Board 8 > [VGMC] Day 32! BridgeBat/ConcreteHrt, HtSWPitH/ChanisEyes, Aquatic/Frantic

(+) Yeah! (+)

CONgo
CHAd
FRAnce

7.5
8
8.5
8.5
8
8

Precipitous Combat
Chani's Eyes
Frantic Aspic

notes
-there are few tracks that sound more 'fft sakimoto' than Precipitous Combat, a sound and feel I enjoyed before I even knew who Sakimoto even was. military (especially those snares!) but also swashbuckling, with a sense of urgency (listen to those string runs!), it's dramatic in a way that's both perfect for the game it's used in and a real pleasure to hear as a standalone composition as well
-when I first heard heart of concrete my first instinct is 'oh man FL81 needs to listen to this'; it was far and away the most FL81-style track I'd heard from 2021's offerings
-chani's eyes took a while to grow on me. I wondered if it ever would! but it did, slowly, with its strangely oscillating synths and its sober, mysterious, somewhat haunting melody; very much a nighttime track, under an alien sky
-frantic aspic's animated and antic energy is just a blast; I love how rhythmically ambiguous this track is, even when it's set up with the kick drum; there's just not much vgm that captures this kind of energy for me and I'm thrilled that something like this finds a home in the splatoon series; lo-fi timpani beats to jam to

Precipitous Combat
Chani's Eyes
Frantic Aspic

Match 1 was more difficult than I expected. Match 2 was easier than I expected. Match 3 is just as much a pain in my ass as I expected! I enjoy both these songs greatly for different reasons, but Aspic is the more "interesting" one.

Please Splatoon 3 have more music like the Salmon Run stuff!

I keep putting off reading Dune. Maybe one day I will stop being such a lazy POS.

Heart of Concrete
Chani's Eyes
Frantic Aspic

Heart of Concrete
Hoist the Sword With Pride in the Heart
Aquatic Ambiance

Heart of Concrete
Hoist the Sword With Pride in the Heart
Aquatic Ambiance

< P0's Top 16 >
9.1 (0 left): Labyrinth V - Forgotten Capital / Im Back (to Rise!) / Apex of the World (Rain)
8.9 (1 left): The Best Is Yet To Come
8.8 (2 left):
8.7 (0 left): The Wind's Blooming Mountain
8.5 (0 left): Move Me
8.4 (0 left): To a New Journey
8.3 (0 left): Don't speak her name! / Reach for the Moon, Immortal Smoke / Another Winter
8.2 (1 left): Sanctuary-RI / Hoist the Sword with Pride in the Heart

Well, here goes my latest attempt to get more recognition for Etrian Odyssey in VGMC! My labyrinth themes died quickly in the preceding two years, so I went back to one of the battle themes. Actually, the Raging Waves trio had decent performances (R3, R4, R3) so maybe there's something there for the future! It was also important to me to highlight the wonderful arrangements in EMD - wasn't easy deciding which of Hoist the Sword, Chalky Woods, and Cherry Tree Bridge to nominate! I don't rate EMD Hoist the Sword as highly as EO5 Raging Waves, but it undoubtedly goes harder as a battle theme - make the screeching violins at 1:09-1:26 pierce right into my ears baby! It's both funny and amazing that comparable battle themes like Each Justice and End of Raging Winds got the orchestral treatment from EMD, and then there's this absolute banger, as the kids say. Genre: VALIANT CONFRONTATION

DoctorJimmy133 posted...

Any reason we're using the Hoist the Sword's Engrish title instead of the official "Raise Thy Sword in Pride" which means the exact same thing?

it sounds cooler

Seriously, some of the official names are pretty bad (cough Tumult - Beyond the Scorching Heat cough)

Precipitous Combat
Chani's Eyes
Frantic Aspic

match 1 makes me very sad but i will be very happy no matter which moves on. same kinda with match 3, match 2 is not close tho lol

From Toxtricity:

Precipitous Combat (Final Fantasy Tactics)
Chani's Eyes (Dune)
Frantic Aspic (Splatoon 2)

