Board 8 > [VGMC] d46: Silence in the Sunlight vs Epic Epilectic, PROGRAM vs Blue Skies

(+) 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

Ao no Kiseki Evolution - Silence in the Sunlight Filtering Through Trees
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gz7LKOIjS8E

Duelin' Firemen! - Epic Epileptic Apocalypse
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0G1vkyKtkRc

Match 2

Kirby: Planet Robobot - P-R-O-G-R-A-M
https://youtube.com/watch?v=2HMfamyvoYs

Ace Combat Infinity - Blue Skies (Infinity Remix)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRosMyUkQ3g

Tournament of Champions bonus match<

Silence in the Sunlight Filtering Through Trees
Vagrant Counting Song of Retrospection
Flying Clouds, Drifting Haze

not epic
also PROGRAM isn't the real name
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Silence in the Sunlight,
Blue Skies,
and Flying Clouds

Another counting song!!!

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Silence in the Sunlight Filtering Through Trees
Blue Skies (Infinity Remix)
Revenger
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Silence in the Sunlight Filtering Through Trees
P-R-O-G-R-A-M
Revenger

I have no clue what the heck Epic Epileptic Apocalypse is supposed to be. P-R-O-G-R-A-M is a disappointment because I know Kirby and spelled song titles are for final boss themes, but Blue Skies is just as disappointing.

I can never remember which Atelier songs I hate and which ones I don't. I'm thinking maybe this one was the one I hated all along? It's not bad, and I decided I didn't hate it in a previous round, but it's definitely grating on me tonight. Not that it even matters because it's up against Revenger.

Silence in the Sunlight Filtering Through Trees > Revenger > Flying Clouds, Drifting Haze > P-R-O-G-R-A-M > Blue Skies (Infinity Remix) > Epic Epileptic Apocalypse

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Silence in the Sunlight Filtering Through Trees
P-R-O-G-R-A-M
Revenger

Sunlight not a top Azure song. Not bad though. The 30 seconds of EEA after the 2:30 mark are actually good!

Program's good for a Kirby song. Blue Skies I hate how repetitive it is. Annoys me every time I listen to it.

P-R-O-G-R-A-M > Silence in the Sunlight Filtering Through Trees > Blue Skies (Infinity Remix) > Epic Epileptic Apocalypse
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Ao no Kiseki Evolution - Silence in the Sunlight Filtering Through Trees
Ace Combat Infinity - Blue Skies (Infinity Remix)
Atelier Shallie - Flying Clouds, Drifting Haze
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Silence in the Sunlight Filtering Through Trees
Blue Skies (Infinity Remix)
Flying Clouds, Drifting Haze

very sky day

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Epic Epileptic Apocalypse
P-R-O-G-R-A-M
*abstain for now*

Silence in the Sunlight Filtering Through Trees (6.0) / Epic Epileptic Apocalypse (8.0)
P-R-O-G-R-A-M (9.5) / Blue Skies (Infinity Remix) (8.5)

EEA made me laugh more than any other music this contest! Also, try saying "Epic Epileptic Apocalypse" as fast as you can....! Can you do it? On to the next match. P-R-O-G-R-A-M is insanely good, easily rivaling my own Kirby noms. I daresay it's likely to become my all-time favorite Kirby track.... it does weird tonal stuff that I LOVE SO MUCH just like Mysterious Trap, but does it a lot more! Kirby and robots mix well, indeed! I've never even heard of Kirby Planet Robobot until this was nominated. Sucks for Blue Skies to have to go against something so much better than it, even though it's great and deserves to win a match somewhere else in the bracket!

As for the ToC match... I was supposed to OBVIOUSLY vote for a certain one, but now... the OTHER one sounds better. I'm going to listen to both again tomorrow and see if this new opinion still holds (or if that was a fluke).

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Epic Epileptic Apocalypse
P-R-O-G-R-A-M
Revenger

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Oh, man, deo's #192 better not be EEA; that would make me sad! I'm hoping it's Rave On. (unless I missed the #192 already?)

