LogFAQs > #939491982

Headliner Analysis continued:

So of course, Division Finals was the ONLY match where peoples faith in Zelda wavered, ever so slightly. Dragon Quest shocked us by spending most of the match over 30% before slightly dipping near the end. Part of the reason this was so shocking was because we assumed DQs half of the Division was trash, and that barely putting Monster Hunter away spelled doom for it. Instead, it turns out the FFXV/HK fourpack was the one that sucked. DQs most impressive match of the contest was breaking the illusion that Zelda was THAT much further above the rest of the field. Certainly waaaaay above, but not by the margin its first three rounds suggested.

These high-60s results became the new normal for BotW. Whatever made it out of the highly contentious Division 2 was inevitably getting mowed down by the LAW, and Mass Effect 2 was rewarded for its run with a 68% beatdown. Even SMASH, a titan of gaming that itself exerted SFF on Mario Odyssey, was promptly pasted by Zelda in the semifinals, also at around 68%. This one was really bad, honestly, and in a lot of peoples minds set Zeldas floor at 60%. Its weird to think that the 2010 finals between the Zelda game and the Smash game was a relatively close affair, whereas Zelda here got more than a doubling. Sharing the same console and being only a year apart did not help Smash in a match engineered by Allen to keep the finals from being Nintendo vs Nintendo AGAIN.

And what a wise decision it was. As detailed in my 2015 analysis, while Zelda was never ever ever gonna lose, the 56-44 result was 12 points closer than ANYTHING had gotten to it at this point. And this was hardly an indictment of Zelda, if you ask me; this was all Witcher being super legit, maybe even being a candidate for top 10 on the site (!). Still, the LAW prevails, the sun rises in the east, and I spend hundreds of words recounting the obvious. I have an entire year dedicated to the Majoras Mask bonus poll, so all Ill reiterate is that depending on how you interpret the numbers, Breath of the Wild is in contention for top 3 EVER, and a confrontation between it and Ocarina of Time is going to be the marquee match of the next BGE contest, no question about it (inb4 Animal Crossing catches a gigarally and squashes both those game and ensuring they never meet).

Lets move down a couple of pegs on the Nintendo totem pole, to a game universally considered to have gotten a raw deal this contest. No one buys the idea of making Mario Odyssey a 2 seed. No one. Allen hit upon the idea of making Nintendo cannibalize itself in Division 3, just as hed set Mario Galaxy, Twilight Princess, and Pokemon R/S/E against each other in 2010. While I dont personally mind that A Link Between Worlds was thrown to the wolves, I dont see why Smash vs Mario couldnt have been a quarterfinal match. I feel theres enough weight behind those two entries to justify at least that. Division 4 would have been much less of a headache with Odyssey there, Ill tell you that much.

And so, Smash and Mario spent most of their time in bracket in a dick-measuring contest. While I dont think Odysseys run in and of itself was that interesting, it did have a habit of seeming like it was one-upping Smash at every turn, which made people like me that had Smash > Mario increasingly nervous.

It started in Round 1 with both games facing fighters. Mario drew Mortal Kombat, which hasnt had a game entry in these contests in more than 10 years. Still, Scorpion and Sub-Zero have tended to punch above their weight in character contests, so its generally been assumed that MK as a series was better than Tekken. So for Mario to start its run by beating it harder than Smash beat Tekken, harder than Zelda beat the Outer Worlds in fact, turned quite a few heads. Personally, this Round was the main reason I switched to Mario in my Second Chance bracket, because I was one of the people that bought MK > Tekken, forgetting MK11 was at the center of a recent microtransaction shitstorm, which I think the Internet is contractually obligated to have every month or so.

The comparisons were harder to make from here. Mario got to reward DMCVs well-earned upset with a 71% beatdown. Donkey Kong fans should be happy it choked in Round 1, because it would have gotten annihilated in DMCs place in a callback to the 2002 Mario vs Donkey Kong slaughterfest. Round 3 brought on Shovel Knight, which Mario beat with an almost identical percentage. Yah, like I said, I dont really feel Mario had a particularly interesting run, being placed in a pretty weak eightpack where it got to smack down winners of highly debated matches. Made it feel like a bully, if Im being honest.

Division Finals couldnt come soon enough for the top seeds of the Division, which spent most of their run idly backhanding everything that came their way. Mario passed the eye test better than Smash did; it hadnt dropped below 70 once, whereas Smash could only put 63% on Zelda and Spiderman. But man, lets list their opponents here.

Smash: Tekken, A Link Between Worlds, Spiderman
Mario: Mortal Kombat, Devil May Cry, Shovel Knight

Round 1 aside, it seems pretty obvious Smash had the more difficult draw. For people like me that switched to Mario, the argument wasnt that Zelda and Spiderman sucked, it was whether they were THAT much better than DMC and SK.

Of course, because this was an SFF match, its not like well ever know for sure. In my SC bracket, I had Mario winning by 57%; instead, Smash won with 56. I knew that whichever game won was going to win comfortably, just picked the wrong one cause Im thick. Theres no SFF like Nintendo SFF. This brought an anticlimactic end to what was honestly a pretty boring run. Its easy to be jaded about Nintendo when it comes to these contests, and seeing Mario slaughter everything in his path before getting doinked by SFF is as predictable as Zelda slaughtering everything in its path and being the one exerting that SFF.

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