Right, so this was always going to win, that wasn't the question. Journey before destination.

I knew I wanted to pit 64 JRPGs (and Western RPGs that understood the assignment) against each other. I started listing out all the FF and DQ titles, which gave them huge over-representation, but also we wouldn't have console RPGs without them, so yeah. I added major titles from other franchises that I've played: Persona, Tales, Xeno; and then I started adding one-offs (or ones from smaller franchises like Mana). Then I hit up IGN for their top 100 RPGs (it's an older list but it helped me remember some classics). Pokemon? Never heard of it (but I did include Sun / Moon which was IGN's top one). Fire Emblem... I've played these a ton but I think they're not that popular outside of Three Houses and maybe Awakening, so I included 3H.

I deliberately excluded action RPGs and western titles that weren't basically JPRGs in all but name, so there's no Bioware. I made an exception for @disco-elysium because it's extremely unique and I didn't want to put any more Pokemon on here.

At this point I have something like 75 games. I removed MMO titles and FF's sequels, and made a few other hard cuts, got it down to 64 and hit random seeds.

When picking winners, if I had played both games (overwhelming majority), I weighted roughly 75% which game I liked more, 25% which I thought was more popular. Where I played only one, it won by default. There were no first-round matches where I had played neither game, which means there were no later matches where that was true either.

Hard / painful matches:
@tales-of-symphonia vs @chrono-trigger ... ToS introduced me to Tales, but Chrono is GOAT tier
@fire-emblem-three-houses vs @persona-5 ... both are the best entries in their franchises, but we all knew who was going to win.
@dragon-quest-xi-echoes-of-an-elusive-age vs @final-fantasy-vi ... without that 25% popularity sway, I think DQ XI takes this. Still #notsorry
@persona-3 vs @super-mario-rpg-legend-of-the-seven-stars ... technically I listed P3 Reloaded which is a different version I haven't played yet, and also I was afraid of the Mario RPG crowd

Mario RPG goes on to face @final-fantasy-vii and if you think I'm afraid of the Mario RPG crowd, you better believe I'm not going to go against FF7. At least not until it faces the winner of the next match...

@sea-of-stars vs @undertale ... SoS is closer to a true JRPG so it pulled it off, but that Undertale soundtrack may be slightly better.

@final-fantasy-vi vs @persona-5 ... look, I like FF VI, but it's no P5R.

@chrono-trigger vs @earthbound ... sorry Ness.

Once we got to the final four, it pretty much picked itself.