Preliminary Match #4

Listen to all four songs and select the one you like best.

Bully - Vendetta Preps
Panzer Dragoon Saga - Atolm Dragon
Descent II - Crawl (Extended Remix)
Shadow Hearts II - Town of Twilight ~ European Town

Vendetta Preps: Get the Flash Player to play this audio file:
Atolm Dragon: Get the Flash Player to play this audio file:
Crawl (Extended Remix): Get the Flash Player to play this audio file:
Town of Twilight ~ European Town: Get the Flash Player to play this audio file:

The musical style "Vendetta Preps" seems inspired by stuff heard a few decades ago. Interesting fusion of sounds and fairly decent. I honestly wasn't expecting this.

"Atolm Dragon" has a few things going for it. I'm rather partial to the percussion in this piece and there is a nice fusion of styles here, but I must admit, it's rather repetitive. I don't see myself listening to this one often.

I'm not a big fan of ambiance and the start of "Crawl" was almost an instant disregard for the piece. I"m glad I didn't though. The rock portions heard later really help solidify the piece and make it, at least to me, listenable.

Let's start this off by saying I absolutely love Yasunori Mitsuda. I also love his contributions to the Shadow Hearts series. I love the mix of acoustic and electric guitar in this one. Such a peaceful piece of music.

While I enjoyed all but Atolm Dragon a lot, I'm going with "Town of Twilight ~ European Town" because I could listen to this all day.

Bully - Vendetta Preps
Ah yes, Bully...the game everyone was protesting before they had even the slightest idea what it was about. Definitely an interesting sound here; more than anything, it sounds like early to mid 1980's pop without a vocal line. Don't ask me why, but I kind of dug it.

Panzer Dragoon Saga - Atolm Dragon
While I've never heard this one before, it's certainly drawn from the same well as the other Tank Dragon songs I've heard. Lots of drive, lots of rhythm, but disappointingly little melody. Rather forgettable.

Descent II - Crawl (Extended Remix)
Descent II seems to get a fair bit of love; I've never understood why. When people complain about Western VGM being a limp collection of generic rock and industrial sounds, Descent II looks up and says "you rang?" Headache-inducingly bad.

Shadow Hearts II - Town of Twilight ~ European Town
Twilight Town this ain't, though incidentally, I prefer the translation "City of Sunset" myself. This one's an old favorite: Y. Mitsuda knows his way around an acoustic guitar, and when he really puts his all into an arrangement, I'm putty.

I feel a bit shallow for voting for the only song I'm already familiar with, but there's a reason it's in my permanent rotation with 54 airings.

1: Shadow Hearts II
2: Bully
3: Panzer Dragoon Saga
4. Descent II

The sum of the last three nominations could not surpass the sheer coolness of "Vendetta Preps." Monotony, noise and mediocrity, respectively, are poor challengers to 80s-style awesomeness.

I don't remember PDS music as anything special, but I vaguely recall Atolm Dragon as one of the standout tracks. Good to hear it again. The Bully track is a new surprise as well. I SLIGHTLY have to favor it, because it reminds me of the O'bits arranges and has a cool old-school feel to it. But I'll pull for either.

OK, so here's the thing about Crawl.



It's the fucking Options Screen music.

I know it'll lose here cuz you people suck, but it's fucking awesome and people suck

I'm sorry Descent ;_; Vendetta Preps is just so rockin'!

My vote goes to the tune with the most melody and least percussion.

Billy Jean is not my lover... Not the worst song to rip a bassline from (perhaps it's the best song to rip a bassline from since it's awesome), but I'd rather just listen to the original. By a small margin I like the Panzer Dragoon Saga track, probably at least partially for nostalgic reasons.

"Vendetta Preps" is my first surprising hit this year. That's why I love BSC so much. *vote*

Bully - Vendetta Preps
Is a cool song. Sadly though, I'd like to nominate songs with more depth.

