Game of the Decade: 2010-2019 Contest Analysis Crew - Part 2

Round 1 – The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth vs. Nioh

Moltar’s Analysis

Boy am I getting Ori/Dragon Age vibes from this match. Glad that one played out first because I’m feeling a little bit better about BoI now. Nioh came out in 2017, which was a beast of a year, and as a result all of its poll results look really bad. Binding of Isaac can’t say much in comparison though, as it has an actually contest result and nearly got tripled by Witcher 3.

Indie games, while not super strong, seem to be stronger as a whole than in 2015 due to being more widely available. Games like Nioh have come and went, so I think that’s what will be its downfall here. BoI relevant, Nioh forgotten.

Moltar’s Bracket: The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth

Moltar’s Prediction: The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth – 52%

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transience’s Analysis

The Binding of Isaac is a real interesting one. It came out at the beginning of the generation, back before indie games really took off. Generationally, it fits in more with the VVVVVVs and Super Meat Boys of the world than the games that came out in the latter half of the decade when indie gaming was so much more accepted. But Binding of Isaac had this insane life to it where there were always new updates and expansions. It honestly has the shelf life and appeal that an MMO does, only in a way that this website can get behind. Even today, Binding of Isaac has a deep appeal, one that crossed over. For a lot of people, Isaac is a game that lived with them for years.

On the other hand, Nioh is kind of our thing? It's a japanese game which means way more here than it should, and it kinda sorta has this Dark Souls DNA but without the name recognition. Nioh 2 also just hit too and, like Ori 2, hit right as COVID-19 shut down the world. That certainly helped Ori beat Dragon Age! Does Nioh have a similar kind of low-key strength to it?

I just don't see it. Isaac is a fascinating game with a style that, for better or worse, is immediately recognizable. Nioh... it's like weak Devil May Cry, and I don't have much respect for those games even though one just made me look real bad.

transience's prediction: The Binding of Isaac with 65.43%

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Leonhart’s Analysis

This match gave me fits when the bracket first came out because I wasn’t sure what to expect from indies in general, but the first round so far has cleared things up pretty well. Binding of Isaac is probably one of the more well-known and respected indie games out there, while Nioh is just some random Souls clone. The only question now is how much Binding of Isaac wins by. I wonder if it’ll continue the trend of starting off strong and tanking percentage the rest of the way because of how much influence the board has over the start of the match now. I can’t imagine Nioh will have a board vote that’s worth anything, at any rate!

Leonhart’s Vote: The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth

Leonhart’s Prediction: The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth with 63.17%
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Kleenex’s Analysis

I don’t really get Binding of Isaac. I have friends who go nuts for that game, but I’ve tried it a few times and it just completely whiffs in every aspect for me. Oh well. I was also shocked to find that Isaac has already been in a contest - getting tripled by The Witcher 3 back in 2015. That’s not something that’s terribly impressive, but the data on Nioh is non-existent. It got lost in the shuffle of its lone GotY poll and...well...that’s about it. Neither of these games are going to be that strong, but the fact that, anecdotally, I know that some people have a weird fervor around Isaac gives it a slight edge in my mind. I don’t know too many people who are still raving about Nioh 3 years after the fact, while Isaac does seem to have a small, but dedicated, fanbase. So I guess Isaac wins.

Kleenex’s Prediction: The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth with 53.75%

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Guest’s Analysis – Kotetsu534

Yet another indie! We just saw Ori confound expectations and overcome Dragon Age, and you'd think Binding of Isaac is comparable in reputation and strength to it. It actually made a bracket in 2015 where it got 25% on The Witcher 3 (let's assume TW3 is stronger today than it was then...). I reckon indies are getting a fair bit of respect voting, and BoI should be easily big enough - unlike Baba Is You or Obra Dinn - to benefit from it.

Nioh is precisely the kind of game that simply passes the GameFAQs audience by. A hack and slash for the PS4 from the guys who brought us Ninja Gaiden is not going to make waves. I'm pretty shocked it made the bracket to be honest, and with a decent seeding! In fact, its series has been in 5 polls on our site and never made it to double digits. Maybe I should be more scared because Nioh 2 just got released last month and we're indoors... but I haven't seen many people talking about it at all.

