Board 8 > [VGMC] Day 5! EndlsDesert/Soflan, NightBirds/Kusanagi, TimeSlow/TreasureTown

(+) Yeah! (+)

Was Endless Desert in before? Maybe it's another Alto song I'm thinking of. I remember not liking said Alto song (whatever it was), but Endless Desert is quite good! Like the whimsy of it all. Meanwhile, I quite like some Camellia songs, and I like some songs with singing like this, but Soflan has a lot of parts I don't like much at all...

Not a fan of Night Birds. Jazz ain't really for me. At least it isn't as boring as Kusanagi, I guess.

Time Moves Slow is kinda like a bad Persona song. Hate the singer, and also the clapping at the end. Treasure Town is okay. Can't believe I'm ranking Soflan as the second best song of a day...

An Endless Desert
Night birds
Treasure Town

An Endless Desert > Konran Shoujo Soflan-chan!! > Treasure Town > Night birds > Kusanagi Village >Time Moves Slow (Home)

An Endless Desert
Night birds
Time Moves Slow (Home)

(Match 1) Todd Baker is cool

(Match 2) I would quite frankly take both of these songs over a good chunk of what we've heard so far, and I am appalled and disgusted at having to choose.

(Match 3) Todd Baker is still cool

Overall, a solid set with one exception >>

Konran Shoujo Soflan-chan!!
Night birds
Treasure Town

Alto's Odyssey - An Endless Desert
Okami - Kusanagi Village
Pokmon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time/Darkness - Treasure Town

An Endless Desert
Night birds
Treasure Town

Alto's Odyssey - An Endless Desert
Okami - Kusanagi Village
Pokmon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time/Darkness - Treasure Town

An Endless Desert
Night birds
Time Moves Slow (Home)

Match 1 was much closer than I expected

An Endless Desert
Night birds
Time Moves Slow (Home)

An Endless Desert
Night birds
Treasure Town

with apologies to Kusanagi Village

An Endless Desert
Night birds
Time Moves Slow (Home)

< P0's Honourable Mentions In The 8.2 Tier That Barely Missed The Top 16 >
8.2: An Endless Desert / Times Moves Slow (Home)

Both songs are in solid matches (8.2 vs. 7.2, 8.2 vs. 7.7). Treasure Town is an old favourite, and I'll better appreciate Soflan once I find time to look at the translation and any related visuals.

My very intellectual genre for Times Moves Slow: DILATION

Konran Shoujo Soflan-chan!! (Asynchronicity Unlimited Progressive Polyrhythmic Nightmare Long Version)
Night birds
Time Moves Slow (Home)

SOUND VOLTEX III GRAVITY WARS - Konran Shoujo Soflan-chan!! (Asynchronicity Unlimited Progressive Polyrhythmic Nightmare Long Version)
Okami - Kusanagi Village
Pokmon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time/Darkness - Treasure Town

MATCH 1

An Endless Desert is fine, but I like the other Alto songs in the bracket more. This song doesn't really have much melodic appeal to me compared to the other two Alto songs. Hard to say why, but this song just doesn't make me feel much of anything regarding how it sounds.

Soflan-chan is an absolute trip to listen to haha. I honestly really enjoy this song, but not exactly for the same reasons as those who like the prog elements of this song do. In some ways, it is that. The ridiculous number of time signature changes and general variation in drumming patterns creates some cool rhythms. Melodically, it's also pretty cool at times. For example, 2:42, 3:06, and 6:29. But I think the biggest appeal of it to me is how crazy of a song it is! Sometimes, a song is just so chaotic to me that I just can't help but like it, and Soflan-chan is a great example. It feels reminiscent of VGMC13 when I really enjoyed Bomber Girl and Star Shooter - Extra Boss for similar reasons. I do have to say that I'm not feeling it today as much as when I was filling out the favorites bracket. I guess the feeling wears off a bit the more I listen to it, but it's still really enjoyable to me.

MATCH 2

I feel like I'm hit or miss on jazz, but Night Birds is a really nice song! I like how engaging the saxophone melody and piano chords are for me. Especially in the latter half of the song. 2:41-3:01 and 3:10-4:01 are really nice parts of the song.

