Board 8 > ~*Ultimaterializer's Post-Contest Retro Summer 2008 Analysis!*~

(+) Yeah! (+)

http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/gallery/albums/cb7/cb7-57-2.jpg

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Division 4 Round 2: Crono, Amaterasu, L-Block, and Ryu

Crono - 45757 [32.09%]
Amaterasu - 23270 [16.32%]
L-Block - 39556 [27.74%]
Ryu - 34004 [23.85%]
Total Votes - 142587

As crazy as the round 1 match was featuring L-Block, this match.... wasn't. If you check out the trend graph, this match was basically set in stone 10 minutes in. People were worried L-Block would start going nuts again, but it just... didn't happen. This was perhaps the most boring match a hyped bandwagon joke character has ever been in.

L-Block had already beaten Ryu in round 1, so him beating Ryu again was no surprise. By the way, Ryu has the distinction of losing to both L-Block <i>and</i> Draven. Poor guy. He was never in contention here, but that wasn't much of a surprise. What was a surprise though was L-Block coming out in this match and looking positively normal. He was only in this match for about 5 minutes before falling off, and that was it. Crono got an easy first. L-Block got an easy second. Ryu and Amaterasu, better luck next time.

The normalcy here surprised a lot of people in and of itself, because as you can see by the Oracle picks, many people expected L-Block to get a bandwagon going and challenge for first. When he failed to do that, alarm bells went off. Was L-Block falling off? Was he losing the joke appeal? Did he merely run up against a beast in Crono and this match was a speed bump?

A lot of people felt it was the latter, and the Save_Us.RAT movement was born.

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Yeah, this was the most vulnerable L-Block looked in a while. On the other hand, he got around the same percentage here as he did in rounds 2 and 3 in 2007 so all he needed was another late contest bandwagon. At the very least consistently getting 27-28% would usually be enough to keep advancing.

Alas, it never materialized.

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Division 4 Round 2: Alucard, Captain Falcon, Pikachu, and Arthas

Alucard - 39153 [29.26%]
Captain Falcon - 25734 [19.23%]
Pikachu - 40553 [30.3%]
Arthas - 28382 [21.21%]
Total Votes - 133822

If you look at the guru picks for this match, people were all over the place, mainly because people overestimated Diddy Kong and the extrapolations for Nintendo leeching were all over the place. A lot of people expected Ike, Diddy Kong, or some other permutation of triple Nintendo to be in this match, so a lot of people had Alucard > X in their predictions. For those who expected double Nintendo, the pick was Pikachu > Alucard. Conventional wisdom held that this would be a match with two Nintendo characters, with the weaker one unable to hurt Pikachu very much.

Either way, the consensus pick was Alucard and Pikachu advancing in some order. There were spatterings of off-meta picks, but most people had those two advancing here after sorting out the crazy amount of Nintendo in this section of the bracket. The characters who ended up here, Falcon and Arthas, were never going to be strong enough to oppose them. In fact Falcon was so weak that Pikachu managed first place even <i>with</i> the leeching going on, which was some good insight into future Save_Us.RAT performances in this contest.

I would love to get into the ridiculous duel Pikachu and Alucard had for first place, but again, what's even the point? This format blows, and continually stole so many great matches from us that would have been epic had they had actual consequences. For those living under a rock somehow, top two advance regardless of order in this format. I suppose one could go nuts about first place duels given point order in the bracket mattered, but every time I see a match like this I'm reminded that second place duels matter than first. It's just fundamentally dumb on every level.

It <i>was</i> a great duel though. After Pikachu barely won the morning vote, Alucard started destroying him overnight, or at least he was laying wood as best he could. When the morning vote came along and Pikachu started winning it, the reasonable assumption was Pikachu would steamroll the poll and easily take first. But then the unthinkable happened, and <i>Alucard freaking won the morning vote over a Pokemon.</i>

Before getting into what happened next, just think about how absurd that sentence is and marvel at the sheer idiocy of this not being a 1v1 match. Yes, I am well aware Pikachu easily wins 1v1 if Falcon isn't there. Not the point. This format is <i>so</i> bad. Matches like this are why it took me 12 years to do these writeups, because it just annoys me to look back on what could have been, especially with how high these vote totals were.

Anyway, Alucard somehow started going nuts with the morning vote, so much so that by the time the ASV rolled around he had an 1100 vote lead. It was then that Pikachu finally decided to stop dicking around, and that 1100 lead got wiped out in like 2 hours. Apparently we've gone from WAIT UNTIL THE KIDDIES WAKE UP to WAIT UNTIL THE KIDDIES ARE HOME FROM SCHOOL. Pikachu pulled a 2500 vote swing in 9 hours to win by 1400, in a poll that feels like it never should have been that close.

I'd give more passion and a better rundown, but this match I specifically remember as being the one that made me want to quit. That's when it really hit me at the time that we had this great duel going, one year after Alucard's crazy photo finish, and none of it mattered. At least in 2013 we had the decency of only first place meaning anything. Which is frankly how every poll should work.

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The funny part of that Pika/Alucard duel is that if we had a Pikachu/Alucard match in 2018 it'd be about in line with 2008 results, and if all you told us in 2008 was that happening, we'd all go 'hey, that's about consistent with what we expected, I can't believe Alucard and Pikachu both held constant for a decade'.

Instead they're two of the characters to boost the most since then.

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Who was Crono against last contest? Bowser twice, Cloud twice, Mega Man...I was going to ask if 2008 was his last good contest, but I guess we can add 2018.

Then I was going to ask if Snake is the bottom run of the Noble Nine, but then I remembered Sonic.

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The last truly good contest was in 2015.

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Division 5 Round 2: Weighted Companion Cube, Tidus, Mega Man, and Nero

Cube - 39758 [28.62%]
Tidus - 31608 [22.75%]
Mega Man - 50711 [36.51%]
Nero - 16834 [12.12%]
Total Votes - 138911

Someone really needs to get Tidus away from joke characters in these contests. This dude has had to deal with the King of All Cosmos, the Weighted Companion Cube, Missingno, Serge, Shadow the Hedgehog, and Claire Redfield. He's even had to deal with pre-DMC5 Nero (KYRIEEEEEEEEEEEE) and Banjo. Enough is enough already, leave the poor guy alone. And yes I am aware Claire is not technically a "joke", but as a Board 8er it's impossible to see her the same way after yoblazer's famous topic where he meticulously reviewed every curvature and pixel of fake asses. That was, uh... something else.

As for the actual match, it was eerily similar to the Crono > L-Block match from two days prior. There was a lot of discussion around it given one of the characters was of the bandwagon joke variety, but round 1 had already clued us in as to how the result would go and the round 2 match had alarmingly boring trends.

That is exactly what happened here. Cube had already beaten Tidus once when nothing was really on the line. How could anyone expect him to do worse when he <i>had</i> to? On top of that, the match was essentially over in seconds. Mega Man was never challenged for first, Cube was never challenged for second, and Tidus + Nero brought up the rear. As jokey as Cube being in this bracket was, he performed in this match, bizarrely, like a normal character. It was somewhat anticlimactic, as the match itself did not match the surrounding discussion at all.

Where this differed from L-Block however was bracket placement. People had a lot of hope in Save_Us.RAT. The Cube was a different story, as people began to math out the possibility of this thing making a very deep contest run. Most people were cool with it, while the crybaby anti-fun brigade was not. In the long run, my side was proven right on that argument. Check out the vote totals being at laughably low levels a decade after this contest to see what happens when you have contests without the fun.

On a personal side note, Tidus deserves a round 3 run some day. He's legitimately a very good character, but he gets unfairly hated on due to his voice actor being garbage. If Final Fantasy X had only text, I'm convinced Tidus would be on Auron's level. Instead, we're stuck with what we got. Tidus has been in contests since 2002, and has yet to make round 3. Jecht got there on his first try, as a 14 seed no less. Poor guy deserves better.

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Tidus is stuck in the Knuckles spot where he's popular enough to get an okay seed, but that puts him usually facing a buzzsaw in round 2.

Then he had his shot and collapsed against Donkey Kong so 'welp'.

Maybe if we expand the field to a 256 character 1v1 contest he'll make it.

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WarThaNemesis2 posted...

Maybe if we expand the field to a 256 character 1v1 contest he'll make it.

Please god no.

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PostContestUlti posted...

Please god no.

We all know we want your write-ups for uh...Liu Kang vs. the triumphant return of, I dunno, Ghaleon?

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WarThaNemesis2 posted...

Tidus is stuck in the Knuckles spot where he's popular enough to get an okay seed, but that puts him usually facing a buzzsaw in round 2.

if i ever win guru (unlikely) my plan is to make my guru pick Knuckles so he gets a 2 seed and can finally get to round 3

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ZenOfThunder posted...

if i ever win guru (unlikely) my plan is to make my guru pick Knuckles so he gets a 2 seed and can finally get to round 3

Why are you telling us this? Doesn't everybody here want to win the Guru just to make this happen?
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WarThaNemesis2 posted...

We all know we want your write-ups for uh...Liu Kang vs. the triumphant return of, I dunno, Ghaleon?

Dude I have SOME limits.

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WarThaNemesis2 posted...

We all know we want your write-ups for uh...Liu Kang vs. the triumphant return of, I dunno, Ghaleon?

Well, at least Ghaleon could get a better match picture...

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Division 5 Round 2: Ryu Hayabusa, Zero, Solid Snake, and Vivi

Ryu Hayabusa - 18682 [13.95%]
Zero - 28658 [21.4%]
Solid Snake - 58327 [43.55%]
Vivi - 28251 [21.1%]
Total Votes - 133918

Another match, another Noble Niner taking care of business. However, this was a <i>much</i> bigger deal than Snake simply winning a match easily. Every now and again in the stats topic, you'll see Leonhart4 and Black Turtle arguing about an old account bet. That happened in this match. Leon4 correctly believed that Snake would get an insane boost from the conjoined factors of BrawlFEAR and Metal Gear Solid 4, and that this would be the match where he started flexing some muscle. If you go back to round 1, Snake had to deal with Sackboy, Wesker, and Vivi -- three characters likely to leech off of him -- and the dude broke 50%. This time, he had to deal with much better competition, but Leon4 predicted Snake would finish between 43-45%. Turtle is a huge Mega Man X fan and thought this was preposterous, and you all can see what happened. Snake easily finished above 43%, which is a <i>ridiculous</i> number. In these contests, there is the Link tier, the 1A tier below Link, and then tier 2 where the lower Noble Nine characters live. This number put Snake clean into 1A, and Leon deserves endless love for seeing it coming.

