Lurker > TsunamiXXVIII

Huh. I guess that just proves how forgettable the contest was.

Funny, though, normally yelling at people for their lack of reading comprehension is my line! I'm also sadly very aware of what the board's opinion of me is.

And I know the format; I've been editing the wiki for years. It's just gone unnoticed because my GameFAQs main doesn't match my username for most other sites, Wikia/Fandom included.
---

Wait, I really left BKSheikah in my sig all the way until Advokaiser dethroned him as reigning Guru champion? I need to come here more often.

Then again, by that logic, I should've picked Shadow outright! Which I might've done if I hadn't figured this was a three-point match. After all, new characters, especially those from new games, are always complete crap, right? So I couldn't afford to get this wrong. We'll talk more about that in Round 2's write-up, though.

Match 27: Terra Branford vs. Charizard

Terra 13935
Charizard 15531

This was the match where everyone started crying out that Charizard was a fraud. And with good reason, I suppose, even if all of those "awful" 2013 results suddenly looked really good by the end of this contest. Terra continues to look extremely good in these contests for no discernible reason, though obviously there's that whole thing about females boosting all over the place this year.

Obviously Charizard was in trouble against Bowser next round but honestly we all knew that his win in 2010 was a fluke. So I guess technically Charizard is a fraud, the same way Shadow and Tidus and Magus all overperformed in their contest debuts. There's another fraud worth mentioning but I'll save it for his first-round match.

Match 28: Bowser vs. Gordon Freeman

Bowser 22856
Gordon 6676

The original loser, accept no substitutes. We knew that Gordon would be one-and-done for the first time since his first win (not counting Rivalry Rumble), but this is embarrassing. Made me feel good about taking Bowser > Pikachu, though, which I hadn't felt comfortable with before because I expected Pikachu to be stronger indirectly. Turns out I was right about that part, but not about either Bowser or Pikachu reaching that match!

Match 29: Phoenix Wright vs. Chris Redfield

Phoenix 16375
Chris 12387

One match after GFNW lost in the first round for the first time since his first win, the contestant who gave him that win reached the second round for the fourth time in five tries since. Chris is one of the more pathetic RE characters, only managing to avoid the winless characters list because he ran into a Call of Duty character in 2010. In retrospect, this isn't really a good win for Phoenix.

Match 30: Ike vs. Joel

Ike 17918
Joel 10840

See, it's not so hard! Just don't give your character a last name! Ike may not be that strong, but he's still a Smash character and Fire Emblem is still a series on the rise. This is a good performance for Joel, though I doubt he'll be returning since Ellie is supposed to be the main character in TLoU2.
---

Wait, I really left BKSheikah in my sig all the way until Advokaiser dethroned him as reigning Guru champion? I need to come here more often.

Safer_777 posted

Man another contest analysis? I wonder why so many this year. Guess since it is the 10th battle and the 18th overall we felt it was time to do it!

Because I have an outsized e-ego and had only been avoiding doing this in the past because I was under the impression that Ulti was overprotective of his status as the chronicler of the past. Though IIRC even he didn't do a PCA for the Years Contest, so I'll be the first on that front.

Match 24: Kazuma Kiryu vs. Bomberman

Kiryu 11459
Bomberman 17829

This was a tough loss to take, because I initially had Bomberman solely on recognizability before remembering that he's Bomberman and has never been worth anything, and no way he's going to upset someone who got a 2-seed without Board 8's support.

Oops. Wrong on all accounts. Yakuza was a Board 8 creation, which alone would've been enough for me to stick with my instincts, but Bomberman... honestly hasn't been that bad! He's had a tendency to get tough opening draws, hence his only prior win being against a TV, but...

http://board8.wikia.com/wiki/Bomberman_vs_Crash_Bandicoot_vs_Phoenix_Wright_vs_Magus_2007

Yeah. Phoenix may have been a lot weaker then than he is now, but that's still 43.64% on Magus, 49.93% on Phoenix, and 52.91% on Crash. And we'd already seen Crash this contest, so it's no surprise that anyone in the know--which is to say, almost everyone but me--picked Bomberman in the Oracle. Kiryu had over 25% of Gurus, but only about 9.2% of Oracle picks.

Match 25: 2B vs. Cayde-6

2B 22970
Cayde-6 6555

How cute, 2B's total is in the 22,000s and Cayde-6's is in the 6,000s. Anyway I'd never heard of either of these characters, so I figured I'd go with the higher seed. Then I heard discussion about hentai and figured that made sense.

For some reason having a dash as well as a number made me feel that Cayde-6 was even more likely to be female than 2B. I guess because it sounds more robotic and roboticists in video games tend to be perverts who like "toasters with breasts". Cayde-6 is neither a robot nor a female, so this blowout is entirely expected. I guess I must have found that out in advance of the match, though, because I was going to blame my ignorance of these facts for why my Oracle pick was so bad, only to discover that my Oracle pick for this match was actually really, really good!

I feel like my picks in Oracle seem to always be either awesome or awful, never mediocre. I don't think that's actually true but I guess it's easier to get emotional about being near one end of the list than in the middle.

Match 26: Shadow the Hedgehog vs. Ness

Shadow 13801
Ness 15726

I was the guest picker for the Crew for this match, and I got it right for the wrong reasons. Sonic Team looked pretty awesome all around this contest, but not as awesome as everything Smash. So my theory that Earthbound would be stronger because it's been getting wider releases via VC and has inspired so many recent beloved games (like Undertale) was completely wrong, but a separate factor led to Ness having boosted anyway. Or did it? One match after expecting my Oracle to have been awful, I look to see that a match I thought I'd called really well, I actually got outperformed by literally everyone who hadn't picked Shadow outright.

Maybe I would've been better picking with my heart. SA2 was one of my favorite games growing up and has influenced nearly every one of my usernames across the Internet (yes, including this one, indirectly, the eventual last name of a character that started off as a Shadow knockoff but eventually became humanoid because I was RPing with a bunch of other edgelord teenagers. We all initially met through the official SA2 BBS, no less.)
---

Wait, I really left BKSheikah in my sig all the way until Advokaiser dethroned him as reigning Guru champion? I need to come here more often.

Match 22: Yuna vs. Godot

Yuna 21248
Godot 8036

If the 8-9 match in this division wasn't enough to make it feel like the bracket was stacked against Board 8, this match sealed it. The first two 6-seeds we saw were complete and utter fodder (and they still went 1-1 because so were the 11-seeds), and then Godot draws...Yuna. Granted, the other five 6-seeds are midcarders, or at least former midcarders. And one of those 6-seed fodders was the Guru nom... but hey, if two of our picks were put against each other in the first round, it'd guarantee that one made Round 2!

Board 8 loves Phoenix Wright, and Godot is probably the most beloved single-game Phoenix Wright character here, with good reason. There's one other character that could challenge him for that title if we restricted it to one appearance in the main series, but he's been in both of the Edgeworth spinoffs.

It was definitely a nice accomplishment getting Godot into the field, but it's painful watching characters we love get fodderized. Let's not repeat this experiment with getting other PW characters in; we haven't even been able to get Edgeworth a win outside of Rivalry Rumble.

