Lurker > Evillordexdeath

That option names Cloud because he placed second and has consistently been a top-ranking character in these contests.

Alucard

Alucard

He was never actually a SOLDIER, First Class. As a matter of fact, most of the deeds he attributes to himself in the flashback at Kalm actually belong to Zack Fair.

I don't think Samus can ever beat Mario. But then again, before tonight I would've said the same about Tifa beating Sephiroth.

FullArmourEva00 posted...

People stopped being teenage edgelords and are more willing to accept charm. Same reason why Vincent fell off a cliff and why Vivi has relatively gained. Or why Kirby and Pikachu have risen. (And why Pokmon completely stopped getting anti-voted - people got over the edgy "I am too cool for Pokmon" thing).

It's always seemed to me that a lot of the negativity toward FFVII comes from a similar "teenage" contrarianism to what made us anti-vote Pokemon though. People often talk about how overrated it is.

It became cool to hate FFVII very quickly. Back when Pikachu was still getting wrecked by Fox in GameFAQs contests, Cloud and Sephiroth already had their abysmal early vote, for example. It's just that FFVII being cool to hate has been a very long-lasting phenomenon. I'm not sure why that is, but I don't really believe that it's because it's more mature to hate "edgy" things and like cute things.

I'm inclined to think that there was something 'anomalous' about the Zelda/Squall match and that she isn't as strong as it suggests. The fact that Aeris outdid his percentage is part of the reason for that. MGS has kind of looked like crap but I think Snake can still pull it off. I don't think I'll take him over Mario or Samus though.

ExThaNemesis posted...

Ganondorf just had one of the biggest games of all time drop for him.

Don't talk to me about Mario Odyssey, Mario doesn't boost from his new games.

This site has never really appreciated Galaxy much either. I wouldn't be surprised if it was the same for Odyssey.

FFVII has been doing well enough all contest that I think the match is debatable now. Taking Cloud to grand finals seems like an okay pick too.

But I wouldn't advocate taking Pikachu against the Poke-slayer.

Goku isn't in because Darth Vader did too well in the Villains contest Gamespot had in 2010.

I've got one currently ongoing, playing with a friend. We get together about once per week. Last thing we did was recruit Vincent.

I have 5 - Ganondorf, Bowser, Auron, Tifa, and Sephiroth. Feel kind of stupid for not taking Pikachu.

Division 8 is the only one I have perfect.

Aeris will beat Squall's percentage, thus proving that waifu factor is real.

I think that Kirby has always done better in multi-way polls, so something like a "sore thumb factor" seems reasonable.

Because it isn't an omnipotent factor. It just helps a character score a little higher than she would otherwise.

(At least in theory. I'm not a particular proponent of Waifu Factor.)

Sephiroth has been rising in percentage fairly steadily over the past hour. He's up more than 2% from where he was at 7:35, which was about when the trend started.

I think that the winner of this match should be the favorite against Luigi either way. I doubt either result helps him much.

Geralt takes the lead.

He's the main character of what is probably a top 3 game on this site popularity-wise. If anything he's weak with that considered.

I think his design is pretty good too. Don't know how much of an impact that has though.

There are a few well-established reasons why a character like Aqua would do poorly.

First, her game is relatively low status within its series. There are a lot of people who only played KH I & II and never bothered with the "spin-offs." This limits the size of her audience. She's also only one of three player characters in her own game, which further reduces her individual prominence. It's easy to imagine people playing KH and never encountering her, but that can't really be said of people playing Xenosaga and KOS-MOS.

On top of that, voters here seem to be pretty apathetic toward Kingdom Hearts this year, judging by how poorly Sora and especially Riku did.

Chloe is destined for the bottom five of the X-stats, that much is clear.

I expect Sephiroth will climb in percentage similar to Squall, which should make him look pretty good.

Ammy starting out with 90%. Good to see.

Drake is one of the biggest jobbers in the history of these things.

I had Claire in my bracket. I figured the only real argument for Joker was that Claire would be even weaker, but based on Nakurami I didn't think she would be quite that bad. The 2 seed might have thrown some people off just because they would've thought that Joker would have bracket votes or something.

