(3)Ryu vs (14)Lloyd Irving 2018

Ulti's Analysis
Not gonna lie, I completely forgot Lloyd had even made this bracket until I was actually doing the PCA this year. That's how forgettable some of these round one matches are, and it's sad because Tales of Symphonia basically took this site over for a few months back in the day. Can you believe that was 15 years ago, by the way? God I'm old. That was one of the 10 games I picked after winning Spring 2004. I can't remember them all offhand, but I remember that one game for HaRRicH, a game for Aeon Azuran, Tales of Symphonia, and Chrono Cross. Tales by itself made the whole thing worth it. I love that style of game where you're actually a part of the action instead of just "press attack x47, cure, cast a spell for fun, repeat".

As for Ryu, he is my most hated character in all of Street Fighter but he's winning me over due to -- surprise surprise -- Smash Bros. He finally made it into a game where he doesn't shotospam for 10 minutes at a time, and it's a huge breath of fresh air. The guy is damn satisfying to use, and you feel the weight of his man mode kicks on people. Heaven help you if he lands a perfect shoryuken, too. I feel like this is what he's supposed to be in Street Fighter but he just falls flat when he plays identically in every single game. He even sucks in MvC3 and the other crossover games. But in Smash he really works. Dunno why.

But yeah this match was an expected blowout and told us nothing about whether or not Ryu could beat Sephiroth. Moving on.