LogFAQs > #939591120

The 13 Games That Made Bracket (And How Long They Lasted):
-Monster Hunter World (Round 3)
-Dragon Quest XI (Division Finals)
-Smash Ultimate (Semifinals)
-Marvel's Spiderman (Round 3)
-Octopath Traveler (Round 2)
-Assassin's Creed Odyssey (Round 1)
-Return of the Obra Dinn (Round 1)
-God of War 4 (Division Finals)
-Red Dead Redemption II (Round 3)
-Dragon Ball Fighterz (Round 1)
-Dead Cells (Round 1)
-Subnautica (Round 1)
-Celeste (Round 1)

Notable Snubs, and also Games That Could Have Been in if Persona 4 Golden was:
-Hitman 2
-Mega Man 11
-Detroit: Become Human
-WarioWare Gold
-Into the Breach
-Final Fantasy XII Zodiac Edition
-The World Ends With You: Final Remix
-Radiant Historia: Perfect Chronology

Headliners: Dragon Quest XI, Smash Ultimate, God of War 4

Busts: Celeste, Subnautica

Snubs Analysis:

Yknow, I dont write these just to entertain and inform the masses, or alternatively to have the masses read the opening lists and then immediately rush past the mountain of text I wrote that gives my decisions context to tell me how wrong I am. A big part of why I decided to start this project was to satiate my own curiosity, and put the decade in perspective. 2018 is the year that has really brought that objective into sharp relief, because at the outset I didnt really think much of it. It was when I started compiling the list of entrants and how far they got that I realized, wait this year was kinda nice. It wasnt until it was all in front of me where I realized, wait, Smash AND God of War AND Dragon Quest AND RDR2 ANND Spider-Man?!

Thing is, 2018 didnt have the quantity 2017 had, both in terms of entrants and overall games, which is probably why it slipped my mind. I really struggled to come up with snubs this year, so why not soapbox a little instead? Obviously youve already noticed the addition I made to the Snubs title, but lets start with the more traditional ones.

Heavy Rain making it in as the David Cage rep instead of Detroit was a surprise to me when I spotted it in bracket. For a lot of people, myself included, Detroit is the ultimate example of this style branching path narratives. While the opening chapters are pretty damn static and a slog to get through, its actually ridiculous how much later chapters can be altered based on your decisions and skills, and legitimately impressive for a game with these production values. Yes, the writing is often insipid and crass in how blatantly emotionally manipulative it can be, but hey, yall like Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts so much and those series can be even worse about that.

I already posted my big Hitman rant in the 2016 write-up, so let me just reiterate two words: PLAY IT.

Mega Man 11 and WarioWare are just two more examples of games that GameFAQs should theoretically like due to being tangentially Nintendo and actually Nintendo, respectively, but no one seemed to bite here. MM11 is especially strange, because Mega Man 9 actually did make it into the 2010 contest, and its not like this new one was poorly received I think.

BUT lets get to that juicy extra few words in the section title. I wouldnt have brought it up if I wasnt having trouble looking for snubs, but lets be real for a second: P4G has some QoL and a couple of extra scenarios bolted onto the base P4. Thats really it. Its by far the most egregious remake port thing in bracket; HGSS has a massive graphical overhaul and a shitton of modern tweeks to the Pokemon meta, while RE2 is just straight-up a different game. But Golden? Come on.

Now, Im not necessarily saying it shouldn't have made it, but if its kosher, why not some of the games I listed? FFXII Zodiac Age made some pretty drastic gameplay and QoL overhauls that, according to most people, have significantly improved the game. I generally dont include snubs from series that already have two reps, but this is a case where I think the snub would have done better than one or both of the entrants.

TWEWY Final Remix was a more mixed bag in terms of reception, true, but it altered the core gameplay and added a chunky new scenario as well. Same goes for Radiant Historia Perfect Chronology, and you can throw in Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey Redux into this pile if you want. If fans of those games knew they qualified, they probably would have received a fair bit of nominations.

If were being real, P4G was probably the only Vita game that got the bare minimum of noms necessary to warrant its inclusion, and Allen wasnt gonna leave an entire system out of the contest.

Bust Analysis:

Youre damn right Im going the path of least resistance for these busts. Theres one game that got upset this year, and everything else was too impressive to knock. I already feel bad for calling Nier Automata a bust when it did better than half the headliners Ive listed (though I still say its totally justified).

I think Ive referred to Subnautica as a game no one cares about in one of these analyses, but the more digging I do the more I realize that isnt completely true. Apparently this thing sold more than 5 million copies, got a fair bit of Award season play, and has a dedicated community ala Minecraft. Its some exploration crafting survival game thing, so I guess it makes sense itd do well with the sort of playerbase that loves creating wikis with more pages than War and Peace. In that light, it is rather surprising that it did almost ten percent worse on Skyrim than Journey did, despite arguably occupying a much more lucrative niche. Though surprising is not the same as disappointing, as literally no one on the board thought anything of this game, so I cant blame you if your eyes ricocheted off this paragraph.

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