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

(+) Yeah! (+)

Zeldafaqs.
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Squall, in a sense, lucked out. He dropped about as much as Vincent, but he was still handed two easy matches against weak opponents, and if he had to be exposed by someone this year, being exposed by the contest star is a good way to save face.
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40.



Crono and Chrono Trigger have been constantly disrespected over the last decade. We've documented it well in this topic - Sonic, Missingno, getting unceremoniously removed early in 2013 due to a SFF match with Magus, etc. Magus fell off a cliff and lost to a Sandbag. Frog lost to a Kingdom Hearts 2 character. Crono lost to a glitch. It's been bad.

But then 2015 comes and, wow! Chrono Trigger is killing it suddenly. It put up enormous numbers on some weaker opponents and looked good coming into the FFX match. I think FFX was the bracket favourite here -- that's how bad it had been for CT. But CT straight up doubled FFX. It wasn't SFF either. Chrono Trigger was goddamn legit.

After years of Crono just dying after a few hours in the poll and seeming like nobody even knew who he was on the site anymore, CT was goddamn back.
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CT/SSBM is one of the worst matches ever.
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strong tag
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39.



The Devil Division is named properly. There's only one other division in contest history that can claim to be on its level, and that's division 128 from spring 2004. This division was complete madness. As has been mentioned, a lot of people got only 1 point here. I got 3: Dante over Terra, Vincent over Kerrigan and Squall over Geno. That's it.

There were so many factors that led to it. Of course, Magus, and really CT in general, dropped (more on this in a sec). Vincent was unknown. Terra and Kerrigan were unknown. Dante was always kinda meh, but DMC3 came out prior to this contest and boosted him. Knuckles had a bandwagon behind him when he went up against Squall because of the gigantic Magus upset. Nothing was clear-cut and this match was completely confusing to try to parse out.

The match itself was pretty good. Vincent took the lead early, slowly gave it back to Squall by morning but then recovered for a fairly clean win. It wasn't down to the wire or anything like that, but you never really knew what Vincent would do. Again, he's an Optional Character and who the hell knows how well-known he is?

Vincent's ascent was surprising to everyone. I think only 12% or so had Vincent winning the division. The board was at its absolute loudest whenever he had a match. Vincent surviving the Devil Division was a *huge* deal, and he was probably the consensus #10 guy behind the NN for the next 3-4 years because of it.

Vincent followed this up with a match against Crono that was bad enough for Crono that people suggested rSFF as a reason why. I just think Crono, and Magus by extension, had an off year in 2005, and more accurately, came back down to earth after their steroid-filled 2004. Vincent had this air of invincibility about him after beating Squall and putting a respectable number on Crono. That's what happens when you win the nastiest division in contest history.
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38.



Clinkeroth goes down! It's easy in retrospect to downplay this one because he won with 17% of the vote, using SFF to his advantage, or because Sephiroth could lose to a gust of wind these days. But Clinkeroth was a real thing. We call it the Noble Nine but it was really Clinkeroth and then the other six in their own little group back then. Yeah, Sephiroth only lost because Cloud was in the poll. But it still felt huge when it happened.

It wasn't just that it happened, but also how it happened. Ngamer has a picture that someone could look up of the board reaction when this went down. Snake had the lead the entire match, all 23 hours and 45 minutes of it, until Sephiroth finally got ahead by 20 votes. There was no way Seph was winning this match though. Snake was the underdog. He was the star. He was the guy who owned the 2006 contest. Yeah, Samus won 2006, but Snake was the real MVP. Snake busted out a +80 update in the last 15 minutes to seal the deal. It was Mario-esque.

From this point forward, Snake was the clear guy who would be next. Mario was always going to get slammed by Link and Samus would always get slammed by Mario. Cloud and Sephiroth were starting to show signs of age. Sonic, Mega Man and Crono weren't on the same level as the others. But Snake, with MGS4 and Brawl coming, was rising and there wasn't much that could stop him.
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It's a shame Snake has fallen off a cliff. There was nothing to be done to save Sephiroth, but Snake's series could have retained at least some strength.
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If only there was a contest in a year where Snake was the clear #2 with FF weakened and no MGS5 out yet to weaken him.

