Board 8 > ~*Ultimaterializer's Post-Contest Analysis!*~

(+) Yeah! (+)

Division 6 Round 1: (5)Sonic Mania vs (12)Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of DANA

(5)Sonic Mania - 15572 [62.74%]
(12)Ys VIII - 9258 [37.26%]
Total Votes - 24850
Prediction Percentage - 78.37%

I bought Ys VIII because of this contest. True story. I looked into every game in the field, at least in part, and that one legitimately looks incredible. Can't wait to start! But what is with Japanese games and dumb subtitles? Look at this stuff: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ys_(series)

Not that anything will top the idiocy of ''these'' names: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_Hearts

This match was never going to be unpredictable -- Sonic Mania was always going to win it easily -- but Sonic only getting 63% here was very disturbing. The game undershot expectations by 10%, and opened up all kinds of hype trains for Super Meat Boy beating it in round 2. We'll get to what happened when the time comes, but you know you've botched your round 1 match when you have people hyping up the possibility of Super Meat Boy upsetting you.

By the way, the ultimate end result here wasn't people overestimating Sonic. People vastly underestimated Ys VIII. The series has been around for 33 years, so obviously it has a fanbase somewhere.

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PostContestUlti posted...

No one, not even the biggest Assassin's Creed series fans, likes Black Flag

Wait, what? I normally see it praised as one of the best games of the series by people who've played it. Are you confusing this with AC3?

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snake_5036 posted...

Wait, what? I normally see it praised as one of the best games of the series by people who've played it. Are you confusing this with AC3?

I have never seen anything good said about Black Flag.

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PostContestUlti posted...

I bought Ys VIII because of this contest. True story. I looked into every game in the field, at least in part, and that one legitimately looks incredible. Can't wait to start!

I approve

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...Huh. From the complaints I do hear, they generally don't like the ship parts, but I've never seen anyone say they outright hate it.

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Division 6 Round 1: (4)Super Meat Boy vs (13)Slay the Spire

(4)Super Meat Boy - 17138 [68.96%]
(13)Slay the Spire - 7713 [31.04%]
Total Votes - 24851
Prediction Percentage - 81.45%

Some indie games looked okay this contest. Most did not. But what happens when the Board 8 guru nomination gets boosted up to the 4 seed line and causes an indie versus indie match? Well as luck would have it, these early 2010s pioneers of the independent revolution are well-known enough to score nearly 70% (!!) in a GameFAQs contest match. Super Meat Boy is often listed along with games like Braid and Minecraft as making indie games mainstream, and here is a good article about it: https://www.indiegamewebsite.com/2018/10/19/the-complete-history-of-indie-games/

Super Meat Boy was in some Game of the Year polls all the way back in January 2011, and character battle 2013 not withstanding it had to wait nine years to make a contest debut. And what a debut it was. I get that it was up against some roguelike card game trash, but a 70-30 blowout is a 70-30 blowout all the same. There aren't many examples of a game that ''deserved'' a win like this more than Super Meat Boy.

It was so massive, and Sonic Mania's win so disappointing, that imaginations ran wild about round 2. The hilarity of Super Meat Boy beating a main line Sonic title was just too good to pass up hyping, and who knows? Maybe Super Meat Boy could catch some insane rally and do crazy damage this year. That would have shut up the anti-fun brigade real quick, because no one actively hates Meat Boy.

Unfortunately, Sonic was many, many bridges too far.

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Yeah, this is the first time I've heard people speak ill of Black Flag. I thought that it was considered a massive improvement after some of the previous, disappointing entries.

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Inviso posted...

Yeah, this is the first time I've heard people speak ill of Black Flag. I thought that it was considered a massive improvement after some of the previous, disappointing entries.

That's how everyone thought of it just about, not really sure what people Ulti is talking about to be honest.

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Black Flag is generally considered to be one of, if not the best pirate themed games

It's got a lot of fat but I find it still pretty fun, as is the DLC expansion Freedom Cry

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PostContestUlti posted...

