Board 8 > transience presents: the 75 most important matches in contest history

(+) Yeah! (+)

Nelson_Mandela posted...

KamikazePotato posted...

transience posted...

67.

I was thinking about this match recently. It's the only time I've ever been on Board 8 where the aftermath of a match made me feel distinctly uncomfortable (and I picked Vincent). I remember voting, seeing the results and just...cringing a little as I imagined what the blowback towards the users who supported Kerrigan was going to be.

Was it black turtle or maybe... Kyle Bowen or KP who adamantly backed kerrigan? I remember weeks of buttdamage.

I took Kerrigan but I don't remember being particularly adament about it.

I think I got 1 point in the Devil division, Squall > Geno
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60.



There was honestly no reason for Crono to pull this off. He lost to Sonic in 06 and Vincent in 07. He was a year older, with less reason to be relevant, and on top of that, Vincent looked just as good as ever. Vincent put up a nice number in a Samus/Ganondorf match while Crono.. well, his matches were weird, and we'll get to those, but he wasn't far away from Pikachu.

I try not to get too recap-y on the matches here because there are much better resources for it, but Crono jumped out to a nice lead, gave it almost all back in the deep night and then somehow just held the hell on. Vincent tied this match up by 6pm and took a 200 vote lead before the night vote set in but it wasn't enough to hold off Crono's last second surge. Just like the pre-match, Crono's win was improbable. It was a great comeback story, as much as you can get in fourways.

Crono's reward was a nice Link/Samus/Mario/Crono semifinal which allowed him to sneak into the final. He got last place'd there but I think, by 2008, that Crono fans would be absolutely thrilled for him to lose to Link and Cloud instead of dudes like Vincent or Squall.
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can confirm

one of the best matches ever tbqh
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59.



There's not much interesting to say here: Link finished his dominant 2002 run. Some people might have thought that Mario could beat Link but I'm not among them. Link's always been the cooler one for as long as games have existed. Heck, I'm old enough to have watched the Super Mario Super Show, and let me tell you, the Zelda episode on Fridays was all anyone wanted.

On the surface, Link beating Mario, who beat Cloud, way worse than he beat Sephiroth didn't make a whole lot of sense even in a world where fanbase overlap wasn't yet a thing. You just knew something was not quite right, and it would take a year to understand what that was.
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Hype. Also, Crono had the CT remake in 2008, which might have been enough to make a difference.
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oh yeah, that's true. I forgot all about CTDS.
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okay, I wrote pretty much all evening so I'll pause here and let everyone catch up and discuss. more tomorrow night!
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Side note that the Kirby/Tidus match reminded me of: anyone else remember the term THE GAUNTLET that was thrown around to describe a string of debatable matches in 2k5? We were really cheesy back then. Moreso than now, at least.
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I actually wrote THE GAUNTLET in that writeup but then deleted it because I couldn't remember where it started and finished. I think it started at Ganondorf/Auron? Leon will know
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The Gauntlet was Ganon vs. Auron, Snake vs. Zelda (we knew back then!), Sora vs. Alucard, Kirby vs. Tidus, and Bowser vs. Ryu.

All of them ended up being disappointing, but then the match that followed ended up being surprising great. That was DK vs. Master Chief.
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God that crono kefka match just reminds me of kefka vercetti. Initiative the 100 vote barrier
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transience posted...

Heck, I'm old enough to have watched the Super Mario Super Show, and let me tell you, the Zelda episode on Fridays was all anyone wanted.

Fridays were the best. For some reason it aired at 5AM every day here, and I tried to get up at 5AM to watch it sometimes...
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Kefka/Vercetti is this weird contest history footnote that felt pretty big at the time but I cant say that it was really influential after the fact. I ended up leaving it off.
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transcience posted...

Kefka/Vercetti is this weird contest history footnote that felt pretty big at the time but I cant say that it was really influential after the fact. I ended up leaving it off.

That's fair. It's not "important" per se, but it was one of the most ridiculous days ever for the board.
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Disappoint
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My theory on Crono is that following the Sonic loss we pretty much put him at 9/9 or even lower but that he is still exactly what he always was - a middle of the pack N9er.

I think in some ways him having just the one game and that being allowed to stand alone has helped him.

He hasn't had to suffer Association with Square Enix like most of FF and he hasnt had to suffer from Konami and Capcom and Segas diminishing reputations like Snake and Sonic and Mega.
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Reading through these, is the consensus that 2005 was the best contest? It's certainly my personal favourite
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2005 has a lot of great matchups just outside of the top tier. its certainly got the most mentions so far. I might rank contests after the fact here but you can probably get a sense of my preferences as we move through this list.
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transience posted...

This match is the first true indication we had of the Nintendo Boost.

Unless you're creativename who thinks it was just a Mario boost for whatever reason
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a DS boost

I dunno, Ganon looked pretty good.
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Still reading the topic...

LeonhartFour posted...

