Board 8 > ~*Ultimaterializer's Post-Contest Analysis! - Part 2*~

(+) Yeah! (+)

ZenOfThunder posted... https://i.imgur.com/I5YXhPC.png

Ulti, I know you like tracking how many views these things get, I started putting imgur images into the OP because they have a view counter the updates every few hours. I recommend throwing this image or something you come up with into your Part 2 topic so you can see how many clicks you get

I honestly don't care, but you did ask nicely my brother.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/78683685

I'll keep Part 1 bumped up until 500 (it's at about 490), but the rest shall be posted here.

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Division 2 Quarterfinal: (1)Mass Effect 2 vs (8)Fallout 4

(1)Mass Effect 2 - 18568 [66.88%]
(8)Fallout 4 - 9197 [33.12%]
Total Votes - 27765
Prediction Percentage - 58.29%

There was a lot of concern for Mass Effect 2 in this division after its horrendous performance in round 1. Unfair 16 seed or not, Resident Evil 7 scored 37% on this game. Any 16 seed doing that is cause for alarm. We know now how grossly mis-seeded RE7 was, but at the time there was a lot of fear for Mass Effect 2's future. Was the game going to be punished due to Electronic Arts being a corrupt garbage can? There was fear it could even lose to Fallout 4 here, and even the oracle folks, arguably the smartest prognosticators we have on all of Board 8, only picked Mass Effect 2 to win this with consensus of 57%. Only a fourth of them picked it to break 60% in this match.

Turns out that fear was completely misguided, and Mass Effect 2 would come out in round 2 and just beat the piss out of Fallout 4 for 24 straight hours. At a glance this doesn't look like the most impressive of wins, but for those reading this reads down the line out of context, remember what was going on here. Mass Effect as a series was deader than dead, because of the internet hating 3 and Andromeda. EA didn't help matters, either. It had just gotten 63% against a 16 seed, and people were worried it was done for in this division, because a bunch of other games broke 80% in round 1.

So of course Mass Effect 2 beats Fallout 4 ''worse'' than it did a 16 seed. This was super impressive, and it was the win people have been asking for from Mass Effect 2 for a full decade in these contests. It was a win so strong that people invoked those three beautiful letters -- SFF. When that gets busted out, you've done something special. And make no mistake, given the circumstances this was a special, special performance.

Let's not forget that Fallout 4 once got 45% on Witcher 3 in a Game of the Year final poll. Let's also not forget that Fallout 3 was a #1 overall seed and make the semifinal in the last Game of the Decade contest, including wins over Halo and Metroid Prime, before getting over 45% on Brawl. It also had a 6800 vote lead on Undertale in round 2 in 2015. These Fallout games are legit, and Mass Effect 2 went full Rick James on it.

Yeah, so all that consternation about Mass Effect 2 losing this division was greatly exaggerated, though not unfounded. EA completely and thoroughly ruined the reputation of that series, so the thought that Mass Effect 2 might be punished was not impossible. Thankfully ME2 was spared all that, and retained its rightful spot as the divisional favorite.

What ''did'' get punished for the sins of the father was Fallout 4. Series fans already didn't like that game and blamed it for the series falling off, going so far as to call New Vegas the "real Fallout 4", but Bethesda has become such a stain on gaming that everything associated with it is screwed. They are so incapable of being complete and total shit stains that they waited over a month after launch to put Denuvo on the PC version of Doom Eternal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTCdA-zJOqY

Bethesda, seriously, go fuck off. You legitimately ruin everything you touch.

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Ehhhh, I'm not really sure why everyone thought Fallout 4 was going to hold up. Just like VLR did to Diablo 3, it got hilariously humbled by VVVVVV during the board vote, and spent the whole day clawing to an alright percentage in Round 1. That was the sign of a game that was going to get run over by anything worth a damn.

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_SecretSquirrel posted...

I'm not really sure why everyone thought Fallout 4 was going to hold up.

Indie fear.

I elaborate on this in my own analysis, but at the time people thought 70% on VVVVVV was actually really GOOD, instead of hideously embarrassing.

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Yeah, Bethesda really has fallen off a cliff recently.

https://www.falloutfirst.com/

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Tag

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Tagged!

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MechanicalWall posted...

Indie fear.

I elaborate on this in my own analysis, but at the time people thought 70% on VVVVVV was actually really GOOD, instead of hideously embarrassing.

PLEASE archive your stuff on the wiki. Your topic is too good to just have all those writeups poof, my dude.

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How many people do analysis for this contest? Some kind of record for sure!

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So Resident Evil 5 ended up as The Ultimate Loser in the last GotD contest, and in this one Resident Evil 7 got grossly underseeded. At least Resident Evil 2 got its chance to shine.

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Safer_777 posted...

How many people do analysis for this contest? Some kind of record for sure!

Nothing wrong with that at all.

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PostContestUlti posted...

PLEASE archive your stuff on the wiki. Your topic is too good to just have all those writeups poof, my dude.

I will for sure! I definitely appreciate you all creating a space for those write-ups to be archived at.

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Division 2 Quarterfinal: (5)Borderlands 2 vs (4)Horizon Zero Dawn

(5)Borderlands 2 - 12471 [44.92%]
(4)Horizon Zero Dawn - 15292 [55.08%]
Total Votes - 27763
Prediction Percentage - 28.65%

I love you Nick, but I can't support your love for Borderlands at all. They might be fine games for all I know or care. Not the point. I resisted mentioning this one during the round 1 writeups, because we have to save ''some'' material for later, so let's just do it now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5K8BMNLpy0

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gearbox_Software#List_of_video_games

I will never support or defend a single game on that list until Randy Pitchford is gone. Fuck that dude and everything he stands for. It's called voting with your dollars.

