LogFAQs > #937707249

Match 71: Resident Evil 2 vs. DOOM

Resident Evil 2 15984
DOOM 11780

Huh, maybe DOOM's blowout of INSIDE wasn't just INSIDE being piss-weak? Not to say that it isn't, but apparently DOOM has some real strength. Or RE2 isn't as strong as it seems. Still, 57.57% is not a great score for Resident Evil 2; according to the 2009 X-Stats, RE2 should get 66.28%.

That may or may not have been an excuse to put "according to the 2009 X-Stats" into a write-up about a contest that only covers games released between 2010 and 2019. I was planning on using the 2004 X-Stats, but apparently RE2 didn't make that contest. I guess first entry syndrome won out there; I always thought RE2 was better regarded than RE1, but RE1's the only one that made it in '04. Granted, '04's nomination process was awful and resulted in a bunch of games from obscure systems getting in.

Also, unlike RE2, the "DOOM" in this contest is not a straight-up remake of the first game in the series. It's a brand new game, and was actually called "Doom 4" when it was first announced. So that makes the stat especially meaningless...except this is OldFAQs, where "pick the year closest to 1998" is a valid strategy. Resident Evil 2, the original one, is a 1998 video game. Wouldn't you expect it to get even higher on 2016's "Doom 4" than 1993's "Doom"?

Also, holy crap that is legitimately 21 years between original and remake. That's long enough to be "excusable". It's really been that long since the fifth generation, huh? And yet we're still technically considered to be in the eighth generation, even though we all know that since the Wii U is an eighth generation console, the Switch kind of has to be a ninth generation console by default. It'll probably be reclassified as a 9th gen console once the PS5 and XBSX come out later this year.

The Switch has officially succeeded the 3DS, also an eighth-generation system, as well as the Wii U. Even more evidence that the 9th generation is already well underway.

Match 72: Fire Emblem: Awakening vs. Bloodborne

FE:A 11688
Bloodborne 16076

Oh, hey, something that the lol X-Stats wouldn't have predicted! Two write-ups ago, I said that Borderlands 2 was presumed to be a stronger opponent than either RE2 or Bloodborne faced, then looked up the X-Stats for Borderlands 2-FE:A and found that according to 2015, that wasn't the case. Only problem is, the 2015 X-Stats not only have FE:A ahead of Bloodborne, but they also have Borderlands 2 ahead of Bloodborne! Narrowly, of course; something like winning with 50.21%. Apparently FE:A's a lot weaker than it was in 2015, which kind of makes sense because the backlash against FE:A from the hardcore series fans only got worse when the next game was everything wrong with Awakening turned up to 11. It's funny; Awakening was meant to be a big series of shoutouts to the entire series thus far, and then Fates ended up just being one long ode to Awakening, except it was far worse than Awakening ever was because the mechanics that made sense in Awakening were just kind of bolted onto Fates for the sake of keeping them. About the most encouraging thing about the series is that Echoes was still fairly loyal to Gaiden, because Genealogy is next up to get a remake and even though that's the game that Awakening was referencing with the child mechanic, it could get really ugly if they try to make it too much like Awakening/Fates.

Oh, right, Bloodborne. There's absolutely no good way to determine the strength of any of these games; it seems that the Undertale Effect was a lot harder to untangle than we thought. Still, Bloodborne put up a better percentage on FE:A than RE2 did on Doom. If we take that underperformance as a sign that contrary to popular belief, the RE2 remake isn't as strong as the original, well, RE2 isn't even projected to break 56% on Bloodborne by the 2015 X-Stats. The turnaround it made on FE:A, it's by enough that it should be able to get past RE2 as well. Remind me again where all these games actually were in 2015's bracket?

Okay, RE2 was on the opposite side from the rest of them, so its numbers are filtered through two Undertale matches including the final. And Bloodborne is stuck behind a bunch of SFF matches--it was in the division that had a ALTTP-MM final for the right to lose to OoT the next round. Yeah, these numbers are useless.

Match 73: Super Smash Bros. Ultimate vs. The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds

SSBU 17671
ALBW 9912

Pretty standard SFF match here. ALBW did well to avoid the doubling. It was pointed out that SSBU has more Links in it than ALBW has, so yeah, not even the LAW was going to help it here. It was a shame that two GotY winners had to face each other so early in the contest, but at least the 2013 winner could take solace in the fact that the 2012 and 2014 winners were out of the contest, too. In fact, the 2014 winner had never been in it to begin with. That was the year that Smash 4 came out, and being a Smash game is basically an instant win button in GotY oh hey Melee what are you doing there.

Most of the individual consoles' polls in 2001 only got their winner into the final poll, but for some reason the top three finishers in the PS2 poll all made the final poll, and finished 1-2-4. Melee lost to freaking GTA3. Weren't we supposed to be NintendoFAQs, not SonyFAQs? And yet Brawl, 4, and Ultimate all won their years. 4 did it so convincingly that they stopped at just the one final poll!

Match 74: Marvel's Spider-Man vs. Minecraft

Spider-Man 15903
Minecraft 11681

So about that assertion that Minecraft is weak...ah, wait, we don't have any gauge on Spider-Man. Let's try that again.

So about that assertion that licensed games are weak... 57.65% may not seem terribly impressive for this tournament, but it is a round 2 match, and more importantly...Minecraft's not weak. Back in 2015, it got 43.28% on Halo. Not a Halo sequel; the original Halo. Yes, Halo is known for being a disappointment in contests, but it is still a big-name franchise and this is the first game in the series we're talking about. And Spider-Man did better against Minecraft than Halo did.

Yeah, this was a match in which both games looked good. Minecraft was able to easily cruise past the percentage predicted for it by the Oracles, but Spider-Man still gets to say it beat a game harder than Halo did. Win-win! Except for the casuals; it's pretty clear by the prediction percentage that they thought Minecraft would win this outright.

---

Also known as Cyberchao X.