LogFAQs > #939492057

Other Thoughts:

Sorry if that Headliner analysis didnt sound like the cheerleading and fangirling some of you might have expected, but its kinda hard to get TOO worked up about games that had like one debatable match a piece and spent the rest of their runs trashing the place. I love all three of those games to death, but come on, we ALL knew they were going to wreck shop. If you feel I applied the phrase one of the weakest eightpacks in the contest too liberally, or that I was missing the obvious, i.e. 1 and 2 seeds are SUPPOSED to stomp their competition, I invite to you to go look at the adjusted x-stats. Sonic Mania was the ONLY game in ANY of these games half of their respective Divisions to crack top 50, and barely at that. Compare that to Witcher and Skyrim having to deal with Mario in their Round 3 matches, or Mass Effect 2 needing to get past Horizon Zero Dawn.

If anything, some of the more interesting entries this year were the ones outside the Headliners.
Remember when Sonic Mania killed Super Meat Boy with 65% in a highly debated match? Or how Yakuza 0 and Resident Evil VII did very well in loss and shrugged off all accusations that they would be fodder? Or how Xenoblade 2 ended up being stronger than almost everything in Batman and the Last of Uss half of Division 7 (both REVII and Xenoblade being criminally underseeded)? The strongest indie game in bracket, Cuphead, hails from this year, though unfortunately the GTAV Cupset never manifested.

Shit, Horizon Zero Dawn had a better run than any of the 2016 Headliners. It got to break 80% on the biggest game in the world, one that would have won this contest if you somehow made a poll that the entire world was obliged to answer, burning casual brackets left and right. It then beat Borderlands 2 cleanly and trashed the entire 2012 field outside the JRPGs by proxy. Finally it loses respectably to Mass Effect 2 55-45, finishing closely behind Bloodborne as the third strongest PS4 exclusive.

Honestly, the only game that got upset this year was Tales of Berseria, and it was upset by another 2017 game so the scales stay balanced. Hollow Knight itself was one more FFVII delay away from notching a huge upset, and Nioh actually did get a pretty good upset against Binding of Isaac.

I can keep rambling on and on, but considering I added an entire new section just for 2017, you all get the picture at this point. Just as 2016 sucked because FFXV was a headliner, nuff said, 2017 rocked because Nier Automata, a game that completely outperformed FFXV, was a bust, nuff said.

Final Rating:

A - In contention for the best year ever, let alone the decade.

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