Board 8 > [BOST] Day 22: Atelier Shallie v Xenoblade, Fez v FF8, Sdorica v Tangledeep

(+) 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.)"

Links:
Contest Bracket and Info - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1sD964sXfa3trbXrr14mFKeEIA14cGM2RtHmW9TqGBmw
Discussion Thread - https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/77915805

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VOTING RULES

- Each match will be between the songs representing each game, not the game as a whole. Please remember to listen and vote with this in mind! Any votes referring to a game name rather than a song name will not be counted. You have been warned!
- Listen to both songs!! If one is your literal favorite song in the world and the other is something you hate with a passion, listen to them both!!
- No alts, no rallying, no begging for something to get more votes, etc., etc., you know the drill.
- If you change your mind and would like to swap your vote, you may do so. 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.
- If you would like to vote in advance for matches you know you will miss, please let me know in the discussion topic.

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Main Bracket: Winners Round 2

Atelier Shallie: Alchemists of the Dusk Sea - Silhouette of Thirst

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIOEKYY8Ul8" data-time="

Xenoblade Chronicles - You Will Know Our Names

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OfNgkxkM_o" data-time="

Main Bracket: Losers Round 1

Fez - Glitch

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

Final Fantasy VIII - Force Your Way

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZMWszd5SRk" data-time="

Snubs Bracket Match

Sdorica -sunset- - Poleva Desert

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcWdaZZVLc4" data-time="

Tangledeep - Exploring the Shifting Stones

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3SxW14Wi8A" data-time="

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Vote Form:
Silhouette of Thirst / You Will Know Our Names
Glitch / Force Your Way
Poleva Desert / Exploring the Shifting Stones

Silhouette of Thirst
Force Your Way
Poleva Desert

Anime

.

That's a really strong snubs match right there

Atelier Shallie: Alchemists of the Dusk Sea - Silhouette of Thirst
Final Fantasy VIII - Force Your Way
Tangledeep - Exploring the Shifting Stones
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Xenoblade Chronicles - You Will Know Our Names - yeah, I normally like Japanese female vocals, but not this time...
Final Fantasy VIII - Force Your Way - Glitch is awesome, but FYW is my second favorite regular boss theme in the series... I love those cluster chords and the extra beats in the first section. It's still a mystery to me how Uematsu can do so much with so little. Close match.
Tangledeep - Exploring the Shifting Stones - I know I probably SHOULD like Poleva Desert more, being a classical music guy, and it feels especially weird voting ZIRCON over classical music, since I normally don't like zircon, but his work on Tangledeep is really good. Close match, though.
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You Will Know Our Names
Glitch
Exploring the Shifting Stones
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You Will Know Our Names
Force Your Way
Exploring the Shifting Stones

not even my friend who changed her name because of shallie would vote for it in that match
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Atelier Shallie: Alchemists of the Dusk Sea - Silhouette of Thirst
Final Fantasy VIII - Force Your Way
Tangledeep - Exploring the Shifting Stones

MATCH 1

I love every song that I put in this setlist (besides maybe the alt, which I still like a lot, I just wouldn't quite use the word "love"), but Silhouette of Thirst might honestly be my favorite song from it. Probably that or Flying Clouds, Drifting Haze. This is just happy, upbeat j-rock and it's so good. This is very much a "me" song. It's just so easy for me to get lost in this song and jam out to it. That's a quality that will probably be present in most songs that I like of this style.

And so, the roll of the dice brings up my favorite song in the Xenoblade Chronicles set as well. What an absolute banger You Will Know Our Names is. This is another song that I pretty much have to jam out to whenever I listen to it. There's just so much energy to it with a killer melody. Really gives you this feeling like you're charging into battle. I'd vote this song over so many songs in this contest, but alas, it had to be against Silhouette of Thirst. This will likely turn out to be one of my favorite matches in the whole contest once it's over. I know it's gonna be pretty hard to top this. This match is pretty much two 9+/10 songs going up against each other.

MATCH 2

Not really sure what to say about Glitch. It sure is very glitchy, as the name implies. This style of music isn't quite my thing. Especially songs like this that don't really work a melody in there.

Aw yes, Uematsu prog rock. Really loving these chord changes and the melody's great too. These are the kind of Final Fantasy battle themes that I like the most.

MATCH 3

Not really excited about this match. Both of these songs are pretty forgettable, but I'm going with Exploring the Shifting Stones as a gut feeling. I prefer strings in VGM to either be upbeat and exciting or peaceful/emotional. Poleva Desert doesn't really do either of those. Feels more like I'm listening to a piece of classical music, which I'm usually not the biggest fan of, save for a few specific pieces. I think I might've been more into Exploring the Shifting Stones when I was listening to the Tangledeep setlist during the nomination stage. Might be something I like more on another day or as I listen to it more often. Definitely feels like exploration music and some of the melody is kinda cool. Feels like the one I like more in my mind.

