Results[]
Wednesday, December 16, 2015
Ulti's Analysis[]
"2009 Rematch"
Allen was nice enough to give us 4 simultaneous bonus polls after this contest, and while none of the matches were particularly good, bonus polls is always better than no bonus polls.
The last of them was a good old fashioned Ocarina vs FF7 duel, and just for posterity's sake, let's pull up every contest match featuring these two (we're not counting the villains or series contest here, just direct matches:
http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/1659-division-final-final-fantasy-vii-vs-the-legend-of-zelda
http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/3508-contest-final-ffvii-zelda-lttp-zelda-oot-ffx
http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/3509-contest-bonus-final-fantasy-vii-vs-zelda-ocarina-of-time
http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/6181-best-game-ever-bonus-final-fantasy-vii-vs-zelda-ocarina-of
Two were bonus polls, but still, Ocarina is now 3-1 against FF7 directly and the result grows more and more in Ocarina's favor with each passing year. FF7 looked great early in this contest, especially with remake hype and Cloud being in Smash 4, but then the episodic announcement murdered FF7's momentum. The final nail in that coffin was Ocarina damn near breaking 40% on it, which would have happened without FF7's traditionally good day vote.
I like Ocarina and all, but as an FF7 fan who is currently playing the PS4 port and still loves the game to death, this was painful to watch. I don't mind the game losing, but seeing it this weak is tough. I don't know when or why it became cool to hate the game so much, but it really sucks. Final Fantasy 7 really is one of the best games ever, and deserves better than being Ocarina's bitch. If these two ever meet in another contest 1v1, I'm sure Ocarina will break 60%.
Not that this will happen, since FF7 has been routinely jobbing out, and with Tetsuya Nomura and Yoshinori Kitase being involved with an episodic remake, I have zero hope in that remake being any good. Their track record speaks for itself. I was hyped for that remake for about 5 minutes, but honestly, just let the game die with some dignity. FF7 in its original form is just fine as-is.
Ctes' Analysis[]
The third of our four bonus matches, labeled “Death By Rally”. A label that would've fit so many different matches this contest. Every single game that I would be interested in seeing in a bonus match lost that way, with A Link to the Past being the sole exception. That doesn't mean it shouldn't have been used as a label, but with that said, I think the games chosen could have been better. Also, while Super Mario 64 did lose to a rally, it felt a lot more like a natural match compared to Undertale's first four matches, which had it losing for quite a while and then making insane comebacks.
Super Mario World definitely seems like a better choice for this match. Switch it with any of the two in this match and we have a more exciting match. Even if it seems clear that RBY > World > 64 is the hierarchy, it'd be very nice to actually have the matches. RBY showed itself a step above the Mario games already when it was beating 3 prior to rally spillover and put up as good a fight against Undertale as it did. RBY does however most definitely deserve to have a bonus match. That's why I think RBY vs. Super Mario World would've been the best choice here. They lost the same way to Undertale and this would've been quite a bit closer. RBY didn't beat 3 by that much and 3 is probably only slightly weaker than World now, which is basically just due to being a NES game, it used to be the more popular of the two.
Speaking of that, having Super Mario Bros. 3 in a bonus match too would've been great, but I think perhaps Allen prefers having games that got far in the bonus matches. If you think the three big Mario games are roughly equals then that obviously favors 64 as the representative. I just think it's a step below the 2D games, which are probably closer in strength. It's somewhat unfortunate, the 2D Mario games only lost early because of incredibly unlucky bracket placement and thus their chances of appearing in these matches likely went away.
RBY is near elite, but I honestly don't think it rally swallow the contest. It's slightly stronger than the strongest Mario game, which still puts it below Ocarina of Time, Chrono Trigger and A Link to the Past at the very least. Then RBY can be rallied for, but only to some extend. At the biggest places, RBY is apparently despised. If needed, it can boost itself, but there's a very clear roof to that. Particularly because the Pokemon subreddit doesn't allow several threads about the same contest match. Putting it against one of the three aforementioned games would be very fun. For starters though, Super Mario World would've been more fun in this match.