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Undertale's rally had reached full internet scale by the championship, and Ocarina never mounted a serious challenge. The writeup frames the blowout as the crowning of a new contest paradigm and the completion of Undertale's historic run.

Rally: The writeup says broad internet attention and Undertale's massive outside support overwhelmed Ocarina of Time from the opening moments, turning the final into a one-sided coronation.

Ocarina of Time demolished Super Mario RPG in a semifinal that everyone expected to be one-sided. Early spillover inflated turnout but did not create a meaningful competitive effect, and Mario RPG's miracle run ended quietly.

Melee and Undertale mobilized massive outside communities and produced one of the highest-profile matches in site history. Undertale finally won the rally war after repeated swings, while a caught botting attempt added another layer of controversy.

Rally · Cheat: The writeup describes an enormous two-sided rally war between Undertale and Melee. It also quotes the administrator saying an attempted automated vote-stuffing operation for Melee was caught and its fraudulent votes ignored.

Super Mario RPG ended Metal Gear Solid 3's run and completed an improbable trip to the semifinals. The writeup treats the victory as the culmination of a huge nostalgia-driven bandwagon rather than a picture-driven result.

Ocarina of Time beat A Link to the Past, but failed to produce the devastating same-series suppression many expected from their old four-way comparison. Both analyses conclude that little or no meaningful SFF was visible in the current match.

Mario 64 repeatedly fought Undertale back into a close match, but every meaningful threat triggered another surge of outside Undertale support. Undertale eventually pulled clear and continued toward the semifinal.

Rally: The writeup says Undertale's rally erased Mario 64's early lead within hours and repeatedly answered Mario whenever he briefly retook control. Simultaneous Melee rallying may also have helped Mario somewhat.

Final Fantasy VII briefly led, but Melee's outside support quickly took control and turned the quarterfinal into a comfortable upset. The result reversed their old hierarchy and ended Final Fantasy's main title hopes.

Rally: The writeup says Melee's community rally engine took over after Final Fantasy VII's brief early lead and then drove the rest of the match decisively toward Melee.

Metal Gear Solid 3 narrowly beat the original Metal Gear Solid in the long-awaited intra-series comparison. The writeup celebrates the close but stable result as a rare feel-good moment in an otherwise disappointing contest for the franchise.

Super Mario RPG completed its breakout by decisively upsetting Resident Evil 4 after several rounds of RE4 warning signs. The writeup treats the win as the payoff to Mario RPG's nostalgia-driven run and Resident Evil's decline.

Majora's Mask rode spillover and presentation advantages to a large early lead, but A Link to the Past slowly erased it and won with the morning vote. The match became a clear demonstration of how quickly rally spillover could fade.

Rally · Pic: The writeup says rally spillover from the previous Undertale-Pokémon match strongly favored Majora's Mask early. It also says Majora had a clear picture advantage over A Link to the Past.

Ocarina of Time routed Symphony of the Night in the divisional final, but still looked weaker than historical comparisons suggested. The writeup explicitly says rally spillover had virtually no effect here.

Super Mario 64 beat Skyrim comfortably while the neighboring rally war boosted Mario's support. The match remained stable despite the outside traffic and ended Skyrim's respectable run.

Rally: The writeup says the simultaneous Pokémon-Undertale rally traffic favored Super Mario 64 and inflated its showing against Skyrim, even though it did not change the winner.

Pokémon RBY appeared to have finally stopped Undertale after building a massive lead while matching its early rallying. A sudden late social-media flood then overwhelmed Pokémon and turned the match into one of Undertale's defining comebacks.

Rally: The writeup describes a full rally war: Pokémon built a huge lead with its own outside support, then an enormous late Undertale Twitter surge erased the deficit and reversed the match.

Final Fantasy VI's early board-vote resistance quickly disappeared as Final Fantasy VII took control. Spillover from the Melee rally widened an already likely FFVII win and erased hopes based on an earlier non-contest poll.

Rally: The writeup says the simultaneous Melee rally favored Final Fantasy VII over Final Fantasy VI and amplified FFVII's existing lead, helping turn the match into a larger rout.

