Board 8 > ~*Ultimaterializer's Post-Contest Analysis!!*~

(+) Yeah! (+)

Tits are not the only reason people want Shantae in Smash.
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Division 3 Round 1: (5)Crash Bandicoot vs (12)Cecil Harvey

(5)Crash - 16115 [54.18%]
(12)Cecil - 13629 [45.82%]
Total Votes - 29744
Prediction Percentage - 73.02%

Cecil.

Harvey.

Never.

Wins.

GFNW (Gordon Freeman Never Wins) was one of the original contest memes, and it was so well known that even CJayC was joking about it and trying to feed Gordon easy competition to get a win.

Well Cecil actually has it worse. He shined in this match for about 3 minutes, and then Crash just swamped him. This match was never close after the 3 minute mark, and would quickly become the latest example in a long line of Cecil Harvey flops in contest lore. If this was going on during the early days, this would be a legendary contest history.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2078-dream-division-round-1-kirby-vs-cecil
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3244-division-1-round-1-cecil-jade-wario-zack
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3739-chaos-division-round-1-cecil-harvey-vs-knuckles
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/4519-east-division-round-1-luigi-vs-waluigi-cecil-vs-golbez
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/5214-character-battle-ix-division-8-round-1-pit-vs-wrex-vs-cecil

And now the crash loss. Outside the original Kirby match, Cecil was debated to win all of these. He's come close a lot, but he's never actually won anything. He shocked the world by putting up 48% on Knuckles, but didn't win. He surprised everyone with how close he got to Luigi, but still. He lost. He was supposed to win the 3way match with Pit and Wrex. He lost.

And then Crash happens. We all like Crash, but in his extensive contest history, he had two wins before this match. 2002 against Ulala (who?) and 2013 in a 3way against Wheatley and Elizabeth. He's lost every other match. And the guy went out there and beat the tar out of a well known Final Fantasy character, in another match Cecil was supposed to win. The logic was "hey there's no way Crash is stronger than Knuckles, right?". Turns out things change from year to year and your holy extrapolated standings are garbage. Again. Using the LOL x stats is about as smart as picking sports based on who won last year. They mean nothing.

The especially funny thing here is it's well known Final Fantasy 4 is Allen's favorite game. He's been blatantly putting Cecil in matches where he has a shot to win, and Cecil keeps losing anyway. This is the steroid version of what Ceej was doing with Gordon Freeman, and we're not far off from Allen just blatantly disregarding normal seeding and putting 2 seed Cecil against 15 seed Cayde-6 or something. And I frankly wouldn't blame the guy. This is embarrassing to watch if you're an FF4 fan.
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garetha200 posted...

It's not something like Touhou (never played Touhou, this is just based on what I've heard), more just cute funny and stupid. I remember someone on reddit calling it "comfort food in JRPG form" and that's pretty much what it is.

Yeah, Touhou shouldn't even be factoring into this discussion. A subsection of the Touhou fandom is what makes the creepy shit (as all fandoms do). The games themselves are just collections of awesome music, silly storylines, and a metric assload of bullets.

EDIT: And shitty artwork. Just, seriously. ZUN can't draw to save his damn life and we all know it.
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regardless of past contest strength, I think that remaster for Crash really helped him out here.

Spyro didn't get his remaster in time unfortunately
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Division 3 ended up being mostly ok in retrospect now that Alucard was just a beast
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Ulti_PCA posted...

We all like Crash, but in his extensive contest history, he had two wins before this match. 2002 against Ulala (who?) and 2013 in a 3way against Wheatley and Elizabeth

Crash (barely) lost to Elizabeth in the second round. The other character in his 1st round win was Tommy Vercetti.
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Division 3 Round 1: (4)Big Boss vs (13)Ridley

(4)Big Boss - 16855 [56.66%]
(13)Ridley - 12890 [43.34%]
Total Votes - 29745
Prediction Percentage - 61.28%

Because of how Smash hype was clearly affecting this contest, paired with how Konami basically murdered Metal Gear Solid, there was a ton of fear that Ridley would be able to pull the upset. Turns out Ridley wasn't too big for Smash after all!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IppO8vJP9WE" data-time="

HE KILLED SAMUS! OH MY GOD HE KILLED SAMUS!!