Roll on the indie charge.

Binding of Isaac: Rebirth - 61.1%
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Crew Consensus: Nioh gets bound up by Isaac.

I hope you just crew cursed. Not feeling very good about having picked Nioh atm, but not certain in Isaac either.

ctesjbuvf posted...

I hope you just crew cursed. Not feeling very good about having picked Nioh atm, but not certain in Isaac either.

I literally can't trust either of them. I have Nioh in my bracket, and I think it should win, but indies have been hot.

a lot of different takes on this one, but none that took nioh to win. I feel like most people on this site don't even know what a nioh is.

Oof. Stardew is beating destiny. Said this in a different thread, but i forget that the crowd that lives on gamefaqs gravitates toward certain types of games.

should have played this poll as a metapoll on what gamefaqs likes.
also- gotta give Stardew a shot!

I picked Nioh based on the assumption that indies are fodder. Not very confident about that anymore!

Isaac was also in the 2013 contest. He managed to barely defeat Tingle, thanks to Link being in the same poll.

transience posted...

a lot of different takes on this one, but none that took nioh to win. I feel like most people on this site don't even know what a nioh is.

They talk about it fairly often on the PS4 board

I first heard of Nioh when I found out about Darksydephil jacking off on camera right before he started streaming the alpha in 2016.

Yes that actually happened.

I honestly knew nothing about Nioh before this contest started.

Yeah it feels like it came and went.

yeah, people into modern gaming know what it is and it's well liked. that's not this site's demographic though.

I have Isaac in my bracket but it's worth noting that Nioh 2 came out like a week ago

Round 1 – God of War vs. The Talos Principle

Moltar’s Analysis

The next competitor in the ‘Who can score the biggest blowout in the Contest’ contest is God of War! This game got 46% on SSBU a few years ago. That’s pretty good!

Talos Principle got last in its GotY poll back in 2014. That’s pretty bad!

Moltar’s Bracket: God of War

Moltar’s Prediction: God of War – 87%

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transience’s Analysis

God of War has become That Game That Got 46% On Smash Ultimate to me. Is it really that good? Is Smash really that bad? It reminds me of the old days when Shadow got 45% on Mario or Vice City got 46% on Melee.

The answer is... it won't matter this round, because Talos Principle is down there with Inside. There's a fascinating match coming up with New Vegas, but Fallout gets to beat up a similarly weak game in Stanley Parable. Trying to measure these two is useless, making today's matches honestly really boring. Bring on round 2 already, these 80/20 blowouts are getting a little exhausting.

transience's prediction: God of War with 84.56%

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Leonhart’s Analysis

I think pretty highly of GoW’s potential strength in this contest. It’s performed well in every poll it’s appeared in against solid competition, including Smash Ultimate. We shouldn’t get too much of a read off of it here since Talos Principle should be beyond weak, and we’re in the blowout zone right now. I don’t really know what to make of any of these results since we know so little about this field. Makes me glad we’re doing four matches per day right now so we can just get all these over the top results out of the way as soon as possible!

Leonhart’s Vote: God of War

Leonhart’s Prediction: God of War with 83.16%
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Kleenex’s Analysis

I forgot how good God of War looked in its game of the year poll. It definitely felt like a game that came and went (and that could still be the case), but going toe to toe with a Smash game is impressive stuff. Talos Principle is one of the biggest non-entities in this bracket. I think the game is neat, but a first-person puzzle game not named Portal isn’t going to do much of anything around here. Even in its lone GameFAQs poll it finished dead last by a *large* margin. God of War should clean up nicely en route to a likely fight with the Witcher in the division finals.

Kleenex’s Prediction: God of War with 85.25%

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Guest’s Analysis – Luster Soldier

God of War is in the running to be potentially the strongest Sony console exclusive in this contest, competing against The Last of Us for that title among Sony console exclusives. I would have leaned towards TLoU being the stronger game pre-contest for having way more time to build up a large playrate, but God of War showed good strength by getting just a tad below 46% on Smash Ultimate. A few days ago, Smash Ultimate got about 83% on Tekken 7 and while The Talos Principle shouldn't be as weak as Obra Dinn, it's hard to say if it's even weaker than Tekken 7 or not. 80% from God of War is possible, but any comparisons between God of War and Smash are complicated by the unknown strength of their respective opponents. I would lean towards going over 80% because of the high number of matches so far that have gone above 80%.

