GameFAQs Contests

That said I do regret having Yoshi > Pika in my bracket. And maybe Sora > Red, but I blame Sora for that.

Mewtwo and Zard are exactly where I want, though (losing R2).

they're exactly where I want them to be too

Yoshi looks fine here to me, he was never beating the rat anyway

Pikachu can drop to 62 or 63 and still look pretty great.

Huh, Pikachu had a very similar percentage at the freeze against Kratos that he did against Scorpion (maybe half a percent difference), although he's bleeding percentage much faster here.

B8 really doesn't like Kratos, huh.

Kratos is lame

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7302

Dante does pretty well against Lightning.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7303

Ganondorf underperforms.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7304

Vivi continues to do very well.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7305

DK pulls off another upset.

Crew Predictions: 61/68

Next Round Thoughts: Dante/Ganon is going to be closer than most would've thought after that Chun-Li match. Ganon's gone from the heavy favorite to slight favorite. Vivi/DK is a match we've seen several times already, and this time both characters are looking better than ever going into it.

Crew Prediction Challenge:

transience: 63
Moltar: 60
Leonhart: 57
Kleenex: 56
Guest: 52

Crew Accuracy Challenge: Kleenex gets the point for Dante, Lopen gets the point for Ganon, Moltar gets the point for Vivi, and transience gets the point for DK.

Guest: 18 (BetrayedTangy, SuperNiceDog (2), pjbasis, garetha200 (3), ZenOfThunder, Ranticoot (2), Hbthebattle (2), NowItsAngeTime, spooky96, RoseChevalier, Lopen (2), paulg235)
transience: 16
Moltar: 13
Kleenex: 12
Leonhart: 10

Wow, not a single person in the Oracle had Ganondorf under 60% in that match.

LOL Ganon

Moltar shouldn't that be my accuracy point for Vivi? Since I put 75%, you had 76% and it was 75.45%? I wrote my guest prediction on page 23 of this topic in case you missed it.

Crew Accuracy Challenge: Kleenex gets the point for Dante, Lopen gets the point for Ganon, garetha200 gets the point for Vivi, and transience gets the point for DK.

Guest: 19 (BetrayedTangy, SuperNiceDog (2), pjbasis, garetha200 (4), ZenOfThunder, Ranticoot (2), Hbthebattle (2), NowItsAngeTime, spooky96, RoseChevalier, Lopen (2), paulg235)
transience: 16
Moltar: 12
Kleenex: 12
Leonhart: 10

Round 2 – Sora vs. Pokemon Trainer Red

Moltar’s Analysis

Sora
Round 1 - 69.08% vs. Ryo Hazuki

Red
Round 1 - 75.32% vs. Neptune

As someone that took Sora far, I’ve….kind of lost hope in Kingdom Hearts. KH3 hype seems non-existent unless it all went to Aqua. That hype was the only reason I took Sora here in my bracket, as I think Sora is actually weaker than Red now without it.

Losing to Pikachu with Blue last time, and now potentially losing to Red. Sora just can’t catch a break with these Pokemon.

Moltar’s Bracket: Sora

Moltar’s Prediction: Red – 52%

transience’s Analysis

Man, I don't know. My natural instinct is to distrust human Pokemon characters. Red beat a nobody and Charizard struggled to beat Terra of all people. Pikachu's looked awesome but it seems like he/it's a step above all other Pokethings this year. Maybe the hate has faded and now he's just an icon, a top 10 guy, whatever.

But Sora.. man, that first round performance was not very good against Ryo Hazuki. His #2 guy, RIku, just got nearly doubled by a character whose first game appeared in 2010. You can make arguments that just about every character from his company has ever so slightly underwhelmed in some capacity, and the only ones who haven't, have had very soft matchups where not a lot can be drawn. The only exception here seems to be classic SNES Square guys, and Sora is definitely not that.

