Lurker > pyresword

Sword of the Surviving Guardian
Metallic Madness Zone Act 2
EXEC_FLIP_ARPHAGE/.

I still can't help but shake the feeling that there are many songs from Clannad I like more. This one is a nice ambient track but doesn't really grab me too much. Sword of the Surviving Guardian doesn't really jump out at me either, but this sort of melodically-driven song structure is a bit easier for me to get into, and the guitar and trunmpet parts are pretty cool.

I don't like the build-up of Rage Rave too much, but it's pretty cool once it gets going. Soundfont not doing too many favors even then, but it's still solid all-around. Metallic Madness Zone feels like a song I shouldn't like between the metallic synth and the rap vocals, but it's actually very fun. The vocals are probably not the strongest, but they serve a purpose and don't overstay their welcome. The sax part is also great.

Honestly finding EXEC_FLIP_ARPHAGE 12 years ago or whatever on (I think) the long-dead board 8 VGM of the day Youtube channel is probably what got me to start viewing VGM as something more than "cool stuff from games I like". It's also one of the rare instances of "thing I liked 10 years ago" that still hits just as hard today. Fantastic stuff. Pledge of Demon might be a bit too repetitive, but overall is a very intense and satisfying song. Unfortunate that it probably drew my favorite song of the contest.

EXEC_FLIP_ARPHAGE > Metallic Madness Zone Act 2 > Pledge of Demon > Sword of the Surviving Guardian > Snowfield > Rage Rave

Two of Braves
The Fox's Lair
Blissade/Egregori

I was thinking about saying Sedona which was definitely very cool. I went in like March or something though it would not surprise me if it's not very fun in the summer.

I suspect you can't get there without a car since it's way on the north end of the city but I thought the Musical Instrument Museum was cool.

Also very much a "me" thing anyways maybe not something everyone will like as much as I did.

Really upset that we had a match tie and it wasn't Try Try Again

Sword of the Surviving Guardian
Try, Try Again
The Merciless Savior

Fuuko's arc was probably my favorite part of the first season of Clannad. Really liked the ending. Most of the best parts are in After Story obviously, but yeah.

LeonhartFour posted...

Has a character you dont like ever managed to make you emotional?

Probably. The trap though is that usually when this happens they become a character I like, thereby disqualifying themselves.

Glancing through some of my favorite stuff I think probably some character from the Monogatari series is a good answer, but I'm not 100% sure which one. Hachikuji maybe with her arc in Second Season?

To make a dedicated break team really good right now I think you need the Super Break damage which only Harmony Trailblazer can get.

I wasn't necessarily saying that from the angle of "I didn't like this show and I don't understand it's popularity".

Well I guess for specifically Code Geass that is what I was saying but the other ones I mentioned I'm definitely a fan of.

Edit: oh you were responding to roba not me oops. Oh well

It looks like the only show from the top 25 I haven't seen at all is Vinland Saga, though I've only seen very small amounts percentage-wise of One Piece and Jojo so you could probably throw those in as well.

Only like 2 or 3 of the shows I have seen I'd describe as even below average also so yeah pretty good list.

If anything is surprising to me it's how has Code Geass managed to maintain its popularity through all these years.

Would not have expected Bocchi that high either, I guess. Also a bit surprised at Clannad and Mushoku Tensei, though I did know the latter was quite popular there. (Clannad was popular for sure when I was a regular there from ~2012 to 2017 but I guess I assumed that show would fall off with time also.)

Actually a very good list overall though, imo.

From purely a character design perspective I'm pretty sure the Luofu has been my favorite area so far. Never really agreed with the community complaints about that aspect.

This probably means bad things for my stellar jade savings.

Level 4
Dearly Beloved
-

Hold on Mission THINK actually slaps though.

If there's one thing I'm hoping for out of the return to Xianzhou it's more fuel for my Fu Xuan/Qingque headcanon. Please at least give me this.

I think this is probably part of it but like also the swordmaster in the silhouette has that same sword stance that Jingliu and Blade have

It would suck but that doesn't mean I think they won't do it.