This is the fft song i really regretted not nominating for the final fantasy contest (which i became aware of how excited about this track i was while in search of the imaginary hitoshi sakimoto song i had in my head that im still not confident actually exists). Im a big fan of sakimotos harmonic style, he just uses the odd sequences of notes that really hit the right buttons for me--quartals and all that kinda stuff, the stuff surrounding the 1:00 timestamp being a good example of that sorta thing (and one of my favorite sections of music in the entire final fantasy series). The excessively reverby fake orchestra sound of this/vagrant story is such a distinct feeling, i didnt really like it when i was younger but these days im a pretty big fan of the sound. Its so fucked up to have learned that hitoshi sakamotos main influence tonally is literally STAR WARS. . .. its so funny, but i guess its no different than me getting into that stuff because of hearing quartal harmony in megaman zero 4, just the old-person version of being influenced to do proggy things from hearing them in music to media

9heart of concrete is so loud it reminds me of yousuke yasui

The epic fight

I love opl3 especially when you add the immersive post processing on to it to make it sound so epic. Great composition and sound design here thats unparalleled in most other chiptune ever

David wise has so many delay echoes and i like those a lot

Frantic aspic o.O, the CRAZY song

Steel Assault - Heart of Concrete
Etrian Mystery Dungeon - Hoist the Sword With Pride in the Heart
Donkey Kong Country - Aquatic Ambiance

Heart of Concrete
Chani's Eyes
Aquatic Ambiance

Precipitous Combat
Chani's Eyes
Aquatic Ambiance

--
Precipitous Combat [8.6]
Heart of Concrete [8.3]

Hoist the Sword with Pride in the Heart [7.8]
Chani's Eyes [8]

Aquatic Ambience [9.4]
Frantic Aspic [7.3]

Quick writeups (been too busy to focus on writing longer thoughts):
- Precipitous Combat is "dramatic done well" for me; Heart of Concrete is good, but the guitar feels a little messy for me.
- I like the modern style of Koshiro for Hoist the Sword, but the instruments feel weaker to me than in the original version for EO3; I definitely dig the trippy vibes for Chani's Eyes, this was a closer match than expected.
- Aquatic Ambience is an old-time favorite for me; I respect the weirdness of Frantic Aspic.

From Haste:

Precipitous Combat
Chani's Eyes
Frantic Aspic

Final Fantasy Tactics - Precipitous Combat
Dune - Chani's Eyes
Splatoon 2 - Frantic Aspic

The Etrian thing is 'better' than most stuff that sounds like this, but 'better' apparently nets you a whole 5.5. Year of stephan picq. Today's buffet:

[9.5] Frantic Aspic
[8.5] Chani's Eyes
[8.5] Aquatic Ambience
[7.5] Precipitous Combat
[5.5] Heart of Concrete
[5.5] Hoist the sword song

Heart of Concrete
Hoist the Sword With Pride in the Heart
Frantic Aspic

Heart of Concrete
Hoist the Sword With Pride in the Heart
Aquatic Ambience

Heart of Concrete
Chani's Eyes
Aquatic Ambiance

Precipitous Combat
Chani's Eyes
Aquatic Ambiance

Heart of Concrete
Chani's Eyes
Aquatic Ambiance

some short songs today.
Precipitous Combat 6 I like the push and pull this track has. It really sounds like a war of epic proportions is being waged right in the constrasting melodies.

Heart of Concrete 8.6 Faved. Wow the main rock loop of this track is so good. It has a enthusiastic and thrilling sound that is just very solid and upbeat. That base with the illuminating neon sounds for texture make this a very strong contender, even if the loop is a bit short.

Hoist the Sword With Pride in the Heart 7 This one caught my ear? when i first heard it in noms. It starts off really strong with another batallion of smooth yet striking rock motifs, but loses its grip about halfway through. The B section just lost most of the energy and enthusiasm that I liked.

Chani's Eyes 8 To be honest, I really only like the main motif. Its slow yet deliberate melody with a slight reverb was so smooth and pleasing to hear. The rhythm (of the motif) also had a good use of pauses, which is hard to do in vgm I think, as music always seems to be about bombarding with constant noise. The other wobbly, ambient sounds werent really my favorite, but they helped immensely with the mood of a far away ancient alcove in a dusty ruined desert temple.

Aquatic Ambiance 6.5 Eh. To be honest I like stickerbush symphony or forest interlude out of the legendary 3 tracks from the dkc series. From dkc1 itself there are many other tracks I personally prefer over this: bonus room blitz, funkys fugue, the credits concierto. I'm not trying to say I hate Aquatic Ambience, it just doesn't seem to hit the same perfection as it does for others. The mellow saxophone against the low energy drums and occasional twinkles are the sections that stand out the most for me. The track functions well as a nice ambient piece, but it lacks a sound or melody that really makes me invested in it. I just can't feel fully invested, idk.