So yeah, I don't know. I'd love to pick against both of these guys. I've been hoping for some result that might lend some clarity here and I've got nothing. I guess the easy thing to do is go with Nintendo. Yeah, okay, let's have that be the tiebreaker.

transience's prediction: Red with 50.65%

Leonhart’s Analysis

Here’s the first heavily debated match of round 2. I don’t think either character looked particularly impressive in round 1, and both Sora and Red have highly anticipated releases coming out in the next couple of months. Of course, this contest has already shown which one of those games really matters around here, but I’m still not sold on it mattering as much for Red. First of all, he’s not the guy you actually control when you play Smash. He just stands in the background the whole time, so you’re not really excited about him being in Smash.

Secondly, there’s this whole split about “Pokemon Trainer and Red aren’t the same person,” and I think it kinda matters if a decent chunk of the voters actually feel that way since they’re using the Smash Ultimate pic for this match. I think it hurt Snake in 2004 when he kept getting MGS3 Naked Snake pics because everyone knew that wasn’t Solid Snake. It might be a total crackpot theory, but I’m going to ride it to victory (or another utter defeat at the hands of Pokemon)!

Leonhart’s Vote: Sora

Leonhart’s Prediction: Sora with 53.98%

Kleenex’s Analysis

This match is dangerous. Sora didn’t look that great against Ryo, who I can’t imagine really boosted that much on pure Shenmue 3 hype, especially when KH3 is also right around the corner. Red’s performance last round looked pretty good, but Nep Nep is hard to judge because, well...come on. Neptune. I don’t think PokeFEAR has really died down all that much, and for some reason people really like this generic Pokemon Trainer dude (I’m pretty convinced he’s just a proxy for R/B/Y at this point, but I digress). If I was feeling a little more bold, I think this would be a fine upset to take. I’m just having a hard time really gauging where Red’s at due to Neptune being a complete unknown and potentially one of the 5 weakest characters in the bracket. So I’m going to be boring and stick with Sora. I already used my stupid (smart?) upset pick on that Master Hand thing.

Kleenex’s Prediction: Sora with 51%

Guest’s Analysis - paulg235

Crew Consensus: we need a tiebreaker

Red beat a nobody

Well Sora's beat a ton of nobodies.

hombad46 posted...

Red beat a nobody

Well Sora's beat a ton of nobodies.

nice

GUEST DON'T FUCK IT UP! Everything is up to you!

i’m more surprised when guest actually submits a writeup on time these days!

Big Bob's quick guest analysis

I think people are overreacting to Sora's performance against Ryo a round ago. He's weak, but he's not turbofodder like Neptune probably is. There's been a lot of Shenmue 3 hype, the first two games recently got rereleased, and remember that the game embarassed GTAV back in the last games contest. Riku didn't do so hot, but he lost to Captain Falcon once, and a Smash-boosted Bayonetta wiping the floor with him doesn't sound unreasonable to me. And then Aqua went and won her match with ease when she's from a side game.

Red's main point in his favor is Smash, but I really don't think Let's Go Pikachu has enough hype to help him out. Compare that to Kingdom Hearts III, and I'd say Sora comfortable wins this.

Prediction: Sora with 54%

Here's the guest writeup.

The match that decides who takes the division, and think a case can be made for either character here.

For Sora, he has been generally one of the stronger characters throughout these contests and at times has put out impressive performances, such as when he finished close to Squall on three ocassions, looked decent against Mega Man in 2006, and has turned his 2003 loss to Aeris into an easy victory in 2007. But he has also underwhelmed at times, especially more recently, such as losing to Bowser in 2010 and failing to take advantage of Pokemon LFF against Pikachu and Blue in 2013.

As for Red, he (and Blue) made a deeprun in 2011 beating Luigi/Waluigi and Samus/Ridley, then bowing out with an upset over Cloud and Sephiroth, the former #2 and #3 characters in these contests. Red also made it out of his division thanks to Vivi upsetting Mario in Round 2 resulting in Vivi and Squall sharing the poll together, and held up reasonably well against Mega Man and Samus in the Semi Final. With that said, Red almost lost to Ocelot in 2010 and got easily beat by X the round after.

