Board 8 > How many people on Earth can name the Noble Nine?

(+) Yeah! (+)

If you were to ask everyone on planet Earth on June 26th, 2025: "Who are the Noble Nine? By which I mean the nine characters generally considered to be the strongest participants in the Character Battles held on GameFAQS.com." how many people could accurately name the Nine?

First, some clarifications:
-People that have learned the information second hand count, but they have to actually know the nine. People with a vague understanding of the contests or the term who are just guessing don't count. Correct guesses based merely on the information provided also don't count, obviously.
-People that once knew and forgot don't count.
-Someone that followed the contests, but never heard/knew/doesn't remember the term counts if they are able to pull the nine based off of their memories, and not just guessing.

The What?

One.

Just me.

And I will take that knowledge to the grave.

I'm a lifelong B8er and I can only name eight of them. I'm going to feel silly once I realize who's missing...

Less than one hundred

Mobilezoid posted...

I'm a lifelong B8er and I can only name eight of them. I'm going to feel silly once I realize who's missing...

was it megaman thats the one that took me an extra minute to think of

In my opinion, correct guesses should count, but it's moot because nobody without specific knowledge of GameFAQs Contests is ever going to have a chance at correctly guessing Crono

_stingers_ posted...

was it megaman thats the one that took me an extra minute to think of

Fuck yes it was. Now I feel silly lol

hes just not who he used to be...

Mentally I always remember the Noble Nine like this:

The three Nintendo ones: Mario, Link, Samus
The three Square ones: Cloud, Sephiroth, Crono
the two blue ones: Mega Man, Sonic
And also: Snake

I could never make Snake work into the mnemonic but whatever

102 people

Paratroopa1 posted...

In my opinion, correct guesses should count, but it's moot because nobody without specific knowledge of GameFAQs Contests is ever going to have a chance at correctly guessing Crono

I agree in the sense that the odds of guessing all 9 characters correctly are so astronomically low if you're just guessing and really don't have any context for the contest, even if you know video game characters in general.

Yeah, if you poll people randomly and ask them who the nine most popular characters were on GameFAQs back in the day, nobody will successfully guess all nine.

Chat GPT knows who they are.

It has to be less than a thousand

Mobilezoid posted...

I'm a lifelong B8er and I can only name eight of them. I'm going to feel silly once I realize who's missing...

Same. I can't believe I forgot that Sonic was on the list. It probably would've come to me eventually.

Paratroopa1 posted...

Mentally I always remember the Noble Nine like this:

The three Nintendo ones: Mario, Link, Samus
The three Square ones: Cloud, Sephiroth, Crono
the two blue ones: Mega Man, Sonic
And also: Snake

I could never make Snake work into the mnemonic but whatever

i can name the noble nine thanks to user paratroopa1

I forgot Snake. I knew it was someone in Smash, but Kirby, Pikachu, or Bowser all seemed wrong.

The Guru contest used to get about 200 entrants in its day, right? I figure that's got to be around the ceiling, and that's not accounting for those who have moved on enough to have forgotten a few.

Clinkeroth
Mario, Crono
Samus, Snake
Sonic, Mega Man

Thats the order I remember them

With the conditions given, and given there's people in this very topic that forgot...less than a hundred sounds right to me, though like if it was 110 I wouldn't be shocked.

108

The 108 Stars of Destiny.

Around a thousand. No one outside of B8 regulars cares.

OrangeCrush980 posted...

Around a thousand. No one outside of B8 regulars cares.

Are you saying that there are a thousand b8 regulars?

okay yes it is Mega Man then I'm good

was counting with my fingers and when I got to that I was like... is it??

Paratroopa1 posted...

The three Nintendo ones: Mario, Link, Samus
The three Square ones: Cloud, Sephiroth, Crono
the two blue ones: Mega Man, Sonic
And also: Snake

As a non-contest person but has been around here for almost two decades to where I have picked some things up, I knew Chrono as the one-game oddity was a member, but I would have otherwise only guessed Mario, Link, Snake, and probably Cloud if quizzed on it.

I guess that I didn't realize that they were all 80s/90s Japanese game characters. I don't know who my other four guesses would have been (Yoshi, Master Chief, Pac-Man, and Ryu/Chun-Li maybe?)

Well, the Noble Nine was established in 2002, so it could really only be 80s/90s characters

Link Cloud Seph
Mario Snake Samus
Sonic Mega Man Crono

I always think of them in those three tiers, which was probably their strength levels at one point. I thought everybody here would have them ingrained in their memory tbh, I'm surprised many don't!

