GameFAQs Summer 2002 Contest Match Analyses

GameFAQs Summer 2002 Contest Statistics
Match Analyses

Below is a collection of the majority of the analysis posts I made about the contest matches (starting with #33) and the summary/preview posts about each round. However, most of the second round was lost when my original stats topic was inexplicably moderated as being "off-topic". Many have been recovered, but sadly matches #34-39 are gone forever (special thanks to Ringworm for recovering a bunch of the ones that survived). These appear here mainly at the request of Jjukil. Hopefully you'll find them interesting.

Rd 1 Analysis	Rd 2 Preview	Match #33	Match #40	Match #41	Match #42	Match #43	Match #44
Match #45	Match #46	Match #47	Match #48	Rd 2 Analysis	Rd 3 Preview	Match #49	Match #50
Match #51	Match #52	Match #53	Match #54	Match #55	Match #56	Rd 3 Analysis	Rd 4 Preview
Match #57	Match #58	Match #59	Match #60	Rd 4 Analysis	Rd 5 Preview	Match #61	Match #62

First Round Analysis

Figured I ought to comment on some of the stats that I've posted. That can be a lot to chew on. :)

Well, it looks like Mega Man was the big winner of the first round, scoring the biggest blowout and recording the highest number of votes of any character. Admittedly his opponent was one of the weakest (Ms. Pac-Man), but the Blue Bomber still performed amazingly well. Sephiroth came in a close second in both of those categories, which sets up a very likely Mega Man vs. Sephiroth as easily the most anticipated of the third round matches. Only one of these two juggernauts will make it to the elite eight, and it should make for an exciting poll. Pulling up in third place in both those categories was Link, and with Strider as his second round opponent this match is shaping up to be one of the more lopsided of the next round.

From the most popular we head to the least popular. Ms. Pac-Man, Gabe Logan, and Little Mac were all blown out brutally by their opponents (the three titans listed above). Oh well, better luck next year. Other virtual no-shows included CATS, Pitfall Harry, and Kane, leading some of us to question their inclusion in the contest in the first place.

While the closest match featured Strider Hiryu vs. Raziel, the most heated battle was between Jill Valentine and Kirby. This poll drew a lot of voters and the results were very close throughout the day. Jill eventually won in the end, and did a lot of damage to brackets that had Kirby going deep into the later rounds. Possibly the most pivotal match of the first round regarding future points lost.

Perhaps surprisingly, the most popular poll of the first round was the battle between Cloud and Fox. Cloud took the match fairly easily, but Fox put up a reasonably decent showing. If this indicates how popular a Square vs. Nintendo poll can be, we can certainly look forward to an explosive battle if and when Cloud meets Mario in the fourth round (which seems inevitable).

The least popular battle was the Max Payne vs. Dirk the Daring affair, where people perhaps either weren't familiar with the characters or just didn't care enough to vote for them. This does not bode well for Max in the second round.

The most impressive loser of the first round was easily Kirby. The pink puffball actually recorded more votes than a full five of the winning characters. Strider Hiryu, Pikachu, Kyo Kusanagi, Serious Sam, Donkey Kong all won their matches, but received fewer total votes than Kirby. It's a shame that Kirby had such a strong first round opponent, otherwise else he'd probably still be in this. As for the five mentioned above, their less than impressive first round showings may indicate a quick exit in the second.

As for the actual contest entrants, most were very good at picking the winners for each battle, with Link, Sonic, and Mega Man being the easiest picks. Only in the Gordon Freeman vs. Tina Armstrong match did more people actually pick the loser than the winner (North stats are still unknown of course). Kyo Kusanagi and Jill Valentine's wins were the other two really tough ones, with just over half of the entrants getting them right. In the end, most of the matches weren't particularly difficult to call. Things look to get much tougher in the second round though. And for those playing along at home you need to have at least 23.74 points so far to be in the majority.

Looking at the averages, the West Division was definitely the blowout division. The winners averaged significantly more votes in that division and the losers significantly less. Total votes were also up slightly after taking a bit of a dip in the South Division. The North Division was the least popular, but also the most closely matched (about 5% closer compared to the East and South). As for the easiest division to predict the matches in? The West Division by far, with the amount of correct picks soaring by 10%. Entrants earned almost a full point more in this division than the others (note: the first list contains a mistake and should instead have the average points earned for the West Division at 6.54).

As for upsets, there really weren't very many. Only five based on the seeding and four based on the odds. Of these the most notable were Tina over Gordon (the only real shocker), Aya over Terry, and maybe Jill over Kirby (a tough one to call). Even still, many of the outcomes weren't obvious before the matches started, and in the second round things will only get tougher. It should make for a very interesting second round. 32 points down, 160 to go. I can't wait.

Second Round Preview

The most exciting match by far looks to be Crono vs. Dante. It's certainly the most even match. They're seeded side by side, their odds are almost exactly the same, and a similar number of entrants chose them to win their first matches. It doesn't get much closer than this. Not only will the match be exciting, but it may also be the most pivotal match of the second round, since it could very well determine who will be Solid Snake's opponent in the elite eight. Bomberman vs. Jill is also looking to be a close match, as well as Samus vs. Ryu. In fact, any of the top 5 closest matches is a reasonable candidate for an upset. It should certainly make the second round a little more interesting than the first.

Of course, we can still expect some blowouts. Sephiroth and Link should have just as easy a time getting through their second matches as they did the first. Pikachu will put up a bit of a fight against Cloud, but the outcome of this one is pretty much academic.

One of the most interesting matches is Aeris vs. Tina. Both characters pulled off upsets in the first round and they are the two lowest seeded characters in the second round. And with the lowest combined prediction percentage from the first round, a lot of entrants will get this match wrong no matter who wins. Also look for a lot of people to get the Bomberman vs. Jill match wrong. Those battles should make for some interesting numbers.

Well, there you have it. Now let the second round begin! (Ignore the fact that this is at least a day late...)

Mario vs. Morrigan (Match #33)

After a slow start against Servbot, Mario has begun to pick up the pace a bit. Although he didn't win by as big a margin this time around, he did get just over 5000 more votes than in his last battle. Morrigan on the other hand saw her vote total get cut nearly in half, down by about 17000 compared to her victory over Spyro. Additionally, Mario's vote percentage dropped by a relatively small 7.30% while Morrigan's plummeted by a fatal 35.10% (as compared to their first round battles). Overall votes were up significantly, with 13000 more being recorded compared to Mario's first match and 9000 more than in Morrigan's.

We still don't know how many contest entrants chose Mario to win over Servbot, but it was at least 81.7% of them. My guess is that the actual number was closer to 95%. Mario looks poised to fly by his next opponent as well, leading almost inevitably to an epic battle with Cloud in the fourth round. But maybe I shouldn't get too ahead of myself just yet.

Knuckles vs. Snake (Match #40)

Well, Snake took this one fairly easily, although not by as big a margin as might have been expected. Was this because we underestimated Knuckles or perhaps overestimated Snake? The odds were overwhelmingly in Snake's favor (8:1 vs. 225:1) and a full 76.2% of entrants picked Snake to win it. So it looks to me like Knuckles is a little more popular than some people thought. And maybe he had a little momentum thanks to his first round match against Akira (which is still ranked 6th on the Top 10 Biggest Blowouts list). Either way, Knuckles put up a good showing before bowing out of the tournament.

Snake's 41000 votes was 5000 fewer than he received in his victory over Squall, whereas Knuckles saw his vote total cut in half, down to 27000 from the nearly 50000 he achieved in the first round. Snake's vote percentage dropped by about 5% down to 61%, while Knuckles' was again cut in half to 39%. Voter turnout was high at an impressive 68000 (good for 8th on the list), which is about 3500 less than Snake's first match and a whole 6000 more than Knuckles'. It looks as though Snake, like Cloud, really has a way of getting people to vote.

Snake's next test will be against Aeris, who has come off a couple of large victories, although admittedly against fairly weak opponents. Snake hasn't had it easy to this point and this should be his toughest battle yet. The odds are still in his favor, but if Knuckles can put up a decent fight, Aeris may be able to give him a real scare. Could be interesting.

Pac-Man vs. Kyo (Match #41)

Not much I want to say about this one. This was not a popular match. Second lowest vote total overall, and by far the least popular second round match. With only 52000 total votes cast it was nearly 10000 votes below the average and 15000 below the second round average. Not a lot of interest in this outcome.

Pac-Man and Kyo both had their number of votes drop by about 10000 from the first round. Pac-Man's percentage was down by 10%, Kyo's by 20.

The one real surprise is that only 64.8% of entrants predicted this one correctly, after 81.7% had Pac-Man winning the first round. It seems amazing that 17% thought Kyo or Abe would beat Pac-Man. But the yellow disc moves on. It looks like Pac-Man will be facing Scorpion next round, which should prove to be a much better challenge for the old-school pellet-muncher.

