Board 8 > [VGMC] d16: Endeavor vs B2 Battle, Central Park vs FEEL the POWER in YOUR SOUL!!

(+) Yeah! (+)

Welcome to today's topic for Video Game Music Contest 14, a tournament of the best tracks from games, as decided upon by you, the voters.

Links:
Contest info - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VNrPnFRI7nJ4PqFiURBW0NWqxvXiuasoq8Sn_O169ss/edit#gid=320804650
Bracket - http://www.bracketmaker.com/tlist.cfm?tid=473292
Discussion and results thread - https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/78524521
Bracket playlist - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLW9O9mntH1REnVI_W6yELaDP6Zac8b0Wq
ToC playlist - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLW9O9mntH1RE-TQMj19D0k5nm-0zeH12J
VGMC compability sheet - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1lpX4faqnn_geI0y4i6MrZ2AXpV6SWXoWrIA6_eyx-yM/edit

Rules:
- Listen to both of the songs. Links have conveniently been provided for both songs. Even if Song A is your favorite o

https://youtu.be/uDpIuPZwWqI

Endeavour
FEEL the POWER in YOUR SOUL
Dark Legacy

dat TOP OPTION
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B2 Battle
FEEL the POWER in YOUR SOUL
Dark Legacy

In case one soul isn't enough. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCfsa8YhEIE

Idola Phantasy Star Saga - Endeavour
Last Ninja 2 - Central Park
The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky FC - Whereabouts of Light
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B2 Battle
FEEL the POWER in YOUR SOUL
Dark Legacy

Endeavour's solid, but it'd be better if it were shorter. Battle's okay all the way through.

Man Feel's name reminds me of another song that I like a lot, but I can't remember the name. Damn. It's still good though. Opposition's cool for a chiptune but still not quite my thing.

WoL is still a bit mystifying as a retiree. Dark Legacy should've won its contest.
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B2 Battle
Central Park
Dark Legacy
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Endeavour
FEEL the POWER in YOUR SOUL
Dark Legacy

holy fuck I love Endeavor it's like the perfect mix of epic and catchy. first vocalist is kinda eh but the second actually seems solid and damn that chorus is strong. WILL WE EEEEEEEVERRRRRRR FIND FOREEEEEEEEVERRRRRRR love the percussion backing in this too. can kind of appreciate how edgy B2 Battle is but otherwise it's eh
hmmm not feeling Central Park as much as when I filled out my bracket. FEEL THE POWER is cute
LEGACY vs WHEREABOUTS wait that doesn't look right. cute battle of Long Versions

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Endeavor
Feel le power in le soul
Whereabouts of Light

Would take either in first match over either in second.
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Endeavour
FEEL the POWER in YOUR SOUL
Dark Legacy

Idola Phantasy Star Saga - Endeavour
War of Brains - FEEL the POWER in YOUR SOUL
The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky FC - Whereabouts of Light

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fuck.
FEEL the POWER in YOUR SOUL
Dark Legacy

B2 Battle
Central Park
Dark Legacy

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B2 Battle
Central Park
Whereabouts of Light

Endeavour
Central Park
*ranking topic spoilers*
Whereabouts of Light...........

Endeavour (8.0) / B2 Battle (8.0)
FEEL the POWER in YOUR SOUL (3.5) / Central Park (4.5)

The second match will likely be my least favorite match of the contest. I REALLY enjoy the rough metallic quality of B2 Battle. If it had more to the composition it might've been one of my very favorites in the bracket. But endeavour gets my vote...I think. It starts off a bit boring maybe 5/10 (average), then 6.5/10 when it picks up the tempo and adds intensity. Then when the high brass presents the new section at 1:03, EPIC! 9/10! Normally I don't care about brass samples (and often I dislike it), but it's probably the only time I've EVER heard trumpet sampling go so high without it irking me (I'm a trumpet player), but it's so great there! Love it when the singer takes over that later, too. The problem is that the other sections are mostly kind of boring... so it's a tough call. I'll have to listen to both again tomorrow.

Oh oh.... all this time I had the wrong Dark Legacy version in my retiree playlist.

