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

(+) Yeah! (+)

Division 1 Round 1: (8)Halo: Reach vs (9)Life is Strange

(8)Halo: Reach - 12677 [56.15%]
(9)Life is Strange - 9899 [43.85%]
Total Votes - 22576
Prediction Percentage - 65.82%

This match had some debate despite only being one point, believe it or not. Not only did a third of the site think Halo would lose, but a fourth of the gurus picked against it as well. There are several reasons for this, not the least of which is the specter of Halo embarrassing itself due to anti-votes is always there. It has a massive history of underperforming or just outright losing winnable matches, and people look it up every contest. Look at this list of choke jobs, some of them wins in debated matches!

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6065-best-game-ever-day-4-minecraft-vs-halo-combat-evolved
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6058-best-game-ever-day-2-the-last-of-us-vs-halo-3
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/4166-north-division-round-3-uncharted-2-vs-halo
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/4075-north-division-round-1-halo-3-vs-super-mario-sunshine

And who could ever forget the ultimate choke of them all?

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1625-division-128-round-1-halo-combat-evolved-vs-starcraft

Halo is so anti-voted on this site that people had open bloodspot debates on whether or not it would lose to the likes of Minecraft and Super Mario Sunshine. Remember the South Park episode where James Cameron was looking for the bar because it had gotten ''so'' low that it had to be at the bottom of the Mariana Trench? When people are arguing that you can't beat Mario Sunshine, then you win and people are arguing that you might lose to Life is Strange a few years later, it might be time to throw in the towel on nominating Halo games in contests. Can't get much lower than this, folks, and Halo has clearly bottomed out on this site.

Now to be completely fair, Life is Strange is a big deal among casual gamer circles so I can understand why some would pick it here. On almost any big site other than GameFAQs, it probably wins this match. The proof is in what happened five years ago. In round one, Life is Strange was up against Fallout 3 and was getting thoroughly demolished. It was at something like 19% and no one thought anything of the game other than it being turbofodder garbage.

Well during that day of that contest, a little-known match was happening between Mass Effect 3 and Undertale. You all know the story of that match, so we need not relive it. What lots of people ''don't'' remember is while Undertale was going godmode, Life is Strange was ''also'' going godmode. It jumped all the way up to 27% (!!) by the end of that match, and won some updates outright.

It all added up to Halo looking like trash in winning, but never actually feeling threatened. Life is Strange is basically bottom of the barrel on this site, and will lose to anything with name recognition. Halo, though gigatrash for contest strength, does still have "name recognition". Sometimes, that's all you need to win. We'll see that theme a lot in this contest, because the field had a ton of fodder that needed to be rooted out in the early rounds.

Case in point, here are Leon's 5 minute unadjusted stats from the final, with only games below Life is Strange mentioned:

Life is Strange 13.28%
Destiny 13.27%
Zero Escape: Virtues Last Reward 13.08%
Assassins Creed Odyssey 12.95%
Crypt of the NecroDancer 12.86%
Binding of Isaac: Rebirth 12.82%
XCOM 2 12.80%
Fate/Grand Order 12.32%
Death Stranding 12.26%
VVVVVV 11.86%
Hotline Miami 11.73%
Call of Duty: Black Ops 11.69%
Subnautica 11.66%
FTL: Faster Than Light 11.53%
The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky SC 11.51%
Splatoon 2 11.23%
Dragons Dogma 11.00%
Tekken 7 10.97%
Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft 10.85%
Fortnite 10.84%
Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective 10.77%
The Stanley Parable 10.64%
Night in the Woods 10.56%
Baba Is You 10.52%
Crusader Kings II 10.44%
Dying Light 10.41%
Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair 10.16%
What Remains of Edith Finch 10.02%
Slay the Spire 9.91%
The Witness 9.78%
Dota 2 9.65%
The Talos Principle 8.71%
Return of the Obra Dinn 8.17%
Mortal Kombat 11 7.97%
INSIDE 7.13%

That's over 35 games! This site does not play games made after 2001.

"But Ulti! What about the usual mention of the second match curse!"

Oh we'll get to that.

