Board 8 > LMS reads through the PCA articles for every contest match! [nostalgia]

(+) Yeah! (+)

Yes I want to do this and offer my thoughts in this thread.

First off though, how many PCA articles would you like me to read about each day? I'd like to do four to eight.

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I summoned you.

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"Setsuna, you have to change. To make up for me... who didn't change." ~SCP~
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I'll probably start with a writeup generally encompassing the 2002 contest, and I'll be back with my analysis on the first matches later.

Oddly enough, I used to imagine myself as an older gamer who had seen every contest unfold right before his eyes.

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That is a bit strange!

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"Setsuna, you have to change. To make up for me... who didn't change." ~SCP~
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Right now I think I will simply write about eight matches each day at maximum, with a hopeful average of four (number will fluctuate depending on the magnitude of the matches).

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Jeff Zero is hype!

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"Setsuna, you have to change. To make up for me... who didn't change." ~SCP~
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Time to start. Just FYI, I never started keeping track of GameFAQs contests until a week after Fall 2008 contest began, and I didn't join the board itself until almost two weeks into the Spring 2009 contest.

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Summer 2002 Contest

Has it really been over NINE years? Ironically enough, this contest started in the same summer that I got my GameCube (my first video game console, and I honestly can't believe I still have the same copy of SSBM I bought way back then...) in, and it definitely feels like a time where people were particularly high on SSBM and FFX, no doubt due to Nintendo's and Square's "excellent" reputations gained during the previous hardware generation, and hype for titles like Super Mario Sunshine, Kingdom Hearts, Metroid Prime, and The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker may have been off the charts. That would be what GameFAQs contests would largely be all about during those first four years: Nintendo and Square dominating everyone else and taking on each other.

In the meantime, there was a serious air of unpredictability causing some to just pick brackets based on their favorite characters. Lots of upsets would materialize, though the presence of loads of characters no one cares about would be sure to rear its ugly head in future discussions of the contest.

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Guess what, I'll be back with my thoughts on the first few contest matches in a bit.

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Guess what, I am excite.

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"Setsuna, you have to change. To make up for me... who didn't change." ~SCP~
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(1)Mario vs (16)Servbot 2002



Monday, July 1st, 2002
Stats and Analysis Edit
Poll 940
Division North Division
Match # 1
Match Date Monday, July 1st, 2002
Vote difference 25,659
GameFAQs
Prediction Mario - 95.87%
(16,071 brackets)

When votals are lower, crazy stuff happens and stats become more and more meaningless. Our very first contest match showcased just that, with Mr. Video Game himself, also the overall 1 seed and the "odds-on favorite" failing to triple someone that looks like a Lego character. Might it be possible that people now know Servbot better for his cameo appearance in Dead Rising? Eh, whatever.

74% seemed impressive at the time but it would of course turn out to be a surprisingly low number considering what other characters were doing against characters likely stronger than Servbot. Of course, we now know that Servbot did so well because he was functioning as a joke character of sorts, so maybe Mario is lucky to even break 74%.

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(8)Spyro the Dragon vs (9)Morrigan Aensland 2002





Tuesday, July 2nd, 2002
Stats and Analysis Edit
Poll 941
Division North Division
Match # 2
Match Date Tuesday, July 2nd, 2002
Vote difference 20,987
GameFAQs
Prediction Morrigan - 42.28%
(7,087 brackets)

Yes I know I know, Spyro the Dragon is a far more well-known and more mainstream franchise than Darkstalkers, and GameFAQs isn't all that high on fighting games...but in all honesty, how many of us would get blindsided like this if this match was never run back then and was run today instead?

First of all, we've seen, plenty of times throughout the years, that GameFAQs just doesn't care much for platformers. The classic Mario entries do really well for themselves in contests, and after that...at the very best, Super Mario Galaxy is on the low end of being a high midcarder (and that's probably being WAY too generous), and that is from the same franchise! Maybe next would be some classic Mega Man and Sonic titles, then Sonic Adventure 2...what's the similarity there? That's right, they're all from long-running, iconic franchises that were big names on their systems. For however mainstream characters like Spyro, Crash, Banjo, etc. may have been, they were largely overshadowed on their systems. This generally happened to platformers following Super Mario 64's release, and the only reason why the board gets so blindsided is because the board is arguably the greatest gathering of fans of platformers all through the ages. I definitely see myself sooner joining that crowd than the platformer-ignorant GameFAQs.

