Board 8 > ~*Ultimaterializer's Post-Contest Analysis! - Part 2*~

(+) Yeah! (+)

Alright that's good for now. Sleepy time.

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I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that Kratos's body was derived from a body scan of a particular person, and this person also did a lot of the mocap for his combat and actions.

His name is the late Shad Gaspard, who passed away on Sunday after he and his son were caught in a riptide in Malibu beach. His last action was directing the lifeguard to save his son first. An act befitting the relationship between Kratos and Atreus.

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I got to I think Pandora's Tower or something of the sort in God of War 1, got stuck, and never returned to the game. I did like what I played though.

With Mass Effect 3, the way I understand it, it's perfectly understandable for the fanbase to be up in arms when the much-hyped ending to an ongoing trilogy completely falls flat. Although thinking about it, it's just pure hype backlash, and I think we *all* know that feeling.

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https://board8.fandom.com/wiki/(7)The_Legend_of_Zelda:_Twilight_Princess_vs_(2)Shin_Megami_Tensei:_Persona_4_2015

Hot take from an Ulti PCA that ended up not aging well...

It's going to be funny when Persona 4 becomes only the second 1 seed to lose to a 16 in round 1. (1)Persona 4 vs (16)Portal or (1)Persona 4 vs (16)Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door are a lot more realistic than one might think. In this contest alone, we saw Phoenix Wright get a 16 seed and finish in the top half of the stats.

Well, it was right about Persona 4 being involved in a one seed upset. Just not so much on the rest of it.

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That and their characters still don't draw any strength in the contests. All the P4 characters lost in 2013, and then Joker lost to Claire in 2018.

That being said, I could easily see Joker winning a match now thanks to Smash

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What are you talking about? Chie was the sixth strongest character in her one contest appearance.

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I don't feel that the Persona characters will ever have meaningful strength, but the games are definitely different. It's more in the meaningful character development of all the characters in the game - which is done very well. The MCs especially, who are more blank slates than anything in their main games so I'm not sure who keeps nominating Yu Narukami in the contest every year, he's never going to be more than fodder.

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My wife's company had a contest to design a new logo. I finished in 3rd place and won $25.

And @ZenOfThunder told me all these years my match pic style sucked! SUCK ON THAT, ZEN.

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Division 6 Quarterfinal: (1)Persona 5 vs (8)Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag

(1)Persona 5 - 18600 [71.06%]
(8)Black Flag - 7575 [28.94%]
Total Votes - 26175
Prediction Percentage - 73.69%

I've seen a lot of strange things on Board 8 over the years, but you guys stanning for Assassin's Creed: Black Flag, of all things, after my round 1 writeup is one of the weirder ones. Since when do any of you care about the Assassin's Creed games? Thankfully Persona 5 utterly destroyed it to boot the series out of the contest entirely, so we can all move on with our lives. It's really fun to see how far the Persona series has come in contests, and it's likely only to go up from here.

Remember this match? https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/4154-southwest-division-round-2-dead-rising-vs-persona-4

If you had told me ten years ago that Persona would headline a division so dominantly that it would be one of the easiest divisions to call in a gaming contest, I would have thought you were clinically insane. That is, however, exactly what has happened. I dare say Persona is the flagship JRPG series on this site right now, which was utterly preposterous a decade ago. Things have really changed around here.

The only possible threat to Persona 5 in this division would be the divisional finals. Nothing in the top half was ever going to touch it, though I'll argue nothing in this division was going to come close to it regardless. Not with Smash Bros exposure.

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You may as well tell us what you dislike about Assassin's Creed.

It's not stanning; I haven't played an AC game since AC2. I've just literally never heard it referred to as a bad or unpopular game. Quite the opposite, in fact.

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_SecretSquirrel posted...

What are you talking about? Chie was the sixth strongest character in her one contest appearance.

2013 doesn't count anymore after Draven got buried by a midcarder in '18

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ZeroSignal620 posted...

2013 doesn't count anymore after Draven got buried by a midcarder in '18

Draggy Crow aside, you're telling me this isn't a viable Top 10 character list?

1. Draven
2. Link
3. Jak
4. Mewtwo
5. Solid Snake
6. Chie Satonaka
7. Sonic the Hedgehog
8. Sephiroth
9. Phoenix Wright
10. Kirby

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Inviso posted...

It's not stanning; I haven't played an AC game since AC2. I've just literally never heard it referred to as a bad or unpopular game. Quite the opposite, in fact.

