Ah, a blissful return to quality in this pool. Premonition, Four Fiends, and Dancing Mad are some of Uematu's greatest hits. The True Mirror, Fountain of Dreams, and Madlax are also excellent. Astaroth, Underwater Lab, Galaxy Public Corporation, and Still Alive are all properly quirky and good in their own ways, too.
MAIN TOURNAMENT
Side Battle (Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance) vs. Someday (The World Ends with You) - Generic trumpet "we won" vs. generic rock. Blah. Neither is BAD, but it's hard to care here.
Battle with the Four Fiends (Final Fantasy IV) vs. Premonition (Final Fantasy VIII) - Wow. Epic. I, too, found Battle with the Four Fiends one of the first truly awesome pieces of video game music that made me take note.... but Premonition is god tier and has the benefit of being longer with better sound quality.
The Fountain of Dreams (Super Smash Brothers Melee) vs. The Galaxy Public Corporation (Rogue Galaxy) - Fountain of Dreams was a good pick, probably the best SSBM piece. Galaxy Public Corporation is good, but going with the more active piece.
The True Mirror (Baten Kaitos) vs. Laughter (Phantsy Star IV) - Laughter is decent, but True Mirror is awesome.
Mass Destruction (Persona 3) vs. Dancing Mad 4 (Final Fantasy VI) - Damn you, Mass Destruction, traitor to the glorious Left Side.
Astaroth ~ Battle with the Fallen Angel (Shadow Hearts: Covenant) vs. Underwater Lab (Within a Deep Forest) - Astaroth is weirder than usual for SH2, but all-in-all pretty dang good. Underwater Lab is also shockingly good, though a bit short. I'll have to think on this one, but tentatively leaning Astaroth.
Still Alive (Portal) vs. Kazenone (Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles) - Truly exceptional in the tragically small field of cheerful dead-AI music. (In fairness Kazenone is pretty.)
Ode to Laharl (Disgaea) vs. Tibet ~Salvation~ (Ai Cho Aniki) - Taku Iwasaki did that? Man, he was slumming it to work on Cho Aniki, I've liked his other work. Um... I don't like either one, though they're both technically competent. Coinflip.
FAILURE BRACKET
Sphere Hunter Seagull Group (Final Fantasy X-2) vs. Dandy Richmond (Suikoden 2) - Eh, Dandy Richmond definitely qualifies as a failure to me, though I see what they were going for. It should also be noted that there's a truly awful Engrishy remix of Dandy Richmond on one of those Suikoden arranged albums. That said... the Gullwings fail it up more here, definitely. Random mush indeed.
ANIME
Madlax (Madlax) vs. Kaze no Tadori Tsuku Basho (Kanon) - Madlax is good, Kanon piece is whatever.
Parade (Paprika) vs. Do You Remember Love? (Macross Plus) - Parade... doesn't actually fail, like I kind of expected, but it is too long. That said weird beats sappy and boring. (Insert snappy comment about forgetting "Do you Remember Love" here.)