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B2 Battle
Central Park
Dark Legacy

blah blah cool song vs less cool song that also has vocals I really don't feel like doing writeups for these matches.

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Endeavour
FEEL the POWER in YOUR SOUL
Dark Legacy

Endeavour is my 38th favorite in the contest! "phantasy star online" music consistently appealing to me composition-wise no matter the composer, no matter the instrumentation. It's absurd how perfect it all is to me no matter if they're doing epic vocal orchestra thing like this or if they're in synth jazz world, or ambient new age-y stuff or WHAT ever. Kenichi Tokoi did a bunch of my favorite Sonic Adventure-and-later sonic music, so it's not too surprising I'm fond of this as well, ii does remind me of some of his contributions to that, but i find it interesting how much this sounds like "phantasy star online" so successfully while being written by a completely different person, and for entirely different from typical instrumentation. Like I know the pso2vol7-8 stuff has similar instrumentation to this but I hadn't heard that yet when I first heard this about a year ago (apparently kaonashi1 showed me this track literally April 18, 2019, almost 1 year anniversary of "me knowing what this track is"). Okay so what do i actually like about this uhhhhh THESE CHORDS ARE REALLY BIG and not predictable, and all of the things I do not predict are VERY emotionally intense. This starts off ultra simple, just single line of a vocalist singing a few notes, but then the piano comes in with some pretty neat chords backing it that aren't what i'd have imagined would back it just from the vocal line, and it re-contextualizes the vocal line to be completely different to me and I LIKE that feeling. Once it "actually starts" and picks up speed there's much more prominence to that piano backing and it's a cool way to start. Sections like 3:34 - 3:58 (and similarly the part starting at 1:04) are my favorite here, those brass chords have SO MANY NOTES in them and are so thick and timbrally ALIVE without feeling cluttered at all. Among the most beautiful I'd consider any brass parts to be in any VGM song i know of. I LOVE THIS SONG I could talk about it for 39 years. but i could do the same with most pso series music i've heard too

B2 Battle is my 93rd favorite in the contest! I associate this track pretty heavily with some videos that used clips of this in those videos and I liked what the music was back then, but i don't think I've ever heard this in full and high quality until like this year. That cool pitched metallic sound that comes in at :09 is REALLY cool, my favorite timbres tend to be tuned percussion, and this is a good example of that! transposing synth chords peering into the background at :28 are amazing too, that type of thing is both one of my favorite things in terms of composition AND instrumentation both simultaneously. Really cool nomination and i'd take it over about half the field, if this had more to it it could be one of my favorites, but I like the tone it sets a ton as it is.

WOW

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FEEL the POWER in YOUR SOUL is my 169th favorite in the contest! I like Hideki Naganuma in general but I think almost more in the sense of "wow it's cool this music exists" than actually stuff i naturally get into. his sampling-heavy style is super fun and plays with a bunch of fun production techniques that are fun too! and just sound cool. this is ranked fairly low but i don't hate it, just don't super get into it the way I do with other a lot of other Naganuma picks. has all the traits i'm describing and i don't dislike any element really. I like the style this track is, just not the substance, composition isn't as much my thing as other stuff from this guy.

Central Park is my 192nd favorite in the contest! This track has a weird combination of histories for me, positive ones! I used to actually like this! Had it on some personal CD mixes. How did it wind up at 192nd now? um. well it's not like my taste is completely static and exactly the same as it was in 2010, can't stand this now, my preferences have definitely changed significantly in the past 10 years. Relatedly, Matt Gray also composed Driller for the c64 game "Driller" which had a version used as music for one of my favorite games of all time- Seiklus. That track fell to the same fate (i even have a personal replacement ost for seiklus where i replaced all the music files with music I like more...heavily because of my reaction to that particular track, though i do love some of the other selections, and I do like Driller MUCH more than this to the point i consider myself to at least somewhat like the tune). That said there's still nostalgic fondness for both from me (both from last ninja 2 music in personal mixes from ~2010, and from my deep fondness of Seiklus as a game in regards to Driller). I also just like the sound of C64 music, I think it produces really cool timbres and I'm quite into following the sorts of tricks used in c64 music for it to be as full as it's allowed to be within its limits, which I have fun watching with this. So why is this literally LAST PLACE?! um. because i hate it lol. basically all my complaints about metal beat except more extreme. Extremely straightforward chord progression, really plodding near patronizingly simple rhythms, almost painfully on the beat and predictable & guiding in pattern. Does not help its case that it's so slow and long. It doesn't have the level of edginess or "epicness" that 183rd-191st have to save it from being the literal bottom, or the quirkiness some of the stuff I dislike above 183 has, just really emotionally completely boring to me on top of its banality. Don't want to drown with all the negativity I could about this one, it's endless. but despite being literally 192, it's tied in with fond nostalgia of various things, and I think lots of the sounds this makes are pretty cool