(I think the second of those is more likely)

Boy that legendary new swordmaster sure looks suspiciously March 7 shaped huh. (I don't know anything about whatever leaks there are but I may look stupid if they've already said something else.) Edit: Wait actually I do know from the leaks we are getting a new March 7, just not if it has any relation to the character shown here

Going to assume that Moze is a Sho Minamimoto expy until proven otherwise

The Office is cool. I haven't watched enough of it to really know what people are saying when they start talking about it, but I've liked basically everything I've seen from it.

LeonhartFour posted...

What is a moment you like that became a meme?

That's Dunban over there (Xenoblade 1 spoilers possible if you look this up I guess)

(Ok something from Lord of the Rings is probably a better answer but I thought of this first)

I don't understand your feelings on these songs.

At least in match 3 anyway.

Match 1 unsurprising but way closer than I expected. Caves of Mul was pretty neat.

Also I found the combination of these 2 comments amusing

failgirlema posted...

it's got a few of those annoying "emotional music" tropes but it actually does them well enough that I don't find them too annoying

pyresword posted...

It's like music that is superficially a style I enjoy but all the wrong aspects of the music are emphasized.

Caves of Mul
You Will Know Our Names
Release The Seal

A Hopeful Astraea really upsets me for reasons that are probably very unfair, but oh well. It's like music that is superficially a style I enjoy but all the wrong aspects of the music are emphasized. The piano in particular sounds really bad to me. There's still probably a decent amount of things I would vote this over as it is still a style I enjoy but I wouldn't be happy about it. The viola/cello part is good, at least. Fortunately it's an easy vote against here though since Blue Dragon is an all-time favorite of mine. It is a bit of a weird case because it's a song I'm so-so on large parts of the runtime but really really like one part (3:12), but that one part is enough to carry the song and then some.

Release the Seal > Caves of Mul > Castle of Sand > You Will Know Our Names > Hopeful Astraea > I Don't Understand Your Feelings

Balearic Birds
Supermoon
EXEC_ViiBaCi_MjiiRa/.

Group harmonized jpop singing is usually a slam dunk for me, but not really this one. It's still fine, but I think instrumentals don't mix with the singing too well, in addition to not being great on their own (the instrumentals again--the vocals are good). Balearic Birds is really catchy and just all around a blast. There's one specific melody I don't care for like at 0:27, but it doesn't detract from the song too much.

Gravity Man is fine. Solid melody and probably good for it's time, but listening now it is hurt by the soundfont I think. Supermoon is a pretty cool atmospheric track. I really like these ethereal sounding held vocal notes. Reminds me a bit of Neotokyo overall which I am definitely also a fan of.

The vocal parts of Barcelona are very cool but don't last quite long enough, and the rest of the song is only fine to good. Also it's up against peak this round anyways RIP.

EXEC_ViiBaCi_MjiiRa/. > Balearic Birds > Barcelona > Supermoon > BLOW my GALE > Gravity Man

I still haven't gotten all the birds or all the stickers even from the 2.0 content. Probably just going to wait until they stop making story updates in Penacony.

Probably something in Final Fantasy IX for me.

(Not the You're Not Alone sequence in my case though because despite FF9 being my favorite game for a long time that scene isn't really one of my favorite parts of the game)

FYI you don't want the full follow-up set on Clara because of the way the buff resets itself (It only really works with multi-hit follow-up attacks). I use 2-pc Physical/2-pc follow-up, but various other 2-pc combinations or 4-pc physical are all usable

Convergence
Bulletin Combat
Dear My Friend

Convergence is fantastic. Tuned percussion with meaningful melodic progression and a good climax? Sign me up. Not expecting a whole lot contest-wise but low-key this is one of my favorites this year. Crisis City is a nice tension-maintaining song but not really something that I have much interest in voting for against this opponent.

Bulletin Combat is a really unnerving song (in a good way), and I think it has a quite good soundfont. I think I'd like it more if there were a bit more melodic evolvement, but the direction it goes is also cool. I'm writing this before listening to the song but I've never liked Mili and I assume Grown-up's Paradise won't be the exception. (Ok overall it looks like I'm kind of neutral on the song. The first half I don't like much but the second half is somewhat better.)

