Preliminary Match #9

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

Mega Man X - Sigma Stage 2
Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection - Premonition
Contra III: The Alien Wars - Battle Runner
Wild ARMs 2 - You'll Never Be Alone No Matter Where You Are (Instrumental)

Sigma Stage 2: Get the Flash Player to play this audio file:
Premonition: Get the Flash Player to play this audio file:
Battle Runner: Get the Flash Player to play this audio file:
You'll Never Be Alone No Matter Where You Are (Instrumental): Get the Flash Player to play this audio file:

Good on whoever nominated the instrumental version of this song. I've always thought that the Wild ARMs soundtracks have some AMAZING western-tinged songs that get ruined by horrendous singing, and yet the vocal versions keep getting nominated for these contests.

Well, Megaman X is my favorite soundtrack of the series and Sigma Stage 2 is definitely awesome as well. We'll see how the other tracks are because I don't want bias to play too much of a factor.

I wasn't a fan of "Premonition" in it's recent SotW foray, and here is no exception.

Contra III is also a nice one. Definite SNES love here!

Aside from the intro that reminds me of a song from The Little Mermaid, this is a wonderful piece of music.

I guess Wild Arms it shall be.

Premonition for me, but solid pairing all around. Premonition is excellent rockin compared to a pair of solid-but-unspectacular SNES classics and a kinda-cool-but-too-short version of a great song.

I couldn't get "Sigma Stage 2" to play or download properly, but I suppose it doesn't matter much. All Mega Man X music sounds like it was written by a high school auto-shop student, then performed and recorded from within a sardine can.

"Premonition" is metal done reasonably well. No major complaints.

I got about 30 seconds into "Battle Runner," then decided I'd had enough. I spent the next five minutes cleansing my musical palate to the tune of some wood screws being mangled within the garbage disposal - a dramatic improvement in both tone and melody.

The ubiquitous Wild Arms track was exactly what I'd expect from an ubiquitous Wild Arms track: it's 'cowboy' enough to qualify as "exotic" but wimpy enough to satisfy the music purists. Unfortunately, it's far too short to provide serious competition down the line, so supporting it now is a wasted effort.

Mega Man X - Sigma Stage 2
Wasn't interesting to me.

Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection - Premonition
I'm no fan.

Contra III: The Alien Wars - Battle Runner
It's special and I had high hopes, but I didn't quite feel any emotions by listening to it.

Wild ARMs 2 - You'll Never Be Alone No Matter Where You Are (Instrumental)
Yeah I like the wild west music. But this song is too short to go through. But after hearing all the songs, this is the closest to victory for me.

Sigma Stage 2 - I can't help but wish this was the House the Grate version. :-(

Premonition - pretty generic rawkz; some decent points, but

Battle runner - not feeling this one

Super long song name - The verses were a bit bland, but the trumpet playing was a high point. Not astoundingly good, but good enough to beat the rest of these.

Mega Man X - Sigma Stage 2
The first Sigma stage is one of the few decent tracks in the otherwise dismal X series. So, naturally, it's not here. But its slow-witted brother is filling in, and he's the kind that tells endless stories that never go anywhere.

Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection - Premonition
This did little for me in SotW, and time hasn't really increased my appreciation of it. It does what it does in a banal, workmanlike fashion.

Contra III: The Alien Wars - Battle Runner
It's okay, but certainly nowhere near top-drawer. The keyboardy bit is nice; more of that would have been welcome.

Wild ARMs 2 - You'll Never Be Alone No Matter Where You Are (Instrumental)
I tries listening to the WA2 OST the other day, and was horrified to find that it's one of those discs that cuts every song off at the knees, making it loop once or less in order to cram 80 tracks onto a single CD. So needless to say length is an unfortunate issue here, though the lack of vocals and the pleasant WA sound do help make up for that.

Pan scrapings.

