Topline Categories and Stats[]
The 13 Games That Made Bracket (And How Long They Lasted)
- The Outer Worlds (Round 1)
- Sekiro (Round 2)
- Bloodstained (Round 1)
- Resident Evil 2 (Division Finals)
- Devil May Cry 5 (Round 2)
- Mortal Kombat 11 (Round 1)
- Baba is You (Round 1)
- Death Stranding (Round 1)
- Fire Emblem Three Houses (Round 3)
- Slay the Spire (Round 1)
- Kingdom Hearts III (Round 2)
- Disco Elysium (Round 1)
Notable Snubs:
- Gears 5
- Luigi’s Mansion 3
- Cadence of Hyrule
- Katana ZERO
- Outer Wilds
- Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order
- Untitled Goose Game
The Headliner, SINGULAR, and the games that also happened to be there: Resident Evil 2, Sekiro, Devil May Cry V
Busts: Kingdom Hearts III, Fire Emblem Three Houses
Snubs Analysis[]
Finally crossing the finish line! Woo! Unfortunately, the decade is ending with a whimper, at least as far as contest performance goes. With only 1 game making Division Finals and another making Round 3 in the worst way possible, this year reeeaaallly doesn’t have much going for it. Even before the contest 2019 was lacking a vanguard, so to speak. Y’know, THE game that received overwhelming praise, awards, and influenced the conversation for years to come. Like a Last of Us, Witcher, Breath of the Wild, something along those lines.
So, I’ve mostly been dodging the Gears franchise because honestly, who on this site gives a damn anymore? The old games got some contest play, but that was back when Xbox actually had some presence on GFAQs. The PS4 and Switch have utterly left the Bone in the dust, which in retrospect is a shame. As horrible as the original announcements for it were, Microsoft has really been putting its back into making Xbone more appealing. Game Pass, which regularly goes on sale for like a buck a month? Enhanced Backwards Compatibility? At the same time, Sony’s been sniffy about cross-play, and Nintendo’s online servers suck shit out of a horse’s ass, while they pretend a bunch of NES ROMs compensate for us suddenly having to pay for their trash service. Unfortunately for Microsoft, at the end of the day, I can’t play Persona or Bloodborne or Zelda on their system, so RIP.
Luigi’s Mansion 3 is yet another entry on my list of evidence that GameFAQs only cares about like 4 or 5 Nintendo series, if that. As for Cadence of Hyrule, I hope Allen didn’t count it as a Zelda game, because it really isn’t. It’s very blatantly a Crypt of the Necrodancer game FEATURING Zelda shit. I really wish it had gotten in, because it would have been the ultimate test of how far Link’s mere presence can push a game. Is one glimpse of his dumb hat enough for voters to vote into Round 2 or 3?
Speaking of Necrodancer, it’s one last year, one last smattering of indie games. Having Outer Wilds and Outer Worlds both be in bracket would sure have tripped up a lot of bracket makers; there were already a bunch of people that thought Zelda’s first opponent was Wilds. Then there was the indie game that people seemed heavily disappointed didn’t make it in, the Goose one. Personally the joke was only funny for like the first 3 seconds of the trailer I saw, but considering how it exploded, it clearly had potential for a joke run ala L-block.
I’m no big fan of Star Wars; I watched the original three and had my fill. Still, it’s had a very storied history in this medium, and even I have to acknowledge it was dealt a rotten hand in terms of games this decade. First there was that MMO that I doubt you even remembered existed until you read this sentence, coming and going without much pomp and circumstance. Then there were the Battlefront games; the first sold at 60 dollars without a single-player campaign, and the second one was this generation’s iteration of the Holocaust, if the Internet is to be believed. So for EA to begrudgingly allow a real fckin game to be made, and for it to turn out really good, is worthy of celebration. It would have been the newest game in bracket had it made it in, though, so I’m not surprised it didn’t make the cut. Personally I was waiting for the trademark EA ‘drop a game’s price by 80% two months after it comes out’ sale, which surprisingly never manifested. Turns out your games will hold onto their value if they’re, you know, GOOD, not because they have a shit multiplayer mode that you hope people will become mindlessly addicted to and play for the rest of their damn lives.
Bust Analysis[]
Usually when I’ve been in doubt over what to make a headliner, or when the year is trash, I opt for the games that at least made a run in bracket, even if they were tripping over themselves while doing it and had a lower x-stat value than even the busts of that same year. Hence FFXV and GTAV being headliners. But I CAN’T do that for this year. For the first time since 2014, I have a nice pair of games that undeniably looked like trash compared that what they could/should have looked like, though the fact that they’re board favorites probably means I’m going to get some letters to the editor regardless.
