Lurker > transience

18.



The 2009 games contest pretty much sucked thanks to trying to do fourway games. It just doesn't work. Just look at this final - how are we trying to decide the best game ever in a match between two FF and two Zelda games? That's our fault more than anything because, again, we really only like three series' and vote for those games endlessly. But this is dumb. Also dumb was that it was, again, division by era. Yuck.

But oh, right, Final Fantasy VII lost. The writing was on the wall, but most people went with FF7. The gap between Link and Cloud was growing. Snake beat Cloud in the 2008 contest. Zelda won the series contest. And yet, FF7 was the pick here because we thought FF7 would squish FF10 into the mud whereas we weren't sure about LTTP and OOT. It was a dumb time to try to make brackets because you were accounting for mystery factors that you would never be able to see.

Fortunately, Allen gave us what we really needed to see, and well



Yeah, this was never close. Neither match was close, really. Zelda came out assassinating Final Fantasy, and by the time FF was able to start fighting back a little bit, it was already over. Ocarina was unquestionably our strongest game. It was kind of the last bastion in the eternal battle between Zelda and FF. FF7 was the only thing that could possibly beat Zelda and that was dead now. Zelda had conquered FF in every conceivable way. Its only threat going forward would be a surprise rally, and it sure wouldn't be from Final Fantasy.
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xyzzy

that's what it was. what killed sir chris again? I forget
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xyzzy

19.



For those living under a contest rock, this is the match that "broke the noble nine". Now, we've done that 3 or 4 different times depending on your criteria, but this is the one that people really took to heart.

Crono had a tough time in 2006, struggling the last 20 hours of every match and eventually losing a really bad match to Sonic. Vincent had a different 2006. He beat Ganondorf after a very Nintendo-friendly 2005 and Zelda winning the series contest in 2006. I think, if memory serves, that he also killed two of the ten most notable accounts in board 8 history: Heroic Mario and yoblazer. Vincent was thought to have a shot at Sonic but couldn't quite get there, getting 48%. The thing is, Crono got 49% and was a year older in 2007.

The writing was on the wall for sure. Crono struggled with Zero the round prior while Vincent had a free pass alongside Link. Anyone without blinders on would have picked Vincent based on the two characters' trajectories, but this was the noble nine we were talking about and we would believe Crono to pull it off before we believed some foreign invader.

Crono started this match off strong. After 5 minutes, it was 27%-17%, but Crono would drop 2% after the second update. Crono's 4 hours looked like it would be enough, except 4 hours was more than 2 hours this time. He built up a lead of 1000 votes and then just kinda died. It was honestly sad to watch. He pushed his lead ever so slightly up to 1100 by 4am and then just utterly collapsed as he had been for the last two years. Vincent obliterated him overnight, took the lead at 10am and never looked back. The Noble Nine was dead.

Thinking back on this match, I do wonder if part of his struggle was that Zero and Link were both well-liked SNES characters and Vincent was a little more unique. Crono probably still loses in a 1v1 but it's an interesting thought. I can remember this match's trends being invoked for a solid 5 years afterwards, mostly because red sox is a crazy person who has his PhD in poll 2914ology. This match was super hyped, lived up to it and killed the Noble Nine. It made 2008's surprising upset all the sweeter. Crono/Mario had become Crono/Vincent, which was sad in its own way, but their 3 matchups were all super interesting throughout the latter half of the 2000s.
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xyzzy

that may as well have been a youtube comment
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xyzzy

20.



This match is great. Majora and FFX is like baby FF7/OOT, which is depressing in its own way but hey that's gamefaqs for ya. We just move down the line to the baby versions when our big dogs aren't there.

Majora put up a similar number on MGS3 that FFX did on RE4, and MGS3/RE4 were pretty much identical in the previous contest, so it makes sense that this was super close. We were eyeing this match ever since Majora pounded Wind Waker and it lived up to the hype. FF7 can't hang with OOT but these two were perfect for each other. It's like CT/LTTP - just a great match between two strong games (by 2000s standards, anyway).

