Lurker > Kenri

Attn: CG7



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"The courtroom is the garden of holy judgment. Those with lechery in their hearts should leave this sanctuary at once!" ~Franziska von Karma

First Impressions: I still don’t get why this was thought of as appropriate for Meta Knight, but sure why not.

Pretty sure it's just (a remix of) the music that plays during the game mode called Revenge of Meta Knight in Kirby Superstar. It's not like Meta Knight's theme or anything, far from it.

Edit: If I'm wrong it's because I last played Superstar like 6 years ago.

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"The courtroom is the garden of holy judgment. Those with lechery in their hearts should leave this sanctuary at once!" ~Franziska von Karma

Instead I pictured a winter wonderland with a full moon in the black sky.

An invisible winter wonderland.

...Unless that's a pine tree and not some weird tower like I initially thought?

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"The courtroom is the garden of holy judgment. Those with lechery in their hearts should leave this sanctuary at once!" ~Franziska von Karma

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"The courtroom is the garden of holy judgment. Those with lechery in their hearts should leave this sanctuary at once!" ~Franziska von Karma

"I can also see what's in your heart. So you'd better not be thinking of anything... naughty."

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"The courtroom is the garden of holy judgment. Those with lechery in their hearts should leave this sanctuary at once!" ~Franziska von Karma

Seasons is significantly better than Ages. If you already own them both, then definitely at least try Seasons.

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"The courtroom is the garden of holy judgment. Those with lechery in their hearts should leave this sanctuary at once!" ~Franziska von Karma

It was incredibly distressing to me that my mental images for two different songs involved billowing scarves. but i regret nothing.

While we're all waiting for Celtic's glorious return, I'd like to thank everyone who participated, even if I didn't end up liking some/all of the songs you nominated. I would especially like to thank Phase, for nominating songs that were really easy to draw (and for nominating Condition Green which ended up having my favorite picture of the entire project), and Nio, for nominating songs that were really, really hard to draw and pushed me way out of my comfort zone. <_<

~Stats~ will probably come when/if CG7 finishes.

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"The courtroom is the garden of holy judgment. Those with lechery in their hearts should leave this sanctuary at once!" ~Franziska von Karma

2. Mr. Driller Soundtracks - Machi ni Mukatte (Heading Back to Town)
Nominated by: NioraptH
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Hopefully this makes up for all the other times I've been mean to Mr. Driller music??? Machi ni Mukatte is crazy good, perhaps because it uses a lot of elements I really like but which I don't often see mixed together, so it hits the perfect balance of "stuff I like" and "something new". The crowd chatter is something I really like both here and in other songs that use it (Dulles Airport comes to mind), the violin is great, and it doesn't seem like they'd play nicely with each other but then the song starts and wow this is really good. That alone would be enough for a pretty high ranking but then the song adds in a bunch of other elements as well and really goes for a completely unique sound. Okay, some parts are better than others and there are a few things that feel unnecessary, but overall this is immensely successful and the biggest surprise of the whole ranking topic for me.

About the image: DISCLAIMER: ABSTRACTNESS OF IMAGES MAY VARY. For whatever it's worth I legitimately didn't pay attention to the English title here when I drew this; I just knew the song as Machi ni Mukatte and then later realized I had drawn a guy... heading back to town. Whoops. The crowd chatter sounded kind of ominous and uh... uniform? So I drew a bunch of faceless mooks who all look pretty similar to each other. (If you suspect I just can't draw faces... well, you're right, but in this case I feel like I had an excuse.) Then there's the guy heading back into town who is supposed to look cool but I think he ended up just looking doofy, in part because he's wearing a fedora and in part because god is that fedora terribly drawn. and just sort of sitting on his head like it's two sizes too small. the building on the far left is also awful. oh well. i tried.


1. Umineko no Naku Koro ni Chiru 6 - Life
Nominated by: xp1337
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...Wait, no, sorry, that's Lime.

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...And despite Heading Back to Town being great, you just can't beat xp, who managed to nominate one of the few songs I don't have a single complaint about. (I say "managed" but I'm pretty sure he knew exactly what he was doing.) Life is exceptional and without a doubt the best song from Umineko that I've heard. As usual, I like piano pieces, and this is also one of the best of those that I've heard. I love how it manages to just slowly build up and up for its entire runtime, but does so so subtly that you might not even notice that it's changing. Aside from that, it's just an absolutely beautiful song -- and then it has manners enough to end before overstaying its welcome.

