Board 8 > [VGMC] Day 39! feat. Aves, Hippopotamidae, and whatever the hell Yoda is

(+) Yeah! (+)

Skyway (Hurricane Hoatzin Stage)
Iclucian Dance
Fort City - Stage4

Mega Man X: Corrupted - Skyway (Hurricane Hoatzin Stage)
Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana - Iclucian Dance
Espgaluda - Fort City - Stage4

Hope is the Thing With Feathers
Iclucian Dance
Fort City - Stage4

Skyway (Hurricane Hoatzin Stage)
Iclucian Dance
Fort City - Stage4

Iclucian Dance > Skyway (Hurricane Hoatzin Stage) = Fort City - Stage4 > Tapha Niang > Yoda Goes For A Swim > Hope is the Thing With Feathers

Skyway (Hurricane Hoatzin Stage)
Iclucian Dance
Tapha Niang

Skyway
Dance
Niang

Skyway (Hurricane Hoatzin Stage)
Iclucian Dance
Tapha Niang

I don't listen to a lot of MMX series music, but I'm charmed by how the intro to this feels very quintessentially Mega Man X. I'm not entirely sure how much the rest of the song would fool me, but I'm still pretty charmed throughout. My favourite parts are when it sounds wistful.

I'm a far bigger fan of non vocal Hoyo game music, but this one is alright? It's just serviceable I suppose. Take a drink every time I say I wouldn't skip a vocal song in this contest if it played on the radio, but I wouldn't seek it out either. (Actually don't do that)

This really does sound like a "dance" in musical form. Really fun, I do wish the very loud strings in the first half were a little more restrained, as I prefer the second half of the track, but its still a lovely example of why I can't just write off Falcom music.

One time I impressed a guy he had these star wars travel posters and one of them was dagobah. I immediately recognised it and started talking about how much I loved the Yoda puppetry and the set design of his home during those scenes. A puppet soaked in swamp water sounds disgusting. Leave my man alone.

Wow this one is really cool. Very chill intro, but then bam, singing. I get exposed to a lot of different cultural and musical styles through vgm, and this might be one of the most beautiful ones. Like god it's so fucking beautiful. A celebration of life in lieu of death ... and it's in littlebigplanet of all games lmfao?? (albeit the instrumental ver.???)

I like it when these songs sound like cyberspace. I wish I had more to say about this one, but sometimes a song's opponent leaves you thinking about it for hours and hours. If I knew this would happen i would have reversed listening order.

[8.5] Tapha Niang
[7] Iclucian Dance
[7] Fort City - Stage4
[7] Skyway (Hurricane Hoatzin Stage)
[6.5] Yoda Goes For A Swim
[6] Hope is the Thing With Feathers

Skyway (Hurricane Hoatzin Stage)
Iclucian Dance
Fort City - Stage4

Skyway (Hurricane Hoatzin Stage)
Iclucian Dance
Tapha Niang

Skyway is a pretty rocking song. I don't think I've enjoyed every single MMX-series track I've encountered, but there's a handful that I can point to and think, "Yeah, this sounds pretty fun!". Skyway is definitely up there with that MMX guitar synth going to town.

I'm not all too impressed with Hope, it really is in that "Disney Channel movie" vein of 2010s pop that I kinda just shrug at without feeling much dislike for it. It's alright! But I'm not gonna be running towards it any time soon.

Iclucian Dance is a good Ys battle track. Nice piano and violin combo, with a standard but satisfying rhythm and percussion to accompany it.

I said this before, Yoda Goes for a Swim would fit in perfectly as that unhinged, quirky song you'd find by accident in a Sierra adventure game. I'd definitely appreciate it if the singer stopped eating his microphone half the time, but I can understand going this level of bonkers for a incredibly silly performance.

