Lurker > TsunamiXXVIII

Match 127: Samus Aran vs. Tifa Lockheart

Samus 17343
Tifa 12085

Back in 2006, this matchup was the first semifinal of the Female Bracket, and in that match Tifa became the first outsider to break 49.5% against a member of the Noble Nine. This match wasn't expected to be that close, however, in spite of Tifa's newfound power, as Samus was thought to be able to counter it with her own "hentai factor". Tifa made an early push, but ran out of steam quickly and at times looked to be at risk of falling under 40% a few hours in, but rebounded to push up to 41.5% in the middle of the match. Eventually, an equilibrium was reached at 59%-41%, staying within 0.1% of this figure for the final 7.5 hours of the match.

Match 128: Mario vs. Sephiroth

Mario 17437
Sephiroth 11993

Mario was the clear favorite here, but we at Board 8 are a sentimental bunch, and when a match history is lopsided, we're always a bit hesitant to feel entirely comfortable picking against history. But we did it, naturally. It was just too obvious. This runs Mario's all-time record against Sephiroth to, depending on how you're counting, either 1-4 or 1-6. Or possibly only 1-2, if you're one of those annoying purists who only ever counts 1v1 results. I generally count the 3-way and 4-way results, but I find it easier when compiling all-time records to just ignore the 2006 Battle Royale, as it only runs up Link's scores, and to a lesser extent Cloud's, while dragging down the other four entrants' records. Mario managed to pick up 8 head-to-head losses in a two-day span. It's just not worth it.

A number of people objected to Sephiroth being the Noble Niner to be sent to the main bracket when he probably wasn't the weakest of them. The reasoning given, that Cloud and Sephiroth are the only two Noble Niners to come from the same game, was sound, but it still seems like a shitty thing to do to the guy who basically had a contest designed for his benefit alone so as to hasten the process of removing the strongest characters from the main bracket. I wonder what sort of gimmick the next bracket will have. The idea of the Legends Bracket was pretty cool, but the execution kind of sucked in that we never completely finished out the main bracket. Theoretically we could've just done another Tournament of Champions like we did in 2005, because we have had exactly two non-Link champions since 2006, but, uh...yeah, no one really wants those two in a Tournament of Champions. Most of us don't want the CBIX champ in our bracket at all. TBH, however, I think a gimmick-free bracket would be better. This contest showed that most of the Noble Nine are actually capable of producing interesting matches now. Yes, Link will still win in the end, as he always does, but the road to the end cold be very interesting.

Now watch as we end up with 256 characters, still all 1v1s but stuffing the whole thing into 63 days. 8 matches a day for the first two rounds (12-hour matches and four matches at once), 4 a day for the next two (switching to 24-hour matches), 2 a day for the next two, and only going to 1 a day for the final two rounds.
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Yeah, yeah, I know.
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True story: Despite being 0-8, Akron is mathematically alive for a bowl bid due to the fact that they can still win the MAC (which would override their losing record as per the precedent set by North Texas in 2001).

For starters, they'd have to go 4-0 to stand even a remote chance of winning their division, what with the co-leaders yet to play each other. Luckily, Akron still has to play both of them as well so they'd definitely get the tiebreakers at 4-4. From there it's a pretty straight shot--Kent State has enough games left against the opposite division that they could win their lone remaining divisional game and still wind up 3-5 in conference, and if they do so, Buffalo would only need to not win any cross-division games to also end up 3-5.

I mean, obviously this isn't going to happen. But it's still hilarious that an 0-8 team is still mathematically alive to win their division, and as such, could wind up as a 5-8 conference champion.

Man, what a train wreck the MAC is this year, especially the East.
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Back from SG Live
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Given that they're currently first among "Also Receiving Votes" and we're guaranteed a couple of ranked teams losing due to them facing each other, a win at Memphis (admittedly, they're an underdog to do so) would almost certainly give Tulane their first Top 25 appearance since their undefeated 1998 season. Should this come to pass, the American would join the SEC, ACC, and Pac-12 as the only conferences whose member schools have all been ranked at least once this decade--Connecticut would take over the title of longest drought in the conference, and they're only 9 years removed from a Fiesta Bowl appearance.

(The Big 12, of course, is missing Kansas, the only Power 5 team with zero bowl appearances this decade--though ironically their last ranking was more recent than their last bowl appearance, courtesy of a 5-0 start to the 2009 season that turned into a 5-7 season. As for the Big Ten? Well, let's just say that the last time a school from the state of Indiana other than Notre Dame was ranked was when the 2008 Ball State Cardinals made it through the regular season undefeated before losing both the MAC Championship Game and their bowl game. Purdue, at least, had been ranked the previous year; Indiana was last ranked in 1994, the only Power 5 team still waiting for their first Top 25 appearance of the 21st Century.)
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...I forgot about it again. Damnit. I swear I won't neglect this forever.
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The number of undefeated teams is low enough now that there's room for all of them in the top 25 without having to forgo the obvious 1-loss inclusions.

Will they all get in? Doubtful. Voters still put too much emphasis on preseason expectations, so teams with weird losses get excused. At this point in the season, I feel like you shouldn't be ranked ahead of a team that beat you--there are enough teams still undefeated or with losses only to undefeated teams, or even with losses only to those teams, to discredit teams with losses to scrubs.

