Board 8 > [VGMC] Day 13! Gold / Wheels / Boisterous / Now What? / Neuchatel / OPTICAL MODE

(+) 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
Compatibility sheet (courtesy of Haste!!): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1iGYWo_ifr_p2uYpD_I6TwBQS2tm7zJtPCxYZfRJcG8I
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

Stay Gold, Ponyboy
Drum & Bass Holy Land
Optimal Mode

it is CELTIC MUSIC. i am surprised i didnt think there was any vgm that sounded like this

I'm pretty into this until the vocals start... which is weird because the vocals are *exactly* what you'd expect them to sound like. Sometimes things are just worse than you expect or remember; you know exactly what coconut tastes like, and are still sad every time you try to give it another chance and find that it's just what you remembered

KIMI NO

Surprisingly cool somber piano music. There was a comment on The Whole New World I always think about, where the guy said the song made him feel like he was in an empty world with nothing but an orchestra. I don't really get that... but I do feel it with some piano songs, like Mother of the Earth and this. I'm not sure if I can articulate the feeling I get from this beyond that; maybe I feel that way because the song does what I described and is enthralling enough that you can't focus on anything else, or makes you feel like nothing else matters but it, or makes you feel like the piano is playing for *you*, and it's the song that's not concerned with the rest of the world. Very powerful piece

Shame it's gonna get smoked by Dreamy & Boisterous

yeah ok

sometimes i think the "YOU MUST LISTEN TO BOTH" rule is silly

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Wheels of Aurelia
Now What?
OPTICAL MODE

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Wheels of Aurelia
Dreamy and Boisterous Holy Land
OPTICAL MODE

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Stay Gold
Now What?
Neuchatel
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Stay Gold
Dreamy and Boisterous Holy Land
Neuchatel

Stay Gold
Now What?
Neuchatel

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Wheels of Aurelia
Now What?
Neuchatel

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Stay Gold
Dreamy and Boisterous Holy Land
OPTICAL MODE

Stay Gold
Dreamy and Boisterous Holy Land
OPTICAL MODE

I feel like I should like Neuchatel more, but it's a miss.

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Arknights - Stay Gold
The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky the 3rd - Dreamy and Boisterous Holy Land
Mad Rat Dead - Neuchatel
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Stay Gold
Dreamy and Boisterous Holy Land
Neuchatel

Not much to say about today. Three easy matches.

Boisterous [10]
Stay Gold [9]
Neuchatel [8.5]
Wheels of Aurelia [7]
Now What? [7]
Optical Mode [6.5]

Wheels of Aurelia
Now What?
Neuchatel


wtf hb why arent you voting for the falcom song this is not proggers
ratdemption arc for not voting hb the last time mad rat came up

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Wheels of Aurelia
Now What?
OPTICAL MODE

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Arknights - Stay Gold
The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky the 3rd - Dreamy and Boisterous Holy Land
Mad Rat Dead - Neuchatel

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Stay Gold
Now What
New Chattel
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Wheels of Aurelia
Now What?
OPTICAL MODE

as expected, stay gold is terrible
wheels of aurelia is music. i mean this in a good way

d&bhl might as well just belong in gitadora, what a fantastic final boss theme
but the sims found my biggest weakness. definitely not crying listening to this
who thought this match would be a good idea

whatever rave
highly engaging aesthetic
when i put it like this i can at least understand why this match is a thing

Stay Gold
Now What?
abstain for now

Stay Gold (6.2^ - 58th place (oops)) / Wheels of Aurelia (7.5 - 36th place)
Dreamy and Boisterous Holy Land (8.7v - 18th place) / Now What? (8.9^ - 16th place)
Neuchatel (7.7^ - 31st place) / OPTICAL MODE (9.2 - 9th place)

Stay Gold would be at least a point higher if I redid it...at least 1.5 points higher >_>. Regardless, 6.2 being 58th place shows just how much I like Bracket B! Simple composition, but this kind of folky instrumentation (those bass drums!) really hits home. For Wheels, I like how active the guitars are (also fun part where everyone's unison actively moving around) and how a lot of the harmonies are drawn from outlined moving lines. Good trumpet duet writing, too.

