Lurker > Lightning Strikes

Neptune didn't have much of a B8 drive did she?
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Thanks again for the interest guys!

Day 5, Match 3 - Crash Bandicoot vs. Cecil Harvey
(5) Crash: 54.18% - (12) Cecil: 45.82%

What happened?: In the "Final Fantasy lead loses in a debated match they were the board favourite in" Trilogy, part 4/3, Cecil Harvey Never Wins (CHNW) officially became a thing. With five straight losses he has officially beaten Gordon's record. This match also cements the strength of 90's mascots and the weakness of Final Fantasy. Five years ago this match would have had the same result or worse going the other way around. Cecil always loses but he's not weak, he has come close a few times. This was his to lose. But Crash has boosted just like Spyro did thanks to his rerelease, and Final Fantasylooking generally poor. Once again this started close as board 8 tried to bracket vote their way to victory, but then Crash started to build his lead and it was never in question.

What could this mean?: There's not much to say really, Crash has gone from fodder to a reasonable midcarder and CHNW. This result was foreshadowed nicely by Spyro vs. Chun-Li and Zidane vs. Knuckles. I actually originally had Crash in my bracket, before you absolute arseholes (joking, joking) convinced me to change it to Cecil, then those two matches happened and I was like "Oh". This match didn't tell us much new, but it did give further confirmation of a few trends. I also wonder if there's been a Sony boost. Crash owes a lot of his strength to the PS4, as does Kratos and arguably Spyro. Lastly, the casuals continue to beat us - I think the only match the B8 favourite beat the casual favourite on is Sully vs. Aya. Oops.

Day 5, Match 4 - Big Boss vs. Ridley
(4) Big Boss: 56.66% - (13) Ridley: 43.34%

What happened?: Battle of the big bosses. This match is a pretty good test of just how much Nintendo has boosted. Ridley is one of the two gatekeepers of Nintendo's low tier characters (more on the other one in the next day). Big Boss is a low elite. This should have been a 61-65% affair. However, the success of the Switch and especially Ridley's fan-pleasing confirmation for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate mean that he's facing a different Ridley. Ridley came out swinging, at times even looking like he would take the whole match during the board vote, but then Big Boss was able to keep a safe distance throughout. Still, this was a major moral victory for Ridley.

What could this mean?: NintendoFEAR, even when it loses. This doesn't speak to Big Boss's weakness but to Ridley's new strength. It's not exactly the round 1 performance you expect of a potential division winner, but Big Boss has no real reason to weaken. If anything him effectively officially supplanting Solid Snake as the main character of Metal Gear should arguably boost him a little. He did have an old man pic but it was the identifiable MGS4 one and it's not 2005-2006 anymore. Really Ridley just looked good. The Nintendo boost is real, and hopefully next time Ridley can get a winnable match (in fact, outside of the Rivalry Rumble his record is as bad as Cecil's, largely due to bad draws).
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Japan only, but Majima and Kiryu were in the Wii U versions of the first two Yakuza games. GlaDOS is also in Bridge Constructor Portal on Switch. A Hat in Time is also coming to Switch, though not out yet.

That leaves:

Aya Brea
Cayde-6
Chloe Price
D.Va
Draven
Ellie
Estelle Bright
Geralt
Gordon Freeman
Hat Kid (coming soon)
Joel
John Marston
Kratos
Monika
Nathan Drake
Quiet
Velvet Crowe
Victor Sullivan
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Day 5, Match 1 - Sora vs. Ryo Hazuki
(1) Sora: 69.08% - (16) Ryo: 30.92%

What happened?: This is probably the most interesting 1/16 match so far. Square has been consistently underperforming (almost, more on that tomorrow) throughout this contest but KH has always been fairly separate. The two series in question here are in very similar situations (Allen likely knew what he was doing on this one) After being dormant for a long time KH hype is starting to gear back up with the rereleases and III finally, finally, being only a couple of months away. Ryo was near ultra-fodder in the early contests then vanished. However, since then Shenmue 3 got a very high profile announcement and is releasing next year, with the first two games getting a rerelease on modern systems just recently. So Ryo may be much stronger. For reference, in 2004 Sora would have gotten 78% in this match, and 2013 Sora would have gotten 81%. And Sora did come sprinting out the gate with nearly 72%, but then that gradually declined to 69%. Sora looked a lot like Pokemon characters here, and that speaks to how the new start time has suppressed the day vote, instead making the traditional "day" characters very front loaded. Ryo didn't look like trash here, but then Sora didn't exactly impress.

