Board 8 > [VGMC] Day 31! Koiyume/TemporalTwr, CloseDistnce/TxcAnoxic, EverythingOK/KSante

(+) Yeah! (+)

Utawarerumono: Mask of Deception - Koi Yume
Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker - Close in the Distance
To the Moon - Everything's Alright

MATCH 1

I remember hearing Koi Yume for the first time during VGMC13 nominations. At the time, I don't think I thought much of it, but for some reason, I remembered it over the years, and when I listened to it again during nominations this year, I found that it grew on me a lot. It's a really heartfelt ballad. I like it the most when the chorus kicks in with the burst of violins. Those high-pitched strings really serve as the glue to the chorus for me. But the softer verses are really nice too.

Temporal Tower is one of my favorite Pokemon Mystery Dungeon songs! I think what I like a lot about this song is that it has a lot of moving parts that complement each other nicely. Like the Time Gears moving together synchronously.

This is definitely the toughest round 1 match in terms of the strength of both songs and the closeness of the match.

MATCH 2

I really like the overlapping guitars in the beginning of the song. And the way the vocals and piano alongside the guitar all harmonize with each other is also really great. Definitely a top-tier FFXIV song based on what I've heard so far.

I don't think I need to explain why I dislike Toxic Anoxic.

MATCH 3

Unlike Koi Yume, I...admittedly did not remember Everything's Alright from VGMC13 (and this one actually made it into the contest that year!). But don't take that to mean that I'm not a fan of this song! To the contrary, I really enjoy emotional piano stuff like this. And the vocals are just the right amount of breathiness that suits a song like this.

K'Sante has some really good peaks in the song, but unfortunately, I think the lulls in the song like the one starting at around 1:30 take away from my enjoyment of the song. I really enjoy the high energy of those peaks, and the lulls aren't really doing much for me, so from my perspective, they kind of overstay their welcome, making up maybe half the song or somewhere around there. But 3:07-3:54 is great and definitely my favorite part of the song. The power in the vocals and the brass is very cool, and there are some interesting chord changes that happen like at 3:38 and 3:49.

Also kind of a close match, but I think Everything's Alright is better on average for its consistency.

Koi Yume > Close in the Distance > Temporal Tower > Everything's Alright > K'Sante, the Pride of Nazumah >> Toxic Anoxic

Temporal Tower
Toxic Anoxic
K'Sante, the Pride of Nazumah

I would vote for Temporal Tower three times if I could. The crispy DS percussion is PEAK. Been a fan of this song since childhood but when I finally got to this point in Explorers of Sky I had my Danny DeVito moment and I truly got it. Also forgot to give a shoutout to Reach for the Summit, that song owns.

HidekuniHorita posted...

POV: you're Ryo Nagamatsu, secretly the most unhinged composer on Nintendo's payroll, dropping baffling avant-prog nonsense into a funny fishing submode of a colorful game for children, saying "it's a hundred million times more noble to be able to proudly say 'I love' something that is loved by no one" (https://twitter.com/NagamatsuRyo/status/1649774567806894081), and then resigning

LMAO unfathomably based

Temporal Tower
Toxic Anoxic
K'Sante, the Pride of Nazumah

Koi Yume
Close in the Distance
K'Sante, the Pride of Nazumah

abstain
Close in the Distance
Everything's Alright

Koi Yume
Close in the Distance
Everything's Alright

Koi Yume: This is probably my favorite of the Utawarerumono songs in the field. Great melody, and Suara is great as always. And I love the countermelodies in the strings. The bridge is a highlight as well. Very pretty and well-composed song overall.

Temporal Tower: I do like this one better than Sky Tower, but it's still kinda dull to me. It just feels so overpowered by the primary ostinato that it doesn't feel like much else is going on. Neat soundscape tho.

Close in the Distance: My favorite FFXIV song I've heard. Fantastic vocals, great melody, great ambience in the instrumental. I just love this song a lot.

Toxic Anoxic: This song is absolutely unhinged. Wild rhythms and the atonality is super intriguing. Hard to vote for it with the song is against, but I do appreciate this one quite a bit.

