Board 8 > ~*Ultimaterializer's Post-Contest Analysis!! Part 2*~

(+) Yeah! (+)

When people complain about FF13 being linear I always roll my eyes.

Almost every jRPG is super linear. You can only go where you are suppose to.

Also 13-2 is awesome.

13-3 is less good.
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Auron has probably dropped too, yeah. That performance on Geralt was fairly bad but Geralt was getting at least lightly rallied and you could maybe try to make some kind of bandwagoning argument.

I trust Sub-Zero to be pretty stable though and Auron's results on him this year weren't good!

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7345-division-6-semifinal-auron-vs-sub-zero
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2546-time-division-round-2-auron-vs-sub-zero for what Peak Auron's supposed to do to Subby. This year, Sonic's barely projected to even outdo this.

I don't think Sonic ever fully recovered from Sonic 2006. For every Colors or Generations that people thought were pretty good there's an absolute bomb like Forces or Boom to draw more ire. I don't think this affects the secondary characters quite as badly; they don't carry the weight of that franchise's failures like the guy it's named after does. Mania was by all accounts great but it might be too little, too late for many -- and while Sonic's an icon, his games have never done great here.

Fourway Sonic sucked. 2010 Sonic barely outdid Luigi on Link, got an SFF match with Knuckles, an lol match with Lightning before her game was out in the west (he did worse on her than Dante did this year though!), and beat Kirby and Bacondorf. At the time people were happy Sonic didn't actually lose to the latter two, especially after Kirby had beat him in 2008. But he didn't outdo Bowser's number on Kirby this year by much and a relatively poorly-performing Mega Man this year slapped Bacondorf down a good deal harder despite the latter in theory having Breath of the Wild going for him. It's possible that 1-on-1 Kirby and Ganondorf (or at least Bacondorf) just weren't and aren't quite the quality opponents we figured they were. There's not much good information on Sonic in 2013 thanks to his 9pack generally either being newcomers or of unknown strength and then he ran into Mewtwo.

Point is, Sonic 2006 hit just after Sonic's last match in 2006 and I don't think he's ever looked quite the same since.
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AxemRedRanger posted...

I don't think Sonic ever fully recovered from Sonic 2006. For every Colors or Generations that people thought were pretty good there's an absolute bomb like Forces or Boom to draw more ire. I don't think this affects the secondary characters quite as badly; they don't carry the weight of that franchise's failures like the guy it's named after does.

I would tend to agree with this, especially since this series ire factor also explains why Ryu and Shepard looked awful, whereas Garrus looked fine and Chun-Li was surprisingly impressive.

AxemRedRanger posted...

But he didn't outdo Bowser's number on Kirby this year by much and a relatively poorly-performing Mega Man this year slapped Bacondorf down a good deal harder despite the latter in theory having Breath of the Wild going for him.

To be fair, the Bacondorf we saw against Mega Man looked far worse than 2010's LttP Bacondorf.

Also, to BT's point about how awful Sonic being sub-Elite level makes Auron and Vincent look, neither of them were exactly impressive in 2013 either. Auron only pulled 58% on Ocelot in a match where the latter's bad pic likely canceled out his LFF benefit (sorry Zen, I have nothing against that pic, but it probably turned off at least a few voters). Meanwhile, we all know what happened to Vincent, but what people don't remember is that he failed to even reach 60% on KOS-MOS beforehand.
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Did Ganondorf really have BOTW going for him? Hes not even in it

In fact the last Zelda game to feature the Dorf as a major antagonist is Twilight Princess (Demise And Calamity Ganon look a lot different)
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LiquidOshawott posted...

Did Ganondorf really have BOTW going for him? Hes not even in it

In fact the last Zelda game to feature the Dorf as a major antagonist is Twilight Princess (Demise And Calamity Ganon look a lot different)

Paratroopa made me realize recently how few appearances Ganondorf actually has. It's just OoT, WW, TP, Smash, and that one GCN tech demo.
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Cant forget Hyrule Warriors!
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Safer_777 posted...

@Ulti_PCA I have played FF 13-2 and FF 13-3. So here I go.

FF 13-2 had only 2 characters that you control in combat and a good villain so you could focus on only 3 characters meaning you understand why they did what they did. Also with the Time Travel thing you could see how the world either went ahead or got destroyed in various timelines. Multiple endings too. But the most important part is that the 3rd party member in the battle was a monster you control! So yeah monster catching! I LOVE games with monster catching!

FF 13-3 had only 1 member on the party. Lightnining and that was it. You didn't care for the other characters though. I mean you fight some main characters from the previous games for stupid reasons! However the battle system was good. With only 1 member you needn't care for the other party members and the job system was nice. BUT it had a Time Limit on the whole game! I HATE Time Limits! It is one of the few games where I played on Easy because you had more Time to do stuff! Nobody likes to rush things anyways! We all prefer to do things in our leisure.