Oh there was, but Draven ruined it.
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transience posted...

46.



This match feels wholly unsatisfying. Super Smash Bros. Brawl was the game of the decade, at least at that point in time. Now is obviously another story, but it was the strongest game that year.

You could feel the users of gamefaqs saying to themselves, "what have we done?", as perennial lightning rod Super Smash Bros. Brawl moved towards winning the contest. They preferred Brawl in each match, but it just didn't belong here. Not a game with such a backlash. And so, by the time we get to the semifinal against Fallout 3, it just kinda... stopped being beloved. Fallout 3 put up a similar number to Twilight Princess, a game that kinda killed Fallout 3 the year prior. It was nearly a doubling, and now it was at 46%. Something wasn't right.

Meanwhile, Majora's Mask, that plucky Zelda underdog, had all the buzz. It had heart. It had creativity. It had all the things that Brawl lacked. And so, the voting public kinda abandoned the strongest game and went for the best narrative. It's understandable. Brawl isn't GOTD quality. But the match just never felt right. Run this as a round 2 match and I think Brawl wins it.

Wins it in 2010, of course. Run it now and Brawl loses to anything. We'll get there.

Unsatisfying MY FUCKING ASS.

And I took Bowser > Snake that one year. I came so, so close.
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KamikazePotato posted...

CT/SSBM is one of the best matches ever.

FIXED!!
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ha, I just noticed that I skipped #56. how fitting is it that it was this one?

56.



This match is forgotten because it came between two of the most infamous matches ever. Although, it's talked about as being underrated so much that maybe it's properly rated?

Anyway, Mega Man had possibly the greatest start to a contest ever, dropping 92% on his first two (weak) opponents. It's between him and Zelda 1 from spring 2004 for the best contest start ever. It was enough to make me think that Mega Man was the favourite here, though brackets and oral histories tell me that Sephiroth was expected to win this handily.

In the aftermath of Samus/Sonic, and just ahead of Mario/Cloud, Mega Man/Sephiroth gave us an idea of how Mario and Cloud might go. Mega Man was like baby Mario and Sephiroth was baby Cloud. It was the perfect warmup before the heavyweight fight. Except, Mega Man wasn't going down lightly. He was ahead for the beginning of the match, and Sephiroth needed a comeback in order to seal the deal.

Basically, it's what you would have expected to happen in Mario/Cloud, except... well, moving on. 2002 Mega Man was a beast. I think he might have actually been better than Mario this year. If you asked me to rank 2002 characters, I'd say Link > Cloud > Seph > Mega Man > Crono/Mario > Samus > Sonic > Snake.
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transience posted...

Vincent followed this up with a match against Crono that was bad enough for Crono that people suggested rSFF as a reason why.

HaRR insisted for years that Advent Children's release mid-contest artificially boosted Vincent there.

but man this page is full of painful matches for me so far
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You misnumbered the rank.
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yeah I was thinking that while writing. stay strong, Leonhart, the good ones are coming
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transience posted...

If you asked me to rank 2002 characters, I'd say Link > Cloud > Seph > Mega Man > Crono/Mario > Samus >> Sonic > Snake.

uhhhhh
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darn you typos
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37.



There were so many moments in 2003 that pointed to Cloud beating Link. Squall rocking Luigi, Magus beating Ganondorf, Aeris threatening Sonic, the list goes on. But the two big ones are when Cloud doubled Sonic and this match, back to back. Sephiroth just demolished Mario here. It wasn't even close! The oracle consensus was 50/50 due to Mario's madness last year, but the writing was certainly on the wall. After this match, all you could think about was Cloud vs. Link. Sephiroth would go on to demolish Mega Man which was also notable seeing as how he barely got him the year prior.

