Board 8 > [VGMC] d9: Battle Tower vs Final Destination, Wings of Terror vs Endless Desert

(+) Yeah! (+)

Welcome to today's topic for Video Game Music Contest 14, a tournament of the best tracks from games, as decided upon by you, the voters.

Links:
Contest info - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VNrPnFRI7nJ4PqFiURBW0NWqxvXiuasoq8Sn_O169ss/edit#gid=320804650
Bracket - http://www.bracketmaker.com/tlist.cfm?tid=473292
Discussion and results thread - https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/78524521
Bracket playlist - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLW9O9mntH1REnVI_W6yELaDP6Zac8b0Wq
ToC playlist - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLW9O9mntH1RE-TQMj19D0k5nm-0zeH12J
VGMC compability sheet - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1lpX4faqnn_geI0y4i6MrZ2AXpV6SWXoWrIA6_eyx-yM/edit

Rules:
- Listen to both of the songs. Links have conveniently been provided for both songs. Even if Song A is your favorite of all-time and Song B is from a series you hate... Listen. To. Both. (If I

Oh, crap, how did I just miss a day?

---

Battle Tower
Wings of Terror Phase 2
Chloe
---

Final Destination
An Endless Desert
Chloe

this first match is honestly the most baffling one to me when it comes to seeding. i really don't see how this is a 1v12 (bottom) seed match at all. this day is really a good example of stuff i'm not satisfied with having not had most of my remarks impact seeding at all because they didn't want to count me for some reason

how do people care about the granblue soundtrack

gs is still one of my least favourite ztses

very easy day

Final Destination
An Endless Desert
Chloe

the story behind how like Toby Fox gets invited to do a song for big giant fanchise pokemon and decides to reuse tune of a thing he got banned from a forum for continues to make me laugh. Song is pretty good too even if I feel like it doesn't really feel like a pokemon song to me but I skipped Gen 8 so maybe I don't know. FD is good stuff too, it's got like this calmer atmosphericish variant of the Metal Fight theme from 64. The different sections it transfers between at :31 and :40 are real nice to me. I sort of feel like FD has a bit less "substance" than BT but I'm still just a bit happier with the result of FD. Close match for me, both good songs.

in WotPhase2 The backing tune at about :35 reminds me of something big but I can't remember what oh no I can't guess the video game music. Anyway the song has too much I don't care for, the instrumentation, the man singing, and doesn't really do anything to really impress me. On the other hand the endless desert has some interesting rhythms about it, a slightly nicer instrumentation set, and No Man. Pretty easy vote for me.

Golden's Laughter has a pretty interesting start but it also takes quite a while to get going and when it does it doesn't particularly impress me at first. But after the harpsichord gets introduced I can kind of get more into it (again?). It's alright. I don't like Miss Chloe's instrumentation as much but the rhythm's are much more fun and engaging and as a result I'm a bit more enthralled with this song basically all the way through than I ever really was of the other one so I dunno this match felt close but maybe it actually isn't


---

Battle Tower (73rd) vs Final Destination (71st)
Wings of Terror Phase 2 (112th) vs An Endless Desert (151st)
goldenslaughterer [25th] vs Chloe [23rd]

Hello Udnertale song oh wait i am DUPED it is Pokemon Sword and Shield what the heck fwwuguradiustion??? This song is so "please listen to my instruments from the Hit Game Undertale" it's almost annoying.... almost. But not quite. It manages to walk the fine line between "similar" and "blatant pandering" or something but manages to convince me to fall face first into "similar" territory and roll away to bangertown. 1:06 the chord change there is like WHOA for like one and a half seconds and okay i'll admit 1:41 to loop is actually like REALLY COOL yeah this song is pretty damn good still. Final Destination is SOOOOO CRISP for a nintendo 64 song I love the CONSTRUCTION WHIRRRR YOU ARE GOING THROUGH SPACE AND IT IS NOT PRETTY YOU ARE GETTING BEAT UP just the overall bounciness and energy in this song and just NOISES coming at you is so good, and the noises know when to let up and let you enjoy the cool composition stuff underneath and the rolly bongos and SICK synths wow it's so fun. I know my writeup for FD seems a lot more positive than battle tower but how much i like them both overall is.... pretty damn even lol. Sticking with my ranking here because I get a bit more enjoyment out of FD with all the cool whirrs and noises. Great match!