But he couldn't kill Big Boss, or even get the board vote against him. This one was never close, though Ridley was clearly a step above from where he used to be, and Big Boss was clearly a step down. The effects of Smash and MGS's fates are pretty obvious, but they weren't going to close such a wide gap. For Big Boss, this match was a small measure of revenge for what happened in the Rivalry Rumble: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/4561-southeast-division-final-samus-vs-ridley-big-boss-vs-the

Then again, does anyone care enough about the Rivalry Rumble to try getting revenge for it? Without looking it up, all I remember about that contest was Link winning, the Pokemon Trainers beating FF7 in a fake match, and Adolf Hitler making it into a GameFAQs contest match.

There weren't many bright spots for non-Smash characters versus Smash characters in this contest, and even some of the wins in that position were rough. But this was one of the few bright spots. We are in a time line where Ridley winning this wouldn't have surprised people, but Big Boss shot that one down immediately. Turns out the old dog can still hunt!
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paulg235 posted...

Ulti_PCA posted...

We all like Crash, but in his extensive contest history, he had two wins before this match. 2002 against Ulala (who?) and 2013 in a 3way against Wheatley and Elizabeth

Crash (barely) lost to Elizabeth in the second round. The other character in his 1st round win was Tommy Vercetti.

My readers do the actual heavy lifting in these things :D
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Division 3 Round 1: (3)Alucard vs (14)Princess Peach

(3)Alucard - 16635 [56.81%]
(14)Princess Peach - 12649 [43.19%]
Total Votes - 29284
Prediction Percentage - 62.94%

This match was virtually identical to Big Boss v Ridley, right down to the votes, the percentages, the prediction percentages, and the fear going in that Nintendo/Smash was going to roll over everything. Granted Alucard is in Smash as an assist trophy, but he's also dealing with a character more popular than Ridley. Basically after round 1 of divisions 1 and 2, people who aren't fans of Smash and Nintendo had resigned themselves to what was coming. The irony is Smash itself had a mole working from within, but we'll get to Cloud's amazing run later. Let's stick to the early stuff for now.

Looking back on people being afraid of Alucard losing this match, doesn't it all seem ridiculous now? This is a dude that would end up dispatching Peach in seconds before moving on to do some pretty amazing things. Alucard is always good for a good contest run, and this is the best one he would end up having by a mile. But if you look at 57% on Peach in a vacuum it's a bunch of whatever.

I love Peach, everyone knows this, but let's actually look at her history here. Her one shining moment came in that terrible male/female 2006 bracket, where she SFFd Daisy and beat Jill Valentine by 27 votes. She has won nothing since. She even has a Gordon Freeman loss in there, which would have been a hilarious first victory for the GFNW legend. 57% on someone like that means nothing, but given Alucard's contest this year, I'm counting everything he does as impressive because it helps Peach save face <3
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Pardon for asking this Ulti, but what made you support Monika? In the light of your judgements against Shantae and Neptunia, it surprises me how much you were behind what was essentially a 4chan creation.
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Division 3 Round 1: (6)Yuna vs (11)Godot

(6)Yuna - 21248 [72.56%]
(11)Godot - 8036 [27.44%]
Total Votes - 29284
Prediction Percentage - 84.46%

Godot finally gets into a character battle and we all have to watch him get fed to Yuna in round one? Really? We couldn't have had him get put up against Shantae, one of the Yazuka losers, Neptune, or Draven? Come on Allen, how you gonna do us dirty like that? =p

The thought of Godot breaking like 85% on Draven is hilarious to me, but I digress. If Manfred von Karma didn't exist, Godot would be my favorite character in the entire Phoenix Wright series. Even if you're not a fan of visual novels or adventure type games, I highly recommend Trials and Tribulations. It's the one game in that series that really stands out, even more than the original, and Godot is the biggest reason for it. Third game, fifth case. I don't need to say much else. There aren't many examples of better storytelling in video games than this dude.