This philosophy discredits most of the Pac-12, however. Washington looks like they deserve their ranking, but they lost to Cal, who lost to Arizona State, who also looks like they ought to be ranked but they lost to Colorado, who lost to both Arizona and Air Force, the former of which lost to Hawaii, which, uh...lost to Washington. Huh. Didn't even realize that yesterday's Arizona > Colorado result closed a loss circle. USC and Utah are both out via a simple triangle with BYU.

Fun fact, though: UNC is 3-3, losing games by 6 points, 3 points, and 1 point. All three of the teams that beat them are still undefeated. In my mind, this is as good a reason as any to not only give Wake Forest (the 6-point win) the benefit of the doubt (I have them 14th in my methodology), but also to not worry about conference and say that Appalachian State deserves to be in the conversation for the Group of 5 bid (at least for now; an undefeated Boise State, SMU, or Memphis, or even a 1-loss Tulane, easily beats them).
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...Wow. I get real gung-ho for a moment and then I get so lackadaisical that I lose my VN topic. Sorry about that. I'll finish this when I get back from my vacation.
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Match 126: Sonic the Hedgehog vs. Auron

Sonic 15688
Auron 13194

Sonic was the only other Noble Niner besides Crono who could conclusively be proven to have been considered an underdog in the initial brackets (although doing the usual "retention rate" stats voodoo on Pikachu's percentage suggests that Mega Man might have been as well, as over 19.5% of brackets picked Pikachu > Mega Man while just barely above 12% had Pikachu winning the division and then losing to Mega Man in that match), but unlike the 50-50 split that the second chance gave on Crono-Bowser, Sonic was a heavy favorite in the second chance. That's not surprising, because Division 6 had a number of seemingly bigger threats than Auron, chief among them the legitimate best character in the game that had rallied its way to the BGE3 title in 2015 having a path of characters exactly the right strength to build a rally run on. I said it before and I'll say it again: too strong a first opponent will kill a rally before it starts; too weak a first opponent and there's nothing to build momentum off of. Undertale in 2015 hit the sweet spot more perfectly than any other, although Draven certainly acted like he was in that sweet spot. (It's easy to forget, given how large the comeback he needed to make, that Draven was legitimately the favorite against Jak and Chie.) This doesn't just extend to the rallies that made it all the way, either; Charizard in 2010 had a similar path and it carried him to a surprising division title. You could probably include SMRPG's run to the 2015 semifinals as well, although that was sort of a weird case in that we here on Board 8 were always wise to the fact that its biggest obstacle to making Round 4 was getting out of the first round; we just didn't expect it to make it two rounds deeper.

An interesting fact about this match is that if Rivalry Rumble is counted, Sonic now has a 2-1 record against two separate non-NNers, having avenged his second-place finish to Auron in Round 2 of 2008 first by knocking him out the next round and then by winning this match and avenging the eventual loss to Kirby in 2008 in both 2010 and 2011. Of course, Rivalry Rumble creates a lot of dicey situations because Cloud/Sephiroth was the only team of two Noble Niners, giving almost all of the Noble Nine a technical non-NN loss. Sonic's was to Bowser (with Mario), which becomes another one that he's since avenged (2013), giving him as many avenged as not avenged (L-Block in 2007, Mewtwo in 2013, Zelda this year.)
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_Dog_ posted...

TC, you better save your analyses from the previous thread.

Yeah, I already checked to make sure they were all up there.
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Because of "hentai rallies"? ...No, probably not. That was just a fun meme on the board, explaining why female characters seemed to be overperforming all over the place, but I doubt they really made any difference in any match except for Tifa's win over Mega Man X. Because of Breath of the Wild? Far more likely. But there's something else that can't be ignored, and that's that the Metal Gear series is, sadly, seemingly dead. And I say "sadly" despite having never actually played one of them for myself. It's just not my genre, which saddens me because everything I've heard about them is that the story is amazing and I love games with strong stories. The movie critic Roger Ebert was once criticized for saying that video games weren't art, although he clarified what he meant and it wasn't nearly as bad as what it was made out to be. The Metal Gear Solid games, especially around the time of 4, were also criticized for largely being movies with a bit of gameplay tacked on, due to the large number of unskippable cutscenes. So, uh...why not actually make movies out of them? Give the superhero movies some competition for the summer blockbusters? This should be a no-brainer. But with the rift between Konami and Kojima, it seems unlikely that much of anything will ever get done, since the license for the series still belongs to the former. I honestly didn't even realize that there'd been another Metal Gear spinoff in 2018, nor that there was apparently a board game released here in 2019?

That said, even without Kojima's input, Konami could still easily release new Metal Gear Solid games and have them be actually good. Without spoiling any of the twists of MGS V, it's the end of the prequel series and the final scene is set in 1995, the year that the original Metal Gear took place. To me, that just screams "Metal Gear remake" for a hypothetical MGS6, especially since the fact that the Metal Gears got more and more complex with each passing game released means that the technology suddenly takes a massive step backwards between 1984 (MGSV, released in 2015) and 1995 (Metal Gear, released in 1987). Not to mention that pesky bit about the Soviet Union still existing when it didn't in the real 1995, though I think they officially stated that in the Metal Gear timeline, the Soviet Union legitimately doesn't fall during the 1990s (Metal Gear 2 was also released prior to the fall of the Soviet Union and is set in 1999). Updating the MSX2 games to modern hardware seems like it'd be a great idea. Someone get Konami on this.