About the image: Unfortunately we have to end on kind of a boring image, but at least it's not yet another picture in the format of: a view of the sky, with clouds or stars, and some kind of unique set piece along the bottom edge, which made up about a third of the images here. I actually delayed on drawing the picture for Life as long as I possibly could because I wanted to come up with something else, but I never did -- this is one of the images that I already had in my head long before even creating the topic, and I wasn't able to dislodge it. I have to imagine this picture is influenced by the song's name... but, then again, maybe not. Maybe the vines represent the way the song grows and builds, and how it's kind of simple but also beautiful. ...But no, it's probably the name.

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"The courtroom is the garden of holy judgment. Those with lechery in their hearts should leave this sanctuary at once!" ~Franziska von Karma

3. .hack//G.U. Vol 3//Redemption - Full Force
Nominated by: xp1337
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People who I've got my eye on for really pushing my "no vocals" rule: 1) Orochimaru_Fan, 2) xp1337

Full Force is one of .hack//G.U.'s many super-cool battle themes. Not the best one by any means, but definitely up there. One thing Full Force does that I really like is that has faster, more intense sections that are broken up by slower respites; the contrast isn't as strong here as in Here I Come, but it's still a very neat effect that instantly endears the song to me. In fact, Full Force is cool because, unlike Here I Come, it actually has three speeds: the fastest parts, slower parts, and then even slower ones where the whole song seems to about face. And, as usual for G.U. tracks, the bells and vocals are quite cool too.

About the image: Full Force made me think of a broken plateau, the site of countless anime-as-hell fights because it's easy to animate and can crack or fall apart when things start getting dangerous. I didn't look up reference images though and it kinda shows. <_< The feathers are from the other half of the song, the slower respites I mentioned. I tried to use thicker, darker lines on the plateau to contrast with the feathers, but... ehhh... Dunno how well it worked.

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"The courtroom is the garden of holy judgment. Those with lechery in their hearts should leave this sanctuary at once!" ~Franziska von Karma

5. Ys: The Oath in Felghana - Sealed Time
Nominated by: xp1337
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Background only:

So Sealed Time is one of those songs that I really liked the first time I heard it, and since then my opinion of it has dropped slightly, which is the reverse of what usually happens. The violin work is still great, but I've completely turned against that guitar section about a minute and a half in. However, Sealed Time does deserve credit for being a rather upbeat battle theme (at least I assume it's a battle theme?), two things I'm usually against, and still managing to be something I really like and would gladly listen to at any point in time (sealed or otherwise).

About the image: Possibly the single hardest song for me to think of anything to draw for. Sealed Time (eventually) made me think of flying through the air at high speeds, and also, for whatever reason, the basic color scheme that I ended up using. I thought a flying carpet and almost-but-not-quite POV shot would fit pretty well, especially because I kept wanting to do POV shots for other songs but found excuses not to. I really like how the background turned out, to the extent that I feel like the carpet almost detracts from it. So, two images. A whole new woooorld...


4. Team Fortress 2 - Right Behind You
Nominated by: Mega Mana
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Off the top of my head I cannot think of a song that is as accurate to its name as this one. Oh my god did they capture the essence of sneaking up on someone (or being snuck up on) in music form somehow. It's a creepy song, but in a much more subdued way than Asteroid, and I absolutely love that moment at about 21 seconds in that the first 20 seconds of the song were all building up to. So... yeah. I don't have a lot to say here unfortunately, because Right Behind You really only does one thing -- but it gets this far because it does that one thing almost flawlessly.

About the image: Shouldn't come as a surprise then that the mental image this song gave me... involved sneaking up on something. (Note: abstractness of images may vary.) I went to kind of a silly place here, but I think part of that was a result of that climax at 21 seconds that I mentioned. It made me picture sneaking up on some horrifying, impossibly powerful being and then coming up over a hill or something and suddenly it comes into view and oh god. And thus the star-eating monster was born, and as usual something that was supposed to be scary is instead kind of adorable. I apologize also for the W-ship being so... bad... just in general...

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"The courtroom is the garden of holy judgment. Those with lechery in their hearts should leave this sanctuary at once!" ~Franziska von Karma

10. DJMAX - Seeker
Nominated by: JONALEON
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Seeker is a really cool song, but let me start with what I don't like about it. There's a part at around 50 seconds in where the samples used suddenly become horribly screechy, and then it happens again later in too. ...That might make it sound worse than it is, but it is pretty bad and I don't like those parts at all. The good news is that they only last for like 25 seconds each and the rest of the song is quite good, so it's not a dealbreaker by any means. This song usually has a lot of energy, but I think my favorite parts might be the ones that are relatively more relaxed and add in some mellow piano accompaniment.

