(3)Xenoblade Chronicles vs (14)Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest 2015

Ulti's Analysis
This match generated a lot of pre-contest hype, and unlike most round 1 matches that get hyped up, this one was worth arguing about. The Xenoblade/DKC2/Fire Emblem/Mario Maker fourpack was among the weakest in contest history, and past that there was a chance that the winner of this could beat the Banjo-Kazooie/Symphony of the Night winner.

I ended up picking Donkey Kong Country 2, because of FLOWCHART™ reasons: Nintendo > Squaresoft > Japanese RPG > Japanese > RPG > old > new > contest experience > top option > everything else. When in doubt, picking Nintendo will rarely do you wrong. The FLOWCHART™ is honestly a joke I made in two seconds, but the more I think about it the more accurate it gets. How often has it really been wrong since the big Kingdom Hearts boost of 2003?

It was also a pick against Xenoblade, which despite its very loud fanbase, is an extremely obscure game even by GameFAQs standards. Not that it's Xenoblade's fault, of course. I know it's a good and well-done game, don't get me wrong, but don't forget that this is the game that spawned this now-infamous Jimquisition video that just shit all over Nintendo's idiotic localization practices: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/3642-Nintendo-of-America

So after that nonsense happened, gamers whined a lot and the game was finally localized. Usually I'd bash gamers who whine too much, but this is a case where they had every right to. Here was a game people were willing to buy on the spot, and Nintendo was virtually giving people the middle finger and daring them to pirate it. Nintendo reluctantly gave North America the game, and to date it's sold half a million units, with a sequel on the way. That's actually an insane number given it was released at the very end of the Wii's life cycle with no promotion at all. Skulk even got into Smash Bros 4, which was bound to get the game extra votes.

Hell, Xenoblade even had Donkey Kong's laughable contest history in close matches on its side. It's impossible to discuss any debated DK match without bringing up these gems:

http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/973-north-division-round-2-aya-brea-vs-donkey-kong http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/1740-midgar-division-round-1-vivi-vs-donkey-kong http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/2106-flood-division-round-2-master-chief-vs-donkey-kong http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/1351-west-division-round-2-donkey-kong-vs-tommy-vercetti http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/1605-division-8-round-1-donkey-kong-vs-duck-hunt

I know they weren't all losses and that Donkey Kong Country is a much more respect entity than Donkey Kong the character, but holy crap. There is no way to have any faith in Donkey Kong in any close match anymore.

The point here is there was no real way to know who would win this, given both games had good points for and against it come actual match time. When the match actually came, we were treated to the closest 24 hour 1v1 wire to wire poll in contest history. These two games were tied for the first 30 minutes, then overnight Donkey Kong quickly built up a 100 vote lead. A lot of people assumed the match was over at this point, since even if Xenoblade came back and did anything, the day vote would likely favor the "more Nintendo" of the two games -- DKC2 being that game in this case. It had the SNES pedigree in a contest loaded with 90s dominance.

As we all know, this wouldn't exactly be what happened. Xenoblade slowly got rid of the 100 vote lead going into the dead zone, and tied things up at 4 in the morning. From there it began building its own lead and peaked at a lead of 290 at 7:30 am. The number 290 was the peak lead either side had in this match, and is our new record holder for closest 1v1 24 hour wire to wire match ever. What Shadow of the Colossus and MGS2 accomplished was neat and all, but it was a 12 hour match. I don't consider that the real record.

Anyway, so Xenoblade had this lead of 290 at 7:30 am. Had it won the morning vote, it would have easily won the match. Instead the morning vote was ever-so-barely won by Donkey Kong Country 2, which began the process of performing the two-steps-forward-one-step-back dance on the lead. Every time it would cut 10, it would give back 8 or 9 votes later. But it was, overall, trending the lead downwards. After this continued all morning long with Xenoblade never really acting like it wanted to win the match, things were tied up around lunch time.

Now you know how in the stats topic we always joke around about vote barriers? It actually was a vote barrier in this match. Once DKC2 tied the match and began building its own lead, it would reach these milestones that were untouchable. The 100 vote barrier was bulletproof, but the truly funny one was 200. DKC2 got this thing above 200 right around the ASV, then held on for dear life for another 9 hours as this thing just hovered in the 200-250 range. Xenoblade made one push to try and actually come back -- a 15 minute time period where it cut off 30 votes -- and DKC2 just bitch-slapped the push away like it was nothing. This would continue to the end of the match, where DKC2 would ultimately win by 254. It was a hell of a fight and very fun to watch, if not heartbreaking for the Xenoblade fans. They had a 3 seed and the perfect setup to make a deep contest run, instead they were the only game seeded between 1 and 4 to lose in round 1. That's a hell of a bracketmaking job by Allen, when you look at it.

For DKC2 and Donkey Kong in general, getting some contest respect was a long time coming. Had it lost in round 2 it could have laid claim to having a successful contest, since so few people (only 24% of gurus and a similar percentage in the Oracle) thought it could actually win. But it had some more tricks yet to come.