Board 8 > Mario Vs Cloud 2002: A Video Retrospective

(+) Yeah! (+)

Hey guys. First of all, I want to say thank you for being as enthusiastic about contests are you are. I was around 12 when I started voting in these things regularly in 2005-ish, and kinda grew up with the PCA's and analysis crew and The Show in a weird, disjointed, lurking on the internet kinda way. I've always wanted to give these things justice for the enthusiasm that's put behind them and the fun I've had discovering new games and characters through these, and a lot of that has to do with this board. So... yeah, thank you!

This is an effort to contextualize, find the importance in, and share with a larger audience the excitement of Mario Vs Cloud in 2002. I've tried to throw in as many little references, nods, and fads as I could (couldn't find a good spot for Umineko music, though - my apologies there), and cross-check as many sources as I could in order to get an accurate, if slightly hyped up for the sake of the video, picture. If I got anything wrong or messed up on a source, I sincerely apologize. I've put my heart and sweat into this for the past month, and I'm confident it's pretty damn good! And who knows? Best case scenario, it gets shared and people find nostalgia for the site and contests themselves rather than "yeah I'll rally this game today, whatever".

Regardless, I want to say thank you guys and please enjoy the video!

https://youtu.be/1dx4t6H_K9Y

(Also I pronounce it Game-Facks. So like, brace yourself. It's easier to say like that, rolls off the tongue nicely)

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This looks awesome !

Tag to watch later.

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Oh so this is you!

delicious

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My nostalgia is overwhelming.

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What the hell
This is great

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Looks cool, I'll give it a full watch soon and post my thoughts!


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Tag for later

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UltimaterializerX posted...

Just watched. This is amazing, dude!

Two small corrections:

-Sonic and Samus were not back and forth. Sonic had a 1500 vote lead with 3 hours left (maybe even 2, I have to check), and Samus came back so fast that people basically assumed it was cheating. On top of that, the poll started two hours late. That entire match is tainted.

-Marios 500 vote spike didnt come at the midnight hour. It came over dinner, and given it was legitimately 500 votes at one time its impossible to claim it wasnt cheating. That match ended with those two stuck at 200 votes apart for something like 6 hours. It was brutal, and it caused the biggest board explosion weve ever had. Im talking over 100 pages of topics, 50 topics per page, all going INSANE. Its the ultimate you had to be there match.

Can I put this on the wiki? I want it on the Summer 2002 Contest page. This needs to be archived.

Oh absolutely it'd be an honor! Been reading the wiki for years so seeing it on there would be absolutely surreal.

As for the corrections... yeah Sonic/Samus seemed like a total farce all the way through. I thought I'd gleaned that Sonic had a few baby pushes during Samus's massive comeback attempt, but sorry for getting that wrong. And for Mario/Cloud... wow. Yeah that's... huh. Didn't quite get how huge and sudden that one would be, but damn, yeah that would be an explosion.

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Great video! Totally forgot until the end just how close the Master Chief and Frog match was.

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McMoogle posted...

Great video! Totally forgot until the end just how close the Master Chief and Frog match was.

That last hour where they just hung out dead even with each other was absolutely magicial, and with five minute updates in place, will never happen again.

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Fantastic work. Also, some interesting choices in the music department. (Hi, Sunshine Coastline! VGMC misses you!)

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tag for later

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This video is really well-put-together. Especially the part at the beginning where you make caring about GameFAQs Contests not sound like the ramblings of a crazy person to the general populace.

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Definitely watching this later.

Tag.

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azuarc posted...

Fantastic work. Also, some interesting choices in the music department. (Hi, Sunshine Coastline! VGMC misses you!)

I went into this wanting to use mostly VGMC retirees, but a lot of them didn't fit the theme well (very orchestral rock and ambiance focused, a lot more grandiose than what I was going for). Sunshine Coastline had the absolute best vibe for a comeback feel, so I set it aside as "DEFINITELY using this", and it just kinda went from there! Also wanted to use as many NN themes as possible, but Metroid didn't really have anything (the Metal Gear Integral remix of Zanzibar Breeze was a last-minute cut for Flutter Vs Gesselshaft, though).

KamikazePotato posted...

This video is really well-put-together. Especially the part at the beginning where you make caring about GameFAQs Contests not sound like the ramblings of a crazy person to the general populace.

Trust me, nothing went through revisions more than trying to say "God I love numbers and people whining about them" in a respectful manner.

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That hit me in the feels

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Kamekguy posted...

