Lurker > NeoElfboy

Voted TLJ, but obviously respect the fact that RotJ is winning; they're similar movies in a lot of ways (great highs but held back by some filler). RotS is cool too. RO doing well is really the only part of the results I don't really get.

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Dark Young Link posted...

Sully is Blue's Bartre.

In other news, Auto-Dispatch is my favorite new feature. In light season, I literally don't even have to play AR to stay in T21. Hopefully that's the same in Astra.

I definitely like it too, not least because I noticed that I don't need to mess with changing out structures each week now. I just wish I didn't even have to watch the replay of the fight, but that's life.

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Suikoden 4

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MoogleKupo141 posted...

I am shocked to learn there is Enough of dedicated a fire emblem community to even facilitate this sort of thing.

I mean as per this topic, even the Banjo-Kazooie speedrun community is big enough.

I'm pretty into the Fire Emblem community even if I didn't follow Mangs specifically due to not really caring for streamers/youtubers. It's sad to see this in a community I like but realistically it coming out is a good thing because sadly in any community of decent size, stuff like this is probably going on, and Goose coming forward about it makes it easier for other victims to come forward in the future (which in turn makes it less likely for creepy predators to do their thing), so good for her. Most of what I've seen in the community in the wake of this is very positive. Except...

KamikazePotato posted...

Checked the Three Houses board and the entire topic about Mangs is people complaining about the MeToo movement

I haven't had the heart to check that topic. Sadly I'm not too surprised, that board has a major problem with misogyny. It saddens me.

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Just Goldeneye for me.

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I'll probably pass. Wasn't a huge fan of the first game, while I appreciated some of the design, those clunky old-Castlevania jump mechanics just aren't much fun for me. Might pick it up later if people speak highly of it though.

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I thought of goomba first too even though I suspect Koopa Troopa would be stronger: equally stronger, but will benefit from being playable in games like Mario Kart.

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Call of Duty

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Interesting bracket. I kinda like how the North American release date keeps SMB3 out, just because SMB3 would be a pretty obvious winner. As is I think Mario 1 vs Zelda 1 is pretty interesting.

azuarc posted...

Sad that Mario 2 is a top seed in its division. Shows how bad an 80's bracket would be.

Not like it's the weakest 1 seed here! It would handle Donkey Kong or Pac-Man no problem, and there's a few others I'm not sure about.

Then again you seem to think it'd lose to Double Dragon which is crazy. SMB2 would win that match going away back when all these games were new (source: sales, general representation in gaming magazines and the likes, and my own admittedly anecdotal memories of the time), and Mario has stayed more relevant than Double Dragon, to put it mildly. I know you said you aren't giving much credit for that, but still.

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Guy from FF2. My mind went to permanent playable characters, otherwise obviously you could find some complete nobody NPCs who would do even worse.

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Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest would be pick, or possibly Kid Icarus: Uprising.

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Super Mario RPG

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The last case is a lot of fun but doesn't really make the most sense. And while the defeat of Dahlia is pretty perfect, I wasn't a fan of the confrontation of Godot at the end... it was a confrontation purely about ego and I'm not a fan of those (there are no actual stakes because Godot logically wouldn't let Maya be found guilty).

Still give it a 3 because playable Edgeworth is so good it spawned a whole sub-series.

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Mega Man X, although the word "franchise" means it's not really a great choice. That said it counts as much as MGS, I guess?
LeonhartFour posted...

Trials & Tribulations would get crushed by the original in a contest match

Yeah probably. Every other game beside the original would get judged by its own merits, while the original would be a stand-in for the series as a whole which is more popular than any one game.

I'm more likely to vote for AA1 than AA3 in a contest match against a similar opponent despite having a pretty similar opinion of both in a vacuum for exactly this reason.

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You can have Mighty March, but it probably heals around 20 HP per turn off Bard vitality. Still a lot better than nothing, but Bard is definitely the second toughest class to have there.

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Lightning Strikes posted...

Xenoblade is actually significantly more Nintendo than Pokmon! Nintendo only owns a third of Pokmon, splitting it with Game Freak and Creatures Inc. Xenoblade however, is 100% owned by Nintendo and developed by a first arty studio unlike most Pokmon games.

Yep, you're entirely correct of course.

Just, it's a Xeno game, a followup to Playstation franchises Xenogears and Xenosaga, even with some of the same staff involved. So it always felt like a third-party game to me even though it isn't.

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Terry or Banjo came to mind simultaneously. Someone who is relatively new to Smash (even nobodies in Melee/Brawl have had time to build some fanbase / meme value) and isn't part of a series GameFAQs even moderately cares about (so no Pokemon or Fire Emblem, etc.). Though leafing through contest history Banjo did apparently finish just ahead of Olimar, so obviously my guesses weren't the best! Alph if he counts is a great choice. Miis are probably correct though, I can't see them having much of a fanbase and they'd probably get some antivotes.