Chrono Trigger looked ready to crush Melee until Smash fans mobilized across Reddit, social media and community sites. The rally flipped the match and stopped each comeback, ending Chrono Trigger's apparent path toward the championship.

Rally: The writeup says a rapidly spreading Smash community rally erased Chrono Trigger's large early lead and repeatedly countered every later Chrono comeback attempt.

Metal Gear Solid 3 unexpectedly routed Mass Effect 2 after most predictions had expected a very close match. The writeup gives major credit to MGS3's exceptionally strong picture and treats the win as the series' best result of the contest.

Pic: The writeup explicitly says Metal Gear Solid 3's excellent Big Boss image was the real reason it performed so strongly, calling it one of the best possible pictures for the game.

Metal Gear Solid survived the feared rematch with Shadow of the Colossus and never allowed another Cinderella upset to develop. The writeup treats the result as a welcome piece of redemption for an otherwise poor Metal Gear contest.

Resident Evil 4 beat Metal Gear Solid 2 without danger but again landed far below the strength expected of it. The result made Super Mario RPG look increasingly likely to take the division.

Super Mario RPG beat Chrono Cross comfortably and continued a run that had exceeded almost every pre-contest expectation. Chrono Cross still earned respect by keeping the result more respectable than many of Mario RPG's earlier opponents.

Super Metroid and Majora's Mask traded tiny leads for hours before Majora finally pulled away with the later vote. Both analyses remember it as one of the contest's best pure matches, notably without rally controversy.

A Link to the Past crushed Dark Souls and looked largely immune to the Zelda fatigue affecting other entries in the series. The writeup treats the dominant result as evidence that LTTP remained a genuine elite game.

Symphony of the Night decisively ended Donkey Kong Country 2's surprise run once the low seed finally met a proven heavyweight. The writeup still considers DKC2's overall contest a major success.

Ocarina of Time won easily but again looked weaker than expected for the site's traditional top game. Final Fantasy IX's strong showing, aided by the picture matchup, became another warning that Ocarina was vulnerable later.

Pic: The writeup directly blames Ocarina of Time's weak-looking performance in part on a poor Ocarina picture paired against one of Final Fantasy IX's best possible images.

Twilight Princess looked unusually competitive at the start, but Mario 64 recovered and settled into a comfortable win. The writeup attributes much of Zelda's early strength to rally spillover and the lopsided match pictures.

Rally · Pic: The writeup says Twilight Princess benefited early from Undertale rally spillover and from a major picture imbalance: Mario 64 received a poor image while Twilight Princess received an especially strong Link image.

Metroid Prime built a large early lead, then Skyrim used its stronger morning and daytime trends to erase it and win. The writeup treats Prime's familiar trend collapse as the decisive factor after an opening aided partly by rally spillover.

Rally: The writeup says Undertale rally spillover helped Metroid Prime's unusually strong opening and boosted turnout, although Prime's normal early strength also contributed.

Super Mario World built the expected early advantage, but Undertale's rally started earlier than in prior rounds and eventually overwhelmed it. The match also produced a major cheating scare that the writeup says was unsupported.

Rally: The writeup says Undertale's expanding social-media rallies steadily erased Super Mario World's lead and eventually carried Undertale comfortably ahead. Cheating accusations are explicitly rejected by the administrator.

Pokémon RBY was already routing Sonic 2 before Undertale rally spillover pushed the result even higher. The underlying blowout made Pokémon look like a true title contender even after separating out the outside traffic.

Rally: The writeup says Undertale's simultaneous rally traffic spilled into the Pokémon poll and further boosted Pokémon RBY beyond an already dominant natural performance.

Final Fantasy VII crushed Smash 4 and looked far stronger than Final Fantasy VI had in the neighboring match. The writeup treats the result as decisive evidence that FFVI was not going to win their coming same-series showdown.

Final Fantasy VI won a debated matchup with Wind Waker without ever facing a sustained comeback. The result became a rare modern example of Final Fantasy beating Zelda in a close-looking contest matchup and validated FFVI's stronger 2015 form.

Melee beat Kingdom Hearts II as expected, but bled enough support to look doomed against the newly dominant Chrono Trigger. The writeup also notes that the Melee rally from the previous round did not return here.

