Lurker > Ulti_PCA

In 2010 he finally got his chance to shine. In the first round he beat up a penguin, and in the second round he would have lost to Zidane but got lucky and drew Zidane in a day match. He would eventually get annihilated by Mario. Ike 100% loses to Zidane in a night match. Make no mistake there.

In 2013 his opening threepack had Proto Man and Dr. Robotnik in it. Ike only beat Proto Man by 170 votes and his lead was 500 at one point. If this poll was 2 hours longer, Ike would have lost. As-is, he only won with bracket votes. Then in round 2 he drew GLaDOS and Julia Roberts. He finished a distant third.

Which brings us to this year. Phoenix Wright is just an inexplicable loss. My whole job is finding out why people vote the way they do, but I got no answers here outside of Ike being a character that always gets into these weird debatable matches and always underperforms. I would bet most of his strength comes from Smash instead of Fire Emblem, too, and I can tell you the Smash fans are pretty fed up with all the Fire Emblem swordsman in those games. I would not be surprised if the male swordsmen were all anti-voted by those people. Ike, Chrom, Roy, and Marth are pretty much the exact character as far as Smash fans are concerned and none of them are particularly well liked outside the people who play them. That theory would explain a lot actually, because under normal circumstances with Smash backing a character shouldn't constantly choke.
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Division 4 Quarterfinal: (3)Phoenix Wright vs (6)Ike

(3)Phoenix Wright - 15320 [50.67%]
(6)Ike - 14913 [49.33%]
Total Votes - 30233
Prediction Percentage - 40.33%

This one just floored me. I knew it was possible, and knew Ike was never all that strong, and that there was some stats proof Phoenix was stronger for this match, but I had to see it to actually believe it. The thought of Phoenix Wright, a visual novel character (no one cares about visual novels, get over it people) with a marginal Marvel vs Capcom 3 appearance and dubious contest history, beating Ike was just insane to me. Yet here we are.

I can't really overstate how huge this is, because look at how bad Phoenix's history is. This dude got blown out by Gordon Freeman. He almost blew a 1300 vote lead to Bomberman of all people in a second place duel. Bomberman! He was a 3 seed and lost to Jecht. His games always get completely and thoroughly blown out. The only times he has ever looked good are the Rivalry Rumble and Vincent getting a high school prom match picture in one of the biggest cases of sabotage we will ever see -- as a side note to KamikazePotato, that is picture sabotage, genius, not a well known sprite.

Ike's contest history isn't too much better, but was at least better than Phoenix's. He also has Smash backing, which is a better cameo than anything Phoenix has been in. In retrospect I should have seen this coming when the dude lost to Sarah Jessica Parker in 2013, but I digress.

When this match started, Phoenix didn't have his usual godslayer board vote, which was likely due to bracket voting. Phoenix was only able to slowly build a lead, so I figured Ike still had a shot.

Nope. Well I mean he did, but this match stayed too close for too long for him to potentially overcome a rally later. You don't beat Phoenix by having close matches with him. Board 8 won't allow it. You have to beat him. So then this poll was stuck in the range of Phoenix leading by 100-200 for the first 6 hours, it was effectively over. Ike could never truly make any headway, and then the night vote hit and just ended it. Phoenix took off overnight, Ike never got the morning vote, and that was that. This match was relatively close the entire time, but there was never one second where it looked like Ike was going to win it. This was the latest in a long history of underperformances, but this was the worst one. Let's run through the list.

In 2007, nominations were open when Ike was announced for Smash Bros. Brawl. His first fourpack had Duke Nukem, Guybrush Threepwood, and Gordon Freeman in it. Ike finished in third place, 1100 behind Gordon, as the only Nintendo character with two FPS characters stealing votes from each other. It's one of the most embarrassing losses I've ever seen.

In 2008, his fourpack had Pikachu, Arthas, and Spy in it. Third place again, this time 1100 behind Arthas. Again, a thoroughly embarrassing loss but at least he was sharing the poll with Nintendo. It was explainable.
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Division 4 Quarterfinal: (12)Charizard vs (4)Bowser

(12)Charizard - 13136 [43.45%]
(4)Bowser - 17096 [56.55%]
Total Votes - 30232
Prediction Percentage - 48.44%

We all knew this was coming after the 'Zard choked in round one, but it still had to be finalized and there was a small tinge of doubt before match time. But there wasn't going to be any crazy Charizard runs this year. Bowser clearly waited 8 years for this one to his get-back at this guy, much like how Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff wanted Warrior in WCW for only one match, and it showed. There wasn't even a Pokemon board vote in this match. If anything there was a Bowser board vote, and the best Charizard was able to do was bleed a few percents throughout the day. It's a good thing a Pokemon game came out in 1998, because it feels like their window to win a contest is completely and totally slammed shut. When you need Best Year in Gaming to win one, you're probably screwed.

Relevant point regarding Bowser's board vote: When Smash Ultimate came out post contest and Board 8 had the first Save My contest for Smash characters, Bowser won it. That dude is insanely popular here, which might explain him being over 60% at the start. We just talked about legitimacy. This was legit. Bowser went out there, clearly kept this match in mind as motivation, and just beat Charizard's ass.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3845-heart-division-final-bowser-vs-charizard

That was fueled by Heart Gold and Soul Silver. The 'Zard we've seen lately, even with Pokemon Trainer's return to Smash, is the real Charizard. I won't go so far as to call him a fraud, but he is absolutely not what we saw in 2010. It's worth noting here that without Pikachu, Pokemon would have looked like trash all contest long. Their results were all mediocre or garbage, even in wins. All of them. Pikachu was the one standout.

I don't know how many of you listen to the John Middlekauf 3 and Out podcast, but this was a John Middkauf Ass Kicking. Hyped match, one showed up. I maintain Bowsette was a huge influence, just for the record. I don't see any mainstream outlets covering Charizard porn, nor do I want to. And for those wondering why I keep making random porn jokes, that was an actual factor later in this contest.
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Advo you did well!

In looking back at the R1 pics, only four of them were truly abominable. Quiet, Joker, Claire Redfield, and Chris Redfield.

Joker/Claire in general was just an abomination and was handled every bit as badly as 2013.
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None of his supporters want him reining in jack.

The stock market is a normal correction and interest rates being raised, anyway. Since when do liberals care about big corporations making money in the stock market? Wasn't there a big Occupy Wall Street movement protesting exactly that not too long ago? An actual crash, as opposed to a correction, would mean no jobs available plus a recession. This has simply not happened.

Even a recession isn't the end of the world if you're smart with your money, because it's the best time to buy assets.
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Division 4 Quarterfinal: (1)2B vs (9)Ness

(1)2B - 16239 [53.72%]
(9)Ness - 13991 [46.28%]
Total Votes - 30230
Prediction Percentage - 46.42%

2B's prediction percentage here was no accident. A lot of people, myself included, felt like the Ness/Shadow winner could win this match and that 2B was a hilariously overseeded character. People have major recency bias about this and think her match with Bowser proves she's legit, which shows a lack of context. Not dumping on her or Automata here, but it's just facts.

She beat Ness and beat him easily, but this match was close enough in percents to prove she was not a legitimate 1 seed. Maybe a 2 or a 3, but 1 seeds are held to one standard and one standard only -- "Can they win the contest?". Some will point to characters like Sonic and Mega Man, but low rank noble niners could, conceivably, win a contest without an insane rally. Even high midcarders like Zero or Luigi could do it. Just remove Link from a bracket, have Mario and Samus get randomly upset somewhere, and Luigi or Zero could catch fire. We saw Zelda do something similar just this year.

2B? Nope. Not when you're getting 54% on Ness you aren't. People look at one good match with Bowser as proof, but one good match doesn't erase the point here. Legitimacy means having results like that over and over again for years. Consistency. I like her a lot, but I harshly judge 1 seeds. It's part of the deal, lady, and 54% on Ness is just bad news. I don't care about Smash. You're a 1 seed.

