(14)Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest vs (2)Castlevania: Symphony of the Night 2015

Ulti's Analysis
SUBTITLE WAR!! PLATFORMER WAR!! I know Symphony of the Night is technically a Metroidvania RPG, but hey.

You know how every year in the NCAAs, you see a low seed or two make the Sweet 16, then they play a team from a power conference and usually get waxed? There are exceptions to this, but usually your Florida Gulf Coast Universities and Valparaisos and Richmonds and Bradleys get their asses whipped in round 3. That was this match for Donkey Kong Country 2. It made a really good run in this contest, but folded the second it came across a really strong game as its opponent.

And that's fine. It doesn't change how good DKC2 did this season. It helped Donkey Kong shake off a lot of that choker label, plus 38% on Symphony of the Night really isn't that bad. There were some hopes that DKC2 could win this match and it won the board vote, but Symphony started climbing quickly, got this thing above 60% within the hour and never looked back.

Symphony of the Night has gotten out of the first round in every contest it's ever been in, but had never gotten past round 2 before this contest. This year, it got to win three matches before finally losing. So overall, this whole match was a feel-good affair, but unfortunately only one game gets to win it all, so everyone else has to lose eventually.