But back to the match at hand: did Snake's series's status really play a part? It honestly might have. Snake lost for good the moment he ran into another Nintendo character, after beating on Square and Sega characters. Nintendo knows how to take care of their flagship franchises, and it shows with their consistently strong performances in these contests.
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Match 125: Solid Snake vs Zelda

Snake 14350
Zelda 14535

The registered and non-registered voters went different directions on this match, but the registered voter advantage for Snake was too small to overcome Zelda's unregistered support. Again, which one was which surprises me not at all; Snake is probably one of Board 8's favorite Noble Niners, because he was almost as big a surprise member as Crono at the start, he took a while to get his first win against a fellow member, and then once he got off the schneid he almost immediately started pulling off all sorts of crazy upsets against the upper echelon--first beating Sephiroth in the 2006 Battle Royale (our first experience with non-1v1s, so we were unprepared for what LFF could do), then beating Cloud twice in 2008 (the first time admittedly with Sephiroth also in the match, but the second time was relatively clean, only having a Crono as a weight, though you could certainly argue that Link hurts Cloud more than he hurts Snake because swords. And yes, I linked that first match solely because the same LFF allowed Sephiroth to get beaten by Kirby. I will never get tired of that) and beating Seph 1v1 in 2010. All of this was merely a prelude to 2013, when he--and his voice actor!--became the hero of Board 8, fighting valiantly against the Draven menace. And losing, but who cares about that. Point is, we love Snake here. A lot of the Noble Nine, the only ones who really hate seeing them lose are the statheads because the loss is an affront to their expectations. "Link Always Wins" and all that, though honestly we were much quicker to leap to Link's defense when he was in danger than...oh, right, Cloud's embarrassing 2013 loss came against a Gen I Pokmon, so of course Board 8 was on board with that.

Of course, Snake wasn't losing to some rallied newcomer. Zelda's only missed two contests, and one of them was CBI, which barely even counts because you look at all of the fighting game characters and you realize that the people creating the bracket seemed to be treating the "Character Battle" name literally. Maybe. Some of the characters in that bracket were just plain weird; I don't know that much about Space Channel 5 but I'm pretty sure that its protagonist's presence runs counter to that assumption. Whatever; I still consider characters who debuted in CBII to have "perfect" records if they haven't missed a contest since then, and no, this wouldn't affect the sanctity of the Noble Nine because no one that debuted there has come close to doing what they did. (It's also more convenient because Lightning's presence in CBVIII set precedence that for a character who debuted after CBI to be considered to have a perfect record, they'd need to make the bracket as soon as their game came out in Japan, and Kingdom Hearts was out in Japan in time for Sora to have theoretically been in every contest.) She's done well in all of them, too; 39.25% against Mega Man in her debut in 2003 (with the hated Wind Waker art, no less); 45.59% against this very same Snake in 2005; 44.73% against Samus in 2006...I'll skip the fourways because she ran into Link in Round 2 one year and Mario in Round 1 in the other. And then a loss to Samus again in 2010 and the close match against Charizard in 2013.

Charizard in 2013, barely, Vincent in 2007, and Mega Man X in 2008. That's it for non-Noble Niners she's lost to when not literally sharing a fourway with Link, and the last of them she was still sharing it with Mario. Those are all very high-tier opponents, or at least they were in the years she faced them (Vincent is definitely nowhere near the near-elite he was in the mid-2000s, though he's probably still a decent midcarder.) But there have been plenty of high midcarders who have gotten multiple shots at the Noble Nine and come up empty every time, so why should this be any different?
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Match 123: Cloud Strife vs Alucard

Cloud 17772
Alucard 11654

This is a pretty good performance for Alucard, one that erased any doubt that he was legitimately stronger rather than merely being the beneficiary of a weak division. (Though make no mistake, he was the beneficiary of a weak division. Sora's inexplicable ability to always land a 1-seed, or a 2-seed when the 1-seeds were reserved for Noble Niners only in 2013, usually results in a wide-open division. It wouldn't surprise me at all if Allen acknowledged that fact when he put Sora as the 2-seed in Crono's division in 2013, since Crono had already shown himself to be the most upset-prone member of the Noble Nine.) I think this was also the match where we realized that the stats for the Second Chance brackets were messed up because they seemed to suggest that Alucard was actually the favorite there, which clearly wasn't the case. Cloud's prediction percentage in primary brackets was far lower; over twice as many people picked against him when his opponent wasn't known than when it was. And that makes sense in a way, because Division 3 was host to a number of theoretical threats. Hell, two of the characters in that division had beaten Cloud already, although both of these events should be taken in the context of "weird gimmicky contests". (Mount Gamemore was pretty awesome, though.) Add to that a character that is frequently thought of as a potential Noble Niner proxy, perhaps rightly so since most of the recent Metal Gear games have been prequels, and there was certainly reason to think that someone in that division could pull the upset. Yeah, about that...

Match 124: Crono vs Bowser

Crono 16150
Bowser 13276

Here, on the other hand, was a far more tangible upset threat. By now, bracketmakers have learned to stop trusting Crono; since the start of the Allen era, he'd lost to a non-Noble Niner in 3 out of 4 contests. As such, he was considered an underdog in primary brackets, being picked to beat the Division 4 winner by just 41.5% of them. This, however, is a sidenote to the most awesome prediction percentage ever, which is the Second Chance Bracket prediction percentage. It should be noted that since Second Chance Brackets were filled out during that Thanksgiving break, the first round of the Legends Bracket is analogous to a Round 1, in that the matchup is already set and so you have full knowledge of exactly whom you are picking to defeat whom. And with full knowledge that the matchup would be Crono vs. Bowser, bracketmakers favored...

