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

(+) Yeah! (+)

NowItsAngeTime posted...

Personally I think the problem with Galaxy games is they look pretty graphics but overall have pretty boring level designs

I didn't play them until after Odyssey, but it's excruciating to try and play a 3D platformer without free cam. Pressing a button when the camera sucks and praying the game gives you an acceptable angle where you have depth perception rather than just letting players freely adjust the camera themselves isn't great. It's also not fun to walk around a planet and the camera just lets Mario go upside down or sideways instead of being stabilized. Imagine playing F-Zero GX and every time you go off center on a cylinder on a cylinder track, the camera doesn't keep following your vehicle from behind. Nightmarish.

I realize it's a flaw of the Wiimote not having another stick, but the camera isn't fun to deal with in the Galaxy games. Or any 3D Mario pre-3D Land, really. This is one of the reasons that I hope the Mario remasters are real, even if Nintendo would no doubt butcher every single fun glitch in the games.

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snake_5036 posted...

I didn't play them until after Odyssey, but it's excruciating to try and play a 3D platformer without free cam. Pressing a button when the camera sucks and praying the game gives you an acceptable angle where you have depth perception rather than just letting players freely adjust the camera themselves isn't great. It's also not fun to walk around a planet and the camera just lets Mario go upside down or sideways instead of being stabilized. Imagine playing F-Zero GX and every time you go off center on a cylinder on a cylinder track, the camera doesn't keep following your vehicle from behind. Nightmarish.

I realize it's a flaw of the Wiimote not having another stick, but the camera isn't fun to deal with in the Galaxy games. Or any 3D Mario pre-3D Land, really. This is one of the reasons that I hope the Mario remasters are real, even if Nintendo would no doubt butcher every single fun glitch in the games.

The remasters are definitely real. The leak that mentioned them also mentioned a new, more traditional Paper Mario, and look what happened.
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I'd edit but my post already quoted, but also I'll add that I hate how the Galaxy games try to "correct" your movement when you go sideways on a planet when you're already correcting your analog stick position yourself. That's a "feature" that absolutely needs to go somewhere, or at least have the option to be turned off. I don't know how else to describe it, but I remember this being a legitimate problem with movement in the games.

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I hate basically every wii game that makes you use its actual controller but galaxy 1 and 2 still did it for me somehow

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Hbthebattle posted...

The remasters are definitely real. The leak that mentioned them also mentioned a new, more traditional Paper Mario, and look what happened.

One part of a leak being true doesn't automatically make the unconfirmed parts true for sure.

That's just what people hope for.

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NowItsAngeTime posted...

One part of a leak being true doesn't automatically make the unconfirmed parts true for sure.

That's just what people hope for.

It makes them fairly likely, though.
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Division 8 Semifinal: (3)Pokmon HeartGold / SoulSilver Version vs (2)NieR: Automata

(3)Pokemon HGSS - 14109 [51.87%]
(2)Nier Automata - 13091 [48.13%]
Total Votes - 27200
Prediction Percentage - 48.25%

This was perhaps my least favorite match of the entire contest, because the worst parts of two different fanbases acted like shitheads for 24 hours.

First off, apparently this was some wildly debatable match even though 75% of gurus picked Pokemon here for obvious reasons. I don't know how or why, but the Nier fanbase all thought Automata was going to win this thing easily. Guys, have you not been paying attention to these contests for the past 10 years or so? Pokemon doesn't really lose unexpected matches anymore. Happiness is directly related to expectations in life, fellas. Anyone experienced will tell you that. So right off the bat, all the ingredients were there for a powder keg.

To the credit of the Nier faithful, this match was close for about an hour and they had rallies ready to go. But about 45 minutes in, the floodgates opened and Pokemon finally broke through. It climbed fairly quickly in the evening and midnight vote to build up a lead close to 600, and held serve overnight. When the morning vote came and it looked like Nier might make a go at things, to the tune of cutting 100 votes off the lad, it turned out to be fool's gold. Pokemon would rebound, win the morning and day votes fairly easily, and ultimately win by 1000 votes.

Remember Rock Band vs Deus Ex, when Deus Ex scored an upset win but the entire board was flooded with topics about how Deus Ex wasn't winning by enough? This match was the inversion of that, and it went both ways. The board was a total shitshow during this match, and it even bled into the stats topic a little. The worst part is both of these fanbases acting all sanctimonious and virtuous about their games and trashing the opponent. How about this -- you both suck. Pokemon fans ''do'' get that their fanbase is loaded with perverts and furries, right? Nier fans ''do'' get that a main selling point of Automata is 2B having her ass hanging out while looking like an underaged girl, right?

"But she's a robot, bro!"

Piss off. This entire match, which was far better than expected, sucked to watch because of fans on both sides acting so obnoxious. The Nier fans acted a lot worse, but both of them are to blame here. Thankfully we booted them out of this contest as of this match and everything else was smooth sailing save the final.

This brought round 3 to an end, and it was all the home stretch from here on out. For those playing the home game, the final 16 was:

-5 Action/Adventure games (Resident Evil 2, God of War, Portal 2, Dark Souls, The Last of Us)
-4 Nintendo games (Breath of the Wild, Smash Ultimate, Mario Odyssey, Pokemon HGSS)
-4 Japanese RPGs (Dragon Quest 11, Persona 4 Golden, Persona 5, Xenoblade Chronicles)
-3 Western RPGs (Mass Effect 2, Witcher 3, Skyrim)

Very good mix! I know a lot of genres bleed together now, but still. Pokemon is also a JRPG, God of War could be considered a Western RPG, etc etc. Not the point. The point here is the final rounds were very varied. This was a good decade for gaming, my friends.