So this could really go either way. It comes down to whether you believe his 2013 run vastly overrated Red or not and if you think KH3 hype has boosted Sora. I'm sticking with my bracket and going with Red. I'm not confident in Sora escaping with the match early on, and even if the match is close, Red is more likely to get the extra rally push in the final hours.

Winner - Pokemon Trainer Red - 53.33%

Another tie!!!!

well only one guest writeup actually counts

also looks like the Accuracy point for Zero/Knuckles is going to come down to the wire between me and transience

transcience posted...

i’m more surprised when guest actually submits a writeup on time these days!

That's why I make sure to submit on time. Usually just get it out of the way fast.

To be fair you guys do seem to be posting the write-ups a fair bit in advance, perhaps that could be it? Seems like guests have a habit of waiting until the last minute.

I submit all of them the day before the match starts.

moltar posts them what, 8 hours in advance? I don’t have much sympathy when I do four of em a day, but maybe i’m being elitist

i usually submit my writeups almost immediately after i sign up

even today's i submitted with some good time to spare

transcience posted...

moltar posts them what, 8 hours in advance? I don’t have much sympathy when I do four of em a day, but maybe i’m being elitist

yeah it's not that hard to get one match in on time when you've got multiple days to write it

the start times might still be throwing people off because they forget their match is coming up but still

Round 2 – Crash Bandicoot vs. Big Boss

Moltar’s Analysis

Crash
Round 1 - 54.18% vs. Cecil Harvey

Big Boss
Round 1 - 56.66% vs. Ridley

I...think I would take Ridley over Crash, especially after seeing all the Smash characters performances after BB/Ridley. That means that Big Boss here should go bigger here than in Round 1.

I’m still a bit weary on MGS as a whole though with none of the cast looking good so far. Combine that with icons overperforming, and Crash probably looks better than he should here because of that.

Moltar’s Bracket: Big Boss

Moltar’s Prediction: Big Boss – 59%

transience’s Analysis

I'm feeling pretty good about Crash. Not good enough to beat BB, obviously, but enough to think he can hang in there.

I'm actually super interested in this result. I feel like Ridley's performance will tell us a ton. Actually, now that I think about it, BB/Ridley seemed like a classic bomb by Big Boss, but after seeing Simon, Bayonetta, and King K Rool, it's actually not that bad. Would Crash pass the King K Rool test? Maaaybe?

What a weird thing to debate. Big Boss has this, and it'll probably be in the high 50s or so. A big number could rejuvenate his chances of making it to the big bracket.

transience's prediction: Big Boss with 57.54%

Leonhart’s Analysis

Big Boss didn’t look too hot in round 1, but after seeing Smash Ultimate’s impact on the contest since then, it doesn’t look quite as bad now. I still wouldn’t call it a good performance, but Big Boss ought to be able to put up a better showing here against Crash. Still, Spyro is indirectly looking pretty good against Ganondorf after what Chun-Li did, and Crash has looked fairly decent himself the last two contests, too, so I’m not even really sure what the target percentage Big Boss needs to hit to look good going into next round. I’ll aim high and hope not to be disappointed (could be the recurring theme of the day!).

Leonhart’s Vote: Big Boss

Leonhart’s Prediction: Big Boss with 64.60%

Kleenex’s Analysis

I’ve really got nothing to say here. Crash can’t win this match, and there’s nothing particularly interesting to say about how their respective round 1 matches went. I guess if Big Boss goes real big he could make a case for having a shot next round, but eh.

Kleenex’s Prediction: Big Boss with 64%

Guest’s Analysis - Ranticoot

Finally I get to do a guest write-up for my boy Crash. He's going to get killed here, but at least he's in Round 2. For the first time in a 1v1 contest since 2002 even.

Anyway Big Boss should put up a performance on par with Ganondorf's at least. Crash is stronger than Spyro but Big Boss is quite a bit better than Chun-Li of course. However Metal Gear has looked kind of, well, not good, and although Crash also had a bad picture it pops out more than Old Man does. I'll just slap slightly above 60 onto Big Boss and call it a day.