But it's a Square JRPG on the Nintendo Switch, so it didn't win this match by default. It had to earn it, and earn it it did.

...Oh. And here I thought it was an indie. Well, hell, I might've taken the upset if I'd known that!

PostContestUlti posted...

lol whoops!

The game did so bad it might as well have been an indie title. I will definitely fix tho.

Yeah, it's written and directed by Shu Takumi, best known for the Ace Attorney series. It's pretty much the only game not part of the series that he's worked on since before the first game came out.

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Black Flag is usually considered a top 5 AC game. I'll assume Ulti confused it with Unity or something.

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Division 6 Round 1: (3)Portal 2 vs (14)Tomb Raider

(3)Portal 2 - 15978 [65.29%]
(14)Tomb Raider - 8493 [34.71%]
Total Votes - 24471
Prediction Percentage - 80.2%

Did you know this is the first ever contest match featuring a Tomb Raider game? Bit of random trivia for you. Lara Croft herself has an extensive contest history, but Tomb Raider just has this one match. This wasn't exactly the best debut, but it wasn't the worst either. We've certainly seen ''far'' worse. This was a typical, boring, predictable, ho-hum beating that Portal 2 put out here. This was certainly not the type of performance that would hint at what Portal 2 would ultimately end up doing in this contest.

The main comparison here was Portal 2's performance in round 1 versus Kingdom Hearts 3 and Red Dead Redemption 2. Portal 2 was the guru favorite to win three matches, in large part because of what happened in 2015. It lost a close match to Sonic 2, which ultimately scored 22% in its loss to Pokemon. Not only did the game that beat Portal 2 get destroyed that year, but it had an inflated value due to being locked behind Undertale.

I wasn't seeing what made Portal 2's being a hidden beast so obvious, and this match here against Tomb Raider wasn't exactly gangbusters, but hey, that's why I talk about what happens after the fact and you're all smart enough to see it coming better than I can :D

I really would love to know how you all knew, because I don't think that Sonic 2 loss was some SFF beating.

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hockeydude15 posted...

That's how everyone thought of it just about, not really sure what people Ulti is talking about to be honest.

A very small percentage of my internet time is spent on GameFAQs.

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I have played all main AC games and yeah Black Flag is usually considered the best.

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I really would love to know how you all knew, because I don't think that Sonic 2 loss was some SFF beating.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7514-whats-your-all-time-favorite-2-game

Really hard to take a game to lose a match when it has a recent direct win against its opponent (especially if you think Valve is going to get more "respect" than Rockstar. Obviously there's tons of LFF in that poll, but HL2 was in there too and RDR2 still wasn't close. Enough for me!

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PostContestUlti posted...

It lost a close match to Sonic 2, which ultimately scored 22% in its loss to Pokemon. Not only did the game that beat Portal 2 get destroyed that year, but it had an inflated value due to being locked behind Undertale.

That's why I ultimately just disregarded that Pokemon result entirely, and thought of Sonic 2 as a typical SNES-era game. If Portal 2 could hang with a popular 90s game in the year where 90s games wreacked utter havoc top to bottom, it was easily stronger than a lot of the bracket just by default.

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Division 6 Round 1: (6)Kingdom Hearts III vs (11)Disco Elysium

(6)Kingdom Hearts 3 - 16654 [68.06%]
(11)Disco Elysium - 7816 [31.94%]
Total Votes - 24470
Prediction Percentage - 83.59%

This match is hilarious to me, but not because of the actual match. A buddy of mine, Raven 2, runs these forum contests every year to determine Board 8's Game of the Year. How cool of a coincidence was it that Kingdom Hearts 3 vs Disco Elysium was a final four match in this contest for 2019, two months before becoming an actual contest match? http://www.bracketmaker.com/tmenu.cfm?1&tid=472920

This match was always going to be an easy win for Kingdom Hearts 3, but it was a bad performance nonetheless. In indie circles, Disco Elysium is an all-timer. In fact, if @KanzarisKelshen is ever around, he'll be happy to get into how influential this game supposedly is and how RPGs are likely to never be played the same way again. I'm not being sarcastic at all, I just know nothing about the game whatsoever and Kanz has a very eloquent way of discussing the things he loves.