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I like how Xenoblade doesnt count as a Nintendo game lol
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I thought NieR was a good upset to take if you thought 2B's performance in 2018 might translate to her game, and how much you thought HG/SS might lose in strength for being a remaster of a 2000 game.

Honestly, if you just told everyone NieR's eventual xstat value before the contest began, it would have probably been the Guru favorite. It's just that HG/SS didn't lose much at all.

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Division 1 Final: (1)The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild vs (2)Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age

(1)Breath of the Wild - 17702 [70.22%]
(2)Dragon Quest 11 - 7508 [29.78%]
Total Votes - 25210
Prediction Percentage - 76.59%

After an incredibly stupid delay to set up a gimmick secondary bracket entry phase (seriously, that stuff needs to stop), the home stretch began. And with it... MATCH PICS!! I love me some picsmithing, and as usual the gang killed it. I'm only going to pull rank on the wiki once, beyond that I don't care what image you guys use for the articles.

It isn't often that a game looks good when only getting 30% of the vote, but Dragon Quest 11 went out of this contest like a man's man. In a match where most people thought Zelda would finish in the mid to high 70s, and perhaps even break 80% again, Dragon Quest 11 actually walked right up to the Anton Chigurh of this contest and slapped it across the face. Zelda actually struggled to just break 70% in this match, and it took the actual morning and day vote to ultimately get it done.

Mad props to Dragon Quest 11 here. This was still a 70-30 blowout at the end of the day, and putting on a show like this was impressive. If you had told me pre-contest that any Dragon Quest could potentially double any Final Fantasy game on this site, I'd have thought you were nuts. Yet in a direct match based on direct results through Zelda, Dragon Quest 11 could have doubled Final Fantasy XV. That is so good.

All this said, Zelda still broke 70% four rounds in a row, which is some incredibly rarified air. Here is the entire list of everything to ever pull that off:

-Link in Summer 2002 (beat Little Mac, Strider, Jill Valentine, and Scorpion)
-The Legend of Zelda in the Series Contest 2006 (beat Civilization, Mega Man X, Metroid, and Metal Gear)
-Link/Ganondorf in the Rivalry Rumble 2011 (beat Arthas/Illidan, Amaterasu/Orochi, Mega Man/Wily, and Alucard/Dracula)
-Breath of the Wild in Game of the Decade 2020 (beat The Outer Worlds, Halo Reach, Final Fantasy 15, and Dragon Quest 11)

There's a common theme there. I'll let you guys figure out what it is.

Two notes.

-Link and Ganondorf finished over '''75%''' in its first four matches, which is a record that could only ever possibly be broken by Link or his series.
-In the 2010 character battle, Link finished over 70% in four of his first five matches, but he's not eligible for this record because Mega Man X held him below 70% in round 3 that year. He finished 3% short.

We all knew Breath of the Wild would win this contest easily, but I don't know that we knew it would be ''this'' easy.

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_SecretSquirrel posted...

I thought NieR was a good upset to take if you thought 2B's performance in 2018 might translate to her game, and how much you thought HG/SS might lose in strength for being a remaster of a 2000 game.

Honestly, if you just told everyone NieR's eventual xstat value before the contest began, it would have probably been the Guru favorite. It's just that HG/SS didn't lose much at all.

I'm sure Automata is a fine game, but I really hope the way the fans act on here isn't indicative. Even before this contest, they haven't exactly shown themselves to be the most mature bunch.

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I also remembered Pokmon being a bust in the first Game of the Decade and figured there's a huge drop-off after Gen 1. Apparently HGSS is really well-liked though, which I didn't know because I know practically nothing about Pokmon beyond what's in Smash out of disinterest.

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Division 2 Final: (1)Mass Effect 2 vs (3)Resident Evil 2

(1)Mass Effect 2 - 13236 [52.47%]
(3)Resident Evil 2 - 11992 [47.53%]
Total Votes - 25228
Prediction Percentage - 20.82%

Given the bandwagon Resident Evil 2 had built up leading into this match, I am convinced that the contest intermission hurt its chances to pull the upset here. I'm not saying Mass Effect 2 wouldn't have won anyway, but momentum is a real thing and those dumb delays that happen now really kill it for underdog runs. Outside of one match, Mass Effect 2 looked vulnerable for this entire contest. Resident Evil 2 meanwhile was coming off of an incredibly grueling, emotional win over Bloodborne and could have ridden football-like momentum through Mass Effect here.

Didn't happen. If you ever talk to a professional athlete, and I've met about 50 of them from working various odd jobs, they hate all the TV timeouts and reviews and such in major sports. It kills the momentum. It kills the flow. I think that is a huge factor into what happened here.

When this poll started, Mass Effect 2 had 52% of the poll, and then the poll just... stayed there. You can see the final result. This was the poll for the entire 24 hours. Resident Evil 2 never made a push to do much of anything, and this was certainly a far, far cry from the Resident Evil 2 we had seen in earlier matches.

We can't confirm one way or another if the intermission helped Mass Effect 2 here, but it certainly didn't hurt it. It meant for a rather dud ending to Resident Evil 2's impressive contest run. I do have to say that I'm not upset about Mass Effect 2 winning a division though, especially with all of the nonsense that poor series has gone through. It was nice to see one of them finally break through a win a division, even if the means were debatable.

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They weren't a bust. They lost to Zelda, Mario, and Brawl.

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Good point. I think we just expected more of them. GSC did prove itself to be a top 10 game in the field though.

Also time and time again Pokmon stuff post-Gen 2 has shown itself to be way weaker.

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I think Nier just got to the point that Persona got when P4 started getting its spin-offs and becoming a "big deal"; really desperate for validation now that their niche little series had even somewhat mainstream appeal. I love the game, but the two loudest camps for that game tend to be "look at this robot's butt" and "art through the medium you simply MUST experience this life-changing event", and often the butt people come out as more level-headed.