Luster Soldier's Bracket: God of War

Luster Soldier's Prediction: God of War - 81.12%
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Crew Consensus: Godlike beatdown from the God of War.

I could honestly see GoW hit 90% here and not bat an eye.

I spend a lot of effing time on video games forums and I've seen the title "The Talos Principle" pop up about 4 in total. I've probably scrolled/read over a billion posts this past decade.

here is where you all learn that the people behind serious sam made talos principle

Yeah, if I had written this after seeing Witcher 3's performance, I'd have probably bumped up GoW a few percent.

transcience posted...

here is where you all learn that the people behind serious sam made talos principle

So their output has crawled back to our contests 18 years after this beatdown was delivered...

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/986-west-division-round-2-mega-man-vs-serious-sam

wow, isaac is really bombing

yep still haven't gotten a debatable match right yet

The powers of Crew Curse and Show Curse combined are too much for Isaac to resist.

this opening vote makes me think that Nioh might be the bracket favorite which I wouldn’t have expected.

ZeldaTPLink posted...

The powers of Crew Curse and Show Curse combined are too much for Isaac to resist.

Isaac/Nioh felt a lot like TWD/Bastion where almost no one was willing to give Nioh any chance of winning this match by the time the match came out. In the Guru, there's actually quite a few people who picked Nioh (me included).

I'm pretty surprised by this. I really didn't think anyone cared about Nioh.

Oh well.

My initial gut instinct was Nioh because I figured Isaac was really weak, but as I looked at some polls, I thought Nioh would be even weaker.

there's a long way to go still, but I can't help but compare God of War's percentage to Galaxy 2's

transience posted...

there's a long way to go still, but I can't help but compare God of War's percentage to Galaxy 2's

which only tells me that Talos Principle isn't as weak as Obra Dinn

I'd think they were basically the same and just congratulate Mario for being better at blowing out weak opponents

if I was trying to make excuses for Smash, that is!

"basically the same" means Galaxy 2 beats GoW with 61.78%

well God of War will improve over the next 23 hours, I would assume

I doubt it's gaining 5%!

you can naysay Ultimate for good reason but there's no way it's bad enough to be on Mario Galaxy 2's level

Ultimate's ceiling may not be as high as we thought but there's only so low I'm willing to put its floor

but regardless we're all just guessing when it comes to the strengths of these games we know virtually nothing about!

which is why most of these round 1 matches are fairly worthless

yeah, I don't *actually* think these matches matter. getting 84% or 87% on extremely weak competition doesn't tell us much. I do think Mario is just naturally better at blowing the hell out of something than God of War, but that doesn't mean it's better. (I wouldn't feel comfortable picking God of War over Galaxy 2, though)

oh yeah especially with forced voting because who the heck is anti-voting Galaxy 2

Smash is a fraaaaaaud

Previous Results: No surprises here, all the expected winners won. Witcher and Mario went pretty big in their victories though, and lol destiny.

Crew Predictions: 32/36

Next Round Thoughts: Witcher and Mario have pretty easy Round 2 matches lined up.

Crew Prediction Challenge:

Moltar: 32
Kleenex: 32
transience: 31
Leonhart: 30
Guest: 29

Crew Accuracy Challenge: ctes gets the point for Witcher, Leon gets the point for ME3, transience gets the point for Stardew, and Moltar gets the point for SMG2.

Moltar: 12
Guest: 7 (spooky96, Hbthebattle (2), Black Turtle, ctes (2), MetalmindStats)
Kleenex: 5
transience: 5
Leonhart: 4

calm down moltar

cant stop wont stop

I'm just glad I'm slowly crawling out of last place

Round 1 – Persona 5 vs. Heavy Rain

Moltar’s Analysis

Each Persona game is far stronger than the one that preceded it. At this rate, Persona 8 is going to be like the strongest game on the website! We’ve already seen P5 not get doubled by Breath of the Wild, which I’m guessing like 90% of the games in this bracket would fail to do.