REBIRTH AND DESTRUCTION HERE AT MY COMMAND, REBIRTH AND DESTRUCTION AGAIN AND AGAIN
i fuckin love dark silver wings and its variations so much even though my scores for them don't really reflect that lolol they are definitely songs where if you described it on paper i'd be like "oh i don't think that'd sound very good" but then they're SUPER STUPIDLY FUN SONGS because of the engrish and the melody is actually pretty damn great and then afterwards i'm like "eh it could've been better" again. the vyrn version is unironically amazing tho. i also feel like this new version is missing a little something too over the original; kinda wish that was here instead i guess but it doesn't really matter cause it's up against An Endless Desert, which while it sounds cool does like... not much for me at all. I wish I got more out of it cause of its cool sounds!!! but yeah again and again wins out

WOW this ToC match is fuckin BALLLLLER AGAIN i LOVE LOVE LOVE the opening groan synth thingy in goldenslaughterer and just the general dark psy feel of goldenslaughterer like it never gets old despite its runtime which is something zts seems to be hit-or-miss on (lol lec) very cool song but OH NO DJ TOTTO BANGER NOOOOOOO chloe does not have the problems that i had with kanata no reflesia; it still is missing a lil somethin somethin that stuff like dornwald gives me (mainly the UNTZ UNTZ but that's personal preference rather than something actually wrong with the song lol) but god its so good. sorry goldenslaughterer i cant vote for you this time!!!

Chloe > goldenslaughterer > Final Destination > Battle Tower > Wings of Terror Phase 2 > An Endless Desert

Battle Tower
Wings of Terror Phase 2
goldenslaughterer

---

Pokemon Sword and Shield - Battle Tower
Granblue Fantasy Versus - Wings of Terror Phase 2
Umineko no Naku Koro ni 1 - goldenslaughterer

---

Battle Tower
An Endless Desert
Chloe

Mid tier Toby Fox sweeps the four pack for sure. ToC was quite hard, even considering goldenslaughterer is far from my favorite zts.

---

Final Destination
Wings of Terror Phase 2
Chloe
---

Battle Tower
An Endless Desert
goldenslaughterer

Battle Tower's kinda okay I guess. Not much to it. FD isn't good. Would rank it below most (maybe all) the other Final Destinations. Brawl's is my favorite.

Wings of Terror not so great either. I don't hate it, but again, it's the worst of the Granblue tracks. Endless Desert is more fun.

Man I am not in the mood for Chloe right now I guess? I like yesterday's rhythm songs a lot better. goldenslaughterer the miracle song that made me fall in love with Umineko

goldenslaughterer > Chloe > An Endless Desert > Battle Tower > Wings of Terror Phase 2 > Final Destination
---

Final Destination
An Endless Desert
goldenslaughterer

Battle Tower
An Endless Desert
goldenslaughterer

---

Battle Tower
Endless Desert
Chloe

Hi Toby Fox doing an impression of Zun doing a Pokemon impression. You're decidedly okay. But I don't like you as much as I like basically anything in Deltarune, nor as much as I like half of the Sword/Shield OST. It's kind of unfortunate! Still, though. Solid.

Hi machine factory did I click on the wrong link nope okay you're a machine factory which is neat i guess but not for me sorry.

