Board 8 > my 5 best and worst picks in contest history

(+) Yeah! (+)

are you impugning the power of GAMEFUEL?

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xp1337 posted...

are you impugning the power of GAMEFUEL?

Well, that didn't exist until the next year.

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xp1337 posted...

are you impugning the power of GAMEFUEL?

there was no GAME FUEL yet

I believed in the power of GAME FUEL and took Master Chief to the semis in 2007! I've actually been surprisingly accurate when it comes to predicting Master Chief and Halo!

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WORST #2: Kefka over Crono

Kefka 21.08% 21373
Crono 78.92% 79999
TOTAL VOTES 101372

Yep, I was one of those. Kefka might be the biggest bomb this contest has ever seen. 17 years later, I still feel that the logic was sound: Final Fantasy 6 was easily the second most popular FF game, and FF is more popular than Chrono Trigger. On top of that, Sephiroth was the only character to break 40% on Link, and Kefka is the closest thing to Sephiroth. He can't hang with Sephiroth because 6 isn't 7, but Kefka was definitely the most popular character, quotable as hell and extremely memorable to fans of that game.

Crono was 2002's darling, going 50/50 with Mario, but that seemed like a crazy fluke occurrence, possibly due to the Mario/Cloud matchup the round before. Crono was legit, of course, but maybe not THAT legit. Putting him against Kefka seemed like a fun upset pick.

Kefka's first match was against Pac-Man, and oh my god. Pac-Man was a major disappointment in 2002 thanks to being a 1 seed (back when that meant something, or was perceived to meet something), but Kefka won 51/49 in possibly the most embarrassing bomb of all time. Crono was next and it was going to be ugly.

And oh god, was it ugly. SFF wasn't well known then and this beating was the worst one we'd seen yet. If Link/Ganondorf didn't happen the next year, this might have been the posterchild (either this or Cloud/Auron). It was bad. I haven't been able to take FF6 characters seriously since.

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Before I even knew what GameFAQs was, I frequented a Final Fantasy fansite. I learned about the contest when one of the admins there (who actually still posts here as MartinFF7) started hyping up the 2003 Character Battle and all the new Final Fantasy characters in it. I still distinctly remember him hyping up Kefka as someone who could make a deep run in the contest.

Magus, too, the guy who is actually the biggest fraud in contest history. Nobody is better at exposing frauds than I am...!

But anyway, that post was what got me to come here because it sounded neat. I arrived on the second day of the contest to see Fox doubling up Pikachu, discovered B8, and the rest is history!

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Magus is only the biggest fraud because he had success. Kefka? yeah.

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Well, part of being fraudulent means you have to have had the appearance of strength at some point!

Kefka was just a bomb. He's definitely been among the weirdest characters we've ever seen.

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if only we had listened to the sam fisher factor

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xp1337 posted...

if only we had listened to the sam fisher factor

I warned everyone about it...! I still remember my several paragraph post detailing why Magus was overrated and why Squall would beat him. He just turned out more overrated than I anticipated!

although I do remember there was one character whose other performances extrapolated Magus to be lower than Knuckles in the X-Stats (I think it was Luca Blight based on his Villains Contest showing) but I thought that was just too crazy!

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Even in retrospect I don't think I would take Sub-Zero over MC (though even back then I knew Subby had a shot, at least). Scorpion's x-stat was 20.65% in 2004. Granted, Auron was underrated in 2004, but people didn't think it was by much. People thought Mortal Kombat was trending downward. Master Chief's x-stat was 27.47% in 2006, so even if one had pegged MC's strength with perfect accuracy, that's a big gap to overcome. Granted, if you use Scorpion 2003 (24.74%), then suddenly Sub-Zero looks like a great upset pick.

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https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1338-north-division-round-2-ganondorf-vs-magus
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1353-north-division-semifinal-link-vs-magus

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2088-devil-division-round-1-magus-vs-knuckles-the-echidna

How did Magus even beat Ganondorf?
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Haste_2 posted...

Master Chief's x-stat was 27.47% in 2006

2006's x-stat values are inflated because they have the strongest main bracket character (Samus) pegged as equal to Base Link.

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Haste_2 posted...

Even in retrospect I don't think I would take Sub-Zero over MC (though even back then I knew Subby had a shot, at least). Scorpion's x-stat was 20.65% in 2004. Granted, Auron was underrated in 2004, but people didn't think it was by much. People thought Mortal Kombat was trending downward. Master Chief's x-stat was 27.47% in 2006, so even if one had pegged MC's strength with perfect accuracy, that's a big gap to overcome. Granted, if you use Scorpion 2003 (24.74%), then suddenly Sub-Zero looks like a great upset pick.

that's actually what I did! this was in my Crew writeup:

Scorpion (2003c) VS Frog (2005c)

Scorpion has a strength of 24.74.
Frog has a strength of 24.97.

