Board 8 > transience presents: the top 75 matches in contest history: part 2, the top 25.

(+) Yeah! (+)

edit: this is the top 75 most important/influential matches in contest history, not the best.

the list so far:

75. Phoenix/Vincent/Mewtwo (2013)
74. Link to the Past/Super Metroid (2004)
73. Kirby/L-Block/Laharl/Nathan Hale (2007)
72. Metal Gear Solid 2/Shadow of the Colossus (2010)
71. Cloud/Zelda (2018)
70. Frog/Snake (2004)
69. Metal Gear Solid 4/Shadow of the Colossus (2010)
68. Pikachu/Mega Man 1 (2018)
67. Vincent/Kerrigan (2005)
66. Sephiroth/Missingno (2010)
65. Mario/Crono (2005)
64. Sonic/Mega Man (2005)
63. Cloud/Snake/Sephiroth/Kirby (2008)
62. Kirby/Tidus (2005)
61. Kefka/Crono (2003)
60. Link/Crono/Vincent/Pikachu (2008)
59. Link/Mario (2002)
58. Master Chief/Yuna/Vercetti/Parappa (2007)
57. Mario/Cloud (2018)
56. Mega Man/Sephiroth (2002)
55. Mario/Samus 1 + 2 (2018)
54. Zelda/Final Fantasy (2006)
53. Mario/Vivi/Ganondorf (2013)
52. Mario/Shadow (2003)
51. Sephiroth/Tifa (2018)
50. Super Metroid/Majora's Mask (2015)
49. Sonic/Crono (2006)
48. Snake/Bowser (2005)
47. Samus/Tifa (2006)
46. Majora's Mask/Smash Bros. Brawl (2010)
45. Sephiroth/Mario (2005)
44. Crono/Missingno (2010)
43. Kirby/L-Block/Kratos/Donkey Kong (2007)
42. Draven/Chie/Jak (2013)
41. Squall/Zelda (2018)
40. Chrono Trigger/Final Fantasy X (2015)
39. Vincent/Squall (2005)
38. Cloud/Link/Sephiroth/Snake (2006 Battle Royale day 3)
37. Sephiroth/Mario (2003)
36. Mario/Crono (2004)
35. Undertale/Smash Bros. Melee (2015)
34. Link/Crono/Snake/Cloud (2008)
33. Crono/Snake (2002)
32. Link/Cloud (2005)
31. Super Smash Bros. Melee/Super Smash Bros. Brawl (2010)
30. Samus/Snake (2006)
29. Chrono Trigger/Super Smash Bros. Melee (2015)
28. Snake/Mega Man (2006)
27. Master Chief/L-Block/Snake/Dante (2007)
26. Majora's Mask/Pokemon Gold/Silver/Crystal (2010)

feel free to guess the top 25! it shouldn't be too hard to do, at least some of them.

also, if anyone wants to archive those writeups/put them on the wiki/whatever, feel free - I don't really ever save, well, anything.
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Man, I'm reading through the stats topic archive of the Majora > GSC match, I've come to the conclusion that ExTha is the biggest crybaby in the world
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yeah, majora might have the biggest turnaround in contest history. I really wonder how legit it is, though, since it nearly lost to super metroid.

I think the easy explanation is Nintendo not SFFing itself as easily across consoles. LTTP murdering Super Metroid makes sense. Majora's Mask not murdering Super Metroid and not getting murdered by LTTP also makes sense.

Ehhh, I think going back to my justification for MM > GSC, which was that certain games (like non-RBY Pokemon, Super Metroid) have a slightly different fanbase compared to the casual favourites (like RBY and Majora). Anyone who is a hardcore Pokemon fan voted GSC in that 4-way match, anyone who was a casual fan of Nintendo games were split between RBY and Majora.

Think it goes the same for the MM/SM matchup, Super Metroid is one of the most hardcore titles Nintendo has ever made
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transience posted...

In retrospect, it's amazing that we never got a Toon Link picture during these dark days. That would have set the contests on fire. Samus/Tifa would have been nothing.

We got a Toon Link pic for Link/Cloud 2003! There were definitely a lot of people arguing that he lost the match because of that back then.
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did we? how do I not remember that? huh, I would think that would be blamed more often. then again, Cloud looked clearly better in 03.
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Didn't Link get Toon Link in every 2003 pic?
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Didn't Link only get Toon Link pictures in 2003 outside of the sprite round?
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just looked. thats a good toon link pic and a KH one for Cloud. ehh, not enough to turn the match.
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I've always been of the opinion that Cloud won mainly because of Wind Waker backlash (I think people forget just how polarizing that game was when it came out). The picture wasn't the main reason for the loss, but it certainly hurt more than most pic disadvantages because it played on that polarization
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I've always thought Bat-Cloud was a cool design, but I might be in the minority there!

