Lurker > PostContestUlti

wg64Z posted...

This is clickbait as HELL, but the reaction is extremely real. Just...WOW

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bTyRZoLcTw

Is that you?

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With that, I've caught my white whale.

I have no more rewrites to do, either. It's all the future from here. I was considering rewriting 2004, but it's passable enough and frankly, I like to look back at my shitty old writing now and again to see how far I've come.

Thanks for reading, and I'll see you next contest!

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Post-Contest

I hinted at it many times in these writeups, but this format SUCKS! It killed so much of the fun, it caused so many weird upsets that would have been far better as 1v1s, and it just sucked so much air out of the room. I know people will look at the vote totals then and now and think we're having first world problems, but this contest could have been sooooo much better. I mean come on people, it took me 12 years to sit down and write all this up. Me, the guy who lives to write PCAs every year, even for contests that are legendarily awful like Years and Rivalry Rumble.

Contest ranking up until this disaster:

Spring 2004 (Games)
Summer 2002 (Characters)
Summer 2003 (Characters)
Summer 2005 (Characters)
Summer 2007 (4-way Characters)
Summer 2006 (Female Bracket)
Spring 2006 (Series)
Summer 2008 (4-way Characters)
Summer 2004 (Characters)
Spring 2005 (Villains)

No ultimate loser with this 4way junk.

Sorry it took so long to write this!

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I can't believe I had to rage out at Allen to get him to pick my banner. I was so fuckin mad.

And @creativename, this image is not on your site: https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/board8/images/0/06/Cb7-65.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/180?cb=20081120064707

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Bonus Match: Classic Link, Young Link, Toon Link, and CD-I Link

Classic - 95234 [62.34%]
Young - 9502 [6.22%]
Toon - 22108 [14.47%]
CD-I - 25919 [16.97%]
Total Votes - 152763

How this match got more votes than the actual final, I'll never know. I get that this was a big joke to laugh about how dominant Link was, but this match really should have been Link vs Snake. It took 5 years for us to actually get that as a bonus poll and it required Draven pissing everyone off, of all things.

The match itself was funny for a minute, as CD-I Link took the bandwagon votes and was winning for a couple minutes. Once that dried up though, Classic Link annihilated everyone in one of the funniest cases of SFF we'll ever see. Not only do we have Same Game SFF, but we have Same Character SFF! And spare me the "different Links from multiple time lines" crap. No one cares.

95,000 votes for the winner of a bonus poll is a record that probably never falls. Seeing CD-I Link get second place here was legitimately funny, and I'm actually surprised Young Link got last place. Do people really like Toon more than him, or was this legitimate Ocarina of Time SFF? I wouldn't be surprised if people didn't like Young Link, given he kinda sucks in the beginning of Ocarina of Time, but that begs the question of why Majora's Mask didn't matter more. Then there's the business of Smash Bros, where we legitimately have three of these characters as separate fighters somehow. I'm probably overthinking it.

Congrats to Link on the win, and congrats to CD-I for being what all true warriors strive for!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLQ8Mqyf8sw

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Contest Final: Link, Crono, Solid Snake, and Cloud

Link - 49345 [33.68%]
Crono - 17916 [12.23%]
Solid Snake - 40663 [27.76%]
Cloud - 38581 [26.33%]
Total Votes - 146505

This contest had one final surprise for us after all. In the Summer 2008 Contest, it turns out that the most rallied, bandwagoned character would not be L-Block, the Weighted Companion Cube, Sandbag, or any of the other obvious joke characters. It would not be a random midcarder suddenly finding their wings, even though we saw really fun upsets all throughout the spectrum in this contest. It wouldn't be the legion of BrawlFEAR entrants. It wasn't even Zack, Mega Man X, or Crono, and those three had some real chops this year.

Turns out our big bandwagon would be... Solid Fuckin Snake himself!! People looked at the semis like a fluke, because there was the obvious issue of Sephiroth being in the match. But when the final started, all hell broke loose on Board 8 for a <i>long</i> time. Before getting into it, let's look at how Snake was building to this for quite some time.

In 2002, Snake got tripped up in an upset by Crono. He used the loss to fuel himself, and he got a little bit stronger, a little bit better every year. In 2003, he had a close loss to Mega Man. In 2004 and 2005, Snake took a step back, and I think a lot of it had to do with absurd Nintendo boosts paired with Solid Shit. But hey, if you're going to have a redemption arc you might as well almost lose to Frog and Bowser.

In 2006, Snake made a clear leap, avenging his losses to Mega Man, winning the male side of the bracket, and eating a close loss to Samus in the final. In the Battle Royal that year, he pulled a crazy upset over Sephiroth with Cloud's help. The symmetry of him upsetting Cloud with Seph's help this year should not go unnoticed. In 2007, L-Block happened to everyone, but Snake had to deal with him 4 times.

