Lurker > NBIceman

Bulbasaur
Mega Sceptile
Breloom
Cacturne
Abomasnow
Whimsicott

Pretty stacked type for me.

CJones posted...

If you like Snake Oil Baptism and Bitter Suite IV & V, you'll probably also like DSO's Tap Dancer's Dilemma.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6_Uy6HBAJY

I actually think I may have nominated Dilemma for this ranking last year? I know I've done it for at least one song ranking on this board.

Speaking of The Bitter Suite, I managed to track down a copy of Act IV. Pretty good. I don't like it as much as Act V though. Also found Act II, which I'm listening to now. Still looking for I & III for a reasonable price.

Glad to hear you're enjoying the band! I look forward to hearing more thoughts.

Man, I've got a lot to catch up on. I was doing a lot better keeping up earlier in the topic. Fortunately I don't have a whole lot to say about a lot of these.

The Haves Have Naught: It's funny that you enjoy the duet aspect so much, because even after years of listening to this album, I'm still not sure I like it. It feels weird to have just one song in the Acts where anyone but Casey is doing anything but backing vocals. I also don't exactly love Gavin Castleton's voice all that much in the first place. Admittedly, though, I'm not sure the song really even works without it. It's not like Act IV's "Wait," where you can easily understand the overall point of the song without even knowing it's meant as a duet. And anyway, those are nitpicks - it's a cool song.

Regress: Narrowly edges out Writing On a Wall as my favorite intro song in the Acts. Piano and violin are my two favorite instruments and the lyrics do a more perfect job of setting up the overall feel of the album than any of the others. Also, a fun tidbit: an early version of the sheet music without lyrics showed up online a good while before the album released (https://my.scorecloud.com/song/41388a4a409189b8d8d86e1564f4228b/TDH1) and I distinctly remember actually tearing up the first time I heard the part beginning at 0:43. I wore out that replay button waiting for Act V to drop, lemme tell you.

The Most Cursed of Hands: The guitar work in this song is just so groovy and I love the parable aspect of it for the uniqueness in the story. I do think it's effectively a middling song among Acts IV and V, though. Another fun tidbit: the band released a full short story about it and it's pretty fun, if somewhat cheesy. https://i.redd.it/orwp7nhabo081.jpg

The Fire (Remains): The Simpsons memes are honestly kind of hilarious, so no worries there, even though this is a top 20 song all-time for me. It's about the most perfect climax I could've hoped for, with Casey's work in the last chorus being among his finest performances ever IMO.

The Revival: That's certainly a depressing drop from the Revised Score. I feel like I have one song every year that does that. For whatever reason, this is the Act V song that I find stuck in my head most often - something about the melody is very earworm-y, I guess, with the theatricality of it all. It's such a fun track despite the unsettling subject matter.

Picking Up the Pieces: I basically have the same thoughts on this one as you do. It's pretty easily the least interesting song I nominated this time around, I think, so I kind of expected it to be gone long before it even was. But that's obviously not to say it's bad. I think the lyrics that are present are quite good and pretty much everything I've heard from MEER has had outstanding vocals.

And theeeen...

The Moon/Awake: Definitely a bit of a bummer that this one didn't get more of a bump. I currently have this as my #7 favorite song of all time, and some days I feel like moving it into my top 5. I think this is something of a career peak for Casey, because it has some of his absolute best lyrics (which is saying something) and also maybe his best vocals work.

I'd bare you my heart if I knew that it still was there
I'm too nervous to look
Too afraid to close the book

Chills every time. Four-plus albums of buildup for Hunter to finally demonstrate a tiny bit of self-awareness and it comes out in that poetry. Casey sings it with such a palpable feeling of regret and desperation and sheer, utter sadness, and with his wife supporting him in the background with those restrained ethereal accompaniments... There may not be another example in music that gives me that frisson sensation. The only one I can think of that comes close is The Show Must Go On by Queen, but I don't think it's quite the same, and a lot of that has to do with the real-world circumstances behind that song anyway.

A lot of TDH superfans, myself included, tend to think of many of their songs as needing a bit of time to grow on you. I like most of their output from my first listen, but I rarely decide which songs I love until I've heard them at least a half-dozen times. The Moon/Awake bucks that trend; I adored it from my first time hearing it. I had to get over some initial feelings of confusion, granted, because the #2 tracks on the Acts had always been very high-energy, shouty affairs (outside of The Lake South on Act I, which is basically an extended intro anyway that moves into City Escape being more of what I just described), whereas The Moon is restrained and almost reticent for most of its runtime. I could tell the chorus was beautiful immediately, but I'd been waiting for bombast that didn't come, so it kinda took me aback.

It comes later, though! The end of that bridge section that brings Casey screaming The spirit split in TWO made me start nodding my head and smiling, and then he immediately tops himself with the Dear Apparition section (hearing him perform that live is quite something, as a side note).

Anyhoo, I'd certainly hoped it'd go a little further, but I can't complain about it landing in the "I really like this" tier. I'm just glad you're not tired of the band by now!

