Results[]
Round One
Ulti's Analysis[]
| Division | Division 3 |
|---|---|
| Match # | 19 |
| Match Date | Monday, November 9, 2015 |
| Oracle Expectations |
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 - 50.98% 61 for - 44 against |
| GameFAQs Prediction |
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 - 40.39% |
I didn't get many upset picks right this contest, but this was an exception! I'm a massive fan of both of these games, so it felt good to be in tune enough with both fanbases to know how this would go.
First, Sonic 2. This game got me to buy a Genesis by itself, and it's a game I'm completely in love with. It'll always be my favorite game in that series, and it's a good reminder of what once was. No series made a worse transition to 3D than Sonic, and no series sabotaged itself harder. But when I play Sonic 2, all is right with the world.
Portal 2, good as it was, just didn't quite have the same magic as the original. Wheatley was funny, but at times he felt like tryhard comedy. Everyone knows the one guy who is only funny when quoting comedy bits or stealing jokes, and when he tries on his own he's a huge tryhard. That's Wheatley. We all know the true star of Portal 2 was Cave Johnson. GLaDOS was typical snarky GLaDOS, and the gameplay was much better than in the original. But if the original game was a 10/10, Portal 2 was a 9.5/10. Still an all-time great, but not quiiiiiite on the level of the original.
Anyway, there were two reasons I picked Sonic 2. One is that the craze has been over for awhile. We'll be saying the same thing about Undertale five years from now; a certain internet buzz has to go into games like this if they want contest strength. Portal 2 doesn't feel like its ever had it.
The other reason was this poll: http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/5169-character-battle-ix-division-3-round-1-wheatley-vs-crash-vs
People can tout games =/= characters all they want, but it's not true. Sure there are examples like Dante and Kirby where the character is MUCH stronger than the games, but Wheatley being that weak was an indicator that the internet isn't behind Portal 2 like it was the original.
When the match began and things were basically tied, Portal 2 was fucked. It had bracket votes. Then Sonic won the second update and everyone knew what was coming. Portal 2 had just choked a similar match two years ago when Crash pulled his upset, and this match virtually mirrored that one. Wheatley stayed close to Crash for 45 minutes before getting buried. In this match, Portal 2 kept the match tied for 45 minutes, then got buried. Sonic went off to the races, and Sonic doesn't often lose races. A tie match 45 minutes in turned into a very comfortable 2400 vote, 53% win.
It would set up a rather entertaining round 2 match with Uncharted 2, though obviously Undertale would have a massive effect on how that poll would play out. Not that we knew this at this point of round 1!
Ctes's Analysis[]
This was personally my very first pick against the cookie cutter, so nice to see it being correct. Portal 2 was the favorite on b8 and overall. It had the higher seeding too, so it made sense. The first Portal looked really great in GotD while Sonic 2 didn't exactly impress much last time we saw it. It was expected to be somewhat close, but there was good reason for Portal 2 to be the favorite I suppose. The match also meant a lot, because it was expected of the winner to go to round 3. But while Portal 2 was the favorite pre-contest, I don't it was right before the match began. The first Portal looked terrible against Melee and old games had looked really good in general. Sonic 2 didn't exactly win by a lot, but it was a comfortable victory.
So where were the hints you needed to figure out Sonic 2 was the right choice pre-contest? Well again, when it comes to new vs. old, always go with old. Look at the age polls we have somewhat often and compare recent polls to older ones. We're just not having as many new users on the frontpage as we used to. The average user there grew up with games like Sonic 2. That's the main reason, but there's more too. The Portal series spawned a lot of memes, but it has sort of died down, and you shouldn't expect the sequel to be stronger obviously. Wheatley getting embarrassed against Crash in 2013 shows that more than anything. It's a shame that during Year of SNES, we only have a single Genesis game, but I'm happy to that game at least look fine. Although when you consider that Sonic 2 winning became obvious as the contest went rolling, this performance isn't really that great, so people started thinking maybe Uncharted 2 had a shot at round 3, similar to how they thought TLoU maybe had, though that was because of TLoU looking good not KHII looking bad.