To the general gaming public, no one knows what Disco even is, so this match might as well have been Kingdom Hearts versus Not Kingdom Hearts. And Not Kingdom Hearts thoroughly embarrassed Kingdom Hearts here. It isn't often a game scores 68% and can be called a choke artist, but it's true. There is just no way to compare Portal 2 getting 65% on Tomb Raider and KH3 getting 68% here with anything other than Kingdom Hearts being screwed. I shall now bow my head in shame for considering Kingdom Hearts 3, a franchise I despite, had a chance against one of my all-time favorites.

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stupid KH3

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PostContestUlti posted...

A very small percentage of my internet time is spent on GameFAQs.

ok? not really sure what you are getting at here.

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Wasn't Portal 2 the favorite to win the match? I expected better from that game in 2015.

Nintendogs posted...

Wasn't Portal 2 the favorite to win the match? I expected better from that game in 2015.

It was the Guru favorite, but Portal 2 vs. Sonic 2 was about where we realized that the Super Nintendo (and the one Genesis game that could hang) era had to come to take no prisioners, and I tended to respect games that did well against 90s opposition even if it was looked at as disappointing at the time. I guarantee you that if Sonic 2 vs. Portal 2 happens in a different division, we get a much different placement in the final xstats.

Case in point, Mega Man X 60/40ed Arkham City. Arkham City had a pretty admiral 2020 outing, so what does that say about a game that finished a lot closer to a game that's probably not that much weaker in Sonic 2?

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PostContestUlti posted...

I bought Ys VIII because of this contest.

Awesome! It's the better of Falcom's two series, I think. Most of the games are avaliable for PC or PS4 if you like that one!

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Yeah Ultis just wrong about Black Flag. Pretty much everywhere it ends up near the top along with II/Brotherhood and Origins/Odyssey.

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black flag good

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hockeydude15 posted...

ok? not really sure what you are getting at here.

A lot of what I hear in terms of gaming opinions don't line up with this site.

Division 6 Round 1: (7)Animal Crossing: New Leaf vs (10)Street Fighter V

(7)New Leaf - 16724 [66.51%]
(10)Street Fighter 5 - 8194 [33.49%]
Total Votes - 24468
Prediction Percentage - 69.08%

True story -- I originally picked Street Fighter 5 and fully planned on sticking with it, even knowing the game is a trash can and knowing it had no chance. Before Smash Brothers came along, Street Fighter was my jam. I was never any good at it, but so what? My friends and I have been playing those games together for almost 30 years now, and it's very hard to look past that bias. I was one of the idiots whining about STREET FIGHTER 2 LOST??? back when Mario RPG beat it. I was trying to rally it past Persona 4 for a meaningless third place finish. I '''lost my shit''' when 4 clutched up and beat Sonic Adventure 2 ten years ago. One of my favorite achievements in my entire gaming career is pulling this off:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsbEkQBYZPQ

O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
'''From sea to shining sea!'''

https://psnprofiles.com/guide/6596-super-street-fighter-iv-trophy-guide#37-from-c-to-shining-c

I did it fully legit. No boosting, no cheating, nothing. All by myself, all against randoms online. It was some of the most fun I've ever had playing a video game, and for the most part I went 50-50. Some characters, it was a breeze. T Hawk, Seth, Cammy, Adon, Gen, the shotos, El Fuerte, Blanka, Bison, and so on. For three characters, it was hell on earth. I think Viper, Makoto, and Guy took me something like 80 games each. Wouldn't change a thing, and it's among my most proud gaming accomplishments ever. I don't know how that web site calculates these things, but when I boot up my Playstation it shows only 3 players per 1000 has earned that trophy. Even if it's actually 1 per 100, that's still one hell of an accomplishment.

