Results[]
Ulti's Analysis[]
| Division | 1972-1988 |
|---|---|
| Match # | 3 |
| Match Date | Thursday, April 9th, 2009 |
| Oracle Expectations |
Super Mario Bros. - 57.08% Ninja Gaiden - 16.53% Duck Hunt - 16.31% Galaga - 10.19% |
| GameFAQs Expectations |
Mario 1 first place (2pts) - 74.11% Mario 1 second place (1pt) - 21.69% NG second place (2pts) - 29.91% NG first place (1pt) - 8.66% |
| Advancing Prediction |
Super Mario Bros. - 95.80% (36,688) Ninja Gaiden - 38.57% (14,771) |
We've seen pretty much every type of SFF possible in contests, until this very match. For the first time ever, we got to see Same Cartridge SFF. In a transitive world, Mario Brothers > Duck Hunt > Ninja Gaiden would have been easy. Duck Hunt proved itself reasonably strong in 2004, and any Ninja Gaiden has completely and utterly stunk it up in every single poll it's ever been in. Ever. Look it up yourself if need be.
The problem here is Duck Hunt got stuck with the worst possible opponent in Mario 1, but a lot of people still thought it would retain an original audience and beat Ninja Gaiden anyway. NG is seriously that bad in any poll you look at, barring Ryu Hayabusa's character battle results.
The match began, and Duck Hunt had a small lead for 30 minutes. But then Ninja Gaiden came back, built up its own lead and the match was effectively over after the first hour was up. It wasn't Ninja Gaiden's strength so much as it was Mario completely dominating the poll. Mario stole all the votes, which is especially crippling to something like Duck Hunt, and there was simply nothing left over for Duck Hunt to make a move with. At times overnight, Mario was only leaving 50 votes per update for the other three games to work with. You can't mount comebacks that way.
The morning vote was even worse for Duck Hunt, because as Mario went up, Duck Hunt went down. This match ended the moment Ninja Gaiden made it close, because Duck Hunt leeching Mario 1 and staging a comeback is an impossible task. Mario 1's dominance of this poll was nearly the best of the entire contest, but the fourpack Mario 3 got placed in was even funnier. But hats off to Mario anyway, because 70% in a fourway is no joke.
By the way, make no mistake here. This match was decided entirely by Duck Hunt's weakness at the hands of Mario, and it would flatten Ninja Gaiden in a better situation. Beating a Same Cartridge-SFFd Duck Hunt isn't some monumental task and it did not prove Ninja Gaiden had any strength whatsoever, as round two went on to prove.
Match Trends[]
Ngamer's Same Day Analysis[]
Match Prediction[]
Mario's even more iconic/important/relevant than Tetris and facing competition just about as weak, so should be a lock for a huge showing. Galaga's a chump, but stands out from these NES choices enough that it should be able to outscore Space Invaders; Ninja Gaiden likewise gets to stand out just because probably half its voters are going to think they're supporting the Xbox game, while Duck Hunt is easily the strongest/most well-known/most played of the non-Mario options, but will be suffering from the first ever "same cartridge SFF". And that might be brutal, to say the least.
So since I'm not covering any new ground with the above, let's look at this match pic. Oh cool, NG got just the pic I was hoping for! Ryu looks RIPPED, sporting a blade, a full on Ninjarific appeal that's still generic enough where people could easily mistake him for his Xbox version. But, watch out- Duck Hunt also scored a perfect picture! Here's the exact look that The Dog used to joke-factor his way to 14% of the vote just last season... even with Mario there to try to lay an SFF beatdown, I can't see DH falling below that number in this one. But then there's Mario 1, ALSO getting exactly the pic it would have wanted; look out, we could see a record blowout in this format after all! And Galaga... sorry, text way too blurred, that's not going to get it done.
So taking all of that into account, I see DH giving NG a very good run but coming up a touch short due to Mario steal too many of its early NES-era votes.
- Super Mario Bros. - 55.40%
- Ninja Gaiden - 16.84%
- Duck Hunt - 16.69%
- Galaga - 11.07%
Next Day Review[]
Ha, another match where I go to sleep without much confidence in my choice, but Europe and the early morning vote bail me out for another win. I can't believe I'm one of only 3% of the site that's managed to go 3/3 to this point... I mean I had decent reasoning behind my picks but I've still been walking on eggshells for the first half of these matches. And I don't think tonight will be any different!