Coming into this contest, I figured the crazy success of Borderlands 3 would help Borderlands 2 win two matches. It's not like Aloy set the world on fire last character battle, either, so I figured Horizon was incredibly niche and had no chance here. It was a logical conclusion. Then mid-contest, the news hit about what an indefensible piece of trash Randy Pitchford is.

Long story short, I said screw my bracket and pulled as hard for Horizon as I've ever pulled for anything in any contest match we've ever had. Yes it was a longshot upset, but there is no planet where Borderlands deserves to win a damn thing anymore. Thankfully, the match was never in doubt. Borderlands tripped off the blocks, and though it got back into it at the freeze, the first update buried the game for good en route to Horizon Zero Dawn boat racing this poll. It slowly rose in percentage all match long from being tied at the freeze, to ultimately scoring a 55-45 blowout that was never that close.

First off, congrats to Horizon for finally getting some fair time to shine. It had never made ''any'' poll before this contest, so we had no real idea what to expect. The game is ''fantastic'', and Aloy losing to an Overwatch character made me sick two years ago. Not only was this match a wonderful bit of justice, but Horizon's performance in this might convince some more people to try it. It's a total win-win!

This is also when we started to realize what a monster 2017 was in this contest. I don't want to steal MechanicalWall's thunder, since he's doing an analysis of specific years, but the very short version is that 2017 was just nuts in this contest. Notable releases that year were Breath of the Wild, Super Mario Odyssey, Persona 5, Divinity: Contest Savior 2, NieR: Automata, and.... Horizon Zero Dawn. It's not something that was lost on people as this contest moved forward, but more importantly, Randy Pitchford and Gearbox Software can go piss off. No offense to anyone who likes Borderlands, this has nothing to do with you at all, but this match was ''justice''.

https://blog.gamersensei.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Garen-Header1080.png

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The Board 8 Wiki was originally @Zachnorn's idea. All credit to him.

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Who pays for it nowadays though?

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Division 2 Quarterfinal: (3)Resident Evil 2 vs (6)DOOM

(3)Resident Evil 2 - 15984 [57.57%]
(6)DOOM - 11780 [42.43%]
Total Votes - 27764
Prediction Percentage - 64.72%

The fact that a game with questionable qualifications for this contest almost got to beat three of my all-time favorite games right in a row makes it really, really hard to like Resident Evil 2 moving forward, but at least the game was a full remake instead of something truly dumb going on this run. I probably would have lost my mind if this was something truly dumb like Ocarina of Time 3D; at least Resident Evil 2 was a new game of sorts. Granted, Doom also cheated with its name. I can't deny it. I've mentioned this before, but enough with games within the same series having the ''exact'' same name. It is so stupid.

I debated this match for quite a long time in my bracket, and settled on Resident Evil 2 winning for a few reasons. First and most importantly, this is not a web site that has ever cared about FPS games. Doom is very popular on this site, but FPS by and large is very hard to have faith in in any debated match. Secondly, "Resident Evil 2" is a former contest champion. I don't say that ironically, either. 1998 dominated Best Year in Gaming that nothing held it under 66% for that entire contest. If you've never looked this up, check out how laughably, absurdly stacked that year was in gaming: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_in_video_games

We can joke all day long about Turok 2, Oddworld, and NFL Blitz being contest champions, but that stuff is the truth. When people see "Resident Evil 2" on their screen, it's going to get nostalgia votes from being from 1998.

Third, any boost from Doom Eternal was going to be offset by Resident Evil 3's remake coming out mid-contest. It launched on April 3rd. This match took place on April 13th. That's just way too much for Doom to overcome, which is why I ultimately settled on Mass Effect 2 > Resident Evil 2 deciding this division. It ''killed'' me to pick against Doom here, but it was a relief to see that this match was never close. Had I picked Doom and it won some legendary duel, I would have never forgiven myself. As-is, I and.... 140 out of 142 gurus simply made the obvious call. Doom was never going to make a match out of this, and the blowout was so decisive that you could take all of the advantages away from Resident Evil 2 and it likely wins anyway. Remove the RE3 Remake release date, change RE2's name to "Resident Evil 2: Remake", and release Doom Eternal on the day of the match itself and Resident Evil 2 likely still wins in the 55-45 range.

It was a dominant performance by Resident Evil 2, and set it squarely as the favorite next match.

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Division 2 Quarterfinal: (7)Fire Emblem: Awakening vs (2)Bloodborne

(7)Fire Emblem: Awakening - 11688 [42.1%]
(2)Bloodborne - 16076 [57.9%]
Total Votes - 27764
Prediction Percentage - 48.94%

There were some very small rallies in this contest before this match happened, most notably during Celeste v Rayman and Hollow Knight v FF15, but this was the first match where there was a noticeable rally that made a serious difference in the match. The funniest part is Bloodborne probably would have won this match anyway, which is a reminder of this hilarity: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6117-best-game-ever-day-17-round-2-smash-bros-melee-vs-pokemon

That was a 55-45 match leading into the morning vote, and Melee was never in ''any'' danger of losing. Didn't matter. The fanbase went NO SIR NOT WINNING BY ENOUGH and rallied the troops to a 60-40 beating. It was a sign of things to come, though at the time we didn't think much of it. We just kind of laughed at the tourneycrabs and Reddit dorks for rallying the game in a match it was guaranteed to never truly be threatened in.

The same thing happened here with Awakening vs Bloodborne, though some may argue Awakening was an actual threat to win the match. We'll never know either way. After Awakening won the board vote, Bloodborne stormed back to back the lead before the freeze. Typically when something storms back pre-freeze, they're a lock to win the match. Typically. There are exceptions, but it's not the norm.