I bring all this up because even I cannot defend Street Fighter 5 in any universe. That game is ''garbage''. The V trigger system is a terrible copy of a terrible mechanic in its own right (X factor from Marvel vs Capcom 3, which can go burn in hell), the roster is trash, and the game released without a single player mode. Piss off, Capcom. I would have been willing to lose a point on purpose just on general principle of loving the Street Fighter legacy, but no.

The game is bad enough to make me pick Animal Crossing, of all things. I can't stand those dumb farming simulators. Yes, I know it was the right pick and yes I know Animal Crossing was never going to lose this match, especially with New Horizons coming out two weeks before this match. Not the point. I wanted Street Fighter 5 to be good so much, and instead it might have tanked the entire series.

By the way, this beating was so huge and the Animal Crossing hype so intense that regardless of RDR2's score in round 1, a lot of people were hyping up the upset train. And who could blame them? New Horizons has almost 15 million sales as of this writing, with 40% or so being complete non-gamers, so it was bound to help boost New Leaf in contest polls. Red Dead Redemption 2 was no lock next round.

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Division 6 Round 1: (2)Red Dead Redemption 2 vs (15)Dying Light

(2)Red Dead Redemption 2 - 19917 [81.4%]
(15)Dying Light - 4551 [18.6%]
Total Votes - 24468
Prediction Percentage - 94.29%

Some indie games looked okay in this contest. Most did not. Have we ever had a contest that was this packed with early round fodder? I can't imagine Dying Light deserving a spot in a field of 128 more than Dark Souls 2, Skyward Sword, Pokemon Go, Pokemon Sword and Shield, Donkey Kong Country Returns, Smash 4, Final Fantasy 13, the Phoenix Wright games, and plenty of others.

By the way, the zombie thing? Played out. Don't let the success of Resident Evil 2 and 3 being remade, or the hype surrounding a remake of 4, fool you. Has anything ever been beaten to death more than zombies in fiction? Enough. We don't care anymore. And yes if Resident Evil 4 is remade, ''again'', I will buy it. That game is an all-time legend regardless of what idiot hater has to say about it.

Red Dead Redemption 2 scored a very predictable blowout, and there isn't much more to say. It's a good thing it did, too, because there were some potential hidden beasts waiting in this division. It was the casual favorite to ''win'' this division, too. It had the highest of all Division 6 round one prediction percentages.

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I wouldn't consider Dying Light an indie game, but it wasn't really a good one either.

Also props for the shoutout in KH3 vs. Disco. Square will somehow always find a way to choke in my contests when it matters most. I'm almost willing to wager Chrono Trigger loses the 1995 finals if I ever do that tournament

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PostContestUlti posted...

By the way, the zombie thing? Played out.

This reminds me how much I don't miss working retail. In 2011, customers would ask me if we had the zombie game in stock. Um.... which one? Just off the top of my head, the zombie game could have meant one of the following that year...

Call of Duty: Black Ops (minigame)
Dead Island
Dead Rising 2
Dead Nation (never a physical release, but hey, I've been asked dumber questions before)
Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare
Hell, Dead Space 2 could kinda go here


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Division 7 Round 1: (1)Dark Souls vs (16)Hotline Miami

(1)Dark Souls - 20080 [82.99%]
(16)Hotline Miami - 4117 [17.01%]
Total Votes - 24917
Prediction Percentage - 93.08%

Some indie games looked okay in this contest. Most did not. Hotline Miami was one of the many, many games that looked like gutter trash. The game actually ''is'' gutter trash, too. I played a bunch of it over a buddy's house, and it's a wonderful example of how a great soundtrack does not a good game make. Thankfully, Dark Souls took out the trash.