Reading this makes me think I would like FF13-3. Time limits have never bothered me since I started playing the Atelier series.
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LiquidOshawott posted...

Did Ganondorf really have BOTW going for him? Hes not even in it

In fact the last Zelda game to feature the Dorf as a major antagonist is Twilight Princess (Demise And Calamity Ganon look a lot different)

Since his match pic was taken from Hyrule Warriors, that can probably count as a Zelda game by this point. Of course, gaining match pic strength from a spinoff would pretty much mean death as far as pic strength.
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Hbthebattle posted...

Cant forget Hyrule Warriors!

How could I forget?
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Anagram posted...

LiquidOshawott posted...

Did Ganondorf really have BOTW going for him? Hes not even in it

In fact the last Zelda game to feature the Dorf as a major antagonist is Twilight Princess (Demise And Calamity Ganon look a lot different)

Paratroopa made me realize recently how few appearances Ganondorf actually has. It's just OoT, WW, TP, Smash, and that one GCN tech demo.

And yet people disagree that Ganondorf is Ganon, who even appears in more games (from what I can remember, the first three, the combined Oracles, FSA, and SS, plus Smash).
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Whiskey_Nick posted...

When people complain about FF13 being linear I always roll my eyes.

Almost every jRPG is super linear. You can only go where you are suppose to.

FF13 does linearity very poorly

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMZMJDFe1kc" data-time="
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Division 3 Quarterfinal: (1)Sora vs (9)Pokemon Trainer Red

(1)Sora - 15212 [49.1%]
(9)Red - 15772 [50.9%]
Total Votes - 30984
Prediction Percentage - 28.39%

I know Charizard looked weak in round one, but after what Pikachu had just done the writing was kinda sorta on the wall for this upset to occur. Most of us saw it coming pre-contest, but the main point in Sora's favor was the Kingdom Hearts 3 hype. Remember, Kingdom Hearts the original was the game that everyone credited for the 2003 contest being so heavily weighted toward Squaresoft results. Yet 15 years later, and here we are with Sora unable to beat a mute Pokemon trainer right after getting a hype video. Not that he didn't try, so let's get to the actual match. I have a thing to explain here anyway.

The final score looks close, but the early parts of the match were not. After a few small hiccups early with either small gains or random Sora pushes, Red started taking off in a flash and got a 250 vote lead. Then just as quickly, it looked like things were wearing off and the night was kicking in. Pokemon has these random spots where it's awful at night -- one of the few trends where our old JUST WAIT TIL THE KIDDIES WAKE UP 2002 meme still applies -- and it looked possible here. Sora blasted over 100 votes off that lead in under an hour, and it legitimately looked like he might win the match.

So I rallied the Pokemon subreddit. Fuck it. Don't care. I made one topic around 9:30 when Sora was making his push, and I made another for the morning vote. Both were deleted eventually, but they were both viewed a few thousand times and it clearly made the difference. Could Sora have won otherwise? Would someone else have rallied? Don't know, don't care. Red is a better character from a better series. I don't dislike Sora, but I'm over having to choke on Tetsuya Nomura's vomit any time I play a Kingdom Hearts game these days. Had that series stopped at 2, we're good. But it didn't, so I give no fucks. Justice done, justice served. The final score of this poll was close, but Sora was never in contention of winning. The best he could manage is shaving off 150 votes, but you can believe I was ready for more Pokemon subreddit topics with throwaway accounts just in case. Sora was not winning this match.

What's extra hilarious about this is all the people who whined over that rally were all over hentai subreddits asking for Tifa votes later on in this contest, or the people not doing that were supporting the people doing it. You either support rallying or you don't. You don't get to have two standards and only like rallies when it benefits a character or game you like. Don't be a hypocritical douchebag. I support rallies, so I like all of them. Hearthstone or Shadow of the Colossus could win a contest tomorrow with rallies and I would support it, because I'm not a punk.

This would mark only the third time a 1 seed has lost to the 8/9 winner. Before the 2015 games contest, it had never happened. In that contest, it happened twice. Pokemon Red Blue Yellow Green Teal Orange Mauve Off-White Neon Beige Subtitle Psychic Olive ver 1.3x #RReload Socket beat Mario 3, and Mario RPG beat GTA5: Casual Gaming is Bad Edition. Add Red beating Sora to the list. All three involve Nintendo pulling the upset, though in only one of those matches (Mario 3) did the 1 seed actually deserve their seeding and eat a legitimate upset. Sora and any GTA are just undeserving of that spot, as we've seen multiple times.
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Ulti, its not Wednesday yet. Still 10PM on Tuesday.

Anyway, so which KH games have you played? Just 1 and 2? Pretty sure its obligational for anyone who liked either of thise games to play 2FM.
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Rallies now a top 3 Board 8 buzzword along with X-stats and match pics
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Eh Christmas is done. Back from traveling.

