Results[]
Ulti's Analysis[]
| Division | 3 |
|---|---|
| Match # | 11 |
| Match Date | Sunday, September 28th, 2008 |
| Oracle Expectations |
Vincent Valentine - 47.51% Falco Lombardi - 25.53% GLaDOS - 17.08% Wander - 10.18% |
| GameFAQs Expectations |
Vincent first place (2pts) - 49.37% Vincent second place (1pt) - 35.89% Falco second place (2pts) - 36.94% Falco first place (1pt) - 26.57% |
| Advancing Prediction |
Vincent - 85.26% (36,579) Falco - 63.51% (27,248) |
One day after seeing Neku get destroyed, I got to watch another garbage can get squished. Good stuff. Wander and his game are both terrible.
Beyond that, this was yet another in a pretty long line of super predictable matches. Everyone knew Vincent would cruise to first place in this one, because he had beaten Crono in 2007. I'll spare people the rundown of moronic arguments everyone had about the Noble Nine when that happened, because everyone involved was acting like children over something completely meaningless. Vincent's job this contest was to kick names, take ass, and get ready for the potential Crono rematch down the line that we all wanted. Could he have performed better here? Maybe, but I've been doing this so long that I don't fret over some percentage fluctuations in early rounds anymore. I don't care. Whether Vincent scored 45% or 48% or 50% or whatever does not matter to me.
The second place choice was also very predictable, though when I checked the wayback machine, I was surprised to see some people thinking GLaDOS could beat Falco here. Maaaaaaaaybe if you did this match during the apex of Portal fandom and Brawl didn't exist, sure, but in a BrawlFEAR world? No chance. Falco was always going to get an easy second place here. Brawl was that relevant to people's predictions back then.
This actually helped set up a really fun round 2 match, which we'll get to when the time comes.
Stats and Analysis[]
Okay, so the order of the winners was never in question. Vincent Valentine had beaten Crono in the previous year, while Falco was Brawl character #4827. As much as BrawlFEAR had the capacity to succeed it was never going to put Falco over Vincent, and as much as it had the potential to fail there were two pieces of fodder beneath them. Or so we thought.
The end result here is a match where aside from one character, they ALL looked bad. Vincent didn't get nearly the number that some though he could score (thus putting him as the next in a long line of underperfoming obvious winners this round), Wander sucked to an even greater degree than people thought possible, and while one might be tempted to commend Falco's performance, there was a little problem there...
...specifically, letting GlaDOS get 43% on you.
what
GlaDOS was fodder. FODDER. Portal was a beloved, but niche addition to The Orange Box. And honestly, with the joke and Portal fanboyism votes, we could have easily seen a performance like this come from Weighted Companion Cube. But GlaDOS? I'm stunned that 20% of GameFAQs even knew her name, which isn't given in the course of the whole game. More than that, her picture is wholly unrecognizable, there's virtually no context clues there... honestly, this might be the most befuddling result of the whole contest to me. How does GlaDOS win updates against Falco? What does Portal do in a contest if this is legit?
One thing was pretty certain - Tidus and DK were in for a whole world of hurt after this. A stronger entry from Portal powered up with joke votes was a deadly force indeed.
Match Trends[]
Ngamer's Same Day Analysis[]
Match Prediction[]
Not an awful match, but don't see it being all that intense either. I never bought into the hype for GlaDOS being anything more than fun fodder that it would be worth a laugh to see in an official match pic (and there's certainly going to be plenty laughing tonight, it looks like!), so I'd be shocked if Falco is ever challenged beyond the first five minutes. Probably the best thing to keep an eye on here will be Vincent- he took down Crono without too much trouble last season, but with CT back on the upswing (maybe?) and there not being "a Link in the way" this time around, he still needs to put up solid numbers these first two rounds to cement his favorite status for that rematch.
Speaking of '07, just how good DID he look? Well...
Last Known Values
- Vincent - 36.25% (2007)
- Falco - new
- GlaDOS - new
- Wander - 10.04% (2007)
Wander looked awful in the match pic, performed awfully during the entire 24 hours of the poll, and finished up in an awful position on the final x-stats. Mario/Boss/Pac had no reason to LFF Wander; he's just legitimately one of the weakest characters we've even seen in a poll. And yet we brought him back? *shakes head sadly*
I'm pretty excited to see what Falco will be capable of here. SF didn't make the Game or Series Contests and Fox always gets placed in unwinnable positions, so this will pretty much be our first chance to see what the series is worth when given a fair shot. I think he's going to surprise some people by looking decent here, which would do wonders for me in terms of creating confidence in that crazy Fox > Sora upset I took in my bracket! GlaDOS... meh. I have a ton of respect for Portal and love Still Alive as much as anyone, but I knew she was going to look "like THAT" in the match pic which made my Falco pick an easy decision. Really happy to see her given a shot, but sadly it seems a given that WCC's going to be outdoing her by a healthy margin this season.
As for Vincent, I think he's in much the same position as Samus and Ganon the last two days. Obviously isn't going to be in any way threatened, but how he ends up could still be a strong indication as to where Square/Final Fantasy will be sitting here in 2008. Zack and Zidane seemed to point to something of a FF boost, but then Kefka bombed out and left us wondering. A big time performance for VV here would set alot of fears at rest in the Square camp, I'd have to think.
Soooo basically Vincent and Falco should be able to perform at full strength, while GlaDOS and Wander should be able to prove they have no strength. Throw THAT in your pot and... stir it! And you get:
- Vincent Valentine - 51.03%
- Falco Lombardi - 22.89%
- GlaDOS - 15.91%
- Wander - 10.16%
Mmm... if that were a cake, it'd be both delicious and truthful!
Ngamer Says: Vincent > Falco
Next Day Review[]
...holy smokes! Maybe it's unfair to call this a true "bombing" for Vincent, since even though I expected 50% from him some of that can be explained by GlaDOS eating up more percentage than we thought. But there's no way to discount what a great showing Falco is having here- I always thought he and Fox would have some serious power if they could stop drawing Nintendo opponents. Bring on Sora v Fox!