Board 8 > Wickle ranks character themes: Ranking Time

(+) Yeah! (+)

And that was a "got busy, then forgot to post" moment.

#59. Zelos
Game: Tales of Symphonia
Character: Zelos Wilder

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqW5f6x5m18
Nominator: WhiteLens

Song Rating: 6
Character Rating: 6

It doesn't do enough, to be honest. It loops around and could easily use like an extra instrument. It's not like Zelos is THIS simplistic. Also... I still don't even recognize the song from in-game, just one of those things. As for Zelos himself, I'm not going to say I don't dislike him... but I sure as hell am not a fan of his. He fits in Average because I've never wanted to give him the chance towards the end of the game (though I've never actually gotten to that set of scenes anyway). He's just lucky he's not my least favorite ToS party member.
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#58. Diabolosis
Game: The King of Fighters XIII
Character: Dark Ash

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmPdp4QimA4
Nominator: NioraptH

Song Rating: 6
Character Rating: 6

It starts off really iffy, and then gets a really cool beginning, from there it has some cool parts, but it's also kind of boring. Like has a bit of potential, and a tune that reminds me of a song I can't seem to realize what it is at the moment. It's just... okay. Not bad, but wasted potential to me. Well, I remember Ash Crimson being nominated for one of my things, I did the little bit for there, and I... well, forget everything. I gave him a 6 because it seemingly fits.
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^
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Yeah, this was just me forgetting yesterday.

#57. Deep Blue Jeer
Game: Umineko no Naku Koro Ni Chiru
Character: Eirika Furudo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcTxd5qQChw
Nominator: Raka_Putra

Song Rating: 6
Character Rating: 7

I started on character when I primarily did this write-up, but I should do song first... nearly always. The song hits this low because it's a good song... if it ends before it repeats. Because it starts to repeat and just turns to garbage. Ends up an average song because it hits highs of like 8 or 9, but lows of like 4. Sounds a bit weird averaging out, but that's how it randomly works. Now Eirika... Is the first character I hated so heavily that my opinion flipped. During episode 6, when she was killing all of Battler's first night victims I blew a goddamn gasket and got so pissed I had to turn off the game. And it was from that moment that she probably went up to one of my favorite Umineko characters. Then episode 8 happened and it was such a stupid role she dropped back to this rating.
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hi.
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Maybe I finish the 6 rated songs today, maybe I continue being demotivated.

#56. Betrayal
Game: Silent Hill 2
Character: Pyramid Head

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zy_AQEogQdU
Nominator: Snake

Song Rating: 6
Character Rating: 8

This song... is pretty damn creepy. You essentially have metal work, something that sounds like a factory pounding... with just this eerie screeching laying there. Eventually an angelic tune kicks in and makes it continue to just be eerie. You understand perfectly what kind of genre the game is and just what manner of scenario it's playing during. Get. The. Fuck. Out. Sadly, it doesn't make for even good random bgm. I actually posted that straight from my spreadsheet, rather than writing a new write-up because I thought it worked. It didn't have the character write-up which I shall add now, however. Pyramid Head dropped quite quickly when I did my antagonist write-ups despite James ranking within my top 5 for the meaning of Silent Hill 2. And it truly was because there was no world where I could play the game because of how Pyramid Head works. I couldn't rank him highly then mostly to spite him. Here, however... he gets a bit less 3spooky5me treatment, and the reasons are all SH2 spoilers. Those of you who have played it understand, those of you who haven't... Well, either do your research... or play/watch it yourself. It's pretty cool. One thing I will add... One of the biggest factors of this switch in opinion for me, is that he supposedly basically never actually attacks you. He's just there to scare the shit out of you. Oh, and can't seem to get a good image size just by searching... too lazy to fix one. I've been trying to not have massive pictures lately.
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Pyramid Head can definitely attack you in each of its boss fights and will attack you if you get too close in each of the Labyrinth encounters. And still, in his role as executioner and punisher, he attacks James indirectly in that regard as well.
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#55. Satori Maiden ~ 3rd Eye
Game: Touhou 11: Subterrranean Animism
Character: Satori Komeiji

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12AHLzW4kks
Nominator: Shonen_Bat

Song Rating: 6
Character Rating: 8

To me, the song has a main melody, and then there's mostly nothing outside of it. It's a song with some good parts, but is kind of just 'eh' when not playing those. I feel bad that I can't explain this as well as some other ones, but it's just what I have. Here we have our second Touhou character falling, and you can see by rating, it's not really the fault of the character, just how I did these rankings. There were three nominated from this game, and the other two are this character's "pets." Satori is a type of youkai that can read the heart and mind of any living creature (except other satoris, the type of youkai), which is why she's "all-powerful." She's beloved since it allows her to talk to animals. Through reading minds, she actually has the ability to tap into spell cards from previous games. It's a cool concept, I've nothing to dislike about her character. Just these sorts of things.
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Oh PH attacks the shit out of you, what? He's just too fucking slow to reach you is all.

