A regular old character battle would lead to more Nintendomination than we've seen the past few years. Square has continually fallen further and further off the map, and there are no new Western characters to pose a challenge. The most viable Western characters (Kratos, Ezio, Altair) are probably weaker than they were in early 2010, and there's really no one else to threaten. Link will win again, Mario and Samus could be the #2 and 3 Noble Niners, and that Nintendo B-tier of Ganon/Zelda/Bowser/Luigi/Yoshi/the Pokemon will dominate any non-NN competition. And people will complain more.
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Yoblazer: http://i33.tinypic.com/ml36gl_th.gif
Watch and you'll see... someday I'll be... part of your world!