Board 8 > [BOST] Day 1: Undertale vs FF9, Vision SR vs KI (2013), SSBU vs Lineage 2

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Greetings, and welcome to the results and bracket/contest discussion topic for Best OST Contest 5! In this contest, you and fellow video game soundtrack lovers will come together to once and for all answer the question "What is the best video game soundtrack? (For now.)"

Links:
Contest Bracket and Info - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1sD964sXfa3trbXrr14mFKeEIA14cGM2RtHmW9TqGBmw
Discussion Thread - https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/77915805

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VOTING RULES
- Each match will be between the songs representing each game, not the game as a whole. Please remember to listen and vote with this in mind! Any votes referring to a game name rather than a song name will not be counted. You have been warned!
- For today, since there is a song name that is shared by the game name, you must vote for "Undertale (song)". Consider this insurance that you've read the rules.
- Listen to both songs!! If one is your literal favorite song in the world and the other is something you hate with a passion, listen to them both!!
- No alts, no rallying, no begging for something to get more votes, etc., etc., you know the drill.
- If you change your mind and would like to swap your vote, you may do so. As soon as it is 24 hours since the match topic was started, you may not change your vote and new votes will not be counted.
- If you would like to vote in advance for matches you know you will miss, please let me know in the discussion topic.

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Main Bracket: Match 1

Undertale - Undertale

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBhFHJMVfiI" data-time="

Final Fantasy IX - Assault of the Silver Dragons

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Is2OoPJB-nI" data-time="

Main Bracket: Match 2

Vision Soft Reset - Floatlands

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSSjxzdPSBc" data-time="

Killer Instinct (2013) - Enter the Battletoad

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBfDtaljCcM" data-time="

Snubs Bracket Match

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate - Guile Stage

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoypJ3dCNUo" data-time="

Lineage 2 - Magma Town

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTIxm74pfbA" data-time="

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Vote Form:
Undertale (song) / Assault of the Silver Dragons
Floatlands / Enter the Battletoad
Guile Stage / Magma Town

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Happy first day of the contest everyone!!

Undertale-the-song-that-plays-as-you-approach-the-end -of-the-game-and-all-the-animals-tell-you-a-story-and-stuff
Enter the Battletoad
Magma Town

Thought I might be pulled away from UT if the FF9 track was any good. I know it had a reputation, and went to R4 a long time ago, but lol no.
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Assault of the Silver Dragons
Enter the Battletoad
Magma Town

i uh don't like UT - UT that much. probably because i like His Theme more. *shrug*
EtB (when Killer Instinct enters the battlefield) i like enough to make up for TMAIBYF getting cut so there's that.
not a big fan of the final match.
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Killer Instinct (2013) - Enter the Battletoad
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate - Guile Stage
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Abstain
Battletoads
Magma Town
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Final Fantasy IX - Assault of the Silver Dragons
Killer Instinct (2013) - Enter the Battletoad
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate - Guile Stage
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Assault of the Silver Dragons
Enter the Battletoad
Guile Stage
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71. Undertale
Enter the Battletoad
Guile Stage
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Floatlands (but battletoads kills and i'm sad either way)
Magma Town
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Undertale (song)
Enter the Battletoad
Magma Town

FF9 was my nom, but Assault of the Silver Dragons is a song I included mostly because I thought it would be well received and not because I have any particular attachment to it. (Like most songs in the game I think it is good, but not a top 5 song or anything) On the other hand Undertale is probably my favorite song from that game. Very nice use of the main motif. FF9 is probably what I'd say is the better soundtrack here, but oh well such is life.

Don't like match 2 at all.

