Board 8 > Most surprising member of the Noble Nine?

(+) Yeah! (+)

For some reason, it always boggled my mind that Samus was so Goddamn strong compared to the other non-Mario/Link Nintendo leads (hell for a while she was arguably stronger than Mario). When these things started she hadn't been in THAT many games, and Prime wasn't even out yet.
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it's always Crono
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LeonhartFour posted...

it's always Crono

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LeonhartFour posted...

it's always Crono

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You can't be noble 9 if you lose to a non noble 9 right?

LeonhartFour posted...

it's always Crono

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Sephiroth for sure. Dude hardly even exists in FFVII, and no other villain/side character is (was) even remotely as strong here.
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Wreath posted...

You can't be noble 9 if you lose to a non noble 9 right?

This was the rule because for the first five contests those nine characters never lost a match other than to each other.

Format changes and the advent of rallies have made that significantly harder to maintain and it has arguably been "broken" but the group remains considered the elite of the contests.
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Kenri posted...

Dude hardly even exists in FFVII

and yet few RPG villains have Sephiroth's sense of presence
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LeonhartFour posted...

and yet few RPG villains have Sephiroth's sense of presence

Will vouch, but that doesn't give those other few any strength in our contests, so I'm not sure it gives Sephiroth any either.
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The one that didn't make the contest picture.
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I'm presuming there's a reason why Sephiroth was the one ignored in the logo, but I'd have thought it to be Crono myself.
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Who you got in each of Sephy's 1v1s against Sonic, Crono, and Mega?
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Kenri posted...

LeonhartFour posted...

and yet few RPG villains have Sephiroth's sense of presence

Will vouch, but that doesn't give those other few any strength in our contests, so I'm not sure it gives Sephiroth any either.

it apparently does
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crono is the only one that i didn't know prior to these contests.

sephiroth is the iconic villain of the site's most popular game. i knew him without having played any FF games, and heard way more about him than about cloud - would have assumed he was stronger than cloud

samus is a fair answer, though i don't think it's surprising she's up there - i'd say it was more surprising that she was so high up in the N9 than that she was in the N9 at all
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Mario, Zelda and Metroid are the big 3 from Nintendo. They have been around since the NES era.

So Samus makes sense.

Sephiroth gets to cash in on cool factor and nostalgia too. He basically just came out at the perfect time for our generation since there really isnt all that much special or different about him compared to the zillion other JRPG villains out there. Hell even design wise Square basically just copied their other character Psaro from Dragon Quest for Sephiroth >_>

As for the topic title question I dunno if I could pick just one, but Im surprised Mega Man is one since barely anybody ever really talks about him. You hear Mario, Sonic and LoZ and stuff all the time, but its rare for me to ever really hear or see anybody talk about Mega Man. Had I not been here for years I wouldve assumed Kirby was one of the N9 because imo hes way more iconic and relevant than Mega Man, but Im not even sure where Kirby falls in the pecking order. Snake is a surprise to me too, but Im apparently one of the few people who has never played his series and never even heard of it until coming here...

probably Sephiroth since he's the only one not to be a protagonist

Kenri posted...

Sephiroth for sure. Dude hardly even exists in FFVII, and no other villain/side character is (was) even remotely as strong here.

he seems like such a big presence in my memory of the game... is his screentime really much less than other FF villains? Maybe it just helps that he has a couple really big memorable moments in a way dudes like Kuja or Vayne don't.

now I'm trying to think about what other villains are so close in contest strength to their main character... all I'm coming up with is Kefka and I guess GlaDOS technically counts.
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MoogleKupo141 posted...

now I'm trying to think about what other villains are so close in contest strength to their main character... all I'm coming up with is Kefka and I guess GlaDOS technically counts.