Eventually, it all led here. Very, very few characters in the history of video games deserve a rallied bandwagon more than Solid Snake. He took all that momentum, paired it with a Smash appearance and Metal Gear Solid 4 in the same year, and went <i>nuts</i> in this contest. Snake looked like a killer all contest long, and in typical stealth fashion, everyone forgot about him as they focused on the characters mentioned in the first paragraph. They remembered in the semis though, and they <i>definitely</i> remembered him in the final.

When this poll started, Snake wasn't merely in a fluke second place spot over Cloud, with an assist from Crono. Nononono. That would be the easy way. Snake does things the hard way. Alone. No help. No sound. Procurement on site. Perfectly. Solid Snake came out in this poll and took aim at the fuckin <i>king,</i> and when you aim for the king, you best not miss.

Snake came out in this match and took the lead over not just Crono, not just Cloud, but <i>everyone.</i> Including Steroid Link, the only Nintendo character here, who was out for giga-revenge after L-Block happened a year ago. It was one of the all-time great finals moments we've ever had in a GameFAQs Contest, and it's sad it's so forgotten about with how much everyone hated the format -- and trust me, I get it.

Snake didn't lead by <i>much,</i> mind you, but he led. It was a 19 vote lead at the freeze, and he went up with the first update. Link started coming back pretty quickly from there, and we all figured the match was over.

...nope! Snake held strong, built up a 150 vote lead, and held strong in the 100-150 range all night long heading into the morning vote. It was one of the all-time great contest accomplishments, and I would have loved if this poll were only six and a half hours long. Unfortunately, it was 24 hours long and Link went full Giga-Oni-Link when the sun came up to put a wrap on his revenge tour and end the Summer 2008 Contest. Snake did not go out a loser, though, because he would still end up in second place. Cloud, in large part due to Crono's presence and Snake's bandwagon, never had a shot. Cloud did cut a 3700 vote deficit down to losing by only 2100 and go out like a warrior in his own right, but he failed to place in the final nonetheless. And Crono? His final was the rally over Vincent and subsequent demolishing of Mario. His "final" happened long before the actual final of this contest, and for Crono he was just happy to be here.

Your winner of the Summer 2008 Contest was Link, finishing the revenge tour and retaking the crown. In second place, in shocking fashion, was Solid Snake. Given bracketeers get points for second place, I say we give Snake half a contest win for this one!

All in all, the format may have sucked, but the contest was decent enough with crazy vote totals to keep things watchable until the very end.

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Contest Semifinal: Cloud, Solid Snake, Sephiroth, and Kirby

Cloud - 41927 [30.5%]
Solid Snake - 42250 [30.74%]
Sephiroth - 22134 [16.1%]
Kirby - 31149 [22.66%]
Total Votes - 137460

The match picture was a prophecy! All four of those characters ended up in Smash Bros!

Thanks to a few factors -- Cloud and Sephiroth in the poll together, Solid Snake being on a rampage thanks to MGS4 and Brawl, and Kirby somehow being the only Nintendo rep in the match -- this semifinal match was guaranteed to be a lot more interesting than the first. There was some hope that either Kirby would pull another crazy upset, or that Snake would manage to sneak out a first place finish from Cloud and Sephiroth eternally dueling. The only real guarantee going in is that Sephiroth had no chance. Before this poll, Cloud and Seph had been in 6 matches together. Cloud was 6-0. The only chance Seph ever had was in the 2003 final when he was boosted up by angry Link fans. Beyond that, unless Smash fans miraculously decide to 100% vote for him against Cloud in the future, Seph will never finish ahead of the guy on our site.

For an hour, we almost got <i>both</i> crazy spots. When this poll started, Snake was <i>flying</i> off with first place, and Kirby was riding high as the only Nintendo rep while Cloud and Seph were off dueling somewhere. The first half hour of this poll was something else, because Snake was in first and Kirby was in second, with the latter having a 100+ vote lead on Cloud. Cloud did eventually shake Kirby off despite Sephiroth's best efforts at leeching support, but by the time Cloud got into second place he was already more than 650 votes behind Snake.

Kirby would never again contend in the match, but shout out to the little guy for the run he made this year. Of Kirby's 5 matches this year, 4 were very entertaining, including really fun upsets over Master Chief and Sonic, two Ertyu Specials, and a near-upset against Cloud. You can't ask for better than that.

Conventional wisdom would say that Cloud would begin coming back on Snake any time now, but the problem is he was sharing this poll with the worst possible albatross there is. Only Tifa could have leeched him this badly, and it led to Cloud never actually threatening for first place at all. Cloud was able to cut 200 votes off of Snake's lead overnight, but Snake got it all back when the sun was up, and had such a hold on first place that he built up an 800 vote lead at one point.

By the time Cloud made a legitimate push at first, it was too late, but he still gave it one heck of a run. Snake fell off pretty hard in the evening and second night vote, and Cloud used this time to chop off almost 500 votes from Snake's lead. If Seph wasn't there, Cloud takes first place. If this format wasn't dog shit, this battle for first place might have actually mattered. But I've said enough on that subject for one contest. Let's wrap this PCA up and go home.

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Paratroopa1 posted...

