Board 8 > ~*~Zen Anal-yzes the Summer 2013 Contest - 5 Years Too Late Edition~*~

(+) Yeah! (+)

Along with winning the Undisputed Championship by tricking you all into believing I was Rad Link 5, getting Spring Breeze Dancin into the contest is my greatest achievement in nearly 15 years on b8

The Dancin Dream was well and truly realized

All thanks to going to CE and randomly PMing people
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I miss Rad Link 5

what a sourpuss
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Oh man I forgot about No Barkley, No Peace.

I've always found it odd that Allen is totally fine with the most absurd joke characters getting into the Character Battles, but in everything else nominating something he perceives as a "joke" could get all of your nominations DQ'd.
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ZenOfThunder posted...

Thanks to everyone here for participating in actual contest discussion! It's good to see users other than Luster Soldier back in the spirit of things. So 50% of this topic's goals are successful, now I just need to raise enough noms for Metal Sonic. I think we'll be here a while.

I've been keeping up with this topic and I'm definitely interested in a new contest for sure.

AxemRedRanger posted...

That and the 3DS port of his game probably help but Smash appearances just aren't gonna matter as much as they used to. I'd expect Altair to have declined a good deal in the last 5 years too. Rerun that poll and I'd guess the order stays the same but all three of them finish much closer together.

Smash 4 probably wouldn't have done anything for the newcomers that debuted in Smash for the first time, given the lack of hype for Wii U in general and the low ownership of the Wii U. Although there was the 3DS version of the game, I generally regard it as an inferior version because Smash has much better appeal as an experience meant to be played on a big screen TV (especially in HD).

SSBU on the other hand could be a different matter entirely as the Switch had better pre-release hype than the Wii U and has already surpassed the Wii U's all-time highest ownership mark in less than 18 months.
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LeonhartFour posted...

I miss Rad Link 5

what a sourpuss

RL5 was great
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http://imgur.com/a/4jI8Ra6

Also here is the PM I sent to every random peeson on CE that I could see. And an idea of what my outbox looked like

Shit worked tho

Hail the Dancin' Dream
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I don't mind the logic of the Barkley snub, but then Hitler got into the same contest so
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LeonhartFour posted...

pretty sure X/Zero was the only rivalry NOT in the database to get in

X/Zero got in very easily because it was BT's Guru nomination for that contest, and also got a 1 seed despite not being added to the database. I know a lot of people don't like BT, but he actually did a good thing for once by getting in a rivalry that Allen never added to the database.
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AxemRedRanger posted...

it becomes a /b/ rally point, winning and knocking out more popular entries, but alienating the majority of voters and leading to less people being interested in the contest (See: the latest GameSpot contest).

He tried
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LusterSoldier posted...

SSBU on the other hand could be a different matter entirely as the Switch had better pre-release hype than the Wii U and has already surpassed the Wii U's all-time highest ownership mark in less than 18 months.

Depending on field size, I wouldn't be surprised to see Simon get a 5-seed or even higher on the heels of that announcement.
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Smash announcements need to be taken on a case-by-case basis. Shulk was one of the most well-received announcements, it introduced him to a lot of people who had no idea who he is, and honestly the I'M REALLY FEELING IT meme helps too. It's definitely going to help, at least to some degree.
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Enjoying this.

I write stuff sometimes and worry Im just typing into a void and it makes me give up. Well Im here to let you know that Im reading all of these and enjoying them quite a bit.

Ill nominate Metal Sonic.
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Shulk was also super unknown because his game was impossible to find at the time. Within the next two years he got a plentiful reprint, added to Smash, and a 3DS port. I'd say that's decent exposure. Plus he's attached to the Xenoblade name, which has budded into a fairly well-known franchise.
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baubeta posted...

Enjoying this.

I write stuff sometimes and worry Im just typing into a void and it makes me give up. Well Im here to let you know that Im reading all of these and enjoying them quite a bit.

Ill nominate Metal Sonic.

Yes!!! Thank you!!

And thank you to everyone reading through this topic. As baubeta says a lot of times it feels like I'm just shouting into the void, but seeing everyone come out of the woodwork to talk about contests again, even if it's to yell at me for getting all my facts wrong, warms my heart.

If I do somehow manage to finish this writing project before noms go up, I think I might do a critique of all the new characters I see people nominating or something. How long does it usually take for Bacon to put up noms after a contest announcement? I remember waiting for a long time on some occasions.
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I still cry everytime I remember Tidus lost to a gliched mess of pixels
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(3)Yu Narukami vs (16)Shadow the Hedgehog vs (25)Kat




I usually only skim Ulti's analysis of each match because I don't want to sound derivative of his writing. Ulti has way more technical information and reading his write-ups for close matches are super entertaining. I skip over the analysis for matches like this one, though. But I did read what he had to say here:

"I'm still confused as to how [Shadow], a guy that started out with so much promise is just LOATHED, even by his own fans. Did Sega really drop the ball that hard?"

