Board 8 > [VGMC] Day 34! WEndValentine v Besaid, Doldrums v IronLotus, Speartip v Okhotsk

(+) 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 to skip matches you do not wish to vote in.
- Vote based on the links provided, and not other sources of audio. Links are specifically chosen for best quality and the like.
- Don't discuss vote tallies in this thread, or in other threads, as they may influence votes. Likewise, please refrain from looking at the running tally before voting.

Voting Period:
- Today's matches will last 24 hours from the time o

World's End Valentine
Iron Lotus
Speartip of Judgment

Besaid Island
In the Doldrums
Speartip of Judgment

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World's End Valentine
In the Doldrums
Speartip of Judgment

wtf we just had an umineko song
I liked Iron Lotus way more than I was expecting to! But In the Doldrums is good, too! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
poor Pursuit :(

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World's End Valentine
Intertropical Convergence Zone
Speartip

I've cooled off on the Omori songs since the beginning of the contest, but this one is still a lot of fun

Besaid's great, but man, just let it go already

13 Sentinels.

Library of Ruina.

I always forget that this track is seven minutes long when listening to it. It's got an incredible sense of movement. You can always tell it's the same track, and it often returns to motifs, but it relentlessly moves to keep things fresh so you're never fatigued of it and the occasional realization that "oh, it is the same song!" is always a little surprising regardless of how obvious a fact it may seem. Kind of reminds me of Como Loco in that sense, though this is a much more interesting and varied track, as much as I love SFA

see my generic NES writeup from my rankings

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Besaid Island
In the Doldrums
Pursuit
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Besaid Island
Iron Lotus
Speartip of Judgment

Hey, I can vote for a Library of Ruina song this time. I actually don't like it as much as some of the others, but it still beats its opponent this time. I also get to vote for Besaid Island. Kinda thought WEV was better, but I had only heard a bit of it previously.

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OMORI - World's End Valentine
Library of Ruina - Iron Lotus
Murasaki Tsurugi - Speartip of Judgment
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World's End Valentine
In the Doldrums
Pursuit

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World's End Valentine
Iron Lotus
Pursuit

World's End Valentine
Doldrums
Speartip of Judgement
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World's End Valentine
In the Doldrums
Pursuit

OMORI vs. FFX - WTF I love harpsichord stop it Omori. Its inclusion is the only thing beating out Besaid for me, since I am one of the FF fanboys here (that, and I really don't like the extremely low piano beat in Besaid, which jars an otherwise peaceful tune.)

13S vs. LoR - Another LoR song that would have won my vote if it just weren't the singer. I'm sorry to all the LoR fans out there but I just can NOT get into her voice. 13S is just consistently good throughout, in comparison.

Murasaki Tsurugi vs. Hokkaido Serial Murders - I just feel Speartip starts EDM and then tries to mix Eurobeat and a Sonic theme and it goes on way too long for me. On the flip side, I wholly commend whoever nominated Pursuit (and wonder if me running it in a VGMGG had anything to do with it.) My only regret is I didn't link the superior RM4-I version. Yes, this match is support-favoritism, but I also genuinely enjoyed Pursuit more than Speartip, too.


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World's End Valentine
Iron Lotus
Speartip of Judgment

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World's End Valentine
In the Doldrums
Pursuit

Pursuit touches my heart. WAY more memorable than speartip (which i like, pretty high quality, but not the real winner for me).

World's End Valentine
Iron Lotus
Speartip of Judgement

Match 2 is close. I think Milli's vocals work better here compared to String Theocracy even if I prefer the background stuff in ST more.

World's End Valentine [8.5]
Speartip of Judgement [8.5]
Iron Lotus [8]
In The Doldrums [8]
Besaid Island [6.5]
Pursuit [6]