Xeybozn posted...

Edit: I just checked the '08 x-stats, and Nana finished ahead of Olimar and Lucas. Weird.

Below a certain point in the fodder zone, I think "being female" helps a character out, in terms of standing out from a mostly-male crowd like the Smash roster. You see the same thing in the huge Fire Emblem character polls with hundreds of characters, once you get down very near the bottom it's almost all dudes. So I'd expect Nana to be slightly stronger than Popo at minimum, and being ahead of those two doesn't stun me either.

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Wave Race 64.

This contest has made me realize I don't actually like many games from 1996!

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I first thought of Fire Emblem, which proves I was very much in wishful thinking land because that's hilariously wrong. Then a bunch of games that have NNers in them. Then finally Pokemon RBY, which of course is correct.

If you treat Pikachu as "Noble Nine level" then the question is more interesting (since that also rules out GSC). I kinda suspect it's Xenoblade, even if I still have trouble thinking of that as Nintendo.

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Zero. No idea if it's accurate or not, the labels don't come instinctively to me for whatever reason.

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Final Fantasy XV, which is ridiculous because it obviously deserved to be in and won matches, etc. But the game flopped so badly in the main community I hang out in that I tend to forget that its GameFAQs reception is actually okay.

If I'd thought about it then P4G would be a much better answer.

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ctesjbuvf posted...

It's not that I wouldn't think Tifa would beat Seph again, but that doesn't mean she's indirectly stronger and it's pretty clearly a SFF match and can't be taken at face value regardless.

I think FF7R helps him to victory, while he probably loses it before, but it's tough.

Comparing them to 2002 is very flawed when it's the longest time ago and the only time Mega Man got close to Sephiroth. They met again in 2003 where Mega Man didn't stand a chance and they were far apart for a long time since then, partially because Mega Man himself is weaker. 2002 is without a doubt his best year.

2002 was before KH, KH did indeed make Sephiroth quite beastly. He's just decayed a lot since. I used 2002 as a point of reference because I'm quite convinced that Sephiroth is now weaker than he was in 2002. I don't really feel Mega Man has decayed much by comparison. He looked pretty solid in his last couple contests to me, certainly moreso than Seph did. Seph jobs to Mewtwo while Mega Man beats Charizard with Zero in the poll. 40% on Mario looks a lot worse than going even with Pikachu in 2018.

FF7R is the huge unknown here of course, so I can't blame anyone picking Sephiroth here, but in an alternate universe where FF7R doesn't exist or bombs I don't think this is much of a conversation.

I think Tifa is very likely stronger than Sephiroth indirectly too these days, but that's just a feeling based on shifts in this site's tastes + generally not believing in RSFF.

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Mega Man would have beaten Sephiroth easily in 2018. I'm of the opinion that the site is just not behind Cool Anime Badass the way it was in the 00's (see also: Vincent), and that the loss to Tifa is legitimate and would repeat if the match occurred again today. Sephiroth is weaker today than he was in 2002, and he only barely beat Mega Man then.

Maybe FF7R boosted him but I don't think the effect will be much. I'd expect it will do a bit more for the PCs who have more screentime.

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Grimlyn posted...

just a reference to the company really yeah

... in Japanese it was actually a phrase that made sense for the situation: Rest in peace, my friend

I never knew that! That's... remarkably boring.

The world is Square is a great reference. Both the obvious company name, but also the fact that yes, the world map is a square.

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Safer_777 posted...

These poll results suprise me. Over half of US states have the death penalty. Yet here like 1/4 support it. Now obviously this board doesn't mean much but you would think that if the majority didn't want this, it would be illegal in all states.

In addition to what Corrik said, (a) this poll is not only open to people in the US, and in democracies outside the US the support for the death penalty is generally much lower, (b) Board 8 is, even if "old" for a gaming community, still younger than the national average (not many of us are over 40 IIRC), and youth is less supportive of the death penalty.

EDIT: Oh right, my take on the subject. There's no real reason to support the death penalty, and the second post (among others) explains why I'm opposed to it.

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In 2002 this answer would have been Metroid by far for me, but Metroid has done very little since then (Prime games are kind of a different genre, and not one I care for), while Castlevania has just gotten better and better. OoE and Bloodstained (it's Castlevania as far as I'm concerned) are amazing.

I'm probably still inclined to vote Metroid just because it's so much better at amosphere. Every Castlevania comes across as dopey to me, even SotN. But I could be argued pretty easily.

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Pokemon. Its strength both varies greatly from game to game, and from contest to contest.

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Snrkiko posted...