Galarian Moltres
Houndoom
Bisharp
Guzzlord

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msp1eRosE-Y

Mega Man (NES)
Well, it's certainly raw. Nothing here even feels all that difficult so much as it is annoying. Basic enemies are annoying, Ice Man's stage is annoying, some of the glitches are annoying... There's just a lot of frustration here that's not present in future games. Still fun, though.

Flygon
Claydol
Excadrill

MacArrowny posted...

Wait, what's wrong with the ending? I thought it was great.

I don't want to get too deep into it because I don't want the topic to turn into a redacted document with everyone discussing through spoiler tags, but the main thing is that it just felt very rushed to me. Everything that happens with Glenn's development after the reveal that he's not Timothy is sort of hurried through, and when the ending involves some pretty complex character motivations I think that's kind of a problem.

The story is quite good overall, but I think it has a major problem with pacing that all comes to a head with the ending just not feeling like it was built up properly. It could've very much used a few more hours to just slow things down and examine the effects some of the bigger plot points were having on the party.

I have one or two thematic nitpicks as well but overall I think it's a fine ending in theory. I just don't feel that it was executed well.

Mega Man 3 (NES)
So, I mentioned I was terrible at these games as a kid. I'm still not very good, for whatever reason. I've beaten much harder games with much more ease, but something about classic Mega Man just doesn't agree with me, I guess. I ended up really hoarding E-Tanks without meaning to in this one, though - maybe that was part of my problem.

Anyway, 3 is also great and everyone also knows that.

Man, the more I think about the ending the more I dislike it.

Pangoro
Hawlucha

Mega Man 2 (NES)
The classic Mega Man games were some of the first video games I ever played as a kid, but because I was in fact a dumb kid that was very bad at them, I never actually finished any. And as the years have gone on and my tastes as a gamer have changed quite a bit, I never really bothered to go back to them. Well, no more. This year I'm determined to beat... At least some of them in between other stuff I want to do. Starting with 2, since it was easily the one I banged my head against the most in those formative years.

It's great. Everyone knows that. That's my review.

Alolan Marowak
Hisuian Typhlosion
Ho-Oh
Camerupt

Hell yeah, correct Ghost winner. Down with Mimikyu.

Starmie
Lapras
Lanturn
Slowking
Ludicolo
Keldeo

Chandelure
Trevenant

Togekiss

I'll be fairly surprised if Sea of Stars isn't better than Chained Echoes but I'm very optimistic on the former and I seem to be coming in a little below the majority on the latter.

KamikazePotato posted...

I think it's a fine list if you just punt Awakening closer to the bottom.

Agreed. That's really my only major objection.

Scyther
Forretress
Shedinja
Swadloon
Escavalier
Galvantula

I'm a big fan of Origin as well. Only other Ys games I've played so far are Oath and Ark, but Origin is by far my favorite and the only one I'd say is better than just okay.

Zestiria for me too.

Dragonite
Latios
Garchomp

"one of the greatest JRPGs you'll ever experience" - 9/10

I don't know anything about this Dan Rizzo fella but I'm not sure how much I trust his opinion if the peak of a pretty important genre of video games only merits a 9/10 from him.

Mega Ampharos
Heliolisk
Toxtricity

First one that came to mind is To the Moon.

Alolan Ninetales
Froslass

This as a reaction image: http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/794/912/976.png

Lugia
Gallade
Mega Gallade

Honorable mention to Xatu.

First half record of 84, too.

War Painted Valentine: I still remember how hard I laughed when the chorus hit and the chicken noises kicked in when I first heard this single, especially considering that it follows an opening verse that just sounds like borderline gibberish unless you have the lyrics sitting in front of you. It just so perfectly encapsulates what I love about DSO. And I remember reading somewhere that, when asked about the song's inspiration, the band said something along the lines of "The world is going to hell and all of our leaders sound like a henhouse." Which is just a fantastic line. Solidly in the upper third of songs off Swagger & Stroll in my mind.

Falling Out of Trees: I'm a big fan of that ghost line as well, though I think the bit of wordplay with "white as a sheet" that precedes it makes it even better. Really, I think the whole song is pretty awesome lyrically, though I suspect I identify far, far more strongly with its themes than you do. And as you mentioned, the singer's voice is beautiful. All that being said, though, it's definitely one of the less interesting songs I nominated this time around.

I'm a bit nervous that Falling Out of Trees is the only song I've had come up in quite a while. Looks like the last one before that was King Other, a whole 180+ places ago? Usually when that's happened in the past it's been setting up for a bunch of my noms to drop like flies soon after.

Also, props for the reference to the Community peanut bar rap. Easily a top 3 moment on the whole show.

The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero (PC)

Starting the year off with a bang in what is definitely my favorite of the... Is there an accepted term in the Trails fandom for the first games in each of the individual arcs? Calling them prologue or setup games or something like that feels harsh considering how expansive they still are, especially in Zero's case with how much happens. Whatever. The point is that between Sky FC, CS1, and Zero, this one is definitely my favorite.