Not super big on Dragon Valley. I don't really know how to get at why without coming across as dismissive (partially because I don't understand myself), but the sax sections just do not work for me. The only word that really comes to mind when describing "hollow" but idk if that will make sense to anyone. The parts with melodies from a different instrument are better but do not really make up the difference. Dear my Friend is a solid song with nice vocals and guitar. I don't feel it's too noteworthy, but it's a style I have a lot of fondness for.

Convergence > Bulletin Combat > Dear My Friend > Grown-up's Paradise > Crisis City > Dragon Valley

Don't forget Final Fantasy XIII

I'm not sure what the community has to say about this but I'm guessing you'd probably be more or less okay skipping Reverie, if you wanted to go that route.

Anyway I don't really like playing demos, but I'll at least be paying attention to this since I'm curious what others have to say about the new battle system.

Oh I forgot to respond to the sports one, because sports just aren't really something I think about much or am that into nowadays. Kid pyresword was not happy though when the Cubs lost to the Marlins in the 2003 NLCS.

The RC controls at the beginning are technically the same as the actual ship but feel totally different because you're observing from a stationary third-person perspective. Like pressing up makes the ship move forward, but that means moving forward from it's own reference frame/perspective and so controlling it remotely is just an absolute nightmare. I can get the thought process because it can help show the player what does what, but in practice it still feels awful and was a terrible inclusion.

ChaosTonyV4 posted...

If you just explore without a goal in mind, youre gonna naturally stumble on things that end up being relevant, they just wont make sense until you get more context

This is the issue for a lot of people I think. A lot of people view exploring without a goal as a waste of time, and the fact that the things they find don't necessarily make sense immediately means there's no immediate payoff either. For them the game lacks both incentive and reward for its gameplay. The game is really aimed at players for whom the act of exploration itself provides both.

(This is all sort of speculation on my part, but yeah)

Of course when I played I was ever really exploring aimlessly; it's just that the goals I had were self-defined rather than explicitly defined by the game. I would also say the game demands active rather than passive participation from the player though.

Dance of Wind
Fire Island Volcano
Specimen of Life (Long Version)

akiko shikata jumpscare

A collection of thoughts I have on the game; because I can't think of any other way to organize it:

--I think Outer Wilds is a pretty good game. However I don't consider it a must-play, and I also think it's made with a specific player-type in mind which won't apply to everyone.

--If you're expecting a curated experience you are likely to have a bad time with this game, I think.

--The player is expected to fail relatively frequently when playing.

--I never had any issue with the controls and would even say they're good. They're responsive and very easy to understand. I think basically every player struggles with moving around at some point because this type of 3-dimensional movement is not something human brains have evolved to do well or have much experience with, which is deliberately part of the challenge of the game. Not everyone will enjoy this, but again I think it is both deliberate and well-implemented.

--The autopilot is a specific set of steps based on your location and your target with no other considerations, which I guess is frustrating if you're playing the game trying to ignore the space flight aspects entirely.

Danger (ARM Version)
Wildfire
Evergreen

Might change my mind on match 1 later. Both retirement-worthy.

I generally think a lot of the "context required" claims are exaggerated, but Wildfire isn't one of them. It's still good regardless, but much better and more impactful in the game itself imo. Reach for the Moon I'm not super fond of either way though so...

Xenoblade 3 villain: *commits nigh unspeakable acts of destruction and malice. Including both mass-slaughter of innocents and deeply personal acts of hatred simply to relish in the pure joy he derives from inflicting misery upon others. Also by the way one time a sad thing happened to him.*

Mio: "No one can...truly judge him for what he did..."

idk Mio maybe I'm missing something but personally I'm not encountering too many difficulties with the procedure.

(The chapter was pretty great overall but this line was silly ok)

I also just watched the Haikyuu movie. For various reasons I think the series is better suited to the weekly episodic format, but it's still pretty much what you've come to expect from Haikyuu. Good stuff, albeit probably not as strong as the Shiratorizawa and Inarizaki matches.