Match 23: Kefka vs. L-Block

Kefka 17628
L-Block 11661

No past champion has ever been completely absent from the field of a contest they were eligible for, though this would not be true had Brawl beaten Majora's Mask in GotD. And I don't expect L-Block to be the one to break that trend, if for no other reason that there's another past champion with a much better case for being dropped. (Also, I expect the next contest of any kind to be Game of the Decade in 2020, but let's be honest, Undertale deserves to make that field. It'll probably get anti-voted out of fear of a repeat of 2015, but it would be a crime if it missed the field entirely.)

The narrative that is often pushed around here is that Board 8 hates all past rally targets, but L-Block is in fact a beloved contest institution. Look no further than what hir seed was in 2013. L-Block has taken over CATS' former role as the joke character that Board 8 loves, except L-Block actually has some form of contest strength.

Speaking of Board 8's favorite jokes, let's give it up for the Clown Prince of Contest Wackiness! Though to be honest Kefka's recent results haven't been as uniformly weird as they're often made out to be. No, we didn't expect Kefka to make Round 3 last contest, but that's really only one unexpected result, not two. Only about 8% of Gurus took him to make it out of Round 1, and of those, 60% took him to Round 3. His two Round 2 opponents were heavily favored in their Round 1 matches, and they each had fewer picks to reach Round 3 than Kefka did to make Round 2. And that Arthas result? If I recall correctly, that was the result of Arthas winning an SFF battle against Diablo in fourways, since Diablo had beaten Kefka in Villains. But honestly it should've been obvious that Blizzard had declined significantly since Villains. It was a defensible pick--B8 even talked me into it--but Kefka's win shouldn't have been surprising, and only was because the board is conditioned to not expect Kefka to do what he ought to. In this contest... well, this is Division 3 so it's hard to say what "ought to" have happened. But the Kefka meme is getting a bit old.
---

Wait, I really left BKSheikah in my sig all the way until Advokaiser dethroned him as reigning Guru champion? I need to come here more often.

I don't know what the purge rate is so safety bump
---

Wait, I really left BKSheikah in my sig all the way until Advokaiser dethroned him as reigning Guru champion? I need to come here more often.

Bump
---

Wait, I really left BKSheikah in my sig all the way until Advokaiser dethroned him as reigning Guru champion? I need to come here more often.

Match 19: Crash Bandicoot vs. Cecil Harvey

Crash 16115
Cecil 13629

Cecil Harvey Never Wins became the new meme here, because he's frequently had winnable matches and he's just never managed to pull it off. But it's not quite like Gordon Freeman where he's losing to obvious fodder; the only truly questionable one, except maybe this one, was losing to Wrex in 2013 (when we still weren't sure if he'd win, but it was Pit that we thought he'd lose to). FFIV as a whole is 0 for Character Battles, but I don't think Cecil represents its best chance to break that trend. Even in obvious losses (e.g. his debut in 2005, against Kirby, though Kirby was still flying under the radar then), he underperforms. Rydia's two matches have been obvious losses and she's performed well in them. Her first contest was 2008 and she was in the same fourpack as Auron, but despite being SFF'd, she still came in third place, beating out a character who'd made Round 3 the previous year against legitimate competition. Well, against Ocelot and Kefka, at any rate.

Kefka actually advanced to that Round 2 match in second place behind Marcus Fenix. He lost to Marcus twice in 2007, and the very next year Marcus can't even beat Rydia with Auron in the poll. That's either the biggest single-year dropoff, the biggest LOLKefka, or Rydia has potential. Probably a combination of all three.

Female characters were boosting all over the place this year. Imagine what Rydia could do with an After Years pic. She probably wouldn't even sacrifice recognizability, and she'd have a tough TJF to take out.

Of course, given how most of our nomination rallies this year fared in bracket placement, if we tried getting her a Returners Nomination Rally we'd probably see (6)Tifa Lockhart vs (11)Rydia. Still, I think it's worth a shot.

Also the casuals didn't find this all that debatable. Over 73% got it right. The Gurus didn't even break 40% correct on this. LOL us.

Match 20: Big Boss vs. Ridley

Big Boss 16855
Ridley 12890

AKA the match where I started panicking re: Guru. Big Boss is very pic-dependent, since he can look a lot like Solid Snake sometimes, but not other times. I thought this year's pics were pretty good; you wouldn't mistake him for his son, but he still looked more like he did in his prime than as an old man. Ridley doesn't have any proper wins, either (though unlike Cecil, he at least got to ride Samus to some wins in Rivalry Rumble), but this is far from the first good showing he's had. He beat out Spyro for third place in a fourway, and he broke 40% in a threeway, which would usually be good for a win but the third character was one of the absolute weakest characters in the field. With Smash on his side, it feels like it's just a question of when he'll get his first win without Samus's help, not if. He just needs a better seed.

Match 21: Alucard vs. Princess Peach

Alucard 16635
Peach 12649

This was a fairly modest win for Alucard, far from the performance that would mark him as a favorite to win this division. Are we supposed to think Peach is strong now? Peach is the casual choice, one who gets more votes from recognizability than from popularity. Which would make her a decent candidate for the fodder line. I think she'd beat our current pick for that honor, though. But this isn't a good performance for Alucard and it makes this whole division look bad.

Is now a bad time to bring up that I had Big Boss > Crono in Match 130? Because I did. Not that this match should necessarily have made many of us panic, because Peach had as many Gurus taking her to win this division as Alucard did.
---

Wait, I really left BKSheikah in my sig all the way until Advokaiser dethroned him as reigning Guru champion? I need to come here more often.

Match 14: Velvet Crowe vs. James Sunderland

Velvet 17773
James 11346

I initially had James in my bracket because he's the older character and Tales never wins in Character Battles except one other time. Then I remembered that this was likely a fodder match, and the higher seed was the one with the boobs. This line of thinking would let me down once in this contest, but this wasn't it.

Match 15: Pikachu vs. Scorpion

Pikachu 19337
Scorpion 9782

My first reaction when I saw the percentages on the matches in progress were "why is Pikachu not winning by as much as Yoshi and Kratos?" Then I remembered that unlike those two, Pikachu had a worthwhile opponent.

Scorpion had about as good a contest as he could've hoped for. He avoided the doubling against Pikachu, who proved to be very strong indeed, and with no shortage of dark horse runs in this contest, his 2002 Elite Eight run kept him in the conversation long after he'd departed.

Match 16: Kratos vs. John Marston

Kratos 21310
Marston 7811

I can't keep track of all these men with full names. Seeing just how close they are in the bracket, however, I really have to call Ulti out on including Marston on his list of characters that he thought would easily beat Shantae despite what the X-Stats said. I guess this is an SFF match as well? These percentages are very similar, so even if Kratos SFFs Marston just as much as Yoshi SFFs Shantae, you're still left needing a lot of rSFF in Yoshi-Pikachu to explain this one away. Also, I may not know a thing about Red Dead Redemption, but if it's the same genre as God of War, well, if it's a fodder match, I'd invoke genre hierarchy to give Shantae the advantage even before TJF.

Remember, this is GameFAQs. M-rated games aren't popular here at all.

Match 17: Sora vs. Ryo Hazuki

Sora 20542
Ryo 9195

Is there any bigger contest underachiever than Sora? Let's ignore Rivalry Rumble, because it doesn't count. Without looking, name the last time that Sora didn't have the absolute highest seed possible. A 2-seed in 2013, because the 1-seeds were prereserved for the Noble Nine, or a 1-seed otherwise.

