Contest Stats and Discussion - Part 1373

Cecil would win that one pretty easily, unfortunately. Cecil has some embarrassing losses but nothing like a virtual 3-way tie with Laharl and Hogger.

UltimaterializerX posted...

It’s a crime that Cecil has no wins.

Nah, it's hilarious and I hope it continues forever, especially since FFIV is Allen's favorite game.

I'm not even sure I'd qualify Cecil's losses as embarrassing. Just unfortunate.

2008 - https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3244-division-1-round-1-cecil-jade-wario-zack
SFFd by ZackFAQs. Considering what Zack went on to do that year...understandable.

2010 - https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3739-chaos-division-round-1-cecil-harvey-vs-knuckles
Extremely solid result vs Knuckles. Actually outdid Zidane's more recent performance by a lot.

Rivalry Rumble - https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/4519-east-division-round-1-luigi-vs-waluigi-cecil-vs-golbez
Considering the intrinsic strengths of these four character, this should've been at least a doubling in Luigi's favor.

2013 - https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/5214-character-battle-ix-division-8-round-1-pit-vs-wrex-vs-cecil
Loses to Wrex during Mass Effect's heydey. Does seem a bit disappointing...until you dig deeper and learn that Wrex got rallied during that match by 4chan.

2018 - https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7256-division-3-round-1-crash-vs-cecil
45% on Crash Bandicoot seems bad, but in 2018 it was also equal to like 43% on Big Boss. Cereal mascot type characters went crazy that year.

Cecil's history is one of poor timing and unfortunate bracket placement, not weakness. He actually placed in the top half of the 2018 X-stats.

Yeah, embarrassing probably isn't the right word other than the fact that he keeps losing. He just keeps finding himself on the wrong end of close matches. He's usually paired up against someone of relatively close strength.

Well, he did get tripled by Kirby in 2005, but he did have unrecognizable Amano art for the match pic.

The 2-D FF characters were a different breed before Dissidia. That game brought them back into the limelight and gave them actual decent match pic material.

Never forget the days of lettuce Kefka.

Cecil has a worse record than Gordon ever did. Also unlike Gordon I doubt they will release a sequel to Cecil’s game that revitalises the genre any time soon.

Also, I don’t think it was mascot status that helped Crash. Rather I think N. Sane Trilogy gave him a massive boost, that was a giant hit that revived the franchise.

Nah, I think it's us coming around on those things becoming nostalgic instead of lame. It just took Crash, Spyro, etc. longer to come around than it did for Pokemon.

The Amano art is great and I will die on that hill.

Leonhart4 posted...

Nah, I think it's us coming around on those things becoming nostalgic instead of lame. It just took Crash, Spyro, etc. longer to come around than it did for Pokemon.

This is absolutely the case but it’s not happening naturally in a vacuum. Why did people start coming around on Crash (he looked ok-ish in 2013)? Because Activision stopped churning out crappy Crash games every year. Then when they brought it back right before the 2018 contest it was a HUGE hit and he looked good. By contrast other nostalgic characters didn’t necessarily fare so well.

I’m not convinced there was a mascot bounce in 2018, rather it seems more likely that the revival of these franchises helped (along with a large majority of Square characters looking bad). I mean, Charizard is one of the most notable mascots of one of the most nostalgic games yet looked really disappointing.

UltimaterializerX posted...

The Amano art is great and I will die on that hill.

You will die alone

I chalk the 2018 'mascot boost' up to the format more than anything else. When a voter is forced to participate in four polls, the characters that benefit the most are going to be the ones that have few dedicated fans - but widespread notoriety. Maybe you can attribute some of Crash/Spyro boosting to their new games, but characters like Pac-Man and Donkey Kong also did extremely well.

Leonhart4 posted...

You will die alone

Damn man. Savage Department Randy Speaking.

The Amano art wouldn't be so bad if it at least resembled the way the characters look in the game. In most cases, it just doesn't.

I legit thought Bartz's Amano art representation in FFV was a woman wearing black lipstick

Amano art is great.