Dunno why anyone would expect more than 'solid midcard' status unless it caught fire and won a tight match. Nier and DQXI stand out as some of the most middle-of-the-pack games we could get in a balanced games bracket; good enough to put a show on decent fodder, then bow out respectfully in Round 3 or so. Always felt that Nier would only win due to Pokemon's weakness and not its own strength.

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Kamekguy posted...

Dunno why anyone would expect more than 'solid midcard' status unless it caught fire and won a tight match. Nier and DQXI stand out as some of the most middle-of-the-pack games we could get in a balanced games bracket; good enough to put a show on decent fodder, then bow out respectfully in Round 3 or so. Always felt that Nier would only win due to Pokemon's weakness and not its own strength.

Pretty much. I was perplexed when talk of HG/SS over Skyrim escalated over the break, when I never would have considered NieR a threat to Skyrim. Now if Pokemon had dominated NieR, it would be a different story, but 52/48 was closer to "well, I don't feel like a moron for being eliminated from the Guru contest over this result" than anything else.

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Division 3 Final: (1)Super Smash Bros. Ultimate vs (2)Super Mario Odyssey

(1)Smash Ultimate - 14975 [55.94%]
(2)Mario Odyssey - 11796 [44.06%]
Total Votes - 26771
Prediction Percentage - 40.52%

RSFF is an incredibly rare thing in these contests, but we have seen it happen before.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2122-tournament-quarterfinal-mario-vs-samus-aran
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7373-finals-bracket-2-samus-vs-mario
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7383-loser-bracket-round-4-mario-vs-samus

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3849-jenova-division-final-sephiroth-vs-tifa-lockheart
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7369-loser-bracket-round-1-tifa-vs-sephiroth

There may be other examples, but these are the two that jump out.

I am thoroughly convinced Smash Ultimate RSFFd Mario here, because you can't convince me that Mario wasn't more impressive than Smash in all three rounds leading up to this match. Tekken 7 being stronger than Mortal Kombat 11 is just goofy. Link Between Worlds being held under 40% is impressive, but Devil May Cry 5 being held under 30% is better. We all saw the same thing and agreed. Yet come match time, Smash not only wins but wins ''easily''. Something isn't right here chief, and it wouldn't be the first time something "off" happened with Mario when put up against Nintendo in a match. I wish I had a better reason than RSFF for this match, but it's the best explanation I got.

Look at every other big match this contest where one game clearly looked stronger going in. Dark Souls > Last of Us. Witcher 3 > Skyrim. Xenoblade > Fire Emblem. Even Skyrim > Pokemon. I could go on. In all of those matches, that game that looked better going in won the match. The one exception was.... this match. Right here.

Something screwey happened, and I feel like RSFF is the best explanation given how the rest of the contest lined up. Nothing else makes much sense. I know it's hard to believe, but the idea of Smash actually being the stronger one all along is even ''more'' hard to believe.

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Kamekguy posted...

I think Nier just got to the point that Persona got when P4 started getting its spin-offs and becoming a "big deal"; really desperate for validation now that their niche little series had even somewhat mainstream appeal. I love the game, but the two loudest camps for that game tend to be "look at this robot's butt" and "art through the medium you simply MUST experience this life-changing event", and often the butt people come out as more level-headed.

Dunno why anyone would expect more than 'solid midcard' status unless it caught fire and won a tight match. Nier and DQXI stand out as some of the most middle-of-the-pack games we could get in a balanced games bracket; good enough to put a show on decent fodder, then bow out respectfully in Round 3 or so. Always felt that Nier would only win due to Pokemon's weakness and not its own strength.

You're also in no way the type of pervert I was talking about.

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Okay this is a good stopping point. I'm getting a bit tired and the next match deserves my full awake attention. See you tomorrow!

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I'm not going to lie: stats and discussions board realizing Pokemon hentai rallies were also a thing was one of my favorite parts of the entire contest. Whatever happened afterwards, it was pretty damn funny to watch, even if it was pretty stupid.

These analysis threads are fun to kick back and read after a rough day. Thanks for writing 'em!

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2B doesn't come out as underage to me, but whatever.

Tekken 7 > Mortal Kombat 11 isn't that crazy. Among fighting fans that's the result I would expect. Of course, this is GameFAQs where fighting games are weak so it's not impossible that Mortal Kombat would "name recognition" its way to victory.

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charmander6000 posted...

Tekken 7 > Mortal Kombat 11 isn't that crazy. Among fighting fans that's the result I would expect. Of course, this is GameFAQs where fighting games are weak so it's not impossible that Mortal Kombat would "name recognition" its way to victory.

Considering both are behind Nintendo juggernauts, it stands to reason that the title that relies less on name recognition is going to be stronger. Tekken 7 is more beloved by fighting game enthusiasts than MK11, so it stands to reason that it would hold up better.

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Actually one more before bed. I couldn't help it.

Division 4 Final: (5)Persona 4 Golden vs (3)Xenoblade Chronicles

(5)Persona 4 Golden - 13334 [49.79%]
(3)Xenoblade Chronicles - 13445 [50.21%]
Total Votes - 26779
Prediction Percentage - 6.29%

This was it, boys. The hardest match of the entire contest to predict pre-contest, and our contest's last truly great match. Both came in on incredible runs, both had a ton of momentum behind them that even a contest intermission couldn't squelch, and both of them had perfectly even cases to be made for winning this thing.

Before getting to the match, I'd like to discuss what is now commonly known as "The Yoblazer Test". He probably shouldn't have spilled the beans on this, truth be told. Because I hate myself, I started rewatching Game of Thrones. Early in season one, Jamie Lannister is talking some trash to Ned Stark about fighting and tournaments and such, and makes fun of Ned for not fighting in them.