What could this mean?: Either Kingdom Hearts has weakened as the wait for III has become more and more of a joke, or Shenmue has strengthened significantly. In this case, it's most likely both. A reasonable performance for Sora would have been near a tripling, but I just can't see Ryo making up 12% on Sora from Shenmue 3 hype and 1/2 HD. This was a fairly poor performance from Sora and he't looking great to take the division. Then again who is?

Day 5, Match 2 - Neptune vs. Pokemon Trainer Red
(8) Neptune: 24.68% - (9) Red: 75.22%

What happened?: Neptune's 8 seed might beat Chloe's for the most baffling in the contest. She is the kind of character you expect to show up as a just happy to be here 16 seed. She looked like ultra-fodder, and got blown out accordingly in the second biggest defeat so far. Red started near 80% but then got hit with those frontloaded Pokemon trends and slowly declined, but he still cleaned house. The question is, did he clean house by enough?

What could this mean?: Sora vs. Red is one to watch. Red didn't destroy Neptune like he had to to look like the clear favourite but it was still behind only Ganondorf's win for the biggest beatdown thus far. Additionally Neptune has a dedicated fanbase (just look at the seed) which gives her an alright floor even though she's definitely bottom five (so far I'd only solidly take her over Chloe). Ryo would beat Neptune, but 57% beat? I'm not so sure. That match is a true tossup, and their similar trends could mean that it doesn't look settled for a long time.
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Sony's looked good in all its matches. It just hadn't had many. In fact Kratos is the only true Sony character so far and he looked pretty beastly.

Edit: Oops except for Sully lol
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Day 4, Match 3 - Pikachu vs. Scorpion
(7) Pikachu: 66.41% - (10) Scorpion: 33.59%

What happened?: PokeFEAR returns. we all knew Pikachu would win, the question was how much. Scorpion has looked good before, he's iconic, albeit not as strong in these as Sub-Zero (good taste, GameFAQS). He couldn't get destroyed right? Wrong. Pikachu flew out the gate here with a stunning 69%. Scorpion was getting destroyed in the early hours of this match. It did start to turn however, with Scorpion cutting nearly a full 3% off of Pikachu as the match went on, even winning updates at points. In the end he escaped the doubling, and this definitely ended up looking less dominant than it did at first.

What could this mean?: A lot of people were shaken by this match, I am sceptical. Pikachu gets 64% on Scorpion using 2013 stats, which is only 2% better than this. Add only a slight Mortal Kombat decline (X was three years ago and kind of came and went, and also the next one has not been announced yet leaving the series in a kind of limbo) and this result actually starts looking quite sensible. Pikachu is a true elite, no questioning that, but I'm not expecting him to run rampant by any stretch, at least not on the basis of this match. The one other thing I'll say is that this gives us a really clear view of Pokemon's trends, starting incredibly strong and then calming down. Keep that in mind for close starts in the future.

Day 4, Match 4 - Kratos vs. John Marston
(2) Kratosi: 73.18% - (15) John Marston: 26.82%

What happened?: To set up this match we need to look at God of War's history on GameFAQs. That series used to be really good, and I think a lot of people forget that on this board. All three of the original trilogy games got into the Game of the Year finals, with two of them in the top three. It looked quite good in 2009 and really good in 2010, coming very close to peak Half-Life 2. Kratos kind of followed its fortunes, looking better than ever until a great performance against Charizard in 2010 (however strong you think he really is). Then 2013 happened. Kratos looked absolutely dreadful, struggling to double Travis and Recette then getting just annihilated by Mega Man X and losing to Jill. This follows how people thought of the series. In 2013 constant releases and Ascension had almost killed the series. 2013 Kratos would struggle with Marston, who looked alright against Zelda in 2013 and is helped by the fact that RDR2 releases four days after this match. But then we come to the match and Kratos lets loose, starting big and getting bigger as the match went on before stabilising over 73%. It was almost as big a victory as Yoshi's over Shantae.