I have some things to say about Shadow's popularity in the fanbase. GameFAQs is definitely not a haven for hardcore Sonic fans, but wherever I find pockets of the fandom, people love Shadow unironically. He's really the only character in the series with any kind of depth. Sonic fast. Knuckles punch. Tails smart.

Shadow has a tragic past, and as basic as his origins are, at least there's some conflict there. Yeah, there's a ton of "ow, the edge," but that's pretty unique in the franchise, and you can't fault SEGA for trying to do something different with these furry weirdos. They just went too early-2000s with it, because it was the early 2000s. People loved it then, then were ashamed, but now people love it again. Like Pokemon?

As for the "7 Shadow fans," I'm living with one, and wake up to this every day:



I'm not in complete defense of how ridiculous Shadow is, though. If you want a laugh, like a real hearty belly laugh, watch this video from the 9m30s mark for about 45 seconds:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flP-4ucN15k" data-time="&start=570

It's fucking terrible. SEGA knows people like Shadow but they aren't willing to spend more than like $20 and a pack of Skittles on his DLC pack.

But you know who knows how to treat a franchise right?



There's a ton of evidence pointing to Shadow being included as an Echo of Sonic in Smash Ultimate. If it all works out, Shadow will probably get a tiny boost in power. Also if he doesn't say "THIS IS THE ULTIMATE" before his Final Smash it'll be the biggest missed opportunity in gaming history.

Yu was repping a game that came out in 2008, and because he really didn't have a name and his game was still pretty cult, he didn't make it in 'til 2013. He didn't perform great here, yeah, but Persona has slowly moved from being a Board 8 sweetheart to a GameFAQs sweetheart and now a mainstream sweetheart. If Joker makes the field this year, he might be able to escape Round 1. As for Yu, yeah, he's still around, but P5 characters have recency and cooler designs.

As for Kat, her franchise is basically dead before it began. Due to poor sales, Sony decided to shut down the online servers of Gravity Rush 2 after a little more than a year, leading to backlash from the 7 fans of the series:

https://www.polygon.com/2018/1/12/16883496/gravity-rush-2-online-servers-shutdown-date

Kat has a great design, I did her pic here, and I remember spending a ton of time touching it up and making sure she looked good for her only contest appearance ever. If we ever see Kat again it would be a small miracle.

I'm not a big Gravity Rush fan, I only played the Vita one for a bit then got the PS4 version on PS+, but the games look pretty cool and have a great aesthetic. The controls are fucking weird and gimmicky though and I can see why it never caught on. I hear GR2 is a big improvement, but it's already destined to fade into gaming obscurity.

Also the games are called "Gravity Daze" in Japan but Americans don't know that word and "Rush" is more EXTREME ps make Kirby look angry those fat ugly Americans love that
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(4)Leon Kennedy vs (15)Albert Wesker vs (24)Oliver




I'm not a huge Resident Evil fan but good god does the very idea of this match enrage me. Imagine being FFD or ExTha and looking down the bracket for the first time and seeing that Allen matched up fan favorite and ultimate villain Wesker with the strongest possible RE character in a contest setting.

What the hell, Allen? You can only wonder what happened here. Something tells me this was the last match he made for the 4 / 15 / 24 seed pairings and he was probably like "shit, I have two RE characters left over, oh well, fuck it, does anyone care about Wesker? I have to give OLIVER a shot to get second." I cut Allen a ton of slack and I'm usually one to defend his actions but this is really lazy.

Oliver who was so weak he couldn't get ahead of a heavily-SFF'd Wesker. Wesker who has done nothing but lose close matches is given nothing to work with here. Yeah, if he was given a real winnable situation he probably still would have lost, but we would have at least had something fun to watch for half a day.

I have nothing to say about Oliver but if we ever do get an "all characters" tournament we should get Totoro in. Fuck it, why not? People are ravenous for Ghibli shit. Yeah it's great and yeah the movies make me cry like a bitch but only sometimes.

Also this match was the return of the Anonymous Picsmith, meaning nobody actually made a pic for Oliver and Allen had to do it himself. Why nom a character nobody even wants to take 5 minutes to make a pic for?