Today was a relatively difficult day to get completely right. All four of these matches have some possibility for debate, though the character who probably should have been the favorite is currently winning each one. I would expect a lot of movement on the leaderboard once we get the results.

Pac-Man is Hillary Clinton specifically. He must have been nominated by a lot of Persona fans.

metaIslug posted...

Where did your life go so wrong?

I'm curious about this one too.

How many brackets did you make in total?

I think that Waluigi's current percentage is good compared to what you'd expect him to get naturally.

It was always a matter of whether he'd get rallied or not.

There was a push on this board for Captain Toad in particular. I don't know what the original reasoning for choosing him over just Toad was though.

Toad was at something like 57% before Shovel Knight cut most of that away in two updates. Their match has stalled since, but if he had kept up that pace he would've won easily. He'd already have the lead.

Aeris will probably start to gain percentage similar to Squall. If she doesn't, her chances against Fox look to be slim.

FSABot posted...

After seeing D.va and Fox, who is the favorite there next round?

Fox unless Dva gets a rally, as always.

Aloy is probably bottom 10 in terms of strength.

Yeah, I would expect Waluigi to do much better with the board vote than the rest of the match.

votes guile

Glenn_and_Toad posted...

I imagine that for many it will Aerith (15), Bomberman (also 15), or Claire (also 15)

I have all three of these.

One thing that gave me pause was that Sephiroth would've lost to Kirby in 2013 if only registered users' votes counted. It just seems very hard to have faith in him or Cloud with the loss of vote totals and that apparent apathy toward them from people here. I still don't think they'll lose to lower-rank characters like Ryu or Luigi or even Mega Man, but I do think it's enough to let Samus/Mario/Snake bring them down.

Who do you have in loser's finals against him? A factor like that might put Snake or Cloud over the edge against Mario, but I don't think it would be enough to get Samus the win over him, just because he buries her so much in SFF.

I definitely think it's possible for one of the Noble Nine to fall to someone outside it. Crono or Sonic, most likely, with perhaps a vague outside possibility that it's Sephiroth. Like with rallies, I don't like the odds of any single possibility enough to pull the trigger on them myself. Bowser/Kirby > Crono is a legitimate pick for those who are interested. Squall > Sonic is probably less likely but could still happen.

Battle 145: Cloud vs Mega Man

Perhaps there is some possibility of debate here, but my guess is that Cloud hasn't fallen quite this far yet. Cloud wins with 54%

Battle 146: Snake vs Samus

Snake outdid Samus' percentage on Cloud in 2010 and beat her directly in 2013, so there's no shortage of good reason to pick him. I think that this match is a tossup despite those results, though. In 2010 he faced Cloud after upsetting Sephiroth and people wanted to see him keep going. In 2013 we all abandoned Samus to rally behind Snake, hoping that we could take down Draven.

That was five years ago. We have to simply guess how much stronger or weaker each of these characters will be. Samus should be fine, since Nintendo is on a resurgence and she's finally had a new game that people like. It always surprised me that she did so well in 2013 despite Other M being her most recent game at the time. Snake is harder to gauge. I don't think Ultimate will do that much for him, so it's all about guessing what kind of impact Konami's public meltdown will have on his strength. Maybe it will make people more hesitant to vote for him, but on the other hand, it might give them some greater sympathy for him.

I consider Mario and Samus to be indirect equals, so for the purpose of this bracket it doesn't make sense to take Mario > Snake and then Snake > Samus. Samus wins with 50.5%

Battle 147: (1) Link vs (7) Mario

The 2002 final. Link wins with 65%

Battle 148: Cloud vs Samus

For most of the bracket selection period, I had Cloud making his way through loser's bracket to meet Link in the final. After eight years of contest drought, rivalry rumbles, and rallies, that would almost be a nice change of pace.

