LogFAQs > #962379646

84st
Game: Valkyria Chronicles 4
Title: Squad E Fights On
Composer: Hitoshi Sakimoto
Nominator: @Haunter12O
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMdbIeLQ84E

and THEReS Haunter12O again FINALLY. You having this massive gap halfway through your noms is pretty hilarious. As pointed out earlier in the topic, your bottom 4 all went out in the 200s, and your top four are all at least in this top 84! there's some other hilariously huge gaps in this topic but this one sticks out to me most because it's like so even split between your top 4 and bottom 4. some entire people have had all or almost all 8 of their noms go out between the time your previous nom went out and now! crazy weird how this worked out

I'd say it seems like you tend to like two very different "types" of songs, at least from my perspective of how i perceive music. one of those types of songs does very little for me (the more straightforward catchy melodic type that your bottom four noms were more like); but the other type is basically my favorite type of music! This being an example of such (uhh i'll explain it below but i suppose the consistent factor with your high-ranking noms for me is extended harmony and generally really full and intricate feeling arrangements with lots of stuff going on at once). I suppose there's a consistent set of threads between all 8, epic orchestra and stuff like that.

anyway BASISCAPE is BASICally my favorite type of music. I've always loved specific basiscape songs but more recent than the making of this topic i've gotten so deep into the output of the sound team as a whole. Hitoshi Sakimoto is probably like only my 5th favoite basiscape composer and he's still somewhere in my top 30 favorite musicians of all time, that's how stupid nailed perfect down this sound team is to my taste! I can barely think of any basiscape music i even slightly dislike. i might even like Hitoshi Sakimoto just as much as my long-time favorite Hayato Matsuo these days (*mysterious information*) ((i used to consistently prefer matsuo's stuff in osts they were both on, now i really can't decide!!! they're both so good!!!))

what i notice about basiscape (and the portion of your noms that happened to make my top 4, in general) is very lush harmonies, chords (especially orchestra chords) that are very dense and feel "full" and thick and EPIC and like an imaginary futuristic military with magic powers going on an adventure inside of the big fantasy grass field to beat up some guy named "lord c: of 5990 third" and also they are inside a computer at the same time. these songs are basically absolutely never harmonically simple. even when something seems very conventional on a passive listen, there's so many details of intricacy when i attune my ears closer. whether just in arrangement, number of things going on, rhythms, really dense chords, or unusual movements between chords or unusual melody-chord interactions. my ears always catch something new every time i listen to these songs. that's what i like about the top half of your noms, and also (as relevant to this song) basiscape/sakimoto in general

that style can apply to a variety of aesthetics, and it does both within the sound team and within the portion of your noms in general that made it this high. This is an example of it applying to something more natural rather than artificial

anyway enough talk about "in general" WHAT DO I LIKE ABOUT [this song]

answer: i like it.

oh hey it goes into 5/4 at :13! i feel like in 2018 i would've considered that the most significant moment to me, but what i get most out of these days is all those string chord clusters jumping around from :29-:41. there's so much going on once there but it never feels cluttered, by contrast it actually feels floaty, like i'm in the clouds...

Pretty much every moving line in this tune is accompanied by something else moving simultaneously along with it. There's like almost no "melody lines" (and when there are, they're quickly subverted or layered with something else), its ALL "chord lines". i LOVE that feeling. That means something though, i'm not just like analyzing musical content in some shallow non-emotional way here. When i hear this /constant/ density, i feel like i'm the hero in a situation where a lot of chaos is going around me. I'm powering through a fight, winning. I'm dodging dozens of explosions, focused on my goal of PASSION for doing WHAT I THINK IS RIGHT [ i dont k now the plot of this game at all] and that being the only thing keeping me alive in the minefield of perils.

being able to comprehend any individual element clearly in a landscape of composition that's relentlessly dense and chaotic, especially in a track as emotionally elevating as this one: it feels like you're succeeding at something challenging. I suppose, you legitimately are, and that may be why it works so powerful to me: when I listen to this song, i am feel accomplished that i'm able to comprehend any element of the overwhelming stimulation. The music doesn't /sound/ overstimulating, it forces me to have like..plenty of possible options to latch on to pretty easily! but in latching onto any one of them, i feel accomplished. It forces me to instinctually feel the emotional parallel between "successfully comprehending something simple out of a convoluted barrage of information" to "succeeding during a very difficult fight". that shit is POWERFUL % Man. i'm forced to on instinct /literally/ feel the emotion this track conveys, i'm not just giving it the heroic label by association, the dopamine rush is real and entirely overlapping with the scenario. I'm in love with that concept so much.

and that on top of the layers that actually /are/ tropes that evoke heroism. it's just really cool, for that to exist on top of the actual musical factors forcing my brain to function in a specific way where it's easy to latch on to any given element but impossible to latch onto the whole thing, so it's always in this precise state of "powering through the chaos", only amplified by heroic melodies and stuff

god since this topic i've also gotten way deeper into the real even more specific this song clearly evokes in general: final fantasy tactics music. I binged the whole ost and similar sakimoto soundtracks a bunch of times recently looking for a song i had in my head, that as far as i can tell at this point...does not exist? i was just imagining it and making it up? maybe i'll find it someday. this song reminds me of that imaginary song tho, to the point i actually though it might've been part of this song or something. Maybe that's the best way to divide the two sides of your taste as i see it: "Final Fantasy 7 vs Final Fantasy Tactics", i am 100% on the fft side of that question. i like that for pretty much the same reason as this.

in the past i had a conversation with kao about how a past way he and i used to disagree when our tastes weren't as similar is that i did not like "militaristic music" (largely referring to sakimoto specifically) and that is NOT TRUE anymore; i actively really love that sound NOW , and this exactly is that sound. militaristic sakimoto music is like, the best sakimoto music to me now

i have barely listened to valkyria chronicles music at all but i ASSUME I would enjoy it given who composed it and everything i've just said. this definitely makes me energized to want to check it all out!