This. Black Flag is widely considered to be a top five and even top three AC game, and that's not just a GameFAQs or B8 thing.

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Nintendogs posted...

You may as well tell us what you dislike about Assassin's Creed.

The sailing. Fucking hated it bro. Gave me Wind Waker flashbacks.

Everything else is legitimately very good. I will not argue otherwise! I'm just shocked you guys like it, and I'm surprised you guys are seeing all this good press. Anyone I talk to just says "good game but god the sailing sucked ass".

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Division 6 Quarterfinal: (5)Sonic Mania vs (4)Super Meat Boy

(5)Sonic Mania - 16972 [64.84%]
(4)Super Meat Boy - 9202 [35.16%]
Total Votes - 26174
Prediction Percentage - 48.8%

Random bit of trivia -- this was the 8000th poll in GameFAQs history. Not really contest trivia, but hey.

This was one of the most surprising blowouts of the entire contest, and if anyone disagrees with that, just look at the oracle consensus -- Sonic Mania with 52%. Given how good Super Meat Boy looked in round one in beating the absolute tar out of Slay the Spire, how indies were overhyped in this contest, and that Sonic looked like dog shit against Ys 8: Sanctimonious Subtitle, it made sense to hype up Super Meat Boy and think this match would be close. It's also fun rooting for the guru nomination to do well, as we tend to do each contest.

When the poll started and it was clear Sonic Mania was going to beat the holy hell out of Meat Boy in this contest, a lot of people went searching for answers. It was even a big topic on The Show, with Nick giving my favorite explanation on the panel. I'm paraphrasing here, but he said Super Meat Boy is the type of game with enough respect to beat up anything without name recognition, but anything ''with'' name recognition will destroy it.

Okay, makes sense. I think that applies to most of the well-respected indie titles, but Nick is on point. I'm going to go one step further however and call this an SFF match. To understand why, you have to understand all the garbage the Sonic fanbase dealt with between Sonic Adventure on the Dreamcast and Sonic Mania: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_the_Hedgehog#Sales

Wikipedia doesn't even list it all, either. No mention of the terrible spinoffs, like Sonic and the Black Knight. I didn't like Sonic Adventure 2 Battle, but I can't hate on anyone who did. Even if you liked that game, you went '''17 years''' between good games in the Sonic series. For me, it was 20 years. I can't really understate how trashy that series got, guys. You saw it all happen. Just.... Sonic as a werewolf. Sonic 2006. Sonic Heroes. Shadow's entire character. It went on and on and on.

On top of that, the Sonic fanbase isn't known as the ''worst'' fanbase in gaming, but it's very close. It's infested with perverts, incels, furries, weirdos, and just outright losers. A few of these people are even on Board 8, though I won't name any of them as they don't deserve recognition. They're few and far between, but they're here. Trust me. If you want a hint, pay attention to anyone who likes both the Sonic series and the Pokemon series. Odds are you've stumbled across one of these freak shows.

So imagine being me, or one of the millions of people like me that grew up in the 90s. Most people on this site grew up in the 90s, so this won't be hard to imagine for most of you. You're just a regular dude who loved sports, hanging out with friends, playing video games, and the other usual stuff. You see Sonic, one of your favorite characters as a kid, reduced to being a shell of himself. I mean come on, a '''werewolf'''. I mean come on, people. Finally you just bail, because it's clear this series is gone.

But you still like platformers, right? How does one scratch that itch when the Sonic series is dead and gaming is mostly 3D? With indie games and handhelds, of course. Games like Super Meat Boy, Braid, VVVVVV, a litany of Castlevanias on the DS, and so on. This love continues to the present day, too. Don't think Board 8 or this contest hyped up Celeste or Hollow Knight for no reason, or even games that didn't make it like Salt and Sanctuary or Dust: An Elysian Tail.

Then, from almost out of nowhere in 2018, manna from heaven descended upon the earth.

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

"Hold up, is that Green Hill Zone? Holy crap is that the old school sprites? '''Is that the final boss from Sonic 2??? What in the world??'''"

Of course Sonic Mania SFFd Super Meat Boy into the ground. I'd be shocked if the two games had less than 80% overlap. This was such a huge proud papa moment for me personally, regardless of what happened next round.

By the way, the other main reason I consider this an SFF match is because there are several games that finished above Meat Boy in the stats that I don't think would beat it in a contest match. That's pretty much the SFF hallmark.