Second of all, we also know that Marvel vs. Capcom 2 is NOT fodder today, and if it isn't today it likely wasn't back then either. Marvel vs. Capcom 2, which I'd sooner imagine to be Morrigan's main source of popularity than I would her own Darkstalkers franchise, would likely smoke any Spyro game with astounding ease. With Marvel vs. Capcom 3 being only about half a year old and Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 on the way, we should probably try to get Morrigan back into a contest. Seriously.

Third of all, we know about TJF, but its impact was quite possibly magnified by the low votals of this contest. Then it's magnified even further because Spyro just doesn't look like a character someone could really get attached to, even if everyone knows him.

All this combined together to allow a largely unknown character to double someone who was far more mainstream. Since then, Morrigan has never appeared in a contest again while Spyro actually has, and Spyro lost to pre-Brawl Ridley. Lol, why did we allow Spyro back in one more time while Morrigan has never been seen again? Technically I should be talking about that for Morrigan's next match, but meh.

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(5)Terry Bogard vs (12)Aya Brea 2002






Wednesday, July 3rd, 2002
Stats and Analysis Edit
Poll 942
Division North Division
Match # 3
Match Date Wednesday, July 3rd, 2002
Vote difference 16,708
GameFAQs
Prediction Aya Brea - 56.27%
(9,433 brackets)



Parasite Eve's intro theme "primal eyes" sounds like it's setting the tone for a game all about hopeless confusion, and I love it. It also quite perfectly describes what happened here. I'm honestly quite interested in Parasite Eve - who's the board's biggest fan of the game? Transcience?

Oh yeah, the match itself. Well...CONFUSION rained as for the second match in a row, a character who seemed to be little more than a "hot chick" was killing the heck out of a far more mainstream character. But...come on, Terry Bogard hails from a fighting game franchise by some developer named SNK, while Aya Brea hails from a PlayStation series of Horror Survival/JRPG hybrids from none other than Squaresoft during the apex of its popularity. And Terry was supposed to win this? To me, Aya seems FAR more like a character someone could care for a whole lot. Quite frankly I'm surprised Aya didn't do better here, but I guess we could blame that on Parasite Eve not being very popular on GameFAQs. It's definitely more popular than Fatal Fury though, that's for sure. Then again I am a sucker for powerful female VG characters, and Aya Brea definitely seems to fit that mold.

Heck, Aya was even the bracket favorite! So I guess she was supposed to win after all, huh? At this point, the only thing I have a hard time believing is that, once again, Terry would show up in a future contest while Aya wouldn't. COME ON NOMINATORS!!! I know The 3rd Birthday wasn't exactly a smash hit or anything, but I'd like to see Aya back in action now that it's out and the franchise is somewhat relevant again.

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(4)Donkey Kong vs (13)Bub 2002






Thursday, July 4th, 2002
Stats and Analysis Edit
Poll 943
Division North Division
Match # 4
Match Date Thursday, July 4th, 2002
Vote difference 12,586
GameFAQs
Prediction Donkey Kong - 94.18%
(15,788 brackets)

Considering the low votals of this contest in comparison to later ones, and the Gamespot contest proving that Bub is somehow easy to rally for whatever reason, I guess you could say DK was lucky just to break 60% here, but at the time, all we saw was DK doing worse against some NES puzzler character than Aya Brea did against a Fatal Fury character. That's three (really four) matches in a row where something extremely weird happened, although they were the first four matches in GameFAQs history so...let's just say this: I would've loved to follow this contest back in its day. Chaotic all around! Even when the winner was obvious!

This would also be the only contest match until 2010 to feature a character being backed by over 90% of bracketmakers, but failing to double their opponent. What's funny is that DK would actually improve a bit in later contests from his performance here, although I suppose higher votals and a site-wide Nintendo boost can do that to you.

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'Kay, how did I do? I'll be back tomorrow at latest.

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bump for more views

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Yes I will get to this tonight.

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Whatever, since this thread is receiving no attention I'll just quit.

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Wait, this isn't a readthrough topic?

What are the PCA things again?

PCA stands for Post-Contest Analysis.

I was reading through each PCA article and giving my thoughts on each match. I'll continue tomorrow since I've been on the computer for way too long today since apparently someone aside from Jeff Zero has posted here.