Now, KHIII was hardly the favorite over Portal 2, not at large. Most of us KNEW that it was not going to perform up to par with the rest of its series, which has regularly kicked ass in these contests. I’m not entirely clear WHY KHIII is so hated, personally. Yah the script’s shit, but uh, hello? It’s ALWAYS been shit. Yes, even in KHI. On top of having basic bitch shonen ‘yay friends are amazing’ writing, it introduced Ansem at the very end, despite him having fuck all to do with anything and the Malificent/Riku fights being a perfectly satisfactory ending. THAT was the series’ original sin, not Chain of Memories introducing the bishie brigade. At least in KHIII, the worlds were the best they’ve ever been, and while the combat was a small step down from KHIIFM, it was still leagues ahead of every Action RPG on the market. Maybe I’m just being kind to it because I knew that there was no way it was gonna live up to a decade and a half of hype, and am trying to see the good in it.
Still, there WAS a school of thought that theorized that in an eightpack full of Western games, KHIII might be able to ride its name recognition and JRPG-ness to wins against Portal and RDR II. While I did not attend this school, I did concede that it wasn’t impossible for something like that to occur.
But even in loss, Kingdom Hearts III was expected to at least have a pulse. It had a bye into Round 2 thanks to being seeded against another 2019 game, Disco Elysium. A game that by all accounts is probably too smart for the average GameFAQer, who thinks FFX was the apex of writing in the medium (oh shit). Even in a contest where two WRPGs placed in the top 5, and even though this game is MASSIVELY critically acclaimed, DE is too much of an old-school CRPG to have been worth much, the lack of console ports crippling it even further. Which made the fact that KHIII couldn’t break 70 on what’s essentially its home turf all the more embarrassing.
Anyone still thinking KHIII had a shot at Portal pretty much gave up at this point, but a lot of people were still unprepared for how terribly it would job out in Round 2. Personally, I remember making a post claiming that Portal could very well beat KHIII harder than it beat Tomb Raider. While it wasn’t exactly that bad, it was pretty damn close, with Portal putting 62% on the once venerable Kingdom Hearts franchise. It wasn’t even somewhat competitive, just a thrashing from the word ‘go’. I remember a lot of people that took KHIII to Division Finals GLADLY conceding these points. It’s funny to think that in a different timeline, it could EASILY have been a top 5 game in this bracket. Easily. Guess this is what happens when you mismanage expectations and create a tangled mess of a plot that is impossible to satisfactorily wrap up.
Still, despite underperforming, KHIII got as far as most of us figured it would. The other Bust was far, far more disappointing despite being quite a bit stronger. I’ve alluded to Fire Emblem’s horrible contest multiple times throughout this analysis, and FINALLY we get to why expectations were so high for it. Look, personally, I looooooooove Three Houses. In my mind I slot it alongside Mario, Zelda, and Smash as a must-own for the Switch. While the main plot is unevenly paced and the characters do draw heavily on typical anime tropes, there's quite a bit of meat on their bones. For a Nintendo joint, it’s actually INSANE how much decently-written dialogue there is, ALL of it voiced. It’s the only time in recent memory where I started a second playthrough of a game immediately after beating it; I NEEDED to see another route.
Personal feelings aside, there was plenty of reason for Three Houses, and Awakening by extension, to do VERY well. 3H finally brought this series massive success on a home console, and has remained relevant through regular DLC. It’s a game that has high engagement all across the Internet, tapping into the all important weeb market that generates fanart and fan theories and all that shit by the truckload. It won the Audience Choice Award at the Game Awards, which for our purposes matters a lot more than the actual GotY award. All the pieces were lined up for Fire Emblem to surge this contest, and for 3H to act as a rising tide for Awakening in the process, just as P5 boosted P4G. Taking 3H to Division Finals was an easy pick for a lot of people, and taking it to Quarterfinals was pretty common.
But… it didn’t happen. Not at all. Before we even saw 3H in action, we watched Awakening fail to impress against Deus Ex. Already alarm bells were being set off for those of us that bought into the hype, but hey, maybe Awakening didn’t end up being affected. 3H itself should do fine, right?
