Character Battle X Contest Analysis Crew - Part 88888888888888888888888~ GameFAQs Contests

Tifa has the roughest draw of the Division winners coming in. She was the only one guaranteed to face two Noble Nine characters in a row, and neither are ones she can be competitive with - Samus because Samus is like #3 on the site, and Sephiroth because of Hierarchy.

Ganondorf has it pretty bad too, although his chances of beating Mega Man/Pikachu were never high to begin with.

Side note: current STATS predict a 52.5% win for Mega Man over Ganondorf and a 54% win for Bowser over Alucard.

At least we're likely to get a good indirect and direct measure of Mario's and Samus's strengths in the same contest and 2005 people who got that match wrong will get to shout "SEE IT WASN'T rSFF!!!" when Samus can't push 60% on Seph and Mario can't do much better than his 60% of yore on Samus.

(it was totally rSFF)

Looking at the dramatic decline in Vincent's strength over the years relative to Aeris gap over the years, maybe Sephiroth has just fallen below Tifa now and Samus is still stronger indirectly. Then they'll have to argue rSFF in Tifa/Sephiroth to deny rSFF in Mario/Samus!

Assuming the Sephiroth-Tifa ratio from 2010 stays, what does Mario get on Samus? Like 57%?

I could believe that considering Mario is a much more popular series than Metroid and Mario is huge while Samus has only starred in TWO games in the past decade. I think in my second chance bracket I chickened out and picked Cloud > Mario just because of Luigi losing to Tifa.

However that means that Samus gets only like 53% on Sephiroth, making it unlikely for her to beat Cloud. Maybe FFVII just hasn't declined that much since 2010. Cloud didn't have any particularly reliable matches to gauge his strength from in 2013. I guess his failure to double Frog looks pretty bad but who even knows?

LinkMarioSamus posted...

Assuming the Sephiroth-Tifa ratio from 2010 stays, what does Mario get on Samus?

It's not. Sephiroth is weaker now (overall, not specifically weaker than Tifa).

red sox 777 posted...

Looking at the dramatic decline in Vincent's strength over the years relative to Aeris gap over the years, maybe Sephiroth has just fallen below Tifa now and Samus is still stronger indirectly. Then they'll have to argue rSFF in Tifa/Sephiroth to deny rSFF in Mario/Samus!

Still think Vincent's decline was because Square Enix stopped pushing him so much after a while (remember when he got his own game and he inspired Cloud's wardrobe in Kingdom Hearts 1?). Sephiroth and Tifa should be more emblematic of the game as a whole and hence haven't dropped as much.

I dunno, sometimes you just have to actually analyze character popularity instead of just hoping for character strength to remain static through contests. Like Donkey Kong's 56-44 win over Leon is roughly what I would expect without having any idea of their past contest histories, especially because Resident Evil doesn't really seem like the site's kind of thing beyond a possible nostalgia factor.

Speaking of which, in hindsight maybe Magus really was that strong in 2003 and 2004 and he just dropped a fair bit in 2005. That was the same year Frog almost lost to an ancillary Kingdom Hearts character pre-KH2 and Crono barely broke 60% on Master Chief. Meanwhile Crono was neck-and-neck with Mario the prior two years. Magus doing well in 2003 just seems like Early Installment Weirdness for the contests.

KamikazePotato posted...

LinkMarioSamus posted...

Assuming the Sephiroth-Tifa ratio from 2010 stays, what does Mario get on Samus?

It's not. Sephiroth is weaker now (overall, not specifically weaker than Tifa).

I also get the feeling Sephiroth is weaker overall too, but was just asking hypothetically. And Mario being worth 57% on Samus doesn't seem so unbelievable. Samus is not some bastion of popularity (I guess on this site and to some extent among hardcore/retro gamers as a whole she is, but I mean in general). I dunno, if Samus does better than 43% on Mario (assuming Mario doesn't score SFF), then it won't be by much.

Magus barely beat Ganondorf and Ganondorf barely beat Tidus in 2003.

Do you think Tidus had Noble Nine-level strength in 2003?

To be fair in 2002 we had him doing this

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/984-west-division-round-2-sonic-the-hedgehog-vs-tidus

In a year where Sonic was very very close to beating Samus. Possible a lot of that 2003 hodgepodge was less misreadings entirely and more a lot of coincidental drop offs in strength.

The years have not been kind to Magus, Sephiroth, and Vincent. All dark, brooding type characters from mid-90s Square RPGs. Square tried to make Cloud into such a character with the Advent Children stuff but I think they didn't succeed, because he isn't like that in FFVII and people remember. Still, FFVII and New Square in general has fallen off a cliff between 2010 and now. Cloud still put up 46.5% on Link in 2010. He might not manage that against Mario this year, if the Cloud/Sephiroth gap is smaller than I would guess it is.

But Aeris and Tifa have seemed to be almost unaffected.

Wasn't there something about the poll not accepting votes for several hours during the ASV of Sonic/Tidus? The wikia page doesn't mention it but I'm pretty sure I remember hearing something about that and the votals are really low compared to the next few matches before and after it even though you'd think Sonic vs. FFX would be a fairly good draw.

which would make the result there almost literally fraudulent

Sonic is a cheater confirmed. Or Tidus. Or both!

There's Noble Nine level strength and Noble Nine level strength. Sonic 2003 was one of the weakest Noble Niners we've seen, and Magus was only ahead of him by 0.01% in the stats IIRC. I think the non-Clinkeroth 9 looked closer than they were because: 1) Samus was behind SFF against Link, but we always assumed zero SFF in that match, 2) Crono beats Mario without 10,000+ extra votes in their match from rallying/stuffing/the poll being open for 24 hours and 27 minutes, and 3) however weak Mario may be "indirectly," we know he'll never lose to a Nintendo character other than Link directly, and in 2002-3 he had all kinds of voodoo magic in close matches.