Did I miss anyone? (I did not count Dr. Mario or Zero Suit Samus because I'm 100% certain they would be considered separate from Mario or Samus, but I left the rest of the questionably-eligible ones in)

By this logic you should leave Dark Samus off. Same reason Dark Link won't ever get in.

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At this point, I want to see Squall or Auron get in.

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Contest Semifinal: Link, Mario, Samus, and Crono

Link - 50315 [38.45%]
Mario - 25594 [19.56%]
Samus - 21871 [16.71%]
Crono - 33087 [25.28%]
Total Votes - 130867

Most of the excitement was gone by this point of the contest (or so we thought), because the rest of it seemed so predictable. The final eight characters were the Noble Nine minus Mega Man and Sonic, with Kirby as the random newcomer to this late stage.

The first of the two semifinal matches was incredibly boring and predictable the second it got set up, and really whoever got here in Crono's place was basically guaranteed a spot in the finals. Link was a given for first, we all knew that already. Samus was a given for last, though her getting SFFd twice should not take away from her run at all. Mario was pretty much a given for third, depending on the fourth character. We <i>almost</i> had Zack in this spot over Mario, which would have been legendary and shaken things up, but it was not to be.

As for that fourth spot, most people picked Vincent, and he would have waltzed to the final here. Some picked L-Block. The really smart people picked Crono. Crono wouldn't have gotten here without a rally and probably wasn't <i>actually</i> stronger than Vincent in 2008, but so what? He deserved that shit after everything he's been through. And when he got here, his oldest enemy was waiting.

But this time, Crono brought friends. He may struggle against Mario alone, but with Link and Samus here helping him? Cakewalk. Samus was happy to step aside, take last place, and do it all while leeching Mario's support. Link acted like Sephiroth in the Smash Ultimate reveal and skewered Mario('s overalls) like a fish. This tag team heel turn Nintendo leeching action allowed Crono to get the easiest win over Mario he'll ever have. This was never in doubt, nor should it have been. It was Crono's time to finally make it into the finals of a contest, and nothing was stopping him. Not L-Block, not Vincent, not Mario, nothing.

And no the 2005 run with the three strongest characters removed from the field does not count. This was the first <i>actual</i> contest final Crono made. It should have happened back in 2002, but better late than never.

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Contest Quarterfinal: Kirby, Dante, Sephiroth, and Sonic the Hedgehog

Kirby - 31357 [23.1%]
Dante - 22947 [16.9%]
Sephiroth - 52270 [38.5%]
Sonic - 29182 [21.5%]
Total Votes - 135756

The Crono/Vincent duel was not the last of this contest's surprises, and hell this match wouldn't be either, but this match was an absolute shocker. Sonic is lucky Crono lost to Vincent in 2007, or he would have caught a lot more flak than he actually got for choking this match away.

Shocking as this was, it wasn't <i>completely</i> out of left field because Sonic had just lost to Auron two rounds prior. Heck, he might have lost to Auron last round outright and not been here at all if Sephiroth wasn't in the poll. I covered how bad Crono looked for years leading up to his big duel a couple matches ago, but it's worth noting that Sonic has looked just as bad. He just doesn't have the choke artist pedigree and huge redemption story attached. In fact, his 2200 comeback on Crono in 2006 is what prevents him from being the weakest character in the Noble Nine.

But make no mistake, this was coming for quite awhile. Beginning with sis epic choke job against Samus in 2002 where he blew a 1500 vote lead in 3 hours, Sonic has been mostly downhill. He didn't lose the Noble Nine's win streak or anything, but he kept having these <i>awful</i> showings and was constantly mentioned as a potential weak link. I mean just look at some of these low lights.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1344-east-division-round-2-zero-vs-sonic-the-hedgehog
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1362-east-division-final-cloud-strife-vs-sonic-the-hedgehog
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1638-division-16-round-2-sonic-the-hedgehog-2-vs-super-mario
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1777-chaos-division-final-sonic-the-hedgehog-vs-samus-aran
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2543-blast-division-round-2-sonic-the-hedgehog-vs-vincent
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3290-division-8-round-2-sonic-sandbag-auron-sub-zero

When you pair Sonic's bad track record with how this contest was playing out, people came into this match thinking an upset was possible. But it wasn't Kirby they were looking at; it was Dante. Dante was fresh off of beating Master Chief (flipping their 2007 result), and Kirby wasn't all that far ahead of Dante this year. Dante got smoked by Sonic back in 2004, but given how this contest was playing out, who knows? Sonic and Kirby might split votes and allow Dante to squeeze through. We'd seen crazier things in this contest alone, plus Kirby didn't have some dominant first place performance in that match where Chief finished in third place. Dante was within striking distance if something weird happened.

Something weird happened alright, and people were more than correct to think an upset was possible, but they picked the wrong character. Sephiroth was always going to win first place here. Almost everyone knew it, picked it, and forgot about it. What next to no one knew was Kirby taking second place. Sonic was the favorite, that much is obvious, but the Upset Special for this slot was actually Master Chief. People thought a 2007 rerun was possible, so you can't fault anyone for picking Chief.