More than a few people banked on the Souls games being very strong this contest and overperforming their 2015 values, in large part because the words "game of the decade" might really matter to the voters. Two things dominated gaming in the 2010s -- open worlds, and Dark Souls. By the time Dark Souls made its round 1 appearance this contest, we already knew it would boost. Bloodborne, Dark Souls 3, and Nioh all outperformed expectations. Only Sekiro looked "off", and that's easily explained. People thought it was too hard, because they suck at video games and don't know what they're doing in Sekiro.

When Dark Souls finally stepped on the stage in this contest, it was very clear the flagship of that genre was ready to '''destroy'''. Regardless of opponent, 83% is an awesome result. As someone who absolutely loves Dark Souls and wanted to see Hotline Miami suffer, I couldn't have been happier over this one. I felt like a proud papa watching his kid hit the winning home run or something. I've wanted to see Dark Souls slay a contest for a long time, and I was finally getting it.

And yes, I picked Last of Us to beat this game. Not because of 2015 x-stats or whatever, but because I thought it would get a similar boost for similar reasons, not to mention Last of Us 2 hype mid-contest.

"Whoops."

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hotline miami good

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I still cannot believe Undertale lost

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PostContestUlti posted...

Detroit is by far the best game Quantic Dream has done

I see that you ended up liking the game! I remember the thread you made before you played it, I'm glad it seemed to click

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heh, Last of Us 2 hype

it got hype, just not the direction you probably expected

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PostContestUlti posted...

Have we ever had a contest that was this packed with early round fodder?

3 way contest

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So many indie developed titles in round 1, and yet, most of them exited just as fast as they came in.

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Hbthebattle posted...

It's one of the more popular switch boards, with only the Smash, ACNL, and the just-announced Origami King beating it in activity.

Incidentally, all four of those games have a vocal minority constantly complaining about them >_>

PostContestUlti posted...

No one, not even the biggest Assassin's Creed series fans, likes Black Flag.

This is just wrong, though, It's all well and good to have your own opinions, but please don't pretend they approximate consensus views in cases they simply don't.

PostContestUlti posted...

I really would love to know how you all knew, because I don't think that Sonic 2 loss was some SFF beating.

The simplest way I can put it is that I used the Yoblazer test. I took Portal 2 as far as it could go without running into anything definitively stronger, much like Yo did with Super Mario RPG in 2015. Now of course, there needs to be a reason for that, much like Super Mario RPG's simultaneous Square JRPG, Nintendo/Mario, and nostalgic 90s appeal in a pair of divisions sorely lacking on all those accounts.

In Portal 2's case, all the other contenders in its half of the division were divisive to a greater or lesser extent, and none of them were really beloved. Kingdom Hearts III is obviously the standout in that regard, plus it's from a series that's struggled at the best of times. Red Dead Redemption 2 drew some detraction for its slavish realism making it a chore to play, plus it's Rockstar, which isn't worth trusting in debatable matches. As for New Leaf, there's a decent chunk of gamers who inherently dislike casual hangout-type games without a defined end-goal, especially on a site like GameFAQs. It was also a 3DS exclusive, which was always going to lose out to decent (i.e. not SFV) multiplatform console games in a GotD prestige battle.

Also, Portal 2's lowly standing in the 2015 stats just didn't pass the eye test for me, stuck as it was behind Undertale's wonkiness; maybe I shouldn't have had that gut feeling considering how far out of GameFAQs' wheelhouse it is, but I guess it worked out for me. As for why Portal 2's result on Tomb Raider was a sign of things to come, Tomb Raider was the only low seed in its half of the division to actually belong in this contest on strength merits. It dropped all the way down to a 14-seed not because it's niche or divisive or both, but because it's merely well-liked, rather than beloved enough for most to consider it one of the very best games of the decade. Tomb Raider was also a huge mainstream success that revived its series and turned Lara Croft herself from a perennial jobber who was lucky to even make contests to a solid low midcarder who would actually beat GLaDOS in a match.

Now if I had only stuck with the Yoblazer test for Persona 4 Golden, I would have finished in the money. Alas, what could have been...

