Results[]
Monday, April 27, 2020
Ulti's Analysis[]
| Division | Division 8 |
|---|---|
| Match # | 112 |
| Match Date | Monday, April 27, 2020 |
| Oracle Expectations |
Pokémon HeartGold / SoulSilver - 53.04% 35 for - 14 against |
| GameFAQs Prediction |
Pokémon HeartGold / SoulSilver - 48.25% |
| User Votes |
Pokémon HeartGold / SoulSilver - 5023 NieR: Automata - 4463 |
| Anonymous Votes |
Pokémon HeartGold / SoulSilver - 4097 NieR: Automata - 4197 |
This was perhaps my least favorite match of the entire contest, because the worst parts of two different fanbases acted like shitheads for 24 hours.
First off, apparently this was some wildly debatable match even though 75% of gurus picked Pokemon here for obvious reasons. I don't know how or why, but the Nier fanbase all thought Automata was going to win this thing easily. Guys, have you not been paying attention to these contests for the past 10 years or so? Pokemon doesn't really lose unexpected matches anymore. Happiness is directly related to expectations in life, fellas. Anyone experienced will tell you that. So right off the bat, all the ingredients were there for a powder keg.
To the credit of the Nier faithful, this match was close for about an hour and they had rallies ready to go. But about 45 minutes in, the floodgates opened and Pokemon finally broke through. It climbed fairly quickly in the evening and midnight vote to build up a lead close to 600, and held serve overnight. When the morning vote came and it looked like Nier might make a go at things, to the tune of cutting 100 votes off the lad, it turned out to be fool's gold. Pokemon would rebound, win the morning and day votes fairly easily, and ultimately win by 1000 votes.
Remember Rock Band vs Deus Ex, when Deus Ex scored an upset win but the entire board was flooded with topics about how Deus Ex wasn't winning by enough? This match was the inversion of that, and it went both ways. The board was a total shitshow during this match, and it even bled into the stats topic a little. The worst part is both of these fanbases acting all sanctimonious and virtuous about their games and trashing the opponent. How about this -- you both suck. Pokemon fans do get that their fanbase is loaded with perverts and furries, right? Nier fans do get that a main selling point of Automata is 2B having her ass hanging out while looking like an underaged girl, right?
"But she's a robot, bro!"
Piss off. This entire match, which was far better than expected, sucked to watch because of fans on both sides acting so obnoxious. The Nier fans acted a lot worse, but both of them are to blame here. Thankfully we booted them out of this contest as of this match and everything else was smooth sailing save the final.
This brought round 3 to an end, and it was all the home stretch from here on out. For those playing the home game, the final 16 was:
-5 Action/Adventure games (Resident Evil 2, God of War, Portal 2, Dark Souls, The Last of Us)
-4 Nintendo games (Breath of the Wild, Smash Ultimate, Mario Odyssey, Pokemon HGSS)
-4 Japanese RPGs (Dragon Quest 11, Persona 4 Golden, Persona 5, Xenoblade Chronicles)
-3 Western RPGs (Mass Effect 2, Witcher 3, Skyrim)
Very good mix! I know a lot of genres bleed together now, but still. Pokemon is also a JRPG, God of War could be considered a Western RPG, etc etc. Not the point. The point here is the final rounds were very varied. This was a good decade for gaming, my friends. My only issue here is all three remakes waltzing into the divisional finals, but we're long past the point where that could have been corrected. It is what it is.
"I'm not going to lie: stats and discussions board realizing Pokemon hentai rallies were also a thing was one of my favorite parts of the entire contest. Whatever happened afterwards, it was pretty damn funny to watch, even if it was pretty stupid." -Ytterbicide
Ctes's Analysis[]
This match managed to stay exciting up until a bit into it. There were people thinking that Pokemon would have an easy time after the first few rounds, but there were also people thinking that a Pokemon game from generation 4 would start doing worse once it faced actual competition. The debated had been centered mostly around the strength of Pokemon HGSS before the contest, but the performances of NieR: Automata were obviously considered too now. The Bayonetta 2 result was the most discussed of them. People had a hard time believing in SFF in that match and without it, Automata (and Divinity) looks really good, though it requires you to believe Bayonetta 2 had boosted a bit from the first contest.
What kept Pokemon HGSS as the favorite was probably that remakes had so far done as good as we possibly thought they could be. Resident Evil 2 and Persona 4 Golden were both still in the competition. They clearly wouldn’t have been if people anti-voted them for being remakes. Persona 4 Golden especially shows that it’s fine being a remake. Though not all of us, a good amount of people picked Automata to the division finals in their brackets because of lack of faith in Pokemon. There was not much reason to have that any longer.
The match wasn’t without excitement initially, although there was never a point where Pokemon HGSS was not in the lead. They were neck to neck at first, until Pokemon very slowly build a small lead before the freeze. Pokemon would only gain from 30 to 38 the next update and Automata made a small cut after that. That gave people hope, because Pokemon usually has the board vote and bracket votes might be on its site too. It would gain from there, and while the match had a bunch of updates in a row that looked good for Automata, it was clear pretty fast in the overall picture that Pokemon wasn’t losing this.
Pokemon HGSS and Automata probably both had a good amount of bracket votes and are both good with the board too. Board 8 seems quite into NieR, so it makes sense. I’ve seen people say that NieR: Automata was a disappointment after it could not win this match and HGSS went on to easily lose to Skyrim. It probably doesn’t help that it looked weaker than Mario Kart 8 when people had such a hard time accepting strength of Mario Kart 8, but it looks just fine at the end of the contest. I picked Automata today and I didn’t have expectations higher than this for it really.
