Board 8 > Contest Stats and Discussion - Part 1278

(+) Yeah! (+)

Isaac and all of Preston's suggestions from 2008 on are really good, I think Mr. Game & Watch could have a good shot at being considered the new Fodder Line. Honestly so much has changed since 2013 that I have no idea how our existing fodder/filler characters will perform in CBX.
---

charmander6000 posted...

To be fair I think they make a larger profit from selling used games.

yeah probably

when I used to sell insurance they tried to pressure us into selling more of the kind that made a bigger profit

that's just sales in general
---

Auron
Last Contest: 2013
Last Game: Kingdom Hearts HD I.5 + II.5 Remix (2017)

Recently my friends and I had this big ironic Beyblade tournament, but it was really just an excuse to get drunk and throw plastic toys at each other. I was in charge of the soundtrack and picked exclusively anime and video game music from the late 90s to early 2000s.

"Overworld" came on about halfway through the party, and one of my (very drunk) friends bolted down the stairs yelling "AAAAWWWW SHIT IT'S DA AURON MUSIC!!!!" and then he tripped and fell and somehow didn't crack his head open

That's pretty much the most I've thought of Auron since the last contest. What's he been up to? Auron is definitely the strongest character from FFX, claiming a victory over Sonic at one point in his contest career.

However, because he wasn't the main character, Square throws him a lot less bones. He was lucky to make an appearance in Kingdom Hearts II, and maybe he'll even be in III, but II was a long time ago and III is still a ways away. The remasters were recent, but Auron fever seems to have died down a bit.

I remember in one of Ulti's write-ups for an early Auron appearance, he mentions that he would like Final Fantasy X-0 to become a reality so that Auron (and Jecht, I guess) would get a big contest boost. Is it too late for that to happen? In 5 years once that FFVII remake is out, will Square then dip into their back catalogue again and crank out the long-awaited FFX prequel?

Back on track, Auron has always done well in these things, but he was never strong enough to secure any major wins other than a small Sonic upset in the multis. In 2013, everyone expected him to kick L-Block's ass, but he wasn't able to do that and you aren't going to tell me he got LFF'd by Ezio. Is Auron weaker? I... really don't know. I love the guy, but he might be past his prime. He'll still be strong in a contest, but his level of strength will be debatable.

Bowser
Last Contest: 2013
Last Game: Mario Tennis Aces (2018), Super Mario Odyssey (2017)

I don't have many Amiibo, but I went out of my way to get the Mario Odyssey Bowser amiibo that's in the tux and tophat. For reasons unknown I refer to it as "Big Dick Bowser." I called him that once and my friend asked why, and I said "because he fucks." He then took a good look at the amiibo and nodded in agreement.

Bowser is going to get a Nintendo boost and an Odyssey boost, there's no doubt about it. He's also got that Smash 5 hype going for him. Bowser could be a powerhouse in this contest, but he usually has a really predictable path. He's had some close upsets but it's hard for him to seal the deal. Remember when he almost beat Snake in 2005?

But then Leon Kennedy gets ridiculously close to him and it makes you wonder where this guy is on the charts. He's also super susceptible to LFF and SFF. People seem to like Bowser, but not love him. If he's in a multi with other Nintendo characters, people will dive off the Bowser ship without much thought. If it's just Bowser in a match against non-Nintendo guys, he has the full force of #TeamNintendo behind him.

So Bowser's performance in CBX is going to be super dependent on the format and his placement. We could see Bowser getting pretty deep into the bracket this year, but we can also seem him out in Round 2 if he goes up against someone people care more about. Or maybe Mario Odyssey have made people fall in love with Big Dick Bowser all over again and he'll be a powerhouse. He has my vote.
---

Square has laid the groundwork for a possible FFX-3, so if they were to make a new FFX game, it would be a sequel and not a prequel.

Auron lost because L-Block got rallied, for the record.

I think 2005 was peak Bowser and peak Ganondorf. They got a big boost from the Villains Contest, for whatever the reason. I don't know if either one will ever be that strong again.
---

Ness
Last Contest: 2013
Last Game: Super Mario Maker (2015), Smash Smash Bros. for Wii U (2014)

Why were people surprised when Ness beat CJ? When did the board first figure out that games =/= characters?

