Lurker > TsunamiXXVIII

Emil Karma
The Explosion
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Congratulations to BKSheikah, 2017 Guru

Don't Speak Her Name
Beat The Angel
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Congratulations to BKSheikah, 2017 Guru

magesaye posted...

Ocarina of Time > Link's Awakening > Wind Waker > Oracle of Ages/Seasons > Zelda 1 > Majora's Mask > Four Swords Adventures > Twilight Princess > A Link to the Past > Spirit Tracks?

You just missed. I counted Ages and Seasons as separate games, so that's Ages > Seasons and Wind Waker > Minish Cap > ALttP > Phantom Hourglass.
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Congratulations to BKSheikah, 2017 Guru

2003 Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS - Pace Car

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Monte_Carlo#Pace_cars

The accompanying picture is the 2003 edition, so that's basically a good picture--though mine's not usually in such pristine condition.
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FC 5026-4424-6331 -- Native Vivillon type: Polar
Still need Marine, Sun, Icy Snow, Monsoon, River, and Jungle

I said 14 was "far from the most recent". I'll give you a hint: 5 being at the top is a very common opinion; the unpopular part lies somewhere else.
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FC 5026-4424-6331 -- Native Vivillon type: Polar
Still need Marine, Sun, Icy Snow, Monsoon, River, and Jungle

So the final is the same as the real final, huh?

Well, my #1 year is here, along with my #3 (1997 is my #2).

2001
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FC 5026-4424-6331 -- Native Vivillon type: Polar
Still need Marine, Sun, Icy Snow, Monsoon, River, and Jungle

pyresword posted...

Spidey5 posted...

Or you can try nominating good things that can actually win.

But aren't these two mutually exclusive?

Yes, yes they are.
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FC 5026-4424-6331 -- Native Vivillon type: Polar
Still need Marine, Sun, Icy Snow, Monsoon, River, and Jungle

Monolith
U.N. Owen Was Her?

Heh, how cute. A bullet hell from this decade thinks it can play with the big girls. Love seeing Touhou actually doing well this year, even if its success has been largely concentrated in the Masters bracket.
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FC 5026-4424-6331 -- Native Vivillon type: Polar
Still need Marine, Sun, Icy Snow, Monsoon, River, and Jungle

1998 with 58.49% of the vote
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FC 5026-4424-6331 -- Native Vivillon type: Polar
Still need Marine, Sun, Icy Snow, Monsoon, River, and Jungle

Unpopular opinion. And, yeah, there are some serious holes in my experience, especially since "14" is far from the most recent. (Then again, you can see why I might've given up by that point.)
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FC 5026-4424-6331 -- Native Vivillon type: Polar
Still need Marine, Sun, Icy Snow, Monsoon, River, and Jungle

1998
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FC 5026-4424-6331 -- Native Vivillon type: Polar
Still need Marine, Sun, Icy Snow, Monsoon, River, and Jungle

Link versus Cloud posted...

Kuja286 posted...

Not sure I see the point in any contest with OoT somehow involved anymore Everyone knows it's going to win everytime, there's no excitement about it.

The only exception is ridiculous outside interference rallies for some flavor of the month game, which most people complain about and aren't happy with anyway. So it's a lose-lose.

This a commonly repeated narrative on these boards, but it isn't true. While Link has dominated the character battles (taking 6 of 9 titles + rivalry rumble), OoT has only won a grand total of 1 of the 4 games contests in site history.

04: FF7
05: FF7
09: OoT
15: Undertale

What we saw from the 2015 BGE results suggests there is definitely a chance for CT and/or RBY to defeat OoT in a future contest on natural strength alone, and that Melee is uniquely positioned as a game with tier 2 natural strength + has the ability to muster enough of a rally with consistent staying power to always be considered a threat as well.

What are you talking about, "2005"? There was no 2005 Games Contest. Not counting this one where a bunch of franchises can claim "victory", Zelda has still won 3 out of 5 non-character contests, losing the first Games Contest to FF7 and the third to Undertale while OoT took the second, the franchise as a whole took the series contest in 2006, and Majora's Mask took Game of the Decade.

