just seemed like the right idea in such a match.

Not only was it not the right idea, the match wasnt even close! Not that its a huge win, but for a debated match, its not a good result. Was Devil May Cry 5 that good? Did we underestimate it? Dante has always been pretty good in these contests. The first and third games are great, most of us agree. It was the best idea for what happened here at the time that Devil May Cry 5 was simply pretty good. It doesnt look like it now unless you believe Super Mario Odyssey is indirectly stronger than Ultimate and there was a lot of rSFF in that match. Tropical Freeze is just bad, thats all there is to it.

Then why is Tropical Freeze that bad? Nintendo was criticized for charging full price for the rerelease with basically no updates, so maybe it didnt help it as much as it should. I still dont think its the full explanation. Ive also heard people say that being a Wii U game is going to hurt you and no rerelease can help that. Bayonetta 2 is the other game where this is used as an explanation, but then just how beastly do you imagine Mario Kart 8 is if its hindered by being a Wii U game at first? It clearly is not. Unless you think Mario Kart games are similar enough to the point where one of them proxies the franchise, then the argument doesnt explain everything. Its still possible I suppose, but I think were left with Donkey Kong Country just being really bad, and that we clearly overestimated the strength of that franchise today because Donkey Kong isnt trash anymore. That Donkey Kong Country needs to be on SNES to be worth anything. The best of them is just alright here. Donkey Kong being iconic and boosting from Smash Bros doesnt mean his games are any better.

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Guinness Book of World Records is the name of the diary that belongs to azuarc, the winner of the Game of the Decade II guru contest.

My initial reaction was no way does Persona score such a high seed.

It looks like a good bracket, I'll try to predict later.

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Guinness Book of World Records is the name of the diary that belongs to azuarc, the winner of the Game of the Decade II guru contest.

Another thought; was Splatoon 2 adjusted a bit? It's a tough one, but it most likely suffered some SFF.

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Guinness Book of World Records is the name of the diary that belongs to azuarc, the winner of the Game of the Decade II guru contest.

Round 1 Division 3 Day 6
Shovel Knight 64.40%
Dragons Dogma 35.60%

Prediction Percentage 76.67%

In a round where indie games were hyped to be as beastly as they were, this match should have served as a warning to us. We did expect worse of Shovel Knight on average though, so it probably only made the belief stronger, if it made any difference at all. Most were under the impression it was mostly indie games from the latter half of the decade that benefit, so what Shovel Knight did probably didnt matter much to our overall view. Dragons Dogma is also an unknown quantity so the result would have to be extreme to change any overall views. Im sure most of the people predicting a lower result simply ended up thinking that Dragons Dogma was a bit weaker than expected.

The match should have served as an indie of just about how high an indie game could hope to reach. We were a bit back and forwards about what indie game was strongest. Everyone could agree that Shovel Knight was among the top, because of all the exposure and releases it has had. The best they could hope for were a doubling of Dragons Dogma. You can hear that doesnt sound too good, no one gave Dragons Dogma any chances today. The game was fine, but we wouldve probably forgotten about it if it hadnt gotten released on current generation consoles by now. I doubt it did the game many favors being released at a time where Devil May Cry was not thought the best of, when its basically Devil May Cry in disguise. Being able to beat it is not the most impressive feat.

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Guinness Book of World Records is the name of the diary that belongs to azuarc, the winner of the Game of the Decade II guru contest.

Yeah, I put "almost" there for a reason, and respect to the people that meant it!

It's just clearly not many, alhough I'm sure a lot of them would not admit so if asked.

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Guinness Book of World Records is the name of the diary that belongs to azuarc, the winner of the Game of the Decade II guru contest.

Round 1 Division 3 Day 6
Undertale 46.71%
Octopath Traveler 53.29%

Prediction Percentage 21.58%

The biggest upset of round 1, at least if you go by prediction percentage, sees previous Best Game Ever III winner lose to a Switch exclusive RPG that people had mixed feelings about. Unlike the other big upsets of round 1, this one also cost a lot of people 3 points. It was bigger in every way. There were even a very few people taking it further than that due to its previous result, but all experts knew Super Mario Odyssey was out of reach. A few people predicted Undertale to lose today, but it was the clear favorite with most people picking rather high percentages for it too. The ones that thought it would be anti-voted picked Shovel Knight to beat it in round 2 instead. What happened here is a mix of a bunch of things that was the perfect cocktail for getting Undertale out early.