Unfortunately, it feels like Board 8 is the only place on the entire internet that's actually gone through these Phoenix Wright games. Then Phoenix appeared in Marvel vs Crapcom: DLC Edition and his legacy was ruined for good. There is just no coming back from something that stupid, even if it did help boost Phoenix's strength a little in contests. Anyway, we got Godot the lead for a few seconds, and then Yuna just smashed him en route to breaking 70%. I don't get sad over blowouts often in my jaded old age, but this one gutted me.

I like Yuna. I really do. Her character in FFX was amazing, even if her voice actress was a steaming pile of hemorrhoid cesspool. Outside of a comedy guy acting like an N7 marine commander in Mass Effect, I don't think it can get much worse than whatever the hell Yuna's voice actress was trying to do. But the character is good, hence why Yuna has retained some strength even in the face of bad voice acting, Square being in the toilet, and Final Fantasy X-2. Just sucks her moment this year had to come at Godot's expense.
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Why did Peach not gain any of the ridiculous strength Zelda did?
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_Dog_ posted...

Pardon for asking this Ulti, but what made you support Monika? In the light of your judgements against Shantae and Neptunia, it surprises me how much you were behind what was essentially a 4chan creation.

She was the most likely rallybait character that could conceivably win this contest, and I enjoy games that break the 4th wall so hard that there is no respect for the 4th wall even existing.
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tag
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I really wish Peach could win a legit match at least once, she is the character that always ends up looking okay in stats but without the actual results to back it up.

Anagram posted...

Why did Peach not gain any of the ridiculous strength Zelda did?

Peach was basically the same in Odyssey as all the other Mario games, and some goofballs actually disliked the ending because of her decision (c'mon y'all, it wasn't that serious). Zelda got actual backstory and development for once (even if it's simple compared to other games out there).
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snake_5036 posted...

Anagram posted...

Why did Peach not gain any of the ridiculous strength Zelda did?

Peach was basically the same in Odyssey as all the other Mario games, and some goofballs actually disliked the ending because of her decision (c'mon y'all, it wasn't that serious). Zelda got actual backstory and development for once (even if it's simple compared to other games out there).

Considering Peach came in second place in her division, is it really fair to say she didn't boost?
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I played Neptunia 1 Rebirth but couldnt get into it cuz its grindy and Neptune herself is kinda annoying
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Ulti_PCA posted...

hen Phoenix appeared in Marvel vs Crapcom: DLC Edition and his legacy was ruined for good. There is just no coming back from something that stupid, even if it did help boost Phoenix's strength a little in contests.

Confused face.
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UltimaterializerX posted...

SuorGenoveffa posted...

I really wish Peach could win a legit match at least once, she is the character that always ends up looking okay in stats but without the actual results to back it up.

Stats.

Dont.

Matter.

They do when the board controls the poll to the point of being given more votes than non-board users.
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I personally take a moderate stance on stats

I think some people get too hung up if characters dont finish within 3-4% of the percent they should be getting based on stats that may not be accurate to adjustments and guesses

On the other hand saying stuff like Stats dont matter definitly isnt 100% true. Characters are clearly more in relative tiers that stats tend to show

Of course things like gaming trends and popular opinions and different voters showing up daily prove that things are not going to 100% be static and things will change

These characters/games arent machines that users robotically vote for like a system, ultimately peoples feelings and even bandwagons and anti votes prove things you cant blindly just follow the stats that KP or creativename make cuz there may be bias in adjustments

I think the people who predict the best in rally-less contests do a good balance of thinking of the relative tiers of characters stats wise but also general trends of the gaming community and randomng upsets that at least have good logic of why theyd happen
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Logience posted...

