Results[]
Round One
Ulti's Analysis[]
| Division | Division 5 |
|---|---|
| Match # | 37 |
| Match Date | Saturday, November 14, 2015 |
| Oracle Expectations |
Donkey Kong Country 2 - 47.39% 29 for - 68 against |
| GameFAQs Prediction |
Donkey Kong Country 2 - 37.98% |
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 3 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.
Ctes's Analysis[]
This here was probably the most exciting match of round 1. It was exciting for most of the day too. Xenoblade Chronicles was the massive board favorite to not just win this match, but also to reach round 3 and some people even took it to the division finals too. Xenoblade has a huge cult fanbase, but losing to Borderlands 2 in a GotY poll doesn't exactly spell out Division Finals material. However, this was perhaps the weakest eight pack of the entire contest and very likely the weakest four-pack too. It was exciting in the sense that all four games had a fair amount of people supporting them to reach round 3, with also at least a few taking them to the division finals. A total of six games were considered possible division finalists from this part of the division, which is probably more than anywhere else in the bracket. So while it seems unfair that a game like Kingdom Hearts had to go out in round 1 when there are places like this in the bracket, well, at least it made for some excitement. While the other match in this four pack was over in seconds, this one of was incredibly exciting.
Donkey Kong Country 2 has appeared once before in 2009 coming right out of the nomination rally contest and then looking terrible in a SFF beatdown. I mean, losing to GoldenEye, SMRPG and even Resident Evil 2 isn't bad, Resident Evil 2 in particular because of the overlap between the other games, but it didn't look to be worth anything in the defeat. You'd think a fan favorite like DKC2 could've managed more in that match back then, but it had under 10% of the vote. It's hard to get a read on the first DKC as well, due to it getting SFF hammered by A Link to the Past, but it advanced and while it lost to Super Metroid and Super Mario Kart as well in round 2, it didn't look that bad going on. Plus, after this contest, that result looks a lot more impressive! The first DKC is probably stronger is what could be concluded, but only the second one managed to make the bracket due to being the fan favorite. This was its chance to show itself today, and did it ever!
Xenoblade was probably more favored than it should be, but had people known this was Year of SNES and that old would destroy new in debatable matches, I'm sure more people would've went with DKC2. I personally got quite a few matches correct just by picking the older game, but I couldn't do it here. Anything Donkey Kong has simply always looked so terrible in these contests and even when you think Donkey Kong finally is worth something, he chokes it away. I couldn't pick DKC2. Xenoblade only needed to have a little bit strength to defy old>new and win here too, but it was really weak. I know DKC2 ended up looking good this contest, but its still rather weak overall. Xenoblade proved itself to be rather disappointing actually. Had old games not been favored so much now, Xenoblade probably advances to round 3 without too much trouble, but getting past SotN could never happen, now or in the past.
People that picked Xenoblade to the division finals probably regret it within the first few minutes, but just because it was closer than we thought, it could still make round 3. Remember the epic tie at the freeze in yesterday's big 3 point match? Well, that repeated itself today. It wasn't obvious this would be a three point match today, but in any case, we actually had another tie at the freeze and damn does that bring excitement from the get go! Xenoblade won the next update, but right after DKC2 took the lead instead. For a few updates the lead was under 10 votes, but DKC2 kept it! Then it actually started building a lead. It was crazy to see. This was definitely not the match where Year of SNES became a term, but I think this match confirmed it most of all. If DKC2 could pull this off, then it truly was Year of SNES. For one and a half hour, DKC2 slowly increased the lead, lost an update every now and then bringing hope to Xenoblade fans, but didn't really look back until it peaked at the 2 hour mark. That was seemingly the entrance to the deadzone, which would undeniably favor Xenoblade.