Also I'm mildly startled at how obscure this knowledge is even among B8 regulars - it took me no time at all to name the nine and I'm surprised that my post is like, a spoiler for some reason. Kind of shakes me to my core a bit

100 to 110 would have been my guess.

But i think we may me underselling how many b8 regulars we've had.

It could be double that.

my gut was around 200

also i began the count in my head with 'clinkeroth'

Leafeon13N posted...

100 to 110 would have been my guess.

But i think we may me underselling how many b8 regulars we've had.

It could be double that.

Oh, we've had hundreds at various points in B8's history

I'd wager a lot of them have forgotten or just didn't care enough about contests to learn them in the first place

Dante posted...

my gut was around 200

also i began the count in my head with 'clinkeroth'

As you should

Paratroopa1 posted...

Also I'm mildly startled at how obscure this knowledge is even among B8 regulars - it took me no time at all to name the nine and I'm surprised that my post is like, a spoiler for some reason. Kind of shakes me to my core a bit

I don't think it's exactly obscure knowledge, but it's been so long since a Character Contest that I'm not surprised some people are struggling to name all nine off the top of their heads.

Knowledge of who the Noble Nine is is just sort of carved on my soul at some point, I think I'll still remember when I'm 80

Yeah, it's one of those things I'll remember on my death bed but most people weren't as obsessed with contests as I was and sometimes that's easy to forget

I think people are way undershooting this. Probably a few hundred decisively know it and then probably looking at around 1000 who almost know the answer and can luck into the others just by casually following contests

Like I have a friend who has never been on this board who I think has a pretty high chance of getting it right. I may ask him next time I see him.

I only got to 7/9.

Forgot Snake and for some reason thought Sonic wasn't part of the nine.

Paratroopa1 posted...

Also I'm mildly startled at how obscure this knowledge is even among B8 regulars - it took me no time at all to name the nine and I'm surprised that my post is like, a spoiler for some reason. Kind of shakes me to my core a bit

Yeah my initial thought was "several hundred" but seeing some of the replies here I'm definitely reevaluating that

Link - Casual contest followers get this
Cloud - Casual contest followers get this
Sephiroth - Casual contest followers get this
Mario - Freebie
Sonic - Freebie
Crono - Think casual contest followers get this cause of the funny Mario matches and Chrono Trigger being a big deal in game contests. Many miss if his name needs to be spelled.
Samus, Mega Man, Snake - Probably where most of the misses are among casuals but think you'd get many who could luck into naming the three.

Lopen posted...

Sonic - Freebie

Apparently not as much of a freebie as I'd have thought based on this topic so far!

I only missed Mega Man but I doubted Sonic for a minute when I thought of him. He has been barely relevant for such a long time, he's eaay to forget

Leonhart4 posted...

Apparently not as much of a freebie as I'd have thought based on this topic so far!

I think being a b8 regular actually hurts Sonic. Lots of poison about Magus and Vincent being stronger and stuff

"Sonic isn't relevant" is an old man take

Still super popular among kids

Sonic is more relevant now than he was for the majority of the contests

Lopen posted...

Sonic is more relevant now than he was for the majority of the contests

For real LMAO

I still remember the characters, Im kind of surprised that people who still know what B8 is are struggling with it.

Maybe a simpler way for some to remember would just be to think about the contest results themselves. And you really only need to remember one of them to get there, because if I recall correctly, the final eight characters in the 2004 contest were:

Link vs. Crono
Mega Man vs. Solid Snake
Cloud vs. Sephiroth
Sonic vs. Samus

Youd only be missing one from there, and it shouldnt be hard to realize that its Mario.

I think of it in terms of match results from the first contest, which defined the noble nine. Link won, his finals opponent Mario virtually tied Cloud and Crono, Link's semifinal opponent Sephiroth virtually tied Mega Man and had a very close match with Samus, who virtually tied Sonic. That just leaves Snake, who took me a few extra seconds to remember. He did alright against Crono but I think might have actually had a lower x-stat value than like, Ryu, unless you adjust Mario to account for SFF.

i'd probably say 250-ish. a lot of people on this board, and the odd person on GameFAQs who doesn't go here

I remember when Sephiroth got revealed for Smash and I jokingly said Crono was going to be next character and two people I know did not visit this board instantly got the reference

Leonhart4 posted...

"Sonic isn't relevant" is an old man take

Still super popular among kids

Yeah Sonic is like, the third-MOST currently relevant character out of the Noble Nine (depending on where you rank Cloud/Sephiroth)

My little 3 year old nephew was talking about running around like Sonic and I don't think that family is particularly into video games