Wings of Terror is very RUDE starting with phase 2 tsk tsk. It feels very weird, because I know the original so I expect to start at, well, the beginning. I also think I like the original more? But there's definitely parts of this that are super rocking and awesome, like the countermelodies with the violin and horn in the second repetition of the chorus bit around 1:15. But through most of the track, that violin feels tied down more than it should be. Live, violin! Be free! Break quarantine! <--no don't do that but still BE FREE! also that loop point is rough. Would've strongly preferred a single-loop version oh well. I feel like I'm being really negative but I do mostly like it! It's easier to critique things I almost love sometimes.

boop beep's in the desert how are you this day? looks like there's a bit of early morning bustle to me. People at the oasis, setting up their shops, kids frolicking in the streets. Reminds me of Somali. It just feels so fun there's really no other word for it I want to dance to this song why are there no popular dances for 7/4 music oh well time to invent one~

DELETED BECAUSE I HIT POST TOO SOON goldenslaughter's gonna murder me oh nooooooooooo i'm sorry goldenslaughter i didn't mean to! anywho umineko battle music is cool

But not as cool as Chloe! Now this, this is gusty. Love the balance of everything here, love the accordion coming in, love the bass line, love the countermelody dings in my right ear that I can't place the instrument, love the pan flute, it's just wonderful. Can't praise this enough.

Really good day I liked most of the music but I have clear favorites all the same I give today a ^_^/10.
---

Battle Tower
Wings of Terror Phase 2
goldenslaughterer

Final Destination
Endless Desert
Chloe

---

Final Destination
An Endless Desert
*ranking topic spoilers*
Chloe.................................................

Battle Tower (4.5) / Final Destination (6.0)
Wings of Terror Phase 2 (5.0) / An Endless Desert (9.0)

Not so impressed with the main bracket competitors today. Battle Tower is my least favorite Toby Fox music to be in any VGM contest... It's like you take a mediocre battle composition, but then you try so hard to make it sound cool by adding these highly energized instruments that it ends up being obnoxious. But yeah, GBA said it doesn't sound like Pokemon, and I agree, and trying to make it sound like Pokemon surely would've made me like it more. Oh, well.

---

Final Destination
An Endless Desert
goldenslaughterer

Final Destination
Wings of Terror Phase 2
Chloe

Battle Tower is obnoxious. Final Destination is alright.
Endless Desert is interesting. Wings of Terror gives me big Eternity vibes which you'd think would be a bad thing but alas
totto or riot

---

Final Destination
An Endless Desert
Chloe

Super Smash Bros. - Final Destination
Granblue Fantasy Versus - Wings of Terror Phase 2
Umineko no Naku Koro ni 1 - goldenslaughterer
---

Final Destination
Wings of Terror Phase 2
goldenslaughterer

final destination has been one of the coolest sounding songs i know for the past 19 years sorry toby

toc match was tougher than i anticipated because they're both REALLY COOL

---

Pokemon Sword and Shield - Battle Tower
Granblue Fantasy Versus - Wings of Terror Phase 2
Umineko no Naku Koro ni 1 - goldenslaughterer

MATCH 1

Don't really have much to say about Battle Tower. It's a good song and I can definitely hear how it sounds like Toby Fox since I wouldn't see it as out of place in Undertale or Deltarune. Pretty inoffensive song and sounds cool to me.

Final Destination's a neat song too. Feels like lobby music or character select music. Kinda feel the same way about this song as I do about Battle Tower in that it's a cool song and also inoffensive. Battle Tower, I just like a little more, though.

MATCH 2

Wings of Terror Phase 2 is by far the best Granblue Fantasy Versus song in the main bracket. Not as good as New World Order, though, in the ToC bracket lol. I like the original Dark Silver Wings a lot too. Dark Silver Wings in particular is really cool with the buildup to the part that you hear in Wings of Terror Phase 2, but I'm totally fine with just that verse part isolated because both are super cool and I just think that second half of Dark Silver Wings works just fine as a standalone part. In addition, I like some of the new stuff that gets added to Wings of Terror Phase 2 like the electric organ and the violin. This is just a really good song all around!

An Endless Desert's a nice, peaceful song. This doesn't actually feel like walking through an endless desert! Feels like I'm just there on vacation or I'm just passing through. It's a nice song to leave on in the background, but ultimately, a song like Wings of Terror Phase 2 is definitely gonna win me over. It's just way more my thing than An Endless Desert.