(7)Gordon Freeman vs (12)Hades vs (21)Simon Belmont




THE ACTION FIGURE PIC RETURNS! This is the second time ever that an action figure picture has been used, the first time was in 2007 when I submitted an action figure pic for Kratos. I tried covering up that it was an action figure and thought I had slipped one past Allen, but in retrospect he was probably like "yeah whatever that's Kratos who cares" and just used it without any thought. I don't know why I was so obsessed with trying to bend pic rules.

I'm personally a fan of the First4Figures Simon statue:



Of course, now that Simon is confirmed for Smash and looks dope as hell, we won't need action figure pics for him anymore. I'd still take a figure over the truly awful Light Yagami-look alike art he got in his bio pic. With Smash, Simon probably could give modern Gordon a run for his money. Not win, but do a bit more respectably. But...

I want to return to the MFer ("Martyr Factor," for those just skimming these writeups) for a second here. There's not many characters this could apply to, but I believe Gordon is one of them.

Half-Life 3 is the video game joke as far as I'm concerned. It's the meme that keeps on giving. You think it's gone but then shit like this happens:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OR4jPtrDCLo" data-time="

Which, naturally, gets people riled up again. They look up and shout, "Save us!"

And Gaben whispers... "No."

So despite not having a new game and probably never getting a new game, Gordon will remain popular, and people will vote for him and his games out of respect and a little bit of pity. We may see Gordon at full strength in 2018, or maybe even stronger.

Back to 2013, and Gordon looked pretty good here. This match was just set up to Gordon getting beaten by Leon in a rematch nobody asked for, but eh, they can't all be winners.

Oh shit I forgot to talk about Hades uuuuuh unless we get an Uprising 2 within the next week or Hades is announced as an Echo Fighter of my ass then we're never seeing this jobber again.
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(1)Crono vs (18)Sarah Kerrigan vs (27)Missile






wow I completely forgot Kerrigan lost to a dog

also what the hell is up with Blizzard character pics? They're universally awful. Like Kerrigan looks a tiny bit better than Thrall but slap some jugs on that orc and they're basically the same pic.

I guess Heroes of the Storm Kerrigan would look better cuz at least she looks like a Zerg:



But after a result like this? We're probably never seeing Kerrigan again. That's not upsetting. She's done nothing but disappoint in these contests, and all the people ignoring the warnings that Missile would have the ultimate pic factor, people still took her to get second here.

I don't have much investment in Blizzard, but as you probably may know from Ulti's recent "Blizzard made the two worst games ever" topic, here's pretty passionate about it, so I suggest giving his rant about Starcraft a read: https://bit.ly/2B8yDzs

All I remember about this match was the whining. The insufferable whining all day about Kerrigan losing to an adorable doggy. If Blizzard fans are so passionate, why couldn't they anti-rally Kerrigan past a small canine? Because the Blizzard fanbases suck ass and don't even like each other. Shit, I'm turning into Ulti.

So will we ever see Missile again? Apparently Ghost Trick has a very devoted yet small fanbase, but unless someone gives them a call I doubt they'll rally Missile or Sissel into another contest. It's not like Missile was strong or anything, just that Kerrigan was incredibly weak and that the votals were so low they lent themselves to people tossing a vote at the cute dog.

Crono was here he would later go on to lose to a Pokemon so we'll talk about that when it happens

(6)Pikachu vs (13)Lloyd Irving vs (22)Big Daddy




Pikachu's design is second only to Kirby's in dominating match pics. Your eye just keeps wandering over to this cheerful yellow blob on the left. You can't even get halfway to the giant turd that is Big Daddy before your vision snaps right past the anime boy and back to the rat.

Big Daddy was favored for second here, and rightfully so. Lloyd hadn't done much since his first game had come out, he had some cameos here and there and was in an unpopular SoulCalibur game. Big Daddy was in exactly three seconds of BioShock Infinite, the Citizen Kane of video games. You don't get purer expressions of art than a game where the main character punches people in the face with a big spinning hook.



Thanks, Cliff. How's Fortnite working out for your company? Oh, wait, you left your company because you thought Fortnite was the wrong direction only to release a bad knock off of Fortnite at your new company that was so poorly received that it caused you to go out of business?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cuf9dM_LgCs" data-time="

Yeah, Lloyd impressed here, Big Daddy isn't exactly the strongest in these contests but when you look at the timing Daddy had all the moment here to win and win easily. Both of them might make it back into a contest, Big Daddy is an icon of a good series that's on hiatus, and Lloyd has second life through the PC port of ToS and a very devoted fanbase. Maybe he'll even be in Smash 5? He was a Mii costume in Smash 4, and after that last Direct, I'm not taking any ideas off the table anymore.
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Thank you for the Shadow vs Infinite clip.
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(9)Magus vs (10)Hal "Otacon" Emmerich vs (19)Jade Curtiss




This match was super highly debated because Magus had previously lost to Sandbag and Snake was on steroids this year, so his brainy best boy would probably get some of that rubbed off on him, right?

