Results[]
Sunday, April 26, 2020
Ulti's Analysis[]
| Division | Division 7 |
|---|---|
| Match # | 109 |
| Match Date | Sunday, April 26, 2020 |
| Oracle Expectations |
Dark Souls - 64.22% 49 for - 0 against |
| GameFAQs Prediction |
Dark Souls - 56.17% |
| User Votes |
Dark Souls - 5533 Metal Gear Solid V - 3135 |
| Anonymous Votes |
Dark Souls - 4405 Metal Gear Solid V - 2707 |
Did you guys know that these two games had a match in round 2 in the 2015 contest? https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6136-best-game-ever-day-22-round-2-metal-gear-solid-v-vs-dark
In case you didn't know, don't worry, that poll was posted somewhere between 500 and 176,000 times in the leadup to this match. For a bit of context instead of just directly comparing that match to this one and thinking we were all stupid back in 2015, MGS5 came out in September of 2015 and the Fall 2015 Contest was announced just over a month later. 75% of the gurus picked MGS5 to beat Dark Souls that year, for several reasons. MGS5 was a hot, new release in a series this site loved at the time, and Dark Souls was still relatively brand new. Before the 2015 contest, this was the entirety of what we had to go off of for Souls in contests: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/4079-northeast-division-round-1-demons-souls-vs-mega-man-9
That's it. One match. I'm frankly still blown away by how easily Dark Souls won that match in 2015, and I love seeing how far Souls has come since then. That contest, paired with KP constantly telling me to check the games out, is why I finally gave in and played Demon's Souls in 2016. I'm glad I did! I became a huge series fan, and it's more proof that when KP tells you to play something, you fucking go play it. No questions asked. The man's recommendations are peerless.
Let's fast forward to now. A lot has changed in gaming since 2015. Konami went all fuck-all on us, and the Souls series, along with Western RPGs, has become the defining gaming trend of the decade. In 2015, 75% of gurus picked Metal Gear Solid 5. In 2020, all but one guru picked Dark Souls to win here. The lone holdout didn't even pick MGS5. He picked Rocket League. That's.... pretty good insight into how far Metal Gear Solid has fallen around these parts, actually.
This match was never going to be in question. The only thing to know was exactly how far Metal Gear Solid 5 fell. The answer, as we now know, is 8%. That's a pretty crazy drop in only five years, but I think we're all smart enough to know that it's a combination of both the Souls series going up and Metal Gear Solid going down. How much of that 8% gets assigned to either factor is anyone's guess, and I doubt it matters much anyway. Who is their right mind going to pick anything related to Metal Gear Solid in a debated match anymore?
Ctes's Analysis[]
This match had the honor of being our only repeat of the contest, which does not often happen, but then we had a Game of the Decade contest happening five years after the latest games contest instead of a year later like the first one did. As such it was not exactly exciting. Last time they met, Metal Gear Solid V was the favorite, but Dark Souls managed to pull off the upset in a 55-45 match. No one thought Dark Souls could drop it this time. Even if you didn’t think Dark Souls boosted the slightest bit, there was no way Metal Gear Solid V would be even the slightest bit stronger. The best it could hope for was to not drop any further.
The difference is almost 8%. I expect most of it to be Dark Souls boosting. The Souldborne games have continued to grow in popularity, and more importantly, we had seen countless times by now that the title of the contest coupled with the forced voting helped certain games and Dark Souls is among the most defining games of the decade.
I don’t expect Metal Gear Solid V to drop that much. It might sound weird, but the game was simply not as well received as the others in the franchise at any point. Nothing has actually happened since last games contest. Though it’s hard to imagine Metal Gear Solid V not dropping at least a little bit. Then franchise name helps it a bit, but it should grow weaker as time goes by.
I believe what happened with Kojima and Konami especially centering around Metal Gear is among the most unfortunate and frustrating things to happen to the gaming industry. There’s a good chance that all four of the first games would place in my top 20 games of all time. They’re that great. There was plenty of reason to think Kojima could make more Metal Gear masterpieces if all that didn’t happen. Even if they wouldn’t all be A++ games, I hate to think of what could have been.
Safer777's Analysis[]
So the exact same match happened in the previous contest 5 years ago and DS won with 55 there. And back then MGS 5 had recently come out so yeah no chance here. So of course DS won with an even higher percentage than expected. As I said before people care less and less for MGS series as time moves on.
So for the match. Well as I said before the match was pretty easy to predict since MGS series has gotten weaker when DS series has become stronger. Funny thing is that for the fandom of the MGS series they consider MGS 5 at the bottom. I do wonder why. I mean it is the latest game so it has to be good right? Plus strange how in almost all series here in Gamefaqs we usually consider the newer games to be not as good as the previous ones yet we still buy them of course. It does makes sense right? But yeah Souls like games are really popular and the gaming community likes them. So there are a lot of people who are not filthy casuals it seems. Now why MGS series keep falling though? Sure the main guy that made them left but still we are talking about a legendary series with MGS 1 considered a Top Tier PS 1 game and a game that influenced so many other games. In a few years I expect the MGS games to be jobbers then? The prediction percentage was really high too.
Tsunami's Analysis[]
Dark Souls's prediction percentage of 56.17% feels awfully low here, considering this is a rematch of a match it won fairly comfortably in 2015 and MGSV was the favorite to make it this far. Still, I suppose it can't be helped; it was only at 72.23% to win in R2, and MGSV was lower than that.
Still, the Oracle predictions are very telling as to what our expectations of these games' trajectories have been. In 2015, Dark Souls beat Metal Gear Solid V with 55.4% of the vote in a match where Oracles were fairly split on who'd even win, favoring Dark Souls a mere 45-42. In 2020, the lowest prediction anyone made for Dark Souls was 57.24%, and that person avoided last place because three people picked Dark Souls to break 70%. It's clear that Dark Souls was where it was at. But who would win the Dark Souls-Skyrim and Dark Souls/Skyrim-Witcher 3 matches? Only time would tell (oh, and I guess there was probably still some support for The Last of Us > Dark Souls, but it was waning quickly.)