Lurker > dowolf

skulltrumpets posted...

Sebastian is such a good choice! Gahh my gf is starting this game this week and I just can't wait for her reactionsss

you have to keep me posted. this is required. It's in the patch's fine print, you see.

LeonhartFour posted...

Bonus Question: Is there a song you associate with a happy moment in your life?

La Vie Bohme. Whenever my high school band went to or from events, we usually wound up belting out something from Rent or Wicked, but that's the one that kinda just sticks in my mind from that era.

Devastated that we had a match tie and it wasn't Try, Try Again

Two of Braves
Fox's Lair
Blissade/Egregori

Snowdens of Yesteryear
Try, try again Yoda
No Mercy

fu-chan <3

what an excellent choice of routes to start off the anime. She's just so perfect. The basketball high-fiving scene, the moment Okazaki "'tricks'" her into thinking he turned into a girl, and then Maeda decides that laughing time is over and now it's time to cry.

As for the question, I kinda want to cop out and name Akari from Heaven Burns Red, but more Maeda feels like cheating. So let's go with Sebastian Debeste instead. I'm pretty sure everyone hates that stuck-up child for... most of the game. But at the same time, the trial with his father is one of my favorite moments and is what really seals the deal. "You may have hated me until the end, Father. But I never, ever stopped looking up to you. Thank you, for everything. And goodbye." It shows how much he's grown, how he's more than just his father's son.

LeonhartFour posted...

What is a moment you like that became a meme?

People die when they're killed.

Both because there's a part of me that wants to scream IT MAKES SENSE IN CONTEXT DAMMIT, but also because the surface absurdity of it still elegantly sums up why I enjoy F/SN.

i'm kinda meh on Sword March's design, honestly. Maybe it's that it's Luofu inspired and I just want to be free of Space China.

Level 4
Dearly Beloved
hook

hi nostalgia bomb! mission think is a fun game.

Suna no Shiro
YWKON
Release the Seal

...Was not expecting that song to resonate more with me today, but here we are.


Spew and gather all screams and moans

Offer and tribute all sacrifice and chaos

Set flame to the destined course of a thousand leagues

Bestow to all the apex of chaos

destroy all of live
destroy all of dead
destroy all of time
destroy all of you


Let show your tears as you march; stomp upon the shadow of sorrow

Send it echoing to the furthest reaches of the sky, that it return to nothingness

Pierce the lonesome shadow bearing hollowed eyes

Consign it to an oblivion from which it shall never again return

First VG cry
this is strangely hard. Like there have been plenty of scenes that have made me cry, I know that, and yet trying to think of a specific one feels impossible. Did I actually cry, at You're Not Alone? At Planescape: Torment's "Longing"? I know I cried when White Spell plays in Heaven Burns Red -- or technically, soon after it plays and the meaning of the lyrics all come together -- but that was literally less than a year ago and also no one has played that but me. Chaos;head and Steins;gate both devastated me, but at what if any moments did I cry? I dunno.

TV Show
Infinity Train? Yeah, probably. Tulip, MT, Susan, and Haley's arcs all left me a complete wreck at some point or another. Such a good show. Stupid Comedy Central canceling it and everything else good in the world.

...*sigh*

can't edit anymore, but it should be "Once you gaze upon the horizon" in the second stanza.

Blow my Gale
Suberb Moon
Vibaci Mira

First match is so close. supermoon is so cool. Jojo's bizarre fashion show when. Also lyrics? yeah lyrics!

Gallop! into the future. Like a new wind, go now
With this acceleration (Break free of your limits)
To where our dreams lie, to what's beyond
Keep on trying
To reach the new world/beginning

I know we can still be free.
It's not just a feeling; that's my faith.
Get ready! Once we spot the horizon,
there'll be no time to hesitate, only time to plant your feet.

(Blasting!) That can't be all there is
(Jumping!) The road's looking infinite
(Fighting!) Listen, it's calling to us
Only we can carve open that path!

Gallop! into the future. Like a new wind, go now
I want to bellow as I reach
The unexplored goal; I'll be a real winner!
Unceasing emotion is like a gale. No matter the hour, it will not fade; BLOW my GALE
After all, you (taught me how)
To have a dream, to grant a dream
Keep on trying...
To the new world/beginning

That irresolute heart that would lose its nerve and just stop is now a part of my past
Time to go ahead! I'm sick of the me who just watched miracles happen from the stands

(Crossing!) The sky must go on?
(Lasting!) There's no end
(Leading!) Look, at what's beyond
Even we can become like that!