What could this mean?: This was a dominant performance by Kratos, and I have to imagine it was legit strength. There is talk of SFF but I don't see why there would be more here than Yoshi vs. Shantae or even Pikachu vs. Scorpion, the two are fairly different, one is multiplatform, and is well-loved. Additionally I'm not sure if Marston has fallen to the bottom or anything, RDR is still floating around the top 30 on this site and RDR2 is very hyped. Marston even had his RDR2 art in the match pic I think. So this was a really good showing for Kratos, and if he wasn't running into Pikachu next round he could really run rampant. Going off 2013 an upset is possible, and I'm not expecting it but I would definitely like to see it. It makes sense that Kratos would look this good - God of War 2018 is the Breath of the Wild of the series. It's not just revived the series either, but it has also redeemed Kratos as a character. I think this is the strongest he's ever been and I wish he was in any other division. Hopefully he will give us a good show in his next match.
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Day 4, Match 1 - Yoshi vs. Shantae
(3) Yoshi: 74.27% - (14) Shantae: 25.73%

What happened?: This was a fairly standard blowout. Shantae is very much a "just happy to be here" character, but did better than a lot of people thought she would. She's weak, but not ultra-fodder. Yoshi soared with the board vote, but then things stabilised below a tripling and Yoshi struggled to get over 74% until the last few hours. It was an uneventful beatdown, but Shantae has something of a moral victory in the fact that she didn't get destroyed.

What could this mean?: This wasn't nearly as bad for Yoshi as it might look on the surface. Shantae has well-liked, relatively well-known games with a dedicated fanbase and is essentially a low-tier Nintendo character. Her not getting totally blown out is a testament to her being kind of okay (she did get a 14 seed compared to the 16 seeds of comparable characters like Cuphead and Hat Kid). Regarding Yoshi, he performed very similarly to how Zero did on Primrose and in that match I might lean Shantae, but it's suffice to say that Yoshi and Zero are definitely looking comparable. I wouldn't read too much into this one, I think there is just a bit of underestimation of how weak the new characters are. I'm even starting to think that Cayde-6 might not get annihilated!

Day 4, Match 2 - Velvet Crowe vs. James Sunderland
(6) Velvet: 61.04% - (11) James: 38.96%

What happened?: This was a slightly debated match. The top tier Tales games (by which I mean Symphonia and Vesperia, mainly Symphonia) are pretty good, but the characters have done badly with the exception of 2005. Lloyd is okay, but doesn't get enough support in nominations to get winnable matches anymore. Yuri isn't a disaster, hovering a bit below the fodder line. Those are the two best comparisons or velvet I think. Silent Hill and its characters have never been good, with even Pyramid Head looking fodder line at best. So this was a match between perennial underperformers in a lot of ways. Then it opens and Velvet just destroys James, especially during the board vote. In some ways this was actually the surprise of the day. Velvet winning wasn't a shock after Aya vs. Sully, but the margin was larger and Velvet wasn't from a 90's Square RPG. In the end this was another debated match turned easy victory, and Tales characters got their first win since Lloyd beat Wesker in 2005.

What could this mean?: Well, this could easily speak to issues of recognisability and picture quality. James Sunderland just being "James" in the options can't have helped him, and Velvet was a cute anime girl with a striking artstyle. I did think James's pic was ok though, it had the distinctive Silent Hill look to it. More than just that I do think Velvet would have won without too much trouble anyway. Berseria is definitely a top tier Tales game, it is one of very few games in that series to sell over a million and is the best reviewed behind Symphonia and Vesperia (other than some rereleases anyway). The series is a mixed bag and this is one of the good ones. At the end of the day, Yuri would probably win this match too and I can't imagine a world in which Velvet's much weaker than him. So Velvet won this match legit, but the other factors might have helped too. Now let's hope this shuts Black Turtle up about how much he hates Tales.
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Johnbobb posted...

John Marston lost because he wasn't able to be there for his boy

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I took Luigi over Sephiroth as a cheeky upset and am definitely feeling pretty good about it now.
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James Sunderland killed his wife, but was killed by a waifu.
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Gonna get the next batch done in the morning, but my general analysis of the contest so far is simply LOL Square.
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If you own it go for it, but it's not very good.
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Day 3, Match 3 - Noctis Lucis Caelum vs. Master Hand
(5) Noctis: 42.45% - (12) Master Hand: 57.55%

What happened?: Part three in the Final Fantasy protagonist loses to a 90's mascot in a debated match trilogy (?), this was split down the middle in the general bracket results and our own, it seemed like a true tossup. Then the match started and Master Hand ran away with it immediately, with little change other than the standard Nintendo/Square trends. Despite beating Kuja Master Hand looked terrible in 2005 so Noctis should have won. But the meme came back to life, and Noctis lost as Kuja did to a goddamn hand.

