Board 8 > The 128 Greatest GameFAQS Contest Matches of All Time - The Top 64

(+) Yeah! (+)

Don't quite agree with all of these. Not that they should not be on the list, but perhaps not this high. But curious to see the reasoning.

I think the one I'd quibble with the most is Mega Man/Ms. Pac-Man. We've already covered Snake/Tanner and Zelda/Adventure, so another 90%+ blowout this high feels a little excessive.

I get the rationale for having any of these high though.

Yeah Mega Man Ms Pac Man is the other one I could see at 25. That and DK/Duck Hunt are the only two that feel really out of place to me

I honestly cant remember what was so special about the 2008 final to put it this high

Underleveled posted...

I honestly cant remember what was so special about the 2008 final to put it this high

Snake led Link for several hours and beat Cloud

Leonhart4 posted...

I think the one I'd quibble with the most is Mega Man/Ms. Pac-Man. We've already covered Snake/Tanner and Zelda/Adventure, so another 90%+ blowout this high feels a little excessive.

I get the rationale for having any of these high though.

Yeah, I would have probably swapped Snake/Tanner with Mega/Ms. Pac, and I would hope it's one of the next couple write ups regardless. Other than that, this is a pretty solid top 25.

I think Mega Man/Ms. Pac-Man is up here because it was the first 90%+ blowout and people freaked out over it and it (plus the subsequent 90% against Serious Sam) put all eyes on the blue bomber and turned him into a legit contender.

25. Axel vs. Frog vs. Samus Aran vs. Sarah Kerrigan (2007) R1

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/7/71751ae5.jpg

Axel 18.55% 25282
Frog 18.64% 25410
Samus Aran 51.75% 70546
Sarah Kerrigan 11.06% 15075
TOTAL VOTES 136313
https://board8.fandom.com/wiki/Axel_vs_Frog_vs_Samus_Aran_vs_Sarah_Kerrigan_2007
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2865-division-1-round-1-axel-frog-samus-kerrigan

For a contest format so dominated by shocking upsets and confounding results, the 2007 Contest started off with a series of near misses, or upsets that happened just offstage. First up, Rikku would unexpectedly put the screws to Knuckles in the opening match, only to see him just barely scrape by, finishing in a closer than expected, but still generally expected, second place. Then in the rounds second match we would see a shocking upset, but this time between third and fourth place. KOS-MOS took advantage of the Blizzard split as expected to finish in second, but to everyones shock in the mini-battle for third, Arthas would top the previously hyped Diablo, pushing him into fourth place and out of the contests forever. This was a surprise, but an irrelevant one. Despite the first two matches giving us the screwiness we had sensed was coming from an entirely multi-way contest, in the end, the favorites had still finished in first and second place in both matches, and we were starting to get frustrated. We could sense the unpredictability that lied in wait; we were just waiting for it to spring forth.

This match, the third of the contest, wasnt expected to be any different, despite the history of one of its participants. Frogs Round 1 Match in 2004, which was supposed to be an easy win had turned into an unforeseen nailbiter, and then in 2005, the exact same thing had happened again. Frog was starting to develop a reputation. However, two nailbiters that come out of nowhere is just a coincidence. You need three for it to be a pattern, and that wasnt going to happen here. Frog had struggled, but still managed to beat Riku in 2005. Theres no reason that he shouldnt be able to beat an inferior Kingdom Hearts villain in Axel this time around. In order for that to happen, Frog would have to give us a surprise nailbiter in Round 1 against a character he was considered much stronger than. What are the chances that that would happen three contests in a row?

Not very likely as the match started out. Frog got to quick work in establishing an advantage over Axel, bringing his lead just over 800 votes by the end of the first hour, and keeping the match a near 60/40 affair for the next hour or two. By 3 AM, the Early Vote finally started to wear off and Frogs numbers began to fall percentage wise, but while the increases to his lead would be slow, they would not cease altogether, and other than some stalls and clawbacks here and there, Axel would make no serious movement towards getting the lead. This was turning into a much better performance for him than anyone had expected, but this was looking to be more Frog/Riku than Frog/Master Chief. And even if it did start turning into the latter, Frog was in a much better position. The match hit its halfway point, and Frog, in the midst of a second, midday wind was pushing his lead further and further out of reach. 1 PM hit and Frog was only a bit under 54% in his numbers vis a vis Axel, and his lead over the KH baddie had broken 1,800. The earliest tendrils of the ASV would start to slow Frogs gains to a crawl, but as late as 3 PM, he was still consistently making them, pushing his lead to over 1,900, a seemingly insurmountable number for two characters at the vote level that the two of them were at. We were all sitting around, tapping our watches, waiting for the ASV to start, not that it would matter at this point.