Silhouette of Thirst > You Will Know Our Names > Force Your Way > Exploring the Shifting Stones > Poleva Desert > Glitch

You Will Know Our Names
Glitch
Exploring the Shifting Stones

Got nothing to really say about the "winner" bracket match again, YWKON is pretty alright SoT is not (for me at least) lets move on

Oh No This better not be a repeat of Day 17. Well at least the FF song this time is pretty decent. Actually it's kind of funny to me with it going through a variety of things coming across as pretty silly to me, especially that stiff beep variant of some classical tune is kind of hilarious to me. But Glitch is so good so this still isn't even close for me.

Snubs match is interesting, despite having the "realistic" instrumentations I tend to dislike (especially in Poleva's case focusing on the high strings & flute) both songs manage to be pretty enjoyable. Poleva's got this fun tune in a key I like, while Shifting Stones has this cool mysterious tone that kind of reminds me of Pokemon Mystery Dungeon. The section from 1:44 - 2:27 is pretty great with how it switches between those two keys or so.
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You Will Know Our Names
Force Your Way
Exploring the Shifting Stones

I feel like I would've taken most of the more Gust-y Shallie tracks over You Will Know Our Names, but this anime opening theme just isn't doing it for me. YWKON I've heard too many times to really get much oomph out of it anymore, but it's still the better song.

Glitch is pretty cool for what it is, but battle themes are where Uematsu shines the brightest.

Wow, the snubs match is the highlight of today. Poleva Desert is very pleasant but AHHHH IT'S TOO SHORT. It's always the ones that are exactly 2 minutes long that I feel get cut off right when they're getting good!! Exploring the Shifting Stones is the best thing I've heard from Zircon, this reminds me of either SNES RPG music or RuneScape.

Everything today is pretty good!
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You Will Know Our Names
Force Your Way
Exploring the Shifting Stones

match one HURTS ME PHYSICALLY because shallie is like top 5 ost of all time for me but silhouette of thirst is like eeeeeeeeeh kinda lackluster. Ryudai Abe like actually fucking slayed it with Infinity Chronicle and then just like feel asleep for the entire production of this for some reason blorp. Its actually still alright but its up against a crazy good Xenoblade song so... im sorry shallie......... please win still lmao

Match Two sucks too but not as much. I appreciate a lot of what Glitch does, but Force Your Way is not only top-tier Uematsu Boss Mode, its just straight up one of the best normal boss themes thats ever been made. Love the recurrent string stab ups from the beginning and when iT MODULATES YESSS LMMMMMMMM its just too good oops

tangledeep op

You Will Know Our Names
Force Your Way
Exploring the Shifting Stones

You Will Know Our Names
Force Your Way
Exploring the Shifting Stones

You Will Know Our Names
Force Your Way
Exploring The Shifting Stones
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You Will Know Our Names
Glitch
Exploring the Shifting Stones

Silhouette of Thirst
Force Your Way
Poleva Desert / Exploring the Shifting Stones

Never been the biggest fan of You Will Know Our Names. It's good an all, but doesn't totally do it for me. Silhouette is funtimes anime goodness tho.

Glitch is pretty alright. Solid track. Force Your Way a great battle theme. <3 organs.

Poleva Desert feels a lot like a "real" classical song. Not bad, but not quite my style. Shifting Stones has the fakeness I love. Sounds a lot like a... Chrono Trigger or Cross song? I don't remember liking other Tangledeep songs this much. Good stuff! Though I don't like the second half as much as the first half.
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You Will Know Our Names
Force Your Way
Exploring the Shifting Stones
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Atelier Shallie: Alchemists of the Dusk Sea - Silhouette of Thirst: 5. anime. This has parts I like and parts that are a slog and it does nothing to differentiate itself from the tons of other similar-sounding anime songs I've heard.
vs.
Xenoblade Chronicles - You Will Know Our Names: 5. guitars. I don't really care about it but it doesn't do anything bad.

and

Fez - Glitch: 6.5. Glitch is an apt title. Fez is an apt title. Apt is a fez title. gliiiiitch
vs.
Final Fantasy VIII - Force Your Way: 7.5. Always liked this song. Feels like a fight on a highway on top of cars, and then you take the fight onto a helicopter, and you fly by an aquarium and fight on top of a shark tank. So cool.

and

Sdorica -sunset- - Poleva Desert: 9. Yo this song is sick. It's like I'm exploring a forest (what is it with all these forest exploration-y themes I'm enjoying?) even though it clearly says it's a desert, but it's all classical and junk. This is super cool. I love how everything flows neatly from one section to the next, culminating in a more unexpectedly subdued ending.
vs.
Tangledeep - Exploring the Shifting Stones: 7.5. Ooh this is cool too! A very similar song. This one is with Super Nintendo sounds as opposed to "real instruments." I don't love the composition as much as the first song, but there are some still really nice aural goodies here. Love the use of having aspects of the song fade in and out at different volumes to convey the sense of moving through a shifting mystery. A very interesting song.

