Contest Stats and Discussion - Part 1376

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1755-20xx-division-round-2-tommy-vercetti-vs-zero

Not a bad performance by Tommy Vercetti. It would be a lot more embarrassing today.

Just a year from this, he'd be getting 70/30'd by Crono. The wheels fell off quickly for him.

Weird how despite GTAV being the strongest game in the series, none of its characters have ever been in a contest.

If it had a single main character it might have. Ensemble stuff doesn't translate well to getting a character in these things.

Well, we saw how CJ and Niko did. I can't imagine a GTAV character would do any better.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1756-20xx-division-round-2-frog-vs-master-chief

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiMmZYx-eXA

I feel like, if you were here for it, Frog/Master Chief is probably among your top ten favorite matches of all time. Other than high stakes, it has everything you could want in a match.

Frog/ Chief is my all time favorite. That last hour of them in dead heat without poll updates was EVERYTHING. The fact that Chief and Frog have the exact opposite voting trends at a one where we just had enough of an understanding of it meant there was something going on for all 24 hours leading into the finish. And yet, it didn't end with complete bulls*** that marred the winner like a lot of those early contest classics, meaning you had a down the wire finish, but you at least felt the result was earned by Frog.

For me, it's the best ever for that alone.

Leonhart4 posted...

Well, we saw how CJ and Niko did. I can't imagine a GTAV character would do any better.

yeah I didn't say they'd be any good, but maybe they could have made a contest

We should have seen Trevor in 2018. Not because he would win anything (far from it), but because no matter how isolated contests get from everything else on the site, you can still count on like 60+% of brackets to back a GTA entity to Round 3 when 90% of the Guru is correct in knowing he's a guaranteed Round 1 loss.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1757-20xx-division-round-2-knuckles-the-echidna-vs-solid-snake

So ends the trilogy no one asked for.

I suppose we needed a come down after the greatest hour in all of contest history, but the Snake vs. Knux trilogy sure was a choice to run.

Knuckles breaks 40% for the only time in their three matches. Could the fact that Snake had a Naked Snake pic instead be to blame for that?

Knuckles' reaction to being pitted against Snake for the third time in a row:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1758-midgar-division-round-2-cloud-strife-vs-vyse

Another 80% match and there are still more to go. Poor Vyse.

At least Vyse got to coin the Vyse Fodder Line based off his performance this contest.

It doesn't last a year as a real viable concept, but he won the battle of the JRPG fodder and got a concept in his name. That's something.

Both Vyse and Skies of Arcadia have a win each under their belts, and that's more than most obscure JRPGs can say.

Tifa would get nearly 80% on Vyse a year later, and that got everyone wondering if Tifa and Vincent (fresh off of his own obliteration of Kerrigan) were operating as Cloud/Seph proxies in their absence.

It's still insane to me there isn't a Skies of Arcadia port or remaster on Steam or something.

Leonhart4 posted...

I feel like, if you were here for it, Frog/Master Chief is probably among your top ten favorite matches of all time. Other than high stakes, it has everything you could want in a match.

Unless you were a halo fanboy. Heh.

Pound for pound I feel I was really ace at these contests once I started looking at statistical topics here

I basically just chose favourites without much thought til the 2015 games contest, got really into the meta for the first time but still made a ton of mistakes. The SMB3, SMW, and SM64 conundrum especially really fascinated me and i spent hours pondering those picks. Then Undertale made it all mean nothing anyway.

Then I made the top 10 for best year in gaming and top 50 for the one right after it, which I think was best character but my memory escapes me. Not eligible for a prize either time because I live in Australia.

Missed the covid one completely due to a gamefaqs hiatus then they stopped.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1759-midgar-division-round-2-kirby-vs-squall-leonhart

To this day, this is still the worst loss Kirby has ever suffered one-on-one.

I also remember this match didn't have a picture for like the first hour. I can only assume CJayC totally forgot because it was clearly thrown together pretty quickly and looks kinda sloppy as a result.

Kirby should win that easily today. RIP Squall.

I think Squall still has a chance. Cloud & Seph having Smash Bros plus the remake might have inspired people to try out the other PS Final Fantasy titles.

Squall's problem isn't nobody knowing who he is, it's that GameFAQs doesn't particularly like Squall-type characters anymore.

Look at Vincent and Sephiroth dropping relative to Tifa.

I think the only 'edgy' character that exceeded expectations last contest was, funnily enough, Magus.