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Division 1 Round 1: (5)Final Fantasy XV vs (12)What Remains of Edith Finch

(5)Final Fantasy 15 - 16854 [74.65%]
(12)What Remains of Edith Finch - 5722 [25.35%]
Total Votes - 22576
Prediction Percentage - 88.19%

This was one of the many, many matches in the first two rounds where little-known indie darlings got booted out of this contest in grand style. The methodology behind how this bracket was put together made for a ''ton'' of indies making the field (I believe the number is around 25?). Some were good. Most were not. Spoilers -- only one indie game made it into round 3, and it isn't one that a lot of people picked. Trust me, we'll get to it in due time.

I don't know much about Edith Finch since I haven't played it yet, though I do own it, but I do know that it isn't often a contest entrant gets 25% in a match and doesn't come out looking like a total jobber. Final Fantasy 15 was never going to beat Zelda, we all know this, but Edith Finch was pegged pre-contest as a possibility for dead last in the x-stats. You can't go out and only win 75-25 in a match like this and come out smelling roses, especially with Zelda getting 85% on the same day.

The reasons for this are fairly obvious, and we've been over them a million times over the years. No need to rehash them all here. The short of it is the Final Fantasy series has been such bloated, hyper-corporate garbage for so long that people detest these games now. I actually loved Final Fantasy 15, and I have the review to prove it (https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ps4/932981-final-fantasy-xv/reviews/163809), but the game was released unfinished. So unfinished, in fact, that Square decided to ''never'' finish it. Good job, Square. You really know how to make your fans happy, don't you?

Fun little anecdote. I bought the game day one and got the platinum fairly quickly, though it wasn't difficult at all. Like it's a literal 1/10 difficulty platinum trophy. I finished the game the day before the free DLC started. If you check my PSN profile, I currently only have 45% of the game's trophies despite having a platinum in the game! If that isn't indicative of a laughably botched game launch, then what is?

So.... yeah. I love the game, but I have no ill will toward people who dislike it and helped it have one of the only embarrassing 75% wins we've ever had. This performance was so bad given what Hollow Knight pulled off that FF15 had a whole new problem on its hands in round 2.

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Division 1 Round 1: (4)Hollow Knight vs (13)Tales of Berseria

(4)Hollow Knight - 14183 [62.81%]
(13)Tales of Berseria - 8399 [37.19%]
Total Votes - 22582
Prediction Percentage - 75.63%

Though Board 8 typically dominates the leaderboard when all is said and done in these contests, the casuals always get some matches where they embarrass us. And they embarrassed the crap out of us on this one, boys: http://thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=4

True story -- when I first made a bracket, I picked Hollow Knight to win twice and didn't think about it much at all. Then I made the all too common mistake of reading Board 8 and changed my mind to FF15 > Tales of Berseria in this fourpack. This ended up in a one point gain overall, and it still annoyed me anyway because this match at first glance was ''so'' obvious.

How obvious? Here is every single match involving a Tales game other than Symphonia:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/4102-south-division-round-1-tales-of-vesperia-vs-borderlands

That's it. That's the entire list. Tales fans (and I include myself here) will tell you all day how good these games are, but they never get nominated enough to matter outside of one game that existed on a system with 10 good games on it total -- Melee, Tales of Symphonia, Metroid Prime, Metroid Prime 2, Resident Evil 4, Eternal Darkness, REmake, Paper Mario: TTYD, Fire Emblem 9, and Pikmin. Don't even try with Twilight Princess or Wind Waker. I don't want to hear it.

The Tales characters themselves have a ''laughable'' contest history, too. Every single one of them, including the ones from Symphonia, have performed like gigatrash. The problem, which is why half the gurus picked Tales of Berseria here, was this poll: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7251-division-2-round-1-velvet-vs-james

People equated Velvet to Berseria for obvious reasons, and people equated Hollow Knight to Silent Hill 2. Loud fanbase, underplayed game. Or so we thought.