To put this a different way, is Shadow the Hedgehog legit? https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1345-south-division-round-2-mario-vs-shadow-the-hedgehog

Is Magus? https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1353-north-division-semifinal-link-vs-magus

(The hilarious irony here is 2B might actually get into Smash and cause this writeup to fade away and classify itself as ob-so-lete by 2020. Shout out to the Hardyz.)
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AxemRedRanger posted...

The Noble Nine generally taking up most of the 1 seeds makes it really hard for 1 seeds to get upset too early. Also, 2005 and 2006 had 8-seed instead of 16-seed divisions, the fourways had no official seeding at all, and 2013 had the wacky 27-seed divisions, so the opportunities are a lot more limited than you might think.

1 seed Dante in 2005 did lose in Round 2 to 5 seed Vincent, though.

I only count legitimate seeding in anecdotes, none of that 1-8 or 1-27 crap.
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Division 3 Quarterfinal: (7)Kefka vs (15)Bomberman

(7)Kefka - 18537 [59.82%]
(15)Bomberman - 12451 [40.18%]
Total Votes - 30988
Prediction Percentage - 44.2%

This match right here is why Kefka vs L-Block was such a big deal -- the free win that followed. No matter the Kazuma/Bomberman match, it was a bye for the Kefka/L winner and not even Kefka could have screwed this one up after getting by his first test. This was just a simple, easy, clean blowout. Nothing more to say about it.

Except for one tiiiiiiiiiny thing that everyone will find hilarious. As you can see, Kefka scored 59.81% on Bomberman. No big deal, right? We all saw that coming.

The guy scored 60.19% on L-Block!

Can you even imagine if L-Block and Kazuma switched places on this bracket, and we got to see a 2 seed L-Block against a 15 seed Bomberman, and L-Block lost? Does that go down as our funniest upset ever or is it still Sandbag > Magus? I suppose L-Block's 2007 run should always be mentioned when we talk about funny upsets, but I'm too busy burying the thing to care. Does even one guru/oracle/bop/[random Board 8 alphabet games] pick Bomberman there? I sure as hell wouldn't have.

For the record, I would still say Sandbag > Magus is funnier. That match happened when people still actually cared about this web site and we weren't some far left echo haven. These days no one gives a rip about this place and we're a meme for even existing; there are tons of reasons for that, but the extreme lack of free speech is near the top of the list. You don't even have to talk politics when mentioning that, either. The entire methodology behind this site's moderation system was trash from day one and was always going to cause people to leave. We said it at the time and we were proven right.

That's why Sandbag is funnier. It comes from an era when this place was actually cool to be on.
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Division 3 Quarterfinal: (3)Alucard vs (6)Yuna

(3)Alucard - 18472 [59.62%]
(6)Yuna - 12512 [40.38%]
Total Votes - 30984
Prediction Percentage - 48.97%

Not gonna lie, I thought Yuna was going to win this match in a rout. I adore Final Fantasy X and it's been hard coming to grips with how damn weak that entire franchise has gotten these days. Not that I'm complaining! Alucard is one of my all time favorite characters and the recent PS4 port of Symphony of the Night gave me a chance to get a platinum trophy in a game I'm just in love with. Richter Belmont and his terrible inputs can fuck right off, but Alucard is amazing. I wasn't surprised Alucard won, but I was surprised to see a 60-40 beating in a match slated in the 55-45 range. He had clearly gotten a buff from that PS4 release, and some people keep talking about the Castlevania Netflix special. I didn't watch it, but maybe it helped. Who knows.

Alucard just keeps finding ways to go on these deep contest runs, and it started right at the beginning. Check out some of the damage he's caused through two rounds in his career, all of which comes with these crazy low prediction percents.

Summer 2002 - He beat Tails and Duke Nukem. Duke was the favorite in that fourpack that year.

Summer 2003 - He beat Bomberman and Kirby. Almost everyone picked Kirby. I'm one of the few who actually picked Alucard, because I went and played Symphony of the Night before that contest and was on an everglow high. Kirby is a great character, but his games leave a lot to be desired. Alucard has both.

Summer 2008 - After a five year break from busting brackets, he was back with a vengeance. The dude advanced twice in fourways, both of which in highly odd matches. He also had that 3 vote nonsense in 2007 and two night vote leads against Kingdom Hearts before getting buried by the morning vote. Dude's a vampire and the kiddies woke up, what do you expect?

Rivalry Rumble - Wins his division before getting fed to Zelda. This made two losses to Link and one to Ganon back in the day.

And then this year happened. There were a lot of close calls in round two in there that I didn't list, not to mention the ridiculous 2015 snub. The point here is if the guy has a decent path, he can win, and 2018 would prove it in pretty extreme fashion. Unlike most years, this dude was not done in round 3.
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Division 3 Quarterfinal: (5)Crash Bandicoot vs (4)Big Boss

(5)Crash Bandicoot - 14601 [47.13%]
(4)Big Boss - 16381 [52.87%]
Total Votes - 30982
Prediction Percentage - 42.6%

Crash 100% deserved to win the 2006 Oscar for Best Picture and the people who still whine about it are a bunch of idiots. Not only was that a damn good movie, but its competition was Munich, Good Night and Good Luck, Capote, and Brokeback Mountain. Giving Brokeback the best picture award as a tokenism achievement for gay people just because they're gay people would be every bit as bigoted and short sighted as hating gay people just because they're gay people. In the actual equal society I keep hearing people say they want, sexual orientation wouldn't even matter and we would just pick the best stuff. Crash was the best movie that year and seeing it always get mentioned on the 'most undeserving winners ever' lists is just dumb. And now Hollywood hands out awards to movies about fish sex, so who even knows what's going on over there anymore. I actually really liked The Shape of Water, but best picture? Come on.

Oh wait, wrong Crash. Whoops. Well forgive me for having to come up with new material for all these predictable round 2 blowou--

Wait, what? Literal Crash Bandicoot held tough with Big Boss, got 47% on him, and won a bunch of updates throughout the entire match? This actually happened? The fuck? I know Crash had that trilogy, but this match says a lot more about Big Boss. Metal Gear Solid is done. There is just no other way of putting it. This is about as embarrassing a win as you'll ever see. Konami just murdered that series in cold blood and it's translated to contest polls. There is no way this happens in, say, 2008.

What's utterly terrifying that Crash probably wins this match if he was a surprise entrant in Smash Ultimate before the contest, and not one person would have picked it. It would have been our biggest upset since Knuckles > Magus.

(Watch Crash get in now.)
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Eh Christmas is done. Back from traveling.

I've played everything but Dream Drop Distance.
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Division 3 Quarterfinal: (1)Sora vs (9)Pokemon Trainer Red

(1)Sora - 15212 [49.1%]
(9)Red - 15772 [50.9%]
Total Votes - 30984
Prediction Percentage - 28.39%

I know Charizard looked weak in round one, but after what Pikachu had just done the writing was kinda sorta on the wall for this upset to occur. Most of us saw it coming pre-contest, but the main point in Sora's favor was the Kingdom Hearts 3 hype. Remember, Kingdom Hearts the original was the game that everyone credited for the 2003 contest being so heavily weighted toward Squaresoft results. Yet 15 years later, and here we are with Sora unable to beat a mute Pokemon trainer right after getting a hype video. Not that he didn't try, so let's get to the actual match. I have a thing to explain here anyway.

The final score looks close, but the early parts of the match were not. After a few small hiccups early with either small gains or random Sora pushes, Red started taking off in a flash and got a 250 vote lead. Then just as quickly, it looked like things were wearing off and the night was kicking in. Pokemon has these random spots where it's awful at night -- one of the few trends where our old JUST WAIT TIL THE KIDDIES WAKE UP 2002 meme still applies -- and it looked possible here. Sora blasted over 100 votes off that lead in under an hour, and it legitimately looked like he might win the match.

