Lurker > Kotetsu534

Think we could have had a bit more of the recent Poke-fear of recent years, like:

OoT/RBY/FFVIII/MGS & OoT/RBY/Melee/FFX - I remember the months of debate about how much SFF RBY was being held back by after these matches. These performances were completely crazy.

Charizard v Bowser & Charizard v Mario - Charizard may now be weaker than Pika, but the inflamed version we saw in 2010 was awesome, dismissing Bowser like he was nothing then making Mario sweat.

Squirtle > Cloud - I mean it's 2013 which was just a mess of a contest, but still. Even now beating Cloud is no mean feat.

And perhaps a nod to a strong performance from a western 2010s game:

Skyrim v Goldeneye and/or Metroid Prime

Or a non to how even non-elite 90s games usually trounce strong/popular games from the last two decades:

SMRPG v RE4
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I can definitely see the importance in Mario/Samus proving that even (or especially?) between elites sometimes the poll has a life of its own completely separate from the natural strength of the characters. That sometimes you need to step back and think - faced with these two, or these four, who's the site really picking?
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LeonhartFour posted...

xp1337 posted...

And it looked like it might work because the rally topic was taken down on the LoL reddit, but then they put it back up with a sticky and the very next update was Draven just absolutely stomping on Snake's throat and the match was immediately over at that point.

I was reading through the old CBIX Stat Topics (because I had somehow lost the trend charts for that contest and cn's site was down and had been down for a while), and I had totally forgotten that somebody lied to the Subreddit admin that B8 had deliberately created and mass downvoted a rally topic so it wouldn't appear high on the Subreddit (since you could only have one rally topic at a time). The admin believed him and pinned the rally topic to the top. I think Draven had like a 1200 vote update on the very next update and we all knew it was sadly over.

This was a huge deal on the LoL subreddit. One thing they are extremely touchy about is vote manipulation. There was a lot of pushback against the mods at first that the rally threads should be removed (off-topic, where does it stop etc) or at least not be allowed to be renewed (i.e. you'd get one rally thread, but when it dropped naturally it shouldn't be replaced) but when people were convinced we were messing with their site they went pretty mad.
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Ulti_PCA posted...

Also, level with me. Are the games any good?

The games are great (3-5, but especially 4) but have a hardcore obsessive fanbase. They're a bit long-winded but there's some real sharp content in there (both in the fusion/battle system and in the characterisation and setting). A few years ago I submitted this as a blurb for Persona 4 when it was on B8's top 10 list posted site-wide:

Atlus Persona 4, released not so long ago in late 2008, could have been tailor made for board 8. Centred on a group of high school students, their developing friendships and hidden insecurities, the very lengthy RPG packs huge comical and emotive punch. The games most unusual and interesting aspect is that the split between time spent in the town of Inaba where the mute protagonist develops Social Links with various people, progresses characteristics such as intelligence and courage, and goes to school and time spent in the strange, hidden and dangerous world where he and his friends, with the usual physical and magical abilities, must rescue those lost inside, is governed by the player. The system of fusing Personas, the beings used by the cast, with different attributes and abilities has impressive depth. Backed up by a widely varied soundtrack, quality voice acting, and an unabashedly Japanese setting and style, Persona 4 fully deserves its place as one of Board 8s favourites.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/top10/2153-the-top-10-games-of-all-time-according-to-gamefaqs-contests
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That was the year Sora and Riku were getting mid-40s on Mega Man and Yoshi respectively (okay, a weak MM, but still). KH2 was strong but I just don't think the characters really "hit" with GameFAQs. Their strength faded pretty quickly. If the site had been ten years younger we played KH/2 at the same age we did OoT and FFVII they'd have been monsters (until Square ruined them anyway).
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Snake's also a badass voiced protagonist who is generally competent, level headed, and has memorable one liners. He's honestly not that far removed from Cloud (FFVII, disc one). MGS is also the kind of series that's suited to looking up/using walkthroughs in a way that many action games from that era weren't (lots of secrets, tricky boss battles).
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LeonhartFour posted...

Yeah, there was definitely a concerted effort to try to get Brawl to lose in the final. Majora jumped out to a huge lead early and then Brawl chopped away at it the rest of the match, but the damage was done at that point.

*sigh* Should've been FFX.