The initial reaction was a huge number of anti-votes. Last contest we saw Amerterasu absolutely kill Draven in a contest that saw few blowouts. Draven was naturally weak, we knew that, but that result was out of proportions. Sans himself also looked very bad though not as bad. We have also seen various Poll of the Day questions show that we dont forget the contest invasions and are bitter ever after. Most people did not expect it to mean Undertale would lose to Octopath Traveler of all things, but that anti-votes came surprised no one.

In truth its probably not that bad. I dont doubt that there were anti-votes for a second, but they probably dont harm Undertale much worse than however much its boosted from the exposure last contest gave it. Weve seen bandwagons lasting over several contests in the past. L-Block is the key example of this. While using a 4-way match to beat Link was a one-time opportunity, L-Block was significantly stronger in future contests than it started out being in 2007. Undertale is not a joke entry in the same way, but a bunch of our regulars played it because of the attention it got. Undertale is a perfect game to take advantage of such since its cheap and short. This result looked extremely weird at the time, but Undertale ends up landing almost right where its supposed to. The adjusted x-stats have Shovel Knight barely beating it. Obviously, those have as much uncertainty as you get, but everything is in line here.

It then comes down to the severe underestimation of Octopath Traveler. As someone who expected Undertale to underperform and picked Shovel Knight to beat it, I did not expend Octopath Traveler to take enough advantage of it to win. The game was quite hyped before release. Being revealed at the first true Switch presentation, it had a lot of attention for its traditional RPG elements and graphics. It was aimed at people like us. However, while the game did fine, it wasnt spectacular by any means. I have not gotten around to play it myself yet, but the eight stories of the game made it repetitive and most characters werent very interesting, certainly not enough to compensate. I wonder how big it couldve been here if that was more popular.

Because Square RPG on a Nintendo console is among the best criteria you can have on this site. Chrono Trigger is the best example obviously, but there are others. Look at how well Bravely Default ends up looking, we didnt realize it yet, but this match had a lot to do with us just caring about Octopath. It would show next round. Tales of Symphonia is another good comparison. Its not a Square RPG, but a RPG on a Nintendo console that lacks big RPGs. Symphonia was almost unanimously liked, but the Gamecube wasnt too popular. The Switch is however, so Octopath had the perfect console to get exposure.

The part of the reason that people predicted big percentages was the huge indie hype round 1 had. It was thought that Undertale just didnt get to boost from it due to anti-votes, but it looks decent enough and couldve won a lot of round 1 matches. Its draw was rather unfortunate, we just hadnt realized yet. Its probably still a hindrance being an indie game. Not because of the fact that theyre indie games of course, just that indie games require word of mouth to become big, while something like Octopath is riding high on its developer name.

Finally, I usually dont express bitterness towards what happened in 2015, I mostly just express nothing. Im not vengeful and do not judge Undertale differently because of it. I played it because of the contest too! It was quite enjoyable. I will however use this match as an opportunity to laugh at all the many people claiming that their love for Undertale was endless and that they truly did believe it was the greatest game ever made instead of being the hot new flavor of the time. Seriously, its one of the biggest moments of what did we tell you?. I didnt mind using a flavor of the month kind of logic to vote in the contest, but the people saying so look so silly looking back. Almost none of them truly believed that, but just couldnt realize it when confronted about it back then. Undertale is not the phenomenon the internet allowed it to be briefly, its not an all time great and its not the best game ever made anywhere. Its just a pretty good and creative indie game with solid replay value. In that regard, its a shame it couldnt get a winnable match when so many indie games could, but it had its fun last time.

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Guinness Book of World Records is the name of the diary that belongs to azuarc, the winner of the Game of the Decade II guru contest.

