GameFAQs Contests

Round 2 – KOS-MOS vs. Aqua

Moltar’s Analysis

KOS-MOS
Round 1 - 54.45% vs. Ellie

Aqua
Round 1 - 64.11% vs. Quiet

Aqua the last standing KH representative. What a time to be alive.

I think KOS-MOS should still be the favorite here, despite not looking too great in R1. Ellie is probably okay, and I’d trust her more than Quiet or anything else from MGS at this point.

I get Fox/D.Va-lite vibes from this, and while KOS-MOS isn’t as strong as Fox, she’ll have less trouble here than she did in Round 1.

Moltar’s Bracket: KOS-MOS

Moltar’s Prediction: KOS-MOS – 61%

transience’s Analysis

KOS struggled with Ellie which, yeah, isn't a great look. But Aqua? She's gotta be sub-Riku unless we're just all in on trailers now. And Riku got killed by Bayonetta who barely held off Pac-Man. I believe in Pac-Man, and Bayonetta by extension, but still. Sora losing to a human Pokemon character doesn't say much for that franchise.

KOS-MOS feels like she could get the Vyse treatment, where she's right there at the fodder line and then suddenly falls off the earth. I won't be totally surprised if the more relevant character today takes this just out of pure apathy. But I'm not picking a PSP Kingdom Hearts character over KOS-MOS. She'll have to prove it.

transience's prediction: KOS-MOS with 59.44%

Leonhart’s Analysis

Aqua put up a big blowout on Quiet in round 1, but it looks like MGS just sucks this year, so it wouldn’t surprise me if an MGSV exclusive character was near the bottom of the X-Stats. Plus, with Bayonetta/Pac-Man being a 52/48 match, that means Riku wouldn’t even do that well on Sans. He’s really been the turd of the contest in terms of just how bad this contest has made him look compared to pre-contest expectations. Can Aqua actually be stronger than Riku? I guess it’s possible if we had a really hardcore Kingdom Hearts fanbase who knew all the games well, but this year has demonstrated that’s probably not the case…!

Now KOS-MOS wasn’t super impressive in round 1, but it’s possible that Ellie is surprisingly decent after Joel didn’t look half bad either. Plus, it’s not like KOS-MOS has ever been a powerhouse anyway, so she’s only going to score big blowouts on really bad fodder. Aqua’s probably not that, so KOS-MOS should win in a relatively close but never in doubt affair.

Leonhart’s Vote: Aqua

Leonhart’s Prediction: KOS-MOS with 55.16%

Kleenex’s Analysis

Blue hair SFF here we go. KOS-MOS actually ended up slightly below my expectations last round, given I don’t have much faith in Ellie really being that good, and on the surface, Aqua kinda impressed. The issue is that MGS characters have all looked so bad this year, it’s very likely that Quiet was just way worse than we all though, making Aqua’s result less impressive. This isn’t a 100% lock for KOS-MOS by any means, but I think she should be able to pull through here.

Kleenex’s Prediction: KOS-MOS with 54%

Guest’s Analysis - SuperNiceDog

I'm not sure what to make of this match. Kos-Mos won in R1 with 54.5% against Ellie from The Last of Us, and Aqua won with 64.11% against Quiet. An ultimate battle of anime waifus who could easily be on the pillows of nerds when they go to sleep at night...

I will side with KOS-MOS. I still think that when in doubt, just go with the character who originated closer to 1998. Few people played those niche KH games with Aqua in them. More people(slightly) played at LEAST the first Xenosaga game(2003).

KOS-MOS with 54%

Crew Consensus: Aqua sinks in R2

come on Falcon you can't even go 50/50 for a full minute?

captain falcon is closer to sephiroth than shepard is to ryu lol

wow Squall sure looks boned now

it's gonna be hilarious when kos-mos does better on ryu than shepard

Captain Falcon's ability to keep up with the board vote was not up to the hype

Taste the blade of a hero and such

I've always been kind of baffled by KOS-MOS's continued contest strength. Xenosaga was a modest hit, but it had to be trimmed down from six games to three based on poor sales. I thought she'd be hanging around with the likes of Laharl and Yuri Hyuga and Luke fon Fabre, but yet she still shows up year after year and does decently.