Remember, there were no seeds in the fourway contests.

It was 2005. He was indeed a 2 in 2013, and a 1 in 2006, 2010, and 2018.

Now remember that all nine Noble Niners were in the main field in 2010, and there were indeed 4 Noble Niners in the male half of the 2006 bracket.

He wasn't the only one in this match with a long-awaited "3", but Shenmue has always been cult and this is not how a 1-seed should perform.

Match 18: Neptune vs. Pokmon Trainer Red

Neptune 7341
Red 22403

I was thrilled that Neptune's nomination rally got her all the way to an 8-seed. Nippon Ichi is reliably great for quirky RPGs. (Play Phantom Brave.) But this was an absolute nightmare of a draw. Ah, well, that's what happens with these niche characters. You get them in and they stink it up. Like in 2013 when I got three Touhou characters into the bracket. Biggest embarrassment ever; Marisa couldn't even challenge a Generic Two-Name Guy while stuffing votes. I wasn't involved with the stuffing, but I was heavily involved with the nomination rally so I'll wear that fiasco as a badge of shame.
---

Wait, I really left BKSheikah in my sig all the way until Advokaiser dethroned him as reigning Guru champion? I need to come here more often.

Match 10: Zidane vs. Knuckles the Echidna

Zidane 12622
Knuckles 16597

Oh, wow, seeing the vote totals really does add context! Today's vote total is quite a bit higher than the previous day's, which suggests that Monika really was rallied; it just didn't make a difference. Ironically given that she was up against a Nintendo character, it was Square that got screwed over by this. Zidane wasn't winning this regardless, but it was thought to be a debatable match and it wasn't even close.

Knuckles got a better percentage against Zidane than he did in 2010 against Cecil Harvey Never Wins. Did Team Sonic boost, or is this just the seeming blanket deboost for any Square character whose game wasn't released between 1994 and 1997? Because seriously, FFVI/CT/FFVII were the only things that didn't look awful.

Match 11: Noctis Lucis Caelum vs. Master Hand

Noctis 12406
Master Hand 16817

Oh well never mind. I remember this match being a close one, but it clearly wasn't! Maybe I was thinking of the prediction percentage. 50.55% of brackets had this correct, the only Round 1 match to be within 51-49. (There was a Round 1 Legends match that had an even smaller spread in the Second Chance brackets, but all in good time.)

This was Master Hand's first appearance in an "open" Character Contest, even considering how huge the field was in 2013, but he appeared in 2005's Villains Contest and upset a Final Fantasy character in Round 1 then, too. Though the prediction percentages say this technically wasn't an upset!

Match 12: Monika vs. Wario

Monika 10360
Wario 18869

I haven't gotten around to playing DDLC yet. I kind of got spoiled to the big twists thanks to this contest, at least regarding Monika, but I still think I'm blind enough to include it in the revival of my Blind VNs Playthrough topic...just as soon as I finish PLvAA. And Zero Time Dilemma, because back when I initially did the VN series in 2013, I ended up getting my sister into the Zero Escape series as well and now she's pestering me to getting around to the third game. And probably also Spirit of Justice.

...Maybe I won't actually bother reviving the topic at all. I tend to write things up in advance in Word, and the formatting doesn't always translate well to GameFAQs posts. Anyway, DDLC is available on Steam, so I'll probably just stream my playthrough of that on Twitch. I forget how long I have to keep the Guru winner in my signature, but I'll put my Twitch handle in my signature when I'm clear.

Oh, right, the match! I'm convinced that this board doesn't actually dislike rallies; they dislike rallies that they don't control. Had Monika gone on a rampage, there'd definitely be salt, but I don't think it'd be anything like 2013 or 2015.

Match 13: Yoshi vs. Shantae

Yoshi 21617
Shantae 7490

So I'm going to have to disagree with Ulti here and say that this was a decent performance by Shantae. Let's look at the facts: Shantae's debut game was released in June 2002 for the Game Boy Color--roughly a year after the GBA was already out. And for 8 years, that was her only game. Her next game was originally for the Nintendo DSi. It got a non-Nintendo release the next year on iOS of all things, but the series didn't get released on a Playstation or XBox system until 2015 when both the second and third games got ported to PS4.

A pseudo-Nintendo platformer character breaking 25% on a solid midcarder from the Mario series? Sounds good to me. Banjo couldn't break 25% on one of Nintendo's non-platformer characters in 2010, and he already firmly had his hand in the Microsoft cookie jar. Granted Pikachu is overall stronger than Yoshi, as we'd see in two rounds, but nevertheless, this is a respectable performance under the circumstances.
---

Wait, I really left BKSheikah in my sig all the way until Advokaiser dethroned him as reigning Guru champion? I need to come here more often.

Part 3

Hawai'i -1
Boston College +2
Minnesota +5.5
TCU +1
Temple -3.5
Wisconsin +3
Baylor +4
---

Wait, I really left BKSheikah in my sig all the way until Advokaiser dethroned him as reigning Guru champion? I need to come here more often.

Well since the break is just a little bit displaced, I've gotta get part 3 up now.

Part 3:

Hawai'i Bowl: Louisiana Tech +1 @ Hawai'i
First Responder Bowl: Boston College +2 vs. Boise State
Quick Lane Bowl: Minnesota +5.5 vs. Georgia Tech
Cheez-It Bowl: TCU +1 vs. California
Independence Bowl: Duke +3.5 vs. Temple
Pinstripe Bowl: Miami-FL -3 vs. Wisconsin
Texas Bowl: Vanderbilt -4 vs. Baylor

Ah, finally, some interesting storylines! We have a pair of Group of Five teams favored over Power 5 teams. We have two teams that started the year in the Top 10 that fell all the way to 7-5. We have another pair of teams that had both been ranked early in the season before falling flat on their faces, one of which didn't even have the benefit of being in the preseason rankings! Which is also a game in which the opening line and the current line have different favorites. And then we have the Texas Bowl, pitting against each other two teams that I believe were projected to miss out on bowl season right up to the point that they won their regular season finales to improve to 6-6. (Vandy might have been considered once they beat Ole Miss to get to 5-6, if only because they would be at home against fellow 5-6 Tennessee.)
---

Wait, I really left BKSheikah in my sig all the way until Advokaiser dethroned him as reigning Guru champion? I need to come here more often.

swirIdude posted...

Can you add the vote results (percentage and vote totals) for each match? Most of us don't have those memorized for each match and it helps bring context to your analysis.

I considered it, but they'll be present in the wiki anyway and half the time I don't even bother looking up the exact numbers myself. Only when they're relevant.

I'm probably just rushing through some of these early ones, I'll admit. I'll edit them in to my matches 5-9 post, but there's not enough room in the match 1-4 post; I was bumping right up against the character limit.
---

Wait, I really left BKSheikah in my sig all the way until Advokaiser dethroned him as reigning Guru champion? I need to come here more often.

Match 5: Vivi vs. Yu Narukami

This match was pretty much business as usual. Vivi was coming off that stunning upset of Mario in CBIX, while Yu lost to...who, again? *looks it up* Ah, right, Shadow the Hedgehog. Huh, Kat was the third-place character in that match? I could've sworn she was a 26, not a 25, though that's probably because of how forgettable she was (seriously, she's what, a Vita exclusive? Or was it PSP?). I only remember that she was even in that contest because of "Who Would You Have Sex With?", because she was one of two characters that basically had a free pass to the semifinals because she was the only female in her division, and honestly hers was freer because the other was Marisa and the Touhou characters were being held back by the question of "are they actually underage or is it just ZUN's art style?"