Chrono Trigger destroyed Final Fantasy X in a matchup that had been heavily debated before the contest. The blowout erased old concerns about Chrono Trigger's decline and made it look like the strongest game on the site without outside intervention.

StarCraft seemed to have revived its old rally magic before Mass Effect 2 answered with an even stronger counter-push. The repeated swings made this one of the round's best matches and ended with Mass Effect 2 winning the rally war.

Rally: The writeup describes a sustained rally war: StarCraft first erased Mass Effect 2's lead, then Mass Effect 2 counter-rallied and eventually pulled away after its subreddit allowed rally threads.

Metal Gear Solid 3 built an early lead, then spent most of the match unable to extend it as BioShock's rally support surged. MGS3 survived, but the unusually close finish became another major warning about Metal Gear's strength.

Rally: The writeup says BioShock was boosted by both direct rallying and spillover from the StarCraft-Mass Effect rally war, allowing it to run even with Metal Gear Solid 3 for much of the day.

Shadow of the Colossus won comfortably and revived memories of its earlier Metal Gear upset run. Red Dead Redemption's respectable showing was helped slightly by rally spillover, but the next-round Shadow-versus-Metal-Gear debate remained intact.

Rally: The writeup says Red Dead Redemption received a small boost from the simultaneous StarCraft and Mass Effect 2 rallies, slightly improving its showing without threatening Shadow of the Colossus.

Metal Gear Solid advanced, but EarthBound came much closer than the writeup thought a former top-tier game should allow. The result reinforced the contest-wide impression that Metal Gear had declined while EarthBound had gained real strength.

Resident Evil 4 beat New Vegas comfortably, but both analyses retrospectively treat the result as the first real warning that RE4 had lost strength. Fallout 4 hype made New Vegas look stronger, which helped hide the warning at the time.

Metal Gear Solid 2 narrowly beat The Witcher 3 despite widespread attempts by Witcher fans to attract outside support. The writeup stresses that the hoped-for developer rally never materialized, making the result a case study in how difficult successful rallying can be.

Chrono Cross comfortably upset San Andreas and completed a second straight demolition of casual-favored opponents. The writeup attributes the result to GTA's severe anti-voting and Chrono Cross receiving the perfect bracket path.

Super Mario RPG beat the top-seeded GTA V exactly as Board 8 expected, turning casual bracket confidence into another easy target. The writeup treats the upset as obvious to experts despite the seeding.

Majora's Mask handled Final Fantasy XII easily and became the only Zelda entry the writeup thought looked genuinely strong in Round Two. The result largely validated its prior Game of the Decade strength.

Super Metroid crushed Super Mario Galaxy and finally broke the long-standing expectation that Metroid would collapse against Mario. The writeup treats this as a landmark result that ended much of the site's belief in automatic Mario dominance.

Dark Souls comfortably eliminated Metal Gear Solid V and confirmed that the new Metal Gear entry had never gained meaningful contest strength. The writeup treats Dark Souls as a rare modern game capable of surviving NostalgiaFAQs.

A Link to the Past beat Final Fantasy IV easily, but the writeup still considered the performance too ordinary for a championship favorite. The result joins Ocarina's showing as evidence of growing Zelda fatigue.

Symphony of the Night handled Banjo-Kazooie comfortably despite some pre-match upset buzz. The writeup treats the result as another demonstration of how much internet respect the Castlevania classic had accumulated.

Donkey Kong Country 2 survived another close match, this time against Fire Emblem Awakening, and continued one of the contest's most unexpected runs. The writeup explicitly frames DKC2 as resisting the Nintendo SFF reputation rather than suffering from it.

Final Fantasy IX beat Okami comfortably enough to confirm its modern rise in strength, while Okami again avoided being completely blown out. The result sent FFIX into Round Three with more credibility than in older contests.

Ocarina of Time beat Suikoden II but looked shockingly weak for the site's traditional top game. The writeup interprets the performance as the first strong evidence of widespread anti-Zelda voting and contest fatigue.

Twilight Princess doubled Persona 4 and exceeded its old Game of the Decade comparison. The result validated Persona somewhat while still leaving the writeup convinced Mario 64 was far stronger.

