LogFAQs > #878610782

Round 1 – 2000 vs. 1990

Moltar’s Analysis

This...this can’t be another blowout right? On paper, this isn’t like most of the other matches so far, where it’s either been a super deep year against a weak year, or a strong anchor year against a weak year.

Here, we’ve got two years with some strength and some depth. With this falling in the middle, we may actually get a good match. 2000 is led by GameFAQs Game of the Decade Majora’s Mask. It also has backup of other strong Nintendo games, notable PC games, and even a Final Fantasy. There’s definitely depth here.

1990 is led by SMB3, which is one of the strongest games on GameFAQs. It also has the original Final Fnatasy backing it up and other classics like River City Ransom and Monkey Island and…

…

oh who am I kidding 2000 just has more depth this probably won’t even be close

Moltar’s Bracket: 2000

Moltar’s Prediction: 2000 - 64%



transience’s Analysis

Here's a hyped match! It's actually two years that have some strength to it, as opposed to 87 and 85 which are only competitive because they're both facing each other. Well, we'll see if that's true next round with 95. Gaming years have a tendency to rely on historical significance more than pure game quality. I'm curious to see if that's the case with this contest too.

When looked through that lens, 1990 looks a lot better. 2000 is a notable year for hardware, but the big software titles are just sequels. Final Fantasy IX is a throwback to earlier games in the series. Majora's Mask is notorious for being an Ocarina rom hack. Pokemon Gold/Silver is a better (?) version of Red/Blue. Perfect Dark, the same. The truly notable games of 2000 - Diablo 2, Deus Ex, either aren't in the match picture or are seen as net negatives.

Meanwhile, 1990 has Super Mario Bros. 3, still considered to be the purest platformer ever made. It has the birth of Final Fantasy. Those two alone have some serious cred. Is it enough? Probably not. The other games in the picture are weak and, for some reason, Allen skipped Mega Man yet again. It's really making me wonder what we'll see with 1994. River City Ransom and Wing Commander but not Mega Man 3? That's a hard pill to swallow.

It's awfully hard to pick 1990 after we saw the 87/85 result: big Mario game vs. Zelda and other big franchises and it gets tripled. Maybe 1990 makes a better game of it? I won't bet on it. Normally I'd go like 58/42 on this but given how lopsided this contest has been, I'm gonna go into the 60s to be safe.

transience's prediction: 2000 with 64.44%


Leonhart’s Analysis

I’ve started to leak confidence in my 1990 > 2000 pick for the last couple of days. I knew 1990 was heavily dependent on Mario 3 and FFI, but it didn’t dawn on me how precipitous the dropoff is until I saw the match pic. There was also the 1987 > 1985 result, where depth trumped the singular strong anchor. I think this match is a different situation than that one. Mario 1 is a well-respected game, but Mario 3 is a beloved game. It’s still a top 25 caliber game in the eyes of many, including myself. I think that distinction matters (although it may only lessen how badly 1990 loses!).

There was also some question about whether there was some sort of strange generational SFF involved in 1985/1987. Nobody knows for sure, but it was far more lopsided than anyone predicted. This will be the first time a year from the ‘90s clashes with a year from the ‘00s, so I’ll be curious to see how that plays out, even if 1990 barely qualifies as a ‘90s year since it was pre-SNES and 2000 might as well be an honorary member of the ‘90s since the N64 and PS1 were still alive and kicking!
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Moltar Status: contest woo
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