Lurker > TsunamiXXVIII

2016: Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse
2017: Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia
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Also known as Cyberchao X.

Dark Man Stage
Intersection: Me vs. You
Escaping the Courtyard Garden
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Also known as Cyberchao X.

I really ought to get back to this.
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Also known as Cyberchao X.

Field of Hopes and Dreams is...a thing. Actually, it kind of reminds me of something oh wait that's right this is Toby Fox. Yeah, it kind of sounds like a Homestuck track. A little. More in the melody than in the instrumentation.

Ah, I must have missed the day when these two non-byes had their first-round matches; neither seems remotely familiar. Nor do their games. This is pretty awesome. I'm wondering how I'll manage to muster up the ability to care about many matches in later rounds because these are all so awesome.

Case in point. What's been keeping Blue Radiance from retiring for so long? Bad matchups? Or just B8 taste?

...Uh, yeah. The former. Gotcha. Well I mean probably also the latter, but not this year. Oh, wait, the thing that beat it last year actually retired. Whatever.

And then we have the tiebreaker. I felt like I could've voted either way in the original match, and that depending on my mood, I could easily end up changing my vote. And sure enough, I did! With a little help from Out-Of-Place Artifacts making Ignith seem far more pedestrian.

Votes:
Out-Of-Place Artifacts
Fairytale Poison and Solitude
A Toccata Into Blood-Soaked Darkness

Rankings:

Fairytale Poison and Solitude > Out-Of-Place Artifacts > A Toccata Into Blood-Soaked Darkness > Ignith of the Final Attack > Blue Radiance > Field of Hopes and Dreams
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Also known as Cyberchao X.

UF8 posted...

But PoFV was after IN

I agree that it's still better than the two before it but still

PoFV is mostly remixes of tracks from earlier games. Though it does have some pretty good originals.
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Also known as Cyberchao X.

Wow. I think I actually missed both of RFTMIS's matches, and I didn't realize how badly it's been crushing its opposition. Never thought I'd see the day where Touhou > Umineko in VGMC.

I'd say that it's yet another example of B8 suddenly getting good taste, but to be honest, RFTMIS is a mid- to low-tier Touhou song for me! I'd put it behind probably close to half of the soundtrack to the game it's from, and 80-90% of the soundtracks of the two main-line games that preceded it.
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Also known as Cyberchao X.

PIayer_0 posted...

The two matches I really cared about lost and the one I didn't care about was a tie and now I have to vote in it again.

I went 1 for 2 on matches I cared about, though if I had to go 1 for 2, I'd rather have won the one I did because it featured the clear worst of the six songs in the day losing. Not that Neverending Journey was bad; just clearly behind the other five.
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Also known as Cyberchao X.

I like the thread.
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Also known as Cyberchao X.

Bump.
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Also known as Cyberchao X.

KamikazePotato posted...

Johnbobb posted...

MysteriousStan posted...

Yeah Cyan Door has a lot of blocks that can only be done after completing other objectives in other doors. I basically did that one last. Unlike in 999 where there was only the one real block to the True Ending, VLR has a ton of blocks and endings so you'll have to jump around between the different doors a lot.

I feel like I remember accidentally ending up on the True Ending path my first run through of 999 and people in the playthrough topic making fun about it

I did this too. It sucks and kind of ruins 999.

Happened to me, too. It's really not that hard to do if you're playing blind.

I didn't necessarily feel that it "ruined" the game, though. If anything, I found that the non-ending it gives you if you get on the true path before it's ready gives less spoilers than a lot of the others.
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Also known as Cyberchao X.

Bane_Of_Despair posted...

foolm0r0n posted...

999 >>>>> ZTD ~= VLR

999 was made as a standalone story and it shows so hard. VLR only felt like the set up for the trilogy and ZTD only felt like the ending. It ended up being a really awesome trilogy, but there's just nothing as completely satisfying as 999. Especially if it was your first VN. 999 is just the most grounded and best written without diving deep into anime nonsense. I would recommend it to any non-VN non-anime fan, unlike the others. It also does things that just can't ever be done a second time by any other game.