But Kirby? No one saw it coming. No gurus picked it, the Oracles all thought he would get last place, and the sitewide advancement percentage on Kirby here was only 6.38%. That's the second biggest upset of the year, topped only by Mewtwo's absurd 3.6% in the match against 3 Square characters. And remember, that percentage is added up and counts for people who picked Kirby to get first OR second place here. Anyone who actually picked Kirby to get this far had a favorites bracket or something.

The match itself was a total dud, which was the other surprise here. Sonic only kept it close for 5 minutes, and outside of one tiny push during the morning vote, he made no threat whatsoever at winning this match. He basically got his ass whipped for 24 hours, leaving no doubts whatsoever. I covered a lot of this during the Auron > Sonic upset from two rounds before, but I think a big reason Sonic looked especially bad in 2008 was anti-votes. The mid-2000s was the peak of anti-Sonic bandwagon hatred, and it hit its boiling point with a series of atrocious games with bad ideas.

I'd get into how trashy it all was, but a picture is worth 1000 words.

https://gamingbolt.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/sonic-unleashed.jpg

That is a real screenshot from Sonic Unleashed, which hit shelves two days after this match. If you don't think that piece of trash was a factor in Sonic doing so poorly in '08, you're nuts. It took a LONG time for him to shake that stigma off, and it mainly happened with the Sonic series becoming Nintendo's bitch. Thank goodness Smash and Sonic Mania happened, or the poor guy might still be in the dog house.

...

...I'll see myself out.

https://gamingbolt.com/the-5-most-embarrassing-moments-of-sonic-the-hedgehog-games

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Jakyl25 posted...

Be careful Ulti, hes a Melee player, part of the dreaded Smash community

Hungrybox isn't one of "those people", though. He pisses off the losers so much that he got crabs thrown at him for winning a tournament once.

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davidponte posted...

You can shit on gamers forever and they'll still come back for more. We are the most oppressed group out there after all.

Well the thing is, TLOU2 generated the most "buzz" this year. I understand why it won, polarizing or no. I just question if gaming needs to be in a spot where we reward companies who openly tell gamers how much they hate gamers.

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You missed L-Block as a spirit; not your fault though, since it was a limited special event and the spirit is called "L-Tetrimino & J-Tetrimino".

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/switch/234547-super-smash-bros-ultimate/faqs/77085

This is a good guide to use, and the author is on the ball about updating it.

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https://twitter.com/LiquidHbox/status/1337188428333666309

Hahaha nice

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7tIZdm9Xfk

This was basically my reaction.

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Pirateking2000 posted...

TLOU2 winning narrative and direction are probably the biggest jokes of the ones it got

The main problem is gaming is turning into the rest of media, where the powers that be are just laughably out of touch with what people actually want. If they make a highlight video on youtube about TLOU2 winning game of the year, the dislike ratio will be like 90%.

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Pirateking2000 posted...

Man DOOM got fucked over

Doom is too manly for the people who vote on this stuff. There is nothing woke idiots hate more than "whatever men like".

Jokes aside, Doom 2016 was the better game.

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lmao

You can tell the people voting on these were woke idiots.

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andylt posted...

Bioware is not gonna exist long enough for this game to happen lol

ESY16 posted...

Mass Effect is a wonderful series. Mass Effect 2 is among my top 10 games of all time. That being said, please just let the series rest in peace. The last thing I want is another ME game.

GTFO

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YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES!

FUCKlN MASS EFFECT!!!!!!!!

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davidponte posted...

I'll take it!

Proof I love you bro!

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Is Keanu wearing a fuckin ICP shirt?

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davidponte posted...

Sure, I'll concede that there are people on Twitch who are solely on there because it's essentially a softcore camgirl site for them, but two things:

1. There's nothing wrong with that if there is a market for it
2. You clearly had no idea who Valkyrae was and just assumed she was a 'boob streamer' because she was a woman, otherwise you wouldn't have brought up this completely separate and irrelevant point coincidentally right after she was announced as the winner.

I actually agree on point 1 sort of. I just dislike double standards. I don't hate women, I hate the double standards in our culture.

I know who she is (I'm on Reddit a lot more than GameFAQs and they're far more modern than we are) but I can't disprove a negative, so I'm just going to say 'ok you got me bro' and move on.

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Ngamer64 posted...

What the HECK, it's been an hour and I still haven't seen the ExTha reaction!

He's at work.

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ninkendo posted...

You know that question earlier about someone 100% people would be satisfied with

I think Sephiroth comes close to that just having another OG Noble Niner in the game

As someone who has been an unapologetic fan of the guy (and FF7!), it was rough there for awhile. Nice to see people think our boy is cool again.

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Oh my god STOP PORTING SKYRIM.

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Pirateking2000 posted...

Man aside from Sephiroth this has been kinda blah to me for the most part

It's the covid year man. Everything is kind of blah.

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davidponte posted...

lmao what, Valkyrae is like the opposite of a 'boob streamer', but I guess that doesn't matter because she's a woman

I'll rephrase.

"Girls who only get attention for looks regardless of how bad they are at what they're actually playing."

