LogFAQs > #910419870

I do think that Shadow > Ness is a respectable pick. In Ness' defense, Big Daddy held up relatively well on Tifa and is actually ahead of Ammy in the X-stats, which also predict a close win for Ness against Shadow. Shadow is quite a strange entity in these contests, going from his close loss to Mario to losing to Tidus in one year, and in 2008 he even lost to Zidane. That's a significant one because Ness beat Zidane directly in 2007 (though he might have been helped by being the only Nintendo character in that poll.) After Earthbound and the SNES doing so well in 2015 it makes sense that Ness would do a little better than usual, while people's perception of Shadow only seems to get worse over time.

I can't really see the argument for Lightning. I'd have to hear the case for her.

Division 5

Battle 105: (1) Squall vs (4) Zelda

Squall is really strong in these things - comparable to Vincent, Auron, Tifa, and possibly even Sonic. He wrecked Yoshi in 2008, and easily dispatched Missingno in 2013. Zelda, for her part, is no slouch either, but if you compare their performances against Vincent and Aeris, Squall is definitely ahead. I think he should be the favorite. People are expecting a BotW boost for Zelda, and I'm sure there will be some effect, but to my knowledge it takes a long time for her to actually appear in person in that game. A principle in these things is that characters who only show up much later on tend to be very weak, so I expect the same to apply to boosts from new games. Zelda does talk to you using telepathy right from the beginning, but I don't think there will be enough of a positive association with her disembodied voice to boost her over Squall. Also, KHIII hype, boys. Leon wins with 53%

Battle 106: (11) Fox McCloud vs (15) Aeris Gainsborough

Back in the day this would've been an easy call for Aeris. The 2002 and 2003 stats project her to score around 70% of the vote. Fast forward to 2010 and that number drops to 50.5. We've had eight more years for Aeris to decline since then. The prevailing wisdom on this board is that FFVII will be much weaker now than it was in 2010, extending an observable trend that had been going since about 2003. I suspect that most people would take Fox now on the basis of that trend.

The tricky thing is that with such a long gap, we can't say for sure that the trend has continued. In 2015, the SNES dominated and FFVII looked pretty good, although Ocarina beat it soundly in the bonus poll. People mainly explain that dominance with the idea that GameFAQs' demographics have shifted toward the old, and therefore 90s games, and the SNES in particular, will dominate. But if that is true, it might revivify FFVII somewhat. Few things should be as closely associated with nostalgia for this site's userbase.

I don't like favoring Fox in a debatable matchup, because I've picked him out of fanboyism before and it's burned me. It's a difficult call, mainly because we don't really know what Aeris is worth today. She lost to Shepard in 2013, but Fox's own performance in that contest is even more humiliating. Aeris wins with 51%