The 128 Greatest GameFAQS Contest Matches of All Time - The Top 64

That Superstar Saga sprite on a SMB background is busted. Would've been cool but unfair if he pulled it off.

44. Kuja vs. Master Hand (Sp2005) R1

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/9/97e45e89.jpg

Kuja 46.24% 34009
Master Hand 53.76% 39535
TOTAL VOTES 73544
https://board8.fandom.com/wiki/(2)Kuja_vs_(7)Master_Hand_2005
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2004-triforce-division-round-1-kuja-vs-master-hand

In the very early days of the contests, it was not uncommon for a match result to inspire rage. You would see some of that in later years, but it was mostly directed towards outside invaders/ralliers, or anger at picking a match wrong; it was not anger directed towards the actual results of a match, and of people having a different personal preference than you. Weve all mellowed over time in regards to this. Hell, even within the first year of contests, once we understood where the lay of the land stood regarding the sites preferences, people tended not to get as worked up about the results in that way. There are exceptions, however, and Im not sure I can remember a match result, either in the early days or not, that inspired as much rage as this one. At least one person that I can recall kept the date of the match in their signature for months, if not years, afterward, non-ironically memorializing what to some was the greatest tragedy the contests had ever seen.

Round 1 of the Villain Contest saw a series of matches with a recurring theme. There would be a JRPG villain that had been hyped up not just as a Villain Contest entrant, but as someone that could potentially make (Ghaleon) or who already had made (Luca Blight) a regular Character Battle. They would go up against a villain that despite sometimes obvious strength wasnt on anyones agenda in making a regular contest (M. Bison, Vergil, Wesker), but who would handily defeat the JRPG favorite anyway. I know some of that logic doesnt make a whole lot of sense in hindsight, but thats where peoples heads were at. Kuja vs. Master Hand would be the climax of this set of matches, but we didnt know that yet. What we did know was that Kuja was one of the most hyped newcomers in the bracket. Along with some of the other 2 Seeds like Ocelot and Ridley he was someone that people wanted to see in a traditional Summer Contest, and while no one expected him to beat Ganondorf in R3, his R2 match with Robotnik was hotly contested, a test to see whether or not he was strong enough to graduate to that next step. His match with Master Hand was just a warm up. Now, there were some Master Hand supporters; it was not a unanimous call. It was, however, pretty near close to one, and while the upset was not outside of most peoples comprehension, it remained just outside most peoples level of risk. No one wanted to go out on a limb and predict that one of the most beloved villains in the bracket would lose to a glove.

Despite the previous streak of losses for JRPG villains, Final Fantasy fans/supporters had reason to be optimistic going into this match. Just one day earlier, in his match with Sin, Robotnik had struggled to defeat, and had actually lost the ASV to, a close-up of a giant shark fin. If this was what a FF villain nobody cared about could do, what might Kujas ceiling be? And when the match begin, Kuja came out looking fairly strong for the first half hour or so, remaining above 55% for the first 30 minutes. This initial Board Vote wore off fast though, and it became quickly evident that Kuja would not come close to meeting his pre-match expectations. He was able to steadily increase his lead overnight, but his percentage kept dropping and dropping, and it had already fallen past 53% as it became time for the Day Vote to kick in. We had never seen either of these characters in a contest before, but we knew enough about trends to have an idea of what was coming, and to know that Kuja would have his hands full holding off a comeback that was sure to take off the 400 or so votes currently putting him in the lead.

As it turned out, we had no idea what to expect at all. Master Hand came back with the Morning Vote, took the lead, and the match remained 50/50 all the way to 12:00 PM EST. And then the ASV arrived, and Master Hand would go on a tear with it, the likes of which we had rarely ever seen, both before and ever since. He wasnt just winning hours, he was winning some of them near 60/40, an unheard of turnaround considering how close the match had been for its first half. Any hope that Kuja could withstand the ASV went straight out the window, and Master Hand would end up finishing the match with near 54%, and a 5,000+ vote lead.