Pirate's Curse was fantastic. The one after that was not. I'm a big enough fan of the series that I wanted to jump on this one based on early impressions and comments.

But yeah if this one isn't great then I'm probably in the same place as you for the next games

This is mostly how I feel too. I still reasonably enjoyed Half-Genie Hero, but it definitely wasn't at the same level overall.

skullbone posted...

Shantae games are good but not day 1 buys from me. They kinda weird me out with how horny they get honestly.

I get where you're coming from, but their horniness, such as it is, respects the characters involved, which makes it a lot more palatable. (I actually know more female Shantae fans than male outside of the obviously biased GameFAQs, which is a positive sign for how it's handled).

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"some pokemon in Smash who hasn't gotten into a contest yet"

This is probably incorrect because some random gen 1 pokemon who hasn't gotten in yet is surely stronger.

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What happened to Cid?

And yeah, the Floating Continent is a pretty difficult section of the game in my experience.

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Morrigan

Morrigan vs Spyro was definitely a match that got me into contest discussions. I strongly believed Morrigan would win, with my argument basically being that she was cool and Spyro was for kids, like Pokemon (writing that definitely reminds me how 2002 was a different landscape), which would be decisive when neither were from super-strong games. I was in the minority for this prediction (at least it felt like based on the board, I don't remember the actual prediction %) so it felt pretty good to be proven right (with a doubling, to boot!), and I remember disliking the "TJF" excuse. Naw guys, you all just failed to correctly guess which character was more popular, own up.

(Obviously I got plenty of other predictions horribly wrong in that contest, but it felt good to get the very first debatable one right.)

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Mario World, Yoshi's Island, and Mega Man X (and Bubsy, sure) are all kinda in this area of "I like them, but they're not an all-time great to me". Sonic is in this zone too. I realize this gives me a lower than average opinion of SMW but I always found it a significant step back from SMB3. This is the only genre I think the NES did better than the SNES on average.

Not a DKC fan.

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Mass Effect. In a games contest you can argue some others, probably (although MoogleKupo141 makes a good point about ME having more depth), but in a character contest? How many other western series have gotten more than 2 characters into a contest?

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Something screwey happened, and I feel like RSFF is the best explanation given how the rest of the contest lined up. Nothing else makes much sense. I know it's hard to believe, but the idea of Smash actually being the stronger one all along is even ''more'' hard to believe.

With the disclaimer that I'm a pretty big skeptic of RSFF in general: I don't think that's what happened here. To me, it's far more likely that Smash is indeed stronger after all, it was the favourite going into the contest for good reason and what we saw is simply that there are more people who vote against Smash than Mario when both face weak competition. Smash faces some anti-votes both from people who hate its fanbase (which you're more than aware of) and from fighting game fans who dislike that Smash takes attention from what they see as more pure examples of the genre. Meanwhile, nobody hates Mario Odyssey, not even people like me who consider it one of the weaker games in the series. Combine this with the format forcing everyone to vote and I suspect the effect is significant, enough to obscure the truth.

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Pac-Man.

I'm a bit surprised that so many people went with Donkey Kong instead of it, for those of us in that age bracket, but DK is of course a legitimate choice too.

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Zelda of course. If we held a contest tomorrow, she's the only one I'd take to beat the weaker members of the N9 without even thinking about it.

Vincent and Pikachu came to mind as well, for past characters who might have held this title. Despite being a fan of Squall I never really felt like it was him, but maybe someone has stats to prove me wrong!~

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I definitely enjoyed it a lot. I don't think there's another strategy RPG where the act of moving is so much fun and has so many tactical options involved (dashing through enemies, jumping off your teammates, etc.).

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Tag.

Do you know what's coming in the second half?

Great FF game regardless, it's not personal my favourite but I still have a hell of a lot of respect for it, especially relative to its era.

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Team Rocket Elite posted...

That's definitely possible. It also might mean there Fates is more popular with long time fans than many of them will let on. Fates still regularly ranks near the top for getting units. Awakening, on the other hand, has totally crashed. It has been almost 2 years since we last got a new Lucina. This would have been unthinkable in 2017. We are also nearly 2 years since the last Awakening seasonal.

There's truth to this as well, I suspect; IIRC Fates held up better in aggregate CYL scores from year 1 compared to Awakening. (Which is to say, IIRC at least, Awakening characters had the most total votes in year 1 while Fates had the most in years 2 and 3, with the caveat that Awakening did lose Lucina as a voting option. Three Houses the most in year 4, obviously.)

I suspect Fates is more popular than Awakening among the hardcore FE fanbase, as it's not hard to find people who will gush about Conquest's gameplay (including me). Awakening is really the ultimate casual FE fan game; it's not very well-balanced (to put it mildly) but it's a fun game to just play around in. I don't say this to take away from it (I like Awakening); it's just an observation.