Ulti_PCA posted...

hen Phoenix appeared in Marvel vs Crapcom: DLC Edition and his legacy was ruined for good. There is just no coming back from something that stupid, even if it did help boost Phoenix's strength a little in contests.

Confused face.

Seconded. Phoenix Wright in UMvC3 was one of the saving graces of that game.
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Anagram posted...

Why did Peach not gain any of the ridiculous strength Zelda did?

Was Peach in botw?
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NFUN posted...

will you use this account just for stats stuff and not for trolling

(you can "troll" in stats stuff i mean outside of it)

@Nfun you're as big of a troll as him if you need to ask this question jesus son
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Division 3 Round 1: (7)Kefka vs (10)L-Block

(7)Kefka - 17628 [60.19%]
(10)L-Block - 11661 [39.81%]
Total Votes - 29289
Prediction Percentage - 60.5%

This was one of the most hotly debated matches in round one, because it was widely believed the winner would be able to go on a deep contest run. Division 3 was perceived as being very weak, and it was well within the realm of possibility that the winner here would be able to win the entire division. The winner of this was almost guaranteed to make it to round 3. If that winner was L-Block, it was not impossible for a bandwagon effect to show up and hand the guy the entire contest.

Anyone who claims they had a good beat on this either way was pretty much lying, because neither of these characters is predictable in the slightest. Kefka's contest history is well known for the guy never doing what he's supposed to do. The dude was supposed to easily beat Pac-Man but went 50-50 with him. He was supposed to easily lose to Knuckles but got super close until the morning vote. He was supposed to win a division but lost to Diablo. The 4ways are just a cluster of 'what'. He was supposed to lose to Arthas and beat Arthas's ass. He was supposed to lose to Zack, then won two 3way polls because of course he did. The only contest he's ever made sense in was the Rivalry Rumble, which says a lot.

L-Block's runs don't make sense, either. Everyone knows about 2007, but he was making a run in 2008 too before Pikachu beat him. Then the guy gets to Charizard and can't break 40% on the guy, before beating Auron. I doubt most people would call Kefka stronger than Auron, yet here we are. This is a great example of why stats mean positively dick in these contests, especially when we haven't had a proper character battle in over a decade. I ended up picking L-Block, because whenever Kefka is the board favorite the dude falls flat on his face. That's the one predictable thing about this guy.

Turns out we couldn't even rely on that much. In what was quickly becoming a pattern in this contest, this was never even a match. It's why so many of my writeups thusfar have been about esoteric feelings instead of match trends and cold facts. "Character A won the board vote and went from X% at the freeze to Y% by the end" 100 times just isn't interesting. That said it actually was interesting here, because debated matches turning into hilarious blowouts are always entertaining. L-Block was a threat to win this match and go on a deep contest run. Instead he lost in round one and made Kefka look as strong as Charizard. That's one hell of a feat, and it was another data point in a very real trend this contest -- people are beyond fed up with rallybait joke characters. Every single one of them got demolished this year, and L-Block was no exception.
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Dva69 posted...

NFUN posted...

will you use this account just for stats stuff and not for trolling

(you can "troll" in stats stuff i mean outside of it)

@Nfun you're as big of a troll as him if you need to ask this question jesus son

fucking LOL
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Division 3 Round 1: (2)Kazuma Kiryu vs (15)Bomberman

(2)Kazuma - 11459 [39.13%]
(15)Bomberman - 17829 [60.87%]
Total Votes - 29288
Prediction Percentage - 54.18%

It's very rare when you can look at a 2/15 match and immediately pick the 15 seed without thinking, yet here we were. This is because before this match, the only 15 seed to ever beat a 2 was The Boss beating Nathan Drake back in 2010. That was a 12 hour match that went 52-48, too, so I imagine some people put an asterisk on that one. I know we had some 4ways and 3ways and some contests with dumb 1-8 division seeding instead of 1-16, but I can only work with what I got.