What does this mean?: Final Fantasy is screwed, especially against Nintendo. Master Hand is low tier Nintendo as far as we know, yet beat the best Square has given us for a decade. Add to that Zidane and Tidus losing what should have been close matches easily and it's a bad look for FF. This also further makes Lightning look not strong at all since I can't imagine she does better. Master Hand probably loses to Wario next round, which shows exactly where on the totem pole Noctis is. To be fair, Master Hand is probably better than in 2005 thanks to Ultimate and Nintendo being generally stronger, but still, Noctis looked dreadful here. It is now likely that Lightning and Squall are the only FF leads out of 7 to win their first match, with the former being due to a very lucky draw. Dante might double Lightning, Zelda is likely to beat Squall. This is a terrible contest for FF and a great one for Nintendo.

Day 3, Match 4 - Monika vs. Wario
(4) Monika: 35.44% - (13) Wario: 64.56%

What happened?: Board 8 got overly paranoid about rallies and convinced itself that Monika might win the whole contest. This did not happen. There was a rally, hence the higher vote totals, but not nearly enough to make Monika a threat to Wario. Stalls and small cuts were all the rally managed.

What could this mean?: That Allen's anti-rally system works, that we can't predict contest changing rallies, and that small dedicated fandoms not in the zeitgeist the way Undertale and LoL were are not to be feared. It was a straightforward match that was very much overhyped. I think the rallies we will see will be smaller ones like the one in this match, and unlikely to change the course of the whole thing. Otherwise Wario looked reasonable and should get to round 3 with no trouble.
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Day 3, Match 1 - Zero vs. Primrose
(1) Zero: 74.18% - (16) Primrose: 25.82%

What happened?: This was a fairly standard 1/16 match, though I think Primrose definitely exceeded a lot of the board's expectations here, escaping the tripling. Zero was more than tripling during the Power Hour, but then Primrose gained percentage and it was fairly stable from there. Primrose arguably benefited from the Monika rallies but that isn't entirely clear.

What could this mean?: some people are taking this as an indictment of Zero but I don't think so. I think Primrose is actually not trash. Octopath Traveler is an open world RPG in the style of a SNES JRPG developed by Square and published by Nintendo. It is exactly GameFAQs's sort of thing. It will probably come second in this year's Switch poll. And Primrose is the shining star of that game. She got in despite extreme recency and no rallies, I think with time she might end up a reasonable fodder line character.

Day 3, Match 2 - Zidane Tribal vs. Knuckles
(8) Zidane Tribal: 43.2% - (9) Knuckles: 56.8%

What happened?: Another debated match turned fairly one-sided. This was very similar to Tidus vs. DK in a lot of ways. It briefly seemed close then reality set in and it was stable throughout. Historically this match would have either been close or even reversed in favour of Zidane. And sure enough, the casuals beat us again in the prediction arena easily, showing that the "mainstream" picks have some weight behind them.

What could this mean?: That Final Fantasy is DEAD. But more on that in the next match. It was a good show for Knuckles, and there is a fair argument for a Sonic Mania boost. We will have a clearer picture of how much is a Sonic boost and how much is FF decline when Knuckles goes up against Zero. I also have to wonder if Knuckles benefits from the apparent Nintendo boost too, his franchise has been linked to Nintendo for a while. After all, Sonic Mania is as they say perfect for Switch. Expect more Nintendo associated characters showing up Final Fantasy in the future.
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Primrose
Knuckles
Master Hand
Wario
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Less votes, but also Uncharted isn't that popular on GameFAQs (even though The Last of Us is) and 90s nostalgia is everywhere, even for a pretty B-List franchise. As for why Uncharted never does well even though similar games have, I think there us a trifling nature to those games that causes them not to stick the way say, TLoU does.
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Damn I forgot to make an expand dong joke about DK's gains.
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Yu didn't spend any time raising his "GameFAQs Voter" Social Link.

Sully lost because the contest wasn't uncharted territory for Aya.

