Board 8 > Final Fantasy Music Contest (FFMC) Final Results!

(+) Yeah! (+)

Final results

(2) The Extreme (VIII) - 21
(6) Zanarkand (X) - 27

The master of late comebacks couldn't quite pull it off this time around! All the focus had been on the Big Bridge v Extreme match, but it turns out Zanarkand's quarter must've been the strong one this whole time. Maybe Extreme having already won a VGMC contest swayed a couple of votes the other way, or maybe Zanarkand simply asserted its Piano dominance over the competition here, either way its performance is pretty remarkable given how strong The Extreme has looked. Congratulations!

FFMC CHAMPION: (6) Zanarkand (X)
Composed & Arranged by Nobuo Uematsu
Victories over: Fight On! (24-16), Plains of Eternity (26-11), Break the Limit! (19-17), Chaos Shrine (Record Keeper) (26-15), Fight with Seymour (22-19), The Decisive Battle (V) (31-14), The Extreme (27-21)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7r2sztRLqac

Full bracket: https://www.bracketmaker.com/tlist.cfm?tid=475177

I'll be posting some more stats and tidbits in this topic, but otherwise that about wraps it up for this contest unless there's a strong desire for some bonus matches! Thank you all so much for participating in this contest, and all those who helped find sources for composer info and assisted with the nominations etc. It was a lot of fun to do and I personally discovered several great pieces of music I'd never heard before. We had 77 unique users vote in at least one match of the main contest, that's far more than I ever expected.

I hope you all had fun!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZ_7ipJ6Cx8

clash vs zanarkand

FINAL X-STATS

Zanarkand - 50.00%
Break the Limit! - 47.22%
Fight with Seymour - 46.34%
The Extreme - 43.75%
Clash on the Big Bridge - 41.76%
Insanity - 40.84%
Fight On! - 40.00%
Not Alone - 39.72%
Melodies of Life - 39.72%
One-Winged Angel - 37.84%
Answers - 37.63%
Aria di Mezzo Carattere - 37.51%
Battle 3 (MQ) - 37.07%
Chaos Shrine (Record Keeper) - 36.59%
Zephyr Memories - Legend of the Eternal Wind - 35.75%
Kaze no Ne - 35.54%
Terra's Theme - 35.00%
Force Your Way - 33.62%
The Sunleth Waterscape - 33.41%
Shadowbringers - 32.99%
The Extreme (XIV) - 32.55%
Calm Before the Storm - 31.78%
Valse di Fantastica - 31.32%
Wayward Daughter - 31.22%
Liberi Fatali - 31.22%
The Decisive Battle (V) - 31.11%
Ultima - 30.31%
Court Jesters - 30.31%
Temporal Rift - 30.12%
Sunrise - 30.12%
Aerith's Theme - Home Again - 29.87%
Plains of Eternity - 29.73%
The Man with the Machine Gun - 29.57%
Dear Friends - 29.51%
Matoya's Cave (PS) - 29.45%
Battle 1 (MQ) - 29.32%
Kuon - Memories of Waves and Light - 29.13%
1000 Words (FFX-2 Mix) - 28.60%
Full Speed Ahead - 28.59%
Collapsed Expressway - 28.33%
THEATRHYTHM FINAL FANTASY CURTAIN CALL Special Arrange Medley - 27.86%
A Fleeting Dream - 27.84%
Celes's Theme - 27.65%
Battle 2 (MQ) - 27.65%
The Glittering City of Yusnaan - 27.19%
Vamo' Alla Flamenco - 27.10%
Aerith's Theme - 27.08%
Balamb GARDEN - 26.64%
Opening - Bombing Mission - 26.38%
Besaid (X) - 26.20%
A Long Fall (Scions & Sinners) - 26.20%
Dancing Mad - 25.70%
The Decisive Battle (VI) - 25.28%
The Airbuster - 25.20%
Aerith's Theme (SSBU) - 25.04%
Besaid (X-2) - 24.82%
Main Theme of Final Fantasy V - 24.68%
Main Theme of Final Fantasy IV - 24.46%
The Price of Freedom - 24.39%
Suteki Da Ne - 24.01%
JENOVA - 23.86%
Woe that is Madness - 23.54%
Fisherman's Horizon - 23.54%
Dalmasca Estersand (Zodiac Age) - 23.33%
Bombing Mission (R) - 23.33%
Dragonsong - 23.21%
Ending Theme (X) - 22.70%
Blinded by Light - 22.61%
Ghoul - 22.54%
Beyond the Darkness - 22.48%
Main Theme of Final Fantasy VII - 22.30%
Tidus's Theme - 22.16%
Theme of Love (Pixel) - 21.52%
The Darkness of Eternity - 21.47%
Battle Theme (X) - 21.39%
A Contest of Aeons - 21.18%
Saber's Edge - 20.93%
Cantata Mortis & God in Fire - 20.85%
New Bodhum - 20.84%
The Last Hunter - 20.80%
Antipyretic - Arrange - 20.53%
Clash on the Big Bridge - Oriental Mix - 20.33%
Corneo Colosseum - 19.91%
Stamp (Global Jukebox Ver.) - 19.89%
real Emotion (FFX-2 Mix) - 19.56%
Eyes on Me - 19.50%
Weight of the World- Prelude - 19.27%
Tifa's Theme - Seventh Heaven - 19.15%
The Feywood - 19.00%
Ink Long Dry - 18.83%
Somnus - 18.82%
Magitek Research Facility - 18.41%
Servants of the Mountain - 18.30%
Nova Chrysalia - 18.19%
The Farplane Abyss - 18.13%
What Angel Wakes Me - 17.95%
Neath Dark Waters (Scions & Sinners) - 17.92%
APOCALYPSIS NOCTIS - 17.76%
The Archylte Steppe - 17.59%
Yuna's Theme - 17.41%
Cosmo Canyon (SSBU) - 17.22%
The Valkyrie - 17.00%
World of Nine Wood Hills - 16.30%
Otherworld - 15.82%
Unseen Abyss - 15.74%
Zero - 15.14%
The Castle - 14.74%
Save the World - 14.65%
Force Your Way (Record Keeper) - 14.47%
Lava Dome - 14.26%
The Beginning of the End (Record Keeper) - 14.07%
The Landing - 13.82%
Final Battle (X) - 13.53%
Divine Love - 13.31%
The Legend Begins - 13.27%
Dark City Treno - 13.27%
Roses of May - 13.19%
Shuffle or Boogie - 12.81%
Memoro de la Stono~Distant Worlds - 12.63%
The Legendary Beast - 12.06%
Zanarkand Ruins - 11.84%
Prelude (X) - 11.22%
From the Heavens - 10.83%
Silence and Motion - 10.55%
Eiko's Theme - 10.25%
Crazy Chocobo - 9.92%
Good King Moggle Mog XII - 9.64%
The Thunder Plains - 8.25%