MATCH 3

Aw yes, time for a super strong Tournament of Champions match! Up first is yet another great selection from Umineko, goldenslaughterer. Like I said about system0, I really love all the dark music that this game has and goldenslaughterer's another great example of it. zts is also another Umineko composer that consistently has made great music for the game and has never put out a song for the game that I dislike (wish I could say the same about his non-VGM stuff!). I wish I could say more about why I love this song, it's just super cool! I feel like it does so many things that I really like.

I said about Kanata no Rafflesia in the previous day's thread that DJ TOTTO songs can feel kinda lacking in some way while still being good, but this is definitely not the case with Chloe. Chloe's definitely my favorite song from this composer that I've heard. Honestly, if I were to redo my Bracket A for VGMC13 now, I would probably have Chloe retiring instead of Star Shooter - Extra Boss. Chloe's a very cool world song that has a really great melody. Especially starting at 0:15. Both songs are super good in this match but sadly, I have to pick goldenslaughterer here. The choice is too clear for me, but this is a fantastic match.

goldenslaughterer > Chloe > Wings of Terror Phase 2 > Battle Tower > Final Destination > An Endless Desert

Good day today! I like every song here today and the top 3 are really good.

Final Destination
An Endless Desert
goldenslaughterer

Battle Tower vs Final Destination: Battle of the fight areas for this match up huh. Battle Tower is pretyy cool, it has some cool moments like when the GBA stuff starts happening and then 2:12 hits and im like YOOOOO but thats all there is to the song really. The rest of the song is alright as well. Final Destination is just a super funky track. I don't really have any stand out moments because the entire song is just great. Its something you can really bob your head to while listening. which I like.

Wings of Terror Phase 2 vs An Endless Desert: Woah Wings of Terror has vocals. That was more or less my reaction to this song. There wasn't anything too special in this that I liked, the only noteworthy thing I was able to come up with was that there were vocals. An Endless Desert is kinda bare bones to me. Not much going on in this track but it isn't bad either. I don't really know how to describe the vibe on this track either, I don't remember what I did for this match up in my bracket but I feel like I might be going against it by voting An Endless Desert. Oh well.

goldenslaughterer vs Chloe: Wew lads its one of the big umineko track. goldenslaughterer has that perfect mix of suspense and release that just makes this track super good. The organ breaks like the ones at around the 2 minute mark are the best parts of this song. And Chloe is just some happy jrpgish town music. Its not bad but thats all it is, not bad.

---

Pokemon Sword and Shield - Battle Tower
Granblue Fantasy Versus - Wings of Terror Phase 2
Umineko no Naku Koro ni 1 - goldenslaughterer

Match 1: Ooh, one of the best R1 matches right here in terms of both songs being great. Even including the ToC bracket, Battle Tower is my favorite Toby Fox song in this contest, and is one of my favorite discoveries from the last year. Final Destination is pretty good too. If it was Meta Crystal here instead this would actually be a very, very hard choice, but even I'm not bold enough to nominate a 16 second loop for VGMC, even though it kicks ass. Maybe we'll get a Battle Tower remix for Smash Bros one day when a new Pokmon character gets added in!

Match 2: Okay, so Wings of Terror is actually totally amazing. I came very close to supporting this one on sight, only straying away once I heard the guy start singing. The absolute cheese of this kinda adds extra charm too though, so I'm not complaining. This is by far the best Granblue song I've heard, and there is a lot of good music from that franchise. Top 3 discovery of this contest. An Endless Desert is the worse of the two Desert songs in this year's VGMC (three, if you count ToC). Not to say that it's bad, I can totally see this working in context of whatever kind of video game this is.

ToC: goldenslaughterer is a solid 10/10, and the best of the zts Umineko tracks. Umineko holds the distinction of having the most 10/10 tracks from a single game for me (counting the question and answer arcs as a single game fwiw). This one really took way too long to finally retire. Chloe is something that I kinda just forgot retired. It has a cool accordion, but it just sounds like the song we had in the main bracket yesterday.