Ranticoot's prediction: Big Boss with 61%

Crew Consensus: Big Boss beats Bandicoot

you know, round 2 is my favorite round in these contests. it’s where the puzzle pieces are all out there but you don’t quite have all the information you need to connect them. you start laying out assumptions that, if correct, can really accurately forecast future rounds, but you can also be wildly off like Big Boss/Ridley could be.

Round 2 is where dreams come true or dreams are shattered

I like how Paul is one of the guys fiending to jump on the emergency guest analyses and can't even do his own on time

Dude is clearly trying to game the system by price is righting the crew picks

Lopen posted...

I like how Paul is one of the guys fiending to jump on the emergency guest analyses and can't even do his own on time

Dude is clearly trying to game the system by price is righting the crew picks

I believe the last two writeups I posted in this topic share the same prediction as the guesses for the Oracle challenge, which were posted days in advance.

Round 2 – Alucard vs. Yuna

Moltar’s Analysis

Alucard
Round 1 - 56.81% vs. Princess Peach

Yuna
Round 1 - 72.56% vs. Godot

Alucard fending off Peach, who I would think is actually one of the stronger lower-tier Nintendo characters (which in this contest pretty much means low-midcarder), redeemed him in my eyes. He also won by enough that I think he beats Yuna here, which I didn’t think pre-contest.

I believe that Yuna/Peach would be pretty close now that Peach has boosted in strength. This lines up with Yuna falling in-between Alucard and Peach.

Moltar’s Bracket: Yuna

Moltar’s Prediction: Alucard – 52%

transience’s Analysis

If you look purely at numbers, this matchup seems kinda legit. I'm not sure Yuna could go much higher on Peach. Simon did well, and that's of course suspect, but it doesn't hurt Alucard, anyway.

I never feel totally comfortable about Yuna. It feels like she could fall apart against decent competition at any moment, and she rarely has a good path to get tested. The one time was 2006 and she looked good, but then, everyone looks good in comparison to Aeris.

Anyway, the matchup that helped make up my mind was actually Donkey Kong/Leon. That match suggests that Tidus gets something like 47% on Leon (I haven't run the numbers), and that seems good enough to beat Alucard. I think Yuna's a quarter step up from Tidus, so I think she can do this. Also, Square vs. Konami, no Nintendo really involved, etc.

transience's prediction: Yuna with 54.89%

Leonhart’s Analysis

I took Yuna as an upset special in my bracket here, and I still think she’s got a good shot at it. Alucard easily dispatched of Peach right when people were afraid Nintendo was just going to dominate the contest. It seems a little more impressive now after what we’ve seen since then, too. Yuna didn’t look great against Godot early on, but she managed to make it look respectable by the end once the early Ace Attorney vote wore off.

I think Alucard should probably be the favorite here, but Yuna’s still got a realistic shot at it. She should be stronger than Peach, if nothing else, so I’ll roll with it! Gotta chase for points now (unless Yuna ends up as the Crew favorite somehow)…!

Leonhart’s Vote: Yuna

Leonhart’s Prediction: Yuna with 51.44%

Kleenex’s Analysis

Finally a fun one. I was pretty impressed with Yuna’s round 1 result, especially given the failure of a lot of her Final Fantasy compatriots. Sure, Godot is fodder, but probably not of the turbo variety, so putting up 73% was a nice win when she could certainly have flopped hard. Alucard on the other hand, I didn’t think had a great showing. Nintendo is super-charged this year, but 56% on Peach didn’t have me thinking he’s going to set the world on fire. I think this adds up to a match that should end up being quite close. Picking the FF character in a close match is probably fool’s errand at this point, but I need to make up some ground and I think the rest of the crew probably sides with Alucard, so…

Kleenex’s Prediction: Yuna with 50%

Guest’s Analysis - ctesjbuvf

This is one of the few matches where I let my favorite decide it while making my bracket. I picked Yuna, but I haven't been very confident in it at any point and regretted it a bit since. Yuna and Alucard have faced each other before, although they shared the match with Master Chief and Liquid Snake. Yuna won, but that was 11 years ago, and I also wouldn't have doubted a Yuna pick 1v1 as much back then.