No one. Or both, take your pick. In an event that would've been impossible in Round 1 of the primary bracket owing to the fact that the number of brackets filled out there was odd, the Second Chance brackets were a perfect 50-50 split, 2856 for Bowser and 2856 for Crono. Now if only the match itself were that close. After Bowser briefly led with the board vote, Crono established a lead by the freeze, broke 55% a little before the four hour mark, then fell back below 55% less than two hours later and managed to never reach it again while also never falling lower than 54.67%. Just a dull match where Bowser was always keeping it respectable but never threatening to win. Finding out the Second Chance prediction percentages afterwards was honestly the most interesting thing about the match.

Well, that and the fact that Crono was apparently "back". Coming on the heels of Pikachu > Mega Man--and the Second Chance bracketmakers favoring Pikachu when they were merely calling this match a true coin flip--Crono's long-assumed spot as the weakest Noble Niner seemed to be no more. But would we get confirmation, or would the electric rodent get in the way?
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And of course, there's the question of "is this the match that truly 'broke' the Noble Nine?" To which I say, no, it isn't. L-Block's run in 2007 and Vincent beating him to the punch with the win over Crono is cool, and 2013's format was just weirdness and shouldn't be taken too seriously. But again I should mention that Mega Man won the raw vote. It's hard for me to say that "certain votes count more than others and also there's another match going on at the same time" is less of a gimmick than "only 12 hours long instead of 24". So while I personally say that Missingno was the one to break it, I certainly don't think that if that doesn't count, this one should.

Not that it matters because it would be all of two days until a completely unambiguous Noble Nine break, and if the two polls in one day was still too much gimmick for you, that'd be fixed by contest's end as well.
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Match 122: Mega Man vs. Pikachu

Mega Man 14396
Pikachu 14458

This was definitely one of the more interesting matches of the contest, because it was the first time that a Noble Niner had outright lost a 24-hour 1v1 match against a non-Noble Niner--though just like when they lost in fourways and threeways and 12-hour matches against weird glitch characters, there was plenty of room for the Noble Nine apologists to spin this one, chief among them the fact that Mega Man won the raw vote and only lost because of the registered user bonus, though technically there was also something about two matches going on at once (though since the other match in this particular case was Link vs. Ganondorf, I doubt it . The stats topics blamed this on the fact that this match was coming right out of the Thanksgiving break, that casuals might not have known to come back while the contest diehards--which is to say, us--were ready to come out supporting our horses, or rats as the case may be. And Board 8 has been fans of Pokmon for quite some time now. There's almost always a Pokmon ranking topic or a Save My Pokmon or something floating around this board, and they can last quite some time because there's over 800 of them already with that number only set to rise by the end of the year with Sword and Shield coming out. (And what a time, too--Pokmon has a strong nostalgia factor, such that each new generation seems to make the fanbase like earlier generations even more. So while they'd still be a dark horse to win it all--though barring rallies, the same could be said of almost any game not named "Breath of the Wild"--the fact that Gen VIII will already be out makes me think that the Gen V games could be stronger than expected in GotD next year). Mega Man, on the other hand...well, okay, the classic Mega Man games get some love here, too. I remember buying Mega Man 2 on Wii VC after it was voted Board 8's Game of the Year for my birth year of 1989. (I...never quite got the hang of it. Maybe I should give it another try, seeing as how I'm apparently into platformers now.) And the classic Mega Man series is, amazingly enough, the most "active" at the moment. But Mega Man is always going to suffer from mismanagement--both the fact that the early games never made it to the PAL regions and the fact that it's a series made by Capcom, which is not a good thing to be in this decade. Board 8's favorite series is made by Capcom and I still doubt many people on this board would defend the company itself. So this was an upset ripe to happen. My Oracle pick was initially far more bullish, but that was pure fanboyism/salt about Mega Man > Charizard being the match to officially eliminate me from the Guru in 2013 (though seeing as how I was banking on Samus and Mario splitting with each other enough for Charizard to get past them, I was probably dead as soon as Vivi upset Mario, and if not then, the very next match when Squall held off Missingno's upset bid to allow an easy path for Red to be the one in Mario's place.) I backed down on the prediction of Pikachu winning easily, but couldn't bring myself to pick against him. I'd like to say that I had some great insight, but honestly, I think I just got lucky here. Mega Man is, at least marginally, still stronger than Pikachu, and proved it later in this contest, but Pikachu caught the perfect circumstances for the upset and capitalized, and I got my best Oracle ever, just 0.01% off of perfect.
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Actually, scratch that. I'll keep bumping this, because I'll probably start it up again proper in October.
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If I hadn't put off putting up the last game, I probably would have let this topic die. My other one, not so much. Yes I'm salty.
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Mail this in.

Match 122: Mega Man vs. Pikachu

Mega Man 14396
Pikachu 14458

...Damnit, I honestly don't have time to do this justice right now. I've got to leave for work soon, and this one's going to be a long one. But it'll definitely be up at some time today, after work at latest.
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Up
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One of these days I have to finish putting the last playthrough up on the wiki because this topic may be on hold for a while.
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Been busy lately.
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I'm forgetting things
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Up
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Oh wow I left this a while
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So yeah, it's inevitable that a new record for home runs by a team in a season will be set this year; the Twins might even break the record by the end of August. The question is, how far on the all-time list will the current record fall? The Twins are on pace for 314, which annihilates the record, but the Yankees, Astros, and Dodgers are on pace for 272, 270, and 269 respectively, all of which would just narrowly beat out the 267 of the 2018 Yankees.
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Oops. I guess it was.
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Since I'll also be doing my SMM64 levels creations.
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Bumping now... Probably should pick up SoJ soon; eventually I'm going to want to actually use my Switch and then we'll be doing blind runs of RPGs instead, starting with FFFVII (no that's not a typo; you can decide which one you think is crude.
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Go
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Probably soon, or maybe not. There's another non-VN that I started recently.

