One of the things I love doing is listening to remixes, to see just what people can do while still replicating the theme of the original piece. There have been remixers who have gained jobs doing what they love doing and seeing the fruits of their labor can be absolutely beautiful. To open this new mini series, lets start off with one of the biggest remixing site online, Overclocked Remix. A site dedicated to getting the fruits of remixers work out to the public. It's not a place you go for money, almost everything on there is put up by the creators for free and all based on Video Game music. To say that the expression "for the love of the work" applies is a massive understatement. For this, I'll be using the official torrent on their site (yes there is such a thing as official torrents) from October 15th, everything here can be found both in that torrent and on the site itself. I also want to stress that these types of posts ARE NOT and WILL NOT be Top X Lists. These songs aren't ranked and these posts are meant to help support the artists. With that out of the way:
Runaway Faith by Guitah Heroe (Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Red/ Blue Rescue Team)
With the review of RBRT coming up, I'm going to save a lot of this for that, but Run Away, the track this is based on is one of my favorite tracks in the game because of how fitting the piece is for the scene. Its a teary goodbye to your friends in Pokemon Square before you're forced to run (I'll explain later why). I love the use of just the Grand Piano for this song as it helps keep the theme of the scene combined with the slowly speeding up pace. Simple, but so affective.
Dr Wily Symphonic by Blue. Nocturne (Mega Man II)
I know I'm beating a dead horse with this, but I love Wily 1 from Mega Man II. I don't care if its a cliche at this point, I think the song's great. As you can probably tell, this is a Symphonic orchestral remix and while I think it looses a bit in transition (though that could be me being spoiled by Smash 4...), it still keeps the feel of the original 8-bit track as the instruments have that bombastic aspect to them, giving this the "Final level" feel the original has, which is why I love it. But if you don't like Wily 1, you're not going to like this.
Spirit of Law by Detective Tuesday and Melody (Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney)
(Lyrics aside) This is what I thought Turnabout Musical would have been. While I'm not a fan of rapping normally, there are a few exceptions. The instrumental isn't the reason why this is here as its a more detailed version of the court theme from Ace Attorney (which is still good, but not the focus of the piece). What I love about this is that its a rap with the lyrics of an actual trial. They're comical to me but full props to Tuesday for being able to pull it off. Its an Ace Attorney rap, what more is there to say?
Gerudo Interlude by djpretzel (The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time)
I openly admit, this may just be here because I've been replaying Ocarina of Time recently to get ready for Majora's Mask 3D... Don't judge me... Gerudo Valley is one of the standout pieces in Ocarina of Time for several reasons (that I'll save for another time) and this replicates the theme perfectly while adding his own perspective to it. You still feel like you're going through the desolate valley that is Gerudo Valley when listening to this. The instrument count is kept to a minimum, but this is also a case of "less is more". While I could go without the cowboy feel of it, for what it does, it works.
Solitude by C-GPO and Zircon (Metroid Prime)
Another lucky one, though this one for the first time. A lot of the Metroid music is meant to add to the idea that you're alone in this game, no one's going to help you, anything that moves want's you dead... which means that when you somehow blow up the planets is so much more satisfying but still... Solitude replicates this to the theme of... I want to say Pandrana Drifts but I could be way off, feel free to point me out if I'm wrong. If you haven't played Metroid Prime, its on the WiiU eshop now, grab it!
The Orchestra is a Lie by Dummy (Portal 2)
There is only one thing I have to say about this, only one thing that can be said about this. Who would have thought Want You Gone would be a good orchestral piece. I would have preferred to have a vocalist singing along side the orchestra but that's just me being picky.
iMushroom by GaMeBox (Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Knuckles)
Not in a bad way, but words escape me for this, I don't know what to say. Just listen and enjoy the song.
Big Band Battlefield by The University of Toronto 10 O'Clock Big Band (Super Mario 64)
While I like Bomb-omb Battlefield as a level, the music it had in Mario 64 I was impartial to. My few on Big Band Battlefield is similar but I've recently listening to a lot of Jazz recently (curse you Gear Gateway and your awesomeness...). The main reason for this is that the instruments feel out of sync for me, though this is because its being played live. That's my only fault for it though, apart from that, its great. Will admit, my view may be distorted because of Throwback Galaxy.
Gusty Piano by Squint (Super Mario Galaxy)
My view on this is the same as Runaway Faith, simple in terms of the number of instruments used, but it replicates the feel of Gusty Garden Galaxy perfectly.
Dream Racing by prozax (Mario Kart 64)
(Because for some reason Blogger won't find it...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8O1FPM64uLE)
Another case of "words can't describe", just listen to the song.
Tetris Plays You by Block Party (Take a guess)
Can't... stop... laughing. Great instrumental, but those lyrics...
This is but a small portion of the (since time of writing) 3073 songs on the site and I applaud you to check them out for yourself. The Youtube channel these songs can be found on (seeing as most of them were from that channel) is here:
https://www.youtube.com/user/ocremix/featured with their main site being here:
http://ocremix.org/. A huge thanks to the OCR community for all the work you've done. But for now, I must bid you adieu, for this Wednesday: Video Games High School Seasons 1-3
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