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I enjoyed Sonic Adventure 1 & 2, but even then only the Sonic and Shadow levels were enjoyable (but not without flaws). The mindless shooting, treasure digging and especially fishing as Big the Cat was nothing short of a chore to play (though the multiplayer was pretty fun). I guess I'm more accurately called a "Classic Sonic" fan, since I do consider the classic Genesis games plus Mania to be the best in the series.

Anyways Ulti, if Sonic isn't the "worst" fanbase to you, what is?

I'm pretty sure his most hated group are people that are better then him at smash bros

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I liked the mid Sonic era of Adventure through 2006 overall

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_stingers_ posted...

I'm pretty sure his most hated group are people that are better then him at smash bros

Nah there's plenty of great players I like.

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I'm blocked? Lol
Well I enjoyed reading your analysis but if you must

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_SecretSquirrel posted...

you're telling me this isn't a viable Top 10 character list?

Nope. If the rallies don't happen, Jak wins that three-way, Chie finishes 2nd, and then Jak gets blown out by Mega Man X in round 2. Neither of them make the top 10.

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PostContestUlti posted...

Anyone I talk to just says "good game but god the sailing sucked ass"

This.

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_stingers_ posted...

I'm blocked? Lol
Well I enjoyed reading your analysis but if you must

Only on my main, but I do plan on unblocking a bunch of people, including you. You're hardly a problem.

You're spoiling my thunder though bro! My #1 most hated fanbase is definitely the nutjob Smash people, but it's not "people better than me". I love losing to better players and learning from them. That in and of itself is never a problem. It's when people act like Inui or Esam that ruin it for the entire fanbase.

But that by itself isn't "worst fanbase ever" material, because that doesn't even get into the truly abhorrent stuff. My big revelation was when two teenagers made the final of a Smash 4 tournament and a bunch of people doxxed them and sent them death threats after booing their entire match. It's like, do I really want to be associated with this trash?

You, my man, I've had issues with in the past. I've long since gotten over it, and you have never comeclose to the trash I've seen from that fanbase in recent years.

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Speaking of Discord, let's hear some more from the critics!

"Who knows if Ulti thinks anymore man." -Anonymous

"Did Ulti finally start getting weird?" -Anonymous

"What I was trying to imply is that there would be a topic in which someone, somehow, invalidates Ulti's past win much like he thinks TP is trying to do in his own topic." -Anonymous

"Ulti can be a dumb fuck as much as he likes, plenty of Board 8 is, but it's the dragging the same dumb fuck talking points up in every single conversation, and that's literally Ulti's entire life." -Anonymous

"I only block garbage people, and in fairness Ulti is about 70% of my block list." -Anonymous

"Ulti is right. This discord does hate him." -Anonymous

"Leave the board forever, get medical help, and never talk to any of us again." -Steiner

Good stuff, good stuff. Keep it coming, guys! I'm definitely doing something right when perpetually insecure children like Steiner resort to "get medical help". That's always a fun line to see, and it proves people like me right. You know a man by his enemies, and if they resort to ad hominen, they have already lost the debate before it's even started. Not to mention them doing nothing with their lives while claiming it's everyone else doing nothing with their lives, but I digress.

The only thing on here I'll reply seriously to is the third quote. I couldn't possibly care less what anyone thinks about 2004. Unlike my literally obsessed stalkers who sit around on Discord all day instead of making something of themselves -- and yes I am aware this doesn't apply to all of you, but you know who you are -- I don't live in the past. The reason I was upset in TP's topic is because while I am thoroughly aware the intent was not to discredit azuarc, I found that topic grossly unfair to the guy. He's a good sport about it, but if Jona "deserved to win", then Jona would have won. Only one thing ever matters, folks. Scoreboard. Go look at it. Coming up with these wildly insane changes to the scoring system is a very short-sighted answer with obvious faults resulting in the law of unintended consequences.

Remember when the NFL added a pass interference challenge system because of the Saints being whiny bitches, then ditched it after one season? Some of you guys are acting like the Saints. The refs silently protested that garbage by never overturning anything, by the way -- Colin Cowherd claims to have that very well-sourced and I believe him -- and good for them.

We'll get more into this with my post writeup, but the scoring is not the issue. Zelda is. I could maybe agree with the Fibonacci Sequence as an update, but that's it.

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PostContestUlti posted...

It's when people act like Inui or Esam that ruin it for the entire fanbase.