Sephiroth was a killer in 2003, man. Isn't it crazy to think that, if Seph had faced Link first, that Sephiroth could have been the great hero that restored balance to the contest? In fact, halfway through this list I was looking around and was shocked at the board consensus for Seph/Cloud. I had always just figured that Cloud was the obvious winner and that it was antivotes fueling Sephiroth, but the oracle average, probably because of 2002, was Seph with 50.01%. That should probably be on here, and my lack of board presence in 2003 is the reason why it's absent.
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LeonhartFour posted...

the jp was a huge Aerith fan

perhaps the biggest

Iirc the first topic I clicked on on B8 involved Moogle trolling the jp about Aeris back in summer 04
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Sephiroth's decline is pretty amazing when you think about it.
Has any character ever fallen so much ?
The only ones I can think off would be Vincent and Mewtwo (who was so fraudulent he beat Pikachu in 2013 !)

transience posted...

ha, I just noticed that I skipped #56. how fitting is it that it was this one?

56.
.

I thought you purposefully skipped 56 because you had two matches (both Mario vs Samus this year) tied for 55.
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Squall has fallen almost as much as Vincent (sorry, Leon). Sephiroth has fallen further than either.
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hey it is what it is

save_us.kh3
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I think MGS4 and Brawl would have fallen way further than any character if they were put in another contest. Maybe Starcraft as well.
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Link versus Cloud posted...

transience posted...

ha, I just noticed that I skipped #56. how fitting is it that it was this one?

56.
.

I thought you purposefully skipped 56 because you had two matches (both Mario vs Samus this year) tied for 55.

oh, nah. I would sooner pick one (the first) than put two essentially identical matches on there.
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@LeonhartFour I am with you man! Hope the FF characters get a boost! Next the FF 7 remake boost too!
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I just hope FFVIIR doesn't suck at this point
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LeonhartFour posted...

I just hope FFVIIR doesn't suck at this point

It will, if it ever is fully released
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If FFVIIR is released Sonic > Cloud and Shadow > Sephiroth incoming !

Shouldn't be the other way around?
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36.



This match can be anywhere on a list like this. You can make an argument that it belongs in the top 10 or so - Mario/Crono 2002/2003 aren't complete without the good guy finally getting his in 2004 (and then never again, unless you count BS fourways).

But it's also kinda.. boring? I dunno what to say here. 2004 is Mario's worst year and Crono's best, bar none. I'd love to say that someday Crono will get into Smash and we'll get an HD remake and he'll make a match of it with Mario, but I doubt it in this environment. Then again, 2015 Crono probably could have hung with Mario so I guess you never know.

It was great that Crono went over on Mario, much like Cloud going over on Link was amazing, but the result felt a little too late. This should have happened in 03.
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2004 being the year Crono got Mario was always something I found a bit strange.

Square's peak here always appeared to be Summer 2003 - Spring 2004. By Summer 2004 we saw things snap back a bit with Link taking charge again, but that's the year Crono got his win? It really should have been '03. (Arguably it was!)
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I think 2004 was probably on the heels of the TP trailer and probably only helped out Link? I'm not sure what made 04 such a good year for Crono. just random chance I guess.
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Crono would have had a great year in 2003 if he hadn't run into a rally/stuffing fest with Mario. Magus did have a great year in 2003.
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maybe Mario was the issue in 04. you can't actually see any Mario characters' results outside of Crono/Mario because of how awful the 04 bracket was.
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I also don't know what to think of Crono in 2002. The final week of that contest was so weird - if you look at the changes in votals between matches the only thing that looks like that is the 2015 contest with Undertale and Melee rallying. By direct comparison through Mario, Crono = Cloud in 2002, but Cloud's match got 24k more votes so it seems unlikely Crono could have actually won that.
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red sox 777 posted...

Crono would have had a great year in 2003 if he hadn't run into a rally/stuffing fest with Mario. Magus did have a great year in 2003.

He really didn't. People thought him vs Link was the true final of that contest and he crapped the bed twice before overperforming with a sprite.
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transience posted...

maybe Mario was the issue in 04. you can't actually see any Mario characters' results outside of Crono/Mario because of how awful the 04 bracket was.