Do the boobs really make that big a difference?

God I wish Ryu and Squall were scheduled to meet up instead of Zelda and Squall

Zelda beating him is just disappointing but Ryu doing it would be pretty cool

I could live with Ryu beating Squall more easily than Zelda, this is true

i wish KOS-MOS/Shepard had been a first round matchj

@Big_Bob Real men like big tits. And sexy robots. And KOS-MOS has both of these things!

FFVII is back

Cloud > Crono confirmed

@LeonhartFour Where did you see that?

it’s captain falcon man

ryu/seph will be fun early

Sephiroth rising to heaven already

a Captain Falcon who was doing better on Cloud at this point...!

FFVII is back

so...

GlaDOS vs. Ocelot who ya got?

they're practically equal if Tifa and MMX are equal

Ocelot for me. MGS.

Master Moltar posted...

transience’s Analysis

KOS struggled with Ellie which, yeah, isn't a great look. But Aqua? She's gotta be sub-Riku unless we're just all in on trailers now. And Riku got killed by Bayonetta who barely held off Pac-Man. I believe in Pac-Man, and Bayonetta by extension, but still. Sora losing to a human Pokemon character doesn't say much for that franchise.

KOS-MOS feels like she could get the Vyse treatment, where she's right there at the fodder line and then suddenly falls off the earth. I won't be totally surprised if the more relevant character today takes this just out of pure apathy. But I'm not picking a PSP Kingdom Hearts character over KOS-MOS. She'll have to prove it.

Once KH3 is out, Aqua will no longer be exclusive to a PSP Kingdom Hearts game. I'd expect at least some kind of strength boost from KH3 after it comes out. Aqua has more potential to boost from KH3 compared to Sora or Riku.

thanks luster

refresh my memory: round 3 is also 4x/day, right?

wow good job Seph

transience posted...

refresh my memory: round 3 is also 4x/day, right?

Yep. Doesn't go to 2 per day until the division finals.

thanks

you know, you guys can’t be disappointed by seph when he’s several points above your predictions and will rise for the next 23 hours

I wasn’t being sarcastic! I’m legit impressed

pjbasis posted...

That's a lot of exclamation points!

It is! What a very excited write-up!

LeonhartFour posted...

did Sub-Zero get announced for Smash while I wasn't looking?

Maybe the reason Smash has been boosting characters is because suddenly fighting games are actually worth a bunch!

...Probably not.

transience posted...

here's a fun tease - who's stronger, Claire or Lucina

Lucina. Just consult THE FLOWCHART. Nintendo and RPG > Capcom and not RPG.

LeonhartFour posted...

Mac Arrowny posted...

So how long has Sub-Zero been the strongest Western character?

He's probably been the strongest one more years than not, with the exception of stuff like Game Fuel and maaaaaaybe Shepard in 2013.

And 2007 L-Block. Russia is technically part of the Western world, right?

paulg235 posted...

Lopen posted...

Needed Batman Penguin instead of the Mario penguin.

I stuck with video game originated characters because otherwise the write-up would probably take forever to do and I wanted to make this quick.

Would've likely forgot about him anyway. I was thinking of adding this penguin in, though.
https://media1.tenor.com/images/e8046f7b86569713d9c48f14f4aa00f5/tenor.gif?itemid=5751250

Dood, you forgot this penguin!

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/disgaea/images/e/e4/PCIRBTH_Hero_Prinny.png/revision/latest?cb=20131026184413&path-prefix=en

I'm not disappointed! He looks good to run through this division! I just thought we'd see Captain Falcon overperform through a combo of Smash and FFVII anti-votes.

Up.

How would Kairi(Kingdom Hearts) do in this contest?

Think she would beat Cecil Harvey?

no

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7326

Luigi does as expected against Frog.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7327

Tails has no problem with Chief.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7328

Tifa does fine against Mewtwo.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7329

MMX has a solid result against Ocelot.

Crew Predictions: 82/92

Next Round Thoughts: Luigi/Tails is easy, but Tifa/MMX is looking like one of the more debatable matches of Round 3.

Crew Prediction Challenge:

Moltar: 80
transience: 79
Leonhart: 76
Kleenex: 74
Guest: 70

Crew Accuracy Challenge: transience gets the point for Luigi, Kleenex gets the point for Tails, Leonhart gets the point for Tifa, and Kleenex get the point for MMX.

