Board 8 > How would they do in a contest? Day 377 ft Commander Keen, Squidward, Dr. Fetus

(+) 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

If you feel that a character has been over or under-ranked, or if a new development has come up that would affect their contest strength, you may nominate them for a re-ranking. You may nominate one character per day for this, and 3 votes are needed to get them on the slate. One character with 3 votes will come up for re-ranking today.

Re-ranking Nomination List: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1V6dx-tu-FD1rCxbX69eQwEzE7x1F6nNRNFochYHu1dc/edit?usp=sharing

Results from Day 376:

Sho Minamimoto (The World Ends With You) is Low Fodder
Sissel (Ghost Trick) is Low Fodder
Taj (Diddy Kong Racing) is Low Fodder

Here is today's trio to rank:

Commander Keen (Commander Keen)
Squidward Tentacles (Spongebob)
Dr. Fetus (Meat Boy)

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Nominate:
Corona (Crusader of Centy)

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The most shocking thing about Commander Keen is that he actually has made a contest before. He's someone that is way too old even for us. In 2013, he put up a number on Snake...good enough to suggest he's still considerably above Tanner or something so I'll go Low Fodder.

Pretty much everyone knows who Squidward is and he might be the most popular Spongebob character with older fans, and even older people that aren't really fans. I think pretty highly of his potential, and can see him beating a surprising number of characters because people don't really hate him like they do say Spongebob himself. I'll pick High Fodder for him.

I'll just say Dr. Fetus is Low Fodder and stop thinking about it.

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Nominate:
Red (Transistor)
Johnny Storm/Human Torch (Marvel)
Susan Storm/Invisible Woman (Marvel)
Madison Paige (Heavy Rain)
Maki Genryusai (Final Fight)

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Commander Keen (Commander Keen) - Low fodder
Squidward Tentacles (Spongebob) - Mid fodder

I'm fairly skeptical of Spongebob characters and couldn't really believe in Mr. Krabs getting above low fodder but Squidward (and Patrick?) sure.

Dr. Fetus (Meat Boy) - Low fodder

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Agree with Low Fodder for Commander Keen. Obviously he'd be really weak but I think the demographic shift of the site might actually help him.

Squidward I say is Mid Fodder. He is pretty popular among the Gfaqs demographic, but he also isn't the main character of the show and doesn't have much relevance in Spongebob video games.

Dr. Fetus is Low Fodder, only because Gfaqs really likes Super Meat Boy.

On that note, nominate Meat Boy for re-ranking. Yes SMB got its butt kicked by Sonic Mania but is likely significant fanbase overlap (and the Sonic name) to blame for that. I think the popularity of SMB on the site will be enough to boost the namesake main character to mid fodder.

also nominate Corona (Crusader of Centy)

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Ehh, I'm going to err on the conservative side and say Low Fodder for Squidward. Normally, the character adults identify with most from a cartoon would be well-positioned to be among its strongest on a site like GameFAQs. In Squidward's case, however, I think nostalgia is such a huge governing factor that he might still suffer among the younger third of GameFAQs from being the SpongeBob character kids disliked. Combine that with my skepticism that the older two-thirds of this site cares about SpongeBob in general (it's rather new for a kids' show here, where the average DOB is in early 1987) and you get a close vote.

I will agree with Low Fodder for Keen and Fetus, albeit obviously a much weaker degree than Squidward.

Also, while we're on the subject of pixel-art indie platformer characters, I'll nominate Madeline for re-ranking. Despite its narrow and unexpected loss, Celeste itself looked to be roughly Mid Fodder in GotD. Madeline's strength should track closely to her game, both because it's the norm for platformer protagonists on GameFAQs and for reasons more specific to Celeste.

Third Corona.

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Day 378 is up: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/78803383

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