That said, VLR and ZTD brilliantly use the fact that they are sequels in their stories. They really weren't afraid to add a bunch of new risky things instead of just doing the same thing again.

This is about how I feel

Yeah, that's why I have 999 first. It feels like a more complete story.

ZTD ranks third because it pulls a lot more weird BS at the end. Even being used to the series' twists, there were far more instances of me just saying "no. That's stupid."
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Also known as Cyberchao X.

Bump?
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Also known as Cyberchao X.

Johnbobb posted...

already fucking hate the bunny thing

Are you playing with the English audio or Japanese? (Is that even an option on that version? I know it's an option on some versions but not others).

Because I feel like he could be annoying if you're just reading his lines while listening to the Japanese VAs. Cindy Robinson's delivery really sells it though.
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Also known as Cyberchao X.

Luigi was the "safe" pick because him getting to the match was an easy call. I had Luigi in my bracket, but only because I thought he'd pull Nintendo SFF on Mewtwo. I was fully aware that if either X or Tifa stopped Mewtwo, Luigi wouldn't win.
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End of month bump
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FBike1 posted...

This is going to fizzle out by the time CB11 actually happens...

If CB11 actually happens.

Sign me up.
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Also known as Cyberchao X.

Match 119: Luigi vs. Tifa Lockhart

Luigi 15149
Tifa 15997

These two had met before in a match back in 2005, and it was somewhat close, but Tifa was never really in danger of losing. And here, with Tifa fresh off a rally-fueled victory...nothing really changed. This wasn't a blowout, which suggests that Luigi could've fared pretty well against MMX. Honestly, this wasn't really a surprising result, even if it does go against the "cookie" bracket--Luigi had barely over a third of the Guru brackets, with the rest being split between X, Tifa, and Mewtwo--X having the largest portion of those due to the Mewtwo-Tifa split. Which I guess means that the "true favorite" was X? This was a distinctly weird division due to the Mewtwo/Tifa/X kerfuffle making it impossible to declare who the favorite really was in that match.
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Also known as Cyberchao X.

Yeah I guess now's a good time to bump. Noticed that there's a larger buffer than there had been.
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Up
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Up
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Bumps
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Chapter 7 is at Ryme Wharf. Flashback to the accident, and confirmation that Mewtwo was there. Looking around the apartment reveals a "Detective Journal" monthly magazine. The locket turns out to be a camera. There are pictures of R, and a building that Detective Baker identifies as Ryme Wharf. Tim wants to investigate, and Pikachu expects Baker to say it's too dangerous, but he just asks that they take his partner Accelgor with them to keep them safe. Accelgor runs off due to its shyness, which is bad because it has most of the photos. It's not far, though. We see the photos of the warehouse, Keith with a broad-shouldered henchman, the inside of the warehouse, a scientist, and R. A man tells us that Warehouse Districts A and B are for storing machinery, and that he recognized the pair in the photo from a couple of months ago. Another says A and C are for food, and recognizes the henchman, saying he comes from either A or B, because he comes from the south. We get a prompt unlocking a new set of questioning, about the containers. Machamp says he helped the man move his containers, but he dropped one and the contents were stinky. The first man tells us that blue containers--which the second man said the blond man worked with--are for food. Based on everything we have, I think we need to go to area A! I feel like we're ready to solve the next puzzle, but it seems we need more pieces of testimony than we even have at the moment. Rattata gives us the last piece, because that's the only one we haven't talked to. We have to double case notes to solve this. Then comes a lengthy infiltration sequence. I miss the second prompt the first time, then fail to expect that there'd be a third prompt right after the second and end up going way too early because I was mashing through. The blonde man from the photo is there, and the captions identify him as factory manager Alexander Wilde. We get confirmation that their boss is Keith Norman. There's a first-day worker, so we get to hear an explanation of what they make here: health food. Thus the stink. Also, a warning never to hit a certain switch, as it reverses the conveyor belt. That's probably a thing we'll have to do. And never, ever go near a certain door, where there's supposedly a scientist. It's all top secret and should be avoided. A Spinarak scares Pikachu; it also snuck in, looking for a snack. It might help us if we get it one. The front door guards say they're incubating something in the scientist's room. There's something that they give a treat to, though; says it warms their heart. Maybe it's this Pansage we just met that's doing laundry? Heh, he's the partner of Simon, the scientist. Pansage says Simon hasn't been enjoying his work since he came here, and hasn't been allowed outside in months, though Pansage can come and go as he pleases. And confirms something about "cells". Tim concludes that Simon must have been Dr. Waals's assistant, the only other one who could incubate Mewtwo's cells. Pansage confirms my theory about being the one the workers were talking about; says that the factory manager is scary but everyone else is really nice. We need help from the Pokmon. Pansage will cause a distraction, Accelgor will flip the switch, and Spinarak will sneak us down to the first floor. Simon Yen is working with the Mewtwo cells. We're about to explain how we know about that when Wilde comes in, but we manage to stay hidden. Wilde says this is the last shipment. We get information on R, as well as learning that Harry infiltrated a couple months back and stole some of the R, and Simon gives us the key to the storage room. We also grab Spinarak its snack, allowing us to return to the second floor. We then solve a Strength puzzle and proceed to the storage area.
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Also known as Cyberchao X.

