LogFAQs > #935551411

Divison 3 Finals
SSB Ultimate
Super Mario Odyssey

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7471-best-of-2018-game-of-the-year
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7473-best-of-2018-game-of-the-year-final-final-vote
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7577-what-is-the-best-all-time-super-smash-bros-game

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6946-best-of-2017-switch
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7757-whats-your-all-time-favorite-3d-super-mario-game

Smash Ultimate is the big favorite to take this match, and it probably should be. It's a huge deal right now, what with continuous DLC and EVERYONE IS HERE and all that. There was a poll held on B8 about which game in the bracket would be the 2nd-strongest and Smash Ultimate dominated. It's just...a bigger deal than Odyssey, right?

Right?

First, let's tackle the polls that most point to Smash Ultimate's victory: the 'favorite Smash game' poll where it beat Melee and the 'favorite 3D Mario' poll where Odyssey got wrecked by SM64. If you take those as direct X-stat values, it points to Smash Ultimate being this beast that's stronger than Melee while Odyssey will be way weaker than SM64, but I disagree with both those notions. 'Favorite X' polls for Nintendo stuff can get weird as all hell. For example:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7610-whats-your-all-time-favorite-legend-of-zelda-console-game
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6168-best-game-ever-day-35-division-vi-final-zelda-a-link-to-the
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6173-best-game-ever-day-38-quarterfinal-zelda-ocarina-of-time-vs

Those results do not even remotely line up. How about this?

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7898-which-mario-character-is-your-all-time-favorite

Yoshi always performs amazing in these and no one knows why. Or even just a stat comparison:

Mario 64 (2015g) VS Mario Galaxy (2015g)
Mario 64 has a strength of 41.96.
Mario Galaxy has a strength of 30.71.
Mario 64 wins with 63.41% of the vote!

That's a much better result for Galaxy than the Favorite 3D Mario poll implies. So here's the thing: I think Odyssey is much better than its poll suggests, while Smash Ultimate is worse. I think it's very hard for a Smash fan NOT to vote for Ultimate in that poll simply because of the wording. It's not 'your favorite Smash game', it's 'the best Smash game', and...its name is literally Ultimate. Everyone Is Here, pinnacle of the series, ect. It's the hot thing right now.

But indirectly? I would take Melee to be stronger, and I would be comfortable with that. Brawl was about equal to Melee and it was the most hyped game this site has ever had and had a much higher playrate. I would peg Ultimate to be somewhere between Melee and Smash 4 in strength...maybe closer to Melee, but pretty much in the middle of the two. And here's my biggest reason why:

It honestly didn't do well in Game of the Year. Yeah, it won, but every Smash games wins GotY. That's what they do. Smash 4 wrecked its GotY poll and that game wasn't very strong. Smash Ultimate got 54% against God of War, and there's a limit to how strong God of War can be. It's very rare that a non-Nintendo, non-Square game ends up being a bid deal here, and while God of War was very well-received I don't think it's going to tangle with - for example - the Elder Scrolls or Fallouts here. I'd peg it more as a 2015 Witcher 3 or Last of Us, and well:

Smash 4 (2015g) VS The Last of Us (2015g)
Smash 4 has a strength of 30.96.
The Last of Us has a strength of 27.36.
Smash 4 wins with 55.81% of the vote!

God of War could always be stronger than anticipated, and using GotY polls like they're actual contest polls is always questionable, but still. It's not a great look either way.

So what about Odyssey? We don't have much to go on outside of Breath of the Wild blasting it, but...again, hierarchy. It held up as well as Persona 5 did against BotW, which is honestly impressive considering Nintendo SFF and the fact that Breath of the Wild completely dominated that year. There was zero chance ANYTHING else was winning GotY (or Game of the Decade, for that matter). I basically have to guesstimate about Odyssey, but personally I think it's a good bit stronger than Galaxy and is being undervalued. Odyssey, despite playing second fiddle to BotW, was well-received. Very, very well-received, and had extremely good sales to boot. Indirectly, I don't think it's THAT far off from BotW - in any other year, BotW would've been an easy contender for GotY.

And hey, look at these 2015 X-stat values:

Mario 64 - 41.96
SSB Melee - 38.28

Smash 4 - 30.96
Mario Galaxy - 30.71

Odyssey and Ultimate will fall between those two sets, and there's plenty of space for one to be weaker or stronger than the other.

So...what do you pick? I keep going back to Ultimate's GotY poll and can't help but think that Odyssey would have done better there. You can say that Ultimate will be stronger now thanks to DLC, but that's a bit of a stretch. DLC doesn't change people's opinions on games outside of the hardcore fanbase who make up a minority of voters. Ultimate is probably the smart pick here, due to the 1 Seed and recency and blah blah, but I'm going with Odyssey. If only because I have to diversify my bracket *somewhere*.

Expected Result
Odyssey > Smash Ultimate
51 - 49

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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.