Board 8 > [VGMC] Day 1! 1stThing / Nefertiti / NatPark / RFTM(?) / Coll.Express / Heritors

(+) Yeah! (+)

Welcome to Video Game Music Contest 15, an annual celebration of the best of the best video game music according to the voters!

Important Links:
Bracket: https://www.bracketmaker.com/tlist.cfm?tid=474630
Contest info sheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16XAaBMDuUnQ4c5AxQNL9ZhvD7VG5kQyrXWWZxnkrn-o
Contest discussion thread: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/79443554
Main bracket playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLT3m7iohpL0xt7lOF1eB-H4NpAaF1yAnU
Last years spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VNrPnFRI7nJ4PqFiURBW0NWqxvXiuasoq8Sn_O169ss
VGMC total stats sheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1K1XdLWiUKB2kX99qYBgnRbLU_sCz4dvZSByKKJHCT6o
Discord: https://discord.gg/WDvMS4a

Rules:
- Listen to both songs in a given match, at least through the loop time provided (to make sure you don't skip before you've heard the whole thing!)
- Please consider the loop point listed when judging the song; if a video loops one minute 5 times, don't treat it as if it's a repetitive 5 minute song
- If it's a match between your favorite song ever and a song you despise, still LISTEN TO BOTH! Votes can and will be disqualified if there is suspicion songs are not being listened to, and you may be discounted for the rest of the contest for repeat offenses.
- No alt accounts, no rallying or begging, etc., etc.... You only get one vote! Swapping votes is alright, just make clear that you've already made a vote and are swapping.
- Make clear what your voting options are! Please keep votes separate from any comments, and use the titles given in the topic post.
- Voting in all matches is not mandatory, feel free to skip matches you do not wish to vote in.
- Vote based on the links provided, and not other sources of audio. Links are specifically chosen for best quality and the like.
- Don't discuss vote tallies in this thread, or in other threads, as they may influence votes. Likewise, please refrain from looking at the running tally before voting.

Voting Period:
- Today's matches will last 24 hours from the time of posting, or 24 hours from 10pm Eastern, whichever is the later time.
- Please note this may mean that two topics will be active at the same time!
- If you anticipate being unable to vote in a given day, please send an absentee vote to @banshiryuu or @Toxtricity, or post your absentee vote in the discussion thread!

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Match 1

Mr. Bones - The First Thing
Composer: Ronnie Montrose
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUe8YdM16RM
Loop Point: 5:03

Atelier Meruru: The Apprentice of Arland - Nefertiti (Ver.MMXI)
Composer: Daisuke Achiwa arr. Daisuke Achiwa, Toshinori Hiramatsu

Kneel... or you will be knelt

Nefertiti (Ver.MMXI)
National Park
Collapsed Expressway

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Nefertiti (Ver.MMXI)
Reach for the Moon, Immortal Smoke
The Heritors of Arcadia

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Nefertiti (Ver.MMXI)
Reach for the Moon, Immortal Smoke
Collapsed Expressway

the first thing is cool but i don't enjoy listening to it. nerftits is what it is
rftm draws one of the last songs i personally wanted it to face ugh (whoever loses i will be sad (also it'll probably be rftm, i'm wary of well-liked gsc songs)). also funny how there's two rftm vs pokemon gsc matches this year
arcadia is quite strong except something about the vocals/lyrics disconnects me from the song

Mr. Bones - The First Thing
Touhou 14.5: Urban Legend in Limbo - Reach for the Moon, Immortal Smoke
Final Fantasy VII Remake - Collapsed Expressway

Nefertiti (Ver.MMXI)
National Park
The Heritors of Arcadia

Nefertiti (Ver.MMXI)
National Park
The Heritors of Arcadia

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Nefertiti (Ver.MMXI)
National Park
The Heritors of Arcadia

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(not a vote)

*deep breath*

Mr. Bones - The First Thing is my 1th favorite song in the contest (probably)!!! Not only that, it is ranked the highest in my big VGM rating spreadsheet (10 row 1!), meaning that it is currently my favorite VGM of all time!!!! WOW!!!!!!

I credit @Raetsel_Lapin for introducing me to this song. When I ran a 174-song general VGM ranking topic, The First Thing got first place over one of my all-time favorites, Monty on the Run, and one of this years potential powerhouses, Soaring Through the Sad Blue Skies. The First Thing came out on top. Why?