Oh, and Dying Light certainly isn't an indie game; in fact, it sold 5 million copies in its first six months alone. Rather, it's another example of Western AAA casualbait that GameFAQs doesn't care about sneaking its way into the bracket with a low seed just to get embarrassed, along the lines of Black Ops and Destiny this contest and Cayde-6 in 2018.

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UltimaterializerX posted...

I spend a lot of time in gaming circles on Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube. Thats as casual as it gets.

I have yet to hear a single good opinion about Black Flag.

Those four sites are mega huge. They can, and do, house hundreds - or thousands - of communities a piece. Without knowing where specifically you spend your time, I can't say if those groups' opinions are representative of the game playing world writ large. That said, in the circles I travel in, Black Flag is held up as one of the best, if not the best, in the series.

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MetalmindStats posted...

Now if I had only stuck with the Yoblazer test for Persona 4 Golden, I would have finished in the money. Alas, what could have been...

Man, I tried that for GTA V, but unfortunately P4G didn't quite reach my threshold, because I thought people might hold it being a Vita port against it. Thankfully, I regarded the other half of the division as the most likely winner, and ended up with the right game to boot.

What I really should have considered was that people might overlook that anyway, since Persona 4 was a bit of a slow riser. Probably a good amount of its fanbase today probably hadn't played it before 2010, so it really was some people's Game of the 2010s even if they played the PS2 version.

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I feel like Black Flag was just ok personally and I always thought I had the lowest opinion of it myself

(Favorites are Origins and Brotherhood)

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Hey I'll take your word for it! I was parroting what I've heard.

Division 7 Round 1: (8)Rocket League vs (9)Dragon Ball FighterZ

(8)Rocket League - 12498 [51.66%]
(9)Dragon Ball FighterZ - 11694 [48.34%]
Total Votes - 24192
Prediction Percentage - 61.47%

Oh hey, it only took 50 matches, but we finally got a match that was actually in doubt after an hour! Imagine that! Figures it would be some random one-pointer, but so what? It finally felt like contest time, baby! The best thing about matches like this is there is no true way to know what will win going in -- two fresh contest entrants, both fodder, both with good reasons for backing them, and lots of meme potential.

For Rocket League backers, the game has something like 87 bajillion players and 3 million commercials. I don't care enough to look it up, but I would not be surprised if Rocket League had the highest play rate of any traditional sports game ever made. I get that Rocket League isn't "traditional" in the sense of a Madden or NBA 2K, but I use that term because if you count Mario Kart or Smash Bros in this discussion then it's obviously no contest.

The case for Dragon Ball was even simpler: https://board8.fandom.com/wiki/Chrono_Trigger

There was no real way to know, so all we could do was wait for the match. When it finally started, it was ''exactly'' like an episode of Dragon Ball Z. 10 minutes to recap the last episode, 2 minutes of action, and 10 minutes to preview the next episode! :D

Actually, it wasn't quite like that. Dragon Ball won the board vote, and then Rocket League made things 50-50. At the freeze there was a very small Rocket League lead, which increased to 29 at the next update. Match over, right?

Nope! Dragon Ball brought it back to even almost immediately, and that's where this thing stayed -- deadlocked -- for well over an hour. That's when Rocket League started making a move, but it was a slow one. When Rocket League pushed for a 100 vote lead, things looked over, but Dragon Ball cut the lead in half before finally falling off. Rocket League built up a small lead late into the evening and into the overnight vote, and though Dragon Ball kept threatening to come back and make this a match, it was not to be. When the morning vote finally hit and decided the match, that morning vote went to Rocket League to seal things up for good. It made for an anticlimactic second half of the match, but the first half was like an old school F5 match. And yes, the Dragon Ball memes were running wild.

The match itself was quite good! All it really needed was higher stakes among stronger competitors, but that was coming in the later rounds. Round 1 of this contest was a series of blowouts, but that would change later on once the mini rallies on Reddit started. For now though, we all enjoyed this latest episode of Dragon Ball Z. Dragon Ball was never my thing -- anime in general was never my thing, really -- but I won't knock people who like it. The issue here is the American version of that anime was a meme for a reason. They would run these long recaps to get more episodes in, which I hear wasn't done in Japan at all. Maybe that has to do with why Rocket League won, who knows.