Match 117: Zelda vs. Aerith Gainsborough

Zelda 18235
Aerith 11088

Okay fine I guess I can't avoid this forever. Because honestly, at one point I was all ready to go back to this, then I saw what match was up next and was like "nah, I'm good". Because most of these division finals, even if they were never really in question, the loser still put up a good show. This was just a steady beating, and nobody was really that surprised by it, not after what Zelda did to Squall the previous round. For the casuals, it didn't even take that long--Zelda's prediction percentage was still above 25% and proportionally she lost more brackets this round than the last one (even by raw numbers, it's close) even though Aerith making it this far was considered fairly surprising. Though that's mostly from fear of rallies that never materialized; she was considered an underdog with the casuals all the way back in Round 1.

Match 118: Geralt vs. Auron

Geralt 13739
Auron 15582

LOLCasuals. 9.97% for Auron isn't necessarily funny in its own right since this was somewhat of a wide open division, but how we got to that point is. Over 30% of brackets had him losing in Round 1 to Lucina, and the first time that he actually lost more brackets than he retained was this round, even though the top half of Division 6 was extremely weak. I was willing to blame it on RallyFEAR but Pac-Man was actually the slight favorite against Sans in R1 and Geralt seems to have retained enough percentage to be considered the clear favorite every round. 1-seed fear? Whatever; this was a pleasantly close match. Here's hoping that Geralt really was a trial for a character battle that openly embraces having characters not originating from video games. It doesn't even have to be a fully open one; there can still be some sort of requirement for a gaming tie-in. You'd probably have to institute something like what Allen did to determine the field for BGE3, too, when considering the games involved, since most licensed video games are awful and serve little purpose other than to be licensed video games. None of that. I'm talking about characters from highly acclaimed games such as Goldeneye 007, the Kingdom Hearts series, the Arkham series.
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Jakyl25 posted...

Fun Fact: The Tigers are in first place in their division, but are in 30th in MLB in runs scored with only 33

Next worse is Miami with 34

Mariners lead with 110

Mariners have spent most of the season on pace to break the single-season team home run record by over 100.
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Yeah, could be as soon as tomorrow
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Been working every day this week, but I'll be off for two weeks straight after this.
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Oh shit I've been forgetting to bump this
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Nope.
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Maybe tomorrow? Or maybe not.
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Also known as Cyberchao X.