Scorpion vs. Max (Match #42)

Well, bit of an upset, this one. Scorpion took down the favored Max Payne without too much trouble. Max only got 20000 votes, about half his previous total, while Scorpion got around 40000 for the second time.

But enough of that, the real interest is that only 33.6% of the contest entrants got this one right. The 3rd lowest percentage (2nd at the time) of the contest so far. And it's probable that this was the second prediction based upset (Tina over Gordon being the only confirmed one). We don't know the exact number of people who voted for Max, but we do know that it's somewhere in the range of 31.2%-66.4% (with either extreme being very unlikely). And with competition like Kazuya and Dirk, I'm going to guess that Max got most of those votes. I estimate the number of people who picked him to be around 45% (which is an only slightly educated guess).

Scorpion's next opponent is Pac-Man, and it might be a close battle. I can only imagine what the prediction percentage will look like if Scorpion happens to win that one too...

Bomberman vs. Jill (Match #43)

This was a reasonably close match, but it was actually easier than Jill's first battle against Kirby. She got almost exactly the same amount of votes this time (off by only 300) and her vote percentage was up by about 5%. She's had two tough battles, and it'll only get tougher against Link next round. Bomberman may have been a little cocky after his cakewalk against Kane; he managed about 4000 fewer votes and dropped by a full 36%.

Jill had one of the more popular battles against Kirby, so the "mere" 65000 total votes of this battle paled by about 5000, although it was 13000 more than were cast in Bomberman's first bout.

The big news of course is that only 32.5% of the contest entrants predicted this match correctly, allowing it to narrowly edge out the Scorpion/Max affair for 2nd place on the hardest to predict list. The main reason for the low number is the fact that 49.2% had Kirby knocking off Jill in the first round. Still, 2/5ths of those who picked Jill the first time thought either Bomberman or Kane would take her down this round. At least they won't feel so bad when she gets smoked by Link. ;)

Strider vs. Link (Match #44)

The juggernaut rolls on. Link dispatched Strider fairly easily in the 12th biggest blowout of the tournament so far. However, Strider still managed to get 24% of the vote, which I think is a little more than most people expected. Is this Link's first sign of weakness, or did we simply underestimate Strider? Probably the latter, but Link's next battle against Jill should give us a better idea.

Link became only the second character to break the 50000 vote barrier twice (Cloud was the first), and both of his matches have drawn over 70000 total voters. Strider's previous match brought in only 58000 votes, although his share of the votes was almost double the 17000 he got this time around. He may've eeked out a win over Raziel, but Link was far too much for him to handle.

The really interesting news is how very close Link and Cloud are in a number of important categories. Take a look at these Top 10 list excerpts:

Top 10 Biggest Vote Gaps (difference in brackets)

3) Link 59509 vs. Little Mac 11076 - (48433)
4) (ii) Cloud Strife 59926 vs. Pikachu 15445 - (44481)
...
7) (ii) Link 53992 vs. Strider Hiryu 17270 - (36722)
8) Cloud Strife 54643 vs. Fox McCloud 18599 - (36044)

Top 10 Most Popular Polls (by vote totals)

1) (ii) Cloud Strife vs. Pikachu - 75371
2) Cloud Strife vs. Fox McCloud - 73242
...
4) (ii) Link vs. Strider Hiryu - 71262
5) Link vs. Little Mac - 70585

Top 10 Biggest Vote Getters

3) (ii) Cloud Strife - 59926
4) Link - 59509
5) Cloud Strife - 54643
6) (ii) Link - 53992

The two of them are always side by side and very near the top of the most impressive categories. A ton of people show up to vote in these matches with the overwhelming majority of voters picking each of them. Cloud has the highest combined vote total at 114569, with Link just behind at 113501 (for comparison, Mario's overall total is 83884 and Snake's is 88232). Of course, Mega Man and Sephiroth could easily top these numbers after their second round matches, but for now those two are at the top of the heap. With such similar numbers it could be a very interesting battle if Link and Cloud ever met, but that match would have to take place in the finals so we shouldn't look too far ahead just yet.

I'm surprised that the number of people picking Link dropped from 96.4% down to 80.5% this round. 16% (2300 people) thought either Strider or Raziel could beat Link? That seems a little high to me. I wonder how many thought/think he can win the next round? The likes of Kirby and Jill strike me as much tougher opponents than Strider.

Sonic vs. Tidus (Match #45)

Another Square character falls (much to the chagrin of some). This was a much tougher battle for Sonic than his first round drubbing of Pitfall Harry, but he still sped past Tidus and into the third round.

Before I continue, I ought to mention that this match deserves a big asterisk. The poll was down for 4 hours in the middle of the day, just around peak voting times. So all the vote totals are likely to be much lower than they normally would be. Just keep that in mind.

Regardless of votes, this was the 10th closest match percentagewise. Sonic was down almost 25% compared to his first round match, receiving only 60% this time around. Tidus, who narrowly squeaked out a 55/45 win over Claire, dropped down to only 40% of the vote versus Sonic.

Due in part to the poll being down I'm sure, Sonic only garnered 33000 votes this time, 20000 lower than his first match. Tidus' total was down to 24000 from his previous 35000. Even with the voting outage the match managed to stay off the Top 10 Least Popular Polls list, finishing 14th in that regard with a little over 57000 votes. Not bad, considering.

The prediction percentage dropped tremendously, from 95.6% down to only 60.8%. That makes it the 10th hardest match to predict, narrowly edging out the Tidus/Claire match (appropriately enough) which also had only 60.8% (and a bit) of the people predict it right. 35% of the entrants who picked Sonic in the first round thought Tidus or Claire would be his doom.

Tidus put up a bit of a fight but it wasn't nearly enough. It will be interesting to see if Samus can give Sonic a better challenge in the next round.

Samus vs. Ryu (Match #46)

Wow, the number 4 seeds are really taking a beating at the hands of the number 5 seeds. First Dante, then Max, and now Ryu. Donkey Kong is the only number 4 seed to survive (maybe because he was facing a 12th seed, although Aya almost beat him).

Samus "Street Fighter Killer" Aran has moved on to the next round. She had a harder time against Ryu than she did against Ken, but there was never really any doubt about the outcome (although it was the 8th closest match). Against Ken she managed 65% of the vote, compared to 58% this time. I guess Ryu is only 7% more popular than Ken. :) Ryu's 42% of the vote was nearly half of the 81% he had against CATS.

This was the 10th most popular poll of the tournament, with nearly 68000 total votes cast. That's 10000 more than Ryu's first match and about 5000 more than Samus'. Interestingly enough, Samus' vote total ended up at around 40000 for both matches (41000 against Ken and 39000 against Ryu). Ryu's total dropped from 47000 against CATS down to less than 29000 against Samus.

80% of the contest entrants picked Samus to beat Ken, but only 58% thought she could take down Ryu (or CATS) as well. I guess that says something for Ryu's popularity, unless all those picks were for CATS (I doubt it). Still, the Street Fighter characters were no match for the metal-clad bounty hunter, and all of the fighting game fans' hopes now rest with Scorpion. Samus' next battle will be against Sonic, which could prove to be a good match. I would say Sonic is the favorite, but Samus has demonstrated more popularity than I'd expected, so she may give the blue hedgehog a run for his money.

Mega Man vs. Serious Sam (Match #47)

Warning: extreme statements of the obvious appear below.

Uh, Mega Man killed Sam. It was messy, it was ugly. Please, cover the children's eyes.

Where do I begin? Mega Man crushed Sam into pulp, squished him like a bug, ground him into dust, blasted him to smithereens, etc! This match ranks as the second biggest blowout of the tournament (next to Mega Man over Ms. Pac-Man) and by far the biggest blowout of the second round. Mega Man received 91.84% of the vote, just below the 92.30% he took against Ms. Pac-Man. The next closest blowout was Sephiroth over Gabe with an 88/12 split, and the closest second round match is Cloud over Pikachu at 80/20. Quite a thrashing. Sam did not live up to his 3rd seed placement, and proved that he probably shouldn't have made it to the second round (blame Mr. Driller for not taking him out in the first). Sam's meagre 8% of the vote share was over 50% lower than the 59% he earned last round. It was a slaughter. Do I need to go on?

Mega Man further proved his popularity (the extent of which continues to surprise some), becoming only the third character to break the 60000 vote mark, the previous two being Sephiroth and... Mega Man. :) That's right, the Blue Bomber is currently the only two time member of the 60000 vote club. Serious Sam on the other hand brought in a pathetic 5414 votes, which just barely beat out Ms. Pac-Man's 5257 showing (not an accomplishment to be proud of). The vote gap for this match was exactly 55500 votes, which is actually more votes than the entire total of 9 of the previous matches. Yes, it's just that silly.

