Best Video Game Song Tournament, 2017-2020: Play-In Round 3

Round 2 Results!

Paper Mario: The Origami KingThe Dual-Bladed Duelist86Spelunky 2Cosmic Ocean – Ripple
Paper Mario: The Origami KingToad’s BBQ Foodeatery104Persona Q2Wait and See
Final Fantasy VII REMAKEHell House [Arr. Kengo Tokusashi & Mitsuto Suzuki]76Final Fantasy XIV: StormbloodSongs of Salt and Suffering
Super Smash Bros. UltimateHard Man Stage86CrossCodeGaia’s Garden
CupheadThe Airship68IkenfellForest of Secrets
Super Smash Bros. UltimateGang-Plank Galleon87FlorenceCrash
Super Smash Bros. UltimateARMS Grand Prix Official Theme Song104A3!Q to Ju [sasakure.UK; Singers: Tasuku Hatanaka & Shunsuke Takeuchi]
NieR:AutomataWeight of the World (Japanese Version) [Keiichi Okabe, Vocals: Marina Kawano]86PyreGrand Ceremony
Sonic ManiaWildstyle Pistolero (Mirage Saloon Zone Act 1 K Mix)87Pokémon Sword and ShieldWild Area (North)
Sonic ManiaRuby Delusions (Eggman Boss 1)105Grandia 2 HDLive! Live!! Live!!!
Super Smash Bros. UltimateDark Man Stage77*A3!Kiteretsu Poemer [Ooishi Masayoshi; Singer: Toshiyuki Toyonaga]
Persona 5 StrikersLast Surprise [SCRAMBLE Remix- MASA Arr. /w Lyn vocals]67Bug Fables: The Everlasting SaplingTranscending, Overpowering, Everlasting
Where the Water Tastes Like WineWhite Rider78West of LoathingMain Theme
Super Smash Bros. UltimateRamen Bowl19Donut CountyBird of Paradise [Daniel Koestner]
Sonic ManiaTime Trials Plus610Hollow KnightHornet
Super Smash Bros. UltimateWood Man Stage83Final Fantasy XIV: StormbloodUnbreakable (Duality)

Group play is over, and it’s almost time for the top 768! But before we start that, we have one last thing to take care of. It’s the play-in!

As our tournament field expands, so does the number of over-the-limit songs. Our preliminary top 768 features:

21 songs from Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
18 songs from Final Fantasy VII REMAKE
16 songs from Cuphead
16 songs from 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim
16 songs from Paper Mario: The Origami King
15 songs from NieR:Automata
15 songs from Sonic Mania
15 songs from Persona 5 Strikers
14 songs from Celeste
13 songs from Where the Water Tastes Like Wine
12 songs from A Hat in Time
12 songs from Splatoon 2
11 songs from Hades
11 songs from OMORI

These 65 songs will now face challengers who came just short of making the initial top 768. The winner of each head-to-head matchup makes it to the playoffs, the loser is forgotten to history.

Since this is something of a real phase of the tournament now, we’ve got multiple daily playlists!

Play-In Round 1
Play-In Round 2
Play-In Round 3
Play-In Round 4

And a playlist for all the songs that have sadly bubbled out. These are songs that fell outside the initial top 768, and were either from an overrepresented game (and thus unable to participate as challengers) or else had bad RNG tiebreakers and did not have a spot available for them. You can pay your respects here.

The play-in round is a single-elimination round! That means groups are now open for 24 hours only1. Every group ends at 9am Pacific the very next day, so be sure to vote quick! Due to the nature of the playoffs/play-in, I will also be calculating results before posting the next group, so expect group posting time to shift from ~9am to ~9:15am.

And…I think that’s it! Let the voting begin!

Voting will be live until Thursday, March 23rd at 9:00AM Pacific