Board 8 > In relation to other All-Fictional characters...

(+) Yeah! (+)

NOTE: The different categories are talking about non-videogame characters' strength exclusively. That's why "Elite" would be the examples I put, regardless of how strong they would actually be against actual videogame characters.

Anyway, Shrek has become a super beloved internet icon over the years so much so that I wouldn't be surprised if he actually got into an "All-Fictional Noble Nine" of some sort.

What do you guys think?


---

Shrek? I feel like he's the Pac-Man of movie characters.

Like I'm trying to picture him beating someone like Knuckles and I don't see it.

---

Either low midcarder or Elite
It all depends on if he can catch a meme bandwagon or not

I mean...is it still alive meme? I don't know I barely follow 9gag and other meme related websites

---

He'd probably do well on some sites with a younger userbase where memes and shitposting are more popular, but I think he would be pretty weak here.

---

Noble nine of all fictional? lol. I voted high midcarder and I think thats rather generous.

---

Voted Low Midcarder. He's certainly iconic and has memes going for him but people aren't rushing to claim his movies are cinema classics.

---

I would probably take 9 Star Wars characters over Shrek (C-3P0 would thrash him), let alone all of fiction.
---

I think he's one of those that would depend entirely on what the turnout looked like. He could easily Draven his way to a win, and he could just as easily be a low midcard.

---

Went with Mid Midcarder

---

redrocket posted...

Noble nine of all fictional? lol. I voted high midcarder and I think thats rather generous.

---

Leonhart4 posted...

Shrek? I feel like he's the Pac-Man of movie characters.

Like I'm trying to picture him beating someone like Knuckles and I don't see it.

I thought it was agreed that Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse were the Pac-Man of All-Fictional! (Unless you're talking specifically about films.)

And besides, I'm 100% sure non-videogame characters are going to be way weaker than actual videogame characters anyway. (Shrek > Knuckles, tho.)

redrocket posted...

Noble nine of all fictional? lol. I voted high midcarder and I think thats rather generous.

Like, what would it take to truly enter "All-Fictional Noble Nine" territory? I'd go:

• Batman
• Darth Vader
• James Bond
• Spider-Man
• Mickey Mouse
• Bugs Bunny
• Goku
• Homer Simpson
• Harry Potter

Would it be that hard for Shrek to swap places with Harry or Homer? Or are there some other major characters I might not be contemplating?

---

Advokaiser posted...

Like, what would it take to truly enter "All-Fictional Noble Nine" territory? I'd go:

* Batman
* Darth Vader
* James Bond
* Spider-Man
* Mickey Mouse
* Bugs Bunny
* Goku
* Homer Simpson
* Harry Potter
Would it be that hard for Shrek to swap places with Harry or Homer? Or are there some other major characters I might not be contemplating?

Youve got all the big franchises, but youre seriously underestimating how deep those franchises are. On the one extreme you have Star Wars, which as a previous poster already said might possibly have nine characters by itself that could beat Shrek. And then even with a smaller franchise like DBZ I could easily see characters like Vegeta or even Piccolo giving Shrek a run.

Piccolo green SFFs Shrek btw

---

You're right. That's probably giving Shrek too much credit. I just think it's been too long since there was a good Shrek movie. It's like saying Jack Sparrow would be a Noble Niner. Maybe a decade ago, but not now.

---

Shrek's power comes almost entirely from memes (especially within the types of circles that would be more likely to have a character battle to begin with). So it really depends on how many people show up.

---

Fodder to low midcarder. I think you guys are severely overrating Shrek (and most non-video game characters)

The thing about this site is that, culturally speaking, it's very old guard first-second gen internet users with a particular enthusiasm for 90's/early 00's video games, and that really doesn't overlap with the newer reddit/twitter culture that much that's more into the present-day memes. I think you need to think about GameFAQs and the kind of stuff that it really holds up as cultural identifiers that it's enthusiastic about associating with, and then ask yourself if Shrek is one of those things. In my opinion, he'd probably create more of a backlash effect than anything - GameFAQs isn't going to be excited about voting for Shrek for the memes. It's just not there. It's not that crowd.

