Results[]
Wednesday, December 2, 2015
Ulti's Analysis[]
| Division | Division 4 |
|---|---|
| Match # | 104 |
| Match Date | Wednesday, December 2, 2015 |
| Oracle Expectations |
Super Mario 64 - 56.52% 81 for - 3 against |
| GameFAQs Prediction |
Super Mario 64 - 50.56% |
This was one of the more boring matches of round 3. When the most interesting thing to talk about is the match picture, you know a match kind of sucks.
Speaking of, holy shit is that Mario 64 picture awful. One of the worst representations of that game we'll ever see. When you pair that with Twilight Princess giving you perhaps the most badass Link picture imaginable, plus rally spillover, it's no surprise that this match was 55-45 early. But Mario was able to recover pretty well after that, and the match pretty much stayed at 57-43 the entire way through. It was Zelda's second loss in a row, a decent tuneup for Mario, and more proof that even when Link loses against Mario, he always seems to look better.
I want to point out that this was the only direct Mario vs Link matchup of this entire contest, and Mario won it. 1-0 RECORD AGAINST LINK, BABY!
(Mario RPG totally doesn't count as a Mario game! That is obviously Squaresoft's loss!)
Ctes' Analysis[]
While it will always be a little bit interesting to see a Mario game beat a Zelda game, there was never really any doubt about this match. First of all, console hierarchy mean a lot more than Nintendo hierarchy. When you think about it, everyone looks really stupid arguing for Super Mario Galaxy > Super Metroid using the Nintendo hierarchy as an argument. Here's also the hierarchy of the series themselves. Super Mario 64 has been included in discussions about what the strongest Mario game is, even if we after this contest probably can conclude that it isn't, and it's definitely the strongest 3D Mario game by miles. Twilight Princess falls below quite a few other Zelda games in the series by quite a bit, including two 3D Zelda games.
The thing is, this is games and not franchises, so a franchise hierarchy just wont always work. I know most people knew this was an easy win for Super Mario 64, but there were apparently also people believing Twilight Princess could win. It's true Mario > Samus seemed weird considering previous contests, but you can't apply the Nintendo hierarchy theory, Zelda > Mario > Metroid, for any case where they meet. It's true that this would be the case on most consoles. In fact, the only exception is probably on the NES, where Super Mario Bros. 3 would have no trouble destroying The Legend of Zelda and Super Mario Bros would beat it too. However, when games from different consoles meet, this stupid hierarchy doesn't necessarily apply. We saw this with Super Metroid > Super Mario Galaxy, a match the board 8 should be ashamed of getting wrong, and we saw it again today.
With all that said, I do think Twilight Princess looks impressive going out. These are not bad numbers. It's strong enough to deserve a permanent spot in these contests. Hopefully next time it'll have a less predictable one. As for Super Mario 64, it should easily beat Skyrim, while it's previous somewhat unpredictable path past the division finals had become very predictable, and it would be a loss for Super Mario 64. Because even if RBY would manage to beat Undertale and run into Super Mario 64, a match that was discussed pre-contest, it would be a powered up RBY in the sense that it had rallying behind it and just took down Undertale, which would surely create a bandwagon. Plus, considering how the Super Mario Bros. 3 match went down, it was pretty clear Super Mario 64 would lose to RBY even if Undertale had never gotten past Mass Effect 3. Despite a predictable path ahead with a downfall to rallies, Super Mario 64 would at least reach a point it was already expected to reach and get further than the other Mario games.