Lurker > kaonashi1

Class::CIEL_N_PROTECTA;
Fogbeasts

Central Tower "Axis Pillar"
Living in the City

Speartip of Judgment
Bahram Attack -Nekomata Master Remix-
Pioneer's Horizon

Catabolism
Paradise (Stay Forever)

Pioneer's Horizon
DigiFamily

Id (Purpose)
La Mer

Dreamy and Boisterous Holy Land
Sight of Silence
Mahoujin -Summon Delta-

Fogbeasts
The Explosion

Mahoujin -Summon Delta-
linkage-alter
Fairfrozen: Selicy's Theme

Vast Poni Canyon
Central Tower "Axis Pillar"
Living in the City

444
Bahram Attack -Nekomata Master Remix-
Id (Purpose)

Paradise (Stay Forever)
In the Doldrums
Speartip of Judgment

Calling
Id (Purpose)
DigiFamily

One Last Trial
Catabolism
Vast Ice Mountain Peak

Pioneer's Horizon
DigiFamily
Id (Purpose)

Stella -Part 2-
Return to Oblivion
rhythm-changer

Apex of the World (Rain)
Id (Purpose)
Immanence

Beyond the Bounds
Dreamy and Boisterous Holy Land
Gentle Slope Cave

Fogbeasts
The Explosion
Ice-covered Love ~ Kohri

Class::CIEL_N_PROTECTA;
Fairfrozen: Selicy's Theme
One Night in Neo Kobe City

linkage-alter
Planet Wisp (Act 1)
Strange Sunset

S-Rank Battle
Legacy
Mahoujin -Summon Delta-

Strange Sunset
Central Tower "Axis Pillar"
Living in the City

Liber Ark
Conquest
Vast Poni Canyon

Danger (ARM version)
444
Bahram Attack -Nekomata Master Remix-

In the Doldrums
Speartip of Judgment
Sky of Twilight

Duality
Greenpath
Vrdels

The Shackled Wolves (Rain)
Pursuit ~ Lying Coldly
Paradise (Stay Forever)

Vrdels
Mikazuchi
Vast Ice Mountain Peak

Anka
Catabolism
Pioneer's Horizon

DigiFamily
The Battle Was Just "To Continue That Future"
The Big Ride

rhythm-changer
Pioneer's Horizon
Tactical Field

La Mer
Return to Oblivion
Chrono Trigger

Immanence
Stella -Part 2-
Full Steam Ahead

QuelI->EX[cez]->{kranz};
Id (Purpose)
Fateful Confrontation

Sight of Silence
You Were There
Ikou (Authority)

Dreamy and Boisterous Holy Land
It's Kill or Be Killed ~ Destroy Resort
Madness

Ice-covered Love ~ Kohri
Unrest - The End of the Raging Waves
Beyond the Bounds

The Butterfly's Temptation
Lucky Charm (Cuilan phase 1)
Fly to the Leaden Sky

Hope Given ~ "Dance of the Dog's Howl"
Altered Genos
Sanctuary-SHU

Ryoshima Coast
Impossible Worlds
Rose-Killing Carmilla

Planet Wisp (Act 1)
Out of Tartarus
Class::CIEL_N_PROTECTA;

National Park
Collapsed Expressway
Soaring Through Azure Sadness

Mahoujin -Summon Delta-
Dreams in a Pie

I skip down the path
That goes half the way nowhere
To the other side of somewhere.

Final Voyage
Legacy

-final voyage's sense of, well, finality has always struck me; I think this was the first track I heard on this soundtrack that made me want to play this game. very much an 'end of the universe' feeling; it's neat to compare this to hurry up's own take on what kind of felt like an 'end of the universe' sound yesterday; where the latter was increasingly frantic this feels like slow inevitability
-I marvel at legacy's ability to deliver a sense of mystery almost entirely with its composition. the section that starts at 1:17 is one of my favourite progressions in this contest; emotional but I'm never certain what emotion it is. I'm left to think about it long after it ends. Wonderful piece.
-very sobering tracks to (almost) close out round 1. music that seems to say 'it's over' and then 'what's next?'

Living in the City
S-Rank Battle
House of Sacred Remains

-after the organ intro, house of sacred remains kinda makes me think of metroid prime-- not because of any real familiarity with that soundtrack, but specifically because the low vox reminds me of the Metroid Prime menu theme, and it has an echoing ambiance that gives me a Metroid-esque 'wandering alone' feeling, which I like a lot. With that backdrop, the reintroduction of the organ almost feels intrusive, but it's quickly followed up by the pluck synth 6/8 section, which I think is really good as a harder-hitting section that still maintains that feeling of exploring in the dark.

