Liberal Arts Major
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okDBNnAjItU&hd=1
This is the stage theme that precedes Faith for the Transient People, and I think it's pretty good, although at a few points it comes a bit close to the typical Touhou "danger zones," (at least in my opinion) but I do think ultimately it stays out of the clutter zone. First off, I really, really like the song's intro. That's quite good, IMO. Really, I think this manages to do a good job at remaining just avoiding going into the pretty questionable territory, and stays good for the most part, although there are some sections that I view as kind of "downtime" but thankfully, I feel the other sections make up for it.
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xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out?
Editor
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6cel6c5ct4&hd=1
Well, I'm not very familiar with Valkyrie Profile's soundtrack, so hopefully this isn't one of those cases where I post a song and then end up finding a whole bunch from the same game that I like more later... But I can't resist posting something that I heard once and immediately loved.
Behave Irrationally is, despite its name, a very controlled piece, which I guess you kind of need to be if you're going to only be about a minute long. However, that one minute is dense with emotional content. There's the rather chilling background instrument which comes in first, then the flute (or some sort of wind instrument at least) comes in and adds a rather somber note, and it all reaches an emotional peak at :29 through :52. Despite being a minute long it manages to follow a sort of... narrative arc... better than 99% of VG music I can think of. So, in short, the portion size may be small, but the flavors are there, is I guess the way I'd put it.
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"There's a pony in the shop, but don't buy it. It might do something unfortunate to you." ~from the first Summoner's Seal topic
Liberal Arts Major
Wrong VP choice, tbqh. This one is just really average. Very beginning is the best, everything else is a step down. 5.0.
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xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out?
Liberal Arts Major
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jqSry2J7xs&hd=1
Back to AT2, but not the hymns, because AT2 has some really excellent non-hymns as well. Moon-Dwelling Demon is in a very close fight for my favorite AT2 Dungeon Theme that isn't Rustling Throb ~Cloche~. For me the highlight of the song is probably that intro (0:00 - 0:31). Even after that though, it's still great, and I really like how it progress from there, it's just... I don't know to describe it, very "catchy" I guess, all the different instruments and effects just work very well together. Enough so that I might actually like it more than the intro, it's just so good all around.
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xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out?
Editor
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Z8qQFY7bqg&hd=1
Another Ryu Umemoto track, and despite the name this video is significantly more worksafe than the last one.
So this track, Final Suspect, is very similar to another track from the same game, called Spiral. In specific, Spiral is longer, and what it adds on at the end is very cool. But in exchange it has a much weaker opening, in my opinion. I feel like Spiral might have been the better way to go here, just because it shakes things up more, and because Final Suspect's samples can be a bit... harsh at times, which Spiral somehow manages to avoid despite using ones that are otherwise identical. But in the end I had to go with my heart, and I just like Final Suspect a bit more.
Now, you might be wondering, if Final Suspect and Spiral are that similar, what makes me prefer this one? Mainly, it's those sections with the... fake violin-ish sample, one of which starts at :34. They show up in both, but are much longer, more complex, and more prominent in Final Suspect, and they're really the biggest reason I like both songs. I guess another reason is one of emotional response. Final Suspect is a very unnerving song for me and rarely fails to make me feel tense as I listen to it, which is... enjoyable to me, because I'm weird like that. Spiral can't really produce the same effect, so I've gotta go with Final Suspect here!
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"There's a pony in the shop, but don't buy it. It might do something unfortunate to you." ~from the first Summoner's Seal topic
Liberal Arts Major
This never really got past "just there" for me. I guess it's not bad or anything, but I'm not even sure I could claim average either. 4.0.
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xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out?