Its because the song is the accumulation of probably the thing I love in music the most: emotional resonance. Its a song of essentially three components: big synthy chords, guitar, and Paul Pena rambling about the blues. Everything flows together so perfectly; each piece complements each other piece. The big synthy chords are already a win in my book; hearing them swell in true 90s fashion is such a delight. The guitar is heartfelt and powerful, but its impact is dulled without the vocal track (for some reason the official soundtrack lacks the vocals). The guitar feeds into the lyrics, surging and swelling accordingly. The lyrics, too, resonate with me on a very profound level. Seemingly simple statements about men being afraid to cry and money not buying happiness and even Jesus having the blues, it all paints this picture of the blues as some omnipresent force that pervades everyone and everything. But then we get the subversion line of Sometimes its a very good thing to have the blues. And that opens up this entire new way of looking at things.

Is this song for everyone? Certainly not. But it is for me. Few songs, game or otherwise, have touched me so deeply. How this got into the bracket after locks, no less! Ill never know, but Im happy to share a song that affects me so profoundly with all of you. Enjoy!

The First Thing
Reach for the Moon, Immortal Smoke
The Heritors of Arcadia

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Nefertiti (Ver.MMXI)
Reach for the Moon, Immortal Smoke
Collapsed Expressway

The First Thing sure is an experience! I'm not fond of it as music though.
god this second match is mean. I think RFTM's jam energy tops out National Park, sad as I am to be voting against Pokemon this early.
Third match is also mean, but I'm more sure of myself here. Heritors of Arcadia is cool, but part of the reason I like it is because of the story significance it has and separated from that context I just can't rank it above Collapsed Expressway.


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Nefertiti (Ver.MMXI)
National Park
Collapsed Expressway

Match one is close and both songs have a free pass into R3 anyway. Kind of a weak six pack I guess? RftM sounded decent on first listens, but got very old quick.

I don't know what to think on Nefertiti. The song starts off really good, but the guitar didn't keep me hooked all of the way through? Probably an 8 on a good day, but it feels more like a 7 right now.

Atelier Meruru: The Apprentice of Arland - Nefertiti (Ver.MMXI)
Pokmon Gold and Silver - National Park
Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia - The Heritors of Arcadia

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Atelier Meruru: The Apprentice of Arland - Nefertiti (Ver.MMXI)
Touhou 14.5: Urban Legend in Limbo - Reach for the Moon, Immortal Smoke
Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia - The Heritors of Arcadia
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AAAAAA hhello vgmc 15 its really happening!!!! whoa!!!! thank you everybody for joining us :)

The First Thing (255th) vs Nefertiti (Ver.MMXI) (72nd)
National Park (66th) vs Reach for the Moon, Immortal Smoke (242nd)
Collapsed Expressway (77th) vs The Heritors of Arcadia (213th)

oops extremely polarizing match in the first match OOOOPS og nefertiti would be a liiiittle bit higher here cause I start to get tired of the endless guitar by the end, where the og loops quicker. the extra solos and stuff are just kinda unnecessary, but not unenjoyable! its still achiwa butt rock LOL so in the end i'm all gucci. the first thing is actually pretty cool but the reverb narration i cant understand totally ruins it for me sorry mr. bones fans :((((

man am i glad to see national park here this year!! one of my favorite area themes in the whole damn series, i love how equally calm and also... somehow somber it is?? like in a very nostalgic way. it gives me all the warm fuzzies inside that i like :) oops another super low song oops, reach for the moon is pretty alright when its actually doing the rftm stuff, but there are long long periods where its doing what should be a short little bridge but instead is an entire part for some reason and its just straight up boring lol which is THE WORST THing you can do to me... so it takes a pretty massive hit. sorry song, don't worry you'll feel better when we reach (for the momn) your older brother later on

god collapsed expressway is so COOL this is the first song I think I had heard from ff7r and I was immediately super impressed, and I'm very very glad it's the representative for it in VGMC. the tendency for songs that want to sound "asian" to go way too far and really hamfist the ORIENTAL INSTRUMENTS always annoys me but collapsed expressway does it in a very subdued and tasteful way that is still super enjoyable. good stuff!! i actually really like heritors of arcadia as well, but here we have the classic "the english vocalist is kinda subpar and the lyrics sound dumb" that happens with most game anisongs (except lost in the waves EWHY DIDNT I renom that this year.. ...,_ yeah easy match as well

The First Thing
National Park
Collapsed Expressway

I think this track speaks for itself. I'll leave what I wrote originally anyway, though.

The first thing for somebody to realize they want to know what the First Thing's appeal is, is that it's about the monologue, and whether they as a listener connect to it. If they don't, then this is just some guy with a husky voice rambling over mellow electric guitar noodling and some chill pads. If they do, then this is a lot more than the sum of its parts-- it feels cozy, friendly and earnest, as if the artist is sitting in front of you, guitar in hand, explaining why it's okay to have the blues.

And even if no other human being is listening to you, if listening to this track helps open up that little pressure valve and get all that garbage out, sometimes it makes you feel better. I can't prove this, but this is how I figure.

