Board 8 > ~~ Ctes' Post-Contest Analysis (PCA) ~~

(+) Yeah! (+)

Final Day 41
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 55.91%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 44.09%

Prediction Percentage 37.14%

The final match of Game of the Decade II came down to this:

https://imgur.com/a/5EPUjm

Aside from such things, the final match of these contests is very rarely exciting, and this is no different. I dont mind though, as long as the rest of the contest has been good, this is just another match. Breath of the Wild was absolutely never going to drop this match. The result you see is performed by Witcher 3 on steroids. Maybe it couldve pulled something similar off in any losing match today, I dont know, it didnt in 2015, but Im willing to bet making the final match helped. Its easier to rally for the final of a contest than anything else.

Witcher 3 rallied perhaps more than any other game has done in the contest. It could have flipped a lot of matches. Who knows how it would have went if these two were closer on natural strength. Breath of the Wild could probably counter and the match would have been very different. As it was, Breath of the Wild was never in danger.

Lets just try to put things in perspective here. The Witcher 3 had just shown that it would lose the board vote against even Skyrim, but Breath of the Wild is also pretty bad with the board vote. Any obvious winner to the contest is. Link himself does notoriously bad in the opening minutes because were so tired of seeing him in these contests. Its hard to tell what won the board vote today, obviously, but Id honestly bet most of the board wanted Witcher 3 to win despite how bad it looked until now. Its entirely possible it didnt favor any of them in particular.

In any base, Breath of the Wild was close to 60% at first and went well above it a bit after the freeze, which does suggest the typical early vote boost for the non-favorite. Then look at where the match ended. Witcher 3 did everything it could to make a match of this, rallying as hard as it could. There were few cuts and stalls, but the lead never stopped growing on the large scale. Witcher 3 teared percentage apart though, especially in the night hours where Europe matters the most. The game is from Poland and it shows. Its a lot bigger there than in NA where Breath of the Wild won big.

Its difficult to determine if Witcher 3 is the second strongest game in the bracket before rallying but it absolutely is with them. Breath of the Wild got almost 68% on Ultimate with SFF. Breath of the Wild looked to get well above 60% before all the Witcher rallying, but the Europe hours would have obviously still happened. If Witcher 3 also boosted from being in the final, then it looks pretty close to Ultimate. Its a shame we didnt get a third place bonus match, it wouldve taught us a bit. We would need a direct match to figure this out, but its for certain that Witcher 3 wins the match, its probably a lot easier to rally for and even a small one could do the difference.

No one noticed initially because we just click on our favorite game and vote, but when you clicked on one of the games, but didnt finalize your vote yet, the moon from Majoras mask would hover over the picture of the game you didnt pick. Allen had to come into the stats topic and tell us, but it was a really cool little Easter egg which teased the bonus match.

The Witcher 3 did lose today, but it is without a doubt the star of the contest in my eyes. I dont see how it could be anything else really, unless you want to pick Breath of the Wild for being even more dominant than we thought, but everyone knew it would have an easy time. Witcher 3 wasnt even favored to get this far. Not only did it manage to get here, it creamed all competition, completely neglected rallying against it and then blasted a very successful rally out itself. Its almost definitely the strongest Western game on the site, that wasnt exactly a big feature before this decade. Ive seen people suggest it as a top 10 game overall, thats probably a good bit too much, but its high up there for sure, and could possibly rally its way to top 10 given the right circumstances.

Breath of the Wild is a good contender for most predictable contest winner yet, though it has been a lock many times before. In the end it let something get closer to it than Link did in 2018, but he also didnt have this big a rally against him. It has not been in doubt what would win this contest at any point since Breath of the Wild released in 2017 and Im sure people expected it even before it came out. A lot of that has to do with the fact that its a Zelda game of course. Majoras Mask clearly shouldnt have the best game in the field in 2010 but won the contest regardless. Zelda is that dominant here. Its more dominant now than ever through a mix of releasing a game this well received again 19 years after Ocarina and Time and the only things that could rival the Zelda franchise declining due to lack of relevance. We can hope, but I seriously doubt that a well liked remake of the first 10% of Final Fantasy VII is going to come close to closing that gap.

