Board 8 > [VGMC] Day 28! Catabolism v AncientLand, Gokinjo v Bound2gther, NatLifeA v Unfin

(+) Yeah! (+)

Welcome to Video Game Music Contest 15, an annual celebration of the best of the best video game music according to the voters!

Important Links:
Bracket: https://www.bracketmaker.com/tlist.cfm?tid=474630
Contest info sheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16XAaBMDuUnQ4c5AxQNL9ZhvD7VG5kQyrXWWZxnkrn-o
Contest discussion thread: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/79443554
Main bracket playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLT3m7iohpL0xt7lOF1eB-H4NpAaF1yAnU
Compatibility sheet (courtesy of Haste!!): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1iGYWo_ifr_p2uYpD_I6TwBQS2tm7zJtPCxYZfRJcG8I
Last years spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VNrPnFRI7nJ4PqFiURBW0NWqxvXiuasoq8Sn_O169ss
VGMC total stats sheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1K1XdLWiUKB2kX99qYBgnRbLU_sCz4dvZSByKKJHCT6o
Discord: https://discord.gg/WDvMS4a

Rules:
- Listen to both songs in a given match, at least through the loop time provided (to make sure you don't skip before you've heard the whole thing!)
- Please consider the loop point listed when judging the song; if a video loops one minute 5 times, don't treat it as if it's a repetitive 5 minute song
- If it's a match between your favorite song ever and a song you despise, still LISTEN TO BOTH! Votes can and will be disqualified if there is suspicion songs are not being listened to, and you may be discounted for the rest of the contest for repeat offenses.
- No alt accounts, no rallying or begging, etc., etc.... You only get one vote! Swapping votes is alright, just make clear that you've already made a vote and are swapping.
- Make clear what your voting options are! Please keep votes separate from any comments, and use the titles given in the topic post.
- Voting in all matches is not mandatory, feel free

Catabolism
Bound Together
Unfinished Business

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Ancient Land
Bound Together
Unfinished Business

Ancient Land
Battle
Unfinished Business

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Gokinjo

THE KING IS BACK

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Ancient Land
Bound Together
Unfinished Business

Not much going on in Catabolism. Ancient Land is a lot more fun. Gimme all the epic violins. And then the chorus comes in and it's even better! What a great song to kill monsters to.

Wow match two sure is weak. I think I like Darren Korb stuff a bit better after playing Hades, so that helps I guess. Battle is a terrible song to kill monsters to and would make me feel depressed if I had to hear it all the time while fighting in a game. Bound Together feels like pretty good beating the game music, though I like In the Blood a lot better.

I think Muramasa probably has the worst soundtrack of any Vanillaware game. Feels like a generic "Japanese-sounding" song you'd hear in any game without anything unique to it. I feel like Skullgirls songs have gotten in before and I haven't really been into them? I'm not really that into this either. Oh well.

Ancient Land > Catabolism > Unfinished Business > Bound Together > Battle > Natural Life A
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Dariusburst Another Chronicle EX - Catabolism
Gokinjo Boukentai - Battle
Skullgirls: Encore - Unfinished Business

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Ancient Land
Battle
Unfinished Business

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Ys: Memories of Celceta - Ancient Land
Gokinjo Boukentai - Battle
Muramasa: The Demon Blade - Natural Life A
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Ancient Land
Bound Together
Natural Life A

UB's sax isn't working for me chief. Sorry :(

Ancient Land [8.5]
Bound Together [7.5]
Battle [7]
Natural Life A [6]
Catabolism [6]
Unfinished Business [4]

Ancient Land
Battle
Unfinished Business

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Catabolism
Bound Together
Unfinished Business
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Catabolism
Unfinished bidness

This is an extremely wide song. S tier... alright it took four and a half minutes but suddenly it clicked and it's really good now

also really good

the KING

gotta play pyre now

basedscape

easy difficulty

why have the day qualities this week been so oscillatory


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Ancient Land
Bound Together
Unfinished Business

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Catabolism
Bound
Business
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Ancient Land
Bound Together
Natural Life A

Catabolism
Battle
Natural Life A

Catabolism
Bound Together
Unfinished Business

Catabolism
Bound Together
Unfinished Business

WHOA I really dig the ghostly vocals in Catabolism, definitely the standout song today! It's like someone or something is calling to me across time and space...I could see it accompanying a lengthy special effects montage in a sci-fi movie/anime or something.

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Catabolism
Bound Together
Natural Life A

I love Shohei Tsuchiya trippy percussion

Falcom being Falcom
-
I do love hearing old music embracing its oldness like this. Excellent way to wear that soundfont with pride

But I gotta give it to Bound Together. Not sure if any song this contest has made me want to play its game as much as Bound Together does.
-
NLA is way more interesting than I remember it being in nominations. Like it starts off sounding kinda ambient and like someone through together bunch of classical Japanese sounds but there's definitely some intentionality here on a second listen. And it builds up subtly enough that by the end of the loop I'm like "whoa this is not ambient"

Unfinished Business is less interesting than I remember. Just sounds kinda restrained and toothless except for the sax solo.