I've actually been re-reading all the old match summaries on the wiki, and...it's kind of disgusting. Ulti's PCAs used to actually be something to look forward to; now it's basically one long rant about everything "wrong" with the world; I'm not surprised that he actually praised Trump in one of them since he basically is Trump in most of the recent PCAs. The constant harping on how Wind Waker ruined Nintendo is especially irritating, because while I eventually realized that I don't actually care that much about the Legend of Zelda and had only been getting all of the games up through Phantom Hourglass because Nintendo fans are "supposed" to like Zelda, I can at least tell that Wind Waker is a better game than his favorite Zelda game--as is just about every other Zelda game I've played with the possible exceptions of Minish Cap (which was just stupid) and Phantom Hourglass (because Ulti's completely right about one thing: fuck motion controls and fuck Super Mario Galaxy for making them ubiquitous--even if Galaxy 2 is the real awful one).

No, seriously. In one of his older PCAs, he (in his usual egotistical way) links to his own review of Ocarina of Time, where he says that the reason it's so good is because it's Link to the Past 3D, and basically just says that it's a Link to the Past rehash. Yeah, there's one big difference, though: Ocarina of Time was a good game. Link to the Past sucks! I'm sure if Ulti saw this, he'd call me one of those "lowest denominator" people, but that's not it at all. I absolutely love the original Legend of Zelda for the NES. Great game, super challenging the way games were back then even if it's pretty short. Link to the Past is just bad; I'm pretty sure that I eventually got stuck in that game because of failing not at combat but at, essentially, platforming. The game isn't a platformer! If I wanted to fail at platforming, I'd cue up an NES Mario game.
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FC 5026-4424-6331 -- Native Vivillon type: Polar
Still need Marine, Sun, Icy Snow, Monsoon, River, and Jungle

Januzaj_Dragon posted...

Yes because 1998 isn't an outstanding year for other incredible top quality games

IF you got the strongest game of every year and took it out then 98 would still win. And 2001 would most likely be in the Final and the match would be fairly close as well.

Stop labelling one game to a year and saying that always wins. 98 had a ridiculous amount of quality games, more so than most years. Only 2001 can compete and coincidentally that will be in the final as well.

First time in a contest where people are voting for the best entrants.

Agreed. The only years in this contest (that actually won a match) that I believe would be severely hampered by the loss of their best game are 1991 (Super Mario World), 1995 (Chrono Trigger), and 2011 (Skyrim). Maybe also 1992 (A Link to the Past), but 1992 probably beats 2016 regardless and went against 1998 in the second round. 1990 (SMB3) and 1985 (SMB1) would also count but they lost in R1 anyway.

...Wow, it seems weird to put Skyrim in the company of such legendary games. But seeing what it managed in 2015 and here, it seems evident that Skyrim is truly legit.
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FC 5026-4424-6331 -- Native Vivillon type: Polar
Still need Marine, Sun, Icy Snow, Monsoon, River, and Jungle

01
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FC 5026-4424-6331 -- Native Vivillon type: Polar
Still need Marine, Sun, Icy Snow, Monsoon, River, and Jungle

AdmiralZephyr posted...

FF7 has actually gotten quite a bit weaker over the years.

In another games bracket I'd actually strongly consider taking Pokemon RBY > FF7 as a last-ditch make-or-break pick at this point.

EDIT: Actually, I forgot that Melee beat FF7 last year. Screw make-or-break, RBY is probably the favorite to beat FF7 at this point.

Yeah, Square in general doesn't seem to be quite as strong as it used to be. The top games are still on the "elite" tier, but they're the lower end of it; I wouldn't be surprised if the top 5 games on this site now were all Nintendo--OoT and Melee obviously, and probably ALttP, SM64, and RBY, with an off-chance of Majora's Mask taking down RBY. Yes, Majora's Mask totally proved its legitimacy last time, nearly holding up to ALttP. But since I doubt that's even the most surprising assertion in that sentence, allow me to elaborate.