Match 6: Victor Sullivan vs. Aya Brea

Sully was one of the Guru noms, right? I know Aqua was one, but I forget who the other was. Aqua got a 2, so if Sully is the other, the difference in their seeding should've made this completely obvious. Instead, the Gurus only picked Aya at an 11-5 rate. Which is still far better than the casuals, who outright favored Sully, but still. Not a great showing. Kind of understandable since Aya hasn't been relevant for over a decade, but still, we've seen her impress in these contests before. This shouldn't have been that surprising.

Match 7: Tidus vs. Donkey Kong

While the casuals were being caught off-guard by Aya > Victor, the Gurus were being burned by DK > Tidus. I got this right, because I never trust Tidus in a close match. I honestly forgot that Tidus came out on the winning end of his close match with Shadow in 2004, and as such, that said match was in round 1 in 2004 rather than being sandwiched between Shadow > Wario and Mario > Shadow in 2003.

But yeah, this was a matchup of two legendary chokers; I said before the match that they'd somehow find a way to both finish below 50%. So no, I'm not pretending that I was confident in my DK > Tidus pick. I felt that DK's rep was based more on older results, while Tidus has been declining every contest, but neither character would surprise me by losing. I just guessed right. Apparently, the casuals agreed with me.

Match 8: Leon Kennedy vs. Dragonborn

Leon got the doubling here, so it wasn't immediately evident that he was in trouble next round. Dragonborn had made round 2 in 2013, albeit against weak competition, and his game had done very well in 2015. Skyrim is a game that I expect to be a lot stronger than its main character, though, partly because Dragonborn is customizable. Honestly, Shepard being at least somewhat strong is a tribute to just how well-written Mass Effect is.

Match 9: Zero vs. Primrose

Primrose is from Octopath Traveler, right? I'd never even heard of that game until this contest. It's fairly new though so I'm not surprised. I didn't expect much and that's what we got. The advantage to not being the primary PCA-writer is that I can get away with occasionally writing something this short for a meaningless early match like this.

At least this time the feminine name actually turned out to be a female. I think there was one character that I hadn't heard of that I expected to be female and they weren't.
---

Wait, I really left BKSheikah in my sig all the way until Advokaiser dethroned him as reigning Guru champion? I need to come here more often.

Yes, if I needed to, I could make these a lot longer. But Ulti is still the gold standard, and besides most of what I'd talk about are stats. Which I still kind of did for Match 4, because honestly the fact that Ganondorf, a 4-seed, had the absolute best Round 1 prediction percentage, was the most interesting thing about that match.

I may get longer with more important matches.
---

Wait, I really left BKSheikah in my sig all the way until Advokaiser dethroned him as reigning Guru champion? I need to come here more often.

I've considered doing PCAs in the past, and late in this contest, I started thinking about doing it this time. (And given Ulti's official "the more the merrier" stance, I probably will go back and analyze previous contests as well. Possibly even some of the ones from before I joined Board 8, but the ones since then are higher priority.)

I'm not as good at this as Ulti, but I'm also less likely to go on a rant, and I'm probably better than some of these other first-timers!

Match 1: Dante vs. Cuphead

Not much to say here. I actually entertained the upset pre-contest because I'm more dialed in to the speedrunning segment of gaming and Cuphead was an indie darling and a recent one at that, but as soon as I learned that Dante had gotten a new game and it was a return to the pre-DmC days, that was enough to get me to reject that idea.

Still, as we'll see in a few divisions, I was hardly the only one to think that an indie darling could actually be worth something!

Match 2: Chloe Price vs. Lightning

Final Fantasy has taken on Pokmon-like fandom trends--the most recent installment is bashed, and everything else grows in stature as a result. The first contest that XV exists, Lightning finally gets a win, and in dominating fashion at that. Chloe Price was considered a near-lock for the bottom of the Raw X-Stats after this, in part because Ganondorf was the favorite to win the division and would be fed to Link, but also because no one believed that Lightning was as strong as she looked in this match. Little did we know that the entire bottom half of the bracket would be trapped behind Link > Zelda!

But back to Lightning looking strong in this match: Life Is Strange is super-niche, while Final Fantasy is, well, Final Fantasy. And while you could vote in only some of the matches if you knew what you were doing, if you voted the conventional way, you had to vote in every match of the day if you wanted to vote in any of them. That vastly favors Nintendo and Square, and to a lesser extent Capcom/Konami/Sega. You know, the five companies with a member of the Noble Nine.

Match 3: Spyro the Dragon vs. Chun-Li

Poor Spyro can't catch a break with these fighting game females, can he?

http://board8.wikia.com/wiki/(8)Spyro_the_Dragon_vs_(9)Morrigan_Aensland_2002

That was the match that created "TJF", which was discussed quite a bit this contest. Spyro got a bad draw regardless, however, because a lot of characters with similar old-school credentials were able to impress this year. Spyro? Stuck behind a fellow gaming icon. Chun-Li might not be the first female fighter, but she's the first to reach mainstream consciousness. They even make fun of it at one point; she has a line in one of the more recent games where she reminisces about being the only girl on the roster.

As a result, the strength that Crash and Bomberman showed later in this contest came as a surprise. I'll talk about them in good time though.

Match 4: Ganondorf vs. Neku Sakuraba

Geez, Neku, what happened to you? Yes, The World Ends With You has always been niche, but it's still a niche Square RPG. And Ganondorf is strong, but not that strong. This was the match with the highest prediction percentage? Higher than Zero-Primrose? Squall-Hat Kid? X-Isabelle? Sora-Ryo? Heck, even Kirby-Guile probably belongs on that list. I mean, obviously Ganondorf was winning this, but...the only theory I have is that Neku was a proven loser, while those other matches I listed mostly had first-timers as the low seeds (Ryo Hazuki being the exception). Given that I've already admitted to initially having Cuphead before being talked out of it, I guess it makes sense that more people had those upset picks than this one.
---

Wait, I really left BKSheikah in my sig all the way until Advokaiser dethroned him as reigning Guru champion? I need to come here more often.

I feel like pre-tiering them was a mistake, but I do love rankings.
---

Wait, I really left BKSheikah in my sig all the way until Advokaiser dethroned him as reigning Guru champion? I need to come here more often.

MZero11 posted...

I'm pretty sure he's the only user Leon has ignored so that's worth something

I highly doubt that but then again I suppose one needs to maximize targets to properly spew hate.

Not going to dignify the other poster by quoting him. He wants to rage against his own mental inferiority, let him. I'll be happy to follow Ulti's lead and embrace my inner Insufferable Genius.
---

Wait, I really left BKSheikah in my sig all the way until Advokaiser dethroned him as reigning Guru champion? I need to come here more often.

WarThaNemesis2 posted...

Nah, Golden Sun, Phoenix Wright, and Pokemon were like the holy trinity of hate by Something Awful.

Hate? I've seen LPs of Pokmon; I thought they were funny, and the only time I sensed any "hate" was when they were doing bad romhacks (Pokmon Quartz, anyone?)
---

Wait, I really left BKSheikah in my sig all the way until Advokaiser dethroned him as reigning Guru champion? I need to come here more often.

