Board 8 > Fourpack of Fun: Phoenix Wright/Ness, Commander Shepard/Zidane Tribal

(+) Yeah! (+)

Felt like a good combo of characters here, so let's see how it goes.
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Ness > Shep

First off, Ness likes to surprise us by winning matches nobody would normally pick him in. Second, Smash hype.
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Shepard>Phoenix

Would be fairly surprised if it went any other way. Shepard beat Aeris who is a step above anyone else here, and Phoenix beat Marth who is around Ness' equal. Shepard would have to have dropped a ton since 2k13, which is...actually possible considering how badly ME has fallen off the map since then. Think he has enough lingering sentiment to take this though.
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Mass Effect stock isn't about to rise and FFIX was just announced for Switch, so I'm taking Zidane there. Earthbound is definitely on the upswing and Phoenix hasn't had a reason to rise since his last contest, so I picked Ness. Ness/Zidane is the hard one, so I fanboyed and picked Ness.
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Underleveled posted...

First off, Ness likes to surprise us by winning matches nobody would normally pick him in.

He hasn't done that in a while! In fact, he's done the opposite quite a bit more recently (See: Big Daddy and both of his 4-way losses)!

But yeah, I put Shepard here because I wanted to see if people thought he'd tanked enough to lose this match since he's easily above all these guys in 2010 and 2013.

I doubt ports help anyone because they're mostly for people who are fans already but no longer possess another way to play it.

Also, Phoenix's 2013 success came before the resurrection of the series, so he certainly does have reason to be stronger.
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Shepard wins. Not sure against who though.
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Shepard > Phoenix seems pretty obvious here. Shepard is pretty clearly above Zidane and Phoenix, and Phoenix is pretty clearly above Ness.
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Looks like this one is a curbstomping, huh.

Glad to see people still have at least some confidence in Shep!
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Yeah, Shep would have to fall pretty hard to be put in danger of losing this fourpack. Phoenix should beat Ness, but I wouldn't be terribly shocked if Ness could do better than Marth.
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Yeah I'm not 100% sure on Phoenix/Ness (voted Phoenix), but I would be pretty surprised to see Shepard lose this 4-pack.
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Phoenix Wright over Ness, definitely. The rest is a bit trickier.

Phoenix could be stronger than we give him credit for. People seem to think that 2nd round Mewtwo must be weaker than 3rd round Mewtwo in the contest, but I can't find a reason for that. Squirtle and other Pokemon arguably didn't get any stronger the next round, so why would Mewtwo? Food for thought.

Realistically, though, Phoenix's performance against Mewtwo suggests Phoenix would get 45% on Sonic, which I find hard to believe, though, even if Sonic's at an all-time low. It makes it look like Phoenix's round 2 performance was flukier than Vincent's! If you compare Sonic's and VIncent's performances, Vincent gets a whopping 41% on Sonic. Perhaps if we switch Phoenix and Vincent's percentages around that would paint a more accurate picture of each character without needing to adjust Mewtwo.

That said... Shephard over Zidane because, as great as VIvi looked in 2013, Zidane did not. Then....hmmmm... Phoenix over Shephard! This is based on the assumption that Phoenix has gained and Shephard has fallen, which may be totally wrong, but hey.
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As much as the thought of Phoenix being a near elite now delights me, I kinda doubt it's the case.
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LeonhartFour posted...

As much as the thought of Phoenix being a near elite now delights me, I kinda doubt it's the case.

Yeah, this would also require Marth to be substantially stronger than ever as well.
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Shepard wins easy. I think Phoenix vs. Ness is trickier I really think it could go either way to be honest. Switch/Smash hype I think helps just about any Nintendo character, but who knows how strong Phoenix has gotten since 2013. 2015's contest doesnt really help because wasn't PWAA's match right after an Undertale so it had a lot of rally overflow and even then it still lost to Skyrim.

