LogFAQs > #937220846

Match 57: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim vs. Subnautica

Skyrim 20647
Subnautica 3933

84.00%. A nice round number, the type of match that perfect Oracle predictions are made of. And I threw one away! Among the many games that this board plays to liven up the contest even more is the "Spread Betting" topic. Allegedly the spreads are set by the Oracle picks, but having just been told by the Analysis Crew (and having done my own research and agreeing) that Subnautica would be a contender for weakest game in the bracket, I figured that Skyrim covering the spread was the smart pick, then checked my Oracle prediction to make sure that it was high enough to cover the spread.

The Oracle consensus, even after me raising my prediction from 84% even to 86.67%, was only 84.77%. The average of the lowest and highest predictions was roughly 85.5%. Where the hell did they get -72 from?!

So, yeah, Subnautica's weak, but getting 16% on Skyrim easily takes it out of contention for weakest game in the bracket. Far weaker games than Skyrim got higher percentages in R1.

Match 58: Fate/Grand Order vs. Journey

FGO 8307
Journey 16271

Journey was piss-weak in 2015, so I figured the Fate name had enough clout to pull this one off. Then the Crew reminded me that even the people who play gacha games hate them, possibly even more so, because they make their money by making all the good stuff really hard to get. My Oracle still turned out pretty bad, though, because I still didn't have enough faith in Journey to not be awful too! And the apathy votes should've still leaned towards FGO because, again, recognizable name. It could very well fare better with people who haven't heard of it and don't know it's a gacha game than those who have!

Also, in a contest full of blowouts, Journey failed to double a gacha game. On GameFAQs, which hates mobile games and other "casualbait" (even though FGO is less casualbait and more otakubait.)

Match 59: Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn vs. Crypt of the NecroDancer

FFXIV 17583
Necrodancer 6997

This was one of those matches that I barely even considered debatable when making my bracket and it turned out it wasn't debatable, but in the other direction. I mean, let's look at the facts here: this site has never been big on MMOs, as evidenced by the way WoW constantly gets embarrassed, frequently losing as the favorite and failing to win convincingly even when it does win. Again: only entrant, game or character, to win with less than 60% with over 90% bracket support. And this site hates most of Square's recent output, so even if this were a regular Final Fantasy and not an MMO, it wouldn't be that strong, though it'd still be strong enough to win. And most importantly, Nintendo has been famously reticent to allow anyone else access to their IPs, ever since the Philips CD-i debacle. Even though Cadence of Hyrule isn't the game in this poll, its mere existence is a vote of confidence from people whose opinions matter a lot to GameFAQs.

Turns out, FFXIV is actually really well respected now. That "A Realm Reborn" in the title isn't merely a fancy subtitle; it's to differentiate it from the original release of FFXIV, which was such a disaster that Square basically scrapped the whole thing and then went meta with the rerelease, setting it in a post-apocalyptic world that's basically the same cataclysm that they dropped on the original release's world when they killed it off. People love it, especially because it finally gave WoW some much-needed competition.

So after being informed that I'd horribly misjudged two matches in the same day again, I went into the Oracle topic, came up with what I thought was a good percentage for FFXIV > FGO, then went back before posting because I'd already forgotten what the other game that I'd wrongly had losing was...and realized, oops, FFXIV was facing Crypt of the NecroDancer! So I had to redo it, and it was killing me because I still believed that if the opponents were reversed, I'd only have to change one outcome; that Crypt of the NecroDancer could still win.

After this? I no longer think Crypt of the NecroDancer could beat Journey. Unless FFXIV is just that beastly, getting only 28.47% is just not a good performance, and I really overestimated the psychological effect of "Nintendo let these guys make a game with one of their most valuable IPs".

The actual Cadence of Hyrule probably would've been stronger. Too bad it's a 2019 game or else we could find out in ten years.

Match 60: Uncharted 4: A Thief's End vs. Mario Kart 8

UC4 10114
MK8 14467

This match was debated for all sorts of silly reasons, most of them stemming as to whether voters would see it strictly as "Mario Kart 8", the Wii U game, or if they'd see it as both Mario Kart 8 and its update Switch version, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Because of course, voters will anti-vote anything associated with the Wii U. </s> Uncharted has never been that strong here; Nathan Drake managed a single first-round win in 2013 against Pac-Man and Steve from Minecraft, but is better known for coming in 4th place in his debut despite having CATS in his fourpack and then later becoming the first 2-seed to lose in round 1 in a format with 16-character divisions (though we'd had 8-1 upsets in the 8x8 era, so...) As for the games themselves...er, the game itself, Uncharted 2, went two rounds in GotD, beating The Legend of Dragoon and Street Fighter IV, before losing to Halo, then beat out The Walking Dead in round 1 in 2015 before losing to Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Neither Uncharted nor Uncharted 3 have ever been in a contest. No, Uncharted wasn't even in the vote-ins for the first GotD. (Uncharted 3 would've been in this one, not that one.) Honestly, this feels like a really bad result for MK8. I honestly wasn't that concerned about having blown two matches in the same day because unlike the Bravely Default/Ni No Kuni disaster, at least my wrong calls would both be R2 losers anyway, but after seeing MK8 held under 59% by UC4 while FFXIV was putting up over 71% on NecroDancer, I'm not so sure anymore! Obviously MK8 had the stronger opponent, but was it by enough to account for that big a difference?

Though it should be noted that at 55.86% correct, this was the most debated match of Round 1 with the casuals, narrowly edging out Nioh's upset of Binding of Isaac: Rebirth which 56.01% of brackets had incorrect.

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Also known as Cyberchao X.