At any rate, I need to get the end of DP up on the wiki.
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Save
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Bump
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Recettear
Cuphead
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tazzyboyishere posted...

Ongoing list:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aAZEUohsFiUryARQ9zrwHqObEo6yY1eN5DkulZbonQg/edit?usp=sharing

Thanks for that.

The Legend of Zelda
Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse
Stella Glow
Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War
Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade
Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones
Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards
The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons
The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages
Golden Sun: The Lost Age
Sonic 3 & Knuckles
Pokmon Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon
Phantom Brave
Bravely Default
Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies

Really surprised that Zelda 1 wasn't already nominated. Also, if I'm allowed to nominate the Oracle games as a single game, add Super Smash Bros. to the list.
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Up
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We then ask why target the carnival, and he says it's a great opportunity to gather information on R because of how many Pokmon would be in one place, and if GNN gets the scoop on it, that's all the better. He can control all the information in Ryme City. But such a plan needed money. Still, he has the cells already...but that's long enough for Pikachu to get to him. Still, he recovers, and it's his Noivern. Its eyes are red, like R's been used, but it's too calm! They must have fixed the second issue! Noivern still recognizes its partner. It tries to break the tank, and Tim gets in the way. Pikachu jumps in and finally regains its ability to use electric-type moves. It's 8 PM. Case closed. We have the cells. Meiko admits that she would've sooner expected Graham, too, and he says he can hear her. Pikachu says he's held up his end of the bargain and returns the cells, and Mewtwo says there's not much time and asks if he's decided which one to choose. Pikachu's only asleep, but before that happens, he confirms that Mewtwo knows Harry. Mewtwo says Harry is still alive and Tim will find him provided he does not give up, but leaves before giving Tim any further answers. Back in the office, Tim can no longer understand Pikachu...oh, no, wait, Pikachu was just pranking Tim. Pikachu asks what's next, and Tim says looking for his father, hopefully with the Great Detective Pikachu as his partner. They walk off into the white, and it seems Pikachu doesn't remember using Thunderbolt to save the day. The credits roll. Huh, even with the major case solved, that ending felt kind of...not like an ending. Now I'm curious as to whether Tim finds his father in the movie; leaving that hanging seems even less like something a movie would do than a video game. So, yeah. That was Detective Pikachu. That was really a strange ending, though; the last scene with Mewtwo created so many questions and answered none. Decided which one to choose...

Aha! It has in fact been confirmed that there's a sequel to this game in the works, which will be for the Switch. Guess I'll have to keep this alive long enough to get to that. Heh, so this is actually going to be a series...cool, we'll have another series to work with. Probably going to be a bit of a break before AA6, though; there's some stuff going on right now so I'll probably just work on finishing the games I already have before making any fresh purchases.
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Emilia says they didn't decide on their locations until after Keith left GNN, but the memo said "all information will be provided." We determine that the mastermind works at GNN as well. Hmm...I think I have an idea, and Pikachu was planting the seeds in this chapter. Mr. Graham sees this all as one big publicity opportunity! Chapter 9 is at the carnival. The parade's already started. Half the Unova Dex seems to be there. Oh, there are multiple parades, and true fans plan how to view the most parades possible. We have to figure it out. Ah, there's only one location where all three parades meet! They'll all converge in the central square at 8 PM. The parade's finale! And it's already past seven. We get to investigate. One woman seems to be "marked" by the game, and speaking to her reveals that there's a wagon full of treats for the Pokmon in the parade. That's where the liquid R will be dispersed! Ah, but another one that seems "marked" has absolutely nothing useful. There's a cart with balloons that seems like it could be used for dispersing the gaseous R, but the balloon woman tells us nothing that becomes testimony. A trio of Volbeat is swarmed around one of the balloon decorations, and as we continue down the stairs, Brad and his Manectric are here. As I suspected, they'll be useful in sniffing out R. Illumise is supposed to be the conductor of the parade, but no one except the Volbeat ever show up on time. We get a generic "people gather in the square" testimony--that's probably for the capsule--and run into Meiko, but can't tell her about R. One of the food vendors says the man in the stall next to hers "wasn't very friendly, but worked quickly". Probably the suspicious one, since the Wharf had food, too. The man had a yellow hat and kept looking over his shoulder. Yeah, another man says that the yellow hat man tried to intimidate him when his daughter was taken with one of the balloons. Yes, he was putting balloons up four at a time, the young girl said. Volbeat's flight path will be the parade route. We talk to Emilia, and get a changed prompt for telling Pikachu when we see something suspicious. As for the capsule R, we should think about that last. The Volbeat have moved to a different set of balloons, and the ones they were previously swarming around are in a group of four and contain a pink one like the girl mentioned. Mr. Clifford hears us mention R. "Run away if you're in trouble" gets added as testimony...was my hunch wrong? Ah, but as we're about to report back to Emilia, Mr. Graham is there. He makes a joke about how if Tim's there, there's sure to be a scoop. We head to the stall that was pointed out as suspicious, and there's R there. And then we're told that someone had been connected to both, and it's the man in the yellow hat. We split up with Brad to corner him and get the Capsule R. But then Holiday arrives and says that Keith did the evil gloating thing and there's still a fourth batch of R. All communication came from the mastermind's end; Keith didn't know how to contact the mastermind. Communication was through letters and calls. As for Keith's motives, it was all about how well the mastermind paid, nothing more. Where would the R be hidden...maybe the clock tower! A bunch of quick time events follow, including one with an actual timer. But now to figure out who the mastermind is. Pikachu says there was only one incident where Keith directly tried to cause Tim harm. Which one was it? Oh, right, the one at the station. And the clue is...the information received from the mastermind. Oh...Roger shouldn't have known about Pikachu's inability to use moves, but Keith would! That's the proof of connection! Roger confirms it.They destroyed the circuitry, but it can be activated manually. We ask him why smuggle R at all, and he gives a generic "take over the world" answer. To start, he needed GNN to be the most influential network in the world.
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Also known as Cyberchao X.