About the image: This song made me think of, as you can probably tell, a tornado/hurricane/twister/whatever on the ocean. I think the song's rhythm just reminded me of the rhythm of waves during a storm, but then I forgot how to draw waves even though two of the lessons included with Art Academy are about that. I sort of like my tornado at least. The boat is kind of a weird element that I wasn't sure whether to include or not. Eventually I decided it was important because I think I was only reminded of the ocean at all because of the feeling of hitting waves and feeling the wind in your face that you get when you're on a boat going at high speeds.


9. Marvel vs. Capcom 3 - Theme of Dr. Doom
Nominated by: Mega Mana
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Wherein nobody is beaten to death with a Magikarp.

I actually really like this song, because it's kind of dark and carries this nice sense of hopelessness. ...I'm not even sure why I think that, but I could definitely see this playing during a final boss fight or something. I think it might just be reminding me of Zero-Two from Kirby 64, even though the songs really have very little in common. Oh well. One thing I don't like about Theme of Dr. Doom is the first 13 seconds; they don't really mix all that well with the rest of the piece. Not a big deal, just kind of an odd choice.

About the image: HEY IT REMINDED ME OF A FINAL BOSS SO I DREW A FINAL BOSS. Shortly after I finished this image I went "oh, the song Theme of Dr. Doom reminds me of is Zero-Two", and then I realized that I had drawn a vaguely 02-ish boss also. Whoops. It was fun to draw, at least, coming up with the different protrusions and all. I also almost added crosshairs to really drive home to video game thing, but decided they'd just be distracting.

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"The courtroom is the garden of holy judgment. Those with lechery in their hearts should leave this sanctuary at once!" ~Franziska von Karma

6. Touhou Hisoutensoku - Our Hisou Tensoku
Nominated by: FL81
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Fantastic song, and I don't say that lightly, about Touhou music especially. Then again Hisoutensoku isn't a normal Touhou game, right? Ehh. I know that most Touhou music makes use of brass instruments in theory, but the sample quality is so horrendous that it barely counts. I actually don't mind the "zunpets" much at all (they are not my problem with most Touhou music by a long shot) but actual trumpets they are not. Our Hisou Tensoku on the other hand avoids all that and the result is a wonderful, exciting, jazzy theme that absolutely works for its role as pre-battle music.

About the image: Our Hisou Tensoku made me think of... a military operation, but stylized, so that's what you got. I'm not sure why I went to a military place there, but I think it fits; being stylized definitely does, at least, and the piece is so actiony sounding that bombers and battleships aren't a huge stretch either. Unfortunately I somehow forgot how to draw cartoon bombs so there are weird T-shaped things instead. I dunno. That ship in the bottom right is some weird fantasy bull**** aircraft, by the way. In case you were wondering.

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"The courtroom is the garden of holy judgment. Those with lechery in their hearts should leave this sanctuary at once!" ~Franziska von Karma

8. Neotokyo - Imbrium
Nominated by: Ed Bellis
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Neotokyo has such a cool soundtrack. Imbrium's not my favorite (at the very least I prefer Tin Soldiers, Scrap IO, and possibly Haka) but it's still really good and, like pretty much every Neotokyo track, actually interesting, for which I am thankful. When I first heard Imbrium (which was a while ago) I wasn't sure whether I liked the vocals or just thought they were kind of ridiculous. ...Now I'm starting to think both are true. One thing I really like though is that bell that chimes every now and then; it reminds me of one of those ring-for-service bells, which gives Imbrium an urban feeling, a recurring trend in the Neotokyo soundtrack.

About the image: So of course I had to go to a city here (color choice may have been influenced by the image in the video). I think my brain ended up interpreting the vocals in Imbrium as raindrops somehow, and so we end up with this big rainstorm that knocked out power for the entire city except one building. I think this might be my favorite image to come out of this whole project even though I still cannot draw buildings worth a damn. >_>;

Also, apparently "imbrium" roughly means something like "of storms" in Latin. I swear I didn't know that at the time I drew this.


7. Instant Brain - Challenge to the Past
Nominated by: JONALEON
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A really neat song that my writeup will probably not be able to do justice to. For some reason some of the samples remind me of Waterworld for the SNES, which has one of my all-time favorite soundtracks. That only really starts happening though after more than a minute in, which is a shame. In general I feel like the song gets much, much better as it goes; the beginning is kinda weak but I really like the last four minutes or so. I don't mind the length though because it's the kind of music I can just put on in the background and then completely zone out while listening to... which is a good thing, I don't know if that was clear.