Metroid didn't really have anything

I don't know if it would have fit the timing of when you wanted to use a Metroid song, but the most well-regarded track from all the Metroid games is Phendrana Drifts.

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very nice video

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Wow this was awesome. Excellent work!

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Looks good, will watch later.

Man those 2003 GameFAQS site screenshots... the memories.

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great video

18:55 had me cracking up

also loved the match montage at the end

Amazing work here! It all felt just a bit over the top, with help from your perfectly-suited voice, but I'd argue that's the right tone to strike for something like this.

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UltimaterializerX posted...

Are you seeing whats happening now bro?

What I was referring to was the five minute updates. As thrilling as the last hour of RE2 vs. Bloodborne was, it does not have the same punch as seeing the votes as they come in, so those who were not around for the first few years of contests will never know the feeling of hitting the refresh button and watching a character surge past another in real time. Or in the case of Frog vs. Chief, spending the final hour of a poll dead even with each other the entire time.

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Also, I finally got to watch the video, and that was about as compelling as you could make an internet popularity contest actually seem like a battle between two icons of the industry, Some clever use of Smash footage really reinforced the battle theme we some fantasize the contests to be, when it's really just a few clicks on some JPEGS (well, actually they are PNGs these days).

I really hope we get that followup on the Mario vs. Crono rivalry.

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That was fantastic, great job. As a minor minor clarification, SotN did not hit 1 million copies sold in its original release - the honour of the first Castlevania to do so would go to Circle of the Moon (in only a month) boosted by the GBA launch, a year before that contest.

This was an amazing video, I would love to see more if you ever wanted go.

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I just wanted to add, the image of impaled Crash in place of Zolom with Did Sephiroth do this? - A+

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@Kamekguy Now narrate every GameFAQs contests ever. lol.

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Definitely watching this today.

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anything referencing stuff pre 2007 is automatically at least average content.

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azuarc posted...

I don't know if it would have fit the timing of when you wanted to use a Metroid song, but the most well-regarded track from all the Metroid games is Phendrana Drifts.

Aah sorry, I didn't mean to imply Metroid necessarily had bad music! It's more that it just leans to a slow, discordant techno post-Prime, and is either atmospheric or space opera-esque before it. Only songs that really fit were the Smash rock remixes, and at the point where it'd be most relevant (Sonic Vs Samus discussion)... yeah just letting the Sonic buttrock play out felt like the right call.

Lightning Strikes posted...

That was fantastic, great job. As a minor minor clarification, SotN did not hit 1 million copies sold in its original release - the honour of the first Castlevania to do so would go to Circle of the Moon (in only a month) boosted by the GBA launch, a year before that contest.

Yeah my bad, it was hard to show "SotN sold NEAR but not quite a million in 2002". Honestly puts into perspective how astonishing Alucard having any strength was even more, though!

swirIdude posted...

Now narrate every GameFAQs contests ever. lol.

Dude if it gets views I just might. This was a ton of fun to work on, but I never want to see Smash's replay viewer again, it is a LOT more work than my usual content! If it ends up as a big thing that people come to see, I can absolutely justify that time investment. Though if Crono or Master Chief get a Mii Costume, that sure does simplify matters...

Thank you, again, to everyone for the really kind words.

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As someone who has followed these contests since I was 10 years old back in Summer 2002, Id love to see more of these videos!

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Thank you for making this, I've been saying for years that we need content like this to bring attention back to the contests and the board

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This was an outstanding video. I've wanted to do contest retrospectives on The Show before and we just haven't done it.
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Just bumping this up for the evening...

But if there were to be another one, what would the strongest through-line be? Mario Vs Crono is GREAT but peaks midway through the saga. Other immediate thoughts are Starcraft, Frog 2004, L-Block, Draven, and Undertale, though it also seems criminal to not document the rise and fall of Snake. Or a quick one on Master Hand since he's consistently funny.

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Snake 2004-2008 would be pretty fascinating.
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Kamekguy posted...

Just bumping this up for the evening...

But if there were to be another one, what would the strongest through-line be? Mario Vs Crono is GREAT but peaks midway through the saga. Other immediate thoughts are Starcraft, Frog 2004, L-Block, Draven, and Undertale, though it also seems criminal to not document the rise and fall of Snake. Or a quick one on Master Hand since he's consistently funny.

You could frame Mario's win in 2005 as a bit of redemption after CT ran the guantlet of his games in Spring 04 and the Crono victory in Summer 04. That way there's a clear narrative going after the highlights of the 02 and 03 matches.

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This video was incredible, holy shit.