"I don't fight in tournaments, because when I fight a man for real, I don't want him to know what I can do."

I doubt Yoblazer ever gets season one'd, but he went and fought in a tournament -- that is, told everyone on The Show -- what The Yoblazer Test is. Every contest, there is one, maybe two things capable of going on an incremental lucky bandwagon run from out of nowhere and going maybe one round farther than it probably should. The way to do this is to see if something can win a round or two easily, then win against things of similar strength through luck and the bandwagon effect. His best call ever was Super Mario RPG in 2015. Let's have a look and see how many gurus picked it to make the semifinals: http://thengamer.com/guru/BGE3/stats.php?match=124

(By the way am I blind or just dumb? Did yoblazer not enter the guru that year?)

It's an insane call at first glance, but if you use The Yoblazer Test it makes perfect sense. If you had Mario RPG beating Oblivion, well why not take it to beat GTA5? If that win happens, well at that point you already know the game is stronger than Chrono Cross or World of Warcraft, and from there that thing was off to the races. How could Resident Evil 4 beat a bandwagoned Mario RPG late in a contest? And if you have it getting that far, why ''couldn't'' it turn around and beat Metal Gear Solid 3? It's beautiful logic, and I half hope he never shared it. There's a difference between thinking upsets could happen and knowing which one or two bandwagons are most likely, and that's why Yoblazer is the best to ever do it. Frankly his legacy top 50 finishes should be added to his guru score. No offense to Swirl or anything, but no one is better than Yo at this. There's a reason for that.

To the point. Xenoblade Chronicles was the perfect Yoblazer Test candidate this contest, and you could possibly give that title to Witcher 3 depending on whether you thought its run would be a bandwagon or a boost. Had Persona 4 Golden and Xenoblade faced off in rounds one or two, Persona 4 Golden probably easily wins. But because it happened in the divisional finals, after Xenoblade built up momentum against Splatoon 2, Overwatch, and Three Houses, and after Xenoblade Remastered hype was in full swing, it was the right choice if you had it getting this far. What was going to beat a Xenoblade backed by bandwagon love, Nintendo, and remaster hype? Grand Theft Auto 5? Persona 4 Golden has a rabid fanbase and all, but that's a lot of things to ask of it.

When this match started, the bandwagon effect was on. The match was close, but Xenoblade was just better. It jumped out to a 50 vote lead early, and then used the rest of the evening to build up a lead of 200. This is when the Persona fandom's rallies started popping up all over Reddit and getting their own momentum going, and that 230 vote lead got knocked down to 150 fairly quickly.

But here the thing with bandwagons. They are very, very hard to beat unless you are considerably stronger than they are. Persona 4 Golden was just too similar in strength here. Xenoblade was able to smack away the multi-layered rally attempt, and back up it went as we got close to midnight. Try as Persona 4 may to come back in this match, Xenoblade just wasn't having it. When the overnight vote came and Europe started waking up, Xenoblade ever so slightly increased its lead all the way up to 350. This felt like enough given the match was a rock fight, but then the morning came and Persona 4 had one last big push left.

For the final 12 hours of this match, Xenoblade had to hold on for dear life. It wasn't getting a ton of rallies all over a bunch of subreddits. It didn't have the full Board 8 love behind it. It wasn't being boosted by hentai. This was all bandwagon effect and remake hype. Even the usual Nintendo ability to win the morning and day vote wasn't coming through this time around. As this match kept inching along, Persona kept shaving and rallying, shaving and rallying. For most of the past 12 hours, if Persona could just get one push going it probably could have come back, but Xenoblade just kept fighting it all off, like Deadpool blocking bullets with swords and such.

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

As Persona kept pushing, Xenoblade would come up with these random updates of +10, +30, +25 out of nowhere to keep itself alive. ''Finally'', with two hours to go, the rallying efforts for Persona reached a fever pitch. With two hours left, the lead was at 230. Then Persona started pulling off these crazy updates with Xenoblade stalls mixed in. 10 votes gone. 20 votes gone. 25 votes gone. With an hour to go, the lead was down to 100 and it looked like Persona was going to clutch its ass off after all.

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Persona got the lead down to 80 pretty quickly, and then.... Xenoblade was pushed once too many times and said enough of this shit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZeYVIWz99I

It kicked Persona 4 into the pit of death, held serve at 80, and ultimately won this poll by 111. This doesn't sound like much, but think of the craziness of everything it had to fend off. Board 8 likes Persona games a ''lot'' more than Xenoblade. All of the rallies were in Persona's favor. Persona even had some bandwagon magic of its own. But in the end, Xenoblade had just a little bit more.

I don't usually bring up the double vote user bonus, as I think it's incredibly stupid to give such a dumb gimmick any legitimacy, but there were two matches in this contest where the double bonus actually reversed a match result and nullified the effects of a rally. One was Resident Evil 2 > Bloodborne, and you guys can debate the legitimacy of that shitshow to your heart's content. Personally, I think the two hour delay not extending to 24 was bull. The other was this match. Xenoblade > Persona 4. Did you guys know Persona 4 wins by 8 votes without gimmicks? This lends a lot of credence to my Yoblazer Test theory. If this was a round one match, Persona 4 easily wins. But it was a divisional final and the site was bandwagoning Xenoblade enough for it to win.

It was an incredible match, a joy to watch, and the last truly great match of this contest. Much like Resident Evil 2 vs Bloodborne, it sucked someone had to lose. It really did. Persona will be back and busting brackets next games contest though I'm sure, because these fans are cockroaches and I mean that as a compliment. They cannot be killed, they can live entirely off of postapocalyptic Twinkies, it takes divine intervention to beat them in a close match, and it took ''all this'' for Xenoblade to hold it off. Hell even had this match happened in round ''three'', Persona likely wins. But it happened when it happened and the result was what it was.