As for BT welching, account bets are dumb and I don't blame the guy at all. Who cares if someone closes their account or not? We've had legitimately awful people on here over the years, and BT is not one of them. He's just having fun. He isn't threatening to blow people's heads off with shotguns, he isn't stalking people, he isn't a pedo defender, he doesn't make fun of the various users that have committed suicide over the years, he doesn't pull the trash Preston has pulled via PM, and overall he's not a bad dude. Contests are better with BT around, so good on him. Welch all you want, bro.

The <i>actual</i> story here was the battle for second place. I'll spare people the usual rant about how these being more important than battles for first are dumb, because this was just an epic match between two beloved characters. There was a tiny bit of hype for Ryu Hayabusa here, but deep down we all knew it would come down to Zero and Vivi -- and I'm convinced that if people didn't have Zero in their bracket overwhelmingly, Vivi would have pulled this thing off.

When the poll started, it didn't look like much. Vivi got some early love, and then it looked like the match would come to a simple finish. Zero beat the piss out of Vivi overnight as if Vivi were Jesse Pinkman, and the overnight is typically Square's best time. Match over, right?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-I7oZBn5q8

One would think this was done, given Zero had a 600 vote lead overnight, but Vivi inexplicably started coming back as the night wore on. But Mega Man X characters, largely due to the series having no love in Europe whatsoever, just DIE overnight. It's brutal to watch, and back then I don't know that most of us knew this trend. The Europe vote wasn't discussed much before geolocation stats happened.

Once Vivi started getting momentum, he ran with it. It took a little while thanks to sharing this poll with Snake, but he did manage to catch up thanks to the Europe vote and the morning vote. He caught up at 10:30, and Zero gave no resistance whatsoever as Vivi started building up his own lead. For the second time, the match looked over as Vivi flew ahead by 400 heading into the ASV. With one or two major trends left and Vivi being absolutely adored by people, it looked like he would hold on.

Unfortunately, we all saw what happened, and I'm still convinced it wouldn't have happened if Zero wasn't such a <b>massive</b> bracket favorite in this spot. Zero began the slow, painful, methodical match forward. He won the ASV, but not in convincing fashion. Most of the updates during his comeback were +5, +2, +10, +15, and the occasional Vivi push where it looked like he would hold Zero off.

But it was not to be. Though it took hours and felt like open heart surgery, Zero caught up. His major push came after dinner, where the perennial stall turned into a legitimate Zero push. When Zero finally caught real momentum here, the match truly was good and over. These two characters were stuck in the 200s for <i>hours</i> after school, but when Zero finally made his move after dinner he pulled off what would end up a 600 vote swing to ultimately win by 400. The 400 vote win wasn't really indicative of how close and how back-and-forth this match was, but only one of them could advance in this spot and Zero was it.

81% of gurus picked Zero here, and even though the board loves Vivi, they were happy to see Zero win here for their brackets. I will remain convinced that if Vivi had 81% of gurus behind him, he would have won. That's often how these things go. This ultimately set up a bizarre matchup between Snake, Mega Man, the Weighted Companion Cube, and Zero -- eerily similar to this match in 2007: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2922-tournament-quarterfinal-snake-l-block-sonic-squall

Lastly, for those lamenting Vivi's not finishing the job here, no worries. He would <i>more</i> than get his win back.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/5246-character-battle-ix-division-8-round-2-mario-vs-vivi-vs

Not only that, but he came dangerously close to winning a division in 2018. Vivi would be alright. He always pulls through. But this day was about Solid Snake jumping up a level, and Zero surviving.

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Division 6 Round 2: Sora, Fox, Squall, and Yoshi

Sora - 36108 [28.31%]
Fox - 23944 [18.77%]
Squall - 38857 [30.47%]
Yoshi - 28625 [22.44%]
Total Votes - 127534

A few matches ago, I mentioned how Auron vs Sub-Zero is one of our most pointless contest rivalries. They've faced each other four times somehow, and Auron is 4-0.

The opposite of that is Squall vs Sora, who have faced each other <i>five times</i> over the years, and while Squall is 5-0, he has never blown Sora out. He has never SFFd him. He has never screwed him over and he has never leeched support enough to screw him out of some win that Sora would have otherwise had. It never even matters who else is in the poll. These are always inexplicably, bizarrely, and unbelievably close, but Squall always wins the duel. I don't know how Squall never SFFs the guy, but that's what always happens. Sora loses close every single time, outside of the Rivalry Rumble debacle where it looked for a minute Sora might actually pull it off. I have no explanation for why Squall doesn't SFF the guy but Cloud was apparently able to. I don't know. Your best guess is mine. Maybe Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy don't have overlapping fanbases anymore, which would make sense given Final Fantasy in no way matters in those games at this point.

This is all important to bring up because it halfway explains what happened in this match. Sora being close to Squall is no real surprise, because we saw them do this twice in 2007. If '08 was the first time we saw these two in polls together, this would have been much more of a stunner. What <i>is</i> a stunner however, even by 2020 standards, is whatever the hell happened to Nintendo in this match. Nintendo rarely just gives up and dies, but this match? They quit. Yoshi not advancing here wasn't a huge surprise at the time, because you can look at round 1 and see it coming. That wasn't the surprise. It's that Yoshi got completely and thoroughly <b>destroyed</b> here. Once bracket votes wore off, Sora beat the tar out of Yoshi by 7500 votes in a match that wasn't even that close.

Yoshi was harmed by the presence of Fox. Sora was not hurt by the presence of Squall. That's the quick version of what happened. If someone has a definitive answer for why Sora and Squall are so independent, I'm all ears. Is it Kingdom Hearts being on some Nintendo consoles? Is it Final Fantasy not being in the series anymore? I don't know.

This set up a fun match with Sora, Squall, <i>and</i> Cloud, and depending on who would squeeze into second place in the next match, it was practically a bye into the divisional finals.

Oh and just for fun, since this was 1v1 Square vs Nintendo.

Square - 74965 [58.78%]
Nintendo - 52569 [41.22%]
Total Votes - 127534

Savor these matches where Nintendo gets annihilated by Square, because they don't happen often. They seem to happen at a higher clip when Squall is involved, though. Hmm.

Oh and the match picture was a huge point of discussion here, no, Smilin' Squall didn't decide this match. All four of them are smiling in this match picture. Outside of a joke 5 people on Board 8 understand, it meant nothing for the match.

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Division 6 Round 2: Cloud, Midna, Mewtwo, and Pac-Man

Cloud - 67497 [53.49%]
Midna - 20386 [16.16%]
Mewtwo - 21342 [16.91%]
Pac-Man - 16959 [13.44%]
Total Votes - 126184

I had this watch this video. So do you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5C_99XJqIs4

Somehow I didn't know about this idiot until last week. He's married, by the way. What's your excuse?

These are the things we put into PCA writeups for laughably boring matches. I know Midna vs Mewtwo looks like some epic duel based on how close the result was, but it really wasn't. Mewtwo won the early vote, and despite being held under 300 votes on his lead all night, the winner of second place became clear once Mewtwo won the morning vote. There was a small bit of concern Midna might win the morning vote Legend of Zelda style and pull the upset, but thankfully that didn't happen and the garbage from Twilight Princess was laid to rest. Seriously, what an overhyped pile that game was. It was average, that's it, and largely because once you hit the Arbiter's Grounds the game finally decides to stop being garbage.

The reason Midna vs Mewtwo was close wasn't because Midna was trying to pull some epic upset, however. Cloud was so laughably, thoroughly dominant in this match that the other three characters were fighting over scraps, like Tony Stark in the cave in the first movie. Pre-contest, Mewtwo was the heavy favorite to advance here. In fact he was such a heavy favorite that only Samus > Ganondorf had better round 2 guru odds. Mewtwo may have won ugly, but he still won. On top of Cloud being a total badass in this contest, the competition was splitting the Nintendo vote three ways.

That said, Mewtwo would have considerably less Nintendo leeching moving forward, and was a real threat to get lucky and make a deep contest run. Next match was Cloud, Squall, Sora, and Mewtwo. After two strange outings, Mewtwo was about to catch a huge break.

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Division 7 Round 2: Big Boss, Kirby, Master Chief, and Raiden

Big Boss - 35307 [26.17%]
Kirby - 42464 [31.47%]
Master Chief - 40903 [30.32%]
Raiden - 16245 [12.04%]
Total Votes - 134919

For the people who whined all match long about Big Boss losing because of a match picture, pictures do not matter as much as you people think they do. And even if they did, it's a distant fourth on the list of reasons why Big Boss lost. But before that, let's start with first place.

Pre-contest, almost everyone agreed this match would be Chief and Kirby advancing in some order. For the Kirby backers, the logic was easy. This match was always going to be Big Boss, Kirby, Chief, and either Kain Highwind or Raiden. Kirby is the lone Nintendo character of the bunch, and he's near-elite. Kirby being the lone Nintendo character in a poll is a far cry from, say, Falco being the loner. There was a 0% chance for Kirby not to advance here, be it in first or second place.

For the Chief backers, the logic was equally simple. If he recaptured some of that 2007 magic (and Halo + GAME FUEL was still well-liked in 2008, unlike the state Chief is in now), Chief would threaten for first place here. Granted, he had more potential to get leeched than Kirby did with having to deal with Big Boss and Raiden, two characters who are much closer to Chief in fanbase than Kirby is. Kirby was the very likely favorite, but Chief winning first place here wouldn't have <i>floored</i> us. 2007 was that big for the guy. But once again, first place duels don't matter much in this format.