But yeah, many people have always blamed Wind Waker Link for his loss that year.
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CJayC was trying to make Link lose with the WW pics. Not sure if it swings the 5000 vote margin, but I'm okay with not knowing, because we very well might not have gotten any more contests after that if Cloud doesn't win the most important match in contest history.
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https://board8.wikia.com/wiki/Transience%27s_75_Most_Important_Contest_Matches
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Tagg
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tag
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tag

Really been enjoying reading these, it's a fun trip down memory lane.

I loved Brawl > Melee, even though I loved both games about the same. I hated Melee > CT more than any match even though I love both games there too. I suppose I'm not too pleased with the Melee fanbase or that my opinions of what would felt like the more correct result meant as much as what game I prefer personally.
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I feel like doing some predictions (but not with exact ranking predictions or write-ups because I'm lazy).

2002:
- Pac-Man vs. Scorpion (Maybe this is a weird pick, but it definitively established that GameFAQs's tastes are totally distinct from the mainstream and was probably the first truly huge upset.)
- Sonic vs. Samus
- Mario vs. Cloud
- Mario vs. Crono

(Side note: I feel like Morrigan > Spyro should have earned a place here, but it would be too high now.)

2003:
- Squall vs. Luigi
- Link vs. Magus
- Mario vs. Crono
- Link vs. Cloud

2004g:
- Halo vs. StarCraft
- StarCraft vs. Melee

2004c:
- Link vs. Ganondorf

2005c:
- Mario vs. Samus

2006s:
- Metroid vs. Pokmon (I guess? Top 25 feels too high to me, but I could totally see it at the same time.)
- Super Mario Bros. vs. Final Fantasy

2007:
- Link vs. Vincent vs. Crono vs. Zero
- Snake vs. L-Block vs. Sonic vs. Squall
- Link vs. Cloud vs. L-Block vs. Snake

2008:
- Crono vs. L-Block vs. Pikachu vs. Alucard

2010c:
- L-Block vs. Charizard

2013:
- Draven vs. Ryu vs. X
- Link vs. Shepard vs. Draven
- Draven vs. Mewtwo vs. Sephiroth
- Draven vs. Snake vs. Samus

2015:
- Undertale vs. Mass Effect 3
- Pokmon RBY vs. Undertale
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interesting picks. there are some I hadnt even considered and others that I think are super obvious that arent there.

I have a busy day today so I probably wont get to any writeups until later this evening.
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Tag
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Nice.
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Scorpion/Pac-Man is a good one that I hadn't really considered before.
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is it just Scorpion going so far? I always saw that as more of a seeding accident than anything. what am I missing?
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It's just seeing Scorpion obliterate a gaming icon more than anything else.

But then again, I wasn't here then, so I don't know what the live reaction was.
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LeonhartFour posted...

It's just seeing Scorpion obliterate a gaming icon more than anything else.

But then again, I wasn't here then, so I don't know what the live reaction was.

I'm not sure that proves anything either though. If anything, personality-deprived icons like Mario and Link fare better than actual characters.
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what personality does Pac-Man have
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thats his point in relation to Mario and Link
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yeah but doesn't that mean Pac-Man should be stronger
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Nelson_Mandela posted...

I'm not sure that proves anything either though

that was his point
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LeonhartFour posted...

yeah but doesn't that mean Pac-Man should be stronger

Yes, I'm saying that's why the match didn't really indicate any trends
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I mean a match that bucks the trends is a pretty big deal too and there's plenty of matches like that on here
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yeah but its pac man and scorpion. if I was picking one of those itd definitely be Lara/Crono (I took the Snake match instead)
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Scorpion/Pac-Man was an upset win, even after Pac-Man's underperformance and Scorpion destroying Max Payne most people still believed he would win.

The match was notable in that it marked the point where the rest of the internet noticed there was a contest occurring on GameFAQs. Though the Penny Arcade comic came too late for Pac-Man it and other sites were responsible for the jump in vote totals we saw starting with Link/Jill Valentine.
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Yeah I think there being a Penny Arcade comic back when Penny Arcade mattered is a fairly big indicator of a contest breaking into the mainstream.
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Ego stroke: the first topic I ever made on Board 8 was during the 2002 contest, where I predicted Scorpion would beat Pac-Man with 57% and wondered if anyone else saw him as the favorite.
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oh, thats interesting. I still treat that as being kinda coincidental though. I dont think that match itself inspired a comic, but I could be wrong!
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https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2002/08/23

Scorpion/Pac-Man was on August 22nd so it was a day late...
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charmander6000 posted...

https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2002/08/23

Scorpion/Pac-Man was on August 22nd so it was a day late...

Ha, that's not bad
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25.



