yeah that intro riff is from some old pop song... can't nail it though. anyway good stuff!

The beginning of the melody does sound a bit like the beginning of That's the Way (I Like It) by KC & the Sunshine Band. It definitely is the way (uh huh, uh huh) I like it, though. (Uh huh, uh huh.)

Man, this is easily the best SAP track I've heard ever.

Also, part of the melody sounds like one of the later stages in RayForce [1:35 or so, and it happened earlier too].

I believe the back of your head is trying to tell you that you did some winking and nodding at FFVIII's "Force Your Way." Looking past that, this piece is top notch, sir.

You make sap so good!

The vibe is there, and I like this. The only nitpick (which means pulling lice eggs from hair with forceps) I have is that the rhythm in the middle section sounds a little train-wrecky to my ears.

I can't even explain how good this is. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I like how you took the straight 8's of the classic two note opening bassline and put a skip rhythm on it! :D

It sounds a bit familiar to me too, but I couldn't put my finger on it for a while.

The progression of notes is a bit similar to the Star Fox boss theme http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2tg6ZlvQu0
and the fast arpeggios used in a couple places kind of sound like some stuff in Star Fox 2, especially the Andross battle:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BzXc7vnZvM
(and yeah, lazy youtube example links . . . I didn't bother to dig up a proper OST recording site :p)

Oh and great tune in any case, and I'm looking forward to seeing what appears in this years competition. :D