Results[]
Ulti's Analysis[]
| Round | Division 16 Semi Final |
|---|---|
| Match # | 52 |
| Match Date | Wednesday, May 26th, 2004 |
| Vote difference | 4,302 |
| Oracle Expectations |
Link to the Past - 55.73% 47 for - 10 against |
| GameFAQs Prediction |
Link to the Past - 39.57% (16,200 brackets) |
Before I say anything, let me note that this may have been the single worst picture in the contest. It was so bad that CJayC actually created a topic to tell us that it was the official Japanese art for both games. If he knew the picture sucked so bad that he felt the need to create a topic, why did he use it in the first place? That guy makes no sense sometimes. I think that we were all voting for names in this match, rather than who we knew in the pictures. I mean you could make out that it was Link if you looked hard enough. On the bright side, that was clearly Setzer Gabbiani in the FF6 pic, so some measure of order was restored.
An interesting thing to note about this match were the prediction percentages coming into it. In the first two rounds, LTTP managed to outpredict Final Fantasy 6:
Round 1
- LTTP: 97.75%
- FF6: 81.14%
Round 2
- LTTP: 73.42%
- FF6: 66.89%
And that's how it should have been, given the competition each game faced. But after dominating FF6 in prediction percentage in the first two rounds, LTTP's prediction percentage to make it to the divisional finals dropped dramatically, all the way to 39.57%. This leads me to believe that quite a lot of people picked Final Fantasy 6 to win this match, and as I said last round, BigCow was the first one to explain to me in full detail about how the three heavy hitters all had equal chances to win this division.
As it would turn out, the guy looked like a genius. Coming into this match, Zelda was 9-0 in this contest, and it looked unbeatable. As such, what reason was there to believe that Final Fantasy 6 would even come close? After all, Link to the Past has flat-out dominated in its first two matches, while Final Fantasy 6 had two very 'meh' wins.
However, the bracket/board voters kicked in early on in this matchup. Once it started, some of us were shocked to see Final Fantasy 6 taking the early initial lead on Link to the Past. And it wasn't a lead of 2 or 3, either. After 2:30 of the match was over, Final Fantasy 6 had a lead of 226 votes and looked to being going strong. Now everyone knows what happened at this point. LTTP managed to come back strong, pull even, then pull away with the match through the rest of the day. But anyone who was watching the match can see that. That isn't what this match symbolized.
To put this in perspective, the only game or character to ever take a sustained lead on Link or any of his games was Cloud in 2003. But outside of that one match, it looked nearly impossible to take down Zelda. Link flat-out killed every opponent he faced until Cloud came along, and Zelda flat-out killed every opponent until Final Fantasy 6 came along. Now Link to the Past may have won this match, but I feel that Zelda's aura of invincibility in this contest wore off in this match. That lead of 226 votes, though lost quickly, turned the tide of this contest. We need to remember that Final Fantasy 6 is not as upper echelon as some of us would like to think. Kefka is the only character to have gotten into the Summer Contest in each of the last two years, and his performance was pathetic. Final Fantasy 6, despite being the second strongest overall title in the series on our site, is still worlds behind Final Fantasy 7 around here and cannot possibly do more to make up the ground. As such, it had two unimpressive wins against Mortal Kombat and Doom, which are two games that don't come close to being elite on our site.
Yet for some reason, Final Fantasy 6 managed to hold strong against Link to the Past for almost three hours in this poll. All of a sudden, things seemed to make more sense in the contest to the expert analysts on the board. Mario 3 suddenly looked like the favorite to take down Zelda 1, and Ocarina of Time was in an even bigger hole than it was in the first place against Final Fantasy 7. Division 128, though The Wind Waker seemed like a logical enough choice to win it, was now in the air more than ever with this sudden lackluster performance on the part of a Zelda title. Oddly enough, Link to the Past seemed to be in the best shape of them all. For a very long time in this poll, Link to the Past's struggle with Final Fantasy 6 made it seem like Chrono Trigger would run away with the division, and possibly even the entire first half of the bracket. But Link to the Past came back strong in this poll to take Final Fantasy 6 down by 4300 votes after being down and out to start it all off. What was a blowout win for Chrono Trigger turned into a match too close to call before Link to the Past's poll was all said and done. Chrono Trigger is clearly stronger than Final Fantasy 6 on our site, but is it strong enough to make up 4300 votes on Link to the Past? Only time would tell.
I would also like to take a quick moment to shed some condolences for The Return. He had a perfect bracket until this match rolled around. And in closing, despite finally having a weakness, the bottom line was that Zelda was 10-0 in this contest.
Match Trends[]
