Board 8 > An analysis of how each year performed in Game of the Decade 2

(+) Yeah! (+)

Uncharted 4 went from losing badly to FFXV to looking outright stronger.

Also 2016 was a good year for games but it lacked the big headliners, ESPECIALLY in the realm of big RPGs and expansive action adventure games that GameFAQs likes. This is why FFXV effectively defaulted its way to GotY here (and it needed a rally). Bizarrely, now the actual strongest game of that year is Doom, an FPS. One of the only years you can say that about, definitely the only one of the last 15 years.

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I think it's likely that FFXV was weakened because of how its DLC was handled, and that things it beat in 2016 like Uncharted 4 or Pokemon SM would beat it today
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I should also add that while FFXV did manage to avoid true embarrassment against Hollow Knight, it still significantly underperformed its oracle prediction by a hair below 4.5%. So even in victory it looked terrible.

Funnily enough I think Hollow Knight does better against BotW because who the hell respect votes for FFXV over BotW? Even its own board had a poll where it got annihilated by BotW.

Uncharted 4 beats it for sure, Stardew Valley beats it for sure, DooM beats it very easily, Dark Souls III beats it very easily, Sun and Moon almost certainly beats it, which would put it in sixth for the year. That is almost the biggest fall for a GotY winner ever - FFXV is lucky that Modern Warfare 2 exists!

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Lightning Strikes posted...

I should also add that while FFXV did manage to avoid true embarrassment against Hollow Knight, it still significantly underperformed its oracle prediction by a hair below 4.5%. So even in victory it looked terrible.

Funnily enough I think Hollow Knight does better against BotW because who the hell respect votes for FFXV over BotW? Even its own board had a poll where it got annihilated by BotW.

Uncharted 4 beats it for sure, Stardew Valley beats it for sure, DooM beats it very easily, Dark Souls III beats it very easily, Sun and Moon almost certainly beats it, which would put it in sixth for the year. That is almost the biggest fall for a GotY winner ever - FFXV is lucky that Modern Warfare 2 exists!

I agree completely

"I honestly believe that the dynamic at play was causing BotW to overperform; the juxtaposition of yet another perceived failure of the Final Fantasy series being matched against Zeldas modern magnum opus (and perhaps just magnum opus, period) was just too obvious to voters, and I think many accordingly rewarded Nintendo and punished Square. Id argue that Hollow Knight would have performed much better in FFXVs position, helping both games save face."

You're going to hear this again too, very soon.

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5,373 words.

Before revisions, that's how long the 2017 write-up is. That's double as long as the 2016 write-up is. That's longer than any paper I had to write for my bachelor's lmao. Get ready for the ultimate wall of text.

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2017 vs rest of 2010s combined

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DirtyRoller posted...

Overwatch deserved to do better in this contest, and Titanfall 2 just plain deserved to do better. To me, they were the only two great competitive online games this entire gen.

Meh, I hate that both Splatoon games were absolute bottom feeders in both 2015 and 2020, although potential Xenoblade SFF excuses Splatoon 2 just slightly.

As far as Overwatch goes, there was definitely a window of time where Overwatch would have easily rallied to a victory during the game's heyday, but there was no contest during that window of opportunity.

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MechanicalWall posted...

I did waver a bit there, and I do note that it wasn't insanely embarrassing, but ultimately a highly debated match ending 58-42 just isn't a great look, especially considering Uncharted's pedigree.

I still think you can credit basically all of that to Mario Kart 8. Uncharted 4 definitely wasn't worse than we expected it to be here.

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I get that you picked FFXV as one of 2016's headliners because it advanced the furthest, but it really doesn't deserve the title imo. The only point at which its results weren't colossally disappointing the whole way through was one division through the first round, when we thought indies were basically all legit and blowouts wouldn't be dime-a-dozen. If you really needed a third headliner, I would have gone with Stardew instead for significantly exceeding expectations both times and proving it's high up on the indie totem pole.

Lightning Strikes posted...

Bizarrely, now the actual strongest game of that year is Doom, an FPS.

46% on New Vegas looks a bit better than 42% on RE2, and that's before taking into account that the rallies in both matches likely harmed Dark Souls III by 1-2% and benefited Doom by ~1%.

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When it comes to my headliners and busts, I do usually prioritize how far a game made it in bracket and how well it performed in tough matches over what its eventual x-stat might look like (tbf one of the 2017 busts is the opposite of this, but 2016 didn't give me many choices). If you see weird choices, I usually KNOW they're weird and address it in the body of the text.

Yah Uncharted 4 ended up stronger than FFXV, but can you really say it 'headlined' a year when it was barely a presence in the contest? It doesn't sit right with me.

Also 2017 is coming up in a few!

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The 21 (!!!) Games That Made Bracket (And How Long They Lasted):
-The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Contest Winner)
-What Remains of Edith Finch (Round 1)
-Hollow Knight (Round 2)
-Tales of Berseria (Round 1)
-Resident Evil 7 (Round 1)
-Horizon Zero Dawn (Round 3)
-Fortnite (Round 1)
-Tekken 7 (Round 1)
-Mario Odyssey (Division Finals)
-Cuphead (Round 2)
-Splatoon 2 (Round 1)
-Nioh (Round 2)
-Persona 5 (Quarterfinals)
-Sonic Mania (Round 3)
-Ys VIII (Round 1)
-Yakuza 0 (Round 2)
-Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (Round 1)
-Fate/Grand Order (Round 1)
-Night in the Woods (Round 1)
-Divinity Original Sin II (Round 2)
-Nier Automata (Round 3)

Notable Snubs:
-PlayerUnknowns Battlegrounds
-Metroid: Samus Returns
-Destiny 2
-Prey
-Hellblade: Senuas Sacrifice
-Gravity Rush 2
-A Hat in Time
-Doki Doki Literature Club

Headliners: Breath of the Wild, Mario Odyssey, Persona 5

Busts: Tales of Berseria, NieR Automata

Overview:

This hasnt been a section in prior write-ups, but this year warrants a brief overview.

