Board 8 > How would they do in a contest? Day 132 ft DQ8 Hero, Lady, Pitfall Harry

(+) 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 131:

Nina (Breath of Fire) is Low Fodder
Max Payne (Max Payne series) is Low Fodder
Mr. Incredible (The Incredibles) is High Fodder

Here is today's trio to rank:

Lady (Devil May Cry 3)
Pitfall Harry (Pitfall!)
Hero/Eight (Dragon Quest VIII)
---

Mid Fodder for Lady. I don't think she has a consistent enough look or enough of a TJF boost to get to high fodder, and is less prominent than Trish who we already rated mid.

Low Fodder for Harry, barely. People do know him but don't actually care about his game. Pitfall and Harry got blown out in their contest appearances.

Fodder Line for Hero Eight. DQ8 is the most popular game in the series on Gfaqs, so I can see the main character of that game matching Erdrick in strength.
---

Lady mid

Lady: Low Fodder. She's not prominent enough, and is not a recognizable character if you haven't played her one game.

Pitfall Harry: Low Fodder. Yeah, he's not retaining half the strength he did against Sonic in ancient times, and the fact that he hasn't made a bracket since - though his game did and got killed by FF1 - is pretty telling that nobody cares. He's toward the bottom of Low Fodder at this point.

DQ8 Hero: High Fodder. He's in Smash (as one skin), had a recent rerelease, and is pretty recognizable, but nobody's going to vote for him if they haven't played a Dragon Quest game. He's a silent protagonist, so he represents a game as opposed to a character. People who haven't played it will vote elsewhere, though him being in Smash and having the look that he does should be enough for them to choose him over Mid or Low Fodder. Erdrick was overrated previously imho, and only looked like Fodder Line in 2013 because he was against two Final Fantasy waifus.
---

She was in dmc 5

Mid Fodder for Hero, Low Fodder for Lady and Harry

Nominate:

Spawn (Spawn)
Amelia Black (Age of Empires III)
Vulcan Raven (Metal Gear Solid)
Frank Jaeger/Gray Fox/Cyborg Ninja (Metal Gear Solid)
Solidus Snake (Metal Gear Solid 2)
Vamp (Metal Gear Solid 2)
Fortune (Metal Gear Solid 2)
Fatman (Metal Gear Solid 2)
Vito Corleone (The Godfather)
Big Boy Caprice (Dick Tracy)
Tony Montana (Scarface)
---

I'll concur with Mid Fodder for Lady, Low Fodder for Pitfall Harry, and High Fodder for DQ8's Hero. As much as I'd like to believe my way into a Fodder Line vote for the latter, JRPG main protagonists and single-game silent heroes alike have very poor track records of matching their (strongest) game's strength.

I also wanted to address this a bit:

BlueCrystalTear posted...

Erdrick was overrated previously imho, and only looked like Fodder Line in 2013 because he was against two Final Fantasy waifus.

While I agree in retrospect that we overrated Erdrick, the DQ5 Hero is a totally different character. My real point, though, is that the DQ5 Hero was pretty firmly below the Fodder Line in 2013, even without adjusting for Aerith/Rinoa LFF.

In Round 2 of 2013, Aerith narrowly lost to Shepard, which likely would have turned into a narrow win 1-on-1 due to Tharja's presence. The previous round, Shepard failed to double Olimar, who has/had no reason to be at or above the Fodder Line. Even when taking Shepard's possible hit from a Femshep pic as opposed to the more iconic male Shepard into account, he/she tops off at the high end of our Midcarder tier, around 27% on Base Link. From there, X-Stat calculations put Hero's raw result below even the minimum 19% Fodder Line, using the most favorable realistic assumptions for Shepard and Aerith's strength.

Nominations:
Demi-Fiend
Fortune
Gray Fox
Revali (The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild)
Roy Campbell (Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake)
Shion Uzuki (Xenosaga)
Sniper Wolf
Solidus Snake
Steven Armstrong (Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance)
Urbosa (The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild)
---

I always forget what LFF stands for >_>

Also I forgot that was DQ5 Hero. There was no label as to which one it was. There's a reason why all of 'em are rolled into one in Smash, I guess. So that was my bad.

And, as you know, I don't do X-stats. Way too complex mathematically for me. Aeris is a High Midcarder, right?

I'll second Urbosa.
---

Lady (Devil May Cry 3) - Mid Fodder
Pitfall Harry (Pitfall!) - Low Fodder
Hero/Eight (Dragon Quest VIII) - High Fodder

---

Nominate:
Shion Uzuki (Xenosaga)
Shion Sonozaki (Higurashi)

need one more shion. uh. uh. oh hey apparently there's a touhou shion. maybe SBAllen won't catch the stuffing this time and she could win a match!

Nominate
Shion (Touhou)

---

nominations:

Amelia Black (Age of Empires III)
Vulcan Raven (Metal Gear Solid)
Solidus Snake (Metal Gear Solid 2)
Vamp (Metal Gear Solid 2)
Fortune (Metal Gear Solid 2)
Fatman (Metal Gear Solid 2)
Revali (Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild)
Roy Campbell (Metal Gear series)
Shion Uzuki (Xenosaga)
Steven Armstrong (Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance)
Urbosa (Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild)
Shion Sonozaki (Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni)
---

Day 133 is up: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/78080202
---