But there's one other thing here. In my opinion, this is the last classic gamefaqs match. By that I mean, it had a high number of votes, it had clearly established trends, it had a 1500ish vote lead comeback, there was an afterschool vote, etc. It had classic FF vs. Zelda trends too. Majora went up early, FFX put up what felt like an untouchable lead and Majora made an incredible comeback in the day. FFX even cut 200 votes in the last 2 hours just like the Knuckles and Maguses of the world used to. It had everything that those old classic matches had.

You stopped getting that after this. (you might have had it in the rivalry rumble, I forget. those matches don't count anyway.) After this, our vote totals dropped by two thirds, and then three fourths, and we started having to come up with artificial ways to keep our vote totals looking okay like double votes for registered users. 2018 was a strong contest with a great bracket but there's no movement and little interest. A contest was going on and you barely even noticed any new people show up on the board. It was a match amongst people aged 25-35 and the results showed with no new characters being good. Except 2B. That's so weird.

Anyway, I say this not to dump on more recent contests as I really did enjoy the 2018 version. It was a great return to form after all the dumb fourways and threeways and gimmick contests. But FFX/Majora is a match that should be celebrated as the last of its kind. It's too bad FFX didn't win for some kind of supposed balance between the good and bad sides of the force, but I kinda like the Majora result more in 2018 than I did in 2010.
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xyzzy

21.



The summer 2004 contest was probably the worst contest we could have gotten at that time. I'm not sure you could make a worse bracket if you tried. Every good character was put into an SFF battle and it ended up being super predictable. I think the contest winner had a -1 bracket, and that was Ryu/KOS-MOS of all things.

The exception to this, of course, was Link/Cloud. Cloud had won 2003 and FF7 had won spring 2004 just a couple of months before this one started. In 2003 you had a string of results that showed that Cloud was more than up to the challenge of facing Link. You had Squall/Luigi, you had Seph/Mario, you had Mario/Sonic, etc etc. For this one? It wasn't until the last 3 days that you really had any idea. Link/Mega Man (RIP Heroic Mario) and Cloud/Samus both could have made the list for how they framed the contest, but it was only a day or two before the penultimate battle. Otherwise you spent 2004 trying to compare Link's result vs. CATS to Cloud's vs. Duke Nukem. Cloud faced Squall and Sephiroth while Link got Yoshi and Ganondorf. Who thought this was a good idea? The only other good result was Link beating Crono 63/37 after Crono beat Mario. That was still within the range of 2003 Cloud though, since Seph put 61% on Mario. The problem was, 2004 Cloud wasn't 2003 Cloud, even though he managed to beat Sephiroth by a higher percentage than 03.

But once Link beat Mega Man, it was really on. That was his Cloud/Sonic moment. The general consensus at the time - and maybe now still, I'm not sure - was some combination of the Master Quest collection (came out the year prior), the Twilight Princess trailer and another year away from Kingdom Hearts gave Link what he needed. The picture being adult Link probably also helped. It really could have been Cloud dropping back just as easily as Link pushing ahead. Link/Mega Man isn't exactly a fair fight, after all, as we saw with things like Mega Man/Yoshi.

I don't put this one up super high because of the contest it came from. In reality, it probably belongs in the top 10 but it never felt that way. Link always felt like the favorite to me. He was heavily favored in the Oracle in this match too, despite Cloud/FF7 winning the last two contests. Cloud really needed everything to break his way to get one over on Link and he didn't have that in 04.
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xyzzy

22.



WHAT

I'd be hard pressed to make a list of contest results that absolutely shocked me, but I have to believe this one is at least in the top five.

Let's run down the history. L-Block, of course, won it all in 2007. Coming in to the 2008 contest, we were dismayed to learn that it would be another fourway affair. Brackets basically came down to a single match: round 2 with Crono, Ryu, L-Block and Amaterasu. On paper, this was the only chance we had to kill the boot that kicked our ass in 2007. We had two strong characters, a weaker one and L-Block. If you picked L-Block to advance, you had it winning the contest. If you didn't, you had Link.