FFX is probably weaker now than it was back then in general, although I don't think it's by as much as I've thought it to be. It has been an easy victim criticism, with FFX falling to Chrono Trigger last contest and Tidus being the first victim of the Smash/Nintendo boost this contest. After Donkey Kong crushed Leon today, that doesn't look nearly as bad and both Yuna and Auron looked fine, so maybe FFX hasn't fallen too much.

There was never much room between Yuna and Alucard though, so even a small drop can be enough. That's before taking into consideration where Alucard is today though. He didn't look all too impressive last character contest, but maybe Snake SFFs him quite a bit. On the other hand, Symphony of the Night looked legit 3 years ago. It had a seemingly easy path until OoT, but crushing DKC2 as hard as it was probably a
really solid result. I think Castlevania overall is in good standing with GameFAQs in general. While I have Yuna in my bracket, I have to go with Alucard here. Hopefully the whole crew does the same and we get a
crew curse. I'm expecting it to be really close though!

Alucard - 51.34%
Yuna - 48.66%

Crew Consensus: Yuna is the favorite in a 3-2 split.

Just submit the writeup when you sign up for the March, geez

MasterMoltar posted...

That match suggests that Tidus gets something like 47% on Leon (I haven't run the numbers)

48.58% actually!

Lopen's unofficial analysisx4

Crash v Big Boss

After seeing Donkey Kong rip into Leon, I'm thinking maybe my theory of PSX/PS2 era guys getting a nostalgia boost might not be off the mark. Tidus may very well have boosted. DK may have just boosted more. Possible DK is actually getting a decent amount of strength from Donkey Kong Country now when he used to only get Smash (Late SNES is like PSX/PS2. Kinda).

What am I getting at here? Well, Crash ripped into Cecil, so it's possible he boosted too? This one may be closer than we expect.

Big Boss with 53.24%

Yuna v Alucard

As said with the Crash write-up, my theory going into this year was that FFX characters would get a boost, so I actually took Yuna to beat Alucard here. Alucard of course would potentially get one as well, but I dunno, my gut was that Yuna would narrowly win. After seeing the likes of Lara Croft, Crash, and Tidus (?) impress (?) I'm going to stick with it. If nothing else Yuna being 7% stronger than Peach doesn't seem outrageous.

Yuna with 52.11%

Sora v Red

This is out of order. Same theory to decide the previous two matches applies here. Sora PS2 icon boost is here. Should be enough to narrowly carry him over Red.

... god I'm going 0-4 today aren't I.

Sora with 54.24%

Kefka v Bomberman

Okay, no I'm not.

Kefka with 59.12%

I mean if you consider being dead wrong about how close to Big Boss Crash gets to be a loss you could still go 0-4 if you're way off on Kefka too...!

Well Kefka wasn't based on theory and just based off pulling numbers out of my ass and guessing that Bomberman is probably stronger than L-Block this year but I suppose if Kefka Weskers him I can count that as a loss.

huh, I figured Yuna was the board fave. apparently I was the only one thinking that since everyone else picked Yuna to be different!

Well, I was sticking with Yuna regardless, but I just figured it'd be an opportunity to catch up since I thought people would've been swayed to Alucard after his first round match.

you can try to catch up with Sora!

meanwhile, Moltar and I went the same way on Sora and split on Yuna, so something's happening today

well I split with Moltar on both so I can at least catch up to him!

you mean fall further behind!

six in one half a dozen in the other

Round 2 – Kefka vs. Bomberman

Moltar’s Analysis

Kefka
Round 1 - 60.19% vs. L-Block

Bomberman
Round 1 - 60.87% vs. Kazuma Kiryu

Has Kefka been normalized? He beat the block fair and square, and Bomberman is actually a step down from that. After seeing Master Chief crush the other Yakuza dude, I’m not thinking that Bomberman did anything impressive in his match.