Without those results, Crono and Samus are both probably over 40% on Link and the gap down to Magus/Ganondorf doesn't look so strange. Magus overperformed due to the sprite round and Link anti-votes too, of course.

I doubt Link was being antivoted much at all in 03. He wasn't really established as some sort of unbeatable juggernaut yet.

Safer_777 posted...

Sonic is a cheater confirmed. Or Tidus. Or both!

Fun fact, Tidus cheated at a 2-1 rate against MissingNo. back in 2013.

MasterMoltar posted...

transience’s Analysis

I've been holding this one in for a while, but I think it's time to let it out. I think Solid Snake is going to *suck* this year, relative to expectations. Let's go through the noble nine (still alive, will never die, etc) and see what they've done since 2013:

Link: Smash 4, Breath of the Wild
Cloud: Smash 4, FF7 remake (trailer, but as we know, that's all you need)
Seph: technically the FF7 remake, but he hasn't been seen yet and also, has kinda sucked?
Samus: Smash 4, new 3DS games, Prime 4 announcement (the trailer is gonna drop during the contest -- believe)

There's probably going to be one more Nintendo Direct before the end of this year, so that will open up a chance for a proper Metroid Prime 4 announcement during the contest.

LusterSoldier posted...

There's probably going to be one more Nintendo Direct before the end of this year

Maybe but the chances are pretty low. The last time they did a Direct in December was 2015 for Smash Bros. DLC. The last time they did a general Direct in December was 2013.

ah, I see we have some good old fashioned pic sabotage today. gotta love when board 8 starts making pictures.

is this the “sprite round”? maybe sonic has a chance

so uh

just how strong is Pikachu exactly

LeonhartFour posted...

so uh

just how strong is Pikachu exactly

Pika Pika

So since I've seen one or two people propose Mario > Link, let me ask.... could Mario beat a blue-clad Link?

Ganondorf actually gets SFFed. We've seen it by basically everyone.

Then you add bacon to the mix? His odds of winnin go drastic down.

I'd rather talk about Kratos > all of division 1.

yeah, this result doesn’t say a lot about pikachu to me. it almost doesn’t matter because he draws link, but at least pikachu is resistant enough to not get samus’d.

LeonhartFour posted...

so uh

just how strong is Pikachu exactly

Honestly? He is probably #5 right now.

KamikazePotato posted...

Tifa has the roughest draw of the Division winners coming in.

I rescind this by the way.

I mean yeah this pic isn't kind to Ganondorf but he got a sprite against Sonic in 2010 and still put up almost 43%

Leon I'm sure I asked this before so sorry for repeating myself, but what do we need from Bowser/Alucard for Crono = Cloud?

Bowser needs to get 56.11% for Crono = Cloud.

Thanks.

LeonhartFour posted...

I mean yeah this pic isn't kind to Ganondorf but he got a sprite against Sonic in 2010 and still put up almost 43%

Mega Man obliterated Hayabusa in the sprite round and I think he did the same back to Yoshi back in the day? He might just be really good at taking advantage of this kind of situation.

rip crono

mega man definitely has the best sprite. not even crono can compete with that.

Yeah, Mega Man's sprite advantage is pretty strong, although he didn't have the classic sprite in the Yoshi match. I think it was actually from Marvel vs. Capcom.

So Mega Man sprite advantage vs Bacondorf.
How much does that affect the result ?
Would it have been a 45-55 ?

The Mana Sword posted...

rip crono

If the winner's bracket has a sprite round too, he should have the pic advantage over Cloud, so he has a slim chance.

i’m not seeing this as some major overperformance. ganon was already a big underdog to pikachu - maybe it ends at like 58 instead of 55, but that’s okay?

Leon, how do we look numberswise? might need to wait a few updates to get a more stable number.

Yeah Ganon is recovering fine, plus he'll pick up an okay chunk overnight because Mega Man being Mega Man.

Well, Mega Man getting 55% on Ganondorf implies that Ganondorf loses to Yoshi. I don't think I agree with that one.

I'd take Ganondorf to lose to Yoshi in a direct match

58% on Chun Li already implies that. that doesn’t seem insane given how average he was. it would make Vivi line up a little better with his Square brethren too.

After Sephiroth/Ryu and Mario/Sephiroth I think the fighting game boost hype is dead and buried. Division 1 just isn't any good.

It's very hard me to see Ganondorf being weaker than Yoshi in a year where Zelda is curbstomping everyone. I don't see Ganondorf as weaker than Bowser and we all agree that Bowser beats Yoshi, yeah?

Bowser could probably beat Ganondorf, yeah.

I don't agree Ganondorf loses to Bowser and I don't agree Bowser beats Yoshi necessarily either

One thing at a time!

WarThaNemesis2 posted...

After Sephiroth/Ryu and Mario/Sephiroth I think the fighting game boost hype is dead and buried.

Sub-Zero and Scorpion did well.

Division 1 lines up really well with a lot of stats and the fact that people are trying to glean information about it from this match is going to be really annoying for a long time.

transcience posted...

Bowser could probably beat Ganondorf, yeah.

I don't think there's ever been a match that implied this! At least in regards to indirect strength.

I mean if Ganondorf could hang with Mega Man, that would make Vivi probably the second strongest FF character

Ganondorf doesn't beat Mega Man either way but this result is entirely fraudulent and trying to predict stuff based off of it won't work.

I wonder how long people’s memories are in this contest. Maybe there’s enough bitterness over Mega Man barely loosing against Pikachu that he’s getting a bit of a bump in the runback.

Guess we can see if Snake manhandles Auron tomorrow too.