The point here is these Yazuka characters that got into the field this contest are simultaneously the most unknown, overrated, and overseeded characters we've ever had. The best job a 15 seed had ever done until this was a 52-48 match. All the others easily lost. Yet Bomberman, a fodder character whose only contest win ever came against a TV set (this seriously actually happened, I kid you not: http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/gallery/albums/sc2k2/sum02b21.jpg) went out there and damn near got 61% against a 2 seed.

It wasn't because Bomberman is strong, either. It's because Yazuka is gutter trash. Every contest we get some recent casualbait characters to serve as the opening round punching bags. Sometimes those characters are from Grand Theft Auto. Sometimes they're from Call of Duty and you get a match picture with a swamp thing in it. Sometimes they're from Uncharted or a random games contest has a sports title in it. Well in this contest, where we saw nothing from Grand Theft Auto make the biggest field we've ever had, that was Yazuka. Good lord. Who nominated these people to such high seeds? That's why the Kefka/L-Block match was so huge, Neither of these dudes had a chance of beating either one of them, and then who knows.

Shout out to Bomberman and the 2002 contest, by the way. Nice seeing those old characters get some shine.
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Yakuza has been having some quite popular releases since Yakuza 0. They just aren't the kind of games Gamefaqs likes though, so...
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Just for clarity: The freeze denotes the results of the matchs first five minutes, right?
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It's bizarre seeing some of those early contest pics.
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Division 4 Round 1: (1)2B vs (16)Cayde-6

(1)2B - 22970 [77.8%]
(16)Cayde-6 - 6555 [22.2%]
Total Votes - 29525
Prediction Percentage - 81.32%

When the bracket first came out, people looked at 2B as a totally bizarre 1 seed and had zero faith in her whatsoever. I had some faith in her, just not as a 1 seed. I did not think she would be legit at all, and stupid me picked Shadow the Hedgehog to win two matches. Pair that with this division having Charizard, Bowser, and Kirby in it, and the girl had no prayer of actually validating her seeding. Even now, people are still arguing over whether or not she was legit in this contest.

Spoiler. She was. I don't care who you are or what you're up against. If you start a poll at 90%, spend a good chunk of it over 80, and finish at 78%, you have legit strength. It might not be 1 seed strength, but it's strength nonetheless. Nier Automata is the truth. Granted 2B clearly has the assets to be a popular character among gamer nerds on this site, but hey.

Also I didn't know this, but I got it confirmed with the 4 Destiny players on Board 8. Apparently the reason Cayde-6 was so weak is because you can play through all of both games and never actually know or care who that character is. You know you suck when even your own fans don't know who you are, which leads one to wonder how he made the field in the first place. Cayde-6 was destined for only one thing in this contest, and that was being at or near the very bottom of the LOL x stats. I'm sure a joke could be made here about Abbreviated number SFF, but it's so lame that not even my lame PCA should include it :)
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Logience posted...

Just for clarity: The freeze denotes the results of the matchs first five minutes, right?

Yessir. We have live updates until 5 minutes in. Polls used to be like that for 100% of the match but the site kept crashing during the big stuff like CT/LTTP in 2004. That plus it encouraged direct cheating, so Ceej got rid of it.
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Ulti_PCA posted...

Well in this contest, where we saw nothing from Grand Theft Auto make the biggest field we've ever had

https://objection.mrdictionary.net/go.php?n=8486139

Also holy crap at that TV pic, that's the first time I saw that lol!
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I've been wanting Kane back in for years just to see another TV pic
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I refuse to believe Cayde-6 got more nominations than Mog from FFVI.
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Love your shoutouts to by-gone hilarity like the TV set and Call of Duty's swamp thing in 2010. Got a good laugh out of me anyway. Also, Adolf Hitler on the GameFAQs front page - that had slipped my mind.

And yeah Yuna is a superb character let down by a terrible voice acting approach. Apparently her voice actress was trying to lip sync her lines, but as Yuna's animations had been put together for the Japanese voices it really didn't work. FFX would've been a better game without voice acting, even if some characters were excellent (like Auron).