If you think people like Kaceytron because she's good at video games and makes content worth watching, you are lying.

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Oh shit Chief in Fortnite! That is awesome.

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The dumbest thing in all of gaming are boob streamers and simps who fund them.

Never tell me women are oppressed. It is factually wrong.

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Dude I get this is the video game awards, but don't wear sneakers with a fuckin suit. Come on man.

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TheCodeisBosco posted...

On one hand, this reminds me that I'm so fucking glad I didn't purchase a Fighters Pass. This is total anathema to me (yet still better than Byleth >_>).

On the other hand, the overwhelming majority seem hyped and surprised, and more power to them. There have been roster picks that didn't seem to leave a whole lot of people happy, so I'm glad that most people seem to be pleased with this.

I do think it's petty as hell if Square is stingy with the music again.

What really pisses me off about this is Yuji Horii is a stingy fucking asshole and even he was super cool about working with Smash. You would think the FF department would be equally cool.

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LOU2 100% deserved that innovation award. I'm partially colorblind and that shit was soooooo fuckin helpful.

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Team Rocket Elite posted...

Oh, they really did give the award to Among Us despite it not coming out in 2020.

I saw that but Among Us absolutely deserves this.

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Lightning Strikes posted...

Maybe Im being a little harsh on TLOU2s story, it did drive me through most of it and was well done. However, it not ending about an hour and a half before it did really holds it back, that last chapter is rough from a storytelling standpoint (but has some of the best gameplay in the series!).

And when the person who won an award for their game that explicitly handles trans issues dares to say the word trans. Chat is vile.

Which chat?

And how are you even READING these speedychats?

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Contest Quarterfinal: Solid Snake, Weighted Companion Cube, Cloud, and Mewtwo

Solid Snake - 39971 [29.14%]
Cube - 26314 [19.18%]
Cloud - 52686 [38.41%]
Mewtwo - 18206 [13.27%]
Total Votes - 137177

We all needed a rest break after the epic nonsense we had just been through, which is exactly what this match was. The only excitement to be had here was Snake keeping it close with Cloud for five minutes, which was a portent of things to come but we can save that for the appropriate time. After that five minutes was up, Cloud looked thoroughly dominant here. Not as dominant as Link, but he looked amazing nonetheless. It ultimately made the final all that much more of a shock.

Past that, not much to talk about. Mewtwo did well to make it this far, and he more than made up for his atrocious 2007 showing, but he never really looked <i>that</i> good here in 2008. Cube.... just kind of went out with a whimper. L-Block showed us that the inanimate joke factor was dead and buried, and that these characters were not going to have the same steam here in 2008, and this match showed it. Cube was never in this thing, had no joke trends, and acted more or less like a normal third place character. It was cool to see him not finish in last place on his way out, but L-Block he was not.

It was a boring match here today, which is exactly what we all needed. Crono's Redemption Story really took it out of everyone.

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Most of the DLC characters have been Japanese males.

Sora, Crono, Dante, Ryu Hayabusa, etc are on the table.

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Leonhart4 posted...

Also I like the Aerith dies reference they squeezed in there

The Mario thing? Isn't that a reference to Cloud being stabbed in the flashback?

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Sheep007 posted...

I thought it was unironically Goku for half a second. Great reveal though

I thought Ryu Hayabusa or Dante.

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Mewtwo59 posted...

This is the reason why I expect it to be the last announcement, because viewship is going to drop hard after the Smash reveal.

This aged well.

Also WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK, I NEVER STOPPED LIKING THE GUY BUT HOLY SHIT!!!!

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True dat.

You guys are hardly indicative of how trashy the general public is.

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colliding posted...

the chats on these things always remind me of how terrible gamers are

You are a gamer lmao

And those chats move too fast for me to care at all about what's in there.

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andylt posted...

Oh did it start already? Should we just use this topic

I support this idea.

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https://board8.fandom.com/wiki/Main_Page

To give you an idea of how insane the board was during all this, Vincent was the favorite and though a lot of us wanted the guy to win for our brackets (he was the favorite, after all), it wasn't with the typical fervor. As this madness kept going, more and more people remembered the old wounds and wanted to see Crono finally pull one of these things out.

The match stayed in this period of odd flux until the ASV, where Crono was <i>still</i> nursing a 250 vote lead. This in and of itself is a miracle given the guy's trends and how the match went down last year. By the time the ASV hit in 2007, the match was already over. Vincent had come back by then, led by over 100, and used the ASV to end the match.