About the image: ...I don't think I ever really got past this reminding me of Waterworld, so we ended up with a very ocean-centric image. What Challenge to the Past made me think of was diving down into the ocean and just seeing this massive crack in the earth leading into... darkness. I think that for once I actually managed some decent perspective on the fissure itself, but then when I tried to add in plant-life and light reflecting on the ground on either side of the big fissure, my own general incompetence came through again and as a result the finished product is pretty... bad. sorry.

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"The courtroom is the garden of holy judgment. Those with lechery in their hearts should leave this sanctuary at once!" ~Franziska von Karma

As I told xp a few days ago, his participation here was going to be viewed as like the Ridley fight at the beginning of Super Metroid. You can't really win (Ridley has infinite HP and no death animation; xp knows my opinion of 1300+ songs), but you can do well enough to make him stumble a bit.

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"The courtroom is the garden of holy judgment. Those with lechery in their hearts should leave this sanctuary at once!" ~Franziska von Karma

did you ever see an anime called Busou Shinki? it's a 10 episode short series of flying fairy mech things.

Nah, most of the anime I've seen are just standard Adult Swim stuff, and I stopped watching even that a year or two ago. I might check this out though if I get a chance. >_>

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"The courtroom is the garden of holy judgment. Those with lechery in their hearts should leave this sanctuary at once!" ~Franziska von Karma

Oh right, the weapons. Uhh quick info dump:

Earthsplitter: really can split the ground. Maybe 10 ft radius from where it hits, varying somewhat by the strength of the hit? But aside from maybe tripping you, it's not gonna be a big inconvenience. Can also send out single fissures towards the enemy, but again, it's not going to open up a chasm into the earth or anything; it's more for causing someone to lose their footing. The shockwaves it sends out are a bigger deal, just picture any video game boss with a shockwave attack and you've got the right idea.

Heavens Asunder: parting the clouds is literal but probably embellished. Like it would be the kind of thing that's a neat visual effect, but at that range you're not going to actually hurt most people with it. Effective range for cutting someone is probably... I dunno, 500 ft? More than that and it might knock you over, more than that and it's just a strong wind. At close range, like up to 30 ft, the cutting wind is more dangerous than actually getting hit by the blade itself.

Skyburner: transforms into a real bolt of lightning when thrown, which moves at the speed of lightning, yes. Can be thrown normally also, just depends on what the thrower wants. If it does the lightning thing, then it hits you as lightning too, and only transforms back to a solid object afterward.

Radiant: just picture trying to get near an open flame. From a distance it's not too bad, as you get closer it gets painful, and even closer and you start getting burned. Except this is holy light, not fire, so apply standard weaknesses and resistances as you will. Differentiates between friend and foe, so won't hurt its wielder.

why have i written so much about this character

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"The courtroom is the garden of holy judgment. Those with lechery in their hearts should leave this sanctuary at once!" ~Franziska von Karma

Expanding on Solai Pedastel because my original writeup for her didn't really include info on her personality. Probably wrote way too much again but oh well!

Solai's personality in battle is mainly a result of her physical limitations. At 6 inches tall, getting smacked by a battleaxe even once is potentially life-threatening, even with her armor. All of her spells exist to allow her to be in the fray, keeping pressure on her opponent, while avoiding attacks. Keeping up the pressure is important, because the more time an enemy spends dodging and blocking, the less they'll spend attacking.

Solai generally sends about 10 of her 16 weapons to assault the enemy, while keeping about 6 in reserve to defend herself. Of those 6 kept back for defense, Radiant is almost always one - because a giant glowing shield is not only great defense, but also makes it harder to see and aim for her. That said, Solai is willing to send more or less weapons to attack depending on the nature of the battle, and may even go all-in if she thinks she can really press her advantage.

Of her spells, Armory and Forge Snap are used to adjust to unique weaknesses in opponents, or trade out weapons that might be beneficial to enemies (a flaming sword against an enemy that controls fire, etc). These spells are by nature weaker than her other ones, though, so she tries to avoid using them. Light Snap is mainly used to deal with enemies with fast projectiles, especially firearms, though her best defense there is still just being a very small target. Bulwark Snap is used against enemies with homing or area-of-effect attacks, and also if she needs to take a hit to gain some sort of advantage. Against fast enemies, Solai prefers the homing teleportation granted to her by Gauntlet Snap to the regular teleportation and improved speed of Light Snap. She'll also use Gauntlet Snap against summoners, no questions asked (unless they've demonstrated the ability to use counterspells), because Solai's strategies really don't like having to focus on multiple foes at once.

