Lurker > LeonhartFour

Saint Seiya
---

My reaction when I read BKSheikah won the Guru Contest:
http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/080/145/638.png

Yeah, it's the sliding block puzzle, although I feel like it didn't take me as long as it normally does. I've mostly avoided using hint coins this time around, although I used them fairly liberally on previous playthroughs whenever I'd get stuck.
---

My reaction when I read BKSheikah won the Guru Contest:
http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/080/145/638.png

HaRRicH posted...

Was there any advancement on the theory of each year's strength being the average of its games represented in its pics?

the advancement was that it didn't work
---

My reaction when I read BKSheikah won the Guru Contest:
http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/080/145/638.png

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
---

My reaction when I read BKSheikah won the Guru Contest:
http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/080/145/638.png

School Rumble
---

My reaction when I read BKSheikah won the Guru Contest:
http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/080/145/638.png

that was quite the reading experience
---

My reaction when I read BKSheikah won the Guru Contest:
http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/080/145/638.png

the game you were born to play
---

My reaction when I read BKSheikah won the Guru Contest:
http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/080/145/638.png

I feel like that video was not shot organically
---

My reaction when I read BKSheikah won the Guru Contest:
http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/080/145/638.png

Also, I've gotta rate this one pretty low. It felt like SBAllen cared about this contest as much as we did, which is to say, barely at all.
---

My reaction when I read BKSheikah won the Guru Contest:
http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/080/145/638.png

Series Contest had ridiculous vote totals and not much else. I'm not putting it over anything that actually had good matches in it.
---

My reaction when I read BKSheikah won the Guru Contest:
http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/080/145/638.png

Also, as far as contest ideas are concerned, I'm just not interested in consoles at all. Unless you limit it to 16, half the bracket will be fodder consoles no one cares about, and there are only a handful of matches anyone cares to see in the first place. I think I'd rather have this contest than that one.

A VGM contest is way too impractical to run, although I think most of the site would be up for it, as evidenced by this poll submitted by yours truly:

https://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/4291-do-you-ever-listen-to-video-game-music-outside-of-games

I think SBAllen has said there are legal reasons why B8ers can't be involved in the bracket making process, so that will sadly never happen either.
---

My reaction when I read BKSheikah won the Guru Contest:
http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/080/145/638.png

NowItsAngeTime posted...

My main point is I think Board 8 is secretly hoping for the mix of everything we had back in 2010.

is this really a "secret"

I think most long-time vets want contests to be like they were before the last 5 years

NowItsAngeTime posted...

eventually characters battles and game battles will actually become super predictable.

Eh, people say this but we had annual Character Battles for 7 straight years and 8 out of 9 years, and only once did anyone come close to a perfect bracket, and that was because of all the SFF in SC2K4.

Even with annual contests, it's still very possible to make an unpredictable bracket. Bracket placement is a lot more important than spreading them out.
---

My reaction when I read BKSheikah won the Guru Contest:
http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/080/145/638.png

1. Summer Contest 2003 - Cloud/Link, Mario/Crono II, and Squall/Luigi: What else does a contest need to be great? Of course, SC2K3 has more going for it than this, but that's enough for me! This was also Square's peak, with everyone taking full advantage of the KHF. Sephiroth completely obliterated both Mario and Mega Man in a way you'll never see them beaten again unless it's Link laying down SFF on them. Sephiroth (and Slowflake) also gave birth to the Oracle Contest with his exactly 82% victory over Raziel, just as Slowflake predicted. Squall leaped into the near elite tier, and of course, Cloud became the Link killer, but not before nearly doubling friggin' Sonic the Hedgehog, which is still insane to think about. Speaking of hedgehogs, remember Shadow getting 45% on Mario? And then Mario beat Crono the next round anyway. This contest also gave birth to the Noble Nine as a concept, which included the Elite Eight of this contest plus Crono, and it would hold up admirably for several years. Yeah, there's a lot of nostalgia in this contest for me, and it's perhaps the one contest where I've been the most personally satisfied with the results. It's pretty unlikely a contest will ever top that, considering the way things are trending!
---

