Board 8 > [BOST] Best OST Contest 5 - Announcement and Pre-Contest Discussion Thread

(+) Yeah! (+)

Greetings, and welcome to the Best OST Contest 5! In this contest, you and fellow video game soundtrack lovers will come together to once and for all answer the question "What is the best video game soundtrack? (For now.)" I'm your host deogenerate (or deo for short, or banshiryuu going by my GameFAQs handle) and this time around I'll be taking the reigns from BOST's innovator, azuarc. Having only been in the community for about two years now, far after the last BOST happened, I'm running into this somewhat blind, but I'm super excited to run this for you guys!

If you don't know what this contest is all about and want the gist of it before you dive deep into this year's rules, please check out this video by azuarc that goes into some of the history and general happenings in the contests:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uI2wbyeleKo" data-time="

OFFICIAL CONTEST SPREADSHEET! ....is still in development, but will be up with nominations!
Once available, this single spreadsheet is where nomination and support tracking will happen, as well as match data once the contest starts.

Previous year's spreadsheets for reference:
Year 1 - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zPlgjoCt7gdId-5z7aO5How5MJhKMng3eQurgWDmQ-o
Year 2 - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/19KmZ_2B9FaOcWuZBMlfLNl3gGM8rBSDCgoCaKPIeOSs
Year 3 - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/188lBqOWw0LCYIryl2LbA1SRFCuMFx6-9xr6IRmiV5-E
Year 4 - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1eCbe24cwmHBdcOr3WgjtiaT-tioUGI-zkjrQgZuGMp0

In the next few posts, we'll get into the nitty gritty of how things will be run this time around!

NOMINATION RULES:

1) Nominations will start Saturday, July 20th and end at the end of Saturday, July 27th, for a total of 7 days.

2) Each day starts at 10pm EDT (UTC-04:00), and ends exactly 24 hours after a new day post is made. You may nominate one game using the format provided. Please try to nominate with the "weakest perceived" song in Slot 1, and the "strongest perceived" song in Slot 6. It will be advantageous to keep this in mind with regards to how the lineup will affect when songs are played as detailed in the "Contest Format and Voting Rules" below.

Game: [game name]
1: [song name] - [song link]
2: [song name] - [song link]
3: [song name] - [song link]
4: [song name] - [song link]
5: [song name] - [song link]
6: [song name] - [song link]
Alt: [song name] - [song link]

3) If you miss a day of nomination, you have a grace period during the very next day to make it up. 24 hours after a missed day ends, the nomination cannot be made up unless the host was notified earlier.

4) You are responsible for the games that you nominate! You must be willing to take feedback on your lineup and adjust to what potential supports think, but ultimately it is your decision. Extreme cases of "taking soundtracks hostage" will be dealt with by the host if necessary. Do note the removal of "alternate set lists" that have been a thing in the past.

5) You can make edits to your lineup at any point until two days after the end of nominations, on Monday, July 29th at 10pm EDT.

6) As long as every song in its lineup follows eligibility rules, any video games' soundtrack may be nominated! Fan games, visual novels, rhythm games, ROM hacks, etc. all will work. Similar "could argued to be like a game" works such as Homestuck are acceptable.

7) Unreleased games may be nominated if: a complete official soundtrack has been released, the game was completed but cancelled, or the game is in early access.

8) Songs from add-ons and expansions are to be added to a nomination of the base game. Episodic games can be nominated under a common name if there is significant overlap in used music, such as .hack or Umineko no Naku Koro ni. Do note that Umineko and Umineko Chiru are counted as different games in this case.

9) Past champions of the contest may not be nominated, which includes: Ar tonelico II: Melody of Metafalica, Shatter, Atelier Ayesha: The Alchemist of Dusk, and Bravely Default: Flying Fairy.

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ELIGIBILITY RULES:

The eligibility rules for this contest will be rather thorough and extensive, so in order to save space on this page, please check out this Google Doc created to answer all your questions as far as what you can nominate goes!
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qF4X1pPfinqpMZU3MZtmsWYNsyJDJL70OCulhbJlVyA

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SUPPORT RULES:

1) Beginning concurrently with the nomination phase on Saturday, July 20th at 10pm EDT, you will be able to support another members soundtrack nomination in the nomination thread by giving it a "Support Vote (SV)". This support period will end several days after nominations conclude, on Wednesday, July 31st at 10pm EDT.

