Board 8 > [VGMC] Day 26! Greece/Zero-G, Dolphin Shoals/Scatterbrained, Glider/Sayonara ALL

(+) Yeah! (+)

Welcome to Video Game Music Contest 17, 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=477304
Contest info sheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1SAJKYJmYhccLvbf_H-5uSA7-eMwXfW8k1q74Qho1bLU
Contest discussion thread: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/80433657
Main bracket playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLT3m7iohpL0wlcxj-kHQRU1yHo-kpMxGe
Last years spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_IU5iCFTM_4WEx8ZWKwznMz5v2tarCKh1Ag0mxIgAes
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 post your absentee vote in the discussion thread!

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Match 1

Old World - Festival of Dionysus (Greece)
Composer: Christopher Tin
Loop Point:

Zero-G
Dolphin Shoals
Glider

Old World - Festival of Dionysus (Greece)
Mario Kart 8 - Dolphin Shoals
Blue Reflection - Sayonara (ALL PHASE MIX)

ALL PHASE MIX
Dol-phase Mix
ALL PHASE MIX

Festival of Dionysus (Greece)
Dolphin Shoals
Glider

Zero-G
Scatterbrained
Sayonara (ALL PHASE MIX)

ALL PHASE
close match
ALL PHASE

Festival of Dionysus (Greece)
Dolphin Shoals
Sayonara (ALL PHASE MIX)

Zero-G
Dolphin Shoals
Glider

0
god i don't even know
pass

Zero-G
Dolphin Shoals
Sayonara (ALL PHASE MIX)

Phantasy Star Online 2 - Zero-G
Mario Kart 8 - Dolphin Shoals
Blue Reflection - Sayonara (ALL PHASE MIX)

Zero-G
Scatterbrained
Sayonara (ALL PHASE MIX)

Festival of Dionysus (Greece)
Scatterbrained
Glider

Greece
Shoals
Sayonara

Festival of Dionysus (Greece)
Scatterbrained
abstain

Dionysus
Scatterbrained
Glider

Old World - Festival of Dionysus (Greece)
Extreme Paintbrawl - Scatterbrained
Blue Reflection - Sayonara (ALL PHASE MIX)

the kind of day where the best song in the pack is Scatterbrained

Festival of Dionysus (Greece)
Scatterbrained

Hbthebattle posted...

Dol-phase Mix

Ironically, Dolphin Shoals does have an all phase mix: https://youtu.be/h7lL1S1NQXw

No vote yet from me because these are maybe my three hardest matches to decide so far...

Festival of Dionysus (Greece)
Scatterbrained
Sayonara (ALL PHASE MIX)

Festival of Dionysus (Greece)
Scatterbrained
Glider

I'm gonna try and listen to all of these again with different headphones closer to the deadline to try and be sure about my decisions, apologies in advance if I change every one of my votes then.

Festival of Dionysus (Greece)
Dolphin Shoals
Sayonara (ALL PHASE MIX)

Zero-G
Dolphin Shoals
Sayonara (ALL PHASE MIX)

Dolphin Shoals is also an ALL PHASE MIX, if you consider that a single phase is trivially a mix of all phases.

Festival of Dionysus (Greece)
Dolphin Shoals
Glider

Phantasy Star Online 2 - Zero-G
Mario Kart 8 - Dolphin Shoals
Blue Reflection - Sayonara (ALL PHASE MIX)

Sayonara (ALL PHASE MIX)

Zero-G
Dolphin Shoals
Sayonara (ALL PHASE MIX)

Sceptilesolar posted...

Dolphin Shoals is also an ALL PHASE MIX, if you consider that a single phase is trivially a mix of all phases.

there's an underwater phase too not in this video actually

Zero-G
Scatterbrained
Sayonara (ALL PHASE MIX)

Festival of Dionysus (Greece)
Dolphin Shoals
Sayonara (ALL PHASE MIX)

Festival of Dionysus (Greece)
Dolphin Shoals
Glider

No rankings today! Glider barely missed out and Sayonara phase 1 would've comfortably made it. Cutting it to two minutes for the mix is a travesty, did people learn nothing from my BR set for BOST!?

Festival of Dionysus (Greece)
Dolphin Shoals
Glider

Zero-G
Scatterbrained
Sayonara (ALL PHASE MIX)

Zero-G
Dolphin Shoals
Sayonara (ALL PHASE MIX)

Dionysus feels very Civ-like. No surprise I suppose. Zero-G's a bit lacking in variety for such a long song but it's good anyway.

Dolphin Shoals is fine in game, but I really don't care about it on its own. Sadly it's up against something I kinda dislike. Scatterbrained isn't quite the type of prog I enjoy.

Glider's reasonably nice. It's up against Sayonara All Phase though, which is one of my favorite VG songs period.

Sayonara (ALL PHASE MIX) > Zero-G > Festival of Dionysus (Greece) > Glider > Dolphin Shoals > Scatterbrained

Zero-G
Dolphin Shoals
Sayonara (ALL PHASE MIX)

Grecco
Scatterbrained
Sayonara

not-Civilization music is so much better than civilization music. Okay that's not fair, but Christopher Tin is really good and it's been an absolute delight to realize that no, it's not that he's a one-hit wonder with Baba Yetu, it's that he didn't compose the rest of that OST and in fact is a rare but very welcome sight in the VGM scene at all. This track is perfectly suited in its role, energizing and fun without being so aggressive that you can't do the absurd amount of planning that I assume not-Civilization demands of you. Or perhaps this song plays when you're exploring a marketplace. I love the slight darkness we get around 2:20, the song just becomes progressively less and less restrained but it sneaks up on you brilliantly like an ambush you are in battle before you even realized it ROLL FOR INITIATIVE. And then we get into what I think of as actual festival phase, it feels like I'm at any afterparty for some grand success. Also I like flutes did I mention I like flutes they're pretty coo'.