Magma Town might actually be my favorite today, and if not then definitely my #2. Very pretty instrumentation.
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Final Fantasy IX - Assault of the Silver Dragons
Vision Soft Reset - Floatlands
Lineage 2 - Magma Town
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Undertale the Musical
Enter the Battletoad
Guile Stage
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Assault of the Silver Dragons -- Easy, Undertale song is waay too emotional moody for me, while this is much more my interests of an engaging battle process area section place go

Floatlands -- Very tricky, which may be partly because one of them's my real introductory nomination. Floatlands is a nice pleasant, Fez-like song. And like I guess I often don't really like pleasantry songs but this one works. BattleToad has some real high production value, though I don't particularly care for the NES references sound melody, especially the one that's only one sound and not the chords, but the song gets real good around the 2 m inute mark, up through like 2:45. That's not a majority however. ok look I'm going with my floatlands sad face though because I get the feeling it don't stand a chance here

Guile Stage -- Another Easy one due to one of 'em being super moody emotional so I'm goin with memesong here. Fun fact though, with some of the keys the piano goes in, I think I might actually vote Magmatown over Undertales if they were how the matches were but they're not.

if this is not a good vote method with how this post is set up then apologies just let me know and I can reformat
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Assault of the Silver Dragons (super hard match)
Enter the Battletoad
Guile Stage
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Undertale (song)
Floatlands
Guile Stage

Undertale (song)
Enter the Battletoad
Guile Stage

1st and 3rd match were fairly easy. 2nd match was harder than you might expect, coming from me.

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Assault of the Silver Dragons
Enter the Battletoad
Guile Stage

Undertale (song)
Enter the Battletoad
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I'll sleep on the third match, a lot more difficult than I thought it would be
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Assault of the Silver Dragons
Enter the Battletoad
Guile Stage

I like AotSD more than I realised. Much as I like FF9 and its soundtrack, I did not expect to pick it against Undertale The Song on a day I found I was actually quite in the mood for it.

Battle of the two borderline supports from me. Killer Instinct was the only set from az I supported, and I only really did out of a sense of obligation since I made a suggestion for it, as it was otherwise likely to sit a little outside my support range. Unfortunately for Vision Soft Reset, I also only supported it out of a respect for the general impression the selection as a whole gave me rather than individual songs. And speaking of individual songs... it drew the song I suggested of all things. Unfortunate. It was still a somewhat close call though. I'd imagine that in most other matchups, I probably would've gone the other way.

Magma Town is quite nice, but perhaps not remarkable enough. Guile's Theme does not go with it too well, turns out. Yuzo Koshiro's smash remix is pretty good but misses the mark by a tad, failing to truly nail it. Still a pretty strong package nonetheless.

Final Fantasy IX - Assault of the Silver Dragons
Vision Soft Reset - Floatlands
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate - Guile Stage

UT - UT has basically no impact on me whatsoever. AotSD is kinda cool, even if the samples here are a bit grating.

Floatlands kinda sounds like a Great Value YU-NO track to me. Kinda boring and it just ends, not digging that background noise either. Enter the Battletoad starts out as this cool retraux chiptune thing, then it devolves into something that's more obnoxious than anything. Not really feeling this match here.

Snubs match is the highlight of today for sure.
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Undertale (song)
Enter the Battletoad
Guile Stage

Undertale (song)
Enter the Battletoad
Guile Stage
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It feels weird seeing a VGM contest topic and not being obligated to count the votes in it.
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Undertale (song)
Enter the Battletoad
Guile Stage
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Okay let's go.

Undertale - Undertale: 7.5. This is a very context-heavy song, but I think it works outside of that too. It builds nicely and is very emotive. It's repetitive but it's the kind of repetition I like. I love a song that builds well so this is definitely my thing. I don't exactly love the key change, but that's par for the course with me. I do love the tail end though; that's one of my favorite parts. Hovers between 7.5 and 8.5 for me but mostly evens out at a 7.5.
vs.
Final Fantasy IX - Assault of the Silver Dragons: 7. Slowish build leads to a very intense, brass-heavy melody that I absolutely love. That FF7-esque metallic percussion puts in work. I love the instrumentation a bit less as it goes along, but the overall rumbling feel of the piece hooks me and doesn't let go - some bad stuff is about to go down.

and

Vision Soft Reset - Floatlands: 8. This was my favorite song from this setlist during noms. I love the static and the echoes. The song creates this very compelling ambience; I feel like I'm simultaneously exploring a cave and a forest and also watching clouds float by. Pretty neat stuff.
vs.
Killer Instinct (2013) - Enter the Battletoad: 5.5. Weird fake chiptune beginning that turns into metal. I'm not always the biggest fan of metal, and this song doesn't do much to hold my interest after the chips largely go away. The chips also feel a bit separate from the main thrust of the song? It's still somewhat compelling, like a drill through my brain. Ooh and then we get to 2:20, now this is more like it. Much more interesting, with ups and downs and pivots. But then it goes back to the standard. Not really for me, but I appreciate what it does.

