Results[]
Round One
Ulti's Analysis[]
| Division | Division 8 |
|---|---|
| Match # | 59 |
| Match Date | Thursday, November 19, 2015 |
| Oracle Expectations |
Shadow of the Colossus - 62.86% 95 for - 1 against |
| GameFAQs Prediction |
Shadow of the Colossus - 71.45% |
I in no way respect Shadow of the Colossus as a video game. We all know this. But I do respect its contest strength. Let's not forget that Team Fortress 2 has won a contest match before, and both it and its characters have made multiple appearances in contests. Shadow of the Colossus just waxing it off the map like this was impressive, and it immediately brought up memories of running the Metal Gear Solid gauntlet in Game of the Decade.
As fate would have it, Metal Gear Solid and Shadow of the Colossus were a lock to face each other in round 3 of this contest. EarthBound was not beating Metal Gear Solid, and Red Dead Redemption was not beating Shadow of the Colossus. SotC would have its chance to prove itself as an elite and make a deep contest run, and had it faced any other MGS title in round 3 it really might have pulled it off.
There was no indication of a possible SotC > MGS upset after round 1, but after round 2 there were MGS fans just mortified that we would see a Game of the Decade rerun.
Ctes's Analysis[]
It's nice having the whole Orange Box represented, but Team Fortress 2 is the entry that there really was no reason to see again. Shadow of the Colossus certainly proved its worth last contest, but in 2009 it only barely beat Gears of War in a meaningless third place match while Kingdom Hearts II and Resident Evil 4 destroyed it. This contest was the time for Shadow of the Colossus to show if its star contest one was a one time thing or it really had legitimate strength now. At a first glance here, it looks pretty good. Not amazing, but it never was. These are not bad numbers.
It had the luck of being placed in the bottom quarter where it could actually do some damage and looking at the bracket, there was no reason at all to doubt it'd make round 3 either. Its test would come when it went head to head with the Metal Gear Solid series once again, this time against the original. SBAllen definitely set this part of the bracket up with the last contest in mind where SotC took major upsets against the second and fourth MSG before ultimately falling to the third. That said, we all expected Metal Gear Solid to be the strongest. Several MGS3 supporters in this contest even believed it would take some rSFF shenanigans for it to come out of the division. Without the bandwagon too, SotC seemingly wouldn't stand a chance in round 3.
There was however reason to hope for the upset. Metal Gear Solid has had really poor performances this contest mostly, and while the original one was looking fine in this match, let's take a moment to look at its opponent. Team Fortress only needed to be slightly stronger than Splatoon for the upset to look not too unlikely. I didn't believe it myself, but you couldn't blame SotC for having some amount of confidence.