Super Mario 64 crushed Final Fantasy Tactics, though its percentage bleed gave a small opening for later Twilight Princess speculation. The writeup otherwise treats Mario 64 as the obvious division heavyweight.

Metroid Prime decisively won its rematch with Half-Life 2 and erased the memory of their much closer earlier contest meeting. The result established Prime as a credible threat to Skyrim in the next round.

Skyrim produced its strongest performance of the contest by comfortably beating GoldenEye and silencing the upset murmurs created by its weak opener. The writeup notes that this match was notably unaffected by rally spillover.

Super Mario World was already controlling Final Fantasy VIII before rally spillover made the margin substantially larger. The result fueled enormous anticipation for Mario World's coming encounter with Undertale.

Rally: The writeup says Undertale's simultaneous rally traffic heavily favored Super Mario World, inflating an already comfortable win over Final Fantasy VIII.

Fallout 3 looked safe for most of the match before Undertale's rally transformed the poll into a historic comeback and then a decisive win. The result launched the rally momentum that would dominate the rest of the contest.

Rally: The writeup says Undertale's massive outside rally erased Fallout 3's huge lead in only a few hours and continued accelerating after taking first.

Sonic 2 was already winning decisively before the simultaneous rally traffic arrived, then gained a few more points from spillover. The writeup treats the underlying result as a genuine old-games victory rather than a rally-created upset.

Rally: The writeup says Undertale rally spillover modestly favored Sonic 2 over Uncharted 2, making an already comfortable Sonic win somewhat larger.

Pokémon RBY was already beating Mario 3 before outside traffic arrived, but Undertale spillover transformed the result into a rout. The writeup treats the natural matchup as a legitimate Pokémon win and the final margin as heavily distorted.

Rally: The writeup says Undertale's outside rally spilled into this simultaneous poll and heavily boosted Pokémon RBY, turning an already likely Pokémon win into a much larger blowout.

Final Fantasy VII crushed Halo and produced what the writeup considers its strongest natural performance of the contest. The result briefly restored championship confidence before the rally-driven chaos of later rounds.

Smash 4 beat Mass Effect in a respectable but unspectacular result for both games. The writeup sees the Wii U title as legitimately strong, while Mass Effect's loss still validated its prior upset of Galaxy 2.

Wind Waker beat KOTOR by roughly the margin expected and did little to settle the upcoming debate with Final Fantasy VI. The writeup treats the result as useful mainly because the next match remained genuinely uncertain.

Final Fantasy VI handled Thousand-Year Door exactly as expected in a largely uneventful setup match. The writeup immediately turns toward the much more meaningful Wind Waker comparison waiting next.

Kingdom Hearts II beat The Last of Us comfortably and removed any realistic thought of an upset. The writeup still credits The Last of Us with impressive strength for a recent, original franchise.

Melee was already winning comfortably when its fanbase began a successful rally that inflated the final result. The writeup later treats this as an early trial run for the far larger Melee rallying still to come.

Rally: The writeup says Melee fans organized a noticeable rally despite already leading comfortably, boosting Melee substantially over its natural level against Pokémon GSC.

Final Fantasy X beat Mega Man X but looked disastrously weak relative to expectations, while Mega Man X exited with its reputation greatly improved. The result effectively ended belief that FFX could stop Chrono Trigger.

Chrono Trigger annihilated Dragon Quest VIII and produced one of the rare post-opening-round blowouts of this scale. Both analyses explicitly resist treating SFF as the main explanation and instead frame Chrono Trigger as operating at elite strength.

Mass Effect 2 demolished Virtue's Last Reward in the final match of Round One. The blowout itself was routine, but the writeup saw StarCraft and Metal Gear Solid 3 as meaningful threats waiting in the division.

StarCraft destroyed Destiny far more decisively than expected and suddenly looked capable of threatening Mass Effect 2. The writeup treats the blowout as a welcome revival for a game with an old rally-driven contest legacy.

BioShock beat Silent Hill 2 in a straightforward matchup, though Silent Hill performed better than its old contest history suggested. The win set up a more interesting test against a vulnerable Metal Gear Solid 3.

