KidDivinegon

Hello VGM Lovers!

Wanted to post a quick apology for the sporadic uploading lately - it's not for a lack of wanting to post, I'm just distracting myself with my gaming lately. I've put a hard push on my Platinum trophy hunting on my PS5 with some great success. Just to give an idea, just this year I have achieved a Platinum trophy on:

Spyro: Reignited Trilogy (all 3 games)
Roots of Pacha
Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion
Farmagia
Sonic X Shadow Generations
Little Mouse's Encyclopedia (which took under an hour, mind you)
Catlateral Damage Remeowstered
and currently I am grinding at the endgame of Spiritfarer

Needless to say, distracted. So as usual, thanks for sticking around and listening, and bearing with me while I hyper-fixate on my gaming endeavors.

3 days ago | [YT] | 8

KidDivinegon

Song #3000!!! What a rush!! It's super hard to figure out a major song to put in this spot, one that is super iconic and that I love dearly, and Mega Man 3 fills that spot. Since this is another one of those huge games from my childhood, I will bring back a feature that I have been neglecting - The Games That Made Me series! Look for that post in the coming days.

In all seriousness, I want to yet again thank you all for sticking around with me through everything - the deluge of Copyright Strikes, sometimes sporadic uploads, and even these silly little posts - I really appreciate everyone who comes around for a listen. I may not have as large of a following as most of the other VGM YouTubers, but the 570+ of you who are subscribed and I'm sure the significantly less of you who jump on and listen to these every night keep pushing me to continue this project. The random comments that come up on the videos where one of you have a memory of a song, or discovered a song that you would have never know existed until I spotlighted it, or even the very few of you who pop over to these posts and leave a comment, puts a smile on my face every time I get the notification. Again, I may not be the most popular in this cozy little niche that we enjoy, but I try to be the most genuine and engaging.

What's coming after song 3000 now? Well, its full steam ahead! I have no plans of stopping until YouTube makes it virtually impossible to continue this project. I plan on resuming Nintendo uploads soon, but just the songs that don't fall into the Nintendo Music ballpark to hopefully avoid more strikes. I also plan to make a sister channel to start putting some Square Enix music back into the mix - the usual "unposted, but in a playlist" deal that many of the other VGM YouTubers have been doing to escape the wrath of Big Bad Squeenix since they do not seem to use the same tactics that Nintendo employs that allows them to scan playlists too (I did some research into MUSO and got an idea on how they operate) but that could change at any time.

Cheers to #3000, and here's to another 3000!

1 month ago | [YT] | 8

KidDivinegon

Sorry everyone for the missed days/double uploads the past few days. Real life was exhausting and busy the past week and half and a couple of the nights I couldn't get around to the upload since I make the videos every night instead of all at once.

So now for the updates:

Tomorrow one of my strikes are removed, bringing the total down to 1 and taking the channel out of the red. I believe when this happens, I will make all Nintendo uploads that are not already featured on Nintendo Music available again, and keep the others hidden for the time being. Since MUSO seems to be very aggressive to all of the VGM channels, I don't want to keep risking my channel to their onslaughts. Still debating if I want to do this after the first strike clears, or wait for the second strike to clear in April.

Gaming-wise - I just finished playing through the Spyro Reignited Trilogy and got Platinum Trophies for all three games. I never had a chance to play some of the big Sony titles back when I was younger, so having the chance to play these classics is always welcome. I've now moved on to Sonic X Shadow Generations. Not sure I have the skill to pull off a Platinum trophy in that game, but I'll certainly try!

In other news - we are quickly approaching song # 3000 on March 19th! Crazy to think that this channel has gone from song #1 in 2017 to song #3000 in 2025. I hope all of you, from the first to subscribe to the latest to subscribe, have been enjoying all the music that I have been curating on this channel.

Ready for 3000's hint?
The Blue Bomber Begins

Thanks everyone again for hanging around, drop me a comment and let me know what you're playing, and don't stop gaming!

1 month ago | [YT] | 10

KidDivinegon

Here we go again...

Another strike in from Nintendo, this time to Super Mario Galaxy. I now, again, have 2 active strikes on the channel. The first strike does not remove until March 16th.

While I have precariously cruised on with strikes on my channel like this before, it is becoming more and more apparent that this company that Nintendo hired, MUSO, is going to be hyper-aggressive in picking off songs from YouTube so they can try and squeeze more money out of people for Nintendo Music. A very detestable move from a company that claims that they are all about their fans. I guess my 35+ years of loyalty to their brand means nothing to them when they lose a few dollars to Google when someone listens to a track on this platform.

Because of this, I am delisting all first-party Nintendo music off of my channel for the time being. Since this is also my personal YT account, I do not want to lose all of my subscriptions and playlists because this channel gets terminated. In the meantime, I will be working on migrating the channel to my newly created Sound Test Unlocked! channel, and making some previously unavailable content available again for your listening pleasure. I will post that link in the comments when I have it available, and will announce it further when I move to make the channel live.

8 years has been a long time to continue this series. I couldn't start to imagine the amount of hours I have sunk into this project out of the purest form of passion for the art of VGM. I am not giving up now!

