Final Fantasy Music Rumble

[Tiinker]

 Ha, I'll go and set a reminder for it.

 

Glad I could do something for one of my favourite tunes.

[Shad_]

Final Fantasy 2016 Finals

VS

Here we are! I doubt anyone ever expected either of this year's finalists to get where they got; it's been a wild ride, and frankly, for me at least, a lot more fun than watching all of the traditionally most popular tracks steal the show. :)

Ronfaure (FF11) entered the tournament unranked, having beaten 111th-ranked Fighting Fate (FF13) 2-1 in the qualification stage. It left its mark quickly, knocking out One-Winged Angel (FF7, 28th) 4-3 and sweeping The Phon Coast (FF12, 74th) 8-0. Song of Memories (FF9, 56th) gave it a close call at 4-4, but the tie-breaker rule saw it through, and from that point it was a string of increasingly improbable upsets that brought the song to this stage: 5-3 against To Zanarkand (FF10, 34th), 5-3 against Still More Fighting (FF7, 23rd), and 8-2 against The Extreme (FF8, 10th). While it only had to knock out one of the top 10 tracks coming into this year, the average rank of its opponents was 38--tougher than either finalist last year. Should the song receive no votes in the final round, it will still end its inaugural year ranked 24th all-time.

Vamo Alla Flamenco (FF9), ranked 47th at the start of this year's game, required no qualification match to enter the event. It had an arguably easy early run: 4-3 against Airship (FF11, 37th), 5-3 against Sprouting (FF10, 74th), and 7-1 against Balamb Garden (FF8, Unranked), before overcoming its first major test in Red Wings (FF4, 37th), 6-3. It met the even more unlikely underdog Awakened Forest (FF9, 94th) in the quarter-finals and advanced 5-3 before encountering what was surely one of the tournament favorites in Opening Theme (FF6, 11th). A 5-5 tie advanced it to the final round having never previously made it out of the round of 32. Ignoring its unranked match, it faced an average rank of 51, roughly double that of its opponent. Should the song receive no further votes, it will end the year in 11th place all-time.

It all comes down to this:

Ronfaure (FF11) vs Vamo Alla Flamenco (FF9)

[Shad_]

I'm voting Vamo Alla Flamenco. 

[Guest]

I am also voting Vamo Alla Flamenco.

[Shad_]

bump bump bow-chicka-bow-wow

[Shad_]

Winner is.....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Vamo Alla Flamenco, from Final Fantasy IX

 

 

The upbeat Spanish tune from Final Fantasy IX knocks out Final Fantasy XI's zone theme 6-3 to become the 2016 champion.

 

Vamo Alla Flamenco was also this year's point leader with 38, moving it from 47th place all the way up to 8th all-time. This was the most points earned by a song in the history of this game, one ahead of Dancing Mad's run in 2014. The tournament as a whole also saw the most votes ever, with 1017, compared to 806 in 2015 and 831 in 2016.

 

Ronfaure had an outstanding run, ending its first year in the tournament at 18th all-time, with 37 points.

 

I was very happy with how the off-site participation worked out this year--enough to keep it competitive while still leaving the Final Fantasy Shrine community well in control of each track's fate.

 

And for the first time, the song I voted for in the final won! :)

 

The champions:

 

2014: Dancing Mad (FF6)

2015: Bombing Mission (FF7)

2016: Vamo Alla Flamenco (FF9)

 

All time top 50, with position changes since last year:

 

1. (=) Dancing Mad (FF6)

2. (^8) The Extreme (FF8)

3. (^8) Opening Theme (FF6)

4. (-1) Dark Messenger (FF9)

5. (^3) Main Theme (FF4)

6. (-4) Bombing Mission (FF7)

7. (^5) Valley of the Fallen Star (FF7)

8. (^39) Vamo Alla Flamenco (FF9)

9. (^4) The Decisive Battle (FF6)