Health Snap is self-explanatory, except that Solai will try to maximize its use rather than spam it as a reaction to any injury... but then, most non-magical injuries she takes will probably be serious enough to merit using it. Weapon Snap is her last resort attack when nothing else is working, or can be used as a finisher in a pinch.

Overall, Solai is not a blitzer. She's a cautious fighter who reacts to threats as they come and wears enemies down by keeping as much pressure as possible on them at all times.

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"The courtroom is the garden of holy judgment. Those with lechery in their hearts should leave this sanctuary at once!" ~Franziska von Karma

my write ups will be late most likely.

how unexpected.

I'll post my next writeups in a couple hours, but in the mean time, here are the top 10 remaining songs and the users who still have songs remaining (assuming I didn't make any mistakes):

.hack//G.U. Vol 3//Redemption - Full Force
DJMAX - Seeker
Instant Brain - Challenge to the Past
Marvel vs. Capcom 3 - Theme of Dr. Doom
Mr. Driller Soundtracks - Machi ni Mukatte (Heading Back to Town)
Neotokyo - Imbrium
Team Fortress 2 - Right Behind You
Touhou Hisoutensoku - Our Hisou Tensoku
Umineko Chiru 6 - Life
Ys: The Oath in Felghana - Sealed Time

xp1337 the Invincible, the Unstoppable, the God-Emperor of VGM Ranking Topics, may his title grow ever longer: 3
JONALEON: 2
Mega Mana: 2
Ed Bellis: 1
FL81: 1
NioraptH: 1

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"The courtroom is the garden of holy judgment. Those with lechery in their hearts should leave this sanctuary at once!" ~Franziska von Karma

11. Rayman - Saxophone Land
Nominated: FL81
Link:
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I have the biggest smile right now because I just know that CG7 ranked this at like #29 or something (reminder: these writeups are written long before the first writeups are posted, I have no idea what CG7's rankings look like at this point) (edit: wow, she beat my projection). It's a shame that she has likely underrated it because it's really quite good! It may be short, but it makes use of every single second so it doesn't feel underdeveloped or anything. And, of course, the saxophone is great and the best part of this. best instrument. ...okay that's a lie i just got caught in the moment there, my favorite instrument is like the piano or some ****.

About the image: The part of this piece that really gave me a clear mental image was 0:27 through 0:37. I have to assume those are bongos providing the percussion there, which led me to a very Donkey Kong Country-esque image. AGAIN, I CAN'T CONTROL WHAT THESE SONGS MAKE ME THINK OF that is my excuse for derivative images like this. I have no excuse for that lopsided palm tree though.

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"The courtroom is the garden of holy judgment. Those with lechery in their hearts should leave this sanctuary at once!" ~Franziska von Karma

13. Blast Corps - Mission Replay
Nominated by: Ed Bellis
Link:
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So this is pretty neat. I wasn't quite sure what to think of it initially, but every time I listen to it, I think I end up liking it even more. (As evidence of that: this was the one I posted much earlier and then later went "wtf am i thinking" and deleted it.) For some reason I've always really liked N64 music so that's part of it. Mission Replay has some pretty cool percussion, I think; it almost lapses into MACHINERY NOISES on occasion which is a thing I like. What I really like though is that one... jingle-ish thing that comes in at for example 12 seconds; I have no idea what to call it, but I think it absolutely makes the piece.

About the image: ...And then I drew a very video game-ish thing. Yeah, I dunno. It happens. So we end up with demon train and platformer scarf guy. I think what happened was Mission Replay reminded me of the noise trains make... except it's not similar at all so I don't know how that happened, and then I interpreted that jingle I mentioned in the proper writeup as the scarf guy. I'm sure somebody who is following this topic actually knows things about trains and is going to be really annoyed with how inaccurate (and just generally lousy) my train is (especially the whole wheel area) but uh. All I can say in my defense is that I looked up reference photos, and then didn't follow them because I'm lazy.


12. Super Dragon Ball Z - Namek's Destruction
Nominated by: Orochimaru_Fan
Link:
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People who I've got my eye on for really pushing my "no vocals" rule: 1) Orochimaru_Fan (and yes there are others you are not alone here)

This is a pretty cool track, I'll admit. I think it's a bit too close to heroic for a song titled "Namek's Destruction", especially during the parts with vocals. If I had a complaint about this, it would be that at around 1:30 it goes in kind of a weird direction that isn't all that consistent with the rest of the piece, but I also think that direction is kind of interesting and adds to it, so that's really not a complaint at all. With it or without it, though, the track is pretty intense; I can definitely see this playing as a prelude to a big fight or something similar.