The main discussion revolved around Big Boss, for some reason, even though Raiden being in the poll all but guaranteed his loss barring a Master Chief meltdown. People also pointed to Big Boss's round 1 result where he beat Kirby, somehow forgetting that the Nintendo vote got split three ways. Big Boss was never going to finish ahead of Kirby here now that Kirby was alone with all the Nintendo votes. That said, Boss put up one hell of a fight with Master Chief for second place. Him and Chief were basically tied when this poll started, which allowed Kirby to slowly fly off with first place. Kirby's win ultimately wasn't impressive, but he did end up winning in the end. More on that in a sec.

Big Boss and Master Chief spent the first few hours of this poll having a MANLY DUEL OF TESTOSTERONE, and stayed legitimately tied the entire time. It was anyone's game until late into the night, where Big Boss started running away with things. He built up a pretty nice 800 vote lead going into the morning vote, where Master Chief then started making his move. I'm going to pause here and get into those three reasons for Big Boss's loss that I promised earlier.

#1 - Master Chief rallied. A lot of people blame Raiden for Big Boss losing here, but given how hard the Chief's base rallied in this match, it's possible Chief gets second place even without Raiden there. I remember this match very well, and around 9am, Chief started getting these <i>wild</i> updates. Not only did Chief erase the 800 vote lead like nothing, but he did so so sharply that human intervention was clearly involved. You don't go from sub-100 vote updates to 150-200+ out of nowhere like that. This rally lasted all through the rest of the match, and not only did it leave Big Boss in the dust, he made a decent run at Kirby for first place. Kirby had a 2300 vote lead on Chief going into the ASV, and Chief managed to only lose by 1500 votes. Had Chief fans rallied that hard for the entire match, he may have won this poll outright. Chief has had crazy rallies before, so it's not inconceivable.

#2 - Raiden's presence can't be ignored. Two Metal Gear Solid characters in a match is different from, say, Yoshi and Bowser sharing a poll. Raiden and Big Boss have 100% overlap in their fanbases, and Raiden being here unquestionably hurt Big Boss's chances.

#3 - Big Boss is simply not that strong. I don't know why people can't accept this one, but it's the truth. Pictures have nothing to do with it.

In the end, we were treated to a very entertaining match in which we got to enjoy a rally completely erasing a lead in seconds. And you know me, I live for rallies causing meltdowns. This rally caused quite the lot of crybabies to pop up, though given most people had Chief and Kirby in some order the whining wasn't quite the level one might expect.

This would ultimately set up another match with Kirby versus TESTOSTERONE.

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Lastly, speaking of Kaim, I actually have The Lost Odyssey sitting around somewhere. I should really get around to playing it one of these days. Is it any good?

It is not at all my usual type of game, but I really enjoyed parts of it. I'm a sucker for timed hit mechanics in a JRPG, and the storytelling and world building were fantastic

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BlAcK TuRtLe posted...

I'm a sucker for timed hit mechanics in a JRPG

Fuckin SOLD

Also read the Zero writeup. I gave you a well earned shoutout.

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Division 7 Round 2: Leon Kennedy, Riku, Dante, and Hogger

Leon Kennedy - 43486 [30.8%]
Riku - 31381 [22.23%]
Dante - 47863 [33.9%]
Hogger - 18460 [13.07%]
Total Votes - 141190

This was one of the most boring matches of the entire contest, because we had just seen a version of it last year: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2916-division-6-final-dante-amaterasu-leon-pikachu

There was no reason to think that result would flip in a year, and barring Riku or Hogger pulling off a miracle, there was no reason to think this result would be anything other than Dante > Leon Kennedy. Leon made it fun for a couple hours -- seriously, where did that even <i>come from?</i> -- but ultimately that's all it was. A couple hours of fun. The board exploded, people lost their minds, but... once Dante settled in, this match was done. No upset by Lone. No upset by Riku. No bandwagon run by Hogger. Just a boring, simple match to wind round 2 down that had a fun start.

For Hogger to get the type of joke run people were worried about, he would have to star in something people actually like. Even the people obsessed with World of Warcraft don't like World of Warcraft anymore. Hogger pulled a cute upset over trash in round 1, but that was that.

As for Riku, there was actually a lot of buzz he could pull an upset and take second place here. As for why, I couldn't tell you. People were vastly overestimating Kingdom Hearts pre-contest, I guess. You couldn't even manipulate the x-stats enough to make Riku anywhere near Dante, yet 76 gurus picked Riku here. I couldn't tell you why.

This set up a really funny match of TESTOSTERONE. Leon Kennedy, Dante, Master Chief, and... Kirby. Kirby is of course the MANLIEST character among that group, but the coming divisional final was eerily reminiscent of the 2007 runs of a couple of those characters. We'll get to it when I write up round 3.

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I recently replayed RE4, and I hadn't realized how Dante and RE4 Leon are almost the same character.

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Division 8 Round 2: Sonic the Hedgehog, Sandbag, Auron, and Sub-Zero

Sonic - 38702 [29.69%]
Sandbag - 19756 [15.15%]
Auron - 45155 [34.64%]
Sub-Zero - 26756 [20.52%]
Total Votes - 130369

Tohoya, The Real Truth, Terrafire, amyvitality, Zagro, Explicit Content, and Xuxon are the only gurus who picked Auron to get first place here. You guys are geniuses and get to be immortalized in PCA lore forever. Nice job, folks! Bizarrely, two of you went the extra mile and thought Sonic wouldn't even get second place -- Terrafire had Magus(?) in this spot, and TRT picked Sandbag. Doesn't make this insanely beautiful upset pick mean any less though, no worries.

As for the match, I was there. I remember the hype. I remember all the people saying there was clear data Auron was a 4way all-star and had the chops to pull this off. I remember ignoring the litany of terrible matches Sonic has had since 2006. I remember looking at this match in 2007, shrugging it off, and thinking "nah, I'll be fine" like a Critical Drinker skit: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2918-division-8-final-squall-sora-sonic-sub-zero

And to this day, I still cannot <i>believe</i> this result actually happened. Like I'm sitting here looking at this thing in 2020, going "Did this actually happen? Did Auron seriously beat the tar out of Sonic in the year Brawl came out?"

Yep. It's real. It actually happened. Props to everyone who called it, and props to everyone who hyped this thing up all contest. It shocked me when it happened and it still shocks me now to look at it all these years later. It wasn't just that Auron won; it was the <i>way</i> he won. After the freeze, this match was never even <i>close.</i> Auron just beat the shit out of the guy for 24 straight hours. You know those weird sports upsets where the underdog wins, but plays the entire game like they knew they were the better team the whole time, and even after it's over the fans are left scratching their heads? The 18-1 Super Bowl felt like that. The Magic randomly beating Lebon's Cavs that one year felt like that. The Pistons getting a gentlemen's sweep over the Lakers <i>definitely</i> fits the bill, and is probably the biggest example I can think of.

That was what watching this match felt like for me. It was just like... what on earth was I even seeing? I know Auron boosted from Kingdom Hearts 2 and Sonic wasn't looking too great there in the mid-2000s, but this was something else. The Noble Nine very rarely loses to outsiders, so any loss is a big deal. A loss this decisive is just.... yeah. This was much deeper than one upset, almost as if Sonic fans were punishing the guy for having such a garbage series for so long. I'd bring up how this not being a 1v1 was highway robbery in terms of longstanding contest lore, but I've ranted enough on that subject for now. For all the WTF factor of Auron winning this match, Sonic still advanced anyway. Dumb.

Last point. Sandbag was a bit of a dud. There was some fear he would pull an L-Block, but instead it was just one upset over a choke artist before bowing out in an easy last place. It was another data point in an increasing line of them that the joke factor, while still existent, would not be the end-al be-all of deciding this contest. The big names were all out for revenge.

---

I would like to think Sandbag pretty much switched the percentages by its presence since had to leech a lot of that Brawl boost, but the way Sonic was in this contest, I'm not even sure it mattered that much. Auron still could have probably beat the hedgehog with a neutral last place.

---

So I have the next match written, but in checking the wayback machine, apparently some other popularity poll was going on during the final round 2 match? But no one mentions what it actually was? I don't see a secondary poll of the day anywhere.

Someone help a brother out. What happened that day?

---

There isn't anything listed in the list of past PotDs.

EDIT: Wait a minute, I looked at the wrong month. There totally was a poll, that related to an even more important poll!

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3307-did-you-remember-to-vote-today

---

Division 8 Round 2: Sephiroth, Tifa, Kratos, and Jill Valentine

Sephiroth - 56444 [41.53%]
Tifa - 27259 [20.06%]
Kratos - 32949 [24.25%]
Jill Valentine - 19246 [14.16%]
Total Votes - 135898

Round 2 concluded with a very easy to diagnose poll, which featured all Playstation characters and a predetermined order. Sephiroth was always going to get first. Tifa was always going to get SFFd to death and get screwed out of getting second place, though if you reran this poll in 2020 it's quite possible that wouldn't happen. Jill Valentine, unpredictable as she is, was probably not going to be strong enough to take advantage of the situation and finesse her way into second place.

This left Kratos as the lucky odd man out for the second year in a row. In 2007 he took advantage of Kirby, L-Block, and Donkey Kong all stealing votes from each other. Here, he took advantage of Sephiroth, Jill, and Tifa all stealing votes from each other. Dad of Boy always knew how to make his mark! Also, I think Tifa gets hurt by the presence of Jill Valentine more than most people might think. They're both Playstation-era bombshells, which actually does matter. I wouldn't be at all shocked if there was massive overlap there.

This concluded round 2 of our secondary 4way experiment, and it was starting to get pretty decent. I wouldn't say "good" given the format, but it was decent. We had some surprises, we had some bandwagons, we had some arguments... but above all, these vote totals were <i>massive.</i> People were really having a lot of fun this year, and a huge bit of it was coming up to lead off the divisional finals.

---

PostContestUlti posted...

As for Riku, there was actually a lot of buzz he could pull an upset and take second place here. As for why, I couldn't tell you. People were vastly overestimating Kingdom Hearts pre-contest, I guess. You couldn't even manipulate the x-stats enough to make Riku anywhere near Dante, yet 76 gurus picked Riku here. I couldn't tell you why.

People believed there was some kind of overlap between Dante and Leon. This was an explanation as to why Pikachu won his match over them in 2007 after just losing to Leon in the prior round.