This match was close for two minutes, and two minutes only. Berseria took the bracket votes, and Hollow Knight then proceeded to beat the holy hell out of it for 23 hours and 59 minutes straight. 63-37 might not look like much, but FF15 only got 75-25 against a garbage can. I'm sure Edith Finch is a fine game, but let's be honest about its strength here. This blowout was so big and so surprising to a lot of Board 8 that the attention rightly turned to round 2. Because how damn funny would it have been had Hollow Knight beaten a main line Final Fantasy game? It would have been Master Hand > Noctis all over again, only funnier because people care far more about games than characters.

As for why this happened, there are two reasons. One, Tales is choke artist trash in these contests. I know we joke a lot about Donkey Kong and Fire Emblem being professional choke artists in contests -- just wait until we get to ''those'' two losers -- but Tales legitimately enters every contest with two hands around its own neck. It gets hyped up every contest, and every contest it embarrasses itself. We all need to do ourselves a favor moving forward with these Tales entrants. If there is ''any'' question whether or not Tales can lose, pick against it.

The other reason this happened is because Hollow Knight is an incredibly strong game given its indie status. KP put some very good pre-contest stuff out there, and one major point he had was the indie glass ceiling theory and how some games would crack it. His pick was Cuphead, but really you could pick any of the well-performing indie games. To thoroughly simplify this, there is another theme that will pop up a lot in these writeups: "Did this game appear on the Nintendo Switch?". If so, it's probably got good contest strength. Mostly.

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HK>FFXV would have been great, too bad FF7R's release put it out of reach.
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As a Tales fan, even Im surprised Berseria got so much Guru love for the "Tales always fails" contest history

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NowItsAngeTime posted...

As a Tales fan, even Im surprised Berseria got so much Guru love for the "Tales always fails" contest history

Because indies have never had any contest success without big rallies until this year
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Damnit Tales, stop vindicating BT and his idiotic Fails of gimmick.

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Hbthebattle posted...

Because indies have never had any contest success without big rallies until this year

Indies also became a much bigger deal between 2015 and 2019

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redrocket posted...

Damnit Tales, stop vindicating BT and his idiotic Fails of gimmick.

While annoying, he's not wrong in terms of contest strength and wins

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redrocket posted...

Damnit Tales, stop vindicating BT and his idiotic Fails of gimmick.

Lol thats a pretty funny pun

I only played symphonia and it was trash so im inclined to agree

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NowItsAngeTime posted...

Indies also became a much bigger deal between 2015 and 2019

That's true for sure.
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NowItsAngeTime posted...

While annoying, he's not wrong in terms of contest strength and wins

"Overwatch will beat Xenoblade"
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Hbthebattle posted...

"Overwatch will beat Xenoblade"

Well I only said about Tales series

I certainly dont follow most of his contest strength opinions

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Division 1 Round 1: (3)Monster Hunter: World vs (14)Bravely Default: Flying Fairy

(3)Monster Hunter: World - 13203 [57.95%]
(14)Bravely Default - 9581 [42.05%]
Total Votes - 22784
Prediction Percentage - 88.85%

Given what we know now it would be easy to say these games were both hidden dragons all along and that we should have known Monster Hunter would be a beast, but a lot of people saying that would not be telling the truth. Round 2 was always in debate right up until it happened: http://thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=67

When this was all happening live, Monster Hunter v Bravely Default and Sekiro v Ni No Kuni were basically mirror images of each other trends-wise, and the matches were happening at the exact same time. The obvious question to ask here is "Bravely Default or Ni No Kuni, who you got?". The beauty of it is all four games in this fourpack were making their contest debut, and all but Sekiro looked horrible in any poll they had ever been in. This is a round 1 analysis though, so I'll get into more of that in round 2.

This match was one of the many, many boring and predictable matches we had in this contest. There simply isn't much to talk about with a 58-42 beating, outside of one small point. I think it's possible Bravely Default may have overperformed by a percentage or three here, because Bravely Default 2 (not to be confused with Bravely Second and the incessant need of JRPGs to use stupid subtitles and numbering systems when naming their games) was announced during the Game Awards in December 2019. Given this is RPGFAQs, it may have had a small effect on the original game's percentage. I haven't played any of these games yet, but I have friends who swear by them.