Unfortunately for Otacon, he was up against the thing he loved most, and he crumbled at the start and never had a chance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-BmKFgJJog" data-time="

Magus "impressed" here but we can't really get a good read on him or Otacon because Magus would go on to get SFF'd by Crono in Round 2. Dude absolutely cannot catch a break.

This was not Jade's first contest appearance so I'm sure KP can extrapolate Otacon's relative strength based on that. I don't know how Jade keeps getting into these things, but I'm happy Board 8's everlasting darling Tales gets plenty of reps, even if they end up usually just being bracket filler.

Also of note is Otacon continuing the trend of non-Pokemon NRT winners looking like trash. Barret, Otacon... who else won this year that wasn't shaped like a turtle?

(2)Sora vs (17)Scorpion vs (26)Aya Brea




If Sub-Zero had been in this match there might have been something to talk about, but Scorpion has been around since the beginning of contest history and there was plenty of data to show that he had absolutely no shot.

Kingdom Hearts III is finally coming out this year after two centuries in development, and even though Haley Joel Osment looks like he's one cheeseburger away from a massive heart attack, Sora will most likely be stronger than ever in this upcoming contest thanks to the continued KHIII hype train that pulls into the station every few months.

It's like Snowpiercer, the hype train just keeps going through the frozen tundra of mediocre KH spinoffs while on board Haley Joel Osment is eating babies to gain strength or something. Not sure where I was going with that metaphor. I'm one to talk I literally had three burgers and eight beers and like five babies last night at my friend's place.

Yeah this was a match that happened, Aya Brea got her time on the front page again, and some people argued she might LFF Sora because... Square Enix? OK, sure, yeah. That worked out great.

In other news Mortal Kombat XI is probably coming at some point. Did we ever revisit the idea of getting Reptile into one of these things? Or Liu Kang, Johnny Cage or Shao Kahn? There's some kind of potential there. Maybe. Probably not.
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I don't think Sub-Zero would have any better chance against Sora than Scorpion.

Also I looked up HJO and he's 5'4". I didn't know that.
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So Kingdom Hearts is where Haley Joel Osment went after his quest to find the Blue Fairy?

I hope I'm not the only one here who really liked A.I.: Artificial Intelligence!
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ZenOfThunder posted...

who else won this year that wasn't shaped like a turtle?

Morrigan and Seifer. Morrigan did okay but Seifer stunk.
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(5)Booker DeWitt vs (14)Gilgamesh vs (23)Kaim Argonar




There's a lot to talk about with this match, but the thing I want to highlight first is that Kaim got into a second contest and this time there was already a Caim in the field. People still chose to nominate him after he got doubled by Frank West. 2013 was a weird year.

People were quick to discredit Gilgamesh as "too obscure" of a Final Fantasy character despite being in a ton of games in different cameo appearances that were all great. He was also in Dissidia, I think, but maybe not by the time this match happened?

People thought Gilgamesh just looked like a weird Japanese blob and that Booker's recent smash-hit game would have enough recency and momentum to carry him past some obscure JRPG fodder that got rallied into the contest after many failed attempts to do so for years. I'm not sure if Gilgamesh was an NRT winner or just the product of a successful standalone rally, but it was nice to finally see him get his time on the front page.

So of course Gilgamesh took a big shit on Booker. I know that Irrational Games tweeted out support for Booker but it didn't help at all because nobody cares about Booker. The twist in Infinite is such forced trash and tries so hard to be deep, but in the end Booker is just DudeBro McShooty from the cover of a highly overrated game. I played through that shit like 3 times and I barely remember it.

Who would have thought we'd see Gilgamesh not only make the field but win a match? What a crazy time to follow these contests. Things were only going to get crazier from this point on.

(8)Groose vs (11)Lu Bu vs (20)Yoshimitsu




Theme for this post:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xD1FAOJI84" data-time="

I had been rallying for Yoshimitsu for three nomination periods and while I once got him into one of the vote-ins, I never had any success until the year I stopped rallying him and he mysteriously made it in. I like to think my years of petitioning helped somewhat.

That vote-in was the point of contention for this match. Yoshimitsu came in second-to-last against such jobbers as Dan Hibiki and Alex Mercer. Can you name what game Alex Mercer is from without Googling it? I can but I'm the big nerdo writing this so I have an excuse.

