Board 8 > [VGMC] Day 2! DriftSands/SINGI, Alien/Samsara, MOONMAN/MORTALKOMBAT

(+) Yeah! (+)

Welcome to Video Game Music Contest 17, 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=477304
Contest info sheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1SAJKYJmYhccLvbf_H-5uSA7-eMwXfW8k1q74Qho1bLU
Contest discussion thread: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/80433657
Main bracket playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLT3m7iohpL0wlcxj-kHQRU1yHo-kpMxGe
Last years spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_IU5iCFTM_4WEx8ZWKwznMz5v2tarCKh1Ag0mxIgAes
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 of posting, or 24 hours from 10pm Eastern, whichever is the later time.
- Please note this may mean that two topics will be active at the same time!
- If you anticipate being u

Temple of Drifting Sands
Alien
Techno Syndrome

Temple of Drifting Sands
Alien
MOONMAN'S Fandango

Temple of Drifting Sands
Alien
MOONMAN'S Fandango

Day full of great music today, I think I'd support about anything that wins.

Sing
Samsara
Man of the Moon

i wish sing had more of the parts i like about sasakure and less of the parts i don't like =/

match 3 is hilarious

SINGI (Remix)
Alien
Techno Syndrome

a vocal > non-vocal day, with many caveats to that statement
samsara and pinball song are both pretty good

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/8/4/7/AARWb-AAEeVv.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/8/4/8/AARWb-AAEeVw.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/8/4/9/AARWb-AAEeVx.png

Temple of Drifting Sands
Alien
Techno Syndrome

Drifting Sands
Sammy Sara
Techno Syndrome

drifting sands is cool and all but I've (finally) started playing through sqrt(1.5) myself and got to the diary and WHY DIDN'T ANYONE TELL ME THERE WERE TECHNO REMIXES OF ALL THE SONGS i can't believe the internet would fail me like this. Seriously they blew me away and maybe they'd fail miserably in vgmc but hearing something aggressively different from Nier was an experience and a half.

In theory, Caligula is right up my alley. And, as a licensed theoretician, I theorize on a daily basis, occasionally even on things that actually matter! And yet, when push comes to shove, I enter the new world kicking and screaming about how I don't care if AI ends the world; I care if it makes it boring. That sentence might make more sense if I included a translation of this song. I think enough other people have though. Oh there's even an official one cool I'm done here.

Oh boy a katamari song I've never heard before I wonder what's going to happen...
in this one...
uh...
...
let us never speak of this again.

"samsara" is a really cool word. Means "cycle of reincarnation," roughly. It shows up all the time in Japanese fiction as the word "rinne" () and it is a butt to translate. Like the metaphor exists in the West as "the wheel of time" but in Japanese it exists in an explicitly Buddhist context, and most Buddhist proper nouns are left as is. There's worse, to be sure. Namu Amida Butsu is a real jerkwad. Literally it's a line out of a sutra, but it's used somewhat in the same way that a Catholic suddenly reciting Hail Mary would be. oh right the song was super cool and fun and bouncy too.

The virtual boy was so far ahead of its time. Like okay maybe 20 years ahead of its time is legitimately too ahead of its time to be defensible but hey sometimes you gotta have a long intro. A very long intro. Oh. Oh this isn't an intro. It's the whole song, isn't it? Unfortunate.

test your might. also techno syndrome vs. a track from a system that has severe technological problems makes me smile so thank you wise Mycro for your gifts hope things are going awesome~ also who is Sonia I only remember like the ice hat dude -- SUB ZERO thanks for the reminder song! -- and scorpio dude and johnny cage. Why the heck does Johnny Cage stick in my mind child Dowolf is weird. There is no way the loop point is 3:26 that totally looped. EDIT turns out Sonia is freaking badass.

