Board 8 > VGMC] Day 27! Big Ride / Heavy Arms / One Last / Distant Sky / Desert / Anka

(+) Yeah! (+)

Gundam Wing: Endless Duel - Heavy Arms
Skygunner - To the Distant Sky
Signs of the Sojourner - Anka

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The Big Ride
To the Distant Sky
Desert After Tears
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Heavy Arms
To the Distant Sky
Anka

3 days it keeps happening!!!

Anka really wowed me today! I remember thinking it was a song that *seems* like I should like it, but for some reason my brain never decided to click with it until today! The instruments and style remind me of the Bonobo song I nominated for rwlh's topic. My natural inclination with this song is to imagine an indoor jam session, but apparently Anka is a city in the game which works just as well!

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PIayer_0 posted...

My natural inclination with this song is to imagine an indoor jam session

This isn't far off from how the soundtrack was actually made! Steve Pardo called in some friends and musicians he knew in the area and kinda approached it as making an album with them.

https://www.wshu.org/post/steve-pardo-composes-world-music-signs-sojourner

I think the soundtrack in general is wonderful, and worth a listen if you're into the sound Anka evokes.

Big Ride
Distant Sky
Anka

(m2) who gave hagane fart noises and the squeaks my sneakers make on tile floors to use as instruments composition is pretty cool tho. relistening to battle of ice I and it's SO CRISP and the crosscode stuff is just not im so sorry.

(m3) ok. this vote has a lot of thought put into it. my conclusion: DAT is a worse-than-average falcom track for me, and Anka is a better-than-average track of its variety for me. after the intro, DAT takes a while to get good, and when it does it's not as good as i want it to be. in contrast, Anka feels very consistently good throughout.
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The Big Ride
To the Distant Sky
Anka

LittleBigPlanet Vita - The Big Ride
CrossCode: A New Home - One Last Trial
Signs of the Sojourner - Anka

Nonstandard vote formatting today, don't have a minute right now to score properly.

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The Big Ride
One Last Trial
Anka

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The Big Ride
To the Distant Sky
Anka

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The / Last / Anka

please please please please
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Heavy Arms
To the Distant Sky
Desert After Tears

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The Big Ride
One Last Trial
Anka

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The Big Ride
One Last Trial
Anka

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Gundam Wing: Endless Duel - Heavy Arms
Skygunner - To the Distant Sky
Ys IX: Monstrum Nox - Desert After Tears

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The Big Ride
To the Distant Sky
Desert After Tears

LittleBigPlanet Vita - The Big Ride
Skygunner - To the Distant Sky
Ys IX: Monstrum Nox - Desert After Tears

MATCH 1

The Big Ride has some cool drum patterns going on, but I also think there's a lot of charm in its melody and chords. The beginning of this song before that synth comes in at 0:54 has a really nice, playful sound to it. Even though the part after that changes up the sound a little, I still think it keeps that vibe and regardless, it sounds good as well.

Heavy Arms is decent. It's good at what it does, but I don't find it that exciting.

MATCH 2

I think Hagane did a really good job with nailing that CrossCode sound while still making it sound like a Hagane song. I like that slightly mysterious and foreboding intro before the more climactic part of the song kicks in. Pretty entertaining listen throughout!

I'm happy that I could help get To the Distant Sky in again this year! Such a nice, feel-good song. I don't have much to say about this, it's just definitely up my alley.

MATCH 3

While I could lift a lot of my compliments of Desert After Tears from any of my other writeups on the previous Falcom songs, one unique thing I really like about this song is that acoustic guitar, particularly in the intro. I love that wistful sound that the intro has. It almost makes me wish that the rest of the song wasn't Falcom rock so I could keep hearing that type of sound. I think it's that kind of emotion that I get from this song's intro that's the reason why I like Skies of a Strange Land so much, which unfortunately didn't make it in this year. I think I'd be pretty happy if Desert After Tears kept with the sound of its intro like how Skies of a Strange Land keeps the same feel throughout the whole song, but thankfully, the rock portions of this song sound really great too, so I still find the song very enjoyable nonetheless.

Anka's pretty pleasant to listen to, but I feel like I find myself wanting a bit of a stronger melody out of this. I couldn't really think of what to describe this other than "lo-fi," which...probably isn't the greatest description, but P0 mentioned Bonobo and I think that's a pretty good comparison to use! I like the style it's going for, but if I'm gonna use Bonobo as a comparison, I really like the song Kiara (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7m86aMNjlQ) and maybe that's a somewhat helpful comparison for that "stronger melody" I'd hope to hear from a song like Anka. Decent song nonetheless though!

Desert After Tears > To the Distant Sky >> The Big Ride > One Last Trial > Heavy Arms > Anka