So naturally everyone assumed that Yoshimitsu was going to get stomped once the Groose was loose and the Lu Bu was... in... view?

I'm not sure where people thought Lu Bu was going to get the strength to beat Yoshimitsu from. He had a half-serious, half-"Hitler got in let's see if this guy can get in too" nomination rally. I know I had seen Lu Bu rallies in the past but they didn't get really serious until Allen decided to relax a little on what constitutes a video game character vs historical figure.

Most people had Groose > Lu Bu > Yoshimitsu, some had Yoshimitsu over Lu Bu, but almost everyone had Groose winning. Because Zelda.

The thing about Groose is that he is a Zelda but he is a bad Zelda.

Well, maybe not bad, but, y'know. Not great. Derivative. Polarizing. Nobody even talks about Skyward Sword anymore.

The match starts, Yoshimitsu takes off, Lu Bu follows behind, and Groose falls flat on his face. Can I remind you that the 8 seed was given to Groose because primarily Board 8ers nominated him? Being a Zelda meme that Board 8 finds kind of funny does not equate to any kind of contest strength, not even enough to beat freaking Yoshimitsu and Lu Bu.
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ZenOfThunder posted...

Can you name what game Alex Mercer is from without Googling it? I can but I'm the big nerdo writing this so I have an excuse.

I guessed Infamous and was wrong.
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Hmm GTA? When I doubt guess that.

Anagram posted...

ZenOfThunder posted...

Can you name what game Alex Mercer is from without Googling it? I can but I'm the big nerdo writing this so I have an excuse.

I guessed Infamous and was wrong.

The Conduit?

EDIT: Nope.
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(3)Lee Everett vs (16)Meat Boy vs (25)Mr. Game & Watch




I won't reiterate what I said in the Clementine match analysis, but I find it hard to believe how this was considered an "upset."

Lots of people played TWD, yeah. You know what else people play a ton of? oh I don't know it's just an obscure game you might not of heard of called SUPER SMASH BROTHERS MELEE.

Lee put the fear of the casual vote in people's hearts, and yeah, Game & Watch really doesn't have much going for him outside of Smash, but shit, once you see him in action you're never going to forget him. He's a really unique concept for a character and he stands out way more than blank-slate Lee Everett.

Yeah, Lee is alright. Yeah, there's some really great emotional moments in TWD. And again, I will stress that while a lot of people did play TWD and it got great reviews, that doesn't translate into votes, especially when the votals were so pathetic.

Meat Boy was here too, and I think he might still be getting games? He was one of the first ever "Indie Darlings," but now that market is really oversaturated and there's way better candidates for these things. Shovel Knight will probably do alright this year. He'd definitely have a shot at beating these two.

also something something racist ha ha game and watch is black too ha ha haaaaaaa

(4)Nathan Drake vs (15)Steve vs (24)Pac-Man




Here's a match that was basically impossible to call correctly pre-contest. Nathan Drake was a AAA superstar by this point and had come a long way since losing to CATS in 2008. Uncharted 2 is well beloved in the gaming community, and is even well respected on the FAQs.

On the other hand, you have Pac-Man, who is always pulling crazy upsets but has wildly inconsistent strength depending on the likability of whoever he is up against. He also got a pic with his less popular Ghostly Adventures design. Have you seen the opening for that shit?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gh1wlnXY5vw" data-time="

That design was "chosen" over three others thanks to the results of a "fan poll."



Which was fake, of course. This image went up and everyone voted for everything but A, but of course, when the results were announced, A had won and won by a lot. About a month later they showed off polished footage of the show and game using these designs. It was all a giant sham to make people think that this was the design people wanted.

So who used it in a pic? Uhhh... who knows. Definitely not me. Under an alt. Why would I do that? (I actually have no idea why I did that I'm sorry)

On the third hand you had Minecraft Steve who is from Minecraft so he should win because Minecraft. I didn't think MINEFEAR would ever be a thing but here we are. The only thing about Minecraft is that it's mostly played by actual babies who primarily use musical.ly as their primary social network. Those kids don't go to GameFAQs. The adults who play Minecraft are too busy making 1-to-1 recreations of Westeros to visit and vote.

The match was a crapshoot and Nathan Drake was the one who won it. He struggled for a bit with Pac-Man but not much. Steve never had a shot, nobody cares about Minecraft characters.

