Contest Stats and Discussion - Part 1371

Feels weird to have a 1-on-1 poll since Elden Ring got +50%.

Suck it, McCarthy.

Dung Eater for Character Battle 2023

SMO and Melee indeed do not count. MGS4 has gone from being one of if not the strongest to one of the weakest. I think Persona 5 sounds about right.

ZenOfThunder posted...

Dung Eater for Character Battle 2023

I want to see Ranni make it in and face Mio from Xenoblade Chronicles 3 for an Aimee Ffion-Edwards vs Aimee Ffion-Edwards showdown of Welshness.

I'm enjoying how 2:1 this ratio is.

Upcoming 2023 game poll today:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/9060-

Zelda dominating as expected.

@LightningStrikes do you have any thoughts on today's poll

Man, Final Fantasy has just fallen completely off a cliff.

going back, I found this poll, which is pretty interesting: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/4454-which-q4-scheduled-game-are-you-most-looking-forward-to

Skyrim actually managed to beat Skyward Sword in most anticipated. Pretty impressive, since I feel like the fanbase was excited for SS before it came out?

also:

WarThaNemesis2 posted...

Man, Final Fantasy has just fallen completely off a cliff.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2022-which-big-name-sequel-are-you-most-looking-forward-to

Better FF:Zelda ratio than here if you add FFXVI and FFVIIR2 together.

MacArrowny posted...

@LightningStrikes do you have any thoughts on today's poll

Well you know, sometimes just talking about something as a possibility can mean people think you’re saying “yes, this will definitely happen”. It’s certainly not good for Starfield (or any 2023 game’s hopes other than TotK) but we will need to wait until it gets shown more and actually released before we say anything definitive.

Poll updates and trend charts for the 3-way and 1v1 GotY polls:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/17_NuCdU1bYS2mrVg-ZuGYUZML2hhCQOoQAzTym3k-Hg/pub?gid=2056357076

Trend charts:

Time | CC FFVIIR | Elden Ring | GoW:R | Votes | Demographic
EBV | 21.74% | 52.17% | 26.09% | 138 | (0:00-0:05)
PHV | 19.03% | 53.90% | 27.08% | 783 | (0:00-1:00)
FNV | 18.39% | 54.60% | 27.02% | 1773 | (1:00-6:00)
BSV | 15.29% | 59.12% | 25.59% | 1184 | (6:00-9:00)
DSV | 16.86% | 54.04% | 29.10% | 1969 | (9:00-14:30)
ASV | 16.21% | 57.19% | 26.60% | 1752 | (14:30-22:00)
SNV | 20.12% | 55.62% | 24.26% | 338 | (22:00-24:00)

Time | Elden Ring | GoW:R | Votes | Demographic
EBV | 63.77% | 36.23% | 138 | (0:00-0:05)
PHV | 67.79% | 32.21% | 798 | (0:00-1:00)
FNV | 66.65% | 33.35% | 1748 | (1:00-6:00)
BSV | 67.03% | 32.97% | 1189 | (6:00-9:00)
DSV | 64.92% | 35.08% | 1964 | (9:00-14:30)
ASV | 67.75% | 32.25% | 1724 | (14:30-22:00)
SNV | 65.02% | 34.98% | 323 | (22:00-24:00)

In the first poll, an FFVII-related game actually has a good board vote, completely untypical of FFVII historically. That board vote says less about FFVII, and more about how terrible of a board vote Elden Ring and God of War had. Kratos/God of War is well-known for having a bad board vote, and it seems like Elden Ring has a similarly terrible board vote too. In the second poll, God of War ends up winning the board vote in a battle of whose board vote sucks less.

Elden Ring fares best in the early morning hours and ASV, while God of War does best during the later morning hours.

Huh, kinda surprised XVI is outdoing Rebirth here.

I think head to head rebirth would do better but in a split poll like this the Yoshi P stans get their moment and make it interesting

They're both flopping in the poll so it barely matters. Final Fantasy is practically dead on this web site and I really wonder if it could win a JRPG series poll anymore.

Final Fantasy
Persona
Xeno
Tales
Dragon Quest
Pokemon
Fire Emblem
Kingdom Hearts
NieR
Monster Hunter (if it counts)

Pokemon clearly wins. Does Final Fantasy even get top 2? Top 3?

FF easily beats all of those except for Pokemon, yes

For comparison today:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/8329-which-game-scheduled-for-2021-are-you-most-excited-for

Between LoZ's next game getting a title and a two-minute teaser alongside the new #2 and #3 games against it having an LFF issue, there's been a small percentage improvement.

Final Fantasy is doing fine here. There are also probably not that many people who actually believe FF7 Rebirth is gonna come out this year. 90% chance that game gets delayed to 2024 or beyond. That game would have be my most anticipated game (other than RE4 which is not even an option) but I doubt it's coming out anytime soon so I voted Tears of the Kingdom because I know for a fact that that one is surely coming out and soon.

Pretty sure there's at least a few voters who felt the same way.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/8883-of-the-classic-franchises-that-got-their-start-on-the-nes

Perhaps the wording and other choices are affecting the result somewhat but we've seen that poll several times and Final Fantasy always obliterates Dragon Quest and Fire Emblem. The latter two may have a long history but their entire franchises contain like two non-fodder games each. The other series Ulti listed aren't much better. And Xeno without a suffix probably isn't even going to be a valid option.

