Board 8 > Contest Stats and Discussion - Part 1368

(+) Yeah! (+)

So Melee > Super Mario World...oh wait Melee is supposed to be much weaker, right.

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SMW probably suffered from ALttP being there most of all the other games. Don't think GSC would be close to it, Pokmon always looks way too good in multiway polls.

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If the poll means anything at all I think gauging GSC vs. Link to the Past is more likely to plausibly have some merit since while there was some leeching still, those two unlike Super Mario World at least don't seem to have been facing a hard SFF beatdown.

GSC alone got 34.38% on LttP and I guess you could try justify sticking with around that by how "Pokemon resists LFF better" and "Sure RSE leeched GSC but Link to the Past was being leeched by games too." GSC ~ Final Fantasy IV ( https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6135- ) just doesn't sound plausible though.

Pokemon GSC and RSE combined got 42.13% on Link to the Past. Given that not every single RSE voter would have gone GSC and that at least voters for fellow SNES games SMW and DKC2 should disproportionately favor LttP, GSC being 40% on Link to the Past sounds overly generous.

I'm guessing from these that GSC gets into the high 30s against LttP 1-on-1. I dunno where people have SMW indirectly relative to LttP but from that I wouldn't take GSC to even get close to SMW.

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Considering what Majora's Mask and Melee (pre-rally) got against GSC, LttP breaking 60% against GSC isn't that difficult to believe.

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It all depends on how strong you think ALttP is. We haven't had a good read on it since 2004, so it's anybody's guess. With how strong the SNES games like CT, SM and FFVI looked in 2015, ALttP should in theory be a top 3 or 4 game on the site, but it had some weird matches so idk.

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I'm not sure what I'd take to beat it with confidence aside from OoT and probably Chrono Trigger. FFVII and R/B/Y would be the only other games I'd probably consider.

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BotW's in discussion too, even if the ALttP/MM match was wrecked by rallies and there's more likely SFF among 3D zeldas.

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This poll will certainly have some noticeable trends for sure:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/8656-
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I'm reflecting back on the 2015 contest and there were an astounding amount of games released in 2010-2015 in that bracket. That all but confirms that most of the 2020 contest's high seeds are coming back if we held an all-inclusive games contest now.

In such an event, I think the most-likely 1 seeds would be Mario 3, Chrono Trigger, FFVI, Link to the Past, Ocarina of Time, Breath of the Wild, Final Fantasy VII, and Super Mario World. Still trying to figure out the 2 seeds.

By comparison there were surprisingly few games released between 2001 and 2009 to make the 2015 bracket, and a LOT of games with NTSC releases between 1998 and 2000. And virtually nothing before that.

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Will the upcoming Chrono Cross remake give Serge a boost?

It's probably just being a remaster and we only ever saw Serge in one match that didn't even really give him a fair shot to really impress (https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2885-) so the question is impossible to answer.

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LinkMarioSamus posted...

I'm reflecting back on the 2015 contest and there were an astounding amount of games released in 2010-2015 in that bracket. That all but confirms that most of the 2020 contest's high seeds are coming back if we held an all-inclusive games contest now.

In such an event, I think the most-likely 1 seeds would be Mario 3, Chrono Trigger, FFVI, Link to the Past, Ocarina of Time, Breath of the Wild, Final Fantasy VII, and Super Mario World. Still trying to figure out the 2 seeds.

By comparison there were surprisingly few games released between 2001 and 2009 to make the 2015 bracket, and a LOT of games with NTSC releases between 1998 and 2000. And virtually nothing before that.

I imagine nominations were split between "classic games I played as a kid" and "recent games I've played." Given GameFAQs' demographics we will see a larger portion of games from the SNES, the PS/N64 and maybe into the PS2/GC/Xbox eras and games released in the past few years.

Games released in the 70s/80s are a bit too old for GameFAQs and we aren't into arcade/computer games which dominated those decades. The top games (SMB/LoZ/FF) are outranked by later releases while Mega Man LFFs itself when it comes to nominations. Tetris and Pac-Man have realistic chances, though the latter failed to qualify in 2015. After that I don't see anything else qualifying without board 8 support.

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Yeah like, Fire Emblem: Awakening got a 6 seed that contest. In GOTD it was already down to a 7, so it'll probably be hard-pressed just to make another all-inclusive games contest.

On that token, I feel like a lot of games from 2006-2009 that had high seeds in 2015 also will suffer in that regard whenever we hold another all-inclusive games contest. I'd be surprised if Fallout 3 made it to the top half of the field seeding-wise (in a 128-game contest) despite it having a 3 last time. It went from being THE game of its generation to little more than the blueprint for Bethesda-era Fallout. Who knows though?

