After 34 groups and a runoff, we’ve got our top 256! It’s finally time for the playoffs! Each day we’ll go through 32 songs, which means the top 256 will be split into 8 parts.
Since it’s the playoffs, groups will be active until 9:00AM Pacific the day after they post1, or for roughly 24 hours. You can listen to a playlist of today’s songs (in matchup order) here.
Or you can work ahead!
PLEASE LISTEN TO BOTH SONGS IN A MATCH BEFORE VOTING
Voting will be live until Wednesday, September 30th at 9:00AM Pacific
Diversity Runoff Results:
| Final Fantasy X | The Sending | 7 | 10 | Sonic Adventure 2 | Down in the Base…for Hidden Base |
| Final Fantasy X | Seymour’s Ambition | 7 | 9 | Mega Man Battle Network 2 | Home Town (ACDC Town) |
| Final Fantasy X | Assault | 4 | 13 | Guilty Gear XX | The Midnight Carnival |
| Final Fantasy X | Brass de Chocobo | 5 | 9 | Parappa The Rapper 2 | Food Court |
| Super Smash Bros. Melee | Yoshis Island (SMW theme) | 8 | 11 | Xenosaga Episode II: Jenseits von Gut und Böse | Image Theme |
| Final Fantasy X | Challenge | 11 | 4 | Final Fantasy XI | Vana’diel March |
| Super Smash Bros. Melee | Jungle Japes | 10 | 10 | .hack// | Aura’s Theme |
| Super Smash Bros. Melee | Fire Emblem | 11 | 8 | Star Ocean: Till the End of Time | Fly Away in the Violet Sky |
| Super Smash Bros. Melee | Poke Floats | 4 | 16 | Guilty Gear XX | Holy Orders (Be Just or Be Dead) |
| Super Smash Bros. Melee | Kongo Jungle | 10 | 9 | Sonic Adventure 2 | On the Edge…for Eternal Engine |
| Final Fantasy X | Hymn of the Fayth – Valefor | 5 | 12 | Final Fantasy X-2 | Nagi Heigen |
A pretty good day for challengers, all told. I broke one tie in favor of Jungle Japes, but even with that challengers won 7 times to the favorites’ 4.
Fun Facts About The Top 256:
Top 256 By Game:
13 Songs:
- Super Smash Bros. Melee
11 Songs:
- Final Fantasy X
10 Songs:
- Trails in the Sky FC
9 Songs:
- Kingdom Hearts
8 Songs:
- Iridion II
- Katamari Damacy
- Tales of Symphonia
7 Songs:
- Cave Story
- The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
6 Songs:
- Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
- Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne
5 Songs:
- Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean
- Final Fantasy Tactics Advance
- Final Fantasy X-2
- Mario Kart: Double Dash
- Mega Man Battle Network 3
- Parappa The Rapper 2
- Technictix
- Ys VI: The Ark of Napishtim
4 Songs:
- Guilty Gear XX
- Silent Hill 3
- Unlimited SaGa
3 Songs:
- Gitaroo Man
- Ico
- Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga
- Mega Man Battle Network
- Mega Man Battle Network 2
- Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
- Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire
- Wario Ware, In: Mega Microgame$!
- Zone of the Enders
2 Songs:
- Castlevania: Circle of the Moon
- Disgaea: Hour of Darkness
- Final Fantasy XI
- Fire Emblem
- Halo 2
- Halo: Combat Evolved
- Jet Set Radio Future
- Kirby: Nightmare in Dreamland
- Luigi’s Mansion
- Mario Kart: Super Circuit
- Mega Man Battle Network 5
- Metroid Prime
- Remember 11: The Age of Infinity
- Shadow Hearts
- Sonic Heroes
- Star Ocean: Till the End of Time
- Super Mario Sunshine
- Wild Arms Alter Code: F
- Xenosaga Episode II: Jenseits von Gut und Böse
- Zone of the Enders: The Second Runner
1 Song:
- Advance Wars
- Asphalt: Urban GT
- Baby Felix Halloween
- Baldr Force EXE
- Beats of Rage
- Beyond Good & Evil
- Boktai 2: Solar Boy Django
- Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King
- Dynasty Warriors 3
- Dynasty Warriors 4
- EVE Online
- Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles
- Freedom Force
- Golden Sun
- Iridion 3D
- Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords
- Legaia 2: Duel Saga
- Macross 7 -Shake the Heart of the Galaxy-
- Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour
- Mario Kart Double Dash
- Mario Power Tennis
- Mega Man Zero 2
- Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty
- Ollie King
- Puyo Pop Fever
- Quantum Redshift
- Rez
- Samurai Warriors
- Shadow Hearts Covenant
- Shin Megami Tensei Digital Devil Saga 1
- Silent Hill 2
- Silent Hill 4
- Sonic Advance 2
- Sonic Adventure 2
- Soul Calibur II
- Suikoden III
- Super Monkey Ball 2
- Technibeat
- The Incredible Machine – Even More Contraptions
- The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons
- The Lord of the Rings: the Fellowship of the Ring
- Wild Arms 3
- World of Warcraft
- Zone of the Enders: The First of Mars
Pretty wide distribution here, without too many heavy hitters dominating. This was helped a little by the new diversity runoff, but even without it this would have been a wider spread than the 96-00 tournament.
Super Smash Bros. Melee snuck into first thanks to the runoff, with Final Fantasy X close behind. Trails in the Sky Football Club makes a surprise appearance at 3rd, and GBA title Iridion II makes a downright shocking appearance at 5th.
If you added up all the songs from Mega Man Battle Network games, you’d get 13, ie tied for first and facing a runoff. Instead, they’re spread out across 4 different titles, a little-known advantage of Capcom’s saturation bombing release strategy.
Top 256 by platform:
- PlayStation 2: 98 (35 games)
- GameCube: 56 (16 games)
- Game Boy Advance: 51 (19 games)
- PC: 28 (9 games)
- Xbox: 9 (5 games)
- Arcade: 6 (3 games)
- Multiplatform: 4 (3 games)
- Game Boy Color: 3 (3 games)
- N-Gage: 1 (1 game)
First, a note on methodology. A game was assigned to a platform if there was an obvious first home for it; for example, if a game released for PS2 in February 2002 and then an Xbox port dropped that July, the game was marked as a PS2 game. The multiplatform label was only applied to games that first launched on multiple platforms simultaneously.
Unsurprisingly, the PS2 has a strong showing here, comfortably in first by both metrics. The GameCube takes 2nd by song, but 3rd by game, thanks to Melee’s heavy-hitting. The GBA is surprisingly close behind; will our love affair with the cronchy sound chip that could continue into the playoffs?
Also, congrats to the N-Gage! Because Asphalt Urban GT launched for the N-Gage 2 days before the Nintendo DS the forgotten mobile “””pioneer””” gets on the board.
