Results[]
Ulti's Analysis[]
| Division | 1995-1997 |
|---|---|
| Match # | 16 |
| Match Date | Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009 |
| Oracle Expectations |
Chrono Trigger - 49.86% SMW2: Yoshi's Island - 28.52% Earthbound - 15.62% Lufia II - 5.96% |
| GameFAQs Expectations |
CT first place (2pts) - 80.14% CT second place (1pt) - 11.30% SMW2:YI second place (2pts) - 36.87% SMW2:YI first place (1pt) - 10.10% |
| Advancing Prediction |
Chrono Trigger - 91.44% (35,018) Yoshi's Island - 46.97% (17,988) |
A ton of us EarthBound fans spammed this poll all over the board, trying to convince everyone (well... probably more honest to say we were trying to convince ourselves) EarthBound had a chance at pulling off an upset here. After all, EarthBound did VERY well in that VC poll, and we've seen LFF not matter in this contest as much as we initially thought it would. So even with two fellow SNES RPGs in the poll, maybe some act of God would allow EarthBound to get second place here.
Not only did this not happen, EarthBound never even got the standard early lead it tends to enjoy in matches. Yoshi's Island jumped all over it early, and cruised to a second place finish. This was a rare contest match in that it was over 3 seconds after it began, and there's really not much to talk about. We all knew Chrono Trigger > Yoshi's Island would happen, but hyping up a miracle EarthBound upset was fun while it lasted.
Even though Yoshi's Island scored an easy second place here, Chrono Trigger flat-out annihilated this poll. There was absolutely no reason to think Chrono Trigger was in trouble against Mario 64 after this match. None. After the first round, Chrono Trigger looked right at 2004 levels, possibly due to help from the DS release.
This match also told us that GOTY polls, favorites polls and random polls like the VC poll are completely useless when trying to guess contest results for the real thing. We learned this for characters very quickly, but for some reason we like to latch onto those older polls for games. The quicker we pretend old polls don't exist for potential future game contests, the better.
Match Trends[]
Ngamer's Same Day Analysis[]
Match Prediction[]
Speaking of CT, here comes test #1 in the post-CTDS era, and it's a test I think it will... pass! Which is maybe a tiny bit surprising, because I mean logically wouldn't this be about the worst possible situation for the game? Up against two fellow beloved, cultish SNES RPGs, at least one of which has an incredibly devoted fanbase that never fails to get itself represented (and has even pulled off a couple cool 1v1 upsets!). And with seemingly everything Mario being smoking hot right now, it almost makes you want to pull the trigger here. But, three things:
- no Mario in that match pic! well actually he's there, but if there's one thing people can agree on it's that crying baby Mario was super annoying- can't imagine that version wins over any fans - no Mario in that title! well, I guess I'm not sure about that, but SB has it listed as just SWM2: Yoshi's Island in the bracket, so maybe there won't be room to spell it all the way out, and if not that has to spell trouble - no sore thumb factor in that poll! I mean sure, YI stands out a little bit for not being an RPG, but it still shares the system with all these other options and probably has massive playership overlap with at least CT, so I can't see it STFing its way to victory
Long story short I was all set to call for Yoshi giving Crono a run for his money until I saw baby Mario in a bubble, Crono with his sword out looking his DBZingest best, and Ness and friends looking totally cool for EB. (Lufia looks good as well, but its trying to copy EB's style too much which will surely only aggravate what was already going to be a bad SFF beating!) So in the end I've got to side with a more conservative:
- Chrono Trigger - 48.91%
- Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island - 31.20%
- Earthbound - 14.56%
- Lufia II - 5.32%
But feel free to keep the good things coming for the Mario series, YI!
Next Day Review[]
Whoa nelly, was that ever an impressive performance by Chrono Trigger! Mario was able to take a small bite out of it with the ASV, but aside from that 4 hour stretch or so the game was flat out golden. I'd joked last night about how badly Mario would sting it in Europe, but not only did that not happen, CT actually shot up to its best hours of the day during that time! If those are legit post-CTDS trends (and not just Europe being incredibly apathetic about the other three options), then all of a sudden this game is legitimately scary once again- which is frankly shocking considering I've spent the last three years giggling that red sox and handful of others still considered the CT/LttP rematch "debatable"! Also a quick note of congrats to Earthbound... had it not been placed in just about the worst situation possible S/LFF-wise it seems pretty clear that it could have lead Yoshi's Island outright for the first 6 hours of this one. Now, the Day Vote was going to come around and crush its chances regardless, but still, that would have been fun to see.