Gilgamesh, but he's not that strong, nor a staple.
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Depends on who you consider to be the main character of Resident Evil, but there's Wesker, too, I guess
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Gilgamesh is also not really a villain.
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Kefka and Kerrigan? Though those games have much more ill-defined protagonists.
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and I guess Jecht showed he's around the level of Tidus in 2010 but he's only nominally a villain in FFX
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Samus is a long standing icon whose series became namesake to a whole popular genre that's still duplicated.

Not to mention her iconography as a female lead in early gaming and the original impact of the reveal. She's a pretty historic figure for gaming.
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Crono by far.
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Sephiroth

His popularity ties with Cloud. If Cloud is still popular then so is Sephiroth.

I want to see Crono vs Sephiroth.
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Mega Man. He's a platformer hero like Mario or Sonic, but his games didn't sell nearly as well. I thought he would do terrible prior to the 2002 contest. Of course, as soon as I saw him nearly beat Sephiroth I was a Mega Man believer from that point on.
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LeonhartFour posted...

it's always Crono

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Crono had one game with no remakes or direct sequels or cameos in Kingdom Hearts and stayed in the N9 for a really long time. Much as I love Sephiroth, Crono's perseverance is most impressive.
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I always said if Seph got his own game (or an appearance in Smash) he would shut this shit down.
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MoogleKupo141 posted...

now I'm trying to think about what other villains are so close in contest strength to their main character... all I'm coming up with is Kefka and I guess GlaDOS technically counts.

GLaDOS? We've never gotten to see Chell by herself in a contest. Though I'd be willing to bet there is quite the strength gap there, just in favor of the villain here.
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Just saiyan in 2002 Sephiroth extrapolated as STRONGER than Cloud.

I think indirectly he was in 2003 too, before they faced each other. >.<
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I mean Cloud was extrapolated through Mario who got SFF'd in the finals
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Samus was the most surprising to me back in 2002. i only knew of her from Smash and i thought she was closer to Fox level of popularity than Sonic. i probably would have picked Luigi or Yoshi over her, maybe even DK.

i had never heard of Snake before the contest, but i figured there had to be some non-FF popular Playstation character, and he didn't beat anyone all that strong the way Samus did. i was really surprised at just how badly he beat Squall and how close he came to Crono, though.
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LeonhartFour posted...

I mean Cloud was extrapolated through Mario who got SFF'd in the finals

Extrapolate 'em through Mario the next year. Go ahead.
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Didn't Mario vs. Cloud 2002 happen the day of Super Mario Sunshine's release? No doubt that powered up Mario tremendously and Cloud STILL made it one of the closest matches that year.
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Crono. He has been in a contest final, and won (even if it was a long time ago) over Snake, Mario and Mega Man.

Sephiroth is easily the most iconic "one time" villain in gaming. I'n more surprised that Samus and Mega Man could hang with the top elite.
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ExThaNemesis posted...

Extrapolate 'em through Mario the next year. Go ahead.

did Sephiroth face Mario on the day a brand new Mario game came out and had a Planet GameCube rally
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_SecretSquirrel posted...

MoogleKupo141 posted...

now I'm trying to think about what other villains are so close in contest strength to their main character... all I'm coming up with is Kefka and I guess GlaDOS technically counts.

GLaDOS? We've never gotten to see Chell by herself in a contest. Though I'd be willing to bet there is quite the strength gap there, just in favor of the villain here.

lol what's a chell

I'm obviously referring to Weighted Companion Cube
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Speakng as a huge Mega Man fan, it's obviously Mega Man.

-Crono is the main character of what was, in 2002, probably the #3 game on the site.

-Samus... I'd argue Super Metroid is bigger than any Mega Man game and she also benefits from being gaming's most iconic female character, the original spoiler, etc.