But really the story here is how this match and its sister match had the ''exact'' same trends and percentage. It was just silly to look at live.

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Black Turtle is a really smart dude and would be a good user here if he would drop the act. It's not like we didn't all hear him go on The Show and be perfectly pleasant with everyone.

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PostContestUlti posted...

That's it. That's the entire list. Tales fans (and I include myself here) will tell you all day how good these games are, but they never get nominated enough to matter outside of one game that existed on a system with 10 good games on it total -- Melee, Tales of Symphonia, Metroid Prime, Metroid Prime 2, Resident Evil 4, Eternal Darkness, REmake, Paper Mario: TTYD, Fire Emblem 9, and Pikmin. Don't even try with Twilight Princess or Wind Waker. I don't want to hear it.

Whoa. WHOA. Don't disrespect Skies of Arcadia: Legends and F-Zero GX.

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Okay I'll give an honorable mention to Skies.

F-Zero is just not my thing, bro.

Division 1 Round 1: (6)Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice vs (11)Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch

(6)Sekiro - 13347 [58.57%]
(11)Ni no Kuni - 9442 [41.43%]
Total Votes - 22789
Prediction Percentage - 78.35%

CONCURRENT BATTLES OF THE OBNOXIOUSLY LONG SUBTITLES!!

We just discussed at length this match's identical trends and percentages vis-a-vis Monster Hunter and Bravely Default, so we need not rehash it too much. But for wiki readers who like to skip around (...''why?") or for anyone singularly linking to this one, this match and Monster Hunter v Bravely Default had the same trends, same percentage, almost the same prediction percentage, and it was cool because all four were contest newcomers. It was a good, old fashioned, boring 58-42 type beating all around. It was impossible to really project Monster Hunter vs Sekiro based on any of this, and you couldn't really use the Nintendo argument either. Ni no Kuni has a Switch port, while Bravely Default happened on the 3DS.

There was however one interesting thing about this match specifically, which was the visceral hatred some people on Board 8 have for Ni no Kuni. Lots of complaints about it being overhyped at launch, generic and predictable on delivery. Stuff like that.

Now I haven't played the game yet, so I can't comment on anything specific, but I laugh when I hear people complain about Japanese RPGs being generic and predictable. Bros, you ''do'' understand this genre has been the same exact thing for 30 years, right? You start every JRPG as a teenager with amnesia looking for your lost cat. You end all of them by killing a mutant. If you're still looking for innovation in the RPG realm, the linear JRPG style doesn't have it anymore.

Open world Western RPG styles are what people want now. Go peek ahead to the end of the contest. Half of the final 8 is Western RPGs. The case can be made for Xenoblade and Dark Souls having a WRPG influence, too. Of course JRPGs are predictable and generic. That's why we all like them.

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PostContestUlti posted...

It was impossible to really project Monster Hunter vs Sekiro based on any of this, and you couldn't really use the Nintendo argument either. Ni no Kuni has a Switch port, while Bravely Default happened on the 3DS.

I'm going to dispute this- Bravely Default being stronger than NnK was fairly obvious from the outset. BD was a 3DS exclusive while NnK being on Nintendo is a far more recent thing, and BD had a sequel announced and its demo had dropped a couple days before its match. The signs for World doing what it did to Sekiro were there from the start.
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Yeah, I would have taken Bravely Default over Ni No Kuni from the start without a qualm. I knew my Sekiro > Monster Hunter pick was dead in the water as soon as I saw these two results.

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Hbthebattle posted...

I'm going to dispute this- Bravely Default being stronger than NnK was fairly obvious from the outset. BD was a 3DS exclusive while NnK being on Nintendo is a far more recent thing, and BD had a sequel announced and its demo had dropped a couple days before its match. The signs for World doing what it did to Sekiro were there from the start.

As someone who has played one game in that fourpack (which I imagine is accurate for like 95% of voters), to me it just looked like identical matches. I'll get to Sekiro in round 2 tho, I promise.