This one wasn't even close for a moment. In fact, Mega Man got more votes in the first hour than Sam got for the entire day. Absolutely brutal. Someone should have called off the fight.

I'm going to leave some of the Mega Man discussion for tomorrow when I can do some more comparisons against Sephiroth. But I think it's worth noting that this wasn't even one of the most popular matches (12th on the list with 66000 total votes) and yet Mega Man still managed to break the 60000 vote barrier. And his first match was similar (only slightly more popular at 68000 total votes, 8th on the list). He's just plain dominating. Of course, he has had arguably the easiest first and second round opponents, but I think a lot of us didn't expect him to do quite so well regardless. We may have underestimated his popularity to some degree.

Considering the size of the blowout, it's perhaps surprising that only 84.7% of the contest entrants predicted this one correctly. 94.1% had Mega Man winning the first round, but over 10% of those thought he would lose to Sam or Mr. Driller? I suppose that's not too bad, but when looking at the outcome it's hard to believe that anyone could have missed it. :)

I don't think I need to tell anyone who Mega Man's third round opponent will be. This clash is already being hyped up considerably. And with good reason. His next match against Sephiroth is set to be the highlight of the third round. Most would have put their money on Sephiroth at the beginning of the tournament, but given Mega Man's impressive showings thus far that confidence is beginning to waver. Does Mega Man have what it takes to upset the mighty Sephiroth? Could be. But more on that tomorrow.

P.S. Sam did not make the most impressive losers list. Just so you know.

Sephiroth vs. Crash (Match #48)

Well, it was another blowout, as expected. Not nearly as absolute as Mega Man's destruction of Serious Sam, but it does rank as the 2nd biggest blowout of the second round (6th overall).

Crash put up enough of a fight to prevent Sephiroth's second round totals from reaching quite as high as his first round totals (and Mega Man's first and second round totals). The two of them occupy the top 3 positions on the Top 10 Biggest Blowouts, Top 10 Biggest Vote Gaps, and Top 10 Biggest Vote Getters, but Sephiroth's second round totals rank 6th, 7th, and 8th on those lists. Which would seem to be a pretty good indication of Crash's difficulty as an opponent.

Sephiroth gained a little less than 82% of the vote, down from his 88% against Gabe Logan. But his vote total plummeted by nearly 7000, down to 54000 from the previous 61000+. That leaves Mega Man as the only two time member of the 60000 vote club. Crash saw his percentage go from a weak 63% against Ulala down to a worthless 18% against Sephiroth. And his vote total dropped by 2/3 from 36000 down to 12000. Which just managed to get him a spot on the Top 10 Lowest Vote Getters list (only the 2nd second round character to do so). Not an inspiring performance, but the competition was admittedly quite steep.

This poll was moderately popular at 66000 total votes cast, but that's considerably lower than the almost 70000 votes in Sephiroth's first match. Which is a bit of a surprise. You'd think Crash would be a more exciting opponent than Gabe, even if Crash's first match only got the attention of 57000 voters. Perhaps we should blame the anti-climactic end to the second round for the lack of interest?

77% of the contest entrants picked Sephiroth to win this match, which is 13% fewer than chose him to win the first round. That probably says more for Crash's popularity than the meagre vote count he managed (unless most of those predictions were for the busty Ulala).

Well, next up for Sephiroth is an epic battle against Mega Man. Along with Link and Cloud these 2 pretty much dominate the most impressive lists. So this will definitely be a heavyweight bout. The odds are in Sephiroth's favor and he probably has the edge, but Mega Man has surprised us with his popularity thus far and could offer up another surprise in the third round. By combining vote totals we can see that Mega Man and Sephiroth are the two most popular characters so far (votewise). Mega Man has received a staggering 123953 votes, and Sephiroth is just behind with a whopping 115323 (as a bit of comparison, Alucard and Donkey Kong have combined totals of 69380 and 64400 votes respectively). It's almost a shame that one of these two characters will have to fall in the third round, but at least it gives the potential for one of the first truly epic battles.

Second Round Analysis

Well, I'd say this round was a little more eventful than the first, but we're only really just getting warmed up.

The second round started with a ho hum victory by Mario over Morrigan. It looked like an inauspicious start, but things were about to get much better. Donkey Kong and Aya Brea then treated us to the closest match of the contest. The lead actually changed hands numerous times over the course of the morning before DK built up a comfortable margin. Aya managed a late charge to make things interesting, but it just wasn't enough and DK took the match by a hair.

The very next match featured Alucard and Duke and turned out to be one of the most notable of the round. Alucard took the match and surprised a lot of people, with only 28.8% of the contest entrants predicting him to move on to the third round. That still stands as the hardest match to predict. Another surprise came when Scorpion upset the favored Max Payne. It is almost certain that more people picked Max in their brackets, but Scorpion came through convincingly and took the win, much to the delight of only 33.6% of the entrants.

This round also featured a couple of hyped battles that didn't live up to their billing. Remember when I said Crono vs. Dante could be a close and exciting match due to the similarity of their odds and previous vote totals? Forget I ever said anything. :) Crono secured two-thirds of the vote and took the win easily. Another nothing match turned out to be the Pikachu vs. Cloud affair. Some people were convinced Pikachu could pose a threat to Cloud, but Cloud proved them wrong by smoking the little yellow rat 80% to 20%.

In the "closer than they should've been" category we have Knuckles vs. Snake. Snake was expected to take this one in a walk but ended up with only 60% of the vote. Is this a hint that Snake doesn't have what it takes to make it to the final rounds? Only time will tell. Mario vs. Morrigan also falls into this category, with Mario barely managing two-thirds of the vote against a relatively weak opponent. The mustachioed plumber has not been living up to his #1 odds ranking.

On the blowout side we had Sephiroth's dismantling of the 2nd-seeded Crash, and Mega Man's utter annihilation of Serious Sam. Sephiroth's 82% of the vote against Crash was the only blowout in the 80% range, but it pales considerably to the 92% achieved by Mega Man. It was a slaughter. This was also the easiest match to predict at 84.7%, with Mario and Link's wins being the only others to break 80%.

As far as averages go, there wasn't a lot of change in the vote percentages between the first and second rounds. The winning characters still got close to 70% and the losing characters around 30%. The polls did get more popular though, with the averages number of total votes up by 4000 per match. Inevitably, the outcomes got harder to predict. Prediction percentage dropped by 12% down to an average of 62.3%. The South Division became the toughest to predict by far, with an average of 52.9% of the entrants picking those winners correctly (10% lower than any of the other divisions). The average number of points earned by contest entrants for this round was down to 19.94. So, in order to be in the majority now you need to have at least 43.68 points at the end of the round.

Well, it was certainly an eventful second round and the third round should be even more interesting. Stay tuned for a third round preview shortly.

Bonus stat: The total number of votes cast this round was 1,028,667, for a grand total of 2,904,502 (nearly 3 million!) votes so far this contest. Wow.

Third Round Preview

Here's a little Third Round preview for you. I've included the characters with their seeding, the odds, and the percentage of contest entrants that chose them to win their previous match. It's not much, but it might give us some indication of which characters are likely to win and how many people might get it right.

1 - Mario (6:1) - 81.7%
4 - Donkey Kong (140:1) - 69.6%

6 - Alucard (70:1) - 28.8%
2 - Cloud Strife (14:1) - 69.5%

1 - Lara Croft (50:1) - 74.13%
5 - Crono (33:1) - 51.8%

11 - Aeris (90:1) - 53.5%
2 - Solid Snake (8:1) - 76.2%

1 - Pac-Man (60:1) - 64.8%
5 - Scorpion (150:1) - 33.6%

3 - Jill Valentine (180:1) - 32.5%
2 - Link (9:1) - 80.5%

1 - Sonic the Hedgehog (45:1) - 60.8%
5 - Samus Aran (36:1) - 58.0%

6 - Mega Man (45:1) - 84.7%
7 - Sephiroth (9:1) - 77.0%

The most exciting match of this round looks to be Mega Man vs. Sephiroth, and I don't think people will argue with me this time. ;) Their votes totals have been the highest of the contest, proving that each has a tremendous amount of support. It truly is a clash of the titans and only one will survive. Sephiroth clearly has the better odds, so I think most people will expect him to win. But Mega Man has pulled off some surprisingly impressive victories and may have a couple tricks left up his sleeve. This epic battle should serve as the perfect climax to the round.