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EXCELLENT video. I mean it. What a narrative, damn I felt my blood boil for the contests the way it used to. You rule man!

I didnt become a regular here till 08, but word of the past contests always interested me. Ive just today been poking around the Board 8 Wiki and reflecting on past memories with some of these contests, and one thing seems consistent: People really used to call this site NintendoFAQs!

And I wonder why that is? It must have been some horrible misunderstanding, because the numbers consistently tell a different story. I mean good lord, FF7 should have never had anything on Mario or Link, when comparing games or characters. Even when FF7 was at its peak (whether that be when it was newish or when its nostalgia had peaked), how could it touch Mario and Link/Zelda, the respective video game avatars for fun and adventure?

I think a common view is/was that Cloud is better because he actually has a personality, but thats a tragic reason to call him a better video game character. Video game characters and stories have a much different role than do characters/stories in other media; I always felt Nintendo understood this. Sure if Cloud were written into a novel, his novel would be much better than Marios, as Cloud would actually have dialogue; but then as dialogue goes, FF7 is translated horribly anyway and would be torn apart if viewed on the merits of its writing. I mean if John Steinbeck or Rudyard Kipling had been responsible for FF7s writing, theyd have been laughed into historical irrelevancy. So it seems strange to laud Cloud for his personality in that sense. As video game protagonists go, Id give my nod to Mario for being cool enough and cute enough to trailblaze a dozen different series across a dozen different genres, each time being the platinum standard for through-and-through fun, quality, polish, and innovation. What I mean is, hes Mr. Video Game! Cloud is just a guy who was in a really cool game.

My desultory rant concluding as this: On a website where FF7 has consistently beaten OoT, there sure as hell aint a Nintendo bias. I think quite the opposite that era of gaming was marked by a strange anti-Nintendo angst. Surely the claims of Nintendo bias come from this sentiment and a desire to confirm it. I mean gosh, Cloud-Seph nearly beat Red-Blue in a contest for best rivalry. How was that even close??? Red-Blue is the most nostalgic, iconic rivalry of all-time for at least two generations of gamers and nongamers alike; so huge that Ash and Gary are still relevant in the common persons lexicon to this day. Very strange to me. I could chalk it up to a few things, but to say there was Nintendo bias here? Thats crazy.

FFVII has beaten OoT exactly once.

You Red/Blue people I swear

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I mean, Paper Mario > World of Warcraft and Golden Sun> GTA: SA are pretty damning (if the former is very correct and the latter slightly less so; Golden Sun ain't even Camelot's best RPG on the GBA when Mario Golf: Advance Tour is sitting right there!).

I tend to think that the Gamecube era was Nintendo's worst time for "hardcores". Series like Mega Man, Metal Gear, and Final Fantasy had jumped ship to the Playstation, which was innovating storytelling in games and marketing itself both at Nintendo's traditional "family" market AND at those who wanted the medium to "grow up" with them, so to speak. Sonic was a fallen titan who people were basically giving post-retirement respect to before he decided to have another run at it and mucked it up. Nintendo had just lost Rare, which basically caused the Nintendo fanbase to turn on everything Donkey Kong internally for... some reason, put the kiddy gloves and coat of paint on Link, Pokemon was the hottest thing and clearly marketed toward younger children. They basically only had Smash, Metroid and MAYBE Eternal Darkness if you were REALLY into Ninty's catalogue to show off as "pushing the game forward" and being even remotely "mature". It really wasn't until the DS that they saved face, and the Wii made them inescapable. Nintendo's performances in these contests seem to line up with that well, Link aside because... I mean it's Link.

tl;dr, nah, Nintendo's just got a baseline "nostalgic" strength and then rises or falls from there based on what the company's doing. People were growing up from Nintendo, and Final Fantasy VII is a very resonant game to a lot of people that came out early in the PS1's life cycle. Then Nintendo came back as convenient and accessible. Then it wasn't that during the Wii U era (aside from Smash and Mario Kart). Then it came back again with the Switch. It's an easy trend to follow, the contests just started when Ninty was on the downswing.

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Nah dont underestimate Golden Sun. That game was a huge deal, easily one of the biggest GBA games, revived that style of game, sold 2 million copies and has a 91 on Metacritic. People on here forget that. If course, that match also happened the day the DS game came out, so that helped.

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Oh man only 18 years for a video to appear!

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How many characters/games have had a match the day a game in their series came out?

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GTM posted...

How many characters/games have had a match the day a game in their series came out?

Pretty sure Twilight Princess came out on the day of Link/Cloud 2006.

Actually, looks like Link/Cloud was the day before.
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