Kleenex: 23
Guest: 21 (BetrayedTangy, SuperNiceDog (2), pjbasis, garetha200 (4), ZenOfThunder, Ranticoot (2), Hbthebattle (2), NowItsAngeTime, spooky96, RoseChevalier, Lopen (2), paulg235, DoctorJimmy133, Janus5k)
transience: 20
Moltar: 16
Leonhart: 15

the comeback is complete!

please ignore the prediction challenge

Whole number accuracy challenge participants are a FRAUD

Round 3 – Dante vs. Ganondorf

Moltar’s Analysis

Dante
Round 1 - 71.59% vs. Cuphead
Round 2 - 65.62% vs. Lightning

Ganondorf
Round 1 - 78.60% vs. Neku Sakuraba
Round 2 – 58.91% vs. Chun-Li

This was supposed to be Ganon’s division. Everything was looking on course in Round 1, but then Round 2 came along and put the division into question.

The big topic here is Ganon’s 59% on Chun-Li, which was seen as a disappointment at the time. After seeing Sub-Zero and Ryu do well later on in the round, and Pikachu continuing to beast in R2 which redeems Scorpion a little, maybe Chun-Li’s a bit more legit than we thought? Fighting game boost #smashisafighter?

Dante has looked solid so far, and I think he’s going to give Ganon a decent fight here, but in the end he’s going to fall a little short (which usually happens with him). If Ganon can put up mid or high 50s here, I’d feel good again about him taking the division.

Moltar’s Bracket: Ganondorf

Moltar’s Prediction: Ganondorf – 52%

transience’s Analysis

Round 3! We've somehow had 96 matches already this year.

I was all in on Ganondorf beating Dante no matter what, and then he struggled with Chun Li of all dudes. Isn't Dante worth 8% more than Chun Li? He went 50/50 with Ryu.

I think Chun Li would probably lose worse to Dante than Ganondorf, yeah -- but I also think Dante has historically struggled to get over on similar competition, especially Nintendo. It's been a dozen years, but he flopped against Yoshi when he had every reason to win. I don't think he gets as close to Ganondorf as he did to Yoshi, but I do think the same kind of logic applies. Gamefaqs ultimately will back the Nintendo guy.

transience's prediction: Ganondorf with 52.44%

Leonhart’s Analysis

This is the sort of match Dante never wins, right? We’ve seen this story before, where Dante looks good beating up on lesser characters while his opponent shows signs of vulnerability by underperforming against a known commodity. Could this be the year he reverses the trend? I really hope so because few things would make be happier than to see Ganondorf go out early.

I just can’t quite bring myself to bite on it though. Dante’s just so hard to trust in this situation. I think he’ll put up a good fight like he always does (except against Squirtle), but he’ll fall just short like he always does (except against Squirtle). Prove me wrong, Dante! I dare you!

Leonhart’s Vote: Dante

Leonhart’s Prediction: Ganondorf with 51.01%

Kleenex’s Analysis

Pre-contest, I thought Ganondorf would have had this match for sure. After that round 2 stinker, this is much more up in the air. Maybe Chun-Li is actually just good now? Maybe Lightning really is that bad and Dante’s round 2 performance was also bad? Given how well Nintendo has done up to this point, it’s still hard to bet against ‘dorf. Dante has always choked when it mattered most, so I expect him to do it again. He better hope there’s no hockey games happening today.

Kleenex’s Prediction: Ganondorf with 51%

Lopen's Analysis

Well obviously, you see the guest, you know what I'm picking. But let's go into why real quick.

First, the hype. Devil May Cry 5 hype is legitimate. I've had several people talk to me about it, asking if I've seen the trailers, etc etc. It's also a bit of a hero's welcome. Gone is Donte the Demon Slayer. (has a nice ring to it, don't you think?) Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and Dante's fanbase appreciates him now more than ever.