Other close matches to keep your eye on could include Pac-Man vs. Scorpion, Aeris vs. Snake, and Sonic vs. Samus. Samus actually has better odds than Sonic, but it's hard to argue that Sonic isn't more well known. Tough one to call. Snake really ought to win his match, but his weak victory against Knuckles and the sizeable following for Aeris could cause him some problems. It would definitely be a surprise upset, but it's dangerous to underestimate the power of FF7. The Pac-Man and Scorpion match is a bit of a toss up. The odds give this one easily to Pac-Man, but Scorpion has been impressive in his previous victories and surprised a lot of people (two-thirds of the entrants didn't think he'd make it even this far). This may be one to watch.

And the round wouldn't be complete without a couple of blowouts. Look for Link to make short work of Jill, and Cloud to have his way with Alucard. They won't set any records, but the outcomes should never be in doubt. Oh, and I expect that Mario will destory DK with about 80% of the vote. ;)

Mario vs. DK (Match #49)

Not a lot to say here. We all assumed the battle of the Nintendo icons would be taken easily by Mario, so it was no real surprise. The extent of the margin of victory may have been a little more unexpected, but it's hardly worth getting excited about.

It was nice to finally see Mario putting up some decent numbers though. Despite previous battles against Servbot and Morrigan, he wasn't able to achieve anything near the impressive levels of the other elite. But this trouncing of DK ranks as the 6th biggest blowout with the 8th largest vote gap. It also marks Mario's first appearance on the Top 10 Biggest Vote Getters list and finally gives him that coveted membership in the 50000 votes club. Is Mario picking up some steam? He'll certainly need to if he hopes to take down Cloud next round.

As for Donkey Kong, this match marks the first time he hasn't made the Top 10 Least Impressive Winners list. Instead, the big ape finds himself 8th on the Top 10 Lowest Vote Getters list. Not an improvement. Well, for what it's worth, he had a good (if uninspiring) run, but this was as far as he could expect to go.

Mario saw his highest percentage of votes (by over 10%) and highest vote count (by over 5000) in this match, even though it received around 3000 fewer total votes than his bout against Morrigan. DK's vote total spiralled down by 20000 votes to the miserable 11000 range.

The prediction percentage for Mario remained high at 72.5%, down only about 10% from his previous match. That could possibly remain the highest for the entire third round. Link and maybe Snake would have a chance at being predicted correctly by more people if their matches go as planned though, so keep an eye on them. The other 2 front runners based on the second round numbers are Mega Man and Sephiroth, but seeing as they're pitted against each other, expect those prediction percentages to take a drastic hit this round.

Alucard vs. Cloud (Match #50)

Another impressive victory for Cloud. Alucard showed some strength in getting this far, but Cloud was just too much for him.

Much to no one's surprise, the voters really came out for Cloud again. This match ranks 2nd on the most popular polls list, with 1st and 3rd position being taken by Cloud's second and first round matches (at the time - this has since changed). If Cloud's in the poll you can be sure a ton of people are going to vote.

Of course, Cloud received the lion's share of those votes (as usual). However, his almost 52000 votes was 3000 lower than his first round match and 8000 fewer than his second, probably owing to the fight put up by Alucard. Alucard's vote count dropped to less than 23000 after hovering around the 35000 mark for his first 2 battles.

With 70% of the vote taken, Cloud's average percentage is around 75% now. Alucard on the other hand has an average of just less that 50% of the vote, thanks to a tough battle against Tails, and a not so impressive victory over Duke, and only 30% this time. Better luck next year.

Biggest surprise of this battle? It has to be that only 53.5% of the entrants got it right. Considering how strong Cloud has shown himself to be, I'm not sure who half the people were picking to beat him. Fox, Tails, Pikachu, Alucard, Duke? I guess there was some decent competition in his half of the division, but I still would have expected that number to be a little higher. 80% had Cloud after the first round, 70% after the second, and now 54% after the third. Expect that number to be slashed again if Cloud can win his next match.

And I don't think I need to mention it, but this win sets up the much-anticipated divisional championship between Mario and Cloud. Destined to be one of the most significant matches of the whole tournament, this bout will undoubtably affect a lot of brackets dramatically. Coming in I'd say that Cloud has the advantage, but it's never a good idea to count Mario out. Should be a good one.

Lara vs. Crono (Match #51)

Crono continues to impress the unbelievers. This time his victim was the number 1 seeded Lara Croft. The buxom tomb raider had a pretty good run up to this point, but she was even less trouble for Crono than Dante had been last round.

So, our first number 1 seed has fallen. That would be particularly significant if not for the fact that Lara was probably seeded a little too high. Still, it's notable.

Crono has averaged about 71% of the vote combined for his matches, which is almost exactly what he got this time around. That's not too shabby at all. He should definitely be able to put up a decent fight against the underperforming Snake next round. Lara ends up with an average of just around 53%. A number 1 seed probably should have been able to do a little better than that.

Crono joins the 50000 vote club for the first time, with 52000 of 'em. He almost made it in the first round when he had 49000, but dropped farther back against Dante with only 44000. Lara's total has been continually decreasing, starting with a moderately impressive 45000 and dropping by 9000 in the second round and another 14000 to this round's count of only 22000.

The biggest surprise of this match was the total vote count, which managed to reach 3rd place on the Top 10 list (at the time). Pretty amazing considering Crono's highest previous match was ranked 16th (against Dante) and Lara's previous high was 20th (against Chop Chop). Where did all these voters come from? This is also the first vote total to ever surpass one of Cloud's matches. Was there a lot of interesting in this particular matchup, or are the third round matches getting more popular in general? We'll have to wait and see.

Only 33.1% of the entrants picked Crono to win, which was pretty much to be expected. Only 50% had him advancing past Dante, so it's not surprising to see another chunk of that fail to predict his match against an opponent with the kind of seeding and odds that Lara had. Still, it does rank as the third hardest match to predict. Might've been nice to see a few more people than that get it right, but it certainly doesn't rank as one of the bigger surprises.

Crono will meet Snake in the divisional final, which could prove to be a pivotal match. I'm sure a lot of people will have Snake making it this far while only a few (33%) have Crono. If Crono were to win again it would wreak havoc with plenty of brackets. Can he topple the heavily favored Solid Snake? Won't be long until we know.

Aeris vs. Solid Snake (Match #52)

After a couple of decent yet less than impressive victories against Squall and Knuckles, this battle was considered to be the real test for Snake. He won the match, but has he proven himself to be a force to be reckoned with in the later rounds? Probably not.

Snake's vote percentage has been continually declining, from 65% to 61% and now down to 57% against Aeris. It's true that he's had some comparably difficult opponents, but he hasn't been showing the kind of strength that one of the "elite five" should be. If he's only able to beat Aeris by that much, what chance does he have against a more popular Square character like Crono or Cloud? Or am I underestimating Aeris' popularity?

Aeris had a good run, beating Kasumi by a reasonable margin and then blowing out Tina in the second round (still the 12th biggest blowout). She joined the 50000 vote club in that match, which has only 8 members (13 if you include 2-time and 3-time members - Snake is not a member). And against Snake she managed 32702 votes, good enough for 2nd on the Top 10 Most Impressive Losers list. Aside from Kirby she is the only other losing character to achieve a vote count higher than a winning character (7 of them, to be exact). That's not bad at all. Perhaps she stood a better chance against Snake than I thought.

What impressed me most about this match was its vote total. Over 75000 total votes were cast, good enough for an amazing 2nd place on the Most Popular Polls list. This is only the 2nd time one of Cloud's matches has been topped. I guess it speaks for the popularity of the two characters, although there seems to be a trend of third round matches drawing more voters as well.

The next match for Snake is against the overachieving Crono. Before the tournament started I would have said Snake was easily the favorite to win this one, but now I'd give the edge to Crono. Either way it should be a good one, and expect it to be close.

Pac-Man vs. Scorpion (Match #53)

Let's just start with the obvious, shall we? This match was brutally hard to predict. A staggeringly low 17.3% of contest entrants picked this one correctly, making it by far the hardest match to predict of the tournament so far. Why did so many people get it wrong? Well, keep in mind that only 33.6% thought Scorpion would get this far in the first place. The majority (likely) had him losing to Max Payne in the second round. Pac-Man was no slouch of an opponent either with plenty of experience in the video game industry and a lot of old school charm. But somehow Scorpion managed to emerge victorious on both occasions and surprise a whole lot of people.

Scorpion has defied the odds yet again. There has only been 1 odds-based upset in the third round and there was only 1 in the second round - both by Scorpion. With 150:1 odds Scorpion took down the favored Max Payne (80:1) and now Pac-Man (60:1). In all the other second and third round matches the character with the better odds has won. I'd say that's an impressive stat. Why did the entrants underestimate Scorpion so badly? Or how has he overachieved by so much? I can't answer that, I picked him to win both matches. ;)

Pac-Man is our second #1 seeded casualty. Only Mario and Sonic remain (for now). And Pac-Man didn't really live up to that seeding. He didn't even come close to impressing anyone until his very last match. His first battle against Goemon got him over 40000 votes, but his second against Kyo earned him 7th place on the Least Impressive Winners list. However, his loss to Scorpion was respectable, and good for 4th on the Most Impressive Losers list (2nd highest of the third round, as well). I'd like to thank Pac-Man for coming out, but his legendary status and great contributions to the video game industry just weren't enough to carry him through the tournament. We salute your efforts, Pac-Man.