Hurry! The new world's kicking off as soon as you dive in
Sprint through it, fast as you can
Magnificent days: I'll run through a new era!
I want to live like a storm blasting through my heart; BLOW my GALE
In my eyes (the splendor of creation)
Is what you'll see; is all ours
Do my best...
Continue forth

(Blasting! Jumping! Fighting! Running!)

With every breath, with every gallop (Make a world)
The next impulse inundates me
Destiny's big bang (Sensation!) Leave it to me, my one and only (Take you There!)
We'll beeline to it!

Gallop! into the future. Like a new wind, go now
It's no miracle, it's really out there:
The unexplored goal; I'll be a real winner!
After all, you (taught me how)
To have a dream, to grant a dream
Keep on trying...
To the new world/beginning

C'mon, take your chance!

AHHHHHHHHHHHH

why do i keep doing this.

i blame being sick (it's a good excuse [it's not a great excuse])

I realize literally no one else in the universe has a stake in this, but the Daybreak demo pronounces Zin's name as "Jin," and I just have to say:

Vindicationnnnnnnnnn!

First Video game emotional moment:
I sincerely doubt it was my first (that's way too hard to figure out), but I'm still going to name the You're Not Alone sequence in FFIX. It's just such a heartwarming moment.

Celebrity Death
Honestly, probably Robin Williams too. don't know what more i can say beyond what you did though. There's just so many stories about how great he was to everyone behind the set, of everything he brought with him. and i remember my father saying maybe the most braindead thing you can say in response to depression, "why couldn't he realize how much he had to live for?" which probably made me more upset than his death itself. i dunno.

Trilogy Conclusion
I don't even know. So much of what I experience in fiction these days is either "a single long volume, usually released serially" or "five hundred volumes." I'm tempted to say Life, the Universe, and Everything, even if there were more books released later. Or perhaps Juxtaposition from the Apprentice Adept series, even though that similarly got expanded. But both of those really felt like they did a good job wrapping up all of the loose threads and giving the whole cast satisfying conclusions. (And then gave them sequels not the point.)

Sportsball
WIDE RIGHT already got named, which means I get to name NO GOAL. And I'm not even a hockey fan! That's just how powerful that moment was in WNY >_>

Alternatively, the music city miracle, where the refs MIRACULOUSLY failed to throw a flag on an obvious forward pass (okay the ball went forward like literally two inches I think? but please remember this was all of a year after the "just give it to them" play from the refs vs. New England and yeah >_>)

Random emotional moment
Ooh boy... The year my Cuban grandmother passed away, I went on a work retreat during an internship and one of the nights, one person there made ropa vieja. I took a bite and it tasted exactly like her cooking. I remember one of the other guys there complimented the chef, who said "thanks but it's not like we have anyone here who can tell if it tastes authentic," and I just completely broke down. I dunno it feels cliched to say it like that but >_>

DoW
FIV
SoL

i'm pretty sol ngl.

The Best Is Yet To Come
Wildfire
Evergreen

Rainbows rain down; green seeps into all
Wielding the silver sword that banishes the dark
The watchmen offer a prayer
For their beautiful world

Now begins
The tale of how we cut through the twilight
Holding high the love of being one with the earth
The furthest ends of the free sky sung of by the wind
Are our guideposts; journey with me forevermore!

Wear the breath of protection as a cloak
And hold affection for the moonbeams that banish the shadows
A roar pierces the black
That we might defy destiny

Now begins
The tale of how we unleashed sparkling light
Becoming a bonfire protecting the future
The furthest ends of the free sky sung of by the wind
Are our guideposts; journey with me forevermore!

Oh ye returning to the spiral of ruin
One and all, fated to crumble away
Life becomes a cyclic hope
That at the end of the world, they will meet again

Now begins
The tales of how two hearts were woven together
Granting them courage from their linked emotions
The furthest ends of the free sky sung of by the wind
Are our guideposts; journey with me forevermore!