No, the reason Automata lost as I see it, had more to do with Pokemon HGSS being worth almost as much as we thought it could. It’s the perfect combination between nostalgic fans and hardcore fans and being a remake didn’t hurt it at all. The Automata upset being as popular as it was depended on Pokemon being weaker that that. I hope and expect to see Automata back in a contest again, I could see it coming back stronger when the franchise has more exposure.
Safer777's Analysis[]
Hentai rallies! Oh yeah! Okay there were some but in the end they didn't managed to mean much. Why? Pokefear baby! Even the crew was split here and most favorite NA but they should have learned by now that you can't really stop Pokefear! But let's be serious here. The match is strange. We have in this contest 3 games that are basically not from this decade of gaming. Resident Evil 2, Pokemon Heart Gold/Soul Silver and Persona 4 Golden. And RE 2 and Pokemon HG/SS are from the 90's! But ALL these games managed to reach the Division finals and all of them barely did it actually. I do believe that is because most don't really care if these games are remakes/ports/enhanced/reimagines/proxies or anything you want to call them. I mean for example if you like RE 2 wouldn't you also play the other version too? And like it too? Mostly at least? So yeah. BUT are these versions stronger than their original versions? That is the big question and I don't know honestly. I don't really believe it to tell the truth. They seem to be kinda their own thing? So yeah not sure.
So for the match. As I said the Crew was split and most favored Nier. I checked the Oracle and most favored Pokemon HG/SS. I checked the Guru and most favored Pokemon there. So yeah this match was a toss up, especially after the previous rounds. But once again Pokefear prevailed. The crew doesn't like Pokemon mostly but hey Pokemon is awesome! Now I have played all Pokemon games and all versions and remakes too and I have played Nier Automata too and I didn't know what to vote myself too. But in the end I went with Pokemon HG/SS. The 2nd generation of Pokemon is still considered the best and the remake of that one is way too good. Imagine if they could remake Gen 2 with the new things that Sword and Shield had! Man that would sell like crazy.
Speaking of new Pokemon games we had 7(!)new series coming out since 2010 and only 1 of them was a remake. Basically we had 4 generations since then. And the only Pokemon game we had was a Generation 2 one! Yeah. We are awesome? Also technically Soul Silver/Heart Gold came out in 2009! In Japan at least. As a huge Pokemon fan I have to say that all generations are good and yeah even the latest one which supposedly a lot of fans quit or something broke record sales. I mean Sword and Shield have already sold more copies than most previous generations. Fastest selling Switch game! In like 6 months! And we have for the first time ever paid DLC. Expansions. Okay these aren't out yet. Eh. And a fun fact that I haven't noticed. NO pokemon game ever has above 87 on Metacritic! Huh? I mean so many games have above that yet not even 1 Pokemon game? Doesn't really matter, I just point that out. As for NieR it did really good. It almost came close to reach the Division Finals too and it lost a really close match. Who could have expected a series like this doing so good?
So end of round 3. The round was good and by tradition in Round 3 all weak games get eliminated so all the good stuff remain. Same happened here. Out of all these games that remained most of them can trully say they are GOTD material. Also in this round we had the best match of the entire contest. Plus out of the 8 division finals half of them were a toss up. So yeah at least decent stuff in the contest.
Tsunami's Analysis[]
Nier actually managed a slight win with the unregistered voters, but it wasn't enough to even come close as HG/SS managed to win by over 1000 votes. The most interesting thing about the match was that said lead didn't break 1000 until the literal final update. It entered that update with a lead of 999, though, which is fun. Certainly a lot more fun than 1018.
It really does amaze me that HGSS was able to get a 3-seed while the rest of the series was shut out of the bracket entirely. I'm not complaining about the first half, because HG/SS was amazing, but the Pokémon fanbase couldn't manage to get a 14-16 seed for the Gen 5 games? Were B/W and B2/W2 splitting nominations or something?
Gen 5 really did end up as the forgotten generation. I feel like this is at least in part because of Gen 6 being the first generation to have a unified worldwide release, which meant that outside of Japan, Gen 5 had a really short lifespan--2011 for Black and White, 2013 for X and Y. Wait a minute...
Pokémon Black/White release date outside Japan: March 4(EU)/6(NA)/10(AU), 2011
Pokémon X/Y release date: October 12, 2013
Span of 947-953 days.
Pokémon Red/Blue release dates:
NA: 9/28/98
AU: 10/23/98
EU: 10/5/99
Pokémon Gold/Silver release dates:
JP: 11/21/99
AU: 10/13/00
NA: 10/15/00
EU: 4/6/01
The Japanese release date for Gold/Silver is irrelevant, but I included it because lol at R/B being out in Europe for less than two months when G/S came out in Japan. But dang! Gen 1's lifespan outside of Japan is even shorter than Gen 5's. 748 days in NA, and a mere 549 in Europe. Wait, wait, there's more.
Pokémon Ruby/Sapphire:
NA: 3/19/03
AU: 4/3/03
EU: 7/25/03
885 days in NA, the longest of the three, and 840 in Europe. Gen II's shorter, too, though it at least gets a pass because in North America and Australia, it was the most recent generation for three "Holiday Seasons", whereas 1 and 5 both only held that status for two. Though I guess that does explain one thing--Generation IV was the longest generation in every region, even Japan. Wait, scratch that...Gen IV was only the longest Generation in Japan. Everywhere else, Gen III beats it out. Which means the real surprise isn't that there aren't any Gen 5 games in this bracket, it's that ORAS didn't get in as well.