Board 8 > How would they do in a contest? Day 113 ft Duke Nukem, Ariel, Mallow

(+) 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 112:

Deadpool (Marvel) is Fodder Line
Piranha Plant (Mario series) is High Fodder
Hector (Fire Emblem) is Mid Fodder

Here is today's trio to rank:

Ariel (Disneys The Little Mermaid)
Mallow (Super Mario RPG)
Duke Nukem (Duke Nukem)
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Nominate: Space Michael
Aang
Agumon
Goemon (Goemon)

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Ariel: Low Midcarder. Top Tier Disney Princess. We'd have a hundred YoBlazer topics that day telling us all to vote for her. I don't know how big of a deal the movie tie-in game was, but seeing as I've actually played it, it can't be, y'know, too bad. Don't remember if I beated it or not, however. Even so, this is a rare example where people aren't going to factor in the gaming presence and just vote for somebody that's really hard to not like.

Mallow: Low Fodder. Oh, I thought this was Mallow from Pokemon, who's probably a stronger character at present but will disappear into obscurity after another couple years. This one... I can't tell you anything. So, uh, yeah. If you're a character who was in an old game and hasn't appeared since other than as a trophy in Smash, you're relying on people that have played your game and care about you specifically. And your game is old. Do the math.

Duke: High Fodder. In 2013, he pulled 20% on Mario, so that's pretty special. Even if he hasn't had a game in years (I don't mean additional appearances, I mean a Duke Nukem game), people know who he is, and may have good memories of him. However, there's not much more than that, so I don't see him as anything but fodder, and with Duke Nukem Forever actually having happened rendering all of the jokes void, I don't see him having any prayer of advancing. However, he's clearly recognizable enough to beat up on a lot of fodder, so High feels right.
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Agree with Low Midcarder for Ariel and High Fodder for Duke.

For Mallow I will say Mid Fodder (barely). Geno didn't look terrible in CBX against Tifa all things considered, and Mario RPG is still a popular game on the site. Mallow is a favorite among the game's cast, but lacks the recognition of Geno.
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nominations:

Goemon (Goemon)
Atomos (Final Fantasy)
Malboro (Final Fantasy)
Valefor (Final Fantasy X)
Sami (Advance Wars)
The Green Goblin (Marvel)
Billy Lee (Double Dragon)
Lester Knight Chaykin (Another World)
The King of All Cosmos (Katamari series)
Alisa Illinichina Amiella (God Eater)
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bump
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Ariel: High Fodder. Both her and her movie have developed a small but vocal antivoting contingent, and in general, neither feel as near and dear to voters' hearts as the top-tier Disney Renaissance entities. I'm also more generally skeptical about the ability of a Disney princess to draw votes on GameFAQs.

Mallow: Low Fodder. As strong as Super Mario RPG the game is, Geno proves that characters introduced in it are never going to amount to all that much. Mallow also lags way behind Bowser and Geno in terms of popularity and memorability, when exclusively considering Super Mario RPG.

Duke: Mid Fodder. 20% on 2013 Mario was not a good result, and in a world where Gordon Freeman can plunge in the past five years, there's little reason to expect him to maintain even his previous modest strength.
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MetalmindStats posted...

Both her and her movie have developed a small but vocal antivoting contingent

Since when?
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BlueCrystalTear posted...

Since when?

I'm drawing that from a combination of what I've seen here (I believe Inviso is one example of someone who absolutely hates the character and movie, while the latter fared poorly in the animated movie contest we had earlier this year) and audience ratings ranging from somewhat behind to far behind the big three renaissance movies on movie rating sites.

Frankly, I'd like to see the evidence that The Little Mermaid is still about as popular here as Beauty and the Beast, and that Ariel is still about as popular here as Belle.
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I don't know what to tell you, honestly. I just get a better sense for The Little Mermaid than you do. Ariel is still someone that's hard to dislike, and I haven't seen any users with an opinion license speak out against it, anyway. Inviso hates EVERYTHING, so take that with a grain of salt. On the reverse, we have YoBlazer, who made topics about Ariel a LOT at one point and even had PartOfYourWorld as his main account at one point.

Disney Renaissance is still Disney Renaissance. And I'd think Ariel has the potential to advance on the site at large, especially with the remake coming up.
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Ariel - High fodder

Agreed that Disney Princesses in general are not going to go over well on gamefaqs. Theyre probably better now than theyd have been 15 years ago when this site was mostly edgey teenagers though.

As for her NES game, it isnt terrible but its like half an hour long, pretty easy, and doesnt offer significant replayability.

Mallow - Mid fodder

probably not by much. Geno is probably borderline mid-to-High, I figure mallow might be low-to-mid. Hes a party member in a top 20 or so game on this site, a game that only has 5 playable characters so theres only so bad he could probably be.

Duke Nukem - mid fodder

i dont think most of gamefaqs ever cared about his games. They just recognized the character, thought him amusing, and laughed at Duke Nukem Forever jokes.

recognizability no longer cuts it, forever was a bust, and in a post me too world he may even attract anti-votes.

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Okay, somebody needs to tag the guy.

@CaptainOfCrush do you want to defend your girl?
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looks like my aang nom got eaten.

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AxemRedRanger posted...

looks like my aang nom got eaten.

totally missed that one somehow, added now

Day 114 is up: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/78031957
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Ariel's ceiling is high fodder. Almost all non-game characters (apart from the hugest names, particularly the big super heroes and Star Wars characters) will be handicapped on GameFAQs, and that goes doubly so for a character that doesn't much appeal to GameFAQs' 95% male, 30-year-old demographic. She's stayed relevant in popular culture at large since Disney Princesses are everywhere, but the Disney Princess brand targets a specific type of person, and the average GameFAQs user ain't it.

Her advantage relative to Jasmine or Belle is that she's actually the main character of her movie. Her disadvantage is that she's working with a less popular movie. At the end of the day, all three of the princesses from that era are high fodder at best.

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Nominate:

Gordon Gekko (Wall Street)
Noah Cross (Chinatown)
Torgo (Manos: The Hands of Fate)
Trumpy (Pod People)
Demogorgon (Stranger Things)
Frank Underwood (House of Cards)
Adam Malkovich (Metroid)
Terl (Battlefield Earth)
Jar-Jar Binks (Star Wars)
Kylo Ren (Star Wars)
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LinkMarioSamus posted...

Nominate:

Gordon Gekko (Wall Street)
Noah Cross (Chinatown)
Trumpy (Pod People)
Frank Underwood (House of Cards)
Terl (Battlefield Earth)

As far as I can tell none of these characters have been in a video game, and are thus not eligible for nomination.
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