Besaid Island
In the Doldrums
Speartip of Judgment

-(the comparison pyre made of a lot of music on this ost to umineko is interesting; i didnt think of it until he said it but it really lines up in the way it sounds like rich people mansion music in europe but is also trance-adjacent or whatever. i like -45 and zts a lot better for this kinda thing though; this ost has a certain brain of unpolish i find difficult to get over, it's arguable -45 has that too but his incarnation of that is more "CHARMING" to my ears. that said i would like to present my favorite song in this category:
https://youtu.be/pBfRjFcL20s
~~~~~
and now i'm suddenly drawing all these comparisons...it was difficult for me to get into "Senko no Ronde DUO OST - Anti aliassing Garbera (Henri Phase 1)" until recently and i'm saying that as someone who's had senko no ronde duo as a near favorite ost since 2009. but, oddly comparing it to soundtracks i like overall much less, and just thinking of this as the "senko no ronde version" of those songs and styles, it's made this jump up a lot for me. it also probably helps that i made this realization while literally hearing the song in game (thank you uf8 for pushing me to actually play senko no ronde game instead of just listening to the music out of context). this barely has anything to do with the omori song but i guess im just sayin. i'm really picky about music that sounds like this specific omori song, but i like other songs similar to it so now i am less picky about music that sounds like this because of the domino effect of events that spiraled into a new "option" in my head for thing i think is good based on comparing things i like less to things that are similar that i like more. World's End Valentine isn't quite there, but i would've probably given this like last place a long time ago, so this is an improvement on my ability to have a positive perspective on this
)-

-[besaid is the kind of song i started liking because of discovering elebits at the peak of when i thought i was going to enjoy my career trajectory of being jazz vibraphone superstar and becoming obsessed with hitomi sato/go ichinose music that has sine waves and epianos in it in the same range of time so now all my favorite songs are like "transposing quintals on a soft beep (nintendo wii)" because that was all like 2006-9and then i first heard this song from board 8 in 2009ish/around when i got obsessed with nakano/hamauzu due to watching the one person stream threads of fate on stickam. so many things came together for me to see this as my favorite sound. i love this song and it's a perfect blend of paragraph pornography for the point(shut up you fool; i' aint no plaid clad horse racer; i'm a real dog now and love power lines). all the weird low layers and kinda dissonant elements are perfect to me for giving this just the right amount of extra character without killing the consistent cool pretty vibe. i swear all you need to do to make a song i like is just transpose either quartal or quintal chords around randomly, even if it's as simple as this. just perfect]-

-{beep!}-

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-(oh no it's acoustic guitar at the same time as high pitched flute-like synths and chord changes that jump around different tonal centers and subtle odd time there is a certain comparison that is VERY EASY TO MAKE HERE i'm i'm not going to say it. . . .oh i'm the one who nominated this song no wonder it sounds like pat mpota[h]l-0a5erh[dgps[(has been taking into the "bplack hole of dolddrums ideas for the FUTURE REFERENCe] by the way this is my 2nd favorite song in the game. but last year i said isoleucine was my 2nd favorite song in the game and that i would save nominating my 1st song in the game for next year?! WHAT HAPPEND?! (in the doldrums and isoleucine swapped places in my 13 sentinels ost ranking?!?!?) but yeah what happens when you take a song that already sounds like _electrike but give it _quilava/_sneasel synth sounds and put it in _umbreon-style chord changes/acoustic guitar reminiscent of a certain jazz fusion guitarist and have [u get the picture it's every side of my taste in music blended into one song pretty seamlessly without ever feeling like these contrasting elements clash somehow. Isoleucine is the same thing for me but with opposite energy level.])-

-[this libraria of ruin music is so consistently cool to me...it helps that i have no aversion to the vocals at all. a thing i find i keep saying lately is how much i crave fusions of unrelated categories; but an important part is that those categories sound like a cohesive fit atop each other and not slapped onto one another, and both being thru-present through the whole track and not rapidly alternating. This does that seamless fusion with synthwave-y fake 80s stuff and oriental natural instrumentation + robot vocals that are cool. good combination for me that somehow works and makes me feel lots and pulls me into a "neotokyo" world of my imagination that i think is "interesting to think about"]-

-{beep!}-

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-(i had an apocalyptic dream where sirens went off alerting doomsday and the siren noise was "speartip of judgement" from murasaki tsurugi (by watson) the full song