ten minuets eh? staring at nfun intensifies oh wait this track is one of the ones that earns those ten minutes isn't it? Anywho pour one out for GBF ~ Zero. Meanwhile this intro is pretty cool, love the piano interplaying with the scat vocals YUME NO HATE. Oh. We have actual lyrics interdasting. I am actually a bit less interested in it now, it feels so much less "mysterious" now that I have a natural language to root me. (also "yume no hate" means "the end of dreams" but not like "dreams are no longer a thing" but more in like a "ventured to the ends of the earth" kind of sense and I am super struggling to think of a good phrase to hit that in English right now.) I am extremely unfond of duplicating the entire vocal section with an equal off-vocal section that was excessive. The song is trying to be mysterious again with piano and choir but I'm sorry that ship has sailed. okay did we have to do a no vocal of this segment, followed by a choir version of this segment, followed by a vocal version of this segment, followed by a scat version of this segment? Okay we're not doing the same thing in the next section THANK GOD. Anywho yeah, this song very much falls into the pso2 trap of "this could have been an email instead of a meeting" but what's there is pretty solid, I think I've written enough on this it's gotta be near the end right? wait HOW ARE THERE STILL THREE MINUTES LEFT AHHHHHHHHHH. Literally ends with "furikire" which means "shake [it] off" which is very appropriate to my feelings right now, not sure if that gains it points or not.

man mario jazz is so white. almost as white as californian therapists who redacted i hate cali. That transition made sense before but I decided posting in a public forum the reason why it made sense, which someone could google in twenty years to ruin my life, was stupid. Okay maybe I was unfair, that sax is going ham. A live version of this could be pretty sweet.

jazz into 80's punk rock is definitely a transition. Err maybe it's more prog? I was gonna say "or it's more jazzy" but isn't prog kind of like rock with jazz influences? I feel like one of the more music theory-minded folks in the community would cringe at that statement but I refuse to delete it. This just feels like a couple friends jamming in a garage, which is the feel I want out of this sort of music.

okonomiyaki is not really a breakfast food but it's basically Japanese pancakes so I am going to pretend that okonomiyaki is a Japanese breakfast and you can't stop me. After the jazzy match a second ago I am actually super in the mood for trance, this is hitting home super well. Also shoutouts to glockenspiels, the best percussion ever.

unfortunately glockspiels are powerless against a song that is, to me, a straight-up 10/10. Now this is a meeting of a song. Is this just the perfect final boss theme? I genuinely cannot think of a better one. What more could you ask for? But let me focus on the thing that perfectly ties the whole soundtrack better, the main motif that becomes the melody line in phase one and key parts of phase 2 and the super key parts of phase 3. you know the one. I think i've mentioned this a few times, but I listened to and fell in love with the BR OST long before I ever played the game, to the point where I actually had a full plot, uh, plotted out in my head in advance of picking up the controller. in the actual Blue Reflection Theme of Blue Reflection, that motif is coupled with the sound of trains. And so, in my head, the "blue reflection" is the reflection of yourself, in the water, as you gaze over the side of a bridge. That was the opening scene, that and what follows; everything else in my imagined plot was what came after. Dealing with the fallout, the afterlife. And so the rendition here in phase 1 is so peaceful, so warm, so "everything is going to be okay, even after all the mistakes we've made." but phase 3, at the very end. god. it's just a giant hug. We have to finally say goodbye for real, no more delaying things through the wealth of plot devices that I won't get into right now, but we're not sad this time, we're smiling. It isn't Farewell the standard MTG version, it's Farewell the showcase MTG version. i don't know how else to describe it. I cry every time. Words are hard. I have blubbered enough for one day time to hit post new message WAIT NO I HAVE TO ACTUALLY VOTE AHHH okay now post.

Zero-G
Dolphin Shoals
Glider

dowolf posted...

ten minuets eh? staring at nfun intensifies

deo's the one that doubled the length in making the all phase mix and i didn't even nom it!

Festival of Dionysus (Greece)
Scatterbrained
Sayonara (ALL PHASE MIX)

Festival of Dionysus (Greece)
Dolphin Shoals
Sayonara (ALL PHASE MIX)

Festival of Dionysus (Greece)
Scatterbrained
Glider

Zero-G
Dolphin Shoals
Sayonara (ALL PHASE MIX)

i feel bad for the paintbrawl song why is the uploader so mean to it :( good song but dolphin song better sorry

Zero-G
Dolphin Shoals
Sayonara

Zero-G
Dolphin Shoals
Sayonara (ALL PHASE MIX)

I feel very indifferent about Match 1, and yet, it feels wrong to be like that. Match 2 on the other hand, what a tough choice, really wish I could see both advance, Paintbrawl's OST blows my mind but can't say no to MK8. Sayonara caught me in a "I like Blue Reflection" mood.

Festival of Dionysus (Greece)
Scatterbrained
Glider

For me the longer a song is, the more consistently good it has to be for me to like it. There are parts of Zero-G that are great, like 2:22-4:13, and there are parts that drag. If a song is short its easier for me to focus on the parts I do like, but when it gets this long the parts I dont like make up too much of the song for me to feel positive about it overall.

Voted Deluged Depths again. Perfect example of a song where not only are there parts I really like, there are no parts I dislike.

Festival of Dionysus (Greece)
Dolphin Shoals
Glider

I like the first six minutes of Zero.
I like the first two minutes of Sayonara.

Festival of Dionysus (Greece)
Scatterbrained
Sayonara (ALL PHASE MIX)

Old World - Festival of Dionysus (Greece)
-
Sable - Glider

Festival of Dionysus (Greece)
Dolphin Shoals
Glider