Holy Land's got that classic tune I like, and it's gotta super fun 16th-note synth runs that really boosts the score. Now What? - stunningly flourishing beautiful piano writing. Cool balancing of dissonances and open intervals and the way the bass often is part of the melodic stuff. I've heard some stuff like this on OCRemix, if only I could remember who wrote like this. Oh, yeah, that's right. Smiling Hilltop for Four Hands, one of my favorite FF4 remixes, by Long Dao! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KX4N0j2L_88 Maybe not exactly the same style, but close enough.

I enjoy the schmaltzy feeling of Neuchatel - combining the feel with edm is certainly interesting... in fact, I love it! All of it just "works". But, oh, crap, I cannot vote for it because of Optical Mode. Oh, wait, this match is close! Wow, I might have to abstain for now. The problem with Optical Mode is that how much I like it is hugely dependent on my mood...like, very few tracks in existence are as variable as AM's music in terms of how my mood affects my opinion of it. But yeah, Optical Mode does an amazing job at taking you into a robotic hi-tech world, unlike anything I've heard outside of AM. Not just hi-tech, but a world that's 100% metallic/robotic environment with no living organisms, and because I love NATURE, sometimes I just don't like this style very much, but other times I love it! I should probably vote assuming I'm in the OPTICAL MOODE, erm, I mean OPTIMAL MOOD!

(gee whiz, my ratings are a mess)

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Wheels of Aurelia
Dreamy and Boisterous Holy Land
Neuchatel

Wheels of Aurelia
Now What?
OPTICAL MODE

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Stay Gold
Dreamy and Boisterous Holy Land
Neuchatel

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Wheels of Aurelia
Holy Land
Neuchatel

"Hmm this Sims thing sounds pretty cool actually, maybe ill vote for it"
"actually lemme relisten to Holy Land, its been a while"
*dancing*
"ok sorry Sims, but no chance"

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Wheels of Aurelia
Now What?
OPTICAL MODE

Stay Gold
Dreamy and Boisterous Holy Land
Neuchatel

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OPTICAL MODE

There's no doubt. I just had one of those "second time listening highs" because my opinions on music often go like this: 1st listen: "it's nice"; 2nd listen, "WHOA it's good", 3rd listen, "actually it's not THAT good" That is what happened with Neuchatel. And my mood is more in line with AM music now.

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Stay Gold
Dreamy and Boisterous Holy Land
Neuchatel

Stay Gold has grown on me A LOT. It used to be a big meh earlier in the 2020 vgm awards in supra server, but since i now appreciate more the sheer quality of the instruments used, and the melodies too. It isn't a music genre i generally like but it's just a greatly made song compared to a lot of other stuff I've heard in the last months.
Sims was actually close, but it didn't click enough with me, i think because the melody keeps changing and the lack of a recurring chord progression is what puts it slightly below the absolute banger that Dreamy is.
Neuchatel is just charmin, while Optical Mode I'm putting it in the BGM zone. I was never fond of this one, way more excited about DigiFamily.

Stay Gold
Dreamy and Boisterous Holy Land
Neuchatel

Stay Gold is good stuff. Enjoy it the whole way through. WoA seems like something I wouldn't like at first, but I actually get more into it as it goes? Weird.

D&B Land is pretty great. Has a real "title screen" feel to it to me. Would fit in Mega Man or something. Now What is nice-ish I guess? Like, vaguely pleasant. I wouldn't vote it over things I like, but I'd vote for it against things I don't like.

Neuchatel not quite what I'd expect from exciting rhythm game. It's good though. Highly enjoy. Optical Mode in that same okay category as Now What at a slightly higher level.

Dreamy and Boisterous Holy Land > Neuchatel > Stay Gold > Wheels of Aurelia > OPTICAL MODE > Now What?
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Wheels of Aurelia
Dreamy and Boisterous Holy Land
OPTICAL MODE

the sims now what song works surprisingly well for me for a 6 minute solo piano piece. Too bad it's in the wrong match to earn my vote here, Dreamy & Boisterous Holy Land is so good it's not even close.

