Pairing F05 The Sky Fortress Bahamut vs. The Road to Tomorrow Follows Behind You

The latest entries in two separate game series battle it out! Who will win? CAST YOUR VOTE!

039 Final Fantasy XII - The Sky Fortress Bahamut
218 Wild ARMs 5 - The Road to Tomorrow Follows Behind You

Cheers.

The aggressive percussion and melody of Final Fantasy XII - The Sky Fortress Bahamut make it one of my favorite OST tracks. It's got the proper gravitas for a final dungeon theme, as well as being a teriffic, complex orchestral ruckus in its own right. I often play the final sequence of FFXII tracks (Sky Fortress Bahamut, Shaking Bahamut, Battle for Freedom, End of the Battle, Ending Movie) when I'm writing, and it always seems to inspire me.

Coming from a totally different direction is Wild ARMs 5 - The Road to Tomorrow Follows Behind You, which is also complex but from a contemporary pop angle. It lacks the Ennio Morricone style that's the series' battle hallmark (if anything, it seems like something from the 1960's), though there's a bit of mariachi thrown in to maintain the western feel. I like it.

Tough pairing between two high-quality songs from the two most-nominated series in the BSC (and, as Mo0 points out, the latest entries in their respective series). There's been a definite anti-FF and pro-WA bias in the voting so far, which I will buck by voting by Sky Fortress. But if "Road" wins, I'll gladly support it.

Ciao.

The Sky Fortress Bahamut missed the melody boat and threatens to be another forgettable Sakimoto track. But at least this track makes up for it by having a whole lot of parts to it. My favourite bit is when the track briefly switches gears around 1:30, that's pretty cool stuff.

The Road to Tomorrow Follows Behind You is a pretty good, with a nice beat and it's got porn flutes, can't argue with that. I like the guitar solo too. Not the best thing I've heard from Wild Arms in this competition, but it's still pretty good stuff. Groovy!

The Road to Tomorrow Follows Behind You gets my vote.

Cheers.

Oh thank goodness, the only thing from my nomination list to make it.

Wild ARMs 5 - The Road to Tomorrow Follows Behind You
Severe nomination bias. It's a lively and active song, with some dang catchy riffs that aren't even electric guitar. The flute motives and harmonies instantly caught my ear when I first heard this song. Of course acoustic guitar adds to it, and I get the distinct impression of "fall" and the autumn road of Wild Arms 4 whenever I hear this piece.



Final Fantasy XII - The Sky Fortress Bahamut
Not fantastically fresh enough to stand out. I agree that it's a good song though, with enough of a sense of fleeting fancy and urgency.

Ciao.

It's funny...I just finished listening to Penta before I heard Sky Fortress. The two aren't all THAT different, but while I enjoyed Penta, I don't care all that much Sky Fortress. For every good measure or so, there's about 3 or 4 ones that bore me to tears...I credit Bahamut for not being completely boring and I could see myself playing a good battle to this, but the whole of it just feels so empty that its' hard to care about. Sadly, that's nothing new for Sakimoto. Still, better than most of the FFXII OST. I wouldn't have nearly as many qualms with this as a final battle theme as I do for Battle for Freedom. 6/10

On the flipside, the Wild Arms Vth Vanguard OST is almost boring to me because it has too many tracks I like, it's hard to keep track of them all. Now that's a problem I can live with...I guess if Road has a weakness, it's slightly lacking in the way of melody, but it maintains a sweet pace throughout and the instrument additions and melodic swells that pop out make it shine. Not A+ WA material, but a worthy representative. 8/10

Cheers.

Woah now this is a good FFXII track compared to most others nominated in this contest but not last contest. Aside from the hilarious cymbal action, I am reminded a lot of a subdued Radiant Silvergun. Needs a bit more punch, but I'll be coming back to this one a bit more. Lacks any truly memorable parts.

On the other hand, The Road to Tomorrow follows Behind You is one of the best WA5 songs in the contest if not the best. I love the illusion of clipping in the intro. The best part was a lack of melody that overshadowed the excellent backbone, in place of that, we've got some nicely done flutes and guitars. Point

Ciao.

bahamut - i liked the transition ~1:40. Other than that, I found the rhythm of this track to be hacky. All those syncopated accents were an annoyance.

Wild Arms wins hands down. Did Ian Anderson have anything to do with this track? Really cool mix of sounds in this one, and plenty of variety to keep the interest level up!

Cheers.

: 218 Wild ARMs 5 - The Road to Tomorrow Follows Behind You
: 039 Final Fantasy XII - The Sky Fortress Bahamut

I thought the big transition of The Sky Fortress Bahamut was pretty weak, actually. The song was developing nicely with contrasts between the lighter melodic sections and thicker tense ones, and that just kind of killed the feeling I was getting.

I haven't figured out which track off of WA5 I like the best; as GoldfishX mentioned, there's so much good stuff to slog through. However, The Road to Tomorrow Follows Behind You was the track that caught my attention the most on my first pass through the albums, and the one I've listened to the most since, so, out of all the tracks, it has the strongest case of being my favorite. It's just such a lively jam session with awesome riffs all over the place. The lack of a catchy melody is actually a plus in my book because in its place we get massive groove and the awesomeness of the instruments playing off of each other.

Ciao.

The Sky Fortress Bahamut: I like the first 40 seconds of it, but that's about it. It wasn't memorable in the game, and it certainly isn't now.

Another WA5 huh? Noriyasu Agematsu again...hmm. I seriously don't know who he is, but so far he's done nothing but impress me. I'm not surprised I see so many of his WA5 tracks in this contest.

Cheers.

Bahamut is an OK track off of FFXII but outside of actively listening to it I couldn't tell you what it sounds like. Listening to it once more, it's a solid B-grade piece compositionally, but terminally unmemorable.
It took listening to Tomorrow for all of 5 seconds before I felt my vote going its way. I listened through to be sure though, for propriety's sake.

(Note to Sakimoto: if you want more of these votes to go your way, branch out from your usual rambling-orchestral rut more often for more Dragon Quarters and Vagrant Stories. When you don't it's almost a given the other piece will be more engaging by default. Just a thought.)

Ciao.

Sky Fortress Bahamut definitely IS one of the best FFXII tracks, which doesn't mean much, though (lol). Road to Tomorrow is super awesome, on the other hand, super chillin', super instrumentation, wow just wow! Definitely my winner!

Cheers.