At 68000 total votes this match was a little more typical than the last 3, which strayed into the 74000+ range. Still, it was the 11th most popular poll. I'm going to attribute that to the apparent increased interest in the third round. All of the matches have seen a jump in voters, with this one probably being slightly less popular due to the slightly less popular characters involved. We'll see if that holds true when the results of the rest of the matches come in.

Scorpion's been coasting along at about the 40000 vote level for each of his matches, which is not bad at all. The battle against Pac-Man was certainly his hardest yet, but it's nothing compared to what he'll face against Link next round. It's been a good Cinderella run for the yellow ninja, but I think it's about to come to an end.

Jill vs. Link (Match #54)

Well, this was a bit of a blowout, as predicted. The 18th biggest blowout of the tournament so far, which is not too big but it was certainly not a difficult win for Link. And I'd say the size of the win is significant, considering that Jill was able to take down some popular characters like Bomberman and particularly Kirby. This was Link's first real chance to show his strength, and I'd say he's looking strong.

One important note to make: This match featured an unusually high number of voters. There are two main reasons for this. First of all, a link to the contest from Penny-Arcade was responsible for a swell in the votes. Secondly, the poll was left open for nearly 3 hours longer than most (closing sometime after 2:30AM CST). The combination of these 2 factors is the reason for the aberrant vote totals. So if you're a fan of asterisks, put one beside this match.

Even without the extra votes, this match still would likely have been one of the most popular. With the extra votes it's by far the most popular match of the tournament so far. Over 85000 votes were cast, almost 10000 more than the 2nd most popular match. That's an amazing total. Future matches will have a hard time surpassing that number.

Link managed to join Mega Man and Sephiroth as the only members of the 60000 vote club, although that membership is somewhat disputed. At midnight Link was still in the 59000 vote range and it wasn't until the poll went into extra time that he broke the 60000 mark. But the votes stand and Link now has the 2nd highest vote count. He was only 500 votes shy of 60000 in his first match and he garnered 54000 in his second match, so he's no stranger to the Biggest Vote Getters list. In fact, he's the only character to make the list in all 3 of his matches (Mega Man or Sephiroth would have a chance to join him if their match doesn't turn out to be as close as everyone is predicting). Not bad at all. Link should breeze by Scorpion for the South Division title, and looks like a serious force to be reckoned with in the final four.

Jill took out some big names in her previous matches, but Link was just too much for her to handle. She managed to get 38000 votes in each of her 2 previous matches, but only 23000 this time, even with all the extra votes. Which leaves Samus as the only surviving female character... for now.

A moderately impressive 69.0% of the entrants predicted Link to win this match. That's the 2nd best prediction percentage of the round. Mario and Snake are the only other 2 characters to have been picked by a reasonable number of people (72.5% and 67.5% respectively). Mega Man or Sephiroth could join that list, but since they're going head to head it seems rather unlikely. I expect that Link's next match against Scorpion will be the easiest to predict of the fourth round. But that will be the last time the outcome of a match will be obvious beforehand.

Sonic vs. Samus (Match #55)

Well, what can I say. This was certainly the most exciting and the most controversial match yet. An unbelievable number of lead changes and an amazing finish.

I don't think I need to point out that this was by far the closest match of the tournament. It was so close it makes the Aya/DK battle look like a monster blowout. Only a measely 34 votes separated Sonic and Samus by the time the poll closed (a mere 0.04% difference). I'm sure most of us never expected to see a match this close. At the beginning of the poll the lead changed hands a couple of times, and Samus was ahead for awhile. Sonic staged an early comeback and grabbed the lead. He continued to lead for most of the day, but could never manage to pull away by more than 2000 votes. Samus was able to keep it close and this set the stage for a dramatic finish. With only a couple of hours left Samus began to seriously start closing the small gap. As midnight approached the 2 characters were essentially tied, with the lead see-sawing back and forth right up until the final bell. It was really a matter of luck as to which character would be leading when the poll closed, and Samus just narrowly managed to eek out the win. Much to the disdain of Sonic fans.

This match was of course marred by the accusations of cheating. To some, Samus' miracle comeback could only be explained by an influx of illegitimate votes. The truth is that, while suspicions continue to run high, there is no proof that cheaters decided this match. There are a number of possible legitimate explanations for Samus' late charge, and CJayC has advised us that the actual amount of cheating was minimal and in equal proportion on both sides. That's all I'll say about that.

This was another amazing match as far as total votes are concerned. The nearly 84000 votes puts the match at 2nd on the Most Popular Polls list. Not bad for a poll that was up for less than 22 hours. Why so many voters? Well, the fact that the match was so close is probably the first reason. An exciting match is more likely to draw voters right down to the wire than a boring one. The extra cheater votes probably boosted the total a little as well. It's hard to say by how much; CJayC has assured us that only the most fervent were able to cheat, with only 20-30 phony votes each. Hard to know if that had an appreciable effect, but it's worth mentioning. Also, the link to the poll results is still on the Penny Arcade main page, which is no doubt sending additional voters this way. Finally, the fact that 2 very popular characters went head to head could certainly have inspired voters to come out to the poll.

Samus and Sonic were both coming off approximately 60% wins against difficult opponents, so it's no surprise that this one was close, although I don't think anyone expected it to be this close. Samus' vote count has hovered around the 40000 range for her previous 2 matches, so the 41973 she managed this time fits in quite nicely, and gives her the 24th highest vote count. Right behind her at number 25 is Sonic, with 41939 votes. This total puts him shockingly high up the list for a losing character, ahead of an incredible 31 winning totals. That easily breaks Kirby's previous loser's record of 32837 (50th on the list). That is seriously impressive and gives you an idea of just how worthy these 2 characters were. But sadly only one could move on.

So, with Sonic's defeat we're down to only one number 1 seeded character left in the tournament (that'd be Mario). Amazingly, all of the other number 1 seeds have been taken down by number 5 seeded characters this round. And those exact same 5th seeds (Crono, Scorpion, Samus) were responsible for wiping out the 4th seeds in their division last round. A very bizarre coincidence, to be sure (check the upsets section of the website for more).

Only 31.8% of the contest entrants picked Samus to win this match, which was pretty much the expected number. Probably a very similar number picked Sonic to take it, with the rest split between Tidus, Ryu, and the others. That makes this the 3rd hardest match to predict so far. And we can expect the majority of the matches from here on out to be in the 30% or lower range.

Samus' next match will be against the winner of Mega Man vs. Sephiroth, which is still very much in doubt. Either way, Samus will have her hands full. Most feel the winner of that battle will take the division title as well, but Samus has surprised us before so don't count her out just yet.

Mega Man vs. Sephiroth (Match #56)

Remember everything I said about Sonic vs. Samus? Well, replace "Sonic" with "Mega Man", "Samus" with "Sephiroth", and double the number of intensifiers. That's basically what it amounts to.

It was another epic battle, and the biggest one of the third round. Unfortunately, it was overshadowed a bit by all the talk about yesterday's match. This battle wasn't quite as exciting as Sonic/Samus, but it had its share of drama. Mega Man opened the poll with an early lead, up by as much as 10%. Sephiroth quickly cut into it and soon caught up. Sephiroth took the lead in the wee hours of the morning and held a small margin for the rest of the day. Mega Man attempted a late charge (a la Samus), but he just couldn't make a serious dent in the vote gap. Still, this ended up as easily the 2nd closest match of the tournament, trumped only by the amazing Sonic/Samus showdown.

Remember what I said about doubling the intensifiers? This was an incredibly amazing match as far as total votes are concerned. An astonishing 97357 votes were cast in the poll. That's getting awfully close to the "unreachable" 100 grand mark. And it's more than 12,000 votes higher than the 2nd place Jill/Link battle. The thesaurus is running out of ways for me to express my incredulity. :) Possible reasons for the staggeringly high vote total: Increased interest in the contest following the Sonic/Samus bout, Mega Man vs. Sephiroth being the highest profile match yet, the link from Penny Arcade, the generally increased vote totals of the third round, increased cheating, etc.