1: Wild Arms 2
2: Contra III
3: Pinball Whatever
4: MMX

Of course there just had to be a megaman song in the contest. Oh well at least the prelims because I doubt it will make it onward. An alright track. Not catchy as many others are. Premonition was an average rocker.

I recognized hearing the vocal version of the Wild Arms track, and I was liking it. You'll never be alone over Premonition.

Poor matchup =(

"Sigma Stage 2" is bland, hideously bland. Grating kind of stuff, this is. Detestable melody, yucky pace and just a complete lack of inspiration to compose a quality tune. Did not like.

I wasn't too fond of "Premonition" when it was featured in SotW a few weeks ago, though listening to it again, I've warmed to it ever so slightly. A decent, listenable hit of rock/metal VGM with some sweet guitaring, it's actually a solid tune. In hindsight, I still don't think I would have given it any points, but it's ok~

"Battle Runner" was fairly good. Some nice, cyberpunk sounds decorate the tolerable "action" synth melody. Won't be getting my vote, but it still deserves a .

WA2 needs a proper OST release so bad. I'm saying that because "You'll Never Be Alone No Matter Where You Are (Instrumental)" is absolutely kickass. Somewhat typical Wild Arms heroism is presented appealingly and emphatically, with a great emphasis on Western brass. It's damn short, but in that shortness, it truly shines.

"Sigma Stage 2" - 1/10
"Premonition" - 7.5/10
"Battle Runner" - 7/10
"You'll Never Be Alone No Matter Where You Are (Instrumental)" - 8.5/10

Sigma Stage 2 was not enjoyable at all, it lacked any form of sophistication in execution; Premonition was enjoyable but there was nowt special; I love the frenetic pace of Battle Runner, the ancient synth doesn't help but I shouldn't hold that against it; You'll Never be alone is my favourite of the Wild Arms vocal tracks, this is still nowhere near as good as the Battle with Lord Blazer arrangement on that arranged album I can't remember the name of but the lack of vocals makes it better than the original.

I'll give Battle Runner the nod here.

1) Sigma Stage 2 is classic. The first couple seconds of the song might put someone off, but I think the song really takes off at 0:15. I don't see why everyone else here says the song is so bland.. I think the song is an enjoyable listen, which is what counts, right?

2) Premonition is somewhat boring to me, although I can see why people think it's a "good" metal song.

3) Battle Runner just annoys me. It's probably the prime example of why so many people in BSC hate chiptunes: this one is just annoying and lacks any engaging melody.

4) You'll Never Be Alone No Matter Where You Are (Instrumental): the intro gave me high expectations, then it went a little bland for a second, then the accoustic guitar was awesome, and the trumpet was awesome.


If Premonition wasn't so close to taking 1st, I would vote for Sigma Stage 2. Since Premonition is close to advancing and I think it shouldn't, I'll go with the Wild ARMs track.

Sigma Stage 2 - Simply put there are better Megaman tracks, namely Boss >.>
Nothing exciting here and the instrumentation obviously doesn't help.

Premonition - Sure it's rock, but it's executed in a rather mainstream manner which I dislike. There are no engaging hooks in it. This time, rock bias is not enough.

Battle Runner - No original comment. Exactly what neothe0ne said. I wonder why I bothered listening all the way.

You'll Never Be Alone No Matter Where You Are (Instrumental) - I wouldn't mind Kaori Asoh singing and I've liked all Wild ARMs vocal songs so far. Admittedly there are better Wild ARMs songs, but this retains enough of the motif that it passes stand-alone.


Weak quadrupling.

Battle Runner has solidified itself as one of the most perfect SNES tunes ever since it's inception. Unless you have nothing shorter than a watermelon stuck in your ear, there is no excuse for not voting for it. Everything, melody, instrumentation, and other stuff that noone cares about except myself is ACE. I cannot even find a single flaw in this piece, it's too good.

This is the best matchup so far, if only for Battle Runner. Oh, and Premonition and SS2 are pretty cool.