[D] First Round #9 (The Merciless Savior vs. Spread the Wings)

Listen to both songs and select the one you prefer.

Download Links:

The Legend of Heroes VI: Sora no Kiseki - The Merciless Savior
Fatal Fury: Mark of the Wolves - Spread the Wings

Streaming:

The Merciless Savior: Get the Flash Player to play this audio file:
Spread the Wings: Get the Flash Player to play this audio file:

The Legend of Heroes VI: Sora no Kiseki - The Merciless Savior
I'll give the music this: it's very long and varied, ranging all the way from violin-slathered synth to full-on choral aria. Despite this, I didn't find it a totally satisfying listen; perhaps too many elements struggling for attention. It was good, but definitely less than the sum of its parts.

Fatal Fury: Mark of the Wolves - Spread the Wings
The opening totally reminded me of Shuki Levy's theme for the 90's Spider-Man cartoon. The remainder is competent if vanilla synth-rock of the sort that crops up all over the place.

In the end, I think I prefer Merciless Savior. It was an interesting and ambitious failure compared to a song that aimed low and hit the mark squarely.

orion: the 90's Spider-Man cartoon's theme song was written by Joe Perry, of Aerosmith.

The Merciless Savior is nothing if not varied. Lots of interesting explorations of the main theme of the tune. Not bad, actually. Not the best I've heard, but enjoyable.

Spread the Wings is average fighter/brawler music. Meh.

Originally Posted by wvlfpvp

orion: the 90's Spider-Man cartoon's theme song was written by Joe Perry, of Aerosmith.

Well, Levy claims credit for it and has it on his official website! Maybe Joe Perry just performed it, or we might be thinking of different series.

If anything, Spread the Wings starts to sound more like Children by Robert Miles. It was a bit of a random nom from me, but it is pretty much my favorite fighting game track. It's one of those songs that gets stuck in my head for days on end.

The Merciless Savior seems to be a violin-centric melange of sound that doesn't have a clear sense of direction to it. It's not necessarily bad since it's not aimless and boring like certain other slower songs, but I prefer my songs to have a more defined and stand out melody throughout. However, Spread the Wings unfortunately falls into the category of "SNK fight songs I don't remember." If I don't remember the song playing while fighting, then it's nothing special.

Wow, Spread the Wings doesn't just sound like Robert Miles' Children: it IS Children. The demented, persecuted soul of Children, exorcised by force and cast into the tinny chip generated prison vessel of Spread the Wings.

It doesn't help any that The Merciless Savior is really rather good, either.

Originally Posted by Kolba

Wow, Spread the Wings doesn't just sound like Robert Miles' Children: it IS Children. The demented, persecuted soul of Children, exorcised by force and cast into the tinny chip generated prison vessel of Spread the Wings.

It doesn't help any that The Merciless Savior is really rather good, either.

Yeah, the whole point is that you fight Rock Howard outside of a club. In the intro for the fight vs him, you can hear the faint music coming from inside the building. I've always been a fan of all the catchy, synthy tracks that people were busting out of the super outdated NeoGeo hardware.

There are a LOT of very good Falcom songs, this one ain't one of them. It seems to be Merciless Savior's lucky day, though, since the other song is completely worthless.

Spread the Wings starts out rather SNK game music until a dramatic turn at 0:52 where it goes all final boss mode and it's totally sweet.

I was really impressed with The Merciless Savior at the start, but the quality and my interest gradually decreased as the song went on, and when the song is so long I actually want it to end, I'm actually surprised at what I'm voting for this time.

: The Legend of Heroes VI: Sora no Kiseki - The Merciless Savior
: Fatal Fury: Mark of the Wolves - Spread the Wings

Thought Spread the Wings was rather dull at the start. Can't really see doing more than half-heartedly tossing a barrel at someone to it. Gets a little bit better in the second half.

I had to stop a couple of times because I couldn't believe that The Merciless Savior was still going. The section from about three minutes in to the end of the loop could really be cut down to like fifteen seconds. I also really have no clue why those chorals are in there. Aimless as it is, I do like it more overall.

I haven't gotten into the Legend of Heroes subseries' music as much as I should have, as I've enjoyed every single track I've heard. "The Merciless Savior", despite featuring several superfluous components and passages, is an entirely gripping listen with great emphasis on good-sounding violins. I don't love this as much as other JDK epics, though it's still a fantastic listen.

"Spread the Wings" was really nice to listen to, though that was mostly because of the comparatively tame duration time. >_> This one has a laughable 80's-90's tone to it which I love, and the melody's good and all if a tad underwhelming. Solid, very solid.

"The Merciless Savior" - 8.5/10
"Spread the Wings" - 8/10