Results[]
Friday, April 24, 2020
Ulti's Analysis[]
| Division | Division 5 |
|---|---|
| Match # | 105 |
| Match Date | Friday, April 24, 2020 |
| Oracle Expectations |
The Witcher 3 - 61.29% 50 for - 3 against |
| GameFAQs Prediction |
The Witcher 3 - 65.39% |
| User Votes |
The Witcher 3 - 5488 Super Mario Galaxy 2 - 3768 |
| Anonymous Votes |
The Witcher 3 - 5372 Super Mario Galaxy 2 - 3094 |
== External Links ==
For five minutes, this had the potential to be one of the funniest matches of the entire contest. Here was Witcher 3, pasting fools from the west through two rounds, finally going up against a big-name Nintendo title and falling flat on its face. Through the first five minutes of this poll, it was outright tied, and it truly did look like the first two rounds were fool's gold. "Yeah that's cute Geralt, but this is GameFAQs, call me when you show up against Mario or Link."
And then the next few updates hit, and it became clear we were dealing with a whole new breed of contest badass. Embarrassing Assassin's Creed Odyssey or Mass Effect 3 is one thing. Embarrassing Mario is something else entirely. In a way, it was almost more impressive for Witcher 3 to finally get punched in the mouth before returning to blowout mode than it would have been for Geralt to just steamroll into the finals. On this site, you don't have your stripes until you beat a major Nintendo contest entrant. For this match to be tied at the freeze and end up a 60-40 blowout was awesome, though it did give some hope that maybe this thing was beatable before the final.
Quick note on Galaxy 2 before we move on. The two Mario Galaxy games get hyped up every time they're in a contest, and neither one of them ever really comes through in a debated match. Here are some examples:
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3492-division-8-round-2-ssbb-gta4-cod-4-s-mario-g
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6064-best-game-ever-day-4-super-mario-galaxy-2-vs-mass-effect
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6137-best-game-ever-day-22-round-2-super-metroid-vs-super-mario
I'd mention the Twilight Princess loss, but I don't recall anyone really saying Galaxy 1 could win that match.
The point here is in hearing people talk about these two games, you'd think they were on the level of Mario 64 or better. They should be at that upper echelon of Mario games, but they're crippled by the awful motion controls and disorienting perspective. For everything those games do well -- and when they're on, they're both incredible video games -- it can't be overstated just how much people detest motion controls. It's the tragic flaw in two otherwise brilliant games, and we see that play out in these polls. The second either one of those games can fold, they usually do.
Ctes's Analysis[]
This is one of those matches where both games manage to look impressive magically. The Witcher 3 once again proved it was not going to have any trouble anytime soon. A few people feared a Nintendo game would run wild where they were kept out, similar to what Super Mario RPG did in 2015 and Galaxy 2 was an obvious candidate. It didn’t get close. The Witcher 3 showed its mortality, but still broke 60% against a huge fan favorite game that is often depicted as the 3D Mario of best level design.
At the same time it was the first time it was down to earth, and it’s probably what kept people believing it could be upset by Persona 5 or Dark Souls, although it was probably more often than not that people just wanted to see it happen. Super Mario Galaxy 2 would need to have boosted since 2015 where it was fine but nothing spectacular, otherwise The Witcher 3 might be in trouble later on. Given how the first two rounds went, no one really doubted both boosted. Ironically it was right next to The Witcher 3 in the x-stats back then, which just proves how much stronger The Witcher 3 has become.
Super Mario Galaxy 2 is criminally underrated in its seeding. In pure strength it’s most likely a #1 seed, the x-stats suggest this, even after adjustments. It’s also even more unfortunate by not being placed in an eight pack it could upset out of. It would scare most #1 seeds more than this and outright beat some of them. It would beat every single #2 seed and #3 seed except most likely fellow Mario game Super Mario Odyssey. Mario’s punishment for once again being set up as a contest villain in 2018 was perhaps the most ridiculously unfair bracket placement of a franchise ever.
Regardless of that it makes me happy to see Super Mario Galaxy 2 get the respect it deserves when we look at contest stats in the end. The board seems to feel the same because this match was dead even until the update after the freeze. Although it feels like a late 00s game, it came out in this decade and it’s my favorite Game of the Decade by a decent margin. It perfects 3D platformers and the few games of all time that I believe I like better are all really hard to compare to because they’re so different from it. I could spend a lot of time praising the game, but there’s not much contest analysis in that.
Safer777's Analysis[]
So the first real match for Witcher 3. The previous 2 opponents were 2 WRPG's which are open world and such so all are kinda similar. But now facing against one of the best Mario games of all time. Much more difficult of course. So people said that anything above 60 would be good to have this game reaching the final round. And guess what, it did score above 60. Barely.
So for the match. At the 5 minutes mark the games were TIED! Damn! But Witcher 3 won with like 60! So raising by 10 percent without a rally a gainst a main Mario game has to be some kind of a record! So yeah Witcher 3 is legit. Man imagine the hype when we see the first info for Witcher 4. Yeah they had said back then that they wouldn't make another one, but let us be real, only people who hate money wouldn't do that. So yeah. The Witcher 3 is the open world game that all other open world games compare themselves too. From 2011 to 2015 it was Skyrim, from 2015 it is The Witcher 3. It still hasn't been surpassed. Yeah the game is that good. Just play it if you don't have it. Oh and also NO microtransctions and 2 expansions, 1 of them lasts longer than more modern games. Yeah, imagine that! I guess companies can still do that! Wihout really caring that much about money, and caring most about the players! Greed is bad companies. I know!
Tsunami's Analysis[]
Well, what do you know. "It's Freaking Mario" still has some juice after all. After the godstomping that Witcher 3 put up in Round 2, it looked like it was a near lock to make the Finals, but it's clear that Mass Effect 3 was just horribly overrated. Which, granted, was inevitable given that it was Undertale's R1 opponent, but...okay, let's just try to figure this out. Let's assume that Octopath > Undertale wasn't anti-votes due to what Undertale did in 2015, and it's just that weak. I think I kind of like that better, not because I want it to be weak, but because I'd like to think that it'd be treated more like L-Block than Draven. I know I for one am far madder about Draven in 2013 than Undertale in 2015. Undertale's cool; the whole deconstruction of "random encounters are there to level grind on" is pretty awesome. But if you consider Undertale just that weak, it's certainly possible that Mass Effect 3 slaughtering it before the rallies came really wasn't that impressive, especially when you consider that Undertale's natural strength probably would've been even lower in 2015 because of how new it was. Yes, games tend to get weaker as they age, but Undertale's an indie game, which means it relies on word of mouth to get noticed and build a fanbase. For a lot of us, the 2015 contest was our first exposure to Undertale.
Anyway, this was the match that killed my Guru bracket, because hype backlash. I absolutely loathe SMG2, but it seemed to be fairly well-regarded here, at least in comparison with SMG1 and SMS. So it not being as hated as I'd like it to be tricked my brain into thinking it was really well-loved. Also, this is OldFAQs, so a Wii game seemed like a safe bet, the way an N64 game won the first GotD.