One problem: in round 1, L-Block faced Ryu, Meta-Knight and the duck hunt dog, pre-Smash 4. Ah, those good old days where we dumped joke characters into every battle to see if anything would stick. L-Block would easily take second here. Except... L not only came in first, but did so by somehow making a big comeback on Ryu at the end of the match. L doesn't do that! It starts out strong and fades like all jokes do. But here it was, rubbing it in our face and beating our one chance we had to get it out of here. It felt insulting. That match would have made this list if this one didn't happen.

L-Block went into that big round 2 match and blasted Ryu. Crono took first but Ryu kinda never had a chance here. The dream was dead.

Meanwhile, Pikachu was winning his matches, but he wasn't a star yet. He beat Arthas and Ike in the first round, but he didn't dominate them. He barely edged out Alucard to take first in his second match. Coming into this match, he was clearly weaker than Ryu - and Alucard was stronger than Amaterasu. L-Block was destined to take first or second here.

Except... somehow, L-Block finally broke. It was Pikachu who started off the match in first. Pikachu gave up second to L-Block for a short while, but L's patented joke pattern came back here. It faded after the first hour and Pikachu coasted to an easy win. People celebrated in the streets. Women cried with joy.

Just.. what? This was the origin of save_us.rat. Pikachu went into the next match with Crono, Samus and Vincent and lost badly. The rat literally died to save the 2008 contest.
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xyzzy

-Nothing natural about it, as we saw with the Melee match. Ceej was terrible about cheating. It was sad how easy it actually was to do.

oh of course - but there was also serious excitement around what Starcraft was doing. it was both.
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xyzzy

23.



This match was gigantic. I'm pretty sure the #1 reason it was gigantic was because of the 1 and the 16 next to each other's name, though. If memory serves, you only got one nomination per console. Halo was literally the only Xbox game of note whereas Starcraft had to deal with the entire history of PC games. It was a bad system. Everything about spring 2004 was a bad idea, really. And it was amazing despite itself.

Make this match an 8-9 and it doesn't have the same level of hype. I still think it's a huge result though, even though no one should really pick Halo to be a huge favourite after watching Master Chief struggle with a dude named Felix. PC games were utter garbage in these contests. Probably the most notable example of a PC character was Gordon Freeman and he was the ultimate laughingstock by the time spring 2004 came around. Starcraft? It was hard to really believe in Starcraft. But it was also hard to see Halo going anywhere. I have no way to verify this, but I bet most people had it losing to Kingdom Hearts in the next round. (speaking of super odd results: Kingdom Hearts/Soul Calibur. I think Janus took Soul Calibur to beat Metal Gear in the series contest based off of that result alone. spring 2004, man. there won't ever be another like it.)

This match was an intense back and forth. Starcraft killed the night and Halo killed the day. Halo got up 1100 votes with 5 and a half hours to go and then Starcraft just went to work. It looked like it was probably going too slow and then, suddenly, it was over. It took like an hour and a half for a 600 vote lead to disappear.

And with that, Starcraft, and possibly the biggest natural bandwagon we've ever seen, was born.
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xyzzy

the Nintendo boost happened. once that happened, everything mature kinda went out the door.
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xyzzy

you got me good, yoblazer
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xyzzy

nah, the biggest picture mismatch of all time is snake/sora. maybe #2, though.
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xyzzy

24.



Let me just drop this match picture in here.



Not enough is made of this picture today. It's the entirety of Nintendo against big dorky Tidus. This match had a stigma for years because of it. Was Melee really the stronger game? Probably. But with a dork like Tidus, you never know.

I remember being really unimpressed by both of these games. Melee got less than 54% on Vice City while FFX, and this one baffles me to this very day, couldn't double Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. What the heck is that? FFX went into this one as the slight fave, but it wasn't overwhelming, and certainly not with that picture.

The match itself wasn't really that close outside of the beginning. Melee started out in the lead, FFX grabbed it overnight and Melee blasted FFX in the day. It was basically your typical Cloud/Link, Nintendo/Square affair. FFX got it under 51 by the end of the match but it was never really in doubt by the time the sun came up.