I think Ness would probably be the safe pick, but Phoenix definitely has a shot
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Yeah, Skyrim/PW1 was right after Undertale/ME3, but it still did pretty well, all things considered.
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I'm kinda surprised Zidane is second place. He's consistently been the weakest character of the four.
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LeonhartFour posted...

I'm kinda surprised Zidane is second place. He's consistently been the weakest character of the four.

People who are picking for consistency are putting Shep at the top no matter what.

People who are picking based on perceived current trends (i.e. "everyone hates Mass Effect now") are also thinking that FF9 (and really FF as a whole) just got a Nintendo bump from that last Direct, plus general pro-FF goodwill. That's my guess, anyway.

By either reckoning, Nick and Ness both look weaker than whoever is the winner of Shep/Zidane. I'm sure that everyone who has Shep winning would probably put Zidane near the bottom of this fourpack, though.
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Zidane was on par with Ike in 2010 (got 48.45% in a day match) and intuitively Ness > Ike sounds wrong, though I might pick it at this point. Then Zidane got 43.58% on Dante in 2013, which is really good if you assume Dante didn't drop and Squirtle wasn't hurting Dante worse somehow. Vivi's 2013 showing supports that performance on Dante not necessarily being a fluke. And Ness has a good chance of having boosted since 2013 (though it's not like he had reliable matches to measure him that year; Locke & CATS in Round 1, SFF by Luigi Round 2) due to Earthbound getting stronger but FFIX's gotten stronger too.

I didn't vote Zidane but I'm not ruling him out. It's a little hard to believe the upper estimates of his strength given how weak he used to be but, say, 2010 Kefka already looked much better than he ever had before and then he went from 38% on Bowser that year to 35% on Snake only 3 years later. So maybe Zidane really could be strong enough to win this.
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Well, Kefka had a reason to get better (Dissidia giving him good pics). I don't think Zidane has that reason. It's also why I think people should be trying to get Locke back in, but I don't think it's gonna happen.

I'm almost inclined to throw out most of CBIX because so much of what we saw that year doesn't mesh with other contests, and not just the rallies. Maybe CBX will back it up, but who knows. The format may have thrown things off, although I never bothered doing adjusted stats to try to make sense of what happened then.
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Phoenix wouldn't have to be a near-elite to win the four-pack, since Shepherd himself is a probably a mid-carder. He struggled to beat Aeris. It's hard to peg Aeris' strength, but she probably dropped a bunch along with Vincent/Cloud/Sephiroth. Consider this: Phoenix beat Vincent by more than Shepherd beat Aeris and Vincent's supposed to be much more popular! Granted, there's the pic factor for Vincent, but I think it's enough for us to say it's not impossible for Phoenix to win.

AGH, curse the spelling!
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He wouldn't have to be to win, but if the CBIX results are legit, he would be.

Also, Tifa didn't drop a bunch, so it's possible Aerith didn't either.
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I would be a happy man if Aerith was immune just like Tifa, but also sad because then Phoenix wouldn't win this four-pack.
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I think Phoenix in multi way is much stronger than Phoenix head to head. Ness vs Jecht I can maybe see a Ness win from but its hard to say, mainly cause I think Earthbound has gotten more exposure in recent years

Shepard probably dropped considerably but if given a good pick should beat the rest of this pack, peopl still like the trilogy

Shepard > Ness but tricky
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I dunno. I think Phoenix has just gotten more popular over the years. There hasn't been too much evidence of characters who do better depending on the format in general anyway. He finished well behind Magus twice (and barely beat Bomberman and Crash Bandicoot) in 2007. That Jecht performance 1-on-1 a few years later (as well as Phoenix/Edgeworth in RR) seems to indicate that he's just come a long way since breaking GFNW.
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Last bump.
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LeonhartFour posted...

He wouldn't have to be to win, but if the CBIX results are legit, he would be.

Also, Tifa didn't drop a bunch, so it's possible Aerith didn't either.

I'm willing to side with Aerith still being decently strong, if not because Shepherd managed to look decently impressive in the face of the Last Place Factor to end all Last Place Factors.
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