This truly was a clash of the titans. Both Mega Man and Sepiroth's previous battles earned them most of the highest spots on the Biggest Blowouts and Biggest Vote Getters lists. These 2 had been dominating the contest, so it's only fitting that their battle was this epic. Mega Man had achieved over 60000 votes in each of his previous matches, with Sephiroth pulling in over 60000 once and 54000 the other time. Mega Man was averaging 92% of the vote, while Sephiroth was averaging 85%. Needless to say both of their numbers took a serious hit this round, but they're still impressive none the less. Sephiroth's 49172 vote count and Mega Man's 48185 count left them just short of joining Link and Cloud as the only 3-time members of the 50000 vote club. But more impressively, Mega Man's losing vote count places him 18th on the overall list (out of 112). That puts almost 40 winning totals to shame. Mind-numbingly amazing. Mega Man wasn't able to win it, but at least he went out with a major bang.

55.7% of the entrants picked Sephiroth to win, which is pretty impressive if you consider that only 77.0% had Sephiroth getting this far and that his battle with Mega Man turned out to be so close. I'm guessing that most of us underestimated the Blue Bomber. After all, the odds clearly favored Sephiroth while the eventual win was anything but clear cut.

Sephiroth will face off against Samus in the fourth round. After what he went through against Mega Man this should be a much easier battle. Although it's probably a risky idea to count out Samus just yet. She's had an impressive run and was able to take down the likes of Sonic the Hedgehog. Still, the smart money has to be on Sephiroth, which could set up an epic semi-final against Link. I can't wait.

Third Round Analysis

Now this is more like it! Finally a little excitement in the polls.

This round started slowly, with Mario butt-stomping DK for an easy 80% win. No real surprise that he won, although this was the first time he managed to put up some decent numbers.

Cloud and Link also had easy wins as expected, trouncing their opponents with around 70% of the vote. Perhaps somewhat unexpectedly, Crono defeated Lara by a similar margin. Crono is looking more and more dangerous as the tournament progresses.

The biggest upset of the round was probably Scorpion's victory over Pac-Man. Scorpion defied the odds yet again and took down an old school icon. An amazingly low 17.3% of the entrants predicted this one correctly, making it by far the hardest match to predict yet. Look for some low numbers to rival that in the upcoming rounds, as the battles become fiercer and the vote gaps narrower.

Snake still wasn't able to impress anybody, but he did manage to slip past Aeris. Crono will be his true test next round. Were Snake's chances overestimated, or is he merely hiding in the shadows, waiting for his moment to strike? We shall see.

It was of course expected that the Sonic/Samus and Mega Man/Sephiroth matches would be extremely close, but not this unbelievably close. Out of a total of 97357 votes, only a mere 987 separated Mega Man and Sephiroth when the dust finally settled, and even more incredibly, the Sonic/Samus match was decided by a frighteningly small 34 votes. That's right, after 83912 total votes were cast the 2 characters were separated by less than 3 dozen votes. That's truly amazing. We never thought any of the matches would end up being this close. And not only did they end up being close, but they were exciting throughout the day. The lead changed hands multiple times and the outcome was never certain until midnight struck. It was also more excitement than most users could handle, as the contest message board went absolutely nuts (update: it's still out of control).

Mario, Link, and Snake turned out to be the only easy wins to predict, all with prediction percentages at close to 70% or higher. Scorpion, Samus, and Crono turned out to be the hard picks, with around 30% and lower getting those wins right. Cloud and Sephiroth hovered around the 50% range, proving that their impressive showings thus far have surprised more than a few of the entrants. The overall average prediction rate for the third round was down to 50.1%. So most people were still getting the matches right, but only just barely. In fact, in the South and West divisions there was actually an average of less than 50% for the first time in the tournament. Only about 43% of the entrants managed to correctly predict the outcomes of those matches.

The number of voters has been gradually increasing as the tournament has progressed, but it was up sharply for the third round. Between the first and second round the average number of voters increased by 4000, but between the second and third round it was up by an additional 14000. The polls now average nearly 78000 voters per match, and the third round bouts have taken over most of the Top 10 Most Popular Polls list (6 of the 8 battles made the list, all near the top).

The average win margin was down by 10% to a difference of only 26% per match, but the actual vote gap dropped by only about 2500 down to 20000. So the characters are separated by approximately the same amount of votes, but their overall vote counts are much higher so the percentages have shrunk.

Since the matches are becoming closer, the impressive individual vote counts of previous rounds have all but disappeared. Link was the only character to make the Top 10 Biggest Vote Getters list this round, with an impressive 62000 (good for 2nd on the list) over the "thanks for coming out" effort of Jill. Link is obviously the only character to make the list 3 times so far. He's had perhaps the easiest division to contend with, but the young Hylian is definitely looking strong.

Donkey Kong had the lowest vote total by far of the round, landing him at 8th on the Top 10 Lowest Vote Getters list. He was the only character that really looked out of place in the third round.

The close nature of many of the battles paved the way for some very impressive losers totals. In particular, Mega Man and Sonic managed amazing vote counts (Sonic with over 40000, Mega Man with nearly 50000) that placed them well ahead of many of the winners'. The Blue Bomber is currently an unbelievable 18th on the overall list, while the speedy hedgehog is merely a very amazing 27th. They can certainly hold their heads high, even in their defeat.

The fourth round promises to continue the excitement of the third, and maybe even add to it. Don't go anywhere.

Fourth Round Preview

Here's a little Fourth Round preview for you. I've included the characters with their seeding, the odds, and the percentage of contest entrants that chose them to win their previous match. It's not much, but it might give us some indication of which characters are likely to win and how many people might get it right.

1 - Mario (6:1) - 72.5%
2 - Cloud Strife (14:1) - 53.5%

5 - Crono (33:1) - 33.1%
2 - Solid Snake (8:1) - 67.5%

5 - Scorpion (150:1) - 17.3%
2 - Link (9:1) - 69.0%

5 - Samus Aran (36:1) - 31.8%
7 - Sephiroth (9:1) - 55.7%

This round with starts off with a bang, as the Mario vs. Cloud matchup is likely to be the most exciting and meaningful of the entire round. It's the first clash of 2 "elite five" characters and both are strong contenders to win the tournament, so no matter what the outcome this will definitely shake up a lot of brackets. At 6:1 Mario has the best odds in the tournament, with Cloud's 14:1 not far behind at 5th. So not only does that indicate that this should be a good battle, but it also shows that there is a lot on the line. Mario hasn't been as impressive as he should have been in the previous rounds, but he can make up for that now if he can take down Cloud. Cloud has been a force all throughout the contest, but hasn't really faced a real challenge until now. This battle should be epic and draw a record number of voters. As for the eventual outcome? Too close to call.

The other close battle of the round could be Crono vs. Solid Snake. Snake has been underwhelming in his previous battles, but he has had some decent competition. Crono on the other hand has been doing remarkably well, particularly for a character who was only really in 1 game way back on the SNES (plus the PS1 re-release). He could surprise a lot of people and pull off the upset against Snake. Of course, if Snake does manage to win (and he probably should), this will give us a good indication of whether he has a chance to make the finals or not. If he only squeaks by Crono, bigger Square mascots like Cloud are likely to make him look silly (or those that beat the Square mascots, if Mario can win), but if he can pull off a sizeable victory he may just have a chance against the rest of the "elite five".

Link vs. Scorpion is probably the only matchup that could be considered "blowout" material. Link should take this easily, with Scorpion putting up a decent but ultimately non-threatening fight. It will serve as a nice breather after all the excitement of the previous matches. And it should have the highest prediction percentage of the fourth round. Mario and Snake will be locked in tough battles, and none of the other characters were predicted last round by more that 55% of the entrants, so those totals should remain low no matter what the outcome. Of course, if Scorpion were to win it would set an amazingly low record in that category, since only 17% even had him getting this far.

And finally we have Samus vs. Sephiroth. This one is Sephiroth's to lose, and it's unlikely that Samus will take it away from him. She's done well in defeating some hard opponents (most notably Sonic), but she just barely pulled through in her last match and Sephiroth is another step up from that. Still, I wouldn't count her out just yet, but the edge is definitely with Sephiroth. I expect this to be the hardest match to predict of the round, unless Crono (or maybe Cloud) wins, in which case he'll probably have that honor. Either way, the prediction percentage for this match should be in the 40% range if Sephiroth wins it, and way down in the 20% and lower range if Samus takes it.

Now that the matches have finally gotten interesting this should really be a lot of fun. Sit back and enjoy it.

Some Mario vs. Cloud (Match #57)

Wow.

Well, this was supposed to be the biggest and most important battle of the tournament so far, and it certainly lived up to its billing. Where to begin?

It's a shame this match had to happen so soon, as it was definitely worthy of being the final. The battle featured 2 supremely popular characters, possessed more drama than any previous match, had numerous lead changes throughout the entire day, and it's outcome was uncertain right up until midnight. You couldn't really ask for more than that. Sonic/Samus had a slightly more exciting finish, but other than that this battle was the most thrilling in every category.

