Board 8 > [VGMC] d106: (not) P-R-O-G-R-A-M vs Desire Below, Rave On vs Who Am I?

(+) 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/78714595
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 of all-time and Song B is from a series you hate... Listen. To. Both. (If I have suspicions your vote is not based on a fair and impartial preference, it will be disqualified.)
- Obvious contest rules apply (no alts, one vote per person, no rallying, etc.).
- Please make your voting options clear, rather than burying them in text.
- Each set of matches lasts 24 hours, even if the new one isnt up by then. (Matches do not begin until at least 10:00 EDT.)
- Always vote on the versions of the song provided, not versions from different sources.
- If you know ahead of time that you're not going to be around and you want to vote in advance, post your choices in the discussion/bracket topic.
- Please do NOT post tallies/score updates in the middle of the match, as this has a tendency to directly influence matches.
- You don't have to vote in all the matches, but it'd be cool if you did!

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Match 1

Kirby: Planet Robobot - P-R-O-G-R-A-M
https://youtube.com/watch?v=2HMfamyvoYs

Fire Emblem Fates - Desire Below (Flow)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4_cx74mypE

Match 2

Killer7 - Rave On
https://youtu.be/AJO8uo3UMko

Alone in the Dark - Who Am I?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nh2kSs89Xxw

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Easy vote form:
P-R-O-G-R-A-M / Desire Below (Flow)
Rave On / Who Am I?

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<cite>NFUN posted [p:942076044] in [VGMC] d10... [t:78844972]...</cite> <quote>PROGRAM Who I am </quote>

Kirby: Planet Robobot - P-R-O-G-R-A-M
Alone in the Dark - Who Am I?

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Fire Emblem Fates - Desire Below (Flow)
Alone in the Dark - Who Am I?

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Desire Below (Flow)
Who Am I?

big fan of both in the first match!!!!!!! been especially in a Hiroki Morishita mood lately though, now that the Paper Mario Origami King ost's leaked and he's known to be on it (based on style recognition, pretty sure he did a pretty good chunk of the ost, including a lot of my favorites!). just in general that got me in the mood for all my favorite traits distinct to him; crazy excessively emotionally explosive chord changes that make me FLOAT IN THE AIR, crazy rhythms. and in this case some really cool interesting metallic percussive timbres! I LOVE HIROKI MORISHITA (video game music composer)
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Kirby: Planet Robobot - P-R-O-G-R-A-M
Alone in the Dark - Who Am I?

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PROGRAM
Rave On
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P-R-O-G-R-A-M
Who Am I?

That first match!!! I prefer the first as far as instrumentation/production, but the second in terms of composition. I'm happy with either winning.

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Vagrant Counting Song of Retrospection (28th) vs Desire Below (Flow) (19th)
Rave On (25th) vs Who Am I? (54th)

match 1 is incredibly close but i also feel INCREDIBLY strong about it, I have been listening to DBF a looooooot recently and I loved it a lot before, but I love it even more now and its ranking is probably even higher than what i already raised it lol

Desire Below (Flow)
Rave On

P-R-O-G-R-A-M
Who Am I?
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Desire Below (Flow)
Rave On
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Fire Emblem Fates - Desire Below (Flow)
Killer7 - Rave On
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Fire Emblem Fates - Desire Below (Flow)
Killer7 - Rave On

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P-R-O-G-R-A-M (54/64) < Desire Below (Flow) (17/64)
Rave On (61/64) < Who Am I? (25/64)

Pretty easy day to end round 3 with.

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Desire Below (Flow)
Rave On

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Program
Rave
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Fire Emblem Fates - Desire Below (Flow)
Killer7 - Rave On

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... I am kind of numb to vgms right now, but it was worth it to make a proper v.FINAL of my top 100 after grinding it something fierce the entire third round whenever I had free time.

I even made a crappy, janky spreadsheet with zero coding/general spreadsheet knowhow for it that I might dump in discord when I wake up tomorrow or something.