OPTICAL MODE > Dreamy and Boisterous Holy Land > Now What? > Neuchatel > Wheels of Aurelia > Stay Gold

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Stay
Dreamy
Mode
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Stay Gold
Dreamy and Boisterous Holy Land
Neuchatel

Arknights - Triumphant Celtic-sounding march that somehow reminds me a lot of my days of Ragnarok Online back in ye olden times of phasing out dial-up Internet. Very good use of instrumentation. Arknights is an odd duck in that I have no desire to ever play it but I think I always comment that "huh, weird, it sounds familiar and I like it, but oops, wait, I never played it." Funny, that.
Wheels of Aurelia - I don't know what I was expecting, but this wasn't it. I tried both on speakers with a hearing aid and with my headset on to see if it was a problem with me, but while I'll applaud the lyrics attempt, I think it fought the instruments rather than complemented them, and the instruments won. Also, Italian sounds so similar to Spanish sometimes that I was more focused on THAT than the song, both times through.

Trails in the Sky 3 - That is a SLOW boil for the opening (props for that), and the payoff was great, but then it's a lot of organ-mashing and just constantly in your face. When it slows down the instruments in the forefront it does well, but I'm not a fan of the organ sections or the part right after it? I don't know my instruments well enough. Anyways, tl;DR: A lot of boisterous, not a whole lot of dreaminess. I like about 75% of it quite a bit.
The Sims - And now we have dreamy, but not boisterous. Hm. It's a piano piece, which gives it points, but it's not one that I can really get into, even though I can give it props for being technically sound. It just doesn't scream "vgm" to me at all, or really scream at all. Sorry to Sims fans, but I gotta go for boisterous here.

Mad Rat Dead - Starts with some neat piano, and then tries to Necrodancer, and then back to piano, and I have whiplash now, but then it tries to put instruments over the piano and turns into Castlevania, and oh no I've gone cross-eyed. I don't like the parts between the piano much, but the parts where it's layered in or taking center stage are just gravy. Moment of honesty here: Heartless Being was the first MRD song I'd heard, and it's another one where the first impression kinda skewed me on the rest of the soundtrack. Neuchatel is pretty good, more than my initial rating during pre-listens indicates.
Aurora Memoria - Perhaps I'm getting fatigued. I listened to this several times tonight and it just hasn't clicked for me at all. Also getting a weird sense of deja vu when I say that the heavy electronics throughout try to carry the song, but didn't quite capture it for me (a bit more of whatever plucked string near the end probably would've done it better.)

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Wheels of Aurelia
Now What?
OPTICAL MODE

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Wheels of Aurelia
Dreamy and Boisterous Holy Land
OPTICAL MODE

Wheels of Aurelia sounds older than anything else in the contest. I dig it.

TitS best Falcom music

OPTICAL MODE best Bracket B quadrant 1 music

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Wheels of Aurelia
Dreamy and Boisterous Holy Land
Neuchatel

gold vs. gold

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Stay Gold
Dreamy and Boisterous Holy Land
Neuchatel

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Stay Gold
Now What?
Neuchatel

Celtic music, in VGMC??

It does sort of have this "stock music" feel to it, similar to PeriTune, but not as good. Still pretty good though. Maybe a bit too heavy on the orchestral hits. Wheels of Aurelia starts out with this '90s MTV sounding guitar/trumpet jam, then throws in these vocals in ITALIAN that I was not expecting at all. For most of this, I'm not sure if I like or hate this (it makes me feel something, so leaning towards the former lol), then 2:26 to the end it becomes a pretty fun jam. Actually kind of a tough match, both of these might take a few more listens for me to really get.