Ness has a ridiculously loyal fanbase, perhaps one of the strongest I've ever seen. The dude has been in like... one game, and he's a Smash mainstay. Yet year after year he shows up and doesn't completely embarrass himself.

Not to say Ness ever makes a splash. As stated, he did beat CJ, and he spanked Travis, Jak, Zidane and especially Geno, and he got decently close to Big Daddy once. Ness weeds out the fodder from the actual contestants. Is Ness like some kind of advanced fodder line? He feels too strong to be the line itself but it's not like he's beating anyone that matters.

Anyway, yeah, Nintendo boost, whatever. Does it apply to Ness? Earthbound is on the SNES Classic, but does that help him out? My house mate is now able to play it for the first time and he likes it, but he's a pretty casual gamer. I don't think people getting the SNES Classic are unaware of Ness and Earthbound, so if he does get a boost, it will be minimal.

Summary: Ness and Earthbound's fanbase aren't going anywhere, the question is now just "how does Ness grow an existing fanbase without any new games coming possibly ever?"

Yoshi
Last Contest: 2013
Last Game: Super Mario Odyssey (2017)

People like Yoshi, right? He's kind of got the Bowser problem but bigger. Everyone knows Yoshi. They love Yoshi. Girls like to play as Yoshi when you invite them over to play Mario Kart or Smash Bros. Does the Yoshi fanbase go to GameFAQs? Not really. But GameFAQs still loves Yoshi enough that he gives some OK matches. Remember 2006?

Patriot Round 1 --- Defeated (3) Riku, 69394 [55.20%] - 56325 [44.80%]
Patriot Semifinal --- Defeated (2) Dante, 65497 [50.55%] - 64072 [49.45%]

He let Riku, not Sora, get super close to him, and yeah this was during that Kingdom Hearts hype, but it was Riku. But then the next round he managed to beat Dante and did respectably against Snake.

After that Yoshi kind of stopped being entertaining. He's not going anywhere and he's probably just as strong as 2013, but I don't think this is going to be Yoshi's year. He isn't even really in Mario Odyssey for more than a tiny bit, and his Switch game has almost no info so we won't be seeing it any time soon.

Yoshi is cool tho, not everyone can get good bracket placement so hopefully he isn't just turned into some kinda jobber for someone to punk in R2 this year.
---

Conker
Last Contest: 2005
Last Game: Rare Replay (2015), Project Spark (2014)

do you remember this hit video from Certified Racist Jonathan Aryan Jafari:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1t_Co0gfj18" data-time="

that about sums up Conker and how Microsoft has treated him. They don't give him a real game, they make some DLC for a game nobody bought with Conker assets so that you can make your own! Uh... Alright, I guess.

Rare Replay got some buzz but nobody cares.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6199-best-of-2015-xbox-one

I guess it technically is the best performing actual XBONE exclusive in that poll. That was 2 years ago, though, and if anybody did care, they probably don't anymore.

Conker holds a special place in my heart, I still have my cartridge and even my dad knows and loves Conker and still talks about him.

That doesn't matter much, though. Conker is dead at Microsoft's hands. Not even a big remake (which he kinda got at one point) could help him. There are better "edgy" Platform characters that exist now, Conker was just the first. Maybe they don't all say "shit" but you don't really need that to make that type of character good.

Sora
Last Contest: 2013
Last Game: Kingdom Hearts HD I.5 + II.5 Remix

In every single appearance since 2004, Sora has gotten to Round 3 and gotten knocked out. He's never gotten further but he's never fallen before then.

What's up with Kingdom Hearts? Well, the series is incredibly hard to follow and has been "kind of" dormant for the past 8 years. I say "kind of" because 2010 was the year Birth by Sleep came out, which, to me, is the last game in the series that was actually necessary to play.

But Square went out of their way to re-release everything from all those different systems into neat little packages, then put those packages into neat little packages, to make sure gamers are ready for Kingdom Hearts III which is coming soon-ish.

