Results[]
Ulti's Analysis[]
| Round | Division 6 Semi Final |
|---|---|
| Match # | 43 |
| Match Date | Monday, October 15th, 2007 |
| Oracle Expectations |
Dante - 40.06% Ada Wong - 22.69% Balthier - 20.66% Amaterasu - 16.44% |
| GameFAQs Expectations |
Dante first place (4pts) - 74.76% Dante second place (2pts) - 9.15% Amaterasu second place (4pts) - 3.89% Amaterasu first place (2pts) - 5.49% |
| Advancing Prediction |
Dante - 83.91% (30,815) Amaterasu - 9.38% (3,445) |
Ada embarrassed Balthier in round 1, while Amaterasu was very impressive in surviving her match with Dante and two slug Nintendo characters. This match was a lot harder for her, though it was hard match period for everyone.
People really fought for their brackets here, and Balthier flat-out won the board vote and was in first place. Dante of course recovered quickly and ran off to a distant first place here. Past that, this was a very close match for a very very long time.
But not for Balthier. He kept it close with Ada and Ammy for a little while, but within 30 minutes it was clear he was screwed. His total collapse this contest was sealed at that point, though everyone could see it coming last round.
The true entertainment here was Ada Wong vs Amaterasu. For 10 hours, these two had a truly classic duel where they were more or less deadlocked. All night long whenever one character would try to push a lead beyond 50 votes, the other would immediately take it all back. If this happened during a daytime 10 hours instead of a night time 10 hours, this match would have been a lot more memorable because this kind of clash is everything you want from two characters fighting it out for second place. In fact for 10 hours, the lead was never bigger than 115. That trumps even the classic CT vs LTTP match from 2004.
Then the morning vote hit, Amaterasu started taking off and the once-classic match became a boat race. Ammy made a slow climb until the end, but a slow climb still ended up in a win.
How this all happened, I'm still not sure. FF12 did very well in polls and Balthier is the most popular character, but the guy tanked two straight matches. Ada not being able to finish Ammy off at least makes a little bit of sense, since despite being from a very popular game she's a side character in it. My confusion here comes more from Okami not being strong at all in 2007. I mean yeah it's decently strong now and Ammy would smash this poll in a rerun thanks to MvC3, but this was still a confusing match.
Stats and Analysis[]
- Ammy advancing was the #6 most surprising result of 2007
prior to this match, I made the argument that Ada would struggle more against a well-known guy like Dante than Balthier would, and that Balthier could very well sneak into second because of it. I always thought that Ada got a lot of votes because the voters simply didn't know who the other three were. it was more than a little bit hopeful -- I really didn't want to see Ada crash the Dante/Leon party in round 3 -- and Balthier once again showed why he was one of the biggest duds of 2007.
the surprise was the Little Wolf That Could -- check out this poll:
Poll 2622 (01/05/07)
BEST OF 2006: Best PlayStation 2 Game
5331 6.19% Bully
3546 4.12% Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories
25888 30.04% Final Fantasy XII
12144 14.09% Guitar Hero II
21202 24.60% Kingdom Hearts II
10878 12.62% Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence
7182 8.33% Okami
how Amaterasu pulled this match off boggles the mind. Okami never really showed any signs of being popular on GameFAQs, but there she was in round 3. what a surprising result, one of the more uplifting ones in a contest full of jokes and Pikachu. people felt good about Amaterasu advancing.
but it wasn't just the feel-good story of Amaterasu pulling the upset that made this match great -- it was the single closest match in contest history for the first half of the match. for ten hours, Ada Wong and Amaterasu were within 100 votes. there were a whole bunch of lead changes. you couldn't ask for a better match. Amaterasu ended up taking the day vote (how the heck does Okami have a better day vote than Resident Evil 4?) and won with relative ease, but those first ten hours were spectacular.
this graph says it all -- the first 100 updates:
gamefaqscontests.com/images/poll_graph.php?matchnum=2905&type=0&seconds=60&max=100
there's not much more to say about this match. it was just a great upset with a great ten hours.
Match Trends[]