About the image: At 1:32, Namek's Destruction goes in sort of an Arabian/Egyptian direction... Or rather the kind of music that's associated with any random desert-y place as kind of a cliche, I have no idea if it's accurate. Whatever. So that's where the desert comes in, and then the whole incoming battle angle I mentioned is captured by the lone figure there. that guy is on a mission, you probably don't want to mess with him (he's so badly drawn that you wouldn't know which part of him to punch).

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"The courtroom is the garden of holy judgment. Those with lechery in their hearts should leave this sanctuary at once!" ~Franziska von Karma

15. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Legend of Jack Sparrow - Main Title
Nominated by: Orochimaru_Fan
Link:
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Short but sweet. Sometimes I feel like game music in this style is just aping the kind of music that's in every summer blockbuster ever, and as a result sounds kind of generic, but this A) would at least have an excuse if it did that, and B) is actually quite good, so I don't even have to whine about it. I really like the way it builds up so much in such a short amount of time; the result is this nice feeling of awe, or maybe of having overcome some great obstacle. The vocals that come in about halfway through especially help with that. Not really the song's fault, but I should probably note that I have no idea why this would be used as a main title theme and not like... background music for an actual scene that it could be synced to for dramatic effect. Ehh.

About the image: Continuing with that same theme I was talking about, we have a mountain trail that overlooks a vast jungle or rainforest or something below. The mental image I was working with here was leaving a mountain cave or some such, stepping onto the trail on the side of the mountain, looking down and seeing the vast forest and clouds below. Think it matches up pretty well with the song, could just be me though (edit: APPARENTLY NOT, THANKS CG7). I feel like this image kinda got killed when I had to save it as a JPEG so... my apologies, there. I went back and touched it up after realizing that but it still looks kinda... bad. I'd mention not being able to draw mountains (or trees, or perspective) but I think we all know that already. Can yooooouuu find the world tree in this image?


14. Jet Force Gemini - Asteroid
Nominated by: todbot
Link:
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This is a pretty creepy song. It uses a lot of samples that don't immediately stand out to me as being from the N64, which is... odd, but I'm not the best at telling that sort of thing by any means. I like the faux vocals, the church bells, and... really, all of the different effects. This song does a lot, and it's all pretty successful at building an immensely creepy, foreboding atmosphere. Parts of it actually kind of remind me of Black Rose from Eternal Darkness (even if Asteroid came first), which is one of my all time favorite pieces of video game music, so that's nice too.

About the image: So, of course, I hear this song and think about being stalked by some monster in the dark. I don't think that's so unreasonable, do you? The monster also had to sort of... blend into the darkness around it, which I think I more or less managed to capture. So... I have less complaints than usual about this one, aside from how it may or may not actually be scary.

Me (1:30:03 AM): every time i try to draw a scary thing it ends up being adorable instead
xp (1:33:44 AM): hahaha

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"The courtroom is the garden of holy judgment. Those with lechery in their hearts should leave this sanctuary at once!" ~Franziska von Karma

My next 5 writeups will be up in a few minutes.


Good call about the Castlevania-sounding music, since it's by the same composer.

Whoooo, getting mildly competent at recognizing that kind of thing. ...Either that or I've made a couple lucky guesses.

I didn't make it too obvious, did I?

Not even a little.

It's a shame that her love of Touhou will likely override her hatred of great instruments and musical styles. <_<

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"The courtroom is the garden of holy judgment. Those with lechery in their hearts should leave this sanctuary at once!" ~Franziska von Karma

17. Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown - AKIRA - Statues
Nominated by: NioraptH
Link:
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Pretty cool song. It actually does a lot I really like, blending things I associate more with traditional Japanese music with... jazz influences? I dunno. I really like the piano work, at least; that's probably my favorite element of this. While the juxtaposition is pretty cool, it has a side effect of making the song seem kind of chaotic, and not always in a good way. For me at least, the song transitions between the two styles in a very, very abrupt way. That could be an interesting stylistic choice, but feel like here it's just a plain old flaw, though not a huge one.

About the image: Hey, remember that thing I was just talking about? well, here are some buildings. i was talking about buildings, right? Uh... it should be pretty easy to connect this with what I said about the song, so yeah. I think someone on this board (Aga maybe?) did a drawing sort of like this except theirs was actually really, really good and didn't suffer from weird scale issues where one building was supposed to be like a hundred times the size of the other one and thus looked weird when scaled down. (I didn't think this out very well.)