Tidus' laugh does not expand dong

Dragonborn was a fus-ro-dud
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LeonhartFour posted...

Lightning Strikes posted...

Lastly we really should consider new releases and relevance more than just going with the stats.

thanks man that never occurred to anyone

I edited that in because it seems obvious but you can't deny, the casuals got us good on this one. Contest knowledge can be a curse too!
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Day 2, Match 4 - Leon Kennedy vs. Dragonborn
(2) Leon: 68.68% - (15) Dragonborn: 31.32%

What happened?: Dragonborn looked good last time, but here never stood a chance, losing to Leon as badly as they lost to Tifa. In the early hours this was almost a tripling. To Dragonborn's credit however, they did recover as the match went on, especially with the day vote as you might expect from their respective games.

What could this mean?: Leon looked really good here, and I think has cemented himself as the favourite over Vivi. He looked bad in 2013 relative to previous appearances and would have only gotten 54% on Dragonborn but here he excelled. This speaks to the health of Resident Evil, with 7 and the 2 Remake it is back. As for Dragonborn, a generic avatar from a beloved game was never going to stack up to a defined character. Skyrim would beat RE4, but nobody cares about the Dragonborn. People LOVE Leon. This was a victory for character (that is also tied to a series people know and love). I am now very curious to see how Joker vs. Claire turns out, as that is in many ways a mirror of this match but the seeds are reversed, the RE character is less popular, and Joker is more of a real character.
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Day 2, Match 3 - Tidus vs. Donkey Kong
(7) Tidus: 43.07% - (10) Donkey Kong: 56.93%

What happened?: HA HA HA HA HA HA This match was... Hilarious. Going in this match was a tough one on paper. Two kings of choking going up against each other. Donkey Kong lost the last choke-off against Master Chief, then was redeemed in 2013 when he humiliated Lightning despite having Falco in the poll. Tidus nearly beat Missingno. in 2013 but then that looked pretty bad in round 2. He has also generally slid in strength, now looking like the weakest FF protagonist (other than Cecil) and arguably the weakest character in his own game. If Wakka got in he might look better than Tidus. Still, statistically Tidus has looked very slightly better than DK, so he was the board favourite. Then the match started. It was close for five minutes as board 8 furiously bracket voted, but the Donkey Kong ran away with it. Tidus just about won a few night vote updates but this match was never in question. To top it off the casuals bodied us on this one, taking DK two to one.

What could this mean?: A few things. First that Tidus is the unquestioned king of choke. Second, Donkey Kong has gotten so much better in recent years. We should have seen it coming really. In 2013 Donkey Kong looked to have boosted which was largely ignored. This made sense, thanks to Donkey Kong Country Returns making that series relevant (and well, existant) again. Since then, Tropical Freeze came out and was beloved, and then the Switch version came out and put it in front of more people. So this is the best Donkey Kong has ever looked. Add to that the Switch boosting Nintendo in general, and it makes sense. I think he will look good against Leon next round. And of course, beware if you're up against Nintendo. Lastly we really should consider new releases and relevance more than just going with the stats.
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Day 2, Match 2 - Victor Sullivan vs. Aya Brea
(6) Sully: 40.44% - (11) Aya: 59.56%

What happened?: This was one of the most debated matches of the first round. Literally nobody cares about Parasite Eve anymore, that series is quite dead. Uncharted has always been strangely weak on GameFAQs, despite Sony first party games doing well, including The Last of Us. Nathan Drake lost to CATS, then post-Uncharted 2 has been around the fodder line. Sully was a slight overall favourite, while Aya was the board favourite. This wasn't a blowout, but Aya won pretty easily. Earlier on this looked like it would be a fairly savage beating as Aya trounced Sully with the board vote and through most of the Power Hour, but then it turned into a fairly standard 60/40ish affair for the rest of the match.