Indeed.
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Up
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Up
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Charizard is leading the parade, carrying Buneary. Prinplup and Stufful are also marching, as are Ivysaur and Meganium; Hoppip and Skiploom are flying along, carrying balloons. Then Charizard keels over like it's in pain, and when it gets back up, its eyes are red. It scares the people off, attacks Meganium, and then flies into the air and starts spouting off its Flamethrower. Wait, no, the balloon Pikachu was talking about was in Charizard's hands! We replay the video, and it was carrying a balloon, and right before it keeled over, the balloon popped. The R was probably in the balloon. Slowing it down shows a needle popping the balloon...and rewinding it further, we see a Skorupi! Of course! We learned about the person with the Skorupi from Buneary, and they'd certainly know Pin Missile, which I figured was the most likely attack to have been used. But the man with the Skorupi...Emilia thinks it almost looks like it could be Keith! Tim asks if Keith was working with them then, and she says no, not with them; Meiko says she doesn't think he was even working for GNN back then. Oh hell no. There were two separate culprits! Max stole the violin, but he wasn't the one who changed the cue cards--Keith did that, and Carina's violin, had it actually been there instead of Max's fake, was merely to be collateral damage. The fact that Carina was supposed to be there would simply further obscure the motive--Tim and Pikachu were the target, because the one who orchestrated the Yanma crash was the one person who knew that they'd be in position for it--the one who "messed up" the scheduling for the assistant Pokmon! Roger confirms that Keith only joined six months ago. They're definitely convinced it's him, even only seeing him from behind--though as I just noted, when you consider that it was Keith's "blunder" that put Tim and Pikachu in place for the accident, it's quite plausible. Pikachu has come to the same conclusion I did, and notes that it was Keith who told Tim where to stand while Pikachu was bringing out the violin. Tim wonders if Keith an Max were working together. Pikachu says they can't rule it out. I don't think it's the case--there's no real reason that the violin switch and the camera crash need to be related. It's confirmed that Keith has left the studio, and the music is more intense now. We see Keith in the hall, running. The elevator's going up? He's heading to the roof, not to the main entrance. Why? He's got an aerial exit plan? Skorupi is to keep us busy. It uses Poison Sting. Help is on its way, Keith says...it's a Noivern! I initially press the button much too early. On the second try, I save Pikachu, and something comes out...some sort of device. Or was it the locket? It changed colors...it's more than it appears. End of chapter.
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There's another Pika-prompt, but it's just to tell me to look everywhere. Olga's dressing room is up next, and both she and Purugly agree that she was in the dressing room brushing Purugly. She says a staffer did come to get her, but then something odd happened. Pikachu seems to think she couldn't be the culprit. She said that afterwards, someone came and was beating on the door, but when she looked through the window, she didn't see anything. Next stop, sub-control room; we don't even have to speak to any of them to get them all alibied out. And we finish at Max's dressing room. We get another "Tim, be sure to remember what people told us" rather than "Hm...now that I think about it, this person couldn't be the culprit" after talking to Max and learning that, like Olga, he didn't actually see Emilia, only heard her. Chatot says it was watching TV, and it was excited because Max told it he'd give it its snack early. It also says that in addition to Emilia, a Pokmon stopped by. And rammed into the door, same as what happened with Olga. Chatot cried out in surprise, and the Pokmon ran off. We try Chatot's signals. Snapping Tim's fingers makes Chatot imitate Mr. Graham; whistling makes it imitate Hiro; adjusting his collar does nothing, and stamping his foot, as seen before, provokes the Olga impersonation. Pikachu figures the two doorbangings are related. Talking to Carina suggests that Olga also has motive, as she'd previously asked about acquiring the violin, and also makes another checkmark. Pikachu is confused; all suspects have alibis. Allegedly. We get a prompt after leaving the room and say there was a faked alibi. ...Damnit it is Max. I'll bet you anything that knocking on the door to the dressing room is the cue for Chatot to imitate Max himself. Pikachu says that the four people that were out and about--Max, Olga, Keith, and Emilia--are the only four possibilities. Tim questions this last one, and Pikachu says he knows how Tim feels, but a detective must remain objective. He also suggests talking to Mimikyu again. ...Uh, where's Mimikyu? Ah, it's in the studio. And, hmm, it confirms that when it knocked on Max's door, it heard Olga's voice. So no, the knocking was interpreted as the cue for the Olga impersonation. Pikachu gets his