If you know your years, you know that 2017 was the Year of the Decade. Easily. Unquestionably. And even if you dont know your years, you dont have to read a single word of text in this analysis to know what a big deal it was. Just scroll back up to that banner. Link. Mario. Joker, the face of the biggest deal in JRPGs since FFX. This banner just screams power. But it wasnt merely a case of a few strong entries, oh no. This year had quality AND quantity. At 21 entries, its BY FAR the most well-represented in the contest; nothing else even broke 15. Some of you were astute enough to notice that this contest felt very backloaded, and 2017 is a big reason why you feel that way.

Theres a few reasons this year was so gosh dang good, the obvious one being the release of the Switch. Nintendo had pretty much abandoned the Wii U after Splatoons release in mid-2015, only tossing out a few niche releases like Xenoblade X and that Tokyo Mirage nonsense and some undercooked garbage like Paper Mario and Star Fox. It was clear that the Wii U was a bust, and they needed to focus their efforts on their next console. They had to win back their audience, and quickly. It didnt help that they were releasing the Switch when the PS4 and Xbone were ALSO hitting their stride; how do you convince people to buy your 300 dollar console when the other two already had a meaty library with a lot of cheap, quality games?

BOOM, Zelda. BOOM, Mario Kart. BOOM, Splatoon. BOOM, Mario Odyssey. They HAD to go ham this year; they could not lolligag like the PS4 and Xbone had in 2013 and 2014. If they didnt come out the gate swinging, the Nintendo brand might very well have died, and so they worked on having the best launch year since the PS2. Too bad this meant that wed spend the subsequent years getting one decent release every 4 months or something >.>

But the Switch wasnt the only reason the year was so successful. I was doing a thing early in this analysis where I was counting how many Japanese games there were in each line-up; I stopped because I figured people got the point. But lets start counting again, and put each years number of Japanese games:overall entries side by side.

2010: 3/13 (23%)
2011: 2/10 (20%)
2012: 3/13 (23%)
2013: 5/13 (38%)
2014: 4/12 (33%)
2015: 3/11 (27%)
2016: 3/10 (30%)
2017: 13/21 (62%)
2018: 5/12 (42%)
2019: 7/14 (50%)

Notice something? The numbers suddenly surge in 2017 and remain decently high in 18 and 19. 2017 is the only year where more than half of the entrants were Japanese-made.

Now, I dont necessarily want to imply that being Japanese made automatically means better; Im only mildly a weeb. But in my Prelude to the Decade post, I note that a lot of the high-profile Japanese companies had faded in the transition to HD, and a lot of their games began chasing Western trends, diluting the spirit of innovation and fun that their games were known for.

2017 is when a lot of those companies started to pull their heads out of their asses and either returned to their roots, or realized that there was a middle-ground between massive AAA golden pixel projects, and the mass-produced shovelware garbage of companies like NIS and Gust and Compile Heart. I already covered Nintendo (who NEEDED this come to Jesus moment), but REVII was the first AAA game Capcom had put out in a LONG time that was universally acclaimed. Square bounced back from FFXVs tepid reception with Nier Automata. SEGA saw two breakthrough hits with Yakuza 0 and Persona 5 (Sonic Mania wasnt Japanese-developed). Smaller scale projects like Ys VIII and Tales of Berseria resonated more with people than their predecessors. Even Tekken 7 was the first AAA fighting game in a while to really take that scene by storm.

An air of subversive, whimsical fun was returning to the AA and AAA gaming industry after mostly being relegated to the indie scene. Ive heard anecdotes of a lot of people who were jaded with gaming and the greys and browns and endless gun fights but were pulled back in around this period of time.

Though the endless gun fights certainly remained endless, with Fortnite and PUBG representing a massive paradigm shift in multiplayer shooters. Now, I know those games are popular to hate on, but honestly, even though I dont actually play them, Im down with battle royale shooters. In a way, they also represented a return to the basics. Enough with the increasingly contrived multiplayer modes, enough with the weirdly complex progression systems CoD ushered in, lets just take the basic Deathmatch concept and take it to its logical conclusion. Im surprised it took so long for someone to do this.

Take quality, take quantity, take influence, take every measurement into account, 2017 beat out every year this decade in a landslide. It has a very real claim of being the best year ever, period, and its a shame that the Years contest (if we really HAD to have one) wasnt held until after 2017, because it would have gone on an absolute tear.

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Snubs Analysis:

This year was so good in fact, that even at 21 entries, I still didnt have to think that hard about snubs. Believe it or not, there still managed to be a LOT; the eight I have arent even close.

PUBG HAS to be the biggest snub of the contest, period, at least in terms of sheer sales, stature, and influence, if not in GameFAQs-iness. Unfortunately, despite selling tens of millions of copies and ushering in the era of the battle royale genre, it ended up obsoleted pretty damn quickly. Its funny to think that for a short while, Fortnite was considered the hipster pick, but the tables were turned in a matter of months, and PUBG became the go-to for people who pretended that they were too good or too mature for Fortnite. Im too old to be engrossed in the politics of the situation, but Id done a fair bit of substitute teaching around this time, and Fortnite vs PUBG felt like the Nintendo vs SEGA of this generation of kids, with an equally obvious winner once the dust had settled.

Another obvious snub, this one more GameFAQs specific: Metroid. How the first quality Metroid game in a literal decade (more, even, if like me, you dont actually think much of Primes sequels) failed to get a spot in this contest is absolutely baffling, and I can only chalk this up to the 3DS already being on the way out by the time the game was released. You know how I refer to GameFAQs as ZeldaMarioSmashAndSometimesMetroidAndPokemonFAQs, and NOT NintendoFAQs? Well, that Sometimes is the operative word here.