Hmm why ESAM in particular? He seems like one of the least salty top plays in the Smash 4/Ultimate scene. Ive tried following some top Smash players but when half of them are complaining their main sucks or posting obnoxious memes I'm like nah I'm good.

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"Pikachu is top tier, my character is so good, look at how good I am with this character guys!"

Total side note, but @_stingers_ have you met Hungrybox?

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Division 6 Quarterfinal: (3)Portal 2 vs (6)Kingdom Hearts III

(3)Portal 2 - 16322 [62.36%]
(6)Kingdom Hearts 3 - 9850 [37.64%]
Total Votes - 26172
Prediction Percentage - 50.55%

I warned you about Tetsuya Nomura, folks. I won't spoil FF7 Remake here, but you can't say I didn't warn you. That guy has been garbage ever since he became a director. The dude is a good artist. I will never take that away from him. He gets made fun of a lot because of belts and zippers, but I do legitimately like his art style. As a director and writer though? Trash. He is laughably unqualified, and we have almost two decades of games as proof. He's a hack.

A few years back, I mentioned how I would rather pick Kingdom Hearts and be wrong than pick against it and be wrong. The series has pulled so many wins out of its ass in debated matches over the years that it's so hard to pick against it when there's even a small chance it can win. That said, I think we're at the point where this series is done for on this site. There have been way too many bad games in a row now in that series, not to mention Kingdom Hearts 3 itself being trash after 15 years of hype, for it to recover.

So I knew Portal 2 was winning this match. Didn't care, I picked Kingdom Hearts 3 anyway, even over one of my all time favorites, knowing full well what was coming. At least, I ''thought'' I knew what was coming. Portal 2 delivered a beatdown so massive that it had people talking about it winning this division, perhaps even more, because it felt like we were watching something we hadn't seen before.

The reason for that is simple. We hadn't seen anything like this before. Did you know this is the first time a Kingdom Hearts game got under 40% in a 1v1 contest poll? It's true. Look it up. The losses are always close, even in the LOL 4ways if you care to look those up as well. After all that, Kingdom Hearts 3 finally gets released, finally it gets into a contest, and.... dud. Much like its useless director.

Seriously, how did we go from this...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTUq3Ik1GHM

...to THIS?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjiHufVEc7g

Not only has Tetsuya Nomura ruined Kingdom Hearts beyond all repair, and we saw the result of his idiocy live this contest, but he's also in the process of ruining Final Fantasy 7 even more than it's already been ruined. All Square had to do was take the same game and make it shiny. That's it. Instead, we got hit with false advertising. Defenders of Nomura can call that trash whatever they want, but at the end of the day we got lied to. And I ''told you'' he was going to pull some BS with that remake. I fucking knew it. Add another one to the pile of things that goof has ruined.

I mean really, hasn't FF7 been through enough? Crisis Core, Dirge of Cerberus, Advent Children, Before Crisis, Last Order, and now this nonsense? Enough is enough. That cow has milked dry every which way and needs to be brought to the slaughterhouse already so it can be put out of its misery. And fire Tetsuya Nomura and just start all over while you're at it. When the only Final Fantasy game to get any respect for an entire decade is an MMORPG of all things, something has gone seriously wrong. Seeing Kingdom Hearts and its idiot director completely collapse at the hands of one of my favorite games made me ''so'' happy, too, because Portal 2 deserved to go on this crazy run it went on. It got screwed in 2015, so this contest was a nice bit of justice for it.

Final point before I move on. I don't really care about credits in games and knowing who voice actors and motion capture actors are and all that other jazz, so until this week I was probably the only guy on the planet who didn't know that JK Simmons is Cave Johnson. I knew that voice sounded familiar when I was playing and I could never put my finger on it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmH7tAJ0SfA

Cave Johnson -- first man in human history to successfully give a potato an orgasm.

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I dont understand where this beef came from

but w/e

wind walker actually a fantastic game, and honestly the sailing was peaceful

What, the Discord quotes? Jealousy. I just laugh at that junk, cut it out of my life entirely, and keep it moving. Successful people don't waste time on that junk.

That isn't self gloss, either. It took a lot of work to get where I'm at, and a lot of it came from emulating the habits of very successful people. Did you know that almost all successful people are super optimistic? They don't even discuss the possibility of failure. It's just a learning experience to them, and they quickly put it behind them and move on.