wow

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Dark Legacy is my 15th favorite ToC entrant! i don't know how i basically do not remember this at all from vgmc9, was just as much my kinda thing then as it is now. Naoyuki "Nekomata 'BaSTeT' Master" Sato is a composer I consistently love who makes music that coincidentally sounds like ELEBITS for some reason hmm i wonder why...................................................?!! HMMMMMMMM Yeah i love all the signature naoyuki sato distorted sines/epiano-y sounds that go "bleep" in cool harmonies. I like how it's mixed into the Epic Orchestra here but I'd probably enjoy this more if the more "distinct to naoyuki sato" elements were brought out and it sounded more like 'elebits except edgy' and also if it was not SO fast drums. 4:19-4:26 just being endless 3+3+3+3... forever instead of 3+3+3+3+4 4/4 how it is when it's first introduced is a cool way to have this climax. calm outro 4:28 to the end being in 5/8 randomly is cool : )

Whereabouts of Light is my 27th favorite ToC entrant! This

also just realized this is the song Whereabouts of Light reminds me of. when I said it sounded like Joe Hisaishi I didn't even realize it was a literal specific song that's uncannily similar that was driving in the similarities for me
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdpEnkcT7Io
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B2 Battle
Central Park
Dark Legacy

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Endeavour
FEEL the POWER in YOUR SOUL
Dark Legacy

Idola Phantasy Star Saga - Endeavour
War of Brains - FEEL the POWER in YOUR SOUL
Beatmania IIDX 21 Spada - Dark Legacy


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B2 Battle
Central Park
Dark Legacy

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Endeavour [8.9] > B2 Battle [7.6]
FEEL the POWER in YOUR SOUL [7.4] > Central Park [6.8]
Dark Legacy > Whereabouts of Light

endeavour is so unapologetically pso2 and its great
b2 battle is bouncy and fun sounds like it should be in mega man 11

ftpiys is unapologetically naganuma, but when a backing track comes in (1:10) i feel it loses some of its impact?
central park goes all over the place but my favorite part is the song after 3:12, especially that section itself with the ominous drone and ostinato that leads into a new melody. overall i dont like it a lot but that section is like 8 or something

dark legacy. its nekomata master but darker and epicer...i like it!
whereabouts of life is sad :( im sad now
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B2 Battle
FEEL the POWER in YOUR SOUL
Dark Legacy

Endeavor vs B2 Battle: Woah Endeavor was cool. The vocals are great and are probably my favorite vocals from this contest so far. But man the song being 7 minutes kinda kills it. B2 Battle slaps hands down. Its such a fun energetic track to listen to, and those tubular bells they got going on during it are such a nice touch.

FEEL the POWER in YOUR SOUL vs Central Park: I can feel the power alright. Yeah this is a straight up banger no question about that. Its such a hype track and I wish I could go into detail but all I can really say is that the vocals and the beat are great. Central Park is just kinda there. It sounds cool and I appreciate the C64 but everything else about the song is just alright. Not as spectacular as FEELING THE POWER IN MY SOUL.

Dark Legacy vs Whereabouts of Light: Dark Legacy is alright. Its the usual rhythm game stuff for me so I can't say much here but I don't think this was bad in anyway. A bit above average maybe. Whereabouts of Light is slow and sad :(. Not much going on here anyway aside from that so I guess Dark Legacy gets my vote just for not making me want to sleep.