Frog wins with 50.46% of the vote!
A win of 792 with 86,013 total votes cast.

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Wrong. I was using the x-stats on Ngamer's website.

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Ganondorf was almost certainly weaker in 2003 than he was in 2004. He probably benefited from Twilight Princess hype like Link did. It just got hidden by Magus overperforming on Link in the sprite round, Link SFFing Ganondorf into oblivion, and Crono SFFing Magus. It's also why we overrated Tidus for so long because Ganondorf barely beat him, so he got pulled up high in the X-Stats with them!

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Team Rocket Elite posted...

How did Magus even beat Ganondorf?

Magus beat Ganondorf because Twilight Princess hype hadn't started yet.

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LeonhartFour posted...

Ganondorf was almost certainly weaker in 2003 than he was in 2004. He probably benefited from Twilight Princess hype like Link did. It just got hidden by Magus overperforming on Link in the sprite round, Link SFFing Ganondorf into oblivion, and Crono SFFing Magus. It's also why we overrated Tidus for so long because Ganondorf barely beat him, so he got pulled up high in the X-Stats with them!

And then there was Tidus in 2002 who faced Sonic in a match where the site was down for a signifcant portion of the time during the day, leaving us no strong characters with an accurate xstat value.

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Haste_2 posted...

Wrong. I was using the x-stats on Ngamer's website.

Oh, you're right, my bad. They do still look inflated to me, but it's not because Samus was set equal to Base Link.

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_SecretSquirrel posted...

And then there was Tidus in 2002 who faced Sonic in a match where the site was down for a signifcant portion of the time during the day, leaving us no strong characters with an accurate xstat value.

And then there was the fact that the 2003 X-Stats almost perfectly predicted Tidus/Shadow in 2004, leading us to believe that their 2003 X-Stat values were, in fact, accurate despite Mega Man dropping 65% on him! It's one of the strangest coincidences we've seen where Tidus and Shadow just so happened to be equally overrated!

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LeonhartFour posted...

And then there was the fact that the 2003 X-Stats almost perfectly predicted Tidus/Shadow in 2004, leading us to believe that their 2003 X-Stat values were, in fact, accurate despite Mega Man dropping 65% on him! It's one of the strangest coincidences we've seen where Tidus and Shadow just so happened to be equally overrated!

I actually remember scoffing at the skepticism of Magus in 2005, purely because it required Magus, Ganondorf, Tidus, and Shadow to all be equally overrated, and it was easier to think Magus was the real deal.

Sometimes coincidences really are a scary thing, especially since these fraud characters actually ended up helping when it came to Auron vs. Ganon later on in 2005.

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Mario/Shadow 2003 is still one of the weirdest matches ever. How did that even happen? It makes me wonder if Sonic actually could have beaten him head to head that year.

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well, 2003 Mario was just kinda bad, if I remember right

that Sephiroth match is super notable and the Crono match, yeah

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_SecretSquirrel posted...

I actually remember scoffing at the skepticism of Magus in 2005, purely because it required Magus, Ganondorf, Tidus, and Shadow to all be equally overrated, and it was easier to think Magus was the real deal.

Sometimes coincidences really are a scary thing, especially since these fraud characters actually ended up helping when it came to Auron vs. Ganon later on in 2005.

there needs to be a 30 for 30 on magus/knuckles and all the ripple effects like this

what if i told you they were all frauds

*sfx*

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Yeah, 2003 Mario wasn't good.

oh that reminds me

I wonder if #1 is Mario/Samus 2005!

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LeonhartFour posted...

I wonder if #1 is Mario/Samus 2005!

i will die on this hill dammit

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Mario pickers get mad when I say they got kinda lucky that the Nintendo Boost happened (which was a Mario boost more than anything else)

thankfully the last Character Battle proved that Samus is actually capable of beating Mario...!

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Samus over Mario isn't really a bad pick?

like, okay in retrospect sure, but in the moment? no one expected the Nintendo boost

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transience posted...

Samus over Mario isn't really a bad pick?

like, okay in retrospect sure, but in the moment? no one expected the Nintendo boost

Well, I didn't remember if you had Samus or Mario! If you had Mario, that's a good candidate for #1 best pick!

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oh, no, I had Samus. I stuck with it by the time of the match but it was pretty clear who the favourite was after the Zero match. the result was bigger than expected because of SFF but Mario wasn't stronger than Samus in 2004

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like you have to remember how low Mario's stock was going into 2005

people were seriously picking KOS-MOS to beat Luigi that year

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I think Nintendo was just weak in general in 2003. Wind Waker is super popular now and Sunshine has experienced a renaissance of appreciation, but at the time, Nintendo was at one of the lowest points of its popularity. Ganondorf lost to Magus because he just wasn't as big a deal a character as he would be one TP came out and WW became more appreciated.