Nazca no Oka
Dreadful
Queen in the Dark Night

hi i am sick and just spent 18 hours in bed and nazca already has lyrics elsewhere so i'mma not sorry >_>

The witches' twilight hour, that fleeting moment
Up floats without a sound the waxing dark-moon
The Nuedori* but soars across the lofty sky
Together with its ungilded lullaby
Hark, hark the song
To maddening precision did I depict you in it
Lonely, lonely I sleep
Destined to never meet, yet with emotion filled
Believing we might meet again

The hours pass from dusk to night
Unaware the waning moon narrows to the horizon
The Nuedori but soars along the distant mountains
Together with its ungilded lullaby
Hark, hark the song
To adoring precision did I depict you in it
Lonely, lonely I sleep
My wish can never be, yet my heart yearns
For the world where it can

That waning fragment of a wish
Waxes anew; never will my heart crumble

Let flow, flow the song
To love's scorching precision did I depict you in it
Repeating, repeating destiny
I look up upon the moon and think from you
To the Nuedori's ungilded song.

*(lit, White's thrush)

(bit of a rush job, especially given that this is in Old Japanese (think Shakespearean), but I'm broadly happy with it.)

Lost in the Abyss
Morning Light Hymnus
Nuedori

How the actual heck are 5/6 of everything here either a nom, a support, or a very-very-short-list member for me? And I still like the 6th!

Gilbert is fantastic. He goes even hammer in the JP version, if you can believe it (cs4 spoilers, timestamped): https://youtu.be/by1tHlJ04EE&t=3968

Also, Joshua is an actual good character and does not deserve to be in the same sentence as Rean or Lloyd.

Not Persona (i.e. i'm voting for Kind Lady)
Not Kowareta Sekai no Uta (i.e. i'm voting for WotW)
Not Bikini Atoll (i.e. i'm voting for Isolated Island)

(this may have been too confusing a shtick for its own good.)

Given that I keep running into the same issue with potential noms that come to mind (specifically, "why is everything I read these days 20-volume epics and/or ginormous serial stories" [you know the answer to that you silly goose]) let me pencil down something a little more creative:

Rob (An Outcast in Another World by KamikazePotato)

Sue Her
Mag Niff a Cent
Gee Pee You

Ooh boy. Going to be negative here: I try to remember that someone loved these tracks enough to nom and support them, but I hate the Boot Camp OST. The saxophone's intonation is crap. The only word that comes to mind is slobbering -- it's just a wet noodle of sound. Don't put little crescendos on every note! Please, just don't! Yes you're always going to have some of that with a live instrument relative to samples, but it doesn't have to sound like this! And while the percussion matches it in the opening, when we get to the chorus suddenly the instruments are so weak that the percussion overwhelms them. I don't know if I've heard anything like that before. It feels beyond amateurish. I do not like it. If nothing else just compare it to the original, which is much better mixed, has such better attacks on the saxophone, has an interesting variety of instruments working together rather than basically just one -- it just blows this arrangement out of the water.

marionation
interception
prowl

the matchups are cute and i love them

Chimera
Necros
Robotitle

Carpathians
Mechanos
Erebos

The second thing Maeda loves to do is -- I forget the technical name for it, but he loves to do these "rules of three" moments where he'll introduce a pattern by having it twice and then twist it in a way for the third instance that feels like a stab to the gut. Again I have to go back to the Song of Ticking Time for my canonical example. Every chorus opens with "Kimi dake ga" -- "You alone." "I loved you, and you alone." "I couldn't find you, and you alone." But then in the final chorus, it becomes "Bokutachi no" -- "Us together." "Time ticked for us, and us together! And now you want me to go on alone? No! Don't make me!" That moment, it -- There are literally tears in my eyes right now, just thinking about it.

I'll spare you a second canon example, but flipping back to Before I Rise, there's two fantastic instances of it. The first is the second pre-chorus segments, where we have things roaring (I forget exactly how I translated it). They're normal things you might experience around a city -- and then it's "An explosion roared." Done in an odd time segment too, it literally hits you faster than the other noises. Everything swings on a dime so quickly, just like you need to do in poetry.

The second is the end of each verse, which ends with an ask from the singer. First, it's "onegaishitanda." Literally, simply "Requested." Very formal, but past tense, saying she's asked her crush to try to keep smiling. The second time, it's "Nee, oojisama?" This one is so playful, but also more direct: she's outright asking her crush to ask her out. From the tone change, you know things have changed, and you can feel that yes, they're going to take things to the next level. Both of them, though, are defined by hope. But then the final time, we go to "Douka kamisama" -- Please, Lord God! Things are going wrong, and this whole chorus has so much fear, so much desperation, that it completely sells the whole scene there. I've bounced around how I want to translate them, but how I believe I did it was to start with "That was all I ever asked for," to "Is that too much to ask, my prince?" to "How is that too much to ask, God?!" Which I'm really happy with. It just shows that motion, that change in mental state, so very very well.