Xenoblade didn't win this match so much as survive it, but a win is a win is a win. Scoreboard. Go look at it. Xenoblade's run was clearly coming to an end in the next round, but that's okay. This thing went from losing in round one to winning a division, and with remaster + sequel hype who knows where it goes from here?

Last point before I move on. Only two gurus correctly called Xenoblade's path on top of getting all three matches in the Shovel Knight fourpack right. One was Ngamer64. The other was...

Me!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BfZ8VpPzz0

I would have finished something like top 10 had I stuck with my gut and picked Witcher 3 to make the final, but I am in no way salty about how I did. When you're on a list with Ngamer and no one else, it's something to be proud of. I'm super happy for him, too. He killed it this year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVqpC3Rf1Nw

Ngamer gets the deeper audio version because he is '''MANLIER''' than Ulti is. Moving on.

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I propose we make the Yoblazer test an official term.
Also does anyone thinks that if Persona 4 Golden won here it would had a lower percentage than XC?

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PostContestUlti posted...

Why bring this up in round 3 of a contest? Well not long after this contest ended, Shad Gaspard died while swimming. A riptide carried him and his son out to sea, and we later learned that as this happened and a lifeguard showed up, he told the lifeguard to save his son first. Gaspard's body was found on the beach a few days later.

Who is Shad Gaspard, you may ask. He's a former pro wrestler, and he was the guy who did the motion capture for Kratos in God of War 2018. Meaning the dude who Kratos is now modeled after died because he was being a great father. I know a lot of people on the internet aren't religious, but God really does work in mysterious ways. You cannot make up a story like this.

I just looked this up. Heartbreaking.

Also, surprised to learn you're a religious person. I've followed your topics since the early 00s and never would've guessed. Genuinely curious now...did you recently find faith or has this been a long-standing thing? If it's highly personal and you don't want to share, no worries.


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@plasmabeam He has said he is a reborn Christian so that is.

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Safer_777 posted...

@plasmabeam He has said he is a reborn Christian so that is.

Gotcha.

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PostContestUlti posted...

(By the way am I blind or just dumb? Did yoblazer not enter the guru that year?)

He did not. We had a little bit of discussion on this when I was on The Show, and I believe we concluded that he may very well be in the number 1 slot, if we did account for his missing entries.

(However, there are other gurus near the top that are also missing entries, so there is a very slippery slope involved in taking this step, and considering there is an unofficial prize element to the Guru with sig bets and nominations at stake that could no longer be redeemed, it makes sense not to do that, but unofficially recognize that he's really good at doing this.)

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Even though it lost its division final match, I personally give Persona 4 Golden the Star of the Contest award. Everything aligned up for that game so well, taking advantage of rallies plus anti-voting against the Rockstar games to win, and achieving a bandwagon to get past GTAV (which is an anomaly in its commercial success) and putting up a very respectable loss against Xenoblade.

It's also really weird how that division ended up when it came to the platform they were in compared to the others. I've listed in division order the platforms each of the games, and using parenthesis for re-releases:

Wii U/Switch vs. 3DS/PS4 (+Switch)
PC/PS3/360 vs. PC/PS4/Xbox One (two non-Nintendo AAA games)
Switch vs. Switch (two Nintendo AAA games)
Vita vs. Wii
PC/PS4/Xbox One (+Switch) vs. PS4
PS3/PS4 vs. PC/PS3/360 (PS exclusive vs. non-Nintendo AAA game)
PC/PS3/360 (+PS4/Xbox One/Switch) vs. PS3 (+PS4)
PC/PS3/360 (+PS4/Xbox One/Switch) vs. DS

It's odd to see Division 4 end the way it did, as the Vita never did anything notable in past polls while the Wii was known for LOL WII in the last Game of the Decade contest. To see a Wii game beat a Vita game so far in the contest is not something I expected, and judging by the prediction percentage, not many did either.

It's also a reason why I consider GTAV the game equivalent of Lara Croft and Pac-Man; an absolute disgrace to its seed. It had two opportunities to prove itself and just failed to get the job done.

It still grinds my gears that a half-baked remaster like HG/SS got into the contest, let alone beat an actual top 5 2010s game in Nier. I'll never understand the Pokemon fanbase.

And surprise surprise, wrestling is still garbage compared to what it used to be. Turns out listening to a bunch of smarks didn't work after all.

This line jumped out at me, because isn't this basically what happened when Vince Russo started running WCW into the ground? I haven't watched wrestling in probably 17 years, so it kind of surprises me to see the WWF hasn't changed a lick

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Something screwey happened, and I feel like RSFF is the best explanation given how the rest of the contest lined up. Nothing else makes much sense. I know it's hard to believe, but the idea of Smash actually being the stronger one all along is even ''more'' hard to believe.

With the disclaimer that I'm a pretty big skeptic of RSFF in general: I don't think that's what happened here. To me, it's far more likely that Smash is indeed stronger after all, it was the favourite going into the contest for good reason and what we saw is simply that there are more people who vote against Smash than Mario when both face weak competition. Smash faces some anti-votes both from people who hate its fanbase (which you're more than aware of) and from fighting game fans who dislike that Smash takes attention from what they see as more pure examples of the genre. Meanwhile, nobody hates Mario Odyssey, not even people like me who consider it one of the weaker games in the series. Combine this with the format forcing everyone to vote and I suspect the effect is significant, enough to obscure the truth.

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Nintendogs posted...

It's odd to see Division 4 end the way it did, as the Vita never did anything notable in past polls while the Wii was known for the phrase "LOL WII" in the last Game of the Decade contest. To see a Wii game beat a Vita game so far in the contest is not something I expected, and judging by the prediction percentage, not many did either.