I've played everything but Dream Drop Distance.
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Division 3 Quarterfinal: (5)Crash Bandicoot vs (4)Big Boss

(5)Crash Bandicoot - 14601 [47.13%]
(4)Big Boss - 16381 [52.87%]
Total Votes - 30982
Prediction Percentage - 42.6%

Crash 100% deserved to win the 2006 Oscar for Best Picture and the people who still whine about it are a bunch of idiots. Not only was that a damn good movie, but its competition was Munich, Good Night and Good Luck, Capote, and Brokeback Mountain. Giving Brokeback the best picture award as a tokenism achievement for gay people just because they're gay people would be every bit as bigoted and short sighted as hating gay people just because they're gay people. In the actual equal society I keep hearing people say they want, sexual orientation wouldn't even matter and we would just pick the best stuff. Crash was the best movie that year and seeing it always get mentioned on the 'most undeserving winners ever' lists is just dumb. And now Hollywood hands out awards to movies about fish sex, so who even knows what's going on over there anymore. I actually really liked The Shape of Water, but best picture? Come on.

Oh wait, wrong Crash. Whoops. Well forgive me for having to come up with new material for all these predictable round 2 blowou--

Wait, what? Literal Crash Bandicoot held tough with Big Boss, got 47% on him, and won a bunch of updates throughout the entire match? This actually happened? The fuck? I know Crash had that trilogy, but this match says a lot more about Big Boss. Metal Gear Solid is done. There is just no other way of putting it. This is about as embarrassing a win as you'll ever see. Konami just murdered that series in cold blood and it's translated to contest polls. There is no way this happens in, say, 2008.

What's utterly terrifying that Crash probably wins this match if he was a surprise entrant in Smash Ultimate before the contest, and not one person would have picked it. It would have been our biggest upset since Knuckles > Magus.

(Watch Crash get in now.)
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Ulti_PCA posted...

This would mark only the third time a 1 seed has lost to the 8/9 winner. Before the 2015 games contest, it had never happened.

That's kind of surprising. Feels like we would've had more situations like GTA5 getting a 1 seed and then bombing like most modern western games are doomed to.
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igordebraga posted...

Anagram posted...

LiquidOshawott posted...

Did Ganondorf really have BOTW going for him? Hes not even in it

In fact the last Zelda game to feature the Dorf as a major antagonist is Twilight Princess (Demise And Calamity Ganon look a lot different)

Paratroopa made me realize recently how few appearances Ganondorf actually has. It's just OoT, WW, TP, Smash, and that one GCN tech demo.

And yet people disagree that Ganondorf is Ganon, who even appears in more games (from what I can remember, the first three, the combined Oracles, FSA, and SS, plus Smash).

Isn't ganondorf the monster/demon entity ganon in humanoid form?
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Division 3 Quarterfinal: (3)Alucard vs (6)Yuna

(3)Alucard - 18472 [59.62%]
(6)Yuna - 12512 [40.38%]
Total Votes - 30984
Prediction Percentage - 48.97%

Not gonna lie, I thought Yuna was going to win this match in a rout. I adore Final Fantasy X and it's been hard coming to grips with how damn weak that entire franchise has gotten these days. Not that I'm complaining! Alucard is one of my all time favorite characters and the recent PS4 port of Symphony of the Night gave me a chance to get a platinum trophy in a game I'm just in love with. Richter Belmont and his terrible inputs can fuck right off, but Alucard is amazing. I wasn't surprised Alucard won, but I was surprised to see a 60-40 beating in a match slated in the 55-45 range. He had clearly gotten a buff from that PS4 release, and some people keep talking about the Castlevania Netflix special. I didn't watch it, but maybe it helped. Who knows.

Alucard just keeps finding ways to go on these deep contest runs, and it started right at the beginning. Check out some of the damage he's caused through two rounds in his career, all of which comes with these crazy low prediction percents.

Summer 2002 - He beat Tails and Duke Nukem. Duke was the favorite in that fourpack that year.

Summer 2003 - He beat Bomberman and Kirby. Almost everyone picked Kirby. I'm one of the few who actually picked Alucard, because I went and played Symphony of the Night before that contest and was on an everglow high. Kirby is a great character, but his games leave a lot to be desired. Alucard has both.

Summer 2008 - After a five year break from busting brackets, he was back with a vengeance. The dude advanced twice in fourways, both of which in highly odd matches. He also had that 3 vote nonsense in 2007 and two night vote leads against Kingdom Hearts before getting buried by the morning vote. Dude's a vampire and the kiddies woke up, what do you expect?

Rivalry Rumble - Wins his division before getting fed to Zelda. This made two losses to Link and one to Ganon back in the day.

And then this year happened. There were a lot of close calls in round two in there that I didn't list, not to mention the ridiculous 2015 snub. The point here is if the guy has a decent path, he can win, and 2018 would prove it in pretty extreme fashion. Unlike most years, this dude was not done in round 3.
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The Noble Nine generally taking up most of the 1 seeds makes it really hard for 1 seeds to get upset too early. Also, 2005 and 2006 had 8-seed instead of 16-seed divisions, the fourways had no official seeding at all, and 2013 had the wacky 27-seed divisions, so the opportunities are a lot more limited than you might think.

