Board 8 > [BOST] Day 4: Caravan v League, Dariusburst v PMD2, Spelunky v Undercover Cops

(+) Yeah! (+)

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!
- 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

Caravan Stories - Waterling Main Road

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77HdatZj8HM" data-time="

League of Legends - Irelia, the Blade Dancer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-_JxiLl0Xs" data-time="

Main Bracket: Match 2

Dariusburst - Shining Eyes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g21DVBXuCVE" data-time="

Pokmon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time, Darkness & Sky - Quicksand Pit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWrY1CNen_o" data-time="

Snubs Bracket Match

Spelunky HD - Ice Caves C

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRN-0JBPnCs" data-time="

Undercover Cops - Redtailed Cat

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

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Vote Form:
Waterling Main Road / Irelia, the Blade Dancer
Shining Eyes / Quicksand Pit
Ice Caves C / Redtailed Cat

Waterling Main Road
Shining Eyes
Redtailed Cat

Irelia, the Blade Dancer
Quicksand Pit
Redtailed Cat

There's something that bothers me about...well...I think all the Caravan Stories songs I've heard. I don't really know if I can describe it well, but it's like the songs always feel like they're driving towards something without actually going anywhere? It's like mentally I can never sit down and engage with the song properly because it's always rushing on to the next measure...or something. I don't know. There's certainly worse music out there, but I've always felt like something is holding these back.
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Waterling Main Road
Shining Eyes
Ice Caves C

Caravan Stories - Waterling Main Road - 8.5/10
This really got me. Really beautiful, and the orchestral score compliments it perfectly. Exactly what you want for this kind of feeling.

League of Legends - Irelia, the Blade Dancer - 9/10
And then this got me even more. Keeping the great orchestral feeling going, but with more energy and power behind it with this one. Don't know what else to say but really good stuff.

Voting for Irelia, the Blade Dancer

Dariusburst - Shining Eyes - 9.5/10
I'm the reason this one is in the set, I hope that wasn't a mistake. But I really love this song, one of my favourites in the game. It's so brilliantly unique for a sort of final boss theme, having the great chill melodies and then contrasting that with the hard hitting part with the vocals...just such a great and unique composition, something the Darius series has always been great at.

Pokmon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time, Darkness & Sky - Quicksand Pit - 7.5/10
I feel really bad for this being my weakest main bracket rating today, I still really love this game and it's OST, and even this song I like quite a bit, really captures the mystery and even has a bit of emotion, I would say, to it too. Just really tough competition and up against another one of my favourite OSTs of all time.

Pensively voting for Shining Eyes

Spelunky HD - Ice Caves C - 6.5/10
Nice chill vibes. Not much else to say, but I do wish the soundfonts worked with the chill a little bit more.

Undercover Cops - Redtailed Cat - 7/10
Very funky, probably not something that's gonna stick with me but I do really appreciate what it's doing and I can groove to it for sure.

Vote in for Redtailed Cat

Irelia by a prayer
Quicksand Pit
Ice Caves

caravan stories continues to remind me of FF12 for some reason

nerf irelia
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Caravan Stories - Waterling Main Road - reminds of a certain wind ensemble composer, but I can't get my finger on it (Frank Tichelli maybe?).....unfortunately for me, though, this is the perfect kind of song to lose. Looks like getting 3/3 in one day is still afar off.

Uhhhhh....not a big fan of either....Dariusburst - Shining Eyes because it's more unique? (give me Treasure Town instead!)

Spelunky HD - Ice Caves C
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Waterling Main Road
Shining Eyes
Redtailed Cat
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Irelia, the Blade Dancer
Shining Eyes
Redtailed Cat
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Irelia, the Blade Dancer
Shining Eyes
Redtailed Cat
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Irelia, the Blade Dancer
Shining Eyes
Redtailed Cat

Caravan Stories - Waterling Main Road
Dariusburst - Shining Eyes
Spelunky HD - Ice Caves C
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Waterling Main Road
Quicksand Pit
Redtailed Cat

A close call. League nearly pulled off the (personal) upset here but Waterling just narrowly edged it out.

A match of misfortune. Shining Eyes was a worthy addition to this set for sure... Unfortunately, of the bottom 3 songs in the Dariusburst set, only one of them would I have barely taken over PMD2's lower set, and it isn't it.

One thing I've realised now is I like this Ice Caves song a lot, and it actually had the potential to be my clear favourite today, with every moment in it doing something I like. Only potential though. I don't like being that guy who flat out disregards songs on merit of short length or anything like that... But it's clear this one really needed to be expanded on further, 40 seconds is just not enough for it. I still nearly took it, but Redtailed Cat is also pretty great.

Caravan Stories - Waterling Main Road = 7/10
League of Legends - Irelia, the Blade Dancer = 7/10

Difficult to split. I enjoy both way more than I expected, but both have things that hold them back. Irelia barely edges it out.

Dariusburst - Shining Eyes = 6/10
Pokmon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time, Darkness & Sky - Quicksand Pit = 8/10

Dariusburst songs have a tendancy to grow on me, but even if I listened to this one a bunch more, I'm confident it won't beat one of my favourite PMD2 dungeon themes.

