Board 8 > How would they do in a contest? Day 99 ft Giant Enemy Crab, Pit, Yuri Lowell

(+) Yeah! (+)

This is a topic to rate the contest strength of potential newcomers in the current contest environment.

I will pick the characters to rate and discuss for each day from user nominations - whoever the 3 most nominated characters are at that time. If there are more than 3 I will pick randomly. You can nominate any number of characters at any time, but you cannot nominate the same character twice.

All characters who were present in the 2018 Character Battle will NOT be eligible. Otherwise you can nominate any character that has appeared in video games; even comic book characters. This will exclude real-life athletes who have only appeared in long running sports series, however I will accept those who have their own games such as Shaq. I will accept nominations for iconic gaming duos too, if there is a compelling reason for both characters to be linked (either co-starring in a game ala Banjo & Kazooie, or always appearing together like Callie & Marie from Splatoon).

Each day will have a separate topic, and nominations will carry over. As far as actually rating the character's contest strength; I ask that users rank a characters potential strength with one of the following qualifiers - LAW Fodder, Low Fodder, Mid Fodder, High Fodder, Fodder Line, Low Midcarder, Midcarder, High Midcarder, Near Elite, Elite, LAW Tier (capable of beating Link). I will average all the ratings given to a character to come up with their final ranking. I have included a highlighted entrant from Character Battle X on each tier of the strength rankings below, to provide a baseline for each.

Note that LAW Fodder is meant to be a tier reserved for the weakest possible characters to put into a contest. A character will only be placed there if at least 3/4ths of the voters for that day agree on the LAW Fodder rating, and no ratings above Low Fodder are given. If either of those conditions are not met, the character will not be eligible for the LAW Fodder tier.

Current Character Strength Rankings: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1P1AIhHywBiLd6VAMZMNEGX-HW2td8u1D0Iw_tzHsORw/edit?usp=sharing

Nomination List: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-KnSBDzppzPK5Ug1zmx8_x0bG4tqFDMPPH2k8J3s8sk/edit?usp=sharing

Results from Day 98:

Terry Bogard (King of Fighters) is High Fodder
Piccolo (Dragonball Z) is Fodder Line
Freddy Fazbear (Five Nights at Freddy's) is Low Fodder

Here is today's trio to rank:

Giant Enemy Crab (Genji: Days of the Blade)
Pit (Kid Icarus)
Yuri Lowell (Tales of Vesperia)
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Giant Enemy Crab: Low Fodder. Ancient memes help him not be LAW Fodder, because, y'know, the listed game is quite obscure and 2006 was.................... I feel old.

Pit: High Fodder. He was 3rd against Wrex and Cecil in 2013. Yikes! He still put up enough votes to not be Low Fodder, even today, but he's only ever had two games of his own and Smash. Pit has never advanced in a contest, it seems, but he's definitely capable of doing so against a less recognizable opponent, so High Fodder feels right.

Yuri Lowell: Mid Fodder. Yuri is one of the only good things about Vesperia, but it's not a game that all that many people have played. He's always been Mid/High Fodder (21% on Tifa in 2010 is p. good, and he did beat Face McShooty while getting nearly half the votes of Ryu) and I don't see that changing any time soon thanks to the Definitive Edition. Given how time has shown how bad Vesperia is, though... I err on the side of Mid.
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Agree with Low Fodder for the Meme Crab.

Also agree with High Fodder for Pit. He looked to be about there in CB9, and I don't see a reason for him to have moved much.

I don't think the consensus on Tales of Vesperia is that its a bad game. The Gfaqs ratings on the Xbox version are good, and decent on Definitive Edition. But the main thing going against Yuri is that anyone who hasn't played Vesperia pretty much has no incentive to vote for him (unless he gets a really good pic and the voter thinks he's a lady). So I'll have to stick with Mid Fodder for him.
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With JRPGs, battle systems are usually going to feel antiquated in a decade, so you need a good plot and/or characters to be able to stand the test of time. Vesperia has a bad plot, only a few memorable scenes. lazy world-building, bad characters except for Yuri (and even then, he needed more development), practically zero cast chemistry, forgettable music aside from like two songs, and a battle system that feels so darn clunky for two thirds of the game. I went from writing the fucking board sticky to proclaiming it as one of the worst JRPGs I've ever played, seeing as it excels on no fronts. Thankfully, the people saying things like I am are increasing in number.
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I think the Vesperia cast is memorable if anything, and I am not as down on characters like Karol or Estelle as most people. The plot and villains were a bit weak but still had plenty of stand-out moments. The chemistry and world building were good even though they paled in comparison to Symphonia and Abyss.

The battle system is aged but I think it's fine apart from feeling sluggish at times (I think it's mostly that Yuri himself isn't very fast, which is not really expected out of an MC).

nominations:

Meatwad (Aqua Team Hunger Force)
Frylock (Aqua Team Hunger Force)
Master Shake (Aqua Team Hunger Force)
Carl Brutananadilewski (Aqua Team Hunger Force)
Groudon (Pokemon)
Latias (Pokemon)
Rita Repulsa (Power Rangers)
James Hetfield (Guitar Hero: Metallica)
Koga (Pokemon)
Hypno (Pokemon)
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agree with half silver
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Giant Enemy Crab: Agree with Low Fodder.

Pit: Agree with High Fodder. Kid Icarus: Uprising was the one thing distinguishing him from the pile of Smash characters last time we saw him, and now hardly anyone seems to remember or care about it.

Yuri Lowell: Agree with Mid Fodder. Using the original 360 edition of Vesperia as an argument that people still like the game as a whole a lot doesn't hold water, because game ratings were introduced on GameFAQs in 2008, and far more people rated games back then versus now. It's why Brawl and MGS4 both have sky-high average ratings, even though most people seem to agree both games are very flawed nowadays.

I will also nominate Byleth (Fire Emblem: Three Houses).
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agree with metalmind on all

Pit has never really impressed in these things
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Giant Enemy Crab (Genji: Days of the Blade) - Mid Fodder

BELIEVE

Pit (Kid Icarus) - High fodder

His 2013 performance on Cecil was good but I don't think he could match that today.

Yuri Lowell (Tales of Vesperia) - High fodder

I played the first 10 hours or so of this a couple years back before getting distracted by something else and it seemed...pretty good? The plot hadn't come together at all at that point and I recall enough complaining about the last third to believe that this game does have problems there though. Didn't see much that was terribly wrong with the battle system compared to previous Tales games but I'm a super-scrubby Tales player.

Any issues revealed by age are probably countered by more people actually playing this game now that it's available in English on more consoles.

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Day 100 is up: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/77996826
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