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Music Tournament / Re: Rebirth of music tourney: nominations commentary repository

« on: November 01, 2021, 06:29:43 AM »

"The Power of Friendship!" Music
Intro (2 movements) from Megaman 2 (Second Movement loops at 1:16)
This might be cheating. I'm calling this two movements, but the reality is, these are two different tracks. You can skip the first part and jump straight to the second one, which does, by simply pressing Start.

I'm also not sure I need to talk about this one. It's clearly meant to be played together, and the title screen music is fairly hype, but it's the intro movie and the music that plays into the title music that makes it a "Power of Friendship" track. That's all I got. The video I used shows the bloody intro, so, the best thing you can do for context is just watch it.

Pressing Pursuit ~ Cornered - Variation from Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (Loops somewhere in the :34-:36 second range)
The most interesting questions raised about this track are why do I insist on using the variation instead of just the regular theme, and do I think that the cheesy extra sounds actually make the piece better?
Well, the answer to the second question is, "not really" but I do think this better fits the category of "Power of Friendship!" for all that the explicit instructions said it didn't need to be about the power of friendship. But this is the version that sticks with me, and while the regular version has its own "I'm gathering speed and building confidence" effect going on in its intro, by starting with the harsher notes just a bit earlier than the regular version, we get a different effect---that of a very sudden and unexpected boost to our confidence, possibly from an unforeseen direction. And that is reflected in gameplay. I'm sure the variation plays in a few different instances, but the one that stands out to my mind is the one that makes the series go from "I guess this does seem fairly fun and clever" to "Holy shit, I think this has potential to be great." That is to say, the Steel Samurai case.
Because, unlike the previous cases where Wright built up a head of steam and cornered his witness, as befitting the name of the piece, and befitting the regular theme starting with that rolling intro, in this case, Cornered is triggered by an objection from Edgeworth. Erm.... three distinct times. In succession. OK, so it takes a minute for his brain to catch up to his brain, but it's incredibly rewarding to see in the first and third times he tries. Because, by now, you've been trained like one of Pavlov's dogs to know that this music means you've got the bastard. So even though it has a couple of false starts, in that brief, shining second before that first false start, your heart is yelling "YES! GET HER ASS, EDGEWORTH" or maybe your mouth is saying it, because you live alone and ain't no one gonna complain about you reacting to media. "Power of Friendship!" music is supposed to be music meant to raise morale or get you hype for something epic, and regardless of variant, Cornered certainly does this. It's how you know you're oh-so-close to winning. But I give bonus points to literally showing the power of friendship, for what else would you call two good men working together from different sides to find the truth?
Musically, other than the sheer "get hype" driving beat this has going for it, one thing I like is how at :20 (in this variant) the music is almost repeated, but the tone is different and some subtle changes are made to the notes, but the shape of everything is the same. It's sort of, itself, reminiscent of how one of the lawyers would restate and rephrase what is said, before pointing out the key contradiction that buries the opposing case.
(FUN FACT! I was >< this close to making my commentary for this piece: "I was hoping to come up with a comment while nominating. ...I didn't.")

Ashita e no Kiseki from Trails of Cold Steel 4 (Track does not loop)
Musically, since this is a vocalized piece, I really can't comment on the music itself with the same degree, since I find vocals distracting, but I will point out a few parts that I like. First off, the pre-chorus at 1:07 (I don't know what you would call a part that you usually use as a lead-in to a chorus) which, even without understanding the language, you can tell it's slowing things down and taking a pleading, philosophical turn (They're actually... doing something like this. Basically saying "I get you're filled with hate, but don't let it swallow you up") and I do like how it slows down, howls, and cuts to the chorus at 1:31, which is bangin'. I don't always like listening to music in other languages but I do appreciate that having different structures sets them up for natural rhythms that English doesn't lend itself nearly as well to. Like, multi-syllabic matching (it wouldn't be rhyming because it's literally the same). Kuyashikute, kurushikute, kanashikute sounds pretty damn catchy and means something like "It's frustrating, painful, and sad". I don't think you could get that same rhythm expressed well in English. You'd have to turn everything into an adverb to get the ending to match. Anyhow, I'm also a sucker for anytime a hard rock song has the instruments drop out and the singer go over just the opening of the chorus before bringing the instruments back in (3:59). It's pretty common, but I'm a simple man of simple tastes.
So, what is this song about, and why is it a Power of Friendship! song?
It's about being so wrapped up in your pain, sorrow, and hatred that you lose sight of yourself and can't hear the pleading voices to come out. And then it's... largely voices pleading with you to come out.

SPOILER ANALYSIS: Cold Steel 3 does not have a happy ending. To put it mildly. I touched on this in the Spiral of Erebos analysis, but indeed, you lose in the end. Rean watches as one of his dearest friends is cut down in front of his eyes, completely loses control over himself, and goes berserk mode while inside Valimar and accidentally kinda sorta maybe kills the shit out of the thing the heroes were absolutely supposed to not by any means let someone kill, using the weapon that they definitely didn't want it killed with. The strain of this burns out Valimar's central processing core, sort of temporarily killing him, too, just for good measure. And Rean is captured by the enemy and remains in his largely mindless ogre/berserk state, that of being taken completely by the Curse of Erebonia.
And in the sequence of the game where you finally get to see Rean, you see him as basically this permanently enraged ogre self. Having broken his restraints, and having enough mind to act out one very specific goal: To get into the husk Valimar, take up the Sword of Worlds' end, and kill fucking everyone involved with that heartbreak.
Around this time, the two Class VIIs infiltrate where Rean is being held captive, even as he's in the midst of his own break out. The adults stay behind to fight powerful enemies, and send the students on to continue to find Rean, and they do.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEbDAdlmFGA
Highlights of this include: Juna shocking everyone else by spinning up her gunbreakers. Juna is great. Being the first to come to the conclusion that, if they only way to break him out of it is to break him down, then yeah, maybe it's time to fight.
The lyrical portion of the song kicking in immediately after Rean turns his head and growls.
Ash's Dialogue in general. (Rean: You... stand in my way? Ash: You're damn right. I dunno how deep in shit you are, but we're gonna wade right in and pull you out. This ain't you. So hurry up and snap out of it!)
The way how when Altina pauses after saying "Instructor Rean" it clearly sings the English word "Regret"
And how the lyrics of the song really do reflect what's going on, and seem to be about the class shouting to Rean to come back, remember who he is.

I'm a sucker for any scene where someone shouts, the music cuts out entirely, and then when they start talking again, it spins up a battle track. Especially when it's a new or special one, and especially if the person making the decision is one of the good guys. Anyhow, I had it in the spoilers, but I'll post it outside too without context. One of the lines of dialogue during the scene this plays in is "I dunno how deep in shit you are, but we're gonna wade right in and pull you out." That's the power of friendship, if you ask me.

Burning Hearts, Burning ANGEL from Burning Rangers (Track does not loop)
This is the theme of Burning Rangers.

No really, that's it. It's super catchy, if you haven't yet, give it a listen.

Wild Card
The Smallest Church in Saint Saens (Limbic System Edition) from Disco Elysium (Track does not loop)
So wildcard was where I stuffed pieces that I felt deserved mention but it was difficult to immediately explain why. So I can't really address this one outside of spoilers. So...
SPOILER ANALYSIS: There's a sidequest in Disco Elysium that involves finding a tape of just a seriously sad song you can put into the Karaoke machine and let people really know just what's inside. So this would be the version that plays if you fail your Karaoke check. For reference, here's the successful version.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-SdZM2xA1I
Incidentally, the VA/person singing in both songs is the same person.

What makes failure version so good and meaningful is, yeah, you went out there with all your courage, and you bombed. And everyone knows that you bombed.
Almost everyone. Your partner, Kim, loved it. And my avatar, your Conceptualization skill, can chime in and tell you that you accurately expressed what it feels to be a police officer. Little touches like these, so that even failure sometimes feels like a natural progression of the story, and you're not really tempted to re-load for a "better" outcome (hell, sometimes this is the better outcome)  are part of what make Disco Elysium a masterpiece.

Now You're a Hero from You Have to Burn the Rope (Track... sort of... loops?)
You Have to Burn the Rope is barely a game. And, unfortunately, it was barely a Flash game. So if you want to play it, you have to download a different branded player, and I don't know enough about those to recommend playing. The point is, there's a big block-looking monster and.... you have to burn the rope. You have no weapons. You can grab a torch, get to a platform above the monster, set fire to the rope holding up a chandelier, and drop the chandelier on it. Takes about 20 seconds, is exactly what the name of the game tells you to do, roll "Credits". But it slowly fades out during the opening notes of this unreasonably celebratory song. The song probably took longer to make than the "game".
Now you're a hero! You managed to BEAT THE WHOLE DAMN GA--AME
It's a fantastic joke, one of the best things that was ever put on Kongregate.

I'll Remember You from Trails of Cold Steel 2 (Track does not loop)
Being a version of Blue Destination with lyrics, I don't have anything particularly new to say about I'll Remember You. I think the singer sounds pretty. The lyrics translate to something fairly pretty. It is, in my opinion, one of the most well done ending movies ever made. even if the game didn't actually end for several more hours >Shrug<

SPOILER ANALYSIS: Somewhat obviously, the following link contains spoilers. The nature of the spoilers is regarding the origin of one character and the fate of another character.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSfjo_QbOvU

I love Trails. I know not everyone here does, and I think there are quite a few very valid complaints or criticisms of the series. Even ones that I agree with! But what makes the series shine is its ability to make me feel when I see something as simple as a 50 mira coin. Or later in the series, how one or another character will make these small things feel so very important. Because it has meaning to them. Have you ever shared an inside symbol between yourself and someone else? It's a powerful thing. This emotional heaviness is missing from the vast majority of games. Anyone can make something heavy feel meaningful, it's breathing meaning into something otherwise mundane that really grips a heart.

Unknown From M.E. from Sonic Adventure (Track does not loop)
>_>
<_<
>AHEM<

Here I come! Rougher than the rest of them!
The best of them! Tougher than leather.
You can call me Knuckles. Unlike Sonic I don't chuckle.
I'd rather flex my muscles

I'm hard as nails. It ain't hard to tell
I'll break 'em down whether they solid or frail
Unlike the rest I'm independent since my first breath
first test, feel the right then the worst's left.

Born on an island iiiiiiiiiin the heavens
the blood of my ancestors FLOWS inside me
My duty is to save the flower
From evil Deteeerioraaaaaaaation

I will be the one to set your heart free true
Cleanse yourself of them evil spirits that's in you

Streaking lights. Loud sounds, and instinct
are the elements that keep me going
I am fighting my own mission
Nothings gonna stand in my way

I will be the one to set your heart free true
Cleanse yourself of them evil spirits that's in you

Won't be frightened, I'll stand up to all the pain and turmoil
Just believe in MY---self, won't rely on ooothers
Get this power to wipe out the havoc and anarchy
This is my pla~a~net! Gonna fight for
Myyyy destinyyyy

Here I come! Rougher than the rest of them!
The best of them! Tougher than leather.
You can call me Knuckles. Unlike Sonic I don't chuckle.
I'd rather flex my muscles

I'm hard as nails. It ain't hard to tell
I'll break 'em down whether they solid or frail
Unlike the rest I'm independent since my first breath
first test, feel the right then the worst's left.

I have no such things as weak spots
Don't approve of him but GOT to trust him
This alliance--- has a purpose
This partnership is oooonly temporaaary, yeah

IIII will be the on to set your heart free, true
Cleanse yourself of evil spirits that got in you!

Won't be frightened, I'll stand up to all the pain and turmoil
Just believe in MY-self, won't rely on others
Freedom will be waiting when serenity is restored
This is my pla~anet! I shall not sureeeendeeeer

>Absolutely Bitchin' Saxophone solo, because why the hell not, the drugs clearly kicked in a WHILE ago<

Won't be frightened, I'll stand up to all the pain and turmoil
Just believe in myself, won't rely on others
Get this power to wipe out the havoc and anarchy
This is my planet, gonna fight (aah)
Oh!

Won't be frightened, I'll stand up to all the pain and turmoil
Just believe in MY-self, won't rely on others
Freedom will be waiting when serenity is restored
This is my planet! I shall not sureeeen-----deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeer

HEY!

Shall not surrender, nooo

Yeah!

Whooo-hooo!

The new porcupine on the block with the puffed chest
Out the wilderness with the ruggedness
Knock knock, it's Knuckles
The blow thrower.
Independent flow-er
Magical emerald holder.
Give you the coldest shoulder
My spike goes through boulders
That's why I stay a loner
I was born by myself. I don't need a posse
I get it on my myself
Adversaries get shelved.

>Sax finishes<

Phew.