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You also have to take into account increased competition, for example, Awakening had to deal with Fates and Three Houses in GotD.

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Doesn't exactly help.

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https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1-
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3000-
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/8657-

Not too much change in results over the course of 22 years in those 3 polls. The first poll option had the sharpest drop in the 22 years since the first poll, but the last option also experienced a drop off somewhat. In the most recent poll, the second option finished somewhere in the middle between the first poll and the second poll. The third option has grown in percentage in each poll after the first one.

Second option + Third option percentage by poll:

11/30/1999 - 71.24%
1/18/2008 - 80.58%
11/30/2021 - 83.70%
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How would GameFAQs react to Jinx (League of Legends) getting into the next character battle, thanks to her role in Netflix's Arcane? The site hates the game, but the show's pretty popular, so I feel she might win a match if she gets the right opponent. I doubt she'll be fodder like Draven was in his last appearance.

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Big Bob posted...

How would GameFAQs react to Jinx (League of Legends) getting into the next character battle, thanks to her role in Netflix's Arcane? The site hates the game, but the show's pretty popular, so I feel she might win a match if she gets the right opponent. I doubt she'll be fodder like Draven was in his last appearance.

Ugh LoL/MOBAs are great, its ridiculous most of this site hates/has no interest in the game/genre.

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charmander6000 posted...

I imagine nominations were split between "classic games I played as a kid" and "recent games I've played." Given GameFAQs' demographics we will see a larger portion of games from the SNES, the PS/N64 and maybe into the PS2/GC/Xbox eras and games released in the past few years.

My thoughts exactly. The standout classics and recent hits are what will dominate the nominations for the next contest. I expect the Wii/PS3/X360 era to struggle mightily next time around.


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Jinx might not be fodder like Draven simply because 2018 Draven is one of the worst examples of turbofodder weve ever seen but she should still be fairly bad fodder.

Whether its good or not, I see no real reason why gamefaqs should care about that particular show given they dont even like her game. In the age of near-unlimited options, nothing matters unless it scratches a particular itch of ours or becomes a true breakout mainstream hit.

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Jinx can avoid anti-votes due to people who dislike LoL not knowing where she is from.
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plasmabeam posted...

My thoughts exactly. The standout classics and recent hits are what will dominate the nominations for the next contest. I expect the Wii/PS3/X360 era to struggle mightily next time around.

Yeah there's no earthly way we get stuff like Fallout 3 as a 3 and Metal Gear Solid 4 as a 7 next time around. I get the feeling Super Mario Galaxy and BioShock won't suffer that much though, but they might still be hard-pressed to make the top half of the field in seeding. I was about to imagine the idea that something like Shadow of the Colossus could be a 3 but I suppose a bunch of newer games should be able to get 2 and 3 seeds to prevent that.

I've been going over lol x-stats for the 2010 and 2015 games contests and, well, FFX is projected to do WORSE against San Andreas in the latter than in the former. What in the world happened to FFX? Apparently a Japanese poll from last year flat-out named it the best game in the series, but I imagine on this site it'll always be a ways behind VI and VII at least.


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Can't ignore what Castlevania's show did for Alucard. Also can't ignore the enormous gap between Castlevania and League of Legends here.

I''ll give most characters on that show "better than Draven 2018," but that's not saying much more than saying they exist. Characters boosting from shows came from loved games here and I'll need some series other than League of Legends to predict otherwise first.

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I realized that between 1990-2021 a 128 game bracket would have an average of four games per year. In a decade it'll be down to around three per year. I wonder if GameFAQs/other communities would ever consider a 256 game bracket. Like we could do one now and it wouldn't be that fodder-ific (less so than the two GotD contests we've had), but it would create a long contest...

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Well there are plenty of games that got into BGE3 that only did so due to being board favorites. No disrespect to fans of those games, but stuff like Persona 3, The World Ends with You, and Skies of Arcadia really shouldn't be making it in at the expense of stuff like, oh I don't know, Link's Awakening, Star Fox 64, and Yoshi's Island. I guess those games just don't have hardcore enough fanbases.

Honestly that darned top 100 list from 2014 did prepare me for a lot of the snubs. No Mario Kart, no Star Fox, no Mega Man Classic, no God of War, no Arkham games, Yoshi's Island and Link's Awakening failing to crack top 90. I remember when I used that list to rationalize incorrect picks in the 2015 contest like Persona 3 > Dragon Quest VIII, Mario 3 > Pokemon Red/Blue, Resident Evil 4 winning its division...

