Lurker > UF8

RE4

Seashore Probe ~ Wopal (Battle)
On the Calm Noon Sea
No Mercy

battlerock has been my favourite smg song for the longest time and i know it isn't exactly acknowledged by many others so i was very pleased to see it on the set... so, yeah, sucks that i don't get a chance to vote for it
if not for how bright the songs are, these are fairly interchangeable titles honestly. also this is a good match, both are a little below battlerock and obv wopal but i like both quite a bit nonetheless
ok just for once i won't show any. the c&c song isn't necessarily bad but kinda decisively just like... a song i'd only give a 5/10 to. still, fallen land is also significantly weaker than everything else today

Copperajah

HMs to Klinklang, Melmetal, Registeel and Mega Aggron

rip aru

Nature
-(VALINE)-
For True Story ...for Sonic vs. Shadow

i forgot how rude bost can be
^
perhaps it is the timing straight after valine but avalanche definitely bored me... definitely feel strongly here and am concerned it will go pretty extremely the other way

delicatessen bird

some form of delivered but b (through either poll option) is definitely what it should be but i don't think they ever used it in official media, so...

Gear

1. Open The Door: A Short Game About Life
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ieft4KyOP_g
https://tatsuya-koyama.com/works/games/doors-game-en/

2. GRAND CROSS: ReNOVATION
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMqYBFh4YGs
https://hendj.com/pk/sheet.php?p=GRAND_CROSS_ReNOVATION

3. RADICAL DREAMERS -Le Trsor Interdit-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42giHPMPMY8
https://www.square-enix-games.com/en_AU/games/chrono-cross-radical-dreamers-edition

4. The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZn5U_x47s8
https://www.square-enix-games.com/en_AU/games/centennial-case-shijima-story

5. Touhou Ibunseki - Ayaria Dawn: ReCreation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDeHWVQy83k

6. Lair Land Story
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gM5krghru4Q
https://pqube.co.uk/lair-land-story/

7. The World According to Girl
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mk-9iI3Bp8w
https://twitter.com/yondraygames

8. NEEDY STREAMER OVERLOAD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6TQalg_9qM
https://whysoserious.jp/needy/en/

9. Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DbBwNpOkEI
https://www.konami.com/yugioh/masterduel/oc/en/

10. The Legend of Neverland
https://imgur.com/Letme1o (literally every youtube video covering the game is abysmal so here's some screenshots i took of my main character instead lol)
http://tlon.arkgames.com/

was going to have norco in the last spot until i remembered i hadn't included lon yet oops, hm to norco though

ZeroSignal posted...

What's the game?

Touhou Ibunseki - Ayaria Dawn: ReCreation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDeHWVQy83k

... or just touhou monopoly, basically. been a fan since well before it exited early access so i figured i'd include it if i could

Sweet Mountain (Act 3)
The Shackled Wolves (Rain)
MECHANIQ

part 2 of sonic colors vs one of my noms i guess. if my vote happens to kill cotton because tbh yeah sweet mountain deserves the win lol i will say that it's getting a steam port in 2 days and everyone should get it tbh https://store.steampowered.com/app/1364760/COTTOn_RocknRoll_SUPERLATIVE_NIGHT_DREAMS/
time to sell out again and mention i'll be rerunning the srpg vgmgg i impromptu ran the other day some time later this week (it's going to be much bigger than before!). also heck this was kind of a match. taking shackled wolves out of the context of "it sounds like 3h music" lol, i'd probably have said something to the effect of "it sounds like sawano and go shiina music" so it's appropriate it came up against one of them
lava zone kicks ass, mechaniq owns to an unhealthy extent though

didn't expect to feel bad about voting against anything today, let alone all of them

Regirock
Stonjourner

Gear

maybe will pick up p3phd

reality is money is gonna be even tighter for me this month and also if i remember right a bunch of indie games i was SUPER looking forward to are dropping this month

ZeroSignal posted...

I'll include Radical Dreamers as its own entry, considering its first US release was last year. Chrono Cross, on the other hand, is not eligible.

It's the same thing I did for 2021 when I allowed Bowser's Fury on the bracket, but not Mario 3D World

nice (also i forget what the policy generally is on games that leave early access, is say a 2019 game that had a full release last april valid?)