1 seed Dante in 2005 did lose in Round 2 to 5 seed Vincent, though.
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Division 3 Quarterfinal: (7)Kefka vs (15)Bomberman

(7)Kefka - 18537 [59.82%]
(15)Bomberman - 12451 [40.18%]
Total Votes - 30988
Prediction Percentage - 44.2%

This match right here is why Kefka vs L-Block was such a big deal -- the free win that followed. No matter the Kazuma/Bomberman match, it was a bye for the Kefka/L winner and not even Kefka could have screwed this one up after getting by his first test. This was just a simple, easy, clean blowout. Nothing more to say about it.

Except for one tiiiiiiiiiny thing that everyone will find hilarious. As you can see, Kefka scored 59.81% on Bomberman. No big deal, right? We all saw that coming.

The guy scored 60.19% on L-Block!

Can you even imagine if L-Block and Kazuma switched places on this bracket, and we got to see a 2 seed L-Block against a 15 seed Bomberman, and L-Block lost? Does that go down as our funniest upset ever or is it still Sandbag > Magus? I suppose L-Block's 2007 run should always be mentioned when we talk about funny upsets, but I'm too busy burying the thing to care. Does even one guru/oracle/bop/[random Board 8 alphabet games] pick Bomberman there? I sure as hell wouldn't have.

For the record, I would still say Sandbag > Magus is funnier. That match happened when people still actually cared about this web site and we weren't some far left echo haven. These days no one gives a rip about this place and we're a meme for even existing; there are tons of reasons for that, but the extreme lack of free speech is near the top of the list. You don't even have to talk politics when mentioning that, either. The entire methodology behind this site's moderation system was trash from day one and was always going to cause people to leave. We said it at the time and we were proven right.

That's why Sandbag is funnier. It comes from an era when this place was actually cool to be on.
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AxemRedRanger posted...

The Noble Nine generally taking up most of the 1 seeds makes it really hard for 1 seeds to get upset too early. Also, 2005 and 2006 had 8-seed instead of 16-seed divisions, the fourways had no official seeding at all, and 2013 had the wacky 27-seed divisions, so the opportunities are a lot more limited than you might think.

1 seed Dante in 2005 did lose in Round 2 to 5 seed Vincent, though.

I only count legitimate seeding in anecdotes, none of that 1-8 or 1-27 crap.
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Division 4 Quarterfinal: (1)2B vs (9)Ness

(1)2B - 16239 [53.72%]
(9)Ness - 13991 [46.28%]
Total Votes - 30230
Prediction Percentage - 46.42%

2B's prediction percentage here was no accident. A lot of people, myself included, felt like the Ness/Shadow winner could win this match and that 2B was a hilariously overseeded character. People have major recency bias about this and think her match with Bowser proves she's legit, which shows a lack of context. Not dumping on her or Automata here, but it's just facts.

She beat Ness and beat him easily, but this match was close enough in percents to prove she was not a legitimate 1 seed. Maybe a 2 or a 3, but 1 seeds are held to one standard and one standard only -- "Can they win the contest?". Some will point to characters like Sonic and Mega Man, but low rank noble niners could, conceivably, win a contest without an insane rally. Even high midcarders like Zero or Luigi could do it. Just remove Link from a bracket, have Mario and Samus get randomly upset somewhere, and Luigi or Zero could catch fire. We saw Zelda do something similar just this year.

2B? Nope. Not when you're getting 54% on Ness you aren't. People look at one good match with Bowser as proof, but one good match doesn't erase the point here. Legitimacy means having results like that over and over again for years. Consistency. I like her a lot, but I harshly judge 1 seeds. It's part of the deal, lady, and 54% on Ness is just bad news. I don't care about Smash. You're a 1 seed.

To put this a different way, is Shadow the Hedgehog legit? https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1345-south-division-round-2-mario-vs-shadow-the-hedgehog

Is Magus? https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1353-north-division-semifinal-link-vs-magus

(The hilarious irony here is 2B might actually get into Smash and cause this writeup to fade away and classify itself as ob-so-lete by 2020. Shout out to the Hardyz.)
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Division 4 Quarterfinal: (12)Charizard vs (4)Bowser

(12)Charizard - 13136 [43.45%]
(4)Bowser - 17096 [56.55%]
Total Votes - 30232
Prediction Percentage - 48.44%

We all knew this was coming after the 'Zard choked in round one, but it still had to be finalized and there was a small tinge of doubt before match time. But there wasn't going to be any crazy Charizard runs this year. Bowser clearly waited 8 years for this one to his get-back at this guy, much like how Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff wanted Warrior in WCW for only one match, and it showed. There wasn't even a Pokemon board vote in this match. If anything there was a Bowser board vote, and the best Charizard was able to do was bleed a few percents throughout the day. It's a good thing a Pokemon game came out in 1998, because it feels like their window to win a contest is completely and totally slammed shut. When you need Best Year in Gaming to win one, you're probably screwed.