When I was first listening to these songs, I figured it would be an easy Night Birds when I played Kusanagi Village, but then 1:31 hit and it became a lot more difficult. The buildup is nothing special to me, but I really like this song from that point to 2:39. Even now, I'm tempted to switch over to Night Birds, but I'll stick with Kusanagi Village. But it's very close and I'd be happy with either song winning.

MATCH 3

I like Time Moves Slow, but I don't find myself being that interested in it. As far as R&B goes, there's another song later in the bracket, Time (just now realizing that there's two R&B songs in the bracket with "time" in the title lol), that's way more my thing. I guess if I had to pinpoint why, it might be that Time Moves Slow is too soft? I guess time's moving too slow here. But like I said, I do like it, it's just not quite my type I suppose.

Happy music is always nice! There was some talk of happy town music in the Discord server, and I'd say I like that kind of music. Probably a good reason why I like Treasure Town. I'm not sure what my favorite "happy town music" song would be, but Littleroot Town popped up in my head as one that I really like, and that probably serves as a good comparison in that it's a song in that style that I like a lot more than Treasure Town.

Konran Shoujo Soflan-chan!! (Asynchronicity Unlimited Progressive Polyrhythmic Nightmare Long Version) > Kusanagi Village > Night Birds > Treasure Town > Time Moves Slow (Home) > An Endless Desert

An Endless Desert
Night birds
Treasure Town

An Endless Desert >> Night birds > Treasure Town > Kusanagi Village = Time Moves Slow (Home) >>> Konran Shoujo Soflan-chan!! (Asynchronicity Unlimited Progressive Polyrhythmic Nightmare Long Version)

An Endless Desert
Kusanagi Village
Treasure Town

An Endless Desert
Night birds
Time Moves Slow (Home)

--
An Endless Desert [8.6]
Soflan-Chan (Long] [6.5]

Alto's Odyssey ended up being a surprise find for me back when we did the Best of 2021 contest over on Supracord. Endless Desert is no Lost City, unfortunately, but a lot of what made that song great - the tribal percussion and the lively/mystical atmosphere created from the instruments - can still be found here, making this a solid song regardless.

Soflan proves that I'm not a big fan of "overly-cute/sweet"-type Japanese vocals for songs (not that it's the reason why, it's just the most recent example I can now name). And even then, the vocals still kinda work in a couple moments, it's just nowhere near enough for me to like it more. That said, the backing track is something I can still appreciate - a crazy progressive rhythm made by Camillia no less. Overall, it leans a bit too much into that saccharine soundscape for my liking, but I can see why people would flock to it.

Night birds [9]
Kusanagi Village [8.6]

I can't just ignore smooth jazz like this, like damn. So chill, such a cool way to play instruments in a genre I love to my core. I'm always surprised by the range of styles/genres that Gran Turismo seems to use for its music, and this is by far no exception. This is just perfect night cruising music in my head, and I'm happy to listen to it here.

I think my bias for certain songs in this game, like Ryoshima Coast and The Sun Rises, has made me flat out forget about the other songs that exist in this soundtrack as well because I don't remember hearing this at all, but it's SO cool. It starts out all slow as the xylophone carefully lets all the traditional Japanese instruments into the mix until it just soars in energy and lets out this mystical vibe with ancient Japanese flavor that I really appreciate from Okami as a whole.

Time Moves Slow [10]
Treasure Town [8.5]

From all the songs I've ranked personally since last summer, there's only been a handful of songs that I've given a 9+ ranking or higher too. There's a little group that's sitting right at 9.5, and maybe only 2-3 songs that I've straight up given a perfect 10 to for the time being.

Time Moves Slow, I'm proudly to say, is one of those very few songs to earn such a high rating from me.

There's not much I can personally recall being my favorite in the realm of R&B (yet at least), but this HAS to be at the top for me at the moment. Everything about this feels perfect for me - the vocalist's deep tone, the key the song is played in, the slow yet upbeat rhythm, and the overall symbiotic relationship between the voice and the instruments to create this beautiful, melancholy song that has managed to make me feel a deep level of emotion that rarely any other VGM has accomplished to this day.

The fact that I actually get emotional every time I finish the song has to mean something; it has to mean that this can only be one of the greatest songs I've ever listened to in my life, and I'm happy it's finally here to share the stage for this year's contest.
--
Treasure Town is such a happy song for Pokemon standards, it already sounds like a great introduction for the grand adventure you're about to embark and then it goes a step further by sounding catchy and jovial. Really neat song, even if there's other in the same franchise that I would flock to instantly.