So I rallied the Pokemon subreddit. Fuck it. Don't care. I made one topic around 9:30 when Sora was making his push, and I made another for the morning vote. Both were deleted eventually, but they were both viewed a few thousand times and it clearly made the difference. Could Sora have won otherwise? Would someone else have rallied? Don't know, don't care. Red is a better character from a better series. I don't dislike Sora, but I'm over having to choke on Tetsuya Nomura's vomit any time I play a Kingdom Hearts game these days. Had that series stopped at 2, we're good. But it didn't, so I give no fucks. Justice done, justice served. The final score of this poll was close, but Sora was never in contention of winning. The best he could manage is shaving off 150 votes, but you can believe I was ready for more Pokemon subreddit topics with throwaway accounts just in case. Sora was not winning this match.

What's extra hilarious about this is all the people who whined over that rally were all over hentai subreddits asking for Tifa votes later on in this contest, or the people not doing that were supporting the people doing it. You either support rallying or you don't. You don't get to have two standards and only like rallies when it benefits a character or game you like. Don't be a hypocritical douchebag. I support rallies, so I like all of them. Hearthstone or Shadow of the Colossus could win a contest tomorrow with rallies and I would support it, because I'm not a punk.

This would mark only the third time a 1 seed has lost to the 8/9 winner. Before the 2015 games contest, it had never happened. In that contest, it happened twice. Pokemon Red Blue Yellow Green Teal Orange Mauve Off-White Neon Beige Subtitle Psychic Olive ver 1.3x #RReload Socket beat Mario 3, and Mario RPG beat GTA5: Casual Gaming is Bad Edition. Add Red beating Sora to the list. All three involve Nintendo pulling the upset, though in only one of those matches (Mario 3) did the 1 seed actually deserve their seeding and eat a legitimate upset. Sora and any GTA are just undeserving of that spot, as we've seen multiple times.
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With that I'm taking a break until Wednesday. I love you guys but I'm not writing PCA stuff for Christmas.

Merry Christmas!!!!!
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garetha200 posted...

Really the only thing that's changed for them since then is Sonic getting announced for Brawl and Sonic Mania coming out

No MGS game since then matters in 2018, and Snake missing 4 also doesn't matter but if it did it would negatively impact him now

So I don't see why Snake would beat him by more unless the current voters simply like Snake more, which seems unlikely based on how much they hate all other MGS characters, or like Sonic less, which feels more possible.

Either that or there's something else weird going on here. But I feel like the most likely hypothesis right now is that Sonic isn't as strong as he used to be.

Literally no one cared about Sonic being in Smash Ultimate.

Grown men were CRYING for "Everyone Is Here!".
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Division 2 Quarterfinal: (7)Pikachu vs (2)Kratos

(7)Pikachu - 18987 [63.41%]
(2)Kratos - 10957 [36.59%]
Total Votes - 29944
Prediction Percentage - 56.97%

I like Pikachu and Pokemon, so I'm okay with Pikachu winning here even though Kratos might be my favorite character in gaming at this point. Something about the guy being a bloodraged maniac maturing somewhat as he ages resonates with me, I dunno. I've always adored Kratos and love his games. God of War is one of the best series I've ever played, but there was no chance in hell Kratos was going to win this match even with God of War 2018 getting set to mop up 1398 Game of the Year awards.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ps4/191627-god-of-war/reviews/166896

Even if Kratos had a prayer of winning, I have access to some metrics non-contributors don't. That review won me Review of the Month. As you can tell by reading it and by my platinum trophy, I love the game to death. It was an incredible experience.

I don't post the review link to brag. I post it because at the time the bracket came out, that review had less than 30 hits. For a comparison, my Brawl review has almost 50,000. Part of that is GameFAQs being dead, but part of it is because for whatever reason, Kratos and God of War games are just not what resonates on this site. And even then, I did not think this beatdown would be as bad as it was. God of War sold like a bajillion copies and Pokemon fans were mixed at best on that Pikachu Let's Go game. Even with all that, Pikachu damn near doubled the poor guy. It wasn't a surprise Pikachu won, but winning this hard given all the Kratos hype was really something to see. Pikachu was super legit this year and was primed to kick ass well beyond the main bracket. This all but ended any hope of anyone other than him winning this division, too.
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garetha200 posted...

Yeah but he also blew out Sonic in '06

And he beat him even worse this time, by a nontrivial margin

So something happened, and it being a stronger Snake is unlikely. So it's a Sonic drop or a very large amount of random variance.

12 years is a long time man.

Also I'll get around to 2008 eventually. Didn't do a PCA that year out of disgust for fourways. I fucking hate them.

Division 2 Quarterfinal: (3)Yoshi vs (6)Velvet Crowe

(3)Yoshi - 21148 [70.63%]
(6)Velvet Crowe - 8796 [29.37%]
Total Votes - 29944
Prediction Percentage - 77.57%

Yoshi wins a match and gets Velvet Crowe for a round 2 opponent. Knuckles goes 8-1 in round 1 over the years and gets nothing but noble niners and near elites. I don't get it. And no, I am never letting this go until Knuckles wins one in round 2. Thanks for asking. I'm looking at some of these round 2 beatdowns these year just shaking my head.

In the 2015 games contest, I made a list of 1v1 matches in round 2 or later where the winner broke 80%. It can be found here: https://board8.wikia.com/wiki/(1)Chrono_Trigger_vs_(8)Dragon_Quest_VIII:_Journey_of_the_Cursed_King_2015

I really don't feel like doing that level of research with 70% as the threshold instead of 80, but I can't imagine it would be a much bigger list. These contests naturally have closer margins as you get later. It's just the normal way of things. For a character or game to break 70%, you need two things to happen unless we're talking about weird SFF stuff. One, you need an elite, near-elite, or upper midcarder in the winner's spot. Yoshi qualifies. And two, you need the other half of your fourpack to be abject garbage. I should note that Velvet got 61% in her round 1 match.

So yeah this was just a forgettable beatdown en route to Yoshi getting back to where he always goes, and I love him for it. I'm one of those knuckleheads who always votes for Yoshi in those favorite Mario character polls. Love the dude. Always have.
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Sonic folds to Nintendo, just like Snake does. Zelda blowing him out makes sense. I would guess the Nintendo fans just sided with Snake because he's a cooler character.

Snake gets random blowouts on lower NN characters sometimes. Means nothing.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2557-tournament-quarterfinal-solid-snake-vs-mega-man
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These are the tangents I go on for predictable round 2 blowouts. This was never going to actually be a match, because for both characters their entire job was knocking off larger seeds. Wario was meant to stop Monika's rally, and Master Hand was meant to embarrass Final Fantasy again. The only thing about the follow-up act of any interest was the match pictures side by side made it look like Wario was actually wearing Master Hand as a glove. I don't ask for much but someone PLEASE put that on the wiki for me. I beg it of you :D

On a total side note, I love matches or NCAA games with gigantic seeds facing each other like this. It makes me smile.
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Division 2 Quarterfinal: (12)Master Hand vs (13)Wario

(12)Master Hand - 11686 [39.03%]
(13)Wario - 18257 [60.97%]
Total Votes - 29943
Prediction Percentage - 40.85%

I had some hope that Master Hand could pull this upset, because I am an insane Smash Bros fanboy. Well, partially insane. I've toned it down a lot since spending some time with the series pros, and I outright refuse to act like any of those idiots. Every Smash group has a few noticeable "guys" in it. Yahtzee joked about it. Well I'm the chill as fuck turtle who everyone hates playing against because I have the most annoying play style on the planet, but because I'm so nice to everyone while also supplying the house for play space and the food for you parasites to mooch off of, you can all piss off =p. Trust me, there are far worse "guys" out there in the Smash community and I go out of my way not to be like them. I will never forget Inui getting kicked out of my play group within a month for being an arrogant douche to people, then whining on Smashboards about it. Some of you hardcores might remember Inui being last on the tier list once because the entire community hated him so much. You're welcome. That was due to a few incidents, one of which involved my group. It's a very small claim to internet fame for me. Fuck that guy and fuck everyone who acts like him.