A little less obvious was Destiny 2. Now, the original game is turbofodder. It got tripled by fucking Stardew Valley. But maybe Im out of the loop on this one, but surely Destiny 2 is the game of choice for people who enjoy that shit? Was this not a case of the more recent game obsoleting its predecessor? I remember there was a point in time where Best Buy was literally giving away Destiny 2 with a lot of different pre-orders. I received a free copy of the game myself, one that I never even bothered to pick up lol. No way was I going to touch it, and clearly it had 0 resale value if they were literally throwing copies away.

There were a couple of points in time in the Stats topic where we would spitball which indie games were clearly snubbed, and you know one game I think we all forgot about? Hellblade: Senuas Sacrifice. Seems weird to forget about a game that good and relatively high-profile, though I suppose Microsofts purchase of Ninja Theory clouded the fact that the game was in fact technically an indie when released. It cleaned up at the Game Awards that year, and its sequels trailer was shown right alongside the SeXs reveal, which I assume means Microsoft is propping it up as a big deal.

One indie game we did NOT forget about whatsoever was Doki Doki Literature Club. Its literally free and can be run on a potato, its playrate must be through the roof! I suppose by 2020 the games memes have worn people down to the point where its received Undertale style backlash, but Monika making it into the 2018 Character contest and then her game not showing up here is kinda weird.

Same goes for Hat Kid. The character isnt remotely what sells A Hat in Time, and I would think her game would be marginally stronger than she was, even after embarrassing Squall. It being one of the few major Kickstarter projects to actually deliver should have net it some respect points, but I guess not.

Prey and Gravity Rush 2 are two games with big cult followings that I thought might have been able to swing enough noms to get their games in. Christ, Prey fans are the kind who are keen to remind you of the games existence and how its SUCH an underappreciated gem every five nanoseconds. I remember when I had the patience to browse ResetERA, there would be like five threads on the front page whining that not enough people were talking about the game, completely oblivious of the irony. Thought it was only just OK personally, with one of the worst endgames of all fucking time.

Bust Analysis:

It feels weird to have a game that made Round 3 marked as a bust, when in 2016 making Round 3 was the absolute highlight of the year. If you read my post directly above this analysis you might be confused, because I claimed that I prioritize deep runs over x-stat value; sometimes, there are underperfomances (relative to expectations) that are too obvious for me to just let pass by. Such is the bountiful nature of 2017, where you can take a game that almost made top 20 in the x-stats for granted. This is also the most I told you so set of busts of the entire analysis, so I hope you can tolerate a small dose of smug =D

But let me start with the more clear-cut case. Tales of Berseria vs Hollow Knight was marked as a complete and utter tossup, with a lot of smart people taking Tales on the assumption that it being an RPG with a decent brand would help it pull through. Ive dunked on these experts a few times at this point for often playing too much by the rules and numbers and failing to take note of where the discourse is at, and this had to have been one of their worst misses, at least as far as a one-point match was concerned. 63%, Round 1, Day 1 of the contest in Hollow Knights favor. With 52-48s, 55-45s, even sub 60% results, you might still be able argue that the debates were worth having. But NOT when one game breaks 60. At that point one side was clearly wrong, and was always wrong. This match was THE origin of Indie Fear, all because people refused to believe that Hollow Knight in and of itself could have won that match that hard without some extra transient factor at play.

And I can tell you why I was so baffled not only by the people who thought Hollow Knight would lose, but by the subsequent knee jerk reaction that every indie was to be feared. As far as indie games go, Hollow Knight is a big deal, with the $15 Switch release shadowdropped at E3 immeasurably boosting it. Yah it somehow ended at 7th place in terms of indie games this contest, but Ill still argue that it would have done notably better against Zelda than FFXV did. Tales of Berseria, meanwhile, does indeed have a brand name a brand name that hasnt done shit on this website outside of one game. While Berseria is certainly the most well-received one since Vesperia, thats damning with faint, faint praise. In terms of production values and market presence, the Tales series at this point is like a hair or two above the aforementioned mass-produced garbage from NIS and GUST and Compile Heart.

Speaking of JRPGs that people had overrated in the bracket making period and early in the contest Nier Automata! Im not putting Nier here JUST because it lost to Pokemon, but because for all the hype surrounding it being a potential godslayer, with some arguing that it could topple SKYRIM (a very small vocal minority, but vocal they were), it really didnt end up being all that. A very good midcarder, yes, but hardly the near-elite some people were propping it up as.

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Bust Analysis continued:

To me, this was apparent from Round 1, with it putting down 68% on Bayo 2. Sounds good, doesnt it? Sure seemed amazing to people on Board 8, who ALL failed to point out the obvious. I was at the center of a debate that I provoked in the Stats topic, where I was, to my memory (and correct me it Im wrong here), the first person to mention that Nier Automata and Bayonetta were literally made by the EXACT SAME COMPANY, and play remarkably similarly. This triggered a flood of people sputtering indignantly at me for suggesting that there was SFF in what was one of the most clear-cut cases of SFF in the fckin bracket. Like I pointed out in my 2014 analysis, Platinum fans are a hardcore bunch, and likely own both games, different systems be damned. Most of those people were very likely to concede the contest title to Nier for its stronger plot and overall better reception. And more importantly, in the unadjusted x-stats for Division 8, Bayonetta 2 was below JOURNEY. NO ONE believes that; certainly not KamikazePotato, who adjusted Bayo 2 nine whole spots above Journey in his stats.

That vindication didnt come until Division Finals were wrapped up, of course. I had to be satisfied with Nier not even breaking 70% of Divinity 2, which itself couldnt break 70% on Hearthstone. While Hearthstone would end up looking marginally better in 2020 than it did in 2015, where it was at the bottom of the x-stats, this still only put Divinity on par with shit like Ratchet and Clank. There were some minor rallies that boosted Divinity up a percent or so, not enough that Nier didnt end up looking bad regardless. Its godslayer potential was clearly not manifesting.

