Character Battle X Contest Analysis Crew - Part 10 GameFAQs Contests

KamikazePotato posted...

If a game is old enough you're more or less morally justified in using an emulator. I don't think anyone at Nintendo would go after you for emulating Path of Radiance instead of buying it for $200 USD off of an amazon.com scalper.

I emulate games all the time, but I don't really feel the drive to catch up on the 60 PSX games I missed. Replaying something from my childhood appeals more to me.

That said I am probably playing FF7 next year. 12 years of contests have to break me sooner or later. I already gave in and played FF6 a year ago.

transience posted...

this is some definitely stats topic filler right here

This is a better discourse than the actual stats topic right now imo

Encouraging piracy

Has it really come to this

Lopen posted...

So I say "If you're someone who votes Link over most of the field because he's fun to play play more video games imo" and you get defensive and then I elaborate and then you say "well I haven't played many video games because they're expensive"

What are you even getting defensive about? It sounds like I claimed it reads like you don't play many games and that was accurate. If you haven't played many games that's okay but on a website like this I imagine that's not the case for most voters.

Anyway point is I doubt many people are voting Link on strength of him being fun to play unless they really like Soul Calibur 2. They're voting him because they like the games-- which I mean, it's a similar kind of thing but a mindset that applies equally to an RPG even if you're arguing RPG gameplay can't be fun (which I think was the argument?).

I am telling you that I vote for Link because he is fun to play with.

What I am not telling you is that I played all 136 characters in the bracket, ranked them, and decided Link was the most fun of all.

I just wanted to defend my stance that I vote for Link because of gameplay, since you guys were being against it. Nothing more.

Sorry if this turned out a bit aggressive, wasn't my intention.

TheKoolAidShoto posted...

Encouraging piracy

Has it really come to this

Hey man if you're willing to wire the man 500 bucks so he can play Suikoden II, be my guest

transience posted...

this is some definitely stats topic filler right here

Sorry I will stop.

The job system in FF5 sounds so fun though, I might play that one first.

TheKoolAidShoto posted...

Encouraging piracy

Has it really come to this

Try being a gamer in a country where your average game costs 1500 bucks and we'll talk imo

The Wii was launched at ~1300 dollars here.

ZeldaTPLink posted...

The Wii was launched at ~1300 dollars here.

And where I'm at, a 200 USD monitor goes for quadruple that price, yeah

Context matters guys, gaming prices are set to first world standards and if you're not living in such a country you get super gouged

If pirating more lets you realize there are games with better gameplay than Legend of Zelda I'm all for it.

Anyway to be fair I did call Link second round fodder in a gameplay contest, not first. It is 'fine' but it's hard to imagine that being a huge selling point for most people. I think Mario would have a better claim to fame there-- legit arguments to be made that various Mario games are the pinnacles of raw platforming gameplay. Zelda games would be pinnacles of gaming on a more broad big picture type scale.

Like if someone said Final Fantasy VII had their favorite RPG gameplay I'd scoff there too. FFVII's gameplay is super dumbed down even compared to others in its series. I wouldn't scoff if someone said Final Fantasy VII was their favorite RPG though. It's a good game! But if you gave me FFVII with FFX's gameplay it's hard to imagine I wouldn't enjoy it more.

Another problem to me is that RPGs offered zero appeal to me until I was able to read English. Which was after 2004.

Which is why I was never a FF fan at all. I probably didn't even notice the SNES ones existed. First RPG was Paper Mario, which I only beat thanks to my mom and her enormous patience for staying by my side translating the dialogue with a dictionary in her hand.

Later on I started liking the genre more, but it alwsys had trouble competing against jumping over things with a plumber or a monkey.

Assuming the language barrier isn't a problem for you anymore (I would have never guessed it wasn't your first language if you hadn't said so), Steam is slowly gaining a lot of RPG ports. I assume that's how you're playing Berseria?

When I talk about Zelda gameplay is not just wacking things with a sword (unless you are playing the NES zeldas which are about that). It's... everything. The exploration, the bosses, the atmosphere, venturing into scary dungeons in Ocarina of Time. Waiting years for TP to come out. It's the full package.

I probably wouldn't nickname myself in a forum after Link nowadays, but I was such a Link fanboy back in the day. It was something magical. Something that doesn't repeat itself.

KamikazePotato posted...

Assuming the language barrier isn't a problem for you anymore (I would have never guessed it wasn't your first language if you hadn't said so), Steam is slowly gaining a lot of RPG ports. I assume that's how you're playing Berseria?