Relevant point regarding Bowser's board vote: When Smash Ultimate came out post contest and Board 8 had the first Save My contest for Smash characters, Bowser won it. That dude is insanely popular here, which might explain him being over 60% at the start. We just talked about legitimacy. This was legit. Bowser went out there, clearly kept this match in mind as motivation, and just beat Charizard's ass.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3845-heart-division-final-bowser-vs-charizard

That was fueled by Heart Gold and Soul Silver. The 'Zard we've seen lately, even with Pokemon Trainer's return to Smash, is the real Charizard. I won't go so far as to call him a fraud, but he is absolutely not what we saw in 2010. It's worth noting here that without Pikachu, Pokemon would have looked like trash all contest long. Their results were all mediocre or garbage, even in wins. All of them. Pikachu was the one standout.

I don't know how many of you listen to the John Middlekauf 3 and Out podcast, but this was a John Middkauf Ass Kicking. Hyped match, one showed up. I maintain Bowsette was a huge influence, just for the record. I don't see any mainstream outlets covering Charizard porn, nor do I want to. And for those wondering why I keep making random porn jokes, that was an actual factor later in this contest.
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Ulti_PCA posted...

What's extra hilarious about this is all the people who whined over that rally

Did anyone really?
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Probably.

Id still like screencaps of all those people being baffled at GameFAQs still existing, though. Would be a nice thing to add to the contest overall writeup.
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Division 4 Quarterfinal: (3)Phoenix Wright vs (6)Ike

(3)Phoenix Wright - 15320 [50.67%]
(6)Ike - 14913 [49.33%]
Total Votes - 30233
Prediction Percentage - 40.33%

This one just floored me. I knew it was possible, and knew Ike was never all that strong, and that there was some stats proof Phoenix was stronger for this match, but I had to see it to actually believe it. The thought of Phoenix Wright, a visual novel character (no one cares about visual novels, get over it people) with a marginal Marvel vs Capcom 3 appearance and dubious contest history, beating Ike was just insane to me. Yet here we are.

I can't really overstate how huge this is, because look at how bad Phoenix's history is. This dude got blown out by Gordon Freeman. He almost blew a 1300 vote lead to Bomberman of all people in a second place duel. Bomberman! He was a 3 seed and lost to Jecht. His games always get completely and thoroughly blown out. The only times he has ever looked good are the Rivalry Rumble and Vincent getting a high school prom match picture in one of the biggest cases of sabotage we will ever see -- as a side note to KamikazePotato, that is picture sabotage, genius, not a well known sprite.

Ike's contest history isn't too much better, but was at least better than Phoenix's. He also has Smash backing, which is a better cameo than anything Phoenix has been in. In retrospect I should have seen this coming when the dude lost to Sarah Jessica Parker in 2013, but I digress.

When this match started, Phoenix didn't have his usual godslayer board vote, which was likely due to bracket voting. Phoenix was only able to slowly build a lead, so I figured Ike still had a shot.

Nope. Well I mean he did, but this match stayed too close for too long for him to potentially overcome a rally later. You don't beat Phoenix by having close matches with him. Board 8 won't allow it. You have to beat him. So then this poll was stuck in the range of Phoenix leading by 100-200 for the first 6 hours, it was effectively over. Ike could never truly make any headway, and then the night vote hit and just ended it. Phoenix took off overnight, Ike never got the morning vote, and that was that. This match was relatively close the entire time, but there was never one second where it looked like Ike was going to win it. This was the latest in a long history of underperformances, but this was the worst one. Let's run through the list.

In 2007, nominations were open when Ike was announced for Smash Bros. Brawl. His first fourpack had Duke Nukem, Guybrush Threepwood, and Gordon Freeman in it. Ike finished in third place, 1100 behind Gordon, as the only Nintendo character with two FPS characters stealing votes from each other. It's one of the most embarrassing losses I've ever seen.

In 2008, his fourpack had Pikachu, Arthas, and Spy in it. Third place again, this time 1100 behind Arthas. Again, a thoroughly embarrassing loss but at least he was sharing the poll with Nintendo. It was explainable.
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In 2010 he finally got his chance to shine. In the first round he beat up a penguin, and in the second round he would have lost to Zidane but got lucky and drew Zidane in a day match. He would eventually get annihilated by Mario. Ike 100% loses to Zidane in a night match. Make no mistake there.

In 2013 his opening threepack had Proto Man and Dr. Robotnik in it. Ike only beat Proto Man by 170 votes and his lead was 500 at one point. If this poll was 2 hours longer, Ike would have lost. As-is, he only won with bracket votes. Then in round 2 he drew GLaDOS and Julia Roberts. He finished a distant third.

