Board 8 > [VGMC] Day 15! feat. the Aristocrat's Raid and Conquering Bringing Changing Love

(+) Yeah! (+)

Todokanai Koi
Conquest ~ Conquest (Ablaze)
-

Todokanai Koi
Conquest ~ Conquest (Ablaze)
FUTURE EXPRESS

Todokanai Koi
Conquest ~ Conquest (Ablaze)
Highbrow

Assault of Hexed Faith
Conquest ~ Conquest (Ablaze)
FUTURE EXPRESS

Todokanai Koi..... hmm I feel like I like this a little more than Yume to Iro but I could not at all tell you what part of the song makes me say that lol meanwhile Assault of Hexed Faith is just barely my preferred of the two AGA songs in this year, which may or may not directly correlate to how much DEOXYRIBOSE vocals get used hmmmMMMMmmm anyway digital beep beep beep scales go up and down and all around make deo brain go :)

transforming was one of the first really big Oh That's Cool As Hell nominations in the playlist where I didn't think it was support tier quite but I really wanted to see it make it so I'm very glad it did!!! which makes me extra sad i put it up against conquest.... which is, as always, a great song and the transition from calm to ablaze in this mix is so clean (iirc we used to have another that did not do it well?? cant remember lol) anyway very good match

i wonder if this is actually how outburst 4d sounds or if this is sort of the "master" version of the song cause there's always a sort of crunchiness that i am expecting and then do not get it :< oh okay yeah it used ES5505 so this is definitely a production version lol i wanna hear the actual thing!!! someone go find those few cabs that existed i need them!!!!!!! (its funny cause on the english internet everything says it was completely unreleased but i've seen numerous places that taito did actually have a few in their own bigger flagship arcades so IUNNO MAN) anywho yeah future express is very good! Highbrow is somehow not a song I had heard before noms, and I have no idea how this is a very very good sakuraba suite! does it warrant its length? hmmm.... i don't know about that one. the ending is definitely the highlight, but I must admit getting there with full attention has been pretty difficult every time I've listened to it yet. I think that's a me problem though and the song itself is definitely worthy, but since I prefer actually listening to FUTURE EXPRESS i think that's how the votes gonna go. also very good match

8. [8.6] - MAD RAT, DIE [realized this was bottlenecking things around the 8.5 and it shouldve been higher lol]
11. [8.4] - Baladiums Drive [as can be seen in this and the following two songs!]
12. [8.3] - Fire Emblem Awakening - Conquest ~ Conquest (Ablaze)
13. [8.2] - Alice Gear Aegis - Assault of Hexed Faith
35. [7.5] - Outburst 4D - FUTURE EXPRESS
41. [7.4] - Umamusume: Pretty Derby - transforming
56. [7.2] - Star Ocean: Till the End of Time - Highbrow
76. [6.7] - White Album 2 - Todokanai Koi

From rwlh:

votes:
Assault of Hexed Faith
transforming
FUTURE EXPRESS

Assault of Hexed Faith
Conquest ~ Conquest (Ablaze)
FUTURE EXPRESS

Todokanai Koi and transforming aren't anything too special in the anime sphere, but I still like them both. Highbrow feels kinda neat because of the progginess of it all, but it's not really capturing my attention in any other significant way.

The rest though? Fun stuff. Kudo comes in pretty high here, and Conquest is absolutely an all-timer for me, especially the Calm version.

Assault of Hexed Faith
Conquest ~ Conquest (Ablaze)
Highbrow

Once again we have pleasant Japanese vocals that I would not skip if I heard on the radio. Are all of them bunched up together or smth? The instrumental portion of this is actually pretty catchy.

Leans in and whispers. A second 13 Sentinels sound-alike has hit the towers. Jokes aside, this one continues following the tradition of why I like these songs to begin with. The sense of driving propulsion is absolutely to die for with this one. This definitely matches the same feel as the other Alice Gear Aegis track.

I like the style of vocals in the beginning of transforming before the song gets really full. A simple, but effective back and forth between the two vocalists. What lmao wtf this gets crazy why couldn't the crazy part be most of the song? It really is like some kinda PMD shit wow go back to that please.