---

battle tower
endless desert
chloe

---

loweffortmemes posted...

zts is also another Umineko composer that consistently has made great music for the game and has never put out a song for the game that I dislike

you sure about that? i mean the atmospheric stuff in it is alright for what it is but i don't really know anyone who's all that crazy about it

UF8 posted...

you sure about that? i mean the atmospheric stuff in it is alright for what it is but i don't really know anyone who's all that crazy about it

Ah yeah, I forgot he did some of the atmospheric music too. So yeah, those I'm definitely not crazy about, but I'd also say that they're good for what they are.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrmr_vHpZI8
in hindsight even it's better than i remembered though

Okay maybe I have to take back what I said about zts when I said he never put out a song I didn't like lol. I forgot that song existed (though the intro's familiar to me).

Battle!! (XBC:T) isn't in the main bracket you silly! It's in the ToC.

Also holy crap when did Pokmon start doing this?! I've always been a fan of its major boss themes, but this is just the regular old Battle Tower theme, right? Not a special Tower Boss theme? ...Oh, Toby Fox made it. That explains everything. Also, holy crap Toby Fox is legitimately working with Nintendo now. It's all coming full circle for the man who first made his name on an Earthbound romhack. Mother 4 when?

...That's Final Destination 64? Doesn't sound familiar to me at all. Bah.

Oh ouch my ears. Can I turn this down? Nope, damnit, have to turn it back up again once the lyrics come in, even though the music is still too loud. Yeah, this is "get the fuck out of my contest" tier.

Which is unfortunate because Endless Desert is "yawn" tier. It's...inoffensive, I suppose. But it's just so blah; not the type of thing I'd vote for if I liked its opponent even a little bit. Lucky for it I absolutely loathe its opponent!

Oh, speaking of "get the fuck out of my contest". Okay, I'm still going to try to give this a chance. It becomes tolerable around the 1:10 mark. And then intolerable again at 2:53, at which point I decided to stop because it had already secured fifth place.

Which means two minutes of sheer unfiltered energy ends up in my #1 spot on the day? ...Eh, not quite. But close. This day was pretty weak, though; Battle Tower wouldn't have come close to #1 on any other day, yet here it is.

Votes:
Battle Tower
An Endless Desert
Chloe

Battle Tower > Chloe >>>>>>>>>>>>> An Endless Desert > Final Destination >>>>>>>>>>>>>> goldenslaughterer >>>>>>>>>>>>> Wings of Terror Phase 2

It's always a bad sign when a song I describe as "dull and lifeless" makes the top half. This day was just rancid.

---

Pokemon Sword and Shield - Battle Tower
Alto's Odyssey - An Endless Desert
Umineko no Naku Koro ni 1 - goldenslaughterer

---

Battle Tower
Wings of Terror Phase 2
goldenslaughterer

loweffortmemes posted...

Okay maybe I have to take back what I said about zts when I said he never put out a song I didn't like lol. I forgot that song existed (though the intro's familiar to me).

until now i didnt even view it as music lol

Final
Endless
Chloe
---

Final Destination
Wings of Terror Phase 2
goldenslaughterer

ez

---

Battle Tower
An Endless Desert
Chloe

Battle Tower
An Endless Desert
Chloe

Battle Tower
An Endless Desert
goldenslaughterer

Final Destination
An Endless Desert
goldenslaughterer

Battle Tower

toby no why are you reusing this song for pokemon . . . this does not hear like the 'toby fox music' i know and love it sounds too HAPPY AND PLAYFUL AND FAKE. AND DREAMLIKE. it does not exist this song never existed it was all a manifestation of our collective subconsciousness. like. compositionally it feels like toby 100% but sound design it doesn't and that bugs me a lot. this song feels like 'fake new pokemon game music' you'd see someone upload on yt but actually it's just a concept demo they made themselves...