I can't stress the skepticism that this match drew, though. Between that and the complete wildcard that was Starcraft, the next round was completely unpredictable.
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xyzzy

it was never that clear cut though. I dunno, I'll hold off on commenting because we'll get there
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xyzzy

25.



This is usually my pick for my favourite gamefaqs match of all time. (I kinda don't have a single match to point to, but this one has been the one I say for years and years and I don't see any reason to change it now.) This was a match between two top five games, the two top games on the top console, locked in a dead heat for hours. This was also back in the days when there weren't poll freezes. You could just reload the poll endlessly. I had an evening job at the time with internet access and I just hit reload literally the entire day. Probably something like 300 times. It was just deadlocked for hours and hours.

There wasn't really anything super notable about this match outside of it being two giant games going 50/50. The biggest thing is that Chrono Trigger was able to win a close match against Nintendo when it felt like Crono was being existentially punished by Mario for two years running. Zelda losing anything in spring 2004 was a major deal given how utterly dominant it looked early on. It was also a hint that maybe FF7 could beat Ocarina -- but also maybe not. That match was kind of impossible to judge with results because of how the bracket was set up. CT winning wasn't a shock because FF6 had just pushed LTTP pretty hard the round prior, but it was still good to see CT actually do what Crono suggested it could do for two years.
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xyzzy

edit: this is the top 75 most important/influential matches in contest history, not the best.

the list so far:

75. Phoenix/Vincent/Mewtwo (2013)
74. Link to the Past/Super Metroid (2004)
73. Kirby/L-Block/Laharl/Nathan Hale (2007)
72. Metal Gear Solid 2/Shadow of the Colossus (2010)
71. Cloud/Zelda (2018)
70. Frog/Snake (2004)
69. Metal Gear Solid 4/Shadow of the Colossus (2010)
68. Pikachu/Mega Man 1 (2018)
67. Vincent/Kerrigan (2005)
66. Sephiroth/Missingno (2010)
65. Mario/Crono (2005)
64. Sonic/Mega Man (2005)
63. Cloud/Snake/Sephiroth/Kirby (2008)
62. Kirby/Tidus (2005)
61. Kefka/Crono (2003)
60. Link/Crono/Vincent/Pikachu (2008)
59. Link/Mario (2002)
58. Master Chief/Yuna/Vercetti/Parappa (2007)
57. Mario/Cloud (2018)
56. Mega Man/Sephiroth (2002)
55. Mario/Samus 1 + 2 (2018)
54. Zelda/Final Fantasy (2006)
53. Mario/Vivi/Ganondorf (2013)
52. Mario/Shadow (2003)
51. Sephiroth/Tifa (2018)
50. Super Metroid/Majora's Mask (2015)
49. Sonic/Crono (2006)
48. Snake/Bowser (2005)
47. Samus/Tifa (2006)
46. Majora's Mask/Smash Bros. Brawl (2010)
45. Sephiroth/Mario (2005)
44. Crono/Missingno (2010)
43. Kirby/L-Block/Kratos/Donkey Kong (2007)
42. Draven/Chie/Jak (2013)
41. Squall/Zelda (2018)
40. Chrono Trigger/Final Fantasy X (2015)
39. Vincent/Squall (2005)
38. Cloud/Link/Sephiroth/Snake (2006 Battle Royale day 3)
37. Sephiroth/Mario (2003)
36. Mario/Crono (2004)
35. Undertale/Smash Bros. Melee (2015)
34. Link/Crono/Snake/Cloud (2008)
33. Crono/Snake (2002)
32. Link/Cloud (2005)
31. Super Smash Bros. Melee/Super Smash Bros. Brawl (2010)
30. Samus/Snake (2006)
29. Chrono Trigger/Super Smash Bros. Melee (2015)
28. Snake/Mega Man (2006)
27. Master Chief/L-Block/Snake/Dante (2007)
26. Majora's Mask/Pokemon Gold/Silver/Crystal (2010)

feel free to guess the top 25! it shouldn't be too hard to do, at least some of them.

