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Tifa routed Geno and remained one of the few Final Fantasy VII characters still looking consistently strong. The writeup also uses the match to revisit Geno's extraordinary history of repeated contest appearances without a win.

Mega Man weathered Magikarp's pre-planned push and then dominated, while Geno was crushed into last. The result became the first major test of Mega Man against the contest's Pokémon rally threat.

Rally: The writeup says Magikarp entered the match with a pre-planned rally and briefly stayed even with Mega Man before the favorite pulled away.

Ness overwhelmed Geno and restored confidence in himself before the next round. Geno's inability to resist even Ness's fanbase overlap is treated as evidence that he should no longer receive regular contest nominations.

SFF: The writeup explicitly says Ness SFFed Geno, using the scale of Geno's collapse to argue that he had little independent contest strength.

Bowser and Phoenix advanced with almost no suspense, giving the contest a rare straightforward result. The writeup's main takeaway is that Phoenix now looked more like a naturally competitive entrant than a Board 8 novelty.

Squall settled a long-running strength debate with Aeris, while Akuma's debut was respectable despite a field crowded with Square characters. The writeup treats Akuma's showing as evidence that better bracket placement could have produced wins.

Squall overwhelmed Geno in a match whose main question was how much shared-fanbase suppression would appear. The result also helped frame the now-unpredictable Devil Division after Magus's upset loss.

SFF: The writeup says Squall likely applied some SFF to Geno, a Square-created side character from Super Mario RPG, and uses that as evidence for how Squall might have treated Magus.