Board 8 > Most surprising member of the Noble Nine?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Nanis23 posted...

It wasn't until Mania that Sonic actually got a widely praised game in the last 15 years

Sonic Colors and Sonic Generations were both widely praised dude
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Crono wins this by default. Samus on paper should at best only been a near-elite, especially in 2002. I was about to mention Mega Man too, but on second thought I don't think I can name nine characters "more expected" than Mega Man.
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KujikawaRising posted...

I'm presuming there's a reason why Sephiroth was the one ignored in the logo, but I'd have thought it to be Crono myself.

I figured it was to promote 8 different games/series instead of 7.
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I don't think it's fair to act like Samus in 2002 only had three games. It's technically true but both Fusion and Prime had been announced by then and there was definitely excitement for them.

Samus didn't surprise me much (I picked her to beat Sonic in 02) but I admit that's because I overestimated the heft of Super Metroid itself. I always had it pegged as one of the THE top SNES games for hardcore gamer appeal; I think one of the most personally surprising results for me was seeing it get beaten down by Link to the Past. If the games contest had happened first I'd probably have been more surprised by Samus, though obviously she has a wider appeal than her games.

Mega Man remains the most surprising to me just because he doesn't have any single beloved game in that way. Mega Man 2 is probably the most and it didn't even manage to get into the 04 contest (which, granted, was seen as a major snub/surprise). Obviously he has quantity (which means that more people remember at least one of his games quite fondly), but I do think he's definitely another case of a character who outstrips his own games for popularity, like Samus. I just wouldn't have expected it of him as readily. Might be just me!
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swordz9 posted...

Sephiroth gets to cash in on cool factor and nostalgia too. He basically just came out at the perfect time for our generation since there really isnt all that much special or different about him compared to the zillion other JRPG villains out there. Hell even design wise Square basically just copied their other character Psaro from Dragon Quest for Sephiroth >_>

I don't know for sure, but I think Psaro looking like Sephiroth is a retcon, probably from a bit before the 2001 PS1 remake's release. None of the art where he looks like Sephiroth actually looks like something from 1990 when Dragon Quest IV was released.
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Underleveled posted...

Wreath posted...

You can't be noble 9 if you lose to a non noble 9 right?

This was the rule because for the first five contests those nine characters never lost a match other than to each other.

Format changes and the advent of rallies have made that significantly harder to maintain and it has arguably been "broken" but the group remains considered the elite of the contests.

So there is no Nobel 9 now it's just characters who have a decent track record

Crono by far. I picked Kefka to beat him since I thought FF6 was more popular. (Seriously, no one in my school except my brothers friend even heard of Chrono Trigger. And if they did, they preferred Chrono Cross. )
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NeoElfboy posted...

Mega Man remains the most surprising to me just because he doesn't have any single beloved game in that way. Mega Man 2 is probably the most and it didn't even manage to get into the 04 contest (which, granted, was seen as a major snub/surprise). Obviously he has quantity (which means that more people remember at least one of his games quite fondly), but I do think he's definitely another case of a character who outstrips his own games for popularity, like Samus. I just wouldn't have expected it of him as readily. Might be just me!

I think Mega Man games are seen as fairly interchangeable by the average fan because the formula is pretty much the same in all of them, so that's why a single game doesn't really rise to the top, but I feel like all of us played at least one Mega Man growing up. It was the perfect game to rent and beat in a weekend, which is why I say the sales numbers don't really matter there.
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Wreath posted...

Underleveled posted...

Wreath posted...

You can't be noble 9 if you lose to a non noble 9 right?

This was the rule because for the first five contests those nine characters never lost a match other than to each other.

Format changes and the advent of rallies have made that significantly harder to maintain and it has arguably been "broken" but the group remains considered the elite of the contests.

So there is no Nobel 9 now it's just characters who have a decent track record

They are still the Noble Nine.
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Mega Man is popular largely because of the MMX series. A lot of people don't really differentiate between Mega Man and X.
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Haste_2 posted...

A lot of people don't really differentiate between Mega Man and X.

Even the character battle itself didn't until... what, 2008?
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I'm surprised pikachu isn't there since Pokmon is much more popular than metroid

Yeah, CJayC never let X into the contests.
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LeonhartFour posted...

Yeah, CJayC never let X into the contests.

Yeah, he even let submitted pictures with X in them count for Mega Man, and did the same with Naked Snake being considered Solid Snake and not Big Boss.
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I still think CJayC using Naked Snake pics in 2004 hurt him a bit because everyone knew that was Big Boss.
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Sephiroth is the strangest due to being the only antagonist of the group, correct?
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