Results[]
Tuesday, December 8, 2015
Ulti's Analysis[]
| Division | Division 4 |
|---|---|
| Match # | 116 |
| Match Date | Tuesday, December 8, 2015 |
| Oracle Expectations |
Super Mario 64 - 59.11% 76 for - 0 against |
| GameFAQs Prediction |
Super Mario 64 - 26.18% |
This match took a complete back seat to the Pokemon/Undertale madness, and for good reason. Any prayer Skyrim had of winning this match disappeared when it struggled to beat Metroid Prime, and frankly it was lucky to beat Prime at all. Come this match, it would be time to meet its maker.
It's cool how this match barely changed even with two separate rallies going on, which I'm not at all joking about. Sure it makes for a boring match and a boring writeup, but seeing this match stay in the 61-39 range even amidst two rallies that would seemingly favor Mario was rather impressive. Mario had every reason to spike up into an absurd percentage here, but it never happened.
It was ho-hum Mario victory to boot the Elder Scrolls series from the contest, but even in losing Skyrim made a good effort. 39% on Mario 64 is not a number to be embarrassed about, and this poll only got 7000 less votes than the poll people actually cared about. That's pretty good for these two, all things considered, and it showed that multiple polls per day is a format that should definitely continue in these contests. Despite a lot of whining about it, no match's result changed because of a neighboring poll. Sure it might happen down the line, but that's part of the fun. We're back to the 2002 era where bracketmaking is largely about common sense picks, smart guesswork and cheering on favorites. It's tournaments as they were meant to be.
This would set up the potentially ridiculous FF7/Melee/Undertale/Mario 64 day, which wouldn't pan out into anything ridiculous but it was still very fun to speculate about four simultanous rallies.
Ctes' Analysis[]
This match was never in doubt at any point of the contest and Skyrim never allowed above 40% made it a boring one too. Don't let the numbers fool you though. Super Mario 64 was heavily favored by the rallies from the other match. It started out almost doubling Skyrim, then fell in percentage for most of the day, though kept gaining as well. When Undertale finally started destroying RBY, Super Mario 64 gained in percentage for the remaining of the match. There is not doubt in my mind that Skyrim breaks 40% in different circumstances. That means in a match not affected by rallying.
Breaking 40% wouldn't exactly make it a good match, far from actually. But it shows that Skyrim is legit, which is darn impressive for any Western game, but especially one from this decade. Had Skyrim been in contests when our votals were greater, in other words, when NostalgiaFAQs wasn't as great, it would've been a stronger threat than Fallout 3 in Game of the Decade for sure. Lose to Brawl back then, it probably would, but it'd be a lot stronger than it is now. If the site gets redeemed a bit in this regard, Skyrim is a game to look out for. If a second Game of the Decade contest comes, I guarantee that Skyrim will be a top contender, though I have a hard time seeing a non-Nintendo actually taking the title unless it's a game with huge outside rallies, so expect Skyrim to see the semi-finals or maybe finals depending on bracket placement.
Skyrim had the unfortunate placement this contest of being right after an Undertale match every single round until it actually shares poll space with Undertale. This never really seemed to favor Skyrim, though in the second round it at least didn't favor its opponent either. With that said, it's great that Skyrim was ultimately unaffected by this. It's first two opponents were too weak for Skyrim to be bothered by spillover and it did overcome a spillover boosted Metroid Prime as well. Getting blown out today sucks, but it was never going to win this one. This is good for our already bad reputation on the outside when it comes to these contests. Despite being due to outside rallies, had Skyrim lost early, that wouldn't exactly make people look less down on us for favoring older games. This doesn't matter against Super Mario 64, that one was a big revolutionary game that is very popular today too in particular among speed runners.
As for Super Mario 64, it managed to get to the point everyone expected it to get, though it wouldn't lose to what anyone expected it to. It could've had an interesting match then perhaps, but would never be the favorite in it. At this point, it was pretty clear that it would lose easily. At least it would be the only Mario game in the Mario gauntlet to actually reach the point where it could've met another Mario game and it got a few rounds further too, so despite pretty clearly being the weakest of the three, it can take that achievement with it.