Results[]
Ulti's Analysis[]
| Division | 4 |
|---|---|
| Match # | 15 |
| Match Date | Monday, September 17th, 2007 |
| Oracle Expectations |
Crono - 47.50% Raiden - 21.94% Sam Fisher - 15.50% Simon Belmont - 15.02% |
| GameFAQs Expectations |
Crono first place (2pts) - 72.36% Crono second place (1pt) - 9.13% Raiden second place (2pts) - 36.42% Raiden first place (1pt) - 6.67% |
| Advancing Prediction |
Crono - 81.49% (29,926) Raiden - 43.09% (15,824) |
This was seriously a weird match. Normally when you see an easy first place and close second place, you get a situation where second place was super heated. But here, that wasn't the case.
Crono was the obvious overall winner here, and a decent case could be made for any of the other three getting second. Then the poll started, and it was clear Simon Belmont wasn't going anywhere.
Although all things considered, early on it didn't look like Sam Fisher was going anywhere either. Raiden was doing the "build a decent lead while in second place" thing on him, and for quite awhile it looked like the match was over and settled about an hour in. Even as the day time hit and Raiden started slowing down his advance, people were just bored of this and wanted to move on to the next match already.
It's kind of a shame no one on GameFAQs cares about Splinter Cell and that we pretty much unanimously prefer Metal Gear Solid, because otherwise this could have been a really good match given the ASV. I don't know what game came out in 2007 for Sam Fisher and I honestly don't care, but whatever it was allowed him to go nuts once the ASV hit. Crono's joke of a day vote certainly didn't hurt, either.
Putting number to it, Raiden's peak lead was 1500 votes and he only beat Sam by 372. Sam really took it to Raiden here, but he was starting from so far back and no one really cares about his games so everyone knew he wasn't going to finish off the comeback attempt. And even had he gotten super close, it's Splinter Cell vs Metal Gear Solid. I doubt Raiden had even a 0.1% chance of choking this away, although the collapse was still a Pyrrhic Victory at best. But a win is a win is a win, and Raiden was finally able to get one here.
Stats and Analysis[]
if there was ever such a thing as a forgettable 400 vote result, this is it. this match was seen as one of the true locks of the contest: Crono with a huge win, Raiden easily in second, Sam and Simon fighting for scraps. most people were paying attention Crono more than anyone else here, because both Frog and Magus had sucked it up and Crono had a huge match with Vincent coming up, who had impressed against Zelda in his first match.
a few days before the match, we saw the picture - Raiden in his MGS4 getup. "cool" Raiden, if you will. half the board thought this was great; the other half was like "will people recognize who this is? is this Zero Suit Samus part 2?". Raiden had a generic name and an unfamiliar design to a lot of people. his one match was against the one guy he had zero chance against, Solid Snake, so he was as good as new. it was time to see if he would be of average strength or decent, because there was just no way he would lose to Sam Fisher.
when the match started, Raiden shot off to a decent lead. Sam Fisher is one of the most unpopular board vote characters ever, though -- I think Samus was beating him like 33-1 or something at one point -- so this wasn't really all that impressive. Raiden slowly built his lead to a thousand votes overnight, and then to 1400 by the time school got out. from there, it was ugly and embarrassing -- he was already doing poorly, but Sam Fisher was ripping into him with the xbox day vote. the lead shot below 1000, then below 700, and soon it was below 500. it seemed like Raiden would fight back some in the late hours, but he never did - stalling was the best he could do, and Fisher was still ripping votes off him until the last second of the poll. he got the lead down to 350, but never any closer. he never really threatened to win the match, but he sure as hell scared a lot of people who were overreacting, and the Raiden > Zero train was all but derailed.
Match Trends[]