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I bet it's as he lives for my pain

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Epic Epileptic Apocalypse
P-R-O-G-R-A-M
Flying Clouds, Drifting Haze

Silence in the Sunlight Filtering Through Trees is my 114th favorite in the contest! MMMh FAKE PAN FLUTE I LOVE THAT SOUND i like "90s new age" nature meditation cd and echoy piano and echoy percussion. this is definitely more like the kind of falcom track I like, i'm not super fond of it melodically (i feel like i'd like it more if the violin line was just not there or was playing Some OTher Melody) but the atmosphere, instrumentation and everything surrounding it is wonderful. the synth pad chord this starts off with aaaah. the very starting melody is about a 5th off from where I'd expect it to be. this plays a lot with that I guess, tonality here by my interpretation is like both c minor and g minor at the same time and this makes it ambiguous which is the REAL DEAL and i like the sound of that. I've noticed I like stuff that plays with parallel fourths/fifths or chords built by duplicating another chord up a 4th or 5th or fourths/fifths synth chord patches or similar things involving ambiguity on where the tonal center is in relation to stuff a 4th or 5th away. When freely playing with modes that stuff gets to be explored. I'm not sure why that sound tickles me so much, it's why i love half the PSO2 music I do (it's Hidekuni Horita's THING it feels like), it exudes Some "feeling" that's abstract and intangible, and whatever it is, i like it. this probably sounds like a crazy overanalysis because what this is doing isn't even that weird i'm just thinking out loud about down an unrelated tangent wondering why i like something as simple as the first 5 notes of a g minor scale at the beginning and the reason is because i perceive the rest of the song as c minor pretty heavily so it makes it be THAT thing that i think feels cool for some abstract reason i can't define ok

Epic Epileptic Apocalypse is my 109th favorite in the contest! I'm known to like "weird" music and that is true, but it's not like i automatically like every type of weird music, just certain categories i like are considered "weird." I wouldn't say this is really a type of weird i actually like. It's close...I consider "the feeling of reality being distorted, glitched up or broken" a high-tier category for me. This has that, but it's like, mostly just because it's rapidly swapping between basically completely different songs. some of those are types of songs I love! others are too silly or "normal" for the atmosphere I'm looking for in this "type of weird" music to really shine through. (I should clarify also, I don't dislike the "normal" or "silly" portions of this, I actually have something vaguely positive to say about every individual bit, but in the end their presence results in a [very interesting] atmosphere that I think is COOL but not quite the one i am looking for). I'm glad something like this exists though, I respect experimental stuff whether it's a type i enjoy or not. One aspect I like about this extremely specific style is how almost natural some of these abrupt tempo changes between sections feel, it's not like Your Best Nightmare or Class::EXSPHERE_NOSURGE; where sections of contrasting styles have radio static or whatever between them, they're immediate and it makes this feel "organic." This track reminds me of those weird AI generated images of rooms or places that freely segue between different environments in a noneuclidian nonsensical way at a distance, but looking zoomed in at any tiny bit of it feels like a vaguely coherent environment. lots of portions of this remind me of the "RIO/Avant-Prog" bands i like, I was just listening to Mr. Bungle today who definitely falls into that category (so does "Boredoms", so this comparison should not be a surprise). Randy Wilson seems like an incredibly interesting composer that I should check out but i still have not yet checked him out but i will do so eventually

A very close match, one of the closest in the contest for sure. even if i'm voting on what's expected to easily be the losing side, I'm happy with its opponent advancing!

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P-R-O-G-R-A-M is my 34th favorite in the contest! yeah this is a ranking topic spoiler but i've expressed liking this unrelated to that topic anyways but still spoiler tagging it for whoever cares that much, if anyone! as usual for these spoiler'd ones I'm going to go on endlessly about this when we get to it in my topic SORRY IM TAKING SO LONG i don't think it's surprising i like this though i like crazy synth sound design in stuff with "complex chords" and it sounds like THERMOSPHERE from EINHANDER lol. i don't know what my favorite kirby ost is but this is definitely one of the contenders

Blue Skies (Infinity Remix) is my 106th favorite in the contest! Epic Orchestra Ace Combat Music is definitely a thing I like that i didn't used to like; doesn't matter to me how stereotypical or trite it may come across, it feels INTENSE and COOL when i hear it with my ears and I start floating in the air like in the sky where air planes are! IT's crazy to me how i had such a period in the past of rejecting "epic orchestral" stuff, it was definitely heavily tied to "identity" like "i like quirky cartoon synths slightly more usually, so that means I ALWAYS ONLY LISTEN TO COMPUTER SONG" but no shit like this makes me explode because it's so big like a helicopter that is really big or a very big air plane. I actively LIKE the predictability in this, as counter as that is to things i often say, it never touches any tropes i dislike, only tropes i love. 4:48's key change and all the string line leading up to it feels so good! the choir, brass, strings, everything comes together to make this exciting and an enjoyable ride. I don't find it a memorable ride tbh, there's other Ace Combat series music in similar style to this that stands out to me much more, but I'm not complaining that this exists!

not as close as the other two matches but I still respect Blue Skies a lot.

