LogFAQs > #975296844

Here's my full list of round 3 song rankings roughly tiered by numeric rankings out of 10, rounded down to the nearest whole number.

9/10
1. Banbard ~Piano ver~
2. Miss Conductor (Regret ver.)
3. Sayonara (ALL PHASE MIX)

8/10
4. Rainbow after snow
5. Purple Town
6. Ring Ring Ring!
7. Un Deux Trois
8. nATALIE
9. To Far Away Times
10. The Sunleth Waterscape
11. Moonlight Concert
12. Can You Feel the Sunshine?

7/10
13. Astebreed ~ The Void
14. Ragna Breakers
15. Frozen Grounds
16. Desert-Duo
17. Suna Gin
18. Song of Mourning ~ The Eternal Wind
19. Banbard (Chroma Remix)
20. Apex of the World (Rain)
21. Remnants of Celestial
22. Me and My Little War
23. Dancing Mad
24. MNN+@0(Day)
25. Samsara
26. Millennium Spark
27. for you
28. Rampage
29. The Last Specter's Theme
30. We Are Burning Rangers (English Version)
31. Calling
32. Chain of Pain
33. Apollo
34. Dialga's Fight to the Finish!
35. World Ender
36. Trajectory of the Kiyarora Satellite
37. Tokyo
38. Back in Time
39. Crystal Caves
40. Subterranean Sunrise
41. Beware the Umbrella Left There Forever
42. KANNANSHINKU
43. GOLDEN RULE
44. SHININ' QUEEN
45. Azure Archipelago
46. Northeast Frost Street
47. Aria Math

6/10
48. An Empty Tome
49. K'Sante, the Pride of Nazumah
50. Wind Scene
51. Alabaster Icelands 1
52. Festival of Dionysus
53. Staff Roll
54. Unused Song 2
55. Blue Whitecaps
56. Beat the Diamonds
57. You Can Have Mine
58. {EDGE OF THE FUTURE}

5/10
59. Lost Forest
60. Portugal
61. Sight of Silence
62. Old L.A. 2040
63. Epicentre

4/10
64. PowerOne

Some thoughts about my rankings: This year, my rankings seemed to be more centered around the 7/10 mark than previous years, with 35 songs, more than half of the round 3 field, falling into that spot. Also, there were fewer 8's and 9's. Only three 9's compared to five in VGMC16 and eight in VGMC15, and nine 8's compared to ten in VGMC16 and twelve in VGMC15. So I guess the round 3 field this year was slightly weaker than the previous two years, but that's okay! Still a lot of good songs, and I liked most of what was there, as per usual.

Another interesting thing is seeing how the rankings of returning songs have changed year-by-year. Take, for instance, Apex of the World, which I ranked #32 in VGMC15, #29 in VGMC16, and #20 this year. Almost every returning song had gone up in rank this year compared to the year(s) it was previously in my rankings, with the sole exception of PowerOne, which was my #64 both this year and last year.

Looking back on my rankings compared to how I felt about the songs at the start of the contest, I definitely underrated several songs that took a little bit of time to grow more on me. Had I filled out my favorites bracket now, I definitely would've taken nATALIE over Koi Yume for the C4 retiree. In fact, nATALIE was initially placed at #11, but I had to move it up a few spots when listening to everything after I was finished. Me and My Little War and for you are two other songs that I felt more lukewarm about early on but felt more positively about later on. I don't think I would've changed my votes for A4 where for you was, but I feel like I might've flipped on Me and My Little War vs. Shutoko round 2 and picked the former had the match been re-run today (though I say this without listening to Shutoko again, so I don't know). Wouldn't have changed the outcome, but still interesting to think about.

As for the retirees this year, I'm very happy with most of them! I went 10-6 on my votes for round 4, and exactly half of my top 16 for round 3 songs retired, five of those songs being in my top 10, including my top-ranked song, Banbard (Piano Version)! This is compared to having 6/16 of my top 16 retiring in VGMC16 and 5/16 in VGMC15. So overall, while the round 3 field might have been a little weaker this year compared to the past two years, the retiree field is stronger than previous years' retirees, so I'll take it!