Eating right, exercise, faith, getting up around 5am, reading about 50 books a year, and accountability thinking instead of victim thinking are the other very good habits to shoot for. Especially that last bit. People who live in the past and play victim all day don't accomplish anything and they're all miserable. We've all worked with people like that. Cut it out of your life and surround yourself with winners. It really does rub off.

When you reach the top of the mountain, find a new mountain.

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Division 6 Quarterfinal: (7)Animal Crossing: New Leaf vs (2)Red Dead Redemption 2

(7)New Leaf - 11095 [42.39%]
(2)Red Dead Redemption 2 - 15080 [57.61%]
Total Votes - 26175
Prediction Percentage - 69.82%

Given Animal Crossing: New Horizons came out mid-contest and the specter of casualbait titles getting anti-voted to death always exists, there was a little bit of fear that Red Dead Redemption 2 could lose this match. Red Dead Redemption 2's day would come, but it would not happen here.

This isn't to say RDR2 had a good match by any stretch, but it didn't have a bad one either. It did about what was expected given the circumstances of New Leaf getting boosted by New Horizons selling 238 billion copies in ten minutes after it launched. Unfortunately, "about what was expected" was not going to get it done long term in a division with Persona 5 and Portal 2 looking like kings. The two Red Dead Redemption games aren't at the level of Grand Theft Auto when it comes to anti-votes or anything, but I feel like they're both stained just enough by the casualbait stench that they have a ceiling around these parts.

As a total semi-unrelated side note since we're on the subject of Westerns, Django Unchained was added to Netflix recently and I rewatched it a couple nights ago. It's shocking to me that so many people are pro-censorship these days, because censorship kills artistic creativity. That movie would never get made today in 2020. I don't think white people should be going around using racist language or anything, but on the subject of artwork we're in a really bad time; sterility is anathema to good art. Django Unchained would be laughably unwatchable censored, and the villains would be completely toothless. But the uncensored version of that movie? Good hell, I've never wanted villains dead and good guys to win so much in my life. That movie was horrifying, as well as very historically accurate. The entire purpose of knowing our history is to learn from our mistakes so they've never repeated, not to sterilize everything and pretend it doesn't exist. People used to know this, and I don't know what happened in the past five years or so to turn everyone into a bunch of jellyfish.

Remember when a streamer got banned for punching a feminist NPC in Red Dead 2, and then Youtube had to reinstate the account after the entire internet revolted? It's the Streisand Effect. This happened in 2017 and the guy was accused of being a Nazi and such, complete with all the usual garbage outlets talking about it, even though the streamer in question had a bunch of videos from the game with him killing a bunch of NPCs in the KKK and so forth. His play style was him literally attacking every NPC in the entire game.

Quick to react pro-censorship folks should be very, very careful what they wish for. Censored cultures are generally not good. Obviously there should be a proper amount of decorum and good taste, but what's going on now is absurd. And yes I got sidetracked to Django Unchained and censorship when talking about Red Dead Redemption 2, because this contest had a large number of bad matches and blowouts and I need other stuff to talk about. Hey, at least the censorship bit was kind of related. Welcome to Ulti's Post-Contest Analysis! Sidetracks optional.

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PostContestUlti posted...

"Pikachu is top tier, my character is so good, look at how good I am with this character guys!"

Total side note, but @_stingers_ have you met Hungrybox?

Yes, many times. We're friends on Facebook and he stayed with me at my parents house one night when I was still in high school

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I was trying to remember why I picked Portal 2 > KH3 without thinking about it in my bracket, and I think the reason why is the KH characters not doing so well in the 2018 contest plus me knowing the game wasn't very well-received. Also Portal 2 is only one of three games in the bracket I've beaten so I kinda felt like pining for it.

Ulti crapping on FFVII Remake when most are praising it, business as usual.

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Kingdom Hearts 3 was a situation where I read into Allen snubbing Kingdom Hearts 3 in the GOTY poll as him being privy to something I didn't know. I also remember there being more laughter at the game's expense, as opposed to outrage at its snub, so I felt Portal 2 was the more likely victory, especially since again, I respected Sonic 2 in spite of whatever the 2015 xstats said.

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^ So is Allen himself responsible for the polls? Never knew that.

That second last quote was me. The discord does hate Ulti.


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Censorship culture is dumb, but it's also honestly pretty overstated.

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LinkMarioSamus posted...