Which brings us to this year. Phoenix Wright is just an inexplicable loss. My whole job is finding out why people vote the way they do, but I got no answers here outside of Ike being a character that always gets into these weird debatable matches and always underperforms. I would bet most of his strength comes from Smash instead of Fire Emblem, too, and I can tell you the Smash fans are pretty fed up with all the Fire Emblem swordsman in those games. I would not be surprised if the male swordsmen were all anti-voted by those people. Ike, Chrom, Roy, and Marth are pretty much the exact character as far as Smash fans are concerned and none of them are particularly well liked outside the people who play them. That theory would explain a lot actually, because under normal circumstances with Smash backing a character shouldn't constantly choke.
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Logience posted...

Probably.

Id still like screencaps of all those people being baffled at GameFAQs still existing, though. Would be a nice thing to add to the contest overall writeup.

Send me a link bruh

Nanis23 posted...

Ulti_PCA posted...

What's extra hilarious about this is all the people who whined over that rally

Did anyone really?

Are you in the stats topic at all? Leon4 and ExTha had nuclear meltdowns, but I love those guys so I don't save their posts to make fun of them with later.
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Division 4 Quarterfinal: (10)Isaac vs (2)Kirby

(10)Isaac - 8982 [29.71%]
(2)Kirby - 21249 [70.29%]
Total Votes - 30231
Prediction Percentage - 77.65%

This match was never going to be anything more than a typical round 2 blowout of fodder that got lucky to get through round 1, and it would barely be worth commenting on outside of a huge argument people had in the PCA this year. That's what happens to the winner of fodder v fodder winners. They face real competition and get slaughterhouse'd.

But I saw people trying to say Golden Sun wasn't any good. Are you people insane?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyL74_FzQcM" data-time="

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19ZdAZO9FvU" data-time="

And Felix > Isaac. Yeah I said it.
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That's a good stopping point.
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Golden Sun is a great puzzle game with great music and nice graphics but a pretty shallow JRPG with a mediocre story and a 3rd entry that really isn't defendable

So it's not terrible but not very good
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Music =/= games, Ulti. If it were, Chrono Cross would be a lot more well-renowned than it actually is, and you yourself would probably be a lot more positive towards Star of the (Fall 2010) Contest. The fact that Camelot managed to get a PS1-looking game stuffed into a on-paper-better-but-in-practice-inferior portable SNES is commendable, but it's still a pretty fucking boring game.

Also, obligatory link to Quovak:
https://lparchive.org/Golden-Sun/
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I don't think anyone was trying to say 2B was properly seeded (strength-wise) as a 1-seed just because she exceeded all expectations. Honestly, she should have been a 2-seed (not in terms of strength, though).

Also, as lackluster as Ike's strength is, he's the only Fire Emblem character who's actually reasonably well-liked outside the Fire Emblem fanbase, which is probably why he's distinctly ahead of Lucina despite less popular games.
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Something that was missed in the Ike vs. Pheonix match is that it was the first time the GameFAQs double vote flipped a result, and that leads me to the true conclusion of the match. Phoenix Wright is the pride and joy of Board 8, here's our mascot, he's the icon of the Board 8 wiki. The GameFAQs Contest forum is one of the biggest hubs of Ace Attorney fans on the internet, certainly the biggest one not to be an actual Ace Attorney fansite or subreddit.

As such, I would never take Phoenix Wright to lose to anyone not solidly above his level, because the place dedicated to GameFAQs Contests themselves will always his back in a close one brackets be damned.
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MetalmindStats posted...

Also, as lackluster as Ike's strength is, he's the only Fire Emblem character who's actually reasonably well-liked outside the Fire Emblem fanbase, which is probably why he's distinctly ahead of Lucina despite less popular games.

Doesn't help Lucina's game is on a handheld. Unless you're Pokemon, your main game being on a handheld is a huge minus for your strength on this site.
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_SecretSquirrel posted...

Something that was missed in the Ike vs. Pheonix match is that it was the first time the GameFAQs double vote flipped a result, and that leads me to the true conclusion of the match. Phoenix Wright is the pride and joy of Board 8, here's our mascot, he's the icon of the Board 8 wiki. The GameFAQs Contest forum is one of the biggest hubs of Ace Attorney fans on the internet, certainly the biggest one not to be an actual Ace Attorney fansite or subreddit.

As such, I would never take Phoenix Wright to lose to anyone not solidly above his level, because the place dedicated to GameFAQs Contests themselves will always his back in a close one brackets be damned.

I'm intentionally avoiding talking about that double vote garbage. 8pm and forcing people to vote in every poll is really enough of an anti-rally measure. Double voting for registered users is really, really stupid.
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Ulti_PCA posted...

_SecretSquirrel posted...

