Results[]
Ulti's Analysis[]
| Division | North Division Semi Final |
|---|---|
| Match # | 49 |
| Match Date | Wednesday, August 20th, 2003 |
| Vote difference | 33,441 |
| Oracle Expectations |
Link - 64.71% 50 for - 1 against |
| GameFAQs Prediction |
Link - 84.53% (34,708 brackets) |
Few people actually believed that Link/Magus was the hyped "true final" of this contest after Magus's flop against Ganondorf, but it's safe to say that Magus performed very well in his final match of 2003 -- perhaps too well.
Fun fact: Everyone knows that I snapped my foot in half after beating Balk in the Calc SCC (cement floors in bedrooms suck ass). That actually happened when this match was less than an hour old. After killing Balk, I spent another couple of hours killing Altima, then I drove to a nearby college's computer lab (I didn't have a computer until after I graduated high school, which would explain the lack of PC RPGs on my recent top ten list that was posted on the homepage) to post everything in one of the SCC topics. I had a stick shift car at the time, and I still don't know how I managed to drive 20 minutes away given that I had to use my left foot to drive the stupid thing.
I also checked out this match while I was there, and I was absolutely stunned to see that Magus was just barely under 40% against the infallible Link one round after almost losing to Ganondorf. I mean, Link is the same guy that had Sephiroth within a few percents of 40. I thought for sure that Link would crush the hell out of Magus and stake his place as this contest's dominant character with ease.
Well after seeing all of this damn hype about Magus for a month and a half, I went home, went to bed, and started up a Chrono Trigger game via Final Fantasy Chronicles. Needless to say, I wasn't disappointed and could see why everyone loved Magus so much back in 2003. But Magus > Link hype? To this day, I have no idea how all of that began. Crono coming close to Mario and Magus being so far ahead of Crono so as to challenge Link are two completely different things.
Eventually the morning and day votes caused Magus to fall from his 40% down to under 35, but Link has always kicked ass during the day; consequently, Chrono Trigger characters have always tanked during those same time periods. It's a wonder that Magus only lost 5%, and I wonder how much the Magus hype played into Magus doing so well in this match. Most of the time I'd call a 65-35 affair utter destruction on the part of the winner, but in this match against this guy in Summer 2003, flirting with 40% was no joke.
Unfortunately, everyone knows what happens to Magus next. His matches against the Zelda duo of Link and Ganondorf paired with the hype stemming from this contest caused him to be one of the most overrated busts of all time. He went from beating Ganondorf to losing to Knuckles in the span of two years, and every time someone mentioned that something was amiss about Magus, it always came back to 2003. Did board hype really make enough of a difference so as to cause Magus to overperform by this much? Who knows. The other factor that is always brought up is that Chrono Trigger characters seem to overperform when they get their sprites in a match pic, and in this match we saw Magus's sprite against the Link sprite from the original Legend of Zelda. Other matches involving CT characters could suggest that this is a valid claim somewhat, but again, overperforming by this much? And that doesn't explain how Magus was able to beat Ganondorf while his horrid artwork was in the match pic.
Perhaps we'll never truly know the answer. The other thing that came out of this match is that for the first time in two years and nine matches, Link seemed beatable. Granted Sephiroth never came close to Link, but allowing an optional side character who is an NPC for well over half of Chrono Trigger to almost break 40% on you can't be good news. Then again, making Link look bad and actually beating him weren't the same thing.