2) To support a soundtrack, simply make a post with a statement of support. You may support any numbers of soundtracks as you like, and may support multiple at once. Make it very clear that you are supporting, and what specific games you are supporting in your post.

3) You may not add an SV to your own nominations.

4) You will not be able to retract an SV, unless the songlist has been changed since you supported the game.

CONTEST FORMAT:

1) Following the end of the support phase on Wednesday, July 31st, the 64 games with the most support votes will be used in the contest. This will be determined first by number of support votes, followed by the time nominated with earliest nominations taking priority.

2) The tournament itself will be a standard Double Elimination bracket of 64, consisting of a Winner's Bracket and a Loser's Bracket. Thus, each game needs to be defeated twice to be eliminated from the contest.

3) For Round 1, a random song from songs 1, 2, or 3 in the game's lineup will be used. This is randomized per game per match, so Round 1 could be a song 1 against a song 3. Winners Round 2 will be randomized from the remaining two songs, and Winners Round 3 will use the final of these songs. The process repeats for songs 4, 5, and 6 in Winners Rounds 4 through Winners Round 6 (Winners Finals). This process will help the progression of strength in the contest, while deterring "gaming the system" during the nomination process.

4) In the case of a tie, the match will be reran using the Alternate slot song instead of the original match. If the Alternate song is used and another tie happens, the eligible song used the longest time ago will be reused instead.

5) Losers Bracket selection will work as follows for a given round:
* Losers Round 1 and 2 will work as Winners Round 2 and 3 do, using what of songs 1/2/3 have not been used yet.
* Losers Round 3, which does not introduce a new loser to the bracket, will runback the songs used in Winners Round 1 for those games.
* Losers Round 4, 6, and 8 will use the same selection as Winners Round 4/5/6, randomizing songs 4, 5, and 6.
* Losers Round 5 and 7, which do not introduce new losers, will runback the songs used in Winners Round 2/Losers Round 1 and Winners Round 3/Losers Round 2 respectively.
* Losers Round 9 will either use the Alternate if it has not been used yet, or the song out of song 4/5/6 that was used the longest time ago.
* Losers Round 10 (Losers Finals) will use the song out of song 4/5/6 that was used the longest time ago.

TL;DR
Winners Rounds: 1/2/3, 1/2/3, 1/2/3, 4/5/6, 4/5/6, 4/5/6
Losers Rounds: 1/2/3, 1/2/3, (Winners Round 1 song), 4/5/6, (Winners R2/Losers R1), 4/5/6, (Winners R3/Losers R2), 4/5/6, (Alt or earliest 4/5/6), (Earliest 4/5/6)

6) Grand Finals will run as in previous years; a best-of-three format using either all the even-numbered or odd-numbered songs in a lineup. Alternates will replace any match that represents a rematch. If the Losers Bracket winner wins the first match, the other set of songs will be used for the Grand Finals reset match, as the Winners Bracket winner must lose twice to be eliminated.

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VOTING RULES:

1) Two matches will run per day, for a period of 24 hours. The date that matches will start will be announced after the support period and the bracket is finalized. After Winners Round 1, both Winners Bracket and Losers Bracket will run simultaneously until the conclusion of Winners Round 3, where Losers Bracket will take both matches for a short time to keep both at roughly the same place.

2) Each match will be between the songs representing each game, not the game as a whole. Please remember to vote with this in mind!

3) If you change your mind and would like to swap your vote in a given match, you may do so as long as the match is still running. As soon as it is 24 hours since the match topic was started, you may not change your vote and new votes will not be counted.

With all that out of the way, please feel free to ask any and all questions you have on how this will work in general, or about specific things regarding this year. I know my way of mixing songlist crafting with randomization may still prove unpopular with some that strongly prefer randomization, but I think it will make a nice middle ground between the two that will showcase stronger songs in the later rounds while making it very hard to "game the system". None of these things are set in stone of course, but this is the format I've thought a lot about and believe has a good chance of working.

Regardless, have fun in these two weeks to work on those nominations! And of course, many thanks for taking interest in the contest!!

dibs on tcal and gurumin
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Hypothetically if one can find an earlier use of a royalty free song, would it then be ineligible?

Rosenkreuzstilette did get that one song into a VGMC that one time when it super was in that one doujin windjammers game before it...

will try to get a gravity rush set up
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UF8 posted...