I guess what I'm saying is, I expect Dante to be the strongest he's ever been this year. There's much more hype for DMC5 than there was for DMC4 or DMC3. DmC helped the fanbase appreciate the series that much more, and it's practically fiending for a new entry at this point. It's probably the only thing in the bracket that could even come close to matching Smash hype. And here's the thing with DMC5 hype-- it all funnels right into Dante. Smash hype is only helping the individual parts so much. You ever met any people who are saying "I just wonder what Ganon's up to!" when they are asked about the new Smash?

Now throw in contest results. Ganondorf looked pretty sketch last round. Now I personally think Lightning vs Chun-Li is an interesting match that Lightning could win. That Dante got almost 10% more on an opponent I consider to be similar caliber is kinda telling. If nothing else, does Dante getting 8% more than Chun-Li on Ganondorf seem weird to you? Like, in any year? Well, I'm going to do that one better and make Dante get like 14% more than Chun-Li.

Dante may choke, cause I mean, he has a history, but it'll be in the actual debatable match. Next round's. We're still in the "Dante is building his style meter against scrubs" phase. Dante's got his ticket to the crazy party with jump ropes and conga lines, and pigman ain't stoppin him. Game Over return of Dante.

Lopen's Prediction
Dante with 56.35%

Crew Consensus: Dante comes up short once again.

Round 3 – Vivi vs. Donkey Kong

Moltar’s Analysis

Vivi
Round 1 - 74.89% vs. Yu Narukami
Round 2 - 75.45% vs. Aya Brea

Donkey Kong
Round 1 - 56.93% vs. Tidus
Round 2 - 55.67%vs. Leon Kennedy

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1740
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3744

Let’s get those polls out of the way now. Historically, Vivi takes this match without any problem. The problem now though is that these historical results don’t matter. Vivi’s lost to Leon in the past. Tidus and Leon would have beaten DK in the past too, and look at what Kong did to them this year.

Vivi has looked very good this year, but that was against opponents that he has reasons to look good against. If Vivi is overrated because of those, and isn’t actually at his 2013 level, then DK has a very real shot of winning here.

On the flip side, maybe DK is the one that looks overrated going into this match. Most of Square looks weaker this year, so that might explain the Tidus result. RE has looked okay, but it’s possible that Leon is weaker as well.

What definitely can’t be argued though is that DK is stronger this year, and we’ve seen enough proof of Nintendo/Smash boost to determine that. The jury is still out on Vivi, but for now I’m going to (probably foolishly) back the historical evidence and side with the mage here. Still, I think it’s pretty much a 50/50 match at this point.

Moltar’s Bracket: Vivi

Moltar’s Prediction: Vivi – 51%

transience’s Analysis

This is a hilarious threepeat, I believe, and Vivi's easily won the last two. I don't think that matters though. Tidus beat out DK once too and DK rocked him. DK put Leon in his place too. Would Vivi beat Leon with 55%? I'm not the world's biggest believer in Leon, but he ain't bad. Heck, he's also beaten Vivi twice.

Vivi's had a good contest -- better than most of his brethren -- but he's also facing lesser known RPG guys. I don't trust Vivi's performances all that much. His gamemate lost pretty handily to Knuckles, who lost in the same way to Zero. Beating Leon 55-45.. pretty much sounds like something Zero might be able to do. MIGHT be able to do. I was really impressed by DK ground pounding Leon so easily, if you can't tell.

Give me the ape here.

transience's prediction: Donkey Kong with 53.33%

Leonhart’s Analysis

We’ve seen this match twice before with near identical results each time, but this might be the strongest Donkey Kong we’ve ever seen. On the other hand, this might be the strongest Vivi we’ve ever seen! At the very least, we’re about to find out. Their paths to this point have been very different. Vivi has feasted on total cupcakes, but at the very least, he’s met expectations and hasn’t shown signs of weakness. DK easily beat two characters thought to be either his equal or his superior in these contests.

Because of that, I think it’s possible that DK might start to pick up a bandwagon here. You’re already starting to see signs of it on Board 8. Nobody talked about how awesome it would be if DK won this division until he beat Leon. I’m sticking with Vivi, but DK can definitely win this if he’s picked up some momentum from the first two rounds.

Leonhart’s Vote: Vivi

Leonhart’s Prediction: Vivi with 56.38%

Kleenex’s Analysis

Vivi could legitimately be the 2nd strongest Final Fantasy character at this point. You might even be able to make a case for #1, but that’s a bit of a tougher sell. Donkey Kong has performed admirably so far, punching far above his normal weight, but this is where the run ends. We’ve seen this match multiple times already and I don’t see any reason for the result to flip.