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Division 1 Round 1: (7)The Walking Dead: A Telltale Games Series vs (10)Bastion

(7)The Walking Dead - 10880 [47.75%]
(10)Bastion - 11907 [52.25%]
Total Votes - 22787
Prediction Percentage - 33.76%

Let's get the obvious out of the way -- I absolutely ''detest'' The Walking Dead. I hate everything about it. The comic blows, the fans are obnoxious, the TV show is overhyped trash that's gone on for far too long, and most importantly given this contest, the video game is gigatrash. Frankly, the entire franchise is gigatrash and I would almost go far enough to say the same about the zombie apocalypse craze. I don't care who defends it or what reason they try to give me. The only good thing to ever happen was the bat scene, because it made those indefensibly obnoxious people ''suffer''. I've made a lot of strides in not being as much of a vindictive jackass anymore, but with certain things I cannot help it and The Walking Dead is absolutely on that list.

Watching The Walking Dead choke all over itself wasn't quite as satisfying as the internet melting down over season 7, but I'll still take it. Bastion is a ''wonderful'' video game, but I honestly didn't think anyone had played it. I think in all my time on Board 8, I've seen maybe three people talk about it. It's the entire reason I picked TWD to actually win this match, and I wasn't alone. We all kind of figured people had only heard of one of these poll options, and that TWD would win by default.

As luck would have it, and as Dragon Quest 11 would show us in round 2, it was actually Bastion that won by default. Both of these games are weak, but Bastion was slightly ''less'' weak. I also would love to think I'm not alone in wanting this atrocious zombie franchise to just go away, but who really knows. The added bonus was how good this match was for awhile, which makes Bastion winning it all that much better.

When this started, Walking Dead had most of the bracket votes and was well over 60%. It had a lead of 70, and though it lost a few percents and votes by the freeze, that can happen with these low vote totals. We see random cuts all the time that don't mean much. When Walking Dead went back up a little with the first real update, people assumed the match was over.

''That'', ladies and gentlemen, is why they ''play the games''. Bastion erased the entire miniscule lead in a flash, and after a small fight from Walking Dead, Bastion kicked off its quest to take out the trash with a 62 vote swing. Bastion tried building a lead at this point, but the night time is zombie time after all. This thing stayed stuck at 50-100 votes all the way past midnight, but once midnight hit the night vote went to Bastion. Slightly.

After some more stalling, the morning vote came around to bury The Walking Dead for good. And good riddance, too. You won't find many cases where I'm happier to lose a point than this match. Not only that, but Bastion ''deserved'' the publicity. It is such a beautiful, well-done video game. Not only did I get to watch it win a close contest match as an underdog, but I got to watch it beat a franchise that I just loathe. Sure it was just one point in the grand scheme, but so what. Some things matter more than contest points, and The Walking Dead losing is one of those things.

Also notable here is the old Day 2 Curse rearing its head once again! It's insanity how often this happens. Look at this list, all Day 2 Curse upsets, and I'm not even counting the ones that were unexpected close matches:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/941-north-division-round-1-spyro-the-dragon-vs-morrigan-aensland
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2067-mushroom-division-round-1-ness-vs-carl-johnson
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2864-division-1-round-1-arthas-diablo-kos-mos-mega-man (remember, we didn't know what the hell "LFF" was at the time)
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3245-division-1-round-1-link-luke-shadow-zidane
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/4070-north-division-round-1-rock-band-2-vs-deus-ex
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6052-best-game-ever-day-1-dragon-quest-viii-vs-persona-3 (yes I am aware this was actually day 1)

That all led up to this silly result. In division one, in about half of our contests, either the 8/9 match or some match from the second batch has some goofy result in it. It never fails!

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PostContestUlti posted...

I've made a lot of strides in not being as much of a vindictive jackass anymore

For the record, I still think your I WAS RIGHT. VINDICATED. moments are hilarious to watch as well as your passionate hatred of certain series for (imo) understandable reasons.