My reaction when I read BKSheikah won the Guru Contest:
http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/080/145/638.png

3. Summer Contest 2007 - I did not like 4-ways overall, but this contest was awesome. If we had left the 4-way format as a one-time gimmick only used here, I'd have looked on it more fondly. The bracket for this contest was amazing. Just go through the matches of this contest. In nearly every match, there was a close result somewhere, even if it was just between third place and last place. There were so many completely ridiculous comebacks and vote swings, which none of us thought would be possible. This might be the "trendiest" contest in terms of how crazy the vote swings are (Marcus Fenix/Kefka might still be the biggest turnaround in contest history in terms of how many votes Fenix was down versus how many he ended up winning by), partly because vote totals were so insane here, even apart from the L-Block matches.

L-Block is the biggest story of the contest, of course, and while your mileage may vary on it, I think its victory was ultimately good for the contests. I don't think anything has been a bigger deal on the boards since L-Block, honestly. Yeah, there was Draven and Undertale, but the board and the contest both were smaller compared to L-Block's run. 2007 also featured the death of the Noble Nine, as Vincent beat Crono. Personally, I'm a little miffed that Sonic got announced for Brawl mid-contest or Squall would've probably beaten him, too. Bah. Could've beaten both Sonic and Mario, only to get hosed. Such is my contest life. But yeah, this contest was ridiculous in the best possible way. It truly was lightning in a bottle, and lightning doesn't strike the same place twice.

2. Summer Contest 2005 - This was perhaps the most hotly debated and contested contest of all-time for a number of reasons. First, Link, Cloud, and Sephiroth had all been removed from the main bracket and placed into a "Tournament of Champions," so for the first time since 2002, the winner was truly up in the air again. Most of us were also becoming of adult age around this time, so I think we were just the perfect age for the intensity of this contest. CJayC also put together an excellent bracket, and although some of the hyped matches turned out to be duds, there were so many possible permutations you could see here. Snake, Kirby, and Dante's divisions all had heated discussions over who would win. One of my favorite factoids about a B8er is that RPGuy96 only got ONE match right in all of Dante's division, and that was Squall/Geno.

But yeah, so many good matches here: Vercetti/Kefka, Pac-Man/Ocelot, Master Chief/Donkey Kong, Vincent/Squall, Sonic/Mega Man, and perhaps the biggest upset in B8 history, Knuckles/Magus. We had crazy arguments over so many matches here, perhaps none bigger and more infamous than Mario/Samus. Many Mario supporters talked big about "It's freakin' MARIO!" and rSFF and all that, but only Lopen had the balls to put his money where his mouth was and actually predict the 60/40. This contest probably featured the best Cloud/Link match because Cloud actually took the lead overnight for a while before Link stormed back to win. I also loved the fact that Mario rampaged through the contest for two months, only for Sephiroth to lay a complete and utter smackdown on him despite not being in the main bracket, winning all but two updates. That's still one of the most impressive wins I've ever seen just because of the situation. So many fond memories (at least now) of this contest. It was a perfect storm for the board.
---

My reaction when I read BKSheikah won the Guru Contest:
http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/080/145/638.png

5. Character Battle VIII 2010 - The return to 1-on-1 was very welcomed and lauded at this point, although again, I wasn't as big of a fan of 12-hour matches as most were. This was a great bracket with a lot of fun matches though: Red/Ocelot, Tidus/Sub-Zero, Jecht/Phoenix, Crono/Missingno, Riku/Captain Falcon, Squall/Auron, Sephiroth/Missingno, Snake/Sephiroth, Cloud/Samus, and Cloud/Snake. The last couple rounds were a bit tarnished by SFF though, as we had to endure Link SFFing Sonic, Mario, and Luigi all in a row, as well as Sephiroth facing both Tifa and Vincent for some reason. This was also part of the short-lived Call of Duty era, as we somehow got three different characters from the series in here, and they all naturally lost big. 2010 was a return to form for the contests, or so we thought. Turns out it might have just been the last hurrah.