We never find out what happens to the couple, though I personally feel that After You Sleep is the direct sequel to this song. But it doesn't matter. It's a whole story, told expertly in a few lines. It's some of Maeda at his finest. and i have failed it in its moment of need god DAMMIT.

okay so i was planning on doing a giant writeup on Before I Rise because I'd already done a lyrics video for it and then I up and miss its match because I'm the best at this so time to write it in here!

There are two things I absolutely love with Maeda's lyrics. The first is how he'll paint not just a scene but an entire arc of a longer story in a single stanza. For instance, in The Song of Ticking Time / Toki no Kizamu Uta (Clannad AS anime OP), after the first verse took place during high school, you have in the second "There you were, making breakfast for three." A single line, a single word, to tell you that we've moved in together and are starting a family. You also have in Crow Song "If you have nothing useful to say, then maybe those jet-black wings could take you away and then disappear!" We haven't even properly met the singer yet, and in the anime IIRC we never really do, and yet we already know so much about her: that she wants to do her own thing, that people -- I vary on whether or not they're literally the crows -- keep trying to put her back on rails, and she is having none of it. It's such a cool way to do characterization.

Before I Rise is no exception. We immediately start off with what has to be one of the most "wait what" gripping openings imaginable: an almost sensual depiction of what the singer wants to do with her lover, then swapped immediately into a fatalistic "or else we could end it all." Which is almost me softening it in the English -- the Japanese outright uses the word "die." I'm not actually sure if the softening is for the best here; these are the sort of single word choices in a translation that consume the mind, sometimes. Regardless, we've set the stage so wonderfully, so quickly: what is going on here that makes someone madly in love afraid to hang onto it? Then we follow it up with "one day after school, the bullets rained down, and so began the dying season" and it's just "Oh." I have seen so many stories where an author struggles with that sort of elegant opening and tone-setting -- it's almost a cliche in VN's that we're going to spend the first five hours with everything Totally Normal before the plot kicks into motion -- but Maeda nails it.

And then in the second verse, we have another beautiful stanza: "I know! Tomorrow we'll go to the beach and bring so many toys and maybe you could come too?" Again it's just one moment in a longer plotline, it's showing us only the moment where the singer first asks her "prince" out, and it's done in such a girly and nervous and defensive and yet hopeful way that you immediately want to cheer her on, that you can with so little else draw a mental picture and I love it.

Norfair I guess.
FTL
Arcana

fjalskdfjakl;sfk;asgj

was busy all day and forgot about the topic until just now and

fuck everything.

Astra walkthrough
Secundum Abandoned Mine
Subterranean Sunrise

Good riddance.
Fight Another Day
The Kingdom

I don't love Good Riddance -- I consider it a poor man's Bound Together -- but I just don't get Credits.

I know this is "rich" from me given how much I've pushed the envelope myself, but I'm still not sure how I feel about counting FAD as VGM. Though I am voting for it so yeah.

The Kingdom takes its sweet time but it gets super interesting, which is worth a lot more to me than the silliness of Anything Goes.

Shining Eyes
Astra walkthrough
Aeolic Guardian

if i go even 1/3 i will be so happy

Going
WHistling
Karting

Homestuck
Order of the Stick
8-Bit Theater
xkcd

Bob and George deserves it for impact, buuuuut idk.

Alt Root
Badlands
Les Enfants

Not a very dowolf day.

Aurora
Speed
Redemption

Lots of close matches, third in particular.

Super Metroid
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
Ori and the Blind Forest
Metroid Prime

Ori and Hollow Knight are both fighting for that third slot, but it feels wrong not to have SM or SotN, or to not have the first great 3D Metroidvania.

To follow-up from last topic: Gina's great for sure. She's easily my favorite character in DGS. I don't recall much shady Gregson from 2-3, but again, that's something the localization might have chosen to focus on. And it's to the game's benefit if they did!

As for this case... Hoh boy. Stronghart / Vortex is not a good villain. His choices to let the trial be prolonged don't make sense. Again, it's been 7 years and memories are vague, but I recall it really being a vibe of "Yes my master plan means that I've already won, but I suppose I can humor you and let the trial continue anyways." But more than that, this is the second time in the series where we, as the Ace Attorney, are miracle'd out of what should be a losing position. The first time was in 4-4, where the jury system just says "screw the evidence we have feelings." And now here, it's "screw the rules I'M THE MOTHERLOVING QUEEN OF ENGLAND." Did anyone find that satisfying? Like I'm not saying you can't have a last-second event that turns the board around, that you can't have Gumshoe come flying in with the evidence that you asked him to get hours ago and only barely remember. I'm saying that I want to feel like I'm not a puppet in Holmes' mad offscreen triumph, a pawn on Hobo Wright's 5D chess board, that the main character was integral in the end to the victory.

andyit raises really good points about how we don't bother to fix any institutional issues, which maybe Ace Attorney doesn't need to do. But what it does need to do is provide hope that those fixes are possible and worth fighting for. That's where we started -- we were fighting for the little guy in a court where guilt was assumed and to argue to the contrary was considered insulting. "Royal Monarch Fixes Everything" spits in the face of that.