Wow, GlaDOS went out first?

Granted this was a pretty strong field, but at least let her outlast the Generic Full Name Guy! (I honestly spent most of this contest not remembering which was which among Victor Sullivan, John Marston, and James Sunderland.)
---

Wait, I really left BKSheikah in my sig all the way until Advokaiser dethroned him as reigning Guru champion? I need to come here more often.

Heh. As expected, with someone else putting out a ranking topic that pre-tiered the characters, this didn't garner much attention.
---

Wait, I really left BKSheikah in my sig all the way until Advokaiser dethroned him as reigning Guru champion? I need to come here more often.

WarThaNemesis2 posted...

I have no real opinion on Golden Sun (I think it's 'fine'), but going "BUT AN LP" in response to someone saying why they like something is pretty much an automatic loss.

I didn't see it that way. I had already identified myself as a fan, so I saw the recommendation as a question, not a defense.
---

Wait, I really left BKSheikah in my sig all the way until Advokaiser dethroned him as reigning Guru champion? I need to come here more often.

Logience posted...

TsunamiXXVIII posted...

trdl23 posted...

Logience posted...

Except isnt Golden Sun just, well...shit?

Nope. The Lost Age is still among my favorite RPGs.

Same. It's by no means perfect, but much like Pokmon RBY, its imperfections are charming. (By which I mean the fact that its RNG is mad exploitable, allowing for there to be tutorials on guaranteeing yourself rare drops. Man that's fun.)

You ever seen Quovaks Golden Sun LP?

Nope. I'll have to check it out. I know that the first game is very easy to sequence break; I managed a couple entirely accidentally on my first playthrough. (Imil before Kolima, skipping the Orb of Force entirely).

Actually so is the second, to the point that I'm still not sure if there is any agreement on what the intended route through Osenia is. I'll summarize the cases for each side.

Clockwise:
Madra, the last town you encounter on Indra, contains hints toward Alhafra, the first town you reach when going clockwise.
The only collectible in Mikasalla requires the Scoop Psyenergy, which is obtained in the Yampi Desert only along the path to Alhafra.
The route to Air's Rock and Garoh through Yampi Desert is one-way until you obtain the Sand Psyenergy, which isn't until much later, so you'd have to double back regardless rather than making a single loop if you started the other way.

Counterclockwise:
Other than that one Djinni, Mikasalla mostly just contains story hints towards Garoh, which in turn points you towards Air's Rock. Going clockwise, you'd encounter Garoh before the former and after the latter.
The level curve seems to support doing Air's Rock before Yampi Desert and Alhafra.

My conclusion: Neither is the "right" route. It was designed for either route to be viable; the game points you towards one route but rewards you for exploring and finding the other.
---

Wait, I really left BKSheikah in my sig all the way until Advokaiser dethroned him as reigning Guru champion? I need to come here more often.

trdl23 posted...

Logience posted...

Except isnt Golden Sun just, well...shit?

Nope. The Lost Age is still among my favorite RPGs.

Same. It's by no means perfect, but much like Pokmon RBY, its imperfections are charming. (By which I mean the fact that its RNG is mad exploitable, allowing for there to be tutorials on guaranteeing yourself rare drops. Man that's fun.)

The only real complaint I have about the first two games is that they are two games and not one. It's exactly the type of money-grubbing that Ulti always rails against.

The third game was a disappointment, because it has a stupidly hard difficulty spike, a stupidly easy way to overlevel for the bonus bosses right in front of the final boss's fight, and points of no return, which the first two games pointedly lacked.

To illustrate the importance of being able to backtrack to any point in the game, I actually found myself unable to reach the Dullahan fight on my first Lost Age save file, despite having Broken Seal transfer data. Do you know why that was? It was because I originally got stumped by the invisible floor puzzle at the end of Fuchin Temple, and instead used trial-and-error to stumble through Mogall Forest. And the Orb of Force is entirely optional in Broken Seal, or even to getting all 28 Djinn in that game, but failure to transfer it over to Lost Age will screw you out of at least one Djinni. I made sure to take my Broken Seal save file and backtrack to get the Orb of Force rather than starting a brand new game.

(Yes, I used the Japanese subtitle because the first game lacked one in America.)
---

Wait, I really left BKSheikah in my sig all the way until Advokaiser dethroned him as reigning Guru champion? I need to come here more often.

It's very simple. You submit your Top 25, and points are given out by where you ranked them--25 for #1, 24 for #2, and so on down. This is how rankings are made in college sports, and we're certainly a competition!

Obvious joke ballots will be discarded. Subtler oddities will be debated.

My own ballot:

1. Link
2. Cloud
3. Zelda
4. Mario
5. Samus
6. Solid Snake
7. Crono
8. Tifa
9. Sephiroth
10. Sonic the Hedgehog
11. Mega Man
12. Pikachu
13. Mega Man X
14. Bowser
15. Alucard
16. Luigi
17. Auron
18. Ganondorf
19. Pokmon Trainer Red
20. Kirby
21. Yoshi
22. Vivi
23. Mewtwo
24. Ryu
25. Big Boss
---

Wait, I really left BKSheikah in my sig all the way until Advokaiser dethroned him as reigning Guru champion? I need to come here more often.

MetalmindStats posted...

Hello everyone, and welcome to the project where we rank all the CBX characters by contest strength! This time, well be ranking the Midcarders, comprised of the following characters:

2B, Amaterasu, Bayonetta, Chun-Li, Crash Bandicoot, Fox McCloud, Frog, Geralt, Kefka, Knuckles the Echidna, Kratos, Leon Kennedy, Magus, Princess Peach, Sub-Zero, Terra Branford, Tidus, Vincent Valentine, and Yuna

Before we get going, heres the Rules, as always:

1. If at all possible, please number your rankings (ex. 1 for the strongest character, etc.) - it makes your ranks much clearer, allowing me to tabulate them much easier.
2. Rankings of indirect strength are preferred, but direct rankings will be allowed, especially in tandem with indirect rankings.
3. Stick to one ranking per tier (or one ranking each of indirect and direct strength if you choose to separate them) - dont try to sway the standings with multiple accounts.
4. Youre always welcome to submit retroactive rankings if you missed one or more days, as well as change your existing rankings if so inclined, up until this project ends.
5. And most importantly, be nice to each other, even people you dont like! Discussion is welcomed and encouraged, but this isnt ultimately meant to be an overly serious project, so I dont want to see any knock-down, drag-out arguments developing in here about how someones not ranking by the stats or whatever else - use your discretion about this.

Heres the spreadsheet that Ill be using to record data for this project: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1s6rNxUlXY3kpo9Ru-Pyw9CjtGBIRasJKiUv6a7cEgEw/edit?usp=sharing

And here's our Board 8 Wiki page, where you can find the list of tiers, among other things: http://board8.wikia.com/wiki/Ranking_the_CBX_Characters_by_Contest_Strength

Heres the Midcarders listed in an easy copy-paste format:

2B
Amaterasu
Bayonetta
Chun-Li
Crash
Fox
Frog
Geralt
Kefka
Knuckles
Kratos
Leon
Magus
Peach
Sub-Zero
Terra
Tidus
Vincent
Yuna

As for yesterday's results, here's our current ranking of the Upper Midcarders:

1. Zero
2. Auron
3. Aerith (tie)
3. Squall (tie)
5. Red
6. Ryu
7. Mewtwo
8. Charizard
9. Dante
10. Sora
11. Donkey Kong
12. Big Boss

There was just enough dissension on Zero topping the Upper Midcarders to move him down - sorry, Anagram and darkx. In terms of dissension, see also: our first tie, between Aerith and Squall, with Squall having multiple rankings at first and at last but an above-average mean nonetheless. Also worth noting: TPLink's Near-Elite ranking shifted Mega Man X above Sonic, Kirby above Ganondorf, and almost did the same for Vivi above Alucard. No other thoughts tonight because I'm running behind in getting this topic up.