I missed this contest before Legends bracket so I'm seeing a lot of these matches for the first time... man there was a lot of junk in this for a 1v1 bracket.
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Found the analysis by @Lightning_Strikes even if the topic purged, think I'll add them below Ulti and Safer's ones.
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The sad (or hilarious, depending on how you look at it) part about CHNW is that Cecil actually has some sort of strength, unlike Gordon in his day - he keeps falling just a bit short in these totally winnable matches, three character battles in a row now.

Also, Yakuza's not actually a casual bait series. The series is a huge B8 favorite, which is a big part of why Kazuma and Goro proved to be so overseeded.
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I just knew Ulti had to compare GTA and Yakuza when they are totally different. And Yakuza characters got in because of Board 8, not a bunch of casuals.

Yeah, I don't see Yakuza talked about anywhere except around here. Kinda like Phoenix Wright in that regard.
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I like how a series that's subtitles-only is somehow a "casual" series.

Also, I think Phoenix/Edgeworth getting a 1 seed in the Rivalry Rumble is more overseeded than Kiryu.
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handsomeboy2012 posted...

I just knew Ulti had to compare GTA and Yakuza when they are totally different. And Yakuza characters got in because of Board 8, not a bunch of casuals.

They get voted like casual characters.
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Division 4 Round 1: (8)Shadow the Hedgehog vs (9)Ness

(8)Shadow the Hedgehog - 13801 [46.74%]
(9)Ness - 15726 [53.26%]
Total Votes - 29527
Prediction Percentage - 52.5%

I have to confess something. I legitimately love the Sonic clan and they're a bunch of really cool characters. Yeah yeah, not a great thing to admit. Don't care. The games aren't great sometimes, but the characters are all really cool. Any time Sonic or Shadow or Tails or Knuckles is in a contest match, it takes me back my my Sega Genesis Sonic 2 days as a kid. If you want a great reason for me to loathe furries and despise that fan base, there you go. They ruined something that was once amazing.

I also tend to overrate them, especially Shadow, when making picks. I picked the dude to win two matches this year. I picked him to beat Zidane in 2008. I really wanted to pick him over Tidus in 2004. I love the dude. He looks like Sonic, but he's all dark and cool and such. What's not to like?

Turns out most voters don't see it that way, and this match stayed remarkably stable for the entire 24 hours. The percentages basically never moved, which kinda sucked. I like Ness, don't get me wrong. You all know my love of EarthBound by now. But Shadow is my dude. At least this was a respectable loss with an obvious reason attached. Ness is no longer the character we thought could lose to Jak, the character who was the odd one out during the closest finish ever, the character that lost to Pac-Man (ugh), the character that got 40% on GlaDOS, the character we all thought could lose to Locke, and most importantly, the character that got rolled by Big Daddy. This Ness has been in Smash Bros for almost 20 years, he's had EarthBound rereleased a few times, and the Angry Video Game Nerd finally did a review of his game.

He isn't big time now, but he's certainly big enough to beat Shadow the Hedgehog. Maaaaaybe Shadow could have won this if he were an echo fighter in Ultimate, but it was not meant to be. The real shame is most of us thought the winner of this could beat 2B, too, and I would have loved to see Shadow make it into round 3. Turns out 2B ain't no slouch.
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Ulti I've been adding Lightning's analysis in advance, and I'm a little ahead of you rn
...This is why we now have two Shadow vs. Ness pages.
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ah I see what happened, I capitalized "the" while you did not
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Hey, been kinda skimming the pages, and:
https://board8.wikia.com/wiki/Bomberman_vs_Crash_Bandicoot_vs_Phoenix_Wright_vs_Magus_2007
Does Bomberman's bar look bigger than Phoenix's to anybody else?
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Probably a mild optical illusion. The match was so close that I'd assume the bars are the exact same size.
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What was the deleted comment?
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Quite a shame that Shadow wasn't an echo in Smash Ultimate. Was a big blunder on Sakurai there.
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