I also want to rant about how disappointing Uncharted 4 was and I hate how every game reviewer sucked its dick but I don't have much room left. The game was an Uncharted circlejerk that was a celebration of a series that had one good game, two mediocre ones and an OK Vita port. It reeked of self-importance and I think that took away from the experience. Also the grappling hook was not cool enough to base the game around. Bleh.
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(7)Fox McCloud vs (12)Pokemon Trainer Blue vs (21)Wolf O'Donnell




A reminder that if you haven't seen A Fox In Space yet you totally should, it's the best Star Fox media we've gotten since 64:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uieM18rZdHY" data-time="&start=17

This is by far the dumbest match of R1, worse than Leon and Wesker in the same match. At least Wesker had a contest history, but Wolf was new, and he never was given any chance. Some of these matches scream to me that Allen wanted us to be aware the he understood SFF and LFF and wanted us to think he had set up some cool scenarios, but then you get dumb shit like this. Swap Wesker and Wolf and see how the matches play out.

Everyone assumed Blue was going to be the next hot thing, especially after coming off of Rivalry Rumble with Red as no doubt the best looking pair that participated. People assumed that not only would he SFF Fox into oblivion, but Fox would look even worse due to Wolf LFFing him.

Right at the start we knew something was wrong. Fox was dangerously close to Blue and Blue was not pulling away. Sure, Blue won by a decently comfortable margin and was never really threatened, but his balls were out on stream and everyone could see them. What should have been one of the biggest blowouts of R1 turned out to be... this.

(1)Samus Aran vs (18)Isaac Clarke vs (27)Sandbag




are we over the sandbag thing yet

it was not funny the first time, it is not funny now

the only thing worth noting here is that Isaac couldn't beat an SFF'd Sandbag, although Sandbag's joke vote always seems a bit stronger than other weird Board 8 joke entrants. you look at him and instantly "get it," like L-Block but lamer

also some funny contest trivia is that there were three whole Isaacs in this contest and all three were 18 seeds

(6)Neku Sakuraba vs (13)Vaas Montenegro vs (22)Catherine




oh man, I forgot how much effort I put into Catherine's pic here. It took me forever to render out those drills nicely. i wish i put that much effort into my day-to-day life.

This was another case of "which obscure Japanese character will win and how will the face of a popular western game do comparatively?"

A lot of people took Vaas here for the same reason they took Booker and Lee. That was a bad idea. We're probably not going to see Joel and Ellie in these contests now because all new-age Western characters have been exposed as worthless. I hope I eat those words, though. I want a contest completely opposite of this one to keep us on our toes.

Neku had lost to Laharl once, and there were very few people who thought Catherine could be much stronger than Laharl, especially after K/Catherine only barely managed to avoid getting tripled by Sonic/Eggman. Catherine sold pretty well though and people love it on this board and site in general. It was even played at EVO for a while:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IMjIbTbloY&t=5h15m15s

So was this result really that surprising? Yes, kind of, Neku was the safer pick for sure, but in retrospect it seems obvious, and at the time people had very little faith in what was seen as niche Japanese fodder.

Also I wanna call back to one of my fave pics ever, my Catherine Rivalry Rumble pic:



Pretty sure I used hentai for Katherine's half. Whoops. I was really proud of that symbol in the middle, though. There was no clear version on the internet at the time so I had to pretty much remake it from scratch I think.

Catherine is getting an HD remake this year, I encourage anyone who hasn't played it to give it a shot.
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Wasnt the PC port of ToS a complete disaster? Im not sure Lloyd is going to be a big strength boost off that thing.
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was it really? I remember people talking about it but nothing specifically, i guess maybe it was bad things
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Catherine probably won because of TJF.
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It's been patched to fix most of the problems. It still has some bugs that were never fixed, but that happens
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if I was just some random dude visiting gamefaqs and I saw Neku / Vaas / Catherine I'd probably vote Catherine over dumb Sora-lookin' Neku any day
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If a new Tales character gets in this year, it should be Velvet.
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Groose was probably the biggest bomb of the year. I'm not super surprised he lost that much but it's still impressive a Zelda character from like...any Zelda game was doubled by Yoshimitsu.

Blue/Fox was a pretty debated match pre-contest I think. I was happy with Blue's performance at the time, but in retrospect it's kind of weak. When Red, Pikachu, and Squirtle were all reaching for the moon, Blue just kind of...settled.
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Yo Ash what's up!! How are the kids?
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Ashethan posted...

If a new Tales character gets in this year, it should be Velvet.

Wait, is this the only poll Berseria's been in?

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6581-which-scheduled-first-quarter-game-are-you-most-looking

Curious if she'd be able to match Yuri Lowell. Probably not.
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wow this is just anime girl Shadow the Hedgehog
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Velvet has the worst character design I've seen for a character that is actually really good
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Thankfully, you can fix her bad hair in-game
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ZenOfThunder posted...

