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Games Entertainment

GameFAQs Second Annual Character Battle 28

Kirijini writes "GameFAQs' Character Battle has begun again. Over the next two months, the 64 most popular videogame characters will duke it out for your votes in a popularity contest that is, to my knowledge, the largest event of this kind on the internet. This is like the People's Choice Awards for videogame characters, so be sure to get your vote in! Last year had some pretty tense battles." The poll currently in progress has Pikachu up against the dangerous Fox McCloud, so get voting.
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GameFAQs Second Annual Character Battle

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  • Great use of the internet.

  • by Kris_J ( 10111 ) on Wednesday July 02, 2003 @02:22AM (#6347268) Homepage Journal
    What, no Deckard Kain?

    I have quite a treasure here in this Horadric Cube for anyone that can get Kain on the list...

    --
    Stay a while and listen...

    • Last year, there was a "Kane" in the tournament, and while people were making their NCAA-style brackets, he was consistently mistaken for either Deckard Cain (Diablo), Kain (Legacy of Kain/Soul Reaver), or Kain (FF4), and perhaps a couple other people who's name sounds like Cane. Alas, it was the Command and Conquer Kane (The guy who only shows up on a TV), so he sank like a rock in the first round.
  • Great idea! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by pommaq ( 527441 ) <straffaren@@@spray...se> on Wednesday July 02, 2003 @03:42AM (#6347477) Homepage
    So-so implementation. There seems to be a very heavy slant towards the jRPG genre: Tidus, Magus, Squall, Kos-mos, Isaac... and that's just in the "north" division! Of course some of these spiky-haired heroes should be represented, but there are PLENTY of better characters that should have made it in there instead - I would personally have loved to see Antonio Malochio (Interstate '76) or Ivy (Soul Calibur) thrown in the mix. Both have oodles of style, flair, and personality.

    That said, I'm going to do my best to send Captain Olimar to the top. Go Olimar!
    • Re:Great idea! (Score:3, Interesting)

      by nifboy ( 659817 )
      There seems to be a very heavy slant towards the jRPG genre

      It's because GameFAQs has a heavy RPG slant (Let's face it, who needs a walkthrough for a fighting game?). This year was determined partly by nomination, so who you see is who the most people wanted. Me, I wanted Dan Hibiki to get in this year.

      Last year, though, Scorpion of Mortal Kombat fame pulled everyone for a loop by getting into the Elite Eight.

  • No Dizzy?
  • by matlokheed ( 602233 ) on Wednesday July 02, 2003 @07:44AM (#6348388)
    While I think there's been a lot of sarcasm so far in this topic, this poll is truly an amazing thing. It brings out the most rabid fan support anyone has ever seen.

    In particular, last year, there was one poll between Mario and Cloud Stryfe (from Final Fantasy 7) and Cloud had the initial lead. Then planetgamecube.com put up a news item about the character battle and things started to balance out. Suddenly there was an outcry of how unfair that was for the Cloud supporters and votes started to surge on other sides. Rumors of people going into IRC channels just to say "Vote Cloud" or "Vote Mario" ran rampant.

    It was as if these things truly mattered.

    In the end, Mario won that particular poll. A few days later, Mario was up again, but this time against another Square character, Crono from Crono Cross (Trigger? I've never played either. I'm not a big RPGer).

    From the start, the two were neck and neck with Crono having a slight lead most of the day. Then votes swung back and forth wildly up until almost midnight EST, not because it was over, but because CJayC had noticed some cheating on the Crono side and penalized Crono 300 votes (there were so many votes on both sides that it's hard to believe cheating wasn't rampant on both sides, but a serious bulk of votes were caught from one source and removed).

    Outrage ensued from many and Mario finished again with a win.

    2 days later, Link went on to beat Mario soundly and win the contest altogether in the finals. Link never even had a close match. Hopefully this year, the ending will be just a little more exciting.

    Overall, it's a great big flame inducing mess most of the time, but that's always good too. It's nice to see people getting excited as fans, even if they take it a little far.
    • The problem came down to GameFaqs is a rather unique site. Keep in mind that the vast majority of GameFaqs visitors are from the US (if you read the message boards you'll notice). In the US, RPGs are a fairly small part of the market. The sales of all the PS1 Final Fantasy games combined were still less than the sales of Mario 64. Also keep in mind that Final Fantasy sells a lot better in the US than other RPGs.

      However, a very large number of RPG fans, in particular Final Fantasy fans, visit GameFaqs. They
      • In the US, RPGs are a fairly small part of the market. The sales of all the PS1 Final Fantasy games combined were still less than the sales of Mario 64. Also keep in mind that Final Fantasy sells a lot better in the US than other RPGs.

        Mario 64 sold 11.62 million units, was a US launch title, and was one of the choices for the bundled game for the N64 (the other was Pilotwings64 I believe). When FFIX reached ~3 million sales, the total for the series was 30 million. It was up to 38 million by the time FFX

  • snoot.org [snoot.org] has had something almost identical to this [snoot.org] for quite a while. But those are just 8-bit NES characters, and you can vote like a jillion times.
  • Garret? (Score:2, Funny)

    by dewie ( 685736 )
    No Garret, from the Thief series? Maybe he's hiding in the shadows.
  • No Akira from the Virtua Fighter series? They can kiss my arse.
  • What's with all the Final Fantasy characters? Sheesh... as if they don't share the same personality anyways. This years lineup of characters is much worse, and I can't imagine this one being any better than last year where Sephiroth came in third (What the hell was that all about?)

    At least characters like Conker, Shadow, and Zero were added. Here's hoping that Ness goes out in the first round! Earthbound sucked.
  • The List of Entrants (Score:3, Informative)

    by Deflux ( 675239 ) on Wednesday July 02, 2003 @11:26AM (#6350624)
    Everyone who's complaining about the list of entrants should know that they were all voted upon by the site's users. Before the contest started, you could send in about 10 characters that you would like to see appear. Only the characters requested most frequently got in.
  • Akuma / Gouki from SF2-SFA# should be on that list. He's probably the most well known secret character of any game. I think he should have replaced Ken.

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