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Flying Clouds, Drifting Haze (10th out of 56) vs. Revenger (16th out of 56), a very close match. Revenger easily takes it in terms of broader strokes- instrumentation/production/overall style and "feel" of it, aura it gives off, emotion it exudes, I like the "type" of song it is a LOT more. FCDH easily takes it in terms of actual composition for sure though, and I think that's a bit more important to me in the end. if both of these were done in the style of revenger (or in the style of fcdh), I'd like fcdh significantly more, i guess that's the way i'm thinking of it. FCDH just gets all the little details right even if Revenger's more my type of song, and those details are why i have fcdh ranked a number of placements above. Both are great though and I'd be happy with either advancing!
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Ao no Kiseki Evolution - Silence in the Sunlight Filtering Through Trees
Ace Combat Infinity - Blue Skies (Infinity Remix)
Atelier Shallie - Flying Clouds, Drifting Haze

Match 1: SitSFTT is very soothing, I especially like the flute at the beginning. EEA is giving me vibes of that shaving song we just had, except this one managed to defy the odds and be considerably worse somehow.

Match 2: PROGRAM has bleepy computer noises oh hey that's fitting because it's titled PROGRAM. Or whatever it's called. But that doesn't matter because I'm voting for its OPPONENT! More cool Ace Combat music, but this time with epic chanting!

ToC: Ehh, both of these are pretty good.

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Silence in the Sunlight Filtering Through Trees
Blue Skies (Infinity Remix)
Flying Clouds, Drifting Haze

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Ao no Kiseki Evolution - Silence in the Sunlight Filtering Through Trees
Ace Combat Infinity - Blue Skies (Infinity Remix)
Atelier Shallie - Flying Clouds, Drifting Haze


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Filtering
Program
Haze

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Silence in the Sunlight Filtering Through Trees
P-R-O-G-R-A-M
Flying Clouds, Drifting Haze

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Silence in the Sunlight Filtering Through Trees
Blue Skies (Infinity Remix)
Flying Clouds, Drifting Haze

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Epic Epileptic Apocalypse
P-R-O-G-R-A-M
Flying Clouds, Drifting Haze

SilenceInTheSunlightFilteringThroughTrees is an alright calm atmosphere (that I would have really preferred did not have the high strings), but Epic Epileptic Apocalypse is the attention-grabber of the match. What a massive wreck of a song(s) I love it, also I kind of hate it too, good job. This is like, a frankenstein monster of a bunch of little songs pieces where is anything going I don't know how a 3DO works for why this is set up like this. Many of the song piece portions are like common pop culture-feeling public domain stuff too wow how unoriginal there's like at least 6 of them gotta be more. It's all so confusingly put together I partly wonder if the song pieces were originally supposed to even be listened to just put together like this. Like in game these would be for tiny loops or something. Like what is up with the fade out at 2:56 that feels like an awkward compilation idea. And now here we are voting on it for best video game song music I wonder what the composer would think, be proud. Also 2:15 seems to just be 1:10 without vocals, horay?. I feel like the "massive wreck of a song" is the general vibe this game was going for in a way just lean on into the fun. I'm no vocals expert at all but 1:47 sounds like a sort of intentionally bad thing. Where this song "shines" for me is the start & end sections, the middle (1:07-2:59) is pretty weak, but really the start and end are like "what??" in a way I love so good job, just hectic back and forth switching between strongly contrasting moods before any of them have a chance to really finish anything it's Very silly. duelin firemen get my vote here for lighting up my day. also more is no doubt involved in that vote choice. good audio quality sound effect at 1:24

Match 2: Kirby-song-with-the-debatable-name is quite my kind of thing, while blue-skies is not really, with it's orchestration, electric guitar, and occasional vocals. PROGRAM is cool, I really like the deep machine sounds and fast paced higher beep stuff, there's a lot going on in the first 50 seconds that are really great! Then things get quite a bit more focused on this one tune I guess which is less fun but still alright. But then the part at 1:37 things get a bit more "open" and I love that glitchy chaotic element going on in the background! (and then it's back to okay part stuff). Blue skies best parts can only really match up with PROGRAM's worst parts for me, this match is easy choice.