~~~~~
it was actually like a genuinely very scary and dark dream and i was shaken when i woke up ; and didn't think until notably after how funny it was that that was just the siren noise counting down to end of the world as everyone fled to underground shelters to be genetically modified to gain superhuman powers that would allow survival of the cataclysm. modifications that were of dubious priority of who was 'allowed' to survive or why we were giving potentially unbalanced supernatural strength to arbitrarily selected people who could use it in villainous ways and conspiracy theories behind the whole thing. also i was on the verge of death from this happening to occur while i was unrelatedly injured and trying to evade an evil faction that was after me who wanted to imprison me and i was trying to hide the fact that i'd gotten electricity and time control powers because i didn't want the wrong people to know yet while i was still vunerable to death
~~~~~
all that while cool edm jazz fusion by watson with siren noise embedded into the song was playing
~~~~~
this piece of music fits with lots of possible cool scenarios. watson is a great jazz boy who is good at blurring the line between jazz fusion and "electronic dance music" which is absolutely perfect for my tastes!!! like the piano part at 1:35 is like someone who heard rave piano and didn't realize that stuff like that usually wasn't played live like a jazz boy; but he still played it anyways and put a trumpet guy in the song! the reuse of ideas like the cool synth loop at 2:16 that becomes DESTROYED to evil atonal version is amazing. OOOH it's the quartal pyramid...but really jazzfusion-meets-edm(various sorts) is the FUSION of my conflicting identities as a child that are now split into even more conflicting identities but all STILL merged into the cohesive whole known as "fan of yasuhisa watanabe(watson [gym leader])"
~~~~~
cool chord changes yeah; it's almost like jazz fusion is the genre with cool chord changes because pat metheny is the 9th most famous person who is "jazz fusion" probably BUIT ITS THAT at the same time as being the song with cool synth loops what a COINCIDENCE (the root of)
)-

-[beep!]-

-{beep!}-

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In the Doldrums (8th/202)
Besaid Island (20th/202)
Speartip of Judgment (36th/202)
Iron Lotus (94th/202)
World's End Valentine (173rd/202)
Pursuit (187th/202)
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World's End Valentine
Iron Lotus
Speartip of Judgment

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Final Fantasy X - Besaid Island
Library of Ruina - Iron Lotus
Hokkaido Serial Murders: Disappear in Okhotsk - Pursuit

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Besaid Island
In the Doldrums
Speartip of Judgment

World's End Valentine (5.8 - 53rd place) / Besaid Island (8.8^ - 14th place)
In the Doldrums (9.5 - 5th place) / Iron Lotus (7.4^ - 35th place)
Speartip of Judgment (7.1^ - 39th place) / Pursuit (6.8 - 44th place)

Love Besaid Island. So beautiful in its orchestration depicting a tropical island, but also super quirky in a non-invasive way. (For example, the industrial-sounding bass that you think couldn't possibly work in this kind of music) The soft synth 9ths at the start are wonderful and, of course, there are those dissonances that you can't ignore. Regarding In the Doldrums, I hope it can do well this contest, since it bears an unmistakable resemblence of Chrono Cross music (only better!). The ambient acoustics of this are done ridiculously AMAZINGLY!, and the way each instrument gets put in...perfect... even the cello and flutes. This kind of music doesn't normally keep my attention, but this music DOES. Amazing job, Watanabe!

I don't know why I like Library of Ruina music so much, but the singers' style really appeals to me, like, a lot. I feel like I should like Speartip of Judgment more than I do? There are other tracks in MT I like more (also, the one we had in VGMC 13 isn't one of my preferred tracks, either). It does get better later on in the track... some of the jazzy piano stuff I dig, then you got this random AWESOME moment where the piano detunes at 5:25.

Edit: Oh, hey, Toxtricity raised his score on Besaid Island a bunch compared to a couple years ago. That's great!

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worldendvalentine
Iron Lotus
Speartip of Judgment

WEV probably the best Omori song? It's good stuff. Keeps it going all out all the way through. Besaid Island also awesome of course. Could go either way on this one.

I remember ITD being worse, but it's not awful. Not something I'd ever listen to on its own though. Iron Lotus is closer to the brand of Mili I dig, though still not a favorite.

I was liking Speartip quite a bit at first, and then it went on way too long, jeez. Pursuit is eh.

World's End Valentine = Besaid Island > Iron Lotus > Speartip of Judgment > In the Doldrums = Pursuit
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World's End Valentine
In the Doldrums
Speartip of Judgment

Match 1 is actually very close for me! Besaid Island is really nice, in a very different way that World's End Valentine appeals to me which makes it very tricky to compare the two