As all this was going on, the board erupted, both in shock at all the brackets being shredded, as well as anger at the results. How could one of the greatest VG villains ever written be getting beaten by, to use the most common epithet, a freaking GLOVE? The match, on a conceptual level, was just beyond most peoples comprehension. There was a lot of complaining about a joke character winning, and some people might consider this match the beginning of JokeFEAR, but I never really got the impression that voters were voting for Master Hand for any sort of L-Block adjacent lulz reasons. It was more due to an overall love for Smash Bros., and in many cases an unfamiliarity with Kuja himself. Regardless of the reasons, Kuja lost, and if the reputation of the sites users took a massive drop in the boards estimation, Kujas reputation dropped even more. He went from being a potential Character Battle newcomer to never making another contest match again, even if the rivalry between him and Zidane did make Rivalry Rumble. Falls from grace can be quick on GameFAQS, but none have been quicker than this.

Yeah, Kuja/Master Hand is probably the last time I remember getting legitimately angry at a result

Still dumb

Yesmar_ posted...

it was not anger directed towards the actual results of a match, and of people having a different personal preference than you. Weve all mellowed over time in regards to this.

ehh there's one guy on my block list here who goes "HOW DARE PEOPLE HAVE BETTER TASTE THAN ME!" in response to results he doesn't like, and rubs it in when he gets results he does like (but other people don't). Such comments being so frequent prove his poor taste.

I guess there's exceptions to every rule. But it sounds like back in 2005, before I came here, this board was more immature like he still is, still growing out of that phase from the first couple contests that established everything. People process shock different ways at different ages.

Yesmar_ posted...

There would be a JRPG villain that had been hyped up not just as a Villain Contest entrant, but as someone that could potentially make (Ghaleon) or who already had made (Luca Blight) a regular Character Battle.

Heh, I remember the days when we discussed trying to get Ghaleon into a regular Character Battle. Then this happened and we were like yeah let's not waste our time.

I still remember Immodium Ghaleon vs. Calendar Vergil in the Villains Contest

The Villains Contest was a treasure trove of godawful match pics, but one of the more underrated "classics" is this sea of brown with two characters that were never ever supposed to be depicted in the same piece of media ever.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/a/a3b08358.png

I think that one has a certain level of charm for how ridiculous it is

Wasn't around for 2005, but if I was a normie voting back then, I would have easily picked Master Hand because I would have had no idea who Kuja was. FF9 is the one FF game (among the ones that count) that has simply never been on my radar.

Leonhart4 posted...

Yeah, Kuja/Master Hand is probably the last time I remember getting legitimately angry at a result

Still dumb

If I had a nickel for every time Master Hand beat Final Fantasy, I would have 2 nickels, which isn't a lot, but it's hilarious that it happened twice.

Is there an archive of the previous analysis? The 128-65 ones.

While I hated Master Hand beating Kuja in 2005, I surprisingly didn't mind when he beat Noctis in 2018.

DaZettaiRyouiki posted...

Is there an archive of the previous analysis? The 128-65 ones.

Yes, user Zyxyz0 kindly made an archive, which can be found here:

http://zyxyzarchive.42web.io/index_yesmarrank.html?i=1

43. The Legend of Zelda vs. Adventure (Sp2004) R1

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/8/87c96456.jpg

The Legend of Zelda 95.2% 92894
Adventure 4.8% 4686
TOTAL VOTES 97580
https://board8.fandom.com/wiki/(3)The_Legend_of_Zelda_vs_(14)Adventure_2004
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1606-division-8-round-1-the-legend-of-zelda-vs-adventure

There are certain achievements that come so close to the line of perfection that it is virtually impossible to top them. And this match might be one of those. When you have a poll with two options, a binary choice, there is a certain baseline of votes that the losing option will get. No matter how lopsided the choice might be, there is always some minimum number of people who because of lulz, quirky taste, not understanding the question, or just oppositional defiant disorder, will always vote for the less popular option. Give people a 1v1 choice about anything and you will always be able to scrounge up ~5% for either option. To get 95% in such a situation, is thus, probably as close to perfection as you can get. And Zelda 1 managed to pull off perfection in this match.