Anyhow, that "succinctly" explains why Unknown from M.E. is great. Thanks to anyone who read all my analyses. Thanks to Laggy for hosting this tournament, things ain't even started yet, and I've had an absolute blast. VSM Out. >Mic drop<

2

Music Tournament / Re: Rebirth of music tourney: nominations commentary repository

« on: November 01, 2021, 12:36:46 AM »

OK, I'm trying to learn music terminology somewhat on the fly, and since I can't edit my other posts for some reason and because I'm cripplingly pedantic, I'm compelled to state that I repeatedly have been using the word "harmony" incorrectly, when I should in most cases be calling the complimentary instruments a countermelody, as they almost always play a completely different sequence than the main instruments. Harmonies are apparently in harmony, which, yeah, fair play on the name there, I guess.

~~~
Tension/Crisis Music
The Enforcers from Trails in the Sky: SC (Loop at 1:25)
From the audience's perspective, this is a remix of an earlier tension track, Conspiracy. The Leitmotif is revisited here. Conspiracy plays, largely when you're not directly confronting the antagonists, and the parts that are done with the heavily distorted guitar in the Enforcers are first introduced to us in this lazy, snake charming (bassoon? guessing woodwinds is difficult) and orchestral chimes. Conspiracy is nearly as good of a track. When the force is actively confronted, um, fatefully I suppose, we're treated with a third take on the Leitmotif, Fateful Confrontation, which physically pained me to not nominate for this tournament, but I thought the same leitmotif used twice was a bit overkill and didn't. (I then would go on to break my own rule with Blue Destination and I'll Remember You)

If it helps with my story, here are the other two tracks for your pleasure:
Conspiracy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LaBi784zn0
And Fateful Confrontation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ok9bzDzaS0

So, before even getting into the piece itself, when looked at just as its place in this trio of takes on the Enforcers' leitmotif, we can see that it rests in an uncomfortable middle spot. Conspiracy is the threat in theory, something dangerous is there, and you don't know what it is. Fateful Confrontation is the threat fully realized, an actual battle against the impossible strength of the enforcers. And their titular theme, The Enforcers, then, is somehow resting on the very knife's edge. The enemy is there and you are witness to it, but it's not yet confronting you. So it somehow has the mystery and the hypothetical danger mixed with the realized, apparent menace. The Enforcers is one of the most menacing themes I've heard.
It opens with the mysterious bit played with a very... uh... buzzing instrument, or at least it's played in a buzzing way. It's meant to spike your adrenaline in the way that you'd respond to an angry bee, raising the hackles immediately. This is accompanied by the heart-beat trick being done with the percussion, to build that up further. (Sidenote: I simply adore that incredibly subtle drumroll at about :09... it's like gathering thunder before a huge crash. Seriously. Go back and listen for it. Genius.) All this does is build alarm before the real power of the threat reveals itself at :21. The distorted electric guitar tells us that its a sadistic force, it keeping with the extant motif tells us that it's an unknowable, mysterious one. And then finally, at 1:04, it goes all in on the malevolent, distorted sadism, (to the point where some of the held notes almost sound like the guitar burning) being accompanied by a harmonized vocal chant, to hammer home the twinned facts that not only is this nightmare you've come face to face with gleeful in its malevolence, but it is something far beyond your power. Not yet fighting you, but you're right there where one wrong move could lead to that disastrous outcome. And what most represents tension? It is the wire-thin line between an unknown danger and fighting for your life.

Only a Plank Between One and Perdition from Final Fantasy VIII (Loop at 1:10)
One thing this exercise has taught me: Basically FFVIII's entire OST is tension songs. It's a tense game. I could analyze why I went with this one more in depth, or some of what the piece is doing between sections, but really, it's all about the percussion and bass supplied by the piano. It does not need anything else to get its point across. And it makes this point emphatically at :44 when it drops the countermelody entirely and focuses on the bass-line, to be rapidly joined (About :55) by the percussion doing the heartbeat thing, but with the second heartbeat sound (>Shrug< that's what it's called) cut out, focusing only on the main beat, quite elevated indeed from a resting heart rate.
Also, the title is fantastic, but in a way that also cuts to the heart of what it's about.

Dragon Theme from Gemfire (Loop at 1:04)
So the Dragon Theme is, as it says on the tin, the theme that plays whenever the Dragon is in battle. This overrides all other battle music, including the other two special themes, for the Pastha (a water dragon that willingly fights for kind and gracious leaders) and the Wyvern (....a generic monster that inexplicably has its own theme). And, as the Dragon is the special unit for the game's primary antagonist, Eselred, you could make a fair argument that it belongs in the unique boss category, and hey, why not.
However, theoretically, you can go an entire game without encountering the dragon. Special units or "fifth" units as the game calls them, at least the six wizards and the dragon that are tied to the various jewels of the crown, Gemfire, have a cool down between uses. So if, say, Eselred is fighting someone else, there's a reasonable chance that you can attack while the dragon is resting inside the ruby at the head of the crown. But you'll almost certainly still hear this music, because it plays at a very different point in the game: Every single time someone attacks you, before you go to combat. While you're scrambling around making decisions on whether to fight or flee, and if flee, then to where, and if fight, then using what fifth unit, this will be playing in the background, with its threatening, driving rhythm. Prince Erin, Oswald is attacking us. From word go, it kicks off with a hammering pulse of tense notes. When its joined in harmony at about :20, it seems to underline the need for a correct decision. And when you've finally made all your decisions, and lets say you fight, it'll cut out, load the fight, and before the screen loads, it'll load the music for the fight. All of the fight music is excellent. But sometimes, when you're fighting one of Eselred's men, it'll cut the music, go to black, and before it comes back in, START PLAYING THE DRAGON THEME AGAIN which is pure despair given form. Instead of going from disaster music to showdown music or dueling music or lengthy siege music, the game sometimes decides to go from "possible disaster" to "actual disaster".

Let's talk about it for a second. The God. Damned. Dragon. Gemfire, tragically, is kind of an easy game. It can be beaten in five minutes, I believe. But let's say you're not exploiting RNG oddities and moving all your troops to the front lines and investing nothing in farming or disaster protection and so on, and you're playing the game like the developer intended, and sometimes you actually fight the Dragon. Gemfire is a very simple tactical game where, in battle, your troops are divided into five categories. Unit 1 is Cavalry, Units 2 and 4 are Heavy and Light Infantry (To differentiate them artistically. Mechanically, they are identical), and Unit 3 is archers. Your troops are divided by 4 and assigned evenly to the four units, with any excess going to Cavalry. The maximum number of troops you can have in a battle is 999, so one unit of 252 and three units of 249. Realistically, you're probably fighting with at most half those numbers, usually more like a third or fewer, depending on how late in the game it is. Units deal more damage by attacking the flanks and rear, and melee units are subjected to counter attacks, which are much more dangerous on frontal assaults. Units will also deal more or less damage based on the War Power score of their commander, and the war power score of the opposing commander. So a really good commander can get away with frontal charges against a terrible one. Additionally, you can deploy a "fifth" unit, which might consist of hired mercenaries or monsters, with a set number of troops, and sometimes they do ever so slightly more damage than their human counterparts. However, there are six gems that were cast across the country and found their way into the hands of various petty princes, and these house the six great wizards who sealed away the dragon, who resides in the ruby in Eselred's crown. Unlike all the other units, wizards and the dragon deal damage based off of their current strength, and instead of being counter attacked, will always lose a set percentage of their health, which ranges from 110 to 160. Their set damage dealt on an attack is still empowered by flanking or rear assaults, but it disregards war power entirely.

So why is the dragon so scary?

Well, it has 160 health, which matches the strongest of the six wizards. It only moves 2 spaces instead of 3, so 3 of the wizards are faster, but unlike the wizards, where some can attack at range 1 and others can attack at range 2, the dragon can attack at range 1 and range 2. In practice this means that of the 6 wizards, exactly one of them has the mobility and health to repeatedly force the dragon into losing exchanges. Otherwise, it will always trade flanks and frontal attacks in a pattern, or, against the melee wizards, it will repeatedly trade flanks. It also deals more damage than a wizard at equal health would, which means that an even trade with the dragon, even if you initiate and thus have an early HP advantage will not become even unless you initiated perfectly with the 160 strength wizard (Pluvius), or engage perfectly with the 150 strength wizard (Zendor), your unique, plot important, cheating BS unit is guaranteed to lose a solo fight against the dragon. You must bring your mortal troops to the confrontation. And unlike the wizards who fix themselves, raising an army is a lengthy investment in resources and time. And if the dragon smells blood, he'll go for it. It may be a tactical error, but you'll watch your men die in droves if it brings its horrible, horrible breath upon them. And should they attack it, the counter attack damage is devastating at high health, even if the leaders' war power is lopsided in your favor. It's a nightmare of an opponent that you must always take seriously, or you'll either lose or score an incredibly Pyrrhic victory. I would argue, rather than considering it a boss fight, not considering the tension of the pre-battle music, not considering the added tension and horror that comes from the pre-battle music cutting to the same dilemma music-- a tactical fight with the dragon on the field is, itself, the height of tension, as you must, at some point, make a decision to gamble with your precious troops. At any point, you could lose an entire unit in one cruel breath. When will you be ok with that potential sacrifice?

So back to the track itself, since you won't get to :39 during battle setup. And at :39 the music takes a turn where, the beat is still hammering away with the same intensity, although the percussion also acquires somewhat of a marching beat, and here, the melody changes from despair and tension to a rising, confident, hopeful sound. The first instrument sings its notes out, is joined again by a second, then a third, and then a fourth, in harmony, one for every mortal unit, singing together in this hopeful canon as it goes through this joyous sequence twice. And then is cut off at :58 by one harsh, high ringing note, a descending two note cadence and 9 note bridge back into loop, and right back to the initial tension and horror. You are fighting the fucking dragon.

Or had you forgotten?

Search ~ Core from Phoenix Wright, Ace Attorney: Justice for All (Loops somewhere around :50?)
Full disclaimer, I've never played these games. I can't convince my niece to play with me, and puzzle games like these don't feel right alone, given that they were what I always played with my Mom and sister growing up. So I instead just watched a no-commentary play-through, as I heard they were quite good. And you know what? Yeah, the first three games are excellent.

Spoiler Analysis: So I'm not completely sure that this track hits the same way that it would in a "real" play-through of the game, but as a refresher, before this became "just another tension track" in game 3, it was first used in one of the tensest moments of the second game, where Your client, Matt Engarde, reveals that, yes, he actually is the one who hired the assassin. An assassin who, by the way, has kidnapped Maya and will only release her unharmed on the condition that you make sure that Matt Engarde is found Not Guilty of Murder. A crime he's technically both guilty of and being framed for. So you're left with a choice of defend a man that you know is guilty, or perhaps kill your dear friend. And even though the player has already been warned this is the case, by de Killer and the cat door door being in Matt's apartment, Wright doesn't know for sure, though he was figuring it out. And the tension in the music still seems to work. (Just as a side note, unrelated to the track, I wanted to say that the little thing the game does--with the lights being turned off and taking an extra second to load the apartment screen, so you know that something big is up, but rather than anything right smash in the center of the screen, the reveal is the door placed subtly off to the side-- that's great. When that came up, I angrily declared "Son of a bitch!" So as cheesy as the series can be, it can absolutely make you invested in it.

So what interesting things are the track doing. Well, it has the buzzing that The Enforcers did, but after that, it has this nice, evil sounding bass that drives most of the tune. The buzzing isn't just limited to the intro, and is repeated late, and accordingly, the tension in this first scene doesn't exactly stop when the scene is over, it sets up yet more tension and fear. Like quite a few tense tracks, it also uses the percussion to take a heartbeat kind of rhythm, but while The Enforcers is a steady heartbeat that makes you aware of it, and while plank is just the first heart sound and played quite rapidly, Search ~ Core, while using the heartbeat trick with both the bass and percussion at points, nonetheless uses it much less frequently, to show a slow heartbeat, eventually trying to steady itself into a more stable rhythm around :44 and losing the second heartbeat sound in the process. Thus, a different mood is created. This is not "Something scary has made me keenly aware of my heartbeat" this is not "My heart is beating steadily and rapidly because of something scary" this is what your heart does when something causes your blood pressure to rapidly drop, as the bottom falls out of your stomach and you struggle to catch your breathing and get back to normal. Dread. This is that kind of tension.

3

Music Tournament / Re: Rebirth of music tourney: nominations commentary repository

« on: October 31, 2021, 11:05:58 AM »

Black Dream from Chrono Trigger (Loop at 1:20)
Earlier, I played this for my 10 year old niece, who loved it. Apropos of nothing.

Would it surprise you to know this is my favorite track from Chrono Trigger, a game with a very, very good soundtrack? It has this mysterious wispy intro, something that takes full advantage of using a chip-synth, because I have no earthly idea how you would play that with instruments, and a vocal chant would't quite hit just right either, but is probably the best someone could get. I'm unfairly biased here, because I imported the official OST for an unreasonable amount of money, though I played the hell out of it. I say this biases me, because goddamn, on album, it pans the (harp?! it's synth) at :06 to :16 from ear to ear, which is just chilling in the best way. Obviously, you won't get that effect on a TV.

