Results[]
Ulti's Analysis[]
| Division | 1998-2000 |
|---|---|
| Match # | 18 |
| Match Date | Friday, April 24th, 2009 |
| Oracle Expectations |
Metal Gear Solid - 35.60% Pokemon Gold/Silver - 28.68% Final Fantasy Tactics - 28.07% Deus Ex - 7.91% |
| GameFAQs Expectations |
MGS first place (2pts) - 63.57% MGS second place (1pt) - 26.19% Pokemon GS second place (2pts) - 38.42% Pokemon GS first place (1pt) - 15.31% |
| Advancing Prediction |
Metal Gear Solid - 89.76% (34,374) Pokemon Gold/Silver - 53.73% (20,576) |
One day after Pokemon RBY went out and beasted all over Zelda's face, its younger brother got to go out and take the field. GSC's number was artificially inflated early thanks to being on one day after RBY, and it actually led Metal Gear Solid for a bit. Though MGS got killed by FF7 in 2004, that was an obvious SFF match. A lot of people guessed MGS could be a potential Top 10 game, mainly because of The List. Fad or not, The List comes through more often than not. For GSC to lead it for a few minutes was impressive, even if MGS did go on to win fairly easily. It's also worth noting GSC cut 500 votes off of MGS with the ASV, which comes into play with impending MGS/RBY duel set up by this match.
The true shame here was Final Fantasy Tactics. After going dead even with MGS in 2004 and getting robbed of a win by clear vote-stuffing, a lot of people figured it could get close to MGS again and place in a couple of matches. Instead, it ran into the Pokemon buzz saw right in the first round and suffered an early exit. At least it was a legitimate early exit this time, as FFT has clearly lost a few steps in the past five years. It went from 50-50 to losing with 39%. That's no accident, and this happened a few months after the FFT port to the PSP. Not that we need many reasons to prove the PSP's lack of influence, but there's another one for you. The system flat-out does not matter, and older Final Fantasy on the whole seemed really lagging this contest.
This match set up a weird MGS/RBY/GSC threesome for round two, with the true match being MGS vs RBY in round 3. But given how close GSC came to MGS early on here, it seemed like MGS was in a world of trouble once the big brother came knocking.
On a total side note, why are Deus Ex fans so damn whiny? It was obviously getting last place here, but half the topics on the board this day were just people pissing and moaning about it doing badly. Don't you guys know you're on ConsoleFAQs? Get a grip.
Match Trends[]
Ngamer's Same Day Analysis[]
Match Prediction[]
Got to agree with the earlier comment where SB must have glanced through his records to see what were the close matches back in '04 and then gave himself a big pat on the back for setting up this R1 rematch. Unfortunately for him, the only thing we can be completely sure about is that MGS is going to be finishing ahead of FFT in this one- not only is the site not as Square-crazy as back in '03 and '04, MGS has also had three huge reasons to boost since then compared to FFT's one, or possibly none depending on your respect for handhelds. (Oh I guess the other thing we can be sure of is Deus Ex for last with something like 8-10%, but that's not really worth talking about!)
The real question is, what position does Pokemon end up slotting itself into? It's a pretty exciting proposition, considering how you could make a strong case for first, second, OR third! Now, I'll agree with most of the comments I've been seeing today in that MGS and FFT are probably stronger than MM directly and that G/S/C is surely a league below R/B/Y. But what people seem to be forgetting is that in 4ways, many times the most important factor to have going for you is the Sore Thumb Factor, and tonight Pokemon's going to have that baby working overtime. Not only do MGS and FFT share a console, Pokemon is also the only non-"mature", non story-driven option out of this whole poll. I guess you could say that unlike today's battle it's not the only RPG option, but ehhh, Tactics and Gold are about as far apart as any two games can be while still getting labeled RPGs. Plus the site is still going to be swarming with Poke-fans after yesterday, and Platinum still being hot certainly helps as well. ALSO, check out that match pic- G/S/C with the major advantage of being just labeled "Pokemon" up top, which might work wonders!
In short, all signs are pointing to this being a 48 hour Poke-fest up in here, and that's why even though I would still take FFT > G/S/C 1v1 and even though I wouldn't have made this choice a couple days ago, it's time to pick against my bracket for the second time this year and say:
Metal Gear Solid - 36.07% Pokemon Gold/Silver - 27.80% Final Fantasy Tactics - 27.70% Deus Ex - 8.43%
Come on Poke-fever, don't let me down!
Next Day Review[]
Goodness me, do I ever like being right! Now granted I actually made a pretty bad pick that's going to be way off percentage-wise, and granted I get as sick as anybody about these half dozen "I can't believe people got this one wrong!" topics that go up after every match is decided, but still... I can't believe people got this wrong! Even if FFT would have been constant from '04 there's no way it could have survived that brutal Pokemon ASV (seriously, did you see that thing?), and even if it'd been a decent bit stronger than G/S/C directly there's no way the sore thumb factor wasn't going to carry it to the win. Alright, I guess I'm overstating things a bit; there was still some kind of chance that Gold would flop, but after seeing Red smash faces the day before it was just weird to see 4 Crewmembers cling to their brackets instead of going with the flow. Most importantly this result leaves poor old Majora's Mask looking much much better than it did 24 hours ago, and those opinions are only going to continue to improve next round when Red vs MGS vs MM turns into a three way dogfight!