This is usually my pick for my favourite gamefaqs match of all time. (I kinda don't have a single match to point to, but this one has been the one I say for years and years and I don't see any reason to change it now.) This was a match between two top five games, the two top games on the top console, locked in a dead heat for hours. This was also back in the days when there weren't poll freezes. You could just reload the poll endlessly. I had an evening job at the time with internet access and I just hit reload literally the entire day. Probably something like 300 times. It was just deadlocked for hours and hours.

There wasn't really anything super notable about this match outside of it being two giant games going 50/50. The biggest thing is that Chrono Trigger was able to win a close match against Nintendo when it felt like Crono was being existentially punished by Mario for two years running. Zelda losing anything in spring 2004 was a major deal given how utterly dominant it looked early on. It was also a hint that maybe FF7 could beat Ocarina -- but also maybe not. That match was kind of impossible to judge with results because of how the bracket was set up. CT winning wasn't a shock because FF6 had just pushed LTTP pretty hard the round prior, but it was still good to see CT actually do what Crono suggested it could do for two years.
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transience posted...

It was also a hint that maybe FF7 could beat Ocarina -- but also maybe not

Bruh FFVII was the runaway favorite the entire time
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it was never that clear cut though. I dunno, I'll hold off on commenting because we'll get there
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The notion of no poll freezes is nuts to me. It's already exhausting to pay attention to matches when you only have to do it every 5 minutes.
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KamikazePotato posted...

The notion of no poll freezes is nuts to me. It's already exhausting to pay attention to matches when you only have to do it every 5 minutes.

It should go back to every 15 minutes. 5 is dumb.
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15 minute poll updates is a great idea, it's the perfect way to stop idiots that don't understand variance and standard deviation from constantly claiming every match is getting stuffed.
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24.



Let me just drop this match picture in here.



Not enough is made of this picture today. It's the entirety of Nintendo against big dorky Tidus. This match had a stigma for years because of it. Was Melee really the stronger game? Probably. But with a dork like Tidus, you never know.

I remember being really unimpressed by both of these games. Melee got less than 54% on Vice City while FFX, and this one baffles me to this very day, couldn't double Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. What the heck is that? FFX went into this one as the slight fave, but it wasn't overwhelming, and certainly not with that picture.

The match itself wasn't really that close outside of the beginning. Melee started out in the lead, FFX grabbed it overnight and Melee blasted FFX in the day. It was basically your typical Cloud/Link, Nintendo/Square affair. FFX got it under 51 by the end of the match but it was never really in doubt by the time the sun came up.

I can't stress the skepticism that this match drew, though. Between that and the complete wildcard that was Starcraft, the next round was completely unpredictable.
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I was really hoping for FFX in that match, but I remember as soon as I saw that picture, I knew FFX was hosed. I generally think pic advantages are overblown, but seeing Tidus against all of Nintendo at once is... I dunno, there was something visceral about it. Melee winning just felt right after that.

I was kind of in Zelda hater mode in 2004 and I remember being quite gleeful at it losing all four of its games in the space of five matches. What a great time. Agreed that FF7 was a pretty big favourite, unless someone wants to dig up some board odds or other data proving me wrong. Cloud had just come off a win over Link, and there was plenty of reason for FF7 > OoT to be stronger relatively than Cloud > Link.
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transience posted...

Not enough is made of this picture today.

I complained about that pic for years...!

But yeah not in a while I guess
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Melee/FFX might still be the biggest picture mismatch of all time. Throw the FFX party up there (perhaps coincidentally leave off Wakka and Kimahri) and it may have gotten the job done.

And to bring it back to the last topic a bit, I think it's a bit ambitious to claim that Melee/Brawl cost FFX the title. I think FFX could have gotten to the finals had Melee put an end to Brawl's run (and probably would be the favorite to do so), but it would still need to face a beloved Nintendo game in those finals, and this immediately after eking by another big Nintendo game and galvanizing that fanbase.
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I remember in the Series Contest, in the sprite round when it was Sonic vs. Smash Bros., Sonic Team got Sonic Advance sprites, and Smash got LTTP Link, Super Metroid Samus, and Mario 3 Mario sprites.

I mean Smash was gonna win anyway but my word that was unfair
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And this might sound dumb as shit, but Melee/Morrowind is one of the funniest pictures ever to me because the first thing I thought of when I saw it was "lulz that's what's left of Tidus."

http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/gallery/albums/gotd/gotd-073.jpg
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nah, the biggest picture mismatch of all time is snake/sora. maybe #2, though.
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CaptainOfCrush posted...

Melee/FFX might still be the biggest picture mismatch of all time.

http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/gallery/albums/cb6/cb6-54.jpg

Tidus/Melee is pretty heinous, though.
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