Panzer Dragoon Saga - Atolm Dragon
I was immediately surprised by the interesting instrumentation. Kept listening and found an interesting chord at 1:45. True, it's forgettable, but I like these kind of songs.

Descent II - Crawl (Extended Remix)
Not my thing

Shadow Hearts II - Town of Twilight ~ European Town
This sounds like Yasunori Mitsuda. Maybe it is. But I'm not a fan of his music.

Given a choice between:

Everything that went right in the 80's;
A song with no melody;
A recording of the journey into a lurker's vagina; and
A nifty little guitar piece;

I'm choosing the 80's.

Vendetta Preps from Bully reminded me of some old song that I have no idea the name of with its back beat. Not very good.

Atolm Dragon has a city in the storm feel from Panzer Dragoon Orta. Yes, I know Saga came out before it. Unfortunately, it is not as good.

Decent's - Crawl while quite heavy, as it should be, ain't too bad and quite badass if I say so myself.

And European Town is a relaxing piece by a fantastic artist, but not his best in my opinion.

Didn't like these too much. Crawl hit me the most...I guess.

"Vendetta Preps" is pretty awesome, yessire. Not too deep or anything like that, but damn is it enjoyable, infectious and fun.

'K "Atolm Dragon" is kind of boring and sucky. =/ Don't mean to offend anyone but this bored me senseless. I mean, 4 minutes? I think songs of this nature should only have one loop, no?

"Crawl (Extended Remix)" is noisy. Really noisy. It's not as bad as some people are saying, because the rock is done in a pretty badass sort of way, IMO. wvlfpvp mentioned that this is option menu music...that's pretty impressive~!

Mitsuda + Guitar + Town Theme = ultra win, usually. "Town of Twilight ~ European Town" is relaxing, melodious and contains some awesome instrumental tunings. Not much else to say, but it's really nice and chilling. I think I'll go for the more exciting Bully here, though.

"Vendetta Preps" - 8/10
"Atolm Dragon" - 3/10
"Crawl (Extended Remix)" - 6.5/10
"Town of Twilight ~ European Town" - 8/10

Oh cool, I didn't realize another nom of mine made it into the prelims! I fell in love with Vendetta Preps and its 80s-esque beats from the moment I saw it. Gonna take some good stuff to surpass this one.

Atolm Dragon isn't doing it. I kinda like the percussion. That's... about it. Probably works well in-game, though.

Crawl starts off as noise and ends up becoming pretty interesting as it goes on. This one surprised me, though I wouldn't, say, save it to my computer.

Town of Twilight has some decent guitar work and is very soothing; it lacks a little extra oomph to give me incentive to remember it, though. Can't quite put my finger on what's missing.

VOTE: Vendetta Preps.

After listening to Vendetta Preps I'm not sure if I need to listen to the others... but I will. Atolm Dragon is, to be honest, rather boring; Crawl... I thought this might be something a bit different... but no the rock section is conventional at least; Ah Town of Twilight is nice, but I think funk>>smooth in this pairing.

Originally Posted by Muzza

I mean, 4 minutes? I think songs of this nature should only have one loop, no?

The first loop is like a hammer blow of Awesome. The second loop is supposed to allow you to overcome the concussive effects and regain your critical faculties, allowing you to rationlise exactly why it's so good. But I see most people were still left reeling after the full 4 minutes were up, such was their unreadyness. Afterwards, dazed and confused, they voted something else out of simple fear of Atolm Dragon.

Next year I will edit together a version of Atolm Dragon containing 8 or 12 loops, and then, there will be understanding.

"Vendetta Preps" oozes 80's coolness like a sponge dipped in hair gel. I'm glad it's here, because I'd really hate to vote on the nice but mediocre town music from Shadow Hearts II.

"Atolm Dragon" gets boring very quickly, and "Crawl" seems like there's a good song there but it's buried beneath a layer of irritating noise.