A Look at Japan's *WEEKLY* キャラランク "Chara Ranks" (use Official Sticky for Tier Debate)

[Yuna]

For the love of god, people are so stupid sometimes.

Tiers don't matter if the players facing each other aren't of equal skill either roughly or when taking the matchup into consideration (whether both players know each others' characters well and especially how to play against it with their own character).

There is also such a thing as individual matchups. Even if a characer can beat 5 of these characters, 5 of those can destroy it while they don't destroy the other 5.

Tiers exist. "My" side have shown extensive proof for why they do. The Japanese tierlist changes because they don't really sit down and discuss overall ultimate potential. Their tierlist and rankings is simply based on tournament results (for the most part), which is why it might be a bit skewed.

Not to mention that the Japanese Smash scene is tiny. They don't have that many skilled players. Of course the character rankings (who beats who as whom) will be skewed. They don't have that many people to develop the metagame.

 

[mugwhump]

This is really interesting, it's always neat to see what's going on over the Pacific.

 

[Shadow Light Master]

Awesome, Pikachu is high, just like I thought he was!

 

[da K.I.D.]

when char. are set into tiers, its basically how much of the cast any one character can beat. the more ppl one char can beat the higher they are up the list. ppl have to realize that tier list can essentially be looked at like this:

lets say there are 26 chars. Chars. A through Z
character A (we will imagine that D3's chaingrab worked overwhelmingly well for this example) can eat biscuits right out of the hands of characters B through T.... that is 19 out of 26 characters that get ***** by DDD. however, character Z (we will say sonics up-b only went half as high, and he is slower than captain falcon, dooming him in terms of pro play.) has all the essential abilities needed to smack on D3 and he does it everytime the 2 fight. sonic aslo has the abilty to completely beat chars, U, V, W, X, and Y. that is only 6 characters.

using a little bit of math we see that D3 can beat 19 chars consistently while sonic can only consistently beat 6 characters. we also see that DDD has 13 more positive matchups for him than sonic, and as a result D3 will be that much higher than the blue blur on the tier list. and that D3 will be seen as a better character than sonic by far even though sonic can beat him

these things determine the tiers.

and also because of the new (I think) balence between chars. counter picks are going to play a much greater role in this game. and however many chars each char. effectively counterpicks will determine there place on the tier list

 

[Jimiisama]

Maybe the original post needs to stress that these ARE NOT TIER LISTS. I'm not saying it's OP's fault, but some posters seem to be taking it as tier lists (at least the one-liners are). They're just ranking the characters based simply on tournament results. I've seen some replies claim that this is and accurate or inaccurate tier list, but that argument shouldn't even be here for this thread; if anything, you can argue whether this accurately reports the week's tournament results or not because THAT'S ALL THIS IS!

And Yuna's absolutely right about the Japanese Smash scene. Japan has a scene for almost every fighting game, but only a handful games have major national scenes. So you can't always compare Japanese tournament results to American tournament results because the two countries are going to play differently. In Third Strike, there's a character named Makoto, and I hear people refer to her as "Japanese Top Tier"; Japan has a much bigger Third Strike scene than the US, and consequently has much better players and different tiers. Similarly, games like MVC2 or Smash are much more popular in the US, so American players will most likely be better, and with more pro players you get a better developed meta-game.

Side Note: I'm not sure how Sol-Badguy got into this discussion... lol... but yeah... He's a very noob friendly character, but he's no where near top tier at all in Accent Core (C-tier actually). I guess you can compare him to someone like Ike in Brawl; a lot of players had trouble against Ikes early on, but as we learn more about the game, we learn to work around Ike's noob-friendliness.

 

[ShumPenPo]

Jiggs makes me sad I will find something that makes her godly.

 

[choknater]

yeah i would like to see the reasons behind jiggs' placing.

 

[VersatileBJN]

lack of play, lack of interest in making her good, etc.

I always believed Japanese way of forming tiers is flawed. You can't depend exclusively on tournaments I feel.

Ken won like most tournaments he attended, but yet Marth isn;'t even top 3.

Tournament should be taken into consideration, yes, but raw potential of a character is more important as well as match ups.