Hypothetically if one can find an earlier use of a royalty free song, would it then be ineligible?

Rosenkreuzstilette did get that one song into a VGMC that one time when it super was in that one doujin windjammers game before it...

Nope, it'd still be fine. Thought about it a bit a few days ago and while it's kind of a selfish thing because spoilers it may or may not affect a Zakuzaku Actors nom I'm planning (I legit don't know if I want to use songs I know are used in earlier games... so basically Banbard) but I figured just giving an overall "it's okay" answer is better than constantly having the danger of suddenly being an "invalid nomination" loom over royalty free stuff.

banshiryuu posted...

Please try to nominate with the "weakest perceived" song in Slot 1, and the "strongest perceived" song in Slot 6. It will be advantageous to keep this in mind with regards to how the lineup will affect when songs are played as detailed in the "Contest Format and Voting Rules" below.

Ooh, very interesting format change.

If I remember correctly, the first year of BOST had all the songs play in slot order, so people were trying to maximize setlist strength around that. Then in later years it was completely randomized, so people had it listed strongest first all the way down to weakest last.

I do like this idea of separating it into two randomized blocks, looking forward to seeing how this plays out.
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banshiryuu posted...

If you don't know what this contest is all about and want the gist of it before you dive deep into this year's rules, please check out this video by azuarc that goes into some of the history and general happenings in the contests:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uI2wbyeleKo" data-time="

They're all going to laugh at me!

That said, now's the time to start planning some nominations. I started a youtube list with a few games where I started organizing thoughts for some stuff -- I am not calling dibs on any of these games and there's a high likelihood I won't even nominate most of them, but if you were interested, at least now you have some idea what I would recommend. (MOST of them are in order from strongest to weakest, with an alternate and a couple honorable mentions.)

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLW9O9mntH1RFRrdn_zXrssqcpmUIp0rRf
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FL81 posted...

Ooh, very interesting format change.

If I remember correctly, the first year of BOST had all the songs play in slot order, so people were trying to maximize setlist strength around that. Then in later years it was completely randomized, so people had it listed strongest first all the way down to weakest last.

I do like this idea of separating it into two randomized blocks, looking forward to seeing how this plays out.

It's definitely an interesting change. I'm not sure whether it's better than random or not, but it can't be any worse...unless you're working with a game that very clearly has a drop-off in quality somewhere between songs 3 and 6.
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azuarc posted...

FL81 posted...

Ooh, very interesting format change.

If I remember correctly, the first year of BOST had all the songs play in slot order, so people were trying to maximize setlist strength around that. Then in later years it was completely randomized, so people had it listed strongest first all the way down to weakest last.

I do like this idea of separating it into two randomized blocks, looking forward to seeing how this plays out.

It's definitely an interesting change. I'm not sure whether it's better than random or not, but it can't be any worse...unless you're working with a game that very clearly has a drop-off in quality somewhere between songs 3 and 6.

Scars of Time
Time of the Dreamwatch
Dream of the Shore Bordering Another World
???
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banshiryuu posted...

UF8 posted...

Hypothetically if one can find an earlier use of a royalty free song, would it then be ineligible?

Rosenkreuzstilette did get that one song into a VGMC that one time when it super was in that one doujin windjammers game before it...

Nope, it'd still be fine. Thought about it a bit a few days ago and while it's kind of a selfish thing because spoilers it may or may not affect a Zakuzaku Actors nom I'm planning (I legit don't know if I want to use songs I know are used in earlier games... so basically Banbard) but I figured just giving an overall "it's okay" answer is better than constantly having the danger of suddenly being an "invalid nomination" loom over royalty free stuff.

I fear the impending muse dash nom then

Oh, and on the note of past Best OST contests, I'll be running a guessing game tonight in Discord at 7 EDT featuring one track from every game to have appeared in the four years of the contest. It's a solo survival list, meaning you'll be in chat with everyone, but whether you score is entirely on you. I had a friend run me through the list and I got like 90% of the possible points, so it's very doable. (And that was after I took away some points because I had just made the list.) We did one of these before and it was a lot of fun, but I hadn't had a reasonable excuse to do another since.

Team Rocket Elite posted...

Scars of Time
Time of the Dreamwatch
Dream of the Shore Bordering Another World
???

Yeah, exactly. And nobody's really been able to agree on exactly what the other 3 songs in the CC list should be.
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Tag.