The KHIII hype is real, and I am on board that train, despite absolutely hating where the series has gone I still want to run around with Buzz and Woody and explore Big Hero 6 Land and shit they have me by my goddamn balls, I hate Kingdom Hearts and what it does to me. I am a consumer pig.

Back to the point: Can Sora finally break out of Round 3? Will be finally fall flat on his face and get knocked out in Round 2? Well, Sora came dangerously close to Pikachu in 2013, but that's because Blue was in the match with them. Would Sora be able to beat Pikachu today? No, no way in hell.

Nintendo has just gotten stronger and the Square Family seems to have stagnated a little bit. Unfortunately, there are a ton of high-level Nintendo characters in Round 3, so Sora has a high chance of bumping into one of them and getting punked. If KHIII were to have some crazy announcements or trailers on the day of is R3 match against someone close to him in strength, maybe he can get a hype boost?

Sora will still be strong, but it's just bad timing for someone who has potential to be a juggernaut if his game were just a bit earlier on the release calendar.
---

people were surprised because we didn't realize RacistFAQs was a thing yet and Vercetti finished well above Ness in the 2004 X-Stats

plus 2005 was around the time GTA fell off the map because Vercetti went from beating DK and getting 34% on Mega Man (only a little worse than Tidus) as well as 39% on Zero to nearly losing to Kefka and only getting 30% on Crono
---

Master Chief
Last Contest: 2013
Last Game: Halo 5: Guardians

Mood setting poll: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6042

The most I ever see about Master Chief in 2018 are videos asking what happened to Halo 5 and the Halo franchise as a whole. Apparently that entire marketing campaign for Halo 5 where you were supposed to fight Master Chief was some kind of lie and that's only like the first hour of the game.

Halo used to have a really dedicated, passionate fanbase, and it was almost a movie/tv series produced by Stephen Spielberg. But then people stopped caring because Bungie stepped away and the new studio messed with the core gameplay and took the story in a direction nobody wanted to see, so that fanbase just slowly disappeared.

Couple that with the Master Chief Collection being a broken mess online (it still hasn't been patched) and you have a recipe for a character who gets blown out in Round 1 but Yuna in 2013. 5 years later, can we expect Chief to do any better?

Of course not! There's nostalgia for Halo 1 and 2 and maybe even 3, but probably not on this site. XBONE isn't the most popular system here, and while Halo used to be the must-have game for the console, I don't think that's the status quo today. He might do OK in multis, but probably not as well as he used to.

Chief could still squeeze out a minor victory in 1-v-1, but if gets a bad draw it wouldn't be shocking to see him give into his Master Choke habits once again. If contests become a regular thing again, expect to see the Chief slowly fade away until one day he just isn't in a contest and somebody makes a topic a few hours after the bracket was released asking "where's Master Chief?" only for a dozen of us jaded Board 8ers to respond "Who?"

Felix
Last Contest: 2003
Last Game: Golden Sun: The Lost Age (2002)

"Who?"

I actually never played Golden Sun. This guy almost beat Master Chief in 2003, but is that really an accomplishment? If he were to appear today he'd be fodder of the highest caliber. I don't even know what to say here. He wasn't even in that third Golden Sun game that Isaac was in.

My girlfriend just asked who I was writing about and I said "Felix from Golden Sun, I don't know what to say about him" and her response was "is that a game?"

shit
---

LOL Golden Sun
---

I always thought of Pac-Man as the fodder line, though he gets SFF'd easily so you can't exactly use him in the stats. Everyone knows who he is, but he has very few hardcore fans, so people will vote for him if they don't know/don't care about his opponent.

Then again he's in Smash 4 now so that might screw with his strength.
---

The fodder line used to be 20% (pre-SFF in the case of Nintendo characters, of course) against Base Link, but that value has been difficult to judge nowadays.
---

Zero
Last Contest: 2013
Last Game: Mega Man X Legacy Collection/2 (2018), Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite (2017)

There should be some kind of cool designation for characters like Zero, Auron, Sub-Zero, Ganondorf and Bowser that have always done consistently well in contests and only really lose to each other and the Noble Nine. Something that's cooler than "upper midcarder" or "near-elite."