4. Games Contest 2004 - Ah, my first full contest. I still remember how awful my bracket was. I had Mario 3 winning it all, Tetris beating Zelda, Kingdom Hearts beating Metroid Prime, Sonic 2 beating Mario World (my aforementioned annual terrible Sonic upset pick), but I did correctly predict Melee to win the division (Yes, I did actually pick it to beat FFX!). This was a crazy contest, with Duck Hunt nearly completing the biggest comeback ever, only to fall short. Super Mario RPG unsurprisingly (to me) beat SFII, to the surprise of many. That's another upset I don't really get why people were so surprised about! It was a Nintendo/Square RPG starring Mario! What else did you need? MGS1 barely squeaked by FFT. CT and LTTP gave us one of the greatest back and forth showdowns we've ever seen. We had a couple of matches have to get completely restarted, and we even had a match that ran for two days (although I don't remember why that was).

Of course, Division 128 was where it's at. That might be the best division in contest history. We had Starcraft's run (What now, Link?), as well as the completely rigged match pic in SSBM/FFX. Seriously, Smash Bros. gets all the luck with match pics! Starcraft might be the most entertaining run by anything ever. Only the match against Kingdom Hearts was boring. It beat Halo as a 16 seed. It unleashed Mass Carriers against Zelda and succeeded. It dropped perhaps the single funniest update ever when it "mysteriously" gained 2500 votes against Melee, only to have those votes "mysteriously" removed by CJayC shortly afterward. This was also the first contest where we had cn's poll updater, which is one of the best contest contributions by anyone.
---

My reaction when I read BKSheikah won the Guru Contest:
http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/080/145/638.png

7. Summer Contest 2006 - People remember this mainly for the Male/Female Bracket split, and for good reason. We had friggin' Carmen Sandiego in this contest, as well as Nidoran F as the lone Pokemon rep. This was the final calm before the Poke-storm. The Female Bracket wasn't totally bereft of drama though. Jill Valentine somehow managed to lose by 27 votes again. That almost feels impossible. We almost broke the Noble Nine due to the Zero Suit Samus pic. Man, I really wish we had. Tifa winning that match would've been amazing, but we can't have nice things!

The Male Bracket was where it was at though. We had perhaps the most loaded and debated round 1 match ever in Vincent/Ganondorf, which resulted in the death of the Heroic Mario account. Vincent put up a heck of a fight against Sonic in the next round, too. Luigi came out of nowhere to make it to the Sweet Sixteen after pretty much being a joke up to this point. Sub-Zero > Master Chief somehow became the biggest round 1 upset ever, and that fact still befuddles me. That felt like such an obvious pick to make, but then again, I always thought Sub-Zero being stronger than Scorpion was practically a lock! Dante choked on the big stage again and lost to Yoshi. Auron and Sub-Zero spent 25 hours trying to find a good bench to sit at to play chess. My annual ridiculous Sonic upset pick finally paid off in one of the biggest comebacks ever over Crono. Sonic and Snake finally beat fellow Noble Niners. It's hard to remember that Snake used to be the weak link of the Noble Nine now, but this was where he vaulted himself to the upper echelon. I'm still amazed he somehow lost to Samus in the final. The Battle Royal was fun as an experiment, mostly for the crazy drama where Snake eliminated Sephiroth and infuriated ExTha for the first but certainly not the last time.

6. Game of the Decade 2010 - The guys on The Show were talking this one up a lot, but while I like it, I don't love it as much as most seem to. I was probably the most outspoken detractor of the 12-hour format from the start, and so it lessened my enjoyment of this contest and CBVIII a little, especially because Allen waited all the way until the semifinals to switch to 24 hours, which made no sense. There were a lot of fun matches, including a couple of SFF matches that were actually very enjoyable, like KH1/KH2 and Melee/Brawl, one of the most hyped matches of all-time. The games I wanted to win won in both instances, which was fairly rare for me in this contest.