If anything, only losing narrowly to Pokemon in Round 3, 52-48 style, was a comeback! I mean hey, thats still within the realm where debate surrounding this match was acceptable, as I outlined earlier. Even at this point, some people had SO MUCH faith in Nier than they actually believed this performance was good enough for Pokemon to have a shot at upsetting Skyrim.

I already went over this in my 2010, 2011, AND 2014 analysis, so suffice it to say that no, that performance was NOT good enough to upset Skyrim. So much so that Nier, the highly acclaimed JRPG, a game whose profile has substantially risen thanks to 2Bs, err, profile, is projected to lose to Mario Kart.

Nier was one of the games in bracket where I just wasnt sure where the hype came from. It finished pretty high in the adjusted x-stats, but people were talking about it as a contender for top 15 or even top 10, not outside the top 20. Yes, it has a decent GotY poll under its belt, but how many times do people have to be let down by those before they get the message? For every one predictive GotY poll, theres been three that led everyone astray. Yes, 2B did well in the 2018 character contest, but she has reason to be strong that has nothing to do with her game. One big, fat reason. TAF, if you will. I feel this was one of those cases where peoples feelings for the game clouded their better judgment. Hey, it happened to me, so Im not gonna talk shit about it. Seriously, fuck Three Houses.

Headliner Analysis:

I told myself that I need to start conserving words where I can because these are getting LONG, and I feel this is one of those places. Seriously, do I need to go into excruciating detail about Zeldas run in this contest? Fckin Majoras Mask, an N64 title, won Game of the Decade in 2010. Im one of THOSE people that feel it wasnt really a good fit for the title, no matter how good a game it might be. So for a Zelda game to come into this contest with a VERY legitimate claim to the Game of the Decade mantle. well, no one with a single iota of knowledge regarding this sites history thought it was losing. No one. It would take some ridiculous rally from a game with the profile of Minecraft or Dota or Witcher to take it down.

And man, it acted like it was the shit. It was the #1 overall seed, and was given one of the weakest eightpacks in the contest to flex. Lets fast-forward a little here because I can only write it godstomped its opponent in so many ways.

The Outer Worlds? 85%

Halo Reach? 85%

Final Fantasy XV? 80%

This was one of the most dominant three round runs from a contest entrant EVER. Again though, part of it was Allen probably being careful to not waste anything good on BotW while also setting up the prerequisite Zelda/Final Fantasy duel. Not to beat this horse to death, but for one last time, the FFXV match was fishy and I do believe Hollow Knight would have performed better on Zelda face-to-face.

At this point, we sincerely believed that it might not drop below 70 until semifinals, if that. Certainly wouldnt be dented by anything in its own Division. If FINAL FANTASY couldnt get 20% on it, how in the hell was the deadbeat older brother Dragon Quest gonna do it?

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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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Headliner Analysis continued:

Lets move to a sexier game, one that also drew a hilariously shit eightpack. Ive already alluded to this several times over the course of my analyses, but let me be more explicit here. Persona 5 might not be the best-selling JRPG of the decade, but it is 100% the biggest DEAL in the genre since FFX. Persona 3 started generating interest, Persona 4 made the series a household name in RPG circles, but Persona 5 was THE mainstream breakthrough hit. There was a GIGANTIC hole that needed to be filled in the genre after Final Fantasy fell apart, with no one seeming to be able to recapture the magic of the PS1/PS2 Golden Age. P5 capitalized on this and then some, delivering a visually stimulating 100 hour journey with the simple-to-learn, hard-to-master turn-based combat system that every other major game has cast off in favor of some hybrid rubbish that left no one satisfied. It notched a Game Awards nomination (which is as mainstream as you can get), and more importantly, earned the hallowed Smash roster spot; Joker becoming one of the most notorious characters in competitive play ensured that no one ever forgot his presence in the biggest fighting game ever.

So P5 came into this contest with a head of steam and a lot to prove. Unfortunately, it didnt have much of an opportunity to prove shit; it got one match with a game worth a damn before falling into the Witcher thresher maw. Yes, if my Headliner analysis sounds a little tepid this year, its because 2017s lineup was a little too OP, on top of getting opponents that couldnt bring them to anything less than a doubling for most of their runs.

Persona 5 sure drew a strange 16 seed, though. Heavy Rain was once a pretty damn acclaimed title, and might have actually done a little more here, once upon a time. Its best days are waaay behind it now though, as David Cages name has been dragged and the games novelty has worn off. So, easy W for P5 to the tune of 78%. Still, no one was particularly impressed yet, even though Heavy Rain was at least recognizable compared to the INSIDEs and Obra Dinns of the world.

Like its inevitable Quarterfinals opponent, it got to face off against an Assassins Creed game, probably the last one that people REALLY liked. Put highly acclaimed JRPG against failing Western brand, though, and you get a drubbing to the tune of 71%. This match at least made a blip on the radar; if you felt ACIV was significantly stronger than Odyssey AND believed Witcher SFFed it into the dirt, you had a case to make that Persona might upset Geraldo. Some people entertained this thought, but it was mostly the same crowd that had trouble believing Witcher was THAT good no matter how many games it crushed between its pecs.

Speaking of failing brands, Personas next opponent was the weakest game, or second weakest behind Shovel Knight, to make Round 3, Sonic Mania. While Sonic pushed Persona below 70%, this was still very much a just happy to be here match for the human-sized manhog thing. The intra-2017 duel was one of the biggest snoozefests of the round, and Persona once again failed to make any noise compared to the gloryhounds like Zelda and Witcher and Dark Souls.

