Board 8 > How would they do in a contest? Day 235 ft Kobe Bryant, Wart, Fou-Lu

(+) Yeah! (+)

This is a topic to rate the contest strength of potential newcomers in the current contest environment.

I will pick the characters to rate and discuss for each day from user nominations - whoever the 3 most nominated characters are at that time. If there are more than 3 I will pick randomly. You can nominate any number of characters at any time, but you cannot nominate the same character twice.

All characters who were present in the 2018 Character Battle will NOT be eligible. Otherwise you can nominate any character that has appeared in video games; even comic book characters. This will exclude real-life athletes who have only appeared in long running sports series, however I will accept those who have their own games such as Shaq. I will accept nominations for iconic gaming duos too, if there is a compelling reason for both characters to be linked (either co-starring in a game ala Banjo & Kazooie, or always appearing together like Callie & Marie from Splatoon).

Each day will have a separate topic, and nominations will carry over. As far as actually rating the character's contest strength; I ask that users rank a characters potential strength with one of the following qualifiers - LAW Fodder, Low Fodder, Mid Fodder, High Fodder, Fodder Line, Low Midcarder, Midcarder, High Midcarder, Near Elite, Elite, LAW Tier (capable of beating Link). I will average all the ratings given to a character to come up with their final ranking. I have included a highlighted entrant from Character Battle X on each tier of the strength rankings below, to provide a baseline for each.

Note that LAW Fodder is meant to be a tier reserved for the weakest possible characters to put into a contest. A character will only be placed there if at least 3/4ths of the voters for that day agree on the LAW Fodder rating, and no ratings above Low Fodder are given. If either of those conditions are not met, the character will not be eligible for the LAW Fodder tier.

Current Character Strength Rankings: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1P1AIhHywBiLd6VAMZMNEGX-HW2td8u1D0Iw_tzHsORw/edit?usp=sharing

Nomination List: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-KnSBDzppzPK5Ug1zmx8_x0bG4tqFDMPPH2k8J3s8sk/edit?usp=sharing

If you feel that a character has been over or under-ranked, or if a new development has come up that would affect their contest strength, you may nominate them for a re-ranking. You may nominate one character per day for this, and 3 votes are needed to get them on the slate. One character with 3 votes will come up for re-ranking today.

Re-ranking Nomination List: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1V6dx-tu-FD1rCxbX69eQwEzE7x1F6nNRNFochYHu1dc/edit?usp=sharing

Results from Day 234:

Strong Bad (Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People) is Low Fodder
Bandana Waddle Dee (Kirby) is Low Fodder
Judge Doom (Who Framed Roger Rabbit) is Low Fodder

Here is today's trio to rank:

Kobe Bryant (Kobe Bryant in NBA Courtside)
Wart (Super Mario Bros. 2)
Fou-Lu (Breath of Fire IV)

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Re-rank Waddle Dee

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Kobe Bryant (Kobe Bryant in NBA Courtside) - Mid fodder

Can he maintain that long term? Probably not. It's asking a lot for individual sports stars to be worth anything here, especially when they're from the wrong era for the childhood cheese factor (not just an issue of the age of the site but also the lack of ridiculous stuff like Space Jam). But in the immediate aftermath of his death, sure.

Wart (Super Mario Bros. 2) - Low fodder

The game itself might do alright if it ever made a contest just due to playrate. The final boss that we've barely heard from since, not so much.

Fou-Lu (Breath of Fire IV) - LAW fodder

A villain from a moderately popular PS1 RPG really shouldn't be worth much but this one's pretty much the highlight character of his game so I had to pause for a minute to consider.

Then I remembered Luca Blight could probably claim the same of his game but he's from a much more highly regarded and (at least in 2020) popular game and we voted him low fodder and he'd be lucky to make mid.

LAW it is.

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Wasnt Kobe in a character battle

Kobe Battle was a thing

Anyhow I agree with Axem's rankings. Though I do think that Kobe might be worth Mid Fodder for a while. His legacy is in the spotlight following his death and I think there will be no lack of tributes to him in the coming years. Kobe was no MJ but he was kind of the "It" player of the 2000s and the Kobe! meme kept his name in popular culture for many years.

No one cares about Wart and Fou-Lu doesn't have the memorability needed to be worth more than LAW Fodder, being a one-game villain from a dead RPG series.

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Nominate:

Zangief (Street Fighter)
Robin Hood (Robin Hood games)
Paine (Final Fantasy X-2)
Papyrus (Undertale)
Minnie Mouse (Disney)
Mimic (Dragon Quest)
Lynx (Chrono Cross)
Link the Goron (Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time)
Lisa Simpson (The Simpsons)
Ifrit (Final Fantasy)

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Kobe: Mid Fodder
Wart: Low Fodder

Fou-Lu: Low Fodder - I would certainly argue he has the memorability, in fact - at least for those who have played more than a little of Breath of Fire IV, which probably describes more of JRPGFAQs than you might realize. More importantly, Low Fodder is an incredibly broad sweep - if you're under ~14-15% on Base Link, so long as you're not on par with the 5 or so weakest characters who have ever been in a contest, you're Low Fodder. While Fou-Lu certainly won't be worth much, I'm quite confident he won't be that bad.

Also, nominate Caim (Drakengard).

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I'll agree that Low Fodder is pretty broad and Fou-lu probably beats anyone we've ranked in LAW so far .

Breath of Fire IV might have, I dunno, a 20% playrate? More than Panzer Dragoon Saga's ~12% but way lower than the 30s that Xenogears keeps polling at or the ~30% Disgaea got.

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come to think of it, Spring Breeze Dancin' was set as an example of LAW fodder but I don't think we actually ranked him.

Nominate Spring Breeze Dancin'

if we wanted an example that was actually in the 2018 contest, I think Draven actually might be bad enough?

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we did not rank Dancin', but I used him as an example for LAW Fodder as he was obviously extremely weak judging by his CB9 showing. Also there wasn't really a good character to use from CBX. Draven's x-stats might fit the profile, but the heavy anti-voting he took in his match against Ammy make him a questionable choice for a LAW Fodder example imo.

Day 236 is up: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/78374327

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