I don't think ANYONE saw GoldenEye coming though.

I did, I even got its placing correct. My strategy was to use the seeding from the games contest.

Sadly that meant I did not have LttP in the top 10.
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A couple of other matches that I hope show up are the first two Mario vs. Cronos. The first one set the precedent of removing stuffed votes, and the second one set the precedent of CJayC can pretty much arbitrarily run the match how he wants.
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Also I'd probably put Mario/Link 1 a bit higher

I mean there were definitely reasons to think Link would be stronger on this site. Zelda being a kinda pseudo RPG that appeals to the kind of people seeking FAQs being chief among them. But that match is the first time that had you thinking "yeah this isn't even a debate." Anyone who remembers that result has a huge advantage in contests going forward since intuitively Mario's at least in the discussion to win.
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It's crazy to think, but when Mario/Link 1 happened, Ocarina of Time was only a 4 year old game. To put it into perspective, we are further removed from Link Between Worlds than 2002 was from OoT. We are almost as far removed from BotW as 2002 was from Majora's Mask.
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BlAcK TuRtLe posted...

It's crazy to think, but when Mario/Link 1 happened, Ocarina of Time was only a 4 year old game. To put it into perspective, we are further removed from Link Between Worlds than 2002 was from OoT. We are almost as far removed from BotW as 2002 was from Majora's Mask.

We were also as far out from the release of the Wii U for this contest as we were from the N64 in 2002.
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BlAcK TuRtLe posted...

Reading through these, is the consensus that 2005 was the best contest? It's certainly my personal favourite

In terms of character battles I think it comes down between 2003 and 2005 for most people here (likely on which results they liked better). 2007 was pretty good too if you were fine with L-Block. 2010 deserves some mention, but day/night matches kind of killed it from being the best ever.

While 2002 was new and exciting, the first two rounds were quite forgettable. 2004 had too many SFF matches plus a company cap, 2006 had the female bracket, 2008 didn't feel fresh, 2013 had too much rallying and by 2018 trends no longer exist and for us contest vets we don't have as much free time anymore because we aren't teenagers.
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transcience posted...

Kefka/Vercetti is this weird contest history footnote that felt pretty big at the time but I cant say that it was really influential after the fact. I ended up leaving it off.

I would disagree with this. That match forever changed how we view the possibility and nature of cheating.
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Lopen posted...

Also I'd probably put Mario/Link 1 a bit higher

I mean there were definitely reasons to think Link would be stronger on this site. Zelda being a kinda pseudo RPG that appeals to the kind of people seeking FAQs being chief among them. But that match is the first time that had you thinking "yeah this isn't even a debate." Anyone who remembers that result has a huge advantage in contests going forward since intuitively Mario's at least in the discussion to win.

Im not really sure what it offered other than to (maybe incorrectly) compare both sides of the bracket in 2003, and not really after that. 2002s results more or less stopped being taken seriously by like 2004?, with the exception of big untainted matches like Seph/Mega, Crono/Snake, etc.
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Like I said I think it's mostly notable just because it really drove home that Link/Zelda were on a completely different level from Mario. In 02 that wasn't clear till that match. Like you said you compare Seph and Cloud vs the two and you don't expect it.

I guess you could say we've been beaten over the head by it so much over the years that this one isn't that significant but I'd say that match gave you hints for a lot of things. Like Mario 64 vs Ocarina 04, on any random website, is at least worth thinking about, but here it's a 80-20 blowout and that's not super surprising because we saw Link thrash Mario so badly directly.
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tag

charmander6000 posted...

BlAcK TuRtLe posted...

Reading through these, is the consensus that 2005 was the best contest? It's certainly my personal favourite

In terms of character battles I think it comes down between 2003 and 2005 for most people here (likely on which results they liked better). 2007 was pretty good too if you were fine with L-Block. 2010 deserves some mention, but day/night matches kind of killed it from being the best ever.

While 2002 was new and exciting, the first two rounds were quite forgettable. 2004 had too many SFF matches plus a company cap, 2006 had the female bracket, 2008 didn't feel fresh, 2013 had too much rallying and by 2018 trends no longer exist and for us contest vets we don't have as much free time anymore because we aren't teenagers.

Seems reasonable, I don't remember 2003 too much, since I only started coming here during the villain contest. Think for me it goes 2005 > 2007 > 2010 > 2006 > 2018 > 2008 > 2013
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transience posted...

I'll admit it: I took Kefka in 2003. After all, Crono had an amazing 2002 run and Final Fantasy was more popular than Chrono Trigger. FF6 fans loved Kefka and the site loved Sephiroth.

Yeah, I feel like people who weren't here in 2003 don't understand just how hyped Kefka was. Magus is the one we all remember now because of how well he did against Link followed by his fall from grace, but lots of people expected big things from him.
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transcience posted...

Kefka/Vercetti is this weird contest history footnote that felt pretty big at the time but I cant say that it was really influential after the fact. I ended up leaving it off.