Perhaps the main thing that hurts my feelings toward this contest was how it ended, with B8 literally rallying around Zelda for an "upset" pick over FFX because they were afraid it couldn't beat Brawl in the final (it could have and would have). I don't really get angry over contests anymore, but this may have been the most disappointed I've ever been in a result because I was so close to having a result I'd have actually been thrilled with for the first time since 2004, and B8 decided "nah we can't have that let's rally around that plucky underdog Zelda." Ugh, it's making me depressed just thinking about it. I also spent most of this contest in South Africa, which means I couldn't follow the day-to-day details as closely, which might have affected my enjoyment somewhat. I'd still probably rank it higher had FFX actually won though.
---

My reaction when I read BKSheikah won the Guru Contest:
http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/080/145/638.png

remember that this game came out at almost the same time as FFX

But yeah, SH1's opening sequence is pretty amazing. RUDE HERO the best.
---

My reaction when I read BKSheikah won the Guru Contest:
http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/080/145/638.png

9. Summer Contest 2008 - Allen captured lightning in a bottle with the 2007 contest, but he ran a good thing into the ground by reusing the 4-way gimmick. It just wasn't as good the second time around. People talk about how important unpredictability is, but I think that's an overstated factor. If you want unpredictable, just run a 10-way contest or something. There's gotta be more to it than that. The bracket setup just wasn't as good here. We literally had Marth/Duke Nukem/Niko Bellic/Kefka in a first round match and Kefka finished last. We had Duke Nukem/Altair/Marth/Lucario in round two and Duke Nukem won. What a contest. Zack Fair made a deep run into the contest because that region was Link and a bunch of fodder. Hogger literally finished second in a match ahead of Ramza and Laharl, perhaps one of the saddest results ever. Magus literally lost to a bag of sand, perhaps one of the most hilarious results ever. This was Big Boss's breakout contest now that he started getting Naked Snake pics. Crono got his revenge on Vincent, and Kirby somehow made it to the semifinals. It was just a weird contest with unexpected characters making deep runs, which I guess is fun for some people, but there was a ton of LFF everywhere here. Snake was the star of this contest though, outright beating Cloud in the final and leading Link for a couple of hours in the final. Also, speaking of Cloud, STOP SETTING UP SQUALL AGAINST CLOUD AND SORA, ALLEN! Ugh.

8. Games Contest 2009 - It was good to get a Games Contest again after five years, but it was a little disappointing that Allen kept the divisions by era (don't forget that the reason for this was because he believes Halo 1 would beat Mario 1), so we got a ton of fodder in the first couple of divisions. We literally had Mario 3/SimCity/Tecmo Super Bowl/Monkey Island. We also had the 4-way format again. It was kinda fine since this was a different type of contest, but I think we were mostly done with it by this point. We still had some fun results though, like Super Metroid nearly losing to Super Mario Kart twice, Mario 64 beating Chrono Trigger twice, Zelda 1 nearly escaping the 3-way Mario match, MGS4/Brawl continuing their 2008 GOTY rivalry all the way to the semifinals, and FFVII and OoT basically telling FFX and LTTP, "Stand over there. It's time for the big boys to play." Sadly, it's kind of a forgettable contest. It was fun, but I don't feel like anyone looks at any matches here or in SC2K8 and can easily think of any all-time matches in either contest.
---

My reaction when I read BKSheikah won the Guru Contest:
http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/080/145/638.png

pyresword posted...

My choice on the opening poll is looking better and better by the minute.

it's gonna happen

don't you worry

My mom is in town this weekend, so we won't be doing much of anything together for a few days.
---

My reaction when I read BKSheikah won the Guru Contest:
http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/080/145/638.png

did you get bored of replaying ACIV already
---

My reaction when I read BKSheikah won the Guru Contest:
http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/080/145/638.png

11. Games Contest 2015 - I'm in agreement with you guys here. The rallies made this contest less interesting. I called the contest over the moment Undertale beat Mass Effect 3. I think we forget how stacked that division was and how much we were debating it pre-contest. That division had Mario 3, Mario World, Mario 64, and Pokemon R/B/Y. Imagine if we had actually gotten all those matches. The more egregious offense was Melee taking out Chrono Trigger when it was looking like it could at least beat Final Fantasy VII, maybe even Ocarina of Time. Now we'll never know. Chrono Trigger may never be this strong and OoT may never be this weak (relatively speaking, of course) ever again. What a missed opportunity. I think those rallies took more away from this contest than Draven did in CBIX, which is why I have this one ranked lower.