Temple of Drifting Sands
Alien
Techno Syndrome

I have always liked almost all Nier music and disliked almost all Caligula Effect music. I do like this more than the other Caligula Effect songs that have been in these contests but it's still not enough. If the talking vocal sections were removed then maybe. I do actually like the sections like 0:50 a lot, but alas.

Alien is walking a fine line between infectiously catchy and grating, but for right now I think I like it pretty well. Samsara is also pretty catchy and I especially like the more frantic parts.

Moonman's Fandango is a neat chiptune that unfortunately is probably a case where I respect the composition more than actually enjoy listening to it. Techno Syndrome is a bit too campy but is still reasonably fun overall.

Alien > Samsara > Temple of Drifting Sands > Techno Syndrome > SINGI > Moonman's Fandango

Good day and I actually like all the songs even though my writeups probably come across as a bit negative.

Temple of Drifting Sands
Samsara
MOONMAN'S Fandango

Temple of Drifting Sands
Alien
MOONMAN'S Fandango

MOONMAN's Fandango is fucking great. It put the Virtual Boy on the map for me, vgm-wise. One of those tracks that makes me nostalgic for before I was alive. Shame to have to vote against one of the songs of all time but oh well

MOONMAN'S Fandango > Techno Syndrome >>> Alien > Samsara > Temple of Drifting Sands >>> SINGI (Remix)

Drifting
Samsara
Moon

Temple of Drifting Sands
Samsara
Techno Syndrome

Temple of Drifting Sands
Alien
MOONMAN'S Fandango

SINGI (Remix)
Samsara
Techno Syndrome

SINGI (Remix)
Samsara
Techno Syndrome

From TunnelScene:

Temple of Drifting Sands (NieR)
Samsara (Ogre Tale)
MOONMAN's Fandango (Galactic Pinball)

I like the fake voices ! a lot of nier tracks do cool things with that

these voices are less fake, but I like the high bell sequence because it goes over the bar line in a way that feels like a CLOCK GEARS

this sounds silly but I group this pretty hard with the peggle song in the contest because both have these dissonant high synth plucks looming over something contrasting that entirely.

musix for those funky ubiktune weebfunkers

I love quartals and quintals VIRTUAL BOY REPRESyeah. this song is not a memeFUCK YOU. it's genuinely one of the most beautiful beep songs ever because it sounds like the parts of megaman battle network 1 and 5 and 2 and megaman star force 3 and 2 and 1 that make me get all happy. welcome to the vast expanse of cyberspace. there is a big metal sphere in here that will bounce all over the bouncers(see my ranking topic for more elaborate enthusiasm)

techno syndrome is a track that I've heard so much as like song that plays after some punchline in a YouTube video in 2007 made by someone who was 9 years old at that time but now they are a owner of a small business at age 45 who is embarrassed by what they put on the internet in 2007. but BECAUSE of that being so drilled into my head it's kinda like what I said about touhou. I have no idea how to comprehend what I would think of this if I'd never heard it before. but I think I'd probably think it's very silly

From junglegirl:

i predict being unable to vote tomorrow because im going on vacation could you put my votes as SINGI Remix (Caligula Effect 2), Alien (Touch My Katamari) and Techno Syndrome (Mortal Kombat)

Temple of Drifting Sands
Alien
MOONMAN'S Fandango

Temple of Drifting Sands
Samsara
Moonman Moonman can't you see

Samsara's loop point is wrong by the way, should be around the 3:25 mark instead

MOONMAN'S Fandango

Temple of Drifting Sands
Samsara
Techno Syndrome

Temple of Drifting Sands
Alien
MOONMAN'S Fandango

Temple of Drifting Sands
Samsara
MOONMAN'S Fandango

SINGI (Remix)
Sammy Sara
Techno Syndrome

5.5 Witches mutter magical incanations, trap me in a vortex of sadness and intrigue. The vibes of this song are mellow and kinda cool, but it is very flat.

