LogFAQs > #913960423

Ah, the 16 year runback. Cloud and Mario have shared polls but they've never been especially fair. This is the runback of one of the 3 or 4 biggest contest matches of all time, 2002's Cloud vs. Mario match that happened on the day Mario Sunshine came out and had a massive rally from some site that probably doesn't exist anymore because it was called Planet GameCube. Because of this match, it was hard to see that Cloud was actually a killer, and we still to this day don't totally know if Square just boosted a ton in 2003 or if the rally disguised it. Nothing got within 40% of 2002 Link, a refrain that feels especially resonant today.

For our more nerdy audience, this match is hugely important because it's the only true chance to compare the top and bottom of the bracket. There's so much Nintendo that it's hard to see the forest from the trees. Cloud got rocked by Link, but Zelda is taking it even worse today despite leading for the first 10 minutes. The consensus has been Mario and Samus over Cloud, but Zelda's kind of thrown a wrench into that. Is Link SFFing Zelda, and if so, wouldn't you expect it to be worse than this? It's hard to say.

I guess this match comes down to two comparisons:could Mario get 57% on Crono? And could Cloud reverse the 59/41 Mario/Sephiroth result? If Samus had managed to overcome Mario yesterday, I would feel a lot better about picking the Nintendo character. Samus has always shown well and Cloud has clearly lost a step from his glory years. Samus probably is the true #2 character, or maybe #3 if you throw Zelda into the mix. That would have been such a cool losers final matchup.

Mario vs. Cloud is a different story. I think Mario still wins, if only because I can't see Cloud overcoming the gap between Mario and Sephiroth. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but Cloud's projected to beat Bowser by about as much as Mario beat Sephiroth. I'm not picking Bowser over Sephiroth and so I cannot go with Cloud here. I have a temptation, and maybe Leon will take it and run with it, but I'll go with the stupid plumber who always pulls BS matches out of his butt over Cloud yet again. Prove me wrong, Cloud. I'd rather see Cloud/Zelda than Mario/Zelda. Yick.

transience's prediction: Mario with 52.82%

Leonharts Analysis

This is a match we havent seen since the original Character Battle. Its kind of strange that weve managed to avoid a rematch for so long considering how long these two have been among our strongest non-Link characters. I thought Id have a better grasp on how strong these two would be by this point in the contest, but Im still not really sure. The only non-SFF match Mario has had so far was against Sephiroth, where he looked very impressive (right up until Sephy lost to Tifa anyway). Then he lost to Zelda and should have lost to Samus, but theres really no shame in either of those things this year.

Weve seen a little bit more out of Cloud (although I wish we had gotten to see him against Mega Man instead of facing Crono twice). Hes way out of Links league now, but so is everybody else. Its still hard to say where exactly he is now, although hes certainly separated himself from the lower half of the Noble Nine, if nothing else. Where is he in relation to Mario? Its hard to say, but in the current environment, Mario is probably the safer bet of the two.

But Im going to pick Cloud because what else have I got to lose at this point? Its also the only really good result left on the board this year, which means its definitely not gonna happen, but whatever! Regardless, I think Cloud should be close enough that its worth the risk, although I thought the same thing about Snake/Samus, too!

Leonharts Vote: Cloud Strife

Leonharts Prediction: Cloud Strife with 51.61%
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