Y'know, I kinda forgot that LittleBigPlanet kinda went in whatever direction it wanted to for atmosphere and sound, all in the name of fun and creativity. I can't think of anywhere else that would go so far to try and pull a song from a singer of Mali to capture that fun African feel (maybe Civ? But the song choices wouldn't be as fun as this, I'd wager). I dig the percussion, the stringed instruments, and I especially am a fan of Diabat's voice itself, it lends itself so well to how spirited and traditional this feels.

Fort City reminds me of a lot of what I remember the Mega Man ZX games sounding like; there's a little bitcrushing involved, but it's ultimately a pretty jamming synth piece. Very fun pick!

Honkai: Star Rail - Hope is the Thing With Feathers
Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana - Iclucian Dance
Espgaluda - Fort City - Stage4

MATCH 1

Skyway definitely captures the Megaman X rock music style well, to the point that I believed this was an official MMX game until I noticed that this is just a fangame. My only dislike with this song is that the instruments feel too fake, if that makes any sense. Of course, it's an SNES track, there are no live instruments, but comparing this with something like Spark Mandrill, the SNES guitar sounds a lot better there. I think it might be the sample being used for that instrument in Skyway.

Hope is the Thing With Feathers was actually a planned nomination of mine, but I figured other people had plans to nominate it too. I'm glad though that others wanted to, because it's a great song! It's kind of a good kind of sappy music. I really like it melodically. The vocals are great, and I really like what the background instruments like the piano and guitar do as well.

MATCH 2

I honestly think Iclucian Dance feels plain to me for an Ys song. Not that it's bad or anything, but it's not representative of what I really like from these games, at least melodically. The violin and piano are most definitely my thing when the melody's right, but this is unfortunately not one of those cases. This sounds kind of harsh, so I will say that this is probably in the upper 6/low 7 range in a rating out of 10 system, which is decidedly above average.

Ah, I remember Yoda Goes for a Swim. I think it was a Place VGM guessing game where this was unveiled. What a song. I think it's funny that it made it into the contest. Not to knock anyone who does like it, of course. Definitely not my thing musically though nor is it really appealing to my tastes in humor either.

MATCH 3

Tapha Niang has a cool groove to it. I like the vocals too.

I've really grown on Fort City all of a sudden this year. I'm familiar with this song, but I don't know, I'm really into it right now. Really cool beat and good melody too. Kind of feels like something you'd want to play if you were DJing in a nightclub for VGM fans.

Hope is the Thing With Feathers > Fort City - Stage4 > Iclucian Dance > Tapha Niang > Skyway (Hurricane Hoatzin Stage) >>> Yoda Goes For A Swim

skyway vs hope is the thing is actually really close; the former is a style i love a lot more but it doesn't quite reach heights I want it to, while the latter i nomally wouldnt care much about but i love the vocalist and there are specific melodic moments that are VERY cool. these could flip flop but was pretty secure in my vote there. just barely lol

iclucian is amazing. yoda is a humor song without the humor, but at least it didn't offend me

i like tapha niang way more than i did during noms lol, i remember thinking pretty much nothing about it but on relistens there's more things i'm like "wtf how did i not hear that" uh unfortch fort city is my one and only 10 in the contest!!! and with this song making it in every single 10 (that i know of) has been in vgmc!! wait no i lied blue reflection binge part 3 hasn't okay well guess i know something im nominating nex tyear LOLOL aanyway. this song is actually not only a 10/10 i would at the point only put massive x and i'll save you all my justice above it, this used to be like 10-ish but the more I've fallen for tracker music the more this gets pushed up. just pure fun and i think this soundtrack is single-handidly to blame for hard trance being my fav genre

1. [10] - Espgaluda - Fort City - Stage4
50. [7.8] - Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana - Iclucian Dance
107. [7.5] - Honkai: Star Rail - Hope is the Thing With Feathers
130. [7.4] - Mega Man X: Corrupted - Skyway (Hurricane Hoatzin Stage)
203. [6.8] - LittleBigPlanet - Tapha Niang
230. [2.0] - Capsule Silence XXIV - Yoda Goes For A Swim