Results[]
Monday, December 7, 2015
Ulti's Analysis[]
| Division | Division 2 |
|---|---|
| Match # | 114 |
| Match Date | Monday, December 7, 2015 |
| Oracle Expectations |
Final Fantasy VII - 56.40% 74 for - 2 against |
| GameFAQs Prediction |
Final Fantasy VII - 56.90% |
Pre-contest, this poll got thrown all over the place, and a lot of hype for a potential FF6 > FF7 upset was thrown around because of it: http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/5728-all-of-the-other-final-fantasy-games-aside-which-is-better
Early on in this poll, that upset was in striking distance. Final Fantasy 7 had a slim lead early, and Final Fantasy 6 was pushing back rather well. It was a close 53-47 affair for 10 minutes, but it was fool's gold before long. FF6 had simply won the board vote, and FF7 was just doing its usual thing of playing dead for 10 minutes before going off. The only chance FF6 had after that was Melee's rally favoring FF6 over FF7, but when the rally showed up, FF7 began to explode. A 53-47 match gradually turned into a 60-40 beatdown. One can wonder if FF6 could have pulled this upset without the rally, but I think it's more reminiscent of the Mario 3 vs Pokemon RBY match. I don't think there's enough evidence that FF6 would have won this match on its own, with or without an unrelated rally in another poll.
Hell of a fun for FF6 though, and seeing two of my all-time favorite games in a poll together filled me with determination. These two games, along with Super Mario RPG, got me into RPGs. There will always be a soft spot in my heart for them. I do wish FF6 had been a little closer here, but I have no complaints about FF7 doing well. Much love for both games all around from me!
The one down side here is that an intra-FF series match meant that Final Fantasy 7 was the last Final Fantasy game left in the bracket. It's probably my favorite series along with Fire Emblem and Smash Bros, but in the past few years of these contests I've been routinely disappointed by Final Fantasy's early exits. We were destined to see yet another one in this contest, too.
As a complete side note, as of this writing I'm playing the PS4 port of FF7. It's neat getting trophies for this game, and I'm loving the translation fixes and various cleanups that were done. "This guy are sick" was always idiotic, and the script is much, much cleaner now. Full marks for really fixing that game up, and it looks really nice on my HDTV. I don't know if they cleaned the graphics up, too, but yeah. Loving the trip down memory lane here.
Ctes' Analysis[]
I think what we can use this match for is confirmed once and for all how pointless any Poll of the Day is when it comes to predicting contests.
http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/5728-all-of-the-other-final-fantasy-games-aside-which-is-better
I'm sure everyone remembers that poll. It's the sole reason SBAllen set up this match probably. However, despite that poll having the outcome it did, this was never going to be interesting in the slightest. In fact, of the three #1 seed vs. #2 seed matches SBAllen set up, this would end up being the least interesting. Though the Zelda division final was only made interesting due to Undertale spillover. The Mario one was the most interesting, but sadly didn't happen as neither game reached that point.
There's just a huge difference between the people voting in every Poll of the Day and the people voting in contests. The first group is such a small part of GameFAQs' core. I'm sure a lot of us didn't even realize it was going on. I know for sure I wouldn't have known about it if it wasn't for the contest stats topics' existence. I don't even check those every day, I could have easily missed it. That takes away a lot of credibility from the poll. Luster made a point about the result coming from the poll title, as it asks which Final Fantasy is better, not which is your favorite, which is what is implied in contests. I really don't think so though. Most people don't really consider those two things different to begin with and furthermore, the game you consider better is almost always the one you like more too. I can see why the last 2D Final Fantasy would be “better” than the first 3D one, but I don't think it is, but as much as I like 2D Final Fantasy, the franchise had an excellent transition to 3D in my opinion.
I think the result just comes down to having a small selected group of GameFAQs voting. Perhaps you can consider it a very early sign at the success the SNES had this contest. The core of GameFAQs really likes that console and it was just the right group noticing this poll. I also think this was the peak of the Final Fantasy VII anti-voting. Just look at how the characters fared in 2013 and look at the game's performances now. It had clearly redeemed itself a bit. Final Fantasy VI has really improved too, but it's probably less of a difference since then. It should be noted that Final Fantasy VII likely wouldn't have broken 60% without the force of the Melee rally in the other match. That said, after Final Fantasy VI's great board vote, Final Fantasy VII was already rising fast before the rally kicked in. The rallied Melee people are also likely more “dronish” than the Undertale people, seeing as the latter's rallies were found on various social media and not necessarily always Undertale related profiles while Melee's rallies came from hardcore fans.
While the match certainly was a disappointing if you expected something after that poll, I don't think it should be complained about. It was expected all along by everyone who knew anything about contests and Final Fantasy VI got to prove itself before meeting its doom today. It seems pretty clear that it's the second strongest Final Fantasy now, which is quite the improvement. As for Final Fantasy VII, it looked like its run was gonna be cut shorter than originally anticipated, but not by Chrono Trigger as we thought until today. Instead, it seemed pretty clear that it would collapse completely to rallies and rally spillover, which is quite a shame seeing as it could've given us some really fun matches.