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Mario defeated Morrigan without serious trouble, yet the writeup viewed it as a second straight underwhelming performance compared with the contest's other elite characters. Cloud's next result therefore took on added importance for their expected meeting.

Aya stunned Donkey Kong with an early lead before he recovered and completed the contest's first major comeback. The writeup remembers the match for establishing both Donkey Kong's inconsistency and the early legend of Nintendo's morning vote.

Alucard followed his surprise win over Tails by beating Duke even more convincingly, turning an obscure entrant into an unexpected divisional semifinalist. The writeup also notes that weak opposition had helped make the run possible.

Cloud overwhelmed Pikachu and looked substantially stronger than Mario had through the same stage of the bracket. The match also became notable for Solarshadow's early vote-tracking work, a precursor to later poll-update culture.

Lara beat Ryo in an uneventful match, but once again failed to look like a true top seed against weak opposition. The writeup treats the result as another warning that stronger East Division entrants were likely to expose her.

Crono turned a heavily anticipated close match with Dante into an easy victory. The writeup says the result revealed how misleading their superficially similar first-round performances had been and made Crono a serious threat to Lara.

Aeris received an unexpectedly easy path after Tina eliminated Gordon Freeman and took full advantage of it. The writeup views her low seed as misleading and her trip to the divisional semifinals as well deserved.

Minor Knuckles upset hype disappeared almost immediately as Solid Snake controlled the match from the start. The writeup treats the result as confirmation that Snake belonged among the contest's serious contenders.

Pac-Man won another match that was never seriously in doubt, but the writeup saw his performance as further proof that he was badly overseeded. His weak half of the division still appeared likely to protect him from consequences.

Scorpion demolished heavily favored Max Payne after most of the board misread their first-round blowouts. The writeup treats the result as both a major surprise and evidence that mainstream popularity did not translate cleanly to GameFAQs.

Jill handled Bomberman without much suspense after already surviving the more dangerous Kirby matchup. The writeup says her two wins helped cement her as a recurring contest presence.

Link crushed Strider in a match the writeup considered completely predetermined. The main takeaway was that Link looked like one of the strongest title favorites while facing little meaningful resistance in his division.

Sonic beat Tidus more comfortably than some upset-minded observers expected and remained an elite contender. The writeup attributes Tidus's ability to avoid a worse defeat largely to his Square affiliation despite his personal unpopularity.

Ryu was a fashionable upset pick before the contest, but Samus controlled their match from the start. The result confirmed that her earlier win over Ken was not misleading and sent her toward an expected meeting with Sonic.

Mega Man followed his first-round destruction with another extraordinary blowout, this time against an entrant who had already won a match. The writeup remembers this as the point when he became the contest's breakout star and a credible threat to Sephiroth.

Sephiroth easily eliminated the much higher-seeded Crash and left no doubt that their seeds had badly misstated their relative strength. The writeup treats the match mainly as the final setup for the anticipated Mega Man showdown.