In 2008, it once again looked like Vincent was going to use the ASV to put this thing to bed, much to the dismay of pretty much every Crono supporter other than red sox. He was the one guy on Board 8 who never lost hope, and he deserves props for that. Vincent pulled a 166 vote update out of his ass, his highest since early in the match, and that looked like the beginning of the inevitable. It <i>wasn't,</i> but it looked like it. Crono fought like hell, but Vincent literally tied the match up within a couple hours. From there, Crono pulled off the unthinkable for the second time in this match. Instead of Vincent rising to heaven and ending the match like he did at this time last year, Crono refused to quit. Vincent quickly built up a lead of 100, and then just got... <i>stuck</i> there for two hours. And even as Vincent finally started increasing his lead a bit heading into the evening vote, it was never by much and Crono kept fighting back at him. It wasn't until nearly 9pm, with a mere three hours to go, that Vincent breached the 150 vote barrier. Last year, his lead at that time was well over 1400. Obviously, times had changed, and the final three hours were just a mad rush to the finish line.

http://thengamer.com/guru/CB6/stats.php?match=52

For the next hour of the poll, Vincent looked like he had this thing on lockdown. He slowly increased his lead to 200, and though he and Crono were both really going for it, the clock was running out. I'd say votes were drying up, but there was definite rallying going on. One of the most entertaining parts of this match is that Samus, the character I have yet to even mention thusfar in this writeup and the one who <i>actually</i> won first place, was getting her winning percentage wrecked here. Check out the trend graph and how much of the green was below her actual trend line while all this was going on. It's one of the funniest visuals to come out of this contest.

With two hours to go and Vincent up by 200, this thing seemed like a done deal. Even worse for Crono is that the usual Chrono Trigger second night vote wasn't showing up, so while Crono managed to stop the bleeding, Vincent wasn't losing any ground. The 200 vote lead stayed at 200 for a solid hour; as entertaining as this was, it looked bleak for the Crono faithful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Zdg4Sbefg4

The final hour was absolutely wild, and it brought us all back to those childhood days of just cheering for favorites regardless of anything else. First update, Vincent brought his lead from 184 to 192. From there it was all a blur, and the explanation for what happened is easy -- <b>BOARD 8 RALLIED THEIR BALLS OFF.</b>

We had seen enough of Crono getting his poor heart broken. Enough of cheating only being enforced one way. Enough choke jobs, enough blatant bracket rigging to always see Mario, enough nonsense. We were going to <i>finally</i> give Crono his moment or fuckin die trying. The next 4 updates went -20, -30, -30, -30 to get the lead under 100. Vincent then stalled to keep his head for an update, but it was postponing the inevitable.

BAH GAWD THAT FROG'S MUSIC! BUSINESS IS ABOUT TO PICK UP!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsDhS8PBdh0

For the last half hour of this match, Board 8 rallied so hard and so <i>well</i> that it went far beyond a simple rally in hopes of helping one character win. This was six years of pent up frustration at always seeing Crono get dicked over and pushed around, and while Vincent himself isn't to blame for a lot of Crono's contest history, this rally felt like helping the bullied kid suplex their tormentors and justifiably crack some skulls open. The next three updates were -20, -20, and -30 to tie the match up with 10 minutes to go.

God himself wasn't getting in Crono's way at this point, and even if the good lord above tried, Crono has time travel on his side and Dr Strange probably would have let him borrow the Eye of Agamotto just this once. Crono <b>deserved</b> this. Nothing was getting in the way. Not this time!

The penultimate update was won by Crono with a totally insane 146 vote push, giving him a 59 vote lead and basically ending this match. He put out 100 more votes in the final five minutes just to be sure, and that was that. Crono <i>finally</i> won one of these damn things. A weird, hyped, close, heavily debated match finally went his way. No cheating, no phantom time extensions, no one-sided scripts, no bullshit, no nothing. Crono won. It was real. It actually happened.

Crono's final push was so laughably insane that he didn't just pull the clutch comeback on Vincent. Samus got 1058 votes in the final hour of this poll. Crono got 1191. That's how bad Board 8 wanted this, and remember, this was a time when rallying was REALLY hard to do because of the high vote totals. This wasn't like when we pushed Mega Man ahead of Charizard, Mario ahead of Samus (sorry but I had to do it!), or Resident Evil 2 ahead of Bloodborne. This took a borderline miracle to pull off, but hey. Board 8 was not going to be denied here. Not this time.

Crono's reward for pulling this off? He, yet again, had to stare down his oldest of enemies -- <B>FREAKING MARIO.</b> But this time, Crono was bringing friends with him. Samus and Link didn't want <i>any</i> of that smoke.

In the long run, we all know this didn't stop the overall decline of Crono. We know what happened against Missingno and Pikachu. We all know about the laughably awful Rivalry Rumble. Doesn't matter. Nothing will ever change how great we all felt when Crono pulled this thing off.