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Division 1 Round 1: (2)Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age vs (15)The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky SC

(2)Dragon Quest 11 - 18382 [80.67%]
(15)Trails in the Sky - 4405 [19.33%]
Total Votes - 22787
Prediction Percentage - 92.1%

Every contest, Board 8 dominates nominations. Every contest, we get a lot of our darlings into the contest field. Sometimes it works out, as Phoenix Wright can attest to. Other times, you get matches like this. Trails in the Sky is the latest Board 8 cause du joir, akin to past obsessions like Phoenix Wright, Shadow of the Colossus, the Persona series, Umineko, and Orange Man Bad. Don't point out the flaw in this thinking, either, or people who spend every waking moment in a Discord chat day after day after day might say mean things about you and we wouldn't want that, right fellas? ;)

I will say that it is nice when Board 8 champions a cause that's actually good, and Trails in the Sky qualifies for the good list, but the hivemind methodology is so over the top anymore that some of you have reduced yourselves to caricatures. Agreeing with everyone is easy. Thinking for yourself and being a rugged individual is called survival strategy for a reason. Remember that.

Anyway, Trails in the Sky could not have drawn a worse opponent in this contest. I know other games would have kicked the crap out of it far worse than Dragon Quest 11 did, but Trails not even winning the board vote tells me that this match reeks of the good old SFF stink. Dragon Quest 11 ultimately proved itself to be a badass in this contest, but remember, this match happened on day two back when a lot of people still thought we were in anti-blowout-FAQs. We hadn't yet seen some of the absurd beatings to come, so SFF was (and still is) a reasonable conclusion here. I'd be shocked if the overlap on these games was less than 75%. They really cry out as having the ''exact'' same fanbase.

It might be worth it to give Trails one more shot at a contest before calling it a wrap, but who knows when or if we'll get another games contest. Look at the vote totals as you guys read these. It's not good, my friends.

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NowItsAngeTime posted...

For the record, I still think your I WAS RIGHT. VINDICATED. moments are hilarious to watch as well as your passionate hatred of certain series for (imo) understandable reasons.

Sure but I can't do that for EVERYTHING.

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PostContestUlti posted...

Black Turtle is a really smart dude and would be a good user here if he would drop the act. It's not like we didn't all hear him go on The Show and be perfectly pleasant with everyone.

This board is the only part of my life where I can act like a shithead 15 year old again. Don't even try to pretend that you don't do the same Ulti

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Also, the first paragraph of the TWD/Bastion post is the most I have ever agreed with Ulti.

The TWD series was past the "zombie bullshit" best by date by at least 2 years. The most confusing board consensus of the contest was this match. Every other debated match pre contest had some logic to their choice, but there was zero doubt that a garbage Telltale game was going to embarass itself.

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Season 1 of TWD games were actually damn good.

Haha Ulti doesn't mention what happened to Telltale games!

I'd joke about trying Wind Waker there, but even as a huge fan of it, I'm not under any delusions the game isn't very flawed.

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Were you aware that Telltale Games went out of business, Ulti?

Tag
Always read all of this even though your opinions and writing style grate on me at times

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Did anyone seriously think James Sunderland = Silent Hill 2 = Hollow Knight? That's wrong on so many levels.

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ColZach posted...

Season 1 of TWD games were actually damn good.

This, but that's basically it for TWD as someone whose paid attention to the series in general (more than it deserves). I never bothered with anything past Telltale season one, and the show stopped being consistently good after season four. Thankfully the main show should be wrapping things up within a couple years since the comic is finally over.

That being said, the right game won. Bastion is fantastic

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UltimaterializerX posted...

I am now!

Fabulous news.

It's funny how they went out of business too.

After TWD Season 1, they kept making the same game over and over again trying to make lightning strike twice but people had enough of their "your choices don't actually matter" nonsense after their very second release.

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LazyKenny posted...

It's funny how they went out of business too.

After TWD Season 1, they kept making the same game over and over again trying to make lightning strike twice but people had enough of their "your choices don't actually matter" nonsense after their very second release.

Hey now, the Fables game was good and didn't have this problem!

Which is probably why it's the only Telltale series getting more entries even though they've shut down.

I'll give Telltale Games this: Tales from the Borderlands and The Wolf Among Us were pretty fun.

Besides that and TWD S1, I also played their version of Game of Thrones. Inexcusable and makes season 8 of the show look like Breaking Bad.

