Ulti's Analysis[]
Hopefully HaRRicH and I can make up one day, because his topics and his rallies are always super fun. The cause celebre this year was for Metal Man, which was pretty hilarious because who knows if some random robot master from 1988 (christ I'm old, I remember when Mega Man 2 came out) would even be eligible.
Turns out he was! This match was never intended to actually be a match, it was just a nod from Allen to Board 8 for a job well done over the years. None of us had any delusions of Metal Man actually winning this match, and it's hard to really look at what Lara did here as anything impressive. Congrats, you got 68% on a mid boss that no one actually cares about, who is so awful that he's weak against his own weapon. I'm convinced 90% of the people who voted for Metal Man in this match did so because Mega Man in Smash Bros uses the metal blades as one of the B moves. The other 10% probably voted for him because of how hilariously absurd the metal blades actually are in Mega Man 2. You could do an ESPN 30 For 30 about just how much they utterly break the game.
I do know that no one actually gives a crap about Lara Croft anymore. She won this match by default. It's as simple as that. Her glory years were back in the 90s and with Square now publishing the Tomb Raider games, the brand is radioactive. One of the only things worse would be "Blizzard" or "Electronic Arts" on the box. We would see proof of this in round two soon enough.
Safer777's Analysis[]
For people that know their Megaman games Metal Man is an iconic enemy. For the rest of us he is just an enemy that has appeared in some MM game.Also Lara was a 1 seed in the very first contest! And even though she is an icon and she is from back then when we were playing games as a site she never did good. But no way she would lose against a random robot master! So she won with more than a doubling. Still seeing icons getting wins is always nice.
Also I don't understand why Lara isn't that popular now. I mean the new Trilogy did really well. The first game of the new trilogy called just Tomb Raider has sold more than 11.000.000 copies! How many games can say that they have sold that well? The 2nd called Rise Of The Tomb Raider sold more than 7.000.000! Seriously! I have played these 2 and I can confirm there are good games. So why isn't she more famous or why most people don't like her I don't get it. And it is not that there are other more popular female heroes in video games too.
And you know some games that people here really like? They have sold like less than 1.000.000! And don't tell me sales don't mean much. Sales mean everything. A game sells well and we have sequels and spin-offs. And that is. I guess this is why people say that gamers are sexist or something.
Tsunami's Analysis[]
Oh, hey, speaking of "Random (insert game here) Character #3.14159", have a Robot Master from Mega Man 2. I briefly entertained the idea that an attempt at a Draven rally might actually let Metal Man pull this upset, because the types of trolls that would be attracted to this would pick the most anti-establishment choices possible and Lara Croft isn't strong enough to weather that storm. Turns out, Lara's either not as weak as I thought, or nominating random Mega Man characters that don't recur across the entire series was just thatstupid an idea. I prefer to think it's the latter.
X's presence in contests has conclusively proven that "Mega Man" refers only to the classic incarnation. Why have we not tried to put other Mega Men into contests? I mean, heck, if you go back far enough Mega Man Legends has seen representation in these contests.
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2511-aeon-division-round-1-yuna-vs-roll
...Oh, right. Literally every other member of the Noble Nine had a female member of their franchise seeded higher than this. Marle was a 7-seed. Amy Rose was a 6. Amy Rose! And Roll was only an 8-seed, and probably only got that because people wanted to get every Noble Niner's best female co-star into the contest.
(Just quietly ignore the fact that with Brawl not out yet, no one on the female half of the bracket had actually been in the same game as Solid Snake as of that time. The Boss is easily the strongest female Metal Gear Solid character, and MGS3 was the most recent release in the franchise at the time. This was a far superior option to putting Meryl or Sniper Wolf or someone into the contest.)
If we ever have another half-male, half-female bracket, it should be mixed up rather than split, so that every Round 1 match is male vs. female. Do it evenly, though, so that stronger female characters are against weaker male characters and vice versa. Zelda probably gets a 1-seed and gets to school some 16-seeded male.
Link probably gets to feast on Hat Kid in Round 1, which will confuse people who still don't realize Hat Kid's a girl.