Persona 4 Golden isn't exactly your typical Vita game, since it's also a very late PS2 release, and there's no reason to think that people didn't just treat the two games as identical entries.

Granted, this division coming down to a PS2/Vita vs. Wii/"New" 3DS finals itself was bizarre in a completely different context.

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I got Xenoblade winning its division correct, and quite a few in the stats topic told me I should have entered the Guru for it. I guess I was always intimidated by the prospect of it, but there's always next time I suppose.

Like I've said a million times over, I get the feeling it was because I watch a lot of The Runaway Guys and Chuggaaconroy's favorite game is Xenoblade, so it just seemed like it was building this massive reputation through increased exposure in Smash and the like. Not entirely sure what my rationale was TBH, probably me just thinking Xenoblade is a big deal.

I don't have a hard time believing that Smash is really "stronger" than Mario even indirectly and that Mario faced vastly weaker competition than Smash. Not so difficult to imagine Spider-Man blowing out DMC5.

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If you take SSBU and SMO to be pretty close in strength, it all kind of fits together much better. It just so happens that a first rate Smash game is way higher on the hierarchy than a third rate 3-D Mario game.

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BlAcK TuRtLe posted...

It still grinds my gears that a half-baked remaster like HG/SS got into the contest, let alone beat an actual top 5 2010s game in Nier. I'll never understand the Pokemon fanbase.

HG/SS is a weird-looking entrant, I'll give it that.

That said, HG/SS support didn't pop out of nowhere. It's is one of the fanbase's most universally respected titles; you don't hear Pokemon fans shit talking HG/SS, its broad swathe of new and/or imrpoved features, its nearly complete dex, or even the Pokewalker, the 'lite Pokemon GO'.

It's still a Pokemon game and carries the flaws of such. If you didn't like the series, this one won't change your opinion. But it's a respectable remaster - even if it was carried by the Gold/Silver name.

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Division 5 Final: (1)The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt vs (2)God of War

(1)Witcher 3 - 17096 [64.48%]
(2)God of War - 9418 [35.52%]
Total Votes - 26514
Prediction Percentage - 51.77%

After a small blip for one update against Super Mario Galaxy 2, Witcher 3 went back to its roots in this contest, namely beating up Western games so badly that people were calling for SFF as the reason for all these beatings. God of War's job was just making it up to this match; our boy Kratos was never going to win it, and that's okay. He finally made it into the fourth round.

It's hard to argue against SFF as the reason Witcher 3 kept going berserk against other Western games, but the concept of "Western SFF" is pretty much brand new as of this contest so it's hard for a lot of people to believe. I get not buying it, but by this point of the contest people had seen Witcher 3 in action thrice and it was ''still'' overshooting its oracle consensus. This time, it was a 6% overshot. In round one it was an 8% overshot, in round two it was 9%, and here it was 6%. The only round where it didn't ''wildly'' (ha) overperform was against a big name Nintendo game. If that isn't proof that Witcher 3 is a Clint Eastwood esque king of the west, I don't know what is.

Oh and spoilers, this would make four times in a row Witcher 3 was better-looking than Skyrim. How does that one saying go after three, anyway? One's an accident, two is a problem, three is a trend, four is.... what? Has that saying ever even gotten to four?

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Don't know myself, but I think "four is a tradition" makes a good enough fit.

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Division 6 Final: (1)Persona 5 vs (3)Portal 2

(1)Persona 5 - 15239 [57.47%]
(3)Portal 2 - 11276 [42.53%]
Total Votes - 26515
Prediction Percentage - 29.22%

I honestly thought Portal 2 might be able to make a match of this with all the momentum it had built up to this point, but Persona 5 was absolutely having none of that stuff. This match was reasonably close for one update, but after that first five minutes Persona 5 just beat Portal's ass all over the place for this entire match. No comebacks, no momentum, no mercy. Just a cold, hard, swift asswhipping as Persona 5 marched right to a division win.

I know neither game in the Persona duo won this contest or anything, but for my money the Persona series and Witcher 3 are tied for Star of the Contest. With the Smash Bros series giving Persona newfound strength and respect, on top of that series growing more and more each year, it has nowhere to go but up. When and if we get Persona 6, it has a good chance to slide into whatever we want to call the tier right below Zelda's top games.

Speaking of stars of the contest, this win set up a match between Witcher 3 and Persona 5. Few things in these contests are more fun than two white-hot entrants dueling, so we were all hoping the match would live up to the hype it was getting while this was all going on live.

(Spoilers: lolno.)

I don't want to leave this writeup without giving Portal 2 some love, purely because I love the game but also because getting this far in a contest should mean something. So without further delay...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVVZaZ8yO6o

You won't find many villains more likeable than GLaDOS.

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*sits down with prepared popcorn as he waits for the next analysis*

Nintendogs posted...

*sits down with prepared popcorn as he waits for the next analysis*

How do YOU know it'll be entertaining? <_<

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Okay it's bed time. I'm mid-writeup, but it's a long one folks! This thing needs to get the attention it deserves.

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I would have picked Portal 2 to win the division if it wasn't for the Valve deboost.

Still picked it to get that far because, what was going to stop it? Rockstar? Kingdom Hearts 3? Yawn.

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I almost have this monstrosity of a writeup finished.

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Division 7 Final: (1)Dark Souls vs (2)The Last of Us

(1)Dark Souls - 14919 [58.3%]
(2)The Last of Us - 10669 [41.7%]
Total Votes - 25588
Prediction Percentage - 30.19%

Before we talk about the elephant in the room, let's set the stage here. Some fun with numbers:

Dark Souls (2015g) VS The Last of Us (2015g)

Dark Souls has a strength of 25.11.
The Last of Us has a strength of 27.36.

