Results[]
Ulti's Analysis[]
| Division | North Division Final |
|---|---|
| Match # | 57 |
| Match Date | Thursday, August 28th, 2003 |
| Vote difference | 26,155 |
| Oracle Expectations |
Link - 60.38% 38 for - 0 against |
| GameFAQs Prediction |
Link - 72.17% (29,632 brackets) |
Almost 3/4ths of people having Link win his division should really tell you something about how dominant people thought he would be in this contest.
Anyhoo, NeoElfboy can handle the intro for this one:
But what if Samus [beats Sephiroth]? I didn't think it would happen due to Sonic revenge votes, but those just don't appear to be materialising at all. It appears that perhaps the revenge vote just isn't much of a factor, after all.
Samus/Link... interesting. On the surface, one is inclined to favour Link, based on the fact that Zelda has been big in recent years, but one has to go back to 1994 to find Samus' latest effort (don't even bother with SSB).
But... call me crazy... but if that happens, I think Samus will win. Reasons?
1. For the embittered Square fanatics, she represents the lesser of Nintendo's evils. 2. The tremendous amount of respect for the Metroid games, particularly Super Metroid (you know, the best-game-of-all-time jazz that several major video game reviewers have blessed it with) 3. TJF. Figuratively, that is. I know I love Samus for what she represents as far as female characters go, and I also know many others like me. A little girl power could propel her to victory.
As I said, call me crazy. I'm probably almost the only one predicting this. But I really do give Samus the edge if it comes to it.
That post was made in the 2002 stats topic when Samus was in the middle of building a 500 vote lead for herself. Samus would eventually lose the match to Sephiroth, but the Link/Samus stigma remained until the next contest for all of the reasons NEB lists above.
Thanks to little resistance in the North, we were finally greeted to the match we were all hoping to see in 2002. And for a little while, the match was fairly entertaining. Many people supported Samus in her upset campaign, and she was able to keep it close early. But it wasn't long before SFF started kicking in, and Samus's best efforts couldn't prevent her from being on the ass end of a 62-38 beating. Granted this wasn't hardcore SFF like seen in other Nintendo matches, but it was enough to make Samus look pretty bad when the stats came out post contest.
All through this contest, Samus seemed a bit off. Isaac did much better than people expected, and Squall went from being below 40% to being above it with ease during his match with Samus. And while Samus did well against Link, hard stats after the contest show that she went down after the release of her first game in eight years, Metroid Prime. That sounds just a tad ridiculous, and it proves that Link SFFd her pretty handily in this match. The odd thing about Samus is that this is really the only contest where she has ever disappointed. Save for one bad loss to Mario in 2005, she has done very well in just about every match of every other contest.
As for Link, this was his 10th win in a row in these contests. Two more would mean his second straight title, and it certainly didn't look like anyone would come close to him at this rate. Of the six characters remaining, Link didn't really have anyone to worry about. Cloud lost to Mario the previous year, and Mario got his ass kicked by Link. Sonic lost to Samus, who had just gotten her ass kicked by Link. Mario already proved that he was no threat, and Snake was probably too weak. This left Sephiroth and Mega Man, who at this point were the only two characters projected to even break 40% on Link in a match.