16. Super Smash Bros. Brawl - Meta Knight's Revenge
Nominated by: FL81
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FL81, please tell me you nominated three jazzy tracks in an attempt to piss CG7 off. Please. That would make my day. In either case, the side effect is that I get to possibly overrate everything you nominated because I like jazz music/songs with jazz influences. Meta Knight's Revenge is SUPER JAZZY and just puts a smile on my face every time I hear it; it's not in the usual Kirby style, but it's fun and upbeat enough be Kirby-ish despite that. Perhaps appropriate considering that the original Revenge of Meta Knight was a timed thing, it's really easy for me to mentally associate this with a chase scene, especially a somewhat lighthearted one. One thing I will say about the song itself is that it goes back and forth between some sections that are really good and some that are just... sorta there... An example of a just-sort-of-there one is from 0:15 to 0:25 or so. Whatever instrument's being used there, I just don't really like it or think it fits with the rest of the piece.

About the image: ...And then it was super hard for me to not associate it with a chase scene, and as a resulted we ended up with a tricycle-taxicab carrying a tower of watermelons and driving recklessly. Those watermelons must need to get somewhere in a hurry. Not my usual style in a couple ways. My uncle (an actual talented artist) has done a couple paintings in a style with hard pencil sketches left in and then lightly painted over, but slightly off to the side, sort of mimicking a newspaper print that was misaligned. I thought it would work well for this picture but... couldn't really execute. The general badness is my fault but some of the specific badness (the splotchiness for example) is Art Academy's fault. I actually redid the painting part of this once so that's why there are two links, I don't think I actually improved it much though.

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"The courtroom is the garden of holy judgment. Those with lechery in their hearts should leave this sanctuary at once!" ~Franziska von Karma

19. Skullgirls - Little Innsmouth: The Fish Man's Dance ~ HD ~
Nominated by: NioraptH
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I'll just get this out of the way first: this does not need to be over 6 minutes long, god I hope it loops somewhere in there. At times I sort of turn against this because it does something that sounds like obnoxious circus music, but the majority of the time it sounds more like mid-tier Castlevania music, which is better because even mid-tier Castlevania music is generally really good. At its best moments (one of which is at the 4 minute mark), Little Innsmouth sounds... determined, which is not to say that the song itself is determined, but rather that it packs an emotional punch of determination, which I like a lot.

About the image: Wow, I even drew something Castlevania-ish. I can practically hear the cheesy Simon's Quest reference. I think this image only really applies to 4:00 through 4:13 and the other sections like that, but those were the parts of the song that jumped out at me the most, for multiple reasons, so yeah. You can just picture someone running across that bridge (that is supposed to be a bridge; I wouldn't blame you if you couldn't tell); I thought actually adding someone would detract from it, especially because there was a huge chance I'd mess something up trying to add it, because Art Academy kinda sucks at small details.


18. Pokemon Diamond/Pearl - Dance Difficult
Nominated by: Orochimaru_Fan
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This song is really weird and I'm really not sure whether I like it or not, but it's sort of interesting so I give it the nod here. All the samples sound really tinny to me, which adds a degree of cheesiness that... I actually find kind of charming. I have to imagine it was intentional because most music from DPP doesn't sound like that. It doesn't really have a persistent melody either, instead just doing whatever all the time. ...I can kind of respect that, it's like the song itself doesn't give a ****. I do need to note however, one section, which is 0:22 through 0:25. I have no idea why but I think those, like, four seconds of the song are SO GOOD. I sort of wish the whole song was in a similar vein to that part of it, though it would lose some of its uniqueness in the process, I think.

About the image: Another image in that simpler style that I also used for Smiles and Tears... and I sort of regret that, at least in regards to effectively making the canvas even smaller. It was pretty nice of the sparks from that sparkler to conform to an arbitrary square that coincidentally matches up with the space I used to draw it, right? Must be one of those expensive, deluxe sparklers. There are some other issues with the way the sparks are falling which I tried to fix after I realized it, but couldn't fix entirely. Oh well. Anyway: Dance Difficult is a pretty cheerful song and made me think of a party or festival or something similar. It also made me think of... flashes of light, with a certain degree of randomness and motion to them. So I combined the two and we got a sparkler.