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AAAAA THIS MATCH, hardest R1 match (besides one that hasn't happened yet). I've actually played both of the games in this match, and love them, they're some of my favorites (despite the fact I've only literally just finished Sky 3rd a few months ago). Y'know it's funny, given the context of these two songs, it feels like their moods should be swapped. D&BHL is the final boss theme and sounds all upbeat and happy, and Build Mode 5 (this song has an actual name??) reflects the sad and somber reality of building your own house. Actually I think I prefer Overdosing Heavenly Bliss and Build Mode 3 from their respective soundtracks, but this match is still amazing.

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Neuchatel has a very pretty melody (brief parts of it remind me of Giorno's Theme wtf) but I'm not sure if the EDM elements of this really work out all that well. I'm kinda with DoctorJugaJuga on Optical Mode and I will say that DigiFamily is by far my favorite DV-i piece I've heard. It's pretty cool, but I can't say it offers much new compared to what else I've heard by this artist. I'm kind of stuck in this weird spot where I like Neuchatel's melody more, but OM's instrumentation more.

Very HARD matches, going against my faves for TWO of them!!

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Wheels of Aurelia
Now What?
OPTICAL MODE

-(the first 4 seconds of the video is so good...holy shine. How about it the person with the sword. I always see "weird ads" for ark nights and always thought "this seems like the kind of game that would randomly have a really good ost" and well....i remember being disappointed with some songs but this one isn't disappointing at all!! it''s "generically" EUROPEAN FOLK "prairie4" genre but i have no qualms with that at all, could listen to stuff like this all day! DORIAN MODE)-

-[ok so like; we use "prog" way too much to describe the niche cluster of voters like me that goes for more complex or weird stuff or whatever, and although that's sorta 0what prog IS there really hasn't been anything in the contest that is like actually "prog rock (genre)" but here we are, very overt, actual 70s-esque prog rock today right here. to be honest though the reason i listen to vgm so much more than non-vgm is so i can get music with this composition (since a huge chunk of vgm composers are prog inspired) but without actually sounding like this instrumentally. So like uhh, animorphs, or pso2, or linkage-alter; stuff like that, prog composition but more electronic or otherwise eclectic instrumentation is way more my thing than stuff in the actual genre "progressive rock" usually. ANYWAYS i'm in love with this sorta composition of course and despite what i just said i particularly like organs as a "progressive rock trope" instrument. very glad blues scale-y stuff has grown on me again i used to get too mad at it. the bits that click with me here the most are the most atonal and rhythically bizarre sections like 3:00-3:03, or the funky atonal intro section before the vocals come in. but this is full of a wonderful variety of stuff and i wish this existed in 2011 when this was exactly what my ears wanted to hear because i was a jolteon]-

-{jolt! jolt!}-

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-(ok FIHNALLY a falcom battle theme that is like one of the ones i go "yam why din;t you shut up meat ball supper" I love this song and have always loved it because it is so Aggressive and energetic in a way that doesn't ever feel condescending or mindless. It's like the compuner system breaking down BE CAREFUL and it has the obvious actual "prog moments(literal progressive rock, the 2nd time this contest, weird how it took that long but now we have two songs in a day)" like 2:22 - 2:32 with the really jagged 6+7 "13/8" bits. my favorite bit has always been the tonally angular electric piano though from 1:24-1:35 (or honestly every other time it plays but especially it's initially introduction), it's so FAKE and EPIuc. this song is so fun!!! There's never a dull moment, not even the beginning part that is not listened to by the big wave. Ryo Takeshita ranks pretty highly in my ranking of falcom composers and music like this is certainly one of the reasons why. probably my favorite after wataru ishibashi and ryo yonemitsu?)-