For the unaware, he showed up just before Brawl came out (there's a big Smash community here in NJ and a lot of us used to play at Mercer County Community College or Rutgers, so we all get around quick) and started acting like Smash people are prone to act, and my group likes to play 4-man Melees with all items off except final smash balls. Top 2 stay in, bottom 2 rotate out, winner picks the level. None of that 24/7 tournament practice bullshit, because some of us are still capable of seeing Smash Bros as a video game instead of a job.

Well Inui did nothing but whine and act like only he knows tech strategies and blah blah blah and we should be practicing 2v2s and etc. So what we would do any time that idiot showed up is gang up on him 3 on 1 so he would have to rotate out. He would occasionally throw a fit, but it was nothing we didn't just laugh off because the guy is a harmless idiot. Well one day he shows up acting extra dumb, so we finally decided in Brawl to pick Mario Bros as a stage and just gang up on him first in every match he was in. You all know the stage.

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/wii/images/e/ee/MBBrawl.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20080504173310

So he throws this gigantic manic fit of rage (I legitimately had to punch him in the mouth at one point because he was clearly about to try getting violent, which is hilarious because I am twice his size) about how Sakurai is an idiot and that level should not be in and blah blah blah. The usual idiocy among Smash pros, you've all seen it I'm sure. So after I punch him and he finally shuts the hell up, he drives home, gets his own Wii, comes back, and hooks it up to the TV 10 feet from us. No one interacted with him or played with him all day. I could get into a very deep conversation here about how bullying and peer pressure in certain situations is actually a good thing because it's part of the normal social structure in getting people to not grow up to act like Inui, but I'm pretty far off the point already. With Ultimate coming out recently, just remember that liking Smash is fine. Acting like Inui or Mew2King is not, and frankly either their parents or their peers should have showed them ages ago that acting like they do is in no way socially acceptable.
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Hbthebattle posted...

The real question: why did Tails and Knuckles boost so much off Mania while Sonic just embarrassed himself?

I think it was bracket luck more than a boost.
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transience posted...

1.



As if there was ever any doubt. I generally subscribe to the idea that gamefaqs contests may not have made it to 2018 if we didn't have a single result that put Link's absolute dominance in doubt.

As I've said elsewhere in this thread, you kinda need everything to go your way to beat the King. You need a game like Kingdom Hearts to pull people who wouldn't normally play a Final Fantasy game to get to know a dude like Cloud. You need CELDA to manifest and hurt Link in the process. You need a site shift that favours Square in general. And even then, you still need a fantastic night vote to slow down Link's absolute dominance in the day.

Cloud/Sonic and Seph/Mario foreshadowed this, as I've said in like 6 other writeups, and Link just wasn't able to keep up with Cloud in 03. In a way, I'm almost surprised Link managed to get close to 48% on 03 Cloud. 03 Cloud is a killer.

This match is so ginormous that I honestly forget that it wasn't the 2003 final. It's like, did you know that Daigo's full parry on Justin Wong (you know the one) was in losers finals, and that he got beat by a Yun player named KO in grand finals 3-1? That's how I feel about this match. Link/Cloud is an endless "rivalry", a rivalry that is now like 13-1, but that 1 time will always make this seem bigger than it is. For one day, Cloud breathed life into these contests as we saw Link lose his only match against an actual character in 15 years.

Draven is an "actual character".

Good topic bro!
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Nelson_Mandela posted...

Mario/Samus invented lol xstats, but I think you've been hanging around the stats topics too much if you think it's our third most important match ever. IIRC the average lay-user didn't give it a second thought.

Nope. Amazing Telephone made that joke in 2004 and I ran with it.
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I'm not. Sonic is awesome.
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Division 2 Quarterfinal: (1)Zero vs (9)Knuckles the Echidna

(1)Zero - 16811 [56.15%]
(9)Knuckles - 13128 [43.85%]
Total Votes - 29939
Prediction Percentage - 56.68%

We knew this after round one, but this match confirmed it. Knuckles is freaking legit, and it's a crime he's never made it into round 3 in one of these contests. The dude has an 8-1 record in round one, and the worst luck on the planet in who he gets for round 2. Check out this ridiculous list, in order.

-Solid Snake
-Solid Snake
-Solid Snake again
-Squall
-Yoshi, Mega Man, and KOS-MOS
-Fei Fong Wong, Mario, and Zelda
-Sonic the Hedgehog
-Samus
-Zero

I mean seriously, look at this damn list. There wasn't one year in there where he could draw Aya Brea, Serious Sam, Aqua, or Sandbag in round two? I honestly blame CJayC for this because of his dumb idea to feed Knuckles to Snake three years in a row. Two years in a row I can understand, but by 2004 he couldn't have just swapped places with Jill Valentine or something? Dumb. The closest he came was against Squall in 2005, where he had a small bandwagon behind him after upsetting Magus. He got 46% in that match. We got Tails into round 3. My new crusade is getting Knuckles in there. Dude deserves it for being awesome for 25 years.

As for Zero, he did what he always does. He's always around 20-25 in the LOL x stats, never really moves, and is remarkably consistent year to year. I have absolutely nothing bad to say about the guy and love him for all the same reasons I love Knuckles. He's a stone cold badass when I don't have to hear a terrible voice actor doing terrible voice actor things. I just wish Knux could catch a damn break one of these years. ONE round 3 run. It's all I ask.
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Division 1 Quarterfinal: (10)Donkey Kong vs (2)Leon Kennedy

(10)Donkey Kong - 15859 [55.67%]
(2)Leon Kennedy - 12629 [44.33%]
Total Votes - 28488
Prediction Percentage - 38.05%

Of the 161 gurus this year, nine picked Donkey Kong to win this match. Of the 67 people who played the oracle for this match, only six picked Donkey Kong to win it. To put some perspective on this, more people picked Tidus to win in this spot than Donkey Kong. Fucking Tidus!

In retrospect, we should have seen this coming, but people are blinded by the old 'games =/= characters' routine. Resident Evil 4 looked like shit for every single match it was in during the 2015 games contest. It got 59% on Paper Mario, 58% on Fallout New Vegas, and 54% on Metal Gear Solid 2 leading up to the Super Mario RPG match. Want to see something eerie? Look at the percentages for Leon/DK here and then look at what happened when Resident Evil 4 got upset.

Super Mario RPG - 27502 [55.53%]
Resident Evil 4 - 22027 [44.47%]

"But Ulti, Donkey Kong is not in Super Mario RPG!" you explain.



Even more eerie is how dominant RE4 looked in Game of the Decade in 2010 compared to 2015. The Resident Evil series decline is real, and Leon Kennedy and Resident Evil 4 can't carry that franchise forever. That game came out in 2005, and Capcom is so desperate to regain lost magic from a decade plus of dumb bullshit that Resident Evil 4 has been released 27 times on every major system since. I wouldn't be surprised if a freemium phone game existed for RE4 at this point. When your parent company completely blows and loses the confidence of consumers, you go back to old habits instead of looking in a mirror and telling yourself to stop being a moron. I feel bad that Leon Kennedy has the sins of Capcom crawling all over his back, but here we are. Here the bleep we are. Shout out to Jim Rome.

I feel like if another Nintendo character on DK's level were in his place, more people would have picked that slot to win twice. Let's just hypothetically say Knuckles or Peach were here instead. More people would have picked it. But this is DK, so you get the anti-clutch factor. DK had two obstacles pre-contest. One, he's known for being a choke artist. Two, he drew Tidus in round one in a highly debated match. That's a lot to overcome, and shout out to the 9 people who picked this upset. After the freeze, this match was never even a match. Donkey Kong just went out there and beat Leon Kennedy's ass. Even the trends looked identical to the RE4 upset.