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I'd suspect it's less they learned their lesson and more the changing demographics of who plays. Anecdotally, when I first started playing the game a lot of the more casual FE fans I knew were playing it, and many of them have either only played or only care about Awakening + Fates (+ Three Houses, but of course that wasn't out then). Now it's a smaller group of longer-time FE fans so favouring those games doesn't make as much sense any more.

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PSP. The list Wanglicious posted is a good one and settles the question pretty nicely to me. It's not an amazing system but it has a bunch of respectable exclusives, Wild Arms XF being a particular favourite of mine.

Vita just didn't have much I was interested in. I skipped it and never felt like I missed out. Judging by its sales numbers a lot of other people did the same. People bring up that it has PSX/PS2 ports/remasters up the wazoo but I don't care, I still have my PS2 plugged in.

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"SMK is unplayable" is a joke.

This game released to rave reviews and crazy high sales (easily crushed GameFAQs darlings like Zelda and Metroid despite the fact that they were established IPs at the time and "Mario spinoff" was definitely not a guarantee of quality). Did we all just make up the fact that it was such an enjoyable game to play?

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_SecretSquirrel posted...

I think asking for no Byleth in Smash to reverse a 60/40 is a bit much of a stretch. I can see it being a factor as to why Xenoblade burned it so badly, but I think the real reasoning is that Fire Emblem is just a little bit too niche to break through as a mainstream hit. It's a strategy RPG, and the only game in that genre to ever really make noise around here is Final Fantasy Tactics, and it took that brand name to do it. Xenoblade is an action RPG, and those have much more mainstream appeal and that's why I would bet its got a better play rate on the site than Three Houses, despite not being on the Switch just yet.

I basically agree with all of this in the context of GameFAQs, but it's still really weird to read about how Fire Emblem is more niche than Xenoblade. As a big FE fan I'm loving how it's obviously landed in a pretty big way in various social media circles. I kinda hoped it would break through on GameFAQs as well, but so it goes.

I also agree that Smash ire is definitely a factor but is not enough to hand Xenoblade victory alone.

Hbthebattle posted...

I guess all the Hoes Mad s***posting did not exactly help FE3H with avoiding Smash ire

Probably not, but it was still worth it. I can deal with my favourite series being a bit more hated by a section of the internet which Ulti already nicely skewered.

EDIT: why did GameFAQs get rid of HTML tags in posts

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MechanicalWall posted...

The fact that a mainline, non-MMO Final Fantasy game came out in 2010 and doesnt even warrant a spot on the snubs list speaks volumes; we KNOW why it didnt make the bracket over XIV or XV.

I suspect FF13 might have done... okay if it had gotten in. 2018 did kinda suggest that Lightning is stronger than Noctis (I'll never forget being burned by that glove twice...). While I understand that games =/= characters, that still doesn't really suggest that XV is significantly stronger than XIII to me.

In general I feel like there were fewer games from really early in the decade, though presumably you're about to post numbers so I'll be interested if I'm wrong. I actually forgot FF13 was even from this decade for instance. DKCR is another good example, again I doubt that game would be significantly weaker than Tropical Freeze, but you could be forgiven for remembering it as a 2000's game.

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Great game. Probably #1, but if someone wants to give that to 8 that's fine by me.

In some ways it's more of a precursor to F-Zero X/GX than the rest of the Mario Kart series, in that it's fast and challenging. Love the 15-20 second laps where you're doing tricky turns the whole time. I also love that there are no blue shells. There's no incentive to deliberately avoid being first until late like in other games (both due to that and the AI being less rubberbandy than the series norm).

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Last Jedi by a lot.

Force Awakens is safe and kinda boring, though at least it introduced some solid characters. Rogue One I can barely even remember the characters for now. Haven't seen the other two.

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Virtue's Last Reward

If it wins at least my own personal favourite will have had the honour of losing to the champ. And it's certainly a worthy champ anyway.

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Dual Destinies

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OT > ST > PT very easily.

I haven't seen episode 9 yet but I can't imagine it being bad enough to make up for how bad 1 and 2 are. In theory if it were really good it could turn OT vs ST into a contest for me but it uh doesn't sound very good.

4/5/8 > 3/6/7 > 1/2

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_SJimW_ posted...

Fire Emblem Fates (Conquest/Birthright, Revelation is bad)

Honestly I think it was going to be mine too (well Conquest at least, Birthright is very good but not GOTD material IMO) but I somehow liked Three Houses even better. Fire Emblem is franchise of the decade to me, no contest.

Kid Icarus: Uprising, Super Mario 3D World, and Undertale round out my top five.

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