toc is pretty close, leaning towards FCDH for it's strong variety

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Ao no Kiseki Evolution - Silence in the Sunlight Filtering Through Trees
Kirby: Planet Robobot - P-R-O-G-R-A-M
Atelier Shallie - Flying Clouds, Drifting Haze

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Silence in the Sunlight Filtering Through Trees
P-R-O-G-R-A-M
Revenger

epic epileptic apocalypse is a song that makes me think of when i'm adding songs to board game online and i have to go approve a bunch of other songs first to get points so i can add more stuff except literally all of the songs i listen to are godawful and i have to later purge them from my watch history out of fear of them breaching my recommendations. so... not my favourite kind of weird song really

i can never get into(/with the) program as much as I want to just like robobot in general. maybe it's just... kirby on 3ds that just isn't really my speed. that said, also not as into blue skies remix this year as usual, maybe because i've had time to think about ace combat stuff a fair bit since last contest and realise i'm really just not that big on ace combat 4's soundtrack these days. factoring in those other titles, try counting to infinity it just doesn't work and maybe that's why this match isn't living up to my expectations

also not too big on fcdh today, odd. revenger's still good tho

Silence in the Sunlight Filtering Through Trees (98th) vs Epic Epileptic Apocalypse (...192nd)
Vagrant Counting Song of Retrospection (53rd) vs Blue Skies (INFINITY Remix) (134th)
Soaring Clouds, Drifting Haze [[[4th//8th]]] vs Revenger [[[15th//41st]]]

komorebi is kinda genericy town music but in just the right way where i love it~~~ pan flute!!! upbeat backing which is kinda rare for town stuf!!! yes!!! epic epicepic epocalypse is my SONG IN LAST :((( sorry haste aaaaaaa there are little bits and pieces here and there that i do like, but too much of it annoys me and i REALLY do not think the switching works at all so yeaaaah this is the only song i say i dislike in the entire field lolol oops

hello Song Of Unknown Name That No One Knows???? PLICK plock PLICK PLICK plock this songs so good!!! all the ELECTRONICNESS is rather unbefitting of kirby honestly, even for robobot standards (i have not listened to the whole ost too much tho) but it works so much with this song it's such a delight to listen to! the REAL kicker here though is THE GALACTIC NOVA with the glitchiness hooooooo mama that's the good good right there. Blue Skies is actually something I was pretty neutral on when I first heard it but I've come around on it quite a bit. does the classic Ace Combat affair of just starting strong blasting you with vocals and then taking you on a wild ride after that. The ride aint as wild as other AC that I love like. SUPER LOVE (hi megalith and comona) but it's still cool as hell. English lyrics what the junk?? yeah i do love it but it still doesn't quite stand up to vcsor

asano too good, revenger second-least favorite song left and it would be like top 60 in contest lmao

Soaring Clouds, Drifting Haze > Vagrant Counting Song of Retrospection > Revenger > Silence in the Sunlight Filtering Through Trees > Blue Skies (INFINITY Remix) > Epic Epileptic Apocalypse

long name day wow

Silence in the Sunlight Filtering Through Trees
P-R-O-G-R-A-M
Flying Clouds, Drifting Haze
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Oh well haha, it has more value for comedy than for music anyway!

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Epic Epileptic Apocalypse
P-R-O-G-R-A-M

Silence in the Sunlight Filtering Through Trees
"P-R-O-G-R-A-M"
Flying Clouds, Drifting Haze

Epic Epileptic Apocalypse
P-R-O-G-R-A-M
Revenger

Ao no Kiseki Evolution - Silence in the Sunlight Filtering Through Trees
Ace Combat Infinity - Blue Skies (Infinity Remix)

Atelier Shallie - Flying Clouds, Drifting Haze
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Silence in the Sunlight Filtering Through Trees
Blue Skies (Infinity Remix)
Flying Clouds, Drifting Haze

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Silence in the Sunlight Filtering Through Trees
Blue Skies (Infinity Remix)
Revenger

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Epic Epileptic Apocalypse
P-R-O-G-R-A-M
Revenger

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AnKE - Silence in the Sunlight Filtering Through Trees
ACI - Blue Skies (Infinity Remix)
ASh - Flying Clouds, Drifting Haze

Komorebi no Naka no Shijima dang that's also a mouthful huh, EEA is a lot better when I don't look at the awful cover art *shudders*
Official Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped Soundtrack by Naughty Dog and Sony. Enjoy! Cool...plucked string synth? in PROGRAM that sounds like a pipe xylophone
Silly Revenger, your round 2 win was already the last day of 4/20



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Silence in the Sunlight Filtering Through Trees
P-R-O-G-R-A-M
Revenger

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Silence in the Sunlight
Blue Skies
Flying Clouds, Distant Haze

komorebi is a word. Epic Epiletic are also words but they are much weirder words.