Yes, Super Mario 64 is insanely strong. Let's look at its contest history:

In 2004, Ceej and his obsession with making the brackets into SFF fests pitted it against OoT in Round 2, and after nearly getting 85% in R1 on a game that probably only made the field because of the nutty nomination form (one nomination per console, and the Sega Saturn didn't really have many worthy nominees), it got crushed by the legend. Link has always owned Mario, though, and OoT might be even stronger than Link the character.

In 2009, Mario starts off by SFFing Kirby Super Star into getting doubled by second-place SotN and nearly doubled by third-place RE1, then gets joined for Round 2 by Chrono Trigger and Yoshi's Island and still manages to easily take first place despite there being a second Mario game in the poll. Against Chrono Trigger. Oh, and it SFFed Yoshi's Island so hard that SotN still managed to double it despite barely breaking 28% on second-place Chrono Trigger. Round 3, uh...CT actually manages to get closer with FFVII in the poll, suggesting that SM64 was somehow hurt more by being on the same console as Goldeneye than being from the same series as Yoshi's Island, even though CT is from the same genre, developer, and partially the same console as FFVII. Finally, it bowed out in Round 4 when, of course, a Zelda game entered the picture (namely Link to the Past), and it was a pretty close match (although if you believe that "same console matters more" theory, ALttP would've been weakened by FFVI's presence every bit as much as FFVII should've been, so this is actually a disappointment.)

2015, though, is pure god-tier. 80% in an SFF beatdown in Round 1, nearly doubling FFT in Round 2, finally getting over the hump against Zelda with an "Ulti-style blowout" of Twilight Princess in Round 3, an impressive 61-39 win over Skyrim in Round 4 (yes, that is impressive; look at the opponents Skyrim beat to get that far. Goldeneye and Metroid Prime have both been legit in these contests, and I now firmly believe that it was Skyrim, not some out-of-nowhere "wait, is Skyward Sword ahead of Twilight Princess in the Zelda hierarchy?", that gave 2011 the upset over 2006), and here's the kicker: 48.67% on Undertale one round after Pokémon RBYG, which was supposed to be our great hope for a counterrally, managed only 48.48%, and one round before Melee, which we know was counterrallying, got 48.80%. And this can't just be some "freakin' Mario" thing because SMW barely broke 45%. (Undertale's highest percentage actually came in the finals, which is hilarious.) L-Block's 2007 run proved that these rallies build momentum, so how did SM64 outdo RBYG's percentage in a later round? Simple: regardless of what the bonus poll said about the two in a direct matchup (a 57.67% win for RBYG), Super Mario 64 is clearly the stronger game indirectly!
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FC 5026-4424-6331 -- Native Vivillon type: Polar
Still need Marine, Sun, Icy Snow, Monsoon, River, and Jungle

charmander6000 posted...

AdmiralZephyr posted...

There are exceptions of course, such as when there is such a significant gap between releases.

Ie, should Mother 3 ever see a stateside release, it will surely still be listed as a 2006 game and not the U.S. year.

Phoenix Wright being classified as a 2005 game disagrees with you.

Except that was a 2005 game. One that was largely a remake of a 2001 game, mind you, but the two did have slightly different titles in Japanese. Since you bring up Mother 3, probably the best example available for North American gamers would be the original Mother, finally released as "Earthbound Beginnings" in 2015. And it probably would be classified as such. (See also the remakes of the first two Fire Emblem games). For European gamers, though, there's a far better example, which likewise had mild changes for the first version that they received: Chrono Trigger. To Japanese and American gamers alike, that's a 1995 SNES game, but the first version Europeans ever received was Chrono Trigger DS in 2009. And there are differences between the versions.