In comparison, Final Fantasy XII is above the fodder line and is only like...the 8th or so strongest Final Fantasy? Maybe worse depending on what you think of FFV and whether FFI is still worth anything.

Yeah, I don't think these results are an indictment of FF as much as a reminder of how much more this site loved Breath of the Wild than any game that's come out in the last 20 years.

Was trying to figure out, who would be the strongest character introduced since the last character battle?

is it just Byleth?

LiquidOshawott posted...

Was trying to figure out, who would be the strongest character introduced since the last character battle?

is it just Byleth?

A Gen IX Pokemon, whoever the most popular Elden Ring character is, or Goose from Untitled Goose Game would have a good shot at taking down Byleth, one of the few characters to possibly be hurt from being in Smash.

I'm not sure Edelgard wouldn't be more popular than Byleth

Edelgard is more popular than Byleth in the Fire Emblem community but she won't have Smash support.

I think Jin Sakai (Ghost of Tsushima) might be the strongest character introduced post-2018.

Or if we're going with a meme contestant... the cat from Stray.

I think the Byleth hate died down since then though, and quite a few people like playing as him.

I guess some other good choices, Kasumi (P5R) and maybe Zagreus from Hades

Byleth is a really fun character in Smash and super useful for some of the harder fights in World of Light

Ooh Zagreus is an interesting option!

What about the main character of Hollow Knight?

Seanchan posted...

Ooh Zagreus is an interesting option!

What about the main character of Hollow Knight?

I was going by last character battle, otherwise I would have mentioned Atreus as a possibility

another one is Lady D

Big_Bob posted...

I think Jin Sakai (Ghost of Tsushima) might be the strongest character introduced post-2018.

Or if we're going with a meme contestant... the cat from Stray.

Cat vs CATS who ya got

Ranni the Witch from Elden Ring could be decently strong? I wouldn't be super confident in that though. I don't see anyone else from ER having strength (Torrent a possible #2?)

Does it count if an existing character got a new last name since the last contest? Because Jesse Rasberry.

Otherwise I'm betting on the under-goose.

MacArrowny posted...

Ranni the Witch from Elden Ring could be decently strong? I wouldn't be super confident in that though. I don't see anyone else from ER having strength (Torrent a possible #2?)

Radahn, Malenia, Godfrey, Blaidd, Alexander to name a few.

Dragon Quest XI’s U.S. release was during the last character battle.

I wouldn’t expect them to actually get into a contest but DQV Hero being not terrible strongly suggests DQXI Hero wouldn’t be terrible either. He shouldn’t beat Ranni or Byleth but I have some confidence in a floor there that I’m not sure about for a lot of these others.

Edelgard beats Byleth for sure. People always overestimate Smash relating to Fire Emblem, especially now the series is a lot more mainstream. Also people might still be upset about Byleth making it in.

I think it’s Edelgard or Ranni now but give it a few years and it’s likely going to be Zagreus. He has a lot of those Geralt/2B traits of being an iconic lead of a well-loved game but also an interesting enough character to stick out.

Also regarding Elden Ring I think its characters will benefit enormously from the potential for the pic factor, especially Blaidd and Alexander. Radahn would definitely get anti-voted though.

Edelgard is too divisive even in the FE fanbase to have any real strength. She'd be like, Chrom-level at best, and he didn't exactly light up the place.

In truth I don't think any of the new recent characters are going to be strong in the slightest.

Nah, they'll probably all suck. We're just picking the best from a mediocre lot.

I dunno, I feel there are more worthwhile characters in the last several years than say from 2007-2014 (Geralt doesn’t count). I think Ranni would be pretty good. People massively wrote off both 2B and Geralt and look what happened there!

I think it’s significant that Elden Ring is the first From Souls-like game to have characters people actually care about (even Solaire was carried by memes). People like Ranni, people like Blaidd. People certainly have strong opinions about Malenia!

It's got a double-jumping horse from the biggest game in the past 5-24 years, depending on where you view Elden Ring's strength. That's worth some votes based off of what we saw for Epona.

Hey, I believed in 2B!

But who knows, we may never find out. We're coming up on 5 years without a Character Battle.

That was to be fair also the distance between the previous two, was it not?

It doesn't sound like we'll get a contest this year, though, so the gap between then and any new contest will extend even further.

LightningStrikes posted...

2007-2014

Isn't Ezio and Shepard from here too. And kratos

Kratos is 2005.

oh yeah it was god of war II in 2007

I will point out that while Ezio and Shepard are probably still pretty good compared to a lot of these proposed newcomers, by last character battle they had both already declined a good bit from their peaks:
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7332-division-8-round-2-ryu-vs-shepard
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7273-division-5-round-1-zelda-vs-ezio

Oh! Ichiban Kasuga, from Yakuza: Like a Dragon might be able to win a match. I might take him over Jin.

@SBAllen when is the next character battle

we're dying in here

Speaking of the 2007-2014 timeframe, I wonder how Shulk would do now.

he is

and I cannot emphasize this next part enough:

really feeling it

oh my god I am rereading my 2013 anal-sis (because I'm vain) and just came across this



f***ing goddamit it's finally time

We need your analysis so we can pretend there was a contest this year.