Breath of the Wild did not only win because its a Zelda game though, while it certainly helped its case Im sure. This decade its not just us, its generally accepted as the best of the decade. Take a look here:

https://www.metacritic.com/feature/best-videogames-of-the-decade-2010s

Breath of the Wild did significantly better than anything else on average. Its incredible how well received the game is. The Legend of Zelda is not big here for no reason and Breath of the Wild reminded us all that. Its not universally liked obviously, but nothing really is. The people against it are a vocal minority. Its hard to deny how big a game it is and it absolutely deserves its title. Congratulations!

---

Bonus Match The Final Day
The Legend of Zelda: Majoras Mask 37.54%
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 62.46%

We would get a bonus match this contest, as we often but not always do. People had been asking for this one a while, so Allen was nice enough to provide it to us. It felt right. Game of the 2000s vs. Game of the 2010s. Typically, a match between two Zelda games, though interestingly, its the two Zelda games being mostly different from the rest of 3D games fighting today. We were given more picture fun, as picking Majoras Mask would have the moon slowly covering Breath of the Wild just like in the final but picking Breath of the Wild would instead have a major cuckoo cover the Majoras Mask picture. Its nice to see Allen is still getting some fun out of these things.

Breath of the Wild was the overwhelming favorite to win this match. Majoras Mask was always a weird winner while Breath of the Wild was an obvious one. Even with all the Zelda-drones, Majoras Mask probably loses that contest to Brawl if not for the active campaign against the latter. Look at how easily Breath of the Wild handled the Smash game of this decade. It looked pretty clear the whole contest that Breath of the Wild would be up there with the absolute best games and Majoras Mask is unfortunately not quite there. At least not when Ocarina of Time is also in the field.

It won easier than most anticipated though, making everything from the previous decade look very weak. It would do bad with the board vote once again but rise a good bit from there. When you remember the rest of the results Breath of the Wild had, then its clear enough Majoras Mask is very good, and its clear that we had a weak field this decade aside from the very top. I could spend a good while praising the actual game, but lets keep that for another time and stay on its contest strength here. Getting a percentage like this against Breath of the Wild is very good, and Majoras Mask had all the SFF in the world to worry about. Its probably not the worst beatsown since the games are far apart in time and are quite different considering theyre from the same series, but its SFF regardless. Im also guessing that this being a Game of the 2010s bonus match with Breath of the Wild coming out fresh as the winner, it overperforms a little bit.

This was the contest match that made sense, but Breath of the Wild against Ocarina of Time wouldve been a more interesting match. Most would probably pick Ocarina of Time there, but Breath of the Wild did come fresh off of winning a contest, so it might look really good. Breath of the Wild is basically the modern Ocarina of Time. The highly acclaimed Zelda game that is often regarded as the best of its time. Majoras Mask was never that. On the other hand, its good that were saving Breath of the Wild versus the biggest games for an actual contest and not a bonus match, so its a good thing we didnt see Ocarina of Time today.

Weve seen that the title of the contest has boosted games, but it looks like Breath of the Wild could be a top 5 game of all time here, which is impressive for a game that recent. Majoras Mask it up there and Breath of the Wild beat it rather easily, while A Link to the Past struggled a bit beating it in SNES dominant contest. That suggest its better than that, but keep in mind 3D Zelda games likely SFF each other more than a 3D Zelda SFFs a 2D Zelda and that none of two had just won a contest back then.

This match did what it was supposed to, make us excited for an eventual Best Game Ever IV where we get to see this mostly untested field against all our usual juggernauts. Contests are rare enough these days though and who knows what other ideas we need to get through first.

---

Post-Contest Thoughts

Its been another fun ride thats as always over before we know it despite how impatient we can get with getting matches rolling at times. The contest began right as the whole world was in lockdown and it was perfect timing. It has been very enjoyable to have a contest on GameFAQs to follow while being at home as much, Im sure Im not the only one feeling that.

The first Game of the Decade was probably the best contest we have had, at least its up there. This one was good for a lot of the same reasons. Most of the games being untested and leaving our usual big games out for more interesting matches. This time, our winner was a whole lot more obvious and contests are so far in between that its not as necessary to remove our usual big games, but it still made a fun contest. I dont think it made for as good a contest as the first one though.

