Board 8 > transience presents: the 75 most important matches in contest history

(+) Yeah! (+)

I could've won the contest if Squall won his division.

Well, probably not, but still.
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Yeah I had Cloud > Snake and Link > Cloud at the end of 2008. I dont remember exactly where I was on the leaderboard before those two, I think 7th-ish? I would have won the Guru and definitely cashed in the contest if that happened so fuck Snake imho
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I expected Snake to get first because of some nasty lff and he did, but I figured that Cloud would be unburdened after that and flip the result. Snake just had so much momentum immediately following that match though. I never saw it coming.

33.



I will defend this one to the death. I get the feeling that people often lose sight of how incredible it is that Crono is legit. Nowadays we talk about him as this fallen noble nine character, one who sometimes can get up for it and sometimes looks like 15 guys could top him. But once upon a time, back in 2002, he was just a silent character from an off-brand Square game. His 2002 run is the original miracle. That contest belongs to Crono just as much as 2006 belongs to Snake or 2018 belongs to Zelda.

I couldn't begin to tell you prediction percentages, but I have to believe that most people had him losing to 1 seed Lara Croft, who he put 70% on. Seeds meant something back then. I remember feeling like a genius when I had Sephiroth beating Crash because it was a seeding upset. That's to say nothing of spring 2004.

Crono's match against Snake felt like a miracle back then. He was beating a guy who was seen as the new hotness. The match itself probably wasn't that close - who knows - but the fact that Crono pulled it off was probably the best legitimate upset of the contest.
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Wrong image there, I think.
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yeah, I fixed it just before you posted
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I bet that Snake result doesnt happen if it were the first semifinal instead of the second. being right on top of each other really helped.
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transcience posted...

I bet that Snake result doesnt happen if it were the first semifinal instead of the second. being right on top of each other really helped.

Yeah I've always thought the same thing. The finals match started IMMEDIATELY after the semifinals with no break and I feel like that changed things

I had Link>Snake in the 2008 finals and chickened out on it at the last second. Would have helped my bracket a lot if I just went with my fanboy instincts.

I get the feeling that people often lose sight of how incredible it is that Crono is legit.

I'll add to this - while not quite as incredible as how strong Crono is, Snake being so strong on this site is extremely weird. He doesn't fit the MO of other popular characters on this site at all. Realistic-looking human from an M-rated series about stealth, guns, and politics - MGS being weird as hell and having a Japanese bent to it helps a lot, but still. Every other character in the Top 20 is from Nintendo or a JRPG. Then there's Snake. And he's not just popular - he's significantly more popular than his contemporaries. Solid Snake vs. Sam Fisher (back when both were in their prime) is like a 60-40 in Snake's favor on any other site. Here it's 85-15. Who's the next-strongest character from an M-rated series after Snake? Geralt?
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Geralt vs Bayonetta might literally have been a match over that crown. EDIT: wait, Dante might be stronger than either actually?

Crono vs Snake might have been in upset in 2002 on paper but it didn't really feel like a big one; Crono, Snake, and Lara all were kinda wildcards strength-wise and none of them winning the division would have been surprising. Link beating Mario was a far bigger upset (at contest's start, at least; Link's performance over Sephiroth made the actual final pretty clear), weird as it is to think that now!
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LeonhartFour posted...

Yeah, there was definitely a concerted effort to try to get Brawl to lose in the final. Majora jumped out to a huge lead early and then Brawl chopped away at it the rest of the match, but the damage was done at that point.

*sigh* Should've been FFX.

FFX/MM killed me. I've never been emotionally invested in contests but I was that year. My favourite game was within two matches of winning a contest! And it went down with 49.9% having led for most of the poll. Gutting loss. At least Brawl didn't win.
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It helps that Snake has way more personality and character development than most other 'realistic' characters
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Snake's also a badass voiced protagonist who is generally competent, level headed, and has memorable one liners. He's honestly not that far removed from Cloud (FFVII, disc one). MGS is also the kind of series that's suited to looking up/using walkthroughs in a way that many action games from that era weren't (lots of secrets, tricky boss battles).
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MGS is basically anime. it makes perfect sense that it's popular here. I wouldn't even compare it to Sam Fisher or whoever. (Snake would kill Sam Fisher just about everywhere)
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I had no idea who Solid Snake was in 2002 so Crono beating him seemed like a no brainer to me at the time. And Pikachu beating Crono in the next round? I was just ahead of my time. >_>
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if I was bracketmaking in 2002 I probably would have gone with Dante?
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In 2002, I don't think I knew who Dante was either. I was pretty much just living in my Nintendo bubble back then. I mean it's not like I've branched too far out since then but at least now I know lots about a bunch of games I've never played due to the contests.
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Metal Gear was also a long standing series that got a re-imagining, and Solid was an absolute killer app for the PlayStation at its height. It's just on a different level from any of the action games that started in the PlayStation and PS2 era.
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Simon Belmont > Crono for me.
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32.