Final Destination

man oh man do i love this song... i think i can finally dedicate a full on writeup to it with vgmc - my frame of mind wasn't in the right place when it was in my rankings ages ago but nowadays i think i can describe what i like about it with the justice it deserves. i always get this... really vivid mental image whenever i listen to this song of a bunch of really colorful jagged polygons speeding around constantly rotating and overlapping eachother - but at the same time it's all over this really saturated misty background that feels really sharp. the only thing i gotta say is i'm disappointed more of the song isn't like the intro 5 seconds. whole song just feels really colorful and full and hazy, and really something i like.

++-++

Wings of Terror Phase 2

woah 'fighting music' angry buff men shouting at each other with swords that look like guitars. they have a lot of patches all over their clothing THEY ARE ANGRY [not really it's all manufactured] THEY ARE ANGRY... this also gives massive freedom vibes. i get the same general feeling from this song that i get from like. ffxiv songs where i don't really know how to describe it in great detail lol. jam project-y.

An Endless Desert

cool clockwork rumbling down a hillll. i love the guitar plucking in this it's so rhythmic. and then you got those STACCATO STRINGS YEAH I'M FEELIN IT. just love the general 'springy' vibe of the song on a larger scale. how the strings interplay with the guitar and the bongos. feels like jumping.

++-++

goldenslaughterer

OH NO I AM ENTERING THE 70S WORLD DRONE SYNTHS. woah gated noise cool. i love music like this that makes me feel like i am inside the 'steel cold large room' where everything sounds COOL... and then it gets all renaissance at 1:40. CRUSHED BEATS and it's kind of trance-y too. trance renaissance 70s world. thank u z t s.

Chloe

PEOPLE NAME VGMS WHAT. cool celtic whoa dance jig. i'm in the world of super mario sunshine and piantas wont stop playing catch with me 'im a chuckster' this feels like a WATER WHEEL and now i am travelling through a village on a hill on a bike delivering news to everyone this is a very cool mental image this is showing me. and now 'the sun is setting' at the end of the song and i can smell NATURE. THE SUN. RAIN.

---

Final Destination
Wings of Terror Phase 2
goldenslaughterer

Final Destination
Wings of Terror Phase 2
Chloe
---

Battle Tower
An Endless Desert
goldenslaughterer

Battle Tower
An Endless Desert
goldenslaughterer

Main bracket matches are easy today. ToC is super duper easy, what with it being high-tier Umineko vs. another damn rhythm game track. Chloe at least isn't actively bad like most of its ilk, though.