Oh it's not a problem anymore. I lived in UK for a year in 2014. And I was already decent before then. I was just describing my childhood.

You could say gameFAQs is one if the biggest reasons I learned English so fast in 2004. Had to find those hearth containers somehow, and everything is easier to find here.

And yeah Im playing Berseria on steam.

ZeldaTPLink posted...

It's... everything. The exploration, the bosses, the atmosphere, venturing into scary dungeons in Ocarina of Time. Waiting years for TP to come out. It's the full package.

I mean sure, but that's just liking the game. Which goes along the lines of us not really having anything to argue about here, and also it having nothing to do with RPG games. Like my initial posts were nothing about the quality of the games. Kirby has none of my favorite games in it but damned if that little puffball isn't one of the most fun guys to play (it just sucks that the games don't realize his fun gameplay very well because they go soft on the difficulty among other things)

But then again AxemRed was the one who went on the RPG thing to begin with, not you.

Lol the elitism in this thread is lulzworthy

As someone who didn't really grow up with many games (I played this site's top games for the first time only a few years ago), I don't have that strong of memories with basically all of GameFAQS top characters.

But in the case of Link vs RPGs, even though RPGs are my favorite genre and most of my favorite games are strong on this site, I still end up voting Link because the depth I've seen in Zelda speedruns made me appreciate the series's gameplay so much more, whereas these RPGs tend be RNG hell. (I used to really like Welkin from Valkyria Chronicles til he cost me all the runs)

I guess what I'm getting at people have their reasons from voting for Link, even if they love other games too.

I mean I am going to play some things I missed. Eventually. But it's hard to venture out of series I'm used to, genres I'm used to, etc. Even as a little kid I preferred Mario over fighting games.

Also for the last 10 years I kind of reduced my overall gaming input. Less time, living outside parents' house, getting used to free nerdy stuff like reading mangas and playing mafia. Or spending 3 years playing Team Fortress every day (yeah I did that). I'm not really that kind of guy who plays 15 new games a year anymore. So I'm very picky lately. You'll probably have an easier time selling me into a sexy indie like A Hat in Time than some PSX hallmark.

Mario just won by 19 votes and y’all spend two pages talking about piracy justification huh

ZeldaTPLink posted...

I mean I am going to play some things I missed. Eventually. But it's hard to venture out of series I'm used to, genres I'm used to, etc. Even as a little kid I preferred Mario over fighting games.

Also for the last 10 years I kind of reduced my overall gaming input. Less time, living outside parents' house, getting used to free nerdy stuff like reading mangas and playing mafia. Or spending 3 years playing Team Fortress every day (yeah I did that). I'm not really that kind of guy who plays 15 new games a year anymore. So I'm very picky lately. You'll probably have an easier time selling me into a sexy indie like A Hat in Time than some PSX hallmark.

And there's nothing wrong with that. Enjoy what you like and explore other stuff at your leisure and just ignore the laughable elitism in this thread. I went through that whole phase too back in high school.

We were just having a discussion. Sorry you're one of those people who thinks any form of disagreement is elitism.

should be discussing what a dirty rotten cheater Mario is instead

crono gets shit from that one match against Vincent, yet Mario has been pulling this stunt for 16 years now !

It's true. Wario gets a bad rap. It was probably Mario the whole time. Every time.

LeonhartFour posted...

Well, it looks like Crono's going to come very close to the original projection against Cloud this time, so we can remake those stats after this match.

Weird that Cloud/Crono is going to be noticeably different after Crono/Bowser and Samus/Tifa went almost identically both times.

Cloud/Crono might have been affected by the Samus rally on the Metroid subreddit. I think that rally went heavily for Cloud based on the anonymous user result being nearly 4% higher compared to the first match between those two. Cloud is more recognizable to Samus rally voters due to being in Smash. Even then, I'd say that probably only amounts to about an extra half percent for Cloud.

Looking at the registered user results both Mario/Samus matches suggests the result would have been pretty similar both times and I had to estimate the total number of rallied votes by subtracting enough votes from Samus so the anonymous user result is identical in both matches. This results in an estimate of 775 rallied votes.

Lopen posted...

It's true. Wario gets a bad rap. It was probably Mario the whole time. Every time.

Mario did bully Wario as a child, according to Nintendo Power’s Super Mario Adventures.