What I said about Sephiroth back during Sephiroth/Ryu applies to Cloud as well, except that he was the one SFFing Seph back in the day and he beat Snake in 2010. And perhaps the target on his back isn't quite as large or shiny as the one Sephiroth carries. Nonetheless, hating FFVII has been an incredibly enduring pastime on the internet. Remember that Gamespot Villains contest from 2010? General RAAM made a deep run in that one. Who's that? He's what passes for a final boss in the first Gears of War. No one remembers or cares about him. He advanced simply by virtue of being against Sephiroth in round 1.

In the past, and on this site, vote totals were so high and the FFVII duo so mighty that this didn't really matter. There simply weren't that many times when they were close enough to someone else for another site to throw their weight behind that opponent and bring Cloud or Sephiroth down. Back then, they could score like 60% on Mario or Samus. Now registered users here are abandoning them and we aren't numerous enough in any case to really support them, so 4chan or someone will be able to give Samus the win here if they want - and they probably will. If she still needs it in the first place. If Snake is here instead, it's all the same. Samus wins with 52%

Battle 149: Mario vs Samus

We've seen it before. Mario wins with 60%

Battle 150: Link vs Mario

You know, Nintendo icons would do well on any site. But Cloud and Sephiroth being gods? That was us. We've given up our identity as a site, and this boring final is the punishment we deserve. Link wins with 65%

Battle 137: Mega Man vs Ganondorf

Ganon can't leech this hard. Mega Man wins with 58%

Battle 138: Crono vs Bowser

Rematch. Crono wins with 55%

Battle 139: Sonic vs Squall

Sorry Leon. Sonic wins with 53%

Battle 140: Samus vs Sephiroth

I don't think there's a wide enough space between Samus and Mario indirectly. Samus wins with 51%

Battle 141: (1) Link vs (4) Cloud Strife

We've seen this match once or twice before. Link wins with 58%

Battle 142: (3) Solid Snake vs (7) Mario

Snake seems to have become the consensus #2 character in the view of this board. That's perfectly understandable, given his performance in 2013 and the apparent general trend of him growing stronger over time. I must admit to being tempted to jump ship to him myself, but I'm afraid that we may be falling into two pitfalls there, which I have discussed previously in this topic.

First, the assumed extension of old trends. It's been a long time since 2013, and some things appear to have changed. We're more obsessed with 90s nostalgia than ever, if the Games contest of 2015 is anything to go by. Metal Gear's reputation as a series has really tanked. It did poorly in both of the games contests which have taken place since Snake's 2010 run. First, the games nearly got routed by SotC. Then, they lost all over the place in 2015 - 4 to KHII, 5 to Dark Souls, and III to SMRPG. All of these matches might have been winnable once upon a time. So although this evidence is not exactly iron-clad, it's also uncertain if Snake will still be riding high.

The second pitfall is putting any stock into the 2013 contest. Mario lost in a horrible match, where he was specifically targeted, long before he met Snake. When Snake faced Samus, he was energized by being the chosen last hope to defeat Draven. So if you think Snake makes the finals based on 2013, I hope you have Mewtwo making a deep run as well. Snake had an easy path to the finals. He faced characters like GLaDOS, Kefka, and Alucard until he reached the semi-final, where he fought Pikachu and Squirtle at once, though he scored 51%, to his credit. Samus' path was very similar, by the way - only Mega Man overcame the hurdle of fighting a Pokemon while weighed down. Snake did extraordinarily well against Link in the bonus poll and he also outdid Samus' percentage on Cloud in 2010, but I suspect that he benefited from a kind of bandwagoning in both cases.

At first, I had Sephiroth beating Mario and the losing to Snake, since he lost that match in 2010. That didn't make sense to me, and I ended up switching over to Mario beating them both. Even after all that I've just written, I do think it's close and Snake pulling it out wouldn't shock me too much. But don't be surprised if he's not the #2 character you expected. Mario wins with 51%

Battles 143 & 144: Mega Man vs Crono & Sonic vs Samus

The hierarchy in both of these matches is pretty clear. Mega Man & Samus win with 55%

Rallies seem to be very all or nothing these days. I would say that if she beats Squall she wins the contest. Hell, if she beats Jill/Fox, I'll call the contest in her favor.