Anyway, Zero is a beast in these things, and yeah he's had his fair share of beatings, but it's usually because he's way outside of his weight class. He's given some good matches and has destroyed other characters, but once his strength was well established he didn't waver much and it always made things pretty predictable for him.

He somehow failed to hold back Mega Man enough for Charizard to slip by in 2013, something almost everyone agreed would be the obvious outcome of that match. That probably speaks more for MM fans' loyalty to the Blue Bomber himself and not any real weakness on Zero's part.

But what's Zero been up to? Well, he was top-tier in Marvel 3, and I guess people used him in Marvel Infinite, but only about two dozen people bought that game. Other than appearing in crossover games and collections, Zero hasn't had his own game in 11 years. It's not like Mega Man X is a franchise still pumping out games, either. Zero is pretty much cruising by on good will and nostalgia at this point.

So in CBX, who knows where he'll stand? He's still a badass and people still know and love him. Capcom is only second to Nintendo in churning out beloved, iconic video game characters, and Zero has some kind of semi-immunity from age. He'll probably be consistent but I wouldn't take him over the other upper midcarders.

Ugh. Hate that term. Can someone more talented than me make a list of characters around Auron/Zero's strength and come up with a cooler name?

Captain Olimar
Last Contest: 2013
Last Game: Hey! Pikmin (2017), Smash Bros. for Wii U (2014), Pikmin 3 (2013)

I don't know what Hey! Pikmin is. I forget the franchise exists a lot of the time. You know who doesn't? Shigeru Miyamoto. He directed those short Pikmin movies that were exclusively on the e-shop, and apparently they were cute, but did they find any mass success?

I don't think Olimar has any real strength in these contests. Does anyone care about him? He's... nice. Got an OK design. He's the main character of what is basically a Nintendo B-franchise. Pikmin was a year old in 2003 and he only got a 16 seed, then Pikmin 2 was released around the nomination period for 2004 and he was absent. In 2013 he did OK against Shepard and was able to put a beating on Kain, but I think it's more the Sore Thumb Factor and general Nintendo bias at the time helping him. Also, it's Kain.

Smash 5 probably doesn't help Olimar much. I don't think Nintendo hype helps the "newer" Nintendo characters as much, like is Ike going to get a massive boost? Can't imagine Olimar love coming out of nowhere in 2018. It's doubtful we'll see Olimar again unless the field is massive.
---

I think "near elite" is a pretty good designation because people understand what it means and who it applies to.

The "near elites" have generally been considered to be:

Vincent
Squall
Tifa
Ganondorf
Bowser
Zero
Kirby
Luigi

although Vincent might not be there any more

Zelda, Pikachu, Yoshi, Big Boss, and Mega Man X could probably fit in that category, too

we've never really gotten a firm grasp on MMX's strength but he's probably in that tier
---

Wario
Last Contest: 2013
Last Game: WarioWare Gold (2018), Mario Tennis Aces (2018), Game & Wario (2013),

It has been a decade since WarioLand: Shake It! for the Wii. Since them, we've had WarioWare DIY and Game & Wario, and now we have a WarioWare compilation coming out. Wario has been in tons of sports and party games, but in terms of "original video game that isn't a 'game maker' or compilation," the well has been dry.

But this is Wario, just Mario but fat(ter) and evil(?). People love him, right? Eh. Wario only seems to get votes out of obligation. Wario is the guy that your asshole friend picks in Mario Kart at a party. Does anyone have a real affinity for him? People who play WarioWare seem to love Mona, Jimmy, Ashley, everyone but Wario. People on this very board were ragging on him for "ruining" the Brawl reveal trailer.

Reminder: Wario didn't even get enough votes in the 2010 vote-in polls and missed the contest. That's pretty bad for a "core" Nintendo character. In 2013 he lost to Wrex from Mass Effect. Sure, Red was also in the poll, but he didn't even come close. Wario falls apart when facing someone with a modicum of actual fans. He's good filler but Wario is never going to be a real threat in that contest.

Shadow the Hedgehog
Last Contest: 2013
Last Game: Sonic Forces (2017)

Sonic Forces was the first time in 10 years that Shadow was actually playable in a Sonic game as a main character in his own missions. His story was free DLC, though, and it was obviously made on a budget because the cutscenes are all just dialogue boxes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0DyBi2Yl64#t=4m30s

Seriously, try to sit through that if you're not a Sonic fan. Yeeeesh.