In an unrestricted Games Contest, a result like this would probably not be possible. But due to a series of rules set up by CJay to add more variety to the bracket in the first Games Contest in 2004, lopsided results such as this became quite common. For one, Divisions were to be separated by era, and on top of that, only one game per series was to be allowed in each division, and on top of *that* users were only allowed to nominate one game for each system. I know that Ceej meant well with these restrictions, but the end result of all these rules was that a lot of strong games got snubbed, and a lot of extremely weak games were able to sneak in, especially in the 8-Bit and 16-Bit Divisions. And throwing all games from the same era together massively increased the chances of an SFF blowout occurring. Combine all these factors together, and you get the result you see here. A game like Adventure would have otherwise never made the cut, but when you ensure that no more than 1 8-Bit Mario or Zelda game can make it in, and when you ensure that people cant nominate more NES than Atari 2600 games, you create a scenario where a game like Adventure does make it in. Adventure would have done poorly no matter which higher seeded game it was forced to face off against, but to make its position even worse, it was forced to face off against a game that was generally seen as improving on Adventures formula in every way. It would be like asking someone if they prefer $10 or $100.

You know a match looks bad when even the Oracle predictions have the winner approaching 90%, and people knew going in that this would be a blowout for the ages. But even those sky-high expectations were topped when Zelda went out and broke 95%, a number that we have never seen in a contest match before or since. While we all knew that this was mostly due to Adventures weakness, it was hard not to draw any conclusions about the game capable of pulling off such a massacre, and suddenly SMB3s lock on the Division seemed a little less assured. This match would be, obviously, the biggest blowout in its Division, and this was not an isolated incident. The 16-Bit Divisions biggest blowout? The match featuring Link to the Past. The 32/64 Bit Divisions biggest blowout? The match featuring Ocarina of Time. The 128 Bit Divisions biggest blowout? Once again, the match featuring Wind Waker. In a complete sweep, the largest first round blowout in all four divisions was the match featuring that Divisions resident Zelda game, and by the end of the First Round, the All Zelda Final 4 had become a talking point. Despite FFVIIs dominance of the previous summer, Zelda looked like it was back and ready to dominate the spring. Of course, in one of those ironies that contest history seems replete with, not a single Zelda game ended up winning their division and making the Final 4. But for the first two rounds, the series was one of the stars of the contest. And that all started with this match.

Poor Adventure. Now that Im older and have more of an understanding of VG history, I realize how influential a game Adventure really was. It is honestly one of the most important games ever made, so in hindsight, Im happy that it got to play a role in contest history, even if the role was such an ignominious one.

Generally I agree with most of your choices, but this one is way too high.

Snake/Tanner is the ultra blowout everybody remembers, not this one, even if it was technically a higher percentage.

Yesmar_ posted...

Yes, user Zyxyz0 kindly made an archive, which can be found here:

http://zyxyzarchive.42web.io/index_yesmarrank.html?i=1

Thank you!

This is practically the first time I've heard of Adventure, and I go back far enough to remember when people still owned and played Atari systems before they all got garage-sale'd. Even with the restrictions that were specified, it still seems wild to me that this would be a game that would make it in based on user nominations.

I guess spin offs didn't count since Final Fantasy Tactics made it into two different divisions where there already was a FF and SMRPG into the same as World.

ctesjbuvf posted...

I guess spin offs didn't count since Final Fantasy Tactics made it into two different divisions where there already was a FF and SMRPG into the same as World.

Yeah, spinoffs were allowed to be their own thing.

azuarc posted...

This is practically the first time I've heard of Adventure, and I go back far enough to remember when people still owned and played Atari systems before they all got garage-sale'd.

Really? It's one of the few games I've ever heard of from that era, at least until I started doing research on it for fun.

42. Mega Man vs. Sephiroth (2002) R3

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/b/bd1e966d.jpg

Mega Man 49.49% 48185
Sephiroth 50.51% 49172
TOTAL VOTES 97357
https://board8.fandom.com/wiki/(6)Mega_Man_vs_(7)Sephiroth_2002
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/995-west-division-semifinals-mega-man-vs-sephiroth

What do you do with a match that was the first meeting between two legendary contest entrants, was the most hotly anticipated of its round, featured a 700 vote comeback, but which had the misfortune to take place in between two of the greatest matches of all time? When it comes to the match in question, the answer is to unfortunately leave it underappreciated in contest history. There has probably never been a greater mismatch in between what was going on during a match, and how much people were talking about it than there was during this one. With the fallout from the previous 24 (well, 21) hours still spreading throughout the site, and with anticipation building for the next days showdown, there was very little bandwidth remaining for people to use towards what was going on between Mega Man and Sephiroth. We were all just trying to hold on, something which Sephiroth himself was having trouble with as well in the early goings of this match.