With FF6 looking really good, and Bomberman only getting here due to apathy last round, this should be a strong win for Kefka.

Moltar’s Bracket: Kefka

Moltar’s Prediction: Kefka – 68%

transience’s Analysis

Bomberman kinda sucks. Kefka.. well, we were excited about his killer L-Block performance, but then Pac-Man went and blew Sans up and all that.

I actually think the best argument for Kefka, and it's an argument that could maybe make him a darkhorse to win the division, is how well Terra did vs. Charizard. Charizard may have bombed but I don't think it was all him. Terra doesn't put up 47% on a decent character without a reason. not in this environment. That result is a sore thumb in the rest of the contest. Magus suggests something else may be up too, with how he made Vincent look, well, as bad as Terra made Charizard look, honestly. Maybe Kefka goes huge here and we start getting some Kefka winning the division hype. I'm down with that. Let's go big.

transience's prediction: Kefka with 67.24%

Leonhart’s Analysis

The real hurdle for Kefka was in round 1, so he shouldn’t have any problems here, right? Right? People still have a hard time trusting Kefka at this point, for whatever the reason, but he’s consistently proven to be legit over the past few contests, so I have no problems saying he crushes Bomberman here. I’m glad Bomberman got his first win since 2002 because it might be another 16 years before he gets his next one!

Leonhart’s Vote: Bomberman

Leonhart’s Prediction: Kefka with 67.60%

Kleenex’s Analysis

It seems like Kefka and Terra both ended up being pretty legit this year, despite the Final Fantasy decline (though in the face of some recent results, perhaps the decline was more on the shoulders of a Nintendo boost). Bomberman isn’t really in the same league here, so Kefka should have a pretty easy time. Then again, if there’s anyone to be wildly inconsistent from match to match and lose this, it would be Kefka. Probably not today though.

Kleenex’s Prediction: Kefka with 63%

Guest’s Analysis - ZeldaTPLink

Alright, so Kefka has survived what was considered by many the most difficult match of Round 1. He is now up against Bomberman, who has just had his first win since beating a TV in 2002.

The problem of Kefka vs L-BLock being insanely hard to predict is that, once it is over, it's still hard to interpret it. Is Kefka legit now? Well, he made a great run in 2013, and L-Block is supposed to be a solid midcarder now. But the trend in this contest has been for rally and joke characters to be shown the door, so maybe the block was affected by that too? I don't know, I'm not sure if people would turn against him like that, considering he is one of our classic memes.

But other than that, I don't see any of the contest trends so far favoring a Bomberman upset. Bomberman is cartoony? Kefka is a freaking clown. Final Fantasy is falling? Maybe, but not VI, as shown by Terra in her match against Zard. Pic factor? Kefka seems to have outgrown that ever since Dissidia came out and gave him a decent, non-lettuce pic.

I've already seen people joking about him losing to Bomberman here, because of lolkefka. But I think Kefka has been somewhat consistent lately, and the trends so far favor that. The 2013 results, FFVI being legit, the SNES boost and the Dissidia boost are all in line with each other. I do think Bomberman may have gotten somewhat of a boost himself too, with the series not being quite as dead like it was a few years ago. It was one of the launch games for the Switch, and a lot of people played it between one BotW session and another. But the gap is still probably too big. Kefka is looking like a sexy upset pick for the Division Finals, and Bomberman is just happy to be here.

I'll say he gets a comfortable doubling, but doesn't go high enough for us to start calling for Sora/Red/Big Boss's heads yet. This is Kefka, not the main villain, not the guy you're the most worried about, until he knocks a statue down and takes over the world, and now it's too late to stop him.

Kefka 68%
Bomberman 32%

Crew Consensus: Kefka laughs off Bomberman

augh hedged in

http://thengamer.com/guru/stats.php?match=75

looks like Alucard is the slight favorite in the guru

whoa I thought I'd be the one going big but apparently I'm right in line