ZeroSignal posted...

Valkyrie Profile Lenneth's port to the PS4 is not.

question here does this also mean the first official localisation of radical dreamers with the chrono cross "remaster" is also not valid?

Annul
Breath of the Earth
Infinite Dungeon 2

unusually feeling both less here than i feel i should. didn't think i'd still be voting annul tbh
i don't enjoy being that guy but yeah of course desert gets a good opponent so i'm basically forced to acknowledge again that the deciding factor is that it's the lyricless version again. i don't get why it was excluded from even the bost set too, it's inane https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNbUU5FzTwE
perhaps i shouldn't be remarking on other comments but i don't get what others apparently see in protest prison tbh (or maybe everyone who hates pmd music are the ones voting now idk)

mixed day

Aru

i assume i also missed by now but i also did jackbox on new years last night too (also some cosmic encounter, god field and burnout revenge crash mode stuff)

30/100

heck it sure i should get around to more tekkens i guess, not really a fighting game i actively wanted to dive into singleplayer for but why not. don't really feel like replaying mother games maybe i'll play some clone of some sort, got a few on my backlog

Trumbull Dominion ~ Nightscape
Flying Clouds, Drifting Haze
Space Dojo 2 (Billy and the Breakers - Firebird)

mmo moment. this is harder than i thought it would be. honestly might even actually be rooting for bifrost here even though i'm not voting for it
oh this is also a lot harder than i realised. really forgot how into rainbow love i was when listening during noms. that said... fcdh caught me on a good day for it too and that's unfortunate (honestly, i think i generally do like it more than most songs anyway)
glad i get to vote for one kaufman today at least (they're both so good). been a while since i last heard shadowlord, have never been into it even if i don't dislike it. actively doesn't seem like the type of song that would do well in contests either so i don't know why it crops up as often as it does

Aru

Departure
Buoy Base Galaxy
San-San

i should really be doing other things right now but since i don't know if i'll be as free at any point in the next 24 hours

departure just has more going on in it than dance, i think i'd say it's pretty close otherwise. there definitely is a bit of a drop off down to alts on both sets, but neither is bad
it's slightly unfortunate chicory was yesterday and i just relistened to the matches then like 30 mins ago lol. abandon me was a song that caught my attention for how i actually liked the way the clearly lena reine elements were incorporated. by contrast they work slightly less well than usual here. anyway buoy base is also here so lol
san-san is so much fun, and honestly so oddly unique for this contest. negati is alright, i think balan's soundtrack is a little too hit or miss for me to agree with people (the hipsters) that it's great at this point since they just have too many elements i don't feel work even when i should otherwise like them somewhat (usually the chanting)

-(ISOLEUCINE)-
Unfathomable Darkness
Fatal Blooms in Moonlight

i forgot i didn't vote last night oops

abandon me was honestly pretty decent, just, y'know
cruel match but that was always going to be a given
burninating is cool, just another obviously rough draw

barely have time to check the matches during the current days anyway definitely not helping that i'm also forgetting to vote after listening too

Meridian Child

KIMERA II
Lost Forest
Meridian Child / Don't Be Defeated By a Friend

kimera ii is probably the overall best vgm i've heard in terms of... i dunno, just how long it has remained impactful to me. how close to perfection it has remained after all this time. nothing in the league set really stood a chance here and ultracombo's classic guilty gear-esque flavour is no exception
katamari on the rocks is a song that just puts a grin on my face at this point. even with sakimoto at close to his most brilliant, this really is a tough match...
meridian child is so solid. definitely the kind of song i think is a tough sell to the crowd here regrettably. i kinda miss when cold steel was randomly a game i was into a ways before its localisation was announced and everything from it wasn't on some absurd pedestal here because yeah some of it is just kinda average rpg fare including this (not saying that's bad, i appreciate a game being good at being what it is, just yeah)

Raetsel_Lapin posted...

abysmally low view count

to be fair, the bilibili link for it does have 23k views. still think it's very unfortunate nobody checks the youtube link though

Heartless Being
LAND OF LUXURY ~Golden Land~
(it doesn't count but) Meridian Child

low-tier camellia is still high-tier enough i guess
losers >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> winners. i hate this match so much
chevalier is fun but just runs a little too far away from zun convention for me to be particularly into it very often. good song just not one that works for touhou i feel

Arbok
Seviper

Secret of the Forest
neither lol
St. Ursula Medical College

the secret of the forest is clearly that it's nonflammable (barely)
-
yo when did the tip cat song get remixed into an rpg inn theme ((kidding))

Sandshrew
Hippowdon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlS-ooc-5Lg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPn49EtX-uk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9F45f6X9Sow

Seanchan posted...