As for his non-meme potential, he's going to end up suffering from the reputation of being a Dreamworks animated character and there's no really getting around the fact that that's just not the sort of thing that this crowd is going to go for, either. Animated movies across the board are going to underperform on GameFAQs - there just isn't really a lot of cultural identification with them here. It's not what we gathered together here to geek out about, and it's not something that we find cool, on the whole (using a very broad 'we' here). GameFAQs is going to vote for stuff related to video games or that reminds them of video games, because that's our culture, that's what we're enthusiastic about and find cool, and in particular we come from a generation where video games were still sort of counter-culture so we really cling to that.

In my opinion, the ONLY non-video game character with truly elite potential is Goku. I think DBZ is one of a very few non-video game properties that GameFAQs would strongly culturally identify with and find as cool as video games, although even this is in doubt. I think Batman and Spider-Man have some high midcarder potential based on widespread popularity and some popular video games (they both definitely have a high floor because of this) but I just think that GameFAQs largely eschews superhero fandom. Darth Vader kind of the same way, high midcarder potential, but Star Wars is a little bit on the outs lately.

I don't think Harry Potter would escape fodder level either. Just really doesn't have the right overlap with this culture. Vegeta would double him (would probably put Vegeta in the top 5 strongest non-fictional characters to be honest).

Advokaiser posted...

(Shrek > Knuckles, tho.)

seriously this feels so unlikely I'd be willing to bet my account on it and that's even taking into consideration how much Sonic as a whole has tanked over the course of contest history

---

also there's no way James Bond would be a Noble Niner

he's had one popular video game here and even that's not as popular as it used to be

James Bond is like Tetris. Everyone knows about him, but I'm pretty sure I haven't seen a single person ever rave about how great of a character he is in the 18 years I've been here.

---

Paratroopa1 posted...

would probably put Vegeta in the top 5 strongest non-fictional characters to be honest

glad to find a fellow DBeliever
---

LeonhartFour posted...

also there's no way James Bond would be a Noble Niner

he's had one popular video game here and even that's not as popular as it used to be

James Bond is like Tetris. Everyone knows about him, but I'm pretty sure I haven't seen a single person ever rave about how great of a character he is in the 18 years I've been here.

Hmm... Well, I think James Bond would be stronger than Terminator (and I don't quite see Terminator being Noble Nine material), but I could be wrong.

---

Just as a side note, I'm glad to see the variety of opinions on the matter.

This leaves room for some interesting in-depth analyses for non-videogame characters in contest settings.

---

Terminator wouldn't be that strong either. It's not a popular franchise anymore.

---

Terminator would get beaten by like, Claire Redfield.

James Bond 99

---

LeonhartFour posted...

Terminator wouldn't be that strong either. It's not a popular franchise anymore.

I don't think old franchises losing popularity really matters on a site like GameFAQs. Better put, I don't think a franchise that once had strong entries and today doesn't, badly affects its overall popularity.

Just look at how Mass Effect 2 swept its division with great performances despite the series being practically dead now (and after both ME3's and Andromeda's backlash). Similar case with Diablo II and Starcraft, to some extent. Even older Pokmon is probably stronger than it was 10 years ago due to its fans being constantly reminded by modern GameFreak that the older games were indeed more fun to them.

A decline in popularity for established characters/franchises here generally comes when their devs/publishers become outright hated or make seriously horrible decisions (or do them constantly), i.e. Sonic, Metal Gear, Castlevania, Call of Duty, The Last of Us, etc.

---

Advokaiser posted...

A decline in popularity for established characters/franchises here generally comes when their devs/publishers become outright hated or make seriously horrible decisions (or do them constantly), i.e. Sonic, Metal Gear, Castlevania, Call of Duty, The Last of Us, etc.

ding ding ding

---

And Mass Effect definitely declined in popularity post-Andromeda (not even post-ME3, since CBIX was post-ME3). Look at the difference between Shepard's and Garrus's performances in those two contests.

---

LeonhartFour posted...

ding ding ding

The point is, timeless franchises like Star Wars, 007, Terminator, Dragon Ball, even Shrek are not going to seriously decline in popularity anytime soon, despite their modern treatments not being as popular as they once were.

---

Terminator is not on the level of a timeless franchise. It's had one good movie and one great movie among, what, four or five widely panned movies? Shrek sure as heck ain't either because it's in the same boat.

And there's a difference between Terminator 2 doing well in a movie contest (which it probably would) and the Terminator character doing well in a contest (which it probably wouldn't).

---

Leon, you're not getting the point.