Is anyone else planning on nominating Trails in the Sky the 3rd? If not then I will do it, but it has a severe danger of ending up with a lineup that is far from "optimal" if I'm in charge of it, even if I'm consciously trying to not have it end up that way.

Also NFUN what are you thinking for Gurumin? There's a few different options but I feel like Soaring Through the Sad Blue Skies and To Make the End of Digging belong on pretty much any list. 9I'd imagine those are #1 and #2 from the game, respectively?) Samurai Drill also feels relatively "strong" to me, but beyond that I'm not as confident.
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Hmmm. Actually on second thought, I like the TitS 3 soundtrack more overall, but for this specific format I think TitS FC can field a pretty strong lineup. (The primary appeal of the TitS 3 soundtrack for me is less about how good the top songs are and more that I can go like 40 songs deep into it without a significant quality drop)

1/2/alt. Some combination of Byway of Departure, How to Walk in Liberl, Seaport City Ruan, or Wandering in the Darkness
3. Whereabouts of Light
4. Sophisticated Fight
5. Hollow Light of the Sealed Land
6. Silver Will

Thoughts? This is what I came up with in about 3 minutes so don't take this as anything resembling final.
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Trails the 3rd is kinda low on something Id nominate but I would definitely be rather invested in it appearing, same with Gurumin. Samurai Drill is definitely something I could easily seeing doing well, maybe things like sight of silence or Silence of Negative Ions as well.

azuarc posted...

They're all going to laugh at me!

https://soundcloud.com/azuarc/vgm-singing-01
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pyresword posted...

Also NFUN what are you thinking for Gurumin? There's a few different options but I feel like Soaring Through the Sad Blue Skies and To Make the End of Digging belong on pretty much any list. 9I'd imagine those are #1 and #2 from the game, respectively?) Samurai Drill also feels relatively "strong" to me, but beyond that I'm not as confident.

Of course those two. Silence of Negative Ions for the guaranteed deo support. Samurai Drill is probably fair to put in.

Preferences after that might look like (in order of what I'd guess their strength is):
1. Plop Goes the Whirling Wizard
2. Mysterious Phantom Egg
3. Back the Way you Came
4. Rainbow Colored Phantom Can't Swim
5. Tomorrow We'll All Be Friends
6. Something Terrible

as much as i might want to nominate them, animal minimal and bomber girl are probably not good choices...
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Ok that's almost exactly the list of possibilities I came up with also so I don't think I have anything else to add.

I to would like to see Animal Minimal but yes it is probably not a good choice lol. Tiese Shopping District also in a similar category for me, though obviously for different reaosns.
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pyresword posted...

Hmmm. Actually on second thought, I like the TitS 3 soundtrack more overall, but for this specific format I think TitS FC can field a pretty strong lineup. (The primary appeal of the TitS 3 soundtrack for me is less about how good the top songs are and more that I can go like 40 songs deep into it without a significant quality drop)

1/2/alt. Some combination of Byway of Departure, How to Walk in Liberl, Seaport City Ruan, or Wandering in the Darkness
3. Whereabouts of Light
4. Sophisticated Fight
5. Hollow Light of the Sealed Land
6. Silver Will

Thoughts? This is what I came up with in about 3 minutes so don't take this as anything resembling final.

Strength:
1. Silver Will
2. Whereabouts of Light
3. Royal Capital Grancel
4. Hollow Light of the Sealed Land
5. Wandering in the Darkness
6. Ruan/Zeiss/Recapture

IMO
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Yeah I had it in the reverse order (ie. I was saying Silver Will was the strongest).

I would love to include Grancel but it didn't strike me as something that would have wide appeal? idk.

Recapture is another idea which I totally forgot.

I personally don't like Zeiss at all but I'd be willing to add it if there was a lot of pushback from other fans of the song.
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I'm pretty sure Grancel would be the most popular city theme i dunno. I know a few people really like it
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I personally won't put in a nomination for SC I don't think (this is another one where the songs I'd want to pick don't match with what would do well), but I think The Enforcers and Unleashed Greatest Treasure are also songs to think about.

I also really like Hamel and Shine of Aidios but those probably aren't good choices for this.
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Shrine of Aidios would probably be respectable. I love Greatest Treasure but don't know how much other people would
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Sadly my knowledge of OSTs is significantly weaker compared to VGM, but I'll gladly support anything where I recognize a few songs.

