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BEL2026 Video Game Madness - Midwest Regional Final (Excellent Eight): 13 Final Fantasy VII Remake vs. 2 Persona 5 Royal
2026 Video Game Madness - Midwest Regional Final (Excellent Eight)
The Defending Champion Does It Again: Final Fantasy VII Remake Returns to the Four Finalists
The Defending Champion Finds One More Vote in Overtime and Returns to the Four Finalists
Final Fantasy VII Remake defeated Persona 5 Royal in overtime by a score of 3-2, and the defending Alexander Delaney Memorial Champion is going back to the Four Finalists.
Say that slowly. The defending champion. Going back. As a 13 seed.
There is no precedent for what Final Fantasy VII Remake has done in VGM 2026 and there is no framework that makes it feel less extraordinary than it is. It entered the Midwest bracket as the 13 seed with an 87 on Metacritic. It beat God of War: Ragnarok, a 94-rated game that won six awards at The Game Awards 2022, by two votes in the Round of 64. It beat Ori and the Will of the Wisps, itself an overtime upset winner over Hades II, by two votes in the Round of 32. It beat Spider-Man, the Midwest's 8 seed, by one vote in the Super Sixteen. And now it has beaten Persona 5 Royal, the highest-rated game of 2020 with a 95 on Metacritic and one of the most organized fanbases in the tournament, in overtime in the Regional Final. Five rounds. Five results decided by margins that could not have been smaller. The defending champion found a way in every single one of them.
Persona 5 Royal had every reason to expect to advance. It had beaten Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order 3-1 in the Round of 64. It had beaten Resident Evil Village 3-1 in the Round of 32. It had beaten Tears of the Kingdom in overtime in the Super Sixteen, one of the more dramatic results of the entire second week. It arrived at the Midwest Regional Final as a 2 seed that had not lost a regulation matchup in the entire tournament, with a community that had been delivering 3-1 results with the quiet confidence of a game that knows exactly what it is and does not need drama to prove it.
And then overtime happened.
The score was tied at two going to extra time, which means Persona 5 Royal was one vote away from regulation at some point in the matchup and did not find it. The community that had been so consistent, so reliable, so present at every stage of this tournament arrived at overtime in the Regional Final against the defending champion and came up one vote short. Persona 5 Royal had won both overtime rounds it had played in this tournament before this one. It did not win this one. Final Fantasy VII Remake found the vote it needed, as it has found the vote it needed in every round of this tournament, and the defending champion is going back to the Four Finalists.
Understanding why requires understanding what the Final Fantasy VII community is and what this franchise means to the people who carry it. The original Final Fantasy VII came out in 1997 and it was, for an enormous number of players who encountered it at the right age, the game that demonstrated what the medium was capable of. Characters that felt like real people. A world that felt lived in and consequential. Music by Nobuo Uematsu that is still among the most recognized in gaming history. And a moment, one specific moment that this article will not detail, that shocked a generation of players in a way that no game before it had managed at that scale. Those players are now adults. Many of them have been playing games for thirty years. And when Square Enix finally committed to reimagining the game they loved, with the budget and the technology to do it properly, those players showed up for every chapter of it.
The 2020 Remake is the first chapter. The 87 on Metacritic reflects a game that divided opinion on some of its creative decisions while delivering something technically and emotionally impressive. The community that loves it has never once cared about the score. They care about Cloud and Tifa and Aerith and Barret, rendered for the first time with the fidelity those characters deserved. They care about Midgar brought to life. They care about the story starting again. And they have been voting for that care in every round of this tournament by margins that should not have been enough and somehow always were.
Final Fantasy VII Remake advances to face Final Fantasy VII Rebirth in the Four Finalists. The defending champion against the East's 1 seed. Two chapters of the same story, two communities that have both been carrying this franchise for thirty years, now facing each other directly in the semifinals. One of them goes to the Alexander Delaney Memorial Championship. The other goes home as either the most remarkable 13-seed run this tournament has produced or as a 1 seed that could not stop the tide. Persona 5 Royal goes home as a 2 seed that gave the defending champion everything it had in overtime in the Regional Final, which is exactly the kind of exit that a game of its quality deserves.