10. (-3) Within the Giant (FF4)

10. (^13) Still More Fighting (FF7)

12. (-6) Clash on the Big Bridge (FF5)

13. (-9) Decisive Battle (FF10)

14. (-9) The Place I'll Return To Some Day (FF9)

15. (^20) The Castle (FF8)

16. (^6) Chateau d'Oraguille (FF11)

17. (^11) Aerith's Theme (FF7)

18. (N/A) Ronfaure (FF11)

19. (-1) Fight 2 (FF4)

19. (=) Phantom Train (FF6)

19. (^15) To Zanarkand (FF10)

22. (-7) Prelude (FF4)

23. (-14) Find Your Way (FF8)

24. (^13) Red Wings (FF4)

25. (^69) Awakened Forest (FF9)

26. (-12) The Dreadful Fight (FF4)

27. (-4) Freya's Theme (FF9)

28. (-1) J-E-N-O-V-A (FF7)

29. (-9) New Continent (FF6)

30. (-13) Liberi Fatali (FF8)

31. (-15) Last Dungeon (FF6)

32. (^19) Prologue (FF4)

32. (^24) Blue Fields (FF8)

34. (-13) Birth of the God (FF7)

35. (^21) Song of Memories (FF9)

36. (-13) Devil's Lab (FF6)

37. (^10) Home Sweet Home (FF5)

37. (^15) The Fierce Battle (FF6)

39. (-13) Gurgu Volcano (FF1)

40. (-5) The Nightmare Begins (FF7)

40. (^21) Vivi's Theme (FF9)

42. (N/A) Walking the Snowy Mountains (FF5)

43. (^9) Matoya's Cavern (FF1)

43. (^1) Off the Edge of Despair (FF7)

43. (-15) One-Winged Angel (FF7)

43. (-15) Nalbina Fortress Underground Prison (FF12)

47. (-6) Kefka (FF6)

48. (^58) Besaid Island (FF10)

48. (-20) Seymour Battle (FF10)

48. (-20) Eruyt Village (FF12)

[Tiinker]

I didn't see this was updated! My bad. I would've voted for Ronfaure. How'd you go about choosing the songs? A lot of my absolute favourites aren't on that list so just curious.

[Shad_]

I didn't see this was updated! My bad. I would've voted for Ronfaure. How'd you go about choosing the songs? A lot of my absolute favourites aren't on that list so just curious.

The initial selection process was pretty haphazard. We've been running a continuous videogame music knockout game for over seven years now--not all crammed into a month like this, but with two match-ups posted about every three days. It's a way of sharing music with each other, basically. Some guy says "hey here are 32 tracks from this obscure theme that I'd like you all to hear" and a few of us make modest alterations and into the queue it goes.

 

The Final Fantasy game started like that. One guy picked the vast majority of the tracks, another guy picked specifically all the FF12 songs, iirc I picked all the FF10 songs and chopped the original 150 or so proposals down to 128. It was the first time we'd ever done a pool larger than 64, and the FF theme ran for over a year. Everyone liked it, and the site already had an annual Final Fantasy Characters knock-out game that ran every June/July, so I brought back the music version as a speed-run last summer using the same original track list.

 

It went over pretty well, but it was getting obvious that the track selections to some of the less popular games of the series were borderline random, and it was heavily stacked by number in favor of the popular games of the series.

 

I didn't want to remove anything, so what I did last year was bump the pool up from 128 to a max of 192 with a hard cap of 15 selections per game. I listened to the less common games like FF13 pretty extensively and came up with 40 or so additions.  A qualifier thread in between years pairs the round 1 losers from the previous year against tracks that failed to make the last cut of 128. I've been adding requests the mix pretty much without question so long as the game doesn't exceed cap (I know FF6 is capped and I think a few others are). There are currently 20 empty slots left, and I plan to fill about 8-12 of them with Yoko Shimomura's FF15 soundtrack this fall, so it is starting to reach the 192 limit, but there's still room for more.