Well, it's notable because that match was the death of insta-updates forever because of BARRIERS and George Romero, so I'd have probably included it myself.

Plus, it's one of the greatest round 1 matches of all time.

_SecretSquirrel posted...

The Gauntlet was Ganon vs. Auron, Snake vs. Zelda (we knew back then!), Sora vs. Alucard, Kirby vs. Tidus, and Bowser vs. Ryu.

All of them ended up being disappointing, but then the match that followed ended up being surprising great. That was DK vs. Master Chief.

Yeah, that was the Gauntlet. It did end up being pretty disappointing since none of those matches were close, but man, on paper, that was a monster set of matches.
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I wasn't around in 2003, but wasn't there a pervasive theory going in that the villains of a game would be stronger than the protagonist?
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The Mana Sword posted...

I wasn't around in 2003, but wasn't there a pervasive theory going in that the villains of a game would be stronger than the protagonist?

Well, we certainly didn't have the mindset that the protagonist is most likely to be the strongest character back then. There were a lot of people who believed Magus > Crono and Luigi > Mario in 2003, for instance.
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Sephiroth > Cloud was the big one, since Seph looked much stronger than Cloud in 2k2. We figured that might extend to Kefka.
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Nelson_Mandela posted...

tag

#1 best be Cloud/Link '03. It was the Super Bowl III of GameFAQs Contests. I think we would have never had more than BGE had it not been for this match.

It's this or one of the first two Mario/Crono matches. Like the list is just objectively wrong without one of those three matches at #1.
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Cloud retained strength because of Smash. I don't think it's deniable. Without it I highly doubt he beats Mario or Zelda.
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transience posted...

62.



This match doesn't stand out at all today. Even at the time, it was generally seen as a tossup. Tidus was the slight favourite (51% in the oracle), but Kirby won big and so what?

This match is the first true indication we had of the Nintendo Boost. There were a lot of matches here that went for Nintendo. The next day, Bowser demolished Ryu. The day after that, Donkey Kong of all characters almost beat Master Chief. At this point we believed that the Boost was real.

What caused it? Who knows. My personal take on it is that Nintendo would have always beaten Square on this website.. but that Nintendo kinda sucked in the Gamecube era when it came to their heavy hitters. You went from Mario 64 and Ocarina to Sunshine and Wind Waker (which only became loved years later). Hold a contest in 2001 and I think Nintendo does awesome.

Then, by the time 05 rolls around, you start seeing Twilight Princess trailers and getting psyched over the next generation ("Revolution"). The DS hit in November 2004 and with it came Super Mario 64 DS and, yeah, Kirby's Canvas Curse. The DS was a surprise hit that everyone was into at the time and it trickled down. Meanwhile, Square put out KH in 2003 and just kinda faded away. That lack of permanence, along with Square turning into Square-Enix, just sorta pushed the contest along naturally.

Anyway, this match itself is only so-so but it's always been my indication that, yeah, Nintendo is real, Crono is in trouble and watch out Cloud.

That's an odd inclusion but hey.

And I was so, so happy over that Vincent result. I thoroughly enjoyed rubbing it in.

I can take a punch too, so it's all good. I'm ready to eat it when you get to Knuckles > Magus LOL
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Im looking forward to being called objectively wrong in a few days!
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#1 Mario/Samus 2005 is book it

or maybe the 2007 final
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Holy hell I remember those cartoons. Christ I'm old.

All I cared about as a kid was whether or not Link would finally make out with Zelda and I hated the fairy always getting in the way. Too good.
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transcience posted...

Im looking forward to being called objectively wrong in a few days!

Bruh Link/Cloud or Mario/Crono are the reason we still have contests. Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaybe L-Block in 2007. If that's your #1 then cool. No chance we still have these otherwise. It would be like pretending The Beatles or Led Zeppelin aren't the most influential bands ever, and I don't even like either one.

Fantastic topic btw. Please make a wiki page!
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I tend to agree with Ulti_PCA's ideas for #1.

Mario Samus probably shouldn't even be top 5 all things considered.
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#1 is Link/Cloud 2003. Are there even any contests afterwards if Link stomps twice in a row?
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Mario/Samus 2005 was a random SFF match and this year proved it wasn't influential. If anything it was influential in a bad way because of how it made people here act like assholes.

I'm not proud of it and I would take that one back if I could, believe me.
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cant have a good topic without some top 10 hype.

Mario/Samus is absolutely worthy of being listed alongside those. dont forget about spring 2004 either. (and again, Im not trying to list the best matches, just the most important ones)
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Yeah that's my thinking too. Game contests might be the main thing we get if not for Link/Cloud 03.
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I don't see Mario/Samus as being top 25 worthy even.

"Establishing the exact shape of the Nintendo pecking order" isn't exactly pressing. I see it almost identically to Mario/Link 2002.
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we argued about Mario/Samus for literally the past 13 years

let's not act like it wasn't important
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