Now it’s time for the knockout rounds. We’ll be single-elimination from here on out. You can see the bracket here

We’ll be doing the entire top 64 this week, 16 songs per day. Feathering groups same as last time, so each group will be open until 10PM (pacific) the day after it goes up. Yesterday’s group is still open until tonight; you can vote here. You can listen to a playlist of the entire top 64 (in matchup order!) here.

PLEASE LISTEN TO BOTH SONGS IN A MATCH BEFORE VOTING

Voting will be live until Friday, October 29th at 10:00 PM Pacific

Also, results are IN for the second group! Here they are:

Mega Man 2 – Dr. Wily Stage 1 (17) vs Friday the 13th (NES) – Cabin Theme (5)
Mega Man 2 – Quick Man (7) vs Final Fantasy – Gurgu Volcano (14)
Final Fantasy – Prelude (15) vs Revenge of Sinobi (Genesis) (5)
Mega Man 2 – Metal Man (9) vs Space Harrier – Main Theme (11)
Tetris – Tetris Theme (18) vs Ballblazer – Song Of The Grid (5)
Castlevania – Heart of Fire (10) vs Mega Man 2 – Flash Man (10)
Mega Man 2 – Game Start (7) vs Mother – Pollyanna (14)
Metroid – Metroid Title Theme (14) vs Gyruss (NES) – Stage 1 (Toccata and Fugue) (8)

We had our fair share of absolute blowouts this round, saying goodbye to some brave would-be darkhorses. Sadly that included Ballblazer’s technically innovative “Song of the Grid”, which is at least partially procedurally generated at runtime. To get the full experience we’d have to run the game; a video doesn’t actually capture it!

We also had our first tie of the knockout rounds; I wound up giving the nod to Mega Man 2’s “Flash Man” over Castlevania’s “Heart of Fire” largely based on the long notes at the end. The refrain? I dunno, music theory class was 12 years ago. What I do know is that it was so good it got quoted in a song from gaming classic Sonic The Hedgehog (not that “Sonic The Hedgehog”)