In retrospective it sounds weird, but it worked for predicting Solid Snake/Ryu Hayabusa SFF.

---

Division 1 Final: Link, Zack, Duke Nukem, and Altair

Link - 74138 [51.52%]
Zack - 31794 [22.09%]
Duke Nukem - 20797 [14.45%]
Altair - 17184 [11.94%]
Total Votes - 143913

Before we get to the obvious, the number Link got here is completely asinine. Breaking 50% in a 4way poll this late into a contest, against competition that all advanced twice, is almost impossible. This dude was on an absolute warpath in this contest, and nothing on God's green earth was stopping him. The vote total itself is also absurd. In most of Link's 1v1 matches, he hasn't gotten close to 74,000 votes. Here he was dropping 74k like it was a warmup. I know people are bored of Link, but some of the numbers he gets are a marvel to watch.

But that's all well and cute. All that actually mattered in this poll was...

<b>Zack.

F.

A.

Qs.</b>

Zack is one of the most fun bandwagons we've ever had in a contest, because he has the rare distinction of being liked by everyone. Board 8 loves the guy. JRPG fans love the guy. Bandwagon rally contest people love the guy. It was just a big lovefest with no arguing or anti-bandwagon blowback, and it was just so fun to be there. Zack is so popular despite his small bit role in FF7 that he got his own spinoff game. The game was gutter trash, but still! He got one!

It led to people going total fangirl during this match, even though it was fairly predictable when we saw the layout. Duke Nukem's run was fun, but him even being here counts as a win for the guy. Hell, him not being last place here counts as a moral victory. This is the only contest Duke has made round 3 in, and even in getting destroyed by the Link/Zack combo, he got to look respectable on his way out. Shout out to Duke and his run; he is definitely one of the stars of the contest.

Altair gets similar love, even finishing in last. We've seen new characters in contests make some <i>terrible</i> debuts, but that didn't happen this year. He represented the gurus well, even with this exit. A third round run is always respectable, regardless of competition, but every character but one was going to lose eventually. Altair would go down as one of the most successful guru nominations ever, topped only by Black Turtle's X vs Zero nomination in the (ugh) Rivalry Rumble.

All that said, all anyone cared about here was ZackFAQs running wild, and to say people's imaginations were also running wild is an understatement. There was a loooooot of potential fanbase leeching from Nintendo's heavy hitters moving forward, and we've seen crazier things happen. Who knew how far Zack could go?

---

Division 2 Final: Liquid Snake, Luigi, Mario, and Mega Man X

Liquid - 29823 [21.92%]
Luigi - 21647 [15.91%]
Mario - 44537 [32.73%]
Mega Man X - 40050 [29.44%]
Total Votes - 136057

This is the only contest poll to ever feature Mario vs Luigi in any way. Hopefully it doesn't happen again, because this one shows us that Luigi will just get SFFd into the ground when he faces his big bro.

There was a lot of hype leading into this match, because the conventional wisdom is that Luigi being here offered the potential to screw Mario over. Mega Man X came dangerously close to beat Mario in round 2, and that poll had Zelda and Mudkip in it. Add in the possibility of Liquid being the only non-Nintendo character, and people thought it was a recipe for wild upsets.

We should have known it wouldn't pan out that way. Of course Mario is going to do better if the Nintendo vote is split three ways instead of four. We overthink these things way too often, and this is one of those times. Add in the clear and obvious fact that Mario directly benefits when a joke character is removed (just look at the match trends for the round 2 Mudkip match), and you were left with Mario doing much better here in the divisional finals.

That said, Mega Man X made a real go at it early in this match, proving he definitely belongs in the near-elite conversation. Mario won early, but not in total blowout fashion. He did have Luigi stealing <i>some</i> votes, after all. And Mega Man X, at least for the first few hours in this match, wasn't harmed by Nintendo at all. Shortly after Mario built up a 200 vote lead, X came storming back. He was unable to breach the <b>50 vote barrier</b> however, and Mario quickly put this thing to bed.

Still, Mega Man X came out of this match looking like roses, and was so impressive in getting second place that Liquid never stood a chance. Liquid did well in getting this far, but Water Snek (he attac, he protec, but most importantly, he snek) was not on the level.

This all culminated in setting up one of the most hyped matches of the entire contest. Link, Zack, Mario, and Mega Man X. You can imagine where the hype men were focused for <i>that</i> one.

---

Division 3 Final: Samus, Ganondorf, Vincent, and Gordon Freeman

Samus - 44550 [34.84%]
Ganondorf - 21691 [16.96%]
Vincent - 38855 [30.38%]
Gordon Freeman - 22782 [17.82%]
Total Votes - 127878

Hey, so remember this match? https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2524-blast-division-round-1-ganondorf-vs-vincent-valentine

That's real. It actually happened. It was only two years before the match we're about to talk about, too.

Remember this match? https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2115-zebes-division-final-samus-aran-vs-ganondorf

That was only three years ago.

A couple matches ago, we talked about Duke Nukem going out like a winner. In this match, Gordon Freeman got to go out like a winner -- and that's because Ganondorf got <i>so thoroughly demolished</i> that Gordon Freeman actually managed to not finish in last place. Gordon Freeman <i>Always</i> Wins!

This was an all-time terrible match for Ganondorf, though it isn't the first time we've seen him just get demolished by Nintendo in odd circumstances. There was the famous match against Link in 2004 where he got totally embarrassed, and here Samus was to show that 2005 was a fluke. All we needed really was the third member of the trinity, Mario, to do the same at some point. And he would get his chance in 2013, oddly enough.

...oh

Anyway, this was just Samus and Vincent flexing a ton of muscle. Samus was doing her usual thing where she destroys everyone until the top half of the Noble Nine came along, and Vincent was getting ready for the much-anticipated Crono rematch. All systems go at this point.

---

I miss Leon Lennedy

---

Time for Pikachu's (Contest) Babyface turn!

---

Division 4 Final: Crono, L-Block, Pikachu, and Alucard

Crono - 42837 [31.16%]
L-Block - 33545 [24.4%]
Pikachu - 37113 [27%]
Alucard - 23965 [17.43%]
Total Votes - 137460

<b>Save_Us.RAT</b>

Apparently this all was just a part of The Plan. Alucard brought Pikachu here to finish the job, and that job was booting L-Block out of this contest. Crono getting first and Alucard getting last was pretty much expected, though with L-Block involved who knew if a crazy bandwagon would boost him into first or not.

If you look at this match in 2020, you'll think to yourself "well derp, of course Pikachu was going to win, what's the problem?". To understand how silly this actually was, there are two things to consider. One was L-Block's 2007 run, which everyone knows already. The other is that Pokemon used to be legitimately despised on GameFAQs. Just for fun, I'm pulling up every match Pokemon had up until 2006.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/946-north-division-round-1-pikachu-vs-parappa-the-rapper
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/975-north-division-round-2-pikachu-vs-cloud-strife
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1306-north-division-round-1-pikachu-vs-fox-mccloud
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1618-division-32-64-round-1-pokemon-gold-silver-crystal-vs
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2427-hyrule-division-round-1-pokemon-vs-star-ocean
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2442-hyrule-division-semifinal-pokemon-vs-metroid
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2499-spazer-division-round-1-samus-aran-vs-nidoran-f

That's the entire list. I was there for all of it, and Pokemon anti-votes most definitely used to be a thing. It's a huge reason people picked Fox in 2003. It was a huge reason people picked Xenogears in 2004. No Pokemon even made the field in the 2004 or 2005 character contests. Pokemon getting close to Metroid in the series contest was seen as flabbergasting, and it was the first remote hint that the worm was turning.

Fast forward to 2007. Pokemon looked... okay. Bidoof and Mudkip both got into round 2, but that was mainly due to joke votes. Mewtwo bombed completely. Pikachu made a deep run, but a lot of people felt he got lucky and credited the sprite and thought (erroneously) that Dante and Leon Kennedy leeched each other. Even as late as 2007, Pokemon anti-voting was still a thing.

The hype around this match was palpable, but then again so is the hype around <i>every</i> "joke character" match. This was a little different, though. The warning signs were all there that perhaps this wasn't the same L-Block as last year. That perhaps those rooting for him to lose so we could get an airquotes legitimate contest winner would get what they wanted.

Boy did they ever. In pro wrestling (yes I make a lot of meme, sports, gaming and wrestling comparisons, shut up), there is something called a double turn, where the good guy and the bad guy switch places during a match. If you get two extremely talented people doing it, like Bret Hart and Steve Austin, you get the best double turn in the history of the business. That doesn't really apply here though, since Bret actually won the match where that double turn happened. People were rooting for Austin, but he still lost.

As such, you get the best possible comparison for this match:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jK94KEoFcjU

Vince = Crono
Pikachu = Steve Austin
L-Block = Kurt Angle
Ric Flair = Alucard

Believe it or not, Kurt Angle was the hero the night before. He turned on the (ugh) Alliance and prevented a hostile takeover. Steve Austin, who has been incorrectly booked as a heel for way too long, was the guy that got screwed over. The night after, fans were over it. They never <i>really</i> wanted to cheer for Kurt Angle. They <i>never</i> wanted to boo Austin. So the night after Survivor Series where WWF won, they did a perfect double turn involving Ric Flair, who much like Alucard, always had The Plan. By the end of that segment, Austin was back to being the top babyface, Kurt Angle was being booed out of the building, and the fans got what they were secretly rooting for all along.

It's <i>exactly</i> what happened in this match. 2007 was great and all and we all had our fun, but anti L-Block sentiment was building up little by little over time, culminating in this match. Conversely, Pokemon was finally shedding the stigma of anti-votes. You could practically feel this coming a mile away, because no one <i>really</i> wanted L-Block to win again. No one <i>really</i> hates Pokemon anymore. Some people don't like it, but they don't actively hate it.