bolt of brilliance and scares the staffer in the sub-control room off his chair, and is about to declare the culprit when Mimikyu pushes the wheeled cart he's standing on away and takes over the stage. Ah, but Emilia didn't knock once loudly the way Mimikyu did; she knocked three times. That's a separate cue. It's Max. We've got him. Olga says she's never seen a message, and Tim and Carina reveal that it's something only Carina would know, because it was on the inside and she saw it being made. We accuse Max of knowing where the real one is, and he says he was in his dressing room the whole time. We say it was Chatot in there, and knock on a table three times, at which point Chatot says "Gotcha! I'll be right out!" in Max's voice. Emilia confirms that's exactly what she heard. And Chatot says "Admit it! Admit it!" like it did before. Then it adds "You have to admit it!" a couple of times. He wasn't sure the show would be picked up again, and he needed it to pay off his debts. Roger says that wouldn't have been a concern, but now he has to call the police. Then Meiko comes back with the tapes.
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The human crew confirms that those directions would've obviously caused a crash, but that they were indeed following the cue sheet. Camera 1's instructions were "shoot from above, shoot from the left, shoot from the right, move in". I notice that the second of these has a green arrow instead of the usual red ones. Another staffer has the script. Hiro suggests that Hoothoot's signal also could've been delayed. Interference with the sub-control room could mess things up. We're allowed to leave the studio now. Keith's right there with the cue sheet for Camera 2. Shoot from above, shoot from the right, move away, and follow. That shouldn't have caused problems, should it? Ah, no, wait, they're both trying to shoot from above at the start. He says the original cue sheet should be at the sub-control room, which is where we were headed anyway. Roger and Ethan are here, and suddenly Ethan doesn't seem so generous; he's angry that they have to pay for Carina's violin and says he told Roger to get rid of any useless staff members. Ah, that green one was to call attention to the issue; the original version of the Camera 1 instructions had Camera 1 moving out rather than shooting from the left as the second instruction. Looks like that's all we need--the disparity. Tim thinks that it's possible that the culprit was gunning for Carina directly, as if not for Keith's mistake necessitating a practice run with Tim there, Carina herself would've been in that spot for the accident. We beeline to her dressing room and explain what happened. She says that the violin is one-of-a-kind, a memento of her grandfather. There's a message on the inside of the back plate. Pikachu says that he helped Kricketune pick up the pieces of the violin, but saw no message on the back plate. And we examine the broken violin to confirm. This is a fake. The real goal was to steal the one-of-a-kind violin made by Carina's grandfather and then destroy the evidence that the switch had been made. Well, even if the target was the violin and not Carina herself, there's still no viable suspect other than Olga. Carina says she didn't notice the switch, but from the tone, she thinks the one she used for her performance was still the real one. Kricketune agrees, and it would know. It also said that the fake violin seemed softer than the real one. I start for the door, but get a Pika-prompt to figure out when the violin was swapped. I say that it was swapped out during preparations, but that's not right for this input--we're supposed to input that when Pikachu was carrying it, it was definitely already the fake. Then that the real one was still there during the performance, then that it's because of the tone, and...we don't have to explicitly say that it was swapped out during preparations; we're done with this prompt. We start investigating alibis. Hiro and the nameless staffers were all still in the studio, and Keith was on a lower floor searching for the assistant Pokmon. He says he ran into Emilia on the way back, who had just finished fetching Max and Olga. Pikachu prompts us to talk to Hiro again, and we learn that Max was in debt, giving him a motive for the theft. Emilia says she didn't actually see Max and Olga; they seemed busy, so...*facepalm* she just told them what she needed to through the door. Which in all likelihood means Olga has no alibi--what she actually heard was likely Max and Chatot. Chatot's Olga impression even tells people to "go away"--Emilia certainly can't be faulted for not confirming Olga's presence. We run into Mimikyu in the hall, and it says it was going around the dressing rooms while avoiding the staff, trying to promote itself. In the randos' dressing room, Ekans and Magnemite are having a stupid argument about which of their talents is better, and Tim says that's like comparing Leppa Berries to Oran Berries. Oi.
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The thing is, there is a mystery that I feel like I can solve right now--the interference with the cameras. That's probably Magnemite's doing. But we can't even acknowledge that as a problem that needs dealing with.

