LogFAQs > #939277285

Division 5 Round 1: (7)The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth vs (10)Nioh

(7)The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth - 9972 [43.47%]
(10)Nioh - 12968 [56.53%]
Total Votes - 22940
Prediction Percentage - 44.12%

The oracle, guru, board, and casuals all got this one hilariously wrong, but Isaac seemed like the obvious pick so who can blame any of us? Nioh, despite having very good sales, feels like it got lost in the shuffle of all the Souls clones that happened in the latter half of the decade. There's also the matter of the Souls games not exactly lighting the world on fire in these contests before this year. Demon's Souls choked in 2010 and got its ass whipped in 2015. Dark Souls won two matches, then failed to break 30% the second it faced legitimate competition.

Not only that, but Isaac was guaranteed to have a ''huge'' picture advantage, and Nioh itself is the bastard stepchild of a bastard stepchild. No-brainer pick, right?

''That'', ladies and gentlemen, ''is why they '''play the games'''!''

Isaac had a small lead early thanks to bracket votes, and was only losing by 9 at the freeze, but then after a small stall Nioh utterly destroyed The Binding of Isaac for 23 and a half hours. It was a blowout win so unexpected that it had people looking for answers, but thankfully that's part of why I do what I do!

People clearly did not respect Nioh's sales numbers when making their brackets, and many people also didn't expect the Souls series to have such insane respect in this contest due to the contest's title. I've mentioned this a few times, but our voters are very astute. "Game of the Decade" means something to them. When you put an irrelevant video game up against a well respected Souls clone, it's a wonder any of us picked against the Souls clone.

But there is another point that a lot of us keep forgetting to factor in when making brackets, but I suspect that won't be an issue moving forward with how I keep bringing it up in these writeups. This match happened on April 5th. Nioh 2 came out on March 13th. These mid-contest game releases are a ''huge'' deal, because they almost always cause these massively inflated performances in polling. Nioh likely would have won this match either way, but without a mid-contest sequel this likely would have been a 53-47 type of match. ''With'' a mid-contest sequel, you get what we have here. To date as of this writing, Nioh 2 has over a million in sales.

The right game won, too. If you read my review you'll see a 4/10 score and me ratting off a bunch of flaws, but I can still be in love with an average video game. For all that Nioh does wrong, and it botches a ''lot'' of things, the things it does well are truly special. One such thing is the soundtrack. Check this specific track out, which is nothing short of mesmerizing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-s0v0AWkbw

I'm not one of those people that likes to look at a thesaurus and invent new phrases when discussing music, like those idiots at Pitchfork are known for, but one comment on that video says this theme is hauntingly feminine and beautiful. Couldn't agree more. It's a huge reason I'm happy Nioh won, despite not picking it. It deserved this.

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