Preliminary Battle VII

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

Lotus Land Story (PC-98) - Alice Maestera (Stage 04)
R-Type (SMS) - Stage 3 BGM

Alice is as cool as Stage 3 is bland. There's development throughout it's length and it's just hella cool.

Lotus Land Story (PC-98) - Alice Maestera (Stage 04) reminds me of one of those Perfect Charry Blossom songs, with a weaker melodic core but the same hyperactive synthin', just toned down a notch. As with the other PC-98 songs, I also notice a bit less of the bloopy sound I expect as well.

I wasn't too impressed with R-Type (SMS) - Stage 3 BGM. It seemed very sparse, and rather limp in its execution; maybe a more uptempo version would have worked better.

I'll vote for Alice despite its synth advantage, since I found it musucally more interesting.

Ah, PC-98. I was wondering what system that came from.

Stage 3 is incredibly flat, and not just because it's underusing the NES sound chip. Alice Maestera is all sorts of cool in comparison, although it suffers from going on entirely too long. It starts out awesome, then sort of drowns itself. A lot of these prelim songs are pretty good, but lacking enough that they'll just get stomped when it comes to the main event. :\

Ouch. Sounding like my prelim nom is gonna get ZUNed.

Must admit, Alice is a lot more everything than stage 3 is. The one area it's shaky on is how longwinded the track is. Stage 3's nice and brief, the way a chiptune should be, but that's not enough of a leg up.

Originally Posted by Monkey King

Stage 3 is incredibly flat, and not just because it's underusing the NES sound chip.

Master System, actually. But it does sound pretty close there, doesn't it?

I'm not really the biggest fan of R-Type music really (gimme Thunder Force any day of the week), and unfortunately Stage 3 doesn't really change that.

Alice is pretty darn spiffy by contrast, and actually I consider its comparitive lengthiness a bonus.

I was thinking of how ZUN-esque Alice Maestera (Stage 04) sounded, and then I noticed the artist tags for the track. With the first listen, I found it pretty spiffy. Like most ZUN tracks, though, I imagine that repeated listens will make the track more tedious to listen to. However, it isn't as hyperactive as other ZUN tracks, as orion mentioned.. So I may just continue liking it.

Stage 3 BGM is okay. It's fun to listen to, but I have no doubts that Alice Maestera is the stronger track in this battle. Stage 3 just doesn't have too much going for it, and frankly I was a little bored with it in spite of the short duration. Just like Alice Maestera, I expect that repeated listens would make me enjoy the track even less. The only difference is that I think I'd get bored with Stage 3 BGM much faster.

Going with Lotus Land Story~

Alice Maestera is one of the few "cute" tracks from ZUN. I think he did a good job, it's got some really good parts and the rest manage to not go below average. The fact that it's not so hyperkinetic may help it not feel so burned out so fast.

Stage 3 BGM is not half-bad, but it sounds rather sparse.

Stage 3 BGM doesn't beep in a very good way.
Alice Maestera (Stage 04) starts a bit quiet, which makes me think that it is a bit boring. But it gets better, and there's even some pieces of a catchy melody there. The sounds are less radical here, better for my ears. And those catchy parts are neat, I'll vote for Alice Maestera.

Stage 3 is cool, actually, but nothing I'd want to listen to multiple times simply for enjoyment. lol ZUN, but it's the better of the two.