Spelunky HD - Ice Caves C = 7.25/10
Undercover Cops - Redtailed Cat = 6.25/10

Spelunky's whole OST oozes style. On the other hand, this is one of the better UC songs if I recall correctly - pretty cool - but doesn't quite grab me in the way IC C does.

Votes:
Irelia, the Blade Dancer
Quicksand Pit
Ice Caves C

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Waterling Main Road
Quicksand Pit
Ice Caves C

Close first match, they're both going for that same sort of orchestral thing. WMR sounds "prettier", while the style in Irelia is something I'm not a big a fan of as I used to be.

Shining Eyes is another example of "very unique Darius music", incredibly strange but man it works so well. That being said, WOW Quicksand Pit is exactly the kind of thing I'm always looking for in Pokmon music. I'm assuming that maybe it was picked as an afterthought, but this catches that exact same "Gen 3/RSE" vibe I love so much. Hearing that drum beat I was positive that it would transition into a remix of this LOL

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

Both of these snubs songs are really cool, man every match today is SO CLOSE!!
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Irelia, the Blade Dancer
Shining Eyes
Redtailed Cat

Waterling Main Road
Shining Eyes
Redtailed Cat

i do not like this snub match because it is two osts i basically like the entirety of but i love takushi hiyamuta in general where as eirik suhrke i can only think of three osts [spelunky, downwell, gunbrick] i like. however there are more songs on spelunky proportionally i like... if it's song vs song i like redtailed cat more than ice caves c though so i'm gonna go w/ that
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Waterling Main Road
Shining Eyes
Redtailed Cat

Spelunky is actually one of my favorite games of all time... I am voting against it but I secretly kind of want Ice Caves C to win this match
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Irelia, the Blade Dancer
Quicksand Pit
Redtailed Cat

All matches are pretty close - this entire day is kinda good but not great
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CHANGE to

Quicksand Pit

For whatever reason, I didn't notice all the awesome chords yesterday.... Mycro is right about the OST being subtly complex; I hate to admit it, but this isn't the first time I've switched my vote over to a PMD2 track for the same reason.
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Irelia, the Blade Dancer
Shining Eyes
Redtailed Cat

This Irelia song is pretty cool. Shame Caravan Stories might not get the chance to have its better songs show up.

Quicksand Pit is real boring. SE isn't great, but it's got more to it.

Ice Caves is kinda bad. I don't like the style of Redtailed Cat, but it's a good song.
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Waterling Main Road
Shining Eyes
Redtailed Cat

really solid tracks all around today.
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League of Legends - Irelia, the Blade Dancer
Dariusburst - Shining Eyes
Undercover Cops - Redtailed Cat
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Caravan Stories - Waterling Main Road: 4.5. Not a fan of the main instrument here and it throws everything off for me. (Hey, didn't I make a similar comment about another song from this game?) I like the melody though.
vs.
League of Legends - Irelia, the Blade Dancer: 9. Looove this song. There's a lot of emotion packed into it. Everything works really well here; it swells up and climaxes nicely. My favorite song in the contest so far.

and

Dariusburst - Shining Eyes: 5.5. Not really feeling this at first but then it opens up and becomes interesting. But interesting isn't enough here - I don't really connect with anything the song does. It's a bit too aggressive for me, constantly throwing out loud glitchy sounds, which I'm not normally opposed to, but the whole package doesn't coalesce for me here. Still gets an above average rating for being unique.
vs.
Pokmon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time, Darkness & Sky - Quicksand Pit: 3.5. Pretty uneventful.

and

Spelunky HD - Ice Caves C: 3.5. I like the odd meter but the rest all blends together for me.
vs.
Undercover Cops - Redtailed Cat: 6. From what I remember of this setlist, every song has these tinny HUH vocal samples. Everything else is nice and fun and funky and fresh though. Definitely a nice surprise.

Votes:
Irelia, the Blade Dancer
Shining Eyes
Redtailed Cat

Waterling Main Road
Quicksand Pit

Waterling Main Road has this really pretty intro that catches my ear every time. There's a pretty nifty, consummately Basiscape section of chords that bridges the intro to the more conventional main melody-- I actually think the highlight in this section is the piano that plays in the background. (I acutally love the piano work throughout.) At 1:24 we're back into some Basiscape chords again! This was the Volume 2 pick (the 'human' volume), and while arguably the weakest track of the setlist I liked its somewhat more serene feel-- not everything has to be Yoshimi Kudo marcato strings! (Okay, so I guess this has Mitsuhiro Kaneda marcato strings.)

Irelia is lovely in arrangement and while it adopts a mostly conventional approach to melodic and chord progression it does a pretty killer job of it. Its moments of urgency and excitement feel earned, because it's built them up well. I like this track more than I'd expect, and am overall pretty surprised by how positive an impression I've had of this soundtrack's representation.

Shining Eyes is a pretty unusual blend of vocals and synths. I actually think this track spends a little too long on its main aesthetic-- the most interesting parts, to me, are things like the breakdown at 1:12. There's a wandering aspect to this that threatens to feel like aimlessness but on a good day might be something I just get into the flow of. Feels like a track I'd run pretty hot/cold on.

