Board 8 > [VGMC] d36: Pressure Cooker vs Solitude, Venerable Ancient BF vs Another Winter

(+) Yeah! (+)

Welcome to today's topic for Video Game Music Contest 14, a tournament of the best tracks from games, as decided upon by you, the voters.

Links:
Contest info - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VNrPnFRI7nJ4PqFiURBW0NWqxvXiuasoq8Sn_O169ss/edit#gid=320804650
Bracket - http://www.bracketmaker.com/tlist.cfm?tid=473292
Discussion and results thread - https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/78524521
Bracket playlist - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLW9O9mntH1REnVI_W6yELaDP6Zac8b0Wq
ToC playlist - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLW9O9mntH1RE-TQMj19D0k5nm-0zeH12J
VGMC compability sheet - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1lpX4faqnn_geI0y4i6MrZ2AXpV6SWXoWrIA6_eyx-yM/edit

Rules:
- Listen to both of the songs. Links have conveniently been provided for both songs. Even if Song A is your favorite of all-time and Song B is from a series you hate... Listen. To. Both. (If I have suspicions your vote is not based on a fair and impartial preference, it will be disqualified.)
- Obvious contest rules apply (no alts, one vote per person, no rallying, etc.).
- Please make your voting options clear, rather than burying them in text.
- Each set of matches lasts 24 hours, even if the new one isnt up by then. (Matches do not begin until at least 10:00 EDT.)
- Always vote on the versions of the song provided, not versions from different sources.
- If you know ahead of time that you're not going to be around and you want to vote in advance, post your choices in the discussion/bracket topic.
- Please do NOT post tallies/score updates in the middle of the match, as this has a tendency to directly influence matches.
- You don't have to vote in all the matches, but it'd be cool if you did!

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Match 1

VVVVVV - Pressure Cooker
https://youtu.be/3Gj_88IMv3o

Kaze no Notam - Solitude
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BlOJBHRMtM

Match 2

Touhou 10: Mountain of Faith. - The Venerable Ancient Battlefield ~ Suwa Foughten Field
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHFYORrFp8U

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World - Another Winter
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtyWhHwCXIU

Tournament of Champions bonus match

Xenoblade Chroni

Solitude
Another Winter
Evolution Era
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VVVVVV - Pressure Cooker
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World - Another Winter
Deemo - Evolution Era
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Pressure Cooker
Another Winter
Evo Era
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Pressure
Another
Era
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Pressure Cooker (80th) vs Solitude (154th)
The Venerable Ancient Battlefield ~ Suwa Foughten Field (15th) vs Another Winter (95th)
Battle!!/Torna [14th//17th] vs Evolution Era [31st//52nd]

Pressure Cooker is so cool!!! At the start the little tink a tink tink a makes me think it's gonna be some like tropical groovy thing but then when the song slowly starts to fade in, that part is so cool. Tone shifts at 0:49 and 1:09 are fuckin CRAAAAZY as well like whoa. Love all the sweeps and stuff in here too lol, it's not a favorite from VVVVVV but it's an excellent showing of what the game is capable of and that it succeeds in a celebration of the style its portraying. "V" Solitude is ranked low here but my opinion of it has gone up quite a bit so its actually position now is a bit higher. At first I thought that I wasn't too big on the atmosphere that it creates cause a lot of the song is rooted in really brewing in that atmosphere and dissolving you into the broth but uhhhhh yeah it's grown on me lol. Turns out I am soluble in Solitude after all, it just takes a while. And I'm still not totally there I think; I definitely prefer Pressure Cooker but I appreciate Solitude a lot more now. Good match!!

HEEREE WEE GOOOOO one of the only Touhou songs that I like SUPER care about this song is just WHOAAAA in like every way. Even though I tolerate it very heavily, I never really care for how ZUNpets overpower songs when they're used, but this song subverts that somehow and almost drowns out the ZUNpets itself with CONSTANT NOISE DARK ENERGY which is absolutely fucking amazing at 2:05 where the melody suddenly gets SUPER FUCKING POWERFUL like HOOOOOOLY SHIT THIS CHORUS MELODY it literally floors me everytime I listen to it like holy shit. lets go over other assorted things that i think are fucking amazing: wind sounds at 0:10, hi hat stuck in a refresh loop at 0:24 and 1:15, meter change at 0:35, transition at 1:26 and just the general calmer feel of the pre-chorus in general, okay speaking of pre-chorus both the fact that its a call and response, and that response part being all over the place everywhere is very very good, and yeah the entire chorus just. all of it. the whole song. this is just a very, very powerful song and really transcends what i expect from the average touhou song in so many ways. Another Winter is a classic and needs no introduction at all but damn it just can't keep up with Suwa at all in my mind. Great, great match but my heart's decision is clear.