We ask around, and the ticket apparently has how much money he has to spend. 90 million; Gino was pretty loaded, or expected to be after selling the mask. There's a man disappointed that the mask has been pulled from the auction, and a Chandelure is swarming around a display case with a necklace, admiring its reflection in the jewels. Another customer mentions that she's disappointed about another pulled item--Carina Mitchell's violin! Oh dear, so that's why it went missing... There are two men admiring the Detective's Cape, and then there's the ones looking at the Henry Brothers' Recipe Book. Talking to Emilia again lets us distract Chandelure, and we get to see the Goddess's Necklace. Another customer interested in it gives us tips on winning bids. There are only three opportunities to raise your bid, and you have set amounts that you can raise it by: 3 million, 5 million, and 10 million. We investigate our rivals for other pieces, and get that the woman obsessed with the recipe book can bid up to 40 million, and that she's cautious, raising her bid by 3 million first, then 5, then 10. For the cape, the man is aggressive, always going for broke and raising by 10 million at a time. He's got up to 50 million. Do we need to properly use all of our money to grab both items? ...Wait, I shouldn't have gone all the way to 50 million proper for the cape; I could've gotten it at 48 million. Wait, I can salvage this. Just go aggressive twice, and her cautious bid of 3 million will make it 38 million after my second bid. And there's Keith, with the capsules with red and green liquids. Battle time. Keith uses the R on the Krokorok to try to stall us. Pikachu slides down the banister to knock Skorupi away, and Tim tries to grab Keith as he's getting away. We knock him off of his Noivern, and Chandelure catches us. Heh, it wasn't until I saw how that Chandelure reacted when Emilia gave it her earrings that I realized that even though it's basically a given in this continuity that all humans have a Pokmon partner, Emilia hadn't been introduced with one. Keith says he won't be giving them any information, but that he can't imagine Harry's alive after going off that cliff, and he seems to suggest that even though he's been captured, the parade's still in danger. Emilia says she regrets covering the accident at Fine Park, because that led to the park being shut down and the Pokmon being separated. Just because something is true doesn't mean it should be broadcast. Pikachu's nowhere to be found, and the fireworks start. Emilia says they're beautiful, and Tim says yeah, so beautiful, but he seems to be looking at her, not the fireworks. Cut to Mewtwo and Pikachu talking. Mewtwo confirms that Pikachu remembers his promise, and Pikachu says he's fulfilled his end of the bargain. Mewtwo says that's not true yet. Some of its cells are still out there somewhere. Pikachu asks how Mewtwo knows that, and Mewtwo can't say, only that it feels them. It says it can't allow them to remain in this world, and it must destroy them with its own hands. Humans can't be trusted. Pikachu says it's the tedious type, and Mewtwo says it could just destroy everything. Pikachu stops it, and Mewtwo says "you stopped me back then, too. The real you, that is. You were the one who told me that the human world can be tedious, which is why I trusted you to take care of things for me. But now it seems there are some humans that can be dependable." Pikachu tells Tim what Mewtwo said, and we investigate Keith's room. He had information on GNN's shoot of the festival, and a memo marked "leading up to the finale". A mysterious patron wanted Keith to cause the biggest incident yet, and consider the most effective location and time and plan carefully. The dispersal locations will be a location with the most Pokmon present and a location that is part of a GNN shoot. There will be three kinds of R to disperse--the two they have tested, Liquid R and Gaseous R, and the new development, Capsule R.
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Also known as Cyberchao X.