The bracketmaking period in 2005 was pretty intense. 2002 was basically voided, Cloud won in 2003, and Link won in 2004. This was kinda seen as the rubber match.

The arguments were pretty out there. On Cloud's side, you had Advent Children launching sometime during the contest. On Link's side, you had people talking about Twilight Princess and hype, back before hype was accepted as a major factor in voting. This was still the pre-youtube era, more or less, so it wasn't like people were revisiting the trailer at will. But a lot of people saw what Nintendo was dishing in 2004, BLADES WILL BLEED and Miyamoto awkwarding swinging a sword, and were ready for a return of big boy Link. In retrospect, it's amazing that we never got a Toon Link picture during these dark days. That would have set the contests on fire. Samus/Tifa would have been nothing.

Anyway, this is the last time you could really, conceivably pick Cloud without a heavy dose of believe. After the Boost happened, it was hard to make much of a case for Cloud. Still, both of these guys were sectioned off to a four-person tournament of champions bracket and we never got to see them in any matches. With results like Vincent winning the Devil Division and Tifa looking super legit after round 1, you could talk yourself into Cloud not being dead yet.

The match itself was close but never really in doubt. Cloud grabbed a 200 vote lead overnight and then lost big the rest of the match, as you would expect. I always think highly of this match because of the lack of direct comparisons and all the speculation that happened before the match. I also think highly of it because this was the last time that Cloud vs. Link was really a rivalry. The Boost had happened and Cloud would need a remake or something to really compete again.
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transience posted...

35.

I think 35 is a little bit too low for that match.
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Nah, that's about right. It was a close match that went almost exactly the way many people expected.
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I would probably put it around 20 instead of 35.
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I recommend making a list
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Kotetsu534 posted...

FFX/MM killed me. I've never been emotionally invested in contests but I was that year. My favourite game was within two matches of winning a contest! And it went down with 49.9% having led for most of the poll. Gutting loss. At least Brawl didn't win.

I guess I'm one of the few people who would've rather had Brawl over Majora because the idea that we needed plucky underdog Zelda to "save the day" was just the worst. Such a disappointing end to what had been an otherwise great contest.
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Majora's Mask didn't save the day. The day was already lost when Brawl beat Melee, or maybe further back, when the GOTD contest was announced, or maybe when Gamefaqs decided the 00s were way way worse than the 90s. Majora's Mask delivered vengeance. Ocarina's of Time's black sheep sequel, a game that one has to check a calendar to realize is not a 90s game, beat the champion of the 00s. And justice was done.
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Majora wasn't a plucky underdog to me. I just hated and hate Brawl. I'd rather have a good N64 game, stupid as that may be, win the contest over a bad game.
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slow down guys those matches are coming
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Brawl > Melee a top tier result

probably should be on this list somewhere too
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Surprised you think so when it basically sealed's FFX fate

FFX wins the contest if Melee wins that
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you think FFX beats Majora if Melee beats Brawl? that one's too far for me
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KamikazePotato posted...

Surprised you think so when it basically sealed's FFX fate

FFX wins the contest if Melee wins that

Or Melee wins...
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I mean I firmly believe FFX would have beaten Melee or Brawl had it gotten there

it would have had an easier time with Brawl but people were dumb and thought it didn't have a good enough chance so they decided to fall back on Zelda
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I will say, for me, the entire GOTD contest sucked, except for the last 2 days. But FFX/MM was the most fun I've had in a match probably since the start of 4-ways. The only thing that comes close since is Link/Draven.

And a big part of that is, almost everyone lost hope in MM when FFX took a big lead overnight, but my trend projections were right and the big comeback materialized as called for.
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Pretty confident in that, yeah.
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I was pretty worried about FFX from the start when it took forever to actually take the lead away from Majora, even after the Power Hour ended.

But Brawl > Melee was still a great result regardless of the collateral damage. Might be the last time we really saw the board get up in arms over a result that wasn't caused by a rally or blatant cheating.
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Brawl/Melee was a good match but it was a bad result and it resulted in the worst possible final. Melee wins and I'm like 90% confident we get Melee vs. FFX.
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It's a shame that the SSBM vs SSBB special edition of The Show was lost.
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KamikazePotato posted...

Brawl/Melee was a good match but it was a bad result and it resulted in the worst possible final. Melee wins and I'm like 90% confident we get Melee vs. FFX.

