Results[]
Friday, December 11, 2015
Ulti's Analysis[]
| Round | Contest Quarterfinal |
|---|---|
| Match # | 122 |
| Match Date | Friday, December 11, 2015 |
| Oracle Expectations |
Undertale - 54.22% 71 for - 0 against |
| GameFAQs Prediction |
Undertale - 1.68% |
METTATON MATCH PICTURE!! Mario 64 was about to experience some gorgeous and beautiful Death by Glamour™!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHL_Bk60F_4
This was the first Undertale match where it was truly the favorite in this entire contest (which is an absolute fact and anyone saying this contest ended after round 1 is being ridiculous, plenty of bandwagoned things have lost mid-contest), and it responded by treating us to the most "normal" match it had all contest. Normal as in there were reasonable trends and such, not Undertale playing dead for half the match before going nuts.
Mario 64 was able to get the early lead much like its predecessors, but unlike all of the other Undertale opponents, Mario 64 got to experience the bandwagon/rally effect showing up very quickly in the poll. Mario's lead peaked at 1083 25 minutes in, then Undertale decided to open the gates now instead of after lunch. As a result, Mario's lead disappeared almost as quickly as it showed up. Undertale tied the match before 2 in the morning, then had to experience the new territory known as "building a lead overnight".
Being something Undertale never really had to bother with before, it actually kind of sucked at doing it. It tried a few time to build up a lead overnight, but every time it did so Mario was easily able to come back and tie things. Undertale was very slow at lead-building, too. There was one lead overnight of 174 that took forever to get, which Mario smacked away ratther easily. Then after the games went 50-50 for a little while, the morning vote showed up. It favored Mario rather easily, and he was able to quickly build up a 200 vote lead.
Undertale, actually feeling threatened, erased the entire lead in all of 30 minutes and started trying to build a lead again. And just like overnight, Undertale completely sucked at it. The game is just not a very good frontrunner, much like how the Animal Mother in Full Metal Jacket isn't worth being around unless the enemy is trying to murder him. Then he morphs into the best soldier on the planet. Needing grandes thrown at you at all times is a pretty rough life to live, though. After getting a lead of 300 in the morning, Mario was once again able to smack it away and tie things.
Third time's a charm though, and it was right about here that Undertale decided to just end the match. Right around lunch is usually when Undertale gets going, and true to form, Undertale ratcheted things up. The afternoon vote and ASV were Undertale's to lose, and though Mario gave a valiant effort, Undertale would ultimately win by 2964 and preserve Mass Effect 3's spot in the LOL, X-STATS.
It was a "normal" match to be sure, but it never truly felt like Undertale was going to lose. Every time it was threatened, it went full rubberband AI on us. But it also proved it's absolutely awful at being ahead early in a match, and that it needs to be threatened for it to show its true form. Even here when the afternoon vote showed up, it didn't truly feel like it was going nuts. It was about as normal an Undertale match as you could have gotten this contest, which allowed Mario 64 and the Mario series to exit with its head held high. No shame in this loss at all, and it showed that Mario 64 is the strongest Mario game on this site.
I'm sure Melee's rally favored Mario 64 to a degree, but hey. The real reason for this match being close was Mettaton creating drama for the audience to drive up ratings! The Underground needs stars!
Ctes' Analysis[]
We finally reached the point of the contest where Undertale had cemented itself as an elite game from the get go, at least for the rest of this contest. It didn't need to wait for the ASV to blow up the poll and give it 300 vote cut updates. The other game wasn't naturally winning for a while as we saw the past three days, except for the first half hour. The match had some interesting trends though. Super Mario 64 didn't bow completely over from the start as I said. It had an insanely good start. Took it half an hour to be a lead over 1000 votes. That's with boosted votals of course, but being 60-40 in percentage at that point is nevertheless quite impressive. It took Undertale just an hour and fifteen minutes to take the lead, so it's not like the 1000 vote lead was worth anything, just somewhat impressive that it good. I'm not sure if it just took Undertale half an hour to get rallies going this time, or if anti-rally people were out at first. It's probably just that people needed to set up rallies and we're at a point where it's ridiculously easy to that, as it can be done just about any hour of the match now.
Super Mario 64 actually looked pretty great the whole time though. The match is remembered as if Undertale just won naturally and easily, but Super Mario 64 fought like a king for quite a long time. Every single time Undertale has taken the lead in the contest so far, it never looked back. It just kept being in this beastly mode and destroyed its opponents. That did not happen this time. Super Mario 64 hung in there like a king. I know the lead change didn't happen during the day hours, but at this point of the contest, it's worth noting anyway. After taking the lead, Undertale slowly down and barely got above 100 votes before Super Mario 64 cut it down to a 3 vote lead again. Undertale then made a slightly better attempt, but Super Mario 64 stalled pretty greatly and after a while started cutting the lead down again… and took the lead back. It just seems crazy to me. I know Super Mario 64 far exceeds Undertale on natural strength, but at this point the whole internet seemed in on the rally. Melee would also briefly take the lead, but that was under completely different circumstances because of intense rallying on both sides.
