Results[]
Ulti's Analysis[]
| Round | Division 8 Semi Final |
|---|---|
| Match # | 48 |
| Match Date | Tuesday, November 4th, 2008 |
| Oracle Expectations |
Sephiroth - 39.57% Kratos - 24.49% Tifa Lockhart - 20.46% Jill Valentine - 15.58% |
| GameFAQs Expectations |
Sephiroth first place (4pts) - 81.65% Sephiroth second place (2pts) - 8.20% Kratos second place (4pts) - 43.57% Kratos first place (2pts) - 6.43% |
| Advancing Prediction |
Sephiroth - 89.85% (38,548) Kratos - 50.00% (21,452) |
Round 2 concluded with a very easy to diagnose poll, which featured all Playstation characters and a predetermined order. Sephiroth was always going to get first. Tifa was always going to get SFFd to death and get screwed out of getting second place, though if you reran this poll in 2020 it's quite possible that wouldn't happen. Jill Valentine, unpredictable as she is, was probably not going to be strong enough to take advantage of the situation and finesse her way into second place.
This left Kratos as the lucky odd man out for the second year in a row. In 2007 he took advantage of Kirby, L-Block, and Donkey Kong all stealing votes from each other. Here, he took advantage of Sephiroth, Jill, and Tifa all stealing votes from each other. Dad of Boy always knew how to make his mark! Also, I think Tifa gets hurt by the presence of Jill Valentine more than most people might think. They're both Playstation-era bombshells, which actually does matter. I wouldn't be at all shocked if there was massive overlap there.
This concluded round 2 of our secondary 4way experiment, and it was starting to get pretty decent. I wouldn't say "good" given the format, but it was decent. We had some surprises, we had some bandwagons, we had some arguments... but above all, these vote totals were massive. People were really having a lot of fun this year, and a huge bit of it was coming up to lead off the divisional finals.
Stats and Analysis[]
Another year, another Kratos easily advancing in a debated match where his opponent was suffering from SFF. Didn't we have something more important to worry about in this match? <_<
Okay, okay - so while being overshadowed by the FAR superior poll (the election) going on at the same time as it, this was a pretty interesting match to follow. Kratos had put any murmurs of Ocelot upsetting him to rest by killing his fourpack (not that he needed to, thanks Jill), but Tifa had shocked the world by holding up to Seph better than anyone could have predicted. She was back in this thing, although there was one little problem here - Tifa had two VERY big assists helping her out in the last round, and being the face shot round she was more or less going to have to go on how *snicker* likable people found her. Secondly, instead of having an old man hanging on to Kratos' coattails, the unpredictable Jill Valentine was there. And having another lovely lady of the PSX certainly wasn't going to do Tifa any favors. And finally... it's Sephiroth. Who wants to rely on him doing the same thing twice?
So past became prologue - Kratos sealed the fate the match's results as soon as he put up anything resembling a fight during the board vote. Tifa kept him within reach as best she could, and even ended up taking the lead briefly thanks to her killer night vote... but this is Kratos we're talking about. The casual day and ASV vote he feasts on is always a sight to behold, and a close match became a 5500 vote loss by the time everything was said and done.
All in all it was a pretty standard result, though while it couldn't really tell us anything about the characters specifically it all but shut the door on Auron pulling a second miracle next round - Tifa needed to perform excellently (while still barely losing to Kratos) in order to give the upset any kind of hope. Instead, she got pushed over by Kratos while he got his face kicked in by Sephy. And while Sephiroth was no Cloud, Sonic, for his part, was no Ryu.
(yet)
And with that, we had the end of the second round! A good end match, the announcement of free-form pictures for the third round (aw yeah Snake), and Indiana going blue for the first time since 1964 were only a few of the highlights we got to enjoy on just that day alone. What could be better? Well, the easiest answer was what we learned the end of a round always gives way to: more Zack Attack!
Match Trends[]
Ngamer's Same Day Analysis[]
Match Prediction[]
Alright, on to the last battle of the round. This one's got great potential!
X-Stats from Round One
- Sephiroth - 28.80% (based on '07 Ratchet)
- Tifa - 21.67% (based on '07 Ratchet)
- Kratos - 25.62% (based on '07 Ocelot)
- Jill - 20.94% (based on '07 Ocelot)
No time to discuss these stats!
Why such potential? Well, if Seph once again forgets that he's 1/3 of Clinkeroth and barely hurts a character from his own game with SFF like we saw in R1, there's a very real possibility of Tifa advancing. However, if that realization suddenly dawns on him and he destroys Tifa like he ought to (and like he DID do to Vincent back in '07), then there's a very real possibility that Jill REFAQses her way past her into third. So the question of the match is, which Sephiroth will show up?
Personally I'm banking on the later. Ratchet and Nana were horrible competition no matter how you look at it; Kratos and Jill aren't exactly Mario and Link, but they're at least decent options and so I'm expecting trends to return moreso to what we witnessed in the poll where VV got owned. Even so, I see the final percentages here being something where even though Tifa looks pretty bad, Seph doesn't exactly come out looking good, just on account of how his doing so would make some kind of sense, and Sephiroth doesn't roll that way.
Sooo, does this mean Jill will be able to catch up to Tifa? Nay, sorry, still don't see it. She and Leon and Chris have already done more than enough to distinguish themselves this season by going well beyond our expectations; should be fun to see them in action again in '09, assuming RE5 is as big a hit as many are predicting. If Jill were a bigger Day Vote threat I'd have to consider the upset more seriously, but as is I can't see her making a real game of it.
That leaves us with Kratos, who frankly I'm fairly hesitant to put much faith in... Sure he looked good in R1, but I get the impression that he's one of those guys like Hayabusa or Altair or (apparently) Mewtwo- capable of soaking up enough casual indifference vote to wow us in the early rounds, but who voters will abandon in droves as soon as other legit options are delivered. Plus if there's one thing that's sure to hurt a Playstation star it's the introduction of a compelling Final Fantasy 7 option. But... eh, I still see him doing well enough in the day to put this advancement out of Tifa's reach. Plus he's sporting full-on Banner Factor in that pic, which never hurts!
So Seph >>> Kratos > Tifa > Jill, which if stirred in a pot for five minutes will result in something along the lines of
- Sephiroth - 38.06%
- Kratos (God of War) - 24.71%
- Tifa Lockheart - 20.68%
- Jill Valentine - 16.55%
Hmm, that's a decent bit of Jill faith. Come on REFAQs, pull this out for me!
Ngamer Says: Sephiroth > Kratos
Next Day Review[]
This ended up being pretty well-timed... not much to keep an eye on in this match (aside from Tifa taking the lead for a brief while during Europe's voting, but we all knew that wouldn't last), but that was just fine because we had that OTHER popularity poll to follow along with tonight. Just quickly I'll say that I'm a little miffed at Jill for not maintaining more of her base, but ah well, still a great season for her regardless. And I'm also miffed at Seph for not doing what I expected, and instead performing up to expectations. Arg, even when I bet against common sense in the hopes of nailing down his unpredictable nature I still can't peg him!