BTW if you take Arkham City/The Last of Us from 2020 and plug that result into 2015, Arkham City gets 31.99% on Melee. Chrono Trigger and Arkham City were in the same eightpack so I'll take every match there at face value (did Melee's rallies help drive up MMX's % on FFX?), meaning Arkham City is projected to get 24.15% on CT. This projects Chrono Trigger to get ~62% on Melee...which was apparently on track to happening before the Smash rallies arrived. Well I guess those adjustments had a point.

I'm not a fan of the idea of Chrono Trigger being worth 54% on Ocarina even in 2015 though. That whole division looks too high in the stats (yes, I know we've been over this whole rigmarole before regarding how I can't make stat adjustments. I'm not asking for them, just pointing out how it seems to me), making it look like a knee-jerk reaction to Ocarina supposedly looking bad the whole contest. Oh no Ocarina had two lackluster victories against two of the most acclaimed PS1 RPGs on a site that goes gaga over those kinds of games, help! Plus we had never gotten a good read on Suikoden II anyways, so we had no idea what its strength was "supposed" to be.

Speaking of Chrono Trigger, maybe it and its characters (or at least Crono anyway) never actually dropped or increased in strength and other characters and games fluctuated in strength around them? Actually scratch that since CT lost to Mario 64 twice in 2009, but it still feels like people were vastly overstating the degree to which Crono declined in 2007-2013. The 2018 contest suggests Crono still being about equal to Pikachu which explains his 2013 run well enough. I guess we all just had a hard time believing Pikachu could be a beast hiding in plain sight. Heck, maybe that 2010 match against Snake wasn't just Snake's sprite tanking his performance?

The only question I have is how Pikachu is just that darn strong considering its divisive nature within both the Pokemon and Smash fandoms. Maybe just recognizability.

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charmander6000 posted...

but it would create a long contest...

Length of contest is only determined by how many matches you run a day

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Poor Ulti.

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charmander6000 posted...

I realized that between 1990-2021 a 128 game bracket would have an average of four games per year. In a decade it'll be down to around three per year. I wonder if GameFAQs/other communities would ever consider a 256 game bracket. Like we could do one now and it wouldn't be that fodder-ific (less so than the two GotD contests we've had), but it would create a long contest...

Damn, that's gonna lead to a ton of snubs. Plus, you have to figure that 1998, 2017, and 2020 would nab around 7-10 bracket spots each. And we also have to factor in some 80s games that will sneak in (Mario 3, Zelda 1, Tetris, Mega Man 2, and maaaybe Mario 1, Duck Hunt, and Pac-Man).

So theoretically 1998, 2017, 2020, and the 80s could soak up a quarter of the bracket, leaving 96 slots open for the rest of the years between 1990 and 2021.

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Since none of those 80s games (Mario 3 is 90s) made it into the 2015 contest besides Tetris, we should not expect to see any of them in future contests without special reason.

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Throw in the inevitable games which get nomination rallies and you pretty much need to be a "GotY caliber" game just to get in. There were already a bunch of snubs in 2015 and we are now six years later.

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AxemRedRanger posted...

Since none of those 80s games (Mario 3 is 90s) made it into the 2015 contest besides Tetris, we should not expect to see any of them in future contests without special reason.

Forgot the NA release date was 1990

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A lot of the games from the 2015 contest released in 2012 or later will be hard-pressed to return to be fair. The Witcher 3 and Bloodborne are like the only two that have meaningfully gained in strength since then. Probably shouldn't expect high seeds for the likes of Metal Gear Solid 4, Twilight Princess, and Oblivion either in addition to Fallout 3.

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plasmabeam posted...

Plus, you have to figure that 1998, 2017, and 2020 would nab around 7-10 bracket spots each.

Was 2020 really that notable of a gaming year, or is that just due to you thinking nominators would give it a lot of recently bias? New Horizons takes the Animal Crossing slot, Hades makes it in, maybe some shooter like Doom Eternal makes it, and I don't know if anything else does? This site's initial reception to The Last of Us 2 was so negative, and Final Fantasy VII Remake being a remake either disqualifies it or many people would just nominate the original and call it a day.
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Remake would definitely make it in. TLOU2 was GotY runner-up so enough people liked it for it to get in.

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OrangeCrush980 posted...

Was 2020 really that notable of a gaming year, or is that just due to you thinking nominators would give it a lot of recently bias? New Horizons takes the Animal Crossing slot, Hades makes it in, maybe some shooter like Doom Eternal makes it, and I don't know if anything else does? This site's initial reception to The Last of Us 2 was so negative, and Final Fantasy VII Remake being a remake either disqualifies it or many people would just nominate the original and call it a day.