Liberal Arts Major
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5byxSgCDDo&hd=1
So, I heard this for the first time fairly recently, and it immediately became one of my favorites. In an unsurprising twist, it's very much like Annul in that sense. On that note, I'm legitimately not sure which I like more between this and Annul. It's really close, I could argue for both. Moving away from that and keeping with Scrap IO though, this manages to combine a lot of things I really like. There are effects that remind me of Annul all around, to no one's surprise, I'm sure. There's also the percussion, and I'll also highlight some particular things I really like: the part at 0:31 - 1:10, with special note to 0:39 on of that section, the part at 1:26 - 1:57 and finally 4:31 - 4:47. Special note to 4:16 - 5:16, which seems to link a lot of that together into one amazing section. Note that those aren't the only times a lot of that happens, I'm just highlighting some specific instances. Really though, it's just such an excellent song overall, IMO. I do think it's probably very hit-or-miss, but for me it was definitely a hit.
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xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out?
Editor
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZP4b7PIkspY&hd=1
Hey, it's a Tommy Tallarico track! Wonder if it's the first one in this topic? Generally his music is pretty damn good, and this track is no exception. It's also an example of a piece with a somewhat prominent electric guitar that I don't have a problem with! (I'll keep posting them until I prove some sort of point about this.)
As usual, it's easier for me to pick out what I don't like about this one than what I do like, the latter basically being a generic "every element works together with all the others really well to improve the song as a whole" comment. What I don't like is a rather short list, though. First of all, the ending is kind of weird and out of place. It's not very long, but still. Similarly, at around 3 minutes in there's this electric guitar section that's just sort of distracting. I don't dislike it, but it's not as good as the rest of the song. My favorite part of the whole piece comes immediately after it ends though, so it kind of works for me if I think of it as a lead-up to that. Finally, I feel like Destinations Unknown is a little bit long, but 5 minutes is still outside the realm of excessive, so I can't criticize it too much for that. Aside from those three complaints, it's just a really, really good track from a game that I think most people would completely overlook when looking for games with good music.
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"There's a pony in the shop, but don't buy it. It might do something unfortunate to you." ~from the first Summoner's Seal topic
Liberal Arts Major
(I'll keep posting them until I prove some sort of point about this.)
The only "point" you prove to me like this is that you don't like electric guitars except for the rare cases that you do, where the only difference I can generally discern from the other ones is that you're usually the one who posted the song!
Anyway, this is pretty good, until about the 3 minute mark. Except it doesn't really do that good of a job of ever recovering after that point.
...And that ending. wtf. 6.0, barely, and this probably started at around 6.5 or maybe even 7 before it decided that that just wasn't acceptable.
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xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out?
Liberal Arts Major
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63wcuV9d-ms&hd=1
I certainly didn't expect to like this song as much as I did when I first heard it, but I'm glad to be pleasantly surprised like that! This appears to be Roll's Theme and there's several different versions over a few games, but of the ones I've heard, this is my favorite. Aside from liking the vocals, some of those effects towards the beginning are just really good, IMO. For an example of what I mean, take 0:19 - 0:32 as an example. Hard for me to say what my favorite part of the song is, I do like parts like that section I pointed out, but I also enjoy the vocals for the most part, so it's kind of tough.
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xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out?
Liberal Arts Major
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdhVdt1OsZo&hd=1
Man, I went about half a week without a JRPG Battle Theme, that's got to be a record. Well, that ends now! A Motion of Finishing Blow is VP2's main battle theme and it's fairly good, IMO, but nothing too special. It starts off pretty slow, and quite honestly the very beginning is probably my least favorite part of the entire thing. I definitely prefer it when it picks up. I think I used to like this a lot more back when I first heard it, now it comes a lot closer to making me think "cluttered" when I don't think that was remotely on my radar originally. Special mention to 1:25 - 1:40, which is probably my favorite section.
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xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out?
Editor
Well this is... okay. I don't really have anything to say about it except that it's pretty okay, just unexceptional compared to other .hack//G.U. tracks... and a lot of other battle themes...
5.5/10
Persona 3 FES - Mass Destruction (P3FES Version)
Yeah, every part of this that isn't the rap is not a credit to team. Like, each component would be okay individually, but it doesn't really work together. The rap sections are "okay" but the lyrics themselves aren't doing it for me... though they're not bad, just unexceptional.
5.5/10
Parasite Eve: The 3rd Birthday - Escape from UB
Starts out pretty bad and then becomes pretty good! It's held back by some effects that don't work too well out of context though.
