The 2005 Character Battle came down to a much-hyped rematch of Mario vs Crono
| Announced: | July 1, 2005? |
|---|---|
| Started: | July 19, 2005 |
| Ended: | September 22, 2005 |
| Winner: | Regular bracket: Mario Tournament of Champions: Link |
| Contest Winner: | maar42 - 208 points |
| Notable matches: | Kefka/Vercetti, Magus/Knuckles, Ocelot/Pac-Man Master Chief/DK, Vincent/Squall, Mario/Samus, Snake/Bowser, Sonic/Mega Man |
Summer 2005 Contest was the 4th annual Summer Contest held on GameFAQs. Its official title was "The Great GameFAQs Character Battle IV." It featured a number of exciting matches and is considered by many B8ers to be the best Character Battle Ever.
| Regular Bracket | |||||||
| Mushroom Division | Mario Samus | Mario Snake | Mario Crono | Mario | |||
| (1) Mario (8) Joanna Dark | Mario Ness | Mario Zero | |||||
| (4) Ness (5) Carl Johnson | |||||||
| (3) Zero (6) Ryu Hayabusa | Zero Lloyd | ||||||
| (2) Lloyd Irving (7) Albert Wesker | |||||||
| Zebes Division | |||||||
| (1) Samus (8) Yuri | Samus Frog | Samus Ganondorf | |||||
| (4) Riku (5) Frog | |||||||
| (3) Ganondorf (6) Yuna | Ganondorf Auron | ||||||
| (2) Auron (7) Big Boss | |||||||
| Gear Division | Snake Bowser | ||||||
| (1) Solid Snake (8) Manny Calavera | Snake Zelda | Snake Sora | |||||
| (4) Vivi (5) Zelda | |||||||
| (3) Kratos (God of War) (6) Alucard | Alucard Sora | ||||||
| (2) Sora (7) Agent 47 | |||||||
| Dream Division | |||||||
| (1) Kirby (8) Cecil | Kirby Tidus | Kirby Bowser | |||||
| (4) Tidus (5) King of All Cosmos | |||||||
| (3) Bowser (6) Chun-Li | Bowser Ryu (SF) | ||||||
| (2) Ryu (Street Fighter) (7) Rikku | |||||||
| Flood Division | Crono Vincent | Crono Mega Man | |||||
| (1) Master Chief (8) CATS | M. Chief D.K. | M. Chief Crono | |||||
| (4) Donkey Kong (5) Sam Fisher | |||||||
| (3) Kefka (6) Tommy Vercetti | T. Vercetti Crono | ||||||
| (2) Crono (7) Zidane | |||||||
| Devil Division | |||||||
| (1) Dante (8) Terra | Dante Vincent | Vincent Squall | |||||
| (4) Sarah Kerrigan (5) Vincent Valentine | |||||||
| (3) Magus (6) Knuckles the Echidna | Knuckles Squall | ||||||
| (2) Squall Leonhart (7) Geno | |||||||
| Chaos Division | Sonic Mega Man | ||||||
| (1) Sonic the Hedgehog (8) Jin Kazama | Sonic Diablo | Sonic Tifa | |||||
| (4) Kratos Aurion (5) Diablo | |||||||
| (3) Tifa Lockheart (6) Vyse | Tifa Luigi | ||||||
| (2) Luigi (7) KOS-MOS | |||||||
| 20XX Division | |||||||
| (1) Mega Man (8) Conker | Mega Man Leon | Mega Man Yoshi | |||||
| (4) Gordon Freeman (5) Leon Kennedy | |||||||
| (3) Yoshi (6) Laharl | Yoshi Pac-Man | ||||||
| (2) Revolver Ocelot (7) Pac-Man | |||||||
| Tournament of Champions | ||
| Link Cloud | Link Sephiroth | Link |
| Sephiroth Mario | ||
Results and Analysis[]
Opinions on this contest were generally favorable. While the contest had no wire-to-wire nailbiter matches, the bracket was received as being fairly well put together. The decision to place Link, Cloud, and Sephiroth in a separate bracket received mixed opinions, specifically the decision to pit Link and Cloud against one another in the first round of the ToC.