Heavy Rain is less remembered these days for being a groundbreaking game and more so for memes and funny scenes. It’ll get killed here but it shouldn’t be one of the worst beatdowns of the contest.

Moltar’s Bracket: Persona 5

Moltar’s Prediction: Persona 5 – 77%

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transience’s Analysis

The winner here is obvious, but the percentage? It really comes down to Heavy Rain more than Persona 5. Heavy Rain is better known than most of our 16 seeds, and most of the games that have been mercy killed lately. It's probably like a poor man's Walking Dead? Maybe? Heavy Rain is so old and so mocked at this point that I wouldn't be surprised if it was better remembered as a meme or a joke than a real game.

Persona 5, meanwhile, gets a chance to really shine. Both are Playstation games and P5 is riding high due to the release of Royal this week. I'll be watching this one closely, not because of P5 but to see how Persona is doing. Persona 5's path feels fairly set while P4 could do all sorts of things. P5 probably goes big here, but how big?

transience's prediction: Persona 5 with 77.77%

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Leonhart’s Analysis

I’m very interested to see how well Persona 5 does in this contest. It’s been given a division that’s tailor made for it to win. It’ll be viewed as a big disappointment if it gets knocked out before the quarterfinals. I wonder how high it can go against Heavy Rain though, which is probably one of the more well known 16 seeds, even if it’s probably regarded as a bit of a joke. We’ve seen so many blowouts this contest that it might be viewed as a disappointment if Persona 5 doesn’t go for 80% here, but I wouldn’t get too worried about that here.

Leonhart’s Vote: Persona 5

Leonhart’s Prediction: Persona 5 with 75.55%

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Kleenex’s Analysis

Persona 4 looked plenty good against its opponent a few days ago, and I see no reason Persona 5 shouldn’t follow suit today. I’m not totally convinced that Persona 5 is actually stronger than Persona 4, but they should be pretty close at the very least. The game did look pretty alright in the 2017 game of the year poll (getting doubled by a Zelda game is pretty alright for those keeping track). Heavy Rain is going to suck shit. It’s a 10 year old game that wasn’t that strong 10 years ago. Looking down the list of games, there’s not much reason Persona 5 shouldn’t win this division outright, so it can start here by making a strong statement. No reason this result shouldn’t be a blowout.

Kleenex’s Prediction: Persona 5 with 79%

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Guest’s Analysis – Sir Chris

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Crew Consensus: Persona steals the Round 2 treasure

we all basically said the same thing

bring on round 2

Sir Chris makes a good point.

May someone else attempt to get the accuracy point for guest if Chris hasn't when we get close to the match?

obviously guest gets the accuracy point when Heavy Rain wins

ctesjbuvf posted...

May someone else attempt to get the accuracy point for guest if Chris hasn't when we get close to the match?

if someone picks 75.54% or 79.01% I will end them

I would copy/paste my oracle prediction which is a few days old.

Though it is close to what you wouldn't want:
ctesjbuvf posted...
Persona 5 - 79.74%

After seeing Persona 4 Golden look so impressive I'd expect even more of Persona 5. Heavy Rain is for sure a more well known game, but I also don't think it has aged too well, so Persona should be able to score big. What's stopping me from going higher is that the two games are so different and I think to go much higher than something so different, the losing game needs to be a bit less known than Heavy Rain is.

Now it's here if you wanna grant guest that in case Chris doesn't post in time. I don't mind if you ignore it completely or pick someone else.

It's usually first come first serve if the scheduled guest no shows

I'm feeling an 80%+ win for Persona. Heavy Rain was interesting once, but doesn't hold up at all.

Man I was going to get to it

Stupid actually playing persona 5 distracting me

Anyway persona 5 is probably the RPG of a generation and I dont think anyone cares about heavy rain. I love p4g but I think persona 5 is going to be even stronger. I have persona 5 at 80.45%