The number of votes cast in this poll was a phenomenal 129703. It easily surpassed the 100000 mark, an amount few thought could actually be reached. And it absolutely crushed any previous poll's total by over 30000 votes. Absolutely amazing. Of course, some of those votes are likely the result of cheating, but there is no evidence to suggest that the majority of them were not legitimate. Other factors for the high vote total include the massive campaigning that was done to rally support for the characters (links to GameFAQs apparently appeared on both planetgamecube.com and ffonline.com, as well as other sites), and the incredibly high profile nature of the battle. There's hardly anyone who doesn't have a strong opinion on 1 of these 2 characters, so people had more motivation than ever to vote in the poll.

The next astonishing fact is the individual vote totals achieved by Mario and Cloud. Mario set a new record with 64990 votes, and Cloud placed an unbelievable 2nd on the highest vote getters list with 64713 (both eclipsed Mega Man's previous high of 63000 votes). I never thought I'd have to update the Top 10 Biggest Vote Getters list twice for the same match. Well, it looks like those of us worried about the support for Mario needn't worry any more. All memory of his uninspired performances in the previous rounds has been erased by this match. He's now the man to beat. Cloud didn't do so badly himself (obviously). His nearly 65000 votes in a losing effort places him securely atop the Most Impressive Losers list, and proves that he is truly one of the most popular characters in video game history. The loss was the first time he managed to break 60000 votes, but he is now the only 4-time member of 50000 vote club (although Link will join him shortly). Not bad at all. It's a shame he had to face off against Mario so soon.

With all of the other excitement I haven't really conveyed just how amazingly close this battle was yet. Mario blasted out to an early lead in the first hour, holding the widest margin of the entire poll with about 55% of the vote. The gap didn't last long as Cloud quickly began to close it. Soon enough it had dwindled to nothing and the fierce battle for the lead began. After a bit of jockeying Cloud managed to get out in front by a slim margin, which he managed to pad a little and then hold for the rest of the morning. But by mid-afternoon the comeback was on (as was the campaigning) and Mario quickly caught up and regained the lead. But no lead was safe in this battle. The lead continued to go back and forth for the rest of the day, with neither character able to gain a clear advantage. The margin was razor thin and the excitement was palpable. But with 1 hour left and after a record number of lead changes, Mario finally got back in front to stay. As the poll closed Mario held one of the biggest leads of the evening, a mere 0.22% (277 votes). It was a lot of fun to watch. This was the 2nd closest battle of the tournament in both percentage and votes, which is pretty impressive considering the total number of votes that were cast. Doesn't get much better than this.

Considering the extreme nature of the other numbers, the fact that the match ranked as the 9th hardest battle to predict is a little boring by comparison. 44.2% of the entrants got it right, which isn't surprising when considering the previous numbers. 72.5% had Mario making it this far, with most choosing him to win again. Many also had Cloud in this match, and since their odds are so close it's not surprising to see the percentage split like that. Indeed, out of an extraordinary match this is the one stat that isn't.

Next up for Mario will be a tough battle against Crono. Mario has to be considered the favorite to win, but Crono pulled off an upset against Snake and has the potential to do it again. It could be another epic match.

Crono vs. Snake (Match #58)

In the biggest upset of the tournament so far, underdog Crono has defeated the heavily favored Solid Snake. Snake came into the tournament with the 2nd highest odds (8:1, behind only Mario) and was expected to have a real shot at winning it all.

So, for the 2nd day in a row one of the "elite five" has fallen. However, it looks like Snake will be the only member of that club not to be defeated by one of the others. Crono's no slouch in the odds department as he is ranked number 6, but Snake was 4 times as likely to win, based on the odds alone.

Snake's loss is definitely a surprise, but it wasn't without its warning signs. Although it's true he had tougher opponents than some, Snake was never able to put up the kind of numbers that would indicate he deserved his place among the "elite five". Even against Knuckles and Squall he could only manage 60-65% of the vote, and not once did he break the 50000 vote mark. His highest spot on the biggest vote getters list is 22nd. Still, Mario underperformed in his opening rounds and then came through in the big match, so there was hope for Snake yet. However, he was up against the overachieving Crono, who had been dominating in victories against Simon Belmont, Dante, and Lara Croft. Crono's average vote take was over 70% versus Snake's measly 60%. Crono had also broken the 50000 vote barrier once and come very close a second time. The odds favored Snake but past performance was clearly in Crono's favor. There's also a chance that Cloud's battle aided Crono. Perhaps those who showed up to support Cloud stuck around to vote for Crono, or perhaps with the loss of one major Square RPG hero came renewed support for the surviving character. Either way, in the end Crono took the win in a close battle that lacked any real drama.

Not that it wasn't a popular battle, of course. With just shy of 100000 votes cast (99214 to be exact), it ranks as the 2nd most popular poll yet. And as the 6th closest match (percentagewise) it would normally have really been one worth talking about - if we hadn't been spoiled by the previous 3 matches.

But that's not to say this match didn't have it's significant and notable qualities. After all, it set a new record as the hardest match to predict of the tournament. A scant 14.6% of the contest entrants picked Crono to make it to the final four. Only 33.1% had him beating Ms. Croft, so only about half of those thought he could go on to cut down Snake as well. He has definitely being surprising a bunch of us as the tournament has progressed. 67.5% had Snake getting this far, and it's probable that more than half of them expected Snake to move on. So it's almost certain that we have another prediction based upset, in that more people picked Snake than Crono to win. Crono definitely wreaked some havoc with a lot of brackets. This could be the major turning point in the contest for the eventual winners.

Next up for Crono is a battle against contest-favorite Mario. Mario's got the edge and he definitely won't be as easy an opponent as Snake, but Crono has defied the odds and surprised us before, so this could make for a very interesting and hair-raising match. And since it marks the 1,000th GameFAQs poll, let's hope it's a good one.

Scorpion vs. Link (Match #59)

Well, finally a relatively boring match to let us catch our breath. This one was never in doubt, and the fact that Link smoked Scorpion was entirely expected.

The match ranks as the 15th biggest blowout of the tournament, which is actually pretty impressive for a fourth round match. And thanks to the increased popularity of the fourth round matches, the vote gap approached 48000, which makes it the 5th biggest gap of the contest. That's a pretty sizeable victory.

The vote total wasn't as high as the previous 3 matches, but the 91535 total votes still places it 4th on the Top 10 Most Popular Polls list. Link's previous polls brought in about 10000 more votes than Scorpion's, so while impressive totals are old hat for Link, this is the first time Scorpion can claim to be in a notably popular poll.

So, Link's domination continues. His average vote percentage is an impressive 77%, and he is the only character that has never gotten less than 70% of the vote in any of his matches. Also, his most recent vote count of 69544 places him at the top of the Biggest Vote Getters list by almost 5000 votes more than the next character, and he joins Cloud as the only other character to break 50000 votes in all 4 of his matches, and Mega Man as the only other character to break 60000 votes twice. Also note that he was only 500 votes shy of breaking 60000 in his first match and less than 500 votes shy of being the only character to reach 70000 votes. And with Mega Man and Cloud out of the picture, Link is clearly the most dominating character remaining.

Scorpion did well to get this far in the tournament, but he was really no match for Link. Scorpion had been averaging a modest 40000 votes in his previous matches, but only garnered 22000 in his final battle. His percentage took a tumble to 24%, giving him an overall average of about 55%. So, after overcoming the odds and pulling off upsets in the previous 2 rounds, Scorpion is finally gone. This also marks the first casualty for the impressive trio of 5th seeds. After beating number 4 and number 1 seeds in the previous 2 rounds, Crono went on to beat his number 2 seed (Solid Snake) while Scorpion lost to his (Link). The other surviving member, Samus, has her hands full with the 7th seeded Sephiroth and is unlikely to advance as well.

The mildly impressive 57.0% prediction percentage will be the highest of the fourth round, and most likely also the only one above the 50% mark. We've finally entered the stage of the contest where most of the contestants are getting each match wrong. So don't feel too bad if your bracket's falling apart, since it's happening to many others as well. Still, considering who Link's opponents were and how easily he breezed past them, it's a little bit surprising that more people didn't get it right. 69% had him winning his last match, so 22% of those then thought he would lose the division final to the likes of Pac-Man, Scorpion, or Max Payne. But at least Scorpion didn't win the match, because if he had the prediction percentage probably would have been in the 5% or lower range. :)

Next up for Link is a semi-final matchup against either Sephiroth or Samus (probably Sephiroth). I'd say that either way, Link will have the edge. He has shown no weakness in the competition so far, so it will be up to his opponent to either humble him or just watch him keep padding his statistics.