Some interesting facts about the 2005 contest:
- - For the fourth year in a row, Gordon Freeman was placed in a match that many had him winning, and for the fourth year in a row he broke 40 percent on his opponent and still managed to lose. For the third in a row, this opponent has been a gunfighter.
- - Had Kefka beaten Tommy Vercetti, we would have been treated to a gratuitous rematch (from 2003) between Kefka and Crono.
- - This was the first year Knuckles the Echidna did not face Solid Snake in the second round, and accordingly it was the year he made the biggest splash in the contest, beating the heavily-favored Magus in a shocking upset before bowing out well to Squall.
- - Thanks to this bracket, Ganondorf has now beaten all three Final Fantasy X leads (Tidus, Yuna, and Auron).
- - This was the second tournament CATS received a face shot (the first was the previous spring's villains contest), and both contests show he did accordingly better with the face shot.
- - Rikku was the only seven seed to get into the top half of the X stats. She also managed to beat the lead female of her game, Yuna, in the unadjusted x-stats.
- - This was the first year Ryu did not lose to a member of the Noble Nine; oddly enough, his loss to Bowser remains his worst defeat.
- - The Ultimate Loser™ of the Contest was KOS-MOS: KOS-MOS lost to Luigi, who lost to Tifa, who lost to Sonic, who lost to Mega Man, who lost to Crono, who lost to Mario, who lost to Sephiroth, who lost to Link. Even with the TOC, the Ultimate Loser™ stays intact!
- - Had Mega Man defeated Crono, the Ultimate Loser™ would have been none other than Magus. Had Mario lost in the final, the Ultimate Loser™ would have been The King of All Cosmos. If Sonic defeats Mega Man, the Ultimate Loser™ would have been Ocelot.
Ulti's Analysis[]
This was the best character contest that CJayC could have possibly given us given how popular the X-Stats are. Not only did he clearly use the stats to make this contest as hard as possible, but he removed Clinkeroth from the main bracket to help make the contest more interesting, plus he removed the 9-16 seeds and made eight divisions of eight. This is exactly the twist that the contest needed, and kudos to him for taking the extra time to put it all together. I hope that all those people who whined for bracket night after night once nominations closed appreciate the time that Ceej put into making this thing, as well as the courtesy to allow all of our board jokes into the contest. Everyone knows that Manny and The King of All Cosmos don't make this thing under normal circumstances. Great contest all around, and if CJayC continues to put forth this type of effort these contests will never die. The of course rides on CJayC being willing to keep it all up, but I'm glad he went out and gave us our best contest since Spring 2004.
On that note, the standard ranking of the contests:
The only complaint I have about Summer 2005 was the lack of a true nail-biter. All the close matches were wide apart come the finish, with Vercetti/Kefka, Vincent/Squall and Sonic/Mega Man being the easy examples to cite. CJayC may not read these topics, but in case he does... nice job. Keep it up :)
Ngamer's Analysis[]
After an off year, CJay was back in form for 2005, putting together a carefully-crafted bracket that was helped along by the much-needed to decision to save the best (Clinkeroth) for last. Certainly '05 was the best bracket of the CJay era (since '03 pretty much created itself), but did it result in the best Contest? ...perhaps! '05 had everything, including awesome 50/50 affairs between powerful opponents in Mega Man/Sonic and Vincent/Squall, a hilarious choke-fest in Master Chief/DK, maybe the coolest R1 upset ever in Knuckles > Magus, and a very serious scare for the Noble Nine in Snake/Bowser, plus what was (for the board) a very unexpected upset run all the way to the Championship. Honestly, the only thing holding '05 back from a surefire #1 position was how badly Samus let us down in her massively-hyped battle against Mario. If the Nintendo boost would have been a little less powerful, so that Samus could have been in contention and then the Mario/Crono Final could have been closer to their slugfests of '02 and '03, I bet Summer 2005 would top a ton of people's "Best Contest Ever" lists.