---

goldenslaughterer sounds more like "rhythm game music" than Chloe does...
---

Final Destination
An Endless Desert

---

Final Destination
An Endless Desert
Chloe

-(Battle Tower is my 184th favorite in the contest! I do like toby fox, but i like most of gamefreak more than him, significantly, I wasn't too thrilled about his inclusion in their stuff because I like mainline pokemon's sound team so much how it is and felt his dissimilar style would get in the way. Also maybe in part because I think Toby excels most when writing to his own stuff, and his tracks without their ability to interact with each other in a larger work really makes them lose a lot of what makes his work special and detailed (and "detailed' is imo is decidedly what this track is the antithesis of). Though that said I actually like Little Town Hero's ost fairly well (likely heavily helped by that Hitomi Sato worked collaboratively with him and she is easily my favorite GameFreak composer, but still, the 'obviously toby' stuff i liked there too), but this. This is easily my least favorite song in Sword/Shield, by far. To be fair that's not saying all that much because like, I love the ost for the most part, but this song is ALSO in my 2 least favorite battle themes toby's ever made as far as i can remember (the other is also represented in this contest...twice). and I do not dislike toby fox as a whole! but if this was what was trying to sell me on toby fox i'd assume i hate his stuff. definitely would take like literally any deltarune song over this and most undertale or toby homestuck over this too. Just an extreme letdown on both the fronts of "what i look for in pokemon music" and "what i look for in tony fox music" simultaneously
\
Right off the bat I can't take it seriously with how ICE CREAM TRUCK(fl81) that brass fanfare starting it off sounds, & the fakeness/undynamicness of the sound is incredibly gross to me, every note the same exact volume and expression level on a theme that simple. Once it gets in i like it more...sort of, but I also hate "stuff where the kick-snare-kick-snare drums are going TOO FAST" in songs that are trying to be epic intense songs SO much. It redefines the track as "goofy carnival song" in terms of how i perceive it and so then it registers as the same category in my head as like "epic metal cover of really happy chirstmas song" which is my least favorite thing i can think of. I might instinctively wince more at how stupid I find this song to be more than any other song in the bracket even if I like other songs in the contest significantly less. This is some of my least favorite instrumentation&mixing I've heard in any song in this contest also, it's impossible to pick out most of the elements because they all sound like someone throwing all of the objects in a kitchen onto the ground while the kitchen is on fire and burning all recognizability of any layer to melted gbisomdlvxlkcber j. Simultaneously unpleasant and unsatisfying in sound, i can often actively dig grating unpleasant sample choices and whatever (See: Final Destination) but this doesn't feel deliberate at all and is just a clash of disgusting painful mud to me with none of the jankiness even being interesting jankiness
/
The reason I have it as high as 184th/192 though is...i can not deny that it IS successfully pretty EPIC and I like that : ) I like it melodically at some parts, has lots of DORIAN MODE which I have praised a bunch on a number of songs in the contest now I think. Dorian Mode is a very DESTINY scale that works well for "emotional intensity" and I appreciate the more melodic layers here for that. 1:41's cool...and I think the way this often brings back ideas from earlier in the track later and uses them in different ways is mildly cool. The build and flow is very cool. Just wish it were...bits of music I actually liked that it was 'using in cool ways' instead of bits of music that make me think of toddler playing two notes on a glockenspiel. I'm trying to be positive I promised myself I would not be too cruel with this writeup because I very deeply, vehemently despise this song, even if it does some things I like. Part of the frustration is that it's invading a series I love the music to and prefer every other song from this game & admire gamefreak's normal sound team. Part of it's frustration that of ALL things toby fox could've contributed, it was one of my least fav things I've heard from him. And toby fox has done stuff i LOVE and listen to regularly and enjoy every second of. So it's just a huge letdown. I might be placing this kind of high for how much i'm trashing this, since I do prefer it over the stuff below, but my visceral reaction of negativity toward this is more intense here than the songs I actually like listening to less. but I also do not deny that there's a lot of things I appreciate here so it is getting points for those things
\
This is a very long writeup for a track I feel very negatively about, i don't like talking about what I dislike as much as talking about what I like, but I wanted to articulate my thoughts on it as carefully as possible, expressing that there ARE things to it that i like, and explaining that part of my visceral frustration with it is the context behind its existence, and how much of an exception this song is as far as opposite reaction to what I would hope from either "pokemon" or "toby fox". Very not for me & more than most music, because of what it is, I really, really wish it was)-

-[Final Destination is my 53rd favorite in the contest ! I'm a geniu .s haha, when I listen to this song all the marimbas go into the inside of my brain. Hirokazu "I like complex chords" Anto, he'sso smaart aand vcan control the world. This is pretty short but that doesn't stop it from being amazing and full of things i love. Chord progression is super interesting and involves the kinds of strange ambiguous modulations I like. Even if a lot of the chord changes are just literal full-on transposition, because of how much is going on and how funkily the actual tonality is presented through like 5 interacting layers it feels a lot less straightforward than it is. It's very hard to tell /what/ it's just modulated to for me, 2 semitones above? below? That ambiguity is the kind of stuff I live for. This is strangely "messy" and something about that's really cool. a lot of Hirokazu Ando music to me feels almost like "overly precise" but this is like the opposite while still retaining the same funky dense chord filled fusion funk fun. The instrumentation here's very much to my liking too.]-

-{Easy ..match...}-

|||||||||

Wings of Terror Phase 2 is my 189th favorite in the contest! oh boy more of this type of song that is a kind of song i really dislike, except unlike battle tower it doesn't really have much redeeming for me at all. AZUSA CHIBA PLEASE SAVE THE GRANB