 

The qualification round is public, but I don't advertise it much because I kind of like the idea of having a smaller voter base there--it gives the people who've put time and energy into organizing this (myself included) a bit more say in who makes the final roster of 128.  I'm not going to copy and paste the whole thread over to here, but if you want to go vote on a few you're welcome to register on ffshrine.org and do so.  You'll find a link to it in the equivalent to this thread in "Anime, Film & Video Game Music Discussion".  I should warn you that FFShrine is as old as Dragonmount and has gone through massive changes over the years.  The VGM Discussion and General Final Fantasy subforums are the only real remnants of the original forum community, and the rest of the place is bewilderingly irrelevant to Final Fantasy and frankly pretty toxic.

[Shad_]

Oh, regarding additions: the 2017 qualifiers have already been randed and voting is under way, and the addition of FF15 later this year is already going to make it a bit of a blunder, so requests outside of FF15 aren't going to appear until 2018.

[Shad_]

If you're wondering, here is the full 172-track pool.  A Realm Reborn didn't exist yet when the original roster was finalized, so some of the FF14 selections are from the original version of the game:
 

Battle Scene 1 Gurgu Volcano 1 Main Theme 1 Matoya's Cavern 1 Ship 1 Ancient Castle 2 Battle Scene 2 Castle Pandemonium 2 Main Theme 2 Tower of Mages 2 Battle 3 Battle 2 3 Castle of Hain 3 Cloud of Darkness 3 Crystal Cave 3 Eternal Wind 3 The Boundless Ocean 3 The Invincible 3 The Way to the Top 3 Fabul 4 Fight 2 4 Illusionary World 4 Kingdom Baron 4 Main Theme 4 Mystic Mysidia 4 Prelude 4 Prologue 4 Red Wings 4 The Dreadful Fight 4 The Final Battle 4 The Lunarians 4 Tower of Bab-il 4 Troian Beauty 4 Within the Giant 4 Ahead On Our Way 5 Clash on the Big Bridge 5 Cursed Earth 5 Dear Friends 5 Harvest 5 Home Sweet Home 5 Royal Palace 5 Sealed Away 5 The Day Will Come 5 The Four Warriors of Dawn 5 The Prelude of Empty Skies 5 Walking the Snowy Mountains 5 Dancing Mad 6 Devil's Lab 6 Kefka 6 Last Dungeon 6 New Continent 6 Opening Theme 6 Phantom Train 6 Save Them! 6 Slam Shuffle 6 The Decisive Battle 6 The Empire Gestahl 6 The Fierce Battle 6 The Mines of Narshe 6 Troops March On 6 Wild West 6 Aerith's Theme 7 Birth of the God 7 Bombing Mission 7 Chasing the Black-Caped Man 7 Cid's Theme 7 Gold Saucer 7 J-E-N-O-V-A 7 JENOVA Absolute 7 Off the Edge of Despair 7 On the Other Side of the Mountain 7 One-Winged Angel 7 Still More Fighting 7 The Forested Temple 7 The Nightmare Begins 7 Valley of the Fallen Star 7 Balamb Garden 8 Blue Fields 8 Breezy 8 Eyes on Me 8 Find Your Way 8 Force Your Way 8 Liberi Fatali 8 Martial Law 8 Maybe I'm a Lion 8 Succession of Witches 8 The Castle 8 The Extreme 8 The Man with the Machine Gun 8 The Spy 8 Under Her Control 8 Awakened Forest 9 Dark Messenger 9 Eternal Harvest 9 Final Battle 9 Freya's Theme 9 Frontier Village Dali 9 Kuja's Theme 9 Melodies of Life 9 Song of Memories 9 Steiner's Theme 9 The Place I'll Return To Someday 9 Theme of the Tantalus 9 Vamo Alla Flamenco 9 Vivi's Theme 9 Attack (Raid) 10 Auron's Theme 10 Besaid Island 10 Between Ordeals 10 Daughter of the Great Summoner 10 Decisive Battle 10 Otherworld 10 Seymour Battle 10 Sprouting 10 Suteki da ne 10 The Sight of Spira 10 The Silence Before the Storm 10 To Zanarkand 10 Airship 11 Anxiety 11 Chateau d'Oraguille 11 Despair 11 Gustaberg 11 Heaven's Tower 11 Rolanberry Fields 11 Ronfaure 11 Ru'Lude Gardens 11 Selbina 11 Sometime, Somewhere 11 The Federation of Windur 11 Ashe's Theme 12 Eruyt Village 12 Esper Battle 12 Nalbina Fortress Underground Prison 12 Rabanastre Downtown 12 Rebellion 12 Seeking Power 12 Signs of Change 12 The Forgotten Capital 12 The Phon Coast 12 The Royal City Of Rabanastre 12 The Skycity of Bhujerba 12 Theme of the Empire 12 To the Place of Gods 12 All the World Against Us 13 Born Anew 13 Desperate Struggle 13 Eden Under Siege 13 Fighting Fate 13 In the Sky That Night 13 Lake Bresha 13 Mysteries Abound 13 Primarch Dysley 13 Saber's Edge 13 Taejin's Tower 13 The Hanging Edge 13 The Promise 13 Those for the Purge 13 Will to Fight 13 Aetherial Slumber 14 Desert Moon Defied 14 Dreams Aloft 14 Dusk Vigil 14 Fealty 14 Ishgard Pillars (Day) 14 On Windy Meadows 14 Out of the Labyrinth 14 Saltswept 14 Starlight Celebration 14 Steel Reason 14 The Hand That Gives the Rose 14 Wailers and Waterwheels 14

