Results[]
Wednesday, November 25, 2015
Ulti's Analysis[]
| Division | Division 5 |
|---|---|
| Match # | 84 |
| Match Date | Wednesday, November 25, 2015 |
| Oracle Expectations |
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night - 61.94% 89 for - 0 against |
| GameFAQs Prediction |
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night - 57.43% |
There was a reasonable amount of hype pre-contest for a Banjo > Castlevania upset, but given the round 1 performances the winner of this match was rather obvious. The oracle agreed and gave 100% support to Castlevania, and only 11 gurus picked Banjo here. I'm not sure where the hype came from given contest experts all picking Castlevania, but it was definitely there.
At least the trends were funny, as in Banjo-Kazooie being at 44% early before bleeding a bunch of percentage and giving Castlevania a comfortable 61-39 win. Banjo-Kazooie having virtual joke trends is pretty silly to think about, but the trend is definitely there for whatever reason.
For Castlevania, it was yet another contest where gamers proved just how respected this game is. Beating Banjo this easily while DKC2 was only sitting there upsetting Xenoblade and Fire Emblem Awakening clearly meant Castlevania was on track to win a third match this contest. Symphony of the Night has made it to round 2 in every contest it's been in, on top of winning a match in the series contest and Alucard having noted contest success. Given how this game really hasn't sold much, it's really cool how renowned it is on the internet for being one of the best games out there. I actually played Symphony of the Night because of the 2004 contest, and you can definitely throw my hat into the "one of the best games ever made" pile.
At some point I should make a list of games I've played because of these contests, but it would be rather long and this writeup probably isn't the place.
Ctes' Analysis[]
For a match that looked like a hot upset chance pre-contest this is a pretty disappointing result. Even if their was a clear favorite here, a game shouldn't go below 40% if it was thought it could pull an upset. That said, I don't think it's particularly bad, because on my head, Banjo-Kazooie was never going to be in this match. It was always clear to me that Symphony of the Night would go through here. I think the prime argument for Banjo-Kazooie advancing was that people expected the it to be the Year of Nintendo 64 and that would give Banjo-Kazooie the needed push to win. Well, this actually fails to begin with, because if that was the era everybody was extremely nostalgic about, then it'd favor the Playstation as well making it a moot point in this match. we only have one Genesis game here, but that game appeared to have gotten stronger as well being from the same era as the SNES. I know people call this NintendoFAQs, but I'm sure it favors everything from the era people were being extraordinarily nostalgic about this time. Playstation has always been a big hit here and it's not just Final Fantasy VII.
The difference in strength between these two games was just too great though. Even if it had been the Year of Nintendo 64 and it somehow didn't give the Playstation a boost as well, Symphony of the Night would still win this match. It's impressive that the game has gotten this far from back in 2004 where it was a #11 seed and barely beat Perfect Dark before getting destroyed. This time it's a #2 seed and it actually managed to live up to it, albeit in a rather easy division. You'd think that it would be in danger of making it, but it wasn't. Banjo-Kazooie was its biggest threat and it easily disposed of it. Though that wasn't the general consensus after this match. Since a bunch of people had supported Xenoblade going to the division finals when it lost to Donkey Kong Country 2, people had a lot of faith in the latter. Add to this that it's the Year of SNES. I don't think anyone actually expected Donkey Kong Country 2 to win, but people expected it to be a bit closer than this. After all, would a Donkey Kong game on the SNES really be weaker than Banjo-Kazooie this year?