Yo Ash what's up!! How are the kids?

Yo Zen! They're good. Glad to hear you've been doing okay for yourself.
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(9)Knuckles the Echidna vs (10)Seifer Almasy vs (19)Celes Chere




Knuckles was bound to win this match. I talked about it a bit in my last writing project, but Knuckles is probably the most universally well-liked Sonic character. Nobody hates Knuckles. Nobody is capable of hating Knuckles. Well, before he was a meme. People seemed to really like that meme, though. So much that I heard it helped kill VR Chat.

Second place was a pretty obvious choice: Our boy Seifer, NRT winner! Finally, after all these years, Seifer would have his time in the sun, we just had to hope Celes wouldn't hold him back too much.

Oh, shit, wait, Allen didn't check the calendar before he scheduled this match!



What an unfortunate coincidence. Well, Seifer sure did get his ass kicked. I have no idea why, again, I'm not an expert on FF strength in contest, but it just seems to me like Seifer is just a huge weenie from a game that is not particularly strong anymore. Seifer single-handedly wrecked what few perfect expert brackets were left. I'm pretty sure after this nobody had called everything right, and it was extra embarrassing because this match was supposed to be one of the obvious ones.

After Seifer's loss, @LeonhartFour was devastated. To this day he is in self-imposed exile, leaving nothing but a note before he left. It read "when I finally pass from this world, have Seifer be the pallbearer at my funeral so he can let me down one last time."

(2)Ezio Auditore da Firenze vs (17)Miles "Tails" Prower vs (26)Bomberman




What a bunch of winners we got here. I'm not being sarcastic, they each have a win! Ezio beat Simon, Tails beat Viewtiful Joe, and Bomberman beat a TV. Alright, maybe they're just "wins" by definition but not really "accomplishments."

Some people had Tails winning here, but unlike Knuckles, there are a lot of people who don't like Tails. People with nostalgia for the 2D games usually like Tails, but recently SEGA has been shitting all over the guy. When Sonic "dies" in the opening of Sonic Forces, Tails does nothing but cry in a corner while Knuckles, Amy and literally every other Sonic character step up to stand against Eggman. This did not go over well with the fanbase, and it probably wasn't winning him any new fans either.



In the end, this match played out like most people expected it too. It's too bad Bomberman is deconfirmed for Smash, he's a low-level icon waiting to be taken to another level in these things. He did beat Crash in a close match once. If the outpouring of support for him post-Smash deconfirmation shows us anything, it's that the potential for another win is there.

Ezio may actually be weaker than Altair, or they're probably about even. AC characters do OK in these things, mostly because of design. Lately, though, people have been really down on the franchise. Between 2013 and 2018 there have been 9 AC games released, with a ton being released in a state of dubious quality.



Will we ever see a new AC character? Will Ezio and Altair be back? I'm going to say one, but not both, and probably not at a very high seed. Altair had a good run in his debut contest, so I don't think anyone is itching to see them go the distance once more.
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Underleveled posted...

Shulk was also super unknown because his game was impossible to find at the time. Within the next two years he got a plentiful reprint, added to Smash, and a 3DS port. I'd say that's decent exposure. Plus he's attached to the Xenoblade name, which has budded into a fairly well-known franchise.

That's true but i have to admit he's also not very likeable. Cloud Jr?
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(5)Auron vs (14)Revolver Ocelot vs (23)Roxas




I have some choice things to say about Ocelot's pic here. I made it.

Everyone was really hyped about Snake and his friends' potential boost from the upcoming MGSV. That E3 gameplay demo was great. Everyone watched it. Everyone got hyped.

So I made a pic from the gameplay demo. I went frame-by-frame and picked out the best angle of Ocelot and rendered it myself. I touched up the scarf so that the red would be eye-catching.

And when the pic was revealed, people lost their minds. They couldn't believe Ocelot would get such a bad pic from the thing they said would be the reason he had a shot at winning! Now he had no shot at winning!!!!

To this day I still can't believe that of all the bad pics I've ever made this (and the really bad one @LeonhartFour is going to post at some point I fucking know it) is the one people give me the most shit for. Ironically, if a contest were to happen, say, in 2018, people probably wouldn't have a problem with me using this perfectly recognizable picture of MGSV Ocelot. I'm just a Picsmith Futurist. I will defend this pic 'til the day I die.

Ocelot never had any shot, and if anyone thought this pic made a character named "Revolver Ocelot," who is best known for being an old man in a beige cowboy coat with a red scarf, unrecognizable enough to bleed 3000+ votes from a potentially above-Auron level of strength, then they were out of their mind. I think Ocelot did pretty alright here.