Kleenex’s Prediction: Vivi with 58%

Guest’s Analysis - LinkMarioSamus

Oh boy, it’s rematch time!

The past two times this happened Vivi 56-44’d the poor ape. DK appears to be kind of on steroids this contest, but alternately Shepard’s flop today makes it seem like that might be down to Tidus and Leon both being weaker. All right, fine, DK should be much stronger than K. Rool, but still! Oh yeah we also had Claire barely avoid a doubling from Sub-Zero and turn out to be significantly weaker than Shulk in the process. But then again we still have Jill Valentine’s nice-ish loss to Fox, Chris looks better after Phoenix Wright got to Round 3 but that could be partially an Ike problem, and Wesker’s result on Sephiroth is being significantly bettered by Captain Falcon. So the jury’s out on Resident Evil’s contest, but I’m going to say it’s not a good one. Strike 1 against DK.

Ah, but what about Final Fantasy X? Yuna turned out to be weaker than Peach, which looks even worse after several Smash characters bowed out in Round 2 and Luigi got a pretty lazy win over Frog. Auron turns out to be worth around only 57% on the fraud to end all frauds, Magus. Alternately, Magus winning two matches and avoiding a doubling from Link in his contest debut seems like a case of Early Installment Weirdness for these contests (keep in mind the same contest had Shadow break 45% on Mario and Samus outperform Mario’s result from the previous year against Link), but I digress. Then FFX had a pretty sorry showing in the games contest. The jury is out on Auron, but I think we can safely call Tidus and Yuna failures at this point. Strike 2 against DK.

DK’s two wins in this contest are both against characters who have faced Vivi before...in 2007, aka four-ways. Ugh. Based on that Tidus and Vivi are about equal and Leon’s a good step ahead of them both. Obviously Leon is much weaker now since RE4 is no longer so new (pity, it’s the best game ever), and there’s a good chance that Tidus is much weaker now too. Meanwhile, the last character battle and the games contest suggest that FFIX has increased in popularity since then, so maybe we can assume that Vivi 60-40’s Tidus now. Unfortunately if that’s the case, Vivi doesn’t have much wiggle room to beat DK. Then again maybe Tidus and Leon are so lol weak now that Vivi does even better against them. BUT then DK’s coming off of an upset so he might get a bandwagon going, and unfortunately I can imagine Vivi being an easy target, especially after his upset of Mario last character battle. And then there’s DK’s old penchant for getting involved in close matches, although I think it has been a while since DK’s last close match.

You know, when I got an uneasy feeling that DK would upset Leon I should have probably listened and picked the upset, instead of merely picking DK to “overperform”. Now I’m starting to feel similarly, but SURELY Vivi is on another level from Leon and Tidus, right? And maybe Smash/Nintendo backlash could kick in and help him. Also Vivi has apparently won two Best Character contests held on Final Fantasy Wiki, so I guess among dedicated FF fans – aka the kind of people this site is made for – he’s a huge deal. Tifa’s recent easy win over Mewtwo and Vincent not getting completely plastered by Auron seem to suggest good things for pre-X FF, so uh...

Vivi with 50.79%

Tran I believe in you. You understand the true ability of the Kong and how to choose an upset.

Master Moltar posted...

Leonhart’s Prediction: Vivi with 56.38%

This is the average of the two percentages Vivi has scored on DK in the past. Don't think we wouldn't notice.

I put the exact same thing as my Oracle prediction

oh hey i’m alone on DK island again

I'm with you Transcience

I bet that makes you feel safe!

Master Moltar posted...

Leonhart gets the point for Tifa

feels good man

transcience posted...

oh hey i’m alone on DK island again

which is 100% what I expected

hey this is the third time i’m on DK island and he’s still alive

Crew curse?

BTW the percentage I picked for Vivi was Master Chief's against DK back in '05. To think DK would probably reverse that result handily now is really something.

if DK beats Vivi I will very salty, as the kids say

fuck DK

If he manages to win I suggest we rally DK everywhere we can!

Vivi better than Seph or Cloud I dunno about this