When listening through the bracket playlist I kept mistaking Nefertiti for a Falcom track. (This despite being familiar with the track!) There are undoubtedly differences on closer inspection (and there are people much better-versed in Falcom music who could probably point them out easily) but I think there's a similar appeal. This composition and aesthetic doesn't really grab me in general, and I don't think Nefertiti does enough for me to have it stand out in my head.

National Park is a pretty small tune, but it does a decent job evoking the peaceful, nostalgic vibe it's going for. I can see this really clicking for people who spent a chunk of their earlier days catching bugs here.

I've talked about Reach for the Moon befo-- oh. This is a nifty take on the Reach for the Moon melody, a lot bouncier and more energetic in feel and vibe, though it reaches for some melodies and progressions that feel a bit corny to me, and spends a lot of time on its tonal center. It's a track that might wear on me after a while.

Let's talk about Collapsed Expressway. Well, maybe more than just Collapsed Expressway.

In earlier VGMCs it was held (by some) as sort of a platonic ideal to separate context from track evaluation-- to judge the music entirely on its own merits, in as close to a contextual vacuum as possible. I get the reasoning behind this-- it's an attempt to control for in-context experience when it can vary wildly between tracks, so that tracks, especially ones from popular games (like this one), don't get an advantage.

It's also very hard to do. Music is almost always associated to a context, whether explicitly (as in most soundtracks) or through the context of your own personal experience with it. If that context resonates with you, you will feel it when you listen to that track.

So it is with Collapsed Expressway. It's a track I would certainly have loved regardless. It feels lush, adventurous, full of wide-eyed wonder, inviting you to explore and hope. The violins dance along coyly with the other instruments until they step forward, sweeping you off your feet with a swooning melody line.

Would it be where it is right now-- my favourite entry in this contest-- without the context behind it? FF7R was a game that I played during the early months of the pandemic, providing some bright spots during what was a pretty grey time. This plays near the beginning of my favourite segment of my favourite game from last year. It was so striking, I stood around in-game just to listen to it for a while. You know that feeling when that happens in a game, right? It's the feeling you've found a special track.

(I remember messaging Tox later that day to talk excitedly about how they had really begun to unleash Hamauzu's musical prowess in the game, linking this track. Of course, I was entirely wrong about the composer in this case! But the feeling stood-- this was what I had been looking for in the game all along. I was also playing through this game in parallel with a couple of other friends and raved about this track during Zoom calls with them later.)

So this is what I think about when I hear Collapsed Expressway-- a track that can make me feel happy just by listening to it. Is that a bit unfair to Heritors of Arcadia, which is a lovely song in its own right (the progression during the instrumental break at 2:14 is exactly what I look for in a track like this)? Yeah, I can see how it is. But in the end, I can't deny the existence of that feeling.

---

Looking at that first set of matches, it struck me-- Day 1, right off the bat, features a couple of tracks that are among the absolute favourites of some of the participants. I've just raved about Collapsed Expressway, of course; The First Thing rates as a 10 from rwlh.

That's a pretty narrow way to look at it, though. Aren't all of these tracks nominated by people that really love them? UF8 pushed hard to get Touhou 14.5 Reach for the Moon to get into the contest. I just expressed ambivalence about Nefertiti's composition and style, but it's right up FL81's alley, isn't it?

And so it goes for everything throughout the contest, across all the communities that participate here now, whether it's Collen's Kaze no Notam tracks or kama's Building Mode 5 or bebr's cat samurai music. (It feels silly that I needed a reminder of this, given how sharply I was reminded of it last year during Variations on a Ra Melody and Massive X's exit matches, but here we are.)

So maybe the First Thing to know about VGMC, other than the rules, is that every track here is loved by some subset of voters, that it's among somebody's favourites, at least. So good luck to them, give everything a chance, and happy voting.

Nefertiti (Ver.MMXI)
National Park
The Heritors of Arcadia

I'm going to be referencing my pre-listens, to share (now) but maybe share later I dunno. It's available if you WANT to read 'em, anyways
.
Match 1 is not a strong one for me as I don't really like either that much because I am a joyless bastard.
"Spoken word as lyrics is interesting, I'll give it that, but beyond that it's random wailing on a guitar, or as a Youtube comment said, "spooky Pink Floyd." Not sure I agree with the spooky part."
"I'm not very familiar with Atelier and it is still very Atelier, except mixed with a Warriors game. Sorta. Okay, but not great?"