also, if anyone wants to archive those writeups/put them on the wiki/whatever, feel free - I don't really ever save, well, anything.
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xyzzy

super metroid is probably top 15 then? I'm willing to take that and run

Samus this year suggests it hasn't changed
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xyzzy

yeah, majora might have the biggest turnaround in contest history. I really wonder how legit it is, though, since it nearly lost to super metroid.
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xyzzy

my main guys are kirby, olimar and lucario. I love kirby in smash so much

I beat the eyeball guy in world of light tonight and am entering what is presumably the final area
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xyzzy

alright, I'm saving the top 25 for the next topic. feel free to argue about tripping like it's 2008 for a few more posts
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xyzzy

26.



I think people forget the sentiment around this match. Majora's Mask was garbage in BGE2. The reason it was garbage? Pokemon. Not many people had Majora turning this one around after RBY choked it to death five minutes into the poll. Even GSC did better on RBY than Majora did. That was a killing on the level of Ocarina/Mario 64.

The natural conclusion to draw was that GSC would put Majora down. Nope! Majora went over fairly easily and opened people's eyes. If it can beat GSC, why not Wind Waker? If it can beat Wind Waker, why not Metal Gear? What about FFX? This match changed a whole lot in terms of Majora's perception. It's not often that a Zelda game is expected to go out in the second round. That's how bad it was in 2009, and how great its redemption arc was in 2010.
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xyzzy

I'd take it just because one is on the Wii U
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xyzzy

27.



I've probably missed something like 100-150 matches in my decade-plus of doing the Analysis Crew. Some of them have been really disastrous. (At least I didn't pick a wrestling game over Fire Emblem.) But I think my best call throughout my tenure has probably been L-Block. I got 5 L-Block matches 100% correct in 2007.

This was the sixth. L-Block did the unthinkable here: it moved off of its 28% target following the incredible Snake/Sonic/L/Squall match and went up a level. Now it wasn't fighting for second, it was destroying characters for first. Instead of stabilizing in the 40s and dropping to the high 20s, it stabilized in the high 50s and setted in the 30s. This was a different kind of boot that was kicking our ass. It was one that was ready for Link.
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xyzzy

you know I am :)
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xyzzy

28.



I've more or less talked about this one through several other Snake results so I'll be brief. With hindsight, it's shocking that we didn't see this coming. Not only was there the Brawl trailer, but I think there was a solid 15 minute trailer for MGS4, Snake with the gun in his mouth, that came out in 2006 as well. And all we could see was the rear view mirror where Snake was the clear #9, almost losing to Frog and almost losing to Bowser.

You could even make an argument for Squall over Snake instead of Mega Man. Squall was a sexy upset pick in 06, having tied Vincent and been right there for #10 or #11 on the site. KH2 had come out and Squall was pretty hot. With a good path, he could have done some damage.

By the time this match hit, the board was 50/50 on this result, but 55% was a pretty overwhelming win for someone seen to be behind. This match, and the Sonic match after it, really boosted his profile and made people think he would definitely win the main bracket.
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xyzzy

I strongly considered SF2 for this list but then realized it was a one point match that most people called right anyway
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xyzzy

KamikazePotato posted...

I've stated my case on this, but CT looked flat-out stronger than OoT in pretty much every match. It did better on FF10 than OoT did on FF9. Maybe OoT hulks up in the final once it had a chance of losing, but it was legitimately looking a full step below in intrinsic strength.

I'm fine with that, but I'd rather be conservative when calling for something to dethrone Ocarina on natural strength. that would have been amazing though.

okay enough Brawl I'm trying to get to the top 25 tonight
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xyzzy

29.

https://imgur.com/rxqySRs

I hate-hate-hate-hate-HATE this result, Kefka style. It's probably my least favourite result in contest history? You see, I made the insane bet of putting Chrono Trigger to the finals in my bracket, and at absolute worst it was the third strongest game in 2015. More likely it was second, and it was possibly stronger than Ocarina. Chrono Trigger was a monster, demolishing FFX and putting up 60% on Melee early on in this match.