What could this mean?: GameFAQs is decidedly stuck in the past. Parasite Eve and its first sequel were well-received but they weren't classics. However, large numbers of the people voting in these polls have been here for a long time and will definitely vote for the lead of that over a (well-liked) side character from Uncharted. The 90's still reign on here. Additionally, Sully and Uncharted as a whole are quite bad. I don't think this reflects on Ellie vs. KOS-MOS because TLoU is worth a lot more than Uncharted here for some reason. I will say though, I think this match slightly disproves TJF as it was just Aya's face in the picture. Sully was arguably more recognisable in the picture, yet even a mid-tier (at best) 90's Square franchise topped him. The last thing I'll say is that this match and No Mercy vs. Path of Radiance back in GotD have convinced me that the 6-seed is the default Guru nom seed. That bodes well for Aqua and her 2-seed.
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Day 2, Match 1 - Vivi vs. Yu Narukami
(3) Vivi: 74.89% - (14) Yu: 25.11%

What happened?: This was a pretty uneventful blowout, without much interesting in the way of trends other than Yu's strong board vote. Vivi performed almost exactly to expectations. This has to be the most boring match of the the contest so far, thank Allen for four matches at once.

What could this mean?: The only possible takeaway of value is that Vivi might be as strong as he was in 2013. He is a clear standout among the FF characters in that regard. This is muddied by the possibility of SFF though. As for Yu, Persona is strong and Persona 4 is strong, but as an avatar that doesn't even get the name he's running with in the game, he's inevitably going to struggle.
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I don't think Ganondorf is going to be Noble 9 level or anything, but he does look a step better than he has before, especially recently. Also thanks again Zen!

Next batch in the (European) morning.
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Thanks for the archiving guys! Super helpful as the last two days have been very busy. Glad to see this going down well!
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Thanks Zen! <3

Day 1, Match 4 - Ganondorf vs. Neku Sakuraba
(4) Ganondorf: 78.6% - (13) Neku: 21.4%

What happened?: ZeldaFAQs, baby. This was always going to be a stomp (it was the most correctly predicted of the first four matches), but Ganondorf easily outperformed reasonable expectations here. He was nearing 80% during the Power Hour, and looked great otherwise. In 2008 Ganondorf got 77.9 on Neku, in 2010 he was projected to get 71.8 and in 2013 69.6. This was a big overperformance.

What could this mean?: Either Ganondorf is at his best, or Neku is at his worst. I am sceptical of the latter. Neku has looked better and better with each appearance, and for good reason. TWEWY is a beloved cult-ish game that has steadily gotten more and more eyes on it. Additionally in 2012 there was a major phone port and Neku was in a Kingdom Hearts game. There was a definite boost in 2013 as a result. Now this match came days after the Switch port (which seems to be outselling the original) and I see no reason for Neku to have reverted to 2008 levels or below. This was a great showing from Ganondorf, and he looks primed to take the division. Him overperforming with the GameFAQs vote just shows how much the Zelda franchise will benefit from the new system. Squall had better beware against Zelda herself also. Zelda is bigger than it's ever been and GaneFAQs loves it some Zelda.
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Day 1, Match 3 - Spyro the Dragon vs. Chun-Li
(5) Spyro: 43.83% - (12) Chun-Li: 56.17%

What happened?: This was the first debated match of the contest. It shows in the prediction percentage, with just over 55% getting it right. Historically Chun-Li would stomp, but arguably Street Fighter has faded from relevance a bit and Spyro has been the most relevant he's been in almost 20 years. His 5-seed speaks for itself here, his highest ever. Additionally, he looked miles better in 2013 as a result of nostalgia for that era starting up. In the end it wasn't quite enough. Spyro looked pretty good here, and for the first hour-ish looked like it could be close, with Spyro winning multiple updates. Unfortunately soon after the kiddies went to bed, and Chun-Li was gaining slowly for the rest of the match other than a few random spots. Unsurprisingly Spyro looked best in Europe, even winning in a few territories, but it wasn't enough and the match ended up a fairly standard 56/44 affair.

What could this mean?: For this contest, nothing. Whoever wins is going to get stomped by Ganondorf. In general though, despite losing this was a big moral victory for Spyro. Back in the day this would have been at least a doubling if not a tripling. Spyro has boosted a lot, and that 2013 performance seems legit after all. It's too early to say if Chun-Li has changed at all, but it would probably be pretty slight. She did better with the GameFAQs vote, but it won't matter given what she's up against next round.
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LinkMarioSamus posted...

Lightning was actually the 9 seed there.

Either way, awaiting the next write-ups!

Right you are, thanks! Of course I didn't see that until it was too late to edit... Oh well.
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Hey everybody!