Now onto todays matches.

P-R-O-G-R-A-M (NR) / Desire Below (Flow) (85th)
Rave On (95th) / Who Am I? (17th)

Desire Below (Flow)
Rave On

Desire Below (Flow)
Who Am I?

P-R-O-G-R-A-M
Rave On

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P-R-O-G-R-A-M
Who Am I?

Desire Below (Flow)
Rave On

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Desire Below (Flow)
Rave On

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PROGRAM I guess
Who Am I?

please b8 let one contested match this round go my way thanks.
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Desire Below (Flow)
Rave On
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P-R-O-G-R-A-M
Who Am I?

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63. Kirby: Planet Robobot - P-R-O-G-R-A-M
vs.
38. Fire Emblem Fates - Desire Below (Flow)

What I had:
I don't know, because Bracketmaker is currently down

Vagrant Counting Song of Retrospection (what a name) is a song I don't care for (hence 63/64 place), but I think I get why people like it: lots of glitchiness and constantly changing patterns, plus a very clear atmosphere. Those are normally good recipes for me liking a song, but I have a hard time with modern Kirby (post-N64) in general, so there you have it.

Desire Below Flow originally got like a 2.5 on my first listen through the bracket, and now it's at a 7. Just goes to show how relistens can alter your perception of a song! This is super cool, with a lot of, well, flow to it: I feel like I'm being swept along by a powerful current when I listen to this. The meter/tempo changeup is nice.

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27. Killer7 - Rave On
vs.
37. Alone in the Dark - Who Am I?

What I had:
See above

Rave On is a super fun song. With its PULSATING EDM BEAT, it would be a perfect song to hear in a club. It's very repetitive, but I don't mind that, given that the melody is always engaging to me. I also like the breakdown at the end, which it seems like a lot of people don't care for?

Who Am I? is cool too. It has a very distinct sound to it, very unique from probably anything else in the contest. I want to vote for it on principle, but I do like Rave On a bit more. I'm rooting for Who Am I? though!

-

Votes:
Desire Below (Flow)
Rave On

Desire Below (Flow)
Rave On

First match is close and sort of weird. So with Kirbysong V-C-S-o-R, I -really- love the sort of toony mechanical atmosphere they're going for with the theming, and when it works, it works super well for me, namely parts like :10-:40 & 2:42-2:54 and especially 1:37-1:49. Better for me than anything Desire Below Flow has to offer. But, those are just very small portions of the song. Desire Below Flow on the other hand is very consistent in how good it is for me almost all the way through (except for that slow bit in the middle), and while it doesn't have quite the same highs for me as V-C-S-o-R, pretty much the entirety of Desire Below Flow is in a separate higher tier than much of V-C-S-o-R. Often in these cases I tend to vote for the song with the higher highs & lower lows for being more daring, but in this case the lower lows overpower V-C-S-o-R so I'm going with Lucky Song Desire Below Flow. I guess I also sort of feel like recently I'm suddenly feeling a lot less into V-C-S-o-R than I did for most of this tournament so far go figure.

Second match feels pretty weak though, especially after so many previous matches in a row had at least one song I cared strongly about. Kinda disappointing on some level that this is what the Round 3 ends on but oh well. In some ways it feels like Who Am I "deserves" the win here but Rave On is the kind of song I prefer.

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Desire Below (Flow)
Rave On

Match 1 songs are weirdly similar, though PROGRAM has a few too many change-ups while Desire Below doesn't have enough of them
Voting for Rave On again because I happen to like the genre it's in, even if I don't think it's a very good example!

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Desire Below (Flow)
Rave On

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Desire Below (Flow)
Rave On

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Fire Emblem Fates - Desire Below (Flow)
Alone in the Dark - Who Am I?