Xenoblade would have to take good advantage of the deadzone, because that was obviously going to be DKC2's worst time. It would need to take back the lead and build one itself so it could stall the morning vote. But DKC2 held on very well for quite a while. It took Xenoblade 2 hours to shred of the 100 vote lead before it finally took the lead. From there, it did start building, but despite us getting deeper into the deadzone it didn't go that fast. It took it an hour and 20 minutes to build a 100 vote lead for itself, but from there it kept going strong. For the next few hours Xenoblade extended the lead to almost 300 votes. It topped at 288 votes at the 7:30 mark before DKC2 would start cutting for real. It had cut a few times before, but it can mostly be seen as stalling. It wasn't obvious this was Xenoblade's peak at first, but the next few updates made it clear that the US woke up. It was once again time for Xenoblade fans to be nervous, but nothing was said and done yet. Yesterday, we saw Kingdom Hearts winning in the US but losing overall. It would not be impossible to see something similar here. Although today the lead was much smaller at this point. Still, 288 votes is a lot to turn around without rallies these times. Undertale set an all time record earlier in the contest by over 9000 votes, but that took an enormous rally. DKC2 would have to pull off the biggest non-rally comeback of the contest to do this.
It didn't seem impossible at all, but it was slow. In an hour, DKC2 manages to erase 50 votes from the lead, but then Xenoblade actually starting building a little bit again for half an hour. You'd think that was the sign that the match was over if DKC2 couldn't manage a better attempt. Then in just a few updates, DKC2 removed 60 votes and was looking on pace to get back in the match, but randomly once again, it stopped. Xenoblade just stopped the comeback for almost an hour and the match stood still before DKC2 started moving again. Things looked great for DKC2 now, but still, this should be its hours to move and it sure wasn't going fast. Then we had everyone reassuring themselves by saying “Don't worry, Donkey Kong always chokes”. But DKC2 looked really good as we got closer to noon. It had a pace of removing roughly 100 votes in a hour here, which would be more than enough. Then as we got closer to noon, it slowed down but was still moving. At noon, Xenoblade was only 24 votes ahead and it seemed like a matter of time only before DKC2 took the lead.
But man did Xenoblade stall from there. It refused to let go. When it was only 5 votes ahead, it randomly jumped to a 29 vote lead and people were all ready to celebrate and calling Donkey Kong a choke artist once more. Then the next update, it was mostly gone again, but man it was fun seeing the mood swings here. Most people were rooting for Xenoblade as that was the heavy bracket favorite. DKC2 actually has a recent prediction percentage for a #3 seed. Casuals did better than us here though still got it wrong, but I guess if you don't know Donkey Kong's contest history, you'd have an easier time picking DKC2 here. Xenoblade had a 1 vote lead update before DKC2 took it for good. It wasn't moving fast at first, in fact it practically stood still for quite a while before it jumped up. Two hours later DKC2 had taken its lead to roughly 150 votes, but Xenoblade won updates. People kept telling themselves that Donkey Kong would choke this away. But no, DKC2 was at a solid steady pace. In less than half an hour more it was above 200 votes. This was easily its strongest time of the match. The afternoon. It slowed down after there and hovered around a 250 vote lead for a while. Then Xenoblade took its final shot at the match.
DKC2 was at 280 votes, which would end up being its peak. Kind of funny how the loser has the biggest lead of the match today. But from there, Xenoblade would quickly cut down to a 227 vote lead. I'm being specific about this number because that was the vote different for three straight updates. DKC2 was scared here. After that, Xenoblade started cutting further, slowly. It got down to 174 and then stopped. It was a fluke, Xenoblade was out of this match. DKC2 quickly took its lead back above 200 and stayed at roughly the same for the rest of the match. It was over. People kept saying Donkey Kong would find a way to choke it, but he didn't. He's only in the title of the game after all, this game is all about Diddy Kong and today we learned that Diddy Kong doesn't choke. The victory is small, was highly due to Year of SNES and might very well say more about Xenoblade than DKC2, but it was a victory. DKC2 reached round 2 where it might just very well have another match!
Donkey Kong's contest history has really messed with us I guess, maybe also that people wanted Xenoblade to have strength, but we should know from GotY it hadn't. I know GotY polls are to be taken lightly, but still, they're not useless. Why would a well-known SNES game lose to a cult favorite Wii game? It is weird that so many felt sure about that. I mean, I had Xenoblade here myself, but I didn't feel good about it and I actually had Fire Emblem to round 3. DKC2 and Xenoblade are very different games so they're hard to compare, but ignore the opponent and it's nice to see a game like DKC2 get a win on this site.