Actually, there are some names I'm really hoping someone else will nominate, because I either don't know enough good songs, or don't want the responsibility of picking 7 representatives from a very consistent soundtrack! The first four have not been in before, and the rest have good song suggestions from past contests:
Celeste
Undertale
Ori and the Blind Forest
Nier: Automata
Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky
Any Super Smash
Okami
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So I'm interested in putting in a Hollow Knight nomination. I like most of the OST, but I don't really have a sense for how popular any particular song is. If anyone has any input on song choice here I'll gladly take it.
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Admittedly I haven't listened to the Gurumin OST, but those songs would have to be awfully amazing to supplant End of Digging.
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FL81 posted...

If I remember correctly, the first year of BOST had all the songs play in slot order, so people were trying to maximize setlist strength around that. Then in later years it was completely randomized, so people had it listed strongest first all the way down to weakest last.

In BOST1 the order was the order the nominator gave and there was some meta-questions about how to best do that. I think it mostly inclined towards weakest-to-strongest but it was also a bit of a free-for-all, with some people inverting the order or whatnot. FWIW, I think my take on the meta was considered to have "won" the day since Ar tonelico II ended up winning (though how much credit goes to my order is questionable, AT2 is just an amazing OST), and my tweak was weakest-to-strongest with the exception that I moved the second-strongest to the first slot to ensure survivability in the first round as a hard counter to the people playing with the idea of leading with the strongest song to get their nom early wins.

BOST2 was also by-nominator-order but like I said, my meta had won the war at this point so I think more people followed it this time around. It also saw my continued reign of terror when all 7 of my noms made the field, won R1, and my first actual loss was friendly-fire when two of my noms faced each other. Though Shatter won the contest overall.

