Watch Out for Fireballs! Soundtrack Showdown

It started as a goof on the 98th episode of Watch Out for Fireballs!.

So often, we talk about how great (or bad) the music is in the games we cover. In the leadup to episode 100, we wanted to do something kind of cool. We wanted to answer the question: "Which WOFF! game has the best soundtrack"?

The competition was a single-elimination tournament bracket made up of 88 of the 89 games we played for the show (excluding Rock Band). Using release dates as a seed, I created a bracket with 7 rounds. You can see the full, completed bracket at the bottom of the page.

OUR CHAMPION: FINAL FANTASY VI

Over the course of the competition, only one game's soundtrack came out on top time and again. Over time, the competition became a bitter fight between different eras of JRPGs, but on the whole, SNES music proved more resilient than anything that came afterwards. In the final round, Final Fantasy VI beat Earthbound, 43 votes to 31. Just listen to the YouTube playlist below to see what our fans are so crazy about.

Thanks so much to everyone who participated in this little experiment. We hope you enjoyed the fun that comes along with listening to, and thinking about, video game music.

THE RANKINGS

The competition generated some neat data about which soundtracks you all like more than the others. While determining a completely accurate ranked list is a little beyond me, I thought you'd be interested to see my best crack at one.

Soundtracks that survived multiple rounds are always ranked highest (all final four losers are ranked higher than all great eight losers). Within the losers from each round, rankings are determined by how much of the vote they received (a show that lost 10 to 50 is ranked lower than a show that lost 5 to 15).

  1. Final Fantasy VI
  2. Earthbound
  3. Final Fantasy VII
  4. Super Metroid
  5. Metroid Prime
  6. Jet Set Radio
  7. Silent Hill 2
  8. Monkey Island 2
  9. Cave Story
  10. Zelda: A Link to the Past
  11. Mega Man X
  12. Tony Hawk 2
  13. Final Fantasy Tactics
  14. Fallout 2
  15. Metal Gear Solid
  16. Bioshock
  17. Yoshi's Island
  18. Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery
  19. Sonic 3 and Knuckles
  20. God Hand
  21. Street Fighter 2
  22. Star Fox
  23. Suikoden II
  24. Super Mario RPG
  25. Soul Blazer
  26. Super Mario World
  27. Shadowgate
  28. Planescape: Torment
  29. Shadowrun (Genesis)
  30. The Longest Journey
  31. Maniac Mansion
  32. Amnesia: The Dark Descent
  33. Castlevania III
  34. Zombies Ate My Neighbors
  35. Duck Tales
  36. Resident Evil 2
  37. Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem
  38. Kirby Super Star
  39. Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo's Dungeon
  40. Parasite Eve
  41. Contra
  42. Killer7
  43. Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coin
  44. Blade Runner
  45. Retro Games Challenge
  46. Star Control II
  47. Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Father
  48. Sword of Mana
  49. Metal Gear: Ghost Babel
  50. Deadly Premonition
  51. Resident Evil (Remake)
  52. Shadow of the Colossus
  53. Deus Ex
  54. Klonoa
  55. Morrowind
  56. Snatcher
  57. Pokemon Snap
  58. Bionic Commando
  59. Uninvited
  60. Tomba!
  61. Call of Cthulhu
  62. Fallout
  63. Brave Fencer Musashi
  64. Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines
  65. E.V.O.: The Search for Eden
  66. Half-Life
  67. Max Payne
  68. Little Nemo
  69. Myst
  70. Mario Golf 64
  71. Indigo Prophecy
  72. Commander Keen 5
  73. Alpha Protocol
  74. Gabriel Knight: The Beast Within
  75. Metroid Fusion
  76. Commander Keen 4
  77. Dishonored
  78. Master of Orion 2
  79. Crackdown
  80. I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream
  81. Deja Vu
  82. X-Men Legends II
  83. Shadowrun (SNES)
  84. Call of Duty 4
  85. Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee
  86. Psi Ops
  87. Heroes of Might and Magic III
  88. Sacrifice