ReMix: Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos 'Ashtar's Desires'
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- Game: Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos (Tecmo, 1990, NES)
- ReMixer(s): Sir_NutS
- Composer(s): Mayuko Okamura, Ryuichi Nitta
- Song(s):
- Posted: 2005-02-28, evaluated by the judges
S|r NutS, whose previous three submissions were of Sonic tunes (albeit from three different Sonic titles on three different consoles), ventures into Nintendoland for some coverage of Ryu Hayabusa's second NES adventure. The ReMixer writes:
"So yeah as Usual from me, I made a Trance Remix of this tune. Only that this time is not too much of a synth mesh. It has some touches of house and ethnic, with some parts that concentrate on the use of melodies using pianos, flutes, and some other stuff. My electronica stuff is here anyways, as it wouldn't be me without it. I decided that the original was a bit simple and tried to add more counter melodies to give it more depth and rhythmn, as well as new stuff to complement it, I think that at the end the result was a mix that flows very well between the genres."
Mike always delivers solid, hard-hitting trance, and this is no exception; here he uses the first half of the mix to establish a traditional, competent trance structure, with layered percussion that adds some bongos and syncopation to the action, but mainly relies on the same staccato hook. He starts changing things up more in the second half, though, with a break at 2'38" that gives the flute some time to shine while not overpowered by synths, and then enters with a dirtier, rising, filter-crazy riff. S|r NutS is one of those guys you'd never wanna get anywhere in the vicininty of a Sherman Filterbank, as there's every indication he'd be stuck twiddling knobs in fits of epileptic glee and bursting the eardrums of all around him mercilessly. In a good way. Volume here is a bit high, but it's not subtle music, and when there's a bit more nuance going on which requires decibel normalcy to catch, the ReMixer dials it back a notch as needed. Larry took issue, however, and had some specific recommendations:
"My suggestions would be to eliminate the piercing frequencies (flute), achieve a bit cleaner seperation of sounds so you can hear the supporting elements better, beef up your synths a bit (the keyboard in particular), and make a more coherent freestyle section from 2:38-3:04."
I'm not sure about beefing up the synths, myself, as it sounds like they're already what's for dinner, but the other comments/ideas are where I'd have headed myself in providing feedback. It's pretty clear from past submissions though that Michael has a sound that he likes and that he's pretty intent on sticking with. When he does enough within his own margins to make a track sustainable, usually via paying more attention to the arrangement, the results are still very enjoyable, even if the production sometimes lacks EQ polish and has a few irregularities to it. That being said, analoq and Binnie didn't think things were noticeably uneven, so user experience may certainly vary. I personally like the variety that's achieved in the second half of the mix, but would like to see more thought towards pushing some of those musical ideas up the stack so that they appear earlier on - better to grab interest and proove you're not on auto-pilot right off the bat than to raise the bar later on when the hasty may have already reached incorrect conclusions. At any rate, I can't see fans of trance and/or Ninja Gaiden tunage not digging this, and it's another winner from S|r NutS.
Discussion: Latest 15 comments/reviews; view the While I did find the piano and the flute were played somewhat hard and shrill at times, I think this is a very accessable, easy to embody trance mix with a strong focus on melody and variation. Which just so happens to be one of my favourite things ever. So, Sir_NutS gets a gold star from me. Score.
- Marmiduke on October 22, 2009
I think the flute might be too piercing, I am listening at half volume and it still hurts. Everything else is fine though, volume-wise, and that gated synth is really nice.
Overall this is a really strongly crafted song, and works pretty well as trance. It has enough tricks to keep things interesting, and is pretty danceable.
Check it out, yo.
- OA on March 6, 2008
Very clean intro, but quickly gets more complex. I prefer more melodic electronica, and this definitely fits the bill.
I particularly enjoy that phrase around 3:24 and 3:38. Awesome.
- Ichitootah on April 24, 2005
DeepChild
- DeepChild on March 30, 2005
I don't have a problem with the levels, myself. Yeah, it's loud, but that's okay.
Only real complaint is the fact that it ends so suddenly. Yeah, yeah... 6 MB limit and all, but a bit more of an outro would have been appropriate.
But overall, a very enjoyable track and I look forward to hearing more from you. I have a few things I can learn from you, S|r NutS. Great work!
- Arcana on March 30, 2005
*PS- Looking forward to your Introduction to Heaven makeover! I already have that song on a CD*
- Greenspectre on March 4, 2005
megadave wrote: Very nice. Excellent choice of sounds too. It may not be as fast and hardcore as Sprinting Riffs, but it's a lot less repetive and very atmospheric. But this sounds more like house to me than trance. Still great though.
DJPretzel's Write-up wrote:
The ReMixer writes:
"So yeah as Usual from me, I made a Trance Remix of this tune. Only that this time is not too much of a synth mesh. It has some touches of house and ethnic, with some parts that concentrate on the use of melodies using pianos, flutes, and some other stuff.
So yeah, this is more house than most of the stuff I do, but not much like club house, it leans more toward hard trance. :wink:
- Sir_NutS on March 2, 2005
- megadave on March 2, 2005
*Cough* please Sir Nuts. *cough* please be my savior and make a remix of Ninja Gaiden 3 stage 4-1. *cough* *cough* *hint hint*
- - Myke - on March 1, 2005
- Red Shadow on March 1, 2005
- Navi on March 1, 2005
Bamboo Road Express wrote: Oustanding, Sir Nuts. Typical of your style of electronica...
Of course. I remember 'A New Ray of Light' by S|r_NutS and Sadorf.
Very cool things going on this remix. I never played the game. But I remember this music. Wow! Beautiful flute. Nice beats. The elaboration and the process of this song are great. I love the other resources too. Definitely some freaky stuff.
- Txai on March 1, 2005
I saw where Larry was coming from with the flute EQing though, but I don't see that to be a big problem. I'll be sure to keep a grasp on this for a while. ;)
- Rexy on March 1, 2005
Sir_NutS wrote: -Introduction to heaven is getting a major makeover. Stay tuned.
Ah, now you got me all excited. :)
- Corporal Eschebone on February 28, 2005
-For those who got the Vgmix version and liked it, get this one. Its been improved a lot over the old version.
-At last! I'm pretty happy about this because since I started remixing 5 years ago, my wish was to get a ninja gaiden and a megaman song in ocr, and well, only the megaman remix is left :D
-Introduction to heaven is getting a major makeover. Stay tuned.
-Thanks to sadorf for the help with this mix ^_^
- Sir_NutS on February 28, 2005
