Lurker > AxemRedRanger

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1731-20xx-division-round-1-master-chief-vs-crash-bandicoot

Crash would win with ease nowadays.

Nathan Drake went from being doubled by CATS to almost beating The Boss.

Alucard had struggled with relevance and had room to grow among people who hadn't played or weren't huge on Symphony of the Night, whereas people here have been saturated by constant Mario content since childhood, most at a pretty high quality.

Warcraft III looked, I dunno, passably mediocre in both 2010 and 2015 and while you could probably argue that the long term trends will point downwards rather than upwards for it...it'd be against DotA which I don't think he has ever shown any signs of life, so it wins practically by default regardless?

Ash Ketchum > Gohan

I'm pretty down on the strength of anime in general here. I think almost everything that didn't get on mainstream U.S. television from like the late 90s to early 00s or so crashes and burns. In a community not specifically dedicated to anime, the nature of modern viewing - being able to stream whatever you want whenever with a vast quantity of options - should heavily drive down the watchrate of any particular show. And our demo is so old that I think even Naruto is held back a lot by its TV debut coming too late. I'd probably pick the top four non-Pokemon/DBZ anime characters to be something like Sailor Moon/Yami Yugi/Seto Kaiba/Naruto.

And neither Symphogear nor PreCure has significant western popularity, so yeah, obscure. If western fans won't watch, whatever's popular in Japan is basically in another universe.

Couldn't think up many mecha girls that quite fit the vibe and were actually popular in 2023 on the English-speaking internet. Is Asuka a badass? Is Yoko worth including? Do people still care about Kallen at this point? But I haven't seen much in the way of recent mecha anime so maybe I've missed someone.

The bracket does feel overly focused on a certain kind of shounen(-ish) battle anime but your proposed inclusions were generally too obscure among general anime fans to be worth considering.

That the Kill la Kill girls got left out does seem weird though.

Which Shiki is the one in the bracket?

I have difficult regarding putting someone from Fandom more directly in charge of pretty much anything to do with the site as likely to be a move that will be beneficial to the site and its user base.

I mean its partially because those particular SA2 numbers are outright wrong. Those are the sales numbers for just the Gamecube version in the U.S. and U.K. alone.

Symphonia didn't have the deepest story and it's combat is nothing to brag about on a technical level compared to later games but the game feels like a reasonably polished, finished product that doesn't screw up majorly somewhere.

I would not say the same about most other Tales games I've played and the things I hear about the ones I haven't played are generally not encouraging on that front.

I'm afraid I don't grasp the reason I was Mentioned here?

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6919-25-years-later-have-you-ever-played-final-fantasy-v

Looks like FFV probably has a better playrate than FFT at this point.

tazzyboyishere posted...

Need an origin story for every mainline FF game. The twist needs to be Jack always turns into the villain of each game.

spinoffs too imo

can't wait for Marche Jackiuju

Voted Star Ocean

Phantasy Star I - III are kinda bad and I have zero interest in MMOs. I like Phantasy Star IV more than Star Ocean 2, Star Ocean 1 is pretty mediocre, and I haven't played the other Star Oceans, but I'm not gonna vote for the franchise that clearly only has 1 good game over a franchise that I could potentially find enjoyment from.

Have played the DS version of Front Mission 1, can confirm at least that version of it is just kind of okay. A more modern but still faithful remake is not likely to notably improve on that.

I will point out that while Ezio and Shepard are probably still pretty good compared to a lot of these proposed newcomers, by last character battle they had both already declined a good bit from their peaks:
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7332-division-8-round-2-ryu-vs-shepard
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7273-division-5-round-1-zelda-vs-ezio

Kratos is 2005.

Dragon Quest XIs U.S. release was during the last character battle.

I wouldnt expect them to actually get into a contest but DQV Hero being not terrible strongly suggests DQXI Hero wouldnt be terrible either. He shouldnt beat Ranni or Byleth but I have some confidence in a floor there that Im not sure about for a lot of these others.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/8883-of-the-classic-franchises-that-got-their-start-on-the-nes

Perhaps the wording and other choices are affecting the result somewhat but we've seen that poll several times and Final Fantasy always obliterates Dragon Quest and Fire Emblem. The latter two may have a long history but their entire franchises contain like two non-fodder games each. The other series Ulti listed aren't much better. And Xeno without a suffix probably isn't even going to be a valid option.

In comparison, Final Fantasy XII is above the fodder line and is only like...the 8th or so strongest Final Fantasy? Maybe worse depending on what you think of FFV and whether FFI is still worth anything.

I mean I don't think it's controversial that Fallout 3's probably not beating TP, WW, Skyrim, or Metroid Prime (which almost beat Skyrim in 2015) so the "demise" here would mainly be a matter of whether Fallout 3 beats or is at least on par with MGS3, RE4, and KHII.

Outside gamefaqs I have the impression Fallout 3 has over time ended up the consensus lesser game to New Vegas and while I don't think that's gonna hold here (since more of the playrate here is probably non-devoted fans who played these games over a decade ago, often on dubious console ports, and thus more likely reflect the initial reaction to both), this combined with later Fallout games being comparatively disappointing makes me real skeptical of Fallout 3 still hitting the upper ranges of its potential strength. I'd give it a great shot at # 8 from the period, though.

MacArrowny posted...

Skyward Sword HD was last year. Not even late last year, either :p

FFVI doing surprisingly bad, probably because it's not coming to consoles until next year?

I've played none of these remakes or remasters but FFVI was great as is so the idea of a new version of it just isn't very exciting. And with the ugly font and lack of the extra content from the GBA/PC/Mobile versions the whole thing comes across as a sidegrade to the options we already had. I'd never vote for it here.

fried green bananas
bananas au gratin

Were never seeing Eggman again in a 128 (or 136 a la 2018) character bracket unless he gets in specifically because of the Jim Carrey portrayal so if he shows up like that in the pic it probably wouldnt hurt.

...Unless hes mainly here from a board 8 push instead. And given who got Metal Sonic in last time, I guess it raises the question:
Zen, in your hypothetical, is Eggman here mostly because you led a nomination rally for him and traded most of your other nominations?

WoW never really established itself in Japan which I assume would completely change the dynamic of how FFXI is remembered.

Interesting that both the west and Japan seem to have converged on FFIX > FFVIII over time.

7

I went to college, I did like crap

5

7

5

rip ciconia

8

Dawn of Ys, but Oath in Felghana is real good too. havent played Celceta or VII/VIII/IX.

7

Phantom Hourglass - 4

Nominate Spirit Tracks

Getting gorons back into the Wind Waker world was nice though.

They were already there.

https://www.zeldadungeon.net/wiki/Traveling_Merchants

Nominate Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia

2

7.
Nominate Breath of Fire IV

2/10

I mean I didn't like the first two Golden Sun's stories at all to begin with and this one's overarching goal for most of the game being a kinda lame fetch quest and ending with a To-Be-Continued that never will be didn't improve matters.

6

Bad translation, silent main, and I found the two party members who aren't silent a bit underwhelming. Reasonably good villains though, a good start, and a plot that isn't super-compelling but moves along well enough. All together, its story is decent and all but I probably wouldn't consider recommending this on the basis of just its story.