Results[]
Round Two
Ulti's Analysis[]
| Division | Division 1 |
|---|---|
| Match # | 65 |
| Match Date | Saturday, November 21, 2015 |
| Oracle Expectations |
Chrono Trigger - 76.20% 92 for - 0 against |
| GameFAQs Prediction |
Chrono Trigger - 82.20% |
Dragon Quest 8 pulled a cute little guru upset in round 1, which is nice. It got some nice little contest buzz, and that was all well and good. But round 2 is usually when contest entrants like this eat their loss, if not round 3 with some insanely lucky bracket placement. Chrono Trigger is a whole different animal than Persona 3, and this contest's version of Chrono Trigger was on some serious steroids.
Akira Toriyama SFF jokes aside, Chrono Trigger just absolutely fucking demolished Dragon Quest 8 in this match. There may have been some SFF here, but you don't just randomly break 80% after round 1 of a contest. I'm sure people will ask for a list of 1v1 contest matches from round 2 and onward where the winner broke 80%, so here you go!
http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/986-west-division-round-2-mega-man-vs-serious-sam
http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/987-west-division-round-2-sephiroth-vs-crash-bandicoot
http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/988-north-division-semifinals-mario-vs-donkey-kong
http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/1337-north-division-round-2-link-vs-fox-mccloud
http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/1348-south-division-round-2-max-payne-vs-sephiroth
http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/1635-division-8-round-2-donkey-kong-vs-the-legend-of-zelda
http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/1641-division-32-round-2-final-fantasy-vii-vs-xenogears
http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/1750-hyrule-division-round-2-link-vs-ganondorf
http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/1758-midgar-division-round-2-cloud-strife-vs-vyse
http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/1765-chaos-division-round-2-sam-fisher-vs-samus-aran
http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/2098-mushroom-division-round-2-mario-vs-ness
http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/2441-hyrule-division-semifinal-the-legend-of-zelda-vs-mega-man-x
http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/2445-mushroom-division-semifinal-super-mario-bros-vs-warcraft
http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/2449-hyrule-division-final-the-legend-of-zelda-vs-metroid
http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/4542-north-division-round-2-mario-vs-bowser-ike-vs-black-knight
http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/4550-south-division-round-2-link-vs-ganondorf-amaterasu-vs-orochi
http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/6115-best-game-ever-day-17-round-2-chrono-trigger-vs-dragon-quest
Including this very match, 80% or more has only happened 17 times. A good deal of those matches listed are SFF, too. For a decent anecdote, Mario 3 couldn't break 80% on Metroid in the Spring 2004 games contest. It is not easy to do.
With SFF removed, we can make the case that only the following matches saw 80% broken naturally from round 2 and onward.
http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/986-west-division-round-2-mega-man-vs-serious-sam
http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/1348-south-division-round-2-max-payne-vs-sephiroth
http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/1758-midgar-division-round-2-cloud-strife-vs-vyse
http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/1765-chaos-division-round-2-sam-fisher-vs-samus-aran
http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/2445-mushroom-division-semifinal-super-mario-bros-vs-warcraft
http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/6115-best-game-ever-day-17-round-2-chrono-trigger-vs-dragon-quest
You could make the case that Cloud > Vyse and CT > DQ8 are SFF, but I'll disagree just for the sake of proving a point here. Six non-SFF matches where 80% got broken from round 2 and onward is completely nuts. Chrono Trigger was on fire this contest.
The case can be made that round 1 was whatever. You can't make that case when it happens twice in a row, and the parallel here was Mega Man in 2002. Mega Man pulling those two blowouts was unexpected and hilarious, as was the board reaction. Fast forward 13 years, and you finally got another case where something pulled off two hilarious and unexpected blowouts in a row. Chrono Trigger got a ton of hype after this, and for good reason. This was the same kind of mojo that caused Kobe Bryant to score 81 points. You just don't see this very often.
It wouldn't get stuck facing Sephiroth in round 3, either. Final Fantasy X was clearly a winnable match, given how badly it was embarrassed by Mega Man X. And by "winnable", I mean "holy shit, we were so not ready for what would happen next".
Ctes' Analysis[]
This result was absolutely insane to watch. No game is supposed to go out and score 82% in round 2 to begin with, that's too much. Then against Dragon Quest VIII, which isn't even a weak game. Persona 3 isn't exactly strong, but DQVIII easily took care of it last round and looked good doing so. Now it's looking close to Up Your Arsenal. The biggest thing about this though was that it was coming from Chrono Trigger. It wasn't Ocarina of Time or Final Fantasy VII blasting through competition here (even though the latter doing so would be a pleasant surprise at this point). It also wasn't Mario or Pokemon or any of the big names. It was Chrono Trigger. This old game not connected to any others. The game that might've beaten a bunch of Mario games to get to the finale in 2004, but kept losing to Super Mario 64 in 2009 while embarrassing its way out of competition.
Chrono Trigger was in god mode. This result pitted it as one of the absolute strongest games of all on this site. It was looking like a threat to even Ocarina of Time today. One might argue that there was some SFF in this match, but how much of that have we seen this contest? Close to none at all. Besides that, they're not that closely connected. Different platforms from different companies and in different generations. This is just Chrono Trigger being a beast. How far it could get was debatable, but there was no way Final Fantasy X would get past it the following round. Chrono Trigger was the definite favorite to get out of the division and people started debated how a Chrono Trigger vs. Final Fantasy VII match would go. It was difficult to see Square fans siding with Chrono Trigger in that one, but it looked too good today for it to seem impossible.