It probably is too distinct an artstyle for final fantasy though. A game that can can recreate his artstyle graphically would be amazing.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3272-division-8-round-1-shepard-magus-sandbag-sonic

a literal bag of sand

Curious to see how this one would go today. Shepard would've easily gotten 2nd in the height of Mass Effect, but now it's hard to say.

I think Sonic > Magus is pretty safe these days. You can pretty much trace Chrono Trigger's biggest lows to when vote totals were at its highest, and it's no coincidence that it's done pretty well for itself when it's just the site's core audience and little else determining the results.

Counterpoint: that bag of sand has been in two GotY-winning games since that poll, including one that got to the 2010-2019 GotD semi-finals and could have arguably been our #2 game here.

I'd probably lean Magus > Sandbag in a rematch too, but I'm not convinced.

Losing to Sandbag was never as bad as it was made to be.

ctesjbuvf posted...

Losing to Sandbag was never as bad as it was made to be.

Nah, it's just the fact that it's a literal bag of sand with eyeballs on it

Magus looked only marginally weaker than Sub-Zero in 2018 (52-48 with Vincent, Vincent outperformed Sub-Zero on Auron)
Sub-Zero is overall probably one of our most stable guys of reasonable strength and is one of the relatively few other opponents Sandbag has faced.
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3290-division-8-round-2-sonic-sandbag-auron-sub-zero
Didn't go well for the bag. Sandbag probably would have done worse 1-on-1 and does worse in 2023 regardless of format due to the general fading of joke characters. And given the trends of the past 15 years Chrono Trigger seems unlikely to majorly decline if nothing happens that would cause votals to shoot back up.
It also seems pretty obvious and intuitive to me (your mileage may vary) that "the ****ing Glove" would be a step up over Sandbag at least in a contest environment where jokes don't run rampant and:
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7248-division-2-round-1-noctis-vs-master-hand
If you agree with me that Master Hand > Sandbag but want to argue Sandbag > Magus, you start running up awfully close to Magus ~ Noctis and that's just not happening.

I don't think this would be close in 2023 unless you think a weird rally could get going. Magus > Sandbag with 60+%

HaRRicH posted...

Counterpoint: that bag of sand has been in two GotY-winning games since that poll, including one that got to the 2010-2019 GotD semi-finals and could have arguably been our #2 game here.

I'd probably lean Magus > Sandbag in a rematch too, but I'm not convinced.

In 2018 Smash fever conditions, I'd definitely take the punching bag. In 2023 when everyone has long since moved on and there's no new entry in sight but the site's remaining 15000 people still really love Chrono Trigger, I'm taking Magus.

We got about a year or so before the next smash hype cycle begins, better get that contest in now!

Wow no respect for Shepard

pjbasis posted...

We got about a year or so before the next smash hype cycle begins, better get that contest in now!

We could legitimately go without Smash for a very long time. Sakurai isn't coming back and Nintendo has proven it will put something on ice if there's no auteur to take the reins of a series.

Leonhart4 posted...

Wow no respect for Shepard

I mean, it's hard to think too much of Shepard here when they went even with K. Rool during Smash frenzy, and it's only been downward since.

KamikazePotato posted...

We could legitimately go without Smash for a very long time. Sakurai isn't coming back and Nintendo has proven it will put something on ice if there's no auteur to take the reins of a series.

We don't ever need another Smash game. We've hit perfection.

_SecretSquirrel posted...

I mean, it's hard to think too much of Shepard here when they went even with K. Rool during Smash frenzy, and it's only been downward since.

Hype K. Rool vs. Current Sandbag, who ya got?

Mass Effect has at least had a recent rerelease that could help Shepard

KamikazePotato posted...

Sakurai isn't coming back

Doubt

UltimaterializerX posted...

We don't ever need another Smash game. We've hit perfection.

I do suspect that's a legitimate "problem". I think their 3 options are:

1. Just keep porting Ultimate to each new console and add more DLC.
2. Try to top Ultimate with a new game which has all returning characters. It's possible but very difficult and expensive.
3. Do a full reboot and the next game only has like 20-30 characters. That game would be hated, but it might work out the best in the long run since 1 and 2 aren't sustainable forever while 3 at least has a chance.