How strong was CT in 2015? Allen came out post-contest and said that CT got 63.28% of the registered voters in this match. FF7 vs. Melee? Only 57.08%. We've seen from the most recent contest that the registered voters are more or less in line with the rest of the site. So... yeah. CT was probably the second strongest game in 2015.

Melee isn't like other rally entrants - it's got its own legit strength, but also this insanely dedicated and mobilized fanbase. Usually you see that kind of thing with PC games only. But Melee has that online presence along with that weaponized Nintendo fandom that gamefaqs is known for. So when Melee was able to rally some votes, it was close enough that it mattered. It didn't need to start from nothing like an Undertale or a Draven did.

And that's what makes this match so frustrating. Melee is already a top 10 game. We've been over how bad (relatively) Crono/CT was for an entire decade. Here was its chance to shine, and much like the Mario/Crono matches of 2002 and 2003, external forces conspired to stop it.

Chrono Trigger wouldn't have made the finals, of course. Undertale was going to obliterate anything in its path. But this match, and that small-but-big-enough rally, was enough to torpedo a real, legitimate contest star. It's like if someone rallied to have Mario beat Zelda in the most recent contest.
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xyzzy

hey I picked Golden Sun there
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xyzzy

30.



This is probably the most shocking result of this whole contest. Pretty weird for that to be in the final! Snake is just killing guys left and right. He blasts Squall, rocks Mega Man and does the same to Sonic who had just beaten Crono. Samus, meanwhile, was playing in the baby bracket and almost lost to Tifa due to a picture. She felt like she can collapse at any second. This match started and pretty much crushed everyone's dreams of a new hierarchy. Snake never led for a single update. The boy wonder who went from last place in the NN to the heir apparent winner of 2006 couldn't hang.

So what happened? The theory at the time was simple: Snake's boost was entirely due to Smash Bros, and when facing an equivalent opponent, that strength just left him and moved over to Samus. Basically, Snake had the absolute perfect bracket path. He did face Yoshi, and that result looked fine, but Yoshi has gone down hard to Nintendo-adjacent dudes before.

I think that theory of Samus sapping his strength might even be true, but I'm less certain now than I was in 06. Snake moved to a legit #4 for a long while there, possibly as high as #2. I think he would have outright beaten Mario in later years. It's possible that 2006 Snake was entirely hype and that he didn't become an icon to non-MGS fans until after 2008, but I dunno. This has always been a fascinating match, and one that really crushed contest fans everywhere. He would get his in the TOC, though, as Samus bowed out easy on day 1 thanks to Mario and Link while he would make it to the top 3.

Snake did get his chance at a Samus rematch in 2018 and he got obliterated. Maybe he just can't hold up with Samus specifically? We'll probably never know.
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xyzzy

I like Brawl more too. it's also easier for me to treat Smash as its own thing separate from regular fighters so I can be casual in one and serious in the other and it doesn't break my worldview
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xyzzy

I think Brawl not making the next contest is kind of perfect though, don't you think?
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xyzzy

31.



(this really was next)

I can't think of a single intra-series rivalry quite like Melee and Brawl. The relationship between these two games was vitriolic from pretty much the word go. In general, and I don't want to fight about this, the Melee people are there for the gameplay and precision and the Brawl people are there for the content and the style. It's a casual/hardcore split. Brawl has the more characters, the more music, the expansive story mode and the better look. Melee has the speed and the accuracy. Oh, and it came first.

The general consensus with these two games is that they were the two strongest, along with possibly FFX, and that the winner of this match is probably the favourite to win the contest. I think that take was largely correct. There were arguments aplenty about this game, but they weren't really rooted in anything. It just came down to if you thought the history of Melee or the content and hype of Brawl was a bigger factor.

Their contest results were pretty much equal. I thought that Brawl fans would vote for Melee fans but the Melee crazies would not vote for Brawl. That didn't really seem to be the case but the games they faced were so weak. This was a setup much like some of the 2004 matchups. The board was evenly split on this one and no one really knew what to make of it.

