Results[]
Friday, December 11, 2015
Ulti's Analysis[]
| Round | Contest Quarterfinal |
|---|---|
| Match # | 121 |
| Match Date | Friday, December 11, 2015 |
| Oracle Expectations |
Smash Bros. Melee - 49.25% 38 for - 33 against |
| GameFAQs Prediction |
Smash Bros. Melee - 6.67% |
So, who remembers this poll? http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/1662-tournament-semifinal-final-fantasy-vii-vs-super-smash-bros
I sure did, and when I made my bracket, I really wanted to pick Melee to pull this upset. But I just could not look past that poll. 62-38 is crazy to turn around, even if the rematch did happen 11 years later. Even if you rely on the 2009 stats (and FF7 was a monster that year), FF7 was expected to get 59.77%, which is very close to the 2004 result. My heart said Melee. My mind said Melee. But my logical center, that stupid part of my brain that seems to override everything else, could not ignore FF7's past numbers. I regretted the pick almost immediately after lockdown. I love FF7 to death, and I knew it was going to lose before the final. But I picked Mario 64 to do it instead of Melee, which I will regret forever. I knew Melee was going to do it, too, I just couldn't pull the trigger :'(
This match overlapped with Undertale/Mario 64, because Allen decided mid-contest to make this round two matches per day when it was originally supposed to be one. It ended up working out, but in the future I don't think a contest format should be changed halfway through. A lot of people pick things based on the format. Imagine if during the 12 hour night/day stuff, Allen decided to just swap out night matches for day matches.
Thankfully, it made no difference whatsoever in the match winners. Today had the potential to be insane for rallies, but it was kind of a dud on both counts. For this match, Melee won the board vote before FF7 quickly turned it around in the first few minutes. FF7 got a lead of 88 twenty minutes in, but then got thoroughly buried for the rest of the match as Melee revved up the rally engine. Final Fantasy 7, for whatever reason, is an extremely easy game to rally again.
It was never a match after that, as Melee just stomped its way to a 56-44 win. That's an 18% turnaround in 11 years, with Melee not really having a reason to boost. FF7, though, had every reason to boost this contest. There was remake hype, Cloud-in-Smash hype, and even a bit of underdog hype. For three rounds, FF7 looked as strong as it ever has. It wasn't until the match against FF6 where it showed any weakness at all, and then Melee took full advantage to just smash FF7 to bits. It was a very unceremonious exit from this contest for the Final Fantasy series, with SMRPG being the only remaining Square representative after this match.
It can't be overstated how angry people are about the episodic content announcement for the FF7 remake, and I think it's the biggest reason FF7's strength turned on such a dime mid-contest. People hate episodic content, and for good reason. Almost every episodic video game feels unfinished and lazy, and simply doesn't satisfy players very much. The only good one I can think of offhand is Half-Life 2, though I'm hoping people can provide more good examples.
Wikipedia honestly gave really good definition and overview on this subject: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Episodic_video_game
The episodic announcement, paired with Melee being a beast this contest, spelled doom for Final Fantasy 7. I would have loved seeing the FF7 from rounds 1-3 in this match, but unfortunately it was not to be.
Ctes' Analysis[]
Today was a very sad day if you dislike rallies. There was no explosion this time. We just saw rallied games swallow the contest. It didn't help that we just had our last day without rallies or spillover yesterday. I don't think anyone doubted a single bit Melee would win easily today after what we saw last round. This round, where top games were to meet and we used to think we'd have some of our best matches, we just had two very dull ones instead. Next round would be exciting when the games were to probably stand on equal grounds, but if you had been excited to see a Chrono Trigger vs. Final Fantasy VII rematch today, you'd be very disappointed in this match. It was not the slightest bit interesting, before, during or after.
I saw a few people arguing that this match were the one instance of the contest where rally spillover actually flipped a match because Undertale supporters would prefer Melee above Final Fantasy VII. It's probably true that they would, but I disagree and stand firm that spillover never flipped a match. There is no way Melee supporters would've simply let final Fantasy VII win this won, just look at what happened against GSC and Chrono Trigger. Melee would never lose this one. If it ever were to encounter any trouble whatsoever winning this match, Melee is apparently ridiculously easy to rally for and Final Fantasy VII is very easy to rally against.
Even today people were celebrating because until now it had “Final Fantasy always wins”, a remark which VII is easily the main cause of, and now it wouldn't win. In reality, it won back in 2004, Cloud won in 2003 and Sephiroth won the villains contest that was practically designed to give him a free contest. Almost everything Final Fantasy has been screwed over by Pokemon, and to a lesser extent Snake and Tetris pieces for many years now, but people just don't forget its years of glory a decade ago. I'm actually surprised it took that long. Pokemon used to be anti-voted to death because of how huge it was when it came out, we're over that now. We actually saw Chrono Cross win matches this contest. Why can't Final Fantasy escape this?
Well, at least that seems to have somewhat disappeared on out own site. Final Fantasy VII actually looked really good every single previous round in the contest. However, people not keeping up with GameFAQs contests for the past many years logically wouldn't know that. I just wish they were slightly less ignorant about it, though that's hopefully just a vocal minority. I think it'll be over in a couple of years, though it'll probably always be extremely difficult to rally for, yet extremely easy to rally against.
Melee looked in top shape this round. It's difficult to believe an actual threat to Undertale could come at this point, but Melee was a huge threat. With what might be slightly less good rally capabilities, though it's hard to say, Melee is naturally leagues stronger than Undertale. We'd have quite the semi-final, which I guess is actually really nice considering they were both expected to both be really boring, just like the final match.