Going into 2002, this was not a particularly hyped match, but as the contest went on, it quickly turned into one of the main attractions that everyone was looking forward to. It promised a matchup between a pre-contest favorite in Sephiroth, and a relative underdog in Mega Man, someone whose contest success had caught people somewhat by surprise, and become one of the stars of the first two rounds. But if Mega Man had been one of the contests earliest stars, Sephiroth was not far behind. In Round 1, the biggest blowout of the Round was pulled off by Mega Man. The second biggest blowout of the round? Sephiroth. In Round 2, Mega Man once again had the biggest blowout. And the person in second place behind him wasagain Sephiroth. In a contest where the big names didnt always hit their marks right away, Mega Man and Sephiroth had put out impressive numbers right from the stat, and you couldnt have asked for a more perfectly matched pair. It was just a shame that we would be forced to see their match so soon. This was looking like a potential Semifinals match. Not one that we should be seeing as early as R3.

And with all that buildup, the match startedand all anyone could talk about was Sonic and Samus. The controversy over that match was still going on as what was supposed to be the headliner match of the round got underway, and as we were all arguing about the implications of what had happened the previous day, a second massive upset was coming into form right under our nose. A lot of things might have changed about these two over the years, but one that hasnt is their extremely lopsided trends with the Board Vote, and that lopsided nature was putting board favorite, but bracket underdog, Mega Man into the lead. Pre-contest, Mega Man had been expected to bow out gracefully in this match, but he was now pushing 55%, and over the first several hours of the poll had built up a 700 vote lead. To anyone that was actually paying attention, the Divisional Finals transformation from the assumed Sonic/Sephiroth to Samus/Mega Man was almost complete, and the #2 contender in the bracket was on the verge of getting eliminated. FFVII is no slouch with the Night Vote though, and Sephiroth used the pre-dawn hours to start his comeback, knocking down Mega Mans lead just as easily as MM had built it up. By the time the Day Vote kicked in, Sephiroth was in control of the match and would use the the time he had left to pad his lead. A lead which, we assumed, was extremely precarious. This was the first contest, keep in mind; we had no idea what to expect in regards to vote trends or comebacks. Sephiroth might have put the match away early on in hindsight, but at the time, as far as we knew, things could turn on a dime and Mega Man could start gaining votes again. Which he did, in the matchs final hours. This final run would prove to be much less dramatic than the previous days had been, and Sephiroth would ultimately triumph in a narrow, but, compared the days before and after, relatively safe victory.

In 2003, just one year later, these two characters would meet up again. That match received 26,835 more votes than this one. Out of those 26,835 new votes, Mega Man would receive only *28*. The rest would go to Sephiroth. Clearly, a massive shift had taken place, and a match like this, within the space of just 12 months, would seem like it had come from another time. Sephiroths star would rise even higher post-2002, but for Mega Man 2002 was in many ways his peak. He would have many impressive performances over his contest career, but none that were ever quite as impressive as this.

I wonder how/if contest history would have been different had Mega Man scrounged up 1,000 extra votes and won that one. For one, Mega Man and Sephiroth probably switch places in the 2003 bracket (the South Division seemed deliberately stacked to guarantee that there would only be, maximum, two repeat Final Four-ers) and we get to see Mario vs. Mega Man 1v1. The results of that could potentially alter the 2004 bracket as well.

Tag

Yesmar_ posted...

In 2003, just one year later, these two characters would meet up again. That match received 26,835 more votes than this one. Out of those 26,835 new votes, Mega Man would receive only *28*.

Kingdom Hearts getting released between the 2002 and 2003 Character Battles didn't help Mega Man's cause either. Sephiroth had a new look and the only thing Mega Man had announced was an upcoming compilation and the worst X game ever.