Alto's Odyssey - An Endless Desert
Okami - Kusanagi Village
Dreams - Time Moves Slow (Home)

Konran Shoujo Soflan-chan!! (Asynchronicity Unlimited Progressive Polyrhythmic Nightmare Long Version)
Night birds
Time Moves Slow (Home)

An Endless Desert
Night birds
Time Moves Slow (Home)

An Endless Desert
Kusanagi Village
Treasure Town

Turns out being boring but relatively inoffensive can get you places. Good job Endless Desert. You didn't waste nearly 9 minutes of my fucking time. There are so many things I could say but I'll hold off on being hurtful. Endless Desert, take my sword. For the love of god please win.

Two boring songs in match two. Jazz bores me, almost always. Okami songs mostly do too, but whatever I guess it can get my vote.

Treasure Town is great. One of the few happy go lucky songs I actually enjoy. Not many things can do that since I usually prefer minor / sad things... and then TimeSlow is not VGM. LOL. Literally is just a regular ass song you would hear in a club or whatever. Oh and I don't like it either.

time moves slow

An Endless Desert
Kusanagi Village
Time Moves Slow (Home)

re: Kusanagi Village
b2

There's a subdued, sinister, wandering feel to the opening of this track; it doesn't seem to fit a meter that you can really count out, which adds to its air of shrouded mystery. So it's a really cool moment when the drums come in to reveal how everything fits in 4/4 time, like the track is pulling back the curtain to reveal its illusion. The whole track seems to fill with colour and light, and you're left to look around in wonder at how each layer interacts with each other melodically and rhythmically. Even then, it doesn't answer everything-- even as 2:20 revisits the musical figure at 0:48, and 2:39 revisits 1:08, it leaves each of them feeling uncertain in ways that feel different from the original. It's a beautifully composed track that reveals its subtlety over multiple listens.

An Endless Desert
Kusanagi Village
Time Moves Slow (Home)

7.3 - Alto's Odyssey - An Endless Desert
3.5 - SOUND VOLTEX III GRAVITY WARS - Konran Shoujo Soflan-chan!! (Asynchronicity Unlimited Progressive Polyrhythmic Nightmare Long Version)
6.7 - Gran Turismo 5 - Night birds
6.0 - Okami - Kusanagi Village
8.0 - Dreams - Time Moves Slow (Home)
6.1 - Pokmon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time/Darkness - Treasure Town

Some of the bigger margins for me today. And tbh i may be kinda underrating endless desert here, could see that rating go up later.

Endless Desert
Kusanagi Village
Treasure Town

Alto's Odyssey - An Endless Desert 8.5 A somewhat simple repeating beat that transforms and evolves into something beautiful. I haven't played the game but this song in itself resembled a quiet but hopeful odyssey.

SOUND VOLTEX III GRAVITY WARS Konran Shoujo Soflan-chan!! 3 Sugary and infectious, this song is like japanese music on some sort of disruptive overdose. It's ok.. but it's less like music to me and just an amalgamation of voices and sound effects. The overly chaotic energy and lack of a strong center just kills it for me. I will say it certainly does not lack zip nor peppiness. I don't know much about music but I bet this song had a nightmare amount of time changes hehehe.

Gran Turismo 5 Night birds 7 A bombastic yet contemplative track that fits any and all of those nights where you feel alone against the world. The jazz is vibrant and lushly energetic.

Okami Kusanagi Village 7.5 Slow methodical nature creeps up and envelops you until youre completely entranced by the presence of japanese folklore and a brooding set of sounds. Then (about a third in) you get yanked from your shell and are whisked away on a flourishing and wild adventure, before settling back down to the groove of life. I liked the journey and emotion this track told. It really made me feel at peace

Dreams - Time Moves Slow (Home) 4.5 This song reminds me of my life and all the decisions I've taken to be where I am now. It seeps into my soul and fills me with a mix of serenity, anxiety, satisfaction and some type of reflection. The background music got a little repetitive, and some of the directions the music went seemed to contrast weirdly with the vocals, making it seem fractured. Still at its core, it was a nice song

Pokmon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time/Darkness - Treasure Town 8 Love the cute and warm home energy this gives. I have a huge amount of nostalgia for this song as I played this game endlessly in my childhood. The way the chords rise and resolve are so amazing