After a few updates where Bloodborne struggled to pull away, the fans took action and got the rally threads started on the Bloodborne subreddit. This allowed Bloodborne to go on a crazy pace in the match, because rally threads were up for the entire thing. This turned a potential 53-47 type match into a 58-42 beating where Fire Emblem never stood a chance. I don't think Awakening had much of a shot either way, but it ''really'' had no shot once rallying took off and Awakening wasn't able to keep up. I was one of the dopes that picked Awakening to win this match, because I didn't think the Souls clan would go up much from the 2015 numbers. "Whoops." But I wasn't mad or anything, because remember, Bloodborne is my favorite game in this bracket. Not Doom, Skyrim, Mass Effect 2, or Smash Ultimate. Bloodborne. I say screw the bracket, Bloodborne deserves all the shine this match helped give it. I can tell you all from personal experience there was an uptick in online activity during and after this match happened, too. This game got a lot of love because of this contest, and to that I say ''good''. It deserves every ounce of love that us fans give it <3

It also turns out that much like Melee five years ago, that first rally was a sign. It also meant that Fire Emblem was halfway ready to become turd of the contest. Seriously, what is up with that series constantly being overhyped, overvalued, and underdelivering in every single contest? We'll talk more about this when we get to Three Houses puking all over itself like some loser alcoholic, but Fire Emblem losing early in these things is getting ridiculous.

This match set up one hell of a hyped up clash between Resident Evil 2 and Bloodborne, and the obvious fear was whether or not rallies would decide things. Only time would tell! This match ''also'' started up the trend of rally threads popping up all over Reddit during these matches, and yes I'm proud to have made and boosted a bunch of them myself. I'm not a part of the anti-fun brigade.

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Pitchford being a steaming pile of poop doesn't stop Borderlands 1/2/3/PS and Tales from the Borderlands from being some of my favorite games.

But I also just don't care about peoples political/religious beliefs or how garbage a corporation is because they almost all are and if I start caring about their lousy behavior I end up with nothing to do.

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for example, I like some athlete because they play a sport, give zero fucks what he thinks or believes. It has no bearing on watching him play the sport.


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Whiskey_Nick posted...

for example, I like some athlete because they play a sport, give zero fucks what he thinks or believes. It has no bearing on watching him play the sport.

See I can agree with you on an athlete and a lot of celebs. Michael Jackson is a piece of shit. I still love his music.

I see what you're saying, but it's different for me when it's a entire company. I cannot in good faith support Blizzard, Naughty Dog, or Gearbox and the like. No hate on you for liking the games, it's your money, we're just wired differently on that one.

Division 3 Quarterfinal: (1)Super Smash Bros. Ultimate vs (8)The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds

(1)Smash Ultimate - 17671 [64.06%]
(8)Link Between Worlds - 9912 [35.94%]
Total Votes - 27583
Prediction Percentage - 74.96%

Go back to my Zelda/Bayonetta writeup from round 1. I was pretty upset over that entire match, but Bayonetta being wasted was only half of it. I'm also upset that Link Between Worlds was wasted this contest on such a predictable path, because that game deserved far better. The case can be made that it's the best Zelda game in the entire series, specifically because of how the MP works. There is no stock on your items, and the MP recharges over time. The game actively encourages you to go nuts using your items, which is something that was sorely missing in the Zelda series until this game came along. The Link's Awakening remake for the Switch is actually the game I'm playing currently, and the item stock thing is just beyond old. I really hope that moving forward, Zelda games adopt the recharging MP model.

That wasn't the only reason the game was amazing, either. It has the best use for the 3D function on the entire 3DS, some of the best dungeon design in the entire series (if not the best outright), and some ''incredible'' map design and puzzles involving the switch between light world and dark world. The game's title is apt, and it does such an unbelievable job with it. If you guys haven't played that game, you need to.

That's why it sucked watching the game be an 8 seed and get fed to Smash Ultimate so early. Trust me, I have no hate toward Ultimate and I enjoyed seeing a Zelda game get destroyed as much as anyone, but it deserved to go an extra round or two first.

By the way, it is incredibly rare for a Zelda game to get utterly destroyed like this in a contest poll. "How rare is it?", I can hear people asking. Sounds like it's time for another PCA List!

Here is a list of the worst 1v1 losses Zelda has had in contests. I'm only bringing up 1v1 because there are some incredibly strange results from the LOL 4ways:

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

Oops.

Not counting the bonus poll from this year, no Zelda game has ever finished below 40% in any 1v1 contest poll. Ever. It's never happened to Link, either. What's even more hilarious about this run of domination is that Zelda's contest history includes a poll that happened between Ocarina of Time and Link to the Past in 2015. One might assume an SFF beating, but no. Link to the Past scored 40.1%: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6173-best-game-ever-day-38-quarterfinal-zelda-ocarina-of-time-vs

As annoying as Link Between Worlds' path was in this contest, it was simultaneously fascinating to see a Zelda game get utterly aethered like this. Enjoy this one while you can, because you might never see it again. It took 18 years of contests to see Link or one of his games finish below 40%, though I suspect Skyward Sword, Phantom Hourglass, Spirit Tracks, or Minish Cap could potentially fall that low if they ever got into one of these things.

It was a very, very good showing by Smash, although Mario Odyssey would once again one-up it.

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We need to hear more Ultros quotes from Uncle Ulti.