This would set up, of all things, Donkey Kong vs Vivi. Again. Could DK, boosted by finally being clutch, some great recent Country games, and Smash good will finally take down his nemesis?

lol no

As for where Resident Evil goes from here, who the hell knows. Capcom has sabotaged all of their own brands and it will take a long time to recover. The match pic crybabies should look at Capcom or Konami's business practices if they want to know what actual sabotage looks like, just for the record.
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Nanis23 posted...

Anagram posted...

Do DMC and DmC Dante even count as the same character?

In contests? yeah I guess they are
I bet you can also give Dante a Donte pic...although it will be very...sabotage-y

Which was a picture no one used because we don't sabotage, but don't tell that to the crybabies.
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Division 1 Quarterfinal: (3)Vivi vs (11)Aya Brea

(3)Vivi - 21489 [75.45%]
(11)Aya Brea - 6993 [24.55%]
Total Votes - 28482
Prediction Percentage - 65.96%

In every NCAA tournament a low seed wins a game or two and people completely lose their shit. Remember when Florida Gulf Coast shocked the world, dunked all over Georgetown and San Diego State, and Andy Enfield was able to lie to USC and convince them he can actually coach? There was a massive reality check waiting for them after a week of interviews and getting smoke blown up their asses; it was called "Florida", and they got utterly destroyed when an actual good team decided to show up. It's very rare to get a George Mason or a Loyola Chicago, and even those teams eventually got blown out of the gym. Almost always, the underdogs eventually eliminate each other or run into a good team late and get destroyed. The NCAAs have had a few close calls where underdogs almost win the tournament, so let's not act like our version of a mid major can't win anything, but they aren't called miracle runs for a reason. The mid major teams that actually threaten every year (Gonzaga these days, but back in the 80s it was a bunch of teams getting ready to join power conferences) usually end up recruiting like a power conference or just outright joining one. Louisville was a mid major in 1986 when a mid major last won the tournament, but does anyone actually consider them a mid major college? Not really.

To translate this into GameFAQs terms instead of making this about college basketball, our mid majors need to catch rallies to win. That's their version of a Cinderella run, with Undertale or L-Block being the ultimate example of one paying off. Usually, you get what happened to Aya Brea here. Yeah your win was cute, but one win means very little. Vivi is playing big boy basketball and just annihilated Aya for this entire match. He did so while Ganondorf was busy choking himself, which got people in a frenzy that everyone's favorite Final Fantasy underdog could win this division even in the face of Breath of the Wild.

There was also one other hilarious result going on during all of this, which we'll get into in a second.

Side note. Someone asked how I can still write so much. My favorite sporting event is the NCAA men's basketball tournament (even above the Superb Owl) and my favorite hobby is video games, plus I love math. These contests combine all those worlds, and I could stare at these numbers all day while trying to explain them in an entertaining way. I also bottle up a bunch of writing energy and let it loose come PCA time. It's lame as fuck I'm sure, but I don't care.
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Division 1 Quarterfinal: (12)Chun-Li vs (4)Ganondorf

(12)Chun-Li - 11699 [41.09%]
(4)Ganondorf - 16773 [58.91%]
Total Votes - 28472
Prediction Percentage - 67.1%

I know these writeups are done post contest and we have the power of Jon Gruden's 50-50 hindsight, but what the hell happened to Ganon in this match? He was supposed to break 60% and look like a division champion. He went out and laid a complete egg here, which looked extra bad compared to Vivi just utterly demolishing his round 2 opponent. This was supposed to be a debate between Ganon and Vivi, but when this match happened there were people seriously wondering if Dante had a shot to beat this guy. But because we know Ganon would eventually win, this is a forgotten match.

Make no mistake, this was a garbage performance and it's one of the reasons people who complained about his sprite picture for weeks on end looked like complete idiots. Ganon looked very odd this contest, and I can't put my finger on why. Do people just not like the guy? Are people unimpressed with his Breath of the Wild performance? Are his Smash appearances unimpressive? I legitimately don't get it, and I don't see how Chun-Li could have boosted much. She's a popular character and all, but winning updates against Ganondorf on ZeldaFAQs when you are clearly weaker than him is another thing entirely.

Ultimately, this wouldn't mean much, like Mario/Shadow or that one random Sonic/Vincent snafu. Weird match, but a speed bump at the end of the day. People often talk about round 1 being the most boring. I honestly think it's round 2. This is where we get all the low mid tier or lucky fodder getting blown out by clear favorites. Round 1 is us being happy to be here. Round 3 and on is where all the good matches are. 2 is a lot of.... yeah. Moving on.
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@Robazoid

Any chance I could get a small blurb about the two FF13 sequels for the wiki for that match?
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Division 1 Quarterfinal: (1)Dante vs (9)Lightning

(1)Dante - 18682 [65.62%]
(9)Lightning - 9787 [34.38%]
Total Votes - 28469
Prediction Percentage - 67.84%

Feels good to be able to say "quarterfinal". Round 1 in these things takes so long now.

Final Fantasy 13 ate a lot of crap from people, and I legitimately believe it was unfair criticism. A good example to point to is Pat's review from SMPS: http://socksmakepeoplesexy.net/index.php?a=ff13

The game has issues, but it isn't close to being as bad as that review makes it seem. I still remember Albion making dumb topic after dumb topic to trash the game while quoting one dumb review after another. I have a long standing belief that word of the mouth is the only thing worth listening to and that professional reviewers are a bunch of paid off idiots with a bias to push. As a fantastic example, look at any site who defended Blizzard after their Diablo Immortal gaffe this year. Stuff like that is how you know who is or is not honest. Independent reviewers with no bias is the way to go here.

FF13 tried to embrace its linearity, it was a mixed bag, and the game is fantastic once you hit Gran Pulse. Only Hope is truly abominable as a character. Sazh is a bit boring. Everyone else is good to great. The optional content is fantastic. The plot is a bit weird, fighting giant turtles is also a bit weird, and the optional superboss being some metal butterfly palette swap you can just poison to death even weirder, but hey! I had fun, which is all that matters.

I bring this up because Lightning suffers in our contests for two reasons, with this match being a fantastic contrast of why. Lightning comes from a mixed bag video game (I haven't played the sequels, maybe Robazoid can offer more context on how those are), and though her character is one that tries to be cool, she comes off to a lot of people as trying way too hard. She randomly punches party members in the mouth for no real reason, and it seems awkward a lot of the time. I like her a lot as a character, but randomly trying to break Fang's face without ever getting a receipt just comes off as trying way too hard to be a badass.

Compare that with Dante. This dude was in Devil May Cry 2 and DmC: dee em shee devil may cryz LOL, two of the worst games ever made. He was decent in 4, but Nero was legitimately cooler than him in that game. He has scenes that are so hilariously over the top in his games where I should feel like they try too hard, yet somehow it never really feels that way and a scene like this can make sense:



Sure let's jump off a building, run down while changing momentum, throw a sword straight down and then shoot it to kill a bunch of bats, then somehow increase speed running to catch the sword, jump off, and get eaten by a flying leviathan monster. Just a regular Tuesday afternoon for Dante. Had Lightning been given a scene like that it would have been laughed at. That's essentially why Dante won this match, even though I personally think Lightning summoning Odin is just as awesome.



There's just nothing like a high strung, highly educated alpha female that does badassed stuff while retaining a feminine look. It's a shame people hate her game unfairly.
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lT'S

FUCKING

MARIO

Valid in 2005, but definitely not valid anymore. I had to get students/classmates I was tutoring to vote for Mario in the loser bracket rematch or Samus beats him this year. Imagine being in vet nursing school and a TA randomly goes 'hey random thought here but can you guys do me a quick favor?', it was so funny. Mario only won by 19 and I had 15 students in class, so yeah. Good stuff.
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ColZach posted...