The contest was pretty good when we managed to get away from all that stuff. MGS3 beating MGS1 and shifting the hierarchy was a great result, especially for me as an MGS3 fan. Super Mario RPG's run was a lot of fun. We had some other fun close matches, like FFIX/KH1 (where the hierarchy was maintained), ME1/Mario Galaxy 2, DKC2's run, Super Metroid/Majora's Mask and Majora's Mask/LTTP. Plus, I've gotta give Allen a ton of credit for the new contest format with multiple matches running for 24 hours. It was a fantastic solution that allowed us to keep these large bracket sizes while not having a contest go on for eternity. That might be the best thing to come out of this contest, honestly. However, SBAllen jobbing S3&K yet again was just not cool, man. Let that thing in!

10. Character Battle IX 2013 - Allen generated a lot of good will with the board with the bracket setup, giving 8 seeds to a bunch of B8 pet projects (not mine though, sadly, although I can't even remember what I was pushing, so I guess it wasn't that big of a deal!), as well as giving 1 seeds to all the Noble Niners (although he also maintained contest tradition by setting up Crono to fail, which I could've done without!). After how awful RR was, it felt like Allen was really "getting" what contests were about. I wasn't a huge fan of the 3-way format, but since he kept it as a one-time thing, I'm mostly fine with it. The ridiculous size of this bracket did mean we got a metric ton of fodder here, including multiple Touhou characters.

Naturally, Draven is the story of this contest and Pokemon was the secondary plotline because of how well it did, but there was fun to be had elsewhere. We had Vivi beating Mario (which I actually disliked because it cost Squall the chance to do it in the next round and gave Pokemon Trainer Red a cakewalk into the next round) and Mega Man beating Charizard with Zero in the poll. The Draven buttdevastation was very much real, but the matches were much more compelling with him than any Undertale match. Commander Shepard staying above 10% in the match with Link/Draven still might be the most impressive achievement in contest history. Not to mention B8 fighting back against League of Legends and nearly coming out on top. That's a legendary match, even if the outcome was less than desirable, including Allen's refusal to rerun the match. Perhaps my favorite moment of the contest was David Hayter literally rallying for Solid Snake and it actually worked! Of course, League of Legends naturally doubled down (but don't forget that they didn't care as much about this contest as we did though) and Draven won in a rout, but it was hilarious. That's probably the only rally I have ever enjoyed because it came from the voice of the character himself. It also gave me that much-needed false hope to let me think Snake might actually pull this off before it inevitably got crushed.
---

My reaction when I read BKSheikah won the Guru Contest:
http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/080/145/638.png

Yeah, KH2 isn't that hard. I don't think I got a game over in the main game my first time through, even against Xaldin.
---

My reaction when I read BKSheikah won the Guru Contest:
http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/080/145/638.png

13. Villains Contest 2005 - Out of the mini-contests, I feel like this one is a little underrated. There was a ton of fodder here (never forget Officer Tenpenny was once in a GameFAQS contest), but there were some compelling and outraging results, like Sin/Robotnik, Kuja/Master Hand, and CATS leading Ansem for several hours. Bison/Diablo was a legitimately good match that everyone forgets about, too. Plus, I'll never forget the beginning of Sephiroth/Bowser where Bowser was going 50/50 with Sephiroth for the early part of the match. I remember when it was tied 500/500 at 1000 votes, and there was a long string of posts in the Stats Topic of everyone posting the fact that it was tied at 1000 votes. Villains definitely had the most predictable winner ever, which is one of the main knocks against it. Kefka's division was the only part of the bracket that was debatable at all, really. I think the only unexpected result outside of that region was Kuja/Master Hand.

12. Summer Contest 2004 - SFF everywhere. I don't know how many people remember that CJayC actually had a company cap for this contest, too, so we weren't allowed to have more than 10 Nintendo and 10 Square characters here. CJayC even told us who got cut by this cap. I think the most notable cuts were Serge, Rikku, and Wario. This bracket was very predictable due to the setup. We very nearly had a perfect bracket. Balrog0 only missed Ryu vs. KOS-MOS, of all things.