-["hot take", the actual proggiest song today is The Sims - Now What? if this song were on rock organ and had drums it would beat wheels of aurelia for how much those math people like talking about funny numbers just like king crimson - discipline was to "steve" I LOVE BREATH OF THE WILD. s;; yjr vpm all the contstant 16ths in 5/8 stuff is so mesmerizing and mathematical feeling which honestly fits perfectly with "building mode 5" as the kids like to call it. it's doing all these variances of its repetitions in a way that is like a NATURE COMPUTER and that's so cool. It's just like stonehenge or the
~~~~~
this track reminds me a lot of this tune i linked in raetsel's topic, but the sims track is far less "actually minimalist"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgzQcDrX86M
~~~~~
i get very similar things out of that steve reich track as this sims track though, especially in the middle section of now what. these looping patterns but just one thing being changed each repetition so that it's not actually repeating the full deal but still retains the "feeling" of this cyclical contraption. similar tonality too, lots of interesting clusters of chords bounced around in interesting rhythms. apparently these steve reich comparisons aren't totally unwarranted because...well aPPARENTLY Jerry Martin studied under Terry Riley!! (similar minimalist composer to steve reich...they're quite affiliated with each other and influenced each other, and even though i only ever talk about reich i'm a fan of others like riley too!). so like THAT is actually crazy to me haha. composer of this sims track that i just compared to reich is only like one degree separation from reich...but it explains everything.
~~~~~
NOW WHAT has a neat chord progression too, alternates between something 100% pretty and beautiful and something significantly more tense, back and forth. that propulsive alternation keeps this moving forward without me ever feeling trapped, despite its repetitions. apparently these tracks were partially/heavily improvised which is cool in my books, and not surprising. process-wise opposite of that sort of reich-y minimalism, and leads to the sorts of organicness and flowiness you see in the end result, but that mixture is so good. it...really just feels like breath of the wild, which is one of my favorite soundtracks for a reason. i should probably listen to the sims soundtracks in full and get into other work by their composers more seriously sometime. it might be a lot more my thing than i would have ever expected.
~~~~~
this song is really pretty and makes me want to look at grass]-

-{it hurts to vote against dreamy boys, especially this particular year, but i'll get chances to show my falcom appreciation later, my preference and enthusiasm placement is clear here}-

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

-(sometimes modern edm doesn't click with me nearly as much as older edm, and i often point to sidechaining and some of the sounds this is drenched with as an example of why, but in this case? well, I really like that intro, and once the electronicness starts to show itself: the pulsing where it hides your ability to hear the first beat of every bar is super cool in its intensity in this particular instance. this song sounds very "old" (as in pre-1900 old) at times. very compositionally traditional in a way i actually find good these days. i might've written this off many years ago but i honestly think it's really great now. it is so serious and like a memory that is in sepia tone)-

