LogFAQs > #948295205

2. What if the 2000s game contests didn't do division by era?

This has to be the greatest mistake in contest history. Division by era has made the contests significantly more predictable. It's a lot easier to predict, say, Mario 3 vs. Zelda 1 than Mario World vs. Twilight Princess.

I actually don't mind it too much in 2004 since, like 2007, it's the first contest of its kind. It was already unpredictable enough to throw a bunch of games into a bracket. Besides, division by era did manage to give us a few good clusters of matchups, especially division 128. Starcraft probably doesn't go on its run if it had faced a classic as opposed to lukewarm titles like Halo, Kingdom Hearts and Wind Waker. But did we need to see Phantasy Star vs. Contra or Donkey Kong vs. Duck Hunt? Sure, the latter was a really close matchup. But it's more in line with the kinds of matches we see these days, where they're pretty competitive but not actually contributing to the later rounds in any way.

But 2009. That contest is an unforced error. Not only did we have fourways, but we also have division by era. Pokemon RBY almost made the list on its own because of how bad this was: here we had a newcomer that was suddenly a top 5 game without any external forces, and it gets put into the worst bracket position possible: riding alongside another Pokemon game against Majora and Metal Gear, winning that and then having to deal with Ocarina the rest of the way. It managed to make the quarterfinals and nearly the semifinals despite a completely hopeless matchup with Ocarina, Melee and FFX. What would have happened if we had gotten Pokemon RBY in a fourpack with, say, Final Fantasy Tactics, Mario RPG and MGS3? It could have really broken some brackets.

There are so many examples of wasted potential in 2009. Super Metroid gets fed to LTTP again, Goldeneye still can't get an honest matchup, a goofy LTTP/FF7/FF6/Mario 64 matchup that is so much less than the sum of its parts. We never got an honest game contest during the site's prime and it's honestly a contest tragedy. What wins, Melee or Mario 3? Does Zelda 1 beat Metal Gear Solid? Does FF8 beat Metroid Prime? These things wouldn't be answered until 2015, and even that contest has integrity issues for obvious reasons (not to mention how much time has passed since those games were in their primes). It sucks! Game contests should be the dominant contest here, and character battles are just better because we didn't have dumb restrictions on them.

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xyzzy