I would love to make a grand declaration about this match, but I honestly think Rocket League won it by default. Someone had to win it, right? As a side note, though Allen only plays for fun, this match knocked him off the leaderboard.

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I think Rocket League won it because both games are playing to an audience that really isn't here on GameFAQs, the online multiplayer crowd. So it really came down to which one outsiders would be more than likely be familiar with. This is where sales figures and Twitch numbers would matter, and it's just more likely that our crowd has at least been exposed to Rocket League at some point. Also...

PostContestUlti posted...

I think personally, one of the following games is objectively the game of the decade regardless of how any poll turned out: Skyrim, Dark Souls, Dota 2, Clash of Kings, GTA5, Fortnite, Red Dead Redemption 2, Smash Ultimate, Breath of the Wild, CoD: Black Ops, Witcher 3, Undertale, Bloodborne, Mass Effect 2, Mass Effect 3, Mario Odyssey, Super Meat Boy, The Last of Us, Doom 2016, Overwatch, Borderlands 2, Shovel Knight, Hearthstone, Stardew Valley, Persona 5, Dragon Quest 11, Horizon Zero Dawn, Hollow Knight, NieR Automata, God of War 2018, Pokemon GO, and REmake Evil 2.

I think Rocket League has a pretty good case to being on this list in its own right, and I definitely think it harnessed that "smartvoterFAQs considering GotD title" factor here.


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I perosnally think Rocket just won cuz of top option

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NowItsAngeTime posted...

I perosnally think Rocket just won cuz of top option

Top option helped too, since it also correlates with the bracket vote. Basically, the only intagible Dragon Ball really held in the match was...Dragon Ball.

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Division 7 Round 1: (5)Yakuza 0 vs (12)The Witness

(5)Yakuza 0 - 18727 [77.39%]
(12)The Witness - 5470 [22.61%]
Total Votes - 24197
Prediction Percentage - 86.12%

There are a lot of games Board 8 has pushed over the years that make zero sense to me, and Yakuza might be at the top of the list. It seems like the exact opposite of what this place would like, yet here it is every year getting high seeds in our contests. Remember Character Battle X when Kazumiya Kiryu got a 2 seed, and it allowed Bomberman to get his first contest win in 16 years? It also, an odd way, allowed him to erase the memory of botching that big lead to Phoenix Wright in the LOL fourways in 2007.

Well Board 8 was at it again this year, but this time they boosted Yazuka to a seeding high enough to take advantage in a contest loaded with slugs. A lot of you might remember Braid, which is a very famous indie game that was all the rage last decade. I would know, since I wrote a guide for it on GameFAQs. I loved the hell out of Braid, and I've played it multiple times. It's an incredibly clever game with an incredible soundtrack and a deceptively deep plot.

Well the guy who made Braid made a second game that none of you have ever heard of, called The Witness. The Witness, while phenomenal, did not make the splash on this site that Braid did, and Braid wasn't exactly a strong game to begin with. The end result is that the same Yakuza that botched a 2 seed in a character battle managed to come back two years later and score a 77% blowout in a games contest. That is an incredible turnaround, and apparently the key to boosting wins is to keep getting overseeded until you break through. Who knew?

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The x-stats do make The Witness as one of the weakest games in the bracket, but give credit to Yakuza, there's also some actual strength in that game.

Division 7 Round 1: (4)Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain vs (13)Dead Cells

(4)Metal Gear Solid 5 - 17542 [72.51%]
(13)Dead Cells - 6651 [27.49%]
Total Votes - 24193
Prediction Percentage - 87.15%

You did this on purpose, Allen. There is no chance this was a coincidence.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DshSkkbWwd0

Some indie games looked okay in this contest. Most did not. Dead Cells, while aptly named for this match, was never going to make a match out of this. It's actually a very good game though, and I highly recommend it if Metroidvania is your thing. It's my thing for sure, so I was going to find it sooner or later.