Crew Predictions: 126/146

Crew Prediction Challenge:

Monika: 124
transience: 122
Kleenex: 119
Leonhart: 117
Guest: 114

Crew Accuracy Challenge: transience gets the point for Cloud and Mario.

transience: 37
Guest: 34 (BetrayedTangy, SuperNiceDog (4), pjbasis, garetha200 (4), ZenOfThunder, Ranticoot (2), Hbthebattle (2), NowItsAngeTime, spooky96 (4), RoseChevalier, Lopen (2), paulg235 (3), DoctorJimmy133, Janus5k, BT, TsunamiXXVIII, ctesjbuvf (2), MetalmindStats (2))
Kleenex: 32
Monika: 24
Leonhart: 21

my prediction is looking pretty good right now imhotbqh

sorry can't hear you over this unassailable lead

Losers Bracket: Semifinals – Cloud Strife vs Mario

Monika’s Analysis

Cloud
Legends Round 1 - 60.40% vs. Alucard
Legends Round 2 - 56.73% vs. Crono
Legends Round 3 - 39.48% vs. Link
Losers Round 4 - 57.79% vs. Crono

Mario
Legends Round 1 - 59.25% vs. Sephiroth
Legends Round 2 - 51.42% vs. Samus Aran
Legends Round 3 - 49.09% vs. Zelda
Losers Round 4 - 50.03% vs. Samus Aran

Link
Samus
Zelda

All characters I’d take over Cloud right now. You might be able to add Snake to this list, but I’ll give Cloud the benefit of the doubt for now and say Cloud wins that.

The key thing here is that the top Nintendo dogs are stronger than Cloud right now on a Smash-high NintendoFAQs. Link just beat Cloud by more than ever, and Mario beat Seph by more than ever. Cloud has less of a reason to drop than Seph because of Smash, but that extra Nintendo support falls apart against the king of Nintendo.

Monika’s Voting Tip of the Day: Link >> Samus > Mario > Cloud > Snake > Crono = Mega Man > Sephiroth > Sonic

Monika’s Prediction of the Day: Mario – 54%

...That's my advice for today! Thanks for listening~

Ah, the 16 year runback. Cloud and Mario have shared polls but they've never been especially fair. This is the runback of one of the 3 or 4 biggest contest matches of all time, 2002's Cloud vs. Mario match that happened on the day Mario Sunshine came out and had a massive rally from some site that probably doesn't exist anymore because it was called Planet GameCube. Because of this match, it was hard to see that Cloud was actually a killer, and we still to this day don't totally know if Square just boosted a ton in 2003 or if the rally disguised it. Nothing got within 40% of 2002 Link, a refrain that feels especially resonant today.

For our more nerdy audience, this match is hugely important because it's the only true chance to compare the top and bottom of the bracket. There's so much Nintendo that it's hard to see the forest from the trees. Cloud got rocked by Link, but Zelda is taking it even worse today despite leading for the first 10 minutes. The consensus has been Mario and Samus over Cloud, but Zelda's kind of thrown a wrench into that. Is Link SFFing Zelda, and if so, wouldn't you expect it to be worse than this? It's hard to say.

I guess this match comes down to two comparisons:could Mario get 57% on Crono? And could Cloud reverse the 59/41 Mario/Sephiroth result? If Samus had managed to overcome Mario yesterday, I would feel a lot better about picking the Nintendo character. Samus has always shown well and Cloud has clearly lost a step from his glory years. Samus probably is the true #2 character, or maybe #3 if you throw Zelda into the mix. That would have been such a cool losers final matchup.

Mario vs. Cloud is a different story. I think Mario still wins, if only because I can't see Cloud overcoming the gap between Mario and Sephiroth. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but Cloud's projected to beat Bowser by about as much as Mario beat Sephiroth. I'm not picking Bowser over Sephiroth and so I cannot go with Cloud here. I have a temptation, and maybe Leon will take it and run with it, but I'll go with the stupid plumber who always pulls BS matches out of his butt over Cloud yet again. Prove me wrong, Cloud. I'd rather see Cloud/Zelda than Mario/Zelda. Yick.

transience's prediction: Mario with 52.82%

Leonhart’s Analysis

This is a match we haven’t seen since the original Character Battle. It’s kind of strange that we’ve managed to avoid a rematch for so long considering how long these two have been among our strongest non-Link characters. I thought I’d have a better grasp on how strong these two would be by this point in the contest, but I’m still not really sure. The only non-SFF match Mario has had so far was against Sephiroth, where he looked very impressive (right up until Sephy lost to Tifa anyway). Then he lost to Zelda and should have lost to Samus, but there’s really no shame in either of those things this year.