Frantic Aspic 3.5 Tuning down the randomness of this track by about 50% and adding some constant drums and something to hold onto as home base would help. I don't mind funky samples and weird syncopations, but when that's like all the track is, it just loses a sense of rhythm that I very much covet.

-
Dune - Chani's Eyes
Donkey Kong Country - Aquatic Ambiance

RUINED METROPOLIS
BRAVE ROCK
SWORDFISH SOIREE

hb day again

Steel Assault - Heart of Concrete
Etrian Mystery Dungeon - Hoist the Sword With Pride in the Heart
Donkey Kong Country - Aquatic Ambiance

MATCH 1

Precipitous Combat has parts where it sounds like it could be cool but then kinda drops the ball a bit. The biggest example of this is at 1:03 where the melody is getting good for me until 1:05/1:06-ish happens. Other parts of the song are just not very remarkable to me. If only this battle was on the big bridge, I'd like the song more!

Heart of Concrete is one of my favorite discoveries in the contest this year! I think it's my third-favorite song in Bracket C too. Other people have brought up SSH already, but this definitely carries the energy of SSH songs, which pretty much sums up why I like this song so much. Part of it is the quality of the instruments in this song. Especially the very crisp sounding drums. Gotta love when the kicks have just the right sound to them. And speaking of the drums, one thing I always like about these rock songs is the drumming pattern they have. I feel like I'm just praising 4/4 time here when I say this and I swear this is different in my head, but those strong 2 and 4 beats with the tempo the song's being played at always feels really good. Like I have to tap my feet along to a song like this. I think this is also one reason that I tend to like a lot of Falcom songs. Of course, the melody here is very good as well. I knew there were songs I liked from Qwesta with the Devil Engine soundtrack, but it's funny how Forest Investigation didn't do a whole lot for me, but then Heart of Concrete comes out and instantly shoots to the top. I honestly wasn't expecting something like this from Qwesta based on previous songs I've heard, but I'm definitely pleasantly surprised!

MATCH 2

This arrangement of Hoist the Sword With Pride in the Heart is really good! I've said before that I like these arrangements of Etrian Odyssey songs over the FM synth of EO3, so that's one advantage of this song over the original EO3 version. The instrumentation here is great as well. The brass at 1:35 is especially nice, but everything about this song is great.

Chani's Eyes is somewhat decent. Parts like 0:41 are nice with that hint of melancholy, but I feel like I'd prefer them more with real instruments. Then there's parts like 1:31 that I just don't really care for. Similar to Precipitous Combat, there's some good, some bad, and mostly unremarkable.

MATCH 3

Aquatic Ambiance is pretty up there in Donkey Kong songs for me. Granted, with how highly I think of a lot of songs in VGMC, David Wise music doesn't really hold up in comparison, but this song, Stickerbrush Symphony, and Forest Interlude are some of the songs that come to mind for songs I like from him the most.

I have no real comment on Frantic Aspic other than I don't like it at all lol.

Heart of Concrete > Hoist the Sword With Pride in the Heart >> Aquatic Ambiance > Precipitous Combat = Chani's Eyes > Frantic Aspic

Heart of Concrete
Chani's Eyes
Aquatic Ambiance

no time to rate today oop

Chani's Eyes is like 9.9 though it's amazing

Combat
Pride

Heart of / Chanis / Frantic Aspic

Precipitous Combat: Standing on the edge of a cliff, the knight cautiously shuffles towards their opponent, trying not to fall.

Heart of Concrete: The crowd goes wild as spotlights circle around the venue, lighting up the stage to reveal the band in a dramatic pose.

Hoist the Sword With Pride in the Heart: He runs forward, leading the charge into battle as his allies follow behind him earnestly and valiantly.

Chani's Eyes: Dehydrated and tired, they fall limp to the ground, desperately extending their hand forward with the last of their strength.

Aquatic Ambiance: The tide slowly lulls in and out, washing away your fears and worries as water laps at your heels.

Frantic Aspic: The tide splashes violently at you, angrily churning spray as it threatens to flip your boat over completely.

Frantic >= Chanis = Aquatic > Heart > Hoist >> Precipitous

i dont think im late yet right