That first, ultra high note of the piano is a real attention grabber, like something just appears, hauntingly in space, all at once, giving way to trills (apparently I like trills. This tournament has taught me something about myself) and a rolling, purring bass. The way the track builds at :39 is incredibly simple, no-frills rock-and-roll kind of stuff, ultimately allowing the drums to take the lead at about 1:06, with the piano only lightly interrupting with a stray chord here and there.

All of what I, a person who has no understanding of how to play music, would assume were the difficult parts of this song are over in the first 40 seconds. It's honestly not very complex. It just... maximizes what it is to paint a picture of a deeply mysterious, ghostly, menacing place that just appeared one day. You will understand that from the music. You know how I know?

Paraphrasing, this is what my 10 year old niece thought when I played her the track. Well done, Mr. Mitsuda. You nailed it.

Flame Mammoth from Megaman X (Track "Loops" at :53)
Flame Mammoth is a banger. I always pictured this as an opening credits theme to a TV show. Intro kicks in, the three big chords hit as the title smashes the screen, lingering for a second or two, and then the cast is given credit at around :18 on.
One thing I love about this track that deserves its own mention, since it's fairly interesting for a video game track---it overlays loops. What I mean is, when the track goes into loop at :53, it's still holding the last note, and it holds this note for quite some time while the track spins up again. And something about this just.... keeps it banging. I remember a lot of tracks from Megaman X. I'm sure this isn't the most popular one (if I had to guess, I would assume Storm Eagle or Sting Chameleon or one of the boring intro levels takes it), but it's my favorite. Deal with it.

Marble Garden Zone (Act 1) from Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (Loops around 1:00)
The Sega Genesis had one of the jankiest onboard sound chips ever. There's another piece I nommed that is a small miracle in not sounding like tinny, sci-fi garbage (although, I will say, for the Phantasy Star series, incidentally on Genesis, this is exactly the right sound, and it's cool and good) Sonic games tended to all have good music, but they all also embraced the jank. Marble Garden Zone tries to do something a bit different than a lot of the other Zones, where, instead of going in on the Sci-Fi feeling, or the cheerful adventure feeling that most Sonic tracks do, it tries to tap into something mysterious, lost, and emotional. And somehow, against all logic or reason, at least to my ear, it succeeds. When the primary instrument (I mean, some kind of plucked string instrument, but it's jank-synth) at :08, it has a workmanlike quality. We're briefly given a few notes of a kind we'd have when something is being built. Steel structures. Rail-roads. Muscles. It's a building piece. At :26 it, very matter of factly, almost whimsically, tells us no, until about :42, bit by bit, falling down, the accompanying instruments almost giggling at it.

And the music from :42 until the loop is indescribably emotional to me. The feeling of yearning for something that was lost long before you ever had a chance to find it. You know why I nominated this track? That part from :42 on, man, I get in a mood sometimes, and I can be out on a walk by myself, or I can see some abandoned building or some broken down piece of machinery or my own reflection on the side of a store or any other number of inexplicably sad things, that I can't fix and I whistle this portion of this piece. This small section of notes has perfectly captured an emotion that I barely have a word for, much less one that I can describe. How can you miss something that you never had? I'll fess up, I couldn't remember which zone in which game this was. I had to search for this one. I thought it was one of the stages in Sonic 2. God, it'd be perfect if this were played in a ruins of some kind. So I checked and oh, it was Marble Gardens. Beautiful. They nailed it.

Town/Hub/Shop Music
Rose Town from Super Mario RPG (Repeats at :27)
This came at the perfect time in my list. Some tracks are powerfully sad. Some tracks are mysterious. Some tracks are high-octane thrill rides. Rose Town is joyous. We need that in our lives from time to time. It's fun. I love how the little accompaniment that first kicks in at about :07 almost sounds like it's saying "wa-hoo!" I love how it almost tells an old timey big-band jazz story at about :16. This track is less than 30 seconds. That makes it shorter than quite a few NES tracks, let alone SNES, let alone late SNES. And yet, it's so insistently happy. I'll take these fleeting joyous moments over all the maudlin shit in the world.

This is one of my shorter descriptions, but make no mistake: Rose Town is one of the first two tracks I thought of when I saw the categories. It might have been the first.

Underneath the Rotting Pizza from Final Fantasy VII (Loop at 1:43)
(Speaking of maudlin shit)
If this played anywhere other than the Slums, I'd put it in the tension category. But because of what it is, and because it plays in the Slums, it's the perfect track for that town.

OK, first off, I love, love the heavy industrial sounds going on in here. Early on, it kicks off with these little "pay attention" cymbals. It's got the faintest few notes of an acoustic guitar from time to time. This could have easily fallen into the Tension category. Especially when the "Now I am haunting you" version of the FFVII leitmotif kicks in just before :30, and the drums and bass go full on heart-beat mode, before switching out of the heart-beat and using that cadence to close to the next portion of the piece. Here, it largely follows note for note what came before, to the point where you would be forgiven if you thought the track loop had already occurred, but it has not. I think that fake loop is one of the two main reasons why this is my favorite track from Final Fantasy VII, even above the various bangers. When we get back to where the FFVII leitmotif was in the first go through, (at about 1:19) we instead find we're no longer haunted by concept of a game setting, and instead, by an unknown, rising horror. The heart beat goes and it goes and it builds like before and then.....
Nothing. No cadence. Back into loop. That anticlimax is the other, larger, main reason why this is my favorite track from the game. You're driven ever forward with this desperate, tense, haunted music. The fake out loop even ended with a cadence, like you're living backward. It's hiding something. There's more to this track than what I'm hearing right? There's got to be something else. Someone's got to do something. Keep listening. Maybe I'll figure it out this time. It can't just drop off. That would be so.... so.....

Town Theme from The Legend of Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link
Honestly, I probably just nommed this because of how often it gets stuck in my head. I can't even break it down. It's just indelibly burned into my mind. I was four when this came out in North America. Did you know Zelda 2 came out in Canada first? I'm not entirely sure why that happened, but my mom and aunt weren't going to wait, and they drove across the border and stuffed their cartridges under mine and my cousin's car seats to smuggle them through customs. Imprinting, man. This is just what towns sound like now. Thanks, Mom.
.........I wonder if my social anxiety is at all related to a long-suppressed fear of people spontaneously turning into bats.

Lively Town from Shining Force 2 (Loop at 1:38)
You know, when this contest started, I did not have four town themes. I had two, and I just... thumbed through basically everything I'd played. Towns, shops, hell, I tried menu select music to try to stretch. Without a thorough search, I might have forgotten this jewel of a piece.
The first thing is, this somehow has none of the usual Genesis Jank. It sounds... synthesized, yes, but in a reasonable facsimile of instruments. And more than just that, but arrangements of instruments. It only takes about 3 seconds to get into a motif for the piece, and what a lovely, cheerful little motif it is, with a nice little synthesized tuba and slide trumpet supplying the harmony bits. Actually, aside from the bell or triangle like ringing on the second trip through the motif, almost the entire piece feels like it's done with wind instruments. (There's this tinkling down plucked string instrument at about 1:13) Was that the secret to the Genesis all along? Could it have rendered really great sounds if anyone had bothered to compose for the right instruments? Guess it's all moot now. I like how on the second trip down the motif when it gets to the part that almost resembles a happy chorus, at the :59 mark, there's now a second instrument singing along with the first one, and they're just happy together.
We're briefly teased with something other than relentless optimism, as there's this shy trio of notes at 1:20 that get whistled right over-top of. Oh no! And after the cheerful whistling, it bumps unexpectedly into the sadness at 1:26. What's wrong friend? And they're told something sad. Let me think about what to do. Oh, I know just the thing. A quick, six note bridge, and then bam, right back into loop and the infectious optimism from the start of the track. Just keep moving. Yeah, that feels like townspeople music, in the best possible way.

I don't know how I'd describe it, musically, but the section from :28 to :38, both times it appears in the piece, is my favorite part. That's the bit that tells you this nameless townsperson won't let anything keep them down. What a delightful old find.

4

Music Tournament / Re: Rebirth of music tourney: nominations commentary repository

« on: October 31, 2021, 08:13:49 AM »

Repeatable Zone/Dungeon and Overworld Music
Twilight Green Passage from Trails of Cold Steel 4 (Loops at 1:41)
Rather than read my description at all, just.... just do yourself a favor, use your highest audio-quality device, and listen to Twilight Green Passage.

Twilight Green Passage managed to grab my attention immediately with the way notes progress. Like, Within :02 (yes, two seconds) of hearing this piece for the first time, I set my controller down and paid attention. After repeating that intro sequence of notes, at the :06 - :11 mark, I said "I think I love this track"--- this is still the intro. All it did was add a little something extra to the first two. These three sequences are themselves (essentially) repeated taking us to about :23, which just a lovely little sequence of notes, but the harmonizing notes are played slightly softer, while the violin rises in volume, so the harmony feels like a whisper. At around :32, we get a very soft tease of some of the coming trills. :48 the faster section kicks in after an absolutely effortless, elegant 2 note bridge, giving us some playful, frolicking trills before being joined by the piano at 1:00. At 1:12 it takes another turn. At 1:35, it once again, without effort, adjusts pace, and prepares for the loop. It doesn't seem like an ending for the track, it doesn't feel like it should bridge into loop, (a true loop at that), given how the piece begins, but it does. I have no idea how. Every time it bridges, it's just effortless and natural and altogether very pleasant.

You might have noticed in my attempt to describe the piece, I just sort of clinically listed various times it changes pace or tone or instrumentation or even "I don't know what's changing here, because I lack the musical background to describe it". It certainly always feels outdoorsy, and somehow happens to run through a few different emotions, I personally get a sense of hopeful longing. I didn't really discuss this. The reason for this cold, clinical description is because, at every single posted time stamp, I fell more and more deeply in love with this beautiful, elegant, lovely piece. Just, please, give it a listen.

This plays in a minority of overland fields in Cold Steel 4. Just the right amount to leave us hoping we'll get to hear it during our next excursion.

Distant Thunder from Secret of Mana (Loop at 1:36)
Something about this always seemed to fit where it first came up in the game: the lush rain forest area outside of Gaia's Navel. I like it less as a town theme, where it's used outside of... uh... whatever the city is at the lofty mountains. This area, while by no means hard, is at least the first bit of the game maybe no longer holding your hand, and the music reflects that. It's not exactly threatening, per se, but it's definitely got a bit more of a "pay attention" quality to it. That, the danger you face isn't necessarily more than nature itself, which you shouldn't underestimate. Especially when the hornets are venomous and larger than an adult human man.

I love the relentlessly repeated 7 note harmony in the background. I love the stupid snare that almost seems like it doesn't fit. Is there a proper term for something is almost a trill, but the notes it uses aren't rendered clear? Because that's what the wind instrument is doing at :25, among other places. Making it almost purr, for a lack of a better description. The section between :28-:41 is my favorite, and is essentially a chorus, to be reprised later at 1:09. We get actual trills at around :41, and you can see the difference. Some of that is just the instrument used, but not all of it. If anything, the trill is directly contrasting the other instruments. There's a really interesting texture here that grips me. I would love to hear this piece arranged for harmonica and keyboard.  :42 to 1:09 is a passable fake for a Blues Traveler solo.

Dungeon Theme from StarTropics (Track Loops at :41)
Ok, this is from a 30 year old game with primitive chiptune equipment and gets stuck in my head, all the way stuck, complete with both the melody and the killer bass harmony. I swear that bass-line is nearly note for note an old 80s song, but god damn if I remember which one. What's really "impressive" here is StarTropics had a couple of tracks that weren't coded correctly. One that had its harmony screwed up and will eventually desync itself, and another that just... doesn't play the bass at all. It's crazy to think how close this classic earworm came to being utter garbage.
Weirdly, StarTropics was never exported to Japan, and thus Nintendo has no interest in it, and that's a shame. Both games were among the very best that NES had to offer, and this devastatingly cool dungeon tune definitely had something to do with it.

Traveling with Friends from Dragon Quest 2 (Track Loops at :36)
To understand why I like this track so much, two things need to be understood. The first is the time that Dragon Warrior 2 was played in my life; I was really young, either 5 or 6 when my Mom bought this. I did not play it; I merely watched and paid attention to the story, which was the first actually kind of dark story that I really got to hear, in a way. I watched Dragon Warrior, sure, and remembered it, but the sequel kicks off with a castle town being attacked by devils, and the guards and king being overrun. So there's likely some imprinting going on with my memory of the game in general.

The other thing that needs to be understood is this is the second overworld music in the game. It only plays when you've assembled all three characters, and all three characters need to be alive. In the early game when you're traveling alone, or if someone has died, you instead hear this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PswoKohVx4Y
A Lonely Youth.

I guess there's a third thing: I have a female cousin just about my own age, my very first friend. The story of not knowing where your cousin was, and finding out that she was safe, told in the limitations of NES--limitations that coincidentally forced the game to be at a child's reading level--deeply resonated with a Kindergartner VSM.

So, to me, this tiny, happy tune has always been, and almost certainly will always be where my heart goes when I'm walking along with friends, feeling happy and safe. I've hummed this at DLCons.

Unique Zone/Dungeon Music
Spiral of Erebos from Trails of Cold Steel 3 (Track loops at 3:49)
Spiral of Erebos is also used during the second intro to the game. The "credits" sequence that teases the cast of characters. However, the intro cuts a measure.
