Results[]
Ulti's Analysis[]
| Round | Division 1992-1994 Final |
|---|---|
| Match # | 51 |
| Match Date | Wednesday, May 27th, 2009 |
| Oracle Expectations |
Zelda: A Link to the Past - 36.22% Final Fantasy VI - 33.30% Super Metroid - 16.35% Zelda: Link's Awakening - 14.37% |
| GameFAQs Expectations |
Zelda:ALttP first place (8pts) - 41.19% Zelda:ALttP second place (4pts) - 14.68% FF6 second place (8pts) - 22.73% FF6 first place (4pts) - 11.07% |
| Advancing Prediction |
Link to the Past - 55.87% (21,396) Final Fantasy VI - 33.80% (12,944) |
Very few matches in round 3 and beyond were bad, but this was one of them. The 1992-1994 division was a giant SNES era clusterfuck, culminating in.... a gigantic SNES era clusterfuck and one of the worst rematches ever. Learning that Link to the Past could SFF Link's Awakening more than Super Metroid wasn't the least bit interesting, surprising or relevant.
The second place game here was also a lock to score second place once the round 1 results were in. Final Fantasy 6 looked horrible in the first two rounds, but this didn't stop it from an easy second place above two SFFd Nintendo games. In terms of a rematch, this was pretty much awful. FF6 was never in contention for first place, and it was hard to remember FF6 led LTTP for a couple hours in 2004.
Even great stretches of contest matches have a couple bad apples, and this was one of them. LTTP > FF6 was a lock for this match before the contest ever began, and a lock was what we got. This was all about LTTP setting up future success.
Match Trends[]
Ngamer's Same Day Analysis[]
Match Prediction[]
In my bracket I went with the FF6 > LttP upset here because I expected Super Met to make it into this poll (yesssss, the one thing I predicted correctly all year!) and thought that MMX (d'oh) would also hurt the Nintendo entrants, allowing FF to reverse its '04 defeat. Now that another Zelda game is here in place of MM, and in fact a Zelda game that's looked really good every time out and ought to resist SFF better since its from a unique platform, the FF6 win ought to be a no brainer, right? Well... it WOULD be, except that we just saw Team Mario put up 76% of the vote on Team Final Fantasy, and that in spite of Sonic hanging around to possibly weaken the 2D platformers!
Even then, I'd normally counter with "but these Zelda games can't boast 90% playrates like those classic Marios- a fanbase split is going to be much more detrimental to this series". And while that's true, it doesn't explain away how LA was able to score 45% directly on an FF6 that wasn't suffering from any kind of FF or Square or RPG split last time around. Sorry, but that's just an embarrassing performance from something we'd been expecting to contend for a Top Ten position this year- clearly this game has lost a step or three in the past five years, and so just like Chrono Trigger I think it gets exposed in this one.
...which doesn't mean it can't keep it close! Europe ought to give the game a big boost during the dead hours, but again like CT, I just can't see how it survives once the sun rises against Day Vote studs like this. Other quickies: LA probably holds on better than most are expecting (Yoshi's Island this is not!) and Super Metroid likewise probably doesn't completely fall apart versus its R2 percentage. Which ought to give us something like:
- The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past - 35.55%
- Final Fantasy III (VI) - 35.48%
- Super Metroid - 14.74%
- The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening - 14.23%
Feeling pretty good about that!
Next Day Review[]
And the Nintendo domination train rolls on! Kind of sad that the Marios have spoiled us so badly that we weren't even surprised by LttP improving by 1.5% on FF6... despite the presence of Super Metroid and another Zelda game, but I guess that's just how far Old Square has fallen. Other than that, uhh, not much to say about this result really. Super Met did a little better than I expected and LA got SFFed a touch worse that I would have thought, but it wasn't all that crazy in either direction. And as for what it means to next round, hmm... I guess here's hoping that Mario is able to advance tonight, since the M64 vs LttP battle will be about as close to pure as is possible in this format, plus we'd be able to compare CT to FF6 based on how the Old Square Bros hold up against FF7. Speaking of which...