5.5/10
Parasite Eve: Escape from UB
asdf why
...i'm going to refrain from rating this because i don't think the intent of it was to be pleasant to listen to (at which it succeeded, in spades)
Resident Evil 3 - The City of Ruin
Atmospheric. The issue is that parts of it can seem... empty or unfinished. Again, I imagine it would work better in-game, but I also don't think that excuses it here, because atmospheric tracks can still work very well out of context.
5/10
Ogre Battle - White Storm
This is pretty okay. The middle part does go on a bit long, like xp said, but it's decent enough.
5.5/10
Final Fantasy XIII - Blinded By Light
This is... really good, actually. At first I was thinking the build-up was the best part by far, but then the payoff redeemed itself. The build-down is definitely the weak link, though.
7.5/10
Lufia II - Battle #3
i have heard this song
SO MUCH
...
it's pretty good though
7/10
Touhou Project: Mountain of Faith - The Primal Scene of Japan the Girl Watched
The intro's pretty good. ...After a certain point it just becomes indistinguishable from any other Touhou song for me, though. It definitely has good parts but the majority of the time is spent being mediocre Touhou.
5/10
Ar tonelico II: Melody of Metafalica - Moon-Dwelling Demon
This is pretty good most of the time. Some of the background effects don't work for me at all though. I can't imagine this as a dungeon theme either, seems way too fast-paced or something, but eh.
6/10
NeoTokyo - Scrap IO
So the first time I heard this, my immediate thought was that it reminded me of a busy street. A lot of the effects are almost metallic sounding, there are a lot of samples of people shouting which are broken and distorted so as to make the actual words not quite comprehensible, and even the piano/strings instruments are used in such a way that seems "natural", where, by natural, I mean occurring from the surroudings rather than from a specific instrument. The way Scrap IO varies its speed, sometimes coming to sudden halts and sometimes picking up speed abruptly, works with that as well. I'm not sure if this was intentional but it makes the track very interesting, especially because it really does manage to come together and seem coherent, as music, rather than just as a gimmick or something.
That said, it doesn't really grab me and make me go "I want to listen to this again and again", and a lot of that is just that it's not really my type of music (though it has a lot of elements that I like). As such it's kind of hard to assign a ranking, but I feel pretty good about this.
7/10
Tatsunoko vs. Capcom - Kaze yo Tsutaete
Wrong version! MvC1 version superior. In any case, it's pretty good, but I feel like it goes on way longer than it needs to, especially because the second half of the song isn't nearly as good as the first half.
6/10
Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria - A Motion of Finishing Blow
This is pretty good actually. That section you like the most is bad, though, I don't know what they were going for there but it didn't work at all. Just out of place.
6.5/10
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"There's a pony in the shop, but don't buy it. It might do something unfortunate to you." ~from the first Summoner's Seal topic
Editor
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCP_lsToxRQ&hd=1
A pretty cool song from what is, I assume, a shmup. I think it qualifies as honorary JRPG battle music, though; at least that's what it sounds like to me. My favorite parts are all the sections like 1:03 through 1:14... I'm sure there's a way to describe what the piece does there using technical terminology, but again, my lack of any sort of music knowledge shines through here! In any case, I just like this piece in general, with my only real complaint being that it goes on too long. I imagine it must loop in there somewhere, but I can never tell for sure unless it's really obvious, so... figure it out for yourself, I guess.
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"There's a pony in the shop, but don't buy it. It might do something unfortunate to you." ~from the first Summoner's Seal topic
New Moderator
Die Hard Trilogy - Dulles Airport
Dulles Airport more like Dull Airport.
I was bored at first. It picked up the pace later and became quite nice for that section. I appreciate the creativity with the voices on the speakers and such, but it was still not really worth listening to until that faster part. It gets above average for that section.
Rating: 6/10
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 - Oil Ocean Zone
An oil ocean, how awful and terrible for nature and stuff.
That one instrument that I cannot describe but is pretty prevalent for most of the piece is cool sounding. The back beat, not so much. That sort of distracted me a lot for whatever reason. Otherwise, it manages to fare decently. Nowhere near some of the other Sonic pieces I have heard though.