This is the final dungeon music from Cold Steel 3. It begins playing during a patented ReanSpeech to the assembled Class VIIs. After three games, the heroes finally have a glimpse of what's going on, there's an actual plot to thwart here with a real achievable objective. The collected opposition is going to be fiercer than anything they've faced before, but they've each been training relentlessly for this day for two years. Unlike in the past, there is no one left to save them, this time, and they know it. And of course the stakes have to be even higher. The weighty intro, giving way to an uplifting, confident climb at :34 both matches the tone of the Class gathering their resolve, as well as helps serve as a great intro for these reasons. It gains more and more confidence and then slams you in the face, EARLY, at just :51 with the high point of the piece. The track, like the patented ReanSpeech does its job and gets you amped for your descent into this final pit.

There are two motifs hard at work on this piece. The first begins at 1:09. It's the lower of the two, evoking the feeling of pushing on in the face of struggle. They do a mostly piano version and a mostly guitar version which gives way to a second motif at 1:43, which builds upward until about 1:52 and then comes down to bridge back into the first motif again, this time in horns, at 2:00. And it's a little bit lower sounding, but it plays the two motifs right away, relatively straight. The horns are already finished by 2:36 which goes back on strings to the first motif. And it takes its time, both on lingering on individual notes, and advancing. In fact, it doubles up on the motif. Two of only the first motif, in strings. Wrapping up at 3:10

This is where the second intro, the credits, abruptly stopped and smashed the title page "The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III" So this is also where, if you remember the piece going into the final dungeon, you expect to go back into loop. >Sigh< What a good piece.

...But Spiral of Erebos isn't done yet. It has something to say that an intro couldn't. And it plays the first motif, the struggling one, again. With a heavier hand on the piano, with a faint, yet present vocal chant. And then AGAIN before a final, plunging two-note cadence from the vocal chant. FUCK.

Spoiler Analysis: So maybe, maybe the music has something subconsciously building as you climb down and down again. Why would a piece start so triumphant and let itself hit its climax so early, not ending until nearly three whole minutes later? Why does it seem to always decrease in pitch? And speed? Why is the second iteration of the motifs, the one with the horns, so short? Why does the second motif not play ever again? And oh god, why is there another measure?!

And it's a gorgeous composition in its own right, but it fits the game really well. In the Gral of Erebos, the Final Dungeon of Cold Steel 3, you're traveling downward, unlike the "end" of CS2, where you were traveling up in the Infernal Castle. And things get darker and heavier the deeper you get. Not only that, but the usual crew of enemy shit-kickers are all present like before, and as I mentioned, there's no one available to jump in and save Class VII. They have to face these nightmares on their own. And making matters worse, they're not just the bitter enemies that you made in the first couple of games, but among them are your trusted friends and loved ones and family. Rufus. Claire. Rutger and Crow somehow. Sharon. Even Millium. Poor, stupid, brave, brilliant Millium, keeping to form and figuring out the adversary's game just a little bit faster than anyone in Class VII did for the third straight game. Only this time, she figured it all out in time to actually change the outcome, didn't she just?

And with no one to save Class VII from these foes, the old Class VII re-enact The Berenstain Bears and the Spooky Old Tree, hanging back to fight their opponents while others push on. Gaius, Laura, and Emma. Then Sara, Fie, and Alisa. Finally Machias, Jusis, and Elliot. All too soon it's down to just Rean and the children of New Class VII. To face.... whatever is waiting down there alone. So the story itself contributes to the building feeling, certainly. Traveling ever downward instead of up, sure. Hell, just the fact that there's still a fourth game. But the music contributes as much as anything else, and I stand by that. The twisting, repeating first motif of Spiral of Erebos. The triumphant, uplifting second motif being played only twice... first in soulful strings, but secondly in horns--uplifting, yes, but aren't they considered uplifting because horns is how you rallied a battered army? But back to the first motif, that damnedable, struggling motif. Again and again. And then two more, secret times, and utter finality of that vocal chant cadence before going into loop. Somewhere, all of these disparate pieces come together and crush you beneath the weight of the truth:

You've worked tirelessly for two years. You've all come together for this plunge into darkness. It is the end of the game. The stakes have never been higher. No one will come to save you.

And you are going to lose.

Spiral of Erebos is a work of genius.

5

Music Tournament / Re: Rebirth of music tourney: nominations commentary repository

« on: October 30, 2021, 07:24:17 AM »

Garnet Sky from Various, credited to Street Fighter EX3 (Track does not loop in selected link, is actually 3:21 long)
Well, I have a bit less to say about this piece than I did Step Ahead, but I'll attempt to make an honest try of it. The main reason why I nominated this piece is that Street Fighter EX3 is not a good game. It was released in 2000, so over 20 years ago. I played it, probably more than it deserved, but still not all that much. There just wasn't enough going for it, and at the time, I didn't even have real opponents to play against me in fighters. I have no idea where my copy of this game is, I do not watch this game on the Internet. I do not play or have watched any of the other Akira games where Garnet Sky is used. This track is stuck in my head, over 20 years later. That has to mean something. This is the theme of, somehow, two characters, Cracker Jack and Blair Dame. I can't remember Blair's look or moveset at all, but Jack's actually lines up shockingly well with the beat of this track. He's got a throw where he puts his opponent down, steps on them, grinds his heel, and turns around which almost always lines up perfectly with the music if he lands it. In Street Fighter EX3, one thing that's notable is that, when you fight the last boss, rather than playing the last boss's music, the game will play the music of your character. And I think other fighters should have taken that approach, it gives a sense of it being your battle that other fighters haven't accomplished. I will give EX3 props for that, if nothing else.

As far as musically, what's going on... hmm. There's a bit. The fretless bass in here is pretty interesting. The piano sounds either really cheap or at least like something has seen a ton of use, but that sort of fits the atmosphere created. There's a damn accordion in here, accordions don't get enough respect. Around the 1 minute mark (and the 2:33 mark) is possibly the most triumphant movement in an individual fighting game character theme ever. I think that's the emotion that sticks with me the most. The piece lulls at points, but the hopeful part of the intro (remember, it plays your music against the end-boss) and the climax at about the 1 minute mark (reasonable for a round end a fighting game) have lodged into my brain forever. There's something about Garnet Sky, man. I thought maybe the theme played at the credits, where you beat guys up, but no, there seems to be a credits theme and not just the individual characters... so... I don't know. I can't remember. I can't remember enough of the game. It's been 20 years.

But I remember Garnet Sky
~
River Stage from Marvel vs Capcom 2 (Loop at :53)
People sometimes say that Marvel vs Capcom 2 has bad music. People are, by and large, stupid, boring, and unimaginative. You know what's none of those things? Marvel vs Capcom 2. Personally, I think the choice of jazz, and having a robust horns section is exactly the right feel for a fighting game. Particularly one that gives you a level of creative styling that MvC2 had at the time. Fuckin' fight me. Get your weak-sauce hard rock, heavy metal bullshit out of here. This here is the good stuff. The dumb lyrics somehow make it even better. Much like the menu select loop (wanna take you for a ride....) it will lodge its way in your brain and won't leave. The bassline is great. The horns are great. The River Stage is great. Marvel vs Capcom 2 is great.
Go cry somewhere else, just, before you do, you might wanna take caution because there's Nobody to dryyyyyyyy your eyes...

Thug Life (Brigands) from Battle Brothers (Track does not loop, is actually 5:12 long)
OK, the main reason why I nominated this track is that Battle Brothers has better music than it has any right to be, with a ton of orchestral arrangements that are several minutes long. Thug Life is probably my favorite, which is good, because it's almost certainly one of the ones the player is going to run into most often, as its one of the themes of petty brigands.

Battle Brothers is a tactical mercenary game, where you control, fittingly, a mercenary company. So instead of like, 3 or 4 guys against 1-6 enemies, you're taking maybe up to 12 guys and fighting, I dunno, I've hit north of 50. I wouldn't doubt this number can go higher. Usually fights are close to evenly matched, though. So about 8 on 10, something along those lines. When a fight starts, if one side isn't ambushed, the two of your forces line up in formation. It takes at least a turn, sometimes 2 to get to one another. So the slow fade-in that the track has going for it really matches the pace of the fight. Odds are a fight literally can't pick up until the music does, which is a good touch. The tension picks up at about :55, about when enemies might start really getting close to your guys, at about 1:12 is about right when you might be taking hits, or at least blows are exchanged. For the rest of this description, assume I'm talking about one of the everyday, small fights.

Right around 1:57? With the acoustic guitar that hearkens to the music that'd play before a shoot-out in a western? Well, that's roughly when things probably started to go very, very wrong for the brigands. Remember, someone usually dies in a shootout. Battle Brothers is not a kind game. If the text of every single character's biography is any indication, it's not a huge leap to think that, maybe brigands are just what becomes of these hungry, lost, cast-out, fighting-age men if they weren't taken on by a mercenary company like yours. At around 2:16, the music is now mournful. It's sad. If you stop and think about it for a second, it's actually sad. Unless it's early on in the game, you're better armed, you're certainly more skilled. But the brigands still line up, clash steel, and die. Enemies in Battle Brothers definitely retreat, but they make an honest go of it first, and the implication by the game's setting is, they have little choice. If not you, then some other mercenary company, or actual trained soldiers, will one day put them all down. The rest of the sound direction is... well, imagine men crying, groaning, panting, gurgling as they're hacked down. Life as a brigand, the Thug Life, if you would, is hard, unfair, and short.

Unique/Final Battle Music
Dancing Mad from Final Fantasy VI
Entire massive essays, and videos much longer than the combined four movements of this piece have been done already. There's very little that I can say about its genius that someone, somewhere, hasn't said better. Extracting the most out of a limited chipset, Dancing Mad is Nobuo Uematsu's magnum opus. Fucking fight me. You could, theoretically, take any of the four movements of this piece, and make a solid case for them being in this tournament. Afterall, Dancing Mad isn't 17:37 long. It's four looping movements of varying lengths. I'm not even going to try to timestamp the movements for loops. I'm only human. Only, only, human.
Movement 1 opens up with a reprise of an earlier track in Final Fantasy VI, "Catastrophe" which plays during the narrative introduction of the game, as well as when the floating continent. Only, where Catastrophe just sort of... ends and returns to loop, Movement 1 kicks into high gear briefly, actually making things a fight before returning to loop. '
For all that Kefka's Theme (his normal one) is perfect, Movement 2 could have easily been Kefka's theme and no one would have batted an eye. It's discordant, authoritarian, and then breaks into an agonized organ, almost asking how and where it all went wrong. Also worth note is what you fight in Phase 2. Phase 1 you fought what may as well be the Devil, but there's no sign of Kefka. Phase two... well, he seems to be there. One man among many. You came to battle expecting to fight a demon. Well, he didn't start out as a demon, and accordingly, you didn't fight him in phase one.
Movement 3 is largely just Toccata and Fugue. But it gets really interesting when the countermelody kicks in at 8:38. Wait a second that's... that's Kefka's music. Branding his own theme over the top of church music and a Pieta. One that seemingly depicts Kefka as Savior, as, like phase 2, he seems to be present.
Movement 4, after reprising the intro to the game itself (and might also be Also Sprach Zarathustra),  tosses all the pseudo-religious garbage aside and kicks off with an actual, rock and roll fight. The fight. Appropriately, it's Kefka's own theme hammered out in a discordant fake reed organ instead of a fake pipe organ. It's layered over Fierce Battle/Battle to the Death (Aside---Battle to the Death is.... more adjacent to Kefka's theme than it first sounds... I lack the terminology to describe what I mean) before transitioning into The Decisive Battle. Now, a lot of analysis talks about how it breaks from the kickass rock-and-roll boss music to this mournful sad, falling, and comes to the conclusion that Kefka knows he's losing--and this is where I differ; he absolutely doesn't. He does not repent. Joke's on you, you pitiful rube. When the movement loops, we're fittingly treated with Kefka's trademark laugh. He hasn't come to terms with or learned a god damn thing, and never will. This fight is to the death. And your opponent truly believes he is God.

Blue Destination from Trails of Cold Steel 2 (Track essentially does not loop in selection)
This is a remix of The Decisive Collision from Trails of Cold Steel 1.
And yes, it plays in a few fights, but almost all of them are against the same guy. I'll talk about the two others toward the end of this analysis.
Blue Destination is somewhat weird for a boss theme. It's soft, harmonizing piano that gives way to mournful strings and.... ....90s europop techno? The hell? Boss themes, done correctly, should be about who you are fighting. And this is the boss theme of Crow. You're not fighting against some ancient pinnacle of skill, like with Unfathomed Force. You're fighting, essentially, your best friend from High School. And, despite his protests, one that still loves you, the way your character still loves him. One that may as well be a mirror to yourself. One you hope to win back to your side, against all odds. So there's optimistic techno dance music, but played over that is the sad piano and violin, which tell you the truth. These fleeting moments you have together are something you, perversely, want to hold onto for the rest of your life, the way you might not worry about the night ending on a dance floor.
Ironically, I've actually been drawn into a violent fight with my best friend from high school. That did not... go this way. It was jarring, scary, and wouldn't have any music played over it. However, I've recently probably, maybe definitely lost my adult best friend for reasons I have yet to learn about, much less understand, someone I want back in my life so desperately I'd fight anyone alive for it, even them. I hope no one here has to go through that, but... take my word for it. Blue Destination fits that mood just a little too well.
