Transience's 75 Most Important Contest Matches - Detailed

75 - Mewtwo > Phoenix Wright > Vincent 2013

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The notable thing here somehow isn't Mewtwo. Well, it is, but Pokemon went so nutty in 2013 that I would run out of list space if I threw in examples of random Pokemon beating notable gaming icons. Squirtle over Cloud, Mewtwo crushing Sephiroth, Pikachu, etc.

It's Vincent here. He had a hilariously bad picture, but the fact that he was beaten by Phoenix Wright  that blew minds here. Vincent was our consensus #10 on this site, after the noble nine, from 2005-2010 or so. He was probably above one or two of them during that time too. Vincent beat Squall in 2005, Ganondorf in 2006 (killing some very beloved board 8 accounts in the process), and beat Crono in 2007. But here he was, getting suit and tie SFF'd by Phoenix. What?

It turned out to not be a fluke, as Magus almost beat him in 2018 and he went down softly to Auron. If this 2013 match never happens, Vincent's probably the consensus pick to beat Sonic. Vincent's fall from grace doesn't make a ton of sense, but when you consider how Seph did in 2018, maybe it actually does and gamefaqs has moved on from dark emo antiheroes now.

74 - Link to the Past > Super Metroid 2004

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I like how this ended up at #74. Super Metroid wasn't expected to win this match, but it crushed its r1 fodder match with over 80% and was assumed to be a decent opponent for LTTP (who put up 90% on a similarly fodder-y opponent -- more on Zelda's dominance later). The oracle average here was under 60%.

The reality was a SFF beatdown that went beyond what anyone expected. Metroid wasn't really strong on its own -- Samus was, but Metroid was kind of a leech that would fall apart against core Nintendo. LTTP instantly went to a huge favourite over FF6 and probably CT as well. Division 16 was great with four big games (those + Mario World). It just wasn't five because Super Metroid was a confirmed fraud.

This match would get a lot of focus during the 2005 lockdown period. Mario/Samus was by far the biggest debate of that contest and this match kinda foreshadowed it.

73 - Kirby > L-Block > Laharl > Nathan Hale 2007

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L-Block's first match was actually not that big of a deal. Its opponents were perennial contest weakling Laharl and some guy named Nathan Hale. If L wasn't the board/bracket fave, it wasn't far off. It winning wasn't all that notable.

L didn't just win though -- it killed Laharl, leading Kirby for the first five minutes, then inexplicably taking the lead back at :20. This was more comical than anything people took seriously. L-Block fell apart and got killed by Kirby by the end of the poll so most people didn't give it much of a chance going into round 2. Yeah, it beat Laharl and Nathan Hale. So what?

72 - Shadow of the Colossus > Metal Gear Solid 2 2010

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I can't not include SOTC on this list. Most of our big unexpected boosts are huge franchises character being way better than we expect. Vincent in 2005, Snake getting into Brawl in 2006, even L-Block came from Tetris which has sold a billion copies. But SOTC was unique. It's not the most gamefaqs-y game. It came kinda out of nowhere and went on one of the greatest cinderella runs in contest history.

This one doesn't have a huge impact on future matches other than to show that MGS probably was a bit fraud-y in 2010. Actually, I think this match might be the closest match in history? Maybe something was closer in 2018, but this one capped at a 188 vote lead. Great match and a great surprise. MGS2 was the weakest of the MGS games in this contest so SOTC's run would surely end at the mighty MGS4 next round.

71 - Cloud > Zelda 2018

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In a few years, it will be super weird to say that Cloud beating Zelda was an upset. FF7 suffered quite a bad rep this contest, a rep that extended to just about all of Square. Sephiroth looked awful, losing to Mario and then Tifa. Tifa went down hard to Samus twice. Vincent looked awful, Aerith barely beat Fox en route to getting killed by Zelda, and then guys like Squall, Auron, etc got embarrassed.

But yet here was Cloud, proving that after all these years he's still #2 on the site thanks to a great comeback against Zelda. Well, maybe. Someday we'll get the Cloud/Samus runback that we deserved this year. We got damn near every other match!

70 - Solid Snake > Frog 2004

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This match is somehow the biggest blowout of Frog's wonky 2004 run - he edged out Liquid Snake in a close one and then had an insane match with Master Chief that ended up with a miracle win after dropping the ball hard in the day to the day vote king. But this match with Solid is the only one on this list.

You can argue it should be much higher: there was so much to unpack here. Frog came in as the new hotness in 2004 after Magus was the hotness in 2003. He had a bit of bandwagon behind him, back before the idea of that was a concrete thing. But there was also Solid Snake's sprite pic to try to consider, and the general feeling was that Frog massively overperformed on Snake. This is probably the closest the N9 came to dropping a match up to that point, and it firmly established Solid Snake as the rear end of the N9.

In reality, 2004 was more likely just Chrono Trigger's year. Crono beat Mario handily in 2004 and CT beat LTTP. Those results just don't happen in most other years. The site shifted in 2005 to be more Nintendo-friendly and Frog's miracle run almost didn't matter. Frog made such an impression though that it was hard to convince people he wasn't this great contest performer until his pathetic day vote came to pass in 2007 when Axel put it on him in a real bad way.

Having written this, this probably belongs a lot higher. Oh well.

69 - Shadow of the Colossus > Metal Gear Solid 4 2010

68 - Pikachu > Mega Man (Winner's Bracket) 2018 67 - Vincent > Kerrigan 2005 66 - Sephiroth > Missingno 2010 65 - Mario > Crono 2005 64 - Mega Man > Sonic the Hedgehog 2005 63 - Solid Snake > Cloud > Kirby > Sephiroth 2008 62 - Kirby > Tidus 2005 61 - Crono > Kefka 2003 60 - Samus > Crono > Vincent > Pikachu 2008 59 - Link > Mario 2002 58 - Master Chief > Yuna > Tommy Vercetti > PaRappa the Rapper 2007 57 - Cloud > Mario (Loser's Bracket) 2018 56 - Sephiroth > Mega Man 2002 55 - Samus vs Mario 2018 54 - The Legend of Zelda > Final Fantasy 2006 53 - Vivi > Mario > Ganondorf 2013 52 - Mario > Shadow the Hedgehog 2003 51 - Tifa > Sephiroth 2018 50 - Majora's Mask > Super Metroid 2015 49 - Sonic the Hedgehog > Crono 2006 48 - Solid Snake > Bowser 2005 47 - Samus > Tifa 2006 46 - Majora's Mask > Brawl 2010 45 - Sephiroth > Mario 2005 44 - Missingno > Crono 2010 43 - Kratos > L-Block > Kirby > Donkey Kong 2007 42 - Draven > Jak > Chie 2013 41 - Zelda > Squall 2018 40 - Chrono Trigger > Final Fantasy X 2015 39 - Vincent > Squall 2005 38 - Link > Cloud > Solid Snake > Sephiroth 2006 37 - Sephiroth > Mario 2003 36 - Crono > Mario 2004 35 - Undertale > Melee 2015 34 - Link > Solid Snake > Cloud > Crono 2008 33 - Crono > Solid Snake 2002 32 - Link > Cloud 2005 31 - Brawl > Melee 2010 30 - Samus > Solid Snake 2006 29 - Melee > Chrono Trigger 2015 28 - Solid Snake > Mega Man 2006 27 - L-Block > Solid Snake > Master Chief > Dante 2007 26 - Majora's Mask > Pokemon GSC 2010 25 -