Well, while there were arguments over what constituted ‘fine’, it was failing the eye test pretty hard. Its first opponent was South Park, which doesn’t have much reason to be strong other than brand recognition (which did a fat lotta good for DBZ). A little over a doubling sounded ok-ish, but it wasn’t the drubbing we wanted to see from the latest and greatest Fire Emblem game.
The next Round brought on Ori and the Blind Forest, fresh from a strong upset. But again, Fire Emblem wasn’t putting in the ass-kicking required for it to remain the favorite for reaching Division Finals. 62% looked all the worse when GTAV broke 60 on Cuphead just the day before, and we all expected Cuphead to be appreciably strong than Ori (and it was).
I was getting very antsy at this point. I was one of the biggest 3H shills on the board in the days leading up to the contest, and here it was embarrassing me. Maybe, I thought, just maybe, Xenoblade was a fraud and putting big numbers on multiplayer shooters wasn’t really THAT impressive.
Lol no. The Fire Emblem vs Xenoblade match had to be the single most bracket voted match of the contest, as B8ers who expected the world of Fire Emblem were desperately trying to push it over Xenoblade; this, on top of FE having a good board vote. It was 50-50 at the freeze. First update? 55-45 for Xenoblade. It was one of, if not THE, biggest freeze -> first update jumps we’d seen all contest, at least in a match that mattered. That update single-handedly annihilated a LOT of expert brackets. The cookie had 3H getting to Quarters, for fuck’s sake! 55-45 is already terrible when the massive favorite was on the losing side, but Xenoblade kept climbing. And climbing. This ended up being a 60-40 match. As outlined in my 2017 write-up, 60-40 is officially the point where the match was never actually debatable, and one side was just wrong. Nintendo SFF mitigates the sting a bit, but almost all of us expected Fire Emblem to be the one exerting that SFF. And why the hell wouldn’t we? Fire Emblem is the bigger name. It has more games. It’s sold better. It SHOULD be higher up on the pecking order than a game that came out in the twilight years of the Wii as a Gamestop exclusive, and then on a 3DS revision no one owned.
I mean, come on, Fire Emblem even has WAY MORE characters in Smash!
… oh.
Yes, when the match was over and we were all left sifting through the debris, trying to figure out what the fuck had just happened, the leading explanation that came about was that Fire Emblem was getting antivoted HARD by Smash fans, still salty at Byleth getting included over Dante and KOS-MOS and all the other characters people were actually expecting. “Another Fire Emblem character?!” goes a billion posts on the Smash board, in YouTube reaction videos, and all over Twitter.
Do I buy this theory? Honestly, yes. Yes I do. Being a part of the Smash community, I 100% believe they’d be petty enough to vote against Fire Emblem because Byleth ‘took’ a spot away from whatever obscure F-list character they wanted on the roster. Even at locals I’d overhear people talking about how disappointed they were with the choice, though I did have a great set with one of the best Byleth players in Michigan.
And what’s the alternative theory? The Switch had done a lot of good for Nintendo this contest, and Three Houses being a recent, high-profile, well-loved release should have made it a real contender. Smash anti-votes are as good an explanation as any for why it seems that the series hasn’t budged an inch. It could just be that Fire Emblem has a definitive ceiling on this site, in which case nothing is gonna give it the boost we thought it was going to get. Either way, I made a thread during its last match claiming that the series was THE Turd of the Contest, and now that it’s all over I can say that nothing has changed my mind about that. They didn’t just lose debatable matches, they got punk’d in them, and even in victory they looked underwhelming as shit.
Headliner Analysis[]
This honestly might be the only write-up where the Bust analysis is longer than the Headliner analysis. Yes, in case the header didn’t make it clear, it’s another year where there was only one clear highlight, and I was stuck with a bunch of games that didn’t really deserve the title. Like I did with Pokemon/Mario Galaxy and DOOM/Dark Souls III, I decided on both Sekiro and DMCV because their cases were both equally good, or to put it more honestly, bad.
I’m sure there are some people who saw Sekiro in the Headliners section and were stunned, because it wasn’t terribly unpopular to pick it over Monster Hunter. But let’s keep this in perspective. Like I said in my 2018 write-up, Monster Hunter has a monster profile, and personally, I never thought it would drop that match.