But finally, FINALLY, Division Finals would bring Persona a real challenger, a game that worked pretty damn hard to make it that far. As this match immediately followed up the Xenoblade/Persona 4 rallyfest, with Xenoblade getting the last laugh, Persona 5 started the match almost dead even with Portal 2. Who thought wed see the day where Persona, B8s darling, would lose a board vote to something that wasnt like, Phoenix Wright or something. Eventually, though, Persona started building a bigger and bigger lead, ending the match at 57%; considering that Portal had just convincingly beat RDR2, this was no small accomplishment.

At this point, two schools of thought emerged. Persona had a rally pinned in one of its subs during the Portal match; if you believed that post caused Persona to overperform, then its match was unimpressive and it was going to get rolled by Witcher (this on top of the default state of mind being that it was getting rolled by Witcher). If however, you DIDNT think that thread mattered, AND you felt that Witcher SFFed God of War to oblivion, then the Quarterfinals were still in question. Personally, I feel that sometimes the board contrives reasons to argue in order to make the contest more exciting than it was at this point (the last interesting day was the Division 3 and 4 finals, honestly, and I figured that was gonna be the case). The Witcher had been too dominant at this point to lose to anything but Zelda, and while 57% on Portal IS really good, almost doubling God of War was just straight-up better.

The first few minutes of the match sure satiated those looking for drama, though, with the titans of JRPGs and WRPGs, one doing the weebs of the world proud while the other brought a smile to the face of the entirety of Poland, going back and forth for a couple of minutes lol. The second the freeze hit with the latter ahead, the match was over. Persona has a sick board while Witcher has a shit one (play it damn it!), so if Persona couldnt even lead in the first five minutes, it was never going to. Witcher always has a rise to heaven trendline when facing Japanese games, with the Europeans padding its small lead out to a relatively large one, ending the match at around 56%.

So Personas contest run would end by being run over by the Geraldo train. Oh well. Getting beat by the Witcher is hardly an indictment on its strength, and it was unquestionably the strongest JRPG in the bracket, which is what it needed to prove. In the next general Games contest, I hope Allen sets P5 up against one of the stronger FF games like VIII or IX or even X; Id love to see how those matches go down.

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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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Wow 2017 really was a weeb year. The only game that made the contest that I even played was RE7, and I couldn't tolerate it more than 30 minutes.

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DirtyRoller posted...

Wow 2017 really was a weeb year. The only game that made the contest that I even played was RE7, and I couldn't tolerate it more than 30 minutes.

It was definitely a weeb year in terms of how many games were Japanese made, but a few of those games didn't really scream kawaii-desu Onii-chan or whatever. Zelda and Mario only really betray their roots on close inspection, and REVII itself is a Japanese game about American chainsaw murderers.

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Horizon is my favorite weeb game

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I don't think NieR was a bust. I mean, 2017 isn't exactly full of them, but I'd probably have picked Splatoon 2 or something. It was never considered the favorite against HGSS, it was just a somewhat popular upset mostly made by people that thought HGSS would be hurt by being a controversial entry. The reason people thought HGSS might have a chance against Skyrim wasn't because they insisted NieR was strong, it was because they had a very hard believing Journey and especially Mario Kart 8 was worth much.

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Ehhh like I say in the write-up, Nier's there less because it didn't beat Pokemon and more that holistically, Round after Round, it didn't live up to all the chatter that was putting it in top 10 or top 15-tier. It wasn't even one of the better 2 seeds when it was all said and done.

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Berseria of course launching in 2016 in Japan kind of makes it only 2017 on a technicality. Though I agree that I may have gone Splatoon 2 rather than Nier Automata.

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2017 is definitely an insane year. Outlast 2, Little Nightmares, Evil Within 2, Observer, Detention, Stories Untold, Wolfenstein 2, Sexy Brutale, so much good stuff!

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I'll say...i think P5 had a very real chance of beating Skyrim this year based on trends. in the witcher match, there were a bunch of rallies right at the start of the match, they allowed persona to stay somewhat competitive for like an hour, then died down. we know rallies tend to wane when the match starts to look unwinnable.

for the Witcher vs Skyrim match, Skyrim was actually holding up worse than persona 5 througout the night. so its likely Persona would be leading Skyrim going into the day vote (the period where Skyrim made up the difference to finish with a better performance against Witcher)...if the match stayed close that far, you can bet the rallying for P5 would have been far stronger, which could have allowed it to just barely hold the lead in the day.

this is of course all ignoring Skyrim being able to mount any sort of rally of its own. but it never did the whole contest, even when it was going 50/50 with Dark Souls...so i think its unlikely.

Yeah, I disagree with Nier being a bust. Only 27% of Guru had it beating HGSS so the fact that it got over 48% and outdid the Oracle is not a bust performance.

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As it's already been alluded to, I wasn't expecting much out of Nintendo going into 2017 either. After being disappointed by Skyward Sword and the Wii U, I thought Nintendo's magic had run out, that they were destined to be the next Sega and go third-party. And then Nintendo dropped this epic gem of a trailer on us, original theme mixed in and all:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zw47_q9wbBE

The rest, as they say, is history.

Snake5555555555 posted...

Sexy Brutale

This was the only game I ever managed to get a refund for on the eShop.

Game just didn't run on Switch. At all. Customer service rep told me that they had gotten a bunch of calls about this game lol.

Also, shoutout to Nintendo's customer service. They've always been AMAZING and pleasant.

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I got My Time at Portia when it launched and it kept crashing on boot, managed to get a refund from Nintendo customer service with not too much hassle

When I was younger my DS broke somehow, the like half the bottom screen just stopped displaying, I remember calling Nintendo and I told the rep it happened in the middle of me playing Elite Beat Agents and he just said "oh man that sucks, so you can't see them dancing?" and then I realized Nintendo reps might actually be like, real people that like games too

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No write-up today, 2017 took it outta me and for first time since the Rona hit, I got shit to do

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MechanicalWall posted...