Match 2 is Pokemon vs. Touhou, which goes either way for me, but...
"Whenever I see this song without listening to it, I always think it's one of the early town themes in my own memory. For a Game Boy game, it's a really good track, but it's riding the coattails of nostalgia hard, and then you get further in and there's some actual percussion that I didn't actually know existed before the loop occurs."
"Not too big on Touhou here, intentionally listening to RFTM8 on a different night than this writing. This one sounds like it fell out of One Piece Warriors, which I know is a bit odd, for a comparison, but it personally kinda turns me right the hell off."

Match 3 was another unexciting one for me.
"Not what I was expecting out of the FF7 Remake, and pretty cool, but just not very memorable unless you're looking at the video that doesn't go along with it, and no points for video in a music competition. Tough to say and not compare to other Final Fantasy fare, in which case I guess I gotta throw [average score] at it."
"This is the least Fire Emblem song I've ever heard from a Fire Emblem game. I don't like the singer too much, and the accompanying marching drumbeat clashes with her singing style unless some other instruments are covering for her, Lyrics don't hit me very much, either. Personal tastes aside, it's above average, but not by much."


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Nefertiti
Reach for the Moon, Immortal Jazz
Collapsed Expressway

the first thing is weird. i love the monologue, and the music fits the monologue perfectly, but musically Nefertiti is so much more interesting to me. easily second favorite song today for me though.
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Nefertiti (Ver.MMXI)
National Park
Collapsed Expressway

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Nefertiti (Ver.MMXI)
National Park
Collapsed Expressway

Its a shame National Park had to go against Th14.5 Reach for the Moon, both of them are some of my favorite songs in the contest

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The First Thing
National Park
The Heritors of Arcadia

rwlh, glad to know you still like the song! Kupo.
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Nefertiti (Ver.MMXI)
National Park
Collapsed Expressway

Not much to say about the first match except that what the Mr. Bones song is going for is just not something that agrees with my tastes in the slightest. I feel bit bad that I'm so down on it because I have somewhat more respect for it at an artistic level than this would indicate, but this is just not my thing.

The Pokemon G/S/C soundtrack has actually grown on me somewhat recently, but this specific song is not one of my favorites. Ironically it's probably one of the songs most my style but I just don't think it's a style this soundtrack is particularly great at. Not big on the other song in this match either though. It's not really melody-driven enough for my liking, and the overall feel isn't one that grabs me either

Collapsed Expressway is quite cool. The Fire Emblem song I don't think has particularly great vocals. The singer sings every note straight without much flourish or phrasing or things like that, and she doesn't quite have the tone quality to back up that approach. It is still a fine song but I just feel it's missing something.
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The First Thing
National Park
Collapsed Expressway

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The First Thing
National Park
Collapsed Expressway

The First Thing (6.4 - 51st place ^*) / Nefertiti (Ver.MMXI) (4.5 - 61st place )
National Park (7.4 - 37th place) / Reach for the Moon, Immortal Smoke (6.8 - 44th place v*)
Collapsed Expressway (8.7 - 17th place) / The Heritors of Arcadia (8.4 - 23rd place)

My rankings are for Bracket A only. *^ means I would improve the rating a bit. *v means i would drop the rating a bit.

I love Collapsed Expressway! Hamauzu has a very signature sound of unique beautiful-sounding harmonies and nice mixing of acoustic and electronic sounds, and this track is a good example of that.

Might as well contribute my nom's missing loop lengths right now:

linkage-alter - 2:03
Danger - 4:00
Stella Part 2 - 2:01

Oh yeah and linkage-alter's loop length... technically it's whole six minutes but the changes on the repeats are so minor (the only changes I'm aware of are some added sounds when it replays the intro at about the 4 minute mark) that I think it's fair for listenings to say the loop ends at 2:03.

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Nefertiti (Ver.MMXI)
Reach for the Moon, Immortal Smoke
Collapsed Expressway

Really hate The First Thing. Nefertiti is pretty good.

National Park is one of the worse Pokemon songs in this contest. RfTM this version isn't as good as the regular version but it's still solid.

Did Hamauzu really not work on Collapsed Expressway? It feels extremely him. I was also struck by it when I first heard it in game. I don't quite love it, but it's a very cool track. Heritors doesn't really do anything for me.
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The First Thing
Reach for the Moon, Immortal Smoke
Collapsed Expressway

Last one was really tough to pick, but I think Collapsed Expressway beats out Heritors by a smidge. I'll be happy with either or continuing on.

Nefertiti (Ver.MMXI)
National Park
The Heritors of Arcadia


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We already have a 254-place difference between rankings of a track....

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Nefertiti (Ver.MMXI)
Reach for the Moon, Immortal Smoke
The Heritors of Arcadia

The First Thing
National Park
Collapsed Expressway

While Nefertiti is an easier listening experience, I find the First Thing more engaging and memorable in the long run. And I think in the end, that's what I appreciate more. Because I know it is a song that will grow on me as time goes by.

