Despair of ELFERIA

Emil Karma is far from champion material by any means. Or so I like to think anyway, given that it is one of three retirees this year I actually outright disliked. (the other two being Big Blue and Six Feet Thunder). That raw figure is better than it could've been but the fact that it won isn't something I'm terribly pleased by, and a bit of a mark on a contest that I felt had otherwise recovered as best it could from the not-particularly-great results early on. I said it before, but I preferred Hills of Radiant Wind in the masters bracket to it and that says something, given that I didn't even take that past round 1 against a song I wasn't terribly big on. I'm not sure if I prefer it to any prior champion, not even the likes of Reset. And does anyone even like Reset?

Thought not.

By contrast ELFERIA is great and one of the best champions to date without a doubt... Okay, maybe with some doubt. That contest's final may have had a lot of controversy surrounding it and many may never like its outcome, but I for one am proud of it and the fact it even made it there, overcoming a significant hurdle prior in Undertale (the song), boistered then by a colossal voting pool of UT supporters that were a lot more fervent than they were this year (reminder that even a song as trivial on its soundtrack as CORE nearly won its bracket), both comprised of VGMC regulars and, uh, less regulars. It thankfully avoided other potential UT hurdles up to that seemingly inevitable final match thanks to two particular Bracket B near-retirees that both did pretty well in the masters, but still had to come out on top of a slew of other exceedingly good tracks that seemed to crowd the bracket in its late stages, including a nom of my own that had a bit of a cinderella run in its own right. I supported it through much of that and despite me kind of not being all that vocal in doing so at the time compared to other songs (RIP Ricordando il Passato's literally perfect long version), I DID still take it as far as the bracket finals in my favourites bracket, which covers how I really felt about it pretty well. If there's one thing negative I will say about it, it's that it wasn't and still isn't my favourite Nekomata Master song, but I'm basically addicted to all of his music nowadays so that doesn't really mean much.

Truthfully such is the dismal state of the retirees this contest that while there were numerous songs I strongly would've considered voting for over it among the retirees of last contest, I think of this year's retirees... no, actually, of this year's final 16 even, there's only actually one song that I'd pick over it, that song of course being Daddy Mulk. Sorry for not being around for it when it narrowly lost in this year's semis/Bracket B finals. It hurts that it barely got edged out there after coming so far, and certainly not just because it cost me that bracket. Still, much like stuff like Ricordando last contest, I'm glad it even made it that far, and hey, at least it didn't lose to a song I outright disliked like FCDH did... Hey, if Emil Karma loses this can we treat this and last contest as effectively one entity?

Also, going back to that one nom of mine that had a run last year, the dubiously named "OST 7" now known as Luna Ascension EX, I still can't believe how well my gambit of nominating a song that sounded similar to stuff from UT paid off then. The tragically ironic thing is that while I both expected and wanted it to do relatively well, I never took it out of R1 in my aforementioned favs bracket. Sadly, it ran into Sunshine -Destructive-, the successor to You -Destructive- and another song I really wanted to see do well. Maybe next year, once the game's actually out on Steam, it might actually go places...? And maybe a game by the name of Acceleration of Suguri 2 also being out on there then may make a difference too...? Find out next time on VGMC.)

VGMC11: announcing the winner

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