Recency bias. The five you mentioned are locks if the nominations are held today. I'd call Ghost of Tsushima a lock as well. Then take your pick from 13 Sentinels, Cyberpunk, Ori WotW, and Assassin's Creed Valhalla. Hell, Miles Morales might even have a shot.

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LinkMarioSamus posted...

A lot of the games from the 2015 contest released in 2012 or later will be hard-pressed to return to be fair. The Witcher 3 and Bloodborne are like the only two that have meaningfully gained in strength since then. Probably shouldn't expect high seeds for the likes of Metal Gear Solid 4, Twilight Princess, and Oblivion either in addition to Fallout 3.

Imagine a bracket with those games as 11-14 seeds going up against more recent hits. Some potential matchups off the top of my head...

(6) Metroid Dread vs. (11) MGS4
(5) Bloodborne vs. (12) Twilight Princess
(4) Hades vs. (13) Fallout 3
(3) Animal Crossing New Horizons vs. (14) Oblivion

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I still like how there's this perception TLOU2 was not well-received by the online gaming community all because of those leaks and review-bombing on release. The game still won a lot of audience choice awards and became one of the best-selling titles of 2020.

Thing is, that could easily be because of 2020 being such a bare year for gaming that a critically-acclaimed sequel to an already-popular game would be such a big deal no matter how divisive it is. It's not like Twilight Princess is a whole lot different TBH. That said, even considering this TLOU2 seems to have largely endured past the pre-release controversy, though maybe for that very reason.

EDIT: I'd still pick the lower seed in all those matches except for MGS4, and even then it could still easily win.

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plasmabeam posted...

(6) Metroid Dread vs. (11) MGS4
(5) Bloodborne vs. (12) Twilight Princess
(4) Hades vs. (13) Fallout 3
(3) Animal Crossing New Horizons vs. (14) Oblivion

Dread
...tough one...gonna go Zelda
Hades
Oblivion

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Despite what I just said about Twilight Princess, the game is still popular enough within the general Zelda fanbase (though this perception may be due to some prominent YouTubers like KingK considering it the best 3D Zelda game if not the best Zelda game period) that it should be able to handle Bloodborne no problem, at least on a site that loves its Zelda. Bloodborne seemed to be worth ~46% on Mass Effect 2, which got only 39% on MGS3 in 2015 and I don't think anyone would take MGS3 over Twilight Princess.

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Twilight Princess isn't losing to Bloodborne

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Twilight Princess is still a very popular Zelda game. It's at worst slightly weaker than Wind Waker.

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Leonhart4 posted...

Remake would definitely make it in. TLOU2 was GotY runner-up so enough people liked it for it to get in.

I don't think Remake will be eligible in a contest where the original game is also eligible.

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FF7R is different enough that it should be eligible.
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I disagree, while FF7R adds a lot more story details and updates its mechanics, the core game is still the same.

It's obviously a lot more than an enhanced port with a few extra scenes (or even the big changes we've seen in Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee) so it is a grey area. I have it in the same camp as Metroid: Samus Returns which I feel would not be eligible.

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charmander6000 posted...

I disagree, while FF7R adds a lot more story details and updates its mechanics, the core game is still the same.

Super disagree with this. FF7R is a fundamentally different experience in many ways, and those differences are big.

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FFVIIR should 100% be eligible.

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KamikazePotato posted...

Super disagree with this. FF7R is a fundamentally different experience in many ways, and those differences are big.

Agreed. Saying FF7 and FF7R are the same is like saying the John Carpenter's Halloween and the Rob Zombie version are the same thing.

EDIT: Actually a better comparison would be the 1950s version of The Thing vs. John Carpenter's 1982 remake.

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I also don't think TLOU2 is going to be an anti-vote magnet per se. It would probably still fare poorly in a contest environment, but that's probably because this site barely cares about TLOU as is. Honestly part of me feels as if the reason stuff like Halo and GTA were perceived anti-vote magnets is not necessarily because the denizens of this site actually hate those games but more because they might be perceived as too popular so people like trying to get them to lose.

Speaking of TLOU in a contest setting, would it sound about right for Dark Souls to be worth ~45% on Metroid Prime?

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KamikazePotato posted...

Super disagree with this. FF7R is a fundamentally different experience in many ways, and those differences are big.

I mean so is Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee.

I agree it is pretty close to the arbitrary line of contest eligibility and it would be difficult to imagine a game more different than FF7R is with FF7 being not eligible. In the end it's up to SBAllen.

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charmander6000 posted...

I mean so is Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee.

Not really. Let's Go P/E and Samus Returns are close to 1:1 remakes in many ways. The perspective shift from 2D to 3D alone makes FF7R a vastly different experience, and it also has voice acting, graphics that are way way more advanced, significantly expanded cutscenes, and a new battle system.

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