Rating: 5.5/10
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 - Oil Ocean (WT-40 Mix) (OCRemix)
No wonder I put off rating all of these for so long.
So the first fifty-three seconds are okay. Then the lyrics come. And I cry. And die inside. And outside.
New Moderator
And we are back to Valkyrie Profile 2, which I also approve of.
Great pacing for an RPG battle theme. I liked the faster sections more, and I like the section xp pointed out. Not sure what Kenri meant by it being out of place. Add this to the list of Valkyrie Profile 2 pieces I enjoy and will look forward to hearing in the game when I finally play it.
Rating: 6.5/10
RefleX - Raiwat Virgo - Type-R
Never heard of this game before, which would make sense if Kenri
Editor
Rating: 3/10
>_>
Something about this just seems wrong.
Fourth, why would you ever say this would fit in a JRPG?
I can picture it playing right after you leave the first town, while the camera starts panning all over the world map, showing the various trails, nearby areas and NPCs, etc.
I will admit though, I liked Love Song of a Certain Dragon, possibly more than this (I would have to relisten to it to decide), so sorry about that Kenri.
that is a low blow, you realize
The strange strings are almost unnaturally loud
Yeah, this is what made me hesitate in posting it, especially after stuff like See the Sun Burn. Glad to see it didn't kill the piece for you.
I started doing this at 10:00 PM and it is now 5:42 AM
that's like 4 hours, claiming PROPHET status now
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"There's a pony in the shop, but don't buy it. It might do something unfortunate to you." ~from the first Summoner's Seal topic
Liberal Arts Major
Yeah, this is pretty neat. Not getting the whole JRPG thing though. 6.5
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xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out?
Liberal Arts Major
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rAZ8hJeJoI&hd=1
Now, this? This right here is a JRPG Battle Theme. Now, for some reason I'm noticing a whole bunch of things in this right now as very similar to other things. There's the obvious/parodied "We Will Rock You" section in the beginning, but I'm noticing, apparently for the first time, a lot of similarities to Maybe I'm A Lion (FF8). But I could just be imagining things. Anyway, Dark Messenger is a pretty good song, and probably one of, if not the, highlight of FF9 music for me. Never "got" the You're Not Alone hype. Even remotely. I think this is my favorite of the PS1 FF Final Battle music trio, but I'm never too consistent on that. I think Dark Messenger has some of my favorite parts out of all three, but it also has other parts that are just kind of "meh" to me. ...Oh, I guess you could claim this isn't "actually" the final battle music for FFIX, but I like to think it is. Please try not to take that from me. >_>
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xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out?
Editor
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCAyVT_SSz8&hd=1
A beautiful, somewhat chilled out piece from Silent Hill (what are the odds?). It also hearkens back to the beginning of the first topic, where another song with a similar title was posted! Just a little callback for ya. A lot of the pieces from Silent Hill that have been posted in this topic, while being beautiful sounding, manage to also carry a sense of... darkness, or something just not being quite right - at least that's what I get out of them, it's kind of hard to describe. This one is a bit different in that it doesn't really have that. The only thing that I can say comes close is that the two main instruments in this piece don't always quite... agree on the direction the song is going to take, which can lead to some parts seeming slightly off. Which is kind of a cool effect and can catch you off guard. Or rather, it can catch me off guard; I have a suspicion that nobody else will even know wtf I'm talking about.
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"There's a pony in the shop, but don't buy it. It might do something unfortunate to you." ~from the first Summoner's Seal topic
Liberal Arts Major
Street Fighter II Turbo - Ken Stage
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFYK8sL5BHI&hd=1
I've always felt this was a pretty cool piece, although I don't like it as much as Guile's Theme. There's just never a part in this that I feel is weak, which is definitely something I can appreciate, even if the cost is that it doesn't "peak" as high as some other songs. Of course, the "downside" is that often times in these kinds of cases, I can't really highlight a favorite section, because they tend to be pretty much even all throughout.
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xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out?