GameFAQsContests.com

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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 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.

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.