Results[]
Friday, April 3, 2020
Ulti's Analysis[]
| Division | Division 4 |
|---|---|
| Match # | 29 |
| Match Date | Friday, April 03, 2020 |
| Oracle Expectations |
Xenoblade Chronicles - 67.87% 66 for - 0 against |
| GameFAQs Prediction |
Xenoblade Chronicles - 77.66% |
| User Votes |
Xenoblade Chronicles - 6953 Splatoon 2 - 1973 |
| Anonymous Votes |
Xenoblade Chronicles - 5784 Splatoon 2 - 1476 |
Holy unexpected star of the contest, Batman! When this thing was announced, Division 4 was the big talking head debate show division. The case could be made for four games winning this thing (GTA5, Persona 4, RDR, Three Houses), and there was even some Cuphead buzz. But almost no one was talking about Xenoblade Chronicles. That changed in a hurry once this match happened, especially as Three Houses was stinking it up against South Park, but pre-contest? Not a word.
Part of that is Yoblazer and I keeping our mouths shut. We both picked Xenoblade after a good look at the data pre-contest, but didn't say a word to anyone outside of yo I think giving one small Show hint. This is a competition, after all. I'll get into what I saw when we get to the divisional finals, because it was as good a pick as I've ever made.
The important thing to remember about this match specifically is that Splatoon 2 is a game people actually care about. It sold over 1 million copies in its first week, it was an early Switch release, and it was used to launch Smash Ultimate. Remember?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3Gt42kVgCw
That video was seen probably hundreds of millions of times all over the world. Splatoon 2 helped do that.
Xenoblade took that and beat it like it stole something. It was quite the start to the contest for Xenoblade, and confirmed why some of us had so much faith in it.
Well, that and one of the best soundtracks in the history of video games. Seriously, go listen to it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPiDX76dHVE
Ctes's Analysis[]
In a contest where everything released in 2017 manages to look good in the end, even things like Resident Evil 7 and Ys VIII that had all odds against them, Splatoon 2 sure just rolled over and died. I mean sure, this is a SFF beatdown, and sure, Xenoblade Chronicles turned out to be very good, but this still looks bad on the other side of the contest unless there is A LOT of SFF.
Splatoon isn’t exactly the franchise that is in line with GameFAQs the most. It’s respected to some extend for being a decent new IP. The sequel is basically just the first game with continued updates because they needed it on Switch instead. Story Mode is fun in both games, but it’s mostly just more of the same. Even so, the original Splatoon managed to hold Metal Gear Solid below 80% last contest. It’s difficult for me to see the second one being any worse than that. At worst, it would be the same, but I have a really hard time seeing being released on Switch and getting Smash representation not doing the name any favors. This could be Zelda levels of SFF then, and it might be hard at first to think Xenoblade could be capable of that given that it has been a bit niche even though loved by most that played it. However, Splatoon is exactly the type of game you should extend to roll over and die when facing SFF. Nintendo fans like it well enough, but it’s no one’s favorite. At least not on our site. As soon as it faces something people have strong feelings for, everyone will turn to the other game. Xenoblade also isn’t as niche as it used to be since it got Smash representation and spawned more games. It’s also coming on Switch very soon!
Regardless of any SFF, Xenoblade instantly became the favorite to win the division. A lot of people thought the winner of Xenoblade and Three Houses would go the final 8. The match against a potential Rockstar game reminded everyone of San Andreas against Golden Sun a decade ago and we know what to pick now. Three Houses was the favorite because of a combination of two things. Xenoblade and Fire Emblem: Awakening lost to the same opponent by an almost equal amount in 2015, and everyone expected Three Houses to be stronger than Awakening. Today, Xenoblade exceeded expectations by quite a lot. Three Houses also underperformed a bit, but that wasn’t enough for Xenoblade. Obviously, an SFF match is never the best way to measure anything, but it was already hard to argue Xenoblade took the title as favorite instantly.
Safer777's Analysis[]
So we have 2 games that are both Nintendo! Amazing for this contest! I have heard of this Xenoblade game and I wanted to buy it but for some reason I never did bought it. Strange. Splatoon is a multiplayer game and is very fun and good too from what I gather. Nintendo did well with this franchise. So a JARPG vs a multiplayer game on this site. Guess who won.
So for the match. Well what to say? XC has apparently fought against Splatton 2 on some previous polls and it won there too so of course it won here too. Nothing to say, this match was pretty easy to predict and that is. XC took part on the previous Games Contest here and it lost on the 1st round against another Nintendo game too. So yeah. Seems that it is somewhat stronger now but we shall see.
Tsunami's Analysis[]
I've heard a lot of speculation that Splatoon 2 would be stronger than Splatoon because it was for the beloved Switch while Splatoon was for the hated Wii U. Was Splatoon really that recent or has the Switch really been around that long? *checks* Bit of both, honestly. Actually I guess that makes sense because I thought the Wii U had a pretty short shelf life. I never ended up getting one because by the time there were actually any games I really cared about, the "NX" had already been announced and I made the mistake of thinking that there'd be backwards compatibility like the Wii U had to the Wii and the Wii to the Gamecube. Luckily the one Wii U game I was really disappointed about missing out on just got ported to the Switch! (That'd be the Fire Emblem/SMT crossover; I love both those series so I was really excited to hear about it.) Then again, was XBC ever really going to be strong? It was a very late-stage Wii game and one that had...availability issues. Well, since Splatoon was in BGE3, let's go to the X-Stat calculator!
Xenoblade Chronicles (2015g) VS Splatoon (2015g)
Xenoblade Chronicles has a strength of 23.73.
Splatoon has a strength of 13.60.
Xenoblade Chronicles wins with 71.34% of the vote!
A win of 25,987 with 60,875 total votes cast.
Just ignore the hilariously outdated projections on votes cast, where even with registered votes counting double, this match had fewer total votes than the projection's margin of victory. Now, granted, this contest has felt like BlowoutFAQs so far, but Splatoon 2 got 21.57% in this match. Splatoon's number for 2015 came from getting 20.93% on Metal Gear Solid. So...probably yet another case of the original being stronger. Being for the Switch might've actually hurt Splatoon 2 because it gets overshadowed by so many other games that the Wii U just didn't have! And given the usual fall-off for sequels...I'd say this feels like a constant enough result for XBC. Also, let me just check something...Okay. I honestly couldn't remember if Shulk was in 2018. Given that he'd had multiple Smashes since 2013 (well, okay, Ultimate came out during CBX, but they'd already announced that everyone was back), him missing the field entirely would've been a huge indictment. But he did make it. Didn't perform all that well, but he was there. Good enough to get by, at least given the competition for Round 2.