FFX/MM killed me. I've never been emotionally invested in contests but I was that year. My favourite game was within two matches of winning a contest! And it went down with 49.9% having led for most of the poll. Gutting loss. At least Brawl didn't win.
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Was that the highest votals in a match that wasn't obviously inflated with massive off-site rallies? Would be fitting.
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Ulti_PCA posted...

KamikazePotato posted...

Tumblr was an extremely popular site in 2015. It's fallen off some since then but I can absolutely believe that a large-scale rally came from there.

Allen pretty much said it was all referral links from twitter, which I honestly believe. Something like 20% of people in America are on twitter. It doesn't take much traffic from there to win a contest, and it's where the smart people try to rally from. Reddit and tumblr don't mean much. We found this contest that Twitch means literally nothing.

Thing about Twitter is your feed is personalised. If some random dude on Reddit posts a thread asking for help you probably don't care unless you already have strong feelings for the character - but if someone you know or respect enough to keep up with their thoughts does, you're probably going to listen. Something like the LoL Reddit worked because the community is massive and united around one game, but Twitter could in theory work for almost anything in the right circumstances.
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KamikazePotato posted...

Undertale was extremely lucky. Mass Effect 3 is a perfect first opponent for a rally to take off against.

Honestly all our rally champs had great fortune. As you say, UT had the perfect opponent to get things going. Draven had freakin' Jak and Chie as his R1 competiton - if he gets an N9 I don't see how he could turn that around in the few hours he'd have had. L-Block also got pretty fortunate and had the benefits of 4-ways - if it had been 1v1 it would have been much tougher to get off the ground.
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What kind of game even is The Last of Us, anyway? I have the PS3 version sitting right next to me.

A kind of gritty survival action game set in a post apocalyptic world with a deadly virus which turns people into deadly infected carriers (more deadly the longer they've had it). Therefore overwhelming power is used to keep people quarantined. Joel and Ellie scavenge supplies and weapons to eke through encounters and survive. More serious than RE4 but not entirely dissimilar. Very strong writing and characterisation (though people will debate e.g. the ending). Best played in long sittings I would suggest - can easily be knocked out out in 2-3 days. The follow up DLC might have gone a bit SJW for your tastes but the original is uncompromising.
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(You can make an argument for the double vote thing, but then Zelda came and obliterated Sonic a few days later. Maybe there was more votes for Snake too, I forget.)

Zelda beat Snake all votes weighted equally - in fact, Snake won among registered users!
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Nelson_Mandela posted...

transience posted...

The site shifted in 2005 to be more Nintendo-friendly

Has anyone ever had a solid theory for this? The Nintendo shift was so sudden and dramatic around 2006-2007. A year earlier and FFVII had even won its second best game ever title when CJayC did that top 10 list mini contest. Does anyone else remember that?

I think it's hard to look past the massive gap in how well Square and Nintendo managed their IP/reputation from mid-00s onward. Nintendo was pulling people to tears with amazing Twilight Princess reveal trailers and Smash Brawl hype was insane. The DS was a gigantic hit and began making Pokemon cool again. Square was putting games through development hell and they weren't particularly great when they finally arrived. Only KH2 was a real success post-03 (and it retains real strength even now). People wanted to like Square - remember how Zack Fair jumped up in strength with Crisis Core - but eventually they ran out of patience.
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Love your shoutouts to by-gone hilarity like the TV set and Call of Duty's swamp thing in 2010. Got a good laugh out of me anyway. Also, Adolf Hitler on the GameFAQs front page - that had slipped my mind.

And yeah Yuna is a superb character let down by a terrible voice acting approach. Apparently her voice actress was trying to lip sync her lines, but as Yuna's animations had been put together for the Japanese voices it really didn't work. FFX would've been a better game without voice acting, even if some characters were excellent (like Auron).

I missed this contest before Legends bracket so I'm seeing a lot of these matches for the first time... man there was a lot of junk in this for a 1v1 bracket.
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Most important matches - quite a lot to debate about why/why not a match could be seen as important. Was Draven beating Jak and Chie more "important" than most of his later wins in the sense that it proved he could rally his way from way behind to a win? Some early round matchups that led to or prevented SFF-fests in 4-ways could also be seen as important (think 2009 Games had a lot of this).
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Cloud > Mario & MM > Pika

I missed the contest pre-Legends bracket so there's probably something from it I would have enjoyed - Ammy > Draven sounds like the big one.
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Main: No entry.
Second chance: 364
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Just do it once. I don't foresee Link having any difficulty seeing off Batman, Wolverine, Goku & co. but it'd be fun to see. Aerith v Yoda I'd definitely check in to see how that's going down.