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Endeavor
Central
Legacy
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Shin Megami Tensei IV - B2 Battle
Last Ninja 2 - Central Park
Beatmania IIDX 21 Spada - Dark Legacy

Match 1: The high pitched singing at the beginning of Endeavour kinda irks me, but then the song gets going and it's really good. Battle B2 is my #1 favorite MegaTen song not composed by Tsukasa Masuko. Super cool metallic sound (sorta like SSB64 lol). Good match.

Match 2: No, I'm not feeling this. There is no POWER my soul is dead, this doesn't really expand or deliver on whatever cheese it's going for, and just ends up sounding obnoxious. Last Ninja 2 - Central Park is neither the best Ninja VGM nor the best C64 VGM I've heard, it just sounds very standard/average/mediocre. Central Park has some cool sounds going on I guess, so I'll be voting for it, but it's no Monty on the Run. Not impressed by this match.

ToC: The thumbnail for Dark Legacy looks like a power metal album cover. It's rhythm game music, but it's fast and fun and energetic and exciting. Whereabouts of Light is sadanimepiano.mp3

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Endeavour (145th) vs Battle - b2 (123rd)
FEEL the POWER in YOUR SOUL (116th) vs Central Park (169th)
DARK LEGACY [29th] vs The Whereabouts of Light [33th]

not a big fan of today and i'm prob not gonna ever get to voting if i try to do BIG WRITEUPS so lol. endeavour kinda snoozy, it sounds cool but does not really do the things i like PSO stuff for and the vocals are mwweeeeeeh. A lot of Battle b2 is also kinda ehhhh but the hollow synth bell lead is SOOO GOOD and that loop is so good so i can't not love the song lmfao. FEEL the POWER is pretty good but also missing a lot that I love about Naganuma stuff. Central Park is bland compositionally and bland sound wise so its just meh. DARK LEGACY is not nearly as good as other Nekomata affair but once it gets going, it gets GOING. The long version is one of those that I really think should NOT have been bothered with cause it doesn't offer much more than the short version, but it's not worse or anything so it's alright. Whereabouts of Light was the first Falcom I was super in love with, and while it has worn off quite a bit, I'm still a big fan! ToC saves the otherwise rather lackluster day.

DARK LEGACY > The Whereabouts of Light > FEEL the POWER in YOUR SOUL > Battle - b2 > Endeavour > Central Park

Idola Phantasy Star Saga - Endeavour
War of Brains - FEEL the POWER in YOUR SOUL
The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky FC - Whereabouts of Light

I felt the power... in my soul. First match is mean though. Also, ToC match has my head spinning because I thought I remembered Dark Legacy as a song I supported way back but I don't think this is that song? But looking at my past stuff I don't see what I was thinking about either. Maybe it was Dark Legacy and I just forgot what it sounded like and didn't actually put a support down for it? I expected to vote for it because I'm pretty meh on Whereabouts of Light such that my flawed memory told me it'd lose to Dark Legacy but since Dark Legacy isn't the song I remembered.... ahhhhhhhhhh what is happening i need to solve this mystery

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oh right oops i was going to vote a few hours ago but forgot because i decided to play oj at the same time

B2 Battle
FEEL the POWER in YOUR SOUL
Dark Legacy

i like it and it's good but i don't like how there are so many words that rhyme in endeavour
what do you think B1? i think this is a good song, B2. i'm sorry. but uh if you wanted to read a real writeup try literally any of the other ones but i like how it sounds quite a bit even though there isn't that much to it
never ever, endeavour

yup this sure is a hideki naganuma song. it's alright
yup this sure is a good c64 song. it's also alright. i like how it sounds but ehh i was going to side with it if i was voting earlier but i'm not now i guess i felt the power in my soles and walked away god my writeups are so good today right forget i just said to not read them

whereabouts of light more like damn it now i can't think of this as not an inferior version of a castle in the sky song thanks at sneasel but in discord time who i should not ping again actually i'm pretty sure it also reminds me of a number of other songs too and also it's still kind of a vein of anime game song music of its time that i liked but whatever anyway wherever the light is it's clearly not in this match to purge the darkness because dark legacy is the best notNekomata Master Nekomata Master song this side of rhythm hell (sayonara heaven)

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Central Park
Dark Legacy

Endeavour

Endeavour
FEEL the POWER in YOUR SOUL
Dark Legacy

Endeavour
FEEL the POWER in YOUR SOUL
Dark Legacy

Endeavor's real nice.