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I watched a bit of Telltales Game of Thrones and thought it was pretty terrible too. Heard that all their games pretend choices matter when they really don't. Don't know much about TWD but that was probably their best game?

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TWD S1 and Wolf were their best, and choices mattered the most.

The Batman ones were good too, but choices don't matter.

Borderlands I hear great things about.

TWD S2 is where it really started to collapse, because choices DID matter in that one, but the choices you made would literally determine if the game was shit or not. The only was to make the story any good was to side with Kenny, but Kenny blows and nobody wants to side with him.

BlAcK TuRtLe posted...

This board is the only part of my life where I can act like a shithead 15 year old again. Don't even try to pretend that you don't do the same Ulti

Bro I'm almost 40. I put 99% of that junk behind me. It's not healthy.

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Division 2 Round 1: (1)Mass Effect 2 vs (16)Resident Evil 7: biohazard

(1)Mass Effect 2 - 14507 [62.94%]
(16)Resident Evil 7 - 8543 [37.06%]
Total Votes - 23050
Prediction Percentage - 75.53%

Every now and again you get a 16 seed that clearly got mis-seeded for whatever reason. The most blatant example of this was Starcraft in 2004, but there have been other examples. Raiden in 2003. Duke Nukem and Terry Bogard in 2004. Wii Sports in 2010. Ratchet and Clank 3 and Phoenix Wright in 2015. Rosalina and Wesker a couple years ago.

And, of course, CATS whenever he's stuck being a 16 seed.

Now I'm not saying a lot of these mentions didn't eat some "16 seed losses" as it were, but most of these items were mis-seeded in some way. We can clearly add Resident Evil 7 to that list. Mass Effect 2 looked so awful in this match that people rightly questioned its status as a division favorite, and that was ''before'' Doom, Resident Evil 2, and Bloodborne all went berserk the day after this. 63% on a 16 seed when four other games break 80% in your division looks wretched. There's also Resident Evil 7 being a divisive game in that series. Some fans loved the horror movie throwback style, and others hated it for being way too short and not "Resident Evil" enough. To see it pull this off was a huge eye opener.

There are two prevailing thoughts here. One is that Resident Evil 7 was hilariously mis-seeded and we need not think much of what happened here. The other is that Mass Effect 2 was in a ''lot'' of trouble. I'll talk more about this when we get to Mass Effect 3's matches, but there are a lot of people out there who utterly detest this entire series now because of what happened with Andromeda and 3's ending. People can make fun of our voters all they want to, but our voters have very astute and they absolutely punish you if you go sour.

The contest did ultimately prove Resident Evil 7 as a hidden gem, not to mention Capcom having a resurgence overall, but at the time of this match we simply didn't know that yet. It took Resident Evil 2 and Devil May Cry 5 to really bring it home on that one.

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Plus Monster Hunter.

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I keep forgetting that one is Capcom. Thanks, LMS.

Division 2 Round 1: (8)Fallout 4 vs (9)VVVVVV

(8)Fallout 4 - 16532 [71.72%]
(9)VVVVVV - 6518 [28.28%]
Total Votes - 23050
Prediction Percentage - 88.11%

But on this most auspicious of nights, permit me then, in lieu of the more commonplace sobriquet, to suggest the character of this dramatis persona. Voila! In view humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a bygone vexation stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin, van guarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition. The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that its my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V.

"Are you, like, a crazy person?"

I'm sure that they will say so. Remember, remember, the fifth of November. Gunpowder, treason, and plot. I know of no reason why gunpowder treason should ever be forgot.

Some of the voluptuous yet verified independent vectors in this contest were verifiable vibraphonists of viand. Most, however, were vogue vulgarizers.

VVVVVV for Vendetta is one of the many, many indie darlings that fell flat on its face this year. Fallout 4 is a reasonably strong game, but there aren't many spots where it can break 70% on anything due to how much it divided the fanbase. I'm sure most people by now know what an utter debacle Fallout 76 has been, but more fans than you all might think blame Fallout 4 for that series becoming what it now is. For it to then turn around and break 70% on ''anything'' requires it to be up against the absolute bottom of the barrel.

