Am I the only one who's noticed the parallels between the top flight of this contest and the Noble Nine back when the term was still relevant? To break them down:
* BotW vs. Link: both obvious-winner Zelda entrants; both tore through their respective foes (except Link in 2003 ofc) before not quite looking as dominant as expected in the finals. * Witcher 3 vs. Cloud: both are comfortably the second strongest entrants of their respective fields. Also, both would lose the board vote to pretty much anything, as Witcher 3 proved against Skyrim, before rising to heaven with the overnight vote, something which Witcher 3 even managed against BotW much as Cloud always did against Link. * Skyrim vs. Sephiroth: both the third-place entrants, of a kind with second place, and they each had matches that proved a thing or two about said hierarchy. Again, Skyrim's trends were much like Sephiroth's, as it lost the board vote against everything other than Witcher 3 before climbing the entire rest of its matches, again except against Witcher 3. * Smash Ultimate vs. Mario: both the second-strongest Nintendo presences in their respective fields, and each capable of SFFing any lesser Nintendo entrants while getting SFF'd just as hard by the predominant Zelda. * Mario Odyssey vs. Samus: the hierarchical relationship between SSBU and SMO proved to be much like the relationship between Mario and Samus in 2005, even though most were again expecting a much closer match. In both cases, the more broadly-appealing entrant won out over the fan favorite. Unfortunately, it's more of a stretch to tie anything else in this field to the last few members of the Noble Nine. Here's my best effort:
* Persona 5 vs. Crono: Both relatively niche JRPG entrants, and Witcher 3/Persona 5 was quite akin to both Cloud/Crono 2018 matches, albeit the latter were after the Noble Nine had stopped being a relevant concept. * Dark Souls vs. Mega Man: Both fought against the third strongest entrants in their respective fields, in matches with upset hype, and gave it all they could for quite a while before letting the DNV run away from them. * God of War vs. Sonic: This particular comparison mainly holds water for 2003, where in each case, the sheer magnitude of the losses sustained by these low-end NN-level entrants proved the winner was a threat and a half. Of course, both winners had already outperformed, but it arguably took their Round 4 results to get B8 to stand up and notice. Alternatively, you could go as far as to say both GoW and Sonic had already quietly been exposed prior to their painful losses. * Xenoblade vs. Snake: Again a comparison focused on a specific year, in this case 2005. Both entrants' strength was doubted pre-contest, and both had tough-looking paths. Each one took care of business in impressive fashion despite minor Round 4 slip-ups before bowing out respectably against the Mario of their respective brackets. There's also somewhat of a parallel to 2006, where both had hype-fueled, expectation-smashing runs that ended at the hands of a Nintendo entrant.