It all culminated in a <i>wild</i> celebration on Board 8, much like how the fans in Charlotte lost their minds that night. L-Block had his early joke vote, but Crono was well ahead in first place and Pikachu was tied with him. That's when the double turn happened. Suddenly almost everyone was cheering for Pikachu to pull this thing off, regardless of what they might have had in their bracket. When you get people cheering against their own interests -- Undertale, Vivi > Mario, Knuckles > Magus, Sonic > Crono, et al -- you get these amazing matches. Pikachu and L-Block stayed tied for a few hours overnight, and then.... it finally happened. L-Block choked. Pikachu pounced. By the time the morning vote was in full swing, this was all over barring an absurd rally.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9EPrZvArYo

This was arguably the most important result of the entire contest. It showed these crazy rallies do in fact have a ceiling, it was the Pokemon face turn on our web site, and it all but closed the door on a joke character winning the contest this year outside of Weighted Companion Cube and Zack, the latter of which would have Link to deal with in every single match.

It also ensured our <i>other</i> match of the contest, which was the long waited rematch between Crono and Vincent. There was some fear here Crono might choke and rob us of our fun, but it was not to be. All that was left to do was to finally let those two destroy each other.

---

Division 5 Final: Mega Man, Weighted Companion Cube, Solid Snake, and Zero

Mega Man - 34762 [23.72%]
Cube - 35000 [23.88%]
Solid Snake - 55084 [37.59%]
Zero - 21706 [14.81%]
Total Votes - 146552

Board 8 is a very fickle group. One day after losing their shit in elation with L-Block losing, a lot of you guys were cheering for the Weighted Companion Cube to pull off a crazy upset here. Obviously this never would have happened if Zero, of all people, wasn't also in the poll, but that's the breaks in a format like this. Replace Zero with almost any other character in this contest, and Snake + Mega Man walk into the quarterfinals.

As-is, Mega Man almost managed to scrape by even <i>with</i> Zero in the poll. Solid Snake was on a whole other level in this contest, and when the poll started he just flew off into first place. Snake is the only character that had to be in four matches against L-Block in 2007, so he had a little bit of practice in dealing with rallied inanimate objects. You basically have to put them down ASAP, or they become unstoppable. That's what we saw from Snake, as well as a lot of other heavy hitters, in this contest. The upper half of the Noble Nine, Snake included, was all business this contest. They were not dicking around, which is why they looked so good right from the jump.

The bottom half, not so much. Sonic showed his cracks in round 2, and Mega Man just straight up failed to place in this one. Zero or no, Mega Man was the only Noble Nine character that didn't get out of their division this contest. It's just a brutal, embarrassing loss. I know we all love the Cube and all, but all love Mega Man too and it would have been nice if this had happened to someone else.

Worse still is how close it was. Board 8 loves the Cube and all, but they <i>love</i> Mega Man. They had a feeling what was coming with Zero being in this poll, and voted accordingly. Mega Man built up a small lead early, and then with the first update after the freeze he went up again. All looked good, but then... the wheels came off. Cube erased the lead almost instantly, the two stayed tied for awhile, and then Cube started building up a lead overnight. He got a lead close to 300 at one point, and people assumed the match was done. After all, it's very difficult to come back when a character who so closely has your fanbase is in the poll with you.

But Mega Man was determined to go down like a <i>champ.</i> He's the robot master, after all! This dude has been fighting things like the Weighted Companion Cube since 1987! Mega Man, lovable beast that he is, fought against the European trends and the joke trends to come back, caught a little bit of morning vote, and erased that entire 300 vote lead Cube had by breakfast. He kept the momentum going, built up a lead of his own, and before anyone knew it Mega Man had a 250 vote lead of his own.

But the Cube once again started to stall and fight back, and unlike the beginning of poll where these two had a good tug-of-war going, Cube brought help. Cube slowly shaved votes off the lead at first, but once he got it down to 150 or so, he rallied. It wasn't as blatant of a rally as Master Chief used, but it was a rally nonetheless and it worked. If you look on the graph here on the wiki page, you'll see a big blue mountain in the middle. That's the rally that ultimately decided this match. Cube swung more than 400 votes in no time at all, and after one last attempt by Mega Man to hold on to this thing, he finally ran out of gas. Cube slowly (very slowly) climbed up to 450, and held on for dear life for the rest of the match in hopes we wouldn't throw him into the incinerator.

But Mega Man, fuckin <i>champ</i> that this little guy is, gave one last push at the very end. He was down by just under 400 with just over an hour to go. He gave one final push the rest of the way, but he just.... ran out of time. Ran out of real estate. No more votes. Final margin 238. It led to a lot of complaining, but let's be real here. Zero cost Mega Man this match. It's an easy win otherwise.

Cube and Snake would advance to go up against Cloud and Mewtwo, and by beating Mega Man, a lot of Cube's good will disappeared. This wasn't 2007 anymore; the joke bandwagons didn't have the same appeal.

As for Mega Man and his fans, don't worry. Much like Vivi would get his revenge in hilarious fashion in 2013, Mega Man would get his in even <i>funnier</i> fashion.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/5261-character-battle-ix-division-9-final-mega-man-vs-zero-mmx-vs

Zero was not going to pull this garbage on the Blue Bomber twice, and what made the 2013 rerun even sweeter is <i>everyone</i> expected Charizard to win. Even the gurus who picked Mega Man to win. You all thought he was losing at some point during that match. I see you workin.

So yeah, Mega Man lost here, but it's okay. It was all just a part of the redemption arc.

---

Division 6 Final: Squall, Sora, Cloud, and Mewtwo

Squall - 23037 [16.39%]
Sora - 22123 [15.74%]
Cloud - 62857 [44.72%]
Mewtwo - 32551 [23.16%]
Total Votes - 140568

After seeing L-Block and Weighted Companion Cube back to back, we needed a rest break, and that's what we got here. This poll was literally over in 2 seconds when Mewtwo won the board vote over Cloud. Mewtwo actually stayed with him for a couple minutes before finally getting swamped, which led to perhaps the most boring match of the round. In fact, I'll just say it's the most boring match of the round outright, because the other seven all have something interesting to talk about. This one, not so much. It does make me quite happy given Mewtwo is my favorite Pokemon, though.

Only three things are worth discussing, and none are particularly relevant. One is that Mewtwo looked really, really good here after a really subpar performance in round 2. If you go back and look at that match, Midna was within striking distance for 24 hours. One rally and she could have pulled that off. Here, Mewtwo made up for it, which makes sense given the Pokemon sprite and him being the only Nintendo character.

Two, and I have no answer for this one, is that Squall can't SFF Sora but Cloud somehow can. In fact Cloud whipped them both so badly that they had a fun little leftover duel for third place, which Squall of course won. If anyone can explain how this weird SFF situation happens, please let me know so I can quote you. Hopefully we can get Sora into Smash Bros so he can finally get one over in the series against Squall.

Lastly, and most funny, is how most people expected Yoshi to be here in Sora's place and take an easy second. I mean it does make sense, don't get me wrong:

Mewtwo (2007c) VS Yoshi (2007c)

Mewtwo has a strength of 23.76.
Yoshi has a strength of 32.27.

Yoshi wins with 63.19% of the vote!
A win of 38,415 with 145,669 total votes cast.

But Yoshi never got here. I'm not making fun of anyone or anything, it's just fun looking back at the numbers surrounding old upsets.

Final point before I move on. This was one of the only good match pictures all contest. Coincidentally, it involved sprites. If I may have my soap box for a sec, I'm pretty much over people telling me I only like the sprite round because they think I enjoy pic sabotage. I like the sprite round because I like the sprite round. It's not difficult to understand. The people saying this never actually submit any pictures of their own, of course, they're just being jackasses for the sake of being jackasses. Sprites are <i>beloved</i> in match pics (outside of Solid Shit) and were never complained about by the vocal minority of whiners until 2010, which is of course when I started submitting stuff. Make your agenda less obvious, crybabies. You enjoyed sprites all along and anyone can check the archives to prove it.

That's the thing about picsmith stuff -- anyone can do it. If you think you can do better, be like me and go buy Photoshop, shut the hell up, and <i>do better</i>. I'd bust out the man in the arena line, but it seems inappropriate for such a silly venue as this. It does say a lot about people when they make complaints instead of content, though.

---

Division 7 Final: Kirby, Master Chief, Dante, and Leon Kennedy

Kirby - 42756 [29.96%]
Master Chief - 34425 [24.12%]
Dante - 37324 [26.15%]
Leon Kennedy - 28204 [19.76%]
Total Votes - 142709

<b>TESTOSTERONE!</b>

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJZp6awlL58

Very few matches in contest history have more MANHOOD than this one, and make no mistake. Kirby has all the others beat in T levels and they all know it.

Jokes aside, this was a heavily debated match pre-contest and mid-contest. Most people expected this particular fourpack, but if you check the guru numbers, people were just all over the place. The favored outcome pre-contest, believe it or not, was Master Chief > Dante. The "Dante" part of that favored outcome was highly in dispute, with Kirby only barely having less support for second place. Master Chief was arguably the star of the contest in 2007, and if he stayed at that level, him being a favorite here made sense.

The contest itself to this point didn't provide a whole lot of clarity, so it was a cool match where no one really knew what would happen going in. We only knew two definitive things. One, Dante was going to finish ahead of Leon Kennedy. We had already seen this once in 2007 and in round 2 this year. That was a mortal lock. The other certainty was Kirby was absolutely finishing top 2. The main question is whether or not Master Chief would be there with him. Kirby and Chief had a match together in round 2 where they were only 1500 votes apart, but Kirby finished in first place. Some argued that Big Boss and Raiden leeched Chief, and that Chief could have won that one with a better draw.

So come match time, we had pretty much all figured out it would be Kirby, Chief, and Dante in some order for top three, with Leon having no shot. And as you can see by the Oracle picks, Kirby was the first place favorite.

The match itself was... kind of a dud, all things considered, but it was still fun to hype up. Kirby just wrecked shop right from the jump and put the first place debate to bed immediately. No one was catching him, proving Kirby had <b>THE BIGGEST BALLS OF ALL</b> in our testosterone-dueled Ertyu Special.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPlqLHcphyw

The other lock was Leon in last, which happened as expected. The fun came in the second place duel. You guys know my feelings on second place duels mattering more than first place by now, so no need to relive it. This was a really fun one though for about an hour. Dante and Master Chief did their thing, talked a bunch of smack in deep voices, gave us some over the top cut scenes, saved a few babes, had a few drinks, had a few laughs, had a few fights, and generally did what dudebros like to do when they're having a disagreement. You settle it like <i>men,</i> and then shake hands and move on.