The bracket was very diverse and very chalky. It makes for better results to not have a low tier Nintendo game beat over-seeded games of little strength, but it doesnt make for a better contest. Despite having four matches a day for the first two rounds, a lot of the days had no exciting matches at all. Its one thing to not have close matches, they just went as everyone expected most of the time and thats not just because weve been doing these things for a long time. Its been suggested this should have had 64 entries instead of 128, but I dont think thats the main problem. I just think we should have had slightly less diversity and maybe not created so many Nintendo SFF matches. I know the series cap isnt confirmed and not everyone believes in it, but theres just no way I can imagine some of the lower seeded games receiving more nominations than some of the snubbed games. Its also possible Metacritic is having a bit too much of a say in this.

The amount of matches a day is also up for debate. In general, multiple matches is a much better solution than the day and night matches we had a decade ago and I like that were getting through the contests at a quicker pace, but sometimes it feels too quick. It was a good step in the right direction to only have two matches per day in round 3, but we need to switch to one match sooner than we do. Forcing us to vote in all matches doesnt help in this regard. In general, despite the impatience, I dont mind the contest lasting a bit longer than it does. We used to have a good bit longer contests than this and it was fine. The mid-contest break is a huge part of that problem. I know what the purpose of it is, but it does more damage. It felt so weird to have a break that long and then rush through the remaining part of the contest.

The big problem is of course our votals. Theoretically, that shouldnt influence how fun the contest is, but it does without a doubt. Trends disappearing is partly because of smartphones allowing everyone to vote wherever, but its also due to a lack of new and younger users and in general less people voting overall. I appreciate all our anti-rally measures for their intent, though I dont agree that theyre all nice. The registered user bonus is fine even without these votals, but its crazy to me that we did that to help votals before many other more obvious things.

The average GameFAQs user is not old because were on some old site, its because we doesnt move with the times and thus most of the people here and the ones that were here when it wasnt as outdated. The votals had become a major issue between 2010 and 2013, but Allen assured us site traffic was good, but that it was simply down for the frontpage. I believe that, but if it mostly comes from answer pages and such dont we need to attract users here to keep having the info they need. Video guides should have become a thing here forever ago. There are lots of improvements than can be done and/or should have been long ago.

In regard to our contests though, I dont understand why we havent taken better measures to improve votals and participation. The promotion is very minimal. Thats one thing on other sides due to rallies, but even here its very easy to miss. Its up on the front page for a surprisingly short amount of time and your window for noticing on any page is smaller and it doesnt look attractive.

Then as soon the contest gets going, its only visible on the front page. Why? I dont understand why its not visible on every page. When someone googles something and is directed to GameFAQs, they should be able to see the match pictures and vote in the poll regardless of what part of the page they were directed to. I realize not everyone here cares for the contests as much as us, thats obvious, but it doesnt really change the experience of being here in any way that theres a poll at the side of page. Theres plenty of unused room there. Not on mobile, but then put it at top or bottom or whatever, it can still easily be done without annoying anyone. This was a Game of the Decade contest in place of yet another Character Battle, it would have been the perfect time to try it out.

Our six-digit votals are long gone, but our five-digit votals are even in danger at times now if not for the registered bonus. I know all this is not first site priority, it just seems like it would take relatively little effort and Im sure that a bunch of users would help with it for free. I honestly dont see why not.

It sounds like a lot of negativity. Dont get me wrong, I had a lot of fun this contest, I just think theres a simple way to make things better. It has been enjoyable though and Im glad Allen gave us the contest we hoped we would get every since last time. Im excited for next time too, and speaking of next time, its fun to think of what would be. On the day of the bonus match, we also had this fun poll:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/8091-what-would-you-like-the-next-gamefaqs-bracket-battle-to-be

Its pretty clear from the results that the more times weve seen something, the less interesting in it we appear to be, though at least everyone correctly recalls Rivalry Rumble is bad. Im open to something completely different, but only if someone actually has a good idea. I doubt its that people actually want something different as much as its just the stand-in for the usual I dont care about them option. Character Battle is the obvious next one, but its not highly requested. Villains doing that well is a bit sad. If we really wanted another Villains contest, couldnt we just do Character Battle by villainous level or something stupid like that. I dont think itd be much fun, even though the winner would be less obvious. Series contest would not be that great either. Its a shame Best Game Ever has so few votes when the bonus match hyped that, but theres another option probably stealing its votes.