Paratroopa1 posted...

I think Nintendo was just weak in general in 2003.

Oh, it definitely was, but Link and Samus rebounded in 2004 and Mario didn't. Crono beat him so effortlessly that I think Mario won like 3 15 minute updates the entire match.

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Between Halo and general FPS popularity, GTA, wind waker art style complaints, Pokemon hitting its low point, and people complaining about Raiden and tidus, I think there was a real hunger in gaming culture in the early 2000s for more cool, edgy, adult seeming works that put Nintendo in particular in a bad spot, and while the GameCube struggled in general and Mario would be the natural target of voters annoyed at Nintendo, Mario sunshine put a target on him. Samus and Metroid Prime fit fairly well into what people wanted though and the tp trailer got people hyped for Zelda again.

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transience posted...

BEST #5: Golden Sun over San Andreas

Golden Sun 53.69% 30920
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas 46.31% 26674
TOTAL VOTES 57594

This one wasn't unthinkable, but it was still super satisfying. GTA already had a history of.. let's call them questionable results, starting with CJ losing to Ness in 2005, but those were character battles. Vice City put up a serious result on Melee back in 04 and Vice City beat Metroid Prime in a weird 09 match. San Andreas came in last in 09, but it was a really tight poll of midcarders where no one got more than 27%.

Meanwhile, Golden Sun is a GBA game for babies. Its most memorable performance was some dude named Felix pulling 47% on Master Chief -- a clue for how this match might go with favourable circumstances. Round 1 came and Golden Sun put up a higher percentage on Ratchet & Clank than San Andreas did on Dead Space. At that point, the writing was on the wall, but it was still a GBA game vs. one of the biggest games of the decade, if not all time.

This match ended up not really being that close, but it still felt great to get right.

RACIST faqs YES

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AxemRedRanger posted...

Between Halo and general FPS popularity, GTA, wind waker art style complaints, Pokemon hitting its low point, and people complaining about Raiden and tidus, I think there was a real hunger in gaming culture in the early 2000s for more cool, edgy, adult seeming works that put Nintendo in particular in a bad spot, and while the GameCube struggled in general and Mario would be the natural target of voters annoyed at Nintendo, Mario sunshine put a target on him. Samus and Metroid Prime fit fairly well into what people wanted though and the tp trailer got people hyped for Zelda again.

I think this analysis is pretty spot on although it doesn't QUITE explain Ganondorf since he's always been kinda cool and edgy, I just think that Wind Waker caused a brief backlash to the series that it obviously rebounded from after like, a year

It's weird to think that there was ever a backlash against Wind Waker, but there was!

Ganondorf was also a fat old man in Wind Waker which made him less cool and edgy

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For what it's worth, Ganondorf didn't get a WW (or Bacondorf) pic that match:
http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/gallery/albums/sc2k3/sum03b34.jpg
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Wind Waker Ganondorf is so fucking cool

Paratroopa1 posted...

Wind Waker Ganondorf is so fucking cool

Sure, but GameFAQs wasn't able to appreciate that in 2003.
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yeah but he's not cool to high schoolers which is what most of us were at the time!

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#1s coming tonight

you might be wondering, what could be worse than picking Kefka over Crono or Sans over Pac-Man?, but trust me, it gets worse

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I can honestly only think of one upset pick that was reasonably popular that was worse, and I don't know if you had it!

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which one? I guarantee this isnt it

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I don't think Kefka > Crono is as bad a pick as the percentages imply. I'd call like Terra > Dante a worse pick. I don't think tran had that though. And I don't think he had the other famously bad pick from that division either. So what could it be???

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transcience posted...

which one? I guarantee this isnt it

Kerrigan > Vincent

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Oh yeah I called Mario > Samus too. Stats be damned, I just couldn't fathom the prospect of Samus beating freaking Mario.

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Lopen posted...

I don't think Kefka > Crono is as bad a pick as the percentages imply. I'd call like Terra > Dante a worse pick. I don't think tran had that though. And I don't think he had the other famously bad pick from that division either. So what could it be???

Geno > Squall maybe?

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Honestly like I figure it's something from the first contest he predicted before he looked at the board much

Like I have a 2003 bracket that has all sorts of stupid crap in it. Stupid by my standards, and keep in mind what that actually means. Like to put it in perspective I think I actually had Cloud winning that year and still wasn't even close to the leaderboard.

If I was to make a topic like this though I'd probably leave 03 and 04 out cause it's less entertaining to read about why I picked Ken Masters over Sonic the Hedgehog vs stuff with actual board discussion

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I did pick Dante > Vincent, but not Kerrigan. I never even considered it even though I had Vincent pegged as a disappointment.

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Underleveled posted...

Geno > Squall maybe?

Virtually nobody had that one!

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