On this day, it would be Dante accepting the brofist-hug-handshake combo from Master Chief, because after an hour the Chief just didn't have it in him. He fell off pretty badly overnight, and his usual ASV fire just wasn't there. I know getting the 2007 magic back was going to be almost impossible, but I was hoping for a tiny bit more warrior from him on his way out this year. But if you're gonna lose, you might as well lose to characters that are just as cool are you are. Semper Fi, Master Chief.

This sent Kirby and Dante along for a match with Sephiroth and Sonic. Easy match, right? Turns out this contest had a couple more surprises left before it was done.

---

Division 8 Final: Auron, Sonic the Hedgehog, Sephiroth, and Kratos

Auron - 23048 [17.23%]
Sonic - 37722 [28.19%]
Sephiroth - 51492 [38.49%]
Kratos - 21528 [16.09%]
Total Votes - 133790

Speaking of testosterone, this was our second match in a row featuring four shit-kicking badasses. And before you tell me Sonic isn't badass, you are wrong. Save it.

I take back what I said about the Division 6 final. This was the most boring match of the round, because the result of Sephiroth > Sonic was a literal 100% guarantee. Sonic was never going to challenge for first place here -- Cloud showed us how far ahead of Sonic the FF7 gang is back in 2003 -- and thanks to Auron sharing the poll with Sephiroth, he was not going to be able to follow up his round 2 upset of Sonic with a sequel. Thanks for being a good format, 4ways. You suck.

No one knew it at the time, but this result helped set up one of strangest upsets we've ever had in contest lore. Too bad 2008 has kind of been lost in the memory hole (thanks 4ways, you suck), or else Sonic's awful showing this year would be mentioned along the likes of Donkey Kong and Magus. More on that when we get to it.

As for a round synopsis, it was pretty decent! We had a Noble Nine character get upset, two really fun matches involving joke characters, the fever pitch of ZackFAQs, Mega Man X annihilating fools, Crono and Vincent on a collision course, and my favorite Pokemon balling out of control. As much as I despise the format, the results have been fun enough to keep me interested in writing these things. Moving on.

---

Contest Quarterfinal: Link, Zack, Mario, and Mega Man X

Link - 54357 [40.28%]
Zack - 28099 [20.82%]
Mario - 29244 [21.67%]
Mega Man X - 23237 [17.22%]
Total Votes - 134937

Until my dying breath, I will always believe Zack could have caught an unstoppable bandwagon had he pulled this thing off. The next match would have been Link, Zack, Samus, and Crono. Link would have SFFd Samus into the ground, and who knows how the Zack/Crono thing would have gone with all the ZackFAQs and FF7 v Chrono Trigger fuel behind him? From there, it would have been Link, Zack, Snake, and Cloud. Zack probably finishes last place there thanks to Blonde Cloud > Black Cloud, but still! We've seen crazier results!

In all seriousness, as a lover of bandwagons and silly fun, this one hurt. He was <i>so</i> close, yet so far away. Let's start with Link's continued and insidious domination over this contest. 40% in a 4way poll in the quarterfinals against this competition is ludicrous. Just ludicrous. This was some '85 Bears playoff run type shit.

Past that is where the fun was. One of these three Nintendo titans was bound to get dicked over, and it was apparent very quickly that Mega Man X was not going to be able to hack it. He was somewhat close to Mario for a little while -- and I will always maintain Mario has more overlap with Link than the Mega Man series -- but he fell off to a distant SFF-fueled third place. This left a clear Link > Mario > MMX order for Zack to try and squeeze into, but he just started so damn slow in this poll.

When this thing started, Zack was actually in dead last. This spelled his doom right from the jump, because it showed his support was more organic than joke type. He had a bandwagon, but not the kind of bandwagon he would need to work miracles. He was also sitting there behind two characters that were being SFFd into the <i>ground</i> by Link. Still, he gave us an incredible effort and went out almost exactly like he does at the end of Crisis Core.

First, he had to come back on Mega Man X, which took quite awhile. He was dead last early, but the gap with X was only 60 votes. It took almost an hour just to erase that lead, and when he did he was unable to make any headway at all. He and X stayed tied for another couple hours, before the typical Europe vote did X in and Zack started going to work. We should pause here and give X some credit for getting this far, and note that him being SFFd twice is not indicative of what his actual strength is. To this day, he is solidly either upper midcard or near-elite. I doubt that ever changes, because the guy is just too damn cool. The entire reason we all fell in love with him in the 90s was because he could do <i>so</i> many more things that vanilla Mega Man just couldn't do. HADOUKEN!

The funniest thing happened when Zack came back and finally caught up to X for good -- he was less than 300 votes away from Mario himself. Hey if he could come back once, why not aim for the king? It seemed unthinkable, but why the hell not go for it and give ZACKFAQs the match they all wanted?

And give us the match we wanted he did. It took all night of chipping away and chipping away some more, but Zack managed to claw his way up to Mario. Mario! FREAKING MARIO! It was insane! 100% of gurus picked Link to get first (obviously), but over 75% picked Mario to get second. 40 people picked Mega Man X. TWO picked Zack. Two! More people picked Liquid Freaking Snake to pull this magic than Zack.

Yet there he was, tied with Mario, with the morning vote yet to come. We all figured the match was over right about here, but then the absolute unthinkable happened. Zack started winning the morning vote and building a lead! It's hard to put this in perspective for those who weren't there, but a lot of you might remember Undertale since it was pretty recent. You know how happy Undertale fans were at the entire tidal wave in that contest? Remember how there was a counter bandwagon? Had Zack pulled this off, it would been all the love and none of the counter bandwagon. That's how hard we were pulling for him to miracle his way into second place here.

We all know the rest of the story. Zack only built up a 150 vote lead before getting stalled with the morning vote, and though it took Mario the <i>entire morning,</i> he did ultimately take control of the poll and slowly (very slowly) build a lead for himself. It was so slow in fact that Mario only led by 350 going into the ASV, which let people hold out hope that Zack might still pull it off. When Zack started cutting some votes during the beginnings of the ASV, people lost it all over again.

Unfortunately, around 4pm Mario finally stopped dicking around and ended the match. He did it by bludgeoning poor Mega Man X to death and stealing a bunch of support from him, but a win is a win and you do what you have to do to survive and advance. Mario turned a pretty close match into an 1100 vote win, but Zack did have one final bit of fight left in him to prevent the final margin from being bigger. Oddly enough, this match played out almost exactly like Crisis Core, right down to the ending and Zack refusing to quit. It was like Rocky Balboa meets his contest end or something, and it was remarkable to watch. Mario may have won here, but he didn't win our hearts.

Zack, bottom's up to you bro. You're the Star of the Contest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BW9Fzwuf43c

For those hoping Mario would get his comeuppance for this, an old enemy of his was waiting in the wings, and this time he had friends.

---

Yeah this is a perfect stopping point. The next match needs and deserves my A++++ effort.

---

Took awhile but this match deserves it. Gimme a sec here...

---

Contest Quarterfinal: Samus, Vincent, Crono, and Pikachu

Samus - 37909 [30.91%]
Vincent - 30963 [25.25%]
Crono - 31041 [25.31%]
Pikachu - 22736 [18.54%]
Total Votes - 122649

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSLlZh9yelk

This is it. The most hyped match of the contest, the <i>best</i> match of the contest, and the entire reason I finally got up off my ass and did these writeups after 12 years. I didn't like this contest overall, but 12 years with no PCA is just awful and I'm sorry for that. And of all the random blurbs you see out there, this is somehow the one match on the wiki that had nothing before today. It's time to fix that.

To understand why this thing was so hyped for a full year, you don't merely have to go back to 2007. That would be easy. You have to go back to the beginning. The final of this match had the stars aligning for it for more than 6 years.

People talk of bandwagons and rallies. In 2002, Crono <i>was</i> the rallied bandwagon. Mario was the heavy, heavy favorite that year, followed by characters like Link, Cloud, Sonic, and Solid Snake. Crono was no where to be found, and more importantly, neither were things like x-stats, Oracle picks, match trends, update charts, guru contests, and board odds projects. We were just a bunch of kids cheering on our favorites every match, ignorant of everything else. It was a better time back then. I don't want to go off on my usual tangent about how advanced metrics are the worst thing to ever happen in sports, so I simply move on.

In that contest, Crono was the star of the whole show. The little 5 seed that could. People expected him to win his first match, and that was about it. Most people thought Dante would beat him. Crono won. Most people picked the 1 seed, Lara Croft, to beat him. Crono utterly demolished her. Then, right after the back to back to back trio that gave us our best 3 day run in contest history -- Samus > Sonic, Sephiroth > Mega Man, Mario > Cloud -- Crono went out and pulled <i>another</i> upset, this time over Solid Snake. A looooot of people were pulling hard for Snake that year. Crono beat him with ease.

This set up the first of many Crono vs Mario duels, and by the time that match happened, Mario was the contest villain. He straight up cheated to beat Cloud, and back then CJayC was such an idiot about catching cheating that he just up and allowed a phantom 500 vote spike around dinner time to stand, even though there was literal visual proof of the script used to do it. Before it happened, a user went around posting a screenshot of the script, with an image saying there was no way he would allow a crossdresser to win (his words, not mine) and that there would be a 500 vote spike. I'll never understand how that one stood, but I digress, and Cloud did eventually get a pittance of revenge anyway.

---

By the time the Mario v Crono match happened, people were losing their minds. Mario <i>had</i> to lose that contest. The poll was close for awhile, but Mario was proving to be a bridge too far, and built up a lead of 1000 votes going into the final few hours. You guys know the rest. Crono started pulling off one of the most clutch comebacks we'd ever seen, erased the lead, and then CJayC took 400 votes away before admitting a few years later that Crono had 3000 scripted votes that day. If Crono cheated fine, but we <i>know</i> Mario cheated one round earlier and nothing was done. It just left the entire thing feeling incomplete.