All you need to know about ultis taste in games is that he thought andromeda was good

Granted it still helps, on average if he says a game is good you can assume it sucks and if he says its good you can assume its bad. There are some exceptions to this (smash ultimate) but ulti is still useful.

I gave the game an 8 out of 10. This means I acknowledge about 20% of the game having issues. Liking a game does not mean liking 100% of what a game does. I enjoyed a lot of what Andromeda did.
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Vlado posted...

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DW2V8JyU8AAR4TR.jpg

Good lord almighty.
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As well as several forums on GameFAQs.

Division 8 Round 1: (2)Aqua vs (15)Quiet

(2)Aqua - 18432 [64.11%]
(15)Quiet - 10320 [35.89%]
Total Votes - 28752
Prediction Percentage - 66.22%

Man do I love when the final match of round one is... simple and clean.

No?

...ahem.

There was some debate about this match pre-contest, because Aqua was clearly overseeded and people were banking on an unknown factor like Kingdom Hearts 3 hype. If it isn't Nintendo hype, it's unreliable. And this is Metal Gear Solid, weakened state or no. But that was pre contest. Any and all debate about this match ended very quickly when this abomination was uploaded to the web site.

http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/gallery/albums/cb10/128.png

Not that Quiet was strong enough to win this match anyway, but good hell. What even is that?

And this match wasn't due to Aqua being strong, either. I've played Birth By Sleep. Outside of Terra, that game is a pile of sewage and Aqua is a huge reason why. We could have avoided the entire laughable Kingdom Hearts plot if she would have just trusted Terra from the jump. We could have avoided it all. All of Tetsuya Nomura's pretentious drivel. All of the bad artwork. All of the belts. All of the EVERYONE IS XEHANORT garbage. Everything. Kingdom Hearts as a series was amazing for the original, pretty good for Chain of Memories, decent for 2, and pure trash afterwards due to Tetsuya Nomura being a complete idiot. The guy sucks at art. Of course he sucks at game design. He is the #1 reason for the current state of Square and I will never forgive him for it. We went from the 90s era of Square, where they could do no wrong, to this.





To say I was pumped up for the possibility of KOS-MOS beating this bitch's ass in round 2 was putting it lightly. I like Kingdom Hearts. I really do. But there are parts of these games that are so embarrassing that I'd rather get caught watching porn. I at least have a logical explanation for that. What on earth would be the explanation for stuff like those two songs?

And with that, round one was over. If this were a normal PCA, I'd actually be done the entire thing. For this bracket, I'm not even halfway done. We are past time to reduce the field in these things and make getting into a contest special again. 136 characters in 1v1 matches is just nuts. This can, and should, get cut back down to 64. I could maybe see the logic for 96 and letting the top 8 in each division have a round one bye. But the way things are is just too bloated, and I think it contributes to the low vote totals. The slow burn of a 64 character 1v1 with one match per day and 15 minute updates was fine. Too many characters with too big a field these days.
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Kosmos................. KOOOOOOOOSMOOOOOOOOS!!! I am so fucking sick of seeing her all the time on Xenoblade Chronicles fansites, getting special treatment over the other side characters, and the fandom treating her as if she's part of the main cast. Monolith Soft had their chance to make Kosmos a good character, and they failed. They failed because they relied on people already knowing who she is and didn't think they'd have to try with her personality. Did they honestly expect everyone who bought Xenoblade Chronicles 2 for Switch, a game they intended to bring a lot of newcomers in, would have played an old game on PS2 that was never rereleased in any form? Big mistake if you ask me. This image is like one last middle finger finger to me. It's like "Oh, you beat Torna The Golden Country, and all Xenoblade chronicles games before it. Do you expect some reward for your loyalty and dedication? Well SCREW YOU! You have to have played Xenosaga in order to understand anything. Oh? You think you don't need to? That the two games are not canon to eachother? HATER! LIAR! You don't know what you're talking about! And since we will never rerelease it, that means you're SOL. You will NEVER be a true Xenoblade Chronicles fan!" And the fandom's perception of it isn't much different; pisses me off so much.

Is............ is this the future of Xenoblade Chronicles? Endless Xenosaga pandering to the vocal minority of annoying fans who refuse to let go of a dead game? Xenosaga is not a popular game; the attention it gets on Xenoblade chronicles sites is disproportionate to how popular it actually is; why won't Monolith Soft realize this? All this does is alienate those who are unfamiliar and cause rifts in the fanbase.

(sigh) Why?"

Don't do drugs, kids. The literal director of these games has talked about Xenosaga and Xenoblade being the same IP, but hey StupidRaptor here is going to educate all of us.


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"A brand new Nintendo IP in 2010 that unfortunately was not released in the US, but was the subject of a fan campaign of many people begging and trying their hardest to get this game available in the US; for the sole reason that it is just a high quality, memorable game that deserved recognition. It became a highly sought after Wii game as a result, and even got sequels that were just as good and continued it's legacy."

Isn't that inspiring? So when people say people only play Xenoblade Chronicles because 'it's the exact same IP as Xenogears and Xenosaga' when one is a Nintendo IP and the other two are not............. that kind of ruins the whole impact Xenoblade Chronicles had, you know?"

" I just finished Torna The Golden Country. After trying to go back to the main game, I noticed a new section in the events theater; it was an image gallery. I was pleasantly surprised at seeing it, but then disappointed that there were only 5 pictures; there should've been like 30 or something. Anyway, despite the criminally small amount, I did enjoy what I saw....................... until the last one, which was of Kosmos and Telos; and it was a high quality image to, while the others looked more like concept art.

I.............. WHYYYYY?!! This was the very last update, we'll probably never get more than 5 images; so each image slot was valuable. A grand shot of some landscapes, or a picture of all the villains together, lots of great things could've been put there. But, they, WASTED it on these two worthless side characters! And of all the side characters they could've picked, why them? Praxis and Theory would've made a great one, or Wulfric, maybe one with a bunch of nopon npc's, or maybe even a grand picture of ALL the rare Blades together, that would've been so cool. If they had to have a picture of cameo characters, they should've done one of Shulk Fiora and Elma, since they're far more relevant and developed, and a good reward for those who've stuck with Xenoblade chronicles since the start. But............. (sigh) like..... Kosmos is extremely rare and unlikely to be obtained early on, and Telos literally can't be obtained until after you beat the game; so any player would have to be really dedicated to this game, even to the point of continuing to play after the main story is done, to even know about these two. They're not the most well known of the game's side characters, nor would they ever convince anyone to buy this game. But they reserve one of the very limited spaces in the art gallery JUST for them, they put far more effort into their picture than all the others, and they intentionally put it at the bottom, likely being the last one the player sees and what they'll get out of it; it's as if they're very proud of giving Kosmos and Telos special treatment over everyone else.
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"Stop pretending you're the good guy here; I see through all your empty lies."

"Clearly you would need to hear it even more if you think a girl as generic looking and devoid of personality as Kosmos is 'bae'."

"Blimey. All of the useless "I got Kosmos" posts get like 50 upvotes each. But when I start an actual discussion on the lack of worth these posts have and how they're somehow allowed despite being against the rules, I get downvoted? ..................

Does this mean the subreddit's rules mean NOTHING anymore? Are we allowed to upload all the lets plays, porn, and unmarked spoilers we want now too? And even posts that have absolutely nothing to do with Xenoblade Chronicles too? Because I've seen several posts here a few times that had nothing to do with the game.

No one's even allowed to question why rules are being broken? Yeesh; how obnoxious does a group have to be for all this backwards nonsense to happen?"

