Results[]
Ulti's Analysis[]
| Division | North Division |
|---|---|
| Match # | 35 |
| Match Date | Sunday, August 4th, 2002 |
| Vote difference | 13,419 |
| GameFAQs Prediction |
Alucard - 28.78% (4,824 brackets) |
If Alucard's "shocking" victory over Tails didn't cause everyone to notice how strong he was, making it to the Sweet 16 over the 3-seeded Duke Nukem did the trick. Not only did Alucard take down Duke Nukem easier than he did Tails, but Duke wasn't even able to break 40% on Alucard. Remember, before this contest, virtually no one on board 8 even knew who Alucard was, yet here he was taking down the likes of Tails and Duke Nukem as if he were a contest elite from the beginning.
Mario and Donkey Kong in the Sweet 16 made enough sense, but Alucard!? Who would have thought? The only real issue with Alucard is that even though he was likely stronger than everyone gave him credit for (only 28.78% of bracketmakers thought he would make it this far, meaning that even the people who knew who he was were skeptical), the respective weakness of his opponents also played into Alucard's two victories. Tails is easily the weakest of the four Sonic characters to ever appear in the contest, and Duke Nukem's has-been status places him weaker than Tails. That's pretty pathetic, and the result of this was a pass into the Divisional Semifinal round for Alucard. All Alucard needed to do now was pray to all that was unholy in his own little world that Pikachu somehow managed to take Cloud down; Cloud winning would surely mean the end of him.
Duke Nukem, like Donkey Kong, obviously suffered has-been status in this contest. During Nukem's prime, he would have likely taken down Alucard with relative ease. But because of a throng of Forever setbacks, Duke had to rely on the strength of old games that weren't popular on GameFAQs in the first place. The only good thing about Nukem in this match was his match picture, and when that's your ace in the hole, you have issues.
On a random side note, everyone claims that Crono's success caused both he and his game to inexplicably rise every year. Couldn't the same be said about Alucard? Symphony of the Night has gone from being an unknown cult game to one of our board's most beloved titles, after all.