Game of the Decade: 2010-2019 Contest Analysis Crew - Part 4

Shovel Knight went way below my expectations. you could point to Octopath being OK as an excuse I guess, but I dunno.

Bastion got kinda killed too.

Shovel Knight should have never had the 60%+ expectations it did. Not after Bravely Default was shown to be close to Sekiro's level. Were we expecting Bravely Default to be way stronger than Octopath and Shovel Knight to be way stronger than Sekiro?

I honestly forgot Bastion was in this round. Everyone expected it to get killed.

Yeah, Bastion basically did what I expected. What's the highest Oracle prediction for Sonic this round? I'd be surprised if multiple people got close to this!

I think we'll see DQ for what it really is when it goes up against Zelda. right now I get the sense that people think it's way better than FF15 and I'm not so sure.

squexa posted...

Did Ys blow up with 8 or was it always this level?

Ys 7 debuted in 2010 as a PSP exclusive

enough said

FF15 might be indirectly stronger than DQ11 for all we know, but in a 1 v 1 I take DQ11 easily. People actually liked that game.

I'd only be hesitant about FFXV/DQXI just because of the name brand value. DQXI should be stronger. It's one of the rare games in the series that found a wide audience here.

DQXI has a switch version and its main character in smash

that alone would probably be enough to put it above XV around here.

FFXV is lucky it's running into Zelda honestly, since any underperformance can be chalked up to Zelda being strong.

If FFXV runs into Persona 5 or DQXI, I suspect we could see the Japanese version of ME2 > FO4 or Witcher 3 > ME3.

oh yeah I forgot about how this site adopts games as their own when they get into smash

transience posted...

oh yeah I forgot about how this site adopts games as their own when they get into smash

Which only helps Persona 5!

and 4! believe

Eh, that was the logic that we used to pick P3 > DQ8 in 2015!

Persona 4 didn't look any stronger this year than in 2015. At the very least, it looks like any strength increase it might have gotten has been cancelled out by the whole 'actually a 2008 game' thing.

could be red dead 2 coming out also boosted the first game a bit by giving attention to the franchise after almost a decade.

MetalmindStats posted...

-snip-

Well, you win some and you lose some, I guess. As impressive as this Persona 5 result is, it's most significant to me as another nail in the coffin of transitivity between typical contest matches. In retrospect, it seems like lots of voters just went for ACIV in the first round because of their brackets or simply by default. This time around, however, Persona 5 has the brackets, and it's a game GameFAQs truly cares about. I could easily see Civ 5 faring better than this against Persona 5, because as that Dark Souls result shows us, there's a decent minority of voters who will usually or always vote for Civ against a midcarder of this ilk. Needless to say, I don't rate this match as an indicator that Persona 5 will give Witcher 3 a serious challenge, even though that's the obvious conclusion on paper.

I would take DQ11 over FFXV without thinking too much about it.

huh I just realized I have the high Sonic Mania pick lawl

I'm trying to decide if picking Super Meat Boy qualifies as one of my worst picks ever or if this whole thing just seems bizarre

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7280-division-6-round-1-sans-vs-pac-man

At least Meat Boy is above 30%.

yeah that's the one I was comparing it to in my head

so far Hollow Knight/Berseria is still my worst pick of the contest

still time for that to change though!

I still have Odyssey in the semifinals this can still get worse yet

I have GoW in the semifinals!

let's see whose pick winds up sucking more

I had avoided a truly bad pick until Meat Boy today. Fare thee well, leaderboard.

Odyssey in the semis looks way more viable than it did pre-contest!

I'm so close to the leaderboard. I think as long as Batman doesn't choke tomorrow, I should be able to get there before Division 4 kills my bracket.