The unintended consequence is that this match basically ended Vincent's contest career as an elite.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/5229-character-battle-ix-division-2-round-2-phoenix-vs-vincent-vs
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7283-division-6-round-1-magus-vs-vincent

Not that it matters. No one cares. This match was, and still is, a celebration of the greatest contest underdog these things will ever have. For the record, I will never be convinced under any circumstances that Chrono Trigger wasn't on track to win the 2015 contest before rallies happened. I am in favor of those rallies, you all know this, but the board explosion would have been nuts had Chrono Trigger of all games annihilated Ocarina in the final. There is a universe where that happens. I wonder what it's like there?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xU5tQIDMAEw

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In 2006, we got some more hints. Sonic, Crono, and Mega Man all looked like monkey trash. Vincent and Ganondorf, two characters hyped up to be Noble Nine breakers for years, had a really fun round 1 match. Vincent won it close, then Vincent turned around in round 2 and had a 52-48 loss to Sonic. That one perked some ears up, though in fairness we saw something similar in the past and we know how that turned out: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1344-east-division-round-2-zero-vs-sonic-the-hedgehog

That's the thing. The hype of being a breaker has ruined a lot of these characters. Not Vincent, though. And that's when the absurdity of 2007 hit. L-Block aside, one of the most hyped matches of that entire contest, if not <i>the</i> most hyped match, was Link, Vincent, Crono, and Zero. The match itself was basically a mortal lock to happen, and the hype surrounding that thing was palpable. I helped make sure of that, because I was sick of everyone obsessing over the Noble Nine's winning streak and whether or not a loss in a 4way would be "legitimate" or not. You would think these characters are Board 8's actual children with how much that streak was defended by some people. It was embarrassing then and it's especially embarrassing to look back on it all. Not our finest hour, guys.

In contest lore, Vincent/Crono isn't what Mario/Crono is, and frankly nothing can be, but Vincent/Crono certainly comes close. It's an all-time series of matches, and the 2007 match was dope. Crono looked early on like he would reclaim the old glory, and jumped out to an 1150 vote lead overnight. Vincent then spent the rest of the match swinging nearly 3000 votes his way, and that was that.

At the time, a lot of people claimed this didn't actually break the streak and that Crono lost due to the format. In 2020 I'm inclined to agree with that logic, but at the time, I felt like the streak was over and people should stop talking about it. I found the argument to be incredibly dull. I've gotten some new perspective in my old age, so I can see where people were coming from back then. Still, a loss is a loss and Crono was the first guy in the Noble Nine to lose to an outsider, regardless of format. That will never change, and frankly it's better that it happened to Crono under these circumstances. Do you guys not get that without this match, L-Block would have been the one to break the streak, and it would have come against Solid Snake and Sonic? I'll take Crono losing to Vincent over ever having to type that sentence again.

Oh and not to brag, buuuuuuut.... http://thengamer.com/guru/CB6/stats.php?match=52

52 of us called our shot and got it right. Crono looked terrible for years, was trending down, and Vincent was trending up and had a match against 3 characters who are titans on Nintendo systems. All the makings were there.

Which finally, at last, brings us to 2008. Vincent and Crono's duel was hyped for good reason, and the other two characters would be Samus and Pikachu instead of Link and Zero. Those are acceptable substitutes and wouldn't get in the way. All that was left to do was to finally have the match itself, and these two definitely came in ready to throw down.

In the first hours of the match, the trend mirrored 2007. Last year, Crono built up a lead over 1100. This year, he built up a lead of about 950 -- almost to the hour. A lot of people figured the match was over at this point, not because Crono was winning, but because the year prior Vincent was able to swing 3000 votes. People were expecting the comeback this time, and with Crono unable to build an equal or bigger lead than last year, a lot of people lamented the inevitable. We had seen the guy get beat in these close debated matches for long now.

Right on cue, Vincent started his push. The numbers from 2007 to 2008 were almost exactly the same, which felt so bizarre. At 7:30 am both years, Crono's lead was chopped all the way down to 350. Vincent's win felt inevitable at this point, especially given Chrono Trigger's historical ineptitude with the day vote contrasted with FF7's day vote being really good.

But then, the most unthinkable thing of all happened. Crono this year said screw this, we're not rolling over and dying this time. Vincent got stuck at 300, and though he pushed the lead below 300 for a bit, he was just.... kind of stuck there. We all assumed an inevitable day vote would push Vincent over the top, but it just wasn't coming. Crono kept stalling, and stalling, and stalling, and hour after hour, update after update, we were stuck in this bizarre phantom zone of Crono holding this 250-350 vote lead.

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By the time the Mario v Crono match happened, people were losing their minds. Mario <i>had</i> to lose that contest. The poll was close for awhile, but Mario was proving to be a bridge too far, and built up a lead of 1000 votes going into the final few hours. You guys know the rest. Crono started pulling off one of the most clutch comebacks we'd ever seen, erased the lead, and then CJayC took 400 votes away before admitting a few years later that Crono had 3000 scripted votes that day. If Crono cheated fine, but we <i>know</i> Mario cheated one round earlier and nothing was done. It just left the entire thing feeling incomplete.

A year later, Mario and Crono were blatantly set up for a rematch, and the saga of that match could be made into a documentary at this point: https://board8.fandom.com/wiki/(1)Mario_vs_(4)Crono_2003

http://www.thengamer.com/gamefaqs/03Summer/MarioVSCronoUpdates.txt

Not only was the match started early for some inexplicable reason, not only did it last past 24 hours with no warning that it would, but it went 5 minutes past the usual closing time (which was 1am est back then) to "check for cheating". After all, Mario erased an 800 lead in 2 hours when trends were pretty close before then. That just isn't natural. Did CJayC find any cheating, even though there was yet another provable script being floated around? Of course not. Mario cheated in that match, and CJayC ignored it. He also ignored the cheating against Cloud. I will absolutely never be convinced otherwise. We know too much about contests and how they work now to look back at the numbers involved and think of them as anything but impossible. I had even picked Mario in 2003 and was rooting for him to win, and it's the dirtiest I ever felt in being right on a match. It's finally getting with the dream girl you've been chasing, only to find out later she has herpes. It's just gross.

