Sora's Contest History

Who is Sora?
One day, all of the stars start slowly disappearing from the sky. Mickey Mouse leaves a letter on his throne, then sneaks out in the middle of the night to see if he can't figure out what is going on. This puts everyone in Mickey's castle in a dizzy, and Donald and Goofy set out to find him.

Meanwhile, on Destiny Island, Sora, Riku, and Kairi set off on another day. Riku, tired of being stuck on the same island doing the same thing day after day, decides that the trio should build a raft and explore new lands. Things start off relatively well, but the island os soon attacked, and the three sucked into a wormhole. Sora winds up alone in Traverse Town, but he soon discovers a couple of other characters who are looking for their lost friend as well...

Thus, Kingdom Hearts, the surprisingly good joint effort between Square and Disney, begins. Sora plays the main character, and though he is young, he has a heart of gold and will stop at nothing to do what he feels is right. He even winds up happily joining in a quest to seal the demonic Heartless away from being able to destroy any more worlds. Kingdom Hearts is a rare crossover title that combines characters from both Square and Disney into a single world, and surprisingly, everything works out rather well. Granted, most people play the game for the cameo appearences, but the point is that they've played the game nonetheless. Kingdom Hearts must have done something right. It sold 4 million copies in just over a year and was the direct reason why Cloud, Sephiroth, and Squall were so amazing in the Summer 2003 Contest. Maybe not Sora quite so much, but given the recent Chain of Memories and an upcoming Kingdom Hearts 2, Sora has no where to go but up.

"I've been having these weird thoughts lately. Like is any of this for real? Or not?" - Sora

Sora's Contest History
Win-Loss Record: 8-5

Summer 2003 Contest - East Division - 6 Seed
 * Eastern Round 1 --- Lost to (11) Aeris, 32614 [33.34%] - 65196 [66.66%]
 * Extrapolated Strength --- 39th Place [21.17%]

Summer 2004 Contest - Chaos Division - 6 Seed
 * Chaos Round 1 --- Defeated (11) HK-47, 54034 [65.55%] - 28392 [34.45%]
 * Chaos Quarterfinal --- Defeated (3) Ryu Hayabusa, 49626 [61.72%] - 30773 [38.28%]
 * Chaos Semifinal --- Lost to (2) Samus, 29880 [34.15%] - 57627 [65.85%]
 * Extrapolated Strength --- 21st Place [26.97%]

In 2003, Sora was matched against Aeris. He was expected to take an SFF beating, and did so. On the surface this wasn't much, but it would set the stage for one of the biggest weighted gains we'll ever see in these contests. Come 2004, Sora's four pack was expected to easily be won by the winner of the Ryu Hayabusa vs Jill Valentine fiasco. After all, Jill was stronger than Sora in the 2003 Xsts, and even if she were to lose, the character strong enough to beat her would easily take down Sora, right?

Oh Xsts, how I love when you fail me. Ryu Hayabusa would wind up defeating Jill Valentine in an epic clash, but the script didn't exactly play out the way it was suposed to. Not only did Sora not get beaten by Ryu H, he flat-out beat Ryu H all over the poll. Ryu H was never in contention, and it caused everyone to realize that SFF was never accounted for in Sora's Xst ranking of 2003. Sora would go on to lose to Samus quite easily, but his killing of Hayabusa was probably the biggest highlight of the 2003 contest.

It also proved that Sora was not some simple and clean weakling. He has true strength going for him in these contests, and given Chain of Memories and the upcoming Kingdom Hearts 2, he could very well go on to shock people again.

Summer 2005 Contest - Gear Division - 2 Seed
 * Gear Round 1 --- Defeated (7) Agent 47, 62348 [70.73%] - 25796 [29.27%]
 * Gear Semifinal --- Defeated (6) Alucard, 53320 [55.36%] - 43002 [44.64%]
 * Gear Final --- Lost to (1) Solid Snake, 33887 [34.74%] - 63664 [65.26%]
 * Extrapolated Strength --- 32nd Place [23.54%]

Sora was a bit of an oddity in this contest. First he does less than what many thought he could do against Agent 47 (likely because most thought that Agent 47 could be another Tanner), then he goes out and whips Alucard all over the poll in a match that many felt could be a classic, and then he turns around and gets his brains kicked in by Solid Snake in the Gear finals. This means that for yet another contest, we have no real clue where Kingdom Hearts factors in with the overall scheme of things.

And things will get even more interesting once Kingdom Hearts 2 is released. As if Sora weren't hard enough to gauge correctly as is...

Summer 2006 Contest - Destiny Division - 1 Seed
 * Destiny Round 1 --- Defeated (8) Tingle, 93568 [75.61%] - 30176 [24.39%]
 * Destiny Semifinal --- Defeated (5) Gordon Freeman, 77994 [63.93%] - 43996 [36.07%]
 * Destiny Final --- Lost to (2) Mega Man, 61167 [45.72%] - 72630 [54.28%]
 * Extrapolated Strength --- 15th Place [38.30%]

Sora's path to Mega Man was blocked by a joke character and the longest-standing contest joke ever, but once the day finally arrived for him to lose, he clued everyone in once and for all that Mega Man wasn't quite himself. It was the lone silver lining on a fairly predictable path. Hopefully Kingdom Hearts 3 gets him up some more so he can cause a big upset or two.

Summer 2007 Contest - Division 8 - Second Group
 * Division 8 Round 1 --- 1st place, 52982 [41.87%] - Lara Croft, 32698 [25.84%] - Albert Wesker, 30518 [24.12%] - Daxter, 10334 [8.17%]
 * Division 8 Round 2 --- 2nd place, 35650 [29.92%] - Squall Leonhart, 39993 [33.56%] - Aeris Gainsborough, 22820 [19.15%] - Lara Croft, 20704 [17.37%]
 * Division 8 Final --- 3rd place, 28537 [20.01%] - Sonic the Hedgehog, 46083 [32.31%] - Squall Leonhart, 43950 [30.81%] - Sub-Zero, 24063 [16.87%]

Sora has made the third round of the contest every year since 2004, an impressive streak, to be sure. However, he has yet to make it beyond that point because, as popular as Kingdom Hearts is, he still can't stand up to the Noble Nine. Sora did manage to avenge his most humiliating loss by owning Aeris in the second round though, which speaks both of how far he's come and how far the flower girl has fallen since 2003.