LogFAQs > #939193444

Headliner Analysis continued:

So of course Division 4 was ready to pull one last prank on everyone. Xenoblade STARTED with a fine enough lead, but just like its former opponents, Persona kept pushing. And pushing. The lead was kept at less than a single percent for most of the match, but the fan was kept spotless until the last few hours, when shit rocketed straight onto it. Blame hentai rallies, blame normal rallies, but unlike the Rockstar games, Persona was making a REAL charge, and based on how quickly it was rising, it looked like it had a shot at claiming the lead JUST as the match would end. But it just didnt happen. It cut the lead to mere double digits before completely sputtering out, and the final margin was 111. Xenoblade had been counterrallying, and I suppose it fortified its position exactly when it would matter the most. On a personal level, I was devastated; Persona 4 winning here would have guaranteed that Id end the contest at the #1 spot on the leaderboard, and seeing it choke at the last hour was pretty demoralizing. Id eventually recover and take the #5 spot, but I cant help but think about how one extra pair of anime tiddies on a hentai subreddit might have been the only thing keeping me from a 1000 bucks.

Uh, anyway. Xenoblade had a SIX percent pick rate to make it into Quarters, by far the lowest pick rate wed see the entire contest. And how was its miracle run rewarded? By being fed to Smash Ultimate. Oh joy. It held up remarkably well though; a 60-40 match with a top 5 game in bracket, a fellow Nintendo game, was actually really really impressive. Maybe I should have seen Xenoblade being a beast coming; think back to Mario RPGs run in 2015. It was Nintendo, it was Square, it was a JRPG! It had it all. Xenoblade doesnt have the Square part, but being a Nintendo JRPG still provides some hax, which explains how a game with such a low playrate did so well.

Other Thoughts:

Wow, I was so caught up reminiscing about P4 and Xenoblades epic runs that I forgot I was writing about fckin 2012. Unlike 2011, there was absolutely nothing impressive about anything that any of the other games this year did. I guess Diablo III not getting wrecked by The Last of Us was OK? Not really impressive though.

And some of these games lucked out, too. Journey made it to Round 2 thanks to being seeded against a Gacha game. ME3 got seeded against a game thats even more hated than it on this site. Both games being destroyed by the eventual semifinalists is pretty funny, not gonna lie, but I highly doubt they hold up well at all in the final x-stats.

And then what? 13 entries, and P4, Xenoblade, Borderlands, and maybe Diablo III and ME3 (and thats only after assuming Witcher 3 SFFed it into paste) are the only games that arent fodder. Thats 8/13 left. 62% fodder rate, and thats being generous. Remind me why this year was so well represented again?

And yknow, I LIKE a lot of those games. Dishonored? Hotline Miami? FTL? Great stuff. Just not worth a plucked eyelash on this site.

Im kinda struggling with the final rating here. On the one hand, P4 and Xenoblade had such crazy runs that it feels wrong to slap this year with a straight-up F. On the other hand, do two games out of a field of 13 drag the average up by enough? I mean, SOMETHING has to take the F here, or else Im just another gaming publication that doesnt actually use their entire scale and therefore renders it meaningless!

Believe it or not, looking at the rest of my list, the truth is that some of the following years not only have a similar density of fodder, but they dont even have as good of peaks as this one does. Yah, seriously. Tells you something about the field. So 2012 just barely escapes from a failing grade.

Final Rating:

D - Possibly the single most carried year in the field, but at least its getting carried.

---

If you're only on this board to whine about "SJWs", please redirect whatever you type on to the nearest trash can. And hop in after it.