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After neglecting this thread, for a while, I'm coming back!

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(6)Alucard vs (11)Miles "Tails" Prower 2002






Friday, July 5th, 2002
Stats and Analysis Edit
Poll 944
Division North Division
Match # 5
Match Date Friday, July 5th, 2002
Vote difference 5,326
GameFAQs
Prediction Alucard - 51.41%
(8,618 brackets)

Fun Fact: The very year this match took place, Electronic Gaming Monthly released a "Top 100 Games" list, and Symphony of the Night was #4, only behind Super Metroid, Tetris, and A Link to the Past.

But for most of the board, this was another day, another mainstream character underperforming, and for the third time in five days, said mainstream character underperformed enough to lose. And for the fourth time in five days, said mainstream character was a platformer character. And for the second time, said character was the star of a PS1 RPG (well, action-adventure with RPG elements, but you get the point).

Alucard was the bracket favorite due to seeding, but despite this most of the board did not expect him to win given how most of his exposure came from a cult PS1 hit and an old NES game where he's merely a side character, versus Tails having the might of the Sonic series behind him. Trouble is, however, that when you take away all the history behind these characters and break it down into who they are, you get...a vampire in a black jacket versus an eight-year old fox. Lol. Quite frankly it's a bit of a surprise that Alucard didn't do better (he certainly would now, I mean look, this guy did 4% better on Chrono Trigger's fan favorite in 2010 than he did on Tails here!), but to be honest, the Sonic franchise really was a force to be reckoned with back in our first contest. It's just that Alucard was strong enough to upset the franchise's weak link, that's all.

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UltimaterializerX posted...
Stop trying to me like me, you suck at it.

I was doing this because I wanted to. I did not even have you in mind.

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(3)Duke Nukem vs (14)Iori Yagami 2002





Saturday, July 6th, 2002
Stats and Analysis Edit
Poll 945
Division North Division
Match # 6
Match Date Saturday, July 6th, 2002
Vote difference 13,446
GameFAQs
Prediction Duke Nukem - 83.87%
(14,060 brackets)

Really, Duke wasn't expected to do better than this? I know zilch about Fatal Fury, but judging by seedings and such, I would guess that Terry Bogard would be the supposed "main representative" of the franchise, and for Duke to do worse against a different Fatal Fury (or King of Fighters, whatever) character than Aya Brea did against Terry Bogard should have sent some serious alarms off. But no, "it's what we expected, yadda yadda yadda" - where were you guys coming from at the time? Man.

I'd talk more about why Duke wasn't as strong as expected, but best to discuss that when he actually loses.

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(7)Pikachu vs (10)PaRappa the Rapper 2002





Sunday, July 7th, 2002
Stats and Analysis Edit
Poll 946
Division North Division
Match # 7
Match Date Sunday, July 7th, 2002
Vote difference 4,975
GameFAQs
Prediction Pikachu - 64.82%
(10,866 brackets)

It's weird to believe, but despite Pokemon being a huge force in our contests now, Pikachu only has 3 1v1 victories. Obviously this was the first of them, back in a time where Pokemon was advertised seemingly everywhere and the "hardcore gamer" population that composed most of GameFAQs must have been sick of it. Fortunately for Pikachu, GameFAQs has always hated music games, so Pikachu was able to advance nonetheless.

Not much else to talk about here. MAYBE this match can be regarded as another surprise underperformance, but given how everyone was rooting for PaRappa, it just doesn't have that same feel.

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(2)Cloud Strife vs (15)Fox McCloud 2002






Monday, July 8th, 2002
Stats and Analysis Edit
Poll 947
Division North Division
Match # 8
Match Date Monday, July 8th, 2002
Vote difference 36,044
GameFAQs
Prediction Cloud - 80.20%
(13,445 brackets)

HOLY DARN SO MANY CLOUDS!!! This was our first Nintendo/Square match ever, and while we now know that Fox is actually a solid midcarder, he sure didn't look like it here. Hold this match again, and Fox likely breaks 30%.

As is, some (dumb) people thought Fox could win the match just because he was from Nintendo. Excuse me, but how is someone who draws most of his popularity from rail shooters and fighters supposed to deal with the star of the game that put GameFAQs on the map? Yet, thanks to those guys, the board was supposedly busier here than on any day in 2004, which...okay, I suppose this was the first match where both characters were well-known, yadda yadda...