"You are completely blowing things out of proportion. My hatred of Kosmos is irrelevant here. The whole "I got Kosmos" thing is annoying and against the rules regardless. If any other character happened to be the rarest Blade that people bragged about getting, example.......... Vale or....... Dahlia, or Dagas, it doesn't matter who. Seeing these meaningless posts be made over and over is annoying in it of itself.
And as for the quote unquote "hate campaign"; you're exaggerating. What happened during gamefaq's tournament does not even come close to being able to be called a "hate campaign". All I did was encourage people on The Last Of Us boards to vote for Ellie because she's a good character and deserved to win far more than Kosmos. I'm sure many other users did the same thing for other characters; there's nothing wrong with that. I only got confused when Kosmos was winning even though the odds were completely against her. I asked why; and it was only then I realized it was because gamefaqs as a whole is unfairly biased to RPG's, games made in Japan, Nintendo games, games that are "old, from their childhood", and they favor "girls with boobs" over actual characters with personality. I doubt 90% of the people that voted for her even heard of Xenosaga before, they just voted for the "weeb" option. That coupled with Shulk losing even though he had so much going for him cemented how hypocritical and contrarian gamefaqs truly is and how they lack any credibility. All the people on this subreddit that said gamefaqs is not a good website, they're totally right. If that all looks like a "hate campaign" to you, and that "I'm only pointing this annoying phenomenon out because I hate Kosmos", you have your head way too far up your ass. Maybe YOU'RE the one launching a "hate campaign" against ME. Ever thought of that?"

"Because everyone here is nostalgia blind and can't let go of the fact that their game is dead like a canceled cartoon and has zero hope of ever getting rereleases or sequels. So they made up the "same IP as Xenoblade Chronicles" lie as a way for them to pretend that Xenogears and Xenosaga are still relevant.

I get what you're saying. Xenoblade Chronicles is much more impactful when it is its own thing, and not chained down by some games from the distant past that the general public has forgotten about (and probably never knew about in the first place)."
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Division 8 Round 1: (7)Ellie vs (10)KOS-MOS

(7)Ellie - 13094 [45.55%]
(10)KOS-MOS - 15654 [54.45%]
Total Votes - 28748
Prediction Percentage - 41.48%

I thought Ellie could win this match, because The Last of Us is popular and Xenosaga hasn't mattered in ages. I have never, ever been more happy to get a random round one match wrong.

Because who doesn't love a good melty?

Ellie is currently competing in Gamefaq's character tournament.

Posted by u/TheStupidRaptor

"There is this big character tournament going on over at Gamefaqs, and Ellie was popular enough to make it in. If anyone is already aware of this, then you would know that Joel made it in as well, but he lost to Ike from Fire Emblem in the first round. Pretty unfortunate. But it's Ellie's turn now; so if anyone is interested, you can go to their main page and vote for her.

Especially since Ellie is up against Kosmos, and Kosmos is one of the worst, dullest characters ever. How she ended up in a best characters tournament I will never know..... Not that anyone here even knows who she is; the game she's from is extremely obscure and niche after all. Come on, you don't want the amazing, award winning character Ellie to lose to a nobody like Kosmos do you?

Edit: Are you fucking kidding me? Ellie lost to Kosmos?! I guess it's true then, Gamefaqs really is ruled by weeaboos who are biased to Japan, RPGs. and boobs. They just lost any credibility they had. Their "tournament" might as well end now."

"Are you kidding? The poll just started less than an hour ago. Do you really think that Ellie, an award winning character from a highly successful critically acclaimed game that redefined the survival horror genre, would lose to a bland emotionless cardboard cutout of a character like Kosmos from a obscure forgotten game that made zero impact on the gaming industry?

Hell no, Ellie is going to win. I guess all the biased weeaboos got to the poll first. Votes like this fluctuate constantly. Besides, Shulk lost to Sub-Zero. If Shulk, one of the best protagonists to any game ever, LOST, then Kosmos has zero chance of winning. Just you wait, it'll correct itself soon."

"What about YOUR and the entire fandom's hatred of Fiora? Everything you all do to her is just uncalled for. And you all cover it up with the whole "we must circle to make Melia our mary sue" agenda. You should be righting the faults in yourself before you call others out for the same exact thing. If you all won't stop hating fiora, why should I stop hating Kosmos? Don't tell me what's unhealthy.

?????? Last time I checked, Mary Magdalene was a real person who died like 2,000 years ago, and not some fantasy game character. I thought Kosmos was a robot, now you're telling me she's reincarnated? I don't even know why I'm talking to you anymore if you're just going to make shit up. And what do you even care? I thought everyone on the internet was an atheist except me."

"You're so full of shit. Kosmos in no way overshadows any of the blades that originated in this game.

Last time I saw a blade that wasnt Pyra or Mytha on the internet was a rule34 one.

You saw porn of Blades. So? I don't know what you're getting at here.
(in no particular order) Fiora, Elma, Sharla, Vanea, Pyra, Poppi, Meyneth, Lora, Melia, Celica, Mythra, Hope, Newt, Perun, Morag, Mia, Lin, Haze, Praxis, Kasandra, Alexa, Brighid, Nia, Theory, Irina, Tyrea, Dahlia, Crossette, Pandoria, Oka.

There; 30 waifus from Xenoblade Chronicles, and they all hold a million candles to the dumpster fire that is Kosmos. Is your taste fixed yet?"
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Team Rocket Elite posted...

Whenever I see someone put in a 50.05% pick in the Oracle for a toss up match I always wonder if they are doing it as a reference to this match and Mario vs Crono 2k2. There aren't that many matches where I remember the result down to 2 decimal places but I'll never forget 50.05%.

Every single time.

I don't take the oracle seriously though. I just use random numbers.
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igordebraga posted...

Positive words (and not being spoiled as much, I don't even know why fans were so pissed at the ME3 ending that it got changed) make me interested in playing Mass Effect someday.

And now comes possibly the worst fourpack of the contest. Which to our surprise, was the one that brought in a (hilarious) meltdown.

Two meltdowns.
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Logience posted...

So Im guessing that youd probably react poorly to this video:

Lasted 5 seconds. I can't listen to a man with hypernerd voice.
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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

I think it's fair to say a lot of people want us out of all foreign wars.

But when we've already joined/instigated one, we should damn well have a plan for what happens when we leave.

It's like if your dad tells you not to dig a hole in the yard and you do it anyway.

When you finally stop, your dad's not gonna be happy about you "stopping" unless you have a plan for filling it back in.

There is no fixing the middle east and we never should have intervened in the first place. No foreign entanglements.
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Yeah I just filled two entire 4096 posts on a 1 point match because I still love Mass Effect, dammit.
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Let's back up a bit. I have a platinum trophy for all four Mass Effect games, so I'm more qualified than probably 95% of people who have played those games to explain why people voted here the way they did. Back in 2007, Mass Effect dropped. It was a sci-fi adventure that most people couldn't make sense of unless they had played Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. It was fun, but it was raw. It was a glitchy Mess, but it gave us some new characters we could sink our teeth into, some great storytelling, and some amazing plot twists. We were shocked that Seth Green was a voice. We were shocked at how damn cool Garrus and Tali and Wrex were. The whole thing was an incredible, albeit flawed.

And then this happens.



Oh. Okay. Well, fuck.

Then whatever feelings that scene drew up in all of us were there for all of Mass Effect 2, and really that's where this all went wrong. Mass Effect 2 was too good, which made it impossible for 3 to satisfy people. *I* was happy with it because I'm not an entitled punk, but I want to point out that 99.9% of that game is on 2's level. Mass Effect 3 is a fantastic game, and even if I agreed with people on the ending it shouldn't ruin how good that game actually was. It's like letting a slightly premature ejaculation ruin a good night of sex leading up to it for you. It's like hey moron, you still got a girl to have sex with you. Shut the hell up and enjoy it.

As a random example, these two scenes are legendary for me.





Am I supposed to let a weird ending ruin all that? I admit that we're better off not knowing the motivations of a Lovecraft villain, but am I supposed to let that one ending scene ruin an entire series? Fuck no.

"They have earned the right to try."

Nothing beats bringing Javik on every mission. That guy is such a fucking savage.