Something that was missed in the Ike vs. Pheonix match is that it was the first time the GameFAQs double vote flipped a result, and that leads me to the true conclusion of the match. Phoenix Wright is the pride and joy of Board 8, here's our mascot, he's the icon of the Board 8 wiki. The GameFAQs Contest forum is one of the biggest hubs of Ace Attorney fans on the internet, certainly the biggest one not to be an actual Ace Attorney fansite or subreddit.

As such, I would never take Phoenix Wright to lose to anyone not solidly above his level, because the place dedicated to GameFAQs Contests themselves will always his back in a close one brackets be damned.

I'm intentionally avoiding talking about that double vote garbage. 8pm and forcing people to vote in every poll is really enough of an anti-rally measure. Double voting for registered users is really, really stupid.

I get the feeling the real purpose of the double registered voters was to actually make vote totals look better than they actually are, moreso than as an anti-rally measure.

But this is one of the few times I think it's actually worth discussing as any sort of factor, simply because Board 8 itself decided the match thanks to our votal inflation. Even the other two or three matches where the registered voter bonus made the difference weren't quite this derivative of a specific Board 8 preference. But Phoenix fucking Wright? That was entirely just this portion of the GameFAQs community. Hell, this was one of the few times any Nintendo 1st party character lost this advantage to a third party character at all. Ike would have normally pulled away even further against any other opponent, but instead it caused him to choke.
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MetalmindStats posted...

I don't think anyone was trying to say 2B was properly seeded (strength-wise) as a 1-seed just because she exceeded all expectations. Honestly, she should have been a 2-seed (not in terms of strength, though).

Yeah, the surprise was that she wasn't hilariously bad fodder.
She was still overseeded but beating Ness was way above what was expected from her (let alone her score against Bowser)

NowItsAngeTime posted...

MetalmindStats posted...

Also, as lackluster as Ike's strength is, he's the only Fire Emblem character who's actually reasonably well-liked outside the Fire Emblem fanbase, which is probably why he's distinctly ahead of Lucina despite less popular games.

Doesn't help Lucina's game is on a handheld. Unless you're Pokemon, your main game being on a handheld is a huge minus for your strength on this site.

I disagree. Awakening was such a massive success compared to Ike's games among the "casual" crowd that I doubt it mattered.

Ike is actually more well-liked and unique in Smash and I think this is the biggest factor besides being an "older" character. This is assuming Ike is that much stronger than Lucina, I don't think we have a good read on post-smash Lucina yet and I'm not sure Ike does much better against Auron than she did.

_SecretSquirrel posted...

Ulti_PCA posted...

_SecretSquirrel posted...

Something that was missed in the Ike vs. Pheonix match is that it was the first time the GameFAQs double vote flipped a result, and that leads me to the true conclusion of the match. Phoenix Wright is the pride and joy of Board 8, here's our mascot, he's the icon of the Board 8 wiki. The GameFAQs Contest forum is one of the biggest hubs of Ace Attorney fans on the internet, certainly the biggest one not to be an actual Ace Attorney fansite or subreddit.

As such, I would never take Phoenix Wright to lose to anyone not solidly above his level, because the place dedicated to GameFAQs Contests themselves will always his back in a close one brackets be damned.

I'm intentionally avoiding talking about that double vote garbage. 8pm and forcing people to vote in every poll is really enough of an anti-rally measure. Double voting for registered users is really, really stupid.

I get the feeling the real purpose of the double registered voters was to actually make vote totals look better than they actually are, moreso than as an anti-rally measure.

But this is one of the few times I think it's actually worth discussing as any sort of factor, simply because Board 8 itself decided the match thanks to our votal inflation. Even the other two or three matches where the registered voter bonus made the difference weren't quite this derivative of a specific Board 8 preference. But Phoenix fucking Wright? That was entirely just this portion of the GameFAQs community. Hell, this was one of the few times any Nintendo 1st party character lost this advantage to a third party character at all. Ike would have normally pulled away even further against any other opponent, but instead it caused him to choke.

I added a blurb on the wiki but yeah. Hated the double vote thing.
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Ulti_PCA posted...

And Felix > Isaac.

Thank you
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Division 5 Quarterfinal: (1)Squall Leonhart vs (8)Garrus Vakarian

(1)Squall - 19202 [64.02%]
(8)Garrus - 10792 [35.98%]
Total Votes - 29994
Prediction Percentage - 65.34%

1/3rd of people had Squall losing to Hat Kid, Garrus, or Ramza. I will never understand some of the prediction percents we see sometimes. This was also a match featuring the manliest of manly men. Squall and Garrus are just incredible characters, and since this was a predictable match with nothing to say I'll just get into why I love these two.

First, Squall. I legitimately hated the dude when I first played Final Fantasy 8, but then I replayed it when I got a bit older. Of course the guy is a loner who thinks everyone around him is a moron. Look at those people. Quistis is the only one worth being around, and why Squall was stuck with Rinoa I'll never understand. Rinoa is useless trash. Zell is useless trash. Irvine is mega trash. Selphie might be the worst character in Final Fantasy history. So my party was always Squall/Quistis/Zell, and the latter was only there because of his limit being insane. The side characters aren't too much better with their "everyone is Xehanor-- errrrr, everyone is Ultimecia TIME KOMPRESSION RAWR" plot, but hey at least Laguna's stuff is nice.