The other two times the track plays are When Rean begins to accept himself and unlocks his spirit unification ability and when you're playing as Lloyd and fighting Rean, who by no means wants to be there. So, it's absolutely the emotional theme of the game, I stand by my saying it is unique. Even if there's other enemies with stat blocks, there's exactly two people that are ever really fought against when this theme plays.

Silver Will from Trails in the Sky FC (and also Sky SC) (Track loops around 1:54)
In contrast, the person you're fighting at this point is arguably the world's greatest living swordsman, a war orphan who seeks to expose humanity to their own darkness, to, in his words, test humanity for their shortcomings. (OK, and you also fight Richard that one time in the first game, whatever.)
Loewe is... mnf. How do I put it. For the most part, he needs to win, to sharpen himself, to grow and overcome every conceivable obstacle, to put himself in a position to administer his so-called test to humanity. And once he gets there... he wants to lose. He's, after all this time, still broken over his loss. It's shaped his entire life. He's watched two different countries sweep the massacre at Hamel under the rug, conveniently forgetting about the tragedy. His tragedy. His challenge to humankind is ultimately nothing beyond a cry for attention, not just for himself, but for the victims of the world, which, with his knowledge, he knows to be basically everyone.
The strings motif in the first part starting around :17 tell their own story. They build hopefully upward until about :22, where they take a turn and come back down flat at :29. And this story repeats. A build like that could have easily gone to a triumphant place, but it didn't. It ends on a lower note. So after the lovely, sad origin the strings play out the first act, and after the answering piano at around :42, perhaps one of any number of challenges put to Loewe over his years on this path, we get to the strings again at :56. And they reach up with the same question over and over and over. It's played four times in succession, going up an octave, adding other instruments, desperate and yearning. This is a soul screaming to anyone that will listen: "If" and then "Why". "If" and then "Why" "IF"... but "WHY". This haunting, repeated question is as long as the other two acts combined.

Battle with Magus (Magus Confronted) from Chrono Trigger (Track loops at 1:18)
First and foremost, after Frog pulls the Masamune against Magus, the music kicks in. If you read slowly or out loud it is not difficult to time where the wind in the track blows to when Magus's cape billows, it is not difficult for the timing to sync up at :24 with when the battle begins. Chrono Trigger was made with such care that there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that, if the game were voice acted, this would be precise. At least in the Japanese version. Ah, what could have been.
You confront the crashing horror of facing something larger than yourself from that :24 mark I mentioned. A flute kicks in with a little bit of mystery at :37. At the :47 mark, the piece takes over into a triumphant horns section, before finally, the timpani that had been the background earlier completely takes over, and leads the horns through the reality of this confrontation. You are battling Magus, The greatest magician on the planet. This timpani and horns section demands respect. Here, the piece builds toward an end that coincidentally leads to...the track loop.

A worthy fight for a boss. Now let's explain why that's wrong.

You can fight Magus twice in Chrono Trigger, but more than that, this is considered Magus's theme music. This is shown that, if you get a Magus Doppel Doll from Norstein Bekkler, it plays this theme. So this isn't just a battle theme for Magus, like any other character in the game, it's Magus's whole Leitmotif. What was happening when you confronted Magus? Why, he was attempting to summon Lavos. To kill him. How would that look, if you're Magus, and you actually believe yourself capable of defeating Lavos?

You confront the crashing horror of facing something larger than yourself. A mysterious force. But Magus expects to win, and sees himself as a hero, ridding the world of this parasite god. And after the triumphant, heroic refrain comes the crashing of timpani drums. You fool, Lavos. Now, you are battling Magus, the greatest magician on the planet. And he demands respect.

It doesn't matter that Magus was potentially overestimating his abilities. This is the theme for confronting him. It is his theme of triumph, for all that he did lose to the party, and he'd almost certainly lose to Lavos. The final piece of evidence that I have for that being the case is this: There is, in fact, a fourth time this theme will play; if you take Magus to confront Zeal, his mother. His boss music, his triumph overrides the track that would normally play here. Showing the boss who is boss, so to speak. If nothing else, you gotta admit the dude has flair.

6

Music Tournament / Re: Rebirth of music tourney: nominations commentary repository

« on: October 30, 2021, 01:21:31 AM »

Very well.

VSM's Entirely reasonable nominations over-explained:

REPEATABLE BATTLE MUSIC
Step Ahead from Trails of Cold Steel 3 (Loops at 2:02)
Step Ahead almost doesn't qualify as repeatable boss music, since it's played against a very specific subset of enemies, but there are enough of them that I felt like this was the best place to stick it.  At any rate, Step Ahead plays when you're going against various arrangements of Ouroboros heavies. What I personally love about this music is that it's so chaotic which fits the sequences where it plays to a T. A recurring theme in CS3 is the player and Rean being completely frustrated and angered by never having information, especially compared to the antagonists. So the fights against the Enforcers (and some of the Stahlritter fights) are these wildly desperate confrontations made all the worse by the fact that your characters don't even know why they are happening.
Here's my extremely abstract take on the music: The Piano and Xylosynth represent Ouroboros, and the Violin and Guitar are Class VII. There's this obnoxious, taunting piano intro, perfect for a chaotic battle against someone playing with their food. In the early part of the piece after the intro, there's a guitar that joins in, but it's pulled in. It sounds reluctant. The Piano is still clearly in control, and guiding the piece. The Piano is answered by the Violin playing back the same notes it just heard. But while the Piano had a controlled, taunting quality, the violin is much more emotional and is allowed to linger on individual notes longer, instead of being played with stops. At about the 1 minute mark, the violin goes down this soft, introspective path, and while it's the active instrument that your mind pays attention to, if you listen closely, its being led down this path by the hammered instrument (pretty sure it's a xylosynth), the Xylosynth, like Ouroboros compared to class VII, like the name of the piece, is tauntingly a Step Ahead. At 1:20 though, we get to the emotional part of the piece. The Violin is sick of this shit and absolutely becomes the driving instrument of the piece from that point on. Not only is the intensity kicked up a notch, but the Xylosynth, followed quickly by the once-taunting Piano are now scrambling, just a step behind. It is a sudden reversal of the whole power dynamic that had been established just a few seconds ago. You can even hear the hammered instrument get staggered at about the 1:38 or 1:39 mark.

Spoiler analysis: And Cold Steel 3 is cut from a different cloth than Cold Steel 2. Unlike in Cold Steel 2 where even at the end of the game, you keep needing someone else to save your ass from Ouroboros, Class VII and Rean and their allies have grown tremendously. Yeah, sure, Ouroboros still pulls their "I was just holding back" nonsense, but unlike in CS2, here, it all rings hollow. Maybe they are still a Step Ahead of Class VII, but it's exactly that, and nothing more. A step. When you beat Ouroboros in CS3, even if they get back up, it feels like you might just have actually won in a way that the Infernal Castle fights never felt like. They're still insanely dangerous, deadly opponents, and yeah, they might be STRONGER than you, but they're not BETTER than you. And Class VII has something they don't have: Passion. And somehow, I feel all of that passion and growth is conveyed in this piece. It's only the third game of four, and we've still got a long way to go, but the conclusion that is drawn is this: Class VII is officially putting the manipulators and sadists on notice. A force greater than them has been building in its frustration for quite some time.

EDITIt's possible what I am hearing as a Xylosynth might very well actually be a Celeste.

7

Discussion / Re: DLCon 2020 or something resembling it

« on: January 16, 2020, 03:39:33 AM »

I'm interested either way, however:

1)I would need to know well in advance so I can ask for time off work. Work is unlikely to give me any time off during peak season unless I get one hell of a head-start.
2)I might not be able to attend anyhow, because 1

8

General Chat / Re: What Games are You Playing 2018?

« on: October 07, 2018, 08:11:41 AM »

I keep trying to post my thoughts on CS1 and CS2, but ATT and forums combine to repeatedly delete my fucking post, I don't give enough of a shit to do it in Word or whatever and C/P. It should be fucking stable enough to either not crash, or it shouldn't auto-refresh the fucking box in 2018 AD. I had like, 5 giant paragraphs talking about the game itself instead of the characters, and it's all gone. All gone forever.

Trails of Cold Steel 1 and Cold Steel 2 are both good games. CS1 is a 60 hour prologue and CS2 is the first game of a new series, and it is extremely good and fun. The villains' motivations make no goddamn sense. The last few fights of CS2 are horrible bullshit that undermine 50 hours of a very enjoyable battle system.

Rean is a good protagonist despite how easy he could be to make bad. He's not Estelle Bright, but that's asking a little much for anyone to follow.

Elliot fucking sucks and is a wanker. His two personality traits are that he's a pussy and he likes music. He is the only Trails character I actively dislike to date. (For all I gave Tita shit in TitS, my main objection was "she's a combat character! and she uses an orbal cannon she can't logically lift") Elliot is like having a Fire Emblem character in a Trails Game. In combat, right up until the last third or so of CS2 he's like, the best in-battle character in the game.

Gaius is also kind of Fire Emblem-y and one note. However, his one note makes him merely "boring" instead of "intolerable." Actually, Gauis' big flaw isn't even a flaw. He's just... too well-adjusted and self-actualized to be particularly interesting. The way to have made Gaius work better would have been to have him forced, like, just about everywhere. He's this solid rock you can lean on. Because of how CS' orbments are the opposite of logic and reason, he's got the best orbment despite being the worst mage.

Jusis is a dickhead, but he has some decent lines, and, honestly, he has some pretty good excuses for being a dickhead. He's the most generic in combat character there is, and is never either a good or a bad idea to take on your team, unless you somehow were to know in advance if enemies could be frozen, in which case he's very, very good.

Machias is an unlikeable shit for most of the first game, and his default Quartz in the first game is god-awful. Both of these are flipped entirely in game two, where he's probably the most consistently funny character (though he has a lot of competition for that), and Iron is suddenly ridiculously good. Machias is the only reason I managed to beat the main story. You can't actually damage Machias short of quadruple turning him. Granted, several of the late-game enemies actually can do this, since he's not very fast at all. FUN FACT: Every fight I had against Duvalie was won by Machias hitting her with his S-Craft. She's too focused on the wrong party member.

Laura is kind of boring in the first game, and also mean for no reason to one of the better/more likable characters. She gets over both of these things. Laura's actually cool and good. Sort of the opposite of Elliot in that her big flaw is not showing enough vulnerability, but then she actually starts to, and every time she does, it's endearing. You don't have to try so hard, Laura. We all know you're kind of a badass, so if like, the Golden Rakshasa and whatever the other guy's ostentatious title is are in the same room menacing you, just... go ahead and faint. You're allowed. In combat, Laura's... OK. She's not bad at any one thing, aside from speed (which is a really big thing, mind). Her Quartz is a terrible fit for her in the second half of the first game and the entirety of the second game. In game 1 I gave her Tauros and she just packed a huge whallop, and in game 2 I gave her Wing, and she was the multi-tool character that I used Jusis for in game 1. (....where I gave him Wing, which is just a really good Quartz)

Alisa is very nearly the second Trails character I don't really like, since she's kind of a spoiled rich girl, but she has this one facial expression (Rean also has it) where she just looks totally fucking bewildered and I cannot help but laugh every single time it pops up. Also a lot of what I don't like about Alisa is she seems forced on you as a Romantic interest, but you actually get to pick your romantic interest, and pretty much every option available (and notably one that isn't) is both a better fit and a more interesting character. In battle, she's very handy. She's a battery character like Machias, but a slightly better mage, and a significantly worse tank. She's a much better Battery though, since she gives CP instead of EP, and she gives a lot of it.

Emma is probably the least developed character in the cast, and that's honestly impressive given the cast includes Gaius and Elliot. She's kept a mystery for almost all of game 1 and then, as near as I can tell, in Game 2 they decided that making Celine a character with a ton of lines also made Emma more of a character, but it doesn't work that way. She gets upstaged by her own (annoying!) familiar, and suffers for it. Still, what exists isn't actually bad. I liked the way she sort of was hiding things in the first game, and I like what little character moments exist for her in the second, I just wish she was more her own thing instead of playing second fiddle to a non-entity. In battle, like Elliot, she's ridiculously good until she's very very suddenly not. Even then, her arts are just insane. In CS2 I gave Elliot Criminal and kept Emma with her default setup, and would use an Emma/Elliot overdrive against bosses, spamming Claimoh Solarion and Altair Cannon for six turns in a row for just massive damage. She's got a command revive that restores an absolute ton of HP and also gives a ton of CP, which is great.

Fie is my favorite member of the cast, and I feel that's probably true for the writers as well. She gets what feels like more characterization than most, She's up there with Machias and Millium for having the best lines, and her "climbing through ducts" song is adorable. We appear to share a neurological condition. In combat, she's the speed freak and also evade tank, and is the logical partner for Rean on the "make the enemies get zero turns forever" squad. She's great for most of the game, right up until she isn't, which is essentially the very end and "coincidentally" the same point Emma and Elliot become useless and Machias overtakes everyone but Rean for the mantle of "the best". (It's because her HP sucks)

Millium is Scrappy Doo in the first game, but in the second game, she's extremely likeable, legitimately very funny, and generally just a blast to have around. I'll say this here, since it comes up most with Millium, but you know what's ABSOLUTE bullshit? Reflect in CS2 is just rigged against you and it's not even trying to hide it. Millium reflects things at enemies, and it deals maybe, maybe a tenth of the damage the ability would have, sometimes considerably less than that. An enemy reflects YOUR skill? You're taking full fucking damage, maybe half if it's an S-craft (which will still murder you). That's a goddamn sin of game design. I get that she'd be way too good if Reflect were better, but either make reflect equally good (and not give it to Millium so freely!) or make it equally bad (because seriously, this is bull shit.) Game 1 did it about right, in that it made a huge difference, but it ended up being a huge difference in exactly one fight.