So that shows where SEGA puts Shadow on the priority list, but at least he has DLC, unlike anyone else in that game.

So far, compared to the rest of Forces, Shadow's story adds way more than any other DLC or even some of the main plot threads like Classic Sonic. However, Sonic Forces didn't sell as well as Mania, and people seem to be taking big dumps on it, so if Shadow had a big chance for a comeback, it might be passed.

People shit on Shadow, but people secretly like him. It's weird to say, but people did tear up back in the day when he FUCKIN' DIED at the end of Sonic Adventure 2. His game was a joke, yeah, and as a result, he missed two contests the same year and the year after (the year of Sonic 06), but regardless of how poorly those games were received, Shadow still gets a spotlight in all the spinoff games.

Shadow is often regarded as the most popular outside of the main three, and in Japanese character polls, he's always #2 behind Sonic. We are at this weird point where everything we hated in the early 2000s is now kind of cool again, or at least ironically cool, as evidenced by Pikachu making waves lately. There's a new generation of Sonic kids who grew up exclusively with the newer Archive comics, the mid-2000s games, and recently, Sonic Boom, which included Shadow in both the terrible game and the TV show. Normally I'd say that younger kids wouldn't come to this site, but younger Sonic nerds? Maybe.

Shadow could potentially do well if given proper bracket placement. All SEGA characters kind of share Nintendo's fanbase at this point, and they will probably receive a boost on a smaller level. I don't think he'll be getting to Round 3 but he might be able to impress. Could Shadow beat Zidane today? Maybe not, but it might be closer than we'd give him credit for.

This write-up was guest-written by my girlfriend who has an expensive Shadow the Hedgehog statue on the shelf next to her so please excuse any heavy bias.
---

Tom Nook
Last Contest: 2013
Last Game: Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp (2017), Animal Crossing: amiibo Festival (2015)

I'm going out of order for a bit because I want to go to sleep, and Kefka involves too much research and thinking.

I love Tom Nook. I mentioned earlier that I only have some amiibos, well I have two Tom Nook amiibos because they were on clearance once so I got another one. Tom Nook is the fucking boss.

While general audiences seem to also love the Nookie, it's more for the general recognizability that he commands as "that one dude from Animal Crossing, the game I kinda like and usually play when a new one comes out."

At this point, would Villager be a better rep than Nook? He's got a Smash game under his belt and is the subject of a bunch of memes. He's arguably a better rep. Would Isabelle do better? There's tons of por-- err, fan art of her floating around the internet, and she even managed to get into Mario Kart. Is Tom Nook's time finally up?

In any case, I assume Tom Nook would get a minor boost this year, and he's had pretty consistent new appearances as well as being in the smash-hit-for-a-week-because-that's-how-mobile-games-work Pocket Camp, and he has tons of merchandise and exposure.

Tom's had some small wins over Pyramid Head (although it was pretty close) and a throwaway Tales character, but he couldn't beat a main Tales character or a random Pokemon. I'd argue that Villager could beat Lloyd at this point. Tom Nook is probably better off sitting the next one out and passing the torch to the next generation.
---

ZenOfThunder posted...

Sonic Boom, which included Shadow in both the terrible game and the TV show.

I mean Shadow's barely in the TV show

(Sonic Boom is a great show and doesn't take itself seriously at all

literally the first episode is Robotnik rooming with Sonic and Tails while his fortress undergoes renovations)
---

My point is more that they got out of their way to include Shadow when nobody else outside of the main 5 plus Eggman, Orbot and Cubot are in it. They have a Metal Sonic episode and randomly a Vector episode. The writers mention how hard it is for them to get SEGA to let them use other characters, but for Shadow they managed to get him for both Season finales, and the plot of his first episode is "holy shit it's SHADOW THE HEDGEHOG, THE SECOND MOST POPULAR CHARACTER"
---

well yeah but that's fanservice aimed at people who already like him to begin with
---

ZenOfThunder posted...