Finally, see the next post for an announcement regarding our schedule moving forward.

Horrendous as expected. Guess I'll just have to do my poll as well.

11. 2B
1. Amaterasu
8. Bayonetta
5. Chun-Li
17. Crash
10. Fox
18. Frog
2. Geralt
3. Kefka
9. Knuckles
14. Kratos
16. Leon
7. Magus
15. Peach
13. Sub-Zero
4. Terra
19. Tidus
6. Vincent
12. Yuna
---

Wait, I really left BKSheikah in my sig all the way until Advokaiser dethroned him as reigning Guru champion? I need to come here more often.

Nanis23 posted...

Unfortunately for fans of those niche characters like Geno and Isaac (Hi!), when you compare them to high-profile reveals like Ryu, Cloud and Joker then they really don't stand out
So yeah I don't believe he will make it in (even if you don't believe that Spirits/Assist Trophies deconfirm a character)

Geno is the type of niche character that can take down casualbait fodder, but otherwise needs to have an equally niche opponent. Vyse, our former fodder line, finally got his win against Laharl, who in turn got his against Neku. In both cases, the larger niche won out. We all thought we could follow patterns and picked Neku to win his first match in 2013, but for once, the age of this website backfired on the older character. Sure, Neku easily pasted the casualbait, but against the actual threat, well, apparently Atlus/2011 > Square Enix/2008. LUL Squeenix, all hail Atlus.

Hbthebattle posted...

Isaac is the most recognizable GS character, and if anyone gets in Smash it'll probably be him.

Yeah, because first installment always wins, and those twits at Camelot decided to break the first game into two separate games. If they had crammed both games into a single cartridge somehow, Felix would rightfully be the strongest of the heroes, as the one that is "main" for longer, and I wouldn't doubt that the Proxian rogues gallery of antiheroes would get a rep, maybe Saturos.

CAMELOT! GET OFF YOUR FAT ASSES AND GIVE US THE FOURTH GAME! And make it less like the third game, more like the first two. Farming an RNG is fun.
---

Wait, I really left BKSheikah in my sig all the way until Advokaiser dethroned him as reigning Guru champion? I need to come here more often.

Frisco Bowl: Ohio -2.5
Gasparilla Bowl: USF +3
Bahamas Bowl: FIU +6
Potato Bowl: Western Michigan +12.5
Birmingham Bowl: Memphis -3.5
Armed Forces Bowl: Army -3.5
Dollar General Bowl: Buffalo -2

Was tempted to take SDSU even though I'm pretty sure I have Ohio in Bowl Mania, because that should be a close game and I could definitely see it being similar to the Camellia Bowl. And yeah, even with how USF fell apart late, it seems weird that they're underdogs in what amounts to a home game (technically it's at Tropicana Field, but come on, it's still Tampa-St. Pete.)
---

Wait, I really left BKSheikah in my sig all the way until Advokaiser dethroned him as reigning Guru champion? I need to come here more often.

trdl23 posted...

Ulti_PCA posted...

Also, level with me. Are the games any good?

Yes. Yes yes yes yes. God, yes.

With the shitshow that Square has become, Atlus has become the last bastion of good JRPGs from a major developer (though I don't play DQ so maybe that franchise hasn't become garbage?). However, you have to really embrace the fact that it's 50% JRPG dungeon-crawler, 50% Japanese high-school simulator.

You've obviously been playing the wrong Atlus games, then. Try playing something from the mainline Shin Megami Tensei instead of the Persona sub-series. IV is pretty good, and Strange Journey is outstanding. No high school simulator to be found. Strange Journey has you as a member of the military, part of a task force sent to investigate some strange dimensional rift that has opened in Antarctica.

Also there was a non-SMT Atlus game that I've frequently hyped up, goes by the name Stella Glow?
---

Wait, I really left BKSheikah in my sig all the way until Advokaiser dethroned him as reigning Guru champion? I need to come here more often.

Logience posted...

Oh Christ, Peace Walker actually gave The Boss a name? Man, that sounds silly.

Also, Im pretty sure its Ivan Adamska, if my memories of MGS1 are accurate.

"Adamska" was MGS3.
---

Wait, I really left BKSheikah in my sig all the way until Advokaiser dethroned him as reigning Guru champion? I need to come here more often.

Whoo, finally all caught up again!

And it turned into the usual angry ranting nonsense. Seriously, SJWs making "controversies" out of nothing isn't worth it. (Though honestly I'm surprised it took them this long to object to "Baby It's Cold Outside", which has always been Date Rape: The Christmas Carol. Don't @ me.)

So instead, let's discuss the whole Shantae kerfuffle! I honestly didn't realize that Shantae was still supposed to be considered "obscure". Remember that hypothetical contest we were talking about where only characters who couldn't have possibly made the first Contest because they didn't exist yet are eligible? Yeah, she wouldn't be eligible (barely; her debut game came out in June of 2002). If not for handhelds getting looked down upon I would've expected her to have that same Bomberman/Crash/Spyro type of "strength". Hell, even through the beginning of that write-up I didn't expect Shantae to get trashed; breaking 25% on Yoshi when you're a third-party platformer character that's largely been exclusive to Nintendo platforms (first game still is a GBC exclusive; later games eventually got ported to PS4 and iOS but only the most recent game debuted as multiplatform) is, I think, a good performance.

No one knows who or what a Shantae even is, and we're supposed to believe she could beat Noctis, Dragonborn, Aya Brea, Quiet, Gordon Freeman, or John Marston in a 1v1 contest match?

I'll give you Aya and Gordon. Maybe Dragonborn. But in your own words, no one knows who or what a John Marston is. And Noctis and Quiet? I'd take Shantae against Master Hand and Aqua!
---

Wait, I really left BKSheikah in my sig all the way until Advokaiser dethroned him as reigning Guru champion? I need to come here more often.

Oh, right, part 2 would start...Wednesday, not tomorrow. There's no bowl game tonight, I guess because Mondays are considered an NFL day just like Sundays.

Part 2 lines:

Frisco Bowl: Ohio -2.5 vs. San Diego State
Gasparilla Bowl: Marshall -3 @ South Florida
Bahamas Bowl: Florida International +6 vs. Toledo
Famous Idaho Potato Bowl: BYU -12.5 vs. Western Michigan
Birmingham Bowl: Wake Forest +3.5 vs. Memphis
Armed Forces Bowl: Houston +3.5 vs. Army
Dollar General Bowl: Buffalo -2 vs. Troy
---

Wait, I really left BKSheikah in my sig all the way until Advokaiser dethroned him as reigning Guru champion? I need to come here more often.

