Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and Glass
I’ll go with Chrono Trigger and Before the Storm
This is a tough category. I’d say that musically, I was at a toss-up between the two Mitsuda tracks, but gave it to Chrono Trigger because of nostalgia, and because of the added difficulty of composing on the SNES.
Not having any history with it, Treasure of the Rudras sounded like many a SNES Square battle theme, and so didn’t really stand out.
I was surprised by Glass, after a kind of weak opening, I liked where it went. In a very strong bracket, I also voted for it just sort of as a palate cleanser, as I imagine it will be very different from most of what gets advanced against it.
For me, there’s a break between NES and SNES era, where I feel like NES era music is kind of quintessentially built on the bit tune sound palette. I often don’t really care for remixes or reinventions of music from that era, because I feel they kind of miss the point a little bit. By the time we hit the SNES though, I feel that the compositions are similar enough to real instruments, that I think they’re better served by orchestral or remix versions.
Genesis, falling between those two, varies a bit, but I think the soundscape was a little more electronic-y, and so it generally falls into the NES category.
Group H: Xenoblade Chronicles and Life is Strange: Before the Storm
This might be a photo finish!
I haven’t voted yet. Still planning to… what’s the deadline?
Probably in like an hour? I wasn’t sure if the Friday games got 24 hours or the whole weekend, but if it’s the whole weekend, I think the rounds have been ending/starting at about 3:00 EST.
Go by the timestamp on the post with the videos – in this case 12:46 p.m. Pacific. You always have at least 24 hours (not counting weekends) from that. If you put in a vote after that, it may or may not be counted.
Xenoblade Chronicles 2 was kind of a shoe-in because that may be one of the best soundtracks of the last five years or so, and surprisingly for me Life is Strange: Before the Storm because I think it’s a really well composed song rather than good background music like the other two, but honestly, all four are great.
Solo Nobre as I don’t mind a bit of synthwave
Rimworld is a nice chilled track with an Ibiza vibe to it.
Surprised I dont vote for the shmup soundtrack, but it just didnt click. No idea how i missed playing it first time round either.
Solo Nobre - Hot damn that was some straight out of Blade Runner kind of stuff. Excellent track!
Rimworld - It’s almost unfair that some of these older games get pitted against tracks like this. This was like a wonderful modern take on a western wandering theme.
Despite not having any connection to any of these games, I liked them all quite well!
Musha Aleste needed a bit more “four on the floor,” in my estimation, so I think it’s the first to fall. Command & Conquer was most appealing to me because it sounded like it could have been a track from Star Control 2. But I did eventually find that bassline grating.
Brigador is powerful and builds nicely! And RimWorld is just really atmospheric, but could win on its whistling alone. (Makes me wish I’d thought to nominate West of Loathing…)
Crap, that’s another fantastic nomination. How did we forget so many recent ones?
My votes are for Brigador and Command & Conquer.
Tough bracket. I liked them all.
However, I pick C&C and Musha Aleste (or Noh Specter, whichever is the game name…). The latter has some of the most sustained intensity I’ve heard since Rob Hubbard’s Monty on the Run music.
Solo Nobre/Brigador and Rimworld
There’s something about the 90’s aesthetic of the C&C track that I kind of love, but not enough to pull it into the lead.
Musha Aleste is exhausting to listen to. Not in a bad way, but the “sustained intensity” is a bit much for me.
Command & Conquer is number one BY FAR for me because that tune and much of the rest of that soundtrack are like the definition of background music for real-time strategy games. The driving beat perfectly suits the building and strategizing gameplay. It also seems so tightly composed for exactly the game it appears in, rather than adopting some other style just to evoke a particular setting. That’s what spoils Brigador and Rimworld for me… they’re both so easy as musical styles go for their particular settings. C&C’s marching beat might seem obvious too, but the fact it’s juxtaposed with that modern sound makes it undeniably indicative of that specific game. Awesome.
M.U.S.H.A. is my second choice because I think that’s one of the best shooters I’ve played and its soundtrack is really cool with driving tunes that have a lot of melody under the staccato beats. It’s some of the best sound the Genesis put out.
Gotta go with Brigador and Musha Aleste today. Really loved both. Nothing at all wrong with C&C, but didn’t quite catch me the way these did, while Rimworld kinda bored me.
@Skipper if you did enjoy that Brigador track, you’d probably enjoy some synthwave like @playingwithknives mentioned. Some good Perturbator, Gost, Mega Drive, or Carpenter Brut might be up your alley :)
Will definitely check them out!
Command & Conquer - It reminds me of how glorious the '90s were.
Rim World - Although as much as I like this, I’m so tired of hearing it. That game needs more music.