Yeah Crono's result against Link in 04 was not so great. Not even 3% better than Magus did in 2003. I'm happy to entertain silent protagonist SFF because it makes Crono look better, but Crono is kind of an awesome character so my intuition is that not even Link would be able to SFF him.
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Ulti_PCA posted...

red sox 777 posted...

Crono would have had a great year in 2003 if he hadn't run into a rally/stuffing fest with Mario. Magus did have a great year in 2003.

He really didn't. People thought him vs Link was the true final of that contest and he crapped the bed twice before overperforming with a sprite.

That's only because this board, for whatever reason, expected Magus to be stronger than Crono. Just because people here went into the contest with outlandishly unrealistic hopes for dethroning Link, doesn't mean CT didn't have a good year in 2003 relative to other years.
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Oh yeah. I had forgotten the score in this match, but Mario only got 55.1% against Shadow the Hedgehog in 2003. Not Sonic, Shadow. In 2002 he got 74% against Servbot and 67% against Morrigan Aensland. And of course in 2003 he failed to break 39% against Sephiroth. That's "normal" Mario in 2002-3, and it looks a lot like the Mario we saw in 2004.

Then you have the three matches everyone remembers. Where Mario went 3-0 against Cloud, Crono, and Crono by a combined margin of 500 votes. This looks like the Mario that we've seen since 2005.
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35.



This is the least close 51/49 result in the history of polling. This match was ridiculous, a rally battle between two outside factions that went so far out of the normal bounds of a contest match that it just felt like gamefaqs was the battleground and we were more witnesses than participants. Because of that, I'm not sure how much relevance it truly has.

But that's not talking down the match - it was pretty wild. Undertale came out with the lead, Smash rallied to take it back after several hours and Undertake just swatted it away like a fly. The larger Undertale audience was just much bigger than the Smash audience, which sounds crazy but Smash was largely the competitive Smash community and Undertale was the entire internet. That game has an internet presence that's really unbelievable. This could have been pushed to 60/40 if they wanted, but they basically just took the lead when they wanted and then just let it sit. Smash could never generate that kind of output so it ended up looking a lot closer than it really was.

Smash was the only chance we had at beating the Undertale machine and it wasn't even close to enough. The final here was incidental - nobody actually thought Ocarina had a chance.
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God this just reminds me of how awful that contest was, from start to finish. Draven was bad, I think Undertale was worse. All of the mindless morons from r/leagueoflegends that couldn't play a real MOBA like Dota were still better than the weird 'millennials' that invaded with Underfail
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Years later, I'm still mad about that match. I picked Melee to win the contest, and if Bioware hadn't screwed up the ending for Mass Effect 3 I might have won.
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34.



Ah, the power of a bandwagon. Cloud beat Snake by a solid 10% two rounds prior, but a Cloud/Sephiroth split allowed Snake to sneak into first in the semifinal. Then the final came two minutes later and, whoa! Snake just up and beat Cloud with Sephiroth. Crono is there, and that probably did contribute, but he got killed and it wasn't nearly as bad as having Seph in the poll. He lost by more here. The Snake bug caught on after he beat both FF7 dudes at once.

2008 is probably Snake's best year, if I had to guess without looking, thanks to MGS4 and Brawl coming out. Those were the two biggest games of the year - some might say they were equals at the end of 2008 - and Solid was the runaway star in both. Snake won't ever be able to top Link, especially now, but he had an argument for being the #2 guy at this point in time. Cloud was fading.
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Don't forget that Snake was literally beating Link for several hours, too.
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#34 is my personal #1 because I'm the contest winner if Cloud beats Snake. I had Cloud > Snake followed by Link > Cloud and this one still stings years later

Snake was the strongest he's ever been in 2013 (46% on Link looks even more impressive after this year). What could have been.
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Paratroopa1 posted...

#34 is my personal #1 because I'm the contest winner if Cloud beats Snake. I had Cloud > Snake followed by Link > Cloud and this one still stings years later

I meant Snake > Cloud followed by Link > Cloud

I don't take any result from the end of 2013 seriously
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Next match is Knuckles > Magus, and someone chimes in to say they would have won the contest if Magus won his division.
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