Having the game set exclusively in and around one city gives it a very different feel than those others that I think I largely prefer. Crossbell is an interesting setting, providing a nice natural environment for the rookies of the SSS to get their feet wet in the seedy city underbelly and political corruption issues before everything goes wild at the end. Everything else is pretty standard Trails goodness - likeable characters, great writing, fantastic OST, lots of interconnected teases for later on. I know a lot of fans call Azure one of the best games in the series if not the very peak, so I'm very much looking forward to getting to that one... Probably this summer.

Girafarig
Sawsbuck

Man, there's just nothing about this game that looks appealing to me.

Pidgeot
Noctowl
Staraptor
Braviary

Mega Aggron

mnk posted...

Delivered but with a b.

... I've always said Deli Bird but this makes so much more sense.

FFDragon posted...

Hmmm... Probably good for an 85-88 of it improves on Messenger at all, which I would consider good enough. That was never on my radar though, so good call.

Yep. I'm also using Chained Echoes as a comparison - Sea of Stars will probably get more attention but I'm also expecting it to be a better game.

Does Sea of Stars count as a sleeper?

Sudowoodo
Lycanroc

I didn't read the part about having an announced date, whoops.

SF6 is probably my answer then.

Sea of Stars, as the first and only Kickstarter game I've ever backed. If the beta quality was at all indicative of what we can expect from a full release, it'll be the best JRPG in a very long time.

I'll also shout out Granblue Fantasy Re:link on the off chance it actually comes out.

I agree the Sky Armor fights are kinda blah. I wish I could say they get better, but they don't - some of their late-game boss fights are extremely unfun.

Oh wow, I can't believe I missed this. Good for him, watched a lot of grinding over the years.

I'd really like to get to Berwick Saga soonish. Good chance I end up hating it but it looks a lot more appealing to me than any of Kaga's other non-FE pursuits... And even most of his actual FE products.

Normally I'm on board with that line of thinking but Hayes literally did something they don't even allow in MMA for being too dangerous.

neonreaper posted...

Not a fan of Wagner getting less than Hayes but whatever.

Absolutely baffling take.

tcaz2 posted...

Exactly as many episodes as is needed to tell the story it wants to tell and not more or less.

Yep. I've seen TV seasons with 20+ episodes that felt like they went by twice as fast as some of the 8-episode productions Netflix has put out in recent years. It all depends.

Sounds like the suspensions are being staggered.

Just finished it. Have to say I didn't care much for the ending, but in all other respects this really is a great RPG. Not gonna threaten my top 10 or anything but an excellent experience. Good characters, great story, outstanding gameplay and music. Glad it's getting as much attention as it is.

I can confirm I have seen "overtuned" thrown around a lot for Dota and League.

Thoughts on stuff I missed over the holidays.

Sightseeing in the Apocalypse: Pretty fair spot I think, although I consider this one a really effective opener for how directly it sets up the overall feel and theming of the album.

Ballad of the Mighty I: At one time this was among my least favorite High Flying Birds songs, but as I didn't really care for most of Who Built the Moon? it's kind of risen in my esteem by default over the years. It's also a bit of a memorable one for me because Noel forgot the words to the second verse when I saw him live and, after the song was over, he proceeded to hilariously complain about how long and complicated it is.

Overture to a Ceasefire: And so my favorite song off of Swagger and Stroll does fall. The marching drumbeat is such a great bookend to the album alongside Sightseeing - "sad parade music" is a pretty good descriptor, actually. I just love that even when DSO writes a comparatively "normal" song they still find a way to make things bizarre and unexpected. Your first couple of times listening to this, you just never know whether the next note is going to be one of consonance or dissonance. And then it just kind of putters out right as it seems to be building to some grand climax. The vocals are fun, the lyrics are great, and it really puts a nice little bow on everything that the rest of the Swagger tracks had to say. This is just a top-tier album ender.

And Then There Was Silence: Straight up top-15 song of all time for me. Or, at least, the original version from A Night at the Opera is. This re-recorded one is still excellent but I agree with CJones that the loss of some of the high-note vocals, appropriately, drops it a couple notches - there's just so much more of an epic feeling when everything is completely cutting loose. I've always found it interesting that ANatO has two songs centering around Cassandra and that the second one is the most ambitious thing Blind Guardian ever attempted. Hansi Kursch must find her a really interesting character to center his magnum opus around her. This feels like the culmination of everything he ever wanted to write considering that nothing else in the band's discography even comes close to its scale and the fact that, as CJones mentioned, they put a significant amount of time and effort into it... Honestly, it's weird to think that there are even 14 songs in existence that I like even better than this one. It really is a triumph of music.

Come With Me Now: I don't really care very much about this song except that it holds a special place in my heart for being the goal song for a few years of the now-defunct minor-league hockey team in my hometown. Lots of great memories of doing a very silly arm-pumping celebration in rhythm with the melody alongside my dad and a whole stadium full of other fans. Fun to see it show up on this list.

Glad to escape the Clump myself. Have a feeling one or two of my noms aren't gonna make it much longer, though.