Heaven never knows! Program's cool though, one of the few Kirby tracks I like.

last match is too close.
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Silence in the Sunlight Filtering Through Trees
P-R-O-G-R-A-M
Flying Clouds, Drifting Haze
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Epic Epileptic Apocalypse
P-R-O-G-R-A-M
Revenger

Silence in the Sunlight Filtering Through Trees
P-R-O-G-R-A-M
Revenger

Silence
Star Dream
Flying Clouds

I kind of wanted to vote for Firemen but the whole thing makes me feel like someones trying to trick me into voting for a trailer for a really cool album rather than an actual piece of music

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Silence in the Sunlight Filtering Through Trees [8.3] < Epic Epileptic Apocalypse [8.9]
P-R-O-G-R-A-M [9.8] > Blue Skies (Infinity Remix) [7.0]
Flying Clouds, Drifting Haze > Revenger

like this one a lot, actuallyhas a super great atmosphere. sounds exactly like komorebi, unlike a certain other sunlight filtering through trees song. sounds like something from EO, which is always great. it's a little short for my tastes, though..

folks i hate to break it to ya but theres vgm among us.
what. it feels really wrong to rate this anything at all as a whole. same sort of vibe as your best nightmare and class exsphere nosurge, but really upfront about it//i really like mishmash sort of stuff

kirby is known for extensive motif use and that works REALLY well for this song. it plays with them in fresh rhythmic ways and integrates them into the tone of the piece. also super into the electronic sound design of it, with the plucky synths and chiptunes all over. panning and mechanical glitchy sounds are my favorite things a lot of the time

very EPIC orchestral piece...i like that in a man!! too bad it doesn't really go too many places with it.. i guess it makes more sense to listen to this while flying a plane but im just sitting here. i dont like how the voices drown out the orchestra..

match that shouldnt ecxist im CRYING!!!!
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Silence in the Sunlight Filtering Through Trees
P-R-O-G-R-A-M
Revenger

Very close second match and ToC where I feel like I could go either way.

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Atelier Shallie - Flying Clouds, Drifting Haze

I was feeling Revenger more yesterday, but I'm back to preferring FCDH, like usual, even though it's a close match!

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Silence in the Sunlight Filtering Through Trees
Blue Skies (Infinity Remix)
Crystar

Silence in the Sunlight Filtering Through Trees vs Epic Epileptic Apocalypse: Voting for songs just because they aren't the song they're up against seems to be a common trend for me lately. Silence does nothing to stand out to me except being a song that isn't Epileptic Apocalypse. Epileptic is too weird and wacky for me to be able to vibe to in anyway. Shoutout to those brief 30 seconds of clarity towards the end.

P-R-O-G-R-A-M vs Blue Skies (Infinity Remix): PROGRAM has that really glitchy feel to it thats cool but it does nothing with that vibe so this track ends up being a big disappointment. I did not expect Blue Skies to be good based on all the Ace Combat songs I've heard in the past. It's a pretty solid track, the occasional vocals really boost an alright decent instrumental to something I jam to a bit.

Flying Clouds, Drifting Haze vs Crystar: Not much to say here aside from Crystar is as good as always

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Duelin' Firemen! - Epic Epileptic Apocalypse
Kirby: Planet Robobot - P-R-O-G-R-A-M
Crystar - Revenger

Honestly? Just thankful to see EEA in the bracket at all! Even if it wasn't to everyone's exact palette, I got to share some new music, and that's a joy either way.

Was gonna write a lot more here but I'm crunching for time anyhow. Great day on the whole!

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Silence in the Sunlight Filtering Through Trees
Blue Skies (Infinity Remix)
Flying Clouds, Drifting Haze

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Silence in the Sunlight Filtering Through Trees
P-R-O-G-R-A-M
Revenger

