LogFAQs > #947875291

Division 1 Round 1: Cecil Harvey, Jade Curtiss, Wario, and Zack Fair

Cecil - 22142 [16.35%]
Jade - 8023 [5.92%]
Wario - 44824 [33.09%]
Zack - 60472 [44.64%]
Total Votes - 135461

To this day I don't know or care whether or not Tales of the Abyss is any good, despite actually owning the game. At some point I should log all the games I own that I haven't played yet, but to the point. This match had two major stories in it. One was how utterly goofy it was as a first match for a contest. In every contest leading up to this one, the first match winner, in order: Mario, Link, Mario 3, Link, Bowser, Mario, The Legend of Zelda's series, Samus, and Yoshi.

Yoshi is a clear oddball in that bunch, and then this match happened. Cecil, Jade, Wario, and Zack isn't exactly the murderer's row that is LinkMarioSamus, yet here they were in all their glory setting the tone for the entire contest.

And set the tone they did. That is a <i>ridiculous</i> vote total. Jade getting blown out is who cares, but I did a little homework here. If you plop Cecil's 22142 votes into the 2020 games contest, only Breath of the Wild and Mario Odyssey have any individual performances that are better. Isn't it nuts how far we ended up falling? A little falloff is okay, but looking back on the old polls really makes it eye-opening.

The other story was Wario and Zack. Board 8 is a smart bunch, and after an entire contest where we all screwed up our fourway picks by underestimating overlapping fanbases, we all adjusted accordingly. Most of us saw Cecil and Zack in a poll together with Wario sticking out like a sore thumb, we had all played Brawl for the entire year, and we penned in Wario > Zack and moved on. A few people didn't think Cecil would hurt Zack at all and got rewarded for it big time. This poll was close for a couple minutes, but then Zack just annihilated these clowns. We would see in later rounds it was no fluke, either, but more on that when it comes time for ZackFAQs. As of this match, there wasn't much evidence that this wasn't just Zack strutting all over a bunch of garbage. It's not like Cecil and Wario have ever been worth much.

Wario may have gotten second place here and advanced in the contest, but this was just an embarrassing performance by him. I know people who have played those WarioWare games defend them to death, but let's not pretend the vast majority of his popularity doesn't come from Smash -- and given Brawl plus the massive Nintendo boost, Wario should have handled his business. Let's not pretend Crisis Core was any good, either. Zack is an amazing character, but his game is garbage. I will never be convinced otherwise. Crisis Core was so bad I can't even bothered to review it, and that's WITH abusing Costly Punch to speed through it.

This was just the start. The <i>real</i> king was coming in match #2.

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