Granted, this site has never allowed remakes to be taken as their own entities even when there are far more significant changes to the point that they're hardly even the same game (most notably the Pokémon main series remakes), so take that as you will.
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FC 5026-4424-6331 -- Native Vivillon type: Polar
Still need Marine, Sun, Icy Snow, Monsoon, River, and Jungle

Scrap I/O
Aquatic Ambiance
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FC 5026-4424-6331 -- Native Vivillon type: Polar
Still need Marine, Sun, Icy Snow, Monsoon, River, and Jungle

98
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FC 5026-4424-6331 -- Native Vivillon type: Polar
Still need Marine, Sun, Icy Snow, Monsoon, River, and Jungle

2001 with 56%

1998 with 70%
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FC 5026-4424-6331 -- Native Vivillon type: Polar
Still need Marine, Sun, Icy Snow, Monsoon, River, and Jungle

Liela Xea
Butterfly's Invitation
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FC 5026-4424-6331 -- Native Vivillon type: Polar
Still need Marine, Sun, Icy Snow, Monsoon, River, and Jungle

06
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FC 5026-4424-6331 -- Native Vivillon type: Polar
Still need Marine, Sun, Icy Snow, Monsoon, River, and Jungle

Sonic Adventure 2
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FC 5026-4424-6331 -- Native Vivillon type: Polar
Still need Marine, Sun, Icy Snow, Monsoon, River, and Jungle

Well put, NaberiusBuster.

1996.

Also, how did 2007 of all things beat out 1997 for a spot in here?
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FC 5026-4424-6331 -- Native Vivillon type: Polar
Still need Marine, Sun, Icy Snow, Monsoon, River, and Jungle

spooky96 posted...

GranzonEx posted...

RBY would destroy CT's eroded fanbase

Damn right it would. Though it's strange to see RBY and FFVII as the only ones considered seeing as how both CT and FFVII lost to Melee last contest, fairly handily in FFVII's case. Also, FFVII has already beaten CT in contests twice, and at a time when CT was far stronger than it is now.

Yuri_LowelI posted...

No we do know. CT never ever looked stronger than OoT to the point where That match would be debatable.

Think about what you're even saying. Let's see how ct would fair against link to the past Pokémon and even games like Mario 64.

You mean the same Mario 64 that CT lost to in a fourway in 2009 despite being the only RPG in the poll and there being a second Mario game to leech off of it? Yeah, if CT couldn't beat a disadvantaged Mario 64 eight years ago, there's no way in hell that it could win that match now. Link to the Past is slightly trickier, because their only head-to-head matchup came in 2004, before CT went into decline (in fact, based not only on its performance in the Games contest but its characters' performances in the Character Battle, 2004 CT is probably the strongest CT we've seen on this site), and CT only narrowly won. So it seems like ALttP would probably have the advantage in a rematch, but I'm reluctant to make the guarantee like I did with SM64.

And on that note, I think there's another game that seems fairly likely to be stronger than CT that no one's even mentioned. Well, not directly, anyway...

Yuri_LowelI posted...

Nothing is stronger than OoT and link without external forces and rallies.

Take a look at the results from BGE3, specifically the last victory that ALttP had before bowing out to OoT. It's a rather narrow 52-48 win against a fellow Zelda game, and one that it had to come from behind to win, at that (though that may have been rally spillover since it was the day after the Undertale-RBY match). Now, SFF matches usually wind up as much larger blowouts than would be expected of a match between two comparably strong entrants with no significant fanbase overlap, so unless 2D Zelda and 3D Zelda somehow don't have that much fanbase overlap (unlikely), I have to presume that Majora's Mask really isn't all that far behind A Link to the Past for the #2 Zelda game. Which, uh, seeing as how 2000 looked to be the deeper year to begin with, really convinces me that no, CT would definitely not be able to beat SM64. Wait a minute...

...Wasn't Pokémon supposed to be our great savior in 2015, the one thing that we could approve of that would theoretically have enough rallying power to take down Undertale? And aren't rallied entries like Undertale supposed to get stronger with each passing round, resulting in oddities like its first-round opponent winding up #2 in the X-stats?