Isaac

Ah... I remember back in 2010 I saw this name and thought: "Whoa! People like Castlevania: Curse of Darkness as much as me?" Then I looked at the match picture and it turned out to be a guy from an RPG I had never heard before then.
---

By the way, when will Hector enter a contest anyway? He's the coolest Castlevania character of all time, imo.
---

Trump postpones decision on imposing steel and aluminum tariffs on Canada to June 1

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/steel-tariffs-deadline-1.4641458

Canada's exemption period was officially set to end at midnight April 30. But late Monday, Trump decided to give Canada, Mexico and the European Union another month to work out a deal with the Americans.

The Trump administration issued a statement saying it had come to a final agreement with South Korea on steel imports and had reached agreements in principle on steel and aluminum with Argentina, Australia and Brazil.
---

charmander6000 posted...

Trump postpones decision on imposing steel and aluminum tariffs on Canada to June 1

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/steel-tariffs-deadline-1.4641458

Canada's exemption period was officially set to end at midnight April 30. But late Monday, Trump decided to give Canada, Mexico and the European Union another month to work out a deal with the Americans.

The Trump administration issued a statement saying it had come to a final agreement with South Korea on steel imports and had reached agreements in principle on steel and aluminum with Argentina, Australia and Brazil.

Did you post in the wrong topic?

No I'm just wondering how Trump's tariffs would affect the upcoming character battle

>_>

<_<
---

It'll definitely affect the amount of anti-votes Steel-type Pokemon get during the Best. Pokemon. Ever. contest.
---

Yeah, I was about to make a steel-Pokemon-related joke, but I couldn't quite come up with something that connected Trump with contests.
---

Has there ever been a character from Canada in the Character Battles before?
---

let's count Commander Shepard since both of the VAs are Canadian and he/she's only listed as being from Earth (on certain profiles anyway)
---

Zen please do more write-ups.

When the politics topic starts melting into other topics, the world will reach its end.
---

LeonhartFour posted...

people were surprised because we didn't realize RacistFAQs was a thing yet and Vercetti finished well above Ness in the 2004 X-Stats

It was people's own stupidity to not consider Ness. RacistFAQs is a lame excuse when there were so many other things worth talking about... (His picture was a bit unrecognizable, so at least there's one possible reason CJ could have won.) I mean, Niko Bellic didn't come close to matching Vercetti either. But yeah, as you mentioned, it's suprising that some people thought Ness's raw x-stat was indicative of his strength, while completely ignoring that Ness nearly matched Scorpion's performance (though people said that Scorpion must have dropped a bunch or something).

What's interesting is that If Auron really was a smidge above Zero at that time based on their common opponent (Scorpion), Ness could have gotten has much as 48% on Vercetti in 2004! In fact, I think this result would have been more likely than, say, 43% on Vercetti. Add in the 2005 Nintendo boost (a "favorite developer" poll foreshadowed this), and the fact that CJ simply didn't seem as loved and iconic as Vercetti, and now suddenly Ness beating CJ seems like a real possibility. ...but everyone just ignored all that, of course. After all, Ness must be high fodder at best!

To this day I still wonder if Auron really was stronger in 2003/2004 than in 2005...alas, we will never know... (perfect example of my ancient x-stats nerdiness)
---

Haste_2 posted...

His picture was a bit unrecognizable

and also possibly not actually CJ

I've often considered the possibility that the reason 2004 Snake looked so bad (aside from the Tanner match) is because CJayC used Naked Snake pics for his matches against Knuckles and Mega Man (two characters he faced the year before and did noticeably worse), and every MGS fan knew that wasn't Solid Snake. His match against Frog speaks for itself in how much a bad picture can cause you to underperform.

But regardless, even if a poll "foreshadowed" the Nintendo Boost, nobody could've actually predicted the total shift. Keep in mind that Ness didn't beat CJ by that much. It was just a 55/45 result, and the Nintendo Boost (paired with CJ getting a picture that might have been another character entirely) could have flipped the result. Plus, as I said, GTA really hasn't been the same since the Nintendo Boost either. There are certain characters and franchises that were negatively impacted by the demographic shift in 2005, including a bunch of niche Square and niche RPG characters (Remember how Tifa matched Cloud's percentage on Vyse in 2005? I remember discussions about whether Tifa and Vincent were acting as Cloud/Sephy proxies since they weren't in the main bracket. Good times).
---

Snake is the biggest case for pic factor.