Torna is still a crazy good song!! Evolution Era's success is very confusing to me because it sticks out to me as something that's trying too hard to be as "powerful" as other Deemo songs and just falls completely flat. Like seriously, it sounds flat. Like if Deemo were a person, Evolution Era is what would play when their face is stone-cold serious and unfeeling. All its attempts to have a happy or uplifting melody kinda gets stuck in a limbo where it sounds uplifting and also sad at the same time and its like what??? am I feeling???? what is this song feeling??????? I love a lot of other V.K. ventures like Wings of piano and Reverse - Parallel Universe (the latter of which would actually be getting a vote from me over even Torna lol) but this just doesn't do anything for me. It still /sounds/ good, which is the real kicker. But listening to it annoys me in a very strange way that makes me feel more negative about it than I actually am lol

The Venerable Ancient Battlefield ~ Suwa Foughten Field > Battle!!/Torna > Pressure Cooker > Another Winter > Solitude > Evolution Era

Solitude
Another Winter
Battle!!

Solitude
Another Winter
Battle!!

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Pressure Cooker
The Venerable Ancient Battlefield ~ Suwa Foughten Field
Battle!!

v song is very v, forgot I was listening to the other one a few minutes in
another winter has always been "okay". suwa is solid touhou.
wings of piano

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Solitude
Another Winter
Battle!!

Another Winter so good
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Solitude
Another Winter
Evolution Era

---

Solitude
Another Winter
Battle!!

god how do i even BEGIN to decide on match 1. between a soundtrack i've known and loved for years and one that hooked me the first time i heard it it's almost impossible. but then again this is on one song from each and not the whole soundtrack, and in those terms solitude is a kind of cool i enjoy a lot more than pressure cooker. pressure cooker may be a banger but solitude got me like kirby_vibing_out.gif so it kinda wins over

match 2: zun vs anamanaguchi who will win find out next time on it's anamanaguchi you know it baby

toc: one of them's only alright the other is battle

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Pressure Cooker
Another Winter
Evolution Era

say vee to me again. Solitude is so boring augh.

Suwa kinda boring too. Definitely didn't need to be 5 minutes. AW didn't need to come back again either, but it's fine.
---

Kaze no Notam - Solitude
Touhou 10: Mountain of Faith. - The Venerable Ancient Battlefield ~ Suwa Foughten Field
Deemo - Evolution Era

Match 1: Ah yes Pressure Cooker, my favorite VGM vocal song (actually not really, this isn't even my favorite VVVVVV song). It's not bad, but I'm kinda worn out on it hearing it year after year. Solitude is really chill.

Match 2: Suwa Foughten Field is maybe my 3rd or 4th favorite final boss theme in the Touhou series (excluding PC-98). Very POWERFUL song I like power!! At this point I'm even more sick of Another Winter than I am of Pressure Cooker.

ToC: Aaaahhh very tough (very good) match. Why is it that Torna always ends up getting the hardest matchups? Voting Evolution Era, but only just barely.

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Pressure Cooker
Another Winter
Battle!!

Kaze no Notam - Solitude
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World - Another Winter
Deemo - Evolution Era

---

Solitude
The Venerable Ancient Battlefield ~ Suwa Foughten Field
Battle!!

---

Pressure Cooker
The Venerable Ancient Battlefield ~ Suwa Foughten Field
Battle!!

VVVVVV - Pressure Cooker
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World - Another Winter
Deemo - Evolution Era

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Solitude
The Venerable Ancient Battlefield ~ Suwa Foughten Field
Battle!!

a great mood. i'm pretty glad this got in. pressure cooker isn't bad, just nonetheless outclassed here. why did you have to get a 12 seed solitude, and why must v6 music still be popular

suwa is the most touhou song in the contest imo. which is to say, it has a cool battle(field) feeling to it that also makes me feel it is the least suited to this contest. fortunately for it, my sentiments on this matter weren't factored in much and so it gets a corner of songs that such a song may well actually do well in, and I'm pretty happy about that. depending on my mood i can still enjoy another winter a fair bit, but in a day with a v6 song also present... it really starts to feel as dated as it.

nice to hear v.k for the first time in a while. despite being a song that was already non-indicative of my tastes even when it retired half a decade ago I still enjoy evolution era. enough time has passed that i can't remember my past preferences on his older deemo songs but what i do know is almost all of them are ones i've enjoyed a lot. anyway, that said torna battle drew it which makes this brutal. if it was a few years ago i may have sided with evolution era. now though... it's not totally out of it, but honestly i'm not sure if i'd take any of them over torna here, just generally any of them save for maybe reverse aren't really suited for this match... and i don't think reverse even been in so never mind

Solitude
Another Winter
Battle!!