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Catabolism
Bound Together
Natural Life A

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Catabolism (5th) vs Ancient Land (22nd)
Battle (23rd) vs Bound Together (89th)
Natural Life A (217th) vs Unfinished Business (58th)

what the FUCK WHY ROUND 1 WHY

whAT THE FFFFF FUCK bound together is like 39th or something now actually if i made the ranking right now its sccore literally rises every day and i've listened to it more than any other song in the entire contest in the time period since noms closed lol

WHAT THE--oh actually at least one is easy

today is stupid amounts of good, even natural life tho its low i really like...... the B version but that means i appreciate the A still too!!!!

Ancient Land
Battle
Unfinished Business

not feeling like doing any writeups today

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Catabolism
Bound Together
Natural Life A

-(oh man now i'm in the "idm" cole; these pseudo-microtonal and Actual Microtonal chords that are just slightly detuned feel so cool and feel so much like "Monkey Target" from Super Monkey Ball and the part at 2:45 in the song "Tijuanic" by Alan Parsons. Just take a look:
https://youtu.be/7tgajoOGW98?t=164
~~~~~
with how unusual the workings of the track are, the erratic drums, nonstandard tuning, i'm amazed that all these things never feel "in your face" to me, and that's what i want when it comes to these things. the technical oddities don't get in the way of bits that feel like Epic Grand Moment or anything, the dissonant elements don't feel grating at all, they're like...beautiful?! It's insane how cohesive the sound is as this unified whole with how viciously opposed extreme elements are being merged together.
~~~~~
I really underrate how cool Shohei Tsuchiya is because when i think of zuntata i think of "Yasuhisa WAtanabe" and E.G.G/Cosio and of course big names like Ogura, and i forget that one of their most creative members is right in front of my eyes...! )-

-[some cool harmonies in the synth chords which is nice. the trance-y zone of this appeals to me. this song sounds like it is making fun of itself but knoow one would know what i mean...it's a jokester. ]-

-{oh}-

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-(rip akihiko mori ; you are good at voicing big jazz chords on an snes)-