During the Persona 5 vs Heavy Rain match, we talked about games that fell off the hardest during this decade, with Heavy Rain being the game mentioned most often. The other game mentioned a lot was Metal Gear Solid 5. Now I ''love'' Metal Gear Solid 5, so this is painful for me to write, but I can see why people are down on it. The game released half finished and proved that Hideo Kojima was long past his prime as a storyteller. The gameplay was the best in the series, few people will argue otherwise, but almost everything else was suspect. That plot was trash. The setting was hit and miss. The characters and plot twist were really, really bad. The reused missions and home base aspect were such a turnoff. The potential for greatness was there, but once again, Kojima got in the way.

Konami was right. It kills me to admit it, but they were. Death Stranding proved it. Metal Gear Solid 5 got very lucky to be handed such a weak fourpack, and in looking at the bracket, this fourpack and Undertale's fourpack are the only two MGS5 could have gotten out of. It serves penance anywhere else.

But hey, those are the breaks and MGS5 was allowed to score a 73% blowout like nothing was ever wrong.

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PostContestUlti posted...

There are a lot of games Board 8 has pushed over the years that make zero sense to me, and Yakuza might be at the top of the list. It seems like the exact opposite of what this place would like

Aw, I can't see that at all. It's a sidequest-heavy title with.a goofy but incredibly determined main character that focuses on character development over its overly-serious plot with passable action gameplay and really long cutscenes with really good graphics. That's Persona, Mass Effect 2, Phoenix Wright, Nier, Metal Gear, and your choice of an action game all in one! And now it's turned into a JRPG in combat instead of just in structure!

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Kamekguy posted...

Aw, I can't see that at all. It's a sidequest-heavy title with.a goofy but incredibly determined main character that focuses on character development over its overly-serious plot with passable action gameplay and really long cutscenes with really good graphics. That's Persona, Mass Effect 2, Phoenix Wright, Nier, Metal Gear, and your choice of an action game all in one! And now it's turned into a JRPG in combat instead of just in structure!

This. Yakuza is B8 territory in a big way.

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Division 7 Round 1: (3)Batman: Arkham City vs (14)Xenoblade Chronicles 2

(3)Batman: Arkham City - 13688 [54.46%]
(14)Xenoblade Chronicles 2 - 11445 [45.54%]
Total Votes - 25133
Prediction Percentage - 71.52%

Not to be confused with Xenoblade Chronicles X, which is the ''actual'' "Xenoblade Chronicles 2". The Xenoblade Chronicles 2 pictured in this match is, technically, "Xenoblade Chronicles 3". You can thank Japan and their nonsensical methodology with how they name and order video games. I don't get it either. By the way, remember TheStupidRaptor trying to claim Xenosaga and Xenoblade weren't in the same series even though the literal director said that both franchises are in the same series?

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/board8/images/a/ae/TheStupidRaptor.gif/revision/latest?cb=20181116020727

Shout out to everyone on Board 8 spamming that gif at the dude until he closed his account. Finally some justice around here with getting rid of trashy users.

I was paying very close attention to this match between Batman and Xenoblade 3 (you can't stop me from referring to it at such), because I had picked Xenoblade 1 to win its division. So while I knew Batman was going to win this match, I was also hoping for a very good Xenoblade 2.99~ performance. Batman won the match, and Xenoblade 2.5 Final Mix X Version 1.Beta Max / 4 Days Cubed Sideways looked good in losing.

My one twinge of doubt here was perhaps both games being weak, but Batman put that fear to bed in round 2. As luck would have it, both of these games were quite strong and Xenoblade 3 could have caused serious damage in other parts of his bracket. It finished top 30 in the stats despite never winning a match, meaning it could have potentially won a bunch of the fourpacks. The Xenoblade train was alive and well!

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