The Last of Us wins with 54.11% of the vote!
A win of 5,006 with 60,875 total votes cast.

There isn't much reason to think these are fraudulent numbers. Dark Souls got like 30% on Link to the Past that year, and Last of Us got 40% on Kingdom Hearts 2. There is only so much adjusting that can be done there, and at a certain point if you think Dark Souls looked better anyway in 2015 then you're just adjusting the numbers around until you see the result you want. There was nothing wrong with looking at 2015 and picking The Last of Us to win this match, especially if you thought The Last of Us 2 hype was going to boost the original up. Even if you thought Dark Souls would go up due to the respect factor and the name of our contest (as well you should have, this was perfectly good logic and Souls was the decade's biggest story along with open world stuff), it had to go up enough to beat The Last of Us potentially being boosted by sequel hype.

Oh it got boosted by sequel hype alright, but not in the way anyone was expecting pre-contest. One day after The Last of Us's match with Batman where it struggled a bit, Naughty Dog and Sony announced ''another'' delay in The Last of Us 2's release date. Now for the record, coronavirus has affected a lot of things in 2020 so delays on entertainment are understandable, but this game was originally supposed to come out on February 21st and the first delay was announced in October of 2019. A second delay was announced on April 2nd and corona was directly cited.

Okay, sure, makes sense. We all understand that. But the announcement of a third delay really started to piss people off, and it happened right in the middle of this contest on April 27th. At that point, it isn't coronavirus causing the delays and we all know it. More on that in a second.

On the ''same exact day'' that yet another delay was announced, all hell broke loose at Naughty Dog and the entirety of The Last of Us 2's plot was leaked and posted online. At first, it was widely believed that this was done by a disgruntled employee who was sick of the conditions there. And who could blame them? But as it turns out, the leak was done by a hacker who used an older game to exploit a server security weakness.

I could go on an incredibly long rant here about how Naughty Dog legitimately treats their employees like slaves, but Jim Sterling covers this one far better than I ever could. Don't worry, this video mentions absolutely nothing about what's in the leaks. All he talks about is how and why they happened:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LRynF3PZn0

Whether the leak was an inside job or not, the fact that everyone believed at first that it came from someone pissed at a crunch tells the story, doesn't it?

What's even worse is what's actually in the leaks, so let's just get to it. I will not discuss any of them here, even with spoiler tags, out of respect for anyone who doesn't want to know them. Instead, here is a video with a very safe thumbnail. If you want to know what's in the leaks, watch this video. If not, skip past it. '''WARNING: THIS VIDEO PROBABLY SPOILS EVERYTHING THAT'S IN THE LAST OF US 2!!! WATCH AT YOUR OWN RISK!'''

I asked a mod whom we all love and respect if this video was safe to post, and he confirmed that it is. Here you go:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DE6RcyqBUB8

I won't bother getting into how I personally feel about what this all means in terms of the series plot, because I already said I'm not talking about the specifics here. Just know that I liked the original quite a lot and that my opinion pretty much lines up with what everyone is saying on the internet. And believe me, you can't go ''anywhere'' on the internet right now without people talking about this. Naughty Dog fucked up, and they fucked up ''badly''.

What I do want to talk about here is the thorough and swift rejection of the SJW filth that's been infesting entertainment. Last decade was the rise of that puke, but this decade is seeing the public reject all of it at an alarming rate.

"But Ulti, everywhere I look online people are happy about diversity and such! And Captain Marvel made over a billion dollars so lol you!"

Social media in no way reflects the real world, and people need to learn this lesson. Don't let Twitter produce your show or control your opinions. If social media or going viral meant jack shit, we would have had President Bernie Sanders 300 times over by now.

As for Captain Marvel, good example! I'm glad someone brought her up. Thanks, Hypothetical Guy. She is a wonderful example of audiences being smart, because people know the difference between well-meaning diversity like Captain Marvel or the Tom Holland Spiderman cast and the garbage The Last of Us 2 is trying to pull.

You can have the opinions Brie Larson or Tessa Thompson have. Free country, free speech. Go nuts. The problem happens when you try to fight discrimination with discrimination in entertainment despite the audience, including most of the ''women'' in your audience, outright telling you to fuck off. Girl power and diversity based on merit are very, very good things. Forcing it at the expense of others (13 Reasons Why and the constant misandry being a great example) is where the problem starts, and I don't get how people don't understand the difference. I could name 100 female characters, probably more, who are strong, amazing, great female characters who aren't in their roles to check off diversity boxes and tell everyone men suck all day long.

Hell this writeup is going to be long anyways, so let's do it. What's 100 extra lines on a wiki page, anyway? This is right off the top of my head in no order whatsoever. I won't cheat, look at any lists, nothing. You can make strong, cool, and lovable female characters without ever going the moronic "all men suck and we must check off as many diversity boxes as possible" SJW route.

