Board 8 > [BOST] Day 31: Kirby RtDL v Deltarune, Cloudbuilt v OffPeak, TXanadu v Terraetch

(+) Yeah! (+)

Greetings, and welcome to the 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: Winners Round 2

Kirby's Return to Dream Land - Galacta Knight

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69cqx_lDAWQ" data-time="

Deltarune - Empty Town

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blqOAgXmZb8" data-time="

Main Bracket: Losers Round 1

Cloudbuilt - Sinister Gale

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlnGQern1rM" data-time="

Off-Peak - Level Design - Sheet Music

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x738SAYvvoA" data-time="

Snubs Bracket Match

Tokyo Xanadu eX+ - Calm Passion

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQ-SLlhC3rw" data-time="

Terratech - Heavy Gauge

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFHRn_3tzAo" data-time="

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Vote Form:
Galacta Knight / Empty Town
Sinister Gale / Level Design - Sheet Music
Calm Passion / Heavy Gauge

Empty Town
Sinister Gale
Calm Passions

man empty town is such a weak pick from DR IMHO. but i've never been fond of kirby music so here we are.
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Cloudbuilt - Sinister Gale
Tokyo Xanadu eX+ - Calm Passion
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Galacta Knight
Sinister Gale
Heavy Gauge
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Kirby's Return to Dream Land - Galacta Knight
Off-Peak - Level Design - Sheet Music
Tokyo Xanadu eX+ - Calm Passion
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Galacta Knight
Level Design - Sheet Music
Calm Passion

Empty Town
Sinister Gale
Calm Passion
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Galacta Knight
Sheet Music
Heavy Gauge

Galacta Knight
Sinister Gale
Calm Passion
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Galacta Knight
Sinister Gale
Calm Passion
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Galacta Knight
Sinister Gale
Calm Passion

Galacta Knight
Sinister Gale
Calm Passion

Kirby's Return to Dream Land - Galacta Knight: 8. *bangs head*
vs.
Deltarune - Empty Town: 3. Good mood setter but not much to appeal to me on its own.

and

Cloudbuilt - Sinister Gale: 7. I like this significantly more than Cloudbits! Brooding, pacing chippy tune. Straddles the line between sad and anxious.
vs.
Off-Peak - Level Design - Sheet Music: 9. This is terrific, like every song from this set.

and

Tokyo Xanadu eX+ - Calm Passion: 6. Decent, but doesn't stick with me at all.
vs.
Terratech - Heavy Gauge: 5. Same as above, but I didn't like it as much.

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Vote Form:
Galacta Knight
Level Design - Sheet Music
Calm Passion

Empty Town
Level Design - Sheet Music
Calm Passion

galacta knight is one of the most boring recurring songs in all of kirby, i really just don't care for it at all in any incarnation. it's really kind of a shame because there are VERY COOL SOUNDS used in this versions specifically but i dooooont caaaaaaaaaaare about it all so its like okay. empty town aint top tier as far as deltarune goes but it is at least engaging

match 2 is very surprisingly hard!!! cloudbits was a soundtrack i supported very early because i love how it does retraux+modern stuff where the actually chip-y stuff takes a backseat and is used as the enhancement rather than the focus, and Sinister Gale dose that really nice. But Level Design - Sheet Music is FUN!! I was very lukewarm on almost the entire off-peak set list but this song really stuck out to me. i'm fine with this match going either way, though i secretly still want cloudbuilt to move on haha

snubs is easy oops. TX too crazy for middling west-y guitar thing

i'm actually voting against the setlist i like better in both main matches oops

Galacta Knight
Sinister Gale
Calm Passion
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Galacta Knight
Sinister Gale
Calm Passion

Empty is right. Not a very exciting song. Galacta Knight is gr8.

Sinister Gale is my favorite Cloudbuilt song! Makes this match easy. Loved it so much while I was playing the game (and just as much now). Not a fan of Sheet Music, though I don't hate it.

I feel like I generally enjoy the TX songs I've heard better than the ToCS songs. Calm Passion is good stuff too. Heavy Gauge has a bit of a generic western feel to it. Not bad, but there's not much to it.
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Galacta Knight
Level Design - Sheet Music
Calm Passion

Galacta Knight is "okay" (hm on a second listen at a later time than when I first started writing this, I'm actually more into it and the fast rhythms that one metal sound is often doing, but I guess I feel like this song is missing some thing) but Empty Town is slow moody NES style music which is basically 3 things I don't like.

Maaaan this second match is gonna make me sad. Honestly Sinister Gale is a real solid track, but I am a huge fan of the uniqueness of Off-Peak in general in this contest and this song is no exception but I get the feeling it's not gonna make it oh noo... One thing that bugs me is that if that's the case then we're not going to get to hear Panopticon, the other song in the bottom 4-6 list, which is a song I really like and have a lot to say (also it's disappointing on it's own that it has to be considered a #6th place) and so if it gets eliminated before that can play then I don't get to make an excessively long write up going into detail on the distinctly different feelings between sections linked together by recurring vibes of a metal hallway with poorly functioning fluorescent lights. But don't think that's the only reason I'd be voting for "Off-Peak,", Level Design - Sheet Music is a solid piece as well (also what an interesting name for a song especially after finding out the kind of game Off-Peak is I'm not sure how that would mean). Artsy strings with some jazzy woodwinds. Doing some interesting messing & climbing around with the beat and tempo around the middle, and a couple interesting sorts of warps in the background later on. I also do really like the notable transition at 3:20 of just that one string sound resetting itself over and over but lasting longer as the resets get slower before the song resumes hey that's a pretty cool thing that's sort of like a "glitch" in a rather "non-glitch" soundscape setting (though I guess it's got the warps in the back so maybe that's inaccurate oh well it's cool). As I said though Sinister Gale is pretty cool too, with those neat, light percussive notes sounding peaceful in a real determined atmosphere. But my votes going to the unique level design sheet music