6.5 Maybe a little too pop-y for its own good. It hits hard though. The echoing main chorus is hypnotic but probably the weakest part for me. The ey-ey-ey is fun tho

3 You know that ankha dance? Yeah that's what I imagine playing with this. I will say the soundfont of the instrumentals isn't too bad.

7.5 These japanese infused pop sounding songs are awesome. Idk if anyone knows Pokemon Conquest music, specifically the fighting arena, but that one blends in similar traditional sounding japanese instruments like this. But yeah, I like the poppiness and light feeling this song delivers

4 The harshness did weird things to my ears. It got more bearable as it went on.

9 One of the hardest and headbanging songs to exist period. I'm not the biggest fan of the middle where the announcer says all the names, but otherwise, this is pure awesomeness. The melodic progression sounds pumps me up everytime like it was lab engineered for optimal listening euphoria.

Temple of Drifting Sands
Samsara
MOONMAN'S Fandango

SINGI (Remix)
Samsara
Techno Syndrome

Finding out Techno Syndrome was vgmc legal and not a movie song was a certied woah moment. Bad luck for moonman as I like it too... Also today was much better from top to bottom than yesterday.

Techno Syndrome > Fandango > Singi > Samsara > Alien > Temple of Drifting Sands

1. ???
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8. Mortal Kombat (Sega CD) - Techno Syndrome
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29. Galactic Pinball - MOONMAN'S Fandango
30. ???

The Caligula Effect 2 - SINGI (Remix)
Touch My Katamari - Alien
Mortal Kombat (Sega CD) - Techno Syndrome

Temple of Drifting Sands
Samsara
Techno Syndrome

Replicant ver. remake better but original Drifting Sands is still my favorite song of the day by a country mile. I like how this is the second day in a row we've had an extremely well-known and iconic video game song show up with the first day being the Zelda Title Theme.

SINGI (Remix)
Samsara
MOONMAN'S Fandango

Waveshine_2001 posted...

Replicant ver. remake better but original Drifting Sands is still my favorite song of the day by a country mile. I like how this is the second day in a row we've had an extremely well-known and iconic video game song show up with the first day being the Zelda Title Theme.

i feel like drifting sands isn't exactly iconic level in nier's catalog and obviously a certain other song is 10 times more iconic than everything else here combined (with all due respect to nier, one of the biggest caligula songs, one of the... more memorable katamari songs, a deceptively popular abo soundtrack more in vogue lately than i would've expected (probably because it doesn't sound like abo), and likely the most famous virtual boy song), but still true

Temple of Drifting Sands
Samsara
Techno Syndrome

SINGI (Remix)
Alien
MOONMAN'S Fandango

Even though I've listened to SINGI many times now, I only just learned that was actually its name, hence the confusion when it was nominated. Whoops. Anyway it's extremely good.

Temple of Drifting Sands
Alien
Techno Syndrome

Match 3 is a travesty, both songs deserve so much better

SINGI (Remix)
Samsara
MOONMAN'S Fandango

NieR - Temple of Drifting Sands
Ogre Tale - Samsara
Mortal Kombat (Sega CD) - Techno Syndrome

NieR - Temple of Drifting Sands
Touch My Katamari - Alien
Galactic Pinball - MOONMAN'S Fandango

def would have preferred the sasakure original over the teddyloid remix for caligula lol
really like this Abo track, but probably falls a tad bit too short here unfortunately

NieR - Temple of Drifting Sands
Touch My Katamari - Alien
Mortal Kombat (Sega CD) - Techno Syndrome

Day 2 yooo

SINGI
Alien
Moonman

Nier song was really nice but I feel it could do more? Meanwhile singi was fun to hear and like the vocalist tone (kinda neutral for both but liked singi more)

This one was difficult to pick cus both are really cool songs ngl, vote goes to alien since it sure is an interesting listening experience

For an MK song, techno syndrome was really good tho liked way more what moonman does also VB has a very cool sound which helps it

abstain
Alien
Techno Syndrome

I am ready to test my might.