The constant? Squall. Through all the dumb characters and insulting plot twists, Squall pretty much tells everyone to fuck off so he can stab fools, which is exactly how one should act when surrounded by garbage. Then his Kingdom Hearts 1 and Dissidia appearances happened and brought it home. I love this dude. He isn't grade A or anything, but he's a solid B+. And he's voiced by David Boreanaz who my wife loves, which is always a plus.

Then there's Garrus, who is the damn king of Mass Effect for party members. I cannot possibly put my love of the dude into words, so I'll let these videos handle it for me:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asWZ5s9RWVA" data-time="

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45jSJ2A55A4" data-time="

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3u_6zfJzATQ" data-time="

My #1 reason for playing FemShep is that I love her as a character. #2 is getting a romance option with Garrus. He's probably my favorite character in the Mass Effect games outside of maybe Tali. And Tali only comes close because of the emergency induction port joke. Garrus is the man, but he went to someone equally acceptable so I'll take it.
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I like most of the FF8 crew before Rinoa shows up.

I care more about party balance than individuals, so with the FF8 crew you had the lead, the smart person, the goof, and the other goof (who also turns out to be a psycho). That's a quality party if you ask me. Then Rinoa and Irvine show up and it becomes a jumbled mess because we have the person who is incompetent at his one thing (say what you will about any character you dislike, but 'is bad at their thing' is the worst character trait to have), and everyone taking a backseat to Rinoa/Squall.
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Ulti_PCA posted...

Then in round 2 he drew GLaDOS and Julia Roberts.

Sarah Jessica Parker I get being compared to a horse, but not this. (even if after a search, recent pictures of her are not as flattering...)

Oh boy, after Zelda > The Boss comes another rant. Never seen Ulti discussing Overwatch, but in the first D.Va write-up came hints that it didn't help his anti-Blizzard stance.
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Absolutely ready to see Ulti shit on Overwatch
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snake_5036 posted...

Absolutely ready to see Ulti shit on Overwatch

God I hope not. I may be one to reflexively call it "Overmeme", but I'm honestly hoping he'll actually like it, given how his Dota 2 vs LoL tangent in the 2013 writeups (https://board8.wikia.com/wiki/(3)Draven_vs_(15)Ryu_vs_(7)Mega_Man_X_2013) had him conclude "LoL may still be the better game, but I just prefer Dota anyways in spite of its grandfathered-in shitty design".

Anyways, hate to bring back woes from last thread, but I'm probably gaining more sympathy with Ulti's anti-SJW stance than I thought I would:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTARZcGhg4U" data-time="
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Division 5 Quarterfinal: (12)The Boss vs (4)Zelda

(12)The Boss - 8788 [29.3%]
(4)Zelda - 21205 [70.7%]
Total Votes - 29993
Prediction Percentage - 71.8%

If Zelda > Squall wasn't already set in a tombstone, this match solidified it in metal. I know MGS is down, but 71% on The Boss is far more impressive than 64% on a guy that barely beat Ramza. 76% on Hat Kid also means nothing compared to 75% on Ezio. There were some Squall holdouts trying to pretend this match was a weird form of SFF a la what we saw in some female bracket matches in 2006, because stats people will do anything to justify a bad position. Those are the kinds of people that run the Dodgers and thought sitting their top 4 home run hitters in a world series game was a good idea. If you want to know where too many stats and advanced metrics get you, look at the state of baseball right now. Does anyone under 75 actually care about that sport?

Just for fun, people put this Zelda number in some stat calculators and found that it put her on the high Noble Nine level. Which is why some people thought this result was weird and couldn't possibly be legit. After all, Zelda would have no actual reason to boost this much, right? It's not like there was some well received recent game from this site's favorite franchise happened and she played a huge role in that game or anything. Nah.

By the way if we get Game of the Decade for the 2010s, and we should, I'd really struggle to choose between Breath of the Wild and Smash Ultimate. Both are phenomenal games, but one has weapon durability for literally no reason whatsoever. That works in Fire Emblem. It does not work in Zelda.

Not that Breath of the Wild being great would cause Zelda to boost. No sir.
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igordebraga posted...

Ulti_PCA posted...

Then in round 2 he drew GLaDOS and Julia Roberts.

Sarah Jessica Parker I get being compared to a horse, but not this. (even if after a search, recent pictures of her are not as flattering...)

Oh boy, after Zelda > The Boss comes another rant. Never seen Ulti discussing Overwatch, but in the first D.Va write-up came hints that it didn't help his anti-Blizzard stance.

It's going to take a few days for me to properly do that writeup. It's the only hint you're getting.
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