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Besaid Island
In the Doldrums
Speartip of Judgment

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Besaid Island
Iron Lotus
Speartip of Judgment

Besaid is a ***9.2*** and my #1 SONG IN THE CONTEST!!! What, only 9.2? Well, I like Crossing Those Hills better and that one's a 9.3...

X-2 Besaid from SupraDarky #196 was on my playlist for years before I realized that it should've been the original all along! The extended uploads of this song have gotten me through countless school assignments and study sessions, so the 2:22 loop point takes me by surprise when I'm so used to hearing it for 15, 30, or even 60 minutes at a time! Of all my favourite songs, this one really, truly demonstrates the power of loopability in the VGM genre. The entire song is built around a four-bar piano phrase that's wonderfully simple, both note-wise and rhythm-wise, and damn does that sparse theme get its full mileage from having the other layers weave in and out to support it in all kinds of interesting ways! Shoutouts to the bubbly electronic piano/bell synth that fades in at 0:10, truly the most worthy sidekick to accompany the piano through *almost* every section - when it jumps the octave at 2:04, I swear I get goosebumps and start ascending above the clouds to a higher plane of existence every time. Also, the high bell line at 1:40 always reminds me of PMD 2 Beach Cave lol. This really is a track that lets me jump to any timestamp and be immersed within seconds for the start of another endless listening session.

As far as non-retired songs go, Besaid is about as good as it gets for me and I hope it can join the other FFX retirees one day, even if it takes a few years for voting trends to change!

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World's End Valentine
Iron Lotus
Speartip of Judgment

*insert another Umineko joke* yeah this is good though.

Besaid Island is something I never really liked to begin with, and with each year it makes it in to VGMC again, I dislike it a little bit more.

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Actual close match here. In the Doldrums kinda reminds me of Liber Ark (also in this bracket!!) but more of an electronic "Chimeratio" hi sound to it.

Iron Lotus is another cool Mili song, but I think I like the others a bit more.

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Man, there's something to be said about that siren at the start of Speartip of Judgment. It's like, there's this big rave going on, and the cops decide to show up, but instead of breaking it up they just stay there and start dancing with everyone else. One of my favorite songs this year!!

Pursuit is actually a really fun NES tune, and I could see myself voting for it if it didn't get fed to the wolves.

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World's End Valentine (75th) vs Besaid Island (88th)
In the Doldrums (122nd) vs Iron Lotus (131st)
Speartip of Judgment (44th) vs Pursuit (31st)

world's end valetine is literally what hopes and dreams SHOULD be and this match is awful for making me pick one of these i hate it

iron lotus is exactly what i wanted when i heard the other library of ruina songs and in the doldrums is one of the few songs that just legit fills me with a happy feeling no matter when i lsiten to it and this match is awful for making me pick one of these i hate it

WHAT ARE YOU MATCH. FUCK OFF FOREVERT????

today is horrendous because it's so good how did we fuck this one up

Besaid Island
Iron Lotus
Speartip of Judgment

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World's End Valentine
Iron Lotus
Pursuit

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Besaid Island
-
Speartip of Judgment

too busy for words today but i just wanna say i LOVE everything i am voting for and also iron lotus and in the doldrums why is that a match why is this a day

Besaid Island
Iron Lotus
Speartip of Judgment

Final Fantasy X - Besaid Island
Library of Ruina - Iron Lotus
Hokkaido Serial Murders: Disappear in Okhotsk - Pursuit

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World's End Valentine
Iron Lotus
Speartip of Judgment

both of these songs do what they're going for extremely well, i just like the WEV style a bit more
the vocals are mildly annoying but other than that it works
there are so many good ideas in speartip of judgement, even if they don't all come together i respect it for that alone

World's End Valentine
Iron Lotus
Speartip of Judgment

Besaid Island
In the Doldrums
Pursuit

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Island
Doldrums
Judgment
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Besaid Island
Iron Lotus
Pursuit

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World's End Valentine
Iron Lotus
Speartip of Judgment

Besaid Island
In the Doldrums
Speartip of Judgment

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World's End Valentine
In the Doldrums
Pursuit
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World's End Valentine
In the Doldrums
Speartip of Judgment

World's End Valentine
Iron Lotus
Speartip of Judgment

Besaid
Iron Lotus
Speartip of Judgment I guess