Incidentally I'm currently playing Evil Within and one of the bosses is a strikingly horrific homage. I'm getting PH vibes all over
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Late one, but wanted to post one more to finish the 6s.

#54. King of the Sky
Game: Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn
Character: Tibarn

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQy2qTc6z3Q
Nominator: NBIceman

Song Rating: 6
Character Rating: 9

Special battle theme for Tibarn... and it's honestly pretty weak. Doesn't really feature anything that fantastically great for the character... who I should state, is one of the best PoR/RD characters. Not just an opinion but straight up fact. Do note that I said one of. Whoops, for all that I could comment on and I just don't know if it even matters. Guess I'll cut this write-up short.
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erika is best girl
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What?
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WickIebee posted...

I started on character when I primarily did this write-up, but I should do song first... nearly always. The song hits this low because it's a good song... if it ends before it repeats. Because it starts to repeat and just turns to garbage. Ends up an average song because it hits highs of like 8 or 9, but lows of like 4. Sounds a bit weird averaging out, but that's how it randomly works.

I don't understand like any of this. What part of the song is a 4? The whole main part just because it repeats? That really doesn't make any sense to me.

This song is one of the best character themes ever for me and the write up for it kind of annoys me because it doesn't explain anything really.
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... That moment when I just realized I spelt her name wrong because I spelt it like the FE character. Lol whoops. Might be where I didn't understand FL81's thing.

But yeah, the main tune is actually fantastic, even when it pulls away from the main melody it's pretty good. It's just the "lows" I speak of is the fact that it feels like I'm listening to the song on repeat for almost 4 minutes. It's like a 45 second full sequence that never deviates from its original purpose. I never like songs like this. It's a repeated chorus basically... songs aren't fun for me unless they really put the effort into it. One prime example of like me reversing this sort of statement is The River Flows in You. The song has basically two melodies... but. They steadily throw more loops into the main melody. Things like Triplets suddenly appear to give it a change in how the melody once worked.

I don't know how much more I can break it down. Although I can say... The song doesn't really scream "Erika" to me. It fits in with the general theme of Umineko and doesn't feel like it represents just her character. That's another thing that doesn't help the song appeal to me. Maybe you can prove me wrong.
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One thing I'll say is that my perspective on a lot of Umineko songs changed when I stopped treating them as singular experiences being defined by their Youtube videos, if that makes sense. Like, in context the songs are just background music and are designed to just repeat indefinitely until you move to a different part of the game. So, whether the Youtube version of the song (or even an officially released version of the song on a soundtrack) repeats 0 times, 1 time, or 100 times doesn't really change how I view the song as a whole.

All that said, I think Deep Blue Jeer specifically is only average as far as Umineko songs go, so you won't hear much complaint from me about this specific entry. (Which still means I rate it pretty highly overall, but yeah)
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#53. Yuna's Theme
Game: Final Fantasy X
Character: Yuna

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIw1sdmRyq8

Song Rating: 7
Character Rating: 4

Entertainingly, Snake had me rate this in my previous VGM topic. It dropped in rating by 1 or 2 points. The reason it did so... is because since then I've played FFX. While you can get into detail of how well it represents Yuna, there's also a few things. First off... there are two scenes I remember this song being played during... First is when you depart from Besaid... I thought it was just an area theme at the time. The second... was the one that dropped this rating for real... "AHAHAHAHAHAHA" ... Nothing ruins a song like being unable to unhear rediculously bad acting during it. Now, I especially kept quiet during my FFX playthrough topic about character rankings... so this is the first time you'll hear of it... Yuna's my least favorite party member. There's a couple reasons why. 1) I dislike her in battle. She's either a White Mage... or a ruin everyone's experience because a summon takes up all slots. In any battle she's either the most necessary to keep on the field for Esuna/Nul magics... etc... Or the worst because no one needs healing. 2) Honestly is something I might keep quiet about just so Snake doesn't have to read it. I dislike her personality pretty heavily and there's a reason why that I can't quote Auron perfectly on. Otherwise I'd have left a quote here instead.
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