I thought it would be fun to do some quick post-match analyses of each match in the contest as they happen. The purpose of this is not to do a full super-lengthy analysis like others do post-contest, but just a few quick and simple paragraphs about what happened and what it means for future matches. I couldn't for the first matches, but I will try to do these right as the matches end in the future, as quickly as possible.

Let's begin!

Day 1, Match 1 - Dante vs. Cuphead
(1) Dante: 71.59% - (16) Cuphead: 28.41%

What happened?: This was a fairly standard, easy to predict 1 vs. 16 blowout. The only remarkable thing about it is that Cuphead beat expectations, avoiding a tripling and even getting up to just below 30% during the Early Night Vote. Dante did better with registered users, though the prediction percentage was perhaps a bit lower than you might think with 81.71% choosing Dante.

What could this mean?: That Cuphead was thoroughly under-seeded mainly. It's not surprising that he overperformed the board's expectations and his seed, his game destroyed two GotY polls (it even quadrupled a well-liked Assassin's Creed game) and came third in the final poll. Some people are nervous about Dante vs. Ganondorf or even vs. Lightning from this, but this specific match isn't cause to be I think. Just that Cuphead deserved a better match-up, and hopefully will get one in the future. I also feel better about Shovel Knight thanks to this performance, as the most comparable character in the bracket to Cuphead.

Day 1, Match 2 - Lightning vs. Chloe Price
(8) Lightning: 74.19% - (9) Chloe Price: 25.81%

What happened?: A blowout most people expected, for an 8 vs. 9 match the prediction percentage was a huge 80.74%. I was a little cautious on this one due to distrusting Lightning and wondering if Life is Strange had gained popularity. Obviously I was wrong. Trend-wise Lightning had an awful board vote, but then gradually increased before stabilising at 74% around the halfway point.

What could this mean?: That Life is Strange is garbo on here. And Chloe might not even have the support of fans of that. Even the prediction percentages showed it. Lightning might be better than expected after her awful 2013 showing, but it is too early to say. How she holds up against Dante is the real test of this. Chloe is probably a bottom 5 character, almost certainly bottom 10. She'd certainly get destroyed by Cuphead so I think Dante will clear Lightning easily, 60-40 or more.

I will get to the next two later today. As I have more time later, hopefully I'll be able to get slightly more detailed. Enjoy!
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Donkey Kong boosting makes sense. Returns between 2010 and 2013, Tropical Freeze since then and now with the more popular Switch version this year. Of course he would be the strongest he's ever been.

WarThaNemesis2 posted...

LeonhartFour posted...

WarThaNemesis2 posted...

the like 15th strongest nintendo game beat the best unrallied non-nintendo/square had to offer

good to see DK is pulling away now that the kiddies are going to bed

which match are we talking about? Mario 64/Skyrim? Or Mario RPG/Metal Gear Solid 3?

I think Mario 64 would be a little higher than 15th!

also Mario RPG is dangerous because it's a Nintendo/Square hybrid! Imagine how strong Mario RPG would be if it actually had come out in Europe!

Mario RPG over the strongest MGS, yeah. Mario RPG doing that and DK doing this means I'd be terrified of picking against Nintendo in any match I thought was debatable.

unless this is Tidus falling off the face of the earth in which case hoo boy my Sub-Zero over Auron pick is looking good

MGS3 lost to Resident Evil 4, which in turn looked worse than Fallout 3 (and Half-Lifev2, but Half-Life has weakened substantially since thanks Valve). But Skyrim has a definite claim be the strongest non-Nintendo/non-Square game.
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Hahahahahaha
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Ha ha ha we go!
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Cuphead -

Well...
Cuphead and his 16 seed,
They like to roll the dice,
By chance they came,
On Allen's game,
And gosh they paid the price!
Paid the priiiiice!

And now they're fighting for their lives
In a bracket filled with dread,
And if they proceed,
But don't succeed,

Well...
Devil May Cry'll take their heads!
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MAX parlay on Sully and Dragonborn
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swordz9 posted...

I dunno. Id probably take Chloe over Cuphead since hes a PC/Xbox exclusive indie character. I think Dante will beat Lightning, but I dont think it will be a blowout. Hell probably win with no higher than 55%

Cuphead (the game) looked really good in GotY, annihilating the Xbox and Indie polls despite reasonable multi platform competition, then came third in the final poll.
Cuphead would trash Chloe. Massively underseeded.
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Mayuri Kurotsuchi (Bleach)
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