Preliminary Match #6

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

Fhey Area - Final Battle
Darius Gaiden - VISIONNERZ
Breath of Fire V: Dragon Quarter - Seeing Again
Eternal Arcadia - Kingdom of Ixa'taka

Final Battle: Get the Flash Player to play this audio file:
VISIONNERZ: Get the Flash Player to play this audio file:
Seeing Again: Get the Flash Player to play this audio file:
Kingdom of Ixa'taka: Get the Flash Player to play this audio file:

"Final Battle" is really nice. I love the melody. It really drives this piece. The contrast between the fast and slow sections is a nice fit and the instrumentation choice, while fairly stock, goes well with the overall flow of the piece.

"VISIONNERZ" is amazing. I absolutely love the Darius series and this is one of my favorite OGR pieces. Fantastic work. Lots of stylistic diversity and that inherent quirkiness found in the later Darius works.

Breath of Fire V seems to be popular! "Seeing Again" is a very beautiful piano and strings piece. It's got an engaging melody and is a really great piece by Sakimoto. However, it won't be getting my vote.

"Kingdom of Ixa'taka" is really nice as well. I love the percussion and woodwind work. The melody is really nice and it definitely has that catchiness factor to it. THe inclusion of acoustic guitar was a nice touch and helped to strengthen the piece.

Man, if Visionnerz wasn't up, "Kingdom of Ixa'taka" would easily get my vote, but alas, it's not meant to be.

Note to self: Find Fhey Area soundtrack. VERY welcome find. Love the synth on it. That or Ixa'Taka here would do fine, but Fhey for right now.

I have too much love for "Kingdom of Ixa'taka" to vote for anything else.

Anyone who hates "Kingdom of Ixa'taka" is also a person who enjoys sleeping with fat, Russian widows.

Fhey Area - Final Battle
Some fine and energetic, if a little cheesy, synthyness.

Darius Gaiden - VISIONNERZ
Weren't the Visionnerz a line of 80's action figures, backed by a cartoon show, that had holographic plates in their chests? I think I had a couple of those oversized G.I. Joes back in the day. That anecdote is unfortunately much more interesting than the song, which muddles along and squanders a decent piano line and whispered vocal bits.

Breath of Fire V: Dragon Quarter - Seeing Again
A decent if unspectacular entrant from this fine OST. The melody and development are both okay, though it suffers in comparison from some of the better tunes, especially "Ending," which shares a similar soundscape.

Eternal Arcadia - Kingdom of Ixa'taka
I enjoy the Arcadia OST in general, but this track has never really connected with me. That, combined with its perennial candidate status, leave it firmly in the orange.

1: Fhey Area
2: Breath of Fire V
3: Skies of Arcadia
4: Darius Gaiden

Every time I hear a decent song by Sakimoto, it pisses me off because it reminds me of the hundreds of soulless, bland tracks that he cranks out on every soundtrack. Seeing Again isn't spectacular but at least it sounds like he gives a shit about music, which is more than I can usually say. And I would've voted for it, but Kingdom of Ixa'taka is a lot better still.

Final Battle's melody was ruined by some annoying instrumentation choices and the unshakable feeling of the whole "Hey, the PS1 uses a CD? Let's make a chiptune but HIGH QUALITY!" stuff that made a lot of that stuff sound similar to each other.

VISIONNERZ is not quite jazz, not quite atmospheric, not quite techno, and not any good.

Seeing Again is making me think we need to castrate people who like the BOFV soundtrack. This song is more boring than the ending song.

Kingdom of Ixa'Taka is a perfect litmus test for whether or not you're a douchebag. If you don't like this song, you're a douchebag.

"Seeing Again" gets my vote because I didn't very much care for "VISIONNERZ" or "Final Battle". "Kingdom of Ixa'taka" is good, but haven't we had enough of it in this contest already? Sorry I don't have the perpetual hard-on for the song like you guys do.

Originally Posted by Mo0

Final Battle's melody was ruined by some annoying instrumentation choices and the unshakable feeling of the whole "Hey, the PS1 uses a CD? Let's make a chiptune but HIGH QUALITY!" stuff that made a lot of that stuff sound similar to each other.