Well Magus > Vincent was a hot upset pick because of Chrono Trigger's recent success in BGE3 and people expecting Vincent to drop in free fall.

Aaron at least managed to get to where he was supposed to.

WarThaNemesis2 posted...

Squall's problem isn't nobody knowing who he is, it's that GameFAQs doesn't particularly like Squall-type characters anymore.

But Cloud did fine. I know the ceiling is higher but it's like he didn't really drop at all. I think FFVIII (and others) could actually use modern exposure even to a fanbase that is mostly "familiar" with the series.

Cloud has had things to keep him relevant and has/had more coming up. Squall could definitely use modern exposure but I don't think he's getting that from Cloud and Seph being in Smash.

I mean, Squall will still be a solid midcarder. He's just not a threat to beat Sonic anymore.

So basically he's back where he started in 2002.

ctesjbuvf posted...

Aaron at least managed to get to where he was supposed to.

Your phone autocorrect really betrayed you there.

I think Auron underperformed a bit too actually. Didn't do great against Sub-Zero, Geralt, or Snake.

Yeah, Auron has fallen from his peak, too. I think Squall could've won that division as well. He just had the misfortune of being set up against Zelda, Destroyer of Worlds.

KamikazePotato posted...

Your phone autocorrect really betrayed you there.

I think Auron underperformed a bit too actually. Didn't do great against Sub-Zero, Geralt, or Snake.

Oh.

Yeah, that's why I wrote it that way. He got where he was supposed to, but didn't look great getting there.

Ya done messed up, A-U-ron

Auron's dropped from his peak, but I think his drop is in line with FFX falling off. I don't think he's fallen off at a bigger rate than Tidus, who is hardly anyone's idea of an edgy character.

Has FF10 fallen off? Last we saw it, it looked about even with its eternal rival SSBM (at least before the rally).

Yeah, I'm not sure FFX fell off that much. Tidus got whooped by DK, but that retroactively doesn't look quite as bad. Yuna did fine, too. It's certainly not as big of a drop as we've seen from VIII.

Not a huge drop no, but it still dropped a bit. I think Melee looked a step ahead of FFX even before rallies in 2015. Chrono Trigger was just over 60% on Melee, in the timespan that we can reasonably use for both matches, it was more than doubling FFX. Then you can look into board votes, overlaps etc, but that's a pretty huge difference.

FFX has fallen off relative to the field because the SNES in general boosted a lot.

There's really no saving that Mega Man X match.

Eh, Melee barely did better than FFX in registered users against CT. I know that's not everything, but it certainly gives us a pretty good idea of how CT/Melee looks without the rally.

Keep in mind that Melee only got 55% on KH2, and KH2 ain't beating FFX. I think both games have fallen off from their peaks. Melee probably still wins a close one (because when in doubt, they'll rally), but it IS close.

I feel like how bad FFX/MMX was needs to be put in perspective.

Based on a consistent Arkham City between BGE3 and Game of the Decade, FFX gets only 53.8% on the Game of the Decade version of The Last Of Us.

FFX loses decisively to Dark Souls.

Then I wouldn't bet on a constant Arkham City because I don't think that happens

If Dark Souls was as strong as it should be, it could beat FFX. But it would have to have grown a lot.

MMX might have been marginally propped up by Melee's pointless rally against GSC that same day.

I could envision a scenario where Dark Souls beats FFX. Decisively? No way. You can say what you want about its waning strength, but a beat down of FFX means you're in the second tier of games below CT and OoT.

TeamRocketElite posted...

Has FF10 fallen off? Last we saw it, it looked about even with its eternal rival SSBM (at least before the rally).

I mean "last we saw it" was still a decade ago lol.

I'm generally of the opinion that the PS2 era stuff have all fallen and FFX is no exception. Whether or not it's now fallen below Dark Souls, I'd say so especially post-Elden Ring though sadly we will never find out.

Dark Souls seemed stronger in 2020 than 2015 in memory serves me right. How much of that was because of the contest title we will never know.

squexa posted...

I mean "last we saw it" was still a decade ago lol.

Time flies.

I guess it is true that it has been a long time since we've seen FF10. So it could very well have fallen over time. But, we can't verify that without another contest.

Well yeah, there's no way to tell where any game is these days. We're coming up on five years since our last contest of any kind. I think we can judge a lot of these things based on where they've traditionally been.

Occasionally you have things that jump up or fall down drastically out of nowhere (like Pokemon circa 2007), but those are fairly uncommon.