I'm sure there's details that those of you who played it more recently will remember that might help mitigate those complaints. We certainly got Vortex to admit to the crimes in what turned out to be the Queen's earshot. But what has stuck with me over the years were those two impressions: "Why didn't this trial end five hours ago?" and "...that's it?"

BCPP
memoria
lights

memories returned is wonderfully bittersweet. It feels like an ending song, which i normally don't like, but I am in a bittersweet mood at the moment.

i am very afraid right now that i am screwing everything up forever. so is love psalm, I think.

And then we transition to a song that is exploring a very very very messed up ancient ruins. there is nothing good there. fly, fool!

lights is bouncing off of me right now.

well.

now i'm sad.

I really did not like this case, or G2-5. Maybe some more time in the oven to provide foreshadowing would've helped. Or maybe it was just that I didn't like how everything was tied together and never would have, with Gregson in particular feeling like this new side of him came out of literally nowhere. Maybe it was better foreshadowed in EN? It would be a reasonable thing to change, I think. But most of all, Stronghart is just... boring. He should probably wait, though.

Also there's the fact that, despite the jury system being one of the main hooks for DGS, it's used literally... four times? Out of 10 cases? I might be miscounting but it's still absurd.

Imperial Flower Brigade's... wait. "Declaration"? That's... God that's a machine translation isn't it. That would explain a lot. Rip.
Somnia Memories
Tower of Memories

I wrote enough about Tunic last year. My opinion hasn't changed. I'm not the biggest fan of french melodies either, but it still has a cool ethereal quality that does appeal to me.

TOWER OF MEMORIES featuring BYAKKO <squee>. When they opened up the Tower of Memories last year, I was blown away by this tune. The entirety of the Garden of Memories is a place defined by distortion. Every potential party member is there, with a message that's heavily distorted, and slowly but surely over the course of the game's duration we've been making those messages less distorted. But for the most part, it's a place where you can watch what are basically interludes featuring each of the characters. And fight some endgame challenges. I digress. The point is this entire realm makes no sense. Some of the interludes are explicitly canon -- as in, they're referenced in events and/or the MSQ. Others are explicitly impossible -- one interlude for one character unambiguously has us talking to her after her death. Also we're followed around by a talking cat who sometimes wears a crown. Not to be confused with Byakko, who is the giant white tiger and who can understand human speech but cannot talk herself. God there's so much I'm hungry to learn about this 'verse. I digress even more. The Tower of Memories is one of those lategame challenge / strengthening areas -- it doesn't have any real story behind it -- but this song is the perfect way to transition from weird semi-creepy afterlife interlude hub thing to strange battles against distortions of your party thing. I dunno if any of that context is actually useful but you get it anyways HAH.

softbank is fine I guess. That quote looks like a horrible translation but it's a UF8 game so maybe it's on purpose. You never really know with UF8. But it never crosses that line over to stupendous for me. Just a pleasant jaunt into a database, this.

clearly this tie was caused by my failing to translate lyrics. Time to correct that mistake!

The Imperial Capital trembles, rent asunder as the night howls
Till the warriors spring onto the stage, belting out their song of love
Maidens all, armor-clad down to their hearts
Questing to trample evil and fight for what's right

Run forth, lightspeed Imperial Opera-tions Team *
Bellow loud, shock-troop Imperial Opera-tions Team

We fight for justice
Though that may mean we put our lives on the line,
We won't take surrender a single inch!
That is what it means to be in the Imperial Opera-tions Team!

The Imperial Capital shivers as the last light goes dark
Till the warriors spring onto the stage, painting rainbows
Maidens all, shining a spotlight on passion at the dawn
Questing to eliminate evil and fight for what's right

Run forth, lightspeed Imperial Opera-tions Team
Bellow loud, shocktroops of the Imperial Opera-tions Team

Run forth, lightspeed Imperial Opera-tions Team
Bellow loud, shocktroops of the Imperial Opera-tions Team

*yes this is a pun in JP. I regret nothing.