That said, it's worth noting that every single game or franchise Undertale beat five years ago got its win back in this contest. Fallout 4 may not be the most popular game in that series -- far from it -- but it avenged its older brother nonetheless.

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I really need to watch V for Vendetta at some point. Also, need to play VVVVVV at some point, but it's not high priority on my backlog either.

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It's not a long movie at all and it's on Netflix.

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TWD Season 1 is probably Telltale's best game, and definitely deserved better than losing to Bastion (which I also have beaten and really liked). Also, I played it on the Vita with its horrid load times and questionable controls but still think of it as a 9/10 game because the story is one of the best. Never cared about the TV show or the comic books at all, the game is my only exposure to the series.

Then TWD Season 2 happened and the good story of 1 was completely wasted and I dropped the series after that one. Not entirely by choice, Telltale decided to just abandon the Vita and not even offer someway to transfer my save off of it so I could continue with all the choices I had made up to that point. Good thing Season 2 was terrible enough that it wasn't a big deal that I didn't continue the story.

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I have seen walkthroughs on Youtube on all of Telltale games. I have to say that TWD Season 1 is indeed the best of them all and after that I like GOT but that is because I am a huge fan of the show. Also strangely enough TWD Season 4 is damn good too!

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Division 2 Round 1: (5)Borderlands 2 vs (12)Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night

(5)Borderlands 2 - 13624 [59.1%]
(12)Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night [40.9%]
Total Votes - 23051
Prediction Percentage - 80.77%

Borderlands 2 was not the heavy guru favorite to get out of this fourpack, but it was the favorite nonetheless. And when you compare this performance to what Horizon Zero Dawn was doing to Fortnite, it was no contest. Borderlands 2 laid an egg here.

Now some people might say this is due to Bloodstained being a very respectable game. They would only sort of be half right. As someone who has legitimately loved and written the book on this game (https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ps4/ 158368-bloodstained-ritual-of-the-night/faqs/77623), I'm more qualified than most to comment on this game's strength.

For the unaware, Konami is complete trash and turned all of their franchises into slot machines. I am not making that up. One such casualty of this was Koji Igarashi, a pinnacle of Castlevania development. Thanks to the magic (if you can call it that) of Kickstarter, a bunch of people poured money into a new Castlevania-type project. You know the rest. Bloodstained is among the most well-known and well-liked Kickstarter video games out there, but that didn't stop the game from having all of the typical Kickstarter video game problems. That is to say, it was an unfinished buggy mess when it launched. I got lucky with enjoying my trophies and playing it on the Playstation 4; on other systems, such as the Switch and PC, the game outright did not work at all for ''weeks'' when it came out. But hey, that's okay. Patch culture!

If there is one thing that shows how lazy today's gaming developers are, it's patch culture. It doesn't matter if we release a game with a bunch of problems at launch. We can just push it to market and fix it later. Patch culture! It doesn't matter if Final Fantasy 15 is only half finished at launch. Patch culture! Well I and many others think patch culture can go screw itself. That, predatory microtransactions, and the debacle of DLC are a huge stain on gaming today, and it's gotten so bad that games released at full on launch day get ''criticized for being complete on launch day''. That was actually a problem some people had with The Outer Worlds. That actually happened. Go look it up.

To go one step beyond this, Bloodstained early on announced one of the stupidest patches I can ever remember. They wanted to nerf single player content. Yes, you read this correctly. This isn't Madden, or NBA 2K, or League of Legends, or some other online competitive multiplayer game. It's a freaking 2D single player side-scrolling RPG platformer. That announcement more or less killed this game, and even dumber is that it was announced before any fixes.

How does this relate to a match against Borderlands 2, I hear you wondering. Simple. This was not some 60-40 struggle between two strong games. This was Borderlands choking like a dog. 59% against all of Bloodstained's baggage is a terrible performance, and when compared to Horizon just thrashing Fortnite, it meant those of us who picked Borderlands to win twice were screwed.

And frankly, good. I'll get into the people behind Borderlands being trash in round 2, don't you worry. I've said it before, but our voters are astute.

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