Central Tower "Axis Pillar"
Subete no Yuri wa Chiri Hatete
Towards the Horizon

-Axis Pillar-- this is the falcom music I am here for. There's so many cool things about this track, but the thing that jumps out to me first is the way those three tones that the first half of the track focuses on anchors the entire track-- not just musically, but spatially. It stays in the centre while everything else pans around it, like sort of a musical clockwork contraption that revolves around, well, a central pillar. The way the synths go up and down in polymetric patterns really hammers home the point further. It's produced extremely cleanly, each layer really pops, the percussion taps out some really cool, unpredictable rhythms. That weird 'twang' sound that starts showing up at 1:36 is the best (well, no, the three tones are the best, but it's one of the best). It paints an extremely vivid picture of the setting; I can't imagine a track that makes me want to play the game more than this one.
-sometimes I ask myself 'what does second dark matter battle sound like? brain, fire it up' and this track plays in my head instead and I'm like 'god damn it brain'. This touches on some things I'm not really looking for in PMD series music (some straightforward non-ambiguous leading melodies, progressions) but it does hit a few (some of the accompaniment layers are nice in a way that remind me of some of the dungeon themes I like).
-NO IMAGE has grown on me! Sort of a blend of touhou-esque melodies and a sound that reminds me of some old anime tracks I liked from my past. The chorus is catchy in a way I like and 1:43's progression is nice.

Cosmic Hero
XaaaCi.
Connexion

Title Theme is a strangely melancholy track-- it's a pretty short chord loop and heavily pentatonic melody in a style I don't particularly like, but something about the mood of it makes it a bit more compelling to me than such a track would normally.

Cosmic Hero's overall sound is pretty cool, though I'm not as interested in its melodic elements. The sound and the mood it sets seems to be the point, regardless. What does it evoke? Uh, synthwave, I guess. And robots. Retrofuturism. (Like Robocop!)

Parsing XaaaCi as a Yoshitaka Hirota track with hymmnos elements rather than as a straight hymmnos track helped my appreciation of this track; with that thought in mind I found I was focusing on different elements of the track in ways that made them more relatable. Even if it happens a quarter of the way into the track, dople feels clearly like its climax-- the entire previous minute and a half is spent building up to that moment, a blast of unthinking, merciless rage. It's there to override everything else, like it's a neurolinguistic virus from Snow Crash. Everything after that is just post-hoc exposition and context.

The harmonies used in this latter section are still really cool-- they often avoid implying any specifically major or minor key, focusing on seconds and fourths and fifths, shifting a tone up and down, chords as impassive slabs of music, only breaking at the end to express sort of a 'why did it have to be this way' sentiment-- though that's not the sentiment the track leaves with, instead returning to Hirota's harsh drumlines and a sustained dissonant note to close. There's no hope to be found in this ending. The rhythm is similarly relentless, shifting but with constant forward movement-- the way the drums come in at 3:58 to shift your perception is pretty great.

XaaaCi is awesome in the dictionary sense-- I think if I'm in the mood to click with or listen to this track it's probably a bad sign. I'd rather be listening to it from a respectful distance.

I think I'm in the mood for it.

Strange Sunset has this chill opening and I'm thinking 'well, this is pretty nice.' It's only when 0:58's synth chords hit when I really get into it, an irrepressible head-bobber or foot-tapper of a track. The piano solo that starts at 1:42 is also fantastic. I think it's one of the most fun tracks to listen to in this contest.

I have a strange history with Connexion-- when I first heard it (late 2019? when collecting music for the vgm in 2019 list, regardless) my thoughts were pretty much 'nice synth ostinato, pretty cheesy melody and lyrics, wow the way "connection" is lengthened is super corny, I wish this had more energy and hit harder in the chorus'. A couple months in, I realized the song was not going away-- every once in a while I'd fire it up, like 'why not', and eventually the criticisms-- they didn't go away so much as they stopped mattering to me. Eventually I stopped listening to it, so when it showed up in VGMC15 I was like 'well this is a good test-- what remains now, the old criticisms or the old fondness?' and the answer was pretty much overwhelmingly the old fondness.

I dunno. This really is kinda cheesy, in a way I might be disparaging about in other contexts! We're none of us strict rule-based music-evaluation automatons, in the end (and I think we'd be incredibly boring if we were). The synth ostinato (which kinda serves as a leitmotif for the Shattered Connexion event as a whole, showing up in the Main Enemy tracks in this event) is still really appealing. The melodrama of the melody and lyrics work together and kinda get to me (in a good way). The chorus has its own quiet energy; I can imagine belting out AND MADE A WALL, A HEDGE BETWEEN in appropriate or inappropriate contexts.

All of which puts me in a frustrating position with Sunjammer. This is a really cool composition. It's grown on me since nominations; one of the things I really love about Shnabubula's work is the ways different layers show up with their own little melodic phrases and just work perfectly with the things they overlap with. Listen to that bass go! Listen to how it interacts at 0:20-- it's just awesome. There's so much to enjoy and admire just by focusing on those interactions throughout the track, and makes me reminisce about when I first heard some of Shnabubula's remixes-- like Mucho Dollar Care a Junk CIA-- and was struck by the same sort of feeling.

if XaaaCi and Sunjammer met in round 3 it would be DOPLE vs OPL

Into Free -Dangan-
Vast Poni Canyon
Towards the Horizon

-call me a singa fan because I'm voting for B'z haha-- I'm sorry
-one thing I randomly remember from very old VGMCs is that I was pretty hard on Dark Messenger back in those days-- I think it was just a general sense of 'this track is bombastic and the melody is totally unengaging', like Kuja is strutting into the ring with stadium rock playing; I'm marginally positive on this track at this point
-the actual THIRD siren/alarm track in this VGMC. wondered if my opinion has changed on this substantially since last year-- not really! still compelling in some ways, scattered and safe in others, not fully engaged the whole way through