And start it finally did, just after 3:00 PM. Axel would demonstrate why exactly Kingdom Hearts is considered the king of the Day Vote, with cut after cut, slicing vote after vote off of Frogs lead. A match, which earlier this morning had been sitting at 56/44%, was suddenly about to come down to the wire. However, despite the impressiveness of Axels comeback, initially at least, Frog fans had reason to hope. Like I said, Axel was on pace to bring this down to the wire, not necessarily to sweep into the lead easily. This was something Frog could work with. However, as the ASV went on, Axel would shift into a completely different gear. For a period after 5:00 PM, he was cutting the lead by ~50 votes every five minutes, sometimes even more. That would be an impressive pace in a 1v1 match, but in a multi-way poll where Axel and Frog would only manage 50,000 votes combined, it was otherworldly. Any chance that Frog had was beginning to evaporate, and the chances of Axel winning with room to spare were rapidly increasing. And in the end, Axel wouldnt need to keep things up until the last minute. He would officially take the lead at 8:00 PM, with several hours left to pad the lead before the Second Night Vote allowed Frog to somewhat recover. It wasnt entirely obvious due to the fourway format, but we had just seen what was proportionally the biggest comeback of all time. I made a list in 2010 or so, where I attempted to document all contest comebacks, adjusting their amounts to take into account the votals of the entrants involved in them. Axels comeback in this match was Number 1, and no one else was particularly close. This was the equivalent of a 3,754 comeback on a Base 100,000 Vote level. And considering the votals we were seeing in 2007, if this had been a 1v1 match we would have possibly seen a *4,000* vote comeback 1v1. Aside from Undertale/Draven matches theres been nothing like that before or since.

But of course, the match wasnt over yet. Once Axel actually got the lead, the ASV would start to wear off, and he would gain at a slower rate, but gain he did for the next two, two and half hours. If trends held, Frog should be bouncing back, but much like Axels comeback, Frog was taking his time to get started. With 90 minutes left to go in the match, Frog finally started stalling in earnest, but these were just stalls after all, and Axels lead was still sitting at 313 at 10:52 PM. Frog was staring down the final hour of the match without any momentum, and with incoming votes sure to start slowing down, making any kind of comeback doubly hard. And then, for one final hour of the poll, it was Frogs turn to make history. The Chrono Trigger clutch has made many appearances over the years, but never in as dramatic a fashion as here. Frog would begin tearing into Axels lead at the same rate Axel had previously torn into his. And he would do so during what should have been one of the least popular hours of the match. How crazy were Frogs numbers? I mean, the graph for the match thats featured on the wiki pretty much says it all. Frog was actually gaining more votes on Axel per update than Samus was gaining on Frog at points. This was not a collapse on Axels part; it was an absolute, mysterious gain in votes on Frogs. But mystery or not, it worked, and Axels tenuous lead completely collapsed over the space of less than an hour, and Frog would end up not just winning, but winning by over 100 votes. Not very impressive based on what we had seen 12 hours earlier, but certainly impressive based on what we had seen just 1 hour earlier. For the third day in a row, the favorites had advanced in first and second, but this time one of them had had to pull out every trick in the book to do so.

That's a match I wouldn't rank highly at all. Was pretty sick of Frog's "clutch" at that point.

I was rooting for Axel to win that match just because of the magnitude of the comeback and what an upset it would be. I felt pretty cheated (in every sense of the word), so I honestly don't have fond memories of this one. Looking back, it's a shame Axel missed his window and never got his win.