First two matches are too close ahhhhhhhhhhh dammit detox
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World's End Valentine
In the Doldrums
Pursuit

Besaid Island
In the Doldrums
Speartip of Judgment

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World's End Valentine
In the Doldrums
Pursuit

Poll alternatives:
DKC2 - In a Snow-Bound Land
IoG - In the Earthen Womb
Transistor - In Circles
GT2 - Fucking in Heaven I'm reading the F bomb as an adjective (adverb?) rather than a verb.

Actual votes:
Besaid Island
In the Doldrums
Pursuit

Super weak day. I mean, I'm voting for Besaid, for crying out loud.


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OMORI - World's End Valentine
13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim - In the Doldrums
Murasaki Tsurugi - Speartip of Judgment
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World's End Valentine
In the Doldrums
Speartip of Judgment

I really came in expecting to be voting Hamauzu, but Omori surprised me by being Umineko. The other matches were pretty straightforward.

Besaid Island
In the Doldrums
Speartip of Judgment

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World's End Valentine
Iron Lotus
Pursuit

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Besaid Island
In the Doldrums
Speartip of Judgment

World's End Valentine goes for almost a zts umineko sound. It doesn't feel quite as uncomfortable with the sound it's going for as Bready Steady Go does, and I think it does a creditable job at parts, but I still end up falling out of the track. There's sort of an uncanny valley effect for me-- it's close enough to something I might enjoy that I can see the comparison, but I end up noticing the differences instead-- strangely safe and static progressions that don't grab me, instrumentation choices that omit a lot of the layers and details that fill out similar tracks.

Besaid is a pretty remarkable (and probably unreasonable) comparison and contrast point. Its primary melody and underlying harmony moves only subtly for most of the track, but there's an uncertainty and unresolving aspect to them; it's a relaxed, measured track, but seems to have a natural, built-in forward movement as a result. What the track is really waiting for is 1:46, which pays off the tension beautifully with the string chords. The light synth and piano combination is enough to anchor the track melodically, and it lets the other layers breathe and be noticed-- the percussive elements, the synth strings. It seems to impart a sense of well-being, listening to it.

Sometimes I wonder what my favourite 13 Sentinels track is. This thought process lasts until I revisit this track, and I'm reminded that, yeah, it's probably this one. It's calm, but a little restless? Cheerful, but a little sad-- the progression that starts at 0:53 really hits this for me. It feels like the brisk day-to-day activities of somebody who knows they don't have a lot of time left. The track changes the instrumentation on each repeat and it feels meaningfully different, the time and place it describes seem to change. I love different aspects of each section-- the way the first one sets a sort of baseline for the track, the guitar and piano playing off each other wistfully, wrapped in shiny, echoing synths; the second section's colder, echoing feel, like a memory of winter; the liveliness of the third section's strings and woodwinds! Especially the woodwind trills that show up at 4:14, and the flute countermelody at 4:22. In each section, there's some part of the accompaniment that grows and abruptly fades, like moments you're passing by. It's a wonderful track, one of my absolute favourites from this sound team and Rikako Watanabe specifically.

Iron Lotus is pretty cool, the way the synths work with the traditional instruments; it's a neat atmosphere and a fun melody. Cassie Wei's "hoo"/"haa" background vocals kinda crack me up, how deliberately ironic they are. The chorus is pretty catchy! Sometimes the tone of the vocals don't always click with me, but one part where it does is 1:18-- "hold onto the pages, hold onto the pages" feels really good here.

The THIRD siren of VGMC. I love how hard that intro hits-- a real Terry Bogard GET SERIOUS moment, like you're about to go up against Murasaki Tsurugi's version of Utsuho. watson does a great job evoking an aerial dogfight feel with this track (pluck synth ostinatos!!), with the left-right panning at 0:28 suggesting sort of a circling opponent. 1:12 hands off sort of a variation on the synth ostinato to the bass and that's pretty rad. There's some cool unexpected shuffling and stuttering of the piano chords at 2:31 to indicate an upcoming phase change (to a melodic section that feels most like the 'chorus' of the track, even if it's only revisited once), and some cool chords in the transition; I also love the tension evoked by the dissonance at 3:51. (random thought-- 4:19 makes me think of an unlikely marriage between rude buster and here we are) It's relentless in its pace; you feel constantly outflanked. The boss battle must be exhausting.

Pursuit feels much more linear! I can see why this would be used in a Mega Man romhack; along with the overall sound, it expresses a sort of straight-ahead determination.