This was the only game I ever managed to get a refund for on the eShop.

Game just didn't run on Switch. At all. Customer service rep told me that they had gotten a bunch of calls about this game lol.

Also, shoutout to Nintendo's customer service. They've always been AMAZING and pleasant.

I'm honestly sorry to hear about that. It worked fine on ps4 and it was great. I'm normally not wild about puzzle games but I really enjoyed the sexy brutale.


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Finish line is almost in sight! 2018 tomorrow morning, and jeez I didn't realize what kinda year it was.

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god i love this thread

you should just do this for every year in video games, unrelated to the contest

gotta hear bout the magnavox odyssey

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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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Bust Analysis continued:

Theres another indie game that came out this year, however, that actually did disappoint people. A LOT of people. At 37.78%, Rayman Legends beating Celeste had the third lowest prediction rate of Round 1, only behind the massive Octopath > Undertale and Bastion > Walking dead upsets. And this wasnt just a casual bracket buster, Celeste was the favorite on the board as well. You might think it strange that this little 2D platformer was such a big favorite against another little 2D platformer, and maybe in retrospect this match should have been debated more than it actually was, but come on. This is the first time weve even seen a Rayman game in bracket, while the character only showed up in two character battles and was promptly fodderized in both. Such a long running franchise never showing up in a games contest would naturally lead us to believe that no one on this site gave a damn about the series. Meanwhile, Celeste has MAJOR indie darling credit, and the fact it rode in on a 4 seed would lead us to believe that the hype was real.

Turns out the people who nominated it to that high a seed were also the only people who fckin voted for it. Celeste actually spent quite a few hours with a slim lead, but apparently the British love them some Rayman, because that lead was snatched away from it overnight, and Celeste never caught up again. Rayman won the match with more than 200 votes to spare, so we werent even permitted to watch a cool fight. This is one of those matches where I legitimately have no explanation for what happened. Rayman Legends is seven years old, and unless youre Mario, platformers dont have a long shelf life in terms of relevance. Celeste was a big deal as far as platformers go and came out fairly recently; I would have pegged it as a contender for top 5 in terms of indies, when depending on how you count, it turned out to be barely in the top 10. Celeste won in America with almost 53% of the vote, so it could be that theres some Europe-Rayman relationship that I dont know about.

Headliner Analysis:

True story: I always put the Headliners in the year banners, and I originally had Monster Hunter up there alongside Smash and God of War, not even remembering that this year produced THREE games that made it to Division Finals and beyond. 2011 and 2017 are the only years that share this feat. Unfortunately for me, Smash is the only one of these games I REALLY like, and Dragon Quest is one of like 3 games in bracket that I actively dislike. But as tempted as I am to go on an Ulti-style diatribe, Ill keep my opinions of DQ and GoW to myself. These write-ups are already nightmarishly long, for Gods sake.

But hey, these Headliner analyses are supposed to celebrate games and their runs, and props where theyre due, DQXI is the only JRPG alongside Persona and Xenoblade this decade to REALLY leave an impression on people (not really counting Nier as a traditional JRPG here). People have been crying out for a big budget game that championed the sensibilities of SNES and PS1 era JRPGs, and no matter what I think about the game, DQ unquestionably filled that niche. If P5 is the sleek, sexy, new-school anime-y game, DQ is the quaint, down-to-earth, old-school anime-y one; I mean it literally looks like Dragon Ball, courtesy of Akira Toriyama and his five faces and hairdos.

Funnily enough, Dragon Quest started its run by trampling all over one of the JRPG series that did manage to gather a small cult audience, Trails in the Sky SC, much to the horror of the saavy B8 members who wanted Trails to do well. I clearly remember a lot of people claiming DQ was a beast because it broke 80 here, but really, I think they were only saying that because it was the second day of the contest and Zelda was the only game wed seen go that high so far. Not only was this a JRPG SFF beatdown, but B8 has some of the only people that even know wtf Trails in the Sky is. Cold Steel would almost certainly have done better here.

Much like how Mario Odyssey got to smack down the winners of debatable matches, DQXI adopted a similar role in its half of the bracket. Bastion did well to beat Walking Dead when no one thought it would, but its not like it was doing anything more than that. Honestly, the 28% it got here was kinda impressive, and not really in a way that embarrassed DQXI. Breaking 70 in Round 2 is what you wanna see in a 2 seed, and solidified it as the favorite against Monster Hunter, a fellow 2018 release.

The eventual 53% result was kind of a let down for the people that were hyping DQ as a game that would have won a bunch of other divisions, especially since it started the match at like 60%. But honestly, its an impressive result if you think about it. MH World is fckin HUUUUUUGE. Its apparently Capcoms best-selling game ever, and finally gave the series AAA status outside Japan. Its boards are routinely some of the busiest ones on our very site. Hell, I usually hate those sorts of grind-y ass games, and I still gave it a go. Was even enjoying myself up until the point where it was clear that I had hit a wall that could only be overcome by grinding. Took it as an invitation to bounce before I spent the rest of my life killing the same three dinosaurs while praying they would give me the drops I needed.

Still, the assumption up until this point was that the bottom half of Division 1 was kinda rickety, with a bunch of seemingly weak JRPGs and games that didnt seem like big GameFAQs crowd-pleasers. DQ struggling a bit meant that no one was ready to be impressed by it in Division Finals. Hell, some people thought it would barely do any better than FFXV did against BotW! So imagine our surprise when Dragon Quest spends most of the match above 30%. Remember, nothing had even broken 20 on Zelda, and here was DQ doing a whole 10% better. There were huge arguments over what exactly this might mean for the contest going forward, but ultimately, all it meant was that BotWs half of the Division was fucking trash, while the Sekiro-MH fourpack was much better than expected. Ultimately, DQs best match was its loss, where it single-handedly legitimized its half of the Division.