An Ile player can win a tournament avoiding a talented Snake and D3 completely. While Ike is good, he loses to those character badly. Therefore, tournaments shouldn't be the sole(or even primary) focus of tiering. If that were the case, the player or character better win multiple tournaments and be able to overcome match ups thought to be really one sided(Snake vs Ike)

 

[Ayato]

The people posting on the Japanese forum don't seem to be taking these as a tier list either, but rather a sort of "power ranking" indicator by player. Like many of the people in this thread have mentioned before, this isn't based on potentials. It's based on currently tangible, numerically measurable information. That said, I'll give info a few of the discussion posts that I was able to find and translate.

It seems a few players are cynical about Ganon's placement. Like many in the U.S., they seem to see him as among the worst, with 2 people citing him as "THE WORST."

More than a few people disagree with the S level rankings, particularly with regard to Wolf and Snake. Some have mentioned that Snake and Wolf perform along par with "A" rank characters. 2ch.net's ranking list cites Snake as an A character.

The OP made an observation that ranks A through D seem to have stabilized with regard to last week's ranking. There is currently little differentiation. This is more than obvious, though.

Two people cited R.O.B. as being the "strongest." There's a general consensus that He, Falco, and Metaknight belong in the S class currently.

There's little to no discussion that I've been able to find about ranks A through D. No mention of Jiggly, Falcon, Mario, Luigi, etc. I only see posts like....950-1000, so....

People in Japan really don't like Ganon right now it seems.


EDIT:
In one of the older posts, I found this:
【ゴッド】スネーク　ロボット　メタナイト
【上の上】ファルコ　ピット
【上の中】トゥーンリンク ゲーム＆ウォッチ マルス ディディー

【上の下】フォックス　ピカチュウ シーク ウルフ ゼロサム ワリオ アイクラ　サムス ルイージ　マリオ　ルカリオ
【中の上】ピーチ　オリマー デデデ　クッパ　ドンキー　リュカ　カービィ

【中の中】リンク　アイク　ネス　ポケモントレーナー
【中の下】ソニック　ゼルダ
【下の上】プリン
【下の中】
【最弱キャラ争い】ガノン ヨッシー

I'm too lazy to translate the stuff around it, but it's got "Ikki's ranks" plastered all over the original post, so I'm assuming this is one of the conceptions he's drawn from his observations. It's really old though.

Literal Translation:
[God] Snake, Rob, Metaknight
[Upper-Upper] Falco, Pit
[Upper-Middle] Toon Link, Game and Watch, Marth, Diddy
[Upper-Bottom] Fox, Pikachu, Shiek, Wolf, Zamus, Wario, Ice Climbers, Samus, Mario, Lucario
[Middle-upper] Peach, Olimar, Dedede, Bowser, Donkey Kong, Lucas, Kirby
[Middle-middle] Link, Ike, Ness, Pokemon Trainer
[Middle-bottom] Sonic, Zelda
[Lower-upper] Jiggly
[Lower-middle] None
[Worst] Ganon, Yoshi
The poster says he doesn't know about C Falcon yet. This was back in February though. Just thought I'd post this for comparison/archiving purposes.

Also, a good amount of people disagree with what Ikki said in this post. Like vastly. I haven't bothered reading what was said past the next 10 posts, but the jist of it was that Yoshi belongs at least in the middle-middle level and that "this character and that character" couldn't possibly be right. This one was drafted early, so there's a HUGE amount of disagreement amongst the posters.

Note that about this second part, I didn't really read much, I just translated the list. The post was dated 2/26/08. If any of the info is misleading regarding this (for other people translating that board) then go ahead and clarify. I sort of felt like practicing my Japanese a bit, and by this part I got tired, just curious. I think it's interesting to see how this list evolved though, regardless of whether or not the context I put it in is proper.

 

[indie_dave]

The people posting on the Japanese forum don't seem to be taking these as a tier list either, but rather a sort of "power ranking" indicator by player. Like many of the people in this thread have mentioned before, this isn't based on potentials. It's based on currently tangible, numerically measurable information. That said, I'll give info a few of the discussion posts that I was able to find and translate

***

lol thx Ayato +rep from me, w/e that's worth
i would, however, be more careful in saying that ranks A through D have stabilized--i agreed with choknater in saying they're good indicators of general placement since several rank values have not changed over the past several weeks (ex. DDD). take a look at the movement going on between especially A-down; my point is that watching japan chara ranks are good indication of how current metagame is progressing taking into account BIG movement, as in Ike--this is a good earmark of which charas to watch because their tourney implementation is significantly changing with new techs, better players, etc.
i'll see what i can scrounge up from their boards myself and i'll dig around for xlaters to do some legwork too xD

Tiers exist. "My" side have shown extensive proof for why they do. The Japanese tierlist changes because they don't really sit down and discuss overall ultimate potential. Their tierlist and rankings is simply based on tournament results (for the most part), which is why it might be a bit skewed.