There were a few notable results though. Frog was the darling of this contest. Frog/Liquid Snake held the record for the closest wire-to-wire match until MGS2/SotC, and I suppose it still does for a 24-hour match. Frog/Master Chief is probably still a top ten match ever. Frog/Snake is one of the biggest examples of Pic Factor around. Ryu was the first non-Noble Niner to lead a match against a Noble Niner, as he briefly took a lead against Sonic in round 2. Crono finally got over the hump and beat Mario, even if it was a dud match. We also had a great match between Jill and Ryu Hayabusa that had to be restarted because the front page would occasionally display the Sora/HK-47 match for a lot of people, and we got that infamous pic of CATS busting through the match pic. This was also Sora's breakout year where we realized the dude was legit after he crushed Hayabusa in round 2. Speaking of CATS, we had one of the most hilarious results ever when he did better on Link than Ganondorf did. We also got the biggest Character Battle blowout ever in Snake/Tanner. So while it's the worst full length contest, it still had much more going for it than any of these mini-contests.
---

My reaction when I read BKSheikah won the Guru Contest:
http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/080/145/638.png

And now for a SHOW TOPIC EXCLUSIVE, I will now personally rank the contests. SC2K2 is excluded because I wasn't here for it.

16. Best Year in Gaming 2017 - I feel like you guys are being kinder to this contest than it deserves. When we look back on this contest, what are we going to point to and say, "Man, do you remember that match? That was great." The biggest comeback was 57 votes. 1996/2000 was the only match that had a lead change after the first hour. The main thing we'll remember about this contest is all the matches that were potentially affected by bad picture selections. Heck, it might be the only thing. No good matches, the vote totals were atrocious, and it doesn't appeal to me as a concept anyway. And again, there was no reason to believe 1998 would ever lose. The closest I ever got was watching 1997 obliterate 1996. I think that might be the only time I enjoyed this contest because it was great to see FFVII rise to high heaven, just like old times. Speaking of which, STOP SETTING UP SQUALL AGAINST CLOUD, ALLEN! Ugh.

15. Rivalry Rumble 2011 - Rivalry Rumble's best match might not have counted in the actual bracket, but it's still one more compelling match than BYIG had! Plus, Phoenix/Edgeworth won a match, and I enjoyed that more than anything in BYIG winning. But there isn't much else to like here. I'm not a Pokemon fan at all, but watching the Trainers just rampage through this contest, including over Samus/Ridley, was a little awe-inspiring, honestly. I can't say I really enjoyed it though, because again, not a Pokemon fan. We didn't get a lot of ideal rivalry pairings, most notably Mario/Sonic (and Allen tried his best to avoid it getting in, despite saying it was technically allowed). We ended up with a lot of rivalries nobody cared that much about, and so we got a lot of blowouts and weird matches, like Ike/Black Knight vs. Conker/Great Mighty Poo. We did have a few close back and forth matches, like Sora/Riku vs. Dante/Vergil and Sora/Riku vs. Squall/Seifer. Samus/Ridley was a vulnerable pairing that a lot of people picked a variety of rivalries to beat. But unlike BYIG, I had at least had an inkling of hope that maybe Cloud/Sephiroth could beat Link/Ganondorf because Cloud + Sephiroth > Link + Ganondorf, even if it turned out to be a blowout. And again, STOP SETTING UP SQUALL AGAINST CLOUD AND SORA, ALLEN! Ugh. Also, Ramza/Delita isn't a rivalry.