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Headliner Analysis continued:

From DQ, lets transition to the opposite end of the spectrum in every way possible. From bright and cartoony we move to gritty and mature, from suddenly legitimizing an eightpack to suddenly delegitimizing one. God of War was another 2 seed, one that some thought had potential to upset Witcher in Division 5. And you know, while the idea of Witcher not even making Quarters was completely laughable to me, it wasnt the dumbest idea in the universe. This game has some real hype behind it, and is a respected title even amongst people who havent played it. Personally you know those Sequelitis videos Egoraptor used to make back when he actually tried making substantial content? I wanna make one of those for God of War. Thats all Ill say for now.

No need to prolong the first two rounds, this is definitely a place to conserve some words. The Talos Principle was an easy target for fodderization, and fodderize it GoW did, to the tune of 85%. Next was the winner of a decent upset, Nioh, which God of War put 75% on. True story: if you hold Binding of Isaac constant and assume no weird action game SFF, GoW is stronger than Witcher was in 2015, which was pretty decent even back then. Nowhere near where it is now though, and any chance at the upset died here.

That chance was super dead in the next round. If you ask me, New Vegas > God of War was a better upset pick than God of War > Witcher even pre-contest, but GoW did manage to snatch a nice 55-45 win. Unfortunately for it, Witcher was putting 60% on Mario in the adjacent match, and there was no way to argue New Vegas was ANY better than Galaxy, let alone significantly stronger. Not with a Nintendo renaissance and Bethesda backlash.

This still didnt prepare us for Division Finals. In my guest crew write-up, I said that I figured God of War was probably stronger than Galaxy but might suffer some minor SFF, so I pegged Witcher to get 58%. Imagine my surprise, then, when Witcher jumped out to a 65% lead when the match started. Well hey, there was probably a fair bit of bracket voting from people scared that God of War might threaten to win. The numbers would normalize eventually! except they didnt. Witcher stayed here for the entire match, which was some crazy shit. God of War looked really good for the entire contest, so for it to almost get doubled here meant that Witcher was on a different planet.

This is where people coined the term Western SFF; you dont even need to be in the same genre anymore, you just need to be made in the same hemisphere and share some basic gameplay concepts and SFF kicks in (Poland is in the Eastern hemisphere too lmao)! Same people that said I was nuts for claiming Platinum SFF might be a thing, mind. I personally think Witcher only scored 2 or 3 extra points here max, not the 7 or 8% people were postulating at the time. Whatever the case, while God of War had a great showing for most of the contest, it was the opposite of DQ even at the end; while Dragon Quests best match was arguably its loss, God of War was humiliated on its way out.

And speaking of getting humiliated on your way out Smash was the easy pick for #2 in the bracket before the contest started. Even I believed it. Everyone is Here, dammit! Its the biggest fighting game EVER! And its the only game Ive tried playing at a competitive level, though honestly this quarantine has really sapped my motivation. If you wanna blame a perceived Smash underperformance on something, blame it on Nintendos apocalyptically bad netcode. And I do mean apocalyptically; it takes a whole new level of trash for Evo to disclude what was formerly its biggest draw in history. Maybe its not surprising that in an environment where people can only play online, the game only had like one match where it really wowed anyone. Still, unlike a lot of the 1 and 2 seeds, Smash actually had some games in its eightpack that were pretty damn good, so it was never gonna score some easy layups like Witcher vs Mass Effect. Or Skyrim vs Journey. Or Zelda vs anything.

I wont reiterate the Smash/Mario dichotomy going on in Division 3, or how weird their Round 1 matches looked. Smash had a much more interesting Round 2, where for the first time like, ever, a Nintendo game got to SFF a Zelda title. Goes to show you how insane Zelda is on this site when it takes the biggest and greatest Smash game ever to pull a win over a portable Zelda title. Still, 64% on A Link Between Worlds is noteworthy, a landmark moment in Nintendo hierarchy history. Zelda would be back for revenge, of course >.>

Next was an almost identical percentage on Spider-Man. Yes, both Smash and Mario matched their Round 2 and Round 3 percentages almost perfectly. Considering Spider-Man is essentially carrying the superhero game torch for the Batman Arkham games, its hardly any surprise that its a pretty damn legit game. Its what a lot of people wanted, really: a current gen Spider-Man game where they can casually web around the city, with the production values a Marvel property deserves. Too bad even the normal stealth missions are kinda boring and out of place, let alone the developers deciding that what this genre REALLY needed was for people to be able to play as normal human beings that ate shit the second an enemy spotted them.

Still, no match for the brothers of Smashing. Again, I wont reiterate the dynamics of the Mario-Smash Division Finals; despite Smash never FEELING like it was doing as well as Mario, it won very comfortably in the end. Maybe its hierarchy, maybe the answer really is yes, Spider-Man is that much stronger than Devil May Cry. I dont see why not, honestly.

But yes, the Mario match was the only time Smash looked really good. I dont know what the consensus is on its Quarterfinals, but I honestly thought it looked really bad against Xenoblade. 59% in Quarters sounds good, but considering Smash is a huge source of Xenoblades popularity, you would think the SFF hammer would come down strong here. If there WAS SFF, its hard to take Smash that seriously anymore. I mean its going to be a powerhouse no matter what, but its not as far above this field as Brawl was above the 2010 field. If there wasnt SFF, that means Xenoblade has broken away from being that game Shulk is in, which is weird considering it still hasnt gotten that big, easily accessible release, at least not at time of writing.