I forget if BOST3 saw the jump to random order of it that was just BOST4.

~~~

pyresword posted...

Is anyone else planning on nominating Trails in the Sky the 3rd? If not then I will do it, but it has a severe danger of ending up with a lineup that is far from "optimal" if I'm in charge of it, even if I'm consciously trying to not have it end up that way.

I can't tell if I'm "vgm'd out" right now so I honestly can't tell you what I'll do, including even participation, but for 3rd I think I'd have something looking like this (purely done off the top of my head, could be missing stuff)

Cry for Your Eternity
Overdosing Heavenly Bliss
Determination of Fight
Masquerade of Lies
Castle of Illusions - Phantasmagoria
Dreamy and Boisterous Holy Land

Alts/Other Considerations: Fighting Right On, Genuine Devil, Parallel Universe, Illusionary Blue Flowers, A Still World, Labyrinth of Shadows and Light, Aster House, Reminiscence

idk something like that. not too happy that that main selection is all battle themes (well phantasmagoria does double-duty) but that's just what i came up with on the spot.

FC: Silver Will, Hollow Light, Hoshi no Arika/Whereabout of the Stars, Recapture, Sophisticated Fight, Ruan/Zeiss/Ancient Makes/Those who Protect the Greatest Treasure idk

you guys definitely forgetting hoshi no arika lol

SC: Silver Will Super Arrange, The Merciless Savior, Fateful Confrontation, Fight with Assailant, Unleashed Greatest Treasure, Fate of the Fairies/Liber Ark/a few others idk i probably put up a SC nom in a past contest with like 6/7 of those lol.

I can off-the-top-of-my-head other OSTs I'm familiar with if people care/want a second opinion/are afraid they've overlooked stuff.
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Oh yeah i guess I'll lay down my core planned games

Murasaki Tsurugi
Drift Stage
Bean Dreams
Sora/Acceleration of Suguri 2? (depending on whether the latter's album dlc songs count)
[insert at least one other doujin game since royalty free music seems very allowed it'll probably be another Orange Juice game]

Also contemplating Pachislot Ace Attorney though I'm not sure it has enough standouts

Potentially might also bring back both games I nommed in the first two BOSTs that didn't get in (Last Ranker and Ultimate Ninja 3).

I'm also hoping someone else can work out an actually good set for pmd2. It'd probably take me too long to decide on one, and people probably wouldn't be satisfied if i did it

Also since I'm not nomming it, if anyone's keen on a murasaki 1 nom I'd be open to pitching in suggestions for it. DM my phone account on discord if you want (OofEight but on a phone) for that or to pitch in suggestions for anything else i mentioned

okay i guessssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss i will reupload all of the murasaki videos
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A couple games I might like to recruit some input on...(not saying I will nominate them, but I think somebody should, so I'd like to get discussion out into the open awhile.)

Nominate: Deemo
1. Reflection (Mirror Night)
2. Entrance
3. Saika
4. Evolution Era
5. Leviathan
6. Presti - Veritas
alt. YUBIKIRI-GENMAN
HM: Wings of Piano

And probably tons of others I'm not thinking of. Problem with Deemo is I don't really know any of the DLC and never played Deemo 2.0 or 3.0 or whatever the hell version they're up to. So if there's stand-out tracks from the later content, I don't know it. Does anyone (Jona?) know that at all?

Nominate: Guilty Gear X

1. Awe of She
2. Still in the Dark
3. Holy Orders (Be Just or Be Dead)
4. The Original
5. Bloodstained Lineage
6. Blue Water Blue Sky
alt. Primal Light
HM: Writhe in Pain

This was the runner-up to BOST1, and never made another appearance after that. I was never able to figure out why. The original list had Writhe where BL is, but otherwise identical. Dunno if that's ideal, dunno if a different Guilty Gear would be a better nomination.

Nominate: Umineko no Naku Koro ni

1. dreamenddischarger
2. worldenddominator
3. goldenslaughterer
4. Endless Nine
5. system-0
6. Rhythm-changer
Alt. Hope
HM: miragecoordinator, Mortal Stampede

Yeah, I'm a nut for having RC in there. But this is what happens when someone goes rogue with their nomination. And Umineko doesn't deserve that. It got jacked in year 3 by someone who wanted to do an all-non-retired list (which still did okay since that included GS and S0 back then,) but this is a game that should be considered a front-runner for the contest. Whoever nominates it should do it right.

Please note that this is only for episodes 1-4. Chiru is a separate game for BOST purposes.

And although I'm definitely not the right person for this, just to emphasize that difference...

Nominate: Umineko no Naku Koro ni Chiru
1. lastendconductor
2. The Executioner
3. Life
4. ricordando il passato
5. Discolor
6. 7-weights
Alt. Aci-L
HM: Resurrected replayer, Yomitsu Hirasaka Corruption

More games to discuss later!
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NFUN posted...

okay i guessssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss i will reupload all of the murasaki videos

Actually i just have non-youtube links for them so idk

Maybe for the actual matches you can throw them up as unlisted but till then it probably doesn't matter

Ugh, just realized I have these in inverted order. Petition to list from strongest to weakest instead of the other way around, and you can just say 4-6 is the lesser trio and 1-3 is the greater trio?
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Another OST I'm interested in nominating is Xenoblade Chronicles. Here's what I currently have in mind as a list for that.

Note: this is in weakest-to-strongest order, with the exception of the alt track.
1. The God-Slaying Sword
2. Mechanical Rhythm
3. You Will Know Our Names
4. Gaur Plains
5. Engage the Enemy
6. Unfinished Battle
Alt. Main Theme

Other thoughts: Egil, Zanza, Tragic Decision, maybe others?

Anyone have any thoughts on this list?
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One Who Gets In Our Way? That in place of God-Slaying Sword was the BOST4 nom that went to the finals.
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pyresword posted...

Anyone have any thoughts on this list?