-the intro to silence in the-- sigh. the intro to this track with 'komorebi' in the title vaguely reminds me of a chiller version of the explosion from cladun. (there could not be a more contrasting vgm title to compare this to! specifically this reminds me of 1:02 in the explosion, but when I compare the two the similarities are a lot weaker than they seemed in my head. a trick of the light, maybe.) fragments of this track remind me of a lot of different tracks, actually. maybe that's a sign the track is derivative, but I kinda like its overall feel, and the melody fragments remind me of tracks I like.
-folks I hate to break it to you but there's aliens among us. epic epileptic apocalypse is relentless, but there's more to it than a jumbled katamari of music-- its weirdness feels like it's arranged with some care (especially given how oddly seamless this feels in some way), and there's ambition to the strange it reaches for. there's also cohesive elements that stretch beyond its overall mixing and mastering-- it took me a while to figure it out but I think the drum kit plays a large part in that. like the faces in the album cover, it's full of disparate things that find a way to merge together in a bizarre way. also I kinda get hype when 2:01 hits

-my favourite crash bandicoot 3: warped track. I super dig the pluck synth work in this track, especially the way they introduce the track. actually this is full of short synths and I love their sharpness, along with the percussion. (the one thing I don't really care for in this is the guitar.) combined, they give this track a real pace and a frantic energy. really fun track.
-every time the intro to this track comes on I'm like 'oh isn't this that atelier track'. this doesn't actually remind me of any specific atelier track but for some reason that's the first thing that crosses my mind. this has that 'epic' ace combat feel with the big strings and brass arrangement. there's an airy feel to the vocals that I think does a decent job of conveying open skies. there are various parts where I think the chord progression is cool-- 3:37, for example. like a lot of AC tracks in this vein it delivers on its promise of a heroic feel. this track also reminds me, though, why I prefer the epic AC tracks with more of a slow build-- it gives more of a feeling of progression through a track. here, things feel a bit more static (cool dramatic key change at 4:48 notwithstanding).

-revenger. my reaction to this track is not totally straightforward-- a very cool track that always seems to have a fragment missing to sell me completely on it. it's a track that seems to weaken in retrospect, even though I enjoy it each time I listen to it. gives me fits in close matches (and it's been in a lot of those!)

Silence in the Sunlight Filtering Through Trees
P-R-O-G-R-A-M
Revenger

I'm all for songs changing styles, but Epic Epileptic Apocalypse sounds more like flipping through different channels on a radio. There are multiple parts in there that I'd like if they were full songs, but that's all they are, they're just fragments. It doesn't feel like this even qualifies as a full song on its own.

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Silence in the Sunlight Filtering Through Trees
P-R-O-G-R-A-M
Flying Clouds, Drifting Haze

Flying Clouds, Drifting Haze still one of the best tracks on there lol

Ao no Kiseki Evolution - Silence in the Sunlight Filtering Through Trees
Ace Combat Infinity - Blue Skies (Infinity Remix)
Atelier Shallie - Flying Clouds, Drifting Haze

MATCH 1

Silence in the Sunlight Filtering Through Trees is a pretty fitting name for this song since it makes me feel like I'm exploring a dense forest with canopies that extend far above your head. It's a pretty nice song all around! Relaxing pan flute and some nice violin melodies too.

What a strange song this Epic Epileptic Apocalypse song is. I can appreciate what it tries to do, but I don't think I can really enjoy this song musically. I think it's an amusing song, but musically speaking, this song's really just a hodgepodge of wildly different music styles rapidly switching between one another. Some parts I can briefly get into like the more metal sounding part at 0:40-0:44, but most parts I'm just not into individually nor as they're grouped together in this song. This would be a song that I appreciate more for being humorous than for any music-related appeal so it means I don't dislike this song, but I can't say I like it in a musical sense.

MATCH 2

I like how P-R-O-G-R-A-M starts out, but this might be the only time in this contest you hear me say that I find much of this song to be more overstimulating than complete. I guess right now, I feel like the more mechanical and glitchy stuff in the background kinda overpowers the main melody and I'd rather the song feel a bit more consonant. Kind of vague, I know, but unfortunately I can't really describe it with more clarity. Those are just my inner thoughts on this song.

You know, I almost forgot that Blue Skies (Infinity Remix) was a returning song from last year. I think it's a really nice song though! I really like the vocals and brass combination you hear throughout this song. The key change towards the end is pretty nice too. It does kinda lag a bit, though, during the softer parts without vocals. It's definitely a good song for Ace Combat music since it doesn't have that militaristic orchestra feel like other songs I've heard from this series (though perhaps that's not a major representation of this series' music, I'm not sure). I think I might like this song a little bit more now than I did last year.

Flying Clouds, Drifting Haze > Revenger > Silence in the Sunlight Filtering Through Trees > Blue Skies (Infinity Remix) > P-R-O-G-R-A-M > Epic Epileptic Apocalypse