Yeah, maybe, but I won't feel bad about the entrant I prefer winning or voting for them regardless of the fallout.

*Proud Shepard voter in Link/Draven/Shepard*
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I don't want to hear it from the guy who keeps saying Vivi/Mario was bad because it hurt Squall next round!
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LeonhartFour posted...

But Brawl > Melee was still a great result regardless of the collateral damage. Might be the last time we really saw the board get up in arms over a result that wasn't caused by a rally or blatant cheating.

Melee/Brawl took place in a night match, and Europe was a contributing factor in Brawl winning because the first 2 Smash games were even weaker in Europe. At least the Wii sold better in Europe than the N64/GameCube, which may have been why Brawl was stronger in Europe than Melee.

Brawl was gaining percentage in the US during the morning vote, which would be a sign that Brawl would have won the ASV in a day match. Generally, newer games have a better ASV than the older game in a same series match. It's not certain that Melee would have done better in a day match, even with the lower turnout from Europe that favored Brawl to a greater extent than the US.
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and yet I voted for Vivi and would do it again

I mean it was unfortunate for Squall because he went from an ideal setup to one he couldn't possibly win so I can't fully embrace Vivi > Mario the way most people do

maybe he would've lost anyway but it would've been nice to see him get the chance because it feels like he always gets short changed when he gets a shot at Noble Niners
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short changed how? he had like 14 matches against Snake
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31.



(this really was next)

I can't think of a single intra-series rivalry quite like Melee and Brawl. The relationship between these two games was vitriolic from pretty much the word go. In general, and I don't want to fight about this, the Melee people are there for the gameplay and precision and the Brawl people are there for the content and the style. It's a casual/hardcore split. Brawl has the more characters, the more music, the expansive story mode and the better look. Melee has the speed and the accuracy. Oh, and it came first.

The general consensus with these two games is that they were the two strongest, along with possibly FFX, and that the winner of this match is probably the favourite to win the contest. I think that take was largely correct. There were arguments aplenty about this game, but they weren't really rooted in anything. It just came down to if you thought the history of Melee or the content and hype of Brawl was a bigger factor.

Their contest results were pretty much equal. I thought that Brawl fans would vote for Melee fans but the Melee crazies would not vote for Brawl. That didn't really seem to be the case but the games they faced were so weak. This was a setup much like some of the 2004 matchups. The board was evenly split on this one and no one really knew what to make of it.

The match happened, and Melee started out strong -- and then the so-called casual crowd swooped in, voted Brawl just enough to make it feel unsatisfying, and the quick 12 hour match was over. I was honestly shocked to see it happen - I had a hard time believing that Melee fans would stand for Brawl winning this, and yet Brawl just slowly pulled away to a smooth 51/49 win. Afterwards, I expected a literal board riot.. and unless my memory is wrong, it just kinda wasn't there. The passion of the early 00s was gone from the contests. People have been burned enough by now.

I genuinely think that if Melee had taken it, we would have had Melee win GOTD. It would have put Majora down much like Brawl put Twilight Princess down. But because it was Brawl, the game not worthy to be called great, enough people abandoned it by the end that Majora was able to take it.

It's funny to think that Brawl won this, because for every category that Brawl was great, Smash 4 and Ultimate have eaten it for lunch. Smash Ultimate has like six thousand characters and five million songs. If you put Brawl in a match today, it probably looks about equal to Smash 64. This felt like a great rivalry and before we knew it, Brawl was dead.
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It's a shame SSBB didn't make it into the next Best Game Ever contest. I think it would have been interesting to see how strong, or weak, it was.
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transience posted...

short changed how? he had like 14 matches against Snake

Yeah, but none when Snake was beatable after he had KH in his corner!

Literally got Snake in 2002, 2006, 2007, and 2010, augh. I mean, if Squall vs. Snake 2006 happens after KH2 but before Brawl/MGS4 hype, what could have been
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If Zelda wasn't in the way and Squall didn't tank, Squall would have had a shot at Sonic as well this year.
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I think Brawl not making the next contest is kind of perfect though, don't you think?
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I think Brawl has the potential to be one of the most non-transitive entrants in the history of contests. Put it against, say, a Square game? I think it performs very close to its original strength. Put it against a Nintendo game and it's going to start to falter. Put it against another Smash game and it will crumple like wet tissue paper. I have no doubt that Smash 4 would coast past Brawl even though Brawl would have no trouble breaking 55% on Mass Effect 1.
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could've beaten Sonic in 2007 if he doesn't get announced for Brawl mid-contest too

and now he'll probably never have a real chance to beat a Noble Niner again alas
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