Batman is really throwing me for a loop. we probably go with it and crew curse it

It's BioShock throwing me for a loop more than anything else. I literally cannot figure out if doubling Terraria is any good or just plain bad. The Batman result looks less bad after seeing Xenoblade 1 beasting so far.

same! I hate these stupid "midcarder" matchups in this bracket because I always get them wrong. I'm awful this contest

I'm surprised that not many here had heard of the Ys series. Yeah it's not mainstream, mainly cause it was relegated to computer systems, but it was cult, and I've always specially heard great things about its OST. The first one is one of the few RPGs of the Master System, so I figured if you knew about Phantasy Star, you most likely knew about Ys.

I've heard of Ys! I just knew it was from the same company that made Trails and I knew Trails was super weak.

In my mind Ys has always been "the other falcom series" next to Trails, so I expected it to be at about or below Trails's power level.

I was very wrong.

I'm not convinced the gap between Trails and Ys is that big. I think Trails just got hit hard by the SFF hammer by DQXI and could do something if given better placement.

I want to say Ys 8 was the first game in the series to get a release on multiple relevant non-PC platforms, and it was pretty well-received. That said, I would have still pegged it as a step below something like Berseria at best (which... could still be true? who knows), and certainly never over Meat Boy.

yeah, I feel the same. I've poked at a couple of ys games and I still don't respect it as a contest entity.

squexa posted...

I'm not convinced the gap between Trails and Ys is that big. I think Trails just got hit hard by the SFF hammer by DQXI and could do something if given better placement.

Eh, I agree it's a bad matchup, but I think Trails in the Sky has a big accessibility problem.

I think Cold Steel III would've done better but I prefer Sky SC so that's what I went with.

Janus5k posted...

I want to say Ys 8 was the first game in the series to get a release on multiple relevant non-PC platforms, and it was pretty well-received. That said, I would have still pegged it as a step below something like Berseria at best (which... could still be true? who knows), and certainly never over Meat Boy.

I'm not sure I would put it over SMB (which I think is getting hit harder by Sonic due to same genre factor and Sonic wins that on brand), but I would definitely would put it higher than Slay the Spire, so seeing both round 1 results made me more confident that Sonic would win this one.

transience posted...

yeah, I feel the same. I've poked at a couple of ys games and I still don't respect it as a contest entity.

Again, big difference between 8 and the previous ones! 8's a much more polished, modern-feeling experience, with a ton more content. Feels like a "real game" rather than just something made on the cheap.

Previous Results: Witcher continues to look like a beast, though ME3 was another favorable opponent for it. Galaxy 2 beats Stardew, but only looks okay doing so. God of War put up solid numbers, and New Vegas held off Dark Souls 3.

Crew Predictions: 78/84

Next Round Thoughts: Witcher finally gets a non-western Nintendo opponent! If it can go big against Mario, then that's a good sign it's the real deal. God of War shouldn't have a problem with New Vegas.

Crew Prediction Challenge:

Kleenex: 77
Moltar: 77
transience: 74
Leonhart: 73
Guest: 65

Crew Accuracy Challenge: transience gets the point for Witcher, Leon gets the point for Mario, Moltar gets the point for Fallout and GoW.

Moltar: 26
transience: 16
Kleenex: 15
Leonhart: 12
Guest: 11 (spooky96, Hbthebattle (3), Black Turtle, ctes (2), MetalmindStats (2), MechanicalWall, Kotetsu)

I wouldn't worry too much about Batman losing. Terreria is an early indie and not the type of game we tend to like. Xenoblade 2 is probably pretty strong after we've seen what the first one and Octopath can do.

I feel comfortable about having Batman tomorrow.

BioShock Infinite got SO much backlash after that early wave of praise.

Batman isn't going to lose this.

Round 2 – Dark Souls vs. Rocket League

Moltar’s Analysis

Dark Souls
Round 1 – 82.99% vs. Hotline Miami

Rocket League
Round 1 – 51.66% vs. Dragon Ball FighterZ

Everything Soulsborne has been looking great so far, and I don’t expect that to end here. Rocket League did good to win against the Saiyans, but just because you win a match doesn’t mean you’ve got strength.

I wouldn’t think that Rocket League and DBFZ are worlds stronger than Hotline Miami, so this should be an easy 70+ showing for Souls.

