Board 8 > [VGMC] Day 15! Keeper/Fire Wire, Museum of Agony/INARI 1st, Epicentre/Scream

(+) Yeah! (+)

Soukaigi - Fire Wire
Tekken 7: Fated Retribution - INARI 1st
Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker - Scream

Soukaigi - Fire Wire
Tekken 7: Fated Retribution - INARI 1st
Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker - Scream

MATCH 1

The way Keeper is arranged with the multiple overlapping melodic lines is something that I could potentially get into, but here, I don't really like how it sounds and it doesn't ever shift away from that, so unfortunately, I can't really get into this song.

Fire Wire is a much better example of where overlapping melodic lines is something I enjoy. Here, the dual piano and violin combo is very nice. It's just a lot more melodically appealing to me compared to Keeper.

MATCH 2

Museum of Agony is very much not my thing. Don't want to be overly negative here, but yeah, ambience and dissonant chords, at least as they appear here, are two things that I tend not to be a fan of (though, of course, there are counterexamples, but this isn't one of them).

INARI 1st is kind of meh. It gets better in the latter half, especially with the guitar solo near the loop point, but I'm not really drawn to this song at all. Still the clear vote here for me though.

MATCH 3

Epicentre is fine, but it feels like it kind of drags.

Scream is pretty decent. It's better than Epicentre for sure, but I also don't feel like I'm really latching onto this song. 2:40-3:01 is definitely the exception to that, though. The extra guitar and the drumming pattern with the frequent cymbals are pretty appealing.

Fire Wire > Scream > Epicentre > INARI 1st > Keeper > Museum of Agony

Place posted...

in contrast, today was ABSOLUTELY my day

I feel the opposite haha. Yesterday was definitely my day as opposed to today, which I feel pretty lukewarm about in comparison. So apologies to all for the more negative writeups today.

Give it up for day 15

Inari

Fire Wire
INARI 1st
Epicentre

augh Keeper such an annoying song. Irritating to listen to. There's not much I'd vote it over. Fire Wire's a fun little classic. Feels like it should have Haruka Shimotsuki vocals.

Bah Agony's another irritating song. Should've matched this against Keeper IMO. Inari isn't as fun as some of the Go Shiina Tekken 7 stuff, but it's still good.

Highly enjoy this "epic but chill" Sim City songs. Scream is no Return to Oblivion, as far as FFXIV songs go, heh. Not bad but I don't care for it.

INARI 1st > Epicentre > Fire Wire > Scream > Museum of Agony > Keeper

Fire Wire
INARI 1st
Epicentre

Fire Wire
INARI 1st
Epicentre

Cant write much today, but this was definitely an ambiance day, in one form or another.

Keeper
Museum of Agony
Epicentre

Fire Wire
INARI 1st
Scream

Keeper is not really my thing. It's kind of like there's both too much and not enough going on at the same time. Like on a moment-to-moment basis it's too crowded for anything in particular to grab my attention but long-term there's not enough changing. The ending is somewhat neat though. Fire Wire is a solid song. The violin might be a bit too shrill, but it's a minor complaint.

Museum of Agony is a neat track. The dissonant piano/organ/synth chords give off a very eerie vibe and I like it. The disembodied vocals also help things. INARI is pretty great. Exciting track with really cool flute and piccolo(?) parts. Didn't see the sudden electric guitar coming at all but it still fits pretty well.

Epicenter has a solid base, and it's always introducing cool different stuff on top of that. Some of it is great and some of it is only decent, but still a good experience overall. I especially like the part when the vocals come in. Not sure how to feel about Scream. I'm not usually big on this genre of FFXIV boss music, but this is probably one of the better ones I've heard? Good alt rock vocals. I think the song is only at its best during the chorus though, and outside of that I'm not especially into it. This is a weird match. Both of the songs have the problem that I really like some parts but am a bit bored in others, and it's really hard to compare them. Think I like the good parts of Scream a bit more and am going to vote that, but this preference could easily change on a day-to-day basis.

Keeper
INARI 1st
Epicentre

Fire Wire
INARI 1st
Epic entre

Fire Wire
Museum of Agony
Epicentre

no time to rank them today oopsie
Epicentre >>> everything else I guess. Incredible song. It just sounds like progress AKA it sounds like how the cover art looks

Soukaigi - Fire Wire
Tekken 7: Fated Retribution - INARI 1st
Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker - Scream

The two songs in match 3 are so far above the rest today its insane. Boy oh boy this bracket

Scream > Epicentre > Fire Wire > INARI 1st > Keeper > Museum of Agony

Keeper
Museum of Agony
Epicentre

Fire Wire
INARI 1st
Epicentre

Though my real vote is to throw away the first four songs and just put through both tracks in the bottom match, in yet another case of only two songs in a part of the bracket being to my liking and being paired against each other in R1.

Fire Wire
INARI 1st
Scream

Abstain
Museum of Agony
Epicentre

Keeper and Fire Wire are... /very/ different tracks. Keeper's got great ambience, whereas Fire Wire is really catchy (love the bass and strings, although as a small nitpick they're a little too prominent at times. Might dampen them a little). Fire Wire is a little repetitive to me, so I'm not sure where I'd land given a few more listens, but we're just about out of time.

Inari has some really nice parts! There are some bits I'm really not a fan of, though (:34-:57, namely). The guitar part is clean and I like how it's surrounded by calmer parts, though.

The lyrics lift Scream up- they're quite fun- but I was obviously a huge fan of Epicentre going into this and it remains my preference this round.