Instructor Sara feels almost like she was meant to be Schera from TitS and then they chose to go another direction, and we ended up with a damned good character (with much better VA). Like TitS2 version of Schera, Sara is somewhat above average at literally everything (and quite a bit above average at one or two things), and is therefor one of the best characters in the game for every portion of the game. I wanted to make a joke about her being the love child of Flik and someone, but shockingly, there's no immediate "red lightning" character that comes to mind.

Instructor Thomas rules, I accidentally read the NG+ spoilers about him, and he just rules even fucking harder.

9

General Chat / Re: Books

« on: August 31, 2018, 04:22:02 PM »

I should probably start posting here, because I read... erm... a LOT. A book is one of the very few things I'm allowed to take into work, and I've gotten pretty adept at chewing through novels during my commute and any time I'm not actually on the phone. Over the past couple of years I've gone through... uh..............

The Book of the New Sun ~ Gene Wolfe
A re-Read of the Dragaera cycle ~ Steven Brust
The Phoenix Guards and 500 Years After ~ Steven Brust
A re-Read (like, my third or fourth read of) The Dresden Files ~ Jim Butcher
Codex Aleira ~  Jim Butcher
The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever ~ Stephen R. Donaldson
The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever ~ Stephen R. Donaldson
The Final Chronicles of Thomas Covenant ~ Stephen R. Donaldson
Mordant's Need I and II ~ Stephen R. Donaldson
Nearly 100% of the Valdemar novels ~ Mercedes Lackey
The Black Company ~ Glen Cook
The files of Garrett PI ~ Glen Cook
The Starfishers Trilogy ~ Glen Cook
The Fionavar Tapestry ~ Guy Gavriel Kay
The Sarantine Mosaic ~ Guy Gavriel Kay
Children of Earth and Sky ~ Guy Gavriel Kay
A Song for Narbonne ~ Guy Gavriel Kay
The Last Light of the Sun ~ Guy Gavriel Kay
The Lions of Al-Rassan ~ Guy Gavriel Kay
The entirety of the Malazan Book of the Fallen ~ Stephen Erikson.
The Sandman Slim novels ~ Richard Kadrey
The Coop Heist novels ~ Richard Kadrey
Butcher Bird ~ Richard Kadrey
Metrophage ~ Richard Kadrey
Dead Set ~ Richard Kadrey
The Alex Verus novels ~ Benedict Jacka
The Lives, Deaths, and Rebirths of Tao ~ Wesley Chu
The Kings' Blades Trilogy ~ Dave Duncan
Whatever the fuck he calls his Exeter trilogy ~ Dave Duncan
The Firekeeper novels ~ Jane Lindskold
Breaking the Wall ~ Jane Lindskold
Monster Hunter novels ~ Larry Correa
Son of the Black Sword ~ Larry Correa
Amber ~ Roger Zelazny
And a bunch of stand-alone novels or short series I can't think of right now, as well as a few continuations of series I've already been reading, like the Dark Elf novels or the Vorkosigan novels.

As you can see, one thing I tend to do is latch onto an author and, maybe not all at once, but basically chew through their entire body of work. I tend to have pretty strong opinions about books and there's a lot for me to say about all of these that I haven't found a lot of time for over the past several months, and I'd like to touch on a few of those listed because either the author in general is really good, or the books themselves are really good. I'll go ahead and say here that if I have something on this list, it's a recommended read. I'm pretty agreeable when it comes to books, and it takes quite a powerfully garbage writer to make me actually put something down. (I'm looking at you, Ferret Steinmetz.) The list above isn't exhaustive. It's merely (I'm pretty sure most of) the things I've read since starting my current job.

The most important recommendations on this list are probably the Malazan Book of the Fallen and literally anything written by Guy Gavriel Kay. I can and eventually will go into a lot more detail for my reasons, but the short version is, both guys have some fairly "close-to-home" things in their novels, albeit for very different reasons. There are points in these stories where I have been moved, and while I'm increasingly a sappy doofus in my old age, being moved by mass media in any form or context is.... not something that usually happens.

10

General Chat / Re: What Games are You Playing 2018?

« on: August 27, 2018, 04:17:49 AM »

Trails in the Sky SC:

OK, I'm gonna cover the negatives first, mostly because there aren't very many, and I want to make sure I remember them before I go all glurgy and weird over this game. My two biggest beefs with the game are that the Society, in general, are stupid villains. Their whole concept is bonkers, under-explained, and generally not great. A lot of what goes on in this game feels almost like it's completely no-selling the story and drama of the first game, and there's way too much "Nuh-UH" crap going on with these idiots just popping in, getting their butts whooped, saying they didn't really get their butts whooped, and then running off.
You have too many characters and not enough options to use them. This is kind of a mild complaint, given that part of why you WANT to use them is the characters tend to be cool and good. Especially in the last chapter where you have so many options, and can't really make proper use of them all. And then Zin goes and says "Naw, it'd be dumb to split up". Screw you, Zin. Give me my multi-parties.
Third drawback is the last 3-4 chapters feel completely different, on like, a conceptual level than the rest of the two games.

As for the good: uh.... everything else? Goddamn these games get you emotionally invested in seeing it out, and they're just overwhelmingly positive and full of good vibes and my heart grew three sizes that day and so on. This game went a giant step forward in rebalancing the characters, to the point where no one feels really bad, nor does any one person like Zin/Joshua in the first game stick out as obviously better than everyone else.

Estelle:
Let's remove any qualifiers that were left over after game one. Estelle Bright is the best JRPG lead of all time. Fuck you. Fight me. From the little details making her a bit more realistic than most depictions of characters her age, to the memetic Estelle Stare (....which she is aware of...) to a level of self-honesty that just is lacking in most protagonists in any media. Estelle Bright is a fantastic fucking character. The society wants to recruit her? Yeah, I buy that. This is a character that believably balances a huge, personal goal with her ongoing responsibilities. She very rightly evaluates her skills as "not enough" until you get to the end of the game and then rightly evaluates herself as "definitely more than enough". She has an unshakable, exceptional world-view, and the iron goddamn will to imprint that belief onto others. If the game, for some reason, let me, I would never remove Estelle from my party.
In battle, I again assume she sets the average, and assume she's supposed to be average, but given that she's the forced character, I gave her all the best stuff, so I think I'm probably skewing battle-power a bit high. That said, True Hurricane is objectively the correct way to start 90% of all fights in this game.

Analace:
Sure is a temp. Or is she? .....yeah, she's a temp.

Joshua:
Well, Joshua's characterization takes a firm nose-dive here, because that pitfall they avoided with him in game 1 is... uh... roughly the entire plot of the first half of game 2. So for most of the game (thankfully he's not in your party), Joshua is just a big, mopey doofus that god damn, I'm glad Estelle slapped sense into a few times. Once he uh... stops this... he's largely back to Joshua of game 1, only... not quite as good, because there's no time for a more light-hearted Joshua. Sorry, buddy. You were the ritual sacrifice to make everything/one else in this game really good. No hard feelings.
In combat, Joshua is more or less exactly the same as he was in the first game, only with better-than-average stats across the board. You'd think that this would keep him as game best, but... uh... everything got re-balanced, which is another giant positive for this game.

Agate:
Agate, in general, continues to be the goddamn man. At a couple of points in this game, he was even wrong about things, and also almost died from it at one point, which ought to be a big character negative, but once again, Trails' excellent writing comes to the rescue, and he just comes off fairly believably, and also, you can see for pretty much all of the early game where Estelle (...and yes, Tita)'s influence just generally makes him a better, more well-adjusted person. He's a lot more laid-back in this game, and is perfectly fine with giving Estelle a little bit of the reigns, and honestly, that's the mark of a decent teacher. Also, also? Agate's end-portrait states he's training the other Ravens to be Bracers. Good for them.
In combat, Agate takes a big jump from "Like Zin, only worse", to his own man. He's just, like, really strong, guys, and his one ability where he gives himself a full CP bar in exchange for his health is straight busted. I didn't abuse this nearly as much as I could have, but holy hell, Agate can basically just S-break any time he wants, and that's insanely good. I also got quite a bit of use out of Draguna edge being a long distance attack. (Same with Estelle's ...True Comet...? I just forgot to mention)

Scherazade:
Story wise, Schera seems even less interesting than she did in game one, which seems like it ought to be impossible. I'm not going to hold that too much against her, because I chose Agate as my partner for the first half of the game, and a lot of the little beats I liked for Agate were in those parts he was optional, so it seems pretty reasonable to assume Schera's characterization during those parts might be about as good. She also got the least interesting of the Society goons to be paired with, and honestly, EH to their whole story. In Schera's favor, however, when she was split with Analace, and Campenella blows up the dolls, her keeping cool while Analace melts down is an excellent story moment for both. Little details like this make me more confident that she's probably just fine, if you actually take her instead of Agate.
In combat, now, holy shit Schera took an upgrade in this game. Rather than being slightly below average at everything, she's suddenly slightly above average at everything, and also really above average at arts, which combine to make her really damn good. As far as crafts go, her one craft basically makes the rest of the team act immediately, and that is stupidly good. Schera has gone from bottom tier to someone I gave more than a moment's consideration as possibly the best in the game (and eventually placed as third, which is still pretty great in a cast this size).

Olivier:
Continues to be endlessly amusing, and just competent enough to not be campy on top of it. I liked the reveal and every distinct party member's reaction to it (particularly Agate's during, and Zin's after). I was miffed when he vanished before the first four fights with the enforcers, and that... that hurt me, man.
In combat..... Olivier is really weird. Early on, he's just as great as he was in the first game, but after he comes back, he's sort of nose-dived, and simply re-leveling him doesn't make up for it. By the time Olivier comes back, enemy defense has been re-balanced to where some of what made him exceptional in the first game and the first half of this game is negated. Sure, he can hit everything all the time, but can he actually damage it? Not really. Between being excellent at arts and early-game crafts though, he's just top of the heap while you have him, and then, ....god help me, I think he might be the worst character in the game (yes, I am counting Josette and Tita) when he comes back. That also hurts. Why do you hurt me, Olivier?

Tita:
I'll stick by what I said in the first game, in that Tita would be fine if she were a non-combat NPC like Dorothy. Despite disliking Tita on principle, like, her individual story beats are pretty good. I enjoyed everything with her and Agate. I enjoy her childish crush on Agate (so long as this is never reciprocated. Agate's what? 24 right now? Even if Tita is in her 20s in a later game, that'd be seriously fuckin' weird). I liked her being willing to stand in front of Loewe for Agate. It takes some balls to protect someone with nothing more than your body and your life and your hope that the guy isn't cold-blooded enough to cut a twelve year old in half to cut down someone else who is no longer a threat. It's still ridiculous and stupid that she has an Orbal Cannon.
In combat, Tita is quite a bit better in game one, just because her upgraded Vital Cannon is quite a lot of healing that runs off of renewable energy. It's nice to see the tech girl so environmentally friendly. It's still perfectly viable to give her a Death Orbment and use her multitarget physical to potentially deathblow chaff enemies. Some of her equips give her good defense, but her HP is still hot garbage.

Zin:
Zin... man. I'm irrationally mad at Zin being the guy that told me I wouldn't be able to split my party. Beyond that.... He's pretty much the same guy. Solid. Friendly. Kind of a goody-goody. Drinking buddies with Olivier. There's less "eye for the ladies" in this game than the first one, which, depending on point of view is either a positive (since this type can grate), or a negative (for taking away characterization). His interactions with Walter, while OK, mostly made me wish Kilika was a playable character. Maybe I like Chakram, OK?
Weirdly, while Zin is a much better duelist in this game (True Distend is stupidly good), he's probably gone down in use considerably given how much better various members of the cast have gotten (and the introduction of at least one newbie. Hi, Kevin). True Composure is a great skill that I got a lot of mileage out of, since most status-curing things cure a trivial amount of HP. True Distend, as said, is stupidly good, making his attacks do... ...not quite the damage you'd think, but more-or-less completely nullifying enemy physical damage. I'm vaguely curious how much Loewe could hit him for after using it. Loewe was smacking Agate and Joshua around for like, 4.5k damage a pop. I also wonder how much better I'd think Zin was if I'd given him an Action orbment. Like, a lot of my problem with him arises from being so goddamn slow, but as near as I can tell, speed is almost entirely determined by orbments and shoes (and one-or-two rare armors).

Kloe:
Still doesn't have much of a personality, really. Maybe even less of one than in the first game, which, again, is kind of impressive for the wrong reasons. Her interactions with Dunan were OK. It's nice to see her try to light a fire under her butt, but... man. It feels like they could have made her... Iunno. DO things. But any section I took her on, she was just sort of there. 90% of what she has to contribute to any conversation is a mild "Oh my!" ....................about partway thru the game, I decided that every time she said this, she was obviously and inappropriately turned on. Sexual Deviant Princess Kloe is much more interesting than what we got.
In battle, Kloe still shines, her S-craft remains insanely good (actually, it's way better, since it's like 15,000 healing and also a revive and it doesn't say on the tin, but it heals status, too.) Bird is still really good, but got nerfed, since it no longer does damage, too. Her arts are high, albeit sort of limited thanks to all the forced water (which largely doesn't benefit from a high stat). Nonetheless, she's one of the best characters in the game strictly because of her really amazing S craft. (....thinking on it, though, her having all the forced water kind of makes this whole thing redundant. She's already a great healer without it. She's basically forced into a box for her role. Imagine how good she'd be if she had more flexibility in her attack magic)

Kevin Graham:
Despite plot hints that he's a big deal, and despite knowing he's the protagonist of game 3, I still didn't see his last scene coming. Was badass as hell. Everything else Kevin does is pretty good. I could definitely see fans of the first game coming into this one and thinking of Kevin kind of as a Scrappy Doo character, and I can see being annoyed by his drawl. I like Kevin, though. I like that he seems to actually like Estelle, like, as a person. He starts out hitting on her, decides she's a lost cause because of how obviously in love she is with Joshua, decides to help, and makes a mental note to whoop Joshua's ass if he continues to be dumb. Kevin is a good friend. Kevin's VA is bad.
Kevin is probably the best character in the game. It was easy to manipulate what I thought was really bad STR into "quite decent" without making his oddly high defense suffer too badly. His ATS is really good. His actual crafts are disgustingly good. Kevin basically gives you a choice with his crafts, of either completely shutting down an enemy's offense, if you aim for his S-craft, or, if there's a lot of multi-target enemies or whatever, he can just give his CP to everyone else, and it's a trade that nets CP, assuming you hit at least two party members. This is somehow more broken than it sounds. I didn't use Kevin very much, but he completely locked down every major fight he was in.

Julia Schwarz:
JOIN ME EARLIER GOD DAMN YOU. I like Julia. She's fine. She had a random fight scene with Cassius for no reason. Her Temp abilities are not anywhere the same as her actual abilities when she joins. She looks like an anime version of a girl I have a crush on.
In battle..... Julia's disappointing. Her STR is a lot lower than it seems like it ought to be. Her crafts don't seem to be particularly useful, and.... well, that's kind of it, really. For as much as the first game hyped her, she needed to be something really special, and just wasn't.

Vander Mueller (....Mueller Vander? I swear it says both at one point):
Has a few fun moments, because he pairs with Olivier. Has a surprisingly intense fight with Joshua, which probably makes Joshua look better more than it makes him. I like that Olivier teases him about his immediate and obvious crush on Julia Schwarz, because of course this happened.
For super characters that join late, Vander actually feels more like what you'd expect. Nonetheless, he's... merely OK. His STR is notably higher than Schwarz's, but his individual crafts seem not so shit-hot. His Impede ability does zero damage and costs 40 CP, holy shit. I took all my swordsmen to fight Loewe, and didn't realize that was a point of no return, so Mueller was in my final party! He was just good enough to not lag behind the obviously better characters in battle. He was sadly kind of bland in regards to his interactions with Weissman and Loewe.

Josette Capua:
Join me earlier god damn you. Josette is fine. I like and feel bad for her. Her crush on Joshua is super-doomed from the start, and she and her brothers can't really hang with the rest of the cast and seemingly know it. She seems to exist to be heartbroken at every turn during the brief period you have her. Maybe she'll get some love in Game 3.
In battle, Josette made me furious by not having an S-craft, and then said S-craft not being very good once it's actually unlocked. (It needed to do a lot more damage. Or.... ...literally anything other than straight damage) Josette would be really valuable if you got her earlier, because Stampede is actually a good skill, albeit not as good as Bird. Her Anchor ability is a 100% faint on things that can be fainted, and holy shit, she'd be busted if you got access to her before essentially everything was immune to faint. God damn it.

Characterization ranks:

Estelle > (literally every JRPG Protagonist, fucking fight me)
Estelle >> Agate > Olivier >= Kevin > Josette >> Mueller > Tita >> Zin > Schera >> Joshua >> Kloe >= Julia

Battle ranks:
Kevin > Kloe > Schera > Agate >>> Olivier (early) > Joshua > Estelle > Zin > Mueller > Josette > Tita > Julia > Olivier (late)

11

Discussion / Re: DLCon 2018: The Big Apple

« on: August 16, 2018, 04:40:56 AM »

While I'm also disappointed that you likely can't be around, that is the definition of "having your priorities in order" and I hope your mom's recovery goes well.

12

General Chat / Re: What Games are You Playing 2018?

« on: August 04, 2018, 07:30:12 PM »

Lately I've beaten Dragon Quest 3 (SNES Remake) and The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky (FC)

I have a lot to say about DW3 but now is not the time.

Now is the time for Trails.

So, before I get into any nitty gritty, Trails in the Sky is a very good JRPG. I've been burnt out on JRPGs for years on end, and for some reason got into, of all things, Dragon Quest/warrior, but when I beat 3, I decided to finally play this game that a friend gave me for Christmas something like four years ago.
This is a charming game, and I would definitely rate it above average, but of all the things it throws at me, there's really only two stand-out parts that I enjoy. Thankfully they're pretty big parts. Those would be "Story and Characterization" and "Battle System".
Battle system takes quite a bit of dings from god-awful design decisions, but keep in mind I played on Hard, so YMMV.

Let's talk about stories and things this game does absolutely right.
1)Holy shit you're not saving the world.
I can't overemphasize this. You get a full game... a long game, at that, and the driving focus for the entire game is in no means "You're destined heroes to blah blah blah" that is a cheap cop-out of not just JRPGs but Fantasy settings in general. It's very, very refreshing to have your goal be something like "Stop a political coup" and also "Find your dad". This is good.
2)It makes people seem like people. ...and not just your party.
I adore how many random NPCs I actually remember in this game when they turn up, and not just "people who have faces". I love that everyone in the first town knows you and have new things to say every time you talk to them between story beats. More than just about any RPG I've ever played, Trails in the Sky feels like you're actually playing in a living world, and that people outside of the party might have lives of their own. At one point, toward the end of the game, Joshua points this out, and while it could feel kind of like the developers bragging, I think it actually read a lot more like them making a plea for making more games like theirs. Take a bow, Falcom. You did good here.

Let's talk characters.

Estelle:
Estelle supplants.... ........................................................Virginia? As my favorite female JRPG protagonist? And probably enters the list fairly high in general as far as protagonists go. Estelle is a fantastic character. I gotta admit, during the opening sequence in the game, where we briefly had child Estelle, I was terrified that she was going to be god-awful and I would hate every minute of this game, but it quickly gives you a much more competent, well-rounded character, who is just... fantastically believable. Very well balanced between brimming confidence and believable insecurities when they do come up. I like her "God damn it." face whenever it comes up. I like how the game has little details in the "descriptive" text, like her presenting her papers with a flourish (to which Joshua rolls his eyes) and so on.
In combat, Estelle is... ok. I mean, a lot of this game is how you construct your own characters and she has no orbment restrictions, so I suppose there's nothing saying you can't figure out how to turn her into a supreme shit-kicker. I just didn't. The big thing I got use of from her for the entire game was Hurricane. I gave her an on-hit-petrify effect, and just using her to multi-target several enemies and maybe take one out of the fight immediately pretty much never got old. Otherwise, she's got nothing really special combat-wise that I could tell. She wields a staff correctly.

Joshua:
Joshua is also a fantastic character. There's a lot of ways they could have gone with this guy, and there's quite a few pitfalls where they could have made him just bland and moody and mysterious or whatever, and the game deftly says "fuck that noise" and just makes him highly competent, and gives him a really dry sense of humor and an easy-going personality. God damn, the writing in this game is good. I like that it gives him honest-to-goodness chemistry with Estelle. These two feel like a unit, and since that's one of the main thrusts of the game, I'd say that's another roaring success on the writing team.
In combat, Joshua is either the best or second-best character in the game, depending on what you actually value. He's forced into Shadow orbments, but those are the best ones, so the game almost forces you to make him good. Beyond that, he's got two AT-Reduction skills, and those are the most valuable Crafts in the game, by far. His second S Craft also his the whole field, because why not. I gave him a mix of Shadow and Water, because fuck it, why not go full JRPG protagonist.

Scherazard:
I hate the way you spell your name. Schera is fine. It's weird thinking of her as a cougar when I'm pretty sure I'm 10 years older than she is. Fucking JRPGs, man. But yeah, naughty older woman/sexy teacher character. I don't have much to say about her character-wise. They could have made her deeply annoying, but didn't, so that's good!
She is, however, easily the worst character in the game. I'm not sure if there's anything she actually does that isn't done better by at least one other character. Poor Schera.

Olivier:
Another character that easily could have been made deeply annoying, but was saved at the last minute by competent writing staff. Olivier is actually very likable, and his antics are generally timed/executed in the right way to make him genuinely funny. He fits a trope I like of "Seems like an indolent moron but is actually basically James Bond." I think he also benefits by his voice acting. Giving him a legitimately smooth voice lends a certain level of "he's not a joke" that characters like this need.
Olivier is quite good in a fight. All of his Crafts are useful in different situations, it's nice that he starts with an S-craft that hits multiple targets. He was in my final party, albeit, was the clear LVP of my final party.

Agate:
I like Agate a bunch, too. It'd be easy to just make him an unlikable dick, but, pretty much every time Agate complains and your cast gets mad at him.... uh.... he's right. Letting the stick-in-the-mud actually be correct is another way of staying out of the pitfall of making this character unlikeable. So far this cast is 5 for 5 on characters that were very nearly bad, but turned out to be good. That's some slick work.
In combat, Agate is... I almost said "there", but that's hardly true, now, is it. You almost never get to use Agate. When you finally get to freely use him in the last chapter, you also have Zin who is literally better in every way. Agate's still not BAD, though, he's just... not Zin. I'm sure he'd be more useful than Schera.

Kloe:
Why does she have a magic bird? Why are magic birds a thing? I have little to say about Kloe in general. For someone with the party for so long, she seems like she'd have a more memorable character, but... eh. She's just a normal girl. Only not. I guess that's the point?
In combat, she ought to be really good. She's given all the healing and also her S Craft is a full party heal with a boost if you somehow let your CP get to 200 and who the hell actually does that? She also has like, pretty much the only debuff in a game that honestly feels like the entire battle system/encounters were based around the idea of having debuffs, and then the developers forgot to actually include any. So she's pretty much always useful. I didn't use her myself, mind, but that's because I (as it turns out mistakenly!) thought I needed some more firepower instead of healing for the last few bosses.

Tita:
........................well, we had to stop the run somewhere. Tita.... Tita is not a good character. I'm sorry. I know it's basically a JRPG thing to make little children characters, and it should stop, and for a game that in a lot of other places makes the characters feel really realistic, Tita just repeatedly undermines that. In a way, she makes Agate a better character by virtue of what I said earlier about "Every time Agate voices a complaint or objection, he's actually 100% right". Tita has no business adventuring, or in your party. I am irrationally furious that she has an Orbal Cannon as a weapon, when earlier in the same fucking game, it's a big deal that Don is able to use one as a personal weapon, and Don is bigger and stronger than everyone other than Zin. But you would have me believe that a twelve year old girl can do it? Fuck off.
This game would be better if she were an NPC like Dorothy or Nial.
In actual combat, though, she has a multi-target physical, so you can do something like stick Deathblow 1 on her and she'll make encounters quite a bit easier more-or-less by accident. She'd arguably be one of the better characters in the game if she didn't have the defense and HP of a 12 year old girl.

Zin:
The other side of the "Obfuscates stupidity" trope. I like it here, too. Zin seems like a big, easy going friendly huggable guy. I like that they pair him with Olivier, so we get to see both sides of this tradition at once. I also like that he originally decides "Fuck it, I'll fight solo in this tournament" and probably could have placed almost as well even if you didn't join him.
In combat, Zin is the other character who might well be the best character in the game. His stats are nonsense. Aside from HP (which matters a lot!) he's only a little better than everyone in everything else, it's just that he's... better than everyone. In everything else.

In short:
Characterization ranks:
Estelle > Joshua >> Olivier > Agate > Zin >> Schera > Kloe >>>>>>> Tita
Combat Ranks:
Zin >= Joshua > Kloe >> Olivier = Estelle >>> Agate > Tita >> Schera

Excellent game. Fuck its boss design. Fuck the final dungeon for taking me away from the parts of the game I liked for way too long. Fuck Tita.

13

Discussion / Re: DLCon 2018 Travel Topic

« on: June 21, 2018, 03:20:19 AM »

May god have mercy on your soul.

 Departure Thu, Aug 16
Delta 4261 operated by SKYWEST DBA DELTA CONNECTION
Lansing (LAN)
10:30am

(transfer no one needs to know about)
 Delta 5289 operated by ENDEAVOR AIR DBA DELTA CONNECTION
Detroit (DTW)
12:05pm
New York (JFK)
1:59pm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 American Airlines 1414
New York (JFK)
5:05pm

(again, transfer)

 American Airlines 3673 operated by ENVOY AIR AS AMERICAN EAGLE
Chicago (ORD)
8:40pm
Lansing (LAN)
10:38pm

14

Discussion / Re: DLCon 2018: The Big Apple

« on: April 01, 2018, 09:33:36 PM »

I definitely plan on coming. I'm already on the confirmed list, but now, like, EXTRA confirm me, or whatever.

15

Discussion / Re: DLC2018 or whatever

« on: March 24, 2018, 03:37:33 AM »

I can also be put down as a tentative yes, barring any unforeseen nonsense, which, there fucking better not be unforeseen nonsense

16

Discussion / Re: Discord

« on: March 24, 2018, 03:35:38 AM »

Thread revivification.


It seems like we stuck with (at least officially) IRC, but if there is a dedicated discord chat floating around, especially if any of us want to game together, could someone throw a brotha a link?

17

Discussion / Re: DLC2018 or whatever

« on: March 13, 2018, 05:43:41 PM »

Oddly enough, I think that both of those dates actually work for me, even given my Job being in peak season in Summer. August is when things are winding down, and that specific weekend in July is my Birthday, whereupon I can take an extra day off because that's a random thing work gives me.

So barring any unforeseen disasters, I should be able to swing this year.

18

General Chat / Re: Gooooooooood Morning 2017 Edition! No Political Commentary Here!

« on: May 07, 2017, 12:34:19 AM »

Been absent from both forums and (mostly) IRC for some time. I'm sorry for all the bad news everyone's had on this page. Ciato, I wanted to say something to you much earlier but just never caught you, and, I dunno, somehow saying something on Facebook felt trite. This is the first I've heard of all the other events, so you all have my sympathies.