Division 3 Final:
Pokémon Red/Blue/Yellow/Green 48.48%
Undertale 51.52%

Contest Quarterfinal:
Undertale 51.33%
Super Mario 64 48.67%

...I know rallied entries are supposed to be unpredictable, but that sure as hell seems like an indication that SM64 > RBY. Which given the rise of speedrunning seems perfectly logical. Given all results from all three BGEs...I'd say that OoT is #1, FFVII is #2, ALttP might actually be #3 just because of the power that Zelda holds (it did knock out SM64 in '09 after all), and SM64 is #4.
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FC 5026-4424-6331 -- Native Vivillon type: Polar
Still need Marine, Sun, Icy Snow, Monsoon, River, and Jungle

Battle Music
Butterfly's Invitation
Fury Sparks
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FC 5026-4424-6331 -- Native Vivillon type: Polar
Still need Marine, Sun, Icy Snow, Monsoon, River, and Jungle

Again, I tend to get a lot more top 5s when everyone does awfully than when everyone does well.
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FC 5026-4424-6331 -- Native Vivillon type: Polar
Still need Marine, Sun, Icy Snow, Monsoon, River, and Jungle

Sunshine Coastline
Blue Radiance
Zoo

Based on series alone, I'd expect to vote for Sunshine Coastline, but it's actually pretty weak as far as Ys songs go whereas J-E-N-O-V-A is a top-tier Final Fantasy song--I suspect that it being from one of the older games (yes, 7 is "one of the older games" now) helps, because the more advanced that games get, the more their soundtracks become reliant on context. A moving, emotional song can really capture you if played at the right moment, but in a vacuum, it won't hold up. Of course, I tend to let songs run as I type, so I very nearly switched back since Sunshine Coastline is the longer one and that's what I was typing this up to! I would not be disappointed either way.

The second match is also one where I love both songs--in fact, I'd vote for either one over either song in the first match. I just instinctively typed in Big Blue when I got into the topic because I've loved that tune ever since I first heard it in Melee, but listening to Blue Radiance again gave me pause, because that is a seriously good song and it's a shame that one of these two will have to go home in Round 3 while either goldenslaughterer or Scrap I/O gets to retire (no, I will not stop harping on how badly the first quarter of Bracket A got messed up; there were so many good songs and this crap ended up getting through. I might have to invoke the "Seymour rule" and vote for the one I like less just to get it out of future contests). Knowing my weakness for brass/woodwinds, though, I figured that this particular version of Big Blue would get my vote anyway. But, nope, it just doesn't stand up to Blue Radiance. Is my gut instinct going to match my vote at all this topic?

...Yes, yes it is. I was going to ask if Zoo was a song that got a lucky draw in its only time in the contest and reached round 4, but then I remembered that The True Mirror was a one-time entrant...but then I remembered that it is Round 2, so it's possible that two such songs are already meeting up. But, nope, Zoo has actually been in the contest 4 times and made at least R2 every time with an average of 2 wins per appearance. And...okay, actually, it is pretty good. Just not as good as The True Mirror (Guitar Version). I think...

...nope. No it's not. My gut instinct was wrong all three times.

Blue Radiance > Big Blue > Sunshine Coastline > Zoo > The True Mirror (Guitar Version) > J-E-N-O-V-A

Yes, I ended up switching back again on the first match when I went to write this up, because upon listening again, J-E-N-O-V-A actually isn't very good at all.
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FC 5026-4424-6331 -- Native Vivillon type: Polar
Still need Marine, Sun, Icy Snow, Monsoon, River, and Jungle

2001, of course. Very deep year, even for a dedicated Nintendoist whose only non-Nintendo, non-PC system was a Sega Genesis.

Waning days of the N64:
Paper Mario

Waning days of the GBC:
The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages

Dawn of the GCN:
Pikmin
Super Smash Bros. Melee

Dawn of the GBA:
Golden Sun

Not ported to the GCN until 2002, but originally released in 2001 for the Dreamcast:
Sonic Adventure 2

The reason I put Melee after Pikmin was not, by the way, because I like Pikmin more, but so I could say "the second half of that list alone" is more than enough to take down 1995. SA2B in particular was one of my favorite games ever for quite some time.
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FC 5026-4424-6331 -- Native Vivillon type: Polar
Still need Marine, Sun, Icy Snow, Monsoon, River, and Jungle

Oh, thanks for reminding me about Vectorman! Great game, very underrated. That's where I'm putting my vote.