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dum pink ball (according to the poll)
Rave On

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P-R-O-G-R-A-M < Desire Below (Flow)
Rave On < Who Am I?

today i like the songs that are music
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Fire Emblem Fates - Desire Below (Flow)
Alone in the Dark - Who Am I?
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P-R-O-G-R-A-M
Rave On
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Desire Below (Flow)
Rave On

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Desire Below (Flow)
Who Am I?

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Desire Below (Flow)
Rave On

Change to

Desire Below (Flow)

I was in a weird mood yesterday. DBF wins out because it's more consistently amazing, but PROGRAM would beat it out if the whole thing were as good as my favorite sections from it (0:23 - 0:40 and a couple of other places). But it hurts so badly that one of these has to lose. Meanwhile, the other match has my second or third least favorite contestant (cako: today i like the songs that are music refers to everything but Rave On, I'm pretty sure >_>), which is probably going to move on.

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come on, let's not do the stupid "LOL IT'S NOT EVEN MUSIC" thing when discussing any of these songs.

two contests ago, i bashed zyxyz for making a similar comment, so i should also call out cako to be fair.

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tbh i'm pretty sure cako was just being goofy in wording and not attacking opposition to their picks. "i like these songs, they're music" doesn't imply that the opponents aren't or anything
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yeah i'm probably overreacting, sorry. i just get really triggered if i think someone's making an "it's not even music" comment >_>

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Well, cako rated Rave On lower than almost any other contestant, so either he likes ALL the music in the contest, or he doesn't count Rave On as music (not literally), or he likes Rave On more than he used to, or perhaps he was just being nonsensical! One of the four, I guess. I should have said nothing.

Edit: I apologize to the Rave On fans. I can understand why some like it, and I hope I can get the same respect for music I like that others don't like.

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Desire Below (Flow)
Rave On

Match 2 really mediocre for so far in the competition. It was hard to pick between those two songs because they're uh... both very very meh imo.
Also I still can't believe that a Fire Emblem can go this fucking hard, well except Fire Emblem remixes in Smash. But yeah, WOW does it sound good, I need to check more Fire Emblem music from the actual games it seems.

Desire Below (Flow) > P.R.O.G.R.A.M. >>>>> Rave On > Who Am I?

Fire Emblem Fates - Desire Below (Flow)
Alone in the Dark - Who Am I?

Who Am I? > Desire Below (Flow) > Rave On = P-R-O-G-R-A-M

Pretty meh day compared to many of the other round 3 matches to be honest. I like Who Am I, but I'm not too big on the other songs.

P-R-O-G-R-A-M
Rave On

Tough first match.

Desire Below (Flow)
Who Am I?

vagrant counting song of retrospection - first encountered: this vgmc? - trend: steady
-lots of cool and catchy elements. this is kind of the mission statement of the kirby tracks in this contest in general-- they're generally varied and a lot of fun. it's a grab bag of neat things flying at you from different directions, and I feel like that sums up the spirit of the kirby series as a whole.

desire below flow - first encountered: bost5 - trend: up
-maybe the most significant upward trend in terms of personal enjoyment during this contest. sometimes from a fire emblem music perspective I'm still too fixated on things that sound like id purpose or conquest ablaze or end of all land. this is a really cool track with a pretty different vibe from the aforementioned tracks-- but it's just as interesting, with some pretty awesome chord and rhythmic changes, and something that rewards repeated listens.

rave on - first encountered: vgmc5 - trend: slightly down
-I'll freely admit I don't really like this track. I know a lot of others do, though, citing it as a standout from this ost. it's a straightforward track to just rock out to, I think, enjoying the main loop and the changes in the different layers. and some of the layers can be kinda neat-- the percussion layer that comes in at 2:54 and sounds like rattling metal is something I dig.

who am i - first encountered: zyxyz's vocals guessing game - trend: steady
-who am i? i am - myst iv main theme - archange - atomic bird. there's a lot of tracks I can think of named who am i - les miserables, the animatrix soundtrack, the final fantasy vii remake soundtrack, the boneworks soundtrack-- and this is one of my favourites.