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B2 Battle
FEEL the POWER in YOUR SOUL
Dark Legacy

Fuck yeah Naganuma

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Endeavour
Central Park
Whereabouts of Light
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Endeavour
FEEL the POWER in YOUR SOUL
Dark Legacy

B2 Battle
FEEL the POWER in YOUR SOUL
Dark Legacy

B2 Battle
FEEL the POWER in your SOUL
Dark Legacy

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B2 Battle
Central Park
Dark Legacy

At first I was going to dismiss Endeavour because of how slow it was. Then it kicked in at about 40 seconds, and I kind of wish it hadn't! Screamy much?

I think I actually tried to get this song into an earlier VGMC and it didn't pick up any traction, so when I saw someone else had nominated it this year, I was quick to jump on the support train. Both this and SMTIV's other frequent boss theme, actually.

This is silly. The song title itself is a bit disconcerting because I can't see sentences with some but not all words being in all caps without thinking of a certain very annoying character from AA5, but that's irrelevant.

But cheesy songs from games with equally cheesy titles can't measure up to super-retro beats like this! Sweet.

Dark Legacy is, uh...a dark legacy. Seriously, I don't know what to think of this song! I both love it and hate it at the same time and I can't quite figure out why. Ultimately I think I fall on the side of "like".

Unfortunately, Whereabouts of Light is the exact opposite of what I was hoping for when I saw an RPG.

B2 Battle > Central Park > Dark Legacy > FEEL the POWER in YOUR SOUL > Whereabouts of Light > Endeavour

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Haste_2 posted...

*ranking topic spoilers*

I'd appreciate if you stopped putting your votes in spoiler tags. I doubt anyone is paying such close attention that they're going to notice if you vote in a way that might betray your rankings and it really disrupts my rhythm when counting.

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B2 Battle
FEEL the POWER in YOUR SOUL
Dark Legacy

Endeavor
Central Park
Dark Legacy

would take either match 2 over either match 1.

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B2 Battle
FEEL the POWER in YOUR SOUL
Whereabouts of Light

Solid day overall, though the matches weren't super close for me. I'm disappointed in Endeavour -- I really like the epic feeling of the chorus, but those verses are not great and expose that the vocal line is much weaker than it first sounds..

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Endeavour
FEEL the POWER in YOUR SOUL
Dark Legacy

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B2 Battle
Central Park
Dark Legacy

FEEL the POWER in YOUR SOUL is painful to me since it shows that Mr. Naganuma is capable of being something I didn't know he could be, mediocre.

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Endeavor
FEEL the POWER in YOUR SOUL
The Whereabouts of Light

Really good songs on display today. And I'm not just saying it cause one of them is one of my noms! Even the weakest of these six is still quite solid. :)

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Idola Phantasy Star Saga - Endeavour
Last Ninja 2 - Central Park

The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky FC - Whereabouts of Light
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B2 Battle
FEEL the POWER in YOUR SOUL

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Endeavour
Central Park
Whereabouts of Light

Vocals in Endeavour are relatively nice but I don't know how I feel about the composition. Sort of like how I felt about Sky of Twilight yesterday but less extreme on both ends of the statement. Also seems like this one gets much better at around the one-minute mark. Pretty good overall. B2 is also pretty good. I don't generally care about driving guitar rpg battle themes but the other instruments here are very cool.

I do not feel the power in my soul. Don't know what to say except that songs that are constructed like this do not appeal to me at all. I don't really like Central Park either but it's at least listenable. The sound tones are too harsh and some of the rhythms feel too disjointed, but there are at least some cool parts. This is probably my least favorite match so far.

Me at the beginning of Trails in the Sky: "God I've seen this a million times before. What a transparent attempt to try and force me to have some kind of Pavlovian attachment to this song. I hope for their sake it works."

Me after finishing the series: https://i.imgur.com/Q25Lqn4.png
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