Results[]
Ulti's Analysis[]
| Division | Ruin Division |
|---|---|
| Match # | 09 |
| Match Date | Wednesday, May 11th, 2005 |
| Vote difference | 20,303 |
| Oracle Expectations |
Kefka - 70.28% 72 for - 0 against |
| GameFAQs Prediction |
Kefka - 88.17% (21,820 brackets) |
CJayC has quite the sense of humor. It was widely believed that this division would be the one to take down most brackets, and he aptly named it the Ruin Division. What a punny guy.
The first major issue with the Ruin Division was Kefka being a 1 seed. In 2003, Kefka was one of the most hyped newcomers coming into the contest. He responds to the hype by almost losing to Pac Man in the first round before being completely destroyed by Crono in the second. Granted Kefka was given one of the single worst match pics ever and he beat Pac Man on the backbone of his name alone, but still, a struggle is a struggle.
In 2004, Kefka is slapped right in the middle of the infamous Snake-Knuckles duo as a 7 seed. To the shock of everyone, Kefka takes it to Knuckles early and often to build a lead of around 200. Kefka was eventually buried with the day vote, but a hint of strength was there.
Now, in the Spring 2005 Contest, a character whose only win was a struggle against Pac Man is given a 1 seed. Sir Bormun was about the only person to see this coming, and everyone was naturally weary about how good a 1 seed Kefka would make. Plenty of people doubted whether or not he would even make it out of the second round, and even less people believed that he could actually win his division given the heavy hitters looming at the bottom of it. His match against Mithos was barely an issue, but it would likely be a telling sign of whether or not Kefka was truly in this thing for the long haul.
Even better was that the match picture clearly favored Kefka. He may have gotten the strawberry FFA look, but Mithos looked like Colette in her (his?) picture. Of all the villains in this contest, Mithos looked the least villainous of them all, and Kefka had the added bonus of Mithos not being prominent in his game until the tail end of it. For all intents and purposes, Kefka should have destroyed Mithos in this match.
(We'll ignore the fact that CJayC really screwed this match up and should have put a certain.... other form of Mithos in her (his?) place; way to ruin one of the best spoilers in gaming for everyone who had yet to play Tales of Symphonia, Ceej)
Despite the fact that most people knew Kefka would win, how strong he would wind up being in this match would be a telling sign of how he would do later. Kefka's big concern was getting rid of the stigma that his percentage will always drop during the day regardless of who he's facing, and when the match got underway, Kefka was very strong early on. He had 75% of the votes early, and was looking like he would dominate the match the way a 1 seed was supposed to.
But sure enough, Kefka's percentage began to gradually drop as the match progressed, and though Kefka made minor pushes to get his percentage climbing again, the entire thing essentially dropped like a rock all throughout the match with nothing but minor stalls from Kefka every so often to make himself look respectable. Mithos is a character in Tales of Symphonia that you barely see until the end of the game, is a character with a gigantic sister complex, is a character whose gender cannot possibly be determined with 100% certainty, yet is a character who completely embarrassed Kefka in this match. She (he?) may have had no chance of winning nor did she (he?) even come close, but taking over 10% off of a 1 seed's initial percentage as the match wore on is something to be proud of. I wonder how that certain... other character who should have been in Mithos's place would have fared.
We may not have seen any other Ruin Division character perform yet, but if Kefka struggled with an effeminate villain that you hardly ever see, it would be tough to imagine him truly holding his own come the divisional finals, and many people felt that Kefka's clock was ticking come the second round. Wesker over Kefka was a popular debate during this match, and from looking at these results, it's tough to say that the Wesker fans didn't have some good ground to stand on.
Match Trends[]