Sekiro’s a game that only really looks good in retrospect, though. It started the contest getting a pedestrian 58% on Ni No Kuni, a game that I THOUGHT had faded from relevance. No one gave a shit about its sequel, and the original ended up being pretty controversial because of its shit battle system. Sekiro, meanwhile, was always going to be the squeaky wheel amongst the FROM games in bracket. I’m going to copy and paste a post I made in Ulti’s thread about this, because it’s easier than writing new words:
“Honestly, the reasons it didn't do anywhere near as well as the other FROM games are:
A) It's one of the newest games in bracket, and FROM's games often gain strength over time via bandwagoning and people evangelizing for them on every corner of the Internet. Look at where Dark Souls & Bloodborne were in 2015 vs where they are now.
B) That said, I don't think the Dark Souls fanbase has embraced Sekiro anywhere near as much as they did Bloodborne. The PvP and multiplayer component in those games matter A LOT to them. So do the games' longevity thanks to the different builds, fashion souls, and obscure lore. Sekiro just doesn't have any of that, and in the inverse of the rest of FROM's games, this might actually be the strongest it'll be.”
So this initial match was the ho-hum result we expected, and with Monster Hunter putting an almost identical number against Bravely Default, it was pretty clear Sekiro was done for. The two games met in Round 2, with another ho-hum 55-45 style match. Not horrible for Sekiro, but not particularly amazing or striking. It was just another match in the bottom half of Division 1, featuring a bunch of games pretty close in strength to one another.
It wasn’t until the DQXI and Zelda match that we realized that, yes, while these games were all decently close to one another, they were operating on a higher baseline than we thought. Case in point, Ni No Kuni is projected to be stronger than FFXV. Yes, really. While this hardly makes Sekiro some powerhouse, it did turn out to be pretty decent, and not THAT far behind Dark Souls III.
As for the other Headliner that barely deserves to be here, DMCV wasn’t even expected to make it to Round 2. It had to deal with Donkey Kong, after all, a game whose leading man looked pretty good in 2018!
But here’s the thing. If you’ve read this entire analysis, or at least the snubs lists, you should know that GameFAQs doesn’t actually like NINTENDO that much. The characters, sure, but not the games. We like Mario, we like Zelda, we like Smash, and we like a couple of Metroid and Pokemon games. That’s it. Donkey Kong’s strength as a character wasn’t gonna translate to his game.
Meanwhile, DMC is a series that has been up and down on GFAQs. DMC1 and DMC3 were OK in 2010. Just OK. NONE of the games made any of the general games contests, implying they just don’t get enough noms to show up when the barrier of entry gets hitched up. Dante himself is the only decently strong thing from the series.
So, here we had two entries whose main characters are significantly stronger than the games themselves. I can kinda see why people got tripped up on this match, but here’s the thing: DMCV is available on PS4, Xbone, and PC. Tropical Freeze released on the Wii U, ‘nuff said. Yes, it’s on Switch, but as a six year old port being sold for SIXTY dollars. Nintendo gets away with a LOT because everyone gets so limp-wristed when it comes to them, but SIXTY dollars was taking too much piss for a lot of people. You need some VERY significant additions for your half-a-decade old game to sell to anyone but ultra fans at SIXTY dollars; New Funky Mode ain’t gonna cut it. The final 57-43 match says it all: DMC’s recent-ish hype was enough for it to put a decent number on a six year old platformer that has only ever had one solitary strong entry in its series, and even then it needs 90s hax to bolster it.
If it sounds like I’m struggling to talk about DMC itself, it’s because I am. Here’s why: It’s hard for me to celebrate a good upset when in the following round, it couldn’t even break 30 on Mario Odyssey. All this really tells me is that Tropical Freeze suuuuuuuuuucks, and while it’s good to get an unexpected easy win, it doesn’t count for much when your opponent suuuuuuuuucks.
But there was another Capcom game that came out this year, one that actually fckin did stuff in this contest. Resident Evil 2 had a special bonus modifier that allowed it to sneak into Division Finals: it was actually a 90s game in a bracket full of modern stuff! Just kidding, of course. While a lot of people were hemming and hawing over HGSS and P4G being included, there was really no reason to be wary of RE2’s inclusion. It’s a straight-up remake, with completely overhauled gameplay, graphics, voice acting, pretty much everything other than the basic layout of the environments and plot.
Yes, there’s no doubt being a game that strongly evoked the PS1-era helped it get a leg-up on the competition, but it had a legitimately good run regardless. It provided a valuable contribution on Blowout Day, the fourth day of the contest where the bottom half of Division 2 was running amok with 80+ percent wins. RE2’s opponent, Danganronpa 2, is hardly some powerhouse, but unlike INSIDE, which DOOM was wrecking in the adjacent match, it at least has some sort of brand. Danganronpa is decently recognizable, or at least, Monokuma is decently recognizable. So a big win here was a nice flex.