A year later, Mario and Crono were blatantly set up for a rematch, and the saga of that match could be made into a documentary at this point: https://board8.fandom.com/wiki/(1)Mario_vs_(4)Crono_2003

http://www.thengamer.com/gamefaqs/03Summer/MarioVSCronoUpdates.txt

Not only was the match started early for some inexplicable reason, not only did it last past 24 hours with no warning that it would, but it went 5 minutes past the usual closing time (which was 1am est back then) to "check for cheating". After all, Mario erased an 800 lead in 2 hours when trends were pretty close before then. That just isn't natural. Did CJayC find any cheating, even though there was yet another provable script being floated around? Of course not. Mario cheated in that match, and CJayC ignored it. He also ignored the cheating against Cloud. I will absolutely never be convinced otherwise. We know too much about contests and how they work now to look back at the numbers involved and think of them as anything but impossible. I had even picked Mario in 2003 and was rooting for him to win, and it's the dirtiest I ever felt in being right on a match. It's finally getting with the dream girl you've been chasing, only to find out later she has herpes. It's just gross.

If you weren't there, you'll never understand the unreal meltdown that occurred.

http://www.thengamer.com/gamefaqs/03Summer/MarioWins.jpg
http://www.thengamer.com/gamefaqs/03Summer/MarioWinsBoard.jpg

True fact -- there is no 24 hour period in that match that Crono lost.

Crono's luck wouldn't get much better in the years to come. In 2004, he finally got his win over Mario, but it was meaningless. That contest was among the worst we've ever had, and Mario went berserker in 2005 and got his win back in spades anyway. In 2006, Crono hit a low point when he blew a 2200 vote lead against Sonic, which I believe was the biggest comeback in contest history to that point. The dude just didn't have that 2002-2003 magic anymore, and it would <i>still</i> get worse.

Enter Vincent, who has always been a Final Fantasy 7 fan favorite (https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/845-), but never could make the contest field before 2005. His debut however was a huge success. He got thrown into one of the most difficult divisions we've ever had, and won the thing despite being in three straight debatable matches. Well Kerrigan wasn't debatable to anyone with sense, but people argued for weeks that she would win that one. I still couldn't tell you why. Vincent destroyed Kerrigan, then had close wins against Dante and Squall before facing... Crono. Vincent had a very respectable 55-45 loss there, and it began the hype train that maybe Vincent would be the guy that cracked the Noble Nine.

For the unaware, the Noble Nine is a winning streak. Nine characters -- Link, Cloud, Mario, Samus, Sephiroth, Crono, Mega Man, Solid Snake, and Sonic the Hedgehog -- never lost a match to anyone outside of their group until 2007, which I'll get into in a bit, but the point here is that the hype around breaking the winning streak was palpable. People talked about it every year, and more importantly, people wanted to be on the right side of history and pick it in their brackets. Every year, there was so much hype around any match one of them might lose to an outsider. Would this be the year?

---

In 2006, we got some more hints. Sonic, Crono, and Mega Man all looked like monkey trash. Vincent and Ganondorf, two characters hyped up to be Noble Nine breakers for years, had a really fun round 1 match. Vincent won it close, then Vincent turned around in round 2 and had a 52-48 loss to Sonic. That one perked some ears up, though in fairness we saw something similar in the past and we know how that turned out: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1344-east-division-round-2-zero-vs-sonic-the-hedgehog

That's the thing. The hype of being a breaker has ruined a lot of these characters. Not Vincent, though. And that's when the absurdity of 2007 hit. L-Block aside, one of the most hyped matches of that entire contest, if not <i>the</i> most hyped match, was Link, Vincent, Crono, and Zero. The match itself was basically a mortal lock to happen, and the hype surrounding that thing was palpable. I helped make sure of that, because I was sick of everyone obsessing over the Noble Nine's winning streak and whether or not a loss in a 4way would be "legitimate" or not. You would think these characters are Board 8's actual children with how much that streak was defended by some people. It was embarrassing then and it's especially embarrassing to look back on it all. Not our finest hour, guys.

In contest lore, Vincent/Crono isn't what Mario/Crono is, and frankly nothing can be, but Vincent/Crono certainly comes close. It's an all-time series of matches, and the 2007 match was dope. Crono looked early on like he would reclaim the old glory, and jumped out to an 1150 vote lead overnight. Vincent then spent the rest of the match swinging nearly 3000 votes his way, and that was that.

At the time, a lot of people claimed this didn't actually break the streak and that Crono lost due to the format. In 2020 I'm inclined to agree with that logic, but at the time, I felt like the streak was over and people should stop talking about it. I found the argument to be incredibly dull. I've gotten some new perspective in my old age, so I can see where people were coming from back then. Still, a loss is a loss and Crono was the first guy in the Noble Nine to lose to an outsider, regardless of format. That will never change, and frankly it's better that it happened to Crono under these circumstances. Do you guys not get that without this match, L-Block would have been the one to break the streak, and it would have come against Solid Snake and Sonic? I'll take Crono losing to Vincent over ever having to type that sentence again.

Oh and not to brag, buuuuuuut.... http://thengamer.com/guru/CB6/stats.php?match=52

52 of us called our shot and got it right. Crono looked terrible for years, was trending down, and Vincent was trending up and had a match against 3 characters who are titans on Nintendo systems. All the makings were there.

Which finally, at last, brings us to 2008. Vincent and Crono's duel was hyped for good reason, and the other two characters would be Samus and Pikachu instead of Link and Zero. Those are acceptable substitutes and wouldn't get in the way. All that was left to do was to finally have the match itself, and these two definitely came in ready to throw down.

In the first hours of the match, the trend mirrored 2007. Last year, Crono built up a lead over 1100. This year, he built up a lead of about 950 -- almost to the hour. A lot of people figured the match was over at this point, not because Crono was winning, but because the year prior Vincent was able to swing 3000 votes. People were expecting the comeback this time, and with Crono unable to build an equal or bigger lead than last year, a lot of people lamented the inevitable. We had seen the guy get beat in these close debated matches for long now.

Right on cue, Vincent started his push. The numbers from 2007 to 2008 were almost exactly the same, which felt so bizarre. At 7:30 am both years, Crono's lead was chopped all the way down to 350. Vincent's win felt inevitable at this point, especially given Chrono Trigger's historical ineptitude with the day vote contrasted with FF7's day vote being really good.

But then, the most unthinkable thing of all happened. Crono this year said screw this, we're not rolling over and dying this time. Vincent got stuck at 300, and though he pushed the lead below 300 for a bit, he was just.... kind of stuck there. We all assumed an inevitable day vote would push Vincent over the top, but it just wasn't coming. Crono kept stalling, and stalling, and stalling, and hour after hour, update after update, we were stuck in this bizarre phantom zone of Crono holding this 250-350 vote lead.

---

To give you an idea of how insane the board was during all this, Vincent was the favorite and though a lot of us wanted the guy to win for our brackets (he was the favorite, after all), it wasn't with the typical fervor. As this madness kept going, more and more people remembered the old wounds and wanted to see Crono finally pull one of these things out.

The match stayed in this period of odd flux until the ASV, where Crono was <i>still</i> nursing a 250 vote lead. This in and of itself is a miracle given the guy's trends and how the match went down last year. By the time the ASV hit in 2007, the match was already over. Vincent had come back by then, led by over 100, and used the ASV to end the match.

In 2008, it once again looked like Vincent was going to use the ASV to put this thing to bed, much to the dismay of pretty much every Crono supporter other than red sox. He was the one guy on Board 8 who never lost hope, and he deserves props for that. Vincent pulled a 166 vote update out of his ass, his highest since early in the match, and that looked like the beginning of the inevitable. It <i>wasn't,</i> but it looked like it. Crono fought like hell, but Vincent literally tied the match up within a couple hours. From there, Crono pulled off the unthinkable for the second time in this match. Instead of Vincent rising to heaven and ending the match like he did at this time last year, Crono refused to quit. Vincent quickly built up a lead of 100, and then just got... <i>stuck</i> there for two hours. And even as Vincent finally started increasing his lead a bit heading into the evening vote, it was never by much and Crono kept fighting back at him. It wasn't until nearly 9pm, with a mere three hours to go, that Vincent breached the 150 vote barrier. Last year, his lead at that time was well over 1400. Obviously, times had changed, and the final three hours were just a mad rush to the finish line.

http://thengamer.com/guru/CB6/stats.php?match=52

For the next hour of the poll, Vincent looked like he had this thing on lockdown. He slowly increased his lead to 200, and though he and Crono were both really going for it, the clock was running out. I'd say votes were drying up, but there was definite rallying going on. One of the most entertaining parts of this match is that Samus, the character I have yet to even mention thusfar in this writeup and the one who <i>actually</i> won first place, was getting her winning percentage wrecked here. Check out the trend graph and how much of the green was below her actual trend line while all this was going on. It's one of the funniest visuals to come out of this contest.

With two hours to go and Vincent up by 200, this thing seemed like a done deal. Even worse for Crono is that the usual Chrono Trigger second night vote wasn't showing up, so while Crono managed to stop the bleeding, Vincent wasn't losing any ground. The 200 vote lead stayed at 200 for a solid hour; as entertaining as this was, it looked bleak for the Crono faithful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Zdg4Sbefg4

The final hour was absolutely wild, and it brought us all back to those childhood days of just cheering for favorites regardless of anything else. First update, Vincent brought his lead from 184 to 192. From there it was all a blur, and the explanation for what happened is easy -- <b>BOARD 8 RALLIED THEIR BALLS OFF.</b>

We had seen enough of Crono getting his poor heart broken. Enough of cheating only being enforced one way. Enough choke jobs, enough blatant bracket rigging to always see Mario, enough nonsense. We were going to <i>finally</i> give Crono his moment or fuckin die trying. The next 4 updates went -20, -30, -30, -30 to get the lead under 100. Vincent then stalled to keep his head for an update, but it was postponing the inevitable.

