Results[]
Sunday, April 12, 2020
Ulti's Analysis[]
| Division | Division 1 |
|---|---|
| Match # | 65 |
| Match Date | Sunday, April 12, 2020 |
| Oracle Expectations |
Zelda: Breath of the Wild - 80.43% 53 for - 0 against |
| GameFAQs Prediction |
Zelda: Breath of the Wild - 90.96% |
| User Votes |
Zelda: Breath of the Wild - 7768 Halo: Reach - 1415 |
| Anonymous Votes |
Zelda: Breath of the Wild - 6775 Halo: Reach - 1149 |
Zelda scoring an absurd blowout in round one was predictable. Doing the same in round 2 is some pretty rarified air. Since lists are fun, here is everything that's broken 80% in the first two rounds.
-Mega Man in Summer 2002 over Ms. Pac-Man and Serious Sam. The blue bomber broke 90% twice, which is a record that is never getting matched.
-Link in Summer 2003 over AiAi and Fox.
-Sephiroth in 2003 over Raziel and Max Payne.
-Zelda 1 in Spring 2004 over Adventure and Donkey Kong.
-Final Fantasy 7 in Spring 2004 over Suikoden 2 and Xenogears.
-Link in Summer 2004 over CATS and Ganondorf.
-Cloud in Summer 2004 over Duke Nukem and Vyse.
-Samus in Summer 2004 over Lara Croft and Sam Fisher. (God the Summer 2004 Contest sucked.)
-Mario in Summer 2005 over Joanna Dark and Ness.
-Zelda over Civilization and Mega Man X in the series contest. This one broke 80% in round 3 against Metroid, too.
-Mario over Madden and Warcraft in the series contest.
-Mario and Bowser over Earthworm Jim/Slug and Ike/Black Knight in that godawful rivalry rumble.
-Link and Ganondorf over Arthas/Illidan and Amaterasu/Orochi in the rivalry rumble.
-Chrono Trigger over Ratchet & Clank 3 and Dragon Quest 8 in Fall 2015.
-1998 isn't in this club, technically, because it broke 80% in rounds 1 and 3 over 1993 and 2003. In round 2, it did not break 80% on 1992. Just typing this sentence is ridiculous because that contest was awful.
That's the entire list, and it gets far more exclusive once we discuss round 3. It's pretty rarified air to get 80% twice in a row, and almost impossible to do it three times in a row. We all expected Zelda to go crazy here, but not this crazy. The oracle consensus undershot this match by 4%, and who can blame them? 85% in round 2 is insane, and this match really brought home how dominant a favorite Breath of the Wild was. It was around here where people realized that even a CD Projekt Red rally in the final might not slow this thing down at all. Halo pulled off a cute win in round 1, but that's all it was. Nice to know you, bro.
We've compared Zelda to a lot of things over the years -- my favorite comparison is the New England Patriots, because beating them feels like divine intervention -- but I found the best comparison yet. I finally got around to watching No Country For Old Men, and Zelda in these contests is Anton Chigurh -- a dominant, cold, ruthless killer that just does not care about anything other than the mission. You never really get the better of Zelda. You can only delay the inevitable if you're in the crosshairs.
But Zelda is a fair assassin. It's not undefeated. It just feels undefeated.
"Call it."
Ctes's Analysis[]
This is an insane score to get in round 2. Breath of the Wild had absolutely no need to prove itself and yet it completely destroyed its competition once again by almost as much. I was tempted to fear Breath of the Wild was good enough to just slaughter whatever it came across, but that’s obviously not the case. It’s insane to keep doing this for a game that everyone with just the slightest bit of contest knowledge knew would be the winner. It also appeared that The Outer Worlds was fine and could’ve beaten something like Life is Strange too, but something had to get Breath of the Wild. Halo finished last in the x-stats of any game in round 2, so Breath of the Wild did have luck on its side looking good. Halo wasn’t really considered when figuring out what the weakest round 2 game might be.
Halo: Reach is probably also yet another easy game to score a big blowout against just for being a Halo game. It could use its bracket votes and name to beat something like Life is Strange, but no one really cares about Halo anymore and Reach is a decade old already. I wonder if we’ll even see a Halo game next contest, but the original one might keep getting in on its name, I suppose. There’s a much bigger chance that fans of Life is Strange will keep getting that one back in again despite finishing so low in the x-stats twice, because that one actually has a small but very dedicated fanbase. I can’t remember seeing any Halo fans for a very long time, so if they’re still out there, they sure aren’t vocal about it.
Safer777's Analysis[]
Round 2 baby! And a huge win from BOTW. Now I did expected HR to break 20%. Sure we don't care about Halo anymore but still. But man BOTW did almost the same win percentage as it did in Round 1! After so many years and I still can't understand why people really like the Zelda games above all the rest so much. They are really good games yeah but man the story is almost always the same plus the personalities of the characters sucks. I mean the main guy doesn't even talk! And I can't think any other big franchise where the main character doesn't talk. And no Persona and Dragon Quest don't count since every game has different characters anyways there. You hear that people like good stories and characters but I guess since these series/characters are so old and they were that way from the start it doesn't really counts here. I guess though it is familiarity, I mean you buy a Zelda game, you know what to expect. Still people like their Nintendo on this site!
So for the match. Well BOTW dominated. The crew had BOTW under 80% which I expected too but no, almost 85%. It seems the only thing that can beat a Zelda game is another Zelda game. Or a rally. Man do you know that once upon a time Master Chief has reached a Semifinal match on a contest on our site without rallies? Yeah true story! Check it out! Now he would be lucky to reach Round 2! Man we really hate Halo now. Still a huge win for BOTW and well deserved.
Tsunami's Analysis[]
Breath of the Wild set a new contest high for votes received in a match, which is honestly kind of amazing given how lopsided so many Round 1 matches were. Then again, one of the truisms of the board is "there's rallying in every close match". This does indeed appear to be the first day to have over 26000 total votes, so there probably was some rallying going on, and since voters have to vote in all four matches (even though the totals never come out quite equal, because there is some way around that if you know what you're doing), it meant that Breath of the Wild got to pile on Halo: Reach even more. No one was complaining.