ReMix: Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse 'Ephemeral Evergreen'

Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars 'Farewell, Star Guardian' prev   list all   next Final Fantasy VII 'JENOVAD Trance'
download Download MP3
1,721,852 bytes, 1:12, 192kbps
Stream/preview on YouTube Play Preview
Streaming preview on YouTube
eStarland.com
Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse

Hard as it is to believe, this is our first Castlevania 3 ReMix, coming courtesy of newcomers Richard and Lyndsay. It's a brief but high-quality instrumental / classical take on Evergreen from CV3, with tasteful cello, violin, oboe, pizzicato strings, and a pan flute at 0'43". Though the transition to the flute is a little sketchy, overall this is a really tight, concise arrangement that does an admirable job of assigning the various tones from the original to real-world instruments. Stereo separation is good and each element is clearly defined. The usage of what sounds like an electric bass did seem kind of odd, given the symphonic nature of everything else, but it does give the piece a bit more motion (see 0'18" for the entrance). The ritardando on the ending was a good idea as well - essentially, at 1'11", this piece doesn't make any huge glaring errors and is an enjoyable classical interpretation and a great way to start. I'd definitely like to see Richard and Lyndsay take on a more complicated piece with more elaborate orchestration, as this sample bodes well for the outcome of such a project. Good stuff.

― djpretzel

Discussion: Latest 14 comments/reviews; view the complete thread or post your own.
I wish this had been longer and more fleshed-out...but what's there is great.

- Lucentas on December 6, 2008
Decent use of samples, though the room sound is nonexistent; it sounds like these were played in a vacuum, and there is little to no velocity used.
The transition to a second repetition of the theme with a new lead instrument was jarringly incomplete, and as previously linked, this basically sounds like a super short copy of the new Dracula arrangement.
It's competent enough to be an enjoyable listen, but when even the source itself is almost twice as long, it should really be rethought.

- OA on January 11, 2008
I've been browsing all of my OCRemix folder lately and came across this.
Everything said above is true: pretty and way too short. But I wanted to add something else about it that I think will get it pulled during the next purge: it doesn't actually remix. It's a cover. There are no changes, additions, or elaborations. I'm pretty sure that's a basic tenant of an OCRemix. I know stuff like this has been pulled before.
And don't get me wrong, it's not that I'm campaigning to have remixes pulled, I just feel like if there is going to be this air of guidelines and quality to the site, that old remixes should stand up to new rules, and not simply be grandfathered in.

- Your Good Twin on April 19, 2006
Waaaaaaay too short. Way too short. It sounds good; keep it up!
Contrary to Midee's belief, the pizzicato didn't bother me; I thought it was quite fitting and used just the right amount. The synthiness, however, did bother me.

- meccaneer on October 3, 2005
Way too short, not enough elaboration, I heard a much better MIDI version on vgmusic.com a few years ago, unfortunately the site seems to be down now.

- Lord Archimage Nykimbur on June 30, 2005
It was quite nice, but overall, I prefere the version from New Dracula Clasic CD , it seem to have depth.

- Carbon Dog on January 4, 2004
Midee wrote: Not too bad. It can't touch the Dracula New Classic version of this song

I just got that song, and it's much better. It makes this song pointless. It's longer and it just sounds a lot better. This is good, but that is better.

- The Tragic Prince on October 11, 2003
This peice deserves notice as I think it's the only true, complete orchestral Castlevania remix on Overclocked so far. All the other orchestral CV remixes so far have had to rely on elements from other styles to seal the deal and make it listenable. While a good blend of styles is always nice, the orchestral Castlevania mix is a vastly untapped well. Ephemeral Evergreen is the first mix to make a commitment to orchestral instead of just dabbling in it.
It's also the only Castlevania 3 mix. What's up with that? While I don't really need to hear another remix of Begining (with a remix of it in every new CV game and top notch rock remixes on the Minibosses and Dracula Battle albums) there were many good songs in CV3 (Clockwork comes to mind) that deserve coverage and haven't been overdone.
As for the length issue, I don't really mind, it would have become repetative otherwise, but doing a medley of mutliple good CV songs would help next time.

- Gnam on July 24, 2003
HOOT MacGregor! One of the best music games from the NES, and you did it well. Can you do the first stage music too?

- Paladin-01 on October 12, 2002
One word to describe this rework...beautiful.I really enjoyed this track.My only complaint is that its too short,i want more dammit !.A rework like this only helps to underline the greatness that is all of Castlevania's music.These remixers are new into the game on overclocked,but i have my feeling that they've been at this for a while now.I look forward to seeing more from these talented people...keep it up and bring on the castlevania mixes.i give it 8 stars out of a possible 10 on my new and improved scoring system.I had to score them kinda low to bring them up and to go on and make great music thats much longer so we can enjoy it even more.
8*'s out of 10 ''Really nice work "


- FireBug2X on August 16, 2002
Not too bad. It can't touch the Dracula New Classic version of this song, which was done in the same style, but it's nice to finally see a Castlevania III remix on this site.
Couple problems I have though:
- Overuse of pizzicato. There's simply just too much throughout the whole song for my liking, and the samples that were used for it aren't very good.
- As mentioned by others, the transition to the synth panflute thing. It just feels way too forced.
- Also mentioned, too darn short.
It's an okay tune, and being the first CVIII mix on this site gets it some extra points, I guess. But it just falls short of my expectations of a collaboration effort on such a beautiful piece. Hopefully they will spend more time on their next tune.
6.9 / 10

- Midee on August 4, 2002
I was glad to see some Castlevania 3 that made it to the site. And this is a good mix, although no real variation on the original tune. Some of the instruments were arranged well in parts, but some of the transitions weren't as I would've hoped. In general, it was good, but it would've been nice if it was longer and if the transitions were smoothed out.

- Ryan8bit on August 4, 2002
quality work, just desperately needs to be longer by about a minute and thirty.

- Senescence on August 4, 2002
My question would be, who did what? Reading the description first, I thought this might be a live piece, the collaboration of two music students who knew how to plan an assortment of wind and string instruments, but after listening, I see that they are samples. This is incredibly short, and I'm not sure if it's even complete, but it has a satisfying ending, so ... yeah. I really don't know what to say about this one. I'm mainly just writing this so other people can say stuff about it too. And djp forgot or left out the mention of a french horn which seems to have been snuck in the background there if you listen carefully. But still, a good arrangement, and yeah that pan flute transition is kind of strange, but other than that, good work.
DC

- Disco Dan on August 4, 2002

Content Policy
(Submission Agreement and Terms of Use)

Page generated Sat, 21 Nov 2009 20:54:20 -0500 in 0.0722 seconds

All compositions, arrangements, images, and trademarks are copyright their respective owners. Original content is copyright OverClocked ReMix, LLC. For information on RSS and JavaScript news feeds, linking to us, etc. please refer to resources for webmasters. Please refer to the Info section of the site and the FAQ available there for information about the site's history, features, and policies. Contact David W. Lloyd (djpretzel), webmaster, with feedback or questions not answered there.

top of page