Conquest is a very lush song, I'd say. The soundscape is very ... full, I guess? particularly when the series theme cameos in. And God, I've always loved this particular mix of the track. Combining both halves into one song adds a certain power to it that wouldn't be there otherwise. I wish I could articulate why it works so much for me, because as you can tell, I'm ranking it really high - and even supported it haha.

Vocal samples cool, but also a little creepy? Not sure really if that's supposed to be the intended effect but heyo. FUTURE EXPRESS almost feels like a pastiche of "Asian music" in a few spots in the beginning, but reins itself in and does a lot more and by the time I'm like halfway through, it's basically forgotten. The vocal parts in the latter half are also decidedly not scary. This tells a story and I kinda didn't realise it until it was over?

I am perhaps more forgiving of Sakuraba than most (or maybe not since this got nominated to begin with? Idunno) as I grew up on many games he scored. So his sound is comforting to me at this point. Immediately I'm getting Tales of Symphonia vibes from the first ten seconds of this and I'm immediately grinning. I never got far enough in Star Ocean 3 to hear this in context unfortunately, but I'm sure I would have grinned too if I had. Anyway this really goes all over in many places, and I mean this as a compliment. There's parts that feel very Sakuraba (complimentary) and parts like that wacked out piano solo that make me go "oh damn, WHAT?" This is an absolutely insane, unrestrained piece, that didn't leave me bored once.

[9.5] Conquest ~ Conquest (Ablaze)
[9] Highbrow
[8] Assault of Hexed Faith
[8] FUTURE EXPRESS
[7] transforming
[6] Todokanai Koi

White Album 2 - Todokanai Koi
Umamusume: Pretty Derby - transforming
[no time sorry]

loweffortmemes posted...

Busy day today, so wont be able to do writeups now. Probably not before matches close today. But I will do them before the end of tomorrows matches. At least enough for me to say my piece about Todokanai Koi since thats my nom haha.

Ok time for actual writeups now.

MATCH 1

So, yes, Todokanai Koi is a song that I'm very fond of. Compared to YumeIro, this song is more in the realm of sentimental. The English name of the song, after all, is Unreachable Love. The guitar especially brings this slightly wistful feel to the song. The vocals are great as well. Sometimes a part of a song hits just right and it's a pretty powerful feeling, and that part for this song is at 1:25 with the "ha" in "hajimeru" in the vocals. Really good song all around. I first heard a slightly different version of this song from the anime adaptation of White Album 2, which I watched probably like a decade ago now. I remember not actually liking it lol, but my guess is that I'd like the visual novel more, which makes sense since it's currently the #3 highest rated visual novel on vndb (and has actually been #1 before) with an average score of 9.0, only 0.1 points away from #2 Steins;Gate and 0.2 points from #1 Rance X. Anyway, I like the visual novel OP a lot more after comparing the two. I didn't even know that this song was in the visual novel until literally right before this year's contest started and I heard it in that best of galge/eroge list I looked at that is the source of several nominations of mine this year haha. So I'm glad that I found out this song was eligible because it's great.

Assault of Hexed Faith has a lot of cool things in it. Pretty much every moment of the song has something good going on in it from that bit in the intro at 0:00, to the vocals, to the electric guitar too.

MATCH 2

I like Transforming even if it's not the best thing from this sort of idol music style. The versus and chorus are decent. I think the part I like the most is actually the part of the song that says "transforming" at 0:42 haha. I don't really listen to idol music, so Hololive's "Shiny Smily Story" is one of the few things I can think of as a comparison to Transforming in terms of idol songs I really like. That and some Love Live and Idolm@ster stuff.

The beginning part of Conquest's Calm and Ablaze versions are definitely my favorite part of the song. That is, 0:00-0:33 and 2:03-2:51. Other parts of the song aren't as strong for me. Though, the part after 2:51 in Ablaze is pretty nice.

MATCH 3

Don't really have a lot to say about Future Express. Pretty solid melody.

Highbrow has some cool stuff, my favorite of it being the part at 2:10. Kind of close, but I think Highbrow is better on average with some of the cool parts of this song.

Todokanai Koi > Assault of Hexed Faith > transforming > Conquest ~ Conquest (Ablaze) > Highbrow > FUTURE EXPRESS