Not like any of these deliberations would matter, of course. Allen made sure we wouldnt get an all Nintendo final, which meant that the Zelda vs Smash rematch would happen in semis. Rematch both for the A Link Between Worlds match earlier in this bracket, but also for the Majoras Mask vs Brawl match in 2010. Its hard to believe that once upon a time, MM only beat Brawl by half a percent. Now? Breath of the Wild absolutely DECIMATED Ultimate. 32% in the semifinals? How are you gonna fight through the entire bracket just to get more than doubled? SFF or not, I thought this was a really ugly showing, and made it very clear that Witcher was the #2 in bracket, not Smash. And honestly? I wish we got a bonus poll for 3rd place. I wouldnt be terribly surprised if Smash choked against Skyrim.

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Other Thoughts:

Yes, its sad that while two out of three of these headliners looked really good for most of their runs, they jobbed HARD to the finalists, SFF or not. It makes it sounds like Im down on the games when Im not.

But shit, three games made it to Division Finals, and another three made it to Round 3. There was a lot of 2018 vs 2018 action here, so I already touched on Spider-Man and Monster Hunter, but lets not forget Red Dead Redemption II. It had a pretty good run itself, keeping it close with Portal 2 at the end and not letting Animal Crossing get anywhere close to it. Considering the potential for AC to wreak havoc if that fandom caught wind of this contest, RDR2 did us a solid.

Octopath also deserves some credit. Yes, I still believe Undertale only got booted because of antivotes, but Octopath needed to be decently strong to take advantage of those antivotes. It also came within spitting distance of beating Shovel Knight and notching another huge upset, though whether it would have won if Yacht Club didnt tweet in support of SK is a question that may never be answered. I didnt give OT much credit, probably because I dont like it THAT much and it seems like it came and went super quickly, but almost making Round 3 is impressive. Shouldve learned from Mario RPG, combining Nintendo with a Square JRPG is always a winning combination, even when it seems like no one ever talks about the game.

Everything else was about where it should have been. Dragon Ball not scoring the upset against Rocket League was disappointing for sure. I thought the Goku on the front page factor would pull through. Makes you wonder how well non-gaming characters would ACTUALLY do in that theoretical all-media character battle, because Rocket League went on to get more than tripled by Dark Souls. Its not like it was any good itself. Had fun quoting DBZ in the Stats thread when it looked like Fighterz might win, though.

Also, as of time of writing, I beat Obra Dinn, second weakest game in bracket, a few hours ago and ehhhh. Its a very unique and clever game, no doubt about it, and its a worthy entry in the underserved puzzle genre, but I never felt fully drawn in. There werent any characters to REALLY get invested in, and it didnt turn out to be much of a mystery story. These are important qualities to have for a game that leans heavily on its plot! Im not sure why Yahtzee sounded like he was in a constant state of orgasm in his review.

But anyway, I thought I was only gonna give out two As in this analysis, but looking at 2018, it has too many games that did too well to NOT get the grade. For those of you that felt the contest was backloaded, this years success was definitely another reason you felt this way.

Final Grade:

A - You know a year is good when the games that WERENT headliners did better than a lot of other years actual headliners.

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God my banners always look so much cleaner on mobile than they do on desktop. Kratos looks blurry as a mfer. If you're wondering, I use a dinky little phone app called Polish to make those things. Another thing to work on for when this gets put on the Wiki, I guess.

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I feel like most of the reason I picked Celeste was that Rabbidluigi named it the 2nd best game of 2018, behind only God of War (yes ahead of Ultimate, despite him naming it the best Smash game!), so I somehow assumed that meant Celeste was one of the year's critical darlings and that should translate to okay contest strength. Oops.

Maybe it's because my brother plays it a lot, but I get the feeling Rocket League is quite a big deal and the only reason it let Dragon Ball get anywhere near it is because Rocket League is about as far from this site's kind of game as is possible to be. Dragon Ball FighterZ only seemed to be much of a deal to a fairly small audience by comparison. Wouldn't be surprised if Rocket League won out of "respect" votes, since no one really hates it. And it probably has one of the higher playrates of the contest, if only because it's not a terribly hard game to play.

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You're not even gonna consider RDR2 a headliner in 2018? Lol ok unfollowing this thread

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Subnautica is actually extremely fun

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LinkMarioSamus posted...

I somehow assumed that meant Celeste was one of the year's critical darlings and that should translate to okay contest strength. Oops.

It WAS one of those year's critical darlings! It just didn't end up meaning anything

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nice 2018 banner

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ZenOfThunder posted...

nice 2018 banner

Jade's easily the best thing to come out of DQXI, or second best thing after salty Leffen calling for Hero bans in Ultimate

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MechanicalWall posted...

so it could be that theres some Europe-Rayman relationship that I dont know about.

rayman was created by a guy from france

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iirc rayman was one of the ambassadors to an olympics in paris

i cant remember the details and i could be completely wrong but he's a big deal in france because ubisoft is french

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Everybody forgot that Rayman Legends is also an extremely beloved game (with a 92 on Metacritic.), with a similar response to Celeste, and it has been on everything, even the Vita!

And yes, Rayman is probably one of the first major European franchises, do of course it does well in Europe.

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I'm aware that Michel Ancel is French, but thing is, France is NOT where Rayman overperformed. In fact, if you look at the map, the two games were dead even there. It was the UK that really gave it a substantial edge.

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I think indie games tended to underperform in Britain for some reason.

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MechanicalWall posted...

I'm aware that Michel Ancel is French, but thing is, France is NOT where Rayman overperformed. In fact, if you look at the map, the two games were dead even there. It was the UK that really gave it a substantial edge.

The two countries are right next to each other after all!

Ubisoft in general has a massive UK presence. French games will regularly do much better there. There is also something of a shared talent pool as well. Source: am British.

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Rayman was also one of the Playstation's first big exclusives, and that was huge for Europe where Nintendo never dominated the market. Think to how other big Playstation games like from the other platformers like Crash and Spyro clean up there, all the way up to Final Fantasy VII.

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