Not to mention that the Japanese Smash scene is tiny. They don't have that many skilled players. Of course the character rankings (who beats who as whom) will be skewed. They don't have that many people to develop the metagame.

Maybe the original post needs to stress that these ARE NOT TIER LISTS. I'm not saying it's OP's fault, but some posters seem to be taking it as tier lists (at least the one-liners are). They're just ranking the characters based simply on tournament results. I've seen some replies claim that this is and accurate or inaccurate tier list, but that argument shouldn't even be here for this thread; if anything, you can argue whether this accurately reports the week's tournament results or not because THAT'S ALL THIS IS!

Yuna and Jimiisama, great points.
i'm going to change the thread title to better reflect that this isn't a refutation of "tiers" generally. one sec..

the wish for this topic was for ppl to catch the joke (this NOT being a true tier discussion and all) and be able to discuss developments in chara placements outside of the congested stickies and their endless intra-debates. (mayyybe i'll navigate those threads come summer when i have time/patience)

i really should have been more careful in saying japan's metagame is more developed, having the game earlier and all, but as you guys have pointed out that's not entirely true.


choknater and ShumPenPo
hopefully jiggs rationale/analysis (from the japan boards) is out there. Ayato?? Maki Maki???????
it'd take me awhile to xlate that stuff

btw you got crazy majorly jerk 2v2 combos with jiggs ShmPo XD
personal opinion (that i think is factoid): brawl is a wayyyy better 2v2 game anyway

 

[Ayato]

If I have time, I'll look. I don't usually have this much free time on my hands, so don't expect much from me.
Oh, and about the volatility of the power rankings, I didn't bother comparing the one that said "A-D is mostly the same" to the previous week's. According to your listings, there's a lot of movement. The poster on the Japanese board commented on it being not though, at least from the post in the link posted on the 4/03 ranking. Something along the lines of "A kara D made no aida ni wa, amari sa wa nai." I just regurgitate, really. It takes me a bit to translate, too, as I'm not fresh on my Kanji and have to translate them character by character at times. I can get about 60% of them read first go, but I use microsoft word as a dictionary for the rest haha.

Also I agree in that 2v2 is better in Brawl, at least in some aspects (certainly VARIETY).

 

[Frothylark]

Yeah, there's some disagreements in the thread. Also they say the difference between A to D ranks aren't that much.

 

[I.T.P]

I wonder why when I opened this a couple weeks back It was locked and this one isn't...

Mod Preference FTL. this should be in the Tier discussion IMO

 

[Fishcake56]

This information is delicious.

 

[Suic]

I don't know where y'all got that info about where "tires don exit", but it was a post by someone late at night that got really pissed at the argument and posted that in all caps...oblivious to the spell check feature.

 

[GoForkUrself]

Wolf is a beast. Perhaps Japanese players can perfectly control wolf's illusion cancel, and that would certainly earn him some S-class action. Pit was overplayed in the Tourney scene, and now the Japanese players are learning how to beat the camping Pit. Until Pit users learn some new ways to play, he won't be on the rise again.
But really my question is if their Koopa is the same Bowser we have. I can infinite jump with bowser, and I enjoy using him, but there is no way I can picture him doing that well in the tourney scene. Perhaps they do have some crazy tech like infinite jumping no matter how high of the ground or even off stage.

 

[Taymond]

Wolf is a beast. Perhaps Japanese players can perfectly control wolf's illusion cancel, and that would certainly earn him some S-class action. Pit was overplayed in the Tourney scene, and now the Japanese players are learning how to beat the camping Pit. Until Pit users learn some new ways to play, he won't be on the rise again.
But really my question is if their Koopa is the same Bowser we have. I can infinite jump with bowser, and I enjoy using him, but there is no way I can picture him doing that well in the tourney scene. Perhaps they do have some crazy tech like infinite jumping no matter how high of the ground or even off stage.

*laughs* Well, they're still playing the same game as us, I assure you.

The fact the Bowser can only infinite jump over land here would suggest that he likely can only infinite jump over land there, as well. Geographically doesn't change how game mechanics work. If they can do any other infinite jumping than the kind we do, chances are word would have trickled back to SWF and we'd know about it.