The man can't tell the Frillish apart, but told us that the woman with the Cinccinos is the one who received the book. She plays dumb, but her partners tell us that she did receive a book from the Frillish with the sharp features--the second floor Frillish. And their partner had been up on the second floor, looking down and counting something on the first floor. We confront it and it says it'll bring us a book if we "order properly". We have to figure out what it is. I count 6 umbrellas and...7 chairs? 7 yellow-striped deck chairs, but six yellow chairs of the smaller kind. We look down from where the woman was and confirm, 6 umbrellas, 7 deck chairs. We give it the order and receive the Prime Treasure Auction Catalog. I was right! Please have your ticket with you; dress code is semi-formal. The items for auction: Detective's Cape, Henry Brothers' Recipe Book, Mask of Antiquity...and exclusive buying rights to R for six months is on there, too. Hmm...Henry Brothers' Recipe Book? Wasn't Gino talking about finding their lost recipe? Going back towards the bridge, though, we cut right there and the mask's been stolen. It disappeared in the blink of an eye, Nosepass said. We learn that two crew members had been in the room. Nosepass says the ship changed direction so that Nosepass, who always faces north, couldn't see it any more, and then it was gone when it changed back. So the one in charge of steering was probably involved. Nosepass also says it was splashed by cold water when it couldn't see the mask. The one who delivered the report also noted that it was wet up there. He also says that Gino wanted to know the exact time he'd next be visiting the bridge. The one who does the steering, however, said nothing strange aside from the Pokmon next to him spilling its drink. Pikachu now suspects Gino based on the reporting crewman's testimony. Graham says Gino will be on the second floor of the deck. Ah, Snubbull was the one who spilled its drink! And it's shaking again...I suspect the mask was able to "disappear" like that because it did, in fact, belong to a Cofagrigus. Snubbull says that it wasn't its fault the drink was spilled; it saw something invisible drink the juice. Definitely a Ghost-type. Snubbull growled at it and startled it, making it drop the juice. Whatever it was briefly appeared and claimed ownership of the juice. The word "wet" keeps appearing, though, which makes me suspect a Water-type. Could it be the Frillish? They're Water/Ghost. Of course, it could have just disappeared with Acid Armor. Gino claims one of the Pokmon played a prank, splashing him with water, and he came to the second floor to dry off. He claims ignorance as to the existence of the Henry Brothers' Recipe Book. Brionne confirms that Gino was splashed by one of its balloons. It claims the balloon had been empty, but suddenly a Pokmon was inside, and Gino got splashed when that Pokmon fell into the pool. Back to suspecting a Cofagrigus. Pikachu seems to have an idea of who did this. Ah, because the invisible Pokmon came in with a crew member while it was still wet from falling into the pool. Pikachu thinks the disappearing drink is related, and that anything the invisible Pokmon puts in its mouth becomes invisible too. Okay, so maybe I'm off. We're going to consult Emilia's hand-drawn Pokdex to identify the culprit. Just as I suspect when Pikachu keeps keying on the word "invisible", it's a Kecleon we're looking for. And it'll reveal itself when it gets surprised, just like what happened with Snubbull. Summation time. Gino denies knowing Kecleon. He's confronted with the knowledge of the secret auction and the Henry Brothers' Recipe Book. But now for the auction. Emilia says she could do it, as she brought a dress for conducting the interviews, but Tim doesn't want her to go alone. Ms. Rose offers the use of her husband's jacket, and even has a bow tie for Pikachu. The bouncers let them in, and he's told to "put these on once you're inside". Masks! Of course there are masks.
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Also known as Cyberchao X.

There's nothing to interact with in the hallway, so I head back to the lounge. The man at the cafe reveals that the Frillish not carrying trays will take your luggage. We get confirmation from a pair of Krokorok bouncers that the men we're looking for are in the room they're guarding, but they won't let us in. As we head back downstairs, we run into Emilia, who's here to cover the festival and to interview the famous chef Gino Farina. We learn that the room we can't get into houses the Prime Treasure Show, and the man at the cafe says he's heard plenty of customers complaining about not being able to get tickets, but none talking about having actually gone to it. Very suspicious, and none of the tourists in the lounge have been able to get tickets. We also receive a drink order form for the Frillish. After confirming no one on the deck has seen the show either, we order drinks from the Frillish. On the way back to the lounge, we go into cutscene mode, and hear a scream. We meet the elderly Rose Milton, who was spooked by a strange thing in her bag. That's a Cofagrigus mask. Her partner, Snubbull, was also frightened. It must have gotten into her bag between when she handed it off to the staff this morning for boarding and when she got it back. Oh, it was a different bag, likely a mix-up. Ms. Milton is friends with the captain and wishes to let him know. We leave her room, and it cuts to Emilia's interview with Gino Farina. Walter Eckhart is the captain, and he's there during the interview. Emilia recognizes the mask from the news; it's apparently stolen. Mr. Graham is letting Emilia help with the investigation in exchange for an interview with Tim when it's all over. Pikachu speculates that maybe Keith isn't the only bad guy here, and the thief brought it here to try to sell it. Hm, so maybe the show is actually a black market. Pikachu seems to dislike Graham's single-minded focus on ratings. We take an elevator to the bridge. The captain doesn't know much about the show, either, because the shows are planned by the committee. This ship's a bit unusual, you see; the passengers are the owners. All rooms are privately owned, and everything from the shows to the next destination are decided by a committee run by the passengers. ...Well that's convenient. Obviously the "committee" are our enemies; Keith's organization. The ship is their base of operations, and because it's mobile--and a ship, no less--it's able to avoid law enforcement agencies. The captain also said that the suitcase's owner seems to have had an interest in the show, too. That supports my theory. The note says "The Prime Treasure Show; Iced Tea; the usual Frillish; Umbrellas and yellow deck chairs." There's also a ticket. Nosepass, who serves as the captain's partner and compass, seems to have taken a shine to the mask. Pikachu suggests talking to the Frillish to investigate. I'll bet it's the luggage Frillish that we should be talking to. We meet another luggage Frillish in the hall and he mentions the one on the second floor of the deck that's "always slacking off", saying it's unfair that he gets to take it easy. Hmm, seems I was on the right trail. That particular Frillish is probably "connected". I talk to him, and he doesn't claim to know anything when asked about "the usual Frillish", but says he doesn't have much time to talk to the other Frillish, and when Pikachu presses the issue, says that he has to be ready to spring into action at a moment's notice. The waiter Frillish back on the first floor said he had a strange customer persistently trying to order something not on the menu--specifically, a book. He was lying around as if he owned the place, and he was blue. Also, the Frillish on the second floor did some work today for once. We talk to the man in blue, and he said he was just a first-timer trying to blend in with the regulars; he saw someone receive a book from a Frillish and thought that you could order books from them too.
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Also known as Cyberchao X.

