Results[]
Ulti's Analysis[]
| Round | Division 1972-1988 Semi Final |
|---|---|
| Match # | 33 |
| Match Date | Saturday, May 9th, 2009 |
| Oracle Expectations |
Tetris - 38.15% Mega Man 2 - 29.13% Pac-Man - 18.41% Donkey Kong - 14.15% |
| GameFAQs Expectations |
Tetris first place (4pts) - 53.14% Tetris second place (2pts) - 15.55% MM2 second place (4pts) - 24.48% MM2 first place (2pts) - 12.80% |
| Advancing Prediction |
Tetris - 68.69% (26,306) Mega Man 2 - 37.28% (14,277) |
I refuse to call a round 2 "divisional semifinal" in a fourway contest, regardless of whether it actually is. It's round 2.
Anyway, this was one of those rare matches where both sides of an argument got to be correct. Tetris people pretty much figured Mega Man 2 would get killed, especially after the first round. Mega Man fans insisted it still had a good chance to win. In the end, we kind of got the best of both worlds. Tetris did not SFF Mega Man 2 here, but it won quite handily and was never threatened past the first few minutes. It wasn't a complete killing as some predicted, but it was a handy win nonetheless. Still, Mega Man 2 looked decent here given the first round made it look like he would just get crushed.
It's impossible to really say what if any role SFF played in this match, but it didn't matter too much. There was a decent battle for third place for a bit, but Pac-Man pulled through in a clear case of... SFFing a puzzle game in the face of Puzzle SFF? I dunno. This was our second straight legendarily boring match, so there's not much I can say here. Expected result, less than expected percentages. Simple and to the point, much like what this match was after Mega Man kept it even for a couple minutes.
Match Trends[]
Ngamer's Same Day Analysis[]
Match Prediction[]
I absolutely adore the match pic! This format allows our artists soooo much more freedom than trying to cram everything into those skinny vertical rectangles, and you can see how much the product is improved by giving them that extra breathing room. I've heard people saying that DK or Pac is going to collapse in this one, but with perfect, super-nostalgic pictures of their most popular levels like that I just can't see it. MM2 is also vastly improved from last round (though it would have been hard to get any worse), but I don't think it catches the eye quite like the bottom two. As for Tetris, ehh, I think it would have done better with a screen of the blocks actually dropping rather than that title screen.
Pic aside, the case for Mega Man in this one is that it has a more "hardcore" fanbase than these other ancient options and also that it stands out as the only game with semi-"modern" gameplay unlike the arcade options. And for the most part I buy into that argument. Where I disagree is when folks start claiming that Tetris is sure to fold against any kind of respectable competition. In a 1v1 setting, sure, but it seems to me that "joke appeal" wasn't the only reason L-Block was so successful in this 4way format. Part of his great run needs to be tied back to what an independent and un-LFFable entrant he was, something that Tetris should have going for it as well- when it gets to a choice between Zelda 1 and Mario 1 and Tetris, I could see a good chunk of voters jumping on the "anti-Nintendo" option, especially when it doesn't have to split its Game Boy appeal with anyone while MM2/Mario/Zelda all fight over the NES.
I'm getting a little ahead of myself here, but suffice it to say that even though MM2 should redeem itself with a slightly better showing in this one (signalling good things for MM3!), I fully expect Tetris to show us that last round was no fluke by taking this match going away. And as mentioned, the pic probably helps the bottom two options not get totally blown out. Which would result in
- Tetris - 37.20%
- Mega Man 2 - 30.46%
- Pac-Man - 18.65%
- Donkey Kong - 13.69%
Looks... okay, I guess!
Next Day Review[]
Oh wow, and now this latest poll wasn't even able to scrape past the 100k mark until the final 30 minutes of voting. The apathy created by keeping all of these extremely similar games cornered into the same packs is palpable; MIX THE ERAS NEXT TIME, SB. Alright, I'll stop mentioning that now. Not a fantastic result for me today as I was expecting DK to hold up a little bit better, though on the plus side I was almost spot-on with the Tetris/MM2 split... yeah, not too much to say about this match other than that thanks to the pathetic level of interest shown (Tetris looks like it won't even manage 40k votes despite winning easily) I've lost a ton of confidence in my "Tetris over one of the Big Two" upset bid for next round!