Wooden spoon: Zanarkand > The Extreme > Clash on the Big Bridge > The Sunleth Waterscape > The Extreme XIV > Kuon > Unseen Abyss > Save the World (Legend II)

Commiserations to these four users who voted against Zanarkand in all 7 rounds:
tgs2
banshiryuu
skulltrumpets
Disillusion

yes we zanar-can!

(be a boring overrated song)

thanks for the contest

andylt posted...

Commiserations to these four users who voted against Zanarkand in all 7 rounds:
tgs2
banshiryuu
skulltrumpets
Disillusion

:( booooooo

Thank you for putting this together! Although all the songs I was rooting for were eliminated, I still learned about a lot of cool music that I didn't previously know. I would actually be curious how Hip Hop de Chocobo vs. Beyond the Darkness/To the End of the Abyss would pan out now, but I suspect Clash on the Big Bridge vs. Zanarkand might be the match more people would be keen to see!

And a congratulations (and thank you) to the following users, who voted in every day of the contest!:

DireKrow
FL81
Hbthebattle
illuminatusbubu
Janus5k
Joelypoely
KommunistKoala
MartinFF7
Raetsel Lapin
Robazoid
rwlh
skulltrumpets
tennisboy
tgs2
th3l3fty
TheArkofTurus

for me the best part of this contest was nominations making me decide to get really into all the hitoshi sakimoto ff soundtracks to find a song to nom that i had in my head that probably doesn't exist. and it was a great period of discovery to realize that all those sakimoto-focused soundtracks are like my favorite ff osts anyways, even if very little of them got represented! thank you for...that! (happy antipyretic still managed to get pretty far!)

Thanks for a great contest!

Thanks for hosting, this was fun.

I'm glad Zanarkand won though, it's a well deserved winner. Such a great song.

Thanks for hosting!

andylt posted...

Commiserations to these four users who voted against Zanarkand in all 7 rounds:
tgs2
banshiryuu
skulltrumpets
Disillusion

More proof that Dis and I have synergy I guess!

(I don't even dislike Zanarkand I just like its competition more)

It was fun being here every day, even on the few days where it was a Struggle

I'd like to see Break the Limit vs. The Extreme as a bonus match!

I missed one day by accident.

MartinFF7 posted...

We've been listening to To Zanarkand for 20 years, it's time for some fresh blood

Narrator: it was not yet time.

But it's a truly timeless classic so I guess it never will go away...

Thanks for running andy, was a good time (also glad we could get it wrapped before Christmas!)