BAH GAWD THAT FROG'S MUSIC! BUSINESS IS ABOUT TO PICK UP!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsDhS8PBdh0

For the last half hour of this match, Board 8 rallied so hard and so <i>well</i> that it went far beyond a simple rally in hopes of helping one character win. This was six years of pent up frustration at always seeing Crono get dicked over and pushed around, and while Vincent himself isn't to blame for a lot of Crono's contest history, this rally felt like helping the bullied kid suplex their tormentors and justifiably crack some skulls open. The next three updates were -20, -20, and -30 to tie the match up with 10 minutes to go.

God himself wasn't getting in Crono's way at this point, and even if the good lord above tried, Crono has time travel on his side and Dr Strange probably would have let him borrow the Eye of Agamotto just this once. Crono <b>deserved</b> this. Nothing was getting in the way. Not this time!

The penultimate update was won by Crono with a totally insane 146 vote push, giving him a 59 vote lead and basically ending this match. He put out 100 more votes in the final five minutes just to be sure, and that was that. Crono <i>finally</i> won one of these damn things. A weird, hyped, close, heavily debated match finally went his way. No cheating, no phantom time extensions, no one-sided scripts, no bullshit, no nothing. Crono won. It was real. It actually happened.

Crono's final push was so laughably insane that he didn't just pull the clutch comeback on Vincent. Samus got 1058 votes in the final hour of this poll. Crono got 1191. That's how bad Board 8 wanted this, and remember, this was a time when rallying was REALLY hard to do because of the high vote totals. This wasn't like when we pushed Mega Man ahead of Charizard, Mario ahead of Samus (sorry but I had to do it!), or Resident Evil 2 ahead of Bloodborne. This took a borderline miracle to pull off, but hey. Board 8 was not going to be denied here. Not this time.

Crono's reward for pulling this off? He, yet again, had to stare down his oldest of enemies -- <B>FREAKING MARIO.</b> But this time, Crono was bringing friends with him. Samus and Link didn't want <i>any</i> of that smoke.

In the long run, we all know this didn't stop the overall decline of Crono. We know what happened against Missingno and Pikachu. We all know about the laughably awful Rivalry Rumble. Doesn't matter. Nothing will ever change how great we all felt when Crono pulled this thing off.

The unintended consequence is that this match basically ended Vincent's contest career as an elite.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/5229-character-battle-ix-division-2-round-2-phoenix-vs-vincent-vs
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7283-division-6-round-1-magus-vs-vincent

Not that it matters. No one cares. This match was, and still is, a celebration of the greatest contest underdog these things will ever have. For the record, I will never be convinced under any circumstances that Chrono Trigger wasn't on track to win the 2015 contest before rallies happened. I am in favor of those rallies, you all know this, but the board explosion would have been nuts had Chrono Trigger of all games annihilated Ocarina in the final. There is a universe where that happens. I wonder what it's like there?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xU5tQIDMAEw

---

Contest Quarterfinal: Solid Snake, Weighted Companion Cube, Cloud, and Mewtwo

Solid Snake - 39971 [29.14%]
Cube - 26314 [19.18%]
Cloud - 52686 [38.41%]
Mewtwo - 18206 [13.27%]
Total Votes - 137177

We all needed a rest break after the epic nonsense we had just been through, which is exactly what this match was. The only excitement to be had here was Snake keeping it close with Cloud for five minutes, which was a portent of things to come but we can save that for the appropriate time. After that five minutes was up, Cloud looked thoroughly dominant here. Not as dominant as Link, but he looked amazing nonetheless. It ultimately made the final all that much more of a shock.

Past that, not much to talk about. Mewtwo did well to make it this far, and he more than made up for his atrocious 2007 showing, but he never really looked <i>that</i> good here in 2008. Cube.... just kind of went out with a whimper. L-Block showed us that the inanimate joke factor was dead and buried, and that these characters were not going to have the same steam here in 2008, and this match showed it. Cube was never in this thing, had no joke trends, and acted more or less like a normal third place character. It was cool to see him not finish in last place on his way out, but L-Block he was not.

It was a boring match here today, which is exactly what we all needed. Crono's Redemption Story really took it out of everyone.

---

Contest Quarterfinal: Kirby, Dante, Sephiroth, and Sonic the Hedgehog

Kirby - 31357 [23.1%]
Dante - 22947 [16.9%]
Sephiroth - 52270 [38.5%]
Sonic - 29182 [21.5%]
Total Votes - 135756

The Crono/Vincent duel was not the last of this contest's surprises, and hell this match wouldn't be either, but this match was an absolute shocker. Sonic is lucky Crono lost to Vincent in 2007, or he would have caught a lot more flak than he actually got for choking this match away.

Shocking as this was, it wasn't <i>completely</i> out of left field because Sonic had just lost to Auron two rounds prior. Heck, he might have lost to Auron last round outright and not been here at all if Sephiroth wasn't in the poll. I covered how bad Crono looked for years leading up to his big duel a couple matches ago, but it's worth noting that Sonic has looked just as bad. He just doesn't have the choke artist pedigree and huge redemption story attached. In fact, his 2200 comeback on Crono in 2006 is what prevents him from being the weakest character in the Noble Nine.

But make no mistake, this was coming for quite awhile. Beginning with sis epic choke job against Samus in 2002 where he blew a 1500 vote lead in 3 hours, Sonic has been mostly downhill. He didn't lose the Noble Nine's win streak or anything, but he kept having these <i>awful</i> showings and was constantly mentioned as a potential weak link. I mean just look at some of these low lights.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1344-east-division-round-2-zero-vs-sonic-the-hedgehog
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1362-east-division-final-cloud-strife-vs-sonic-the-hedgehog
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1638-division-16-round-2-sonic-the-hedgehog-2-vs-super-mario
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1777-chaos-division-final-sonic-the-hedgehog-vs-samus-aran
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2543-blast-division-round-2-sonic-the-hedgehog-vs-vincent
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3290-division-8-round-2-sonic-sandbag-auron-sub-zero

When you pair Sonic's bad track record with how this contest was playing out, people came into this match thinking an upset was possible. But it wasn't Kirby they were looking at; it was Dante. Dante was fresh off of beating Master Chief (flipping their 2007 result), and Kirby wasn't all that far ahead of Dante this year. Dante got smoked by Sonic back in 2004, but given how this contest was playing out, who knows? Sonic and Kirby might split votes and allow Dante to squeeze through. We'd seen crazier things in this contest alone, plus Kirby didn't have some dominant first place performance in that match where Chief finished in third place. Dante was within striking distance if something weird happened.

Something weird happened alright, and people were more than correct to think an upset was possible, but they picked the wrong character. Sephiroth was always going to win first place here. Almost everyone knew it, picked it, and forgot about it. What next to no one knew was Kirby taking second place. Sonic was the favorite, that much is obvious, but the Upset Special for this slot was actually Master Chief. People thought a 2007 rerun was possible, so you can't fault anyone for picking Chief.

But Kirby? No one saw it coming. No gurus picked it, the Oracles all thought he would get last place, and the sitewide advancement percentage on Kirby here was only 6.38%. That's the second biggest upset of the year, topped only by Mewtwo's absurd 3.6% in the match against 3 Square characters. And remember, that percentage is added up and counts for people who picked Kirby to get first OR second place here. Anyone who actually picked Kirby to get this far had a favorites bracket or something.

The match itself was a total dud, which was the other surprise here. Sonic only kept it close for 5 minutes, and outside of one tiny push during the morning vote, he made no threat whatsoever at winning this match. He basically got his ass whipped for 24 hours, leaving no doubts whatsoever. I covered a lot of this during the Auron > Sonic upset from two rounds before, but I think a big reason Sonic looked especially bad in 2008 was anti-votes. The mid-2000s was the peak of anti-Sonic bandwagon hatred, and it hit its boiling point with a series of atrocious games with bad ideas.

I'd get into how trashy it all was, but a picture is worth 1000 words.

https://gamingbolt.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/sonic-unleashed.jpg

That is a real screenshot from Sonic Unleashed, which hit shelves two days after this match. If you don't think that piece of trash was a factor in Sonic doing so poorly in '08, you're nuts. It took a LONG time for him to shake that stigma off, and it mainly happened with the Sonic series becoming Nintendo's bitch. Thank goodness Smash and Sonic Mania happened, or the poor guy might still be in the dog house.

...

...I'll see myself out.

https://gamingbolt.com/the-5-most-embarrassing-moments-of-sonic-the-hedgehog-games

---

Contest Semifinal: Link, Mario, Samus, and Crono

Link - 50315 [38.45%]
Mario - 25594 [19.56%]
Samus - 21871 [16.71%]
Crono - 33087 [25.28%]
Total Votes - 130867

Most of the excitement was gone by this point of the contest (or so we thought), because the rest of it seemed so predictable. The final eight characters were the Noble Nine minus Mega Man and Sonic, with Kirby as the random newcomer to this late stage.

The first of the two semifinal matches was incredibly boring and predictable the second it got set up, and really whoever got here in Crono's place was basically guaranteed a spot in the finals. Link was a given for first, we all knew that already. Samus was a given for last, though her getting SFFd twice should not take away from her run at all. Mario was pretty much a given for third, depending on the fourth character. We <i>almost</i> had Zack in this spot over Mario, which would have been legendary and shaken things up, but it was not to be.

As for that fourth spot, most people picked Vincent, and he would have waltzed to the final here. Some picked L-Block. The really smart people picked Crono. Crono wouldn't have gotten here without a rally and probably wasn't <i>actually</i> stronger than Vincent in 2008, but so what? He deserved that shit after everything he's been through. And when he got here, his oldest enemy was waiting.

But this time, Crono brought friends. He may struggle against Mario alone, but with Link and Samus here helping him? Cakewalk. Samus was happy to step aside, take last place, and do it all while leeching Mario's support. Link acted like Sephiroth in the Smash Ultimate reveal and skewered Mario('s overalls) like a fish. This tag team heel turn Nintendo leeching action allowed Crono to get the easiest win over Mario he'll ever have. This was never in doubt, nor should it have been. It was Crono's time to finally make it into the finals of a contest, and nothing was stopping him. Not L-Block, not Vincent, not Mario, nothing.

And no the 2005 run with the three strongest characters removed from the field does not count. This was the first <i>actual</i> contest final Crono made. It should have happened back in 2002, but better late than never.

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