I was one of the 28 new Mega Man votes

41. Master Chief vs. Donkey Kong (2005) R2

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/9/94d0f02c.jpg

Master Chief 50.79% 50216
Donkey Kong 49.21% 48655
TOTAL VOTES 98871
https://board8.fandom.com/wiki/(1)Master_Chief_vs_(4)Donkey_Kong_2005
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2106-flood-division-round-2-master-chief-vs-donkey-kong

What happens when an unstoppable force meets an unmovable object? Or in other words, what happens when two of the biggest choke artists in contest history up to that point go up against each other in a match? The end result goes a little something like thisBut despite the obvious appeal of such a matchup, this battle was largely ignored in the leadup to 2005. In terms of Round 2 matches, it was passed over in favor of the streak of matches directly preceding it, a series of five matches that were dubbed The Gauntlet. After the underwhelming bracket of 2004, where debateable matches were put on the backburner in favor of cutsey SFF affairs, we were begging Ceej to give us the kind of hyped up battles between Near Elites that we desperately wanted to see. And the 2005 bracket delivered. Seemingly designed for contest obsessives, the bracket had set up five days of excitement in a row: Ganondorf/Auron, Snake/Zelda, Alucard/Sora, Kirby/Tidus, and finally Bowser/Ryu. We had been dying to recreate the final week of 2002 ever since that contest ended, and this run was our way of brute forcing another magical week into existence, five legitimately debatable matches that all had the potential to be nailbiters. You might notice of course, that the match Im writing about is missing.

Thats because Master Chiefs victory in it was considered relatively safe. He was riding high on an inflated X-Stats value from 2004 and Halo 2 hype, while Donkey Kongs gaming past seemed further and further behind him. There were some second thoughts, however, after their respective Round 1 matches, which saw DK/Sam Fisher almost equalling Master Chiefs numbers against CATS. Still, predictions remained behind Chief, even if people did start joking that Wouldnt it be funny if the match after The Gauntlet ends up being better than any of the matches in it? Well, the Gauntlet got underway and rather than an exhilarating ride it ended up being one solid victory after another, with almost every days margin of victory being larger than the day befores. As the busts piled up, so did the evidence of The Boost, an uptick in popularity every Nintendo character seemed to be receiving that year, and the joke that people had been telling going into Round 2 started to seem more and more like a prediction.

A prediction that came true the second the match started, and Donkey Kong got out to an early lead. Any chance that this was just the typical anti-Halo board vote went away however, as the match went on and instead of going down, Donkey Kongs number proceeded to go up and up. In the early morning hours, even after the Morning Vote was starting to kick in, Donkey Kong was pulling off updates that were beyond anyones expectations. He was averaging 57/58% an hour, and by 8 AM EST his overall percentage had risen to 55%. For the third time in four years Donkey Kong was making a run at a spot in the Sweet Sixteen, and for the first time since 2002, he seemed to be on the verge of pulling it off. His lead passed 1,500, and even as his growth slowed in the morning hours, by 11 AM EST his lead would top 2,000. Master Chief would need to pull off, if not quite as large a comeback as he had the previous year, pretty close to the same size one, and his window of opportunity to do so was rapidly narrowing. Plus, hed have to pull off a huge Day Vote comeback against a character that was no slouch with the Day Vote himself.

However, almost as soon as Donkey Kongs lead hit 2,000 votes, the comeback from Chief began. It started gradually, but before long Master Chief was cooking, dominating the afternoon in an ASV-esque way despite the match being held on a Sunday. For almost 9 hours, Donkey Kong had been pulling off the upset of the contest, but despite all of that, in the space of an afternoon, he was letting it slip through his fingers. There had been doubt all morning as to when Master Chiefs comeback would begin, and if it would be enough for him to win, but as the day wore on, those doubts melted away, and the principal question involving the lead change shifted from if to when. Master Chief needed to pull off a near all-time comeback to win, and that was exactly what he was doing. Just after 6:30 PM EST he entered the lead for the first time all match, and kept going the rest of the night. There would be no last minute second comeback this time; Chief would make sure his spot in the Sweet Sixteen was secure, making it to Round 3 for the first time. Can a characters performance in a match be both impressive and embarrassing at the same time? Because if so, DKs performance here qualifies, and despite his impressive start, the battle of the choke artists had finished, and Donkey Kong had (for a while at least) emerged as the wearer of that crown.