Metal Gear Solid 3 beat Mother 3 by a wide margin but still performed far below what the writeup expected against a Japan-only title. The result became another major warning that the entire Metal Gear series had weakened.

Red Dead Redemption beat Bayonetta 2 comfortably after the writeup had overthought the possibility of a Wii U upset. The result validated RDR as a legitimate midcard game while further embarrassing the Wii U.

Shadow of the Colossus demolished Team Fortress 2 and revived memories of its earlier deep run. The writeup immediately began looking ahead to whether it could again challenge Metal Gear opposition.

EarthBound overturned the Board 8 favorite and crushed Borderlands 2, finally translating its cult reputation into a meaningful contest win. The writeup treats the result as one of the clearest signs of the contest's enormous SNES and nostalgia boost.

Metal Gear Solid crushed Splatoon and became the only Metal Gear entry the writeup thought looked genuinely solid in Round One. The result offered a brief exception to the series-wide decline narrative.

Resident Evil 4 beat Paper Mario but lost enough support to create an immediate warning about its deeper prospects. The writeup uses comparisons with other Mario RPGs to argue that RE4 already looked weaker than its prior contest form.

Fallout: New Vegas beat BioShock Infinite in a matchup the writeup felt had been settled by fresh Fallout 4 attention and BioShock's weaker sequel reputation. The result stayed close enough to be respectable but never looked like an upset.

Metal Gear Solid 2 beat Resident Evil but bled support throughout the match and continued the series' disappointing contest. The result made the coming Witcher 3 matchup look much more dangerous than expected.

The Witcher 3 crushed The Binding of Isaac and looked unusually strong for a current-year release. The writeup also flags the game's known rally potential as a future threat, but no rally was needed in this match.

Chrono Cross comfortably upset World of Warcraft despite overwhelming casual confidence in WoW. The writeup celebrates the result as an expert-friendly rejection of casual brand recognition and a perfect bracket break for Chrono Cross.

San Andreas beat Shovel Knight but again looked far too weak for a major Grand Theft Auto title. The writeup treats the result as another clear demonstration of the site's long-running anti-GTA sentiment.

Super Mario RPG won a heavily debated matchup with Oblivion and became the clear favorite to escape the surrounding eightpack. Its severe overnight percentage bleed is attributed to the game's historically poor European availability rather than a real comeback.

Grand Theft Auto V beat Shenmue but looked embarrassingly weak for a top seed against such limited opposition. The writeup treats the result as immediate confirmation that GTA5 was doomed in Round Two.

Majora's Mask crushed Valkyria Chronicles in a routine top-seed blowout and largely matched its prior contest reputation. The writeup's main complaint is that the bracket wasted Majora by placing it near another Zelda heavyweight.

Final Fantasy XII beat the newer Bloodborne in a matchup the writeup uses as another example of nostalgia overpowering recent-game acclaim. The result also continued the perfect first-round run for Final Fantasy entries.

Super Mario Galaxy handled Dragon Age about as expected, but Super Metroid's simultaneous blowout made the win look ordinary by comparison. The writeup immediately shifted the next-round favorite toward Super Metroid.

Super Metroid demolished Call of Duty 4 far more severely than expected and transformed its contest reputation overnight. The writeup treats the performance as evidence of both Call of Duty decline and a major Super Metroid resurgence.

Dark Souls comfortably doubled Civilization V and immediately looked capable of exploiting Metal Gear Solid V's weakness in the next round. The writeup treats the showing as an impressive debut for a recent game.

Metal Gear Solid V beat Perfect Dark but looked far weaker than expected for a recent mainline Metal Gear release. The writeup treats the result as another sign that the series had declined rather than received the hoped-for boost.

Final Fantasy IV turned a matchup the writeup considered completely noncompetitive into an easy rout of Deus Ex. The commentary also celebrates FFIV's durability and laments that its next draw prevented a more informative contest run.

A Link to the Past delivered the second-largest blowout of the contest against Cave Story and looked like a genuine top-tier game. The writeup places the result alongside Ocarina's as a championship-caliber Zelda statement.

