Board 8 > [VGMC] Day 10! feat. Going, Shopping, Whistling, Coming, Karting, and Knighting

(+) Yeah! (+)

Shop Demo
Arbury Whistles
side A

Shop Demo
Farde Mal Diavolo -Destroy Evil, then Come-
Mario Kart 8

almost forgot to vote lmao

From TunnelScene:

Shop Demo (Grounseed)
Farde Mal Diavolo (Unicorn Overlord)
side A (Knights of the Crystallion)

I really wanted to force this to be against a color song, but none of the scenarios worked out

one of the great FM masters at his work table

if you like this song you might also like a botw/totk song (hmmmm)

unmistakably Mitsuhiro Kaneda, I love that guy and his wild tonal sense that always leaves me on the roller Coaster in the fog that is so thick that I don't know where the heck I am or where I am going next but it will always be exciting, much more than if it was a normal situation for roller coaster ride. I guess that is the appeal of space mountain

a new dimension of cars

the lopsided looping sequences and crunched down sample quality mixed with some of these chord stabs feels so good

Shop Demo
Arbury Whistles
side A

It's Going Down Now is fine but a bit disappointing for a Persona vocal song. Feels like it's in an awkward middle ground between high-energy and mellow and ends up not leaving much of an impression. I think the intro to Shop Demo goes a bit too long, but it is good at what it does, and the second half of the song is pretty fun.

Arbury Whistles is fun and whimsical, but for my tastes it leans a bit too heavily on recorder--an instrument I sometimes don't like much. Still good, but I would like it a lot more if it were like clarinet or something else. On paper I should probably like Farde Mal Diavolo, but I apparently just don't? If I had to guess I'd say that this instrumentation isn't really suited to the focus on long, epic, held notes like you see here, but idk. The last minute is probably the best part.

MK8 main theme is a fun big band song, albeit a bit trite. I don't really know what to say about Side A as a whole, but it has gong percussion and I like that, even with the low sound quality. I think this would be number 1 for the day by a lot and one of the best in the contest if the same composition was just played by a percussion ensemble with typical modern recording, instead of whatever compressed(?) sound we have here.

Ok you know what screw it I'm a believer--side A still at least in the top 20% of the contest anyway.

These writeups ended kind of negative for some reason, but every song is solid or better.

Side A > Shop Demo > Arbury Whistles > Mario Kart 8 > Farde Mal Diavolo > It's Going Down Now

It's Going Down Now
Farde Mal Diavolo -Destroy Evil, then Come-
Mario Kart 8

It's Going Down Now
Farde Mal Diavolo -Destroy Evil, then Come-
Mario Kart 8

match 1 is painful

Grounseed - Shop Demo
Temtem - Arbury Whistles
Mario Kart 8 - Mario Kart 8

Shop Demo
Farde Mal Diavolo -Destroy Evil, then Come-
side A

Its Going Down Now
Farde Mal Diavolo -Destroy Evil, then Come-
Mario Kart 8

I didn't know what to expect from Reload's soundtrack since a) I thought the new intro was nice but still preferred the originals and b) I didn't think too much of the few remastered tracks I've heard so far. THIS, though? A very welcome change of pace from all that. I think this would've shot up to my favorite P3 song if the original Mistic never existed.

Man, I don't think I've heard a PC-98 song yet that I thought was bad or even underwhelming. This is no exception to that, I really like the weird synths in the beginning that lead right into the main spacey vibe of all this. And the drop right in the middle of the song is simply fantastic, I'm so down for the proggy second half of this experience. Solid FM synth song right here, this is really good quality.

Arbury Whistles is pleasant to listen to with its neat instrument choice, but it gets kinda boring to listen to about 20 seconds in already. I'm usually down for cheery, folksy songs but this could really use something else to liven up its performance.

5 seconds into Farde Mal Diavolo, I know I'm gonna be into it. I'll happily take this Fire Emblem/PSO mixture with chanting, an engaging orchestra and some neat percussion any day of the week.

The Mario Kart 8 theme isn't the best jazz fusion I've ever heard in a video game, but it's still really fun for what it has. There's some good bass and sax as you'd expect, and the keyboard adds a nice touch as well. The Super Mario Kart callback is really nice, that's probably the favorite part of the song.