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Division 3 Quarterfinal: (5)Marvel's Spider-Man vs (4)Minecraft

(5)Spiderman - 15903 [57.65%]
(4)Minecraft - 11681 [42.35%]
Total Votes - 27584
Prediction Percentage - 31.61%

It blows me away that only 31.61% of people predicted Spiderman to win twice, while 82% of gurus got this right. Casuals get a few matches over on us each contest, but by and large we are much, much better than they are at all this. Either casuals had zero faith in Spiderman being a beast this contest, or they fell for the trap of thinking Minecraft or Dota 2 would win here via rallies. Leon4 has mentioned this a bunch of times, including currently where there are debates taking place over x-stats adjustments, but the disrespect for Spiderman before, during, and especially ''after'' this contest was insane.

First off, Spiderman holds the record for fastest-selling first party exclusive on the Playstation 4. In the first three days of release, the game sold 3.3 million copies and had a PS4 bundle going on. The current sales data is a bit screwey, but estimates have it between 14 and 15 million. Those are some serious numbers, and to put that initial 3.3 million in perspective, the movie Spiderman Homecoming made 117 million dollars in its opening weekend. Far From Home opened on a Tuesday and made 185 million in its opening 6 day weekend.

The PS4 Spiderman game that people keep trying to downplay for whatever reason made 198 million dollars in its first three days. Assuming the low estimate of 14 million in sales, it's made 840 million dollars. That is a seriously legit video game, and it's right up this site's alley. It's not the typical casualbait garbage like Call of Duty or Grand Theft Auto, my friends. This is Spiderman.... you know, something us nerds should love. I don't quite understand the downplay here.

By the way, this also shows how respectable Minecraft's exit was. 42% on Spiderman is no joke, especially given the numbers I just went over. If that game could ever rally its community to a poll for these contests, it would swamp everything. I think its players are too busy using quarantine time to try building Planet Earth to scale to really care, though.

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Okay next match is "the big one", so we'll stop here. I have a whole lot to say on it. Good night, my friends!

I'm also going in to work tomorrow to help build a maternity ward for some sugar gliders (yes really), so wish me luck. I'm really forward to it.

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Posting here to note Denuvo DRM didn't get implemented a month after release for Doom Eternal. What did get implemented was Denuvo Anticheat, which is a very standard anticheat program. It had a botched implementation because of some fuckery with bad driver interactions, but that's not really the same as good ol 'game shits itself in terms of optimization because this exists' Denuvo DRM, doubly so considering Id software is a company that sells videogame engines and their flagship game crapping out in terms of performance is financial suicide.

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Yeah Spider-Man was huge. Not entirely sure why people thought Smash getting *only* 64% on it next round was such a bad result.

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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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Not only did Octopath Traveler win the morning vote, it ''easily'' won the morning vote. That 200 vote lead was under 100 in an hour, and though Shovel Knight tried its damndest to delay the inevitable, the lead was gone two hours later. After a tie that lasted ''another'' hour, because Shovel Knight was not about to just roll over and dig its own grave (yes bad pun, I am well aware!), it was Octopath Traveler that finally started winning wrist control in this matchup. It spent the rest of the morning and lunch time building itself a lead, though it never did so in any kind of domineering fashion. Octopath built up a 200 vote lead relatively quickly, but could never get beyond that.

From here, it was hours and hours of stalling with Shovel Knight, of all things, having the slightest of leans in the match trend. This wasn't a "comeback attempt" so much as it was stalling thins out and hoping for the best, but it was working. Octopath's 200 vote lead got shaved down below 100 with five hours to go, and it was anyone's match from there. At this point, Shovel Knight made its move. It basically tried everything from here to erase that lead and try to jump ahead, but Octopath Traveler held on for dear life at every turn. Lead goes from 100 to 36 in three updates? Well here comes another stall where it stays at 50. Lead goes from 40 to 18? Well let's go back up to 33 because why not?

It continued like this until Shovel Knight tied the match and seemed like it would break through with two hours to go. With two hours to go and lots of momentum behind it, Shovel Knight ''finally'' did the whole '''LEAD CHANGE''' routine, and it looked like the match would flip. Bu t true to form, Octopath Traveler just would ''not'' go away. When Shovel Knight finally got its lead back, this was what the match looked like for the next few updates afterwards:

-Shovel Knight by 11.
-Shovel Knight by 3.
-Shovel Knight by 1.
-Shovel Knight by 6.
-Shovel Knight by 8.
-Shovel Knight by 6.
-Shovel Knight by 6.
-Octopath by 30.

With only 90 minutes left in the poll, that looked to ''finally'' end this match. But of course that wasn't it, because Octopath could not retain any momentum. It got stalled out for four straight updates, and then, at 6:49 pm EST, with just over an hour left to go, this contest's version of divine intervention: https://twitter.com/YachtClubGames/status/1250194555330129920

''Stalwart stewards, we're calling for your aid!!

The GameFAQs "Game of the Decade" vote is happening NOW and Shovel Knight needs your vote!

Dig in at the top of the page!

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com''

Octopath had no counter, and that was a wrap. What do you even ''do'' when the developer of your opponent rallies for their own game on Twitter? You sit there are you die, that's what. After nearly 23 hours of just beating the crap out of each other, Shovel Knight was bailed out in hilarious fashion, and it turned a 40 vote deficit into a 200 vote win in just over an hour.

We'll never know what would have happened without a developer rally popping up right at the end of the match with perfect timing, and it's impossible to know for sure. My best guess is that Board 8 would have tried to get Octopath the win as a thank you for defeating Undertale, but with the way this match went, who really knows? It was anyone's game there at the end, but Shovel Knight caught a super lucky break to advance.

Both games put on one hell of a show, and this is the type of match where it sucks someone has to lose, but shout out to Octopath Traveler here. It may have only been around for two matches, but they were two of the contest's most entertaining matches. Shout out to Shovel Knight, too, for pulling a ''developer rally'' of all things out of its ass to clutch up and win. This site talks about developer rallies a lot, especially when Witcher 3 is concerned, but to actually see one make this huge difference is always fun. It also opened up the door, however slightly, for Shovel Knight to catch fire in this contest and cause some real damage. It would need to, since its next opponent was Super Mario Odyssey.

