A pair of top seeds fall and the competition gets fierce.
16 more Mario spinoffs were voted off the island, and now we're down to just 16 games. Two top seeds (Mario Kart Super Circuit and Mario Tennis 64) were knocked out by Super Mario Strikers and Mario Party 2. Every second and third seed is still alive, and the seismic activity from Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door and Mario Kart 8 might knock the Earth off its axis.
Vote below, and enjoy the factoids.
- Biggest margin of victory: Overall, the match-ups were a little closer but most weren't in doubt after a couple dozen votes came in. We had no 90%+ thrashings, but a handful of 80%+ victories happened with Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door (over fellow GameCube game Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour), Paper Mario 64 (over Super Mario Party), and Mario Kart: Double Dash!! (over Mario Party 6). Double Dash's 87%-13% win was the largest. Of note, Mario Party 3 managed to eke out 22% against Mario Kart 8. Maybe Mario Kart 8 isn't the dominant force we might have expected?
- Closest match-ups: Mario Party 2 and Mario Tennis 64 were neck and neck for the whole voting period, with Mario Party 2 knocking off the top-seeded Mario Tennis 64 by a count of 51%-49%. The next closest was Mario Kart DS over Mario Strikers Charged (56%-44%).
- Upsets: Mario Party 2 pulled off another upset over Mario Tennis 64 and is the highest seed remaining (9). The only other shocker was Super Mario Strikers (8 seed) over Mario Kart Super Circuit (1 seed), though Super Circuit was very much the paper tiger top seed. The only other technical upsets were Mario Kart 64 (5 seed) over Super Paper Mario (4 seed) and Captain Toad (5 seed) over Super Mario Kart (4 seed), but any betting man would have likely called those.
- Big takeaway: Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door and Mario Kart 8 maybe should have been the finals match-up, but that's the way the semi-random seeding cookie crumbled.
- Genre/series breakdown: Of the remaining games: 7 are RPGs, 5 are Kart games, 2 are sports games, 1 is a party game, and one is Captain Toad. The Paper Mario bracket will send an RPG or a Kart game to the finals, and the other three very likely will as well, even more so because the sports and party games remaining are lower seeds.
- Big match-ups: Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door vs. Mario Kart 8 will be nuts. Aside from that, Mario Kart: Double Dash's dominance, granted over a bad 3DS Mario sports game (Sports Superstars) and arguably the worst Mario Party to make it to the second round (Mario Party 6), is overall surprising. Double Dash goes against Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, which might have the most sterling reputation of the Mario & Luigi games. The other sterling Mario & Luigi game, Bowser's Inside Story, goes against Mario+Rabbids, which could easily make a bid for the Final Four if the Ubisoft game can get past Bowser's Inside Story. Mario Kart DS should probably mop the floor with the other remaining Mario & Luigi game (Partners in Time), but it needs to be pointed out that Partners in Time somehow made it through two rounds.
Our Mario Spinoff Madness Tournament is done to 16 games! Vote to see who goes on to our Spinoff Elite Eight! Voting is in this thread and ends late on 4/20! https://t.co/Ge0stgPTJl pic.twitter.com/uU9mUSBGCG
— Nintendo World Report (@Nintendo_NWR) April 19, 2020