[Shad_]

oh lordy it did not look like that in the edit box -_-

[Shad_]

1 Battle Scene

1 Gurgu Volcano

1 Main Theme

1 Matoya's Cavern

1 Ship

2 Ancient Castle

2 Battle Scene

2 Castle Pandemonium

2 Main Theme

2 Tower of Mages

3 Battle

3 Battle 2

3 Castle of Hain

3 Cloud of Darkness

3 Crystal Cave

3 Eternal Wind

3 The Boundless Ocean

3 The Invincible

3 The Way to the Top

4 Fabul

4 Fight 2

4 Illusionary World

4 Kingdom Baron

4 Main Theme

4 Mystic Mysidia

4 Prelude

4 Prologue

4 Red Wings

4 The Dreadful Fight

4 The Final Battle

4 The Lunarians

4 Tower of Bab-il

4 Troian Beauty

4 Within the Giant

5 Ahead On Our Way

5 Clash on the Big Bridge

5 Cursed Earth

5 Dear Friends

5 Harvest

5 Home Sweet Home

5 Royal Palace

5 Sealed Away

5 The Day Will Come

5 The Four Warriors of Dawn

5 The Prelude of Empty Skies

5 Walking the Snowy Mountains

6 Dancing Mad

6 Devil's Lab

6 Kefka

6 Last Dungeon

6 New Continent

6 Opening Theme

6 Phantom Train

6 Save Them!

6 Slam Shuffle

6 The Decisive Battle

6 The Empire Gestahl

6 The Fierce Battle

6 The Mines of Narshe

6 Troops March On

6 Wild West

7 Aerith's Theme

7 Birth of the God

7 Bombing Mission

7 Chasing the Black-Caped Man

7 Cid's Theme

7 Gold Saucer

7 J-E-N-O-V-A

7 JENOVA Absolute

7 Off the Edge of Despair

7 On the Other Side of the Mountain

7 One-Winged Angel

7 Still More Fighting

7 The Forested Temple

7 The Nightmare Begins

7 Valley of the Fallen Star

8 Balamb Garden

8 Blue Fields

8 Breezy

8 Eyes on Me

8 Find Your Way

8 Force Your Way

8 Liberi Fatali

8 Martial Law

8 Maybe I'm a Lion

8 Succession of Witches

8 The Castle

8 The Extreme

8 The Man with the Machine Gun

8 The Spy

8 Under Her Control

9 Awakened Forest

9 Dark Messenger

9 Eternal Harvest

9 Final Battle

9 Freya's Theme

9 Frontier Village Dali

9 Kuja's Theme

9 Melodies of Life

9 Song of Memories

9 Steiner's Theme

9 The Place I'll Return To Someday

9 Theme of the Tantalus

9 Vamo Alla Flamenco

9 Vivi's Theme

10 Attack (Raid)

10 Auron's Theme

10 Besaid Island

10 Between Ordeals

10 Daughter of the Great Summoner

10 Decisive Battle

10 Otherworld

10 Seymour Battle

10 Sprouting

10 Suteki da ne

10 The Sight of Spira

10 The Silence Before the Storm

10 To Zanarkand

11 Airship

11 Anxiety

11 Chateau d'Oraguille

11 Despair

11 Gustaberg

11 Heaven's Tower

11 Rolanberry Fields

11 Ronfaure

11 Ru'Lude Gardens

11 Selbina

11 Sometime, Somewhere