Quicksand Pit's aesthetic is a lot more nondescript but actually has what I think is the more ear-catching composition-- especially the section just before the loop, which is a neat set of chord changes. Short and direct, it does a pretty good job with its payload within its minute or so of unlooped music.

(running into intermittent internet outages-- trying to get to snubs match as well but posting this now)

Caravan Stories - Waterling Main Road
Pokmon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time, Darkness & Sky - Quicksand Pit
Undercover Cops - Redtailed Cat

MATCH 1

Really enjoying the instrumentation of Waterling Main Road! The piano and strings have great melodies that blend together very well. I think the part from 0:00-0:20 is my favorite. There's something almost magical about how it sounds that I really like. The rest of it definitely gives me that feeling too, but I think it's especially the case for that part.

Irelia, the Blade Dancer also has some very nice strings that, like rwlh said, packs a lot of emotion in it. Overall, I prefer Waterling Main Road, though.

MATCH 2

Shining Eyes is pretty cool. Cool chords and a neat breakbeat-esque drum pattern. My only complaint is that the vocals at 0:59 and elsewhere don't really fit the song well, in my opinion. It feels like the vocals and the song kinda clash rhythmically when those opera-like vocals show up.

Man, listening to Quicksand Pit really takes me back. Not to mention, it reminds me of how good the music in the PMD series is. 0:37-0:56 in this song is just so good.

MATCH 3

Ice Caves C reminds me of your standard menu or level select kind of theme. Not bad, but not something I'd purposely seek out to listen to.

Redtailed Cat is pretty cool. Nice and groovy rhythm and sound. That vocal shout to me sounds more like someone getting startled than someone trying to hype up the listener, so it's a bit funny to me whenever I hear it.

Waterling Main Road > Quicksand Pit > Irelia, the Blade Dancer > Shining Eyes = Redtailed Cat > Ice Caves C

Irelia, the Blade Dancer
Quicksand Pit (but this match was an ehh)
Redtailed Cat

Waterling Main Road -- Wow two semi-moody songs focusing on traditional orchestral instruments and, in particular, high strings. Hmm. Waterling has a kind of fun rhythm on the pianos while Irelia has fun rhythms more on strings. It's funny how similar these two songs are to me, so ultimately this is a kinda tricky decision. But ultimately Irelia focuses too much on high strings (I don't like those) and the pre-ending part goes too moody slow for me. Waterling has a much more appealing, brighter outlook.

Quicksand Pit -- The shining eyes has some extremely cool digital sounds, but to the girl saying "yea" I say "no". Opera singer makes things worse, and the actual "music" doesn't really impress me terribly much beyond the great digital sounds. Quicksand Pit has certainly safer DS instrumentation and a kind of fun beat, and doesn't have vocals that make me wish I was listening to something else. The little bit right before the loop is cool too

Ice Caves C -- Another frustratingly close match for me with another one of ""my"" songs. Procrastinated trying to choose until the very end here since I felt close enough about the two and now I'm in a completely different mindset than I was when I wrote the other two entries hello. Ultimately redtailed cat is real cool and so is Ice Caves C. Love the soundfont for the ice caves and don't care as much for redtailed cat's sounds, though it is longer so there's some more content, but anyway ultimately I'm voting ice caves. There that's what I have to say on this matter goodbye.
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Irelia, the Blade Dancer
Quicksand Pit
Ice Caves C

Really fun day today! Waterling is in a remarkably similar style to Irelia, and I can see myself going the other way with a different opponent. Definitely hear some of Raging Spirits in there.

I was ready to vote against PMD after the start of Shining Eyes, but then it went into something that just dragged on for me. Northern Desert is my go-to "hot and dry area" from PMD, but Quicksand Pit does a great job of capturing the mysterious and magical feel of the rest of the soundtrack. I'm getting close to voting for the soundtrack and not the song here, so I'll just say that it reminds me of the Rorona song from yesterday (hopefully they won't share the same fate).

Redtailed Cat vs. Irelia for most graceful ending 2019
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Caravan Stories- Waterling Main Road
Not sure why this reminded me of Hollow Knight... but it did AND I really enjoyed it!! The instrumentation is so gorgeous and wistful that I couldn't help but love it.

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time- Quicksand Pit
This song was really chill compared to the DariusBurst one and although I liked both of them, something about Quicksand Pit stuck out to me enough for me to vote on it!

Undercover Cops- Redtailed Cat
All I can say is wow. This song is layered and absolutely insane. I super-enjoyed it! What an amazing track. Happy to be voting for this one tonight!
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Caravan Stories - Waterling Main Road
Dariusburst - Shining Eyes
Undercover Cops - Redtailed Cat

Augh, a lot of close calls today. I like Quicksand Pit a lot but Shining Eyes is almost tailor-made to the things I look for in VGM. In the case of the first two matches, I wouldn't say any of these games have truly 'lost' yet since they'll still be formidable in winner and loser bracket alike. For the third match--yeesh, that's a bad roll for Spelunky.
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League of Legends - Irelia, the Blade Dancer
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