I actually Sort Of had to think/consider about the 3rd match to be honest, or at least more than you might expect me to. I recall the Tokyo Xanadu setlist as a whole being tricky for me in that it consistently had good potential but also consistently fell flat for me at some parts and this song is also partly an example of that. I'm a big fan of the hard techno bass synth as well as the light background ones, but there's something about the trumpet and all of it's parts that feel weak and not terribly appealing to me. Anyway, for the opponent I actually don't mind the ultra-rural guitars in Heavy Gauge nearly as much as I do with a number of other more commonly used realistic rural instrumentations, and the song it played is pretty solid too. It's like Heavy Gauge is the kind of very "not-me" song I would want to give a vote to but ultimately not this situation. Calm Passion's real digital breakdown with the far-out synth in the middle is real cool and has a very appealing key change going on in the background
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Galacta Knight
Level Design - Sheet Music
Calm Passion

first match is kinda bad
level design is a 10
terratech track is ok but nothing special. really like Tx atmosphere
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Galacta Knight
Sinister Gale
Calm Passion
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Galacta Knight
Sinister Gale
Calm Passion

Great day
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Galacta Knight
Sheet Music
Heavy Gauge

man I really need to vote in these more. Surprised how great some of these were, having never heard of any of the games beyond Kirby and Delta Rune

Sheet Music v. Sinister Gale is particularly close; both are types of music I really enjoy, and I went back and forth on it a few times in my head. I like Heavy Guage a lot too but I'd take either of them to win that match though.
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Kirby's Return to Dream Land - Galacta Knight - 7.5/10

I agree that this is probably the weakest version of Galacta's theme, though the extra guitar right in the opening is a plus. This doesn't hit quite as hard as it did as a kid hearing this in KSSU for the first time but it's still a headbanger for sure.

Deltarune - Empty Town - 7/10

Hard to really place how I feel about this one. It feels kinda plain...but at the same time it kinda nails the emotion in parts. I think I may have put this above Galacta if I could feel that emotion throughout, but it kinda gets a bit jumbled thematically for me at some points.

Voting for Galacta Knight

Cloudbuilt - Sinister Gale - 8.5/10

This started a bit odd for me, it kinda felt like the feeling the song was trending towards was kinda being fought by the instrumentation, but it slowly started to pick up, up until around halfway through the song where OH MAN I FEEL THIS NOW. Some beautiful blending of chiptune and orchestral here and everything is meaningful about it. My only issue is that it kinda ends abruptly, I want more .

Off-Peak - Level Design - Sheet Music - 7.5/10

Another song that started out weirdly and picked up. The smoothest jazz in the west. It's a wonderful atmosphere and it's something that you really pay attention to, too. I just feel like it goes on a bit long with the same things. I guess it's not really made to *just* listen to, and maybe I should give it a bit more credit for doing what it's doing but idk I can't put it in the 8 range rn

Voting for Sinister Gale

Tokyo Xanadu eX+ - Calm Passion - 8.5/10

Very calm, but also very passionate. But for real that already sounds like it was made for me. I loove that piano whenever it comes in. Too bad for that part in the middle, but then it makes me ignore it with the best part of the song with that brass(?) man.. Really really nice feel aside from that one part.

Terratech - Heavy Gauge - 7/10

yeehaw. Pretty dang good as far as western-themed music goes, though I have found myself enjoying a lot of it. It's pretty short which I think for this one it's a bit of a detriment as I feel like it wasn't long enough for me to remember most of it but it was nice.

Voting for Calm Passion

Why is RTDL/Deltarune the weakest for me today why why

(its cuz this tournament is really good probably tbh)

Kirby's Return to Dream Land - Galacta Knight
Off-Peak - Level Design - Sheet Music
Tokyo Xanadu eX+ - Calm Passion

MATCH 1

Wow this is not a match where I'd normally expect to vote for the Return to Dream Land song, but this is the perfect storm of "Kirby song I like a lot vs. very weak Deltarune pick" where it's incredibly easy to vote against the Deltarune song. Honestly, though, it would probably be a tough matchup if Galacta Knight were against songs like Rude Buster or Field of Hopes and Dreams too because Galacta Knight is just super cool to me. It's just super energetic. It's not even the kind of thing where I like it mainly for the crazy time signature changes at 0:37 (although I do think it sounds cool) like some people might.

Empty Town is just...boring. Just a really average song that doesn't really make me feel anything about it. Maybe it's just the way it's arranged. Maybe without the chiptune sound or if it was arranged differently, I'd like it a lot more. I don't know. Sorry Toby Fox :(

MATCH 2

Deltarune - Empty Town
Off-Peak - Level Design - Sheet Music
Tokyo Xanadu eX+ - Calm Passion

Tough first match. I usually love harsh noise stuff but this felt a bit muddied, or otherwise unfocused.

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Deltarune - Empty Town
Off-Peak - Level Design - Sheet Music
Tokyo Xanadu eX+ - Calm Passion

Hi this is actually Place because PACIFIC IS DRIVING so I am voting for them because driving

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