Board 8 > How would they do in a contest? Day 292 ft Piplup, E-123 Omega, Sorceress

(+) 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 291:

The Knight (Hollow Knight) is Mid Fodder
Android 21 (Dragon Ball FighterZ) is Low Fodder
Dunban (Xenoblade Chronicles) is Low Fodder

Here is today's trio to rank:

Piplup (Pokemon)
E-123 Omega (Sonic series)
Sorceress (Dragon's Crown)

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Piplup would be low fodder. Pokmon from beyond Gen 1 aren't worth much, and Chimchar was the most popular Sinnoh starter. Playing a prominent role in the anime wouldn't even help imo; if anything, it might hurt since Dawn's Piplup was kind of annoying.

E-123 Omega would be...mid fodder, I think? Yeah, looking at the examples given, I'd say Mid Fodder. Sonic characters beyond the main trio aren't terribly strong, though Shadow did okay for awhile. Even Shadow's older than Omega, though, not to mention Omega's a kind of one-dimensional character. Put it this way: Omega's best appearance in a game came when Sega Team loaned its characters out to Bioware to make an RPG, and he was an optional party member in that and joined after all but one of the non-optional characters. They basically gave him HK-47's personality, which I guess wasn't really that big a stretch given Omega's usual personality but HK-47 was a more interesting character. Anyway, Omega's debut was in Sonic Heroes, where I think he was the only character making his debut. Heroes was generally considered the point where the series really jumped the shark (though my personal ranking for the first three 3D games is A2 > Heroes > A1), but it's still older than stuff like Shadow's eponymous game (which I also liked, but I felt that they made a huge misstep by trying to fit it into the Sonic continuity as a main series game. Donkey Kong started as a Mario character and he's pretty much independent of him; Wario was basically supposed to be Bizarro Mario and he's had two series of his own. Yoshi's not quite as independent of Mario but he's got his own series, too. Sega should've followed Nintendo's lead and just spun Shadow off into his own thing!) and the hated Sonic '06. So he'll at least be marginally better than some other fodder.

I've never heard of Dragon's Crown, but I'd have to assume that a generically named character from a game I've never heard of would be the fodderiest of fodder.

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Nominate:

King Graham of Daventry (King's Quest)
Elliott Ness (The Untouchables)
Gabe Walker (Cliffhanger)
John Spartan (Demolition Man)
Data (Star Trek: The Next Generation)

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Piplup is Gen 4 which doesn't help it at all, but it is a starter and I think it qualifies as a "cute animal" which Gfaqs tends to like (see Missile). It was also prominent in the Gen 4 anime, which I've seen a lot of people praise as the best anime season. I say Mid Fodder.

Omega I have to say is Low Fodder. If I'm not mistaken he hasn't had a playable appearance in a non-Mario & Sonic Olympics game since the DS version of Colors. This gives him the same problem as Blaze in that he simply doesn't have enough recent relevance to have strength. He also isn't much of a standout character even when he is playable, and I think the fact he debuted in Sonic Heroes hurts him too. A lot of people see that game as the beginning of a string of terrible entries in the Sonic series.

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/dragons-crown/images/1/1d/Sorceress_lg.png/revision/latest?cb=20190829233217

This is the Sorceress. She will be Mid Fodder, for two VERY, VERY large reasons.

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I feel comfortable erring towards Low Fodder for all three characters. I'm skeptical GameFAQs cares about any Pokmon other than Gardevoir (due to waifu factor) introduced after GSC or any Sonic character introduced after Adventure 2. As for Sorceress, we reranked Tina Armstrong to Low Fodder, and while the former certainly has splashier TJF, her game is just as certainly less popular than the DoA series.

Also, before I forget, I'll nominate Handsome Jack for reranking. He underwhelmed back in 2013 when Borderlands 2 was fresh, and I suspect he hasn't aged well since.

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Low fodder for all but Piplup is probably close.

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Nominate:
Niko Bellic (Grand Theft Auto 4)
Jasmine (Disneys Aladdin)
Minsc (Baldurs Gate)
Boo (Baldur's Gate)
Boo (Mario series)
Blue-Eyes White Dragon (Yugioh)

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Day 293 is up: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/78524460

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