I'd personally just go with #1. You'll have some people whining that it's being milked just like Skyrim and GTAV, but it's worth it and deserved.

OrangeCrush980 posted...

I do suspect that's a legitimate "problem". I think their 3 options are:
1. Just keep porting Ultimate to each new console and add more DLC.
2. Try to top Ultimate with a new game which has all returning characters. It's possible but very difficult and expensive.
3. Do a full reboot and the next game only has like 20-30 characters. That game would be hated, but it might work out the best in the long run since 1 and 2 aren't sustainable forever while 3 at least has a chance.
I'd personally just go with #1. You'll have some people whining that it's being milked just like Skyrim and GTAV, but it's worth it and deserved.

#1 is definitely what is happening. Mario Kart 8 is pretty much a winning template to follow, especially with Smash being a far bigger project in magnitude.

Leonhart4 posted...

Hype K. Rool vs. Current Sandbag, who ya got?

Mass Effect has at least had a recent rerelease that could help Shepard

True, Hype K Rool defeats current Sandbag, but Shepard has also had five years of time not on their side, and a two year old remake probably isn't helping too much.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3273-division-8-round-1-auron-marcus-rydia-sub-zero

LOL Marcus Fenix.

Rydia would be closer to Sub-Zero than Marcus nowadays.

Auron/Sub-Zero became the new Snake/Knuckles, for some reason facing each other in three different contests despite not being particularly close in any match.

Leonhart4 posted...

Auron/Sub-Zero became the new Snake/Knuckles, for some reason facing each other in three different contests despite not being particularly close in any match.

To be fair, there were like 12 years between two of those encounters while Knuckles and Snake for the years in a row.

We also weren't having Character Battles every year after 2008!

We've only had three Character Battles since this one.

True but that at least makes changes more likely, and none of their encounters were consecutive I'm pretty sure?

But yeah probably not something that had been considered when making the bracket.

I'm just saying rematches are lame when they keep happening and the winner has virtually no chance of changing, and that's the big example after Snake/Knuckles.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/6-gamefaqs-announcements/80595955

SBAllen is no longer an admin. This likely means the end of contests...

GameFAQs Contests
7/1/2002 - 10/17/2023

R.I.P.

This is the end of contests as we knew them. When CJayC left it felt like GameFAQs wasn't gong to be the same but @SBAllen did one of hell of a job keeping the spirit of the site alive (even though so many say GameFAQs is dead) but now it really is the end. Fandom ended GameFAQs. A shame but it was inevitable, how many times was this site going to get sold? it was embarrassing.

I wish SBAllen was able to give us one last contest before he left his position as an admin.

Yeah, I can't imagine anyone else wants the hassle of trying to administer the contests as votals drop and trying to get prize money is harder.

RIP contests

congrats SBAllen

*Salutes*

Might be crazy, but why not have a priceless contest?

I literally left a feedback ticket this morning asking for contest updates he could provide, with the understanding that new ownership may be causing needs for other priorities. It was my first ticket I left in several years...had no idea this was coming a few hours later. End of an era.

Thank you @SBAllen. I know it wasn't easy, but it felt like you cared.

autocorrect wins this time

HaRRicH posted...

I literally left a feedback ticket this morning asking for contest updates he could provide, with the understanding that new ownership may be causing needs for other priorities. It was my first ticket I left in several years...had no idea this was coming a few hours later. End of an era.

Thank you @SBAllen. I know it wasn't easy, but it felt like you cared.

"I have no reason to suspect the site to be closing down. And as much as I'd love to start up a contest, we need a bit of solid foundational time under one management before we'll be able to get something like that up and running. As much as I hate to say it, I wouldn't hold your breath for one to happen in 2023."

I asked SBAllen about one last contest before GameFAQs shut down, shortly after it was purchased by Fandom. That was his response. I think SBAllen tried but Fandom's reign was brutal.

At least we got Game of the Decade 2. Feels like a good one to end on.

pjbasis posted...

Might be crazy, but why not have a priceless contest?

We've suggested it in the past but Allen was always resistant to the idea