And Im goddamn surprised this is such a rout!

i felt ttyd was probably the only game capable of not being doubled by melee this contest after seeing their initial results so i'm not really. at this point it's probably the most likely contender to win a best mario game contest on here too

SotC

LightningStrikes posted...

top-reviewed non-early access games with more than 20 reviews

Norco suffering from emotional damage now

Anyway that could've been my pick for a while but.............. Hm, not sure actually. I feel my answer will be dishonest until i get around to citizen sleeper at least, as well as the giant number of notable (mostly square) jrpgs i haven't started either. For now though, I might as well tentatively say a game I don't by any particular means consider the best game I played this year, but the one I've had the most fun in by a considerable margin. And that's Legend of Neverland, which exited early access/had a global release a few months ago. As soon as my new phone arrives you should hopefully find me back on the NA20 server, representing the rogue bard guild DragonPoncho. We tend to go around the server looking for new map exploits (okay this is mostly just me) and playing custom midi vgm wherever others are. Also engaging in the many forms of dailies of course, though we're far from the power guild (especially not now that i've had to take near a month off)

guild shilling aside though yeah i've been having a lot of fun in that, it has far less in common with genshin than the haters claim and already has basically peak levels of content for a phone mmo with like 50 different forms of stat progression (and dailies). The custom music feature (where you can call people over to play individual instruments in midis you add) is definitely my favourite thing about it though, as well as the fun physics exploits you can use to get out of bounds (and perform in places you're not meant to)

Steenee
Sceptile
Serperior
Simisage
Leafeon

heck this is a brutal type

HMs to the following: Shroomish / Maractus / Turtwig / Shaymin* / Carnivine / Petilil / Gossifleur / Seedot / Rillaboom / Bellossom / Cherubi / Sprigatito / Floragato

*wasn't sure whether or not to factor in sky forme for it, decided to anyway otherwise it would've gotten a vote from me

Prontera Field
Apex of the World (Rain)
Love-Colored Master Spark

substance > style
modern nintendo ost hierarchy is pretty clear for a reason, sorry kirbo
if yesterday had an unwinnable match in favour of an orchestral song, today has the reverse tbh

aria

Mareep
Manectric
Luxio
Xurkitree
stacked as heck type this vote would probably be different on any given day

i guess the best way to do that would be to not vote today

i remember the demo feeling like hollow knight meets trine

Dragonair

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytZkLW55diY

no, both are less moral these days

When the Heart Ignites
ROYAL TOMB (Stage D: LUXURIA)
Our Homeland

such a passionate and dramatic first match. hoping both do well here
2 songs that i like a lot in different ways. obviously i'm going to be biased here because i'm down to my last nom and i wanted to prove to everyone that arakawa kenichi was every bit as worth talking about on cotton fantasy as hagane, so i would be pretty pissed if both the arakawa songs i included just get destroyed (already at a 0-1 record after space...), but i do think lift & lodge is particularly neat. hoping both also do well here
very unfortunate match. flying castle is fantastic but it got an opponent that it can't really compete with to me

Prince

TCoS
TCoS
TKaL

okay that was a lot closer than i expected (jeez)
okay that was as close as i expected (jeez). feel sorry for eschatos drawing effectively the same song twice in a row, not really helping its cause here, but that's why it shouldn't have been doing stuff like that with the set to begin with (even if they're both worth it)
okay this one is somehow the most evil today i'm this close to abstaining

X (online) is the best and it's a crime it's not available

Comfey
Alcremie

Journey

Labyrinth V - Chalky Woods
Swimming in an Empty Sky
Maidens Capriccio ~ Dream Battle

welp match 2 hurts me