Though I do have to give credit to both KDL2 and DKC2. Dream Land 2 started the so-called "Dark Matter Trilogy", which was Kirby at his finest, and DKC2, well...DKC2 is just a gem. I'm really disappointed that DKC2 wasn't listed in the notable games. Top tier soundtrack, top tier game.
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FC 5026-4424-6331 -- Native Vivillon type: Polar
Still need Marine, Sun, Icy Snow, Monsoon, River, and Jungle

2001 with 57%

1997 with 51%

1994 with 53%

1998 with 70.5%
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FC 5026-4424-6331 -- Native Vivillon type: Polar
Still need Marine, Sun, Icy Snow, Monsoon, River, and Jungle

I'm gonna go way off book here and pick the Game Boy Camera
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FC 5026-4424-6331 -- Native Vivillon type: Polar
Still need Marine, Sun, Icy Snow, Monsoon, River, and Jungle

1995/2001 - Tsunami

1997/1996 -

1991/1994 -

1998/2003 -
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FC 5026-4424-6331 -- Native Vivillon type: Polar
Still need Marine, Sun, Icy Snow, Monsoon, River, and Jungle

pjbasis posted...

Wolfenstein is awesome

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FC 5026-4424-6331 -- Native Vivillon type: Polar
Still need Marine, Sun, Icy Snow, Monsoon, River, and Jungle

I literally said "battle of the Final Boss themes" for In the Final--Id ~ Purpose. Though technically it's actually the entire final stage, whether you're in battle or not. Though obviously you didn't even take the best Touhou boss theme in the Masters; that's be U.N. Owen Was Her?.

Nefertiti
Boss Battle
Terra
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FC 5026-4424-6331 -- Native Vivillon type: Polar
Still need Marine, Sun, Icy Snow, Monsoon, River, and Jungle

Ivany2008 posted...

Yuri_LowelI posted...

Ivany2008 posted...

I know its early, but I don't even know how 1998 is winning... don't get me wrong, I love all those games, but they are going head to head with arguably the best game ever made in Link to the Past, Sonic 2 which is arguably the best Sonic game, and a ton of other great games.

so for me:

1992/2003

No one gives a shit about sonic games. And the pc library alone best out 92. People need to realise why 98 is so highly rated. Just because 92 had your fav game ever doesn't mean much. The year overall is what counts and 98 completely oblirates 92.

No one gives a shit about Sonic.... thats why it spawned over a dozen sequels on multiple platforms and over 3 television shows, and got him an as a character into Smash Brothers, but yes, no no one cares about Sonic.......

And I'm not saying 1998 was a bad year in gaming, not at all. Just that 1992 blows it out of the water. First real competitor to Street Fighter in Mortal Kombat, Wolfenstein which is credited as establishing the First Person Shooter Genre, and LTTP which is in the running for best game on the SNES.

And no, Link to the Past isn't my favorite game. That would be Megaman X, or Terranigma, kind of a tie between the two.

Heh, I don't even like ALttP, definitely think OoT is better...but nevertheless you've swayed me.

1992
2013
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FC 5026-4424-6331 -- Native Vivillon type: Polar
Still need Marine, Sun, Icy Snow, Monsoon, River, and Jungle

ShatteredElysium posted...

creativename posted...

ShatteredElysium posted...

But if you did it the way I said it would be 70 + 45 = 115. Divided by 2 is 57.5. So same result

I.e. you only care about the % for 1 side of the result, regardless of whether it's predicted as a winner or loser

You have to do 100-55 to get 45 though. That's what Ngamer was saying.

Yeah I get that, for some reason I thought the spreadsheet listed matches as 55/45 rather than winner and percentage

If only. I was looking through the archives on the site, and in the fourway era, where you had to put in a percentage for all four contestants and your score was the average of how far off you were on each one, there were literally #1 daily picks that didn't add up to 100%. There was one where the person's picks added up to 98%, and it got them a score of 49.50 because all four percentages were under the actual percentages. It's truly cringeworthy.
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FC 5026-4424-6331 -- Native Vivillon type: Polar
Still need Marine, Sun, Icy Snow, Monsoon, River, and Jungle

PhoenixFey posted...