Huh, even Olga's obvious red herring prompted the call for which Pokmon is related to its disappearance. Only the purple ears--the very first thing I tried--gets an immediate rejection. But none of it means anything. I'm left to wandering around and hoping that the Mimikyu/Magnemite thing made a new dialogue prompt appear on someone I talked to prior to witnessing it. It doesn't appear to have. ...Damnit! There'd been so few times that the magnifying glass even appeared in this chapter that I just assumed that I really had checked everything, because I've been running at just about everything hoping I could examine something. But I didn't. There's a black box in the should-have-been-locked dressing room with a warning: "Magnemite inside. Please do not open until filming begins." And we get some testimony affirming that Magnemite's powerful electromagnetic waves cause the equipment here to malfunction. That's what we needed. Except...the only thing that the actual testimony says is that Magnemite is in its cage. So we finally have two pieces of testimony for the third segment that actually seem to relate to the same thing, except they simply contradict each other rather than working together to build a case for something. Ah, if I use Kricketune's statement that it takes other Pokmon's spots as the base statement, that actually works--Magnemite wandered off because Purugly stole its spot; it's in the black box! Even by Purugly standards, it looks fat. So now we go directly to the sub-control room to tell Hiro about the escaped Magnemite. Pikachu gets the idea to use the Yanma cameras to track down Magnemite; they'll start showing static when they get close. We find it backstage. And that concludes our tour of GNN. Oh dear, Olga's part of the show, and her job is to be just as obnoxious as she is off-stage. Well, at least she's supportive of Carina, in her own way.