Ack. I accidentally put the wrong line for the Camellia Bowl; Georgia Southern was the favorite, which means that EMU actually covered. While I doubt that such a tight line would cause anyone to flip their prediction (i.e. I expect most people would pick the same thing they would if picking straight-up), I will honor picks for either side as being correct.
---

Wait, I really left BKSheikah in my sig all the way until Advokaiser dethroned him as reigning Guru champion? I need to come here more often.

Okay, updated. For the first time since the last Guru Contest.
---

Wait, I really left BKSheikah in my sig all the way until Advokaiser dethroned him as reigning Guru champion? I need to come here more often.

The first one was a conscious decision, not a bug.
---

"Someday I'll catch up, and then you'll all be surprised!"
BKSheikah has the power. He is the one.

Underleveled posted...

Waldorf: Link won another contest, huh?

Statler: Better link me away from that site! Doh ho ho ho!

---

"Someday I'll catch up, and then you'll all be surprised!"
BKSheikah has the power. He is the one.

MAX on Cloud/Zelda winner
---

"Someday I'll catch up, and then you'll all be surprised!"
BKSheikah has the power. He is the one.

Ulti_PCA posted...

Division 1 Round 1: (2)Leon Kennedy vs (15)Dragonborn

(2)Leon Kennedy - 17881 [68.68%]
(15)Dragonborn - 8156 [31.32%]
Total Votes - 26037
Prediction Percentage - 72.69%

The most boring matches to analyze in these things are the non-entertaining blowouts, but they do at least give me a mental break while writing. These types of matches are always too big a blowout to be interesting, but not enough of a blowout to be interesting either. They're just kind of.... there.

This match was never going to be in doubt, the end. There's almost nothing more to be said here, outside of Leon's hilarious percentage drop. At the beginning of this match, he had a tripling. By the end of the match he was only able to preserve a doubling. Right then and there we should have known what was coming. Do you guys think Leon was sitting around enjoying himself a little too much during this match and didn't bother taking DK seriously? I do.

Then again, there wasn't much reason to suspect anything. While no one plays Skyrim for the main character, that game is really, really strong for a western title and Dragonborn did win a match last time. He even beat Yuna for second place in round 2, too. So Leon getting almost 70% on the guy was pretty impressive despite the percentage loss, and there was absolutely no way to know what DK was about to do.

And I don't want anyone trying to tell me there was. The guru/oracle/BOP numbers are all public, folks. As John Gruden would say, hindsight is 50-50.

I won't, then. Instead, I'll remind you that Dragonborn's win in 2013 was over Tom Nook and Pyramid Head, and that beating out Yuna for second place isn't nearly as impressive when Tifa is the first-place character. It's kind of like that "debated" match that "ruined" Expert Challenge pickers, Aerith > Hero > Rinoa. I really can't believe that both you and Zen called that an upset. 1v1, Rinoa might beat Hero--probably would, in fact--but she stood no chance with Aerith there.
---

"Someday I'll catch up, and then you'll all be surprised!"
BKSheikah has the power. He is the one.

Alcorn State +8
Tulane -3.5
North Texas +7.5
Arizona State +4.5
Georgia Southern +2.5
Appalachian State -6.5
UAB -2.5
---

"Someday I'll catch up, and then you'll all be surprised!"
BKSheikah has the power. He is the one.

Bowl Season Part 1

Celebration Bowl: Alcorn State +8 vs. North Carolina A&T
Cure Bowl: Tulane -3.5 vs. Louisiana-Lafayette
New Mexico Bowl: North Texas +7.5 vs. Utah State
Las Vegas Bowl: Arizona State +4.5 vs. Fresno State
Camellia Bowl: Georgia Southern +2.5 vs. Eastern Michigan
New Orleans Bowl: Middle Tennessee State +6.5 vs. Appalachian State
Boca Raton Bowl: Northern Illinois +2.5 vs. UAB
---

"Someday I'll catch up, and then you'll all be surprised!"
BKSheikah has the power. He is the one.

Bowser
---

"Someday I'll catch up, and then you'll all be surprised!"
BKSheikah has the power. He is the one.

Oh right I was supposed to put up the lines today. Eh, I'll get to it later.
---

"Someday I'll catch up, and then you'll all be surprised!"
BKSheikah has the power. He is the one.

Snake
---

"Someday I'll catch up, and then you'll all be surprised!"
BKSheikah has the power. He is the one.

Hbthebattle posted...

Turns out charging your Limit for 16 years allows you to do some amazing things.

---

"Someday I'll catch up, and then you'll all be surprised!"
BKSheikah has the power. He is the one.

If Zelda wins:

Link with 63.9%

If Cloud wins:

Link with 60.6%
---

"Someday I'll catch up, and then you'll all be surprised!"
BKSheikah has the power. He is the one.

Ulti_PCA posted...

Division 1 Round 1: (3)Vivi vs (14)Yu Narukami

(3)Vivi - 19488 [74.89%]
(14)Yu Narukami - 6534 [25.11%]
Total Votes - 26022
Prediction Percentage - 77.23%

I would love to go on a massive rant about Persona fans being among the worst in all of gaming for this match, but I'm actually not going to do that for this PCA. Hop over to Joker/Claire if you want to know why. I was going to, but not anymore. I have a good reason for it, which I'm saving. Plus I haven't actually played a Persona yet, only dealt with the fanbase online during these contests, so for all I know maybe they have good reason for being the ultimate weebs.

Not that Yu had a prayer of winning this match anyway. Overall, Squaresoft would end up having a laughably terrible contest, and this includes Old Square, New Square, and everything in between. One of the only exceptions, somehow, is Vivi. He's retained the magic he's always had, and he came out with a purpose this year. I know he had Ganon's help last time, but him beating Mario was clearly no fluke. People absolutely adore Vivi, and he's clearly going to be a character that retains his upper midcard strength no matter how far Square falls..... and man are they falling off a cliff fast. Turns out almost two decades of bad PR and being largely mediocre will do that.

The obvious comparison here was between Vivi and Ganon, but they got similar scores against fairly equal levels of fodder. The only difference between them was prediction percentage, which we didn't actually have until halfway through the contest this year. So at the time this match happened, Vivi and Ganon looked like equals and it could have gone either way. We didn't know until later Ganon was the clear favorite, Breath of the Wild or no.

How Allen missed on prediction percentages and stats beyond registered voter bonus is beyond me, by the way. That's pretty basic stuff that we all want.

I've never played a Persona game either, but I've played other SMT games. They're pretty good RPGs imo.
---

"Someday I'll catch up, and then you'll all be surprised!"
BKSheikah has the power. He is the one.

Logience posted...

UltimaterializerX posted...

Why did I ever block you Log

Because I bitched and called you a coward who didnt want to admit Wind Waker was good in PM two years ago? /mrliteral

But seriously, this franchise just triggers something really personal and really stupid in me that nothing else is capable of working up, how it makes me feel like the only reason I ever liked this series was because I was always cheating at it, and 13 and 14 denying me that ability, combined with how goddamn infuriating its characters are, just gets me thinking that I never really enjoyed this series that I used to call my favorite franchise, and that gets me so irrationally angry.

Also, @Hbthebattle you should be recognizing me by now.

I think we've discovered the root of the problem.

Not that I'm one to talk; I save-stated like crazy in FE4-6 (since emulators are the only way I can play them) and I use Casual for all repeat playthroughs of FE13+ because the only reason to replay them instead of continuing on one save file is to grind S-Supports and Parent/Child A-Supports.

garetha200 posted...