Yacht Club Games knew it, too: ''"We can't give up! Not even if pitted against our beloved mustachioed main man!"''

Who knows? Maybe lightning ''can'' strike twice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMU0tzLwhbE

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PostContestUlti posted...

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.

There was also this match, and even though I was among the many burned by Undertale, I always viewed Shovel Knight as a threat because it was a shred of potential.

https://board8.fandom.com/wiki/(5)Grand_Theft_Auto:_San_Andreas_vs_(12)Shovel_Knight_2015

40% on San Andreas is nothing to sneeze at, when the list of indie games I would take to match this is very short. And Shovel Knight has like tripled in sales since this day. Also, that Captain Toad match was a total farce since he was just billed as Toad the entire time, and it's close enough that having the right character name in the poll could have flipped the result.

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It's hard to take any GTA match seriously, because almost all of them are within the 60-40 range.

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If only CD Project Red would rally for Witcher in the final round! Okay it still loses but still

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The CDPR rally is total fool's gold at this point. Witcher and Geralt have had around a dozen contest matches at this point, and CDPR have rallied a grand total of zero of them.

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Division 3 Quarterfinal: (7)Devil May Cry 5 vs (2)Super Mario Odyssey

(7)Devil May Cry 5 - 7917 [28.69%]
(2)Super Mario Odyssey - 19681 [71.31%]
Total Votes - 27598
Prediction Percentage - 76.5%

After that crazy match between Octopath Traveler and Shovel Knight, I need a dud writeup to cool off! I would say "dud match", but this one happened at exactly the same time so it wouldn't be accurate. Either way, we've thankfully got a dud match to cool off with.

Devil May Cry 5 pulled off a very cute one point upset over Tropical Freeze in round one. We call these matches "one point upsets" because everyone knows the winner has no chance in the next round when the time comes to pay the piper. Not only did DMC5 get utterly destroyed, but this was the second round in a row where Super Mario Odyssey looked better than Smash Ultimate. There was a whoooooole lot of "wish I could change my bracket" sentiment going around, from myself included, because that match looked like a done deal in Mario's favor after two rounds were in the books. I maintain there is no planet where Tekken 7 beats Mortal Kombat 11 in a contest poll on here, and 71% on Devil May Cry 5 is just more impressive than 64% on Link Between Worlds -- the irony of which is no Zelda game had ever lost that badly one on one before.

There was also this poll that Team Rocket Elite was kind enough to dig up for us: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2451-mushroom-division-final-super-mario-bros-vs-super-smash-bros

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9Uw97lOOlk

In retrospect, we really should have taken holding Link Between Worlds to 36% more seriously, but at the time there was a whole lot of freaking out about Smash Ultimate's chances to beat Odyssey, when the latter was clearly an uncaged beast in this contest.

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I am still salty that I picked Smash over Odyssey when it was pretty debatable pre contest, but I picked Skyrim over Witcher pre contest too where it wasn't debatable pre contest. If only I had picked Witcher there I would have finished in top 20 on leaderboard. Eh.

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Safer_777 posted...

I am still salty that I picked Smash over Odyssey

Smash beat Odyssey, though, so why are you salty?
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I mean I picked this while people said that it would probably be the other way around, and I mess Witcher/Skyrim where to be fair everyone that picked Skyrim like me was an idiot.
And before you say well Skyrim was the most safe pick, we didn't read the signs. Netflix boost mainly and people hating Bethesda.

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Division 4 Quarterfinal: (1)Grand Theft Auto V vs (8)Cuphead

(1)Grand Theft Auto V - 16450 [60.26%]
(8)Cuphead - 10849 [39.74%]
Total Votes - 27299
Prediction Percentage - 80.61%

After how good Cuphead looked in round one, compared to how "off" Grand Theft Auto always looks, plus with this match being in the group of matches to take place directly after a developer rally for Shovel Knight, hype for '''THE CUPSET!!!''' was through the roof. A lot of people figured Cuphead would win the board vote plus get help from rally spillover, which could potentially create one of the all-time funniest matches ever, or at least one of the funniest freezes.

All that hope got dreamcrushed in a matter of minutes. There was only a very small board vote win for Cuphead, and after the first couple minutes were over, Grand Theft Auto 5 dominated this matchup. GTA5 had 54% at the freeze. It won with 60% of the vote. That's a pretty good rise on a site where any win for Grand Theft Auto feels like running in mud, but it's worth noting that for all of the struggles GTA has around here, Grand Theft Auto 5 feels like the one game in that series with real strength behind it. It's easily the strongest GTA game on this site, and though it lost to Super Mario RPG in 2015, it scored 43% against a game that made the semifinals that year. GTA5 is clearly legit on this site, and a cut above the rest of the GTA games here.

I don't think was Cuphead, or indies in general, crapping the bed here. GTA5 just picked a good time to give us arguably its best match ever. Shout out to Leon4 for this stat -- did you guys know that GTA5 winning this match meant that this was Grand Theft Auto's first appearance in round 3 of a contest since Tommy Vercetti beat Donkey Kong all the way back in 2003? It's true. Look it up. I couldn't believe it either.

I don't like GTA games much at all, but I do enjoy when long droughts end. Props to the series for finally getting to hang with the big boys! And given this performance, maybe it was finally safe to take Grand Theft Auto seriously on GameFAQs, and maybe it could finally win a division. After all, its next match was going to be against a Vita game or Grand Theft Cowboy, so its ticket to the divisional finals was a lock. What could possibly go wrong?