-Mega Man has what? A few games which struggle to top a million sales and that's about it. I was stunned that he was able to keep it close with Sephiroth back in 2002, and I remember Board 8 well enough to say that so was virtually everyone else.
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I dunno. Mega Man being so popular never really surprised me. Sure, the series' sales numbers don't approach the giants of the industry, but he's always been a beloved character. That's one of those things where sales don't tell the whole story anyway.

and I mean if you want to argue sales as a reason for someone not to be popular it's not like Chrono Trigger shattered records or anything
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I think Samus is pretty damn surprising

Like don't get me wrong, Super Metroid is one of the very pinnacles of gaming achievement and Samus is an awesome character

But she hasn't been consistently used as a mascot or icon all that much. She's not one of the more frequently marketed characters or anything. The Metroid series, ESPECIALLY prior to 2002, was not a very well established one until they churned out quite a few in between 2001 and 2007

Just compare her to the rest of the original Smash 8 for instance. You've got Link and Mario, obviously, but the rest of them - DK, Yoshi, Kirby, Fox, and Pikachu - are all midcarders. All pretty strong presences, but not N9 material (well, maybe Pikachu, but that's a very recent development. certainly not in 2002). I always would have imagined that Samus would be down with those guys, and I certainly thought that in 2002, when I thought Sonic would easily clean up. It continues to remain a surprise that Samus is much more than that.

I think it probably generally stems from the fact that Samus is just really widely appealing - even people who are disillusioned with Nintendo's "kiddie" image won't have anything bad to say about her. Her appeal casts a really wide net.

I don't think I find any of the other N9 to be particularly surprising. Mario, Sonic, and Link are all givens. Cloud, Sephiroth, and Crono are representative of GameFAQs's most notable demographic. Mega Man isn't quite on the same tier of icon that Mario and Sonic are but he's really damn close - he has an incredibly long series of games and he's a prominent mascot figure, and almost everyone has at least one Mega Man title that they have played, given that they span pretty much every console (unlike Samus). Snake is probably the next most surprising to me but MGS is definitely right around that same era as FF7 and the like and a lot of people are really invested in the MGS series' story and characters so it kinda makes sense. His appeal also casts a very wide net.

ZeldaTPLink posted...

Mario, Zelda and Metroid are the big 3 from Nintendo. They have been around since the NES era.

So Samus makes sense.

Also I can't help but feel like this is revisionist history

Metroid has never been able to touch Mario or Zelda (and Zelda itself can barely touch Mario). The NES Metroid sold pretty well, but at least at the time it wasn't well above contemporaries like Punch-Out and Kid Icarus. I don't think Metroid truly earned its reputation until Super Metroid, and even at that point there were only three games in the series with no plans for more at the time. It's always been a B-lister for Nintendo, albeit one that has a lot of critical acclaim and prestige.

i think that if i had just played Super Metroid back then i wouldn't have been nearly as surprised. it's just such an amazing game that in retrospect i'm not surprised gave her a ton of popularity. sorta like Crono, but also with Smash on top of it.
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Sonic
His games were never good
And even if you believe they were, it's been years upon years of getting terrible games that everyone can agree they were terrible
It wasn't until Mania that Sonic actually got a widely praised game in the last 15 years
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i played a few Sonic games back in the day and they didn't really stand out to me other than Sonic Spinball. but i loved the Sonic cartoon. he had more personality there than most of the other N9.
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Mega Man

His games didn't sell all that well and he doesn't really have a cool design. I thought Zero would be stronger
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I would love to see where Samus Aran lands without Smash/Melee influence. Would she still have been considered Noble Nine, consdering she obviously doesn't upset Sonic in 2002? Would she be comparable to Zero/Squall/Vincent/Yoshi/Tifa/Ganon/Bowser/Luigi/Big Boss as near elites?
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"Mega Man never sold well."

Well, he sold enough, as of the first contest, to have:

8 games in the classic series
6 games in the X series
2 games in the Legends series
3 games in the Battle Network series

He had three (3)! releases in 2002 alone:

GBA port of Mega Man and Bass
Mega Man Zero
Mega Man Battle Network 3

What an argument.
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