and

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate - Guile Stage: 2.5. This version of Guile's theme feels devoid of personality. I think it's the uninspiring instrumentation the song starts with. It feels bland to me, like candy that's been left in the sun and is now swarming with ants. If a song has disagreeable instruments/samples/whatever to me, I have a hard time getting into it. When that guitar comes in, it all just feels...fake. I don't normally mind "fake," but here this feels like a paint by numbers song. Also those high notes are very shrill, which doesn't help. Gets by solely on the strength of the original melody.
vs.
Lineage 2 - Magma Town: 7. sadmmopiano.mp3. This is also not my thing but it's very pretty, with a nice strings/piano combo and some classy aaaah's. The more this goes on the more I get into. It's kind of the total opposite of Guile Stage, which was all bombast and no substance; Magma Town is quieter but more impactful. And it doesn't overstay its welcome, which is nice. I listened to it again and it's grown on me considerably more. Neat find.

Votes:
Undertale (song)
Floatlands
Magma Town

Assault of the Silver Dragons
Enter the Battletoad
Guile Stage

man today reminds me that i really gotta work on my rankings
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Undertale (song)
Enter the Battletoad
Guile Stage
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Undertale
Enter the Battletoad
Guile Stage

Undertale (song)
Enter the Battletoad
Guile Stage

what a first match. there are several big FF9 songs I would at least consider voting over Undertale from Undertale by Undertale but this isn't one of them
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Alright, if rwlh is giving ratings, I'm gonna try to give ratings. I already voted above, but just throwing these down...

Undertale - Undertale = 6.75/10
Final Fantasy IX - Assault of the Silver Dragons = 6.5/10

Vision Soft Reset - Floatlands = 5/10
Killer Instinct (2013) - Enter the Battletoad = 7/10

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate - Guile Stage = 7/10
Lineage 2 - Magma Town = 6.25/10

It ended up being kinda the opposite of what I said yesterday. First and third match were close, second match was easy. Oops.

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3rd match vote:

Guile Stage
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Undertale - Undertale: 7/10
I didn't remember the first half of this song being as long as it was. This is definitely the kind of song that's a lot better to hear in context than just on it's own. Can't say it didn't make me feel things near the end of it though, it does what it wants to do well for sure.

Assault of the Silver Dragons: 7/10
While I'm not a huge fan of this soundfont in general, and I feel like it gets a bit too blare-y with it at times, some of the melodies I really do like here.

Yeah, I couldn't really find much to set these two apart, I find both admirable if slightly flawed, so this one is an Abstain.

Floatlands: 6.5/10
I wish I could like this more than I do. The melodies are quite nice and it's a serene piece, but some of the background noise gets a bit grating for me at times and the melodies start to sorta lose my interest near the end of listening.

Enter the Battletoad: 7/10
This didn't give me a great first impression, and even the first part of the guitar riffing was just kinda eh to me, but it really picked up around the 1:30 mark and didn't really look back from there. I'm a lot more partial to good guitar music than the average B8 crowd, so I did appreciate a lot of this even if some of it is kinda just going hard for the sake of going hard.

My vote for this one is Enter the Battletoad

Guile Theme: 7.5/10
I didn't have very high expectations for this one honestly, as the original Guile Theme doesn't do much for me and neither did a lot of the SF smash remixes I've heard. But this does a lot more than just be Guile's Theme. Some really strong guitar throughout, and again, something I can really like in a song. I could see why this may be unpopular to some here though.

Magma Town: 6.5/10
Quite beautiful, just not much else. If it did a bit more with the melodies I would be a bit more interested, but it sorta falls into the same pitfalls Floatlands did for me. It's a shame because I do really like some of the songs from this setlist, this just happened to be my least favourite from it.