Still, there was a moment of pause for those who had RE2 > DOOM. When you think about it, BOTH games strongly evoke the 90s, and both had creamed their opponents. Their match was one of the most debated going into Round 2, despite no one really talking about it pre-contest. Personally, I wasn’t worried. INSIDE has a generic name and a generic match picture, while DOOM is an elder statesman of gaming that would naturally hoover up a lot of apathy votes.
And I was right to not be worried. For all the hype that went into this match, RE2 didn’t even end up breaking its knife on DOOM; the 58-42 result was roughly what many expected pre-contest. DOOM just kinda fell apart when it didn’t have to face an opponent that no one fckin recognized, though I would also argue that in the considerable amount of time between Round 1 and Round 2, a lot of the memeing surrounding Eternal had started to die down. Who knows how much the Meme Factor matters, but a new major release in FFVII had just come out and blunted a lot of DOOM’s momentum. RE3 coming out just a few days earlier definitely didn’t hurt RE2, as it drew a bunch of RE fans back to the site.
This match was only the first debate that centered around RE2, however. Bloodborne had just finished clowning Awakening, making its rally potential known. This was another junction that had RE2 backers nervous, but this time, that nervousness ended up being much more warranted. I already went over the RE2/BB match in great detail in my 2015 analysis, so instead of more words, I’m just going to put up the little memes I made during this clusterfuck. (If Fandom will let me without blowing a gasket)
Ah yes, good times were had by all. RE2 only making it by the skin of its teeth made it the slight underdog to Mass Effect 2, but it was still yet another highly debated match. RE2 had to be at the center of the most debates this contest, alongside Skyrim having people for and against it in Division, Quarter, and Semifinals.
Unfortunately for those hoping for more fireworks at the end of the highly contentious Division 2, the ME2/RE2 match was the dreaded 52-48 affair. Not close enough to be exciting, not far enough for one side to make fun of the other. Really anticlimactic end for RE2’s great run, and it was the first remake port thing to fall in Division Finals. Crazy how all of them made it to top 16, and not a single one managed to break into top 8. Probably for the best, honestly.
Other Thoughts[]
This year didn’t just have a decent supply of fodder; it had a LOT of straight-up turbofodder. Some of it was expected, but a lot wasn’t.
Like, OK, Slay the Spire is some roguelike card thing. Baba is You is a hardass puzzle game with an off-putting title. Obviously they’d be horribly weak. But what’s the excuse for Mortal Kombat 11 being bottom ten of the entire bracket, sharing space with a bunch of obscure indie games? Yah I’ve mentioned the microtransaction shitstorm, but that eventually cleared up. This is a big name brand! It shouldn’t be on par with the Talos Principle and the Stanley Parable.
Death Stranding was slightly better off, but it’s really sad to see what was the most hyped game of the year (newest one in bracket, too) slum it up with Disco Elysium and Tales of Berseria. This is a game with Kojima’s name on the box, and in another world could have been a top 20 entrant. It wasn’t just a case of not living up to the hype; it simply was not the kind of game people wanted to play. I really like it, personally, but I would never recommend it to anyone but those who are truly begging for something completely different
The Outer Worlds was another bottom 40 entry, and BotW’s first victim, though that one is a little more understandable. Not only is it really new, but it also isn’t that good lol. It was a game with a pretty strong honeymoon period, but it seemed like the entire Internet came to the collective realization that just because we hate Bethesda doesn’t mean we have to pretend that the Outer Worlds is some masterpiece. It had all the usual Bethesda jank, technical issues, shitty gunplay, and lacking presentation, without the strong sense of freedom that those games provide.
Bloodstained came out looking alright, though. Which is good, because it was the best game that came out last year, and also the best Metroidvania to come out in more than a decade. King IGA finally returns!
So yes, this analysis ends on a whimper. I’m actually tempted to dish out one final F, but honestly, that grade is reserved for years that only had two or three games make it past Round 1. While KHIII and 3H were disappointing, they at least made it somewhere, alongside RE2, Sekiro, and DMCV. These games collectively raise the baseline JUST ENOUGH for this year to avoid joining 2014 and 2016 at the bottom of the pile.
Final Grade:
D - Scrapes together enough mediocre performances to avoid failing, but just barely.