Game of the Decade 1990s is a great idea. Its a very GameFAQs idea, by why not? It would be a good contest, lots of our strongest games are from that era and it will give us most of the matches we didnt get in 2015 but hoped we would. Ocarina of Time is an obvious winner there, but Im sure some people will buy bite and pick Chrono Trigger. Ill have fun with regular Character Battles and Best Game Evers too, but if were to try something new, lets do this one.

---

It's a wrap! Thank you all for this time. In 40 minutes, it will be exactly a month since the bonus match finished and that's a pace I'm very happy with. It was fun and I achieved the goals I set with it. Thank you to everyone participating, I hope you enjoyed this too, even when you don't agree with me.

One final thing to do is put everything on wiki. I will be thankful for any help with it, but I don't mind doing it either. Averia did some of the first and it's as always very appreciated. It's likely I will begin before the 19th, but I will finish on the 22nd. That's simply how it fits with my schedule. Shouldn't take too long after all.

The topic will be kept alive in the meantime. You're more than welcome to keep the discussion going the meantime of course.

---

And for my own sake, the matches a have minor edits to.

DOOM vs. Inside
Undertale vs. Octopath Traveler
Super Mario Odyssey vs. Mortal Kombat 11
Dragon Age: Inquisition vs. Ori and the Blind Forest
Yakuza 0 vs. The Witness
BioShock Infinite vs. Terraria
Uncharted 4: A Theif's End vs. Mario Kart 8
Mass Effect 2 vs. Fallout 4
Fire Emblem: Awakening vs. Bloodborne
Marvel's Spider-Man vs. Minecraft
Resident Evil 2 vs. Bloodborne (maybe)
Grand Theft Auto V vs. Persona 4 Golden
The Witcher 3 vs. Super Mario Galaxy 2
Persona 4 Golden vs. Xenoblade Chronicles

---

Hey nice job man. Read through everything too. Personally I like the idea that the matches should be visible no matter what page you visit.
I also want to eliminate the bonus votes from registered users. It never made sense. Rallies are bad? Since when? When a game that people like wins why people don't complain about rallies?
As for the vote totals...the only thing that can make them better is a rally so yeah.

---

Thanks!

I don't think it's the only thing that can improve them, but it doesn't look like we're doing much to find out.

---

I put a little bit up on the wiki as procrastination, noticed that the matches don't have the sweet list of all matches at the bottom for this contest yet, so I put that on every match page up until the most recent one that has my analysis on it. I'll just add them to the rest of the contest matches as I put my own things there.

But yeah, again, big deadline tomorrow and then I'll probably spend the weekend seeing the people closest to me, so I'll finish putting everything from this topic on there Monday, which also means all match pages will have the table of matches at the bottom by Monday.

Edit: Oh yeah, some of the pages has Safer's part as a subsection instead of a section. This is not consistant, it's just every now and then, so I don't really get what happened, but I fixed that as I went to and will continue to on Monday.

---

Yeah I guess this will be fixed because the results of the matches still haven't been posted too. Also I am sure that I fixed this when I posted my analysis there but I guess I missed some. Thanks.

---

Still slated for Monday

---

Too lazy to check, but did you mention in your analysis on Nier's R1 match that it's on PC too, not just PS4?

---

LinkMarioSamus posted...

Too lazy to check, but did you mention in your analysis on Nier's R1 match that it's on PC too, not just PS4?

I did not.

It's not a big difference to the point, but I put it in there.

---

Alright, everything is on the wiki and you can now access all matches from all pages.

That also means I'll stop bumping this, though we can keep talking here if you'd like.

There's still lots of stuff to do on the wiki. So many pages that would be nice to have made.

---

Never mind, apparently Nier: Automata's PC port has serious problems.

---

That's not important


---

Thanks, mate! It has been fixed.

---

I spent more time than I hoped pressing f5 to get that combination.

---

Thanks! You too! I agree they compliment each other well, it's rarely the same read twice. I like having different perspectives of things too, a lot of the time there is no right answer.

Ha, yeah, I get that. I did not do one last character battle because I didn't feel like it'd have the time to do it properly, but I skipped Years because of lack of interest lol.

---