Super Mario 64 lost the lead again quickly. It repeated that another time before taking it and actually building something. Just taking it was crazy enough, but the third time it did it, it started building. Except for the votals it almost seemed like a normal match at this time. Obviously no one ever doubted the outcome of the match. Undertale was never gonna lose this one, but it's worth noting that Super Mario 64 hung in there. It exceeded its lead to above 200 votes this time in a bit less than two hours, then Undertale took the lead in three updates and ran away. But still, that's a long time to lead after having been down to Undertale. Even Melee can't match that. It doesn't even end here. Undertale very quickly build a lead of 200-300 votes, but then Super Mario 64 started cutting again. All the way down to taking the lead for a single update after winning one by 40 votes. Undertale was however ready when it needed to be, it took it back and finally ran away for good. Super Mario 64 made a similar attempt as before, when Undertale was a couple 100 votes ahead, and managed to win a solid amount of updates, but at this point of the day, nothing could be done, so Undertale took away for good and eventually won by almost 3000 votes, which despite the votals being very close to what they were in the RBY match and more than in the previous rounds, is still less than what Undertale won its previous matches by except against Mass Effect 3 for obvious reasons.
The previous round, RBY vastly outdid Fallout 3 and Super Mario World because it's in a completely different league, but Super Mario 64 outdoing them is different. This Undertale is definitely stronger than the Undertale from previous rounds, but that's exactly why Super Mario 64 did this well. Undertale never being in danger didn't cause the huge and insane forces the previous matches had, that continue well being the lead change because of how big they were. Since so many people are in on the Undertale rally right now, that wasn't needed. This allowed Super Mario 64 to look really good throughout the match and in the x-stats despite facing Undertale in the quarter finals. There's still the votals though, they were just as good as the previous round, making Super Mario 64's performance seem a bit weird. I suppose we have gotten a certain amount of outsiders voting by now and they can't all like Undertale even if it's a vast majority, which explains some of it. Of course, Super Mario 64 also destroys Undertale on natural strength and the rallies have to got have some drawback. Even if it isn't very different from opponent to opponent, there's gotta be people being annoyed by such things and going against them in every forum.
Nevertheless, Super Mario 64 did very well. It's clear as the day that RBY destroys all the Mario games, but the Mario gauntlet itself would actually still be a bit interesting if it ever happened. It seems that it's World > 3 > 64, but today makes Super Mario 64 look pretty good. Undertale is a bad source to judge it though. I guess we'll have to save truly knowing about their strengths compared to each other for next contest. As for Super Mario 64's run overall, it was never interesting, but unlike I guess any core Mario game in the contest, it actually got where it was supposed to, so that's something. It deserves it too, despite how I personally think it has aged poorly, it's a great game for it's time, and it still entertains greatly with speedruns in particular.
Undertale's support at this point of the contest is too huge for us to really do anything about it. It was obvious that Ocarina of Time would have no hope against it at this point. Undertale's rallies were huge, it had the underdog status despite being a clear favorite each round since the first and now it was also getting support from all sorts of sources it shouldn't get support from. Apparently, it's named the only hope for beating Ocarina of Time and Final Fantasy VII and while I understand people thinking this, RBY and Chrono Trigger were more than ready to take those down and likely would at least beat Final Fantasy VII. Not to mention Melee now had the same kind of support and actually just beat Final Fantasy VII without blinking. No one notices or cares, Undertale is our “hope and savior” it seems. To me it would've been more fun to see the previous champions go down in close matches, which they likely would, instead of the blowouts they ended up doing. Just because no one expected it before the contest, it doesn't mean its exciting.
There's also another thing helped Undertale. Every contest has some results that some gamers or fans of the contest greatly dislike. Chrono Trigger losing was the first great example of this. Another was Super Mario RPG beating Resident Evil 4. People compared it to when Golden Sun beat San Andreas back in 2010 with RPGFAQs being back again, a term that makes a lot of sense on a guide to games. When such happens, apparently Undertale has the luck of benefiting from it. People are like “screw this joke of a contest, might as well just let Undertale have it now” and that's a huge shame, which I'm saying because Undertale was at no point intended to be a joke entry and now it's getting support as a joke. I know among the ralliers there are people simply trolling and/or being jerks, but in it's core, it's just fans of the game and I'm sure most of people voting just saw a rally for a game they and clicked on it. In other words, the jerks are among the ralliers and not the rallied.
Undertale had this contest more or less wrapped up now, however, it just faced the problem that most of its opponents had against it. It's tough to rally for a game in lead. This makes Undertale face an unexpected challenge next round in Melee, which has shown rally capabilities on similar levels and has little to no trouble rallying despite leading. Melee is also a lot stronger naturally. Undertale was thought to have it all wrapped out, but while it goes into the semifinals as the favorite, it did have one final challenge waiting.