I prefer the HGSS version of National Park, though I will say that as far as GB titles go, it's pretty neat how they still managed to make this song seem chill even on such limited hardware. I almost prefer RFtM to it, almost.

I feel like I'm the first person here to express enjoyment over most of the remake's soundtrack, but I am not the first one to say that I really really enjoy this song in particular. It's fun and energetic, and while I do like Heritors of Arcadia too, this one is just plain cool.

All around, six songs I would listen to again, but some struck me as more interesting compared to others. I am stuck on Mr. Bones wild ride, and you know what, I'm okay with that.

Nefertiti (Ver.MMXI)
Reach for the Moon, Immortal Smoke
Collapsed Expressway

Nefertiti
National
Expressway
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The First Thing
National Park
Collapsed Expressway

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proxy votes from someone without an account yet:

The_Botector votes:

The First Thing
Reach for the moon
Collapsed Expressway

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HasteDeux posted...

Oh yeah and linkage-alter's loop length... technically it's whole six minutes but the changes on the repeats are so minor (the only changes I'm aware of are some added sounds when it replays the intro at about the 4 minute mark) that I think it's fair for listenings to say the loop ends at 2:03.

oh good to know, i left a note on the spreadsheet that i was unsure, so was actually going to pm you to ask what you'd prefer it list. thanks for getting these for me!
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The First Thing
National Park
Collapsed Expressway

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The First Thing
Reach for the Moon, Immortal Smoke
Collapsed Expressway

Nefertiti (Ver.MMXI)
National Park
The Heritors of Arcadia

Heritors blew me away by being a good FE vocal song wow. Collapsed Expressway is still awesome though

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Nefertiti (Ver.MMXI)
National Park
The Heritors of Arcadia

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The First Thing
National Park
Collapsed Expressway

Mr. Bones - The First Thing [10]
Pokmon Gold and Silver - National Park [6.8]
Final Fantasy VII Remake - Collapsed Expressway [8.5]

Exhausted from the day. Hoping I'll get a second tomorrow to go for the write-ups.

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The First Thing:
Original Rating: 7.2/10 [Feeling more like a 7.4ish rn]
Original Bracket A Ranking: 37/64

Keep in mind these ratings/rankings are very subject to change as i hear the songs more, most of em are just around how i felt at the time [and i may update the ratings, as you see here] Not gonna specify original for all of em tho (Also once I actually listen to all of the bracket I may add an overall ranking to these for R2)

Nefertiti (Ver.MMXI):
Rating: 7.7/10 [Probb a bit lower than that rn, hard to say but like 7.6, 7.5 maybe]
Bracket A Ranking: 30/64

I really feel bad for The First Thing here. It honestly does some really cool stuff, I was pretty impressed with how memorable it ended up being despite my expectations - I just still sorta wish it went somewhere at some point. Nefertiti is basically the opposite, something that should be 100% my thing but just doesn't quite grab me the same. But... I just still feel I enjoy Nefertiti a bit more, I still really like the guitar stuff in it, and it changes it up a bit more. Tough stuff for the first match.

Pokmon Gold and Silver - National Park:
Rating: 6.4/10
Bracket A Ranking: 52/64

Reach for the Moon, Immortal Smoke (TH14.5):
Rating: 8.3/10
Bracket A Ranking: 18/64

National Park has probably one of the best melodies out of the old pokemon games, but it's just not a sound I can really get behind all that much, and it's never really going to pull anything crazy so eh. 14.5 RftM is EXACTLY how you make an otherwise very just-ok song great. I love some of the instrumentation and it just stays entertaining throughout. So yeah this one was no doubt.

Collapsed Expressway:
Rating: 6.0/10 [Maybe up to 6.2 or 6.3]
Bracket A Ranking: 56/64

The Heritors of Arcadia:
Rating: 6.3/10 [Prob more like 6.4 now]
Bracket A Ranking: 55/64

Welp, guess I have to get negative for a bit cuz this part of the bracket's pretty weak (relatively) to me. I found more merit in both listening to them now, but while I like some elements of Collapsed Expressway it really doesn't feel like a stand-out song to me, even from an OST, and The Heritors of Arcadia just feels like such a stock of...what it's setting out to do that I don't feel a lot. But I think I do still prefer what Heritors accomplishes a bit more.

