LogFAQs > #954399827

Toxtricity posted...

-[note i probably should've written: "*(Suspected: Hiroshi Kobayashi)" and i may even be able to confirm, they're known to have done the majority of the ost and this song "sounds like the majority of the ost". also it's known NOT to be Hirofumi Taniguchi, because we know which specific single song is theirs (Gekokujoh Norakura (which is actually easily my favorite in the game~!))
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anyway gtr attack as a nom is really disappointing to me. i'm pretty loud about how i was once such a fan of sega genesis music that i listened to "EVERY" sega genesis soundtrack. multiple times!! i went through all of them...a lot, AND i LOVE the Contra series for music! so naturally I think Contra Hard Corps is a brilliant OST!! but this song always made me roll my eyes like...this ost has INSANELY COOL fm synth sound design, and this song centers itself around imo not-that-good fm guitar, it's like hilariously unappealing a sound compared to every other sound to me in the entire soundtrack, can name dozens of genesis osts i prefer the fake guitar in to this. and i'm saying this as someone who LIKES harsh FM! it's sad too because i've even warmed back up to like this type of guitar-centric stuff, i could like this for the same reason i like fateful confrontation (spoilers) if it had been done a bit differently. i could pick apart everything that makes this not click with me but, well i don't need to be negative any more than i've already been. there's actually some really good bits here, :23-1:06 has really quirky chord changes and melody layer over it, very super paper mario-esque and i adore that whole section, tonally super weird in a way i respect a lot and every moving layer highlights that. I also really like the parallel-y harmonized synth layer sorta thing doing fun big arps at like :43 and all the stuff that sound does a bit later. There's lots of cool sounds in this song, like basically everything other than the guitar i think sounds fucking cool. i used to be a total "automatically likes fm synths" guy, but it is harder to literally automatically sell me on FM synth chiptunes than it once was, and maybe especially this song, which i was never even quite into]-

-{honestly even 2009 me might've gone id here, not sure. not sure there's any hard corps songs that beat id for me now (though Gekokujoh Norakura comes close) but most of the rest of this ost would've beat it for me in 2009}-

ok i TAKE THIS BACK i am now relistening to the whole contra hard corps ost and remembering how much i like the whole thing. including that song. I basically just dont like the guitar sound used in the first 23 seconds, because i read it as being really blocky and unexpressive and unnuanced of a timbre that i just find too cheesy to take seriously, especially when i think there's tons of cool sounding fm synth guitars out there. but that's not enough to demote this to that low in the ranking. EVERYTHING else that i mentioned liking in the song, i still like, and actually actively love...some of the best moments in the whole ost for me are the very things i said i love about it in my writeup above. in fact it's ridiculous that a writeup where i say as many positive things as i do i still rank this song that low

imo it's not as sound_design-impressive as many of the other songs in this game (and knowing that "using genesis chip in cool interesting-sounding ways" is part of why i like contra hard corps music, it made me assume i rank this really low relative to the rest of the game, thoughtlessly, and i feel that feeling of "bad pick from ost i know i like most of" or even "part of song i hate when i like most of the rest of the song" probably biased me against this unfairly)

but it's compositionally super fun, so i can't complain. i just wish the guitar in the first section were like, time trax's guitar, hitoshi sakimoto genesis pseudo-guitar, or even 'other songs in contra hard corps' guitar. but everything else about the song is great and i'm SORRY for being so mean to it. it is definitely not my least favorite song in the game, probably at least like mid-tier? my reaction is "mixed" but i clearly have more positive things to say about most of the song than not.

here is my new ranking position for the contest though
GTR Attack! (60th/106)

it could be bumped up easily (as could id/sogno too)

still no chance of me voting for it because of what it is against though haha
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