-[ok now OPTICAL MODE is the type of electronic music i look for. as in DV-i is literally my favorite artist who'd typically be categorized as any sort of edm (though is basically tied with Yasuhisa Watanabe for me who is also often that).part of that is because it take an active effort to sound like various years that are earlier than the CASUAL REVOLUTION OF 2007 so all of the synths are cool 80s~90s ones that make my favorite sounds in the world such as the "Yamaha SY77" and "Korg M1" and various others.
~~~~~
whWHERE do i even begin??!? well this song is just an endless barrage of COOL SOUNDS and i love it so much. One other thing that's one of my most commonly looked for things in music: choir swells, this is full of them and i adore it, it's like breathing, between the spaces in the song and it's so cool...! These super high FM PWEEWsftihnith shiny glass metallic material lines all ov er the place are sp good...dfgttth My favorite section is the bit at 1:47. the perfectly placed bits where there's extra chord tones over that main hard marimba-like loop, it just sounds so cooll, blurs the line between "timbre" and "chord" and AHHHHHHH. I also like the background strings pitch bending here as if you are standing on a tight rope and just looked down and saw you are going to fall into the ground which is scary because you are in a floating The Jetsons future city in the sky with lots of tubes.
~~~~~
this is just so dense with information it's impossible to parse everything in the song and i LOVE IT SO MUCH. oh my god the outro sounds like "windows '93 you turn off the computer" sound jingle dvi is so good at being in the year 1993 and 2093 at the same time.
~~~~~
DV-i is the reason i am not dead.]-

-{computer}-

OPTICAL MODE (8th/76)
Now What? (14th/76)
Wheels of Aurelia (21st/76)
Dreamy and Boisterous Holy Land (23rd/76)
Stay Gold (49th/76)
Neuchatel (50th/76)

overwhelmingly good day today, was really tempted to rank even both stay gold and neuchatel much higher too
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Stay Gold
Now What?
Neuchatel

Wheels of Aurelia
Dreamy and Boisterous Holy Land
OPTICAL MODE

Stay Gold is a nice Celtic style tune, but Wheels of Aurelia really surprised me, It's start off as a prog rock jazz... thing, and then the vocals come in. I understand that they might be a turn off for most people, but they remind me of a lot of Italian rock music I grew up with, so hearing something like that in a context like this just makes me super stoked. Love the energy and the vibe, even though it's fairly niche.

Very nice piano track vs one of the most batshit insane proggy JRPG final boss themes from one of my favourite games. I'd almost feel sorry for Now What? if it didn't put up such a good fight.

The MRD song is cool I guess, definitely the kind of music I can enjoy. That said, Optical Mode was just way more interesting to me, so that's what's getting my vote.

Wheels of Aurelia
Dreamy and Boisterous Holy Land
OPTICAL MODE

building 5 is a pretty song

Arknights - Stay Gold
The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky the 3rd - Dreamy and Boisterous Holy Land
Aurora Memoria - Philosophical Data Session: 2093 - OPTICAL MODE
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Wheels of Aurelia
Dreamy and Boisterous Holy Land
Neuchatel
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Stay Gold
Now What?
Neuchatel

Stay Gold
Dreamy and Boisterous Holy Land
Neuchatel

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Wheels of Aurelia
Dreamy and Boisterous Holy Land
Neuchatel

Stay Gold
Now What?
Neuchatel

Wheels of Aurelia
OPTICAL MODE

Stay Gold
Dreamy and Boisterous Holy Land
Neuchatel

Wheels of Aurelia
Dreamy and Boisterous Holy Land
Neuchatel

I appreciate Celtic elements to Stay Gold - it's certainly better than I'd expected from a gacha game - but it's nothing super exciting. Generic semi-Celtic music that's not bad but not something I'd deliberately seek to hear again.

Its challenger, on the other hand is finally a vocal song with good singers! I don't need everybody to be Luciano Pavarotti to sing for VGM. The vocals fit the theme they're going for and are executed exactly how I expect them to be. I'm all for some good trumpets, too! I'd have fun hearing this on the radio on my way to work and turn the volume in my car up a bit. Man I hope this makes it through, this is sick.

Man, for being "Dreamy and Boisterous," the intro to this Falcom track sure us ominous and atmospheric. Ah, there we go -- there's the Falcom flare I was ready for. Damn good stuff too. Those frantic synth parts get me pumped; reminds me of some Touhou songs, which in my case is a great thing. Yeah, this is probably the best Falcom I've heard in a long while.

Its challenger is on the opposite end of the spectrum, and it's also quality. Really, this was a Sims track? That's a shock. This is gorgeous in its own right. Damn you, bracket-makers! How dare you pair good songs against each other and bad songs against each other in round 1 by my own personal definitions of "good" and "bad"? It's with a heavy heart I have to vote against this since the Trails song was just too compelling.

I'd never heard of Mad Rat Dead before, so until today's poll, I had no idea it was a "rhythm game." I checked out some gameplay, and now I know why: It's like Necrodancer in that it isn't a rhythm game for rhythm's sake. This is a good thing because, in my experience, the vast majority of the rhythm game music that gets nominated here is soulless, manufactured drivel that exists solely for bpm. Enough of me complaining about that, though; I'll have plenty more opportunity in the future. Everything works here. It's weird for a song with the trappings of EDM with a driving melody, and the more somber parts provide great contrast without distracting. I listened to it twice - four times, considering the loop - and wanted more. That's a damn good sign.

Optical Sign seems like the kind of thing people who like this music will love, but I am not one of those people. It's perfectly fine, if a little pointlessly cooky and incohesive, but that's just the genre in general. It does nothing for me.

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Wheels of Aurelia
Now What?
Neuchatel