Lurker > Evillordexdeath

Hello Board 8. I'm Evildex. I've been a lurker on this board for years now.

I'll be posting a short analysis of each match in this topic, with an interval of time between each post, during which I hope some of you will provide your own thoughts. It should end up being similar to the topic currently being run by Leonhart4 (who is much more of a contest expert than I am.)

Let's get right into it.

Battle 1: (1) Dante vs. (16) Cuphead

Nothing to discuss here. Dante wins with 70%.

Battle 2: (8) Chloe Price vs. (9) Lightning

Lightning is weak in these things. She lost to Donkey Kong with a strong advantage from the format. She's a hated character from a hated game. Allen decided to place her against another often-hated female character. For those who don't know (and I can't blame you,) Chloe is the love interest from Life is Strange. A lot of people describe her in terms I can't repeat here. Lightning wins with 60%.

Battle 3: (5) Spyro the Dragon vs. (12) Chun-Li
I can see some people picking Spyro, but based on the respective histories of the two characters, Chun-Li should take it fairly easily. She once beat Lara Croft, while Spyro's only victory is against Clementine and Reyn. Chun-Li wins with 65%

Waluigi's 2 seed suggests that there are some people who are both interested in the contest and who want him to do well (probably because of the meme.) Being up against a FF7 character might help too, so on balance I'm inclined to believe it's most likely to be him.

You could say the same about Monika's 4 seed, and she does have a weak Round 1 opponent. I just think that her game is now too old to be the rally target.

I think we can rely on Dragonborn's 2013 performance enough to say that he's not a strong character. Leon (who is a top 30 character at least) will win that poll easily.

I think Sora wins easily.

Rivalry Rumble and Best Year weren't bad contests due to the lack of rallying, really. The main reason they were bad is because they were concepts that people just didn't really care about. It's impossible to really want to get out there and support a four-digit number. The lack of rallying is one symptom of that problem.

Personally, I think it would've been more interesting to see if Chrono Trigger could beat FF7/OoT, for instance, than to watch Undertale roll everything over. People tried to pretend, but that contest was effectively over as soon as it won its first match.

Batman

About a 7. Might change that score if I ever go back and finish it.

It's fine. I remember liking Kratos. Sometimes the humor is a bit much. I don't particularly love the way it handles dungeons or the combat system. It's not that any of that is bad, it's just a bit methodical and dull - the combos felt pretty repetitive when I played. A lot of RPGs have that problem, to be fair to the game.

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Full Metal Alchemist
Tom And Jerry

Gravity Falls
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oh god no

Kerrigan won that contest, for what it's worth.

Also, Vader would probably get like 40% on Link tops.

Blue
Youngster Joey

colliding posted...

An all time "great story" I think needs to do a bit more than just be entertaining... it needs to make you think and whatnot. It would be like saying an Agatha Christie novel has the best story in literature.

That being said, I'm not sure if any of the other choices are any closer.

I think you can make an argument for Xenogears, Bioshock, MGS, and especially Silent Hill 2 having that quality, out of the ones Axl posted.

Planescape definitely belongs in the discussion. It's really the opposite of the games I mentioned though: It's crushingly dialog-heavy. Sometimes the dialog options that it gives the player are paragraphs long, so that if you want to make sure you pick the proper choice you have to stop for ages at each branch and read through them all. Personally, I don't consider that to be especially good storytelling.

I voted Silent Hill 2 out of those. I also have some respect for Xenogears (a game I want to play again,) and Telltale's Walking Dead.

My actual favorite is Mother 3, though. It makes such good use of the medium, using things like in-battle text and variations on RPG examine text to help tell the story. Even though the main characters hardly ever speak it characterizes them pretty well using sequences that deal with their inner minds - it still manages to tell a very personal story. The soundtrack is also organized to draw connections between different areas and sequences, which do a lot to enhance the emotional impact of the story. The final battle is still the most emotionally draining thing I've seen in a game.

