It’s round 5 of the playoffs! 64 songs remain, and will face off in groups of 32 per day. Just two days! We’re really getting down to it now.

Since it’s the playoffs, groups will be active until 9:00 am Pacific the day after they post, or for roughly 24 hours. You can listen to a playlist of today’s songs (in matchup order) here.

Or you can work ahead!
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Round 1

Round 2

All songs

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PLEASE LISTEN TO BOTH SONGS IN A MATCH BEFORE VOTING

Voting will be live until Tuesday, June 16th at 9:00am Pacific

Previous Round’s Results:

A little preview of the fun stats: with the elimination of the two remaining Mario 64 songs the top 64 contains no games with “64” in the title.

Fun Stats About The Top 64

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Stats will also be attached to tomorrow’s post.

Top 64 by group:

I’ve decided listing this out by raw number isn’t interesting; for me at least, the point of tracking groups is to see if “reputation” holds out, ie do the groups that started with the biggest shares stay that way, or do the “weak” groups hold their own? So I’m tracking this in Sheets here. I’m listing group representation as a percentage; for each round, every group “should” have ~4.55%. Groups above that number are overperforming (highlighted green), groups below are under (red). I’m also using lighter shades for groups that fell but are still above 4.55%, and groups that rose but are still below.

We’re in the endgame now. Group 5 is our first group to be completely eliminated, but a few others are just barely hanging on. Also, 5 different groups wound up being exactly halved, resulting in static representation. With just 32 spots in the next round for 22 original groups we’re probably at the end for useful data here (I will, of course, record data all the way until the end, because while it might be more useless recording it is also easier).

Top 64 by game:

(Songs in bold lost at least half their nominees this round (min 3). Songs in bolded italics lost at least two thirds (min 4))

• 8 songs:
  • Chrono Cross [-7]
  • Final Fantasy VII [-2] 
• 7 songs:
  • Final Fantasy IX [-1] 
• 6 songs:
  • Final Fantasy VIII [-2]
• 3 songs:
  • Moon: Remix RPG Adventure [-3]
  • Super Mario RPG [-3]
  • The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time [-3]
• 2 songs:
  • Final Fantasy Tactics [-2]
  • Grandia
  • Kirby Super Star 
  • PaRappa the Rapper [-2]
  • Pokemon Red/Blue  
  • Space Channel 5
• 1 song:
  • Buck Bumble
  • Bushido Blade
  • Castlevania: Symphony of the Night [-2]
  • Jet Grind Radio [-1]
  • NiGHTS Into Dreams
  • Parasite Eve [-2]
  • Rockman & Forte
  • Seaman
  • Silent Hill
  • Suikoden II
  • Vagrant Story
  • Wild Arms [-1]
  • Wild Arms 2 [-1]
  • Xenogears [-1]
• Remember The Fallen
  • Ace Combat 2
  • Baldur’s Gate
  • Brave Fencer Musashi [-3]
  • Diablo 
  • Discworld 2
  • Donkey Kong 64
  • Einhander [-2] 
  • Enemy Zero 
  • Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned
  • Grim Fandango 
  • I.Q.: Intelligent Qube 
  • Koudelka 
  • Metal Gear Solid 
  • Persona 2: Eternal Punishment
  • Persona 2: Innocent Sin 
  • Shenmue 
  • Sonic Adventure  
  • Street Fighter 3: 3rd Strike
  • Super Mario 64 [-3]
  • The Curse of Monkey Island 
  • The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask [-2]
  • The Neverhood 
  • Threads of Fate 
  • Ultima Online
  • Um Jammer Lammy

The top has pretty well settled. It’s Chrono Cross and the mainline Final Fantasies jockeying for position. This time Cross and VII have tied for first, followed closely by IX and VIII. Previous stalwarts Moon, Super Mario RPG, and Ocarina of Time are holding down the 3-song tier. By my count, Buck Bumble is the only non-Japanese game remaining. The Playstation is also crushing it; this round may be inadvertently named for the N64 but the console only has 4 songs across 2 games remaining. Overall, the console breakdown goes:

Playstation: 16 games, 47 songs
Super Nintendo/Super Famicom: 3 games, 6 songs
Dreamcast: 3 games, 4 songs
Nintendo 64: 2 games, 4 songs
Game Boy: 1 game, 2 songs
Saturn: 1 game, 1 song

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