LogFAQs > #953780500

[...continued]

---Collapsed Expressway vs The Heritors of Arcadia---

-(i LOVE MITSUTO SUZUKI; he always brings these lush full-produced arrangements to the ar tonelico (EXCUSE ME I MEAN AR NOSURGE (final fantasy 7) WHAT? ?? ? final fantasy 7 music doesn't sound like pre school toy keyboard anymore? No! It sounds like the landscape now. Now I can go on a journey with my cyberpunk friends like that guy from the lion king with the roman numeral. Suzuki always chooses these glassy FM bells and things I'M SO SORRY THAT I DIDNT GET THE LABYRINTH OF TIME FROM FINAL FANTASY 13-ii by mitsuto suzuki into the contest ;-; that is one of my top 10 favorite songs ever. Kind of crazy taht both me and kaonashi have a song that we like a lot by mitsuto suzuki that uses the same instruments in it even though they are from different games.
~~~~~~~~~~
The unhinged fakeness in this song is great. how it just has this pseudo-sitar timbre, it's playing these melodies that feel like they could be played by plucked strings, but it's clearly deliberately something otherworldly instead of being a real sitar. It thrusts these imaginary instruments at you that have a tinge of their real counterparts, but presented in this futuristic artificial way that makes me think of "DV-i" who uses FM8 a lot just like Mitsuto Suzuki. these playful liveplayed sounding moments but they are on synths instead of "violins or something" is very "alive" and I treasure that. The unexpected chords at :55-:58 are so cool and the sudden airy moment it sucks you into immediately after is a real gem. This piece of music is just full of all these elements I look for and it really shouldn't surprise me that i enjoy this so much, given the nominator and composer. no wonder people who don't pay attention to mitsuto suzuki think this sounds like hamauzu (by the way if you like this song check out other mitsuto suzuki ff songs they are really cool ESPECIALLY THE LABYRINTH OF TIME and Limit Break! from final fantasy 13-2 )
~~~~~~~~~~
I think it is kind of easy to dismiss this as boring background music not designed to be focused on, it doesn't try to be climactic or cinematic, it's the environment. i like music that feels like environments, i didn't know the context of this song the first time i heard it but it depicted to my mind almost exactly what it's real setting is somehow. Really cool. this reminds me of non-vocal ar tonelico ii tracks like "A Boy Caught in The Thick of Things" or "A Ruthless Blade", which are both long-time favorites from that soundtrack. This piece of music transcends all boundaries of my constantly changing music taste between 2009-2021. it hits everything i've liked across that range of time i've been participating in vgmc in some small way, all in different ways. that's really COOL)-

-[now for the total opposite, unlike collapsed expressway, this is the type of song i've only come to understand my enjoyment of in recent years. I still don't get nearly as into it as the more 'complex' Hiroki Morishita fire emblem offerings, but I have a thing for "melodramatic" vocal themes. HEAVENS DIVIDE and stuff. i think in a world where all the people who vote similarly to me vote in the ways they do; i would be the most likely in that 'group' to abandon an expected vote for something proggy or whatever, for something like this insteadSAVIOUR OF MELODRAMATIC VOCALS. (this was PROVED by haste's analysis last year). Now what we really need is overdradmatic vocal themes that are really proggy at the same time (oh wait that's every other pso2 vocal song no wonder that is my favorite soundtrack). I honestly dont have much to say about this one other than that i like the emotion it exudes. I feel bad being reductive in categorizing this with stuff others probably find much more cheesy, but i enjoy it for the same reasons.]-

-{the end of the conclusion, i really, like collapsed expressway. it's a shame i'm not able to express my appreciation for heritors in this scenario. both make me pretty happy}-

------

in case you did not notice I did NOT do a ranking beforehand this year, for the first time since vgmc10, all of 11-14 i had a ranking done before the contest started! So!!! what i am going to do is rank as the contest goes.

here is the start of my ranking. i will add songs between these positions as the contest goes, hopefully

1. Mr. Bones - The First Thing
2. Final Fantasy VII Remake - Collapsed Expressway
3. Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia - The Heritors of Arcadia
4. Pokmon Gold and Silver - National Park
5. Touhou 14.5: Urban Legend in Limbo - Reach for the Moon, Immortal Smoke
6. Atelier Meruru: The Apprentice of Arland - Nefertiti (Ver.MMXI)

i can imagine moving some of these positions around later, they're kind of in clusters of 2 right now (i think i thought i was going to rank collapsed expressway above the first thing, initially). maybe the good thing about doing this as it goes is that i'm a bit more free to change things
---

time