[...continued from above]

An Endless Desert is my 29th favorite in the contest! I LOVE steve reich-esque minimalism. HAPPY day/month 7/4 TIME DAY!! Very good timing of this match being today!!! maybe it will be good luck?! 7 is a lucky number...! Hey there's another reversed choir-ish pad sound right at like :17, very similar to the one in wings of terror phase 2! I like that part! One of the cool things about this one is how the piano's rhythm is consistent but it actually takes 2 loops of that rhythm pattern to go for the alternating back&forth to sync up with the rhythm. This slowly seuges between portions that are really really busy and overstimulating, and portions that are actually quite empty, sometimes I'd dislike something very empty but here i like what's going on enough that it makes for a really nice contrast. I actually find this track very hard to follow, despite knowing exactly what it's doing, but "hard to follow" is one of the single traits I most look for so this makes me very happy : ) ) ) I think the biggest factor is the way the piano ostinato tying it all together lasts 2 bars tonally even if only 1 rhythmically, really makes me "lose the downbeat" unless I'm actively focusing on counting "1 2 3 4 5 6 7" through the whole thing. Really from the start I don't expect this to get as busy and developed as it does, the slow build's to my tastes. I LOVE THIS INSTRUMENTATION so many fluffy woodwinds : D and I love the VIBRAPHONE(favorite instrument) that is in here sometimesTHIS reminds me of "National Treasure OST" god that flute moment at like 1:40ish is so ORI AND THE BLINT FOrest or something,. it's really beautiful and makes me think of a "cool forest". This is an extremely kaonash1i(mycro) song, thank you for existing cool song.

VERY easy match. One of the easiest in the contest for me.

|||||||||

goldenslaughterer is my 20th favorite ToC entrant! My mind rarely jumps to this one when it comes to thinking about "why i like umineko music" "why i like zts" etc. It has COOL SOUNDS but it's probably one of my least preferred of the big zts songs compositionally, just doesnt dive into the elements of zts's style I like as much as wed/ded/lec/etc. Very musically straightforward and almost plodding and slow feeling? like almost like drudgery to get through even if I like it. I still "like the sound of trance music" and this has that, it's still distinctly "zts umineko song" and I like "zts umineko song" as a sound. My favorite elements are the breakbeat elements, stuff like the pitched down drums like at 6:44 or near the beginning is cool. My absolute favorite part is the drilling ppppdddd%%%%%nnnBBbbb stutter effects in the drums like right before :21, and in general the gated on-off-on-off every split second rhythmically timed at :14 in the drums is a really cool effect. Great way to start this one off, wish that kind of stuff showed up more often throughout.

Chloe is my 2nd favorite ToC entrant! Hi!!!! This is very "in the pretty forest with an accordion and a flute" song genre and that's one of my favorite types of music these days. but more importantly it's composition is right up my alley. 5/4 time yeah that's cool i'm like the "odd time signatures" guy my signature on board 8(Gamefaq) is literally the word "time" but that's not even most of why I'd like this, i'd still be a huge fan of a 4/4 version of this. The biggest thing keeping my interest here is snakelike winding of the melodic layers around all the crazy chord changes. well they're not that crazy but they're at least the type I like. one second it's dorian mode and the next it's minor and the next it's some slightly different chromatic thing, and the melody and chords compliment all of those constant changes intertwined deeply. Actually I guess the melody is entirely (or at least mostly) in dorian the whole time, but the chords surrounding in are not, and the melody specifically hits the "this is the note that's only in dorian and not the note that's in minor" note every time the chords involve that note instead and the moments that are that thing are powerful to my BODY i guess. Big key change at 1:12 is really nice and fun too : D this song makes me so happy!!!!! I love this song!!!!! What a nice song to end today on ^^

I love chloe!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
---

Final Destination
An Endless Desert
Chloe

---

Final Destination
An Endless Desert
goldenslaughterer

---