My vote for the first snubs match is Guile Stage

Easier-to-read version:
Abstain
Enter the Battletoad
Guile Stage

Let me know if this is an okay format or if I should change it in some way

Undertale (song)
Enter the Battletoad
Guile Stage

Assault of the Silver Dragons
Enter the Battletoad
Magma Town

Always been a fan of Assault. Undertale's real good too tho.

Had to listen to Floatlands three times because I forgot what it was the first two times... Start of Battletoad isn't great, but it gets real good!

Guild Stage is solid. Magma Town feels like it's 100% ripped off from the soundtrack to A Beautiful Mind, but I like that soundtrack a lot, so that's okay I guess.
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Final Fantasy IX - Assault of the Silver Dragons
Killer Instinct (2013) - Enter the Battletoad

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate - Guile Stage
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Undertale - Undertale
Vision Soft Reset - Floatlands
Lineage 2 - Magma Town

SSBU drops the ball. Justice for Lineage 2!
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Undertale (song)
Floatlands
Magma Town

It's been quite some time since I've listened to Undertale the track. How does it fare for me now?

It fares stunningly well. This is a pretty simple piece that really goes for one thing, and I am still sold on it-- it genuinely makes me feel hopeful. I feel like such a sap but I am downright stirred.

Assault of the Silver Dragons always feels like something of a near-miss for me. It opens with that fanfare feel and then that metal-clanging percussion comes in and it has that PS1 Final Fantasy feel and it's cool, almost. But it never really sticks with me. Every time I run into this I leave with the vague impression I like the track-- but I never really remember the track itself.

I like things like Floatlands-- relaxed tracks with a sense of wonder, pads floating in and out, dreamy piano and shiny synth arpeggios. Floatlands goes in heavy for feel-- it doesn't really drive a melody-- but it has its share of highlights: the bass kicking in at 0:25, the section with those shiny arpeggios at 0:51. The chords are light and airy. Floatlands, indeed.

This Battletoad enters foot-first-- heavy, tromping guitar/drums and 'fake' chiptune. It's a bit lead-footed-- it doesn't have a lot of melodic ideas or interesting chords. In the end, it's also trying to get by on feel and aesthetic-- but in ways I care less for.

I never did think Guile's theme went with everything. This is a pretty by-the-numbers remix-- too faithful for its own good. A tinny synth shreds for a while before the actual guitar comes in, like it's telling the synth that the adults have arrived.

When I think 'Magma Town', I think of FIRE! style arrangements, which generally seem to be tribal drums and marcato strings and heavy brass. This is far too pretty to be a Magma Town. This is competently arranged and quite nice.

Assault of the Silver Dragons
Enter the Battletoad
Guile Stage

Undertale - Undertale (song)
Vision Soft Reset - Floatlands
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate - Guile Stage

MATCH 1

Undertale the song is really nice and cozy. I like the way it works in the various Undertale motifs to create that mood.

Assault of the Silver Dragons is a pretty neat orchestral song. It has a nice melody to it that pretty much screams out "this is a song for a critical moment in the game where the protagonist risks his/her life to save the world" or something like that.

MATCH 2

Floatlands is a nice and dreamy song. Nice piano and I like the warm pad chords too. A very "floaty" song, so the song name fits the mood of this song quite well!

Mick Gordon's sound is definitely something that's generally appealing to me given my appreciation for metal and this is a song that mixes in the disorted guitar with some chiptune stuff which is kinda neat here. Pretty stark contrasts between the two songs here, but I'd say that I get a little bit more out of Floatlands than Enter the Battletoad.

MATCH 3

Guile's Theme is a classic and this arrangement is particularly nice. I think the guitar's pretty cool. I've always been fond of this song in general, though I haven't heard any arrangements of it until now outside of the original Street Fighter 2 song.

This is nice and pretty! Sort of like Elder Scrolls music but with some more life to it that gives it a much stronger melodic component to it. Possibly the toughest match for me today since I think both songs are really nice and are probably the top 2 songs for me today.

Guile Stage > Magma Town > Undertale (song) > Assault of the Silver Dragons > Floatlands > Enter the Battletoad

Undertale song
Enter the Battletoad
Guile Stage