And EA never, ever, ever should have caved. It caused the nonsense with Andromeda that killed the series, unless some other developer gets to make it I suppose. I feel like my review does a decent enough job of defending the game: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ps4/168600-mass-effect-andromeda/reviews/164231

Thanks, trolls. No more Mass Effect because you liked the second game too much. And here we are. Here the bleep we are. With Shepard struggling with whatever the King is supposed to be. I get Smash hype and all, but jeez.

Three final points. I am better at Mass Effect 3 multiplayer than you: http://n7hq.masseffect.com/home/overview/?name=ultimaterializer&platform=ps3

To this day I am the #1 Geth Trooper Soldier in the world in that game. I could log on right now and within an hour have people asking me for carries in platinum.

Second, Shepard was indoctrinated. Do not @ me.

Last and most important, FemShep > a comedy voice actor's trashy acting job. People who compare Mark Meer to Jennifer Hale and try pretending Hale is worse are probably the same people who need to be told not to eat Tide Pods. They are proof that opinions can be wrong. Renegade FemShep > whatever garbage you like.

https://www.themarysue.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/femshep.jpg
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Division 8 Round 1: (6)Commander Shepard vs (11)King K. Rool

(6)Commander Shepard - 14726 [51.23%]
(11)King K. Rool - 14019 [48.77%]
Total Votes - 28745
Prediction Percentage - 64.31%

There are some Mass Effect series spoilers in this writeup. You were warned.

I feel like this match would have been a lot more shocking and a lot more interesting had we not literally just watched the exact same match happen with Dedede vs Ocelot two days prior. Seriously, go open this match and Dedede vs Ocelot on the gamefaqscontests updater charts in separate tabs. It's the exact same match. Just replace Dedede with King K. Rool for the plucky Nintendo underdog slot fueled by Smash hype and Ocelot with Shepard as the non-Nintendo favorite who doubles as an anti-vote magnet. King Crue-- errrrrrr, "King K. Rool" (what a freaking stupid name) opened the match with a shocking but tiny early lead, just like Dedede. He got it up to 150 votes, then Shepard fought back overnight just like Ocelot did.

Around 5 in the morning, just like last time, we got answer. It would have been in doubt had we not seen this just happen, but we all knew Shep was taking the morning vote and winning. He has more innate strength to draw from than Ocelot and one would think Rool is weaker than Dedede. Not exactly debatable here, though it's quite funny that the villain in Donkey Kong games now has his own personal contest choke under his belt. Had he pulled off this upset it would have been such a randomly awesome result.

That said, this match was 100% a referendum on just how badly Electronic Arts fucked up the Mass Effect series and how much gamers loathe that brand now. People like Shepard, but he has the sins of EA crawling on his back and paid for it big time in this poll. Not that he was going to beat Ryu anyway, but needing a morning vote boost to beat Nintendo's 87th tier is such an embarrassment given where the character used to be. We used to joke about how he was actually the best character in that Link/Draven scrap. Now we had people actively rooting for him to lose to a fat alligator with predictable super armor, in a match where almost 100% of the Rool voters were Smash fans or Mass Effect haters. No one voted for Rool because they actually like him from the DK games.

I actually disagree with the anti-Mass Effect crybabies and largely think they're a bunch of spoiled idiots who never should have been catered to in the first place, and EA changing the ending of Mass Effect 3 was a mistake. You don't deal with a spoiled POS by catering to it, be it a spoiled SJW moron, a spoiled alt right moron, an incel, a dog, or anything else. In any dog training manual not written by a positive-only dipshit, you learn "let it cry". Dogs will whine to get what they want. You train them by ignoring them when this happens, and because the types of gamers who whined over the Mass Effect 3 ending are on about the same intelligence level as a dog -- that is, the level of a 2 year old toddler -- they should have been trained in the exact same way. Ignore it until it shuts up. Whiny gamers are not people to cater to. Ever. That's how the Mass Effect 3 ending controversy got worse after EA caved, and it directly led to all of the entitled trash surrounding Andromeda. A bunch of whiny trolls and idiots killed off a fine series, and now we're sitting here watching Commander Shepard struggle to beat a reptile no one cares about in a contest. How did we get here?
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Yep. That is literally that shotospam means.
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NFUN posted...

Ulti_PCA posted...

Umitencho posted...

This has not been a great month for him.

This week alone Trump has legalized hemp, enacted prison reform so black people stop getting put in jail for completely useless things that white people never get jail time for (a policy written by Hillary Clinton during her husband's term shortly after her "black men are super predators that need to be brought to heel" speech, just FYI), and is ending the wars in Syria and Afghanistan that have lasted almost 20 years. I seem to recall most people being against those wars in the 2000s. He's also let the government shut down to make democrats look even worse than usual, because democrats would rather have open borders and troops in in the Middle East forever than actually have a strong country at home. I love when the government shuts down, because Washington produces nothing whatsoever and we lose nothing when those idiots aren't working.

Literally only a democrat would be enraged by any of this stuff. Whatever happened to the anti-war folks from the 2000s who never wanted us in the Middle East in the first place? Or is that out the window because you people are completely brainwashed by mainstream media into "Orange Man Bad" nonsense? Trump could cure cancer and you people would still complain. Not that we didn't already have proof of this but this week has provided some hilarious examples.

Ulti_PCA posted...

NFUN posted...

will you use this account just for stats stuff and not for trolling

(you can "troll" in stats stuff i mean outside of it)

Given the name I think it's pretty obvious what the purpose of this account is!

That post is 0% trolling regardless of what democrats want to think.

Xeybozn posted...

Rates going up is a sign that the Fed believes the economy is doing well and will continue to do so despite the increase

Ah so you admit Trump has made the economy do well :)
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Logience posted...

What does shotospam even mean? Ive never played Street Fighter.

https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/001/065/ken.jpg
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Division 8 Round 1: (3)Ryu vs (14)Lloyd Irving

(3)Ryu - 19671 [68.44%]
(14)Lloyd Irving - 9073 [31.56%]
Total Votes - 28744
Prediction Percentage - 88.66%

Not gonna lie, I completely forgot Lloyd had even made this bracket until I was actually doing the PCA this year. That's how forgettable some of these round one matches are, and it's sad because Tales of Symphonia basically took this site over for a few months back in the day. Can you believe that was 15 years ago, by the way? God I'm old. That was one of the 10 games I picked after winning Spring 2004. I can't remember them all offhand, but I remember that one game for HaRRicH, a game for Aeon Azuran, Tales of Symphonia, and Chrono Cross. Tales by itself made the whole thing worth it. I love that style of game where you're actually a part of the action instead of just "press attack x47, cure, cast a spell for fun, repeat".

As for Ryu, he is my most hated character in all of Street Fighter but he's winning me over due to -- surprise surprise -- Smash Bros. He finally made it into a game where he doesn't shotospam for 10 minutes at a time, and it's a huge breath of fresh air. The guy is damn satisfying to use, and you feel the weight of his man mode kicks on people. Heaven help you if he lands a perfect shoryuken, too. I feel like this is what he's supposed to be in Street Fighter but he just falls flat when he plays identically in every single game. He even sucks in MvC3 and the other crossover games. But in Smash he really works. Dunno why.

But yeah this match was an expected blowout and told us nothing about whether or not Ryu could beat Sephiroth. Moving on.
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LordoftheMorons posted...

Jesus fucking Christ:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-22/trump-said-to-discuss-firing-fed-s-powell-after-latest-rate-hike

Firing Powell would basically be saying that interest rates are going to be determined based on political considerations and not on what's best for the health of the economy. Looking forward to another huge drop in the stock market!

The fed is raising interest rates continuously to slow the Trump recovery, which is hilarious because it's not even working. For reference, interest rates were never raised under Obama. I believe we're up to 8 hike3s now under Trump.

ONLY a democrat would ever defend this, because you people are on record as saying we need a recession and/or depression to punish people for electing the wrong person.
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