Results[]
Wednesday, December 9, 2015
Ulti's Analysis[]
| Division | Division 6 |
|---|---|
| Match # | 118 |
| Match Date | Wednesday, December 9, 2015 |
| Oracle Expectations |
Zelda: A Link to the Past - 59.71% 75 for - 0 against |
| GameFAQs Prediction |
Zelda: A Link to the Past - 36.52% |
Did you know that to this point, Majora's Mask had never lost 1v1 in a contest? It's true.
This match was the perfect indicator of exactly how long rally spillover lasts, which is exactly 90 minutes or so. The previous day had seen Undertale/Pokemon madness, which clearly spilled over into the next day. Maybe not Ocarina/SotN so much, but it was definitely felt here.
One can argue how close LTTP and Majora's Mask are "supposed" to be normally (which is logic I will never agree with, but whatever), but I think most people agreed that Link to the Past would easily win this match with minimal interference. Well for an hour and a half, Majora's Mask put the fear of god himself into Link to the Past. All that rallying that was going on in the previous match clearly favored Majora here, and Majora rode the wave all the way up to a 600 vote lead 90 minutes into the poll.
On top of rally spillover, Majora also had a clear picture advantage, it's been a great contest story since Game of the Decade, and it was the clear hipster option if you were one of those "really, we have to deal with 3 Zelda games hogging the contest at one time?" types. Had Majora retained this momentum, it would have been a really cool upset. It also would have made for a hilarious match next round between Ocarina and Majora's Mask.
Unfortunately, Majora's Mask luck would run out, and its lead would disappear slowly and painfully before getting buried. Link to the Past slowly whittled the lead all the way down overnight, and it caught up right as the morning vote hit. The morning vote would clearly favor Link to the Past, and a 50-50 match entering the morning vote would turn into a very comfortable 52-48 win.
Link to the Past may have won, but Majora's Mask was the star of the show and sacrificing itself to show us exactly how long rally spillover lasts was very kind. I think Majora did it intentionally just to show us there was a larger force at work !!
But seriously, three Zelda games at the same time was completely silly. It's not their fault as the games are strong, but when it does finally come to fruit it is mighty boring to watch. But thanks to the series cannibalizing itself, only two games from the Zelda series made the final 8. It easily could have been 3 or 4 with better draws elsewhere, so we should be thankful.
Ctes' Analysis[]
I understand that Majora's Mask kinda being a defending champion would make you want to pick it in an upset, but despite what some people like to think, it's leagues behind Ocarina of Time, so naturally it would never going to stand a chance facing A Link to the Past in a one against one match. A Link to the Past is a highly respected and very successful Zelda game, the king of the 2D games in fact and with a high playrate to go. Majora's Mask is the lowest selling home console Zelda, that was released within the end of its console's lifetime and greatly stood in the shadows of its fellow Nintendo 64. It has a cult following due to being quite a bit different from your usual Zelda. With darker tones, an incredibly high amount of side-questing and unusual but brilliant time system, Majora's Mask really became something else.
The game is not obscure by any means, and having a notable part of the fanbase favor it certainly helps, but due to the reasons mentioned about, it falls a bit behind the top Zelda games, which are the ones remaining after this round. It don't doubt for a second it would beat Wind Waker and Twilight Princess at the very least on our site, but I didn't doubt for a second it would lose today either. It had cemented itself as a solid third place here when it comes to Zelda games. Personally, I find Majora's Mask to be one of the most unique gaming experiences I have had, which I consider really impressive considering it's actually just another game of a big Nintendo franchise and those don't really ever seem that different in their core. Although it comes with a small amount of dungeons and some backtracking, the game has a fantastic atmosphere and feels a lot more alive the by far the most games ever created. Every NPC is doing their own stuff, they're living on their own, regardless of what you're doing and when, they have their schedules set, which they follow around you. The high amount of side quests is a perfect way to truly experience this. Obviously most games can't pull this off for tons of reasons, but the three day system is a brilliant way of making such a thing work. I'll also give the game credit for being surprisingly challenging for a Nintendo game and while it has few dungeons, it has what is the best dungeon in the series. I am of course talking about the Stone Tower Temple.
Now, despite this match being a no brainer, it was surprisingly close actually. For quite a while, the match was favoring Majora's Mask big time due to rally spillover from RBY vs. Undertale, where I'm sure both fanbases greatly prefer the more recent Zelda. With rally and spillover numbers being as relatively large as they are, Majora's Mask jumped off to a huge lead likely causing a bunch of people that never doubted A Link to the Past before to do just that. Although it was obviously spillover, I doubt blame anybody for getting a scare. In just a minute, Majora's Mask had a 100 vote lead, that's quite terrifying in our contests. Of course, as people realized Undertale had finished its job, the rallies slowly disappeared and the spillover with it, so Majora's Mask's income quickly decreased in amount. It kept gaining for almost one and a half hour, managing to go just beyond a 600 vote lead, but then A Link to the Past started cutting and it was practically over. Without spillover, A Link to the Past was just going to win by less than 1000 votes, this was nothing. Despite taking its sweet time and losing occasional updates, A Link to the Past was getting the job done. It took the lead just before the 7 hour mark and never looked back.
I guess spillover made an otherwise boring day interesting for just a short time, which is probably the best I can say about it. Although I would've been terribly annoyed had spillover actually flipped a match, but as I said, these two games were never close. It's difficult with Zelda games in these things. I don't know if Allen thought better of Majora's Mask, but while I understand feeding A Link to the Past, Majora's Mask could have probably seen better bracket placement. Of course, I'm very happy it didn't, because a certain SNES games proved to be a lot stronger than we thought last round and provided my favorite match of the contest against Majora's Mask is a shockingly close match. It's interesting. Two contests in a row, Majora's Mask had the best of the contest and barely won it too. With that in mind, it's a happy farewell to our Game of the Decade champion.