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| - Of all the results that we had this year, none of them really have me going back and saying, "this should not have happened," like this one. There were bigger shocks, of course, but almost without exception there's an explanation, or at least a jaundiced eye and prism to look at the matches through. This thing may be underrated because no one cared about the participants involved, but in terms of "one and dones" it has a ton of not coincidental parallels with Grand Theft Auto/WarCraft. So when the match started and Ramza was under 20%, everyone's alarms went off.
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| abstract
| - Of all the results that we had this year, none of them really have me going back and saying, "this should not have happened," like this one. There were bigger shocks, of course, but almost without exception there's an explanation, or at least a jaundiced eye and prism to look at the matches through. This thing may be underrated because no one cared about the participants involved, but in terms of "one and dones" it has a ton of not coincidental parallels with Grand Theft Auto/WarCraft. Dante was the easy first in this match - there was a smattering of hype that he could break 50% in it, but that was mostly disregarded - with the second place slot supposed to easily go to Ramza. For those who don't know who Ramza is (and that appears to be a LOT of people these days), he's the protagonist of Final Fantasy Tactics. The same Final Fantasy Tactics that nearly beat - and many argue should have beaten - Metal Gear Solid in the Games Contest. Ramza himself didn't have quite the same luster, but in his sole contest outing in 2003 he put up 42% on Kirby. This was back when Kirby was worth 48% on Alucard, but with 2003 arguably being 'card's best year that's hardly shaming. Well, five years had passed, and Ramza had returned. The big question mark was going to be how much he had deteriorated since his last and only contest outing, but he was up against the wimpiest of wimpy fodder - Hogger, a joke in WoW that only WoW fans get, and Laharl, who to this day has only finished above PS3-exclusive Nathan Hale in a contest match. It might be closer than expected, it might even be ugly, but despite a few WoW fanatics' ramblings Ramza was considered to be a gimme here. So when the match started and Ramza was under 20%, everyone's alarms went off. It's not just that Ramza was uncomfortably close to Hogger - he was an unknown and, hey, maybe a combination of joke factor and WoW power was going to make him worth something. But both of them were sandwiching between Laharl, who is some of the fodderiest fodder you'll ever see make multiple contests. As the night went on Ramza couldn't even build his lead consistently on Laharl, gains turned to stalls, and by morning the two had basically become dead even. Unfortunately for the unsuspecting Ramza and Laharl slugging it out, Hogger had also managed to hang around within striking distance all night - and, as the day vote began his vote intake began to pretty much mirror that of the other two's (who knew the kiddies were so into pork these days?). Of course, in order to win Hogger would need to overtake the two, not just match them. That, of course, is the point where the singular entity of WoW actually mattered. Rallies were formed, the biggest MMO out there was alerted, and Hogger began to throw out vote spikes on a regular, if not consistent basis. There would be some stalling during the school vote, but after the ASV hit Hogger was ahead and stayed that way for the rest of the match. There was a final, crazy push for Ramza at the very end of the match (look at the updater to see how much so), and while he tore into Hogger at a ludicrous rate considering the votes that were coming in, it was too little, too late for it to matter in the end. What was notable here was not the surprising strength of the upsetting character here, but how damn weak the favorite turned out to be. Just like GTA, Ramza was startlingly feeble, and while his weakness was easier to explain than GTA's, it was perhaps more stunning considering the caliber of his competition. We're talking about two LAHARL-level entities, and Ramza may very well have lost to Laharl here if he hadn't been counter-rallied against Hogger's push (to say nothing of brackets). Now, unlike GTA/WC, the format did play tricks here, and if you take Dante out of the picture to boil this down to a three-way Ramza's an easy call. But one just has to wonder how strong FFT even is today, and how much of that strength is derived out of nothing but franchise voting. It's not like there's much of an ensemble cast going on in that game or anything - Ramza is the clear main character, and the big fan-favorite doesn't even join until the game's halfway done. I would have picked Cecil to have won here. I would have picked BARTZ, and he's never even been in a contest! I think I may have taken every non-optional FF6 character to win here. Ramza showed us exactly how pitiful a Final Fantasy character could actually be in these contests, and for that alone I will remember this match.
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