Symphony of the Night crushed Trials and Tribulations and clearly separated itself from the crowded midcard pack in its section. The writeup treats the blowout as the strongest first-round showing among the division's plausible contenders.

Banjo-Kazooie beat Baldur's Gate II but bled enough support to kill most hopes of a deeper run. The writeup sees the win as disappointing rather than validating old theories that Banjo had hidden strength.

Fire Emblem Awakening demolished Super Mario Maker in a matchup many expected to be close. The writeup calls Mario Maker one of the contest's biggest disappointments and treats the result as a complete collapse of its rally-and-meme hype.

Donkey Kong Country 2 and Xenoblade traded tiny leads for most of the day before DKC2 finally held on through a record-setting wire-to-wire close match. The upset ruined a popular Xenoblade deep-run pick and gave DKC2 long-overdue contest respect.

Final Fantasy IX upset Kingdom Hearts after surviving the matchup phase where Kingdom Hearts was normally strongest. The writeup treats the trend reversal as a major surprise and evidence of an FFIX boost.

Okami beat Warcraft III comfortably and continued its unusual history of avoiding extreme 1v1 results in either direction. The writeup treats the result as another failure for Blizzard's contest strength.

Suikoden II won a heavily debated 8/9 matchup that the writeup retrospectively treats as much simpler than people made it. The result becomes another example of old Japanese RPG familiarity beating a newer unknown.

Ocarina of Time produced one of the contest's legendary blowouts against Hearthstone and showed no vulnerability to the rally threat some had feared. The result looked like a championship statement at the time.

Persona 4 destroyed 999 and made the weaker visual novel look like one of the bracket's lowest-tier entrants. The writeup explicitly rejects SFF as an explanation and treats 999 as simple fodder.

Twilight Princess crushed Skies of Arcadia in a predictable opener, but the result did little to sustain upset hopes against Mario 64. The writeup instead uses the match to compare Twilight Princess with Wind Waker.

Final Fantasy Tactics beat Resident Evil 2 in a debated matchup that became comfortable almost immediately. The writeup also treats Resident Evil's loss as part of a broader series decline.

Super Mario 64 crushed Mario Kart 8 and looked like a serious deep-run threat. Although one analysis calls the result an SFF beating, the other explicitly doubts meaningful SFF, so the writeup ultimately leaves the mechanism uncertain.

Half-Life 2 handled Demon's Souls in a largely trendless and predictable match. The writeup mainly uses the result to set up the expected Metroid Prime rematch in Round Two.

Metroid Prime beat Morrowind but lost substantial ground over the course of the day. The writeup treats the trend as an early warning that Prime's weak daytime vote could become costly in close matches.

GoldenEye beat Diablo II in a debated 8/9 matchup and continued the broader old-game advantage of the contest. The writeup notes possible minor rally spillover but treats it as too uncertain to explain the win.

Phoenix Wright briefly led behind Board 8 support and Undertale spillover, but Skyrim recovered and eventually won comfortably. Even with the distorted opening, the writeup considered Skyrim's performance too weak for a serious title contender.

Rally: The writeup says Undertale rally spillover favored Phoenix Wright from the opening minutes and helped create an early lead before Skyrim recovered.

Super Mario World began with an enormous rout, but Animal Crossing suddenly gained ground once Undertale's outside rally flooded the simultaneous polls. The result stayed a blowout, yet the spillover showed how dramatically shared traffic could distort percentages.

Rally: The writeup says Undertale rally spillover strongly boosted Animal Crossing late in the match, producing unusual cuts against Super Mario World.

Final Fantasy VIII beat Vice City as expected, while the simultaneous Undertale rally nudged the result further toward Square. The writeup treats Vice City's respectable loss as one of the few less embarrassing GTA performances.

Rally: The writeup says Undertale rally spillover also affected this simultaneous poll, modestly boosting Final Fantasy VIII against Vice City.

Undertale transformed a routine loss into the largest comeback in contest history once outside support arrived late in the day. The win launched the rally-driven run that would eventually decide the entire tournament.

Rally: The writeup says a massive outside rally erased Mass Effect 3's enormous late lead and carried Undertale to a record-setting comeback.