Pikachu says the room we're in is familiar and he's really close to remembering something. We find a plan to export R laying on the table. We learn that it can only be produced using the machine under PCL and that they have purchased a location for a new manufacturing facility. Next, they must find a wealthy patron who is comfortable keeping secrets. The warehouse at Ryme Wharf is to be a temporary base of operations, but the goal is to move production overseas. We also find a Production Report authored by Carlos. It says R has different properties depending on if it's in liquid or gas form, allowing it to be used in different ways depending on the situation. Both forms are nearly odorless, so only Pokmon with an acute sense of smell can detect it. Hm, don't we know such a Pokmon? I can't remember which one, though...oh, right! Brad's Manectric, wasn't it? The incident at the park was a good example of its properties as a gas. Popping the balloon dispersed it approximately three feet, sufficient for most needs. The best way to utilize it in liquid form is to inject it into food. The effects are amplified when the two types of liquid, red and green, are mixed together. In fact, the best way to gain the effects of R is to inject the liquids separately into food; any Pokmon that consumes the food will have its effects amplified. They've begun working on a capsule form that will be less fragile and better at mixing the liquids than the vials they currently use, increasing durability and portability. Furthermore, the capsule device will allow the user to mix the liquids whenever they choose. More research is needed to counter its drawbacks: its effects are temporary, and it's impossible to communicate with a Pokmon under the influence of R. Carlos planned to continue research on R in order to develop a new version that will allow the power-enhancing effects to last an extended period of time, while also allowing the Pokmon's partner to communicate with it.

A box catches Piikachu's interest. He seems to remember it. There's a jar inside, and despite Tim's exhortations to be careful, Pikachu opens it. He seems to be out of it, and he says that he guesses that wasn't a dream after all. It seems he made quite the commitment. To...Mewtwo? Oh, he promised to recover the Berserk Gene and capture the mastermind of the R case. In his dream, he was pleading with Mewtwo to save Harry. He guesses it offered to help him if he helped it first. Tim asks why Mewtwo would rely on Pikachu for something so important, and he gets incensed, saying he has a reputation as a great detective. We make to leave, but Wilde is there and sees us. We escape via a few quick-time events. Simon proposes shipping us to the headquarters in a container. Tim gives the notes on their plans to Accelgor to take back to Baker. And...end chapter already? Another short one, I guess because we changed locations so quickly? Chapter 8 is called "Where R Goes". We're in another storage space. We head upstairs and meet with two Rattata--one Alolan, one Kantonian. The Alolan Rattata says it wasn't paying attention and ended up here, but it made a friend so it's okay. Kantonian Rattata likes this place because there's a lot of food and it made a new friend, and gives us directions to where the men went. We head up the elevator and...are we on a cruise ship? We are! We're on a luxury cruise ship! A Lapras and some Brionne are lounging in the pool, and a Frillish is serving as a waiter. Frillish says the ship is so big that it gets lost frequently, and they don't serve any hot drinks because they'd cool off by the time it got them to their destination. The ship is called the "Prime Treasure". One person saw them heading to the lounge, though most people haven't seen a thing. Another Frillish on the upper deck is on a "very important mission", but won't say what it is. There are also NPCs we can't interact with here. I finally find the door to go inside and the lounge should be straight ahead.
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Also known as Cyberchao X.

Ori and the Blind Forest
Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale
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Also known as Cyberchao X.

MycroProcessor posted...

The fact that something this complex/atonal/glitchy/weird/etc even retired seems like an absurd miracle to me, nothing even close to this extreme in any of those categories has ever has retired by my definition (even if adjacent stuff like sphilia's been a contest winner before/etc).

Yeah, that's exactly the problem I had with the start of that. SPHILIA won, and UF8 chapped me even more...I wasn't around for VGMC12, didn't realize that Hidra Heteromycin was runner-up. I'm not disappointed with that result on its own merit because I probably would have voted Sunshine Coastline over Hidra Heteromycin, but the idea that an actually good Ar song made a final once and couldn't close it out makes the prospect of Ar possibly becoming the first series to have two champions (unless you consider Chrono Trigger a Final Fantasy game, which isn't quite true but it's not like those games have any interconnectedness so you could if you wanted to) even less palatable.
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Also known as Cyberchao X.

Revenger
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Also known as Cyberchao X.

Xuxon posted...

good job guys this is the worst final of all time by a pretty big margin. i don't know why i bother anymore.

Nah, nah, at least Revenger is good. VGMC7 was the worst by far.
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Also known as Cyberchao X.

You screwed me up by not posting the first semifinal the day after the last quarterfinal.

Battle!!
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Also known as Cyberchao X.

Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story - In the Final
Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest - End of All
Lufia II - The Last Duel
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Also known as Cyberchao X.

Janus5k posted...

end this madness

Agreed. We already have one CLAfuckyouBoard8SfuckyouBoard8S too many among the champions.

Invitation Flower ~ Autumn
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Also known as Cyberchao X.

Beat the purge
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Also known as Cyberchao X.

1NF3S+@+!0N (Theme of Crabulon)
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Also known as Cyberchao X.