Drop: God-Slaying Sword
Dropping would make me happy but may not be the best strategic move: Gaur Plains, you Will Know Our Names, idk maybe Unfinished Battle
Add to main: One Who Gets in Our Way
Consideration imho: Field of the Machinae, Central Factory, Imperial Capital Agniratha

probs a few others worthy of consideration
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I like Agniratha a lot but I can't see it doing that well. Would love to be convinced otherwise however. One Who Gets in Our Way is probably a fair inclusion though.

I don't really like Field of the Machinae and would prefer not to include it if possible, and honestly I suspect it's not in the top 7 by strength anyways?
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UF8 posted...

Sora/Acceleration of Suguri 2? (depending on whether the latter's album dlc songs count)

Honestly, they should count since they're remixes from the series that are playable in-game

azuarc posted...

Alt. Hope

Bold of you to place a VGMC champion as an alt pick
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Agniratha is good
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FL81 posted...

azuarc posted...Alt. HopeBold of you to place a VGMC champion as an alt pick

Two things.

1) I should not actually be the person to nominate Umineko. This was just to get the discussion started. I sincerely hope someone more qualified than me takes up the mantle.
2) Hope accounted for both of Umineko's losses one year. Sure, maybe it won VGMC back in year 3 or 4, but I don't think it would ever have a chance of repeating.
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azuarc posted...

2) Hope accounted for both of Umineko's losses one year. Sure, maybe it won VGMC back in year 3 or 4, but I don't think it would ever have a chance of repeating.

Have some Hope azuarc
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Question: What are alts specifically used for? Are they tie-breaker songs?

Mostly. Occasionally they get used in the loser's bracket to prevent rematches.
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One more question:
If a game has a demo, but is not fully released (and does not have its ost sold), will it be able to be nominated?

pyresword posted...

So I'm interested in putting in a Hollow Knight nomination. I like most of the OST, but I don't really have a sense for how popular any particular song is. If anyone has any input on song choice here I'll gladly take it.

Ok seems like nobody else really has input about this OST, but I'll post what I'm thinking anyways.

(Feel free to ignore this post if you don't have any input on song selection from the Hollow Knight OST)

Game: Hollow Knight
1. City of Tears (This is atmospheric which makes me hesitant, but I do think it's good atmospheric and it is one of the more popular tracks among people who played the game)
2. Truth, Beauty and Hatred
3. Mantis Lords
4. Nightmare King
5. Sealed Vessel (Really don't know what to make of this one. It's likely to be very popular among people that have played the game or among people compatible with my VGM taste, and it is the most viewed song on the OST according to Youtube. I could easily see the second half turning people off here and it ending up as a flop though)
6. Daughter of Hallownest (Remix of Hornet. I prefer this version but I'd be willing to switch if others thought it was a good idea)
Alt: Radiance

Other thoughts:
Greenpath (This seems pretty popular going by Youtube views and number of times I've seen it mentioned here, but it feels too much like ambiant music to use in this context imo.)
White Defender (idk I don't like this song but it seems popular)
White Palace (Doesn't seem to me like it would be well received here)
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greenpath action is less ambient
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Baconus_Yum posted...

One more question:
If a game has a demo, but is not fully released (and does not have its ost sold), will it be able to be nominated?

banshiryuu posted...

7) Unreleased games may be nominated if: a complete official soundtrack has been released, the game was completed but cancelled, or the game is in early access.

I don't think any of these things apply, but maybe deo will say the demo is the equivalent of early access. What game?
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okay, round 2 with potential nomination lists for someone to pick up.

Nominate: A Hat in Time
1. Main Theme
2. Your Contract Has Expired (Caero Remix)
3. Rush Hour
4. Killing Two Birds
5. The Award of Battle 42
6. Barrel Battle
Alt. Train Rush

HM: Scootin' Through Clocktowers Beneath the Sea, Death Wish, probably others

Two oddifities here. One is that I used the remix of Contract rather than the original. I like it better, but that doesn't mean it'll be better received. The other is that Train Rush isn't mainlisted, but that's mostly because I think the OST version of Train Rush is a little weird to listen to.

Nominate: Touhou - Imperishable Night

1. Voyage 1969
2. Illusionary Night ~ Ghostly Eyes
3. Love-colored Master Spark
4. Reach for the Moon, Immortal Smoke
5. Plain Asia
6. Song of the Night Sparrow ~ Night Bird
Alt. Voyage 1970

HM: Gensokyo Millenium ~ History of the Moon, Flight of the Bamboo Cutter ~ Lunatic Princess

I can't wait to hear the comments on this one, since this is decidedly not a conventional list for IN, but I'm honestly not sure what would be and I happen to love those first two. So, commence debate.

Nominate: Final Fantasy VIII

1. The Extreme
2. The Landing
3. The Man With the Machine Gun
4. Force Your Way
5. Liberi Fatali
6. Compression of Time
Alt. Only a Plank Between One and Perdition

HM: Don't Be Afraid, Maybe I'm a Lion

You can tell when I do a list because it's all battle themes. (See: A Hat in Time.) This is a pretty safe list overall, but Time Compressions might be risky.
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Yeah, it would depend on the game. "Early access" implies that the game is mostly in its complete state, and demos are usually not complete at all. If Deltarune did not have an official soundtrack out, considering its official status as a "demo", I would probably still have allowed it.