Wow.

So, you enjoying New York? I find that the further away from New York you live, the more impressive it is when you go there. It's only a couple hours away by car for me, which is probably why I don't care much for it--"New York" and "car" don't mix very well.
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FC 5026-4424-6331 -- Native Vivillon type: Polar
Still need Marine, Sun, Icy Snow, Monsoon, River, and Jungle

Also, I guess I'll go with Warcraft.
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FC 5026-4424-6331 -- Native Vivillon type: Polar
Still need Marine, Sun, Icy Snow, Monsoon, River, and Jungle

ChichiriMuyo posted...

Johnbobb posted...

Tekken

You won my vote. Today, not so much love for Tekken. That year? It meant a lot.

PSI_NESS posted...

cyan1001 posted...

Phantasy star IV

Phantasy Star IV is already on the "Notable Games" list for 1994
I'd be freaking out if it wasn't lol

Tekken is on the list as well.
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FC 5026-4424-6331 -- Native Vivillon type: Polar
Still need Marine, Sun, Icy Snow, Monsoon, River, and Jungle

Liela Xea
Laguerra del Mundo
You Are My Hope
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FC 5026-4424-6331 -- Native Vivillon type: Polar
Still need Marine, Sun, Icy Snow, Monsoon, River, and Jungle

1991
1994

Mostly 1994.
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FC 5026-4424-6331 -- Native Vivillon type: Polar
Still need Marine, Sun, Icy Snow, Monsoon, River, and Jungle

Round 15 Top 5:
1 - WalkingWiki - 49.24
2 - spooky96 - 48.69
3 - TsunamiXXVIII - 48.69
4 - haloiscoolisbak - 48.69
5 - raytan7585 - 48.47

That's not exactly an outstanding number for a top 5! But then again, I suck at this and tend to only get top 5s when everyone sucks. These are some of the scores I've gotten top 5s with, and note that I'm still fairly new to Oracle and this is only my 12th career top 5.

#2 with a 43.24 (Melee vs. Chrono Trigger 2015; only one person correctly picked Melee and I had the lowest CT prediction)
#3 with a 44.35 (MGS3 vs. ME2 2015; everyone drastically undershot, with the top score being 45.36)
#2 with a 44.64 (Sonic 2 vs. Uncharted 2 2015; again everyone undershot but the #1 score was a respectable 48.46)
#4 with a 46.38 (FE:A vs. SMM 2015; roughly 40% picked the wrong game outright and only the top pick was even slightly over)
#4 with a 47.14 (Last of Us vs. Halo 3 2015; again, only one person overshot and that one was #3)
#4 with a 47.83 (2001 vs. 2014 earlier this contest; not on the oracle website so I can't analyze it, but based on the percentages from the actual match I'm assuming that I went under)
#3 with a 47.97 (Terra-Kefka vs. Vyse-Galcian 2011; mine was one of only three picks to go over the real percentage.)

I am sensing a pattern here. When the Oracles are overwhelmingly underestimating the winner (including the Melee-CT match that nearly everyone got wrong), that tends to be my best shot at a top 5. Clearly I need to start making my picks crazier. Though it seems like in this particular case, it was the loser that was underestimated!
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FC 5026-4424-6331 -- Native Vivillon type: Polar
Still need Marine, Sun, Icy Snow, Monsoon, River, and Jungle

I wonder if it's possible for the eventual champion to beat one franchise in all five rounds of the contest.

...Probably not, and the closest we can expect would be the champion's own lead's franchise.

Round 1: Link's Awakening
Round 2: A Link to the Past
Round 3: Wind Waker (seems to be the favorite)
Round 4: Neither of the two favorites have a Zelda game
Round 5: If 1997 (or 1996) takes it, no, but the Guru favorite is still 2001, which has Oracle of Ages/Seasons.

