Results[]
Wednesday, December 16, 2015
Ulti's Analysis[]
"The Fallen #1 Seeds"
I'm on such autopilot and have done so many writeups for this contest that I actually had to go and look up the seedings for these two games, in a poll called "The Fallen #1 Seeds". It's true.
Allen was nice enough to give us 4 simultaneous bonus polls after this contest, and while none of the matches were particularly good, bonus polls is always better than no bonus polls.
The second bonus poll was Allen choosing two 1 seeds to face each other. Chrono Trigger's selection made sense, but FF6's inclusion here seemed a bit odd. For maximum possible variety given his poll titles for the bonus matches (third place, 1 seeds, death by rally, and 2009 rematch), he should have replaced FF6 with Skyrim here. It would have actually given us a western game in the bonus polls, and we would have seen Melee, SMRPG, Chrono Trigger, Skyrim, Pokemon RBYG, Mario 64, FF7, and Ocarina. That prevents the same series from popping up twice, and gives you a fighter, two SNES RPGs instead of three, a western RPG, a Pokemon game, a Mario game, a Zelda game, and a Final Fantasy game. FF6 being here is really the only bonus poll choice I took exception to, but still, it's just a bonus poll and I'll always appreciate getting some bonus polls.
Chrono Trigger predictably smashed FF6 here, and it's a wonder this wasn't a massive SFF beating on par with what always happens when FF7 and FF8 are in a poll together. It made for a neat comparison though, as FF7 scored 60.05% against FF6 in the actual contest. It really gives a lot of validation to those who think Chrono Trigger would beat FF7 1v1, and I agree with that prediction.
I don't agree that Chrono Trigger would beat Ocarina (or even Pokemon RBY) 1v1 however. Go look at the writeup for the final and please tell me how Chrono Trigger qualifies as a game that could beat Zelda and win a contest. Chrono Trigger is strong, but it takes the contest version of a natural disaster to prevent Zelda from winning. Chrono Trigger doesn't qualify. If nothing else, natural disasters are what always buries CT. The adjusted stats people keep throwing around have CT at 50% alone, which I can respect the effort for but I thoroughly disagree with it. I'd like to see a version of those stats with CT, Ocarina, and Pokemon RBY all adjusted to 50%. Or at least CT and Ocarina both adjusted to 50%.
Personally I think Ocarina gets at least 53% bare minimum on CT 1v1, and probably more like 55-60%. But hey, not my stats or my adjustments. You guys all know my thoughts on x-stats by now, anyway. Fun for comparisons and fun to mess with, but they are as unreliable as they've ever been. As yoblazer said and it's worth repeating: contests don't work that way anymore. Every match is its own.
Ctes' Analysis[]
The second of our four bonus matches, labeled “The Fallen #1 Seeds”. This is the one of bonus matches I felt was the biggest waste. I know we should be happy to just have had bonus matches and I am, but I do also think that now that we have them, we should make the most the most of them. Chrono Trigger was more or less the game we wanted to see in a bonus round match, where it could finally pitted against an elite game despite not being an “official contest match”. That opportunity was wasted big time. There was no doubt that Chrono Trigger was leagues ahead of Final Fantasy VI. Even taking a simple look at the contest results shows that. Chrono Trigger almost beat Melee, which easily beat Final Fantasy VII, which easily beat Final Fantasy VI. Usually, it takes more than that to get a real read of the games' strengths, but that's really all that was needed here.
I think perhaps Allen still regards Final Fantasy VI a bit too high, which is weird considering its match against Final Fantasy VII ended up being as boring as it was. Putting Chrono Trigger against another game would've just been a lot better. A Link to the Past preferably, but as I understand it, Allen needed to have a better reason for pitting games against each other than that experts would have like the match to happen. A Link to the Past wasn't a fallen #1 seed and I admit I don't know what I would label that one as myself. However, Super Mario Bros. 3 would've still been a better choice. Don't know if Allen thought it lost too early or whatever, but it would. He could also just put Chrono Trigger against RBY in the death to rally match, that would actually make sense. Putting against Super Mario World or Super Mario 64 also works. I mean, it would be a clear favorite against Super Mario 64 too especially, but at least it wouldn't have been as obvious as this one. It would at least be strong entities from two different companies, and we'd be able to compare to 2009 where Super Mario 64 knocked Chrono Trigger out of the contest to see how much Chrono Trigger has actually gained.
However, now that Final Fantasy VI did get a bonus match, we actually have an idea of how strong it is using Chrono Trigger. It was clear by now how little SFF matters. Final Fantasy VI is clearly stronger than Final Fantasy X now, which I'm quite certain wasn't the case at Best Game Ever II, and it's slightly below Melee. That does put it in the near elite pool I guess, though not as near to the elite as Allen probably believed it was. It will certainly be interesting to see it again.