Funky
Burning, Churning, Empowering
Springy Windy Sky Larky

"One more awesome" is a great title. This is such a UF8 song. Weird jazz is interesting, something I can appreciate intellectually even if it's something I would never seek out on my own.

Funky Dealer is silly fun. It doesn't have the majesty of Wrapped in Black, or the anthem-like glory of Concept of Love, but it's still up there as one of Naganuma's best. The funky instrumental segment right in the middle is cool. I might like this more without the (blackjack?) dealer's calls, actually. Although, without them, would it still be a Naganuma song? An interesting question.

i kinda want to play this game solely based on the title ngl ANYWAYS this changes pretty drastically post-intro into something decently cool! The background flute is really nice.

"Burning, churning power plant" is almost good. But just two -ing adjectives is a mistake. Consider "Burning, Churning, Powering." Or "Empowering." Okay whatever the heck that instrument was at 1:00 was really cool. Ooh and the bells at the chorus :)

Okay the first thirty seconds of Astral are not promising. I hope it's not six minutes of this.

Well it was but Skylark is Asano and Asano always knows how to put a smile on my face. I love the Gust flute so much, and then the strings and accordion are just so beautifully arranged together. I just love how effortlessly everything trades off with each other, how we keep adding more instruments, how we go full HAM FLUTE! Wild Woods, take notes.

Now this case is the exact opposite of G2-2; it is the one case that has absolutely stuck with me through the years. Absolute peak from start to finish, which is only slightly marred by the amount of raw rage I felt at Kazuma's return. And while perhaps in the trilogy-version of DGS we would've gotten more time between Zieks and Harebrayne, I love how we're given just enough that it shows us more of who Zieks really is, without feeling like he ever becomes the protagonist. I also love their (final, I believe?) conversation in court in 2-3, which I did a translation of back in the day:

"That man mocked you. Named you talentless.
"Yet he knows nothing.
"Nothing of the sacrifices you've made in pursuit of what you believe to be true.
"He has no right to scorn such a thing. No one does."

Rage
Moiety
About That

Not much to say here, except that if you listen to Rage and don't think "wow this is a dowolf song" I am very confused but also this was everyone's reaction to it in the pre-nom guessing game so I don't think I'mma be very confused!

Wild Woods is almost a dowolf song, but it's really a nintendo song and lacks the kind of depth I'm usually looking for out of my Celtic-inspired world music.

I have only vague memories of this case, since it's been seven years for me and I did not like DGS2 very much so I haven't replayed it. Some of the antics have stuck around in my head, but no emotional beats have, for better or for worse.

I'm not sure how I feel about the update overall. It's good, but a step down from 2.0 and 2.1. I think you could've cut 1-2 hours from the plot and just made everything a lot tighter.

14.3
Declaration! Imperial Floral Assault Group
Boing T11

It's hard to judge 14.3 Billion years out of context. How much of what I feel is the culmination of that experience, and how much is the actual song itself? I think 22 minutes does a bit better in isolation, which is why I prefer it, but the universe has chosen otherwise. Though I wonder: what were the odds that the Outer Wilds 'verse is exactly the same age as our own? Does it matter, given that the point of the number is to evoke a certain connection in the listener? Hmm.

Aria math is not for me sorry progheads i'm secretly not one of you (GASP). I do like the strings late in the loop a lot.

this song makes me laugh so much. It's just so, so... Nostalgic? Nostalgia, for a game I never played in a series I played one game of? Look if I start questioning my brain now we'll be here all day. The chorus is just so happy. The mixture of western and eastern sounds works so well; i'mma assume the game is set in Taishou-era Japan? Or somewhere around there. Maybe Meiji but ~1920 feels more right to me. The backup singers I think really seal the deal, just adds that extra bit of magic and uniquity the song would otherwise be missing.

Did you know rinne means samsara, which refers to metempsychosis? If so, congrats on knowing what metempsychosis is! The song feels mysterious. I wonder how much Buddhism is engrained in the game's story. I think this is really cool but it doesn't quite blow me away as much as its opponent, I don't think.

I don't know why I like this song. It feels like a broken music box at first, but then the lower notes come in and it feels like it was right and it was always right and why did you think it wasn't dowolf? Yeah. I dunno. I wish I did.

TCG2 has such a good OST why wasn't it localized boooooooooo. Again a close match where one song just resonates.