Pairing XVI (B)

Listen to the following tracks, and select the one you like best.

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105 - Ristar (Gen) - Busy Flare (Stage 3-1)
152 - Rastan Saga II (Arc) - _I_ The Story

Ristar is good music on a stick. So is Rastan. I remember the Rastan track very well . . . but Ristar is just too goddamn good.

Ristar does indeed have some fine music. "Busy Flare (Stage 3-1)" is just as great as "Dancing Leaves", making it leave "_I_ The Story" in the dust.

I think I'm going to give this one to Busy Flare simply because I have a secret weakness for interesting percussion. _I_ The Story meanders around a bit too much for my liking anyway.

I went with Rastan Saga. Hardest vote of the contest so far. I'd take them both to round three at least.

Busy Flare is neat, but not neat enough to keep me away from my nomination #4. -I-The Story is one of my favorite Rastan tracks, especially the piano part 1:57 is very nice, not what you would expect from a generally foreboding tune.

Some interesting percussion effects in Ristar (Gen) - Busy Flare (Stage 3-1), with a decently quirky melody to boot. Then there's the klaxon siren, for lack of a better descriptor, that popped up twice and had me clutching my ears in pain. It was like a pure sine wave, and really brought the track down.

Rastan Saga II (Arc) - _I_ The Story definitely isn't going to have a problem with random pure sine waves, owing to its better synth. Definitely a slower and slightly more varied, with a random sampled laugh (!).

Without thr Random, Painful Sine Wave (RPSW), Ristar would be the easy winner. With the RPSW, I can't listen to it without getting a headache.

_I_ The Story is a Chiptune?! Only OGR (Zuntata).

And I can't seem to find any grating synth in Busy Flare, or what would remotely sound grating to anyone who can even tolerate chiptunes, let alone a chiptune contest.

Both very good tracks.

Busy Flare (Stage 3-1) is one cool dance beat, even if it's a style I don't appreciate much. I'm prefering the Conan the Barbarian-epic feel of -I-The Story.

: 105 - Ristar (Gen) - Busy Flare (Stage 3-1)
: 152 - Rastan Saga II (Arc) - _I_ The Story

The RS2 track just felt messy. I didn't particularly like where it went or how it went there. The piano at about two minutes in wasn't dreadful, though. Busy Flare is just solid all around and an easy vote.

Outside of their Bubble/Puzzle Bobble work, I don't really 'get' Zuntata's music...curiously random at best, infuriatingly atonal at worst. In short, I don't exactly have high expectations of their work, and to that end, Story delivers. Flare isn't a favorite Ristar track but it's an OK one, and OK beats DOA any day.

I'd like to see both songs move on, so I'm going to abstain from this one. No sense flipping a coin or something of that sort; I consider random voting unfair to those who legitimately liked one song more than the other.