24. Cloud Strife vs. Link vs. Sephiroth vs. Solid Snake (Fall 2006) BR

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/1/1d50fc62.jpg

Cloud Strife 23.7% 32131
Link 42.68% 57860
Sephiroth 16.79% 22754
Solid Snake 16.83% 22810
TOTAL VOTES 135555
https://board8.fandom.com/wiki/Cloud_Strife_vs_Link_vs_Sephiroth_vs_Solid_Snake_2006
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2564-battle-royale-day-3

The Battle Royale was our second attempt at removing some of the Elites from the Main Bracket in order to make things more interesting and less predictable. And while it did manage to increase the stakes of the Male Bracket, overall the format was greeted with much less enthusiasm than the Tournament of Champions had been the previous year, with at least one prominent user leaving the board in a huff over Mario being lumped in with Clinkeroth as a contest force that needed to be removed. While the format of the Royale was something that we had never seen before, and while there was a good amount of debate about when certain eliminations would happen, we all thought that we had a good read on the big picture of the Battle Royale overall: the two less popular Nintendo icons (Mario, Samus) would be eliminated first due to Links presence, then the Male winner would go, leaving us once again with Clinkeroth remaining for the penultimate match. And for the first two rounds of the Battle Royale, that prediction came true, with Samus and then Mario getting eliminated in short order. There would be one wrinkle that would arrive in the Battle Royales third day, and in it would come in the form of the Star of the 2006 Contest: Solid Snake.

Snake has been such a fountain of strength for so many years now, and it makes so much sense that he is, that it can be hard to remember that there was a time when he was the weak link of the Noble Nine. Of course he *should* have been stronger. Thats what we all thought in 2002. Snakes so cool, hes gonna get tons of votes. But that wasnt the case for the first four contests, when Snake always seemed to struggle to live up to his very clear potential. But then, at E3 2006, he appeared in the famous Brawl teaser, and his contest trajectory would change for good. Boosted by newfound Nintendo support, Snake swept through the Male Bracket in such a dominant fashion that it was almost taken for granted that he would beat Samus too in the Finals of the Main Bracket. He would be brought down to Earth a bit after Samus beat him relatively easily en route to her own contest victory, but this is another chapter of Snakes history that has been somewhat forgotten based on what came next: his run in the Battle Royale.

As previously mentioned, Samus and Mario were eliminated in the first two days of the BR, and Snake was expected to be eliminated in Day 3, but something curious had happened in Day 2 that initially flew under the radar. Despite finishing in third place as he had on Day 1, Sephiroth took all day to get there, only pulling ahead of Snake at ~9:30 PM, marking the closest Clinkeroth had come to being defeated in four years. This result was noticeably worse than what Sephiroth had done against Snake on Day 1, and if the downward trend continued, well, maybe Snake would have a chance at making it to Day 4 of the Battle Royale after all. Well, the match started and initially at least, that is exactly what happened. Snake got off to a smashing start against Sephy, his lead breaking 500 votes just after 1 hour, and then breaking 600 an hour after that. Anyone who had thought that Snakes 2006 run had run out of steam after his loss to Samus was realizing their mistake, and it was beginning to look like Snake had just been biding his time for one final upset instead. As the Early Vote wore off, and the First Night Vote kicked into gear, Sephiroth was able to increase his percentage, but Snake kept increasing his lead, slowly, but surely, never letting Sephiroth do anything more than stall him out for an update or two. The morning hit, and rather than hold Snake back as was so often the case, it gave him a second wind, eventually pushing Snakes lead over Sephiroth to near 900 votes. A titan of these contests was on the verge of being eliminated, and it was little old Snake who was about to do it.

This match would end up being a Tale of Two Halves however, and shortly after the halfway point, at around 2:30 PM, once the ASV started to roll in, Sephiroth would make his move. Sephiroth? King of the ASV? Unexpected as it might have been, Sephiroth was proving that Clinkeroth was not willing to go down without a fight, and he would spend the next 9 hours tearing down the lead that Snake had spent the rest of the match building up. Within an hour or two, the celebrations for Snakes victory were put on hold as it became clear that Sephiroth might just advance to the penultimate match after all. Rarely has the board been as united in support of an elite character as they were in this match, but all of that goodwill seemingly didnt matter as afternoon turned into evening and Sephiroths comeback turned into something that could not be avoided. He wouldnt quite hit his mark from the day before, but by 10:30 PM he had drawn Snakes lead down to single digits, and for the next hour and a half, everything froze. As the board buzzed with excitement, the match remained locked in a 50/50 battle for third, Sephiroth finally, just barely pulling into the lead with 15 minutes to go. But he couldnt put it away, leading by a mere 2 votes on the second to last update.