We’ve seen a little bit more out of Cloud (although I wish we had gotten to see him against Mega Man instead of facing Crono twice). He’s way out of Link’s league now, but so is everybody else. It’s still hard to say where exactly he is now, although he’s certainly separated himself from the lower half of the Noble Nine, if nothing else. Where is he in relation to Mario? It’s hard to say, but in the current environment, Mario is probably the safer bet of the two.

But I’m going to pick Cloud because what else have I got to lose at this point? It’s also the only really good result left on the board this year, which means it’s definitely not gonna happen, but whatever! Regardless, I think Cloud should be close enough that it’s worth the risk, although I thought the same thing about Snake/Samus, too…!

Leonhart’s Vote: Cloud Strife

Leonhart’s Prediction: Cloud Strife with 51.61%

Kleenex’s Analysis

A rematch 16 years in the making. Mario managed to cheat his way to another close win yesterday, and now Cloud has a chance to put down the thief. In most years, this match really wouldn't even be a question. Cloud was pretty much always strong (except in 2002!), but this year it’s a lot tougher to say. Cloud is currently looking like he could still potentially be the #2 guy on the site. As pathetic as it is that #2 is not even worth 40% on Link, that’s where we’re at in 2018. It’s possible that the scars of Mario/Samus are still real and Mario gets some anti-votes from that display. That being said, Mario and Samus both eviscerated Tifa and Sephiroth, and how much better is Cloud than them, really? Then again, Mario lost to Zelda, who is currently doing worse on Link than Cloud did, so WHO KNOWS ANYTHING ANYMORE. Picking Cloud here because fuck Mario tbqh.

Kleenex’s Prediction: Cloud with 51%

Guest's Analysis - spooky96

Not a tough decision here, pre-contest I was pretty hyped for this match and thought it could be my bracket-saving pick as I have Cloud winning today. There's absolutely no way Cloud wins here, anything non-Nintendo has looked pathetic all contest barring Tifa. Cloud and Zelda have pretty similar numbers on Link, so I'm guessing that does translate to Cloud being significantly weaker than Zelda. It's kinda disappointing to see that Cloud won't be able have his revenge after all these years. Mario already beat Sephiroth with 59% so it's fitting he gets to beat Cloud too, killing off the last non-Nintendo character. I'd say it'll be something like 44-45ish match with Cloud making a respectable % comeback and may finish with like 47%.

Mario with 53.89%

Crew Consensus: 2002 all over again in a 3-2 split

You got this cloud

the Square guys showing their true colors today

Gotta keep those Cloud predictions going. Someday they'll pay off. Like Cloud > Link in the 2007 final. Where is hochi when we need him?

I don't know what to think here. On the one hand, Cloud being worth more than 59% on Sephiroth seems hard. On the other hand, I can't see Mario getting 57% on Crono (hard time seeing 55% either, if there was a bit of SFF in Cloud/Crono).

you think Crono beats Sephiroth handily? I think that implies like a doubling on Ryu?

Lopen's Unofficial Guest Analysis x1

Cloud v Mario
Wacky theory time: Cloud soaks up some antivotes here on the heels of a match that is literally Zelda 1 vs Zelda 2 and a heartbreaking loss for Samus. Not a ton or anything, but enough to narrowly beat Smash Fueled Mario here.

Cloud Strife with 51.35%

Oh wow, I hadn't even realized that Mario and Cloud haven't met since that 2002 debacle. Remind me again why the board is all for rallying, except in certain cases?

transcience posted...

you think Crono beats Sephiroth handily? I think that implies like a doubling on Ryu?

At this point I have no idea how much Crono should get on Ryu. My thinking is, Mario only got 53% on Crono in 2013, and Crono should be stronger now than in 2013. Mario should be stronger too, due to Nintendo being strong this year, but he shouldn't be able to do much better than 2013 if at all. The 2013 match and the classic Mario/Bowser proportion also lines up very well.

smash fuel is diet game fuel

accept no imitations

I feel Cloud will take this, but we're in for another close match.

I think I like Cloud given he’s actually hanging early here.

ya go my Cloud

I think Cloud falls off pretty hard here.

Even if Mario builds a lead early, the night vote is going to brutalize him

I'm expecting this to be 52/48 after this update and getting worse. I hope Cloud can do it though. Cloud/Zelda is way more interesting.

Yeah, I think this next update will tell us a lot about which direction this match will go. Cloud just needs to be able to weather the early vote until we get to the Euro vote.

Let's go for 55% Cloud, so that we can make Mario/Crono debatable.

yeeeeep

Nevermind lol