Results[]
Ulti's Analysis[]
| Round | Division 1989-1991 Semi Final |
|---|---|
| Match # | 35 |
| Match Date | Monday, May 11th, 2009 |
| Oracle Expectations |
Super Mario Bros. 3 - 50.44% Sonic the Hedgehog - 21.33% Street Fighter II - 20.47% Secret of Monkey Island - 7.93% |
| GameFAQs Expectations |
Mario 3 first place (4pts) - 48.89% Mario 3 second place (2pts) - 36.80% Sonic second place (4pts) - 23.86% Sonic first place (2pts) - 18.69% |
| Advancing Prediction |
Super Mario Bros. 3 - 85.69% (32,816) Sonic the Hedgehog - 42.55% (16,295) |
Haha 113114.
Anyway, after SF2 disappointed in the first round, a lot of people held hope that Mario 3 would SFF Sonic 1 enough to sneak SF2 into second place. It wasn't too far-fetched, especially given Sonic 1 and Street Fighter 2 wasn't decided by some impossible gap in round 1. It was 10,000 votes, which can be made up by extreme SFF.
Ironically, we saw Mario 3 SFF Sonic 1, but not by enough to sneak SF2 into second place. I've lost count of how many "SFFd but still won" matches we ended up getting in this contest, but the number has to be at least 5 or 10. Mario 3 without question SFFd Sonic 1 in this match, and can we please stop with theories about how Sonic and Mario don't have extreme overlap? They clearly do. It explains this match, the Mario World > Sonic 2 beating and the weird Mario/Shadow match all in one package. They overlap. A lot. Period. I'd love for this to translate into a Mario vs Sonic match in a character contest; it's long overdue.
But even with Sonic getting SFFd, Street Fighter could no take full advantage. The match was even for a couple hours, then Street Fighter 2 built up a 200 vote lead overnight. And like clockwork, the Sonic day vote kicked in, allowing Sonic to turn an even match into a fairly easy 2200 vote victory. A match like this might have been exciting a few years ago, but not now with all the past trends we know about. It makes you miss the pre-stat days, in a way. Now? We can take past matches and call the trends down to every minute detail, and some people in the stats topic can tell you when something will happen and by how many votes with stunning accuracy. It's sad in a way, but it also can't be helped.
Match Trends[]
Ngamer's Same Day Analysis[]
Match Prediction[]
I'd been counting on SFII/Sonic 1 to be a tight battle directly, but that it would swing in Ryu's favor once the king of the Marios arrived to dish out the platformer beatdown. But uhh, yikes did SF ever get its head handed to it last round! And double yikes, did SF4 ever drop the ball! After those two results I was sure that everyone and their mother would have bailed on the Street Fighter series, yet I check the Crew picks and... EVERYBODY is betting against Sonic (well except for the guy in last place, but I'm not sure if I really count him anymore), whoa!
I guess it makes some sense- Sonic has never failed to disappoint in the 4way setting once decent competition arrived, Ryu has already proven that this fanbase can make a run if given a favorable LFF path, and Mario 3 is a lock to eat up a huge percentage of the votes (especially after Mario 1 went above and beyond). But even with all that plus my bracket backing it, I'm not entirely sold. This is one that I'll have to decide based on the match pic.
Let's see... Sonic gets his classic title screen, pretty good considering this exact look got the job done for him last time. But sweeeet, SFII tops it with the perfect super-nostalgic ingame screenshot! Ryu posing all cool after unleashing some kind of devastating combo on (probably) the second more popular character of the series... the only way it could be better would be if he had just unleashed a Hadouken. Alright, that's enough to win me over; I'll stick with my bracket here, but would be very surprised if this didn't end up being a close battle for 2nd place no matter who takes it!
- Super Mario Bros. 3 - 56.06%
- Street Fighter II - 18.49%
- Sonic the Hedgehog - 18.43%
- Secret of Monkey Island - 7.02%
Hmm, I like it QUITE a bit.
Next Day Review[]
Bah... after Street Fighter pulled a stall on the second update and starting making cuts afterward tranny told us not to get excited because this was "going to be Mario RPG > SFII all over again." I held out hope that the result could be different since there was a MARIO in the way, but as it turns out he was right. What a weird poll... Mario 3 easily beating Sonic and SFII combined is by no means a bad result, and yet its coming up something like 7% below our expectations here, and failed to make major noise with the Day Vote as I'd been expecting. I guess you've just got to chalk that up to Monkey Island's fanbase being super dedicated, the battle for 2nd place stealing some votes away, and maybe that less-than-iconic picture. I'm sure M3's still fine- we were all just coming in a little high off the Mario Kool Aid after that very impressive takedown of Zelda.