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Division 3 Quarterfinal: (14)Octopath Traveler vs (6)Shovel Knight

(14)Octopath Traveler - 13696 [49.64%]
(6)Shovel Knight - 13895 [50.36%]
Total Votes - 27591
Prediction Percentage - 18.86%

Either this match or Resident Evil 2 vs Bloodborne was the best match of the entire contest, and both of them had everything one could ask for from a contest match -- high stakes, lots of F5 moments, controversy, arguments, whining, the whole nine. We'll get to the latter match when the time comes, because this writeup is about Shovel Knight shocking the world.

Coming into this match, none of the hype at all was in Shovel Knight's corner. Octopath Traveler had ridden a wave of Undertale anti-votes right into the second round, and given the second match was against Shovel Knight, people figured Octopath Traveler would ride the momentum all the way through this match. I saw quite a lot of Board 8 users talking about how they would vote Octopath purely as a thank you vote for beating Undertale in round 1. This isn't unusual for games scoring upset wins, but a lot of people are still sore over Undertale winning the contest five years ago, which frankly speaks to how amazing Undertale's run truly was but I digress!

Given how important the Undertale run was in 2015 and how important that round 1 upset was, it was only natural for Octopath Traveler to have football-like momentum on its side. All Shovel Knight had done leading up to this match was a bunch of bad showings in Game of the Year polls, a loss to Captain Toad, and beating a game in Dragon's Dogma that no one cares about. Of course the board was going to root for Octopath Traveler. I should note here that I picked Shovel Knight > Octopath Traveler > Undertale in my bracket for one very specific reason. I had a gut feeling Undertale would lose to almost anything because of anti-voting, but that Octopath Traveler would be weak enough to lose to Shovel Knight even with the momentum. The reason for this is very simple. No actually ''likes'' Octopath Traveler. People like the story of the game pulling off a round 1 upset over a contest champion in close fashion, but when seeing discussions about the actual game itself I don't see people saying anything good. I was of the belief that almost anything could have beaten Undertale in this contest, and that Shovel Knight would be respected enough to turn around and beat the winner. The fact that his mug is ''everywhere'' can't hurt, either.

Technically speaking, I wasn't correct on all this and it took a literal act of divine intervention for things to go the way I picked. When this match started, it was a dead heat with no sign as to either game being able to win at all. Usually there's a sense of where things will go. Not this time! It was even for the first five minutes, and after a small (very small) Shovel Knight increase at the first update, it was short-lived. Shovel Knight scored another small update win, but again, it was short-lived. This pattern continued for an hour. Shovel Knight gain, tripped, Shovel Knight gain, tripped, Shovel Knight gain, tripped. These Octopath stalls and gains were fun, but Shovel Knight was slowly building a lead.

After an hour, Shovel Knight finally took off. That early struggle to establish wrist control turned into a 250 vote lead very quickly, but back came Octopath Traveler yet again to show it wasn't dead yet. But after that bump to get it below 200, Shovel Knight took actual control of the match. Late into the evening and into the overnight period, it built itself a lead that would ultimately peak at 365 votes. If indie games had any presence in Europe whatsoever, this match would have been stone cold over, but once the dead zone started overnight and Europe started waking up, the match flipped.

It started slowly (very slowly) at first, with the updates staying either tied or slight Octopath lean with every single one, with the occasional Shovel Knight +10 thrown in there. It was like watching open heart surgery, and it kept going like this all the way until the morning vote. As America began waking up, the lead fell down to 200 votes. But with America favoring Shovel Knight, easy win right?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0NmGKxGGE4

If you told me Nightwish did this song, I would probably believe you.

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