Fallout 3 was cruising on the release day of Fallout 4 until Undertale rally spillover suddenly made Life is Strange much stronger. The winner remained safe, but the late bleed exposed how vulnerable Fallout could be to outside traffic.

Rally: The writeup says Undertale's simultaneous outside rally spilled into this poll and directly shifted votes toward Life is Strange, sharply reducing Fallout 3's percentage without threatening the result.

Uncharted 2 doubled The Walking Dead in a matchup the writeup considered predictable from the start. The result is used mainly to argue that licensed popularity rarely translates into GameFAQs contest strength.

Sonic 2 turned an early deadlock with Portal 2 into a comfortable win and overturned the pre-match favorite. The writeup treats it as another example of Portal 2 lacking the original game's old internet buzz.

Pokémon RBY beat Tetris comfortably, but many observers wrongly interpreted the margin through old Nintendo SFF comparisons. The writeup explicitly argues that Pokémon showed little or no SFF here and was stronger than the raw comparison suggested.

Super Mario Bros. 3 delivered one of the contest's largest blowouts, exactly as expected from a top seed against weak opposition. The writeup notes with hindsight that this would be Mario 3's only win of the contest.

Final Fantasy VII demolished Journey and looked every bit like a championship contender. The writeup treats the blowout as a welcome return to straightforward elite-level dominance.

Halo held Minecraft to a steady loss and prevented the rally-driven title run many bracketmakers had feared. The writeup notes that people correctly anticipated an outside-rally threat in the contest, but targeted the wrong game.

Mass Effect erased Galaxy 2's early lead, spent hours in a deadlock, then pulled away during the afternoon. The writeup remembers it as the contest's first genuine close match and a major embarrassment for the Board 8 consensus.

Smash 4 crushed the obscure Planescape: Torment and looked like a legitimate modern Smash entry rather than a repeat of Brawl's stigma. The writeup treats the match itself as essentially content-free.

Wind Waker beat Pokémon X/Y comfortably, while the writeup rejects the idea that Pokémon suffered meaningful SFF here. The result kept Wind Waker respectable but still left Final Fantasy VI favored for the next round.

KOTOR beat Xenogears in a debated matchup, but Xenogears stayed close enough to suggest it had more hidden strength than its old bad draws implied. The writeup argues that reversed seeding might even have changed the result.

Paper Mario built an early advantage over Tales of Symphonia and never truly surrendered control despite several small cuts. The writeup calls it the contest's first close-looking match, though the result felt decided well before the finish.

Final Fantasy VI crushed Assassin's Creed II and looked dramatically stronger than its older comparison with Wind Waker. The writeup treats the performance as early proof that 1990s Square games were operating on another level.

The Last of Us doubled Halo 3 in a straightforward blowout. The writeup treats Halo's poor showing as another chapter in the series' long history of underperforming on GameFAQs.

Kingdom Hearts II beat Metal Gear Solid 4 decisively and immediately established the latter as part of a broader Metal Gear decline. The writeup views the result as a major reversal from MGS4's stronger reputation in earlier years.

Pokémon Gold and Silver overwhelmed The World Ends With You in one of the round's cleanest blowouts. The writeup treats the result mainly as confirmation that GSC remained a major Pokémon game on the site.

Melee beat Portal comfortably in an otherwise uneventful opener, with its usual early strength followed by percentage bleed. The writeup says the result gave little hint of how badly a later Chrono Trigger matchup would go.

Final Fantasy X handled Half-Life without suspense, but looked much less impressive than Chrono Trigger had in the same division. The writeup treats that comparison as the first clear warning for their coming matchup.

Mega Man X won a debated 12-over-5 matchup far more comfortably than Batman supporters expected. The writeup treats the result as another failure of licensed-game hype to translate into contest strength.

Dragon Quest VIII overturned the prevailing Persona 3 lean after an initially close start and gradually pulled away. The writeup folds the upset into Board 8's long-running joke that the second match of a contest is cursed.

Chrono Trigger opened the 2015 game contest with a far stronger blowout than many expected and immediately looked like a true title contender. The writeup treats the result as the first major sign that older games would dominate the bracket.