Normally, in a situation such as this, the board would be mass refreshing the previous poll to see who the winner was, but in this case that wasnt necessary. Simply refreshing the home page on schedule at 12:00 AM would show you the new poll, and the three participants in it: Link, Cloud, and.Snaaaaake! The board erupted at this revelation, and everyone rushed to see how much he had won by. It turned out to be a suspiciously large amount, but considering the fact that even a 3 vote shift would have put Snake over the top, it didnt matter. For the first time since the first contest, over four years prior, Clinkeroth had been defeated, even if it had taken our first ever four way poll to do so. And while he didnt do anything impressive in his final match, Snake would go out on top this year in a way that few other characters ever have. He had upended the order of the Noble Nine, and entered the next phase of his contest career.

Battle Royale was great up until everyone (quickly) realized SFF would ruin it.

From the perspective of someone who wasn't around in 2006, I'm surprised that y'all didn't think this was exactly what would happen, but I guess Snake was just that heavily undervalued in the early days.

azuarc posted...

From the perspective of someone who wasn't around in 2006, I'm surprised that y'all didn't think this was exactly what would happen, but I guess Snake was just that heavily undervalued in the early days.

It wasn't that Snake was undervalued. Clinkeroth was considered untouchable.

Plus, the concept of LFF was totally unknown at this point. We had no way of knowing how Cloud and Sephiroth would affect each other.

That Snake/Sephiroth final update was fuckin magic.

A prelude to the ultimate match, Snake/Sephy 2010

azuarc posted...

From the perspective of someone who wasn't around in 2006, I'm surprised that y'all didn't think this was exactly what would happen, but I guess Snake was just that heavily undervalued in the early days.

In fairness he hadnt shown much reason not to be.

Okay, just to continue the discussion, since why not?, in that era, would you have expected Cloud or Seph to be able to double other N9 members? Because that's basically what was expected here. Oversimplified, sure, but would they 67/33 Mega Man or Sonic?

I obviously don't know the answers to these. I'm following along for the fun of it, but I don't track stats the way the old-timers do....and just so I wouldn't look like a complete moron, I checked some of the results from the previous contests, and yeah, I guess some of those would make the doubling pretty close. But that also assumes an even split between Cloud and Seph.

azuarc posted...

in that era, would you have expected Cloud or Seph to be able to double other N9 members?

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1362-east-division-final-cloud-strife-vs-sonic-the-hedgehog

I mean you also had weird situations where the splits would be totally lopsided like Link vs Ganon and it's not obvious how that translated in 4 ways. And then things like "platform SFF/LFF" cause we've had weird results between Snake and FF people before

Even Cloud vs Sephiroth vs Snake there wasn't as obvious as you're describing. Sephiroth almost won. If it's straight numbers as you say I don't think he does.

It seems clear with hindsight, but as someone whose only remotely good contest was 2007 where I got 6th due to finding the format more intuitive than most of the board, it still wasn't anything obvious. I made a lot of bold calls and got a lot wrong too because knowing how the splits actually fall was nothing very clear then. We didn't have the data we did in 2008 or 2013.

I think 2006 was also when the Snake Brawl announcement happened, which significantly increased Snakes strength. Before that, Snake was clearly the weakest N9er.

Bitto posted...

I think 2006 was also when the Snake Brawl announcement happened, which significantly increased Snakes strength. Before that, Snake was clearly the weakest N9er.

Brawl and MGS4

I think it was both games in tandem that boosted him as high as he did

Bitto posted...

I think 2006 was also when the Snake Brawl announcement happened, which significantly increased Snakes strength. Before that, Snake was clearly the weakest N9er.

Not sure if it was clear, as there was a case for Sonic, but yeah, after getting beaten handily by Crono once and Mega Man three times, we had no reason to believe Snake was would be anywhere close to taking down Sephiroth.

Only twice against Mega Man. Snake beat him in 2006 in their third match.

Leonhart4 posted...

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1362-east-division-final-cloud-strife-vs-sonic-the-hedgehog

Right, I looked at that, but there were others where the underdog at least got 40%.

Anyway, I was just asking.

Leonhart4 posted...

Only twice against Mega Man. Snake beat him in 2006 in their third match.

Oh right, for some reason I thought they faced off 1v1 four years in a row, 03-06, but I guess they skipped 05.

My point still stands

Yeah, Snake lost to Mario in 2005.

Got to say not a huge fan of how high the latest two matches were ranked. Glad to get them out of the way before we get too deep into the top 20 though.

