(1)Chrono Trigger vs (4)Final Fantasy X 2015

Ulti's Analysis
Finally, user-made match pics! greatone completely stole the show this year, beginning the this godlike Chrono Trigger picture. He started from there and just kept on rolling, finishing up with the best match pic we've ever had. I made some good stuff myself, including a few pictures that were shared exponentially on the internet thanks to rallies, but I know I'm not as good the guys with true talent.

As for this match, it started our format change of two matches per day instead of four since Allen wanted round 3 and onwards to be important, and this match was also one of the most alarming blowouts we've ever had. It's worth noting that before this contest, FFX was the 59% guru favorite for a multitude of logical reasons. Chrono Trigger was on the decline for years on this site, while FFX was a model of consistency. We kind of assumed that Chrono Trigger would have declined enough to be below FFX by now, and most people just penciled in SSBM > FFX for the divisional final without thinking about it much. There were also the 2009 stats, which had FFX ahead, plus the alarming downward trend of the Chrono Trigger characters. Crono has won one match since 2008 (and it was against pure fodder garbage), and the other characters are basically jokes. The gurus that had Chrono Trigger were mostly picking it out of faith, and most acknowledged that it was the underdog before this contest started.

Then the contest got going. With two rounds in the books, it became very clear that Chrono Trigger was going to win this match. It pulled off two of the biggest blowouts of the contest, including the biggest of round 2, while Final Fantasy X looked rather average in round 1 against Half-Life and looked like outright trash in round 2 against Mega Man X. And even with all that writing on the wall, there was no way to prepare for the beating we were about to witness.

I know LOL X-stats and all that, but 51-49 in the stats doesn't turn into a near doubling by accident. If you check the oracle, almost everyone undershot Chrono Trigger by a lot. It was tough to be psychologically ready for this, even among the people predicting the match in real-time. So when the match started and Chrono Trigger had a doubling on Final Fantasy X, the place freaked out. Then the second update hit, and Chrono Trigger went up by two whole percentage points. It was right about here where people were quite literally calling this contest over. An LFFd FFX was worth 35% on Ocarina in the 2009 stats. Chrono Trigger was over that with ease 10 minutes in, and threatened to make this a whole lot worse. It would ultimately settle down, thanks to things like dead zones and slow Chrono Trigger day votes, but the damage was already done.

This match caused a ton of wildfires, most notably people thinking Chrono Trigger would win the entire contest. Even now, people are putting adjusted stats out there with Chrono Trigger, not Undertale or Ocarina or Melee, as the kingpin. People thought for good reason that CT at this power level could have easily beaten Melee, then FF7, then whatever came out of the Mario gauntlet, then Ocarina in the final due to the bandwagon effect. I personally find all that to be a bit dumb, but hey, not my adjustments. yoblazer said this best in the stats topic and I 100% agree: contests don't work like that anymore. Every match is its own match, and stats no longer matter. For those who know my opinion on stats making things too easy, you can extrapolate that out into why I think our newfound age of rally dominance is a good thing.

This match also cemented FFX as the turd of the contest, or at least one of them. I don't bother with stars and turds past round 2 since I don't like disrespecting anything that wins twice, but FFX pretty much stunk up the place here. I think a lot more went into this match than Chrono Trigger simply going nuts. FFX just went into the tank this contest, there was a massive old > new theme going on, and I really think there was a huge contingency of voters that took the contest's title into account when voting.

Lastly, can this match finally convince people to stop trusting Final Fantasy X? I feel like that game disappoints people every year, and in thinking this I whipped up yet another LIST™. This one is the list of Final Fantasy X choke jobs. This is only a list where FFX was expected to win or have a close match; close wins are not included here.

http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/1307-north-division-round-1-tidus-vs-ganondorf http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/1330-west-division-round-1-knuckles-the-echidna-vs-yuna http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/1656-division-128-semifinals-final-fantasy-x-vs-super-smash-bros http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/2003-triforce-division-round-1-dr-robotnik-vs-sin http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/2072-zebes-division-round-1-ganondorf-vs-yuna http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/2101-zebes-division-round-2-ganondorf-vs-auron http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/2104-dream-division-round-2-kirby-vs-tidus http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/2516-patriot-division-round-1-squall-leonhart-vs-tidus http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/2863-division-1-round-1-knuckles-rikku-vaan-yoshi http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/2906-division-6-round-2-pikachu-tidus-leon-vivi http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/2915-division-5-final-ganondorf-luigi-master-chief-yuna http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/3260-division-5-round-1-donkey-tails-tidus-cube http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/3284-division-5-round-2-cube-tidus-mega-man-nero http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/3499-division-6-final-ffx-k-hearts-ssbm-diablo-iilod http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/3751-mushroom-division-round-1-zack-fair-vs-yuna http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/3765-varia-division-round-1-tidus-vs-sub-zero http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/3839-gear-division-round-3-auron-vs-squall http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/4194-final-rounds-semifinal-final-fantasy-x-vs-zelda-majoras-mask http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/4521-east-division-round-1-fox-mccloud-vs-wolf-odonnell-yuna-vs http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/4525-southeast-division-round-1-tidus-vs-jecht-big-boss-vs-the http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/5211-character-battle-ix-division-8-round-1-missingno-vs-tidus-vs http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/5244-character-battle-ix-division-7-round-2-ezio-vs-auron-vs-l http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/6147-best-game-ever-day-25-round-3-chrono-trigger-vs-final

That's 23 examples of choke jobs. Twenty-three. When will people learn to stop trusting this game? Tidus beating Shadow the Hedgehog in 2004 is the last time that game has won a debated match. Everything since has been either an obvious win where there is no way it could have lost, a loss, or an early blowout.

No, the 2009 games contest does not count as FFX having a good contest. That contest was divisions by era, and it got perhaps the luckiest draw of that entire contest. Ocarina quite literally carried FFX into the final (which began one round after Melee utterly destroyed it), where it proceeded to get last place. There is not a doubt in my mind that Melee would easily break 55% on FFX these days, if not 60%. When that happens, FFX fans will be SHOCKED AND AMAZED. And no, FFX would not have beaten Melee if that was the Game of the Decade final. That Majora's Mask was able to rally past FFX as a form of Melee Revenge proves this, not to mention what Melee did later on in this very contest.

The other thing is I vividly remember people being SHOCKED AND AMAZED during every single one of these matches. It's really time to stop having any faith in that game whatsoever; people clearly see it as the beginning of the end of Square and vote accordingly. The game is simply not that strong, but people put an inordinate amount of faith in it every single contest season. Stop that. It's going to disappoint you and lose every single time. If all these HD remakes couldn't help it, nothing will. It's over. FFX is done.