Except maybe Vincent in 2013.
---

Vincent's pic in 2013 hurt him but he also just sucked that year. His performance in R1 was really bad.
---

bwburke94 posted...

Snake is the biggest case for pic factor.

Except maybe Vincent in 2013.

Would have lost regardless.

you don't need zen to do write-ups

the write-ups were in your heart all along
---

It also didn't help that we didn't have too much respect for Jak who got around 45% on Ness in 2004.

Like it makes sense in hindsight, but it was quite the upset in 2005.
---

Vincent would've lost to Mewtwo regardless in all likelihood, but he probably at least doesn't finish last with a good picture.

the best thing about Ness > CJ is that it allowed my favorites bracket (which had Squall winning) to be #1 on the leaderboard for the first week of the contest until Ganondorf ruined everything as he always does
---

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/5156-character-battle-ix-division-2-round-1-kos-mos-vs-dunban-vs
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2536-triforce-division-round-2-kos-mos-vs-aeris-gainsborough

So is Vincent weaker than Aeris at this point?
---

Who cares how strong (or weak) Vincent is now? He'll probably never make it into a contest again. Even back in 2013 he was seeded so low that he wouldn't have made the play-in polls for a 2010-size contest, and there's no reason he'll have gained strength since then. The only real debate about Vincent should be about why he fell so much between 2010 and 2013, and even that only matters because it might mean something for other characters.
---

Vincent fell because FF7 as a whole has dropped a lot. Except for Tifa and Aeris. Because boobs are eternal, I guess.

In general, mainstream Final Fantasy has fallen. Final Fantasy 7 the most, but FF8 looked bad in the games contest and FF10 was a bit weaker as well. Final Fantasy 9 is the only one that's gotten stronger, but it's more of an old-school game in spirit (and fanbase).
---

Xeybozn posted...

Who cares how strong (or weak) Vincent is now?

maybe this isn't the topic for you
---

also I'm not sure it's clear what Aerith's level of strength is because Draven/Link LPF'd Shepard so hard (although the fact that he stayed above 10% is still one of the most impressive performances in the contest)

I don't think she loses to Shepard in 2010
---

hey since Zen is hanging around

http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/gallery/albums/bge09/bge09-55-4.jpg

remember this?
---

LeonhartFour posted...

and also possibly not actually CJ

I think that artwork is actually Carl Johnson, but the problem is that CJ is customizable, and there is no official art that has him wearing his default attire. So, it might be CJ in the picture, it's kind of nobody in particular's CJ.
---

LeonhartFour posted...

hey since Zen is hanging around

http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/gallery/albums/bge09/bge09-55-4.jpg

remember this?

I THINK ABOUT THIS ON A NEARLY DAILY BASIS

I HAVE REPENTED THROUGH MY SHAME
---

I don't regret a single one of the weirdo pics we made during that year. They're all classic.
---

Going back and trying to pick out match pics I did that I liked. It's surprisingly difficult to remember which ones I did.

http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/gallery/albums/gotd/gotd-128-7.jpg (will always be my favorite)
http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/gallery/albums/gotd/gotd-082.jpg (feel slightly dirty about this one)
http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/gallery/albums/cb8/cb8-116-1.jpg (eat your heart out sephy)
---

http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/gallery/albums/bge09/bge09-53-1.jpg
http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/gallery/albums/bge09/bge09-59-2.jpg
http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/gallery/albums/bge09/bge09-62-2.jpg

http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/gallery/albums/cb7/cb7-62-2.jpg (so good I had to use it twice!)

Made a bunch of pics that year that I really liked, especially for RBY's run which is probably the most hype I've ever been for a contest.
---

http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/gallery/albums/bge09/bge09-59-1.jpg

Clearly, this is the greatest work of art I ever produced in these contests.
---

Who made this one?

http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/gallery/albums/cb7/cb7-57-2.jpg
---