Great match. This really did encapsulate what Chief and DK would be for the next few years.

The original Mega Man vs. Sephiroth was an absolute titan of a match. I would love to see a Mega Man vs. Sephiroth rematch! Mega Man is the obvious winner, if things now are like in 2018, but still, it would be so immensely satisfying to see Mega Man get his revenge.

About Master Hand vs. Kuja... at that time, we had only seen one FFIX character in a contest, that being Vivi in CBIII. Vivi did very well, and that was a big reason for the high expectations for Kuja. Kuja not only flopped, but Zidane stunk it up against Crono in the next contest, too. I mean, Zidane with 23% on Crono vs. Vivi's 30% on Sephiroth?

Yeah, Zidane flopped against Crono, but we also weren't sure whether there was SFF in that match or not. Turns out Zidane wasn't that strong either way, but he wasn't as weak as initially thought.

I think my top 20 would be like half Master Chief matches. That one may be in the running for #1 cause it's one of the few times Master Chief actually successfully converted his comeback.

Just a fun dude to watch in these things. Love the super polarized trends.

One could say that Master Chief has the richest history of any entrant in character battles. Is there anyone more notable than him in terms of interesting matches? Surely not a Noble Nine member?

I think Crono is the only one who might give him a run.

For a time, Frog was certainly up there, but the 2010s seemed to give him pretty clear cut paths with opponents either significantly weaker or stronger than him.

UltimaterializerX posted...

Youll laugh, but Link. Theres a reason all his losses are so memorable.

Sure, but Link losses happened so seldomly that he's not really in this discussion for sheer quantity of interesting matches.

Link vs Cloud 03
Link vs Ganondorf 04
Link vs L-Block vs Snake vs Cloud 07
Link vs Draven vs Shepard 13

I would put Link at 4 interesting matches total. Not really worth considering in terms of number though perhaps you could argue in terms of absolute impact there's something for the weight of 3/4 of those (I wouldn't but you could). I personally think a lot of entrants beat him pretty handily though even beyond Crono and Chief. Even among the NN alone he's probably in the bottom half.

Haste_2 posted...

The original Mega Man vs. Sephiroth was an absolute titan of a match. I would love to see a Mega Man vs. Sephiroth rematch! Mega Man is the obvious winner, if things now are like in 2018, but still, it would be so immensely satisfying to see Mega Man get his revenge.

Seph has had both Smash and FFVIIR since then and I'm not even that sure about 18.

Haste_2 posted...

One could say that Master Chief has the richest history of any entrant in character battles. Is there anyone more notable than him in terms of interesting matches? Surely not a Noble Nine member?

Snake and Crono are probably up there.

Mega Man almost beat Crono while Sephiroth got rocked by Mario and lost...to Tifa.

Actually, Vincent has a high ratio of important matches too

Yesmar_ posted...

41. Master Chief vs. Donkey Kong (2005) R2

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/9/94d0f02c.jpg

This is a great match but all I remember it for was Ceej fucking up the resolution and making this match pic slightly less wide than the others

Too bad we never got to see CT finish its dominating run in the last games tournament.

Leonhart4 posted...

Actually, Vincent has a high ratio of important matches too

Yeah, Vincent is a really good call. He was the near-elite that seemed to gravitate towards matches with the low end of the Noble Nine and other near-elites as well, and they delivered on the hype when it happened. And then when he declined, it certainly played out in interesting fashion, if nothing else.

My favorite stat in contest history involves Vincent - the first character (L-block is an inanimate object) to finish ahead of a Noble Niner in a poll would later lose to the guy who broke GFNW

Underleveled posted...

the first character (L-block is an inanimate object) to finish ahead of a Noble Niner in a poll

You don't need to make an excuse so L-Block doesn't count; Vincent > Crono happened before L-Block beat any N9ers.

Kirby has also had good matches practically every contest. The first time he ran into the NNer, he beat one.