Results[]
Ulti's Analysis[]
| Division | Tournament Semi Final |
|---|---|
| Match # | 30 |
| Match Date | Monday, July 31st, 2006 |
| Vote difference | 10,221 |
| Oracle Expectations |
Final Fantasy - 59.37% 113 for - 1 against |
| GameFAQs Prediction |
Final Fantasy - 62.64% (28,938 brackets) |
Don't let the final result of this match fool you; this contest was done and over one hour into the Final Four match precluding the Zelda/FF final.
It's not even the fact that Mario did well, either. Mario did well following a damn-near collapse against Super Smash Brothers. All talk of Mario pulling off a miracle died during that match. Three days later, "WTF, Mario isn't SFFing Smash?" turned into whining about Final Fantasy actually winning. It was that drastic a turnaround. And why wouldn't it have been? People were itching like mad for a huge upset in this contest, and had Mario actually pulled this off, all of the 18 or so perfects would have fallen.
Early in the match, Mario took the board vote. This was expected, because ****in' everything takes the board vote against Final Fantasy in these things. I'll never understand it. The catch is that this wasn't any normal board vote. Mario jumped ahead by 250 after 15 minutes; even if this was solely an anti-FF board vote, a lead that large for that long meant far more than CATS leading Cloud for a few seconds. Mario was making a serious run at actually winning the match, which is something that very few people took seriously pre-contest. Hell if anyone mentioned the possibility of Final Fantasy not winning this contest in the stats topic, the standard wave of elitist snobs were more than quick to shoot said posts down. Because really, Mario and Zelda had little chance of taking down the "OMG most powerful force we've ever seen in a contest!1". Because really, a year-old match between Mario and Sephiroth was 100% indicative of how a match between the two series of the characters would go after a massive influx of vote totals. Because really, Mario the series scoring 46.76% against Sephiroth and everything else in the FF series, one year after Mario the character scored 43.93% on Sephiroth himself I might add, didn't spell utter doom for Final Fantasy in the next round. Mario the series scoring higher on FF than Mario did on Sephy kind of made the final obvious to me, but what do I know. I, along with everyone else that saw the inevitable of tomorrow, had to sit through 24 hours' worth of Final Fantasy supporters clamoring complete nonsense about how Mario and Zelda are equal enough in strength pre-SFF for FF to win in the final.
People seriously will spout anything to defend their bracket, I swear.
It's actually funny. Final Fantasy saw Mario's 260 vote lead and cute struggle to hold it, then went berserk during the day vote to win by over 10000 votes. And it mattered not, because Final Fantasy had zero chance to win this contest after that first hour. If Mario (a series that hasn't proven itself to be in FF's league ever since Mario/Cloud in 2002) could pull that off, what damage would Zelda be capable of?
Even funnier is that the various scoring records set in this match would last one day. One.
Match Trends[]