Yeah, The Blazing Blade is an extremely generic name too. Thankfully they had the good idea to hide it when it came over to the west.

Also, My Units need to stop being in Fire Emblem. They're never interesting characters and they always have broken stats.

Agreed, but I doubt they'll ever go away. Customizable protagonists are the big thing in WRPGs, and IS is honestly trying to appeal to its international fanbase, so they're going to keep it up. Not to mention the whole "Waifu Emblem" thing.

But since I'm here, let's talk about my vision for how they could implement a My Unit in the FE4 remake without completely losing the plot. I'll put it in spoilers to preserve FE4's plot twists, even though anyone who's played FEH has probably already been spoiled.

You create the character at the start of the save file, but throughout Sigurd's story, they remain as invisible as the FE7 Tactician. Addressed occasionally, but never on-screen.

After the capture of Lubeck Castle, Oifeye, Shannan, and My Unit are sent away with the children. Of those three characters, My Unit is the youngest. The reason the character you created was never seen during Sigurd's story is because that's their appearance after the time skip.

From there, things proceed as per usual for a My Unit. They can S-Support with any character of the opposite gender in Seliph's story, even the ones that can't S-Support anyone else. Optimally there'd even be two separate S-Supports for F!My Unit/Finn, one for if he S-Supported in Sigurd's story and one for if he didn't.

But if IS puts one in at all, they'll probably make it able to support with any character from either generation. And somehow not age at all over the timeskip.
---

"Someday I'll catch up, and then you'll all be surprised!"
BKSheikah has the power. He is the one.

creativename posted...

Team Rocket Elite posted...

lordjers posted...

It'd be interesting to see Mass Effect smashing Ultima just to expose the claim of people not playing new games is BS (though it'd be kinda sad).

Are we sure Mass Effect wins that one? >_>

I uh, cant tell to what degree youre joking. But Id presume Ultima would be very weak on this site.

It was before the time of most here, and from an era where the people that come to this site were all about consoles.

Oh yeah, I completely forgot to include old forgotten franchises like that in my mock bracket. I'm sure the classic gamers would be able to get a 16-seed for one of the old Sierra franchises.
---

"Someday I'll catch up, and then you'll all be surprised!"
BKSheikah has the power. He is the one.

LusterSoldier posted...

OrangeCrush980 posted...

Series contest could be fun. With how much this site loves Smash Bros it might be able to challenge Legend of Zelda now.

Pokemon would also be a lot stronger today than we saw in 2006 - a top 3 series in strength now.

With an expanded field of 64 game series, we could fit in some more series that were introduced after 2006 such as Mass Effect, The Witcher, and Dark Souls.

Yeah, you've sold me. How about a mock bracket?

1) The Legend of Zelda
16) F-Zero

8) The Witcher
9) Warcraft

5) Ace Attorney
12) Chrono

4) Fallout
13) Tekken

3) Mega Man
14) Final Fantasy Tactics

6) Persona
11) Dragon Quest

7) Halo
10) Portal

2) Metroid
15) Banjo

1) Super Mario Bros.
16) Capcom vs.

8) Half-Life
9) Mortal Kombat

5) Resident Evil
12) Danganronpa

4) Dark Souls
13) Suikoden

3) Castlevania
14) Pokmon Mystery Dungeon

6) Elder Scrolls
11) Mario Kart

7) Bayonetta
10) Nier

2) Kingdom Hearts
15) Super Robot Wars

1) Final Fantasy
16) Splatoon

8) Tales of...
9) Donkey Kong Country

5) Street Fighter
12) Dragon Age

4) Fire Emblem
13) BioShock

3) Mass Effect
14) Phantasy Star

6) Assassin's Creed
11) The Sims

7) Devil May Cry
10) Soul Calibur

2) Super Smash Bros.
15) Harvest Moon

1) Pokmon
16) Shin Megami Tensei

8) Grand Theft Auto
9) Star Fox

5) Paper Mario
12) Five Nights at Freddy's

4) Metal Gear
13) Zero Escape

3) Mega Man X
14) Shenmue

6) God of War
11) Yoshi's Island

7) Kirby
10) Mother

2) Sonic the Hedgehog
15) Silent Hill

Chrono missed the 2006 bracket entirely, probably because a lot of people forget that Chrono Trigger isn't technically a standalone game. I feel that an 12-seed is more than fair. And I know FFT is vastly underseeded but I feel like subseries will often be forgotten; if not for the fact that Mario Kart was in the 2006 bracket, I probably wouldn't have even considered multiple series for the same set of characters (outside of series like Smash that are crossovers between existing series).

Also, if The Last of Us II comes out before the bracket drops, feel free to slot TLoU somewhere in the 7-10 range. Since Zelda is the number one overall seed, that means F-Zero is the one that would be bumped entirely by such a development.
---

"Someday I'll catch up, and then you'll all be surprised!"
BKSheikah has the power. He is the one.

Logience posted...

TsunamiXXVIII posted...

Logience posted...

TsunamiXXVIII posted...

Logience posted...

garetha200 posted...

Birthright had a really bad and generic story and it was ridiculously easy, to the point that Corrin Saizo Ryoma or any other good unit could easily solo the maps. Conquest had a little more challenge so I preferred that one, didn't play the last one since I heard it was terrible.

You shouldnt be preferring any of the FE14s. They should all be destroyed equally.

I mean, you're not wrong that FE14 was a mess. You just need to learn to count.

I know how to count. I just refuse to ever call any of these games by their proper name. Their names are my trigger words.

You have issues.

Those names are just cringe-inducingly generic. They sound like something that belongs to some generic low-budget RPG that everyone forgets exists after a year.

Okay, now that is a criticism I have to agree with. It's like they're playing Fantasy Buzzword Bingo.

Then again, a lot of the older titles had fantasy buzzwords too. It just wasn't as blatant.
---

"Someday I'll catch up, and then you'll all be surprised!"
BKSheikah has the power. He is the one.

Logience posted...

TsunamiXXVIII posted...

Logience posted...

garetha200 posted...

Birthright had a really bad and generic story and it was ridiculously easy, to the point that Corrin Saizo Ryoma or any other good unit could easily solo the maps. Conquest had a little more challenge so I preferred that one, didn't play the last one since I heard it was terrible.

You shouldnt be preferring any of the FE14s. They should all be destroyed equally.

I mean, you're not wrong that FE14 was a mess. You just need to learn to count.

I know how to count. I just refuse to ever call any of these games by their proper name. Their names are my trigger words.

You have issues.

garetha200 posted...

Yes Genealogy! The best, most complete FE game ever. I really like FE8 and FE9 as well, but I'll readily admit they don't come anywhere near the scope and greatness of FE4.

Yeah, and it's probably the next one up for remake.

I'm a bit afraid of what will happen. As much as people like Logience hate on FE13 for the Avatar mechanic, that was originally from the FE3 remake, so it's not out of the question that they'll put one in FE17 or whichever number ends up being the remake of 4. (16 has already been announced so it's not that one.) If done properly, they could do something really amazing with that, but I doubt they'll do it justice so I hope they just skip it even though FE4 was the one that introduced the child character mechanic.
---

"Someday I'll catch up, and then you'll all be surprised!"
BKSheikah has the power. He is the one.