The problem is just how strong Auron is. He really stomped Roxas, I'd say he was barely affected by his presence at all. Sure, he could have broken 50% without him easily, but he still looked good here. Again, people seriously thought Ocelot, the dude who lost to Pac-Man, could ride Roxas LFF to victory.

There's a dialogue going in Allen's sticky right now about who would win in a contest that is only post-2000 characters. It would probably be Auron. Dude is cool as hell.



Also I really wanted to post this:


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I had tails winning that match I thought it was a sure thing...
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Ocelot owns MGS4

He's so good
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I'll always want Ezio in, he's one of my favourite game characters
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(8)L-Block vs (11)Teemo vs (20)Palutena




Back in 2013, right after this contest, I went to PAX East with some of my buddies who were super into LoL. Again, the convention was right after this contest, so I thought LoL was lame as hell.

Riot Games was having some contest where every day in the morning they would hide Teemo mushrooms all around the convention center. If you found one of these glowing green tchotchkes, you could bring it to any Riot Games employee at the foul-smelling LoL booth and they would give you a Teemo hat, free of charge! They'd also let you keep the mushroom.

So in I strolled on day 2, my friends scrambled around the convention hall looking for these fucking mushrooms. I saw some nerds grab them from different non-affiliated booths and hold them aloft like it was a Piece of Heart. I had no interest, so I kept right on along to some game demo booth. I think it was Borderlands TPS?

I was waiting in line and my eyes, still tired from waking up early, wandered over to some random clothing booth across the way. There, on the floor, under their table, I saw a glowing green mushroom. I looked left, looked right. Nobody was making a move. I made eye contact with the man at the booth. He saw that I saw. I wasn't interested but I felt obligated to get the mushroom for my friends. I got out of line, went over and took the mushroom.

"Congrats," the man at the booth said, "A ton of people ran right by it. You must be pretty excited."

I looked up and forced a smile. "Yeah," I mustered unenthusiastically, "I, uh, love Teemo."

I got back in line. One of my friends caught up with me.

"I couldn't find a mushroom anywhere! Maybe tomorrow," he said with a frown.

I held up the mushroom.

"HOLY SHIT!" He grabbed my arm and dragged me out of line and to the Riot booth. I handed the mushroom to a Riot rep.

"Wow! That was fast," the rep said. He took the mushroom from my hand, popped the top off of the base, and put a small black "X" on the inside of it to mark that it had been turned in. He then went to the back and grabbed a Teemo hat and handed it to me. I said nothing during this entire exchange. "Congrats, man! Enjoy the con!" he finished.

I turned and handed my friend the Teemo hat. We then walked back to the booth. I looked down at the mushroom. How anti-climactic.

"Hey, man," my friend started, "I know you hate League cuz of that GameFAQs thing. You mind if I have the mushroom? You can keep the hat, they're worth like $15 on eBay right now."

Well, I don't like League, but I do like money. "Let me try something first," I said. I popped open the top of the mushroom, licked my finger, and slowly but surely rubbed off the black "X."

I turned around. We went back to the booth. It was massive, bigger than Nintendo's, so I found another rep far from the one I first went to. I handed them the mushroom. They handed me a hat and marked the mushroom. I walked away. I did it again. I did it about ten times throughout the day.

That mushroom and those hats paid for my PAX East ticket.

I love Teemo.

Also I don't feel bad because Riot got #metoo'd yesterday, and I believe it. Fuck those guys:

https://variety.com/2018/gaming/news/kotaku-riot-games-sexism-1202898427/

Oh yeah there was a match, people thought Teemo would get rallied but there was a 24-hour Twitch stream that was just clips of Teemo dying so yeah not even LoL people cared. How did he even get in?

L-Block looked good here, he has natural meme strength. Palutena was hot off of being made into a real character. Post Smash 4 and 5, she might have grown in strength, but probably not enough to come back.
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To people who played FF8 Seifer is unlikeable douchebag, he's your stereotypical high school jock (think Flash Thompson, hell he even looks like him) and for how tough he acts he's laughably easy in all of his boss fights, even if you don't abuse the game's broken mechanics and he never really has any cool moments besides the opening FMV and cutting Odin in two, and even then Gilgamesh steals the scene.

People were assuming he'd beat Celes since he's Squall's "Sephiroth" and appeared in Kingdom Hearts 2 and Celes easily lost to the boss, on top of that she had unrecognizable Amano art in the match. Image how bad she'd beat Seifer with this pic.


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