-[i already did a really long writeup for bound together in my ranking topic. and that was a very LONG writeup so i will just link it here rather than inflating the size of this post with an obnoxiously long wall of text: https://pastebin.com/eRQzsetn
~~~~~
this track has grown on me a great deal since i made that ranking topic, and like it was already a "high 7" in that. so yeah i love this track, i dunno if i have much more to say about it newly, but i guess i like the same ways i already liked it that i said in my ranking topic even more than when i made that post. on top of that, acoustic guitar and folk-aligned stuff really has been an amplified element of my tastes lately so that's boosting this too]-

-{boing}-

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-(Natural Life A is the epitome of all achievements[those who fiercely bathe their soul with "quintals" and "quartals" and whole step modulation-based tonality ascension]LISTEN TO THAT ACOUSTIC BASS BEING SO COOL. AHHHHHHH! These moments like :54 of extreme melodic simplicity contrasted so seamlessly with the moments right after like 1:11 where it is "not simple" but it's in the same song so smoothly. and then the fuSING metric modulation at 1:26?!!? contrasting these groups of 3 notes vs 4 notes streched/squashed to be in the same space as each other and it feels so FUNKY like the jaws of the honking the(THESE SMOOTH PADS OF ETHEREAL LIGHT BEAMS) AND THAT ACOUSTIC BASS IS STILL BEING EPIC. this song is probably tonally my favorite song in the contest (i am going to say that about some other song later: warning)tHIS SONG feels like "one song" but it's actually 5 songs, and i don't notice it? one thing abe's songs do the most in his basiscape era; these textural uses of rhythms, it's not like "precise polymeter" or "wat ever" that i would get with "prog music that i like", instead it's those same techniques but to create a landscape of DREAMS and NEW FUTUre(past) ideas. It's "complex" but it doesn't feel like it's trying to teach me that, it feels like it's trying to take me OUT OF THIS WORLD. these conflicting rhythms functioning like "ocean waves sound effect" equivalent rather than "you have to think aboout the exact notes" but you CAN if you WANT TO just like thread of fate/ this is the least generic song in the world and it makes me want to drink a lot of beer, but i have never had that before because i am a dangerous one. Kimihiro Abe's sense of tonality came from when his fingers are too big for the small toy keyboard so then you play all the notes at the same time and realize that sounds cooler than triads and thats my life story. I have noticed that a lot of my favorite songs now have a lot of focus on extremely overt 4/4 elements (such as the part at :50 here, or the chord sequence at 1:26) but with a ton of other layers interacting with them totally outside that container. I guess it's because it works as such a good perspective shifter. If you have all these crazy rhythms but there's still like one really constant 1---2---3---4--- steady element, it generates the cauldron of bronze plastic for emptying one's fluids into when there's so much gravy from your leg muscles that you extract using a scalpel in anatomy. but lets not think about that.....that's too hard core. i'm more focused on how much i want to play this game and i now have it but i need to finish either coded soul or mmbn3 or something first and i've been too busy to play games because i have been listening repeatedly to all the vgmc songs to make sure i list the proper loop points but I HAVE FINISHED THAT TODAY so now i have time to play video games again!! I'm not sure where this ranks in my favorite soundtracks, but Muramasa SOMETIMES feelslike itis my "5th favorite soundtrack" following the PSO2->Sonic Shuffle->Opoona->Coded Soul top 4, but i do not speak with assertion on that, because i have listened to muramasa significantly less times than those 4 or most of my other "favorite soundtracks", maybe i will intentionally save listening to it again for...getting to experience it in the context of the game!!! I'm so excited for that opportunity!! I love music that is in both the future and past at once!! EVERY CHORD IN THIS SONG IS CREATION OF GENIUS MONOLITHS' GATE, I CANT HANDLE THIS SONG, i am going to die, i am going to lose the ability to breathe air, but when I listen to this song i remember why i don't want to do that. every note is piercing my flesh with new information: i'm in the flood of ocean FUCK YOU dreams and TOO FAST. THIS SO(NG and (it's that acoustic bass again. the echoy birds...the!! EVERY CHORD IS GOOD. This song is so full in a way i can not describe with my eyes, there's no dull space and that's why it's fresh botany. why is this soundtrack so perfect. I love almost every song in muramasa but especially this one, it is the one i like the most. oh yeah and it's on the japan instruments i like those. i appreciate okami and muramasa for taking the elements i like most about traditional japanese music and combining them with far more interesting composition than is legal (more using all 12 pitch classes, transposition-y, not rigidly pentatonic)...this is the OPPOSITE of what a lot of other "fake japan music" does that i wind up disliking (i will rant about this on a later song in the contest if i remember), so i'm extremely thankful that okami and muramasa are the GOOD version of this to me. this is my favorite okami song. actually it's probably just literally my favorite kimihiro abe song, and kimihiro abe is my favorite composer, so this is a big deal (well i might like opoona-rock castle more eventually if i listen to that enough times, not sure, very close).)-

-[i like the parts of Unfinished Business that are like 1:11-1:13 3:02-3:08 and stuff like that because they sound like "Natural Life A"]-

-{OH NO ITS the "Transposing Fourths-Based Harmony" SFF match it's going to destroy my favorite song ;-;}-

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Natural Life A (1st/166)
Catabolism (9th/166)
Bound Together (43rd/166)
Unfinished Business (111th/166)
Battle (122nd/166)
Ancient Land (128th/166)

i LOVE the three songs that i am voting for!!!!!!
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Catabolism
Battle

Catabolism
Bound Together
Unfinished Business

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Catabolism
Bound Together
Natural Life A

Listening to Bound Together, it's apparent to me that it's weaving in leitmotifs from the rest of the soundtrack (which I'm not familiar with). It definitely makes me want to check Pyre out, but for the time being I can at least be thankful that my ignorance makes it easier for me to judge the song 'independently'.

Ancient Land
Bound Together
Unfinished Business

Ancient Land
Bound Together
Natural Life A

She stayed true to, well, an end the king is dead long live the king
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Catabolism
Battle
Unfinished Business

Really good first match. I hate Bound Together, I can get behind Year of Gokinjo or whatever it was called.