It's a Sega Mega CD game from 1992 actually.

Originally Posted by datschge

It's a Sega Mega CD game from 1992 actually.

Well, thanks for the correction, but that only further proves my point.

Final Battle has the sound of a last battle with its frantic pace and desperateness, but not very memorable.

Visionerz is just weird. Spooky eerie sounding piece with strange vocals.

Seeing Again is another sub-par track to an otherwise very well done OST. Wish I saw some of the other tracks from this soundtrack like the layer areas.

And then Ixa'taka just killed this matchup. Over. Find a better track that fits into this town in the game. Ain't going to happen.

Meh, "Final Battle" is a bit too typical for my liking, despite having a driving melody and some agreeable synth. A slightly above-average listen, but it doesn't really entertain me that much.

"Visionnerz" is ok, but it tends to sound a bit more monotonous that I would have liked. Of the Darius tunes I've heard, this one ranks pretty low on the list.

Oh come on, another BoFV tune? I'll admit it's a pretty solid piece of work, but... =| "Seeing Again" is light, introspective Sakimoto orchestral fluff, which I'm generally not a fan of. While I like the BoFV "Ending" theme, this one is just lame. It tried to reach out to my heart, but it just couldn't get there. What a shame.

"Kingdom of Ixa'taka" is a great piece to liven my spirits after that drab Sakimoto offering. The renaissance, primitive dance vibe is infectious, and the accompanying woodwinds and percussions really put this track above the bunch of other "tribal" themes. Great, and easily the best track here.

"Final Battle" - 6/10
"Visionnerz" - 4/10
"Seeing Again" - 3/10
"Kingdom of Ixa'taka" - 8/10

If VGM was more mainstream, the term 'RPG music' might replace 'Elevator music' for samey, humdrum tripe.

Kingdom of Ixa'taka is shit and boring. This tribal music is by the numbers and stereotypically RPGish so just ends up twitching along like a puppet: the illusion of animacy but actually lifeless and without soul. Which is all wrong, because tribes are supposed to be quite exciting things.

If this was in SAUS it wouldn't get past the first round. Actually it wouldn't ever get nominated, because this is nothing more than Video Game music, and I mean that in the most disparaging way possible; as a fan of video game music, this makes us look bad to anyone listening in on the contest. They'll think "yeah this is exactly the nothing-y music I expected to find here"; that VGM listeners are wierdo shut-ins who don't know shit about the variety and imagination possible in music.

Visionnerz on the other hand made me reevaluate what you can do with music, and I don't mean just inside of a game.

Visionnerz - 10/10
Kingdom of Ixa'taxa - 0/10

Originally Posted by Kolba

Visionnerz on the other hand made me reevaluate what you can do with music, and I don't mean just inside of a game.

Yeah, I know what you mean...It's really cool how I can put it in the recycle bin, right click and select "Empty Recycle Bin". Lots of cool stuff you can do with music.

This match-up was decided the moment I saw "Kingdom of Ixa'taka" on the list. I listened to the other tracks just to be fair, but I love that song. Whenever I went through that town in Skies of Arcadia I'd stick around for awhile just to listen to the music.

The track from Fhey Area is pretty snazzy too, but the other two are completely forgettable.

Hmmm interesting music vs catchy world music. Kolba does have a point but I don't think Visionnerz has made me re-evaluate music to any extent, it's just a bit unusual. Kingdom of Ixa'taka does sound like music you would buy in a garden centre but it has a nice tune and is excellently put together. The other two are okay but nothing special.

When it comes down to it I think I will go with the garden centre music, it feels a bit more cohesive and I can imagine it working very well in context.

Originally Posted by Goldfish from Hell

Yeah, I know what you mean...It's really cool how I can put it in the recycle bin, right click and select "Empty Recycle Bin". Lots of cool stuff you can do with music.

No, see, that joke just doesn't work, because it implies that you had never deleted a music track from your hard drive before.

So ner ner.