If you weren't there, you'll never understand the unreal meltdown that occurred.

http://www.thengamer.com/gamefaqs/03Summer/MarioWins.jpg
http://www.thengamer.com/gamefaqs/03Summer/MarioWinsBoard.jpg

True fact -- there is no 24 hour period in that match that Crono lost.

Crono's luck wouldn't get much better in the years to come. In 2004, he finally got his win over Mario, but it was meaningless. That contest was among the worst we've ever had, and Mario went berserker in 2005 and got his win back in spades anyway. In 2006, Crono hit a low point when he blew a 2200 vote lead against Sonic, which I believe was the biggest comeback in contest history to that point. The dude just didn't have that 2002-2003 magic anymore, and it would <i>still</i> get worse.

Enter Vincent, who has always been a Final Fantasy 7 fan favorite (https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/845-), but never could make the contest field before 2005. His debut however was a huge success. He got thrown into one of the most difficult divisions we've ever had, and won the thing despite being in three straight debatable matches. Well Kerrigan wasn't debatable to anyone with sense, but people argued for weeks that she would win that one. I still couldn't tell you why. Vincent destroyed Kerrigan, then had close wins against Dante and Squall before facing... Crono. Vincent had a very respectable 55-45 loss there, and it began the hype train that maybe Vincent would be the guy that cracked the Noble Nine.

For the unaware, the Noble Nine is a winning streak. Nine characters -- Link, Cloud, Mario, Samus, Sephiroth, Crono, Mega Man, Solid Snake, and Sonic the Hedgehog -- never lost a match to anyone outside of their group until 2007, which I'll get into in a bit, but the point here is that the hype around breaking the winning streak was palpable. People talked about it every year, and more importantly, people wanted to be on the right side of history and pick it in their brackets. Every year, there was so much hype around any match one of them might lose to an outsider. Would this be the year?

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Contest Quarterfinal: Samus, Vincent, Crono, and Pikachu

Samus - 37909 [30.91%]
Vincent - 30963 [25.25%]
Crono - 31041 [25.31%]
Pikachu - 22736 [18.54%]
Total Votes - 122649

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSLlZh9yelk

This is it. The most hyped match of the contest, the <i>best</i> match of the contest, and the entire reason I finally got up off my ass and did these writeups after 12 years. I didn't like this contest overall, but 12 years with no PCA is just awful and I'm sorry for that. And of all the random blurbs you see out there, this is somehow the one match on the wiki that had nothing before today. It's time to fix that.

To understand why this thing was so hyped for a full year, you don't merely have to go back to 2007. That would be easy. You have to go back to the beginning. The final of this match had the stars aligning for it for more than 6 years.

People talk of bandwagons and rallies. In 2002, Crono <i>was</i> the rallied bandwagon. Mario was the heavy, heavy favorite that year, followed by characters like Link, Cloud, Sonic, and Solid Snake. Crono was no where to be found, and more importantly, neither were things like x-stats, Oracle picks, match trends, update charts, guru contests, and board odds projects. We were just a bunch of kids cheering on our favorites every match, ignorant of everything else. It was a better time back then. I don't want to go off on my usual tangent about how advanced metrics are the worst thing to ever happen in sports, so I simply move on.

In that contest, Crono was the star of the whole show. The little 5 seed that could. People expected him to win his first match, and that was about it. Most people thought Dante would beat him. Crono won. Most people picked the 1 seed, Lara Croft, to beat him. Crono utterly demolished her. Then, right after the back to back to back trio that gave us our best 3 day run in contest history -- Samus > Sonic, Sephiroth > Mega Man, Mario > Cloud -- Crono went out and pulled <i>another</i> upset, this time over Solid Snake. A looooot of people were pulling hard for Snake that year. Crono beat him with ease.

This set up the first of many Crono vs Mario duels, and by the time that match happened, Mario was the contest villain. He straight up cheated to beat Cloud, and back then CJayC was such an idiot about catching cheating that he just up and allowed a phantom 500 vote spike around dinner time to stand, even though there was literal visual proof of the script used to do it. Before it happened, a user went around posting a screenshot of the script, with an image saying there was no way he would allow a crossdresser to win (his words, not mine) and that there would be a 500 vote spike. I'll never understand how that one stood, but I digress, and Cloud did eventually get a pittance of revenge anyway.

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Took awhile but this match deserves it. Gimme a sec here...

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Jakyl25 posted...

Heroin specifically is a huge public health risk. It goes beyond my body my choice.

In America maybe, but I'm still for decriminalizing everything and letting people make their own decisions. People will get it anyway.

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