Pay it Forward is a great movie not sure what's wrong with the critics tbh

Discussing contingency plans is definitely good, but I also think the risk of something actually happening to the board in the near-term is pretty small, assuming there haven't been very recent developments I'm unaware of.

I think the best solution is either a new forum or Discord, though I also am not the biggest fan of Discord's forum feature.

I did know the backup board KCF mentioned was a thing someone was working on, which could be viable also. Haven't actually tried it or looked into it myself though.

This is nice that I'll actually see the topic again now since it was a not-insignificant portion of where I got political news from even if I rarely posted. (I mean in theory I could have gone to CE but lol)

You mean I could have had my suave robot aristocrat flinging chalk at everyone and they took that away from me!?! I am upset.

Nazca no Oka
The Dreadful Fight
RGB

No time/energy for writeups but another good day.

Legram way too low smh

Chaeix posted...

it definitely felt a bit too drawn out

There were times when it felt like this to me also, but the final chapter was so satisfying I don't even care.

dowolf posted...

given that this is in Old Japanese (think Shakespearean)

I am pretty sure there was a comment about this from the translators in whatever collector's edition of the game I have. Sadly it looks like it got lost when I moved this year and is either in storage somewhere or at my parents house. Unfortunate. It seemed like they'd put a fair amount of thought into it though.

Ok just going to go with this because it's in the same series as the game I'm currently playing.

Malos (Xenoblade Chronicles 2)

Black tar
Morning Dew
Nuedori

Lost in the Abyss is solid. Decent instrumentals and decent vocals. Fittingly, it (Lost in the Abyss) sounds like one of the not-as-good Hiroyuki Sawano vocal songs, which still puts it within "I enjoy this" territory. Unfortunately it's up against actual Hiroyuki Sawano though, and this is definitely one of his better songs imo. Lots going on with the cool electronic backing, and the vocals are also quite good. I really like the intro to the second song of the medley.

Morning Dew is a very pretty ballade. From a compositional/melodic angle I think the vocals do a bit too much of the heavy lifting, but it's a good performance to go along with that. Pretty great overall. For Morning Light Hymnus a lot of the individual pieces are fantastic, but I feel the whole is less than the sum of its parts. I've never been overly fond of combining operatic vocals with rock instrumentals, though this is certainly one of the better examples of that. The climax at at ~4:30 is very good.

Vector to the Heavens is fine, I guess. I feel I should like this a lot more but there's something missing. The piano sounds...hollow, or something? I don't know what it is but it just sounds off, and I feel this song would be very very good with just a different piano performance or maybe even the physical instrument itself. Not sure if this is specific to this version of the song or what. Nuedori has been a favorite of mine ever since I first heard it, so I was ecstatic when someone else brought it back this year and it was able to get in. Definitely one of the most prominent examples in my head for "I listened to this opening theme every single time I turned the game on." Love the combination of tribal instrumentals and incredible (as always) vocals from Suara. The song captures both adventurous and tragic vibes very well.

Nuedori >= Black tar > Morning Dew > Morning Light Hymnus > Lost in the Abyss > Vector to the Heavens

Very good day. Feels like Morning Dew would have been first in several days so far.

Barely managed it, but got 12 stars on Pure Fiction with not a DoT character in sight. ~35k on the first half with Aventurine/Ruan Mei/Himeko/Topaz, and ~25k on the second half with triple Nihility Acheron. Was barely able to get the last few points by swapping Trend of the Universal Market from Aventurine to Fu Xuan in order to get an extra ult or 2 with Acheron. ...in retrospect I just realized Fire MC probably would have worked better but oh well this was good enough and I forgot Fire MC existed for a minute.

I generally liked the first three Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Not all-timers or anything but definitely solid movies.

Utawarerumono is great, but honestly I look at that series more as an original game and a two-part sequel and not really as a proper trilogy. Which I guess is kind of what you're saying also. (Not saying Utawarerumono shouldn't count; I just meant it makes me less likely to pick it)

Honestly I might just vote for Return of the King here.

Anti-vote Zero Time Dilemma