14. Series Contest 2006 - I'm kinda surprised to hear you guys speak so highly of this contest. I thought it was pretty boring. It was predictable and resulted in multiple perfect brackets. There were a ton of lopsided blowouts. I think the best match in this contest was probably GTA vs. Warcraft. It was definitely the closest. I did enjoy Castlevania/Halo because of Lopen arguing that Halo could make a 10,000 vote comeback with the day vote. There was a ton of debate about FF vs. Zelda, and that was a lot of fun because it was legitimately a tossup, even if the match itself turned out to be a bit of a dud. Speaking of rigged pictures, Smash Bros. getting a Mario 3 sprite, a LTTP sprite, and a Super Metroid sprite in its match pic against Sonic was ridiculous. I know it probably wouldn't have mattered this time, but man, Smash Bros. gets all the luck with pics.
---

My reaction when I read BKSheikah won the Guru Contest:
http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/080/145/638.png

Listened to The Show while I was at work today. Great finale and good work this year all around. Just a few thoughts:

--I don't mind being considered an honorary Triforce holder. I don't dislike Zelda! I just don't fanboy over it. Also, I have literally never come close to completing the Sphere Grid in FFX. That goes against all my gaming instincts.

--I'd have probably made a bigger fuss over 2001 > 1997 if I hadn't been eliminated from prize contention by 1994 > 1991 a couple days earlier. At that point, there was no longer any reason for me to care.

--I'm surprised you guys think so highly of Pokemon Snap. It's kind of a joke game, and we've seen that just slapping the Pokemon name on something doesn't mean instant strength. Pretty much only R/B/Y and G/S/C are worth anything here. I guess it could win a match with a good draw, but I don't know if Skyward Sword is that bad. I feel like if you're voting for Snap, you're doing so ironically, not because you think it's actually good. I actually played Snap back in the day and did everything in it, but I feel like arguing Snap would be strong is like arguing Mario Paint would be strong. I think it's tantamount to a No Mercy Guru nom.

--I would highly recommend the KH HD Remix games, especially if you're a fan of the first two. They're the Final Mix versions, which means they added some new content to 1 and 2, especially 2, which has a crapton of new stuff in it. I'm still working my way through 2, and I'm looking forward to finally playing Birth by Sleep for the first time.

--A contest needs to give me false hope that the LAW might be overthrown. My contest career ever since 2003 has thrived on false hope, and this contest had none. There was never any reason to believe 1998 would lose.
---

My reaction when I read BKSheikah won the Guru Contest:
http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/080/145/638.png

All right, finally finished Chapter 5. Figuring out the trick to the fire pit was pretty cool, but ugh, that puzzle afterward where you have to fit Phoenix, Luke, and Espella into the back of the wagon is awful (or I'm awful at it, either way). Layton/Maya start the process of figuring out how magic works in Labyrinthia, and it becomes very obvious that this "Great Witch" is Darklaw because she has the exact same gestures. Barnham showing up at her mansion was pretty cool, too.
---

My reaction when I read BKSheikah won the Guru Contest:
http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/080/145/638.png

xp1337 posted...

Are you playing on Critical? That was a blast for me when I started tackling some of the bonus fights with it.

Nah, I've never been a "beat it on the highest difficulty" kinda guy.
---

My reaction when I read BKSheikah won the Guru Contest:
http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/080/145/638.png

Thankfully, my KH2 playthrough was very near the Demyx fight and the 1000 Heartless battle, so that was a blast for me tonight.
---

My reaction when I read BKSheikah won the Guru Contest:
http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/080/145/638.png

Also, I apparently had started a P4 replay on one of my files and dropped it pretty early on. I wanted to do an NG+ file so I could max all S. Links here, too, but I can't start from the beginning here. Oh well. The save file is from the first dungeon, so it's not like I missed that much.

I also picked up KH2.5 again. Need to get through this so I can finally play Birth by Sleep.
---

My reaction when I read BKSheikah won the Guru Contest:
http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/080/145/638.png

Don't forget about Barnham

wait no

Anyway, I got to the Layton/Maya segment in Chapter 5, so the game stays pretty interesting for a while from here.
---

My reaction when I read BKSheikah won the Guru Contest:
http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/080/145/638.png

barreldragon88 posted...

Came in to say I don't see how Jeff will even go anywhere near Symphonia with P5 keeping him busy!

I mean, we could be playing it right now. Nothing is really stopping us.
---

My reaction when I read BKSheikah won the Guru Contest:
http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/080/145/638.png

pjbasis posted...

Can we really adjust things to be above things they lost to directly?

Not based on any actual data, at least not in this type of contest. Any adjustments in this contest are just guesses, and that's why I'm not bothering with them.