Everything's Alright: *starts sobbing immediately* I really like this song, but I don't like listening to it too often for reasons. I'll take the rest of this review to highly recommend the To the Moon series. Very short games (~4 hours each), and some of the most heart-wrenching, beautiful stories out there. 10/10 would cry again.

K'Sante, the Pride of Nazumah: The African-styled vocals in this are great, as are the synths. Very well-produced, very cool song. Unfortunately, it's got super stiff competition for me to vote for it.

Very high quality day, then there's Temporal Tower.

Votes:
Koi Yume
Close in the Distance
Everything's Alright

Utawarerumono: Mask of Deception - Koi Yume
Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker - Close in the Distance
To the Moon - Everything's Alright

Temporal Tower
Close in the Distance
K'Sante, the Pride of Nazumah

Koi Yume sounds just as good as what I expect from Utawaremono at this point. Very nice strings, good vocals, all of it comes together in what feels like a final credits song. Kinda reminds me of Reset in particular, actually.

PMD has a historically good set of songs in its repertoire, and Temporal Tower is definitely one of them. The sense of mysticism and tension is here, as a final dungeon should be, and the Dialga motif is such a good foreshadowing for what's to come. It's a very satisfying way to build you up for the final challenge, such a good song!

My (small) personal library for FFXIV grows by one with Close in the Distance. I love ballads like this, where they don't go overboard on the emotional factor but are still impactful with its subtlety and its softer use of vocals and instruments. God, this song is dripping with an ethereal vibe, that honestly elevates it so much for me.

It never ceases to amaze me that Splatoon can have both songs like Anarchy Rainbow/Into the Light and songs like Toxic Anoxic and #4 dunno where it's just completely unhinged and goes wherever it damn wants to in order to invoke that feeling of panic/madness. I kinda admire it, but I always prefer songs like this to have something resembling a stronger melody so it sticks out more in my head.

Now we have another soft ballad with Everything's Alright, and Laura Shigihara's voice is just a delight and combines very well with the piano. I do want to play this game eventually even if it means I won't survive it emotionally, I need to know when in game this plays and just drown in the emotion it's inspiring here.

K'Sante is just really cool with its African chanting and its mix of orchestra, tribal percussion and hard distorted techno beats all wrapped into one. Just a really fun theme for a warrior character, always happy to hear a League song that's just as great as this one is.

Koi Yume
Toxic Anoxic
K'Sante, the Pride of Nazumah

Never thought I'd see Koi Yume actually make a contest but I'm not complaining. I love this song a lot. Probably some of it has to do with context, but overall it's just a very pleasant and emotional song. For some reason I've never been huge on old pmd music. The explanation I eventually came to is that I think the DS instrumentation is just severely lacking, but who knows. Older systems use chiptune or similar artificial effects and it sounds fine, but here it's in this weird uncanny valley sort of region where it just ends up sounding like low quality "real" instrumentation. This particular song I also don't especially like how it uses (or doesn't use...) dynamics.

Close in the Distance is a solid but somewhat unimpressive vocal song. I think it's missing a really climactic section to bring it to the next level and the echo effect doesn't do enough of the lifting to get there. Toxic Anoxic is really interesting and creative song. Unfortunately I don't actually enjoy all of the sounds that it uses, but it's still definitely cool enough for the vote here.

Everything's Alright is a pretty piano/vocal duet. I could make similar comments as Close in the Distance, though I think a climax is definitely less necessary for a song like this. Lots of emotion here either way for sure. I really like the tribal chant style style that K'Sante has going on. I've cooled a bit on the song since I don't think it stands up quite as well after the style novelty wears off, but it's still great either way. Very close match

Koi Yume > K'Sante > Everything's Alright > Toxic Anoxic > Close in the Distance > Temporal Tower

I'm sorry if my writeups sound negative even though I actually like most of these songs, but it's lot easier for me to descriptively talk about aspects I don't like than about aspects I like.

Temporal Tower
Close in the Distance
K'Sante, the Pride of Nazumah