Votes:
Nefertiti (Ver.MMXI)
Reach for the Moon, Immortal Smoke
The Heritors of Arcadia

Atelier Meruru: The Apprentice of Arland - Nefertiti (Ver.MMXI)
Touhou 14.5: Urban Legend in Limbo - Reach for the Moon, Immortal Smoke
Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia - The Heritors of Arcadia

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Nefertiti (Ver.MMXI)
Reach for the Moon, Immortal Smoke
The Heritors of Arcadia

Nefertiti is a bit tiring, but I never want to hear The First Thing ever again

Match 2 is meh. This rendition/mood doesn't really fit the composition that well, but it has the benefit of not being Touhou 8: Imperishable Night - Reach for the Moon, Immortal Smoke

Third match is really good. I've beaten Shadows of Valentia twice and the credits song left no impression on me either time, but listening to to it in the nominations made me think damn what a nice song. It's definitely the best English-language Nintendo song I can think of.

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Nefertiti (Ver.MMXI)
National Park
The Heritors of Arcadia

The First Thing
National Park
Collapsed Expressway

The First Thing is very unique and memorable to me, it feels special whereas I'll forget Nefertiti by tomorrow aside from the one part that made me think of the Nostalgia Critic theme.

National Park is one of my favorite Pokemon songs and I'm not big on Touhou music generally so this choice was pretty easy. Reach for the Moon was better than I expected it to be though, it was a fun listen but National Park is still a gorgeous track.

I'm not huge on either Collapsed Expressway or Heritors but man the vocals on Heritors are just not for me. At least the former is a pretty cool atmospheric track, albeit a bit forgettable.

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Nefertiti (Ver.MMXI)
National Park
The Heritors of Arcadia

I want to get off MR BONES WILD RIDE

The First Thing is pretty unique as far as VGMC entrants go, so that's a pretty decent plus. It's rather minimalistic, comprising only a synth pad, a guy talking about blues, and someone playing electric guitar blues riffs. To be perfectly honest here, I've never really enjoyed blues, and I can attribute that to the genre's near universal poor production values. In that sense, the cool synth pad here is the best part of the song, and really pulls it all together into a "complete" song. It's not really my thing, but I totally respect what it's going for here.

Apparently Nefertiti is what everyone equates "FL81 taste" to. They're not wrong! Of course, I only discovered this from VGMC but I've loved it ever since (no, I didn't introduce Eleganza to B8 either). Technically this song is a newcomer, since this is the extended version from Atelier Meruru! I really love the guitar work from Toshinori Hiramatsu and the solo here is straight FIRE!! I've been a big fan of his since before I've even heard of the Atelier series. So yeah, easy match here.

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This next match is kind of cursed. Here we have Touhou fighting game music up against Gen 2 Pokmon music, two categories I have ALWAYS loved and have generally performed very poorly in VGMC. I almost feel like this match was deliberately set up to mess with me >_> (guys I am JOKING do not take this comment seriously). But I will say earnestly that I am saddened by the lack of strong performance on the part of Pokmon. What this soundtrack has always excelled in is the ability to create a very simple melody (only a few GB channels, usually not anything too crazy melodically) and to invoke a strong sense of nostalgic childhood glee, even upon the first time playing the game. National Park in particular manages to nail the feel of a peaceful calm, even on a rather "harsh" GBC soundchip.

I find it rather funny we managed to get in TWO versions of RftM into a contest, made even better that they're the ONLY official Touhou songs in the contest. Only problem is, I don't even actually like this version of the song lol. It works in context, but really it just sounds like a "Mario Kart arrange". Well, I've come to like it considerably more after having heard it a lot (okay maybe I actually do like it after all!), but I'd take the original version over either song in this match.

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I don't have particularly strong opinions on Match 3. Collapsed Expressway expresses a lot of the musical tropes present in the "proggy EDM" tracks that have been popular in VGMC the last few years and has some pretty cool instrumentation, but doesn't really "grip" me (I don't feel that it ever "gets to the point"). The Heritors of Arcadia is an above-average Fire Emblem vocal track and actually reminds me a bit of a different song I nominated this year but failed to get in >_>. Depending on my mood I could go either way on this, but leaning a bit towards HoA right now.

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The First Thing
National Park
Collapsed Expressway

