LogFAQs > #935329808

Best #1: Chrono Trigger TO THE FINALS (2015)

Chrono Trigger 65.52% 30132
Final Fantasy X 34.48%15860
TOTAL VOTES 45992

Yeah, not 2004, when it actually made the final. 2015, its final hurrah.

Chrono Trigger had a real rough... honestly, a rough decade leading up to this. 2004 was its apex as CT made the final in fairly dramatic fashion, and Crono beat Mario. From there, Crono lost to Mario bad enough that it was never a discussion again; Crono lost to Sonic in embarrassing fashion; Crono lost to Vincent in a sad fourway; Crono losing to Missingno in the first round.

It went from bad to embarrassing, and that's to say nothing about Frog, who lost to Axel in a sad fourway comeback, and Magus, who lost to a bag of sand (I got that one right!). And before you say games don't equal characters, CT got waxed by Mario 64 in 2009 despite another Mario game being in the poll, the last time CT was eligible for a game contest. CT's trends were to do well for the first four hours and then just fall apart because no one knew or played the game anymore.

The main CT debate for the 2015 contest was if it could get past FFX which really says it all. FFX was a 116-79 Guru favourite and the winner was widely expected to go down to Melee. I went the complete other way on CT - since our vote totals had fallen way the hell off, I doubled down on truly classic GameFAQs games. I thought CT would be a monster in this reduced contest footprint format as all the voters had left the site. I had FF6 as a tossup vs. FF7 because that's how those favourites polls go these days. Super Metroid was going to be legit for the first time. I believed in team SNES, basically.

And that was absolutely right. For whatever reason, SNES games were monsters this contest, and CT looked like a godslayer. It demolished its round 1 and round 2 opponents with 80%+ victories and while FFX was stuck with better competition, it couldn't get out of the 50s. This anticipated match finally came and, whoa. Could Ocarina of Time put 65% on FFX? Did Melee even have a chance? Was this the contest favourite?

And then the worst thing happened: rallies. Chrono Trigger walked into the Melee match and dropped 60% on it at the start. It's crazy to see Melee, an early vote legend, get under 40% in the early going. But then the rallies started and before you knew it, CT's 800 vote lead it had built up was gone. CT then made a valiant effort to come back during the daytime against Melee -- think about that for a second -- but it wasn't ever going to be enough. This match ended up a full 30,000 votes above the previous matchup.

I didn't hate L-Block, I didn't hate Undertale and I didn't even hate Draven. But you know what? Fuck Super Smash Brothers Melee for ruining Chrono Trigger's great redemption arc. It would have gotten annihilated by Undertale anyway but at least that was a feel good story. Melee doesn't need help around these parts.

Argh, it still makes me so mad that this happened. Here I was, one of just 5 people to take CT to the finals, and it was all dead. I still consider it my best pick even though the future refused to change.

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xyzzy