Samus vs. Sephiroth (Match #60)

Another number 5 seed cut down in her prime. It was a good run for Samus and she took down some higher seeds and incredibly worthy opponents, but in the end she couldn't quite compare to Sephiroth (although it was surprisingly close). She opened a few eyes when she started with an early lead, but Sephiroth recovered and then pulled away, leaving the rest of the match as a real snoozer.

Samus finishes up with a modest average of 55% of the vote over her 4 matches, but she will remain notable for having the smallest margin of victory out of any battle (34 votes over Sonic). Her vote count for each match remained steady at around 40000, with only a slight jump in her last match to 46000. She did well throughout the tournament, but only her narrow win against Sonic really stands out. Of course, she's now 4th on the Top 10 Most Impressive Losers list, but with nearly 20000 fewer votes than 1st place Cloud, we've definitely seen more impressive last stands. :)

After huge blowouts in his first 2 matches (80+%), Sephiroth has been involved in 2 extremely close battles (#3 and #6 on the Top 10 Closest Matches list). Still, he managed to beat 2 gaming icons in Mega Man and Samus, so that's no small feat. He broke 50000 votes for the 3rd time, and he's been above 60000 once (in the first round actually, which potentially makes it more impressive). However, after his last 2 narrow victories he'll have his hands full next round with Link. They have identical odds, but the edge definitely is with Link. Should be interesting.

At 97224 total votes, this was the 4th most popular poll. In fact, all 4 of the fourth round matches are in the top 5, which says something about the growing interest in these later matches. Let's hope these higher numbers continue (which of course they will).

This was another hard match to predict, with only 38.3% of contest entrants getting it right (good for 8th on the list). Expectedly difficult but not particularly notable considering how hard all of these final matches have become to predict. The prediction percentages for future matches should be similarly low, but probably won't set any new records (unless Crono wins again, of course).

Fourth Round Analysis

Just going to make this quick, since it was such a short round.

One of the major things that changed this round was the number of people voting in the polls. The average went from 77816 last round to an amazing 104419 this round (even though only 1 actually broke the 100000 mark). As the battles have gotten more intense a lot more people have started taking an interest. It will be interesting to see if the final 3 matches can keep up the pace.

The second major change is the average win margin. Winning characters ended up being an average of only 15.9% ahead of their opponents. Which is actually a bit misleading. Link's 52% margin of victory threw things off considerably, because if we discard his match the average for the rest is a mere 3.8%. But no matter how you look at it, the battles were a lot closer this round than the 27.6% average margin of last round.

The average prediction rate dropped by only about 10%, down to 38.6% (which is really not that bad). So the average number of points earned by contestants this round (out of 32) was 12.34. Less than half, for the first time. If you're playing along at home, you now need more than 72.03 points to be in the majority.

As expected, the biggest match of the round was the epic Mario vs. Cloud battle. The match really could have gone either way, with Mario winning by only 50.1%. Crono's upset victory over Snake was managed with 53% of the vote, as was Sephiroth's expected win over Samus. The only match that wasn't a nail-biter was Link's 76% pasting of Scorpion.

Bonus stat: The total number of votes cast this round was 417,676, for a grand total of 3,944,706 (nearly 4 million!) votes so far this contest. Wow.

Fifth Round Preview

Well, with the fifth round almost over already there's no point in doing an indepth preview. So I'll just give you the usual numbers showing the characters' seeding, odds, and the percentage of contest entrants that chose them to win their previous match.

1 - Mario (6:1) - 44.2%
5 - Crono (33:1) - 14.6%

2 - Link (9:1) - 57.0%
7 - Sephiroth (9:1) - 38.3%

Based on the odds alone it looks like Mario should win fairly easily against Crono, and Link vs. Sephiroth should be an amazingly close match. But in reality, I bet that ends up reversed. ;)

Mario vs. Crono (Match #61)

Well, another amazing match featuring Mario. Even though Crono was supposed to be an easier opponent, this one turned out to be even closer than his battle with Cloud, and almost as exciting. The finish was certainly just as spectacular. The lead kept swapping hands with every update, and again it came down to the very last minute before a winner was determined. It really could have gone either way, but in the end Mario was the winner.

This was another incredibly popular match, with a total of 107547 votes cast in the poll. This is only the 2nd time a poll has broken the 100000 mark, and it ranks behind only the Mario/Cloud total on the Top 10 Most Popular Polls list. I wonder if it's just the drama of the Nintendo vs. Square battles that brings out this many voters, or if an all-Nintendo final could match it. Maybe we'll see...

Crono's run is the undisputed Cinderella story of the tournament. And although it didn't have a fairy tale ending, Crono and his fans have nothing to be ashamed about. Every battle for Crono was against a big-name character. He first had to get through Simon Belmont, Dante, Lara Croft, and Solid Snake, and he certainly wasn't expected to clobber them by as much as he did. It took the tournament favorite, Mario, to end his glorious run, and even then it was almost unimaginably close. Crono ends up with an average vote take of 63%, which will likely be one of the highest of the tournament. His vote count was also impressive, averaging just over 50000 votes per match. A very impressive run indeed.

Mario, on the other hand, continues to look strong. His mediocre opening rounds are all but forgotten (and certainly forgiven) now that he's found his way to the final. As the character with the best odds coming into the tournament it shouldn't be much of a surprise to see him make it this far, although he did have a bit of a rough time and came very close to losing his last 2 matches. Even so, he broke 50000 votes for the 3rd time, and still holds the record for the highest vote total from his previous match. So while his percentages have been really close, at least his vote count is improving. Of course, all that really matters now is how he performs in the final. He'll be facing Link, Nintendo's #2 mascot. He's still the favorite by odds and by recognition, but does he have what it takes to defeat Link when it comes right down to it? Link has been dominant in his victories thus far and shows no signs of slowing down. It should make for an amazing clash of the Nintendo icons.

The prediction percentage for this match was a respectable 31.0%. Since 44.2% had Mario winning last round, only 13% expected him to lose in the semi-final. And I'd say most of those picked Snake to beat him, since only 14.6% of the entrants even had Crono getting this far. It looks like the prediction percentage for the final could be in the 20-25% range if Mario wins. One quarter of the entrants picking the winner correctly? That would be pretty darn good.

Link vs. Sephiroth (Match #62)

So, another major Nintendo vs. Square battle has come and gone. And once again the Nintendo icon is victorious (not counting Seph/Samus). Only this time it wasn't actually that close of a battle.

Well, it wasn't close by recent standards, anyway. It was still the 14th closest battle of the tournament, but with 13.30% and 13676 votes separating the characters, it was nothing compared to the closest battles. The odds for this battle were actually the closest of any, dead even at 9:1 for both, so it's a bit disappointing that the match didn't live up to its close billing. Link proved that although he had a fairly easy road to the final four, he still more than deserved to be there and his large blowouts in previous rounds were no fluke. He made short work of Sephiroth and now proceeds to the final, where he will meet Nintendo's other mighty mascot, Mario. It will be very interesting to see which of these characters is more popular once and for all (at least according to GameFAQs visitors). I'd say that Link has the edge on a site like this, although Mario would probably prevail with a more general voting population (or maybe not...).

Sephiroth broke the 50000 mark 3 times and the 60000 mark once, and finished with a respectable votes taken average of 63% (including his loss and 2 other close battles). He is currently 6th on both the Top 10 Biggest Vote Getters and Top 10 Most Impressive Losers lists, so he has certainly left his mark. And hey, making it to the final four is not too shabby at all. ;)

Link continues to be impressive, dispatching of another opponent with relative ease. While this marks the first time he has had a vote percentage below 70%, there was still never any real doubt that he would win this one. Link now appears on the Top 10 Biggest Vote Getters list 4 times (and his 5th total is at #12), and is the only character on there more than twice. To say he has dominated in the votes department would almost be an understatement. He is of course the only 5-time member of the 50000 vote club, and with a win over Mario he could become the only 3-time member of the 60000 vote club. He's in a league all his own.

For only the 3rd time, the total number of votes cast topped 100000 (both final four matches succeeded in reaching the mark, as well as the Mario/Cloud bout). The 102870 votes cast in this match makes it the 3rd highest of the tournament so far. Cloud's matches used to dominate this category, but now he only has 2 on the list (1 down in 10th, about to be knocked off). Link and Sephiroth both have 3 of their matches on the list now, Sephiroth's being against strong opponents (Link, Mega Man, Samus) and Link's being against a slightly less impressive roster (Sephiroth, Scorpion, Jill).

This was the 4th hardest match to predict, with only 30.6% of the entrants getting it right. That's only slightly lower than the 31.0% who picked Mario to advance to the final over Crono. So no matter who wins the final, it looks like somewhere between 15-25% of the entrants will get it right, which is actually a pretty good score.

Well, just one more battle and everything will be complete. It's been a long road, but a winner will be crowned soon.