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

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Indiefear was a mistake we all made. I mean I think only 1 Indie game reached Round 3 and that with a rally too. Sure indie games are good and that but nothing deserves GOTD. Except Minecraft.

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Division 4 Quarterfinal: (5)Persona 4 Golden vs (4)Red Dead Redemption

(5)Persona 4 Golden - 13879 [50.83%]
(4)Red Dead Redemption - 13428 [49.17%]
Total Votes - 27307
Prediction Percentage - 31.05%

There was a lot of hype during this day of matches about '''THE CUPSET''', the board vote, and rally spillover helping Cuphead pull off the impossible. As luck would have it, those factors all ended up helping Persona 4 Golden instead. Did you guys know that the meaning of "Persona" actually means "yoblazer33 getting fucked in the ass"? I didn't know that myself, but he was kind enough to allow Board 8 to be privy to that information. Who knew?

This match may look like a very close, hard-fought win for Persona 4 if you only look at the results, but it was one of those types of matches where the final score was in no way indicative of how the match actually played out. Persona 4 jumped all over Red Dead Redemption early, and Red Dead was never able to get back into it. Red Dead made this match a lot of fun with these random updates all over the place where it would chop 20-40 votes off, but then it would lose those votes back just as quickly. There were only two parts of this entire match -- once in the first evening and once during the late morning vote -- where Red Dead Redemption was able to string a few updates together and make any real headway at Persona in this match.

But on top of all of those early factors helping Persona jump out to an early lead, rally threads popped up all over the place on Reddit all day long to help Persona 4 out during this match. Any time Red Dead tried to make any move whatsoever, it was smacked back down like whack-a-mole. This match may ''look'' close, but it wasn't. Red Dead Redemption was never going to win it, at least not with a bad board vote, rally spillover, rallies on Reddit, and having to potentially deal with getting some blowback from GTA anti-votes all at the same time. This was one of those rare 51-49 blowouts.

Persona 4 Golden also officially hit bandwagon status from this match, which was pretty cool to watch for the rest of its run this contest. And yes, this would ultimately help Persona 5 out as well. This would set up a match between Grand Theft Auto V against Persona 4 Golden. Logic would say GTA5 was a bridge too far given the struggle to win this match, but given all things working in Persona 4's favor, who knows? GTA5 was the favorite going in, but bandwagons are very, very hard to beat in these things.

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I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Zen being the MVP of Board 8 that day, giving us Tim Allen in all of his glory.

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UltimaterializerX posted...

I dont care if anyone in the PC Master Race crowd gets fucked over.

The anticheat was implemented on consoles too >_>

And then subsequently removed! Apparently Id was not happy with the performance hits, so they're taking it out and looking into other options, because that's what a classy company does. Everyone wins!

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PostContestUlti posted...

Did you guys know that the meaning of "Persona" actually means "yoblazer33 getting fucked in the ass"?

I think the quote was actually "Shin Megami Tensei" means "yoblazer33 getting fucked in the ass," but I digress.

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_SecretSquirrel posted...

I think the quote was actually "Shin Megami Tensei" means "yoblazer33 getting fucked in the ass," but I digress.

I'm putting this correction on the wiki on general principle because it's hilarious!

Division 4 Quarterfinal: (3)Xenoblade Chronicles vs (6)Overwatch

(3)Xenoblade Chronicles - 20023 [73.32%]
(6)Overwatch - 7287 [26.68%]
Total Votes - 27310
Prediction Percentage - 38.68%

Xenoblade Chronicles taking out the trash. Not only that, but it looked ''good'' doing it. I know Overwatch isn't a GameFAQs kind of game, nor should it frankly be anyone's kind of game given the company who made it, but Xenoblade scoring a 73-27 blowout in round 2 of a contest seemed impossible a few years ago.

Remember when Nintendo was being a bunch of jackasses and refusing to release Xenoblade Chronicles, Pandora's Tower, or The Last Story over here in America? And it took the entire gaming public just totally embarrassing these people for them to ''finally'' cave? I remember it like it was yesterday. I bought all three of those games and still own them to this very day, out of pure respect for what gamers accomplished in all this via banding together and telling a big company to piss off with their stupid decision making. For those unaware of this, read about it on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Rainfall

Almost ten years later, look at Xenoblade now. I had a lot of proud papa moments in this contest, and this was a big one. Given how well I remember gamers wanting Xenoblade to come over here, and thinking it would never happen, and then being ''so happy'' when it did finally get over here.... this was so awesome. And it got to blow out a piece of trash game from a piece of trash company on top of all that.

''And'' it was a killer performance compared to what Fire Emblem: Three Houses was doing on this very same match day. Given the total insanity brewing in Division 4, could Xenoblade actually pull the impossible and ''win a division''? Only time would tell, but this performance was an eye-opener for quite a lot of people. Xenoblade wasn't scoring these crazy blowouts against indie fodder trash. People actually care about Splatoon 2 and Overwatch.

I don't know ''why'' anyone cares about any game made by Activision-Blizzard, but they do. Thankfully, all four games that made this bracket thoroughly embarrassed themselves.

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Division 4 Quarterfinal: (10)Ori and the Blind Forest vs (2)Fire Emblem: Three Houses

(10)Ori and the Blind Forest - 10312 [37.76%]
(2)Fire Emblem: Three Houses - 16994 [62.24%]
Total Votes - 27306
Prediction Percentage - 59.21%

This was just a brutal match for anyone who had Three Houses beating Xenoblade and/or winning this division. In round 1, Three Houses looked off against South Park, but one could easily blame that on the match just being goofy.