For now, however, Nintendo was looking down and Square was looking awesome. With Cloud blowing out Fox, Aya Brea's upset, Mario underperforming, and DK underperforming, who could truly say otherwise? But boy did this contest NOT stay in that direction.

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(1)Lara Croft vs (16)Chop Chop Master Onion 2002






Tuesday, July 9th, 2002
Stats and Analysis Edit
Poll 948
Division East Division
Match # 9
Match Date Tuesday, July 9th, 2002
Vote difference 25,225
GameFAQs
Prediction Lara - 88.51%
(14,837 brackets)

After the "hot chick overperformances" of characters like Morrigan and Aya (which certainly would NOT be the last here!), you'd think that the postergirl for VG hot chick characters would benefit in the same way...but unlike the aforementioned Morrigan and Aya, everyone knew Lara Croft, and much like Pokemon, she and her games were more or less shoved into everyone's faces in marketing and...well, she was TOO mainstream and had to suffer for it. The same thing happens with more or less EVERY casual shooter, music game, or sports game, but at the time, Tomb Raider and Pokemon were our big examples for whatever reason.

As a matter of fact, Croft was even voted as the most likely 1 seed to lose in her division before the contest started, and seeing how CRONO was in her way, that certain seems plausible (as opposed to Pac-Man and Sonic seemingly facing little to no danger). Come time, those same anti-fans put on some serious humiliation. Rarely is a doubling considered a bad sign, but Croft should have been able to completely kill this PaRappa side character (and man, that means there were more PaRappa characters in 2002 than there were Zelda characters...!!!), not struggle just to break 69%. And much like against Pikachu, many were rooting for the onion dude to win.

Again, not much else here.

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(8)Ryo Hazuki vs (9)Guybrush Threepwood 2002






Wednesday, July 10th, 2002
Ulti's Analysis Edit
Poll 949
Division East Division
Match # 10
Match Date Wednesday, July 10th, 2002
Vote difference 23,756
GameFAQs
Prediction Ryo Hazuki - 77.27%
(12,954 brackets)

Give Guybrush a sword here and he likely does a good deal better. Both Shenmue and Monkey Island are both extremely cult, but 2002 was possibly Hazuki's "heyday" while Guybrush and his franchise were fading fast. Now, Guybrush likely breaks 40% and possibly wins, seeing how his original adventure was remade and he has new games out now...but back then, no. Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Shenmue II's Xbox port released in the same year as this contest? I don't care to look it up but still.

Quite frankly I'm surprised that not more people thought that Hazuki could upset Lara Croft in the next round. Mark my words.

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(5)Crono vs (12)Simon Belmont 2002






Thursday, July 11th, 2002
Ulti's Analysis Edit
Poll 950
Division East Division
Match # 11
Match Date Thursday, July 11th, 2002
Vote difference 34,377
GameFAQs
Prediction Crono - 76.39%
(12,806 brackets)

Simon Belmont is possibly the closest protagonist to a "face" that the Castlevania franchise has, so after Alucard surprised "everyone", the board was excited to see what Simon could do. Instead, poor Mr. Belmont decided to be on the receiving end of the first 75%+ blowout, and this would not be Crono's last surprise here at all.

Once again, a Square character was beasting, but this time it was a character from a (comparatively) under-the-radar SNES title as opposed to something from the PS1 era. At this time, Square seemed to be a force to be reckoned with.

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(4)Dante vs (13)Q*Bert 2002






Friday, July 12th, 2002
Ulti's Analysis Edit
Poll 951
Division East Division
Match # 12
Match Date Friday, July 12th, 2002
Vote difference 23,292
GameFAQs
Prediction Dante - 74.49%
(12,487 brackets)

Really Dante, you can't do much better than a mere 70% on some dude from an arcade game franchise? Give me a break. I guess this took place before "action stars" rose to power (not to mention that genre was kinda sorta in its infancy during this contest), but still! For whatever reason Crono vs. Dante still had hype after this, even though it was Crono the vampire-killer-slayer vs. Dante the guy who struggles to break 70% on some arcade character. Yes, I know, "unpredictability" and all that, but still.

Regardless, none of us could have possibly seen the extent of the beating Dante was about to receive in the next round.

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(my first video game console, and I honestly can't believe I still have the same copy of SSBM I bought way back then...)
hahahahaha oh god

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