VGMC11: announcing the winner

With an impressive whalloping that will devastate the x-stats after a contest with so many close matches, Emil Karma has defeated Flying Clouds, Drifting Haze by a final score of 20-10.

Thanks everyone for participating! Please visit the discussion thread to talk about what we can do differently for next year.


Bonus match:

VGMC 10 champion: Beatmania IIDX 22 Pendual - Despair of ELFERIA


VGMC 11 champion: NieR - Emil Karma



Easy vote form:
Despair of ELFERIA / Emil Karma

Somewhat depressing ending. Oh well, not as depressing as last year. Which is to say

Emil Karma

Emil Karma by a landslide.

Ok end to what was a mostly bad contest, other than Whereabouts of Light doing well.

Despair of ELFERIA

Karma

Great winners in back-to-back years despite the majority of the two contests being disappointments.

Emil Karma

Despair of ELFERIA

Contest was all over the place. Disappointing (though not outright bad) winner, but I'm probably the only person who likes both Seize the Truth and ELFERIA so I'll just say this balances it out. And hey at least my boy ends up high in the x-stats

Overall winner ranking: Extreme > Despair > Truth > Scars > MGS2 > Butterflies > Zero > Hope > Karma > SPHILIA > Reset

Both ToC winners as well as DoC would be near the bottom if I included them.

Emil Karma

Elferia

NieR - Emil Karma

Overall ranking:
Scars > Extreme > Karma > Reset > Zero > Hope > Papilliones > Elferia > Truth > MGS2 Theme > Sphillia

Emil Karma

wait I remember it was shadowlord vs endless 9

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.)

Emil Karma

NieR - Emil Karma

Did not expect it to win the contest when I nominated it, but pretty good champion anyway.

Emil Karma

Despair of ELFERIA

i like Emil Karma but it's one of the worse champions in a contest that typically produces really good ones. only Reset, Seize the Truth and maybe SPHILIA are worse. can't remember what won the second ToC but DotS and DoC are also better.

Emil Karma

It was a decent finish. I've lurked a couple of these and I'm always entertained by the noms.

Despair of Elferia

It's a decent finish, though man I wish Flying Clouds had clutched it out.

NieR - Emil Karma

Emil / Karma is a good song, but nowhere near champion-worthy IMO. Especially stings since it was up against Flying Clouds, Drifting Haze at the end there and I'd have much preferred it win.

also Emil / Sacrifice the better song tbqh

Good winner, better than last year's.

Orochimaru_Fan posted...

Emil Karma is far from champion material by any means....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?

This basically echoes my thoughts.

Then again, I didn't really think ELFERIA was great last year, either, and I thought Papilliones was a strange winner.


SPHILIA > Seize the Truth > Extreme > Zero > Scars > Hope > Papilliones > ELFERIA > MGS2 > Emil Karma > Reset

Orochimaru_Fan posted...

I actually outright disliked. (the other two being Big Blue and Six Feet Thunder)

Karma > MGS2 > Extreme > Scars > Elferia > Zero > Truth > Reset > Papiliones > Hope > Sphilia

- Karma through Ellferia are great. Not factoring in competition, they are truly worthy winners of VGMC
- Zero was very good
- Truth is better than I remembered and is pretty decent
- I am more upset with Reset for beating Diving than for its quality, but it's still nothing special
- Papiliones is not something I really care to listen to more than once, but it could be worse
- Hope must be beloved in-context because it still sounds like generic slow piano song #95000 to me
- I like some of those hymn songs, but Sphilia is not one of them

Emil Karma

Hope > EXEC_SPHILIA/. > Zero > The Extreme > Seize the Truth! > Emil Karma > Reset (Thank You version) > Despair of ELFERIA > Papilliones > Scars of Time > MGS2 Theme

Several years ago I wouldn't have ranked Sphilia or EK so highly, they've grown on me a lot.

Orochimaru_Fan posted...

And does anyone even like Reset?

yes

th3l3fty posted...

Orochimaru_Fan posted...

And does anyone even like Reset?

yes

Well, someone must have, for it to win the contest...

I wish people voted songs they didn't like to win. We'd get better results overall.

This thread is funny to me because I also agree with a lot of people in not being totally on-board with Emil Karma being champion material. However, the way I respond to that is then "well I guess it's okay after all, because if not Emil Karma then we get crap like ELFERIA winning the contest..."

Elferia was absolutely the lesser of two evils in that match

that's the only finals we've ever had where I flat-out disliked both songs

Emil Karma