For the poll, voted Servants of the Mountain without a second thought; Liberi Fatali and Man with the Machine Gun were both tough breaks but lost to my two favourite XIV songs (that made it into the contest). Now my XIV favs from the contest + final battle themes that didn't make it in are the to-go music tracks for me to listen to nowadays so glad I was introduced to some new songs I really dig!

I do like Zanarkand quite a bit but it's hard to be enthused about a champ I voted against 5 times. Ah well, so it goes sometimes.

Fun contest! Was great both revisiting old music and also discovering some new favorites. Thanks for hosting!

Yeah cheers for the great contest.

andy, thank you for hosting and for doing a bang-up job of balancing your original vision against the VGMC crowd, and then delivering. I definitely would not have provided all the stats and commentary you did while running a contest, and I respect you for it.

I know this is the part of the contest where everyone thanks the host, and it feels like it's all a bunch of light "thank you"s at once while the rest of the time the silence of the internet swallows their appreciation, but I wanted to give you a big thumbs up for a great job.

thanks for hosting

andylt posted...

Commiserations to these four users who voted against Zanarkand in all 7 rounds:
tgs2
banshiryuu
skulltrumpets
Disillusion

I think my one vote for Zanarkand was over Plains of Eternity

Thanks so much for all the kind comments! I know I made some missteps during the contest process, the most consequential probably being underseeding the play-in winners. But I'm glad you all had fun too! I may well take part in the next VGMC if the nominations process isn't too intimidating there lol.

Might do bonus matches for Zan/Bridge and Limit/Extreme tonight, not 100% decided yet.

And spare a thought for poor Thunder Plains, it didn't deserve to be the very bottom track. But then none of them really did!

andylt posted...

the most consequential probably being underseeding the play-in winners

Any kind of seeding that doesn't involve selecting the positions intelligently is going to end up being a crapshoot anyway. Given that we have no past performances to judge by, one person's opinion was probably doomed to have even more glaring failures anyhow, so there were bound to be some rough patches. Definitely a few early matches I wasn't keen on (see:topic poll), but that's probably inevitable.

Great final and awesome winner. Thanks for running a great contest, andy! You allowed me to discover some cool renditions of tracks I already enjoyed and helped me gain a new appreciation for other tracks. Chaos Shrine (FFRK) is definitely my favorite discovery in this contest and I plan on nominating it in the next VGMC

I did not participate in the contest much due to me not being very knowledgeable of FF music as a whole, but I love FFX and I know this song and love it as well. So great winner!

No need to be knowledgeable; just vote for whatever sounds better to you!

andylt posted...

And spare a thought for poor Thunder Plains, it didn't deserve to be the very bottom track.

Poor Thunder Plains. =(

FFX Thunder Plains way better

Not the most exciting winner but well deserved! And always happy to see the best game get another crown

LordoftheMorons posted...

No need to be knowledgeable; just vote for whatever sounds better to you!

Seconding this!^

Bonus results

Zanarkand (X) - 9
Clash on the Big Bridge (V) - 19

The Extreme (VIII) - 11
Break the Limit! (Brave Exvius) - 16

Hip Hop de Chocobo - 2

Take these results with a grain of salt (or more), given the votals and the fact this is post-contest. But still Zanarkand got utterly routed by Bridge, while Break the Limit! actually lived up to its stats potential. I'd like to see Bridge v Limit but it's too late for that now. It may well be that Limit! was very unlucky with bracket placement and would've gotten through to the semis in another position. Maybe we'll find out in the future!

Zanarkand > Limit! > Extreme > Bridge > Zanarkand, weird!

Hip Hop de Chocobo remains undefeated, of course.

big bridge was robbed

those results are sus

Oh also- congrats to azuarc for having the highest scoring bracket! It was finished very late but if it was a pure favs bracket then you did very well! Otherwise, Janus wins.

1. azuarc
2. Janus5k
3. CptBlooper
4. th3l3fty
5. deogenerate
6. pyresword
7. FL81
8. Mycro
9. UF8

...And congrats to UF8 for having the most unique set of favs!

Big Bridge one of the most overrated songs in the whole series

big bridge true champion

we did it gilgameshbros

Big Bridge still unfortunately lost to The Extreme! And who knows how it would have done against Limit or Seymour... Still, there's one dimension out there where it won this contest.

Speaking of The Extreme.... guess what just got a new FFRK remix

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAqU6JEpHck

Wow, thanks for that! Did they really use The Extreme for Gerogero of all fights lol. I should really follow RK stuff, they seem to consistently put out interesting mixes.

I appreciate that this one is actually a bit different and not just a duplicate of the original like XIV's version. Overall it might be a bit... loud? for me, my fav bit is from around 2 mins in where it calms down and builds up again. After a few listens I may change my mind though.

Nah Gerogero is an old fight; I believe this is for a new Ultimecia fight in the JP version of the game (which is ahead of the global version by 6 months).