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-Captain Marvel
-Wonder Woman
-Beatrix Kiddo
-Sarah Conner pre Dark Fate
-Commander Shepherd
-Tifa Lockheart
-Ellen Ripley
-Princess Leia
-Buffy
-Jill Valentine
-Presea Combatir
-Sheena, and don't ask me to spell her last name
-Rita Mordio
-Judith
-Scully (the real reason X-Files was popular!)
-Elaine Benes
-Althena from the Lunar games
-Khaleesi
-Cersei Lannister
-Catherine Tully
-Brienne of Tarth
-Black Widow
-Arya Stark
-Xena, Warrior Princess
-Katniss Everdeen (book version, the movies do her no justice at all)
-Lara Croft
-Padme (yeah I fucking said it, do not @ me)
-Clarice from Silence of the Lambs
-Miranda Lawson
-Tali
-Kasumi
-Celes
-Yuffie
-Yuna
-Rikku
-Ashe
-Lightning
-Fang
-Charlotte Flair
-Becky Lynch
-Shayna Baszler
-Ronda Rousey
-Sara del Ray
-Sarah Stock
-Portia Perez
-Cheerleader Melissa
-Kris Statlander
-Toni Storm
-Bianca Belair
-The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
-Maeve (Westworld)
-Dolores (Westworld)
-Bayonetta
-Juno
-Mulan
-Ariel
-Monica
-Phoebe
-Rachel
-13 from House
-Olivia Benson (the girl from Law and Order SVU with the big chin)
-11 from Stranger Things
-Jessica Jones
-Catwoman
-Maria from West Side Story
-Mimi from Rent
-Christine from Phantom of the Opera
-Beatrix from Umineko
-Beatrix from Final Fantasy 9
-Pepper Potts
-Terra Branford
-Ada Wong
-Edelgard
-Lyndis
-Corrin
-Undyne
-Cammy
-Chun-Li
-C. Viper
-Trish from the DMC games
-Trish Stratus
-Elizabeth Swann
-Lucina
-Tharja
-Byleth
-Sothis
-Hilda
-Petra
-Ingrid
-THUNDER CATHERINE, HER NAME IS LITERALLY '''THUNDER CATHERINE''' FFS
-Shamir
-Rhea
-Titania
-Jill
-Celica
-Azura
-Camilla
-Anna
-Micaiah
-Sakura
-Rose
-Elena
-Juri
-Kerrigan
-Meryl
-Samus
-Zelda
-Palutena
-Gamora
-Do female Pokemon count?
-How about generic female characters when I get to create my own, like in Skyrim or Dark Souls?

This should be around 100 or close to it. Yes, there are a lot of Nintendo, wrestling, JRPG, MCU, and Street Fighter characters. Welcome to what most of my entertainment time has gone towards! I could go on for quite awhile here with naming great females who aren't pushing stupid agendas, but do you get the point yet? If you're a great character, you're a great character and people will just like you for being you. No one who isn't completely out of their mind is walking around, looking at the world, and going "X is represented in this piece of entertainment, and by enjoying X you must hate all of Y". I've been trying to find the right words to prove my point here for years, and that Upper Echelon guy really did a perfect job. No one worth interacting with looks at Samus and goes "well by liking her, you must hate any female who isn't white".

"Actually I really loved Gamora's character arc in the Marvel movies, plus Zoe Saldana is an incredibly talented actress. You don't star in three different 2 billion dollar movies by accident."

"Yeah but she plays up to black stereotypes."

"Uh, she's Puerto Rican and Dominican, plus she was born in New Jersey so it's neat having someone from my home state star in the movies."

"Shut up cis amab racist, they should have cast black MTF trans POCs."

This is an actual conversation I've had with someone, and thankfully she was laughed out of the room. This stuff just does not sell, which is why these people go on social media to spread their BS; they just aren't accepted anywhere else. A great recent example is that idiot who is embarrassing the new Twitch Safety Council by pretending to be a deer, with the irony of all ironies being an MTF transsexual who now claims to be a deer but is always on stream wearing antlers. News flash -- female deer don't have antlers, genius. Are you telling us you're simply a moron, or are you you telling us that you're full of shit and that everyone is right to want you off of Twitch?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GCCz4RnRwg

This guy puts it best. It's the Emperor's New Clothes. Thankfully, even the internet is rejecting these people at record numbers.

Or how about the SJW idiot in New York yesterday who called the cops on a black dude for walking her dog off leash? I refuse to link to the video, but the short version is her dog is off leash in a park in New York, he asks her to leash it, and she freaks out and ''literally'' says she'll call the cops and tell them an African is threatening her and her dog. Her words, not mine. Oh, and during the entire phone call she is quite literally '''lynching her dog'''. That's why I refuse to link to it or even say the dumb bitch's name. The good news here is not only did more SJW trash expose the entire movement as being the ''actual'' intolerant racism of our time, but the entire internet banded together and gave her exactly what she deserved. I could rant on that story alone for another 5000 words, but I'll keep it short. Conservatives get accused of being racist 24/7, yet the actual intolerant racists in our culture are always exposed as being these liberal SJW Karen types. Political donations are public, lady. Of course you virtue signal for equality and then turn into a plantation owner the second a black guy isn't following your orders. Anyone that's honest with themselves and pays any attention at all knew this already, but we're getting way off topic here. I just saw that story today and it made me sick, plus it's related to my overall point of SJWs being garbage, but all of them are being rejected from our culture in all mediums these days.

Back to the point. Men have been saying they don't want this SJW nonsense in gaming for ages, especially if you're going to tell us how much we suck and how you want us dead all day. The issue was never needing great female characters. We all love them. The issue is, like I said, forced diversity and tearing others down while you do it. You cannot fight discrimination with discrimination and be morally correct in any way. Now women are on board with hating it all too, thank God, so the entire SJW nonsense is going to collapse in epic fashion. When even women aren't buying what they're selling anymore, when you lose the folks with the most buying power in our culture (women), the jig is up. This is why no one went to see Men In Black International, Birds of Prey, Ghostbusters 2016, Charlie's Angels 2019, Batwoman on CW, and a whole slew of other things.

Gaming is still in the beginning stages of getting rid of this garbage, in large part because the medium is so young and naive, but we ''are'' getting rid of it. The one good thing about this shitshow with The Last of Us 2 is the momentum for getting the SJW vomit out of video games has hit a breaking point. Again, I won't mention anything specific in the leaks, but they're so awful and it's done in such poor taste that even the people Neil Druckmann is trying to cater to are telling him what a piece of trash he is. Dude fucked up hard.

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