I was trying to remember why I picked Portal 2 > KH3 without thinking about it in my bracket, and I think the reason why is the KH characters not doing so well in the 2018 contest plus me knowing the game wasn't very well-received. Also Portal 2 is only one of three games in the bracket I've beaten so I kinda felt like pining for it.

Ulti crapping on FFVII Remake when most are praising it, business as usual.

Have you played it yourself or do you just form your opinions based on popular use?

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RPGlord95 posted...

That second last quote was me. The discord does hate Ulti.

Hey fine with me. It's nice to finally let that shit go man.

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Good move. No need to be part of any place that doesn't want you. Don't need that kind of stuff in your life.


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I also picked Kingdom Hearts III there, welp.

Though I have also only seen positive reactions from FFVII Remake myself, as well. I'm only getting into it now so it will be a while before I finish it, but I liked the first chapter so far.

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Ive mostly seen positive reception towards ff7 remake myself

The main hate does appear to be from a plot change towards the end?

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compared to the reception of XIII games and XV (and KH3), VII remake's reception is like, the best thing ever.

its bizarre because FFVIIR despite being only like..20% of the story of FFVII, feels more like a complete game than FFXV ever did.

The dislike of FF7R seems isolated to or exacerbated in certain angry corners of the internet like this one.

I have spent a lot of time thinking about whether I liked it or not. It's objectively a good, probably a great game, but fans of FF7 do have defensible reasons to be mad. That said, voices like that are amplified here and don't reflect the critical and commercial success of the game.

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PostContestUlti posted...

Have you played it yourself or do you just form your opinions based on popular use?

Neither, was just based off of what I've heard.

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I loved FF7Remake. Great game.

I can see why people were mad because it was not what they were sold by Square.

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Imagine you're a dude who used to be able to get any girl you want. 9s and 10s all day long. You let the success get to your head, you get messed up on drugs, and after you get clean, you're really screwed up and the only thing you can attract are 1s and 2s. You have Artie Lange's nose and a meth head's skin, so you just take what you can get.

After a few years of being clean, it's time for a real change. You hit the gym, get a makeover, maybe some plastic surgery, and work on yourself. You've fixed a lot, which is great, but the old scars are still there, which prevents you from attracting those 9s you were banging when you were younger.

Still, you've moved up to attracting 5s and 6s, maybe even a 7 on a good day. Given where you were at rock bottom, that 6 sure does feel like a 10, even though her flaws are readily apparent.

That's Final Fantasy 7 Remake. Square has been dog shit for so long that anything even remotely good gets overblown as the greatest thing ever.

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Rollthebones2 posted...

The dislike of FF7R seems isolated to or exacerbated in certain angry corners of the internet like this one.

I have spent a lot of time thinking about whether I liked it or not. It's objectively a good, probably a great game, but fans of FF7 do have defensible reasons to be mad. That said, voices like that are amplified here and don't reflect the critical and commercial success of the game.

Sales do not equal quality, and professional game critics lost their ethics a long, long time ago. The only thing I care about are what the regular people think; word of mouth.

RPGlord95 posted...

Good move. No need to be part of any place that doesn't want you. Don't need that kind of stuff in your life.

Yep. Let the angry kids have their irrelevant corner of the internet. It's incredibly dumb being almost 40 and giving one scintilla of time to any to any of that trash.

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Division 7 Quarterfinal: (1)Dark Souls vs (8)Rocket League

(1)Dark Souls - 18921 [77.34%]
(8)Rocket League - 5544 [22.66%]
Total Votes - 24465
Prediction Percentage - 72.23%

If round one wasn't a huge warning shot, then this match certainly brought it home. Dark Souls was all business in this contest. Rocket League escaped from a great match in round one that entertained the entire board, but only one game gets to have their last match in a contest be a win so here we were. Dark Souls came close to joining that exclusive club of contest entrants that broke 80% in the first two rounds, but it was not to be. This was just another speed bump on the road to facing The Last of Us in the division finals, and Dark Souls was showing itself to be the clear favorite.

I thought further about what the strongest sports game on this site is thanks to Rocket League, and I've got my answer. I think it's NBA Jam. Remember, we're not counting fighting games, Mario Kart, or "Mario X". We're talking sports games in the more traditional sense, like Madden, NBA 2K, or Tecmo Super Bowl and such. I think NBA Jam takes it.

Does anyone actively dislike NBA Jam? Of course not. Very possibly the best announcing job ever done in a game, too. HE'S ON FIRE!

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