Honorable mention to Shadow of the Colossus. Excellent minimalistic storytelling in that game. The twist is great in that it isn't actually a twist but still surprises a lot of people, which does a lot to enhance SotC's particular themes. I voted for SH2 for similar reasons. It's understated and heavy on symbolism.

Death Note
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Gravity Falls

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Evangelion

__LeiaRolando__ posted...

It feel so authentic. And that is why it has the "wow" factor: It lets the player actually feel a bond with both each individual character and the group as a whole.

I agree that the characterization and the player's role are two of the strong points of the game (along with the completeness of the game in terms of content and the Persona system,) but I think it's overstating the case to say the player really gets to bond with them. Because of the limitations of the game it's inherently one-sided - that is, the characters confide their insecurities and wishes onto the player but the player has no way of confiding into them, because that would be a staggering, impossible thing to program. So it isn't as powerful as having real friends. Or at least it wasn't to me. That's not to say that I don't understand why people would get emotionally invested in the game or even that I didn't myself, though, mind you.

One of the things I didn't like about Undertale was that the content was structured in such a way that you ended up spending more-or-less exactly the same amount of time with all the major characters. That made it feel impersonal and as if the player was somewhat uninvolved. Most RPGs have a mechanism for that just in terms of who you take along with you the most. Persona does it one better with the combination of the social links and the timed system. In those games, you *can't* fully develop your relationships with everyone. Or at least you have to sacrifice almost everything else to do so. I think that's kind of cool.

I remember thinking Persona 4 was really good when I played it as a teenager, but I never went back to it and so it faded somewhat in my memory over the years. I think it kind of lacks the "wow" factor that the absolute top-tier games like Chrono Trigger and the Mother games have. Still clearly the most deserving game in the top five though (except maybe Tales of the Abyss. I can't really say on that one.) Glad it wasn't Pokemon.

South Park

Persona 4 (5)

Persona 4 (4)

Persona 4 (3)

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Persona 4 (2)

Persona 4

Tales of the Abyss

Gravity Falls
King of the Hill
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Monster

Persona 4

Abyss

Tales of the Abyss

I've always wanted to buy a complete copy of Earthbound, with the oversized box and the player's guide. I shelled out for the cartridge on its own a few weeks back but it would be nice to have the other things too.

Kingdom Hearts

Evangelion

pikachu;ryu

Forgot to bold last time

pikachu;ryu

Alucard - Castlevania III
Exdeath - Final Fantasy V
Fox McCloud - Star Fox
GlaDOS - Portal
Godot - Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations
Jak - Jak & Daxter
James Sunderland - Silent Hill 2
Knack - Knack
Lucas - Mother 3
Metal Sonic - Sonic CD
Mog - Final Fantasy VI
Ness - Earthbound
Ridley - Metroid
Roy - Fire Emblem: Fuuin no Tsurugi
PaRappa - PaRappa the Rapper
Shadow the Hedgehog - Sonic Adventure 2
Solair of Astora - Dark Souls
Sora - Kingdom Hearts
Vincent Valentine - Final Fantasy VII
Vivi - Final Fantasy IX

I don't really expect to like it. You guys are gonna have to sell me on it by making it win.

Not the result I would've asked for, but I can't say I'm too surprised - the writing was on the wall for Mother 3 for the last several rounds. It had a pretty good run for a Japan-only game.

Here's my prediction for the order of the top 5:

1. Persona 4
2. Tales of the Abyss
3. Pokemon Black and White
4. Kingdom Hearts
5. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

I figure P4 wins easily, which is a respectable enough choice, but I'm less sure about the ranking of the other 4. Personally, I don't particularly want to support any of these games. I haven't played TotA though. There's been a copy of the PS2 version at a game store in my town for a while. If it does place first, I'll buy it.

Mother 3

I have a buddy who always shortens it to "Evildex" which sticks with me in particular. Sometimes I use that short form myself, especially on sites that ask for your first and last name. I'll go with Evil Dex on those.

One of the fun things about this username is seeing what other people make of it. I've seen a lot of different variations over the years.