11 The Federation of Windur

12 Ashe's Theme

12 Eruyt Village

12 Esper Battle

12 Nalbina Fortress Underground Prison

12 Rabanastre Downtown

12 Rebellion

12 Seeking Power

12 Signs of Change

12 The Forgotten Capital

12 The Phon Coast

12 The Royal City Of Rabanastre

12 The Skycity of Bhujerba

12 Theme of the Empire

12 To the Place of Gods

13 All the World Against Us

13 Born Anew

13 Desperate Struggle

13 Eden Under Siege

13 Fighting Fate

13 In the Sky That Night

13 Lake Bresha

13 Mysteries Abound

13 Primarch Dysley

13 Saber's Edge

13 Taejin's Tower

13 The Hanging Edge

13 The Promise

13 Those for the Purge

13 Will to Fight

14 Aetherial Slumber

14 Desert Moon Defied

14 Dreams Aloft

14 Dusk Vigil

14 Fealty

14 Ishgard Pillars (Day)

14 On Windy Meadows

14 Out of the Labyrinth

14 Saltswept

14 Starlight Celebration

14 Steel Reason

14 The Hand That Gives the Rose

14 Wailers and Waterwheels

[Shad_]

I'm curious if any of the songs you had in mind are missing there.

[Tiinker]

FFX was the first game I played so I'll just give you two from there since you've already got so many!

 

Someday The Dream Will End and The Blitzers.

 

Honestly though there are too many great soundtracks to name so I'd never be able to come up with a list. 

 

 

I'm sure it'll be on there next year but the main theme of FF15 is also enchanting.

[Guest]

It's not too bad a winner. Wasn't my favourite... or even in my top 10 to start with but hey. 

 

Looking forward to the next one.

[Shad_]

I'll definitely check all of those out when I've got more time.

Yeah, it was a super unconventional final regardless of which track won. A few of us have gotten in the habit of policy voting against previous winners just to keep in interesting, but I thought for sure at the start of this that if Dancing Mad didn't pull through anyway it would be one of Dark Messenger or The Extreme.  I think the idea of seeing some underdogs through just started gaining more and more momentum as the rng pairing saw a lot of less successful tracks go deep while the big guns were knocking each other out, and by the round of 16 people started to believe that the likes of Vamo or Ronfaure might actually go all the way.

 

One of the nice things about keeping this game in the 7-10 voters range is that unexpected outcomes like this can actually happen.  If I advertised it hard and had like 20 people participating I imagine that Dancing Mad would just win every year and /yawn.