That, and we'll never need them anyway.
---

My reaction when I read BKSheikah won the Guru Contest:
http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/080/145/638.png

Remember Groose when you try to argue Zelda can beat stuff simply because it's Zelda.
---

My reaction when I read BKSheikah won the Guru Contest:
http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/080/145/638.png

Including the vote-ins is pointless because (to the surprise of no one) they weren't consistent with actual contest results.
---

My reaction when I read BKSheikah won the Guru Contest:
http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/080/145/638.png

The answer is still "no." I gave you the very worst result and that's all you need.
---

My reaction when I read BKSheikah won the Guru Contest:
http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/080/145/638.png

I think 1997 would've broken 40% if it had actually beaten 2001.
---

My reaction when I read BKSheikah won the Guru Contest:
http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/080/145/638.png

transcience posted...

I dunno, should 30/13 be your signature career if you're a top 10 all-time guy? I guess that does qualify in a monster NBA finals game actually, but I think you know what I mean. that's just a Tuesday for Lebron.

Well, Duncan has had a few potential signature moments get completely forgotten because his team ended up losing, like that ridiculous fall away shot over Shaq right before the Fisher shot.
---

My reaction when I read BKSheikah won the Guru Contest:
http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/080/145/638.png

MZero11 posted...

LeonhartFour posted...

Duncan is the greatest non-Jordan/LeBron player in my lifetime. That's high enough praise for me.

over Kobe?

It's not even close.

The only argument Kobe had for a while was "more rings" and then 2014 nullified that.
---

My reaction when I read BKSheikah won the Guru Contest:
http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/080/145/638.png

Bane_Of_Despair posted...

why did you feel the need to post that you changed 16 alts sigs


tbh why even change all 16 of them are you really gonna be posting on 17 accounts to the degree that you need to change the sig

Is this your first time meeting Natwaf or something?
---

My reaction when I read BKSheikah won the Guru Contest:
http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/080/145/638.png

Duncan occasionally could summon those games up later in his career. He had an excellent game to close out OKC in 2014.
---

My reaction when I read BKSheikah won the Guru Contest:
http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/080/145/638.png

Duncan is the greatest non-Jordan/LeBron player in my lifetime. That's high enough praise for me.
---

My reaction when I read BKSheikah won the Guru Contest:
http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/080/145/638.png

The Duncan game I always remember is the near quadruple double in the clinching game against the Nets. Duncan was just so fundamentally excellent in everything that it made him look boring.
---

My reaction when I read BKSheikah won the Guru Contest:
http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/080/145/638.png

Bells and bells and bells and bells and bells

What is this the Shadow Hearts final boss or something
---

My reaction when I read BKSheikah won the Guru Contest:
http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/080/145/638.png

Zelda discussion no thanks
---

My reaction when I read BKSheikah won the Guru Contest:
http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/080/145/638.png

Also, the scene with Maya is the best part of the post-battle epilogue. So great.
---

My reaction when I read BKSheikah won the Guru Contest:
http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/080/145/638.png

Fighting Nyx Avatar yourself is a very different experience from watching someone else play it and I'm sure Jeff Zero can attest to this because of how into the fight I was and how much I started freaking out when it began using Night Queen.
---

My reaction when I read BKSheikah won the Guru Contest:
http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/080/145/638.png

transcience posted...

that series fizzles out if Allen doesn't hit that shot. that took it to another level and SA winning game 7 would've cheapened that a little. I think the right team won.

the Duncan bunny sucked though.

I will never watch Game 7 after I heard about that. I didn't get to see the game live because I was at work, but I heard about that moment in particular and told myself I could never watch it.

2014 Spurs might be the most satisfying championship team for me of any that I root for because of that though, so it worked out in the end.
---

My reaction when I read BKSheikah won the Guru Contest:
http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/080/145/638.png

Oh nice. Tag for later.
---

My reaction when I read BKSheikah won the Guru Contest:
http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/080/145/638.png

Did anyone doubt BotW was going to win GOTY though?
---

My reaction when I read BKSheikah won the Guru Contest:
http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/080/145/638.png