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Ancient Land
Bound Together
Natural Life A

(m1) how could you do this. what the ufck. no. dear god. these are both SO GOOD and voting against either one feels terrible. so on the one hand catabolism is SO FUCKING COOL hol yshit. we got some mycro/gnosia noises at the start which are the perfect lead-in to the space electronic whatever that is the core of the song. it all meshes so well when it absolutely shouldn't and overall is just hnnnnngh i love it. this feels like tactical field vs kimi ga tame all over again -- heck, even this track reminds me of tactical field in a lot of ways (although there are some very obvious differences).

and it's vs... peak Jindo. Jindo, by far my favorite falcom composer/arranger. makin eurobeat ys music. hell yes. this song never stops. every time i hear this i want to sing along but i cant so instead i just VIBE my fucking heart out. it's so FUCKING good listen to that violin and that guitar go OFF over that beat and that bass mmmmmm jindo KING.

catabolism loses because at one point it goes atonal with horns which are two things i dont like and it makes me stop vibing for like 2 seconds. meanwhile jindo could take me for a ride through his ancient land any day and id be vibing the whole way through.

(m2) this is an impressive array of instruments. composition's alright too but sometimes just feels like an excuse to bring in more instruments.

oh boy this one has LIVE INSTURMENTS so its insta better. unlike gokinjo i feel like the instruments really get a chance to breath here and come into their own. oh this song really EVOLVES too. haha funny fart instrument at 4:17. alright u can be the one to die to ancient land thats ok.

(m3) oh boy i love these instruments. this song really highlights every instrument in it, but does it SO differently from how most tracks do it that it's refreshing. for the first minute or so it feels like every instrument is pulling for your attention, but they take turns well enough that it never feels overwhelming. and then its like. idk. it develops. all of these instruments are super COOL and they feel EXACTLY RIGHT here. listen to that water thingy in the background. what's it doing? i don't know. it's cool.

oh no fart sax. man i dont like *anything* that's going on here. don't hate it but nothing here makes me want to put this song on a playlist and listen to it again. ok this solo at 2:02 is alright i guess. not the one a bit later at 2:40ish, although that one at least has the benefit that i could make funi sex joke out of it.

uh i guess i can give a ranking

Ancient Land > Natural Life A > Catabolism > Bound Together > Battle > Unfinished Business
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Ancient Land
Battle
Unfinished Business
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Catabolism
Bound Together
Unfinished Business

Okay so. Round 1 is cruel. It should be illegal. I spent a double on Ancient Land (? if I recall correctly) and here comes Catabolism and is SO FREAKING COOL. It does all these neat IDM-y things but also manages to be subdued. But then Ancient Land is such a banger, and achieves more as a song. I couldn't really pick one, but in the interest of representing a style of music that I think is less popular, I'm voting Catabolism.

Second round was pretty tough. On the one hand, you have a very cool jazzy retro song, but on the other hand you have a really neat vocal song. I didn't think I'd be voting for it at first, but Bound Together builds up so well that about halfway through I was dead set on voting for it. Also Darren Korb's singing voice is like Casey Crescenzo from The Dear Hunter but with less teenage angst and I mean that in the best possible way.

Third round was something of a no-brainer. Cool string sounds and soundscape vs j a z z. This Skullgirls track absolutely makes up for how underwhelming the last Yamane was to me.

Catabolism
Bound Together
Natural Life A

Ancient Land
Battle
Natural Life A

Dariusburst Another Chronicle EX - Catabolism [9.5] holy fuck
Pyre - Bound Together [8.0]
Muramasa: The Demon Blade - Natural Life A [9.0]

Ys: Memories of Celceta - Ancient Land [5.0]
Gokinjo Boukentai - Battle [6.5]
Skullgirls: Encore - Unfinished Business [7.5]

Catabolism [9.5] holy fuck

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Ancient Land
Bound Together
Unfinished Business

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Catabolism
Bound Together
Unfinished Business

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Catabolism
Battle
Unfinished Business

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Catabolism
Battle
Unfinished Business

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Ancient Land
Bound Together
Unfinished Business

Battle
Unfinished Business

ye

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Ys: Memories of Celceta - Ancient Land
Gokinjo Boukentai - Battle
Skullgirls: Encore - Unfinished Business
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Ancient Land
Battle
Unfinished Business

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Ancient Land
Battle
Unfinished Business

Ys: Memories of Celceta - Ancient Land
Gokinjo Boukentai - Battle
Skullgirls: Encore - Unfinished Business

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Catabolism
abstain
Unfinished Business

Catabolism
Bound Together
Unfinished Business

I feel like I ought to give a write up here, except I am a little busy today oops. But here we are, Bound Together. I very much dislike most vocal singing pieces, as well as traditional instrumentations. And yet, Bound Together is my own nomination (and the only one of mine still in the contest after my other lost it's R1 match). And to make matters even more silly, I've never played Pyre either! It just manages to work extremely well on it's own, and somehow manages to make my dislikes not actually block out my enjoyment for once. I kind of like this sort of story too, hearing little snippets of different characters each going through their own issues. And I really like the "we shall find our way home" bit at the end too (I kind of like the other variants that include that with the character parts more for that reason but this "main" one still works well enough too). I really love the whole bittersweet atmosphere this whole thing has too, something which also works extremely well for me in another song in division C (I may hate "sad" but I love "bittersweet"). The way the two voices work together singing the same but with different sounds is nice too. And to be honest, I've been kind of dreading this match because the Gokinjo Battle is probably my 2nd favorite song in this 16-pack. But relistening to the two here, I definitely enjoy Bound Together more.

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Ancient Land
Battle
Unfinished Business

Ancient Land
Battle
Unfinished Business

year of gokinjo
year of gojindo
year of not easy wtf

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