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"The courtroom is the garden of holy judgment. Those with lechery in their hearts should leave this sanctuary at once!" ~Franziska von Karma

21. Lost Child - Beginning
Nominated by: JONALEON
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This is a much, much better electric guitar-centric song than Suck a Sage. It still suffers from a lot of the same problems, but is just generally less blaring and thus way nicer to listen to. I want to say it changes things up more than Suck a Sage too, but that could just be because I'm not willing to relisten to Suck a Sage to find out. In any case, it feels less repetitive, though 4+ minutes is still pushing it a bit. However, despite being less repetitive I do feel like it's kind of one note; the best part might actually be the beginning (appropriately enough) because the chimes used there add an extra dimension to the piece that I feel really helps it.

About the image: ...I have no idea, but it's different, at least. It took me a long time to even think of anything for this one and what eventually came out of it was this idea of... some kind of action scene that's only partially illuminated, but my attempt at that just looked weird so I started over. I kept the idea of bright colors on a solid black background though, and tried to keep some sense of action with the girl's hair. One thing Art Academy lets you do is vary the amount of water and paint on your virtual paintbrush. More water lets you blend colors more easily, so here I used basically no water to get deeper, more solid colors.


20. Xenoblade Chronicles - Unfinished Battle
Nominated by: ZaziGuado
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Man, Unfinished Battle. This song is gonna haunt me, isn't it? God, I just don't think it's as good as other people do. LEAVE ME ALONE. ...that was a joke please do not overreact to this or think i'm being rude. I've actually come around to this song in the time since my last ranking topic, though not enough that it's one of my faves now or anything. I do generally like battle themes that make use of bowed string instruments; it's a perfect match IMO and a wonder that they're not one of the staple "battle theme" instruments. Unfinished Battle is also appropriately... I dunno, dramatic? It's definitely closer to the hopeless side of the hopeless-struggle vs. time-to-kick-ass battle theme spectrum, which also the better side, so yay for that.

About the image: One of the harder songs to actually think of a picture for, and keep in mind that I don't really think of them so much as wait for them to come to me, so I guess "harder" is wrong and what I really mean is like... time consuming. What eventually happened was an image distressingly close to the one in the video, at least in terms of color choice. Stormy skies, tall grass being pushed around by the wind, and a guy running, wow it's almost like this song is DRAMATIC and has a sense of MOVEMENT.

Me (6:38:27 PM): welp, this image was supposed to have a person running, but i didn't slant him enough, so instead it has a person prancing
CG7 (6:38:34 PM): XD

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"The courtroom is the garden of holy judgment. Those with lechery in their hearts should leave this sanctuary at once!" ~Franziska von Karma

I had 1-3 and 6.

...I didn't even bother submitting. <_<

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"The courtroom is the garden of holy judgment. Those with lechery in their hearts should leave this sanctuary at once!" ~Franziska von Karma

same ranking, similar writeup, similar picture

sorry CG7, you're going to have run all future posts through Turn It In first.

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"The courtroom is the garden of holy judgment. Those with lechery in their hearts should leave this sanctuary at once!" ~Franziska von Karma

That's pretty funny. The plot of Mr. Gimmick! is that a little girl gets a new toy (the main character) and the other toys, feeling jealous, kidnap her, so Mr. Gimmick! has to go into Toy World or wherever to rescue her. Coincidence or Wikipedia summary???

That's... really strange. I don't think I knew that, consciously at least.


Also Strange Memories of Death is probably the most popular (read: the only popular) song from this game, so yes, highly CONTROVERSIAL. I just chose another song because I wanted to give you something you probably hadn't heard before.

I do appreciate that. I had heard a couple songs from Mr. Gimmick, but not Paradigm, I think.


Smiles and Tears picture was great. I MISS YOU

Thank you!


About the Image: This is disco popcorn. Why is it disco popcorn? Because it seems like it could be a disco track and the popping noises made me think of popcorn even though it does not actually sound like real popcorn. It does make me wonder how disco popcorn would taste though. Fruity is my guess.

You don't know it yet, but this bares a remarkable similarity to a picture I'll be posting later today. <_< (Bonus game: Name the song it will be for!)

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"The courtroom is the garden of holy judgment. Those with lechery in their hearts should leave this sanctuary at once!" ~Franziska von Karma

Whoops. So I seem to have made a rather major mistake in terms of the order of things, and since nobody has posted yet, I decided to just delete it and remedy this on my own rather than reveal the mistake later or just pretend nothing was wrong. I'll post 6 writeups tomorrow to get things back on track. If you saw what #21 was, I'll ask that you not reveal it. Again, my bad.

Also, I have no idea where CG7 is or when her next writeups are coming. *shrug*

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"The courtroom is the garden of holy judgment. Those with lechery in their hearts should leave this sanctuary at once!" ~Franziska von Karma

[This message was deleted at the request of the original poster]