 

[Corigames]

Mod Preference FTL

I know what you mean. I made a thread about how we should call tripping "Walk canceling" because it makes it sound more like an AT than... what ever you would call tripping. It go locked within 5 minutes. The mod said that we needed less "silly" threads. This while there was a "funny pictures thread" (something that is silly and in the wrong board) and a "Things you say while playing" thread. Mods, as it says in the ToU, can only remove posts if they find the post to be out of place.

Therefore, flaming without an argument is remove able, off-topic discussion is remove able, etc. The only other thing I know would be hacking or word filter by-passing. Mods choose what they want, there is no written law as far as I know.

On subject, this thread should be a sub section of the normal tier debate considering that's all this is.

 

[Nobie]

People are talking about how Ganondorf is doing so poorly.

Did you see that he jumped up 4 entire rankings, going from G to D?

 

[choknater]

any updates yet?

nobie, they decreased the number of rankings probably because the differences between ranks were reduced (balance?)

 

[indie_dave]

latest update in OP!
discuss!! and hopefully..
enjoy!! (or don't...it's really your choice; just have a good excuse if you don't)

THE LISTS POSTED BELOW IN THIS THREAD ARE NOT "TIERS"
THEY ARE WEEKLY TOURNAMENT DATA COMPILATIONS FROM JAPAN


latest update: 4/10/08 japan list
^/v (up/down) denotes movement from LAST week's list
my take:
hmmmmmz not entirely sure what to make of this update. it's almost exactly the same as 2 weeks ago, with notable shifts up top in S-class, and biggest movement UP for Lucario and DK compared to 2 weeks ago
again, take it or leave it for what it's worth. /shrugs
also, there is no explanation in the same post as to what the asterisks might signify
as always, anybody able and willing to look closer please be our guest ^_^
4/10/08 japan キャラランク "chara rank" list
http://game13.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/famicom/1207761820/282-382
S. Snake, Falco(^), MK(^), ROB(v)
A. Fox(^)
B. G&W(^^^), Diddy(^), Toon(^^^), Pit(^^^^^), M4rfu(v)
C. ICs(vvv), Wolf(vvv), Olimar(^^^^^), ZeroSamus(^^^), Pikachu(vvv), *Mario(^^^), Lucas(v), *Lucario(^^^^^)
D. Kirby(^^^), Sheik(vvv), DDD(vvv), Luigi(^^^), Wario
E. *Koopa(vvvvv), Samus(vvv), Zelda(vvvvv), *DK(^), Ness(^^^), Peach(vvvvv), Link(^^^)
F. Ike(vvvvv), *Sonic(^), CF(^), Purin(^^^), *PokeTore(vvv), Yoshi(vvv)
G. Ganon(v)

 

[Browny]

Wooo go lucario !! Hes going all the way to the top, you heard it here first

only thing that surprises me in that list is Zelda...
maybe a WTF would be more appropriate

 

[ellelaby's younger brother]

It looks like Falco is second now. I expect him to move up about one place every week from now. No joke, he is too good and has too many awesome techniques to count.

 

[Yuna]

Wooo go lucario !! Hes going all the way to the top, you heard it here first

only thing that surprises me in that list is Zelda...
maybe a WTF would be more appropriate

Again, the list is just a list of how well the characters are doing for their friendlies and tournaments ATM, if I've understood things correctly.

The Japanese scene is quite small if you only look at the competitive Melee (and now Brawl) players. So all results will be skewed. If no one's maining Zelda and becoming really good with her, of course she'll be far down.

The list not a comparison of how the characters fare against each other, it's a comparison of individual player skill. If the best player in Japan chooses to play a Low Tier character and beats the others due to superior mindgames, then that character will rise too far up. Meanwhile, if no one's playing as Toon Link, of course he'll be too far down.

 

[Ch0zen0ne]

Yuna's Sig calls for massive migration away from the boards... how dare you sir.. How Dare You.

 

[ShadowLink84]

Yuna's Sig calls for massive migration away from the boards... how dare you sir.. How Dare You.

YEAH HOW COULD YOU BE SUCH A MEANY HEAD!?

 

[k4polo]

well according to this my girl is doing fine lol. But seriously Zelda,DDD, Marth, and Samus, are my surprise placements here. It is very interesting. These tiers are gonna flip upside down and sideways this game haha.