---The First Thing vs Nefertiti (Ver.MMXI)---

-(the first match makes me really wish i did not have so much toxic orange juice in my left ear because i can not hear the stereo separation in cool NEW AGE 199x synth pads that i love so much that i would normally be able to hear. usually when i listen to this type of music from this period i get caught up in my obsessions with recognizing synth presets from old synths and excitedly naming synth companies and random strings of numbers every time i recognize a sound. something about this pauses that in me as if i've never heard these sounds before, even though i've heard so much 90s music that has synths in it that i have definitely heard these sounds before. It feels so "first", so new, every time i listen to this song it is the first time i have heard this song, or any song. I have never heard music before except for this song
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I see a lot of commentary that the entire appeal of The First THing is so much about the the way the lyrics enhance the other layers rather than actual composition having any intrigue, even from fans of the song! but i actually find this the most intriguing track to me compositionally of any song in the contest today. 1:56 - 2:03 is PERFECT WHOLE STEP MODULATION DOWNWARD EVERY CHORD CHANGE MOMENT that makes me fall out of my CHAIR. 3:11 - 3:22 does the same chord movement. it's so EMOTIONAL innately to me, whether or not there was a voice man telling me cool philosophical things. i feel so much from that exact chord movement; and any other layers are just sprinkles on top of those delightful pads
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see my favorite thing in music is moments like that. what I live for is unexpected or powerful tonal center changes, and this track is full of it. basically every chord change is one! it's almost all parallel stuff! though it is limiting itself to chord movements that still keep the same diatonic scale until those big moments like 1:56, where everything changes at once, fairly rapidly! If you play this track sped up like 8x, it sounds like someone is playing random notes on a chord sample, rather than a "chord progression" like you might normally be able to hear when playing a song sped up. I think that itself represents why the COMPOSITION of this song emotionally resonates with me so much. the whole song is just modulations entirely, and that's what i want. often i might seek other layers intersecting in creative ways or something, but for me, all this song needs to do is what it does, expressive noodly soloing over cool chords? yeah. i like that : )
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i do still think the lyrics are cool cool; i love the theme of this song really; "being sad is good and you shouldn't be afraid to confront emotions just because they are scary ones because otherwise the problems all just get worse" is an underrated philosophy and not enough people have played klonoa 2 i like being sad that's why i like the color black so much and always keep my gamefaqs set to red on black. but what i'm really here for is "90s synth pad chords transposing around" this reminds me so much of "Robert Miles - Children" intro)-

-[Nefertiti is like when i'm in the jungle gym so loud you redundant fuckers "daisukje achiwa arr daisuke achiway " WHO DO THAT MAN THiNK He is? arranging his own guitar panel. what the hell. I have strong memories of hearing this song on day 1 of vgmc5 and it has been cemented into my brain as "should be on day 1 of vgmc" ever since then so that is why i made it in day 1. not long after vgmc5 i got into atelier music pretty in depth by looking up what other games besides ar tonelico stuff Ken Nakagawa worked on, kinda forgetting it was ever even a thing in vgmc and thinking i was a genius that discovered a new series of vgm on my own that board 8 had never heard of. but i didn't know that mana khemia was part of the atelier series because it has a TRICKY NAME./ well at least ican say that my favorite part of the song is the "fantasia"-like synth bells that sound like eric. no one has a clue how much influence eric had over the sound of the music they hear, especially gamers who remember the classics. power metal is so much better when eric persing has at least one sound in it, his sounds are the only sounds that cut through the anger like a bronze fan]-

-{easy match but i don't hate nefertiti anymore like i did in 2020. i feel more similar to how i felt in 2011 about it which was when my significant other liked saying the words "Yngwie malsteen" a lot}-

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---National Park vs Reach for the Moon, Immortal Smoke---

-(National Park is pretty : ) everyone remembers this as the nostalgia song that makes them happy. even if they didn't play this game. i started with gen 3 because i forced myself to HATE pokemon until gen 3 for arbitrary external reasons. but i remember seeing all this gen 2 stuff during gen 3 and thinking it had this distinct mystical aura to it. all these things gen 3 /didnt/ do, nor did gen 1. so i knew i had to go back in time to try out pokemon GOLD (because i really really liked "dark yellow", as a color at the time, for some reason, and my brother's favorite pokemon was lugia, it just worked out). One of the most distinct things gen 2 did that wasn't in "hoenn" was the day/night cycle. and I got to National Park first at night, and thIS SONG PLAYED and it felt like i was in a park in the evening. that was so cool. I can be very very hard on PSG chiptunes in recent times, but as of about this year i've cooled off on my frustration with even the plainest of them as long as the composition is cool. i can be really hard on gen1-2's music partly for that reason, but I've come around to gen 2 music very specifically because of go ichinose's contributions, he's just always very CAREFUL with his chord progressions and weaving lines and knows how to make them feel like you heard them 10 years ago even though you didn't. so many little chromatic things that feel like a "real song" or lullaby)-

-[Reach for the Moon, Immortal Smoke (14.5) is the reason all those political men want to make it so we can't say words like "tonal center" or "character" anymore censorship harpsichord. I Think this is TOO fun and goofy for me to appreciate it. and it spends too long on the same chords for it to have the impact the original does. I think when i was younger i'd have preferred this over the original simply for its jazziness, but in 2021, i definitely prefer the original. The flute is so ENTHUSIASTIC and the blues (ha ha) scale soloistic stuff involves lotsa stuff i might find unbearably cheesy typically but i actually like it in this context because it is so playful in its presentation.]-