Pressure Cooker is my 129th favorite in the contest! i used to like this more, i used to like the whole vvvvvv ost more than I do now. still think it's great but this was never even a standout pick from the game for me. think i talked about this enough in bost, don't really have much new to say here

Solitude is my 103rd favorite in the contest! when i learned this was actually a soundtrack from the 90s it blew my mind, this whole time i'd assumed it was modern and just imitating the era...what i'm saying is, it's stylistically really ahead of its time while still having traits that are distinct to the period. that results in a combination of sounds i like! chill string pad chords fill the atmosphere up so that i feel like i am in a hot air baloon in the cloud. still haven't listened to this whole thing but i intend to because i'm very impressed with what i've heard! love all the voice samples peeking in. also love all the portameno/pitch bend-y synth stuff. that said, other stuff from this game i'd rank much more highly than this, what i've heard of the soundtrack has some of the most interesting timbres i've heard in any game music that's that old!

V

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The Venerable Ancient Battlefield ~ Suwa Foughten Field is my 137th favorite in the contest! This is a touhou track i think of as "the side of touhou I like" as of RIGHT now i have just decided that. even though i only ranked it like 5 slots above rftm which i think of as "neutral". anyway this song has surprisingly surprising chord changes, not what i expect from zun. startling key changes, and like :35-:52 is honestly pretty insane, definitely my favorite chunk. that section has suddenly a change to 3/4, sudden dip into dorian for one chord (and technically blues scale at one point hahaha) completely out of nowhere in a way that's not predictable but never sounds wrong. touhou instrumentation is fun!!! some parts of this remind me of junichi masuda, like the transposing bits starting at :23.

Another Winter is my 84th favorite in the contest! "nostalgia for 2009" song (i know this game did not come out until 2010 shut up also I swear i remember it being in vgmc4 but i guess it wasn't in until 5) . kinda like pressure cooker it fits more with my older taste than currently, but i still think it's pretty fun! the really open feeling atmosphere of the parts with the delay echo chiptune layers (ie 2:14) still get me every time! very simple fast drums but in a way i actually like for some reason and i am not sure why i actively like this case of it and hate over half of other cases of something like it. especially love how this starts but like 90% of other songs that are out there that start a similar way i would roll my eyes at. can't put a finger on why this is an exception

way closer match than these numbers make it look. could flip

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Battle!! (XBC2 Torna) is my 5th favorite ToC entrant! I still love this song!!!!!!!!

Evolution Era (Deemo) is my 41st favorite ToC entrant! deemo music has a cool "aesthetic", piano-focus but with glitchy electronic accompaniment. I love all the reversed piano bits in this sooo much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! this does lots of interesting things, the busier piano parts with something different happening every 16th beat are great! the ranking is low mostly for vague reasons like "in the end i don't find it memorable or 'emotionally engaging'"what ever that means. I'd love this aesthetic applied to other composition more for sure (i like other deemo music much more than this). I definitely liked this more in vgmc9 than now.

easy match...the other two today are close but this one is not. also lots of "I liked this more in the past than now" songs today, one in each match, but the only case i'm voting for one of those is another winter for some reason despite how enthralled i am with this touhou one
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Solitude
Another Winter
Battle!!

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Pressure Cooker
Another Winter
Evolution Era
---

Pressure Cooker
Another Winter
Battle!!

Pressure Cooker
Another Winter
Battle!!

Pressure Cooker is not one of the top songs from that game but it's alright.

---

Pressure Cooker
Another Winter
Evolution Era

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Toxtricity posted...

touhou instrumentation is fun!!! some parts of this remind me of junichi masuda

Semi-unrelated (not Masuda), but there's this one arrangement of Suwa Foughten Field that has always reminded me of the boss battle music from Pokmon Colosseum/XD lol (just after 1:10)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Guo5JPwKQbk

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VVVVVV - Pressure Cooker
Touhou 10: Mountain of Faith. - The Venerable Ancient Battlefield ~ Suwa Foughten Field

Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna ~ The Golden Country - Battle!!
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Solitude
Another Winter
Evolution Era

Solitude
-
Battle!!

brooooo this vgm is lowkey chill af brooooo...sounds a lot like the trip-hop stuff I like to listen to outside of vgm, very nice
dang these are both good songs from genres I'm not usually big on
I've come to learn that Deemo is a rhythm game with a whole storyline to it, which makes slower songs like this one make more sense. why does that one section sound like river flows in you


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Pressure Cooker
The Venerable Ancient Battlefield ~ Suwa Foughten Field
Battle!!