The match happened, and Melee started out strong -- and then the so-called casual crowd swooped in, voted Brawl just enough to make it feel unsatisfying, and the quick 12 hour match was over. I was honestly shocked to see it happen - I had a hard time believing that Melee fans would stand for Brawl winning this, and yet Brawl just slowly pulled away to a smooth 51/49 win. Afterwards, I expected a literal board riot.. and unless my memory is wrong, it just kinda wasn't there. The passion of the early 00s was gone from the contests. People have been burned enough by now.

I genuinely think that if Melee had taken it, we would have had Melee win GOTD. It would have put Majora down much like Brawl put Twilight Princess down. But because it was Brawl, the game not worthy to be called great, enough people abandoned it by the end that Majora was able to take it.

It's funny to think that Brawl won this, because for every category that Brawl was great, Smash 4 and Ultimate have eaten it for lunch. Smash Ultimate has like six thousand characters and five million songs. If you put Brawl in a match today, it probably looks about equal to Smash 64. This felt like a great rivalry and before we knew it, Brawl was dead.
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xyzzy

short changed how? he had like 14 matches against Snake
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xyzzy

you think FFX beats Majora if Melee beats Brawl? that one's too far for me
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xyzzy

slow down guys those matches are coming
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xyzzy

I recommend making a list
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xyzzy

32.



The bracketmaking period in 2005 was pretty intense. 2002 was basically voided, Cloud won in 2003, and Link won in 2004. This was kinda seen as the rubber match.

The arguments were pretty out there. On Cloud's side, you had Advent Children launching sometime during the contest. On Link's side, you had people talking about Twilight Princess and hype, back before hype was accepted as a major factor in voting. This was still the pre-youtube era, more or less, so it wasn't like people were revisiting the trailer at will. But a lot of people saw what Nintendo was dishing in 2004, BLADES WILL BLEED and Miyamoto awkwarding swinging a sword, and were ready for a return of big boy Link. In retrospect, it's amazing that we never got a Toon Link picture during these dark days. That would have set the contests on fire. Samus/Tifa would have been nothing.

Anyway, this is the last time you could really, conceivably pick Cloud without a heavy dose of believe. After the Boost happened, it was hard to make much of a case for Cloud. Still, both of these guys were sectioned off to a four-person tournament of champions bracket and we never got to see them in any matches. With results like Vincent winning the Devil Division and Tifa looking super legit after round 1, you could talk yourself into Cloud not being dead yet.

The match itself was close but never really in doubt. Cloud grabbed a 200 vote lead overnight and then lost big the rest of the match, as you would expect. I always think highly of this match because of the lack of direct comparisons and all the speculation that happened before the match. I also think highly of it because this was the last time that Cloud vs. Link was really a rivalry. The Boost had happened and Cloud would need a remake or something to really compete again.
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xyzzy

if I was bracketmaking in 2002 I probably would have gone with Dante?
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xyzzy

MGS is basically anime. it makes perfect sense that it's popular here. I wouldn't even compare it to Sam Fisher or whoever. (Snake would kill Sam Fisher just about everywhere)
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xyzzy

33.



I will defend this one to the death. I get the feeling that people often lose sight of how incredible it is that Crono is legit. Nowadays we talk about him as this fallen noble nine character, one who sometimes can get up for it and sometimes looks like 15 guys could top him. But once upon a time, back in 2002, he was just a silent character from an off-brand Square game. His 2002 run is the original miracle. That contest belongs to Crono just as much as 2006 belongs to Snake or 2018 belongs to Zelda.

I couldn't begin to tell you prediction percentages, but I have to believe that most people had him losing to 1 seed Lara Croft, who he put 70% on. Seeds meant something back then. I remember feeling like a genius when I had Sephiroth beating Crash because it was a seeding upset. That's to say nothing of spring 2004.

Crono's match against Snake felt like a miracle back then. He was beating a guy who was seen as the new hotness. The match itself probably wasn't that close - who knows - but the fact that Crono pulled it off was probably the best legitimate upset of the contest.
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xyzzy

I don't take any result from the end of 2013 seriously
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xyzzy

34.