This match against Ori and the Blind Forest was not goofy. There were no excuses to be made here, even with Ori getting a sequel mid-contest and looking better than expected in round 1. One is an accident, two is a problem. Fire Emblem was in serious trouble, and remember also that this match was happening during a bunch of Persona 4 Golden hentai rallies. Three Houses is very heavily related to Persona with how it plays, so it's not unreasonable to think those types of rallies would help the game out. They didn't.

Given what happened to Fire Emblem: Awakening in this contest as well, another bad performance from Three Houses would cement the entire series for "Turd of the Contest" honors. Spoiler alert -- Fire Emblem was the Turd of the Contest. These warning signs did not exactly bode well for Three Houses in the match to come, and we'll talk in full about what happened and why during the match Three Houses had with Xenoblade.

That said, a lot of this was also Ori being a lot better than expected, so it deserves credit for both upsetting Dragon Age and exposing Fire Emblem. I actually bought this game on the Switch because of this contest, and it deserves all of the praise I saw you guys giving it while this contest was going on. I'm saving a lot of my love for when I finally write a review for it, but I feel like this writeup would be missing something without a quick mention of how incredibly beautiful the game is.

https://gamespot1.cbsistatic.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2826043-2015030713392201.jpg

That one shot really says it all. One of my favorite things about contests is getting to discover new games to play, and had this little run not happened I never would have known a game like this existed. Hell, without these contests I probably never would have played Chrono Trigger, Metroid Prime, Symphony of the Night, Kingdom Hearts, Gunstar Heroes, Lunar, Phantasy Star, Half-Life, and so, so, so many other games. Good times. I always love seeing topics pop up about people trying new games because of these things.

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Division 5 Quarterfinal: (1)The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt vs (8)Mass Effect 3

(1)Witcher 3 - 21948 [78.4%]
(8)Mass Effect 3 - 6047 [21.6%]
Total Votes - 27995
Prediction Percentage - 82.77%

If you had any game other than Witcher 3 winning the bottom half of this bracket, round 1 should have dashed most of your hopes, and this match here should have killed the rest of them. This was a beating so laughably ridiculous that people threw around the three wonderful letters (SFF) to explain it, which does make a lot of sense under the circumstances, but I will once again make this point -- if people are calling your match SFF, it means you've accomplished something truly special by beating your opponent into a pulp in front of the entire world to see.

The ''only possible hope'' for Witcher 3 not to make the final was some weird hierarchy where Western SFF was a big deal, but Nintendo could possibly still beat it. This wasn't impossible, but it was extremely unlikely at this point. Almost breaking 80% on Mass Effect 3 here is just completely insane, regardless of how much SFF was involved. The concept of "Western SFF" is fairly new in our contests, and a lot of people discussed this being the first contest where such a thing was possible at all, and if such a thing does exist then Witcher 3 is clearly the king of it.

As for why it was so easy to SFF Mass Effect 3 like this, people will point to the obvious answers like "Bioware went SJW" or "The ending sucked". I'm going to go curveball on you -- the ''fanbase'' is indefensible trash, and ''they'' are why Mass Effect is dead. Not SJWs. Not Anita Sarkeesian. The fans are. Trust me, if feminism or SJW nonsense is what killed this series, I would be the first guy to mention it. But that isn't what happened. This all goes far deeper than a bad ending or erroneously consulting with a crazy lady for Mass Effect Andromeda.

Bioware fans were a low key terrible fanbase for a long time, far before the ending to Mass Effect 3 happened. They're typical PC Master Race weirdos who complain about every single stupid little thing, but they kept getting a pass because Bioware's games were usually good. KP has talked about this a lot over the years, and I still remember him pointing out how ridiculous these people were when the original Dragon Age came out. Eventually, Mass Effect 3 happened, and despite the game being 99.9% amazing, despite the multiplayer being incredible, these people bitched nonstop all over the internet like some idiot toddler whose parent wouldn't buy them a candy at the supermarket. We've all gone shopping when this has happened. It's never fun, and those one or two children ruin it for the rest of us.

Well these idiot Bioware fans ruined the franchise for the rest of us, long before Feminist Frequency or Mass Effect Andromeda ever happened. The whining over the ending was just absurd, and worse yet, EA caved to these idiots. The last thing you ever want to do with a spoiled brat kid is give it what it wants, because dumb kids can be trained the same way as dogs -- repetition and "let it cry". They'll get the message eventually.

EA screwing up and catering to these morons is what ultimately killed Mass Effect. Not Andromeda, not the feminists, and not the SJWs. The fans did this. Don't forget that if EA releases the Mass Effect Trilogy that's rumored, either. It does not change what the crybabies and the trolls did to this once very fine series. It's how you get Mass Effect 3 getting SFFd into oblivion. Witcher 3 is a beast, no doubt, but this wasn't all Witcher 3.

Oh and while we're on the subject of fans killing a franchise, WWE has been giving wrestling fans everything they've asked for for years. You wanted Seth as champion. Got it. You wanted Brock to put people over. Got it. You wanted Becky as champion. Got it. You wanted Kofi as champion. Got it. You wanted Roman out of the title picture. Got it. You wanted competition that's able to put on a good show. Got it. Among a whole lot of other things.

And surprise surprise, wrestling is still garbage compared to what it used to be. Turns out listening to a bunch of smarks didn't work after all.

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Division 5 Quarterfinal: (5)Stardew Valley vs (4)Super Mario Galaxy 2

(5)Stardew Valley - 10055 [35.91%]
(4)Mario Galaxy 2 - 17947 [64.09%]
Total Votes - 28002
Prediction Percentage - 60.94%

40% of bracketmakers thought Mario Galaxy 2 would lose to either Return of the Obra Dinn, Stardew Valley, or Destiny. Yeah I don't get it either. Mario Galaxy 2 was one of the most grossly underseeded games in this entire bracket, and I say this with the game having a 4 seed. It should have, bare minimum, been on the 2 line. If you want to skip ahead and look at the LOL x-stats, Galaxy 2 ranked 8th. Seems like the right spot, because this game having a 4 seed was just dumb.