---

pressure
another
battle

---

Solitude
Another Winter
Battle!!

---

Solitude
Another Winter
Battle!!

VVVVVV - Pressure Cooker
Another Winter
Deemo - Evolution Era

Today's songs are incredible. Another Winter is my pick to win the entire contest. It's the best song in the whole bracket.

Evolution Era is beautiful. Pressure Cooker is fantastic. Today's songs are... 9.6/10

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Pressure Cooker
The VAB - Suwa
Evolution Era

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Pressure Cooker [6.6] < Solitude [8.4]
The Venerable Ancient Battlefield ~ Suwa Foughten Field [6.3] < Another Winter [6.9]
Battle!! > Evolution Era

i like music ! V. oh wait the melody left goodb ye
wOAWawoawoawowaowaowoa.....va-11 hall-a but it went to planet st

i could point at sm remixes thata re nicer than this version. i like the waltz part at 0:39 a lt
thank you Chip from Tunes

im sory deemo. you sound cool and anime but jazz is too good
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Pressure Cooker
The Venerable Ancient Battlefield ~ Suwa Foughten Field
Battle!!

The Touhou song is somehow the standout of the fourpack, I think.

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Another Winter

it's close, but RftM still best touhou

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Not a whole lot of things that would make me vote against V6. Not except for...

Kaze no Notam - Solitude

Fairly easy call for these other two as well!

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game - Another Winter
Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna ~ The Golden Country - Battle!!

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Solitude
The Venerable Ancient Battlefield ~ Suwa Foughten Field
Battle!!

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Pressure Cooker
The Venerable Ancient Battlefield ~ Suwa Foughten Field
Battle!!

Pressure Cooker vs Solitude: Pressure Cooker is good V^6 stuff. It isn't something I would listen to a lot but its still pretty good. Solitude is also in the same league of songs that I like but wouldn't listen to regularly. I like the vibe on the track. Feel like I still have to vote Pressure Cooker on this even if both songs are more or less equal in strength. Its just a lot more fun to listen to.

The Venerable Ancient Battlefield ~ Suwa Foughten Field vs Another Winter: Suwa is some funky touhou stuff that I can definitely vibe to but at the same time I'm not a fan of. It doesn't hit the same way most touhou music I like does and for that reason its just alright. Another Winter I'm not a huge fan of and is probably my least favorite song from the Scott Pilgrim soundtrack. Compared to most other songs from the ost its nothing special. I guess I have to give this match to Suwa just for being somewhat ok.

Battle!! vs Evolution Era: Battle is still as jazzy as its ever been while Evolution Era reminds me of some music I heard during a game cutscene. Nothing very remarkable about Evolution Era so Battle kinda won by default.

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Pressure Cooker
Another Winter
Battle!!

does pressure cookre count as a vocal song? it counts as a song with Vocals That I Wish Were Not There !! That said I remember that ignoring those spoken "V"s this was one of my favorite song from the unproperly pronouncable game. Solitude is like, too calm / peaceful for me. In some ways I guess I feel a little surprised I don't really care for this song while Collen & Place both hold it in very high regard from what I can tell, but, shrug I'm probably over thinking things, in a weird mindset right now. It is a nice soundscape though but I desire a bit more than that.

Iiit's, Touhou music. It sure is a touhou music. I don't dislike touhou music, I often think it can be pretty cool. This one doesn't really stand out to me at all and just feels like average touhou music which to me is still a little above average in the full scale spectrum. Another Winter is cool but I don't like the "cheap generic indie chiptunelike instrumentation." Maybe I'm kind of picky when it comes to instrumentations since there's a lot I don't like oh no, but really this is one that bugs me because it "feels" like it should be more my kind of thing than realistic orchestration but this feels more like the cheapo storebrand variant except this is a bad analogy there are a number cases in which I like cheap storebrand variants more than the special expensive bigbrands like soda gimme that publix grape thanks. That aside the song has decent rhythms and cool moments, whereas like I said the touhou music didn't really stand out, so this match was pretty close for me but :57 just pushed Another Winter over for me. Glad we're back to better stuff for me than the last 7-out-of-8-pack

I feel like Evolution Era toes the line of "stuff I like" and "stuff I really dislike" and crosses over that line a number of times. Like the beginning does pretty decent stuff but it later gets too moody for me a lot. And the instrumentation isn't all that great with the simple piano, and high strings, man relistening to this is making this fall in my internal ratings way faster than most songs would. And it started out only roughly even with torna battle at best, but now my vote is obvious. Maybe it just got some weird lucky first listen fluke or some thing I dunno man it don't matter

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Solitude
Another Winter
Battle!!