Was Horizon not adjusted? It honestly looks good where it is, but it seemed to benefit from rallies.

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Guinness Book of World Records is the name of the diary that belongs to azuarc, the winner of the Game of the Decade II guru contest.

+3 Fire Emblem: Awakening
+2 Octopath Traveler
+1 Bravely Default
-1 The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky
-2 Call of Duty: Black Ops
-3 Hearthstone

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Guinness Book of World Records is the name of the diary that belongs to azuarc, the winner of the Game of the Decade II guru contest.

+3 Super Mario Odyssey
+2 Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze
+1 Kirbys Return to Dreamland
-1 Stardew Valley
-2 Crusader Kings II
-3 Amnesia: The Dark Descent

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Guinness Book of World Records is the name of the diary that belongs to azuarc, the winner of the Game of the Decade II guru contest.

Yeah, exactly.

There are probably tons of communities capable of doing that if they wanted to...

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Guinness Book of World Records is the name of the diary that belongs to azuarc, the winner of the Game of the Decade II guru contest.

Round 1 Division 3 Day 5
Minecraft 75.71%
Dota 2 24.29%

Prediction Percentage 89.25%

I do wish Dota 2 would have faced something other than Minecraft. Not because it would have won in many matches, but because its always fun to see casual bait lose a match against something far less known. Dota 2 is the type of game that would do that but look at what it faced. Minecraft. The biggest casual game ever, perhaps only rivaled by Wii Sports. Although Minecraft is probably slightly more cared about on a site like this. The prediction percentage against Dota is extremely high, so the casuals got this one right too.

Minecraft looks pretty good today, but its hard to make much of it facing a game that probably gets its share of anti-votes. The true testament of its strength would come next round. Last contest it looked decent enough against the original Halo before Halo died against Final Fantasy VII the following round. Those are all games with some share of anti-votes probably, but I dont think its a lot in Minecrafts case, which is part of the reason it won so easily. It might just be the true neutral. No one has strong opinions about it at all, but everyone knows what it is and were fine with it.

There has been talks about Minecrafts eligibility in the contest because the classic version was made available in 2009. The full game was however was released in 2011, which is why it was allowed in. Most of the people complaining seem to complain because League of Legends was not allowed in while being in a similar situation. Ive seen the same people claim both that Minecraft shouldnt have been allowed and League of Legends should, which is a weird stance, but perhaps just a wish for consistency. If Allen told us that he just specifically targeted League of Legends I wouldnt be terribly surprised. He specifically made Ocarina of Time and Majoras Masks 3D version ineligible while allowing Persona 4 Golden and theres not much consistency in that. I would also honestly believe him if he had told us it just didnt receive enough nominations, but Dota 2 being in makes it seem likely it would have. Its quite ironic in this Minecraft / League of Legends controversy, that Minecraft got to slaughter the game in the bracket League of Legends is most similar too.

My own stance? I said before League of Legends was in a similar situation and similar is the key word there. Its not the same and I dont think it makes much sense to include Minecraft in the complains about League of Legends honestly. Just because both initial releases have been called alpha does not make them the same. The League of Legends we had in 2009 was an actual release, even though it was not out everywhere, and theyve worked on it since. Basically, every place will list 2009 as the release year of League of Legends. Minecraft will be split between 2009 and 2011, but the ones saying 2009 probably acknowledges that the official release was in 2011.

Of course, it sucks for League of Legends in terms of a contest like this that its release went the way it did, where some technicality means it couldnt really compete in either Game of the Decade contest. I would not have minded it being allowed in because of this. It wouldve been an exception, but it wouldve been fair enough given the circumstances. I just wanted to point out I dont think Minecraft should have been disallowed and I dont think the decision on League of Legends should have anything to do with the decision on Minecraft. Besides, League of Legends wouldve been killed in round 1 in similar fashion to Dota 2, although probably worse because we bear a grudge on it here, so its not like were missing out on anything. Minecraft showed in this match that its worth having it in.

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Guinness Book of World Records is the name of the diary that belongs to azuarc, the winner of the Game of the Decade II guru contest.