To my fellow VGM uploaders - please keep an eye on your channels. I follow many of you and I don't want to see your channels struck into oblivion like I have seen with many before.

2 months ago | [YT] | 10

KidDivinegon

2024 is now in the books, and Sound Test Unlocked! has grown by another 365 videos, for a grand total of 2922 videos over the course of 8 years.

This continues to be a fun journey. I know I'm nowhere near the viewership of some of the larger channels like Klagmar or SupraDarky, but knowing the 500+ of you that have subbed to me continue to listen and enjoy the channel makes it a worthwhile journey to continue. I continue to discover great new VGM to share, and continue to make friends and acquaintances in the VGM community, and hope to also continue this trend into the next year and the ones to follow. I serious thank everyone who returns to enjoy a tune or two.

Cheers to 2025!

4 months ago | [YT] | 8

KidDivinegon

And like that, another Christmas has come and gone and with it, another 10 Days of Christmas. Now this year, like with the 10 Days of Halloween, we have a sparkly new playlist with all of the songs from the 10 Days of Christmas from the last 8 years (or at least the ones I can actually post without getting Copyrighted out of existence!). I hope you all enjoyed this year's curation. youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4...

Get ready, Sound Test's 8th birthday is right around the corner to usher in 2025! Can't say I have much planned different for 2025, but song number 3000 is right around the corner!

I hope you all had a great Christmas and joyous Holidays!

4 months ago (edited) | [YT] | 4

KidDivinegon

Channel update:

Nintendo has struck again, this time I lost a song to Tomodachi Collection. This marks the second time that Nintendo has targeted my channel with a takedown and strike, but luckily the previous strikes on my channel had expired so there is no immediate danger.

Since the same thing happened to me back before the introduction of Nintendo Music, I'm assuming that Tomodachi games are going to be added to the service soon and there may be other games/series about to be affected by this as well.

Anybody else feeling this? I know a couple of you out there are VGM uploaders like me, but for the casual listener, have you seen any soundtracks starting to see holes in them or channels getting hit that I'm not seeing? It seems the only target specific songs, and one at a time so I feel like it is a fear tactic to try and remove us from the platform, but I can't be sure unless I get more data.

Unfortunately, I can't reach out to YouTube for this because I do not monetize, so I don't have access to anyone who can talk to me about this. I've also tried multiple times to reach out to Nintendo to no avail. I will try again, but if anyone has a more direct route to contact someone, please let me know so I can at least try and discuss this with someone. Rest assured, I am not deterred from my mission of showcasing VGM and will keep doing so until I'm unable to, but I at least want to be able to put up a fight for Fair Use since I only benefit from this by knowing that you all are enjoying the content.

Until next time friends!

4 months ago | [YT] | 5

KidDivinegon

Hey there VGM nerds!

Gaming update time!

Been working on Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin now. Been pretty fun so far, I'd say I'm about halfway through the game. Going to aim for the Platinum on this game as well since I've really been slacking on getting those sweet, sweet trophies and completing this Action Adventure Rice Farming Sim game seems plausible.

Channel-wise - The 10 Days of Christmas starts this Sunday! I always love these 10 Days themes every year because it always pushes me to find cool new VGM to post on the channel. I plan to compile the past 6 years into a playlist before the 10 days kicks off, so look forward to that if you're craving a nice wintery mix of music!

That's all I have for tonight friends. Sorry if it was a little haphazard, I'm running on 3 hours of sleep today. Don't forget to let me know what you're all up to with your gaming escapades - I love knowing what you all are playing!

Keep your geek flags flying high and we will talk again soon!

4 months ago | [YT] | 5

KidDivinegon

Another day another post, this time - number 2900 is right around the corner on December 9th!

What could it be this time? Here's your clue:

A song for dreary weather.

Make your guesses in the comments, and tune in for number 2900!

5 months ago | [YT] | 2

KidDivinegon

Hello VGM nerds and Happy Thanksgiving to all my viewers in the US!

Just a small thought today reflecting back on the sunsetting of Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp today:

I downloaded this game on Thanksgiving weekend of 2017, the day it first came out and over the subsequent 7 years, I logged in and played the game daily - befriending and leveling Villagers, participating in all the events, and even managing to collect most of the items in the game. Today was bittersweet when I saw their final "Thanks for Playing" message, especially with all the time I had invested into the game. Yes, I know that they are releasing their "complete" version in a few days, but I decided I am not pursuing that just for the fact that the game has only been confirmed to have content support for a year (and the $30 price tag after the introductory period which, in my opinion, it way too much for any mobile based game.), so now all that work has disappeared into the endless ether that is Nintendo's servers. Time to bunker down and wait for the Switch 2 and the eventual release of the next Animal Crossing game.

I think this may progress into the next installment of "The Games that Made Me," but I'm not willing to put that together tonight because there is a LOT of history there and it's more than I want to go into today.

Always interested in your thoughts - did you play the game? Are you going to download the Complete version and continue playing? Not interested at all? You know where that comment button is.

Until next time, always let you geek flag fly!

5 months ago | [YT] | 3