Pressure Cooker (5.5) / Solitude (6.0)
The Venerable Ancient Battlefield ~ Suwa Foughten Field (6.5) / Another Winter (7.0)

Yet another track I've had the wrong version for all this time! (Evolution Era) The correct one seems better... I dig those middle sections that I haven't heard before.

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Solitude
Another Winter
Battle!!

-pressure cooker is pretty neat-- I used to have this high up among my vvvvvv track preferences, though I'm not so sure where it would place now. I think I've cooled a bit on its overall progression. still, catchy and fun.
-solitude really stands out in this grouping-- ambient, melancholy, chill, and mostly uninterested in melody, in direct contrast to basically everything else here. the more I listen to it the more this feels like a strength. strangely haunting, and more memorable than I expected.

-I have a strangely strong affinity for suwa foughten field, at least among touhou tracks-- it's because it always reminds me of the first normal 1cc I pulled off in a touhou game. if I was feeling saucy then I'd move to the beat of the pluck synth, trying to dodge in rhythm. it's tough to evaluate this track objectively, in that sense, in that it feels indelibly linked to that memory. I remember being a bit disappointed that it didn't catch my ear as immediately as border of life or necrofantasia or history of the moon, but it definitely grew on me after a while.
-another winter feels like a vgmc classic of sorts. I've been up and down on this track throughout the years but never outright negative-- it feels energetic and fun-loving, like the source material the game is based on. very stage-1 music-- a real 'outset of the story' feel.

-Battle!! still great? still great
-evolution era does some nice things with little synth flourishes and electronic percussion, though they're afforded little of the spotlight by the strings and piano by the end. sometimes the piano feels like it's playing the melody line of a vocal part. (I actually feel like this track would do well with a vocal version.) I think 1:42 is pretty cool, with a few layers that play off each other. I wish there were more of that spirit in this track.

Solitude
The Venerable Ancient Battlefield ~ Suwa Foughten Field
Battle!!

VVVVVV - Pressure Cooker
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World - Another Winter
Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna ~ The Golden Country - Battle!!

MATCH 1

I really enjoy most of the VVVVVV soundtrack and Pressure Cooker's no exception! Really nice melody and 0:42-0:57 in particular is great. The rhythm and chords here are very cool. This and Popular Potpourri are two VVVVVV songs off the top of my head that I really like that aren't retired yet.

Solitude's definitely better than the other Kaze no Notam song in the contest. Neat, relaxing vibes. Far from the best example of this type of song, though, and Pressure Cooker's the clear winner in this matchup.

MATCH 2

I've probably mentioned this before, but compared to some other people on the board, I'm actually a very big fan of Touhou music in general. ZUN, I'd say, has a very consistent style of music and uses similar compositional ideas throughout his work, which I enjoy. I guess it makes sense, though, that if you're not a fan of that, you'll likely not be a fan of a lot of standard Touhou music. And Suwa Foughten Field, I think, would be accurately characterized as standard Touhou music. So, with that said, I don't have much to say about the song other than that it's representative of a style of music that I enjoy a lot.

Similarly, upbeat Anamanaguchi songs like Another Winter are also songs that I really enjoy in general. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World music definitely has its fair share of that. This song's one of my favorites from the game. Pretty happy and upbeat, and also has that nostalgic vibe to it, even though I've never played this game so I have no real nostalgia towards it haha.

Much closer match compared to the first match. I'm fine with either song winning here.

MATCH 3

I like Evolution Era, and slower emotional piano music, as I've said before, is something that I definitely enjoy when done well. I will say, though, that I don't feel like Evolution Era appeals to that side of my tastes as much as it could. There's just something about it that doesn't make it stand out as much as I wish it would. Torna Battle does give me that feeling, so I have to go for that song here.

Battle!! > Another Winter > Pressure Cooker > The Venerable Ancient Battlefield ~ Suwa Foughten Field > Evolution Era > Solitude

Very solid day with pretty close rankings between the middle 4 songs.

Pressure Cooker
The Venerable Ancient Battlefield ~ Suwa Foughten Field
Battle!!

Pressure Cooker
The Venerable Ancient Battlefield ~ Suwa Foughten Field
Battle!!

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