Ah, the power of a bandwagon. Cloud beat Snake by a solid 10% two rounds prior, but a Cloud/Sephiroth split allowed Snake to sneak into first in the semifinal. Then the final came two minutes later and, whoa! Snake just up and beat Cloud with Sephiroth. Crono is there, and that probably did contribute, but he got killed and it wasn't nearly as bad as having Seph in the poll. He lost by more here. The Snake bug caught on after he beat both FF7 dudes at once.

2008 is probably Snake's best year, if I had to guess without looking, thanks to MGS4 and Brawl coming out. Those were the two biggest games of the year - some might say they were equals at the end of 2008 - and Solid was the runaway star in both. Snake won't ever be able to top Link, especially now, but he had an argument for being the #2 guy at this point in time. Cloud was fading.
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xyzzy

35.



This is the least close 51/49 result in the history of polling. This match was ridiculous, a rally battle between two outside factions that went so far out of the normal bounds of a contest match that it just felt like gamefaqs was the battleground and we were more witnesses than participants. Because of that, I'm not sure how much relevance it truly has.

But that's not talking down the match - it was pretty wild. Undertale came out with the lead, Smash rallied to take it back after several hours and Undertake just swatted it away like a fly. The larger Undertale audience was just much bigger than the Smash audience, which sounds crazy but Smash was largely the competitive Smash community and Undertale was the entire internet. That game has an internet presence that's really unbelievable. This could have been pushed to 60/40 if they wanted, but they basically just took the lead when they wanted and then just let it sit. Smash could never generate that kind of output so it ended up looking a lot closer than it really was.

Smash was the only chance we had at beating the Undertale machine and it wasn't even close to enough. The final here was incidental - nobody actually thought Ocarina had a chance.
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xyzzy

maybe Mario was the issue in 04. you can't actually see any Mario characters' results outside of Crono/Mario because of how awful the 04 bracket was.
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xyzzy

I think 2004 was probably on the heels of the TP trailer and probably only helped out Link? I'm not sure what made 04 such a good year for Crono. just random chance I guess.
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xyzzy

36.



This match can be anywhere on a list like this. You can make an argument that it belongs in the top 10 or so - Mario/Crono 2002/2003 aren't complete without the good guy finally getting his in 2004 (and then never again, unless you count BS fourways).

But it's also kinda.. boring? I dunno what to say here. 2004 is Mario's worst year and Crono's best, bar none. I'd love to say that someday Crono will get into Smash and we'll get an HD remake and he'll make a match of it with Mario, but I doubt it in this environment. Then again, 2015 Crono probably could have hung with Mario so I guess you never know.

It was great that Crono went over on Mario, much like Cloud going over on Link was amazing, but the result felt a little too late. This should have happened in 03.
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xyzzy

37.



There were so many moments in 2003 that pointed to Cloud beating Link. Squall rocking Luigi, Magus beating Ganondorf, Aeris threatening Sonic, the list goes on. But the two big ones are when Cloud doubled Sonic and this match, back to back. Sephiroth just demolished Mario here. It wasn't even close! The oracle consensus was 50/50 due to Mario's madness last year, but the writing was certainly on the wall. After this match, all you could think about was Cloud vs. Link. Sephiroth would go on to demolish Mega Man which was also notable seeing as how he barely got him the year prior.

Sephiroth was a killer in 2003, man. Isn't it crazy to think that, if Seph had faced Link first, that Sephiroth could have been the great hero that restored balance to the contest? In fact, halfway through this list I was looking around and was shocked at the board consensus for Seph/Cloud. I had always just figured that Cloud was the obvious winner and that it was antivotes fueling Sephiroth, but the oracle average, probably because of 2002, was Seph with 50.01%. That should probably be on here, and my lack of board presence in 2003 is the reason why it's absent.
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xyzzy

darn you typos
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xyzzy

yeah I was thinking that while writing. stay strong, Leonhart, the good ones are coming
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xyzzy