Every franchise, big or small, has a certain ceiling, right? If it's well-liked, reasonably popular, and stands the test of time, it's rarely ever going to decline.

That's why you have dead, cult series like F-Zero or Mother still being respected, steady, and unforgotten. They once resonated with people and they still do.

When I say "timeless", I don't mean they're necessarily top-tier or GOAT material I just mean they transcend generations, no matter how small the impact actually is.

---

And I'm saying Terminator doesn't fall into either of those classifications. It's not a timeless franchise. It's got a couple movies people remember fondly and a bunch of movies people think are crap.

Something like Star Wars is different because a lot of us were introduced to the franchise by family members, so there's a certain nostalgia there, even though many fans hate a large percentage of the movies. Although even Star Wars is starting to suffer franchise fatigue now.

---

At what point do we at least account for the quality of the games involved with these franchises? What great Shrek game is there even on the market, much less one that GameFAQs has played? I think Shrek's ceiling minus any weird rally shit is high fodder, just for this reason alone. The only characters he'll beat are the ones that only a niche section of GameFAQs has heard of.

I get why we hype up characters like Batman, Darth Vader, and Goku. Those franchises have plenty of quality titles that fall into the GameFAQs nostalgia zone, and that's where the real power is. Not so much for an animated kids movie that mostly produced shovelware onto the gaming market.

---

_SecretSquirrel posted...

At what point do we at least account for the quality of the games involved with these franchises? What great Shrek game is there even on the market, much less one that GameFAQs has played? I think Shrek's ceiling minus any weird rally shit is high fodder, just for this reason alone. The only characters he'll beat are the ones that only a niche section of GameFAQs has heard of.

I get why we hype up characters like Batman, Darth Vader, and Goku. Those franchises have plenty of quality titles that fall into the GameFAQs nostalgia zone, and that's where the real power is. Not so much for an animated kids movie that mostly produced shovelware onto the gaming market.

Ironically, I don't think games matter much. Batman/Spider-Man/Darth Vader may benefit, but Dragon Ball games for example are anything but popular.

Even if a game gives a little push for an already popular character, it means the character was popular enough in the first place.

---

The games absolutely matter considering how much of the site would be against adding non-gaming characters.

---

I'm kinda assuming that a hypothetical all-fiction char battle would draw in at least enough outsiders and casuals to counteract the backlash from the vets. And quite possibly enough to drown them out. Maybe I'm overestimating non-video-game characters but I think some of you are too down on them.

---

I just think a sizable chunk of the site that doesn't want them in at all and not just the hardcore fans. I've been all for including them for years just because it's the simple way to increase variance and unpredictability without a gimmick, but there are probably only maybe a dozen worth seeing.

---

A sizable chunk of the site didn't want Draven or Undertale, and for Draven at least I'd imagine the chunk would be more sizable than it would be for Spider-man.

---

Tom Bombadil posted...

A sizable chunk of the site didn't want Draven or Undertale, and for Draven at least I'd imagine the chunk would be more sizable than it would be for Spider-man.

Yeah and look how bad they did when it was just us voting. I would not bet on some Shrek fansite (should such a thing exist) giving even the slightest crap about a contest on an outdated gaming website.

If your rationale for including them is rally potential, I think that's not going to materialize for anyone who doesn't have a real video game presence (if at all).

---

Just remember Draven happened nearly a decade ago when we were on the verge of irrelevance but enough people still cared about this place to rally and get involved. There haven't been rallies on that scale the last two contests, and it's not because people haven't tried. It's because outsiders don't care. We're not that place anymore.

---

I dunno who I would pick between Bomberman and Shrek. I think even more people care about Laharl or *insert Tales of character* here than that forgetable Ogre?


---

As I said before, non-videogame characters are going to be really weak in comparison to actual videogame characters anyway, even the most popular ones. It's just fun to mess around with speculation.

It would be extremely dope if Goku rSFF'd Crono, though.

---

Honestly the more I think about it the more I would probably take Laharl to beat Shrek, so I'd consider Shrek to be pretty mid-fodder at best, I'd take Shrek to beat turbofodder but not much else. I do think the error bars on this are really big and I could see Shrek being fodder line or above it but I just don't think it's very likely based on the kind of things that GameFAQs voters would want to vote for

I'd love to see this contest happen because I know people would badly overrate non-video game characters