-{this match is not that hard but i thought it would be harder}-

[continued...]
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[...continued]

---Collapsed Expressway vs The Heritors of Arcadia---

-(i LOVE MITSUTO SUZUKI; he always brings these lush full-produced arrangements to the ar tonelico (EXCUSE ME I MEAN AR NOSURGE (final fantasy 7) WHAT? ?? ? final fantasy 7 music doesn't sound like pre school toy keyboard anymore? No! It sounds like the landscape now. Now I can go on a journey with my cyberpunk friends like that guy from the lion king with the roman numeral. Suzuki always chooses these glassy FM bells and things I'M SO SORRY THAT I DIDNT GET THE LABYRINTH OF TIME FROM FINAL FANTASY 13-ii by mitsuto suzuki into the contest ;-; that is one of my top 10 favorite songs ever. Kind of crazy taht both me and kaonashi have a song that we like a lot by mitsuto suzuki that uses the same instruments in it even though they are from different games.
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The unhinged fakeness in this song is great. how it just has this pseudo-sitar timbre, it's playing these melodies that feel like they could be played by plucked strings, but it's clearly deliberately something otherworldly instead of being a real sitar. It thrusts these imaginary instruments at you that have a tinge of their real counterparts, but presented in this futuristic artificial way that makes me think of "DV-i" who uses FM8 a lot just like Mitsuto Suzuki. these playful liveplayed sounding moments but they are on synths instead of "violins or something" is very "alive" and I treasure that. The unexpected chords at :55-:58 are so cool and the sudden airy moment it sucks you into immediately after is a real gem. This piece of music is just full of all these elements I look for and it really shouldn't surprise me that i enjoy this so much, given the nominator and composer. no wonder people who don't pay attention to mitsuto suzuki think this sounds like hamauzu (by the way if you like this song check out other mitsuto suzuki ff songs they are really cool ESPECIALLY THE LABYRINTH OF TIME and Limit Break! from final fantasy 13-2 )
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I think it is kind of easy to dismiss this as boring background music not designed to be focused on, it doesn't try to be climactic or cinematic, it's the environment. i like music that feels like environments, i didn't know the context of this song the first time i heard it but it depicted to my mind almost exactly what it's real setting is somehow. Really cool. this reminds me of non-vocal ar tonelico ii tracks like "A Boy Caught in The Thick of Things" or "A Ruthless Blade", which are both long-time favorites from that soundtrack. This piece of music transcends all boundaries of my constantly changing music taste between 2009-2021. it hits everything i've liked across that range of time i've been participating in vgmc in some small way, all in different ways. that's really COOL)-

-[now for the total opposite, unlike collapsed expressway, this is the type of song i've only come to understand my enjoyment of in recent years. I still don't get nearly as into it as the more 'complex' Hiroki Morishita fire emblem offerings, but I have a thing for "melodramatic" vocal themes. HEAVENS DIVIDE and stuff. i think in a world where all the people who vote similarly to me vote in the ways they do; i would be the most likely in that 'group' to abandon an expected vote for something proggy or whatever, for something like this insteadSAVIOUR OF MELODRAMATIC VOCALS. (this was PROVED by haste's analysis last year). Now what we really need is overdradmatic vocal themes that are really proggy at the same time (oh wait that's every other pso2 vocal song no wonder that is my favorite soundtrack). I honestly dont have much to say about this one other than that i like the emotion it exudes. I feel bad being reductive in categorizing this with stuff others probably find much more cheesy, but i enjoy it for the same reasons.]-

-{the end of the conclusion, i really, like collapsed expressway. it's a shame i'm not able to express my appreciation for heritors in this scenario. both make me pretty happy}-

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in case you did not notice I did NOT do a ranking beforehand this year, for the first time since vgmc10, all of 11-14 i had a ranking done before the contest started! So!!! what i am going to do is rank as the contest goes.

here is the start of my ranking. i will add songs between these positions as the contest goes, hopefully

1. Mr. Bones - The First Thing
2. Final Fantasy VII Remake - Collapsed Expressway
3. Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia - The Heritors of Arcadia
4. Pokmon Gold and Silver - National Park
5. Touhou 14.5: Urban Legend in Limbo - Reach for the Moon, Immortal Smoke
6. Atelier Meruru: The Apprentice of Arland - Nefertiti (Ver.MMXI)

i can imagine moving some of these positions around later, they're kind of in clusters of 2 right now (i think i thought i was going to rank collapsed expressway above the first thing, initially). maybe the good thing about doing this as it goes is that i'm a bit more free to change things
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