LogFAQs > #876343151

In the Final
Ar-ciel Ar-manaf
Tuxedo Knight

I never really got the love for In the Final, but I will at least vote for it here. Neither of these songs are ones I particularly care for here, though I guess to be fair I don't have particular negative feelings toward them either. Swordfish is pretty much completely unremarkable to me though, whereas In the Final has that epic sound going for it even if I don't think it does it especially well.

Second match is a different story entirely and is probably the first time this year it's actually hurt to vote against a song. I actually love both of these, but Ar-ciel manages to win out here. Really love the vocals there. A big thing for me with music (and, well, most art forms) is catharsis. While I won't claim it's an essential element or anything, but depicting some kind of emotion and then letting it get released through the melody is probably the best way to get me to like a song. That's why I'll typically opt for a lot of the songs that I do over, say, stuff like In the Final or Touhou songs or something. And, I think Ar-Ciel is another good example of that. When I was listening through again today I was having trouble remembering why I liked it as much as I did during nominations. And then I just had this singular moment of "oh right that's why" at pretty much exactly at 3:34. I really love the way that melodic line resolves itself, and then the entire rest of the song pretty much is like that also to varying degrees. (Also I promise I do like Yomitsu Hirasaka Corruption a lot also--I just had a lot more to say about the other song.)

Hills of Radiant is another really popular that always felt rather average to me, but eh. Tuxedo Night though is pretty solid. It's got some neat melodies that are well supported by the backing tracks. It feels a bit underwhelming after the super-high-quality second match, but it's by all rights a good song itself.

Ar-Ciel > Yomitsu Hirasaka Corruption > Tuxedo Knight > In the Final > Hills of Radiant Wind > Swordfish
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I guess DpObliVion gets to be in my sig now. His knowledge of video game popularity contests far surpasses my own.