Moltar’s Bracket: Dark Souls

Moltar’s Prediction: Dark Souls – 75%

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transience’s Analysis

This feels more like a 1/16 match than a 1/8. If Bloodborne can put FE Awakening down without a struggle and the middling Dark Souls 3 can put a scare into Fallout New Vegas, then Dark Souls 1 is going to do some work here. This might be the blowout of the round. I'm not sold that Rocket League has any kind of audience here and might be the weakest game that won a match. I'd have to scroll through to verify that, but it seems about right. I'm pretty high on Dark Souls and pretty low on Rocket League, so 80%+ here we go.

transience's prediction: Dark Souls with 81.04%

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Leonhart’s Analysis

Dark Souls had a big win over Hotline Miami, while Rocket League had a narrow win over Dragon Ball FighterZ. The disparity between these two is obvious, especially as we’ve seen Souls-type games do quite well thus far, but the question is how high Dark Souls can go here. We tend not to like sports games or games that are primarily online multiplayer, so that’s two strikes against Rocket League. Thankfully for it, we like fighters not named Smash or SFII even less! After watching Xenoblade put a near tripling on Overwatch, I have a hard time seeing Dark Souls do anything less.

Leonhart’s Vote: Dark Souls

Leonhart’s Prediction: Dark Souls with 75.75%
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Kleenex’s Analysis

This match is nothing more than a measuring stick. Dark Souls is almost assuredly going to win this division at this point, so we’re just trying to gauge how strong it really is before it gets to its first real opponent in the quarterfinals (spoilers: I don’t think much of The Last of Us). Rocket League scraped by in a close match last round against an opponent that probably wasn’t very good, so I think Rocket League gets dunked on here.

Kleenex’s Prediction: Dark Souls with 71.50%

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Guest’s Analysis – MetalmindStats

Here we have one of the few matches this far in there’s not much to say about. Round 2 is often the round that separates the wheat from the chaff, the games that pulled off close, feel-good wins from the true contenders. It’s safe to say this match will live up to that reputation; on one side, we have Rocket League, a casual, strongly multiplayer-centric game which was lucky enough to run into an even weaker multiplayer-oriented game to scrape by last round. On the other side is Dark Souls, which I don’t need to elaborate on here. This contest has only reinforced my high estimation of Dark Souls’ strength so far, and I’m expecting that trend to continue with a dominant win against Rocket League.

Prediction: Dark Souls wins with 75.21%

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Crew Consensus: Dark Souls scores a goal on Rocket League.

It's looking now that Meat Boy might have been the weakest game to win a match!

Either that or Journey.

I suspect Divinity Original Sin II is going to be up there as well

Oh right I forgot that game is even still in!

Round 2 – Yakuza 0 vs. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

Moltar’s Analysis

Yakuza 0
Round 1 – 77.39% vs. The Witness

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
Round 1 – 72.51% vs. Dead Cells

Yakuza had the bigger round 1 blowout! It’s stronger confirmed!

or

OR

just hear me out here…

The Witness is actually one of the weakest games in this bracket and MGSV isn’t going to drop this match. Yakuza is gaining some popularity in the west, but it still has a way to go before it hits MGS levels. MGSV isn’t the most beloved game in the franchise, but the apathetic voters care more about the MGS brand on the site.

Moltar’s Bracket: Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

Moltar’s Prediction: Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain – 61%

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transience’s Analysis

This is a weird one! It was super obvious going in, and it might still be. But that performance that Yakuza put up on The Witness was serious. Now, Witness probably goes down hard to any game with a pulse and might be in our bottom 5, but those kinds of results give you pause. People actually like Yakuza 0. It's not super popular, mind you, but people like it.

MGS5? I mean, people like it. But they don't love it, and the further we get away from it the less they want to show their affection. The smooth gameplay fades away and the nonsense story and Quiet is what remains in people's minds. Remember how MGS4 was a killer in the 2000s but then time passed and it fell apart? That's MGS5 but on a much smaller scale since it isn't that popular.