Also I agree with Yuna. This is nothing to take seriously about. Ganon players don't give up. Just use these as an example of maybe how people feel of certain characters or tourney results.Not a tier list as any tier list now is way too early.

 

[k4polo]

Also liek to add that it is sad that Japan is not competitively into the game as us. Over the years, I can tell SF,VF,Tekken, dominate the fighting scene over there. And smash is not as big over there. I mean the elitest tourney(Tougeki) in Japan held every year doesn't have smash in it.

 

[Yuna]

YEAH HOW COULD YOU BE SUCH A MEANY HEAD!?

I'm all for an intelligence-based cleansing of these boards. Because then at least we'd get more intelligent discussion and less stupid discussion going.

 

[ShadowLink84]

Meh what can you expect? They prefer more traditional fighters.

I'm all for an intelligence-based cleansing of these boards. Because then at least we'd get more intelligent discussion and less stupid discussion going.

You didn't take me seriously did you?

 

[Ch0zen0ne]

Yuna is olde school Team Ben.. kindof

 

[Jimiisama]

Also liek to add that it is sad that Japan is not competitively into the game as us. Over the years, I can tell SF,VF,Tekken, dominate the fighting scene over there. And smash is not as big over there. I mean the elitest tourney(Tougeki) in Japan held every year doesn't have smash in it.

Fast-paced, wide-area, easy-to-pickup games tend to appeal more to Americans; games like Marvel and Smash are really popular here, but don't always fly well in Japan. I don't know why it is, but games like Marvel can make you look really good even if you aren't very good. Then again, games like Guilty Gear are popular in Japan, but that might be because you need a BA in Guilty Gear just to play one of them.

 

[S2]

Well the US is strange in that while Smash is ultra popular here, most fighting games are not. People who play fighting games tend to be very hardcore, but for the most part they aren't that popular of a genre beyond the hardcore and a few distinct series that have casual appeal (DOA, SC, SF, etc).

Its pretty impossible to be a top tournament player in multiple current fighters, so you tend to see hardcore communities rise up around certain fighters. Just so happens that Smash took off in the US in a way that say, KoF didn't. Initial appeal probably makes a big difference. Something like MvC2 is going to garner a ton of interest stateside simply due to the characters.

As far as the weekly list, don't discount it. The Japanese players who do play are very good. This isn't meant as tier list, but as statistical info about character placement from tournament/friendly results. This stuff might change as players start dominating with different characters. The game is still early and even from these results were seeing subtle changes as characters slip up and down each week.

 

[Ch0zen0ne]

YEAH HOW COULD YOU BE SUCH A MEANY HEAD!?

I'm all for an intelligence-based cleansing of these boards. Because then at least we'd get more intelligent discussion and less stupid discussion going.

You didn't take me seriously did you?

This exchange made me go "tehehe"

 

[VersatileBJN]

Whats up with Japanese in this game anyway? Any vids of them playing? I don't think people should just instantly say "ZOMG JAPANESE! They're def better than us and have a better mental approach!"

 

[.kR0]

Yuna would be great working at the border and deporting illegal immigrants.

 

[choknater]

perhaps the japan like to do april fools too and the previous list was a joke?

haha, who knows.

 

[Jimiisama]

Its pretty impossible to be a top tournament player in multiple current fighters, so you tend to see hardcore communities rise up around certain fighters. Just so happens that Smash took off in the US in a way that say, KoF didn't. Initial appeal probably makes a big difference. Something like MvC2 is going to garner a ton of interest stateside simply due to the characters.

Actually, most fighting game players play multiple games competitively (and many pros are pro in several games). Look at the top winners for any major multi-game fighter tourney, and you'll see a lot of the same names for each game. Although, keep in mind fighters can be separated into many subgenres, and players tend to play games within those subgenre. So players that play CVS2 will possibly also play Third Strike and Super Turbo, since they're all SF-style games (2 of which being SF). Players who play Guilty Gear may play other fast paced fighters (GG-clones) like Arcana Hearts or Melty Blood (although these games aren't very popular in the US.. probably because GG also isn't very popular in the US). So Smash players tend to just play Smash games because it's the only fighter that really fits into that subgenre.

 

[Crom]

Interesting results

subscribing

 

[samdaballer]

Hey Indie Dave are there any vids of any of these japanese tournies? i would really enjoy watching how they play