SINGI (Remix)
Alien
MOONMAN'S Fandango

ufu ufufu
Alien >> Samsara > MOONMAN'S Fandango >> SINGI (Remix) > Techno Syndrome > Drifting Sands

-
-
Techno Syndrome

Not into anything in the first two matches so not gonna bother handing a vote anywhere. Moonman is cool but Techno Syndrome fucks

SINGI (Remix)
Samsara
MOONMAN'S Fandango

Temple of Drifting Sands
Alien
Techno Syndrome

I am feeling much better today, so I've got stuff to say :D Drifting Sands is pretty classic, and I love it when vocals are treated as an instrument.

Singi is .... a song I like more than I thought I did (but it could be that I remember the original and not the remix) I don't dislike it, but when vocals get a little shouty they can be a hit or a miss. Quite possibly could be the sort of song I listen to a year from now and go "wow this is good and I voted against it?"

Both Alien and Samsara are songs that ought not to be my thing, but holy shit I love them. Alien is just so catchy and goofy and the rhythm of the voices just makes me wanna dance. I don't know what it is but Katamari got me to like super cutesy, kawaii vocals.

And Samsara's intro is something that really sticks with me. I've heard it before (previous VGMC nomination?) and I remember exactly how that lead in goes. Hate to vote against this one.

And I hate to vote against Moonman's too! That slow intro and the buildup that follows. It is a very spacey-sci fi tune that feels very fitting for the Virtual Boy.

Techno Syndrome is so god damn cheesy. I just want to keep eating this shit up, and I am lactose intolerant. If I am hospitalized from this experience, tell my partner that I love her.

We are only on Day 2 and I am already sad over some of these matches. I'll be perfectly happy if Moonman and Samsara move on too.

Temple of Drifting Sands
Samsara
Techno Syndrome

I always enjoy Nier music, and this one is no exception! The vocals in SINGI are too abrasive at points for me, but other than that the song is decent.
Glad Samsara could make it in this year.
Third match is very weird. Moonman is interesting but I find Techno more fun to listen to.

SINGI (Remix)
Alien
MOONMAN'S Fandango

Alien is one of my favorite Katamari songs (and this is spoilers for a topic that I might post in the future)! Samsara is a cool song too and I wish that it were in match 1 instead.

Match 3 is unfortunate. Moonman is very interesting. Techno Syndrome is a classic and well-liked song, and mostly not associated with the video game (even though as it turns out it is game-original and VGMC legal). I enjoy that style of music too. But when my opinion between two songs is close I have to side with the one that is more novel.

Temple of Drifting Sands: Great Emi Evans vocals as usual. Really like the usage of hand percussion as the core of the backing instrumental. Solid melody and just a pleasant listening experience all-around.

SINGI (Remix): Yeah, this is one of the good Caligula songs. Really impressed with the production and the reverb effect on most of the instrumental parts really makes the mix breathe (this doesn't always work, but it works here). Vocals are serviceable and inoffensive, which is good. 0:48-1:18 is a real ear candy moment, especially at 1:03.

Alien: Absolutely absurd song that I feel strangely drawn towards. Really neat synth work here. Vocals are kinda whatever (but not bad) until 1:46 where they get particularly good. Great song.

Samsara: Some really neat synths in this one too, mixing eastern elements with chiptune elements with modern synth work. Melody is a bit on the weaker end though, but that's fine, this song fulfills its purpose quite well.

MOONMAN'S Fandango: This is pretty impressive coming from a Virtual Boy. Nice progression between the three tracks here. Unfortunately, due to its limitations, it does get the lowest ranking amongst the tracks today, but it isn't a bad song.

Techno Syndrome: Two classics two days in a row. Love the synths used in this and the melody is super memorable. Massive banger.

Great day today. No bad songs. Matches 1 and 2 were really hard to decide on.

Votes:
SINGI (Remix)
Alien
Techno Syndrome