As good as Stardew Valley looked in round one, it looked just as bad in round two. Seeded tournaments have their fair share of blowouts in the first two rounds once all the happy-to-be-here entrants get beat up by the heavy hitters, and Stardew Valley was one of the many mid-majors of sorts to fold once legitimate competition showed up. Beating Destiny was cute. Beating Mario Galaxy 2 was not happening. Thanks for playing, friend. See you next time.

This set up a very interesting match between Witcher 3 and Mario Galaxy 2, and for as amazing as Witcher 3 looked in this contest, we were getting set up to test the Western SFF versus Nintendo theory. Did Witcher 3 look this good because it was the new king of the west, or did it look good because it was just... you know. Really good? We would find out in round 3 in pretty funny fashion!

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I have to say, that Stardew result is actually really impressive looking back. Youd expect the game to crumble to dust in front of Mario, but it just didnt.

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Division 5 Quarterfinal: (3)Fallout: New Vegas vs (6)Dark Souls III

(3)New Vegas - 15107 [53.96%]
(6)Dark Souls 3 - 12888 [46.04%]
Total Votes - 27995
Prediction Percentage - 48.31%

This was one of the stranger matches of the contest. There was some slight buzz for Dark Souls 3 potentially winning this match by jumping aboard the Souls hype train, but ultimately New Vegas was the favorite, as it should have been. I'm sure when everyone prepped their bracket, they all did the same math.

Fallout: New Vegas (2015g) VS Dark Souls (2015g)

Fallout: New Vegas has a strength of 27.79.
Dark Souls has a strength of 25.11.

Fallout: New Vegas wins with 54.82% of the vote!
A win of 5,871 with 60,875 total votes cast.

Even assuming a blanket and universal Souls boost due to the title of this contest being "Game of the Decade", Dark Souls 3 would have to boost well beyond where Dark Souls was in 2015, on top of New Vegas falling off. New Vegas was not going to fall off given it doesn't have the Bethesda stench all over it, so it stood to reason that New Vegas would win the match in the 55-45 range.

On top of that, I'm a big, big fan of the Souls games. I've played them all, and in three of them (Dark Souls 1, Bloodborne, Sekiro) I have platinum trophies. I'll probably do the same for Dark Souls 2 at some point, oddly enough, because I love that one more than most people. Given all that, I would have been floored had Dark Souls 3 won this match. I've mentioned this before, but Dark Souls 3 came out after Bloodborne and felt like the most absurd step backwards imaginable. We went from perfectly fluid combat and aggression to back to "Hold L1 and wait". Yes, I am aware you don't ''have'' to use a shield and things like dodging and magic are a thing. Not the point. The game is hella slow compared to the previous one, and it's impossible to play Dark Souls 3 after Bloodborne and feel okay about it. Good game, but the shark had been jumped by this point.

Ergo, a 55-45 match felt correct. How we got there, though, was quite strange. At the freeze, New Vegas had 57% of the vote. It started with 60, but hey, no cause for concern right?

"Whoops."

With the first update, New Vegas's lead went from 81 to..... 81. Things stayed fairly close for the next few updates, too, though New Vegas was slowly climbing.

Then this match went straight to Funkytown. Did you guys know that on top of the typical rallying spots for Souls-type games, there is apparently a big community to draw from if hentai rallies are your thing? Yeah I didn't know that either and would have loved to go my whole life without knowing this, but if I had to learn this information than so do you. Yes, there is Souls hentai and people were rallying those people to this match with it.

Thankfully, the New Vegas subreddit had a rally of their own that dwarfed anything Dark Souls 3 did, and that was a wrap for the match. Both sides rallied a bunch, but in the end, New Vegas was able to come out on top in the predictable 55-45 type match we all expected. "Come out on top" might not be the best choice of words given the subject material, but hey. It is what it is. New Vegas won fairly easily and finally got to enjoy making it to round 3 of a contest, joining its brethren, Fallout 3, which accomplished this feat twice.

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Division 5 Quarterfinal: (10)Nioh vs (2)God of War

(10)Nioh - 7151 [25.54%]
(2)God of War - 20845 [74.46%]
Total Votes - 27996
Prediction Percentage - 79.71%

Nioh pulled off a cute little one point upset in round 1 against The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth, but we call them "one point upsets" for a reason. That reason is when the winner gets to the next round, they typically get annihilated. God of War scored a total beatdown in this one, which set it up quite nicely for its match with New Vegas. There was a small chance New Vegas could pull the upset there, so ol' Kratos had to make sure he looked good and ready in his warmup fight.

Shout out to Nioh though, no shame in losing badly here. I love that game even with its flaws, and I'm very excited to play Nioh 2 and see what direction the series takes moving forward. I also love God of War 2018 to death, so this match was a win-win for me.

Killer match picture, too: https://www.vgr.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/The-Roots-of-Jormungandr-in-Norse-Mythology-600x300.jpg

The case can be made for that image being the best and most iconic image in the history of video games. It's that good and that important. I don't know if it would be #1 on such a list of hypotheticals, but it's in the conversation. It has to be. Remember, Kratos had beaten the entire Pantheon, plus a lot of esoteric Greek stuff of myth, and those games were just done by this point. Amazing games, but a reboot was needed and it had to be ''bigger''.

Going from Greek to Norse is such a crazy undertaking, and for it to work, the scale had to be insane. Then Jormungandr pops up and it's like.... oh. Yeah shit just got real, boys. This game is not messing around with you.

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