~~~

It may surprise you, El-Cid, but I'd honestly say that Michigan, In the right places is a nice place to live. You pretty much want to avoid:

1)The rural areas
2)The dense urban areas

And you're gold. I've bitched a lot about my state in the past at various times, but remember I used to live in the Rural bits, where the closest not-rural bit was Port Huron. The cities people tend to remember exist in Michigan are Detroit and Flint, and while living anywhere in Flint is just about the dumbest or unluckiest thing you can do, the sub-urban areas surrounding Detroit are decent.

Where my state really shines, though, is the middle sized cities, and I've personally lived in two of them for extended periods of time. I really like my current city of East Lansing (Not to be confused with Lansing, which is also pretty OK, honestly). You have a very reliable bus service with unlimited rides for 35 dollars on a monthly pass. There's rapid growth going on, I'm watching several apartments, some condos, and what I think are two hotels going up from within walking distance of my house. It is a major college town. I am not mentally well. If I have major social problems, that is not a failing of my home state, it is a severe deficiency within myself. I see more mind-splittingly gorgeous young women on my daily commute to work every day than the poor bastard version of me that grew up Rural thought he'd ever see in a lifetime. This is only a slight hyperbole.

Kalamazoo housed me for my college years and it is a hip place. I was pretty much always able to find (good!) live bands if I wanted to go out. There are bars that cater to the college students, and somehow, the most "Collegey" of them all manage to stay to those, while there are a ton of other places where there would be single people of less "Dumbass kid" age hanging out. If you can't find something to do walking around downtown Kalamazoo at night, any given night, you're fucking bent. I managed to have a decent time most nights and I might be the most socially inept person I personally know. If you decide to NOT be a singular organism, kids that go to high school in the Kalamazoo Public School system get 4 years (or 130 credits) of college free tuition and mandatory fees.

I've never lived there, but Grand Rapids seems to be on every "Best cities to live in the US" list I've seen over the last several years. It's definitely a pretty city.

I can't put the best commentary on the Saginaw Area, honestly, because my semester at SVSU was an enormous, personal mistake. I DO know that Midland, Saginaw, and Bay City are all right next to each other and may as well be the same place.

The worst part about living in Michigan is the weather. Weather here is insane mirror-world weather, where it can jump from 25 degrees up to 80+ in under a week.

The flipside of the weather is the climate. Michigan is probably the safest place in North America. I can't say that as a for sure, 100% true thing, but i'd honestly be willing to make a small prop bet on it. Very rarely, we might get a tornado that actually hits something and does damage. Other than that, you have no natural disasters. The lakes just insulate the state from so much. About the worst possible weather is a really bad snow, and, all that lake generally makes the worst of it pile up on either side of us without actually hitting us too bad. The North East gets way more major snowstorms. Minnesota and Wisconsin will get hammered. The rest of the midwest will have way more, way more devastating tornadoes. The west coast has Earthquakes and Landslides, the Southwest has draughts and fires, and even the extremely placid Pacific Northwest still is within blastin' range of an active volcano. Afraid of climate change accelerating? I'm not. My state is goddamn fine. Sorry about your guys' water scarcity, brah. (or being consumed BY water, just not the potable kind)

Cost of living in the state is hilariously low. I'm annoyed I have the financial problems I currently do, but I have a slowly growing bank account on a <15 dollar an hour job, and I own my own house. If I didn't get screwed out of my unemployment check a few years ago, and I didn't follow that up with an uninsured trip to the Emergency room and then follow THAT up with a surgery that took a month to recover from where I had to have daily nursing care, I would be in extremely comfortable financial shape. It's amazing the difference between "Broke" and "Able to consider major life purchases" in this country. I think Michigan, a living wage is considered about 10 bucks? Slightly more?

19

Discussion / Re: Dee Yell Con 2017

« on: April 22, 2017, 04:17:20 AM »

Put me down as a tentative confirm. I have to go to Boston already once this year for a pair of friends' wedding, and if I can see them a second time, that'd be fantastic.

I'll be more sure in, uh, June. But it being coincidentally the same area is some of the best news I've heard all year.

20

Discussion / Re: DLCon XI - O Canada

« on: June 29, 2016, 05:10:16 AM »

I've figured this for quite a while now, but I really can't come.

I had to take three weeks off of work for surgery which has left me both broke and unable to take time off of work. So showing up is a pipe dream at best.

21

Discussion / Re: DLC next year?

« on: March 01, 2016, 02:04:12 AM »

If it's a ten year passport (and also less than 15 years old, in good condition, and from a time when you were over 16) and you're renewing, grab form DS-82 from here

http://travel.state.gov/content/passports/en/passports/forms.html

Send the old one, the form (black ink), the new photo, and 110 dollars (check or money order made payable to US Dept of State, put your name and date of birth on the check) to the address on the form. The routine service one.

22

Discussion / Re: DLC next year?

« on: March 01, 2016, 12:42:08 AM »

Since it looks like y'all will be having a con in Canada land and most of us aren't Canadian, and I work with passports, I figured I'd talk some about getting passports.

SO

I'm doing the math for you, but US Passports are gonna run you 135 dollars. I'm making some assumptions here. 1)You're getting the book and 2)You're getting a first time passport.

Go here. https://iafdb.travel.state.gov/ Stick in your zip code. Apply at that place. When do you apply? My recommendation is at least 7 weeks ahead of schedule, but honestly, more than that if you live in California, you guys are backed up. Apply early. Not applying early will come damn near to doubling your total cost and might not get you a passport anyhow.

What do you need?

A birth certificate. The original or a copy directly from Vital Records. No photocopies. Valid ID. A photo. Have a professional take the damn photo. Did I mention 135 dollars? Yeah. That's it.

23

Discussion / Re: DLC next year?

« on: February 28, 2016, 05:10:04 AM »

Given that I have to take two weeks off from work for surgery, and also, you know, pay for that, I strongly suspect I'm gonna be sitting this one out regardless, so my preference can be disregarded.

24

General Chat / Re: NBA 2015-2016: Kobe is going to retire ALONGSIDE Joey Crawford

« on: January 02, 2016, 11:34:35 PM »

GLORIOUS NEWS!

I have to change the thread title because JOEY CRAWFORD WILL ACTUALLY ALSO RETIRE THIS SEASON.

25

General Chat / Re: Merry Christmas! 2015 edition

« on: December 28, 2015, 06:31:22 AM »

Lessee...

Dollars, precious, precious dollars.
Various candies I rather like
A night robe (Black and grey, warm)
Spider-Man socks from my niece, because "Uncle Billy likes Spider-Man and funny socks". Unlike other character-branded socks, I quite like these, largely because Spider-Man's mask makes an interesting pattern. If I'm wearing shoes, you can't tell they're actually spider-man socks, because the eyes are covered. It's subtle.
Hawaiin shirt
Tickets to see Iron Maiden in April (!!!!)
An electric razor, that, in stark contrast to my last electric razor, has attachments that CAN ACTUALLY BE ADDED to the razor instead of useless not-the-right attachments being in the box.
Some underwear
More tools because people keep forgetting I actually own a bunch of tools already. (This makes set 3!)
Hangers because my folks are passive aggressive and hate that I don't use hangers as often as they'd like.
Agarest War

YET TO RECEIVE/NEED TO SWAP:
Belt (Had a belt. Was wrong size by a lot. Belt buyer didn't add inches and got my waist size in total belt length---this doesn't work)
Shoes (In transit, I guess)
Glue to fix my fucking headset (Also in transit, I guess)

I BOUGHT MYSELF:
A new fucking headset. (I'm still gonna fix the old one as best I can.)