...Wait, I stand corrected. There actually is a major franchise that works (actually, there are probably a bunch of them, because some franchises seem to have a new game out every year, but...let's try Sonic:

Round 1: Sonic CD
Round 2: Sonic the Hedgehog 2
Round 3: If 2003 (the favorite) wins, the best we've got is Advance 2. If 2005 wins it, we at least get something on a console...but it's Shadow the Hedgehog. Either way, blech.
Round 4: Either Sonic 1 or Sonic 3 & Knuckles
Round 5: If 2001 is still the favorite, that's Adventure 2.

I'll take it.I'm sure Mega Man is a viable choice because those come out pretty much annually in some form or another, though it's so degraded that I don't think counting anything from the 2003/2005 match as being in the same franchise as the early nineties stuff is really accurate.

...Oh, but I'm just assuming that 1998 will win it all. Granted, that's a safe assumption, but I should really at least try to put up some possibilities for 1998 losing in the final, just for completion's sake. I did say "is it possible", after all. ...Well, if it is, the franchise in question won't be Zelda, because the only year in the entire top half of the bracket to lose in the round of 32 despite having a Zelda game was 2009, and the year it lost to already lost in round 2. Actually, there are a bunch that could, theoretically, pull off the trick, but would have to defeat 1998 at some point before the finals to do it and would probably have to pull a number of other upsets as well or have other upsets in front of them. I suppose it depends on how far into spinoffs you want to reach for "Final Fantasy". Definitely confirmed, however, is that the original Tactics would be the only non-numbered one you'd have to count if either 2002 or 2011 went on a run--they beat XIII and XII resepectively in R1 and are set to face IV and VI, then the other one, and then Tactics before wrapping up with, presumably, X.

Actually, if either 1991 or 1994 loses this round, but not both, 1998 losing in the semis works either way for the "one franchise", because whereas 2002 and 2011 both beat FF games in R1, 1991 and 1994 both beat Zelda games (Zelda 2 and Four Swords Adventures), and both 2002 and 2011 can provide those (Four Swords and Skyward Sword). Not major ones, but they're there. And of course, both 1998 and 2001 can provide both a Zelda and a Final Fantasy. Sadly, the other "major franchises" of 1998 are too sporadic; Pokémon might have enough spinoffs that you could squeeze something out but Metal Gear is just too narrow.
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FC 5026-4424-6331 -- Native Vivillon type: Polar
Still need Marine, Sun, Icy Snow, Monsoon, River, and Jungle

1997
1996*

* But only because I'm willing to count games that were never released internationally by their Japanese release dates. This is actually a damn close match for me, enough that 1996 doesn't win it without Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu on its side.
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FC 5026-4424-6331 -- Native Vivillon type: Polar
Still need Marine, Sun, Icy Snow, Monsoon, River, and Jungle

Surprised to see that my bracket is actually on the winning end. I did end up voting for 1996, but only because I use "U.S. release date if available" rather than "U.S. release date only" as my criteria; these two years are pretty close for me, and I don't think 1996 gets my vote without Seisen no Keifu!
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FC 5026-4424-6331 -- Native Vivillon type: Polar
Still need Marine, Sun, Icy Snow, Monsoon, River, and Jungle

Emil Karma
Fateful Confrontation
Flight of the Bamboo Cutter ~ Lunatic Princess

A lot of mediocrity here. I like all six songs, but I don't love any of them.
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FC 5026-4424-6331 -- Native Vivillon type: Polar
Still need Marine, Sun, Icy Snow, Monsoon, River, and Jungle

SupremeZero posted...

Jeff Zero posted...

Isn't this kid like 10? Why is this list of prospective love interests longer than my list of exes?

This series has been running for almost twice the time he's been alive. It's magic, just roll with it.

Pretty much, yeah.

Grand Kirby posted...

LusterSoldier posted...

Too many genwunners on this board when Misty is currently winning the poll over Serena.

Serena was the only anime girl that actually appeared to have a true romantic interest in Ash, which isn't something you can say about Misty.

Too true, but I still pick Serena.
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FC 5026-4424-6331 -- Native Vivillon type: Polar
Still need Marine, Sun, Icy Snow, Monsoon, River, and Jungle

Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World
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FC 5026-4424-6331 -- Native Vivillon type: Polar
Still need Marine, Sun, Icy Snow, Monsoon, River, and Jungle