Then in 2020 we do the GOTD contest.
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Finals just tend to be closer I think. There's been quite a few overperformances in finals that seem a bit inexplicable. You need to have a huge advantage to really rock in the final and I don't think Link has it when there's an element of the site in "Anyone but Link" mode (Zelda threatening to run over the contest and come 2nd probably didn't help).
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I missed the whole of this contest (and the whole of the last contest, though it seems there wasn't much to miss) up to the Legends Bracket commencing, but as soon as I started reading you guys' write ups I was right back into it. Thanks.

Especially to Moltar - love your writing.
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I feel Cloud threw every last ounce of energy he could muster into trying to hold off Link to the freeze. He managed four minutes and then fell apart. Link too strong.
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Let's go Zelda v Final Fantasy in the finale.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8GRDNU50b8&list=PL8D1E4637261C45EF&index=67


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Cloud holding over 51%. Oh yeah. This is a proper rise to heaven - from 46.4% after 10 mins to 51% by the end.
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> Gets in from work. Checks GameFAQs.

> Sees Cloud hung around for an hour or two doing nothing then just went for it like a mad man and hasn't let up, relentlessly coming at Zelda all day.

> *Fist pumps*

Get in! Go Cloud! This is incredible stuff. Running back over Mario and Zelda to #2. Contest legend status affirmed. Okay he's gonna get caught by the LAW in 6 hours but that's secondary.
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Worth pointing out Zelda rose 0.6% against Mario from this point to the end of the poll which would suggest Cloud will have a harder job chasing/gaining today than yesterday, all things being equal.
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Link's about to win an entire contest with his lowest % being >60%. He can't even enjoy that being an all-time first... because the Years Contest was a thing.
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I'm actually flabbergasted. Square beating Nintendo in a close match? Cloud over freaking Mario?! Get in!


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Cloud is rocking in Colorado!
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Respect to Cloud for holding up and making a match of this in the Smash/BotW era. Re-established as the strongest non-Nintendo character by a distance even with Seph collapsing.
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Hope Cloud can at least take the lead during the night vote. He used to be able to pull hours off Link during it so it'd be pretty sad if he couldn't chase Mario down now.
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Spirit Tracks.
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Mario still got it. Samus DENIED.
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Mario getting screwed by bullshittery? Glorious.
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There's quite a lot of KH1 and KH2 in that.
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Vivi
Ammy
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She has such good pics today - regal and imperious, befitting our new contest queen's reign.
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From memory, Snake started off pretty decently against Zelda, right?
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The Owner of FF9 posted...

New Vegas? really?

Here is the mighty New Vegas: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/4213-best-of-2010-best-multi-platform-game-final

Though to be fair it managed to break 40% on RE4 in BGE2015:
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6142-best-game-ever-day-23-round-2-fallout-new-vegas-vs-resident
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Watching on TV: 2012 US Open Final - having followed Murray his entire career I stayed up into the small hours on Sunday to see him win his slam in 5 sets over Djokovic.

In the stands: Celtic 3-0 Shakhtar Karagandy (3-2 aggregate) - 2013 Champions League playoff - my team qualifies for the biggest club competition in the world from 2-0 down with a 3-0 win including a winner in the last minute. Such an intense match and the crowd was utterly insane.

Esports watching: SKT 3-2 ROX - League of Legends Worlds 2016 Semi-finals - level of play in this series was unbelivable.
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Guys please play VC4. It's a worthy sequel to VC1 that actually improves on the original in some ways. I should not be the only friggin person voting for it.
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Solid_Mike86 posted...

Is there a way to keep the match pictures up on the homepage? It's like once i vote i never see them again.

Right click -> new private window on the homepage link.
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Hats off to Mega Man for turning this around. Fully deserved.
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Pikachu took the lead for first time eight hours into the first match... he has plenty of time as long as MM doesn't get several hundred votes ahead.
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Crono and MM both went up on the first updates first time round... and both did so this time.

On the second update last time Crono started pulling away towards a 100 vote lead and MM reached the best % he would see in the whole match while up 100 votes.
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Oh this is getting very interesting.
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This is actually the most embarassing result for the N9 IMO. Sonic is scrambling to hold on to 40%. It's going to be an absolute blowout.
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Zelda is about to lay claim to #2 on this site.
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