Or not. The crew says she was against Carina being on the show all the way. They also say Max had been down lately. Ah, Olga is a violinist as well. Talking to Max starts a cutscene between him and Olga. And we figure out one of Max's signals to Chatot for a specific voice mimicry. He leaves, too, and apparently triggering that cutscene was all we needed to be allowed to talk to Hiro. I talk to everyone else first, but they provide nothing we need. Carina's performance begins, and Pikachu is moved to tears. Hiro even says Pikachu's being too loud. Emilia goes to retrieve Olga and Max for the real deal, and Carina asks Hiro what she should do in the meantime. He tells her to put her violin backstage...oh dear. I noticed that conspicuous instrument case backstage, because if Ace Attorney taught me anything, it's that instrument cases are always relevant to the case. No one in this room has anything new to say and the curtain to backstage is closed, so I guess we have to leave? No, Pikachu won't let us. Oh, Hiro's still here. I thought everyone with a name had left. He says the next scene is where the assistant Pokmon gives Carina her violin, and Keith went to get the assistant Pokmon but he hasn't come back yet. That triggers a cutscene; Keith says he mixed up the dates of the schedule and the assistant won't make it. Hiro says he needs a replacement, and Mimikyu jumps around enthusiastically, only for Hiro to suggest that Pikachu do it, as he seems to love music. Pikachu's ecstatic, but this is going to be trouble. Then the two cameraYanma crash into each other, right above the violin, and the cameras fall and smash it. Okay, that wasn't quite what I expected to happen. Yanma did say the person it normally received orders from wasn't there, but... Yanma says it wasn't their fault. Both Yanma say they moved exactly as the staff told them to.
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This is very disorienting, but we finally find the sub control room. We meet Hiro Morgan and his partner Hoothoot. He teases Emilia about Tim being her boyfriend. Then we get tasked with shooting with the Yanma cameras. Pikachu's hamming it up as expected. Wait, I wasn't paying enough attention to know what to input here! Oh, I sort of have some freedom here. I just have to do it as I see fit. The first three movements seemed okay, so let's just change up this last bit. We rejoin Pikachu, and Olga shows up again. Mr. Graham ropes us into helping search for Purugly. Apparently it's wandered off before, though another staffer says that Olga is so unpleasant that if it was abducted, there'd be no shortage of suspects. Roger says he thought he saw it out in the hall, and it should still be on this floor. One of the Yanma says Purugly is really picky and tended to swat at the cameras with its tail when it inevitably saw something it disliked in the footage. Another cameraman says it doesn't get along with Max's Chatot and has staring contests with it. And the last being in the room, the second Yanma, gives us something concrete: out the right door. We walk two steps away from the screen and get sucked into a cutscene. Pikachu is entranced by music, and stumbles into a room where Carina Mitchell is playing violin along with her partner Kricketune. Pikachu's even more entranced by her appearance. Kricketune says Purugly stopped by and shoved it out of the way to take a nap on the sofa. Heh, when Kricketune's intro said "attractive middle-aged musician", I thought it was just referring to the mustache, but when Pikachu starts commenting on how gorgeous Carina is, Kricketune gets protective an says she's like a daughter to him. Carina's nervous about being in the spotlight--she's fine while playing, but talking to the cameras will be tough. Max and Chatot are in the next dressing room. Chatot says it might be in the next dressing room over, because it's Purugly's daily routine to "go around and make sure no young Pokmon stars get too full of themselves." Max adds something about Purugly's physical appearance that winds up in our testimony. Over in the sub control room, there's some static on the video. Oh, right, one of the cameramen was complaining about the camera going black! Hiro adds another bit of testimony about Purugly, namely its tendency to use its tail as a corset. We meet Mimikyu in the hallway, and it's hostile to Pikachu. Unfortunately, the next dressing room is Olga's, so the testimony we receive is our red herring. Next dressing room, we find Mimikyu again. It says at this rate, it'll lose to Magnemite. We probably passed it in the hall, he says. But Mimikyu doesn't even have a prompt for talking about Purugly. Next is a Mawile, which has nothing useful to say, and its human partner, who doesn't help us with our current goal but nevertheless saw something weird--this dressing room door would normally be locked when no humans are around so the Pokmon don't run off, but it wasn't. She says her Mawile's specialty is calligraphy. I seem to have made the full rounds, though. Maybe I need to go into case notes? Yeah, I can start using things. The first piece of testimony is to comment on its staring contests with Chatot, but for which Pokmon it might be involved with, the answer is Kricketune. However, the piece of information I'm looking for as to why isn't part of the available testimony--its routine of harassing the new stars. Maybe it isn't Kricketune? We need two pieces of testimony, and the only ones we have are Hiro's dream, Mimikyu passing Magnemite in the hall, and Kricketune's sensitivity to sounds--none of which seem relevant, and all of which are disparate enough that I can't see any pair of them both being relevant to the same thing. Huh, the bit about it stealing Kricketune's spot also prompts the next input. As does its vanity. But I'm clearly missing something.
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Up, though later today is a probable continuation.
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Guess we're just bumping this again
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I was among those with Bowser in my bracket and Kirby in my Oracle, because I am susceptible to Groupthink.
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Upsy go
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Match 116: Bowser vs. Kirby