Votes:
You Will Know Our Names
Force Your Way
Poleva Desert

Voting for Exploring the Shifting Stones in match 3
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You Will Know Our Names
Force Your Way
Exploring the Shifting Stones

Roller coaster day; every song 1 made me wait for it to end and every song 2 redeemed the matchup
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You Will Know Our Names
Force Your Way
Exploring the Shifting Stones
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Atelier Shallie: Alchemists of the Dusk Sea - Silhouette of Thirst
Final Fantasy VIII - Force Your Way
Tangledeep - Exploring the Shifting Stones
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You Will Know Our Names
Glitch
Poleva Desert

You Will Know Our Names
Force Your Way
Exploring the Shifting Stones
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Xenoblade Chronicles - You Will Know Our Names
This is definitely RPG fighting music. It's kinda cool and definitely much better than the anime_music it is up against. I don't want to be too hard on Atelier Shallie, but Silhouette of Thirst didn't do too much for me. It was anime music and anime vocals and that was it to me. You Will Know Our Names is defs not the most favoriteist thing I have ever heard, but it kinda gets me hyped, as it is probably intending to do.

Fez - Glitch
Disasterpeace is one of the first vgm composers I was ever introduced to, so I have to vote for Glitch here. I love this song because it actually reminds me of his other work from The Floor Is Jelly. The particular song I'm referring to is _x_x_x_vmmmcmxi, which is an incredible song that is also 19 minutes long~! Glitch is not my favorite song from Fez ever, but Disasterpeace is a crazy talented person that I really super respect and it is a definite pleasure to vote for his music here. Not sure how exactly Fez ended up losing, but who cares! It's an amazing soundtrack that deserves more than the loser's bracket.

Tangledeep - Exploring the Shifting Stones
Neither of these snubs really particularly spoke to me, but this one was really cool. It had a very mystical-explore-the-forest-RPG feel to it and I really liked it. The song had a sense of adventure and magic to it that Poleva Desert just didn't have. I also think the title is really fitting and that's pretty cool ALSO!
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Xenoblade Chronicles - You Will Know Our Names
Fez - Glitch
Tangledeep - Exploring the Shifting Stones

Top 10 Nintendo Music number Ten You will know ourNames

Put briefly, both songs in the first match are not my thing and I never got the hype for the 'popular' Xenoblade music. Wins out because it's not the gridded anisong thing from Shallie (which makes me SAD because i LIKE shallie)

Glitch is my favorite track from Fez and it's like the prime example of how to make a music song that I will love. FYW also extremely good but whoops I honestly could not see myself voting against this versus most of the bracket.

SORRY SDORICA sunset

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Silhouette of Thirst
Force Your Way
Poleva Desert
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Atelier Shallie: Alchemists of the Dusk Sea - Silhouette of Thirst
Final Fantasy VIII - Force Your Way
Tangledeep - Exploring the Shifting Stones
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trying to remember how i did this now lol

Atelier Shallie: Alchemists of the Dusk Sea - Silhouette of Thirst - 6.5/10
anime. I can't say I don't enjoy it because it's pretty energetic and there's nothing really wrong with the vocals or the melodies. But it's pretty unmemorable if you compare it to any other song like this, I find.

Xenoblade Chronicles - You Will Know Our Names - 9/10
Then there's this, which is really pretty recognizable. Though maybe that's just because of smash, idk. But I will always be in favor of pure guitar pieces like this, and man it just keeps hitting and everything it changes to is cool. Super driving. 9 may be an exaggeration but I'm trying not to limit 9+s to songs I've heard a lot before and this really bangs so

Voting for You Will Know Our Names

Fez - Glitch - 6.5/10
Less naturally pleasing to me than Silhouette, but significantly more unique and interesting. We need more music with glitching in it. But also I would like 'em more if some also were a bit more than glitchy (though this one has some somber tones to it too, I would say)

Final Fantasy VIII - Force Your Way - 5/10
Final Fantasy is just the series that I like way less than most people, it seems. Or at least the ones before 10. Melodies are kinda nice but the soundfont really isn't making me feel anything. Adventure, suspense, excitement, one of these should at least actually come to me in some way.

This match is basically an example for me of "a kind of song I don't love done really well" versus "a kind of song I usually like not done well to me"

Voting for Glitch

Sdorica -sunset- - Poleva Desert - 5.5/10
The main thing that comes to me for this is honestly "Disney cartoon music" what with the violins and such. There are some really quite nice desert-y parts here and there, some reminding me of Mysterious Trap a bit, but a lot of the rest doesn't quite hit the notes to keep me immersed really.

Tangledeep - Exploring the Shifting Stones - 7.5/10
This sounds very PMD dungeon music to me. And, well, I like that. There are a couple parts that are eh melody-wise to me, but a lot of really nice leads too, and this one does really get immersion, coming off as adventurous but also reflective. As it goes it just feels more like PMD and some parts start to garner the same emotional reactions as some of the PMD songs do

Voting for Exploring the Shifting Stones