The reality is there are probably only 20 matches that are actually god-tier (some of which were already ranked IMO).

I still think Sephiroth only lost to Snake because the former was getting SFFed by Cloud.

MegaWentEvil posted...

I still think Sephiroth only lost to Snake because the former was getting SFFed by Cloud.

After 18 years you've finally solved the mystery

Knuckles/Magus 2005 for #1 or bust.

Crono finally beating Mario for me

I just realized that Chrono Trigger is represented in 9 of the top 25 matches. That's pretty insane.

Crono, Frog, Magus, and Chrono Trigger pretty much have more insane matches than ordinary.

Chrono Trigger winning a contest would really close the book on things

pjbasis posted...

Chrono Trigger winning a contest would really close the book on things

B-B-B-But offsite rallies make everything better

pjbasis posted...

Chrono Trigger winning a contest would really close the book on things

Ive said it before but I sincerely believe it could have beaten OoT if not for rallying that one year.

It'd be easy to off-site rally swing in favor of CT these days if it even needs any help. You'd only need what, like 300 extra votes to swing a match with modern votals?

Depends on how close it is obviously, but 2015 still had quite a bit better votals than our most recent contest, 50000 or something shouldn't be a problem in the final before outside forces.

snake_5036 posted...

It'd be easy to off-site rally swing in favor of CT these days if it even needs any help. You'd only need what, like 300 extra votes to swing a match with modern votals?

All of the CT fans on the internet are already here. It's hard to find more.

Nick's Facebook page was the next thing, it could probably draw 300 votes or something.

But Zelda wouldn't lose a 50/50

If we ever have another games contest, Melee will win it

They're the one fanbase out there you can still rest assured has enough of an inferiority complex that they'll rally and show up

Game of the 90s solves everything.

No Melee, and we get the CT vs OoT match up they always needed. We can even still get the Mario 3, World, and 64 trio settled!

Eh, I feel pretty good (and sad) that the Mario trio goes 64 > World > 3 these days

I'm not convinced 64 takes World but it's not like I'd feel good about the opposite pick either.

ctesjbuvf posted...

I'm not convinced 64 takes World but it's not like I'd feel good about the opposite pick either.

Yeah, I wouldn't be totally surprised if World won

I do think 3 would be the clear third place regardless though

I hope we at least get Game of the 20's in 2030. But with Allen gone, even that's unlikely.

I just wish I knew who's the new admin.

Yesmar_ posted...

Majora would go on to beat Brawl in the Finals in a match which despite its final result was never really in question. After the dust had settled and the shock of the upset victory had faded, it was hard to be left with anything more than an appreciation and acceptance of the Zelda series dominance. If I recall correctly, this was the contest which gave birth to the term LAW, aka Link Always Wins, and its hard to interpret the results any other way. When the winner is obvious, its Zelda. When we finally get an upset winner, it isalso Zelda. Much like Majoras Mask itself, the history of GameFAQS is an endless loop, but instead of fighting it, after this result we learned to just give in and embrace the dominance. After all, it did give us matches like this.

Yep. Even in CBX, the big underdog was...Zelda suddenly being almost as strong as Link.

ctesjbuvf posted...

It felt weird to have Majora win as it's basically a 90s game, but the argument to me is not that it's basically Ocarina because I don't think that's true. It also felt like a weird winner because no one was calling for it to be before Melee fans found it the best way to beat Brawl for whatever reason. Even some of the Zelda forums that heard it were quite surprised to hear it won.

It isn't, though. It came out in 2000, and late 2000 at that. Yes, it was a very late N64 game, and that console feels especially 90s because whereas the NES was still churning out games well into the SNES's life cycle and the SNES was still churning out games well into the N64's life cycle (and doubly so for its Japanese counterpart the SFC, which has a second-party game with a release date closer to the GCN's release date than the N64's), the N64 was phased out extremely quickly, to the point that there was a good stretch of almost half a year before the GCN's launch where the only games coming out for Nintendo systems were GBC/GBA games.

pjbasis posted...

Game of the 90s solves everything.

No Melee, and we get the CT vs OoT match up they always needed. We can even still get the Mario 3, World, and 64 trio settled!

It would be great, but it's probably something that should've been done years ago, not now. Though, maybe with retro games being popular again, it's not such a bad idea.