Bowser 15211
Kirby 13033

When a greater percentage of Gurus get a match correct than Oracles, you know we've screwed up somewhere along the line. Bowser has always been one of the strongest midcarders; by raw votes, his match with Snake in 2005 was still the closest 1v1 between a Noble Niner and a non-Noble Niner (though that would obviously change this year because of the horrible vote totals), closer than even Samus-Tifa 2006. He'd beaten Kirby before, during that same 2005 season. Now, Kirby had established quite a resume since then as well, so Bowser was only a slight favorite there--69 to 60, with 28 of the remaining 31 Gurus picking Charizard. But in the Oracle, which was made with the additional "knowledge" of the first three rounds? Kirby received 80% of Oracle predictions.

But it's a shame it even came to that. I love both of these characters, and if one of them had been in Division 3 or 6 instead, that'd be great. Preferably Division 3, if it's Kirby who was moved; for someone who hadn't faced any Noble Niners until 2008, Kirby sure has a lot of matches with Sonic. Why do I love them so much? For Bowser, it's mostly the more recent games. The RPGs were what allowed Bowser to really show his character--I was planning on spamming SMRPG and BIS quotes any time Bowser did anything good in his matches with Crono, but he never really did--but it's since carried over into the main games. A common criticism of video game leads is that their personalities are very generic, a necessary evil because they're supposed to represent the player. Think Mario, Link, Crono, and especially Red, who Game Freak has decided shall forever remain silent even when not the protagonist. The villains are not bound by this restriction, so they get all the good lines. Remember all the hype surrounding Magus in 2003? It's because Magus actually had a character, so he was thought to be much more popular within the fanbase than Crono. Kirby, on the other hand, appears at first to be one of those low-characterization leads, and in some ways he is, but it's more accurate to say that his characterization is a child-like simplicity. Kirby has faced all sorts of cosmic horrors, and he still maintains his cheerful demeanor, waving and dancing and constantly smiling (no matter how much American box art tries to hide this last fact). We could all learn a lot from Kirby.
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Probably going to need another bump after this, too, because tomorrow is a very busy day.
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Also known as Cyberchao X.

Maybe today, maybe not
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Also known as Cyberchao X.

And again.
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Maybe so, maybe not.
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Bump
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Match 113: Ganondorf vs. Vivi

Ganondorf 16008
Vivi 14803

Vivi narrowly managed to take the unregistered vote, but registered voters easily carried Ganondorf to a win. This was especially satisfying as Ganondorf was the third-place finisher in Vivi's legendary upset of Mario in 2013, definitively declaring that RallyFAQs was truly dead.

Match 114: Zero vs. Pikachu

Zero 13387
Pikachu 17428

Division 2's final was a yawner, as while rallies may have been dead, PokFEAR was still alive and well. But it was still worth something to look at. Pikachu won this match with 56.56% of the vote. Way back in 2004, despite theoretically having SFF on his side, Mega Man was only able to beat Zero with 56.01%. Granted, Zero's fared worse against Mega in two later fourway matches, culminating in Mega Man beating Charizard with Zero as an anchor after having previously lost to Weighted Companion Cube, but 2013 especially showed that SFF is magnified in multiways because the fans will abandon the lesser of the two characters to support the one with the better shot of winning. Last-Place Factor, we call it.

Match 115: Pokmon Trainer Red vs. Alucard

Red 13041
Alucard 15195

The PLAN! Alucard may not have been the intuitive choice to win Division 3, and both the Guru and the casuals' prediction percentages show that, but he staked his claim as the favorite to win the division back in Round 2, when he was beating Yuna with the same percentage that Kefka was beating Bomberman. Was he the weakest division winner? Yeah, probably. But he took advantage of a weak division and showed that he's still got some strength, 16 years after he initially shocked the board with a deep run in CB1.
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Bump
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Up
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