God, I have to give points to side A for being one of the most experimental VGM I've heard to date in a contest setting. There's several cool and weird sounds this song goes through, it's almost like this song is trying to improvise on the fly and you can't help but watch and be amazed at how consistent it is in sounding interesting and charming in an old-fashioned way.

Waveshine_2001 posted...

I will get to matches 1-2 later today hopefully when I get more time.

It's Going Down Now: It's not bad. The vocals don't annoy me (other than the rapping parts, but even the rapping parts don't annoy me as much as most rap). The instrumentation is excellent. Overall, it's not entirely my thing but it's kinda cool.

Grounseed - Shop Demo: It has a nice retro feel to it. It's not doing too much for me personally, but it's a bit interesting and has nice progression.

Arbury Whistles : Hey, I remember this song from Hindsight 2022! I don't recall putting it in my top 10, but it was still one of the better songs from that contest for sure. Flutes and strings are always welcome, and this one's no exception. The happy Celtic feel just puts me in a better mood. Very fun piece.

Farde Mal Diavolo -Destroy Evil, then Come- : Okay, the very beginning with the annoying blaring vocals was an immediate turn-off. I thought to myself, "Oh boy, another god awful vocal song I'll just have to sit through." But not long after that, it got significantly better. The vocals for the rest of the song are a nice addition as opposed to an annoyance, and the instrumentation is awesome. I especially love the use of castanets here which really add to the uniqueness of the piece and makes it stand out more (I don't hear castanets often in JRPG-type music). The strings towards the end of the piece were also great and very emotive.

Mario Kart 8 >> Arbury Whistles > Farde Mal Diavolo -Destroy Evil, then Come- >>>> Its Going Down Now >= Shop Demo >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> side A

Remaining VOTES:
Its Going Down Now
Arbury Whistles

Shop Demo
Arbury Whistles
Pass

Shop Demo
Farde Mal Diavolo -Destroy Evil, then Come-
Mario Kart 8

match 2 is really quite close for me, i dig arbury whistles a lot, but kaneda takes it

side A is really cool as well but i still love mk8 toooo much.

also i forgot to do these? i forgot i used to do these?
Shop Demo > Farde Mal Diavolo -Destroy Evil, then Come- > Mario Kart 8 > Arbury Whistles >= side A > Its Going Down Now
..probably.
today is actually rather strong

Persona 3 Reload - Its Going Down Now
Temtem - Arbury Whistles
Mario Kart 8 - Mario Kart 8

MATCH 1

I haven't heard a lot of the Reload soundtrack, but It's Going Down Now was a song I decided to check out on a whim when I saw it recommended to me on Youtube, and I'm glad I did because it was a huge hit with me! The Mass Destruction callback is really cool. I like the piano chords during the rap parts a lot. But definitely my favorite part of the song is the chorus. The vocal melody is really good here, especially the ones on "disturbing the peace" and other lines. The piano makes for a good layer of sound underneath the vocals and the drums are similarly complementing. This is my runner-up for A4 retiree, and I really wish I could've retired this song in my favorites bracket because it's really good.

Shop Demo's alright. It doesn't really stand out to me for the most part. That last minute or so of the song is pretty cool though! Still, not nearly enough to beat its opponent unfortunately.

MATCH 2

Arbury Whistles is very cozy with the flute lead! I like its folky melody a lot. The violin accompaniment that comes in midway through the song is very nice too.

Farde Mal Diavolo has some very cool layering with the multiple vocal tracks and other instruments included in the mix. You'd think that from that description, this song would be the clear pick from me, but it's actually not. Melodically, I don't find myself getting into a lot of the song. The best parts are the intro and the part that comes after it and parts like 1:14. But that whole middle section kind of loses my interest. Still a good match! I just think Arbury Whistles is more consistently good.

MATCH 3

Mario Kart 8 (song) has some cool melodic stuff going on. My favorite part is 0:07-0:34 with the brass melody and the electric guitar.

side A isn't really my kind of song. The first half of the song actually isn't all that bad. There's a handful of parts of the song where the melody seems decent in isolation. It does get considerably more grating to me past the 6-minute or so mark though.

It's Going Down Now > Arbury Whistles > Farde Mal Diavolo -Destroy Evil, then Come- > Mario Kart 8 > Shop Demo > side A

Shop Demo
Farde Mal Diavolo -Destroy Evil, then Come-
side A