If Yakuza has spread to enough people then yeah, this could be a fight. More likely, The Witness is just trash and MGS5 has an easy enough win that doesn't inspire anyone going into the Dark Souls rematch.

transience's prediction: Metal Gear Solid 5 with 58.17%

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Leonhart’s Analysis

Yakuza 0 put up perhaps the most surprising raw percentage of the first round, largely because most of us didn’t think it was capable of getting nearly 80% on anything! It’s probably mostly just The Witness being that terrible, but Yakuza has to have some sort of base here to go that high, as well as managing to get two characters in the last Character Battle with good seeds. Not to say it’s not still fodder, but it might be able to put up a better performance on Metal Gear Solid V than I originally anticipated. I’m not worried about MGSV losing though because it put up a good number against Dead Cells, which should be a decent indie game. I don’t think highly of MGSV overall, but I don’t think Yakuza has quite what it takes.

Leonhart’s Vote: Metal Gear Solid V

Leonhart’s Prediction: Metal Gear Solid V with 59.77%

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Kleenex’s Analysis

Yazuka is probably going to get exposed here. I don’t think that’s particularly surprising, but The Witness is going to be in the running for weakest game in the bracket. As we’ve seen in other results this round, stunting on turbofodder to the tune of 75%+ doesn’t necessarily mean much. I don’t think MGSV is going to be that great either, in the long run, and it might actually disappoint, but there’s no chance it drops this match.

Kleenex’s Prediction: Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain with 65%

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Guest’s Analysis – MechanicalWall

Ngl this match is kinda sexy. Both these series simultaneously want you to take them deadly seriously while also having some of the most bizarre bullshit I've ever seen in a game. Yakuza is in on the joke though, while MGS is... sometimes in on it.

Anyway I'm not writing one of my usual novels for this match because it's fairly easy. I remember MGSV doing way worse than it actually did against Dead Cells; I thought it didn't even double it when it actually broke 70 percent. For what little it's probably worth, the 2018 indie poll put Dead Cells near Celeste, which just got done bombing a match almost everyone thought it had. Still, DC should be closer to say, Terraria, than to INSIDE on the indieometer, ie a midweight. I definitely don't think MGSV has made the case that it can even pretend to threaten the game it lost to in 2015, but it probably at least makes it there.

Meanwhile, freaking Yakuza actually came close to quadrupling something. Yakuza. A ridiculously niche series confined to Playstation with a very vocal cult following whose characters bombed in 2018 (and the characters do a lot to prop up this series!). Does that mean it's a secret powerhouse that will threaten MGS here?

... naw. It took me a couple of minutes to place The Witness on the indieometer; at first I was like, maybe it's close to Edith Finch? They have a similar aesthetic and are first person games where you walk around just doing shit. That would put Yakuza around FFXV! But then I realized, the Witness is probably closer to... Obra Dinn. The second game by a legendary indie developer that went for a larger scope, a first person perspective, but most importantly, a really strange gameplay loop that rubs a lot of people the wrong way. They're practically twins!

If that's actually the case, then Yakuza might be in a lot of trouble. Mario Galaxy 2 went beast mode against Obra Dinn and it's not even that strong; as I'm writing this it's currently failing to double indie Harvest Moon. Only 77% on the Witness might actually be really bad; as DOOM getting wrecked by RE2 proved, going absolutely nuts on gutter tier games doesn't actually mean that much, as sometimes the answer is yes, they really are THAT weak.

Anyway this is a lot of fluff surrounding a pretty obvious conclusion to me. Unless Dead Cells also really sucks, MGSV should look OK before walking into its inevitable doom against Dark Souls. Again. Prepare to Die indeed.

MechanicalWall prediction: Metal Gear Solid V – 63%

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Crew Consensus: 0 chance for Yazuka 0

Yakuza 0 seems to have more support behind it than Ys 8...

Well, it actually won a match!

Sonic Mania vs. MGS5 could've been an interesting match though, I think.

Potentially! I think I'd lean MGSV though.

Now Sonic Mania vs. KH3 on the other hand...